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#5. The Substandard Christmas Spectacular
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Dudes Chatting — Christmas movies: The centerpiece debate is whether Die Hard qualifies as a Christmas movie. JVL and Vic firmly defend it (the whole plot hinges on a Christmas party; the climax is set to "Let It Snow"); Sonny is categorically opposed and has written an essay laying out his case. The hosts then trade genuine favorites: Sonny champions A Christmas Story and Scrooged; JVL sharply disagrees about A Christmas Story (finds it slow and nostalgic for things that never existed) and instead recommends the graphic novel Batman: Noel; Vic prefers the British film Millions and the classic It's a Wonderful Life. Least-favorites get equal airtime — Vic hates White Christmas and the slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night; Sonny nominates The Polar Express for its unsettling CGI; JVL, contrarian as always, defends The Polar Express. The episode wraps with tech-gift recommendations including a Nest thermostat and Status Audio headphones.
A Corrections segment is present. Spirit of the Week: Evan Williams Original Southern Eggnog.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Hi, I'm Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard. Every time I hear the Substandard podcast during this Christmas season, all I can say is, Bah! Humbug! To my big brother, George, the richest man in town. Oh, my God, I shot my eye out. You'll shoot your eye out, kid. You'll shoot your eye out. You'll shoot your eye out. Do you really think you have a chance against us, Mr. Cowboy?
Vic00:00:52Yippee-ki-yay, mother******. Are you ready, everybody? I'm ready. Do I have to do the clapboard? No. Do you want me to do it? Sonny can Skype in the count. Go ahead, Sonny.
Sonny00:01:05And in five, four.
Vic00:01:11And welcome back to The Substandard. This is Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. And what a show do we have planned for you today. It's our Christmas spectacular episode. It's The Substandard on Ice, which I'd like to remind our listeners again they can find on iTunes. If you want a podcast, simply search for Substandard. And you'll find us. We've got that new fancy logo. We're on our own page on iTunes now. So if you get a chance, not only subscribe, but tell your friends and leave a review. That apparently helps us tremendously. So how about a little Thanksgiving postmortem? JVL, you survived intact.
JVL00:01:50Yeah, it was sort of a sad Thanksgiving because I didn't get to have Tofurky.
Sonny00:01:55What happened to your Tofurky?
JVL00:01:58So we had a... an especially turbulent Thanksgiving. Like, half the kids were sick. I was sick. We were having company. We were sort of stressed out. We didn't have a lot of time. And my wife was at Wegmans shopping for all the stuff we needed. And at the very last second, she audibled and went over to the catering department. And we just bought the Wegmans Thanksgiving dinner. And it was so great that we will never, ever, ever cook Thanksgiving again. Because let me tell you... Let me tell you this. Let me tell you what Wegmans does. For like $109, they slap everything that you basically need for Thanksgiving into these oven-safe dishes that you bring home. They give you a spreadsheet where you just look at the top. You find the time that you want to eat dinner. And it then tells you dish by dish when to put this thing in the oven, when to put that thing in the oven, when to put that thing in the oven. You slide those things into the oven. These oven-safe dishes are so lovely that you could even put them on your table. And serve straight out of them. Your entire cleaning and prep time for the entire Thanksgiving meal could be reduced to about 7 minutes and 14 seconds, thanks to the magic of Wegmans.
Vic00:03:11And it's only for $1,200, right?
JVL00:03:13No, it's like $109 for a meal that serves like 6 to 10 people. And it's amazing. And you know what? The truth is, you don't ever need a special occasion for Tofurky. So I'm going to do my Tofurky at home this week.
Sonny00:03:29I have two things I'd like to say. First, contra Tyler Cowen, there is no great stagnation. Second, what is included in this meal? I'm curious. What exactly do you get?
JVL00:03:43I don't know.
Vic00:03:44A bunch of stuff I don't really like anyway. It's just the turkey, actually. That's all.
JVL00:03:47No, there's turkey. There's green beans. There's stuffing. There's cranberry sauce. Mashed potatoes.
Sonny00:03:52Is it green bean casserole or just green beans?
JVL00:03:55Green beans. A little bit too much pepper. But you know what? What do you want? You're getting something that's mass-produced in a kitchen with 19,000 other meals. It's fine.
Vic00:04:04Jonathan, what did you think about the turkey? Do you know, was it a fresh turkey, a farm turkey, or was it something that's been around me? Did you like the taste of it?
JVL00:04:13Well, sure, because it was smothered in cranberry sauce. My thought is maybe you like tofurkey only because you haven't had a good fresh farm turkey. I say to you people, the only thing the turkey is there for is to deliver the cranberry sauce into the sarlacc on your food. Oh, my gosh.
Vic00:04:30Oh, my God. I think that maybe it's because you haven't had a good fresh farm turkey, like freshly slaughtered. Is that a euphemism? No, no, no. I mean, when I lived in Germany, my host parents, they had a turkey, not a turkey farm, but they had a little turkey coop in the back. And so the turkeys that I had were fantastic. I mean, there was flavor and juice. I wanted to be there. A little turkey concentration camp? Yeah. Geez, your Nazi turkeys sound pretty great. No, you know what? And I wanted to be there. For the killing of the turkeys. For the final solution of the turkeys. I wanted to know. You people are awful. And in fact, they happened to dispose of or humanely put the bird to rest in my absence. And I said, what happened? And I will never forget my German host mother, she said to me, the term she said, oh, you didn't want to be there for that. She goes, once they have to cut the head off and let the blood drain, the German term she used was, it was a real schlacht. Schlachtfest, which means a real slaughter fest. But you know what? Enjoy my tofurkey. Thank you very much. I'll have the schlachtfest. How about you, Sonny? Did you have, was it like green bean casserole heaven for you?
Sonny00:05:41Yeah, it was great. My wife did a fantastic job of making green bean casserole. She is a delight. And we had all sorts of fantastic side dishes. We even had some cranberry sauce from my father who likes it. I don't particularly care for it. But it was good. It was good. We had a nice little. A nice little Thanksgiving. Watched some football.
Vic00:06:02Wonderful. I had no French stuffing, not the kind that I always dream for every year. We went to my wife's relatives, her cousin Kevin and Marina Wheeler. They have a lovely home and they had all of their family over and my in-laws. And we actually, the stuffing was fine. It was like some sort of, you know, fresh croutons that you put on there or fresh, you know, bread that you bake and bits of it and the whole thing. And you put the gravy on top of that. And that was great. It was very nice. I can never understand why people call the stuffing dressing. You notice this? Is that an age thing? You know, I mean, my mother-in-law keeps saying, oh, you have to have good dressing. And I'm thinking she's talking about the gravy, but she's talking about the stuffing. Why stuffing dressing?
Sonny00:06:42I don't know.
JVL00:06:44I've always called it stuffing. Is that completing the verb to dress the turkey with the noun of the stuffing? Maybe that's what it is.
Vic00:06:49But all I could think of is when I was in Jersey, well, coming from Jersey, South Jersey in particular, did you ever notice this, Jonathan, that Italians, some Italians call the tomato sauce the gravy?
JVL00:06:59Yes.
Vic00:06:59You know? And so I remember we had a spaghetti dinner at my school, and I was a waiter, and they're talking about getting the gravy on the spaghetti. I'm thinking like brown gravy, but no, it's tomato sauce. So in any event, as you know, this is our Christmas Spectacular episode. But to kick things off, I want to talk about the spirit of the week first. And this is a good one. This is the Evan Williams Original Southern Eggnog. It's made with Kentucky Straight bourbon, whiskey, rum, brandy, and it's only 30 proof, reasonably priced. Jonathan, are you an eggnog kind of guy?
JVL00:07:33You poured me a glass, and I got as close as like four inches from my face before I had to put it down. You have to take a sip. So that is really high price.
Vic00:07:40Oh, my gosh. No, you need to take a sip. It's fantastic. It's eggy delicious. If you like this, it reminds me like a, I don't know, a Brooklyn egg cream or something, you know? Or Sonny, I know you're Skyping in, so I'm sorry that you can't try the eggnog for the first time, but you'll have to take my word for it. What I recommend you do is go to McDonald's. and get the eggnog shake, and then just put some bourbon in it. I think you'll thank me.
Sonny00:08:03I mean, I don't need to get eggnog shake to find something to put bourbon in. I can assure you of that.
Vic00:08:10I wanted to say briefly, by the way, did you know, this is sort of an aside, that eggnog was the reason we invaded Grenada. Did you know this? I did not. The real reason? No, no. Tell me this story, Vic.
Sonny00:08:21Is there a pipeline? Is there an eggnog pipeline?
Vic00:08:23This is the alternative history. What's like Howard Zinn's? Howard Zinn's version of the invasion of Grenada. And what happens, as you know, Grenada is, I believe, they make 40% of the world's supply of nutmeg. And obviously, then in 1983, they had this communist-backed rebels that took over, and that would have shut down the supply of nutmeg around Christmastime. And of course, you can't have eggnog without nutmeg, as I put some freshly sprinkled on for Jonathan. And so, God bless Ronald Reagan for saving Christmas in 1983 by invading, and that's why we have our nutmeg.
JVL00:08:57Thank you. The greatest American. The greatest American president of all time.
Vic00:09:00There's nothing he can't do. Anyway, that's Evan Williams' original Southern Eggnog. Check it out. If you don't mind, I'd like to move on to our main event, then, and talk about, over the weekend, our boss, Bill Kristol, sent out this tweet. He said, Now, this thing got, like, over 100 retweets, 400 likes. What's going on here? Sonny, do you want to explain, maybe to a handful of people who have not seen one of the great movies of all time, why this matters?
Sonny00:09:37So, Die Hard is a movie that was released in the midst of the summer blockbuster season that involves a man having to rescue a skyscraper from a bunch of terrorists. And, for some reason, it has been transformed into the hipster's counterintuitive, this is my favorite Christmas movie movie. It is, it's the sort of film that, you know, if you're too cool to say, oh, it's a wonderful life, is my favorite Christmas movie, or Miracle on 34th Street is my favorite Christmas movie, you say Die Hard is my favorite Christmas movie, and then you get all sorts of hipster nerd cred. Are you suggesting Bill Kristol is a hipster? That's what I want to know. What has happened, it's just become my personal bane, my personal bête noire, because I have taken a very strong, and frankly, wise and reasonable position that this is not a Christmas movie, that Christmas is not integral to the themes or action of the film. It could have been set basically any time. You could have had this movie take place during 4th of July, for instance, and it would have been the same exact movie, and because I have taken this reasonable, wise stance, I am attacked constantly on Twitter by notorious trolls like Bill Kristol for, you know, standing up for what's right and just and good in the world. I know that some, even some in this very studio, believe that Die Hard is, in fact, a Christmas movie, so I will let them state the case better than I ever could.
Vic00:11:14Jonathan, what do you think?
JVL00:11:15Well, Sonny actually wrote a tremendous essay, like a long essay, about this very question for a little book that I edited last year called The Christmas Virtues. Ding, ding, ding. It is still out.
Sonny00:11:27Available now. Amazon.com.
JVL00:11:29Available now at Amazon's near you. Along with Vodka. Along with Vodka Nation.
Sonny00:11:35Is it Vodka Nation or just Vodka?
Vic00:11:36Vodka Nation was the essay, and Vodka was just the name of the book. How Colors Owes Flavorless Spirit Conquered America by Lions Press. Thank you. Hey, who wrote Vodka? Oh, yeah. You're talking to him, Sonny. The one and only.
Sonny00:11:47Oh, that's good.
Vic00:11:49That would be Victorino Matus. Thank you. On Amazon. Thank you.
JVL00:11:52Anyway, so Sonny wrote a wonderful essay about Die Hard, and this is-
Sonny00:11:57It was only very- Very briefly about Die Hard, for the record. You made it very clear in your pitch to me that it should not focus entirely on this. It was about Christmas movies more broadly.
JVL00:12:06Because you're wrong. And that's fine. Look, I'm a broad-minded editor. I'm happy to include points of view which are objectively wrong. Look, sometimes in art, a thing which looks like one thing is really another thing. So like the TV show Firefly, the Joss Whedon show Firefly, it looked like it was a science fiction series, but it was really a Western. The Shawshank Redemption, it looks like a prison. It's a prison film, but it's actually a road trip movie. The Dark Knight Rises looks like a comic book movie, but it's actually an art film about civil society.
Vic00:12:37And Dark Angel with Eliza Dushku was really not sci-fi. It was actually porn. If you turn the sound off. Thank you.
?00:12:44Wow.
Vic00:12:46Wow.
JVL00:12:47I think that was also, let's do a quick correction. I believe that's Jessica Alba.
Vic00:12:50Oh my gosh. In my mind, I've conflated. That was correction on the spot.
Sonny00:12:55You were thinking Dollhouse.
Vic00:12:56Yeah, I'll take that too.
Sonny00:12:58You're thinking Dollhouse. You're thinking of Dollhouse.
JVL00:12:59He has a type. It was somebody with diehards. So look, Sonny is right. You could have set that movie around any holiday or no holiday at all, because it looks like an action movie. But it really is a Christmas flick, because it's about family. It is a movie where John and Holly McClain are repairing their relationship, coming back together to be a family again. And also, it's about the naughty people getting their just desserts. Not just Hans Gruber, but also William Atherton's reporter and the coked-up, office guy, Harry. Which, by the way, Sonny, did it ever occur to you how much that guy- Ellis.
Vic00:13:33He looks like Michael Bay. Yes. Yes. Totally. He looks uncannily like Michael Bay. Also, correction, I believe his name was Ellis.
JVL00:13:40I believe it's Harry Ellis. Oh, is that it? The IMDb. Harry Ellis. I think it just goes by Ellis, yes? I got you. But Harry Ellis, wow.
Sonny00:13:47Good. Really thick.
JVL00:13:49Anyway, and it's about Christmas miracles, like being able to swing through a plate glass window on a fire hose while firing a machine gun. So I would say that the fact that it is a Christmas movie, it's a Christmas movie. It is set around Christmas, really enhances and brings out all of the themes, the deeper themes which are inside it. So because I'm always like giving people things to read, that's kind of my role in the show. If you follow me on Twitter, I will tweet out a link later this week to an amazing essay on Die Hard by my friend Alexandra DuPont. It's from back in 2010, and she makes the case that Die Hard is like one of the four or five most influential films of the last 30 years. It's whatever. Like, I never tweet. It's horrible. Twitter's stupid. But this is an easy way of me getting it to you, because I'm not going to sit here and tell you what the URL is and have you type it out while you're driving in your car listening to the podcast.
Vic00:14:38I think also the music and the sound effects are integral to this movie. You hear, there are moments where you hear those Christmas bells. You know, that's important to the sort of the feeling of that movie. And of course, Beethoven's Night. Yes. That's perfect for a Christmas time. I think that's integral.
JVL00:14:53I mean, you can see they, it really is conceived in such a way where it does not become an afterthought. That is a theme which is weaved throughout it. And it's great.
Vic00:15:03You know what I loved about it? German villains. You could never go wrong with German villains, despite the fact that the two leads for the Germans were not actually German, right? It was Alan Rickman, who was British, and Alexander Gudanov, who was Russian. In fact, he was, I believe, a Russian ballet dancer defector. And sadly, both are no longer with us right now. But they were both fantastic. And it kind of reminded me of the movie. The movie Scarface, where none of the leads were actually Cuban. You think about it. You know, Al Pacino, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Robert Loggia, F. Murray Abraham, really? Stephen Bauer, you know? I think today people would make a bigger deal out of that today. They were terrific performances. A little over the top, I would say. But in Alan Rickman's position there, I thought he was fantastic. He has that great line when he says to Theo, you asked for Christmas miracles. I give you the FBI.
Sonny00:15:58Alan Rickman's first movie, too. Very, very obvious debut. That's right.
JVL00:16:02So he's a late convert to the stage. He came to the stage very late in life and then came to the American screen very late in life as well. He did some BBC work after doing some stage work. That was his first on-camera stuff. Then he came over to America. And this is one of the things I love about Rickman. This role just sort of allows him to emerge fully formed as an actor into the American consciousness. And he was amazing. This is one of the first movies. Where you ever almost just openly root for the bad guy because he's so great. And part of it, again, you have to credit Rickman is great, but credit the writing. For me, the moment that makes Rickman's character is when they're coming up on the elevator with Mr. Takagi. And he says to him about the suit. I forget the name of the manufacturer. He says, I have two. I hear Arafat gets his there as well. And he's grinning and he's actually throwing the line away. So perfect and such a great little character moment. And from that moment, like every villain for the next 20 years of action movies, they struggle. The writers and directors struggle to shoehorn in some small character moment like that. Like, you know, the guy will be eating jujubes and he'll make a remark about it. Or he'll say, oh, I've always loved Swedish fish. And it almost never works after that. But Rickman pulls it off. And it's this amazing, iconic performance. And as well as, you know, people don't really remember. This movie establishes Bruce Willis as a major film star when he is nothing at this moment except for a guy who's doing a vaguely romantic comedy on ABC. Right. He was doing Moonlighting. Right. I mean, this is it. He's just a guy doing Moonlighting on ABC. And they decide we're going to plunk him into the middle of a giant blockbuster action movie. And, man, does it work. And you know who else. Yeah, go ahead.
Sonny00:17:48Yeah, well, there's a great diehard oral history that's available on Kindle, Kindle Single, by a guy named Brian Abrams. Very fantastic. It kind of gets into this whole idea of Bruce Willis as, really, this was his make or break movie. This was his, if he had already been in one that had kind of flopped, if this wasn't a hit, he was done. He was done in Hollywood. He was going to have to do crappy TV shows for the rest of his life. And it really blew up. You know, the great thing, my favorite thing about this movie is the fact that it kind of established, that John McTiernan was the great action filmmaker from, like, 1985 to 1995 or so. That he was really the guy that you had to go to to get a good, high-concept action film made. And I, you know, it's sad to me that he has kind of disappeared because he went to jail for a little while and thinks that Karl Rove is trying to kill him. But he was, like, this really just fantastically talented, pure-action filmmaker, and it's... We don't have too many guys like that in Hollywood.
Vic00:19:08No, and remember, he had gone on, right, Sonny, to do The Hunt for Red October. And he did one of the great remakes of all time, even for, you know, older people who say, oh, you know, the original's always better. You know, more often than not, they'll say that the Thomas Crown Affair remake was better than the one with Stevie Queen. And that's based on my anecdotal evidence from my mother-in-law. Thank you. But it's true. I think that's right, though. It's a great remake, and he did that. And then, of course, I hate to bring up The Last Action Hero because I think that was probably a bad turning point for him, wasn't it?
Sonny00:19:39No, I think Last Action Hero is a fantastic movie. The problem with Last Action Hero...
Vic00:19:42Oh, sorry, Sonny, we're losing you now. Sorry, we can't hear you.
Sonny00:19:45The problem with Last Action Hero is that it came out about ten years too early. It was meta and, like, kind of sly and winking before that was a cool thing to do, before that was a thing that, like, every... every sort of action movie or action TV show or whatever had to do, had to be self-aware and kind of, like, you know, telling the audience, yeah, I know it's silly, but this is... It was really a movie that is ahead of its time. I thought The Kid was the problem, but maybe...
JVL00:20:12Well, The Kid's are always the problem. I'm totally... I totally agree with Sonny. This is Shane Black being, like, a little bit too far ahead of the curve. You know, the thing about McTiernan is, when you look at his stuff, even the stuff which isn't very good, like, basic is very low level. McTiernan, he is so economical. You know, like, there's never any wasted motion in his pictures. And when he's really working, you know, with Predator, Die Hard, Hunt for Red October, Last Action Era, Thomas Crown Affair, even 13th Warrior. Again, they're just...
Sonny00:20:43Even Die Hard with a Vengeance.
JVL00:20:45Even Die Hard with a Vengeance. They're so spare and so sinewy. They're just amazing contraptions. And I totally agree. You look at a guy like this, with this much talent, who's directed, like, 11 movies total lifetime. And it just...
Vic00:20:59It's horrible waste. You know, the other thing, really quickly, about Die Hard was the dialogue. And that was attributed to... The screenplay was Jeb Stewart, the other Jeb Stewart, I should say. And he also... Jeb Stewart also did the screenplay for The Fugitive. And you can see how that makes sense.
JVL00:21:15Yeah.
Vic00:21:16Again, action movies were... You know, I mean, my expectations... And coming up to Die Hard was 1988. And, you know, my expectations were it's going to be, you know, a shoot-'em-up movie, minimal dialogue. It's not going to be that amusing. But the dialogue was so fantastic. And so, I mean, you've got to give him credit. I thought that Paul Gleeson, who plays the deputy chief of police, Dwayne Robinson, I thought that he was hilarious. And, of course, Paul Gleeson plays the dean of discipline in The Breakfast Club. And so, just fantastic. The back-and-forth between him and Reginald Ville Johnson's character, Sergeant Powell, really, really good stuff. And Robert Davy as a special agent Johnson. You know, the FBI... Johnson and Johnson. Johnson and Johnson. There was white Johnson and black Johnson. And then you would see... There's a moment where Robert Davy picks up the CB, I guess, and then he says, special agent Johnson, and then he waits a couple seconds. He goes, no, the other one. I mean, that's just good stuff.
Sonny00:22:07You know who doesn't think that Die Hard is a Christmas movie? Robert Davy.
JVL00:22:14I'll let him have a pass. He's also a great singer, by the way. There's a... I mean, do people care about this anymore? Sonny, do people still buy discs?
Sonny00:22:21Do people still... Well, this is something we'll discuss a little bit later in the show. I still buy discs, and I'm a person. Therefore, people still buy discs.
JVL00:22:29There's a great Fox release of this where they remastered the sound and retouched the picture, and it's like the Fox five-star platinum-diamond-titanium release or something like that. Well worth your $15.
Vic00:22:44Now, can we move on and talk about our other favorite Christmas movies, or movies that we think are underrated? Sure. Christmas movies. Yeah, Christmas movies that you think are your favorites and movies that you think are underrated?
Sonny00:22:59You know, in the essay that I wrote for Mr. Last, I admitted that my favorite Christmas movies are A Christmas Story, the kind of classic 24 hours of film that we all watch and love every Christmas, and also Scrooged. I think Scrooged is probably it's not only one of my favorite Christmas movies, it's one of my favorite Bill Murray movies. Bill Murray is never more Bill Murray than in this film. He just kind of, he gets to kind of do his thing, and it's set within that classic kind of framework of you know, the old classic Christmas Carol thing. So I would say those are my two favorite Christmas movies.
Vic00:23:46Jonathan, I think you're going to disagree now with Sonny, at least with one of them.
JVL00:23:51I hate a Christmas movie so much, I can't even tell you. A Christmas Story. A Christmas Story, sorry. A Christmas Story. Everybody loves this. My wife loves it. My best friend Chris was actually nicknamed Ralphie in college. And I'm happy to admit that this is one of the things that like, is probably a me thing, and not a movie thing. But for me it is nails on the chalkboard. Maybe it's because I didn't see it until I was 30, but like, to me everything about it is horrible. I wanted the dad to die, I wanted the older brother to die, I wanted Ralphie to have his tongue ripped off when he sticks it to the middle pole. What older brother? There's no older brother.
Sonny00:24:25Ralphie doesn't stick his tongue to the pole. He has a little brother. Ralphie has the older brother.
JVL00:24:28Have you even seen this movie? I saw it when I was 30 years old, and I could not wait to turn it off. There is literally no Christmas movie I would rather watch less. And over this weekend, I watched a movie on Netflix called Santa Buddies, which is a direct-to-video production about puppies who have to save Christmas, and it has Norm from Cheers as Santa, and it's the worst piece of schlock you've ever seen, and I would take that
Vic00:24:51over Christmas Story. The weird thing about Christmas Story, so I re-watched it recently with my kids, and my son did not like it. He thought that the family was actually irritating. I thought the music, if you listen to the music, Sonny, the beginning of the movie, it's kind of very hokey, corny, as if they were making it like some sort of slapstick-y thing on TV. It's very strange, and it's sort of like, it almost feels like midway through the movie to decide, oh no, we can make this more poignant than we thought it was going to be, and it changes that way, and I thought it's much more touching from the middle onto the end, and you see the other side, and you see the father a little bit more, certainly much more affectionate with the mother, I mean, but my observation was, I think that's just how parents were in the 1930s. They're not all touchy-feely the way they are today. I mean, you know, they love their kids, but and they were significantly older. This is one of my...
JVL00:25:411930s, though, right? It's like 65.
Vic00:25:42No, no, no. This takes place in the Depression, Jonathan. You really need to see this movie again. Oh my goodness. Really? It doesn't take place during the Depression. Yeah, 1930s.
JVL00:25:52As filmed?
Vic00:25:53Yes. Oh no, I mean, it was made in 19-whatever. Right.
JVL00:25:56But it takes place... In the film, they are not setting it in
Vic00:25:59the 1930s. In the 1930s, yeah.
Sonny00:26:0040s? 50s? It's definitely... It's at least the 40s, because remember the characters from The Wizard of Oz are in the 40s. Yeah, that's right.
Vic00:26:06Why do I think, in my mind, I feel like it's Depression, but it's not the 60s. It's not the 60s. I would say it's 40s. It feels to me like
JVL00:26:15early 50s, early 60s, whatever. I would say 40s. Whatever. It's crap.
Vic00:26:19I hate this movie. Okay. I'll tell you what I think is a totally underrated movie I liked. It was Millions from Danny Boyle, 2004. You know that one? And I mean it's so... I like it. It's so unlike the rest of the Danny Boyle oeuvre. I mean, there's no insane zombies going after and biting people's faces off. It's about a family, a father and his two sons coping with the death of their mother, and they move to another town in England, and the boy is obsessed, played by Alex Edel, the boy is obsessed with the lives of the saints, and suddenly they start appearing to him. All the different saints, apparitions, and then a large bag of money lands, you know, on him, and he has to figure out where that money came from, what to do with the money. It's not the most, obviously, orthodox interpretation of, you know, saints and Catholic theology, but in this day and age, I'll take it. I imagine it's the kind of film the Pope would love, Jonathan. But anyway, I liked Millions, and if you want to talk about a classic film, I'll still go with It's a Wonderful Life. I think that the dance scene with when they do the Charleston with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed and the floor opens up beneath them, that's great stuff, although I, again, I will insist that the alternative universe of Pottersville, I think I would prefer that over Bedford Falls. Thank you.
Sonny00:27:41Well, obviously.
JVL00:27:43Sonny has a piece coming out about how Potter is the real hero of It's a Wonderful Life. No, I like It's a Wonderful Life. If I could steal Sonny's lines, I mean, Sonny's excellent essay in my book, he concludes by saying that what's really important isn't actually which movie you watch, but that you have one, that you have a tradition with your family where there is a movie that when you're all together during Christmas, you always always come back to and sit down and watch together, and I think that that is a very profound point, and I think it's very smart. I'm going to make a recommendation off the top. So my favorite Christmas movie isn't a movie. I don't have a movie like that with my family. It's a book, actually. It's a comic book. And it's called Batman Noel. You laugh, but this is, look, it's a graphic novel written and drawn by Lee Bermejo. Anybody who knows about comic books knows that Bermejo is a superstar artist. He drew the amazing Brian Azzarello Joker in Luther books, and it turns out that he can write, too. And so what he does is he takes A Christmas Carol, and he retells it with Batman as Scrooge, and then Catwoman, Superman, and Robin as the ghosts. And it's, I can't even tell you how great it is. And I sit, this is actually what I then go and I sit down with every, like, I would say three or four days before Christmas every year. And if you like Batman at all, if you like comic books at all, this is, like, an amazing thing. I think the hardcover edition on Amazon is a little bit expensive. I want to say it's like 30 bucks or something. It is 1,000% worth your money. It's really, really good. It's beautifully drawn. I mean, the opulence in his art is really something else. And the book itself is great. It is my favorite Christmas story.
Sonny00:29:30It's only $18.47 hardcover from Amazon.
JVL00:29:34That is a bargain. You should treat yourselves to it. And then buy Vodka by Victorino Matus.
Vic00:29:38Thank you very much. You're very kind. I'd like to say, I'm looking at this right now online, Gene Shepard, who is the writer, the creator of A Christmas Story. It's about his life. He was born, and it was about his life as a kid. He was born in 1921. Aha.
JVL00:29:52But I don't know
Vic00:29:54when the original is. I'm just saying the movie version
JVL00:29:56of it does not seem to me that it is set during the Russian era. Think about the classroom scenes.
Sonny00:29:59The movie is definitely set in the
Vic00:30:02late 40s. Think about the classroom scenes. I think that's very old. We'll do this in corrections next week. We are doing this in corrections. I will be victorious. Sonny, is there a movie you can't stand from Christmas?
Sonny00:30:14A movie I can't stand set in Christmas. I'll tell you my two while you think about
Vic00:30:20that. Yeah, yeah, you go ahead. I'll give you two that I absolutely can't stand. One is A White Christmas from 1954. That's with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen. It just goes on too long. It's a lot of singing and dancing. It does nothing for me. There is a scene where they're in the train and the four of them sing a song called Snow. I kid you not, it is longer than Cashmere. It's longer than Achilles Last Stand. It's just snow, snow, snow, and it just doesn't end. So, kill me. And the other one, which I would say is the worst Christmas movie I've ever seen, I saw on a cable recently, from 1984, Silent Night, Deadly Night. And this was controversial at the time because it was about a killer, Santa Claus. And kids saw the commercial and they had to abruptly take the commercials off and parents protested. I mean, it was rightly an awful movie, so I saw this. Here is the... Did your parents take you to see this? No, no, no. Even my mother said, no, no.
JVL00:31:20In the Mattis household, this is perfectly normal
Vic00:31:21from the 1980s. No, believe it or not, even my mother said, we've got to draw the line. This is just unacceptable. The description on IMDb is, after his parents are murdered, a tormented teenager goes on a murderous rampage dressed as Santa due to his stay at an orphanage where he was abused by the Mother Superior. That's the story for Silent Night, Deadly Night. And I'll only add one thing, having seen it, a woman gets impaled on mounted deer antlers. Thank you. That's it. Wow. Yeah. No one's going to top that. No, Sonny, if you don't have any strong thoughts, I'm happy to move on.
Sonny00:31:55The Polar Express. Wow! The Polar Express. I can't stand any of those Robert Zemeckis motion capture movies. They all look horrible and gross and on just the wrong side of the uncanny valley. All the characters in those. So leave aside the story itself, but just whatever. It's maudlin, claptrap. The characters, like the look of the movie, gives me the heebie-jeebies.
JVL00:32:23I am a reluctant convert to The Polar Express. It's one of the rare occasions where the movie is better than the book, because the book is so spare and so short. I mean, there's really nothing to the book. The idea that you could get 90 minutes out of that book is kind of mind-boggling. And Zemeckis pads out and writes the story out in such a way that actually makes sense and puts more meat on it. It isn't just padding. I like the animation. Only, and normally I'm with you on that stuff, but in this particular context it works for me because it makes everything look timeless. Like, you know, in a way that computer animation does not look dated because it was already dated. It's kind of like Minecraft. Like, if you look at the graphics on Minecraft, you say, oh, my God, that thing looks like it's from 20 years ago. And that's kind of the point. This way it ages effortlessly. And it's kind of a neat message for the kids, and I don't know. Look, anything that will buy you 90 minutes of quiet from your children, I'm just totally into. And there's some very deep thoughts people have about the
Vic00:33:25various characters of the angel, right? And the father, son, holy spirit, right? And whatnot. Now, you know it's never too late to get started on, or it's never too early, I should say, to get started on Christmas shopping. And I've gotten a good start, but there's so much out there and so much to do, and I was wondering if you guys had any Christmas recommendations, perhaps some cool techie stuff that you can talk about.
Sonny00:33:50Before we do this, can you just describe how much better your life is now that you have purchased a Blu-ray player and can stream that? Yes, and in fact,
Vic00:33:59that's one of the clarifications I was going to make, Sonny. I said I finally got a Blu-ray player, to which my brother-in-law, Bill Dwyer, promptly texted me after listening to the episode and said, wait a minute, didn't we just get you a Blu-ray player for Christmas last Christmas in 2015? And I said, yes, Bill, that would be the same Blu-ray player. It took me 11 months to install. What? I thought it was going to be more complicated. And so I was embarrassed about popping into Orki. That's right. That's right. Okay. That's right. Okay. And I just kept looking at it, the package, like, oh, this looks really complicated. And then finally, because I had gotten hooked on Stranger Things, one of the great shows of all time on Netflix, which Jonathan will have to see sometime, I said, I don't care how long it takes. I got to do it. There are two cords.
JVL00:34:43One is a power cord, one is an HDMI cord.
Vic00:34:45So I open it up, I look at it, and I'm like, because I've never done any sort of streaming Blu-ray, anything like this. I look at it. Your six-year-old daughter could do this. I know, I know. So I was so proud that I did this alone. Most times, I need help. And so I looked at it, and I thought, wait a minute, that's it? And I put it, and I couldn't believe it worked. Now, the only... You're like an old lady. I am. The only downside is the wireless box from Verizon. It's pretty crappy. So you do get all this sort of stopping, and they have to, you know, buffer or whatever it is, or reload. And that really is annoying, but of course, that's why they make you pay the big bucks, so you can get a bigger, better sort of wireless box. But anyway, yes, Sonny, my life is so much more better. I've been watching The Cram Town. Great stuff. Okay. Excellent. Alright. Good. Now, techie Christmas gifts. You guys have thoughts. Jonathan, you have a nice, pleasant smile on your face. You're thinking of something.
JVL00:35:37I have two ideas. The first is the product that I am most excited about, and have been for like three years now. I am a huge evangelist for The Nest, which is a thermostat, and is only like the greatest thing ever. For the whole house? For the whole house. It's like an iPhone for your house. You put it into wherever your normal thermostat is. You plug The Nest in instead, and it just takes control of everything. I can't even really explain to you how great it is. You just have to go and do it. It controls the temperature. It saves you money. There are very few products which just bring you joy and happiness, and this is one of them. How about you, Sonny?
Sonny00:36:18Well, I have been asked to evangelize for Status Headphones. Asked because I've mentioned them a number of times to you guys, and I've sent you emails saying, hey, you should buy these headphones for when we're in the studio podcasting together. But also because I love them. I think they're great. The website is called thestatusaudio.com and it is a website that is basically like you're getting the quality of, say, a Beats or a Bose-type headphone. Probably not quite as good as Bose, but still extremely good. At a fraction of the price. I mean, I own a pair of the HD1s. I wear them everywhere, listening to music on my iPod, doing the podcast with you guys, shutting off the noise in my world.
Vic00:37:16Do you wear it in public, like when you're walking on the street?
Sonny00:37:18Down the street? I do sometimes. Usually, if I'm walking around in public, I opt for my iPhone earbuds, just because I don't want to be one of those guys. You don't want to look like Lobot
Vic00:37:28from Empire Strikes Back. Right.
Sonny00:37:30But I love these headphones. I think they're fantastic. You can, you may still be able to use this code that I have to get 20% off. HD1 O-N-E 20, spelled out T-W-E-N-T-Y all uppercase to get an extra 20% off, which means that you can get one of these headphones for like $35. And it's the best deal that you'll find out there. Very high quality, very good sound, very low price. You will not be upset if you purchase one of these for yourselves or for family members who are looking to upgrade their audio
JVL00:38:12experience. Can I just underscore the fact that none of this is paid promotional consideration? These are actually just things we like. Nobody's paying us to
Vic00:38:22show for this stuff. I spent $8.37 on the Evan Williams eggnog. That's a very good point. But Sonny, you'll be happy to know that I actually ordered my headphones after your recommendations. Hopefully this week we'll be looking all very professional in the studio. You know what arrived at my house? I was really surprised. A sharper image catalog. And I didn't even know the sharper image was still around. So I was looking at it and they have some really cool stuff like borderless skateboards and the slide and negative converter. But then I came across something called Jimmy Jane Waterproof Rechargeable Vibrating Massager. And it's small, cordless, and powerful it says. It's funny, it kind of resembles a cucumber. Anyway, according to the catalog, it says it's dual motors, delivers strong vibrations on both sides to stimulate blood flow and relaxation. Features six vibration modes and five intensity levels. $175. And I thought, man, I could really just use that and just, you know, rub it against my neck because I get so sore. It's just a good stress reliever, Vic. You know, I like to use that, and I imagine I get very sleepy after using it for, like, five minutes. Sonny, what do you think about this? It's interesting, isn't it?
Sonny00:39:40No comment. I have no comment on this whole thing.
Vic00:39:46Okay, fine. Anyway, that's my recommendation. You know, you can, you know, rub it on the balls of your feet. You know, after walking all day. You know, it'd be kind of nice, I think. You know, I hope I get one. Okay. On to corrections. I'm sorry.
JVL00:40:02I'm trying not to break.
Vic00:40:05Okay, here's a... In our sci-fi episode, we talked about...
Sonny00:40:08Why, JVL? Why are you trying not to break? I don't know. I don't understand.
Vic00:40:11I just thought it was really interesting. And we talked about V, The Final Battle, and the human who gets impregnated by the alien. But longtime Substandard listener, and Weekly Standard alumna, Sarah Keech, tweets that, quote, Robert Englund wasn't Robin's baby daddy. Englund played Willie. The dad was a V named Brian. I should have known this. Robert Englund's character, if I remember correctly, was very timid, shy, gentle alien. I didn't think he had the alien mojo to put the moves on a woman, let alone a woman of another species. And, of course, Englund is better known as having played Freddy Krueger on Nightmare on Elm Street, but that is a correction for you, for us. Sarah Keech with the backdoor cover.
JVL00:40:54Don't you remember, though, Robert Englund's character in the delivery room with the baby? He might have been the alien baby.
Vic00:41:02Yes, I bet you he did. He's kind of an alien midwife. Alien midwife, an alien doula. Jonathan, Mike Warren, the Weekly Standard online editor, likes to point out that you also made reference to Macy's Day Parade, and you are wrong, because it's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. What do you have to say about that?
JVL00:41:22That is said by somebody who comes from the South, and there is literally nobody in the entire New York megalopolis who would refer to it as anything other than the Macy's Day Parade. This is simply what we call it, and it is... If you were in New York and you said, hey, I'm going to the Thanksgiving Day Parade, sponsored by Macy's, this is like being the person who says, I want to go to the... Where's the Avenue of the Americas? Like, it's something only the tourists say. The New York Knickerbocker
Vic00:41:52Right. And let me guess, Sonny, no corrections from you this week.
JVL00:41:56Before you... Sorry. I have two corrections from our listener, Jonathan Campbell. He says that Sonny and I are both wrong. Contact sucks because it slags on religion for two hours and then suddenly falls back on Aquinas at the Denouement, which is actually pretty funny. That's pretty good. And he also says that we neglected to mention Monsters, the 2010 Gareth Edwards movie, which is the best alien invasion movie involving octopi. I have not seen that.
Sonny00:42:22And... I've seen it and it's not good.
Vic00:42:24What... Yeah, yeah. I bet it was popular in Japan. Okay. Are we
JVL00:42:32all set now? This is why I didn't buy headphones because we're going to be cancelled within, like, another episode. There's no way Kristol's going to let us keep doing this. The people who made it aren't listening to this, believe me.
Sonny00:42:40No, of course I don't have any corrections. I was perfect again. Okay. Always perfect. In that case,
Vic00:42:45that is all the time we have on this week's episode of The Substandard. Be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes. Tell us what you think. Write a review there. That helps generate more traffic, more listeners, more podcasts, or something like that. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, you can tweet us at SonnyBunch at VictorinoMattis.
JVL00:43:05Just this week, go ahead and follow me so I can tweet you that essay on Die Hard. You'll appreciate it. But then unfollow me because Twitter's a garbage drug.
Vic00:43:13At JVLast. Thanks for listening. Until next time. You know what I was going to mention? There's actually a cheaper version of that sharper image device. It's called a personal massage, just called Personal Massager for $89.99. It has, according to the catalog, it has a powerful motor reaching speeds of up to 6,000 RPMs. What catalog, Vic? I thought it was Spencer's Gifts. No, it's the sharper image. And all I thought was, you know... Not Adam and Eve. No, no, no. I don't even know what that is. I just thought that it's the kind of gift I would give Peter Lawford if he were still alive.
JVL00:43:48Trust me on that. That's...
Sonny00:43:50Wow. Yeah. Is there going to be an E for explicit next to this podcast? No, I'm talking... That's how you know it's not for the
Vic00:43:58kids. Yeah, you actually get more ratings. I think you get bigger ratings when you get the
JVL00:44:02E. So do we, do we, do we have... Oh, here it is. Here it is. IMDB talking about a Christmas story. Okay. In the 1940s... Ah! I was off by 10 years. Ralphie attempts to convince us... It's post-war, right? This is a post-war movie. Yeah, I guess. The cars looked old, though. Okay. Good. Let's guess
Sonny00:44:23they were in the 1940s. Hey, so did I tell
JVL00:44:25you about what happened with my Christmas tree? No. So we went out to get our Christmas tree, and this was a... I don't know why we had to do it this early this year, but we decided to do it early. We tend to get large Christmas trees because the room that we have this in is like this two-story vaulted ceiling, and so we get this nine-foot Christmas tree, and because it has only been cut down two days before, it weighs a ton because it's still full of water. And I'm schlepping this thing into my... my house, and like I... you know, after hauling it in off the roof of the minivan, my three-year-old is like running around my legs, and as I drop the tree, I come, like, no kidding, within about, like, a foot and a half of dropping it on her, and it killed her. And so we set up the Christmas tree, and then at four o'clock this morning, I hear a scream from downstairs. I go running downstairs. My baby, my three-month-old infant, is sick and has been spending the evening downstairs, in the living room with my wife, in his little bassinet, and the Christmas tree has toppled over and come within, I'd say, about an inch and a half of landing square on the bassinet. Oh, my gosh. And so, like, I am living in Christmas' final destination, where this tree is trying to kill all of my children.
Sonny00:45:39This is definitely the worst Christmas movie, the sentient Christmas tree trying to murder Jonathan Last's family. Do you remember Rubber?
JVL00:45:45The movie where, like, it's the tire, right? This is Christmas, Tannenbaum, where I have a Christmas tree
Vic00:45:51trying to kill all of my children. That's terrible. You know, the New York Post headline for that would have been Silent Night, Deadly Night.
Sonny00:45:57Okay. Well, that was okay, right? I think so.
Vic00:46:01Yeah, I'm sure it's fine.
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