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#19. The Substandard X-Men Episode
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Reviews: Sonny reviews Logan — fresh but skeptical of the critical groupthink rating it 93% on Rotten Tomatoes; calls it "Little Miss Mutant Sunshine," appreciates its Cormac McCarthy–meets–X-Men road-trip tone, but finds some action sequences pornographically violent. JVL enjoyed it and prefers the source material (Old Man Logan by Mark Millar). Both place it second in the Wolverine franchise behind The Wolverine.
Dudes Chatting — X-Men films ranked and the mutant metaphor: JVL's ranking from best to worst: The Wolverine, Logan, X-Men: First Class, Days of Future Past, X-Men 2, X-Men, then a dropoff to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Last Stand, and X-Men: Apocalypse. Sonny swaps Logan and The Wolverine at the top and moves X-2 ahead of Days of Future Past. The group debates the mutant-as-civil-rights metaphor (originally conceived by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as a civil rights allegory, later reread as a gay-rights metaphor in the Singer films, and described by director James Mangold as an immigration metaphor in Logan) — and argues that some mutant powers actually make Senator Kelly's registration plan quite reasonable. Listener-requested ranking of great strong female leads in cinema: JVL picks Salt, Clarice Starling (The Silence of the Lambs), Winona Ryder in Heathers, Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, and Sigourney Weaver as Ripley (number one); Vic picks Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs, Ripley, and Frances McDormand in Fargo (number one). Episode opens with JVL gifting Vic a laminated Beauty and the Beast coloring-book page featuring Emma Watson. JVL's correction: Moana > Hamilton as a Lin-Manuel Miranda musical. Spirit of the Week: Paddy's Irish Whiskey in Irish coffee (early taping).
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Putting the sub in Substandard. Here's the Substandard podcast. Hello, and welcome back to The Substandard. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. I'd like to remind you that The Substandard is available on iTunes and Google Play. Just look at our podcast search for Substandard. You will easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, leave a review. In addition, we'd also like to remind you that TheSubstandard show notes posted by Jonathan Last are available every Friday at 11 a.m. at weeklystandard.com. If you have questions about them, you should tweet him, at JVLast. Always. And even if you just want to say, how are you, tweet JVLast. I think that's a nice thing. And how are we doing?
Sonny00:01:30Gentlemen, Sonny, how are you doing? I'm great. I had a nice little weekend and have gotten the week off to a good start. We're just rolling along. Cassid to Bunch.
JVL00:01:41On a scale of 1 to 10, Sonny, how are you?
Sonny00:01:43I think we should really start ranking everything. Well, I would say that I am currently at a resting, like, 7. 7.2. But that's the Bunch scale, which for the rest of us is like a 3. Wait, wouldn't it be the other way around? The other way around? Oh, right! No, the rest of you. It's like a 7. If you're a 7, then we're like a 20. You'd be like a 15 or something. We're through the roof.
Vic00:02:0611. 11. JVL, how are you doing?
JVL00:02:09I'm great. Vic, I know we had a plan for this show today, but I need to swerve us a little bit here.
Vic00:02:15Because I brought a present for you. Oh, boy. I bought a gift. Is it visual, or is it edible, or is it quaffable? Insertable. Pick one. For a computer, you mean insertable. Actually, not even for me. It's from my wife. Why are you standing in front of me?
JVL00:02:33It is from my wife. Oh, hey. Who was out running some errands, and she came home with this thing that she said she
Vic00:02:40saw, and she knew that you had to have. My gosh. Slim Jim. Thank you. She's a mind reader.
JVL00:02:47It is this new.
Vic00:02:49Oh, look at this.
Sonny00:02:50Oh, that's great.
JVL00:02:52Beauty and the Beast special edition color create and draw book, which has pictures, high-res beautiful pictures. Have you seen this? Of Emma Watson on every single page in color draw. Wow.
Vic00:03:04Well, I love in all of her various costumes. I'm using it right now to fan myself, because I'm getting warm in here. I love Beauty and the Beast. It's a wonderful tale, and I love the original. I can't wait to see the human version of this movie. Some people call it live action, but you can just call it human. It's humans. Oh, no, no. I thought it was one of these smell things. Oh, he literally just smelled it. I thought it was like scratch and sniff. And if you look through, they're really beautiful.
JVL00:03:34And you can draw whatever you like next to the pictures of Emma Watson.
Vic00:03:37And she's like- You could make your own Mad Libs, essentially. She's like 32, okay? I'm just going to- But wait, there's more. Oh, my gosh. What? I took the liberty myself- This is an embarrassment of riches today. Of taking one of the pages in that book that I thought looked really-
JVL00:03:54It's like something you would treasure. It's crazy. And I cut it out, and I had it laminated.
Vic00:03:59For, you know, because- You did have- It's literally- It's laminated.
JVL00:04:04You literally did have it laminated. Because, Vic, you know, the reason I had it laminated, often when you go hiking, you're a noted outdoorsman, and when you go hiking, if you are worried about the weather, your essential gear needs to be waterproofed, so things like your map-
Vic00:04:20Oh, yes. And to guide you through the- And my photo of-
JVL00:04:23And I assume that if you were going to be alone by yourself somewhere where there might be water, you would want your picture of- Your picture of Emma Watson in that dress.
Vic00:04:31Or the beast on the other side.
JVL00:04:33Take your pick.
Vic00:04:34He's very hairy. And this way, you don't have to worry. Oh, look at this. Draw the beast as a handsome prince, and add some more portraits to the castle walls. That's exciting.
JVL00:04:42And when you're done, you wipe it off, and you can do it again? Oh, my gosh.
Vic00:04:44Draw it. I don't even know about this. We may have to delete that part. How are you otherwise?
Sonny00:04:51I've got to say, I've been planning this for like four days, and I kind of expected more. JBL actually texted- Well, I mean, he's actually struggling not to have a heart attack right now, JBL. His blood pressure is clearly through the roof. You know he's not a well man. I think this is really inappropriate of you to do.
Vic00:05:07I've been having problems breathing lately. It's from a cold or allergy, and there's a pain on my right side, which I think is because I recently did 10 push-ups. Your right side of what? Of my chest. Oh. I'm sorry. Yeah, right. That was relieved later, but I do bet. I did 10 push-ups, and now it feels a pain, so I'm going to say it's that and not anything cardiovascular. Okay, good. Good.
Sonny00:05:32I am worried about you. Is it getting dark in here? There are dark circles spreading out from under your armpits, and I'm curious as to why that's happening. I worry about you.
Vic00:05:42I can't wait to see this movie. Do you carry nitroglycerin tablets, Victor? Yes, like LBJ. He used to pop them in the middle of a speech. He'd just pop in a nitroglycerin tablet. Okay, so JBL, how else? Come on, I love it. Otherwise, that's too much for you. That's too much.
Sonny00:05:57It's too much. Sonny will agree. It's too much. Okay. No, it's just the right amount. This is just the right amount. Just the right amount.
Vic00:06:05I'm doing this touche. I'm doing my touche gesture. Yes. Okay.
Sonny00:06:09No, that's not a touche. That's a rolling curtain roll. This is what a rolling curtain roll is. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Vic00:06:14Yes. It's the Doc Severinsen rolling curtain roll, right? Oh, yes. That's right. Doc Severinsen. Is he still with us? I assume. I assume. I haven't heard otherwise. A lot of visual aids in the first six minutes of this show.
Sonny00:06:24I really hope everybody's able to follow along at home.
JVL00:06:26This is why I want to do the YouTube live cast. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Sonny00:06:31You're the one who comes to these things dressed up like a grown-up. Well, just because I'm dressed up like a grown-up, that doesn't mean I want everyone to see my grown-up clothes. Most people just call them clothes. As opposed to. As opposed to. I wear my grown-up clothes to the human movies. Your human clothes.
Vic00:06:49Jeez.
Sonny00:06:50This is great. No leash. Good show.
Vic00:06:53Good show, guys.
JVL00:06:54That's really crushing. That's all the time we're going to give you this week.
Vic00:06:57Thank you. Well, that was a great show. All right. Talk to me.
JVL00:07:02So, my son has been reading a bunch. So, his hippie school has him doing lots of biography for their reading. So, they get a week to read a biography of some historical figure, and then they get a test on them, and they have to write an essay about them, et cetera, et cetera. And it has been a mixed bag. He has not liked some of the people he's had to write about. Who are some of the terrible people he hasn't liked? Uh, he did not like Crispus Attucks. What? Oh.
Sonny00:07:36One of the original American heroes, Crispus Attucks. Yes. Like Crispus Attucks.
JVL00:07:40The Boston Massacre. He liked Jackie Robinson. Well, sure. But he loved Harriet Tubman. Hmm. Hmm. So, he would come down every night, like, telling me about the amazing stuff Harriet Tubman did, and then she took a shotgun, and it was clear that in my son's imagination, Harriet Tubman is the original American badass, which, by the way, is probably pretty close
Sonny00:08:03to the truth. I don't know about original, but she's certainly one of the, like, greats. American badass. Yeah, yes. Right.
JVL00:08:08No, I mean, she, her wrestling intro would be The Undertaker's, like, biker phase, where she comes in on a giant Harley, and there's pyro going off and stuff. Shooting cap guns into the air. And it got me thinking that I would kind of love a Harriet Tubman movie in which she, we find out that it's an alt-history, and she's a mutant who is a X-Men-style superhero, and that that's how she was doing all this amaze. She had some sort of awesome superpower, and that's how she was killing all the bad racists. What would it be, though?
Vic00:08:42Do you think it would be psychic, or would it be some sort of physical attribute?
JVL00:08:48Now, I'm thinking something like the Cyclops, you know, eye blast or something like that. Yeah. No, but it would have to be something sneaky, because, I mean, her whole thing was she was sneaking people out of slavery and into freedom, so it would have to be something like... But what's sneakier than, like... Like, you know, this old woman who, like... And then she just blasts you?
Sonny00:09:02Blows you away. Well, this would definitely be the Harriet Tubman movie made by Doug Ellen, the creator of Entourage. That's actually happening, by the way. That's a thing that's in production right now. So there is a Harriet Tubman movie... Harriet Tubman movie made by Doug Ellen, where she has Cyclops powers. But, no, I mean, it would have to be something... Like, she would have to be able to, like, deaden noise or something, or, like, misdirection, or, like, it would have to be cleverer than she's just, like... You're gonna make her Jubilee? She could make lights appear someplace. Well, that would be the opposite of being able to hide, wouldn't it? Maybe she could, like... That's distracting. She could, like... Wasn't there a mutant who could, like, take light away? Who could, like, remove light and make it... Am I thinking of, like... That's Dagger. That's Cloak. Not Dagger. That's Cloak. Maybe she was the forebear of Cloak. And that's how we tie it into the X-Men Expanded Universe.
JVL00:09:49That's a little on the nose, since Cloak is one of the original African-American...
Sonny00:09:52Well, look, I'm just trying to keep it within continuity, man. I'm a continuity door. I don't need it to be in continuity.
JVL00:09:59She could phase in and out of walls. How's that? Oh, Kitty Pryde style.
Vic00:10:03I like that. That's a great power for her. That would be a pretty good power. Or then go phase into a body and then kill the person, right?
Sonny00:10:10She would, like, shock somebody, right? Like, she, like, knocks them unconscious.
Vic00:10:14Could you stick your fist, like, phase it into a person and make it solid? In their head. No, no.
JVL00:10:18This is a thing that Kitty Pryde would do. Like, when she did her Japanese assassin stuff with Logan. Oh, now it's like our... Like, the Kitty Pryde Wolverine thing. One of the reasons Kitty Pryde is a perfect assassin. Is because she can do that. She can phase through walls and then, like, you know, stick an ice pick through somebody's head or their finger, her finger through their head or something like that. Yes, I like that. Kitty Pryde, Harriet Tubman. Thank you very much.
Vic00:10:39I was always...
JVL00:10:39I want this movie.
Vic00:10:40I was always impartial to Mary McLeod Bethune, the educator, the teacher. If you go to Lincoln Park in Capitol Hill, there is a beautiful memorial to Mary McLeod Bethune. But the only disconcerting thing is if you go there, you may confuse her for me because it looks like me as a statue. So, you'll have to look it up. Is her head very large? It's about to scale. It's to scale. Now, it's a large statue, but the head size is about the same. It's about the same. It looks like... I thought, oh my gosh, if they ever get a new Mary McLeod Bethune memorial, I'd like to keep the other one and put it in my backyard, even though it's wearing a dress.
Sonny00:11:17Wait, I don't understand what the problem... What that would be. That would make a lot of sense, actually. No, really. It's all coming together.
Vic00:11:23I was sitting there in the park years ago looking at her and I thought, wait a minute, why does she look so familiar? Oh. Were you feeding the pigeons? I know. Just sitting there.
JVL00:11:29Just sitting there, yeah. In Lincoln Park. You woke up on a Sunday morning in Lincoln Park like, how did I get here?
Vic00:11:35How did I get here? How did I get here? That happened to a former colleague of ours once, I think.
JVL00:11:38Funnily enough, it was after the Georgetown Bethune-Cook annual game. Oh, yeah. Because don't they always play each other in preseason? Bethune-Cookman. Bethune-Cookman.
Vic00:11:44Don't they always play each other in the preseason? They used to because Bethune-Cookman's coach was Horace Broadnecks, a former player of the old... He played for the old man. Horace Broadnecks? Broadnecks. His name is Broadnecks? Yeah, Broadnecks. N-A-X. N-A-X. Broadnecks. Yeah, Horace Broadnecks. Does he wear Prada jeans? I'm not sure. I haven't heard that product placement in a while. But speaking of turning people into mutants, and you mentioned Logan. Logan, the movie, had a massive box office this past weekend. Domestically, it did about $85.3 million. And globally, about $205. 237, 238 million. It's massive. I did not see Logan. I haven't seen it yet. I want to, just because you guys did. And JVL, I think you were more bullish on it than Sonny. But what did you guys think?
Sonny00:12:41Sonny, what did you think? So, Logan, for our listeners who are living under a rock, is essentially the final movie in the Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman X-Men cycle, right? It's set in the year 2029. Hugh Jackman, a.k.a. Wolverine, a.k.a. Logan. Logan is living in Mexico in an abandoned industrial area with Professor X, who is suffering from some sort of dementia or Alzheimer's and is thus prone to these debilitating psychic attacks that radiate out for blocks, miles. It's hard to say exactly, but he really puts the hurt on people when he's having one of these attacks. And they're on the run because of one such attack in Westchester, which, of course, is where the accident happened. That's where the attacksmen were located. While living on the run and while trying to save up enough money to buy a boat so they can move out to the middle of the ocean where these attacks won't hurt anyone, a young child stumbles into Logan and Professor X's life, who bears an uncanny resemblance to one wolverine. She has claws. She has a healing factor. She has an adamantium skeleton, et cetera, et cetera. And they have to get this girl to freedom in Canada. Canada is where she will be safe.
Vic00:13:59Canada is also where he's originally from.
Sonny00:14:02Canada is where Logan slash Wolverine is originally from. He's a Canadian, the only great Canadian superhero, really, except for maybe North, is North Star Canadian?
JVL00:14:15North Star is Canadian.
Sonny00:14:16Yeah, but not great. Not great. So that's the problem. Anyway, the movie involves, it starts as kind of a kind of dystopic, not really dystopic. It's just sad because their life is very sad setting. And then they move up through America, and it turns into kind of a road trip picture. I saw someone on Twitter describe it as Little Miss Mutant Sunshine, which actually feels about right. Wow. There's kind of a humor aspect to it, and they really throw on the touching elements, et cetera, et cetera. I liked it. I gave it a fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, where I'm a very important film critic. I thought it was okay, but I don't love it as much as everyone else seems to have. And I think JVL is with me on that. JVL? Yeah. No, it's good.
JVL00:15:04I liked it. I enjoyed myself. I think it's probably the second best of the Wolverine movies. No, but I love the Wolverine. I really love the Wolverine, which is one of my favorite Marvel movies. I don't understand the head-exploding, this is the greatest superhero movie. The Everman thing, which seems to have happened over the weekend, except to say that if you're going to say anything about anything on Twitter, things have to be either the greatest or the worst. Way over the top. Right. Nobody can just say, hey, this is a good movie, because then nobody retweets you or something.
Sonny00:15:45I don't know. I mean, is this correct? I do think, well, I mean, there's certainly an element of critical groupthink that surrounds basically every movie nowadays. I want to say it was Armand White or somebody else, I'll try and find the piece so you can put it in show notes, that talked about how film criticism in the age of aggregation has basically, oh, no, it was Owen Gleiberman in his memoir. I'm sorry. Owen Gleiberman in his memoir said that ironically in this age of super diverse voices and more people having access to criticism and to being able to write criticism than ever, critics have decided to use their power to glom around certain movies and push them as products that everyone has to see, and as a result, you get these weird kind of confluences of opinion where everybody agrees that something, so like for instance, Wolverine is 93% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and Rotten Tomatoes isn't a perfect barometer for this sort of thing since it's just thumbs up or thumbs down, and I tend to agree with the thumbs up or thumbs down generally, I mean, but it's more of a B movie, a B, B plus movie, than like A, A plus, or the movie Get Out, which is out in theaters right now and was a big kind of surprise financial hit, is 99% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, the only negative coming from Armond White, interestingly enough. Richard Spencer. Richard Spencer gave it a big thumbs down. Oh, well, yeah, Richard Spencer, of course, not accredited on the tomato meter. Right, sure. But you definitely, I think you're right, JVL, that there is a very, very serious problem with critical groupthink where everything has to be great or terrible, and there are certain, and the opinions form very rapidly and kind of congeal. And sometimes then you have like the opposite of that where there's the early round of praise and then everybody flips on it, like kind of with La La Land, that happened online. A lot of people- Yeah, that was kind of a bad- On Twitter, everyone, it got a bunch of really, really high praise, and then after a few months, everyone was like, "You know what, actually, La La Land is bad and racist."
JVL00:17:50It's also, I mean, in the way that the internet makes everything meta. You sort of lose sight of the actual thing and everything becomes- It becomes about people's reaction to the thing, and I don't know. I really liked it. It was Cormac McCarthy's X-Men. It was- Yes, I was going to say, is it like- It was great.
Vic00:18:06I was picturing after you guys were describing it and what I've read that it's like X-Men meets No Country for Old Men or something, I mean, it's dark. Kind of. Kind of.
Sonny00:18:14Kind of. I mean, kind of, but it's definitely more No Country for Old Men than like- The Road.
JVL00:18:18The Road or something like that. Well, except for that they're going some place, which is- Right. And they're going to a place where the little one will be saved and the- Yeah. There's a caretaker.
Vic00:18:28There's elements of both. JVL, you said that you liked The Wolverine as your favorite of the X-Men movies. Was that also R-rated? Yes. And that takes place in Japan.
JVL00:18:39That takes place almost entirely in Japan. Some of it takes place in Alaska, I think, or in Canada to begin, someplace up in the north. Yeah. I like this a lot. So this is largely a film, not an adaptation exactly, but a- The Wolverine. The Wolverine, you mean. No, no. Logan, of a Mark Millar mini-series called Old Man Logan, which is one of the first really, really great Mark Millar books. And what Old Man Logan posited was a truly dystopian America in which the supervillains had won. The supervillains had figured out a way to take out the superheroes, they had divided the country among themselves so that there were different sectors. There was the Hulk owned one sector, Magneto owned another sector, the Red Skull owned another sector, et cetera, et cetera. And all superheroes were dead except for Logan. Logan himself was an old man and he gets hired to do one last job and that job involves driving across country and along the way he goes back to becoming the real Logan and kills a bunch of people, et cetera, et cetera. Differs in all the, the movie version Logan differs in all the important ways from that, but takes a central premise from that, which is that Logan is retired. He's an old man of declining powers stuck in a future which is not the future that he thought it was going to be. And that something terrible has happened to the superheroes because that is another part of this piece. Although in the Mark Millar book, Logan is the one who killed all of the superheroes and in this one we are led to believe that he was actually performing. Professor X. It was Charles who, who killed him.
Sonny00:20:28Right. Well, so in, in, uh, so I, I, I have taken issue elsewhere with the idea that this is a dystopian movie. A lot of people have described it as a dystopian movie and it doesn't actually seem to be that dystopian, right? Like, the world seems to have basically carried on without the mutants who, one of the plot points in the film is that 25 years ago, mutants stopped being born. So mutants stopped being born and I believe a bunch of them were hunted down and taken out. But, uh, also there was the. Westchester incident, which supposedly killed a lot of mutants, maybe we, we don't really know. They don't really describe it in the movie. Um, and the, the, uh, anyway, the, the, it's, but it's not an actual dystopian future, like say children of men where humanity has stopped giving birth to babies period. And, uh, and as a result, the world is breaking down, you know, wars are raging, borders are collapsing, food crises abound, et cetera, et cetera. This movie, it just kind of posits a future in which there are no mutants and everybody has kind of moved on except for the last mutants, the, you know, Logan and Wolverine and Caliban played by Stephen Merchant in this. He was very good. I thought, I thought Cal, Caliban was. It was great. Stephen Merchant's fabulous in this. Uh, and, uh, so anyway, uh, but it, it, it is, it is not a dystopian, uh, film. And, and, and I, I wanna, I, this is one thing that has always kind of annoyed me with the mutant, I, with, with the way that people use the mutants, right? So, uh, originally the mutant struggle was termed. In, in, in basically a civil rights frame where you had, you had Malcolm X Magneto and you had Martin Luther King, Professor X, and it was about, you know, uh, trying to find a way to coexist with humanity that in this case, the, uh, mutants would be African Americans. And then in, in the kind of Bryan Singer world, uh, uh, adaptation of it, uh, and in the comics in the nineties and, and aughts, it was more, uh, a move, uh, a metaphor for gay rights. It was like, you, you go home and you tell mom and dad, Hey, I'm mutant instead of, Hey, I'm gay. And that, that's how, but this, this metaphor has always been, and in this movie and Logan, the director, James Mangold has said that it's, it's supposed to be kind of a metaphor for immigration. You know, you have, you have Wolverine living on the border and he's got a, he's got, he's got a, he's a refugee and he wants to be safe about, but these, these metaphors are all really terrible for the people who are being metaphorically described, right? Like if, if you, if I was, uh, uh, a, a gay person and they were like, you were like murderous mutants who are going around causing chaos. I'd be really upset by this. I would like, it would actually be like, wait, hold on the Mutant Rights Act or the Mutant Registration Act actually makes a lot of sense. Like Senator Kelly's plan to register, uh, people who can kill you by looking at you or kill you by thinking about you or kill you by pointing at you and sending ice spikes at your head. I mean, like this is not an unreasonable thing. Don't you think JBL?
JVL00:23:15I, yes, I agree. Uh, the, the real problem of this, and this is, it's always bothered me about the comics because the comics just, and the movies do this too, obviously, they just presuppose that the people who want to register the mutants or who are afraid of the mutants are just of necessity, bigoted and closed minded or evil, et cetera. And that there, there couldn't possibly be anything to worry about from mutants. And this is true probably for a large number of the mutants we see, right? I mean, nobody, Angel does not present any real threat, even, I would say even a mutant who can kill you by looking at you, does not present any substantial threat to the order. But, like Charles Xavier is a problem. How can you have a functioning free market economy and a functioning liberal democracy when there is a guy who can control how people think? You can't ever have an election and no, you can't ever have stock market buys and IPOs without knowing that maybe this is real or maybe Charles is doing it. How can you have a guy like Magneto who can pull the entire planet off of its axis and kill everyone on Earth and not have, because then you have to be able to do whatever this guy says. Mystique. Yeah. Mystique.
Sonny00:24:33Storm. Right. All of it.
JVL00:24:36Toad isn't a problem, Cyclops isn't a problem, Beast isn't a problem, but no reasonable person could look at some of these other mutants and say, "Oh yeah, it would be fine to integrate them into society. We could all function perfectly freely with them around."
Vic00:24:47What about Stan Lee? What was his involvement? Did he have anything to do with any of this?
Sonny00:24:52Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were the original idea. They wrote the original idea.
Vic00:24:54I mean, did they have all that in mind at the time, or?
Sonny00:24:57Well, they originally envisioned it as- Civil rights. Civil rights. Yeah.
Vic00:25:02Yeah. A civil rights metaphor. Yeah. Okay. Was this Logan movie then, is that the third R-rated movie for superheroes?
Sonny00:25:09No. The Wolverine, by the way, was PG-13. Ah. That's PG-13. Logan is a much, much bloodier movie than The Wolverine was. That's interesting. I actually looked it up on my phone to make sure. Yeah. Because The Wolverine was a violent movie, but it wasn't Logan violent, which is a movie that features decapitations, limbs being cut off. There's one scene, and one of my problems with Logan is that it is grotesquely violent. It is pornographically violent. It is a movie where you have, basically, a bunch of villains who are just stopped in their tracks, and Logan goes from guy to guy, putting claws through their skulls in close-up, in very slow motion, and we see this happen like five times. Just like he goes around the room murdering people, and it's like-
Vic00:25:52Are you saying he got ... Did it become wizardry? Did it become too disturbing, or too mind-numbing for you, like, "Oh, I'm just like, you shrugged the shoulders after a while."
Sonny00:26:00It was just like, "I got it." It was like, "No, I got it. I mean, I got it that this is an R-rated movie, guys. This is an R-rated movie, and it's real violent. It's gritty. It's dark."
JVL00:26:08Sounds like my 10-year-old me would love this. I'm pretty sensitive to that stuff. I don't like gory movies, and I was not bothered by any of that. I thought that it was still, in its way, a cartoonish depiction of this sort of violence. In a world where somebody actually did that, it would be much more gory than what they showed you. They were still showing you a sanitized version. Maybe my favorite moment in the movie is when the kid comes out of the warehouse that they've been squatting in in Mexico, them having sent a bunch of the Reavers in to take care of her, and she's carrying something, and you're not quite sure what it is. It turns out it's the big one's head, and she just drops it on the ground.
Sonny00:26:53It's great. It's actually a very good ... So that's a way to use your R rating? That's a great thing. Right. Right. But you don't see her sawing through his head. Right. No, exactly.
Vic00:27:03This is a nice use of that, I think. So Deadpool was the first R-rated superhero movie, and now Logan, right? Is that what's happening here?
Sonny00:27:11Was Deadpool the first R-rated superhero movie? I don't think ... I can't imagine that's actually right. I mean, Kick-Ass, for instance, are ... Well, it depends, I guess, what counts, but in terms of the Marvel universe ... Wanted. Wanted was ... Certainly in the Marvel universe. Yes. In the Marvel movies, I think it was. No, Blade. Blade. The Blade movies are R-rated.
JVL00:27:28Oh.
Vic00:27:29Yeah, but that's its own thing. Yeah. Right. I'm just saying that this ... But we're going to see, in terms of, especially with commercial success, because Logan is doing so well, we're going to see more of this, right?
JVL00:27:38Which is good, I think, because what I've always said, and we talked about this on one of the shows early, when we did the Marvel DC, what I want is a bunch of ... Hey, Vic, are you distracted by anything right now? I'm just staring at you around a lot.
Sonny00:27:51No. He's literally got the papers ... He's got the papers of the show on top of his laminated Emma Watson photo.
Vic00:27:58You continue talking about comic books, I'm going to look at the real deal.
JVL00:28:01Sorry. Go ahead. What I want out of this world is where all comic book movies are not the same tent pole action thing, but I want them to span the genres. I want a buddy cop comedy, action comedy set of comic book movies. I want some hard-R comic book movies. I want normal superhero comic book movies. I want funny comic ... Because I really think the genre can accommodate. It can accommodate this. You can branch out and cover different bases. What I don't want is for movie studios to look at the success of Wolverine and say, "Oh, well we just have to do this all the time." That's probably what's going to happen. No, but I don't think so. Well, maybe. I think Marvel ... DC might do that, but Marvel's pretty smart. Oh, Suicide Squad. That was R? No, Suicide Squad was PG-13. PG-13. Yeah. But it was ... No, it was pretty good. To dip back very quickly to the lack of mutants, so this is another stage. They've stolen an idea from a very successful comic book, and this is the House of M series where the Scarlet Witch goes crazy and creates a reality in which there are no more mutants. It's a really ... I've actually always thought that is a perfect two-part movie for Marvel to do, and it saddens me a little bit to have them steal it and sort of throw it away here, this idea in this movie. To be a little bit nerdy about continuity, you could read Logan as having undone all of the continuity of every previous X-Men movie. Well, no, what ... finish, finish. Right.
Sonny00:29:36I mean, I think that you can do that if you want to. You can say, "This movie undoes everything."
JVL00:29:40The movie that did that was actually Days of Future Past. Well, Days of Future Past did that too from that point back, but this then would undo that. What I, again, want, what I personally would like Marvel to do for me, is to ... Not be so obsessed with continuity within their cinematic universe, and you can do a lot of standalone movies that just tell an interesting story, and you don't care if it's different. Like The Red Sun. I'd like to see a Superman Red Sun. It's not Marvel. It's DC. But I'd like to see the old man Logan. I'd like to see House of M, and it doesn't matter if it fits in with a larger thematic tale.
Vic00:30:13So what you guys are saying is that at the end of Logan, there's no surprise cameo by Spider-Man, played by Tom Holland, or Tony Stark. As Iron Man.
Sonny00:30:24Well, now, again, you're crossing cinematic universes, because you have the X-Men universe, you have the Marvel cinematic universe, which is the Avengers, now some Spider-Man stuff.
Vic00:30:36Right.
Sonny00:30:37Avengers, Spider-Man, Thor. Right. That's all.
Vic00:30:40But X-Men is separate from that universe.
JVL00:30:41Yes. Sonny, I did not stay through the end credits. Is there a stinger at the end?
Sonny00:30:44Ah, no. There you go. That's interesting. Is this the first Marvel movie without a stinger? Did the original X-Men movie have a stinger? I don't think it did.
Vic00:30:54Not the original, but the later ones did. Yeah. That's interesting. Again, so it really does separate itself from the rest of this Avengers world.
Sonny00:31:04So anyway, this is a hard R. To the parents out there, this is a hard R film. Don't take your kids to see it.
Vic00:31:09Right. Oh, I love superhero movies. Right.
Sonny00:31:12Let's go see it as a family now. Don't take your eight-year-old to go see it. Maybe 13, I would say, is the very youngest I would go with.
Vic00:31:19When you guys went to the theater, did you see little kids? Sonny, do you have strong memories?
JVL00:31:23Do you have strong feelings about this?
Sonny00:31:24Well, I do, and I have two kind of competing strong feelings about this. The first is, so I was recently at a screening of John Wick 2. It was a press and public screening, so it was three or four rows reserved for the press, and then it was a bunch of seats filled with you people out there, you yammering idiots.
JVL00:31:44Outside the rope. Outside the rope.
Sonny00:31:46You awful, awful people, and one of the awful, awful people brought his 12 to 18-month-old son to the theater, who was fine, I assume she slept, until the last five minutes of the movie, when she woke up and started crying, and so the guy dutifully takes the baby out, and then stands in the hallway entrance to the theater, so it's like amplifying the cries into the rest of the ... It was actually worse somehow. It was worse. Can't do that. So anyway, look, if you take an infant to a movie, which I'm not 100% opposed to, on principle, because a lot of the time, these kids sleep through the movies, it's not a big deal, whatever, as long as when they start making noise, you take them outside, that's the bargain you've struck. You get to come into the movie theater, but you gotta go. You gotta get out when they start crying. What I find much more troubling are the people who took eight, 10, 12-year-olds to see Logan, where the kids are crying halfway through it, and in tears. That's not just distracting for the rest of the audience, it's bad for your kids. It's like bad parenting. The MPAA has done a very, very nice job for parents of setting up a rating system that gives them some guidance, and says, "You need to pay a little more attention to R-rated films." It even says in the box, "Graphic violence, there are warnings from Hugh Jackman, don't take your little kids to see this." I'm not saying you have to read every review on Rotten Tomatoes, you only have to read Sonny Bunch's reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. You should, at the very least, in this brave new world where we're having more R-rated comic book hero movies, parents need to pay more attention, and they need to do a better job of making sure that they aren't destroying their children's minds, and also, more importantly, frankly, my entertainment dollar, my enjoyment of the films.
JVL00:33:45Vic? Yes, JVL?
Vic00:33:47Sonny is basically throwing shade at your parents right now. I was trying to think. I was trying to think about this, and in fact- Because your parents, Ma and Dr. Mattis, took you guys to everything. No, that's not true, actually. I was thinking about this. The vast majority of R-rated movies I'd seen as a child were on HBO or on VHS cassette. In the movie theater, the only ones that came ... King Kong with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Ling, I think that was PG. To Live and Die in LA, that was definitely an R-rating. In the beginning, Willem Dafoe blows his head apart with a shotgun, and that was like, "Wow. This is insane." My sister, who was three years older than me, she's like, "I'm leaving. This is terrible." She left. I stayed. Then I pretended to sleep. You're fine. I'm totally fine. You happen to have this weird fixation with Emma Watson, but other than that, it's basically
Sonny00:34:40okay. You see what I'm saying, people? Do you see it? Do you understand what I'm saying?
Vic00:34:44Take it from me. Take it from me, kids. Don't watch these R-rated movies as a child. When we first got a VHS, in fact- Like in 1980 or whatever, the store said, "They gave you ... " I have no idea how much an RCA VHS cost in 1980, but you could pick two movies. It was probably 800 bucks. Yeah. Two movies for free. You get two movies. They were so nice looking in those big plastic containers. The clamshell. Yes. Huge. One was Flash Gordon, which is a cult classic. It's very kitschy, but it was great with Max von Sile.
Sonny00:35:17Was it Flash Gordon or Flesh Gordon?
Vic00:35:19Flash. Oh. Then the other one was Bruce Lee's Enter the Dream. Enter the Dragon. That was an R-rated movie, so I'm probably seeing that when I'm eight or seven. There was heroin use in that movie. There was some nudity, and Jim Kelly, the great African-American martial arts fighter, was lynched and then put in an acid bath. I'm watching this. It was awful. Anyway, I watched it like a thousand times, too. Yeah. Chuck Norris ...
Sonny00:35:46Once again, people. This is a cautionary tale.
Vic00:35:48Let me see what else. Chuck Norris and the Octagon. That's another R-rated one. There was a movie called To Kill and Kill Again, which I don't know if it was R, but we used to say, "Hey, mom and dad, can we see Kill and Kill Again again?" We used to say that all the time. Yes, JBL.
JVL00:36:00I am now looking at a story from the Chicago Tribune in 1985, which says that when the machines, those VCRs, were originally introduced in 1975, they cost between $1,000 and $1,400, and that today, this is 1985, you can find them for between $200 and $400,
Vic00:36:19so by 1980, my guess is when the doctor's family ... Yes. ... was buying their VCR, you guys probably paid literally about $800 for it. Maybe. That's insane, and it was good, and we used to tape a lot of stuff. We were able ... That's $800 in 1980 dollars? In 1980 dollars, yes. Exactly. Which is essentially probably half the cost of a car. But we ... I guess you can ... I remember the remote control was actually plugged in to the VHS, and then ... Oh, yeah. And then if you had a camcorder, then you could ... No, no, no, no, no. We started recording stuff off the TV. That's what we started doing. So, we just recorded a ton of stuff from HBO and things like that. But in any event, you were talking about babies in movies. I actually remember on ... I'd like to say a lark, but I went to see the movie Hostel, kind of on a lark, as a joke with a long-time listener, Mike Woody, and while we were there, a baby started crying in Hostel. And Hostel is a terrible movie in many ways, but I just couldn't believe it. Like, I understand, again ... Ruined Vic Matus's favorite movie. Well, I understand that, as you said, nothing about the ... The baby's not going to be traumatized. It was an infant. But what mom was like, "I need to see this movie, Hostel. I'm bringing my infant child."
Sonny00:37:35I cannot wait. I cannot wait for this to come out on DVD. Eli Roth as my Zack Snyder.
Vic00:37:42That was really disturbing. JVL, you were talking about, earlier, you had a great experience watching the movie Logan.
JVL00:37:50Tell us about that. I went to ... First of all, I went to a movie theater, which is not an everyday occurrence for me. I saw it at a ... My favorite theater chain ... We'll just leave it at that. They have a new Dolby setup with the new Dolby Atmos sound and projection system, which really is amazing. The blacks on screen are so good. The sound is astonishing.
Vic00:38:15Are the speakers on the side of the walls, like in ... Everywhere. Okay.
JVL00:38:19Everywhere. Right. There was the giant leather recliners, which was power reclining and power foot rest and assigned seating, and it was only a couple bucks more than a normal ticket. If you were going to throw away dollars on extra movie doodads, I would so much rather this than 3D. This is amazing, and so I will never see ... If I have a choice, I will never see a movie
Vic00:38:44in a regular theater again. Plus, you just said assigned seating, right? Did you just say that?
JVL00:38:47Yeah, so you can buy your ticket on your phone two hours ahead of time, and then simply walk in at the moment the movie starts, because your seat is there waiting for you.
Vic00:38:55Right, and normally I think you can wait about ... The standard is now 15 minutes for a big movie, because there's at least that much time for trailers, so you don't have to sit through ... I like trailers. I would say give me three or four good ones that I'm focused on. After a while, you get excited at first, and then afterwards it becomes numb. I remember when I lived in Vienna, they had ... That's how they did the movie theaters. They had assigned seating. I used to think, "Oh, it's kind of weird and pretentious and expensive." Of course, there are many pluses to that. When we went to see, as a family, Return of the Jedi, on basically opening weekend in 1983 or whenever, we ran into another friend of mine, Stevie Starris, and his family, and the mother's like, "Oh, great." They were in the back of the line, "Save us seats." There were six of them. Okay, now you're trying to save 10 seats for Return of the Jedi?
JVL00:39:43That's social pressure there. So do you disappoint your best friend? No.
Sonny00:39:47I would've told them to off. I would've ... Yeah, you got here. When you got here late, you can just suffer. Enjoy the front row, Steven. Have fun not sitting together. It was like ... Scatter.
Vic00:40:00It was like the Alamo, where you're fighting off ... It was like Jim Bowie in his deathbed, and the Mexicans with the bayonets coming at him, and it was awful, but we managed to
JVL00:40:09do it. I remember the re-release of Star Wars. My brother and sister and I went to the AMC. We got there three hours early. I think we were the first people in line, and that was at the time when AMC gave you the free refills on a large popcorn and a large drink, and so we just ... As soon as we got there and bought our large popcorn and large drink, we probably had four tubs of the large popcorn before the movie was over.
Vic00:40:33It was amazing. And that was when, if you got stuck on a seat on the side of the wall, you would sometimes hear the movie on the other side of the wall. Remember that?
Sonny00:40:41Yeah. I will say that the theater-going experience has really improved in the last five years or so. Yeah. I am a big believer in the big puffy ... ... reclining chairs that are being put in, and the Regals and the AMCs.
JVL00:40:54And it's all due to one theater company, which is amazingly innovative and has pioneered every single innovation there is in cinema distribution, from the multiplex, to the cup holder, to the stadium seating, to the Dolby Atmos system. There is only one company which has been at the forefront of this entire revolution. And it's ... I don't remember off the top of my head. I can't ... God, I just can't remember off the top of my head. It's probably a really good company, though.
Sonny00:41:20Yeah. But no, I mean, from the assigned seating to the ... It's an American movie company.
Vic00:41:26Oh, got it. Thank you. And it's like ... You know what it is? It's a technological renaissance. It's a return to great ... In the olden days, you hear old people talk about, "Oh, I remember the movie experience." It's with the curtains and the chandeliers and the whole thing, and places like the Avalon up on Connecticut Avenue in DC, classic places like Ziegfeld or whatever in New York. And you're not seeing the fancy, but you are seeing a technological revolution. It's a golden age right now, I think, certainly from our experience in the '80s, if you remember that, and the floor and things like that, which is gross. You were talking about Harriet Tubman, obviously, earlier in the show, and it reminded me a substandard long-time listener contacted you ... Oh, wait.
JVL00:42:10Before we move on ...
Vic00:42:11Please, please. Can we do something? What?
JVL00:42:14What do you got?
Vic00:42:15Can we very quickly rank the X-Men movies? Because one of the things I did is I was sitting looking ... We now have had nine X-Men movies,
JVL00:42:18and I think they form a nearly perfect ... Perfect bell curve, in terms of quality, with two very, very good ones, a third really pretty good one, then a little fat middle section, and then three at the bottom, which are just garbage. And I'm just curious to see whether or not you boys agreed with me.
Vic00:42:39I've only seen three of them, so I'm going to take a pass. I love the first X-Men. You and I saw three of them together. That was it, I guess. In fact, I still have the pin. Three America. Kelly? Vote for Kelly?
Sonny00:42:53Yes, vote Kelly. Vote Kelly, yeah. JBL, go ahead.
JVL00:42:56I think we were probably pretty sympathetic on this. From best to worst, The Wolverine, followed by Logan, followed by X- First Class, all of which are really very good, I think. In the middle section, Days of Future Past at number four, X-Men 2 at number five. Number six is the original X-Men, and then you get to the real drop off. The original X-Men is not great, but then you stick to really bad movies. The X-Men Origins, Wolverine, followed by Last Stand, followed by The Age of Apocalypse, which is so incompetently made.
Sonny00:43:28So bad. I can still don't understand how that movie got through quality control. No, you're right. Astonishing. I would quibble with the top. I would put Logan ahead of The Wolverine. I would put- Wrong. I would put X-2 probably ahead of Days of Future Past.
JVL00:43:48I actually went back and forth with that.
Sonny00:43:50I can see that.
JVL00:43:51I would put- X-2's a pretty good movie.
Sonny00:43:53People forget it, but it's pretty good. No, it has been totally memory-holed. Everyone on Twitter, again, in their group think, "Oh my God, this is the only X-Men movie with feelings and emotions," and I'm just like, "Do you people not actually remember X-Men 2 coming out, X-2, X-Men United, or whatever it was called, coming out?" That was, for a long time, before The Dark Knight came out, basically X-2 and Spider-Man 2 were considered the greatest comic book movies of all time. And, I think, totally reasonably. And also, X- First Class is very good, and underrated emotional heft, and the bad ones are so bad. I mean, X- Apocalypse is really, really bad. X- Origins, Wolverine, really, really, really, really bad. Last Stand, which is Brett Ratner's Last Stand, is horrible. The problem with The Last Stand, the problem I've always had with The Last Stand is that it just used so many different great storylines, and threw them in a blender- All of which could sustain their own movie. And Brett Ratner kind of peed in the blender, and then they turned on the blender, and then- X- Didn't put a top on. And it just splattered everywhere, and it was, I mean, it was frustrating on a number of levels. I liked a lot of component parts of it. I liked a lot of individual scenes, but the whole thing together was just so bad. X- Okay. There, I'm sorry. X- Oh, no, no, no, that's good.
Vic00:45:11I just wanted a ranking, because I like ranking everything. X- Yes, of course. And so, as I was mentioning, we were talking about Harriet Tubman earlier, and it reminded me a substandard loyal listener. She contacted you, JVL, and said, "What did she want us to discuss or rank?"
JVL00:45:26X- A ranking of the strong female leads in cinema. Now, the whole idea of the strong female lead is something of a pet peeve of mine, because whenever Variety does their first real reporting piece about a new project coming together in which the movie features a strong female lead, there will be some quote by the actor or actress who says, "I'm just so excited for this part because there are so few strong female leads," and that is simply not true. If you look over the film landscape, whenever you get into action adventure over the last 10 or 15 years, you find landscape littered with strong female leads. This is not a bad thing. I'm not complaining. I'm simply saying that the idea that these are these rare gems which must be treasured is Kill Bill, The Hunger Games, Terminator 2, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, La Femme Fille, The Fifth Element, The Long Kiss, Goodnight, Tomb Raider, Mad Max, Fury Road, Haywire, The Girl in the... I could just go on and on and on and on. But if we're going to rank them, I think we could do a top five pretty easily. Yeah, sure. Go for it. You first. Number five, Salt, a movie which was not written for a female lead. I really love that movie. I think it's wildly underrated. That is... Angelina Jolie is great.
Sonny00:46:42Yes, that's right. It was originally written for who? Like Tom Cruise or somebody?
JVL00:46:47Yeah, for a guy. It escalates effortlessly into... Number four, Clarice Starling. Yeah.
Vic00:46:54Mm-hmm.
JVL00:46:55Silence of the Lambs. Definitely. Number three, throw a little swerve at you, Winona Ryder in Heathers.
Vic00:47:03Ah!
JVL00:47:04She's pretty badass in Heathers. Number two, Sharon Stone, Basic Instinct. Okay, no argument. And number one is obvious, right?
Vic00:47:15Sigourney Weaver as Ripley. Okay. Pick your movie. Okay. That's the top three. And so, I don't have any objections to the ones, obviously, that you mentioned, JVL. But number three on my list was Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster. She didn't get much help from Scott Glenn, I thought. A lot of it was on her own. And as I always mention, life would have been much different for her had they had cell phones. From Sucker Punch's Scott Glenn, you mean? Yes. Yes. That one. I put Alien at number two. The Alien trilogy, I mean, it kind of gives her an unfair advantage, Ripley, because she's done a bunch. Interestingly enough, by the way, the girl in that movie, Aliens, who co-stars with Sigourney Weaver, never did a movie again. Just that one. Really? Really weird. All over IMDB. Very strange. And number one for me was Frances McDormand in Fargo. Never underestimate the pregnant sheriff with the funny, hokey, Midwestern accent. She'll solve the crime. She's great in that movie. Although, I tell you what, she's fantastic in the movie. Her expressions are great in that movie. But the funniest part for me in that movie is when she meets her old high school classmate, Mike Yonagida. Remember? They meet at the Radisson, and he's nuts. And I don't know where ... I think he might have played the role of the editor in ... The Rolling Stone editor in Almost Famous. That might be the same actor. I don't. I don't. You don't think it's the same actor? I think it is.
Sonny00:48:47Ben Fong-Torres. It might be. It might be. I don't. JBL, can you effort that for us?
Vic00:48:53I'll effort that for us. He was hilarious. And you see that movie, and it's totally unrelated to the rest of this crime, this investigation, and he's just completely unstable. And you feel bad for him, because the wife dies, he says. And he says, "I'm so lonely, Marge. I'm so lonely." And then later in the movie, she's having the conversation with her friend on the phone, and you can hear her on the other line.
Sonny00:49:16And then it's like, no, the guy made the whole thing up. He was nuts. He made it up to his parents. So we went from a discussion of strong female leads to creepy, creepy Asian man.
Vic00:49:23Which, by the way, it's a whole separate topic, Sonny, and I will rant on that later.
Sonny00:49:28Anyway, Frances McDormand at the top of my list for Fargo. Go ahead. Well, we're taping this podcast on A Day Without Women, the general strike of women. How fitting. And in honor of that, I will name none. It's A Day Without Women. It's A Day Without Strong Female Leads. Okay. Like Mia Jovovich in Resident Evil or Kate Beckinsale in the Underworld movies. It's A Day Without Women. So none of that. Okay. I'm still efforting.
Vic00:49:59Yeah, that's all right. We-
JVL00:50:03No. No. Yeah. Terry Chen is the actor that you're thinking of who played Ben Fong Torres, and he was not in Fargo. Okay. We're the all Asian men look alike.
Vic00:50:11You know, I can make ... I'm allowed to get that one wrong. Sorry. I loved him in Enter the Dragon. No, we can move on to Spirit of the Week. This is an interesting one, because we had an early Substandard taping today, so Sonny's wise suggestion is let's not get completely tanked before lunch, and so we have reverted to a little bit of Patty's blended Irish whiskey, which is the rail of Irish whiskey in coffee, and we're having Irish coffee.
Sonny00:50:40Some delicious Keurig coffee. It's Irish coffee.
Vic00:50:42Oh, man. You know, I could start my morning this way. Irish coffee.
Sonny00:50:45Yeah. I could start my morning this way. That's how you know you have a problem. The only ... That's how you know you have a problem.
Vic00:50:48You know what? The only thing missing is the whipped cream.
Sonny00:50:51Irish coffee, as Buddy Hackett would say. Well, isn't that why JBL gave you those photos?
?00:50:55Oh, my gosh.
Vic00:50:56I don't even know what to give.
?00:50:58Oh, God. Oh, my gosh.
Vic00:51:00And I'm out. I got to go. I got to go. I just got an idea. Okay. Sonny. Someone like Sonny. Sonny. Sniper. Sonny, I don't know. Well, I'd like to point out, after we were done with coffee, Sonny continued just drinking the Irish whiskey. I'd like to point that out.
Sonny00:51:23You can't shame me. Everyone knows I'm a drunk.
Vic00:51:25This is very hot in here, and I'm getting very sleepy. Corrections. JBL, do you have corrections?
JVL00:51:33Sonny, do you have any corrections from last week, or were you Mr. Perfect?
Sonny00:51:35Somebody on Twitter said that there was something to correct in the 10 Cloverfield Lane discussion, and I went and re-listened to the segment, and I have no idea what they're talking about, because it was like everything else I do, perfect.
JVL00:51:45I don't think I have anything. I don't think I have anything wrong from last week, but I have a correction for America. Okay. Last weekend, I saw a little movie from Disney Animation. It's called Moana. I'd like to tell you something. Go for it. Moana, greater sign, Hamilton. No one denies this. Regular Substandard.
Sonny00:52:14No one denies this. JBL, I am glad that you did. You made this provocation. Regular Substandard listener Comfortably Smug will be very angry to hear this. At Comfortably Smug, if you actually made it this far in the podcast. Pretty far. Moana is so great.
JVL00:52:29It is so great, and so much better than that. And Hamilton's fine, but Moana is amazing.
Vic00:52:33What about Vis-a-vis Mulan, or one of the other female-y Disney movies?
JVL00:52:39No, no, I'm speaking of Lin-Manuel Miranda. Oh, right. This is as a musical creation.
Vic00:52:45Got it, got it. In that respect.
JVL00:52:46Lin-Manuel Miranda. Over a Moana's the best. He's very talented.
Vic00:52:51Okay. The only thing I was going to say is people, we were talking about gambling movies, and there were two that came up that people said, what about? And one of them was Let It Ride with Richard Dreyfuss, and the other one was Swingers. I'd say the first, it's not a gambling movie, though, per se, but there's a terrific gambling scene in the beginning.
Sonny00:53:09I've never seen Let It Ride, so I don't know.
Vic00:53:10Yeah, same. But in Swingers, of course, it's that great where you get psyched up because you have the image of, we're going to go to Vegas. We're going to go to Vegas and just- Vegas, baby! We're going to be a baby, exactly, and we're going to just go crazy. And then he ends up at the blackjack table with four or eight chips because it was a $25 table. And he has to double down. And he has to because- No, no, no. He sits down at the $100 table.
Sonny00:53:32He sits down at the $100 table, so he puts down his $200, and he gets two chips. And then they have to double down because he gets an 11. Right.
Vic00:53:42And the $100 table has the beautiful people. That's the beautiful people table. And then the- The old lady, right? Is in the other one. Yeah, the other one. Perhaps you feel more comfortable. Perhaps you feel more comfortable at the- And that's the one where the old lady is hitting on the 17. Right. And she then gets comped. And she- Well, she- In fact, she gets a 21. I think she drew a four. In my entire life, I probably have only seen somebody hit on a 17 once or twice. And when that happens, you feel like the cameras are all on you suddenly. Like, what do you know? And I think probably the person might have done okay. It's weird. The other atrocity- I've witnessed was from my friend and gambling mentor, Peter Lowe, who would, just to amuse me, would split tens. You're sitting on a 20. But I believe we did this in a casino in Costa Rica, so it was okay. Well, hold on.
JVL00:54:33Wouldn't you split tens against a dealer showing like a four or a five?
Vic00:54:37If you got a 20, stay on the 20. Even if the dealer's showing such a bad card? That's a good question.
JVL00:54:44No, it's too much. It's all dealer dependent.
Vic00:54:46No, you would never split tens. It's a terrible idea. Sitting on a 20 no matter what. Sitting on a 20 no matter what, I think. I think that the card that he drew, in fact, if I remember this, because I remember all of my gambling experiences, was another face card, and then he had three hands, and I think he won two out of the three, but that's too much for me to handle. I think I had a, I went into cardiac arrest. That was too much. Okay. I would split tens against a weak dealer card. All right.
?00:55:10Okay.
Vic00:55:11I believe that- Moana, greater sign Hamilton. Thank you, JVL. I believe that is all the time we're giving you. 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 podcasts. We're there. Leave a review. Give us some stars. Tell your friends. Don't forget, Substandard show notes will be up on Friday at 11 a.m. at weeklystandard.com. Until next time.
Sonny00:55:47So, one thing that did happen this week that was kind of funny. Yes, Sonny. I had a very amusing interaction with Amazon. Amazon is my favorite company in the entire world, and this is not even close. Where would we be without them? Where would we be without them? I would be much more unhappy than I am right now, and I'm pretty unhappy, as you know. But it was very funny. I ordered a spray can of goof-off because I bumped into a column when I was trying to park my car, like an old woman. And I need to... I needed to get some transfer paint off. So, I order this, and I open up the box, and it's got the cannon, and then there's something else in there. I'm like, oh, what else did they send me? And I unwrap it, and it's a bottle of Calvin Klein's Obsession. And I'm like, wait, did I order a bottle? I do a lot of weird things. I drink a lot, so maybe I accidentally had it in my shopping cart, and I went and looked. No, I didn't pay for it, so I pull up the Amazon app on my phone, and I get to help people, and I'm like, hey. Why did you send me this? They said, well, we didn't mean to. We'll send you a return label. You can send it back. I was like, okay, because it's not 1997.
Vic00:56:56Was the box stamped 1997?
Sonny00:56:58I'm not a 14-year-old. I don't need this next to my Jacquard Noir. It's like I have no use for this, and I feel like I can earn some goodwill with my overlords at Amazon by sending this thing back to them. So, I wait a few minutes to get the packing slip, and they don't send one. And what? So, I send them another text, chat, whatever. And they're like, oh, we actually can't accept returns on these products. I guess colognes. So, it's yours to keep, or donate, or re-gift. I was like, all right. So, in Sonny Bunch's bathroom in Alexandria, Virginia, it is 1997 all over again, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to start bathing in this.
Vic00:57:43You should start bathing in that.
Sonny00:57:44You are not going to enjoy the smell. Of the podcast room next week.
JVL00:57:49Right next to your green bottle of polo. Or, for the person who leaves us our 100th review, their prize can be.
Guest00:57:58You know, we were just discussing this.
Sonny00:58:00I don't know if this is a good idea. I don't know if I want to have that much interaction, frankly, with our many valued listeners. I like people. No, you don't. Sure, I do. You hate people.
Vic00:58:11Can I just say that I'm still waiting for that to happen with Amazon, where I get my Amazon book order, and it comes with... With, like, a life-size, realistic doll made in Japan. Like, how come that hasn't happened to me? Just waiting for that.
JVL00:58:23I like... An Emma Watson doll. I like to picture Jeff Bezos sitting in an office with a giant, wall-sized computer monitor, and streams of data coming down it, Matrix-style. Like the Matrix. Yes. And one of them, he goes, Oh, Sonny Bunch offered to return it when we sent it to him by accident. Good. And then making a checkmark by your account. Like Santa Claus. Yeah, basically.
Sonny00:58:48That's how I imagine Amazon. Just Jeff Bezos being like, He's a good user. Good Bunch. He's a good user.
Vic00:58:54Oh, and he's a weekend columnist at my newspaper. Two checkmarks.
Sonny00:58:59Well, I assumed if I didn't offer to return it, they would take it away from me. This wasn't entirely altruistic on my part, anyway.
JVL00:59:05So, Vic, how'd you like your present? I don't even know where it is. I lost it. Is it pretty good?
Vic00:59:13I can't wait to get to work on it. Thank you. Lots of coloring. I can't wait to be done. Thank you.
JVL00:59:23I'm setting you up here. How is it, Vic? How is it?
Vic00:59:27That's not my line.
JVL00:59:27That's your line. I'm not taking your line. What do you think, JVL? Will your wife be okay with this?
Vic00:59:32I'm sure it's fine.
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