#327. 'Mr. Scorsese' (AppleTV+)
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The main event is Apple TV+'s five-part Rebecca Miller documentary Mr. Scorsese, which the trio split up and watched piecemeal: Sonny took the broad overview, JVL watched the episode on the collapse of the New Hollywood economic model and the Last Temptation of Christ fight, and Mike watched the Leonardo DiCaprio-centric "method director" episode. Sonny's big takeaway is structural rather than personal — he reads Scorsese's career, from asthmatic kid sneaking into air-conditioned movie theaters through NYU film school, New Hollywood, the Weinstein-financed Gangs of New York, and the late-career streamer epics like The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon, as a synecdoche for the entire arc of American cinema as an art form and business, which he finds moving and a little depressing. JVL agrees Scorsese is a survivor and "the closest thing you get to a Van Gogh," but finds the man himself less interesting than his circumstances, singling out the Raging Bull/Thelma Schoonmaker material as the doc's best stretch and the introspective "did you see yourself in Jake LaMotta" stuff as its weakest; Mike is outright disappointed by the DiCaprio episode, wanting real insight into how the two actually collaborate and getting mostly surface-level praise instead. A long tangent compares the (now largely forgotten) outrage over The Last Temptation of Christ to the far-more-blasphemous-but-ignored Silence, with JVL and Sonny concluding it was mostly opportunistic 1988 moral-panic theater rather than sincere offense. They close with rapid-fire favorite-Scorsese-movie picks — JVL goes Wolf of Wall Street/Departed/Casino, Sonny picks Goodfellas and Casino, and Mike sentimentally lands on The Departed as his college-era touchstone (with a Boondock Saints detour). The episode opens with its usual long banter block: Mike's cold open doing an uncanny Vic-style bit, Sonny's confession that he eats the exact same tuna sandwich lunch every day and felt guilty breaking the streak for his son's Burger King birthday lunch, JVL's Ozempic-adjacent "I just eat when I'm hungry" routine, an extended World Series discussion (Ohtani's absurd stat line, JVL's bittersweet last season of late-night baseball with his soon-to-be-college son "Flash"), youth-baseball mercy-rule war stories, a quick box-office rundown (Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc, a soft-opening Springsteen biopic), and a spirited Beatles-are-a-boy-band digression.
From the show notes
More talk about sandwiches in this episode than I expected.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Marty was very upset. I get a call at the office and I said, "Steve, Steve, it's Marty, it's Marty, Steve. Yeah, can you come over to the house? They want me to cut all the blood spurting, they want me to cut the guy who loses his hand." And he was going crazy. I mean, it was stories he wanted to kill the head of the studio. You had a gun? I was going to get one. So you said you were going to get a gun? Yeah, but I wasn't going to get a gun. Really? So you said you were going to do well with the gun? Oh, I was going to, I don't know, I was angry, I said, "I'm going to threaten them, or maybe just shoot or something." I had no idea. I mean, I was threatening. What I wanted to do, and not with a gun, I would go in, find out where the rough cut is, and break the windows and take it away. They're going to destroy the film anyway, so let me destroy it. I'll destroy it.
Mike00:00:58Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike "The Irishman" Warren, and I'm joined, as always, by my two co-hosts. They're talking to me because I'm the only one here. A couple of good fellas, one from the mean streets of New Jersey, the other a raging bull of film criticism, Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. I'm the king of comedy for that intro, right? Jesus Christ. That was the most Vic you've ever been.
Sonny00:01:29Yeah. That was real close. That was real. I'm trying to get- We got a mini Gene here.
Mike00:01:35I will do the voice. Join us over at subbeacon.com. Tell your friends and family to check out the show at subbeacon.com. Become a patron. Join the conversation in the comments. Get new episodes every Friday. Come say hi to us on Instagram as well, @subbeacon. Sometimes those comments get shouted out on the Instagram account. This week, we are going to be talking about Mr. Scorsese later on in the show, but first, what is going on? Sonny, should we start with you? What's new?
Sonny00:02:12I mean, I guess we can. I don't have a ton. As we were coming on to the program, JVL was eating a sandwich, and I really want to ask you about the sandwich because I actually have this ... It's not even a riff, really. I just had a confession to make, which is that I have become one of these people who eats the same thing for lunch every day.
JVL00:02:35I'm at home.
Sonny00:02:37I work from home now, and as part of working from home, I lost ... We've talked about this a little bit on the show, but I lost a bunch of weight back in 2019 or so, and I've mostly kept it off. The reason I've mostly kept it off is because I have a fairly strict diet of in the morning, I have eggs for breakfast, just eggs, eggs and coffee, and then for lunch, I have a tuna fish sandwich with an apple or pear or something as a side. Every day. Every day I do this. I felt like a real jerk yesterday, felt like a real jerk yesterday, because it was my son's birthday. It was my son's birthday. That's right. Turning seven, and one of the things that people do in this neighborhood is when your kid is having a birthday, you go get him from school, you take him to lunch. Sure. And I'm doing this, and the whole time, the whole lead up to it, and the whole after, the whole during, all I was thinking was, man, this is really going to fuck up my diet. It's going to just, this is not- Just one meal. One meal. Wow. I get off, I'm getting off my, I'm like getting off the right track here. I have to, I, you know, I'm not, we're going to go to, he wants to go to Burger King. I can't, there's nothing healthy at Burger, there's nothing healthy at Burger King. At McDonald's, you can kind of work your way, there's, like Burger King has a whole bunch of nothing for you.
Mike00:04:03Hold, hold on. Let me stop you. Yeah.
?00:04:06Let me stop you right here, Sonny.
Mike00:04:07When you, when something is throwing you off your diet, or off your sort of regular, the regular cuisine that you, because you said it's the same thing for breakfast and the same thing for lunch, you obviously don't have the same thing for dinner.
Sonny00:04:22No, we, the only reason we don't have the same thing for dinner every day is because I live with people. People who wouldn't stand for it. Exactly. Right. Like if I, if I live by myself, there's a 100% chance I would just be like cooking myself salmon or chicken every day and just eat it.
JVL00:04:38Same, but not salmon or chicken. I mean, I'd have the same thing for all three meals every single day if I lived by myself and I would be perfectly happy.
Sonny00:04:46I would, I, I like, I'm not, it's not, I'm not opposed to, I'm not opposed to dinner. Dinner is okay. I will, I will sometimes, you know, shift things up a little bit, but like. If, if I lived by myself, I would probably just have like a F I would have like a bag of frozen chicken, a bag of frozen mahi mahi filets and like, uh, that's, I would alternate between the two of them, you know, kind of for, for that.
Mike00:05:11That just hurts my brain, um, to, to think about like what that life would be like, it's variety is the spice of life, variety is the spice of life.
Sonny00:05:20Well, and this is why on Friday I will treat myself on Friday. I will treat myself, but like, so on. We go, we go out for dinner on Friday nights, but we do, we do that every pretty much every Friday night. We go, we go out to dinner. If it were up to me, we would just go to the same restaurant every time at the same restaurant.
JVL00:05:37I would assume you have one thing that you order.
Sonny00:05:40Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would get the chicken parm sandwich every time it's like, that's, that's what I get at con a Rosso and at the Lake Highlands location, um, I would get, no, I would go there every time. And I would get the same thing and I would eat it and I would sit at the bar and I would drink my, uh, Miller light or whatever. And then I would go home and I would just sit there and stare at the wall until death approached.
Mike00:06:05That's wait, hold on, hold on. Now you're now it's sounding attractive. Okay.
Sonny00:06:10Now we're, now we're, uh, no, um, anyway, but anyway, but like, I felt, I felt really, I felt really bad about this because I was like, I was like sitting there, like really being annoyed with this whole situation, like, ah, why can't you, you don't want to go get sushi or something. At least, you know, at least that's kind of healthy. It's like, no, I want, I want a, I want a happy meal. You want a happy meal. I'll tell you what's a happy meal.
JVL00:06:35Did you get the crown because it was his birthday.
Sonny00:06:37Oh, he got a crown. All right. He got a crown. He got a, he got a crown. All right. It was, uh, it was, uh, it was, he played, he played in the play area cause it's indoors. It's nice indoor play area. It's only great.
JVL00:06:52He's sick today, right? Because those play areas are petri dishes. You go to a fast food play area, somebody goes in there and wipes them down.
Sonny00:07:01Uh, like, uh, the inside of an Intel factory, getting all the, getting all the germs out.
Mike00:07:05I mean, it's like the modern day equivalent of growing up on a farm. You get those natural immunities from the flavor.
Sonny00:07:11Probably not. It's not wrong. It's why I've never been sick. Um, uh, so the, uh, the, anyway, I, I, but I was curious about your ham and cheese sandwich. Do you have that ham and cheese sandwich every day? As we were coming on, you were like, you make the ham and cheese, you throw it on the grill for, for a minute. And then it's good. It's nice and crispy. How do you do? You don't eat the same thing every day though.
JVL00:07:31No, I would. I mean, the truth is I, so, you know, I'm, I'm all Ozempic. It's it's not Ozempic. It's that bound. But, um, and so I, I literally, I just eat whatever I want whenever I'm hungry. I'm just not hungry all that often. Right. And so like I, I was hungry at like 11:30 today, which isn't a rare thing. I went upstairs. I'm like, huh, well, it's good. Yeah. I'll just make myself a sandwich. That's you know, I would say most days it's like, uh, oh, I get to 12:30 and I'm like, I'm really hungry. So I'll just like grab a protein shake and that's more than enough for me.
Sonny00:08:09So when he, when's the next time you will eat, will you not eat for like 28 hours now? Is it like, I don't know, I don't know.
JVL00:08:15I don't even think about it. That's how great it is.
Mike00:08:18It's the greatest fly trap. You're just like waiting for the food to kind of strike greatest drug ever.
JVL00:08:26And like, you just, you don't even have to think about it. It's just like, yeah, no, I just sort of exist in the world. And uh, you know, when I get hungry, I go and I eat what seems appealing to me. That's it. That's the secret. So you lose a ton of weight. Yeah.
Mike00:08:43My view is basically there are two types of people in the world. There are people for whom food is simply live, live to eat, right? It's just fuel. Yeah. It's, it is just, it is, it's, it is no doubt. No different than sleeping or, uh, or going to the bathroom. It's just a part of life that you have to do. And then there are, there, there are other people for whom it is a, uh, it is a part of the joy of life.
JVL00:09:10And I feel like I am of the ladder, uh, and you two are, yeah, you and Vic are of the ladder. I am true. I've always been just a eat to live.
Sonny00:09:18Yeah. No, this is, this is a, this is a change for me though, because I always used to, I, I, I enjoy eating. I enjoy going out to nice restaurants. I enjoy. like making different things. I like to make a nice steak at home or whatever, right? I like to make good dishes. This has been like a genuine, this has been like a monkish aesthetic sacrifice for me is to like abandon the things I enjoy so I like don't die at the age of 48 from a heart attack. Like it was, you know, but it definitely, but again, like the ritual of it, the at 11 o'clock I go and I open up my tuna can and I put it in the bowl and I add the light miracle whip and I put some little chili sauce in there. It's the saddest thing I've ever heard. It's every day, every day like that. Toast my bread, got a toaster oven.
Mike00:10:16But here's the thing. I feel like the, I feel like I'm not, I'm not the, sort of, hey, I eat whenever I, whenever I want to, like the biggest meal, whatever. I, I just like variety. Like I can't do the same routine rope thing, not just with food, but kind of with anything. Like I get, I get antsy. I get restless.
JVL00:10:38I love routines.
Mike00:10:38What makes me comfortable? Routine is like a warm blanket. I know, I know this. I know this about you.
Sonny00:10:43I don't, I don't know how else to live my life with all of the things I have going on without routines. That's why, I it's why we taped this show at roughly the same time.
Mike00:10:55Right, right, right.
Sonny00:10:56Every week. It's why I tape my other movie podcast at roughly the same time every week. Like we, we had to switch that day because for, for reasons. And it was like, it was, I was like, I was irrationally angry for like two weeks afterwards because we switched from, we switched from like taping Monday afternoon to taping Sunday night. Like literally 18 hours earlier, I was just like, I was pissy for, for two weeks. I was like, I gotta fucking do this. It's,
Mike00:11:22I guess, I guess the routine is what makes me pissy. Sonny, that's, that's the, it's the, it I'm, I'm in a box and I'm trying to, I'm trying to get out. So, but each their own JVL, what's going on with you?
JVL00:11:35So we are taping on Thursday, which is the day after game five of the world series. And this is an important day because game five is when you have just done three consecutive games. And now have a day off, right? It's the only time in the world series where you get three games in a row. And by game three, by game three, by that third game, which is game five, you're just fucking exhausted because you've been up much later than you should be every night. And I have, you're talking about the viewers, not the players themselves who are in the viewers for us.
Mike00:12:16Although it's true for the player. It's true of the players,
JVL00:12:18right? Because also the, I mean, the world series starts an hour later, then normal, normal baseball games from the regular season started seven and then are done by like nine 30 world series games can push back to eight. They have more breaks built into them. Uh, they, so they take longer for commercial purposes. Um, and, uh, and I realized a couple of weeks ago that this was the last world series I get to watch in its entirety with flash. Um, we have been watching the world series together since 2016, which was when he discovered, that there was professional baseball above single leg. And it's when I introduced him to, to the major league. And he had always thought, Oh, I thought baseball was like, you know, that was it. You know, the thing I was like, no, no,
Sonny00:13:02just the mud hens or whatever. Well, it's just, uh,
JVL00:13:06the canton nationals are just the kid in the cannons at that point, right? They weren't the peanuts yet. Um, and so we, that year was the year the cubs broke the curse. Yep. And it was an amazing, amazing run. They were, they were not in last place at the all-star break, but they weren't doing great at the all-star break. They went on this unbelievable run. They had, it was as is sometimes the case. They did not have that good a team. Very few of those guys are even still in the big, uh, but everybody they had had the single best year of their career at the same time. Oh yeah. And so like Addison Russell, Ben Zobrist, Ben Zobrist was the world series MVP. I mean, that, that guy is not a, a great ball player anyway. Um, and, uh, we watched ever since then. It isn't true that we watched every single inning because there have been a couple of games that went to like three in the morning, like, like game three this year, uh, in where we stayed up for the 12th, but then, then had to pack it in because I did have work the next day and he had school, but he'll be gone. He'll be at college next October. And I'm not going to have this again. With my oldest son. And that has been just eating away at me inside. And, uh, and so I have decreed that everybody in the family who wants to stay up for these world series games can do it. Cause this is, this is our, our last hurrah as a family. And so carte blanche G money has been up. Little E has been, everybody has been staying awake till late night.
Sonny00:14:49How many innings into the 18, 18 inning, game did they get?
JVL00:14:54Uh, G money went up after 10. Yeah. G G money favorite. And little E went up after 10 flash. And I came up after 12. What's funny is I, I fell asleep listening to the audio feed and I woke up at about two 50 in the morning. And the first thing I did was like roll over to grab my phone to check to see who won. And the audio feed was still going. And I was like, what the fuck?
Mike00:15:26They're still in this game. It's still happening.
JVL00:15:30Anyway. So I'm very tired and very sad and I'm pre-morning and having all of the feelings.
Mike00:15:35Question.
JVL00:15:36Who do you want? Who do you want to win? So I would say I am mildly partial to the Dodgers because I have watched a lot of Dodgers. I'm an Otani guy and I have watched a lot of Dodgers games this year. They are an incredibly likable team. Um, I like this Blue Jays, Blue Jays team a lot to very likable as well. I don't so fun will not be, will not be unhappy either way. Would appreciate it if it could go seven games though, because I would like to have two more games of baseball and not just one. So my biggest like Rudy Andrews will be game six. I really want the Dodgers to win game six because I want a seven game. I think they probably will with Yamamoto, but they look tired though. Um, it's a, I mean, they're not hidden and they, you know, Dave Roberts did some desperate stuff with the lineup, uh, yesterday, like shook up the lineup. Finally benched Andy pot Hayes, who at one point in the series was batting. Oh, 77. Is that, is that bad?
Sonny00:16:41Is that good? Oh, 77. That's a lot.
JVL00:16:45Anyway, I just want to say one thing I, cause I do, I do feel like people don't as much as. People talk about Otani. They don't really understand how good he is because it's, it's a category difference and people can't really understand category differences in the 18 inning game. He went four for four with two home runs and he got on base nine times, nine times. And that was his second best game of the post season.
Sonny00:17:16Right? It's like, wait, he, he walked five times in that game.
JVL00:17:22Yeah, because after they got to one, once they got to the nine, the ninth inning, they
Sonny00:17:26just walked them every time, every single time.
JVL00:17:28Cause they just weren't going to let it, you know, cause at that point, any solo home run ends the game.
Sonny00:17:34Yeah.
JVL00:17:34And they were just like, we're not, no, sorry, guy. Sorry. And what's funny is he's so humble. Like he walked up to the plate with all of his gear on and stuff every time as if, you know, as if that's the way it should be played, right? It should be not taking anything for granted. I got, I love that guy.
Sonny00:17:53What's the longest, what's the longest extra innings game you guys have ever been to?
Mike00:17:59Oof. I think I went to a 13 inning game once. I recall maybe it's, it was not memorable.
JVL00:18:06Clearly if I can't remember longest extra innings game that we've stayed to the end of. Okay. So we went to a Potomac nationals, the single a game. It was an April game, early April. It was flash's birthday. I think it was 10 years old. And because early April is one of those games where it was cold and I had packed like blankets for us and stuff. And the game went, I want to say to 13 and we stayed for the whole thing. We, I mean, this thing was nuts. There were very few people there to begin with, uh, by the ninth inning. Like the girl who was our little waitress for the night was just like sitting with us under blankets with us in our seats. Cause you know, there's nothing to do, but she couldn't clock out yet. Uh, and they won the game. We were the only people left in the park. And as we're leaving, one of the guys from the team comes out of the dugout and says to flash, Hey, hold on, buddy. Hold on. So we stopped. He goes back into the dugout. He comes back out with a bat and a ball, which he gives to him. And he says, thanks so much for staying for the whole thing. That really meant a lot to us. Didn't even know it was his birthday. I feel like I gave him the greatest birthday that any 10 year old boy has ever had.
Sonny00:19:38I think that's, well, I mean, it's no Burger King lunch, but it's pretty, you know, it's pretty, it's pretty good. I will say I, I, I went to, I stayed through in my twenties at some point, I stayed through like a 13 or 14 inning game. Again, it's like at 13 or 14 innings, it's like, you don't even remember what it is. But I, the thing I remember most about that game is, you know, they, they stopped serving beer in the middle of the seven.
JVL00:20:02They stopped serving all, all concessions get shut down. Those games would be fine if you could still keep eating. Yes.
Sonny00:20:08Right. So like I, so, but so the, you know, concession shut down, it's in the seven, seven and a half, you know, inning stretch. And I, uh, and by the time you get to like, inning 13 or 14, and it's not like I was, I wasn't, I w I hadn't been drunk before that, but I'd had beers. I had a hangover. Cause I was just sitting there. I can't drink anything. I'm just like, I'm just like, uh, this is, this is actually, I have a headache. This is miserable. I don't want to be here anymore.
Mike00:20:38You should be asleep during this. I should be asleep.
Sonny00:20:40Right. It's like two, it's like two in the morning at this point, you know, it's, it's, uh, it was some, it was some insane time. It was like, it was, you know, 1am or something. It was just, it was, it was awful all the way around. Uh, and I, I, but I was like, I'm not leaving. So the fucking game is over.
JVL00:20:55Uh, we had this at the U S open one year where we were at the U S open and it was a late night match. It was James Blake versus somebody. I forget who, but it was one of these, like the early match had gone long. And then this match went to five sets and it was like one 30 in the morning and there had been no consent. And it was weird when you walked out onto the concourse, it had the feel of a post-apocalypse just, you know, like trash. Blowing down the hallway as the wind kicked up and you, everyone was just like, I just want to buy a cup of coffee or something, but everything is shut down.
Mike00:21:30Everybody's walking like zombies. Yeah. Yeah. Um, all right.
JVL00:21:34What are you up to buddy?
Mike00:21:35Who me? Yeah. You might, uh, no, nothing really. We're in this, we're now currently in the, in the, in between, uh, baseball and basketball seasons moment for, for my kids. Um, which is funny. My, my. Two and a half year old, almost three-year-old keeps, keeps demanding that we go to basketball games. And I'm like, no, like they, they, like they don't start for the games actually don't start till January. The practices don't even start till maybe end of next month. Um, uh, and so clearly like w we have conditioned him to just be constantly youth sporting. Um, which I don't, I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing. Um, but yeah, no, it's, it's nice to be done. I mean, the fall ball season is so. Casual as opposed to spring ball. And it's just a, it's relaxing and there's shorter, it's shorter, fewer games. Um, stakes are low. It's, it's just, it's, it's great. Fall ball is, is fantastic. Um, and, uh, yeah, I don't know. I don't, I don't have much, much else to say.
JVL00:22:39Um, I went to a fall ball game, uh, this weekend, this past weekend, my, my best friend, Chris, his son, who is nine is on a nine U team. And so we just drove down, we were playing at a tournament here in Jersey. We went down to see him. They, uh, pretty good little team, pretty good little players. They, uh, they won their first game very convincingly and made it to the championship game. And, uh, the championship game, they went down 14, nothing in the first inning. And then 30, nothing after the second inning, no mercy rules. They, they called the game at the close of the third.
Sonny00:23:21Everybody gets a chance to bat.
Mike00:23:23It was tough. Yeah, it was tough. I mean, you do appreciate that five, what we have in, again, this is rec, right? That's all my kids plays. Rec, uh, is, uh, that five run per inning limit, which just, it moves things forward
Sonny00:23:38and you don't get, you can't, I doing not having that in youth baseball is malpractice.
JVL00:23:45I wanted to punch one of the coaches from the other team because there are. I mean, at one point they were up 20 to nothing in the second inning and like the guy is standing on third, he's the third base coach. And first of all, they still have their kids stealing. Oh, right, right. And, uh, but second, he's like talking to the kid about how, uh, the third base. He's like, so remember if it's a pop foul, even if he catches it over here in foul territory, you could take off. And so like, listen to my signal. I was like, you fucking douchebag. These kids are nine years old and you're up by 20. Yeah.
Mike00:24:24Okay. So we had, we had a similar situation in the final game, uh, for my, for my, uh, 11 year olds team. Um, but we were the, we were the dominant team in this, in this game. Um, but I do think we were actually sort of treated a little unfairly by the, by the other coach who was, who was outraged about because of the, in the final inning. Um, so we were visitors, we were up at a level. Uh, up to a point where they could not actually catch up with us because of the final rule. Right.
JVL00:24:58Uh, when you're allowed seven runs or something.
Mike00:25:01No, no, it's not even that it's, it's that we don't even have a rule like that. It's just the time limit, right? There was no way we were going to start a new inning and there was no way they had an, so they only had one more inning to bat and we were up by more than five. Um, but we were still playing because it was the last game of the season and, um, and we were in a situation where we were hitting, right. And, and, and runners were advancing, not because of stealing bases, which again, we're up by a lot. Our coach backs off of the, you know, send them home on every past ball sort of situation. Um, and we were, uh, but we were just hitting, like we were hitting well and the kids were, were, were, were running, you know, but it was just base running is all it was. Um, and I could tell the other coach was just like, felt like we were putting, you know, felt like we were like rubbing it in here and, and, and, and trying to just, you know, which, which we really weren't. It was like, we were kind of cool with whatever happened. We just became hot in this last, in this last inning. Um, and they were had their, you know, probably their worst, their worst picture of the, of the, of the, uh, of the game. Uh, we were in this situation where it's the last game of the season, last time these kids are going to be up to bat, uh, until the spring. And yes, we were ahead and yes, we got the three or we got the five runs. Uh, and there was still plenty of time. We were not way past the time limit. Um, and, uh, we kind of, our, our kids headed out there for another inning to play in the field. The other coach was like, kind of like, looked like he was ready to line up and our coach was like, let's, let's, let's play another half inning. And the coach, coach. Just went, uh, yeah, I guess, which I just thought was like the worst attitude for a coach before, you know, for the last inning, you disagree JBL. What, what time of night was it? So we had until, so it was a two hour limit. So the game started at six and ended at eight. So this was probably seven 45.
JVL00:27:11What are these? What, what's the age?
Mike00:27:13Uh, it is everywhere between like eight and 11.
JVL00:27:19Um, borderline man, the school night, I assume it wasn't a Saturday or a Sunday or a Friday.
Mike00:27:25It was a, it was a Monday. It was a Monday.
JVL00:27:26Um, last game of the season and the game and the game, let everybody get home and like get people through the showers and get their teeth brushed and get ready for bed and shit. I guess so.
Mike00:27:37I, I, I say play, I say play.
Sonny00:27:39If you, if he didn't want to play, if he, if he, the losing coach doesn't want to play, why I like, I, I, but he didn't, he didn't put up a fight.
Mike00:27:48He was just kind of, he kind of had this. Uh, fatalistic attitude about it, which I did not think was like a good thing in front
JVL00:27:55of the kids. Like, well, normally the umpires, the one who should talk to both managers about this. And it really isn't, it's not up to your coach to, to pull the plug. This is, but you know, if you have like a 14 year old umpire, they don't always correct. They were just going to play. Yes. Yeah. So I, I understand the fatalism I am with him. Like, but your coach didn't do anything wrong.
Sonny00:28:22No, no, no. I mean, that's like, it's not like there's any, it's, it's not like you had demanded to go out there for another at bat for another, or for another full inning. Right. It was like, yeah.
Mike00:28:34And it was like, Oh, like the kids are out there playing it's wreck ball. Right? Like there's no, there's no real stakes. And it was just like, um, Hey, let the kids like to hit your kids back some more.
JVL00:28:44I mean, that's the other thing is like an hour later, I would have said absolutely not.
Mike00:28:49Well, no, no, no.
JVL00:28:49But it's only seven 45. It was eight 45. I'd be like, come the fuck on. But seven 45.
Mike00:28:54That's reasonable. Reasonable. Total. All right. All right. Let's move on. We've talked for a half hour. Let's talk quickly about the box office. What the hell is this? Number one of the box office chainsaw man, the movie Rezzy arc. What the hell is that? What is Rezzy arc? Rez arc.
Sonny00:29:11Great question. Nobody knows. Uh, the, no, I mean, it's, it's an anime thing.
JVL00:29:15It's an anime.
Sonny00:29:16Oh, it's a crunchy roll. It's a crunchy roll. Sony picture. Uh, it is, it's, it's another, it's like the demon slayer movie, except chainsaw man. He's a, he's a man who has chainsaws for hands, but as best as I can tell, this is actually the plot of the show.
Mike00:29:33But what is, what is with these anime movies and the, like the multiple title is like, there's like titles and subtitles and what is that?
Sonny00:29:41Because they're, because they're all, you see, so I don't know how to answer this except in the context of. Of dragon ball, right? So like in, in the, in the series dragon ball, you have the original dragon ball anime, and then you had a sequel series. It was called dragon ball Z. Then there's another series called dragon ball GT. There might, there might've been another series after that, but then like you have the movies that are, that are, uh, that are kind of either they're either standalone movies or they're condensed arcs that have been put into movie form to be released in theaters. And basically I, as best as I can tell, chain. Saw man, the movie Rezzy arc is just like, is, is a way to distinguish it from the other elements of the chainsaw man. I don't know, man. I don't, I don't know how, well, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta talk to somebody from, from anime land on this. I don't know how any of this work.
Mike00:30:38Move on, move on.
Sonny00:30:40Uh, I don't know. What else is there? The Springsteen movie does $9 million or so and it's opening weekend. That's not very good. Uh, I can't say it. Shocking.
Mike00:30:50I can't say it's shocking, but it was anybody asking for the Springsteen movie.
Sonny00:30:54Well, that's, I mean, was anybody asking for the Bob Dylan movie and that, that movie ended up doing did well.
Mike00:31:00It had Timothy Chalamet and because Springsteen is no Bob Dylan, but it held for the, the,
Sonny00:31:06the, the, the Dylan movie held for a long time. It came out in, in December and, and, uh, did, did a really good multiple did like a six or seven multiple or something. This will not, I don't think, but it's also like, it's a movie about the making of Nebraska, which is not a popular album in terms of like mass audience appeal.
Mike00:31:28It's, it's, yeah, if it were about the making of born to run, you know, like that would be at least something that people can sink their teeth into.
Sonny00:31:36Yeah. So anyway, I, I, I thought it was actually a pretty interesting movie, um, because it's not like your typical musical biopic, but also like, I, I agree that the audience for this is not strictly speaking. You know, there, and it's very funny because like Springsteen's out doing all, he's making all the rounds. He's like playing his guitar at all the, the premieres he's been, I've seen him. I've seen him at like six different premieres. Now he's just showing up there playing his guitar for people.
Mike00:32:03Bruce Springsteen is overrated. Bruce Springsteen is overrated. That is all.
Sonny00:32:08Mike, don't, this is, this is nonsense. You don't need to, you don't need to.
Mike00:32:12Oh, are you, are you a Springsteen head? I didn't know that. Okay.
Sonny00:32:16All right. Well, he's better than the Beatles.
?00:32:19You shut your mouth.
Sonny00:32:21You shut your mouth.
JVL00:32:23Well, I thought Sonny was going to go with, I think he's properly rated, but nope. You went right to, you took a 211. The best Bruce Springsteen. Mushroom Cloud Lion motherfucker.
Mike00:32:34The best Bruce Springsteen song was a cover by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. That tells you quite a bit. All right. Let's move on.
JVL00:32:45The Beatles are a boy band.
Sonny00:32:46I like Don Hunter. I like you. People. People have this reverence for the Beatles, and it's like getting it's like getting real excited about seeing Backstreet Boys at the Sphere.
Mike00:32:55Like, OK, hey, we have a lot of talk. We have a lot to talk about. We don't need to go down this road here, Sonny. OK, no more box office thoughts. Let's talk about the docuseries that we are talking about. Mr. Scorsese on Apple TV plus. Sonny, you want to give us kind of an overview of what you watched and what part of what you and I watched?
Sonny00:33:19So it's a five hour one. It's a five episode, basically an hour per episode documentary series on Apple TV plus directed by Rebecca Miller, I believe is her name, that essentially it doesn't quite cue to this, but it's almost one episode per decade. So you get you get like his early life, then you get a decade on the 70s and then the 80s and then the 90s through early aughts and then the Leo years, which is kind of it's it's almost it's funny because like the Leonardo DiCaprio portion of Martin Scorsese's career is a quarter century. It's 25 years and it still feels like it almost feels like a coda or a blip, but it's like half of it's like half of his time as a director. Anyway, JBL, I believe you watched the third episode, right? You watched the third episode, which was kind of about the it's about the collapse of the new Hollywood economic model. And Scorsese's own issues, making, getting the last temptation made. And then Mike, you, you watched the Leonardo DiCaprio episode, the method director, which
Mike00:34:32by the way, well, I'll get into it. I'll get into it, but a little misnamed to call it the Leonardo DiCaprio.
Sonny00:34:37Yeah, but the, but the, but the, the, the broad arc of this series, and this is, this is what I kept, this is what I kept thinking about while I was watching it is that, so Scorsese is now, he's almost 90. He was born in 1942 or 43, something like that. So he's 80, he's in his mid eighties.
JVL00:34:58He's amazing for guys in his eighties.
Sonny00:35:01Yeah. He's, he's 82. He's born in 1942. He's 82. Born in the tenements of New York city moves to the, in the, the first episode we hear about how he like moved to Queens. I think it was Queens. I don't know.
Mike00:35:15It's what all of New York is the same to me. Italian, right? A little bit. But it was Italian. He was, he was Italian American, right? Is that? Yes. Okay. All right. Just, yeah.
Sonny00:35:25He's an Italian American, but he like, he moves out to this, like what at the time was basically the suburbs of New York. Um, uh, and while he's there, his dad gets into an actual like knockdown drag out fist fight with the owner, the, like his landlord and, and they have to go to the local mafia bosses to hash out who gets to stay in, who has to leave and the family gets exiled. Back to the tenements of like no ho. Anyway, it's, it's, it's interesting. It's like watching, watching him come up through this, this, this world. And the whole thing is like everybody in my neighborhood, you either became a priest or you became a gangster, you know, that, that sort of thing. And he embodies both, both of these. He's, he's the saints center, right? Anyway, I, this is, this is, I, you guys will have maybe more thoughts on the Catholicism of it all, uh, than I do. What I find interesting about this movie, uh, this series. Really, it's a five hour movie, but this series, this five hour series is Scorsese is perfectly representative of a certain type of person who came of age at the only time in human history where movies were the most important thing in the world. So he's born at, he's born in 42 and he grows up, uh, with asthma and he goes he literally like goes to the movie theater because it's the only place with air conditioning. It's like the only place where he is not suffering in his, with his, with his, you know, uh, awful breathing in the summer. It's like the only place where he is soothed by the, the, the, and he falls in love with it, obviously. But then also they're talking about watching, uh, the, the Italian neorealist movies come over that were playing in, uh, on TV in his home and they would, they would, you know, they would import these movies and they would watch it. And he was like, I watched this and I saw people like me on the screen and it was really interesting. And that informed what I made. And then he goes to, he goes to college at the precise moment when film school becomes a thing, right? He goes to, he goes to NYU, um, and, uh, you know, starts running around with Brian De Palma and those guys. And he moves out, he moves out West to Los Angeles where he meets the guys who were at the UCLA and USC. USC film schools. He falls in with Coppola and, and Spielberg and John Milius. John Milius gets a nice little segment in, in I think the second episode of this show, um, uh, where they all, they, they are all film school brats to a certain, to a certain extent that they didn't know, but, but they're all, they're all film school guys or were in that, that kind of universe. Spielberg kind of famously wasn't really, he, he was mostly just, he's just a savant. He's like a fucking idiot genius. Um, when it comes to, to, to visual stuff. Um, and then, and then from there he falls into the, the whole like new Hollywood thing. There was this moment from 19, I don't know. There was a moment from 1970 to 1982 or whatever, where you could actually get personal art films made on a decent budget and people would go see them. Right. Like imagine trying to get a movie, like you could get a movie like taxi driver made today, but nobody would go see it. Right. You could get. You could get a movie like, um, I don't know the Cassavetes stuff made today, but nobody would go see it.
Mike00:38:55Or they'd be like 10 episode TV shows.
Sonny00:38:59Or they'd be 10 episodes. Right. They'd be Netflix. They'd be Netflix, uh, miniseries. Um, and then, and then after that all collapses and this is the episode that JVLC that, that all kind of collapses, the studios take over. It's all high concept, big budget sequel driven stuff. And he is, he's lost for a little bit, but then he is able to, he's able to, he's able to shift into the like big star. Um, I don't know. Like I, the, the, the nineties are a weird time for him. After that, he gets into the Leonardo DiCaprio period where it's like Leo can get a movie made. Right. And this is why he makes 10 movies with Leonardo DiCaprio because Leonardo DiCaprio can, for instance, get some corrupt Malaysian guy to cut him a hundred million dollar check for the Wolf of Wall Street. They don't really talk about this. Uh, in the, in the, uh, in the show at all, but you know, they talk about the Wolf of Wall Street being self-financed, which it was like Leonardo DiCaprio went out there and raised a hundred million dollars to get that movie made. He, he got it from a guy who was just like comically corrupt, who like, I think is in prison now because he stole a hundred million dollars from a Malaysian wealth fund or something to get the movie made fitting for that, for that movie. Um, yeah. Uh, and then, and then, and this is the final kind of arc of his career. Now he is the streamer guy. Right now he makes, he makes the Irishman. So he, he, he talks about this a little bit in the series about having a bigger vision and like wanting to do bigger and bolder things. And you see a little bit of this with the gangs of New York, where again, they don't really get into the Harvey Weinstein of it all. Like Harvey Weinstein is portrayed as this kind of like ogre in the background, but like the fights between Scorsese and Weinstein and the, the, the money that it took to recreate an entire segment of. You know, 18th, uh, 19th, early 19th century, um, New York city on the Chinachetta studios and in Italy, like that was an enormous undertaking. That wasn't a huge expensive amount of money that was spent on this movie that was never really finished. Like they, again, they talk about this in the movie. Like he was like, yeah, we were rewriting it as we were going. I was like, well, that's insane. You can't, you can't do that with a movie unless you are Kevin Feige. Like you can make a Marvel movie like that. You can't make a Martin Scorsese movie. Like that. And they're one of the reasons why that movie doesn't entirely work. Um, but he has these big visions, these big ideas. He wants to make, he wants to make movies like the Irishman and like a movie like the Irishman costs $200 million to make. It costs $200 million to make because they used an enormous amount of CGI. They, it wasn't just, it wasn't just the period setting. It wasn't just paying for, you know, the actors and all that. It was, they, they spent nine figures de-aging. Everybody. Um, and then you have killers of the flower moon, which is another, like, again, big, huge, huge scale thing. Apple pays $150 million, whatever. Uh, it's just really interesting to watch his career and think of it as a synecdoche for the entire film industry over this time. And I do think there is a, there, we are reaching, we are reaching the end point of cinema as like an. An art form and a business that brings me great distress. And he is kind of an avatar of the whole thing, the whole arc. And that is, and that is what I took away from this. It's not even so much about Martin Scorsese, St. Sinner, et cetera, et cetera. It is Martin Scorsese as emblem of the American century of film, which is winding down here. I like, I don't know.
Mike00:42:48JVL. What did you think of what Sonny just said?
JVL00:42:52I think it's right. Scorsese is, I mean, he's a survivor and he is motivated to work in ways that none of his peers were. And that's why he had, he figured out different ways to get movies made because if he didn't make movies, he would die.
Mike00:43:16That's, that's very clear. That's very clear.
JVL00:43:19From this, like it is the, the need of his soul was to, and, and so because of that, he's able to, you know, the, the economics of Hollywood and the business of Hollywood shifted several times during his career. And he found out how to adapt in each time. Um, he is the most pure artiste and I mean, in a spiritual and temperamental sense of his peers, like Coppola is more like an inventor, uh, or a businessman, uh, I think of Spielberg much more like a novelist. And I mean, De Palma is just like a, uh, ultimately a second rate guy who made a couple of really first rate pieces of work and, but then you have, I mean, Scorsese is the closest thing you get to like a mad, like a Van Gogh or something, right? Just a guy who's out of his gourd, who has. And, you know, every part of his life is like this from his drug use to his serial marriages and, uh, and everybody who's around him seems to understand that he is like a textbook portrait artist. This is, this is what he is. Um, and, uh, ultimately I don't think it makes him that interesting as a character. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Uh, maybe, I mean, again, I watched one of these episodes. And it was, you know, it held my attention for 55 minutes, but that was a stretch. And, uh, in ways that like his life was intensely interesting, like just the fact of from growing up in the tenements in New York during World War II to, uh, being in the New York film scene as it is happening to the fact that like he and Bobby De Niro. Are collaborators in ways that very rarely happens between actors and directors and to the point where Bobby is the one bringing him projects, uh, raging bull. So he's in the, he's in the hospital having like fallen down into drug addiction and De Niro comes and was like, yeah, we got to make this, we got to make this movie, uh, about this guy, Jake LaMotta. And so like all of that stuff is his life has been incredibly interesting. He himself. It does not seem to me terribly interesting, if that makes sense. I don't know how I can explain like the difference between like the life and the man. So I don't know, like whenever we were taught, whenever the, the, the documentary was talking about the things happening in his life, I was very interested in it. Whenever it was talking about the interior life of Martin Scorsese, I was not interested because I feel as though like he is a, he is not a complicated guy. Like he's, he's a very simple guy. And that simple thing is like, he is the soul of the tortured artist and like, okay, great. Let's move on. Yeah. Tell me about the time he and Bobby De Niro were at studio 54, you know?
Mike00:46:33So I felt, I feel very similarly JVL about, about Martin Scorsese, the character, right? The person like he's, and, and in the final episode, um, I don't know what this was like in the other episodes, final episode, there's, uh, uh, there's just a ton of interviews again, following some of the recent stuff that we've covered on the show where like a lot of people are like talking about how great he is. Um, you know, and it's like his daughter, which is, you know, I mean, I don't begrudge her for, you know, for having kind words to say about her dad, but like it, it was not interesting. Um, it was not, it was not, it didn't tell me anything I wanted to know. And the things I did want to know, I feel like, and I, again, I don't know if the other episodes were like this. But I wanted to know a lot more about the relationship between Scorsese and Leonardo, Leonardo DiCaprio, what he saw in Leo, what Leo kind of gets out of that working relationship with Scorsese. It felt very surface level. Like they, they kind of said like, yeah, he saw, he saw the, you know, the next after, after Titanic, he saw it was the next, this was the next guy. Right. Leo was that was, was, was his next, uh, De Niro and, you know, Leo's like, well, I love Phil. And so I wanted to work with Martin Scorsese and that's kind of it. Um, you know, I, I, you know, I was going through those movies, which the, which the, the, the show does, right. Gangs of New York, Aviator, Departed, Shutter Island, Wolf of Wall Street, Killers of the Flower Moon. Is he in any of the others? I don't think so. Um, yeah, he's not in, yeah, his silence is, um. Um, and it's like, it would be interesting to know, did they a little more about the rapport they had on set or the way in which the two of them came up with ideas or how they noticed each other change? And there was none of that in there. And I just felt like it was a little drive by.
JVL00:48:41Did they talk about how the two of them collaborate? Because I mean, with De Niro, De Niro. They brought Raging Bull to him. Uh, they got the script done by his, his, his house screenwriter. And then the two of them went to an Island in the Caribbean for a month and sat in a hotel room and rewrote the script and storyboarded together. So like in a weird way, De Niro was like a co-director almost on like that level of collaboration between an actor. And I feel like that doesn't happen anywhere else except for like Tom Cruise. And, uh, Chris McQuarrie and Chris McQuarrie.
Mike00:49:22So there is a, there is a moment like that in when they're talking about the Wolf of Wall Street and Margot Robbie talks about the, the scene as written was like Margot Robbie comes in to the room and throws the, the, um, divorce papers down and says, I want a divorce to, to, uh, Jordan Belfort. And then she walks out and the. The night before they were going to film this one very brief scene, I guess they, she and Leo and Scorsese rewrote it, uh, in a similar way. Like they, they just sort of stayed up late and rewrote it and added, you know, they have sex and they like, and he like, uh, and then she tells him she's, that was the last time. And then he like hits her and all this stuff. It was not very deep. I didn't really learn anything about it. It was just like, Oh, they, that was kind of how I felt about the whole.
Sonny00:50:18The whole episode was like, I'm not, I'm not sure what else you want. Like, I don't, I'm not like, I don't know what you're looking for in these, in these vignettes.
Mike00:50:29I guess, I guess maybe it wouldn't make for good documentary. I guess maybe I want to read the book, you know, maybe I want to sort of like get the long, um, sort of, uh, the, the, you know, based on deep interviews, it just, it felt like Leo's interviews in this were. Surface level and didn't get, um, you know, didn't get beyond they wanted, you know, he was great. And I liked working with him. I don't know. Maybe what I'm looking for is not possible. I just, I was just sort of, I was a little bored by, by it. I wanted to know what I, maybe this is what I want to know. I want to know a little more about how they actually like made these movies. And it just felt like we zipped through aviator, um, the departed, you know, shutter Island. I felt like we could have spent a lot more time. This is just such an odd, weird movie. It's a weird movie for Scorsese to, to have made. And we just, I don't know. I was just, I wanted more, I wanted more sunny. Can you, you, you denying that I could, I could want more. Well, I mean, did you love it? Sunny?
JVL00:51:32Was it everything you wanted to be?
Sonny00:51:34No, it was, I thought it was fine. I like, I don't, I don't, I'm not a documentary guy. I don't love documentaries. Uh, and like, I don't, so I don't, um, it's funny. We've done so many documentaries in recent recent weeks that I, it's funny. For me to say that, I guess, but I like, I, uh, I am a, I am a fairly surface level guy when it comes to these things. I don't, I don't need what, what's interesting about the, the, um, the, uh, DiCaprio section is that it does feel like the stuff he talks about with, um, Daniel Day-Lewis is kind of more thoughtful. And I can't tell if it's just because Daniel Day-Lewis, Daniel Day-Lewis has a British accent. So everything he says sounds more, more thoughtful. It's, it's, it's one of these. Um, but I also like, I, this is part of my, I, I have always been bad at interviewing actors. I've always, like, it's, it's part of, it's the part of my job I least look forward to doing and I avoid it as much as possible because I don't have good questions for actors. I don't, I don't know how to talk to them about, about their craft. A writer, I know how to talk to a writer. Right. I know how, I know how to talk to, I know how to talk to a producer. I know how to talk to a director. I know how to talk to all of these people, but what writers do borders on. I don't know how to talk to them about it outside of like very surface level. Like, so how did you prepare for this? What did you think when you read this? Like, I don't, I don't know. I don't know how to, I don't, I don't, and maybe, maybe the, maybe the director didn't know how to do that and couldn't dig into it. But again, I think you're almost missing the point here. Probably with, with score, with Scorsese and DiCaprio, which is, and this is, again, this is my own takeaway from, from the documentary. And maybe I'm reading too much into it, but like what, what Scorsese saw with DiCaprio was a guy who can get things made. Yeah. More than anything else, more than, more than any man, more than any other part of their working relationship. And like nobody, I don't think anybody, anybody would dispute that Leonardo DiCaprio was a good and interesting actor, right? Like he's, he's grown. I know he's grown on some people, but I like, I was 14 when Titanic came out or I was 15 when Titanic came out. Like I was 13 when the Romeo and Juliet movie came out, you know, I like, I was there for, I was there for him. I was like, this is this guy. He's, he's good. He's got it. He's a, he's a good actor. So I've never been the, like, he needs to, he needs to grow up guy. But they, but the but, but what comes through very clearly in this movie is like after gangs of New York, which only gets made because of Leonardo DiCaprio, right? Like this is, this is a part of the documentary, right? Like Mike Ovitz, who is Scorsese's new agent comes to him and he says, well, what do you want to get made? And he's like, I want to get gangs of New York made and Leonardo DiCaprio can make anything he wants post Titanic. And somebody comes to him and says, well, what do you want to get made? He says, I want to make whatever Martin Scorsese wants to make. And that's how they get together. And then after that, you know, DiCaprio comes with some, some scripts. He comes with, I think the aviator script, he comes with the wolf of wall street script. And he's like, I want to make these things. And that, that does you know, that plays into that plays into it. But I do, but I, but like JBL says, Scorsese is a guy who needs to make movies. He's a guy who needs to make movies. And Leo is the guy who can get those movies made for the last, but that's why he finds them last 20 years. Right? Like that is, that's their relationship.
Mike00:55:29No, I think, I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right. I think I am missing the point. I, I think too, I've been reflecting on your question. What do I want? Out of something like this, you know, I really enjoy, for instance, in like music documentaries to see sort of how, how they make it. And, or I'm interested in like, even in interviews, like, well, what sort of, what sort of extra tool did you use in the studio to create the sound that you were looking for? Or somebody came in and played, played something that you didn't even know you wanted. And, but that's what it was you wanted. And I guess I was looking for something a little more almost technical. And that was, I don't know why I was expecting that or why I wanted that. I just thought it would be, that would be kind of interesting. You know, I like, I really love a lot of the movies in that period. Gangs in New York is like an interesting failure to me, actually. Like I really, I just think Cameron Diaz like doesn't fit in the movie. But I just, you know, I guess I was looking for something like that, which maybe is not really what there's not a, there's not a one-to-one comparison. Like you can't get that sort of thing that you get out of, like say people talking about making music.
Sonny00:56:42You get a JBL. I forget. Was there, was there talk about Raging Bull? In your episode?
JVL00:56:49Yeah. Mine was basically half about Raging Bull.
Sonny00:56:52Yeah. So there is some of that talk about Raging Bull, about like how he, how he put together like the, the fight scene where Jake LaMotta gets beaten to a pulp. Right. And editing that with Thelma Spoonbaker. Yeah. So like there's, there's definitely some of that.
JVL00:57:09Yeah. And when, again, when they're doing that, that's the best part of the documentary. And when they're talking weird for me, where it bogs down is, where they get into like, well, tell us, you really saw a lot of yourself in Jake LaMotta, didn't you? That's when I'm just like,
Sonny00:57:23yeah,
JVL00:57:24right, right. We've got this. We don't need to,
Mike00:57:26I will say there is something in that when they talk about the aviator, there is a, there is a kindred spiritedness. Is that the right word? I don't know. Between Howard Hughes and Martin Scorsese, that,
JVL00:57:38that is through all the, he sees himself in, in all of these characters. Yeah.
Mike00:57:43But, but it actually makes sense in that one.
JVL00:57:46Again, after hours, he's like, yeah, no, really. That was, I was the lead character in after hours. Can we talk about Last Temptation of Christ? Please. Sure. So I, I am interested in the cultural evolution of that movie because I remember when it came out, I have to look this up. What was the year? 1988. Okay. So I am a freshman in high school and I, you know, I, I love reading. Newsweek and the New York times. And so like I was reading all of the discourse about the movie and it was a huge, huge deal. And I could never tell if it was the Catholic or the evangelicals who were most upset about it. And so looking back, I don't know, but this does seem to be one of the things that today nobody is upset about. Like I, you know, it was regarded in the moment as, as this incredible act of blasphemy. Right. And I don't believe anybody regards it that way now. Am I wrong? I don't think anybody knows it.
Mike00:58:59You know, like nobody thinks about it.
Sonny00:59:01I think that's, I think that's basically right. I, I, I don't this. So again, this is not my world. I, I am not like steeped in the, the, the Christian right in this, in this way. To your point about evangelicals versus Catholics, I do, I, I, you know, I get the sense that I get the sense that there were Catholics who were genuinely outraged by it, but most of the like actual vocal members of the Christian right were in the evangelical community at this point.
JVL00:59:35It's like the Falwells of the world, right?
Sonny00:59:36It's like the Falwells and the Robertsons and the, and like, and then you have like, well, I guess, well, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I guess I, I don't, I don't know the answer to that. That's not, that's not a thing I can answer. Do people still find it blasphemous is a, is kind of a more interesting question. And like, it's one of those movies where I think people were more outraged by the idea of it than the film itself. They, nobody, like everybody says,
JVL01:00:02that's what I was trying to get at. Yeah.
Sonny01:00:04Everybody says this in the documentary, right? Which is like, Oh, I didn't actually see it. So I, you know, I just, I've, I've, I've read about, you know, it shows Jesus having sex with Mary Magdalene and that's very sacrilegious and blah, blah, blah.
JVL01:00:17Yeah. That, that's what I was trying to get at here, which is that this seems to have been a case of opportunistic outrage by people who didn't really mean it. And now that the movie has sat in the culture for 20, 40 years, people who are going to see it have seen it and nobody really objects to it.
Sonny01:00:37Yeah. It's not, what would be, what would we contrast it to as something that people still think of
JVL01:00:44versus.
Sonny01:00:45So that's interesting. That's used. Yeah.
JVL01:00:47I was almost murdered 50 years after writing that thing because there was still a plot while on him.
Sonny01:00:53Right. I mean, there is that. Yeah. That's a, that's a good one. What about like the piss Christ?
Mike01:00:58Yeah. That's a good example.
Sonny01:00:59I feel like that one is something that, a thing that people still get mad about, even though it's not, it's not like, you know,
Mike01:01:05but, but it's like, it doesn't have the right. Cause the whole thing with piss Christ was that it was funded through a national endowment of the arts grant or something. Right. That was the,
JVL01:01:16that was the source of it. But it would still, I think, you know, you, you take that and show it to people and they would still say, yeah, that's true. That's really blasphemous.
Sonny01:01:26Yeah.
JVL01:01:27Not that we should murder you for it, but right. Not good. Yeah. But I don't think like you, you show the last temptation of Christ to your average Catholic type. If they haven't been told ahead of time that they're supposed to find it totally like outrageous. Yeah. I don't think they find it outrageous.
Mike01:01:45Well, there's, there's also been a lot, more cultural subversive cultural depictions of Christ and, and things. And I'm thinking of like, like Christ was a character in South park for seasons after season, after season,
Sonny01:02:02like Jesus is in this season. I'm not watching it.
Mike01:02:06I'm not watching it. You know, there was like the, you know, I guess I keep going back to the South park guys, where it was like book of Mormon. There's like, there's been a sort of just a general coarsening and also like, a much, there's just less mass culture, right? Like everything is, everything is sort of you pick and choose what you watch and what you don't watch. And so I just, it feels like again, maybe to the point that Sonny was making about like the, the way in which the movie system was, was built, right. And like how, what, you know, movies were for, or extremely important. They're just not as important anymore. And so like a movie that's, that's considered, that's considered blasphemous. Now it's like, it would be, it would be like a, it would be an Apple TV plus show that nobody would watch and nobody would get angry beyond a couple of tweets.
Sonny01:02:58Well, that is, that is definitely a big, a big part of it is just the fracturing of the culture and the culture where stuff has also shifted, right? Like instead of getting mad about this, you know, you get, you get mad about like trans cartoons and stuff. The, the, the other, the other thing that's interesting is the, is, is that I don't think it's even, I don't think it's even Scorsese's most blasphemous film. I think silence is actually far more. Have you guys seen silence?
Mike01:03:25I've watched them describe. I never saw it. I was listening to him describing it and describing his faith as it related to this movie. And I was like, this is as a, as a, as a practicing and not very good church going Catholic. I was like, this guy is like so off base here.
Sonny01:03:41No, no, it's, it's so, well, again, I'm not, I am not a Catholics and I, you know, so grain of salt and all that. Great, great, great.
JVL01:03:47Like yet,
Sonny01:03:48but the, but the, the premise of the film, I mean, if you're worried about spoilers for silence, which is based on an old book and the movie came out a decade ago, almost turn off now, I guess. But the, the premise of the film is that these Portuguese missionaries go to Japan. The, the Japanese officials there of the, you know, the emperor, whoever want to make them renounce their faith because they are tired of the, the, the, the,
?01:04:17the,
Sonny01:04:17the, the Catholics converting all their people. And so the, the conclusion of the film is basically the Japanese instead of torturing is because everybody wants a, the, the Japanese understand that the, the priests are happy to be martyrs, that they will, that they will give their own life in service of their faith. So what they do is they start torturing the other Japanese. They tortured the Japanese converts. They tortured the Japanese converts and they, and they say, this will not, this will not stop until you renounce your faith, until you trample the Fume, right? Which is the, you have to, you have to step on the face of Christ and renounce, renounce him. And, and so the way Scorsese kind of pitches this is they had to give, they had to renounce their faith. They had to publicly renounce their faith in order to give up their own, to demonstrate their own humility to like they, it is their, their pride that is keeping them, it is only their pride that is keeping them in their faith. And I, and I was just watching this and I was like, I'm pretty sure this is not the action. I'm pretty sure this is not how most Catholics would describe this. I'm pretty sure this is actually blasphemous. This is in a way that the last temptation isn't because the last temptation is like the story of Christ is one of temptation, right? He goes to the desert for 40 days and the devil's like, I will give you the world. If you give up,
JVL01:05:44you know a lot about this for a guy who's not a Catholic.
Sonny01:05:47I know a lot of things. I know a lot of things. So the, but, but that, but that has always been part of the story of Christ was this idea of the, he, he is, he's flesh and blood. He is a, he is a man. And in addition to being the Godhead, whatever silence is like an active rejection of like the, the concreteness of faith. It's like the one thing you can't do. It's like the one thing you can't do as a, as a, it's like why line, you go to the lion's den, you get eaten by the lions. Cause you don't, you don't renounce your faith. And like, I understand that there's a secondary part here where they're torturing the other people. I don't know exactly what the, I don't know. Maybe the fathers can chime in, in the comments. And I don't know what, but I don't know what your, I don't know what your obligation there is to your, your congregants. But I, I do think that this is like this, that movie is actually blasphemous in a way that the last temptation was not. And my point here, my very long and rambling, point here is that silence barely made a ripple in the culture wars. Very few people, very few people were picketing silence, despite the fact that it is actually more blasphemous.
JVL01:06:58Well, I mean, first of all, it's just about Catholics. So there's nothing there to get the evangelicals involved.
Sonny01:07:04There was no sex. There was no nudity. There was no like,
JVL01:07:07and also takes place in Japan, which is like,
Sonny01:07:09priests weren't banging the Japanese geishas. You know, it wasn't,
JVL01:07:12it comes out in a moment when I say this, somebody who loves many of the priests in my life, very dear, dearly, uh, priest is a class, not, not doing great in their Q score. Um, and, uh, and then it also like, it does involve look saying, oh, it's blasphemous. They let you see crisis deck. That's easy to understand. Like, well, you see one shouldn't renounce one's faith when one's like the trolley problem of, of blasphemy, but that's just too, that's very, hard to get people to, to engage in. It needs to be like he banged Mary Magdalene. Isn't that terrible? That's I guess what the reason I brought this all up is because I was trying to point out what I think turns out to be the massive hypocrisy of that moment with last temptation of Christ, which at the time I didn't appreciate because I was just an observer on the sideline. Right. And I was just reading about the whole thing and I had no opinion on it. Uh, and now looking back, it does seem to me to be a case of, it was mostly opportunistic. Yeah. And people do not seem to have been. Yeah. And a moral panic. That's right. People have been genuinely offended.
Sonny01:08:26We get, we get, we get one of these every three days now. So I like, I'm not, you know, it's like, yes, we get, we get, we get a last temptation every week, uh, at this point. So I'm not like, again, it's, it's one of these things where you could just go back and track whatever the trending topics on Twitter were for, uh, six months. And you'd find, you'd find 17 stories like this. So,
Mike01:08:47yeah. Uh, all right, before we go quick, uh, favorite Scorsese film. I mean, besides the last temptation,
Sonny01:08:56JVL, have you seen any of them yet? You, you, the last time we talked to Scorsese on the show, you had not seen any Martin Scorsese movies.
JVL01:09:02You've seen good. That was right. I have seen, I have seen many Scorsese movies. Uh, I don't know. I mean, his, his best movies might be, maybe Wolf of Wall Street or Departed or Casino. I won't say best. My favorite of his movies. Right. The ones that I, I enjoy the most might be those three. Is that blasphemous itself? No, no, that's fine. Sonny, what about you?
Sonny01:09:35The ones I revisit most frequently are Goodfellas and Casino. Those are, those are like one and one a for me. I think I actually kind of prefer Casino in, in some ways, but that's probably only because I've seen it. Fewer times, if that makes sense. Like it's, it's, it's slightly fresher to me. It's not the tuna fish of Goodfellas and Casino. It's the Turkey. There we go.
Mike01:10:00I mean, I think, I think this is obvious what my favorite is. It's a Kundun. Of course. Yeah,
JVL01:10:05I like it.
Mike01:10:06Bringing out the dead. There you go. No, I think my favorite has got to be, this is my age. It's the Departed. I mean, it's like, it's not actually like his best favorite, and it's like not the one he should have won, you know, the, the director, best director Oscar for, but like great movie. It's a great movie. And it's a very good movie. It's just, I, I love watching it again.
Sonny01:10:29It's a great, great fun movie. Like I, people, people should, people like to shit on that movie because he shouldn't have won the Oscar for it. But like, yeah, he should have. It's totally fine winning the Oscar for that movie. That's fine.
Mike01:10:40We were, we were watching this episode of my, and they, when it got to that point, my wife had to like walked into the room and I was like, you've seen the Departed, right? And she was like, no, I was like, I'm like, cause you weren't a college student in 2006. Sorry, a male college student in 2006.
Sonny01:10:53Did you have the Departed poster on your wall?
Mike01:10:55No, but we literally, it was like between that and Budok Saints. It's like literally all we watched. God. I know. It's like every time it was like on somebody's TV, but, but like, Budok Saints. I know it's, it's so bad. It's so embarrassing.
JVL01:11:10But there was a firefight.
Sonny01:11:12Sorry. Budok Saints. Great, great, great college. That's a, that's a great college. If you're making, if you're making a, if you're making a tears of like frat movies, like movies that are watched over and over again in fraternity rooms, a one on the list.
Mike01:11:29Definitely. Definitely Budok Saints. No, all I was gonna say is it was like, I was like, Oh, you haven't seen the Departed. And I was like, yeah, it's got, and she was like impressed by how many great people are in that. Right. Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon. And I was like, Mark Wahlberg's in it. She's like, Mark Wahlberg's in it. Alec Baldwin. Alec Baldwin. Exactly. So Martin Sheen is in it as well. So anyway, so that's mine. That is all the time we are going to give to this episode. Join us over at subbeacon.com. Tell us what you think in the comments or say hi to us on Instagram at subbeacon. We'll talk to you next time.
JVL01:12:09That Scorsese thing was one of my best bits ever. It was such a great, it was such a great bit.
Sonny01:12:14It was a good one.
JVL01:12:14I would love to find that episode.
Sonny01:12:16It's, it's, it's in the archives somewhere. We got it. We got it.
JVL01:12:19Yeah. I don't know. Somebody should send me a link to it.
Sonny01:12:22It's a, that was a good one. You got me. You got me real good. You fucker. He's still scarred by it. I'm sure it's fine.
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