#298. 'Furiosa' (Netflix/Max)
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The crew tackles George Miller's Furiosa, now streaming on both Netflix and Max, and lands in surprisingly close agreement: Sonny, JVL, and Mike all find themselves distracted and let down by how fake the movie looks, with constant green-screen work and frame-rate manipulation undercutting the real stunt work in a way none of them can get past, even though Sonny appreciates the film's dreamlike, Odyssey-style ambition and Chris Hemsworth's gleefully amusing Dementus. Mike admits he was mostly bored until Anya Taylor-Joy's older Furiosa shows up and the story shifts closer to Fury Road territory, while JVL and Mike both argue Taylor-Joy's slight physicality never convinces next to Charlize Theron's rooted, believable toughness. The episode opens with an extended remembrance of Val Kilmer, who just died, with Sonny recapping his own obituary and praising Kilmer's gift for elevating supporting roles, JVL debating which "young Val Kilmer" movie is appropriate to show his kids (landing on Willow), and Mike recalling Kilmer's viral Reddit AMA about Heat. From there the guys ramble through youth-baseball coaching mishaps with the Game Changer scoring app, a debate over the correct way to reheat pizza (Mike's ice-cube-in-the-skillet method versus Sonny's toaster oven), a box office rundown led by A Working Man and a fading Snow White, and Sonny's theory that Netflix is deliberately setting up Greta Gerwig's Narnia (with a rumored Meryl Streep as Aslan) to bomb in a limited theatrical run just to spite theaters. A long, gleefully absurd bit defending Immortan Joe as an unfairly maligned nation-builder — complete with "milkmaid vs. maggot farmer" choice arguments — closes out the Furiosa discussion, and the episode wraps with JVL hyping the Nintendo Switch 2 preorder and the trio comparing notes on their kids' gaming habits.
From the show notes
HOPE? THERE'S NO HOPE!
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Didn't you see that? You see how they fought for each other, this little army of two? Where were they going, so full of hope? There is no hope! Not for them, not for you, certainly not for me. The day I acquire Bullet Farm, these two destroy it. I had Gas Town, I had Bullet Farm, with that I could have crippled the Citadel. The rule of the wasteland, the wasteland would have been a far better place for all of us. No! You two, you two break my heart. You break my heart, and it's not fair.
JVL00:00:48You make me the Dark Dementors.
Guest00:00:52And the Dark Dementors cannot afford TV soft. It's the price I pay to be your leader. It's the price we all pay to survive in the wasteland. We cannot be soft.
Mike00:01:14Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I'm your co-host Mike Warren. Joining me as always are my two co-hosts who are using their arms for star charts. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon dot com. Tell your friends and family the only way they can listen to this show is to go to Sub-Beacon dot com and become a patron. Join the conversation in the comments. It's always lively and fun and great to hear from all of you. And sometimes some of us dip into those comments as well. But you can only read them at Sub-Beacon dot com. Join us over there. We are going to be talking about Furiosa, a Mad Max movie. Saga, a Mad Max story. What is it? Who knows what the subtitle of that movie is? Furiosa later in the show. But first, let's see how everyone is doing. Hey, Sonny, we didn't talk about this beforehand, but should we talk about Val Kilmer a bit here and the late, great Val Kilmer who left us too soon, but but left us with such a great legacy of performances? And tell us. Tell us your thoughts. If you if you've got any.
Sonny00:02:30Good actor.
Mike00:02:32All right. Moving on. All right.
Sonny00:02:35Let me ask you guys. Good. Good actor. I know I wrote I wrote an obit and my my word. A very good obit. The one the one my one big takeaway from the obit as I was reading it. And it's the thing I've always kind of thought about him is that he is he is the sort of he is the ideal actor to put in a supporting role. If you want to give that supporting role like leading man heft, right? Like he is. He is a his best. There was this stretch from ninety three to ninety five where he was in. He was in. He it was heat that tombstone and Batman forever. And like it's like it's amazing. He played Batman and it's by far the least memorable role in that stretch of movies to the extent that it was like a funny. It's a funny bit on the show. The Warwick Davis show. Did you ever watch the Warwick Davis show that Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant did? I forgot.
Mike00:03:26I saw the clip after little Val Kilmer died. Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:03:30Short life or business or or something. I don't know. It's but it's a pun on him being a short person. But there there's an episode where Val Kilmer's in it and is, of course, he's like friends with Warwick Davis because they did Willow together. And and Val Kilmer does this bit where he shows up. He surprises people by showing up to offices or restaurants wearing the Batman cowl. And and it says. And then Warwick Davis. Guess who's under here? And it's like, is it is it Christian Bale? No. Is it Michael Keaton? George Clooney? Is it Adam West? Who's on the list? So, like, it's but like, again, the point here is that he was he his best roles were as a supporting actor. And, you know, Top Gun and even Top Gun, Maverick, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, Gay Perry. Like he's he's just he's he was he was great. And he. He will be missed, be missed.
JVL00:04:29All right. So here's my question for you, boys. I want to show my children a Val Kilmer movie this weekend, but I run from eight to 16. And so I can't do Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang. I can't do Tombstone. They've seen Maverick. They love Maverick. But I want to show them a young Val Kilmer. Would it be? Can't do Heat. Obviously, would it be crazy to go with the saint as an all ages crowd pleaser? I know it's not his best work. I get that. But it's a fun movie, right? What's wrong with what's wrong with Willow?
Sonny00:05:10Yeah. What's wrong with Willow?
JVL00:05:12I am not going to do sword and sorcery because the girls will tap out on that. Girls have no patience for that. And when you say top secret and real genius, the problem is I would have to rewatch those. Again, because again, 80s comedies that we remember fondly very often upon rewatching in modern sensibilities. I seem to remember a line in real genius where a girl asks Val Kilmer, can you hammer a six inch spike through a board with your penis?
Sonny00:05:45Yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend real genius, but I think top secret top secret is kind of like airplane in that it's silly. But I'm pretty sure it's PG. I don't think that means nothing for the time.
JVL00:05:57I know. I know. But still, the saint. What do we think? Can we do the saint?
Sonny00:06:04I never saw the saint. The saint is the saint's not a good movie. It's not a it's not a good movie. I mean, you can't do you can't do Spartan. You can't do you can't do the island of Dr. Moreau. No.
JVL00:06:23That's a fun one. You cannot do a lot of family friendly movies. So that's the question. I guess the original Top Gun.
Sonny00:06:29If they've seen Maverick, there's no reason they can't see the original Top Gun.
JVL00:06:34Yeah. When Tom Cruise pretends to make sweet love to Kelly McGillis, it's a little a little more steamy than than the Jennifer Connelly. Hey, we're middle aged people.
Mike00:06:43Yeah. Hey, nothing. Nothing actually happens. If they have any questions, you can say that. But trust me, they did not actually have sex. They took a nap together.
Sonny00:06:53You could show the snowman.
Mike00:06:54Which is true.
Sonny00:06:56Remember the snowman? Remember his role in the snowman?
JVL00:06:59Tell me, is the snowman any good?
Sonny00:07:00No, no, no, no, no. That's that's like it's like a girl with a dragon tattoo knockoff.
JVL00:07:05All right. Well, never mind. Bad question.
Sonny00:07:07No, I mean, I think the answer is Willow. Honestly, the answer is probably Willow. Like you could tell the girls can watch because there's a little baby girl that they have to save, isn't there? There's a little baby that they have to save. And there's an evil. Girl, girl, which, you know, there's lots of strong female role models in that movie.
JVL00:07:26And there's a female warrior. It's Dungeons and Dragons. Girls do not. My girls do not truck with fantasy.
Mike00:07:34They look at that and they go nerds. Well, it just seems like if there's one fantasy that your girls would like, it would be this one.
JVL00:07:44Yeah. All right. Well, that's all I have.
Sonny00:07:47Michael, what about what about Batman forever? Like I would go with I would frankly. I would go with Batman forever. The saint.
JVL00:07:56Oh, wow.
Sonny00:07:58Batman forever is not a good movie, but the saint is also not a good movie. And at least Batman forever has like Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey. Yeah.
JVL00:08:06Fair enough. Yeah. All right.
Mike00:08:08Michael, what are your what are your thoughts? I mean, I want to I want to associate with what my colleague, Mr. Bunch from Texas, had to say about Val Kilmer. Right. I just, you know, movies, movies like Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, for instance. Like, I know that's a Robert Downey Jr. Vehicle, but it's just it is he Val Kilmer. Has has this incredible ability to just make everything better. Pretty much in every movie he's in that certainly that I've seen Batman forever. Maybe maybe the exception, but just because he's. Feels like I watched it like in the last five years. It feels like he's barely in the movie. I mean, it is it is just interesting to me as well. And Sonny, I think you get into this in your obituary for like a guy who has leading man, good looks and and potential star power to just kind of recognize that his career is not is not through is not on that. Path and that that's not just OK, but like you can have a great career and great life doing that sort of very good supporting work that elevates you beyond just your your, you know, run of the mill character actor.
Sonny00:09:38But I mean, it wasn't even it's not even that he he wasn't on that path because at this time he was very much on that that path. Right. Like in like, again, the early to mid 90s, like he was alternating. Big. Supporting roles like big supporting roles like in Heat and in Tombstone again with with leading man roles. And I like he he he was a very interesting actor in the sense that he really was kind of an artist in the in in the roles he chose and the people he wanted to work with. Right. So he works. He does Island of Dr. Moreau because he wants to work with Marlon Brando. And that, of course, is like that. That's a shit show on its own of its of its own. Legendary. Legendary making. But like, you know, like it's not like it's it's he has a supporting piece there. He's not David Thouless is the main character, you know, Marlon Brando is probably the second lead. He's basically the third lead in that film. And he does it because he wants to he wants to work with with Brando and like.
Mike00:10:42And he talked about this with heat. You know, he talked about there was a Reddit AMA where he that went viral when when Kilmer died, where he answered a question about what was it like working on heat? And he's gushing about every aspect of it and sort of like how lucky how lucky am I to have like done this work and work with, you know, I got to I got to call Robert De Niro Bob and, you know, talk and hang out with Al Pacino and live at Michael Mann's house for a time and like be in all of these things. And I guess maybe that's more of what I was going for in my in my thoughts on this is just it felt like he didn't. He didn't take for granted all of this stuff when he when he could have, because a lot of these people are sort of disconnected from reality. He seemed a little more connected to reality than your average Hollywood star. And his scene in Top Gun Maverick was just I was surprised by how moved I was by it. And he really knocked it out of the park.
JVL00:11:47I just want I want to say something about him as an artist, because so, Sonny. You know, I'm not a big fan of him. I mentioned that he has this ability on screen to go from incredible stillness to violence like that. Right. And it's really like in Spartan. It's very, very clear. It's clear in Tombstone. It's clear in all his best roles. But Val Kilmer is an actor. He is not like I trained. He's a Juilliard kid who who came up through stage work. And who is not like Jason Statham, who is like a tough guy in real life, who just does the tough guy stuff on camera or even like Keanu Reeves. Like it's something like that. Right. Keanu Reeves like does a lot of shooting in real life and practical stuff like like Val Kilmer's real life is in New Mexico doing pottery and art. Yeah, like that. And so the for him, like when he would do those roles, that is. Acting for him like that, that is like studied stuff that isn't just Val Kilmer being Val Kilmer on screen. And it's I don't know. He was great. We by happenstance, we just watched Maverick this past weekend. And he does so much with so little in that. And I am I was just thinking of the scene in his documentary that he made with his son where he. Takes his son to Juilliard and they're walking through a hallway and there's a big picture of Kelly McGillis, who is his classmate, and he like throws himself up against it like he's making out with her or something. And like even he's very old, he's very sick. And he can't really talk, but he still moves his body like an artist, like acting in space, you know, and he just is a guy. The soul of an actor. And I mean that in the best possible way.
Sonny00:13:56Yeah. All right. No, I like totally agree. And it's like it really is there. There's this like kind of cruel the cruelness of fate. Right. That he he has throat cancer, takes his voice, basically leaves him unable to to to really work. And the saddest like watching that documentary, the saddest part is when he's like doing the signings, when he's going to the you know, he's like going around to. The conventions and stuff and, you know, and people are like, can you sign it? You can be my wingman anytime. And like and like there's like a montage of guys asking him this, which ends with him like going and laying down in the back behind the curtain at the convention and throwing up. It's like it's a perfect I mean, it's just like a perfect it's it's a perfect little moment. And I like I don't know, man, it's it's it is it's sad. It's sad what happened. But, you know. Not not too many people get to be one of the best actors in the world for a solid five to 10 year stretch. And he had that. Yeah.
JVL00:15:04He leaves us a legacy. All right. Michael, can I check in with you? Sure. Are you doing OK, buddy? Yeah, I'm doing fine.
Mike00:15:13I am worried about you. Well, we don't need to talk about that. Please. Like there was a moment. OK, I'll just. Say this. I'm on a thread with a couple of friends, some of whom I think. God, tell the people what I'm getting at. You get that the only as as of us recording this podcast, the only winless team in the major leagues right now are are my Atlanta Braves.
JVL00:15:40Inexplicably, except that they had a hard schedule, right? I mean, they had a hard schedule, Padres and the Dodgers who are combined 15 and 0. Exactly right. The Padres and Dodgers between them have not lost.
Mike00:15:52Well, well, that would that would track with since they've played half of their games against the Braves. So, yeah, I mean, I'm on a I'm on a text thread with a couple of other Braves fans. I think, you know, one or both of them. And as we were watching that, we're recording this on Thursdays. We're watching Wednesday's game in which the Braves went up five to nothing over the Dodgers. One of the people, not me, I wish I could say this was my hilarious insight. But. As they're as they're up five, nothing, this person texts, I turn the game on game on. We're up five, nothing. And it's fun watching what will probably be a seven to five defeat.
JVL00:16:36And yes, it turned out it was a six to five defeat.
Mike00:16:40That's the one where Otani walked him off. Otani walked off. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. No. So we don't need to talk about that. We can talk about baseball because we're now in it with both. Of my baseball age playing boys and I'm basically like a when you need me volunteer assistant to the assistant coach kind of thing. It's just that thing where like you're a dad and you're at practice and you're just there with your mitt and kind of ready to do whatever. On my 10 year olds team, we have like so many dads who are involved and I. And, you know, if I don't if I didn't know them before this season, I, you know, like seen them around enough to to know of them. But it's just a lot of like, hey, we all know each other. Our kids have all played together at some point or a younger kid has played. And so it's very easy. It's very nice. And, you know, in the first game the other night, I I was the one who was tasked with Game Changer, which is the app that that tracks the games. And I had to keep score in Game Changer, which is a very stressful job.
JVL00:17:51But I was I. I did it. Game Changer is really not built for youth baseball because youth baseball has in every single game a whole bunch of special circumstances that don't happen in normal baseball where you are having to score like, wait a minute. All right. That should have been an out. But instead, it's a triple. And like, how do I make that? That kid just stole two bases. How do you do to steal?
Mike00:18:22Well, on the flip side, like Game Changer has all of the options, right? All of the options for what could happen in a play. The problem is, is it's the problem of too many options and not quite knowing how to in that moment finding that option. Right. I mean, you know, so so it's like and then and for me, it's like, OK, it's been a season since I've done this because I've done it before. And it's like forgetting. Where buttons are in the app to to have, you know. OK, so that was a that was that that kid advanced on a pass ball. But I've got to score the pitch before I can move the kid to the next thing. And then I have to indicate that it was on the pass ball and not on a wild pitch or on a on a stolen.
JVL00:19:12Honestly, I found it easier to keep score literally in the book with pencil. Yeah. Then to use Game Changer, which I have done more.
Mike00:19:22Actually, then use Game Changer. This particular coach prefers Game Changer. And so that's what I do. And I just again, I'm just here to help. I just show up. What what do you need me to do, coach? I'll do as much or as little as you want me to. So that's that. And then on my seven year old's team, he this is his first season playing machine pitch the farm team, which the machine is, which I may have talked about on this podcast before. It's this mechanical spring loaded machine. You put the ball. And you have to pull back, step on a step on a pedal, pull back the lever and it launches the ball. And it's, of course, like extremely finicky. You've got to get things positioned exactly right. And when you do position everything exactly right, it still does not consistently pitch the ball to where it needs to be. So I am the only dad on this team who has coached. I assisted coached my oldest son. At this level. And I ran the machine when I did. So, like, I'm the only one who's done it, which has it's very clear to me that this is now where I'm stuck, which is like, oh, you're the guy who knows how to use this thing, which I really don't, because it's impossible to know how to use a machine that does not work consistently. But now that is my role. And I'm sort of I'm screwed. But I did point out to them at practice last night. I said, you know, I'm not actually listed as an official. Assistant coach on this team. So insurance liability.
JVL00:20:57I'm not sure I'm allowed to.
Mike00:20:58Exactly. Exactly. So I joked. I said, you know, you guys, you know, take it up with the league.
Guest00:21:04Exactly.
Mike00:21:04So it's fine. It's every the machine pitch season or seasons like I have not come out of it knowing a coach who is not extremely frustrated by the whole season. So I'm excited to hear what this. It's going to be like. Anyway, that's what's going on in my neck of the woods. We don't need to talk anymore about professional baseball. JVL, anything going on with you?
JVL00:21:33No, nothing. Everything's everything's just.
Sonny00:21:36JVL, you said something in our text thread that I want to bring up here because this is what I had planned on talking about. But since since.
Mike00:21:42Sorry, I derailed this, Sonny.
Sonny00:21:44No, no, no, no. It's fine. You said you have never owned a toaster oven.
JVL00:21:48No.
Sonny00:21:50I find this fascinating. Do you just have like a regular like do you have the toaster machine that stands up?
JVL00:21:56Yes. So as a child in my my mother's home, we had toaster ovens exclusively, never toasters. But since being my own grown up, I have only ever had toasters and never a toaster oven.
Sonny00:22:13Fascinating.
JVL00:22:13So I've never purchased a toaster oven. And I really I wouldn't know what to say about it.
Sonny00:22:19I asked because my I've I've owned a toaster oven now for. Like, I've had the same one for 20 years somehow. I literally it's like the appliance that I have owned the longest by far. But like, I got it when I moved into my basement apartment in Washington, D.C. And like 2005. So it's literally it's literally 20 years old now. Wow. No, I must have moved in there. Yeah. 2005. So 20 years old, this this toaster oven. And it's finally gotten to the point where, like, I think the top coil isn't quite working. So it's not really toasting anymore. It's like getting warm. The bottom gets a little crispy, but the top doesn't toast. So I need a new toaster oven. I was going to ask you, but I'm like, I'm. So when you when you want to reheat something, do you are you exclusively a microwave person or like, do you do microwave stovetop? Like when you're when you're reheating?
JVL00:23:10I mean, I don't think we do a whole ton of reading. But when we do, we tend to do it in the microwave or just throw it in the oven.
Sonny00:23:17Gotcha. So I ask because this is like this is how I reheat, for instance. Pizza like I don't reheat pizza. Oh, that's garbage. That's a garbage.
JVL00:23:27I throw it in the oven. I'm eating a piece of reheated pizza right now while we're taping and I throw it on the pizza stone in the oven for three minutes. And it's great.
Sonny00:23:35Yeah, but then you're shaking your head. You got to like preheat the oven. Like it takes.
JVL00:23:39You're heating on such a low level. You turn it on. By the time it's preheated, it's done.
Mike00:23:44I don't mean to derail this conversation, but the perfect way to reheat a slice of pizza is to take a cold. Pan cold skillet. Put the slice of pizza in the skillet. Put the skillet on the burner. Turn it to medium high. Maybe closer to the medium side. If you want, throw an ice cube into the skillet. Put the lid on the skillet. Listen to the process. Put the lid on the skillet. Wait about 10 minutes. The melted ice cube will steam will create steam which stays because the lid in the skillet which which gets the top of the pizza the cheese back to a melty consistency and putting it in cold and raising the heat up under it will make the bottom of the slice of pizza crispy and it is as if it just came out.
Sonny00:24:52Of the pizza oven trust that all sounds that sounds interesting but that sounds like a million times longer than what I do which is typically it depends again depends on how much pizza I'm reheating here but if I'm just doing a slice or two I put it on I put it in the microwave or not in the microwave in the toaster oven and just turn on the toast and it's done in like two minutes it's it's it's no it's and it's nice and crispy it's like bubbling on top it's crispy on the bottom oh put it in a put it in a skillet put a ice cube in there fucking ice cube. With my pizza what are you talking about that's I'm talking about what sort of best I don't know so you've ever had what sort of dark magic you use when you're working you're reheating things with ice cubes over here there's some sort of maybe from America's doctor in your house but I think it's science Michael you have my attention I will I will give this a try the next time we'll report back thank you all right good how's the box office yeah
Mike00:25:52let's let's move on then and talk box office it's a it's it's it's another fallow fallow weekend number one of the box office this past weekend a working man what is a working man it's the new Jason Statham David Aaron oh that's right the one that's not as good as a beekeeper not nearly as good as great beekeeper top tier Jason Statham action movie this is like lower middle tier I still enjoyed it of course because I will watch any Jason Statham watch Jason Statham be a working man don't do that don't stop don't do that all right that's not that's not that's not what we do here that's not fifteen and a half million dollars at the box office followed by number two Snow White big big drop in its second weekend sixty six percent sixty six percent yeah that's not good that's not good hold you don't that's you when you have a family movie the whole point of a family movie is that
Sonny00:26:52it's supposed to hold a long time but this movie's not holding a long time I don't want to talk about this this weekend's box office I want to talk about the box office like 18 months from now okay because I I don't know if you guys saw this but apparently Meryl Streep is in talks to voice Aslan in the Greta Gerwig Chronicles of Narnia adaptation now I remember correctly JBL like hates the Lion the Witch in the Wardrobe anyway he doesn't like it he doesn't like any of these so whatever he doesn't care about this I might I so there's I want I want to offer up a theory about this I want to offer up a theory Netflix has very begrudgingly agreed to give this a wide IMAX and theatrical release like a two weekend exclusive you know IMAX run in theaters and then and then it'll go on the Netflix service after that right this is a thing that Greta Gerwig wanted she wants the theatrical blah blah blah I have if I am doing the Machiavellian esoteric reading of this decision here's what it suggests to me it suggests me that Netflix is going to allow this to happen so the movie fucking bombs at theaters like Snow White did and like all of the and like a and in because what's gonna happen here is you're gonna get 18 months of fucking conservatives I think rightfully being like what the fuck are you doing here why are you do why are you gender swapping Aslan the you know who is the representation of Christ in these films why is this happening what is this what is why are
JVL00:28:36you doing this what's the point is like a public works program for Ross Douthat
Sonny00:28:39and he won't be wrong he won't be wrong to hit on it because it's it's it's ridiculous it's a ridiculous thing that they're doing here and it will only lead to it will again it will only lead to protest and anger and what will happen is the natural audience for this movie which is the young families with conservative conservative families Christian families whatever are going to be mad and annoyed about it and not come to the theaters and this is what Netflix wants Netflix wants this movie to have a two-week theatrical exclusive run in IMAX and they want it to bomb they want it to bomb because that will hurt theaters it will show other people that oh it's not worth us doing a theatrical exclusive we shouldn't do this anymore and Netflix gets what it wants Netflix gets what it wants which is which is to hurt their biggest competitor in this space which is theaters that's my that's my producers from now it's the producers from from from my my my box-off prediction box-off prediction you know in Thanksgiving of 2026 or whenever this movie comes out is that uh this movie will underperform and it will lead to a round of recriminations and I'm just I'm calling it now we can go to the tape 18 months from now I
JVL00:30:03look I think you're you know this I think you're too online how will anybody be able to mark underperforming for a limited release I'm at like you know I'm saying like if they had said sure we'll give it two weeks and we'll put it on 5,000 screens then you could say yeah see look it's bad but if they're gonna put it on 900 IMAX screens like I understand you could sit there with a calculator and say ah see this underperformed for what you would expect but but it's just like 900 IMAX screens and I don't know if it's just gonna be
Sonny00:30:39IMAX it might be on I bet like what I thought I thought it was a very limited numbers no no it's not like remember they did they did knives out in theaters and they didn't release any numbers but on the street was that the per theater average was pretty good I forget what the I'll I'll look up what the per theater average on that was in a second but it was it was supposed to be pretty good um and I look I I don't know I like again you're you're there's no there's no there's no reason to do this there's no reason to do this unless you are actively trying to alienate the
JVL00:31:16base audience for this movie I'm sorry I'm sorry maybe maybe look we all thought barbie was gonna bomb I thought barbie was gonna bomb I didn't think barbie I didn't think barbie was gonna bomb 100 you you did a whole you did a whole thing where you did a summer look ahead on bulwark goes to hollywood you had one of your box office guys and you guys were like yeah this is a movie that has high awareness that nobody wants to see well there
Sonny00:31:40that that was true and then that was true at the time and it was true at the time and then the marketing kicked in and did they they they got the job done so I'm just saying it's
JVL00:31:51possible it does well I don't know I don't know why anybody goes to see these fucking movies
Sonny00:31:55although because they're classic they're classics of children's literature I actually don't think
JVL00:32:00the Narnia movies I don't think the Phil Anschutz Narnia movies did all that well I had to go back and look they did fine the first one and only the first one did fine like the next two I think by the third one they didn't even get a theatrical release I think it went direct to video I don't know I don't think that's true so like these this is a bad property anyway without
Sonny00:32:21a built-in fan base the first one grossed 750 million dollars on a 150 million dollar budget so like you know that's that's really well it's a big hit was it domestic I don't know let's see uh domestic domestic was almost 300 million dollars okay that's that's real money
JVL00:32:43yeah well anyway I am I am just I'm glad that you have your your culture war panties in a twist
Sonny00:32:51over this I see and this is oh fuck you fuck you JBL because this is what people are gonna say they're gonna say oh oh look at the conservatives are all worked up for no good reason blah blah the the only reason you do this is to get them worked up it's the only reason you do something
Mike00:33:06like this yeah there is like a chicken or egg thing here they should just use they should just
Sonny00:33:11use the James Earl Jones uh AI voice generator that Disney has access to that's what they should
Mike00:33:21baseball wait wrong movie um okay so uh all right well it's the same basic thing yeah basically um all right well let's let's move on then we'll we'll we'll keep tabs on this like you said in 18 months and we'll come back and we'll go back to the tape uh but we're gonna talk this podcast
Sonny00:33:39is around in 18 months i'll be fucking shocked let's be let's be honest we can come back for a special we're all gonna be in fucking debtors prison by then so special we're
Mike00:33:51union show we'll be bartering we'll be bartering for a timer yeah uh but um but we're talking not about that movie which is coming out in the future uh we are talking about a movie that already came out like came out in the past furiosa uh which is now available both on i was confused by this both on netflix and on max it's been on max for a while but also now on netflix um sunny will you give us a preview of which i believe by the way when furiosa came out we just re-watched mad max fury
Sonny00:34:26road so yeah no or no we didn't do fury road didn't we didn't we do like the original mad max
Mike00:34:32or maybe we did the original and or the road warrior yeah we did yeah we did or no maybe we
Sonny00:34:38did the road warrior yeah that's what we did we did one of the we did one of the the original ones yeah who could say uh furiosa is furiosa is a fascinating movie because it is it's very different from the other mad max films in part because no there's no mad max but like mad max as a character has always been mad max has always been like kind of the almost a tertiary character to whatever else is happening in the like he shows up at a place and the things are already happening and he you know kind of helps and kicks things off so he's he's uh kind of an interesting character as it is furiosa is very different from certainly fury road and beyond thunderdome uh and uh the road warrior in that it is less of a self-contained action movie and more of a like kind of big expansive epic right and i'm very torn on this movie for you guys did you guys see it in theaters did you see it in theaters when it came out so you want you've only watched it on tv on my phone do you watch it on your phone maybe i'll be curious to know what the phone experience is like i'll ask in a second so watching it watching it in theaters and watching it on tv uh are similar experiences but there's there's one thing that's very pronounced when i watched it on tv which is how fake everything looks so like the the movie i am so glad you said that so the so like you know furiosa is uh and and i the the film nerds get real mad when you talk about this because all of the other mad max movies including fury road do a lot of things with like frame speeds right he like george miller's known for monkeying around with frame speeds to give things like kind of a herky-jerky or faster or slower um uh vibe and fury road also used some green screens and some digital effects this movie uses green screens and digital effects in almost every shot okay and he uses the frame the frame the film speed uh changes constantly like constantly this is happening in the movie and i i understand there's there's i think there's a good artistic reason for doing this which again is that he is making a kind of epic dreamlike odyssey style retelling of the story of furiosa and the idea of finding hope in the hopeless land of the wasteland right uh it really is like the odyssey okay let's let's grant that it's in this it is more like george miller's uh three thousand years of longing than it is um fury road but it is still a prequel to fury road not a sequel prequel to fury road and it does have the same emphasis on real stunt work on real actors doing real stunts in real locations on real speeding rigs on real motorcycles right but the problem with using all of this fakery in it in in the midst of all the real stuff is that it makes the real stuff feel fake does that does that make sense to you guys did does that does so like all so like the the shot the shots like where uh furiosa is under the under the rig where she's like crawling along under the rig they did that for real uh on a semi that was going 40 miles an hour or whatever like they did that that's a thing that that was done for real and it looks like it was shot in the volume and i again i'm very torn on this because i can i can totally understand i can totally understand and by the artistic rationale for doing this i think it undercuts what the film has accomplished on a technical or a stunt level and those two things are very much intentional with each other they don't they don't harmonize ever the movie it's the the movie itself is is fine i like i like the story of it a lot i like the kind of odyssey aspect of it i love chris hemsworth's dementis i think he's one of the one of the most amusing villains and it's got the same things that all the other uh mad max movies have which are these great costumes and these ridiculous people and these ridiculous locations and all this great set work and stunt work but the movie is very much at war with itself just on a visual level just watching the thing is like what are you doing here what are you doing here guys and you could also see this when you were in the theater or was different in the theater yes i think you you could but it it was less pronounced i think it was it was it was definitely it didn't it didn't jump out to me as much watching it in the theater though even then i was like kind of like there's a lot more green screen work like the like another another prime example of this is in the um in the citadel right so there's a shot in the citadel where you can see like you're on a they're on the ground and you can see
JVL00:40:00everybody up in the in the air and they are all uh it's all done digitally it's all like comped in
Sonny00:40:07um and like again it just looks fake it just it just looks fake and that's that's a problem you you've stylized to look fake and a lot of this movie looks just fake and i don't know if it's i don't know if it's a budget thing where they didn't have enough budget to really do the the background cgi work right or again i think it's just an artistic choice i think miller is miller has been doing this more and more um again particularly in three thousand years of longing which this movie is more more like but i i just i don't think it i don't it did not work for me it does it does not work for me i don't know jvl did it work for
JVL00:40:58you you know this is this is bizarre because this was that is the only thing i took from this movie and i thought that maybe it was because i did it on my phone no but every single frame of it like i really i almost couldn't it was distracting and especially because like i i know the stunties i we we talked about the stunties i know that this thing walked away with all these things uh these awards and so i know intellectually that there's practical work happening but the practical work is made to look fake instead of the fake work made to look practical and i i was distracted by that to a degree that i can't even explain to you and uh that you had the same feeling makes me feel less
Sonny00:41:51happy no i think i'm wondering what michael thinks well i'm i i again i'm i'm really fascinated by a lot of the critical response to this movie because a lot of people just kind of blew past this in their reviews they were just like yeah and and again the the the ur there's an urge to be dismissive when you call this thing out where you say oh no but he did that on fury road he's done that on other movies there's always and like yes there is some but there's so much more here i i'd like to
JVL00:42:21i also watched fury road on my phone i don't know if you guys remember this was a whole bit that we did i watched fury road on my phone on a treadmill i was in new hampshire and uh and i loved it and i thought it was great and it felt lived in real and visceral in every frame every frame of that felt like that was the type thing where you're looking for the digital seams yeah because you know they must be there somewhere but you just can't see them like it looks so so so just visceral it's the only thing i can say and again same exact viewing experience i have it on my you know five inch phone right in front of me and this one was the opposite and i didn't understand on hand to god i originally thought i had to stop the movie after like 30 minutes and look and say george mildred didn't direct this did he because i thought i
Mike00:43:21and it was yeah it's i like michael what'd you think so uh i mean i picked up on what you guys were saying but it wasn't what i focused on in watching this movie um it sort of i think probably subconsciously i was bored more bored by this movie than i expected to be because i'm a huge fan of road and so maybe i was sort of subconsciously tracking picking up on all of that digital work and fakery and that my my brain's response to it was to be bored um but i also thought this i mean the story and the plot uh did not work for me i was i was basically bored until um anya taylor joy shows up um all of the stuff beforehand and then you were okay uh yeah yeah okay um uh i actually think by the way i actually think anya taylor joy does not work in this movie as totally does not furiosa um especially when you know like when you know charlie's they're on like it's just i was talking to my wife about it because we were watching this together and we both agreed that like physically they are just not the same and there's something about charlie's they're on like she is as an as an actor in a presence she's like solid and you believe in believable as like this one-armed badass and anya taylor joy just isn't like there's background is dance and yes yes it
JVL00:45:08shows in her grounded physicality right i mean whenever charlie's there is on screen no matter what movie she's in is even in uh cold was a cold city was that the the berlin no atomic blonde was that yeah she she feels like she her her physical body feels like it is rooted to the earth and if you tried to push her over you couldn't like and correct as a catcher she's like the wall and uh her her and uh anya taylor joy is like a little sparrow hopping around from here to there and hopping around from here to there and utterly implausible and the only reason i can think that she was cast in this movie it was because they shot this during the period in time where there was an international law passed that one-third of all movies that were being made had to employ her in its cast human rights convention it was right wasn't that one of isn't that where it came from yeah yeah it was uh
Mike00:46:11it was a united well the united nations had a had a role in that as well so um yeah so yes look i i i don't mean to say the movie came alive because of anya taylor joy but when they when they age up furiosa to to her age um to me that's and it's it's it's actually the almost halfway point of the movie where um she's like left behind from the war rig before boy toy comes back and finds like that point to me is where the movie really picks up um and i was trying to figure out why um part of it is because
Sonny00:46:51that's that's the point in the movie where it gets more like fury road yes maybe that's it i mean that's i that's that's literally the reason i mean like she gets she gets dropped off she gets back on and then they have like they have the the chase to um bullet gas town and then they come back and then they go to the bullet farm and they have the big sequence around the bullet farm and they come back and then uh and then there's like there's the seven year war or whatever that you know gets uh
Mike00:47:21yes which i had to i had to ask my much more attentive wife i was like did did the did the movie just jump ahead like several years and she was like yes and i was like okay i just wasn't sure because they do actually a good job in the first half of the movie of remember when her wig is thrown off and then like it shows like a plant growing out of her wig yeah uh and i was like oh time has passed uh like me now understand what is happening but they didn't quite do that in
Sonny00:47:51that part well they just say it out loud they just do like a montage and they're like you know he remember there's that sequence where he's like the the the the war the great wars the world wars the war of the roses the one day wars the seven year wars blah blah and like they and then while
Mike00:48:08all this going on there's conflict i guess in the background right and and i just kind of was like wait is that what did they just say what i thought they said and is that what's happened so uh but i it becomes more like what i expect a mad max movie to be like and i just enjoyed it more i just did not the the sort of like the the the saga element of like furiosa who she is how she became who she was like just did like i just i just didn't care that much and i feel bad that's there are characters
JVL00:48:47who you don't need to know their backstory on like you don't need to know how han solo became han solo because the truth is nothing you learn can live up to han solo and in the same way i actually think you don't want to know how furiosa became furiosa like she should just emerge from the head of zeus as she is
Mike00:49:09in this world well and it's got this great um again um what what would be called in like literature like a textual ruin um in the right in the uh in in fury road right the green place and what do we see in fury road we never see the green place we see the what they realize are the uh you know desiccated remnants of the green place and that is great and the visual of like those creepy people walking around on stilts and what used to be the green play like that is all you need and so like seeing the green place and her sister they're reaching for the plant and i was just like eh whatever this movie needed what it needed more anya taylor joy no whole
JVL00:49:58movie no it needed a phantom menace style excavation about trade routes and the tariff
Sonny00:50:11system between the bullet farm it has that and that there's like a whole there's a whole
JVL00:50:16section in the middle needed more of that i mean again and the gas town see i find joe and i needed more conversation maybe they could have been walking and then sitting on a sofa walking and sitting on a sofa i needed some asian stereotypes joe and dementors and dementors walking and then sitting on a sofa to talk about it's australia so they'd have to be
Sonny00:50:37like aboriginals uh no i uh the you're joking but like that's the best stuff the best stuff in this movie to me is is like this moment where uh emerton joe is kind of revealed to be canny so like in fury road in fury road it's kind of like he has this society and it's kind of like taken for granted that he only has it because he controls the water and you know but like he's
JVL00:51:03obviously a very skilled operator he nobody lives that long in that world unless they're
Sonny00:51:11very very smart exactly he's very good he's very he's built a whole society and it's telling it's goes away without anybody discovering it Immortan Joe's Citadel does not Immortan Joe does not go away until he is overthrown by somebody who frankly is probably going to ruin that place and like you you want another you want another waste muddy marshland with stilt people because that's what you're going to get you put uh Charlize in charge over there i'm just i'm just saying
JVL00:51:44Sonny would you say that Immortan Joe is actually the hero of the Mad Max universe i wouldn't i
Sonny00:51:51go so far as to say he is the hero but he is look what is he trying to do that's humongous he has gotten he has gotten a portion of society back on its feet he is trying to he is trying to re-thread the human genome right his whole his whole eugenics project is an effort to get people back from being you know like ruined freaks he's he's trying he's trying his best he's trying his it's all it's it's a it's a tough situation i wouldn't i personally don't want to judge Immortan Joe for his methods some of which are sound some of which are less sound uh but he has he has created a thriving free market ish system sure i like where this is go continue sonny continue he's got he's got agriculture he's he has created he has created agriculture he has created agriculture renewed he has i i'm just i like again he understands the
JVL00:52:57problem of unemployed young men and goes about trying to stand up his version of midnight
Sonny00:53:05basketball to give them to give them purpose give them purpose give them something to do you know what you know what they're not doing they're not preying upon the people of the maggot farms that's
Mike00:53:16right they're trying to get to valhalla that's all they want they're trying they are they have a
Sonny00:53:21system of belief they're trying to follow it and you know what they do they defend their people
Mike00:53:26they defend their people on the war rigs and in the citadel plus plus he he uh promotes culture right the guitar the guitar guy on the war rig i mean that's that's the lover of music right there
JVL00:53:41yeah exactly you might call immortality joe the greatest patron of the arts that we see anywhere in the universe i don't
Sonny00:53:51know i would have to i have to go back and re re-watch uh thunderdome because i do think there is somebody i don't know i feel like there's somebody there who is very into the arts but i don't know like i'm just saying i'm just i'm i'm just i'm not saying immortan joe is a hero i would never say immortan joe is a hero he morton joe who i do not support he he has he has taken he has taken a series of brides and locked them in a in a in a vault that's not cool you can't do that not that's not good i'm you know if i know anything about the e-girl phenomenon though that we've seen recently he wouldn't have to lock them away you just just they you know when you when you're a billionaire they let you they let you do it with the ibf and whatnot i'm just throwing that out there i like just saying yeah that's the one that's the one that's the only thing about that to me frankly everything else makes perfect sense i think i think the women would probably be into it because it's safe it's a safe space that's a lot better a lot better than being out there you know look at the great lives that they have look at the great they've all the food they could want they have a nice cool space they're not out there in the sun they've got a retirement program if they aren't able to do the job right they would go they go become milkers same it's
Mike00:55:20it's a plant it's a path it has nothing to do with maggots eating flesh and i think that's
Sonny00:55:26something to be i'm just saying you give somebody a choice between maggot farmer or milkmaid i don't
Mike00:55:33know all right um i want to see the net the next are we gonna have to do i have to cut that whole
Sonny00:55:40segment out do i have to we'll see is that is that you're the producer it'll be a travesty
Mike00:55:46uh i do want to see the next mad max movie like get out of the out of the bush out of the outback and like see what's going on and back in the
JVL00:55:58cities back like where can i say do we never see like melbourne or sydney no because the closest
Mike00:56:07we get is the closest we get this is in the first one and the which is before societal
Sonny00:56:12but it's before societal collapse the midst it's the society is in the midst of collapsing right
Mike00:56:16but he's i mean i think they're pretty they're still pretty far out in i mean they're not like the exurbs yeah yeah it's like the exurbs of of that so i i don't think we see we certainly don't see like sydney or or or melbourne um but i want to i want to go back there i want to go that's where that's where mad max has to go in into the jungle that is
Sonny00:56:41that is the city um the urban jungle exactly exactly mad max urban mad max colon urban jungle oh i'm i wouldn't really be a jungle because it's it's you can't you can't call it a jungle because that's not what they have in australia it'd be like urban outback
Mike00:56:58yeah the urban the urban outback the urban dunes mad max back in boom put it on a poster
Sonny00:57:08from the outback to back in to back in that's too many too many cognitive leaps i'm sorry that doesn't work i like marketing has marketing has shot that down marketing they don't know
Mike00:57:20they don't know uh all right well uh any other thoughts on uh furiosa before we uh cut this off
JVL00:57:26is anya taylor joy is that over did they repeal that law because i feel like i have not seen her
Sonny00:57:31as much recently i think she's in less stuff right now she's in less stuff maybe go to gerwig and put her in uh she could be aslan she could be as well if yeah all right for the record if anya taylor joy was aslan i'd be fine with it that'd be that'd be fine
Mike00:57:50uh no she's in a she's in a movie coming up with uh chris evans and salma hayek um
Sonny00:57:57called that's gonna be a big hit she's she's producing i'm just gonna say that now with that
Mike00:58:03cast you can't miss chris evans not john captain america john malkovich is in it charlie xcx is in it sam richardson of uh of detroiters and uh veep is in it that movie is gonna make 17 dollars all right all right well when when it comes out we will uh if this podcast still exists we will watch it and let you know uh all right that is all the time we're going to give to this episode uh join us over at subbeacon.com and we'll talk to you next time
JVL00:58:35how excited are you boys about the nintendo switch 2 which you can pre-order next week
Mike00:58:50i feel like we just got the the first one so like i'm not i'm sure my boys will come back from school talking about it one day soon but yeah we just got we just got the first one like
Sonny00:59:0118 months ago and my kids like it's interesting my kids enjoy playing it but they never i don't know if they don't understand the concept of more games for it or what but they they are never like hey can we play this can we play this what do you just like mario kart super smash they just they world or whatever the whatever the super mario world is of the yeah odyssey or um or a wonder
JVL00:59:28wonder super mario wonder wonder is really good wonders way better than odyssey yeah they love
Sonny00:59:33they love super mario wonder they love mario kart but they like don't they don't really want to play
Mike00:59:38anything else well so my boys get obsessed with like one game at a time but they but they they jump but so like right now they are both obsessed with zelda breath of the wild um and they are are each getting closer to where i am in zelda breath of the wild but i play zelda breath of the wild like maybe once a month if i'm if i'm lucky for like two hours after they go to bed and then i'm too tired uh and they keep like like literally every day at dinner they like tell me what they're doing and they ask me have you ever talked to this particular person and i'm like i'm like guys i've i have no idea i have no idea they're like oh so it's a it's a lot of zelda breath of the wild which they call breath which i like they call it breath it's called zelda no they call it breath because because the other thing is my brother-in-law got me tears of the kingdom which is the sequel for christmas but i haven't played it yet because i'm like well i got a beat breath of the wild so they distinguish between breath and tears breath
JVL01:00:50and tears anyway so all right well i guess i'm gonna be the only one pre-ordering this bitch
Sonny01:00:56are you gonna pre-order it are you gonna you're gonna pick it up a hundred percent although i'm
JVL01:01:00sure i won't make the first wave of pre-orders because the pre-order you're gonna have to camp out to get the print to pre-order it i think oh because there's a limited number of sets at launch and then people will camp out again on june who have pre-ordered it to pick it up so i am not big innovation camping out uh the big innovation while they fix the joy cons so the joy con drift won't happen anymore which is nice but uh the the big innovation seems to be you can do 24 cars in
Sonny01:01:36mario kart whoa oh okay wait are you do you guys do your do your kids play mario kart online
JVL01:01:43uh occasionally they will play against like friends but not not random not like they don't play right only play with like you know virginia friend who still has it or yeah yeah like cousins we we don't
Mike01:01:56even let them do that i i just say like if you want to play with your friends they can come over here well out of state friends yeah yeah no no i just that that's that's been our rule and i think
Sonny01:02:08no i think that's that's totally i like i uh it's funny i brothers my my i i don't i don't know what big video game players like there's some there's like every like i feel like almost every family has a switch at least but like there's not a lot it's there's not a it's like our kids play real sports and it's like i don't i don't love that i wish they would just play video games just go
JVL01:02:40inside and play video games for a while you know what you don't have to do when your kids play
Sonny01:02:44video games drive them to practice go to things i don't want to go to use the pitching machine i don't want to do any of that the switch i i just look this up the switch is the third highest selling uh video game console of all time yep which is which is interesting to me 150 almost
Mike01:03:03151 million units there's a reason there's a reason for that because adults buy it too and it is a it is the crossover it is the crossover it is the first big like it's the first big like thing that you can buy that everybody from like a 45 year old who's been playing video games their whole life that their kids can also play to a six year old yeah yes yeah i uh i i'm just going through this
Sonny01:03:32i'm going through this whole thing and it's uh again it's it's just fast like playstation 2 is the number one uh which isn't surprising but the next three are all nintendo it's nintendo ds i i'm shocked the ds was that popular i like never had a ds i never i mean it came out at a weird time it came out in 2004 so i was like yeah so playstation and xbox walked
JVL01:03:56themselves into a corner where they basically closed themselves off from casual gamers yes and became just rigs for people who are who were gamers right right and you can buy a switch and you can play it once a month yes right right well no and that's yeah you know and it's it's a
Sonny01:04:16difference in it's a difference in game design like this i mean this is your point it's like it's the the the difference is like when you buy when i when i buy a playstation 5 game like a god of war ragnarok i'm looking at like i need to play this for 30 hours over the next month to to like play it right like i need i need to like actually be able to do that and that is absolutely not the case with any of the nintendo games which is and but this has this has knock-on effects which is that like it's incredibly expensive to develop those games to to to not just not just like script them out and everything but like do the actual animation it's insanely expensive like the new when the new gta comes out when the new grand theft auto comes out it's gonna be the first new grand theft auto in i think 14 years something like that 13 14 years and it's gonna it's gonna go on sale for a hundred dollars and it's gonna go on sale for a hundred dollars because it costs like two billion dollars to make like it's it's there it's two avatars i mean it costs two avatars to make this video game i mean it's it's it's crazy uh what they're what they're doing with this uh hold on gta6 budget is rumored rumored again who knows but like the two billion dollars is how much it supposedly costs the last one cost 250 million dollars like the the numbers on these things are just insane um and nintendo does not have that problem nintendo has other problems but nintendo does not have that problem all the games are
JVL01:05:43backward compatible so any games you have on switch you can port into switch too and uh also in the game library that it comes with soul caliber 2 i don't know about you boys but of the fighting games of my youth the namco soul caliber 2 my absolute favorite i feel like that's a little risque for the switch isn't it the physics on it maybe the physics are i mean it's
Sonny01:06:20they did the george lucas uh tape thing for leia george said i was bouncing around too much all right we got all right sure it's fine
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