#271. 'The Wild Robot'
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Sonny and Mike both love The Wild Robot, calling it visually stunning DreamWorks animation in the Pixar sentimental mode, while JVL dismisses it as "the prettiest piece of emotional blackmail ever" and launches into a furious rant against the whole Pixar house style of manufacturing parental tears over loss and mortality, arguing that Disney Animation's recent run — Frozen, Moana, and Encanto — is superior precisely because it earns its emotion instead of exploiting fatherhood for cheap catharsis (a claim Sonny disputes, insisting those films are really about self-worth, not grief). Mike defends the movie by noting the source-book material is just as emotionally invested, and admits he dabbed his eyes with a fast-food napkin at the theater; JVL counters by recommending the unrelated Young Woman and the Sea as a family film that moves you without "blackmail." The long opening stretch covers Sonny's nervous anticipation of a PTA "washers" tournament (a mysterious regional lawn game he's never played) and a lengthy drinking-games tangent about beer pong versus Beirut and Mike's "slap cup"; JVL recounts his mother-in-law's two-day ordeal with a howling boiler and her insistence on finding her missing address book and praying to St. Anthony rather than calling a repairman, complete with the saint's origin story; and Mike relays his ten-year-old's rapturous reaction to the Dog Man trailer. Box office chat covers The Wild Robot's solid $36 million opening atop Beetle Juice Beetle Juice, Sonny's prediction of a disastrous reception for the R-rated musical Joker: Folie à Deux, and Megalopolis continuing to bomb spectacularly against its reported $120 million budget.
From the show notes
Emotional blackmail at its finest!
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00You are not easy to find, you are defective. I feel fine. You should not feel anything at all. Mom? No! Sometimes to survive, we must become more than we were programmed to be.
?00:00:30Sub-Beacon, a podcast on movies and pop culture hosted by Sonny Bunch, Jonathan V. Lastochondli тебictory
Mike00:00:34Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. I am joined, as always, by my two co-hosts who, let's be honest, never more than what they've been programmed for. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch, join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. Tell your friends and family, join our Patreon there, leave a comment, and join that conversation. Only at Sub-Beacon.com. New episodes every Friday morning. We are going to be talking about the wild robot later in the program. But first, Sonny Bunch, what is going on with you? Put that coffee down and tell us what's going on in your life. You got me mid-step there.
JVL00:01:22You're all Star Wars kitted out here. You're drinking from a baby Yoda tumbler with a Star Wars t-shirt on.
Sonny00:01:28I'm just reverting to my past. I'm getting yelled at on Twitter because I said that adults shouldn't brag about reading YA, young adult fiction, in their personal lives. So I'm just going to go full Star Wars from now on. I'm just going to embrace my inner child.
Mike00:01:50Appropriate for this movie. This is a kid's book based movie that we're talking about today.
Sonny00:01:55I'm excited to get JBL's take on this because I feel like he probably hated this movie. He hated the fiery passion of A Thousand Suns. I have thoughts.
Mike00:02:04We'll get there, Sonny.
Sonny00:02:07We'll get there. We'll get there. What's going on in my life? What is going on in my life? Have you guys ever played a game called Washers? Do you know what this is?
Mike00:02:20No.
Sonny00:02:21So you know what Cornhole is?
Mike00:02:23Yes.
Sonny00:02:24Like with the sand, with the bags, with the sand.
JVL00:02:27Oh, that one. Yeah, yeah, I know what that one is too.
Sonny00:02:29Right, exactly. That one. Not the other one. But like that's a, you know, that's a fairly common thing.
JVL00:02:36I hear they play Cornhole in prison a lot.
Sonny00:02:38Right. Different Cornhole. Different Cornhole. It's not Cornball. So like that's a fairly common thing. You got the sandbags and you throw them and you get them, you know, it's kind of like horseshoes, whatever. It's, you know, there's a game called Washers, which I have never, I have never experienced before moving to. Uh, Texas and I'm trying to figure out if this is a regional Texas thing. I think it must be, it must be like regional to, to hear, but we're talking about a lawn
Mike00:03:08game.
Sonny00:03:09Yes. So it's kind of like Cornhole in the sense that you have these, you have two, uh, like kind of sloped ramped, you know, uh, boxes and you set them a certain amount of distance apart and then you throw, uh, and instead of one hole, there's usually like three holes or two holes or three holes. And you got to throw like. Like washers, like heavy, you know, kind of metal, I don't know, like metal discs with a, with a, yeah, like dollar coin sized washers, uh, with, you know, holes in the middle and you throw them and you get them and you get different points. And I, there's, there's a, the reason I bring all this up is cause I'm going to a, uh, a PTA fundraiser, uh, that's basically, it's like the dad's group. They're doing a, uh, washers tournament, whatever, but I am, I'm fascinated by this game because it is truly the most regional thing I think I will have done because I don't know anybody anywhere who plays this. Maybe, maybe somebody in the, in the comments will, will have good washer strategy for me. But I, uh, I, I find this game, I, it's, it's, it's kind of complicated or it's more complicated, at least in cornhole in the sense that you, uh, you, you have like different strategies. If you get one washer on top of the other washer in the same hole, you like negate their points. I don't, I don't understand. Right, right. How it all works. And I'm, I'm a little bit nervous guys. I'm a little bit nervous because I'm going to this, this dad's group thing is going to be a bunch of strange dads there. I don't know them. And I'm, I'm afraid I'm going to make a fool of myself on the washer at the washers tournament. Here, here's why I just don't do things.
Mike00:04:45No, here's your solution. Drink heavily beforehand. And then you can just, you can just say, ah, I was, I was drunk. I don't know what I'm doing. That's an easy solution. There you go.
Sonny00:04:57Yeah. But I think, I mean, I. Yeah, but that, that wasn't really my plan. That's just what I planned on doing. That was like, uh, you know, that's just to get through this thing. I figured.
Mike00:05:06I understand.
Sonny00:05:06But I don't know. I, so you guys don't have any, you don't have any good washers tips for me. You don't, you don't, you've never heard of this game. Even you have no idea what this is.
Mike00:05:15So is this like, is it like a South? Is it a Texas thing? Is it a Southwest thing? Um, I am, I've done a quick Google search and it appears that it's popular in Arizona.
Sonny00:05:27Must be Southwest.
JVL00:05:28It's maybe it's a Southwest thing. I don't know. Yeah. Why are you Sonny Bunch participating in a dad's group thing?
Sonny00:05:35I was asked by another, because it's teams and another dad was like, Hey, you want to do this? And I was like, sure, sure. I guess.
JVL00:05:43Sonny Bunch, we know is a joiner of teams. Thanks for asking though.
Sonny00:05:47I, uh, well, because you know, what else am I, I feel like I have to be involved with the PTA, right?
JVL00:05:53Do you know how you can be involved? You write them a check.
Sonny00:05:56That's going to be. There will be check writing involved.
JVL00:06:00That's all you do. If you, the truth is, if you write them a check, everybody's happy. They're happy because they get money to fund for whatever it is they're doing for their pizza days or whatever.
Sonny00:06:10Pay for beers at the washer tournament.
JVL00:06:11And, uh, and you get to not be near those people.
Sonny00:06:14I, I, I envision this kind of like, you remember the Simpsons where they're doing the, where Bart falls down the well and they're doing the song, uh, for the, all the famous musicians come together and, and Krusty's like, you know. You gotta pay for things. You gotta pay for flights and limousines and, and, uh, drinks and food trucks and whatever's left, we'll throw down the hole. That's what I imagine. That's kind of what I imagine this washer's tournament to be like.
JVL00:06:42It's like, okay, well, after we pay, after we rent the space and we, we pay to build
Sonny00:06:46all the, the game boards and we, uh, buy beer for everybody there, we'll just throw whatever's left into the, into the, like into the cafeteria and let the kids have at it as a, you know, I don't know. I don't know.
Mike00:06:58Oh, look, this sounds like, this sounds like it could be a lot of fun, Sonny, actually. And the way you do it is you, you just announce it very early. Hey, I've never played this before. Like you, you look, you make sure that everybody knows in a, in a casual way, like I've never done this before. Anybody know how to do this? And then on the off chance that you like, you know, get, you get a, yeah, you get a beginner's luck kind of boost there. And, and like, and if you don't do well, who cares? It's the first time playing.
Sonny00:07:27All right. Exit question. My, when, when you guys were in college, JBL, this may not apply to you because you never did things in college, but when you guys were in college and you played beer pong, did you play beer pong or Beirut? Did you ever see a beer pong set up in college?
JVL00:07:49You can turn off your microphone for this. I'm just going to go to the bathroom or something while you guys talk this out.
Sonny00:07:52Make a sandwich. Yeah.
JVL00:07:53Literally never once saw it. I've never seen people play beer pong. I've never seen people play beer pong except on the TV.
Sonny00:07:59What? Like even now, even you.
JVL00:08:03Where would I see people play beer pong? I don't know. The dad's group things that I don't go to.
Sonny00:08:08We should have a, we should, there should be a beer pong tournament for, uh, for the, the sub-beacon beer pong tournament. That would be, that would be better than this Washington nonsense.
Mike00:08:18Um, so to answer your question, cause, so let me explain the game that we played and you tell me which one it is. Cause I, I can't remember which one is which, uh, the game that we played had a, had a, had a triangle of cups of solo cups, each filled with, you know, a little bit of beer and you, and, and at either end of the table, two people per team. And the goal was to hit the ping pong ball into the cup. And if you hit it into the other person, the other team's cup, they had to take the ball out, drink the beer.
Sonny00:08:55Sure.
Mike00:08:55Yeah. That's beer pop, right?
Sonny00:08:57Yes.
Mike00:08:59What is the difference between that and Beirut?
Sonny00:09:00But I've heard that game also called Beirut. And I, as far as I can tell, as far as I can tell, there's no actual difference between
JVL00:09:07Lebanon Beirut.
Sonny00:09:08Yes. I don't know. And I, I assumed it has to do with, it's like you're bombing the cups.
Mike00:09:14So, but, but the thing I think, so I think originally beer pong used paddles and was much more, um, ping pong based.
Sonny00:09:24Oh, interesting.
Mike00:09:25And that. That the actual game that is known in basically, I feel like mid Atlantic is like where it's known as Beirut. Like that, that the popularity of Beirut as a drinking game overtook the popularity of like a weird thing where you're hitting ping pong balls, maybe into cups, maybe not. And that beer pong just became the catch all term for a game played on a ping pong table with beer, with little ping pong balls.
Sonny00:09:56That actually explains, that explains some of the, some of the like variant rules that I know. So like I, I have played a variant of beer pong where you can swap the ball away with your hand as it's coming in, but you can only do that if it bounces on the table first, which sounds a little bit like, uh, you know, a beer pong, like with a paddle, you know,
Mike00:10:19it's, it's sort of like, it's sort of like, it's like go, it's like looking at a game like baseball and seeing all the things, you know? Yeah.
?00:10:26Yeah. Yeah.
Mike00:10:26Yeah. So, you know, what it grabs from rounders and cricket and all of its precursing, you know, precursor sports, it's the same kind of thing. Um, have I, have I discussed, I've discussed slap cup on this podcast, right?
Sonny00:10:38The, what is slap cup?
Mike00:10:39The drinking cup, uh, the drinking game. It's, it's a, it's a fantastic, I don't know. No, it's not like flip cup. It is not like flip cup. Uh, I feel like I've described this before cause I played it recently. Um, recently meaning in the last year, um, it is, I don't know who came up with the game, but essentially you have a table, preferably like a round table full of, again, solo cups with like a little bit of beer in them. Uh, and you, everybody circles around the table. You have two, uh, play, you have two, uh, ping pong balls and the way to best way to start the game is to have on opposing sides of the table, the game, the game is essentially you bounce the ball on the ground, uh, sorry, on the table and into the solo cup and then you pass the cup clockwise. And so there's two people doing this at once. Now, if you nail it, the first time you bounce it, you can place your cup, not to the person to your left, but to anywhere on the, uh, on the table. Uh, and if you are, uh, if you bounce it into your cup and the second cup on the table is directly to your left, as in, they have not bounced the ball into their cup, you can slap the cup. Off the table. And then they have to grab a new cup with beer in it, drink it, and then bounce it into, uh, the cup and keep the game.
Sonny00:12:05This game sounds dumb. I don't, I don't care for this.
Mike00:12:07It's it's incredible because what you end up have having is what we call a vortex, which is where somebody is caught, where somebody on their right is constantly nailing a cup, slapping their cup away. And then they keep having to grab beers. The cup goes to the person on the other side. Nails it first. Then they could put it back to the person on the right. And it just, it gets into this terrible cycle.
Sonny00:12:32Sounds, uh, it's terrific. This sounds way too JVL.
Mike00:12:35What, what drinking games did you guys play at, at Johns Hopkins?
JVL00:12:40I mean, most of the times that I got drunk at Hopkins were by myself in my dorm room, following exams. I, I just, I, the idea that somebody could. Not only have the time to drink, but have so much time that they, they decide to make a game of drinking. Like, I guess I could understand like, Hey, I'm going to go to the bar with a couple of friends and watch a baseball game and have a couple of brewskis. That would not have been my choice. And I didn't have the time for that, but, uh, but I could see where that could be enjoyable and why somebody might want to do that, come up with these elaborate, like, this is just fucking decadence, what world. Uh, it's, it's great.
Mike00:13:27It's great.
Sonny00:13:29It's really the best years of my life.
Mike00:13:31Well, have fun with that Sonny enjoy, enjoy washers and, uh, and report back at how it, how it goes. I'll let you know.
Sonny00:13:38I'll let you know if I discover an optimal washer strategy while I'm there. There we go. Good.
Mike00:13:43Um, it reminds me by the way of Polish horseshoes, but we can talk about that another day. JVL what's going on?
JVL00:13:48I have a little vignette for you boys that, uh, will really come come home for anybody with, uh, sort of aging parents in their lives. I, uh, I went over to my mother-in-law's house and she lives two miles down the road from us and last Friday at four o'clock, I went over to do something for her. I don't remember what I walk in and the entire house has this cacophony of noise emanating from the walls. And it sounds like. There's a pack of Rottweilers running loose within the walls of the house. So it was this loud growling and banging and it's everywhere. No matter what part of the room you're in or what part of the house you're in rather. And so I, I go to my, my mother-in-law and I said, Peggy, what is that? And she says, oh, you can hear that sound. I said, yes, yes, I can. I can. I can hear that. It is unmistakable. It's very loud. She goes, yeah, I don't know what it is. I think it might be coming out of the furnace room. I think that might be where it's emanating from.
Mike00:15:05I said, okay.
JVL00:15:07So I go down to the furnace room and in fact, it is emanating from the boiler where the baseboard heat and the pipes coming out of the boiler themselves are like vibrating. And so that's what's going on. Like there's sound in the pipes, the pipes are vibrating and this is happening throughout the entire house.
Sonny00:15:27Are the pipes like banging against the couplings or something? Or is it coming from like inside the pipes?
JVL00:15:33Like inside the pipes.
Sonny00:15:34Okay.
JVL00:15:35Yeah. And so I go upstairs and I said, yeah, yeah, it's definitely, it's your boiler. How long has this been going on? And I'm thinking she's going to say something like 15 minutes.
Mike00:15:48She goes, well, a couple of days, maybe two days.
JVL00:15:52Yeah. So it's just been like, it's been. And she goes, oh no, no, it's been, it's been constant for two days. So I, uh, I go and I call my, uh, I got a heating guy, guy who does boilers. Did you pay him in cash? Anthony, Anthony from Birtoli. We can get a better price in cash. Right.
Sonny00:16:15That's right. Yeah.
JVL00:16:16Uh, so I called Birtoli. It's a nice service he offers. And, uh, they say it's, you know, it's like Friday at four 30. They say, yeah, we could send somebody over the weekend. But it's, it's more money on the weekend. And if we need parts, we can't get the parts on the weekend. Anyway, we can get you in Monday. You should just do that. So I said, okay, great. So I set up an appointment for her with my guy and she walks into the room as I'm getting on the phone. She goes, oh, JVL, what, what, what are you doing? I said, well, I called to get somebody in here to, to take care of your, your boiler. She says, that is unnecessary. You don't need to do that. I have a guy that I can call. I said, okay, uh, is this guy, how, how do you know him? And she goes, oh, we've used him for, for years. I said, okay, is he still alive? She says, how can you ask that? Of course he is. I said, okay, when is the last time you spoke with him? She pauses and says, well, it's been a few years now. Okay. I said, here's the deal. Call him right now. If he can get in before Monday. I will call Anthony Bertoli back and Anthony will be fine with this. Anthony, he's a paisan. He's a good guy. You know, he'll take care of us. She says, oh, well, I can't call him right now. Well, why not? Well, I have his number in my address book. Is it okay? Get your address book. Well, I haven't been able to find that in a few weeks.
Mike00:17:49Your address book is an actual little, you know, spiral notebook.
Sonny00:17:53A book.
JVL00:17:54I said. A few weeks. He goes, yeah, I don't remember when the last time I saw it was, but I've been looking for it once since, you know, but I and I just haven't been able to lay my hands on it. It's okay. So if I can understand this correctly, your plan to deal with this unbelievable sound coming from the walls of your house was to look around and eventually find an address book, at which point you would call a guy who may or may. Not still be alive to ask him to come and look at it. She goes, yeah, but I have St. Anthony working overtime on it. Just like this is the most old lady Catholic New Jersey thing ever. And it's great. The totally guys.
Sonny00:18:42So what's the same thing? Who's St. Anthony?
JVL00:18:45Michael, do you want to?
Mike00:18:47No, no, no, it's fine.
JVL00:18:48He's the patron saint of lost things. When you when you have lost something, you say a prayer to St. Anthony and he'll hook you up. Fifty percent of the time. It works every time.
Sonny00:18:57How can how does one become the patron saint for lost things? Did he just go around the monastery like getting people's cups and the such?
JVL00:19:06You know, I don't really know the back story to that. Do you, Michael?
Mike00:19:10Yeah, I don't. Why St. Anthony is the patron saint of of of lost things. Isn't there? I'm trying to remember the story.
Sonny00:19:17He lost his religion and then found it.
Mike00:19:20No, because he's also he's also like I believe it's like. Like fish fishermen and something else. There's always like some part of his his personal story, but I don't know. I can I can effort this. But my my question here for you, JVL, while I while I look this up on on St. Anthony of Padua, I believe, is. What what is the resolution? Has the person has has has your Anthony come and fix the problem?
JVL00:19:53Yeah, I got to replace the boiler. I think that that replace the boiler. So I figure they're they're taking care of her on the price. It's not it's not crazy.
Sonny00:20:04I'm sorry. So is the boiler the water heater? Is that is that what we're doing? No.
JVL00:20:08So so in a lot of the Northeast where you are used to forced air heat, I imagine, Sonny, right? It gets too cold in the winters for forced air heat to be efficient. And so people have baseboard heat, which is you have. A boiler unit of some sort in the basement powered either by natural gas or oil. It heats water. The water goes up through pipes connected to baseboard heaters throughout the house. And so like radiators, like radiators, but smaller, right? I mean, not like big. They're right on the baseboard. And one of the things this allows you to do is to have many different zones. It's very, very easy to have different zones. So unlike with forced air, you can't have. You know, your zones have to be done. You have to have a compressor for every single zone for boilers. It's just a different pipe going out gives you a different zone. So it is not uncommon for a house to have three or seven or eight zones, even, which allows you to in the winter when things are colder than they are in the mid-Atlantic or in the south, allows you to then spend less money.
Sonny00:21:18This actually. So it's so funny that you say this, because one thing I've never quite understood. Have you guys read The Shining, the book The Shining?
JVL00:21:25No.
Sonny00:21:26All right. So in in the book, The Shining, as opposed to the movie, The Shining, they're one of the plot elements is that Jack Torrance is, you know, he's watching this old hotel, the Overlook Hotel, and he's supposed to go down and change the boiler settings to warm a different part of the hotel every like on Monday. You do this wing Tuesday this way. And he long story short, it ends up blowing up. But like the but I like I had never had quite. I guess I just. Had never quite understood precisely what that meant. I just assumed it was like heating through the you would just heat different.
JVL00:22:02Yeah. I mean, so what you do is you just have a different thermostat in like all the different rooms and or, you know, or in the zone. And that little thermostat allows you to make it like, oh, you know, so I know that I want it to be X degrees in the family room, but we don't need the basement to be warm.
Sonny00:22:18Gotcha. OK, sorry. I got so I got distracted.
Mike00:22:21So so the the story of why St. Anthony is the is the patron saint of. Lost things is apparently there was a legend that St. Anthony had a book of Psalms and of course, at this time, books were very precious. You know, it wasn't it wasn't during the age of the printing press and there was a novice in the Franciscan order of which St. Anthony was a member who was going to leave the order and he stole St. Anthony's book. And exactly. And so the so St. Anthony prayed that he could find this lost book and the novice was so sort of moved by this that he not only returned the book that he had stolen, but he decided not to leave the order. So that is the legend or that is the story.
Sonny00:23:12This legend would be so much better if he had gone full John Wick on the guy and like hunted him down, dragged him back to St.
JVL00:23:19Anthony, murdered the novice. He found the book.
Sonny00:23:22Keanu Reeves is St. Anthony.
JVL00:23:26Oh, yeah.
Mike00:23:27I left it. I left it in my other habit. Michael, how are you, buddy?
Sonny00:23:30I'm going to steal your soul.
Mike00:23:31I'm fine. There's there's there's not much going on. So I will say so. I took my oldest to see the movie that we're talking about, and I just want to share his reaction to the trailer that we watched for Dogman.
Sonny00:23:46Dogman.
Mike00:23:46Forthcoming Dogman movie. And just to give some kind of context here, Dogman is by far the most popular movie. Popular book in my house book series in my house. They're they're it's it's Dave Pilkey, who also did Captain Underpants, and he's done a series of books of graphic novels for kids that are the conceit of it is that it's two kids. It's their comic books that we're reading. So we read like an introductory sort of, hey, we're two kids who decide to make this comic book together. And it's about Dogman. And so it's sort of it's very jokey. And there's lots of fourth wall breaks in the in the books and very much, you know, narrative leaps and things are part of the story. They're very funny. They're very clever. They're a little crude. Anyway, they're making a movie off of Dogman. And I just loved my 10 year old reaction after watching this this trailer, which Sonny, have you seen the trailer for? Oh, yeah, I'm sure. I mean, it's just it's exactly like the book that I think it's like taking. Even the first book, like it's the experience of watching this trailer was like reading or more like listening to my kids describe what happens in a Dogman book. And my 10 year old just sat back in his seat and he looked at me. He goes, he goes. That's going to be great. Like, like, like he had just watched Christopher Nolan, you know, it's hard.
Sonny00:25:14Have you had do you have you been exposed to the Dogman books? JBL. No, you you are very lucky because they are. Yes, you are. Worst thing. They are. They're awful. They're funny, but they're awful. They're like even for kids, kids books. They are like really bad. Like I am. I mean, they're enormously popular and my daughter loves them, you know, and whatever. But they are they are just like they're they are. They actually like make me kind of angry. It's like, why? Why does this exist? I don't I don't.
Mike00:25:49There are also better versions of it.
Sonny00:25:50I shouldn't be exposed to this even secondhand. The fact that that you are mainlining these things, children. And I find I find troubling.
Mike00:25:57There are better versions, right? Like, do your kids read the investigators books, Sonny? I would say those are more clever versions.
Sonny00:26:07I mean, my my my my daughter reads all sorts of stuff like she reads. She reads, you know, all sorts of kids, whatever. Like, it's fine. I don't I'm not I'm not worried about her precisely, but I do. But I like but my she had the same exact reaction to the Dog Man trailer. She was like, right. Can we go see that? Like, yeah. Yeah, we can go see that.
Mike00:26:28Yeah, totally. No, it was like I think it flashed like January 31st. Yes, totally. It was it was it was like, oh, that's going to be great. It was just it was it was awesome. OK, well, that's all that's going on with me. Let's let's let's move on to the box office here and talk about the wild robot. Number one at the box office at just under thirty six million dollars knocking Beetle Juice Beetle Juice off of that number one spot. But Beetle Juice Beetle Juice is chugging along here. It broke two hundred fifty million dollars at the number two slot. Transformers one of the number three slot. Number four is Devara part one. I don't know what the hell that is. And you don't like Indian cinema. Oh, is it is it Bollywood? I have no I have no idea. Devara part one. Never heard of it. And then I'm sorry to say, Sonny, your your new favorite movie. Megalopolis coming in at six and six place in this past weekend. Just over four million dollars. Box office thoughts, gents.
JVL00:27:36What is Megalopolis is final theatrical total going to be, Sonny?
Sonny00:27:41Domestic and foreign. I don't know. Less than twenty five million dollars, probably.
JVL00:27:49And the production cost was.
Sonny00:27:50If I had to guess, the production cost was. One hundred twenty million, I believe. So I got to I got to buy a lot more Francis Ford Coppola Merlot to pay for the sequel. Megalopolis. Megalopolis with a dollar sign at the end.
JVL00:28:14This is like the inverse of the Passion of the Christ. Yeah, right. The Passion of the Christ is, you know, like somebody spends twelve million dollars to make a movie that grosses them six hundred million cash because they own the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. This is pretty much this is the inverse of that.
Sonny00:28:31Yeah. No, I like I am surprised that look, I might joke that this is my new favorite movie and it's not. I find it interesting. I enjoyed it. It's it's off the walls, kind of bonker goofy. And as such, I found it fairly amusing and entertaining to watch. But I am not surprised that audiences have not showed up. It got a D plus from. Cinema score. Frankly, I was surprised it wasn't worse than that. I wasn't I wasn't I was a little surprised it wasn't worse than that. You know, what's going to have a terrible cinema score is Joker to Joker. Falea do.
JVL00:29:07Oh, Lady Gaga fans are going to go. It's a it's a musical, right?
Sonny00:29:11Well, it's a musical and they're not they're not being super clear on that. They're in the trailers. Yeah.
Mike00:29:17And so that's I just learned this.
Sonny00:29:19And so that's part of it. But like, honestly, the real issue here is it like it just. It fails on every level. It fails as a comic book movie. It fails as a courtroom drama. It fails as a musical, like as a musical qua musical. It fails and it ends. It ends with like every character who the audience is predisposed to like getting nothing, getting getting told the fuck off. I like it. It's it is I. For for all that people talk about The Last Jedi being a, you know, work of. Expectations breaking and, you know, we're subverting, we're subverting the expectations, right? This is a movie that subverts all of the expectations and does so in the most abrasive way possible. And I like I, I am fascinated to see what general audiences think of this. I could see it being if I wouldn't be shocked if it also has in the D plus to C minus range from cinema score. I'll put it that way.
JVL00:30:25You never see that from but it'll open huge, won't it?
Sonny00:30:29It it's been tracking down. It's been tracked. So it had been tracking around 90 million. I think it's tracking about 70 million now. And I also bet the second weekend drop off is like 75 percent. I like because audiences are going to go home and just tell everybody it's fucking terrible. I am I am fascinated. And this movie so this movie also cost 200 million dollars to make or something. Like Todd Phillips, Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix all got at least 20 million dollars for this movie. Probably more because the first one made a billion dollars. The first one was an R rated non superhero superhero movie that made a billion dollars. They were like, well, I guess we got to make a sequel. And Todd Phillips was like, I don't really want to. But if you do, I'll make it the worst sequel that's ever been made. He's the real Joker. Todd Phillips is the real Joker.
JVL00:31:25There it is.
Sonny00:31:26That's great.
JVL00:31:27Am I alone in just detesting Lady Gaga as a screen presence? I mean, I detest her as any sort of presence. I do. She is not for me.
Sonny00:31:39I thought she was fine. But I don't love it. I thought she was fine in A Star is Born.
Mike00:31:45Never saw it.
Sonny00:31:46I thought she was fine. No interest in it.
JVL00:31:49I have no interest in anything. Like whether it's the Super Bowl halftime show or I just. She grates on me.
Sonny00:31:57Well, you're not going to enjoy Joker. She's for that reason for many others, apparently. Anyway, I like I'm I really am curious to see what the exit polls on that movie are like because it's R-rated. Yeah. Yeah.
JVL00:32:13It's R-rated musical.
Sonny00:32:15R-rated musical courtroom drama, basically. Joker, I like it's it is misconceived on every level. The thing is misconceived. It's just conceptually wrong, but it's wrong. I like again, I really feel like I cannot help but think that Todd Phillips was like, all right, you want a sequel? You're going to get a fuck you because that's what that's what I'm that's what I'm giving you. I don't know. And I don't know.
Mike00:32:50Anyway, maybe we'll maybe we'll review Joker, too, when it comes out. But maybe. Maybe not. Let's move on to the number one movie at the box office this week. The Wild Robot. Sonny, do you want to give us a big boy review of this movie?
Sonny00:33:06The Wild Robot. The Wild Robot is a fascinating film because it basically combines. The dream. So this is a DreamWorks movie. It combines the DreamWorks animation style and the DreamWorks. DreamWorks kind of straightforward storytelling mode with the Pixar ideological or ideological is a wrong word. The Pixar sensibility, intellectual aesthetic, maybe put it that way, which is to say that emotional aesthetic. Right. Which is to say, which is to say that this is a movie that is. 100% designed to appeal to children with interesting designs and, you know, amusing animation. And it's kind of funny in a very general, broad sort of way. But it's also explicitly designed to make the parents in the audience cry. This is a movie that is like, hey, parents, you know, your kids are getting older and you're going to die, right? That's what's going to happen to you. Death is coming. You better get your kids. Get your kids ready for the world. And this is, of course, this is like what Pixar is founded on. This is the Toy Story storytelling mode. But it also applies to, like, Finding Nemo or Monsters, Inc. Or, like, basically, there's a whole intellectual strata of Pixar movies is based on you're a parent. You have a child. Your child will enjoy this movie. And you will be emotionally distraught by it. Have fun at the movies. Give us your money. And on that level, this movie is an enormous success. Like, it looks great. It really looks great. It looks as good as a, as I can remember a DreamWorks animated film looking. The character designs are all pretty wonderful. What's that?
JVL00:35:22Puss in Boots was really good, too.
Sonny00:35:23Puss in Boots is really good. I mean, just look. I think it does a similar thing with the cell shading a little bit. It's not quite the same, but it's pretty close. The story is, like, pretty basic, but also, like, very deeply felt. You know, a robot crashes onto an island. She has to figure out what her purpose is. Turns out her purpose is raising this orphaned goose that she accidentally killed the family of. And teaching it to, it's the runt of the litter. She's got to teach it to fly and learn to be a goose, et cetera, et cetera. And then, and it's all about the island coming together in the face of hardship and her kind of teaching them. Like, whatever. There's all sorts of great lessons here that everybody can, you know, take away a nice lesson from. And it is, it is, I mean, like, I don't know how it hit you guys, but it hit me pretty hard in the feels. It's a movie. It hits you in the feels. And I think this movie is going to be an enormous success. So, it had a, $36 million is not a terrible opening for original animation. It, like, these movies just don't open huge. They don't open to inside out two numbers anymore, even with the Pixar branding. I bet the multiple on this one is at least five, which would put it at $180 million domestic. And I would not be surprised. If it went higher. It was a relatively cheap movie. I think it cost, like, $70 or $80 million to make, something like that. So, they'll be fine business-wise. But I think that, but my point here, the reason I mentioned the multiple in the box office is because I think the word of mouth on this is going to be fantastic. In traditional Hollywood terms, they talk about four quadrants. Old men, young men. Old women, young women. And it's basically age, you know, age zero to 24 and then 24 and above. Or whatever the actual number is. When it comes to family movies, there are three markets. There are children. There are parents. And then there are the childless. And for a movie of this sort to succeed, it has to hit all of these quadrants. For a children's movie to succeed, it has to hit at least two of those quadrants. Usually, it's parents and children. But I think this will also. It will appeal very much to younger, child-free audiences. Because it's just really well-made. I mean, it's just really well-made. It is visually entrancing and very appealing. I don't know, man. I liked it a lot. I think it's very well done. I think it is emotionally manipulative. But that's okay. That's what we go to the movies for.
Mike00:38:24All right, Sonny. JVL, what did you make of The Wild Robot?
JVL00:38:30It's the prettiest piece of emotional blackmail ever. What you are talking about, the sentimental heart of Pixar, is the bittersweet emotional agony of parenthood. That's what Pixar does. And I resent that because I live the fucking bittersweet emotional agony of parenthood every minute of every day. I don't need to pay somebody $19 to sit in a theater for an hour and a half and be hit over the head with that again in an act that is simply nothing more than emotional blackmail. And I fucking resent. I have come to truly hate and despise this entire mode of cinematic operation, which was sort of. Sort of cute through Monsters, Inc. I think before we realized that, oh, this is going to be everything except for the cars movies. And, you know, by the time of Inside Out, I just I was just fucking done with it. And it is why I. I believe that Walt Disney Animation Studios for a brief period was better than Pixar is the brief period, basically, from when Lasseter after they bought Pixar. So they could brain rape them for John Lasseter. What you got was Frozen, Moana and Encanto, which are the three most interesting animated films ever made because they're all about different stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with anything that you normally see in children's movies. You know, Frozen is about the sisterhood relationship. Moana is about emotional trauma. Encanto is about. The the weird lives of immigration of immigrant families and how the trauma of uprooting a family geographically can sort of reverberate through time. And and they they have so much more to say and they are they offer genuine insights and like, oh, oh, I'm sorry. Once once you become a parent, your heart is hostage to somebody else who will eventually hate you. And think that you betrayed them. And then you will have to fear death while hoping that the the children that you have sent out into the world remember you fondly. That that's all coming down the pike for me. Oh, no shit. It never would have occurred to me before. Thank you so much for that. I'm so glad I paid money to be reminded of this. Fucking movie.
Sonny00:41:17I want to I want to I want to I want to push back on one one thing here. Sure. About Frozen Moana and in. Canto, which are actually all about the same thing. They're all actually about the same thing. They're all about a person telling themselves they're good enough in on the inside. You're good enough. You're special. You're you're you're good. You are good enough to be wanted and loved. And you you're doing the right thing. You're trying your your best.
JVL00:41:45I strongly agree. Sonny strong disagree. I mean, the actual main character of Encanto is the grandmother.
Sonny00:41:54But that's literally not the main character of Encanto. The main character of Encanto is a woman is a girl who doesn't have magical powers and has to learn that she is good enough for her family. The rest of the family also has to learn that she's good enough.
JVL00:42:06Her her purpose is to teach the grandmother that the grandmother has fucked things up. But she's not the main character. She is.
Sonny00:42:15She literally is not the main character. She is a tertiary character.
JVL00:42:19She is the entire motive force of this of the story.
Sonny00:42:24All of those. All of those movies have a problem in that they have no villains.
JVL00:42:27They do have villains. Their villain is life.
Sonny00:42:30Frozen has a villain kind of. Life is.
JVL00:42:32Have you not lived, Michael? Life is absolutely a villain. The world around us is a villain. No, no, no.
Sonny00:42:41All of those movies are. That's a condition. What's the who's the Al Franken character? Stuart Smiley. Gosh, darn it. Stuart Smiley. Yeah, that's that. That's the lesson of all those movies. Fuck that. You're not good enough.
JVL00:42:54He is not a license strongly. Yeah, but I'm sure I loved it, Michael. The Wild Robot. Yeah.
Mike00:43:03Oh, yeah. I loved this movie. I thought it was great on the first level, just as a as something to watch. The visuals of this movie were astounding. And it's funny because a lot of it was stuff I had seen and I showed my my kids in the trailer. A lot of it's like in the first five or ten minutes. The trailers is it's. Like in the first five, ten minutes of the film. And so I was familiar with it already. And yet, like this, you know, the moment where Roz puts her puts her hand on the tree with all the butterflies and it's like and they all fly away. It's there's there's something like a little shaggy about the animation style that I just loved. I thought it was it felt I know it wasn't hand drawn, but it felt hand drawn in a way that. That a lot of modern animated movies, they don't even try to let alone, you know, pull off. So I so I loved that aspect of it. I the design as well, the design on the robots, the design on the animals. Right. Right. They're kind of I don't want to say like I don't want to say that's like there's a kind of a Japanese style to it, but it's clearly like that's a that's a part of what's going on. I can't even sort of describe what that looks like. But if you. If you see the movie, you can kind of tell the design on the animals is there's some interesting like angles that I really enjoyed, but the story itself. And so I have to say, Sonny, your daughter has read the wild robot books. Is that?
Sonny00:44:39Yeah.
Mike00:44:39Is that correct? OK, so my my wife just finished reading the first one out loud to my kids, and she's she's known to get weepy and just about every like any movie you show her, she will she will cry at least once. But in as she was reading this book, she was sort of emotionally grabbed multiple times. So I want to defend the movie on the grounds that like the source material is also sort of deeply invested in this in these sort of questions of what does it mean to be a parent and all these things. So so, you know, I just think that's maybe that's not a defense of the movie on the grounds that that JVL doesn't like it. But I think it. I think it's it's more than just emotional manipulation or blackmail. It's it's it's part of the story. It's it is what the story is. So but I don't know. I just I thought the way it portrayed the both that feeling of having to watch your kids go off and do something without you. All right. Like we've been preparing them their whole lives to not need us anymore. I thought that was great. But I also loved the way that it redirected some of those things on to on to Brightbeak, the kid, the Gosling that's and that sort of the the character, the Bill Nighy character, Long Neck, like he sort of brings in this kind of outside wisdom to to sort of remind remind his remind this kid. Kid of everything that his parents have done to sacrifice for him and not just his adoptive parents, but but even the death of his actual parents. You know, they died so that you could be here. I thought was like incredibly deep and quite incredibly layered for a kid's movie. And I was very I was very impressed. I guess it got me in the feels and that's OK. That's what I feel like this should do. My 10 year old did not cry. No, I I. You cried, though, right? I welled up a little bit. I grabbed I grabbed a napkin from his chicken finger meal at the Alamo Drafthouse to to dab my eyes a little bit. It was it was. Oh, and oh, when the. Oh, when when he asked when the Gosling asked for a little boost there at the end, even though they're not speaking to each other anymore.
JVL00:47:15Oh, oh, oh, just got me.
Mike00:47:18So, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm perfectly fine. JVL with being emotionally blackmailed. Emotionally blackmail me. Movie people.
JVL00:47:26I saw a good family movie over the weekend, which does not partake in emotional blackmail called The Young Girl in the Sea or maybe just a young girl in the sea. This is the Daisy Ridley swimming across the English Channel movie.
Mike00:47:42Hadn't seen it.
JVL00:47:43No, we I mean, it was in theaters for like a hot three weeks or something.
Mike00:47:46It's on Disney Plus now.
JVL00:47:48I'm shocked at what a high recommend this is. It's great.
Mike00:47:54All right.
JVL00:47:54You guys should go go watch it. You love it.
Mike00:47:58Your kids will love it. All right. Well, we'll give it a try. This was I don't know. It's not animated, though, is it?
JVL00:48:07No, no, it's it's live action. Can I say one thing is here, Sonny? It was it was nice to see a movie that had recognizable voice actors, but where it's clear they didn't break the bank to shoot like, you know, one of the reasons you said it's 70 million dollars because they're not paying Matthew McConaughey and Scarlett Johansson. Right. And a ton of other like, yeah, where was Aquafina, you know, like, which I just you don't need that in animated movies unless the animated movie is bad.
Mike00:48:39Yeah.
JVL00:48:40But even then, you really don't like do you do you need Matthew McConaughey to go on to Jimmy Fallon and do an appearance to talk about sing or is sing going to find its audience just fine because its audience is kids. Yeah. Right.
Mike00:48:53No, that's good. Stop these boondoggles for a list actors. So Pedro Pascal must have been and I guess Lupita Nyong'o like they're the they were the two big names here in terms of in terms of money. Mark Hamill, of course, was like totally lost on me that I was Mark Hamill playing the bear. So I'd have to like watch it again to like try to see if I could pick up on his voice. Yeah, it was great. There were the other funny thing that was about this movie and watching it with my son who again had to go to the movies. I just finished reading the book was he came out and he said that I was kind of interested in what deviations from the book there was and he said there was a lot of there was a lot more of the bullying of the gosling by the other geese in the movie that that wasn't really a part of the book, which I thought was interesting. It was like a very root like the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer aspect of of of that was was an addition to the movie. So anyway.
Sonny00:49:54That is interesting. That is I wonder if they just needed more conflict. I'm I'm I'm fascinated like I'm fascinated by some of the stuff that wasn't in the movie, which is basically humans. The the the lack of humanity in this movie is kind of interesting because it's clearly set in sort of post post global warming future or or something where you know, the the humans have kind of retreated the the waters have risen humans have retreated to Florida, I guess is that is that where that's where they can vacation or yeah, it's like the the island seems to be off the coast of California somewhere
Mike00:50:32and then right or or the Pacific or something.
Sonny00:50:35They're migrating to Florida. Well, they go over the Golden Gate Bridge.
Mike00:50:40Correct, which is underwater, which is underwater.
Sonny00:50:42Anyway, okay.
Mike00:50:43Yeah, that's what I thought.
Sonny00:50:44Maybe it's on Alcatraz. Maybe they're on Alcatraz.
Mike00:50:47There is a kind of Wally right element to it where you know, the
Sonny00:50:51but no, but the my point here. Is that like humans humans are only the enemy in so far as they programmed the bad robots who came to get our good robot there. They are they are like kind of absent and and above it all which again, I find I find interesting. There's there's a there's a more annoying version of this movie where like it's it's it's like the iron the Iron Giant where I'm giant. Yeah, the military industrial complex is after. After this wild robot and instead it's but a bit even then I guess I mean, I guess I'm giving them a lot of credit for just doing it at one remove.
Mike00:51:36Yeah, it was just it was just that the the people's robots came in and grabbed them the military industrial complexes robots came not the actual. Yeah, I don't know any other thoughts on this movie on animation at this point. I mean, it's seems like there's a lot of going on in animation right now. Am I wrong on that?
Sonny00:51:58Yeah. I mean, it's it's interesting because this, you know, I again, I think this is going to be very successful. I think this is a I think this is a movie that is going to stick around in theaters for a while. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. But I like compare it to Transformers one, which dropped 63% in its second weekend. Like nobody, nobody's nobody's really going to see that movie with.
JVL00:52:24You know, I think and part of that is some boost played for like 12 weeks, 15 weeks. Yeah.
Sonny00:52:29Puss in Boots also came out at a weird time. Like it came out right at Puss in Boots had the perfect theatrical run because it came out when there had been nothing for kids in theaters for like six months before that. There was nothing in theaters for kids for like six months after that. Right. And it was just like and it was good. It helped that it was good.
JVL00:52:46It was, you know, it was not emotional blackmail.
Mike00:52:52Hold on. I need to back up here. Blackmail in what way? Do you use this phrase? But I don't quite understand who is being blackmailed and what is it that I am? We the afraid blackmailed.
JVL00:53:05We're being blackmailed for our tears.
Mike00:53:08Right. But is anybody is any what what is being held against me? Like you will cry.
JVL00:53:14Your fatherhood is being held against you. We are going to use the fact of your fatherhood to make you cry. I don't mind. That I do. What's wrong with that? Because I'm the boss of me. I decide whether or not I cry. Okay. All right.
Mike00:53:35Listen, this is great. All right. Well, I guess that is all the time we are going to give to this episode. Join us over at Sub-Beacon dot com. Leave a comment. Tell us what you think of emotional blackmail and animated movies, and we will talk to you next time.
?00:53:54Subtitles by the Amara.org community
Sonny00:54:24Subtitles by the Amara.org community Subtitles by the Amara.org community Subtitles by the Amara.org community
Mike00:55:54Subtitles by the Amara.org community
Sonny00:56:24Subtitles by the Amara.org community Subtitles by the Amara.org community Subtitles by the Amara.org community Subtitles by the Amara.org community
?00:58:24Thank you.
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