#210. 'A Haunting in Venice'
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The main review covers A Haunting in Venice, Kenneth Branagh's third Hercule Poirot outing (with Tina Fey as Ariadne Oliver and Michelle Yeoh as the séance medium), and all three hosts land somewhere positive: Sonny gives it an enthusiastic thumbs up, ranking it above Death on the Nile but below Murder on the Orient Express, praising the real Venice location shooting and Branagh's hammy accent work; Mike loves it too, singling out the Dutch-angle camerawork and Tina Fey's performance; and JVL is more mixed, admiring the moody, candlelit cinematography but arguing the studio's decision to sell the film as a horror movie leaves it "neither fish nor fowl" — too horror-lite for horror fans, too undercooked as a mystery (he claims you can call the killer in the first fifteen minutes) for Poirot fans, though he still calls it better than Death on the Nile. The episode is recorded under duress, with Sonny apologizing repeatedly for phoning it in — literally, via iPhone and AirPods — after a coffee spill fried his six-year-old MacBook mid-Sunday-work, sending him through a saga of Genius Bar rejection, a new MacBook Pro purchase, and a spirited JVL lecture on Apple Silicon RAM efficiency; JVL then recounts his mother-in-law getting fleeced for $3,200 by a door-to-door "leaf filter" gutter-guard salesman, and Mike relates his own multi-week home-repair odyssey diagnosing and clearing a frozen, clogged refrigerator drain pipe. Later tangents cover the box office (led by The Nun II, with A Haunting in Venice debuting at $14 million), Italy's sudden moment as a shooting location (Fast X, Equalizer 3, The Pope's Exorcist), Kenneth Branagh's eclectic directing career, Tina Fey's rise from SNL writer to leading lady, and Hugh Grant's late-career renaissance with Guy Ritchie — before the hosts tease future episodes on the Street Fighter movie and Deion Sanders/Coach Prime.
From the show notes
Apologies in advance for how Sonny sounds and the lengthy explanation for his problems.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00I do not believe in psychics. Come with me to a seance. Spot the car and I can't. Detective, you are here to discredit me. But I can talk to the dead. I'd give all I have to hear my daughter's voice. If someone wants to be heard, we are here. Listening.
?00:00:30Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast.
Mike00:00:33I am your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me, as always, are my two co-hosts, who, when the voices speak, they take dictation. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com, where you can become a patron. Get first access to our episodes every Friday. Get exclusive access to those occasional bonus episodes. Comment, share, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Comment, vote in polls. Just become a part of the Sub-Beacon community at Sub-Beacon.com. We're going to be talking about "A Haunting in Venice" later in the show. But first, let's check in with everybody. How we doing, Sonny? What's going on with you, my man?
Sonny00:01:20Yeah, if you guys can hear me, you'll notice that I sound like shit. My mic sounds bad. Yes, it does. And that's because I'm talking to you. You may notice that you can see an entirely different angle of my room from usual. Things are at a lower angle. You get a wider view of the room.
Mike00:01:40You're askew. You are askew, Sonny.
Sonny00:01:42I'm view-askew, if you will. And my sound is bad. I have to apologize to all the listeners out there for having to put up with this because it's a real drag. Having to do the show this way, but I'm on my AirPods. I'm on my AirPods because I'm on my iPhone. I'm on my iPhone because five days ago I was sitting on my couch doing a little bit of Sunday work. Because the work never stops, guys. The work never stops.
JVL00:02:16Fingers to the wall. Not in this business.
Sonny00:02:18Doing a little bit of Sunday work on my laptop. And I had been kicked out of my normal computer room. Which is, you know, I have like a little room where I tend to do most of my work when I'm not in my actual closet/podcast studio. But I had to leave. I had to leave the computer room because kids wanted to watch TV. So I was like, alright kids, you watch TV. I'll go in the other room. It's the kids' fault. I put my computer in an unusual place right next to my coffee. And I turned my hand around and just spilled... Not even a lot. I would say like maybe like two ounces of coffee onto my computer. Directly onto my computer. In such a way that it... I don't know if there's like a little vacuum in there, but it like sucked up into the motherboard through the back. So I was like, oh shit, that's not good. But you know, sometimes you get a little water on your computer and think everything's fine. That's happened. You know, it happens to the best of us. So I like immediately went and kind of started to clean it out. And I noticed in the corner of the screen a slowly expanding bit of water. I was like, oh, this is much worse than usual.
JVL00:03:36So I immediately...
Sonny00:03:39The first thing I did... Maybe this was a bad call. I don't know. But the first thing I did was I immediately ran a backup. I immediately backed everything up onto my external hard drive. Now I've got, you know, I've got the cloud. So like long story short, I don't save everything to the cloud. Because there are massive amounts of podcast files on my computer that I don't necessarily want to spend the money to keep in Apple's ecosystem. But I ran a backup immediately. And then turned it off and like put it upside down on a piece of newspaper. Where for the next hour or two, water continued to leak out at a... Or coffee continued to leak out at a... Small clip. And I was like, well, this is bad. There's nothing about this that is any good. I turned the computer off and then the computer turned itself back on. And I was like, that's probably not good either. That's not ideal. You don't want that to happen when your computer is full of water. So I took it to... I consulted with a tech guy. He was like, take it to the Genius Bar, see what they can do. I take it to the Genius Bar. Genius Bar guy runs the serial code. He's like, oh, this computer is vintage. And I was like, OK, what does that mean? Well, sir, it means I can't really do anything for you. We don't have the parts to fix this, even if I could fix it, which I'm going to be honest with you, I probably can't. But the good news is it's still turning on. So that's that's a good sign for you. I was like, well, OK, great. He said, let it air out for 72 hours. Put it out there and rice.
JVL00:05:20Put it in a bag with five pounds of rice to tell you that.
Sonny00:05:24You know, I asked I asked about the rice thing and he was like, that doesn't really do anything. You're more likely to get kernels of rice in your in your logic board than you are to actually use the rice to clean. So I was like, all right. So he so I put it I've been kind of moving it around, you know, keeping it upside down, taking it outside. After 72 hours, I went to turn it back on, went to turn it back on and nothing happened. There was not there was no I put in, you know, I plugged it in. I plugged in the power cord. There was no sound. Usually when I put in the war, there's like a little thing. But or or when you turn, you know, when you turn on the Mac, you get the boss. Nothing, nothing happened. Nothing at all happened.
JVL00:06:03So I like questions when he said vintage. How old is this laptop?
Sonny00:06:08This laptop is a 2017. I got it.
JVL00:06:14It's like 90 in computer years.
Sonny00:06:16Yeah. So so it's six years old. It's six years old. I've had it since 2018. I bought it in 2018. Actually, technically, the free beacon bought it in 2018. And then I purchased it from the free beacon when I left in 2019. But the but so I've been using this. I mean, I've been using this computer 10 to 14 hours a day every day for the last five years, five plus years, five and a half years, let's say. So it's got some mileage. It's got some mileage. Anyway, I tried to turn on nothing. Happens. So I was just like, well, I'm going to have to bite the bullet. I'm going to go to the I'm going to go to Best Buy because Best Buy is having a sale on MacBooks. And I want to I want to stay in the Apple family because once you're in the family, you can't get out. There's my everything I have is integrated into all the tentacles of the Apple ecosystem. I'm not going anywhere. They've got me forever. I go and I pick up a new MacBook. I pick up a new MacBook Pro and I get the Apple care and I get the whatever I get. I get I get all I get all the stuff I need. It's nice for suckers. No Apple care. Apple care. You got to get the Apple care, man. You got to get the Apple care. Oh, you're you're both crazy. I I have two small children. You're going to tell me I'm going to risk not being able to get everything repaired for free when one of them drops it off the corner of my car. Corner of my. Anyway, it doesn't matter.
JVL00:07:48We'll amortize this out after you're done.
Sonny00:07:50Your story got the the. Anyway, I get home and I before I put the computer away forever, my my longtime trustee Mac, I give it one more shot. I like I push the buttons. Nothing else brings it. Plug it into plug it into all the different outlets. Nothing happens. And I go to close it. I finally go to close it one last time. And the motherfucker turns off.
JVL00:08:14The motherfucker turns on as I'm closing.
Sonny00:08:18It just it. The screen comes on and I'm like, I see it come on as I'm closing and I'm like, wait, and I close it and I open it again and it's off again. And I'm trying to figure I'm like, what is happening here? Do I like I press I press the trackpad. I press the power button. Nothing is happening. I press the spacebar kicks back on. So I'm like, OK, this is clearly not an ideal state of affairs, but maybe maybe things are coming back to normal.
?00:08:43So I'm like, OK, this is clearly not an ideal state of affairs, but maybe maybe things are coming back to normal.
Sonny00:08:43So I'm like, OK, this is clearly not an ideal state of affairs, but maybe maybe things are coming back to normal. So over the over the next few hours, things, you know, it's working and it crashes a couple of times. But it's you know, it's kind of I'm able to write my review of dumb money this week for the bulwark. I'm able to I'm able to to, you know, get some get some other things done. I'm able to do a full backup. I get everything into the cloud that I want in the cloud. I get I get it all done. I get everything done. And I was like, all right, well, this is kind of working. Let's see if we can let's see if we can. Let's see if we can make this. Let's see if we can make a go of this. So on Thursday morning, literally two hours before we take this, I had a podcast scheduled with Brian Abrams, the author of You Talking to Me, the Definitive Guide to Iconic Movie Quotes. We had a fun chat, but I warned him. I was like, look, there's a decent chance that I'm going to disappear. And my computer's going to turn itself off. We're going to have to do this a different way. But sure enough, 15 minutes into the interview, my computer just shuts off, just just shuts right off. So I end up doing the rest of it on the phone, which is how we are doing this right now. This has been a 10 minute story to get you to the point right now, which is I am on my phone. I'm recording this on my phone and recording it through AirPods instead of my lovely Yeti blue mic and my my my wonderful status CB1 headphones. I got to do this all wirelessly. And that's terrible. It means lower quality. I'm sorry about that question. Yes.
Mike00:10:12What happened to the new laptop?
Sonny00:10:15I still have it. I didn't return it because I didn't. I didn't. I figured that there were still likely to be issues.
JVL00:10:22I figured I would just fire it up and then we'll record on that.
Sonny00:10:25Well, because that was my next question, JBL. Well, because I don't I don't have time. I don't have time to. I didn't have time to set it all up for this show because I get time to set up that entire story.
Mike00:10:35But you didn't have time to set up your laptop.
Sonny00:10:37I didn't have time to set it up. Didn't have time set up. But I. I'll be back next week on a proper computer, headphones, et cetera. But this whole week has been just a nightmare because for the rest of the week. So, I mean, like, I'm doing all of my work on my phone. I had I did across the movie aisle. I had to write out the script in longhand on paper. It was I'm I've been living like a savage for these last four days. I've gone a little bit crazy from not having a quill on papyrus. I'm not having smoke signals.
JVL00:11:12I don't know any other abacus every time he has to do math.
Sonny00:11:15It's it's been a it's been a real. I mean, the phone is an amazing device. It is basically like, you know, the second most powerful computer I've ever owned. Now, after this new MacBook that I have yet to boot up. But I don't know. The whole thing has just been a nightmare and a mess.
JVL00:11:30Did you get a MacBook instead of the MacBook Air? I got a MacBook Pro.
Sonny00:11:35I got a MacBook Pro.
JVL00:11:36That's a mistake.
Sonny00:11:38It's a mistake to get the MacBook Pro.
Mike00:11:39Why is the pro worse than the air?
JVL00:11:42So right now, the air is significantly cheaper than the pro. And the only real difference is the. The nits on the screen. So the screen can be a little bit brighter if you're going to be using it outside. I would suggest if you have if you really haven't opened it, just do a quick price comparison on the air.
Sonny00:12:08I've done all this. The problem with the MacBook Air is that to get to get 16 gigabytes of RAM, which I need, you don't work. Yes, I do. Trust me for I've I've I've edited these shows on a computer with eight gigabytes of RAM and I've edited these shows on a computer with 16 gigabytes of RAM and they take twice as long.
JVL00:12:28I don't really I don't want this to turn into Geek Squad. Oh, it's already turned. You have only used in the old the old Intel silicon. The new Apple silicon chips. The entire memory structure is different. And so I am using like eight gigabytes of RAM on both my because I have an M1 chip in my my MacBook Air and an M1 chip in the Mac Mini. And I use eight gigabytes of RAM and it blows through editing of stuff way faster than like the 64 or 32 gigs I had on my old MacBook Pro. The entire structure of how the chips work. Because it's a system on a chip is different and you don't need any more than the baseline eight gigs that they give you. Unless you're doing a ton of video editing. Okay.
Sonny00:13:19Well, I'm not doing that.
JVL00:13:20I'm telling you for real. It will blow your mind. Okay. You see how fast it is on eight gigs.
Sonny00:13:27All right. Well, let's talk off. Let's talk offline. We'll figure. No, no, no.
Mike00:13:32Let's keep going.
Sonny00:13:33This is really good content. You know, three days ago when I told you about this JBL, you could have, you could have given me a heads up there.
Mike00:13:40I just assumed that he was saving it for the show.
JVL00:13:42Well, speaking of people who got taken for a ride, my mother-in-law was over the other day and she said, I said, you know, do you want some company on, on Tuesday afternoon? No, no, no, I don't need, we're going to have a, we have somebody coming by to do, give us an estimate for the house.
Mike00:14:02I said, oh, oh, what are you, what are you looking to do for the house?
JVL00:14:04Well, it's the, the leaf filter, the gutters, the leaf filter. What do you mean? Like the little helmets on the gutters? She goes, yeah. I said, don't, don't do that. Why would you do that? And she goes, well, because otherwise the leaves get stuck, but I'm not. She goes, don't worry. Don't worry. I'm just going to listen. I'm not going to buy anything. Just going to give an estimate. Eight hours later.
?00:14:26How did I have that work?
JVL00:14:27She goes, oh, it's great. They're coming to install them tomorrow. And I was like, what? He did a demonstration. He brought, he had a little setup with a, with a little mini gutter and he brought his own bag of leaves and he put it on water from the sink to show. And it's amazing. We will never have to worry about our gutters being clogged again.
Sonny00:14:49Is it, is it like the mesh thing on top?
JVL00:14:51Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:14:53That's right. Oh, those things are the worst. We have those on the house that I have now. I hate them. Cause the leaves just get stuck up there. Well, the leaves just get stuck in a different place. You have the runoff.
Mike00:15:02That's right. That ends up starting the base for a bird's nest on top and you have to clean that out every six months.
JVL00:15:13So I said to, I said to her, I said, Peggy, Peggy, Peggy, Peggy, how much are you paying for this? This leaf filtration? You won't believe it.
Sonny00:15:24Care to guess? I would guess $800.
JVL00:15:28I would guess a 1200. 3,200.
Sonny00:15:33Oh my God.
JVL00:15:34And she got, she got a 30% discount because she had a nice face. And uh, and I said, you're like my jaw, I'm sorry, you're paying what? And she goes, I said, for the little things on top of the gutter, she goes, it's not just for that. It's for the whole house system. Oh, what else is there? She goes, I don't know, but it'll take care of the whole house. I said, Peggy, I don't understand this. And she's like, she, she was just, but I won't ever have to worry about the leaves. Get in the gutters. I said, Peggy, what happens if the leaves get in the gutter? She goes, well then the gutters get clogged. I said, yes. And when the gutters get clogged, what happens? Does the house explode? Is there a fire? She goes, no, but then you have to, you have to climb up on a ladder to clean them out. I said, okay, when is the last time either you or dad climbed up on a ladder? She goes, oh, it hasn't been for a long time. I said, okay. And the house is fine, right? She goes, well then you have to call, you know, Joe kind of say act or something, you know, to, to come and clean them out. I said, okay. When's the last time you called Joe kind of say, she goes, well, I, I can't remember, but, but Brian, her son, she goes, she, he called him just a couple of years ago. I was like, okay, how much do you think, how much do you think Joe charges you to get up there on? I think it might be $300. If this is every five years that you got to call Joe and give him $300. Let's do some math here on what these leaf filter system just anyway, it, uh, it was adorable in a way. And also it made me angry because it is watching companies preying on older folks.
Mike00:17:12Now was this stuff like, was this a knock on the door solicitation?
JVL00:17:16Do you think that's a fascinating question? I do. I did not ask. Uh, I, I suspect it was a mail drop solicitation because by good fortune I came home that very day and in my mailbox was a card from the leaf filtration system. Um, which offered me 20% off if I just use the coupon code on it. And I, so I texted Peggy and I said, boy, I hope you, I hope you got your 20% off. She goes, oh no, he gave me 30%. It's like, wow, that must be amazing. I said, so what, I mean, first of all, it is such good luck that they have all the parts they need for your house in stock of this precision material so that they could, this vibranium that repels leaves that they could just come the very next morning to put them up. It's like, but, but tell me like, what does. What, uh, what is the special, what is this? Are these like laser etched, uh, you know, creases in the leaf guard to, to allow the water to filter, but how, how could this possibly cost $3,000? How could this, it seems to me that this is like $120 worth of aluminum and four hours of labor that they have somehow pumped up to three grand and it makes me gah.
Mike00:18:32Oh, yeah. So this, because the reason what's the rest of the system? Yeah. The whole house system. How does the whole house system work?
JVL00:18:39I don't think there is anything else. It goes around the whole house. It goes around the whole house.
Sonny00:18:48Are there special, are there special things inside the spouts to keep it?
JVL00:18:52Maybe, but they didn't like very clear. This isn't new gutters. Right. Right.
Sonny00:18:58Give them new gutters. They're just tops on the gutter tops. Just tops. Just tops with like little holes in them. So the water can go in, but the leaves don't go in.
JVL00:19:06Yeah. Who are they going to have? Like 60 linear feet of aluminum, like 60 linear feet of four inch wide aluminum with some perforations on it for $3,000. Amazing.
Sonny00:19:18It's a pretty good deal.
JVL00:19:20So the solicitation, did she get the gutter care plus? Just in case there's any, uh, in case anything goes wrong with them. Yeah. Like squirrels and birds. Yeah. You ought to pay the extra two 50 just so then, then you'll really never have to for
Mike00:19:38the lifetime of your house and you, and you get that, uh, that undercarriage coating that really does the trick.
JVL00:19:43Oh, to rest proof them.
Mike00:19:45Yeah. You definitely want to rest proof it now with the, with the winter coming on too.
JVL00:19:49Anyway, I hate companies like this and I, they're scams and I especially, it's one thing to take advantage of like stupid 30 year olds or stupid 40 year olds. But, uh, to like prey on old people, do you guys don't like it?
Mike00:20:08Do you guys have people going around the neighborhood offering their services, like knocking on actually knocking on doors for all these things in Virginia, in Virginia, you'd frequently
JVL00:20:18get, Hey, we're doing work at a house on your cul-de-sac. We wanted to see if you guys wanted any tree trimming, that sort of thing here. I don't get that because that's why I pay Jimmy to make sure that nobody ever comes around to my house because somebody would come around to my house. If I wasn't, uh, paying a little protection, I would say that's, that's, that's what they
Mike00:20:35call protection up in, uh, up in New Jersey. I've only noticed it in Virginia when I was growing up in Georgia. I don't remember anybody ever coming around, knocking on the door and being like, Hey, we'll do this for you. We'll you know, so maybe it's, are there laws looser in Virginia, perhaps? I don't know. I just think it's, it's, we have to put up like this little sign, no solicitations just to stop people from knocking on our door every single, cause my wife works from home. So like she doesn't want to be interrupted by somebody.
JVL00:21:07Is it housing density? Is it just a question of ease of access to a given number of homes that you can efficiently,
Mike00:21:13I think there's a couple of things going on as well. Our neighborhood is, um, the average age is pretty, uh, old, so I think there's a lot of people here who w they see this as maybe a right market. Um, and.
JVL00:21:31I'm a jitterbug salesman. Do you need help learning how to use a cell phone? Exactly.
Mike00:21:36I also think, and I don't mean to cast aspersions on my neighbors. I think as opposed to where I grew up in ex urban Atlanta, there are fewer people here in Northern Virginia who do stuff on their own. They contracted out for lots of things.
JVL00:22:01Yeah. Hear you loud and clear there.
Mike00:22:03Big guy. Yeah. Speaking of I had some fun in home maintenance this past weekend.
JVL00:22:10Oh, remind me off air to ask you about nail guns. Oh, I don't have a nail gun. I'd love to have a nail gun.
Mike00:22:16Uh, no, this has nothing. There's nothing that's sexy.
JVL00:22:20Um, cause I have to build a shed.
Mike00:22:22Oh, Ooh. Ooh. Let's talk offline. Uh, no, this was, this was another adventure in drainage, um, which are the, the most fun. Of home maintenance projects. So we started to notice about a month ago, a little, um, a little water beneath the refrigerator, uh, coming out. Oh, that's not good. Uh, clearly something to, we have the, the refrigerator on top, the freezer on the bottom. So clearly it's doing the defrost cycle. Something's not going right. Um, something's leaking out. So I pulled out the refrigerator, this was about three weeks, maybe a month ago and vacuumed all the dust off the condenser coils, made sure everything was nice and clean underneath there and put it back in. No more water. It was great job. Well done. Mission accomplished, put up the banner, uh, the water returned last week. So I knew it wasn't the coils. I knew there had to be something else going on and oh boy, how long was the interval between the, uh, it was probably about 10, 12, maybe two weeks. Okay. So we had like a little respite from, yeah, water. Um, so I had a feeling this was going to be a bigger job and boy, let me tell you, it was, uh, so pull out the ref the freezer again. So what we decided to do. What we decided to do is maybe here's what we'll do. Let's take everything out of the freezer, do a full defrost. Maybe we'll do a full defrost. Yeah. That sounds good. We have a basement refrigerator and freezer and we can put stuff in there and in coolers and oh, and by the way, let's do this after the kids are down on a weeknight. Um, this'll be fun.
JVL00:24:22Is your refrigerator freezer vintage?
Mike00:24:24Uh, it's not vintage, but it is cheap as hell. We're trying to sell this house, uh, and Gussie up the kitchen as much as possible buying the cheapest stuff at, at, at, uh, not, not us, sorry. The people we bought the house from, but I say the cheap, I did not realize you were moving. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. We are never moving from this house. We are never moving from this house until we pay it off. Um, and even then, maybe not, um, no. So it's a cheap, it's the cheapest, you know, a mana that they got at home.
JVL00:25:00Just a mana that had a stainless steel door.
Mike00:25:03Exactly. Wow. Bingo JVL. So we start taking things out. We can see there was a sheet of ice on the bottom of the freezer, right? So clearly the water has leaked frozen and, and here's the problem. Okay. Uh, what's going on here? And I said, you know what? There's that back panel on the back of the freezer where the fan is. Um, you know, did you just open that thing up by yourself? So I opened it up and I gotta say, I'm glad I did because it became very clear what the problem was after that. So, so in case you've never done this before, you know, there's a possibility that the drain for your, for your condensate can get a little frozen. And what they recommend is you take like a Turkey baster of hot water and, and put it down in this little hole in the back of the freezer to loosen, to, to, to, to melt it and loosen the water up and then it'll come up. Um, and it was very clear after doing that a couple of times that ain't going to work. So that's when I took the panel off and I could see wrapped around some copper piping and all other kinds of electronic wiring is a giant block of ice, just a giant block of ice. Uh, so I'm like, all right, that's a problem. Uh, how are we going to do it? So by this point, the freezers, the refrigerators unplugged, uh, you know, the freezer is empty and I've just got it open and I'm like, you know what, there's something more than just, it's not just that this there's this block of ice that is frozen in the back of my freezer. That drain pipe is. It's still a problem. So the way it works, right? You've got the drain pipe that comes down from the freezer into a little tray. And then there's the fan in the tray in the back underneath the, the freezer that, uh, that evaporates the water back up. Okay. So I pulled the refrigerator out from the wall, get behind it, try to locate this pipe and it is, I'm thinking, oh, there's like a little grommet on it and I'll just be able to pop it off and I'll see that there's like frozen water in there. Um, I popped it off. It's one of these dual, uh, P trap type things. And so like, it is not a SIM as simple as like, oh, thawing it because there is no frozen water in there. We take, I take it out, I put it in the sink and try to fill it up with water and it just immediately fills all the way up. So clearly there is a clog in this pipe that is preventing the water from going down into the little tray and evaporating up and causing the backup all the way back up in the freezer, this giant block of ice. So I have no idea how to get this clog out because like it's a small, it's a small little pipe. It's not like a big PVC pipe where you can put liquid plumber. Uh, I thought about it. I thought about that, but it's like, it's like a cheap plastic, like I'm not gonna do that. So finally, I, this is a lesson in when you've got a problem, go to home Depot and buy as many tools as you think you might need, because even if you don't use them, you might use them the next time. So the last time listeners will remember, I had the whole, uh, uh, leaking condensate pipe from, from my air conditioner, one of your snakes. So I used one of the small little snakes that was. Too short and I shoved it into this pipe. And like, again, this is a pipe that makes like an, a full S and I'm in the kitchen sink and my wife's like, that's, you can't get that out. There's no way you can get it out of that thing is too small, whatever.
Guest00:29:15And I'm just pushing, pushing, almost got it. I'm right there.
Mike00:29:23And let me tell you, yeah. Mm. Mm. Mm. Uh, and let me tell you.
Guest00:29:30Leave me alone. The baby's crying.
Mike00:29:34What came out the other end of that pipe is, was the most disgusting, ungodly, uh, I don't even know what, what ends up in a pipe like that because it's just condensate. A lizard. No, it was just gross. It was just like gross gunk. It was disgusting. But like, how does it, how does that gunk anyway? So I, I got it out, I connected it all and the ice melted enough that I was able to break it with my screwdriver. And pull out the block of ice. Everything's working fine. Now the freezer's great. We don't have to buy a new refrigerator all as well, all as well there.
JVL00:30:11There's my story. That's a happy ending. It is a happy ending. Right? I mean, I guess I just would've called somebody. No. Yeah.
Mike00:30:20Time is money. No way. How much time did you spend on this? Probably. It probably took me about two hours, including the diagnosis.
JVL00:30:29Yeah. Oh, I forget that you, you went into the vacuuming before, right?
Mike00:30:33All the, so the 14 days, oh, I add that, add that into it. Uh, probably three hours.
JVL00:30:39Okay. Your time is more valuable. No, no easy.
Sonny00:30:42I, I mean, on the one hand, I, I I'm kind of with Mike on this, uh, on the other, I like live in fear of something like this happening to my, my house, because I would not be able to pull my fridge out. If you, if you remember, uh, from previous stories, I, the, the people who lived here before me put like. Uh, a, uh, Sub-Zero, um, built in fridge and freezer set into my house that it costs like $17,000 or some ridiculous amount of money. So when that, when that thing burns out, I'm, I'm, I'm not sure what's gonna happen. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be in real financial straits.
JVL00:31:19Those things never break. They just go, well, consumer reports loves the Sub-Zero brand. Do that. You're gonna be fine, Sonny.
Sonny00:31:27Don't worry. Do that. It's like, I don't even know.
JVL00:31:30Yes, it is. You're screwed is what he's saying. They like Sub-Zero a little bit better than they like Viking.
Mike00:31:36Yeesh. All right. Well, I'm sure that'll be fine. Uh, anyway, so that's my story. I was very proud of myself for sticking to, cause I was like, I know I can fix this. This is, this is not like, this is not an insurmountable problem. It's just a matter of taking things apart and taking a look at how they work and figuring out. I mean, Yeah. You don't have to be a plumber or an electrician to figure this stuff out. It's just, it's just easier to call somebody, but not at like nine 30 at night.
JVL00:32:09Those plumbers and, and the appliance repair, man, they're, they might as well be selling lethal at night.
Mike00:32:1430 at night. I'm not, I am not paying whatever it would cost to have somebody come out at nine 30 at night on a weeknight. So anyway, box office, yeah.
JVL00:32:22Let's get the box office.
Mike00:32:23Uh, all right. So this past weekend, number one of the box office, the nun too. At number one, just behind it is the movie we're talking about on this show, right? We're going to get around to talking about it, a haunting in Venice, uh, debuting at the box office, $14 million. Just a little over number three, the equalizer three, number four, my big fat Greek wedding three. So we got the nun to the third of, uh, Kenneth Branagh's Poirot movies that equalizer three, my big fat Greek wedding three, and then number five, Barbie hanging on, uh, coming up at $625 million total, uh, box office thoughts, guys.
Sonny00:33:07No, I, I don't really have any, I mean, it's a weird, it's a, it's, we're in the weird part of summer where slash fall, where like things are coming out and kind of getting dumped and you know, nothing is, nothing is doing huge, huge business. Um, it is, it is weird that we have like three, we have what three number threes here right now. We've got the big fat Greek wedding equalizer three, the poor road in Venice is technically a third. Um, but this, this series is interesting cause it really is kind of an anti franchise, um, which I, which I like about it. It's not, it's not, uh, you know, your, your typical numbered thing.
Mike00:33:48Can you judge it in the way, like how do you judge, how does it judge against other franchises? Because we've talked about how like the John wick movies for instance, tick up right. Uh, with each. Yeah. With each, uh, entry.
Sonny00:34:01Well, it's, it's, I mean, it's really hard to say because the, the, you know, the first one came out in, I think 2017 or 2018, um, and did okay business. I mean, it did, it did fine. These movies aren't that expensive. They cost 60, $70 million. Um, I think the, the second one cost the most, it was like 80 or 90 million. I don't know what they spend it on. Cause it's all great. But the, uh, but, uh, well, yeah, they, they probably, I mean, that was probably a, a big part of it. Um, but the, uh.
JVL00:34:29Uh, it's, it's hard to pretend she's being fucked up the ass on screen. That does not come cheap. Yeah.
Sonny00:34:37Um, the, uh, the first one did okay. The first one did the best out of all of them. Uh, the second one did not do very good, but it's, again, it's hard to say cause it came out in, it was supposed to come out in 2020, then the pandemic hit and it got delayed to 2021 and then it got delayed again. And by the time it came out, people like had thought it had come out 18 months ago. I mean, it was one of these weird pandemic orphans that kept getting pushed back and pushed back. Um, and then when it did come out, you know, there was all sorts of drama surrounding army hammer and, uh, uh, you know, the, the, the re so there were, there were a lot of bite
Mike00:35:15out of the box office is what you're saying.
Sonny00:35:17Yeah, sure. Sure. There, there were a lot of weird things going on with that movie, um, that, that it make it hard to draw a proper comparison. Uh, and this is, uh, this, this movie is suffering at the box office, I think, because the second one was much less well liked than the first, uh, every movie pays for the sins of its predecessors.
JVL00:35:35Mission impossible three birds.
Sonny00:35:37Right. Um, so the, the, uh, the problem with the second one is we talked about it, right? JBL didn't, we, we talked about it on the show. Did we not? We did. Um, the problem with the second one, the problem with the second movie is that it is, it's called, uh, death on the Nile and nobody on, in that production came within 3000. The miles of the middle east, uh, that, that entire thing was shot in, uh, in England on studios with green screen, everything. And as a result, it looked like crap. I mean, it looked really, really bad. Anytime that stuff wasn't happening, happening entirely within the boat itself, that most of the action takes place on anytime they were on the bow of the boat, looking off to the, the, the shores of the Nile, or when they went to a, uh, th there's a scene where they go to a, they take an excursion to a, um, uh, Um, burial site. It all looked terrible and fake. It was all, it was like the worst fakest looking green screen I've, I've, I've seen in a, in a long, long time.
JVL00:36:38Um, did not appear to be faking it cause that is the scene where she asks him to ride her and she looked like that. That was some fine acting. No, it was not faking it.
Sonny00:36:50All right. Uh, so that movie, that movie had a lot of problems. Uh, this movie is much, much better. It's much better in a very basic. Okay. Again, in a very fundamental and basic way, they did a lot of exterior shooting in Venice. This is a movie that actually feels like it takes place in Venice. You've got canals, you've got bridges that we saw most recently in the, uh, mission impossible dead reckoning part one, there were like similar. You could see some of the places that looked similar. Um, this is, uh, the Palazzo's look properly crumbling. Um, the, the, uh, there is a little bit of green screen work early. Where we see a big wide shot of the city as it might've looked in 19, you know, 48 or whenever this is supposed to take place. Um, but it's minimal, it's much more minimal than the first. And again, like having, having these murder mysteries that are taking place in exotic locations feel like they're actually taking place in the location is a big plus. Right. Um, it's a big plus. And the weird thing about this movie is it costs $20 million less probably because you're not paying Gal Gadot, uh, to, to be in it. Um, uh, okay. Okay. So there's that. So on, on just one very basic fundamental level, this is a step up from its predecessor. Yep. The, the, the film itself, the actual story.
Mike00:38:09So are we getting into this? We're getting into this, uh, big boy review, Mike.
JVL00:38:14Okay.
Mike00:38:15That's what this is. Is that what we're doing? You jumped ahead, which is fine.
JVL00:38:18I jumped ahead. It's fine. Start with the, uh, a hunting in Venice.
Mike00:38:22It's it's okay. We can, we can, there's a format to this. Don't deviate from Sonny. Sonny is out of his element. He's on his iPhone.
Sonny00:38:29I'm, I'm, I'm sitting here cross-legged like a, like an idiot.
Mike00:38:33Well, I don't even know what, can I say, because, uh, before you get into the review, cause I just wanted to ask, as we're talking about what you just said, the filming location of this place, I feel like this year we have seen and talked about a lot of movies set or, and, or filmed in Italy is Italy having a moment, a new moment here with, I mean, we watched the equalizer three.
JVL00:38:58Yeah.
Mike00:38:59Fast X.
JVL00:39:00Huge, huge scene in fast decks where they're going through Rome. They had to, they had to explode half of the Vatican city for that, which was one of the greatest practical effects I've ever seen.
Sonny00:39:10You know what this means is that somebody in the Italian parliament is getting millions of dollars in kickbacks from, from Hollywood because they passed, I'm sure I bet I don't know this for a fact, but I bet if you looked into it, there are massive tax subsidies for shooting in Italy right now because I hadn't thought of it. Until this moment. But you're right. We've, we've had a bunch of movies in Italy.
Mike00:39:32I'm not complaining. Fairly short order. I'm not complaining. It's nice. It's nice to watch Italy on the big screen.
Sonny00:39:37The Pope's exorcist, the Pope's exorcist, you JVL, you didn't want to do the Pope's exorcist. I think you would really enjoy it. It's only a little scary. It's only a little scary. It's not that, that scary.
JVL00:39:49Is it any scarier than a haunting in Venice?
Sonny00:39:52Speaking of scary, a haunting in Venice, so, so a haunting in Venice is the third of the Kenneth Branagh directed and starring Hercule Poirot movies. He's he's the world's greatest detective, but he's retired. He's retired to Venice. He just wants to sit on his rooftop and eat his pastries because he's been so scarred by the horrors of the world. He doesn't want to use his intellect to help people with their murder problems anymore. And then who shows up at his door, but Agatha Christie, AKA Ari, Ariadne, whatever, whatever played by Tina Fey, AKA Liz Lemon, AKA well, AKA like, um, uh, screwball, Liz Lemon, like Liz, Liz Lemon doing this thing all movie, Liz Lemon doing Claudette Colbert, my girl Friday. Oh, what are you talking about? Hercule? We gotta solve this murder. That's that's how she, I actually really enjoy her in this movie because I like, I like that whole affect. I like that screwball thing. Um, uh, but she brings him out of retirement to come and figure out the scene. The secrets of the, uh, miss Reynolds, uh, she's, uh, played by Michelle Yeoh. She's a seance artist. She's tricking these people into giving them money to, to talk to the dead. Uh, and they go to this Palazzo to do a seance for the, what, what is, what is, ah, the movie
JVL00:41:17with the carnies where he turns into the geek Bradley Cooper, what, what do they call the, the spook show? Spook show. Spook show. That's what she's doing. You're not supposed to do the spook show. You're not supposed to do the spook show. You do the spook show. You wind up as the geek. Yes.
Sonny00:41:30Uh, anyway, um, yada, yada, yada, mystery, murder, perky old Pharaoh solves it all. There's sadness. I like these movies. I like these movies, uh, for a very specific reason. And I liked them more than the Agatha Christie novels on which they are based. So I, I haven't read this one before, uh, though I did read, um, the previous two because they take murder seriously in a way the books do not. The books are all very trite. And I've talked about this before. On the show, the books are all very, they're very, uh, they treat murder as a game because this is a murder mystery. You're trying to figure out the, the solve the, and, and I find this incredibly shallow. I don't like it. I don't care for it. I, I, I just, I dislike what she does with the genre. And I also dislike the fact that like these things, the books themselves usually just
JVL00:42:20end up with like pages of exposition where it's like this happened and this happened and this happened.
Sonny00:42:26I don't, I don't care that I, I like, I like it more when it's here. And it's Kenneth Branagh being a total ham and hamming it up and doing his hammy accent work. I could watch Kenneth Branagh do terrible accents for a million years and never get tired of them. This is, I love, I love him being around and doing accent work him and him and Tom Hardy should make a movie together.
JVL00:42:47Um, yeah, I don't know. I like the, I like these movies a lot. I like, I like all the actors in them.
Sonny00:42:53Kelly Riley in this is a very good as Rowena Drake, the, uh, I like her a lot. She's a, she's great. Oh yeah. Yellowstone. I've never, I've never actually watched Yellowstone, but she's, she's very good. Um, uh, Jamie Dornan plays, uh, a physician, uh, whose spirit was broken in world war two. Uh, and his son in this is the same kid from Belfast, uh, Kenneth Branagh reteaming with them in this movie. They're both very good. Michelle Yeoh. Very good.
JVL00:43:21Uh, I, I don't know. Why, why is he given second billing? Why am I supposed to know him?
Sonny00:43:25He was, he was the, I don't know. I mean, he was the guy. He was the guy from Belfast. Again. He may have gotten an Oscar nomination.
Mike00:43:32He's a big, he's a big deal in, um, in, in the British, uh, oh, he's in Barb and star
JVL00:43:38go to Vista Del Mar. That's right.
Mike00:43:40Yes. 50 shades of gray. Yeah. He was the 50 shades of gray guy. He was, uh, okay.
JVL00:43:45That guy, Christian Gray.
Sonny00:43:46Done. So anyway, uh, I like these movies a lot. I like this one probably a little less than murder on the Orient express and a little more than, uh, death on them. Uh, I'm sorry. Uh, yeah. Death on the Nile. Um, but, uh, I don't know.
JVL00:43:58I thumbs up. Thumbs up. I like, I love these movies because they are, they are both, they both have the good characteristics
Sonny00:44:05of a franchise insofar as we have a repeated character who has like a whole thing. Uh, but they are not endlessly repeating themselves and they are, they are entirely standalone objects. I think they make a nice little triptych together. I think, I think watching Hercule Barreau deal with his various traumas and get over
JVL00:44:24them.
Sonny00:44:25And it's, I like all that. I like all that, but they all stand alone. They all work perfectly fine on their own. Um, and this is no exception. I, I, I, I like it. I like these movies. I like this one. Uh, thumbs up for me.
Mike00:44:36All right. JVL. What did you think of the parts of the movie you saw from behind your fingers as you were covering your eyes?
JVL00:44:45Sonny, you are leaving out the most important aspect of this movie, which is that this is played as a low key horror movie and the studio understands that it's even advertised as a low key horror movie. Even the one sheet does not betray that this is a hair cool Poirot movie that, that is a, you know, it is the, the one she poster is like, you know, a haunting in Venice with a giant skull. It's it is a, they're playing it for the heart crowd and trying to trick them into like, Oh, look at this. It's a British murder mystery. Ha, ha, ha, uh, and as such, there were things I liked about it, I mean, for the, for the middle 85 or 90% of the movie, you never see the edge of the frame. Um, w we are being shot almost entirely over the course of a single night inside a Palazzo with very limited lighting. Everything is being lit with, uh, you know, old light bulbs or, or gas torches. And as a result, you get that sort of warm glow towards the center of the frame. And then everything just sort of fades to black as you reach towards the edge. And it's like that in every single scene. And I found that beautiful to watch and into, I mean, you could almost feel, I'm sure this wasn't shot on actual film, but it felt like you could feel the texture of actual film there because of the way they handled the lighting. Um, but it's filled with horror elements. I mean, there, there's like, you know, gotta be seven different jump scares in it, uh, which are like just out of place in a. Murder mystery. That's, that's not how murder mysteries typically operate. And it deals, uh, very heavily in the supernatural until in the very end, when you find out the, you know, why the, why it is what it is. And as a result, the mystery portion of this is very undercooked. Uh, I would say you should figure out who done it within the first 15 minutes. It is not hard to figure out what's going on. The mystery component of this is. Is very weak sauce because they're leaning so heavily on the horror elements and, uh, like, so, you know, given all that, the performances are okay. I actually liked Tina Fey only when they let her be funny right there. I mean, there are a couple, a couple beats towards the middle of the movie where they really let her be, uh, a comic relief and she's great, but the rest of the time with the other business she's asked to do. I don't love it so much. I would have liked Tina Fey to be a little bit more off the leash there. I think, um, off the leash, she said, yeah, a little more off the leash and it's, it's, it's fine. It's fine. Uh, it's probably better than death in the Nile, but again, because of the horror elements, uh, it's not something I could ever watch with like, uh, you know, favorite favorites and I can watch that until she's like 15 and, uh, it's really not that go back.
Sonny00:47:55Yeah.
JVL00:47:56I was gonna say the jump scares are pretty tame. I would say No, they're there. They are tame. What I'm saying is they're out of place genre wise. Right.
Sonny00:48:04I mean, It's mashing it. It is doing a little bit of a genre mashup and they have definitely, the studio has sold this very much as a horror movie. I remember seeing when the first trailer came out, I was like, oh, this looks like an interesting horror movie. And then like the last face on the screen is kind of brought like, wait a minute. What? Like, wait a second. I literally pulled out my phone.
JVL00:48:24I was like, oh, I think it's neither fish nor fowl in that sense. It, there is not enough horror there to make horror fans happy. And I feel like they would probably be disappointed by this and there is enough like cheap jump scare and, and the, the mystery aspect of it is, as I said, just not, not strong enough that people who like poor row movies, I think are going to be a little bit disappointed and it's not bad.
Sonny00:48:51So this is the, as it happens, I knew what the secret of the case was already. Going into it just because I had happened to read years ago. I think it was maybe the introduction of the copy of a murder on the Ori orient express that I had like mentioned the, the thing that happens in, in this. And as a result, I was like, oh yeah, this is, this is very like, but I also don't watch these. Mike, I'm curious if this is how you watch movies like this, because I don't watch murder mysteries trying to figure out the mystery. I'm like, I am not. I'm not trying to solve the, who done it as, as the movie goes along. I'm just like kind of sitting there and taking it all in and letting it wash over now.
JVL00:49:36I want to win. Yeah. I know I watch a murder mystery. I'm trying to win.
Mike00:49:40Yeah. See, I'm, I'm, I'm much more like you, Sonny. I often, um, am interested. I'm thinking about who did it. Um, but I don't, I don't enjoy figuring it out. Um, my wife is very different. She didn't see this with me, but she always figures out. This, the thing, either it's a mystery or the twist or whatever, like several beats before it happens, several scenes before it happens, she like figures it all out. I can't do that. So I don't do that. I don't try to do that. I just try to enjoy the experience, which is what I did with this. Now I didn't see death on the Nile. So, um, I'm coming at this, having seen murder. It's not great. And then what? Death on the Nile.
JVL00:50:24Yeah.
Mike00:50:25Well, yeah. Death on the Nile is not great. That's why I didn't make the effort to go see it.
?00:50:28Um.
Mike00:50:28But I, so, and I like a lot of Agatha Christie, uh, stories. I'm, I'm not so put out by them as you are Sonny, um, because like the, the frivolousness of it doesn't bother me because it's just, I'm reading it as sort of to, you know, sort of escapism. Um, um, I haven't re so I haven't read this story, which this story is not called a haunting in Venice. It's called Halloween party. Um, and it doesn't take place in Venice, the, in the Agatha Christie story. It is, uh, it takes place in England. Um, so I haven't read this, but this is, I believe this is, this one is one of her later stories. Um, I think it's from the sixties, um, which I would be interested to know if you guys, maybe you guys aren't as well read as I am and I'm not very well read on Christie, but I, I, I find her like later stuff kind of interesting. Um, she has a story from the, I think the early sixties. Uh, which is called cat among the pigeons that I read recently, maybe that's like, yeah, that's like 1959. Uh, but again, kind of, uh, later, um, and, uh, I just, you know, I find them to be a little more complex and a little more, um, obviously more modern and, um, I dunno, I, I just enjoy the ride and that's what I enjoyed with this, this movie. I loved all the different, it felt like he was like playing around with lots of different, lots of different styles and approaches to filming. Um, like there's like these Dutch angles that are really kind of, um, JVL, maybe you thought they were jarring. I thought they were kind of fun. I thought it was like, oh, this is sort of disorienting. And you, when you find out sort of the mystery of it, the sort of, um, grounded reason why all these scary, seemingly supernatural things are happening. I think it works well with the story too, right? It's a, there's a bit of hallucinogenic element to, uh, to it. Uh, to watching, uh, this. So I really, I really liked the acting as well. Um, Tina Fey is, I liked her more than you did JVL. Um, I was very, uh, kind of impressed and almost feels like we need to do like a sidebar on Tina Fey because I feel like she is, um, she like gives hope to all writers everywhere that like, like that, that we don't just have to like be in the corner and, uh, be like the, the ugly people.
Sonny00:52:56Who all you gotta do is be funny and pretty.
Mike00:52:59Yeah. Well look, but she's not, she's not traditionally, uh, uh, you know, she doesn't have like the traditional Hollywood.
Sonny00:53:06She's not, she's not movie star hot. Exactly.
Mike00:53:09Exactly.
Sonny00:53:10But, but, but my point is, is that like through her, you're saying you consider yourself, you consider yourself to be roughly Tina, man, your man, a Faye man, a Faye.
JVL00:53:23That's what I'm trying to remember her origin story. What happened? Is she decided she had to get in front of the cameras and she was, she was a writer on SNL and she was overweight. And so she lost a ton of weight very quickly. And, uh, when she was being elevated to head writer said to Lauren, I wanna, I wanna anchor.
Mike00:53:43We can update.
JVL00:53:44Yeah. We don't. And he was very reticent and she's like, no, I can do it. I can be on camera. And that's when she adopted the glasses, which she didn't really need that game, like her thing. There's a, there's a very Tony Robbins aspect to her, uh, like self-made, right? But what you say, Michael, is a truism about Hollywood and maybe about life. Like the truth is you have to own a piece of the action. And as a writer, that means you have to, you have to be on camera too. That's right. Right. And so many, well, so you have to be on camera first so that then you can direct, right? Cuz you can't just go from writer to director very often. That's not all normal. I mean, it happens sometimes. Like Chris McQuarrie gets to do that, but it's easier if you can be Jon Favreau where you get yourself on camera first while you're writing, and then you get to start directing as well. Uh, yeah.
Sonny00:54:35Or you make horror movies. This is, this is like the small secret of the recent, like cheap horror boom is that all, uh, mo a lot of these movies are written, directed by guys who want to be directors, but can't get the shot to direct anything other than a $5 million horror movie.
JVL00:54:53Because people don't make music videos anymore.
Sonny00:54:54Right? Well, that's right.
JVL00:54:56That's 30 years ago. They would've gotten their shots starting making music videos.
Sonny00:54:59Well, but also that's a very different sort of skillset. I mean like, like David Fincher's not a writer like, uh, you know, Michael Bay is Michael Bay is really not. It's funny. I'm reading this, I'm listening to this, uh, this, this, uh, book about Disney, Disney wars. And there's, there's a moment where they're talking about, uh, trying to craft the followup to Armageddon and the rock and Michael Eisner was getting very frustrated because, uh, Jerry Bruckheimer, like had a bunch of ideas, but none of them were very good. And Michael Bay doesn't read
JVL00:55:28least surprising thing I've heard today.
Mike00:55:33Well, look, I mean, to your point, uh, JVL, like, yes, you need a piece of piece of the action. And I, I just, I admire Tina Fey for that because it feels like she did that when nobody else was going to, I mean, look, she was at Saturday night live, Lauren Michaels finds talent and elevates them. Um, but he wasn't going to do that unless she stepped out and stepped up and said, I am going to do this for myself. And I, I admire that. And now she's like doing like, you know, starring in movies that get to where she gets to go to Venice and like act with Kenneth Branagh and like do like her best screwball force.
JVL00:56:15And I, I just, I'm girls five, Eva, and she ran one of the most successful comedy shows of, uh, the. Right.
Sonny00:56:24Does she, is she a producer on, um, only murders in the building? Is she, she's, she's, she is involved there somewhere because she's showing up on Mrs.
JVL00:56:33Maisel.
Mike00:56:34Right. Isn't she? She definitely helped produce. I mean, everybody's a producer, Steve Martin and Martin shorter producing and Selena Gomez on only murders, but I believe Tina Fey is involved on the production side, of course, unbreakable chemistry. Yeah. I mean all that. Look, I like, doesn't need to be a team. I just, it was, this was the kind of thing where. Okay. She's in charge now, so she can decide like, like, yeah, I would like, she's in a position where she's like, yeah, I want to do that. And she probably like made that happen too. And that's awesome. Anyway. I, I loved, I loved her. I loved having Ariadne Oliver in it. Um, I, I, uh, I just think Kenneth Branagh is, uh, you know, I, I, his got such an interesting arc with like Shakespeare stuff and now the Agatha Christie stuff, he just seems like he's having a great time and good for him.
Sonny00:57:22I find, I find his career as a director fascinating because it's, it's an interesting mix of stuff that really matters to him. Obviously the Shakespeare stuff, uh, Belfast, you know, like he, he, he makes, he makes things that he, he really likes. And he also makes, uh, he, and he makes these poor row movies that I think he really likes, but also kind of work within the, the, you know, studio system, but he's also, he also is like a hack. I mean, he's also like a guy that he will, he will come in and do like, uh, uh, a, a say, I say hack, I don't mean that in a pejorative sense. I just mean like, he's like a guy or like Jon Favreau, frankly. I mean like, like he, he, he comes in and he directs, he directs store, he directs the first store. And I think he's, he makes the best of those movies, frankly, um, the first door far and away, uh, a, he makes Artemis foul, like, which is, you know, based on a kid's book for Disney. I think that wound up getting dumped to Disney plus, um, at some point, but like he, he comes in and he makes movies like that as well. I like, I find his, I find his career very interesting. I find his visual style very interesting. You know, I watched, uh, I rewatched Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, um, uh, uh, uh, last year because I w because it was new to 4k and I, I wanted to check it out. I hadn't watched it in forever and it's not a good movie exactly, but you, and, and like, it's weirdly, um, it's weirdly stagey, uh, as you might expect from a guy from Shakespeare, but it's stagey. Different unusual ways. Like it's a lot of the time stage directors have, uh, a very horizontal idea because that is where they've worked for a long time. And in, and there are a bunch of shots in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein where he's like, it's stagey, but vertical. It's like, he's been freed to explore a new axis. So he brings that, he brings that sensibility to it, but just up and down instead. It's very, it's interesting. He's very, I, I find him, I find him, I find him to be, uh, A really, a very good and competent director of the sort that we need more of. Again, these films are, they constitute a sort of anti-franchise. It is not the MCU. It is not the DCEU. It is not, you know, uh, uh, lore driven or like teeny bopper driven thing. Like it's just a series of self-contained movies for adults, um, that do okay. And are all perfectly fine. I would not put any of these movies on my top 10. For their given years. Right. Like I'm not great. They're not great, but they are good and entertaining and like a perfectly acceptable way to spend an evening out. And like, I think we need more movies like that.
Mike01:00:01Totally. It's, it is earnest in a way that, um, it's like anybody else seems to be embarrassed about like, and, and like, it feels almost like Kenneth Branagh is able to resist any studio efforts to like, I don't know, add some, add some irony or add some like. Like modernist, you know, sort of like it never comments on there's no, there's no comment in these movies, at least the two that I've seen, like from the modern world, like they, they all, they're all just like these, these little set pieces, set piece movies, murder mystery movies that happen in the forties and that's all they are and, and it doesn't complicate things. Can I say real quick about Kenneth Branagh? I love him in the Harry Potter movie, uh, as Gilderoy Lockhart, it's like, it's, it's, it could have been such a silly kind of role or, you know, somebody could have like done a bad job with it and he does a great job with it. It's like funny and he's, it's, he's, you know, every British actor, you made a face,
JVL01:01:02you made a face. You know why? Because I never forgave the producers for not casting, uh, uh, Hugh Grant, Hugh Grant does that. I mean, that, that role was almost literally written for Hugh Grant to play at that stage in his career. He would have been so much more perfect.
Sonny01:01:22Well, Hugh, Hugh Grant would play that role now. I feel like at that point he was still, he was too young, big enough or too.
JVL01:01:29No, that character is a young character. I guess you're right. That character is a heartthrob.
Mike01:01:33I guess you're right. Uh, yeah. Okay. Fair enough. I like, I, I recently watched this one. Uh, and uh, I just was amused by, by Bronnock's, uh, performance.
JVL01:01:44So when is Bronnock gonna work with Guy Ritchie? That's what I want to know. That's the most ambitious crossover in history.
Sonny01:01:52That's interesting. I wonder, I wonder if Bronnock thinks of Guy Ritchie as a little too gauche.
JVL01:01:59Hugh Grant works with Guy Ritchie.
Sonny01:02:01Yeah, but Hugh, I mean, Hugh Grant has done his best work since the early nineties with Guy Ritchie over, over the last couple of years. I mean, he's, he's, he's exceptionally good in, uh, wrath of, or not wrath of man, um, operation fortune, ruse de guerre and, uh, the gentlemen he's, he's.
JVL01:02:18He's so good in those, uh, movies with me, Raymond, he's fantastic. He's so good. Gentleman is so good. I feel like I vastly underrated that when we did that show.
Sonny01:02:31I think you, I think you, I liked that movie a lot and like, I have really come around on it. I like that movie a lot. And I was, and I'm like on, on all, on the 17 different podcasts I do about movies, like nobody else liked it as much as I did. Uh, but I'm glad the world is coming around to the gentleman that was a. That was a movie that got kind of lost in the pandemic. Everybody always comes around to the bunch position, but just thinking triumphant again.
Mike01:02:56All right. All right. Uh, any other thoughts on a haunting in Venice? I just, by the way, I just love like, again, we talked about this, but like Venice is so looks so good on screen and it's like fun to see like the canals in the wall. I just, I loved being there.
JVL01:03:13That's my only, that's my final thought about, about this was the second best movie shot in Venice that I've seen this summer, but there's so many mission impossible dead reckoning.
Sonny01:03:27The Venice scenes in mission impossible dead reckoning part one are, are better. Uh, but that's because that, that is like, that's maybe my favorite sequence in all of the mission impossible movies is that that scene where Tom Cruise is fighting the two people in the alley and has to sprint through the canals to get to save the women.
JVL01:03:45And he doesn't make, I mean like that whole scene of him coming out of that. Rave with all the candles. Oh yeah. I did think to myself as I was watching that, how long did it take them to light all of these candles? Cause you're looking at thousands of them and the way that light is, I don't believe any of that was CGI. Like the, the, the glow that light gives there. I think it's all real. I would have to, I'd have to look that up again.
Sonny01:04:07You know, that's a, that's a movie that that's my one box office thought on the summer is the, the box office take on that movie is surprisingly disappointing. I can't, I, I, I know it got kind of lost. Swamped and swamped in the Barben Heimer effect. Um, but, uh, the, the fact that it did pretty me, I mean, it's the worst grossing of these movies since I think the fourth one.
JVL01:04:30Well, and coming after an, an, uh, uh, episode that was beloved. Yeah. That did really well. Right. This is, yeah.
Mike01:04:41Yeah.
JVL01:04:42I think after gun Maverick, you know? Yeah. I think this was purely a function of timing entirely.
Sonny01:04:48I mean, look, the other thing, the other thing is these movies do have a ceiling. Like these are not, those are not movies that have ever grossed a billion dollars or even gotten really close to them. They grossed between 700 and $800 million. Like the mission impossible franchise is a known thing. People know whether they like 'em or not. So those there's, there is a ceiling there, but I was, I was still surprised that it did, you know, 550 or 600 million, whatever it did.
JVL01:05:13Yeah.
Mike01:05:14All right. Any final thoughts on. Nope. Our, uh, Paul Rose. No. Mystery. All right. Well, that's all the time we've got for this episode. Uh, remember to join us at sub beacon.com. Join us there and we'll talk to you next time. This has been a, uh, a good couple of years for Michelle Yeoh too, you know.
JVL01:05:41She's everywhere. She is everywhere. She's in every fifth movie. She and Anya Taylor joy. They haven't overlapped yet, but those two are getting cast and everything.
Mike01:05:48Uh, one, one is, uh, one greater sign. The other that's all right.
JVL01:05:53I got, I got two things, neither of which is really for us to talk about now, but I'm going to put them on the table for us to talk about later. Okay. First is that I rewatched street fighter, the movie and Jean-Claude Van Damme with G money. And uh, we need to do a whole episode about that because it is, it's not just a bad movie. It's an amazing movie. In that you, everything about it is just, well, how did this, how did this happen? Make now, when is in it, uh, like, you know, like 19 year old Ming now, when, and it's from the set design to the costumes, it is, it, it approaches the, the Dino de Laurentiis flash Gordon, I think Sonny, like that's the only calm, no Queens. Interesting. That's interesting. It's astonishing.
Sonny01:06:48I forget. Which came out first, that, or the mortal combat, the Paul WS Anderson, mortal combat.
JVL01:06:53I think this came out first.
Sonny01:06:55I feel like it did, but I, I may be misremembering, uh, I, I still actually like the mortal combat movie because it at least understands what it is, which is a fighting tournament movie. Yes. The street fighter like tries to, it's like, here's a plot and it's why, why would you do, why would you, why would you even attempt that?
JVL01:07:15That's silly. Mortal combat came out after street fighter. Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, which doesn't let Jean-Claude Van Damme do any martial arts. Yeah. Who does that?
Sonny01:07:24It's a weird. All right. I'm, I'm up for doing a street fighter movie when we have a dead week.
JVL01:07:29I want, I want to do that. Uh, and the other thing is at some point we have to have a conversation about Deon Sanders and the coach prime stuff, because I am very, very interested to hear what you guys think about all of it.
Sonny01:07:41Is he playing the game the right way, Davio?
JVL01:07:44I don't know.
Sonny01:07:45Is he, is he playing the game the right way? Yeah. What would, what would your, uh, what, what did the fans of, uh, think of Deon Sanders do you think?
JVL01:07:57So this is, I could honestly, I could see this both ways. I could see that being a absolutely look at this. He's starting a program from nothing much the same way that coach K did when he left West point and went to Duke. Uh, and all he does is win. Uh, and the other way I could see. I see is, ah, listen to how brash he is and I could see both. Anyway, I'm just, I'm endlessly fascinated by this and I'm fascinated at the extent that he does seem to be more Tony Robbins than bill Belichick. And does that matter? Maybe that matters more. Maybe, maybe in college football, amateur football, minor league football, as we like to call it sunny. Maybe that's all you need to do is be Tony Robbins. You don't need to be, uh, you know, Nick Saban or bill Belichick. I don't know, but I'm fascinated to hear what you guys think about it.
Mike01:08:51We could go on forever. Maybe we do need to do an episode on that. I, I just think in the sec, you can't, I mean, you need like the Nick Saban or the Kirby smart, um, outside though, I mean, it, it works. My question is how many major league baseball teams are going. I think we could hire Dion and inject some, inject some excitement into, uh, baseball.
Sonny01:09:18Maybe a triple a baseball coach and go both, both ways, both minor league way.
Mike01:09:22You could take a helicopter from, from Colorado, from Boulder to, uh, yeah, to the, to the Rockies.
Sonny01:09:29Yeah. Coach for triple a, the Rockies affiliate, Colorado Springs or wherever.
JVL01:09:36So I'm reading, uh, for, for giant, for John pod, Jay pod, I am reviewing a book for him in about the NBA and I did not realize that Danny Ainge, are you guys old enough to remember Danny Ainge? Yeah. Biggest. Biggest. Shit head in all like the history of the NBA, the most punchable face I've ever seen. He was a heavily scouted wide receiver in high school. Could have played division one football, chose not to as a senior in high school was drafted into the MLB. No, he played for two seasons, he went to BYU and played basketball and then he did both. Baseball and basketball for two seasons, NBA and MLB, and it was only when Red Auerbach came to him and said, look, you can hit 240 in the Toronto Blue Jays system and be an anonymous baseball player, or you can come and be part of the greatest team that's ever played in the NBA, which was the Bird McHale Celtics, Bird McHale Parish Celtics. And that's why he left baseball so that he could go and play Larry Bird.
Mike01:10:43I mean, I think of that trio all the time, Bo Jackson, Deon Sanders. Danny Ainge. I mean, that's. All together. Isn't it weird? It's amazing. Also, by the way, in your mind's eye, how tall is Danny Ainge? I mean, I don't know. I guess six to six.
JVL01:11:01Three. He, I believe, is six. Five. Look at that. He's he's enormous, but he carries himself like he's a five foot ten punk. That's one of the punchable face of his.
Sonny01:11:15He's great executive, too, though, right? Like, isn't he one of the the best? He's one of the best execs in the game. I feel like he is well respected.
JVL01:11:22I mean, that was true for a while. He was a very hot executive early. I don't know what his longevity has been because I haven't been attention to the modern jazz. Anyway, I want to hear all of your guys thoughts, especially you, Michael, as somebody who knows football.
Mike01:11:34Oh, like I know football. I don't know football.
JVL01:11:36You know, college football. You went to an SEC school.
Mike01:11:38Barely. You're from.
?01:11:40Yeah.
Sonny01:11:41Is Vanderbilt in the SEC? I was just found that was like founding member founding member Mountain West or something.
Mike01:11:48Hey, somebody somebody's got to get beat beat up in this conference and not in baseball. But I will. I will say I witnessed when Tommy Tuberville now Senator Tommy Tuberville's Auburn Tigers lost at home to Vanderbilt on college game day in 2008. Boom. Suck it, Tommy. Suck it. Tigers. All right.
JVL01:12:15That's all I have to say about that. I'm sure.
?01:12:17I'm sure it's fine. Thank you.
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