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#20. The Substandard Goes Ape!
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Dudes Chatting — monster rankings: The main segment has the hosts debating the greatest movie monsters of all time, sparked by excitement over the Atomic Blonde trailer and Kong: Skull Island's box office dominance. JVL builds his pantheon methodically: Gojira (the 1954 original) at #1 for its emotional weight and nuclear allegory, King Ghidorah at #2, and a tie between Super Mecha-Godzilla and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man at #3. Vic champions Mothra, arguing for the monster's operatic absurdity, while Sonny goes off-script entirely by nominating the Jaegers from Pacific Rim and the last of the Elemental Giants from Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, insisting giant robots built to fight monsters deserve a spot. The discussion spirals into a warm nostalgia detour through Ultraman and Star Blazers, with all three hosts swapping memories of Saturday-morning genre TV.
Reviews: Sonny and JVL both reviewed Kong: Skull Island and landed in roughly the same place — mediocre, watchable, not embarrassing, but nothing to get excited about. The monster spectacle is fine; everything in between is not.
Box Office: Kong: Skull Island dominated the weekend.
The episode includes a Corrections segment and closes with the Spirit of the Week: Layer Cake Cabernet Sauvignon.
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hi, this is Bill Kristol. You're listening to The Substandard Podcast. I have absolutely no idea why.
Guest00:00:30Let them fight.
Vic00:01:00Podcasts posted by Jonathan Last are available every Friday at 11 a.m. at weeklystandard.com. Gentlemen, how are we? Sonny, how are you? How was your weekend?
Sonny00:01:10I'm great. My weekend was fine. It was very cold, and it's going to be even worse as the days go along. Yes. As we slowly succumb to death. No, it was great. It was a good weekend. I had fun, hung out with the family, etc., etc. JBL, how was your weekend? On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is the Brooklyn Brawler and 10 is Hulk Hogan, I am Brutus the Barber Beefcake. So that's like, what, a 6? Eh, 4.5. 4.5. Okay.
Vic00:01:41Well, I just wanted to thank you again, JBL, for that lovely Beauty and the Beast book that you gave me. Sadly, it's already wrinkled. The pages, I mean.
JVL00:01:51Did it get much use? You know, we had a bunch of listeners on Twitter who were asking this weekend what you were doing on a Saturday night.
Vic00:01:57That was inappropriate. That was inappropriate. But you know what? This is really awful. What did I watch? I watched that movie on FX about, it's called Feud, about Bette Midler and Joan Crawford. It's a TV show. It's not a movie. Yes. Oh, sorry. I've been, it's kind of a, I guess it's going to go on for a week. What surprised me about it is, you know, because it's, you know, they said, you know, it's TVMA for, you know, language, and it's just F-bombs now. So that's like, okay now. The C, Stanley Tucci dropped the C word. Say that on FX now.
Sonny00:02:28FX has, FX made the leap. It was during the OJ show, the OJ docu, or, you know, docudrama show that they did. They basically, I think like four or five times dropped the F-bomb, and they have continued this into their other shows.
Vic00:02:44This was like, this was like. It's just okay now. But this was like Goodfellas level, you know, not really, but in Feud. And again, Stanley Tucci dropped the C word.
JVL00:02:52So is basic cable not governed by the same FCC regs? Nope. So it's always been a sellout. It's always been a self-imposed. See, not having grown up without cable. Yeah, yeah. The entire cable universe is kind of a mystery to me. That is astonishing. Basic cable always used to kind of. Almost as astonishing as the fact that you, Victorino, were watching this. Yeah, why were you watching Feud?
Vic00:03:11My wife was just curious, and I just happened to be there.
Sonny00:03:15You were bi-curious about it?
Vic00:03:16Do you have to be to watch that? Is that what you're saying? Is there something wrong that I watched Bobby Dearest as a child?
Sonny00:03:22Okay.
Vic00:03:22It was on HBO.
Sonny00:03:24We're really getting into the Vic Mattis psychology.
Vic00:03:27I watched everything. Okay, what we were talking about earlier is there is a trailer out, a red band trailer, no less, for a movie called Atomic Blonde. Sonny, can you explain what's happening here?
Sonny00:03:43So, Atomic Blonde is basically a movie star. I have no idea what it's actually about except for what's in the trailer. So, you could go watch the trailer right now, readers, listeners, and you will experience the joy that is Atomic Blonde. Atomic Blonde, but it's basically... The trailer will be in the show notes, Sonny, so people don't have to sort it.
Vic00:04:01Plus, there's the variety review, right? Yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:04:04So, Charlize Theron is an assassin spy, something or other, who spends the first minute of the red band trailer beating up two guys, which is kind of funny. I mean, it's always kind of funny to watch a 90-pound woman take on two full-grown men, but it is also incredibly entertaining. And the rest of the trailer is just kind of about her being, you know, super spy, trying to take people out, et cetera, et cetera. It's basically hot lesbian John Wick. That's how I described it on Twitter, and I think it's pretty accurate, frankly. I think it's a good description of the movie, and I am really excited for this movie. JVL, how do you feel about Charlize Theron as hot lesbian John Wick?
JVL00:04:48Frankly, when I saw John Wick, I remember thinking to myself, the only way this could be improved is if it had... It had hot lesbians in it, and this movie, Atomic Blonde, seems to have hot lesbians, at least two of them, in it.
Sonny00:05:04She could just be pretending to be a lesbian, as a super spy, or whatever she is. She could be just trying to seduce a source.
JVL00:05:16That's fine.
Sonny00:05:16We should be very clear on this. Well, we'll know soon.
JVL00:05:19This is based on a graphic novel called The Coldest City. It's about pre-war Berlin, like right before... No, I'm sorry, not pre-war. Pre-end of the Cold War. Right, it's 1989 Berlin. Right as the wall is about to fall. And I don't know. You know, I've never really liked Charlize Theron as an actress. She doesn't bother me. I guess the only thing I hold against her is her six-episode turn in Arrested Development, which I think are the only six bad episodes in that show. Wow, really? They're not bad, but they are... Mr. F.
Sonny00:05:52Mr. F.
JVL00:05:53Yes, those are... Kind of a distraction.
Sonny00:05:54I'm surprised. I'm actually... I sent you... I actually sent you the link to the trailer with the subject line, Mr. F. I know. In the hopes that that would be a common touchstone that we could share, because you love Arrested Development. You love Arrested Development more than anything in the whole world. True.
JVL00:06:11Fact check, true. Yeah.
Sonny00:06:12I love Arrested Development. And I was shocked. I am shocked to hear right now, for the first time, that you don't like Charlize Theron's turn.
JVL00:06:18I don't. There's some other fun things happening during that six-episode arc, but in general, her arc is the weakest.
Sonny00:06:25The weakest part. You don't like Little England.
JVL00:06:27With the Mary Poppins. And the only good thing that's happening during that arc is you get maybe some of the best maybe Funke stuff at the movie studio, where she is filming the young man in the sea and turning it into the tunnel of love, actually. And there's a lot of great Les Cousins Dangerous, which is... Any listeners out there, the one thing my office here is full of movie posters. The poster I don't have is for the fake movie, Arrested Development, called Les Cousins Dangerous, and I'm dying to have that. I don't even know if it exists, but if somebody out there has seen it, please send me an email, because I would like to own that.
Vic00:07:07I think it's really interesting. I read part of that review in Variety. The review of the trailer.
JVL00:07:13No, no, it's a review of the movie. Oh, a review of the movie.
Vic00:07:16It premiered at South by Southwest this weekend. Oh, oh, yeah. And yet we have to wait until summer to see this thing. Right, so that's kind of weird.
JVL00:07:22You have to be in Austin.
Vic00:07:23You have to be in Austin. It does take place. It's 1989 Berlin, so my other thought was that this is like The Lives of Others meets John Wick meets Mulholland Drive, basically. That's pretty good.
Sonny00:07:35That was probably the pitch to the studio.
Vic00:07:38But it's kind of been done before, like La Femme Nikita with Bridget Fonda, right?
Sonny00:07:43Well, this goes back to our conversation last week about strong female leads. That's right. There's a whole kind of genre of this movie.
JVL00:07:52This is David Leitch, right, Sonny? The same director of John Wick? John Wick and John Wick 2 is directed this as well. Yeah, that sounds right. I don't know.
Sonny00:07:59I really didn't do any research on this except for watching the trailer, which was awesome.
JVL00:08:03How many times? Out of curiosity.
Sonny00:08:05I watched that. Let's see. It debuted on Friday, and I had had a drink or two, and I just went back to my office and put it on a loop. So your personal YouTube count on that is probably 27? I would say it's probably closer to like five or six. Five or six.
JVL00:08:23Let's not get crazy. I like to think that. I think David Leitch might be like the Zack Snyder of gun-fu cinema.
Sonny00:08:31Well, I mean, Zack Snyder is the Zack Snyder of gun-fu cinema. In the renowned classic Sucker Punch, you know, which has some of the best staged fight scenes of any movie in cinema history, we've seen better work. So my question, though, really for you, both of you, feel free to jump in, either one, is where do we go in the kind of John Wick but X universe? I mean, obviously, we have hot lesbian John Wick or pop culture. Possibly hot bi John Wick. And then we have, we need like a stoic black man John Wick.
Vic00:09:01Well, yeah, that would be Luke Cage.
Sonny00:09:03Yeah. And then my personal, I'm personally looking forward to dangerous furry John Wick. You know, the guy who dresses up in the furry costume and he goes around murdering people with his, you know, his grimace head off or whatever. What are you guys looking forward to in this line? Schlubby middle-aged John Wick.
JVL00:09:23Schlubby middle-aged John Wick. Paul Giamatti. Yes. That's Paul Giamatti John Wick. So one of my underrated sort of cult favorites, if we still had a class of TNT movies, like movies that were on, I would say Three Days to Kill, which is an overlooked Kevin Costner movie. Have you guys seen this? No. He is an ex-CIA assassin who has been diagnosed with some horrible terminal disease who is going to, he was living in Paris to sort of live out his final weeks. His ex-wife is in Paris with his teenager. His teenage daughter. And Julianne, is it Hoffa? Who's the one who divorced Johnny Depp? The one that divorced? The girl who just divorced Johnny Depp. I brought the whole story. It doesn't matter. The very attractive blonde who has recently divorced from Johnny Depp approaches him and says, I work for a syndicate. We can cure you, but we need you to assassinate this list of people over the next three days.
Sonny00:10:20And the movie then swerves from being.
JVL00:10:24Amber Heard. Amber Heard, thank you. It's produced by Luc Besson. And so like all Luc Besson, it swerves from being pure action to being like really, really good father teenage daughter comedy to also being middle aged dad revenge fantasy of what you would do to the boys who are tormenting your teenage daughter. And the whole thing, it's again, this is not classic cinema, but if you just have 90 minutes as opposed to three days to kill, do that. And so this is that's like the middle. Age dad version of John Wick. Taken is great. Taken is. But but with an aspect of funny thrown into it.
Sonny00:11:03It's really taken was hilarious. Like when they were electrocuting that guy, when they were torturing him with the electrical. That was great. So there's a scene.
JVL00:11:10There's a scene where Kevin Costner has come back to Paris for the first time and he has a flat there, which he's kept, but he has not been there in like 10 years. And he goes to his apartment and there is an immigrant family living in it. And so he goes to the police department to say, I need you to evict these people. And the French police. Just laugh at him. They say, oh, they are squatters rise, Monsieur Americano. You know, you cannot. These people live there. It does not matter whether you own it or not. And they literally tell explain to him that it would be at least 10 years before he had any chance of even possibly getting these people out. And his best option was just to learn to live with them. And so Kevin Costner goes back with this like nice Algerian immigrant family and basically learns to live with them. But it's hysterical. It's all done. Very funny. He doesn't just kill them to get them out.
Vic00:11:55That's what I thought. I thought you were going to say. I thought they were going to be like guys flying out of windows. And then there was a fire. He just learns to live with them. And then there was an apartment building fire. I thought you were going to say that. It's great. Okay. All right. Three days to kill. Great, great. I would like to see sort of like a combination of John Wick meets My Father the Hero or, you know, the movie. So basically exactly what I just said. Yeah, with Katherine Heigl. Right, right.
Sonny00:12:18And Gerard Depardieu. Yes. Great movie. You just want a young Katherine Heigl.
Vic00:12:21I saw, you know what I saw. You just want a creepily young.
Sonny00:12:25When I was in. When I was in Vienna, that was called Daddy Cool. That was the name of the movie. Okay. Daddy Cool. You want like a 16-year-old Katherine Heigl in a movie. That's what you want.
JVL00:12:32I thought she was 18. What about middle-aged magazine editor John Wick with a really attractive 18-year-old daughter who does wizardry?
Vic00:12:46Daughter?
JVL00:12:47This is getting crazy now.
Vic00:12:48Daughter's best friend. Thank you. 18-year-old intern. Thank you. Thank you. No comment. I was going to say. Do you have other thoughts on Atomic Blonde?
Sonny00:13:00Yeah. I have a lot of thoughts on Atomic Blonde.
JVL00:13:02You know what? I went and ordered the comic book this morning, and I will look forward to reading that when it gets here in 24 hours. Thank you, Jeff Bezos.
Vic00:13:12It's using Stasi, East German agents, as the villain is underused in most action movies. I think we either go through Nazis or we go through Russians or sort of. Pseudo-German terrorists like in Die Hard 2, or 3, rather, 3. So this should be interesting, and I'm happy to see that happen. I was going to say, I don't doubt that Charlize Theron can play a badass. Remember, she played, remember her role in Monster. Speaking of Monster. That's a great segue. That's a good one. That's a good transition. That is a nice segue. Thank you. I worked on that one. Kong Skull Island. Kong Skull Island. Hit theaters this past week. It dominated the box office. Terrorized.
Sonny00:14:00It was a monster at the box office. It clawed its way.
Vic00:14:06Sonny, Jonathan, you both saw it. Did you not? I did. Okay, well, Jonathan, you want to tell us what you thought of the movie.
Sonny00:14:14I did not see this.
JVL00:14:15Jonathan, why don't you take my stick? No, please, Sonny, this is your job. You're the professional reviewer. No, that's okay. You should describe it. I do the catchphrase. You do the movie reviewing.
Sonny00:14:25Kong Skull Island is a movie about King Kong.
Vic00:14:31Okay. Spoiler alert. Sorry, guys. Sorry.
Sonny00:14:33No, so it starts in the World War II somewhere over the Pacific, and you have this kind of dog, what we assume was a dog fight, end with a crash into the beach, and then you have an American soldier trying to fight a Japanese soldier, hand to hand, gun to gun, sword to hand, until King Kong puts an end to it, because King Kong in this movie is the peacemaker and we learn this in the 1970s when John Goodman tries to lead an expedition back to the island because he wants to confirm his hollow earth thesis that the world is filled with monsters and that they still roam the earth, and they go to Skull Island, which they proceed to drop a bunch of bombs on to measure the, use the sonar waves to measure what's going on under the ground. They find out it's hollow, but also King Kong does not like this, so he kills a bunch of American troops. It's led by Samuel L. Jackson, a kind of crazed Colonel Kurtz-style figure who then needs to get revenge for his men, blah, blah, blah. Long story short, the American military is terrible. We create all of our own enemies, and John C. Reilly carries the film as the grown version of the American pilot who crashed decades before. As he has often done. As he has often done. No, I would say the only thing that really makes this movie worthwhile. Watching is John C. Reilly's kind of comic crazy turn. What do you say, JBL?
JVL00:16:02Has John C. Reilly ever been bad in any movie ever? Because I can't think of a time. I think John C. Reilly is like excitement in a bottle. You put him into a movie, and he's just good. He makes everything better.
Vic00:16:17Even bad movies, he makes them better. I would say don't see Casualties of War. He was terrible in that, but I don't mean terrible acting. It's just an art. It's just an awful role. That's the one with Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn. God, he was in that?
JVL00:16:29Yes.
Sonny00:16:30That one came out in like 87, 88, something like that?
JVL00:16:32Yeah. So I did not love this movie. I did not hate it. I mean, so when you're doing kaiju movies, which is what they say, right? There's a whole genre of Japanese-style big monster movies.
Vic00:16:45Thank you, because again, I didn't know what kaiju was. I was looking up some crazy Japanese movies on the internet. Okay, go ahead.
JVL00:16:52Careful Victorino. I thought it was like a giant octopus monster. Sorry, go ahead. Muto. So I did not realize this, Sonny, until you told me. But the only reason this movie exists is because two corporate entities, everything is about intellectual property, right? Warner Brothers and Legendary Entertainment have acquired the rights to a whole bunch of these kaiju characters, which is why we had the 2014 reboot of Godzilla, directed by Gareth Edwards, right? Yes. Which I liked, but didn't love. But it was clever and interesting.
Vic00:17:31Rogue One Gareth Edwards. Yes.
JVL00:17:35Yes? Jurassic World Gareth Edwards? Yeah. Rogue One Monster Gareth Edwards. And we now have this King Kong. We have coming in 2019, Godzilla King of Monsters, and then coming in 2020, Godzilla vs. King Kong. And The Legendary has self-proclaimed that this is... This is the monster-verse.
Sonny00:17:57The monster cinematic universe.
JVL00:17:59The universe of monsters. And I have to say that I kind of dig that. I don't... I... Because this is not hyper-reality. This is not like the Dark Knight of monster stuff. What they've tried to do is they don't have a guy in a rubber suit doing the monstering anymore. But there is still a playful aspect to these are monster movies. They're not taking it too seriously. And they're looking to make interesting cinematic entertainment product. Which I'm in favor of.
Sonny00:18:26Right, right. So my problem with Kong Skull Island was that they didn't go far enough with the let's have fun with it and let's just be kind of crazy. And, like, they tried to make it this whole Vietnam War allegory. And, you know, Brie Larson, who recently won an Oscar, is just this blank-eyed nothing of a photographer. Who is saddled with some of the worst lines. For instance, when somebody describes her as a war photographer, she... She corrects him and says, actually, I'm an anti-war photographer. Anti-war photographer. And it's just so smug and annoying and really kind of terrible. And so this is my problem with it, is that it has this kind of... It has a very kind of pretentious intellectual thing behind it, I think. I think you are possibly reading into things that may not be there. I do. Go read some of the interviews with the director and all of the reviews talk about how political it is.
JVL00:19:31So I came out of it thinking that there are too many characters that the movie is really ill-served by having... Totally. No kidding, nine or ten people that you're supposed to keep track of on three different missions. And you don't need that. The only reason Brie Larson is in there is because they need somebody in the Fay Wray part. They need an unattractive blonde. That Kong likes, because you need that beat in a King Kong movie. But otherwise, she doesn't have any reason to be there.
Sonny00:19:59And really, that's a terrible reason for her to be there, JBL. I think she's just so... The whole role makes no sense. It's totally wasted. And again, the only reason she is there is to really hammer home the subtext. We can't have subtext anymore. It all has to be text.
JVL00:20:15Tom Hiddleston not doing his best. Wasted. I love Tom Hiddleston. Totally wasted. Tom Hiddleston, you can see him picking up his check. Yeah, no, it's not... It's not great. There are things to like about it.
Sonny00:20:27Even John Goodman, I think, is wasted in this movie.
JVL00:20:30Skinny John Goodman.
Vic00:20:32He's not meant to be skinny. Having not seen this, is there any connection to the Peter Jackson King Kong? No, no, no. There's no continuation whatsoever? No.
Sonny00:20:41The Peter Jackson King Kong is the... Yeah, tell me about that, Sonny. How much did you like it? It's terrible. It's a terrible movie. It's about two hours too long, and it's only three hours long. But the Peter Jackson King Kong is basically the... It's the Garfield Spider-Man of King Kong movies. It's been erased from memory. It is not part of continuity anymore. None of them are continuity. Right. Well, right. This is a new King Kong.
JVL00:21:06Forever, right? We've had eight King Kong movies. Wow. The first two in 1933, King Kong and Seven King Kong, are in continuity. Then you have nothing until the 1976 reboot with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange. Then there's another reboot in 1986. And then you have, sprinkled in it, you have, again, the intellectual property moments where you have King Kong versus Godzilla and King Kong Escapes, which is where he goes against Mecha King Kong. Mecha King Kong. One of my favorite.
Vic00:21:38So, like, the gorilla equivalent of Mecha Godzilla? Yes, exactly. There's a Mecha King Kong. This is Mecha Godzilla. Who built Mecha King Kong?
JVL00:21:44Do you know there's a Super Mecha Godzilla? Oh, wow. Where there were two Mechas, which combined then to form a Super Mecha.
Vic00:21:51A Super Mecha? No, I didn't know that. Yeah.
Sonny00:21:53Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Can we... Can we just drill down into this for one second? How do two Godzillas combine into a larger Godzilla?
JVL00:22:02One is, I believe, a form of a Mecha Rodan. And so we have a Mecha Rodan and a Mecha Godzilla, and they combine Voltron-style, not the Lion Voltron-style, but the good spaceship Voltron-style.
Vic00:22:15Somebody is not the leg.
JVL00:22:17Yeah. Right. And turning to Mecha Godzilla. So can I shift us for a moment into something that... Well, first of all, can we... Can we do one brief moment about the origin of King Kong's? Sure. Do you guys know about this? No. So King Kong is directed by Marion Cooper, who is this guy who was director back in
Sonny00:22:34You're talking about the original. The original.
JVL00:22:37Who is obsessed with gorillas and apes. Obsessed with them. And he directed a couple features and was sitting around thinking about it, and he wanted to do something with gorillas and apes. Didn't quite know what he wanted to do, and he was up in New York looking at one of the big skyscrapers, I believe it was the Timeline Building, and thought, what if there was a giant ape? And he was up on that building, and there were airplanes shooting at him. And he went from that backwards. Reverse-engineered. He literally reverse-engineered the movie. He decided, I want a movie that ends with a giant gorilla on top of a skyscraper, swatting at airplanes, and then I'll figure out the rest of the story. What do I need to get there? And ordinarily, we would say about filmmaking, that this is the single worst possible way to create a piece of art. But in this case, the image he had was so powerful that it has endured for 90 years. That's really interesting and kind of cool. That said, there is an aspect of the comparison that's totally, I was obsessed with it all through this movie, which is the scale of King Kong. Because at first, I noticed that the King Kong that they were presenting was noticeably larger than the original King Kong. So the original King Kong, when you go back and look at this, I was just thinking about the size of it.
Sonny00:23:55You're talking about the Kong in Kong Skull Island.
JVL00:23:58Yes. It's much larger than the Kong of the original King Kong or any of the previous ones. And so I was just thinking about this. Okay, so how big was the monkey when he was on top of the Empire Stable? And you go back and look, and he was originally shot as being 42 feet when he was on Skull Island. It was in the original movie. And then they grew him to 52 feet just to increase scale once he hit New York. This King Kong is noticeably larger. When I say noticeably, I mean like 300 feet tall as opposed to 50 feet tall, which is just enormous. And even worse, his scale shifts throughout the movie. There are scenes where, for instance, when Brie Larson is giving him his kiss, where you look and see, so Brie Larson is in that scene about three Brie Larsons would give you the head of Kong, which then if you extrapolate out would mean that King Kong was really only like 75 feet tall. But then you see... You see him again and he's towering over helicopters and is using like 70-foot helicopters as though they're the size of his hand.
Vic00:25:01And then he threw the moon down at the helicopter. So I come home from this.
JVL00:25:05I literally... This was the... It was, to me, so distracting. It was the only thing I could think of throughout the entire movie. And so I go looking to the intertubes about this. And it turns out this is a thing. And it is a corporate thing. Collier Reporter had a long story about this. Because they, Legendary and Warner Brothers, were damned and determined... to do Godzilla vs. King Kong. But Godzilla is 350 feet tall. And so they have had giant corporate back and forth over how big they need to make King Kong so that Godzilla can't simply pick him up between his thumb and forefinger and swallow him. And they knew this was a problem because King Kong has never been the size of... They've made him the size of the Empire State Building almost. And so, yes, this drove me to distraction. And I will put this in show notes. There are a couple monster movie obsessions. out there who've created the definitive movie monster size charts with all of the movie monsters and their relative sizes between them. And it's hysterical. That's great.
Vic00:26:05I'm glad, having listened to your reviews, that I did not see Kongskull Island. But I feel like I've seen it anyway because I went on that ride in Universal.
JVL00:26:14Oh, that's right. They already had the ride.
Vic00:26:16They already had the ride. Was the ride good? The ride is great. It's insane. I mean, you get on it. I mean, they spent a ton. It's like the Jurassic Park ride on steroids. So, you know, you get on. The lines must be insane, like an hour long. We went at a time where we just cruised right through. And, in fact— Did you have a fast pass? Yes. You've got to have the fast pass. And if you stay at one of the hotels on premise, you get a free fast pass. So, we went right through. In Disney, you get to wear it on your wrist, so it's very easy. Here, you're looking around for—they look like raffle tickets. It's kind of annoying. JBL, it's interesting that the rich doctor's kid has all the fast passes. Sonny, I was just thinking that myself. That's how we travel, in style. However, when we were kids, with my parents, you know, there was no fast. You just had to wait. Oh, yeah, two rides is fine, because it's going to take three hours, you know, long. And you park at the parking lot. Aren't you glad you don't have to live like a pleb now? Oh, my gosh. It's wonderful. So, we went through. And, you know, you're going through these areas where they clearly have designed for, like, lots of people to stand in forever. So, there's things to keep you busy. And, at some point, because there's nobody there, we actually got lost on the line because there's nobody there. And it's so dark and scary. And, you know, you finally get on this—and, basically, you take a— it's a bus that goes through the jungle. And you're riding, and you have to put 3D goggles on. So, already, for me, this is insane. I have a question. Is this an off-track ride?
Sonny00:27:34Is there somebody, like, driving the bus? Or is it, like, on a— No, there's a track. It's, like, on a trolley. There's a trolley. Yes.
Vic00:27:40And it's partly, you know, it's partly you go through this, you know, jungle. I mean, you actually go through those giant gates, you know, to get to— Indoors or outdoors?
JVL00:27:50Outdoors and then indoors.
?00:27:52Oh.
Vic00:27:53Yes. So, you go inside. And it's— It's, in fact, a giant sort of IMAX screen, but with the 3D effect. And then these giant, you know, tentacles come out and shoot water at you. And it's in my face. It was insane. And Kong is fighting against dinosaurs and giant centipedes. I don't suppose there were giant centipedes in the movie? There were not. Dinosaurs? No.
Sonny00:28:14Wow. Well, there were, like, kind of lizard things. The skull crawlers.
Vic00:28:17Was this— But this was a— Obviously, it has to be universal because it's Kong Skull Island. No, Warner Brothers. They licensed it. Really? Yeah. Wow. So, the name— Yeah, because the name— The name of the ride is Kong Skull Island. And then you get through there, and I feel like I have whiplash, and then you just move on. But the bulk of the trip—the bulk of the ride is where the bus stops inside a theater, and then Kong is fighting against some giant lizard or something, and it's swinging the bus back and forth. And it's— That's pretty great. It's pretty intense. So, anyway, I'm glad I skipped the movie version of that.
JVL00:28:46But we were talking about just great monster movies in general.
Vic00:28:51Can I— Yeah. Can I stop and say before we go? Please. No, no, no. The one thing—
JVL00:28:54I feel like I've been too long. I feel like I've been too negative about this movie. I really do appreciate the world-building that they're trying to do. The opening credit sequence for both Godzilla and for King Kong are really great. They are newsreel-ish catch-ups to things dating all the way back to before World War II, where you're getting glimpses of the mythology that they have set in place. And you have Project Monarch, which is this secretive government organization dedicated to the exploration of Mutos, which are massive, unknown monsters. Unknown terrestrial organisms. And that whole thing, I just, I'm into it. And if it could even, it doesn't even need to get better than the quality of the first Godzilla, the 2014 Godzilla. If they can match that quality with these movies, I'm fully in.
Sonny00:29:40I resent all of this. I resent all of this trying to build a shared universe that they're force-feeding to all of us slack-jawed yokels who need two hours of entertainment. Force-fed down our throat like a tube. They put it in, they shove it in there, and it's just awful. I don't, I hate this. I hate this almost as much as the horror, the hammer shared universe that they're trying to create with the mummy and Dr. Frankenstein and all of that, which is, we can talk about that later, I guess. But it's, everything has to be a shared universe now. Nothing can just be, here's a movie.
JVL00:30:24There's a movie, except that this is the tradition of the kaiju movies. I mean, if you go back and look at the list of movies from Japan, Honda was the producer who did all these. That's what all these were. They were sequels upon sequels, layered with characters from other movies. They were all connected as well. They're all connected, and they even had bizarro continuity, where, oh, well, Godzilla has been affected by Rodan's radioactive ray breath, and so he now has son of Godzilla, and blah, blah, blah. And so, in a way, that's, it's all in keeping with what it is, and I'm fine with it. So, JVL, when you were, go ahead, Sonny.
Sonny00:30:57Yeah, but those movies are all low-budget crap, and we've always kind of accepted they're low-budget crap. We don't need the $200 million Godzilla movie, followed by the $200 million King Kong movie, followed by the $300 million Godzilla vs. King Kong movie.
Vic00:31:16Well, people are going to see it.
Sonny00:31:17Are they? I mean, this movie did okay. It did $61 million at the box office, but that's basically, that's markedly lower than the Godzilla. The Godzilla movie did in its debut, it's $20 million off that, and I really would be kind of surprised if this is a viable, and frankly, I hope they all fail.
JVL00:31:35I hope they fail. Well, so the global grosses are much higher, right? It made a lot more overseas. The economics of this, I think, are probably geared towards international audiences much more than American audiences. It's aimed at Japan and China. And that is, again, for me, I grew up watching these things on UHF channels. Yes, you know what I was going to say to you, JVL? I love Ultraman.
Vic00:31:58Do you remember Ultraman? Of course I remember Ultraman. I remember growing up, it would be Saturdays and Sundays, ready? Channel 17.
Sonny00:32:04Yes!
Vic00:32:06Or Channel 29.
JVL00:32:07Oh, yes, I love 29.
Vic00:32:08The two UHF channels we had, 17 and 29. 29, I believe, was Star Blazers at 17. Yes! That would have been Battle of the Planets. Okay, totally geeking out.
Sonny00:32:17Goddamn New Jersey nerds.
Vic00:32:19But yeah, that's all the Godzilla movies. Godzilla vs. Mothra, or Mechagodzilla. Mechagodzilla, or Rodan, or whoever, Godzuki, the little baby Godzilla. That was all, for me, I think, Channel 17 on like a Sunday afternoon.
JVL00:32:34That's totally, in fact, I remember striking the bargain to take a nap on a very specific Saturday afternoon to stay up to see the broadcast of Godzilla vs. King Kong. Oh, wow. Which didn't, it had like a 7 p.m. start time. Yeah, it was crazy. And I stayed up for it, and I was team Godzilla as a kid. I always didn't like King Kong at all. No, I think I was with Godzilla as well. Even though I should have been for the mammal. And then Rampage. Remember Rampage, the video game of our youth? Where you get to choose as the wolfman. Nobody wanted to be the wolfman. Everybody would want to be Godzilla or King Kong. Yeah, that's right. Not actually named Godzilla or King Kong because the midway did not have the rights to those
Vic00:33:08characters. Sonny, did you grow up at all watching those kind of shows?
Sonny00:33:14No, I didn't particularly care for those movies, which is, I think, one of the reasons why I don't actually care for Godzilla or King Kong. Like, none of this does anything for me. Sonny was watching Truffaut, was he?
JVL00:33:24He was a young man with his patches, elbow patches, and his beard.
Sonny00:33:29When are we going to have our 400 blows cinematic universe? When am I going to get my Antonioni cinematic universe?
JVL00:33:37I know, but you love Antonioni, Sonny. Where La Ventura and Blow Up exist in the same plane. Do you know who we have to have in as a special guest for that episode? I do. Fred the Beetle Barnes. Fred Barnes.
Vic00:33:47Fred Barnes knows all of the French New Wave cinema. Yep, he did. That was his time, as he says. He also loved... He told me he also loved Quentin Tarantino's Jack... Jackie Brown? Jackie Brown, yeah.
JVL00:34:01Yeah, he loved Jackie Brown.
Vic00:34:02He said, oh, Barbara and I saw that. It was great. That was our time. I love that movie. So he loves Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown.
Sonny00:34:08All men of wealth and taste love Jackie Brown.
Vic00:34:09Yes, but you know what? It's a great movie. There was a show on JVL when we were kids also called Space Giants. Did you ever see that one? I was really young. I was about four.
JVL00:34:18I don't think so.
Vic00:34:19And it was also made in Japan. You can find it on YouTube. It's ridiculous looking. So they just cast these actors and then have miniatures of model cities. So it's kind of like Power Rangers? Yeah, they came from outer space. Like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Yes, and it's like Goldar, Sylvar, Rodak. If there's any listeners, it's weird, isn't it? The names are vague. It vaguely rings a bell with a lot of people. If you are out there and you are also Space Giants fans, let me know.
JVL00:34:48So how close were they to Ultraman? Because if you remember Ultraman, Ultraman could cross his arms to shoot. Energy blasts. But he could only remain giant for three minutes because of the poison atmosphere. And so you'd have to defeat Godzilla or Mothra or Redan, whoever it was, in three minutes. And you'd be doing wrestling-style moves with flying elbows and drop kicks.
Sonny00:35:09That's right. Even as a child, I thought this stuff was corny. I want to say it was like eight or nine when Mighty Morphin Power Rangers came out.
JVL00:35:19And I remember watching this and thinking, how can anyone watch this? That's crap. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is different than this.
Sonny00:35:28Very similar. No. Very similar. No similarity at all. Very similar.
JVL00:35:32I like to think of young Sonny with a capri sun sitting there appraisingly saying, Bosh. It's all Bosh. Yes. Fact. Zero Pinocchios.
Sonny00:35:43I was trying to think of what I would have actually said. No, but it was. Tish-tosh. Tish-posh. Tish-posh.
Vic00:35:48Tish-posh. There was also a female robot. Do you remember? It was a cartoon, a Japanese cartoon, where she shot rocks. Rockets out of her boobs. Yes.
JVL00:35:56I don't know. What? If anyone knows about that one. Shogun Warriors was another one of those. Well, I had. Do you have the Shogun? I had. Of course you did, because they were the expensive ones.
Vic00:36:03They were the expensive ones. I had Great Mazinga, and he fired-
JVL00:36:06Who launched the fist?
Vic00:36:08Yeah, like missiles out of his fingers. Yeah.
JVL00:36:11Man.
Vic00:36:12And there was Dragoon, Rangoon, or Dragoon?
JVL00:36:14I would walk through Kitty City window shopping those, wishing that I- Oh, sorry. Please, governor, give me a Shogun Warrior.
Vic00:36:21And do you know who the enemy was?
JVL00:36:22It was a Godzilla.
Vic00:36:23But I bet you- We probably couldn't call it that, but maybe- No, it was a giant lizard. Giant space lizard that breathed fire. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, which it actually did, and the fist came out. Okay. You guys have thoughts on monster movies, your favorite monster movies, and of course, this comes to the question of what counts as a monster movie. Sonny.
Sonny00:36:39Well, what counts as- We were talking about ranking monsters. Monsters, oh. Ranking the monsters. All right. And the question then becomes, what counts as a monster? And when I was envisioning this, I was thinking the creature feature type. Oh. Victorino Matus, which would kind of limit it to the King Kong, Godzilla, Mothra, et cetera realm, but JVL, I think you had a slightly more expansive idea of what constitutes a monster.
JVL00:37:11JVL. Well, so you could take this in any number of about three different directions, one of which is the giant kaiju, the other of which is small scale horror monsters like gremlins or the Hellraiser guy or any number of things like that, and the other of which is slightly larger scale sci-fi monsters like the alien or the predator. Yes. Yeah. And so you could, I would say you could cross the streams in all this if you wanted to. I myself did not. I restricted myself to the kaiju, basically. Okay. To assemble my definitive ranking.
Vic00:37:46Okay.
JVL00:37:46I'm all over the place.
Vic00:37:47Why don't you go first, JVL?
Sonny00:37:49Victor, why don't you explain your ranking system?
Vic00:37:53Okay. I just thought, hmm, monster movies, and then I just started typing.
Sonny00:37:58Okay. So it was totally unthought out and random. Okay. Great. My take on this is that it actually doesn't make any sense to count anything outside of the kaiju realm because, for example, a predator is not a monster. A predator, like from the predator movies, not really a monster. He's more like Hannibal Lecter. He's like a serial killer. On his planet. His name is just Steve. He's just Bob. He's going to his deer blind, and he's picking off some humans. There's a billion of them walking around.
Vic00:38:32He's a hunter.
Sonny00:38:33So not really a monster. The aliens are interesting, but again, they're so small scale. How could you put an alien against a Godzilla? Whatever. So I think we need to stick to the kaiju realm unless you really haven't thought this through at all and you're just tossing things out there, like some people.
JVL00:38:51You know what? He spent all of his show prep on the transition with Charlize Theron.
Sonny00:38:54Yeah, no, that's good. That was good.
Vic00:38:55I was so excited when you mentioned Atomic Blood. I said, wait a minute. Atomic Blood, Charlize Theron monster?
Sonny00:39:00Yes. Yes. Okay.
Vic00:39:01All right.
JVL00:39:03JBL, you go first.
Sonny00:39:05You go top. You do whatever you're top.
JVL00:39:07I have a top three, but you do you. Okay. Number three is a tie between Super Mecha Godzilla, which I mentioned earlier, which combines a Mecha Rodan, I believe, somebody will correct me if I'm wrong, with the Mecha Godzilla, because there were two Mechas created by the United Nations anti-Godzilla force, which is a thing throughout all of those movies, that the UN has a special anti-Godzilla force, which is great, especially because Godzilla is sometimes good and sometimes bad. Just like the UN. Just like the United Nations. And the other, my lone swerve for this list, tied for third place, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
Vic00:39:43Oh, good.
JVL00:39:44Which really fits with the definition of kaiju. Number two, King Ghidorah, who was the greatest of the Godzilla villains. A three-headed, winged dragon with two tails, no arms. He was the largest of them. He was the only one who was towering over Godzilla. He's kind of like a hydra. He could shoot gravity beams out of his mouth. I don't know what a gravity beam does, but it's badass. Because it's not just a blast or something. It makes you weightless or something. It's like, oh, it's a gravity beam. And with his twin tails, could create tornadoes.
Vic00:40:17That's pretty sweet. Sit with that, right? You know what? Was he purple? I remember this.
JVL00:40:21I think he changed, to be honest. My old cathode ray set on a UHF frequency. It was impossible to tell what color he was. It was a zenith. And the number one Godzilla. Gojira. Gojira is, like, he's the classic. He's the best. You can't go wrong. I don't believe in swerving and going pomo on Godzilla. Like, Godzilla is Godzilla, and he's the best in the King of Monsters. He's literally the King of Monsters. Yes. Yeah. Okay. What the fuck?
Vic00:40:45Sonny, go. No, you go. No, I don't have a list like this. I said, you don't have a list? My list is different. I'm talking about movies. You don't have a list?
Sonny00:40:52You go. Sonny. My number three is the Jaeger piloted by Charlie Hunnam in Pacific Rim.
JVL00:41:00Ah. Am I allowed to do the kaiju fighting kaiju?
Sonny00:41:04Yeah, sure.
JVL00:41:04All right, so yeah. Because it's basically a manga.
Sonny00:41:06Because it's basically, yeah, it's great, and it just is, it is very kind of, it's both ridiculously complex and, like, overly simple, where you have these two people melding brains so they can punch and kick, so they can, like, it's just, like, we got this whole thing where we're going to meld the brains together, and they've got to fight. Fight as a team, and then they just punch and kick and use a sword. I mean, like, it's so ridiculous, but also kind of awesome. Number two, I'm going to stay within the Guillermo del Toro universe, and the Hellboy 2 Last Elemental, which is the giant plant monster that is brought to life, that Hellboy has to, and it's actually, it's my, it's one of my favorite movies in both of the Hell, or one of my favorite moments in both of the Hellboy movies, because there's a real sadness Hellboy kills the Last Elemental. He understands that he's wiping out the last of a kind, and it is very, it's very kind of emotional and touching, and you don't really get that a lot in the, in the whole Kaiju universe. I've never bought the whole, like, oh, we would love King Kong. We would feel emotions for this big monkey that's destroying all of our cities and killing all of our soldiers and throwing helicopters around. F King Kong.
JVL00:42:18You know, the other problem this movie sets up for the King Kong Godzilla franchise going forward. Is that a team of five under-resourced 1970s-style U.S. Army helicopter pilots comes within a hair's breadth of killing King Kong, and only because the night manager intervenes are they stopped from it. So if these guys can, can waste King Kong, I don't think he's going to have any chance against Gojira. He's got no chance against Godzilla, who is, of course, number one, the king of the monsters. Yes.
Sonny00:42:46I mean, like, there's no, he's a giant. No one denies this. He's a giant lizard who breathes fire. I, like, I, you can't really get any better than that. I'm sorry.
Vic00:42:54Well, I'm going to have to disagree with you. I think my number one monster of all time is Mothra. I hate moths. They freak me out. They're hairy. They're not meant to be. I mean, they have fur. They have fur. They're really gross. Have you ever seen them? It made me uncomfortable watching Silence of the Lambs. I didn't mind that, you know, he's making a skin suit. That's fine. But, you know, the moth?
Sonny00:43:13That's just, that's just Sunday at the Mattis household.
Vic00:43:16Close your eyes. There's a death head moth, you know?
Sonny00:43:18The little, the little tuck.
Vic00:43:19That's Saturday. Oh, that was, that was fine. I like that song. I, every time. Every time I listen to that song, that punk song, that punk rock song, I go, I want to do that. But, you know what? The moths, forget it. And a giant moth called Mothra. And Mothra was, Mothra was good. How did you know, how did you know he was good?
JVL00:43:36Mothra almost always portrayed as a, as a good kaiju.
Vic00:43:39Really?
JVL00:43:39Mm-hmm.
Vic00:43:40I figured the only way to, you know, distract him is light, right? You would shine a light at Mothra.
Sonny00:43:44I'm shocked that the, the Hitler enthusiast has a problem with Mothra. It's, you know. German enthusiast.
Vic00:43:51He's not a, he's not a Hitler enthusiast. He's a Germanophile. Germanophile, as we say. That's all. Germanophile. Also, the thing from The Thing. But that's, you know, different. It's not giant monster. It's this thing. Yeah. That's not, you know, I know. It's an interesting choice. I would like to also talk briefly about Predator, even though we're not counting it out because it's a, it's a hunter from outer space. Are you, are you mad that I attacked Predator? I was very hurt because, first of all, great movie. John McTiernan, two years before Die Hard, which is interesting. Predator is a perfect movie. It has an amazing cast. First of all, it has a great cast. It has one of my favorite Arnold Schwarzenegger schtick lines, which is when he throws the hunting knife and he says, stick around. Thank you, Sonny. Yeah, that's great. And, and of course, it's got, it's got Carl Weathers, right? And I'm pretty sure the only movie that had two future U.S. governors. It's very possible. Like Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura. But I just discovered this, having watched Iron Man 3 also over the weekend. One of the other members of the Predator commando team. Shane Black. Shane Black. Yeah. Shane Black. He's directing.
Sonny00:44:53Yes? No. Yeah.
JVL00:44:55That's awesome.
Sonny00:44:55Yeah. No, I, I, I noticed that the other, I noticed that maybe six months ago. I was like, I was watching the end credits, the end credits where they show all of the guys. They have like Arnold Schwarzenegger, smiling Arnold Schwarzenegger, whatever. And then one of them is Shane Black. I'm like, wait, what? Yeah. And I looked it up. I looked it up on IMDB because I was like, I couldn't, I couldn't believe that.
Vic00:45:13In between takes, he was probably writing about a buddy cop movie with a black.
Sonny00:45:16Shane Black, of course, is directing right now, the Predator reboot.
Vic00:45:20There you go. I would say. I would say. That's wild. Yeah. A bit player from the first one directing. That's, that's really something. Isn't that funny how that works out? Talking about Godzilla, I would say what I really hated was the remake of Godzilla with Matthew Broderick. Jonathan, you and I saw that at the Uptown. Do you remember?
JVL00:45:38One of the many, do you realize for like 10 years we saw almost every movie together? Yeah. Well, I don't know about seeing them, but yeah, we went to them. That movie. And was Sarah Jessica Parker was in that too?
Vic00:45:46She, no, no, it wasn't. This is the worst part. We're thinking about it because he married her. Are you ready for this?
JVL00:45:52Maria Petillo. Petillo. Yes. Maria Petillo. Awful. Terrible. That movie, and where it's rainy constantly because they couldn't get the effects done right in time for release date. And so they just said, well, just make it rain.
Vic00:46:03Make it rain constantly. I think the only good thing was Jean Reno, but this is, it was a very pre-9-11 movie because I remember, do you remember this JVL? It's the theater at the Uptown is packed and Godzilla comes up from underneath and smashes an Apache helicopter and every, the whole theater erupts in applause for, yes, let's kill U.S. soldiers. It was just a very pre-9-11 movie.
Sonny00:46:24I, I, this is, and Kong Skull Island is kind of back to that. I just, I can't stand.
Vic00:46:29Yeah, I don't like to see that. That's just, you know, okay. Any other monster thoughts? Hmm. Okay. Corrections or clarifications? Anything. I have two. Go for it.
JVL00:46:46JVL. Correction. Sonny Bunch said that Logan is the only great Canadian superhero. Oh.
Sonny00:46:53Ah. Great.
JVL00:46:55Emphasis on great. Timothy Malone says Deadpool. I gotta say, I am not a Deadpool guy. I don't really dig Deadpool. I find the entire cult of slap Deadpool on everything that Marvel does in the comic books utterly mystifying and kind of annoying. I find Rob Leofield to be unbelievably annoying. That said, I cannot deny the greatness of Deadpool. He is not the flavor that I enjoy, but a lot of people really dig it. He's great. He's great.
Vic00:47:23Isn't Ryan Reynolds also the actor Canadian?
Sonny00:47:25This is like saying that McDonald's is a great restaurant. No, he's just everywhere. Garbage. He's everywhere. He appeals to the lowest common denominator, and he's terrible. Terrible. No, not great. He is Canadian. He's just not great. Disagree. He is the North Star, but with more fans.
JVL00:47:42Correction number two, unless you have Deadpool. No, no, no. Victorino. My buddy Kevin Benversi has brought me up short. I said that Scarlet Witch Sing. No More Mutants was the plot of House of M maxiseries for Marvel. That is wrong. That is the final line of the maxiseries, which then sets up another series. I'm ashamed.
Sonny00:48:08You should be. You should be. You are going to lecture me about the greatness of Deadpool, and you can't even remember this obscure line from a nonsense comic book series years ago?
JVL00:48:18I have no corrections.
Sonny00:48:20Thank you, Sonny. Of course not. My statement about Canadian superheroes remains correct. The only other good Canadians were the Mounties in the WWF. Okay. Those are the only good Canadians.
JVL00:48:34That's very deep. What about Chris Benoit? The murderer? What about the great Bret the Hitman Hart?
Sonny00:48:44The greatest living Canadian. Instant correction. Bret the Hitman Hart is not only the greatest Canadian, but also the greatest wrestler of all time. A hundred times better than Shawn Michaels. Garbage. Shawn Michaels is garbage. Bret the Hitman Hart is amazing.
JVL00:48:58The excellence of execution, Shawn.
Vic00:49:01Fact check. True. Here's something that's weird timing yet again. We were talking about Harriet Tubman in the last episode. And then, like the next day, I turn to the Washington Post style section and look and see that they have a review of a show that's been going on in the WGN network called Underground. And the picture they had was of Harriet Tubman, the actress, Aisha Hines, playing Harriet Tubman with a shotgun. And now it's second season of Underground and everyone's very excited for action, the action version of Harriet Tubman. But no superpowers just yet.
Sonny00:49:38But this goes back to my point that Harriet Tubman should be a hero who can, like, obscure herself and, like, distract attention because she carries a gun. She's like the original gun-toting badass. A mutant who could, like, fire beams of light out of her. Wouldn't need a gun. Right. She'd need the gun. Yeah, but phasing.
JVL00:49:57So if she was Kitty Pryde.
Sonny00:49:58But then she wouldn't need the gun. She needs a power that leaves her very vulnerable. That's why she needs the gun.
Vic00:50:06Okay. That's interesting.
JVL00:50:09When Zack Snyder directs Harriet Tubman, colon whatever the rest of that.
Sonny00:50:14She'll be an amazing kung fu expert who also shoots people in the face. In the face. Thank you.
Vic00:50:19Spirit of the Week brought to us. By Sonny Bunch.
Sonny00:50:23I was wandering through the wine aisle of Giant the other day looking for something to replenish my amazing library of wines. I have like four wines.
JVL00:50:35Like R.W. Apples Cellar.
Sonny00:50:36But I came across Layer Cake Cabernet Sauvignon, vintage 2014 in California, USA. And I thought, you know who likes Layer Cake the movie? Jonathan V. Last. You know who might like Layer Cake? The wine? Jonathan V. Last. So I brought it in. And Jonathan, what do you think?
JVL00:50:56I love it. I've had Layer Cake before. I enjoy their cab. I think it's delicious. It is not as good as the movie. Yeah. But it is quite good.
Sonny00:51:04It's fine, just like the movie.
Vic00:51:07It's very drinkable. And I wish, I think for the next episode, if we do wine again, I'll bring in like a steak. Yeah, we could just move it to the palm. Yeah, we could just move it to the palm. Our first live episode. Our first live episode.
Sonny00:51:19And we could eat a steak and drink some wine.
Vic00:51:20There'll be a lot of clinking, but that's good. We'll like that for the sound effects. Okay, good. Well, that is all the time that we are 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 on a podcast. We're there. Leave a review. We're almost at 100 now stars, so keep it coming. Tell your friends. And don't forget, the Substandard show notes will be up on Friday at 11 a.m. at Weekly Standard dot com. Until next time. So, over the weekend, I had to take my daughter to bowling with her first grade classmates. So, they invited everybody. You know, the mother said she didn't know, you know, how many people to invite. So, she didn't invite everybody. It was 25 kids. My goal was to just drop her off and leave, and then I saw it was like just a mob scene in Canada. It was chaos, and kids lying down on the wood floor, and other kids dropping bowling balls near them. So, I said, you know what? I think I'm going to stay. So, I stayed, and it's funny because, you know, I don't know if you guys, when you were kids, did you have bowling parties? They got the gutter guard. They didn't have gutter guards when we were kids. The bumpers. The bumpers, yes.
JVL00:52:43They did have bumpers when we were kids. Not when I played. But it was a big, because they were, you literally had to lug the bumpers out and physically place them in the thing. Like the big mechadons. The big mechadon things. Yeah, big mechadon things. And they were there. So, once the bumpers were in, there was no taking them down. And now, you pop them up, and they know that, like, hey, the kid is up, he gets the bumpers, the grown-up is up, the bumpers flip down.
Vic00:53:01No, when I was a kid, we didn't use those gutter guards, and I'm telling you, I would go five or six frames of zero, you know? But now, the kids, you know, everybody's a winner, but you can still score zero if you're really bad. And the other thing is, you know, the kids don't really care anymore. You know what I mean? I mean, the parents, they just let the kids do whatever they want in that sense, where, you know, no one's like, when I was a kid, you know, my dad would embarrass me by trying to show me how to bowl. He liked to bowl, and so, you know, we would, and I'd be like, leave me alone. I'd rather score zero than have you in front of all the kids showing me how to throw this thing. But the other thing was this, they had that foot foul was on because they must have had some league play earlier, and they left it on. So, you know, it kept on going off, and the kids would get F for foul. Mark it down, Donnie. Right? Mark it eight.
Sonny00:53:51Mark it zero, dude. Exactly. Mark it eight, dude.
Vic00:53:54And so I said, okay, kids, I said, did you see that foul? Do not cross the line. Throw that ball before you cross the line. And they were doing that, and then one parent thought, oh, no, this is too much, and went to the counter and said, please turn it off. Snowflakes.
JVL00:54:10If you could let them walk down the alley.
Vic00:54:13Yeah, how about that? How about you just walk up?
JVL00:54:16I would really like Madison to get a 170 today.
Vic00:54:19Madison? Madison?
JVL00:54:23And Tyler. And Dylan. And Dylan. Can I invent something? Yeah. So the Variety review of Atomic Blonde, there is a line in it in which the, I forget which critic it is at Variety says, that at this point in her career, Charlize Theron is as durable an action hero as Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone ever were. And I just thought, are you kidding me?
Sonny00:54:49I can't name another Charlize Theron action movie. I can. She was in like A.N. Flux. She was in like The Huntsman.
JVL00:54:55And she was in A.N. Flux, which was a bomb. She was in The Huntsman, Snow White, which did not do very well. She was in Fury Road, which is an action movie. She was good in that. Look, she was great in Mad Max. Mad Max. She may be fantastic in this movie. She looks great. I am happy to stipulate that Charlize Theron is awesome, even though she's not the flavor I like. I'm happy to stipulate that she is really great in an action role. She's very physical. Her background is in dance, and that translates very well to action in movies. Yes, it does. But this is the type of... It reminded me of this. I remember watching during Lindsay Davenport's heyday as a tennis player. Oh, the tennis player, yes. Watching a match in which the insipid Tracy Austin was doing commentary with John McEnroe before McEnroe became a parody of himself. And Lindsay Davenport hit a four-hand winner. And Tracy says, You know, her four-hand is so devastating. It's a lot bigger than most of the men on tour. Don't you think that's right, John? And there's this dead silence, and McEnroe says, Tracy, which men on tour have weaker four-hands? It was the most uncomfortable moment of live television I've ever heard. And I just thought, are you kidding me? Shirley Theron may be fantastic.
Sonny00:56:17She's certainly a better actress than either of those. Those two gentlemen, Schwarzenegger or Stallone.
JVL00:56:21But in terms of durability as an action hero, that is the most preposterous thing I've ever heard. That's why he won.
Sonny00:56:29We don't do politics, but I'm just saying. Yeah, no, I don't know. I mean, okay, it's fine. What are we doing? I'm trying to steal your line here. I can't come up with a good one.
JVL00:56:45So, you know, you think you can make the wait until Atomic Blonde's release? This summer, Sonny?
Sonny00:56:51What?
JVL00:56:52Can you wait until Atomic Blonde comes out this summer? It's a long time to wait. Are you going to be okay? No. No, I'm not. I'm not going to be okay.
Sonny00:57:01I don't even know how to put the it's fine at the end of that. I don't know.
JVL00:57:06Listen, I'm sure it's fine.
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