← all The Weekly Substandard episodes
#25. The Substandard Loves Scarlett Johansson
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
Dudes Chatting — Scarlett Johansson career appreciation: The episode opens with news that Joss Whedon has been hired to direct Batgirl, prompting JVL to rank Whedon's career output: Astonishing X-Men (the comics run) at #1, Firefly/Serenity at #2, Buffy at #3, and the first Avengers at #4. The main segment is an extended appreciation of Scarlett Johansson's filmography, organized into competitive divisions. Sonny ranks her action films: Ghost in the Shell at #1 (his just-reviewed film), Lucy at #2, Iron Man 2 at #3. His art-house division has Lost in Translation at #2 and Under the Skin at #3, with Eight-Legged Freaks slotted in at #1 as a joke. A separate "Horrible Accent" division earns its own discussion. JVL approaches her career chronologically, tracing her emergence from child actress in The Horse Whisperer through the Lost in Translation breakthrough, arguing that phase represented her best work before she was absorbed into the Marvel machine. The hosts debate at length whether she or Natalie Portman is the definitive actress of their generation. A Star Blazers tangent rounds out the episode.
Reviews: Sonny reviewed Ghost in the Shell and liked it despite the whitewashing controversy — he found the film handsomely made and more faithful to the source material than critics gave it credit for. The film underperformed badly at $19 million domestic, which Sonny attributes to the controversy suppressing the audience that would otherwise have turned out.
The episode closes with the Spirit of the Week: Wassman's Single Malt.
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hi, this is Bill Kristol. I wish Susan Rice would unmask the people behind this podcast. But you know what? I mean, it doesn't—we talked about anime Star Blazers.
Sonny00:00:34I'm sorry, what was that? We'll talk about anime Star Blazers. Okay. Anime? Just anime. Just let him do it. Just let him do it.
Vic00:00:43I just changed my—I just changed it. God, JVL. I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry. 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 a podcast and search for The Substandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, leave a review. In addition, we'd also like to remind you The Substandard show notes posted by Jonathan Last are available every Friday at 11 a.m. at weeklystandard.com. And don't forget your bingo cards. We started this an episode ago, and it's been going great. Everybody's been getting into it. And we swear, we do not plant various clues in the bingo to help you win. It is completely organic. Isn't that right, guys?
Sonny00:01:37Yeah, that's why we're always randomly mentioning things like 12 Years a Slave and other stuff. Emma Watson.
Vic00:01:43Okay, gentlemen, we did it. Mission accomplished? Mission accomplished. The Substandard, over the weekend, skyrocketed. We skyrocketed on the podcast charts for TV and film. Of the roughly 6,400 active film and podcasts, we made it all the way to number 10. We actually passed Bill Simmons in the ringer. That's how good it was. Yeah, take that, Bill Simmons. Take that, sports guy. So, we'd like to thank you. The Substandard likes to thank all of our listeners. And we always say every episode, leave a review. And you people have been doing it, and we say subscribing. You've been doing it. You see it really works. They like us. Right now, they really like us. JVL.
JVL00:02:34So, the review stuff is not garbage. I mean, in addition to giving us enormous bonuses, I think we all get triple the money for each episode if we get a lot of reviews.
Sonny00:02:43JVL gets triple the money. I get triple the money. Vic and I get the same amount of money. Yes.
JVL00:02:48But I believe the way the iTunes algorithm is, they prize reviews and stars. So, if you haven't reviewed us, like, it actually does matter. And it would be, like, a big favor. Here we are giving you free content. We're giving you this to you for free every single week. So, the least you could do is, like, go click the five-star thing.
Sonny00:03:07JVL, our biggest resource is the listener.
JVL00:03:11They are our future.
Sonny00:03:12They are our future. They really sustain us in our dark periods of discontent and sadness. And when I think about killing myself, which I do on a very regular basis. Only on the days ending in Y. Only on the days. I stop and I think, what would happen? To the listeners of The Substandard, what would they do with themselves? They need you. So, every time you guys say something nice about me, Sonny Bunch, in the iTunes comments and reviews, it really just keeps the gun out of my mouth for one more day.
Vic00:03:44I want to assure you, Sonny, that, you know, God forbid something happened to you, we don't have a long list of people who are going to substitute for you. Oh, you don't have a running waiting list? No. There's a few in this office. Oh, good, good.
Sonny00:03:55Okay, good, good.
Vic00:03:56Well, that makes me.
JVL00:03:56Hey, Kristen. As soon as. He's gone. Your chair is waiting for you.
Vic00:04:02She's like Joan Rivers and Mike Warren's like Gary Shandling. They're just waiting. They're waiting. Give me one episode. That's very nice. Thank you. Well played. Thank you. Other than that, how was your weekend, Jonathan?
JVL00:04:14On a scale of one to ten, where one is National Bohemian and ten is Dogfish Head, I'm a Shuffer Huffer. Which Dogfish Head? Wait, no, this is a very.
Sonny00:04:23No, no.
JVL00:04:24The brands and breweries in general respect.
Sonny00:04:26There's only one Natty Bow. First of all. First off, and there are. Would you say that was ten or one? There are a variety of Dogfish Heads on a varying scale of quality. I mean, the Raisin D'etre is obviously their best, but then you have the 90-minute, which is pretty good, and then the 60-minute. I could do a whole show on Dogfish Head. We should do that sometime. Sequench Ale.
?00:04:45Oh, my God.
JVL00:04:46I'm a Shuffer Huffer. Okay. Everything's great. I was at a baptism this weekend with a bunch of family for my latest godchild. I now have six of them. Humble brag. Six godchildren. Just saying. It's probably because I'm really virtuous.
Vic00:05:04Do you really remember all their birthdays? Because I don't. I'm like a, you know, I owe godchild support by this time.
JVL00:05:11And my sister. My sister was there. My sister's a big fan of the show. Big fan of Vic Mattis. Oh, I'm a big fan of hers, as you know. She's only met you once, Sonny. Really? You probably don't remember this. Oh, no, I don't. We bumped into each other in the basement of the old building while my sister and I were in the basement of the old building. I don't know what the original version of WrestleMania was. Starrcade? Yeah, I think it was Starrcade.
Sonny00:05:32When was, is this really a thing that happened? When was this? Yeah, it was like forever ago, when she was like 2002. Coming with me for the summer.
JVL00:05:39Yeah, something like that. And when I was interning at The Weekly Standard? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's right. Anyway, so my sister said, so do you guys actually like Sonny? I said, no, we love him. It's all shtick. And she goes.
Sonny00:05:52Gun in the mouth every day.
JVL00:05:53I couldn't tell, honestly. And I said, no, Sonny's great. He's a dude. He's a dear friend. Why did you lie to your sister? I wouldn't know. No, no, this is, this is, I worry a bit sometimes that our shtick, people, people think that the trolling is too, but we really, we love each other a lot.
Sonny00:06:12That's why we do this show naked. That's why we, that's why we send the Snapchat dick pics to each other. That's why. I am not. Allegedly.
Vic00:06:20Yes, yes. I'm, I'm actually into old women in their seventies. I'm one of, I'm like Ray Fiennes in the Grand Hotel. Budapest. I've had older. I feel like we've stepped right over whatever line. So can we edit the last 90 seconds out? Sorry. Yes, JVL.
JVL00:06:35Right back to I'm Schofferhofer.
Vic00:06:37Okay, good, good.
Sonny00:06:38Sonny, how are you doing? Yeah, I'm great. I watched Five Came Back this weekend, the Netflix show that's a, it's a documentary that is based on Mark Harris's book, Five Came Back, which is about the five big directors who went overseas in World War II to film our troops and film, you know, the, the, the you know, films that were training in, the training films, the Why We Fight movies, that sort of thing. It was Capra and John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston. These guys were real. I mean, it was back when, like, men were men and, you know, Hollywood, Hollywood liberals did not actually hate America. They were just, you know, kind of, kind of liberal. It was, it's, it's a really fascinating, the book is much, much better than the, than the TV show and the documentary goes into much more depth and that sort of thing. I, I highly recommend it for anyone who is really into World War II and old movies. But the, the, the documentary series is very nice because you get to see a lot of the footage that they shot. You get to see, you know, what, what, what they're actually talking about in the book. They're very nice companions. I highly recommend it. It was, like, the first time I've actually got to sit down and watch, you know, kind of binge a Netflix show since Stranger Things. So, you know, I felt like, I felt, I felt almost human again.
Vic00:07:54Yeah. I've actually got, started, my wife and I started watching on Netflix. Netflix, the Sherlock series on BBC with Benedict Cumberbatch and Barton Freeman. The problem is- It's like five years old, but that's cool.
JVL00:08:05I, no, I, I- It's only the thing that made Benedict Cumberbatch a star. No, no, no. The Substandard from 2012.
Vic00:08:12Actually, I've been watching the new Sherlock with Peter Cushing. He's fantastic. Oh, sorry. But I just keep on falling asleep. I, it gets late at night and, and then I don't know what happened. I'm too embarrassed to tell my wife. I don't understand what happened. You know who's, wait, the Sherlock? You don't like, you really, you haven't stayed- I love it. I love it. I love it. I just get so tired after 10 p.m.
Sonny00:08:30I just, it's too, I can't. You know who's great is Boris Karloff. He's got these great monster movies. He's great. I like him. I love these new, like, awake- Lon Chaney is great. These new talkies with Boris Karloff. Lon Chaney is great.
JVL00:08:40Vic is awake and excited about Sherlock for about two and a half minutes, and he just falls right asleep.
Vic00:08:44I just lie down. Okay. And his wife doesn't even notice. As usual. She never does. Okay. You've all read rumors, obviously the news of rumors that Joss Whedon is possibly directing a stand-up. Stand-alone Batgirl movie. Your thoughts, Sonny?
Sonny00:09:05I am a big fan of this movie. And why does this matter that it's Joss Whedon? So, I was very amused to hear this news because I was trying to guess who would be angrier about this. The conservatives who hate Joss Whedon because Joss Whedon hates the GOP, or the liberals who hate Joss Whedon because we now have a man making a woman's movie. It's going to be very, it's going to be, there's a lot of pyramid of grievances shuffling that needs to be done. I was a big fan of the news because I think Joss Whedon is a great movie. I think Joss Whedon is spectacularly talented in this milieu of like the kind of female superhero action stuff. I think we kind of take the Avengers for granted now after like a series of excellent films from the MCU and Marvel. And like, we don't really appreciate that it was kind of on shaky ground with Iron Man 2, which was not great. The Hulk, which was kind of a disaster. You know, Captain America, the first Captain America film, which was totally competent, but really nothing else. And then the Avengers comes along and it kind of really kickstarts Marvel into like a series of prolonged greatness. So I am excited for this. I think that, you know, it'll all depend on how much control DC decides to cede to Joss Whedon. My guess is that someone at Warner Brothers drove up to Joss Whedon's house with a literal dump truck filled with money and a note on top that says, you can do whatever you want and left it at that. But, you know, we'll see. JVL, I know you're a huge Joss Whedon fan, JVL. Very big Joss Whedon fan.
JVL00:10:36My Twitter buddy, Chris Anderson, and I were going back and forth about this. And the truth is, this is kind of a consolation prize for him because the movie he was born to direct is the Kitty Pryde movie. He loves the character of Kitty Pryde. And after the Age of Ultron experience with Marvel. I think it is safe to say he will never touch a Marvel property again. Marvel will never let him touch a Marvel property again. There seem to have been all sorts of bad feelings both ways after that. And this is the first time we have. So this is reasonably common in the comics world now, although once upon a time it was not, to have creators jumping from one house to the other. This is the first time in the cinematic universe we're getting an actual auteur going from one brand to the other. And it's kind of a big deal in that way. And I think it'll be really good. He's very good at building mythology, which is what you get to do with a Batgirl, because you're starting a character who's a blank slate on screen. We have not had Batgirl since Alicia Silverstone. Right. And he's really good at writing characters. I mean, just look at, this is the thing about the Avengers, which is so remarkable, is that he is so laser focused on characters and narrative that he's juggling one, two, three, four, five, six characters in it. Every one of them has a full arc, like with a beginning and an end. Every one of them has a journey, and it works.
Sonny00:12:04Well, it helps, too, that he only had to really introduce one character in that movie, right? Basically, like, the only one he really had to fill in the backstory for was Black Widow.
JVL00:12:19So he has to fill in the, I mean, Black Widow has appeared, but he has to give her some backstory. Hawkeye has appeared, but he has to give him some. I mean, he has a bunch of people, in a weird way. Little hemmed in, because they all pre-exist. Even Agent Coulson. Right. So Phil Coulson existed. He didn't get to, in some ways, that made it a higher degree of difficulty for him, I think, because he couldn't just start from scratch. He had to take existing characters with only thinly-sketched backgrounds and give them real life within the continuity of the movies here. A tremendous achievement that he doesn't get enough credit for. I don't know. I mean, has anybody ever assembled a ranking of the greatest Joss Whedon? Can we, before we do that, can we just, I have one question about this.
Sonny00:13:03My one question about this is, how much do you think that DC is going to try and force him to work within the idea of the Man of Steel, Batman vs. Superman, DOJ construct?
Vic00:13:16Are we going to end up having to see Ben Affleck in this?
Sonny00:13:19And will we, is Jenna Malone going to be the Batgirl? Because I would be hugely fond of that. Jenna Malone, of course, was kind of introduced. Not really. She was in the director's cut of Batman vs. Superman, Dawn of Justice, but didn't really get much play as Barbara Gordon. Is she going to be the Batgirl?
JVL00:13:39Well, as...
Sonny00:13:39I mean, since you have no idea, I mean, this is...
JVL00:13:42Of the comics, no, there are a bunch of different Batgirls, and Barbara Gordon's only the second one, and it could be Kathy Kane, it could be any... I don't know. We don't, I mean, this is the thing, we don't know, is it going to be sort of more Guardians of the Galaxy-ish, where it's sort of funny? Is it going to be more... Is it going to be more character-driven? Is it... Literally, we don't, because we have not seen... So, Batgirl is a Gotham-centric character, and we have not seen a Gothic-centric movie within what is now the established DC universe.
Sonny00:14:11The truth is, we have no idea what the rules are here. That's true. I mean, we haven't had a Batman movie, we haven't really had a, like a... Under the current regime. Gotham City Sirens is supposed to be kind of a Gotham-centric movie.
JVL00:14:23I would wonder, actually, if this won't be a little bit closer to the DCU... The feel, the DCU of the television series, which are much funnier and which coexist, I believe, in an entirely, like, entirely separate universe from the film series. And they really have... It's like Marvel and Ultimates. Yeah.
Vic00:14:43Okay. I'm sorry. I think the question is, you know, and also how, you know, for everyone, the fanboys, if you will, how is she going to look like? You know? Forget about who the actress is. What is her outfit going to look like? I thought maybe it'd look like this.
Sonny00:14:55I think it's holding up a... A purple and black Batgirl with shockingly red hair. She's got a bat wing on of some sort. I can't tell if that's, like, part of the costume or...
Vic00:15:07We now have four people in our studio. She is not realistically proportioned.
JVL00:15:12She has a waist... Spit for yourself.
Sonny00:15:14She has about a 10-inch waist, and this is like a 36D at least. And there's, like, I don't... Again, I'm not sure what these bat wings are. Is she flying? I can't... Is that a McDonald's Happy Meal?
Vic00:15:28It might be. I found her in our house. She's got, like, big anime eyes. She's just under my bed. What we're forgetting to mention is that what we're talking about is life size. Yeah.
Sonny00:15:39This is actually a five-foot... It's four-foot, 11 inches. It's a minor detail we missed. A minor detail we missed. And for some reason, she has the face of Emma Watson. I don't understand what's happening. She kind of does. She kind of does. It's stamped on the back. Stamped McDonald's. This is a Happy Meal toy.
JVL00:15:54Actually, a pretty high-quality Happy Meal.
Sonny00:15:55That is a pretty high-quality Happy Meal. I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry. Jonathan, I interrupted you. JVL, what are the best Joss Whedon productions?
JVL00:16:02So, the four best Joss Whedon productions, number four, The Avengers, we've spoken about that, number three, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, just had its 25th anniversary, remains remarkably vibrant and worth revisiting, number two, the Firefly slash Serenity universe, which is pretty darn great. It's 12 episodes, maybe 13 episodes, and then a movie. Very digestible. And number one... Not filmed. The Astonishing X-Men. Have you read his Astonishing X-Men, Sonny?
Sonny00:16:35I have... Not only have I not read that, I have not watched Serenity or Firefly, and I have not watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so I am totally... Hey, Vic, what time is it? Me too, sorry.
JVL00:16:43What's the counter? 18. 18.47. 50. Go f*** yourself. Yeah, there we go. So, for anybody who hasn't read them, I would say run, don't walk to get yourself the trade Astonishing X-Men run, the best X-Men run ever, the best Joss Whedon writing product ever. It's tremendously great.
Vic00:17:07You know, last episode or two episodes ago, Jonathan, you said how you hate musicals, and that's why you don't like, you know, Beauty and the Beast. Was it your favorite episode of Buffy, the musical episode? I believe it was not my favorite.
JVL00:17:18If you go to my definitive ranking of the Buffy episodes, which I did, I did it for The Weekly Standard, back when the show went off. I ranked... Because this is... This is not a new obsession with me. This is my OCD.
Vic00:17:30Let us rank them. What's the website called?
JVL00:17:34Theweeklystandard.com.
Vic00:17:35Let me write that down.
JVL00:17:36I don't understand.
Vic00:17:38Is there a joke I'm missing? No, because I'm not there anymore. Okay, so... Oh, right. Okay, all right. I know. It feels like I'm here in spirit. Thank you. Any further...
JVL00:17:47No, I'm just telling people, readers who are into this stuff who may have missed it should treat themselves... You could get it on Amazon for probably 99 cents for a used copy, and you will love it. Used trade paperbacks? Surprisingly expensive. Expensive, often on Amazon. I agree. People don't resell them.
Sonny00:18:01They just hold onto them. It's really annoying. Suspect. Do you know what's really expensive? No. The trade hardcovers.
JVL00:18:08Oh. This is a little-known secret to the comic book collecting universe, is that the publishers always do a hardcover run, but they only do it once, whereas with the softcover trade paperbacks, they'll run $20,000, and when they sell them out, run another $20,000 with no... So, if you are looking for sort of like a value... If you play in comic book collecting, pick up hardcover versions of the trade when they come out, and those things, when you look... Those are the things that can go from you pay $30 for it, and a year later, they're selling for $180.
Vic00:18:39Right. As opposed to my G.I. Joe No. 2 that I spent $20 on back in 1985, or whatever I thought was going to be worth a lot, and the value skyrocketed until they just reissued it.
Sonny00:18:49So, what you're saying is I should check the prices on my hardcover Earth-X trade-bound edition with the Alex Ross sketches? I've got one of those somewhere. I will offer that while we move to the next segment.
Vic00:19:02Okay, yes. Sonny, you were talking about Black Widow.
Sonny00:19:07Yeah.
Vic00:19:08She was played by... Scarlett Johansson. Speaking of which... That's good. That was... What was the other one? Okay, the other one was this. Hey, guys, I had a great weekend myself. My buddies were visiting, John Buckley, Todd Palladino, and Steve Yastaris, but the problem is because we do a guy's weekend, but we're now $40. We're now 43, 44 years old. We just don't have it in us anymore. We kind of went... We tried to go on a binge on Friday night, and the next morning, my friend John Buckley got sick. Of course, he blamed it on the clam in the half shell. Speaking of shells...
Sonny00:19:44God, that's a lot of effort to get to... That was a lot. That's a lot of effort to get to speaking of shells.
Vic00:19:49Speaking of shells, ghosted the shell.
JVL00:19:51Hey, Sonny, that Earth X hardcover? Yeah.
Sonny00:19:53On Amazon, they start at 50 bucks and go up from there.
JVL00:19:57There you go.
Sonny00:19:57Is that like the special signed one with all the... No, it's just the hardcover.
JVL00:20:02The answer is, you're sitting on a gold mine. Okay, good. Yeah, good.
Sonny00:20:06I should just go light that on fire and make the insurance claim. I'm kidding, USAA. I would never do that.
Vic00:20:12Great insurance company. They'd be a great sponsor, by the way. Some standard sponsored by USAA. Ghost in the Shell was out this weekend, starring Scarlett Johansson, and it did $19 million. Bad business. Oh, right. I think first place was Baby Boss. Boss Baby. The Boss Baby. Boss Baby. Is it like Baby Geniuses? And the second one, you could not pay me to see that. I'm sorry. And the second one, it was Beauty and the Beast. Still has legs. Juggernaut. Still has legs. And then third, it was like in the 40s, and then Ghost in the Shell comes in at $19 million.
Sonny00:20:52Yeah.
Vic00:20:52You both, the gentleman JVL said, you both saw it. What did you... Think about it, and what happened?
JVL00:21:00Why did it only get $19? Should we co-review it? Go for it. Just like you used to do. Like, I used to write co-bylined movie reviews once upon a time, Vic. Do you remember that? I do, and I thought, wow, that was...
Vic00:21:09I wonder how much Jonathan enjoyed that, as I used to wonder.
JVL00:21:12Sonny, because I did a movie review last week, and I found the entire experience disconcerting,
Sonny00:21:17would you review this by yourself, please? Because you're better at it than I am. So, Ghost in the Shell stars Scarlett Johansson as Major. She has been resurrected from death and... filled with bionic body parts. She's basically the $6 billion woman, but in Japan, or some Asian city of some sort. But she's not Japanese. We'll get to that. And she can, like, make herself invisible. She kind of has the powers of Predator and also the powers of the Matrix. She can go into mainframes and see, you know, various security cameras and lines of code and stuff. And she is trying to determine why a cyber terrorist is sucking the brains out... ...of people. And in addition to that, she needs to find her own past, which has been taken away from her by the Hanka Corporation. Hanka Robotics, or something. I don't know. Some Japanese company has wiped her memory. She wants to figure out what's going on. The movie is about that kind of journey of rediscovery, and it's filled with great fight scenes, and it's got some action. It's got some cool special effects. It has this kind of world-building... ...through the lens of 30 years in the past. So it's basically like what somebody in the early 90s thought the future might look like if they had just watched Blade Runner. And so the cityscapes are filled with these ads that are just free-floating 3D images out in space. It's kind of interesting. I didn't love it. It is this weird retro-futuristic thing that didn't quite work for me. But I am a big fan of Scarlett Johansson. I think she's fantastic in this movie. She takes the performance from Under the Skin, which was about an alien trying to come to grips with the human form that she had assumed to steal a bunch of human lives, whatever, and brings that to the multiplex. And I think it worked. It worked for me, anyway. JBL, what did you think?
Vic00:23:19I liked it.
JVL00:23:20I mean, it's an origin movie. This is very much an origin movie where you're learning about this world and this character. The conclusion of the movie merely sets you up to have more adventures in it. And the, you know, so to be successful, an origin movie must do two things. The first is that it must make you want to come back and spend more time in that world. And the second is it must make enough money to make it possible to come back and live in that world. So what you're saying is Ghost in the Shell went one for two. Well, maybe. We don't know how this is going to play in Asia. Right? I mean, it could be that this makes a ton of money. It's going to have to make a ton of money.
Sonny00:24:00I certainly wanted to spend more time in this.
JVL00:24:03I mean, so she is, Major is a cop, a special unit. And this, I would say, Ghost in the Shell really has to be, for me anyway, I saw this, this movie is a companion to Blade Runner. I really think these movies have to coexist in your minds together. And where Blade Runner is a movie asking if machines can be human, this is a movie. The Ghost in the Shell universe says, well, can humans? Can humans become machines? And both have interesting things to say about that. And both have interesting views of the future. But in this, the police are not sinister, which is so interesting. So the corporation is vaguely sinister, but only vaguely. What is sinister is the technology. So the way, and it's not Scarlett Johansson's major character that's creepy. What's creepy is what the humans have chosen to do to themselves in augmenting themselves with machines. And that's really neat. And the part I liked best about this movie was that she is part of this little team of, it's like a special squad of police who seem to handle hacker problems. But hacker doesn't just mean computers. Hacking means biological hacking now. And her team is great. She's got this guy named Batuu, who when you look at him first meeting him, you think this guy is from Central Casting as the bad guy cop who turns out is like, going to betray her. And it turns out he's like her big brother. And they have this wonderful little underplayed relationship with no romantic tension at all. But is very sort of, he's like the big brother because he's huge and hulking. But she's more powerful, so she has to take care of him. The team leader is this old Japanese guy who is actually a director, Takeshi Kitano, who anybody who's seen Japanese movies the last 20 years will recognize from things like Battle Royale. And Chin Han, the actor Chin Han, who's Lao from Dark Knight and this. And they're this tight-knit little team, and I totally want to see another movie with them. Because now that you've gotten the origin story out of this, I would like to see them tackling interesting cyber crimes in that world.
Sonny00:26:10And it is kind of a, if we can jump on the whole whitewashing controversy for just one moment, like it is an interesting kind of... Can you explain that first?
JVL00:26:20Just back up for 30 seconds for people who haven't read about this.
Sonny00:26:22So there are a lot of people who are very upset that Scarlett Johansson was cast on the role of Major, which is... a character that is Japanese in origin. And it does create a mild problem in the movie, because one of the subplots involves her... Should I say, or is that too spoilery?
Vic00:26:38No, no, I think so. You can say it. I don't think so.
Sonny00:26:41This is a famous set of comic books that's been around for 30 years. And nobody's going to go see this anyway, apparently. That's the more important point. So one of the subplots involves her trying to track down her mother, who is a very Japanese woman. So there's this kind of awkward scene, where Scarlett Johansson is talking to her mother from a past life, who is very Japanese. And you have Scarlett Johansson, who is very not Japanese. And it's very slightly awkward. But what I really liked about the team is that it kind of creates this idea of, if you want a globalist world, you have a team that looks like Beat Takashi and Scarlett Johansson and Batuu, who's played by, I believe, a Western European. He's like Belgian or something. He's Scandinavian or something like that. So it is this weirdly kind of agglomerated team that comes together and it has no real kind of ethnic or nationalist identity. They are just working for a corporation.
JVL00:27:42Even in the megalopolis.
Sonny00:27:43No, they're not. They're working for the government. Whatever. They answer to the prime minister.
JVL00:27:47But what's interesting is you're in this megalopolis, which has never said that it's Tokyo, although we think it's Tokyo, or it could be Hong Kong, I suppose. And it's enormous, but it's very multifaceted. And the most interesting for me was that the CEO of Hanko, the Hanko Robotics. So Hanko is, I think, pretty clearly a Japanese company, and the CEO is Anglo. So the guy who's running the company is Anglo, and most of the top scientists are Anglo. Again, for me, this sketches out a very interesting world that I would like to know more about. Like what happens outside the megalopolis? What does Europe look like right now? Is Europe a nuclear wasteland from World War III or something? So I really don't know. I really hope that we can get another one of these movies. I thought it was pretty good. Not great, not world-changing, but pretty good.
Vic00:28:33Having done $19 million on the opening weekend on a budget of $110 million, again, a lot will depend on how it does overseas, but I don't know if they're going to want to make a sequel or anything.
Sonny00:28:41It's going to have to gross about $250 or $300 million.
JVL00:28:43No, but if this finds its audience on home video, that's also a thing which can happen.
Sonny00:28:48Another question is whether or not Scarlett Johansson is going to want to have to deal with all the, you know, arguments about the whitewashing and the, you know, the identity politics stuff over again. I could see her just being like, eh, not worth it.
Vic00:29:02They should have cast Emma Stone. She could have done this.
Sonny00:29:04Yeah, Emma Stone, of course, from Aloha.
Vic00:29:07That's right. Also, I think she played half. Yeah. She was half. She was biracial. Did you think this was one of Scarlett Johansson's better roles, or, and if not, what did you like her in? JVL.
JVL00:29:23I think Scarlett Johansson is one of our... one of our most gifted actors. So I first noticed her in The Horse Whisperer, and I came home from that movie, and I said, jeez, there's this 11-year-old kid in there who gives this amazing performance, like a really nuanced, mature performance. She has this conversation. I will never forget this scene where she's in the bedroom talking with Robert Redford. She's lost her leg, and she's not yet having gone through puberty, but she clearly has grasped what she takes away from having lost her leg, and she says to him, who will want me? And it's really soulful. And you're like, God, it's a gutter. She's great. And I thought, boy, it's sort of a shame to give a performance that good when you're 11 years old, because you'll never top that again. And no, it turns out she's just a fabulous actress. And I was trying to think of child actors who've transitioned more seamlessly into adult roles, because she does, she's been very active. She's done almost 50 feature films, but you get her in Horse Whisperer and then Ghost World, and then she's in a few things which nobody has seen, and then she sort of reemerges fully formed in Lost in Translation, and she's an adult in Lost in Translation. She is not a kid, she's not, I mean, she really is a fully formed adult, and it's just been off to the races. I think she's great in everything she does. If you're going to have a knock against her, it's that her project selection is a little too promiscuous. She just works a ton. But I think that's one of the great things about her. Yeah, no, I totally agree.
Sonny00:30:52So I am with you on the whole, her making a great translation. She made a great transition from the child actor to adult actor. I'm going to throw this name out there, Natalie Portman.
JVL00:31:06Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:31:07I would say Natalie Portman has made that transition as well, if not better.
JVL00:31:11No, see, I would go the other way, though, because if this is not meant to disparage Natalie Portman, I don't know that Natalie Portman has ever truly delivered as an adult on the promise she showed as a child actress. I mean, she almost...
Sonny00:31:27She only won an Oscar for Black Swan, no big deal.
JVL00:31:30We have established in prior episodes that Oscar wins do not prove anything. They are only tangentially related to actual quality and judgment. Acknowledge my appeal to authority, please. JVL, you... Look, I remember Michael Mann saying, I think it was Michael Mann, it's on one of the Heat commentary tracks, with the Natalie Portman, who is amazing, in a movie full of amazing actors saying, you know, someday we're all going to work for her. Like, she's one of the great child performances ever. And she has turned into a very nice, very competent actress, but I think has not delivered on the intense promise of somebody who is going to be a world-changing screen presence. She always feels... I think, and you can blame George Lucas for that if you want. JVL... He may have beaten that out of her. JVL, you're wrong.
Vic00:32:19You're wrong. She was fantastic in Beautiful Girls when she was... That was just like last year, wasn't it?
JVL00:32:25No, she's great. No, Beautiful Girls. She's... That's another one of those movies that she's fantastic in as a kid. And...
Vic00:32:31Oh, she was a kid in that? Oh, sorry. Jeez.
JVL00:32:34No, but between... So, between Heat, Beautiful Girls, and Leon, those three roles as a child actress... The professional. Please don't call it... Just call it the professional.
Sonny00:32:44Again, she... You're an American.
Vic00:32:46Again, she...
Sonny00:32:46You're an American living in Washington, D.C. And she did the professional in Leon. In the year of our Lord, 2017. Yeah. If you want to, you could call it Leon the professional.
Vic00:32:55Leon. Leon the professional.
Sonny00:32:56Oh, that movie, Leon. Leon. Leon. Leon. Leon.
JVL00:32:59And she was 22 when she did that, okay? Anyway, all that saying, the truth is, for me, for my money, I would take adult Scarlett Johansson, just pure on actorly terms, in most roles, I think what she does is more difficult than what Natalie Portman does. And the other thing she does, this is kind of interesting about her, she... Scarlett Johansson is, I think, kind of has the soul of a character actor. She's sort of packaged inside the body of a movie star. I mean, she floats... She really, really functions best when she's the straw stirring the drink in a movie like The Avengers. She's just great. I have nothing but great things to say about Scarlett Johansson. You know who... Go ahead.
Sonny00:33:43I have a series of Scarlett Johansson rankings here. Go for it. Yes! Speaking... Yes! All right. In the horrible accent division, Scarlett Johansson, number one... I'll go... Number three, Hail Caesar. I remember when she busts out like the New York... Yeah, that's just not right. That's supposed to be Esther Williams or something? It was terrible. Right, yeah. In this same vein, number two, Don John. Have you ever seen Don John? Of course I have.
Vic00:34:06She's on my list of best performances. Oh! I knew girls liked her. Oh!
Sonny00:34:10She plays a kind of Jersey girl who is trying to get with... Yeah. And number one, The Prestige. Love The Prestige. I love The Prestige. I actually love her in it, but her English accent is not great. JBL. So that's going to be a problem. Okay, okay.
JVL00:34:30Because one of the things I had on my list to talk about was that if I was running her career, one of the things I would desperately want her to do would be to go and get the Queen & Country franchise happening on screen. Queen & Country is a fabulous graphic series of spy novels by Greg Rucka, and I think it would make her... She'd be a superstar, and the problem is it's all MI6 stuff, and so if you're saying the ... I don't think her accent is great. But you know what? She physically... In Iron Man 2, she cannot do any of the physicality stuff of being an action hero, and she worked real hard on it, and she's now totally plausible as a...
Vic00:35:10Yeah, the great opening of The Avengers.
Sonny00:35:11So here we go in the action division, ScarJo roles. Number three, I have Iron Man 2. Which is preposterous. Which I thought she was totally acceptable. Maybe it was very well filmed. No. I thought she was fine. I thought she was good. Number two, Lucy. Fun, raucous action. I love it. Kind of a test run for Ghost in the Shell, which is number one, and she seems totally plausible as a... She's really plausible as a ghost in the shell.
JVL00:35:41She even walks funny like a robot. Right.
Sonny00:35:43She walks like a... It's a very kind of... It's subtle. It's an interesting performance insofar as I think it's very well filmed. I think there are a lot of these shots where she's kind of looming over somebody, which is a literal impression. It's like an impossibility. Scarlett Johansson is like five foot two. She's 120 pounds. She can't loom over anyone. No, I mean, yeah. She's a tiny person. Yeah, she's little. And she does an extremely good job in this kind of physical, action-oriented role.
JVL00:36:15I have one more. Totally agree.
Sonny00:36:15I have one more. Give it to me. Art House Division.
?00:36:19Art House Division.
JVL00:36:19Wait, wait. But what was our number one? Ghost in the Shell was number one.
Sonny00:36:23Which I think is like the height of her as action star. Go ahead, Art House. Go ahead. And Art House Division, number three, Under the Skin, a movie I didn't love, but I thought she was very good in it as kind of this alien-type figure. Number two, Lost in Translation. I consider that an Art House movie. I do, too. I think that's fair to say, right? Yeah, I love the crap out of that movie.
JVL00:36:47And she's fantastic in it. I mean, everything. That is a perfect movie.
Sonny00:36:51I fell in love with that movie the first time I saw it. I just can't get enough of it. It's so good.
Vic00:36:57You really get a feel of that relationship, the strain of the relationship between her and Giovanni Ribisi.
Sonny00:37:02Yeah, with like 30 seconds of screen time, those two.
Vic00:37:06Yeah, and in the exact opposite kind of tension with Bill Murray. It was great.
Sonny00:37:09And, of course, the winner of the Art House Division is Eight-Legged Freaks. She was in Eight-Legged Freaks. With John Goodman. Fantastic ice spider movie. Or, no, that's not ice spiders. That's ice spiders that I'm thinking of. Eight-Legged Freaks, the John Goodman. Everyone should see that. Art House. Okay. Caliber material.
Vic00:37:29Okay, movies that I really liked watching Scarlett Johansson in for. Oh, God. Okay, here we go. Oh, God. I liked Don John, and it's a weird ending. I will tell you this. I was with it until the end. I'm not buying the relationship between Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Julianne Moore. I just didn't think that was, there's no way. But I really thought that Scarlett Johansson playing Barbara, Jersey girl, but who aspires for greater material things. I mean, you hear, there's various throwaway lines. Everything is going great, and you think she's the perfect girl for him. And, you know, at the outset, then she makes references of, I don't, you know, why do we have to go here to buy the Swiffer? I don't sweep my own floor. I get a cleaner. You should get a cleaner for that. You know what I mean? And little things like that. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to clean your house. You know, whatever. And then the whole thing falls apart. But I thought, I liked it. I liked her, I liked her, well, Match Point, the Woody Allen movie. Sure, sure. You know, and then In Good Company. And she plays Dennis Quaid's daughter. That's right. And she likes Topher Grace, and she's just, I'm sorry, I just passed out.
Sonny00:38:44Vic was literally panting at the microphone and fell over. Just FYI, everyone.
Vic00:38:50And you know where I really liked her? Her. The voice of the computer spoke to Spike Jonze.
Sonny00:38:55Another great underrated. Scar Jo performance, the man who wasn't there. She plays like the kind of ingenue, it's the Black and White Coen Brothers movie. Oh, right. I watched it at a retrospective at the AFI Silver not too long ago, maybe two or three years back. And I remember being surprised. I was like, oh, right, she's in this, and she's great. I mean, she's a pleasant surprise in everything she's in.
JVL00:39:18Can I bring up a little subject about the patriarchy?
Sonny00:39:25Okay, maybe.
JVL00:39:27When thinking about how nice Scarlett Johansson is as a female action lead, and I really do, we agree, right? She's a great presence. When you look at the successful female action leads, Sigourney Weaver, Mia Jovovich, Scarlett Johansson, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Lawrence, as a class, they are much better actors than the male action leads.
Sonny00:39:55Yes, I think that's about right.
JVL00:39:57I mean, does Hollywood really require that you be, like, an actually really good actress if you're going to be a female?
Sonny00:40:03You have to be not only a Shakespearean actress, you have to also be a—
JVL00:40:06Right, also be able to do physical work on film. That seems a little unfair.
Sonny00:40:10Well, because, I mean, for a long time, I think this is less true now than it used to be. Like, Christian Bale, for instance, is an excellent actor in addition to being a great action actor. Patrick Stewart or the new Magneto. What's his name? Michael Fassbender. Michael Fassbender. I mean, like, I think that—
JVL00:40:33I think that's—
Sonny00:40:34Whom I love as a presence. Vin Diesel, but Vin Diesel is a throwback to what I was going to say is, like, the 80s idea of action star where really what you need are big muscles. Paul Walker. Big muscles. God love him. God rest his soul. God rest his soul. Nobody—yeah, but nobody would confuse that action series. I mean, like, even the women in that action series, which is immensely popular and immensely successful, aren't particularly good actresses. Michelle Rodriguez or Gal Gadot. Or, you know, I love Gal Gadot, but, I mean, we're not going to confuse her for, you know, the Dame Judi Dench. Like, I just think it's—I think it's—I think that that idea is changing, but I think you're right that— Keanu Reeves. Keanu Reeves, as we've discussed on The Substandard, is a great actor. Well, he's an interesting actor, but he's not— Yeah. He's a great actor.
JVL00:41:20Oh, my gosh. Well, certainly, this is—your point is certainly true comparing her against, like, the Schwarzeneggers and Stallones of the world from a general point of view. I don't—I would definitely concede that since then, our male action leads have gotten better.
Sonny00:41:36Like, Robert Downey Jr., I think, is a better actor than— Mel Gibson is a— Right. Yeah, Mel Gibson, Robert Downey Jr. Even, like, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in the Spider-Man roles, those are two actually very good actors. Don't look at me like that. JBL, don't look at me like that.
Vic00:41:52Head tilt. You got the head tilt, Sonny. I hope this doesn't discourage— I hope this doesn't discourage future attempts to make movies from other comic books or Japanese comic books. Anime? Anime.
Sonny00:42:09Anime? Before we started recording, this is how Victor pronounced the word. Anime. Manja. Manja and anime.
Vic00:42:17Manga. And I was thinking—I mean, you know, I used to think as a kid there would be nothing cooler if Hollywood, not counting Japanese productions, which this has happened to, where they have had Japanese movies from—based on their anime and stuff that—let's not count that we're talking about in the United States. I thought there would have been nothing cooler than a motion picture made in Hollywood based on what I consider the greatest—thank you, JVL—the greatest of all Japanese anime from, believe it or not, it started in 1979, Star Blazers. If you've gotten this far, folks, into this episode, this is now called the Star Blazers episode. Oh, God. JVL, why don't you—
Sonny00:42:58I'm just going to mute my own mic here.
Vic00:43:00Mute yourself, Sonny. Have another drink.
JVL00:43:03I did a huge thing on Star Blazers in the show notes a couple weeks ago. It's the greatest animated space opera ever. Thank you. It compares favorably to Star Wars, even. It's tremendous. I can't even—if you were a six-year-old, this would pull you hardcore into science fiction for the rest of your life. And they made a live—a human version. What did you call it? They made a human version of it. A humanized humanized. And I have never seen it. I've only seen the trailer for it and assorted clips on YouTube. And it is everything we ever dreamed it could be. When they fire the wave motion gun, it is the best. And the guy is the captain with the beard.
Vic00:43:47Yes, yes. The actual— Captain Avatar? Captain Avatar. It's tremendous. What I loved about it at the time was— Just keep in mind, this is a limited interest segment.
Sonny00:43:56Yeah, we're already pretty far into the show. Just FYI.
Vic00:44:01Give us about five minutes. Take a break. Use the bathroom. Make yourself a snack.
Sonny00:44:05I'm just going to pull up Twitter on my iPhone.
JVL00:44:07Sonny's checking out. The millennial Sonny has gotten his phone out. What I loved—go ahead. Go do some Snapchatting, Sonny.
Vic00:44:13He's actually going to write a piece. He's going to write a review while we're doing this. What I loved as a kid was that it was, as you mentioned, it's a space opera. It was continuous. Every—at the end of each show, only 364 days until Earth's, you know, and so you had this race to rescue Earth from the radiation bombs coming from planet Gamelon. And let me tell you—and they used the battleship Yamato. They called it the space battleship. And so there was this whole World War II reference because the story was that they had converted the battleship Yamato— Into the Argo. Which, yes, which the Americans sunk during World War II, which was—I think that was their pride and joy. That was like their Bismarck. And they turned it into this battleship. To go into outer space. And you know what else, JVL? People died. Oh, yeah.
JVL00:45:02No, beloved characters die all the time.
Vic00:45:04And it was one thing that was so different when you got into G.I. Joe and everything else. Nobody ever died. People parachuted out of planes. And I liked that sort of realism.
JVL00:45:11I thought that it was graphic, but it was realistic. And what blew my mind was in season two, where they fight the Comet Empire. Oh, yeah. Then the Gamelon enemies from season one become their allies. Deslok. And Deslok becomes... And so the big bad guy from season one becomes the ally of the humans in season two. And again, for a six-year-old mind, this just blows up moral possibilities and categories. And you think to yourself, what? I remember the...
Vic00:45:44This is real Realpolitik. Yes, it was. My first introduction to Realpolitik. And they spent a lot of time on episodes of Palace Intrigue just among the bad guys. So among the Gamelons, there was this rivalry. There was a rivalry with General Lysis and his right-hand man, Volgar. Lysis, Lysis, Lysis, and against Deslok. And I can't tell you... It was Stalin Trotsky stuff. Yes, it really was. And I can't tell you... Sonny's checking the time. Nope, still going, Sonny. How much me and my friend Steve Eustaris would have... Drawing endlessly things inspired from Starblazers. Drawing the ship. Trying to make Lego versions of the Argo. I remember Steve Eustaris would be like, hey, check out my picture of the wave motion gun in action. What did you draw? And I'd be like, I was drawing Deslok's uniform again. I really love the cape.
JVL00:46:34Can I tell you one of my serious life disappointments? Please. There are a pitifully small number of Battleship Yamato slash Spaceship Argo models for sale on eBay. There are only like three of them, and they're all really small. And I, growing up in America, has taught me anything. It's that if you have a fetish for some object of childhood nostalgia, somebody somewhere on Etsy or eBay has made something awesome with it that you can buy and have on your desk at the office. And I have not found it. So if anybody out there is a Star Wars, Star Blazers nerd and sees a really great Yamato slash Argo model, you should email me about it, because I want it.
Vic00:47:22And email me if you have a Deslok cape.
JVL00:47:26Hey, Sonny. Hey, guys. Sonny's reaching for the bottle of booze.
Sonny00:47:30Next week, can I bring one of my garbage millennial friends in and we can talk about Dragon Ball Z? Can we talk about Krillin? Can we talk about Krillin and Goku and Gohan?
Vic00:47:39You're our lone millennial representative. Okay, let's move on to corrections additions. Jonathan, you said you've got stuff.
JVL00:47:46My correction is just my sister at the baptism said to me, has Vic ever seen The Voice because he got every single thing about that show wrong, including how many people are on it? Oh, three judges. No, more than three judges, she said. What? She was going to send me, I said, can you just send me a list of all the things she said wrong? She said, no, I can't because he had everything wrong. I got that based on- She says commercials. Did he even skim the first half of the Wikipedia page? Oh, no, I can't. I said, well, I don't know. Vic does such torturous amounts of show prep for this.
Vic00:48:16Isn't it like it's Adam Levine and it's the country music guy and the woman? This is true.
Sonny00:48:24Try to justify yourself. Isn't that- Vic really does do a lot of- Prep for the show. We should, he has like a whole, he has literally- Everything I have said is actually being read word for word. One page of scribbled, scribbled line. It's, I don't know.
Vic00:48:35I never add lib. All of this is written on the script, including this part. So that was it. That was it. Well, thank you, Monica. I have no corrections. Maybe I was thinking of X Factor. Uh-oh. Okay. Listener Veronica Birch says, in our discussion of TV shows rebooted as movies, we forgot Mission Impossible. That's a good one. Except for, again, I was never big on believing Jim Fitzpatrick. I believe Phil Phelps is a traitor. I'm sorry. Hold on. What are you looking at?
JVL00:49:00Sonny was tweeting while we were talking about Star Blazers. Thanks a lot, Sonny. Because it's the most millennial thing ever. Hey, Sonny, could you get a picture of us?
Vic00:49:07Yeah. And then you could Instagram it, too.
JVL00:49:08Instagram it.
Vic00:49:09All right. Hold on. And then don't forget the Snapchat. Let me get a selfie. Don't forget the Snapchat me. Anyway, thank you, Veronica Birch, for bringing up Mission Impossible. There goes Sonny in his selfie mode. By the way, do you remember that first Mission Impossible movie? I believe top billing was Tom Cruise and Emilio Estevez, wasn't it, JVL? No.
JVL00:49:27One of the shocks of that was that Emilio Estevez is uncredited, so when he dies in the opening sequence, you're shocked because you say, oh, it's Emilio Estevez. He's a famous actor. He's going to be cool. You knew it, though. When he gets the elevator spikes through the eyeball, it's shocking. I love that movie. I can't even tell you that. The first one. My favorite Brian De Palma movie. My favorite Brian De Palma movie. One of my favorite movies of the year.
Vic00:49:51My favorite of his, I think, was The Untouchables, if that was Brian De Palma.
JVL00:49:54That it was?
Vic00:49:55Mission Impossible? Yes. There's also an anime movie, Veronica Birch says, called One Punch Man on Netflix. Are you familiar with this? I am not. Okay. Check it out. Oh, Sonny, of course. I was going to skip over you. I already said I had no corrections. Spirit of the Week. I thought since we became a top ten show, Sonny, that maybe next week you could bring in the Pappy Van Winkle.
Sonny00:50:19Yeah, you should definitely get your hopes up for that. How about if we make it to number one? If we make it to number one, look, here's what I will say. I promise you. If we make it to number one on the main iTunes podcast chart, not the TV and film garbage sub-genre.
Vic00:50:36Number one overall.
Sonny00:50:36Number one overall. If a million people are downloading this, I will bring in my bottle of Pappy Van Winkle and we will drink it all. We'll drink the whole thing. So that's something to aim for, people. If you want to impoverish me, if you want me to waste all of my delicious, delicious booze on Vic and JBL. We'll probably just spit it out anyway.
Vic00:50:58Yeah, he'll chuck it.
Sonny00:50:59It'll be disgusting.
JVL00:51:00I wouldn't drink any of that anyway. Your Pappy Van Winkle is safe with me.
Vic00:51:04That's all the time we want to spend on 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 or the podcast. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. And don't forget, Substandard show notes will be up on Friday at 11. A.M. And get those bingo cards until next time.
JVL00:51:38All right. So there's an iTunes review from Bruismo, who says, I can't tell these guys apart from their voices. I can't even remember which one likes Hitler and which one likes Emma Watson. I want to leave a comment. That's a great one. I can say Bruismo. They're the same guy.
Sonny00:51:59Well, I assume that's the joke, and it's a fantastic joke. He should get a...
JVL00:52:04Bruismo, if you want to email me something, I will send you a limited edition Beauty and the Beast Emma Watson coloring book.
Vic00:52:12Also, if you're still listening to Outtakes, I think we actually forgot the spirit of the week.
JVL00:52:15Wait, did you actually say what the spirit of the week was? Oh, no. Do that, then I'll do the other thing I have.
Vic00:52:19Wassman's Single Malt Whiskey, courtesy of my brother-in-law, Bill Dwyer. Good for Virginia.
Sonny00:52:24They're going to want their money back. This is what happens when you start doing Starblazers things. I tune out and then start chiming in randomly and derailing the show.
Vic00:52:32Next week's episode is fully Starblazers, the whole episode.
JVL00:52:34Oh, God. So, my last Outtake conversation was... Remember we talked about Atomic Blonde? Mm-hmm. That is based on a graphic novel by Anthony Johnston called The Coldest City, and I went and I read it over the weekend.
Sonny00:52:48It's great. JBL, you are a real champion of the show doing all this research. I love you. Yeah, well, it's because of all the money they pay me.
JVL00:52:55Yes. I figure that I... I need to really, really knuckle down and make sure that my corporate employers are getting their money's worth. So, I read The Coldest City. I recommend it without reservation. If you are into spy stuff, it's tremendous. It's great. There's just one thing. You remember the trailer for Atomic Blonde. What would you say was most notable about that trailer?
Sonny00:53:18All the fighting, the punching and the kicking and the going down the stairs and the spins and the kicks. Yeah.
JVL00:53:26And there's not a single fight in the book. Somebody gets killed off screen in the first page, and it's mostly a lot like Tinker Tail or Soldier Spy, where people are saying, no, it's great. I really love this sort of thing. But it's a lot of investigative mole hunt, try to figure out who's doing what. It's very talky. I'm sorry. It's all talky, which I love. I'm into it. It's great. But I cannot imagine for the life of me how they got from the source material to the atomic blonde trailer. Holy crow. That's a...
Sonny00:54:10Look, there's no Jean-Lacare movie has ever been worse for adding a random fight scene. Let's be honest.
JVL00:54:18Anyway, it may be great. It may be great. I'll still see it. But it strikes me, if it's going to be great, it's going to be great in a totally different way from the... From The Coldest City. It might not be great, but...
Guest00:54:30Yeah.
JVL00:54:30I'm sure it's fine.
Spot something wrong in this episode? Suggest a correction →
Comments
Loading…