#323. 'The Karate Kid' (Netflix)
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Prompted by the arrival of the reviled Karate Kid Legends on Netflix, the trio instead rewatch the 1984 original, and it's a rare unanimous rave: Sonny calls it a shining example of highly competent, visually literate studio filmmaking from Rocky director John G. Avildsen, praising the background staging, the cross-country credits sequence, and Pat Morita's Oscar-nominated Mr. Miyagi; JVL frames it as a perfect artifact of early-80s East-Coast-obsessed-with-California, karate-fad, BMX-and-brat-pack culture, with real credit to William Zabka's athletic, hateable Johnny Lawrence; and Mike, watching the actual original for the first time (having grown up instead on The Next Karate Kid), is bowled over by the drunken-Mr.-Miyagi/dead-wife scene and by how much genuine feeling the formulaic underdog plot earns. The back half turns into a spirited relitigation of the famous "Daniel is actually the real villain" fan theory, casting-what-if trivia (Sean Penn, Nicholas Cage, and half the Outsiders cast were up for the LaRusso role), the geography and plausibility of Encino/Reseda, and Sonny's own Taekwondo-lock-in memory of watching The Karate Kid Part III. Before any of that, the opening third runs long with sports and pest-control banter: Sonny's UVA hat finally "pays off" as the Cavaliers upset Florida State (spinning into a JVL/Mike debate about conference realignment ruining college football), Mike delivers a triumphant hornet-extermination update (the poisoned European hornets apparently picked off by birds) plus a stink-bug infestation story from his anniversary cabin getaway, and Sonny runs down the box office, dissecting One Battle After Another's IMAX/Vista Vision numbers, Leonardo DiCaprio's rare A CinemaScore, and skepticism about the Avatar theatrical re-release.
From the show notes
GET HIM A BODY BAG
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00So you okay? Can you go on? Yeah, I'm a body bag! Yeah! Alright, beat. Morning again, Johnny! Morning!
Mike00:00:18Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me, as always, are my two co-hosts who have been told to sweep the leg. 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, they've got to do it at Sub-Beacon.com. New episodes every Friday. Join the conversation in the comments. Say hi to us on Instagram. Sub-Beacon.com. We're going to be talking about The Karate Kid. That's right, The Karate Kid. 1984 original movie, not any of the new crap. Later on in the show. But first, let's check in to see how everyone's doing. JVL, what's happening with you?
JVL00:01:04You know, I don't really have anything this week. I defer my time to the two gentlemen to tell me more about their hornet murdering and their 1980s karate obsessions.
Mike00:01:18Sonny, you want to take it here?
Sonny00:01:22No, I don't. I don't actually have a 1980s karate. I do have a karate. I have a Karate Kid Part 3 story. Remind me to tell that when we...
JVL00:01:28Okay, okay. Why do we have to wait?
Sonny00:01:31Well, because I figure we should do it during the actual movie portion of the show instead of, you know, this. No, I don't actually have much either. So, big sports weekend. Big sports weekend for me. I don't know if you guys saw University of Virginia defeating Florida State University in college football. I am not a college football guy myself.
JVL00:01:52Oh, you like minor league football?
Sonny00:01:54I don't like minor league football. I don't care for it. I don't care about it.
JVL00:01:58I have a serious question for Michael. Yes. Okay. Could the number 25 ranked college football team defeat the XFL champion?
Mike00:02:13I don't know the answer to that question. Is the XFL still exist? Is it still a thing?
JVL00:02:20Not the XFL. Whatever. We have a new minor league football, which I believe the NFL owns.
?00:02:27Yeah.
JVL00:02:28Maybe it's the USFL.
Sonny00:02:29Doesn't the rock own part of it, too? Something like that.
Mike00:02:32I don't know. I mean, you really like there's so much variance in college football that I don't.
JVL00:02:37Is there? I mean, it seems to be all bad. No.
Mike00:02:42JVL. It is the it is the minors for increasingly the minors for the NFL, but it's a different game. You know, I mean, we don't need to get into this. Sonny, let's let's go back to your your wonderful celebrate. Yeah, we don't have to.
Sonny00:02:56But to be clear, I am very much with JVL on this, that that college football is is is is at best minor league football. I don't know. I and it's it's it's managed to lose all of its charm by going to like paying players and the players are jumping from the whole NIL team. Yeah, every every every year they're on a different team.
JVL00:03:18And these kids are at CTE. They ought to get something for it.
Sonny00:03:21I mean, I agree. I actually totally agree with you that that paying the players is the right thing to do, both morally and financially. And it was insane. It was like these coaches making like 15 million dollars, you know, or whatever, while the players were were not making a thing like that. That's, you know, that's that's vaguely grotesque. I so I don't I don't have strong feelings about college football. It doesn't doesn't matter that much to me. But I do live in Texas. Lots of people here care about college football. College football, very important to people in Texas.
Mike00:03:52High school football is very important.
Sonny00:03:54University of Texas, Texas A&M. You know, Texas Tech, Texas Tech, too. I don't know. There's all the schools around Baylor, et cetera. All the schools around here. Very everybody is very, very into college football. I am not. I am not into college football. So it's always it's always kind of funny whenever we have an event. So like when to set the stage here, this this game took place on the same weekend as the like, the the YMCA Adventure Guides camp out in my neighborhood. We get you get all the kids. All the kids go out to a to a camp and we you know, they they go in the pools and they jump in the lake and they, you know, ride horses or whatever, climb, climb the big rope, rope towers, et cetera. But the dads mostly sit around and watch football. That's that's what they bring. Guys bring like hundred dollar Roku TVs from from Walmart and set them. Up. And we watch them and then they throw the TVs in the trash on the on the way out. The it's not quite like that, but it's it's it is it is amusingly disposable. The whole thing, the but always at these things. I'm wearing my UVA hat because I went to UVA. I I don't Mr.
JVL00:05:19Jefferson's University.
Sonny00:05:20I'm not I'm not going to pretend to care about any of these Texas teams. I'm I. I went to the University of Virginia. That's where I matriculated from. That's that's from where I matriculated.
Mike00:05:33I went to it.
Sonny00:05:35Whatever. I don't care. I don't care how words work. The the Jefferson need to do a better job of teaching. All right. Well, I took zero English classes. So that that explains that explains some things. I I wear my UVA hat. I wear my UVA hat. And sometimes people are like, oh, UVA. Usually people are like, what is that? However. However, this week, this this weekend. Well, it's it's like a V. It's like a V with the cross sabers. It's that one, you know, cool logo, by the way. UVA has underrated cool logo. Anyway. Anyway, we so I'm I wear my UVA hat. I wear one of my two UVA hats. I have like a UVA bucket hat, like a Oasis style, you know, bucket hat.
Mike00:06:21That's a real hit with the Texas football fans.
Sonny00:06:24I love I love wearing. Wearing that hat because I get I get the the funniest looks when I'm wearing my bucket hat with Virginia on it from the Texas dads. But the but I was wearing my my regular ball cap with the V. And usually nobody has any idea or like. But this weekend, obviously, big, you know, big upset. I'm watching the game the whole time. Like nobody else was really watching the game until it got to the fourth quarter and it looked like UVA was going to win. Then it went to overtime and went to double overtime. It was it was, you know, it was a crazy game. It was crazy game. UVA big win defeat unranked, defeating the number eight team in the country. Kids, kids storming the field, et cetera. And I just want to say. It's the first it's the it's the first time for five years I've been wearing this bucket hat and it's the first time it has paid off in any way whatsoever, because the rest of the weekend, everybody is like, oh, man, that was a great game. That was a great. I can't believe it. I can't believe you guys. You guys beat Florida State. They beat Alabama. Like it's like, yes, I know. It's UVA is now technically better than Alabama. Think about that. Why don't you put that in your pipe and smoke it? And it was just it was one of these things where it's like I can I understand the appeal of this sense of community, of this, you know, sporting brotherhood that the plebs engage in with. But I do. I just I still don't. I still don't really care about it. It was just it was just very funny that this was the thing that everyone was. I was like, oh, yeah, you're you're the UVA guy. You're the you're the.
Mike00:08:00But see, this is this is what and I could I could like read you chapter and verse on like what has gone wrong in college football the last few years and what what has been lost. But there is what what you're tapping into there, Sonny, is the sort of it's exciting because it's it can in many ways be unpredictable what happens in college football. And there are. You know, there are all there's always room for an upset. There's always room for like some team that was that was, you know, vaunted was going to be the number one team to have some kind of epic collapse or a team that nobody had on their radar at the beginning of the season to sort of have a great run. And again, some of this a lot of this has been lost with the lack of regionality, the sort of decline of regionality in college football. But it still happens and it's still exciting. And and I would I don't watch as much college football as I would like and as I used to. But it's a fun it's a fun sport. You're not going to see the best football, but you're going to see interesting and exciting football.
JVL00:09:12All right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have to step in here. Too much problem with college football. And I understand it for people who went to the colleges or or have associations with the college. Right. Your dad was a professor in Alabama and you grew up in Alabama. I get it. You want to watch Alabama play and that's good for you. The problem is that I would say that football is. Of the major sports, the one in which the the difference in the game and the enjoyment, the ability to enjoy the game sort of as a thing of beauty varies wildly with quality. Like there. A bad football game is a fucking slog. True. Bad football game is just not fun to watch. Right. Yeah. This is one of the problems of the NFL. You get to week 12 and you get a couple of three week three win teams that have nothing to play for rolling up against each other. It's just boring as shit. Right. The league league doesn't actually have enough talent to support as many teams as it does. And at the college game, like a lot of it is just bad football. You're just watching bad football and bad football. Is not fun to watch. Like college basketball is a totally different game now than the NBA. Like it's I mean, it's totally completely different, but they're still pretty good at the game they play. Like it's not like watching the problem. I just think the football, the degree of difficulty for football as a team sport is so high. Like it's just an it's an insanely hard thing to do well.
Mike00:10:51OK, but here here is where I think the decline. In again, the regional conferences exacerbates the problem that you're talking about, which is like, OK, so take, for instance, the old Pac-10 then became the Pac-12, right? There was like a West Coast offense style of play, which which is a trend in that conference. And so the teams that are playing against each other in that style, it it works as like a self-contained league. Right. Like you're playing against each other and it's it's like, OK, well, who's doing it the best sort of and it's and it's a familiar style. And of course, what's what was always exciting about the bowl games at the end of the season was like you were mashing up styles you were seeing, you know, and the Rose Bowl, it was like a Pac-10 team versus a big 12 team from the Midwest. It was like, oh, wow, it's crazy. You're going to see like Ohio State play USC. That's that's crazy. And there's been a flattening of that, which means that you don't you end up seeing like like really good teams, but who have to also play against like really bad teams. And it mixes all in this way where there's no cohesion in the style of play. And you end up, I think, with worse football. And so I think you're right about that.
Sonny00:12:19Oh, yeah. Well, like like my wife went to USC and like USC is in the Big Ten now. So they're playing against. I don't know.
Mike00:12:26Sure. Why not?
Sonny00:12:28Yeah.
Mike00:12:28You know who's you know who plays in the you know who plays in the Atlantic Coast Conference now? California. I don't know. I don't know if you guys are geography. Is that a real thing? Oh, 100 percent. Yes.
Sonny00:12:42You're California. Cal.
Mike00:12:44Berkeley. Cal Berkeley. Cal Berkeley is in the ACC.
JVL00:12:47That's amazing. Is in the ACC. No.
Sonny00:12:49So it's ridiculous. Eventually, there's just going to be like there's going to be three conferences and they're not going to have any real geography. It's just going to be it's going to be the SEC, which will still probably be mostly Southern, but like Southern plus West, you know, correct. The big the big 10 and the big 12 or whatever the last like the Pac-12 is about to collapse like it is.
Mike00:13:11It is gone. There is no like, yeah, or oh, it's gone.
Sonny00:13:14It's oh, it's gone. It's completely.
Mike00:13:15Yeah, it doesn't exist.
Sonny00:13:16Yeah. Yeah. Like I, I can't even keep track. I like I said, there's there's going to be there's going to be, you know, three, three conferences left. And yeah.
Mike00:13:25And, you know, and the other thing my my wife and I were talking about this the other day is just the the way in which like individual rivalries have been, which was another thing that makes it very exciting. And again, JVL, you didn't sort of grow up in a place where college football was in New Jersey. College football doesn't exist. Exactly. But like, you know, what about Rutgers?
JVL00:13:47Yeah, we've got like five pro teams within 90 minutes of here. Exactly.
Mike00:13:55Makes a difference.
JVL00:13:55You want to watch a football game, you go watch the NFL and there's so much of it. Right. Right.
Mike00:14:00And but but like growing up in Georgia, it's like Georgia Auburn is a great rivalry game. You know, Tennessee, Alabama is a great rivalry game. And it's sometimes it sucks. Sometimes like one team is dominant over a period of time, but it's always like this kind of like, well, maybe this year. And there's something exciting about that. I'll stop. I'll stop preaching the gospel of. College football. It's it's fun. And both of our teams in our house, Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech, still undefeated.
JVL00:14:32So as of this recording, Vandy, look at Vandy go. We're five and oh, five and oh, we got it helps.
Mike00:14:40It helps when you have an attorney who who works really hard. In fact, the Wall Street Journal has an article about this today who works really hard to make sure your star quarterback can have another like fifth or sixth year of eligibility. Which is which is what's what what what they've accomplished there. So Diego Pavia will be playing quarterback for Vanderbilt for the next 12 seasons or so.
JVL00:15:03So anyway, sorry.
Mike00:15:07OK, so you guys do you guys want to you guys want to wasp update? I don't have much. Yeah, except they seem to be gone. So the day after they were sprayed, the wasps, the hornets, whatever you want to call them, were like they were still there. They were kind of like going crazy. And I was a little concerned. Oh, maybe like. Maybe it didn't work. Maybe that maybe the poison didn't take by day two. It was clear there were fewer hornets and they were like still buzzing around. But I kind of went out in the morning and like stood underneath where it was just to kind of see what was happening. And all of a sudden they were like every maybe like two minutes. It was like a hornet that just like. Just fell. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha boom landed in my lawn and they were still moving when they landed, but they were wait.
Sonny00:16:03So do you have like a little corpse yard, a little graveyard of getting the hornets?
Mike00:16:07It's like the killing fields. I get. Yeah, I'm getting to that because that so so I'm like looking at them and they're like they're like kind of writhing around on the ground. By the way, they're fucking huge. They are gigantic. Are these murder hornets?
JVL00:16:21Oh, no, these are the pale face. No, no, they're not the pale face.
Mike00:16:24They're the European. The European hornets, the European hornets, which are still like they're big there. These are some big mofos and they're like writhing around on the ground and you get
JVL00:16:34down on their face and taunt them while they were. I wanted to, but I was like, do the cross chop DX style pee all over them.
Mike00:16:41Maybe I know what I thought was maybe they still have some fight in them and like I'm going to go over there and stick my face in there and they're going to be like, just kidding, motherfucker. And like bring a lighter and burn them alive as they die.
Sonny00:16:55Possum osps. Possum osps. Possum hornets.
Mike00:16:59So, but I was like, okay, let me, so, but I wanted to kind of like get a really good look at how big they were. So I was like, okay, I'm going to leave and I'll come back at the end of the day and like see how things are going. There were no more hornets. I, when I went back over there, not only were they not buzzing around, there were no more on the ground. They had been, I firmly believe this picked off by like birds and shit. Like those things were just like eaten.
JVL00:17:25And so now when you see birds falling from the sky because they ate the neurotoxins that the killed the hornets pesticides, they're not bird.
Mike00:17:34They're not, they're not evil sides.
Sonny00:17:37So anyway, so as we know, birds are very hardy creatures. Nothing, nothing affects them. That's right. That's right.
Mike00:17:44Anyway. So, so far, no, like I've not seen in the past three or four days, any sign of hornets. The poison seems to have worked. And by this time now. Next week, I think that branch should be gone.
JVL00:17:57So that's, that's the update I have for you. I'd love to hear it. Anyway. All right.
Mike00:18:03I think we've, we've focused on, on hornets enough in this, in this podcast. I had, I had something else about bugs from my weekend, but I think, I think we'll just pass.
Sonny00:18:14Is it as interesting as the hornets?
Mike00:18:16Well, okay. Well, since I brought it up, maybe I, so over the weekend.
Sonny00:18:20You can't just leave us hanging. You can't just introduce a bug.
Mike00:18:23I'm in real time. I'm in real time. I'm deciding whether or not it's worth it to share this, but I will just share this very briefly that in we have, we had my lovely wife and I had a getaway for just like a night in, in the mountains for, we were celebrating our anniversary and we had this like cabin kind of in the mountains and in Virginia and we show up and it is like a record baby. Uh, well stay tuned. It is not quite as what I'm trying to say. Uh, it is, we opened up the door, uh, and, uh, we get into like in the after, you know, afternoon, evening and come to discover there are about 100 stink bugs in this cabin and they are all congregated on the windows and around the door. And it is stink bug season in Virginia, right? Like, like they are out now. Um, and like dealing with like a bunch of like, and we just kept finding them as like we're going around. So like I spent the first like 90 minutes of our time of our like one evening at this, at this getaway cabin, like getting rid of stink bugs. And here's the problem with stink bugs. You can't smash them. I don't know if you know this about stink bugs, but if you smash them, they stink, they do not smell good. And so, uh, they're also very dumb. So like, they are stupid bugs. They are very stupid bugs. So, um, it works, it works both ways. Like on the one hand, like if you can kind of get them, you know, and, and the way I was getting was like, just like kind of scooping them onto a fly swatter and then opening the door and flicking them out. Like they're kind of dumb and they won't like freak out on you, but like a lot of times they'll just like fly right back in if you're not careful. So anyway, um, bottom line is, I don't know. Apparently I just have to deal with flying insects, uh, for, for the, uh, for the, for the medium term. So I can't escape them. Anyway, let's move on. Uh, should we talk about the box office? One battle after another at the number one at the box office. This is the new Paul Thomas Anderson film that we did not talk about. We talked about Boogie Nights last week instead. Um, but it is a number one at the box office, uh, $22 million.
JVL00:20:50Um, Sonny, where does this rank among PTA opening weekend?
Sonny00:20:54Number one, biggest PTA opening weekend of all time.
JVL00:20:58He's never had a movie open that big, right? Explain this.
Sonny00:21:03Well, this is why everyone was kind of confused when Warner Brothers was like, sure, we'll give you $150 million to make this movie that is nominally adopted from a Thomas Pynchon novel that nobody has read. Um, I, I, you know, 20, $22 million. What's interesting about this number isn't, isn't strictly speaking the $22 million. Uh, it is that half of that number came from IMAX screens. So like when you think IMAX directors, you don't really think of Paul Thomas Anderson. He is not like, he's not James Cameron, right?
Mike00:21:37It's not imagine boogie nights on IMAX.
JVL00:21:40He's not, he's not the guy, especially that last scene. I, uh, 15 foot dong.
Sonny00:21:48You gotta, you gotta have a guy stand up there for like, uh, for, for perspective, you know, on IMAX, it would be 15. Just, just, uh, get up there. Be like, Hey, I imagine taking that selfie anyway. Um, neither here nor there. Uh, but no, he's not, he's not traditionally thought of as a big IMAX director, but this is, this is like a kind of, this is being kind of sold as a Christopher Nolan type cinematic experience movie, right? It's in the IMAX 70 millimeter. It's in like the, it is, it is playing in Vista vision. You know, the last time a movie played. In Vista vision was like 40 years ago. Uh, they, they, it is in five, five theaters around the country and Vista vision. Um, so it's one of these movies that has been very much sold as like, see it in the biggest format possible. I'll say it looks good. It looks good. And I saw it at the 70 millimeter IMAX though, not in 70 millimeter IMAX. It's just, it was just the big screen. They didn't have the print working. Um, uh, they are, and this is a double-edged sword. This is a double-edged sword. I'm very curious to see what the. Drop-off is on this movie because $22 million is not a very big opening. Frankly, 20, $22 million, not a very big opening for a movie that probably needs to gross 300 million worldwide to even sniff it, break even. Um, uh, and it's losing almost all of its PLF hits premium, large format screens this weekend. It's, it's going to lose, it's going to lose all, it loses all the Dolby's, uh, what's up.
JVL00:23:20Is avatar getting those because avatar two is re-released this week.
Sonny00:23:24Right. Avatar two is getting some of them. Some of them are going to, you know, who Taylor Swift.
JVL00:23:30Oh yeah. I saw that.
Sonny00:23:32Yep. The Taylor Swift thing that's going in theaters this weekend. Um, so like it's, it, I think, I think one battle after another will hold on to some of the PLF show times. It's still going to be in like the Vista visions and your 70 millimeter IMAX is et cetera, et cetera. But even like looking at, again, there, you know, I, I spend way too much time thinking about this sort of thing and looking at, looking at the numbers when sinners came out sinners was the last movie that came out on 70 millimeter IMAX when sinners came out, it was a genuine cultural phenomenon in the sense that like, it was, it had, it did, it did a big multiple, but also it was like this, like Oppenheimer, a movie that was shown in 70 millimeter IMAX and the film nerds were real excited for it. And at my local, so again, Dallas has one of 10 theaters in the country capable of playing 70 millimeter IMAX at that theater, every screen time was either sold out or 90% sold out from like nine in the morning until 11:00 PM at night, it was, it was either sold out entirely or sold out everything except like the very front row, you know, for three straight weeks for three straight weeks, like, like that, if you look, if you go and look at the 70 millimeter IMAX seating chart for one battle after another, it's full in the middle, like the middle third is pretty full at like 7:00 PM or, you know, seven, 7:00 PM, 4:00 PM on Saturday, all the other screen times are maybe 20% full period. So this is, this is not a movie that has kind of penetrated into that second level of the cultural conversation where it's like normie audiences are like, oh, I have to see this in 70 millimeter IMAX, which suggests to me, it's not going to hold very well. I, I would be, I'd be very curious to see, I will be very curious to see what the drop on this is next weekend. It is, uh, a couple, a couple other little interesting things. This is, I believe I would have to check this for sure. Uh, but I, I saw somebody post a chart of Leonardo DiCaprio cinema scores over the years. This is only his, this is his first movie or maybe his second movie since Titanic to get an a bunch, several of them have gotten a minuses. This got an a, which is really interesting. Maybe it suggests the word of mouth is going to be very good on this.
Mike00:25:54Did not get an a what wild, wild.
Sonny00:25:58Uh, I will, I'll effort this right now. I'm pretty sure it was an a minus, but again, um, inception is a weird movie.
JVL00:26:05Inception is a weird movie.
Sonny00:26:07Sure. But B plus B plus for inception. What? Inception. Inception is a weird movie. It's a weird mind fuck of a movie.
Mike00:26:16Tenet is a weird movie. No, no, no, no. I would say that this makes sense to me because it's a movie. Inception is a movie that almost like demands multiple viewings.
Guest00:26:28Yeah.
Mike00:26:29Uh, if you're, I mean, for anybody, but like definitely for a normie, it's like, wow, what was that? I can see somebody walking out the normie viewer walking out of inception and being like, yeah, it was pretty good. I don't know. Like that seems like a B plus reaction. Like you have to see it a couple of times. That makes sense. I was going to ask you about the marketing of this as a Leonardo DiCaprio movie Sunday, because that is more. More than Paul Thomas Anderson. I, I have seen this across my, my point of view as a Leo movie. And I wonder if that has something to do with it's big, relatively big opening. Oh, totally.
Sonny00:27:08I mean, it's, it's, it's not that good for a Leonardo DiCaprio movie though. It's, it's always, it's he's, he's, he's an interesting, he is an interesting star, uh, because he has not really, he has not really leaned it. He hasn't done any. He hasn't done any franchise stuff. He doesn't do, you know, his, his biggest movie, uh, in the last few years is once upon a time in Hollywood. Um, he made killers of the flower moon, which is a three and a half hour, you know, movie that everyone knew was going to be on Apple TV plus in, in a month. Right. Like he made, uh, he, he made the revenant, which was a very, very much an Oscar play and that, but that, but like, again, all of his movies still do still end up doing very well. It's why he is one of the last, um, it's why when he's one of the last, um, it's why when he's one of the last movie stars who can get 30 to $40 million, uh, because his name is enough to drive the, the audience. And like what, what people are counting on with this, with his, uh, with, with this movie is for the legs on it to be very good. Right. They, they want, they, they're hoping that it'll stick around for a while. You know, I mean like the wolf of wall street is a perfect example, right? Wolf of wall street is a movie that ends up grossing about $400 million worldwide. Um, it only gets made because Leonardo DiCaprio runs around raising the a hundred million dollars to make it. From amusingly shady sources. Like there's that whole trial. I think it's what in Singapore, there's like some money guy in Singapore or Malaysia or someplace that like, uh, rate that essentially stole a bunch of money to, to help make this movie. Um, uh, but that, that's the sort of movie that like only gets made because he is in it and it does pretty well. It does. It does pretty well. You know, I don't know. Inception. I mean, again, inception grossed $826 million worldwide. Yes. It was Christopher Nolan's followup. After the dark night. But a lot of that money is people being like, I want to see the new Leonardo DiCaprio movie.
Mike00:29:02I mean, if you, if you look at his movies, maybe this is not a, a, a, a very profound insight, but he doesn't do franchise, but he does sort of do like franchise via director, right? Like he does like all like the big, well-respected directors. Like he does a bunch of their movies, right? He's done several Scorseses. He's done. Uh, Christopher Nolan, um, a couple of Basler, like he's sort of like Tarantino, Tarantino. Exactly.
Sonny00:29:30You know, uh, he's done two Tarantinos. He's Sam Mendes, Sam Mendes, Ridley Scott, body of lies. Um, Clint Eastwood, Jay Edgar. Like it's, you know, he, uh, he's, he, he, he picks and chooses. He doesn't, he doesn't, uh, he doesn't just make anything.
JVL00:29:47Um, and he's got, you know, so DiCaprio has a very, very rare quality. Um, which is that he can carry a movie while letting the movie revolve around him without him having to do big work inside of it, if that makes sense. And I think he understands that about himself. Like he is, he is not like Al Pacino who has to come in and like dominate every frame of the movie in order to, to carry the movie. Like DiCaprio is just, his presence is kind of enough. You know, and it, it, he just anchors the screen really, really well. And like, he's a great actor too, but part of it is like, it's a very unique kind of circumstance. Like Robert Downey Jr. Doesn't do this, right? Robert Downey Jr. Does different things. What he does is very showy and active. Um, and there aren't a lot of movie stars. He's a little, a little bit like Brad Pitt in that way. Like he and Brad Pitt are throwback stars, I think in that sense.
Mike00:30:54Yeah, that's right. Um, all right. Well, any other thoughts on the, uh, box office, uh, how much money is avatar going to do?
JVL00:31:01I think I'm going to try to take G money this weekend for it to see it because he's never seen anything like it.
Sonny00:31:07I don't know. I think it's probably not going to do that. Well, I don't think it's like a much beloved movie getting a re-release. I looked at some of the seating charts again, not, not that full. Um, so I'm, I, I would assume probably, I would say less than 10 million. I'd put the under the over under at 10 million. I would take the under.
JVL00:31:24When I went to buy tickets last night, so it's a Wednesday night buying tickets for the Saturday afternoon show at the IMAX, there were four seats taken. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, really? Like, I understand it's avatar two is not a good movie.
Sonny00:31:45Yeah.
JVL00:31:45But on the other hand, like you only get a chance to see this in high frame rate IMAX 3d so many times. Like, yeah. And it's not worth seeing in any other format.
Sonny00:31:54So it agreed, agreed, but it's also not worth seeing more than once. Like, I, you know, I, I feel like this is not like, this is not like, it's not like interstellar. It's not like interstellar, right? Where when interstellar does it's IMAX 70 millimeter re-releases, those screens sell out. Those screens sell out for like weeks.
JVL00:32:12Yeah. I disagree. I think it's worth seeing, like, it's worth getting on a roller coaster because it's just, it's a ride.
Sonny00:32:20I, I agree with you in this, in the same, I agree with you in the same sense. That like, I, I, I honestly am considering trying to go see it again, but I like, I'm not going to take my kids to see it there. They wouldn't care.
JVL00:32:33Honestly, I just go for the first like 45 minutes. I don't even need to sit through the whole movie. Like the ride. I could get everything I need from that movie in 60 minutes.
Sonny00:32:43Well, it's no Gemini, man.
JVL00:32:45All right. I'll stop talking. Sorry.
Sonny00:32:47All right.
Mike00:32:48Uh, okay. Well, um, we shall see. Let's, uh, move on and talk about. The movie that we are talking about this week, the karate kid. And the reason we are talking about the karate kid is because why Sonny exactly?
Sonny00:33:02Well, we were, we were trying to figure out what to watch and we were looking at the front page of Netflix and their new, the new karate kid movie karate kid legends is on Netflix. Now it's part of, you know, Sony's Sony's pay one window goes directly to Netflix and they, uh, they, they, you know, everything that goes there from theaters gets in the top 10 because people want to see movies that were in theaters. That's why, you know, anyway. Um, but it's, it's supposedly a terrible movie. Like I haven't, I have heard literally zero good things about it. I know, but nobody has been like, you got to see karate kid legends. Even the, even the, like my kids do karate right now. Even the coach there was like, eh, so we, uh, I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to watch that. Uh, but I did see that, uh, Netflix had all of the karate kid movies and karate, the original karate kid, the, the movie that's. Started it all for a Daniel LaRusso and the rest of the karate kid expanded universe of who is in the karate kid legends. I think he's like the, he's, he's new. Mr. Miyagi, apparently. I don't know. Um, but there's also Jackie Chan who was also new. Mr. Miyagi. I don't understand really what's going on again. I refuse to see this movie. I'm just guessing at the plot of it. All right. Basically you have competing Mr. Miyagi's one of whom is white. Well, Italian. Uh, and, uh, um, I, uh, but it's, it's, uh, anyway, we, we is, I, I mentioned, I make this very specific joke because of the start of the movie we're about to discuss, which is very, which is, which is just a very funny window into like 40 years ago. But, um, but, uh, no, I was like, well, why don't we just do, we all like the original karate kid. Probably I JVL may hate it. I don't know. But the, uh, but I was like, that, that could be a fun thing to do. So that's, that's how we, that's how we wound up here.
Mike00:34:53Why don't you give us a little bit of a rundown? Give us a big boy review of the original, the karate kid, the karate kid, 1984 starring
Sonny00:35:01Ralph Macchio as Daniel LaRusso, who is a, uh, who's a kid who gets pulled out of his home in New Jersey. And he's got to go out to California where his mom is working on spaceships. I guess space she's working at, at NASA or something. I don't know.
Mike00:35:20Computers, a restaurant. I had no computer.
Sonny00:35:22Well, she goes out there to move. She moves out there to work. I actually had a question about this. We can, we can get to that in a second. Okay. Um, cause I, I, there, there are weird, this, this movie is incredible. So here's what I want. Here's what I would say about the karate kid. The karate kid is an absolute fantastic example of high quality, super competent studio filmmaking of the sort that just doesn't really get made anymore. Right? Like it is a, it is the sort of movie that is directed by John G. Wilson Avlinson Avlinson. I don't know how to pronounce his name precisely. Um, but this is the guy who won a best director Oscar for Rocky. He won a best director Oscar. And when you watch this movie, you should always be paying attention to what's happening in the background. Cause he's, he puts every, he frames every shot to where you have like two people talking in the foreground and then something's happening in the background. My favorite example of this is in, is in the Chinese restaurant is so Daniel, Daniel LaRusso sitting there with his mom. They're having a discussion about, uh, why he doesn't want to be at the karate studio across the street. It's because his bully, the bully who has been tormenting him, this whole movie is in there running things. And you see Daniel and his mom talking and they're chatting. And then through the window, you see the karate class and you see the kids, the bullies come out of the, the, the karate school. And there's this whole little melodrama out there with the four or five of them, like trying to decide, are they going to go in? And hassle Daniel LaRusso and in the restaurant with his mom, or are they going to go off and they just, and you can see them making a plan and they run off. And this pays off two minutes later when, uh, Ralph Macchio is biking home and he gets run off the road by these kids on their motorbikes. And it, and it just is, it's like, it's, it's, it's high quality, but like still fairly simple filmmaking. Again, it's like thoughtful in a way that you just don't, you just don't get enough of anymore. Um, and that is kind of how I feel about this whole movie. It's, it's fairly, I don't want to, I wouldn't describe it as rote, um, but it is formulaic. It is formulaic. You got the kid who comes to the new town and he is, he's getting bullied and he, he learns how to defend himself and he gets the girl and the girl's from the rich side of town and he's from the poor side of town and he's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, and it all culminates in a big climactic battle showdown, which is, uh, which is a lot, if you will. A kumite of sorts, if you will. Um, I, I will say here's, this is, I don't, I don't, I won't, I won't say this is a hundred percent true, but I think it's true. I don't think I'd ever actually watched this movie from start to finish before. I don't think I'd ever actually sat down and watched the karate kid from like opening frame to closing frame before. So it was, it was very funny to watch that opening section where he's in like little Italy. Or whatever in New Jersey and he's, he's, he's getting his, he's getting his, he's getting all this stuff in the car and he's got his bike strapped to the roof and all the little neighborhood, the neighborhood kids come out and they're cheering him off. He's like, bye, bye guys. I'm off to California. We're going, we're going to, you know, I, I can't even do, I can't, I don't know what accent that was. That was a Chicago or something. I got it, but he, and it's, and they, and they drive cross country. And again, just like there's these series of shots that were probably done by the second unit of just like driving across America that look better than 90% of the things you will see on Netflix. Like anything that is shot on Netflix in the last 10 years and put made for Netflix and, and streaming there right now, this looks better than that.
Mike00:39:09Uh, just, and it's literally just got the credits, the opening credits, just, just,
Sonny00:39:14just going, it's just, it's just the sun and a car and like Buttes, there's some Buttes in the background and it's like, Oh, this is what movies loose used to look like. It's amazing. It's amazing that things used to look good. Um, and that's kind of how I felt about everything in this movie. It's like, Oh, it's amazing that this stuff used to be done so competently and with such ease. Uh, and it's, it's incredibly entertaining moment to moment. It's two hours and seven minutes and feels like it's 90. Uh, it's got great performances throughout, but Pat, uh, uh, Marita is so good, uh, as Mr. Miyagi, um, in, in like nominated for an Oscar, mildly stereotypical role. That's not how he sounded.
JVL00:40:01Uh, you know, that was, uh, he invented that there was a lot of studio resistance to casting him because he was a comedy figure who had very recently been on happy days and they were worried that audiences were going to be like, Hey, that's the funny guy from happy days. Yeah. He's not a sensei.
Sonny00:40:17Yeah. But it's, it's, and it's again, uh, everything about this movie is great. It is, it, it is. It taps into a key 1980s, like karate, the karate fad, like people were, people were super into karate, uh, which would of course, which would of course kind of culminate a few years later with the teenage mutant Ninja turtles.
JVL00:40:37Like it's, it's a spectrum there from, this is all storm shadow, snake eye stuff, which grows out of GI Joe, the seeds of which were planted with like seventies chop suey karate movies and then just become totally mainstream obsessions of like 12 year old boys in the
Sonny00:40:53eighties. Exactly.
Guest00:40:55Exactly.
Sonny00:40:56No, I, I, I, this movie, I don't, I mean, I wouldn't say it's, I don't know, it's not a great movie. It's not the greatest movie ever made or anything, but it's incredibly, uh, it's incredibly fun. I, I like it a lot. Uh, and again, it is, it is just this, it's this weird, we, we think we have this very precious idea of like best director and what best director means and like the auteur theory and all that stuff. And like, I don't know, I think it's, I think. The world was a better place when a guy like John G. Avelson could win best director for Rocky and then make the Karate Kid, the Karate Kid two and the Karate Kid three and then Rocky five and like half of those movies are fucking terrible. Uh, but then he also makes a lean on me, right. Which is, which is like kind of goods schmaltzy, you know, again, well shot visually, visually coherent, visually interesting sort of movie. Um, yeah. So anyway, that's, those are my thoughts on the Karate Kid.
Mike00:41:53All right. Thank you, Sonny. Uh, JVL you're, I want to hear what you think.
JVL00:41:57I mean, Karate Kid is important as a film because it perfectly captured perfectly captures a moment. And the, the, the moment it captures is we're in the early eighties. We have this East coast obsession with California as being the cool place where everything new is happening. Yep. We have the karate fad is sweeping the country as our BMX bikes, which is another key component to this, right? It's like, Hey, what are some hot things right now? What are some hot trends? Let's wrap them up in this. It has the montages. It has the underdog movie, uh, which is again, Rocky is not the first underdog sports movie, but it becomes a template movie for everything. Hoosiers, varsity blues, every, you know, dodge ball, right? All of these things. And so it's one of those movies as well.
Mike00:42:54And it's a high school movie.
JVL00:42:56So there's a lot of like pre brat pack stuff happening here, right? This is a, this is a prototype brat pack movie, and it captures all of those in ways that are, as you say, competent and not embarrassing and in ways which now, when you look at it, hold up, isn't the right word, but you're not embarrassed by it. You're like, oh, I understand why this thing was the one that we remember.
?00:43:23Right.
JVL00:43:24Right. Like it, why is it this and not Remo Williams, the legend returns right now where the legend begins. And it's a, I mean, and it is wrote this whole thing is just a piece of commerce, right? So the studio contracts with, uh, Abelson, they say, we want to do a Rocky like movie, but with like kids and karate, cuz karate's really hot right now. Right. And he's like, yeah, I could do that. And so they get him, they then go out and find a writer. And the, they were like, can you write us a, like, this is not a tour theory. This is literally like practically studio system, right? Yeah. You know, we, we need a rom-com that kind of plays like bringing up baby. Go, uh, you know, go, go grab a writer from the writer's room and grab two of our stars from the, you know, put them on, on the project. And it's, uh, it's pretty good. Another reason it succeeds. I think a big reason it succeeds. It's because of Johnny. So William Zapka, who plays Johnny is really good as, as Johnny, right? Like he's absolutely hateable and he's really athletic.
?00:44:41Yeah.
JVL00:44:42That's the other thing, the karate scenes, when you get to the tournament, it's very well choreographed. It's very well shot and Ralph Macchio. And Billy Zapka, they're just super light on their feet and athletic and believable. Yes. Yeah. And I think that's a huge part of it. Having that work is, is ways, which is like, it's really engrossing.
Mike00:45:09You get that horrible, I can think it's a survivor song. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's Joe Esposito. Is it?
JVL00:45:20I mean, that is like, it might as well be. Uh, a fake song written by Trey and Matt for, uh, for a, a, a South park montage.
Sonny00:45:31That's how long the nose it is. Yeah.
Mike00:45:34Yeah. Yeah. But you know, so it was written for Rocky three, of course, but then, but then I have the tiger was supplanted it. And so it was given the same song.
Sonny00:45:45It's the same.
JVL00:45:46Yeah, exactly. I, the tiger is, is a truly classic song. I'm sorry.
Sonny00:45:50It just is. All right, fine. Fine. Okay. But, uh, you mentioned the cast, but you know who else is great in this Martin Cove as crease who has that, who has that, like there's this great, again, it's this movie where it is told visually in a way that is, that is so under under done now, uh, or like there's this moment where you walk into where Johnny or not Johnny, where, um, LaRusso walks into, uh, the, the Cobra Kai studio, Cobra Kai dojo, and you look on the wall. And you see, uh, you see crease with his, in it, with an enormous gun army fatigues. And it, and there's a caption underneath that says U S army karate champion. And it's like, oh, okay. Yeah. All right. That's all right. That makes sense. And then you hear him doing, you hear him drilling them with the cadence of a drill instructor. It's like, okay. Yeah. So this is like a military thing. It's like got military position and it's, you know, this is, there's like echoes of Vietnam here. Like, it's like, okay, I get it.
JVL00:46:52There is. It is yellow. He has a yellow peril thing, which clearly he has carried over from his experience in Vietnam, which is why he reacts so strongly to Mr. Miyagi who is not Vietnamese, but you know, it's all, it's all, it's all kind of the same in 1984.
Mike00:47:10Well, and there's in terms of writing here, right? This is, there are two, uh, there are two veterans. There are two us military veterans here, one from world war II and one from Vietnam. And there, that is. Is a two pillars of what, of what we're watching here. That's, that's, that's, that's like good, right. You know, it's maybe basic.
JVL00:47:30It's good. Right. Cobra Kai only has white kids in it.
Mike00:47:33No, no. There's black kids.
JVL00:47:35There's a black kid.
Mike00:47:36There's a black guy who gets beat up in the studio beat up.
JVL00:47:40No Asian kids. Yeah. Right. It's a karate dojo in Southern California with no Asian kids in it. Come on. Right.
Mike00:47:47That's only by choice in the Valley.
Sonny00:47:50Um, I do. And I love, I love all the like. Like Valley stuff like, oh, you recita, oh, not recita. It's like, it's like, what? I don't understand any of these code words.
Mike00:48:00We're in Sina. We're not recita people, you know? Um, all right. So I have a confession to make. I've never seen the karate kid until this week. Hey, did you watch with your kids? My karate kid movie? No, I want, I actually even suggested I watch it with, with our, with our 11 year old and, um, he wanted to rewatch the dog man movie instead. So, um. No, but I have my karate kid movie was the next karate kid, um, which came out 10 years after the Hillary, the Hillary swank one. Yes. Oh my God. Well, I, I, you can't, you can't blame me for that. That was what was at the video store. That was what was at blockbuster and like what my mom grabbed when I was eight years old. Um, by the way, you haven't included three ninjas in that, in that, uh, in that sort of the end of the. The martial arts, uh, era was three, three ninjas sidekicks and, uh, and, uh, power rangers. Um, so that, that was like the, the, the, the, the sort of end of that anyway. So this was my first time watching this movie. My wife was actually like shocked that I hadn't seen it, but I just, I just had never seen it. Um, I'm also shocked. Uh, I know. Well, okay. Everybody's shocked. Um, so I'm coming into this fresh, even though it's, it's so funny. It's one of these, uh, movies where like, there are so many lines. Uh, and, uh, even just kind of ideas that have seeped into the culture that having not seen this movie, I knew so much. I knew where the story was going, obviously it's formulaic, but like sweep the leg or
Sonny00:49:36like wax on wax, put them in a body bag, all that guy's the best that guy is. I want that. I want that guy in every, that guy should be in every teen movie. They should, I am, I'm opposed to AI generated images, except for that guy, if we can put that guy in. Every teen sports movie from now on, like his like body's shaking his head.
Mike00:49:58It's like, there's like spittle gum.
Sonny00:50:01He's like the crazy guy from, uh, he's like the crazy guy from, um, oh, what's the movie I'm thinking of? Uh, the warriors.
Mike00:50:08He's like, he's like something out of the war, um, anyway, so, uh, so, uh, so I came to this kind of cold, uh, I, I love it and I love it for what it is. But also I think it, it does more than a movie like this should, which I think is what you guys have been saying this whole show, right? Like it, it is a very well made popcorn teen movie, but it does, it does even more than that. And I think it, it mostly accomplishes that in the middle of the movie through the relationship between, uh, LaRusso and Mr. Miyagi and culminating in that. Sort of that moment when, uh, you know, Ralph Macchio comes back from the, from the, uh, from the country club and he's upset because he thinks that Elizabeth shoe is making out with, uh, with, uh, Johnny Lawrence and, uh, he's angry and he's sort of, he's frustrated with all this stuff and he comes back and Mr. Miyagi is drunk because he has been sort of celebrating his, uh, anniversary with his, we learn his dead wife. Who died in childbirth on the, in the internment camp while he was fighting, you know, uh, while he was fighting the Germans, uh, on behalf of America. It's like, it's this moment where like, it's all the acting is like kind of better than it should be. And in a movie where there's like a lot of kind of silliness, like really everybody in the Valley is in all the jocks are into karate and they're like riding these, these, you know, little motorcycles. These little crotch rockets around, like, it's all ridiculous. There's like this very, there's this just big kind of moment of realness in the movie that I think Pat Morita really just sells so well. He's such a good actor actually, and rises to the occasion. Um, and you know, and, and Ralph Macchio has this moment of like, oh, there's like, he, he has, he, he grows up in this moment. He grows up and like, learn something about my problems or maybe not. Um, you know, I'm not the only one with them. I shouldn't be, um, I shouldn't be so sort of down on he's right. He's so upset about moving to California, all this stuff. And it's just a, it's like in a movie that like should be disposable. They have this moment like that. I just was like blown away by that, by that moment and by the acting and by the scene. Um, but everything else is just, it's just fun and terrific. My favorite aspect of this movie, Elizabeth shoe. Well, I was going to get to Elizabeth shoe. I wasn't going to say that, but, but, uh, the, the first scene on the beach. Hmm. I like Elizabeth shoe. She's going places. That, that lady, um, uh, no, I was going to say how quickly the movie ends. Literally he gets the trophy and then it like cuts to the cuts to the, uh, closing credits. Right. I mean, this is, this is, this is fantastic. Like this is exactly how movies. Again, very rocky.
JVL00:53:18Yeah. Very correct. Very rocky. So I, I want to say one thing about the, the, uh, this isn't, this is simply an indicator of its cultural power, but 10 years ago, a guy named Matt Turner went onto YouTube and he did a four and a half minute cut of the karate kid purporting to explain that Daniel is the real villain.
Sonny00:53:47Sure. I remember this. I remember you remember this.
JVL00:53:50Right. And this. Became, I mean, a, it is right. It it's right in me and Sonny's wheelhouse with the emperor.
Mike00:54:00Obviously it's a little, yeah, it's a little too on the nose.
JVL00:54:03It's it's fantastic. But, but it is so relevant and there's such a touchstone that this video becomes a Netflix series, like seven years later, Cobra Kai, right? The fact that this guy made that video is what led somebody to Netflix to say, huh, I wonder if what, what, what if we just made that idea into a series, see what happens, right? And that's, I mean, that's, that shows that this has a real cultural heft to it in a way that for instance, Avatar two doesn't, right? Like, I don't think, I mean, 84 is now 40 years ago, 41, 41 years ago in 41 years, will anybody remember a single line from Avatar two?
Mike00:54:55Does anybody remember a single line from Avatar one now? I remember unobtainium.
JVL00:55:02Yeah.
Sonny00:55:02I mean, yeah, I, I like, I, I told, yeah, I, I mean, you just have to look at the fact that they keep trying to make this a franchise that succeeds and they think, I mean, look, Cobra Kai was on for five seasons or whatever. Like it started on, I think it started on YouTube TV and then migrated. I think that's right. Netflix bought it because it like it, it did good numbers on Netflix and YouTube TV. Like you, nobody, nobody knew what YouTube TV was trying to do, uh, at the time. Um, uh, so it, it migrated to Netflix. It did very well. I mean, the, they, there was the, there was the reboot with Will Smith's kid, uh, 10 years or so ago with Jackie Chan as Mr. Miyagi. Yeah. And then there was, again, like this, this earlier this year, this spring, there was another attempt. Uh, you know, to, to do it again.
JVL00:55:54None of them stick. No, nobody wants any of these things. They don't want the only, the only franchise part they want of it is the Cobra Kai part. Right. The, the only, the only downstream intellectual property, which has succeeded in, in finding an audience after the, the original karate kid is Cobra Kai.
Mike00:56:15Do you think JVL that's because this, this guy's YouTube video is correct that. That Daniel is the villain. And so everybody just wants to, or is it, or are we just obsessed with the villains or,
JVL00:56:27or, I mean, of course I think that's correct, but no, I think the reason they like it is because it allows them to go back to the original, but looking at it with fresh grownup eyes. Right. I think that's the, the secret is they're not remaking it. It is, it is. And it's not even like just a sequel. It exists in that universe, but from like everybody's watching that. Is now 35 years older than they were when they first saw Karate Kid. And so they're able to be like, Oh, okay. Hey, I'm grown up. Now I can look back and understand that this 17 year old kid, Johnny, who was actually a former juvenile delinquent who had gotten himself together through learning the discipline of karate and was going to graduate from high school and go out and get a job and become a contributing member of society. Uh, until this, this new swarthy kid from the East coast shows up and starts scamming on his girlfriend and picking fights with him and hosing him down and at parties. And like, you know, again, like Daniel, his, uh, as, as the video says, Daniel kind of is stalking the girl, right? I mean, there's a lot of like, hold on, hold on. She doesn't get into him. This is some revisionist.
Sonny00:57:43There were, there were looks, there were some shared looks.
Mike00:57:45She has no, she totally has the hots for him from the moment he walks on that beach and she turns around and looks at him. She's like, I mean, she, she just, she's into him. And maybe it is because he's a swarthy guy from, from the East coast.
JVL00:58:01His guinea charm.
Mike00:58:04But I, I, I don't know. I don't quite buy this. There are some hints though, right? Because there was something right, right. I'm quoting Mr. Lentz from the Godfather.
JVL00:58:13I'm not. Yes. Thank you. I don't want anybody listening to be like, what? How can he talk? I'm going to tell you.
Sonny00:58:19My kraut Mick friend.
Mike00:58:21Uh, no, I was going to say there was a moment like right when we meet, uh, Billy Zabka's character where he says like this year, senior year, I'm going to turn it around or some or he's like, I'm going to, yeah, he's, there's some, there's something to that. I just, I don't know. Like it doesn't, that doesn't quite mesh with like, he's at the country club and the country club parents are like, Oh, we just love Johnny Lawrence. You know, like he's like, you get the sense that he's of their class and not.
Sonny00:58:50My, my, my, my. The only critique of the real villain theory here is that they are broken up. They're broken up. Yes. Like it's not, he, she does not cheat on Billy Zabka.
JVL00:59:02She does.
Sonny00:59:03Elizabeth shoe does not cheat on like Daniel LaRusso does not get in the way of their functioning relationship. And indeed, when we first see, uh, Johnny Lawrence, he is, uh, he's like stealing her boom box and smashing it on the beach.
JVL00:59:18It's, it's, it's, you know, running over it with his, with his Z. That's not okay. I want to be clear.
Sonny00:59:23That's not okay.
JVL00:59:24Like blowing up Alderaan. It's not okay, but you have to be able to understand it in context.
Sonny00:59:29Well, in the, in the con, it's not like Elizabeth shoe is harboring terrorists at her home in Encino or wherever.
JVL00:59:36Like passionate relationship tempers, tempers run hot. I mean, this is, but I will say this, like, what is, what is this new kid Danny doing? Button his nose into that. Right. And then went on the beach when Danny charges him first. And what does, what does Johnny do? Johnny just steps out of his way and shots. Right. And then Danny runs back and tries to Danny is the insta.
Sonny00:59:59Well, he thought he was hot shit with his YMCA karate skills. Remember he like kicks the gate open in that apartment complex.
Mike01:00:05Cause it's the friend who, who, by the way, we never see after the beach.
Sonny01:00:08Never, never shows up again. Never, never takes that. That friend serves one key purpose. Get Johnny to the beach. That's it. That's that's. And then we, again, classic, classic filmmaking. Here we got you. This guy serves a purpose and he's gone. That's, that's all we need. All right.
Mike01:00:25He's an essential of the story. I have a couple more questions. Um, so are we, okay. So the, the first question is, are we really to believe that like this many people at this high school are into karate? Like, was that really a thing in the West coast man? It was the eighties.
JVL01:00:44Okay. Everybody wanted to be in karate, into karate. Not everybody was into karate in the same way that not everybody was into skateboard boarding and almost nobody was into surfing, but literally everybody wanted to be into those three things. Got it.
Mike01:00:58Okay. It just, it strikes me as a little, um, hard to believe that like all of the jocks in the school are karate kids and not football players. Yeah. No, it's aspirational. Okay. Um, what is the, like how far apart are Encino and Reseda and like, like are they like the kids are going? Are they going to the same high school who live in both of those neighborhoods?
JVL01:01:23The same Tom Petty song. Yeah, exactly.
Mike01:01:26Um, so maybe, I don't know. It just, it, it, the way they're, she's living in this nice house and she's going to the public school and that's in the same. Okay. All right. Just, it just seems a little.
Sonny01:01:38Also, Daniel like lives apparently behind the school. There's a, there was a, there's a very, there's a geography moment in the movie where he's running, he's running out of the school cause he's being chased by the kids and he literally runs. It's like 200 yards and he's at his apartment complex and it's like, okay, that's, I sure that makes sense.
Mike01:01:58Um, and this is also where she goes to school. There's no sprawl out there. No. Yeah. In Los Angeles, California. That's right. Um, what's the, sorry, sorry. The Valley, the San Fernando Valley. Um, I think, uh, oh, so it's, it's a little unclear at first. It's almost like they maybe like changed their mind. I thought that Mr. Miyagi lived. In his, like, like in his little shed, uh, where he, where he brings, uh, where he like after he saves, after he does his little Spider-Man trick, uh, and, and on Halloween, right. And he like late comes and lays Daniel Russo down there. Like it makes it seem like that's where he lives. And then like two scenes later we find out, no, he lives in this house, uh, somewhere else. Like that's a little confusing, right?
Sonny01:02:46Like I understand what you're saying because for a second. I, I thought the same thing. I was like, wait, where are they going? Why are they going to a different place? But, but then I realized, no, it would be insane for him to live in this hut shack thing. This would be insane to live with the, the like lawnmower gear.
Mike01:03:06I know, but like they set it up that like, he's like the live in, uh, maintenance guy. And like, this is where, yes, correct. And like, this is his like little, you know, efficiency apartment at the, at the bottom floor.
Sonny01:03:20So it's clearly not that it's like, it's literally a garage. It's like, it's, it's like JBL's garage. Like it'd be like living in, living in his shed, but he's got a bed.
Mike01:03:30He's got a bed. He's got like, you know, a couch or something. I don't know.
Sonny01:03:34It was, I just thought, I just thought, you know, I just thought we're used to, you know,
Mike01:03:38just bring a mat on the floor. That's not what I meant. That's not what I, I just, I just meant it was like, it threw me for a loop for a second. It was like, wait, we're now we're this other place with all these cars. Um, uh, question, which of Mr. Auggie's cars, which you guys have selected, like the movie, like it draws our eye to the yellow one, obviously. Like that's the one that's the brightest and the yellow one looks fine.
Sonny01:03:59I don't know. Okay. They all, they all look the same to me.
JVL01:04:02Yeah. Okay. Uh, I have my own preference. Which one do you like? Which one JBL? Whichever one is the biggest backseat for me and Allie Mills.
Sonny01:04:12Oh boy.
JVL01:04:14Oh boy.
Sonny01:04:15All right.
Mike01:04:15Uh, finally, um, this, like the whole, like. Um, the mom picks him up and the date up for the date at the thing like that, that was like, I don't know that that stretched, it stretched believability that he would not be like, so, like so embarrassed by that, that he would like avoid that whole thing. Instead of just, it, I don't know. It just, it was very cringe inducing. I don't know. It didn't, it didn't feel, it didn't feel true to life.
JVL01:04:43Back before cell phones. That's a thing we had to do, Michael.
Mike01:04:46Well, I did. My parents picked us up. Like driving together to the point. I don't know.
Sonny01:04:52I would not, I would not have let my daughter get into the car with the mom and the son pushing it to jumpstart. I'm sorry. I like that.
Mike01:05:01That's why they said you're not seeing him again.
Sonny01:05:03That's not a thing I would have allowed. I would have been like, uh, get the fuck back in the house. Yeah. I wouldn't, I give them your, I would give them my car. Just be like, here, drive this instead. Come on. Let's not, let's not do that. Can I, can I just rattle off a list of other actors who were considered for the, the Johnny Lawrence or the, the Daniel LaRusso part? It's, it's an amazing list. And look, this is on Wikipedia. Who knows? 90% chance that none of this is accurate, but, uh, it's very funny to think about just from, uh, other actors who are in the world at this time. A number of other actors were considered for the part of Daniel, including Sean Penn, Robert Downey Jr. Charlie Sheen, John Cryer, Emilio Estevez, Nicholas Cage, Anthony Edwards, C. Thomas Howe, Tom Cruise, Eric Stoltz, D.B. Sweeney. It really is like, it really is just like a Rolodex of the proto, uh, Brad Pack, but
JVL01:05:57also like, who is at the audition for the outsiders?
Sonny01:06:01Yeah, that's, I mean, that is basically, that is basically it. Uh, I don't know.
JVL01:06:06And half the cast of, and half the cast, both the cast of the outsiders and the alternates. Yes.
Sonny01:06:13Could you, I mean, could you imagine Sean Penn in this role? I like, that's a, it's such a different movie. So can we talk about, he's so much angrier. Daniel LaRusso is like a, is like, is probably a person you're afraid of. You would definitely be cheering for Johnny Lawrence if Sean Penn is the.
JVL01:06:28No, cause he'd be like Spicoli, right? I mean, this is not like. Maybe, I guess that's true. Late era Sean Penn, this is surfer Sean Penn.
Mike01:06:36But he's, he's too California, right? Like that, it doesn't, it doesn't work. Um, so I do think like Ralph Macchio is so interesting here because I think he was like 22 when this movie was made and he's playing like.
JVL01:06:47He looks like he's in eighth grade.
Mike01:06:4915 year old. Yeah, totally. And, and, and I, I, it feels like that he's like the perfect actor for this role because it kind of requires quite a bit, uh, uh, for, for him to sort of, you know, there's a lot he has to do and yet he needs to look like a child.
JVL01:07:07And he's the only ethnic in that group. That's right. That's the other thing, right? I mean, part of the other ring of that, that character is that he's, he is ethnic. He's ethnically diverse from the scene in Southern California at the time, right? He, he, he is basically, we have three cultures. We had the Miyagi culture, the Cobra Kai culture, and then Danny's culture and everybody else in that list wouldn't have fit into that third space.
Sonny01:07:41Well, I mean, Nicholas Cage is Italian, possibly Nick Cage, but he's, he's, you know, that would be, there'd be, there'd be a stretch for him at this point. Definitely.
Mike01:07:50And, and the Estevez brothers, they're, they're like Irish, um, and like Mexican or something. So, um, or Spanish, right? Irish and Spanish. Um, right. Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez.
Sonny01:08:01I don't know. Should we start, should we start doing a skull sizes? That's not where I was going. Should I get my calipers out here? Geez.
Mike01:08:09No, I just, no, but I, all right. Okay. I think we need, I think we need to cut this, cut this off here. Uh, any other final thoughts on the, on the Karate Kid? By the way, I love, you're the best around. It's so great. It's so fun.
Guest01:08:24You're the best. Nothing's going to ever keep you down.
Mike01:08:28All right. Uh, that is all the time we're going to give to this episode. Join us over at subbeacon.com. Follow us on Instagram and we will talk to you next time. Um, yeah. Anything, anything else? Uh, yeah. Elizabeth.
Sonny01:08:52So that, uh, you're the, you're the best gets played in a South Park episode. Uh, it's the one where it's the one, it's the one where, uh, Randy, who's the dad keeps getting in drunken fights. Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That, that, so that is, it's funny because I could have sworn. I was like, I could swear this is, this is in that, uh, I thought it was in the episode where they save the, uh, the ski, the ski resort.
Mike01:09:18That's the montage.
Guest01:09:19The one where the song is just, you're gonna have a montage, montage, time to have a montage.
Mike01:09:26Uh, yeah, it's, it's, this is, it's, it's, but it's, it is like manufactured for this movie, like quite literally manufactured for this movie. But, um, it's a great, great time, great time for these stupid little songs.
Sonny01:09:41I, uh, my, my Karate Kid three story is, is, it's not really much of a story, but it, so when I, I did Taekwondo growing up, I did Taekwondo. And we, uh, we, we, you know, we did like a, there was like a lock in, you know, you know, lock ins. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Mike01:09:56We used to do lock ins. Um, what is that? Uh, and it's like, it's usually like a church or a school and you, you like, it's for a fundraiser a lot of times and you go and, and like, uh, everybody's like stays overnight in, in like the church gym, uh, hang out with your friends, hang out with your friends.
Sonny01:10:16It's like a sleepover someplace else basically.
Mike01:10:19It's a way to keep kids from like getting in trouble is kind of the idea.
Sonny01:10:23You lock, you lock, you literally lock them in. You like, they, they can't get out.
Mike01:10:26Sounds a little lock into the Y, but that's a battle royale, but that's all right.
Sonny01:10:30It's, it's, but, uh, but, uh, I, so at, at this, at this lock in, they did, they showed karate kid part three, which I had never seen before, but I had also never seen karate kid one or two and karate kid three, much less good movie, but also very, also very funny and kind of indicative of. The same sort of like, it's very of its moment, right? Where like the villain, the villain is a, the villain is a, uh, uh, a industrialist who was friends with crease in Vietnam. And after creases, after creases, uh, you know, Cobra Kai, after Cobra Kai collapses in ignominy and shame following their defeat at the hands of Lou Russo and the Miyagi dojo. Uh, he picks up, he picks crease up. But, but like at the same time, he's like dumping in, he's dumping in toxic waste into the, into the, into the ocean or something. It's like, it's just like, it's, it's such, it's this very funny.
JVL01:11:30It's this very funny, like as a contract with apartheid South Africa, I mean, like
Sonny01:11:36there may well be, there may, there may well be a subplot about that. I, but it was, uh, I don't know. I've always just, uh, I've always, I've always been amused by that, uh, that little bit.
Mike01:11:48By the way, the next karate. Kid, the one with, uh, Hillary Swank, uh, has, uh, on its cast list, Walton Goggins. Look at that all the way back in 1994 and, uh, who would have thought? So, um, yeah, sure. It's fine.
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