#213. 'Street Fighter'
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JVL delivers the "big boy review" of the 1994 Street Fighter, the Jean-Claude Van Damme/Raul Julia cult disaster he calls "our generation's Flash Gordon" — a movie so bad it's amazing, split into two simultaneous films: the earnestly campy Van Damme/Raul Julia political-intrigue plot and a separate buddy comedy starring Ken and Ryu. Sonny agrees, comparing it favorably to Johnny Mnemonic as an artifact of an era when Hollywood could still throw money at practical sets, smoke machines, and absurd costumes without irony, and both hosts geek out over evidence that Die Hard screenwriter Steven E. de Souza was clearly enjoying himself (the immortal "For me, it was Tuesday" line, sly Easter eggs like the Malpaso brewery reference), plus Kylie Minogue's disastrous Cammy and Ming-Na Wen's star-making turn as Chun-Li. Mike is the outlier, finding the film's shoddy production design (wobbly sets, styrofoam bricks) made it boring rather than fun-bad, though he concedes the occasional inspired line. The first third is classic Sub-Beacon banter: Mike recaps his kid-free Maui trip (Road to Hana, Haleakalā crater, wildfire-adjacent South Maui lodging), JVL announces he's finally caving and paying a contractor to build his shed after a friend's cautionary DIY-shed horror story, and the trio riffs on Lego sets as a stealth investment vehicle, a bad-but-beloved rewatch of Hocus Pocus, and dueling guesses on the Taylor Swift Eras Tour concert film's opening weekend (with a Swift/Travis Kelce "fake Hollywood romance" bit). The episode closes with JVL recounting a gruesome firewood-related toe injury and a quick check-in on the Phillies-Braves game and the Orioles' late-season collapse.
From the show notes
For me, it was Friday.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00My father saved his village at the cost of his own life. You had him shot as you ran away. A hero. At a thousand paces. I'm sorry. I don't remember any of it. You don't remember? For you. The day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday.
Mike00:00:48Welcome back to the Sub-Beacon podcast. I'm your co-host Mike Warren. Welcome you back. Welcome me back. That's right. Joining me as I am Mike Warren.
?00:00:56Welcome you back. Welcome me back. That's right.
Mike00:00:56As always, are my two co-hosts who had to cancel their trip to Shadaloo, 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 we do. Comment, vote in polls, become a part of the Sub-Beacon community. You'll be so glad you did. We are going to be talking about, we're going to be going back in time actually. 29 years for some random reason and talking about Street Fighter, the 1994 film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme later in the show. But first, how are we doing guys? Sonny, what's going on with you?
Sonny00:01:42Not a whole lot. Just watching the world and mostly trying to avoid doing anything that will wind up getting me fired from all of my various positions, including. This podcast by saying, saying bad things, so I'm avoiding, I'm avoiding that.
Mike00:02:02Keep them inside.
Sonny00:02:03I keep them inside.
JVL00:02:04Push them bankers or Hollywood executives or people who are ruthless cosmopolitans. No, it's not.
Sonny00:02:11It's not those people. It's the other people. I anyway, I so I've been I've been I've been trying to I've been trying to behave myself real, real good. Mostly, I've been also trying not to. Well, my wife is out of town, so I have. The two children, which is always fun, as you know, after I get done with this, after I get done with this episode, we're taping Thursday night. I'm going to I'm going to edit it and I'll get it all ready for publication. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to sit down. I'm going to watch The Shining. I'm just going to watch The Shining.
JVL00:02:45When your wife is away, do your children sleep with you?
Sonny00:02:47No, God, no. We I have I have always been very anti children sleeping with parents to the extent that,
JVL00:02:56like, our kids have never actually done it because I have never not only have I never
Sonny00:03:01encouraged them to do it whenever they have come in and been like, I want to sleep with you. I like send them away. I'm like, no, soothe yourself to sleep, child. I give them a rock and I'm like, go hold this. Go hold this to put you back to sleep.
JVL00:03:15Pretend it's me.
Sonny00:03:16No, but I mean, I don't do that. But it is it's funny because it is it is it is a it's weird because I've thought about this sometimes. Kids have just never really asked to do it like every once in a while. They'll come in in the morning, be like, I want to stay with you in the bed. And we're like, fine, whatever. Just don't don't move. Don't talk to me. It's never don't move. It's never been a it's never been a like, I can't sleep. I'm scared. Can I stay in here thing? They've they've never done that, which is which is great for me because I would not
JVL00:03:46be able to handle our our first two were the exact same way. And we never were like, great, they're happy. The second to. Starting a few years.
Mike00:03:56Ago, like, you know, they weren't originally, but then, you know, it's not like we were
JVL00:04:00co-sleeping them or something, but starting like two or three years ago, there was a lot of like, hey, can I crash with you guys tonight? And I got to say, it's lovely. Because the thing is, you know what?
Mike00:04:12It's not going to last for forever. Right.
JVL00:04:15It's a zero.
Mike00:04:17Here's here's the thing. It's I think about it's not going to last forever when my kids hold my hand walking across the street or ask. Ask or ask me not to tickle them when what they really want me to do is tickle them like that. I can. That's great. And I know that doesn't last forever and you want to hold on to it. But my bedtime, my sleepy time is my time. Like, I don't I can't I can't have that. So I'll be a nine year old me going into my bed.
Sonny00:04:47That's where I go to get away from them. My dream. Exactly. Stay. Stay far away, children.
Mike00:04:54No, I've actually I have done the like. Uh, cause it's just our, our oldest who has done this and he doesn't do it often, but like he has done it a few times and, uh, I don't allow it. Like I just, if I, if, if somehow I sleep through it and I wake up and I see him there, I get him back into his own bed.
JVL00:05:12Gee, money comes in and you know, he curl up next to me and I'll be like, dad, hey dad, can we hold hands while I fall asleep?
Mike00:05:20Sure, buddy. Hold hands.
JVL00:05:2330 seconds later, we're both out sound asleep. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. That's well, that's, uh, I'm happy for you JVL, but that's all right. Well, there we go. Uh, okay. So Michael, tell us, were you, did, did, uh, your kids sleep in the bed with you in Hawaii in your, in your hotel room?
Mike00:05:44How was the trip?
JVL00:05:45What was it like taking three children to Hawaii? Here's the thing, JVL, you're sitting down. I can see that you're sitting down.
Mike00:05:54Um, you don't have anything. Breakable around you. Do you? Um, no, I didn't take my three kids to Hawaii.
JVL00:06:01Oh, tell me everything. I'm going to get a cigarette here.
Mike00:06:06Can I get a hand check, please? A hand check real quick.
JVL00:06:09Oh, go ahead. And wait a minute. Did you go to bed at eight 30?
Mike00:06:14Oh, sometimes even one night we went to bed at eight o'clock.
JVL00:06:19Oh, uh, no.
Mike00:06:24Okay. So we, we were in Hawaii. Tell me, which islands did you go to? So we, we went to Maui. Um, you may have heard it's been in the news recently. Um, and we were staying, we were staying in South Maui, which is not West Maui. Um, if you know anything about the, about the Island of Maui, it is essentially two islands that are merged together with this like Valley underneath two volcanoes is actually merged together with this Valley in between. Um, and West Maui, which is where all the wildfires were is on the West side of the Western mountain. So it's along that, that area. Um, we were in South Maui, which is on the Eastern volcano side and South. Um, so we couldn't see anything from where we stayed and we could not visit West Maui because West Maui was still closed to essentially non-essential people, people
JVL00:07:20who don't live there or work there, or we're doing any kind of rebuilding or whatever.
Mike00:07:25So. Um, you couldn't see it. There was one part, cause there were other wildfires on Maui and different parts. It just didn't have the destruction, um, that the West Maui ones did. So we did see like a couple places as we were driving that had some kind of charred vegetation, but it was very minor. Um, but we went there, we were not sure if we should go there, um, after the fires. And then basically everybody there, everybody we trusted, everybody we were working with to get our condo and all that stuff, like, please come, like, please do not cancel your plans. We need tourists. We love tourists. Um, we need your money essentially. So, so we went and we had a great time.
JVL00:08:04Um, so really you were doing this for them.
Mike00:08:07It wasn't even about you. I, I didn't even, did I have fun?
JVL00:08:12You're the greatest hero of them all.
Mike00:08:13I don't even know if I had fun. I was, it was all entirely altruistic. Um, so no, but we did have a great time. We, uh, we are, so we don't stay in hotels. Not that we do this often. Like again, this is our first vacation by ourselves for longer than two nights without kids in 10 years. Um, and we probably won't do it again for another 10, 15 years. Um, and so, but we, we wanted to stay in a condo, not in a hotel, not in a resort. Um, and do it kind of, we like to do things kind of our own on our own.
JVL00:08:49Um, and so we had a great upside down pineapple outside your unit.
Mike00:08:53No, no, I didn't see it. There's a lot of pineapples.
JVL00:08:56And, and, and yeah, were they all, all straight up right side? They were all right side up. Okay. Um, just checking.
Mike00:09:02Yeah.
JVL00:09:03Yeah. Good, good thing to check.
Mike00:09:05Uh, but we had a great, we had a great view. Um, and we were, our condo was right on the water, um, top floor, clear waters. There were beaches. Basically there were like two public beaches on either side of our condo building that we just walked to to take us two minutes to get there. We just sat there. We went snorkeling, saw sea turtles. That was it. That was great. But we also like to do like kind of outdoor stuff, but the kind of outdoor stuff we like to do is like, we like to go do outdoor stuff, but then like be back in time to have a beer after, you know, like it's like not intense. Um, but we did two kind of crazy outdoor stuff. One was we drove, if you know anything about Maui, we drove the road to Hana, which is on the north side of the island and it is, um, a two lane road that is essentially curving in the jungle along a cliff. And, um, there were probably just on the way in the only way to get back out is to go back the way that road again. Um, and, uh, there is apparently another road you can go all the way around, but rental cars agreements in Hawaii say that you cannot use their rental card to go that way because it's like not even paved most of it anyway. So, but, um, on the way in, there's probably 50 bridges that are single lane bridges, you know, where you got to yield to somebody coming your way. And like the locals do not give a shit. They were like, they will ride your ass. You got to, there's like places to pull over. So they tell you to, so the locals can like get by you and you're just in the jungle. You're just like driving through the jungle and there's two stops that we made essentially. There's the, there's a black sand beach, which was very cool. Um, like all just like this, like obsidian, like tiny little obsidian pebbles, uh, and then a national park, uh, Holly Akala national park, two days later, we drove up Holly Akala, which is the, the volcano on that side, uh, to that entrance of the national park, which is 10,000 feet in, uh, above sea level, you're driving in about like 7,000 feet. You realize you've just passed through clouds on this road. That's amazing. And then we got to the top. And you're at the, the crater and it's, what they said was that the crater itself, just like, I mean, it's just like, it doesn't look like a simple round crater. It's like pocketed and hills and these things, but that the crater could fit the entirety of Manhattan in it. It's huge.
JVL00:11:49That's amazing.
Mike00:11:50We're up there. The air is thin. It's just, it was great. And, and there's like, we, and we did a couple of hikes. Up there, but not much. We just wanted to see it. And it was amazing. You could see the big Island, um, from up there.
JVL00:12:02You could see a couple of other areas to bleep this right, right down the time. Did you in the volcano?
Mike00:12:10No, but we could have that you, you can hike down and camp inside the crater.
JVL00:12:19So if we had had a tent missed opportunity, exactly.
Mike00:12:22Um, anyway, so we had a great time. We did like outdoorsy stuff like that. Also just sat on the beach. We had some great meals. Anybody who's ever been to Maui or is going to Maui, go to mama's fish house. It's, uh, Jessica Vora, uh, recommended it. It was amazing. Sort of one at once in a lifetime, uh, meal experience. Um, go to baked on Maui. Uh, if you're going to the road to Hana, um, we had breakfast there before we got on the road itself. Best eggs Benedict I've ever had, um, go to, um, stay in key. I, Kihei, I should say Kihei is where we stayed. Um, and if you're a white Lotus fan, you can drive down to Wiley, uh, and see the four seasons where they filmed the white Lotus, but we did not because that's a little too fancy for us. Um, so it was great. It was fun. Travel out there was miserable. Travel back was miserable. My parents watched the kids. They were so thrilled for us to be home. Uh, the, my parents, not the kids. Um, and, uh, and that's that. So thank you for holding down the. Without me.
Sonny00:13:27Um, it was amazing miserable.
Mike00:13:30Well, because it's six hours, six hour flight from Baltimore to Vegas, and then six hour flight from Vegas to Maui. Um, and that's just a lot of time on the plane. Um, but your children are with you.
Sonny00:13:45Oh, no. Six hours all by yourself on the plane. That's terrible.
Mike00:13:4712, 12 hours, actually. Although whatever, either way, but it was a plane is a plane in Southwest. And it was, um, I will say Southwest flies to.
Sonny00:13:55Hawaii. Oh yeah. Southwest is. Oh, I didn't know that that's interesting.
Mike00:13:59So, so I will say this, like, we're not like the most frugal people, but we do like to save money and we really do like to like do things like on a deal. So the whole reason we went when we did and where we did, uh, we wanted to go to Hawaii, but like Southwest had a deal on a flight on flights many, many months ago. And we had points. So like we were able to basically fly to Hawaii by, uh, with, for the price of one ticket. Um, and then we were talking about like everything we did and I don't begrudge people who, you know, go do the, the ferry or the snorkeling, uh, scuba diving tours and all that stuff. That's just not how we do it. But what we ended up doing was essentially like we, we did everything we did there for free. Um, they're like some nominal, you know, park fees, like state and national park fees, but like, we just like sat on the beach or like went snorkeling right on
JVL00:14:52the public activity when you don't have kids, it's always free.
Mike00:14:55Hmm. That's right.
JVL00:14:57Hmm.
Mike00:14:58That's right. Breathing in that fresh tropical area and going to bed with me.
Sonny00:15:02Uh, the, the, uh, no, I, I'm with you on that. Like whenever, whenever people are like, well, you know, you can go to this resort, but it's all, it's all this extra money to like, go, go fish, go out on the fishing boat or, you know, to go wind surfing or whatever. And I'm like, uh, is it more money to sit on the sand and look at the water? Which you don't like anyway. Or is it, is it more money to sit by the pool, which is what I'm going to do. Uh, cause I've already paid for the, I'm, I'm just, you know, aside from like the drinks that I order there, is there, is there anything else that's good? Because I don't, I don't want to do any of that stuff. I don't, I have absolutely no interest in scuba diving or fucking any of that stuff.
Mike00:15:42So one of the things that they do, one of the big things to do in Maui is to do the sunrise at the top of Haleakalā volcano, which like sounds miserable to me because like, I could. I could wake up and go outside on the Lanai outside, you know, the porch outside my, on my condo and watch the sunrise and like, there's ain't nothing out there.
JVL00:16:04It's just 10,000 feet though.
Mike00:16:06Right.
JVL00:16:07But like, you'd have to sleep in a tent. You'd have to, you'd have to wake up up there.
Mike00:16:12You have to get up, you have to get up early and then drive. It's, it's essentially, it took us an hour in 15 minutes to drive from our condo to the top. So like, but that was in daylight.
Sonny00:16:22Oh, so you're going to drive, you're going to drive in the pitch dark, you know? At four in the morning, uh, on that windy death.
Mike00:16:29So you don't have to, you don't have to drive on the wine. You don't have to, you don't have to, you know, but like people would do that. And, and like, honestly, that's what I thought the only appeal of this was. And like, and then like on a Sunday where I was like, well, you know, these tickets to the national park that we got from driving the road to Hana, they're, they're good until today. Let's just drive up there. And it was great. I was like, oh, I felt like such an idiot for thinking, oh, I'm not going to go there if I'm not going to go at dawn. And, and it was great not being. So, um, just always do it. That's my other, like, not that anybody's asking for my advice for you.
JVL00:17:00Just do it.
Mike00:17:01So we had a great time. Um, that'd be a good slogan.
JVL00:17:05Just do it. Yeah. Yeah. I'll put that on a, that's right. I don't know. Athletic.
Mike00:17:10And then they should make a movie about that company. So, uh, JVL, what's going on with you?
JVL00:17:17Uh, I mean, I have a shed update, but we're, we're pretty deep into the show. I don't think we can get time for it right now.
Mike00:17:23Can you give us like a. 30 second shed update.
JVL00:17:27Well, the shed was delivered. Uh, the pallet with the shed pre-built pre-cut building materials was delivered and the gentleman who did it at 7am on Sunday morning, perfectly reasonable time to back a giant truck up my driveway. Uh, so I, I said to him, so you ever, you ever, uh, build one of these things?
Sonny00:17:50And he says, yeah, no, I do assembly on these things. I probably build two of these a week.
JVL00:17:54I said, so, uh, how, you know, how is it? What's, what the, what, what's it like? Is it, you know, super hard? He goes, well, I mean, if you've got a lot of construction experience, then you'll be okay. I said, uh, so, but what if, you know, what if, what if you don't? He looks at me, he goes, well, good luck. Here's my card.
Mike00:18:19He said that spiel, he said that spiel a gazillion times.
JVL00:18:22So I figured that, uh, on the, on the other hand, the price he quoted me was while more than I wanted to pay still substantially less than I had feared or substantially less than the other, the other prices I had gotten. And, uh, I, I, I just think I'm going to just pay him to do it.
Sonny00:18:48Oh, you haven't gotten them yet because I, when we were chatting, I was kind of under the assumption that you had already like hired him to come do this.
JVL00:18:55No, I'm I, I texted him today and I was like, Hey, uh, can you fit me in your schedule? I just, I can't, I I'll never fucking build the thing.
Sonny00:19:04I, I will never build the thing. Literally what I said, I said, you should 100% get a guy to do it. Just pay, throw money at a problem and eventually the problem goes away.
JVL00:19:14I am going to throw money at this problem and, uh, hopefully he will build my shed for me and he'll also do the roofing, which is like labor intensive and he's going to buy the shing goals and I just, I just, I just, I want it done. I just, I want it done.
Mike00:19:32My, my, my own little, uh, uh, addendum to all of this is, uh, uh, one of my oldest friends and a listener to the show drew, uh, was doing this himself as well with a shed in his house. And although I don't think it was, it's, it was, it was mostly a prefab shed.
JVL00:19:50Like he didn't have to construct it, but it was one of the vinyl ones that you're just sort of bolting together.
Mike00:19:55But the issue was he had to level the ground underneath to place it on there. And this took like two full weekends, like in which at one point he had, he like discovered he had hit like some immovable route and he was going to have to like move where the shed it was anyway. So I'm just, I'm looking at the text thread. Uh, and this is from Monday at 6, 10 PM, which was a national, a federal holiday. Um, and it's a picture of the shed in the right place on level ground, followed by a text from him and says, man, fuck this thing. So I say you pay the guy.
JVL00:20:38So did he, did he, I mean, the, the, the best practice on this is to like put some railroad ties down, create a, a little raised box and then fill it with gravel. So that gives you that levels it without you having to level the ground. Right. And it gives you. It gives you excellent drainage, which is the, the, the real key, right? You got to go out one foot from the shed on each side of it. Okay. And so that's, that is best practice. These are things you should have been told three weeks ago. It's fine.
Sonny00:21:09Instead, he put it right on the ground. That thing's going to rot away in six months.
JVL00:21:12I mean, that, that is a concern. Is it right? Is it on like the grass?
Mike00:21:17No, it's on like graph. It is on gravel. Like it's, but like, that's, that's great. But he said like, it's not, it wasn't level still. And so like the screw holes on the roof were all, it was like a whole mess.
Sonny00:21:28Yeah. That's the worst. Yeah.
JVL00:21:30This is going to be somebody else's, somebody else's problem. I'll just, uh, like eat ramen for a week or something to pay for it.
?00:21:38Okay. Yeah.
Mike00:21:40Yeah. That's no problem. Okay. Well, uh, shall we, I have some JBL bait.
Sonny00:21:45Wait, before we, JBL, I have a question. Did you, did you look at that thing I sent you about the Lego sets?
JVL00:21:50Oh yeah. I wrote about this for the weekly standard. Do you remember that?
Sonny00:21:54Oh, did you write about,
JVL00:21:56I wrote a casual.
Sonny00:21:57Oh no, I don't remember that. Cause I remember the comic book one, like a comic, how the comic book portfolio would outperform, you know, whatever there was,
JVL00:22:07there was a Lego one too. I wrote a Lego piece about this. Uh, do you know who turned me onto this? Yeah. Our friend, Adam Kuiper, who has been a Lego flipper for a long, long time. And one of the, one of the maxims in the Lego community, is that if you see a, there's a big expensive set that you really want to buy for yourself, just buy two. And the, because what Lego does is they produce a set for two to three years only. Then they retire it and it is never brought out again. And they will bring out other versions of it. But if you just take that box, cover it in plastic, stick it in your attic and wait for them to stop producing it, that thing is going to go up 25%, 50%, a hundred percent very quickly. And so you can then, you know, again, just buy two and three years from now, then they're, they're free.
Mike00:23:04Wow. Sounds like comic books and baseball. Um, all right. Interesting.
JVL00:23:10Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's just science.
Sonny00:23:12I always wondered why Adam Kuiper was driving around in a Maserati. Yeah. I was like,
Guest00:23:17you as a, as a books, as a culture editor, I don't know that.
JVL00:23:21He has so many Lego box box Lego sets in his attic. Like he has so many of them.
Mike00:23:28That makes sense. That makes sense.
Sonny00:23:31Anyway, to, to fill a, so just to, just explain to people, there was a thread that was going around that was basically like comparing very simply the, uh, the, the profit you would have made by buying Lego sets. A first at random and then B with like some, some kind of, you know, like only buying star Wars or whatever. Um, and, uh, all of the, all of the Lego purchases, either random or intentional, uh, with, with an eye on value outperformed every hedge fund by like an enormous margin. It was like, it was, it like wasn't even close. It was, it was like, you know,
Mike00:24:08so is there going to be a run on Lego sets now? And is that,
Sonny00:24:11well, I mean, that's, I, I do kind of wonder, I mean, I guess the thing of it is, is that it would be hard to do in bulk. You would, you would have a hard time like making it like you couldn't do that as an actual investment, but I, but like you could do it as like a side, hustle. It would take a couple of years, I guess, to start making money, right? JBL, because like, well, you buy the things that don't go out of print.
JVL00:24:31Yeah. And the volume is right. So we're a, you got to store them someplace. Yep. I mean, practically speaking, there's no way to do that except as a hobby, right? Even if you decide you're gonna make it a business, unless you're building a shed and keep them outside, they got to be in temperature control. Um, but this is why this is a funny thing, right? This is why, when, if you go to the Lego store, I don't know if you guys ever go to the Lego store. Yeah, sure. The Lego store always has a discount section for places where the box has gotten a marking on it. And so, uh, if you know, like, and when they pulled it out of the truck, the box got a dent in it or something. Right. And you'll get like nine or 10 or sometimes even 15% off of the retail price. Why is that? Because the, having the outer box be marked is itself a decrease in, in resale value. And if you go look around, you can even find people selling empty boxes of certain old sets on eBay. Not all of them. Like that's not a, you know, but, but certain sets, like if you go and get like, uh, there was a really, really large star Wars star destroyer, which, you know, has now been out of circulation for like 15 years. If you have a box, a box for one of those things and get yourself some, that's out wild.
Mike00:26:02Yeah, no, I'm, I'm taking notes. I'm taking notes because I'm looking for some advice. Anyway,
Sonny00:26:08anyway, I knew, I knew this was, I knew this was up your alley. I didn't realize you had actually literally written about it years ago, but that's okay.
JVL00:26:14That's okay. It's hard to keep track with all the thing. I do write 7,000 words a week.
Guest00:26:18We know this is a friend of,
Sonny00:26:21I have a, I have a friend here in Dallas. Who's a, he's a professor. He's semi-retired. A film guy. And we were having lunch the other day. He was just like, you write so much. And I'm like, I don't really write that much. I just write a couple of pieces a week. You know, I got, I just write, I write two columns a week. I write two columns a week. I, you know, I have the two podcasts. Well, three podcasts, really like it's, it's not, it's not that much. It's not, he was like, you write so much. I don't know how you do it. I was like, this is like, I am not, I am, I am not even that on like such an academic top 10% of the, like you're, you, you, but like, yeah. Like if you're, you know, he's like, I'm trying to write this book right now. It's just, you know, it's so slow and I can't, I can't do it, but you know, you're out here, you're doing 3000 words a week.
Mike00:27:06Aren't they the ones who are supposed to be publisher parish?
JVL00:27:09Yeah.
Mike00:27:11All right. Hey, real, real quick. Let's, let's do, I don't mean to move on from dudes chatting, but let's do some chatting about, about the box office just because, I mean, I don't know if you guys have anything interesting, interesting to say. The exorcist, believer we should coming. No,
Sonny00:27:25I don't care about, I don't care about anything about this week. We should hear what go ahead. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you, Mike. Go ahead. What were you saying,
Mike00:27:33man? I, I leave for one week and all of a sudden, did you listen to that show we did without you,
JVL00:27:39Mike? It was, it was a mess.
Sonny00:27:41It was terrible without you there.
JVL00:27:43It was absolute. Just, you know, we, you know,
Mike00:27:47it's going to fall over without, uh, no, the only thing I wanted to say was that I was looking at the box office numbers and I did not realize that there, there was a apparently in like 1500 theaters, a re-release of hocus pocus for the 30th anniversary. And I just want to say as a millennial who grew up with this movie, it is a garbage movie. And I can't believe that it has the, like the, the legacy and the life that it does because it sucks. It's not a good movie.
Sonny00:28:14I took my kids to see it this, uh, last weekend because I didn't have anything. They were home from school on a Friday for some reason. So I took them in, the morning to go, to go see it. Uh, so, uh, my wife could work on jobs day. Um, and, uh, and the, the, the thing about that movie is that it's not good. It is, it's a bad garbage movie. Yes. As you say, Mike, 100% agree with you. Thank you. However, I do understand why if you saw it at a very precise age range, if you were like between the ages of like eight and a half and nine and a half, I could see why this would be, like a classic formative movie for you. It's cause it's like, it's got, it's got like the kids, the kids in peril, but then also the kids kicking butt and it's got like bullies very broadly sketched and it's got villains. And it also has like, I bet there's, I bet there, I bet there is more than one young man who's like formative sexual experience is watching Sarah Jessica Parker as like the, the dumb, but kind of like kind of hot witch in that movie. In her bodice.
JVL00:29:25Sarah Jessica Parker is hot.
Sonny00:29:28I'm just telling you what, I'm just telling you how she is in this movie, man. I know what you mean though, right? Like she's not,
JVL00:29:34they've never seen cleavage before and they're just,
Mike00:29:36what does this,
JVL00:29:37why do I feel this way?
Mike00:29:39I have to interrupt because it was actually the girlfriend in this, in the sweater.
Sonny00:29:44Yes.
Mike00:29:45That she's that. So the other hand,
Sonny00:29:47also very attractive. And like, I think, I think like maybe 17 in that movie. So be careful what, what you say here. Like, uh, but the, you know,
Mike00:29:55I, I was seven or whatever.
JVL00:29:58So she's not 17 now. No.
Sonny00:30:00Uh, anyway, the point is I can, I like, I 100% agree with you. It's a bad movie and I've never liked this movie. I've always thought it was like bad kids move. Like it's bad kids movie as, as opposed to a classic, like never ending story, which is good. Yes.
Mike00:30:16Yes. Or street fighter,
Sonny00:30:17never ending story. Good kids movie. Hocus Pocus, bad kids movie. So,
Mike00:30:23okay. All right. Well, let's move on then and talk about the movie that JVL just, no, I want to do one.
Sonny00:30:28I want to do one box office thing. Uh, I, we should, we should, we should, uh, we should pick right now what we think the Taylor Swift movie is going to do this weekend at the box office. What? Pick a number. JVL, pick a number.
JVL00:30:43137,
Sonny00:30:43137 JVL. All right.
JVL00:30:48And even with that, I would probably still take the over Mike and I'm going to take the owner. I'm going to take the owner. I'm going to say 100. 100 million. Wow. That's wrong. You Sonny, you are uncannily almost always right about these. Yeah. So why am I even competing? Yeah. What did you, why don't you just tell us what the right answer? I was doing the, the price is right.
Mike00:31:06Get under.
Sonny00:31:07I'm very torn on this one because I don't, I, I it's, it's kind of sui generis. I don't know exactly what the, uh, here's, here's the tickets are slightly more expensive. Nobody can cancel that. You'd like, you can't cancel that. You can't cancel them. Uh, there was a, there was a huge rush of people early on who thought that this was going to be like a one weekend thing. They thought it, and then apparently it's going to. So I would say I, my official guess is one 26, I think 126 million going to be like 124 million now.
JVL00:31:50Yeah. Impressive.
Sonny00:31:52We'll see. I mean, but it could also end up being like 180 million. It could, it could do something insane. I don't know. I just,
JVL00:32:00I honestly don't know.
Sonny00:32:02So supposedly the pre-sales numbers are already over a hundred million.
Mike00:32:08So Barbie in its first week did what? Well, that was a, that was a weird, right? Wasn't there like a three day weekend or something? I can't remember, but like, so, so this will be not Barbie levels, but right for the, for its opening weekend or what are we, what are we thinking?
Sonny00:32:26Yeah. I mean, I think it, you know, I mean, you're like Barbie would put it at, you know, 150 million, something like that. I don't know.
JVL00:32:37Out of the question. I don't think it's absolutely not out of the question.
Sonny00:32:40I look, I could see it. I could see doing $200 million this weekend on walk-up business. And here's a very weird thing. I, I, so we bought tickets for my, my daughter, like two months ago when they first came out, right? We bought, we bought tickets. Because again, we, we thought they were, it was going to like sell out and worry about, uh, and we kept waiting for her to come to us and tell us, did you know that Taylor Swift is going to be doing a concert in the movie theaters? We kept waiting for, and we were going to surprise her like, ha ha, we already got tickets, but she didn't do it until this week. She literally did not come up to us until this week. Cause she saw the poster in front of the Alamo draft house. And I was like, so nobody in your school is talking about it. No, they just started this week. We all, just found out about it. And I am fascinated by this because I don't understand what the news ecosystem is like for children. Like, I don't know where they get it from and like why none of them had any idea this was coming. It's very, like, I guess part of it is just, they don't go to movies because they're kids. The children don't go to movies, but I mean,
Mike00:33:42I, I don't know about, about your kids, but like my kids don't spend time watching terrestrial TV. So they don't, they don't watch commercials.
Sonny00:33:50They don't watch anything with ads. Right. They don't watch anything with ads. And they, they, my kids don't have, you know, tablets or anything. So they're not sitting watching things at, at home. I like, I, I wonder, I wonder if the world of information is much more constricted than we think it is for them. Like we have these nightmares of them being, you know, inundated with,
JVL00:34:09it's both constricted and broad because they are around 25 other human beings for eight hours a day in close proximity, the likes of which, which we are not right. I mean, we, you know, and it is a network effect, right? I mean, it's virality. You are subject that your children are subject to everything that every one of those 25 other kids has seen or picked up.
Mike00:34:40And God forbid, if they have older brothers or sisters.
JVL00:34:42Yeah, that's another. Yeah.
Sonny00:34:44Yeah. Anyway, just, just an interesting, an interesting little factoid I picked up on, which could mean that like the presale numbers are way underestimating what's going to happen here, because the kids are going to find out. I'm being like, oh, my God, Taylor Swift movie concert. We got to go see it.
JVL00:34:58What do we think about her fake relationship with Kelsey Kelsey?
Mike00:35:03And if the NFL writers outdid themselves once again, I mean,
Sonny00:35:06that's really what I can't wait for them to break up and for the Taylor Swift fans to burn the NFL to the ground. It's going to be wonderful.
JVL00:35:14I mean, this is like the old studio romances where they'd be like, Rock Hudson, people are starting to talk. We got to get you. You and Doris Day are dating now, right?
Sonny00:35:23Are you saying Travis Kelsey is gay? I mean,
JVL00:35:27I'm not saying he's gay, but it does seem like he is trying to position himself for a post NFL career as a something, whether it is as Michael Strahan or as a commentator, Howie Long. I don't know.
Mike00:35:42But he didn't need to do. He didn't need Taylor Swift for that. He already hosted Saturday Night Live. You know, he's already did,
JVL00:35:47but this takes him to the next level.
Sonny00:35:48And this does. I mean, it's like it's wild. These fucking Taylor.
JVL00:35:52And for her, it gives her an entree to like the last segment. She hasn't fully conquered. NFL fandom. Yeah, it's genius.
Mike00:36:03Sure. Yeah,
JVL00:36:04whatever. Evil, evil genius.
Sonny00:36:07For her, it's Tuesday.
Mike00:36:12OK,
Sonny00:36:12for everyone in that stadium, it's the greatest day of their lives. Seeing Taylor Swift in the box cheering along for her. It's just Sunday.
Mike00:36:22Have you seen? Have you seen? Have you seen the guy who rewrote one of her songs as the breakup song that she will write when she and Kelsey break up?
Sonny00:36:32No, I would never. I would never in a million years watch that.
Mike00:36:36It's very funny. It's a it's a parody. It's like it's it's funny. And then somebody used a eye or something. I don't know how they do it. And like you made because it's like him.
Sonny00:36:45Someone used Internet magic. Someone threw a computer at it and set a spell and it appeared. It is Internet magic.
Mike00:36:54Hey, technology, technology that is advanced is just magic. OK, that's somebody. Somebody.
Sonny00:37:01It's the Arthur C. Clark. That's the Arthur C. Clark. The Arthur C. Clark theory of songwriting. You put the words in the A. I. No, no.
Mike00:37:09Listen, the guy, the guy sings it on the guitar and then somebody made it. So it sounds like Taylor Swift is singing it. And it was very good. Just DM me if you want to see that.
Sonny00:37:21Nobody wants to see that.
Mike00:37:23So move on. All right. Well, OK, so we can finally move on to the thing I've been trying to move on to for a while. You brought up the box office as the believer. Shut your mouth.
Guest00:37:35Sonny Bunch.
Mike00:37:37You be quiet. You go sit in that corner. You brought up Taylor Swift, by the way. We're talking about Street Fighter for some godforsaken reason. Twenty nine years ago, Street Fighter was released. And I guess we watched it because it did. Did you?
Sonny00:37:53I mentioned JBL mentioned it on the show that you watched it with G money, right? Yeah. Oh, that's right.
JVL00:37:57I've just been fascinated with it ever since. So do we? And I wanted us to have a conversation.
Mike00:38:04Do we need? That's right. I forgot.
Sonny00:38:04I want JBL to do the big boy review.
Mike00:38:06Yeah, I think I think JBL should.
JVL00:38:08Oh, boy. I haven't. I've prepared for Street Fighter. Is a 1994 movie adapted from the Capcom hit video game Street Fighter 2. It is a Jean-Claude Van Damme starring movie. In which Jean-Claude Van Damme is sort of a secondary character because there's actually two movies. It's it has almost nothing to do with the game, but it has all the characters from the game, although they don't all look like the characters from the game. What has happened is we are in the fictional country of Shadaloo, and in Shadaloo, there is an arms merchant and warlord named M Bison, who is a general, a self-proclaimed general played by Raul Julio. Who is doing everything incredibly seriously and campy. And then there is a U.N. force led by Jean-Claude Van Damme. Not the U.N. The A.A.N. So not quite NATO, not quite the U.N., but they do wear blue. They do wear powder blue fatigues, and they are attempting to defeat M Bison to free the people of Shadaloo. But there's also a civil war happening in Shadaloo. Between M Bison and somebody else. And Chun-Li is a reporter from the GTN or the GNT, the Global News Network or something. And she is played by Ming-Na Wen, who is 18 years old and nubile as anything. And she E. Honda. Do you remember E. Honda, the sumo? He is one of her cameramen. And Balrog, the boxer, is another. And then on top of this, there is a scientist who is kind of like the one of the characters from the Flash Gordon movie. The one played by the. Who's the Jewish guy with one name? Topal Topper?
Mike00:40:06I have no idea. No idea.
JVL00:40:08The Jewish actor from Fiddler on the Roof, who stars as one of the scientists.
Sonny00:40:12As the good scientist.
JVL00:40:14Yeah.
Sonny00:40:14Who reprograms Blanca.
JVL00:40:17And he is in this. And that is not the same actor, but it's that vibe. And he then becomes. Uh, the, the, the doll seam, but the, the long arms and he, and Blanca is, is a, an allied nations fighter who is Charlie, Charlie, who is, uh, both brainwashed and then given anabolic steroids to increase his muscle mass and turn his, the whole thing is. It's one of the worst movies. I've ever seen. And in a way that is, we haven't even talked about Ken and Ryu who are in this sort of buddy comedy. They're also arms dealers, but they're funny arms dealers. And they're in like an entirely separate movie. And in their movie, it's a buddy comedy. Whereas in the Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia movie, it's like a semi-serious, but failed action movie and everything in this is, is both in. Sane and wrong, but like with a weirdly big budget and like the, the sets are actually like pretty detailed and the, the there's, you know, there's pretty good special effects. There's like a big scene with big explosions with real practical explosions and they create like a, a stealth speedboat, which is an actual speedboat that they drive around. And the whole thing is absolutely fascinating to me as an artist. Artifact of movie making and flash Gordon, Vic Mattis is beloved. Flash Gordon is the only comp I can come up with for this insane concoction. All right.
Sonny00:42:03So let me, let me, I want, I want to, I want to step back one level here because I, I, I watched this movie and it's objectively a terrible movie and yet there is some nostalgia for it beyond this show, beyond us talking about it. There is, there is a contingent of people who are like, yeah, street fire, you know, and here's the thing while watching it. The movie I was most. Reminded of, uh, Reese that I'd watched recently is Johnny mnemonic.
JVL00:42:27Have you seen Johnny mnemonic with the Keanu Reeves Keanu Reeves?
Sonny00:42:31It's the cyberpunk movie. It was written by William Gibson. Um, and, uh, so like, you know, Johnny mnemonic is another movie that is, I think objectively not a very good movie. It's just, it's just, it's not very well done. It doesn't make a ton of sense. It's like kind of silly and campy in certain ways. Um, the acting is like the, it's like all the actors are acting in slightly different movies. It's very. Similar to this, but it's also very similar to this movie in a, in a, in a very real way in which in, in, in that way is this, they both are artifacts of a time. When Hollywood could do biggish things without great difficulty. And what I mean by that is like, I don't think anybody is particularly actually nostalgic for Johnny mnemonic or nostalgic for street fighter. What they are nostalgic for is a time when. Hollywood had the capacity to, on a whim, put together a bunch of people in a real place or a set either way, a real place, or frankly, a soundstage, um, and put together a bunch of practical effects and dress them up in silly costumes and have like a hundred smoke machines lying around to create the atmospheric effect of like looking like they were in a real movie, these things for as bad as they are. And, and like, frankly, as fake as they look in certain ways, there was this very funny moment in street fighter. Hold on. I actually took a picture of it. There's very same one. I noticed there's a very funny moment in, in street fighter where, uh, the, the it's, it's in the, it's in the science room. It's in the science room and, and doll steam wheels over like a, you know, like a, like a little, uh, a tree with a bunch of bags hanging off that are like anabolic. It's like, it's one is bright yellow. Two of them are bright yellow or green. Uh, two of them are bright, like. Orange and on one, one of the bags that says anabolic plasma warning. The other one says DNA mutagens use extreme caution. And like, this is, this, these, this is a ridiculous prop. It's a re but there, there was somebody there who is there making it and putting it together and like, and it, and it.
JVL00:44:42Like for the paintings in M Bison's chambers, there's like an M Bison is. Yeah. The whole thing, every, this is what's weird about it. The sets are really. Somebody cared to dress every one of these sets and thought a lot about like funny things and can't be little asides. And there's a, the, the, the, the, the miniature, how about the miniature version of the city that M Bison is talking about building somebody built
Sonny00:45:11the model city that is then destroyed in the faux Godzilla scene where the Japanese, uh, horses are watching it on TV with all the, you know, noise. In the background, I like, all right. So this is, this is, so this is how I describe Johnny mnemonic. I, I, I like, I put a letter box. So I look, this isn't a very good movie, but it is a reminder that Hollywood used to be very efficient at churning out high concept originals filled with ridiculous costumes and densely art design sets. And we have to return like that is, that is actually like, that is what people are watching when they see street fighter 10 in the area, like, oh, this is, this is fun. We used to, we used to make movies like this. We used to do this all the time.
JVL00:45:52This is, I mean, I just watching this, all I could do was think about quantum mania and how just uninteresting all of that. And, and I, I, I will blame George Lucas. I was just going to phantom menace, right? The phantom menace is what begins us on the, the, what is it?
Mike00:46:14Rick Berman, the every frame is so densely.
JVL00:46:19The, the, that, and it's all, it all just becomes vital. George Lucas and we don't pay attention.
Mike00:46:24George Lucas is sitting in his chair director, right? Like that, like you get the sense watching this movie that everybody is like up and moving around and like making a movie. It's not sitting at a computer and yeah, you know, and so it's fun, right?
JVL00:46:44It's here. Here's the other side. I say that street fighter is like, there are two movies happening simultaneously. Totally right. There is this John Claude. Van Damme, Raul Julia movie in which both are sort of serious, but Raul Julia is doing camp and Van Damme is not. Van Damme is like doing John Claude Van Damme shit, which is, which becomes camp because it's because it's not intentional. His role is camp because he's not doing it intentionally. And then you have this Ken Ryu movie, which is very funny because it's got these two actors who I've never seen either before or since, and they are introduced to us as if we all both. Know and love them, uh, are totally familiar with the characters and are like, yeah, it's like a sort of they're here. Here are the guys again. And you're just sort of hanging with them and they're like having adventures.
Sonny00:47:37Well, but this is the tension of Street Fighter itself, right? Which is that the two most popular characters, the characters that everybody played for the first time as, and like got, got good at with are Ken and Ryu, right? Those are like, those are the two, those are the Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Of the Street Fighter universe. They were the characters with the easiest moves who were well balanced. Like you could, you could play, you could credibly play a game with, with either of them. Um, so that's who everybody plays with. So like they have their own thing going on, but for the actual story to work, you need the military and the, and all that. And that is like the guile stuff, which like, I always thought of guile when it, whenever the game would be played, I always thought of guile as like a tertiary character. I didn't care about him, but he's like, because he is driving. The force of the plot. He is the, the, the main character.
JVL00:48:26He is the Jean-Claude Van Damme, but the sensibility of some of those, I, I, I, this line. So it, when it, I don't know if you guys even picked up on this and this is the kind of
Mike00:48:39thing that is so sure.
JVL00:48:40Like there was a moment where we have like a PT boat driving through and you hear like
Mike00:48:47the radio and it's like, good morning, Shadaloo, which is a call back to good morning, morning
JVL00:48:52is good morning, Vietnam. Um, but then there's this scene where Balrog and E Honda are being tortured. They're, they're in jail and they're being tortured and the, the torturer leaves and Balrog says to E Honda, give me a hand. And E Honda responds to him. You've only been in jail two hours, maybe next month. I almost fucking fell out of my chair.
Sonny00:49:21I mean, I, I, I.
JVL00:49:22It's so funny.
Sonny00:49:24I haven't seen this movie in 28 years, probably. And I will tell you when I saw it as a 14 year old or whatever, that went right over my head.
JVL00:49:32Oh, of course. Of course. But, but I, I almost fell out of my chair and I just thought to myself, this is a moment of inspired screenwriting in this otherwise unbelievably terrible script. No. Who was it? It's just Stephen.
Sonny00:49:47No, it's, it's, uh, Stephen D'Souza. I don't know. It's the diehard.
JVL00:49:52Oh, really?
Sonny00:49:54Yeah. I'm like 90% sure. I saw his name.
Mike00:49:57I saw his name in the opening credits.
Sonny00:49:59Yeah. Uh, he was the director. This is, I believe, I believe this is also the, his first movie as a director. Um, but he wrote, uh, he wrote, in addition to this, he wrote diehard. He wrote 48 hours. He wrote commando. Um, he, uh, wrote 48 hours. Uh, I think he may have a credit on. Uh, anyway, um, maybe not, but, but no, he's a, but he, he's like, he wrote diehard. He's the guy who wrote that. And like, if there are, there are lots of little things tucked into the movie. Like there's a, at one point, you know, there's the over, there's like an overhead voice. Uh, uh, you know, like, and at one point there's a line of dialogue about like making sure to get your health insurance renewed or something like that.
JVL00:50:52Like. There's, there's all sorts of little stuff like that.
Sonny00:50:54And also they're like little, they're a little, I don't know, uh, trivia like tidbits. Like at one point, very early on when we're introduced to Ken and Ryu, uh, the, I think Sagat, um, says something like, you know, the weapons are behind the Malpaso brewery. Well, Malpaso of course is Clint Eastwood's production company. Like there's like, it's just like little, little things like that throughout. It's very clear that Steven D'Souza was having a very good time writing. This movie. This movie and a terrible, awful time directing it.
JVL00:51:25Yeah. I think that's right.
Sonny00:51:29Everything about this movie, the production of this movie was a disaster. I mean, it was not, it was, you know, role Julia died shortly after.
JVL00:51:36Yeah. It's dedicated.
Mike00:51:37It's dedicated to him at the end of the movie. Yeah.
JVL00:51:40Um, Kylie Minogue is in it as a very, very cute little Kylie Minogue as a Cammy who is like the most porny of the. And the Cammy character in the game, I don't know if you guys remember her, but she's, she's the only one who sort of really gives us that Chun-Li is like a normal non-sexified. Yes. The Cammy character is wearing like a thong and like she turns around to show you her ass and like give you a wink when you win with her. And that was the beginning of what sent us on the path to like the, you know, manga sex pot within a fight. Rating game. Yes. Cliche. Sorry. That is Cammy's place in the canon.
Mike00:52:28But Michael, please tell me, what were your thoughts? So had you seen this before? I thought I had seen it before, but it turns out I think I saw Mortal Kombat. So I had not seen Street Fighter before. With Mrs. Pete Sampras. That's right. So I agree with, I totally agree JVL with your, you know, there's two, at least two movies. In this one movie. And it's weird. And I found it jarring. And I, I, I can appreciate everything that you guys have said about the sort of why it has a kind of cult following among, you know, cinephiles or whatever. I don't even know if you would say that, but certain people, but I could not get over how bad it was, like how bad the execution of it was. And it was to the point where it got boring to me. So like the moment I thought you were going to mention Sonny in terms of like, you were, you were saying it to praise the production design, uh, for, for the attention to detail, but there was a moment in that room where they, there's like a computer with like a big, like metal structure, see-through metal structure that like they're, they're going over to, to like type something into, and you can very clearly see like when they walk over there that like whatever flimsy material, this metal structure is built out of just like moves. You know, like, like moves with the wind from two actors walking over to that part of the set, you know, and like that just immediately, I was like, okay, this is this, everything then from then on looked so cheap, the explosions, the, the, the stealth boat, like they clearly went all out on some things and then just like, you know, all of the bricks, you know, that, uh, uh, that E Honda is like falling into, you know, they're, they're like, well, it's like, so it's.
Sonny00:54:22Like clearly styrofoam did totally.
Mike00:54:24And, and it's like, you just, I, so I couldn't get over that, that I found the dialogue like so cheesy, like the, the attempt at those kind of like 90 eighties, nineties action movie quips and jokes are just so clunky. And part of this is John. That's why it's so funny is that so much of it is terrible, but then you get a line like the, the prison line and it, you're just like, what's up? How did this, how did this.
Sonny00:54:52Well, yes, I, I mean, once again, you could, you could, you can see the flashes where it's very clear that just Susan knew what he was doing. Um, for instance, the, the, uh, the, the line that I kind of referenced before we started the, you know, for you being graced by the presence of major bison was, uh, the most memorable experience of your life. For me, it was Tuesday. Like, that's a, that's a, that's a great, that's a great little bit of monologue.
JVL00:55:22Dialogue and has become a class, right? This is, this has become a cliche. And I think this is the first appearance of that cliche. Maybe.
Sonny00:55:29Yeah. I don't, I, I'm, I, I don't know for sure. I couldn't, I couldn't say for sure, but I, it, I think it is. And, uh, and look there, I, the whole thing is so ridiculous and confused. I like just for one thing, the, the, the only note I wrote down while watching this before I just put my pen away because it's too, it's too ridiculous to take notes on, uh, was all right. So you, you have, you have a UN stand and you have the AN, they are blue helmets. They are literal blue helmets. Uh, the leader of the blue helmets is the muscles from Brussels and he's playing an American with an American tattoo on his arm with the most ridiculous, you know, Brussels accent imaginable, you know, but he's like, uh, I'm, I'm Colonel Guile from the United States and it's just like, no, this is, this is all absurd. This is all so ridiculous.
JVL00:56:29So there are, there are movies that are so bad that they're good. And there are movies that are so bad that they're just bad. I think this, I, I count street fighter is so bad. It's amazing. I mean, that's, it's not good, but it's just, it's like, holy, holy crap. I can't even believe what's happening. It's you can't take your eyes off of it. Uh, and again, like I just keep it, it's flash Gordon. I was, it is our generation's flash Gordon.
Mike00:56:58I was kinda, I, I did not feel that way. I found, I actually found Raul Julia's portrayal like bizarre and like, like I know it was campy, but maybe camp is just not for me, I guess, because like, I was just like, what the, like, what the fuck is going on? Like the, the, the, the, uh, Cape flip, you know, every time he's doing it, it's so ridiculous, I will say I loved the. Random little Easter eggs of like the, the random. So there was like one where they're like, it was like a top of a lid of a barrel that says cap on it and the, uh, uh, the, the, the computer with which he, which he attacks where, where a bison attacks, it's the joystick and button. Exactly. And I was like, I was like, okay. Is this the, the way the movie had gone, I couldn't tell if this was an intention of wink at the audience, like, Hey, look, it's literally like what you play street fighter on, or if it was just like cheapo, uh, uh, you know, product, you know, integration into the movie. Like that's, that seems like a failure, right. On, on the movie's part. Like I didn't know what I was supposed to be.
JVL00:58:09I thought it was pretty clearly a nodding.
Sonny00:58:12Yeah. It's just a little like the DJ character, right?
JVL00:58:16DJ is another character from, and, uh, he's a guy and he's just sitting there like, well, I thought it was. It's sort of funny. So you have DJ and Zangief who are both henchmen for M. Bison and Zangief Raul Julia is doing everything totally earnest and totally straight as part of his camp performance. The Zangief character is just like absolutely inspired and down for it. Zangief is, is into everything that M. Bison is, is selling and DJ is sitting there like this whole thing is fucked. And it's that again. I just found it funny and not like, like really humorously funny, but just like it's, it's such a brilliant mess. Yes. Fair enough.
Sonny00:59:02I, I, the, the, the, the, my favorite moment maybe in the whole movie is with DJ and it's where, uh, it's where they think Guile is dead. And, uh, DJ says something like, you know, Oh, this is such a stroke of luck. Major Bison. We've, we've done it. And he's like, I've never been more disappointed in my life. Indeed. And then DJ's just like, okay. Anyway, it's like a, it's a perfect line read. It's, it's, he like kind of bugs his eyes a little. He's like, okay. And it's just, I also love that. I also love that. Like they have this collection of horribles with, you know, evil accents. You've got, you know, uh, I mean, whatever accent Raul Julia is doing is like kind of stereotypical Hollywood evil there's. And then you have Zangief who is the Russian with his Russian accent. And then there's like a very clearly Afrikaner. The torture has like an Afrikaans accent. And then you got DJ with his Jamaican. It's like, it's like all of the, all the, all the evil accents. And then also Jamaican.
Mike01:00:03Well, it is, it is amazing. It is amazing. They put in all of the characters from street fighter two and like, they just
JVL01:00:12like, they're all in there. And that's not true. There's one missing.
Mike01:00:15Who is that?
JVL01:00:16Uh, so, so T Hawk, who is no, he's no, he's T Hawk is. He is, but he is, he doesn't look anything like it. He is a, one of the a N forces, right? But the, there is a character from street fighter two, who is basically a Bruce Lee stand in. I'm forgetting his name, but I don't believe he's in this. Really? Maybe he is. And I just didn't, didn't catch his.
Mike01:00:43I don't know which. Yeah. I don't. Cause I'm looking now at the character list. You got Ryu, E Honda, Blanca, Guile, Ken, Chun-Li, Zangief. Dalsim, uh, Balrog was in it. Vega, Sagat, and I really liked Vega too.
JVL01:00:59The guy they have is like kind of a dandy and pretty boy.
Mike01:01:06Yeah. He's a pretty boy. I thought it was funny. No, it was. Look, yeah. I think, I think a hilarious like mess is Ming-Na Wen.
JVL01:01:14Anyone? Anyone? I have never thought of Ming-Na Wen as like a little hottie. She's a smoke show in this.
Mike01:01:21Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much, but I would say better than Kylie Minogue. Who's like, there was, there, I did laugh at the moment where, where like, uh, uh, or what's her name? Chun-Li said, like, makes fun of her pigtails. Um, I thought that was fun.
Sonny01:01:37So Kylie Minogue, who is so far over her head in this, like clearly has no idea what she's doing either on the, either on the fighting or the acting front. And like, I think, I think, uh, Jean-Claude Van Damme was very on. Happy with her just in general, in, in the, my understanding, again, I, I've, I've read a little bit about the making of this movie and it was, uh, it was kind of a tremendous disaster. She was, she was one of the not great parts of it.
JVL01:02:05I was surprised that, uh, Van Damme agreed at this point in his career to do a movie in which he doesn't get to do any martial arts. That's another like weirdness of, of this film is like he, he kicks one guy.
Sonny01:02:20Yeah, he does. He does a little bit. He's into fighting, but it was like, this was supposed to be his, like, this was supposed to be his predator or his commando. Like this was the big budget, you know, uh, big action movie and he's barely in the movie. He's like, it's, you know, it's, it's only a hundred minutes long and he's in maybe 15 minutes of it. Really?
Mike01:02:43Well, and there's also, there's also not that much. It's, it's not until like the, really the third act that there's even a lot of like kicking and punching and. And street fighter type fighting. I mean, it's very, it's like, there's so much buildup.
JVL01:02:57It is amazing to do a movie about a game. That's a fighting game. And this son, he mentioned this the first time we talked about this, about how mortal combat at least understood that like mortal combat is like a series of, here are the characters. Now we're going to have them fight over and over again.
Sonny01:03:14It's basically game of death, but.
JVL01:03:16And, and street fighters like, yeah, we have this game about fighting. So there's a, there's this political. Intrigue happening on an island nation and the UN is trying to kick a warlord out, but there's a gun runner who also has a complicated relationship with a warlord. And then there's a journalist and they all are on their journeys of personal revenge. But it's, it's like, it's like do some street fighting, but it's like, there is no street fighting in the movie street fighter.
Mike01:03:40But see, so the way I think of it is, so this is all lifted from street fighter too. So like, they clearly just like went to the story that the game developed. And we're like, okay, that's the story, which like, which is like a misunderstanding of video game backstories, at least those kinds of video game backstories, which is they don't actually matter. Nobody actually is playing for the storyline that nobody even knows. It's like, it's the, it's the fighting, but that doesn't really sustain a movie. So.
JVL01:04:12Do you know, they made two more of these? No, they didn't really. There is, there is a street fighter, the legend of Chun-Li in which Neil, McDonough is the heavy.
Sonny01:04:27Well, that wasn't, it wasn't like a sequel, right?
JVL01:04:29It was like a, no, it was like a, like a soft. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, you know, like a Wolverine origin.
Mike01:04:36This came out 2009.
JVL01:04:38Yeah. McDonough. And then there is a, an origin more movie that is Ryu and Ken. It's like street fighter assassins, assassins fist, assassins fist. And that one. I believe it looks to me like some very, very small startup production company got the rights to it. And it all, I mean, clearly direct a video, but might even be like from some other video game. That movie looks to me like a, the, it was the, the payoff for some weird rights transfer. Uh, and anyway, just to admit straight fighter never worked and it's weird. It should. It should have, right? Why, why shouldn't street fighter have worked as a franchise?
Sonny01:05:26Well, I mean, why didn't mortal combat ever work as a franchise? Really? I mean, the first one did okay. The second one was kind of a disaster. And then they, you know, the, the reboot came out during the pandemic, got kind of buried under, under all that.
Mike01:05:41I mean, I think it goes back to what I just said, which is like, nobody, nobody cares about the story. It's just about the fight. Yeah. It's just about the finish him or, you know, whatever, you know, that like.
Sonny01:05:51I will say, I will say all of the mortal combat movies have been better because they all understand like, these are just excuses to stage fighting set pieces. Right. Like the first, I, I unironically like the first one. I think it, it understands what it is and, and is, is, is perfectly acceptable.
JVL01:06:07I agree with that. I agree with that. But why, why then does a Super Mario open to $250 million?
Mike01:06:17Are you talking about the one from 1992? Because. The one that just this year. Because that's what I kept thinking of when I was watching Street Fighter was, oh, this is like a complete miss understanding of what was appealing about the game. Just like Super Mario Brothers or what was it? It was right. Super Mario Brothers.
JVL01:06:36The first Super Mario Brothers. Yeah. Right. But the Bob Hoskins.
Sonny01:06:39The cartoon was basically just the video game. I mean, it was like. Yeah. Rescue the princess. And, and then it had the whole, it had the whole like, you know, illumination. Yes. Minions. Like we're going to throw a bunch of. We're going to throw a bunch of like, uh, pop songs in here that don't really have anything to do with anything, but you'll recognize them. You'll like them. And like, I don't know.
Mike01:06:59Which by the way, just last weekend, we saw we, the, uh, at the end of the big, uh, PTA fundraising week, uh, they had a, a screening of the Super Mario Brothers movie at the school that I brought the two old boys to. And, um, I think I'm still right. On that movie being kind of garbage, right? I think there was some argument. Like, I think you loved it. No, total garbage. Okay. We all hated it.
Sonny01:07:30I didn't love it.
Mike01:07:31I, I mean, I, I feel like we got a lot of, I think it's, I feel, I feel like maybe our listeners did not appreciate maybe.
Sonny01:07:37Yeah. No, I mean, it's, it's, I think it's a, I think it's a perfectly serviceable kids movie. Like kids in, in, uh, had, had a fine time, whatever. I like, I'm not going to sit here and, you know, say that it fails at what it set out to do, which is to entertain. Six to 10 year olds. Yeah. Like clearly, clearly pretty good at that.
Mike01:07:56Well, all I know is when garbage, when the peaches song came on, every kid in that gym at the elementary school, like saying it, it was, it's a bomb.
Sonny01:08:05Yeah. The kids love it. Kids. Okay.
Mike01:08:10Uh, any other thoughts on street fighter?
Sonny01:08:12No, that's it.
Mike01:08:13All right. Uh, that's all the time we're giving, uh, join us at sub beacon.com and we'll talk to you next time.
Sonny01:08:21Sorry, we stretched long there. We had a lot of things to say about street fighter.
Mike01:08:32Well, I'm just trying, I'm just trying to avoid watching the end of this game.
Sonny01:08:38What game?
JVL01:08:39Phillies Braves. Are the Phillies winning? Yes. Oh, awesome.
Sonny01:08:44The Orioles got swept. They did.
JVL01:08:46I know.
Sonny01:08:46End of a great season.
JVL01:08:48And the guys want to hear about my injury.
Sonny01:08:50Sure.
JVL01:08:50You have an injury.
Sonny01:08:52Yeah.
JVL01:08:53Pretty gnarly. Let's hear it. I was carrying some firewood in over the weekend because we're at fire season. And one of the logs, I was carrying an armful of logs and one of them slipped off the top and it fell and it fell in a perfect way so that it went exactly perpendicular to the floor and then straight down where it then landed. You know, they're, they're split, right? So they're, each log is sort of triangular so that it's going long way down and then it hits my big toe with one of the points. So you're getting like the full, like seven pounds of force straight down on a single point on, on my, my big toe. Ouch. It looks like hamburger down there and just like blood. Everywhere and I went to see a doc about it and he's like, yeah, I should probably just take that nail off.
Sonny01:10:03Did he take it off?
JVL01:10:06I'm sure it's fine.
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