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#14. Any Given Thursday
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Dudes Chatting — Sports movies: Timed to Super Bowl LI (Patriots comeback win, which Vic slept through in an Orlando hotel room after the signal cut out), the group breaks the genre into sports comedies, baseball films, boxing films, basketball, and football. Highlights include: the Costner Baseball Trilogy ranked (Bull Durham vs. Field of Dreams generates genuine disagreement; JVL defends Bull Durham while Vic and Sonny favor Field of Dreams for its Capraesque Americana); Sonny's personal favorites are Dodgeball, Major League, and The Sandlot; JVL declares Any Given Sunday the greatest sports movie, a position Sonny calls him wrong about (his pick is Raging Bull); the Rocky series is debated (Rocky called "extremely slow" by JVL but praised for sticking its landing; Rocky IV is the consensus peak). Discussion includes the odd career of Kevin Costner, Jason Bateman's ESPN 8 commentary in Dodgeball, and whether Jerry Maguire counts. Tangent on Vic's trip to Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Corrections segment includes JVL admitting he confused Andover and Exeter re: Belichick and Ernie Adams, and Sonny's misremembered Brett Favre retirement date. Spirit of the Week: George Dickel Rye Whiskey.
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hey, Bill Kristol here. If Mitch McConnell can shut Elizabeth Warren down, why can't I shut this goddamn Substandard down?
Guest00:00:30For football, the margin for error is so small, I mean, one half a step too late, or too early, and you don't quite make it, one half second too slow, too fast, you don't quite catch it, the inches we need are everywhere around us.
Vic00:00:51You having fun yet? Oh yeah, I'm having a blast, thanks. Good. God, sucker teed off in there like he knew I was gonna throw a fastball. He did know. How?
Guest00:01:02I told him.
Vic00:01:30This show is pleasantly unashamed of itself and makes me feel less alone in the universe. Wow. We have saved at least one suicide. I was going to say, KLS2222, you are not alone in your love for Axis and Allies board games and Star Blazers, if that's your thing. What are Star Blazers? Oh, that's in the next episode, Sonny. In addition, we'd also like to remind you that the Substandard show notes posted by Jonathan Last are available every Friday at 11 a.m. at Weekly Standard. Gentlemen, how are we? How was the weekend, JVL? Super Bowl. Tom Brady. Bella Chick. Please. I know you guys. Please, share your thoughts. I will only share this.
JVL00:02:16This was the year my eight-year-old kid got really into sports, and he decided that he was a Patriots fan, and he's basically become a mass hole. And he is stupid. So into Tom Brady, and I'm trying to teach him the life lessons one takes from sports, that once you let sports into your life, you're signing up for decades worth of heartache and frustration and tragedy. And I thought, actually, through three quarters, that this was going to be a great lesson for him. And we watched the game, and I'm telling him it's over. And the whole game, he's saying, no, they could totally come back. Tom Brady's the greatest ever. And I'm trying to explain to him, no, the game is over, actually.
Vic00:02:57Yes, 99.3% chance. He can come back. He can come back. He can come back. Three minutes left. No, it's not happening.
JVL00:03:02And so, of course, they come back, and my kid turns to me and goes, see, I told you. And he now takes—so I grow up believing that the lesson of sports is that for some people, i.e. those who grow up outside of Philadelphia, everything always ends in tragedy. Nothing you do ever works. You always lose. And my kid, this being his first season of football that he's cared about, takes the lesson of you can win every time.
Sonny00:03:29Because you're the best. But now, doesn't this then lead to the Bane scenario, where now he will always have hope, and thus can always feel much more pain at losses?
JVL00:03:41I hope so. I mean, my dream is that by the time he's 14 or 15, I can take him up to the link for a game, and his heart will be so black that I can say, here's a decel, my son. Take your patrimony, and he'll do the right thing. Like Ed Rendell before him. Let the hate flow through you.
Vic00:03:59Let the hate flow through you. Somewhere Buddy Ryan is laughing. Sonny, what did you think about the Super Bowl Lee, as I like to call it? Is it lie? Lie.
Sonny00:04:09I will be honest, I spent most of my time on Twitter cracking jokes about how this was exactly like the election.
JVL00:04:14Because Green Bay wasn't in the game, right?
Sonny00:04:16I didn't care about who won, but I was entertained by all the people who were sad at who won. So that made me happy. That filled the dark void that is my soul.
Vic00:04:29I watched the Super Bowl from a hotel room in Orlando at the Lowe's Royal Pacific Hotel. We started watching at a restaurant in the hotel, Jake's American Bar, and I was surprised when we walked in, we missed part of the first quarter, and I saw the score was already, what, a 14 to 0, 21 to 0 maybe, or something like that, and that was stunning. And then we go back to the hotel room, everybody's tired because we spent a whole day out at Universal, which I'll talk about later. And then basically everybody just passed out, and I watched the game, and there was about three minutes left, and Michael and I, my son and I, were still awake, and then the signal went out with three minutes left. No. Yes. And it's like, it got more and more pixelated, and then spotty, you know, squares, blocks. Was there a thunderstorm or something? No idea. Did you take him down to the bar? No, it was just that channel. But I said, you know what, I was so tired. I thought, 28, 20, less than three minutes left, I honestly thought, you know what, Atlanta, they cannot possibly blow that, because if they do, the whole city's going to have a meltdown. And so I just said, you know, screw it. And then I fell asleep. I wake up about 15 minutes later, or 20 minutes later, and I check my phone, and sure enough, I see Patriots win an OT. And that's what I missed. But again, we'll talk about that trip later, but that was my Super Bowl, unfortunately.
JVL00:05:52Father of the year. Don't worry, son, you're not going to miss anything. You're not going to miss anything.
Vic00:05:57He does, that's okay. He still does now. But since this was the Super Bowl and Super Bowl week and everything like that, we thought here at The Substandard, what better time to discuss sports movies, our favorite sports movies, and what it means, what counts as sport movies. I defer to Jonathan here. You have some deep thoughts. It's just not all one lump sum sports movies, is it?
JVL00:06:22So the category is actually broader than it sounds. You have, for instance, sports comedies. The Replacements, Happy Gilmore, Caddyshack. Major League. Major League, which our friend Jane Orlinger, big golf nerd, says that among golf nerds, they view Caddyshack as legitimately the greatest golf movie ever made. That it captures the entire spirit of country club and golf.
Vic00:06:48You mean more than The Legend of Bagger Vance? More than The Legend of Bagger Vance.
JVL00:06:54I find that hard to believe. What do you think of sports comedies? Are you the water boy? Semi-pro, Talladega Nights.
Sonny00:07:02In the realm of sports comedies, right, you have... I'm sorry, I'm rambling. My biggest takeaway from sports comedies is that, ironically, golf makes for the best sports comedies. So you have Caddyshack, you have the great Bill Murray, Chevy Chase scenes, but then you also have the... Kind of more slapstick and ridiculous somehow, even than Caddyshack. Happy Gilmore, which is really Adam Sandler at the peak of his powers. Go to your home! It is at his, like, punching... Bob Barker. Bob Barker, right? Bob Barker, right in the schnoz, to the crazy guy with the nail in his head, who's a great character actor.
Vic00:07:53And the great character actor Christopher McDonald.
Sonny00:07:55And Christopher McDonald. Less scary than in Requiem for a Dream, but... Only slightly as the... And then also Tin Cup. Tin Cup is amongst my favorite sports movies and amongst my favorite sports comedies. And it just, it kind of... Of course, it's anchored by the great Kevin Costner, who is the king of sports actors. We can come back to that in a minute, I think. Yes, yes. But, no, I think that, you know, there's something about golf and the kind of self-seriousness with which people who play it and watch it take it, that lends itself to being punctured by the sports comedy.
JVL00:08:29Now, do you count Jerry Maguire as a sports movie? No. That's a good question.
Vic00:08:34It's a movie about the sports industry, I guess, but...
Sonny00:08:37It's definitely...
JVL00:08:38But sports is deeply integral to the plot. Of course.
Sonny00:08:40I mean, it is... If we are doing a Die Hard, is Die Hard a Christmas movie style argument about this, I think you could make the case that Jerry Maguire is a sports movie, but I don't really... It's more of a... Really, it's more of an entertainment industry movie. It's more of a... And the sports... Industry, the sports agencies. Yeah. I mean, it's about selling people. It's not about the game.
JVL00:09:05So, I would say that there are a bunch of niche sports which are good for a single movie. Like, tennis has one good movie about it, which is the Paul Bettany... No, that's not good. That's not good. Wimbledon is a bad movie. It is not a great movie. Oh, wait. What about Match Point? It has one of my favorite sports movie scenes ever, which is when the two tennis players are... They're sitting on the London Eye, looking over London, and Paul Bettany says, Someday, none of this will be ours. Which is a beautiful observation about what it is like to be a professional athlete.
Sonny00:09:37Is Kirsten Dunst the female... She is. She is.
JVL00:09:40She's very winning. Not convincing as a professional athlete. No. McFarland USA, which is a cross-country... Is that the running one? The cross-country one, which is a great movie, except for one problem, which is having run cross-country in high school. I can tell you, there are no bad guys in cross-country. So, the bad guys in McFarland USA are this team of... Blonde, preppy, rich kids who are like, you know,
Vic00:10:03Hey, yeah! Suck it!
JVL00:10:05They're basically the bad kids from Karate Kid.
Vic00:10:09But as runners.
JVL00:10:10That simply doesn't exist in cross-country. Everybody who does cross-country, like the average SAT scores are 1450 for a cross-country team. And it's a bunch of introverted losers.
Vic00:10:19Like, this is like, you know, there is no trash talk. Is it because you're only competing against yourself, essentially?
JVL00:10:23No, it's just, this is who, this is the personality type that is drawn to high school cross-country. You get the hard-working kids without a lot of real athletic talent. And again, this was me. I was captain of the cross-country team. Who find a sport that they can succeed in through, basically through sheer willpower. And to pal around with a bunch of guys who are going to go off to MIT and stuff like that. There are no bad guys. Gymnastics. There are a couple of good gymnastics movies. Vic, I was hoping you could talk for a little bit about your favorite movie of 2006.
Vic00:10:54No, you mean Stick It? Is it called Stick It? No, I didn't see that one. I only saw it on YouTube. I only saw it. No, and I was going to say, does cheerleading count? Because I would say Bring It On. No, I'm sorry. We'll go back to Bring It On. Bring It On is a great movie. Don't change the subject.
JVL00:11:11The writer of Bring It On, Jessica Bendinger, wrote and directed Stick It.
Vic00:11:16Well, there you go. Starring. Starring. Oh, Stick It? No, I can't remember who was in Stick It. Missy Peregrine. That's right.
JVL00:11:24I would just like to remind you, Vic, that on no fewer than 35 occasions, I came by the office and observed you watching the trailer for Stick It. For Stick It.
Vic00:11:33No, no, no, no, no. I was interested in, well, we can't even talk about gymnastics anymore, can we? That's not even a permissible subject at this point.
Sonny00:11:40Can we send this to the FBI directly, or do you think they have programs that crawl podcasts looking for pervs?
JVL00:11:47It has Jeff Bridges in it.
Sonny00:11:49It does.
Vic00:11:50He's classing up the joint. It's the dude. I love Jeff Bridges, and that's why I watch the movie over and over at night.
JVL00:11:55So I'm just, that, look, it's got that great line. Where the girl, the one who looks like a miniature version of Hayden Panettiere says, it's not called gymnastics.
Vic00:12:05Like, it's, why would you be embarrassed? I like how you say a miniature version of Hayden Panettiere. Is that what, she's three feet tall? That's it? Why are you ashamed?
JVL00:12:14Why are you? I'm just kidding.
Vic00:12:16I'm just kidding. Oh, God. All right.
JVL00:12:17We have to, this is, look, I just, I wish, I just wish we had a camera.
Sonny00:12:22I wish we, I wish we had a camera in here to tape this because Vic's face is so red. I know. He's actually touching himself. He's literally touching himself inappropriately right now. And I'm sweating here.
JVL00:12:32Why am I sweating? I would just like to remind, I would like to remind you there's a scene. His head grew three sizes that day. A scene in the trailer.
Vic00:12:39The one on my shoulders.
JVL00:12:41Yeah. Where Missy Peregrine is getting out of an ice bath, and I believe the first time I walked past you while you're watching it, what you said to me was, you said, oh.
Vic00:12:54Oh, no, I was just, you know, I thought the acting was fantastic in that movie.
JVL00:12:57Yeah, that, and American Anthem starting midway.
Vic00:12:59Mitch Gaylord. We really enjoyed that in the 80s as well, right? I liked that one, and I think there was one called American Flyers, too.
Sonny00:13:05Oh, if we're doing one-off Vision Quest, of course. Oh, yeah. The wrestling movie. That was definitely a, it was a crew movie, right?
Vic00:13:14Matthew Modine and Linda Fiorentino were in Vision Quest. What's the crew movie? The rowing one.
Sonny00:13:20The rowing one. It's an 80s film. Oxford Blues with Rob Lowe. Breaking Away. Breaking Away, the bicycling movie. Yes, that is.
Vic00:13:27Our friend Richard Starr is one of his favorite movies because it takes place in Bloomington, Indiana. So, here's what struck me about this. Yes, JBL.
JVL00:13:35The two, basketball and football, really don't make for very good sports movies.
Sonny00:13:43I mean, Hoosiers is a great movie. Hoosiers is a great movie. And then after that, what do you have, blue chips? You have blue chips, which is kind of entertaining, but almost like apart from the basketball. It's fun because Nick Nolte is like the crazy skeezy coach.
JVL00:13:56Football has any given Sunday, which I want to put to the side. Yeah, we're going to have a long conversation about that in a minute.
Vic00:14:01I will, let me just say this.
JVL00:14:02But after any given Sunday, what do you get? Rudy. Paper Tigers? You have Rudy. North Dallas 40. North Dallas 40. These are not great movies. Oh, what's the one where they're in the prison? Yeah, the original. No, no, no, no, no. Not the one with that. Not the one with, the one with Burt Reynolds.
Vic00:14:15Yeah, and there was also one with The Longest Yard. The Longest Yard. No, no, The Longest Yard. The Longest Yard. I would say for basketball, you're wrong because beside Hoosiers, there's Juwanna Man. Juwanna Man.
Sonny00:14:27That's right. How could you forget that, JVL? But also, the worst sports movie of all time is a basketball movie, and that movie, of course, is Space Jam. Yes. Space Jam, which is horrendous garbage, and dumb millennials have made it like an object of love, and I hate them. I hate all of them.
Vic00:14:43The character's the movie or millennials? All of them. Both. False choice. Was it because it was on the heels of Who Framed Roger Rabbit that they said, let's take advantage of this, and then we could have Shaq in there with the Warner Brothers characters? Michael Jordan, not Shaq. Oh! Yeah, Michael Jordan, not Shaq. Okay.
Sonny00:15:02And Charles Barkley, I think. Yeah.
JVL00:15:04Yeah, there's a bunch of cameos, but it's a Michael Jordan movie. Shaq was in Blue Chips, I think. Shaq was in Blue Chips. Shaq was in Blue Chips. Okay. But what's interesting, so the two sports that make for the best cinema are undoubtedly
Sonny00:15:14baseball and boxing.
JVL00:15:15Undoubtedly baseball and boxing. Yeah, right. And we can have a long time. Why is that?
Sonny00:15:18Yeah. Well, boxing, I think, makes the most sense as a cinematic subject because it's a mano a mano. You have these character studies. You have guys who are trying to overcome. You have guys who are trying to overcome adversity. I mean, it's just like the basic three-act structure of underdog training victory makes perfect sense.
Vic00:15:35And in movies like Rocky, Sonny, you could have it clearly, because it's fiction, you could clearly make these good versus evil characters.
Sonny00:15:43Yeah, right. Exactly. You have the kind of, even more so in Rocky III and Rocky IV, where Rocky first defeats Mr. T and then defeats communism.
JVL00:15:53Let me stop you right there. The original Rocky? Oh. Is it overrated? You go back and watch that movie now. Versus what?
Vic00:16:03Versus the rest of the Rocky oeuvre?
JVL00:16:05Versus whatever genuflects in front of it. Like, I am primed to love it. It's a Philadelphia movie. It's a Philadelphia classic. That movie is so slow. It's extremely slow. It is molasses. And the reason people love it, there's only one reason that people love it, it's because it sticks the landing so hard by having him go the distance and not wind. It is such a perfect ending that everybody forgets that they spent an hour fifty before that. Going nowhere.
Vic00:16:28That's fine. But there's also the cultural impact of that movie.
JVL00:16:32Right. It creates the Rocky movie.
Vic00:16:34Yes. And sort of the montage, the classic montage of training, which everybody got psyched about. And you should put it in show notes, if we could find it, Eddie Murphy's riff on this when he does it. I think he talks about it in, not Delirious, but his- It's raw. It's raw. And he talks about-
JVL00:16:52Go ahead and say it. Say exactly what he tells us.
Vic00:16:53Yo, Rocco! Yo, Rocco! And going up and getting the guy, getting the- Jujubeens, you know? So it's classic stuff. But I was going to say, JVL, it inspired so many people not only to try to chase after chickens, but also to eat raw eggs. Yeah.
Sonny00:17:07I'm not going to disagree with you that Rocky is slightly overrated. I think Rocky 2 is probably more entertaining. But the height of the Rocky series is definitely Rocky 4, where he kills communism. I mean, that's like-
JVL00:17:20Let me propose something to you boys. The greatest film ever made about the Cold War is Dr. Strangelove. Number two is Rocky 4.
Sonny00:17:29Oh. Yeah. I think that's- Does anyone deny this? I would have to go back and think about-
Vic00:17:37Red Dawn is up there. Yeah, Red Dawn. I'd put Red Dawn number three behind Rocky 4. Rocky 4 is unbelievably awesome. One of the keys to Rocky 4's success was that they found a dead ringer for Gorbachev. Remember this? Yes. They found this guy. He was a short-lived fame, and I read a profile of him at the time in People magazine. And they put the thing on his head, and then they had the light shining, and he said, he stands up to clap, that he's clapping for Rocky.
Sonny00:18:01Genuflecting in front of America.
JVL00:18:03No, this is why it is so anti-communist, because the crowd turns and winds up rooting for Ruskies, the soulless, godless commies rooting for Rocky.
Vic00:18:12You have to sort of ignore Rocky's speech, too, at the end, where he's like, you know, you and me, we're all- I think it was something like that.
Sonny00:18:19No, but that's true, though. We are all the same. We all want to cheer for America. That's what it comes down to. And, of course, the great Bridget.
Vic00:18:27Uh, Nielsen. Well, yeah.
Sonny00:18:29At the height of her powers. At the height of her powers. Yes. If he lives, he lives. And then, of course- If he dies, he dies. I will break him. You must. I must break him. And I have to say- Dolph Lundgren, who is an actual literal genius. Yes, yes, Sonny. And like a chess grandmaster, and, you know-
Vic00:18:45He was a chemical engineering PhD, I believe, when he was discovered for that. That's right, that's right. But the interesting thing I remember from when I watched it in the theater, it was so horrifying that Creed dies. I mean, it follows a great, you know, moment in, I guess it's Vegas or whatever, and it's, you know, and they have Living in America is playing, and the whole thing, and James Brown is there, and then he fails to throw in the towel, you know, or it's too little, too late. And it was so violent, and he just got his face, he just got battered. It was so horrific as a kid watching that. And it raises the stakes for the rest of the movie, doesn't it? I mean, if he doesn't die- It's personal now. It's personal, and let's, gotta work out in the log cabin.
Sonny00:19:31And then, is this, and then, is this then the following montage is the one where he shifts about 17,000 times in his car, he's like driving on the highway, or thinking about his relationship with Apollo, and he's just like, putting it, he puts it in like 5th, and then 6th, and then 7th, and then 8th, 9th, 10th, and he's just, he, by the time he was, he must be doing about 190 miles an hour.
Vic00:19:49Was he on the motorcycle? Was he on the motorcycle? And he was going through a tunnel? Yeah, he was, he was all-
JVL00:19:54No, it was definitely an Italian sports car.
Vic00:19:56Oh, okay. Go ahead, Jonathan, you were-
JVL00:19:59Baseball movie. Oh, okay, sure. Let's do baseball. Please, Jonathan. I throw to you, give me, so there's the Costner Trilogy. Yes. Do we all agree on the hierarchy and the ranking of the Costner Trilogy?
Sonny00:20:16What was the one that Sam Raimi directed? What was the name of that? Love of the Game? Love of the Game.
JVL00:20:22Which is half of an amazing movie. Yeah. If you cut out everything that isn't the baseball game- Yeah. It's only half of an amazing movie. It's only 45 minutes, but it's an amazing movie.
Sonny00:20:29I've actually never seen this because I just can't bear to watch Kevin Costner and Sam Raimi sully themselves with this movie, which looked bad.
JVL00:20:38I didn't see it either, so we're going to depend on you to-
Sonny00:20:41I would say that's clearly the worst. You felt about it.
JVL00:20:43Yes, the third of them, because half of the movie doesn't really work. And look, this is- But I still defy you.
Sonny00:20:50I'm sure you're going to disagree with me on this, but Bull Durham is number two, and
Vic00:20:55Field of Dreams is number one. I'm with Sonny on this. Field of Dreams is-
Sonny00:21:01JBL will be the contrarian now.
Vic00:21:03But it's more wistful. I mean, Bull Durham is more obviously gritty and more realistic about minor league.
Sonny00:21:09Field of Dreams is Capra-esque. Totally Capra-esque. And Bull Durham is, I don't know how you would even describe that.
Vic00:21:17But Field of Dreams, of course, like a lot of great movies, it's not actually about the sport. It's about regret. It's about America. Yeah, it's about America. It's about America.
Sonny00:21:26It's about America.
Vic00:21:27You don't have to go to heaven. You can go to Iowa. But no, it's about the choices we make, and it's about regret. Family. You know. Anyway, go ahead.
JVL00:21:36No, I mean, it's just a movie that fetishizes father-son relationships, and so it's garbage. Sentimental garbage.
Vic00:21:42Sorry, we're getting personal here.
JVL00:21:43Sorry. No, I'm not. It's not garbage. It's great. Yes, it's great. But it is not better than Bull Durham. Baseball. That's my James Earl Jones. Yeah, absolutely. It's totally my baseball. Yeah, sure.
Vic00:21:55That's a fantastic line. The one concept- The one constant. That speech is one of the great speeches in sports movie history. Like an army of steamrollers. Yeah, I would go with that. Yeah. Like an army of steamrollers. But you guys don't-
JVL00:22:06The lack of respect for Bull Durham, which is one of the two or three greatest sports movies.
Sonny00:22:12Bull Durham is fine. It's like in the top 20 of sports comedies, probably.
JVL00:22:19Probably. So you would throw it as a sports comedy? This is an interesting question. Of course Bull Durham is a sports- Yeah.
Sonny00:22:23Bull Durham is definitely a comedy. That is like, it is almost definitional. It is definitely a comedy. It's Tim Robbins being funny. And it's great. And it's funny. And Kevin Costner being funny. It is genuinely funny.
JVL00:22:33And it's got Arliss in it. It's got Arliss being funny. I believe that's the first time you ever played Arliss.
Sonny00:22:38Yeah. I mean- I mean, that is the Arliss character. Exactly.
Vic00:22:41Robert Wool. Wool. Yeah.
JVL00:22:43Robert Wool. Yeah. I think that's the first time he plays the character that becomes the Arliss character.
Vic00:22:47There were some great Arliss episodes, if you know what I mean, by the way. Oh, God. Yeah.
JVL00:22:51I actually don't. I never saw them. Did you-
Vic00:22:54The ones that had like SC on it.
Sonny00:22:56Did he represent the girls from Bring It On? It was sort of- Or Stick It?
Vic00:23:00It was something like that. The girls from Stick It?
JVL00:23:01It was something. Oh, my goodness. Did Missy Peregrine guest on Arliss?
Vic00:23:05How did we get back to Stick It? You were the one who-
JVL00:23:08Talking about, you know, what I loved about- Transition.
Vic00:23:11The characters I loved about Field of Dreams, it was Ray Liotta a year before he did Goodfellas, and it's funny. And there's still- He was about to work with Martin Scorsese, so it's the greatest movie ever.
Sonny00:23:22Raging Bull was obviously the best boxing film of all time.
Vic00:23:25And Ray Liotta, of course, plays Shoeless Joe Jackson, but who I really loved in that movie, of course, was the great Burt Lancaster, and that was his last role. And he has his last- As a doctor, of course. And Archie, Archibald, and he has that line, his last line on screen, which is, you know, win one for me, will you, boys? And then Ray Liotta gets to say the last thing to him ever, not that they knew Burt Lancaster was going to die, but he said, you know, hey, rookie, you were good. And by that time, you know, I'm just a puddle of tears.
Sonny00:23:58No, for me, it was, hey, dad, want to have a kiss?
Vic00:24:00Oh, my gosh. I mean, just, it's every time. And it's because Costner cracks his voice a little bit, and the father knows that he's the father. Every time. Oh, you should see what Jonathan did. Jonathan, yeah, he hates, as you know, this is not his thing. So, but, and it reminded me of when I was a kid, and I'd love, and, you know, I'd say to my dad, hey, dad, you want to go to the driving range? Because that's how I was born. We never had a cat. I want to go to the tennis court. Yeah, you want to go to the Lakewood Tennis Court and Tennis Club? Yeah, that's right, because we did not throw catch with each other. But even I connected with that, even though it was there. And I'll give you, and there's also, you know what else is funny? The daughter in this movie, Gabby Hoffman. Gabby Hoffman.
JVL00:24:42Gabby Hoffman, went on to become an indie darling. Yes, and who, a friend. You wish she had been in Stick It?
Vic00:24:49A friend of the podcast, who I will keep nameless, because I don't know if you want to hear it. She wants to be known for, you know, saying this. But a friend of the podcast, who is a co-host of another equally entertaining podcast, he told me that Gabby Hoffman is, quote, batshit crazy, because she grew up in the Chelsea Hotel.
Sonny00:25:10And it's just nuts. Well, I mean, anyone who watched Girls, her run on Girls, which strikes me, Girls, again, strikes me as the show that is basically the most pure representation of the actresses who are on it, could tell that Gabby Hoffman is, quote, batshit crazy. Gabby Hoffman is a lunatic.
Vic00:25:26There is a line in a New York Times interview from 2013 with Gabby Hoffman, and can we talk about, can I use this, we can bleep it if we can't use the word, murkin? Is that, is that allowed to use that term? Sure, that's a, it's a technical term. It's a term, it's a Hollywood term, right. And she had been in a movie called Crystal Fairy that involved a lot of nudity, and a friend asked her, wow, how did you keep that on? And she said, oh, no, I didn't have one. Okay, that's at 3517, we'll remember to tweet that. Wow, okay, that's great. Sorry to bring that to you. It's amazing to me, your recall, your recall for certain facts is so particular. I know, sorry, it's, it's, it's, I didn't, it's a hairy subject, sorry.
Sonny00:26:13So can we, can we, oh God, can we distinguish between best sports movies and favorite sports movies? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Because I have a different. Yeah, give me, give me your two. So here, here would be, I actually have my notebook. I'll go last, so I can correct you both. So my favorite sports movies, number one, number three, I'll go, I'll go, I'll go worst to best. Number three, Dodgeball. Dodgeball is a hilarious sports movie. Fantastic. Great. Definitely sports.
JVL00:26:42I love Jason Bateman in everything, but his tiny role in Dodgeball might be the funniest thing he's ever done. It's a bold move, Cotton. It's a bold move, Cotton. He was on The Ocho.
Vic00:26:54Was he on The Ocho? On The Ocho. The Ocho.
Sonny00:26:55ESPN 8, The Ocho, with like the cockfighting promo.
JVL00:26:59So he even sits funny in that movie. God, Jason Bateman's awesome.
Sonny00:27:04So continue, Sonny. I was watching Sesame Street, and Jason Bateman was talking about consoling. The word of the day was like, I need to console people. And I couldn't help but think he was being sarcastic the whole time. I thought, I was like, I assumed he was, that's what I do as a father of an 18-month-old, watch Sesame Street. You just expect him to be. You don't have to watch it with them.
JVL00:27:25You can just leave them and go to another room. Yeah, that's true. But I like watching Sesame Street.
Sonny00:27:30Number two, Major League. Major League, another underrated comedy. I love it. I think it's my favorite R-rated sports comedy.
JVL00:27:40Corbin Bernson?
Vic00:27:42Yes. Wesley Snipes. Wesley Snipes.
JVL00:27:45An early Wesley Snipes. What's his name? Willie Hayes.
Vic00:27:48Willie Hayes, yes. Bob Uecker. That's a pretty great movie. Willie Hayes Mays. Willie Hayes Mays.
Sonny00:27:53Charlie Sheen. Charlie Sheen. Charlie Sheen at the kind of height of his- His comedic powers. And matinee comedic powers.
Vic00:27:59Oh, and of course, you know, the voodoo guy, Dennis Haysbert. Yes, Dennis Haysbert. Future president, Dennis Haysbert. And the great character actor, Chelsea Ross. Chelsea Ross, who plays the old guy who brings Dennis Haysbert the bucket of fried chicken. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
JVL00:28:13Because he says, you want to worship this, you know. The pitcher, the salty pitcher. Yes, the salty pitcher.
Vic00:28:18And by then, Chelsea Ross was probably in his 50s. He was old. But anyway, go ahead, Sonny.
Sonny00:28:22And then, best. This is my favorite. This is my most- Is this your favorite movie of the best? This is my favorite. This is my most, this is one of my most millennial opinions. Favorite sports movie of all time, The Sandlot.
Vic00:28:35Oh, my gosh. That's with children.
JVL00:28:38I could watch The Sandlot-
Sonny00:28:39That's with children. I could watch The Sandlot every day. If I see it on ABC Family or whatever that channel's called now, I will watch it for like 40 minutes. If it's on HBO, I'll watch the whole thing.
Vic00:28:50Why not just say Little Big League or something? Little Big League. So there was a trilogy. Trilogies.
Sonny00:28:54There was a trilogy of great little kids' baseball movies. There was The Sandlot, there was Rookie of the Year, and Little Big League. Weren't they all the same?
Vic00:29:04They all inherited the Minnesota Twins?
Sonny00:29:05They were not all the same. One was about the Cubs, one was about kids who just played in a sandlot. And then the other one was about the Minnesota Twins. The other one was about Minnesota Twins. Anyway, The Sandlot. I could watch, again, it's a movie about America and Americana and what used to make this country great and will be great again.
Vic00:29:22Thank you.
Sonny00:29:22So those are my three favorite. So what's the best? What's the best? Oh, the best. Hold on. You know, I didn't actually rank the best, but it's probably Raging Bull, the Martin Scorsese boxing movie. It was directed by the most amazing director ever.
Vic00:29:35Best movie of the 1980s, according to the critics. You never got me down, Ray.
JVL00:29:38You never got me down.
?00:29:40But it did.
Vic00:29:40I don't have ranking, per se, but the two movies that stood out, yes, that I ended up wanting to talk about. One was Field of Dreams, and we've talked about it again, and that great line about America. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. And, of course, hey, Dad, you want to have a catch, which is just—
Sonny00:29:59Just every time.
Vic00:30:00Every time. Every time. Every time. Plus the music. Jerry Goldsmith, maybe? I don't know who it was. I don't know who it was. But there are two problems or two issues I have with Field of Dreams. I know it's based on, I guess, the novel. But one is, at the end, you know, James Earl Jones explains, people will come here, you know, 20 bucks a person. People will come, right. And the daughter says the same thing. They'll come over here. And then at the end, as the camera pans out over the field, you see the line of cars as far as the eye can see. What is this, Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Have they all been contacted psychically to come here? Yes. They all know what's going on.
Sonny00:30:36Because they know what America is. I think it's like America— They're drawn to America.
Vic00:30:41You know, they just—they were on their way to Devil's Mountain in Wyoming. Hey. Hey, Vic. Don't question it. The other one, it's great. They're going to save the farm, right. Timothy Busfield will be happy, right. As the brother-in-law. For 30-somethings, right. Yeah, yeah, for 30-somethings.
Sonny00:30:57Best known from 30-somethings.
Vic00:30:57He was probably there at that time. And L.A. Law. Yes.
JVL00:31:01And L.A. Law.
Sonny00:31:02I don't know.
Vic00:31:03I never— I think. A bit before. Maybe. And I said, great. You know, they're all showing up. 100,000. They probably have one bathroom in that house. It's going to turn into Woodstock. That's my thought. It's going to be a disaster.
Sonny00:31:15They've got a whole field of corn. Oh, my gosh. Don't eat that corn. Don't eat that corn.
Vic00:31:22Not dreams. Okay. And that's what I'm feeling sort of hopeful, nostalgic, and wistful, and pure. And then when I'm feeling darker, I would say Any Given Sunday. Particularly the director's cut is just—it's dark. It's very dark. There's a story, and we can get into this in a second, but there's a story about how Oliver Stone initially wanted to follow around the San Francisco 49ers, and it was either Jamie Foxx, or LL Cool J was probably Jamie Foxx, or Jim Brown. Stellar cast told him, no, if you want to make a movie like that, you need to follow around the Oakland Raiders. And so that was that. JVL. Favorite, not best. No, I refuse to play by your rules, Sonny. Best would probably be a movie that I have not seen, probably Pride of the Yankees, but everyone loves that. Bang the Drum Slowly.
JVL00:32:16Oh, yeah, yeah. No, the best sports movie is Any Given Sunday. It is the layer cake of sports movies. And it is not dark. So personally overrated by Jonathan V. Last. No, this is Oliver Stone's greatest film. I agree with that. No, no, I agree with that.
Vic00:32:33The first film. You're both high. What are you going to say? The heaven one? The one with Tommy Lee Jones?
Sonny00:32:40I'm sorry, Oliver Stone's best film is not Any Given Sunday. I hope you're not going to say Natural Born Killers. No, I wouldn't say Natural Born. JFK is definitely his best film. Platoon is his most entertaining great film. Alexander is better than Any Given Sunday. Wrong.
JVL00:32:57I mean, just all wrong. It is the first movie by Oliver Stone that actually has heart. And I disagree that it's dark. It's actually one of the few Oliver Stone movies where everyone is redeemed. So it is filled with, he loves every one of those characters. But there are very dark moments. Even the characters who are bad. So James Woods' doctor, who is kind of a quack doctor feel good. He's vindicated. He is vindicated in the end. And at the end shown that he is simply a man who is trying to help these heroic men fulfill their dreams.
Vic00:33:33Live their dreams, right?
JVL00:33:35That's what he says. This is the case for the empire, case for Dr. James Woods in Any Given Sunday. John McGinty. McGinley. McGinley. McGinley, who plays the Jim Rome reporter, who is a colossal asshole, is redeemed in the end as a guy who really, despite everything else, loves sports. I can see that. Cameron Diaz is redeemed. Al Pacino is redeemed. The tragedy that you're waiting to happen with Shark, who is the great Lawrence Taylor, never happens. Like, he gets the hit, and you're expecting, because it's an Oliver Stone thing, like, oh, God, we're being taught. You know, now we're going to see, like, the real price of this. He gets his bonus. Everything works out for everybody. Thank goodness the movie.
Vic00:34:14Jamie Foxx grows up. Yes. Thank goodness that the focus was not on the guy who lost his eyeball in the director's movie. Or the cowboys. He doesn't matter. The knights. The knights.
JVL00:34:26So what this is, is this is a movie that understands both the sacrifice but the nobility of professional sports. And especially football. And gets that football is a dangerous game and a hard game. But that the reason we are attracted to it is because it has something very large to say about the nature of manliness itself. And Stone gets that. Stone is also.
Sonny00:34:51And makes this love letter to it. He's fixated on gladiators, as you know. Unreserved. And her. And there's the famous very brief cut scene of the gladiators going around the circle. As Charlton Heston talks, I believe.
JVL00:35:05That's true. Right. So you get to see Charlton Heston then and now. And then on top of it, it has great photography. The football has never been shot as beautifully as he does it. It's got one of the great monologues, period, in Cinema of the End. The Al Pacino Locker Room. It's a game of interest. Which is Speech, which I think we opened with this week. Which, just go back and watch that. They're all around us! The inches we need are all around us, right? It's the movie that makes Jamie Foxx's career, which is awesome, because I love me some Jamie Foxx. It has a fantastic cast. It is a great look into what I believe, in my own little contact with this, a closer look as to what NFL life is like. Which is that it is intensely stratified. And that the lives of the guys who are the offensive linemen are different than the lives of the guys who are the skill players on offense. Which is different from the lives of the star franchise quarterbacks. Like, it really is, you know, India-style cast system. And you have very blue-collar guys, you have very flashy party guys. And then you have guys like the quarterbacks, who are much more like owners. They're almost like management. And it gets that, it portrays all that. There's a fantastic scene at the party. I think it's LT, goes out with a chainsaw and cuts the wide receiver's car in half.
Vic00:36:28There are very dark scenes in that movie, including the party scenes in the unrated version are wild. And I'm sorry, I had to cut you off.
JVL00:36:39Did you watch the unrated version of Stick It? Anyway, as LT, Shark LeVay, says, you remember what he says? Respect will be paid.
Vic00:36:49That's right.
JVL00:36:50And he cuts Jamie Foxx, Willie Beeman's car in half. That's right. With a chainsaw.
Vic00:36:54Yes, yes. And LL Cool J is in it, and Bill Bellamy is in it. And they're great. And the NFL commissioner, Charlton Heston.
JVL00:37:03My only, the only thing I don't love about it is that I wish to God the NFL had signed off and let them do it with the real teams.
Vic00:37:11But they couldn't because of all the dark aspects. Let's say the dark aspects that they didn't want to reflect on. The steroid use.
Sonny00:37:18It's actually very funny. There's a snippet in Matt Zoller Seitz's book. It's on Oliver Stone. That's very good. Everyone should pick it up if they can. About Charlton Heston, who, like, you know, he went out and he said, oh, you know, these Hollywood liberals would never hire me, Charlton Heston, face of the NRA, to be in their movies anymore. And Oliver Stone literally got on the phone and was like, hey, I love you, Charlton Heston. Do you want to be in my movie about football? And then that's how it happened.
Vic00:37:44Oh, that's a great story. And he has a great line when he says about Cameron Diaz, remember? He says, I honestly think that she would eat her own or something like that, you know? That's great. And that's probably one of his last times we'd seen him in a movie, probably. Yeah, I guess that's after True Lies, right?
JVL00:38:00Yeah, I think so. So, Any Given Sunday is the best sports movie. The only possible contender might be Bloodsport, which is the best movie ever made about Kumite.
Sonny00:38:12Certainly the best movie ever made about Kumite.
Vic00:38:14And Sudden Death, which is on the ice.
Sonny00:38:17That was Jean-Claude Van Damme on ice. We don't have time to discuss this right now, but the martial arts movie is a whole. different sub-genre of sports movie, right?
JVL00:38:26Do martial arts count as a sport? No, I count them as action-adventure movies, except for the martial arts movies that are explicitly tournament-style. Tournament, right, right.
Sonny00:38:35So, like Bloodsport or Lionheart. Mortal Kombat.
JVL00:38:40Mortal Kombat. Oh, wow. Wow. With the future Mrs. Pete Sampras.
Vic00:38:45I am, again, at the height of her powers. At her powers, yes. Which is not now. I anticipate we'll get a lot of feedback. We'll get a lot of feedback from folks on Twitter about what about X, Y, and Z movies. You know, I'm sure we'll talk.
Sonny00:38:57Oh, you didn't talk about any movies made before the 1980s.
Vic00:39:00Which is why I brought back Pride of the Yankees. Old movies are dumb. Also, The Natural.
JVL00:39:06That's another baseball movie. You know movies that don't have color? Why would anybody watch them?
Sonny00:39:10Why would anybody watch anything made before, like, 1975, frankly? I don't understand. Right. When you talk about, like, the early age of cinema, that's like The Godfather.
Vic00:39:21That's really when it started.
Sonny00:39:23Yes. Well, movies began when Stanley Kubrick started making movies. That's it. It was 1956 or so, something like that.
Vic00:39:31There's, like, one or two black and whites in there that he did, but that's okay.
JVL00:39:34Yeah, well, but again, it's, you know, it's Stanley Kubrick.
Vic00:39:36Is there anything, either of you gentlemen have anything else to get off your chest about the sports movies now? No. Okay, so I'm glad we all agree that Stick It is the greatest movie. Okay, good. As I mentioned earlier, I was, this past weekend, at Universal Studios Orleans. I was in Orlando, and it was really to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We did a bunch of the other rides, but I would say now almost everybody who goes there is going to that, you know, because if you're competing with Disney World, and Disney World still does a ton more traffic and revenue off of the theme parks, but I think the big edge that they have there, and they poured a ton of money into it because it looks so real, and I would say you would love it, JVL. It's the only place where you and your wife will feel comfortable wearing your school robes, your Gryffindor robes. And your wands. Careful where you point that wand. I'm pointing it right now. And the hats. You can wear the hats. Stick it. And the scarves. You could do the whole thing. And I didn't look at any-
Sonny00:40:34Do you have to pay extra for that package? Is there like, do you get like a- Wizarding World? Is there a wardrobe in your hotel room?
Vic00:40:40Oh, you got to buy that on your own, but you could buy it at one of the various shops in either Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley, perhaps.
JVL00:40:48What percentage of the guests are doing cosplay?
Vic00:40:52I would say about 30% that I saw. I would say 30% walking around, and like completely normal. And it's not even that I thought, wow, this person looks weird. Not at all. It was like, oh, yeah.
JVL00:41:01I have another question for you. Please. What percentage of the guests did not have children accompanying them?
Vic00:41:08Oh, that's a good- There were young people, young people like teens, and people in their 20s, I guess. Gymnasts? I know. I would say, I don't know, 40% maybe. Maybe 60. It's about half-half. You're saying half of it is- I would say 60 to 70% kids. Just millennials showing up. I'll say 60 to 70 kids. But a lot of it are, yeah, teens who are old enough to travel on their own. And I know this because I followed a lot of them around just to supervise.
Sonny00:41:36Just to make sure they didn't get in any trouble.
Vic00:41:38I can get you into Honeydukes. And thank you. And I cast a spell on them. Erecto. Oh, sorry.
Sonny00:41:45Oh, Jesus Christ.
Vic00:41:47Sorry. That was on my- I accidentally cast that on myself. You know? Priapismo. You know? Anyway.
Sonny00:41:53No.
Vic00:41:54Descendo. Sorry. Descendo. All right. Stop. Stop it.
Sonny00:41:59We're just going to have to- I'm sorry. I can't go on. We're just going to have to beep. I'm sorry. No. I thought of that one before.
Vic00:42:04You were going to get a phone call. Yes, yes, yes. It is very funny.
Sonny00:42:08You're going to get a phone call from Universal Studios asking you not to come back.
Vic00:42:11Erecto is not a spell. It's not a spell. I've tried it. The funniest thing is when you see kids waving their wands and they're playing with each other. What do you think? Sorry, JVL, since you're more into this than Sonny. What do you think is the spell you hear the most kids using against each other? Crucio. Actio. Oh, that's not bad. No. Actio. Guess again. Close. Expelliarmus. Havadacadabra.
Guest00:42:38Havadacadabra. The death curse. Yeah, the death. They don't even go to Crucio.
Vic00:42:41They just jump to kill you. You guys are- The best part is you get to go on to King's Cross Station and take the Hogwarts Express. You run through the wall. Yes. And there is actual- Nine and three quarters. There's an optical illusion, so while you're waiting in line, you can see people, and it looks like they're going through a brick wall. And then you get there, and then you end up in Hogsmeade, and there's all these different rides. Hogwarts Castle is, you can go inside. It's real. You go through a classroom. You go through Dumbledore's office, and the thing where you put your head in for the tears and things like that. It's in the mirror. It's all there. Oh, and talking pictures. That is what is insane, talking pictures. And, of course, the newspapers. So, it's carefully crafted newspaper, just superimposed on a video screen, but they do a very good job of that. And so, one of the nice things we saw as soon as we walked in was the Wanted poster with Gary Oldman screaming. Yeah, and that was great. It was great to see Gary Oldman.
Sonny00:43:40Can I ask a question? Sure. As somebody who prefers amusement park experiences to theme park experiences, how were the rides?
Vic00:43:51The rides were great. At Harry Potter, there are two rides that were, well, there's three rides probably that were extremely intense. The first one I forced my entire family on, because I had no idea it would be that intense, was called Harry Potter's Forbidden Journey. And you're basically in a giant, you know, I mean, you have harnesses on, and it's part 3D, 4D. No goggles, though. No goggles. And you have things coming at you, spiders spitting venom, and it's water shooting in your face, dementors in your face, and you're also moving. It's very physically exhausting. Because you're, you know, you're being thrown up and down, upside down, the whole thing. Escape from Gringotts is...
JVL00:44:28I have one question. Are you staying in place, or are you in a car that's moving?
Vic00:44:32You're in a car that's moving, and then it stops in front of some giant IMAX-like screen, and you feel like you're moving, and then you move on again. It's hard to tell, unless you turn on all the lights, how big that facility is. Escape from Gringotts is part 3D, 4D with glasses, and part rollercoaster. And that's crazy. And the great thing is, again, as I was saying to Sonny earlier, and JVL, I wonder if it's in the contract with Universal, or did they have to pay gobs of money to Michael Gambon, Ray Fiennes, and Helena Bonham Carter to all appear in the entire cast?
JVL00:45:02A hundred, I guarantee you it's in the contract. Wow. Yeah. I guarantee you all theme park rides are included.
Vic00:45:07Theme park, attraction, acting.
Sonny00:45:09And so they have to pretend that there's a story they create. I'm sure it's like a day's worth of shooting. Like, while they're already in makeup. And they just throw that in there, and they have the story figured out.
Vic00:45:19The interesting thing with Universal vs. Disney is, the whole, you know, Universal is so much more dependent on just what are the movies out now. So, when I went to Universal in the 90s, two different times, almost all those rides that I did are all gone, right? Earthquake Simulator, Twister, Back to the Future. What? Twister's gone? Twister's gone. And now they're making, and we went to a Men in Black ride that felt kind of outdated. Like, I bet you Men in Black might be gone, you know, at some point. And they're making way for, you know, Fast and Furious is going to be the next simulated ride. Right now is Minions, Despicable Me. That'll probably go on because that franchise sort of continues. I wondered how long E.T. was going to last, in fact, because it's old. And you look at the video with Steven Spielberg and he talks to you before you get up. It's good for the kids, but E.T. is old. And I don't know if that still resonates. It was very strange when you walk from one section of theme park to another. You're basically walking from one John Williams score to another. So, you're going through Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, you know, and then E.T. It's just, you know, all one. But, anyway, that was, I don't know if you have any strong feelings about, you know, the theme park rides that you like, but there were a lot to choose from. I like the animatronic ones because it's sort of, you know, nostalgia driven. I mean, it's silly, you know, because it doesn't feel real. Sonny.
Sonny00:46:41This is one of the reasons why I kind of prefer the amusement park concept to the theme park concept. Like, so I was lucky enough to have a family living near Cedar Point in Ohio. Cedar Point is like the roller coaster mecca for nerds who love roller coasters. And one of the great things about Cedar Point is that it is not driven at all by what is in the multiplexes. They have rides that were built in the 70s, rides that were built in the 80s, 90s. You know, and the park just kind of expands and builds on top of itself. And sometimes they take down older stuff. But it is... It is a pure, like, adrenaline theme. If it had a theme, it would be, like, adrenaline junkie. It would be like, we're going to go on the 400-foot-high roller coaster and come down at 110 miles an hour at a 60-degree angle.
Vic00:47:36That's what we do. So at Universal, they have that as, like, a, you know, tame your dragon ride. And then it's insane thing. And Dr. Doom's Fearfall, which is like the old free fall ride, and you hear people screaming. Round the clock, round the clock, you hear people screaming.
JVL00:47:50Did you have a favorite ride that you did?
Vic00:47:53Yeah, I think Escape from Gringotts. You actually go through the bank. And on top of the bank outside is a perched dragon, and every five to ten minutes, it belches out fire. And you could feel the heat. It's intense. The kids love it because, you know, you step on certain brass squares, and you can cast spells at things. And then there's Nocturne Alley. You know, you go through, and then Bork and Burkus and Bork, whatever that, the dark shop is, you know, and you can find things there. It's so interesting. It's insane. Even you go to the bathroom, and you hear Morning Myrtle, you know. I mean, that's crazy. It's crazy. So it was great. So I enjoyed those rides. My son actually liked Jurassic Park a lot, and we did it twice. That's a pretty intense ride. It is, but it's kind of dated in a weird way because that's all animatronic. There's no, versus the new ride that we just got on, which was King Kong Skull Island. And again, that movie has not even come out. And you go in, and it's a truck, and it's that. You've got to wear the goggles. And as you know from me, looking at me now, I am not a goggle on top of my glasses.
JVL00:48:59They don't make them to fit you. It was discombobulating.
Sonny00:49:03Did you have to go to an office and ask for, like, oversized?
JVL00:49:06A special one. Are you like the guys on the airplane who has to ask for the seatbelt extender? I need the extender for my head. I need the extender for my head.
Sonny00:49:13I need the goggle extender.
Vic00:49:14So I don't like those kind of rides just because of my, you know. Special condition? Yes. Handicap? Thank you. I think it's called special condition. You know, I'm specially abled in that way. You're certainly special. And then have to listen to the kids, you know, make jokes about the glasses not fitting my head. Or the harness, for that matter. But that was after eating a lot of, oh, we ate at the Leaky Cauldron. You know, I mean, it's all there. It's all there. I hope you guys get a chance to go. Okay. Well, I guess we can move on to Jonathan. You said you have a bunch of corrections. So many corrections. Go for it.
JVL00:49:50I got so much wrong last week. The one thing. Yeah, right. I told you people to take the over on the Super Bowl. Oh, yeah. Came home. The great thing about taking the over is that when it's over, it's over. You take the under, you have to nurse that all the way home. So, wrong. I said Belichick and Ernie Adams went to Exeter. They did not. They went to Andover. Phillips Academy. Phillips.
Sonny00:50:15I thought they were the same thing. I thought it was like Andover, Exeter. Of course, that's what you thought. I don't understand.
JVL00:50:20Sonny Bunch was wrong about the year in which Brett Favre was born. Favre's final game as a picker, which is the Redskins, was. He said it was 2006 or 2007. It was 2004. We have Real Genius, the one who asks Val Kilmer about pounding the spike through a board with his penis, is not, in fact, William Atherton's wife, but we don't even know what she is. She's either a girlfriend or a hooker or something. And, in fact, his wife is a hooker. His response is not what I says. He doesn't say not yet. He says not at the moment. So, they're all, you know, they're even more. I'll just post the rest of these corrections there. The big one is for all of us. Uh-oh. We have been called out by somebody who is reasonably woke. My wife says that we did not mention a single female character.
Sonny00:51:16I saw that this morning. I woke up at 5.30 this morning to take my dog out. To do her business.
Vic00:51:24And I have 20 tweets from Shannon Last. I saw that. I got up at 6 a.m. and I was tweeting while doing my ablutions.
JVL00:51:33Myself, I have binders full of female character actors. And there are so many that I... Allison Janney. Lovely. Wonderful. Can't get enough of Allison Janney. Not a character actor. In the true Tobolowsky sense. Not a character actor. Allison Janney is not a character actor.
Vic00:51:51She's very well-known. In the Tobolowsky sense, it's, hey, who is that person I see every now and then?
JVL00:51:54The gal from Glee who's in all the Christopher Guest movies. Jane Lynch. Jane Lynch. Love Jane Lynch. Jane Lynch is a character actor. Jessica Walter. Yes, I would agree.
Vic00:52:05Judy Greer. Judy Greer, who wrote an entire book about being a character actor. Yeah, that's good.
JVL00:52:10And the book is great, too. And Judy Greer is a national treasure.
Sonny00:52:13She's funny in everything she does.
JVL00:52:15So there are many lovely and talented female character actors out there.
Sonny00:52:20Judy Greer's best turn in adaptations. She was really only in it for like a minute.
JVL00:52:24No, her best turn is in Arrested Development.
Vic00:52:26Say goodbye to these, Michael. I love the pixelated. Didn't they pixelate it? Or they do a black bar? They always pixelate it. A black bar pixelated.
JVL00:52:35It's great. So those are the corrections. There are even more, but I'm not going to go through them now.
Vic00:52:39I just have them on the show notes, which will be up tomorrow. Show notes. At weeklystandard.com. I had one from longtime listener Jambo who points out that John Hurt actually collaborated with Mel Brooks twice, but three times. So he did The Elephant Man, which was a Brooks Films production. He did Spaceballs, where he rehashed his role in Alien. And Jambo reminds us that John Hurt also played Jesus in History of the World Part 1. So there you go. Judas, would you like a beverage?
Sonny00:53:09Also, I would just like to point out that the correction on Brett Favre is not really a correction, because I said during the podcast that I wasn't sure. So I'm still perfect.
JVL00:53:18My buddy, Kevin Benversi, who wrote in to correct you. He even footnoted it, saying that it's on page 389 of the 2016 Packers Media Guide.
Vic00:53:28That's good. Okay. Spirit of the Week. Spirit of the Week. Ah, here we are. Sonny and I are drinking George Dickel Rye Whiskey, charcoal mellowed by George A. Dickel and Company. How did you like it, Sonny?
Sonny00:53:44I'm not a huge whiskey fan. I'm not a big fan of Jack Daniels, but I love all of the Dickel whiskeys. The Dickel Rye is... It is my go-to Manhattan.
Vic00:53:54I've had a very smooth... We've had a few spirits here that I thought were a little bit harder to get down than others, but this was... No, it's great.
JVL00:53:59It's amazing. You always say that the Spirit of the Week is fantastic, and you beg people to send you free stuff, and now you're saying... We're working on it.
Vic00:54:05Well, I think Dickel is the best.
JVL00:54:06It makes me wonder why we do this segment.
Vic00:54:08People love drinking, except for you. It's funny. People love drinking.
Sonny00:54:12Our friend John Podhoretz suggested that, you know, this segment gets a little bit, you know, out of hand sometimes, and it only really gets out of hand because one JVL interjects his nasty... His temperance. ...criticisms of our amazing drinks, like Dickel Rye, one of the smoothest, classicist... Classiest and classicist, yes.
Vic00:54:32What are you drinking? What were you drinking, Jonathan? You downed that thing. I just had a little German product, a little German beverage. It's Schufferhofer. I can see it from here. It's a Hefeweizen grapefruit beer, für die Frauen.
Sonny00:54:45It was literally, like, pink-ish, pinkish-orange. Cream-sickle-orange.
Vic00:54:53Für die Mädchen. Für die Mädchen.
Sonny00:54:55It was... It really... I was... I actually asked JBL when he walked in, because I couldn't see the label. Yes. Did you find a Zima?
Vic00:55:02I thought... For the office? You know what it was? Before he turned the label, I thought he was bringing in sort of, like, a Bartels and James joke, like a white cooler. It's huge in Germany. Oh, I'm sure.
JVL00:55:10You know what... So what does it say... Among die Frauen. What does it say when you go to Wegmans with your kids, and as you're walking past the beer section, your son says, oh, I'll go pick up the daddy juice. Because he knows right where it is. It's over in the German section of beers, and he goes over and picks it up and brings it over. Does the child services come for that? No. No, no. No, no. Because it has that bright color.
Sonny00:55:32No, they would...
Vic00:55:33But they would come if you went to, like, the PBR. Okay. Wow. I believe that's all the time we feel like spending in the studio. So questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Victorino Matus, at Sonny Bunch. Again, be sure to... Be sure to subscribe to us. Oh, wait. At JV Last.
JVL00:55:55Oh, you almost missed your cue.
Vic00:55:57Be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard under the podcast. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. And don't forget, the Substandard show notes will be up on Fridays at 11 a.m. Until next time. Okay. Music. Thank you. Thank you. You know what else I was going to say I loved about the old section of Universal Studios before you get to Wizarding World? Jaws. Is Jaws still there? No, it's gone, and that's a tragedy. Stick It World? The tour.
JVL00:56:35That's another theme park. And the tour is gone. Stick It World is actually run, sponsored by the FBI's Innocent Images program.
Vic00:56:43I'll look into that. They have the replica cities, you know. And so what I loved, it's like you could go to San Francisco, and it's like a beautiful, San Francisco without all the homeless people. You know, you could go. So it's nothing like San Francisco. It's Chicago. It's very safe. You could go in, and it's like classic old, they recreate little sections of city for you, but it's from like San Francisco from Vertigo or whatever. You know, it's from a different time, but it was lovely. Also, JVL, you would love, you would love the Butterbeer. The Butterbeer, I have done my own analysis of this, I believe it was vanilla cream soda with a marshmallow froth, and I had two of them. It's a little hard for me. My daughter did not like it, and her gut reaction was to spit it back into my drink, and I thought to myself, well, I did pay $7 for this drink, the Butterbeer, so I drank it. Is it actually, is there actually alcohol in it? No, but you know what you'd be surprised by, Sonny? They sell booze throughout Universal. Of course they do. I mean, I'm sure it's extremely expensive.
JVL00:57:44That's because Universal is the grown-up version of Disney.
Vic00:57:46Yes, I was going to say, I don't remember Disney if they don't sell.
JVL00:57:49Do they not sell booze in Disney? I believe so. I believe that there are restaurants where you can get, well, there is an adult island, but I believe there are restaurants where you can get, like, red wine or a beer in Disney, but not, it's been a while since I was there, but not, like, on the street.
Vic00:58:04Oh, on the street. They had, on the street, including, they had Duff beer stands, you know, because the whole Simpsons thing is there.
Sonny00:58:11Well, this is one of the great things about Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, is that they just, it's booze everywhere.
Vic00:58:16It's like, that must be a lovely scene. Yeah, drunk people on roller coasters, what could possibly go wrong?
JVL00:58:21Hey, can I remind you why you fell in love with Missy Peregrine?
Vic00:58:26I don't remember. You know what? I only saw the trailer. I don't even think I saw the movie.
JVL00:58:29Where did she get her start? Where? Dark Angel. Oh, well, because I remember things about you. My file.
Vic00:58:38Eliza Dushku or Jessica Alba? Jessica Alba. I love them both. The files I have on you, Victorino.
Sonny00:58:41Eliza Dushku is Dollhouse again.
Vic00:58:43Yes, and Eliza Dushku, of course, is Bring It On.
Sonny00:58:46Yes. And she is. That's right.
Vic00:58:48Boy, you got your recall for this. Again, it's perfect. I want, yeah, no. I, just the car wash scene. That's all. Yeah. Just the car wash scene, Jack. It's just the car wash scene, Jack. Sorry. I'm still your friend. But Colonel.
Sonny00:58:59I'm still your friend, right, JVL? But Colonel. Touch her, right? What would you, what would, how would you describe your file on JVL's various proclivities? Equally extensive. Not to be discussed. Are you asking me or him? I know, because his wife listens. I'm asking JVL. I'm sure it's fine.
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