#338. 'The Rip' (Netflix)
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The main event is Joe Carnahan's Netflix cop thriller The Rip, starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as maybe-corrupt Miami detectives, and the three hosts land in three different places on it: Sonny calls it "the perfect Netflix film," meaning it's not really good or interesting but has real charm thanks to its stars, and uses it as a launchpad for a rant about Netflix's "tell don't show" house style and its slow-motion war on theatrical distribution; JVL only made it halfway through (he loved the haunted-house-not-heist first hour, praised Carnahan's actual directorial competence and Nestor Carbonell, and cracked up at the brothers reveal, but ran out of alone-time to finish it); and Mike genuinely enjoyed the whole thing as a "basic cable classic" throwback even while noticing how aggressively the film re-explains its own twists, singling out Teyana Taylor as a standout. The trio also spends real time on Netflix's economics (no P&L means no budget discipline, the coming ad-tier future, price points at which they'd bail) and nostalgic comparisons to mid-budget star vehicles like Cop Land and The Accountant. Before any of that, the first third is pure banter: a shared winter-storm/snowmelt check-in, Sonny's genuinely unsettling story about a mysterious package that turns out to be a bonsai tree and cardboard "Lee in a tree" promo item from Neon for No Other Choice, JVL's deepening pinball-machine obsession (his first-ever PinSide forum post, agonizing between a Godzilla and Deadpool machine), and Mike's bit comparing his three-year-old's Thomas the Tank Engine tyranny to living under a dictatorship. They close out with box-office chat covering Avatar: Fire and Ash, Sonny's take on 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, and a Fellowship of the Ring 25th-anniversary theatrical-vs-extended-cut debate (no Tom Bombadil, please).
From the show notes
Above is a still from The Rip. Below is something else. It'll make more sense once you listen.
Full transcript
JVL00:00:00you heard about the inside heist teams yeah cops playing robbers any help tonight lieutenant no we didn't get a heads up about this the longer we stay here the dicier the shit gets don't trust anyone all i know is what we do right now and who we talk to matters you see that p i g s
Mike00:00:30welcome to the sub beacon podcast i'm your co-host mike warren joining me as always are my two co-hosts who are still trying to figure out what those letters tattooed on their knuckles mean jonathan v last and sonny bunch join us over at sub beacon.com tell your friends and family if they want to listen to this show they've got to do it at sub beacon.com new episodes every weekend , Friday, we are going to be talking about the rip later on in the show but first sonny what is
Sonny00:01:09happening with you um not a whole lot going on here we're just kind of waiting on the ice the ice storm you guys are this band of weather goes like all the way across the country it's crazy
Mike00:01:21it's rare that all three of us are affected by the same yeah i think it's system we're all we're
Sonny00:01:27all going to be affected in different ways i mean we're you know in in in dallas it's we're looking at like three quarters of an inch of ice which is uh not not ideal for nobody wants that um did you suck up ice melt i you know i i don't actually have any ice melt i don't have any like salt or anything like that it's gonna be it's gonna be real it's gonna be real the thing is it really is one of these things where like it ices real bad and then the next day the sun comes out and everything's melted within 12 hours because the sun just nukes it uh just bakes it right off the ground so no um the big the big news in my life i got a bonsai tree you got a bonsai tree let me tell you about i'll tell you about this bonsai tree so the other night i'm at i'm at home i'm at home and it's like 11 p.m at night and i get an alert on my phone that one of my car doors is unlocked you know how you get these like i don't know do your cars do this do you get i have a very dumb car no so i get so it's like i don't know i've got the app or whatever it says so i can do the remote unlock and you know remote start and everything um and the uh and and when the door is unlocked it will send me an alert but this is weird it only really does that it does it two minutes after you shut the door so again 11 p.m at night and i get a i get an alert that my car door has has is not locked and i'm like oh that's weird all right i'm gonna go check and make sure nobody's opening my car door in my garage so i go out there and i check nobody seems to be in my garage as best as i can tell and this was the day that the verizon power uh the verizon coverage outage happened do you remember this so this was this was last so this was like i think what may have happened is that i got an alert from like 12 hours earlier than because i think it's on the verizon sure signal anyway neither here nor there as best as i know nobody was in my garage if they were they stayed very well hidden um but then i was but then i was kind of freaked out because like that's a weird thing i don't i don't so i i like do i do the rounds around my house do the rounds around my house just to make sure there's nobody in my home nobody's in the home again as best as i can tell uh and uh i go i i start at the back where the garage is and i kind of go room to room luckily there's not that many places a grown human male could hide in my house without me knowing about it i don't think it's you know there's not there's not a lot
Mike00:04:14of quick question quick question your whole family is at the house correct oh yeah everybody's home
Sonny00:04:19everybody's everybody's everybody's just kids are asleep because it's 11 you know my wife is in bed i'm i'm headed to bed myself anyway so i'm going around i check i check the back check the backyard i went out in the backyard just see if anybody was out there nobody's out there lock all the doors up and turn on the alarm and go to the front door to look out the front door there's a package on my front door i had not been expecting a package and i went out and i have that i have to go turn the alarm off turn the alarm off come back up open the door look at it don't recognize the address to sonny bunch at the bulwark to my home address always like okay well interesting let's get a little nervous you know i'm not uh okay this is not necessary i wasn't expecting anything and i get that like i get things for works into the the house sometimes so like it's not unheard of but usually they're like book-sized you know i get a book envelope with stuff anyway i uh i i bring this inside and now my wife has gotten up she comes out she's like what's going on i was like i don't know i'm just making sure there's nobody in the house but also there was this weird package on the front on the front and she's like oh it's ticking what is it i was like well we're about to find out so i went and i opened it i opened it and there was a bonsai tree in it there's a bonsai tree there was a bonsai tree it's this one right back here as a matter of fact oh it's lovely bonsai tree with this man this man was in it this is the people won't be able to see this but i'm holding up a little cardboard man a little korean cardboard man very disturbing very disturbing right it was a very disturbing
Mike00:06:09thing hold on you don't know who that is yeah i gotta put my korean man back go go ahead put put
Sonny00:06:15the korean man back by the bonsai tree it's like elf on a shelf but but it's a lee in a tree um so i uh so i i i look at this thing exactly like i'm looking at you right now with my head kind of in my hands thinking i think i know what this is and because because whoever sent this did not include any actual promotional materials except for the lee in a tree i had to kind of noodle my way through it but i was pretty sure it was it was something from the movie studio neon about the movie no other which as it happens i i was like planning on reviewing this week anyway because it's in theaters finally and i and i sure enough i looked it up and that's lee byung who whatever how you pronounce his name um uh who is the lead character in it and he has a little garden that's that's what the okay that's what the that's what but it was it was a terrifying sequence of events really it was legitimately like i feel like i'm i feel like i'm being hunted right now i feel like i am being hunted by a sadistic korean gardener for about 50 seconds this is this was my feeling like i'm gonna die and my family's gonna watch me die um and that's not gonna be good for anybody there's gonna be a lot of therapy bills after that question i won't be around to pay them but
Mike00:07:44question you you you are certain that the door car door alert has nothing to do with it it just was incidental coincidental to you discovering this
Sonny00:07:57or not as best as i know it's co it was coincidental i don't think the ups delivery
JVL00:08:03man or whoever it was that brought that again without like knocking on the door i bet i bet that was like a courier courier yeah it may well have been courier well it came from california
Sonny00:08:15it was shipped from california so i i don't know um but the uh but yeah i i would think because again there's no way for them to get in the garage i don't think there's no courier that's gonna be like opening up my garage door to get in anyway they're like should i put this in the car that's in the closed garage should i what well i wouldn't i wouldn't know what sort of instructions they had put it in the most terrifying place you can find it'd be great
JVL00:08:40they just left the tree and the man on the driver's seat that would be i would not come
Sonny00:08:47home i would leave i would just not i would not come back uh so anyway i've got a bonsai tree now and i'm taking good care of it i take pretty good care of it i water it every day i move it to like
JVL00:08:56sunlight yeah you can't just keep it in your office like that well no i don't i don't keep it
Sonny00:09:00no i don't keep it in there i take it but i did because i would like to keep it in the office i did get a uh i got a little uv lamp for it that i can that i can put on it oh growling a grow like a little grow light like if i need like if i like if i was growing marijuana marijuana if i was growing marijuana i would have the same sort of thing i can't see that tree are we sure i mean it
Mike00:09:26leafier than i would expect to buy it's a bonsai tree to be is that it's not it's not like one of
Sonny00:09:32the like i know what you mean like you you're thinking of like the kind of more bushy ones yeah yeah it's not it's not like that it's i think it's some sort of ficus what would happen if you look at that ficus bonsai trees i'm just looking at what a bonsai survive okay could what
JVL00:09:48could it survive if you planted it outside well certainly not with the 13 degree weather we have
Sonny00:09:56week yeah but fair fair all right anyway that that's been my that's been my week i've been trying to figure out how to keep this thing alive because now i feel i also i kind of resent neon for sending me a living thing i have to take care of now like i mean i could have i guess i could have just thrown it away like a savage but now i feel responsible for this terrifying totem what are you gonna do with mr lee what are you gonna do with mr lee he's gonna stay there he's gonna stay there he's gonna he's gonna creepily hang out behind me in the tree you see all right when i start i see i can't take my eyes off of him now you can't he's right next to the alien head he's right next to the xenomorph head yeah yeah i got a xenomorph head on one side and then the lead the lee in a tree right next to him
Mike00:10:40it's a choice all right well thank you sonny uh jvl what's happening just very quickly i have
JVL00:10:47already gone through 400 pounds of uh snow melt so far wow we are 400 pounds taping on january 22nd i have ordered another 300 pounds from home depot we have had snow on the ground continuously since like the week before christmas oh wow i think we've only had a couple days without like being able to see snow on the ground that's great my pinball journey continues took a big step took a big step i uh so pin side i believe i explained to you gentlemen was the really the hub for the pinball universe right and uh you know i bet pinterest has already taken it yes that would have been better uh i have uh i've been lurking on pin side for a couple months now and i took a big step i uh posted my own post in the forums for the first time oh long time lurker first time poster uh-huh and uh i'm just asking my fellow enthusiasts in the community as we say uh you know pinheads for some advice on uh you know what what would be a good first pinball game to have that will be like really engaging for like a 10 year old but deep enough replayable enough for for an adult and uh because g money has decided he wants our pinball machine to be south park the south park pinball machine is a lot of fun but it's not it's very simple and i would say not super replayable i would get bored of it he would be happy with it for some time but i would get bored of it so uh the the replies are coming in i think i'm up to 12 replies on my my post so far and uh i did discover that literally the next town over is a guy who just sells a lot of pinball machines he he clearly has a basement where he must he must have like 20 pinball machines in it and so he's constantly like buying one selling one buying one selling one and so uh the the idea that i could just go over to his house and hand him cash money and just pick up like the deadpool premium machine and bring it home in my minivan that's very tempting i mean i'm surprised you're still talking about it and how it's just done it's very tempting so uh that's that's just where we are i am if you if you're on pin side you want to look me up i am the jvl that is my my handle on
Sonny00:13:47pin side you're not really hiding anything here
JVL00:13:49it's uh not really hiding anything except for where i live i have my location set as new york city you know i do not want things being left outside of my house you don't want
Sonny00:14:01you don't want uh lee in a tree no thank you pass no pass uh wait give him a flip guys on uh on inside the the can you fit a pinball machine in your minivan yeah so it um so do
JVL00:14:21the legs come off the legs come off and the oh god there's their names for all the parts which i mean but i think it's the light box that also comes off and the light box is where all the computer stuff is this is what i've so you know when you're looking at you're standing at the pinball machine looking there's like uh you know the glass with the the image and whatnot and you sort of unlock that there's a key there and when you slide that glass up inside is basically the computer that runs the the machine and uh and so that's the one access point and the other access point is when you lift the play field up and it's like the hood of a car and so you can lift the entire play field up and you see all of the coils and everything underneath it you know
Mike00:15:11runs the mechanics of it can can you take the the glass off in order to say do maintenance on yeah on the flippers or the yep take the glass off evidently one of the the mods people
JVL00:15:22do very quick is uh third parties make um reflection free glass so that you can like see see your pinball better i mean it's one of the first things i'm gonna do obviously yeah you need you need total visibility total visibility into it and uh yeah yeah and uh you know so when you when you splooge on it it just wipes right off of that stuff so have you have you settled
Sonny00:15:54in an actual game yet you mentioned the deadpool so uh i the people i mean according to the
JVL00:16:02comments on my post on the forums uh the the the two classic these are these are good starter machines are uh godzilla the new 2022 stern godzilla or the 20 which you mentioned last week i think yeah or the 2019 stern deadpool both of which are designed by the same designer keith ellwing uh and in fact the same artist this guy named zombie yeti did the arc for both cabinets um and uh i don't know anything about the deadpool i actually have not played the deadpool i need to go like find one um but i'm learning so many things about it so you know when you when you get a machine uh they're they're classified in two ways either for home use only or on location so i think you will hear guys well i had this machine on location for a couple years but it's been and what that means is i had it in an arcade um because a lot of the people who do this in the hobby they are people who like own retro arcades it seems to be like the way comic books were in the 1990 the early 1990s before the crash where what happened was there were a whole lot of people who by the mid-1980s were comic book collectors who became comic book dealers to support their comic book collecting habit it seems like there's a lot of that in pinball they're like i love these things and i can't stop buying i'll just open a retro arcade with pinball um and stuff like that i think that's a lot how drug use works as well like people who are drug users just want they're buying so many drugs anyway they're like can i get can i get this little maybe a little bit lighter markup if i buy more in bulk and then i'll just sell to support my habit right yeah yeah that's how requiem for a dream starts exactly yeah so you know same for drugs same for comic book same for pinball maybe i i probably am not gonna gonna ever wind up dealing or setting up my own retro arcade famous last words probably i don't know so do you think the drug dealers
Mike00:18:14have as good of uh online forums as the uh as the pinball i assume they do i assume they
JVL00:18:19got great ones i do i am concerned that if i were to get deadpool g money would never stop asking to see the movie well yeah he's gonna want to see and read deadpool right and that would be a problem yeah absolutely yeah that would be a problem yeah he's yeah we're not i'm sorry like i yes i have given up on parenting but not like you can learn about pegging at age 10.
Mike00:18:52that's a yeah that's that's a level of giving up that i haven't reached yet that's not that's not like uh neglect that's like active active abuse you know you don't want you don't want
Sonny00:19:02to go that far it's not like showing the kids aliens or something you know that's that's
JVL00:19:07fine yeah so uh yeah that's that's just where we are that's keep us keep us updated on what you decide i i do feel like we're getting pretty close though i can feel it are you my next my next step is i'm going to call the guy who runs my local arcade the wire i love and just say hey dave are you thinking of getting rid of any of your machines or like swapping any off your hands because maybe i could buy from you uh maybe all right great well good luck uh we can't wait for the next michael what are you up
Mike00:19:43to buddy how's uh how's basketball going uh basketball's fine um sorry i i know we don't want to get political on this show but i i do feel like i need to kind of speak out because it's it's very clear that we're living under i mean there's no other way to say it like we're living under a dictatorship right now and um it's it's disturbing and uh i don't really know what to do about it except maybe just talk it through um the dick the dictator is um three years old and he lives in my house and uh he spends he can't do you
JVL00:20:22have the water running behind you so he can't hear you and uh i think he's asleep and he's on the other side of the house he's like way over there that's good tradecraft you gotta be broadcasting from the bathroom and you have all the faucets turned on to foil his
Mike00:20:37microphones um you know like many like many dictators he is um uh he is sort of monomaniacal and um charming when he wants to be yes i mean he's like castro exactly he's adorable uh but can go on for hours um he his mania at the moment is the thomas the tank engine toy trains uh which we have the bulk of our little wooden tracks are actually um we're we're once owned by uh uh the mattis children actually so they have they have now like they they've now gone down through all of the kids uh to our three-year-old um when he wakes up in the morning he says to anyone who's around go downstairs and play trains uh when he when i'm working from home from my home office here uh he comes and knocks on the door and asks if i will play trains with him um he dragoons one of his brothers when he gets out
JVL00:21:46the rubber hoses it's like you're going to la bianca until you learn to play with
Mike00:21:51trains you can get away with saying no but there's going to be a consequence later you know um he's not happy he's not happy uh he he wakes up from his his nap asking to play trains um he has now forfeited all of the um all of the privileges at bedtime you know this getting a story read to him even like he's gotten to the point where he had been like listening to stories but playing with a couple toys in his bedroom you know in the in the in the minutes before bedtime he has now traded all of that to go back downstairs after his bath to play more trains um he it's uh and and then when it is time for bed you know when when bedtime rolls around this thing that's been happening every day for his entire life uh it's it's as if we have told him this is the last moment you will ever play trains we are throwing them all out at this point and he uh loses his shit so he takes it well yeah he oh yeah oh yeah it's uh it's bad and it's just i mean the demands on everybody and what's the what's the funniest part about it is like everybody kind of jumps to you know it's uh everybody's um kind of afraid to cross this little dictator so we've got a history
JVL00:23:21yes you should really just give him whatever he wants eventually he'll stop asking eventually he'll stop asking uh it's just not worth the pain
Mike00:23:35of standing up to him here's the thing here's the thing it's kind of perfect that he's into the thomas the tank engine stuff because like does he have a favorite is he a guy well his his name is thomas and so i mean there's there's a there's it's kismet really um he's a big fan of he's not a huge fan of percy um he likes um he likes rocky who is the like wrecking yeah the record he's like helps out picks up the on the track picks up the the uh the trains that have fallen off um and he likes henry as well um and because henry has a tender and he likes getting henry stuck in the in the tunnel um but it is which is from one of the shows uh but it is like uh it is does he do does he do the episode where
Sonny00:24:33they brick thomas up no that's henry in the tunnel that's what i'm talking about they break
Mike00:24:38they where they brick henry up and they break henry up yes he won't come out for the love of god montresor so um yeah it's it's fitting the love of god it's uh it's it's it's a lot of fun and it's very cute and adorable but the way that it the hold that it has on him and then like through the transfer property like the hold he has on us over this train system it's unlike any kid obsession and i've been through a lot of them it's unlike any that i've seen before and um uh i mean you can see i'm blinking like like please send help james stockdale are they like are they like uh send us more train tracks yeah they're the standard like brio size um yeah
JVL00:25:28which i mean you could tell you're a richie rich family that has the real brio engines
Mike00:25:33and not the kirkland brand wooden train set well you can get so so the the again the trains themselves almost all came from the mattises uh hand-me-down trains they were hand-me-down trains there's a couple new ones that were gifted they're indestructible i don't even know which kit yeah no totally um yeah by the way there are cheap ones that are destructible because they have been destroyed cheap ones no they're not thomas they're knockoffs they're knockoffs tommy no no tommy the tank engine but timu tamasino exactly tam house um yeah it's uh but the um you can get uh from ikea you can actually get a comparable uh tracks and things um so are they ikea branded they're not like you can't there's no branding on it it's just they're just wooden tracks um so um i assume they're ikea made they're like but that's a pretty good deal so but we haven't had to buy them in several years because we've got two kids who older kids who also play so it's just uh it's just been a um it's been it's been trying times here enjoy it
JVL00:26:49while you have it absolutely because absolutely the reality is you're gonna be given all that stuff to one of your you're gonna have like some young friend who you work with who's 10 years older than you or a cousin or something they're gonna be playing with those things
Mike00:27:07in eight years yep circle of life baby absolutely anyway so uh let's move on however from uh from thomas and pinball uh and talk about the box office martin luther king jr weekend a long weekend number one at the box office was avatar fire and ash followed by number two 28 years later the bone temple what is this is this like an expansion pack on 28 years later like it's a sequel like what is yeah what is so so there's
Sonny00:27:4028 days later i'm familiar and then a few a few years later uh i want to say like five or six years later yeah 28 months later came out 28 months later okay came out and then and now you have 28 years later which came out uh middle of last year i want to say it was june june of last year something like that um and uh and then this this month was 28 years later the bone temple so they shot they shot 28 years later and the bone temple kind of back-to-back danny boyle uh shot the first one uh this second one was shot by nia da costa uh of marvels fame remember remember the captain marvel sequel great movie that came out so yeah um i actually i like i like the bone temple uh quite a bit it's very strange movie it's a very very strange movie but it was uh but it's entertaining um but but people didn't really like 28 years later it uh i think it opened a 30 million and only grossed 70 million total which is a very that's a that's a rough multiple for uh even even for a horror film tend to be kind of front loaded in the first place um but 28 years later was also a very weird movie audiences didn't like it i think this is a more straightforward film it's not as formally as inventive etc but um i also i and i think audiences will like this a little more but i also think it's going to kind of come and go pretty quick it's uh ray fines i see ray fines star ray fines yeah ray fines plays a uh he plays a doctor who uh has gone completely insane um as one of the survivors of the zombie apocalypse he makes the titular bone temple uh but it's a it's it's it's it's actually i enjoyed it quite again i enjoyed it it's it's weird it's a very strange sort of movie not a not a pure zombie movie there's there's a weird subplot where he is basically uh it's like a buddy comedy it's like a it's like a stoner buddy comedy for like 30 minutes with him and one of the giant zombies so that's
Mike00:29:48uh that's a little twist okay um the other box office thing i noticed is uh of course the the lord of the rings trilogy was re-released um and uh showed up on on the on the list uh number nine actually over the weekend was uh the fellowship um so is it still out could
Sonny00:30:07i go see that this i don't know i think you might be able to yeah i it's uh it's the 25th anniversary 25th anniversary of fellowship yeah it's 25th anniversary of fellowship yeah um yeah i the i think they were showing the extended edition they were showing it at the
JVL00:30:23the draft houses i i do not want to see the extended edition i'm sorry if i'm gonna go sit in the movie theater i would like the theatrical cut please well the fellowship
Mike00:30:32extended is i think fine is worth it i think the other two it's like it's really only for like the completists but but the first one extended is my tom bombadil there's no there
Sonny00:30:48is no tom bombadil are you here's here's the thing this one thing that peter jackson got right no tom bombadil that that guy sucks everyone knows the houses of healing huh this
Guest00:30:59movie sucks because it doesn't have the houses of healing okay if there would anybody if
Mike00:31:04there were anybody on this podcast who would feel that way and say that thing it would be me and i don't say that all right so who are you directing your fire to jvl just not
JVL00:31:14trying to talk like the nerds no i really i have always preferred the theatrical version theatrical cuts to the extended edition yes you don't you don't agree sunny um i'm no
Sonny00:31:28i don't agree precisely uh but i will say that the the the extended edition of return of the kings is like four hours yeah it's too long long return of the king is like four hours almost in the extended edition that's very long that's that's very long king is
JVL00:31:45a bad movie but it wasn't
Sonny00:31:47it won the best picture yeah vl it's not a bad movie but it is it is the worst to make up a word it is the worst ever it's it's the worst of these three movies because these movies all get worse the further the series goes along the the first one is the best because it has the smallest stakes and the most yes relatable conflict absolutely ludicrous the
JVL00:32:09fellowship did not win best picture
Sonny00:32:12i totally agree it was 100 the best of those movies but uh was it of beautiful
JVL00:32:17mind that one that year i think uh because it was gladiator i don't remember but beautiful mind was a was a makeup oscar for him after insider like he should russell crowe should have won for the insider he's much better than the insider but he won for the gladiator he won for gladiator i don't think he won or he didn't win best actor i think he won best actor but that did win the movie they won best picture best picture no he should
Mike00:32:43have won best actor for the insider totally yeah fantastic in that movie um yeah no and and look i mean i know people who are two towers partisans and it's mostly for the helms deep battle scene um which is great uh but i mean it's fine it's overstuffed
Sonny00:33:01like the the problem the problem with again the the series peaks the series peaks when boromir gets killed yes the series the series peaks with that overhead tracking shot through through the forest where uh where legolas is like shooting guys and they're running through the they're running through the woods
JVL00:33:21and they're throwing the how is that done pre-drone that's not a crane is it it has to be a crane in the world i mean it's also done over uneven ground yeah or maybe they built a platform and the crane is on a platform they probably yeah they probably well they
Sonny00:33:38they certainly had it running on tracks they would have run it through all the but it's just it's just on a crane i mean it's that's a crane shot i mean the the memory
Mike00:33:46of seeing that in the theater like i remember seeing it in the theater and just being with that score that oh oh i was sure score i lit i listened to the howard shore fellowship score the the actually i do listen the extended version of that uh or the complete recordings whenever i'm writing and um and it always seems to work out that the i actually i hit some stride usually at the the part of the score where they've left rivendell and like you finally get the full fellowship theme as they sort of like walk through the cleft of rocks you know like that build up i'm always like boom here we go now i'm hit
Sonny00:34:26you muted yourself you got so excited i got so excited you got so excited you guys should have heard the noises he was making anyway uh my takeaway from this is that we're just
Mike00:34:40doing fellowship next week is that i mean i'm so into that oh don't no don't don't that briar patch um yeah sounds great uh okay any other thoughts on the box office no i won't talk about the rip let's talk about the rip sonny do you want to give us a big boy review of the rip do i have to i mean it's kind of your job on the show so it is
Sonny00:35:09it is interesting by the way you didn't you didn't mention this but all three of the lord of the rings movies were in theaters no i did say that i did say that oh i i thought
Mike00:35:16you just mentioned fellowship um it did the it performed the best is why i mentioned all right hold on i gotta all right the rip there we go he's such a pro he's back by joe carnahan
Sonny00:35:32starring ben affleck and matt damon as two cops who may be corrupt don't know it's no one knows this is i'm not i'm not going to describe the plot of this movie instead i'm going to tell you what it is what it is is the perfect netflix film and what i mean is this it's the sort of movie that you can watch from your couch after having had or possibly being in the midst of having five to twelve drinks and uh and as you are watching it it all makes perfect sense because everybody in the film is telling you all of the things that are happening in it all of the time there's there's no there's no uh there's no respite from the talking in this movie and here's the other reason why i say it's the most perfect netflix movie of all time is because what has happened here is that ben affleck and matt damon through their company artist equity have found a script that could be made by anybody for 10 million dollars and they have gotten netflix to give them 100 million dollars to make it and uh they they you know theoretically through the company artist equity they spread this through this is the whole artist equity thing we're going to pay everybody where they're going to get their residuals and we did we did this with air and you know we're but they're they you know they're going to pay all of the all of the you know below the line guys extra money everybody's going to get residuals and bonuses and blah blah blah and of course ben and matt will probably get 20 million dollars a piece but yeah that's that's neither here nor there uh and again it's a movie that takes place almost entirely in one location it's mostly so the the actual plot of the film is uh the cop is murdered in the opening uh sequence and internal affairs is trying to figure out if matt or ben had anything to do with it and they are both very offended by these questions and then they go to a house where there's an enormous amount of money hidden in the and they have to figure out how they're going to get out of there with the cash they got to do the count there because that's what the that's what the procedure that's that's what procedure is you got to do the count there but while they're doing the count other crooked cops show up and there's a shootout and somebody the streets run by the cartel the honorable cartel the honorable cartel that's just like we lost this one sorry god you you it's on it's all you this is this is a thing that happens in the movie anyway um uh and and then there's you know there's there are some reveals blah blah blah but the the the again everything that happens in this movie happens three times everything that is said in this movie is said three times and Affleck and Damon or have been fairly upfront about this like talking about the Netflix style the Netflix model the the the notes that they get from Netflix over and over again are tell don't show just you got it you you got people who are watching and they're watching on their phones and they're not really paying that much attention and so like I say it's a sort of movie you can watch and kind of you know not really pay that much attention to and you can you can drink a little bit and again it's the perfect Netflix thing because if you if you hit that 12 12 drink mark you've forgotten everything that happened anyway you got to watch it again just more hour is more hours more hours viewed they're capturing
Mike00:39:08the eyeballs you don't have to watch it again because they will explain what already happened in the first half of the movie you just want to
Sonny00:39:14Three cheese to the win just go read the Wikipedia page anyway my my second big takeaway from this movie is that the world demands a Ben Affleck Scott Adkins buddy comedy movie because those two are actually very good together because they're both kind of meathead lunkhead types but Ben Affleck has that veneer of seriousness and Scott Adkins is just a ridiculous human highlight reel of of martial arts excellence so the my like my real my real honest big takeaway from this was okay one of the one of the 23 north guys needs to like make an actual Scott Adkins Ben Affleck martial arts B movie like a John Wick style something or other
JVL00:40:00and and that is that's the thing that's the thing we need right but with Scott Adkins and Ben Affleck what's that Shanghai noon but with Scott Adkins and Ben Affleck sure sure
Sonny00:40:14something something along those lines heat heat but with Ben mean the heat Scott Adkins playing the uh or what was the what was the uh uh not the heat um spy the Melissa McCarthy movie where she
JVL00:40:34and then the Melissa McCarthy movie what's that the heat is also a Melissa yes yes yes but I'm
Sonny00:40:40thinking I'm thinking of spy I'm thinking the one where Jason Statham is playing like the guy who thinks he's James Bond oh like but that would be Scott Adkins anyway uh anyway I like the movie this is not a very good movie and it's not a very interesting movie it has a lot of charm because Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are very charming um I I can't in good conscience really recommend it to anybody except as again are you at home do you have nothing else to do is netflix on your television can you just click over to it that's that is the extent to which this
JVL00:41:21movie but the australian open is on right now you could be watching live grand slam tennis hold on
Mike00:41:28hold on just a second I I want to let you go JBL but I just want to say like everything every condition you just described Sonny like is it that's just self-recommending right like like that's what people are looking for they're home they have time and they have netflix go watch go watch a movie that's going to be entertaining for two hours well again this
Sonny00:41:47is what I'm talking this one entertaining is really a very that's that's a very dangerous word to use in gotham mr wayne because it's a it's a entertaining is a real sliding scale here I I it's a thing that you can put on it's a thing that you can put on and again this is why like it's it's hard it's hard to discuss this I I have over the last few weeks here really started to get into the medium is the message style thinking because I I really do think that like I there's no way to understand this film outside of the context of the existence of netflix like this is a movie that only gets made because it has two stars who have enormous theatrical popular they have popularity that is derives from an enormous amount of success in the theatrical business but this is a movie that could never be made for theaters now nobody would go see this they would make it and it would gross 15 million dollars and affleck and damon would both be embarrassed and it would be a mess and like that it just wouldn't get made certainly wouldn't get made for a hundred million dollars but it can be made for netflix because netflix wants to overpay for these things netflix wants to overpay and they want to overpay people who have recognizable faces that they the recognition which has come from theaters like i you can't understand this movie's existence without understanding the distribution method and and and that drives me that that's actually driving me insane i think it's i like i can't i can't stop i can't i can't like i it's like i'm seeing the matrix like i'm seeing the ones and zeros and i can't stop and i like don't like it i don't want to do that question yeah do you
JVL00:43:37think that anybody at netflix understands that once they kill theatrical distribution they won't be able to create recognizable faces to put in their thumbnails or will they just switch to like we'll just make movies with tick-tock stars i and the tick-tocks we'll put the tick-tock stars faces in and everybody will know who that is that that's a tomorrow problem that's a future
Sonny00:44:01problem okay jvl i really i i i think about this a lot i think about this a lot because i mean look the the the goal of netflix is to kill the theatrical ecosystem regardless of whatever bullshit they're saying to get approval to buy warner brothers their their real goal is to kill theatrical because that takes away uh a competitive money escalating source of trouble for them like you don't if you don't have to pay a hundred million dollars for this movie if you're not paying ben affleck and matt damon twenty million dollars beats you know so uh you know i i just i don't know i i somebody there must understand that i think they just don't care i i that's the long and the short of it future netflix that's a deal with that that's a problem for future netflix today the ted sarandos bot that takes over uh you know as ceo and well also
JVL00:45:04i mean 15 years i'm sure that they think that their production costs drop to zero once they can just ai animate everything right once you don't need actors anymore because you can just use sora or whatever 10 years from now 15 years from now whatever the version of sora is uh we'll just do that for you and it doesn't matter if your revenues don't keep up with it because your costs are going
Sonny00:45:34to shrink by like four orders of magnitude what netflix would argue and it's not an unfair argument what netflix would argue is that their competition is not hbo max paramount plus peacock it's no it's not and it's not sleep it's youtube yeah youtube it's youtube and so like that's where the sora slop is going to live right is youtube it's going to be a lot of user-generated garbage and netflix says no we are we are the last bulwark of quality against uh you know against the oncoming the oncoming ai slop tide and that's another thing that again just
JVL00:46:11makes my head scream in agony and say no i don't us weekly saying you know what the thing is we're still a magazine with words in it and uh eventually everybody's just going to be getting their information from tiktok in 15 second bites so if you think about it us weekly is really the last great protector of journalism of the written word on the written word we're the last we're the last
Sonny00:46:37stand i uh no i mean that is basically where we are um i think which is a real problem it's a real problem for anybody who cares about things
JVL00:46:47jvl what did you think of the rip so here i gotta say i'm coming to this a little bit oddly because i didn't finish the movie i only got halfway through it and i loved the first half i thought it was really interesting and i uh i thought it was compulsively watchable and i guess i just tapped out before all of the repetition and stuff started happening because for the first 58 minutes or so uh it actually does a lot of like leaving you in the dark there's a lot of jumping backwards jumping forwards you're not quite sure what's going on and it's it's not a heist movie it's a haunted house movie and the ghost is the money and the whole like i'm just like well who's the final girl gonna be you know like who's who's gonna die first like we're in predator or something and i found that very interesting i thought it looked fantastic especially for a netflix movie this is the second week in a row that like something from netflix has looked like i might see it on screen right it felt a little bit like this a simple plan in that way uh you know just very stripped down and well shot i mean joe carnahan the director is a competent movie director he's a competent director of motion pictures right and the difference between that and whatever was on red one or or red notice or any of the reds that are on netflix the red oeuvre on netflix is enormous because those movies are not
Sonny00:48:40directed by competent directors well these are this is a movie that also takes place in a in a real location again it's only really it's largely one location it's not entirely in one but like but it's shot on location but it's shot it's shot in a real place that's
JVL00:48:55not the volume yeah and uh and so between that and the idea of the again i just think it's clever to do a a ghost movie which is really about like cops and money uh and then with the charm of you know uh nestor what's his face and nester carbonell nester carbonell and damon and affleck and i don't know i mean i i legit laughed out loud after affleck calls him a uh calls this guy a cunt drops his cigarette in his styrofoam coffee cup and then flings it across the room and then pounces on him and then like 15 seconds later you're informed that these two characters are brothers like i'm i'm sorry it was great that was a great moment i thought it was a fantastic bit anyway and so maybe the answer is that i had to step when i didn't like not finished it because i didn't want to finish i just ran out of time sure and i maybe i just happened to leave at the exact right time before everything went to hell michael yeah
Mike00:50:10well mike what did you make of it um i enjoyed this movie hey man of the people i liked it while i could recognize everything that it was i could i i saw the work and yet i still appreciated it uh for what it was um i mean this is like a basic cable classic type of movie like that's that's what it is like in terms of it's the kind of thing where like yeah i could see that honestly it it fits in that realm which you they just don't make movies like that much anymore um but once you notice and and look in in our house when it comes to movies and tv shows i am the dum-dum where like they reveal the they reveal the uh the twist or whatever and i'm like and my and my wife is like figures it all out like like right away all like she knows exactly what's going on and i have no idea what's going on so in some ways i appreciate the repetition but uh once you notice it it's like you can't not see it it's like you were saying something it's like seeing the matrix it's like oh this is this is what they're doing so like for instance um if you missed the gag at the end of that part where where you realize they're brothers don't worry because they repeat that they're brothers like three more times in the movie i guess that's right and uh that's annoying and again once you see it you can't unsee it what you can't sort of so it's hard to enjoy it to its maximum potential when you know that's been
Sonny00:51:58like that kind of stuff has been shoehorned in like steve steve yoon like going to his secret burner phone like five times to type in functionally the
Mike00:52:09same message it's just like fucking stop no it's it's so frustrating um i mean but on the other hand i really like it but then i started to wonder maybe i'm getting better at this thing because i figured out what was going on from the moment he started telling different people the uh the different amounts that were in the house exactly and um so i figured that out and then i felt like but maybe matt damon really is going to see him maybe he really is bad but the whole time i'm going well he's not he's not bad he's he's good he's like he set this whole thing up so that he could figure it out so like what what are we doing here um so i got a little front i i guess i got a little frustrated with seeing the boom mics and the sort of the set ending which is how i feel about a lot of this like netflix stuff it's like they're showing two they're telling you too much and showing too much of the sort of what's outside the frame for me to fully appreciate what is otherwise like like you say competently you know made and fun and like a lot of it is thrilling like it it does it's entertaining it is entertaining sunny it absolutely is i i was entertained i was it was thrilling to sort of like be like what what how what's going to happen next like when you probably didn't see this jvl but when ben affleck like goes into the house and uh into the other house you know where the light is flickering off and on like what's gonna happen next who's gonna find him what is going on in this so you know like you could waste two hours of your life scrolling through you know instagram or you know watching slop on youtube or you could watch this and like i know what's a better two hours of my time that's my view enjoyed it enjoyed seeing ben affleck and matt damon together too like it's it's nice to see them together like they're they're good together they're they're fun to watch have you guys seen goodwill hunting like that you know everybody has forgotten about
Sonny00:54:25the last duel by the way because i i keep seeing people be like oh matt damon ben affleck back together it's like they were just in a movie like two years ago and air duel that's and they were
Mike00:54:35and they were in air that's air yeah i'm not saying they're it's i'm not saying back together like they have you've never seen
Sonny00:54:42them since goodwill hunting but yeah it's just no no but i i mean this gets me to kind of another thing which is that the rip i assume will kind of be like air in the sense that like it's a it's a fine thing to watch entertaining it's going to disappear and it's going to totally disappear because nobody nobody is going to seek out the rip right like it's not like again this is the basic cable classic thing is the perfect comparison point here because once upon a time movie like air is on tnt 17 times a week for like a five-year stretch right and you just happen you just happen upon it you just happen upon you watch it you're like oh yeah this oh that's this is the part where they go see michael jordan's family or this is the part where they go and they're making they're making the shoes right like the rip would be the same way like oh this is the part where they show up at the house and they you know or this is the part where the power goes out yeah this is the part where the power goes out this is the part where you know uh they fight coach ron livingston or what's his name not ron livingston no the guy from friday night lights yeah yeah yeah coach uh coach kyle chandler um like it's you know but but that isn't that's not the world we live in anymore this this movie will never exist except as a thing that's on netflix that you have to choose to watch that you have to actively say yes i want to watch the rip and if you're like i know who's gonna do that six months from now yeah i i don't know jvl are you gonna are you gonna go back and finish this
Mike00:56:14i'm curious i mean you should it's fun but real talk yeah no talk real talk no but but the reason
JVL00:56:25is because i don't have time i would love to i would love to if i had another 55 minutes to give to this movie i could if this movie was something i could watch with anybody else in my family i could but uh it isn't nobody else in my family would be interested in this uh shannon would not be into it flash would not be into it everybody else is too young uh and so for me the calculus is i have to take 55 minutes of alone time with me where i am not doing some form of active parenting right or spending time with my my wife or doing actual work uh and i don't do 55 minutes of that a week yeah yeah total like i don't have 55 minutes and if i if i did i wouldn't spend it on the second half of a netflix movie right and uh whereas if this was something if this had been uh wake up dead man which i could watch with other members of my family then like yeah sure fuck i'd watch the second half of that um so i don't know like i you know in a different season that's why i wonder if for me so much of it is just like the season of life i'm in where like right now i am very pressed for time um yeah and uh right you know but like six years from now would i finish this
Mike00:57:55movie i think the answer would be yes well yeah i think anybody who puts it on with the time will enjoy it right like we'll have a good time watching it will not be like that was slop right or or like that was a waste of my time or you know it may not be the best thing they've ever seen but it's enjoyable and by the way can i say tiana tiana taylor um she's in this the the paul thomas henderson movie right yeah she's in one battle after another um uh so i haven't seen that uh so i don't i you know this is really my the first time i've really seen her i think uh she's great she's she really stands out as like
JVL00:58:36i i really enjoyed her on screen uh she's good i i mean didn't we used to make movies like this like i i think of cop land which i think might have also been directed by joe
Sonny00:58:48cardahan no cop land was directed by um somebody else i'm efforting um but like we used to
JVL00:58:57have mangled james mangled we used to have like programmers mid-budget movies with real actors that were made with real care that were worth watching and they weren't high art and they weren't classics but sometimes they would be cable classics and the type of thing that you would want to return to and by the way the the sonny you're sighing
Mike00:59:24at me now do i have this wrong no no you're totally right no listen who's in who's in the cast of cop land by the way just as a reminder so sly and harvey kytel and ray leota and robert de niro peter berg jeanine garofalo robert patrick michael rapaport annabella shora noah emmerich it's like it's wow it's like everybody is oh it's a real movie moriarty uh it's a real movie with a real cast exactly and like but so's the rip rip has like a bunch of real actors totally
Sonny00:59:54yeah yeah um no i i was sighing because we used to do shows like that all the time on this pod or we used to do movies like that all the time on this podcast like i i assume i think we were doing this podcast when the accountant started but the accountant the accountant the ben affleck autistic hitman movie the accountant is a perfect example of this it is a it is a like mid-class it's a mid-tier probably 50 million dollar uh action adventure programmer um sunny
Mike01:00:28sunny 44 million dollars was the budget for the accountant yeah so it costs it costs roughly one
Sonny01:00:36fourth exactly this movie cost um and you know that's a movie with a bunch of like really cool interesting locations and action set pieces and sunny anna kendrick they can pay more for the
JVL01:00:52movie because the movie doesn't bring in any actual revenue yeah that's the genius right let's get the accountant on that one that is the netflix magic oh that's actually a good idea nothing they make can really be uh have any actual revenue attributed to it i i know they have formulas for this but it's not real in the way that like you can with a movie that's released theatrically and because of that they can spend whatever the fuck they want on it yep because pnl
Sonny01:01:25doesn't exist yep yeah it's a real problem it's a real it's a real problem uh the the this is why i've always been kind of interested in how their advertising is going to work because that will be a thing that you can like actually quantify and say like well this generated this much in advertising revenue this this did not and like that's going to be uh that's going to be a trick i have a i have a bad thought about that oh chair which is
JVL01:01:54that the people who pay for the ad supported will be the people who watch the absolute lowest common denominator slop and who just have it on all the time and so the most successful ad revenue things will be the worst things on the surface
Mike01:02:11yeah that's probably true that's probably true it's gonna be the discovery channel basically
JVL01:02:17like it right i mean whatever whatever the discovery network slew of reality shit that netflix hopes to to bring in yeah it'll be it is catnip for their ad supported subscribers
Mike01:02:32it'll be ow my balls uh constantly so my balls all right uh any other final thoughts on the rip which by the way there was a great moment uh where a couple moments where i could point to the screen you know when they said
Sonny01:02:47the name of the movie i was like the rip oh they just said the name of the movie love
JVL01:02:51that love that did it like 10 times i'll i'll just ask this question because sonny mentioned the ad ad dollars what is the price point at which you would say i am no longer willing to pay to avoid ads because i am willing to pay almost any amount of money to not have ads pushed in front of my eyeballs i find it insulting i hate it i hate it i feel like my attention is like the single most valuable thing i own and i'll be damned if i'm gonna give it to somebody to sell to advertisers for an extra 12 dollars a month i'll pay 12 a month my attention is worth more than that you know you know what the solution is
Mike01:03:34to that though is what's that don't pay attention go hit the head you know go go make some popcorn during the ad it's on nah just leave i don't just leave i just look down at your phone i don't know if i've told you guys this but when when i you know i am the guy who paid
JVL01:03:52the extra like 45 dollars for a kindle so there would not be ads on the lock screen okay because i just i'm insulted by the idea and i suppose there is some dollar i which like the ad free tier is like if the ad free tier of disney was a hundred dollars a month i would probably say fuck but i honestly might just cancel disney before i took it
Sonny01:04:16with ads i would 100 so this is this is the thing this is real talk if if i were not required to have access to virtually every service for my job sure i would rotate through them uh i would i would create a excel spreadsheet and be like all right this is the month we're getting paramount plus um this and and i would do them all ad free that's that that is what i but i like uh what the the price point at which i would go i don't know it it's it's we got to be just about getting there with netflix because it's like twenty seven dollars a month now or something it's some crazy amount of money yeah real expensive don't care for that i would cancel netflix i like i watch almost nothing on netflix
Mike01:05:04well we're we're about to get uh sort of i feel like a real life test of of all this as they keep raising their prices here so um well they're doing that to force everybody
Sonny01:05:15into the advertising correct that's like it's you know i will cancel netflix before i accept
Mike01:05:21ads from them fair it's fair my kids my kids well my oldest watches a lot of netflix watches a lot of like animated tween stuff well that's where they get you they get you with the kids totally yeah they hook your kids yeah exactly just like mcdonald's did uh all right uh that is all the time we're going to give to this episode join us over at subbeacon.com tell your friends and family to check us out at subbeacon.com and we will talk to you next
JVL01:05:50time or you know find me on pin side the jbl
Sonny01:05:55um
JVL01:06:03see if anybody left more comments while we were talking oh yeah i bet they did i bet
Mike01:06:07you got another pinhead uh talking to you um all right any anything else i i uh i also just love miami as a scene as a as a setting for movies like this like it's just you know it's miami vice it's um bad boys like it's just uh miami's a great a great place to set like a crime movie like this so that's all any and no no no that's it
Sonny01:06:33i agree miami is a good location for movies i don't i don't know i i just i i no i'm not
Mike01:06:42making fun of me i mean i i feel it looks good it looks good at night particularly it
Sonny01:06:45looks really i saw i saw somebody joke on twitter that the idea we're gonna you know these we're gonna accept that these two boston blowhards are miami cops like come on like come on we the only reason we're here is because of goodwill hunting come on yeah i'm sure
Mike01:07:03I'm sure it's fine.
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