#291. 'Dog Man' (Theaters)
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Mike solo-hosts alongside Sonny and JVL to tackle Dog Man, the DreamWorks adaptation of Dave Pilkey's mega-selling kids' books, which Sonny (whose own six-year-old loved it) pitches as essentially "RoboCop for kids" — a cop reassembled as a super-cop, complete with a surprisingly poignant Murphy-esque homecoming scene — while dinging the film's intentionally ugly art style and mawkish family-drama detour; his older daughter shrugged it off, and Mike reports his book-obsessed ten-year-old found the movie a forgettable "slog," more interested in cataloguing continuity errors against the source material than in the film itself. JVL, bracing for wall-to-wall fart jokes, was pleasantly surprised by how restrained the humor was but still rates it well below Dave Pilkey's other adaptation, Captain Underpants, citing its far stronger voice cast and screenplay; the trio agree Pilkey is shrewdly, wildly successful regardless, and land on the silver lining that even lowbrow books are still building kids' reading muscles. Before any of that, the episode opens with a long stretch of banter: JVL details his sudden deep dive into the Star Wars Unlimited trading card game with his son G-Money (bought packs, learned the "magic"-style mechanics, is scheming to build a "meta" deck), Sonny recounts a trip to Disneyland highlighted by watching cast members expertly, invisibly eject a visibly drunk man from the Guardians of the Galaxy ride before it could go badly, and Mike describes his slow-going DIY project faking built-in bookshelves in his basement. They also run through the week's box office — Captain America: Brave New World's so-so opening and B-minus CinemaScore, and Paddington in Peru's underwhelming debut, which Sonny attributes to Paddington 2's "beloved classic" reputation being more of an internet meme than genuine mass affection. Sonny signs off early to solo-parent, previewing a night of Wild Things and Sliver for his kids on Vic Mattis's recommendation.
From the show notes
Half dog, half man! Dog Man! A Man Dog! He fights a cat!
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00What if we sew the dog's head onto the man's body? Great idea!
Mike00:00:18Welcome to the Sub-Beacon podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me, as always, are my super awesome co-hosts, Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. We're starting off on the right foot, aren't we, Sonny? You love this dog man stuff. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. You can become a patron there. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell anyone who you think would like to listen to this podcast that they can do it over at Sub-Beacon.com. We've got new episodes every Friday. We've got occasional bonus episodes. And the comments section is always lively. Sometimes I dip in and respond to folks. So, yeah. So, join us over there at Sub-Beacon.com. We're going to be talking about Dog Man later on in today's show. But first, JVL, you're solo-dadding it. How's the movie selection process been? Are the reviews in yet? Crushing it.
JVL00:01:23I'm crushing it. He loves, Flash loves old school and office space so much. Oh, yeah. Old school. Old school might be the greatest movie ever. But that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about, do either of you gentlemen ever indulge in any card gaming in your youth?
Mike00:01:40When you say cards, you're not talking about a pack of bicycles.
JVL00:01:45Poker. Not anything that you do with a pack of bicycles. Something that you might do with, say, a little gathering of magic. Oh, like a magic.
Sonny00:01:55Yu-Gi-Oh! I definitely had... I never actively played this, but I had the Star Wars collectible card game. I just like to get the cards and look at them. And there was also a... God, there was a Marvel version called Overwatch or something. I'll see if I can effort that. But yes, I'm aware. I never played Magic the Gathering or Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh! or any of those. But yes, I'm familiar.
Mike00:02:27I was familiar with...
JVL00:02:29Particularly Magic the Gathering. You were doubling up two chicks at the same time. When all of your classmates were doing that, you were sitting on the edge of your bed with the guitar singing to Madison and Kathy.
Mike00:02:40In my dreams, maybe. No, but I was very... Sorry, sorry. Madison and Brianna. Madison and Kathy.
JVL00:02:49Kathy.
Mike00:02:50My mother-in-law's name. Overpower.
Sonny00:02:53Overpower. That's what I was thinking about.
Mike00:02:55Overpower. No. So Magic the Gathering and Pokemon. Like, kind of hit when I was in elementary, middle school. Like, late elementary, early middle school. And I hated both of them. I had friends who did, who played with them. But, like, it was inscrutable to me. And I'm a game person. I like games. But tell us, JVL, what's going on in the card game?
JVL00:03:18So G-Money and I have somehow gotten ourselves involved in Star Wars Unlimited. Which is a new, less... Less than year old one of these TCG games. And it is very similar to Magic the Gathering.
Mike00:03:38Or so I've been told.
JVL00:03:40And I... So I just missed Magic. So Magic the Gathering comes out right as I am leaving high school. And I promise you that if it had come out five years earlier when I was in eighth grade... I would have been super into it. But I'm... I missed it. My best friend Chris got super into it in college. But, you know, he was hanging out with a bunch of stoners. That was a thing they did. So G-Money and I just sort of randomly picked up a couple packs of this. Looking to... Because he loved all things Star Wars. And looking to collect them. And there's a game shop in our little town right down the street from his school. And we've never been in there before. And we went in.
Mike00:04:24And there was a very kind, very large... Early 30s... Early 30s something gentleman with a Viking-esque beard. Oh, neck bearded.
JVL00:04:36And he, in fact, taught us how to play. And then we just started buying more stuff. We got a couple mats. A couple of the official game-genic play mats to make it easier to play the game. And learning all sorts of stuff about summoning and mana and creatures and spells and... Wait, what's the name of this game? Star Wars. Star Wars Unlimited.
Mike00:05:02Hold on, hold on, hold on. Yeah, that's right. Spells and mana in Star Wars? Yeah.
JVL00:05:07So, of course, in Star Wars, they're called something different. But amongst the gaming community, people simply use... The magic of the gathering is the yardstick. And so all of the... Since the mechanics are similar, or the base mechanics, the fundamental mechanics are similar, but different games use them in different ways. So the things in magic... They're called mana, and you summon creatures, and you cast spells. And they refer to colors instead of aspects. And in Star Wars, they've asked... But in Star Wars, we just use... In the Star Wars Unlimited community... Yes.
Mike00:05:44Yes. Yeah. The Frinkinator 5000.
JVL00:05:48We... We just use the magic terminology. Now, despite the fact that I was never able to understand how to play Magic the Gathering, I've started to understand how to play Star Wars Unlimited. And I submitted... I sent it to you guys that my local gaming shop has a little tournament every week. Just a casual tournament. They don't adhere to all of the official laws and rules from the Star Wars Unlimited tournament governing body. And I'm just wondering, like, I don't know, maybe I'm working my way up to being able to... Right now, all I've done is play against G-Money. And he and I play probably three or four games of Star Wars a day.
Sonny00:06:25So, wait. Hold on. Hold on. Just to be clear, you're training on your... You're training on your very young son.
Guest00:06:32Yeah.
Sonny00:06:32So, you can go beat adults at this game later. I mean, maybe. Is that where we're getting to here? Is that what... Is that what's happening?
JVL00:06:38It sounds aspirational to beat them. Look, I don't think that I would be beating these adults right off the bat.
Sonny00:06:44Right. Right.
JVL00:06:45But I feel like... I feel like I could level up pretty quickly. Because here's the thing.
Sonny00:06:52Unlike many of these people, I have a job. You have money.
JVL00:06:56And so... You can buy the card. I need to just... If I just... I need to get my... Acquire the most badass meta deck. That's another thing. We're talking about decks that are meta. Meaning the decks that are just really, really overpowered right now. I could just do that.
?00:07:13Yeah.
JVL00:07:14That's cheating.
Sonny00:07:15I would be opposed to that. That's the Yankees.
Mike00:07:17You'd be the Yankees of the...
JVL00:07:18I could be the Yankees. See, I don't like that. There's some free agent signings here with the Death Star card, which is a 10-mana, 15-power... I have very strong feelings on this.
Sonny00:07:29I look down on the people who assemble their decks piecemeal by overpaying for... You got to buy the packs. You got to open them up. That's half the fun.
JVL00:07:40Oh, we've been doing that. Half the fun is buying the packs and opening them up. Anyway, I just wanted to see what you guys would think about that. If that was just another thing that I got into. Maybe it's just a thing. Like, you know, I got into roofing, got into some woodworking, I'm into watches. I mean, I think maybe I'm going to become a card game guy. Tom Abella, Tom who's listening to this right now, he's exploding in joy. His entire life he's wanted me to get into this stuff.
Sonny00:08:06But the problem, I'm pro, I like the collectible card games much more than the like, because they're IP based. I like these IP based things instead of the random board games that are like, I don't know, build your own amusement park. And like, how can I build a roller coaster on a tabletop? Stop, stop with this. I want to, I want to, I just want to have Luke Skywalker fight Darth Vader. Can I do that? Is that a thing I can do in this game?
JVL00:08:36With Star Wars Unlimited, you sure can. No limits. The Luke Skywalker cards are currently about $46 each. And in a deck, you want your deck to have 50 cards and you should have three of each of your cards in general. Question.
Mike00:08:53Yeah, go ahead. What, what are the, I know it's Star Wars Unlimited, but what are the limits on? The canon characters and creatures that are featured in this game? Like, I mean, what are we, what are we talking about? Obviously the, the, the main trilogy of trilogies of movies.
JVL00:09:13So, uh, these, these set has a bunch of things that I have never in my life heard of that I assume are characters or vehicles that showed up for a single frame of Clone Wars, the animated series. Got it. Or something like that, right? Right, right, right. And, uh, but it is interesting to me that they, I mean, understand that none of the abilities actually map to the characters in the IP, right? They just like, here's the Millennium Falcon. We're going to give the Millennium Falcon whatever abilities we wanted to have. But they clearly reserve the top shelf IP for the more powerful stuff. And so it is, you know, like you're, you're Chewbacca. It's a powerful card. Your Boba Fett is a powerful card. Luke, Vader. Uh, there are a couple of cards which are sort of like, meh, character IP-wise that are quite powerful. Um, Sabine something or another, some character I'd never heard of. But in general, uh, the good, the good people get, get, you know, Admiral Piat's not bad.
Sonny00:10:23What about a Grand Moff Tarkin? If I pull a Grand Moff Tarkin, is he, is he powerful?
JVL00:10:27He's, he's okay. He's not, he's not, he's not super. He's not powerful, but he's okay.
Mike00:10:30Question. Yeah. What about, uh, what's his name? The, uh, the owner of the space diner. Maz Canut.
JVL00:10:37Oh, that, that. So I haven't found him yet. Has to pull up his, his.
Mike00:10:40Yes, Dax? Show his ass crack. Is it Dax?
JVL00:10:43Is that the character's name? Dax something or another?
Mike00:10:45No, it's like, it's like, it's something stupid like Jetson Wetson or something. Yeah, I haven't found him. It's something, I'll, I'll, I'll have to bet.
JVL00:10:52But I'm certain, I'm certain he will be, uh.
Sonny00:10:55Dexter Jetster.
JVL00:10:57Dexter Jetster. We were both right. We were both right. We were both right.
Mike00:11:00Dexter Jetster.
JVL00:11:01All right, so that's all. I just wanted to throw out there a little bit of Star Wars Unlimited talk. If anybody has, uh, if anybody out there who's listening to this isn't a Star Wars Unlimited, let me know what your preferred deck is or where, what the best way to acquire cards is. I'm open to learning. I'm but a Padawan in this moment.
?00:11:18All right.
Guest00:11:20All right. Thank you, JVL. All right, Sonny.
JVL00:11:27What do you got for it? Amazing that I get to sleep with a woman every night.
Sonny00:11:30We can do a whole tournament. Well, not every night. Originally. She's fled the country.
JVL00:11:35When wifey goes away. She's never coming back.
Sonny00:11:42I, uh, no, I'm, uh, this is, this is all good to hear. Maybe I might try and get my son into this because that sounds like a fun, fun father son activity. It is kind of fun. I mention this because, because we. We, so I don't, I don't want to do like a whole theme park thing after the last couple of weeks of Mike doing theme park things, but I, I took my, I took my family to Disneyland this, this last week, uh, which was, which is fun. It's a, it costs like a quarter as much as Disney world, uh, all told. So if you're, I would recommend doing the Disneyland thing instead of the Disney world thing. Very similar. A lot of the same rides amongst them, uh, amongst them, star Wars rise of the resistance, which we, we did. Uh, uh, and star tours, which is always fun. Star tours is a fun ride.
JVL00:12:26Would you call it the Disney Leppin to Disney world? Is it the, the Leppin?
Sonny00:12:31No, because Disneyland's the original. It's like, it's like a, it's just a, it's like a smaller version of Disneyland.
Mike00:12:37It's like, it's like going to, it's like going to, it's, it's the magic kingdom, but smaller.
Sonny00:12:42Yeah, kind of, but like way smaller, like way smaller. Anyway, I don't want to talk, I don't really want to talk about, uh, I don't want to do the whole Disney thing. I don't want to do the whole Disney thing, but I do want to talk about one thing that happened. I want to talk about one thing that happened at Disney. So we, uh, we were on, we were, we were entering the, uh, Guardians of the Galaxy, uh, ride at California Adventure, Disney's California Adventure. So basically they rebranded, if you know Tower of Terror, so Tower of Terror is the ride that goes up and down and up and down and up and down. And you're, you feel like kind of weightless, whatever. Um, they rebranded Tower of Terror as a Guardians of the Galaxy ride. And it's very, the mechanics are still very similar. You go up, you go down, you go up, you go down. Um, and it, it goes in the dark and it's like kind of scary, but it's also fun. You know, your stomach goes up and down. Anyway, so we are entering, we are entering the like building to the first holding station before you enter the actual ride. You know, there's the line, there's the line all around. Um, we didn't, we did the lightning lanes cause we do not wait in line. I am like, I'm a big lightning lane believer. I do not do lines. I just wasted dead time. I will, I will pay.
JVL00:13:53You can't win the theme park. You cannot win the park unless you do lightning lanes.
Sonny00:13:57It's not even that, it's really not that expensive. It's like 25 bucks a ticket, uh, per day. And like you're, so like you pay a hundred dollars, you pay a hundred dollars and you, and you skip a ton of lines for the day. It's totally worth it. Um, anyway, the, uh, we did, so we did the lightning lane and we're going in and the people right behind us in the lightning lane, or I'm sorry, the people right in front of us as we were going in the lightning lane. It was a woman and a man and the man was, I am not exaggerating as drunk as I've seen a human being like, and you've met Vic Mattis and I've met, I've met some drunks in my day. I've been, I've been a drunk in my day, but this man, this man was like, could this man, I mean like he wasn't as right.
JVL00:14:41Like the tower of terror sounds like a great thing to do when you're drunk.
Sonny00:14:44This is, this is my immediate thought. My immediate thought was this man who was being literally held up by this woman as he enters the ride is about to go on a ride where the entire point of the ride is you go up and you go down and it makes your stomach go. I'm making a little like curvy motion with my fingers here. Like I'm doing a flip flop. And like that, that's, that's the ride. That's the whole ride. I mean, there's some, again, guardians of the galaxy branding, whatever, but the thrill part of it is up and down, up and down, makes your stomach light. And my immediate reaction to this man being directly in front of, and then behind us because he's leaning against the wall in the holding room to, you know, keep himself on his feet.
JVL00:15:26Maybe he was holding the wall up.
Sonny00:15:28My immediate thought was I cannot be anywhere near this person on the ride. My family cannot be anywhere near this person on the ride because he is going to throw up everywhere. He is going to throw up everywhere on this ride. So I see this and my wife sees this. She clocks it too. And like, we look at each other like, what is, what is going on here? And you know, in the, in the Disney, in the Disney parks, you know, you have the cast members who are dressed up themed to the ride and they're kind of in the rooms along the way as you go. And in this room, uh, which is made up to look like, uh, you know, the collector from the guardians of the galaxy,
JVL00:16:03the Benicio del Toro guy, the Benicio del Toro character.
Sonny00:16:06So it's, it's the collector's office, right? And it's got all sorts of crazy crap on the walls that he's collected from around the galaxy. Um, but in this, in the collector's office, there are two cast members who are kind of like, on the other side of the room watching, you know, saying step forward, move forward, stand in the center of the room, blah, blah, blah. Um, the collector will be with you shortly. You know, they're doing their whole spiel and this guy's leaning against the wall. And I'm like, I'm looking, I'm like, did you knock him out? I'm like looking from this guy to, and like with my eyes, you know, you know how you beg people with your eyes.
JVL00:16:37Oh, I know.
Sonny00:16:38I'm like, I'm like begging these people to notice what,
JVL00:16:42doing that thing where you do exaggerated throwing your eyes from one place to another with your head.
Sonny00:16:47No. It wasn't, it wasn't that so much. Cause I didn't want to be obvious about it. I didn't want to be obvious, but I was like, I was like, I was kind of like, you know, like you're doing the subtle head, the subtle, but these, but these, but these, these two ladies were, were on it. They like saw this guy, they understood, they, they saw what was going on. They saw what was going on. And so from this room, you go through, you go through a door, you go into another like hallway where you got to wind around. There's more waiting, whatever. Um, as we're, as we're leaving, these two again are like the last people out. Cause they're like, cause again, she is holding him up and he's, he's not really moving as, as we're all leaving the two, uh, uh, cast members come over and they're like, Hey, you doing all right, man. You seem a little, you know, out of it. You know, this is a ride. It's got a lot of ups and downs and I can't hear everything that's going on. Cause we're leaving, we're going to the next room, but they're, they've clearly like saw this guy and they're talking to him. They're talking to him. So I'm like, Oh, thank God. Thank, thank God for Disney. You know, they do. Good job training their employees. And we go into them, we're waiting in the line and the two people come through the door. Two people come through the door. They've, they've, they've passed, they passed the check. So I am once again, thinking to myself, there's gotta be some way we get these people away from us because now they are directly behind us in the line. Like it is, we're in a single file line. They are directly behind us.
Mike00:18:09Your, your effort to get this under control has now screwed you
Sonny00:18:13because it is backfired. It's backfired badly on me. So we're, we're going up, we're going up the gang. You go up some steps, you go up across a gangplank and you know, and there's, uh, we stop right before like the loading area for the ride. So you go, you go up and it's basically like you're loading 20 people into a big elevator. And they're like a cargo elevator. Right. Uh, and the, we stopped, there's like, there's like six people in front of us. Then there's us a group of four. And then there's these people behind us. It was two and then, you know, more people down the line. And so we, we stop and, uh, the lady at the, the front of this ride, is like, uh, we need to, we need to, we need to for this ride and they go forward. And I'm like, yes, I have, I have avoided the problem. I've avoided the problem. And so the lady pulls these two people forward and takes them up to the ride. And like the way, again, the way it's set up is that there's like, there's an elevator shaft on the left, in the center, in the right, the one, all the way on the left is like not an operation. Nobody has been standing there. Um, the one in the center has. People waiting. The one in the right has people waiting. So she gets these two people and she's like, okay, we're going to go, we're going to go over to this, the shaft over here on the left. And I'm like, Oh, interesting. And she takes them not to the elevator shaft, but to a door right next to the elevator shaft, where I get it. I can see this. I can see this through. There is a cast member with like a highway trooper hat on waiting there for them. And they go into that door and they do not return. And it was, it was the single most impressive thing I've ever seen at a Disney park because what happened was what happened, a very specific sequence of events happened. The, uh, two women saw the, the two cast members saw the problem.
JVL00:20:00How old are these cast members? These like teenagers working?
Sonny00:20:03Yeah. They're like 20. They're, they're somewhere, they're somewhere between 19. I don't know. There's somewhere between 19 and 28. Everybody in that age range looks the same way, but they're young, they're young, they're young, they're young. You know, people, um, they, they, they, they talk to these people, they clock the problem, they did not pull them off the ride there and make a scene. They did not pull them off the ride before they got on the ride. They made, they made it. So these people felt like they were getting to skip the line. They were excited to go to where they were being called to go to. And when, once they got there, there was a figure of authority who immediately shut the door and was like, you're, you got, I don't know what happened after that. Maybe they went to the Disney jail. I don't know, but they, but like. Yeah, I was going to say, they got, they got thrown down the, uh, tower of terror, uh, elevator shaft is what, is what I was thinking.
Mike00:20:57This is like Tommy DeVito, you know, at the, uh, at the end of Goodfellas.
Sonny00:21:00At the good in Goodfellas. Um, but it was, it was like, honestly, it was, it was one of these things where you, you can see after the fact, you see each discreet step of the security process and it all makes sense and it is all designed to be done in a way that is totally invisible to anybody who's not paying attention to it. And I was, I was just like, this is, this is the, the, one of the most impressive things I've ever seen in my life. I like, I, I, I have never been more impressed by a theme park than I was in that moment where they were, where they were very, uh, casually and efficiently removing trouble makers from where they were, where they were liquidating.
JVL00:21:43Stalin, Stalin should have had Disney running the, the
Mike00:21:47Gulags would have much, much less problem with, uh, inmate management.
JVL00:21:53You just make everybody feel like they're there where they supposed to be.
Sonny00:21:57I got to say anyway, so Disney was amazing, but it was, it was like that, like the, the rides and everything are fun, but like, that is why Disney is as good as it is, is because they, they really are just the best at this sort of stuff. I, I, I, I w it blew my mind. It blew my mind more than anything else at the parks that day. It was crazy. Anyway, that's it. That's great. All right.
Mike00:22:19Well, thank you. Michael, what are you up to buddy? Um, there's not much going on right now. Uh, w I am in the midst of a home reno project that I am doing, um, yourself. Yes, for the, for the most part, but it's, it's, it's, I make it sound like more than what it is. So w this is a total like cheating half halfway, um, using. Um, all right, let me just describe what it is. So, um, my, my lovely and intelligent wife has, um, has been reading and has been very interested in, can you do built in bookshelves by yourself? And the way to do this is essentially to cheat by buying ready-made like Ikea style bookshelves, um, and doing some. Cosmetic things to make them look like built-ins and it's a way to save money. It's a way to, um, sort of get that nice built in bookshelf look on the cheap. So that's what I am doing currently. Um, and it's work, it's working well, it's just very slow and it's very clearly too slow for my wife's, uh, oh, for the foreman, uh, for the
JVL00:23:41foreman on your job project, exactly.
Sonny00:23:43She's, she's laying the hammer down. She's like, we gotta move on here. We speak.
Mike00:23:46Yeah, exactly. But things have, things have progressed. So basically for the first like month of this year, it's been a very slow process of me, like getting the lumber to build a base of two by fours, essentially like two, two by fours, uh, with, in a frame as a base for these four bookshelves, which we put together and those were Ikea. They were very easy. You put them together and then we're elevating them on a base, um, so putting the base together took longer than I expected. I was just, I'd never done something like this before. And so I was sort of learning as I go with using my circular saw to kind of get the right length. And, and of course it needs to be, um, perfectly, it needs to be perfect. Yeah. Um, so, and I still don't think it's great. I still don't think it's perfect, but it's like good enough. Good enough for me and stuff too. So eventually there'll be trim and. And all of that. So, um, uh, and so I spent the weekend, um, sort of ripping up the carpet and ripping off the baseboard molding or the, the, you know, the, the, the foot molding, whatever, um, so that I could attach the base to the wall. Um, and, uh, and it's just been, it's just an, it's just an adventure. So there's nothing of note to mention other than I'm in the middle of this. Um, I'm every single day. I'm like, I really hope this doesn't look like absolute shit when I'm, when I'm
JVL00:25:25done because question, yes, the bookcases you got from Ikea, they're not MDF. Are they something in there that you're going to live with for forever?
Mike00:25:38No, I understand that. No. So the, this particular, so there are about 30 or 40 people on the internet. Who have done it with this particular type of bookcase. This is not, this is not, we're not making this up on the fly. I'm basically, okay.
JVL00:25:54It's like Tudor culture. Like everybody starts with the Honda civic for a reason and the civic hatchback and you can tune it out.
Mike00:26:01Yes, yes, exactly. So, um, there is, there is, I am basing this off of people who have done this and done this well. And like the finished product always looks great. Um, and, uh, it's just, uh, it's. It's, it's, it's a lot of pressure. That's all I have to say. Question.
JVL00:26:22Did you explain to your wife the time value money part of the equation? No, because your time is valuable.
Mike00:26:31I knew you were going to bring this up JVL, but no, no, I, I, I, I don't
JVL00:26:36maybe I'd spec that out and see how much some professional would charge to do it. And then like what your hourly weight is doing it yourself.
Sonny00:26:43And yeah, it'd probably be pretty expensive. I like when we get, when we, when, so what the bookshelf time is pretty expensive.
Mike00:26:53It's a professional writer. Well, that's okay. Well, we all like to, we all like to think so.
Sonny00:27:00Wouldn't we, we'd all like to think so, but no, like when I, so the bookshelf behind me, you know, we got, we got done, uh, as part of like remodeling, you know, a couple of different things in the house. And this part of it was like, and this is a very basic bookshop. I mean, it's literally just like.
JVL00:27:17It's literally just shelves, you know, that are, you know, but it looks, it
Sonny00:27:21looks nice and it looks, sorry, people probably can't hear me. It looks nice and it looks built in and it, cause it is. Um, but it was like, it was like $1,200 or something just for this part of it.
JVL00:27:31And this is a small, because they're custom. That's why it's custom. I built in, in the same way that like cabinetry is, is expensive. It's because it's, it's basically custom. Something's not modular then you're paying for it.
Mike00:27:43So this is, I mean, this is my, my wife is very, um. Um, uh, cost conscious and in ways that are very, uh, useful for us. And, um, but she is sort of a master at finding, okay, if something is custom, is there a way to sort of like half custom? Like, uh, what was Rachel Ray's show? Um, uh, no, no, no. Before it was right. It's like the, uh, 30 minute. I can't remember, but it was like, it was like, or no, no, it wasn't Rachel Ray. It's, um, uh, Andrew Cuomo's ex-girlfriend memory was like, it was like, uh, it was like homemade meals, but like halfway done. It's like, like what, what things can you do that are like ready-made and, um, uh, you only have to do sort of like half of the work and you basically get like a full, uh, you know, a fully homemade meal.
Sonny00:28:37Um, and that's kind of what we're doing.
Mike00:28:40So anyway, but, but I've run into the biggest, the biggest problem I've run into is that like my 50 plus year old house. Like the floors of the basement are not even, and those corners are not going to be sure 100% because this is in our basement. So, um, I've already like placed the bookshelves on the base, which is attached, the base is currently attached to the wall and it's actually, I'm actually impressed that the three of them. Uh, are, are fine and flush and level and all of that. It's just the, the one in the corner is not, um, it's actually going to be. I hope he says. This, uh, uh, at risk of it not being easy, but it's actually going to be pretty straightforward to, to kind of shim in the, put some shims under the front of it and make it level and make it even I've already basically done that in terms of I did, you know, and then do you bolt them into the studs? Yes. So, so I, I mean, it comes with, I mean, I've got it right here. It's got, it comes with like these brackets here. Um, these L brackets that I'll, that I'll put into the studs. And so it will sit on that. On the base, but it will not be attached to the base, the bases attached to the studs and the shell and the, and the bookcases will be attached to the sides. So, um, so anyway, very exciting. Yeah. Well, okay. We'll see. But, um, we should move on from this and talk very quickly about box office, uh, for this week, because number one of the box office is the first kind of big Marvel movie in a while, captain America, brave new world, um, opening in its opening weekend, 88, uh, almost $89 million, uh, followed by Paddington and Peru also opening this week, uh, significantly less at, uh, uh, just under $13 million. Uh, any box office thoughts?
Sonny00:30:32Uh, no, I, I, I'm more interested to see how this movie ends up holding in weekend number two than I am, uh, to, than I am in, in how it, uh, opens because, you know, $13 million slash a hundred million three day, four day, um, opening is solid, but if it drops 70% in weekend number two, then that's, that's really bad. Um, you know, I don't, I don't know. I like, there has not been a, a MCU, like a pure MCU movies since November of 2023. And that was the Marvels. And that movie did not gross a hundred. This movie, this movie grossed more in its first three days than the Marvels did in its entire domestic run. So I like, we'll see, we'll see how it, we'll see how it holds. Uh, I don't know. It got a B minus from cinema score. Not great, not great for a movie of this sort. It's not a very good movie. I can, I can tell you that much.
JVL00:31:29B minus seems very low for a crowd pleasing action movie.
Sonny00:31:33B minus is, I think B minus is what, uh, the Marvels and Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania got. So, and those movies both had enormous drops in their second weekend. So I don't know. We'll see, we'll see how it does.
JVL00:31:47Can I ask a Paddington question? Yeah, sure. Paddington 2 is an absolutely beloved cult classic. Why? How is it the Paddington 3, because it's great, because it's a great movie, um, because Hugh Grant gives the performance of his life in it. Um, how is it the Paddington 3 gets no, like, it seems so completely disconnected from it that it is not able to capitalize at all on the, the built in sort of cultural cache of Paddington 2.
Sonny00:32:19Because there is no built in cultural cache of Paddington 2. There's, there's a, there's a lot of, it is a, it is a, when people, I agree that there are lots of people who really like it in the, in the internet sense of things. It is very much of, it's a very online phenomenon. I think I don't, I don't think there is a mass there's even a movie in what?
JVL00:32:41No, it's in, uh, uh, the, the, the Pedro Pascal, Nick cage movie, there's a whole, like part of the gag is. Then making the cage, you know what that movie is?
Sonny00:32:51That is a fucking meme movie. That whole movie is a meme movie. This is, and this is part of that. That the reason that movie, the reason that movie failed is because it is, it's an online meme of people being like, Hey, you know, who's kind of wacky and quirky as Nick cage and they Nick cage and Pedro Pascal, they probably like Paddington too. Just like us on the internet. We liked that movie and they liked that movie. That's I mean, this is, again, I like. I, there is, there is a legitimate Paddington to fandom out there, but I do not think it's a, like an actual broad appeal sort of thing.
Mike00:33:24I feel like at this moment we could have put that, that Jeff of Pedro Pascal and Nick cage in the car and have, uh, Sonny as a Nick cage staring and JVL as Pedro Pascal grinning, uh, at, at, uh, at that moment. So, uh, okay.
Sonny00:33:43I mean, like I, I like that. I mean, memes, memes, that's all we have now. That's all society is. Memes, memes.
Mike00:33:51Uh, yeah. Okay. Well, um, is there any other thoughts on the box office or should we move on to number four on this week's box office, uh, dog man, the most anticipated movie of our kids of a certain ages generation and otherwise
JVL00:34:12dog man holds Sonny.
Sonny00:34:14Uh, well, let's look at the. Weekends here. Uh, it, it dropped, it actually dropped pretty big in its second weekend, but its second weekend was Superbowl was the Superbowl and that's always, always one of the worst weekends of the year. I mean, it dropped 61% second weekend. It only dropped 29% from weekend two to weekend three, which is a solid hold, but it's also not, it's not, uh, I don't, you know, this, this movie might limp to about a hundred million domestic. We'll see.
JVL00:34:42Yeah. It didn't cost a hundred million, did it?
Sonny00:34:44Oh, no, no, this, this was a relatively cheap movie. I think 40 million.
Mike00:34:48Oh, you can tell.
Sonny00:34:49Yeah.
Mike00:34:50Uh, well, should we, should we discuss dog, man? Uh, Sonny, do you want to give us a big boy review of dog, man?
Sonny00:34:58Dog man from the guy who it's dev Pilkey. Is that his name?
Mike00:35:03Pilkey, Dave, the Dave Pilkey universe.
Sonny00:35:06Dave Pilkey. It's, uh, it basically, what you, what you have to understand about this movie is that it's basically Robo cop for kids, uh, a cop, a cop. A cop gets blown up by an evil genius villain and gets reassembled as, uh, as a super cop, as a super cop who is both brilliant, uh, in his mind and can do all the fist fighting that he needs to do. And he becomes super, super cop. Uh, I mean, it's literally like, as I was watching the movie, I was like, this is almost beat for beat Robo cop, at least through the first 30 or 40 minutes. Um, and then after the Robo cop segment. I mean, it turns into kind of a, uh, mawkish family drama about, you know, wanting to be with your loved ones, blah, blah, blah, which was not that interesting to me and I like Robo cop myself. Um, uh, but now, I mean, look, I, this movie is not for me. I don't like the dog man books. I don't like, I didn't really like this movie very much. Um, but I will say, and my daughter who is very into the dog man books did not like this movie. She was like, I like the books more. Where's all my diarrhea jokes at kind of, but also she was like, you know, little Petey doesn't show up till book number two. Oh yeah. And I was, I was like, okay, I, I don't know what to tell you. I'm not going to get into the
JVL00:36:24Canon policing it.
Sonny00:36:27I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna get into Gwen pool, uh, Gwen pooling this with you. So, um, uh, the, anyway, I, not for me, but my six-year-old loved it. When little, when little Petey showed up, he was rolling in his seat. He was like, every time that little baby cat opened his mouth, he was laughing and laughing, so I don't know it worked for him. Um, as you, as you mentioned JBL, the animation style is, I would describe it as intentionally rough, intentionally rough. It looks, it looks like, but the books themselves are like very, there's one reason I don't like the books is because the, the artwork looks like dog shit. Uh, like I want, if, if you, you, you want me to be interested in your funny book for children, you get Alex Ross to paint those pictures. I want the Alex Ross dog man. You get, you get Mark Bagley out there. Have Mark Bagley make a dog man book. Then I'd be interested, but none of this.
JVL00:37:24Life-size oil portraits.
Sonny00:37:26Yeah, like dog man with like realistic dog features and the most terrifying thing you've ever seen. Uh, I don't know. I, so I didn't, I did not care for this movie. Uh, my daughter, my older daughter did not care for this movie. She thought it was fine. She was like, I didn't really like it. It was fine, I guess. Um, but my son. Uh, loved it. He was rolling. So if you have a six year old at home, this is the movie for them.
Mike00:37:53Michael, what did your boys think of it? So I only took my, my oldest, my 10 year old, my, my, my almost seven year old does not go to the theaters. It's um, he's not, not into it. Um, he's, he's waiting for this one to come out on, on home home video or whatever. Um, so, but actually we did, we, this was our post. Um, one of the days we were at the universal park. Like our po like we were done for the day. We went to go see this at the movie theater right there outside of universal studios. Um, and I would say my 10 year old who is obsessed with the dog man books also. Brought up some, some issues with the cannon. Like the first thing that we discussed, he was like, well, what was confusing is because it wasn't until the second book and then they had, um, like ADHD doesn't show up until the third book. And then, and, um, there's this whole store and like the whole, that's funny. The whole cannon was like in his head, just ready to be sort of, uh, unfurled to explain what was wrong with, uh, with the plot of the movie. But other than that, I mean, he, he sort of was more, it was more of an observation than him sort of like complaining about it. Uh, I think he liked it fine. I think it was totally forgettable in a way that, I mean, that is, um, I was surprised for how much, like my kids obsess over all these details. They argue about like what, what happened in which book and which came first and, you know, uh, all of that stuff. And like, for this, it was like, okay, yeah, I saw dog, man. Big, big deal. Um, I don't know, like I was so bored watching this movie. I just was, you know, I have a walk around a theme park all day. I was just kind of sitting there trying to beat the heat and like, and, and, and just kind of get through it. But I mean, for whatever it was. Like 89 minutes or however long this movie is, um, I just found it to be a total slog. The voices were uninteresting to me. Right. Like what Pete Davidson was, was PD.
Sonny00:39:58Yeah. Um, uh, I thought he was fine. I, I thought he was fine. Fine. I thought, I thought it was Rick, Rick.
Mike00:40:04It was all like, it was all just like, fine. It was all just serviceable and like, you know, big whoop.
JVL00:40:12I wasn't, I wasn't nearly as bored as I expected to be. I was, I mean, I was bored. I didn't like it, but it was, uh, I mean, I went in expecting just itchy and scratchy level, poop humor and fart humor because I have not read the books, but G money has all 10 of them in hardcover and he reads them over and over again. And the parts he likes to talk about with me all revolve around, uh, you know, poop humor and fart. Humor. And he went in expecting a movie filled with that. And they're like four butt jokes in the entire thing, all of which are very tastefully done. I'm going to say, and instead you get a movie that's really about like fathers and sons and divorce and stuff in a way that is a less elegant version of the Ninjago movie, which is, I think the, the, the Ninjago movie is low key astonishing about this sort of thing. And, uh, is yeah. It's a great movie, weirdly enough. Um, and, uh, yeah. And so we came out and G money liked it, but didn't love it. And, you know, is happy to watch it again when it comes out on streaming, but isn't like dying, you know, has no interest in going back to the theater. It's a very, you know, I would say he probably give it a B plus cinema score. And I was expecting worse, if that makes sense.
Sonny00:41:44Yeah. Well, I. It beat your, it beat your expectations. It beat my expectations. Movie, movie watching is all an expectations game. How excited you are for a thing absolutely determines how you end up, you know, feeling about it.
JVL00:41:56And I thought I was going to have my eyeballs scooped out with a grapefruit spoon and it turned out to just be a middling movie. And so great. Yeah.
Sonny00:42:04No, that's, I, I think that's, I think that's totally reasonable. I think that's totally, that's a totally reasonable response to it. Again, I like, I didn't hate it. I didn't, I like, I've seen much worse movies.
JVL00:42:16Nowhere near as good as Captain Underpants. And I would say to the extent that I'm disappointed. So Captain Underpants, also a Dave Pilkey thing. We only know through the movie. I don't think, maybe G Money read one of the books or two of the books, but I think he's mostly a movie. And I found that movie to be surprisingly funny. And maybe it's just because it's Kevin Hart and the, the guy from Silicon Valley. Thomas Miller. Middleditch. Yeah. Thomas Middleditch. But, uh, I don't know. I thought that movie was continually surprising, funny, and it's like a high school comedy, but set in third grade or whatever.
Mike00:42:59But, but look at the, I mean, just, just for comparison's sake, like, okay. The screenplay for Captain Underpants was written by Nicholas Stoller, um, which, you know, him of, uh, forgetting Sarah Marshall and, uh, neighbors. Those kind of movies. Um, and then look at the, the, the voice cast. You have Kevin Hart at Helms, Nick Kroll, Thomas Middleditch, Jordan Peele, Kristen Shaw. Okay. Like make big names in the comedy scene. Um, and in the dog man movie, you have Pete Davidson. Okay. Lil Rel Howery. Yeah. Isla Fisher, uh, Steven Root, Billy Boyd, Ricky Gervais. I don't know. Like it's like less the, the previous. This cast list is like a coherent, like there's, they're, they're sort of all within a kind of a similar universe of like comedy and kind of at the top of their game.
JVL00:43:54I was sort of unimpressed with like, this is like, let's get, let's get B and C level famous people.
Mike00:44:00Yeah. Or like, let's, let's do it kind of half-assed and like, who, who can we get to sign on? Yeah. Sound up for this. Yeah.
JVL00:44:08Um, but I mean, just the writing is, as you point out, the writing is so much better on Captain Underpants. Did you guys like Captain Underpants? I never saw the movie.
Sonny00:44:16I never, I, yeah, I, I've, I've caught snippets of it, uh, when my, my kids have been watching. It's on Netflix, right?
JVL00:44:22So this is not a recommendation. I'm not telling you to go out and watch it. It's just, uh, uh, it's like a weather alert saying that if your kids ask to put it on, don't fear it. Like, yeah, okay. Like it's, it won't hurt your eyeballs to have it on.
Mike00:44:38So here's the thing about Dave Pilkey, Dave Pilkey's stuff, which is like, I feel like it's. Like it's smart and could be smarter if it weren't dragged down by all like the, the just low brow diarrhea jokes.
Sonny00:44:58He knows exactly what he's doing. Exactly. What he's doing is selling, selling books to 70 year olds. He's selling, I mean, he is the most successful author in America. Totally. Like, like not, not, I don't think I'm wrong. I don't think I'm exaggerating. I think he is almost literally the most successful.
JVL00:45:14Uh, author could buy and sell James Patterson.
Sonny00:45:19That's how successful he is. Like him, him and Colleen Hoover. Totally. They should, they should put, they should make a book together to appeal to 20, 20 single 20 year old women. And, uh, you know, uh, six year old boys, like figure out ages six to 10. Merge those audiences.
Mike00:45:39I will say I was very, um, I was very concerned that my kids were so into these books. I'm just like, Oh, Oh, come on. Like, like you've got to break out of these stupid things. And then, um, I discovered that my 10 year old, one of his friends, uh, in his class, a very, very intelligent young lady, um, one, one, the school wide reading competition last year, like in terms of number of pages read, like beat the sixth graders, like all the top sixth graders. Um, and she's a huge dog man fan. So I was like, okay. Well, if she, she is okay with it, then like, I guess I can, I can stomach it, but it's just so, it's so dumb. Um, and, but yeah, there's, there's something in tech, like there's, there's intelligence somewhere in there. Um, and kind of an interesting story. Like ultimately the, the, the focus of the dog man books is not dog man. It's, it's Petey. It's Petey and little Petey and sort of that storyline much more interesting.
Sonny00:46:39Well, I mean, Petey's an actual character, like dog man doesn't talk like he doesn't.
JVL00:46:44Like he, you know, dog man is a cipher, right?
Sonny00:46:47Again, like the, the, the, the most interesting part of the movie to me was when dog man like comes home to his empty house and he's imagining the things from his past life. Again, just like Murphy and RoboCop. It's like, he's literally, he's literally going through the house and being like, this is where my wife lived and I, we were in love and I had children and I had a family, but now I'm a robot. What am I going to do? And like that, that's, you know, that was the most interesting part of the movie to me.
Mike00:47:15Also not in the books. That stuff was not in the books as, as my son informed me.
Sonny00:47:20Yeah.
JVL00:47:21Interesting. He never, he never had a girlfriend. So, okay.
Mike00:47:24All right. Any other thoughts on dog man on, this is a, this is part of illumination, right? Is that, is this one of these illumination? No, this is DreamWorks. DreamWorks. That's right. Any other thoughts on, on dog man?
Sonny00:47:39No, I mean, whatever.
JVL00:47:40If, as long as the kids like it, I'm, you know, I'll say this, Michael, I can't believe I'm saying this. At least the kids are reading. Like, even if it's lowbrow, it is still a book. You're training their brains to read at book length, which is so much better than being on a screen or flipping through Tik TOK or Instagram. Like these are good muscles to build. Even if the material is lower brow than you think.
Mike00:48:10You're, you're, you're 100% right. I, I, I, I got over that hump a while ago. Like literally all my kids do, including my two year old, like they get up in the morning. And if we didn't tell them you have to go do these chores or get your book bag ready for, for school, whatever, like they will just get up and grab a book and sit on the couch and read. And that's great. Well, it's okay. You have engineers running your house.
Sonny00:48:32Yeah, no, my, I, like the other day I actually yelled at my, my daughter cause she was reading at the breakfast table. I was like, you have to stop, stop reading books. You gotta eat your breakfast. We gotta go favorite.
JVL00:48:45And my favorite will literally walk around through the house with her book. Like not, you know, she just won't stop reading, you know, like you're going to fall down the stairs. Like, no, no, I'm fine.
Mike00:48:58All right. Okay. Well, that is all the time we're going to give to this episode. Remember to join us over at sub beacon.com. Tell your friends, tell your family until next time.
Sonny00:49:14But a slightly short episode this week because I have to, I am solo parenting as well. I got to go run and pick my kids up right now. So don't, don't worry. I have my movie night all planned out for them. We're watching wild things. And then this is a Vic Mattis recommendation. And then, and then, and then the Sharon Stone movie sliver sliver after that.
JVL00:49:39So we're all, I showed flash wild things. His mind kids, kids. Are you gonna show kids?
Sonny00:49:44Maybe kids. This is the, this is a key part of our favorite, the nineties erotic thriller. You, you have to understand this. If you want to understand what comes next in cinematic history. So we're, we're all good.
Mike00:49:59I'm sure it's fine.
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