#197. 'Asteroid City'
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The trio tackles Wes Anderson's Asteroid City, and all three land somewhere between admiration and frustration: Sonny gives an extended "big boy review," praising the nesting-doll structure (a TV production, hosted by a Rod Serling-esque Bryan Cranston, of a stage play about mid-century atomic paranoia in a New Mexico desert town) and singling out Liev Schreiber, Tom Hanks, Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, and especially Adrien Brody's physicality for praise, but concludes "the whole thing doesn't hang together for me at all," comparing his disconnect to how outsiders felt about The French Dispatch; JVL agrees with Sonny's read that the film is essentially staging its own 1965 production but pins the failure on specific craft choices — a poorly paced opening voiceover (unfavorably compared to Alec Baldwin's in The Royal Tenenbaums), an eye-punishing washed-out color palette, and dizzying whip-pans — while praising Edward Norton and the reveal that the CGI alien moves like Jeff Goldblum; Mike is the most negative, calling it "a parody of a Wes Anderson movie" and confessing that despite loving every individual detail of the setting (the filling-station lettering, the performances) he came away thinking "what the fuck was that all about." Before the movie talk, the guys dig into box office: Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One's front-loaded opening, and a long, half-admiring dissection of Sound of Freedom's pay-it-forward marketing scheme, with Sonny recounting having personally watched a woman in his theater scan the QR code and buy a stranger's ticket after Jim Caviezel's post-credits pitch, plus riffing on the bizarre trailers (an Oppenheimer trailer, a Ron Perlman geriaction movie, a Christian multiverse film with Neil McDonough) that screened alongside it; they also cover Barbie's sudden cultural "fever" and early buzz on Oppenheimer, which Sonny has already seen and calls basically three hours of "dude's chat." The opening banter runs long as usual: JVL spent 45 minutes lost in the ads of a 1949 Life magazine (casual period racism, a pre-fame Marilyn Monroe) and is deep into an intellectual biography of John Maynard Keynes (exclusively gay until 38, then smitten with a Russian ballerina, and six-foot-seven to boot); Sonny is audiobooking Blackberry after having read the Oppenheimer biography the movie is based on; and Mike, reading The Lord of the Rings aloud to his eight-year-old, triggers a lengthy Tom Bombadil trial in which Sonny declares him "garbage neutral" and demands he be imprisoned, Mike mounts a halfhearted defense, and Sonny brands his position "Swissness" — "nobody wants to be Swiss unless you're a chocolatier or a watchmaker."
From the show notes
The boys go to Andersonville, plus some book talk!
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00What do those pulses indicate? What? Oh, the beeps and blips? We don't know. Some of our information about outer space may no longer be completely accurate. Anyway, there's still only nine planets in the solar system as far as we know, Billy. Except now there's an alien. What's happening now? I don't know. I don't like the way that guy looked at us. The alien. How did he? How did he look at us? Like we're doomed. Maybe we are.
Mike00:00:30Welcome to the Sub-Beacon. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me as always are my two co-hosts, Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Go to subbeacon.com, become a member, subscribe, join the conversation, get these episodes the day they come out, and you can even get those bonus episodes, but you got to sign up at subbeacon.com. We're going to be talking about Asteroid City, the latest Wes Anderson movie later in the show. But first, let's see how everyone's doing JVL. What's going on with you?
JVL00:01:16Big guy. I, uh, you know, I want to yield my time because again, I think we're, we've just crept. The show keeps expanding and expanding.
Sonny00:01:24I want it to be, but it's what the people JVL, do they, the show should be 50 minutes to do chatting. 10 minutes. Show talk movie talk is my, is my understanding from what I hear from the people.
Mike00:01:36You can't give them everything they want. You know, you gotta leave them wanting more. So maybe not 50 minutes, maybe 45 minutes.
Sonny00:01:42I think, I think they should have called Oppenheimer dudes chatting because that is a dude's chat and movie. Let me tell you, we're going to talk about that. We're not talking about that next. We're going to talk about that next week.
JVL00:01:51But I will simply say this, I, uh, this morning went to read a profile of Robert Oppenheimer from life magazine in 1949 and I couldn't even read it because I spent 45 minutes just paging through the PDF of the magazine, looking at the advertisements and man, it is like a time capsule for a different America. And the, the one thing that really, I mean, aside from all of the absolutely casual racism, especially about native Americans. And the advertisements, which, uh, you know, there was a, uh, an ad for van who's in shirts saying that they come in brave new colors with brave in exclamation marks and a Anglo gentlemen in a van who's in wearing a headdress, you know, because, uh, but the, I was surprised at how much TNA was in these ads. Uh. Yeah. There's a lot of ads featuring women in bras, brassieres, um, there's post-war baby.
Mike00:03:07There's a, there's a, there's a hunger.
JVL00:03:09It, it really, I w I would say our, you know, if you conceive of this as a Victorian sort of, uh, era, that's not the case.
Mike00:03:18I mean, it's literally in the middle of the baby boom.
JVL00:03:22Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of that, a lot of ads with, uh, for there's an ad for silverware with pictures of women being carried over the threshold and, you know, ad copy about how, you know, the, one of the greatest woman moments in any woman's life is being carried over the threshold of her new home as a, as a bride and, you know, register for sterling silverware and that sort of thing.
Mike00:03:45And, uh, were these all illustrated at, or mostly illustrated ads?
JVL00:03:49Mostly illustrated some photographs. Uh, there was, there was a feature in it where life got, uh, 12 young actresses together and did a photo session. It's actually really neatly laid out where they asked each of them to like do an emotion and they took a, you know, here's angry at a, and I had never heard of 11 of these actresses and one of them is Marilyn Monroe. So this is pre like Marilyn Monroe blowing up as a sex bomb. Um, she's still Norma Jean or she's, she's, she's Mara. She's listed as Marilyn Monroe, uh, and the whole thing was fascinating. And I, uh. I'm gonna throw one other fascinating thing at you. I have just started a, an intellectual biography of John Maynard Keynes, which is a thousand times more fascinating than you would think. So I, uh, you, you would think like, oh boy, who wants to read an intellectual history of an economist? Right. But let me just start with this. John Maynard Keynes was exclusively gay his entire life until the age of 38, at which he fell in love with a Russian ballerina and never went back to dudes again. That's a strange thing.
Sonny00:05:07That is a strange thing.
JVL00:05:08Isn't it? Are you sure that's, it's not a sort of British school boy kind of situation. Oh no, no, no, no, no. This is when I say this was not just like British school boy stuff. I mean, he was gay all through his, and in fact, when he took up with this Russian ballerina, his friends in the Bloomsbury set, including Virginia Wolf thought that it was ridiculous. And they didn't understand it. They're like, what is Maynard doing with this woman? He doesn't climb up that tree. And uh, it's anyway, utterly fascinating. John Maynard Keynes also six foot seven, which at the time, uh, early turn of the 20th century is enormous. One of the, uh, one of the tallest people notable, not for being tall. This is a, a funny Steve sailor who of course is problematic in so many ways, but used to have a funny list. He had a list of extremely tall people who nobody knows were extremely tall because they were notable for something else. And the top of his list, I think it was always Michael Crichton who's like six, 10. Right. Yeah. Anyway, John Maynard Keynes should also be on that list there on that, on that, on that
Sonny00:06:16topic. I will say that like the, the most striking thing, uh, when I saw Michael Crichton at the American enterprise Institute, he came there to talk, uh, state of fear. I think it was, um, uh, you know, back in 2000. It was either late 2004, early 2005, cuz I was at roll call at the time. Um, he, uh, well, I remember, I remember going to this thing and just being like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go see Michael. I like Michael Crichton. I'm gonna go hear him talk. And the thing I was most struck by was like, who is this giant lurch? Oh my God, it's Michael Crichton. Right.
JVL00:06:47He's an enormous man. People who are six foot, 10 are notable for being six foot, 10, not, uh, not that. Yeah. So it's right. The book is the, the price of peace. And. I really, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Mike00:07:00All right, then we we're, we're recommending books. This is, this is a high level, uh, dude's chat. We're recommending intellectual histories. Sonny.
Sonny00:07:10What's what's. I've also been reading books actually for as long as we're, we're talking about, we're talking about books. No, I just, I just read the Oppenheimer, uh, biography that, uh, that, that the movie is based on. I mean, I'm listening to the, I'm listening, I've audio book, I'm audio booking the, uh, the Blackberry. Oh yeah.
JVL00:07:28I, I was midway through that as well. It's awesome.
Sonny00:07:32Isn't it? It's really interesting. I mean, you, you had said something, I can't remember if we talked about this on the show, JBL, but you had said something that you, you were like actually kind of annoyed at the movie because it's so different than from what happens in the book. And I, I totally understand that.
JVL00:07:46Like it definitely like, yeah, you yelled at me when I said that you were like JBL, you're wrong.
Sonny00:07:51No, no, no. Well, no. What I said was it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And that's still, that's still very true. I don't think it actually matters. Blackberry is a fine and interesting movie on its own. But it is very interesting just to have seen Oppenheimer after having read Oppenheimer and now to, to listen to Blackberry, this Blackberry book after having watched Blackberry. Because it's, it's, it's a striking difference between like a director who is telling a very specifically a story about history that weaves the, his thematic obsessions into the actual story. And somebody else who is just like, I got a story I want to tell, and I'm going to use the bare bones of this Blackberry stuff to, to kind of make the point I want to make. Which I think I look again, you, you, you can go down, you can look at basically any movie about making anything and be like, this movie is about making movies. And that, that is, that is basically exactly how I feel, you know, now having, again, the difference between having seen Blackberry and thought of it as like, oh, it's a story about, you know, business. It's for creativity. Now I'm like, oh, this is very specifically a movie about making movies and not a movie about, uh, making Blackberries.
JVL00:09:04Give me 30 seconds on Oppenheimer because the early reviews I've said are so gobsmacking that I'm a little concerned that my expectations are too high.
Sonny00:09:16Like I said, it's basically, it really is dude's chat in the movie. Like the movie is three hours, the movie is the movie is three hours of men talking to each other. They're talking about like science stuff, guys, being almost exclusively like science stuff.
JVL00:09:32I have to wear a trench coat to this movie so I can rub one out there.
Sonny00:09:36They're also talking a little bit about like commie stuff, uh, but it's mostly science
JVL00:09:40stuff and commie stuff too.
Sonny00:09:43And then, and then the, the topping on the cake is there's bureaucratic DC infighting stuff. Oh, the whole last, the whole last hour, the whole last hour is basically, uh, uh, Robert Downey Jr. As Louis straws, uh, uh, basically like having a bureaucratic knife fight with, uh, Oppenheimer and his supporters and trying to destroy his, his credibility. I, again, I like, I'm, I'm very curious to see what the cinema score on this movie is. I think the praise has possibly been a little excessive. I I've seen people call it the best movie of the 21st century. It's not that, um, but it is, it's very good, uh, and it really is, I mean, it literally is just three hours. Three hours of guys talking to each other about science stuff. And it never gets boring because it's interwoven, um, extremely delicately and it moves. It just has pace to it. It zips along. It goes, goes from place to place. Um, I, I like it a lot. I like it a lot.
JVL00:10:43Does it leave you shaking? Were you shaking when you left the theater?
Sonny00:10:46The way variety says, no, no, I was, I, I know much, much, much less so frankly than, uh, interstellar, which I have always found like a very moving movie that, that the closing, the closing of that movie to be incredibly moving, um, or, uh, or some of, some of the other, some of the other Nolan movies, this actually, I like, I think it closes.
JVL00:11:11Give me a greater than lesser than sign with tenant.
Sonny00:11:17It's better than tenant. It's a very different sort of movie though. Um, it's, it's better than tenant, but it is, I mean, tenants than action movie by different.
JVL00:11:24Do you mean that? Do you hear the people talking in this movie?
Sonny00:11:28Mostly. There's no, there, there is the whole, the whole explanation of how atomic device devices works does take place on a catamaran.
JVL00:11:36Oh, so you have to, you have to figure that out. Yeah. Fantastic.
Sonny00:11:43Have you seen Barbie? I have not seen Barbie yet. So I, I am seeing Barbie, uh, by the time people are listening to this, I will probably be seated in the theater for Barbie. I'm not seeing it until Friday morning, uh, at like 10, uh, central time. So I, I, I have to do like two days of work today. We're taping this on Thursday so I can actually go to see the movie, um, and whatever. Uh, but I, I haven't seen it yet. I, Barbie's gonna make a ton of money by the way, maybe we'll talk about this in box office
JVL00:12:09tracking at a hundred, right?
Sonny00:12:11Well, yeah. So the tracking has turned around on that one. I had mentioned a couple, uh, weeks back that the tracking, like there was high, there was high awareness, but low interest, which is very, a very bad thing. Um, but I, that is all turned around.
JVL00:12:25I have to say that I can't remember a movie that has gotten this much cultural buzz is not even quite the word, but I, I, I assume this is all just marketing done at the elite level, but the extent to which every magazine cover, every Senator, every person on threads and Twitter, everybody is like talking about Barbie in ways that make me feel like they're getting compensated. For it almost Barbie fever. Do you, have you guys picked up on that too?
Mike00:13:01That it's, it's like weird. Yeah. It it's, it's like, you can't, it's, it's like somebody flipped a switch and all of a sudden we have to talk about Barbie. I mean, but this is, I mean, I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole here, but like, I've noticed this about a lot of things, uh, in the past couple of years. Um, and the most recent being, and again, I don't want to like go down into the details of it. Like a few days before we, we taped this, like there was this whole kind of national, um, obsession with this story about this young woman in Alabama who like disappeared on the side of the highway. Um, are you guys familiar with this? And then she showed up.
Sonny00:13:39I have no idea what you're talking about.
Mike00:13:40She showed up at her house too. Oh, so, so nobody, but like literally every woman in America was talking about it. Um, it was like this woman who like disappeared. Um, it was all over social media. People were talking about it. And she showed up and there's some questions about whether she actually disappeared or if it was hoax, but that's, that's not the point of it. The point of being, um, like the women in my life, people I work with, and of course my wife and all these things, like everybody was talking about it and talking about how everybody else was talking about it. And it's sort of, I guess it's virality and, but, but, but it seemed to like have come out of nowhere, a switch was flipped. And that seems to be what happens with, with Barbie too. But it makes me think there's some, there's some money.
Sonny00:14:24No, the Barbie thing makes sense because what happens is you, you have a movie that's coming out that's ha that has huge advertising campaign that has all the stars are talking about it. So there's video clips everywhere. There's, you know, there there's premieres, et cetera, et cetera. So, I mean, like, this is just, this is just good movie PR is what it comes down. And it helps that like Barbie, Barbie is like a mainstay of American culture for the last seven years, right? Like there, like Barbie is, is identical. Identifiable with America and American culture in a way that very few objects are like Ford trucks and apple pie, I guess. I don't know.
Mike00:15:02I wasn't, I was too young to, to sort of get it, but is there a parallel to the Barbie furor, uh, to 1989 and Batman in the sense that it's like the sort of like, like hugely again, popular and well-known cultural thing. And they've like finally made a movie about it.
JVL00:15:26Um, that's, I don't know. It's possible. I don't know.
Mike00:15:29I just, I, I've been trying to think about what other parallel things there are like
JVL00:15:34the other, the other thing which impresses me so much about this campaign is that they're doing it without the actors because of the strike actors can't do publicity for movies. And so, but they've already done all the publicity though.
Sonny00:15:46That's the point. No, they did, but they've already done all the publicity.
JVL00:15:48It would be helpful in the final two weeks to have like Margot Robey and Ryan Gosling out there and they're doing this without that. It's very impressive. However, they did it, whether they're just paying influencers or, or what they're kudos to them. I hope the movie is great. Yep.
Mike00:16:04All right. So should we, uh, should we move on to box office?
JVL00:16:07No, you didn't tell us about your, your weekend, Michael.
Mike00:16:10There's nothing, there's nothing that, well, okay.
JVL00:16:12How about the sexual deviant softball?
Mike00:16:14So, so now we're, there's nothing to say there. Um, I flubbed the first play of the first game on Sunday and it led to like the worst inning that we played all season. So we lost that first game, but we won the next game. So it's okay. Um, no, no, no. But what you guys were talking about books and I, it did trigger a thought in me, which is that, um, I have started reading with my oldest. I've started reading out loud with him. He's been asking for this. I've started reading out loud, the Lord of the rings to him. And, um, and so that's been kind of an interesting experience because we've read the Hobbit, um, and so he was. Familiar with this. And so it's been, it's like, I can't remember, you know, when I didn't know, like what the story of the Lord of the rings was, you know, it's sort of like not knowing, remembering when I didn't know what the star Wars story was. Um, but it's been interesting to kind of watch him, uh, pick up on things. Um, as the story kind of takes this idea of like, oh yeah, remember that ring from the Hobbit that he found with that creepy guy, Gollum and all the stuff, yeah, that's what this whole book is going to be about and like watching him sort of pick up on that. Um, and he said something, so like the very first, the first chapter of the book is very, like, it's very like lighthearted and you know, it's all about like hobbits and Bilbo's birthday and blah, blah, blah, but there's that one, there's this one scene, which they do pretty well in the movie as well, which is like, we're like, like Gandalf, the wizards, like, Hey, maybe you should leave that. Bring behind and Bilbo's like, no, you want it for yourself, blah, blah, blah. And so like you do the voices do not take me for some conjurer of sheep tricks. I'm not trying to rob you. I'm trying to help you. Um, that doesn't say very good. Michael doesn't say any of that stuff in the book, by the way. Um, but, uh, I do do some of the voices just to like the kids like that when I do that.
JVL00:18:17So do you sing the sung passages? So when Tom Bombadil. You haven't gotten there yet.
Sonny00:18:23We haven't gotten to Tom Bombadil.
JVL00:18:25Are you going to, are you going to sing that or are you going to read it as if it's poetry?
Mike00:18:28Read it as if it's probably read it as if it's poetry. I think I, I think I made up a stupid little tune for the, um, for Bilbo's walking song. Uh, I think I probably stole the Howard Shore theme.
Sonny00:18:42It was like in my head when you get to, when you get to Tom Bombadil, are you going to explain that Tom Bombadil is no good that he's a garbage. Uh, neutral piece in a time of crisis.
Mike00:18:56No, because it's more complicated than that.
Sonny00:18:59It's not more complicated than that. Tom Bombadil is garbage. Hold on. Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadil refused to do the thing that needed to be done. Guys, I can do 15 minutes on this.
JVL00:19:10Just listening to the two of you right now. Tell me more about your Tom. I'm, I'm, I am dead serious. I would like to hear Sonny, your case against Tom Bombadil and then Michael's. Defense of Tom Bombadil. No, no, it's, it's funny.
Sonny00:19:24I actually, I, I actually never had strong feelings about Tom Bombadil, except, except for like a vague sense of annoyance at that section in the book. And also like a vague annoyance at the character who like, again, is this, uh, you know, kind of very powerful figure that does not take his responsibility seriously in the face of great evil. Um, but there's a whole cult of Tom Bombadil on the internet. There are people who are like super into like, and I can't tell how ironic it is or what. But like, anytime Tom Bombadil comes up, you get like 50 people in your, your mentions on Twitter who are like, Tom Bombadil was a merry old soul. And I'm like, no, fuck him. Put him in prison for being a idiot. That's what I think you should do with Tom Bombadil. Put him in a, put him in a cell. Never let him out.
JVL00:20:09All right. I can promise you that none of those people are ironic. Yeah. Tom Bombadil, uh, Michael, please with the defense.
Mike00:20:18I see. I wasn't prepared to defend Tom Bombadil. And like, I kind of sometimes feel the way Sonny does too. So like, I'm not like a full on Tom Bombadil defender, but it's like a little more, you're not, you're not a Bombadil in, I, I'm not a Bombadil, uh, but like it's his inclusion in the story is odd and weird, but also interesting because he sort of, he existed beforehand outside of the Lord of the Rings and, uh, and Tom like kind of features in these poems that, that Tolkien wrote. And so he kind of has like, he's kind of makes his way into the story and the way Tolkien describes like how he, how he brought him in. And he actually does serve some important purposes in the book. He doesn't just stand by. I mean, if you, if you take seriously, like what the hobbits are doing in terms of entering the more and more wild country as they go West. And the fact that he does actually save them, uh, from the Barrow whites in the Barrow Downs, and it is, there is a sort of, um, uh, there is a sort of recovery of, um, their understanding of the world being older and things coming before that. I mean, it's all, it's all sort of like built, it's all about like getting the characters, uh, of the hobbits to sort of understand that their world is much, the world is much bigger than the world that they have lived in. And Tom Bombadil plays a part in that. It is very annoying that he doesn't just like take the ring, but they do make the point in the council of Elrond that like Bombadil doesn't like exists outside of. Like any sense of like duty or like, yes, I guess he is like garbage in that sense, but he doesn't really like, he's like neutral. He does. He's just kind of his day.
Sonny00:22:16Yeah. He's fucking Swiss is what he is. You know, who sucks the Swiss. He would have been happy to just stay in his little, little forest home and let darkness roam all over so long as Soran left him alone. He would, he would have, he would have been fine with that. And you know what that is? You know what we call that? What we call that disgusting neutrality. We call that again. We call it Swissness. Nobody wants to be Swiss. Okay. Unless you're a chocolatier or a watchmaker.
Mike00:22:42All I want, all I wanted to say before I was put on trial here, uh, about Tom Bombadil, a character I actually don't care that much about.
Sonny00:22:49You love Tom. Bombadil. How dare you? You're defending him. Is I just, you are neutral on Tom Bombadil. You're you're Swiss on Tom Bombadil. I don't, I don't appreciate that.
Mike00:23:01This is the greatest show open we have ever had. Are you done? Are you done? No, no, you're not. Okay.
Sonny00:23:08I'm not done. Take a stand. Are you for or against bomb?
Mike00:23:13I am for including Tom Bombadil in the story against bombadilism. I'm against. Yeah, exactly. I'm anti, anti Bombadil.
Sonny00:23:21Gonna have to, gonna have to look into your security clearance.
Mike00:23:23Oh, boom. Um, yeah. All I wanted to say about this was that I was struck by the way in which my eight year old son interpreted Bilbo's kind of like, like obsession with the ring that he displays in this argument with, with Gandalf in the first chapter, um, which he's like, looks at me and he goes, he's a addicted to it, which sort of like shocked me that like even sort of like understood what addiction is or was like, I don't know where he picked that up on, but it was sort of, it was the kind of thing that was like very, I thought was very perceptive, uh, for, uh, you know, for somebody who like, I'm not always entirely sure he's listening when I'm reading out loud to him. So it was nice. We'll see how it goes. Um, I have a feeling some of the elf songs are going to taxes patients, but, uh, we'll see.
Sonny00:24:19Who whose patients is not taxed by the singing in the Lord of, in all of the Tolkien books. I'm sorry. Like as much as I, as much as I enjoyed reading these books as children, those were always pretty, pretty quick skips. I was like, I'm just kidding. What's funny is that they are
JVL00:24:35obviously the parts of the books, the Tolkien most enjoyed, right? Yes. One percent. Clearly that's where he was getting himself off. That's right. Yeah, that's right. So,
Sonny00:24:45all right. That's why he needed an editor to come in there and kill his darlings. Hey, J R I got, uh, we got another fucking song here.
Mike00:24:55All right. So I think we should move on and we should move on to the box office because there is a story to tell here before Barbie blows up everything at the box office. Uh, number one, last weekend mission impossible, dead reckoning part one, uh, bring in, I guess in the last weekend, it's a weird thing, right? When we talked about this last week, cause it had this like long tail, but so far it is grossed like what, like 78 and a half million dollars. Um, number two is sound of freedom, which we can talk about that very briefly, like bumped up, which is very strange. And, and now it made another $27 million, but like bumped it, it, it did better than it had the week before. So, um, I don't know. What do you want to talk about? Mission impossible, dead reckoning part one. What do we think about this?
Sonny00:25:44All right. So, uh, mission impossible, dead reckoning part one, number one movie at the box uh, and there were people out there saying, oh, this is a, this is a disappointment. You know, this movie was, should have opened, had a bet, had a better opening weekend above. Uh, look the, the, it has had, it had the best first five days of any, uh, entry in the mission impossible series. It is grossed around a quarter billion dollars worldwide. Um, it is, it is performing very much in line with a mission impossible movie, a mission impossible movie. Uh, certainly the last three before this one, they tend to gross between 200 and $220 million domestic, uh, and between 750 and $800 million worldwide. That's the, that is the range that these movies, uh, do. And that's about what this movie is in range for right now. I will say that the, I looking at the release calendar and the release schedule, the, uh, paramount has to, has to be kicking themselves, um, for releasing, uh, the movie last week, last weekend. Um, because it is, uh, if you look, if you look ahead to August, there's a, there's a fairly dead patch coming up and this releasing it now gets you stuck between Indiana Jones five and, uh, Oppenheimer, which has a three week, um, you know, exclusive run on the IMAX screens and everything. So I, I, I just think it was, uh, I think I, they, they have to be, they have to be looking at this and being like, what did we have? We have probably cost ourselves a hundred million dollars here. I mean,
Mike00:27:17they should have, they should have, they should have released it in August.
Sonny00:27:20They should have released it. They should have released it in August or September. Um, and they, they would have been much better position for a longer run because I do think it's going to get kind of, it's going to get kind of crushed, uh, by Oppenheimer and Barbie this weekend. And frankly, sound of freedom is probably taking out a chunk of that audience as well. Um, uh, but the, yeah, sound of freedom is a really interesting story. I mean, I like, you know, I, I actually, I went to go see it, uh, this week because this is, you know, this is what we're, this is like the biggest box office story of the year is this movie. And it was a fascinating experience for a couple of reasons. Um, the, the, the box office one is this. So at the end of the movie, so you know how at the beginning of the movies, a lot of the movies these days, you have the director and the actor, uh, the lead actor, thanks. Thanks for coming to the movies. We, you know, this is the best way to experience cinema is in the theater with other people. You share the experience bubble. Well, at the end of this movie, they have Jim Caviezel. He comes on the screen. Like in the mid credit, basically as a mid credits tease. And he's like, thanks for coming to the movies. This is the best way to experience movie. You see it with other people. You can focus on it. You're not pausing, go into the bathroom or on your phone, whatever. Um, it's an important story. We're telling this, we're telling a story. We want people to see it. And we want, we want people who, you know, otherwise might not be able to see the movie, come see it. So you have a chance now to pay it forward, scan this QR code and the QR code comes up on the screen, scan this QR code, uh, and pay for a ticket. We'll we'll send it to someone else. So they, they can have an opportunity to see this movie. And I swear to God hand to God, this really true life happened in front of me, a woman who was leaving the theater, heard Caviezel talking, stopped and turned around like in the exit, you know, the exit hallway and was, and was watching, watching the speech. And when the QR code came up, she pulled out her phone and, and got it on her, on her camera app and clicked it. And as best as I could tell from my vantage point of like three rows back, 100% bought a ticket to pay it forward. I literally saw somebody pay it forward. In the theaters. So this movie is going to make this, this movie is going to end up grossing like $200 million. It's crazy. Uh, I, I firmly believe it will, it will hang on for a while, assuming it is able to keep hold onto its screens. And I think, uh, judging from what I have been hearing from some folks in exhibition, there is a, there, there is a mild empty seat problem in that like 5% of the tickets or so that are being paid for. And, you know, uh, purchased aren't being sat in. Um, but it like for the most part, it's, it's, you know, packed theaters, uh, for people, people going to see these movies in places that don't necessarily have packed theaters, like on a Wednesday, uh, you know, 2:00 PM, um, you know, places, uh, it's a lot of South, a lot of the Midwest. Um, so I, a movie, the movie's huge. It's a, it's, it's a, it's a real hit. Why? Which is interesting. Why would every
JVL00:30:16other studio not do this going forward? I don't think it makes sense for every other studio
Sonny00:30:21going forward because here's, here's the, here's the thing is that the, the, the way that this pitch is laid out is this is an important movie. We are trying to spread the message. You, our audience of evangelicals are used to evangelizing, right? This is like a thing that you do on, on a regular basis. And, uh, we, and this is an extension of that. It's basically an extension of good works, right? Yeah. So like, I don't think that works, that doesn't work for mission impossible. It doesn't work for, um, it doesn't work for a horror movie. It doesn't work for a comedy. It might work for like works for Oppenheimer civil rights picture could work for Barbie. I don't think it would work for Oppenheimer. I don't think, I don't, why would it work for any of these movies? Nobody's going
JVL00:31:02to these movies out of a sense of mission. Okay. So what does it, what does it cost you to record that? Right. It costs you very, very little. And if you sell a million dollars worth of tickets on that, it's worth it.
Sonny00:31:16But you, yeah, but, but you're also like it also, look, it looks, if you are a major studio that is spending a hundred million dollars on an ad campaign anyway, this looks like kind of cheap skin Flint behavior. Like part of the pitch, part of the pitch of this video, right? Is we're angel studios. We don't have millions of dollars to put advertising in theater. We have you, our audience who can help spread the word. Um, and when, if you, if you, I just don't think, I don't think you get away with that in a studio setting. And also the rest of the studios would make fun of you. You'd get, you'd get all sorts of the, you know, you think David Zaslav wants to have people on his yacht who are like, Hey, did this, uh, did we, do we pay for this yacht by getting a hundred thousand people to buy tickets to Barbie? Um, you know, I just like, I, I don't, I think it, it looks like, it looks like cheap ass behavior if you're a studio doing it.
JVL00:32:01Hi there, audience. I'm Tom Cruz. And, uh, we're trying to save the movies right now. You
Sonny00:32:06may have noticed that, uh, the Hollywood, nobody actually cares about that. That's not, that's not, that's not a, that's not a mission people care about. You know what people care about? People
JVL00:32:15care about child trafficking. I, uh, I would care more about the movies. And if Tom Cruz or Christopher Nolan came on screen and said, Hey, we're trying to save the theatrical experience. I care a lot about the theatrical experience and I would buy two tickets for somebody else. I would pay it forward twice. And I bet you would too, Sonny, because you care about the theatrical
Sonny00:32:34experience. Don't you? No, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that. Uh, people can, people can pay for their own tickets. Uh, but I mean, I, it just, it doesn't work because again, this movie is wrapped up. I mean, look, this is the movie itself is competent and, uh, it's got a very good cast, which does like it's competently shot. It has a very good cast, which is like more than 99% of these movies can say these, these, you know, kind of Christian studios movies can say, um, uh, so like that, that, you know, that gives it basically a pass and a thumbs up there anyway. But like, again, the whole point here is that there's a sense of, there's a sense of duty sense of mission that does not exist in the rest of the world. The other funny thing about this before we, before we get off this, so the, the trailers for this movie are like visiting an alternate universe. It's very funny. Um, the, the first trailer, uh, was for a movie about the trip to Bethlehem, right? You know, you kind of expect second trailer, second trailer was for an old man action revenge movie called the Baker starring Ron Perlman as the Baker. And it's about him. It's like, it's like nobody remember nobody, the, uh, the Bob Odenkirk movie. It's like that except with Ron Perlman, who is like even older and slower than Bob Odenkirk. Uh, but like this, so I don't, I don't know who's making this movie. Third trailer was for Oppenheimer, which is probably like the best piece of advertising that Oppenheimer is going to get in this entire run, reaching a, an audience that never comes out to movies. And they're like, Hey, here's a movie about America winning world war II. Don't you want to see that audiences in the south and Midwest? Um, so that, that, that was kind of funny. And then the closing were three, uh, three movies from angel studios. The first of which was a Christian sports movie from the, from the writers of Rudy and Hoosier comes a Christian Christian baseball movie. Second was, uh, a movie about a, an Italian woman who was sent to America by the Pope, who then the Pope gets mad at. I think it's called Cabrini. Does, does this, is it a rom-com? Is that how she and the Pope meet? No, it's like, no, it's like a, it's like a, I don't know. I thought at first it was about a nun, but apparently
JVL00:34:44this is about some, uh, entrepreneur woman. She was a journalist who wanted to have everything.
Sonny00:34:51He was the Bishop of Rome. I don't know. No, come on. I don't know what that movie's about. Really?
Mike00:34:56I don't know what that was about. You could see them bumping in. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm on my way
Sonny00:35:01to mass. I'm on my way to the church. We gotta make it a pizza pies. Uh, uh, excuse me. Excuse
Mike00:35:10me. Do you, do you know where St. Peter's Basilica is?
Sonny00:35:14Uh, and then the third movie, the third, the third movie from angel studios was, I shit you not. It was a Christian multiverse movie starring Neil McDonough as like the shift, the shift. Yes. How
Mike00:35:27do you know about this? I'm looking it up on, on Google. I had never heard of any of these movies
Sonny00:35:32before. So like getting all of these trailers one after the other, with the exception of the Oppenheimer one, it was just like, this is a totally different universe, a contradiction in. JBL you're thinking on this mirrors mind very closely, like, because I was not sure. I'm not sure exactly how this works in terms. Maybe, maybe he's the devil. I don't know. The, so Neil McDonough plays a character called the benefactor, which sounds very devilish to me, frankly. I don't, I don't think he is. And he wants, he wants this character to work with him or he's gonna, he's gonna keep like, it's a wonderful life in him through the multiverse basically is,
Mike00:36:09is my understanding. Isn't Sean asked it. Sean Aston is in this movie. Sean Aston is in it. No,
Sonny00:36:13but Sean Aston is not playing the lead. The lead is played by some like kind of stereotypically
JVL00:36:18good looking guy. Um, Sean Aston is playing like a supporting character, I think. Anyway, anyway,
Sonny00:36:23neither here nor there. It was just, it was just a very interesting experience all around from watching the woman pay it forward to like the, the different trailers. It was a, it was all,
JVL00:36:31it was all very, very amusing. All part of your, uh, road to Damascus here, Sonny. It's coming.
Sonny00:36:39It's coming. Well, I don't understand what that means.
Mike00:36:43Well, why don't we move? Why would I go to Syria? Why, why don't we move on? Because I'm imagining Wes Anderson doing one of these post movie, uh, you know, buy a ticket videos and it's very well done. It's very fussy and perfect. And, uh, it will probably sell like another 20 tickets. Uh, asteroid city, uh, is the movie we are talking about. It came out a while ago, but we're just getting around to seeing it. Uh, Sonny, you want to give us a big boy review of Wes
Sonny00:37:13Anderson's new ish movie asteroid city asteroid city. Uh, so asteroid city is the latest from Wes Anderson. It is very West Andersonian, very stylized, uh, got, got a lot of, uh, the actors
JVL00:37:26who were in, uh, his previous, would you say it is the most Wes Anderson, Wes Anderson movie?
Sonny00:37:31No, I don't, I don't actually think it is. I think moonrise kingdom is more, uh, specifically Andersonian, uh, in terms of like, I don't like moonrise kingdom. I'm one of the, I'm one of like four critics on the planet who didn't like moonrise kingdom. Um, uh, and I don't like it because it, it like really plays into his whole dollhouse sensibility in a, in a very real and frustrating way that I just, I didn't, I didn't care for. I also didn't like how the, I didn't, I didn't like the portrayal of the children in this movie. There was like that weird beach scene always has always squicked me out. Um, uh, but like, I don't know. I like, I just, I didn't care for that very much, but this is, this is, this is not stereotypically Andersonian in the sense that it is. Um, because of the way, because of the, I, I like, I, it's hard to even to describe what this movie is without getting really into the weeds on one level. It's the story of a family that goes to a town in New Mexico, um, where an asteroid landed and it's about mid-century America and aliens coming and paranoia and, uh, all that stuff. But the problem is it's nestled within this. Um, it's nestled in this, uh, kind of nesting doll structure of what we are watching. What we, the audience are watching is a television production of a stage play. And we see the making of this stage play in between the acts of the play. Um, the, the television show is hosted by Bryan Cranston. Who's playing kind of a, a rod Serling figure. Um, uh, and he is, uh, guiding us through this, the, the, the play itself again, which is the meat of the story is, uh, about this family, uh, headed by Jason Schwartzman. He comes to asteroid city with his family. So his son can collect a, a prize as part of the junior stargazers. Um, uh, and they meet a bunch of other kind of oddball weirdo, uh, families and kids. Uh, one of which, uh, is, uh, this, this woman, this actress midge, um, who is, uh, played by Scarlett Johansson is kind of a stand in for Marilyn Monroe. Um, and, uh, and it, and again, it's about like the, the family dynamics and, and, and how that all works out. Um, but the, the third layer of the story is again, watching this play come together. And this is, I think, I think this is Wes Anderson's biggest point, the creative process. Um, how, how I think, and I, one of the things that's so frustrating about this movie to me is that I don't have a good enough understanding of mid-century American live theater to talk about this, but the sense I get is that he is showing the evolution of essentially 20 years of American stage play from, um, kind of realism to, uh, to the, the method, um, then to the absurdists. Like we, we kind of, you can kind of see that play out in the, the creation of this play all within one, um, setting. Uh, and I just don't, I, I don't care enough about it. I don't know enough about it. It's all slightly frustrating to me. And I, frankly, it just, the whole thing doesn't work. There are a lot of really nice little performances in this movie. I loved we, I, I, I could, I could spend 10 minutes just rattling off the names of actors in this movie, but my favorite performance is probably Liev Schreiber. Liev Schreiber plays one of the parents, one of the, one of the fathers of one of these junior star gazers who has come to the town. Uh, his kid is, you know, he's created like a lay a ray gun. Um, uh, but he, like the, the sense of like a general frustration he has with his kid who was like always asking to be dared to do things is, was very palpably real to me in a, in a, uh, in a way that, you know, pro I probably shouldn't admit as, uh, as, as I am doing now. Um, and I, and there's a lot of little things like that in this movie that are great. Uh, Tom Hanks is great. He's playing, he's essentially playing Bill Murray in this movie. He's wonderful. Uh, the, the, uh, Jason Schwartzman is a great actor. I love Jason Schwartzman. He's, he's fantastic in this. Um, uh, Scarlett Johansson is great. Uh, the Wes Anderson is the only director who understands how to use Adrian Brody properly. Um, like there's, there's lots of little interesting things in this movie that I like. It's just that the whole thing doesn't hang together for me at all. And this is how I feel like some people must have reacted to the French dispatch, which is, so the French dispatch is a movie that is very much about the making of a magazine and it's structured like a magazine, like a New Yorker or an Atlantic or a weekly standard, which is a thing that we all have a lot of experience with. And we all like, understand intuitively and grasp. And so when people were like, well, I don't get the French dispatch, I think it's too mannered and too stylized. I didn't like what it's doing. Maybe that's just how I feel about this because I don't, I don't care for, I don't care for live theater in general. I know nothing about mid-century American theater. Like at one point I got excited because I was like, oh, Adrian Brody is doing Ilya Kazan basically. That that's the thing I recognize that makes me happy. And like, I feel like if there had been more of more stuff like that, I would have gotten a little more into it, but I just didn't, it did nothing about this really worked for me. That's fine. I mean, I take it. No, no, I take it. I take it back. Sorry. I take it back. A lot of little things about this movie worked for me, but the whole thing just as a whole just didn't work for me at all.
JVL00:42:52Yeah. As I was watching it, I thought there is a subset of an audience for this that thinks this is the greatest thing ever. And I just don't get it because I am not a theater nerd. And, uh, and the, the analogy to French dispatch is perfect, right? If you have worked in magazines and it worked in like general interest kind of magazines, then French dispatch was, as we said at the time, we all loved it. Like, you know, we spawned over that movie. Uh, but, and we said at the time we could not understand how anybody else would be interested in it. And, you know, and this is, this is it. Did you like this, Michael?
Mike00:43:31No. Um, I did not like this movie and you like the French dispatch or no,
JVL00:43:37you were not with us yet when we did French. No, but I,
Mike00:43:39I, I, but I love the French dispatch. Um, it, uh, for, for all the reasons that you guys are describing, I would say that I felt like this, I think I texted you guys. It felt like a parody of a Wes Anderson movie to me, Astro city did it like, because I came away with it. Maybe it's because of the same reasons that I just didn't understand the material that it was the sort of view that it was dealing in well enough. Although like it's also about sort of playhouse 90. Right. And like sort of mid-century television as well. And like, I've watched the, I've watched the twilight zone. I've watched some of this stuff. Like I can appreciate, even if I'm not sort of well-versed in it, I can sort of appreciate that what I, what I didn't, what I, I guess made me angry about the movie or not angry is too strong a word, but like frustrated with the movie is how much I loved. All of the pieces of it. Um, I loved being in asteroid city itself. Um, I, I just thought every detail in classic wet Wes Anderson for, but I feel like it was almost like he was at the top of his game in terms of creating this setting in such perf all the perfect, all the details are perfect to me and not just perfect, but I enjoyed them. I sort of, it felt like a place I wanted to spend a lot of time in. Um, like the lettering on the filling station. Sure. Uh, exactly. It just, it, it was, it was great. I loved, I loved the, I assume it's future. I cause that's the lettering at all. Yeah. Some future, uh, uh, a clone or, or, or similar. Um, I loved the, um, I mean, it was, it was humorous. I loved the performances. I particularly thought Scarlett Johansson was terrific. Um, like you kind of forget. She's always terrific. Yeah. She is so good, but you, maybe this is unfair of me, but I forget that sometimes. And, and then like, when you see her, you're like, oh yeah, she's, she's like, she's a top tier actress. Um, uh, so I loved all those pieces. And then when it was over, my reaction was all like, what, what, what the fuck was that all about? Like, I, I, I just had this wake up. If you don't fall asleep, Mike, like, okay. So, so that part is where, is where the movie lost me completely where it was just, they're just kept saying that over and over again. I'm going like, is this a, like, is this a student film? What is this?
Sonny00:46:24So this gets to my point, which is, I think, again, I think that what we are seeing is the evolution of American theater from naturalism or like some, some not really naturalism, like stage stage play stuff to the method, to the method, which is, you know, works in a very, another specific sort of way to absurdism, which again, like breaks the fourth wall. And there's lots of, like the, the thing, the thing that has, if I wanted to talk myself into, uh, liking this movie, I would focus more on the structure of it and how I, what I think is actually happening, which is that instead of it being a TV show about a play and the making of the play, the whole thing is actually the play. The whole thing is the play as it was originally presented in 1965 or something where you, you, uh, and that is why Bryan Cranston, uh, shows up in like the, the one shot where he's like, oh, is supposed to be here. Um, and that's why at the end you have the breaking the fourth wall and people, people chanting at the, at the screen. I think it's, it's all part of, uh, a production and it is all about the making of um, uh, an artistic endeavor. Like that is what the actual, that's what I think might be going on here. But at the same time, I just don't care enough. I don't, I just don't care. I don't care. And I like, I, I, I not only did I see this movie twice in theaters, I wanted to give it a fair chance because I love Wes Anderson. I'm like a total, um, I'm a total sucker for Wes Anderson. Uh, I, I love everything he's done. I think Grand Budapest hotels, one of the best movies of the 2010s. Uh, and, and, um, you know, I love, I even bought, I even bought the companion essay book. I'm showing it to the screen right now. Do not detonate. I bought the companion. I bought the companion essay book, uh, the collecting reference points and influences and that sort of thing. And I read the whole thing cover to cover and I was like, okay, I understand a little more about the individual things that are going on in this movie. And I still, I still just don't care about it. I don't care what's happening.
JVL00:48:32So may I, may I offer a couple criticisms? Because I, I, I think you are, I think your read on this is correct, Sonny. And this is the, you know, the reason Brian Cranston shows up in that is to tip the hand to the audience that, you know, what you are seeing is the thing as it was originally staged. But qua movie, there are, there are three things that I think are mistakes. The first is the opening voiceover. So, uh, the opening of the movie is Brian Cranston voiceovering and introducing our cast of characters and it's poorly executed. And I would, I would point to the Royal Tenenbaums as the, the perfect version of that conceit within a movie, right? So I, I, I have long Royal Tenenbaums, one of my favorite movies, and I contend that a very large part of that movie's success is the opening four minutes in which Alec Baldwin narrates the cast of characters. And it's everything about that is perfect from writing to execution. And, uh, this one is not like, it's just, it's paced wrong. Bryan Cranston's voiceover work is not very good. I don't think. Well, Bryan Cranston, he's great. I just don't think it's very good. And now maybe it's what Wes Anderson wanted from him. I'm not, I'm blaming him, but I'm positive. That's what Wes Anderson wanted because the specific thing. Yeah. Wes Anderson treats the character treats his actors like they are dolls, right? I mean, nobody ever in this movie. I mean, it's true in most Wes Anderson movies that most of the dialogue is straight to camera. But it is a hundred percent true in this movie. I think, I don't know that there's any dialogue that isn't done straight to camera and even motion. I don't know that actors ever move unless, you know, they are like, you can feel their feet locked in place unless we are in a tracking shot where they've been told and now walk stage left, you know?
Sonny00:50:26Yeah. I think the. I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm sorry to interrupt, but just the, this is why one of my favorite moments is when Liev Schreiber comes crashing through the scene to choke his son. It's one of the only times. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the color palette I think is
JVL00:50:42almost annoying to the eye in how bright and washed out it is, you know, like, I don't know about you guys, but did you, oh, did you see this in a theater? I saw it on TV and I really, after a while I was just like, man, my eyes need a rest from this. It's too, you know, cause it's washed out desert. And I, I get that again. I understand it, but I think he is not taking consideration of the audiences. And then the, the whip pans, the extension, the camera is constantly being pulled left and right, and then rotated around is again, it's a very Wes Anderson thing to do, but it's too much. I just dizzying. It was dizzying. Yeah. Dizzying in ways, which are not, not good. Right. I mean, you, yeah, there is, there's dizzying, which is disoriented, which is good. And then there is like, Hey, what you've done is the effect you've created is actually more than you more than you should do for an audience. So I, I just felt like as a technical piece, this isn't well done.
Mike00:51:43Yeah. But you know, whatever. Can I say that? And I texted you guys this, cause I watched the pre role show at the Alamo on this, which was sort of, there was a lot of stuff about playhouse 90 and all of that. Uh, that, that stuff that's being, uh, uh, referenced in this movie and like it felt so foreign to me watching it in a way that, um, like other culture, cultural stuff, you know, I mean, like it does doesn't like, like something about the, this whole idea of like 90 minutes of TV was, you know, every week was being given over to like stage plays and all of the like advertisements and stuff like that. And, um, it brought to mind, like the thought that like, we still live in the sixties in the sense that like this, the, the way that the sixties like sort of overhauled everything that came before it culture wise, like we're still living in that long tail of, and, and so that's why it feel, even though it's like only 10 years before, you know, Woodstock, like it feels like a completely different, you know, universe. Um, and that may have something to do with just my, my own, like not getting it, like not caring about this world that he's sort of so lovingly, you know, recreating. I just, it was, it, I, I didn't understand it. I didn't understand it.
JVL00:53:09Do you guys understand the, the, the robbers being chased by the police? Cause like three or four times we get a, a old Buick being chased by police, a police car and a police motorcycle with them firing pistols at each other, just blowing through town. It just happens over and over again. And I was like, what, why is this?
Mike00:53:33I took that. I took that to be a visual joke that Wes Anderson thought of and wanted to put in.
JVL00:53:39Yeah. And the first time that's what I took it as right. But the road runner only does that Mimi once. I mean, he shows up a couple other times, but he just sort of is a puppet. I, I tell you the, the one, the one genuine smile I got was when you get the alien, which is a moment that feels a little bit like, uh, do you remember the Coen brothers movie, the man who wasn't there, which all of a sudden turns into an alien, a UFO movie halfway through and you're like, what the fuck has happened? So when the UFO shows up here and the alien comes down and alien is really goofy and I think it's animated. Uh, but when you get the reveal that the alien is played by Jeff Goldblum, then the animation or puppetry done with the alien is really impressive because you realize that it is moving like Jeff Goldblum. And that made me smile. Yeah. I thought to myself that that little callback of like, oh shit. Yes. The weird thing that the alien had going on was that it was moving like Jeff Goldblum. I didn't quite realize that. So I, I don't know. I really smiled at that.
Sonny00:54:47Like kind of stooped shoulders. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, totally. This is, I mean, this is the thing is that is that, is that I, I think, I think on to, to an extent that a lot of other directors don't quite understand. Um, uh, Wes Anderson handles the physicality of actors extremely well. And this is what I was, this is kind of what I mean when I'm, when I'm talking about Adrian Brody, he understands how to make Adrian Brody move in a way that gives is like a very, it's a very specific thing. Like look back at, um, uh, uh, grand Budapest hotel where he's playing like the kind of, uh, Nazi stand in, um, you know, uh, account or whatever. Uh, and that kind of like stiff backed arms, your shoulders back, you know, striding walk that he has. Uh, but also then again, here in this movie where he is a little looser, a little lankier kind of, you know, understands how to slouch and when to, when to sound a stand up straight. I, I just like, he understands, he understands movement and motion, um, on an
JVL00:55:56actorly basis. Very, very well. We haven't mentioned Edward Norton. He was great. I really really, I, one of my favorite Ed Norton performances actually. Right. Did you guys like him in
Mike00:56:09this or no? So the playwright, I didn't, I, I, I sort of, my bringing him up was saying like he didn't do anything negative or positive. Just it's like, I almost like kind of forgot about him. Um, so I don't know. I don't know. What do we think? What do we think? Is there anything else to say about asteroid city? It's I, I, I wanna like support Wes Anderson because I like that. He makes movies.
Sonny00:56:33Here's his own way, but here's the thing about a director like this, right? Is that the, if you give somebody freedom, if you give somebody absolute freedom to make exactly what they wanna make, sometimes those things are gonna be misfired. Mm-hmm and I think, I think this is a misfire. I am like, I am like, again, I'm in the, my, the critical minority here and I've heard from people who really, really love this movie. It just does nothing for me. It does not work. Um, it, it really, it really doesn't. And that's okay. I'd rather have an interesting, again, I'd rather have an interesting failure from a misfire than have him make fucking Barbie or something. So yeah, I, look, I totally
JVL00:57:08agree. I was talking about this with, with somebody. I, I, for me, Wes Anderson has the highest variance between stuff I love and stuff I really don't enjoy where he has the highs of ten and bombs and French dispatch. And then the lows of, uh, bottle rocket, which for me is nails on a chalkboard. Uh, this, that's interesting, which doesn't quite know. But, but here's the thing. I think Wes Anderson has highs and lows for most people who love movies and that they're our highs and lows are gonna be different cuz there are people who just think bottle rocket is the absolute apex, but they can't stand fantastic Mr. Fox, right? People who love, uh, love moonrise kingdom, but hate life aquatic. And so I, I find that interesting about Wes Anderson and I, I wish him nothing but success.
Sonny00:57:59Yep. I do question the decision to release this as a summer movie. Yeah, it might have, might have made more sense as a October movie. Anyway, no, that's all.
Mike00:58:10All right. Okay. Well, uh, if we don't have anything else, uh, I think that's gonna be it for us at the moment. You can go to sub beacon.com, uh, where you can subscribe and listen to the bonus episodes when we make them. Uh, thanks for listening.
JVL00:58:32Michael, how did you gag the first play of the game?
Mike00:58:38Oh, I was playing, I was playing second base and I just, um, I just threw a, I, I, I ground it. It was a grounder and I threw it to first and it was a bad throw. That's it was like not that interesting, but it, and I'm not saying it was completely my fault that we gave up 10 runs that inning. Um, you couldn't have accounted for 10 runs on that, right? No, no, no, no, no. But it was the first play would have been the first out and turn into a double instead. Or did he get a trip? It just turned into a single. He just, he just like had to reach it. Couldn't get the, he couldn't get, that's not, come on, man. Give yourself a ball. But it was, it was, it was bad. It was bad, but, um, it's fine. It's fine. The, the, the big problem we're going to have is that so our, our, our pitcher and his two teenage boys who have been our ringers, um, they are on vacation for the rest of the season. So yeah, we're kind of screwed. So, um, we shall see. We shall see. Um, but no, it was, I will say this. I learned a little more about the league and why I've been sort of shocked by how kind of like high level this summer softball league has been. And I found out from my, my, my friend and coach who recruited me for this, that this team, which has only been together since last season was bumped up a level for this summer. And, uh, and so we're playing, so there's like three levels. There's like literal beginner there's intermediate, and then there's what's we're in competitive. And, um, he's like, I don't know why we were bumped up. Uh, you know, that maybe they needed an extra team, you know, they need an extra team or they didn't have enough teams, whatever, uh, at the one level. So they just bumped us up. But, uh, but like it, It makes sense now why, like, we're a bunch of like old over the hill players playing against, you know, guys who are, some of them are maybe less than 10 years out of playing high school baseball, like the, the disparity. So And yet you're playing 500 ball. We are, we've won and, uh, we've yeah, we're, we're, we're 500. So, um, and if we get to play the team that we saw following us, uh, because there was, there were two games after our games. Um, and then we could even bump up ahead because they were, they were, uh, they were not. So
Sonny01:01:10I'm sure.
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