#235. 'Argylle'
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
Sonny, JVL, and Mike take on Matthew Vaughn's mega-budget spy comedy Argylle (2024), starring Bryce Dallas Howard as a novelist who turns out to secretly be the real Agent Argylle, alongside Sam Rockwell, Henry Cavill, Dua Lipa, John Cena, and Samuel L. Jackson, and the verdicts split hard. Sonny and JVL are scathing: Sonny rips apart the three-nested-layers-of-metafiction plot and calls out embarrassingly dated, PlayStation-era green-screen work throughout, singling out an "oil skating" sequence he says should have been "shot into the fucking sun"; JVL goes further, spinning an elaborate conspiracy theory that Guy Ritchie, not Vaughn, secretly directed Layer Cake (which JVL still ranks among the great films of the last twenty years) and that everything credited to Vaughn since has been garbage by comparison, and he jokes the whole film plays like a ChatGPT mashup of Knight and Day and Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Mike, true to form, stipulates every criticism the other two raise and still insists he had a great time, copping to a soft spot for Bryce Dallas Howard and praising Sam Rockwell. Before getting to the movie, the opening banter runs long: JVL's son G-Money works through the Mission: Impossible films out of order, begs to watch the "forbidden" Mission: Impossible 2, and demands it be turned off twenty minutes in ("Dad is always right"), sparking a lengthy tangent on how the franchise nearly died after part two before Tom Cruise rescued it as producer; Sonny riffs on looming Texas jury duty, voir dire, and courtroom dress codes; and Mike recaps placing third in his HOA's chili cook-off, losing out to a controversial Thai red curry and a self-shot North Dakota goose chili while insisting his four-pack-of-beer third-place prize actually beats the winner's apron. On box office, Argylle opens at number one with a mere $17.5 million against a reported $200 million budget, while The Beekeeper keeps hanging tough at number three.
From the show notes
Two Ls.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Who are these people? Real life spies. Why would they care about me? Because you're a goddamn fortune teller, Ellie. What you wrote in your new book actually happened. And you kicked a hornet's nest you didn't even know existed. I'm in some really big trouble, Mom. Oh, so now you're experimenting with drugs. I want all assets on them now. I need her to write the next chapter.
Mike00:00:30Welcome to the Sub-Beacon podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. With me as always are my two co-hosts who know the greater the spy, the bigger the lie, Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com to become a patron. Listen to new episodes every Friday and bonus episodes on Monday. When you become a patron, you become a part of the Sub-Beacon community and honestly, who wouldn't want to be a part of that? That's Sub-Beacon.com. We're going to be talking about Argyle later in the show. But first, let's see how our crew is doing. JVL, how are you, bud?
JVL00:01:16G-Money has been making his way through the Mission Impossible series with me. And we began with four, then did five, and then seven, and I skipped six. Which is Fallout, because I thought that one might be a little bit too intense for him. But he wore me down. He so wanted to watch Fallout. He wore me down. So he just, he asked 5,000 times and I'm sorry, he's the fourth kid. So yeah, you know, 5,000 first time. I was like, yeah, sure. I guess. Let's watch it.
Mike00:01:44I'm sorry. Was he confused when he watched Mission Impossible 7?
Sonny00:01:48You know, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But here's, can I ask you, so you skipped one, two, and three.
JVL00:01:54Skipped one, two, three.
Sonny00:01:55You went right to four. Yeah. Here's, here's, I guess my question about this is that. I know we've discussed this before about three being either overrated or underrated or like properly rated or whatever. But the problem with skipping right to four is that. Essentially all of the last series of movies, four, five, six, and seven. All of them have been a reaction to the events in three where Tom Cruise, where Ethan Hunt gets married.
JVL00:02:23Yeah, you don't, you don't need to, you can, you can a hundred percent just start at number four. If you want to. I believe that.
?00:02:29Okay.
JVL00:02:30Anyway, but point is, uh, for some reason yesterday he started in on, uh, I really want to watch too. I really want to watch too. I said to him, I said, buddy, two is terrible. He's like, and it, me saying that it was terrible was all of a sudden it became the forbidden fruit and he was convinced that it must actually be the best and I'm keeping it from him. And so I was like, okay, buddy, here we go. Bam. There's John Woo. And we put it on and he sat there and his experience of mission. Impossible is four or five and six were directed by like Brad Bird and, uh, who, who, and then Christopher McQuarrie and Christopher McQuarrie. Right. And it's these really timeless movies in a way, the height of filmmaking. I don't know if you guys have seen mission impossible too, because I have not seen it since I was in the theater.
Sonny00:03:20I rewatched it recently. I rewatched it before, uh, ghost protocol, uh, or before the, before whatever the most dead reckoning, uh, dead reckoning. Yeah. Thank you.
JVL00:03:29Part one part one two is so terrible that it feels like it's from a different age of cinema.
Sonny00:03:39It was, it is, it's from a very specific age of cinema, which is like late eighties, early nineties, Hong Kong action cinema.
JVL00:03:46It is, but everything about from the synthesizer music score, which feels from like you're in the wrong decade to the camera angles, the theme song.
Sonny00:03:58Right.
JVL00:03:59I think so. It's very bad. It is very, very bad. So bad that I think you can't even really, your brain has abstracted how bad it is. And gee, money after 20 minutes said, turn this off. He's like, is this even Mission Impossible? Is that really Tom Cruise? I was like, yeah, that's Tom Cruise. He was like, this is bad. I said, yeah, no kidding. No kidding. So we turned it off. Dad is always right.
Sonny00:04:26If you turned it off after 20 minutes, though, I don't know that you got. Got to what is indisputably the best part of the whole movie. So I don't think she shows up until about 30 minutes in and it's it's Tandy Newton in the bathtub with them. That's that's where we Andy Newton who is say what you will about John Woo and say what you will about Mission Impossible 2. And I've said all of the things about both of these like Mission Impossible 2 is by far and away the worst of these movies. Like it's not even close. There's been an effort in recent years to rehabilitate Mission Impossible 2. People are like, you know, it's John Woo. It's all tourist is I'm like look guys. There are a lot of John Woo movies. I like and there are a lot of John Woo movies. I tolerate this is a bad movie. It's a bad movie on every fundamental level except for one, which is that he shoots Tandy Newton as hot as any woman has ever looked in the history of cinema. I it's like it's genuinely like jaw-dropping Lee like, oh my God.
JVL00:05:24I like I mean in fairness. I don't think it's that. Hard to make Dandy Newton look unbelievable because she does she's like otherworldly. Yes, she just doesn't need she's what is she? She's like 55 now and she still just looks astonishing. She's just she's like Helena Troy beautiful. But yes, she and that's the like the weird sexual tension between her and Ethan Hunter every everything about this movie is wrong and I can't think of a series which had a misstep like that and then resurrected itself to not only be the go on for a long time but to become so much better.
Sonny00:06:13Well, we discussed this a little bit right because alright. So the first the first run of movies are essentially all a tourist exercises, right? You've got a Brian De Palma movie that is very distinctly a Brian De Palma movie. You have a John Woo movie that is very distinctly a John Woo movie you have a JJ Abrams movie that is very distinctly a JJ Abrams movie and like that means these all mean different things now than they did at the time that those movies came out but like those are like John Tom Cruise was working with different directors to make different types of movies and then with the fourth one they become Tom Cruise movies like even the Brad Bird directed one even the Brad Bird directed one is a is functionally a Tom Cruise movie and then Christopher McQuarrie takes over and like I've always thought the best way to understand Christopher McQuarrie is as an extension of Tom Cruise for these last like 15 years or so I'm like it just it just like that that's how it works but like the series just shifted but we've and we've discussed this before but Mission Impossible 2 did almost kill the series I mean Mission Impossible 3 has the worst grosses of all of them because Mission Impossible 2 didn't get punished for being bad and in fact it was the highest grossing one for a long time. It had the biggest opening it had the best domestic box office run until I think number six and and it almost I mean it really did almost kill the series like the third one was bad it lost it lost money it was it was you know not well you know Tom Cruise taking
JVL00:07:45it took Tom Cruise coming to his own as a producer to save it well that was my question
Mike00:07:51is sort of that what happened with 3 almost certainly should have killed it and it was it was only through Tom Cruise the power of Tom Cruise however many thetans he has like
JVL00:08:03he was able to to keep it going no no he's zero thetans that's why he's so powerful because he's clear he has zero feet well I know well he's low thetan count yeah he's got rid of all the feet yeah anyway that's that's all yeah I just I just it was one of these things where I my mind had been like oh yeah no it's really bad had had not remembered exactly
Sonny00:08:23how bad it is it's it's not it's not I watched all of them before.
JVL00:08:28The Dead Reckoning and it's got this terrible CGI in the beginning there were on a jumbo jet and the jumbo jets crashing and this this movie looks out of place even from Mission Impossible once a Mission Impossible one is dated in a way but also in another way feels like it could be from like the height of 70s cinema all tours and it really sure it absolutely holds up and it's it's fantastic and it has some CGI stuff in it. Like the helicopter through the channel but it's you know, it's mostly a very self-contained thing and this yeah, it's not there.
Sonny00:09:11There's a there's a very conscious effort again starting starting in three but really hitting for that changed it again Tom Cruise made a conscious choice. It was like we are not doing CGI stunts. We are not doing the big, you know, the computer special effects. I'm going to be the stunt. I'm the stunt and like that that you know, we can people can argue over how much of it is really him and how much of it is marketing and blah blah blah, but like there's there's again. There's just a tangible difference between one, two and three and then four through seven.
JVL00:09:48We're going to shoot on locations and we're going to do things like have car chases with actual cars where the cameras are are mounted onto the car. Sound low by the street to accelerate your feeling of speed as opposed to, well, anyway, too much time on this already, but just anybody who'd been tempted to go back to mission. Don't do it. Don't do it.
Sonny00:10:10Don't go back to do it. You should do it. You should do it just to really appreciate what we learn.
Mike00:10:14Learn what I've learned. It's bad.
Sonny00:10:16All right. You have to experience what I've experienced to appreciate what we have today. Progress.
Mike00:10:21It's ever moving. All right. Let's ever move through this show, Sonny. What is going on with you?
Sonny00:10:27So. I have jury duty this week. I don't.
JVL00:10:31I.
Sonny00:10:32Did you get somebody into the chair? We're taping on Wednesday. I have jury duty on Thursday, so I don't know what's going to what's going to happen. But I am. I am excited to partake in some Texas justice. You know, yeah, I'm going to roll in there in my cowboy hat. Actually, I have a question. I have I have a question for you guys, because there was an instruction on the jury card that I didn't understand. It's you know, it says, you know, show up at the courthouse at eight. I am dress dress like you would dress for church. I don't know what I like. Does that mean I have to wear a hat with like a like, you know, one of the with the with
JVL00:11:11all the stuff on top of government document and the government document instructs you a citizen to dress like you would if you went to church, dress like you would dress to go
Mike00:11:20to church. That means something to most Texans. Let me just just because it doesn't mean anything to you, Sonny.
JVL00:11:28Any defense attorney who allows Sonny Bunch to be seated on a jury should be disbarred.
Sonny00:11:35This is this is so I it's funny that you mentioned this because I just assume that there's no chance anybody on either side is going to want me on a jury.
JVL00:11:44So if you if you know, I think, of course, the prosecution wants you on a jury.
Sonny00:11:48No, the prosecutor. But the prosecution hears what the prosecution is going to see when they get to my, you know, occupation. They're going to see journalist new. Yeah. That's a that's a big no. That's a big no for the prosecution.
JVL00:12:01One of these uppity writer fellows should ask you what you what your feelings are about hobos.
Sonny00:12:06When you get to voir dire, if they get to the voir dire, it's going to be it's going to be much more interesting.
JVL00:12:11Fly on the wall for the voir dire of Sonny Bunch.
Sonny00:12:14It's going to be much more interesting.
JVL00:12:15Have you ever seen hobos riding the rails? Yes. Yes, sir. What do you think should be done with said hobos?
Sonny00:12:23I definitely don't think you should throw them in a meat grinder. Why would you even think that? I don't. I don't. I don't understand. Where is this coming from?
Mike00:12:32Can they bring it?
Sonny00:12:33Are you a listener to my podcast?
Mike00:12:34I was going to say, can they bring in evidence on voir dire?
Sonny00:12:36And this is the other thing is it will have my like actual legal name, which is different than Sonny Bunch, as you guys know. So if they Google me, they're not going to know anything about me. I'm just going to be a blank slate. They're going to be who is this person? He doesn't exist. Must be a fake name.
Mike00:12:51Well, I cannot wait to hear about which execution you have. You have okayed on this.
Sonny00:12:57On this. My understanding is they just give them out like candy. You just go in. You, you, you throw a pebble in a jar, Jaywalking, give me a chair, old Sparky, right? Depends on, well, I'm not for the first offense, but like if that's your third Jaywalking ticket, I mean, you're a recidivist. You're not getting any better.
JVL00:13:21Like downloading movies from pirate Bay, get him into old Sparky.
Sonny00:13:25No, no, no, no. He calls for preemptive warfare. We need over the skies for that. I like if, if, if, if, if I'm like a minority report, if I'm seated on a piracy jury, I will have already assumed the system has failed.
Mike00:13:41I've never, how are you? I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm, I'm, I'm actually a little surprised you guys haven't mentioned it. Um, uh, but that's okay. I mean, you guys may, may be a little intimidated. And that, which is also fine. Um, but, uh, as I'm sure our listeners know as well, I, uh, of course, uh, this past weekend, uh, placed third in the true row community, uh, associations, uh, annual chili cook-off. So I, yeah, I know you can, we can talk, you can talk to me about it.
JVL00:14:17It's a third out of four, third out of third out about 15, 16 Cincinnati guy or a Texas guy.
Mike00:14:24Get the hell outta here. Cincinnati chili. That's not chill. That's not chili sugar in it. You know what's, you know what Cincinnati chili is. Cincinnati chili is like central European Bolognese. It ain't chili. It ain't chili.
JVL00:14:39Well, I am not a bronze medalist at the HOA community chili cookout. So, uh, tell me what is, what is real chili?
Mike00:14:49Uh, so this is actually an interesting question because the first place winner, uh, of the, uh, neighborhood chili cook-off. Um, there was, there was some dispute about whether it really constitutes chili. Um, there is no denying it was the most delicious, but whether it was chili is another question. Um, and I do wanna say that, um, the winner, she, she's a very sweet, sweet lady. She held my baby for, uh, several minutes during the chili cook-off. So while you spit into her, her bowl, Hey, she won. She won. Um, but it was a, uh, tie. I read curry chili. What it basically was is it was red dong in it. It was, it, it was red curry with chicken and some beans. So the beans, I guess, are what make it chilly. I don't know. There was, there was a lot of, it was controversial, but it didn't stop her from winning Rudy Giuliani
JVL00:15:49down and go to the local landscaping place and do a press conference to talk about the problems with our classification is chili.
Mike00:15:56Oh, trust me. I, uh, I was watching the, the, the vote counters. Like a hawk. Um, you know, they are, they're my oldest, uh, one of his best buds parents. Uh, but that doesn't matter. I, I, I, you know, I don't know, you know, what kind of hardware on the scale from this.
JVL00:16:13And what do you, what do you cook as chili and can, is chicken okay? In chili. Oh, chicken. Chili is fine.
Mike00:16:20Chicken. Chili is fine. In fact, the second, the second place you want to was the, was in the second place. Chili was goose. That the guy had, had shot himself in North Dakota.
Sonny00:16:32So like goose sausage or just ground goose.
Mike00:16:36It was goose. I don't know. It's actually hobo. Hobo chili. It did taste a little like. He just told you it was goose. Oh yeah. This is goose. Um, but my chili, so, so my chili is a very straight forward. Some might say basic, I say classic chili. Um, I do it with ground. Beef. I use, I prefer kidney beans. Uh, my wife likes to also add black beans. That's fine. But if I'm making it my way, I use kidney beans only, um, and tomatoes very, so it is essentially the, uh, cook's illustrated, uh, basic chili, but, uh, but I, I do some variations on it. They put too much, um, they put tomato paste in it and like, that's too sweet. It's too sweet. I'm sorry. That's what I used to put in my chili tomato paste and brown sugar. No brown sugar. Oh. Ooh. But I'm sure yours is fine.
JVL00:17:34I'm sure it's fine. Now. I, all I did was borrow the, I, I, when I would make chili, I would go to the hard times cafe on King street in Alexandria and buy their little box of like, make our chili at home and just do that. Ah, okay. I liked hard times. Are you probably hard times or anti hard times?
Mike00:17:49It's fine. It's not, look, I, if, if I'm gonna make chili, I'm gonna make chili my way. I'm gonna have chili. Like that's what I prefer anyway. So, but here's the key. Here's the key for all you chili heads out there. The key with chili is to put the spices in with the oil and the vegetables, not all before you brown the meat before you add the beans and the tomatoes, you gotta let those spices bloom, baby. You gotta let 'em infuse in that oil and on the onions and garlic and, and, and, uh, bell peppers. Uh, that's how you maximize. The flavor. So it actually wasn't my best chili, but I think it kicked above the competition because I bloom those spices beforehand. And I think that's really the key. It, it, it may have also had to do with the fact that, um, we found out this is our first time at the chili cook-off that actually it's not really like a family event. It's, it's a, it's a grownup event, but we brought our kids and, um, and like my kids got a vote. And so, oh, you stuffed the ballot boxes, but, but I really did not expect to win at all. So when they called me for third place, well, you didn't, I didn't do Jay, but I did in a way, in a sense, Sonny, I did because you know what second place, you know, what second place got second place got steak knives, no close a, a thing of first loser thing of hot sauce. You got, I got a nice thing of hot sauce. Okay. First place got an apron that says, uh, uh, chili cook-off champion and bragging rights, I guess, you know, that apron's full of shit, you know, what third place got third place got a, uh, a, uh, variety four pack of beer that's sitting in my fridge first place got
Sonny00:19:48apron.
Mike00:19:49No, first place got the apron. Third place got the beer. So I think I won. I would say you did. Yeah. So, uh, anyway,
JVL00:19:56Congratulations, Michael.
Mike00:19:57Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Very proud of you.
JVL00:20:00Did you have acceptance speech? Sure.
Mike00:20:02I did make a joke. I did make a joke about making an acceptance speech, but, um, but, but, but nobody got it. And so I just sauntered back with my beer. Um, I will say the other thing that is, so we are technically geographically outside of our, of this neighborhood. Um, like we're literally a street over from it. Um, but we, we, we bought a, we bought. Got into the, um, the pool community. Um, so like they have like, uh, they have sort of like, you can buy somebody else's out. So we bought ours, we, we own it now. So we are like, anyway, but the, the, the, the effect of this was that this is our first time at the chili cook-off. Like we really just know people in the neighborhood through the kids. And so we show up to this social event and everyone's like, and who are you again?
JVL00:20:54So any, when you tell them, so which house? Do you live in? Well, we're in the other street. They decide I am like, you're not alive. You're not one of us.
Sonny00:21:01I want to, I want to just interject here. So you, you ran in the wrong district, the ballot box with underage votes, uh, and you still lost to a disgusting, like Indian chili. It was Thai. It was Thai.
Mike00:21:19It was Thai curry. Thai red curry. So good. Um, yeah. Well, but like, that's how, you know, and you're proud of
Sonny00:21:26this third place that you got.
Mike00:21:27I am proud of it because you know what I started, I started that morning.
Sonny00:21:32So there's a, there's a lot of like very, uh, soft bigotry of low expectations going on right now.
Mike00:21:39This is, this is, uh, you know, well, nobody had lower, put me on that jury.
Sonny00:21:43You're getting, uh, you're getting 20 years, you think you're getting away with that, that shit in Dallas, Texas. No, sir.
Mike00:21:51No, sir.
Sonny00:21:52Chile election fraud, um, Chile fraud, Chile fraud. Okay. Right after the squirrels on water skis.
Mike00:22:02That's right.
Sonny00:22:03We've got a brewing story in Lake Highlands.
Mike00:22:08Um, yeah. Okay. Um, I think it's time. I think it's time to move on.
Sonny00:22:15Is it time to move on? Cause I'm not done yet. Roasting your terrible chili performance.
Mike00:22:20Here's the thing. Hold on. Uh, before we move on to box office, here's the thing, Sonny, you can't, you can't roast me. And hurt me because I had the lowest expectations of anybody. That's fair.
Sonny00:22:30Okay.
JVL00:22:31That's good.
Sonny00:22:32That's good. I'm glad you met your own expectations. Uh, the, uh, um, I, my, my chili, I don't really have a chili recipe, but I do have like the healthiest chili in the world.
Mike00:22:41That's what people need with chilis health. Oh, Turkey.
Sonny00:22:44I use, I use Turkey in, uh, it's like Turkey and onion and bell peppers and then like kidney beans and like tomato canned tomatoes and then also regular, you know, cut up tomatoes. But it's like, it's like the healthiest thing I can, I can eat a pound of it a day and still lose weight. It's amazing.
Mike00:23:01Yeah. I love it. But, but if you add in the fixings, that's where, that's where they get you.
Sonny00:23:04Yeah. You gotta, you gotta stay away from like put it on top of tater tots. I should do. I bet that would be delicious. I bet that would be amazing.
JVL00:23:14That's a good idea. We don't, we don't need a lot of chili should be all chili should be served on top of tater
Mike00:23:18tots. Oh, oh, oh, other question here, um, is chili, since we're coming up here, we're, we're recording this a few days before the super bowl is chili, a super bowl food thoughts.
Sonny00:23:30You could have, I don't, I wouldn't object to it. It would be, I, I, well, I'll take it back. I wouldn't object to it if I was at somebody else's house, but if somebody like came to my house with a big pot of chili and people were slopping chili all over the place, I
JVL00:23:43would be very nervous about the state of my, you as a host could serve it, but I wouldn't bring it to somebody else's house.
Mike00:23:50Yeah. Yeah. I, I agree with that. I, I mean, it's, it's fine. I've, if somebody offered me a bowl. Of chili at a super bowl party, I would eat it. Um, uh, but it doesn't like, I talked to a few people for whom, like, like the super bowl was sort of like the, the culmination of the chili season, you know, it's like, oh, it's kind of the last time we can have chili is, uh, is the super bowl for, you know, cuz cuz that, you know, but, but I've never thought of it as I, you know, I, I like pigs in a blanket or weather based.
Sonny00:24:19It's not like, it's not sporting event based.
Mike00:24:22Well, I know, I know, but it's like, because the super bowl is like near nearing the end of the winter season.
Sonny00:24:27The cool, I would say, I would say, uh, like the super bowl season is more like seven layer dip season. Like I wouldn't take any seven layer dips anywhere after the super bowl. That's it.
Mike00:24:38Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. I think that's right. I think that's right. Okay. Well, let's move on, uh, here, uh, from chili talk to box office talk. Uh, what are we, what are we looking at for, uh, this, uh, this past weekend? There are some, there are some new movies, uh, including the movie that we're discussing. Argyle's number one at the box office this week. Hey, the box office is back guys.
JVL00:25:01Right? Wait, Argyle's number one at the box office.
Sonny00:25:05Oh yeah.
JVL00:25:06$17 million.
Sonny00:25:07$17 and a half million.
JVL00:25:08How in the world did it get 17 and a half million dollars?
Sonny00:25:12Number two, the chosen season four episode one through three. So that's the Jesus show, right?
Mike00:25:18That's the Jesus show.
Sonny00:25:19Right now. Yes. That's that is, well, it's a Jesus show. I wouldn't, I don't know that it's the Jesus.
Mike00:25:23Fair enough.
Sonny00:25:24Fair enough. It's a Jesus. Uh, no, I, you know, I Jesus show the, the, the, the, the box office remains a complete disaster. I mean, Argyle's number one at $17.5 million and you know, this movie costs $200 million to make. And we can talk about that. In addition to everything else, $200 million.
Mike00:25:43It's it's context, right?
Sonny00:25:45$200 million.
Mike00:25:46There's context though.
?00:25:47Yeah.
Sonny00:25:48I mean, the context is that it was made for Apple streaming and they were like, ah, let's put it in the movie theaters. And like, I would assume that. 50 million of that is buying out the backend of Matthew Vaughn and you know, Sam Rockwell and the rest. So like, but even then it doesn't look like it doesn't, it doesn't look like a movie that anyway, uh, we'll talk about that in a minute. No, what's the best news is that, uh, the beekeeper continues to hang around. It's number three, number three at the box office, uh, this week, it, it, it dropped only 21%. And I gotta be honest, guys, there's, there's a small chance there's an outside chance that that the beekeeper will be number one at the box office this weekend. If it drops another 20% and Argyle drops 70 some percent and Lisa Frankenstein doesn't surprise people by doing huge numbers at the, at the box office this weekend, uh, Lisa Frankenstein. Yeah. That's a movie that's coming out this Friday, Lisa Frankenstein from Diablo Cody, the, uh,
Mike00:26:48writer of Juno. Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:26:51Is it, is it about Frankenstein or the writer of Jennifer's body?
Mike00:26:54That's right. Is it about Frankenstein or is it about Lisa Frank, the, uh, brand of like, no, it's about,
Sonny00:27:00it's about a girl. I believe her name is Lisa, uh, who brings a, uh, boy back to life like, like Frankenstein's monster you see.
Mike00:27:13So it's like young Frankenstein, but with a girl.
Sonny00:27:15Yeah. It's like set in the eighties. I think, I think it's, uh, it's like, uh, it looks really bad. It looks not, it looks not ideal to go. See, but I am, I'm gonna try and see it this weekend. As you know, I'm a completeist.
Mike00:27:29Yes. Um, okay. Well, what other, I mean, what other thoughts do we have here? I mean, yeah, I agree. The beekeeper and, and Wonka's broke $200 million total, so $200 million.
JVL00:27:41I'm sorry. How in the world did Argyle make 17 and a half million dollars? Who saw this?
Sonny00:27:48We saw it really not that many people before it grows. It averaged less than 5,000. Dollars a screen, which is not good for an opening weekend movie. I, so the, this movie is for, this movie is for people who like the Kingsman movies. Do you like the Kingsman movies? This movie's for you. It's like a, it's, it's Kingsman kind of, it's set in that universe. Did you guys stick around for the post credit sequence? No, I didn't. You didn't sit around for another five minutes waiting for the post credits. Uh, all right. So Argyle, should we just, should I get into this?
Mike00:28:22Yeah, let's, let's absolutely roll into Argyle. Argyle!
Sonny00:28:25Spoilers to come. I'm going to, I'm going to tell you who the real agent Argyle is. I don't. So this is a funny story. I'll miss that scene here. So, uh, for, for the last like three months on film Twitter, uh, we've all been complaining about having to see the Argyle trailer in front of everything and, and it's the same one every time. And it's always the, the hook of the trailer is who is the, uh, you're about to meet the real agent Argyle, who is the real agent Argyle, blah, blah, blah. And so we've all been kind of goofing on it a little bit, but I will say that I walked, uh, by, uh, the, uh, draft house with my wife and one of my children the other day. And, uh, my wife looked at the poster and was like, oh, that movie has a lot of people I like. That's who this movie is for. This movie is for people who see posters with lots of people they know and like on it and are like, oh, that looks like a good movie for me to go see. Uh, so, all right. So Argyle, uh, the setup here, I'm dying to know how you're going to review this. The setup here is very, is very simple. There's a woman, her name's Ellie Conway. She's written by Bryce Dallas Howard. Uh, she is, uh, the author of a series of what, where you're shaking your head already.
Mike00:29:32No, go ahead.
Sonny00:29:33Go ahead. That she's, uh, she's the author of a series of spy novels, the Argyle spy novels, the series she's about, she's putting the finishing touches on book number five and she, uh, she thinks it's done and she sends it off to her mom and her mom's like, no, we need one more chapter. It's not done yet. You gotta, you gotta tell her what's you, it's a cliffhanger. We didn't get, we can't have a cliffhanger. So she decides to go get on a train and visit her mom. And as she is on the train, she has stopped by an admirer, uh, who's played by Sam Rockwell. His name's Aiden, I think, uh, and Sam Rockwell, I'm just going to use everybody's real names. Sam Rockwell says to her, Hey, turns out I'm a spy and I like your books and all everybody on this train, they're all spies and they're trying to stop you from finishing your, they want your book. They want, they want to know what happens next because it turns out your books. Your stories that you're telling, they're predicting the future and we need the next chapter to find out what the next thing in this series of geopolitical events is. And so there's a big fight on the train and then they go to England and there's something about satellites. Can you, can either of you explain to me the like five minute stretch where they're talking about satellites and trying to figure out who it doesn't matter. Yeah.
JVL00:30:45I don't even remember that.
Sonny00:30:47There's a whole sequence involving satellites where they're trying to figure out, they're trying to pinpoint a location or something.
JVL00:30:52Oh, I remember that. Yeah. Okay.
Sonny00:30:55I remember that part. Yeah. It doesn't matter. It, it, it didn't cause it didn't move anything along at all.
JVL00:30:59It was just like, Hey, the place you're standing right now is where you need to be.
Sonny00:31:05You gotta go. You gotta go here. Uh, so then, uh, spoiler, spoiler alert for anybody who's worried about it, um, turns out that the real agent Argyle is Ellie Conway herself and she has been telling her own stories
JVL00:31:17that she has forgotten and, uh, all the flashbacks we've been seeing.
Sonny00:31:23Hold on. Let me get to those. I'm gonna come back to those. So she, she, uh, she has to, uh, long story short here is she is trying before her amnesia, she was trying to stop the division, the directorate, the IMF, the syndicate, the IMF from, from unleashing the entity from, uh, or something. And, uh, again, none of this really matters, but here's, what's, here's, what's interesting about the movie. What's interesting about the movie is that it has this weird kind of nested story within a movie within kind of secretly a whole different series. I'll get, I'll explain that in a second. I, I fucking, this movie is so ridiculous.
Mike00:32:09I it's get it together, Sonny.
Sonny00:32:13So the movie opens, the movie opens, I'm going to go, I'm going to flashback all the way to the beginning. The movie opens with an action set piece in which we see agent Argyle who's played by Henry Cavill. And he's taking down. The spy ring and the spies played by Dua Lipa, who has enormous thighs and they're all over his head and she they're spinning around and they're doing dances and then they're fighting
JVL00:32:36and shooting and, uh, anyway, so we'd melt away from the, the shooting cunnilingus.
Sonny00:32:48I don't know what that means.
JVL00:32:51The thing where he's eating her out.
Sonny00:32:53While they're spinning around and shooting at people, that's not what happens at all. It's a dance.
JVL00:33:00Oh, is it?
Sonny00:33:02That's disgusting. It's not pornographic. It is not. You just, this is a PG 13 movie.
JVL00:33:07Okay. You guys want to pretend that that wasn't happening. Go ahead.
Sonny00:33:11I'm disgusted by this. Anyway. Uh, anyway, so the, the, the, so we see, we see, uh, how she sees Agent Argyle. And then that kind of, that reality kind of starts blending into her reality. She starts seeing Henry Cavill, like talking to her in her reflection, which is a hint of course, of who she really about, but like a also, but also like Sam Rockwell's character morphs into Argon, Henry Cavill, Argyle, John Cena is there in the, in the, in the flashback. So again, the, the, the point here is you have this kind of like, you have this book within the movie, the, the, the movie itself is also taking place in the Kingsbury. Kingsman universe. You guys, you guys didn't stick around for the post-credits, so you didn't see that. They go to a Kingsman bar in the post-credit sequence, which promises Argyle book number one, the movie, which means that there's like a whole new series of things, a whole new like layer of metafiction. I think Matthew Vaughn has lost his mind guys. I think Matthew Vaughn has actually like fallen in. I think he is, I think he has created this bizarre convoluted meta reality and he has like trying to write his way out of it. Just like Ellie Conway from this movie. It's like the only thing I can think is that he's gone totally fucking insane. I think he's lost it. I think he's totally lost. And now here's, and I, the other reason I say this is because did we, uh, JVL, I forget. Did we talk the Kingsman? Yes. So that's the movie that it also had a post-credit sequence. Remember where I did not stay for that either, where I believe it was Lennon met Hitler as like a super villain. Then team up moment, again, these are the things that are happening in this movie, this series of movies. I think, I think, I think he, I think Hollywood has broken his brain. I think he's gone totally bonkers. I think, I think he's gone totally insane. All right. So that's, that's, that's the problem with this movie on a, on a, on a grand plotting level. It's totally insane. It doesn't make any sense. And it's totally self-referential and it's wrapped up in like three different layers of metafiction. None of it works. None of it's interesting. Every scene goes on 20%. It's too long. All of the action sequences are bad. And here's the real problem with the film. I can deal with sequences that go on too long. I can deal with action, um, you know, I, I, I can deal, I can deal with bad plotting and lazy plotting and generic plotting. We were just talking about the Mission Impossible movies. Again, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning part one is a movie in which the entity, which is trying to deploy the algorithm, which is again. Uh, it's the most generic nonsense ever. It doesn't matter. It's just like McGuffin the movie. Right. I can, I can deal with McGuffin the movie. The problem is you've got to build to things that are worth seeing on a big screen for that to pay off. And this movie fails spectacularly.
JVL00:36:07Oh, you mean in this spinning, spinning gunfire cunnilingus at the end with, uh, the, the explodey color? No.
Sonny00:36:16So, so. All right. Is it worth seeing? I'll get to, I'll get to that JBL. I'll get to that.
JVL00:36:21Cause he's eating her out as they're shooting everybody. He is.
Sonny00:36:24That's not what's happening. Absolutely. That's not what's happening. They're listening to Coldplay and he's going down on there and they're shooting people. It's literally not what's happening. You can, there's a camera angle from the top and you see space between them. They're, they have, they're all wearing all their clothes. We all know what's happening.
JVL00:36:38Ridiculous. We all know what's happening. Santino.
Sonny00:36:41You're being ridiculous right now. You're being ridiculous. We need to focus on the things that matter. What matters, what matters is the green screen work in this movie, I swear to God, green screen work has regressed badly in the last five or 10 years. It has regressed so bad. So I, it's, I, we've, we talked about this a little bit, uh, in the movie Red Notice.
JVL00:37:04Remember Red Notice?
Sonny00:37:05Oh. Red Notice, Red Notice had a series of really bad sequences that were so obviously green screen.
JVL00:37:11Like it was clear that.
Sonny00:37:12Everything in the prison. Nothing took place. The, the, the bullfighting sequence is the one I remember. Remember that? The bullfighting sequence. It was clear that nothing was taking place anywhere near the real world and that this is also true. We didn't talk about Rebel Moon, but this is also true of Rebel Moon. Rebel Moon has these awful flying sequences that are just like really, really badly done. And it's, it's, it's true of this movie as well. This is a movie where there's, uh, you have, all right. So at first I thought maybe Vaughn was using it to demonstrate the unreality of the book, the book within the movie.
JVL00:37:45Yes. Because when we're in that scene where, uh, we are in the Argyle and John's, the Henry Cavill and John Cena thing. Yes. There comes a car chase with Dua Lipa. When Dua Lipa goes, Dua Lipa is on a motorcycle. She jumps over a thing and then is going down a winding road and the motion of the moat, the CGI motorcycle with her on it is like a, a video game cut scene circa 1994. Yes.
Sonny00:38:16PlayStation one era at the latest. PlayStation one, PlayStation two.
JVL00:38:19It is stunning.
Sonny00:38:20It's terrible. It's so bad. But, but again, I thought maybe, and there, there's a sequence a couple moments later where, uh, uh, Henry Cavill is in Hong Kong, it's Hong Kong at night and there's fireworks and it like melts away and the, the lighting in that scene is so bad and so obviously like front lit that you're like, okay, this is all just, this is an intentionally, this is an intentional unreality thing. He's heightened the unreal height, heightening the unreality. And then, uh, no, it's just the whole movie looks like this, the sequence on the train where he blows out. The back and is, is flying away on looks terrible. There's a sequence where he, uh, where Sam Rockwell and, uh, uh, Bryce Dallas Howard have a fight on a rooftop and obvious. It's so, it's so obvious that nothing in the background is real, that it's that this sequence was shot in a sounds, not even a soundstage in a big giant warehouse in Atlanta, where there are a bunch of green screens all around them, nothing, nothing in this movie. Is real. Nothing in it looks real. Nothing in it approaches looking real. There's the sequence you mentioned with all the bright colors and the, the, the, the spinning and the dancing and the shooting and it's, and the, the smoke, the smoke bombs are kind of obscuring what's actually happening. And it's supposed to be like a dance sequence. It's like they're dancing, but they're really shooting, but they're dancing and it's a day, but it looks terrible. It looks terrible. And it calls to mind, it calls to mind a much better sequence in the first Kingsman. You remember the first Kingsman? The one, it, it culminates in this kind of explodey head symphony. Yes. Fantastically, fantastically unrealistic, but very amusing and like really well done. And, and it works within the moment and works within the absurdity of that whole, that whole movie. Here, it just looks terrible and lazy and flat and boring. I'm not even gonna waste time talking about the oil skating sequence. That whole oil skating sequence should have been shot into the fucking sun. I don't, I don't understand how anybody. Anybody involved with this movie looked at that and was like, this looks good. I like, it doesn't even have to look real.
JVL00:40:28We should charge people money to watch this.
Sonny00:40:30Nobody, nobody could possibly have seen this, this, this thing on the screen. I've been like, yeah, that works. That works. I don't understand what is, I really don't understand what is happening to the world of big action movies. I don't know if it's all right. So, so we mentioned this movie costs $200 million, I bet 70 to 80 million of that was spent buying out backend, but even then it's a hundred, if they're spending $120 million, you should be able to make action sequences that look real-ish that look like they might be taking place in a real, I don't understand how we have regressed so badly in the world of special effects that it's now impossible to do that. I do. Like it's, it's, it's, I want, I want an answer to this JVL. So it's, it's bizarre anyway. I dislike this movie and I dislike it more and more the further I get from it. Like the further I get from it, the angrier I get about it. Uh, I, I, I wanted to like this movie a great deal. I didn't, but it's, it's bad on every, every particular level. It's bad.
JVL00:41:33So maybe this is just the Hardy wood gingerbread stout 9.2% volume speaking explained so much, but I, uh, like you Sonny, I found myself getting angrier and angrier by the minute as I sat in this theater to the point where I wanted to. To go and slash the actual screen itself destroyed the, the Dolby Atmos Dolby theater screen just in protest for the garbage that was being put up on it.
Mike00:42:06I'm imagining, by the way, the inglorious bastard scene and JVL your head on the screen as it's burning. But I have an answer.
JVL00:42:15I have an answer. I have a conspiracy theory for you. Where does Matthew Vaughn come from? Uh, England, Mary England. He comes from Guy Ritchie. Matthew Vaughn was Guy Ritchie's producer from the beginning of his career from lock stock and two smoking barrels through snatch, even through swept away. Matthew Vaughn was the guy who brought it all together for Guy Ritchie. And then Matthew Vaughn decided he wanted to be a director and he goes out and in his very first effort directs, what might be the best movie of the last 20 years layer cake, which is at, at worst is the British good fellas. What would you think if Martin Scorsese had directed good fellas and then followed it up with the fast and the furious, and then followed that up with super Mario brothers, the movie. The 1993 version of it, and then followed that up with Sonic, the hedgehog and Sonic, the hedgehog too. When you look back at that, would you say, where the fuck did good fellas come from? That's not possible. And would you say to yourself, yeah, I guess he must've directed good fellas and done the, the, the, that scene where they walked through the, the, the bar and everything is, you know, one take and everything's amazing, the Copacabana scene, but then after doing that, he decided he wanted to be directing Sonic, the hedgehog instead. And so, uh, you know, he just started moving, doing movies like that. Or would you think to yourself, actually, he didn't direct good fellas, what somebody else did somebody else who would go on to make the gentlemen and the covenant and a whole universe of very, very well-crafted adult movies, which look an awful lot and feel an awful lot like Layer Cake. What I'm saying is that Guy Ritchie didn't, uh, Guy Ritchie directed Layer Cake, Matthew Vaughn didn't direct it. And this is, this is my conspiracy theory that they had some, Matthew Vaughn had some sort of compromise on Guy Ritchie and said to him, Oi, Oi mate, you look, I want to make your career happen. You need to direct this fucking movie. For me, what is the Australian Guy Ritchie did it. And Matthew Vaughn got his career and Daniel Craig between double Oh seven because of it. And ever since we've gotten shit like, uh, moonlight or moon struck or whatever that fucking movie with Robert De Niro is the, he's just, he goes and he takes these comic book movies, Stardust, which is a Neil Gaiman movie. And then these Mark Millar movies like kick ass, which fucking sucks. And the Kingsman's draw Mark Millar joints. What fucking is it?
Sonny00:45:25It's pretty.
JVL00:45:26I like it. It is.
Sonny00:45:28You might like the first Kingsman because it's weird, but what about X-Men first class Ryan Singer directed that no Brian singer directed the next one.
JVL00:45:37Have you, I'm, I'm actually looking at, uh, X-Men first class and here's, here's what I want you to understand. Okay. X-Men first class has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 credited writers. It has, uh, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 credited producers. What percentage of the things that are done in X-Men first class, do you think were dictated by Matthew Vaughn? Great question. And I think the answer is again, he didn't do any of this. The real Matthew Vaughn is this guy. The, the dancing cunnilingus in, in, with the explodey colored smoke bombs. And it's, uh, it's this movie is like, if I went to chat GPT and I said, make me a movie that is night and day crossed with total recall, but in the style of the Kingsman, the golden circle, that's what this is.
Sonny00:46:50The worst of the Kingsman.
JVL00:46:51The worst of the Kingsman movies. That's what chat GPT would spit this out. And it's, I mean, it doesn't even make sense. It doesn't even make sense at the end of this movie. So we, we discover that, uh, spoiler. I'm sorry, Michael. I am really, I'm wound up. Yeah. I love it. This is great. Keep going. We discovered that she is not an author or Bryce Dallas Howard is, uh, she is, she's really an assassin and not a writer at which point I thought, oh, okay. So they had Truman showed her. They had stuck her in this town and convinced her that she couldn't leave because she's afraid to fly. Sure. And, uh, just, you know, and set up this because when we first meet her, she's in this bookstore doing a reading for her new book and everybody in the store works for the mission impossible force slash syndicate. Right. Everybody's there. And so I thought, oh, the division, oh, okay. So her writing career is actually a Truman show thing. But then at the end of the movie, she goes back to writing and she's actually right. Real best. So let me get this straight. The division decided we're going to have this, this woman write things, but then we're also going to take that manuscript and send it to a literary agent and have it published and go through the marketing on it. And. Oh, turn it into real bestsellers because that's an ancillary revenue stream that we can harvest. Are you fucking kidding me?
Sonny00:48:27It's yeah, the, the, the, the publication in the publishing industry does not make much sense in this, in, in what is, what is happening here.
JVL00:48:37I hated it. I hated everything about it when they're on the train and that fight, I thought I saw this movie. I saw that this movie 18 months ago was called bullet train and it was good. How can you do a sequence? That is such a piss poor rip off of a better sequence of a movie that came out five minutes ago. I don't understand that. I don't understand it.
Mike00:49:01He's fired up people, Michael, he's fired up. You're going to tell me you liked it, didn't you? So I'm going to, I'm going to stipulate everything that Sonny and JVL have said about this movie that the CGI is awful. The green screening is so obvious. The the story makes no sense. It's too long. It's it is bad. But I liked it.
Guest00:49:32What?
Sonny00:49:33I liked it and I will say, no, we haven't even talked about Samuel L. Jackson, whose entire role in this movie involves him sitting at a desk and going like drinking wine and
JVL00:49:50watching old NBA games. I believe he's watching Lakers versus Spurs playoff games from the Shaq, NBA game, watching
Sonny00:50:00old NBA games and also like a little counter tracker thing that as it beeps up from like zero to one hundred percent and is literally just going, yeah, no, oh, come on. Yeah. I mean, it's like it's like what I would ask my kids to do to show happiness or sad.
JVL00:50:19What did you like about it? The musical.
Mike00:50:21I. Other than Dua Lipa. No, I didn't. I like Dua Lipa and you're really going to blow up for this. I got a thing for Bryce Dallas Howard. I got a thing for Bryce Dallas Howard. I I love I love BDH. I love her and everything she's in. And I think I'm biased, but but but I'm a fan. I'm a fan. I thought it was I like the breeziness of the humor. I liked seeing Bryan Cranston and Catherine O'Hara and their sort of villain turns. I I liked it in spite of what I was watching. I was laughing. I was kind of. What did you laugh at? Just all the stupid little jokes, and I thought Sam Rockwell was very. Very good.
Sonny00:51:21You know, all the jokes. I was. Situations. I liked it.
JVL00:51:25In the movie Layer Cake, they discover that Crazy Larry, the gangster in the 1970s, was banging against their will a bunch of the young, tough guys in his crew, and he was killed by one of the young, tough guys who didn't like the fact that he's being sexually abused by Crazy Larry. And Daniel Craig's character says to Jean, the enforcer. Wait a minute. Crazy Larry is gay. And Jean says, gay, gay. Now, now, it's Crazy Larry, always said. And we smash cut to a guy who is Crazy Larry, who turns and looks to the camera and says, fucking females is for poofs. That's a joke. That's funny. There is nothing in this movie that's funny.
Sonny00:52:14In Mike's defense, in Mike's defense, I will say that I was I was I was amused by Sam Rock well, and his just generals want to be just like Sam rock me to find Sam Rockwell to be very entertaining. I will give you I'll give you that look, you know what it was?
Mike00:52:31I was I was out of the movie theater. I was I was on my own with a bunch of people on it.
Sonny00:52:40I did.
Mike00:52:41Yes. Yes. That is basically what you what you described setting the beginning of this. That was me. I liked all the people in it. I like Henry Cavill. I like Sam Rockwell. I like Bryce Dallas.
Sonny00:52:54He is always but he's got it. It's a bad part. Well, him and John Cena are both bad at it, but they both have just bad, bad parts that like metafiction.
JVL00:53:03Like, oh, I thought that was funny. Here's the thing with Henry Cavill, and I'm convinced of this from this. So in this and in Man From U.N.C.L.E., he is tasked with playing suave, sophisticated man of the world. That he does not have that speed. He can't do that. He can do like Quiet Cipher the way he does in the Superman movies. And he can do the dunder headed guy who's always super angry, as he does in Mission Impossible Fallout. Like, he's actually great and kind of funny in Fallout. Yes, because he's a meathead and he's constantly furious at the world asking him to be suave man of the world. Oh, yes. I have a dick the size of an oboe that that that that does not work.
Sonny00:53:56Well, he does. He looks good at the new Guy Ritchie movie, the trailer, you know, whatever it is, because
Mike00:54:04Guy Ritchie directs good movies like Layer Cake. Yep. I look, hey, I, I believe I said I stipulate all of your criticisms, but I still liked it. I still enjoyed it. I had a good time at the movie. Watching the movies, watching this, you know, Drek. It was it was fun. It was.
Sonny00:54:25I have a question. Yes. Did you enjoy the bright colors?
Mike00:54:28I loved the bright colors. It was like the bright. They were bright. They were bright. And they moved. And they moved. They were great on your iPhone.
JVL00:54:38Did you guys pick up? Did you guys pick up that the only non Apple computing product in it was the the people who had the bad laptop? That was doing like crime and viruses.
Sonny00:54:52Yeah. You can't have any.
JVL00:54:54And that laptop was clearly a Chromebook.
Sonny00:54:57Yeah.
JVL00:54:58But shots.
Sonny00:54:59The good guys all have Macs.
JVL00:55:02Yeah.
Sonny00:55:03Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
JVL00:55:06Yeah. Yeah.
?00:55:08I know.
Mike00:55:09I know. JVL. You don't have to convince me.
JVL00:55:15All I'm saying is for a good time.
Mike00:55:18Go see our guys.
JVL00:55:19Yeah. All right. So, Sonny, here's the real question I have for you. Yeah. The Kingsman Universe belongs to intellectual property that is owned by Mark Millar that he created through comics. I forget the publisher. I think it was Image who did. But essentially, it's creator owned work.
Sonny00:55:41Yeah.
JVL00:55:42Yeah. This is grafting on a new a new piece of intellectual property, but into the intellectual intellectual property that pre exists, which is owned by Mark Millar. So who owns the Argyle stuff?
Sonny00:56:03I think there is actually there is there is some dispute about the ways in which these things could be melded together. There's also some there's also some weird mystery involving the actual book that was written that this is based on like the wait, there is a book that this is based on. Yeah, I don't know. The provenance of this whole thing is very weird. I would guess that there's some sort of shenanigans involved here where but that's that's a secondary question. Who owns the underlying property is a secondary question. The real question is how they would how you would get I guess is it 20th Century Fox who owns the actual Kingsman movies?
JVL00:56:47It's it's Disney. Now owns the right, right, right. So it's so underlying IP is, but it doesn't matter who owns the under underlying IP.
Sonny00:56:57That's like saying like Marvel owns X-Men and Fantastic Four and Spider Man and Iron Man. They should all be in the same movies together. And obviously, for years, that has not been the case. I mean, I feel like but I don't know, I honestly I can't imagine well, God only knows maybe Apple ends up buying the Kingsman movies and or something. I don't know. That's it's a great question, JBL. The short answer is, I don't know.
Mike00:57:23All right. All right. Any other thoughts you get? I don't know. You guys want to like reconsider this movie. You don't think it's it's any it's any good. Is there one thing JBL you like about this movie?
JVL00:57:35No, no, I is the case that here's why I got mad at it. Yes, I got mad at it because I felt like every frame of this film cheapened and pissed on the legacy of layer cake, which I stand by as, again, the great film of the last 20
Mike00:57:55years. Yeah, but that these don't have anything to do with each other. I think I think, you know, you've you've put layer cake in this in this glass followed
JVL00:58:06up the Godfather with Super Mario Brothers, the movie 1993 edition. People would have questions about the Godfather.
Mike00:58:16He followed it up with Jack. It wasn't immediately after. But Jack wasn't good. All right. Oh, did we discuss who's there? Does anybody have a theory about why the CGI is so bad these days? No, it's just like, is it just that it's I think it's I think it's because they're I
Sonny00:58:36mean, I think it's a combination of the kind of Marvel method of doing a lot of fixing in. Oh, yes. Like doing a lot of reshoots, that sort of thing. Combined. Like this, you know, this it's it's not the volume, but it's like the volume these these. So the volume is the thing that they shoot the Mandalorian on. It's like a big, giant LCD, right, like room that they they they can change the background on. And like when you're walking, it looks like the background's moving. And that works pretty well, but it works pretty well for TV. And that's the other thing, is it?
JVL00:59:12That's that's the real problem for your fucking phone.
Sonny00:59:16That's the problem here is that all of these things are made. To be good enough to watch on TV at best, you're right, JV, a lot of people just watching these on their phone. So when you when you when you combine the fact that they're cutting corners on budgets because a lot of this stuff is going to buy a lot of the money is going to buy out back and they're shooting everything entirely in these green screen rooms or these LCD volumes, and they're doing it in a way so it will only look good enough so that you don't really get mad about it on your TV, that that's a that's a disaster. That's a recipe for disaster. I mean, that's just a disaster for everyone involved. It looks and then the stuff just doesn't end up looking good on TV anyway. Like I said, I mentioned Rebel Moon, which we didn't talk about. And I'm like too depressed to talk about because, as you know, I'm a Zack Snyder fanboy. I would like his his movies to all be great. And that movie just looks bad. I was comparing some of the sequences in that to some of the stuff from Sucker Punch, which like Sucker Punch, a lot of people don't like that movie. And a lot of people were like, this looks fake, but you compare you compare the CGI green work specifically with the flying stuff. I don't understand how we have regressed so badly, very specifically on flying. Any time you see like I was watching the trailer for the new Avatar live action series, the anime adaptation that Netflix is doing, and they have sequences where like characters are flying, they're flying, they're flying like on a Falkor type thing. And it's and it looks like the fakest shit I've ever seen in my life. Like it just looks awful. It looks as bad as the stuff from The NeverEnding Story 40 years ago. And it I like I don't understand how we have backslid so badly on this technology. I really don't understand it. And it drives me a little bit it drives me a little bit nuts. Yeah. Like have some have some pride of production in your in what you were making, please. That's all I ask.
JVL01:01:08You know, the people who make these special effects, they're the people who'd be satisfied
Sonny01:01:11with finishing third in a community chili cook off that I mean, now we know who likes Argyle. The guy who's like, I came third I won I won my I wasn't expecting to win my chili cook off and here I am.
Mike01:01:26You know, I want to say one more time all the people on that I stipulated all I just like it. I just like it. Okay, that's all the time we are going to give to this episode. Join us over at sub beacon.com where you can tell me how wrong I am on this and so many other things. And we will talk to you next time.
Sonny01:01:48You know, the show does need a man of the people, so I'm glad we have Mike here for that.
Mike01:01:59I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, I mean, people don't like this movie. And the truth is, is that I know it's bad. And I knew it was bad when I was watching it. I just was having a good time. And maybe and maybe, maybe this is the problem I set such low expectations for just everything in my life. That it bumped up a little bit above those low expectations and and I enjoyed it. But I also like I said, I'm a sucker for Bryce Dallas Howard. I think I think she's I think she's wonderful.
JVL01:02:34I better look amazing on the Apple Vision Pro.
Spot something wrong in this episode? Suggest a correction →
Comments
Loading…