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#15. Whoa! It's the Substandard Keanu Reeves Episode
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
Reviews: Sonny reviews John Wick: Chapter 2 — fresh, but slightly less tight than the original at two hours; praises the world-building (the Camorra marker system, The Continental's international outposts, the switchboard staffed by tattooed operators), Ian McShane, Lance Reddick, Peter Stormare, and a sommelier who recommends guns like a wine expert.
Dudes Chatting — Keanu Reeves and time travel movies: The group analyzes Keanu's career: JVL argues his inertness is a superpower — a blank slate that lets stories revolve around him cleanly — and notes only ten years separated Bill and Ted from The Matrix. His career categories: surfer-dude (Point Break, Speed), smart professional (Devil's Advocate), and prestige character (Dangerous Liaisons). The discussion spirals into a listener-prompted time travel movies segment: favorites include Back to the Future, The Terminator and T2, Looper, Edge of Tomorrow, Groundhog Day, and the Spanish film Time Crimes. Vic champions the obscure 1979 film Time After Time (Malcolm McDowell as H.G. Wells chasing Jack the Ripper to 1979 San Francisco). Sonny declares Primer the most overrated time loop film. Note: JVL skypes in from home — his household has the flu. Corrections included. Spirit of the Week: Bulleit Rye (Sonny and Vic); JVL has Robitussin.
Full transcript
JVL00:00:00Alright, I will just sort of, you guys can carry me, and I will do my best.
Guest00:00:30And I haven't really had an answer, but now, yeah, I'm thinking I'm back. I am an FBI agent!
Vic00:00:43Hello and welcome back to The Substandard. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. I'd like to remind you that TheSubstandard is available on iTunes and Google Play. Just look at our podcasts and search for TheSubstandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends. Leave a review. In addition, we'd also like to remind you TheSubstandard show notes posted by Jonathan Last are available every Friday at 11 a.m. at weeklystandard.com. Gentlemen, how are we doing? Jonathan, it should be noted to our listeners, is Skyping in from his sanatorium in Woodbridge, Virginia. Jonathan, how are you doing over there?
JVL00:01:23We got a case of Captain Trips blowing through the house over here, and my wife and my four kids are all really, really sick with the flu, and I have not gotten it yet. So either I'm Stu Redman or I'm The Walking Dude. I think you are probably Stu, because I'm definitely The Walking Dude.
Sonny00:01:43You're The Walking Dude. Yeah, I call that, I call Man in Black. These are all references to The Stand, Victor, Vic Matus.
Vic00:01:50Wow, as you know, I don't read books, so I wouldn't know. You only read books about Hitler. I saw how big, I remember this back in the day, going to B. Dalton's bookstore in the mall, and I remember seeing how big the hardcover of The Stand was, and I loved the cover, because it looked interesting, and then somebody told me about the tunnel scene, and it's basically a contagion movie, and that was the extent of it, and I said, I can't wait for the movie, is what I saw, when I saw how big that book was. If I could go back in time, I'd read so much, but... But that's only the first half. But we'll talk about time travel later.
Sonny00:02:22But we'll talk about time travel later. That's like the first third of the book.
JVL00:02:25The first half of it is the greatest contagion story ever, and then you realize, crap, that's only half the book. There's a whole other half of this.
Sonny00:02:32I mean, and again, it's really not even half. It's like a third of the... It's like the first third or quarter of the book, and then it gets into, like... Okay. Anyway.
Vic00:02:40Well, you never know, JVL. I mean, this has happened in our family, where everyone will get sick except for one person, and then mysteriously, the person will not get sick. That might be you. This might be like, you know, in the Ten Commandments, you know, if you put the blood of the lamb on your door, maybe you'll be saved, you know, and maybe it's just you. You'll be fine.
JVL00:03:01Who knows? I texted my... Our pediatrician is my buddy, and after we got through, like, the first batch of the kids through his office, I texted him that night, and I said, So what are the chances of me escaping this? He replies, Zero. Wow. So I said, like Han Solo before me, I said, Never tell me the odds. That's right.
Vic00:03:21Or perhaps it might come over you in a very mild form because you are a grown man with resistance and you take vitamins, pills, and maybe a flu shot?
JVL00:03:33I... Yes, yes, yes, and yes. And in addition to that, I have gone through in the last nine days, no kidding, probably 25 fluid ounces of hand sanitizer. Yes.
Vic00:03:43I am in full Howard Hughes mode over here. There's only so much you can do. And that door handles and things like that. Frigerators. Don't forget the frigerators, JVL.
JVL00:03:51I... No joke, I have a bottle of hand... No, that's not true. I have probably an average of one and a half bottles, of hand sanitizer in every room in the house, so that you can't go... Like at Disneyland, you can't go more than 12 feet without... Without having a pump. Yes, it's true. Yeah, the same thing it is. It's like a cruise ship here.
Vic00:04:07That is something that I remember noticing, as opposed to when we were kids, where there was no hand sanitizer at the theme park. Now it's everywhere you go. Sonny, how are you doing?
Sonny00:04:18I'm great. I am not dying of flu. Nobody in my family is dying of flu. Good, good, good.
Vic00:04:24We're A+. It's a brief spell. Same with us at our house at this very, very moment. That was my big concern before going on the trip. Please let everyone be healthy enough to make this trip. And so I was very thankful for that. I'm doing fine now. I'm recovering because yesterday, on behalf of the Free Beacon, I did a special Facebook Live at Taco Bell on Lee Highway in Arlington. I don't know whose idea this was, but obviously... It was probably mine. I'm pretty sure I tweeted this at you. Yes, you did actually. And it had to do with the Naked Chicken Chalupa, which is a special at Taco Bell. I don't know if it's permanent. I think it should be. Explain what the Naked Chicken Chalupa is. Yes, okay, so Taco Bell now has this thing called... I have to take these deep catch breaths. Sorry, for some reason I'm a little... Maybe I'm getting short of breath myself now in the studio, but the Naked Chicken Chalupa is a playoff of their regular chalupa, which is that deep-fried taco shell, and they put everything in it. It's not actually what a chalupa is, historically. If you go to Mexico or anywhere in Central America, I've been down to Costa Rica and had a chalupa. A real chalupa is deep-fried corn sometimes or a flour tortilla, and it's shaped into a boat. And then you fill it up with stuff. So it's like a giant cup. It's like a large version of those dipping Tostitos chips that have a little bit of a shell. Oh, like a bowl. Yes, yes, exactly. And so that's what a chalupa is. But for some reason, at Taco Bell- Yes, the scoops. And so for some reason at Taco Bell, they decided to make this just a taco shell, but deep-fried and put everything in it. So the innovation, and it was very popular when it first came out. Remember the whole line, I think it was called Drop the Chalupa and it was with the chihuahua. Sure. So the thing that they have now is, the innovation is, forget about the actual corn or flour, whatever, tortilla shell. The shell itself is going to be made of the chicken. So rather than put the chicken inside, you're inverting it. So it's like, it is literally- It's an inverse.
Sonny00:06:33Inverse taco. When I had first heard of this, I thought it was like a chicken fried taco shell, right? Like, you know how you have chicken fried steak? I thought it was just a taco shell with like the chicken breading and the fry.
JVL00:06:45But it's an actual chicken. I will venture to say white chicken meat. Well, it looked white.
Vic00:06:51Some sort of. Tell yourself that. Yeah, some sort of. It looked white, pounded into the shell and the shape of the tortilla shell. And then fried.
Sonny00:07:03Well, I assume it's probably poured. I assume it's probably poured into a mold. No, no, no, no, no. It's not even like force meat. You know, force meat in a fancy kitchen
Vic00:07:12where it's like the chicken becomes a puree.
Sonny00:07:14It's definitely the chicken version of pink slime.
Vic00:07:17I'm eating it. No, I will disagree, Sonny. I am eating it and it was like, you could actually see the chicken meat. It just happened to be in that shape. Yeah, okay. All right, anyway. And then it's, of course, fried. And the thing is, at first you're thinking, oh my gosh, that's disgusting. I have to handle the chicken.
JVL00:07:35I'm sorry, then inside it, there's taco meat?
Vic00:07:37Ah, no, no, no. If you're crazy, you could put, that is extra. You have to pay extra for that. But instead, what it is, the inside is the lettuce, the cheese, tomatoes, and things like that. So in other words, instead of having the chicken inside, it's on the outside. And an avocado sauce for like $2.99, I think. It's an insane list. It's an insanely cheap price. And it was actually delicious. So it's like, oh, if I'm concerned about carbs, I guess I'm going to go for the naked chicken chalupa. I think that's the idea behind the healthy option. You know, the healthy option. I heard avocado was in it. And avocado sauce. Lettuce and tomato. Right, tomato. It sounds good. And it's 440 calories. That's nothing.
JVL00:08:18That's actually not that bad. It's like a walk in the park. Unless you load it with other stuff.
Vic00:08:22So I didn't. And the chalupa is that. You're holding it. And people are like, oh my gosh, that's such a crazy idea to hold the chicken. That's gross. But of course, we handle chicken with our fingers all the time, whether it be chicken fingers or even messy buffalo wings or fried chicken, obviously. So this is no different. You're just holding it a little greasy, obviously, but so is handling fried chicken, obviously, with your hands.
Sonny00:08:43You don't leave it in like the little pouch, the little sleeve? It came in paper, actually.
Vic00:08:48I thought it would come in a cardboard thing, the Dorito. Like the Nachos Locos. Nachos Locos, that came. Okay, so what happened, Sonny? Sonny is, I was there with two of our colleagues from the Free Beacon, and they said, oh, I'll have a beef taco, and I think we had two extra beef tacos. So I didn't eat all 12 items on my tray. No? No, one of the beef items went to Natalie, and the other one went to Madeline, and anyway. The point is, there were about 12 items on the tray, and it came to- And you just ate 10 of them. JVL, you'll be surprised. How much do you think those 12 items cost? Hold on one second. I had to write it down. So besides the Chalupa, it came up with the, there was the Cheesy Gordita Crunch, the Beef Supreme Dorito, a burrito, rather, the Crunchy Taco, 12 items. How much do you think the bill was, JVL?
JVL00:09:40$27.72. $14.
Vic00:09:44$14? I think you're not- You know what, if I tried-
Sonny00:09:47Does that include the naked chicken?
Vic00:09:49Yeah, yeah. Which was like $3. And two sodas. What? That doesn't make any sense. You didn't actually have 12 items. I had pieces of 12 items, and I just- And I certainly finished, I think, three items. This is ridiculous. And half of that, the burrito killed me. The big, that thing was big.
Sonny00:10:05Did you get a burrito supreme?
Vic00:10:06Yes. Well, they threw it in there. So here's what happened. I was looking at the menu board. I have not been to a Taco Bell in years. It's just not my choice of fast food places, not Taco Bell. And I looked at, I had to scan it and see what's up. And at least the one in Arlington had a special, which was called the $5 Cravings. And for $5, you got all these items. So that was insane. And for a, quote, limited time only. Well, I got to take care of, you know, I got to take advantage of that. You can't turn that down. And that's what happened to me. And I had the naked chicken chalupa. Is that something that, like, you would have, Sonny?
Sonny00:10:42No, I don't think that is something I would have. Are you a Taco Bell person? I do occasionally go to Taco Bell, maybe once or twice a year. And I'm a Doritos, nachos, locos, whatever guy. I like the, you know, the original nacho flavor. The Dorito shell. Not the blue, not the cold Cool Ranch. Cool Ranch is garbage. That's a garbage flavor. It's the worst chip, except for maybe barbecue chips.
Vic00:11:06Or as I called it on Facebook, Blue Ranch.
Sonny00:11:08I got confused because the bag was blue. No, but I don't really, I don't, my, I don't really do a ton of fast food anymore, I guess. I was thinking about this the other day. Yeah, no. I, you know, when I eat for lunch, I go to, like, the Potbelly and get a sandwich or Chopped and get a salad or something.
Vic00:11:27I'm the same way. I have almost foregone totally fast food. I just go down to the sandwich shop downstairs and get a Philly cheesesteak and fries.
Sonny00:11:35Right, no, that's because that's much healthier. Yeah. That's much healthier.
Vic00:11:37JVL, were you ever, back in the day, a Taco Bell person?
JVL00:11:41Wait, hold on a second. I'm not confused. So you were saying that you were short of breath coming in to start this episode, and you couldn't figure out why.
Vic00:11:49No, no, no, no. It's like, I think I have a cold or allergies.
JVL00:11:52And the fact that you eat $10 worth of the slop that Taco Bell put on a tray for you.
Vic00:11:56Hold on. I'm having problems breathing, but I'm pretty sure it's just because I'm stuffed up. It's nasal. I swear to you, it's nasal and left arm pain, but it's numbness, but it's mostly nasal.
Sonny00:12:10Yes. That's, wow.
JVL00:12:13You know, I was a Taco Bell guy back in high school. This is what my cross-country buddies and I would do, is we'd, you know, we'd go run 13 miles, and then the two of us who had licenses would drive the team over to Taco Bell, and we would, like you said, I mean, back then, I think tacos were 49 cents each. It's insane. The prices are insane. Yeah, so you could load yourself full of 1,300 calories for $1.50 or something like that. Yeah, you know, listening to all this frankenfood, do you, Victorino, because you pay attention to this stuff, do you know what patient zero for frankenfood was in American culture? Like, where did this movement start? Because I like to think that the guys at Pizza Hut and the guys at Taco Bell have some, like, broski rival where they're each trying to figure out the craziest, grossest frankenfood you can make.
Vic00:13:00Oh, right, right, right, I see what you're saying. What does it go back to, right?
Sonny00:13:03What was the Burger King thing that you reviewed for the free beacon?
Vic00:13:06The Whopperito. But again, a lot of it is sort of, you know, it's publicity stuntish in the sense of it sounds crazy, but when you actually eat it, it's not as bad or it's actually healthier than the alternative. So there are things, for example, at Taco Bell like that ridiculous Gordita Crunch that are, I think, significantly worse than the Naked Chicken Chalupa. The Gordita Crunch is the, you know, the Gordita is flatbread, and it's not just warmed. I think they probably put it on the grill or something, but it's, you know, with all the butter and everything, it's all processed and enriched. Anyway, you got the Gordita, and then inside it, they put the crunchy shell, and then inside of that, they have the taco fillings, which is a total, I mean, this is where, obviously, the ideas for, like, SNL's Taco Town comes from. We'll have to put that on show notes, JVL. But, you know, and the Whopperito, it sounded crazy, but basically, it was a Whopper, but instead of a bun, it's in a flour tortilla. So, believe it or not, it was actually fewer calories than the regular Whopper on the large sesame bun. So, yes, I did that, and I don't know, I'm trying to think back how far that goes back with the crazy sort of food.
Sonny00:14:16What about, like, stuffed crust pizza? Yes, yes, that's right. That's, like, the first thing I remember just being like, whoa, this is, they are really messing with God's will here, you know?
Vic00:14:28Yes, in fact, do you remember, maybe JVL remembers, that was a Seinfeld riff, he does one of his stand-up things on the show, and he's complaining about how much cheese can you possibly get in the pizza? You know, I mean, like, every little nook and cranny is cheese, you know? But that's right. And I think I've maybe only had that once, probably only because somebody ordered it at The Weekly Standard.
Sonny00:14:45I definitely, I definitely had that one time because I was curious, and it was gross. It was, like, the cheese was, the cheese was, like, not chewy, it was, like, kind of hard.
Vic00:14:55I thought, I was imagining, in my mind, it would essentially be pizza plus a mozzarella stick. Yeah.
Sonny00:15:00Yeah, that was not. Not quite.
Vic00:15:01Not quite that. But anyway, let me just, I'll go out of my way to say that I love the naked chicken chalupa, but I was definitely not a fan of that crunchy, the gordita crunch thing. I'd say, say, flatbread. It's just all filler. It's just not necessary. I was going to say, JVL, if you remember back in the day when you traveled across America playing basketball, wasn't it Taco Bell or Pizza Hut that- That's what sponsored you? Oh, it was Pizza Hut.
JVL00:15:28Yeah, my corporate sponsor, one of my two corporate sponsors was Pizza Hut. And so I ate at Pizza Hut for two meals a day, every day for three months. Man. Did you go to the Pizza Hut buffet? No, I had, believe it or not, I had all-you-can-eat card. I literally had a card from Pizza Hut corporate that just said, give this guy whatever food he wants. Oh, man, that's great. I wish I had one of those.
Vic00:15:51That sounds better than the black Amex card for me.
JVL00:15:54It was pretty awesome. I mean, of course, I was 22 years old and I was playing basketball for six or seven hours a day. So it was, you know, like instead of giving myself a heart attack, I actually was like as big and diesel as I've ever been before. And it was crazy. I was, you know, six foot two, a hundred. No, I was probably 205 or so of like nothing but pure muscle. And I was being powered entirely by a deep dust. You should see Sonny's face. You should see Sonny's face on that one. No, it's terrible. That turned him off. That turned him off. And when I die five years early, it will be, entirely because of the stuff that coated my arteries during those three months.
Vic00:16:32Do you remember JVL when we were still very young at The Weekly Standard and you forced me, people are wondering where is this story going, and you forced me to eat three triple cheeseburgers at either McDonald's or Burger King. Do you remember this? There was a triple cheeseburger special, three for however, it was like what, three for three or something?
JVL00:16:5399 cent triple cheeseburgers. And you said we had to get three. You, me, and I, and an intern, remember this? Andrew Cloutier, who's probably like 40 years old now. And I'm sure a partner at a law firm
Vic00:17:03in like New Orleans or something like that. Making gobs of money. Yeah, New Orleans, very good, making gobs of money. And I remember, even for me at that time, I did not feel well after the third triple cheeseburger. Yeah, yeah.
JVL00:17:15But that's different.
Vic00:17:16But you know what, so when people ask me and when you ask me about, you know, the things that I eat, you know, they say where did I learn it from? I learned it from you. I learned it from you, Dad.
JVL00:17:25I learned it from watching you. Yet somehow, I've avoided the gout and you... Oh, that's genetic. I have books on gout.
Vic00:17:33This is true. I have books on gout and it's mostly genetic and genius. Me and Samuel Johnson, thank you. And what's always disturbing though is all these books and brochures on gout always has a picture of like a little kid with his grandfather and somehow, and me, somehow, like they're going fishing or something. And Bobby Hill from King of the Hill.
Sonny00:17:55There's an episode of King of the Hill where Bobby Hill gets gout because he goes to the deli. He goes to like the deli that opens up in Arlen, Texas, every day and he eats the terrible fatty meats and he gets the gout and he gets like a little motorized scooter. You should have gotten a scooter.
Vic00:18:11Fantastic. Yeah, that's two things that we have in common, gout and we both like wearing capes. You know what I remember speaking of fast food is I was thinking about this going back in time. When I ate McDonald's once, I think five days in a row when I lived in Vienna, Austria because I was just so tired of eating the other food in Austria. Like there's only so many dumplings a student can eat, you know, and things like that. And there were different locations. I have not told many people this story so I'm just sure you're about to hear it first. This is a deeply personal, a very special episode where, but I was too a bit weird. Yes, it is. And I was about, I didn't feel comfortable going to the same McDonald's obviously every day because, you know, I want people to know that you have a problem. You have a problem. But, so what I did was every day I went to a different McDonald's in the city of Vienna. Like there was one in Schwarzenbergplatz and Maria Hilferstrasse and Währinger and then, and I'd have different and I'd convince myself that it wasn't bad because I'd have a different, and I ate alone of course. I didn't want any of my classmates to see me going there and eating the McChampion which I think was named after Michael Jordan at the time. And anyway, but then one time the McDonald's in Austria, they did a promotion, I think it was during the Chinese New Year's and it was, it was called China Week or China Volca as they called it and so it was like chicken fingers that were like tempura fried, okay, that's fine with a sweet and sour sauce, okay, I can see where they're going and it came with chopsticks which is just a publicity stunt and it came in a nice bright red box which is, you know, very Chinese and then they had the caricature of a Chinese guy's face and it was with slant eyes
Sonny00:19:48and huge buck teeth. Oh boy. Very problematic.
Vic00:19:52Hugely problematic. Even in 1993 or 1994, I just, I thought even then, I thought this is kind of, no? Is it just me? That's what I would say but of course,
Sonny00:20:01it was just me in Austria. Well, you were in Austria. Yes. Well, to be fair though, this is in keeping with, you know, your Fuhrer's ideal vision of what they view other lesser races. Yeah, right, exactly. So that was, that was, that was a really Vic loves Hitler as the running joke.
Vic00:20:15It's just our joke, thank you. Much like the Missy Peregrine joke. I'd like to bring that up. It's a joke, JVL. A lot of running jokes about Vic on this show. You know what, we're going to discuss that, we're going to discuss those jokes and the outtakes. Right now, we're going to move right along to, you know what I saw, by the way, I'm going to branch this, this is my awful segue. When I was in Vienna, we always, anytime there was a new American movie, we'd go out to see it. And things had gotten so- How long were you in Vienna? A year. Oh, wow. So things had gotten so bad that it was like, whatever movie is up there, I'm going to see. And that included, in 1993, Little Buddha, starring Keanu Reeves.
Sonny00:20:51Oh.
Vic00:20:53Not really. Yeah. I don't know about Keanu Reeves as Siddhartha. Yeah. I just don't know if that's the right fit. But speaking of Keanu Reeves, Sonny, you saw a movie recently.
Sonny00:21:04Yes. With him. John Wick Chapter Two, out now in theaters, had a huge opening weekend, grossed, it grossed double in this opening weekend with the original open two back in 2014, so that's very good. John Wick, of course, was a movie about a hitman who had retired and his wife tragically died of cancer and he received as her dying gift to him a puppy. And then that puppy was brutally murdered by the son of a Russian mob lord who also stole Keanu Reeves' car. And this caused Keanu Reeves' John Wick to get back in the life. And of course, the fantastic thing about the first John Wick was that it's basically 30 minutes of people talking about how crazy and terrifying John Wick is, right? And there's a lot of anticipation and you get this kind of portrait of grief of a man, you know, who has lost everything and has nothing to live for and everything to die for now. And then the last hour or so, it's only 96 minutes, is him just wrecking stuff. Just him killing Russian mobster after Russian mobster and shot in a very kind of calm and paced way as opposed to a lot of action these days, which is, you know, very choppily cut together and handheld shaky cam stuff. This was all very fluid and very kind of dance-like and very, you know,
Vic00:22:34boom, boom, boom, boom. But it's also not, I agree with you that it's very well choreographed in terms of the fighting sequences, but it's also not Scorsese gory, is it?
Sonny00:22:46No, I mean, you definitely get a lot of, like, blood splatter and that sort of thing, but it's not like a lot of close-ups on, you know, gaping, sucking wounds. or anything. So then the second one out this week, it just gets right into the action. It's a little bit less tight at two hours long, and it is about John Wick having to, how do I discuss this without spoilers? So John Wick is, he wants to get back out of the life, right? He's like, I've gotten my car back, I've avenged my dog, I want out. But he can't get out because an Italian who is a member of the Camorra comes to him with a marker. So the great thing about John Wick is the amount of world building that they do. They have done this really kind of interesting thing where they have created this little universe, for instance, it's little flourishes, like the hitmen trade gold coins for services rendered, for favors, that sort of thing. There's this hotel called The Continental, which is run by Ian McShane's Winston. Shane, of course, is Al Swearengin from Deadwood. It's kind of like Holy Ground in the Highlander movies where you aren't allowed to kill anyone there. It's a safe space for hitmen.
Vic00:24:06But it happens, or it almost happens.
Sonny00:24:08Well, in the first one, yeah. So the second one starts with this Camorra guy calling in a marker. And it's a literal marker. It's got like a bloody thumbprint on it, and they've got to figure out how to and John Wick can't turn it down because he gave this guy the marker so many years ago to help him get out of the life now that he's back in it. Again, without spoiling too much. So the rest of the movie involves John Wick A, fulfilling his obligations to the marker, and then B, trying to survive when this guy kind of stabs him in the back, which I don't think is too much of a spoiler.
Vic00:24:44So is it basically him trying to get out of the life?
Sonny00:24:46Is he trying to leave the world? He wants to get out. He doesn't want to be a hitman anymore.
Vic00:24:51I've never understood that in terms of
Sonny00:24:53You've never understood wanting to get away from the life of murder and mayhem.
Vic00:24:57Why people just won't let you leave? Do you remember this in The Sopranos with Eugene and he wanted to leave his aunt died and he got millions and he wanted to move to Florida and just leave and they wouldn't and it had really tragic consequences. Anyway, when you saw John Wick you fell in love with it immediately, right? The first movie?
Sonny00:25:15Yeah, it was kind of a surprise critical smash. I think a lot of critics were very taken with its aesthetic
Vic00:25:22and Keanu had done some other movies prior to that and were like, okay, maybe this is just going to be the same old same, right? It's going to be Constantine or something like that.
Sonny00:25:30Yeah, well, you know, Keanu, he's never really kind of fallen into that, say, Liam Neeson style rut of just kind of mindless action movies. He's a more interesting actor than I think some people give him credit for. Anyway, this movie is, it is, again, it's a little bit longer, it's a little bit less tight. It does a really good job of, again, the world building, right? We learn that The Continental has outposts kind of all over the world. There's, you know, a system, the system by which they send out the orders for the hitmen is very interesting. There's like a, it's basically, the way I described it in my review was, it's a switchboard. It's like an old school switchboard, but like pneumatic tubes, but it's staffed entirely by retired suicide girls, you know, like the tatted up, you know, crazy hair colored.
Vic00:26:18In the video, I think you have it posted in your movie review at The Beacon. I always thought it had, the feel of a graphic novel, yes. Yeah, it's not a graphic, I mean, there was no origin from, it's not based on a graphic.
Sonny00:26:28No, no, it's not based on a graphic. No, and it does have that kind of graphic novel feel. Part of that is from the use of subtitles. Like the subtitles are like kind of fancy subtitles. They're like different fonts and colors.
Vic00:26:38JVL, were you always, you were a fan of John Wick when it first came out too, right? Or no?
JVL00:26:43No, so I discovered it on video, the way I think most people did. This is one of those.
Vic00:26:48That's how I, only after you guys told me to watch it.
JVL00:26:50Yeah, I mean, this is one of those movies that I think, found its audience out of the theaters. And when you go and look at the original theatrical trailer for it, like it's no kidding why. The trailer's horrible. I mean, they clearly had no idea how to sell this movie and explain to audiences what it was. I mean, it really looks like a generic, the most generic action movie ever. Right. And as Sonny said, I mean, it surprises you because it starts out as a not a generic action movie at all. It's a very interestingly crafted action movie. Then it layers on the mythology. And then it layers on this Shakespearean view, the cosmos abhorring evil. This is the moment when Michael Nyquist says to says to John Wick, he says, you know, the reason this has happened to all of us, the reason my son is dead, the reason your wife is dead is because of the things we've done. Right.
Vic00:27:37It's really interesting.
JVL00:27:38This is Macbeth, right? This is the reason there's a storm outside is because nature abhors the murderers. And that's very interesting. Everything about this is better than it has to be. And I'm very happy that, Sonny, you say that it is the chapter two is, better than I had feared, because I thought, boy, you know, you catch lightning in a bottle once with a movie like this. It's hard to repeat it.
Sonny00:27:59Yeah. And it is. I mean, it is very much of the same in certain regards, like the action sequences are very similarly kind of they're longer and they're more intricate, but it's still kind of similarly done. But again, it's all the very little touches. It's all the there are so many great supporting performances performances, McShane, of course, Lance Reddick and Lance Reddick, who's great. Like, it's very funny. You have you have the guys who are just straight up chewing scenery, like Peter Stromar has a has a has a scene earlier on. And he, you know, is just kind of over the top and very, very Russian. And then, you know,
Vic00:28:42Franco Nero is the other guy, right?
Sonny00:28:44And you have Franco Nero, who's more he's kind of laid back and kind of he's more in that McShane role. And then you have Reddick, who just kind of like arches an eyebrow in that. Does all the scene chewing that that he needs to. And then, you know, you have the you have this guy who plays the sommelier, which is, you know, in a hotel, a sommelier, of course, is the guy who says what sort of wines you should drink. But in the Keanu Reeves, John Wick universe, the sommelier is the guy who tells you what kind of guns you want to buy for the evening's events. You know, what has the big nose? What has the big bouquet? And, you know, it just is. It's all very funny and very cleverly done. And I, I, I love it. I don't know what to. I know there are some people who will be a little bit. We'll feel that it's a little bit more of the same. I know our friend John Potthorst feels this way, that it's that it's kind of mindless. And but it if you like this sort of thing, then you will really like John Wick chapter seconds.
JVL00:29:47Yeah, I'm so happy Peter Stormare is in it. I can't get enough. He's one of our. Yeah, he's a substandard favorite. But he did.
Sonny00:29:55Oh, yeah.
JVL00:29:55He was the crazy German engineer.
Sonny00:29:58Yeah. What was it? What was the why? Was it more?
JVL00:30:00Was it?
Sonny00:30:01I forgot what it was.
Vic00:30:02That was it was.
JVL00:30:03It was not German. Yes. Yes, he did. And he would bring in like, you know, tuner culture guys with their tuned up cars and they would destroy them in funny ways. It would be clucking. And, you know, yeah, he says he is.
Vic00:30:16Is he is. Do you know? I don't know this offhand. Is he an American actor, a British actor or. He's Swedish, isn't he? Yeah, he's a Swedish actor because he does the accents really well. He plays those type of characters very well in almost every movie. I think he has an accent. Yes. Well, yeah, he just has an accent. Even in, I believe he was in Seinfeld. Swedish. Look at me. Yeah. Very good. In Seinfeld, he's one of the cable installers. I think it's fantastic. No, you're thinking of Big Lebowski.
Sonny00:30:43He's in the Frogger episode. He's in the Frogger episode. He's one of the thieves. He's one of the guys. Oh, is he a thief in the Frogger?
Vic00:30:48I thought he was the cabler. They have holes.
Sonny00:30:51You're not the holes. No, he's one of the guys who hooks up the Frogger, but then they drain the battery. That's right. No, he plays the cable repairman in Log Jamming, the Big Lebowski movie within a movie. Oh, right. Right, right.
Vic00:31:06The nihilist porn star.
Sonny00:31:07I'm here to fix Dinah Cobble.
Vic00:31:08Right. Yes, your cable. Would you say this is Keanu? Has Keanu Reeves basically come into his own? Because I always think of Keanu as still sort of the 20-something surfer dude.
Sonny00:31:21Yeah. Well, I mean- I mean, Keanu Reeves, to my mind, is always at his best when he is kind of a cypher, right? Where he's kind of blank and- Not to be confused with Cypher from The Matrix. Right. Well, so in The Matrix, you see him as- I mean, he is just kind of blank and they literally fill his head with knowledge and that sort of thing. And John Wick is very much in that mold. He does the whole kind of surfer boy stick in Point Break, which is kind of a toned down version of Bill and Ted, of course. From years before that. And that works as well. But I like him more when he's a little bit more blank and rote. And the focus is not on him, his facial expressions and tics, but just watching him in motion. Because he is very precise and very- There's a good video clip that we should put in the show notes of him doing like a 30 second three gun round where he's, you know, uses the handgun, shotgun, and automatic weapon on a course, just going boom, boom, boom. And there's like a 20 minute sequence in John Wick 2. Playing himself as- Yeah, yeah, just him training, him training for John Wick 2. So there's like a 30 minute sequence in John Wick 2 that is just him doing three gun, like under the streets of Italy.
Vic00:32:42So he works hard on this stuff.
Sonny00:32:43Yeah, he's really good. And again, it's more about watching him in motion. And this is true of The Matrix as well, where like from the- from the martial arts kind of kung fu fight scenes to also the shootout scenes, like in the lobby of the office building or wherever. I mean, it is very much about just kind of watching him almost in a clockwork, very precise fashion going from weapon to weapon.
Vic00:33:11I've always felt- Move to move. I mean, we are now having- We've had three decades of Keanu Reeves, basically, right? And when he started- When he- When he first appeared on the scene, and I guess Bill and Ted's was 1989, but he'd done a few movies before that, and so he's been around for a long time. But in my mind, it's always variations of Bill and Ted. I know that's not fair, but it's always this sort of surfer dude. I remember he did Bill and Ted and The Bogus Journey, and he did Parenthood, where he played the racy guy. But also kind of the same guy in that sort of slightly goofy, dim-witted- Yeah, basically a more realistic Bill and Ted type character. And then there are the- Sort of the smarter versions of the same guy. I always thought- Well, there's the law enforcement Keanu Reeves, which is like point break speed. Speed, right. And then there's the smart professional Keanu Reeves as lawyer in Devil's Advocate. You remember? We could talk about that. And he plays a doctor in Something's Gotta Give with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton. But he's done his romantic movies as well. But I always- It's the same person I always figured. I think you're selling him short.
JVL00:34:26Yeah, I know. If you look back at his career, he has been a remarkably durable leading man. And he does- There were a couple of guys like this. Mark Wahlberg. Who would have thought 20 years ago Mark Wahlberg would turn out to be as durable a leading man as he's been? Same thing as Keanu. If you go back to Bill and Ted and then Dangerous Liaisons, which he's in the year before Bill and Ted comes out.
Vic00:34:52He plays the Chevalier.
JVL00:34:54Right. You would never think 30 years from now this guy is going to be still top-lining movies.
Vic00:35:00That's a good point.
JVL00:35:01And it's because he does something nobody else does. And people- This is not an original observation. Nobody says that about him. He is almost inert. He is like one of the royal guys, like Xenon or something. But that is bad in many situations. But for certain types of movies, having a totally inert leading man allows everything else to revolve. Around him very cleanly. And I think that's where, when he's in a movie that's working well, that's why. And he's one of the only guys who can do that, I think. Everybody else sort of brings a bunch of stuff to it. Think about how little we know about Keanu Reeves, right? I mean, part of this is that he's a very private guy. He's not in the tabloids. He's not on the gossip blogs. He's a blank slate, not just as an actor, but even as a person.
Vic00:35:47Yes. And then allows us to project things onto him and allows movies and narratives and
JVL00:35:52stories to move around him in ways that are very interesting. Do you realize it was only 10 years from Bill and Ted to The Matrix?
Sonny00:35:59Oh, yeah. That's astonishing, isn't it?
JVL00:36:01I mean, they seem like almost like a full generation apart.
Sonny00:36:05It's very funny. Keanu almost gets written off about every five years or so, right? Like, you had Bill and Ted, and then nobody really talked about him, and then Speed, and then six years later you had The Matrix. Right. And then, oh, God, what was, I'm totally blanking on. There was something between The Matrix and John Wick that I'm totally asleep. Oh, Street Kings. The Day the Earth Stood Still? No, no, no. That movie was bad. Street Kings, which is like one of my total, it's like a total cable, you know, catch it when it's on, 2.5 star, you know, base. But it's directed by David Ayer, who made Fury and End of Watch and some other solid action movies, not including Suicide Squad. He also made Suicide Squad. It's bad.
JVL00:36:52And James Elroy, right? Did James Elroy write it? Maybe, maybe. Who wrote what? James Elroy. He wrote El Confidential. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he wrote Street Kings as well.
Sonny00:37:01But it's like just a good, gritty crime drama. Now, this wasn't a big hit like these others, but, you know.
Vic00:37:06I just always feel like at any moment, no matter what role he plays, I'm going to hear him go, whoa, dude, you know. There's enough C4 to blow a hole in the world. That's what he said in Speed, by the way. It's my favorite line. This is Vic's problem. He can't. But I don't blame him for that. Suicide is preconceptual. I don't blame him for that line. Speed was not written by Keanu Reeves. It was written by, I looked this up, Graham Yost of the Americans. That's interesting. Here's the big question. Do you think Keanu Reeves should have done Speed 2 instead of it going to Jason Patrick? No. Because Sandra Bullock did it, and Jonathan, why did she do it?
JVL00:37:42Sandra Bullock said, I remember very clearly in the interview where she said, I think this was with, gosh, one of those movie line, which used to be a great magazine. And she said. She said that John DuBont made her career, is what she said. She said, he made my career, period, the end. And he asked me to be in a movie, and I said yes. And I really admire that. But in a way, I also admire Keanu saying, this script is a piece of shit. I'm not going to do this movie. That is also admirable in a different way. And the truth is, his career was already established. He didn't quite owe as much, perhaps, as Sandy Bullock did. But yeah. It was on a cruise ship, right? It was on a cruise ship. To see his presence.
Sonny00:38:24Sandra Bullock, if we can get sidetracked here for just one moment. One of my favorite people in Hollywood. I love her. I think she's great. The best thing about Sandra Bullock, and if we can find this to put in show notes, too, this would be great, was when she actually went to the Razzie Awards, because she had been nominated for, what about Steve or something? That terrible movie she was in with Bradley Cooper. And she showed up with a big wagon full of DVDs and was like, I want all of you to be able to watch this, because I don't think you've watched this. I think you're just voting this because it's fun and popular. And literally just yelled at nerds for like 10 minutes about how awful and gross they were. That's my favorite thing about Sandra Bullock. And she's a local girl.
Vic00:39:03She's like from Arlington or this area. She went to school around here.
JVL00:39:06Maryland, I believe.
Vic00:39:08Suburban Maryland, I think. Suburban Maryland.
JVL00:39:10She has to be wrong. And also has become an incredibly durable action star.
Vic00:39:15Yeah. Again, who would have guessed?
JVL00:39:16At her age. I love her as a presence on screen, and like late in her career when a lot of women are transforming themselves into like handsome movie actresses, you know, playing grand dames. She's like, hey, you know, I'll do some action movies. And people love her in those roles.
Vic00:39:31Yes. To go back to Keanu, you remember him in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, Bram Stoker's Dracula. Sure. That I thought was kind of hard for him to fill because you're dealing with Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins. Yeah.
Sonny00:39:46Yeah, that's definitely not the best use of his talents. No. No. And he's a surprisingly good backer. He's a bad guy. You know, the blankness has a very sinister edge if you shoot it just right. He has a small part in The Neon Demon, which came out this year, as like a kind of vicious, wicked hotel clerk that is very menacing on screen. But there was a run in the kind of post-Matrix, early 2000 era, where he was, it was that James Spader movie, The Watcher. And what was the other one? Hold on, I'm going to look it up real quick.
Vic00:40:20Oh, I know what you're talking about, Sonny. The Gift. Oh, The Gift. The Gift with Katie Holmes. And he was bad in that?
Sonny00:40:25Yeah, where he plays just this kind of, like, really kind of cruel, vicious, but blank-eyed and, you know, evil. Like, he embodies evil quite well. For some reason, I don't remember. Did you know that Katie Holmes was in The Gift?
Vic00:40:40I don't remember that scene, Sonny, in The Gift. You don't remember that movie? I only remember one clip. Oh, I'm sorry. On YouTube. Oh, boy. I think it was really good acting. I think Katie Holmes had her best.
JVL00:40:50I don't think it was like that.
Vic00:40:51I get onto YouTube. JVL, again, please. She has mounds of talent. Thank you. You know what else? Keanu Reeves was great, and he was great in the Paula Abdul video, Rush Rush. Put that in your show notes, too. No, don't put that in show notes.
JVL00:41:08That's where she says- Embarrassing. She says, this is from my time. I was in high school.
Vic00:41:11I was in high school, and what is Paula Abdul's line? It's like, oh, I've never been in love. Isn't that terrible? And he says, no, it only reminds us that we're all alone. Thank you.
JVL00:41:21You know, he does a lot of interesting- That's interesting. He's in my own private Idaho. He has this indie streak to him, too.
Vic00:41:29That's right. He did it with River Phoenix. That's a very good point.
JVL00:41:31But he's a working actor. I mean, this guy, he's doing a movie or two a year, every year for 30 years. Yeah. And I just think there's a lot to respect about that. Did you like Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey?
Vic00:41:43I saw it in the theater. Myself.
JVL00:41:45I did, too. People forget what a sensation Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure was. Yeah, huge. Like, it was a thing. They made a TV series out of it. They did a sequel to it. Cartoon. And it turns out it was only good for one gig.
Vic00:41:57It's interesting that they started that movie on equal footing, him and Alex Winter. And then it's interesting how that happens, where one actor becomes Keanu Reeves and the other one stays as Alex Winter.
Sonny00:42:12Well, Alex Winter, he was in The Lost Boys and then the second Bill and Ted movie, and it was just nothing about that kind of work. But he has his own career. He's a director of music videos and commercials and stuff. He's stayed kind of in the industry.
Vic00:42:27And I say the other, the one great thing about Bill and Ted's bogus journey was the great character actor, William Sadler, who plays Death. He's fantastic in that. Now, speaking of time travel movies, it's time for a little bit of a listener feedback. Thanks to our longtime listener, Kristen Soltis Anderson, she asked the subscriber, to list our favorite, she says, time loop movies, which I think is a little bit too specific. But I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about if we have any favorite time travel movies. I mean, time loop is obviously a factor in it. Sonny, did you have any thoughts?
Sonny00:43:08Well, in a way, all time travel movies are time loop movies, right? Because they're all about going back into the past and changing what's happening in the present or in the future. The best time loop movie is probably... Probably just Looper, right? Looper. Which is itself basically three different movies kind of jammed into one. It's basically Back to the Future and The Terminator and Akira all in one with a kid who is the psychic and can blow people up with his mind. Akira. Strong Akira influence. I'll look into that one. No, my favorite time travel movies are probably just your kind of standard go-tos, right? I love Back to the Future. I think Back to the Future is more or less a perfect movie. It's, you know, very tight and very well done. The Terminator, of course. Terminator 2.
Vic00:43:58Terminator 2 more than one. I think Terminator, if you don't mind me interrupting here just briefly. Go ahead. Thank you. I think Terminator is probably, it's a great movie. It's a classic, obviously. Arnold Schwarzenegger made a big star. But it's problematic if you delve too deeply into the whole time travel process because, of course, the Terminator goes back in time to kill Sarah Connor. Um, before her son is born. And the son, of course, leads the resistance. That's the whole point. But she gets pregnant with the son with Michael Biehn, who comes back in time to protect her. So, if he doesn't go back in time, then there's nobody to kill, right? But, of course, it exists already. So, I mean, the resistance, what's his name? Edward Furlong. His father is from the future.
Sonny00:44:45Yeah. Right. I don't understand what you're, what you're talking about.
Vic00:44:48So, so, in other words. He had to go, they sent Terminator back to kill something that didn't happen.
Sonny00:44:57But this is why all time travel movies are time loop movies, because they all get into an awful paradox where your brain melts down.
Vic00:45:04At some point, Edward Furlong's character was born without the interference of a Terminator. Yeah. Basically.
Sonny00:45:09All right. Now that we're done with your. Explain that on, explain that one on Twitter. No. I won't. It doesn't need to be explained, because it just happens. It just, it's the movie. Without, without it, there's no movie. Okay. So, and. And the other great kind of time travel, time loop movie that maybe many people haven't really seen is called Time Crimes. It's a Spanish, I believe it's Spanish or possibly Mexican movie about a guy who kind of stumbles onto a time travel installation and causes all sorts of havoc. I don't want to, I don't want to mess up. I don't want to spoil too much for people. Spanish. It's Spanish, yeah. So, check out Time Crimes if you can.
JVL00:45:48Does it have subtitles? Because I don't like movies with subtitles.
Sonny00:45:51It does, unfortunately, have subtitles. I don't, I also, I also hate subtitles. They're dumb and gross. But, you know, if you can, there's, there's, there's actually not a lot of dialogue in the movie. It's this one guy kind of on, it's a very kind of mid, very low budget affair. So, it's him kind of wandering around and trying to figure out what's going on more than, more than anything else.
Vic00:46:13You mentioned, Sonny, Back to the Future. I thought the first one, well, the series in general, I think was very good in explaining about alternatives. You know, you have a set of universes that are created because you affect the past. That I could understand, and that made sense to me. Plus, in the first Back to the Future, it had that fantastic ending of where Marty comes back and the house is all done up, and the parents are successful, the father's a published author, and his brother, played by the great character actor Mark McClure, he no longer works at Burger King. He says, Marty, I always wear a suit to the office. You know, I just love that, in addition to being one of the great sort of fist punches in the face of all time. Fist punches.
Sonny00:46:53Fist punches in the face. Good fist punch of all time. And of course, we're kind of missing out on all of our favorites. I'll let JVL tackle this one, Edge of Tomorrow. Yeah, Edge of Tomorrow.
JVL00:47:05I was going to say, it's been like three episodes since I've mentioned Edge of Tomorrow. Groundhog Day, which is everybody's go-to. And it reminds me, I was thinking about this list, Run Lola Run has an element of time looping, too. Really? Does it not? I don't remember. Do you remember this? I feel like she, you know, she messes up, she gets hit by a car, she jumps back to the beginning and does it again. Am I making this up? No, I don't think that's right. I can't remember, actually.
Sonny00:47:33It's been a long time since I've seen Run Lola Run. I was going to say, JVL...
JVL00:47:35No, she has three runs. This is right. It happens three times. Oh, yeah. I'm now remembering this. Okay. And Run Lola Run is one of these movies that actually, I think, has been tremendously influential in, like, late 90s, early 21st century. moviemaking, because it pioneers a lot of that shaky cam, cinema verite-ish sort of thing that then Paul Greengrass perfects with the Bourne movies. I actually think a lot of things stem from Run Lola Run, even though it was a small movie that wasn't a huge hit over here.
Vic00:48:11When you mentioned, JVL, Groundhog Day, and I know our friend Jonah Goldberg is one of the leading authorities on Groundhog Day as well. How long was he stuck in the loop? Do we know?
JVL00:48:25I don't.
Vic00:48:26I think it's years.
Sonny00:48:27I mean, well, no, it's like centuries or something. It's like the, I think Harold Ramis addressed this at some point, that they were going to have a device in the movie, which was like, he reads one, so like, remember they're in the lobby or whatever, there's like a big library of books in the hotel, the bed and breakfast that he's staying in, and like, they were going to have him read one page in a book every day. And like, you could like track his progress, and it was like, it was like, you know, tens of thousands of days. Oh, that's cheap. But I guess- Hundreds of thousands of days. I mean, it was-
Vic00:49:01I will say, what about-
JVL00:49:03I am correct about Run, Lola, Run, by the way. It is a time loop with three loops, and she begins from the same point.
Sonny00:49:08I couldn't, yeah, I, for some reason, I'm totally spacing on Run, Lola, Run. Who was the actress that was in that? German actress, right? Franca Potente. Franca Potente.
JVL00:49:16Was that the La Femme Nikita?
Vic00:49:18No, from Mark- From Bourne.
JVL00:49:21Tom Tykver.
Sonny00:49:22In the Bourne movie. She was the girlfriend. Yeah, I'm like, maybe I never actually saw it. I don't know.
Vic00:49:27My favorite time travel movie is one that I saw when I was a kid. It was from 1979, called Time After Time. I don't know if you've seen this one. And it stars Malcolm McDowell as H.G. Wells, and his time machine works out, and the great British character actor, David Warner, who plays Jack the Ripper, and what happens? Is Jack the Ripper takes H.G. Wells' time machine to go into the future, and then H.G. Wells has to go travel to find him. It's so good. It sounds so dumb. It's so fantastic, because it's 1979.
Sonny00:50:02Was this a sci-fi original? No. S-Y-F-Y original.
Vic00:50:06And Mary Steenburgen is in it, and he travels to, quote, the future, which happens to be San Francisco, 1979. And there's a wonderful, just a charming scene of H.G. Wells walking into a McDonald's, you know, and then not sure what to get, and then discovering that the French fries were pommes frites, he says. And then we're making a reference to it later when he's dating Mary Steenburgen. He says, oh, they went to a fancy restaurant by the Golden Gate. And he says, oh, it's much better than that Scotch-Irish place I went to for lunch, which is great. And of course, being 1979, David Warner slash Jack the Ripper, his line is, he tells H.G. Wells, go back. You don't want to be here. This is my world. I belong here. Look what's happening in the world. And it was, you know, because it was an awful time. And it was great. And so, anyway, if you get a chance, it's hard to find it anywhere.
Sonny00:50:59Yeah, weirdly, this movie that nobody's ever heard of may just be entirely in your head.
Vic00:51:05People, listeners, if you've ever seen Time After Time, let me know on Twitter.
Sonny00:51:08Okay. Most overrated time loop movie, if I can do this really quickly, Primer. I hate Primer. I haven't even seen that one.
JVL00:51:15It was a very popular. I believe that's Kristen's favorite. I'm sure it is. Oh, no. I'm sure. We love it. We love it. Never mind. We love it.
Sonny00:51:23No, I really think it is one of these movies that's, like, complicated for the sake of being complicated. And it is very in love with its own cleverness. And it's like, oh, look at all these great reviews. Anyway, I just, I don't. I don't care for it. Thank you. Sorry, Kristen. Can I just say before we leave this? Please.
JVL00:51:43People want to listen to a real podcast should go and listen to Kristen Solzhenitsyn's podcast. Yeah. On the pollsters, which comes out also on Thursdays. And. Is, like, if you'd like to learn about politics in the real world and things that are important and not, like, naked chalupas, you should, you should go listen to the pollsters. It would be. You know what? It's great. First off.
Vic00:51:59Yeah. Thank you, Sonny. It's a great idea. Listen to our podcast and then listen to Kristen's. It's like going from The Cosby Show to Family Ties.
JVL00:52:08Or like The Cosby Show to Cosmos. No, it's like going from Married with Children to 60 Minutes.
Vic00:52:14Okay. I think we're, we're actually ready to move on. You know, we thought about, oh, this is going to be a short podcast and here we are. We're at, you know, two hours later. Spirit of the Week. Thank you, Sonny. What are we drinking today?
Sonny00:52:26We're back to the Bullet Rye. I had a 375 sitting on my desk and I was like, you know what? Let's just bring this in.
Vic00:52:33That is, you know what? That's a nice size for the office. If you have, you know, if you're into that sort of thing.
JVL00:52:37People should know that we're recording this at 11 a.m.
Sonny00:52:41It's not 11 now, JV. I know. First off, first off, it's 1155 right now. Oh, there you go. It's almost noon.
JVL00:52:46Come on, please.
Sonny00:52:47So if I continue drinking the same drink through noon, it's like I started drinking at noon.
Vic00:52:53Bullet Rye. There you go. And I think the spirit of the week over at The Last Household is Theraflu. Robitussin. Ah. Robitussin.
JVL00:53:02It just doesn't matter, of course. I don't need to be sick to have some Robitussin.
Vic00:53:04As Chris Rock says, get that tussin in there. Do we have corrections?
JVL00:53:11We do. I've been literally falling down on the job this week, so I have a bunch of corrections that I didn't get to. I have just one from a friend of the show, Mike Fregoso, who says that, Pleasure Island at Disney is no more.
Vic00:53:23Yes.
JVL00:53:24So that is gone. But that, you can get all the liquor you want at Epcot. And he says that he and his friends in college went down to Epcot and did a drink in each country. They called it the Epcot 11.
Vic00:53:38I only remember the beer at the Hofbrauhaus in Little Germany. Yes, I went to there. That's fine. Can you imagine?
Sonny00:53:45You went to Little Germany? Do they have Little Hitler at Disney at Epcot?
Vic00:53:50I went to Little Berchtesgaden. Thank you. We did the sports movies, and we got a ton of people who said, what about running movies like Chariots of Fire and Without Limits, the Steve Prefontaine movie? That's the one with Billy Crudup, not Jared Leto. It's one of those weird things where two movies about the same person come out. It's awkward. And then, of course, best sports movie made for TV was Brian's Song with James Caan and Billy Dee Williams. People will also say, what about Slapshot? Did you hear this? Did you read this on Twitter? A lot of people complained, what happened to Slapshot? I don't care about what people complained. As a hockey movie. I will say, if you want to talk about hockey movies, how about Youngblood with Rob Lowe and a very young Keanu Reeves?
Sonny00:54:31I don't watch. Who is a hockey guy himself. I don't watch hockey in real life. I would never watch a hockey movie. I don't watch ice soccer.
Vic00:54:39What about Miracle on Ice? Wasn't that what it was called with Kurt Russell?
Sonny00:54:42Yeah, but that's more about America. It's better than America. That's a movie about America triumphing over the commies. The Soviets, yeah.
Vic00:54:49Okay. Well, that's all the time we have that we're giving for this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Victorino Matus at Sonny Bunch. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard under Podcast, and we're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. And don't forget, the Substandard show notes will be up on Friday at 11 a.m.
Sonny00:55:14Yeah, if you have questions about those, you should tweet them to at JBLast. No. Until next time.
Vic00:55:21Until next time. We've got a lot of feedback about that from people. Did you get some feedback at home? A little bit. And from other colleagues' wives, people concerned that, you know, and I have to insist to them. Who was it? Was it Elaine? I'm like, no names, no names. It's all jokes, people. It's all jokes, just like you. Yeah, they're all jokes. And I was so, thank God you didn't bring up any Emma Watson jokes, because those are jokes, too.
Sonny00:56:14Just jokes.
Vic00:56:14Just jokes, okay?
Sonny00:56:15There was a very funny Vic Mattis joke back in, like, I think. I think it was maybe 2005, when the second or third Harry Potter. She was 17 at the time. She was 17 when she started. No, she was like 14.
Vic00:56:29No, no, no. And it was a very funny joke, Vic. A joke that you'll never hear because it was kidding. It was just joking. I think that Emma Watson now is a woman, is very attractive, and I really found her attractive in that last movie she made, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I saw that on cable, and that was the last one. Was that the last one? I saw Deathly Hallows Part II. I said, oh, not my type. I said, oh, wait a minute. No, just kidding.
Sonny00:56:56Just kidding. Just kidding, guys. Just kidding, FBI. Just kidding, FBI. He's totally kidding. No, he's not. He's totally kidding. Oh, okay. All right.
Vic00:57:04Well, JVL, I hope you will feel better by next week's episode.
Sonny00:57:09Yeah, how about it?
JVL00:57:09I just hope I'm not dead by next week's episode. Everybody else is going to feel better, I assume. And, of course, the way this will work is once everybody else turns the corner, your body can only resist for so long, right? Well, I don't know. You tell us. I don't know. So, yeah. Did we have something? Was there something? I feel like there was something else. Like something wrestling related or something that we didn't talk about.
Vic00:57:35No, not at all. Am I wrong about that? No, no, no, no, no, no. Now you're starting to get delirious. Yes, yes, you are. I hope you'll be okay. Oh, can I tell you? Actually, I have something on this.
JVL00:57:46So, my wife took, her doctor said to her, well, there's one thing you can do with the flu. You can take, I forget if it's Tamiflu or Theraflu, some prescription medication you can take. You have to take it within 48 hours of onset of the symptoms.
Vic00:58:03Yes, yes, I know that one.
JVL00:58:05I know that one. And supposedly it cuts the end of, yeah, it cuts like the last two days of the flu off or something like that.
Vic00:58:10Yeah, we have that in our house too.
JVL00:58:11Yeah, so my wife took that, and I'm leafing through just the little booklet that comes with it, which is essentially a 49-inch, by 29-inch piece of paper, you know, like super, super thin paper with five-point writing on it. And so this piece of paper, which is double-sided, probably has 30,000 words of text on it. So I just, you know, I'm up, the baby's crying, I'm just flipping through for amusement tonight. I go to the section of potential side effects. At first it's like headache, okay, you know, insomnia, okay. Then it gets to things that are a little more serious, then there are heart palpitations. Oh, Jesus. If you begin to hear voices, call your doctor. Wow. If you begin to have hallucinations, call your doctor. And then there's a warning. You know, you can hurt yourself, you can injure yourself fatally if you start obeying the voices that you hear while on this medication. That's frightening. That's when I thought, you know what, why not just be sick an extra two days.
Vic00:59:20Yeah, I think so. Because in the end, of course, I'm sure it's fine.
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