#269. 'Land of Bad'
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The main event is a rare unanimous rave: Sonny, JVL, and Mike all love Land of Bad, the Russell Crowe/Liam Hemsworth military-thriller now streaming on Netflix (after a modest theatrical run), praising it as a "pure uncut Hollywood jingoism" throwback to the mid-budget action programmers studios used to crank out monthly — Sonny compares it favorably to Behind Enemy Lines and Clear and Present Danger, JVL marvels at its practical stunts and correct military detail work (real Delta-operator beards, a properly used JTAC), and Mike singles out Liam Hemsworth's underrated performance and Russell Crowe's effortless movie-star gravity delivering most of his lines from a drone-pilot's chair. That review kicks off a broader rant, led by Sonny with JVL's assist, about studios (especially Apple, with Wolfs) dumping expensive star vehicles straight to streaming instead of theaters, arguing it's an accounting trick to hide losses rather than a sound financial strategy. The long opening third covers Mike's comedy-of-errors reporting trip through North Carolina in a rental EV — a forgotten suitcase, multiple charging stops, and a missed campaign event after getting locked out by security — plus a story about JVL's friend Ed Condon spotting Vic Matus (and his infamous Morton's wine locker) at a DC dinner; Sonny's new obsession with the Sunday NYT crossword prompts a JVL rant that crosswords and Scrabble aren't really "about words," and the trio debates whether the Wheel of Fortune wheel is rigged before running through the weekend box office (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Speak No Evil, Deadpool & Wolverine, Am I Racist, Reagan). The episode closes with Mike recounting rescuing his son's drone from a tree with a borrowed gutter-cleaning pole, and Sonny fantasizing about paying for a meet-and-greet photo with a visibly miserable Russell Crowe at his band's Austin tour stop.
From the show notes
Plus: why EVs are bad rental cars.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00We're going after a CIA asset that's been captured. Is this your first mission in theater, JTAC? Second. Do me a favor. Keep up. The last thing we need in this sob is to have to save your ass. Who the hell are these guys? Welcome to my show. You'll hand over in five. I'm ready. I'm your eyes in the sky and the bringer of doom.
?00:00:25Subtle.
Guest00:00:26I got movement. We got a situation. 12:00, incoming. Weapons are waiting. Reaper, you there?
?00:00:32Reaper? We're here, playboy.
Guest00:00:34You gotta get your ass on the move, son. Come on, soldier.
Mike00:00:58Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me as always are my two co-hosts who are five clicks north that way, last time I checked, Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at subbeacon.com, become a patron, tell your friends and family and you can join the conversation over there in the comments. Always a lively discussion, but you can only do it at subbeacon.com. We're going to be talking about Land of Bad. Land of Bad. Is that it? Land of Bad. Not the Land of Bad. Not Land of the Bad. Land of Bad later in the show. But first, what is going on JVL? Talk to us.
JVL00:01:45Michael, I heard that you were spotted like a boldface name in page six. I was. Is this not true? Did somebody not come up to you in Morton's and say. Excuse me, are you the mulch king of Virginia, Mike Warren?
Mike00:02:05Did this not happen? It did happen. It did happen. Yes. Listener to the show, Ed Condon, there was a dinner going on.
JVL00:02:15Not just listener to the show, incredibly close friend of mine. Hey, Ed.
Mike00:02:19Yes, exactly.
Sonny00:02:20Exactly. But for the other listeners. Don't you guys do a watch show together? Don't you guys literally have a watch podcast?
JVL00:02:26We have an occasional. We occasionally do watch content for each other. A lot of that is in private DMs between me and him and our buddy, David, where I'd say the most Texas, my most frequent text group is me, Ed and David just watch porn with each other.
Sonny00:02:47I'm glad that you have an outlet for that. That's not this show. Yes. Exactly. We've diverted some of that into another avenue.
Mike00:02:57Ed is also very, you know, very accomplished. As I told him when I saw him, because it was the first time I met him, you know, co-founder of The Pillar, which is a great resource. Just a kick-ass reporter, such a good reporter. He's terrific. It was great to meet him. We had a great time. I do have a message actually from Ed to Sonny that I'm going to share right now, Ed's message to you. This is from Ed. This is not from me, Sonny. The message to you, Sonny, is, let me see, hold on, let me make sure I get this right. Fuck off. Oh. Fair. That's the message. That's fair. That's the message. Was there any context?
Sonny00:03:44I don't know what this is about.
Mike00:03:46I got no context. I just, I'm the messenger of this from one to, no, I think it had something to do with the way that he believes you treat me on this show. And.
JVL00:04:02Oh, he's team, team mulch.
Mike00:04:05He was. He said, he said he wasn't quite sure when I, when I joined the show, but, but now he's, he's on board.
Sonny00:04:11So, uh, but this is, but this is all part of my, my master plan is to treat you badly to win the readers to your side. I've, I've explained this before that I have, I'm doing, I've got, I got five dimensional
JVL00:04:25chess going on here.
Sonny00:04:26I got, I got. You can't get myself over. I got a, I got a, no, no, Mike, you can't. Uh, and, and I've got a, I've got to, I have to reassure the listeners out there, you know, we transitioned to a new host and we had the, we, we wanted to make sure that everyone's gonna gonna like them. But the way that you get somebody to like them is do you make, you make other people feel bad for them. So my, my goal has been to turn you into an object of pity amongst the people. I think I've mostly succeeded at that, frankly, judging by. Right. Judging by the comments, judging by Ed's reaction, I have, I have one, thank you so much. Sonny.
JVL00:05:04What's funny. So Ed texts me and he's like JVL, I'm sitting in Morton's. What are the odds that there would be a early fifties Filipino guy with short hair and a gigantic head, two fisting martinis. And it's not Vic Mattis. It was like, I don't know, do you want to take a picture and send it to me? I'll tell you if it's Vic. And so I was like, oh, you want me from my table? To surreptitiously take a picture of this other gentleman and send it to you. So we did not. What we did was Shannon sent him a picture of Vic and so he was like, yes, that's him. All right.
Sonny00:05:39I'm going in.
JVL00:05:40Wait, wait. Yeah.
Mike00:05:42We were at Morton's.
Sonny00:05:43It was, why were you at Morton's and not the Palm? What is it?
Mike00:05:46Because we were invited. It was, it was, it was a dinner we were invited to. It was not a, it was, yeah, it was, but we did see Vic's, um, uh, Vic's wine, his locker cabinet. Does he still have the. It's still there. I suggested, I suggested it was, it has whatever's in there has to be vinegar at this point. Um, there's, there's no, there's no way it's like actually drinkable because he hasn't, he hasn't been there in a while. Um, but maybe, maybe I'm knocking Morton's wine lockers, uh, unfairly here. Yeah. But no, Vic, Vic was there. So he, he talked to Vic and then I'm sitting there cause Vic and I had sat next to each other at this, at this dinner at our table. And, uh, the next thing I know, Ed is turning around. Uh, like pointing at me and Vicks like pointing at me and, and, and he was like, no way. So it was, it was great. Um, we had a lovely conversation and it was, uh, it was a very lovely night.
JVL00:06:40So that's Victorino.
Mike00:06:43He's great.
JVL00:06:44He's great.
Mike00:06:45Yeah.
JVL00:06:46Um, yeah, we had it.
?00:06:47Yeah.
Mike00:06:48Okay. The gout's fine. As far as I can tell. All right. That's all I didn't expect closely.
JVL00:06:53So didn't, didn't subtly tap him on the toe to see if he wins.
Mike00:06:57Right? Exactly. Exactly. Um, anyway, but, but, but hold on JVL, you're supposed to be telling us what's going on with you.
JVL00:07:04No, no. That's, that's all I've got. I, all I know is that you texted cryptically yesterday and said you are mad and you got a lot of things you want to get off your chest and so I'm just here to listen.
Mike00:07:16No. So, okay. So it's, it's not that I'm mad, although I am a little mad though. It's just, it's a silly, like comedy of errors of this, uh, reporting trip that I'm on. Uh, currently here as, as we are recording, I'm still on this trip, um, which began, uh, when I flew it. So I'm in, I'm in the state of North Carolina, the Tar Heel state, and, um, I flew in trying to manage the sort of like, okay, how am I going to get to where I need to go by a certain time, but also schedule it so that, you know, I kind of see my kids off to school the morning, all that stuff. So, um, for that reason, I flew into Charlotte in order to drive two hours to Asheville, North Carolina for an event that I saw on Tuesday. Um, and then the plan was to drive on Wednesday, four and a half hours to Raleigh for an event on Wednesday in Raleigh. Um, so things start out poorly, so I, I get into my rental car, um, and it's actually at the Charlotte airport. It's like a slim pickings in terms of, I got my, my gold plus reward or whatever, but I have, I have the choice, but I just grabbed the first one that I can see and I get in, I'm kind of in a hurry cause I get in on the road and then I I'm pulling out to like get the final checkout before I can leave the garage. And I realized this is an Evie. This is an electric vehicle, which I've never driven before, which is fine. They're not like difficult, but like, well, one wasn't. Uh, it was the, um, the Kia Nairo nine, no, no, the Nairo, the Nairo, um, yeah, it's, it's good. It's a good car. Um, but I, I, I'm sort of not fully thinking through cause I'm thinking, okay, I gotta get to this place so I can be there at a certain time and, um, I'm like, yeah, okay, I mean, I'm already in the car. I'm about to pull out. Let's just, let's just do this. Not thinking through, like, what is it going to be like to drive? That's a state in an electric vehicle that needs to be recharged regularly in places.
JVL00:09:33You know, it's like 250 miles, doesn't it?
Mike00:09:37Yeah, but I'm, I'm driving, I mean, I can get to Asheville. No problem. It's Asheville to Raleigh. That's going to be the problem. But, um, but before we even get there. So I drive 15 minutes down the road, finally, I think it was like a taco bell parking lot to pull into because I had some, some edits on, on something that I was writing and I need to look at. Um, so I pull in, I, I park, I sort of go back, get my computer out, start, start looking at things. I kind of get that sense, you know, that there's like something in the back seat of the car and I, that would have been, that would have been more exciting. That would have been better. But so I turned around and I realized there was a suitcase that is not mine in the back of this rental car. And I was like, so then I had to like make this decision. And I will say that I was, this was, while the result may seem altruistic, I was, I want to re leave listeners feeling, uh, assured that I was thinking only about myself, um, which was, do I want to drive two hours and have this suitcase with me? And like, I'm not even going back to Charlotte. So there's no like chance of me, like even returning this thing. So I had to make a decision. I was just, it was so annoying. And so I drove 15 minutes back to the airport to drop off this stupid, uh, suitcase that somebody left in the back of the car. So, um, that was, I have no idea. Wasn't my problem. What's out of my hands.
JVL00:11:14I'm done because I feel like this is, uh, you know, an Abu Sayyaf, uh, plot device could be that they, they go and just leave a suitcase randomly in a suitcase bomb in the, in the back of a rental car. And then who, how does that plot work?
Mike00:11:32Like what, what, what is the actual end point of that plan? I don't know. That's it. It doesn't quite make sense.
JVL00:11:37It's going to blow up Evie charging stations, cripple the clean energy revolution in America. That's right. One suitcase bomb at a time.
Mike00:11:49Yeah. They're playing the long game. Let's go.
JVL00:11:51Let's go with the West through climate change in North Carolina and Western North Carolina.
Mike00:11:56It's where, it's where it all begins. So anyway, so then it was fine.
JVL00:11:59Then I make it there brothers. We shall bring the infidel running dogs to their knees in 1000 years by slowly crippling their ability to fight climate change.
Sonny00:12:11If you, if you get one of those lithium ion batteries to burn on a bridge or something, it'll burn right through the bridge. It'll like, that's a good, that's a good point.
Mike00:12:19It's like alien. Well, it didn't, it didn't happen as far as I can tell. Um, again, I haven't, I haven't kept, you know, close tabs on what's going on at CLT. Um, anyway, so then I just, I make it to Asheville. It's fine.
JVL00:12:32Um, who did you get the suitcase to the guy?
Mike00:12:36So, oh, so, oh, so I pulled, I thought about it. I thought about it. Um, no. So I just pulled back into like where you return, you know, to the return and I got out and the guys like coming over to like, I said, hold on, hold on. I just, I just rented this thing and I like. Pulled out the suitcase was like, this was in the back seat. I found out about 15 minutes down the road and he's like, I'm so sorry. And I said, you know what? It's fine, but it's a little annoying because I called about five times. I, I felt like Russell Crowe in this movie that we're going to talk about. I called about five times the, the local office to like tell them that this was happening and see if there was a better way to, to, to do this and this employee, this Hertz employee goes, whew. Yeah, they're really, really bad. And I was like, this is your company, but they would never, they would never,
Sonny00:13:33they would never pick up the phone to talk to the customer. Are you kidding me?
Mike00:13:37Basketball game going on in the background. Exactly. So it was fine. Made it to Asheville. It was fine.
Sonny00:13:43But then did you, did you trade in and get a, a non EV car while you were there?
Mike00:13:47Or no. So, so believe me, Sonny, this occurred to me. I was like, oh, this is maybe my way back, back to like normalcy. Um. And I'm still not thinking clearly about like, what's going to be a problem for me later than, you know, mostly the next day. But my immediate problem was I'm already late now to when I wanted to be two hours away from here. So my, and, and like the, all the paper, I was just like, I, I'm not doing that again. Um, they called ahead so that I could exit very, very, uh, expeditiously. And I just hit the road. I had the Asheville did my work there. Um, and the next morning was the, was the long trip from Asheville, which is in the far way. I mean, it's in the smoky mountains, um, to Raleigh, which is practically, you know, it's on the other, it's completely on the other side of the state. Um, it's a straight shot, but it's, it's very far. It's four and a half hours, roughly. Um, so I did not factor in how, until sort of, it was too late. Um, trying to do too many things at once, you know, finish writing and edits on something, uh, do all that, what it would like the time to like, stop, find a charging station, stop in charge. And it wasn't one charge I had to do. I had to do twice, um, to get all the way across the state. So like, I'm like, why did I get this EB? This is so stupid of me. Uh, and then when I finally arrive in Raleigh, I'm not gonna, it's not important to the story. But it was for a campaign event and the campaign frustratingly shared little to, to no information about like, about anything other than literally one time. What like one time in the afternoon when the event would be happening, but it was unclear, was that when the doors opened up, was that when, you know, the first speaker started, whatever it was, um, nothing about, as opposed to the, the, that was from the opposing campaign with the event in action. Asheville that had like, here's what you need to be here. The security PR the security kind of shuts down and locks down the area by this time. So you need to be in by this time. And this is where you park and don't park here because all that stuff, this other campaign was holding the event and Raleigh had none of that information.
JVL00:16:17So I show up, which candidate that was.
Mike00:16:20It's not important to, it's not important, but there, uh, a
JVL00:16:26bookstore nearby this campaign event. If you get my meeting, I don't get your meeting.
Mike00:16:34Actually.
JVL00:16:35I have no idea what you're saying, a book, a bookstore that sells books for adults and perhaps rents VHS tapes for $8 because you can't buy them in North Carolina. No, you're not picking up what I'm laying down. Okay.
Mike00:16:49I'm not picking up what you're laying out, but no, no, that's not it. That's not, this is at the presidential level. Um, uh. At any rate, so I show up and it's like, okay, like I'm here before the start of the event and it turned out that like the security, uh, lockdown had already had like just happened and it was like the cop is like looking at me, like I'm like panting and I'm like, uh, can I get in this? Uh, sorry, just shut down. So it was like all for not. And it felt so stupid and like, I blame myself of course, but I also blame the campaign and I also blame EVs and EV infrastructure because there is, there are no places in like across, like this is interstate 40, a major interstate. And like, there are places, but it's like, you have to like be strategic about it. You've got to, uh, you know, and the EV can't get you that far. And I just think we've got to slow our roll on the EV thing.
Sonny00:17:51The, the, the, all of the, all of the, uh, rental car companies just have entire parking lots filled with EVs because nobody wants them for this specific reason. And like the thing about the thing about, look, I, there are lots of good reasons to have an EV if you live in a, in a city, if you're doing a lot of short drives, if you live in a urban area, whatever, but like for rental purposes, they are fucking useless and like, and they're a pain and they're a pain in the ass. I like the, uh, I, I don't know the, the number of like.
Mike00:18:26Apps I had to download onto my phone because every single like EV state charging station has like a different app and it's like, oh, just, just do the QR code and you can download the app. And then when you get the app, it's like, uh, but now you have to plug, I don't know,
Sonny00:18:42plug in my credit card to charge your car at one of these things.
Mike00:18:46What's the, what's the particular car, uh, it roughly cost about like to get up to 80%, which is what they recommend. Like, you don't want to go charge above 80%. It costs like roughly 20 to $25.
Sonny00:18:59So it doesn't even save you. I, um, uh, I know it can save you if you're charging at home. If most of your charges, again, like there are, there are use cases, but if you, if you, if you, if you live, if you want to have it for your home, for driving around the neighborhood, taking the kids to soccer practice, whatever, great, perfect, perfect car, but like the, the, uh, four rentals. Rental purposes. It is, it is, it should be, you should get an enormous discount for taking an EV off their hands. Cause they're like I said, they're just, the lots are just filled with them. Nobody wants them.
Mike00:19:36Well, I think there's a reason why I actually think if I had gone back to like the section president circle, thank you very much. President circle, uh, for like what was available, I guarantee you more than not were EVs. And so like, but. So, you know, I also wasn't in a frame of mind to be like looking for that. Um, and so anyway, so again, partially my fault, I would've, I would've, I would've
Sonny00:20:03gotten out of it the moment I stepped in it and like when I turned it on and felt the EV, I just would've been like, nope, uh, need, need a new car, need a new car.
Mike00:20:12But see, I wasn't even thinking because, because the way that like, I just wasn't thinking that through and I was, I was, my mind was like the five steps ahead of where I need to be. Um, because again, this is all, this is what's so frustrating. About all this is like, this is, you know, I got three kids at home, like, uh, I am not a like on the road campaign reporter, but I, I like, I need to do it for the job and I like to do it. And, um, I've got some good like trips planned, but it's like, it's a very, I have a very limited time that I have stuff that I can fit in. And I like created this whole kind of itinerary for myself to make it work. So then it was like, I need to, I need to be able to hit all of these sort of, sort of benchmarks. So to, to sort of have all of these like comedy of errors happen to me, ending with like not actually being able to see the candidate that I actually had intended to see, which is very frustrating. So that's all I have to say about that. It's fine. It's, it could be, could have been so much worse.
JVL00:21:15I blame Abu for leaving that decoy suitcase, the back of the car. That was, that was your get out of jail.
Sonny00:21:22I know. I know. Here, give me, give me a record. Give me a real car.
JVL00:21:27I don't want one of these, give me a Nissan Altima.
Sonny00:21:31I'll take the Altima literally geo. I don't, what are you, what's the shittiest car that takes gas that you have? I'll take that.
Mike00:21:39I did. I did share this story with my, my colleague, the actual 2024 reporter, David Drucker, uh, and he and I are actually planning a trip, uh, uh, a work trip for ourselves to, to cover the election where we're going to like travel together. And he's, he sent me a message and said, I, uh, I've already rented a, uh, 100, 100% guaranteed gas guzzler for our trip. So, um, so that is, uh, quite a relief, Sonny, what is going on with you before we, uh, move on here?
Sonny00:22:06Not a whole lot. Uh, I, I, I think I'm going to become a, I think I'm gonna become a crossword guy. I think I'm a, I think I'm a crossword guy. I'm gonna start doing crossword. Crossword. I feel like crosswords are where it's at. You know, I, I was a Sudoku guy for a while. Like I, but it got to the point where I was only doing the like hardest ones, the five star ones. Cause they're, they're so easy. Uh, but the, uh, but the, the crossword, you know, we get, we get the newspaper a couple times a week here in Dallas, I get the Wednesday and the, uh, and the Sunday and we have, we get the New York times, it's, it's like in, you know, it's, it's, it's in the newspaper. Um, uh, so we, uh, so I, I like, I, I, the Wednesday one's pretty easy. I can do the Wednesday. The Sunday one's hard Sunday, New York times, crossword puzzle, hard puzzle, hard puzzle. It, it's, it's, it usually takes me two days to do. A lot of the times what happens is I'll like do a run on it Sunday and then I'll start it again the next day and all of the, all of the clues have like come to me in my sleep. My brain has like reordered in the proper way. I'm like, oh yes, that's what, like very, very specific example of this. One of the clues was soft leather. The answer is suede. Obviously it's suede. Um, but like, but if you're not thinking that way, but it took me, it took me, it took me like a day, a day.
Mike00:23:25For that to, to pop into my brain, um, shorts is a, uh, is, is, is quite a, uh, a wizard with the, uh, with the crosswords.
Sonny00:23:34Well, what's interesting about the crosswords too, is that like once you start doing them more than every once in a while, you realize that like a lot of the clues get recycled. A lot of the, like, there's like a lot of, you know, there's some variations and tricks that like show up over and over again.
Mike00:23:50And that, that, that makes it go faster every time there are certain three and four letter words that crossword puzzles just repeat all the time. Um, yell L or yell LS for like, um, you know, L like for L shaped things like that's a frequent one or, um, I'm an, I'm a crossword obsessive for some reason, uh, flaky, uh, flaky stone
Sonny00:24:15or something like that has been my clue several times. Now it's Micah every M I C a that's like three, three times now of like the seven that I've done over the last two months. Yeah. Oh yeah. So it's a, no, it's good though. It's good. I feel like being a crossword guys where it's at. I started, I, so I, I was, I was way over my skis on this thing at the beginning. I was using a pen, I was using a pen on the Sunday crossword to start off with. I was like, whatever. I just, I'll just cross that. That was a mistake. I I've switched to the pencil because then it, you know, it's, it's, but I, uh, I've always been a little bit intimidated. I've always been a little intimidated by the New York times Sunday crossword. It's always, it's so big. There's so much there. And, and, you know, I'm starting to, starting to get a, get a, get my hands around it.
JVL00:25:00I hate this thing so much. So crosswords, tell us why crosswords, crosswords fall for me into the same category as Scrabble, which is feel like a seven foot tall dude who can't play basketball. You know, like everybody's like, you know, you're seven feet tall, average assumes like, oh yeah, she played, she played basketball in college, right? You're like, like, no, I was a fucking in the marching band and I played clarinet. You know, I, I was never to go to basketball and that's what it is being a professional writer who is terrible at Scrabble and crossword puzzles when people assume that you should be great at because you're like, well, you're a professional writer. You write good words.
Sonny00:25:48You've got words. You've got words in your head.
JVL00:25:51My, my dearly departed father-in-law, God rest his soul. Um, who was not the most literate guy in the world. Okay. Uh, but was an avid player of Scrabble and doer of crossword puzzles. And you know, like these things are not actually related to words. They use words, but they are not related to words. And so like, I'd sit down to play Scrabble with them and be like, ip, like, what the fuck is that? I don't know. Do you want to challenge it? Because he just has memorized reams of words with two and three letters, which have no, that don't exist, have never been used, but somehow fit the incredibly narrow use cases for Scrabble rules for official Scrabble rules. And then there's all this, like, you know, there's the bluffing aspect of like, well, you know, we're going to challenge it or not challenge, because if you challenge it, you lose. And you know what? That's not, that's not writing. Those aren't real words. They're they're games that use letters, but they are about the games. They're not about words. And so stop expecting me to be good at those things. People.
Sonny00:27:06No, I will clone something. I will say, so this is one reason why I have never really like crosswords is because there
JVL00:27:13is like a very, it's, it's, it's, they're not about words or meanings or knowing anything. They're about doing crosswords.
Sonny00:27:19Right? Well, I mean, they're, they are about words, but it's also, it's also like understanding when there's like a secondary meaning or like it's part of a phrase or something like that, that sort of thing. And once you start, once you start recognizing that, it's like, okay, I get, I, I, I have started to, I have started, my brain has started to, so anyway, this is what I'm doing as I, as I enter middle-aged is Sudoku's and crossword puzzles.
Mike00:27:46Can I, can I give you, you'll, you'll take, you'll go out to the park, bag of bread
JVL00:27:55and your crossword puzzle and your sit on a bench with your, your little, your little cap and newsboy cap, your newsboy cap, and you'll sit on the bench and you'll do your crossword and just toss little breadcrumbs out to the pigeons around you. That's great. I can do that. You're not, you're not sliding into death. Don't, uh, don't, don't think you're sliding into death and mortality, Sonny, that's not
Sonny00:28:18what's happening. I'm keeping my brain sharp with my puzzles, with my, with my, my word puzzles, my puzzles
JVL00:28:24and I watch my shows.
Sonny00:28:25I do my puzzles.
JVL00:28:27Oh, Maury's on.
Sonny00:28:29I watch my stories.
JVL00:28:30Gotta go watch Maury Povich. My shows are on.
Sonny00:28:32The wheel. Watch my stories.
JVL00:28:34I do my puzzles.
Sonny00:28:35The wheel. The wheel. Yes. The wheel. Oh man. We watched, we, I, we showed the kids wheel of fortune the other day for the first time.
JVL00:28:42Oh, you watched the wheel. Shocker Sonny. Shocker. The crossword guy watched the wheel.
Sonny00:28:46Well, I, I hadn't watched, God, I hadn't watched wheel of fortune in probably 20 years and it just like happened. It was like on the main page of Hulu. Like what's this? I was like, wheel of fortune. Come on guys. They can't do jeopardy. Like they're little kids. They don't understand jeopardy, but wheel of fortune.
Mike00:29:02What did they think of the wheel? Pat Sajak. Yeah. I could, like, I suppose you could do better than that.
Sonny00:29:08Uh, they, they was fine. They were, they were, they were into it, but it was like, it was, they, I mean, they, they're little kids. They don't know any of the answers to things.
Mike00:29:17So like it's, but I think, I think it's the same thing with wheel and a wheel of fortune and jeopardy. It's like. At least in my house, it was like, it was just always kind, maybe not always on, but it was like frequently just on TV because TVs were on all the time. Like, you know, like you get home from school or like, you know, it's like your mom's making dinner or something. It's like the TV was on cause the news was on and then it was like, then it would roll into jeopardy or something. And like, so even as like a little kid, if you didn't quite understand what was going on, you just kind of absorbed these syndicates. Indicated game shows in a way that I got a question.
JVL00:29:59Yeah. One of my conspiracy theories, the wheel itself is fixed, right? On wheel of fortune on wheel of fortune, the wheel of fortune itself, the titular wheel of fortune is clearly rigged.
Sonny00:30:15I don't think so. I don't agree with that.
JVL00:30:17You don't think so. The size of that wheel and the way it goes round, just, it, it doesn't make any sense to have. A wheel look like that and be structured like that, unless it is in order to allow the producers to control the outcome of it.
Sonny00:30:32I don't know.
Mike00:30:34This is bigger than pay all of this is true because I mean, I, I would, I like bigger than the game show.
Sonny00:30:40The thing about wheel of fortune is that it doesn't matter how much money they give away because wheel of fortune is a mint. They just, it just produces money. It's like one of the most, it's one of the most like that, that, and to manufacture tension
JVL00:30:55on the show. But I don't think they even do a very good job of that because like, you get these runs
Sonny00:31:00where people get like four bankruptcies in a row or four misses like, and it's just like, I don't know. It's all.
Mike00:31:07No, I don't. Hold on. Hold on. Do you, do you agree? Do you believe that the showcase showdown wheel on Price is Right is rigged?
JVL00:31:13I never thought that that was rigged.
?00:31:16No.
Mike00:31:17Why not?
JVL00:31:18Why, why, why say Jack and not, and not Barger, the, the structure of that wheel. The fact that each, each, uh, square in it only has two pegs as opposed to like the number of pegs that there are in this, the fact that there's only, I believe only two bad spots on the, the Price is Right wheel. Whereas the Wheel of Fortune wheel has multiple bankruptcies and lose turns scattered about it. I, everything about it just seems to me very fishy. Trust it.
Sonny00:31:55I don't think it's right. I don't think it's right.
Mike00:31:57It's, it's Ryan Seacrest. Right. Right. He, he hosts it now. Is that correct?
Sonny00:32:02The Wheel of Fortune?
Mike00:32:03I think so. Yeah. All right. Let's quickly talk box office here. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Once again, number one at the box office this past weekend, followed by Speak No Evil, uh, and then Deadpool and Wolverine hanging on there in the, uh, number three spot, uh, number four. Am I racist? This is the Daily Wire movie. Yeah. Yes. Uh, and number five is Reagan. So you know, conservatives are back baby at the, uh, box office, uh, any, any box office thoughts?
Sonny00:32:35Do we have anything? There's also this movie, The Forge, uh, which is like a, I think is like a Christian from a firm films after graduating from high school without any plans for the future. Uh, Isaiah receives a push to start making better life decisions. I know it's something, something that there's like a religious thing there. And then, uh, God's not dead five, I think in God, we trust is, is number 10 at the there's like, Hey,
Mike00:33:02and they're, they're making a new passion to Matt passion to passion to is, uh, is hitting
Sonny00:33:06production soon. What is God's not dead?
JVL00:33:08That sounds like, uh, a Hong Kong gun.
Mike00:33:11No, no. God's not dead is a, is an evangelical thing. I believe.
JVL00:33:16Oh, that sounds like movies are like, if I remember correctly, the first God's yeah. God's not dead from visionary director.
Sonny00:33:25John Wu, no, God's still not dead. Uh, no, I think the first God's not dead was like, it was set in a college, I think like a, I believe it's a book.
Mike00:33:36I believe it's a based on a book.
Sonny00:33:38Well, I, I don't, I, I couldn't tell you, I couldn't, I don't watch, I don't watch any of these. So I, you know, because I'm close minded and provincial like that.
Mike00:33:47Um, no, God's not dead. Starring Kevin Sorbo and Dean Cain. Um,
JVL00:33:55Uh, you know, you're really missing out by closing yourself off to this stuff, Sonny, because, uh, let me tell you, Christian popular fiction is as a long track record of just incredible artistic achievement, just like Christian, just like Christian rock, uh, I
Sonny00:34:15will say a Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is continues to do very well. And it is, uh, um, it's, it's interesting. There was a story. There was a story in the New York Times. There was a story in the New York Times or someplace. It was like how, how this movie ended up getting made. And it was, uh, you know, originally WB had come to, um, had come to Tim Burton was like, we, we want to make this, we want to do a TV show. We want to, we want to spend, you know, 150 million dollars or something or 140 million dollars on it. And he was like, no, it should be a movie. I want to make a movie. And they're like, well, if it's going to be a movie, then we can only spend a hundred million dollars on it.
JVL00:34:51Yeah. It was like 47 million was the sticking point.
Sonny00:34:53Right. And I'm just like, I'm, but like, it's, it's bizarre to me. It is frankly bizarre to me that we live in a world where a product that has a, a very specific window where it makes a very large amount of money, which is the theatrical window is treated by the studios as nothing but cost. Like they basically look at that and they see costs. They see, well, we got to pay for advertising and we got to pay. For we got to split money with the theaters. So really, you know, in the, in the, we have to spend less money on this to make, and like, I'm sorry. That's insane. That's insane. Because the trickle down effect of all that is to increase, uh, excitement for the streaming service and to get people because like when you put a thing straight on streaming, you know what people see? They see, I see direct to TV movie. I see a direct to TV, uh, picture and those are not good. I know because I am a consumer. Over the years, I've been trained to recognize straight to TV as lower quality than theatrical that then comes to TV. And this idea that there is nothing but costs and yes, there are more costs you have to, you do have to spend for advertising. You do have to spend, you know, an extra, probably 50 or $60 million on advertising. I understand that. I understand that. And like the other reason that you spend a lot of money on streaming stuff, uh, more, the reason you spend more. On streaming upfront is because you have to pay out all the backend to all the, all these people, right? So you have to pay Michael Keaton instead of paying Michael Keaton $10 million plus five points of the gross or, you know, Jenna Ortega $5 million plus two points of the gross. Instead you have to pay Michael Keaton $20 million just to show up. You have to pay Jenna Ortega $8 million just to show up. You got to pay Winona Ryder $8 million just to show up. You, you know, it's like it, this is, this is a, you, you front load all of your costs. And I still swear, I still to this day do not think anybody has signed up for a streaming service for a movie. I really, I, for a TV show, maybe TV shows make sense to me because people stick around week after week. They, they want to watch it or like the Netflix model where they binge everything. Like I understand signing up for a service for TV, I, I am, I remain very skeptical. That anyone has ever signed up for Netflix for like red notice or something like that.
JVL00:37:31So I suspect that, and I would love to see Matthew Bologna write about this, uh, that this is an artifact of different accounting methods and that the accounting methods on theatrical release make it harder to hide losses.
Sonny00:37:47Yes.
JVL00:37:48Then it does on streaming. And so if you are the executive and your performance. Is based on what? Is based on what you can show through accounting. That's how you make your determination, right? It isn't actually about which one really makes the most sense financially, because that fuck all that, that good redounds, the benefit of the company, you, the executive, however, have to, to justify your own record.
Sonny00:38:11And so, well, this, this is very specifically happening at apple right now. So apple paid, you know, apple paid probably $150 million for this movie wolves, right? They, they paid Brad Pitt and they paid George Clooney and they paid John. Watts, who is the director of the recent Spider-Man films. And they, they make this movie. The production budget alone is probably, you know, 80 or $90 million. The salary for all those guys is probably another 50, $60 million. And instead of releasing it in theaters, like they had been with, uh, Napoleon and, you know, uh, killers of the flower moon and, uh, what was the, the Channing Tatum man in the moon story, whatever, uh, to the moon or whatever. The fuck that movie was called. They, they, those movies all bombed. I mean, they were all like, I think you can, you can say that those movies all lost money theatrically and maybe they make up money because they convince people to sign up for Apple TV, but it's hard to disambiguate that as you say, JBL. So Wolf's now is basically going straight to Apple. It's getting a token run in theaters, uh, and, and instead they're putting it straight on Apple. And it's insane to me that they would do this. It's just an enormous waste of capital. Don't spend that. Don't spend. It's like $50 million on a movie you're going to put straight to streaming. Nobody is signing up for streaming for movies. I, I, I, and I've, I've gotten yelled at by execs before they're like, no, we have numbers that show. And like, I'm sorry, I don't, I just don't buy it. I do not buy that. It is an, uh, a big enough vector to encourage people to sign up and then stay with the service to, to put something like this straight to streaming. It does not make sense financially, but it's, but as you say, JBL, it's easier to, you can hide $150 million in the Apple TV plus ecosystem because it's like, well, we did, we made this and we made this. We had this many signups.
JVL00:40:02You can hide that more easily than you can. You can hide $150 million on streaming much more easily than you can hide a hundred million
Sonny00:40:08dollars in theatrical 100% because the chart comes out every week, the chart comes out every week and somebody goes to, you know, the head of apple and they're like, look at this. We got another bomb over here. What are we doing with this? Why are we doing this? Why do we have, why are we spending all this money? And it's a, it's. It's a disaster. I, I just like, I look at, I, I, Beetlejuice is like a perfect example of a thing that never should have been straight to streaming. Obviously it's like a legacy sequel. People love the original. There's all there. You do a million data points saying like, this is a thing that will, that has that there's no data points saying that this will definitely make money, but there are a million data points saying that this will probably make money and probably make money is better than we're going to put it on streaming and maybe people sign up for it or not. I don't know. Whatever.
Mike00:40:56Yeah. All right. Well, we're talking about streaming and we're going to talk about this movie that's on Netflix streaming movie. Um, probably couldn't have, no, it's not, it's not, it was not a streaming movie.
Sonny00:41:09It was in the, I saw it in theaters six months ago. Yeah. It was not very long. We can talk about structural problems there, but okay.
Mike00:41:17Well, land of bad is the movie we're talking about. Sonny, you want to give us a big boy review of this theatrical movie? As, as I'd never heard of before I saw it on Netflix land of bad starring fat Russell
Sonny00:41:30Crowe and a lesser Hemsworth, uh, as, uh, members of the United States military force, the thing.
Mike00:41:37All right.
Sonny00:41:38So, uh, two Hemsworths, there's a second Hemsworth in there.
Mike00:41:40Who's who's the oldest, oldest brother plays a bit part in it, but go ahead.
Sonny00:41:44Sorry. Oh, that's right. That's right. No, I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. No. Uh, all right. So, uh, it's got, it's got, uh, Russell Crowe plays a captain in a drone pilot in the, in the air force station in Nevada. Um, Liam, the Hemsworth plays a, uh, the JTAC, uh, operator, the guy who watches the drones while he's in the field with the operators. Uh, and it, uh, the, the, the plot of this movie is basically Liam Hemsworth gets roped into a mission in the South Philippine seas, I don't know, somewhere in somewhere in South Asia, off the waters of South Asia, uh, and, and they get, they get, uh, they, they come across. Abu safe encampment and go to war with them. It's great. I love this movie. I love this movie for one very basic reason for the most basic reason imaginable, which is that it is like pure uncut Hollywood jingoism, uh, of the sort that you don't really get a lot of anymore. It is, it's a movie, uh, in which, uh, me us military operators and get to an encampment and they see evil men yelling, Aloha Akbar. As they're cutting off the heads of innocence and the, the, the guys pull a kid in front of them and the, and one of the soldiers is like, I'm not waiting, I'm not watching this kid get his head cut off. I'm not waiting on rules of engagement orders. I'm taking them out. And, and the other guy's like, do it, do his, his superiors like do it, take them out. And then they get in a big firefight and they kill a bunch of guys. And I don't know, man, uh, it's, it is, it is a, it is, so it's that it's the American Jingoism that I like, but it's also just like a, uh, a fairly straight forward, pretty typical 15 to $25 million action programmer of the sort that Hollywood used to make one a month of used to get a movie, a movie like this. And sometimes you'd get very good versions of it. Something like clear and present danger, right? Is a, is like an a plus version of this movie with big stars and you know, higher production values. And usually it was, it was lesser than that. It was just a, it was again, a programmer, something you, you throw in theaters and
JVL00:44:00iron Eagle, iron Eagle 17, exactly stuff, stuff and stuff of that sort.
Sonny00:44:07And you know, that sort of thing doesn't really exist anymore. It almost doesn't exist anymore, at least in the theatrical sense. So this movie did get a theatrical play. This movie was in theaters for about six weeks and it didn't, it didn't have a huge ad vertising budget behind it. Not a ton of people went to go see it. I'm sure it's done much better. I'm sure, I'm sure several orders of magnitude more people have watched this on Netflix over the last month than saw it in theaters. Like I, I have no doubt about that in my mind. And you know, that's, that's too bad. This is, this is a sort of movie that is, should, should have, should have done better, should have done better, not because it's great, but because it's fun. And it's competent. And that is, that counts for a whole hell of a lot, frankly, fun competence counts for a whole hell of a lot. And I'll say the other thing about this movie is that it, it is a relatively cheap movie. Again, probably I've seen various numbers. The highest is 25 million, probably closer to 18 million, somewhere in that range. It's not a movie that looks cheap. There are a couple of like very clear CGI shots. But it's a movie with real explosions. It's set in a real location. It's not shot against green screen. And again, there are a couple, there's some shots with jets and missiles that are clear, very clearly CGI, whatever. But like the, the thing looks good. They had real helicopters, they had real explosions, like they had, they had real firefights. It's a, it's a movie that, that, uh, and not only, not only does it look realistic in the, in terms of the action and all that, it's just shot very well. There's this, there's this great shot where they land, they do the halo. They do a halo jump, they land in the water and the shot is basically the four guys silhouetted against the, the, the light. I'm just like, that's a nice shot. That's a nice little, that's a nice little shot of a American military team coming across a beach to kill some bad guys. I like that. More, more of this, please. So anyway, I like this, I like this movie, uh, enough. I'm not saying it's great. It's not going to be on my top 10 list or anything probably, but I really enjoyed it. Uh, and I enjoyed it because you know, who's great? Who's great is Russell Crowe, fat Russell Crowe yelling at people from his drone desk. Just delightful. Just delightful.
Mike00:46:32I need more of that. Russell Crowe walking around the whole foods is the life anyway.
JVL00:46:38That's my big boy review JVL your thoughts on why am I even on this show anymore? Because I just parrot whatever Sonny says, I don't remember the last time I disagree with him at anything. I like, so we watched the. I watched the trailer having never heard of this before and I texted you guys and I was like, oh, so it's the new Jack behind enemy lines. Um, you know, we have a young, hot actor. He's not actually a hot actor, but that's fine. You know, like the, the, the Owen Wilson recognizable actor, although in Owen Wilson's case, this was like his first and only attempt to go into action adventure roles, uh, paired with
Mike00:47:19another brother with an actor. Yeah. Uh, you know, they're acting with a brother.
JVL00:47:23Yeah. Yes. Paired with a, a great screen actor who does all of his scenes apart. We never have them on screen together. Yeah. Yeah. Gene Hackman and behind enemy lines is in, in a forgettably titled, totally disposable movie. And it turns out the parallels are perfect because behind the enemy lines is a sneakily competent movie, which is just, it's just a very good movie. Like it's not, again, it's, it's not winning Oscars, but like, this is a movie made by people who understand how to make movies and understand how to tell stories and understand how to maintain tension across, you know, an hour 45 and all of that is true of this thing called land of bad, which is a forgettable name. And I mean, I was engrossed like from 90 seconds in, I was, I was like, oh, this is, this is good. Actually. This is everything. The, the director, William Eubank is his name, uh, who I've never heard of before. Yeah. Is totally competent. Like he knows what he is doing. The shots are framed well, as you say, like everything is just better than it should be better than I, again, I expect maybe it's just because all of my standards are red notice. I just expect everything to be red notice now, which is just garbage. Um, and this isn't the, I really, I sat there every explosion. I was like, oh, oh, they had a practical crew there like blowing stuff up. That looks really good. That, uh, like, oh, they shot someplace interesting. I wonder where this is. Is it a New Zealand? It's not New Zealand. It's Queensland, but that's okay. Um, it's just like everything in it. It's a good movie.
Sonny00:49:05I literally, I literally thought to myself at one point, wow, this actually looks kind of dangerous. They're actually doing things that are like, look like somebody could have gotten hurt while doing them, which is not a thing I have ever thought watching one of the straight, I mean, again, this movie costs a 10th of what red notice cost. It may have cost like a 15th of what red notice costs and it looks a million times better. Just a million times better.
JVL00:49:30It, it looks more expensive and, uh, it's, it's just good. And you know what? Like having a real actor in Russell Crowe handling the part, which never leaves, like, I mean, he, he delivers 85% of his lines from a chair, not looking at anybody, like, you know, looking away from camera, having a real actor. And that part is incredibly important because if you hand that to somebody who is not a screen presence, that whole role just gets lost. But because it's Russell, like really good actor, people forget this about him. He's just, he's a good actor. You can sit him down and it doesn't matter. He's compelling. He knows how to be compelling on camera. I, I really liked it. Same same as you Sonny, like not, you know, not, not a best film of the year, but absolutely a film that I'd be like, oh yeah, that's a good flick. We could watch that again. Yeah. Michael, did you enjoy it?
Mike00:50:32Garbage movie, garbage acting garden. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, I, I also, I also, I, I felt like I had to inject a little, uh, disagreement. No, I, I enjoyed it. Um, at the risk of repeating what you just said, JVL, I just, I'm, I love seeing Russell Crowe. Like I just, it, it is. It is like a warm blanket, you know? And you're just like, okay, like I'm gonna, I'm gonna enjoy myself in, in this movie. If Russell Crowe was on screen, um, the only time I've never, I've ever thought the opposite. It had nothing to do with Russell Crowe. It was that, that garbage, uh, superhero movie that he was in.
Sonny00:51:13Um, Thor Ragnarok or Thor, uh, the dark world.
Mike00:51:18Yeah.
Sonny00:51:19Yeah. That one. No, not man of steel.
Mike00:51:22Man of steel. No, no, no, no. The, the one, yeah, the one where he's Zeus or whomever. Um, yeah, but, but, uh, but he's great as Zeus.
Sonny00:51:31He was, he's good.
Mike00:51:32Yeah, he's fine. But, but, but like, he's actually the only good part of that whole movie. Right. But I, I just hated that movie. It was like not even Russell Crowe. Oh yeah. Terrible. No, it's a horrible, horrible movie and yet he's great in it. Yes. Cause he's, he's because he's terrific. But like, you know, I was thinking about, um, you know, everything that he's in, whether it's a beautiful mind or master in command. Um, and it's just so great. And like I said, I, I was, I, it sounded like I was joking, but like him walking around that grocery store at the end and like picking, like doing the kind of stuff that's like so pedestrian and, and like, like, why would that be compelling to watch?
JVL00:52:12And yet, and yet he's, I had the same thought, Michael, cause he's not doing real actorly stuff. Like it is not like if Philip Seymour Hoffman was told to playing that part. In that way, you know, if it was playing that part, him going through the, the grocery store would have been very compelling and interesting, but there would have been a lot going on. Right. I mean him picking stuff up. Oh, tell me about this. Found interesting.
Sonny00:52:37Tell me about this cheese.
JVL00:52:38No, but like he would have found interesting angles and stuff and Crow doesn't do any of that. And yet it's still really compelling. You're like, how does he do that? Oh, cause he's a movie star and that's the movie stars can do. That's why they pay them so much money.
Mike00:52:52Absolutely. Um, I, I actually thought Liam Hemsworth was, was great in this. I mean, I, I know he's not like a superstar, but like
Sonny00:53:00does precisely what he's supposed to do in this movie.
Mike00:53:03Exactly. And, and, and sold, I mean, there was actually some stuff he had to do here, right? He had to sell. I think the very beginning of the movie is so key and it, and it works because he sells the fake bravado and fear. And underneath that, um, and then like the banter with these, like with these guys who have, who have done operations like this a million times and, and, and he does all these really interesting, subtle things where he is, uh, he is both kind of young and innocent about it, but also trying to show that he's tough, but like kind of knows he's not that tough. And I don't know, there's like a lot of stuff that he was doing there and he sold it, sold it to me.
JVL00:53:53So I thought it was great. I really liked the detail work too. So I, I went into it and from the first 30 seconds I was annoyed. So we get Liam Hensworth, who is a, he's an air force officer. And the first we see of him, uh, a, a guy, his superior comes in, in like an op, you know, waiting room before they start an op and the, his superior is kind of a dick to him and, and Liam Hensworth's character as a Sergeant and I like my hackles got up. And I was like, an officer wouldn't treat his non-com like that. That's wrong. And then we get on to the helicopter with the team and this team of guys, like they have long hair and beards and I'm like, I'm sorry, this is, you don't get to, you don't get to have long hair and beards unless you're Delta. Like unless you're, you know, and, and then Liam, uh, Liam Hensworth's character refers them as operators, which is like, oh, oh, they are Delta. So these are Delta guys. That's why. And then we find out that the reason he's a Sergeant in there, he, because he is simply their, he is their, uh, J talk, which is the advanced interface with the, the UAV pilots. Right. And so like, oh, they know what they're doing. Like this is, they actually understand how to put together. This isn't like a, like a stupid version of the, this isn't a Transformers, uh, interpretation of how the military works. Yeah.
Mike00:55:24You know? Absolutely. Um, I, I loved, I loved the, all the practical stuff as well. Like it just, it, it just felt, you know what this felt like, this felt like a movie that in a different time I would be turning on TNT and wa and like standing up and watching this movie behind the couch on like a rainy Saturday afternoon. Yeah. Like I would do that like all the time. It's just that cable movie classic kind of feel. Like, but like those movies, that's not an epithet, right? Like those movies are great. And like this fits in that, in that, uh, Pantheon.
Sonny00:56:01Yeah. It's like proof of life. You know how many times I watched 20 minutes of proof of life? Right.
Mike00:56:07Exactly. Ronan.
JVL00:56:09Um.
Mike00:56:10Isn't that also a Russell Crowe movie? Yeah.
JVL00:56:12Oh yeah. And, uh, what's her name? Right. The last time Meg Ryan. Meg Ryan. The last time Meg Ryan was on screen before, you know, the stuff started happening. Yeah.
?00:56:21Yeah.
Mike00:56:22Yeah. Yeah. All right.
JVL00:56:25Well, I don't know. It's based on Vanity Fair article.
Mike00:56:27That sounds about right. Yeah. Uh, okay. Well, any other thoughts on, it is a terrible name, by the way, Land of Bad.
Sonny00:56:35Land of Bad. Not a great name.
JVL00:56:37It made me think of the children's, the children's furniture catalog, Land of Nod. That's what I kept thinking of. Remember high end children's furniture. Maybe they don't still exist anymore. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. We first started having kids. Like that's, that was like the step, you know, there's Crate and Barrel Kids, then Pottery Barn Kids. And then above that Land of Nod and the Land of Nod stuff was nice. Hmm. Yeah.
Mike00:57:00Okay.
JVL00:57:01All right. People should give it a try.
Sonny00:57:03If you want to sit and watch it. Absolutely. I feel like, I feel like we don't have a ton to say about it because we all, we all basically like it for the same reasons, which is that like, ah, you know what I like? I like competence. I like competence. And there's not really a whole lot you can say about competence beyond like it. It's good.
JVL00:57:17You'll enjoy it. It's tense without being excruciating and exciting. It's cool to watch. If you like, if you like those sorts of movies, you'll like this.
Mike00:57:29Yeah. Totally. Totally. That, that it was tense. That, that tense moment, like in the, in the prison, all like all of that stuff, it was, it was like, I was like gripping, you know? Yeah. But not unbearable. Like not, you know, not like uncomfortably tense, like the attention that you want in the thrill ride. Yeah. Um, all right. Well, uh, I guess that is all the time then we are going to give to this.
JVL00:57:53Let's go refight about things.
Mike00:57:54I know we absolutely do. Um, but, uh, check us out at subbeacon.com and we will talk to you next time. I did, I did have these thoughts about with all the drone stuff. So, uh, my, my 10 year old got from, from my dad, a drone for his birthday and like on day two of his birthday. Him having this and like playing with it constantly, there's like a park, the Creek park behind our house. You have to get, go through all this stuff. And, um, it's like a big field with trees in a Creek and like he and his little brother went to do that. And then he comes running in, uh, like 20 minutes later, he's like, it's stuck in the tree. Of course it is. And I was like, of course, of course it was like giant field trees way on either end. Like it's stuck in the tree. The trees are magnetic. Actually they, they are drone magnets. So I had to like, so I like, and it's like, it's not close to my house in the sense that I had to like with my ladder, which was of course just, just like not, not tall enough. So I went to my neighbors and they had the, um, their, their big like extendable thing that they like use for their, to clean their gutter systems, like flip the gutters down and the flip them back up. And then I was able to get it and then it, and like I knocked it out of the tree. And I'm like telling my kids, like, do not move this ladder, like just hold onto it. Do not move it. And I knocked it out and like he caught it and, uh, of course now it doesn't, it doesn't fucking work anymore. I'll buy you another drone.
Sonny00:59:37No, I, uh, one, one quick thing before we, before I, that was perfect. I'm sure it's fine. But, uh, one Russell Crowe thing. So Russell Crowe, you know, he's in a, he's, he's got this band, not 30 odd foot of grunt. He's got some, some new band and they were, they were touring recently. He was in Austin. Uh, and they were doing like, uh, they were doing like a meet and greet, um, uh, at the, uh, you know, before, before the show, uh, and it was like, it was like, it was, it was something like totally reasonable amount of money for a meet and greet with like, if you, if you went to like a comic book convention and it was like a photo and a signature with Russell Crowe would be like $300 probably in that range, the meet and greet for this thing. It was like 200 bucks and you get a ticket to the concert. And I was like, if I lived in Austin, I would 100% be there because I would love a photo of like surly angry Russell Crowe being like, I have to deal with these fucking assholes before I can go get drunk, drunker, more drunk. And I w it would be, it would be one of my prize possessions, even though like paying to get photos and signatures with people's kind of lame, that would be one I would like, that would be one I would like to have just because you know, every single one of those photos is him looking. As miserable as anyone has ever looked in their life. It would be, it would be kind of, it would be kind of amazing, right? Or am I insane? Am I insane for thinking this?
Mike01:01:01No, that's great. And the capper of it was, you would have to sing to him, make a move. He's making music fighting around the world.
Sonny01:01:09I wouldn't want to get hit. He probably, he probably hits people who do that. I don't want to get punched by, I mean, getting punched by Russell Crowe would be a good story.
Mike01:01:16That's what I'm saying. It would, it would be an accomplishment. I'm sure it's fine.
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