#245. 'The Omen' (1976)
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JVL is off this week, leaving Mike Warren and Sonny to cover The Omen (1976), Richard Donner's Gregory Peck/Lee Remick chiller, and both come away impressed. Sonny frames it not as horror but as a 1970s paranoid thriller in the mold of The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor — here the institution that fails you is the church rather than the government — and singles out the plate-glass decapitation (which he spent years misremembering as being from The Exorcist), the magnificently sinister nanny Mrs. Baylock, and David Warner's photojournalist with his death-predicting camera as highlights. Mike is watching for the first time and is won over despite admittedly "terrible theology," praising Gregory Peck as perfectly cast WASP-diplomat casting ("basically George H.W. Bush") and Lee Remick's descent into mania; both rank the film below The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby in their informal horror triptych but marvel at its "immaculate craft" compared to modern equivalents like Godzilla x Kong, and agree the ending is elegantly boxed in — the devil has to win because Gregory Peck can't be shown murdering a five-year-old on an altar. The opening third is Sonny and Mike alone without JVL: Sonny's wife is in Reno visiting her mother, leaving him on solo dad duty and eating "ABCs and 123s" with the kids, which spins into an extended, gleeful monologue about his 23-year-old bachelor days in a windowless DC basement apartment living on a rotation of cut-rate frozen dinners (Stouffer's, never Marie Callender's), Chinese takeout, and New York-style pizza, with a landlord who forbade him from ever plugging in the stove. Mike counters with his budding tiki-cocktail hobby — a proper daiquiri in a coupe glass, a Lewis bag for hand-crushing ice, and a pair of Mondo alien-themed tiki mugs he's never actually drunk from — which detours into a shared love of the Kids in the Hall "Girl Drink Drunk" sketch. Box office chat covers Godzilla x Kong topping the chart, Dune: Part Two crossing $250 million domestic (with Dune: Messiah newly greenlit), and the strong per-screen numbers for Late Night with the Devil, with praise for David Dastmalchian's habit of dying gruesomely in every Denis Villeneuve movie. They close wondering aloud why The First Omen prequel needed to exist at all, neither having seen it yet, before wrapping on a long callback riff about West Coast grocery chains like Ralph's and Marie Callender's.
From the show notes
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Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Welcome.
Mike00:00:30The Sub-Beacon podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. Joininging me this episode is my fellow co-host and potential Antichrist Sonny Bunch. Joining me not tonight is JVL, who is off this week, and we are taking that opportunity to watch a and discuss a horror film. But first, go to Sub-Beacon.com to become a patron. Join us there. Get episodes every Friday morning. Tell your friends and family they can become a patron, too, at Sub-Beacon.com. They can join the conversation. Always a lively conversation in the comments over at Sub-Beacon.com. But you've got to be a patron. So sign up there at Sub-Beacon.com. We are going to be talking about The Omen, 1976 Omen, that is, later in the show. But first, Sonny, it's just the two of us. Let's just have a conversation. Like old buddies, like old pals. What's going on?
Sonny00:01:33Pass.
Mike00:01:35This is going to be a really short show, then.
Sonny00:01:38It's going to be a short show. I do think it'll be a short show. That's great. We'll get people out of here on their day. What you drinking there, Mike?
Mike00:01:46I'll discuss after you tell me what's going on with you.
Sonny00:01:49You're saving that for the... Not much is going on with me. My wife is out of town. She's in Reno, Nevada, visiting her mother. And... I am, therefore... I got the kids by myself. We've been doing... We had my daughter's open house at school was tonight. And we went there and we...
Mike00:02:10Open house in the spring?
Sonny00:02:12I don't know, man. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to tell you. So we went there and we came home. And the kids had ABCs and 123s for dinner. It's a real high effort dinner. You know what I made for myself?
Mike00:02:27What's that?
Sonny00:02:28I just... I cooked... I cooked up a chicken breast and just ate a chicken breast with salt and pepper on it.
Mike00:02:36I remember when I was 23.
Sonny00:02:37This is how I would... When I was 23, I wasn't cooking. That would have been a step beyond, frankly. That wouldn't... I didn't even have like a George Foreman grill then. That wasn't... I was eating like... I was eating... When I was 23 and I was living... I had a basement apartment in Washington, D.C. And what I would eat was... I'm not even... I'm not exaggerating. I don't think anyone who knows a single person, a single adult male the age of 23 would think I'm exaggerating when I say this. But my meals when I was 23 in Washington, D.C. in that basement apartment near the Potomac Avenue Metro stop, about one block from the Potomac Avenue Metro stop. I know it was. I went to the Safeway that was behind my house and I would buy 10 frozen dinners a week. I would buy 10 frozen dinners and I would put them... Put them in my freezer and I would heat them up in the microwave. And when I got tired of eating frozen dinners, which is frankly pretty frequently, I was centrally located. I was... You could triangulate my building because it was equidistant between a Chinese takeout place. You know, like city Chinese takeout places. They're the best. That's the number one.
Mike00:03:50I think I know the one.
Sonny00:03:52I have...
Mike00:03:53Because my wife used to live over there. So we used to get Chinese takeout in that neighborhood. It's...
Sonny00:03:58There were probably several. I mean, I wouldn't want to presume it's the only one, but maybe it's the same one.
Mike00:04:05Next to the liquor store?
Sonny00:04:07Again, you're not really narrowing things down here. In Southeast DC at like 13th and G or whatever it was. So I lived equidistant between a Chinese restaurant, a Chinese takeout joint, you know, with like the, it was the sort of place where you go and you get wings, you can get wings.
Mike00:04:34Very traditional Chinese.
Sonny00:04:36I would say, I would say there was an interesting split in the clientele at this, at this, uh, Chinese takeout place between the people who would order the wings and the people who would order the Chinese food. I'll leave it at that. All right. So you had the, you had the, you, you had the, you had the Chinese place. And then on the other side, you had there, like if, again, I went one block, there's a Chinese place. I go one block, the other direction, there's a pizza place called New York pizza, just the absolute, just like they make in New York, 100% like you get at famous Ray's original pizza shop in, in New York city and Manhattan, you wander out onto any Manhattan corner.
Mike00:05:16You would not, you would not, you would think you're on bleaker street in little Italy by the quality of this pizza. Sure.
Sonny00:05:26Uh, exactly. I don't know. I don't know what bleaker street is except for a distribution label. Uh, they, there's a, there's a distribution.
Mike00:05:33It's a little Italy in Manhattan. Just roll with it.
Sonny00:05:36In, in, in the world of film distribution, there's a, there's a company called bleaker street. And anytime I see a bleaker street movie is coming out, I'm like, that movie is designed to be a tax shelter for somebody. Cause it's going to lose like $10 million.
Guest00:05:48Uh, all right. Uh, I feel like we've gotten far field.
Sonny00:05:51I'm just kidding folks at bleaker. You, you guys put out good stuff. I really liked ISS. That was a fun movie. All right. Um, uh, and then, all right. So you had a Chinese in one direction and, uh, in the other direction, you had a pizza place and then right outside my, my, uh, little row house that I lived in the basement of right outside, like literally you walk out of it, you go across the street. It's right. There was a Mexican place. La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, And I would, and, and so it was, it was, this was like, it was like the most bachelor set up you possibly could have had because on the one hand I had my frozen dinners. If I was, if I just wanted to eat in, if I wanted to save a little money, if I wanted to, you know, just eat something real quick, I would, I would just throw in a Stouffer's or lean cuisine or whatever, whatever I had bought 10 of that week. Cause it was on sale because you know, I would only get the, I would only get the, like buy, get four for $10. Uh, uh, if that, and that, those may have been too expensive, I would get like the four for $8. Let's be honest. It was, it was any, whatever the cheapest, I, the, I am incredibly price sensitive, uh, about two things. One is frozen dinners. I will buy whatever slop is the cheapest and I will buy, I will buy as many of them as I need to get to the price point or, and soda. The other is soda and I will, I will alternate between diet Coke and diet Dr. Pepper depending on what is the cheapest. Now in Texas, it's usually diet Dr. Pepper. It's there's, it is, I would say, I would say nine times out of 10. When I go to the discount. Yeah. When I go to, when I go to the grocery store or the target, the diet Dr. Pepper, uh, but anyway, those are the two, like it does. I taste does not really factor into it. It's, it is a simple, pure price calculation. It's like when you, when you drive past the gas station and you got to say like, I want to, I'm going to, I'm not going to spend 10 extra cents at the Exxon. I'm going to the circle K discount gas from the ground for sure. Definitely. Uh, place that's where I'm going to put a gas in my car. So anyway, I like, again, I'm like, I'm I, and then of course, if I, if I don't want it, I, I S I can either stumble out and get a burrito and a margarita where I go, I go down and I get some, uh, you know, shrimp low main, or if I'm feeling, if I was feeling, if I was really, if I was really hungry, I would go to New York pizza cause I would just get an entire pizza and I would eat most of it. Oh yeah. I just, I would just, I would house like three quarters of it. And I put a couple of pieces in. In the, in the fridge. So when I came home at two in the morning, I'd have something to eat.
Mike00:08:30Question, question. I want to go back to the frozen meals. So let's talk brands. Were you, were you a hungry man? Were you a Marie calendars?
Sonny00:08:41No, no. I mean, literally those are, those are fancy.
Mike00:08:45Okay.
Sonny00:08:46That's a fancy meal. I, when I, when I say I'm getting frozen dinners, I'm talking about literally like the single, the single serving. like stouffers or if i got a pot if i got a pot pie it was like one of the ones that was like 10 for a dollar you know one of the ones that with like the meat is probably chicken but there you're not 100 sure because it's just the grossest this most disgusting yeah it's chicken pot pie that you could possibly eat um uh but i did not i i i did not i was not again i was i like i was not getting marie calendars i was not getting uh hungry man or anything too rich for your blood to get the that was i was uh i i i would i would say that that that was uh that was an unusual i also don't really like hungry man dinners i like no i don't i i don't want any here's you know what i don't want from a frozen dinner and it's different it's a little bit different now i guess since i have like a proper stove instead of just a microwave i don't want anything i don't want any like french fries or chicken no or any of that i i like that stuff does not heat up well in the microwave i want i want something i can mix together yes like a like a uh you know what you know what was always actually pretty good was the um oh the turkey like the turkey with mashed potatoes and stuffing i was just gonna say mashed potatoes that's a mashed potatoes is a solid one mashed potatoes heats up okay i've actually always been kind of curious i i am always a little tempted to get the frozen mashed potatoes because i bet those are actually pretty good you like you know just like the big tubs of frozen frozen mashed potatoes i i but that we've discussed this before but like i i i just make the instant mashed potatoes because there's no there's no they're they're 20 percent worse and it takes one millionth of the time to make them and i'm not skinning my knuckles on a uh you know a whatever what do you call those things shapes the peeler i'm not you know i'm not oh okay you know straight razor i'm not i'm not taking my straight razor if you peel the potatoes right you don't you don't cut yourself but yeah oh yeah oh i'm sorry i'm sorry if i was a professional chef working in the bear and i you know if i if i had x if i could julienne everything just perfectly
Mike00:11:09you don't have to julienne we're not making french fries here we're making mashed potatoes
Sonny00:11:13um all right no i i do i do i actually i actually do like nice homemade mashed potatoes but again it's like it's it's it's just not worth the time it's not worth the time to to make them and you're i forget how we got i forgot your kids are surviving so don't waste
Mike00:11:28yeah they had abc's and one two threes what are abc's and one two threes uh it's and it's like
Sonny00:11:33chef boyardee it's like literally the pasta shapes are a through z and you know one through nine or whatever or maybe it's just a b and c and one two and three but i think i think it's the whole alphabet it's like alphabet soup but but it's like alphabet soup but but uh you know like uh tomato flavored like uh you know you know like chef boyardee like ravioli ravioli right sure i haven't had it in 30 years but sure well of course because i'm not five anymore uh but uh that was a big moment in my childhood when i made the jump from chef boyardee to like the frozen ravioli frozen ravioli were like it see and like i so you know again i'm gonna go back to being 23 and when i was when i was 23 i the the basement apartment i lived in it had it was it had a it had a stove in it but the the guy who owned the place was like don't plug this stove in and i was like i was like what he was like if you plug the stove in i'll take it out and there'll just be a hole there and he said it in this like he had he i can only i i i want to be very careful how i say this but he had what i would describe as a middle eastern and i think specifically israeli accent i'm like nine i'm like 99 sure he was he was from israel um but he was like if you if you plug in the stove i'm taking the stove out and you'll just have a hole there and i'm like well okay i don't want a hole there so i guess i'm not going to use it so i everything i made i had to make uh i had to make via microwave so the stove or toaster oven the stove was essentially extended counter space it was literally just an extended counter place there was nothing there was no point for it to be there except for there just not to be a hole now i don't know what would have happened if i had plugged it in i don't know if like i had burned if i would have burned the find out i was not about to tempt tempt fate and it was like it was so clearly elite like i don't think you can rent i don't think you can rent a separate basement apartment like that unless it
Mike00:13:32has certain things um maybe i think it just has to have egress and like its own separate
Sonny00:13:40yeah i don't know i don't know that that was the my my all-time favorite uh apartment because it didn't have a there were there was no window it was like uh i just had a door that went up a stairwell uh and that was like uh there was no sunlight that could get it there was no sunlight i could have stayed in that i could have turned that into a real cave if i
Mike00:14:02had wanted to but uh imagine if you had been there during covet i mean you would have been
Sonny00:14:06like i would have turned into howard hughes like a pig and shit you would have been very happy there would have been jars of urine all over the place nobody would nobody would have found me for
Mike00:14:17for years it had a bathroom what what do you need the jars for well i mean
Sonny00:14:21keep track you know why wouldn't you want jars of urine during covet so you could monitor your
Mike00:14:28urine why do i have a sense that your kids are desperately hoping for for your wife to get back
Sonny00:14:34no they're fine they're fine well they love her more so that's they do they do they do want they they want her back for that reason but the uh but the but like they like abc's and one two threes it doesn't matter because they just eat as fast as they can so they can go finish watching whatever television show they were you know they were watching because what are they watching
Mike00:14:51because i have to say that it was a big day in our house today this is we're recording this on thursday because the uh newest episodes of ninjago were released today my kids don't watch ninjago
Sonny00:15:08uh they watch um they watch this lego star wars they do like the lego star okay uh but they they are currently in a phineas and ferb phase they really like phineas and ferb i don't know if you phineas and ferb actually that was after my time it's a it's a yes we'll say i mean it wasn't on when i was a kid but uh i actually i enjoy i like it uh in the sense that it's it's like slightly clever it's it's sort of like reminds me a little bit of what calvin and hobbes kind of ah okay you
Mike00:15:38know like it's like i feel like it's smart kids stuff i i like there there is a we should maybe have a deeper discussion about like smart kids entertainment because there's sort of a whole spectrum of it right there's calvin and hobbes there's um i think the adventures of pete and pete on nickelodeon from the early 90s is a perfect example of what what this is so glad to know if phineas and ferb is that's that's disney right yeah that's on disney plus okay the reason
Sonny00:16:09we got started talking about all this i can't i i can't i frankly my brain is such mush right now from uh being being with the children this whole time i think i've got i think i've got uh allergy issues because i'm just like pounding uh powerade right now because i feel like my head feels like it wants to explode uh and my sinuses are all stuffed up um and i my understanding is powerade will fix both of those problems of course so it's got electrolytes i feel that's what plants crave um uh and i uh i forget how we got onto this topic but uh one thing we were discussing before the show was was uh because my because i again i'm i'm here with my kids i'm trying to figure out something to do tomorrow night there's nothing it's not like i'm gonna go take them to see the first omen or why not there's a kid immaculate uh i i wouldn't even go take them
Mike00:17:04to see godzilla godzilla kong sadly you suggested that to me and i was like i'm not doing that i'm
Guest00:17:10i'm not taking them to that why was it sure if i wasn't sure what your your family i don't think
Sonny00:17:14would be i don't think my my youngest would be that okay with it because there's violence against animals anyway anyway it doesn't matter um but i was like maybe i'll show them rookie of the year but apparently rookie of the year is not streaming for free anywhere and i'm not paying four dollars to watch rookie of the year that's not that's not happening so uh i gotta i gotta figure something else out maybe i'll show them something that'll really warp their warp their little brains i'll show them like time bandits or uh or uh uh never-ending story or something you know i want i want to show them i want to show them the movie where the horse dies the swamp of sadness i feel like if i showed my pair if i showed my kids that without both of their parents there they would uh i i feel like i'd probably get in trouble but i feel like i i feel like my wife would not be happy with me if i showed them if i showed them our text dying but see i'm not sure
Mike00:18:09is that the name of the horse yeah our text our text of course our text our text i would have to
Sonny00:18:14i would have to preface the movie with something like there's going to be sad things that happen in this but everything works out at the end trust me you're good there are things that are sad and it's okay to feel sad that's what life is sometimes you feel sad but then everything works out at the end just trust me on this because if i showed them if i showed them that movie they would they would leave the room when our text died they would not make it through but see i don't know
Mike00:18:37what your experience was but of course i watched the never-ending story at my cousin's house like they just had it on on video and you know and like nobody was paying attention nope i my parents certainly were paying attention to what what we were watching was just oh let's go watch a video and it was it was rough it was scarring yeah totally i can't remember how old i must have been seven or eight when i saw that movie it came out like 1987 or so like i think not even earlier earlier than that well i'm of course i i was it was it was a lot 1984 84 well the second one is actually i saw that one first so i was very confused the
Sonny00:19:19part two yeah that's the one with jonathan brandis r.i.p correct and um yeah so anyway
Mike00:19:27all right well uh yeah so what's uh what's going on with me you didn't ask um oh i didn't realize
Sonny00:19:34i was done i'm sorry uh mike what's going on with you oh no no hold on sonny do you have anything else you'd like to share with with the class yeah i got 17 000 more minutes of stouffer's content hold on we gotta we gotta wait we gotta keep it moving i'm getting the finger i'm getting the wrap it up finger what the fuck i mean it's not as if i
Mike00:19:55have anything interesting to add oh no well i was gonna say you asked what i was drinking um yes what are you drinking you can see i've got i've got um i want to guess i want to guess yeah
Sonny00:20:04go ahead and guess is it a bevaldie no is that how you pronounce that i don't know i don't know what that is okay do you have another guess it's not a manhattan no it's not uh it went hold it up again you're not gonna be able you're not gonna be you're not gonna be able to tell from
Mike00:20:22the color is my guess because i don't know what specifics i used a different syrup that i should have but um did you use a demerara syrup i did i used i made it with it's supposed to have a demerara syrup and it's a slight um variation on that that i made with um with pure cane sugar instead of dip because who has demerara sugar i don't know not me i i
Sonny00:20:48i looked for demerara sugar in my local kroger for like two months and i gave up because i wanted to i wanted to make something i have uh i have some sangani which is like a um it's a brandy from south america they you can make interesting uh old fashions and stuff with it but i needed i need some demerara syrup i can't well i'm gonna have to like order it from amazon i would i would
Mike00:21:11say sugar in the raw syrup is like a fine substitute for it in unless you're uh you're a hobo maybe yeah well you know this is what this is what i but what this is all lead up so this is a uh this is what's called a daiquiri number one it is lime juice rum and uh and my makeshift demerara syrup uh because i am i don't think i've discussed this before i'm i'm sort of on a and i want to be careful about how i say this i'm on a tiki drink journey perhaps or tiki drink experiment um i'm interested basically so ever since we went to hawaii in the uh in the fall of last year uh i've been sort of intrigued and interested by by tiki drinks and the whole culture around it and um i want to be careful with this interest because uh as as my my very long time good friend i've been sort of interested in the and also friend of the pod uh drew has told me he has a friend who got really deep into tiki drink tiki culture and it took over this friend's life and um i'm i i don't have the time really or like the the bar size for it to take over my life but i i can see how it could take over someone's life because you have to have um all of these bizarre ingredients that no normal person with a home bar normally has so yeah um but i got for my birthday a couple of uh months ago uh a sort of a tiki drink book uh which i learned about sort of the history of the beach uh don the beachcomber and trader vick and all that stuff uh and so um i'm exploring it it's interesting it's it's a little fun um i never thought i would be a tiki drink person um i don't are you sonny are you a kids in the hall fan yeah you're a girl drink drunk now yes no well this is it's one of my favorite sketches it's one of it's the greatest
Sonny00:23:31sketch in the history of sketch comedy yes girl drink junk uh i i say that i i'm not even not exaggerating it's it's so great it's maybe it's i would say it's like as good as anything snl ever did kids in the hall is fantastic they're so good we we've talked about this before they're so great when they when the new kids of the kids in the hall episodes came on uh was it amazon prime yeah yeah yeah uh just like i was like i was like i guess i'll watch this you know i like kids in the hall and then the moment the the moment the theme song started the moment the you know the i like i was filled with this pure wave of happiness that has not occurred to me watching tv in a very long time i was just like this feels right this is right this feels good
Mike00:24:17and right here's my thing about my thing about tiki drinks i don't like the taste i don't like
Sonny00:24:22the taste of them because they are too sweet they're too they are very i don't i don't care for i like i get sick to my stomach if i have more than one or two i'm a straightforward uh manhattan and old-fashioned guy i want i want uh i want like two ounces of rye whiskey i want one ounce of sweet vermouth and then maybe a cherry in it if i'm if i'm feeling you know a is the uh the the bar the tiki the actual tiki mugs and that's why i was i was like kind of surprised to see you drinking out of it out of not a it's not a it's a coop it's a coop
Mike00:24:58so but this is this is one of the daiquiri should be served in so i have yeah that's i have i have glass tea i should i don't have it with me i'll show you and it's because it's upstairs i have a high ball but they're they're like thicker than high ball um that i make um you can you can make uh uh zombies in or uh i have made double mai tais in and that was a fun night um so i have some of those as well um the but the gear is fun right because so i have i have a um uh a lewis bag for crushing ice with a mallet that's a lot of fun to crush ice in this bag
Sonny00:25:47um and you look skeptical sonny no i mean i i i don't know what a lewis bag is i don't that so
Mike00:25:55it's a canvas bag used for crushing ice and what it does is it absorbs the water that melts off of the ice as you're crushing it so when you pour the ice out of the bag after you've crushed it with your mallet which is a lot of fun um then you don't get any you don't get any of the of the water from it you just get pure ice that's that's nice that's that's that sounds handy it is so anyway so but look i i am variety is the spice of life when it comes to my own bar and i don't drink that much but when i do you know it's not always oh look at that so i look at that sonny
Sonny00:26:39so one of the so like one of the the weird things that the the nerd the nerd product empire that is mondo makes is tiki mugs they make tiki bugs and i have i have a pair of um uh alien tiki mugs again you can like oh yes on the inside but they're like they're like shaped they're like tiki mugs but they're shaped like the xenomorphs from from from the alien series and i've and this is one of the saddest things about me is i own these and i've never i've never actually drunk a drink out of them i just they they sit on my shelves like behind me as um like book dividers you gotta change that sonny this is i would i the problem again the problem as you mentioned the making actually making tiki drinks at home is a real pain in the ass it's like it is not easy and frankly i don't like the way they taste i just got i got these because i thought they look cool and i thought they would they would work as i i i like very specifically bought them to be shelfware like they are they are portions of books separate um which is uh and they do a very good job of it uh but it's uh i i do kind of wish i at some at some point i will use these to drink drinks out of i
Mike00:27:59will get girl drink drunk out of my zenim look it's not an it's not an every night of the week certainly it's not a it's not an every weekend thing but it's a little it's when you do and i will say so for all your objections to the tiki drink i i share them right like it's about as sweet as i can get and it's got quite a bit of my my syrup in it but what i like about it about the daiquiri is it's got all that lime juice so it's it's very tart i like i like tart i don't like sweet as much as i like tart and so any excuse i can have to put lime in something um but like i'm not always going to be drinking tiki drinks right like i i i enjoy my you know manhattan or um i'll even have an old-fashioned uh things like that so um i like a dark and stormy i you know like i'm i'm i'm ecumenical when it comes to these things but i'm there is something fun about taking a little time to make one of these drinks um i just i have to stick to the basics like i can't get into the you know um uh you gotta have like uh some of these i'm leafing through this book that i got for my birthday and it's like you know oh use a a fresh pear liqueur for the when the fuck am i going to have that i don't have space for that it's ridiculous so i will
Sonny00:29:23say i will say that one of the nice things uh about living in texas or living in dc or maryland is the is not living under the tyranny of the abc store so i i roll into a specs and if i want a pear liquor if i want if i want uh if i want bitters that are like brewed out of the skull of a fermented cow you can get it you know i can i can get it i can get those things because these are because you're a free you're a free american unlike because i'm a free american i'm like unlike the people who live in virginia i i i honestly don't i i guess it's you know one of the few ways the state can actually generate revenue but uh i i do not understand how the people of virginia have not really uh rioted over this yet it's it's it is un-american to have it's awful your your liquor choices prescribed by the man the man should not tell me what i can i cannot drink the market should tell me your market should tell me and i and i will say that that's one of the great benefits of living in the free state of texas i feel
Mike00:30:30like this whole discussion is only possible because jbl is not here i feel like jbl is
Sonny00:30:37gonna be listening to jbl's hitting like fast forward every 30 seconds exactly he's like hey buddy what are these doing that god get to the movie all right and then he's gonna skip all through that because he hates horror exactly although
Mike00:30:50well we'll talk about it but not exactly a horror film all right uh let's move on then because that's all i'm just talking about my my i'm on my girl drink shit here um i'm just looking for paper clips okay uh moving on moving on let's do some box office talk real quick uh the aforementioned godzilla x-kong the new empire number one at the box office grossing 80 million dollars uh coming in ahead of number two ghostbusters frozen empire followed by dune part two i just saw the news that dune messiah has been uh green lit so we know that's uh coming in number four on the list kung fu panda four number five immaculate any box office thoughts from you
Sonny00:31:39sonny bunch um a good good for dune part two getting to 250 million domestic yes uh getting it's at 6 30 worldwide um that that's i think that's a big win for warner brothers i i was reading a stat the other day that i think i'd have to i'd have to look it up again but over over the last uh since since the start of 2022 or something like that i think only nine movies have made more than 300 million dollars worldwide and six of them are warner brothers movies uh which is uh they're they're having a nice little run yeah at the theaters good for them uh or or it's some some stat like that it's it's it's i don't i don't know what the actual numbers are the actual numbers aren't that important the point is warner brothers is doing is doing very well compared to everybody else uh the only the only other kind of interesting thing is um uh the uh the success of late night with the devil which is uh an ifc film independent last week which you know is is that's a lot of screens for an indie distributor like that they they had a pretty decent per screen average folks folks are checking it out so sure i uh good good for them i like i like that movie i don't love it it has it has weird framing problems in terms of it wants to be a found footage film but it also is shot like a regular film for half the movie which is you know whatever i don't i don't really understand the formal choices there um but uh it's it's it's fun i like it uh and and hopefully folks are checking it out and that's that's dave das malchian or however you say his name david das malchian david das malchian malchian something armenian um it's he's like having a moment isn't he yeah he's great i like him he's he's been in some uh you know folks folks first noticed him uh in the dark knight he was the joker henchman i mean that has rachel's that was that was like the first movie he was in right uh i don't know if it was the first but it his first big breakout role and then you know he's been in he's been in a bunch he's my favorite thing is he shows up he he is in um he is in blade runner 2049 dune the first dune yep and uh prisoners uh which are all denny villeneuve movies and in all of those movies he dies horribly and then it's like denny it's like denny villeneuve when he like needs to have call in a i'm gonna get him i'm gonna get him up here got him on speed dial baby i might i might i might put him in the ground one more time and uh it all it always it seems to work out for him i like him he's good he's and he's good in this movie too he's it's it's interesting he so he plays a plays a late night host uh like who's up against johnny carson he's trying to get his ratings up uh long story short he's he does a live demonic possession uh on all hollows eve one one night in the 1970s go awry you won't you never you never believe it what doing a live demonic possession on late night tv bad choice you're gonna have a bad time in the 70s in the 70s which i mean you could probably get away with that today because just anything goes today you got you'd have devils twerking on angels people would be like no this is this is normal this is normal now uh auto tune it put it on tiktok put it on put it on the tiktoks this is what this is how china's destroying us they're they're sapping our precious you know
Mike00:35:24these spirit these these these woke demonic possessions twerking all over i tell you i tell
Sonny00:35:30you i can't turn on the tv today without seeing a dei possession on on late night tv jimmy kimmel's this is fine this is no big deal it's just a it's you know we're you know you know who doesn't like this the magas yeah they hate they hate it when the demons twerk on each other and it's like and i i watch this and it disgusts me it fills me with disgust back in the 70s that was a purer time uh was it
Mike00:36:00though speaking of twerking demons uh we're talking about the omen the original 1976 omen directed by richard donner and starring gregory peck uh sunny almost called jvl sunny do you want to give us a review of this uh nearly 40 year old movie nearly what am i saying nearly 50 year old movie it's
Sonny00:36:25like 40 48 years old no kidding all right the omen starring gregory peck as uh the ambassador to uh well not when the movie begins i guess he's the ambassador to italy but then he becomes the ambassador to england and uh his wife gives birth and the their baby dies but the the the priest in the catholic hospital says your child has died but we have another child whose mother has passed away and this could be your child your wife never has to know that it's not her baby turns out that was a mistake because it's devil baby it's it's damien he's the devil he's you you you adopted the devil and you didn't tell anyone and now everyone's gonna think he's your kid so that's the that's the setup here uh and it's i i i'm i find this movie fascinating for a bunch of reasons uh one is as you as you say uh mike this is this is less of a horror film and it's almost more of a 1970s paranoid thriller total so it like the you know the the 1970s had this had this great run of uh paranoid thriller style movies um you know uh probably best exemplified by um um and now i'm blanking on the what what's the what's the robert redford movie uh with the where they're doing the assassinations um oh the um uh uh hold on i'm sorry i'm killing killing the show um you're talking about are you talking about the uh uh not three days of the condor i was gonna say three days of the condor is what i was no not robert redford warren baity warren baity um the parallax view the parallax view that's what i was thinking of the parallax view oh the manchurian candidate but sure yeah no not the manchurian candidate that was earlier that was yes and that was uh that was um frank sinatra correct uh uh no the manchurian can uh not the manchurian the parallax view but anyway the point is uh 70s paranoid thrillers three days of the condor parallax view that sort of thing and um these were all kind of reactions to uh how terrible washington dc was right how terrible how terrible the political sentiment was and how everybody felt like the establishments were crumbling and you know there were there were conspiracies behind every door and you know you can't trust anyone and you've got you know deep throat in the garage saying follow the money and you got uh all these and so the omen the omen weirdly um exists in the same sort of space except it's not about it's not about the government institutions it's about the failure of the church right it's the church is basically playing the role of uh the the the the government here in that they the members of the church officials of the church have lied to this man about you know the where his son comes from there's one crazy priest who you know is kind of dismissed as a lunatic and he winds up you know he's telling the truth about what is what is actually happening here um and uh and you know again there are supernatural elements uh david warner plays this photojournalist who has a camera who magically that magically tells the future i love i love that in this like fairly high toned is the wrong word because the omen is schlock it's like it's it's an exorcist knockoff and it's it's really not that good but it is entertaining and and it's immaculately made as you would expect from a richard donner film um but it it's it's not that good and it is uh um it has this it has this just hilarious subplot where david warner again this like tabloid journalist his camera shows the oncoming deaths of not only the uh not only this this crazy priest who everybody thinks is deranged but also himself he gets a picture of himself and he sees that he's he's getting it next he's getting it next which leads to one of my all-time favorite kills in a horror movie by the way to the extent that i for for years and years for years and years for like a decade i thought the the plate glass scene where the you know so spoilers uh in this movie david warner's uh photographer gets killed uh when a a runaway truck uh hits a bump or something in a plate glass like a sheet of glass comes flying off the back of the truck and cuts his head off cuts his head off was like one of the most terrifying things i'd ever seen as a kid and i for years thought that was in the exorcist i thought that was like actually i thought that was in the the the early part of iraq i thought that i thought that was what that was from and i like i had missed i just had misremembered again until i watched until i re-watched the exorcist like 15 years ago um anyway sorry tangent there yeah uh but i you know i like this movie a lot again gregory peck playing like all-american dad uh which is the role he should just he always should have played that that role uh but who finds himself in a you know in a terrible situation and he's great he's wonderful um the evil nanny she's she's she's so wonderful um uh no i i i i enjoy this movie a great deal and i want to say i like nothing to do with the movie but just as a a business of hollywood thing i really appreciate hulu putting every omen thing on their service uh because you know a lot of the times when you have a new movie coming out the the distributor will like be like hey you want to you oh you're excited for for ghostbusters frozen empire you want to watch the the new ghostbusters uh that came out uh ghostbusters afterlife yeah it's gonna be four dollars to rent it too bad and i and i'm not doing that i'm not i'm not i i kind of wanted to watch it to catch back up but i'm not gonna do it if i have to pay and hulu which again is owned by disney which bought 20th century fox is now called 20th century studios yada yada yada uh they have put all of the oh it's not just the 1976 omen they also put the omen two on there they've got omen three the one where uh uh what's his name from jurassic park and event horizon oh um uh sam neill sam neill thank you uh where sam neill is damien all grown up i'm not really sure how that works timeline wise because that movie came out like five years after oh yeah the first omen and he's he's like a 30 something year old man whatever doesn't matter
Mike00:43:17or 20 i guess even 20 something that's how satan works in our world i guess i feel like people in
Sonny00:43:24the white house would have noticed something was wrong when the the adopted son of the anyway so this getting back to the paranoid thriller uh point the end of this movie at the end of this movie the the president of the united states adopts the son uh of his best friend who is who's played by uh gregory peck in this movie and uh and dies trying to kill him because he the antichrist remember um he adopts this boy and he's going to live in the white house and he kind of turns the camera and looks he's like look at me i ain't i a stinker i'm the antichrist and i'm in the white house now and uh but it's like it is again it's very much in in the same mode as the parallax view uh in that it's like you it's like you want to know what's wrong with america and the white house i'll tell you what's wrong with america and the white house satan satan is is it's just interesting to look at the the movie through that lens more so even than as a as a horror film or more than as a movie about faith it is it is unlike the exorcist it is not really about faith in any real way it's about institutions and and failure there mike what did you think of
Mike00:44:34what did you make of the omen so i had not seen the omen before you never seen it no i'd never seen it before uh until we uh until we watched it for this week so um i was pleasantly surprised with how much i enjoyed it um i think i texted you sonny and said like again not to sound like a curmudgeon but like they don't make movies like this anymore like it's it's well made in a way that it just it it just feels like a word just never going back to that i mean for schlock like this as you say this is schlock but it's such well it made schlock so like how can i how can i criticize it um so first thought it's terrible theology like it's it's really bad theology and there's like stuff in there about um and i don't claim to be a theologian but like i just like being a practicing you know they're trying very hard to be better catholic like there are just things about this that just don't work they don't make sense they um i do i do love that uh at one point again the
Sonny00:45:54photojournalist david warner is like and in revelations yes they talk about they talk about the the sea that never stops churning and turmoil and people say that means politics
Mike00:46:06so of course and it's just like no no the whole the whole like piecing together it's like oh when the roman empire rises again they must mean the european economic community you know the treaty of rome right um but even sure but like like the movie literally to say it misquotes revelation would it would suggest that it it like changes a couple of words but like it just makes up stuff it's like they it says like stuff that's in revelation which is just not there which is kind of hilarious well it's all it's all based on
Sonny00:46:43some poem right it's not even based on the actual book of revelation
Mike00:46:46it's just some poem it's like yeah sure exactly um this uh but but i just saying that as a uh as a sort of uh a table setter it's bad theology but it's it's great um it's great tension it's great thrills and i i i first want to say that gregory peck is perfectly cast and the character of robert thorne of the diplomat is like is perfect because so there's all of this catholicism around it right like he starts out he's the he's the um ambassador to italy the this baby is born at this hospital that's run by a bunch of nuns and the priest as you say is the one who gives it gives him uh the the the demon child uh and then there's the priest who tries to stop him who's a different priest um different priest but but gregory peck and and the robert thorne character i mean you could not get waspier than than gregory peck as this i mean he's basically playing george hw bush um and it's it's great it's like a great contrast with all of the kind of mysticism surround that that is sort of a part of catholicism and this very you know and then you you mish mash that up with the waspish you know uh american diplomatic world uh and then especially when they go to the uk i mean so that i i love that contrast um uh lee remick is is his wife i think she does a fantastic job of going from this sort of alluring sexy uh younger wife of for gregory peck uh who loves her her husband she loves her position as this uh wife of this you know high-flying diplomat who's going to be president someday
Sonny00:48:46um and this mother can we can we talk about that just for one second the the uh the the presidential pathway from the ambassadorship uh to the white house is that is that a thing again again george bush that's it george bush no yeah but but he was not he did not that was
Mike00:49:04not direct no but but they never say it's direct in this movie this is it's sunny i'm not saying
Sonny00:49:12you can't be an ambassador and then and then be president but it's like a thing that stopped happening after like 1820 not really a yeah it's not it's not again it's not a direct direct correlation you know what i'll admit it you're right it's
Mike00:49:28the least believable part of this movie um yeah it's a real problem for me but but her like transformation from that to um sort of like the the like what she knows about this son that she like suspects is not even hers um and and just her her kind of descent into mania is is terrific um you mentioned uh you mentioned mrs baylock the the evil uh familiar i guess you would call it familiar it's not it's not it's not a vampire but whatever she is um so all the act all the actors are great it's it's they they take all the schlocky stuff seriously and it and it works um i think i think the way that the movie wraps up is terrific it's got a great little twist it's not really a twist but it's sort of a great reveal at the end that um that that spoiler alert thorn fails uh to do what he needs to do and he uh and and the kid survives and he's and he's with the president and the first lady um and i love i think i've mentioned this before i love how quickly this movie ends as soon as it's over it's over and it's great and i love that
Sonny00:50:46i will say uh you know it's just interesting to look at look at the the movie from a storytelling trying to try to solve the end of this movie because you you're stuck at you're stuck in a situation where like the only solution if the if we accept that the child is the antichrist and i
Mike00:51:04think there's no reason not to accept the the the the the birthmark he's got six six six exactly
Sonny00:51:11birthmark and everything everyone everyone's going crazy around him that evil dog that the
Mike00:51:16yeah it's like the how did the basket bills so if you accept that the child is the antichrist
Sonny00:51:21then the child has to die like you can't and you can't like as as weird as the 1970s were for a time of filmmaking it would be very hard to end the movie with gregory peck like basically crucifying a five-year-old on an altar like i don't think that i don't think that would fly with audiences certainly um which means that like the devil has to win you can't like it's impossible to make this movie in a way where the good guy wins you just can't do it um which is which is its own interesting little storytelling problem can i can i say though
Mike00:51:57like and maybe this is just how captured i was by the movie at the time because you're you're correct and yet i was kind of like what's gonna happen like i was on there was tension totally and and and and it works in a way where like i did not feel like a oh i know what's gonna happen i know he even if you would pause the movie and turn to me and ask me what what was gonna happen maybe i could would have said it but in that moment i mean it had me totally uh wrapped and i was like is he gonna kill him or not are the police gonna catch up with him or not and i mean so so that's a win right like that's a win in terms you want him to kill the little boy yes i did of course i'm i mean that well should we should we do we need to get into is this is it gonna get too dark if we get into like is this some kind of like metaphor here for like parenthood and like the dark thoughts that okay let's not go let's not go that way i don't think that's i don't
Sonny00:53:01think that's what's going on here but i mean again there's like an interesting kind of undercurrent of political stuff here right like like everyone who's like she has to get an abortion yes your wife your wife uh is pregnant and it's gonna make her crazy so she should probably just get an abortion at gregory peck's like i don't want her to get an abortion that that's not that's not a good idea but you know her body her choice but also damien it's it's really satan's choice it's satan's choice was to abort that satan was not interested in the pro-life movement that's
Mike00:53:36that's right um yeah i don't know i mean it's it's leo mccurn has that little cameo as the weird german guy in israel i also love the um i love the the kind of globetrotting aspect of this where like the the ambassador to the court of saint james has the ability to just like go to italy and to israel and to just to just investigate and also and also just like blow off his duties
Sonny00:54:05at one point they're like you've got an official event to do and he's like no i'm not gonna
Mike00:54:10it's like okay well his roommate is the president he can i mean i guess when you're i guess
Sonny00:54:16when your best buds with the president like what and your wife you know your wife has just suffered a you know horrible miscarriage and you know i guess i guess you can tell him to fuck off but you're not gonna you're not gonna do his his diplomat dip diplomacy
Mike00:54:31bullshit but yeah no it's it's uh it it is i would say probably the lesser of the three right i like i put this in a triptych with the exorcist and rosemary's baby like sure it's the less lesser of those three by far the the least of those three i mean like
Sonny00:54:53nothing it's not it's not even close i don't think uh but it's comparing comparing but but it has its it has its charms sure and why look again we talk about this uh we talk about this we've talked about this for the last three weeks but like they just don't make them like they used to and in in a very real and concrete way just like the level of craft and filmmaking skill that richard donner brings to the table yes is much higher than i just to pick one example adam wingrad who is making you know godzilla kong uh the new empire like it's it's it's a different sort of thing but it's also like it's more grounded it it just feels real in a way that um you know so much of what is what is out today doesn't or can't yeah and and that that is what
Mike00:55:42that is what i was left thinking about not any of the supernatural stuff or or the religious stuff or the political stuff after i watched this movie i just thought like it it used to be better and why why can't it be even like halfway as good now as it as it was then and you're the you're the movie buff you're the guy who like understands the business and all this stuff so you have i'm sure a very um you know a very fulsome explanation for that but it just you know it it strikes me that i that it's something something ineffable has been lost in that like i can't i can't tell you what it is but i can only point it out and be like that
Sonny00:56:33they don't do that anymore so that's my thought yeah uh i i couldn't if i could solve that problem i'd be a rich hollywood executive that's true so if i could just press the make buttons good like they used to button
Mike00:56:49boop yes uh by the way does does does he go straight from this to superman i guess richard donner yeah yeah yeah i mean that's a that's a nice jump all right uh any final thoughts on the omen um do you what by the way what this this new this remake or it's a prequel right it's prequel uh to the omen is there what's what's what's the reason for this the first omen what's
Sonny00:57:16why why are we doing what's the reason for this why does this exist uh i don't the all id dollar that's that's i don't have any i don't have any i haven't actually seen it i hear good things i hear it's supposed to be pretty good um so i'm gonna i'm
Mike00:57:35hoping to see it at some point next week all right well that's all the time we're gonna give to this episode join us over at subbeacon.com tell your friends and family uh give us a comment and we will talk to you next time but uh but see we got we got an hour out of this but oh yeah easily um because you went on and on
Sonny00:58:00let me tell you let me about your let me let me tell you i have more thoughts on frozen dinners did you know i did not realize that marie calendars was like a real restaurant yeah out
Mike00:58:09so okay this is because you did not read um oh shoot what is the name of um so i read in college one of these kind of 30s 40s california books um in which they just john does pass us no no no no no it was um like a hard-boiled uh kind of mildred pierce mildred pierce oh and uh by kane james james mildred pierce is like she has this restaurant and it's sort of a marie calendar type of restaurant where like she makes pies um and yeah that's that's that's marie calendar i mean i just didn't
Sonny00:59:00know until i like till i got married and then we went to california to see her family i was like wait what is why is there a marie calendar store here do they just sell marie calendar frozen meals and she looked at me like i was insane and i was like what i don't know what are you i didn't have
Mike00:59:16to run i don't understand but the west the west coast is another is another country right like it's like in terms of like all of their brands all of the like it's just another world vons or uh ralph ralph's ralph that's that's my favorite um in and out ralph's what kind of grocery store name is that ralph's ridiculous ridiculous call yourself something proper like
Sonny00:59:41safeway or kroger harris teeter yeah that's a harris teeter is a grocery store name ralph's sure it's fine
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