#348. Super Mario Movies
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The gang tackles the new animated sequel The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and the verdict is brutal: Mike calls it possibly the worst movie he's seen in a long time, dozing off twice in the theater despite his second-grader declaring it "awesome," and JVL goes even further, saying the film radiates outright contempt for its audience — praising the more tactile, stop-motion-esque animation textures while blasting the lazy, joke-free plotting (a pointless Yoshi origin story that goes nowhere, a shrunk-down and neutered Jack Black as Bowser, a distracting Rosalina hair/Cyclops design choice, and zero "Peaches"-style earworm moment for kids the way the first film had). Sonny, who skipped the sequel entirely, instead rewatched the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. with Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper for an unrelated interview with screenwriter Ed Solomon, and walks through why it's a fascinating misfire — Luigi, not Mario, is the real protagonist, the costumes are inexplicably swapped for most of the runtime, and (like every Mario adaptation) it wrongly fixates on plumbing when nobody watching cares about anything but jumping on things — leading JVL to riff at length on an R-rated "gritty plumbing simulator" pitch. Before any of that, the trio (Mike solo-hosting the open before Sonny and JVL join) burns through a long stretch of banter: JVL's AI-assisted, decision-paralysis-driven quest for the perfect pinball tool bag (with Sonny comparing Claude's reassurance to a waiter saying "excellent choice") and his new "pinball friend" Jeff; Sonny's possible gig as a Dallas International Film Festival juror and his camping-trip tent anxieties (complete with JVL's expert vestibule and rain-fly advice); and Mike's Asheville, North Carolina spring-break trip, highlighted by his toddler's twin hyperfixations on a basement air hockey table and a small-town caboose, culminating in a fierce "that's my caboose" standoff with another kid. They also dig into the box office (Mario Galaxy's huge but slightly-below-predecessor $191M five-day opening, and a skeptical read on Zendaya's "stardom" given The Drama's modest $14.3M debut) before wrapping with some Super Mario Bros. 2/3 video-game trivia.
From the show notes
Pictured: Biblically accurate Yoshi.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00I didn't even know it was a game. It was my kids that told me. They said, what's your next film? I said, I'm doing Super Mario Brothers. Oh, that's the game. Oh, what? Yeah, and this is you. And I saw this thing jumping up and down. I used to play King Ria.
Mike00:00:26Welcome to the Sub-Beacon podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me for the first time, all three of us together for I don't know when it's been last. Joining me are my two co-hosts, my favorite two plumber brothers, Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon dot com. Tell your friends and family to listen to the show on Sub-Beacon dot com. Every Friday episode. From us and from the three of us, perhaps every once in a while, we are going to be talking about. Well, we're going to be talking about Super Mario Galaxy and the whole franchise of Super Mario movies later on in the show. But first, guys, I was gone last week. I got it. I got it. I mean, I did listen to the show, but I got to I still got to catch up here. What's going on with you two? Who wants to who wants to go first?
JVL00:01:26I found something that A.I. is good at. Oh, I did. So I don't know about you boys, but I will sometimes find myself in a state of consumption paralysis where I need a thing and that thing. So I begin researching the thing. And what I find is that, like, the differences in quality from. The various options of the thing are fairly minute, but there are infinite choices like there aren't. It's not like, you know, there's one, two or three options. There's literally one hundred fifty options. Sure. And the truth is that, like, I just part of me has the design like I want the thing that's the best designed of these things and the best made of that. But I and you just get like, ah, right. The gears all bind up.
Mike00:02:21There's a value in just making a choice and having the ability to make that choice. Without the paralysis.
JVL00:02:28So I'll be specific. I'll be specific here. I need a tool bag, an open top tool bag to store all of the many pinball specific tools that I am acquiring. Sure. Really love a common problem.
Sonny00:02:44It's a common problem. You know, it's number one. Google search, you sort of bag pinball, pinball, part bag. That's number one.
Mike00:02:52I was going to say, I'm imagining you Amazon searching for pinball. Machine tool bag and seeing 150 options. It's just so many of them.
JVL00:03:02Anyway, the point is I found myself paralyzed by this because the answer is let's pretend there is a theoretical best tool bag. How much better is it than the 50th best tool bag? Truly right now, it may be quite a lot better than the 150th best tool bag. And what is it? And so I've just frozen. And so I went and I used Claude for this. And the genius of first of all, Claude was, I would say, almost as useful as Wirecutter in terms of like narrowing things down. But AIs do have a well-documented tendency to tell you what you want to hear. Sure. And so what I really need in a situation like just pick a tool bag for me is I need some force. In the universe to say to me, that choice that you're about to make, that's a good one. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Yeah. And so the AI very quickly reinforced the, well, should I get that with a, yep, that's the one to get. At which point I was able to like, great, click, done. Boom. Checked it off my list. Boom, sorted. I've done the thing I needed to do because the AI, A, helped me find a couple possibilities and then honed in on just reassuring me that what I was doing was okay. And it's so low stakes that it's a great, hey, we found a use case for it, guys.
Mike00:04:33JVL, JVL, you do realize that like you are inserting a step into, you've already told the thing what you want, what you really want it to tell you. You can just tell yourself.
Sonny00:04:46No, no, no, no, no, no.
Mike00:04:48No, it did go and find a bunch of things for me. Well, I understand that. But once you, once, okay, well, Sonny, you, you, you disagree with this, with my. No, no.
Sonny00:04:56I understand. I understand exactly where JVL is coming from. He needs an external voice. I mean, this is like the whole basis of, amongst other things, religion is he needs an, he knows what is right and he knows what is wrong. He needs an external voice telling him these things. And that is like, that's a totally human need.
JVL00:05:14The problem is like, again, there are 150 tool bags on Amazon.com. And if you go to Home Depot, there are like 750 of them. And do I, do I know? Do I need the Veto, like the Cadillac one? Or could I make do with the Milwaukee? Or maybe I should have the Klein Tools one. And they're all like, there are minute differences between them. And well, how many organizational pockets do I need? Is 40 enough? Is 25 enough? What if the rubber bottom isn't fully insulated? But what is it? If I go to a job site, what about my risks to the tool? But JVL, JVL, JVL.
Mike00:05:56What is the effective difference between that and you seeing a list of, let's narrow it down. Maybe Claude has narrowed it down to 10. What was, whatever that number was.
JVL00:06:08Yeah. Claude was able to narrow it down to like five.
Mike00:06:11And you like, close your eyes, point to your screen and wherever your finger is closest to, that's the one you get. That's essentially what you've asked, you then asked Claude to do. Yes. Correct?
JVL00:06:23Yes. So Claude does both steps. It narrows it down for me. And then when I've done that thing where I basically pick on it, Claude goes, yep, that's right. Good deal. You made the right, you made the wise choice.
Sonny00:06:37Well, all right. So what is it? Very wise.
JVL00:06:39And so, because what I need to know, I need to know that I'm not picking the third best bag. Sure. And I'm saying like, I need to know that I need to feel like I am picking the best tool bag.
Sonny00:06:49This is, no, I'm sorry. I have a better, I have a better metaphor. This is like when you go to a restaurant, you go to a restaurant. Yes. It's when you go to, you go to a restaurant. Yes. Excellent choice, Monsieur. You go to a restaurant and you look at the menu, which is already a limited number of options. And you know what, you've chosen to go to say an Italian restaurant because you want Italian food. And so you have a menu and it's got a number of options there and you pick one and the waiter says, excellent choice.
JVL00:07:13That's exactly what it is.
Sonny00:07:14Or, or you get, you get the, that's what I get every time I eat. You know, you get, you get one of those and that's what, that's what it's doing.
Mike00:07:22What do you prefer? Do you prefer mushrooms or do you prefer ramps? Oh, well, if you're a big, big mushroom person, I would get this one. Yeah, that's exactly, that's exactly what I would prefer.
JVL00:07:32Is it worth destroying the entire middle-class economy in order to have this thing? Probably not. But I, I just thought that for the purposes of fairness, we should find one upside for artificial intelligence.
Sonny00:07:47So what is, so what is, what is the benefit of doing this over? Well, I mean, I understand. Okay. I understand that. But in terms of the narrowing, in terms of the narrowing, what's the. Is it, is it better than going to Wirecutter? Because while we were talking right now, I just typed in Wirecutter tool bags and it took me to a page that it's, that it said the best toolbox is the Crescent CTB17509.
JVL00:08:10I looked at the Crescent.
Sonny00:08:11That's, and I'd be like, fine, that's what I'm getting. That's it. That's, that's what I want.
JVL00:08:14But there's the upgrade pic next to it. Well, there is an upgrade. Go ahead and scroll to the side and look at the upgrade, Rick. What is the Voto? Yeah, but. Voto. Yeah.
Sonny00:08:21Yeah. The Vito Pro Pack XL Extra Large Comp. The, the XL Extra Large Comp. compact tool bag. That's a nonsense. That's a nonsense string of words. I mean, the Vito stuff
JVL00:08:32is really so good. And, uh, you know, I did look at the Crescent, but, uh, and then once you're looking at them, you see all the other recommendations Amazon is making and you're like, but wait a minute, do I need the upgrade thing? I should upgrade. I upgraded my pinball machine. Shouldn't upgrade my tool, but anyway, whatever. It's fine. How are you? Speaking of
Sonny00:08:51tool bags, Sonny, what's going on? I have, I'm not done with the tool bag conversation. All right.
JVL00:08:56I have a secondary question. I got my Allen Edmonds today, Sonny. Oh, did you? Well, I thought that's
Sonny00:09:01what you were going to talk about. I thought we were going to talk about your shoes. How do you like them? I haven't tried them on yet. Oh, okay. Well, I'm excited to hear about that. Um, uh, the, the, the tool bag question I have, it's a very, I'm like being 100% serious. So you're keeping, you're keeping spare parts and tools for your pinball machines. What is the benefit to having a specific bag as opposed to just like a cardboard box with all of these things under the bottom of one of the machines? Oh, here we go. We're getting a visual.
JVL00:09:37I have all these things in a plastic box underneath the machine and it's fucking impossible to get to anything. Everything is a jumble and I need, there's so many like driver drivers and different sizes and you're like, well, little bits that you want to, yeah,
Mike00:09:54you want to keep your bits in one place. Oh my God. I get it. It is, it is maddening.
Sonny00:10:01But it's, that suggests to me that you don't actually want a tool bag. You want one of those, like you want like a, uh, like, I don't know how to describe it. I know what you're saying,
JVL00:10:10an organizational. Yeah. It's like a little, like a little drawer. Like, you know, you know,
Sonny00:10:14like the thumb, what are they called? The thumb guard, the little things that you put up on the walls and you put little knickknacks in them. Peg boards. Yeah. Sure. But I'm not doing that in my
JVL00:10:24office and a tool bag will have, it has all these little compartments that you stick them in upright around as you go. So I'm not taking up wall space with this. I will still be able to shove it under the pinball machine. It's not all that big. It's portable. So if I need to like go work on a friend's pinball machine, cause I, I have made a pinball friend. You got a pinball friend.
Sonny00:10:46I discovered that a friend. Did you find somebody on pin someone on pinballs only.com?
JVL00:10:50This is the father of one of my children's friends. And, uh, it is, it is favorites, one of favorites friends. And she was like, Hey, my friend, a her, her dad owns three pinball machines. And the two of them are going up to Connecticut to buy a fourth this weekend. They play pinball together all the time. She and her dad and they're super into it. And I texted this guy, Jeff, who I've known for three years at this point. And I was like, are we going to be pinball buddies? Like pinball pals, pinball pals, pinball. All right. So anyway, so you boys, I've talked enough. It's sunny. It's 11 minutes. You guys tell me what's going on. Um, there is not much
Sonny00:11:36going on in my world. Uh, some, some big personal and professional news though. I do, I do have one, one thing. Uh, I have been, I, I don't know that this, I actually have, I probably shouldn't say this already. Cause I don't know if it's actually been, but I was, I was asked to be, a juror on the Dallas international film festival guys. I'm going to be, I'm going to be judging. I'm going to be ruining live. No, I, I, I, it's not a hundred percent clear to me. Um, first off that I will actually be doing this, but I, but that, that should be, that's kind of exciting. That's an exciting, fun thing. The diff, the diff, the Dallas international film festival. There's all sorts of fun things. La Bamba himself will be there.
JVL00:12:19This, uh, this year different. If you were asked to be, to judge at a DILF contest, different, different kind of diff one, one, I'm sure you would prefer,
Sonny00:12:30you would perform, uh, valiantly different, different kind of contest. No, uh, I, uh, I was, I was just going to say that I, um, well, I, I, I have a thing to talk about here, but I think I'll save it for, for the, for the, the, uh, the super Mario brothers portion of the show. Um, because it, it is kind of, it's related to that more than anything else. Um, I don't know. That's, that's about it on my end. I, I don't have a lot going on. Then you got, then you guys want to hear payola fingers crossed. I'm not saying I'm not above taking a bribe. There'll be gift bags for the judges. No, I don't think so. But I do get, I think I get free passes to the festival. That's I get like the good passes, not like the, you know, not like the passes. I get like the,
Mike00:13:14I get like hold that lanyard up there and say, uh, excuse me. No, no, I was like the one,
Sonny00:13:19the one, uh, the one other thing we have going on, uh, this, we are going camping with Boy Scouts camp out again. And I have, I have finally, I finally went and bought a four person tent because I, before I remember we had the two person tent and it, it fits. It's very tight, very tight. So it's no, it's no good. So we got, we got a four person tent. I'm a little bit worried about it. I'm a little bit worried about it because it, it could be raining this weekend and it could be raining quite a bit. And the tent I got is, it has like a rain cover, but it is, uh, it is like kind of a mesh design. So it's called a fly. Yeah. What's that? It's got a rain. I assume it's a rain fly. Correct. Right. Right. It's got a rain fly on it. Um, but it, the, but like the top is like kind of mesh. You're supposed to be, so you can see the star, you know, whatever. Anyway, uh, I'm, I will see, we'll see how it goes. But the rain fly covers that. Yes. But this, this assumes that I get it installed correctly. And the other, the other, so the reason I got this tent specifically was because it was, it was like on clearance at REI. It's REI four person, um, tent, but it like it, the, the, one of the notes from the customers was the, uh, the, it's got like a, it's got like a, you know, side window mesh, but it doesn't like zip up. It kind of like closes with tabs and they say it's not, you know, necessarily. So I'm like, I'm a little worried about that. Well, I'll report back next week.
JVL00:14:45So what they're talking about is the covering on the side window mesh. The side window mesh will be welded into the overall tent. Oh, I see. That's the thing you gotta, you gotta think about Sonny. Excuse me. I know a little bit about this stuff. Gotta make sure this tent has a vestibule because, and so the vestibule is when you are putting up the rain fly, it should sort of extend out by the doors of the tent. Yes. And the idea is then when you let the children into the tent, they hunch down into the vestibule they open up the door to the tent and then they flop ass down into the tent, but they leave their feet outside and take their shoes off outside and leave them outside. Yeah, I know. What you don't want is bringing wet shoes in the tent.
Sonny00:15:40No, we've, we've, we had this conversation last time. It was a hit and miss, it's hit
JVL00:15:45and miss. If you have a, uh, just a spare doormat, bring that with you and you can leave it in the vestibule. Again, it'll elevate the shoes up off the ground a little bit and keep them a little more dry for, uh, when they got to put them back on.
Sonny00:16:00Yeah. All right. Anyway, that's, uh, that's what I'm looking forward to this weekend. More camping. I love it. I love it. We go camping. It's my favorite thing.
Mike00:16:07That's great. Camping is great. Uh, connects you with the outdoors. Uh, so, uh, should I, should I talk about my, uh, my, my spring break? Um, the reason I was, uh, it was fine. It was fine. We, uh, we, we went down to Asheville, North Carolina and I have to say, speaking of the pinball talk, um, JVL, we missed the opportunity to go to the pinball museum in Asheville, which there is a pinball museum, but the one, the day that we, I sort of had my boys, um, just, just me and the boys, uh, was, uh, the one day of, out of the week that the pinball museum is closed. So we did not, um, yeah, exactly. But it was very nice. We, we, there was, it was a cabin. We were there with my in-laws. And my brother-in-law and his wife and their new baby. So my boys got to meet their little cousin and, uh, you know, we, we, was this first time for you? Yeah. You, you mean meeting the cousin? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, it was our first time, uh, all, all of us meeting the, meeting the cousin. So it was great. It was, uh, it was fun. And I think they all enjoyed it and that we're celebrating some milestone birthdays and that's it. Um, but, uh, we went out of Asheville, um, maybe about, uh, 20 minutes, uh, east of, east of Asheville and a little town called black mountain, which is a very nice town and kind of a hippie, uh, uh, sort of mountain town. Um, and it was great. My, uh, my wife and her parents, they went to the Biltmore, did that whole tour. I took the boys and did like a, we went to this like game ranch thing. They called it a nature center, but it's a game ranch. Uh, and they've just got like a couple of black bears in a, in a pen. They've got some Bobcats, they've got some, uh, river otters. And so you get to walk around and see all the kids like that. Um, the, it's funny when you're traveling, you know, when you're traveling with like the older kids, 11 and eight or my older boys, you know, um, you know, there are things that they can occupy themselves with and things they like and don't like. They really like the hike that we took to see, uh, some really cool waterfall. Um, they enjoyed that. They enjoyed, you know, uh, uh, certain games, board games that, that the grandparents brought and they're playing. Um, but the three-year-old, you know, you're always dealing with this in general with a three-year-old, right? There's like a fixation, hyper fixation that toddlers like make, and then like, that's their personality for like the next week or whatever. Um, and that experience is heightened when you're on vacation. I find, um, and so my three-year-old had two hyper fixations, uh, like literally if I brought him in here right now and had you guys ask him, what did you like about the cabin? Like he would mention these two things and nothing else. Uh, so the first was that there was air hockey at the, at the cabin and in the basement, that was like a huge deal. And like, like his, you can't, you can't see it. You guys can see it as like my, you know, his eyes barely saw over the, the edge of the air hockey table, but he loved it. It was like air hockey. It was like,
Sonny00:19:17Is it like, is it like a good sturdy air hockey table or like a flimsy home one? It was a
Mike00:19:22sturdy air hockey table, but it was old and worn and it was in a rental cabin. So it wasn't like in the best, in the best shape. But, uh, you know, there was like a little switch, um, you know, kind of a, a, a rolly, uh, on switch, like you would have on a light, uh, that you could turn it on with. So like he was just constantly like turning it on, begging people to play air hockey with him. Um, and the other obsession, which I could not have predicted necessarily. So in the little town that we went to, um, you know, there's a, an old railroad station that is now some art gallery or whatever. You just like walk around. It's not very big. This town in next to the railroad station is an old caboose and you can, there's like a deck that they've built around where the caboose is. So you could like walk up the deck and kind of walk on to either end of this caboose, but like the door is locked. You can't go inside. It's not like very well maintained or anything. It's just, there is like, here's a little, here's a little caboose at this old re uh, railroad station. And like that caboose was, it was like, uh, it was like space mountain and um, uh, I don't know the sphere in Las Vegas and Mount Rushmore, uh, and, and every like in the Eiffel tower all rolled into one for him, he was like, this was the greatest thing he had ever come across. And all he wanted to do for the three days that we were there was go to the caboose. Like, like every time we mentioned, uh, we're gonna go into town and, and pick up some, something, I don't know, some groceries into town, whatever it was like going into town. Can we go to the caboose? Can we go to the caboose? Like, no, we're not, we're, we're not go. We, we did end up going to the caboose, like at least one or two more times. And it was like the break wheel could like turn, you know, like you could turn the break wheel. You know, it didn't do anything, but in his mind it was like, I mean, he's, he is obsessed with trains and he's sort of like in that moment where, but like, it's like this tangible thing that he could control. It was like, I must, I must take every opportunity to be on this freaking caboose. And like, and then he got to the boy where he's like demanding that other people sort of like do like, okay, I'm driving this thing. So you need to go on the other side of the caboose and stand there. And if you come over here, no, no, you've got to go back. Uh, so, so that was like fine. You know, everybody indulges the, the, the, the baby child of the family and stuff. The, the absolute best moment, however, was it's like my other sons had gone with their mom to some store and my in-laws were like tired and sitting on a bench or whatever. And so it was just me, uh, with, uh, with the toddler and the, and the giant caboose and this other toddler and his mom and grandmom like walk on to the deck. Again, it's like in this little downtown area and the look of pure fury. On my son's face. When this kid's just like that, my, my caboose, he like walking around licking at it. All of a sudden it's snow piercer, 100%, 100%. And like, I have never seen this look from him before, but like he, like he stopped what he was doing. He stopped whatever imaginative play he was doing and like craned his neck and just daggers at this kid for the four minutes that he and his family were just kind of like tootling around. On the deck or whatever. Like, like you better like saying, better not touch my fucking caboose.
Sonny00:22:58I have a question. I have a question. Was he mad that this interloper child was not playing with the caboose correctly, that he was just sauntering about as if it wasn't in motion?
Mike00:23:11It, it, it, it was a, it was a possession thing. It was, yes, it was like, uh,
JVL00:23:16this is mine. How dare you? Not just, not just, I'm the sheriff of this town, motherfucker.
Mike00:23:22It was, it was like, maybe it was like a little bit of both. It was like, he had a very clear idea of what he was doing, what play he was engaged in. And that's where all the like very specific directions to the brothers and all that, like, that's where that was covered. Like, no, you do this, you do this. You don't come out from there until, you know, and then all of a sudden, as you say, Sonny, there's this interloper who like, he doesn't know he's been bossing around his older brothers for his entire life. Like, like all of a sudden there's this other kid. And he looks like he's encroaching on, on, on, uh, on the caboose. So, uh, but you know, who, you know, who, you know, who left first, the other kid, he's he, he sensed, he sensed there was, uh, he knew he was in danger. That's right. He, he knew his caboose. That was anyway. So that was, that was our, that was our week. It was very nice. It was very fun. We ended up, uh, my wife and I ended up going twice. We had a, a nice date out. And, uh, then we did like a, like a day date, like a couple hours where we just like drove and climbed to the top of this mountain. Um, and it was,
JVL00:24:27it was terrific. So, um, that's, yeah, that's what I was doing while you guys were nephew
Mike00:24:32or niece, uh, nephew, nephew. So congratulations. Mazel tov. Thank you. That's wonderful. Yeah.
JVL00:24:38Uh, this is one of your, your brothers or no, this is my, this is my brother. This was,
Mike00:24:42uh, Melissa's brothers. Uh, fantastic. Yeah. It's great. Uh, anyway, shall we move on?
JVL00:24:48And yeah, we got a great movie to talk about. Well, no, we got.
Mike00:24:52Let's talk about the box office, which our movie is of course at the top of this past weekend. So box office, uh, number one purposely did not look it's number one so that you could surprise me with the number. It's number one. Uh, it's, this is its first week at the, and, and this was a, because I guess it had a four day, uh, weekend kind of thing. Is that the story?
Sonny00:25:16Cause Easter, the Easter weekend is sometimes. So it released on a Wednesday. That's right. That's
Mike00:25:22right. It released on a Wednesday. Um, it is number one at the box office. It's total gross. Now again, with this weird thing is, um, nearly $191 million. That's over. That's just over the five day over the five days. Yeah. 131 over like the actual third through fifth week, the Friday through Sunday. Right. Um, yeah. So already, uh, gaining and, uh, nearing, surpassing the number two on that list project hail Mary, which is in its third week or now in theaters. Um, and, uh, and then number three, the drama, um, uh, rounding out in its first week at a 24 film, uh, far, far below, but this super Mario galaxy movie, correct me if I'm wrong, Sonny, this is what, uh, the industry and insiders might call a, uh, a juggernaut, a, uh, a block
Sonny00:26:20buster. It's a pretty big hit. It's a pretty big hit.
JVL00:26:22Sonny, how does it compare to the first one? Could you walk us through that? Cause I remember it opened huge, but I don't remember how big, uh, it, it is. Well, so this is what I was going
Sonny00:26:31to say is that it's, it's actually opening slightly below, um, slightly below the first one. So the first one opened to, well, let's see, what did that 131 70? No, but that's over. Remember that's over like three day. Uh, uh, let's see, hold on. Let me pull up the actual daily number here. The, the daily number, um, after, uh, that was one 46, five days was blah, blah, blah. God damn it. Hold on.
Mike00:27:02That's not what I want. No, I've, I've, I've got it. I've got it up here. Um, the three day opening for super Mario brothers movie in 2023 was one $46.4 million. The domestic opening for five days, $204.6 million. So that's a number I was looking for 204.6. So this is 14
Sonny00:27:22that basically I'm a little bit surprised. I honestly thought it might open bigger. I thought it might, I thought it might be even bigger than it was. Um, 190 million is obviously a very good number. And, uh, one way you can tell that this is a very good number is if you look at the yearly, I mentioned this a little bit last week, but if you look at the year to date, uh, on the box office, uh, we are 22%, uh, uh, ahead of last year. And we are, uh, I believe half a percent ahead of, yeah, half a percent ahead of 2023, which is the previous high watermark, um, for, uh, post pandemic box office. 2023 was kind of the, the peak. Um, and you know, the, the reason, uh, the reason for that or the manifold one at one is, uh, the success of project Hail Mary, which was a big hit. And, um, another is there was another scream movie this year, which was 2023 was the last time for that. But this is, this is an other reason why the, the box office is running ahead. There's, there's just, uh, some been some big ones. Um, I'm, I, again, I'm, I, I thought it might do a little better than this. Uh, I'm curious to see what the holds are. I have not seen it. We'll discuss this in a minute. I've not seen it. So I don't know if it's as good as the first one, which was one of the great films of all time. You know, 2023 was a year with some good movies, Barbie, uh, that was a, that was a very good year, but, uh, I, I, there are a few that I remember more clearly than super Mario brothers movie. That was,
JVL00:28:52the third installment of this is going to open far below.
Sonny00:28:58Cause this was, this was so bad. I think that's entirely possible. As we all know,
JVL00:29:01movies are punished for they, they better wait like seven years before they go back to this. Well,
Sonny00:29:08we'll get, we'll get to all this in a minute. Cause again, I've not seen it. I'm, I'm, I'm curious to get your guys take, um, I watched a different Mario brothers production. Um, but the, um, but the, the, the other really interesting thing at the box office this weekend is, uh, the performance of the drama. So the drama is, uh, the drama did about 15 million. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, um, the drama did about $15 million stars in Daya and Robert Pattinson. And I am, uh, 14.3 million. I am kind of, I'm, I'm interested in the reaction to this movie's office because before it came out, I said to a friend, a friend, a friend was saying, Hey, you know, this, uh, this, this movie, the drama is going to be a real test of, of Zendaya stardom. And I said, no, it's not. He was like, what do you mean? Like it, I'll tell you exactly what this movie is. This movie is an a 24 romantic comedy drama. It's going to open to $15 million. It's going to top out at $40 million domestic. That's what, that's what these movies do is Zendaya is neither here nor there. She like, this is not, this is, and he was like, ah, maybe. And then it opens to 14.4 million and it will probably I would guess probably gets to 35, $40 million domestic. And that's, that's just what these movies do. Um, people are acting like this. It's, it's a big hit. I think Matt Bellany said something like, you know, if any other actresses in this, it opens to $7 million. I'm like, okay, maybe Zendaya is worth $7 million on opening weekend, but that's not like, that's not, that's not really stardom. I like it. It just, that's not, I,
JVL00:30:52I don't know. It's also, I don't know. Sydney Sweeney probably opens it at 14 million.
Sonny00:30:59Probably maybe. I mean, I don't know. I like Amanda's safety probably opens it at 14 million.
JVL00:31:03I mean, I can think of actually a handful of, yeah, I think I, I don't think 14 million,
Sonny00:31:0914 million is not a big enough number to be like, she is obviously. And so like there's this real desperate desire to create another round of stars and I get it. Timothy Chalamet, I think the only one who actually counts in this regard. Zendaya in the right movie. She's a great additive to a big franchise movie. Sydney Sweeney in the right movie, right? She's good in the kind of crazy woman rom-com or romantic, romantic drama, you know, whatever genre. But I like,
JVL00:31:45I don't know. We really need our TikTok influencers in these roles. That's how you sell tickets. Outside the box. When will Hollywood learn, you know, put Mr. Beast as the leading man in a, in a Mark Rober. My kids would love Mark Rober. Watch the tickets fly off the shelves.
Sonny00:32:06Mark Rober's, Mark Rober's cinematic adventure would gross a billion dollars up to my kids. Yes. 100%. They love, they, I like Mark Rober. I, I, I have, I had no idea who this person was and they started watching it because he's on. That he's on Netflix. He's a YouTube guy, I guess, but he's on Netflix and like the videos are fun. I, I, like, I don't, I don't mind them watching it. It's better than Mr. Beast by way better than Mr. Light years. It's like, it's, it's like engineering and,
Mike00:32:35and, and, uh, uh, what, what's the show? Uh, myth busters. It's like kind of myth busters
Sonny00:32:40and yeah, it's like what the discovery channel kind of used to be 100%. And I'm like, I'm fine with them watching that. That's, that's fine. That's, that's an okay thing to watch, but, uh, my God, they love it. They're obsessed with it. That world feeder one. Oh my God. Those are the best squirrels are squirrels are little devils. So he's got some help there. Anyway, like I said, I have, so I have not actually watched the, uh, I've actually not watched the super Mario galaxy movie. I watched a different super Mario production, which I'll discuss in a second,
Mike00:33:15but I am curious to get your guys take on it. Should we do, should I give a, um, a big boy review? Super mar the super Mario galaxy movie, right? Yeah. The super Mario galaxy movie. The whole gang is back in this time. No, they're not the well, okay. Well, we'll get it. Um, the main gang is back. Uh, this time the, the princess, the princess who is in trouble is not princess peach, but princess Rosalina, uh, the, who has adopted these little star creatures called Lumos. Is kidnapped in the opening of the film. And one of her little star creatures makes it to the mushroom kingdom to, uh, alert princess peach, uh, that, uh, their mother is in need of saving. And so they go on an adventure with peach and toad and Mario Luigi, and there's Yoshi now. Yoshi's a part of the gang and then, and they Oh, but wait a second. The bad guy is a Bowser because Bowser is tiny and he's been, he's been imprisoned in a tiny little toy castle in the mushroom kingdom, uh, castle. And it is not Bowser, but Bowser's estranged son, Bowser jr. Who was kidnapped princess Rosalina and maybe Bowser is going to hook up with his son. If he can escape. Or maybe he's going to help super Mario and his friends. Uh, and there's a whole bunch of stuff that happens. And Oh, also the mushroom kingdom castle is kidnapped too. And things happen and different planets and I there's other things. And there was stuff that my kids went, Oh, that's from super Mario odyssey. And then all kinds of stuff happens. And I don't know what happened in this movie. And I watched the whole thing. It is, this sounds great. It is perhaps the worst movie I have seen in a long time. I hated this movie to quote, uh, Roger Ebert. I hated it. It was terrible. The introduction of Yoshi is, I mean, like, I don't know where to start, but like the introduction of Yoshi is a perfect example of like how lazy and paint by numbers this movie was. So the big thing, the thing my kids were talking about, about why they were excited about going to see super Mario galaxy is because finally Yoshi was going to be in it. This was good. They were going to introduce Yoshi. How could you have a super Mario movie without Yoshi? And that was the only bad thing about the first ones. There were no Yoshi. And so Yoshi is introduced in this movie, uh, with a big buildup a big event, uh, where the Mario brothers go and, and save this town. Uh, and they go in and they discover Yoshi. And then we get a bunch of backstory about how Yoshi was born. And he was like born in Brooklyn and somehow ended up at a pipe, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then our
Sonny00:36:44characters flushed down the toilet. I don't even know. Is he like a, is he like an alligator?
Mike00:36:48I don't know. And no, and the sewers, I don't know. And importantly, the characters in the movie don't know, like we get all this backstory. And then the joke of it is that Mario is like, oh, I guess we'll never know where he came from. And then literally he is just a part of the crew. Like there is no art for Yoshi. There is nothing they do with it. It's literally like they've inserted Yoshi got through the, how did he get here in as little time and effort as possible? And then he's just, and they actually point, they have, they have the toad character, go, wait a second. Well, why is Yoshi all of a sudden part of the crew? And then they never do anything with that ever again. So it is so, it is extremely lazy is extremely boring. I have lots of issues with the way. And I, so all of us just say, I have a theory about why this movie sucks beyond the, like, well, we can just make it as, as lazily as possible. And it will still make a shit ton of money. It's because actually in the grand scheme of things, none of these Mario characters in the Mario universe, um, are interesting. They don't actually make for a good movie because you don't care about the story of Mario or Luigi or the princess or toad or Yoshi or Bowser or Bowser jr. Or who the, cause Rosalina, I don't even know who that is. Um, like nobody cares because that's not why people play the games. That's not why, that's not why these characters have endured for, as long as they have is nothing to do with these stories or whatever. Like we just want to make Mario jump and hit the thing and make bigger and become a fires, the throwing thing, and maybe a frog and all this stuff. Like it's, this is just garbage IP as far as like storytelling goes. Uh, I hated it. I nearly fell asleep twice while watching this in a theater with, um, eight children. It was, there was two grownups and, uh, six fifth graders and two second graders. And, uh, uh, of course the, what did my second grader say? The moment it ended, he turned to me and he goes, that was awesome. That was great. So there's no accounting for taste. Uh, JVL, what did you think of supermarket galaxy?
JVL00:39:10Yeah, I don't think you've gone far enough. I know. Well, I, I knew I was, I was saving it for you. I, uh, I, I do want to say one thing. This feels like a statement. Change in animation skill. So from a pure sort of design perspective, the first, the first Mario animated movie felt like very traditional, normal animation, the way you would get in a minions movie or a Pixar movie. This, there is such heavy use of textures that it felt more like stop motion come to life. Like it felt like you were watching 3d created puppets that were moving in real space and being filmed. I mean, everything looked, when I say things looked real, I don't mean that they looked like actual people or anything like that. What I mean is they looked physically embodied. They looked practical almost. And I, I was very impressed by that. It, it is not often that I see a movie and feel as though the filmmakers have contempt for the audience, but that's what I felt here. So I, I did not like the first Mario movie. I really disliked it. I just liked it quite a lot. We did a show on it. You can go back so much worse because the first one at least tried to do a couple things. Um, for instance, as bad as the first one was, there were attempts at slapstick comedy in it. So you had the early scene in the bathroom, which sort of plays like a Buster Keaton comedy of errors and like, well, now the water's springing out of here and then the water and then the dogs coming and it wasn't like especially skillful. And it didn't really succeed as slapstick, but it was an attempt to, to tell a cinematic kind of humor that we understand what that is.
Mike00:41:30And it worked on the kids, but it may not have worked for you. It did work on the kids.
JVL00:41:33The kids love that. See, uh, there was an attempt at slapstick humor when Mario and donkey Kong fought and there was attempted sort of wordplay humor with donkey Kong's dad whose name I'm forgetting. Um, This movie had none of that. Like just a thing happens and then we cut into some other place and another thing happens and then another thing happens. It is like a, the baton death march, nobody participating in it is attempting. They're not attempting. I saw it in a very, very full theater of kids. I don't think I heard a single chuckle. Like it just a thing happens. There was a little bit in the beginning of it. There was a lot of like, oh, I remember that thing from the, oh, there's the terrace galaxy. I know the terrace galaxy. There's a, oh, that's from super Mario wonder, right? Or that's from super Mario odyssey. That's the, the room. That's the library room with the map, the globe that fills up when you're using cap.
Mike00:42:41Those are the little sombrero guys at the beginning, you know? And, uh, and even that
JVL00:42:45was gone by about halfway through. And by the time we're racing through this casino with like a minor villain from paper Mario, like it's just, and I can't understand how something like this gets put out in this way, because there is no evidence at any level other than the texturing of the, the animation design that anybody there has anything but utter contempt or feels like this movie needs to do anything other than exist.
Mike00:43:21Totally. In order to succeed. 100%.
JVL00:43:24That you said it exists, it will con it will succeed. And otherwise just like, it's the most cynical thing I've ever seen a thousand percent.
Mike00:43:33Uh, here's another, okay. You, you pointed out the lack of slapstick. Here's another thing I noticed missing from this one that was in the first one. Um, for the next six months after the, uh, first super Mario movie was released, maybe nine months, um, all you would have to do is go into a room. Elementary school kids and say the word peaches mm-hmm and the entire room would burst into the peaches. So peaches, peaches, peaches, peaches, peaches. There is nothing, not only nothing like peaches as a song or, or a, or a scene or whatever in this movie. There's no attempt. No. To have anything sticky like that.
Sonny00:44:13Well, this is, I just thought, so this is why, well, this is what I wanted to ask you guys because I asked Mike, I asked my kid, my kids both saw it, my kids saw it separately that one, one went with one. Like what? My son went with his class. They had like a class trip to see it. My daughter saw it with one of her friends and I was like, this kind of gets me out of having to see it. I don't think I have to see it now. Uh, and so even though I knew we were doing this show, I had an, again, I had another plan for this show. Um, but the, but the, uh, but I asked them afterward, I was like, so what's the like peaches from, from this one? And they both looked at me with a blank look on their face. Like, what do you mean? I was like, you know, like a song, like something that, that is. You know, kind of, I, I don't think I use the word viral, but I was like, you know, something, something viral that the kids like, and they're gonna be into, and they were like, what are you? No, there was nothing like that. And I was like, well, that's an enormous mistake that is somebody gets fucked up mistake, but,
Mike00:45:06but I think JVL is right. And it's like the, the, the, the thinking, if there was anything was like, fuck it.
JVL00:45:12We don't need to do that. We, let's just, we have a date. We have to hit the release date. Just get something on the page. That's that's what everything here feels like. And I, so, uh, I was there at a one 30 show with G money. I also struggled to stay awake. I noticed that after about minute 45 G money had stopped going from dad, dad, that's the thing from dad, dad, that's the two literally checking his watch every five minutes.
Sonny00:45:46Oh man, that's bad.
JVL00:45:48Every five minutes he's looking at his watch. The movie was over. He's like, that was great. Wasn't it? I was like, yeah, that was a lot of fun. And he has never spoken of it since.
Sonny00:45:56Yup.
JVL00:45:57Yup. Interesting. We have talked more about the teaser for Sonic four, which is the movie does not come out until, uh, 20, 27. We have done more conversation since the movie about that teaser trailer than about the movie
Mike00:46:15itself. So, so can I say that there, uh, one reason for that is that the second half of the movie does have more references for the, the grownups, for the people who know Nintendo pre we, I would say. So like, there is the robot, the robot, right?
Sonny00:46:34What about star Fox? Is it star Fox? Star Fox.
JVL00:46:37Star Fox is, uh, again, just a dog of a character.
Mike00:46:40It's awful. So to speak. Um, like, but there's this moment right where he's like, uh, where he says something like do a barrel roll. And I went, I felt myself doing it. And I was like, ah, I like pointed at the screen and I was like, no Leo point. Like totally. I was like, but I was like, I was like, oh, that's a reference that I understand. And like, I hate it. I hate that they made me just do that. Like, I, I, like it's in the, the Rob, the robot, right? The Rob thing was also, I was like, oh, and I was like, I was like trying to explain to my eight year old. I was like, that was a, the Rob was a thing, like, and then I was like, ah, fuck this. It's totally, it totally trades on the, the references for the kids to, for the references for the adults in the second half. And it's like, it's it, but it, it doesn't work for the adult. It's like, it's like, oh, that's a thing, but I can transparently see it's a member Barry.
JVL00:47:38You know, it's, it's, it's, but it doesn't, I, I don't think it does. I don't think it even trades on those things successfully. No, no, no, no, not enough of them. They're not high quality enough. Like it, I mean, you could see how, like there are bad movies. Like, uh, the, the ready player one, right? They're just every, every single, everything's a member, Barry. Everything is stuff. So it's so dense. Every frame is so densely packed, but for this, I mean, I'm sure that there are frames where if you freeze frame it and like, you could be like, oh, look in the back, that's an N 64 controller, you know, but, but actually they're, they're pretty few and far between. There aren't all that many of those. Uh, it is not rewarding to people. No, you're right. To sit there and like, look for things and Easter eggs that, I mean, it can I, can I
Mike00:48:31issue a couple of other complaints just sort of, uh, uh, dissociated from anything. Um, so Jack Black is tiny Jack, sorry, Bowser is tiny the whole time or sorry, about half the movie. Jack, uh, Bowser is tiny. So like the whole Jack Black voice thing, it like takes, cuz, cuz he's, they've, they've tinyed his voice as well. Yeah. And so like, you don't get like the whole appeal of Jack Black as Bowser is that he like does his Jack Black like roar kind of like big, loud, deep growling thing. And when half the movie, he's not doing that. And even when he is in that, in his normal voice and normal size, like the whole thing where it's like, he's like, uh, it's, it's like, he's gone to therapy sort of the joke of it is like, well, this is a waste of Jack Black. This is a waste of my time. So like even Chris Pratt's voice work feels like an insult in this. Well, okay. Well, here's my other thing. Uh, Chris Pratt's voice work, how many lines JVL do you think Mario actually says in this movie? Because like, as far as I could tell, like Mario was a side character even more. So I think I remember complaining on this show about the original of like, this is the mo the first movie really felt like a princess peach movie. This feels really like a princess peach movie and like Mario and particularly Luigi, like they, they spend.
JVL00:49:57Might as well not exist. It might as well not exist. There is no reason for in the first movie, at least they separate Luigi. So he has a, like, and there's really no reason for him to be there.
Mike00:50:05There's no reason. And in fact, that you visually see this, there's a, there's a joke that almost kind of works, but doesn't where Bowser Jr's, uh, security system is, you know, it's like, he's got like a screen for his security system and in the world of the movie. It's like a bridge that they have to cross and all these sort of things.
JVL00:50:24And it's. But on the screen, it's on the screen.
Mike00:50:26It's the two, it's the two, the original NES super Mario brothers movie. And who do they have on like who we get to watch? We get to watch the game. It's not Mario and Luigi, it's Mario and the princess, but like the princess is, is not a playable character in that. So the effect of it is like, in my mind, as a parent watching this, I'm like, well, that's not the, that's not the game. That's not the game. That's not how the game works. This is bullshit. But like it, it, it underscored, it was like, so what was the point of having Luigi in this? If like, this is an, and the whole, like, I don't care that princess spoiler alert princess Peach and princess Rosalina are sisters long lost sisters. Like I don't, I, I don't care.
JVL00:51:12I don't care. I, I, I have one creature design complaint, um, which is so Rosalina, the princess Rosalina character, anybody who's played any of the Super Mario games will know has in a very anime style. Her hair comes down and goes over half her face, kind of like violet from, uh, the Incredibles. Right. Yeah. I think so.
Sonny00:51:38Yeah.
?00:51:39Her sister violet.
JVL00:51:40I think so. This move, the creature design work on this goes out of its way to negate physics purely in the. In the service of keeping her with, and the, the effect, honestly, I found distracting because it makes her look like a Cyclops. Yeah. Like the fact that like the physics is working basically everywhere else and except that you can never see Rose, I mean, that's not true that you can never, there's one scene, I believe in which you get to see Rose, like her hair blows up and you see her face like
Mike00:52:15normal. Oh, I was, I was gonna say, maybe it's canon that she only has one eye and that's the, the hair is.
JVL00:52:20No, it's not. But it's, it's like a distract, again, it's just a distracting choice that somebody made that was like, no, we have to make sure we hold her face in the configuration that everybody knows from the games. That's right.
Mike00:52:34That's right.
JVL00:52:35I, I just, I'm sorry. I, I was insulted the, the move, the people making this movie wanted to insult me.
Mike00:52:43Yep.
JVL00:52:44And they succeeded. And I, I registered that. Yes. You. Chris Melandri. I hear what you're saying. Fuck you too.
Sonny00:52:52You know, this is, this is what's surprising about it because Chris Melandri or whatever his name is, is, um, it's actually not bad at this, like say what you will about the minions movies. Well, say what you will about the despicable me movies, um, and say what you will, even about some of the like kind of one-off non-franchise stuff like, uh, migration or whatever, they're not, they're not incompetently made movies. They aren't. They, you may not like them. You may not love them. They may not be to your taste, but they're not incompetently made movies. They tell a story, they, you, they have comic set pieces in them, et cetera. And so everything I've read about this makes it, makes it sound like they, like they made a movie and then threw it in the trash and made another movie in like six months. Like that's, that's what it sounds like.
Mike00:53:43That seems, I can see that a hundred percent. I can see like they made a movie and they collected the scraps. Of voice work that maybe had already been, uh, uh, laid down and just constructed it. Cuz there is no connective tissue between scenes. Like it is just boom, boom, boom, like it's, it is not feel crafted. It feels slapped together. Yeah. That, that makes sense.
Sonny00:54:07Yeah. Um, okay. Well, I, all right. So I did not see this. You did not. So I did not, I did not see this movie as I said, but I did watch a super Mario brothers movie. I watched the 1993 Bob Hoskins, Bob Hoskins, John.
JVL00:54:21Oh, super Mario brothers.
Sonny00:54:23Let me tell you, first of all, tracking this down, not easy in, in a, in a short amount of time. I could have ordered a DVD and it would have cost a sixth of what I paid for it. Uh, but, but the, uh, but the only way I could get it to my house before I needed it here. And I needed it here because I was interviewing Ed Solomon, uh, for my other podcast. Who is the, who's the, he wrote the new, uh, Steven Soderbergh movie. That's what we're talking about the Christopher's, but he also wrote the Billy. Bill and Ted movies. He wrote, um, uh, men in black men in black too. Uh, he's, he's written a bunch of stuff, but he wrote, he did the first draft of the, uh, of the super Mario brothers movie.
Mike00:55:03And he emphasizes the first draft or I'm sure when I, when I, well, I didn't, I, unfortunately
Sonny00:55:08we did not, we did not have enough time to really get into, uh, the, the vagaries of super Mario brothers. Um, but so I wanted to watch it. So I could interview him fully and with a full range of his work, uh, and to, to get a movie to my house the next day, which is when I needed it, I had to order a $60 out of region 4k. The only thing, the only thing that was going to get to my house. Now, thankfully I can write all this off on my taxes because we're discussing it here on the sub, the sub beacon.
Mike00:55:37It's one of my many, one of my, well, also I'm sure, I'm sure watching the movie was worth, it was worth all 60 of those.
Sonny00:55:43It's real work, but it's, it was fascinating to watch that film because it really, I want to, uh, so there, there were, I want, I want to, before we talk about Super Mario brothers, I want to talk about another movie that is out this week. It's called exit eight. It's a Japanese horror film. It's based on a video game. It's based on this indie video game, but the, the movie itself is this kind of minimalist, no exit sort of thing where a Japanese man is walking through a subway and he has to, he has to see what changes in the subway every time he goes through it eight times. So he can escape. It's basically a puzzle game. It's basically a puzzle game that they have, they have transformed into a film. And the reason the film works, and I think the film actually is really good, um, though, maybe that's only because I played a lot of video games of this sort. The reason it works is because it leans into the gameplay. It leans like the gameplay of the game is you walk through the subway station, you see what is different. And when you register the difference, you turn around and you walk the other way. And like, that's the game. That's just the game. It's very simple. It's very straightforward. The movie. It mimics that very well. The reason no Super Mario Brothers film has ever worked is because they all emphasize the wrong thing, which is that Mario is a plumber. Nobody cares that Mario is a plumber. Nobody cares that Mario is. So like this. So this is absolutely 100% true of the 1993 version of the film, which like starts very similarly to the cartoon, by the way. It's actually, it's, it's kind of wild, but the, the, the live action film is all about how Mario is a plumber and his plumbing business is failing and he and his brother Luigi need to get plumbing jobs. And if they don't get plumbing jobs, they're going to starve to death. And then they get sucked into a different world and blah, blah, blah. But when they get sucked into the different world, their plumbing skills have no use. It's not like they're going around fixing toilets in the toad kingdom, right? They're not, they're not going to Princess Peach's bathtub and making sure that the faucets are hot and cold, right? Like there's no plumbing in these movies. What is the game? The game is jumping up and down on top of things.
Mike00:57:56Jump man.
Sonny00:57:57That's it. You might call it. That's, that's the game. The game is. So like the problem with these films, the problem with all of these films, including the 1993 one, um, is that they, instead of being focused on the thing that is interesting to people who play the game, which again is just jumping up and down on top of things. It's it is all this stuff about fucking plumbing.
Mike00:58:21And, and, and, and, and Brooklyn and, and all of this stuff and be, oh yeah, oh fucking
Sonny00:58:26Brooklyn. Oh, we got the pizza here. We go. Oh, we go. Oh, scapelli's plumbing. They're going to take our jobs and it's like, and so, and so the, the 1993 movie is very funny because first of all, again, there's this obsession with plumbers, but also it's kind of like, it's kind of like, again, with the cartoons, Mario is almost a side character. The, the 1993 film, the main character is actually Luigi. Luigi is the one who falls in love with princess Daisy, not princess P princess Daisy. Um, sh he is the one who has to like grow and become more responsible. All of the character development is Luigi. Mario is just his older brother who runs the business and is already super responsible. And he's got a girlfriend who's like this Italian American Sopranos cast off, uh, like not, and not like, like more of a, not a Carmela, more of a, uh, Adriana, um, she's, uh, she's she's like real all women in this film, this 1993 film for children, by the way, are very buoyant. If you, if you catch my drift, that was just the age.
JVL00:59:33I mean, try, try hiring an actress at that band. It wasn't inflated.
Sonny00:59:37That was, that was the age. Um, but it's, uh, it is, uh, it's a really, it's again, it's just a fascinating thing where to the extent that I almost think that. The, the writers, I, my, you know, maybe, maybe that's all. Maybe the guys who came after thought that Luigi was the main character because I swear to God through the first two thirds of the film, Luigi is wearing red and Mario is wearing green in the film. And I was just watching it. I was like, this is backwards in every way. Did they not know? Did they, did they, did they, and then finally they put on the actual jumpsuits in the last like act and Mario's in his red suit. Anyway. Um. That, that's all fascinating. And again, the, the, there's some really interesting and good set design in this movie in the sense of like they built places, they spent a lot of money on this film. They built sets that are nothing like what is in the video games. It's like blade runner, but all of the storefronts are super Mario themed. So there's like a hammer. Brothers hardware store. And it's just like, oh, that's clever. That's good. And like, it's, I, I, I didn't even hate it. I didn't even hate it. It just isn't Mario. And I am it's, it's one of these movies I feel tempted to try to defend as like kind of, but it, it misunderstands everything about what the source they're adapting from. So thoroughly that I can't even do a semi ironic, like this is worth defending.
Mike01:01:19By the way, the art director on that movie. Yeah. On, on Super Mario brothers. Mm-hmm uh, also set designer for blade runner.
Sonny01:01:26Well, you can tell, you can tell because it is 100 it's I mean, I didn't even know that, but I, that 100% makes sense.
JVL01:01:33All right. Go ahead. J Vale. Sorry. I hear what you're saying. Okay.
?01:01:39But let me pitch this to you.
JVL01:01:40Okay. We need a dark and gritty reimagining of Super Mario brothers, which leans fully into plumbing and in fact is a plumbing story.
Sonny01:01:54Just a plumbing story. Where.
JVL01:01:56Just a plumbing simulator. The problem is so, uh, princess peach has a leak under the it's in the sewer line that runs under the foundation of the castle.
Sonny01:02:10That's the most terrifying thing anyone has ever said. Could you imagine how much that would cost to fix?
JVL01:02:14It's a horror movie. And so what they've really gotta do is first, they've gotta track down, well, wait a minute. We're looking at the water meter. Our usage is up 400% year over year. Some. We gotta leak somewhere. Something. First, they gotta trace. You know, we, first we gotta do dye tests on every toilet in the house and see if that's what's going on. Nope. Those next, we gotta go to the meter. Maybe the problem.
Mike01:02:36This is all in the second act. This is all in the second act.
JVL01:02:38Right? You go to the meter and the meter is like, no, the meter seems to be functioning well. That means we've got a leak somewhere in the system, Mario. What are we gonna do? We gotta trace that leak down. And so there's a two man team. The plumbers always do two man teams when they're doing leak tracing. Sure. Yeah. They are going through the castle track and they finally find it. And they wait, wait a minute. When they built this castle, somebody ran that pipe under the foundation. It's madness. How could they, nobody would run the, cuz then it's not accessible. There's no access panel to that. What are we gonna do? And then the rest of the movie, they're sitting around working up cost write-ups and they're trying to like, well, what, I mean, copper's really gone crazy because of the stuff happened in the middle east. What are we gonna? Are we gonna have to do a full re pipe on the whole house? What are you? What sort of tear down is this working in the entire thing leans and it's a, it's R rated because it's for middle aged men. Don't give this away.
Mike01:03:33Don't get the ending away.
Sonny01:03:34I mean, well, princess peach could just be the bada bing maybe, maybe, but it's a super
JVL01:03:43Mario brothers movie. That's all actually about leads totally into it.
Mike01:03:47I love it. I love it. JBL. That's I mean, it, it would. It would, uh, have more heart than, than super Mario galaxy movie.
Sonny01:03:54I'll tell you that. I like you, you guys think I'm joking. I like, maybe you don't think I'm doing, maybe you remember the 1993 Mario, but Fiona Shaw, you know, Fiona Shaw, yes, like an attractive, an attractive one. I would say like a normal, like not, not like a hot actress, but like an attractive woman is dressed like, uh, like she's dressed like an extra in the fifth element. Is what she's dressed like in this movie. And I'm just like, this is a weird choice. This is a weird emphasizing Fiona Shaw's cleavage in this film is a weird choice. I'm just throwing that out there anyway, I, uh, I, my favorite part though was when they got out some, they got out some, uh, shoulder held guns to de evolutionize King Koopa who of course played by Dennis Hopper and they're the super scopes from the SNES. It was, I was like, oh, I recognize those. That's a, that's a thing. I know it's no power glove, but it's pretty cool.
Mike01:04:56They, they do something similar in super Mario galaxy actually.
Sonny01:04:59Um, uh, anyway, that's, that's my, I, I, I think you, this, all three of these movies have the same problem, which is the focus on plumbing, but I think nobody, nobody cares.
Mike01:05:10This is my, this is dovetails with my point, which is that the story of the Mario brothers is not what people want.
Sonny01:05:15Exactly.
Mike01:05:16We don't care about the story. They don't care about the backstory and we don't care about the backstory of the Prince princess. Like she's a princess. You got these little mushrooms running around her and like, she's in another castle, like we get it. Like that's, that's all we need. Um, all right.
Sonny01:05:30This is why the best, the best video game adaptations, uh, have always been either like the resident evil and the mortal combat movies are not necessarily good movies, but they are pretty good video game adaptations because they understand that, like, what do you want? You want to run around and shoot zombies in the head. What do you want? You want to be in a martial arts fighting tournament. That's right. Like those are, that's what you want to see. That's all. That's all you want to see. And that's why they succeed to the extent that they succeed.
Mike01:05:55No, I want to see Dennis Hopper with little, uh, with his hair and little spikes on the, on the top of his head. That's, that's what I want to see.
Sonny01:06:03The dinosaurs evolved into people. How did that happen? How did the plot of this movie is that evolution went on a, on a two way track and dinosaurs just became people for some reason, instead of dinosaurs, like evolved dinosaur. They're just how to explain that.
Mike01:06:20Darwin, explain the big guys with the tiny little dinosaur heads too.
Sonny01:06:25I want Charles Darwin to watch this movie and explain to me how, how it all happened.
Mike01:06:29All right. Uh, any other thoughts on the super Mario film, uh, cannon cannon? No. Okay. All right. Well, that is all the time we're going to give to this episode. Join us over at some beacon.com and we will talk to you next time. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Um, it, it was, it was just, it was just awful. I, I just, I, I have nothing else to say about it. It was just like, every thing was an insult as you said, um, did you know, uh, who the, that little frog thing was in the casino?
?01:07:09Yeah.
JVL01:07:10I think I had to look it up. He's from super Mario. He's from paper Mario.
Mike01:07:14No, no. He's from super Mario too. Yeah. Which is the one, which is actually kind of an interesting story. It's like, so they make super Mario. Brothers. Nintendo does. And then they make, uh, a second, a sequel to super Mario. And it is really, really difficult. Like it is the same game essentially, but the levels are like much more difficult. And America, whoever was running Nintendo America was like, this is gonna be too hard for American kids. So we gotta, we, we, we can't, we can't use it. We can't release this. So they took a different game. With a completely different character that had nothing to do with Mario. And they, they basically subbed in with Mario characters. So that's Mario, Luigi, Toad, and the princess to play in this and otherwise, and that's where all like the, the shy guys and those like pink th, uh, monsters that shoot eggs at you. All that is from super Mario two and they released that as super Mario two in the United States. And then when I was growing up with super Nintendo, they packaged all of the super Mario games from NES. One, two, and super Mario three, uh, together with the original sequel, which they called the lost levels. So there's a little, there's a little super Mario.
Sonny01:08:31Well, when you said frog guy, I was like, I, cuz I played the American super Mario two. I was like frog guy. I don't remember a frog guy in super Mario two.
Mike01:08:39That was in super Mario three and super Mario three. You could turn it. Oh, oh, the frog, the, the frog, bad guy, the villain, the villain is at the very end of super Mario two, which I was never good enough to be.
Sonny01:08:48So that was, that was, that was hard. The all game two, the super, both, both super Mario twos were very hard. Yes, absolutely.
?01:08:56Sure. It's fine.
Sonny01:08:58Okay.
?01:08:59All right.
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