#278. 'Gladiator'
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With Gladiator II looming, Mike, Sonny, and JVL rewatch Ridley Scott's 2000 original and both reviewers end up loving it: Sonny calls himself as devoted a quoter of the film as Joey Pants in The Sopranos and rhapsodizes about Russell Crowe (retelling the story of Crowe balking at the "revenge speech" in his trailer before delivering it through sheer movie-star force of will), Richard Harris, Oliver Reed, Connie Nielsen, and a young David Hemmings, while conceding some of Scott's Tony-Scott-esque step-printed action tics haven't aged well; JVL, dreading a rewatch he thought he'd outgrown, discovers it's "absolutely epic" and not just a string of arena fights, though he now finds Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus overly "capital-A acting" compared to the more textured work Phoenix does today. Before any of that, the episode opens with its usual long stretch of banter: JVL has "literally nothing" going on, Sonny explains he actually reviewed Wicked instead of Gladiator II this week (unable to get into a screening) and is lukewarm on musicals generally, which spins into an extended, JVL-led digression on adaptation theory — a 1958 J.R.R. Tolkien letter on translating a story between mediums, why stage musicals rarely work on screen while stage-conceived films like La La Land do, and the Alec Baldwin scene added to Glengarry Glen Ross as a model of a screenplay earning its own additions — plus box-office chat about Red One's bloated budget and Wicked's huge opening, and a lengthy, mostly Mike-driven bit about his renewed sandwich-cookie addiction (Oreos vs. Hydrox, Aldi knockoffs, and JVL's story of five-year-old Vic Matus's first sip of beer). Once the film talk arrives, Mike shares his own history with the movie — his first-ever DVD — and the trio dig into Hans Zimmer's score (JVL hears Gustav Holst's "Mars" all over it; Mike's wife swears it foreshadows Pirates of the Caribbean) and Crowe's remarkable run from L.A. Confidential through Cinderella Man. They close by debating which gladiatorial weapon they'd want in the arena (JVL argues for a shield and short sword over a flail; Sonny claims he'd just be the guy pissing himself before the fight) and tease a Return to Oz episode for the following week.
From the show notes
Plus like 20 minutes on adaptation theory at the beginning.
Full transcript
Sonny00:00:00Will you remove your helmet and tell me your name?
Guest00:00:15My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius. Commander of the armies of the North. General of the Felix Legions. Loyal servant to the true Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son. Husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance. In this life or the next.
Mike00:00:45Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me are my two co-hosts, whose fame is well-deserved. I don't think there's ever been podcasters to match them. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. Tell your friends, tell your family. Join us there to hear new episodes every Friday morning. And comment, become a part of the Sub-Beacon community at Sub-Beacon.com. We're going to be talking about Gladiator. Not Gladiator 2. The OG Gladiator. Later on in the show. But first, JVL, tell us what is going on with you, my man.
JVL00:01:30Literally nothing. I'm sorry. I don't, I have nothing. Nothing is going on. It's two weeks in a row. I know. I know. I'm sorry.
Sonny00:01:39It's fine. We got a lot of, we've got, we've got, we were just discussing something in the, in the green room, JVL, that I think we can, we can turn into some chatter here.
JVL00:01:48I mean, sure. If you want to wait till we get to the box office talk, because that's really, but whatever, whatever. I want to hear how you boys are doing.
Mike00:01:55All right, Sonny, you, you did. What's going on with you? You've got something going on.
Sonny00:02:00All right. Well, I, so we're doing Gladiator, the original Gladiator, because Gladiator 2 is coming out. I had been expecting to review Gladiator 2 this week for a variety of familial and schedule reasons. I could not make a Gladiator screening in time to review it this week. So instead I'm reviewing Wicked, which I don't, I am, you know, for folks who don't know, Wicked is the, the adaptation of the stage musical, which is based on the book. That's kind of a revisionist telling of the, uh, the story of the Wizard of Oz in which, uh, the, the Wicked Witch of the West is the, is the hero. She's kind of an oppressed, you know, uh, marginalized figure. And she is, uh, she, she was actually the, the hero of this thing. The Wizard is evil and Glinda the Good Witch is, uh, you know, his, his kind of unwitting pawn and Dorothy is a dupe and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, uh.
Mike00:02:58It's an adaptation of an adaptation.
Sonny00:02:59It's, it's a, it's a big screen adaptation of the stage musical, which is itself an adaptation of a, I assume, bestselling novel. Um, so, uh, yes, that's, that's correct. Which is, which is itself a, uh, riff on, uh, uh, a film, which is itself, uh, an adaptation of a series of bestselling books by L. Frank Baum. That's, I think. I think that's the whole chain.
JVL00:03:31So it's a giant snake eating itself over the Ouroboros, right?
Sonny00:03:36That's the Ouroboros. It's something like that. Yes. It's something I, I, it's funny. I hadn't, I hadn't actually gone that second and third step back yet, but, uh, yeah, we're, we're, it's basically L. Frank Baum is in charge of everything we do now. Um, uh, but anyway, uh, I, I went to go see, I went to go see Wicked. I didn't care for it. Uh, you know, I, I have a review that'll be up on, it should be up by the time you read this or your list. You're listening to this. Um, I didn't, I didn't care for it. Uh, but that's no surprise cause I don't really like musicals. I'm not a musical guy as, as, uh, listeners of this show. No, it's not, it's not for me. I'm, uh, it's just not, it's not my thing. It's not, I, I don't hate all musicals. I think musical cartoon, musical animation is fine. I don't like all animated musicals obviously, but like, I don't, I don't find the form. Uh, I don't object to the form itself. Um, and I, there are. There are a handful of big screen musicals that, that I, I kind of enjoy. Uh, did you like the original Willy Wonka? What's that?
Mike00:04:37Did you like La La Land?
Sonny00:04:40Uh, I liked La La Land despite the musical interludes. Okay. Uh, more or less. I, I, like I, that, that's a movie I expect, I went in expecting to hate and did not hate it and was, was honestly shocked. I was, I was, that movie, I think, I think I ended up putting that on my best of list that year. Uh, and that, that's a movie that actually does something kind of interesting with the musical form, at least in the sense of how it, how it plays with the story. Like the whole, the whole final sequence where it, uh, where they have like the dream sequence showing like their alternate lives.
Mike00:05:14Yes.
Sonny00:05:15I just like, I, like I thought that, I thought that was wonderful. I thought that was wonderfully done. Um, anyway, uh, so I, I'm not a, I'm not a huge, I'm not a huge musical guy. Um, I hate stage musicals. I just, I dislike. I dislike the form in general, but JBL, you and I were discussing why you're not a fan of stage musicals that are adapted for the screen. And I think what you were saying was basically right.
JVL00:05:40Yeah. I, I mean, my, my personal preference and this is, you know, not, not everybody's like this for me, taking a musical that was made for the stage and turning it into a film is almost never successful. And I'm thinking about into the woods, uh, Chicago, which. Again, many people liked, I did not best picture one best picture. I did not enjoy it. Um, yeah, the lame is, but what I, what I think does often work is when the musical is originally conceived as a film. And so greatest showman, uh, in Canto, this is a la la land, right? I mean, those, when you think of it. And I think this is really just a, a case of artistic mediums mattering. And I said to Sonny, it's like, uh, if you are a great painter and you paint a painting of a sculpture, then like, it can be a nice painting, but it's like, well, why are you doing that? Like the sculpture is meant to be a sculpture, right? It's not meant to be two dimensions. I think there's an aspect of that with, with musicals where it just translating it from medium to another is hard, but conceiving of something within that second medium, conceiving of it as a thing for the screen, um, is, is good and is good, but you know, it gives it a much higher chance of success or at least of, of working for me.
Sonny00:07:19Can I draw a parallel to the evolution of the comic book movie here for a minute? Because like for, for many years, for many years, you had, you had unsuccessful comic book adaptations. You know, they, there were just, there were, there were lots and lots of failures. You had the occasional success Superman did, did, did okay. The best was the Tim Burton Batman, I think, but you know, Batman, but that, but that only actually succeeded because it came, it was born of an era, uh, in which the Batman comics themselves had gotten much more grounded and were like gritty and dark and, you know, realistic, whatever. Um, but the, the reason that the, the Marvel. Uh, experiments work. The reason that the Marvel cinematic universe worked is because they made the movies more like the form of comic books in that they were telling a long running story that didn't really have an end that didn't really have an end point. And that the, the film itself, the filmmaking itself became much more like drawing a comic, right? This is, so this is like the great technological leap forward that allowed for computer generated imagery to do that. To do the things that you, you saw on a comic book page is what made people be like, okay, I guess I can watch this now, but that is itself, it's not acting in any, it's not, it's not filmmaking in the traditional sense of how we think of. As filmmaking, right? It is like just basically another form of animation, at least in that part of it.
JVL00:08:48Yeah. I mean, I mean, one thing they took from it is that the way comic books are traditionally conceived is they are. Stories within stories. So you have a comic book and that issue of a comic book has to have a beginning, a middle and an end. But that comic book fits within a six issue arc, right? And it is almost always six issues. And the idea is that you are telling a story over those six issues where each issue itself, like, you know, is satisfying as a story. And that is kind of what more, I mean, the whole idea of Marvel taking a phased approach. To the Marvel cinematic universe was essentially that, you know, each of these movies is going to be satisfying as a movie, but also it has to work within the arc. And one of the things that I think, uh, is really, you can tell a comic book series is having trouble when the issues don't succeed as standalone stories. And you really just feel like all I'm getting is like, this is just a second act, right? It only works. And that's where, that's what Marvel felt like when things went off the rails, right? You get to Ant-Man quantum mania and you're like, well, I don't understand this only exists so that they can introduce the new big bad. Like this movie only exists to introduce Kang there. This is not satisfying as a story. And, uh, so they, and you can get away with that.
Sonny00:10:20You, you can get away with that. If you build toward a satisfying Kang plot was storyline, I guess. I mean, like you can. And the Marvel movies got away with this for a long time. The problem was nobody, nobody cared about Kang. Nobody liked Kang. And then Jonathan Majors got arrested and they were like, we got to scrap Kang. We got to, we got to get rid of Kang. We're going to do, we're going to get rid of Kang in the season finale of Loki season two. You're never going to see him again. And that was, I mean, like that's, that is not, I don't think we ever had a
JVL00:10:49Kang around here.
Sonny00:10:51Kang.
JVL00:10:51Did you have a Kang?
Sonny00:10:53I never saw a Kang. Kang. Do you mean, do you mean Ultron? Ultron? I don't know. Who is, who is Kang? Anyway.
Mike00:11:00I thought, I thought we were talking about that little, that little squishy guy, uh, from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Oh, that's Krang.
Sonny00:11:06Krang. Krang.
JVL00:11:08So Michael, so what Sonny asked me then was, do I think the same translation of medium problems apply to stage plays? So like moving Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross off of the stage into a movie, putting, uh, Shakespeare, any of the Shakespeare movies, right? Moving them, you know, any of the Hamlet's that have been done. And I feel like actually those things don't require, like those things are okay. There's something about the singing and the dancing in particular, which gives it problems and moving from the stage to the screen. But what, what do you think? I mean, maybe, maybe not.
Mike00:11:47Maybe stage plays should be on the stage. So the singing it. So there's, I have two answers. The singing and dancing I think is of musical. Theater is so contingent on the audience, the audience in the theater and the performance is, is pushed out toward them. Like it is directed toward them in the physical space of the theater. And it is, you just can't recreate that in a film. It's it's you're, you're doing that to a camera or to multiple cameras. Um, and you know, I, I do think the, I think it succeeded in an earlier era where just the idea of this stuff happening on a screen in front of you, you know, in the 1920s and thirties was a Marvel in and of itself, um, which is why you have so many of those kind of classic Hollywood musicals and Fred Astaire dancing. And it's like, yeah, it's all a spectacle, um, but w w way like audiences have sort of grown up and that's, that's the spectacle's not there. So that's, that's the answer to that's part of the answer. Um, to that question. I also think you mentioned Glenn, Gary, Glenn Ross. Like what did David Mamet add to the screenplay? It was the whole introduction, uh, with Alec Baldwin. That's not in the original, um, stage production. Oh, I don't think I knew that Glenn, Glenn Ross. Yes, that was. It was added to the movie. And I think that does a couple of things. One, it, it sort of, um, that scene like pulls the audience in, uh, to, you know, I mean, it's, it's, he's talking to the main characters of, of the play, but he's really sort of like talking to the audience as well as like, here are the stakes. And I am a, you know, I am a sort of familiar star. He was like at that point, you know, uh, a movie star, um, with a kind of unforgettable monologue. And I will bring you in to understand what is essentially a kind of like psychological. I mean, it's a mammoth play, right? It's like, uh, uh, all the things that go into mammoth. So I think that demonstrated, and maybe if I thought about it longer, I could think of other examples, but that demonstrated the, the filmmakers, um, knowledge that they needed to do something to kind of. Change or up the ante, it couldn't just be a straight, it creates stakes in a real way. But more importantly, it, it, it was a recognition that the film was a different medium. And if, if I could actually, since we're going down this road, um, uh, bring in something that I thought a lot about, um, and, uh, which is, which has to do with adaptations and, um, there's a, there's actually a letter that in 1958, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to somebody, um, in response to a, a spec screenplay that somebody had written of the Lord of the Rings. And, um, he hated the screenplay, like got stuff wrong, like, like literally like just like use the wrong names for characters and all this stuff. And he was just like, this is terrible. But, um, he, he said something, which I think, I think a lot about when we think about adaptations. The, the, the quote is, you know, the canons of narrative art in any medium cannot be wholly different. Um, but that, uh, and I'm forgetting the exact second half of the quote. Um, but it's essentially like bad, bad movies, um, like exaggerate, uh, to the point where like there's extra stuff and that the core of the original is what's most important. So like. All of that is to say, it's like very flowery language, but essentially like the, like the narrative, the form of the narrative art, whether it's a film or television show or stage play or poem or a book or a song, whatever, like has to, it has to conform to those, to those forms, but it can't lose like the core of the original thing that it's adapting. And, um, anyway, so I don't know if there's anything to discuss on. I just think like that is a, uh, an important. Thing to think about with adaptations, like a movie adaptation has to be like a movie first, and yet it also has to be like true to the, to the core of the original that it's adapting to. So things can be changed. Things have to be changed. Uh, but it also can't lose like what is the essence of the original. And that's a really difficult thing to do. Anyway, that's, that's just my thought.
Sonny00:16:55Let me, uh, Yeah, let me, um, let me suggest, uh, two, two comparison points here. Like for instance, uh, the Denzel Washington's adaptation of Fences is an interesting, uh, is interesting. Sorry, his adaptation of what? Of Fences, the, uh, the Wilson play. Right. Um, you know, Denzel Washington directed this and it's clear he really, he loves the play. You know, I, I assume he has performed it, you know, live, uh, and he, uh, and he delivers this very powerful performance as the, you know, the older kind of, uh, broken down, beaten down by the world, garbage man, uh, father character. It's a, it's a really good performance movie, but it is not a good movie. I don't think in the sense that it is, it's, it is very literally a filmed stage play. I mean, it's like, it all takes place essentially in one, one space in the backyard and kitchen area of this, this house, maybe may I, but it takes place in one house, right? It's, it's a one location movie basically. And you can, and one reason I think when you mentioned Shakespeare, one reason I think the Shakespeare, um, adaptations are easier to do is because Shakespeare was like you, you could take those all over the place, right? Romeo and Juliet is all over. You has multiple locations. Um, uh, even Hamlet is like in a castle. So you're going from like, there are lots of places in the castle. You can, you can go right. Compare that to something like, um, the movie cube, right? Have you guys ever seen cube? Cube is this, it's, it's a, it's a horror, it's a, it's a horror thriller movie, but the premise of it is these, uh, this group of strangers wakes up in a strange room and they, uh, are confronted with a series of puzzles in the form of, um, mathematical equations. It doesn't matter. The point is the whole movie takes place in essentially the same room. It takes place in essentially the same room. They, they, there are different colorings on the walls to make it sound like they are traveling through a labyrinthine puzzle, but it's all in the same room basically. But that works. It worked that as a one location movie works because it is designed that way. It is designed, you know, to be a cinematic, uh, experience that essentially all takes place in the same, uh, same location. And getting out of that location is the goal is like the goal of the movie. So it, it, it's an escape room, but a movie, right? And, and that, and, you know, again, fences, a bunch of interesting performances in it, powerful monologues and that sort of thing. But it's not interesting as a piece of cinematic art because you're just kind of in a place and there's no intrinsic reason you have to be in that place. It's just a house.
JVL00:19:47Yeah. And I mean, so this, this holds then for the Denzel's Macbeth, which I was watching little pieces of in the last week and it, you know, Beth isn't super wide ranging, but it moves around a little bit, especially within, you know, within the battles and the Denzel Macbeth, which is one of the, just one of the Coen's. Is that right? Or was it both? Yeah, it was Joel, Joel, just Joel. It's like visually striking, right? It really, I mean, having it be the movie adds something to it.
Sonny00:20:21Well, it's like a German expressionist film is what it's, is what it's designed to look like. I mean, it's designed to look like a type of film, but it's also a Shakespeare adaptation.
JVL00:20:31Yeah. I don't know. These are all my thoughts. Wicked is going to make how much money, Sonny?
Sonny00:20:38Well, we can get, we'll cover that. $11 billion. We'll get to that. I've got thoughts there.
Mike00:20:43Michael, what are you up to, buddy? Well, I'm going to bring the discussion down considerably to the base here.
Sonny00:20:53Philistine.
Mike00:20:53It was, it was. I was getting a little too highfalutin for my tastes. So I have, I have a problem. Maybe an addiction to sandwich cookies. This has been a problem my whole life.
Sonny00:21:11So like Oreos, Nutter Butters, that sort of thing.
Mike00:21:14Let's just say Oreos. I mean, let's like, what are we, what are we really talking about here? We're talking about Oreos. You know, when I was a kid. Hydrox. Oh, Hydrox. Um, that's a callback. Uh, Hydrox are actually older than Oreos, which I learned, uh, from a Chris Caldwell piece in the week standard. Uh, I could like consume an entire sleeve of those when I was like 17, like no problem. Just like, just like shove it in my mouth. Like absolutely delicious.
Sonny00:21:46But how do you eat them?
Mike00:21:48Um, my preference.
Sonny00:21:50Do you bite them whole or do you tear them apart? Do you twist or bite?
Mike00:21:54Oh, I remember. I remember those ads, Sonny. Um, I am not a twister. I mean, I've done it. Right. I like, I've experimented. Yeah. But what I prefer is actually to dip it in milk. Um, that's like that. How quiet you, um, yeah. Dip, dip them in milk a little bit, getting them a little bit, a little bit milky. And, um, and away we go, but I'll eat them whole, like dry. I'll eat them whole dry. I have twisted. Um, but the point is, is that I could eat a lot, like, like they could disappear. Quite quickly. Um, and then, you know, like I left home, I went to college. Yes.
Sonny00:22:35I like had put away childish things.
Mike00:22:38Exactly. Um, I had disposable income a little bit after graduating from college and having a job and that sort of thing. Not much, but like I wasn't spending it on, on cookies. That's this, that's, that's like a, that's a, that's a waste in, in, in my 23 year old month. Um, but these cookies have come back with a vengeance and, and, and here's the other problem. Uh, we're an Aldi family. We, we, we like to shop at Aldi and get, get all the best deals at Aldi. It's, uh, you know, you know, if you, what the basics of what you need, your milk, your eggs, your bread, um, most of the produce, most of the meat, especially the meat. Um, you know, it's, it's a great deal. Um, and. And they have at Aldi the, the knockoff brand of, of, uh, of, uh, Oreos, the sandwich cookies. Um, they've got the, the chocolate cookies, but also like the, I don't know what you, they are vanilla. Like the, they're like that kind of yellowish tan vanilla. Um, and they sell them in like a variety pack or like in a, in a, like, like one sleeve of vanilla and two sleeve of chocolate. That's like 56. Six cookies for like $2. It's, it's absolutely insane. And like, I'm just going through them too fast. I need help. I don't know what it is. I just like, it's, it's like I'm back to being 17, but of course I, I don't have the metabolism. It can't be like that anymore. And like, it's not only that it's like, it's, it's not even like it's, you know, I'm not saying I'm getting, I'm getting like a cookie weight over here. It's just, I know as I'm doing it. How bad it is. I know how bad it is for me. I know how like it's, you know, it's obvious that we, we put the cookies in cookie jars on the counter. Like you can see that those numbers they've been, they've been very quickly and steadily going down over the course of the last week. So I don't know what to do. Um, it's my shame, but I'm, I'm here pouring my heart out about it and, and looking for help, looking for answers. Or maybe I shouldn't, maybe I shouldn't feel bad. Maybe this is, this is what this is. This is okay. Like this is my vice.
Sonny00:25:01Mike, I gotta be honest with you. If you don't stop this, it's going to kill you. If you don't stop doing this, it's going to, and I don't want to see you die. So here's what you're going to have to do. You're going to have to lock yourself in a room. We're going to barricade it from the outside. We're going to put in a tin of, uh, chicken noodle soup and a tin of baked beans and two tins, uh, Sprite. And that's all you're going to get every day for the next, uh, the next six months. That's just it. That, no, I, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm my, I have two suggestions here. One of them is, uh, one of them is maybe not feasible. I don't know what your family situation is. The first suggestion is simply do not buy them. Do not have them in the house. If you have them in the house, you're going to eat them. That is 100% a problem. This is my, my, my. My problem. So, you know, I like, I lost some weight, uh, back in 2019. Um, and, uh, one of the reasons I've been able to keep it off is because I simply do not keep sweets in the house. I say, I like, I, and this, this is the worst time of year for me. The Halloween, the Halloween to Christmas period of existence. Corridor of death. It's real hard. It's real hard. It's so sweet. It's such a sweet corridor. There's so many, there's so many, uh. Uh, things that just, you know, the kids get a ton of Halloween candy and then we're doing pumpkin pies at Thanksgiving and then it's, you know, Christmas cookies. And so this is a very hard season for me. And I, uh, this is, you know, there's a lot of opportunities for, for backsliding. The second, the second option for you. And again, I don't know, again, I don't know if you have to have these for the kids. If like the, if it's like a function of like the kids.
Mike00:26:50There aren't any left for the kids.
JVL00:26:52There aren't any left. I'm eating them all.
Sonny00:26:54See, right. So you, you just gotta, you gotta stop buying these.
JVL00:26:57Just don't buy them anymore.
Sonny00:26:58That's, that's, that's, that's what you gotta do.
JVL00:27:00I got two other, I mean, I, that is absolutely one of the solutions, but there are two other solutions. The first is that Mike, what do you do for fun? Do you, uh, do you own a Lamborghini? Do you spend money on a Lamborghini?
Mike00:27:19No, no.
JVL00:27:20Do you, uh, do you like go to Vegas once a month? And gamble and hang out with your boys? No, no. Okay. So you, you work and you take care of your children. Don't you think you should enjoy to have a little bit of pleasure in your life? Like, isn't it okay if, if eating these cookies gives you pleasure? I don't know. Like we're all food for worms. We're all food for worms, my boy.
Mike00:27:51And, uh, like it's getting dark.
JVL00:27:53Have, have some fucking cookies. Yeah. It's okay. That's one. That's another answer. There's a third answer. We lock you in a room as Sonny says, but not with chicken noodle soup and tins of beans. We lock you in a room with like 50 packages of these cookies. And we say that you can't come out until you've eaten all of them. Smoke the whole pack. That doesn't work. Yes. That doesn't work. Smoke the whole pack.
Sonny00:28:23No, the whole, the smoke, the whole pack, the smoke, the whole carton thing doesn't work. Remember the episode of King of the Hill where they tried to do this to Bobby and he just loves it. He like, he gets sick the first time, but then he keeps smoking.
Mike00:28:36The episode of The Simpsons where Homer goes to hell and Satan's punishment.
Sonny00:28:41They run out of donuts. Donuts and they run out. That's no, you don't want to, you don't want to do that. No.
JVL00:28:46I will always think of Vic Mattis. Do you remember the story about little five-year-old Vic Mattis? Little, little five-year-old Vic Mattis. Little five-year-old Vic was at, uh, he was in the Philippines visiting family and he went and he, he was just hassling his father and his uncles about having a beer because they were sitting having beer on the porch and he wouldn't shut up and he was whining and I want it, I want it, I want it. And so his dad finally says, okay, well here you go. And little five-year-old Vic put it to his lips and took a taste and did the full Barney. Where have you been all my life? You just started and his dad had to like yank it away from stop that. And from that moment, Vic's destiny with Georgetown was written in the stars. Yeah. Well, look, I mean, here's the thing.
Sonny00:29:39I mean, the other option is moderation. Oh, no, that, that I don't believe in. Fuck that. No, I don't believe in that.
JVL00:29:47Moderation is for suckers. I say enjoy it. If that's the way to go and make your, your peace with it or avoid it or turn, turn your body against it.
Mike00:30:01All right. Um, I'm going to be honest. I don't think I'm going to change a single thing about anything. I do.
JVL00:30:07I celebrate your choices. I celebrate your choices.
Sonny00:30:12I'm going to do the train spotting thing. I'm going to do the train spotting thing. Lock you in that room. You're going to have the, the baby's going to be on the ceiling, except it's going to be a cookie baby.
JVL00:30:23Turn his cookie baby head around.
Mike00:30:25Oh my gosh. All right. Uh, all right. Well, let's move on then. Let's talk about, uh, the box office here because, uh, we got to get to this 24 year old movie. Um, number one of the box office red one. This is a movie that my wife thought we were going to be reviewing.
JVL00:30:43Um, and I really want to see it. And this thing was a disaster. Correct. $32 million.
Sonny00:30:51Here's the thing about, here's the thing.
JVL00:30:53Is this a $268 million movie?
Sonny00:30:5630, 30. All right. So, uh, with a 32 or $33 million opening, whatever the initial projection was, that would make it the third highest grossing original, uh, film, original film, like not based on IP or whatever. That would be the third highest grossing opening weekend for an original film since the pandemic. Okay. So in theory, in theory, 32 to $33 million for this sort of movie is not a terrible opening. The problem JVL, as you say, is that the movie cost about $250 million before advertising before advertising. And the reason it costs this much is because it had been planned as a, uh, a direct to Amazon thing. So it's, it's got all the backend paid out a ridge, you know, like the, the, the problem with this movie is that it should have cost a hundred million dollars. This movie should have cost a hundred million dollars. If this movie costs a hundred million dollars, it's fine. It's fine because it is already grossed. Uh, it's already a gross, like 80 something million dollars, including overseas in its opening weekend, you know, that, that sort of opening, it gets to 300, $350 million off a hundred million dollar opening weekend. Everybody's, everybody's happy. Everybody's making money. It's a perfectly acceptable sort of thing. And instead it costs. It's $260 million and I, I haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure it looks like it cost, you know, $80 million cause, uh, the, you know, the, the money doesn't go to, to the, the work or does it go to building, you know, the scenes or the sets or whatever. Uh, and instead it goes to paying Bonnie hunt. It goes, it goes to pay. It just goes to, it goes to paying everybody's back end. I'm sure that the rock and Chris Evans combined to make something like $50 million off the top, you know, I like, I, I, I like the Lord knows those two are box office draws outside of their franchises, huge box office stars, huge box office stars. So I like the, again, this is one of these things where like a $32 million opening is not a problem if you are making this for the big screen and that is how you release it. Now here's the other thing I will say, here's the other thing I will say is that the $32 million is more or less found money. Right? That's here's another way to think about it. They have already spent the $250 million making the movie, right? They were going to put it directly on prime video or MGM plus or whatever the fuck channel was going to be on. And instead of doing that, they put it in theaters first and everything they make there is again, found money. It is like, that is just, that is just great. So that's another way to think about it. I don't know. The economics of Hollywood are all so fundamentally broken right now that it is impossible to say if something is a big hit or not, but I will say, and I, I, you know, God only knows what the, the numbers that are coming out from Thursday night's previews look like. Um, but, uh, one movie that will, uh, unreservedly be an enormous hit is Wicked. Wicked is going to, Wicked is going to, I don't think Wicked will put up Barbie numbers. I don't think it's going to grow $600 million or anything like that. What's that?
JVL00:34:18It's Dune for girls.
Sonny00:34:20That is a very good. This is a very, it's actually a perfect, that's actually a perfect, it's, it's one
JVL00:34:26half of a review.
Sonny00:34:27It's one half of a movie. Just like Dune.
JVL00:34:30A property that people have been dying for.
Sonny00:34:33It's a property that very much appeals to. And so I saw it, I saw it, uh, on a Wednesday night at like 940 and I assumed.
JVL00:34:40Were you at a sing-along showing?
Sonny00:34:42No, I was not. Thank God. Are you sure? But I assumed, I assumed there would be singing along. I, I, cause I, so again, I'm going to like a 940 PM screening in the middle of a city, right in the middle of Dallas. And I had assumed, and this is going to be my prejudice showing here. I assumed that the majority of the audience was going to be like gay men who were coming to this to do sing-along type stuff. But I was very wrong about this. The audience was like 90%, probably 16 to 24 year old women.
JVL00:35:17Sounds about right.
Sonny00:35:18And I was, I was fascinated by it. I was, I was totally mistaken. Mistaken in my estimation of what the audience of this movie was. I like, I, I, again, I like, I just, I just had it. I had it totally wrong. So, uh, I think this movie is, is not going to do, it will not do, uh, like I said, it's not going to do Barbie numbers, but it will probably grow. I bet it grosses $140 million this opening weekend. It probably does about five, four. Four, four hundred to five hundred total. And I think, I think it's also going to win a bunch of fucking Oscars. I think that this movie, I, again, this movie's not for me. I didn't care for it. I don't like musicals. This movie's going to be an enormous hit. It's already a critical success. It's going to be, it's going to do huge business at the box office. It's going to win a bunch of awards.
JVL00:36:12How did it play in your theater? Did the audience love it?
Sonny00:36:15It played very well. So, it played very well. It, it, there was not, there was not the singing along that I expected. Everybody was like, quiet and respectfully watching the film, which I was very surprised by. I thought there was going to be lots of, like, spontaneous, but there was none of that. It played, look, it, it, people laughed at all the right spots. There were sniffles at all the right spots. Like, it was, it was, it, it, when, when the movie was over, I heard the two girls who were next to me say, that was amazing. And, like, I, like, it killed. It, it did, it, it absolutely killed. It's going to have great word of mouth It's going to, it's going to come out of, you know, it's going to be an A or an A plus cinema score, probably. There's, there's nothing stopping this movie.
Mike00:37:01Question. How much of the, of the fandom and anticipation of this is from fans of the musical and the songs? How much of it has to do with Ariana Grande? Right? Like, she's like a music star.
Sonny00:37:15It's all, it's all, I don't know. I, I would, I would assume the Venn diagram of that
JVL00:37:19is almost a circle.
Sonny00:37:20Yeah. I would say that there's not, there's probably not a lot of separation there. It, look, this is like the most successful original musical of the last 20 years, right? Like, is that, am I, am I overstating? Maybe, maybe J-Pod's yelling at me because it's like the Lion King or something.
JVL00:37:38Wicked is up there. I mean, but Lion King isn't original, right? Right. Yeah. I mean, I think the, the number one and number two grossing musicals of the last 20 years are Lion King and Wicked. I believe. John can correct us.
Sonny00:37:56Yeah. So I would, look, it's, it's enormously popular with, with Broadway people and whatever. It's going to be a huge hit. It's going to be, I like, again, not for me. I didn't care for it. It's going to be a huge hit. And it works very well for the people who are into that sort of thing. If you, you like musicals, if you wanted to see Wicked on the big screen your whole life, I got good news. I'm going to have a big multiple.
Guest00:38:22This is going to scratch that itch.
Sonny00:38:24Well, I mean, it depends on what the opening is, right? If it opens to like $200 million, the multiple won't be that big. But if it, I would say.
Mike00:38:31Top, top, top. Go ahead.
Sonny00:38:34What were you going to say?
Mike00:38:35I was going to say, I've, I've got the top few musicals of the 21st century on Broadway. Please. Grossing. Number one is The Lion King. Number two is Wicked. Number three is Hamilton. And number four is The Book of Mormon.
JVL00:38:49Yeah.
Sonny00:38:49That all sounds right. That sounds right.
JVL00:38:51But there's a huge gap between one and two. Is my guess.
Sonny00:38:56And then another gap between two and three.
JVL00:38:59And then a huge, huge gap between three and four.
Mike00:39:03Not a huge gap between three and four. But a huge gap between two and three. Yeah. And yes. And one and two.
JVL00:39:12Yeah. So, but my question for you is the repeat viewing. Because I have a sense that this is just going to be a thing that families do. All through the holiday season. That maybe. Like, yeah, let's go see Wicked. Yeah. Right? Totally.
Sonny00:39:27It's not going to put up a multiple like the Greatest Showman did. Right? Because the Greatest Showman opened to like $12 million or something like that.
JVL00:39:35And then grossed $11 million for the next four months.
Sonny00:39:38Yeah. It just like kept making that much money again. Like, you know, week after week. But it will. Look, I don't know. Again, I think it's probably going to do in the one. Somewhere. Between, let's say, 120 and 140. And we'll end up around 450 to 550 in that range. Domestically. Domestic. Yeah. I don't know. I actually don't know what the overseas on this sort of thing looks like. I don't know if it's better or worse. I like. I don't know.
Mike00:40:07Yeah. What we should. If we if we actually do this movie for the show, we should talk about my fascination with like the whole all the original L. Frank Baum like books of which like. The everyone just remembers the first one because of the movie. But there's like a there's like a whole bunch of like he wrote a gazillion.
Sonny00:40:28Yeah.
Mike00:40:28Wizard of Oz, but Oz books. And it's like it's like the original like world building exercise. I want to do a wild.
Sonny00:40:38I want to do a return to Oz episode. Can we do a return to Oz? Oh, return to Oz. Did you guys ever see Return to Oz? Oh, yeah, I did. No, no, no, no, no. That's a that is. So that's the Sam Raimi. The Wizard of Oz movie that that was called the Great and Powerful Oz. Oz, the Great and Powerful. Yeah, yeah. Which I actually turned off, which I like. I find interesting. No, Return to Oz was directed by Frank Oz.
Mike00:41:02Correct. And starred for Rusev Bulk. And it was what? Nineteen eighty five. Eighty five.
Sonny00:41:09Something like that.
Mike00:41:10It is a fever dream. And it is very, very much. Yeah. Like accused to the books much more closely.
Sonny00:41:20But it also it it also feels like it feels like Labyrinth or The Never Ending Story or something like that. Like it is it's one of those it's one of those movies for children that is also like kind of terrifying.
Mike00:41:37Yes. It's so I love it. It's it's so. Let's do that. So many so many memories.
Sonny00:41:43Maybe we'll do that next week.
Mike00:41:44All right. All right. Well, let's move on then from the box office and talk about what we're talking about. Let's do five minutes of Gladiator talk.
Sonny00:41:51Yeah, could we do like 10 minutes on Gladiator and then we'll get back to you.
Mike00:41:54Gladiator. Give us give us a review, Sonny, of Gladiator 2000.
Sonny00:42:00Gladiator starring Russell Crowe as Maximus, the Roman general who is betrayed by the wicked emperor Commodus and has is sold into gladiatorial slavery and fights his way all the way up to the arena where he kills Commodus and restores the Roman Republic. It's a thing.
Mike00:42:21Hell yeah.
Sonny00:42:22It's a thing that happened. Now, I love that. I love this movie. I love I am like I am like Joey Pants and the Sopranos when it comes to Gladiator. I'm like I'm like do I'm doing the lines. I'm walking around the house, you know, just shouting. Are you not entertained at my children all day long after I see the movie? I I love I love Gladiator so much for any number of reasons. The biggest of them is Russell Crowe himself. Like I I find it I find it strange that Hollywood has stopped being able to make people like Russell Crowe who can just pull off a fairly ridiculous role. Like there's a story. There's a story from the filming of this movie where Russell Crowe like was in his trailer for a half a day was like, I don't want to do this dumb speech. The revenge speech, right? They like he was like, I can't say this. This is idiotic. This is a terrible speech. They tried to do some rewrites. He was like, no, this is still terrible. I don't want to do it. And eventually Russell Ridley Scott was like, you got to come do it. We got to shoot this. We got to get this done. He's like, fine, I'll say it and I'll make it work because I'm a fucking star. And he does it. He does. It's it's like it's amazing. He's great. And that is that is the essence of this movie. It just has all of these great actors, not just Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix. I like I remember not liking Joaquin Phoenix's performance in this film. The first probably two or three times I saw it. And then I like it really started to grow on me. I was like, oh, no, he gets it. This is right. But also like Connie Oliver Reed, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed.
JVL00:44:07Oh, what's the guy who plays Quintus? It's such a small role. Thomas Arana. But it's great. Richard Harris.
Sonny00:44:16Richard Harris. David Hemmings, who is who folks like. Like, it's so funny. I had like not realized I was him until until just a few years ago. But like the the star of the movie Blow Up, which if anybody is seeing the Antonioni British New Wave film or I guess Italian Italian New Wave film. But like it was like he's the he's the guy. He's the announcer at the at the at the gladiatorial pit. You know, I don't know. I just I love this movie. And it does have it has some of the it has some of the like ticks and weaknesses of Ridley Scott. That's like late, late, late 90s, early aughts movies in which he is like really aping Tony Scott. So like if you if you watch a Tony Scott action movie, all of this, all of the action scenes like the ones in the forest at the beginning of this film or I don't know, some of some of the some of the gladiators. But like that kind of step printing, like the kind of blurry, not slow motion, but kind of slow motion fight scenes. Like that was Tony Scott's thing. That was like his his main aesthetic tick was that certainly in the 2000s. Right. And like, I don't love that. I, I, I get I get the affect. I don't love it. But but still, it's it's why. And this is also a very key film in Ridley Scott's career, I think, because I do like, you know, he's a he's a maddening director. And we've talked about this on the show before, but he's a maddening director. Because you look at his his filmography and it's like there's a lot of dross on that lineup of films. However, he has also made five or six five star movies in five entirely different genres. Right. Like sci fi with Blade Runner, horror with Alien, Sword and Sandal with Gladiator, War with Black Hawk Down. And then I like I consider the counselor to be like a masterpiece. Of American nihilism. But like I'm also, you know, this is this is a this is not a widely held opinion. But like I would say he is.
Mike00:46:29Thelma and Louise.
Sonny00:46:30Thelma and Louise is a great, you know, buddy caper comedy action, you know, crime comedy.
JVL00:46:38Female Butch and Sundance.
Sonny00:46:39Right. Like he just he he has made he has made again. I like he's he works so much, too. That's the other thing. Is it like Ridley Scott? Like makes a movie a year, sometimes two movies a year. And they're not all great, but when they are good and like I think The Last Duel is pretty good. I'm excited for Gladiator, too. I don't we'll see. You know, I thought Napoleon was pretty good, though. I know, again, kind of in the minority on that one. Like I I I love I love Gladiator and I am I am happy that we are getting Gladiator, too. And I just wish. Wish we could have had Russell Crowe in the sequel. I wish they could have brought him back. He didn't actually die in the arena. He's back.
JVL00:47:25Nobody's ever really gone.
Sonny00:47:29Exactly.
JVL00:47:30It turns out that all of the Caesars were actually clones. I you know, so I love Gladiator when it came out and I've seen it a bunch of times and I was. Honestly, not looking forward to watching it again. It's been a long time since I've seen it. And I was like, I know this movie so well. I don't really want. And then I know it's great. It's really, really great. And it's, you know, I had like abstracted it in my mind because it's been so long. Like, oh, it's just a series of these really well choreographed fight scenes. And that's not the case. It's it is. No, absolutely epic. Story. And it is not just a series of gladiator fight scenes, although the gladiator scenes are unbelievably compelling. And we don't even get to Russell Crowe becoming a slave. Exactly. Forty minutes in. Yeah, we're 40 minutes into the movie. I. It's it's beautiful. It is lived in. It is real and with very little CGI. And almost no CGI that you can see the seams on. You can see the seams on the tigers, I think. Yeah. Yeah. But the stuff they do to create the Coliseum and that feels to me like it is additive CGI. Like they've got a version of a set or a building that they're filming at the Coliseum. But then they are, you know, adding more detail to it with the CG work.
Sonny00:49:18I think the way they they they built like the lower level of the Coliseum and then they added the CGI on top of that. Yeah. The one the one other place where you do see the seams in the CGI is whenever you see the wide vistas of Rome.
Mike00:49:34Yes.
Sonny00:49:34It looks very it looks very like a sieve. It's like sieve, you know, circa circa 2000 or like the other one. Again, it's it's it's these are little things, but your eye does pick on. Up on them after all these years, like when there were birds flying across the like, oh, those are those are fake birds.
JVL00:49:55I can see the two things I want to say are that Russell Crowe. Is such a dominant actor and movie star, I mean, for all of his private ridiculousness, he is like fucking Brando, you know, except a Brando who never mailed like who never got to a point. Where he started mailing it in because Russell Crowe today, even when he does like the trucker, you know, the trucker revenge movie, like it's unhinged. He's good, right? And his performances are all they're so grounded. This is not a showy role at all. And he is like, you just can't take your eyes off of him. You cannot take your eyes off of the guy. And I want to say this about Joaquin Phoenix, because I never liked. His portrayal and I hear what you're saying, Sonny, but now that we've seen Joaquin Phoenix as a mature actor. I really think that his work in this is bad because he is doing so much capital a acting. Yeah, like he is acting the hell out of every moment that he's on screen and it's fine. It works for the part. But if if Joaquin Phoenix were to do this role again. I believe he would do it very very differently and about a thousand times better because this is a very cardboard cutout Commodus and there's no complexity to it. It's a very flat character and I don't saying that he needs to be conflicted like part good part bad, but like there's no mystery in it. There's no like you've you see everything on the character you're you understand everything you're not surprised. Anything the character does in I think Phoenix would do a very different job with the that part now because probably true. He's a great actor now.
Sonny00:52:00That's why he wasn't I know I think I think that's all very fair. And again my my own it's funny my own evolution on my own like greater appreciation. I think probably becomes because I've seen him do other things better now and I and I like and I realize that he is making a lot of choices here and I understand not liking those choices. I like I totally I don't even disagree necessarily about not liking those choices, but at the same time I watch it now and I'm like, okay, I can under I understand the choices that are being made and I like I don't I don't hate them and I it took me it took me a while
JVL00:52:37to get there. What's up? I think they're very basic choices, you know, like I think he's really like I got to go out there and act my heart out, you know, we're going to do some of the biggest acting anybody's ever seen and I don't I think he would make much more interesting choices now. Yeah, that's that's all and in a way I'm not saying it excuses the role and the deficiencies in it, but it makes me appreciate a little bit more and also, you know, because I recognize that Joaquin Phoenix isn't a bad actor. He was he was a young actor who has gotten really so much better in his craft, but it does make me a little wistful like, oh man, it would have been great if we could have gotten like a plus Joaquin here. That's all. It's fucking great. It's fucking great. Michael.
Mike00:53:28So I was I've been thinking a lot about when I first saw this movie. So this the gladiator has the distinction of being the very first DVD I ever watched. Yeah, we were visiting family on like a spring break trip. Actually, have you seen it in theaters? No, had not seen it in theaters.
Sonny00:53:50Well, you were probably like, what were you like six? Well, I was I was 12.
Mike00:53:55I was 12 when I came. But we were visiting family actually not far from where I am right now. We were visiting the Washington, D.C. area. So family and they had a DVD player and they had gladiator on DVD, which was like the perfect DVD movie in the sense like it was like for that for that initial. New DVD commercially available period. It was like that was the movie you wanted to see, like in the higher definition or the, you know, the digital version, which was going to be better than anything. Letter box DHS. And so I just remember watching it and just being fascinated by like the whole family is like watching this. It was like this moment of like, wow, like like video is going to be different now. And this movie, which is so awesome and badass. And a couple. So a couple of other things. So my wife had actually never seen this movie, which shocked me because like her family was very much into movies. Her dad is like a big movie guy. And it was like on in college. So often, you know, it's like we just it was just one of those movies. So so she watched it with me in preparation for this show. And and she loved it as well. So that's that's that's good. So my memories of Gladiator, I don't remember the last time I saw it, but was probably in college. My memories of it were so there were these moments that were so different than than what the movie actually was. So just like a couple of things. The the murder of the murder of Marcus Aurelius. I remember being like outside, not in the tent, you know, like little details like that. Maybe it all has to do with the stabbing scenes, but like the scene at the end where he stabs. Uh, Maximus in my mind that happened in like in the Coliseum in front of everyone. Not below it before in the arena. And we're like, of course, watching the shit, watching the movie itself would make no sense for like what that served in the plot. But that was just my memory of that. Um, and then what you alluded to earlier, JVL, um, I remember so much more Gladiator stuff going around in Africa and throughout the empire and gladiating, uh, and, and that all of the, the buildup to it in Germania. It's like, I remember that being a blip and instead it's like a huge chunk, huge chunk, important chunk of the movie too. I mean, it's like, there's a lot that happens in that. Uh, and it's just, it's just a, it was a reminder to me that, um, movies that I'm like, oh, like you, I've seen Gladiator. I've seen these movies before. I don't need to go back and watch them again, actually. If they're really great, they really reward going back and watching another time.
JVL00:56:51So one thing I wanted to ask you about Michael was the score because I had not listened to the score in so long. This is early Hans Zimmer. Yes. And listening to it this time and paying attention to it, I thought to myself, a lot of this is aping Gustav Holst. Like a lot of this feels like he's really taking motifs from Mars, from the, yeah, no, from, from the his, his plan, his planet cycle from the planet. It sounds like he's taking the Mars movement and like doing a little bit of transposition in. So it's interesting. The score isn't really as good as the rest of this movie and isn't as good as Zimmer gets later. Do you believe? It's so interesting.
Mike00:57:32You mentioned the score because my wife, we're watching it and she goes, she goes, who did the score for this movie? And I was like, I'm not sure. And I, and, and as I'm looking it up, she goes. Because it sounds like pirates of the Caribbean and I was like, and I was like, I was like, oh, well it is because it's Hans Zimmer and Hans Zimmer the pirates. And, um, and so we had this discussion about the score. It has this very like swashbuckling, uh, feel to it. And of course that's, we're like, I'm, we were retroactively putting that on gladiator because pirates comes out a few years later, but, um, it's very much, it's interesting. I didn't pick up on the Holst, but I can hear that now. And, but the pirates is dead.
JVL00:58:18I didn't pick up on the pirates, but now I can absolutely pirates.
Sonny00:58:21There's, there's also a bit toward the end that sounds a lot like Prometheus. Like, I think it's where like the, the voices kick in the like singing, uh, vocalizations, uh, which, and I was like, oh, wait, is it did Zimmer do Prometheus too? But no, it's just cause it's a Ridley Scott movie. That's the, the connection there.
JVL00:58:42It's a, it's really lovely. And.
Mike00:58:46And you're right about Russell Crowe, Russell Crowe, Russell Crowe it's just, it carries, he carries, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it is a ridiculous premise, but it's also a great movie, but like it's, it's a great movie in, in large part because of Russell Crowe. Like he just carries so much of it. It's not to say all the other elements aren't great as well, but he is, he is it. And that, that movie poster of him, like in the, like the, you know, with. With his arms up in the Coliseum, it's like, that's the movie, like that's it's Russell Crowe in, in the arena and like showing everybody why he's, why he's awesome. So, um, they should give this movie all the awards.
JVL00:59:29That's that's my, but in a very understated way, right? I mean, he's very self-contained and grounded throughout this film. It is not, you know, absolutely.
Mike00:59:41It's it's, it's, it also like, it just makes me miss, I know Russell Crowe has been. Doing stuff. We watched land a bad, the other, you know, a few, few months ago and like, he's, he's great and everything, but it's like, I really miss that period of Russell grow, right? A beautiful mind comes out like a year later and the insider, the year before that, the insider, um, he's so fucking good in the insider LA confidential even, you know, it's just like, oh, anyway. So that's, that's all I had to say.
JVL01:00:10Yeah. That run that he had. So he does, he goes from LA confidential to. This with insider insider, this beautiful mind, um, and I think master commander and master commander, he's very good at mass. I mean, he's just, that's a hell of a run.
Mike01:00:29And I, I, I say this every time we can move, he's making music and fighting around the world. Sorry. Go ahead.
JVL01:00:35I, the first time I saw him was in an incredibly schlocky Denzel, Washington, virtuosity, virtuosity, right? Um, I saw that movie on television. So like a TV broadcast, that movie, when I was like, I don't know, 13 or 12 or something. And I was like, geez, this guy's really interesting. And I didn't even really know anything. Like I, you know, like I, it just, it was obvious from the minute he stepped in front of American audiences that he was a special actor.
Sonny01:01:10For the record, virtuosity came out in 1995. So you were like 20. 23 or.
JVL01:01:19Uh, yeah, I guess that's right. I guess that's right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, virtuosity comes out.
Sonny01:01:24I think a year, no, two years before L.A. Confidential, which then, you know, and then is the inside. I don't know. I mean, look, I don't think anybody is going to dispute Russell Crowe having one of the great runs of this this period.
Mike01:01:41When do we think it ended? Well, I don't know. I mean, is it 310 to Yuma, American Gangster? Like about about that, because like good. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying that's the end of it.
JVL01:01:59And like the sort of the end of the good. The mummy, the mummy killed. It's probably Robin Hood. The mummy. That was like years after his peak. So he is master commander, Cinderella man, Cinderella man, probably. Is the moment when he stops being in movies that are like great movies. Right. Because so we get 310 to Yuma. You've been Cinderella. Right. Right. So we get occasional great movies. But I mean, his run from LA Confidential, I guess he's got a you know, he's got a bunch of stuff like Mystery Alaska, you know, mixed. Oh, he's just doing tons and tons of.
Sonny01:02:45Proof of life. We haven't even discussed proof of life.
JVL01:02:48Yeah. Proof of life. But he we then get Cinderella Man a good year before he does 310 to Yuma. Yeah. Remember that. And American Gangster, Body of Lies.
Mike01:03:01Oh, Body of Lies.
JVL01:03:02Yeah. It just it there's a steep, steep decline in the quality of projects he's in starting with Cinderella Man. And his work is great and everything.
Mike01:03:15And I love, by the way, State of Play 2009, I think, which takes place in D.C. Yeah. It has him like down at the Main Avenue fish market and just like eating. I love that.
JVL01:03:26I forgot Quick and the Dead. We should also count that on his pre, you know, between Virtuosity and he does Quick and the Dead, which is 1995 pleasure movies. Yeah.
Sonny01:03:38Good.
Mike01:03:39I love Quick and the Dead.
Sonny01:03:40Oh, I love that. All right. Great movie.
Mike01:03:42Do we have any other thoughts on Gladiator before we wrap? Wrap this episode up?
JVL01:03:47You know, Michael, I'll just ask you the question that Vic and Sonny and I talked about when we whenever we the three of us would talk about Gladiator. If you were thrust into the arena, which weapons would you want? Are you the guy who would want the trident and the net? No, no, no, no. I don't want the trident. No, absolutely not. That's the Aquaman of Gladiator. Weapons? A trident and a net? You throw the net and then it's gone. Like, what are you supposed to do?
Mike01:04:24So, so like, yeah, and we all saw Anchorman. We know exactly how that turned out. So like, it's not a mace, but what's the one that has that's on the chain? It's like a mace, but where the ball is on the chain. It's a ball and chain. A ball and chain. No, that can't be. But that's. That's the one I want, because that's like, there's a lot you could. Yes, there's a lot you can do with that. You can like.
Sonny01:04:50Is that a flail? Is that what that's called? Is it a flail?
Mike01:04:53I don't think so. I'm thinking back to my D&D.
Sonny01:04:56Yeah, no, it's a flail. Yeah.
JVL01:04:58Okay. A flail? Well, I want the flail.
Sonny01:05:00A star flail.
JVL01:05:01That's what I want. But once you, like, once you miss with it, you gotta, you gotta wait like a good three seconds before it comes back around and you're wide open. I don't know, man. I suppose so.
Mike01:05:13But I just feel like the. The hit. That's a, that is a, that is a critical hit. When it, when you hit with that, like you're hitting for.
JVL01:05:22It is a critical hit, but then also you got to start the rotation momentum again after every hit. I don't know. I think that's a.
Mike01:05:29I'm strong. I could do it. Are you saying I can't do it? I guess. You're saying you've been eating too many cookies to do it?
JVL01:05:34I just think that a shield and short sword is probably the way to go. That you're probably right.
Sonny01:05:43None of this matters. You know what I am? I'm the guy who's pissing himself before he goes in the, the, the ring. I'm the guy, I'm the guy who's urination disgusts Ridley or Russell Crowe. And he smacks him and steps back. He's like, this guy's going to. I'm getting my arm chopped off by Arnold Schwarzenegger's body double. That's what.
JVL01:06:01So that he can use that as the flame.
Sonny01:06:04Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
JVL01:06:06That is one of my favorite moments. The entire movie is when he uses the, the hand on the edge, on the end of the. Chain to beat one of the other gladiators. That's just fantastic.
Mike01:06:19He gave us what I wanted. Well, well, that is all the time we are going to give to this episode. Join us over at sub beacon.com. Leave a comment. Tell us what gladiator weapon you would use. I see what I did there. Uh, and we will talk to you next time.
Sonny01:06:43Mike, Mike. Your, your, uh, signals cutting in and out. You got to get that Eero. Got to get that Eero. I do got it.
Mike01:06:49I know I got to get the Eero. I've been thinking about it. Maybe that's a Christmas present for, for really for you guys. That's, that's really what it is.
Sonny01:06:56So I, uh, treat yourself.
JVL01:06:58I got one little thing for you guys. One little thing for the outtakes. So, uh, G money appears after school yesterday holding, uh, one of our life straws. Are you guys familiar with the life straw? No. Is it a staple for anybody? Anybody who camps or hikes? It is a filtration system that allows you to safely drink water from any source. And so, yeah, you just stick, it's like a little blue, put it right in the toilet. And so you just, yeah, stick it in a stream while you're hiking. You could just drink to your heart's content. You don't have to worry about contamination and bacteria and viruses and stuff. So G money appears and he says to me, Hey dad, the, uh, the life straw, it can filter out except for the molecules of water. Right. And I said, yeah, yeah, that's how it works. It's pretty, pretty amazing. He goes, great. Thanks. Running off with it into the bathroom. And I said, buddy, what are you doing? And he says, I'm going to try drinking out of the toilet. And you know what I did as father of the year?
Sonny01:08:10You just let it happen.
JVL01:08:11I said, okay, buddy. Kept on, went on my way.
Sonny01:08:17I'm sure it's fine. I'm sure it's fine.
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