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#10. What We Really Want to Do is a Podcast
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Reviews: Brief discussion of Patriots Day (Peter Berg, Boston Marathon bombing — Sonny plans to see it) and Live by Night (Ben Affleck's Prohibition gangster film — mixed reception, Sonny will skip).
Dudes Chatting — Actors who become directors: Framed around William Goldman's "dancing bear" theory, the group surveys actor-directors. Ben Affleck earns real respect for Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and Argo. Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge is praised. Clint Eastwood is the consensus greatest actor-director, yet the group agrees he still falls short of pure directors. Robert Redford gets credit only for Quiz Show. Ron Howard and Penny Marshall are also discussed. The episode opens with Sonny's pleasure at the Green Bay Packers' playoff win, mockery of D.C. Redskins fan culture, and a Golden Globes recap: La La Land sweeps seven awards, Meryl Streep delivers a Trump speech, and JVL argues Glenn Close is the superior actress. Spirit of the Week: Bullet Bourbon (mid-episode crisis when the cork breaks) and Old Line Whiskey as backup.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Jonathan, Sonny, Vic, enjoy this podcast. It could be your last. I've had a conversation with the president-elect. His first executive order, maybe his second, I think his first, shut down the Substandard podcast. Make podcasting great again. And the Golden Glove goes to... You got it.
Vic00:00:24Moonlight!
Guest00:00:29I don't deserve this. To die like this. I was building a house. Deserves got nothing to do with it. I'll see you in hell, white money.
Vic00:00:58I'll see you in hell, white money.
Sonny00:01:28And how was the weekend? Either way, point is, family has been Packers fans since, like, the 50s, 60s, whatever.
Vic00:02:04Was he kind of like the Rudy of the team? No, he was just not good.
Sonny00:02:09Nevertheless. No, my grandfather was great at everything. But I was very excited, as I know Steve Hayes, I'm sure, was, and John McCormick, your colleagues. We've got a lot of Scotties. A lot of Scotties at The Weekly Standard. Packers fans here. Here's the thing is, when I'm watching a football team that I like play in a game, I don't want it to be a close game. Like, my wife went to the University of Southern California, and the Rose Bowl this year was one of the great games of all time. One of the great Rose Bowl performances of all time, insofar as it came down to the last play. And she was miserable. She was miserable. I don't want any part of that. I want to be very, you know, kind of. Confirm and confirmed in my victory. Right. Crush it. And that's what this game was after about five minutes left to go in the first half. The first half was very miserable to watch. I was very unhappy. But now things feel much better. Right.
Vic00:03:15I think they were leading by two field goals, and then pretty much that was it. No, they were down by two field goals. I mean, the Giants. They were down. Yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:03:21The Giants were up by six until about five minutes left in the first half. And then the Packers just poured it on. It was glorious.
Vic00:03:29They know when to win, right? Because the Redskins crushed them earlier in the season, but they were able to gather the forces at the end of the season.
Sonny00:03:36Well, the Redskins are a garbage team. They're a garbage organization. Fact check. True. And JBL, I know you have a lot of thoughts about the Redskins fan base and media scene here in D.C. I just want like two minutes of those. Can I just get like your very brief take on the awesomeness of the D.C. Redskins? The Redskins media scene. I hate them. I hate them so much. Jonathan is, for the record, from Philadelphia. He's an Eagles fan.
Vic00:04:07I want to hear all about the Eagles fan base later, but let's talk about the Skins first.
JVL00:04:10Here's what I don't like about the Skins is the Skins fans have this ridiculous cockeyed optimism, which just drives me insane. So I think that, oh, I'm going to, please, I don't want to distract you while you're pouring more hooch. You don't have to pay attention. The cork broke, but let me get back to you. Ten minutes. I can encapsulate this entire thing into one story. So the year is 2005, 2007, the Super Bowl year for the Eagles, where they had Terrell Owens as the, just having a monster year, McNabb having an MVP season, and you guys have both heard this story before. No, no, no. The Eagles were, I believe, 13-1 on the season, clearly the best team in football. I was up. I was up in New Jersey that weekend, and the Eagles had won their game against the Dallas Cowboys to clinch home field throughout the playoffs, but Owens had gotten hurt. And I listened to sports talk radio as I drove south from Philadelphia to D.C. And what you do, you can actually get Philly all the way down to the Miller D. Tidings Bridge, and after you cross that and the Susquehanna River, you pick up the D.C. sports talk radio. So as I'm going and listening to caller after caller on sports talk radio, and they are finished, people are saying, I mean, you know, look, obviously they're going to lose in the first round of the playoffs, and obviously they're going to lose in the next two games, but frankly, I don't see how they could score another touchdown. They probably won't score again this season. It's over. It was unanimous. All the hosts thought this. All the fans and callers thought this. So cross over the Susquehanna River and get into the Washington media market, and the Redskins at this point had just won their first back-to-back games of the season, I believe they had gone to the gaudy mark of like five and eight, and caller after caller were saying how it was now clear that if they won out and a bunch of other teams lost, they could maybe sneak in with the final wild card, and then once they had the final wild card, because Terrell Owens had now been hurt, it's entirely possible they could beat the Eagles after they win their wild card game, and from there, it was pretty much clear sailing to the Super Bowl. This is a five-win team, and the fans and the hosts all believed that they were destined for the Super Bowl, and this is what drives me crazy.
Sonny00:06:37And I'm with them all the way. It is, DC is a total bandwagon town, right? Like, every time the Nationals are in the playoffs, you know, it's like, oh, we're Nats town, we're World Series, Strausberg, gonna get us there.
JVL00:06:53But the bandwagon they need is the tiniest possible push. No, exactly. It literally is one win. This sports team wins one game. It is the most Pollyanna. And to me, Pollyanna is the greatest character.
Vic00:07:02And even, you know, columnists, you know, if you, you know, you could win the game by three points, and they're like, well, clearly we've hit a turning point here. You know, we've turned a corner. And if they don't, then they also tend to think that there are a lot of, you know, structural issues. But I absolutely agree, Jonathan, about listening to Philly radio and talking about the Eagles and how much people, you know, their own people hate the Eagles. And then once you cross over there and you listen to the Redskins, and you get to listen to Sonny Jurgensen and Riggo and Sam Hoff. And you know what you hear? You hear a lot of this. You hear a lot of, you hear a lot of this, I think, that's going on over there.
JVL00:07:38And it's like listening to Baghdad Bob. There is a Pravda aspect to the sport and press in D.C., which drives me insane.
Guest00:07:45We just need a new, you know.
Sonny00:07:48Yeah, so. Fantastic. Yes. I love that. I love, I love JBL's take on the Redskins fandom.
Vic00:07:53And, you know, always next year. So, there you go. No, no, that's the point.
JVL00:08:00Next year will be even worse. If experience has taught us anything, it's that whatever the question is, whatever the subject is, next year will always be even worse.
Sonny00:08:07The Redskins should definitely invest $100 million in a semi-competent game manager who can throw a five-yard slant sometimes. You know, they got.
Vic00:08:17The Kirk Cousins thing is perfect. They got rid of their defensive coordinator, Joe Barry, which I thought was good.
Sonny00:08:25I'm sure that was the problem.
Vic00:08:26That was the problem. And, but, you know. You know, I mean, I think the owner is learning. It's going to take him a couple more decades to learn, but, you know, it's sort of the I have millions of dollars, so I want to win now, mummy. You know, and you just can't do it that way. That's how I feel. Slow build.
Sonny00:08:39That's how I feel about the substandards.
Vic00:08:41It's a slow build, but, you know. Millions of dollars. You know, why can't we be like the Cowboys? We got. We got. The substandards like that. Yeah, that's right. All right. So, aside from the playoffs. Let's talk about something really manly. Oh, yeah. The Golden Globes.
Sonny00:08:55Yes.
Vic00:08:55Yes, absolutely. Because that's what every man was watching. Yes. You know, on Sunday night. And did you. Wait, was Kate Upton in the news? At the Golden Globes? Oh, no. No, I'm sorry. I heard something else. It was. Yeah. So, it's for the Golden Globes award ceremony with the foreign press. Oh, the Hollywood. The Hollywood foreign press. The Hollywood foreign press, Jonathan. Those Globes.
Sonny00:09:18It really is still a missed opportunity that Kate Upton was not in Harry Potter's Fantastic Beasts. Oh. That was a. Yes.
Vic00:09:26That was a.
Sonny00:09:26That would have been something.
Vic00:09:28So, we watched, I guess I watched parts of it. What I like about them versus the Oscars, I don't think there's, there aren't any song and dance numbers. Is that correct? Yes. There's no long productions and this goes on to midnight or after midnight. No.
Sonny00:09:41Few montages.
Vic00:09:41Let's get to the, let's get to, and there's a lot of nominees because they do TV and film at the same time. Right.
Sonny00:09:46Well, they do TV and film at the same time, which means that there are a lot of actor and show and director nominees. Nominees. But there are no, there are no technical categories. There's no like best costume. Yes. That's right. That's right. So, the awards. The awards that people actually care about, we get a lot of those. Right.
Vic00:10:00As opposed to the ones that they'll say previously not filmed, here are the winners and things like that. And they also split the genres, don't they? So, you know, with the exception.
Sonny00:10:07Yes. So, there's drama and comedy. That's right.
Vic00:10:10Although I was surprised, I guess director is overall director. I guess. I was very confused. I don't know how. I thought, I thought that Mel Gibson was up for director. He was. He was. He was. But he lost to Damien Chazelle who won for the musical La La Land. Yes. So, that's all one big thing.
Sonny00:10:24So, you're telling me that you didn't think Hacksaw Ridge was a musical or comedy? Because, I mean, frankly, if you saw it, it was a laugh a minute.
Vic00:10:30I believe Matt Damon made the same joke, didn't he? About The Martian being nominated as a comedy.
Sonny00:10:34That was ridiculous because The Martian is actually kind of funny. It's actually pretty funny. I laughed more times in The Martian than I did at like five of the movies that were nominated in the comedy category that year.
Vic00:10:48I think one of the big factors in making that funny had to do with the soundtrack because it was a whole idea, wasn't it? I mean, that plays throughout in sort of the absurdity of listening to disco music on a foreign planet.
JVL00:10:58Those are the cheapest laughs, though. I would say the book is insanely funny. It's actually really funny. Yeah, it's actually, yeah. The book is fabulous.
Sonny00:11:07Matt Damon being like kind of dry and wry into the camera by himself, it's fantastic. Like, he is actually a very, very funny actor. People don't appreciate this about Matt Damon. He is extremely funny. His three-minute cameo in Eurotrip is one of the funniest three-minute cameos ever recorded. Put that.
Vic00:11:28Put that in show notes. That would be a good link. Yes. So, what was your overall take on The Golden Globes?
Sonny00:11:33My overall take was that I love the fact that La La Land won, like, seven awards because it drives all of the, like, nerds on film Twitter crazy because they hate this movie. They really hate it for some reason, and I don't get it. You can only see what Jonathan's doing right now. I don't get it. Me and Jon Podhoretz, who is a very classy individual, we both love this movie, you know, and frankly, we're great.
JVL00:11:54I am being totally straight-faced and serious here because I have not seen what Jon Podhoretz and Jon said. Jon thinks this is the greatest movie since Mamma Mia, right? Oh, that's a low blow. I'm asking you this totally straight-faced. What? Low blow.
Vic00:12:07Best movie of the year.
JVL00:12:07He says, best movie of the year.
Vic00:12:09Although he also really loved another movie I did not see, which was the Bank Heist movie. You loved it. The Chasing Around, you know what I mean? They got with Chris Pine in it. What's it called? The Chasing Around. Oh, Hell or High Water. Hell or High Water. Okay, good. He loved that.
Sonny00:12:23I'm glad that we spent 20 seconds figuring out what Hell or High Water was. He liked that too. So, obviously, the big story out of the Golden Globes was Meryl Streep attacking our great and glorious president, Donald Trump, president-elect. He's, you know, obviously the sun and the moon and the stars. So, we can't really let that slide. I would, frankly, instead of discussing her speech, like to talk about the glorious leader's retort, which is that Meryl Streep is overrated. And if we are going to say whether or not Meryl Streep is overrated, we're going to say whether or not Meryl Streep is overrated. We have to decide, what do we decide her, like, what is rated? Like, how do we rate her? How do we decide? And for me, on a personal level, there is not a movie that she is in that I don't like her in. So, I think she's properly rated. No, Meryl Streep.
Vic00:13:17Meryl Streep. I will tell you this. Not Glenn Close. Yes, no, we'll get to that in a second. Politics aside, I think she's an amazing actress. And I agreed with her. Somewhat of her concerns when she gave that speech. Squish. Cucked. Totally, yes. You cucked. Well, I'm just not sure who's listening to us right now, Sonny. So, just in case they tune us off, hey, I'm here. But, that said, all our performances have been great, even in the movies. The Deer Hunter, you know. What do you mean, even in The Deer Hunter? The Deer Hunter.
Sonny00:13:50The Deer Hunter is one of her best movies.
Vic00:13:53I felt like it was four hours, The Deer Hunter. We'll get into it. Oh, my God. Sorry. God bless America. The singing God Bless America at the end. That was great. And Sophie's Choice, obviously. But I agree with you. Everything that she's done. Even the movie about the Iron Lady, the Thatcher movie, which is a terrible movie. But she was great. Wrong. Wrong that she was great or wrong that it was terrible. Wrong, wrong. I think that the trailer was the best part of the movie, the Iron Lady. I just didn't like the idea of the imaginary Dennis Thatcher haunting her. It was... It's just too crazy. I'm sorry. It was... No. Okay. Jonathan, you're up. Death Becomes Her?
Sonny00:14:34Well, no. So this is... I'm working on a blog post right now with the Free Beacon blog, which will come up way before this ever airs. So you'll never know if I was lying about this. About how this is actually her best movie. Her greatest performance is in Death Becomes Her.
JVL00:14:49Okay. Well, I haven't seen it since I was 12. So I am open to...
Vic00:14:54Who else is in that movie? Is it Roseanne Barr? No, it's Goldie Hawn.
JVL00:14:57Goldie Hawn. Goldie Hawn. Jesus. I get confused. I don't dislike Meryl Streep. She's a wonderful actress. I have a... If we're ranking... If this is the ranking of the actresses, I would say that Glenn Close is what everybody says that Meryl Streep is. Glenn Close is the great actress of her generation and the woman with the greatest range who can do all sorts of interesting things.
Vic00:15:24I understand this is a minority... Including Cruella DeVille. This is a...
JVL00:15:27Minority opinion. I'm happy to... And maybe this is really Coke versus Pepsi, that, you know, it's just a preference. I don't have anything bad to say about Meryl Streep, except that I generally prefer Glenn Close. There. That's fine. Yeah.
Sonny00:15:46Okay. I mean, I'm not gonna... No, I don't think you can really mount a case against Glenn Close. Mounting a case against Glenn Close is like mounting a case against a possession receiver in the NFL. It's like, okay, yeah, she's pretty good. Damages. Fatal... Like, holy crap, damages.
JVL00:16:03Rose Byrne was better in that, though, so...
Sonny00:16:05Rose Byrne is fantastic in that. She's fantastic in everything.
JVL00:16:07That is... You know what? She's so good that she even steals little pieces of the X-Men.
Sonny00:16:12Oh, yeah, totally. Rose Byrne is really... Or Neighbors. Well, Neighbors, she's clearly the best thing in Neighbors. Like, that's not even up for debate.
Vic00:16:20You know who else is good in that? Ike Barinholtz.
Sonny00:16:23Oh, yeah, he is good. He is good. Because he has one of the worst lines in the movie.
JVL00:16:27He's ridiculous. She's good in The Greek, too, and she's great in that. Ooh, I don't know. And, of course, Bridesmaids. Bridesmaids, of course. Yeah, Rose Byrne can do anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love her.
Vic00:16:35And Sunshine. Sunshine. Yeah. I would say Fatal Attraction would not be Fatal Attraction without Glenn Close. Right. I know, I mean, I... Well, it's funny, she's not a harridan.
JVL00:16:45Like, it's, again, it's a stretch for her. It's not Kathy Bates playing, you know, in Misery, who's forever Kathy Bates after that.
Vic00:16:51And when she takes, you know, the scissors and is cutting herself at the very end of that movie, and she's got the... I mean, I think only she could have done that. And there are other... I mean, there was talk about who else could have played that role, but really, they couldn't have done better than her. Glenn Close is awesome. There we go on that. What else? Oh, yes. I'm going to give Sonny this... I want to take another shot at this, Bob. You know what? One of the reasons... Can you just get to the spirit of the week? We have a crisis here on the episode, which is one of the... We have two spirits of the week, and the first one is Bullet Bourbon. We love Bullet. We've just jumped to the spirit of the week. Frontier Whiskey, delicious from Kentucky. But we were running short on that, and our backup is our old favorite, Old Line Whiskey from Maryland. And unfortunately, the cork has broken, and it's stuck, and it's lodged, and it's very hard for us to continue on the show without... I don't know what we're supposed to do. I can't function right now, because we can't open the bottle.
Sonny00:17:50Frankly, I am really disappointed in all of this. We need, like, a wrench. Can we send an intern out to the store to get another bottle of... Quick, to get, like, a handle of anything. Sonny, your hands are shaking, because you don't have anything in your hands.
Vic00:18:01I just, I really can't, I can't handle this. Of anything, okay. God. Was there anything else?
Sonny00:18:06Wasn't there some vodka in your office or something? Yes, there was. I'll drink vodka straight.
Vic00:18:09I also have, you know what, as luck would have it, I have a nail polish remover. Yes, give me that.
Sonny00:18:13Here it is. Do you have any ethyl alcohol?
Vic00:18:15Have you got that? No, Barbicide. I got Barbicide. We're good to go. Uncle Ned, I think you might have a problem. Do you have any other thoughts on the Golden Globes before we move on? Do you think that La La Land is probably then going to win everything at the Oscars?
Sonny00:18:28Yes.
JVL00:18:28I have a serious question. When is the last time that a musical was nominated for Best Picture but didn't win it? Because my theory is that if you put out a musical and it's good enough to get nominated, the makeup of the Academy is just so soft on musicals that they'll just give it to you. Was Nine nominated for Best Picture?
Sonny00:18:50Oh, right.
Vic00:18:50That's a good question.
Sonny00:18:52That would be the only. I'll offer that. That would be. That would be the only one I would think recently that might make the cut.
Vic00:19:00I'm efforting. Okay. In the meantime, moving on to our big block, as we say. Yes, I haven't said since episode one. You haven't said that since the first episode. That's true. But you know what? This episode. Go back to work on your transitions. Totally fetched on this. Totally fetched.
Sonny00:19:13Everything about this last five minutes or so could probably be on the cutting room floor.
Vic00:19:18Yeah, okay. You are seeing what movie this week? I'm sorry. You're not nominated for Best Picture. All right.
Sonny00:19:24It was not nominated for Best Picture. Okay. But it did get, did Daniel Day, who was, it did get a bunch of Oscar nominations.
Vic00:19:30Javier Bardem. I get confused who's in that one. No wins. No wins. Only nominations. Okay. Penelope Cruz. There you go. I'll give her, she definitely deserves an award. I'm a big fan of Penelope Cruz in anything. Sonny, this week, at the movies.
Sonny00:19:45At the movie theaters this week, you've got, on Friday, you have Patriot's Day, directed by Peter Berg, debuting. Which is a movie about the Boston Marathon bombing and the subsequent chase to catch the guys who perpetrated that. And you also have Live by Night, which is the Ben Affleck-directed Prohibition-era gangster film, which his, both of these movies were supposed, both of these movies got qualifying runs for the Oscars. They were supposed to get, like, kind of, you know. They released it in time for consideration. Yeah, we, we, we in the Washington area. Film Critics Association did not get screenings of these films, and we were supposed to, and it was very, it was very, that's never a good sign, is when, when they're, they start canceling screenings.
Vic00:20:33I mean, just based on the trailers, it did, and I love gangster movies. This did not grab me.
Sonny00:20:37Yeah, it, so Live by Night is getting very mediocre reviews. I think Patriot's Day is actually getting better reviews. It has a very solid second act, kind of action sequence, which mirrors what actually happened in Boston. Remember, there was, like, a giant shootout. With the, the Boston bombers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, or filming a city that's completely abandoned, which was very surreal. Yeah. Or, well, locked down. It wasn't really abandoned. Locked down. Yeah, right. You know, everyone was there, they just weren't, you know, coming outside. Right, right. Uh, so anyway, I'm, I'm extremely, I, I will see Patriot's Day this week, uh, at the preview. I will not see Live by Night.
Vic00:21:12And so this is good for Wahlberg, because yet again, he gets to, uh, just, uh, not have to worry about an accent, just talks the way he was. Yeah, he gets to do Boston.
Sonny00:21:19Yeah, he gets to do Boston. He loves doing Boston. But what's interesting about both of these movies is, is that they're directed by guys who, like, want, who, well, in the case of Affleck, who obviously is an actor first, he's like a, you know, he's a, a well-received, uh, action star and movie star, generally speaking, who has shifted very credibly into directing, which is rare. What was...
Vic00:21:42Relatively rare. What was his, uh, directorial debut? Do you remember? Was it, uh, Peter Burr? Uh, it wasn't The Town, it was, um, no. No, uh, Ben Affleck.
Sonny00:21:49Affleck's, uh, first, uh, movie was...
JVL00:21:52Gone Girl? Gone Girl. No, no, no, no, no, no, um... I've got it, hold on. Okay, hold on.
Vic00:21:57Not Mystic River is Clint Eastwood. No, uh, it's Gone Baby Gone. Gone Baby Gone.
Sonny00:22:01Gone Baby Gone, with Casey Affleck, uh, who is, uh, probably going to win Oscar for Best Actor, who won at the Golden Globes. For Manchester by the Sea. For Manchester by the Sea. But that's not directed by him. Not directed by him. That was directed by Ken Lonnegren, who is a, uh, playwright. Who's awesome.
Vic00:22:17Here, really quickly, uh, to go back to the, um, Golden Globes, you know how, what's really interesting? They kept on flashing, you know, they keep on flashing to people in the audience. The one person they kept on flashing to, at least when I was watching it, Christian Slater. Really? Yes. And I figured it out because I believe he's a creator or a producer for Mr. Robot. Yes.
Sonny00:22:35Well, yeah, he's one of the executive producers, I think, for Mr. Robot. Yeah.
Vic00:22:38They just kept on showing him.
Sonny00:22:40Yeah. So anyway, you know, it's, it's interesting that Affleck has kind of moved into this directorial realm so well. Uh, it is hard to do for actors sometimes. I think that. I think that, um, actors who direct have a tendency to focus on acting to an exclusion of everything else. For instance, this, also this year, uh, you have Denzel Washington directing Fences. Right. Which is, which is a totally creditable movie. It's like, I, I think it's relatively well done. Um, and, uh, it is very much an actor's movie. It is Denzel kind of like putting the camera on actors and being like, do your thing. Do your thing. And, and whether or not Denzel is a good director of actors is hard to say because, frankly, he's got a lot of talent to work there. First of all, he's got Denzel Washington in the lead role. Yeah. I mean, like, Denzel Washington directing Denzel Washington, that's, you know. But he's also got Viola Davis. Viola Davis is going to win, uh, all of the awards. She's hot for Suicide Squad, right? Yeah, for Suicide Squad. Right, right. Well, I mean, frankly, she should be winning for Suicide Squad. She will win for Fences because it's more, you know. Oh, sort of makeup award. Yeah, right, right. It's, you know, it's really, it's really... It's really all politics. It's all Hollywood politics. Yeah. Uh, uh... Like Al Pacino in Sets of a Woman. Sorry. Exactly. Uh, and then you have, you have another one. You have, uh, you have Mel Gibson. You have Mel Gibson, who is directing in Hacksaw, who is directing Hacksaw Ridge. So... Not starring in that. Hacksaw got snubbed, didn't it? No, I don't think Hacksaw got snubbed. I think Hacksaw has received about the appropriate amount of recognition, which is to say that it has received several nominations, but very few wins.
Vic00:24:23At the Globes, I mean, it didn't win anything.
Sonny00:24:25Yeah, yeah, right. That's what I mean. I mean, it got nominated for Best Director. It got nominated for Best Actor. And frankly, I think both of those are stretch picks. Um, even though I really liked Mel Gibson, Mel Gibson's direction in that movie, I really liked Andrew Garfield in that movie, but he's better in Silence. Ah. Actually better in Silence. He's had a busy year. Uh, uh, so anyway, you, you have these movies where, uh, actors are, are directing. It's very... It's, you know, it's, it's hard. It's hard for, it's hard for them to make that shift.
Vic00:24:55And some do better than others. Everyone can do it. I mean, it seems like if they have enough, you know, backing, then they can give it a, give it a whirl. Um, and Peter Berg, you mentioned. And he was, I mean, you see some of this goofy stuff he'd been in early in his life, in his career. And then he started doing directing, and obviously he's taken off much more as a director than an actor. Yeah, sure.
Sonny00:25:17No, totally. Uh, I mean, I think Peter Berg is probably one of our, uh, preeminent action directors right now. He's, you know, I think The Kingdom is one of the few, like, actually good movies about the war on terror. Yeah, I agree. That has been made, that came out in 2004. Um, and it is one of the few movies that actually kind of captures that, uh, that, that kind of panic sensibility of post-9-11, trying to figure out what's going on and what isn't. Um, uh, but he's also, uh, The Rundown is a fantastic action comedy, uh, starring The Rock and Sean William Scott. Uh, like, I, I, the, when The Rundown came out, I was convinced that, uh, The Rock and Sean William Scott were going to be, like, the next big things. And The Rock kind of is, kind of, kind of, kind of is not, kind of is. Uh, Sean William Scott has kind of disappeared. He has. Which is very, very odd. Yeah. Very odd. Uh, but also, you know, like, uh, Peter Berg has, like, shifted into this kind of docudrama, um, realm where he's making, uh,
JVL00:26:14Battleship.
Sonny00:26:15He made Deepwater Horizon.
JVL00:26:16Oh, yeah. Deepwater Horizon, which is about the... About Milton Bradley games. Directed Battleship? Yeah.
Sonny00:26:23Yikes. Anyway. It's just one misfire. Everyone gets one misfire. Was it because... Hancock? Did they just... Hancock is actually really good.
Vic00:26:31Hancock. Go ahead, Jonathan. Why don't you take the floor? I like Peter Berg.
JVL00:26:35No, no, no, in general. Just talk about... No, this is not... I'm not anti-Peter Berg. I... Peter Berg is a little bit like Michael Mann Lite, which is a compliment. Um, I, if you want...
Sonny00:26:44Worked under Michael Mann.
JVL00:26:45Yeah. Yeah. Clearly, he pulled his sensibility from Michael Mann, and you could not do better in terms of... of, like, having your formation be from someone like Michael Mann. I like Peter Berg.
Vic00:26:55I think he's good. Do you have a favorite actor who's become director, a director or former actor?
JVL00:27:01Well, so this is the thing about actor-directors. William Goldman wrote about this in, I want to say it was... Which lie did I tell? He said, actor-directors... He said, everybody, without even realizing they're doing it, automatically goes and gives a giant bonus credit to actors who direct. He said, it's like going to the circus and you see the dancing bear. And you see the dancing bear and you're like,
Sonny00:27:26oh, my God, that bear is dancing. It's amazing. Look at it. Can you believe
JVL00:27:30that that bear right there is dancing like a person? And if someone came over to you and said, well, do you think that bear could dance like, you know, the prima ballerina role at the Bolshoi? You'd say, well, no, obviously not, but it's a bear. It's not a person. Look at it. And that's kind of like actors and directing.
Sonny00:27:47No, I think that's right.
JVL00:27:48I mean, it's like, it's, oh, my gosh, it's Angelina Jolie and she's just an actress and she's directed a movie and made it happen. And a lot of that.
Sonny00:27:57Angelina Jolie, who I love, is a very good example of an actress who should not be directing. I, I, I, yes. Yeah.
Vic00:28:06There are, there are. So that means you didn't like Unbroken. There are a bunch of reasons.
Sonny00:28:09Unbroken is totally fine. Unbroken is totally fine, but it just like, there's nothing special about it and it is, again, one of these movies that is very focused on the acting.
?00:28:17Yeah.
JVL00:28:17So, so there are basically three reasons. One is why actors decide they want to direct. I mean, taking as given that all actors, like this is a joke in Hollywood, right? What I really want to do is direct. Yeah, exactly. Everyone says that. And of course, it doesn't work for the Foley artists, right? There's, there's no sound design guy or costume woman who has been running this stuff for 40 years and knows a lot about movies who a studio ever says, here's 20 million dollars, go ahead and make a movie for us. It's only the actors somehow. They must have some special insight into the craft. So there are three reasons why actors decide to direct. The most common is just that they're the ones who have the ability to get the studio to finance the movie. So they've got some idiot vanity project or maybe a very well-meaning vanity project that they think that they can bring to the screen and they decide they don't just want to produce it but they want to direct it. We talk a lot, I talk a lot about Tom Cruise. One of the things I love about him is that he has never once wanted to direct something. He has all sorts of ideas about projects he wants to be seen brought to the screen and so he takes a very active producing role but he doesn't try to direct. And I think that shows a lot of self knowledge and more actors ought to follow his example. And you think restrained as well? Yeah. Don't you think?
Vic00:29:25Totally. You know, I was looking back and I was curious about some of the great actors from the past and Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, and Humphrey Bogart have no director credits.
Sonny00:29:37Just actors. Well, they're working in a very different Although Charlie Chaplin,
Vic00:29:42Charlie Chaplin,
Sonny00:29:42Well, Charlie Chaplin, he was an actor
Vic00:29:44and he's got 72 director credits. Which is especially amazing because he was mute.
JVL00:29:48He couldn't even talk. I don't know if it was magic. Anyway, go ahead. So, number two, the second reason they do it is because they are an actor who decides that they have to take their career into their own hands and that nobody else is going to make movies for them if they don't do it themselves. And so, like, this is what Woody Allen did. This is what Jon Favreau
Sonny00:30:05did with Swingers. Right.
JVL00:30:06And I actually respect that quite a lot. An actor who decides, like, look, I am not a matinee idol. I am not somebody who is naturally going to be a leading man who some studio is going to put into a giant tentpole movie and then allow them to make later down the line their movies they want to make. So I am just going to do it myself. And I think that there is a lot to respect in that.
Sonny00:30:26So then we have the one who kind of transcends both of these categories, right? We can't. We haven't gotten to the third category. No, please, please.
JVL00:30:36Which is the actors who genuinely have an artistic and directorial vision and are better directors than they are actors. And so, like, Rob Reiner, Penny Marshall, Ron Howard, and so these Venn diagram, these circles overlap tiny bits here and there, but not really. I mean, you really can plop them into buckets. There are some people who transition a little bit between them. Mel Gibson would be one of them. Who else would we say? Robert Redford. Well, I would call Redford a dilettante, frankly, if you look at his stuff. Agreed. Clooney, Ed Harris. The big one. God bless him. Philip Seymour Hoffman. No. He's kind of a dilettante in this. He should not be directed. The big one is Eastwood. Eastwood, right. The big one is Eastwood.
Sonny00:31:25So how do we categorize Eastwood?
JVL00:31:28So Eastwood, I would think, would drop in. He's not in his own category. I would say that he, I would drop him into a bucket with one other guy, Kenneth Branagh. And the interesting thing about this, and this is actually a side conversation. We'd move this down the line or just not talk about it at all. But as I was thinking about this and looking through, it is interesting to me that the financial range of movies directed by actors is very, very narrow. They will direct movies between $5 and maybe $40 or $50 million. You do not see anybody, aside from Kenneth Branagh, taking on a movie that's $80 to $100 million or more. And even that was only a Marvel movie. And it was a Marvel movie, right. It's built for that. So they really, I wonder why that is. I imagine that it's literally just the financial constraints. The studios are willing to pay for the vanity of actors who want to direct, especially somebody like me or somebody like Woody Allen, who makes like $12 million movies that are always delivered on time and they gross at least $20 or $30 million, always make their money back. Eastwood is like that. You know he's going to deliver.
Vic00:32:28Eastwood, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, isn't he always ahead of schedule and under budget? Same with Woody Allen. Yeah. Same thing with Woody Allen. The interesting thing with Robert Redford is he's only done like 10 movies he's directed. And there are a few, obviously, bad ones in there. But I was saying with Sonny earlier, he did direct... There are nine of them and they're almost all of them. They're all bad.
Sonny00:32:49Yeah, they're pretty much all bad. Quiz Show.
Vic00:32:51Quiz Show is the one great movie.
JVL00:32:53River Runs Through It. River Runs Slowly.
Vic00:32:56And Ordinary People. Eh. Ordinary People.
JVL00:32:59Yeah.
Vic00:33:00He was... You look at me. Lions for Man. And that was... Yeah, they were terrible. I'm talking about The Conspirator. I know The Company You Keep. However, if you look at... I mean, it is interesting. So his debut...
Sonny00:33:10Quiz Show, though, is one of those movies that succeeds because he just focuses on the actors. And it's a great cast. It's a great cast. It's a tremendous cast.
Vic00:33:17Ordinary People also has a tremendous cast.
?00:33:19It's a tremendous cast.
Vic00:33:19It's a tremendous cast because Timothy Hunt won for Best Supporting Actor. And that was his first... That was his directorial debut that won four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director. That's not bad. No, you cannot... You cannot grade these people
JVL00:33:33based on their Oscar production. Because as I said, this is the dancing bear. The Academy goes crazy for actor-directed stuff. The Academy,
Vic00:33:41which is mostly actors. I will still maintain it's a good movie. And it's also a great cast, much like Quiz Show. Donald Sutherland. Vic is wrong. Sonny's turning away. Vic is wrong about this. Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, and Judd Hirsch. Boy, The Legend of Bagger Vance was awesome.
JVL00:33:56Ugh. Anyway. No, so Eastwood is the guy who really does... And interestingly, Eastwood is often but not always directing himself. And that also makes him a little interesting because he's different from... Everybody else tends to... They will either direct themselves or they won't direct themselves. They pull out... And, you know, they'll be in some small bit part somewhere, but they don't actually take an action. Right. Take an active role in it. And Eastwood goes between the two. And I don't know where we... I mean, you could say that he's made four-star films in four decades. He's like Scorsese.
Sonny00:34:33No, but...
JVL00:34:34Scorsese was not an actor. No, I mean as a quality director. Here's the thing. If we're doing the Pantheon, I would put Eastwood
Vic00:34:41right next... I don't know about Sonny, but I'm not taking the bait.
JVL00:34:43No, I'm not going to take the bait either. I would put Eastwood right next to Scorsese.
Sonny00:34:46I'm not going to take the bait either because, you know, Eastwood is not as good a director, but I would say that he does have probably my two favorite westerns under his belt. High Plains Drifter, which is totally underrated by the average audience, but I think it's properly rated by smart people, is a kind of... It is a subversion and rejection of the Man With No Name trilogy where this guy kind of rolls into town and teaches all the townsfolk that they need to learn their lesson about how terrible they were. Also, Unforgiven, obviously, which is... I thought you were going to go Outlaw Josie Wales. No. I was not going to go there. But I will be honest, I am not a huge Clint Eastwood director fan. I would say the only other of his movies that I really love is... Firefox is great.
JVL00:35:38I was going to say, Vic Matus, I have a question for you. That's a classic Cold War movie. That is a classic Cold War movie. As Megyn Kelly would say, stand by, stand by. How many times as a child did you watch Firefox? Think Russian. Think Russian.
Vic00:35:49Just a few times. Just a few times. Sonny, please continue.
Sonny00:35:50The jet reads your mind, man. All right. A Perfect World, with Kevin Costner, which I think is actually a totally, totally, again, totally underrated 19... I think it's set in the 60s. It's set in the 60s. I saw this. Movie starring Kevin Costner as a criminal who was broken out and has kind of kidnapped a little kid. And the kid and Kevin Costner bond while Clint Eastwood is trying to track them down. It's really, really good. It's really... And the kid's not annoying.
Vic00:36:19The kid does not ruin the movie.
Sonny00:36:21No, the kid's not annoying and he's fine. But, you know, kind of the rest of his stuff, Million Dollar Baby. Wow. Not for you. Gran Torino, I like. Gran Torino, I like, but I've cooled on a little bit since I saw it originally.
Vic00:36:37Some of the acting by some of the other actors has put a weight on it. I think people have problems with that. Yeah. But you know what's really interesting is also I remember in the 90s Clint Eastwood receiving either from the Oscars or the Golden Globes the Lifetime Achievement Award and they had given it to him just prior to him doing In the Line of Fire and before he directed Unforgiven and they figured, okay, you know, the grand arc of it, they did a whole montage with all the westerns and Dirty Harry and congratulations, you led a full life. Congratulations. You know? Yeah. And then of course he goes on for another 20 years
JVL00:37:11of just amazing things. So what I would say about Eastwood as a director is that unlike truly great directors, there are times when you will get the sense from a movie of his that he just didn't get all the bad on the ball. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Mystic River, both of which are these movies shot through with narrative promise and that just don't quite work and for no real reason except that the director didn't really follow through on story vision. And you see that, I would say, and Victus, you could probably say that also about J. Edgar, you could say about that. So he's got some great movies where he really makes it work and connects, but he really, even Eastwood, who's the greatest of the actor, I think we would say the greatest of the actor-directors. Yeah, I'll say so.
Sonny00:37:58It just isn't as good as an actual professional director. He's not, he doesn't, I think, kind of conceive of many of these things visually. Okay. Do you have any other thoughts on when a director,
JVL00:38:13No, just that we should all prepare for Ben Affleck to win like five Best Director Awards over the course of his career. over the course of his career because this is what happens.
Vic00:38:21Did he win for, I know Argo won Best Picture He did not win for Argo. He did not win for Director.
Sonny00:38:24It was a big, it was actually kind of a surprising snub. He did not win for Argo. He was not even nominated for Argo.
JVL00:38:31That's interesting. That is interesting.
Sonny00:38:33If I remember correctly, maybe check that. I'll effort that. But if I remember correctly, it was a big snub at the time that Argo was nominated and won Best Picture wrongly, I think. But it won. Do you remember who you thought it should have gone to? If I remember correctly, that's the year that Zero Dark Thirty was.
Vic00:38:52Oh, right.
Sonny00:38:52It was the two, yeah. Which was a much, which was a much, much better film.
Vic00:38:56I would have given Best Supporting Actor to the guy who played Leon Panetta in Zero Dark Thirty.
Sonny00:39:02Not even nominated, man. Yeah. Good call. So he's not, he's not been nominated for Best Director, I don't think. Was he nominated for, for The Town? I don't think he was. Efforting. Okay. Any corrections? I have none. Sonny Bunch has zero. Perfect. Mr. Perfect.
Vic00:39:24I will say, I only have one, which was last episode. I was, I was so entranced by Sonny telling us about his Christmas present of the Pappy Van Winkle 23 year. 20. 20. Oh.
Sonny00:39:39That's a correction right now.
Vic00:39:40There is a, isn't there a 23 as well, or no? There is a 23. Wow. Okay, so they also do a 20.
JVL00:39:44Got to be up on the mic there, Sonny.
Vic00:39:46We can't hear you. He's checked out. I've leaned back because I have no corrections, and I think I said I can't wait for it to be next year's Spirit of the Week when I met next week. Sorry you misunderstood me, Sonny, so next week you can bring in the Pappy. Thank you. He's totally out. All right.
Sonny00:40:03Okay. No, I'm ignoring this nonsense.
JVL00:40:06So I'll make Sonny's correction for him. He had said Wolf of Wall Street was the top-grossing Scorsese movie. It is not. The top-grossing Scorsese movies are The Departed and then Shutter Island. That's if you just take them by raw numbers. If you adjust for ticket inflation, it's Departed, Cape Fear, Aviator, Shutter Island, and then Wolf of Wall Street. I said Beta between two things when I should have said Delta. Beta actually is in finance, not... It's different.
Sonny00:40:35Sonny said Delta
JVL00:40:36and I was confused. Sonny did. I figured I did.
Sonny00:40:38I didn't correct you at the time because I don't correct my co-hosts
JVL00:40:40in the midst of their story. I said Paul Thomas Anderson was 25 when he directed Boogie Nights. No, he was 27.
Vic00:40:48Oh, he's an old man. He's an old man then. Nick, what were you doing when you were 27 years old? Again, I was line editing here at The Weekly Standard and I tell you, I cut more than a few double spaces and italicized commas. So, take that, Paul Thomas Anderson.
Sonny00:41:00Oh, man. You mentioned... The italicized commas are not as bad as the bolded commas, though.
Vic00:41:05Oh, yeah, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. They are sneaky. Jonathan, you talked about the great scene in Boogie Nights with the steady cam and it's completely one cut. He does one on himself, actually, in Magnolia. I think that goes on longer. The opening of Magnolia and he goes from the game show place to all the different characters and I believe it's all one. I don't think there's any cuts to that. I was actually seasick by the time it ended. It seemed very continuous.
Sonny00:41:29That's not a correction.
Vic00:41:31No, I'm just pointing it out. All right. Remember, this is the part, Sonny, that's called corrections and clarifications. What are you clarifying? I'm clarifying my thoughts. Okay.
JVL00:41:41My listener and correspondent, my buddy, John Vecchione, who's a lawyer in town, says, he says, I saw that Sonny Bunch rolled, his director list, back to those active in 1916, put Stanley Kubrick on it. Yes. But isn't William Wyler better than all of those guys? No. Did he not make pictures in the 1960s? You guys are showing your boomer Gen X bias.
Vic00:42:00I think he's thinking about maybe some like it hot, but that's Billy Wilder and I always get confused between Billy Wyler and William Wyler. You don't know who William Wyler is? He's talking about
JVL00:42:08William Wyler. Oh, my God. Sunset Boulevard. Delete your account.
Vic00:42:11Sunset Boulevard.
JVL00:42:12There is an iTunes review right now from listener Sherpa Float, which says, I made my own and my sister listened to the podcast and the greatest compliment I've ever received is when she said that Sonny Bunch reminded her of me. Aww. Sherpa Float must be a real jerk. You're my new favorite listener, Sherpa Float. And a huge thank you to friend of the show, Brian Vaughn, who stopped by our offices today to give me a little care package of Rogue One movie posters from AMC, the IMAX. They are awesome.
Sonny00:42:47How did you, wait, first off, thank you, Brian Fottenen and Brian. The fact that Brian Fottenen is bringing those to JVL instead of Sonny Bunch is very disappointing.
Vic00:42:54And he prided himself in saying that there were no stains on the posters. Until now.
JVL00:42:59No, no, I'm going to have them laminated so it'll just wipe right off. Hi-oh.
Vic00:43:04Oh, one more thing. Yes, go ahead. I got a text
JVL00:43:07from another friend of ours, a friend of the show, Bill Walsh. Oh, good Bill. I love Bill Walsh. And Bill Walsh texted me to tell me that he was driving, he lives out in Neenah, Wisconsin, was driving two hours on Sunday morning to take his son to a hockey game and they were going to listen to The Substandard while they went. And I said, stop, stop, stop. Yeah, just don't do that.
Vic00:43:30Dad, why can't I get a personal massager?
JVL00:43:32Yeah, I said, we have too many dick jokes. Which episode was it? Too many dick jokes.
Vic00:43:37Or not enough. Every episode. Speaking of which, well, this is a, I was going to say, I was going through the Sunday inserts. This is kind of an outtake, but it was such a perfect segue just now. But I'll wait till the outtakes. You're not supposed to tell people
JVL00:43:51to actually do the outtakes.
Vic00:43:55Everything's coming off this episode, by the way. Just, you know, the curtain has been drawn back and there's the wizard running, you know, lots of buttons and wheels. A lot of breaking the fourth wall. A lot of breaking the fourth wall. Again, I'd like to point out that the spirit of the week was bullet bourbon, but we only had a little bit of it because it was a small bottle. And that was part of the, it's part of the Diageo family. It's very nice, you know, and frontier whiskey. Did they give you guys free booze? Because they ought to.
JVL00:44:21Not. The amount of airtime you give to these ridiculous distilleries. They're not ridiculous, but they're really good. Well, this is,
Sonny00:44:27I wonder why we don't get any bottles of free liquor from these people because, you know, somebody's Might I suggest,
Vic00:44:33considering we're number 49 on iTunes.
JVL00:44:36Might I suggest that you not, like, mention the names of these things until these people start, like, actually comping you bottles? Isn't it the whole point is to mention them to get the free bottles?
Vic00:44:44Vic loves to give away free ads. That's his favorite thing. You gotta give a little to get a little.
Sonny00:44:49No, that's not how it works. That's not how it works. You know, I'm a professional advertiser. God, you are.
Vic00:44:53That's how it works. I believe it's you
JVL00:44:54get the money up front.
Sonny00:44:55Oh, my God.
JVL00:44:56That's never gonna happen then. Everything about this.
Vic00:44:59I got these for you. That's never gonna happen. And then we went back to our old line, but the cork broke, and that itself is a tragedy. That's all the time we have on this week's episode of The Substandard. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Victorino Matus at Sonny Bunch. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on at JV Last. No. At JV Last. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play and very soon Spotify. Just type in Substandard under podcast. We are there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time. So I was going through, pretend I didn't mention this earlier. So I was going through Oh, good. Here comes five minutes of Vic Schtick. Sunday inserts. This is a true story. I was going through the Sunday inserts, and there was an interesting Into the mic. There was an interesting comment coupon for a restaurant brew house. You're holding up the piece of paper. Make sure you So I don't forget what it is. It's a restaurant brew house called BJ's. Have you been there? I've been to BJ's brew house. How is it? Heavenly. Heavenly. Well, the coupon is, you know, come to BJ's, right? And in bold, it says, tastes great, feels great. They were talking about the cherry chipotle glazed sandwich. I mean, but it's a bit much.
Sonny00:46:21What did you think they were referring to?
Vic00:46:23Well, it reminded me of some other places. There's a place in Falls Church that serves crawfish called Chase and Tails. That's, you know, a little questionable. And of course, the place, you remember the place on Connecticut Avenue, The Big Hunt? The Big Hunt. Say that again. The Big Hunt. I didn't hear you, but could you say it again? As David Skinner No, but faster. As David Skinner would call it, Mike's Place. Oh, no. That's what David Skinner used to say. Anyway. Mike Hunt's Place? Yes. Thank you, Sonny. Wow. But it is. And, well, that's all I have to say. But there are places like that. It's a little cheesy, but actually some of the places aren't that bad. So you're saying BJ's was pretty good.
Sonny00:47:02BJ's is good. It's like an actual brew pub. They make their own beers there. They're real tasty. BJ's is tasty. The Straight Shooters.
JVL00:47:10Okay. My brother is BJ. My brother's name is BJ. What was that short for? Benjamin Joshua. And he, in high school, ran for student government and put up a bunch of flyers all over the school saying, everybody deserves a BJ. And it lasted, I think, like 48 hours before somebody in administration, like the light bulb went off and they took them all down. And my brother was satisfied just to have gotten those posters up in school. No. He didn't need to. Worth it. Worth it. Totally worth it.
Sonny00:47:40Did he, wait, was he disqualified from the race or?
JVL00:47:43I believe he lost in the electoral college. What?
Sonny00:47:50High school kids, they don't know. Anything else, fellas? Oh, one thing. My one favorite, least favorite, least favorite, definitely least favorite NFL playoff memory involves the Philadelphia Eagles.
JVL00:48:07Do tell.
Sonny00:48:08Fourth and 26.
JVL00:48:09You remember fourth and 26? Do I remember? Did I show my oldest son
Sonny00:48:14fourth and 26 on YouTube 15 times this past week? Fourth and 26 was, it's the one time when I've actually done physical damage to a thing that I owned in anger about a sporting event. I threw, I was watching it in my, I was watching it in my, for listeners. This was like, it was the 2003, 2004 season, and the Green Bay Packers were playing the Philadelphia Eagles in the playoffs, and the Green Bay Packers, all they needed to do was stop the Eagles on fourth and 26 to wrap up a victory, and they gave up a 28-yard pass or something, and I threw my remote on the ground, and I smashed it into pieces. I was so angry when they gave up that play. It's the one time, literally the only, I'm a notoriously angry person.
Vic00:49:09I was going to say, you've been angry ever since?
Sonny00:49:10And I, and I, that is the only time that I've ever actually, like, done violence to something. Physical destruction. Yeah, yeah.
Vic00:49:17Were you alone, or were there people that had witnessed the destruction?
Sonny00:49:19No, I was in, it was in my, it was in my frat house. I was in my room at the frat house by myself, watching it, like, eating a Domino's pizza, just like, eating all of my feelings and smashing things. Was this when you were a bigger Sonny Bunch? Yeah, I was bigger then. Sherpa Float would never do that.
JVL00:49:36Sherpa Float is not nearly as angry. I, this is a true story. The only time in his life that Tom Brady has ever been shoved aside. I, at the White House Correspondents Dinner a number of years ago, I was in a room, and there were a bunch of NFL players there, who were guests, and I saw Donovan McNabb across the room. And Tom Brady was in the way, and Tom Brady was, like, surrounded by a scrum of, you know, like, beautiful, loose-looking women. And so I, like, you know, I stiff-armed, I Heisman my way past Brady to get to Donovan McNabb. And I went up and introduced myself and said, hi, he lives in the same town, he did then live in the same town where I grew up, and, uh, he was so great. I can't, for a guy who probably has people come up to him 50 times a day saying, oh, hey, I love you, Donovan McNabb. He was gracious and friendly and nice. We probably talked for 15 minutes and hung out. And, uh, What did you say to him? And we'll always have 4th and 26th. 4th and 26th.
Vic00:50:30What did you say to him? That's what I want to know. Did you control yourself?
JVL00:50:33I, remarkably, I did. Uh, unlike, you know, like the time I met George Will. No, I totally, I did not, I was not in star f***ing mode at all. I was, I literally, I just said, you know, hey, I'm Jonathan Last for The Weekly Standard. Uh, you know, I grew, I grew up in, in Moorestown. I think that's where you live now. I, uh, and just, thanks. I've, I've watched you your whole career and it's given me an enormous amount of, of joy and, uh, just thank you. And he was totally cool. He was like, hey, well, thank you, man. That's so nice of you to say. To be fair, he's used to, a lot of Philly fans don't do that. Yeah, he's used to,
Sonny00:51:04he's used to Philly fans coming up to me and like, boy, could have done better. You could have done better, frankly,
JVL00:51:10Don. All right, JVL? I'm sure it's fine.
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