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#29. The Substandard Gets Fast and Furious
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Dudes Chatting — the Fast & Furious franchise: The episode opens with Vic recounting a family trip to New York City, then moves into a comprehensive ranking and defense of the entire Fast & Furious series. JVL's ranking: the original The Fast and the Furious at #1 (a perfectly constructed genre film), Furious 7 at #2 (the emotional high of the franchise), Fast Five at #3 (the heist pivot that saved the series), Fast & Furious 6 at #4, Tokyo Drift at #5, The Fate of the Furious at #6, the fourth film at #7, and 2 Fast 2 Furious as the clear worst. JVL argues at length for the franchise's underlying seriousness, pointing to the grace-and-forgiveness theology running through the films and the way the family dynamics function as a genuine emotional through-line. Sonny is more skeptical of The Fate of the Furious specifically — he finds the action incoherent and the script weak, though he credits Jason Statham's subplot as the film's one genuine pleasure. The hosts also do a retrospective of their own favorite and worst Substandard episodes as the show approaches its 25-episode milestone.
Reviews: Sonny reviewed The Fate of the Furious and came out negative — a weak entry from a franchise he otherwise respects. JVL is more forgiving, calling it a disappointing but not embarrassing chapter in an otherwise solid series.
Box Office: The Fate of the Furious opened to $100 million domestic and $532 million worldwide, already on track to crack a billion.
The episode closes with the Spirit of the Week: Jefferson's Ocean Aged at Sea Bourbon.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Hi, this is Bill Kristol, breaking news, the scientists who devised the failed North Korean missile experiment, their punishment, listening to this podcast. This is Bill Kristol, breaking news, the scientists who devised the failed North Korean missile experiment, their punishment, listening to this podcast.
Vic00:01:00Hello, and welcome back to The Substandard. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. I'd like to remind you that The Substandard is available on iTunes and Google Play. Just look at our podcasts and search for Substandard. You will easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, leave a review. In addition, we'd also like to remind you that Substandard show notes posted by Jonathan Last are available every Friday at 11 a.m. at weeklystandard.com. Speaking of reviews, we continue to be blessed by starred and custom reviews. It's just going gangbusters. Keep them coming. We have nominees this week for our favorite, do we not? JVL.
JVL00:01:43Yeah, I'll start out with my nominee. My nominee for best review of the week is from Zacchaeus. This is a good podcast, except for the fact that Sonny is a garbage millennial. And JVL is so obsessed with ranking, he should probably be medicated. And if you have an 18-year-old daughter and you see Vic Madden... That is, tase first and ask questions later. But other than that, it's fine. That's an excellent review, Zacchaeus. I nominate you for best review of the week. I have a question for Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus? Dr. Zacchaeus.
Vic00:02:11Zacchaeus can come down from that tree. It's kind of an Easter reference. What you're saying is if your daughter is 19, you will not tase me. That's what you're saying. Just checking.
Sonny00:02:20Yeah, but you also won't be interested.
Vic00:02:22I'll see you next year. Okay, Sonny.
Sonny00:02:27I'm going to go a little bit of a throwback here to April. April 7th, 2017, from one PDV. PDV, you're the man. You gave us five stars. No, you can't do this.
JVL00:02:37No, no, Sonny, stop. You cannot do this, Sonny. You have to do from the week. I'm giving him a pass. No, listen, listen, listen. If you do this, then it means that people get their reviews to have bites at the apple for best review and for the fabulous prizes that I send, which, by the way, aren't expensed. I pay for them out of my own pocket. But this means that you do one review and you are entered into that pot in perpetuity instead of just you enter and you get one week where you can win.
Sonny00:03:08Mm-hmm, yeah. So Sonny's going to give it anyway. Go ahead, Sonny. I'm doing it anyway. Great podcast from PDV. Sonny Bunch is always right.
Vic00:03:16Yes, he must have been talking about your Jack Reacher review. That goes way back then.
Sonny00:03:22You know, if people want to get their shout-outs, they know what they got to do. Just say I'm right.
Vic00:03:28Well, my favorite. My favorite is from Brannigan's Law. Just when you think Vic doesn't know what is going on around him, Sonny's high nerdtastic IQ and JVL's highbrow seem to overwhelm. That is when he comes out of nowhere like an Oxford comma with the humor and insight. Besides, I can distinguish his voice from JVL's and Sonny's too-close-for-comfort dulcet tones. That's right, Brannigan's Law. No one will ever confuse my voice for anyone's unless my co-hosts become Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly. And also, I love the Oxford. And, by the way, Brannigan's Law's review is, Don't sleep on Vic. Which is absolutely true, unless you're my wife, Emma Watson, or Jennifer Love Hewitt. Alright, who wins?
Sonny00:04:13I'm not going to support Vic, so I'll go with Zacchaeus.
JVL00:04:17Zacchaeus! I'll go with Zacchaeus. I'll go with Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus, will you please email us or tweet at one of us or something, and I'll send you something nice.
Vic00:04:25There was also a reviewer, by the way, who said that, he said that, on their show, Josh Eppie said, there was at least one garbage person, one guy wrong about everything, and a wise, doddering old man. And I just thought it was so funny that somebody thinks you're a wise, doddering old man, Sonny. So funny. Well, I mean, you know, it's hard.
Sonny00:04:43It's hard being a wise soul in a young body.
Vic00:04:47And, other than that, I hope everybody had a happy Easter or Passover. Or, Sonny, perhaps you're celebrating Earth Day coming up?
Sonny00:04:57Is this because I'm the pagan of the group? Are you a Satanist, or just a non-believer, or what?
Vic00:05:04How do you self-identify? Animist. Animist.
Sonny00:05:08I'm a bunchist. Do you celebrate the solstice? I celebrate the self.
Vic00:05:12Oh, the self. No, no, Spring Equinox. Spring Equinox is past. That was a big one in the bunch household. Bunchmas. Yes, Bunchmas.
Sonny00:05:19This is probably why I've been struck down with the plague this week. I'm literally broadcasting from an undisclosed location.
Vic00:05:28But it feels like you're... You're here. The quality is so good. It's like you aren't being missed. And JVL, you're doing okay?
JVL00:05:37I was going to rank it like I normally do, but, you know, since we have to stick to integers, I'm going to skip the ranking this week. It's Monday. Hey. No, wait. It's Thursday. Never mind. Yeah, that's right.
Vic00:05:51Good Thursday morning, everybody. Just about to have lunch as you're downloading on your way to wherever. I spent a few days in New York City. New York City? That's right. And it took the kids for their first time. It's funny. When you walk out of Penn Station, the smells just sort of overwhelm you. And the 20 million people, mostly from Spain and France, by the way. That's what I noticed from all the tourists that were there. No Russians? No, no, no. Spanish, but like Castilian Spanish, you know, and French. And it's so overwhelming for kids. If your only city is Washington, D.C., where the buildings only go up 12 stories high, and suddenly they're like 80. And that was crazy. But they had a great time. I did have a thought, which was there's a way to solve, at least, and reduce 50% of pedestrian traffic in New York City. And that's if you just take away all the strollers with nobody in them. Because everywhere we went, there were parents pushing empty strollers. And the double wides, going up the escalators of Empire State Building, pushing empty strollers. Where are the kids? They're walking. They don't need the stroller. So it's like, you know what? My thing is... We were like this with our family. We were always like, either you walk or you stay in the stroller. And guess what? You're walking. Because this is Fifth Avenue. It's not the Bataan Death March. That's how we rolled.
JVL00:07:10What blew your kids' minds the most? Did you take them to Times Square? Because I've always thought that for like a six-year-old kid, seeing Times Square for the first time would basically send them into like an epileptic seizure of awesomeness.
Vic00:07:25It was sort of... I think they were overwhelmed by the craziness of Times Square. But at the same time, they only saw it during the day. And, you know, at night, Times Square is even really crazier. They loved the Natural History Museum and the dinosaurs. They really did. And my son's really into dinosaurs at the moment. And, of course, going up to the 86th floor observatory deck of the Empire State Building. Oh, you did that? I did that.
JVL00:07:50I said, kids, this is where they filmed Sleepless in Seattle. How nice.
Vic00:07:54Yeah. No, it was lovely. You know, it was a nice family time, you know, for me. You know, nothing comes before me and my family. I never turn my back on my family, which sounds like something from a very pro-family movie. Oh, boy. Vic, that's nicely done. Thank you. I worked on that one. That's a transition this morning. I spent the whole weekend in the city thinking about that. A very pro-family, pro-religion movie, really. And just a little bit of racing on the side came out this weekend. Of course, I'm talking about The Fate of the Furious, which made $100 million in the box office domestically. And worldwide. Worldwide, $532 million, half of which go right to Vin Diesel's arms, I believe. They just get deposited. And his arms have their own bank accounts. Sonny, JVL, you both saw this latest installment. What did you think, JVL? No, no, no. Sonny, would you review it, please? Of course. Sure. Unless you want to do it together.
JVL00:08:53We could hold hands and double-byline our review. No. Okay. No, I don't think. That's a good idea. Okay.
Sonny00:09:01So, The Fate of the Furious stars everyone as a team of racing outlaws who go around the world solving crimes and doing kind of black bag. I kind of don't really understand what their relationship to the government is at this point. You have Vin Diesel, who's playing Dom, and you have Michelle Rodriguez, who's playing Letty. They're married. They're having their honeymoon in the notorious car paradise of Cuba. Where they're checking out all the local hot rods, and they have to do this race to save one of Dom's family's members' cars or something. Doesn't matter. Stupid. And then from there, Dom runs into the super hacker named Cypher, who's played by the wonderful Charlize Theron. She convinces Dom that he has to betray his team, which he does during a weird mission to Germany, where they... The team, which has been joined by Dwayne the Rock Johnson, tries to steal an EMP from a factory, or a government warehouse, or maybe a terrorist organization. Unclear to me. Unclear to me. And in so doing, the team is betrayed by Dom, who takes the EMP to Cypher. From there, the team has to figure out why Dom has betrayed them, and we all get to understand. We get to solve the mystery along with them. The movie is bad. It's a bad movie, filled with dumb action and awful performances. The only thing that's good about it is Jason Statham, who joined the series at the end of the sixth one, I believe, in like a teaser, stinger sort of thing, and is the villain in the seventh. And, you know, he is like, he can actually perform action sequences, which is very, very rare, apparently, for guys in this movie. Like, even Vin Diesel is not ever asked to do anything in terms of action. He can actually, like, do flips and kicks and punches and stuff, which is nice. It gives us a little break from the monotonous and boring car chase scenes, one of which includes a race on ice against a submarine that's Russian and has nukes on it. So this is a series that has gone from like... And, if I can interrupt you... If I can interrupt you for a moment, Sonny? Yeah, please.
JVL00:11:31Has internet-enabled doors...
Sonny00:11:34Yes.
JVL00:11:34...and hatches inside the sub, which I thought was pretty ingenious, considering it's a sub-made, it's a boomer, so it's presumably made in 1980, it's in a sub-base where it's supposedly being retrofitted to modern standards. And so they put in doors within the submarine, which can be controlled and open and closed from somebody who has hacked into the submarine's system from, say, an airplane.
Sonny00:11:55That's not even the best part of that sequence. The best part of that sequence is that they use an EMP. To, like, blow and disable the ship, which they then reboot electronically. Yeah. Science. Make sense of that, people. I dare you. I defy anyone who is listening to this podcast right now to explain to me the physics or the, I don't know, electricity, the chemistry, the magic, the magic of this movie. None of it makes any sense. Anyway, so the movie is bad, and people who like these movies aren't bad, but they have bad taste. And it makes me sad that this movie made half a billion, this movie made more money this weekend than any movie ever has, basically. So, I'm depressed about the state of the world after having seen it. JBL, how did you like it?
JVL00:12:44Yes, JBL, please. So, Sonny, you have some wrong opinions. And normally I would just go onto Twitter to correct you, but we're all sitting here. So, the movie's bad, but it's bad. Bad for different reasons. I am one of those people who really likes the Fast and Furious franchise. We can get into why I like the Fast and Furious franchise in a little bit. But this is a very bad entrant into that franchise, I would say. If we were going to rank them, which I plan on doing like 30 minutes from now, then we would rank this towards the very bottom. And it has a number of problems, but the problems don't have anything to do with plot holes. They don't have anything to do with bad physics. Bad physics or bad science. Because all of that stuff you just sort of assume in. If you can't buy into this, then you just can't buy into it. And this movie isn't for you. The problem with F8, notice what they did there? Fate. F8. Fate. I don't get it. Hate. H8. I don't get it. Hate. The problem with Fast and Furious 8 is that it fails a bunch of storytelling tests. And what these movies have all, not always, but most of the time what they do is they're taken on their own terms. They are very good and very efficient storytelling machines. And so, for instance, in this, you have the lead character, Dominic, and he's separated from his team for much too long. Like, with the audience, we want them together doing interesting things together. They do not. Instead, he's turned against them. That's not all that interesting. It would have been much more interesting to turn The Rock against them, and I suspect that there was a story meeting at some point where they thought about doing that. Because it would have been easy. You have The Rock, you have his daughter kidnapped, et cetera, et cetera. In the climactic scene, which we talked about, where they're racing on ice against the submarine, there are, like, four things going on. You have Charlize Theron on the plane. You then have Jason Statham on the plane. You have Dominic fighting this red-bearded guy. You have the cars versus the subs. And all these threads are happening in theory simultaneously, but they're cut together in such a way that there's no narrative logic to them, and there's no building of dramatic tension. There's no excitement. Everything is just, it's like the balloon is constantly having the air leak out of it. And again, this is not, like, plot hole criticism. It's just that the movie is not functioning well as a storytelling device. But here's the biggest criticism that I have, and the reason the movie falls flat. The Fast and Furious, as you said, Victorino, is all about family. Yes. Right? Jason Statham's character is welcomed onto the team in this. Okay. Jason Statham killed part of the family. He killed Han. Oh, yeah. He killed Han. That was. That was the last movie. It just happened in the last movie. Well, right. But it was the setup for this. And then all of a sudden, he's on the team, and he's part of the family, and that doesn't make sense. There's this cognitive thematic dissonance, which is set up here. Because you could have Jason Statham as part of the team, where they're forced to work together, after which they go their separate ways or something. Right. But all of a sudden, we are just airbrushing out, and that doesn't work. It doesn't fit in with any of the, just the milieu of these films. Right, the family values of the Toredos. Yeah, and I think that that is a real problem. And it's a problem, again, that audiences, it's the type of thing you can't necessarily put your finger on it, unless you spend a lot of time thinking about this. But you feel, I think. I think people feel that. Like, we like Jason Statham's character. He's great. But all of a sudden, this just doesn't work with it. You missed the one thing. Jason Statham is not the best thing. What's the best thing in this movie, Sonny?
Sonny00:16:29Oh, what are you, what is it?
JVL00:16:31The best thing in this movie is Helen Mirren. Ooh. Helen Mirren is so great. So what is Helen Mirren in this one? Helen Mirren is uncredited. She shows up for one scene for about two minutes, and she is awesome. I love Helen Mirren. Good. Please, Sonny, try to rebut me.
Sonny00:16:48It's just another boring, overstuffed part of a boring, overstuffed movie. Like, they're trying to make it funny, and she's like this cockney gangster who is the mother, or, yeah, she's the mother of Jason Statham's character, and, you know, there's this whole kind of subplot where Jason Statham's brother was the villain from, I think, the fifth one? Or, no, he was the villain in the sixth one. He was the villain in the sixth one. It doesn't matter. None of this matters.
JVL00:17:15It doesn't matter what movie he was the villain in.
Sonny00:17:18The Han Solo, you know, death scene being negated by, also, can we discuss the fact that they basically just murder a woman so Michelle Rodriguez can have... Have a child without ever having to be pregnant? They murder... What are you trying to say, Sonny? Cypher murders a member of the family so Dom and Letty can have a kid without them having to, like, actually be together in a biblical sense. It's very weird. And I have to say that the thing that I find most frustrating about this is that you know, you just know that at a certain point, Cypher is going to join the team, right? Because this is basically an anime series at this point, where the last season's villain becomes this season's new member of the team. Like, they're going to join forces and take down some extra huge threat. I hate this dumb series. I hate it, and I can't... I resent the fact that it makes as much money as it does.
JVL00:18:16Victorino, would you break the tie? You love Fast and Furious, too, right?
Vic00:18:19I do know. A Tokyo Drift? Great movie. I love Little Bow Wow, even though he was just called Bow Wow, but for some reason they called him Twinkie. That is an unfortunate... That is an unfortunate name. I would have not agreed to that role if that was my name. But what I was going to ask you guys first was, I mean, the series, I mean, they were showing the marathon on Spike TV, right? It was a Fast and Furious marathon. Were they? I don't watch TV. Oh, that's right. Let alone Spike. And it just is hard to tell one from the other, really, because they just seem to all blend together, whether it be Faster and Furiouser, with or without the articles. Those are two separate movies, right? The Fast and the Furious. The Furious and Fast and Furious are two separate movies. Is that correct?
JVL00:19:02Yes. And Furious.
Vic00:19:03Yes, that's correct. And I kept on calling it Furious 8, or Fast 5. It's not Furious 5 and everything. A Faster and Furiouser. And it's like, how do you top each and every one of these movies in this collection? And when I saw the commercials, and you guys watched it, with the nuclear submarine and military hardware and tanks and missiles, well, that's it, right? I mean, where do you go from there? Sure. Do you go into space? Moonraker. Right.
Sonny00:19:30You'll go to Jason 10.
JVL00:19:32You know, I did.
Sonny00:19:33Friday the 13th.
JVL00:19:33No, really. I did think to myself that, I don't know if listeners know this, Vic is one of the best editors I've ever worked with, and Vic is one of these guys who has an eye for, like, everything that's wrong on a page. This must give you, like, tics and convulsions looking at these various misspelled, like, numerals instead of words. Oh, it's so, yes. Too fast, too furious, faster, and more furious.
Vic00:19:58It was a blur. It becomes a blur, and I don't know what I'm watching anymore. Although, again, some of them are really good. I did actually sit and watch, from beginning to end, Fast Five in the favelas in Brazil. I thought that was very entertaining. But as JVL mentions, after six, Han gets killed. I saw the ending of that. It's a horrible ending to that character, where he gets, you know, the car explodes on him, and then, again, suddenly they're friends. So I find that there are a lot more problems with this. I have a lot of concerns with the FNF. But, again, I don't know where you go from here, because there's going to be nine, obviously. Wait a minute, Vic. Yes, JVL.
JVL00:20:34Don't you know that Han died at the end of Tokyo Drift?
Vic00:20:37Oh, wait a minute.
JVL00:20:39I'm getting confused here. Don't you understand? No. So this is, Tokyo Drift is out of continuity. Yes. Oh, my gosh. The events of Tokyo Drift actually take place between, you're kidding me. Yep.
Vic00:20:52Oh, I've just been blown away. This is a real thing. Did I just blow your mind? I've been blown away. I have to go back now and watch this. Watch this. Okay, I'm withholding judgment.
JVL00:20:59I'm withholding judgment. This is getting deeper. Our mutual friends, Mary Catherine Hamm and Kristen Soltis Anderson, did a podcast last week for the Federalist Radio Hour that I just, it was so good. They spent a full hour on Fast and Furious. They are connoisseurs of these movies, and to such a degree that they were even analyzing the changing fashion in men's t-shirts across the series, and Mary Catherine Hamm, who is herself quite controversial, has written a lot of very controversial things about Frozen, the movie, maybe her most controversial opinion ever is that Tokyo Drift is the greatest of the Fast and Furious movies, and she makes a case.
Vic00:21:44Well, I like the villain. Is it Ken Watanabe? Am I getting that wrong? It's not Ken Watanabe. Ken Watanabe. I get confused. Why do you say it's Ken Watanabe?
JVL00:21:51I knew I was going to step up. Why do you say that?
Vic00:21:54Man. That's just one giant macroaggression happening there. You know, the guy from Inception and The Last Samurai. I'm not Filipino, so I'm not touching this. Toshiro Mifune. No, it's not. I forget his name.
JVL00:22:10Doesn't matter what. I liked him. Thank you. He was very good. I can see making an argument. It's like a fish out of water thing. It's lost in suits. I think Kristen says, so it's like lost in translation. What with race cars? That's very good. Totally over. It's Justin Lin when he comes and begins revitalizing the series. I like, you know, the truth is, I would actually rank, I wouldn't go with best overall like Mary Catherine, but I would rank it pretty high on our Sagarin rankings of the Fast and the Furious if we were to construct such a thing.
Sonny00:22:44Yes, Sonny. Can I just interrupt for one second, please? You're suggesting that Justin Lin's The Fast and the Furious, Justin Lin started revitalizing the series with The Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift, because that was the nadir of the series by every measure, except for your and Mary Catherine's insane rankings. No, not creatively, it was not.
JVL00:23:02No, no, no, this is simply a wrong opinion. That's the problem. Too Fast, Too Furious is the nadir of the series. I'm skipping that one.
Sonny00:23:09No, no, no, no. Tokyo Drift is much worse.
JVL00:23:11This is simply wrong. No one denies this.
Sonny00:23:15Yes, Sonny. No, I'm not going to explain anything. This is, you're just so wrong. This is, again, once again, JBL is insane, and everyone should mention this in the reviews that they leave of our show.
Vic00:23:28Sonny, as you mentioned in your review that this is going to keep on going, is that correct? I mean, the added item.
Sonny00:23:35There are two more of these movies already scheduled to be released.
Vic00:23:40There's got to be one, then, that's going to be Fast and Furious in space, right? It'll be like the Emmanuel series. Emmanuel in Paris. Oh, sorry, that was on HBO in the 1970s and early 80s.
Sonny00:23:52Sorry. Similar. I'm not familiar with the Emmanuel series. Could you explain? Explain what that is? It's a period drama. In our audience? It's a period drama. Yes, thank you, JVL. It's culture. It's French. It's French. Foreign. Foreign film. But anyway, Justin Lin is a bad director who makes bad movies, so we shouldn't praise him. Wrong.
JVL00:24:13Did you see the new Star Trek movie? Didn't he direct that? It's terrible. I did not see it. Wasn't there a car chase in it?
Sonny00:24:20Oh, yeah. There was. There was like a motorcycle chase.
JVL00:24:24So, I mean, can we talk about some of the things that were... So, this is interesting to me.
Sonny00:24:28Please, JVL.
JVL00:24:29So, we're now basically going to do an analytic show of the Mary Catherine and Kristen podcast. It's like very meta. No, but what's interesting to me is that they mentioned something which totally stuck with me, and I thought I was the only one, but it turns out. So, I now imagine maybe this is other people. For me, the entire mission statement for the series is actually a scene in the first movie where they all get together in the backyard bar. Barbecue at the Toretto house, and they say grace. Yes. And that is a Dominic is the patriarch, and they say grace because these are people for whom it is their culture. This is where they have just passed down to them through wherever, and because that is important to them. And that is the family. Family is what you make of it, and they are all bound together in an important way. Even Vince, who is sort of a meathead and a chucklehead and a source of conflict within, they all bow their heads and say grace together. That's exactly right, JVL.
Vic00:25:25It is. One of the things that struck me. About Fast Five was that sort of pro-family element. You don't see this a lot, and Dom is talking about how his father had everyone over at a Sunday barbecue, and the only rule is you had to have gone to church in order to get the barbecue, and he mentions that. And then somebody, I think, eats out of turn, and so that person has to say the grace. And they say grace, and it's crazy. It's like, what? This is a movie happening right now?
JVL00:25:50Really? Yeah, no kidding. And this is the heart of the movie, and I really think that this is true, and this is why people respond to the series, because it is a series which does a couple things very right. It knows what it is. It has actual heart. It really believes this family stuff. Nobody mails it in. There is nobody in any of these movies who is ever mailing in a performance or mailing in the stunt work or the conception of something. Whether things work or don't work, they work or don't work, honestly. And because, as I said, most of them are really efficient, pretty economical storytelling machines. And that's why people like them. It's not rocket science.
Vic00:26:32That's right. The family that prays together, races together, and kills together. I guess that's the... Sonny!
JVL00:26:42Sonny, you're just shaking your head, right? Sitting in your closet, shaking your head.
Sonny00:26:46I've fashioned a sort of noose, and I've looped it around the ceiling, and we're just getting close.
JVL00:26:54You know what else, I think? It plays a part in this series' popularity. Do you realize this is one of the final three blockbuster movies before 9-11? The original Fast and Furious. And it was the last original blockbuster before 9-11. So, three big movies, the last three big movies to come out before 9-11. That was summer 2000? Summer 2001.
Vic00:27:172001, brother.
JVL00:27:189-11 was in 2001. You're not young enough to make that mistake, Victorino. I know. Rush Hour 2, American Pie 2, and Fast and Furious. Fast and Furious. And so, this is part of the reason I think this eats up a big chunk of mental and cultural real estate that those movies do not. I think it's probably not coincidental. May I tell a little story? I was actually living in D.C. at the time, and I was so jazzed to see this movie that I went home to New Jersey for the weekend so that my little brother and I could go see it on opening night together. And so, we went to the packed Marlton 8, too many South Jersey people there represent. Okay, yeah. And it's opening night, and this is a very... Very white bread area. And at a packed house, sold out show, and afterwards in the parking lot, all of us were sitting in our parents' Volvos, gunning the motors, and sort of thinking like, oh, yeah. Maybe we're all just going to street race right here on the way to Starbucks.
Vic00:28:18Yeah. It was... I could totally see myself in that world, too, because I can race with you guys. Now, I'm just making sure you have some cars that are automatic. That's correct? I'm just making sure that they're not all stick. Okay, good. I'm good. I'll be there. I'll see you. Yeah.
Sonny00:28:32It's an interesting idea that this is kind of one of the last pre-9-11 action franchises. Interesting, because really, the series has evolved into this kind of faux James Bond, deep state, international terror thing that was definitely not part of the original film. And, I mean, like, MKH and Kristen. Kristen made a very good point in their podcast, which everyone should listen to, that, like, the original stakes of this movie were, like, they were boosting $100 million worth of DVD players, right? Oh, I think it's, like, $3 million worth of DVD players. Yeah, whatever. Like, $5 million. Like, a big truck, basically. A big truck of DVD players. And, like, now it's, you know, nuclear missiles on Russian subs in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Like, it has kind of become this global phenomenon. And, you know, talking about the box office returns kind of helps underscore just how insanely popular this movie is overseas. It grossed something like $540 million this weekend. And of that figure, like, 440 of it came from overseas. Now, that is, you see this kind of disparity sometimes in a movie like Warcraft or even the XXX movies. The most recent Vin Diesel XXX movie, you see that sort of disparity between domestic and overseas. But, like, you don't usually see it when the film also grosses $100 million domestically in the United States. So these are huge, huge properties overseas, in part because it has kind of embraced that post-9-11 terror threat mindset, right?
JVL00:30:20Yeah, I think so. I mean, they're universally accessible. The tuner culture is a thing which is universal. Anywhere there are cars. There is a tuner culture of some sort. Sonny, you pay more attention to box office than I do. This movie opened to $100 million in America and $190 million in China. Do you remember the Chinese box office ever doubling the American box office for a tentpole movie on opening weekend?
Sonny00:30:46I mean, again, outside of movies like XXX or Warcraft, no. I mean, that's amazing. Nothing like this.
JVL00:30:53That is amazing. But people may not. No. So in America, the movie studio gets 50% of every dollar that comes into the box office. In China, the movie studio universally gets 25%. So it needs to gross more overseas. Movies and properties which are overseas heavy in terms of what they rely on for box office need to do a lot more in order to make up. America's still the most valuable market for them because they just take away more of the money from the box office.
Sonny00:31:22Yeah. You know, Furious 7 made $1.5 billion. And it made $1.16 of that overseas. And I would be shocked if it does not make another – I mean, I would be kind of surprised if it doesn't hit like $1.3, $1.4 billion overseas this time around. I think it will do less well domestically. The opening weekend this weekend was very much on the low end of expectations.
JVL00:31:48It was a 33% decline over the opening of 7.
Sonny00:31:52Yeah. But, I mean, you know, it's hard to – but it's an apple. It's an orange as comparison because Furious 7, of course, everyone was excited to go see Paul Walker's last movie. Everyone, you know, the ad campaign had been really good. But, you know, you had that kind of Heath Ledger effect where there were a lot of people who may not normally have gone to see the film who were out there weekend one, you know, kind of getting in that Paul Walker goodness.
Vic00:32:19Does Paul Walker make any sort of appearance, either flashback or CGI-wise, in the new movie? Nothing. Pictures, photos.
JVL00:32:27No, they mention him and they explain why they can't go get him in such a way as to keep him living, but off camera. Wow. So, which is nice. I actually thought that was nicely done.
Vic00:32:37JVL, we are about half an hour into the show. You want to go right into your rankings now?
JVL00:32:41Well, I mean, if you guys would like to try ranking them first, I'm happy to correct you afterwards.
Sonny00:32:46I'll go first. Go for it, Sonny. Okay. The worst one is all of them. They all get zero stars. And the best one is none of them. None of them are any good. No, I'm joking a little bit. I actually do like the fifth and the sixth entries in the series. The fifth was the one in Brazil, apparently. The Favalas, yes. And the sixth was the one starring Luke Evans. And I'll be honest, I can't really remember why I like that one. I just remember it being slightly less offensive to my eyes than the rest of the series, possibly because Gal Gadot had a lot of them. I think I spent a lot of screen time on that one.
Vic00:33:28Ooh, you pronounced her name differently this time, Sonny.
Sonny00:33:30Why is that? Somebody on the internet said that it's not Gadot like French. It's Gadot because she's Israeli. I have decided to accept her own pronunciation of her name. I feel like that's polite. Wonder Woman needs to be respected.
Vic00:33:48Okay.
Sonny00:33:49Anyway, they all get zero stars. They're all bad. Dick, what's your favorite?
Vic00:33:53You know what? I saw the first one. Then I saw Tokyo Drift. And I saw, now this is crazy. I'm still thinking about the fact that it was out of sequence. That's wild. I got to let that one sink in. And then the Fast Five. I really like the Fast Five. I thought it was good. I particularly like how Han ends up with Gal Gadot. Gal, was that her first name? Gal? What's her first name? Gal. Gal Gadot. I like how they ended up together. It's very rare for the Asian man to land the hot white woman. It's not that rare. Oh, thank you, JVL. Yes, that makes me and Han, we have a lot in common. And also, we like to race cars. So, I liked that movie. As ridiculous as it was, dragging a giant vault around the highway. That was crazy. That was crazy. But it was good. And you just can't, with these movies, you just can't stop to ask questions like, how did he get out of those handcuffs? How did he escape from that car? Just go with the flow, because if you think too deeply, it's going to hurt your brain, and you won't have an answer. Just shut your brain off and watch it. You're like an idiot. That's right.
Sonny00:34:57Feed me. Just look at the pictures, like a child going through a flip book. JVL, what's your favorite in this series?
JVL00:35:08We will now rank the Fast and the Furious movies. Vic, can you mute Sonny, please? I'm muting him.
Vic00:35:16Yeah, I'm going to mute him.
JVL00:35:18Number one, the original Fast and the Furious. This movie is great. It's really great. And you go back and watch it, and it has tremendous staying. Everything about it is iconic. It establishes the mission statement for the series. It establishes the universe that these people live in. It establishes a truly iconic character in Vin Diesel's Dom Toretto. He's just a perfect screen character in screen creation. It's filled with quotable things. It's filled with great action and great racing. Everything about it is just perfection. And a side note, can we pause to be a little bit sad for Chad Lindbergh? Chad Lindbergh is the actor who played Jesse in the first one. He's great in the movie. He's the mad scientist cartooner who's kind of an ADD case and sort of the heart of the family. And he gets killed at the beginning of the third act. And he is the only member of this series who never gets to cash another paycheck from the Fast and the Furious series.
Sonny00:36:22Have I actually been muted?
JVL00:36:26I think I didn't hear anything. Did you say something, JVL? So, yeah. Number two, Furious 7, which is a tremendous movie all on its own. Basically also a perfect movie. But weirdly and surprisingly, it handles the exit of Paul Walker in a way which is deft. Graceful. And sunny and graceful and kind of beautiful and artistic. Which in a movie where they've just been like running around blowing stuff up and jumping cars is totally unexpected and wonderful and poignant. Fast Five, as you said, the introduction of The Rock is tremendous. Number four, Fast and Furious 6. Number five, Tokyo Drift, which I could be inclined to put possibly above six, maybe. Mary Catherine. Number six, Fast and the Furious 8, The Fate of the Furious. Number seven, Fast and Furious, which is the fourth entry in the series. And the worst of them all is Too Fast, Too Furious. As I said in the beginning. No one denies this.
Vic00:37:29Sonny, you're back on. We unmuted you. Are you still there?
Sonny00:37:33So I have just one comment. Neither of you seem to know how to pronounce Dom Toretto's name. JBL, you called him Toretty. And Vic, you called him like Toretto. He's a godfather.
Vic00:37:48Yes, well, he is Dom. Dom is. What are you saying, Sonny? You're both idiots. Besides that, do you pronounce it differently?
JVL00:37:56Dom Toretto. It's Toretto. Toretto, fine, whatever. You know what? Can we also pause for a moment to appreciate Tyrese Gibson?
Sonny00:38:03Tyrese? As the worst character, as the worst actor in this movie? Sure, let's do that. No, because he is not the worst actor in this movie.
Vic00:38:08No, that would be ludicrous. I mean, that would be ludicrous to think. Ludicrous isn't bad. No, no, I meant that would be ludicrous to think Tyrese Gibson is a terrible actor. Sorry.
JVL00:38:14No, look, so Tyrese Gibson is basically playing Falstaff, which is not an easy thing to do. And he's got one job and one job only. He's saddled with comic relief the whole time.
Vic00:38:25I'm glad we're not looking too deeply.
JVL00:38:26He is never grading on the audience, and that requires, truth be told, a lot of actorly skill and a lot of screen charisma, and I think he's great at what he does here, and I think there's a lot to be admired.
Sonny00:38:37You say he's never grading on the audience. I wanted to fire the entire movie theater into the sun when he did his Blanta, his Black Santa Blanta bit in the latest movie.
JVL00:38:47You know why you thought that? Because everybody else around you laughed, and you hate people.
Sonny00:38:52Because they're all garbage. They're all garbage. I was surrounded by garbage radio. The contest winners.
Vic00:38:57That line kills. Okay. Have we gotten all the Fast and Furious off our chest? No, you know what? I want to say one more thing. Okay. Yes, please, JVL.
JVL00:39:06No, just as an example. Look, this is an example of what I'm talking about when I talk about really efficient storytelling. Think about the open of Seven. Seven opens with Jason Statham in the hospital room, and he's talking to his brother. You're getting the full, hey, this guy is into Family 2 thing. Which makes him a worthy adversary. But then, instead of showing Jason Statham killing people and blowing a bunch of things up and punching and kicking, you realize that you're here in the aftermath, and you just get the big pullback as you see what he's done to wreck this place, and that is so infinitely more effective and more economical as a storytelling device. And, again, it establishes the character as tremendously heavy. It establishes him as also being two fists in on the whole family stuff, which is going to be what makes him a worrisome. Or the adversary, because he's not just a merc. He believes in all the same stuff they do, and this is what's going to motivate him and drive the character. I'm just saying that, yes, cars jumping from the 95th floor of a skyscraper to the 63rd floor of a skyscraper is ridiculous. But, as a piece of storytelling, as a piece of narrative construction, these are really well-crafted movies.
Sonny00:40:18So, I will actually agree with that. And I think I highlighted this in my review two or three years ago. That is a fantastic opening scene. Because it's clever. It's actually funny and clever, and it is unexpected. And there, frankly, isn't enough of that in these dumb movies. They're filled with these gibberish nonsense words that are supposed to give you some sense of what's actually happening. Like, you know, I remember in The Fate of the Furious, they described the EMP as like a class four WMD, which is a term that has no actual meaning, but it is like specifically enough to make us think like, okay, yeah, these guys are terrorists, except they're assaulting what is clearly not a terrorist facility. I don't, I'm sorry, if you just say like, set aside the plot holes and the lack of physics and the fact that none of this actually makes sense and they're good movies, you haven't actually made a good movie.
JVL00:41:14Look, The Fate of the Furious is not that great. I mean, it's better than Sucker Punch.
Sonny00:41:19Well, that's not right. That's incorrect.
JVL00:41:21But I'm not saying it's a great movie, Sonny. I'm just saying it's better than Sucker Punch.
Sonny00:41:26Okay. You know what I, yeah, great. I'm not going to take your bait on this.
Vic00:41:31Okay. All right. I think it's time to move on. We were talking- It was time to move on 30 minutes ago. Since we were talking about our rankings, we are fast approaching our- Are we furiously approaching? Furiously, fast and furiously approaching our 25th episode, the Silver Anniversary Edition, which you'll be able to get a DVD. I live my podcast, my life, one quarter of a podcast. One quarter of a podcast at a time. Thank you. Yes, exactly. And we wanted to look fondly back on our favorite and least favorite episodes and why. And so we decided we were going to do a quick, I don't know if you want to do ranking or just say favorite, least favorite. JVL or Sonny, you have thoughts. I'll go last because I'm right. Sonny, you go first.
Sonny00:42:19I would say that my least favorite episode is the unaired, pilot, the unaired pilot episode of The Weekly Substandard, which no one will ever hear. Sorry, guys. That was something that is going to be locked away in the vaults forever. My favorite was almost certainly the most recent episode that we did about Michael Caine and Red Eye and basic cable classic movies. It's really just, it gets to what makes The Weekly Substandard work. Sonny, I didn't.
Vic00:42:56I need to, Sonny, I need to interrupt you. There's something coming out of your microphone right now, a sort of protuberance.
Sonny00:43:01And, you know, I just, I loved it. I loved it, and everyone should go back and download that episode again. It's very sweet. Download it a second time just to listen to, you know, three friends bantering about their ridiculous obsessions.
Vic00:43:14That was wonderful, Sonny.
Sonny00:43:15What's your favorite episode?
Vic00:43:16Well, I'll do you, funny enough, my least favorite is also the mysterious unaired pre-first episode that no one will ever know. What was on it? That's the one where you make a joke about all the ethnic groups you don't like. Oh, my gosh. Besides that one. And, you know, yeah, that's right. And then somebody has the, quote, accident in the studio, you know, because they said they were nervous. Anyway, lots of things happened on that show, and no one will ever know about it. It exists somewhere, I'm sure. Somewhere in a dark, dark place. But, yeah, I'll go with that because we just weren't sure yet, you know, it was still, it was in Choate. It was in Choate episode. We were still sort of feeling our way out about what we were doing. We do what we talk about, elements and things like that. And then until we came into our own. My favorite episode for me was actually, and I did love the Michael Caine one, Sonny, don't get me wrong, but New Jersey Turd Pikes. Thanksgiving, New Jersey Turd Pikes. Ooh, classic. It's a classic. I think that's when we came into our own. That's when, boom, something happened. It was like a spark. And it was your outrage, Jonathan and I going off on the different rest stops. I thought, this is it. We found something very cool. Quirky, very obscure, bizarre, but people like it. And it worked, based on the feedback.
Sonny00:44:32Yeah, that's the Alien Invasion plus Thanksgiving tips, if you want to go back and-
Vic00:44:36Thank you, Sonny. Alien Invasion plus Thanksgiving tips. That's where we turned a quarter. Go ahead.
Sonny00:44:41Also, our first explicit podcast. That's the first podcast with an E. That's very interesting. Once we decided to go blue, that's when things really came together.
JVL00:44:49Sonny has not earned an E yet. Which one? This one right now. He's not doing, has not earned an E for explicit. I might drop it later, but it depends. Until right now? No.
Vic00:45:03JVL, please.
JVL00:45:04Unlike these guys, who are humble bragging about the worst episode. Oh, the worst episode is one you'll never see. I'll tell you, we have three legitimately terrible episodes.
Vic00:45:11Why would you say that? They're not going to listen. Our downloads are going to plummet. We've got to tell everybody that every single episode is great. Don't you see what's going on? Because I treat my audience like they're my friends. That's why. I don't lie to them.
JVL00:45:20No, I treat them like clicks. Go ahead. On the worst list, number three, the Marvel- Marvel vs. DC, which now I look back on this episode, and I cannot believe that we wasted what should have been an epic topic on this, when we were still like three episodes in or two episodes in, and we didn't know how to do the show yet.
Vic00:45:36Remember, it came at a time when there was not a lot going on. January is the worst, or whatever it was.
JVL00:45:41Number two, Gilmore Girls. The Gilmore Girls episode. Who needs that? What if it were some stupid Netflix show that nobody even watched?
Vic00:45:47We, that was my second least favorite JVL, and also because I think there was nothing else going on. Go ahead. The worst was last week's Michael Caine episode. No, no, no. Which I've now listened to again, and it is so, God, I can't believe anybody listened to that thing. Please listen to it again if you don't believe Jonathan. It's that good. I gave a B minus review, according to Sonny Bunch.
JVL00:46:08The three best, the Logan episode. Yeah, that's a good one. Where Vic gets his very special gift from me.
Vic00:46:17I still have it.
JVL00:46:18Rogue One. The Rogue One episode is actually really good. That was big.
Vic00:46:22We did Rogue One twice, yes? The before and after. So which one is this one? Redux.
JVL00:46:26The Redux, the one where we had actually seen the movie. All three of us did. The best episode we've done, and I did, just so you guys know, I did go and listen to all of the episodes, so I could, like, this isn't just me like, hey, I remember this one. No, no, no, that's way too much time.
Vic00:46:39No, no, no, no, no, that's too insane. Martin Scorsese.
JVL00:46:43That, so look, it starts out slow. You're mean. But once that thing gets going, it is like it's on rails, and, because I, you know, now I can say this. I had plotted the entire thing. I'd spent literally a week preparing for it, and I had diagrammed out, so if Sonny says this, I'm going to say that. If he says X, I'm going to say Y. And it's a whole decision tree of arguments for what is essentially the Barbarossa of troll jobs, and it works, and having Sonny lose his mind on air was so great. Yeah, and it, as I said, just, it holds up when you listen to it. If you go back. It's a great show. If you go back. If you're a new listener, you should go back and listen to the Martin Scorsese podcast.
Vic00:47:25If you go back and listen to them all, they're great. If you go back to the Scorsese. They're not all great. Go listen to Martin Scorsese. If you go back, don't, I would say skip Jack Reacher, but if you go to the Scorsese episode, I sort of, I feel like I sort of inserted myself at the end to prevent Sonny from blowing up. He had the. Like a cork. Yes. Well, you wouldn't, you couldn't see him on the show, but the look on his face was a little scary. It was a little scary. We need a YouTube videocast of the. Scorsese. Okay. I think we're ready to move on then.
JVL00:48:00Yes. Corrections Editions. JVL. You know, last week's show was such utter garbage that I refused to correct any of it. The correction's the whole thing, and I am sorry. I am sorry that we wasted your time.
Vic00:48:13People, you're ridiculous. People love Michael Caine. People loved hearing about Sonny's anecdote about meeting Michael Caine, and I did a movie review, and people demanded that we talked about Cable Classics, so we delivered on that, didn't we? People wanted to know. How many people came to us? It was for the people. It was fan service, JVL. What do you think about the fans?
Sonny00:48:31Okay. Sonny. I have one correction. I have a correction. I have to say, but it's not for me. It's for Mary Katherine Hamm, Kristen Soltis Anderson, who mistakenly said that there are no great eight-plus movie franchises while talking about the Fast and the Furious movie. I've got a little one called Star Wars. Star Wars, more than eight movies. Uh, uh, and easily as big as the Fast and the Furious franchise. Uh, I love them. I just wanted to, you know, I wanted to, to, to give them a little, uh, just to, you know. Is it as good as the Fast and the Furious, though? Uh, well, the Star Wars movies are a million times better than the Fast and the Furious movies.
JVL00:49:14The Phantom Menace?
Sonny00:49:16Every, every single one. Attack of the Clones? I would, uh, Attack of the Clones is better. The worst moments in Attack of the Clones. The Force Awakens? Revenge of the Sith? Return of the Jedi? That scene, that scene is a hundred times better than anything that's happened in any of the Fast and Furious movies.
JVL00:49:32Look, there are three good Star Wars movies and five garbage Star Wars movies, and there are four good Fast and Furious movies.
Sonny00:49:40Uh, the problem with this is that there are zero good Fast and Furious movies, and there are, like, six good Star Wars movies.
JVL00:49:45All right. Well, your opinion, man. Yeah, that's right. I noticed.
Vic00:49:50That's, like, your opinion, man. I, I, you know what I noticed on, uh, when, uh, Mary Jane? Mary Catherine and Kristen Soltis Anderson, uh, did their show, the photo of them drinking Coronas in the studio, and I can't help-
JVL00:50:03That's what they drink in the Fast and Furious movies. Well, yes. You can have any beer you want, Brian, as long as it's Corona.
Vic00:50:08But I also couldn't help think that it was partly inspired by Spirit of the Week. Speaking of which, Spirit of the Week, uh, I'm drinking here in studio, uh, Jefferson's Ocean Aged at Sea Kentucky Straight Bourbon. It's smooth. It's very delightful. Uh, JVL, you're going on some sort of- It's fast. You have no liquids whatsoever.
JVL00:50:28That's because I wasn't offered, even though- I knew you weren't going to have that. Even though Sonny is not in the studio.
Vic00:50:34Sonny, what are you drinking? So you're drinking alone, which is totally not a sign that you have a problem. No, I knew I had a problem a long way before this podcast. Uh, Sonny, what are you drinking? And don't tell me it's Pappy Van Winkle.
Sonny00:50:44Uh, I have three cans of Diet Dr. Pepper in front of me, two of which are empty. Uh, so I've just been- I've been consuming caffeine and- and- and 23 flavors. Uh, so, uh, no- no alcohol for me today.
JVL00:51:00Can I- can I ask a serious question, boys? Sure. So if you open a bottle of bourbon- Mm-hmm. And just, like, pour yourself a couple fingers and drink it- Yeah. When you put the cork back in, does your bourbon go bad at any point? No, never. Last for forever? Yeah, it'll just evaporate. So why don't- I don't think that-
Sonny00:51:19Why don't you just open up your Pappy Van Winkle and have a drink? I don't know that it'll last- I'm sorry. If you keep an airtight seal, uh, it will last for a long time.
Vic00:51:29Bourbon will never go bad. However, what happens is once you open it, the evaporation process begins, uh, much more faster than had you not opened it or uncorked it. So then you- Much more faster. Much more faster and more furious-er, too. Uh, it's what they call the angel's share, right?
JVL00:51:43So how fast does this happen? So this- well, I guess what I'm getting at is why do you sit on this-
Vic00:51:47That's in the barrel. The angel's share in the barrel, and then there's the devil's cut, but that was a marketing ploy.
JVL00:51:52So why is it that you're sitting on this bottle of supposedly amazing bourbon? Instead of, like, I don't know, like, once a week for five years, pouring yourself, like, one finger's worth and just enjoying it.
Vic00:52:03And haven't you learned anything from The Fast and the Furious? Life is short, uh, Sonny. You should just- Yeah, but this is a real question, Sonny.
JVL00:52:09Like, why- why not just, like, have a finger?
Sonny00:52:12Well, I mean, I- I could if I wanted to, but I'm saving it for a special- I don't understand the question. It's not- but it's not like- it's not like a bottle of Dom Perignon or whatever. It's- it's not gonna go bad. It just sits there. But- but-
JVL00:52:24I'll tell you why. The point is, you- You could have a tiny mouthful to taste how amazing this supposedly thing really is, uh, and then if it's really that awesome, you could, like, put it away and wait six months and have another one. Like, how long are you gonna wait for?
Sonny00:52:36JVL, JVL. I- I have opened it and I have been drinking it. I don't under- I- again, I don't quite understand the question.
JVL00:52:42I did not realize that. I'm sorry. I thought this was sitting away, boxed, like a- like a collector's toy that you weren't even gonna take out of the box because you were waiting for it to increase in value or something.
Vic00:52:52I just- I just assumed he was waiting for a special occasion. Like, what? Like, when he is happy. Okay.
Sonny00:52:58I mean, I'm- I'm not waiting for a never occasion.
Vic00:53:02That's all the time we are giving to 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 so 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. Until next time. So, when we were in New York, we went to the planetarium. And we- you know, when you get your passes, I bought my passes ahead of time and it came with a free movie at the planetarium. Great. Free movie for us and the kids in the sphere. You go in the sphere. And the movie was called Dark Universe. I said, oh, this is great. And it's all about the Big Bang Theory and the origins of the universe. I said, you know, this is great because my son- you know, he's had questions about the origins of the universe, what goes on. Before you start really thinking, it gets crazy about Big Bang. Before that, luckily, the show was narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson. So, it's- they had- he had all the answers. And he kind of sounds like God, even though in Neil's world, there is none. So, my kids, you know, all their questions have been answered. They've rejected the faith now. I mean, they're atheists. But other than that, it was a great show.
Sonny00:54:21That's lovely. I know you're a big fan, too, Sonny. Uh, yeah. He was- he was great in Batman v Superman, Dawn of Justice. Wow. JVL, what's going on?
JVL00:54:33I'm not even touching that. You know, I, uh, I just wanted to have, like, a conversation with you, Vic, about how your weekend was. Because we celebrated this weekend, for you, the holiest day of the year. Yes. The day where we celebrate life, possibility, openings, beginnings. It was Emma Watson's birthday.
Vic00:54:54You know what? You know what? That's crazy. It's like, it was meant to be, it was kismet, because I was in, when this happened, I was walking by the Empire, you know, through the Empire State Building, and what did I walk past but a photo of Emma Watson in the Empire State Building. And I believe, uh, my wife pointed, goes, oh, she says, there's your girlfriend. So she's cool with it. Oh, that's wonderful. Oh, I'm sure she's fine.
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