#357. 'Minority Report'
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The main event is a rewatch of Steven Spielberg's Minority Report, timed to the announcement of his forthcoming film "Disclosure Day," and all three hosts land firmly in the same place: this is a genuinely great, top-five Spielberg movie. Sonny calls it "emotional terrorism for parents," recounting how the precog Agatha's story about Anderton's kidnapped son wrecked him now that he has kids of his own, while also griping that Spielberg "cops out" on the Philip K. Dick short story's ambiguous ending; JVL pushes back with a more faithful recap of the book's actual ending and praises the film as the "weirdest Spielberg movie of the last 25 years," singling out Peter Stormare's bizarre eye-surgeon scene, the washed-out sci-fi visual palette, and young Colin Farrell holding his own opposite Tom Cruise. Mike, also a longtime fan who first saw it in theaters, likewise loved the rewatch but flags the same soft ending and the telegraphed Lamar Burgess twist as weak spots, which kicks off an extended three-way debate between Sonny and Mike over whether pre-crime Washington, D.C. is actually a dystopia given that it functions and has zero murders, versus the ethical horror of "haloing" people who haven't committed a crime yet. Before any of that, the episode opens with its usual long banter block: Sonny taking his kids to a Toy Story 5 preview screening spirals into an extended, increasingly absurd debate with JVL and Mike about the morality (and appropriate punishment, up to and including severed fingers) of sneaking snacks into a movie theater versus paying theater concession prices; Mike then delivers a lengthy, proud recap of his son's Little League "team of destiny" run from a losing regular-season record to a championship win, which Sonny needles as fundamentally unfair to the better regular-season teams. The trio also runs through box office (Scary Movie's soft reboot, Masters of the Universe, and the continued sleeper success of low-budget horror hit Obsession, which has now passed The Mandalorian and Grogu) before diving into the main review, and they close by riffing on Ready Player One as arguably Spielberg's actual most dystopian film.
From the show notes
Anyone need any eyeballs?
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00"Murder can be stopped." "Tell me exactly what it is you're looking for." "Flaws." "You ever get any false positives?"
JVL00:00:06"We are arresting individuals who have broken no law."
Guest00:00:08"But they will." "The fact that you prevented it from happening doesn't change the fact that it was going to happen." "The system can't be wrong."
?00:00:15"Run away!"
Guest00:00:17"Did he say something to you?" "No." "You're in a lot of trouble, John." "I have a warrant in my pocket that says 'murder'." "Don't run." "You don't have to chase me."
?00:00:30Sub-Beacon, a podcast on movies and pop culture hosted by Sonny Bunch, Jonathan V. LasteredithJVLP
Mike00:00:37Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me, as always, are my two co-hosts who, like everybody else, run. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Everybody runs. Uh, join us over at subbeacon.com. Tell your friends and family if they want to listen to the show, they got to do it at subbeacon.com. New episodes every Friday. We're going to be talking about Minority Report later on in the show. But first, Sonny, what is happening in your neck of the woods?
Sonny00:01:12Oh, not much. Just, uh, just dealing with, um, you know, uh, kids being out of school. We were, as we were discussing before the show began, you know, we've got, we got the kids home because it's summertime. I will say I'm, I'm mildly excited today because I get to, I get to actually demonstrate to my children. Uh, the very small modicum of power that I have in this universe, which is, uh, that, uh, I am taking them to a preview screening of toy story five. Now this was back in the day, back in the, you know, when I was, uh, when I was, uh, you know, uh, on, on the, on the dating scene, as it was one of the few, one of the few real, uh, you know, perks of, no, I actually never actually used, uh, the preview thing as when i was dating i would like you could but you could have with my wife i could have i could have i could have um no my my future wife uh would would be the one who would
JVL00:02:09accompany did you even date beth is the only person i ever knew you were dating yeah no that
Sonny00:02:14she is basically the only person i uh have been with since college basically yeah um more or less you know i i'm i'm a i'm a man about town jb i'm a man about but you know um uh but the but i am but i'm taking my i'm taking my kids to see toy story 5 and they're very excited because they will get to see it like four days this time it's personal you know what's the what's the death wish six i wish i were dead that's uh you know um i uh but it's uh so that'll be that'll be the end of the fun they're already asking me to get popcorn and stuff and i'm like i guess i mean i don't i don't know bring your money uh i'm not i'm not springing for i'm not i'm you're i'm getting you in early you should buy me popcorn that that's the mindset sonny no i we this is i like i don't know when you guys were kids did you always get uh snacks when you went to the movies with you so if it were with
Mike00:03:23candy in or something like that maybe every once in a while get a a thing of popcorn but when we went with our very close family friends that we often went to the movies with who my parents are still friends with them today uh and i'm still friends with with their son he's one of my closest friends um uh dr phil was his name uh is his name and dr phil is the most uh generous person on the that we would have is like okay everybody go get in the seats find seats for us and dr phil was gonna go to the concession stand and like he would come in and his like i don't know how a human being could hold as much stuff in his arms i think we held our drinks but like he had like three or four things for like two families total of like eight people like and he's just holding popcorn and it's like amc where you can get the butter on and it's just like falling out and it was like the movies with them was like it was the greatest thing ever it was just more popcorn than you could
JVL00:04:29ever hope sonny i have a question for you here yeah sure i want to probe i know your feelings about the sanctity of intellectual property sure and what you would like to do to anybody who does even the slightest abuse of intellectual property for instance i want to remind people who i wanted to go see a movie for this show in theaters and i could not do it and so i proposed what if i buy a ticket but then i pirate stream and i just don't use the ticket would that be morally acceptable and you said that if i did that i should have my hands cut off to be fair
Sonny00:05:17sonny says that for a lot of i don't remember saying that but it does sound like something i
JVL00:05:22what do you believe is the appropriate penalty for people who sneak in candy from outside the theater is that not the same it's it's pirating intellectual property no no no it's slightly
Sonny00:05:36different it's it's a tricky area in the sense that you're not depriving the theater of uh a good um but you are depriving them of the opportunity to take your money like the thing about going to the movie theater is that you do enter into like uh a binding legal contract the moment you buy that ticket that you cannot bring in outside food and if you do that it's right and you do if you do that you should be escorted from the property i like that is 100 i do believe i don't necessarily agree with cutting the hands off but i could i could say like you could break a finger like if you if you break like a pinky or like a ring finger one that doesn't have a ring on it because you don't want the ring to get stuck there that would be too much punishment um but the you want but like i think that's actually i think that's fine if they catch you if they catch you it's a cat and mouse game and this has been this has always been my theory of movie theaters is that they should have roaming toughs who roust people out of the seats if they are if they're a talking during the movie of course like if they're talking during the movie if they're making a if they're on their phones etc that's that would be one part of
JVL00:06:52to stop the scofflaws and to so the movie theater version of air marshals where you you know that there's a 90 chance that the person sitting three seats away from you is not an air a registered employee of the theater who will kick you out for doing any of the but there is like a 10 chance
Sonny00:07:15he might be well i i look i think you can go beyond this i think you could you should the theater should have uh sort of casinos have the eye in the sky to make sure that nobody is cheating at the tables they should have that but for snacks they should have trained snack stealers watching the cameras to see people fidgeting in their pockets see notice who conspicuously goes past the uh the the concession stand keep it keep an extra close eye on them and then you know in the theaters of course they could have their night vision goggle they get you would install i would have their their binoculars down looking now of course this is all very expensive so the price of snacks would have to rise more to cover it which is just it creates a vicious cycle here
JVL00:08:02pre-cogs what about having a group of pre-cogs who could predict who was going to smuggle in
Sonny00:08:08snacks we're gonna we're gonna halo anyone who brings in adam aaron could uh could get some some abused children who were the the crack babies of the future and teach them how to do uh precognition to find the candy scofflaws i would again be in favor of this this would be fun you would have to again you'd have to get a lot of them there's a lot of amc locations but you know i can just you know in in minority part we're going to get to this they talk about how like uh they can't predict you know car robbery or whatever but they can't predict murder because it tears the fabric uh the metaphysical fabric or whatever whatever dumb fake science thing shakespeare's have the same thing exactly uh and um you know but i like i actually think that stealing candy from a theater by not buying it by sneaking it in is basically as bad as murder it's not as bad as i also crime against nature
Mike00:09:06this is unbelievable this is called a victimless crime it's not a victimless crime you're stealing
Sonny00:09:12you're taking about you're taking money right out of uh the pockets of adam air contract michael
JVL00:09:17signed a contract you're on the line this is not a nam this is there are rules we live in a society i i i have to say this is a thing that i have always been a weird stickler about and for instance my wife shannon was raised to believe that only suckers buy things from the concession stand like you michael and that it is the most normal thing in the world is to like bring a backpack with 50 liters of sodas and bags of jujubes and poppy and i am horrified by it i won't participate in it and i think it's wrong and i i couldn't tell you why but i have like a real innate like when you go to the theater you buy popcorn damn it
Sonny00:10:07and that is part of supporting the artist it is oh it's part of supporting the theaters i mean give me a break this is you're a captive you're okay i have a question mike mike i have a serious question i have a serious question all right you write you write uh you write pieces uh of writing for a website that exists because it is it's reader supported right like you you can you only exist because of the uh the subscriptions that are sold don't i know everybody and if everybody was out there just forwarding around the free articles you would not be able to stay in business it's the same problem with movie theaters it's the same problem hey look i i agree
Mike00:10:46anybody who's gonna go in there and and try to film the movies so they can uh you know sell a or or distribute a pirated version of it uh of the movie online so people don't have to pay i say you know right to jail straight to jail but the food thing i mean that's that's just that all those theaters are doing it's there they are just skimming off the top a little bit extra
Sonny00:11:11for them they're making money that's how they make money that's how they stay in business right so i
JVL00:11:16mean the thing literally the the concessions are the backbone of theater economics yeah they are this is not like uh like at a baseball stadium where they're doing a markup on uh park you know or something like that like if you look at the pie chart of revenue for movie theaters concessions are more than half and so without the concession money the economics of theatrical distribution do not make sense in ways that like movie tickets would have to be fifty dollars yeah well
Mike00:11:52okay i guess i guess then uh if you want to have snacks while you're watching a movie in the theater you've got to be uh freaking bill gates you got to be you know you got to be a rich guy uh to do it because this is you know this is my god given right i agree look here's the thing
Sonny00:12:07is i actually do i actually do agree with you that snacks are too expensive and the prices especially on popcorn should come down i'm i'm i'm with you on that that doesn't change the fact that doesn't change the fact that if you like nobody's forcing you to have snacks mike you don't have to gun to your head you got you got to eat popcorn while you watch this thing you can go there and not get snacks sneaking in snacks is different that is much worse american ingenuity is what it is american ingenuity i've seen people slip things this isn't australia we're not an island of fucking convicts grown old this is america damn it we pay for our things the only
JVL00:12:47thing i ask in return i don't care if the popcorn prices are high so long as the popcorn is fresh the only thing i object to like if i pay 19 for a large popcorn and one soda sure that's fine i'm okay with that but if you do that and you get the popcorn it's stale yeah because it's clearly been sitting there for three days that's when i'm like fuck you yeah i don't i don't have that problem
Sonny00:13:11very often because my amc is very very crowded and busy and i'll say look here's here's the the flip side of this is for a long time i was a no snack person i was like i don't i like i don't especially when i was in my 20s i was like i don't want to spend the money on these like i don't i just like this this is they're very expensive i don't want to do it so i didn't have snacks i didn't have i didn't like pop a bunch of popcorn and sneak it into the theater
Mike00:13:35or like i that's crazy don't bring your own popcorn that's ridiculous there is i i'll say
Sonny00:13:42look the the movie candy thing is not a gray area it's still wrong but at least i can like i i at kind of understand like whatever you know you you got you got a box of candy and it's in your bag where you bring it in like okay like uh don't do that but like i'm also you know i understand that a little more it's the people who like people legitimately bring popcorn to a movie theater i'm just like you should that's crazy you should be sent to fucking siberia i like i had a friend sneaking a box of cereal once well i mean i told the story the other day about how i snuck a bottle of jim beam into the theater so like it's not like i'm yes he was without sin right but i bought you know what i did is i bought a a coke there and i i put the the the hold on
JVL00:14:30i actually in a way bringing in something that they do not offer to sell yeah like i a whole class category yes right like saying like i'm bringing in peanut m&ms because they only sell regular m&ms that no i don't buy but like i'm bringing booze because they don't have a liquor license i look at that and i'm like okay that's all right
Sonny00:14:52right you're not stealing from anybody that gray area and again i did buy i actually did buy a soda there to pour my to make my mixed drink in the middle of the theater to make it smell like a
Mike00:15:02distillery um so so the the real question is when you take your kids to the screening of toy story five which alcohol are you bringing into the uh i probably i won't bring any because i i have to
Sonny00:15:14it's it's it's kind of a far drive relative to other theaters around here and there's there's highway travel i don't like right right right i'll drink and drive don't get me wrong but i don't like to do it on texas highways at uh 9 p.m at night that's not safe okay for the record i do not drink and drive not safe don't do it folks don't do it uh you
Mike00:15:33heard it here first um all right well thank you enjoy that sunny let us know how it goes uh jvl
JVL00:15:39what's happening with you i cede my time to you michael warren for a story of the greatest the greatest comeback the greatest cinderella story in the modern world
Mike00:15:52sports we're not talking about the uh the knicks game for uh victory over the uh san antonio spurs of course not uh we're talking about the run of the uh annandale north springfield little league majors bullfrog bombers t uh an incredible postseason run uh that concluded this week yeah so uh michael what was their regular season record little background uh i believe they were see it's all it's it all gets mashed up in the um in the in the records like the the postseason and the regular so uh they were to do they were three and nine on the regular season three and nine and that would make them what seed in the tournament michael well actually they tied another team uh with that record in this in this and so the coin flip was what determined the seeds and we this team lost the coin flip so we were the bottom of the bottom seat in this tournament so uh that record i would say does not reflect what kind of team it was in the regular season they were just like there were some really close games there were um basically our ace pitcher did not pitch on weekend games because his uh his travel team played a day after you know would and so on saturday games he was sort of taken out um and uh and so that changed during the playoff run so it was a double elimination tournament it was um and so we were given the the worst seed there were two teams that got buys uh the two top teams got buys for the first round uh so we uh had our first game it was against a team that had maybe the overall best hitter in the league um and uh like i think he hit two or three home runs this season uh over the fence which is uh for for majors is significant um shut them out seven nothing all right that was game one all right so we've already given them their first their first of two uh eliminations uh the second game was against the team that we played in the final game of the regular season uh just a few days earlier and had lost 13 to 1 that game so this was like the the conversation that was going around was we got it out of our system we got that loss out of our system uh this but this was another great team uh beat them 10 to 5 all right so now we're rolling now we have out scored our opponents at this point 17 to 5 in this playoff run and we're only halfway through the next team a team we did not beat all regular seasons at this point we've beaten all but two teams at least once uh we beat them 21 to 10 it was it was unbelievable and that game actually was unreal for for us personally because that was the game that also took place the same night as my 11 year old's band concert at the end of the was he played two two and a half innings basically um of the game then we jumped in the car he changed his clothes really quickly we drove over to the school he plays in the concert people are like i can't believe you're here wow like that's that's crazy there were kids on the team who just like opted to play in the concert um we jumped back in the car because as i'm watching the game happening on my phone i'm realizing like we've just run up the score like crazy we get back over to the ballpark after the concert's over great concert and uh we watched
JVL00:19:59the last two outs and now we're in the championship so at what point did you begin thinking to yourself
Mike00:20:07team of destiny it really wasn't until that until that second to last game until that sort of semifinal because we i mean we we lucked out in that that like their ace pitcher had broken his pinky so he wasn't able to pitch that certainly helped but like we ran up taking snacks into a movie theater that's right that's right it's sunny heard um but like the bats that we had been waiting for all season to wake up that we knew we had like we it was it was as if it was as if the balls that we were hitting had magnets in in attached to the to the gloves of the other players it was just like we were hitting well just not in the right spot like every everything was just like right to you know an outfield or you know right to the shortstop and it just we just couldn't catch a break well we started catching those breaks uh and and in this in this big big blowout win in the semifinals so that was terrific uh and then we got like a nice long break because at this point there had to be you know there were all these teams so the the top teams you know had to face each other the top seeded teams had to face you're waiting for the winner of the losers bracket exactly and one of which we had already beaten and one of which was the last remaining team that we had not beaten we had lost to three times during the regular season they were the they were the top team they were the top seed and because they were the top team in the regular season it was theirs to win they were in the championship last season same coach same half the same players because it's 12 years so it's mostly uh and we have our final game on monday night it was a pitcher's battle like you would not believe our ace pitcher so he's 11 years old they are limited to 85 pitches yeah okay 85 even though there's no games left like he cannot throw more than 85 pitches we don't want to blow his elbow out exactly through so and these are six inning games um through five innings eight strikeouts 85 pitches on the dot it was an unbelievable performance uh and then in the sixth inning uh you know our basically our number two pitcher who's a great pitcher in his own right um was pitching great pitching strikes uh and there were essentially two two pop flies to center field the uh you know that that that constituted two of those outs uh including the final out and it was it was like when marquis grissom caught the final out in the 1995 world series for uh for atlanta to beat cleveland like he he's running to catch it and then just keeps running to celebrate this unbelievable victory uh the video was amazing the video i don't know the video was amazing because my son was playing first base and he like beelines it over to this crowd like i'm like how did you get there that fast he's just like incredibly yeah it was great and you know what though i will say what was your final score in the game five three so it was like it was it was a very low scoring game for for majors and um i mean the picture the other team's pitchers were fantastic there was literally one inning where the pitcher just got stuck in a in a walk uh spiral he was just throwing ball after ball after ball after ball and like they probably should have pulled him earlier but like you don't know you you know you don't know if he's gonna recover um they were in a situation like that earlier where where they got out of the inning you know and so but uh so it was it was just it was wonderful this is a team of kids who like they had it they just never it just never connected until the right time um and i will say this like i know this changes and they get older and and they get competitive you know and they are competitive these kids are competitive but like there are these kids are 11 and 12 years old they've been playing with each other on different teams with different kids you know so they're playing against kids who they've played with in the past for you know five six years some of them and i would say the amount of like respect and the the you know just all of the feelings that these kids had for each other i mean our catcher was the first to you know to to in in line for the lineup to to say good game and he's like shaking every kid's
JVL00:24:59hand because he knows them all right oh i clocked that in the video you sent us i clocked how fast your kids got to the baseline got to the the sideline yep and to then like go and good game
Mike00:25:14the other fantastic it was it was awesome it was more than as proud as i was for this team to have come from behind and win the most proud i was was seeing that display was seeing how much those that other team was they were i mean they were understandably devastated and our guys were like total pros and total good sports and uh we took pictures with because they have a ceremony they get the trophies the runner-ups get the trophies as well and they have a big picture with both teams and they've got arms around each other and they're all going like half of them are playing on all-star teams together you know so it's like it was it was just so wonderful and a high that i'm still not completely the trophies were sick too oh my gosh they've never got real deal trophies dude they've never gotten a real trophy before like this was like a huge deal and you know what i told my son i told him on the way there i said buddy enjoy this whatever happens win or lose like enjoy this because you never know when you'll be here again you may never be here in a situation like this uh and you just gotta love it and appreciate it and have fun with it because that's what it's all
JVL00:26:27about so it was mike trout probably the greatest player of his generation never won a championship in any level nope never i mean he may have won one in little league but didn't in high school didn't in college didn't in the majors you know is trout retired no but he's in the back end
Sonny00:26:45he's just too much of a wreck yeah well it's a place for the angels yeah um uh so that's anyway it's a great story it's a great story mike i do have one i do have one question sure you have one question so if i understand the setup here you guys were last in the league coming in here correct how many team what team how many teams uh so it was it was seven seven majors teams okay so there's there's 17 so you guys had a losing record then correct we
Mike00:27:16ended with a losing record seven and nine okay i'm just just saying this is a real good object last
Sonny00:27:22and why you gotta only let the top teams into the playoffs because you never know it's not really fair to the teams that were good through the whole season you know to to have to deal with this you get team a team that gets hot and gets lucky there at the end i mean i'm very happy for you and your kids mike don't get me wrong don't get me big big this i'm i'm i'm not quite getting that i don't that video was delightful i i'm i'm very i'm very happy for your your boys i'm just saying i'm just thinking about the rest of the kids just thinking about the rest you know who played so hard and so well all year and then you know it would be like if like it'd be like if you know uh 2 and 14 team came and won the super bowl you know that's not fair to the teams who played well through the rest of the regular season come on you know it's as they say the playoffs it's a whole new season no i'm just i'm just i'm just doing a bit here guys uh mike mike mike deserves mike specifically because this is mike's trophy this is not those kids they don't
Mike00:28:26but i will say the other funny thing about all this is like literally the next night we were back at the ball field we've been at the ball field now for like eight days in a row and um because of all-star practice and so like all those kids including by the way our coach and the head coach of the of the losing team are both coaching the 12 u uh tournament team like together so like you go back and it's like it's all we're all mixed together and we're all and we're still freaking doing this so uh it's fun they get good unis so they haven't gotten their unis yet but they've gotten their practice uh jerseys and um so that's
JVL00:29:10but although although practice jerseys and unis oh yeah although he's been complaining because um
Mike00:29:17his is way too big i'm like yeah you'll wear that for like the next year and a half like you'll grow it you get more time in it exactly that's why so um yeah that's been that's been our life we have a scrimmage tonight uh against uh one of the other little leagues um it just never ends i'm so glad
Sonny00:29:34my son does not play but he wants to play baseball and i'm just listening to this like i'm like i
Mike00:29:39don't want any part of this i mean it's a lot of fun it's a lot of fun and it's the best of all the
JVL00:29:46kids sports you can do i think baseball is the most parent friendly would you agree with this michael it's really better than swimming 100 better you know although like swimming sit outside for 19
Mike00:29:58hours so your kid can swim for 90 seconds i do think there's a little more um alcohol being consumed at swim meets um just to get through those swim meets because they go on for so long um but uh yeah now now sonny's like i'm listening you have my attention all right anyway all right that's all that we're going to talk about baseball because that's way too much but thank you uh jvl for for giving i'm very proud and excited it's a lot of a lot of fun all right let's talk about box office because we've got two new movies in the one and two spot in this week's uh box office uh ranking here number one scary movie bringing in uh 54 million dollars and it's opening weekend this is the what six scary movie five five okay five i couldn't remember it was a fifth or six um entry and sort of what not really a soft reboot but kind of has the i mean they're calling it scary movie not scary movie five so it's like got a bit of a soft reboot uh and then number two uh masters of the universe the remake of the movie that we talked about last week coming in just under 30 million dollars in its second week followed by backrooms and obsession backrooms had a pretty like the precipitous fall in its second week uh 60s almost 68 percent yeah drop um so i mean but it's it's a horror it's a horror movie that opened to
Sonny00:31:2780 million dollars like 60 again 60 60 it's a little bigger than i thought i thought it would hold slightly better than that but like honestly 67 is not is not crazy like the the you know um what was it five night five nights at freddy's uh that came out uh two three years ago that opened to almost the exact same number it opened to 81 million 80 81 million and dropped uh 80 in its second weekend so like that's this is not that's not right and it's and it's holding really well during the week it's already at 135 million a like back rooms is fine that movie cost 10 million dollars to make a 24 oh yeah it's already it's already a like it'll end up being the it'll double the next highest grossing film for a 24 in its history so like that that's fine i mean obsession is the the real story here right obsession so obsession is finally down on a weekend to weekend basis and it's fourth week and it's down 7.3 percent after increasing the previous two weekends and i like it doesn't show up in this chart because the the weekend chart only goes till sunday of course um but if you look at the if you look at the daily charts now obsession has passed star wars the mandalorian and grogu uh at the domestic box office which is again that's like this movie cost this movie cost a million dollars to make focus bought it for 13 million um and it is uh it is going to end up grossing probably in the 225 to 250 range um which you know i like i mean it's gonna it's it'll probably end up being i well i don't know it'll end up being in the top 10 of the year probably uh but it's it's it's a just a huge that's a huge huge success um people are still going to it it's still doing huge numbers on uh on the week on the weekdays like the weekday numbers are still enormous um you know like it it it was only four million dollars off of masters of the universe this week which is in its first weekend and cost 200 million dollars to make like so i again like i just keep i keep going back to this idea that we are in this we are in this very interesting historical moment where it does feel like change is coming now look toy story five is going to come out uh next weekend and it's going to gross uh two hundred million dollars in its opening weekend so like a lot of the stories that we're telling about you know these smaller cheaper original films you know theoretically that narrative gets blown up a little bit by this but i don't know we'll see um so i did not realize maybe we've
Mike00:34:08discussed it before but the the youtuber who wrote and directed obsession is like i didn't realize it was somebody that i was like vaguely familiar with like i've seen his because he's like a sketch marker yeah he's like a sketch comedian on yeah on youtube and so i didn't realize that um this is the is there something to be written and maybe it's already been written but about the way in which sketch comedy and horror seem to go together
Sonny00:34:33it's it's you know well there was the zach crager stuff but even before that uh you know there's
Mike00:34:39there's all all of the films that uh that that uh that peel yeah that jordan has made not key
Sonny00:34:45just peel um uh well part of it part of it also is that like a lot of those guys are producing as well so like you know key key uh i'm sorry jordan peel um is you know he's producing the key and peel show in addition to uh you know writing and acting right so like when he when he gets out there and he can you know he gets he gets to set on get out and like he's got 10 million dollars to make a movie he knows what to do with it um and i think that's part of it with uh that's certainly part of it with curry barker who again was making his own things on youtube and has made a couple of films before this none of them were nearly as well received as this he he he hit something in the the zeitgeist with this movie um but it's uh it you
Mike00:35:34know i there that is definitely part of it but i just like what is there something in the brain
Sonny00:35:40there's always been uh there's always been an overlap between horror and comedy right like they one of the most common responses in a horror movie theater when you see it with people is for there to be nervous laughter after moments of extreme brutality right like this is this is
Mike00:35:56just a laugh and a scream they're they're not that far apart yeah that part that part of the
Sonny00:36:02brain is very much interconnected um so you know i i don't think it's i don't think it is that far and in theory and again if we go back to theory of comedy right what is what what makes something funny it's is setting up something expected and then having something unexpected happen right like that's you're very the most basic way to describe a joke is like you expect one thing and then another thing happens and the juxtaposition is humorous like for instance with fisto and ram man and you know like that it's very funny because you don't expect children's toys to be you know simulate to to sound like sex acts anyway um okay so with with horror it's the same thing right like you there's a situation and you expect one thing to happen and either sometimes just the violent thing happens but sometimes there's like more tension and it builds up and the thing doesn't happen and then he turns around he's there oh my god a knife in the eye and you know that that's okay again that's my theory of horror knife in the eye well well well said
Mike00:37:04sonny thank you um all right uh any other box office thoughts uh no okay well uh we are uh we're gonna move on and talk uh about a movie in sort of anticipation of a upcoming uh forthcoming steven spielberg film uh we are not watching that movie uh which is called disclosure day is that the disclosure day the name of the film uh i know sonny that you panned disclosure day uh but not care for it but but we we decided we wanted to talk steven spielberg we wanted to do something and we we landed on minority report um does anybody want to give sonny you want to give an overview of this uh 24 year old
Sonny00:37:51uh steven spielberg movie minority report minority report starring tom cruise as future cop uh who is able to stop murders before they happen because he's got access to precogs which are the uh the the brain damaged children of drug addicts who because of science are now able to tell the future oh but only when it comes to murders and i'm going to get to this i want to get to i want to get to this in a second um but we'll we'll we'll come back to that uh anyway um uh the the pre-crime program has reduced murder murders in washington dc to zero no more murders in washington dc and they're going to take this wow program they're going to take this program nationwide tom cruise and as chief anderton is going to be running this program with max von sidow uh i don't even know what his character's name is uh but then but then you know who shows up to put a throw a monkey wrench into all this is colin farrow young colin farrell this is one of like his first big movies not his first big movie but one of his first big movies and he shows up and he's like no no no the fbi is gonna run this thing and you're not gonna get to run it junkie tom cruise because spoiler turns out that tom cruise is on future drugs he's on the future drugs because his son was kidnapped and disappeared and let me tell you guys this i knew this because i had for unrelated reasons i'd watched this a couple years back but it was the first time i'd watched it since i had kids uh this is a this movie is emotional terrorism for for parents 100 this movie this movie there's all right so uh yada yada yada uh the tom cruise is accused of of a murder he's gonna do a murder and everyone's like why would the chief of police of future murder do a murder doesn't he know he'll be caught but it turns out that it was set up to he was set up to take out the guy who kidnapped and murdered his son and now i want to i want to i want to well um i'm gonna stop here for a second let's stop here for a second because there's a sequence in this movie where tom cruise is in his ex-wife's uh lake house and he's got the precog who he has kidnapped to help him solve this future crime with him and the precog starts telling the story of his son who didn't get to live and then comes back to and i swear to god i was like a very uh i i was in tears i was in tears uh in the this this bit where she is talking about she's talking about the kid and his future and it's a story and it doesn't happen and then she's like but he's six years old and he's trying to run and the man is so fast and i was just like i like that's the worst thing i can imagine it's literally the worst thing i could possibly imagine having having happened so i blacked out for a bit um but when i came to when i came to uh tom cruise tom cruise was solving his murder crimes and uh they they scrapped the whole program now my my big complaint i have two complaints about this movie one is that steven spielberg cops out the ending the ending of the original philip k dick short story has a line in the coda that it's like and and the next year there were 127 murders in the washington in the district of columbia because they end the pre-crime program because theoretically it shows that just because it shows that he does it shows that it's not reliable or whatever but actually it's very reliable pre-crime is very reliable my pre my pre-cog snack stoppers would never be wrong and just like the pre-cog
Mike00:41:46murder stoppers are never wrong i was gonna eat i was gonna eat these Reese's pieces before i
Sonny00:41:51walked in the theater now uh the the second thing here is i do have i have a real question about the the uh the the the mechanics the psychic mechanics of why murder and specifically premeditated or like just the act of killing somebody else intentionally is what sets this off like the pre-cogs don't cry every time somebody gets run over on the street right the pre-cogs the pre-cogs don't die if you are operating heavy machinery and accidentally cut somebody's arms off and they bleed out right like those are those are not why is it very specifically like what does it intent what does intent matter here to the pre to the fabric of psychic reality that's my question how i don't i don't buy that that's i buy everything else in this movie i buy the future crack babies that can tell can tell can tell future murder i understand that all that makes sense to me i can buy uh uh what's his name peter stormar as an eyeball replacing scientist doctor i can buy that i'll buy that for a dollar sure i can i can live with that but this this thing this thing with the the intent i don't i don't think
Mike00:43:12i buy it i don't buy it all right uh so are you saying you don't like this movie no it's a great
Sonny00:43:19movie it's a okay okay okay great movie uh but it's uh it's uh and this is this it's funny because if you go back and look at spielberg's career right he does have these he has these fallow periods and we're kind of in one right now um uh but he also has these stretches he also has these stretches where he is the best he is like inarguably the best filmmaker on the planet and this is catch me if you can in the same year it's amazing he did he did this and catch me if you can in the same year and then two years later he made munich and war of the worlds in the same year three yeah and two or three years later and then uh i think the year or two years before this came out he releases ai right and like we can about ai whether or not it's you know but like he just he has these runs it was right after saving private ryan well saving private ryan is well he does he well he has he has schindler's list in jurassic park in the same year i mean like that's a ridiculous like anyway from 75 he has again he runs like 75 to 83 84 or so and then like 89 to 97 and then another one that's 2000 i don't know 2001 2001 2005 yeah like just just just crazy crazy good anyway this is a this but this is again this is uh in high up in contention for my favorite steven spielberg film it's great like it's got great action and it's it's got great like i i wish he worked with tom cruise more i wish tom cruise hadn't been so fucking weird on the war of the world set yeah uh and and like soured that whole relationship like i i wish they had worked together more because they are there is there are a few better pairings of actor and director than steven spielberg and tom cruise like steven spielberg films motion better than anybody else and tom cruise runs better than anybody else and you put them together it's just like oh yeah here we go this is it this is this is movies
Mike00:45:13everybody runs but not everybody runs like tom cruise um jvl your thoughts
JVL00:45:20on your rewatch yeah so i i agree completely i mean it's not only one of spielberg's best movies which is i mean think about how hard it is to be a top five steven spielberg movie i mean just to crack his top five you've got to be in the top 25 all time probably right um so uh it's astonishing it's also the weirdest spielberg movie of the last 25 years or so i think yeah i mean it's it's got body horror in it it almost feels like like he's co-directing with david lynch and part of it is the the body horror and the weirdness and the peter stormare scene is to me the most stri i mean i this that's the scene that
Mike00:46:13i remember more clearly than anything else oh yeah and in part because it's so weird
JVL00:46:20peter stormare is clucking and quacking and he's got like his nose is constantly running yeah there's that his assistant is this woman with this giant facial mole they leave a sandwich that's rotting with spoiled milk for tom cruise to eat when he's blind i mean it's so weird very weird and then and then we're introduced to this idea i mean there is that is a moment which is full like you're in a bizarre alice in wonderland where you find out that peter stormare's character knows tom cruise and you're left with a wait a minute is he doing this to kill him to get back at him for or is he not like again that is one of those moments in cinema where like at the end of pulp fiction when they show up and you know uh maynard is like you know wake up again like all of a sudden you're like what the is i have no idea what's coming next right yeah that's kind of what happens when peter stormare shows up in this movie and uh the look of it is so interesting i mean it is washed out blown out yeah blown blown out to i mean the color palette is almost non-existent everything is it goes from black to gray to like ice
Mike00:47:40ice white blue it feels very of its time in that way like it it it's like it feels like that's what action movies looked like in 2002 didn't they maybe they
JVL00:47:50did and i just don't remember it i but to me it's visually striking its view of the future is as good as any sci-fi this side of like uh blade runner 2049 or wally you've got all of the old because this is what it will this is what the future will look like which is there's new stuff and it's all right next to existing on top of the old stuff you know i see georgetown there's a scene in it just looks like georgetown but people have like holograms inside their house right that that's how this board yeah um the act i mean the the confidence colin farrell has as a young actor to show up and basically pretend that he owns the screen with tom cruise is astonishing and he's so good yeah uh neil mcdonough this is the first time i ever saw neil mcdonough and was like oh that guy's interesting you know like and it's a small part he's allowed to do interesting stuff with it yeah uh max fun side of it it's everything about it is great it plays with ideas in serious ways it thinks very hard about how things would work i mean when they walk you when they walk you through the process of how the precognition stuff happens with the ball of wood right because
Mike00:49:16the wood is not something that is counterfeitable right
JVL00:49:19yeah and that whole thing feels a little bit to me like in jurassic park when you're being given the ride to explain how everything works in this i just mean in the sense of the unbelievable efficiency of the storytelling there yeah it's you know that's like peak spielberg um and it's weird and off kilter and great it's weird it's such a weird movie like it's it is
Sonny00:49:49and it's and it's not weird in the way that philip k dick movies can be weird right where it's like oh whoa what is reality like it's it's just like there's a sequence that does not get explained at all where there are moving aware plants plants plants like poisonous plants that move like snakes more or less and it's just like yeah sure what okay we and everybody just goes with it it's like fine yeah that's a thing that's a thing there's the suggestion that there is a automobile manufacturing facility on the in on the outskirts of washington dc i know that's also very weird frankly yeah you know that's uh it's automated so put it anywhere it's a really lived
JVL00:50:33in version of the future too yeah i mean the the concept design they i don't know whoever did the design work for spielberg but here she really went deep you know it is not a just make it make shit
Mike00:50:49look cool like they really i well plus like plus there's like there's little bits where you're like the the the sort of end scene at the the dinner where max von sito's like you know getting getting fetid and then uh and then it all comes crashing down like that's in the that's in the willard hotel like and which is which is very like i i know exactly that the hallway you know and then the roof and all that and and you're like oh yeah we're in like washington dc but it's also like these giant you know flying police cruiser things are like coming around too so um yeah uh i i loved this movie when it came out you've seen it before right oh yeah yeah i i saw it in the theater like this was like uh this was a major a major thing that i saw yeah yeah yeah exactly the pre-con knew you were coming um but it was like a regular like rental you know after it came out on dvd um and uh it was it just every on this rewatch it was like a couple things everything that i love about it was like holds up really really well so the the eye surgery thing um the the little spider uh robots that like come to fight drones yeah oh my like that it's like horrifying it's like really really scary not just from a horror like creeping things that are coming in and looking for for our for our hero but but also just the you know all of the dystopian stuff in this in this movie they do a really good job because it for the characters themselves it just is like they don't know they're living in a dystopia um and we're watching it and being like oh this i could see this happening and i don't like this you know i that that is done very very well and there's so much that is not explained and just happens and you you get it you get the personalized ads everywhere he goes into
JVL00:52:57the gap yeah or he walks into the gap and you the retinal scan is used so they'd be like hey mr ochenawa how are those tank tops working out for you right and it's like it's
Mike00:53:09it's so nobody nobody ever explains it you know in the dialogue in the text it's just there and i really really like that um i there's can i go ahead sonny well go you finish it finish it well on the weird stuff there's also these and and you know spielberg likes to do this but like there are these weird characters that pop up for a scene or two that just stick with you like tim blake nelson's uh yeah guard he's he's fantastic and he's you know he's playing the organ because they they like the you know the music helps them sleep or whatever whatever
JVL00:53:49like what accent is that it feels like he does a new york accent which is yeah it's
Sonny00:53:55very weird it's like i i at first i thought it was like kind of mid-atlantic like it was maryland almost but it's it's further north than that it's definitely maybe but it could
Mike00:54:05also be new orleans um there's the you know because new orleans accents sound a lot like new york accents um interesting but it was it was weird by the way speaking of accents there's like two or three times where colin farrell's irish accent like peeks through
JVL00:54:19and it's like you're like oh he hasn't figured it out yet like he hasn't quite he hasn't
Mike00:54:23quite figured that out yet um obviously the peter storm air but um uh the the there's another there's another weird moment with um uh like another weird character oh i don't know who the actor is but the the guy who takes care of the precogs like that whole you know he's like clearly a you know in love with uh with what's her name with uh and like it's it's again never really commented on it's just like we get that that the the way in which other people outside of pre-crime like think of these people as these precogs as gods right and they're starting to worship them and all that and dweezil's apple zappa like you know like goes down you know and and does his uh does his thing um but like the the the the kind of personal obsession. This guy has it's so weird and like also totally understandable to her about his mother's
JVL00:55:24boyfriend. Oh my gosh. I love it.
Mike00:55:27I love it. I I love it. It's great. So um a couple weird things that did not work for me um not just like the the premise of the whole thing of like how how it works um I hated the ending like you Sonny like I I
Sonny00:55:40thought like cop out Spielberg that's that's pure Spielberg cop out total Spielberg but
Mike00:55:45like it just but even as it as you're sitting with it in the moment like oh they're looking out the window and she's pregnant so they can have another kid again and the three precogs are like living this wonderful life someone undisclosed location and they're all just reading I was like ugh like I don't want this go ahead
Sonny00:56:04all right well keep going I I have I do have something I want to ask you but well it kind of ties into this but keep going keep going
Mike00:56:12um so yeah so I I didn't love that I I also thought like um uh I don't know I I just felt like the I felt like the way that they telegraphed the twist which I did not see coming when I first saw this movie you know that it was that it was lamar burgess direct you know director of pre-crime who was behind it all because I'm an idiot like I don't pick up on these things I'm too into the movie you hadn't seen monsters inc right exactly um or uh there's another there's another movie that does like this like you're caught in the uh at the at the event where they're fetting you and like that's what there's something the fugitive yes yes it is the fugitive right so like on rewatch I was like okay yeah like it there are parts of this where you're like okay Spielberg kind of paying homage to these types of uh cop movies or is he just ripping them off in some kind of lazy ways I don't know that that was kind of my reaction to some of the some of the cheesier moments in this where I obviously gave Spielberg that about benefit of the doubt when I was fourteen years old but but but not this time anyway that's all I want to
JVL00:57:24put before you do this sunny I want to push back on your thing about the ending because I was trying to remember the Philip K Dick ending it's more complicated than I think you you remember so what happens is there are three the three precogs in the book each give a different report and the Tom Cruise character in the first report is he's predicted gonna gonna kill the person right he finds the person and he doesn't kill him so he breaks that but then he gets the second report and the Burgess character from the movie that makes one side of character the movie he has set this all up precisely to discredit the precog system because he is going to stage a coup in the chaos and institute martial law. Got it. And so what anderton when he realizes that he decides to kill the guy anyway to preserve the precog system because he thinks better to have this imperfect precog system than
Sonny00:58:32be run by a military hunter okay interesting okay I don't I don't I I have not read that I have not read the short story in a while and had in fact forgotten all that um I okay again this this leads me to my wild my my big question. Very different which is which is this Mike you described you described this you use the word dystopia to describe what we see in this in this movie yes is it actually dystopic so look there yes there are uh I don't and I'm like I'm I swear I'm not trying to do like a hot take sure sure sure like but like there are like yes there are slums and there are people on drugs. Okay fine we have that now I you know that is is 1980s America dystopia though so like there's there's there's the drugs and all that but what you also have is very a very clearly thriving society you have a system of crime stoppage that that like objectively works now yes there is a person on the inside who is manipulating it to like get away with things right. Okay but the system the system does work the system works so well that Tom Cruise knows he is going to be charged with killing this guy and ends up killing him anyway now again like the guy like lunges towards him and you know grab his hand and like makes the but like the system wasn't wrong precisely he's put himself in that position you but like even again all right my point is you have you what we see here is a functioning a a relatively well functioning relatively prosperous society that did in fact reduce the murder rate to zero until it didn't until the system broke down until it didn't because they they because they stopped it they stopped doing it and i'm just i like again i like i'm i'm open to the idea that pre-crime the idea the whole idea of pre-crime is corrupt and because you know you can't you can't you can't punish people for things they haven't done yet on general principle all right fine if we want to argue that but i just i like i i want to push back slightly on the idea that
JVL01:00:56this is dystopian based on slavery well so that the there's a wrinkle in this is that
Sonny01:01:04the precogs are right well so if you could have this system it's like an amalas situation right like this is if you you know if you have one little boy is locked away right right so like again there there is that i just but but also just the way that spielberg himself shoots all of this is like he does not shoot it like a dystopia right correct it's not this is not this is not it's not 1984 or even brave new world really it's like he shoots this basically like like future cop movie yeah i like i just it's i don't know okay but that's complicated i have complicated feelings about this i'm like actually trying to work it out in in real time here i again i like it's dystopian is the word we reach for when we think of like future things happening i don't like but i don't i don't i just does this actually qualify as a dystopia i will not a utopia certainly it's not like no no but i i will say this a society that has no
Mike01:02:08murder but has uh hundreds or thousands uh or if this goes national millions potentially of people who have not actually done anything in a state of coma uh but the
Sonny01:02:30ball's gonna hit the ground michael the ball is gonna hit the ground like a ball a ball is not a human being i'm sorry like i i just this is and this is the wrinkle in the movie is that pre-crime does it does actually we are and this again this is this has to do with the way the film is structured and the way it is. Right like we are shown very clearly through the language of cinema that pre-crime works like we see we we the uh little edited montage that um anderton watches as he's trying to solve the crime syncs up with all of the things we see happening in real time right like the the language of cinema says to us this thing works this thing that you are that you are about to watch is going to happen and the only reason it doesn't happen. Is because anderton crashes on his head you know two seconds before it happens or tackles into the ground two seconds before it happens like that that is very clear and obvious um and I think that I mean look again that you know that that we do have to consider that in the in the if if you had a system of pre-crime and if it worked and it reduced the worst crime to zero. That is not dystopic I don't I I just disagree because of the because of the manner I think
JVL01:03:56you're getting hung up on the fact that we're talking about murder let's abstract this a little bit sure and I think you'll come around to Sonny's viewpoint what if instead of murders the precogs were identifying people who were going to pirate intellectual property and we could then act to stop them right then you'd be okay with it right you just preemptively drone strike them yeah because now you like you see we're now we're really talking about the highest the highest level you're right you're putting you're putting in a perspective
Sonny01:04:22that I can something that everyone has familiarity what nature abhors is the theft of intellectual
Mike01:04:27property but also okay but this this also raises an interesting question that I had which was so the precogs the three precogs have been solving this problem and eliminating murder in the nation's capital and it's going to go national so now for a country of in 2054 of 400 billion people
Sonny01:04:48i had a lot of i had a lot of questions about this too like what is the range of their uh because like so like i mean the reason it's in dc is because there's they're like there's a limited range on their on their are they gonna put them in like cerebro are they gonna are they gonna like
Mike01:05:04or are they gonna clone them and cloning is not gonna work because they're like they're this way
Sonny01:05:09because i don't think that yeah i don't think you can clone them yeah i don't think so yeah you you
Mike01:05:13can't what happens when they die what happens when they die i have the exact same thought as well um also uh vast farms of neuro babies it's it's like okay that's like the matrix see now that's
Sonny01:05:27dystopian okay but you had a field if you had a field of brain damaged babies that you're trying to raise to be psychics and you're having to dispose of the ones that don't work see that's dystopian i i will i will concede that that's dystopian why why the haloing that's another
Mike01:05:44question i have why why do they why do these people who were about to commit a crime of passion these these aren't gangbangers like killing people in in a in a drug war kind of scenario here right like in a gang in a turf war like they're these are crimes of passion people so we're gonna halo the the guy who was gonna kill his wife and and her lover uh and and give him like like unconsciousness over i mean like if he does it if he kills him lock him up and throw away the key but like why are we not doing that with the pre-court why are we doing something that is arguably worse
Sonny01:06:22why is i i don't i don't see how it would be worse to be you know put to sleep for for a while well the question the question really uh and this is not addressed in the film is what actually happens in the haloing in the in the coma do they are they being reconditioned in there is it like demolition man where they're being reprogrammed are they with more socially uh useful ideas and
Mike01:06:45is it just a coma is it just a coma
Sonny01:06:48is it just incapacitation i mean i you know i would rather probably just be incapacitated
Mike01:06:52like that than put in a in a this is your life right i mean people maybe they're in the matrix are they in a matrix-like environment maybe they're being they're the farm they're going
Sonny01:07:02they're going to be maybe they're powering washington dc with their body heat anyway
Mike01:07:07it's uh it's it's interesting that once you start going down these roads and look i see i see exactly what you're saying sonny i just think the uh the longer term implications where this breaks down like makes it as i've sat with the movie for 24 years like
Sonny01:07:25it makes me think of it as a dystopia yeah yeah no i i mean i and i i again i'm i'm i'm playing devil's advocate here slightly because i've also always kind of mentally categorized it as dystopic i think spielberg intends it to be seen that way but at the same time i'm i don't know like it's just it's a more interesting question if yes if you look at it and say well okay parts of this work
Mike01:07:54by the way by the way um the title of this film is minority report and i just think it's interesting that there's not actually a minority report in the entire movie right he thinks he's going to get his minority report from agatha and she doesn't have one i just think that's interesting
JVL01:08:13no okay is there i'd have to think about whether or not there is one because i think there is one concerning the murder of agatha's mother yeah i think i think that i
Sonny01:08:23think there's a minority report there the because remember like well that was a manufactured
Mike01:08:28yeah or that wasn't a true minority report that was uh yeah that was that was so anyway the point
Sonny01:08:34is point is i just the title of the movie the title of the movie is red herring yeah anyway
JVL01:08:39that's all uh any other thoughts on minority report great movie i love it uh okay uh join us
Mike01:08:46over at subbeacon.com leave a comment tell us what you think about these heavy philosophical questions in the
Sonny01:08:53comments and we will talk to you next time i would say the the most dystopic uh movie that steven spielberg has ever made is actually ready player one and totally totally agree ready player one is fascinating because i think it is i think it's totally i think it's totally underrated and i it's kind of misunderstood by lots of people um but it it like he basically has made a movie that's like if everybody lived in a world that was dominated by the things that me and my friends made in the 70s and 80s and 90s it would be fucking terrible and we gotta we gotta stop you guys gotta stop being little immature babies and wake up and do real things and go touch grass get out and get it and like that is a fascinating thing for steven spielberg of all people to be
Mike01:09:47it is it is the the snl scene where uh will william shatner is at the star trek convention and and he says and he like yells at them he's like he's like get a grip have you ever loved a woman have you ever done anything like this it's it was a tv show i made it 20 years ago get a life and then everyone's like freaked out and he's like that of course was an adaptation of my speech from episode you know like realizes he can't piss them off
JVL01:10:17- Oh.
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