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#13. The Substandard Gets into Character
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Dudes Chatting — Character actors: Prompted by the deaths of John Hurt and Miguel Ferrer, the group meditates on what makes a great character actor. JVL names his Mount Rushmore as Scott Glenn, Fred Thompson, Peter Coyote, and Miguel Ferrer — united by their voices and coiled intensity — and argues Ferrer steals Traffic from Don Cheadle. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti are held up as exemplars of the type who grew into leading-man parts. Vic reads from Stephen Tobolowsky's New York Times essay on the subject (Tobolowsky hosts The Tobolowsky Files podcast), including Larry Miller's definition: "a character actor is anyone who's not kissing Renée Zellweger." Discussion of Giamatti and Hoffman connects to Magnolia, Sideways, Boogie Nights, and The Talented Mr. Ripley. A listener-suggested ranking of favorite Val Kilmer roles produces consensus: Tombstone (number one, "just science"), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Real Genius, and Top Gun (where Iceman is quietly the real hero). John Hurt receives extended appreciation — his roles in Alien, 1984, The Elephant Man, Heaven's Gate, Snowpiercer, and Spaceballs — plus the revelation that Mel Brooks' company produced The Elephant Man. Episode opens with Vic announcing his departure from The Weekly Standard after 21 years to join the Washington Free Beacon, and a Super Bowl preview (Pats over Falcons; Sonny takes the over). Corrections included. Spirit of the Week: District Made Vodka from 1-8 Distilling; JVL brings a Blonde Honey Belgian-style beer.
Full transcript
JVL00:00:00- You aren't recording already, are you?
Guest00:00:07- I didn't think you had it in you. - I'm your huckle bearer. - We don't have to have breakfast together. Don't you see this means nothing? Your whole life is pointless. - I am not an animal! I am a human being!
Vic00:00:50- Hello and welcome back to The Substandard. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. I'd like to remind you all TheSubstandard is available on iTunes and Google Play. Just look under podcasts and search for Substandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, leave a review. We are just garnering those reviews. We're crushing it. So we're very grateful. Gentlemen, how was the weekend? Jonathan, how are you? - I'm fine. - How about you boys?
Sonny00:01:19- Sonny? - I didn't get to take a shower this morning 'cause my daughter decided to kick her leg through the crib and she started screaming. Was like, "Let me out! "Let me out!" If I smell bad here in the studio today, if you can smell it over the vodka fumes, please, excuse me.
JVL00:01:36- Earthy. - Earthy, I have an earthy aroma. - Is she making a break for it out of the crib yet?
Sonny00:01:40- No, no, she just was like tossing and turning and put her leg right through, like up to the mid-thigh. - No, I'm saying this time. I'm saying this was not an escape-related injury. - No, she doesn't, she doesn't, she, she, no, she's not like climbing up the crib walls yet.
Vic00:01:52- Okay. - It's funny when that happens for the first time. I remember with my son and he, just decided one day he can make a break for it, and we were downstairs in the kitchen, and all of a sudden he just comes downstairs and looks at us like, I just, like this just happened? Really? And he was looking at us with that weird look, like really, is this happening? You know? It's a funny thing.
JVL00:02:13- It all felt like a dream.
Vic00:02:15- Right, right, right, right, very, very strange. I spent my weekend mostly at the offices of The Weekly Standard. I was moving all of my stuff out. 21 years, as some listeners might know.
JVL00:02:28- Vic and I have gotten a separation.
Vic00:02:31- We have a separation.
JVL00:02:32- It's very amicable.
Vic00:02:34- It's very amicable. You know, we still see each other once a week. - We're still part of each other's lives. - Yes.
Sonny00:02:39- It'll never stop. - The worst part is that you're sharing custody with me now, and it's just very awkward. - Yes, yes, yes.
JVL00:02:44- Our publicist asks that you respect, at this delicate time in our work marriage, respect our privacy.
Vic00:02:49- Respect our privacy. After 21 years, I have taken a job with Sonny Bunch to be deputy editor of the Washington Free Beacon. That doesn't change anything for you listeners. I'm still a contributing editor here, even though they forgot to put my name on the masthead. At least I think they forgot. - Forgot. Quote, forgot. - I gotta check up with Bill on that. I might have said something that insulted him, who knows. But anyway, that's that. - That's because of this podcast. - Yeah, probably.
JVL00:03:15- So long as The Substander's going on, Kristol refused to put you on the masthead.
Vic00:03:18- I'm not going on the masthead. So it was the first time in 21 years I was not on that masthead. But I was thinking about clearing all that stuff out. You know, just what a different time that was when I came here. I came here in 1996. And one of the weird things is, I was, my amount of sports ignorance, and I still have a lot of sports ignorance, but I actually did not really follow football until around the time that I started working at The Weekly Standard. We were not a football house. We were a tennis house. So you know, Davis Cup, oh man, some great Davis Cups. You know, Volvo Masters, those things. But I got, when I started here at The Standard, tickets from Fred Bards for his Redskins season tickets. And he had them in that first, that first level. - 12 rows back in the end zone. - You know what it was? It was, yes, exactly right. - The right side of the end zone. - It was behind the end zone. And I remember it was Redskins versus 49ers, and Jerry Rice was still playing. And somehow, standing there, sitting there, it all came together about how this game works. The downs. And I just like, all of a sudden, I figured it out, and then it made sense. And I imagine that it got much more easy for other people getting to know the game because of the magical yellow line now. I mean, it's so much more straightforward to explain what they have to do. But anyway, that was it.
Sonny00:04:43- Well, it's funny, too, because going to a football game now strikes me as a fate worse than death. I would rather never take another breath than have to go to FedEx Field and sit in this. Because like, watching football in person is a distinctly unpleasant experience. You are, A, surrounded by drunks, B, surrounded by jerks, C, well, just people, just too many people, and C, you are having to deal with constant game interruptions that are not broken up by fantastic and wonderful commercials. You know, you just sit there and you wait for the game to start again. It's just, I can't stand it. The last time I went to a football game in person was probably, it was the last time that Favre was playing for the Packers here in, and they came here to D.C. I think, I can't remember what year it was. I guess it was '06 or '07. Anyway, but the point is, it's miserable, and watching football on TV is a million times better than watching it in person.
Vic00:05:43- I agree. Jonathan, did you ever take those Fred seats then? You must have. - I did.
JVL00:05:47Fred is always so good to us. He gave me, I remember the Eagles tickets when the Eagles came to town, and I did not wear any Eagles gear or, I just sat there and very quietly cheered for my Eagles. I didn't want to get beat up by the mean Redskins fans. - I don't think the Redskins would've done anything to you.
Vic00:06:02However, if you were a Redskins fan at the vet. - That's not how it is everywhere?
Sonny00:06:06- No, no. Yeah, this is, what you, again, you have to remember is that people from Philadelphia are uniformly terrible, so you would expect to get beaten up if you were wearing a Redskins or Cowboys or Packers jersey in Philadelphia. But, you know, in D.C., nobody really cares. Nobody cares that much. Very Pollyanna-ish, as we have discussed.
JVL00:06:23- That's true. Yeah, it was good. I totally, I totally agree. I, going to games now, it's a little different where you have kids, because, like, oh, hey, it's a Sunday. I can give up 10 hours of my life to go watch a football game. Like, that's a, it's a full day.
Vic00:06:40It's a huge time commitment, and I have swimming practice
JVL00:06:43to take somebody to, and, yeah. I think it's funny, actually, this is one of the only groups of three people where all three of us are huge tennis nerds. - I think that's probably true, yeah, yeah. - We could do a whole show on the Australian Open, and literally nobody would listen.
Vic00:06:56- Well, I mean, I could bring my little notepad of autographs, like Bud Collins, Xena Garrison. - No, man. - Were you alone with Bud? - I was, I would have loved to be alone with Bud. When you were talking about the Philly fans, I do remember my friend Peter Lowe had a death wish as a Dallas fan, went up to the vet, and in the middle of the game, when he was in college, unfurled the Texas flag. I mean, that is a, that's a death wish. - What happened? - Somebody threw a hot dog at him, and hocked a loogie. - A loogie, at the flag.
JVL00:07:27- We got off easy. - Yeah, I mean, that's, yeah, really.
Vic00:07:30- It's a good thing there was no D-cell snowballs. But anyway, but yeah, this also explains why--
JVL00:07:35- Peter Lowe, this was back when he was the angriest man in America.
Vic00:07:37- Yeah, angriest man in America, yeah, absolutely. And, but this also explains why also Fred Barnes himself gave up those season tickets to the Redskins. It was too much of a pain, even for him, with all the various parking situations. I mean, it takes you forever to get out of that lot.
Sonny00:07:49- It takes you forever to get there, 'cause you gotta go all the way around the Beltway, 'cause it's in Maryland. It is expensive to park there. I mean, it's like $40, $50. - It's $40 or $50, and then you gotta take a shuttle. - Yeah, then you're not even really close enough to walk to the stadium from the parking lot. And then, of course, the games themselves are insanely expensive. You know, tickets are, you know, 150, 200 bucks. Drinks are, you know, $12 a beer. It's just, it's miserable. Everything about it is miserable. I would rather just sit at home and watch "Red Zone" and get my football, like, crack. It's like, do you guys watch, do you watch "Red Zone"?
JVL00:08:21- No, "Red Zone" is an abomination. - Oh, no. - But your point is that what you want is a 70-inch curved 4K set. And if you sit down in front of that, which can now be had for about 800 bucks, 900 bucks, like, that is just a better experience. - Basically, the cost of a trip to the football stadium, almost. - Yeah, I mean, if you have, like, nice tickets, it's probably cheaper. - Yeah, two tickets, plus parking, plus food, is not all that much less. - Plus food. - Yeah, so I totally agree, it's better. Can we talk one moment about the Super Bowl?
Vic00:08:53- I was gonna say, it's coming up,
JVL00:08:55this Sunday, go ahead, Jonathan, please. - So I, I hate the Patriots, as all people of good character do. And yet, I am a Patriots sympathizer. I wrote about this, I don't know, five years ago, and got an enormous amount of mail. So, they're, they're cheaters, and they win all the time, and they harbored an actual murderer on the team.
Vic00:09:29And yet, they're kind of awesome, because they basically hacked football.
JVL00:09:35So, Belichick is something which is totally different in sport, there is nothing else like him. Do you guys know the story about Ernie Adams? - No. - You know about that? Okay, so there is this guy, who has been following Belichick around. They've been friends since they were at Phillips together. So they went to Exeter together, and they were best friends at Phillips. And this guy has followed Belichick his entire football career. When they were in Cleveland together, Art Modell offered $10,000 to anybody who could explain what Ernie Adams does. And nobody collected it, because nobody knows. It's a beautiful, beautiful piece in ESPN the magazine a bunch of years ago, trying to explain, like, to unearth the mystery of Ernie Adams. And the reporter went around to all these guys, and Wes Welker, and all these guys on the team said, "Hey, do you know what Ernie Adams does?" And they were like, "Who?" He said, you know, "Ernie Adams." They're like, "Oh, Ernie! "Geez, is that his last name?" "No, I don't know. "The guy's always there, "but I don't know what he does." So his title is Director of Football Research. And he is essentially the skunkworks for Belichick. He is the guy who's-- And he essentially acts like a deep-data-mining financial analyst would at a hedge fund, trying to look for little bits of angles in the entire football system. Everything from scouting, to play-calling, to half-time adjustments that they do. - Sabermetrics, too, or no? - Everything, yes. So yes, it's all about economics and math. These guys are reading books about linear mathematics and nonlinear mathematics and stuff. Anyway, he's a fan. I'll put in show notes a bunch of Ernie Adams pieces that have been written. But what's perfect is that even after all-- There's this whole criminology about this guy, and even then, nobody really knows what he does. He's just there. And the Patriots are famously compartmentalized. So, like, the scouts aren't allowed to watch practice. The people who do practices aren't allowed to know about play-calling. And this is why a bunch of the Patriots' manager and coach types, when they leave, they don't actually succeed. It's because there's only one guy who actually sees the entire universe, and that's Belichick. So there's a second guy, Ernie. So Ernie is the one who has total access to Belichick's brain and has a direct line. He even has direct line to Belichick in games. So he's got his own headset, and he's one of the three people who can actually talk to Belichick during a game. So there is no analog to this. They're doing something totally different than everybody else. And so I can't bring myself to all the way root for them, but I sympathize with them, and I enjoy watching their excellence.
Sonny00:12:04- My thing about the Patriots is I can't hate them because I respect greatness. And I think anybody who respects greatness, and frankly, anyone who doesn't respect greatness, is terrible. Hating for the sake of hating is... You need a good reason to hate somebody. I hate a lot of things. - Oh, well, come on. Let's not get crazy. - I hate a lot of things, and a lot of people.
JVL00:12:23- I hate people for no reason at all. Some people just need hating.
Sonny00:12:25- But respecting greatness is a key foundational core belief that I have. That being said, I have totally checked out of football because the Packers have lost. And as I was telling you before the show, JVL, once my team has been eliminated from contention in the sporting world that we are, whatever season we're in, so once the Orioles are no longer able to win the World Series, for instance, I just kind of stop caring about the sport. I watch the Super Bowl, but I am not really into it.
Vic00:12:56- What happens then? I mean, is it sort of this cathartic change for you? All of a sudden, you start watching Real Housewives. - Yeah, I just do.
Sonny00:13:02- What do you watch? - Flip or flop. Flip or flop. No, I just start, I read more. I focus more intently on my fantasy team a lot of the times, especially in baseball. This is a big baseball. - Already? - Yeah. - Baseball already. - My keeper league is getting ready to go. I'm gonna dominate this year.
JVL00:13:17- This is the most millennial thing in the world. - As soon as sports, which is about the human condition and character, stops being about me, I don't care for it.
Sonny00:13:28- Yeah, no, I just move on to better things. I read, I read more, watch movies.
Vic00:13:33- Do you guys ascribe to any of the, all the Patriot conspiracy theories regarding the cheating? You know, not just the balls. - They're all true. - The surveillance. - No, they're all true. - They're all true. I'm just wondering, I'm just wondering. - And yet, they're kind of awesome because of it. - Locker room surveillance, things like that.
JVL00:13:48Okay, all right. - Now, there was a great piece, again, like four years ago, I'll link to this in the show notes too, about the statistic fumbles per play run. And so like the average NFL team at the time was running like 75 offensive plays for every fumble. And the number two team was running like 123 plays for every fumble. The Patriots were running 190. - Yeah. - It's one of these things that just can't, it simply can't happen by accident.
Sonny00:14:17That's what's really important. - The theory was that this is what Deflategate was really about, right? That they had the balls were slightly softer and therefore easier to hold on to. And therefore fewer fumbles.
JVL00:14:27- No, I think they were looking for guys, they were, what they were focusing on with player scouting was they didn't care so much about yards per carry, but more about the fumble stuff. I believe this was a scouting thing, which is where they were, not a Deflategate thing.
Vic00:14:40- Do you guys have predictions for Sunday?
Sonny00:14:46- I don't even, who is, so it's the Patriots versus, oh, the Falcons. - The Knott Packers. - That's right.
Vic00:14:50- Versus the Knott Packers. - That's right. - I will tell you, I'm gonna say, Pats over Falcons, 27-14. That's what I'm saying. - That's far too few points. - Yeah, you know what, I won't take the prediction,
Sonny00:15:02but I'll take the over. - You'll take the over. - Whatever the over is, I'll take the over on this game. - Yeah, that seems like not enough points. There's a lot of points in this game. I don't know, it doesn't matter.
Vic00:15:12- Well, now unfortunately we also have some sad news again at this episode. More deaths to report, more deaths. And the last couple of weeks we've lost some legends of TV and film. Mary Tyler Moore, of course, died. But as I said to Sonny earlier, JVL, I'm gonna leave it to our elders, our elder peers at Glock Culture, to talk about Mary Tyler Moore, since they already spent time talking about Grant and Tinker, that's their world. I'm sure Rob Long was there at the time of Mary Tyler Moore. And so-- - He dated her. - Oh yes, he might have. And instead, I thought we could talk about two actors who died recently. Miguel Ferrer, and more recently, John Hurt. In other words, character actors. Sonny, did you have any thoughts on either?
Sonny00:16:03- I was a big John Hurt fan. I was a big Miguel Ferrer fan as well, insofar as I really, really loved him in Robocop. It's like, if you were picking awful Wall Street-style scumbags, I skip Wall Street, I skip all the Oliver Stone stuff, I go straight to Robocop. Robocop, which kind of distilled that whole era into a perfect little ball of awfulness. But John Hurt, of course, was fantastic. When I saw that he had died on Twitter, I immediately went downstairs and grabbed my Blu-ray of Alien, and threw it in the Blu-ray player. I was like, this is what we're doing tonight, Beth. Beth's like, fine, whatever, you know, she was--
JVL00:16:44- You've really broken her spirit, haven't you?
Sonny00:16:46- Well, no, I mean, usually-- - Much like Kate Mattis, yes. - Usually I'm able to, like, more, kind of, organically get these things agreed to, but this weekend I was just like, that's what we're doing. I, you know, John Hurt... The thing about John Hurt that has always kind of jumped out at me, anyway, is that he was a very good lead actor, 1984, which is actually a very solid adaptation. One of the few, I think, movies that actually kind of holds up to the source material pretty well. And The Elephant Man, of course. But really, I mean, he spent the last 30 years doing supporting actor roles. And even in movies like, say, Snowpiercer, right? Snowpiercer, where he's playing the kind of crazy old man leading the revolution, or at least providing the intellectual ammunition for the movement. He really lends a very real gravitas to it. I don't know how to explain it other than that. It's, you know, just... His very presence on screen, the kind of sad, old eyes...
Vic00:17:56- I think even when he was young, he had the sad, old eyes.
Sonny00:17:58- Yes, yeah, like in, I'm sorry, just one more. The Heaven's Gate. Heaven's Gate, which is, you know, I think generally understood to be not a great movie. - Fine. - But John Hurt, John Hurt, who is playing this kind of, he's playing a traitor-to-his-class type figure early in the film, who then, he gives a big speech about, you know, basically, he gives, it was basically a communist speech at his Harvard or Yale commencement, whichever it was. And then, you know, we skip ahead 10 or 20 years, and he is one of the landed class who is murdering all of the ranchers in the countryside. You know, he plays this kind of wandering drunk with such spirit and sadness, and also a little bit of carefree, I don't know, I don't know, I just, I was very sad when I saw he died.
Vic00:18:52- JVL, did you have any thoughts on? - Any relation to William Hurt? - I've always wondered this. - You wouldn't think, you know what our relation-- - I don't know, I don't think so. - It's like, I think you and I also, we can admit this now, I think we both used to think, or at least I did, that Catherine and Audrey Hepburn were sisters.
JVL00:19:11- I think I was 27-year-old-- - Yes, no, it's totally true, I told this to my wife,
Vic00:19:14she laughed, I said, but how many other Hepburns do you know, how many other Hepburns in movies do you know? I don't know any Hepburns.
JVL00:19:19- Yeah, totally. - You know, what are the chances? - So there's a function of age here, which is that with great actors, as you get older, you, by necessity, at least with movies, you become much more of a character actor because the lead roles, there aren't a ton of lead roles for guys over the age of 65. And so even a guy like Michael Gambon, who's one of my favorite actors in the world, you know, he doesn't get a ton of huge parts, just 'cause there aren't a whole lot of parts for that. I was thinking about this. There are like different classes of actors here that I think we are thinking. So Miguel Ferrer, I don't know if I would classify him as a character actor, or supporting actor, or even a bit player. And I worry that bit player sounds too dismissive, but I don't mean it that way. What I mean is a guy who could come in and give you one scene or two scenes, and in like 90 seconds of screen time, with a part that could be a throwaway part if it wasn't inhabited by a great actor, but instead just like steal the movie out from underneath everybody else. And so there are guys like that. And so like Paul Giamatti started out like that, right? And so Paul Giamatti, when you think about sort of how he looks and his body type, he was not, as a 25-year-old Paul Giamatti, was never gonna be anything other than what he was. But he's a great actor and he sort of grew into the body. And so he's in that fabulous scene in My Best Friend's Wedding, where he comes in with Julia Roberts in the hallway and lights her cigarette for her, I think he's on screen for literally 75 seconds. And he's fabulous, like you can't forget him, he's so great. - I think Giamatti's a great example. - And then he turns, and so he, you know, from that strength he gets a little bit more work, a little bit more work, he does Sideways, becomes a huge star, and then he's a lead. Like all of a sudden people realize. So he sort of grew into that and people then found roles for him. - Suddenly he's John Adams. - Suddenly he's John Adams, right? Philip Seymour Hoffman is the same way. Philip Seymour Hoffman is another guy who, by the time he died, did you guys see Most Wanted Man? - Yes. - That's a great movie. - Great movie. - It's a great freakin' movie. And he is, you realize all of a sudden that he was like one of our greatest character actors, except that by the time he hit middle age, he was ready to be a guy who could carry an entire production all by himself. Like 50-year-old Philip Seymour Hoffman could do things just because of his presence, that even as great an actor as 30-year-old Philip Seymour Hoffman was, he just, that just wasn't built for the type of parts that could carry a whole movie.
Vic00:21:47- Giamatti, I remember seeing him in The Truman Show. We had recently watched it, it was on TV again, and it was fantastic, and he's in the control room. And again, as you mentioned, little tiny bit parts, but memorable, and then the other one was of course, Saving Private Ryan. And he's at that town, and they're looking for him, and he's the guy who accidentally sits on this beam that knocks down the wall and exposes all the German soldiers before they get gunned down
JVL00:22:15by Ted Danson. - Ted Danson, who shows up. - It's the moment which, it is the only moment in that movie where I was taken out of the movie. - You're like a false note.
Vic00:22:22- It was a false note, and he's fine, the problem isn't him,
JVL00:22:26the problem is that he carries cultural stuff with him.
Sonny00:22:30- That's almost like the opposite of a character actor, right, the anti-character actor. So for instance, Brad Pitt in 12 Years a Slave. Brad Pitt, I think, is a wonderful actor. I think he's a very good leading man. - He does not get crazy. - And he's-- - Distracting, though. - He's fantastic in 12 Monkeys, for instance, where he plays the kind of crazy bit part. But he's Brad Pitt, and when he shows up at the end of 12 Years a Slave as the Canadian who's going to rescue Joetal Ejiofor from bondage, it really just destroys any sense of you are watching a movie now. It just, or it destroys any sense of that you are not watching a movie. It's just like, okay, there's Brad Pitt. - I'm afraid you're not allowed to criticize 12 Years a Slave.
JVL00:23:12I am sorry, I'm gonna have to report you to the authorities.
Vic00:23:15- We might just have to delete the last three minutes.
Sonny00:23:17- I really liked Hidden Fences. - Oh, wow. - Somebody sent me a-- - It's a joke. Hidden Figures, I loved it.
JVL00:23:23- Somebody sent me a piece of clickbait listicle from, I don't know, like CBS or something this weekend that was the ranking of the best Best Picture winners of the last 40 years or something, and you'll never guess what was number one. - Oh, God, was it 12 Years a Slave?
Sonny00:23:38- Was it Boyhood?
JVL00:23:40- It was not Boyhood. You know, they took 12 years to film that movie. - Took 12 years. You know, they didn't take 12 years to film 12 Years a Slave. - But imagine how much better it would've been. - I know. - Imagine how much better it would've been
Vic00:23:50if you had actually taken 12 years to film 12 Years a Slave. - Well, I mean-- - The problem with Boyhood is it took 12 years to film, but Ethan Hawke aged 20 years for the role. - Took 12 years to watch. - He dropped 50 pounds. You wanna talk about other movies, Sonny, you were just talking about where it becomes a distraction because it's the reverse of the character actor. The Thin Red Line, other than being an eh, meh movie, you had John Travolta distracting. At the end of the movie, George Clooney giving a talk. It's George Clooney. It's not some guy looks like he's been a seasoned, hardened veteran of Guadalcanal. It's just George Clooney. It's just totally distracting.
Sonny00:24:29But yeah, go ahead. - I think it's slightly different also to watch it now than it may have been to watch it 15 or 20 years ago.
JVL00:24:37- When did that come out? Was that '97? - '97. - I think it was '99.
Sonny00:24:40- It was after Semi-Private Ryan. - But it was funny. I actually re-watched it recently. 'Cause I was doing a piece on Malick. And it is funny how many actors, there are young actors who you kind of, like what's his name from My So-Called Life and Jared Leto, there we go. He has like a very major part in this movie for, I don't know, 30 minutes. Nobody's on screen in this movie for more than about 30 minutes. - And Adrian Brody, who I believe had no lines.
Vic00:25:10He had lines, but the final version had no lines.
Sonny00:25:13- Jim Caviezel, who of course became Jesus. And, I mean, it's really, it's very, you know, kind of distracting. - Wasn't the story
JVL00:25:20that all these guys took scale just because they wanted to work with Malick? - 'Cause they wanted to work with Malick.
Sonny00:25:23Who hadn't made a film since Days of Heaven, which I guess was 20 years before.
Vic00:25:30- Yeah, that's right, that's right. Go ahead, JVL.
JVL00:25:33- Well, I was gonna say, so what, I was trying to think about what it is that unites these little bit players or character actors, the ones that we like. So I was thinking, like, my Mount Rushmore for these guys is probably like, Scott Glenn, who's awesome. I love me some Scott Glenn. - He's really good in Sucker Punch. - Who isn't good in Sucker Punch? - Everyone's great in Sucker Punch. - Fred Thompson, the late Fred Thompson was fantastic. Peter Coyote, really, really good. And for me, Miguel Ferrer. And so I was thinking, like, what is it that these guys all do? And all of them have really great voices. - Yes, that's right. - Like, really great voices.
Sonny00:26:11And I don't know what else there is behind, I think it's presence.
JVL00:26:15The thing about Miguel Ferrer, so my favorite of his roles is his role in Traffic. Traffic, which is a belabored, overdone, Steven Soderbergh movie. And Miguel Ferrer-- - There are a few of those. - And it features, again, it's a cannonball run of great actors in it. And Miguel Ferrer steals the movie out from everybody he's in it with. Michael Douglas from Don Cheadle. All these scenes with Don Cheadle, who is great. - Yeah. - I love Don Cheadle. And Don Cheadle basically gets pushed off the screen just by Ferrer's presence. And he has these scenes where they're sitting in the interrogation room, and he says, "You guys don't get it. "You're like those Japanese soldiers "out on the islands of the Pacific "who still think it's World War II. "None of this matters. "Your lives don't matter. "You are irrelevant." He's got this coiled intensity in him. It's a mix of cynicism and anger and intensity and intelligence, and all of that just pops through on the screen. And I think a lot of these guys have that. I mean, Giamatti had that. Philip Seymour Hoffman certainly had. Even when he was playing dumb, when he was playing, Freddie, what's his face? - Boogie Nights? - No, no, not Boogie Nights, the talented Mr. Ripley. - Yeah, yeah. - He's playing, that to me is one of the great performances ever, because he is playing dumb, but he's playing the kind of dumb bully who is stupid, but canny enough to know when he himself is in danger. - I always like to think that-- - That scene on the boat, when he realizes suddenly that Ripley is who he is and what he is, that dawning revelation, that's such good work.
Vic00:27:47- And I always like to think that that character from Talented Mr. Ripley was related to his character in Scent of a Woman.
JVL00:27:53They were both jerks.
Vic00:27:54- Freddie Miles. - Freddie's a Freddie Miles.
JVL00:27:55- Freddie Miles, Freddie Miles. No, so what do you guys think it is? What is it that makes somebody so great? - In this very specific role, right? 'Cause leads don't have to have that. Tom Cruise does not have a great voice. - Yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:28:09- I don't, you know, I don't know. I'm just trying to think of my own personal Mount Rushmore. Which is not a question we had posed before. I wish I had a little more time to prepare. But it would definitely include Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is kind of, I think part of it is they have to be unconventionally attractive, right? They have to be not movie star. - Quirky. - Hot. - Look, yes. - Right, they need to be, but they can't, they're very rarely ugly. I mean, they're not like unattractive people. They're just-- - Interesting faces. - Interesting faces, right. - They're just like not the sort of, again, Tom Cruise or even Tom Hanks or like, they're not boyish good looks. They don't have the kind of like, you know, marquee movie poster faces. But they do, they are still attractive.
Vic00:28:54- And they're pros. I was thinking about Stephen Tobolowsky, one of the great character actors of all time, from Sneakers and Mississippi Burning and, of course, Groundhog's Day. And he wrote a, he does a podcast, by the way, called The Tobolowsky Files, which you should listen to
Sonny00:29:10after-- - There's no substandard, but it's pretty good.
Vic00:29:12- We are, we're actually very close to each other. - Are they ranked ahead of us? - No, he was ranked behind us a little bit, but, you know, listen to this first and then listen to The Tobolowsky Files. - We should have him on the show. - That would be awesome. - Yeah, I bet he'll come right on. - Well, you never know. He's actually very good friends with Larry Miller. That doesn't surprise anybody. Our friend Larry Miller, friend of the podcast, as we could say.
JVL00:29:32- Who also has his own podcast, which is great. - Yes, of course, The Larry Miller Show. - Larry Miller Show.
Vic00:29:35I'll put that in the show notes. - Tobolowsky wrote a piece in the New York Times in 2010 about character actors. And he talks about, what is it about us? He says that for most of these guys and girls, they've resigned themselves to just being a character actor for their whole career. They're not trying to. If they can, great. Tobolowsky's directed a few things. But they're perfectly happy being that person. What kind of person that is, he says, is walking around and always being subject to the stare. And the stare is either people saying, I know you from some movie. - That guy. - Or maybe you're my chiropractor. That's what he says. And how he explains it, he says, is the difference between the lead actors and the character actors. He says, he actually borrows from Larry Miller's definition, which is the definition of a character actor is anyone who's not kissing Renee Zellweger, is what Larry says. And he takes it to the next level. And he says, it's also, almost all the characters he's played, they only have one name. It's never a first name and a last name, he says. It's like Paps or Texan or Luther the Pimp. It's just like one of those characters. And he says, the only difference is that the parts with no names have been somewhat abandoned by the screenwriters. So it's the job of the character actor to bring substance to that role. They can't think of themselves as a minor role. They have to think of themselves as so important, very important, in order to make that work. And he was explaining about on Groundhog's Day and how he met Bill Murray. And Bill Murray just said, okay, the first day he met him, he said, okay, show me what you got. And Tobolasky plays the insurance salesman, Ned Ryerson, who he had gone to school with, and he does this wacky thing. And Murray just stopped him and just says, okay, okay, that's fine, that's funny, okay, that'll work. And then Tobolasky turned to Harold Ramis and says, well, do you want me maybe to tone it down, do this, do that? And Ramis says, no, no, no. Murray is the stew, and you're the spice. So he holds it together, and you be wacky crazy, because that's what your job is as a character actor.
Sonny00:31:38- It's an interesting way of thinking about it, which gets to another kind of idea of what a character actor is. And a lot of the time, they're funny, right? Like, if you are doing the kind of, so like Paul Giamatti in Private Parts, for instance, playing Howard Stern's awful boss. - Oh, right, Pig Vomit. - Pig Vomit is very funny in that kind of angry, dark way. WNBC. Or you have like John C. Reilly, who is a regular kind of comic, character actor type, you know, showing up in the Paul Thomas Anderson movies. I think humor is a very important thing for a character actor to be able to pull off, because otherwise, you won't be remembered.
JVL00:32:27- Yeah, you have to have a bigger range. I mean, the commentary track for Magnolia, I don't remember if it's Reilly who said this or Paul Anderson who relates the story, but essentially it was Reilly who said it. I don't believe it. I'm the romantic lead of a Tom Cruise movie. - That's good.
Vic00:32:45Even John Hurt, you're talking about, you know, he does a comedic turn, of course, in Spaceballs when he reprises his role at the very end of the movie and the alien pops out, but except this time the alien sings Hello My Baby and does a whole dance down the diner scene. And it's, you know, it's absurd and sometimes you think, oh, you know, how he agreed to do this thing with Mel Brooks, and it was actually his second collaboration with Mel Brooks. It turns out, Mel Brooks produced The Elephant Man, believe it or not. It was Brooks Films. - No. - Yes, it is Brooks Films. And, but there was always, and again, Hurt is amazing in The Elephant Man, even under all that makeup, and he's starring with Anthony Hopkins and Sir John Gielgud and Anne Bancroft. And Brooks said he did not want, you know, he was so, he kept such a low profile as a producer, and it says, you know, produced by Brooks Films. The last thing Mel Brooks said he wanted was a poster that says Mel Brooks presents The Elephant Man, you know, 'cause people would think that was, you know, not in a serious movie. - Right, right. That's not the tone you wanna set. - Or something really offensive, yeah. So, yeah, yeah, go figure, there you go with John Hurt. - That's wild.
Guest00:33:53- Yeah, it is.
Vic00:33:54Joe Pantoliano, another one. - Joey Pants, your buddy. - Joey Pants. - My old friend Joey Pants, that's right. And he's, and another guy who, when he made his big break, was in Risky Business, and his name was-- - Oh, the pimp. - Guido the Killer Pimp. - Yeah. - Guido the Killer Pimp, and he's gone on, I don't think he's ever had a lead role, but he's been in a ton of movies.
JVL00:34:14- You know, he's really close to being the lead in Bound, which is the Wachowski Brothers' first movie, I think.
Vic00:34:22- That's right, that's right. You could almost count him that, that's right. - He's, and he's fantastic in it, too.
JVL00:34:26He's really, really good in that movie. Sorry, I said Wachowski Brothers, that's a microaggression. I meant the Wachowski sisters.
Sonny00:34:33- I think we just, at this point, just go with the Wachowskis. - The Wachowskis? - 'Cause I don't, I don't, like, I don't, I wouldn't want to-- - What? - Chur? - I thought I said it was a ch, I thought it was Wachowskis, not Wachowskis.
Vic00:34:44- By the way, speaking of Tobolowsky's line about everywhere you go, you get, you know, recognized, but people can't put their finger on it, our friend Chris Caldwell, at The Weekly Standard, he was, you remember the story, Jonathan? He was in London at a hotel, and he's in the lobby, he's, you know, checking in, he turns to his left, and he sees a woman sitting on this couch, and he does a double take, and he says, oh my gosh, I know this woman, and now we've made eye contact. I gotta go over and say hi, but I forget who she is. A friend, did I date her? Maybe I dated her. So he goes over to her and says, hey! And she says, hello, and he says, I'm sorry, I forgot your name, I'm Chris Caldwell. And she goes, oh, not a problem, this happens to me all the time, I'm Helena Bonham Carter.
JVL00:35:36- It is true, though, I remember hanging out with Larry. So, Larry Miller was a friend of ours, he was in town once, several years ago, and so he came out to the suburbs in Virginia. And my wife and I took him to like, we just went to some chain restaurant for lunch. - Did you go to Chili's?
Vic00:35:52- It wasn't Chili's, but it was something that might as well - I hope you didn't give him a quinoa ball. I didn't hear you give him a quinoa ball. - It might as well have been Chili's.
JVL00:35:59Whatever it was, it was literally a chain restaurant in a strip center right by where we lived. And everybody there was staring at him, and our waitress was like,
Vic00:36:09"Were you in The Nutty Professor?" And this is like Larry's life.
JVL00:36:15He has that level of fame where he can go out to a strip center and not get mobbed, but everybody knows who he is.
Vic00:36:19- After your wedding, Jonathan, I took him, we did that West Wing tour of the White House, and we were walking down 17th Street, and an old man stops him, and then just goes up and goes, "You were great in Law and Order," and then just left. And I said, "Well, I don't watch Law and Order." - Larry was great in Law and Order. - Yeah, I don't watch it. - It's two episodes. - Two episodes of the same character, very rare. "So why were you in Law and Order?" And he goes, "Well, I was this guy "who was accused of killing his wife. "However, in my defense," and then he just does his thing.
Sonny00:36:47- He got away with it the first time, didn't he? And then there was like a second-- - That's great. - Where he killed the killer, I don't remember.
JVL00:36:53- Larry, you know, it's funny, so Larry, so about funny. So Larry's a funny guy who made his life in stand-up,
Sonny00:36:59but he's a great screen presence,
JVL00:37:00like a really, really great, and 10 Things I Hate, he owns that movie, it's a really, if you like teen, we've talked about this before, I am a sucker for teen comedies. - Oh, thank God, I didn't know what you were gonna say. - That's your line, Matus. 10 Things I Hate About You, which was the Heath Ledger/Julia Stiles vehicle, and Larry just owns that movie, he's fantastic at it.
Vic00:37:22- I'm sorry, I'm getting distracted, because Sonny Bunch is pouring himself a glass of now pure vermouth. - Just dry vermouth, that's just vermouth. - You're like Roger Sterling in Mad Men,
JVL00:37:32and all we got left is vermouth.
Sonny00:37:34- Because, well, we'll discuss it. - Well, we'll discuss it in the spirit of the week. - Larry Miller is also-- he also is one of my favorite Seinfeld guest stars, as the angry doorman. - Absolutely. - He just, I love, I remember I took Beth to go see Larry Miller's stand-up show, and it was very exciting. And I was just like, JVL knows that guy.
JVL00:37:52They're friends.
Sonny00:37:53- And then on top of it, he's a great writer.
JVL00:37:56He's an essayist, he wrote for The Weekly Standard, he wrote a weekly for us forever ago.
Vic00:37:59- He's a graduate of Williams, I think. - Did he write a chapter for you?
JVL00:38:03- Yeah, he's done a chapter in all of my books, and that guy's talent level is just off the hook, I love him. - Big fan of Larry. - Was there anybody else we'd want to talk about? Like Peter Dinklage, actually, Peter Dinklage's another guy who's made the transition to leading man, I think. - I don't think that's true.
Sonny00:38:19- You don't think that's true? - I don't think that's true.
JVL00:38:21- You don't think the station agent made his career, and made him into a...
Sonny00:38:24- Peter Dinklage is, unfortunately, one of these people who, because of his physical stature, simply cannot be a leading man in any conventional sense.
JVL00:38:34- No, not in a conventional sense. No, but in the sense that, like, stories that can find parts that work for him.
Sonny00:38:38- I mean, but how many of those stories are there?
JVL00:38:41- Well... - Game of Thrones. - Yeah, it's harder, but not, truth be told, not any harder than finding roles for 70-year-old guys. - I bet you're right. - I think that's much harder. I think that's much harder. - I know who Sonny Bunch is. - But again, Peter Dinklage is one of these guys who was a typecast as, you know, certainly like, "Oh, if you need a little person, you can do it." But once you put him in the station agent, everyone's like, "Holy crap, this guy's a leading man." - He was, and he was a lead. He was a lead in that.
Sonny00:39:05- And he's great on Game of Thrones, and he's great on, he was great in-- - Which X-Men was he? - The bit part of Elf. - Yeah, he was in that.
JVL00:39:11- That was great. - Elf was very funny. - That cameo in Elf is the best part. - He's an angry elf.
Vic00:39:15- The best part of the movie. - One of the great important things about the station agent, Jonathan and I should point out, is one of its lasting contributions, I like to think, is to show that there's so much of the state of New Jersey that's rural, green, and gorgeous. Thank you. - That's my part in New Jersey. This is where I grew up.
Sonny00:39:34- You know, if we ever made a biopic about Robert Reich, he could play Peter Dinklage.
Vic00:39:41- Don't sell him shorts, Sonny, come on. Oh, Kieran Hines, I know you like Kieran Hines. - Yes, oh he's great. - I think he's a great character actor. - Yes. - I remember he played Julius Caesar in Rome.
Sonny00:39:51- Yes. - Yeah. - He's the best part of the first season of Rome.
Vic00:39:54Can we discuss--
Sonny00:39:55- No, the kid is the best part of the first season of Rome. - Also great. - Also great.
Vic00:39:59- That kid is amazing. - Yeah, he's very good. - Yeah, too bad he wasn't in The Phantom Menace. - He was in Master and Commander. - Yes. - So that kid is in Master and Commander. - Oh, did he get his arm amputated?
JVL00:40:06- His arm, yeah, or his hand amputated. That kid is an amazing actor.
Sonny00:40:09What ever became of him? - I don't know, that's a good question.
JVL00:40:12- Boy, if only we had a website that tracked actors so we could find out what happened to their careers. - What's a website?
Sonny00:40:19Here's a question I have for you JVL or you Vic, whichever one it was. Who are good directors to handle character actors? So you have your Paul Thomas Andersons with their big ensemble cast. I like to think Michael Mann, of course, is great with-- - Tom Sizemore. - Right, gave us Tom Sizemore. - Tom Sizemore, and--
Vic00:40:39- You know, Chris, what's his name?
Sonny00:40:40- Basically everyone in Miami Vice who's not Colin Farrell or Jamie Foxx is like a recognizable--
Vic00:40:46- I'm forgetting his name, I'm forgetting his name. You know, from Spinal Tap, you know, he-- - Christopher Guest. - Christopher Guest, yeah, of course. - Christopher Guest, yeah. - Right? Ensembles.
JVL00:40:54- Yeah. - Ensembles. - At this point, I raise a practical question. Are we still going to perform Stonehenge?
Vic00:41:00- Thanks to long time listeners, Steven White, for suggesting a ranking of our favorite, drum roll, Val Kilmer movies! Or favorite roles for Val Kilmer. - Steven Dog Tags White. - Okay. He mentions his own as Willow, Top Secret Heat, and then he kinda trails off with Spartan and the Prince of Egypt, where he's the voice of Moses, but I can't even, I've seen the Prince of Egypt, I won't count a cartoon and a voice, but I'm sure you have your own thoughts about Val Kilmer movies, especially. Jonathan.
JVL00:41:32- I don't think there's anybody alive who would argue with number one. - Right. - Number one's Tombstone. - No. - Fact. - Fact. - Yeah. - Just science.
Sonny00:41:44- Science.
JVL00:41:45- Number two for me would be Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. - Oh yeah. - I've talked about this, I love that movie, I love Kilmer, that's like fat Val Kilmer, like fat, puffy, bloated Val Kilmer doing comedy is just awesome. - And with Larry Miller also. - And with Larry Miller, that's right. - The circle's complete. - So Larry, this is a funny story, so Larry, was telling me about having just shot his scenes for that and that he was that day sitting around, sort of, you know, waiting to go on, and it was him and Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer, and he and Downey, all they wanted to do was talk to Kilmer about Doc Holliday and the role in Tombstone. They just wanted to, like, tell us about him. Just tell us all about Amir Huckleberry, 'cause it's just legendary. So love him in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, really love Real Genius. - Definitely. - Real Genius number three. - That's near the top of my list. - And then Top Gun number four, because what he does, again, he sketches out, in a very interesting way, he sketches out the broad outlines of a character who really is underwritten. The Iceman character does not have a lot of, he's supposed to be a paint-by-numbers '80s movie villain, but instead, Kilmer makes him, actually, if you think about it, he's the real hero of that movie. - He's definitely the hero of that movie, yeah.
Sonny00:43:03- I mean, this is, like, this is us
JVL00:43:04doing our normal-- - This is our shtick, but also it's true. - It's almost true, at least it's almost true. If it's not objectively true, it is almost true that he is the guy who actually is trying to serve the country and do everything by the book and keep everybody safe. And he's great, he's not actually a dick. - No, he never leaves his wingman. - He never, he never leaves his wingman. He clicks his teeth. - That's right. - That's right, I am dangerous.
Vic00:43:27Ice. - It hurts to do that. Did you just try to do it? - I can't.
JVL00:43:30- I just heard it myself, yes. - So those would be my top four or five. - Mm-hmm. - Val Kilmer movies. You guys can feel free to disagree wrongly.
Vic00:43:38- No, I'd like to throw Real Genius right up there. I think that's terrific. It's from the mid-80s and he plays this kid, Chris Knight, who is this, I don't know if you want to call it prodigy, but he's a genius, working at, well they call it Pacific Tech. - Is he a real genius? - He's a real genius, but it's Caltech. And the villain in this movie is played by William Atherton, who again, William Atherton is good at everything, right?
JVL00:44:01- I know, yeah. - I like to, I wonder what he's doing. - One of the kings of the 90s. - Yes, yes. - 1980s character villains.
Vic00:44:06- Total wonderful jerk and it turns out that the research they're doing on lasers is in fact related to basically the Star Wars project. And it's a classic 80s movie. - Do you guys realize that he did Top Gun the year after Real Genius? I'd always thought there was a gap between them. - That's, yeah, no, that's a huge jump.
JVL00:44:24- My favorite moment in that movie, in Real Genius, is when he is, he's trying to romance William Atherton's wife and she, he says to him at a party. - Oh, yes! - He says, "Can you hammer a 10-inch spike "through a board with your penis?" His deadpan response to her is, "Not yet." - And what does she say? Something like, "A woman has her standards," or something like that. - That's a great line.
Vic00:44:49- The other great line is he's talking to this old guy at some party and he turns to him and says, "Have you ever," he turns to him about this gorgeous woman at this party, he turns to the guy and says, "Have you ever seen a more perfect body than this?" And the guy says to him, "That's my daughter you're talking about." And he just goes, "Oh, so you have."
JVL00:45:09Just great stuff.
Vic00:45:10So, real genius, Top Gun, Heat.
JVL00:45:13- Yeah, how did you not mention Heat? - Because the Val Kilmer movie, Heat is certainly at the top, but in terms of Val Kilmer performances, I would put that as my number six slot.
Vic00:45:26- You know what, I'll throw one more in there, Willow. Remember that was-- - Matt Martin.
JVL00:45:29- Was that a George Lucas production? - He produced, I don't think he directed it. - That was when they were trying to steal money from you by pretending, trying to entice you, "Hey, George Lucas, Star Wars." - Right, right, right, please come to this.
Vic00:45:39- Ewoks, Ewoks, over here. - And they had, probably John Williams did the score, and it was his future wife, now ex-wife, Joanne Wally, was in it, and the-- - Story by George Lucas. - The short fellow, what's the term I'm looking for? You can't say-- - Careful. - You can't say, yeah. - The little person. - The little person, the little person. It was not Peter Dinklage, it was the other fellow-- - James Horner. - From the Harry Potter, oh thank you, James Horner for the music. The Harry Potter movies, I forget his name now, anyway. - Warwick Davis. - Thank you, thank you very much JVL, Warwick Davis. So, I liked it, it was a good movie, and him as a sort of, you know, could he carry that role, and I don't think he did after that movie. I mean, there were not other big roles like that for him,
JVL00:46:23I think. - Are you talking about Warwick Davis, or Val Kilmer?
Vic00:46:25- Val Kilmer, after Willow, where they thought he could be the next big action star. - Yeah, oh, he did The Doors, and The Doors
JVL00:46:31is only three years after, so his, I would say his career, now looking at this website that tracks the careers of actors, I am shocked by how compacted it is.
Sonny00:46:41- 1985 to '95, or '96 or so. - Yeah, it's like the real, the real heat, the real, like, that heat of the star. - Yeah, Thunderheart, yeah, Thunderheart is in there.
JVL00:46:49- That's right, that's right. - Heat, Batman for a few people. - Yeah, Batman. - Batman for a few people. - Oh, yeah, of course. - Dr. Moreau.
Sonny00:46:55- That's another lead role. - Island of Dr. Moreau. - So, my list would be very similar to your guys', Tombstone. Tombstone, number one, Heat, number two. Spartan, which is, you were laughing at Spartan. - I've not seen Spartan, I've not seen Spartan. - Directed by David Mamet, it's actually extremely good. It's, you should, you should check it out. I would say, Val Kilmer, again, has this kind of weird career where he is almost a character actor, kind of, in, certainly in Tombstone, and The Doors, kind of inhabiting these roles in very method ways. He's a very, like, there's a very good, Chuck Klosterman interview piece with Val Kilmer that was published a decade ago, or 15 years, maybe now. - Will you get that for me for show? - I'll find it, yeah. But it, basically, it's just about how kind of crazy Val Kilmer is in this very method-y sort of sense. He inhabits the role.
JVL00:47:48- Oh yeah, like jumping out for people behind, pretending to be a spy and stuff.
Sonny00:47:50- Yeah, so, like, it's, it's--
Vic00:47:52- Oh, like when he was playing Blind Guy. With Blind Guy, sorry. - What was that, oh, got first sight or something? - Yeah, with Mira Sorvino, and I heard he was unbearable.
Sonny00:48:02- Oh, she was unbearable for one year. - But, no, I am a very conventional Val Kilmer fan, yeah.
JVL00:48:12- He's, I'm sorry, I'm just looking at this. - Yeah, he's great. - He's so great. And maybe the, maybe the lesson is, a lot of Val Kilmer is great, but too much Val Kilmer is too much. Maybe he's a special sauce, and the way that, and again, this is not a criticism, like Miguel Ferrer, I don't want a whole movie of Miguel Ferrer, but if I can have him sprinkled throughout consistently through a movie, I'm very happy, because his presence is so rewarding and so rich. Maybe the same thing is true about Val Kilmer. 'Cause again, think Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,
Sonny00:48:44he works so great, because he's the second banana there
Vic00:48:47to Robert Downey Jr. - That's right, that's right. - Corrections? Anything, thoughts, clarifications? - Well, Sonny's perfect, obviously.
JVL00:48:55- I got nothing, yeah. - I have one correction, really a clarification, from my wife. Who says that we are crazy to have talked about twist endings and not mention murder on the Orient Express.
Vic00:49:06- I have not seen murder on the, the original murder, the only one, right? Am I missing one? - There's two.
JVL00:49:11There's a BBC production with David Suchet.
Vic00:49:13- Oh, I like David Suchet. - Yeah, I actually prefer that one, believe it or not, to the Brooks one. - And he plays Hercule Poirot?
JVL00:49:19- Hercule Poirot, and it's great, 'cause it's one of these things where the twist does not reduce your enjoyment of it on subsequent viewings. It clarifies everything. Because as you're, the problem with it, as you're, watching the movie, isn't that you think he couldn't have done it, he couldn't have done it, is that you, you think to yourself, God, they all could have. And then only at the end, when you realize, well, they did all do it, that it'll finally make sense.
Vic00:49:43The tumblers all fall apart. - Speaking of which, that's another great character actor, David Suchet, and I'll give you two movies that I really loved him in. One is Falcon and the Snowman, and he plays the KGB handler. - Yes. - He's terrific, and Executive Decision. I think he was, you know, because of his complexion, he plays these type of characters that are either from, you know, from Eastern Europe, or from the Middle East, and so he sort of blends, and then he takes over these characters. And in Executive Decision, I think he's a terrorist. He's really, there was a Jason Statham-- - Did I say that, by the way, was that okay? Complexion, was that right?
Sonny00:50:14- I was questionable, I wouldn't let you go. - Like if you--
JVL00:50:19- Did you guys see The Bank Job? It was a pretty good David Statham movie. - Is he in that too? - And David Suchet is in it playing a heavy, and so he's a gangster who like has guys, I think he's, they use a sand blaster to like take, torture guys by taking their feet off, and David Suchet is there, and you're like,
Sonny00:50:36but that's Poirot, why is Hercule Poirot doing that?
JVL00:50:38- Yeah, how could he do that, right, no, no.
Sonny00:50:40- The little gray cells.
Vic00:50:41- He plays great villains, he plays great villains.
JVL00:50:44- So that's my correction, and I have a comment from a recent iTunes review from K_Percent, he/she/it gave us five stars, but then in the comments says, really, I shouldn't be encouraging you, any of you. And fair. - True, true.
Vic00:51:00- I have a comment regarding wrestling, and for people who don't get it, my brother-in-law Bill Dwyer says, what people have to understand about wrestling is that these are, quote, mythopoetic tales for the modern man.
Sonny00:51:12There you go. - Wrestling isn't wrestling. - Did he rip that off of Max Landis?
Vic00:51:16- He took that from his buddy Mario. Maybe he took it from Max Landis. Okay, his buddy Mario. - Some guy on Facebook named Mario. - Okay, spirit of the week. Spirit of the week, this is a good one, 'cause I get to talk about myself. Our spirit of the week is actually a vodka. And we had Vodka Martini's here in the studio, and Sonny Brunch, Sunday Brunch, sorry. - Sunday Brunch. - Brought his shaker, and it's district-made vodka from 1-8 Distilling. The kind people at 1-8 Distilling actually provided the spirits to my vodka talk last week at the Smithsonian. So, special thanks to Alex Laufer for providing the drinks at the Smithsonian, and this little hip flask-sized district-made vodka for the show. It's distilled from rye, malted rye, a little bit of corn, has a lovely spice. Please, if you have anything bigger than a hip flask, we take that, too. Thank you. Oh, Jonathan has a spirit, a beer of the week. This is very exciting. This is a first. - I brought a beer in.
JVL00:52:17I wanted to drink with you guys. I brought a little, from a micro-brew in Nellie's Ford, Virginia. It's called Blonde Honey. It's a Belgian-style blonde air, and it tastes like happiness. I don't understand how you guys can put that stuff into your mouths when you can have something like this.
Vic00:52:33- Okay, now we're not getting the free bottle, thank you. Now we're gonna, you always do this.
JVL00:52:37- No, martinis are not as bad as, it's the brown liquors. I don't, I just think, yeah.
Vic00:52:41No, martinis are fine. There's nothing wrong with martinis. - You know, we were just about to sign a deal with Diageo, too. Oh, we were so close. Okay, that's all the time you're getting from us this week for the episode, and questions, comments, complaints, compliments, challenges, suggestions, tweet us @VictorinoMatus, @SonnyBunch, again, be sure to subscribe to us. - @JBLast.
Sonny00:53:05- No. - Make sure to tweet @Jonathan.
Vic00:53:07- No. - Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play, just type in Substandard on the podcast, we're there, leave a review, tell your friends, until next time. So, you know what, you were talking about Alien. We watched Alien the other day, for John Hurt, and I remember the first time I saw that on HBO, it was a Mattis Family Special. - You were four. - Yeah, I don't know, I may be eight or nine. It was eight hours, we all went to my parents' bedroom and got on the bed, everyone, let's watch this movie Alien together. And this thing happens, and I remember the alien sucking his face, I mean, this is vivid, and then I remember the popping out scene, 'cause he thought he was better, 'cause, and that, well, they tried to, I remember this vividly, they tried to cut the alien, and it turns out the blood was acid, and it goes through several,
JVL00:54:01all the way through, and I'm thinking to myself, this is awful. - This is bad. - This is bad. - This is bad.
Vic00:54:06- 'Cause if that's, that's just a little hint of what's to come, and I was always sort of unclear about the host versus the other alien baby, you know how it works, which is which. And then of course-- - First a mommy and a daddy alien love each other very much. - Okay, and then, and then the other one, but the other one doesn't have to do with the, I mean, it doesn't look the same as the thing that sucks his face, obviously, right?
Sonny00:54:27- No, those are, yeah, that's--
Vic00:54:28- Isn't that weird? You know what I'm saying? - No, I don't-- - I have to understand why, it's like there's two different alien shapes. - No, it's-- - One is the one
Sonny00:54:34that sucks the face and implants it,
Vic00:54:36and then the other one is giant alien. - They're different, they're totally different creatures. - Sporogenesis, just to give it that way. - Got it. And then he pops out of John Hurt's stomach, and they, you know, they said they actually, Ridley Scott put extra blood to explode, so the other actress, not Sigourney Weaver, the other actress, her scream is genuine, 'cause she had no idea, and it got her on the face, so it was just really kind of, kind of terrifying, but I remember that. And not once did my parents say, oh, don't look.
JVL00:55:03- So did you guys know what it was about?
Vic00:55:05- I don't know, no, you know, not me. I said, oh, here's a new movie, we can watch this on HBO, which, you know, is the big thing to have. And my parents were like, hey, HBO, all the good movies are there. And I remember Tom Skerritt's ending, because he's in that tunnel shaft, and then they think that it's behind him, but it's actually one level below, so he goes down and he turns, and he gets attacked by this thing. That's what I remember. However, if Tom Skerritt and Sigourney Weaver were gonna kiss, my parents would say, oh, don't look. - How did you sleep that night? Did you and Christine, were you like, slept like babies?
JVL00:55:33- No, no, I had no problems, had no problems. - We, do you guys do this? Well, you don't, obviously. And Katie isn't old enough to actually watch things. But we obsess over, oh, is it okay for the kids to watch? Is it too this or too that? And your parents are just like, hey, here's Faces of Death, Vic.
Vic00:55:49- I don't know, we'll see what happens. You know, my dad rented a movie once called Japanese Connection. It was like a rape scene. And he's like, well, maybe you shouldn't see this part as the guy's going to town.
JVL00:55:58- The guy's going to town, the guy's going to town. You know, I was like, uh, okay, I'll see this later.
Vic00:56:04- We overdo it. - Yeah, yeah.
JVL00:56:06- Was there anything else you wanted to talk about? Wrestling? - We've been talking a long time. - This was a good one. - Was this a long episode?
Vic00:56:12- No, it's, what do you think, JVL?
JVL00:56:15- I'm sure it's fine.
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