#208. 'The Equalizer 3'
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The Equalizer 3, which just posted the second-biggest Labor Day opening of all time behind Shang-Chi, wins over all three hosts. Sonny, who watched all three Equalizer films back-to-back-to-back in the days beforehand, traces how this installment abandons Robert McCall as a clever, resourceful killer for pure horror-movie inevitability — a supernatural force protecting an Italian coastal village from Camorra drug traffickers, the whole film steeped in Catholic iconography (a Bible replacing the stopwatch as his totem, a shattered stained-glass Saint Michael, a torchlit religious procession) that Sonny ties to director Antoine Fuqua's long-running fixation on the righteousness of violence running from Tears of the Sun through The Magnificent Seven; he dubs it "just war theory: the motion picture," more interesting than it needs to be but dinged for an abandoned Dakota Fanning subplot that leaves visible seams. JVL, having spent decades dismissing the original Edward Woodward Equalizer as an old-guy nonstarter, declares this might be his favorite Denzel Washington performance ever — the point where Washington stops acting and simply behaves — while Mike, coming in cold on the franchise, says he'd happily watch an entire movie of old Denzel just sitting in an Amalfi Coast café; all three swoon over the opening long-take walk through the villa and the "mad king on his throne" staging of Denzel muttering to himself before the killing starts. The front third is dominated by JVL relitigating the Star Wars prequels after rewatching The Phantom Menace through Empire Strikes Back with his son (concluding the whole country suffered mass psychosis over Episode I in 1999), Sonny's alarm that his wife has been "radicalized" by Instagram's Halloween-decoration algorithm months early, Mike's proud recap of his almost-nine-year-old finishing his first neighborhood youth triathlon, and a running debate over whether the guys owe it to listeners to sit through the upcoming Taylor Swift Eras Tour film. JVL closes things out by invoking "our departed friend Victorino" to license one last very Vic-coded bit, agonizing over the indeterminate age of a supporting character's onscreen wife.
From the show notes
Just sitting here Equalizing.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Welcome to the Sub-Beacon podcast.
Mike00:00:22I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me as always are my two co-hosts who just want to find some peace in a picturesque village on the Amalfi Coast, Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at subbeacon.com where you can become a patron, get first access to our episodes every Friday, get exclusive access to the occasional bonus episodes on Mondays, comment, vote in polls, become a part of the Sub-Beacon community. You'll be glad you did at subbeacon.com. We're going to be talking about The Equalizer 3. Three Equalizer. Later in the show, but first we want to see how everyone's doing JVL. What is going on?
JVL00:01:06So the through line for today is our changing tastes as we grow older and closer to death. And I submit to you boys that I watched over the weekend with G money back to back to back the Phantom Menace, a new hope and empire strikes back. And it really hammered home to me that at the time when Phantom Menace came out, I like like many other people was not in love with it. There were the Jar Jar Binks problems and there were the the Jake Lloyd problems, but wizard I convinced myself, as did the entire country in an episode of mass psychosis, like, you know what, though?
Mike00:01:44It's pretty good.
JVL00:01:45Very exciting. We got more Star Wars. More stars. I'm going to get my gym dice and my lightsaber and go to see it with my maybe maybe one of the cosplayers will be there with their brass bikini. But it is a absolute disaster of a film from start to finish at every level, from the level of costuming. I mean, once you are sitting as a dispassionate observer looking at what's going on, yes, the costumes are shitty, by which I mean like shittily made. They don't make sense. They look bad. The blocking is terrible. There is a scene in the hangar where some of the the Naboo for security forces are fire firing and running around there with their weapons, and they look like limp wristed, like bad. No, I mean, but I mean like they're holding their guns, they're holding their blasters wrong and the extras are doing the the the green screen background stuff, which, again, at the time was fine, but it never looked good. And now it looks terrible. The plot and pacing, the beats are over. Everything about this movie is terrible. And we didn't realize it at the time. And I don't know. I guess this is a question I put to you guys, right? This is this is sunny. There is, you know, as a man of film criticism. The verdict of history in film is a very real thing, right? Movies that people revere on, you know, on release, sometimes people will tend to to turn on over the course of ten years, right, and sometimes a movie that comes out is not really appreciated for for a long time. But the the the level of mass psychosis surrounding. The Phantom Menace is is staggering to behold, once you watch it back to back with especially New Hope, because New Hope is whatever, 48 years, 50 years after New Hope came out, and it's great. Yeah. Everything about it is great. And again, it's it's not just like that. There's no Jar Jar. And I understand. Yes. Lucas directed the. I get it. Yes. Lucas directed Phantom Menace. He didn't direct New Hope. But again.
?00:04:05Yes, he did.
JVL00:04:06Did Lucas direct New Hope?
Sonny00:04:07Yeah. He didn't. He did not direct Empire Strikes Back or Return of the.
JVL00:04:11Oh, right. Right. Um, I mean, a New Hope is a piece of mature filmmaking and, uh, it succeeds on every single level. It looks like a million. We are 50 years later. It looks amazing. It looks great. I mean, it looks so good. It's lived in and wonderful. And the only times there are things that don't quite look right on the screen, honestly, it's the stuff that's been added after the fact, uh, thousand percent. And I, a, how did, how did anybody, this is what I wanna know. How did anybody look at those two movies in 1999 when Phantom Menace comes out? I think it's 99. Yes. Um, and look at them back to back and not go, holy shit, the emperor has no clothes. No clothes. This man who once directed a perfect movie has now lost his fucking mind instead we, and I, again, I count myself among them.
Mike00:05:06We're like, yeah, it's, but when star Wars, we, we love stuff.
Sonny00:05:11We love to starve the wars and the stars.
JVL00:05:13We love them. It's okay. It's really okay. And it wasn't okay, Michael. It was not okay.
Mike00:05:21But you're okay. JVL. You're okay. Uh, I mean, I don't know. I would like to know Sonny's thoughts on this. I mean, I will just say I was 11 years old when Phantom Menace came out, but I will say that I, I distinctly remember going to attack of the clones. My brother and I went, maybe I've told this story before we went to the theater. We were dropped off at the mall of Georgia, the regal cinemas there we were dropped off and it was like a big deal for me to take my little brother and for the two of us by ourselves to go see a movie together. And we were very excited. We were kind of, you know, what, what could this possibly be? And even though at those ages of what I was, what, like kind of, I guess 14 and my brother was 11 or 12, we like walked out of the theater and we both knew that it was a steaming pile of garbage. Wow. And we just kind of like, we were kind of like, eh, let's move on. Let's go get out. Let's go get an Annie Anne's, uh, Sonny, what's, what are your thoughts?
Sonny00:06:31I have, I have several thoughts here. First. I have a question for JBL. How did you watch these on the Disney plus app?
JVL00:06:39Uh, yes, the Disney plus app, but on a very large TV, that's not that irrelevant actually
Sonny00:06:45will drive home the next point I have to make. Did you notice? Cause I noticed this when I, I rewatched them, uh, recently that, uh, star Wars, a new hope. Is in one of the best 4k transfers I've ever seen. Um, I mean, it looks amazing. It looks sparkling. Phantom menace is very clearly not. And I, I am curious, I am, I am curious what exactly. So there, there, there is a technical reason that this might be the case, which is that the video essentially you, when you're rendering, uh, that, that many special effects in, in the, in the modern computer, they only render it 2k. They only render it 2k. So putting it out in 4k actually makes all of the, uh, all of the not real things look much more. Not real. Yeah. So there is a, I, I, I think there's an actual technical limitation to how good those movies can look in 4k, which is not the case with, uh, star Wars and new hope. And you know why that movie looks so better is because it's all real. I mean, it's, it's almost the reason. The, the special edition stuff looks so bad is because that's not real because it's added in by a CGI later, but the stuff that's even like the hologram chess pieces, real things made by Phil Tippett and his guys, um, you know, it's, uh, it is a, like, I, it's just, it's just, it's, it's an entirely different art form almost. I mean, like it just looks so much different.
JVL00:08:21So that's, that's one thing that's the least of my criticism, but I think that, I think
Sonny00:08:25that colors everything that you're seeing here stains, because, because I mean, look, the thing about the thing about, uh, a new hope, uh, or the thing about, uh, look, here's, so there's a second part of the question that you asked, which is about the verdict of history. And I will tell you that the current verdict of history looks much more kindly upon the prequels now than it did 10 years ago, because we have gotten the sequel trilogy. And the sequel trilogy is so loathed outside of, you know, the last Jedi has it's it's dead end defenders. Um, but the, but like, eh, for the most part, the, the sequel trilogy is so loathed and so hated and the TV shows are so looked down upon by most people who have two eyeballs and a brain that it, the, the prequel trilogy has now looked at it at the very least as the work of an artist who had an idea. It carried through all three of them. It meets the very bare minimum, uh, for like a tourist coherent storytelling. You have a, you have a, an auteur who is telling a story in this case about the decline of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism. Um, and, uh, and, and it carries through it's thematically, you know, succinct throughout more or less you and another, just one little thing you didn't even get to the worst of the series, which is as Mike correctly diagnosed, uh, as a 14 or 15 year old, uh, as attack of the clones, which is just the absolute nadir of star Wars is like even worse than
JVL00:10:09even worse than revenge of the SIF. Oh yes.
Sonny00:10:12Oh, much worse than revenge of the SIF is very bad. Revenge of the SIF is, is I like revenge of the SIF a lot. I think it's the third or fourth best war amongst the stars. But uh, revenge of the SIF is much better, but like attack of the clones is worse even
Mike00:10:25than, uh, rise Skywalker, let me tell you an attack of the clones, uh, story that demonstrates how everyone knows how terrible it is. So my kids are into the star Wars movies. They have not seen revenge of the SIF or the sequel trilogy. Uh, but they, so the, the, the most they've seen up to is attack of the clones. And when I do the, uh, the youngling, um, because somebody a wasted from them, uh, from the toy, uh, part where Obi Wan is asking them, when I do that voice, my kids like crack up, not because it's a funny voice, but because they recognize how awful, how awful that whole sequence is where like George Lucas is introducing children into star Wars for, I mean, after, you know, set aside Anakin, but like, why do we want to see little kids with little dinky little lightsabers? It's so bad. Uh, my kids think that's so bad. It's so like ridiculous. So they can identify and they still think attack of the clones is cool, but even they can see like the, the, the, the, the seams.
JVL00:11:33So I wanna, I wanna add one more component to this. So as a child, I saw, I did not see the first, I did not see new hope or empire in the theaters. Okay. Those were, those were home video watches for me, but I did see return of the Jedi in theaters and I didn't like it even as a, I think I was 12. Return of the Jedi. And I was never fully able to put my finger on what it was, but a big part of it for me is that it felt wrong. And the reason it felt wrong was because Han Leia and Luke all looked old and to the like 11 or 12 year old me, that six year difference for those, like at that point in their lives, young adults. Really appeared on screen and I went from like, oh, these are like youngish people kind of like me too. Ugh. They look old and decrepit. A lot of that was cocaine, but well, except for Carrie Fisher, who, by the way, again, having just watched, uh, return of the Jedi, when she is splayed out on Java and that brass bikini, holy shit. It's even sexier than like 12 year old me thought it was.
Mike00:12:49And 12 year old me thought it was awfully sexy. A lot of that is cocaine.
Sonny00:12:54I mean, I remember between empire and return of the Jedi, Mark Hamill, like broke his face. He got, he got in like a horrible motorcycle accident and broke his face.
Mike00:13:03That was, wasn't that, it wasn't that between new hope Star Wars and Jedi.
JVL00:13:06Yeah.
Mike00:13:07It was between Star Wars and new hope and Jedi. No.
JVL00:13:10And empire. Yeah.
Mike00:13:12I'm sorry. Yes. Empire. Yeah.
Sonny00:13:16That's why the whole, the whole abominable snowman, uh, uh, attack. Yeah. Anyway. Uh, I don't know, man. Um, the, uh, the, the, the broader point about. A phantom, the phantom menace itself. Um, I, I, I disagree in the sense that I do think it has some good stuff. Um, I do, I do still like, I basically like all of the, uh, all of the stuff with Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson and Darth Maul, like all of it.
JVL00:13:42Yeah. All of the stuff with Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson.
Sonny00:13:44I like the mid, I like the midi-chlorians. I like explaining how the force works. I like.
JVL00:13:49There is exactly one thing I like to like about this movie and it is the idea of the tragic idea that Qui-Gon Jinn is hell bent on taking this kid in and everybody around him thinks it's a bad idea, including Obi-Wan and that Qui-Gon because he's gotten his stupid ass killed and has, has made Obi-Wan promise to keep bringing him up that Obi-Wan who doesn't think it's a good idea decides to mentor the guy who's going to wind up bringing the galaxy to its knees. That is an interesting idea, unfortunately, also directly undercut. From a new hope when Obi-Wan is talking to Luke and they was like, well, also makes it seem that like, you know, he believed that Anakin was going to be, you know, a great thing. And we're like, no, no, it, it said right there in that other movie that he did not think. And that was what was interesting about that movie. That's that's like stupid cannon debating, but, uh, it's bad. It's a bad movie.
Mike00:14:47Sonny. It's the difference between a young hungry filmmaker who has to prove something, you know, this, the star, a new hope star Wars had to be great. And then like a filmmaker, it is like past his prime. Who's like, it's going to make money no matter what. And like, he wants to use it to do his own, you know, crazy political drama, whatever, which like, that was not what anybody signed up for in the first place.
Sonny00:15:16Well, I mean, the series doesn't really, I still don't think the series goes off its rails, uh, entirely until. Attack of the clones because attack of the clones is where like the, nothing is real. Like none of the sets are, it, it all looks entirely fake throughout, um, all the shadows are wrong. All of the like walking and talking is wrong. I don't know. I like I'm, uh, I give, I give Phantom menace probably more of a pass than you do, but I would still say, I mean, it's not, I would not describe it as a good movie per se, but
JVL00:15:49people liked it when it came out.
Sonny00:15:50Well, of course they did because there's 15 years of it. And, uh, anticipation built up to that. I mean, it's like the, the entire reason people were excited for is because there wasn't any star Wars for 15 years, aside from droids cartoons and Ewoks, it's, it's like, it's
JVL00:16:06like a dude who's been in prison for 15 years and he gets out and he sees this horribly ugly girl at a bar. And then the first night he takes her home, he's just like, oh, I think this is the greatest thing ever. And then like a week later, after he's seen more than one woman. And over the course of 15 years, he's like, I can't believe I fucked that ugly chick. That's what it is.
Mike00:16:28Sonny, what's going on with you?
Sonny00:16:30Uh, not a whole lot, not a whole lot. Um, I, let's see, uh, I, I have a, I have, I'm concerned, I'm concerned about something I'm concerned about. Oh, um, I'm concerned about, uh, my wife who has been radicalized by the internet. I never used to really believe that internet radicalization was a real thing. I always thought it was an excuse people would use like, oh, I watched some ISIS videos. Now I want to cut people's heads off, but I, I don't know. I'm, I'm getting, I'm getting to the point where I'm a little worried about it because the algorithm has been, has been on Instagram. The algorithm, the almighty algorithm has been feeding my wife an endless stream of Halloween decoration videos and every day she's, she's just buying more and more of them. And I like, and I, and I like, it's a, she's, she's always been more into the holidays than I have. I'm, I'm a bit of a Grinch. I don't really like Christmas. What? I don't like Halloween. I don't like, I like Thanksgiving, but I like the act of Thanksgiving. I like the act of eating lots of food and watching football.
JVL00:17:39The act of giving thanks. Right. And with Christmas, you really, you're focused on the birth of Jesus. Like you don't like all the pageantry and commercialization.
Sonny00:17:46No, I like that. No, I like the commercialization, but I like it to be contained to one day. I just want, I just want. I just want all the presents and that's it. Um, but, uh, I just, she, and, and it's, I think it, it's a real, it's a real problem. We have to think about as a society, how does she get it? How to stop. Tell us about the decoration.
Mike00:18:06Is it the 12 foot tall skeleton from home?
Sonny00:18:08No, no, she, I think she, I don't think she wants to get one of those because putting it together would be actually pretty difficult and she knows I'm not gonna have any, any part of it, but it's definitely, it's like a lot of like styrofoam, uh, you know, gravestones and that's a, you know, spooky trees and oh, she did the eyes that she put on the tree
JVL00:18:28out in front. I don't know.
Sonny00:18:30The tree looks spooky. I don't know. I I'm, but I'm worried. I'm worried about, I'm, I, again, my, my concern here, my broader concern here is, is not really about Halloween. I'll survive having a lot of crap in my front yard during Halloween. I am worried about the, uh, I'm worried about the state of our civilization. Really? This, the, the way the algorithm is destroying the basic fabric of, you know, how we behave
Mike00:18:51so question is, is our Halloween crafts a part of what the algorithm is serving up things like, I don't mean, I don't mean, I, I mean like little decorations that she and the kids can do.
Sonny00:19:04Oh yeah. Absolutely. They've already started. They've already started doing them. They've already painting. They're painting spooky houses and making little felts, carving pumpkins. No, no. And there's no carving. You can't carve pumpkins in, in Texas because it's, if you carve a pumpkin now, it'll be moldy in three weeks. Or squirrel. Or like a week. I mean, it's like, it's 105 degrees today. You, if you put a, you put a car pumpkin out there and it's gonna be, but it's also, it's,
Mike00:19:30it's also sunny. It's September.
Sonny00:19:33It's way too early. It's way too early to be doing this stuff. It's way too early for any of this. It's way too early for any of this.
JVL00:19:37This is our Costco started rolling out Halloween decorations three weeks ago.
Sonny00:19:40Totally. I mean, all the stores have done. I, I, Halloween creep is the new Christmas creep in that, in that I really do think it's again, this is a societal problem. This doesn't really, this isn't, this isn't about my wife. Per se. It's about the idea that as a society, we have accepted this constant barrage of Halloween and other related, uh, holiday nonsense, and it's gotta stop the non, the holiday nonsense has to stop.
JVL00:20:09I, I'm putting. So I guess you're not gonna put the lights up on your house this year for Christmas.
Sonny00:20:12I didn't put on a blaster.
JVL00:20:14We hired somebody. No, that's fine. But, but you hired somebody to put them up.
Sonny00:20:18I, if it were up to me, I wouldn't put up Christmas lights. I would, I, if it were up to me, I wouldn't put up a Christmas tree. I would just, uh, I would just have a pile of presents in the, in the corner of the house. Just throw, throw the gifts on the pile. Children will sort it out on Christmas. We'll distribute them then.
Mike00:20:39Sonny comes down, uh, the stairs like at 10:00 AM on Christmas morning, sipping a, uh, coffee mug of bourbon there. There's Christmas. There's it's over.
Sonny00:20:48Here's here's five pounds of meat. Uh, if it were up, the best part of the year for me is like between basically January 10th and I guess September one now, cuz that's when the Halloween season starts that, that like eight months stretch that eight or nine months stretch is the happiest part of the year for me. Cuz there's not really that many holidays per se. I mean, there, you know, 4th of July there's Easter or whatever, but those aren't like big decoration.
Mike00:21:13Don't lie. There is no, there is no way you're happy for that long a stretch of time. Sonny.
JVL00:21:19Give me the date. Give me the go live date for this year, 2023 for the first Christmas decoration you see in Costco. I'm gonna say September 29.
?00:21:30Yeah.
Mike00:21:31Yeah. I would, I would, I would go with, I would go with sometime in mid October because by then they've. Oh, I'd take the under on that. You think?
Sonny00:21:41Okay. Oh yeah. I don't know. Probably. Yeah. It's late September, early October. They're probably, they're probably, you could probably go buy a Christmas tree right now at Costco. Probably. Definitely. You could go to, you can go, I bet they're, they have the fake trees up already.
Mike00:21:54Yeah.
Sonny00:21:55They're hanging. I don't go to Costco thankfully. So, you know, it's just whatever happens to be up at the target. That's what I see.
JVL00:22:02All right. Michael, how are you buddy? Oh, I'm fine.
Mike00:22:05Uh, I don't wanna make this in, I don't wanna make this into something where I'm bragging on my, on my kids too much.
JVL00:22:12Um, oh, come on, just do it. I was putting you up to it.
Mike00:22:16I was very proud this past weekend. My oldest. I mean, almost nine year old, uh, did his first triathlon. Um, there is a neighborhood triathlon, uh, in all the kids do it. It's very like low, low key. Um, it's, but they bring in a bunch of sponsors and they have them broken up into groups. So there's the six to eight year olds, the nine to 11 year olds, and then the 12 to 17 year olds. And you know, kids do it all the, you know, the, the teenagers do it in teams and they make, make, you know, make it a fun thing. And there's breakfast afterward at the pool and all this stuff. And so, um, this was something that he had never done before, but a bunch, again, a bunch of his friends were doing it. And so we signed him up and you know, the biking, the cycling is great, you know, easy for him to do. The running is he's, he loves to run. Uh, it was the swimming that we were kind of nervous about, which was the first leg of it. Uh, 50 meters swimming, uh, a mile on bike. And then half a mile running and, uh, and he did it and he finished it. And it was, you know, I don't know how long it took. It probably took, you know, over 25 minutes or so, um, for him to do it all. But it was, uh, it was kind of a great little bit of, and, and all the kids had, you know, that when they finished, they had like this kind of a finish line with a balloon, a kind of a balloon arch that they got to run through. They had professional photographers. And so they, like every kid got a, like three professional, you know, photographs of them running or biking or swimming. And, uh, and then everybody got to, you know, have like, uh, blueberry pancakes and, and other fun stuff after it was totally great, totally wholesome. And I'm just proud of the guy.
Sonny00:24:08Do you remember? I'm sorry. Is, is 50, is 50 meters one like Olympic size pool length is that, is that how long 50 meters
Mike00:24:16is? I think so. This, this would, this was two laps. Okay. Um, on this, on the sides of the pool that they were in, so.
JVL00:24:24So how was he at the finish? Was he like the famous Chris Lee at the finish line of the triathlon, you know, the Ironman triathlon and was it 96 or 97 where his body started malfunctioning? Remember this? No. Yeah. I was shots during gate of the Gatorade commercials. He's like getting all herky jerky and they just cramping up and yup.
Mike00:24:43Yeah. Uh, no, no, none of that. It was, uh, he finished, he had a smile on his face and, uh, yeah. Again, the hardest part was at the beginning and like once he was through that, then it was easy street. So, uh, it was good. Um, he, uh, said he wants to do it again next year, but on a team. So maybe he'll only do one leg of it, but it's fun. It's nice. It, it, it did strike me though. It's like of all the place, maybe these things are common in, in suburban subdivisions everywhere, but like if there's a place where like there would be, you know, uh, you know, over 200 kid to do a neighborhood youth triathlon, it would be in Northern Virginia. Like, like where like half the parents are just like really intense about exercise and all that stuff. Professional photographers. Yeah, exactly. It was, um, so it was a little ridiculous, but it was fun. It was nice. So that's really all that's, that's going on, uh, with us. So.
JVL00:25:40Yay. Mazel tov.
Mike00:25:42Thanks. Uh, why don't we just move on here? Let's talk about, uh, well, let's talk about the box office real quick because, and I know Sonny, we're going to have to break this up or which one should we talk about? Because there's the, there's the weekend, regular weekend, Friday through Sunday box office, but there's also the Labor Day box office numbers, which are slightly different. What is the appropriate list and numbers to look at, uh, from Labor Day?
Sonny00:26:09Uh, I think the order is the same on both of them.
Mike00:26:12It is, it is the equalizer three at number one, but it's like a, it's like a significance difference. I was surprised. It's not quite, I guess, what $8 million more it made on, on Labor Day. So, uh.
Sonny00:26:23It's a holiday weekend. The, I mean, Labor Day has never been a huge, uh, box office weekend because it's the end of summer. Kids are back in school, you know, and, uh, whatever, um, the, but this was the second biggest, uh, opening on a Labor Day of all time behind Shang Shi, which came out a couple years ago. Um, 2021, I think, uh, so, or was that 20? I don't even remember whenever, whenever Shang Shi came out, that was, that was the number one, um, uh, Labor Day box office release. Uh, I, the, the interesting thing about the equalizer is how incredibly consistent this franchise is. I saw a tweet from, uh, the, the guys who run the website, the numbers, which is kind of like a box office mojo like site, um, and the, the diff the variation between the, the three equalizers is like, I, it, it was a smaller variation, uh, between the opening of one, two, and three, um, than any, any other franchise by, by an enormous margin. I can't, I, again, I don't know how numbers work, but it was, it's so it was very, very tight pattern. Um, so I, I mean, look, I, this movie did well. It's, this is the first legit number one, uh, since Barbie came out, I, I don't think we, I don't think we count grand Turismo as a, as a legit number one. Um, uh, so, you know, the box office is back. Yeah. It's not gonna make us, it's not gonna make as much money as Taylor Swift is gonna make. We, you guys follow that story at all.
JVL00:28:02We, we have to do that movie and I know you don't want to Sonny, but a Michael has stories about his time in college with Taylor Swift, the time they were at a party together. You went to college with Taylor Swift.
Mike00:28:13No, no, no, no, no, no, no. She showed up.
JVL00:28:15Well, I'll, I'll have to tell it on the show. I'll say over the show, but also it's gonna make, it's gonna open to like end game money.
Sonny00:28:22It's gonna, it's gonna make a lot. No, I am gonna, I am gonna, I, I am gonna see it and we can do an episode on it. We, I ended up getting brow beaten into, uh, doing it for across the movie aisle. Uh, apparently, apparently it's sexist to think that this is gonna be an all quadrant
JVL00:28:40hit man. Everybody's gonna go see this.
Sonny00:28:43The issue isn't whether or not it's gonna be a hit issue is whether or not there's gonna be something to talk about, because let me tell you, I got nothing to say about Taylor Swift. I've listened to the songs. They're fine. She's gonna, she's doing a concert. Oh, she changes her costumes. Great. Look at this. Look at this. She's on a stage. She's a showmanship. I don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck about any of that.
Mike00:29:04When is this movie coming out?
Sonny00:29:05By the way? October 10th. No, I think it's the, uh, uh, is it that weekend or is it the weekend after that? I don't know. I could be wrong.
JVL00:29:14Um, mid October. And, uh, no, but I mean, title.
Mike00:29:17Is what era's tour?
JVL00:29:19Yeah. And Michael, I mean, you, again, don't spoil it, but I think you are gonna have a lot to say about what Taylor Swift means because she is the closest thing that the music industry has created to a, to an all, all American, uh, sort of, again, all levels, all classes, all ages consensus hit. That people like since like Michael Jackson, I think.
Mike00:29:51Yeah, I guess. I mean, it's, it is so, um, I think at this point it is so, uh, female driven, um, which, you know, is, I don't know how to evaluate that with, because I mean, my understanding is Michael Jackson sort of had, had broad appeal, right? I mean, it was like, yeah, but I don't know. I mean, but maybe, maybe. Women are always the one who drive, like who are the pop stars, uh, of, uh, of, of any given moment.
JVL00:30:23But, but she's got, I don't know, she's got 20 somethings who grew up with her. She's got parents who have come to her through, I mean, again, I'm saying, you know, dads, Dwayne Johnson is a Swifty like it, but this is a monoculture. She is a monoculture, which is what we love, right? We wanted monoculture we, and Taylor Swift is broken out of all of the niches in a way. I guess so. Which has not happened in American music for a very long time. Sonny looks like he's gonna fall asleep.
Mike00:30:53Yeah. I just don't know what else there is to say about it. Well, I have a lot to say.
Sonny00:30:57No, but I mean, I, like, I, I, I don't disagree. I don't disagree with any of this, but my point is you don't actually need to see the thing to talk about it.
JVL00:31:05Well, you can just pretend to.
Sonny00:31:06I don't, I don't, I don't think.
JVL00:31:08I'm gonna go two or three times for you. No, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna go watch it.
Sonny00:31:11I'll buy enough tickets for you, Sonny. Here's, here's, here's the problem. The, the commenters. Uh, in the comment section of the across the movie aisle podcast are gonna, they got a real monkey's paw situation on their hand here.
Guest00:31:24They wanted me to go see it so I can talk about it.
Sonny00:31:28I'm gonna fucking talk about it. So they brought this on themselves. I just, I'm gonna get so many angry emails and comments about that episode. I can already, I, again, I haven't even watched it, but I know I have watched enough Taylor Swift over the, over the years to know exactly what is gonna happen. I, I don't know, man.
Mike00:31:47Well, I will say th there is one demographic that is really not that into Taylor Swift and it is the husbands and boyfriends of the millennials, uh, the millennial women who are obsessed with Taylor Swift. Like I know because I am friends with a number of them and we chat all the time about how we can't stand how much our wives, my wife excluded, she doesn't really care for Taylor Swift, but like that is, so I feel like. Like I'm in the zone for like not caring about the music element of it. So that's all I'm saying, Jamie, but if the show requires me to see it, I will see it. And that's all I have to say about that. Good. Well, let's talk about that. Number one movie at the box office this weekend, the equalizer three, Sonny, let's hear that review.
Sonny00:32:41The equalizer three, it's the latest equalizer movie. From director Antoine Fuqua. Is it?
JVL00:32:48Is it the third one?
Sonny00:32:49Washington. It's the three equalizer.
JVL00:32:51Three. It's the third of the movies.
Sonny00:32:53Okay. Third equalizer. Um, uh, as it happens, I watched all three of these movies back to back to back. Uh, just that, that is kind of how the, the, uh, schedule worked out for me. I watched number one on a Tuesday, number two on a Wednesday, number three on a Thursday. And it was kind of interesting to watch the series evolve a little bit because so in the first one, first one is very much a story. It's a slow burn. There's like an hour of setup or so, uh, where we see Denzel Washington is Robert McCall living his life. And then the whole thing culminates in like, what if guy kills bunch of people in a home depot with bunch of home depot stuff. And it's like, it's, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty violent and brutal, but it's also kind of funny and like interestingly high concept. And uh, I, I, I enjoyed that a lot. Uh, and then in the second one, it's a similar thing. Except it's like, well, what if a trained killer kills a bunch of people on an Island in the middle of a hurricane and uses his, you know, natural skills to confuse and deflect them, blah, blah. And this movie is a little bit different in that it is, it's, it's the same basic setup here. Again, it's Robert McCall played, played by David Washington, uh, Denzel Washington, not David Washington, Denzel Washington, um, who, uh, is, uh, he's a former CIA killer. Uh, he is, uh, basically. Basically going around helping people writing wrongs, using violence, righteous violence to do it. Um, but as the movie opens, he is, uh, Denzel is basically playing this character as almost like he played Macbeth in the, the Cohen, the Joel Cohen, Macbeth movie that came out a couple, or I don't know, one of the Cohen's, one of the Cohen's, uh, made a couple of years back. He's, he's almost like a mad king. He's like sitting there. He's kind of mumbling to himself, he's, you know, he, he is, uh, wearily violent. He is like. Just kind of tired of this, this life that he is living, uh, and he goes, uh, he is wounded in the course of, of one of his, uh, cases of vengeance to, uh, and, and has to recuperate in a island, a coastal, uh, Italian town where he is, uh, recuperated, brought back to health by the lovely villagers there, the lovely innocent villagers who were all surrounded by church iconography. And we can, we can talk about this in a minute. Um, uh. And, uh, as he is learning to live again, as he's recuperating, he, uh, the, the Camorra, the, the Sicilian mob, um, decides that they're gonna, you know, torment these people and get them all kicked out of their homes cause they're dealing drugs, drugs from their, that they're buying from, from terrorists that is funding terrorism. Again, we'll, we'll, we'll get up, we'll talk about all this in a second. And the whole thing culminates instead of being a. A kind of look at Robert McCall being a clever killer, finding out how to use his surroundings and adapting to them in, in ways that will dispatch his enemies. At the end of this movie, the, the whole final bloody sequence is essentially something out of a Halloween movie. It is essentially something out of a pure horror film where he's just like jumping out of shadows and like cutting people's throats and their spurts of blood. And he is unstoppable, implacable, a total force. Of devastation, but also like kind of terrifying, again, not funny, more terrifying, uh, and not clever, more terrifying. It's it's, it's, it's a very real tonal shift, which I find kind of interesting. I find kind of interesting that they have, they, they have made this shift, especially because, uh, the rest of this movie is set up in a very, is, is set up to do a very specific thing, which is all right. So in the first two films. McCall is constantly seen reading a book, reading several books, he's, he's constantly reading books. And the first one it's classics like old man in the sea, um, uh, or Don Quixote, which again, it's like, look at this old man reading about reading books about men who are out of their age and are trying to, you know, get back in rhythm with it in the sequel. He's reading, interestingly, Ta-Nehisi Coates is between the world and me and, uh, uh, native son, uh, the, the right novel, which again, it like is set. In a very specific, like he's trying to get this kid out of gangster life, right? He's, he's living in a world, you know, a post Michael Brown, post Trayvon Martin world. There's, there's lots of talk about, you know, race and whatever, um, which again, it like informs that character, what he's reading in this movie. There are, there's a, there's exactly, we see exactly one book. We see one book and it's the Bible, uh, that Robert McCall puts his watch next to. Now the watch was another kind of totem for, through the first two movies, he used it to time his kills, right? That was like his whole shtick. He's like, I'm gonna kill everybody in this room in 12 seconds. And then he times it and he sees how he does it. Um, it's, it's very interesting to me that again, he takes this watch, he puts it next to the Bible when he's done with his killing, when he wants to live the peaceful life, when he wants to get back into, you know, living, living like a, a good person. And then when he is ready to kill again, he takes the watch out, he puts it on and he is the, the watch has been sanctified in a way. Yeah. It's like iconography pops up again and again and again. At one point, the Camorra is beating up a shop owner and, uh, Robert McCauley decides to turn the other cheek. He's staring at a crucifix while this violence is happening. He's literally like, give me strength not to intervene and, and protect these people. And how is he repaid for this? He's repaid for this by the shop owner, getting his shop burned down later. And the, the Camorra running amok, um, uh, in the, the final, the final, again, the final kind of horrifying sequence. And there's a stained glass painting of Saint, I think it's Saint Michael over the bed of the, uh, the, the villain and, and, uh, McCall like throws a body through that, destroys it, comes crashing down the, the, I bring all of this up because Antoine Fuqua has long been a director who is very concerned and interested in the idea of the righteousness of violence. I mean, he made tears of the sun, which we've talked about a little before on the show, maybe all before your time, Mike, but the, but the tears of the sun is very interesting to me because it comes out in 2003, it comes out a little after nine 11, um, it closes with a title card, uh, you know, uh, from, oh, I forget, I forget who the author is, but the, the quote is, uh, the only thing required for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing. I get like this.
Mike00:39:37Edmund Burke, by the way.
Sonny00:39:38Yeah. It's the Burke, the Burke quote. Thank you. This is a running quote. This is a running theme throughout his work. It's, it shows up in the equalizer films. It shows up in the magnificent seven. Um, uh, and it's, again, this is, I think this is the clearest, uh, the clearest implementation of it. The clearest invocation of it. I, I, I joked a couple of times online, but this, this movie is almost like just war theory, the motion picture. And it's, it's, it's, I get, I think this is a more interesting movie than it needs to be. Um, I don't necessarily. I don't necessarily think it's a great movie. I wouldn't, I wouldn't put this like at the top of any of these lists. I think the first equalizer film was probably better. Um, uh, I think tears of the sun is better. I think magnificent seven is better, but like, I, I think it's interesting what he is trying to do here. Um, now the movie itself is kind of a mess. I, I would contend there is a 20 minute subplot involving Dakota Fanning and the, uh, the, the people who are trying to track down the drug dealing between the mob and the terrorists somewhere. There's a room floor that just got, it just got hacked out of the film because they're like, this is this, we don't need any of this. And as a result, I don't think the entire thing kind of works. It feels rushed in a weird way. Um, but, uh, but I, I mostly like it. I mostly find it more interesting than it needs to be a thumbs up from me before JVL,
Mike00:41:02before we hear from you, I do have to issue a correction. Sonny, the Camorra is not the Sicilian mafia. It's the mafia in Campania and Naples. The Cosa Nostra or Cosa Nostra.
Sonny00:41:14Oh, I'm Sicilian. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't, I didn't mean to besmirch the good name of the Cosa Nostra, uh, or, or, or the
Mike00:41:22Camorra for that matter.
JVL00:41:23Uh, Michael's people are very sensitive to these things. Sonny. Yeah, exactly.
Mike00:41:28Well, especially since we were neither from Campania or Sicily, we're not with any of that stuff, but literally a direct ancestor changed his name to sound less Italian. So Michael, what did you think? What did I think? No, I want to hear what you, you want to hear what I think. I want to hear what you think. Okay. I didn't, I have not seen the first two equalizer movies, so I'm going into this cold. I literally had no idea what it was about except that Denzel was in it. And I have to say, I could watch an entire movie of old Denzel hanging out in the Amalfi coast. Like 100,000%. Thank you. Like it, it, I was just, I just wanted it. I just wanted to watch it. It reminded me, I was telling, I was telling my wife this, that like, it reminded me of how magnetic and charismatic Denzel Washington is. Like the reason why he is a movie star. I was reminded of it. Not that I haven't forgotten it necessarily, but I was reminded of it in this movie because every moment I just, I wanted to watch him and I wanted, I loved every moment he was on the screen. Um, and I could not agree with you more. And, and frankly, the, you know, I, I had the same thought Sonny about the, uh, Dakota Fanning, uh, plot, which by the way, I did not even realize that was Dakota Fanning until the credits at the end. I was like, who is this woman and why did she look kind of odd to be like, she's kind of an odd looking person, frankly, like she does not look like a traditional Hollywood actress. So I was like, who is this woman? And then it was like, oh, that's Dakota. That's Dakota Fanning. I guess I hadn't thought about her in years. Um, but it almost felt like, like the moment spoiler at the moment where the bomb blows up and she's like knocked on her ass. And then you see her in the hospital, it was kind of like, it was literally cut off her plot entirely. It was just like, all right, that's done. She's done. She's out of the way. Like let's, let's move on. Um, yeah, that was the weakest part, but I, I just, I loved it. And once the action started, it was, it was great and it was fun and it was fine. Um, I'm not complaining about it. It was, it was brutal to watch and it was fun. And to see the Kimura get their comeuppance, uh, but I was kind of like, I got hung out for another couple hours with, you know, with all here's, I could have hung out with him after the fact, after the town has saved and he's just living the good life in whatever that town is called. Loved it. Um, that's all I have to say about that.
JVL00:44:02Yeah, I, I, uh, I gotta say, so let me, let me give you my personal history with the equalizer. So I did not, I guess I kind of. I kind of knew that this version of the equalizer existed, although I had forgotten about it until I saw the trailer for this like two weeks ago. And I was like, huh, Denzel did an equalizer didn't didn't queen Latifah do an equalizer. And it turns out queen Latifah did a CBS led version of the equalizer, which is a reboot of a mid 1980s version of the equalizer, which started a British thesbian named Edward Woodward. Yep. And I was, as a child of the 1980s, utterly disdainful of this, because at that moment in time. Action stars or Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dolph Lundgren and Sylvester Stallone and the guy, the idea of a guy, an old man like Edward Woodward, who at the time was 42. The idea of an old like geriatric guy like that being the heavy. He struck me as so patently ridiculous that I laughed at the old people who said they liked the equalizer. I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? That's not a guy like him. Can't be. Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger. Look at commando. Look at his muscles, right? That's what it looks like to be an action here. That's the kind of guy who could kill people. And now here we are again with the distance of age and time and in, I loved the crap out of this movie. And I loved it for all the reasons you said, Michael, which is just hanging out with Denzel Washington in this little Italian village. And I, I gotta say, I have always liked Denzel Washington. I've always thought Denzel Washington was both a movie star and a very good actor. I think this might be my favorite Denzel performance. Not the best movie he's been in, but the best performance he gets. It is. He, he crosses the threshold where he's not really acting so much as he is behaving. If that makes sense. This is when he's acting without acting, he looks naturalistic on screen, no matter what
Sonny00:46:22he is doing. He looks like a real person. Yes, that's correct. Who you wanna, who you wanna like be friends with.
JVL00:46:28And he just, anyway, the, the, every minute the, the movie spends with him sitting at a cafe table or chit chatting with the waitress or watching kids run around. Yeah. Is fantastic. Uh, he's funny. The character's well written and here he is. And this is, you know, Denzel is now an old guy. Yes. Right. Denzel does not look like he could do all of these things. And here I am as a middle aged old guy myself. And I just was like, I'm like, this is the kind of action movie I'm, oh, give me more of it into my veins. And so as, as with the journey from the Phantom Menace from there to here, this is kinda how I felt. Equalizer. Yeah. And, uh, it's really something and the extent, you know, Sonny, you, you are so perfectly right about this, that this isn't even really, it's not even a man as shark movie, you know, it's not like you could see where somebody might say, oh, it's kind of like Jason Bourne, but it's not because the Jason Bourne movies are a lot about the mechanics of, okay, well, how does he kill this guy and go from that to that and in this, and maybe it's different in equalizers one and two. He just sort of appears he's like, he's, he's supernatural. He's the boogeyman. Right. And like, you know, how does he, well, because he's got a meat cleaver, you know, how does he disarm that? Well, he just shoves a poker through their throat. This is don't think about it too hard, right? Because the violence is sort of beside the fact the violence is more elemental and a fact of nature. Yep. And, uh, that scene, the shot, just the shot of him in the beginning, when he is sitting in the chair with the glass of wine next to him, the two guys, their guns on him, the back light. And you can see the dust motes floating in the halo behind him. I looked at that. I was like, man, that is a hell of a shot. That is a hell of a shot.
Mike00:48:21And they built up to it. Well too, like the walk, the walk through the villa was such a terrific, uh, a terrific buildup to, you know, the Denzel Washington equalizer movie. And yet you're like, when are we going to see him? Like what's going on here? What did he do? Oh my God. He got that guy and that guy. Look at that.
Sonny00:48:39It's not quite a, a one take, but it's pretty close. It feels like there's one, there's, there's one cut toward the end that gets you like down. I, I imagine they like, couldn't get the camera rig through that narrow hallway or something. Um, but the, uh, but it's, it's very close and it's, it's very good. I love that shot too. It's a very showy shot. It's a very like, again, this is why I compare it kind of to Macbeth. There's a, there's a, there's a, the idea of Denzel Washington sitting on that chair, hunched over, muttering to himself. Yes.
JVL00:49:12That chair is a throne and he is absolutely the mad king. Cause he's talking to himself. Even when he's talking to the, the capo who shows up, right. The, when he talking to that guy, he's half talking to himself. Like he's, he's carrying both sides of the conversation with them. You know, when he says something about, you know, like this, your man over here is two feet too close. He's already dead and he doesn't even, he doesn't even know what I feel sorry for his family. Right.
Mike00:49:37Oh, it's so good. Okay. So I have a series of, well, okay. I have the same question, but about three different things that as a viewer of the first two equalizers, you can hopefully answer. So my question is, were these things about McCall established in either or both of the first two? Uh, and I'll list them out here, the napkin folding thing where he sets. Okay. So that's established, um, the relationship with Dakota Fanning's mom. His mom or dad or like, okay, that's, that's where, and then the guy who's money, he initially
Sonny00:50:16goes to Sicily in order to get, well, so that's just like, so the reason you find out at the end of the movie that Robert McCall has traveled to Sicily to disrupt this entire drug trafficking network worldwide to get back $300,000 that had been stolen from somebody's pension fund, um, that he like lived next to.
Mike00:50:38Like it, it's like, well, he said he was, he was like Uber drivers, right?
Sonny00:50:42Yeah. His Lyft, his Lyft driver. It's the, it's the, yeah, this, that, that's like the, like, it's the most absurd, extraordinary version of everything else he does in the rest of these movies, which is like, he hears somebody complaining about a thing that has happened, an injustice that has been done. And he writes that wrong.
JVL00:51:00Yeah. It's the a team. Right.
Sonny00:51:03It's the, it's Knight Rider.
Mike00:51:04Right. It wasn't like this guy of Kung Fu, but it wasn't like this guy was like in the first scene of the first equalizer driving.
Sonny00:51:10No, no, no. Okay. He's just a, he's just a random guy that Robert McCall is helping.
Mike00:51:13Okay. Well, what I wanted to say really was the, the napkin thing where he's setting the table with the unfolding the, I, I don't know why I was so affected by that and maybe it's because I hadn't seen it and it's supposed to be just a callback to something that's established earlier. But I, I, it was so, um, you were saying JVL that he's, he's like, or maybe you were saying Sonny, he's like somebody very real that you know. Yeah. I know people like that.
Sonny00:51:40And It's just, it's a character. It's a character tick. Yes. He, he's a very, he's a very fastidious and, uh, you know, a neat person.
Mike00:51:48But just, just the way him as an, yeah, his, him as an actor doing it, it was just a, it was like weird to say, but it was a joy to watch him. Yes. Doing that stuff.
JVL00:51:59Michael, I wrote that in my notes, hand to God. I wrote that I, it is a joy to sit and watch Denzel practicing his craft at this level.
Mike00:52:08Totally. Totally. And also the movie looks like a bazillion bucks, like just shooting it in this little
JVL00:52:15town on location with such amazing like scenery. I don't mean the scenery of like, you know, the, the shots of the coast. I mean like the, the hallways and the buildings and little staircases, those things were amazing.
Mike00:52:27It helps. It helps us. So good. Like every little town right on the Amalfi coast is like, it's like a movie set.
JVL00:52:33It's so, um, I compared that to phantom menace in my mind while I was watching it. Right. And I was just thinking about the cost structure for these two movies and how one did everything in a soundstage in front of a Greenstein and the other, like, you know, it was a mid budget movie packed off to this, you know, probably shot almost entirely on location and the difference in how much money it looks like is on the screen is something else.
Sonny00:52:59Oh yeah.
JVL00:53:00Can we talk about the Catholic stuff?
Sonny00:53:02Yeah.
JVL00:53:03So Sonny, did you understand the end where the town. The town is processing holding the, uh, the liter with their, the statue of their patron saint.
Sonny00:53:15I mean, I understood that it was like a Catholic March. Right. Did you understand what that was?
JVL00:53:23Not really. A Catholic March. Okay. So, uh, this is a thing that small Catholic towns would do throughout all of history on two occasions, one on the feast day of their patron saint. Mm-hmm or two when they were under extraordinary threat and we're seeking protection and it is not made clear whether this just happens to be the feast day, but the fact that they're doing it at night suggests to me that this is not a feast day celebration, but town has gathered together to go and parade the statue around the town, asking the saint to intercede on their behalf and protect them. Yeah. Which is what Denzel is. Yeah. Denzel is literally the, the right hand of God reaching out with his rod to smite the evil doers. And, uh, I don't know the iconography throughout the whole thing. It's just beautiful and it's real and it's concrete, but it's not heavy handed. Did you feel the same way? Michael? Like I didn't feel like I just thought it was like per a perfectly Catholic.
Mike00:54:30It was, I had the same thought. It was, uh, I guess we're having a mind melt here, JBL, but it, it was, it was Catholic in so many ways. And one of the ways was the ordinariness of, of his life there, um, the way in which, uh, like all every aspect, you know, the meals that he was eating, the, the, the medical care he was receiving, like they were all sort of in the way in which the Catholic symbology and the Catholic theme sort of were throughout it, you know, very much touching on the idea of, you know, of, of. God in every finding God and every sort of ordinary moment in life, uh, very much came through and, and, and frankly, I mean, this is probably, I'm sure, I'm sure the priests listening would, would probably have something to say about this, but like, you know, even just the use of, of, of blood and, and the, and the body and all of this stuff was just very vivid. And, uh, I, I am, I, I was sort of surprised to learn that the other two equalizer movies were not sort of bathing in all this as well. I mean, it just, it, it just seems like it's so much a part of, of Fuqua's like viewpoint or mindset. Um, I mean, I, I'm not that familiar with his, with his, with most of his movies or sort of the, the training day is a very Catholic training day.
JVL00:55:55Yeah. Well, it's right. So life in the sacristy. That's right.
Sonny00:55:59That's right. So
Mike00:56:01no, but it is, I mean, there is something, oh, okay.
Sonny00:56:05Well, the training day is a, is a classic Greek tragedy and the hero is Alonzo Denzel Washington's character and he's laid low by his flaw hubris. I mean, that is, it's, it's got unity of time. It takes over one place. Right. Right. It takes, it takes place over one day. It has unity of place, the office, the car, like it takes place all within or adjacent to the car. Um, and it has unity of action. It is, it is all about Alonzo trying to get out of this debt that he has accumulated. Um, you don't realize that until most of the way through the movie. I mean, the, uh, the, the, the only, the only problem with this theory is that you have to actually read, uh, Alonzo as the, the tragic hero, which I think I like, I don't, I don't think is too far off of what Foucault and Ayer were going for. I might be wrong.
Mike00:56:51I don't know. Well, I don't know if there was like some kind of, if there's been some kind of journey that Foucault has been on in terms of his own, I don't know, like, I don't know any of that stuff. I just, it, it, it, all of the Catholicness was both text and subtext.
Sonny00:57:06Uh, I was, I was, again, this is why I keep, I keep describing this movie as just war theory, the most motion picture, because it is literally about the, it is literally about the times when it is okay to commit violence in the defense of innocence. I mean, like that's the whole movie, the whole movie, the whole movie is a rejection of turning the other cheek and saying, uh, we, we have to, we have to accept the slings and arrows of our enemy. No, it's about sometimes you gotta kill a bunch of motherfuckers and that is righteous and it's fine. Not only fine and righteous, it is sanctified by God. Well, the only way this could have been more, the only way this could have been more Catholic is if like the Pope had shown up and been like, this is my guy right here. Yeah.
Mike00:57:48Like, uh, well, yeah. And there's the, you know, he, he tries to kind of turn away from his vocation, right? Like he wants to, he wants to retire to this place. He's, he's like, I can finally find peace here, but he can't. And I guess he could have, right. Like he could have moved on and found some other place. And I, I also like that. I like to have it to this, you know, he falls in love with the town and, and I guess they say this like in the text of the movie, um, and, and the town falls, like falls in love with him and, and sort of adopts him and, um, I dunno, just enjoyable.
JVL00:58:20So I, I got a real question for you guys here. I'm look, scrolling down Denzel's filmography, and there are a couple movies of his that I like better than this. Only a couple, not, not all that many of them, I, I honestly don't think I see a performance here that is as good and compelling as his performance of this. Does anything come to you guys, Sonny, do you have, you know, I, it's funny.
Sonny00:58:46I recently watched, uh, I re recently rewatched, um, uh, man on fire, the Tony Scott movie, which is actually very, very similar to this movie in, in that it's about, I get, so just one little, uh, in man on fire, um, the lead character's name is John Creasy. Uh, who sacrifices himself to save an innocent. I don't, again, I'm, I don't wanna like spell things out here, but you know, you gotta, you got JC out there sacrificing himself to save, uh, an innocent all the while, like committing acts of terrible violence and, and vengeance. Um, uh, I like that performance a lot. I like that performance a lot. Um, I, uh, I don't know. I would have to think about this more. I, I, I really like, uh, his performance. In, um, training day, I don't think training day is necessarily a very good movie.
Mike00:59:40Um, but that is a, and that's what he won the best actor for, correct?
Sonny00:59:43Yes.
JVL00:59:44Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, his performance. That is great. I like this better.
Mike00:59:51Like inside man is I think a criminally underrated movie and he's, he's very good. I was gonna say inside man.
JVL00:59:53I, I like that. He's really good. But still not, you know, I, I don't know, man, again, I, I'm not saying he's a bet. I've always thought of him as a, you know, a top-notch movie star and a very good actor, but between this and. Uh, Macbeth and his Macbeth was fantastic. He was great in it. He was so good in it. And, uh, I just feel like he's kicked it into another gear qua actor over the course of the last two. Yeah.
?01:00:19Yeah.
Mike01:00:20Yeah. Uh, any of the thoughts on the equalizer three or Denzel or Catholicism in film boys? No.
JVL01:00:29Uh, can I ask Sonny? What is, did they re. Purpose score in this as well? Because that sort of, there is a pulsing sort of industrial metal, uh, motif, which punctuates the score three or four times, which sounds like Trent Reznor and I, but it, it tickled my brain and I couldn't tell whether it is being reused or not.
Sonny01:00:55I don't, I don't think so. I don't know for sure. Um, but the, the, the score in this movie jumped out to me as well as like more aggressive than the, the score for the first two of these movies, which again, I like watch back to back. So I, I was like fully steeped in equalizer arcana, um, at that point, again, the, the book thing is very interesting to me because it like the, the, the, the, it is just, it's very funny to sit down and watch equalizer two right now and Robert McCall is reading between the world and me and native son and it's like, this is a movie that is tied very specifically to some time between 2016 and 2020. Yeah. Like this is a, this is a very explicit time period. This movie is taking through a shot and written and conceived in, um, I don't, I don't know that you would see a lot of that necessarily right now. Right. Right.
Mike01:01:53All right. Uh, well, I guess we all liked it, uh, and, uh, that's all there is to say about that. Uh, you can come to some beacon.com, uh, join us, become a patron. Yeah. And we will see you next time I did keep wanting Denzel at various points to just drop a, my man several times throughout this, throughout this movie and, uh, oh, American
Sonny01:02:25gangster.
Mike01:02:26That's another great. Ooh.
Sonny01:02:28Yeah. It's a, it's a performance. It's a good movie.
Mike01:02:31I like it. He's fine in it. It's a good performance. I don't know.
JVL01:02:35It's it's an okay. I got some, I got a question. I don't know if I should ask it on air or once we stopped taping.
Sonny01:02:41Hmm. Okay.
JVL01:02:43I'm doing this in honor of, of our departed friend Victorino.
Mike01:02:48Ah, okay.
JVL01:02:49So, uh, in the movie, one of the main characters is the local carbonari Gio was a good cop. It's a good cop. He's good police. We see Gio at home.
Mike01:03:02Hmm.
JVL01:03:03With a young girl who appears to be about seven or eight years old, his daughter, his daughter, and another girl of very indeterminate age. If you told me she was 15, I would believe it. If you told me she was 25, I would also believe that. And then we see them at dinner again, him with the two girls and it is unclear to me, are they both his daughters? No, no, no. That's his wife.
Sonny01:03:35That's his wife. That's clearly his wife. That's clearly his wife. Are you sure?
Mike01:03:39She's definitely like late twenties.
Sonny01:03:40You think?
JVL01:03:41Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny01:03:43Well, I don't know. I mean, I don't know what her actual age is.
JVL01:03:45I think she looks again, you told me she was 15. I would say, yeah. Okay. I see that. Well, she's the older sister. The wife died tragically in childbirth when the second one was born. I can understand that backstory totally. He's a widower.
Mike01:03:59No, because he's, but here's the thing. He's not old enough. He's not old enough. To have a 15 year old daughter.
Sonny01:04:06He. 24, 24. Okay. So mid twenties.
Mike01:04:10Yeah. But I, I, I knew where you were going with that JVL. I, I did, I did have a moment where I was that way. Who is this? Who is this? And then. The plot thickens. I'm sure it's fine.
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