#334. RIP, Rob Reiner
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This is a shaken, elegiac episode recorded four days after Rob Reiner's murder, built around a rewatch of The Princess Bride as an excuse to eulogize him. Sonny, who wrote The Bulwark's Reiner obituary, makes the case that Reiner's astonishing 1984-1992 run (This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Sure Thing, The Princess Bride, Misery, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men) had no unifying visual signature the way Kubrick or Spielberg do, but instead defined an entire generation's idea of what movies are simply by being the "basic cable classics" endlessly rerun on TBS and TNT; JVL draws a grim parallel to how Kobe Bryant's helicopter death hit harder than a death from old age would have, and all three agree the film canon Reiner represents can't be replicated in the streaming era. Turning to The Princess Bride itself, everyone loves it (Sonny calls it a nested-narrative screenwriting marvel with the caveat that it drags once Wesley is captured; JVL, revealing the film was literally his first date, geeks out over the William Goldman source novel and the Robin Wright casting story; Mike recounts showing it to his own kids and watching them react exactly like Fred Savage's character), with the group agreeing Chris Sarandon's Humperdinck is the film's one thankless, weak link. The first third is the usual grab-bag of banter: JVL riffs at length on spotting genetic-freak teenage cross-country runners, Sonny complains about paying $127 to ship a Christmas package to Hawaii and rants about the bleakness of Wal-Mart versus Target and Costco/Sam's Club, and Mike tells a long, conflicted story about benching a disruptive second-grader at basketball practice whose grandfather pulled him from the gym early. They close with a business update, floating a possible move from the fading Patreon platform to Substack.
From the show notes
This is nominally an episode "about" The Princess Bride ... mostly, though, it's about us expressing our shock and sadness at Rob Reiner's murder. (At least, after we get through the chatting.) What a tragedy.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00No victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this. Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
Mike00:00:26Welcome to the Sub-Beacon podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me are my two co-hosts of unusual size, Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. Tell your friends and family to check us out at Sub-Beacon.com. Say hello to us on Instagram at Sub-Beacon. We are going to be talking about, well, we're going to be talking about the Princess Bride and really Rob Reiner later on in the show. But first, let's hear how everyone is. Who is doing JVL? What's going on? What? Talk to me.
JVL00:01:01Chat, dude. Dude, you know, I have something that is of limited interest, but it's interesting to me. So I wrote a number of years ago about a girl who I saw running cross-country when my younger daughter, little E, was doing cross-country in fourth grade. Okay. Fourth grade, yeah. And it was, I wrote about this. It's in context of this idea that we tell our kids, like, you know, oh, you know, Einstein was a late bloomer. And the answer, you know, we'd say this all the time, especially with, like, sports. Michael Jordan didn't even make the varsity team. And the answer is no. You can see the kids who are different early, and you don't need to know anything about the sport. Like, within 30 seconds, you can look and go. Hold on. Holy shit. And the very first meet we were at, I saw this girl who was then, I guess, in sixth grade. And I watched her run 100 meters over the course of, like, this 2K race. And I, like, my eyes fell out of my head. I was like, holy shit, that girl's so fast. By, like, the third meet of the season, she was running with the eighth grade boys and winning by, like, a minute and a half. As a freshman this year, she, because I just sort of, you know, keep up with the journey.
Mike00:02:31This same girl, this same girl.
JVL00:02:33Same girl, same girl, now a freshman. And she went to Union Catholic in North Jersey, which was this year wound up as the third place team nationally at the Nike cross country, high school cross country championships. And this girl, as a freshman, finished 120. Twenty fifth in the nation at the national meet. So it's one of those things where you just like, oh, well, you can you can just tell it's a category difference. But as I was following this this season's high school cross country in Jersey, there is there was a girl out of Lawrenceville. Her name is Blair Bartlett, who transitioned from tennis to cross country this year. OK, she had. Had been first singles at her very, very fancy public school as a freshman and a sophomore. But she decided to run cross country and. Oh, my gosh. That's she finished number two in the nation overall. And I think she ran a 436 mile in spring track last year as a sophomore. And she she transferred transferred over because. As a sophomore, she went to the Penn Relays because she had been running spring track and at the Penn Relays, she broke the American high school record for the 3000 meters. Again, just like. This girl is just an athlete who decided to try running, and it was just one of those things where it's like, nope, you can tell they are genetic freaks. Yes, right. The the the people who wind up and the girl she lost to at nationals is amazing. A sophomore out of Michigan who went undefeated all year long and who is again, just you just look at her and you're like, oh, that girl probably makes the national team probably is going to go to the Olympics. And you can tell as a high school sophomore. Right, right. And you don't need to know anything. You don't even need to see the I would say this watching the race like the high school championship. So it used to be the Foot Locker Championships and now it's the Brooks Championships. You don't even need to see the time, right? If you were just watching the race footage and you don't know what the clock is, you look at her and even in a field of the top 150 or 300 high school runners in the country. It's apparent she's different. Yeah, she's different than all of them. And it's just it's just instructive that how sports work. And we talk about how, you know, like it's really you got to be very diligent. You got to practice hard. Yes. And you can eke out little percentage differences and there's little percentage differences or what separate like the gold medal from the silver medal at the Olympics and whatnot. Once you're at that very top strata. It's just genetics like they're they're just different than other human beings. That's all I thought. I find that funny.
Mike00:05:46Do you think that that is more the case on more individualized sports like tennis and running? More than team sports or is we talking the same?
JVL00:05:59Yeah, no, I think it's I mean, again, just like with baseball, with flash, like you could see flash was different by the time he's like five years old, six years old. Like his arm strength was was category difference. And when you see when we were at like perfect game tournaments and I saw kids who as juniors were committed or sophomores. I think he made it to colleges category difference. You just look at the way they swing, the way they walk. Everything is just like, no, no, that's different. Like that's not like normal athletics. That's not like, oh, that's the best high school player in the county. You look at it, you're like, oh, no, that's like a different species. You know, it's it's just they look like aliens, you know. Anyway, I just find all that interesting and cool. And yeah, that's all. What are you guys?
Sonny00:06:58I don't have I don't have a ton. It's been it's been a weird it's been a weird couple weeks. My daughter does the Nutcracker every year. And this this last Nutcracker week. So it's Nutcracker week. She she she's been doing it. This is now her fourth year and she's like moved her way. You know, they basically have like the dances kind of separated by ages. And, you know, there's I don't know if you guys have watched the Nutcracker recently. But it's a it's a it's I've now seen it four years in a row and it gets better every year. The but but so that has been that's been like eating up all my time, which meant we didn't have time to do Christmas shopping until this week or like last this weekend. And which means I did not get the packages out until today and yesterday. Would you guys like to know how much it costs to ship a package from Texas to Hawaii, which is where my sister? Lives. Oh, how heavy a package is a regular, just a regular size package. Imagine like, I don't know, like 14 by, you know, I don't know, 10 by like UPS or FedEx UPS UPS UPS weighs maybe weighs like maybe 10 pounds, like $37, not heavy.
JVL00:08:13Oh, 10 pounds is pretty heavy. $80. Yeah, if it's 10 pounds, I'm up to like 70.
Sonny00:08:20Maybe I. Let me think. It was probably probably close to six or seven pounds. Anyway, it doesn't matter because you're both way off. It was one hundred and twenty seven dollars.
JVL00:08:31What? A hundred. Hawaii. One hundred and twenty seven dollars.
Sonny00:08:34One hundred twenty seven dollars to not get there guaranteed by December 24th. By the way, it's probably going to get there by the 24th. We're not going to guarantee that. That's that's just going to that's the maybe date. I'm not I'm not shocked. I'm not shocked. I'm not mad. This is my fault. I brought this on myself. I'm shipping the busiest time of the year. I'm shipping it across the entire Pacific Ocean. You know, I should just be grateful that it will possibly get there before.
JVL00:09:03It's a wonder of modern technologies that you're able to do this at all.
Sonny00:09:08It's it is like there are Amazon couldn't have done this for you.
JVL00:09:12You couldn't order direct from Amazon.
Sonny00:09:14Well, so this is this is the thing is that like we could have done it direct from Amazon. We should have done it direct from Amazon. But, you know, you like to have that nice little thing about the home. Touches of the wrap.
JVL00:09:25You want to wrap things in a plastic gift. Next gift. Next year.
Sonny00:09:29Next year. Next year. They're getting shit straight from Amazon because it's not. I'm not doing this.
Mike00:09:35I'm not doing this again. Is there a premium on things that are you buy on Amazon that are shipped to Hawaii or Alaska? Like, no, no, it's it's grandfathered.
Sonny00:09:44It's yeah, it's the greatest. It's prime.
JVL00:09:47It's prime. It gets there tomorrow for free.
Sonny00:09:49It is prime. It is. They must have. I'm actually I actually would read. A deep dive on the logistics. Amazon has to have to get things to Alaska and Hawaii because they must have like a floating barge or something. They must have like.
JVL00:10:01I say a floating warehouse somewhere in the mid Pacific. It's actually undersea. It gets there by his submarine.
Sonny00:10:09They built it on the trash.
JVL00:10:10The bow of the submarine is like his own face, like Black Manta. And the workers are treated great there. International waters. No law.
Sonny00:10:21They get them from Atlantis. That's what, you know, so there's no there's no laws about that. They just get them right out of right out of the water from Atlantis. Swim up. Swim it there. Swim it there. Aquaman. And he's like, I don't want to do this anymore. Too bad. We're going to kill all the whales if you don't.
Mike00:10:40It's well, I will say this. I have heard from multiple people in my life that particularly USPS has been really abysmal this year in terms of getting things to where they're supposed to be on time. And maybe that's just. Christmas, but, you know, like and things not even the sort of tracking system not being as accurate as it has been. So I don't know if something's going on, if there's some some problem or if this is just happens to be, you know, one of those things where I've heard it a couple of times and now I think it's a trend. But people are complaining about about the other the other package parcel carrier.
Sonny00:11:19Everything. Everything is bad. Everything is getting worse. Every every every element of modern life is getting worse. Should the AI keeps getting better?
JVL00:11:29Start selling things. Like, I mean, so Amazon is now a logistics company that sells things as a way to create demand for its logistics operation. And I wonder if UPS shouldn't be like, hey, we're going to start UPS plus like we have all this infrastructure. We need to compete with Amazon logistics. To do the Wal-Mart thing, right? You know, when Wal-Mart started there, they call it Wal-Mart plus. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Brown plus.
Mike00:12:01That's what UPS.
Sonny00:12:02Brown plus. Start with books. They would actually have to. They'd actually have to sell things. That's, you know, that's a that's a harder. That's a hard.
JVL00:12:08I think they could do that.
Sonny00:12:09I think probably it would actually probably be easier to build a storefront than a logistics operation.
JVL00:12:15100%. Yeah. Yeah. 100%.
Sonny00:12:18Pick a niche. Right. Well, I'll say Wal-Mart's Wal-Mart's logistics system is also very impressive. Like Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart and Amazon have like really kind of changed the game to the extent that like if I'm given choice between ordering something from. I don't know. I like Target. I will. I will occasionally. I will occasionally be like, well, I could get it from Target, but I don't know that it's going to get here in three days. If I order it from Wal-Mart, it will definitely get here when they say it will get here. Like it's like I have a I have a vestigial like avoidance of Wal-Mart. Do you guys say they're now?
JVL00:12:53Like you're probably the lesser of two evils between Amazon and Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is probably less evil as a company.
Sonny00:12:59Well, I know that it's not it's not really the evil. I don't care about evil. I'm an evil person. That's fine. Right. The it's it's more the it's more the like it's trash. Wal-Mart.
JVL00:13:10It's the most depressing store. It really is. I've ever had. And we I go there all the time now because we have one nearby and sometimes we need stuff from it. But man, walking in there just feels like going. Into a rundown casino at 3 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Like that's the retail equivalent.
Mike00:13:31And also the parking lots. I have never been to a Wal-Mart parking lot where I thought this was well engineered. Like everything makes sense here. And, you know, it's like it's it's awful. And and go ahead, Sonny.
Sonny00:13:44Well, the thing about Wal-Mart is I like I never I shop at Sam's Club. I shop at Sam's Club once a month. Sam's Club. Perfectly fine. A Costco equivalent. They do. They do things.
JVL00:13:54It's Teemu Costco. Let's be very clear.
Sonny00:13:57Whatever. I don't have I don't have strong feelings on Costco versus Sam's Club. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not super. The store. I don't have. I don't.
JVL00:14:06In the definitive ranking, it goes Costco, BJ's, Sam's.
Sonny00:14:09Whatever. I don't I don't have strong feelings either way. But but I will I will go out of my way not to walk into a Wal-Mart because walking into a Wal-Mart is genuine. It's not just that it's it's not just that it's sterile and like kind of dirty. And it's that everything everything is jammed together weirdly. Everything is it's like it's like walking into a Middle Eastern bazaar except indoors and. Nothing I want. Like sometimes there's something I need, and that's why I'm in there. Like I need a ten dollar folding chair. That's why I'm in the Wal-Mart right now. Right. I need a I need a twenty six pack of lays to take to this kid's baseball game or whatever.
JVL00:14:50There's nothing there you want to have.
Sonny00:14:52There's nothing. There's nothing there I want to the extent that I even like once I had to go in for something. It was again. It was like I was I was I was driving by. I was like, oh, crap. I forgot. I forgot. It was literally a folding chair. And then I was like, well, you know, everybody always talks about the DVD section of Wal-Mart. It's like it's a sneaky good place to get four K's weirdly, except none of the Wal-Marts in Texas have four K's. They none of them do some. They have some Blu-ray, but it's like all DVD. Anyway, so I like walked. It's it's VHS. It's you go in there and it's it's they got they got, you know, it's but I like I did wander around trying to find like something I wanted to buy there. And I was there was nothing. There was I was the worst browsing experience of my life.
Mike00:15:39It's so funny because my memory of Wal-Mart growing up was that Wal-Mart. Hey, like Wal-Mart was Wal-Mart, but at least it wasn't K-Mart, right? K-Mart was like K-Mart felt like the way. That you guys are describing Wal-Mart to me. And I think a lot of this is the gloss of of of childhood where like things are in some ways nicer than than what they actually were. But but like K-Mart. No, you're 100 percent.
JVL00:16:04I we didn't have Wal-Mart in New Jersey. So when I was a kid, Wal-Mart hadn't gotten that far north. And so we had K-Mart and we felt that way about K-Mart.
Mike00:16:14Yeah. And K-Mart was like it was like the the stocking was haphazard, you know, like maybe. It almost sometimes felt as if like the stock boy had like given up halfway through and like things were just like falling onto onto other shelves.
JVL00:16:31Wal-Mart without any inventory management.
Sonny00:16:36I'll say.
JVL00:16:36Which is the only thing you could say about Wal-Mart.
Mike00:16:38It's like, hey, they're good about that inventory.
Sonny00:16:40I will say. So just to just to wrap this point up, the the when in Stafford. So I lived in Stafford, you know, and Stafford County, Virginia. And I will say when the when the Wal-Mart and the Target came. It was it was it broadened my horizons. It was like, wow, the world doesn't have to be like Kmart. It doesn't have to be just completely garbage. I will say that the logistics of of Wal-Mart is very impressive. I had to go there to get again. It was one of these like it was like 10 o'clock at night. I had to buy my son a bicycle because he was starting bicycle class at his school the next day. And I was like, wait, I have to go buy a bicycle. They're not going to have bicycles there for him to learn. Anyway, so I went I went to the Wal-Mart and I. I was like, I want this bicycle here. And they were like, it's not out here. Hold on. And they pulled out their little like pocket PDA and like put in the UPC code. They're like, oh, yeah, that's over in. It's in like the back room section to row seven. I'll be let me I'll go get up, come right back. And it was it was the very efficient app is sneaky.
JVL00:17:45Good. Yes. You would not you would think like, oh, a store which is so bad about user experience and everything else will have a garbage app. It's not. It's a very, very good.
Mike00:17:55Well, no, but it not to belabor this whole subject, but like it, it tells you where the company's priorities are. Right. The company's priorities are not in making a good meat space retail experience. That's that's where they strip it down. You know, that's why we all hate it. All right.
JVL00:18:13Well, thank you.
Mike00:18:14Mike, we're meant to hate it. Exactly. It's all part of their plan.
JVL00:18:19Like, what are you up to, buddy?
Mike00:18:21No, you know, we're just everybody's getting ready for the holiday. Holidays and blah, blah, blah. I don't know. Oh, I will say. So we've we've now started, you know, I guess we're done with the pre-holiday basketball practices and they will be picking up again in January. And we basically have one more practice for the team that I coach my my second graders team, you know, before the first game of the season. And I did something which I want. I want to be careful here and how I describe it. I think I'll be OK. And I don't think anybody is listening from from that team. But we had a situation where so I've got a kid on my team who I've come across in other situations, school and baseball and and and things whose reputation precedes him. And which kind of reputation?
Sonny00:19:17Yeah, that that's very bad.
Mike00:19:19A bad reputation. Oh, a difficult reputation. Like, doesn't want to be such a good player. Bad kid. I don't want to say bad kid.
Sonny00:19:30I just want to tell him he's a bad kid. No, I stop being a bad kid.
Mike00:19:34No, I find that works just that. Does that work? OK, I should use that next time. Just, you know, you're not always clear. He wants to be there. There is some intention sinking. There is some, you know, I'm going to disrupt things or I'm not going to listen. I'm going. I'm going. I'm going to just deliberately disobey because I want to see how far I can get sort of thing.
JVL00:19:59And like, is it the case that his parents are making him do something he really doesn't want to be doing?
Mike00:20:02I don't want to say. I don't want to say, but I've experienced this across across activities. Let's just say that. And so it's kids on the basketball team. So like half the basketball team I coached last season and the other half, I know they're them all. There's one there's one kid who I who I don't know. But as you know, it's fine.
JVL00:20:28Otherwise, you recruited them through the transfer portal.
Mike00:20:30Exactly. 100%. And so I had the experience at practice again. This was our second practice. Our our our actual second practice have been canceled for reasons outside of our control. And so this was really our second practice. And then we take this two week break and then we have one more practice in the game. So like there's a lot we need to do and I had the experience of getting to the gym beforehand. We had to practice at a different gym and there was another team that my son thinks was a second grade team because he thinks he recognized a kid. But maybe they were a third grade team. Regardless, if we have to play them, our asses are getting kicked because like they were playing at a level that our kids just can't play yet. And it obviously reflects entirely on me. And so anyway, I'm very like very much like there's a lot of stuff to get through in these practices. And I had. The experience of having to multiple times say like, like, stop the drill, you know, crouch down closer into the face and say, get in his face. You have to get in his face. Say, I need you to stop doing this.
?00:21:39Knock it off.
Mike00:21:40Yeah.
Sonny00:21:40Did you do? Did you do the dad voice? Did you knock it off?
Mike00:21:43There was a little bit of Bobby later. Later.
Sonny00:21:46Did you go full Joker? Full Joker? Like, look at me.
Mike00:21:52Look at me.
?00:21:53Look at me.
Mike00:21:54No, that came eventually. But so we stopped.
JVL00:21:58So did you make all the other kids do pushups while he got to have a water break and then tell the rest of the team? That's his fault.
Sonny00:22:06If you guys don't like, I have tried to teach Bobby how to be good.
JVL00:22:11I have some socks and some bars of soap. Why don't you go straighten it out as a team?
Sonny00:22:18If I have failed, you have failed.
Mike00:22:21Yeah. Anyways, a little gomer pile. No, it was not quite that. But my assistant had a great idea, which because at one point I said, hold on, back up.
Sonny00:22:31My assistant, my assistant, my assistant on the the right is the coach, my assistant coach,
Mike00:22:38my assistant, the other dad who's helping me out like I run practice, but he helps me out and he's very good. It's just like how you do.
Sonny00:22:45I just like how you refer to him as your assistant. My assistant coach, my assistant coach, the other the other coach or, you know, my co-coach or hey, I've been I've been an assistant coach.
Mike00:22:56If they if that coach wanted to call me an assistant, I'm happy to.
JVL00:22:58I that's how he worked his way up through the coaching carousel is you start out as an assistant and, you know, you're willing to do a bunch of my OC.
Mike00:23:09My OC was.
Sonny00:23:10Yeah, no, this is this reminds me. This reminds me back when Mike had first started and he was like my fellow co-host and I did a good five minutes on.
JVL00:23:17Well, are we?
Mike00:23:18No, I said I said I said my co-host and you made me. Insert the phrase fellow co-hosts and refer to myself as the co-host as if like anybody care.
Sonny00:23:29Anyway, can I get through the story? Please. Thank you. No, no, no, absolutely not.
JVL00:23:34So did you hit the kid?
Mike00:23:35No, I did not hit the kid, but it got to the ball. So my assistant coach, no, no, no. Mo Bobby Knight moves. My assistant coach like had him running and I'm kind of running up and down the court like, well, because I said, you're going to have to sit out for five minutes like I can't do this. I can't do the things that we're doing if you were like disrupting. So we had to run and the kid was like looking worn out. And so I thought, OK, well, like he's like exhausted, like maybe that will exhaust his
JVL00:24:02like you're going to run until you puke when you're ready to throw up for a second and
Mike00:24:07stop running for second graders. Yeah, that's a good idea. But then we had a thing where, you know, split off and like my assistant coach went and did one, you know, had half the kids. I had the other half and then we would switch. And so I was running defensive drill, a defensive drill. And the kid was supposed to be on the on the on the shooting drill side. And he kept jumping in and like knocking the ball out of the air as we were. Yeah, that kind of thing. So I stopped the drill. Mutombo style. Was he whacking the finger? Yeah, he should.
JVL00:24:38He should have been whacking the finger.
Mike00:24:41And that's when I really got in his face. And I said, you know, I said something to the effect of. You are disrupting my drill. You will not disrupt my drill anymore, you know, just sort of like put on the most dad voice I could without like yelling because like I'm trying not to yell. This is and I think maybe it'll it's better for everybody if I don't yell. And then I had the experience of him sitting down at the next water break, like two minutes after this. Next, it was it was scrimmage time. And he just he said he kind of looked at me. I said, I said, are you coming in? And he like made a feign like he had a injury. Like he's like like he didn't feel well or something. And we have 20 minutes of practice left. And he and his grandfather just left, like just left. Did you drive him off the team? No, I didn't drive him off the team. I want him to be on the team. Like I want him to like you sound like you really want him on the team. Have a good experience, you know, like that's I feel strongly that like I want the kids to have fun. But like it was disruptive, right? It's just it's disruptive. And I had never like there was no conversation. There was no like, hey, we're going to leave. Early or whatever. It was just just gone. And like I was kind of like, great. Now now practice can continue on unimpeded. I don't know. It just on the one hand, I felt like, well, that's what happens, right? Like if you can't participate properly, like you just don't like you're just not going to participate. On the other hand, I felt like, did I make it? Did I fail somehow by like basically making him want to leave or his grandfather saying, let's just get out of here.
JVL00:26:21You bench him and make it so that like. If they want to be there, they can be there. They don't want to be there. They shouldn't. No, that's right. You're right. You're right.
Mike00:26:29But and it's not. It's up to me to do what I can and what I'm expected to do to like coach these kids. But, you know, I can't make them want to be there.
JVL00:26:37No, you're right.
Mike00:26:38Anyway.
JVL00:26:39All right. Let's talk about really great stuff.
Mike00:26:41Yeah. I think maybe we should just skip box office and talk about about Rob Reiner. And just what a. What a shot. We're recording this on Thursday. I'm this is so this is what, four and a half days after we all found out. And I just speaking for myself, like I'm still in shock and can't believe what happened. And it's also the experience of like thinking through Sonny. You wrote something fantastic for the bulwark about Rob Reiner's like legacy as a filmmaker and a Hollywood legend, I think. But just. It's it's that thing of he's he's gone too soon and he's gone in this horrific way. But also like it. So it feels like we're having to prematurely appreciate him. And yet the appreciation of him has been has been kind of wonderful, like the way in which everybody just appreciates Rob Reiner and what he did. So there's a lot of mixed feelings from my perspective, but I'm curious what. What you guys what you guys think.
JVL00:27:57I mean, it's it's often that you get. Universal, universal, like for especially the guys behind the camera guy, I mean, he was an actor as well, but there's there's just a lot of goodwill built in around him and his career, which I don't think I had really clocked. Like, I don't know that I would have guessed that this would happen.
Mike00:28:22I have some theories about why that happened. But Sonny, what do you think?
Sonny00:28:27Well, no, I think it's the I'll say I was surprised at how I felt. And and the reason I was surprised at how I felt was because when I think of the great directors, right, Rob Reiner would not be on that list. Rob Reiner is not when I think of like, you know, the the. Tier of auteurs or whatever, right? Like nobody, nobody sits there and thinks like Rob Reiner, great director. One of the best, one of the best ever do it. It's not until you like sit down and actually look at his resume and particularly that run from 84 to 92 or whatever that you're like, oh, yeah, he was actually he actually had one of one of the great runs. And you don't think about him this way because he wasn't a showy director, right? He wasn't he wasn't there is no Rob Reiner shot, right? Like there's a Stanley Kubrick tracking shot or, you know, you have your Steven Spielberg kind of. Lighting or you have your Michael Bay parallax spin, right? Like you or even like the Christopher Nolan, like overhead shot where he's like coming into he sets a scene by like a big helicopter shot coming into a scenescape cityscape. Like there's not there's not that big there's not that there's not that visual idea of what a Rob Reiner film is. And yet, again, you look at that run, you look at that. Run that's that's Spinal Tap. Stand by me. I miss it. What's the one? The sure thing. The sure thing. Princess Bride. Misery. When Harry Met Sally. A Few Good Men. And it's it's one of just this great undeniable runs that that. Is a impossible to imagine somebody doing now. But also be. Is not again. There's not like. There's no there's no. There's no there's no shot. Right. That's the thing. That's like that's what I'm just. There's no story.
JVL00:30:33There's no like those movies are all so different from one another. It's not even like you. You would assume that they had been directed by the same person.
Sonny00:30:39Yeah. And that's and there's you could make an argument that there's kind of an underlying through line of humanism and, you know, decency and kindness and blah, blah, blah. And like, I think that's a totally that's a totally. Fair and coherent argument. But but there is no there is no there is none of that visual unity. And that's why people and yet and yet again, like as I was sitting down to to write an obituary. So I got, you know, I was taping across the movie aisle, my other podcast at, you know, whatever time it was. It was, you know, 9 p.m. or so on Sunday night, my time. And I like I like saw the message come in over Slack and I'm like, like it was it was. It was such a it was such a wild thing to read. And so I sat down to write the obit and I realized as I was writing it that the reason the reason Rob Reiner's films meant so much to me is because they really do define that idea of the basic cable classic. Right. Like the stuff he was making in this time period was constantly on TBS. It was on TNT. It was on HBO. Like you could not turn on you could not turn on a cable system in this country and not. At some point have either Spinal Tap or Stand By Stand By Me in particular was like always on or Misery or A Few Good Men or whatever from about 1990 to 2005 or so. There was just this there's this period of time where his films were constantly on television. And and because of that, because of that, they defined in a very real way certain things about how movies should work for me. When Harry Met Sally is the defining romcom, I think I think you make a case for Sleepless in Seattle or whatever. But like when Harry Met Sally is, I think kind of a a defined is a or if not the defining romcom, you know, A Few Good Men is kind of a or the defining courtroom drama. Stand By Me is a or the defining adolescent coming of age movie. Spinal Tap is not the first documentary, but it's the first documentary anybody talks about or mockumentary. Sorry, it's not the it's not the first mockumentary, but it is the first mockumentary. And if you were sitting down and just like free handing a history of the mockumentary, it starts at Spinal Tap. Then it kind of slides directly into the Christopher Guest movies, where, of course, he like this is a Christopher Guest movie. And in certain ways, he co-wrote it. He starred and and yeah. And like because of that, because of that, I have a deep fondness and affection for these movies. They are I there's no other way to. Describe them other than foundational and. You know, it doesn't matter that he didn't make anything after 1994 that wasn't as good or wasn't as memorable. I would argue some of those are some of those are perfectly fine movies, you know, bucket list or whatever. Like they're they're entertaining enough, but like he did not. He never made anything that was that great again. But because they were that good and they were on all the time, they they really the way I put it. And my obituary was like they defined how I thought movies worked and like they defined how I what I thought movies were in a very real way. And that is that's I mean, that's an enormous accomplishment. It's an enormous accomplishment.
Mike00:34:08Is there anybody I was trying to think, is there anybody like him who is a accomplished director of great movies who jumps around? I mean, I don't mean to say just genre jumping. But who does not have a distinctive style, but is is distinctive or distinguish themselves? I mean, and maybe this is a I'm seeing too many parallels, but like is the only real kind of parallel here. Like Ron Howard, who's had a more successful career, I think, as a director. But like it's a similar thing because I was looking at, you know, it's the same thing, right? It's like Night Shift, Splash, Cocoon, Willow, Parenthood. Like there's nothing really that unites. I mean, there's some there's fantasy and comedy. Some some of those early ones, Splash and Cocoon and Willow. But like, you know, it's it's just it's kind of amazing that those two guys get their start, you know, in network TV, in sort of Hollywood families. And they kind of have similar directing careers.
JVL00:35:09They're they're workmen more than auteurs. That's a good point. Right. I mean, they're not even like craftsmen, maybe. I mean, like these are workaday directors. They're like working directors who. You know, have ideas about things, but they're much more about the material than they are themselves and creating an oeuvre. Right. I think also probably the fact that he does seem to be a mensch. Yeah, has something to do with with white people. And then there's the circumstances of his death, which are shocking in the way that like. I think about Kobe Bryant, right? Kobe Bryant dying with his daughter in a helicopter crash. This stupid, senseless thing. You know, with his kid, like made that death hit people very hard in a way that it wouldn't have if Kobe Bryant had died at age 75 of a heart attack. Yeah, you know, and this, you know, not not just being killed, but being killed with his wife by a kid, one of his kids. I mean, his adult kid is is man. It just hits hard and it's hard.
?00:36:18I agree.
Sonny00:36:18I I like. I almost. Refuse to think about it. I like I have not. I like I don't I don't I not really talked about it and I don't want to like it's it is it's so horrifying that I have trouble like really comprehending it and have thus just kind of like. And I think this is one of the reasons why the outpourings have been. So effusive and so, you know, so there's so much love for his work is that nobody wants to think about how he. Like the idea of talking about how he died is so horrifying that it's just like, no, we're not we're not going to do that. We're not we're not doing that. We're just going to talk about his movies. And I think that's, you know, I don't know. I think that's fine. I don't think I think I think I do think it's healthy. I mean, I because what else are you going to fucking do? Like, yeah.
Mike00:37:12And, you know, yeah, I think the only other thing I'll say about this before we jump into Princess Bride is that I do also think there is. He his legacy has benefited from that point you made. I mean, you know, you could argue the American president and I don't know, I guess there are fans of Ghost of Mississippi, but like, you know, that his his great movies ending in 1992 with a few good men in a way like it. It's a it's nostalgic for all of us, right? Like this is this is, you know, we are grieving somebody who in many ways. Is was representative and was at the peak of his kind of creative powers at a time that we're all very nostalgic for it for no other reason than it was in the past. It was formative for us, right?
JVL00:38:02It's like the best. It's the movie and film version of the best SNL cast as the cast when you were in high school. Yeah, I think that's right.
Sonny00:38:09Yeah, but but very specifically, though, again, like I was I mean, I was two when Spinal Tap came out. It's not like I saw Spinal Tap as a two year old. It's because I saw it because it was always on TV. Right. The Princess Bride comes out in what, 87? Is that, you know, so I'm five. Were you even born yet, Mike?
Mike00:38:28You were I was technically not born yet, but the Princess Bride has been in my life for my whole life.
Sonny00:38:33So like the the the it's not it's not it's not even specifically that like these movies came out when we were of the perfect age to see them. It's that they were playing all the time when we were just kind of like flipping around on on TV, trying to find something to watch. And that's like I the other thing that. I am finding myself nostalgic for. It has nothing to do with Rob Reiner specifically. It it has to do with this idea of not even the monoculture in this idea of directed viewing of like you did not have infinite choices. You had maybe 10. There were 10 channels you wanted to watch and you were just going to watch whatever was on them. And what that leads to is stuff like the basic cable classic. There's a reason. Shawshank Redemption is one of the highest rated movies of all time on IMDb. And it's not because it's one of the best movies ever made. It's because it's the best movie ever made that played 17000 times a year on TNT. That's like that is that is there's there's something to be said for having that sort of curated. And I'm not going to sit here and pretend that the programmers on TBS and TNT were like, you know, running MoMA or whatever. Like they're not it wasn't they're not. They're running a rep house theater, right? They're not trying to find the absolute best artistry. But it was that kind of perfect meld of artistry and commercial interest and popularity that that created a canon of the sort that I do not think movies will be able to replicate going forward. And that is a large reason why movies are going to die in the next 20 years here. I, you know, to to to get to get real dark about it. Like the entire art form, like Rob Reiner, kind of represented the way an entire generation grew up understanding the art form of cinema and his his death presages the death of the format.
Mike00:40:35But can I say one more thing before we jump in? It's about North, which is considered right. Like that's when it all broke down for Rob Reiner as a as a director. Right. It was like it was a huge stinker. Every Cisco and Ebert hated it sort of thing.
Sonny00:40:52Ebert wrote Ebert has a famous called I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie. And it in that line is taken from his review of North. And it's like collection of all his real his real pans.
Mike00:41:04And all I'll say is I have not seen North since I was a child. But and I know that I would probably I would also hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it if I saw it today. But my memory of that movie is seeing the seeing the trailer and being like, whoa. This movie looks awesome. And then like watching it and being like, this movie is awesome. And again, I know intellectually that it wasn't. Although I don't know, maybe I would watch it to make a case for it. It's fine. It's fine. But like a fine movie. It's fine. But it to me, it is to this point that you're making Sonny about the way that movies are supposed to be like. It has this special, I don't know, this special nature. This in my mind. And I think I now realize like that. That's that's like what Rob Reiner was was doing. Like he was making a fine movie. And like there was there was always like just this bit of like even a movie like that had this like movie magic to it. And we just don't we don't have that anymore in movies. So, all right, let's move on because we need to talk about the only movie that we really could talk about from Rob Reiner's oeuvre, I think, in a way that it would be satisfying. For all of us, which is the Princess Bride, which, you know, Sonny, do you want to talk to us about what the Princess Bride is this almost 40 year old movie?
Sonny00:42:35The Princess Bride, 1987, directed by Rob Reiner, written by William Goldman, based on William Goldman's novel of the same name. I find I find this movie really interesting as a screenwriting exercise, just the way it's kind of structured with the kind of nesting. You know, the way the movie starts is Fred Savage is sick at home. His grandfather, who's played by Peter Falk, comes in to read him a story. And and it's and it's the we kind of cut back and forth between the story that's being told and the the the little boy sick in his bedroom. And it is a very it's a very what's what is fascinating about it and what is fascinating about the way Rob Reiner portrays it on the screen is that it does feel like you are in. The imagination of this child, it takes you into it takes you into his brain in a very real and compelling sort of way. And, you know, that's that's not nothing. Anyway, the story, the meat of the story, the meat of the story involves a princess named Buttercup, who is is Mary is going to marry the evil prince, the king of whatever. Prince Humperdinck. And she is kidnapped by the dread pirate Roberts. And it turns out that the dread pirate Roberts, of course, is her stable boy, Wesley, who she was very much in love with. He was very much in love with her and blah, blah, blah. And what what follows is it's again, this is one of the reasons why this is such a good basic cable classic is that it breaks into discrete chunks of storytelling. Right. Where you have the evil, the evil henchman, the crafty, the Vizzini, who is he's got his is he's running. He keeps saying inconceivable. Nobody nobody likes that guy. But he's got his six fingered. I'm not sorry, not the six fingered man. He's got the man searching for revenge against the six fingered man, Inigo Montoya. And he's got the giant Andre, the giant Fezzik, Fezzik, Fezzik, Fezzik, who? Uh, I when I was growing up, I was literally never able to understand Fezzik.
Mike00:44:57I like could not. Well, this would have been an early he's French and deaf, you know, and like it's just like why was that? Why put it? But it's like it's you can't think of this movie without thinking of it.
Sonny00:45:09But it's like, why would you think to do this? It's it's but it's so it's so good. And it and it perfectly plays into again, people talk about Rob Reiner being a mensch. But Andre, the giant is also like famously one of like the most beloved people of all. Time, like, you know, all any anybody who ever wrestled with him, he was he was he was generally, genuinely beloved, generally beloved. My problem, my I do have one problem with this movie. I have one problem with this movie, which is an all time classic and has introduced so many terms into our language. Like there, you know, I there there are lines from this movie that modernity does not make sense unless you have seen it. Like never get involved in a land war in Asia and, you know, inconceivable and and mostly dead, mostly dead. And, you know, the whole thing, everything about I will say I do I do have I do have one minor gripe with this movie was that is that it kind of loses momentum after Wesley is captured. I don't know if you guys feel this way. I have always like I the movie just kind of slows down. It's because before. This it's it's before this. It's an adventure. It's like he's going from place to place to chase. And then he's captured and you're stuck in this dungeon and then he he literally can't move. So he's like stuck in the dungeon and then he's he's kind of being carted around and it just the movie loses momentum for me. I I don't know what it is. This is a me problem. Maybe maybe I maybe I'm the maybe I'm the only one who experiences this, but I definitely the last 20 minutes or so of this movie or maybe even the last 25 minutes. I'm just like, all right, let's wrap it up here. Let's and it's not a long movie. It's only 98 minutes. But I have always kind of struggled through that last that last piece of the film. Like all of the setup is great and the payoff is fine, too. But like, I just I find myself a little bored. That said, it's a it's a minor complaint. And the 98 minutes of it, by the way, is this is the other thing I was like when I was when I was going back through Rob Reiner's body of work. Everything up to A Few Good Men is between like 80, 82, like Spinal Tap's only 82 minutes, 82 and I believe 109 minutes is the longest. Misery is a is a just a horrible slog at 109 minutes. But I mean, misery fucking rips, too. That just goes. And that's and it's like the misery is the opposite of Princess Bride. Right. It's like all in that one house. It's just there. It's in like James Caan is in bed the whole movie and it's still incredibly tense. It's it's Hitchcockian. In that way. But he understood pace. And this is a lost art in the world of filmmaking. Let me tell you, I sat through one hundred ninety five minutes of Avatar three and I was sitting there thinking, God, he Rob Reiner had made this. It would have been one hundred minutes long. It'd been great.
Mike00:48:10Can you imagine a Rob Reiner directed Rob Reiner Avatar?
Sonny00:48:13That'd be very funny. All right. That's it. That's all I got. That's all I got. I love this movie. It's great. It's classic. It's in the Criterion Collection. It's it's. It's got the stamp of approval from everyone. Everyone loves the Princess Bride.
Mike00:48:26JVL, do you love the Princess Bride?
JVL00:48:28I have a very, very deep. No, no, no, no. I'm not going the way you think. I have a very, very deep relationship with the Princess Bride because I believe. That the Princess Bride was the first date I ever went on. So I believe that Chris were Chauvin. My bad. We've been best friends since second grade. Still my best friend today. He and I went to the Echelon Mall to see the Princess Bride. This would have been seventh grade. And that my girlfriend at the time, Sharon Hinsky, who our relationship consisted solely of talking on the phone for like 45 minutes every night. Sure. Yep. She had convinced her parents to drop her and one of her friends who Chris and I had never met. And so we. We were meeting up at the mall to go see this movie without anybody knowing that we were just going to meet up. Nobody knew that it was a date. And we sat there and I was just. The whole time. And I got to tell you. The revelation of Robin Penn, Robin Wright. Which is one of the great bits of casting in the history of cinema. So Buttercup. Has to, I think, like casting Diane Kruger as Helen of Troy in Troy. Like it has to be somebody unknown for a role that is supposed to be that beautiful. It can't be somebody you're familiar with. No matter how beautiful that person is, it can't be a familiar face. And she's totally unknown. And she is perfect. And the story about how she was cast is that she shows up to William Goldman's house. And she's going to read for Goldman and Rob Reiner there. And when she when Reiner opens the door, she is standing there in a white dress and she is backlit by the sun. And Goldman looks at her from like across the room and just yells to Reiner. Yeah, that's how I wrote her.
Mike00:50:45Amazing.
JVL00:50:47And she's serendipitous. She's utterly perfect. I would say the level of fondness I have for this is enormous, except that I then also became late in life an enormous William Goldman fan. And so I believe I've read I think I've said this before. I think I've read everything that he's ever written and all of his magazine columns, all of his books, both fiction and nonfiction. And I found a fantastic edition of The Princess Bride, which has not only. The the book as he first wrote it, which if you guys have never read it, it's an amazing piece of writing because what he what he does is he structures it as if this is like an Oxford Press edition of a book. Being presented by a translator of whatever the like floor and the floor and ease or whatever, I think the floor and ease. Right. And this was the final. Surviving manuscript. And there are a lot of pages are missing. And so and because the idea was for him to write a book with only the good parts. Right. And, you know, so how do I do that? Oh, so if I make it up where we're translating from a lost manuscript and anything that might be boring, I can just say we don't have it and just skip to the next good part. And this is why the movie comes out so episodic. Yeah. Right. And in that way. And I, again, I just admire the shit out of Goldman as a writer and the way that he would think about structure and those sorts of things. And what it is worth reading the book, because, again, the book is funnier than the movie. Even the book, the book is better than the movie. The movie is very faithful, but but still not as good. As the book is and the edition I had also had included in it, the obituary that Goldman wrote for Andre the Giant, which was titled Requiem for a Giant. And I forget where it appeared. It might have been in Premiere magazine, but it's one of the most beautiful obits ever because Andre wind up wind up leaving a mark on basically that entire cast and crew.
Mike00:53:18Yeah.
JVL00:53:21It was an important time in Andre's life, too, like is my my sense as somebody who's like a minor Andre the Giant scholar because he was at the end of his road. He was hurt. He couldn't wrestle really anymore. He was having trouble walking. Famously, when they drop Robin right into his arms, a she's sort of being held up by harnesses. But even with that, like the full weight of her, which has got to be like one hundred three pounds. And it like staggered him. Right. And anyway, but he was around. It was the only time other than in wrestling where Andre was able to be with a bunch of people and not feel like a circus freak because it was just like part of the cast and crew. Yep. You know, it's like Hollywood pictures are used to people like that. Now it's a size act. And anyway, absolutely sensational, worth reading. And even I couldn't even tell you if it's a good movie because I love it so much. I love everything about it. The member. I remember the expectation that morning. I was like, oh, am I going to kiss Sharon? Oh, really? Turns out we did not. Did not share our first kiss at the Echelon Cinema 6 at the Princess Bride. Didn't work out for me that way. I don't think Chris particularly liked the girl that she brought as his date. It was in many ways a disappointment. It was a disappointment, but but in all the important ways, like one of the greatest days of my life and and because of William Goldman and Rob Reiner and the Princess Bride. Look at that. It's that you guys remember, like your first movie date and what it was and who you who you went with and what movie you saw.
Mike00:55:14I don't remember my first movie date like one on because you didn't see the screen. Good Lord. Because one thing that I I more fondly remember or I sort of more I just I remember more is we would do the thing where all of like there would be like 15 or 20 kids and we'd all go see the same movie at the same time. And it was like, who's going to be there kind of thing. And there were, you know, there were girls there, you know, it's like girls were there and guys were there. And it was like, who's it going to be? And oh, did you see so-and-so at whatever? And like, I have this memory that we all in high school, maybe ninth grade, 10th grade. I can't remember when it came out. We saw we all saw the movie Bubble Boy with Jake Gyllenhaal in the theater together. And it was like this very again, it's like a communal experience. Like, I remember I remember random people I went to high school with who were in that screening with with me and and like us laughing. And I anyway, but. My the my first date with my now wife was I was a movie and it was we saw Batman Begins.
JVL00:56:31So, hey, Christopher Nolan for the 20, 20 years ago now. So I assume you your first movie date was like Barry Lyndon.
Sonny00:56:39Yeah, yeah, definitely. I remember I remember my first movie date with my wife. We went to see Waiting, the the Ryan Reynolds. Oh, yeah. It was the Justin Long movie is how I know it's.
Mike00:56:51It's a Dane Cook movie. It really is.
Sonny00:56:53Yeah, Dane Cook. The Dane Cook movie.
Mike00:56:55It's an Andy Milonakis movie.
Sonny00:56:56We had we had. Oh, God. What was the what was the the mix? The Tex-Mex place that was like two blocks from the the. In Boston? No, no, no, no, no. In in Chinatown, in Chinatown, not Rosa Mexicano. There was there was like a less classy place than that. There was like a it's a chain. I can't remember it now.
Mike00:57:20It's not Chevy's. It's not.
Sonny00:57:21No, not Chevy's. No, it's like a small chain. It was only. Anyway, we went there and then we saw Waiting and then we then we we went our separate ways. That was our first. That was our first proper date.
JVL00:57:33Movies for the middle school, high school.
Sonny00:57:35You were not like, hey, I'm going on lots of dates.
JVL00:57:39Marissa, are we going to go see Jurassic Park together?
Sonny00:57:42No, I was not. I saw I saw lots of I saw lots of movies with groups of friends that included women, but no, like one on one. I did a few of those when I was. Not not really one on one style dates.
JVL00:57:54It was hard to do the one I would say the one on one movie dates didn't really start happening until. Well, until you had your license. Yes. Until you could draw. And but a lot of the rest were, you know, like we all we may have been in a group, but we all knew what was happening.
Mike00:58:08Oh, yeah. Anyway, my group dates were not like that. Oh, well. Anyway, so I don't know. Michael, you hated it, though, right? You you utterly. So the Princess Bride crap garbage, and I don't care if the director died this week. I don't know. No, of course. I love this movie. It's it's great. My wife loves this movie. Did I mention this on the show that we showed it to our boys like we just happened to have showed it to our boys like six or eight weeks ago? And this to me tells me just how how that it is a great movie. Our boys reactions. Exactly mirrored Fred Savage's reactions as like it was uncanny how much, you know, it's like, is this a kissing? Is this a kissing story? Yeah. Is this a kissing? But is this a kissing movie? Like all like all of those reactions were exactly which I think speaks to, you know, Rob Reiner's humanism, right? Like like he sort of like understands how how boys react to those kind of things at
JVL00:59:16a certain age.
Mike00:59:18So that was just a joy to sort of it was a joy to experience. That watching them watch the movie and they were I mean, it was also, you know, they didn't want to watch it because it was called the Princess Bride and like there's nothing there that is appealing to them. And oh, this old it's all this stuff. They loved it. And they they were it was exciting and funny to them. Like they they thought all that stuff was funny. They thought the they thought the the Miracle Max stuff was funny. And, you know, that wasn't which when I was a kid, it was like I got, you know, I thought it was funny because he's like all of a sudden Miracle Max and his wife, Carol Kane, like they feel like they're from a completely different movie.
JVL01:00:00Yeah, they feel like they're from the producers. One hundred percent from them. They are from a Mel Brooks movie. Absolutely. Mel Brooks movie dropped in the middle of this thing for like five minutes.
Mike01:00:09And so as a kid, it was just funny to me. And then I've grown to appreciate like what what what a good move that was. And maybe actually it it is a way of acknowledging what Sonny described, which is it's like it does kind of drag. Once once Wesley is out of commission. So I put put a little extra spark into it. I don't know. There's nothing else to say. Oh, the other thing I'll say is in terms of final scenes and final lines, like maybe it's cheesy. I don't care. Like the last scene where where Fred Savage asks his grandfather to come back tomorrow and read it again. As you wish. And Peter Falk turns around and has that twinkle in his eyes as as you like. It hits you, hits you right in the face. Once you're a parent, once you're a parent.
JVL01:00:56Yes. Yeah, of course.
Mike01:00:57Like it was fine when I was a kid. Once you're a parent, like, oh, oh, it's so good.
JVL01:01:01I was like, where's Robin Wright? Where's we should close with her and her perfect breast. Yeah. Well, anyway.
Mike01:01:11So, yeah, I love it. Andre the Giant's great. Wallace Shawn. Wallace Shawn.
JVL01:01:17Wallace Shawn is tremendous. Mandy Patinkin is tremendous. Terrific cast.
Mike01:01:21Like the kind of weak link is Chris Sarandon. But, you know, who plays Humperdinck, he just kind of just kind of sucks.
Sonny01:01:28Thankless role.
JVL01:01:29Yeah, I guess it is a thankless role. Thankless role because that's the thing.
Sonny01:01:33It's a thankless role because he's not actually a very good villain. He's just kind of a dick.
JVL01:01:36Yeah.
Sonny01:01:37Like it's not it's not like I don't know. It's it's just not a very good villain part. Yeah.
Mike01:01:43Oh, another. By the way, it's just that we could just go do this forever with the last the last of these things that has like filtered into the culture. Or at least into my culture is now which now which I say that all the time. So anyway, that's that's all I got. Any of the final.
Sonny01:02:02It's it's Harry Shearer, right? No, no, no.
Mike01:02:05That's Peter Cook. Peter Cook, who's a British.
Sonny01:02:07No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The I'm sorry. I'm thinking of Humperdinck's number two. No, it's Christopher Guest.
JVL01:02:13It's Christopher Guest.
Sonny01:02:14Oh, Christopher Guest. Thank you. Because I couldn't. Sorry, I couldn't remember. I could not remember which of those guys it was. I knew it was one of them.
JVL01:02:21It's Michael McKeon.
Sonny01:02:22Yeah, it's Michael McKeon. No, Michael McKeon. I Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer always like I always have trouble keeping those two separate for some reason. I don't know why. I don't know why. Michael McKeon. Very, very unique. Anyway, I don't know. I don't know. It's such a good movie. I love it.
Mike01:02:41And rest in peace, Rob. Rob and Michelle Reiner. I mean, it just it's rest in peace. It's so it's so sad. We don't want to contemplate it. But but they, you know, except to thank. Thank you. Thank him for, you know, all these contributions that he that he gave to us, including this movie.
JVL01:02:55So memory be a blessing.
Mike01:02:57Indeed. That is all the time we're going to give to this episode. Join us over at Sub-Beacon dot com and we will talk to you next time. So we do we actually have some business we want to just bring up here thinking about something we're thinking about a business proposal or something we're thinking about. Who wants to who wants to take it to Eddie Murphy business business and talk about business
JVL01:03:27business man.
Mike01:03:28I guess we are we are we are discussing what to do about the kind of future platform for this this show.
Sonny01:03:36And we're thinking of Patreon's dead, baby. Yeah, it's dead here anyway.
JVL01:03:39It's a real it's a moving only fans. We're going to expand what we do. We're going to do a few different things. There'll be a membership tier where there will be requests.
Sonny01:03:49There'll be a donkey show tweet tier. So just, you know, that's that's a big one.
Mike01:03:54The quadrants will be making a comeback in a completely different way.
JVL01:03:56Michael will take a bath totally nude in mulch.
Mike01:04:01You know what? It's the cover himself in mulch. You know what? There is there is one sicko I'm sure out there listening right now who would pay for that. And and you know what?
JVL01:04:12You're sick. Whoever is you're sick.
Mike01:04:14No, we're not going to only fans. We're not thinking about going to all events, but we are considering moving perhaps to sub stack. And we would just love to know what you the people think of that. Right. Well, explain. Is there anything more to kind of throw out there?
Sonny01:04:30The trick is the trick is it is not a seamless transition. There would there would be it wouldn't like it's it's one thing to move from sub stack to ghost or something there. That's a pretty easy process. Or, you know, again, ghost to sub stack, whatever. The way Patreon works with the tiers and everything is is slightly different and more complicated, which means that I. Think there would be some sort of you would folks would have to, like, opt into it and we could send everybody emails. I don't know precisely how this works. I'm sure sub stack will walk us through it if we decide to do it. But, you know, like. The trick here is. Sub stack will just make everything easier for for us. And this is not a you know, this I hate to be crass about it, but this is a time commitment. And, you know, we are. You know, it's it's not it's not a zero effort show and trying to figure out how to find ways to make it worthwhile for the, you know, 10 to 15 hours a week that we have to put into to doing it in terms of watching the materials, recording the thing, editing it, et cetera, et cetera. I hate to be again. I hate this. I hate talking about, you know, fundraising.
Mike01:05:46It's not a charity.
Sonny01:05:47It's not a charity. It's not a charity. And it's not ad driven at all. It is like totally we don't do any. There's no ads. We're just doing this, you know, reader listener supported. So we enjoy doing the show, but also like have lives and families and jobs.
JVL01:06:05And Patreon is dying.
Sonny01:06:07And Patreon is dying. That's the other.
JVL01:06:09The real problem here is that Patreon is dying and nobody can find us on Patreon. Correct. Yeah. And so because the walls on Patreon are very, very high and the people in the Patreon, the number of people in the Patreon ecosystem are shrinking every day and certainly in the podcast.
Sonny01:06:27And like the simple fact of the matter is that every social media platform throttles you if you link to a Patreon or Substack account. So if we are going to be on one of these anyway, we might as well be on Substack where there are other people who are there and looking for things to listen to is is like kind of the long and the short of it. So because we want we I would love so the show I mean like pull pull the curtain back entirely. The show has been like we still have, I think, something like twelve hundred active members, maybe fourteen hundred, something like that. But the numbers have gone down. They've kind of steadily decreased and absence, you know, making, you know, I don't know, absent like advertising on Facebook or something. There's no way there's those those listeners aren't we're not finding it. There's no way to find anybody else.
JVL01:07:17You can't find new listeners on Patreon is the problem. You are locked in. Into you have what you have and you just pay a trip at whatever rate. They a trip up. Right.
Sonny01:07:26So so we're we're we're very strongly considering moving over to Substack unless anybody has an extremely strong objection to this. Well, I mean, I think there's not any there. There will be people who have extremely strong objections to it. I'm curious if they are objections that make sense for us, but that that would be that's basically why we're throwing it open to the crowd here.
Mike01:07:45So let us know. And I know in the comments. Yeah. And I don't know, like we'll we'll let you know. We'll let you know what happens after we make.
Sonny01:07:54I mean, the other the other thing about Substack is that it would be much easier to do a proper video podcast there. I'm just going to throw that out there. If we wanted to do video, that's where we would. That's where. So if you want a video version of this show, the video version of the show
JVL01:08:09where you can see the Rattler and I just
Mike01:08:15I'm making sexy faces. It's a good thing. It's a good thing. They can't see the video right now, so because that would be a turn off, I think for yeah, I know we lose subscribers.
Sonny01:08:25I'm sure it's fine.
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