#300. 'A Minecraft Movie' (Theaters)
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The gang tackles the box-office behemoth that is A Minecraft Movie, now in its second week atop the charts en route to a billion-dollar worldwide haul, and the verdicts split hard along generational lines: Sonny calls it barely watchable but genuinely interesting as an "auteur-driven" IP play from Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess, giving real credit to Jack Black's and Jason Momoa's charisma even while admitting the movie itself doesn't work; JVL, who went in with tempered expectations, still found it "soul crushing," a slog he hated despite recognizing every reference; and Mike agrees it's a chore to sit through, salvaged only by Jack Black "Jack Blacking" and a fun Matt Berry mid-credits cameo. All three are fascinated less by the film than by the Rocky Horror Picture Show-style theater experience of it — kids reciting dialogue, singing the "Lava Chicken" song, and reacting with a communal joy the hosts found simultaneously delightful and unsettling, alongside a tangent on the viral "chicken jockey" popcorn-throwing trend theater chains are now warning against. They also run through the weekend's other box office (King of Kings and a preview of next week's Sinners, which Sonny predicts will overperform). The episode opens with its usual long banter stretch: Sonny's existential spiral over a Spotify-skeptical book on algorithmic "mood music" and whether he's the villain of the music world, JVL's resigned realization that he'll be buying a used Kia Forte every three years for the next decade to hand down to each of his kids as they get their licenses, and Mike recapping a Clark Griswold-style family trip to South Carolina's little-visited Congaree National Park.
From the show notes
Unexplained joy? Seems suspicious.
Full transcript
JVL00:00:00They want me to fight the chicken?
Mike00:00:04Chicken jockey. Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me, as always, are my two co-hosts, who, as children, yearned for the mines. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. Tell your friends and family, if they want to listen to this show, listen to us talk about movies and being dads and dudes chatting and all that stuff. They can only do it at Sub-Beacon.com. Sign up to become a patron. Get new episodes every Friday morning. Join the conversation in the comments. Always a lively discussion there. But you can only do it at Sub-Beacon.com. We are going to be talking about a Minecraft movie. Later on in the show. But first, Sonny, what is going on with you? You've begged off the dudes chatting portion a couple of times recently. What you got for us today?
Sonny00:01:09It's because nothing in my life is happening. I don't have any. Well, make something happen. I don't have anything to report. It's very sad. Are you guys Spotify people? Do you use Spotify? Mike, are you a Spotify person?
Mike00:01:26I'm outing myself here. I don't know. Do you still use Pandora?
Sonny00:01:31Okay.
JVL00:01:32But I pay for it.
Sonny00:01:34JBL, are you a Spotify person?
JVL00:01:36I hate all of those services. And I wish that I still had iTunes and that it would allow me to purchase music for 99 cents per track. And I use like Apple Music, but only under duress. I do not like any of these subscription services. I hate them all. And because I'm an old person. I feel about these the way you feel about physical media for movies.
Sonny00:02:02Well, that's kind of how I feel about them. I subscribe to Amazon Music just because it's easier than trying to maintain my MP3 library and shift it from device to device, whatever. At a certain point, because I'm not a music person and don't care about music as much, it's just convenient. It's integrated into all of my various Amazon ecosystems. It's interesting that none of us here are Spotify people. Given that Spotify is the music service, you know.
JVL00:02:33Is it, though? It's not that big a monopoly, is it?
Sonny00:02:37I don't know about monopoly, but it's certainly.
JVL00:02:40I mean, it's not like Netflix to Hulu.
Sonny00:02:45It's actually probably pretty. Well, no. I mean, like, we should not overstate the amount of traffic that Netflix drives. So, like, the Nielsen viewer chart things. Like, Netflix. Netflix, obviously, is, like, the biggest individual streaming service, how we think of streaming, right? But, like, it's smaller than YouTube. It's smaller than the combined Disney, you know, Hulu, Disney Plus thing. So, like, it's much bigger than Netflix in terms of market share, Spotify is. I don't know. Interesting. I just asked because I was reading this book called, the name of it is Mood Machine, The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist. It's very Spotify skeptical. Look at the way Spotify has kind of warped the music industry. And there are some interesting things here that I had no idea about. I kind of knew because I interviewed David C. Lowry of the band Cracker and camper band Beethoven a couple years back. We talked about this a little bit. But, like, Spotify does weird things with royalties, right? One of them being, like, so one thing that Spotify does is they will offer people lower royalty rates for improved playlists. Replacement on playlists for more, like, for an algorithmic boost, basically. Right. Which is, like, kind of interesting. And, like, I have mildly mixed feelings about, like, is this payola? So this book, Mood Machine, is very much like, this is payola. This is, you know, this is bribing the, this is the same as bribing the DJs to play your thing. And I don't think it's quite like that, but it's not far off. It's at least an interesting. It's an interesting conversation point. But the thing that, the thing I was, the thing I wanted to ask you guys, and the thing I want to discuss here, because I don't know my own feeling on this, and I'm trying to feel it out. And I thought working this out in dudes chatting therapy might be the place to do it. So I, one of the things that this book goes into is, basically, like, there's a whole subgenre of music that I would describe as mood music, right? It's music you put on. It's just, like, noise that plays in the background while you're doing homework or you're working on your taxes or while you're...
JVL00:05:01The musical equivalent of Netflix.
Sonny00:05:02While you're trying to sleep, right? Hold on to that thought. So, you know, the whole point that the author Liz Pelly is making is that, like, this music has its own place in the musical ecosystem. There are musicians who make music like this. Spotify has, came in and, like, popularized some of them, but then realized very quickly that, like, you can, replicate what they do and pay somebody much less to do it. You can basically outsource the creation of this sort of mood music to independent producers who will essentially sign away all the rights to it. And so it goes to Spotify. SoundCloud. It costs, exactly. It's basically like the tracks that you buy to put in front of podcasts, right? Like this podcast. Like this podcast. Originally, it was just a...
JVL00:05:58It was a $7 track.
Sonny00:05:58Track that we've used now for, what, six years? And we paid... $7. Literally $7 for it. And that's like... By the way, it's been nine years. It hasn't been nine years.
Mike00:06:14Yeah, it has.
Sonny00:06:16Hasn't been nine years? It's 2016 has been this podcast.
Mike00:06:19When I brought you all together to make this podcast. Boy.
Sonny00:06:25Anyway. I turned to dust. All right. So, anyway, the point is, the point is, this author is like, this is bad because it replaces this, you know, these sort of like people who are really thinking about the mood music. Instead, it just gives... And most, 99% of listeners can't tell the difference between the intentional mood music and the, you know, the whatever, the mass-produced mood music. They just want something to listen to while they fall asleep. And I'm briefly restating the argument here because it's interesting to me because at one point, she says something like, these, you know, these artists deserve better treatment. The consumers should be more intentional about how they listen to this stuff, blah, blah, blah. And I just sat there thinking to myself, why? But should they? Like, what, what's, like, this is not... Like, this is not music I care about. I don't, I don't care about this music. So what, what do I care? What, what does should mean in this context? Like, deserves got nothing to do with it, right? Like the, the, that's, that's kind of my, my take on this. And then I realized as I was thinking that this is how everybody thinks about streaming, right? This is like, this is how the, this is the average consumer sentiment on streaming. It's not, oh, maybe it's not as good as the TV that we watched on HBO, maybe the movies aren't as good as the movies we saw in the theater, but I just want something to watch on the couch while I'm scrolling through Instagram or trying to go to sleep. I just need something on in the background. And like that.
JVL00:08:10Don't leave me alone with my thoughts.
Sonny00:08:13I mean, that is, that is like, it's the same, it's the same sentiment. And I guess, I guess my question here is, uh, I don't really have a question. I guess my thought here is like. Am, am I, am, am I the musical, am I the problem in the music world? Like the average consumer is the problem in the streaming world. Like, is it even really a problem? Like, does it matter? I don't know. I, does any of this make sense to you as my existential crisis coming through here? I basically see the behavior described in this book and I'm like, I don't understand why this is a problem. But if somebody explained the exact same thing in the context of Netflix, I would be like, yes, this is a real issue that we need to work about and think about. But maybe they're different. Maybe it's different. Maybe it's a, maybe it's an entirely different thing. I don't know.
Mike00:09:04You're, you're, you're having a principal Skinner. Am I out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong. Kind of, kind of moment where you don't know, but I don't know. I'm a little confused about what you're talking about when you're talking about mood music, like what, like how is this different than music?
Sonny00:09:24Literally, it's literally, it's literally just playlists, like mostly in instrumental, like playlists that people, people listen to while they're again, while they're doing their, while they have on in the background, while they're doing homework or explaining why you're not the bad guy here.
JVL00:09:39Um, you are talking about a genre of music, which did not exist until this technology summoned it into being. And so it itself is an artifact of a, just a technological disruption and distortion. And there is no art form preexisting it. It is not art. It is mere commerce.
Sonny00:10:06Well, so this isn't, this isn't entirely true. And this is one of the thing that the book gets into is that like before this, but again, it's, it's, it's, it's music that kind of arose out of other technological disruptions, like having, having music, music, right. It's like the, it's the, it's the, it's the intellectual.
JVL00:10:22But most music was originally, uh, instrumental versions of preexisting intellectual property, right. Right. And, uh, and then it sort of evolved a little bit into like, oh, we can just do this cheaper and please don't feel bad about any of this because even the, the cheap people are all going to be replaced by AI within like 24 months. And because this stuff isn't art, right. This stuff is commerce. And it, it was always commerce and art is always both, but not, not in equal measures, right. You know, when you look at an art form, you can, you can do a pie graph of how much of this is art and how much of this is commerce and what you were talking about with broadcast art or filmed art can be much more art than commerce. This cannot.
Mike00:11:17Sure. Is this music like the, the equivalent of the burning log on TV?
Sonny00:11:23You're very, you're very hung up on. You're very hung up on what this is because you don't listen to it and this is the same thing with me, right? Like I don't listen to this. I don't listen to this background mood music stuff at all. Like there's not, this is like, I'm totally uninterested in the actual music, which is why I look at this. And when I hear words like should I go, what does should mean here? I don't, I don't understand what, like, I have no respect for the art under discussion, I guess, is the point. And as, as JBL says, because it's not really art and like, and I'm sure that, you know, Liz Peli would be like, oh, well, but actually. And like, whatever I, we all, we all have our, we all have our obsessions. Again, bringing this back to the Netflix of it all, if Netflix is properly understood as a replacement for broadcast television, which I think is about right. Then, you know, 90% of broadcast television was essentially the mute mood music of its time. It's totally disposable. It's a thing that you have on as a, as a, you know, Toyota advertisement delivery device and, and I, I am, I, what I guess what I'm again, what I'm struggling with here is like, is that just a future of art production? Is this kind of just like stuff that you got to find?
JVL00:12:50No. So the, you got to find the answer to this is, um, economic modalities have to be created in which art can be profitable. And so real music, the profit is all gonna come from live performances because live performances are the only place where the artist can capture value that an algorithm or an AI or a platform doesn't mm-hmm and so that's why you will still get music, but the music will have to be popular enough to create the demand for live performances because that's the all this stuff follows from like economic value capture. Yeah, right in art can only exist in places where the value capture of the product flows to the artist and when it flows to a person who owns distribution or the platform or to some other actor, that's when the ability for it to be art really diminishes.
Sonny00:13:54Okay, this is why I listen to XM. You I don't I don't listen to I don't listen to I want I want a DJ telling me what I need to be listening to not some algorithm, you know, I want a DJ who's taking cash under the table telling me what I should be listening to not an algorithm taking cash under the table.
Mike00:14:12I guess yeah, I guess not not to not to belabor all this and go back to the thing that you say I'm I'm hung up on Sonny but the the type of music that you're talking about like I would much prefer to listen to. Like actual I don't film soundtracks or scores rather, you know, or some kind of recognizable but not intrusive music rather than like just what I have the idea of is basically like electronic slop is that is that the type of music that we're talking about because because yes because so like what we're really talking about is like who is going to be making the music. Yeah, there's there's you shouldn't care about that. You shouldn't care about that. It's slop. It's not it's not real music. Okay. All right. This is this is I solve that
Sonny00:15:10problem. If we if we I guarantee you if we turn this over to the music people, they would call this imperialism just 100 percent. You are you're you're you're an imperialist. You're colonizing spaces that were as charged first first trod upon by the the pioneers of the you know, probably mostly I'm sure BIPOCs and people in, you know, LGBT. I am sure that's
JVL00:15:36all part of this. You're anyway. No, I like I find I don't know. I find it all. I am I
Sonny00:15:44am still having some trouble with this. I might keep working on this internally. I might
JVL00:15:47keep my keep thinking about. All right. Keep working on for you. JVL. Yeah. So I have hit a new life phase and it is it brought me up a little short when I realized it. So Flash has turned 17, which in New Jersey means he is about to get his license. This requires doesn't actually require. But in in my world, it means that I would like to provide him with a car. Sure. I have the car, which is my car, which is a 2018 Kia Forte with 100,000 miles on it, which I love and which is great and which has all the advanced features and whatnot. And I realize that what I should do is I should give this car to Flash and I should get myself a new car because, you know, this this 2018 Kia Forte with one hundred five thousand miles on it is worth like three dollars, you know, and ten dollars if the tank is full. And and this way, if he wrecks it in his first week, nobody has to feel bad. So I went on this adventure where I thought, like, what am I going to get? The world is my oyster. I could get something nicer than a Kia Forte. And then I realized that three years from now I'm going to have to do this exact same thing with a favorite in. So I should probably just get the car that favorite is going to get. And I'll just like keep the seat warm for her for three years. And and so I have bought a used 2023 Kia Forte. Which I will drive for three years and give to her. And so I started thinking about, OK, well, you know, then three years from now, I mean, come 2028, I'm going to get something cool. I mean, we don't even so cool. They haven't even invented it yet. What's it going to be? And then I realized, wait, wait, three years after that little evil turned 17. Yeah. Anyway, and I just I just started marching this out. I'm going to have to provide a gently used cheap but full of safety feature car to children every three years for the next 12 years. And so I am simply going to be driving myself just a placeholder, like a little I'll keep the seat warm, something that is worth nothing, that is essentially the same. I'm going to be driving Kia Fortes for the next decade, like used Kia Fortes for the next decade so that every three years I can pass them off to the new the new driver in the house. And then buy another used Kia Forte so I can break it in for the next driver. And that was really, really brought me up short.
Mike00:18:36JVL, I'm sorry.
JVL00:18:37Yeah.
Mike00:18:38At this point in your life and your fatherhood, you should be disabused of any notion that you can expect something for yourself.
JVL00:18:51Yeah, I hadn't really really I'd lost sight of that truth, Michael. But believe me.
Mike00:18:58I've got it right in the crosshairs now. Good, good. OK, I was I was worried you were you were you were losing your grip on something, but I'm glad you grabbed it back. I'm glad you grabbed it back.
JVL00:19:07That's it. Just an endless line of Kia Fortes all the way to the horizon. These are the things I will be driving until I'm in my 60s.
Mike00:19:18Hey, they're reliable, right? Good for you.
JVL00:19:22You know, you can really tell a man has made it when he's driving a more recent model used Kia Forte for a couple of years. That's all I want to share with you, boys. I thought you would find it humorous. I do. I love it.
Sonny00:19:36Well, I I'm I'm just going to throw this out there. Sure. When I when I turned 16, I I got like, you know, a four thousand dollar used Volvo 240 like that. That's what I got. Like from the great car. It was a great car. It worked perfectly well. But the. But like Mike, I guess my question is, why don't you just buy a car and then get them a used car at some point down the line?
JVL00:20:05Because I will be giving them a used car. And so the point is, I mean, I, you know, I'm not really a car guy. I like cars. I know a lot about cars. But by buying a used car now and with already the depreciation hit taken and then using it more for three years, I'm giving it to them at really the sweet spot where I'll have 70,000 to 80,000 miles on it. So all the depreciation is gone, but it is still modern enough that it has all of the safety stuff because there is, I mean, there is a real difference starting around 2018. It's a pre-2018 cars where all of the LIDAR and rear collision, forward collision, blind spot sensor, driver assist stuff makes cars markedly safer. And so this way I keep them in cars that are worthless enough. That if they total them after a week, nobody has to be too upset, but they are as safe as one can reasonably expect. And like, it just seems like, you know, it's the lowest cost way to keep doing this treadmill. Gotcha.
Mike00:21:10But this is either this or the method that I got my first car by, I mean, or the method that my wife got her first car by. Like these are all infinitely better than the like insanity that I see sometimes, which is like purchasing a brand new car for your 16 year old, which like, I just can't wrap my, I can't wrap my head around.
Sonny00:21:37Like, so like I got my, if you do that, you should be put in a camp reeducation. I totally agree.
Mike00:21:44Get your, get your, you get your parent card revoked. Cause like mine was, mine was my grandmother had died. She had a, a little coop that she barely, she like drove to the grocery. Store into her house for like five years. And when my dad got it, he would use it to drive to work. And he like doubled the mileage on this thing in like, in like three months. Um, which just goes to show you like how little, uh, it, it was driven. And that, that was his like go to work car. He had a truck for like hauling stuff that he needed to haul. And then I got the car when I turned 16 and drove that car until like after, after it until after my first child was born and which, and after that I had to get a car that I could put a real car seat in. Um, but like, that's a, that's a, that's a great way to, uh, you know, I think it's
JVL00:22:39nuts to give new drivers a car that is worth anything.
Mike00:22:44It's insane, right?
JVL00:22:45Like, yeah. Anyway, I mean, you know, more likely than not, right. It's probably like they'll, they'll be fine with it, but there is a substantial chance of total loss within the first like 24 months of them driving and like, who needs that headache? Yeah. Just give, give him some cheap. My, my best friend, Chris, uh, he and I were incredibly diligent teenage boys. Like we did not get into trouble. We were, you know, we, we were straight arrows. We, we, you know, dotting all the T's and crossing all the I's and all that.
Sonny00:23:20Right.
JVL00:23:20And the day Chris got his license and came to pick me up, we nearly got into a total loss accident within the first 20 minutes. And it, I mean, it was, we were pulling out of a Cumberland farms parking lot and narrowly got T-boned. The car like spun around. We wound up sitting like hyperventilating in the parking lot for a half hour before he had the nerve to try driving again. Like, I'm sorry. Like new drivers are just bad, you know? Agreed. So, uh, nothing wrong. Anyway, Kia Fortes. It's a great car. Love those South Koreans. That's all I have. Michael, how are you?
Mike00:24:01Uh, I'm fine. I'm coming to you live from Charleston, South Carolina, where we are in the midst of spring break, uh, visiting my in-laws.
JVL00:24:09Um, and spring break, spring break. Woo. Uh, say goodbye to these, Michael.
Mike00:24:15It's the last time you're going to see them. Um, so no, I mean, things are fine. So we, I don't know if I've talked about this on the podcast before, but we have a sort of loose goal as a fan. We, particularly just particularly my wife and I, but, um, but as a family, we're trying to do it as well of visiting as many of the national parks that we can. Oh yeah. We have a passport. Um, you know, like we, we went to the one when we were in, uh, when we were on our honeymoon, our, um, 10, 10 year anniversary trip to Hawaii. We got, uh, just the two of us. We got, uh, the Haleakala national park there. Um, we've been to. A few. What's that?
JVL00:24:59What are you hitting up now? Are there national parks in South Carolina?
Mike00:25:03Interesting. Nobody knows about this national park, but there is a national park in South Carolina that we visited, uh, earlier this week, uh, Congaree national park, uh, first designated as a national monument. And I believe like 1975 or six, um, and then converted into a national park in 2003. Um, it is something like the 10th. Least visited national park in the country. And it's not because it's like inaccessible, you know, like some of the national parks, you gotta like take a boat out to, to go to them or they're in, you know, the, the, the wilds of Alaska. No, this is like a, this is like a 20 mile drive from Columbia, South Carolina, the capital of the state, um, from Charleston. It's a, it's less than two hours. So, um, so here's the thing I was, I had low expectations. And they were exceeded, not by a lot, but, but my expectations were so low that like this exceeded it. Um, so it is a, it was, it used to be called a swamp. It is not technically a swamp. It is, um, like the alluvial floodplains, bottom lands, bottom lands, I think is what they're called. Um, but it is, it's something like the largest, um, continuous tract of the, this type of, uh, alluvial floodplain bottom land, um, that used to. Go up the entire, uh, sort of East coast of the, of the South and mid Atlantic. Um, and so it's got, I think like the largest bald Cypress trees in North America, um, are here and it's essentially just this floodplain and a boardwalk. And there are other trails, but like the, the main thing for the visitor center is like a boardwalk that goes in a loop and you kind of walk around and, and you see these, you know, they kind of look like, uh, stalagmites, uh, those parts of the trees that come up
JVL00:27:02force your children to come to this thing with you.
Mike00:27:05Yes. So, so I'm getting, I'm getting, you are Clark Griswold.
JVL00:27:09Come on kids. Look at this great national park, but it's like we have a place blows.
Mike00:27:15No. So before we even left in the morning, we're trying to get everybody out the door and I just overheard my two oldest, uh, children speaking to each other about this with, you know, to each other. And my, uh, my oldest said, come on, we got to go get ready so we can go see some trees to which, to which my middle child responded like without missing a beat. Uh, I hate looking at trees. And I was like, well, boys, you're going to hate what we're doing today.
JVL00:27:45Look at these trees. Got some trees. You know, but I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Arborism might be a good career for you.
Mike00:27:54Um, anyway, so yeah, it was a very Clark Griswold moment, but it was, I mean, honestly, it was essentially a walk in the woods and with some like cooler than normal looking trees because those like bald cypresses, they're, they're huge. Um, these giant like pine trees, it's, it was like the East coast version of what the Redwoods are, which is like, it's not like the red, so like shitty.
Sonny00:28:20Yeah. It's like the East coast. It's like the East coast version of surfing. It's like shitty. No, totally.
Mike00:28:25No, that's what I'm saying. Like everything on the East coast. Is like, it's like, it's like the pathetic version of what they have on the West coast. Natural, naturally speaking, right? Like the natural landforms and stuff like the Appalachian mountains, uh, are, are impressive foothills, uh, but their foot, yeah, there's nothing when you actually see the Rockies or the Sierra Nevada or something. So anyway, uh, Congaree national park, the other, the other, the other funny thing about it is, um, you know, if you've been to other national parks, you'll see like the signs letting you know. Hey, a national park is up ahead. Uh, or there'll be like the, the, you know, the array of like hotels for people to stay in while they, you know, and like, you're literally driving through, uh, the most boring part of South Carolina, which is saying something. And, uh, it's, you're like going, turning down like residential streets in small towns, crisscrossing across, uh, until, and like, I'm like, where are the signs? And it was like, I don't know. Is it not until we were about 15 minutes away from the headquarters of this national park that we saw the first sign that was like Congaree national park this way. Um, and you literally just, like I said, you turn down the street that people's houses are on and there's like no fanfare and you turn left and there it is. So, um, apparently if you're into birdwatching, it's a great place to do birdwatching. So, uh, that's about all I have to say about that. no we got to talk about box office first uh which i guess we are talking about minecraft in that sense uh because a minecraft movie once again tops the box office for a second week in a row um it is now up to through the second weekend 200 and almost 279 million dollars um it had like a 50 drop off at the box office from the week before um followed by the king of kings the the uh the the christian studio movie um that's come out i've seen actually quite a bit of advertisement for um number two of the box office just under 20 million dollars um any any thoughts
Sonny00:30:39on the box office guys yeah it was a uh it's funny you know before before last weekend the the year over year was running like 11 behind 2000 you know 25 versus 2024 like oh box office in trouble minecraft movie erased that entire deficit essentially by itself um you know movies business of hits uh 50 drop is pretty good um i kind of thought it would be a little bit more than that i thought it might be in the 60 65 range that it would be pretty front loaded if you remember five nights at freddy's that came out uh last year or the year before that that had that had like an 80 drop weekend to weekend uh and i i thought it might be something like that but no this is this is just gonna hold on it'll probably gross about a billion dollars worldwide a huge hit for warner brothers um lots of new stuff in the theaters like you mentioned that king of kings movie which is a animated retelling of jesus's story by charles dickens right it was like an
Mike00:31:45unpub it's kind of interesting right it was like an unpublished book during his lifetime but they
Sonny00:31:51were like stories that he wrote i don't know i don't know what it is it's whatever i i saw a lot of ads for it too which is kind of interesting i saw a lot of twitter ads for it i don't know where you saw your ads mike but i saw a lot of ads twitter ads like youtube ads so they they they clearly uh the folks at angel studios clearly put some some oomph behind this uh and it did fine you know 20 19 million dollars something like that it'll probably do you know 35 to 40 uh oh you get a lot more this weekend with easter weekend i guess that's true it is easter weekend this weekend uh i don't know yeah maybe maybe it gets to 50 or 60 i whatever it it did fine um uh i i want to i'm going to place a marker right now on sinners next weekend i think that movie is getting uh so right now it's tracking for about 40 million dollars uh 30 30 to 40 million was the last number i saw i think that movie opens to at least 50 and maybe does 60 i think it's for the peel movie for the folks it's a ryan coogler it's uh it's uh no it's a it's a it's a it's a ryan coogler movie so the guy who made black panther it stars michael b jordan again from black panther from creed trailer there's like a musical hoedown going on yes it's vampires it's a vampire movie oh it's a vampire you you won't i thought it was a racism movie but it's a hell jvl let me tell you it's a racist vampire movie um i'm not joking that's not that's i'm not doing a bit it's it's it's about racism and vampirism and how you know what you know what racism is kind of like anti-vampirism um anyway uh i think this movie's going to be a big hit uh and that's at least in part because or i think it's i think it's going to overperform expectations because i tracking always has a weird time with uh capturing the black audience uh total uh there's lots of there's all there's usually because of the vampires because of because of the racism in the film industry this movie is also a metaphor for racism in the film uh and i'm just i want to throw this out there i think 50 to 60 million should be the range people are looking for here i think it's going to do i think it's going to play like gangbusters with audiences i think this movie's going to hold um did you like it i did like it i did like i look it is it is woke sunny bunch the race it's the racist vampire move so the movie it's funny the movie is actually if i were going to pinpoint the actual thematic point of the film it's that creation is a form of vampirism that's almost literally the text of the film i'm not like sure i don't think i'm i don't think i'm reading too much into it here uh but but it's also it's also just like it's kind of like um somebody described it as uh on twitter as uh from dusk till dawn in wakanda that's not wrong exactly and that's and that sounds like a pretty good movie that's pretty fun that's a fun movie so i i uh i enjoyed it i think audiences are gonna are gonna love it i at least a minus cinema score probably an a um maybe an a the movie goes out on a very high note for for the intended audience uh of of uh people who love racism and vampires um so uh or anti
JVL00:35:08racism you know i went to see dusk till dawn with no idea that it was a vampire movie i thought i was seeing pulp a pulp fiction movie and when it took a turn that was one of the wildest turns i've ever hit in a movie theater for going in you had no you had no idea oh no idea oh i went in completely blind i was like what's happening what is a vampire movie well because it it takes
Sonny00:35:36a hard like it takes a hard left turn at like 40 minutes into the movie that's because like the first 40 minutes is quentin tarantino and uh george clooney like hanging out and doing crimes and you know being like doing like kind of pulp fictiony reservoir dogs that's what i thought i was seeing and then and then you they get to the vampire strip club and it's like oh salma hayek's vampire there's this is vampire strip club what's going on here uh very and they're in the strip club for a while before it turns too like there's like 10 minutes in excuse me there's like 10 minutes in the anyway yeah no that's very funny if you don't know what's coming that that would be a very that'd be an amusing shift weird experience i can
Mike00:36:17imagine all right um okay well any other thoughts on the box office no let's talk about minecraft let's let's do it a minecraft movie again second week in a row it's number one of the box office it has been uh a movie that i don't know i guess all of our kids have in some way been sort of talking about for a little bit because of the trailer sonny you want to give us a big boy review of a minecraft movie a minecraft
Sonny00:36:50it's set in the world of minecraft so uh i i don't know how i don't know how to review this movie as a as a proper movie because it's not really a proper movie uh it's it's a collection of things from the video game and then also non sequiturs in the real world um but the the the very short version is you get a prologue with jack black being like i've always wanted to work in the mines and then i when i grew up i decided to go work in the mines and i discovered the world of and uh that's where he makes the block things i i this movie fails on a very fundamental level which is i don't understand how the game of minecraft works still after having seen this i don't understand how the the blocks function because like sometimes they're like making the blocks small and then he's throwing the block and it becomes big again but then there are other times where he's just throwing a ton of blocks and around like where'd you get all those blocks from where where is all this coming from i don't understand anyway uh but the in the world of you can make things like houses or castles or whatever uh long story short other people get sucked into this world like jumanji kind of like jumanji uh where uh jason momoa who is a champion video game player uh two young young people who are who have to move to this town because the girl is working on the social media accounts for the chip factory in town uh and then a woman who owns a llama business some sort of zoo some sort of mobile zoo she wants to be a mobile she's also a real estate agent she's also a realist she's the real estate agent for these people anyway they they move into the i don't like again i i'm not really interested in reviewing this movie but i do there is one thing that's kind of interesting about it from my perspective which is that it is it is 100 a movie that is made by the guy who made napoleon dynamite now i don't know if you guys are did you i don't know i assume jbl hated napoleon dynamite that feels like a movie jbl would hate one of the very very few movies that i pressed escape on so this is interesting like halfway through it i was like let me the fuck right here mike i assume you actually like napoleon dynamite love napoleon dynamite
Mike00:39:07saw him in the theater a couple times got the dvd you're a total normie the same i love napoleon
Sonny00:39:12dynamite great it's fun fun movie you know it it is it's like kind of a perfect early aughts indie comedy post wes anderson sort of thing um that that killed for a few years uh and i enjoyed it but this is very much a a jared hess movie in like to the extent where you can see the things he is doing in both uh napoleon dynamite and later films like gentlemen broncos and nacho libre in this movie like the the terrible sketches um and the the the kids do to like show how creative and wonderful they are um and also just like the kind of natural absurdity of the world like the whole the like every time i saw the ridiculous chip factory mascot in the distance i like i i giggled a little bit because it just looks so dumb and silly but like also like sure too which is kind of cool well and it's a miniature it's like a it's like a it's like a i don't know set painting or something it's not a matte painting anyway um like i that that whole world and the way that jason momoa is playing the kind of ridiculous uh you know uh like almost like an an older kip or uncle rico from napoleon dynamite as the as the the uh the the video game guy and then the the the even down to like the way he says tots like i swear to god they had they had like an idaho uh vocal consultant come out and be like this is how you say tots in the natural dialect of our people um totally uh it it's it's just it's very it's very recognizable as a jared hess movie and that matters in the sense that it is a movie that is very genuine in its goofiness right there's a there's a version of this movie that is steeped in irony and is like totally you know kind of i don't know dismissive of everybody in it and this movie this movie does not hate its characters in a way that a similar another version of this movie could have right i would have liked that version of the movie see i like again like you're not you hate jared hess and jared and like napoleon dynamite and this is just this is not that movie it's a movie that is filled with love and affection for these people instead of dismissing them and that is i think why at least part of the reason why it works with audiences and this very clearly works with audiences killing with audiences um so i don't know it's it's an i don't i don't like i don't think the movie's good i don't think the movie's good i think it's barely watchable in long stretches but it is interesting it is interesting in that it is absolutely 100 percent an auteur driven big budget ip play along the lines of something like christopher nolan's batman or uh or zack snyder's superman movies like it is it is it is uh it is a vision from a guy and i i don't love what he came up with but it is very unique and identifiable and that's that is that again that's just an interesting thing
Mike00:42:43all right sonny thank you for that uh that that overview you want me to talk about what i mean you
JVL00:42:51could i i'm i'm curious as to what uh did you enjoy it can we set some baselines what are our
Mike00:42:57three experiences with minecraft i have zero my experience is my kids play it but not actually that much like they got really excited to get it i think my middle got it for a christmas or something they played it like heavily for like two weeks and they don't play it much anymore and it's very unclear to me as it is with sonny how it works or what the point of it is it's it's not cold fusion michael but like there's like a sandbox version but there's also like a survival version
JVL00:43:42there's those two two different modes all right so my my i am slightly deeper into it than you guys which is they all four of my kids have at some point played with it they will still occasionally dip into it except for flash uh and i have some experience playing it because in each of their experiences with minecraft i have been there to sort of help them figure out how the world works and how to play the game so this is okay okay yeah um i should add my middle
Mike00:44:11also went as steve for halloween last year um or whatever that's worth um okay so my experience with this was i took my oldest uh we went to a theater here in in south carolina um it's a small independent theater local locally owned and all this and we sat down and at the very beginning before the movie started there was a message from the theater that said um you may be really excited about the chicken jockey scene and we're happy that you are but please do not throw your popcorn or soda cups at the screen when it happens and if uh you do you'll be asked to leave with no refund thank you and have a good time um that is a thing people do
Sonny00:45:02well apparently it is apparently viral videos everywhere of kids freaking out throwing sure
JVL00:45:10freaked out at at my screening they didn't throw shit at the screen well apparently some it's been happening because you should have your hand chopped off screens are precious agree they're very expensive you get a stain or a rip on a screen you have ruined it for forever it needs
Mike00:45:26to be replaced i yep boy nobody did this at my screening um i found the movie such a slog i was bored the entire time i didn't like it um i didn't find it funny um to the extent i did find anything funny it was when jack black was jack blacking and um there was i i had this feeling that he was he was really saving this movie from from being just a 100 percent complete slog um and i kept looking over at my 10 year old and he was laughing and he's been talking about the movie but you know he laughed at times but like i was like kind of watching him and he was not reacting to this is any of the jokes fascinating yeah uh he again after the fact he was like that was a good movie i liked it i liked when they said chicken jockey i like this and that and the other and i was like well did you think it was very funny he goes yeah i thought it was funny which to me if a 10 year old doesn't laugh this and then when you ask him if it was funny he says yeah i thought it was funny like it that's that's all you need to know so yeah i i didn't like it this is fascinating
Sonny00:46:51sonny who did you take i took my i took my six-year-old what was his reaction no it was it was very similar we had we we reacted more to the way other people in the theater were reacting around us than we did to the stuff on screen all right well this so this is exactly what i want to
JVL00:47:08talk about so i don't know about again just one man's experience we saw it it's weekend two the theater was a very large theater uh there were a couple empty seats but not many very very packed uh a mix of i would say six to ten year olds and then middle school high school kids and the middle school high school kids were wearing a lot of them were wearing like the headbands with the they were wearing minecraft t-shirts they were you know it was like the the freshman class from from flash and favorites school like their entire freshman class was there for this and this movie absolutely killed with them yeah they were i mean breaking into applause reciting dialogue along with it as if it was rocky horror yeah i don't know and so i was wondering how do they know the dialogue were they here last weekend and saw it or
Sonny00:48:07they just from the trailer like from the so the the tiktok ad campaign on this movie has been impeccable they sliced all of the the dialogue into singing along with the songs
JVL00:48:18yep they were i mean the whole the whole theater is singing along with the songs and with the chicken jockey killed chicken i am steve the lava chicken song and it i mean it was really and i did the same thing as you boys i kept looking over at g money and g money was looking around at all of these other kids with this vaguely i don't get it and when we got outside i was like so what'd you think he was like yeah yeah it was uh it was great exact same reaction you guys are describing and so i now i went in understanding this isn't a movie for me and not expecting anything from it and yet i hated it i really really found it soul crushing and hard to to get through it was a slog and i was trying to juxtapose that with the reaction of the the other kids especially with the high school age kids and i got two two theories only the first theory is this is a pure nostalgia play and so minecraft represents nostalgia for them in ways that it doesn't for me but also doesn't for g money yet because g money still plays minecraft the second is that the enjoyment of this is entirely being manufactured at the meta level where people are coming to it to experience it through tiktok or something else yeah and so that's what they're reacting to not the actual thing on the screen i want that is what i want to talk to you guys about well i'm glad you mentioned rocky horror
Sonny00:49:59picture show because that is that was my exact response to this was this going to see this movie with my six-year-old was a lot like the first time the only time i went to go see rocky horror picture show in a movie theater where like things people were were reacting in ways i did not understand to things that were happening on the screen in that i did not understand like there were there were it was it was it was sensory overload in a very specific sort of way that again whether or not it's nostalgia or manufactured nostalgia or or or what there was there was a very specific sense of community that i do not belong to that that was in play here and it was and again this is like this is fascinating as a sociological construct i'm i'm like totally i'm totally into this as a as a as an idea as like a way to experience movies you know what it's also kind of like on a on a on a different on in kind of a parallel sort of way was the gentle minions thing right this is a lot like it's a lot like the gentle minions thing where you have like a group of kids who are trying to do a thing together but it's it's totally meme driven and manufactured but again that's not that's not unlike rocky horror right that is like rocky horror is the same thing where you have like you have people who have gone a hundred times and they have like checklists that they run down and like you do this here you throw this here you do this it's the same it's the same sort of thing it's just like new it's just a new version
Mike00:51:38of that right and and feels less organic than rocky horror picture show right like that was something that kind of just came about on its own it wasn't a part of a viral marketing strategy by
Sonny00:51:55a major movie corporation am i wrong on that sonny well yes and no i mean at this point rocky horror is not organic at all right it's all it's all no no i'm saying right origin but but but but but like so the tiktok stuff like these are people who are interacting with the thing through the medium of tiktok right these are people who get the trailer and they slice it up and they remix it and they make their own little thing of it and like again i'm not on tiktok so i don't i don't know precisely how how this has evolved and worked if it was warner brothers did a really good job of marketing through tiktok to them or if they did enough of a job marketing to them that it then got picked up by tiktok and what like again it's it's it's just it's a it is a it's an entire subculture that i don't know anything about and as a result it's very it was it was it was both joyful and discomforting that's how i would it was it was discomforting joyfulness that i was experiencing like they were happy for reasons i didn't understand which made me nervous i don't like it when people are
Mike00:53:12happy in ways i don't understand i mean i think the only thing that would have been maybe more unsettling is if you had been in a theater like mine in which there were only um there was only one other party there and it was like some grandparents and another little kid so like imagine going to rocky horror picture show with another three people who had never seen it yeah exactly and just like watching it and being like that was weird uh and that was that was my own experience um but i don't know like can we talk about the movie itself because i know it's there's like nothing really of substance to talk about but um the whole jason momoa thing actor uh sorry the character that he plays and that whole sort of arc was was so like half-baked is like too generous like yes what what was that supposed to be it was like i was so put off by the whole thing like oh he's like he's like a man-child who's living in the past i guess that's an uncle rico type of thing but there's like way too much going on with him and it just it it didn't work at all there was only one choice
JVL00:54:30made with jason momoa's character that works comedically and that was the decision to give him bangs so the fact that his long hair has bangs in front is simply hysterically funny all in space and everything else after that is like i don't know i i found the i found the idea
Sonny00:54:52of him distributing flyers uh to be a mentor to people also kind of funny just because it's so i don't i like again the character the character is what it is is like a loving tribute to the night it to the king of kong guys right like this is it's a riff on it's a riff on the king of kong guys who like obsessively master some terrible console game from the 1980s and then don't really have any other skills as a result but because they're the best at that thing they you know inflated sense of self it's a it's a riff on all those guys and in that way it kind of works i think i i like again i find i think momoa is i think momoa is very charismatic i think he's a i think he is this movie to the extent that this movie succeeds it succeeds on the charisma of momoa and jack black um when they are on screen it is better and i know jvl is not a jack black guy um but like i like they they they have a natural exuberance to them that i i find compelling to watch on screen i and i enjoy
Mike00:56:08watching them i i agree with you about jack black again like i said like he saves the movie to the extent that it's saved it's it's by him just being doing his thing um and i will say my son was singing the lava chicken song a couple times so there's some stickiness to that i i just i i i walked out with a lot of questions for him about the movie which he was very game to answer um i was like so like what why are why does it turn night and the bad guys come out like what is that about he's like oh that's in the game so like every answer to my question was that's in the game um you know like why why why is it that like these different places he's built up the stuff and it's like then he goes back to the house but the house is like run by these evil guys and he's like those guys are in the game too like but like none of it like i had no idea of like am i watching sort of a like in the way that the super mario brothers movie it's like you're what you're watching is sort of a movified version of the different levels or worlds that throughout super mario world games super mario games you've like seen and like that's kind of what was happening here but i just well you just don't you don't recognize
Sonny00:57:34any of it like i don't recognize super mario the super mario brothers movie works because you understand all because we who grew up playing super mario brothers and super mario world understood all of the things that were happening in it i disagree i understood all the things that
JVL00:57:49were happening in super mario and it was not entertaining or like oh there's rainbow road maybe do something interesting on rainbow road instead of just showing us rainbow road and i recognized all these things in the minecraft movie too well when i say works i just mean it's
Sonny00:58:03coherent it's it's like this that's all borderline incoherent to me i like didn't i think totally yeah
Mike00:58:10i understand that um the whole jennifer coolidge thing felt like from a different movie uh yes didn't it and and honestly i was like i could use a little more of that i could have used a little more of the coach all of this stuff in the real world all of this stuff in the real world is better than
JVL00:58:27all of the stuff in the minecraft world 100 absolutely slows down once it hits the minecraft
Sonny00:58:32world i this is again this and again this is the jared hess of it like the weirdness like her flirting with the weird minecraft guy is like funny because it's weird maybe the funniest thing
JVL00:58:42to happen the whole movie is her when she hits the minecraft villager with the car saying oh my god
Mike00:58:48it happened again yeah yeah that's a funny also i i loved hearing at the in the post-credit or mid-credit stinger the matt matt barry's voice is his voice i was like oh i just actually want to hear matt barry like that's all i kind of want to hear is is like all this other stuff was crap but like that was worth it to hear 30 seconds of that supposedly matt barry was actually cast in
Sonny00:59:15the jack black role and couldn't do it there were scheduling conflicts or something and this is i think this is a much worse movie if matt barry is playing jack is somehow is a much worse movie if barry in that role i i like i don't think that works at all i mean i love matt barry i think he's hilarious but the problem with i mean the thing about matt barry who i love and i think he's great like i genuinely love you dude sonny bunch he's got he's got the best voice in the game i would i would cast him in anything and the the his his toast of london show is incredibly funny um uh i love matt barry however however he is he is steeped in this ironic detachment like he he you cannot separate him and his voice from a certain level of yes irony poisoned um humor that if you put him into the jack black role the movie instantly becomes a difference it has an entirely different vibe than yes then it would and i honestly don't think that i don't think it would work with the the intended audience um and i think it would somehow again this i don't think this is a good movie i don't think it really works very well at all that it would work even less with him in that question question yeah what
Mike01:00:33is with all the kiwis um there's uh jemaine clement has a role um there's the the the pig witch queen lady is is uh is from new zealand as well i believe that the the voice of that like is there is there a connection here that i'm missing clement clement has worked with
Sonny01:00:55hess uh on several movies um so he's like he's he's kind of part of the the god he's part of the hess universe such as but also i mean also clement just shows up in these things like he's in mama all right uh moana right like he's the he's the crab he's again that's true you know what like new zealanders have funny voices i'm sorry this is just which is ironic that he does
Mike01:01:18a southern accent in his uh live action appearance in this movie by the way it's one of the one of
Sonny01:01:24i uh continued to watch and love mythic quest because uh all right poppy poppy has that great ridiculous kiwi accent there's also there's another show i watch called uh animal animal control or animal rescue whatever it's like some it's on it's on uh fox and it's a great gym show but the one of the only reasons i watch it is because one of the supporting characters is this lady with a new zealand accent i'm like she's funny she's funny because she has a funny voice
Mike01:01:52he's very funny except
Sonny01:01:54from new zealand all right that's south that's a fucking afrikaner accent you now you've you've
Mike01:01:59done a that's terrifying no it's not no it's not no it's not yes yes like a blonde all right uh any other thoughts on i'm just doing flight of the concords uh any other thoughts on a minecraft movie are we gonna see a minecraft movie sequel like yes this movie's gonna make a billion dollars all right okay uh any other thoughts no ironically i don't like flight of the concords interesting that's such a formative a formative part of my uh of my teenage years and sense of humor so uh all right well i guess that's all we're gonna talk about here on this episode of the sub beacon uh join us over at subbeacon.com tell your friends tell your family and we'll talk to you next time
Sonny01:02:53now you sounded like the villain from the beekeeper there for a second that's that's
Mike01:02:57the accent you were throwing off mike no no this is my kiwi accent yes they always say yes they say they they sort of pinch their veils a little bit like this they're like australians but the that's better that's this is your you're giving me much yeah yes okay uh okay what else is
JVL01:03:16going on anything no tell you what g money is excited because we have our tickets for the 20th anniversary release of revenge of the sith yep next wednesday one night only at the amc we're going to the 5 30 show he's gonna see revenge of the sith which is currently his favorite movie in the world on the big screen for the first time should we do that next week should we should we
Sonny01:03:43talk about revenge of the sith you're gonna see it wednesday night wednesday night yeah i don't know if i'll be able to see it in a theater but we can we can discuss i won't see
Mike01:03:52it in a theater i'll watch it at my house but uh all right that's hey sure i mean i'm sure that'll be fine
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