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#35. The Substandard Reviews Guardians of The Galaxy and Pizza!
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
Dudes Chatting — pizza rankings: An extended and passionate segment on pizza. JVL ranks delivery chains, placing Costco's cafeteria pizza at the top and Papa John's dead last. Sonny names Five Guys (he acknowledges it isn't pizza but argues the patty quality sets a standard), Penn Station, and Sparrow as reference points. Vic goes autobiographical: his New Jersey roots shape his palate toward Spring Lake area pizza and a place called Geppetto's, with Culver's representing his Midwest-inflected sensibility. The hosts briefly rank the Hollywood Chrises (Evans, Pratt, Pine, Hemsworth) with no strong consensus.
Reviews: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 — Sonny is mixed, finding the team too separated for most of the runtime with too many emotional beats that don't earn their payoffs; Vic calls it "great"; JVL is increasingly hostile, finding it purposeless with forced charm, terrible action staging, and a bloated runtime — he says he "increasingly hates it" more with each passing day.
Box Office: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 opens to a massive $145 million; The Fate of the Furious holds in second; The Boss Baby persists implausibly in the top three.
Corrections segment addressed. Spirit of the Week: Woodford Reserve.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Guys, Trump's handling of Comey has inspired me. You're fired. Damn it, I just learned the last thing on Comey's to-do list? Investigating the substandard. Foiled again by Donald Trump. The fate of the universe lies on your shoulders. Now whatever you do, don't push this button. Because that will set off the bomb immediately, and we'll all be dead. Now repeat back what I just said. I am Groot. No! Now that's the button that will kill everyone! Try again. I am Groot. Mm-hmm. I am Groot. Uh-huh. I am Groot.
?00:00:48No!
Vic00:00:53Hello and welcome back to The Substandard, now part of the Ricochet Audio Network. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. Lastexpensive. Hey, Budge. I'd like to remind you that The Substandard is available on iTunes and Google Play. Just look under podcasts and search for Substandard. You'll 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. We're just thrilled here in the studio because, at long last, we have a sponsor, and we've been working on segues and transitions. It's so seamless you won't even notice. But a little bit more on that later on. Gentlemen, how are we doing? JVL.
JVL00:01:35I had a great weekend. It was awesome. I had a birthday weekend. My children and wife were very, very kind to me, got me lots of lovely presents, and went to Dave and Buster's to celebrate on a Saturday night, which is gateway drug gambling for children, basically. And it was great. We spent $150 on tokens so that my son could win enough. Points to get a $3 football.
Vic00:02:03Congrats. It's one of the greatest rackets of all time. I heard a rumor that it's based on how many coins are deposited in the bank, and once it reaches that X amount, then the claw works. That's what I heard. No, this isn't claw. This is like playing skee-ball and then shoot the shark and stuff like that.
JVL00:02:23Sometimes I wonder. I've never actually done this. Next time my kids want to go to Dave and Buster's, I wonder if what I should do is say, well, we could do that. We could go to Dave and Buster's and have a great time, at the end of which you could go into the prize room and choose a prize with whatever you have won with your tickets, or I could give you $150 right now for you to buy something else really cool. Which would you prefer? I want the furry thing for 50 cents.
Vic00:02:46That's what I want. All right, fair enough.
Sonny00:02:47To be fair, the $150 also buys you an evening slash afternoon of entertainment. Gets you out of the house. Gets them distracted. It's so funny.
JVL00:02:56You know what? You'll learn when your kids are old enough to go to Dave and Buster's. You'll learn.
Sonny00:03:00Not as fun. No. Fun.
Vic00:03:02I know what Sonny's saying. It's kind of like when I rationalize losing X amount at a casino and saying, well, no, that was the entertainment fee.
Sonny00:03:12It's like a four-figure X. It's like a, well, you know, it's only a cover. You never lose.
JVL00:03:17What are you talking about? Me? I never lose. No.
Vic00:03:19I often play just to make up for the dinner and the restaurant. I mean, and the restaurant and the round-trip plane tickets. And, you know, it pays for itself. Sure. These trips to the Mississippi River boat gambling. Okay. Sonny. The saddest of the gambling. That is the saddest of the gambling. For another episode, Sonny, how are you doing? I'm great.
Sonny00:03:40It was funny. What did you do? So I was catching up on some old episodes of The Larry Sanders Show this weekend for a piece I'm writing for The Wall Street Journal, and it was a lot of fun. And I had kind of forgotten, A, how good it was. It's a great show. More people should watch it. But I had forgotten that the original episode, the first episode of the show, the central conceit, the central tension within it is Larry Sanders, who's played by the great and recently departed, sadly, Gary Shandling, who is the host of a talk show. It's like a show within a show type thing. He's the host of this talk show, and it's like a Johnny Carson setup. He's asked by the studio slash network to read advertisements live on the air. It's the garden weasel or something, the weed weasel or whatever. It's like this little thing. I remember that. I love that. It's hilarious. He's having all of these moral issues and these qualms like, oh, I'm selling out. I can't do this. This is demeaning. I was just watching that thinking to myself, I don't understand this problem at all. The only thing I've ever wanted is to sell out. The only thing I've ever wanted in my entire life is for someone to say, we trust you enough to pitch our product to the masses because we think they believe in you and we believe in you, and here's some filthy, filthy lucre to sell our goods. Vic?
Vic00:05:00Stop spending a fortune on gimmicky shave tech you don't need. Make the smarter choice by joining Dollar Shave Club. Get your first month for only $5 with free shipping by going to dollarshaveclub.com slash substandard. Speaking of the substandard, we've been getting a lot of customer reviews lately. Vic, I'm sorry. Yes? That was great. Good transition.
Sonny00:05:22That's good, guys.
JVL00:05:23No, not even the transition. Just the copy reading.
Sonny00:05:25The reading was good. You know what?
JVL00:05:28Copy reading?
Vic00:05:29What are you talking about? What are you talking about?
JVL00:05:30Other podcasts, I tend to sort of like fast-forward past the ads, but craftsmanship.
Vic00:05:35Thank you. Thank you. Well, there's more to come. We, just like our reviews, they just keep on coming in, and gentlemen, do we have nominees? JVL.
JVL00:05:47I nominate Stephen Filippi, who says, this is a human Star Wars trilogy. The show is akin to listening to the original Star Wars trilogy in human podcaster form. Victorino is Star Wars. The fun-loving, de facto leader of the group, but so full of euphemisms that he makes Luke's proton torpedoes into the Death Star's exhaust port look tame. Jonathan, episode V. Last is Empire Strikes Back, the kind of rankings and found triumphant empire is good movement. I don't understand what that means. Maybe there's a typo there. His enunciation rivals that of Darth Vader's apology accepted, and his Prana jeans would be great for trekking the swamps of Dagobah. Lastly, Sonny. His Return of the Jedi. You may think his Ewok-like opinions are wrong, but their cute, contradictory nature is just a mask for the ferocity that can bring empires to their knees. Sonny brings balance to the force, and he is always right. That's true.
Vic00:06:44That's a strong review, boys. I'm glad I love Star Wars, and I'm glad I'm not the Ewoks, Sonny.
Sonny00:06:51It doesn't matter. It doesn't bother me. Sonny. This review has a list by Davik Moles. Five stars, of course, a five-star review.
JVL00:07:00You don't get considered for this, unless you go five.
Sonny00:07:04JV Last, Sonny Bunch, and Vic Matus are at the height of their powers in discussing all things nerd, and with the Substandard mini-episodes, now it keeps getting better. This has a list. There's five items on it. Number five, and it's a list of the best tropes of the show. It's a very funny list. Number five, Vic's fascination, question mark, with Emma Watson. What? Number four, Sonny is always right. Now, I will say that that is at least three spots too low, but whatever. That's okay. We can live with that. Number three, trope, JV Last's lists. Number two, trope, Vic, what time is it, and what follows? And number one, the number one trope, muting Sonny. Okay, not a trope yet, but it'll happen. It'll happen one of these days. Vic will send me out of the office, and I will never be allowed to come back on the show. Anyway, thank you for the very nice review, Davik Moll. That was touching. That's a good one. I like that.
Vic00:08:00That was actually very thoughtful. I liked Spaced Seed, which Spaced Seed says, I rate this podcast six stars out of five. What? So it goes on, but let's get to the last sentence, which is, had iTunes been aware of the Substandard's superior quality prior to devising the inept five-star rating system, six-star reviews would be possible. There you go. That's excellent. It's kind of like dialing to 11. It really is. This podcast goes to six. Yeah. Okay. So do we have thoughts? Winner, what do you like?
JVL00:08:33I like Stephen Filippi's Human Star Wars trilogy.
Sonny00:08:36I also like Human Star Wars trilogy.
Vic00:08:37I love the Star Wars comparison at episode four is me, and I think Stephen Filippi was a runner-up in the past or something, so I'm glad that he got it.
JVL00:08:46This is a first, having a unanimous decision on this. Yes, it is. All right, Stephen Filippi, please text, email, tweet at one of us, and we will send you a fabulous prize.
Sonny00:08:56Mostly Jonathan, because Vic and I will forget. As apparently happened last week. Sorry. We were sorry to retch you. I didn't see that. Retch you, don't worry.
JVL00:09:02I'm working on this. I'm going to edit this.
Vic00:09:04We are working- At JV Last. Make sure to- We are working on merchandising options. Now, as I mentioned on this episode, in the past episode, we are now part of the Ricochet Audio Network, so we'd like to welcome all of those new listeners who are, we're now on your feed, and maybe Jonathan, you can just give a little rundown of last time on the show and elements or stuff like that.
?00:09:28Something.
Vic00:09:29Okay. Yeah, go for it.
Sonny00:09:31What are the actual tropes of the show?
JVL00:09:34I am Jonathan Last, previously on The Substandard. We all like Tom Cruise. Sonny's favorite Thanksgiving dish is green bean casserole. Vic likes Hermione Granger. He really likes Hermione Granger. Other things that Vic likes, Germany, German history, German military history, the Outback Steakhouse, and Michelle Richard. All three of us thought that Rogue One was going to be terrible. But it turned out that we all loved it. Some of us more than others. Sonny and Vic think Martin Scorsese is the greatest director in the history of movies. I have proved that he's overrated. Sonny and I both believe that the Empire is good and that the real hero of the Star Wars saga is Darth Vader. We also believe that Senator Richard Kelly is the real hero of the X-Men universe. That Teddy KGB is the real hero of Rounders. And that Belle would have been better off marrying Gary. At the end of Beauty and the Beast. 100%. Because by marrying the prince, she all but guarantees herself a trip to the guillotine once the revolution breaks out a few months after the credits roll. Speaking of which, Vic really loved the recent Hermione and the Beast. Like, really, really loved it. Sonny and Vic drink bourbon. I drink Schufferhofer. We all wear Prana jeans. The correct ranking of the three worst Star Wars toys is... Number one, the Twin Pod Cloud Car. Number two, Jabba's Palace. Number three... Number three, Boba Fett's Slave One. Christopher Nolan is a genius. You should split tens against a weak dealer card. No! And Sonny is always right.
Vic00:11:08Wow. Fantastic. You've now been caught up. That's it. Wow, that's it. Why don't we talk about pizza rankings here for a moment. I mentioned my trip to New York a few episodes ago, and I thought a good way to end would be like a dinner at a, you know, a real New York pizza place. And so we were told, go to Patsy's on the Upper West Side. It's a lovely family joint with very reasonable prices. In fact, it was probably the cheapest meal we had.
JVL00:11:34Only $9 a slice?
Vic00:11:35No, no, no. So it was just a plain pie and four drinks. It was like $20. In New York? In New York. In New York. That's insane, right? That's insane.
JVL00:11:44In Times Square, that's $60.
Vic00:11:45Yeah, yeah, I know. So I, and I stay away from vendors because there was a story in like the New York Post or on one of the local TV affiliates about hot dog vendors trying to, like, like, overcharge tourists if they could tell you're from a foreign country. The hot dog cost $20, you know, versus.
JVL00:12:04You shouldn't be buying street meat anyway. That's, that is horrible.
Vic00:12:07I've done it and I'm still alive, JVL. I've had street meat and I'm still alive. But anyway.
Sonny00:12:14Could, I need neither of you to ever say street meat again, please, for the love of God.
Vic00:12:19I had street meat in the 80s and I'm still alive.
Sonny00:12:21No, no, no, God.
Vic00:12:22That's really true. Oh my God. That's true. It was cheap. It was like five bucks. For street meat. Okay. I'm like outside of a museum of all places. That's really, I'm not lying. I'm not lying. Okay. Anyway, I didn't think, I didn't think the pizza, I didn't think the pizza was that great. Okay. That's the thing. And I've had, I love New York pizza and I've had better New York pizza. So maybe it was, you know, they just goofed and burned it. But otherwise, I'm a big fan of New York pizza and I think it is, as my good friend Ted Allen at the Food Network would say, and he has determined, it's the water, what they call good old city gin. That's determines what makes New York pizza different. It's not anything else. It's not the dough. It's not anything. It's the water. But how about a pizza ranking if you want to do whatever you want to do? You want to talk about frozen chains, restaurants. What do you like? What are your favorite pizzas? JVL? Well, hold on. Can you share, Sonny, you texted over the weekend something.
JVL00:13:18You texted, I forget if it was to just me or to me and Vic. You said, boy, I love getting a good Sparrow pizza when I'm up in New York. Oh, yeah.
Sonny00:13:27No, I was on Twitter. If you go to at SonnyBunch on Twitter.com, you'll find that it's a social media website. You have to communicate in short bursts. No, but so am I going to go first? JVL, you have this whole thing planned out. I want to respond to you, frankly. JVL, you go first. Okay.
JVL00:13:51I am not going to rank frozen pizzas because all frozen pizza is terrible. They now sell for like $9. and $12 frozen pizzas, and it's insane. You can make a really good pizza at home in about 10 minutes. What I do is I use naan bread, pesto, mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, tofu sausage, tofurkey bran, because it's great, and a couple dollops of ricotta. Last night, I didn't do this. I didn't realize. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Sonny00:14:14Yeah, I didn't realize this was Rachel Ray's cooking hour or whatever.
JVL00:14:17So last night, I made myself a frozen pizza because I'm just really tired and trying to give it. And something has happened to me that has never happened before. A sinkhole opened up in the center of my pizza. And literally, so the bottom dropped out, a size about maybe a half dollar, and then all the cheese began just pouring out of it down onto the floor of the oven.
Sonny00:14:36It was crazy. What? So you didn't have a pan? You didn't put a cookie tray under it, a cookie sheet?
JVL00:14:42Well, I did once the sinkhole opened up, but you don't put your pizza on the cookie sheet. You just put it right on the grating. You put it on the rack. You know why? Because the directions say, some frozen pizzas say, put it on a sheet or on a pizza stone, which I have. I use a pizza stone when I'm cooking my own thing. Some say, put it directly on the rack, and I always follow instructions. The other key instruction of frozen pizza, Sonny, and you may have noticed this, is that it says, after you remove from oven, allow it to stand for five minutes. This way, you don't burn the crap out of the roof of your mouth by diving into your... Wait a second.
Sonny00:15:11Is this why I had to get skin grafts on the roof of my mouth the other day? Because I pulled it out of the microwave, because I get the little Mama Celeste pizzas, and I put those in, and in 90 seconds, it's done, and then I immediately take it out, and I just cram it into a ball, and I shove it in. I shove it in my mouth, and I just, like an apple, I just take chunks out of it.
JVL00:15:31Feels good, right? It burns. It burns sometimes. Sometimes you get the burns. All right, so I won't talk pizza. What I'm going to do is I'm going to rank pizzas by what you get when you go out to get them. Okay. The very bottom, the worst pizzas they make, Papa John's, the Thai, and Little Caesars. Papa John's has this insane... You know, so in advertising, they always say, what you want to do is you want to take your weakness and make it into a strength, and that's what Papa John's does. They say, you know, better ingredients, better pizza. No, it is not better ingredients. It is not a better pizza. It is the cheapest, worst ingredients, the cheapest, worst pizza. What Papa John's is, is probably the best bang for your buck. They'll give you an awful lot of calories for a very low price, and if that's what you're into, you could do Papa John's pizza, or you could just eat a stick of butter. It's horrible. Hold on. I want to hear more about this butter option. What about the garlic dip thing? The cup of garlic, what is that for? Horrible. Is that for the crust? Next step up. There's Pizza Boli above that, Pizza Hut above that, Z Pizza above that, Paisano's, a new chain flourishing in our part of the world, which I think is pretty good.
Vic00:16:37Pierre Garçon is a spokesman. I'm a big fan.
JVL00:16:40Domino's is actually the rejiggered Domino's. The new look Domino's is actually pretty good. I've always thought the old school Domino's pizza was garbage pizza, but new school Domino's is pretty good. And above that, Uno's, which is still barely hanging on there as a chain, there are very few of them. But it's good pizza, and I really like it. But the real winner, the best of all, Costco. The Costco pizza, not the take-home, bake-in-your-own-oven pizza, because that actually doesn't work. It's actually too big for most ovens. But the from-the-cafeteria pizzas that you can pick up there, I'm sorry, from-the-cafe pizzas that you can get there are unbelievably delicious.
Vic00:17:22Isn't that the favorite pizza of Substandard listener Daniel Halper? Isn't that what? Isn't he a fan of Costco? I'm pretty sure he does love the Costco pizzas.
JVL00:17:30He was singing its praises.
Vic00:17:31That's right.
JVL00:17:32At the Kentucky Derby party.
Vic00:17:33Well, there you go. There's the list. Okay. Disagree at your peril. Go ahead, Sonny.
Sonny00:17:39My one big disagreement with JBL's ranking is the idea that you get a better bang for your buck with Papa John's than Domino's. Domino's is significantly cheaper.
JVL00:17:49Is it now?
Sonny00:17:50Domino's is a significantly cheaper pizza, and I go back and forth on which one I like more. Papa John's is the sauce. Papa John's is a little too sweet for me, I find. It's a little sweet. I'm not a huge fan of it. And I really like- It's because it's ketchup. I really like the new Domino's crusts. They're seasoned, interestingly, now. Are they really cheaper, though? Because I-
JVL00:18:12Oh, yeah. Admittedly, I don't use any of these things, because I don't- Except for Costco. Because you're a foodie. No, I'm not a foodie.
Sonny00:18:17You make your own pizza at home on your pizza stone. Yeah, I do. That's right. In my Prana jeans. Following the instructions from Rachel Ray.
JVL00:18:26You can order extra large pizzas with two toppings each for nine bucks. No, that's-
Sonny00:18:30Are you sure you're not thinking of Little Caesars? I remember- Are you sure you're not confusing Little Caesars and Papa John's? A hundred percent sure. Papa John's is better than you're giving it credit for. It's way better than Pizza Boli, which is trash. Pizza Boli is terrible. I will be-
JVL00:18:42Papa John's will give you dysentery.
Sonny00:18:43You're an idiot. I'm not going to rank the chains, because chain pizza's all bad. It's all bad. It's all basically CC's quality. No, it can't be. It's a chain. CC's quality. No, no. That's right. In our last-
JVL00:18:56It's a chain, so therefore it's good. That's right. If it was good, it would already be a chain. That's what I heard on the last episode.
Sonny00:19:03You guys are just making things up now. That never happened. She's like revisionist. That's been airbrushed out. So I'm just going to instead list my- Go ahead. My three favorite pizza places.
JVL00:19:16Oh, good. So you're going to do places that are standalone local to you that nobody who listens to the show will be able to relate to. Exactly. Okay.
Sonny00:19:21So number one is- You can go to the bathroom at home now. District of Pie Pizzeria. Deep Dish. Great, fantastic stuff. I prefer the Deep Dish to the little foldy slice stuff. Can we discuss- You might have listeners in your lookout. Can we discuss- So this is the one thing I think we should discuss that will be of interest to readers. I know people who say that Deep Dish pizza is not pizza, that it's actually some sort of lasagna type dish. How do we feel about this? I think it's the best kind of pizza. It's really more substantial. It's more of a meal.
Vic00:19:49That's a pie if you ever thought about a pie.
Sonny00:19:51I mean, I hate people who call a pizza pie a pizza pie, Vic. Really? I hate that. I hate that so much. It's a Jersey thing. It is a Jersey thing. It is a Jersey thing. Or maybe Jersey, New York.
Vic00:19:59Which means your opinion doesn't count, so yo, garbage.
Sonny00:20:03But you say Uno's was at the top of your- Really like it. Ranking. So I mean, I think it's a heartier, substantial, better meal, frankly.
JVL00:20:13It depends on what mood you're in, though, right? I mean, sometimes you're in the mood for Deep Dish, sometimes you're in the mood for Thin Crust. I would not place- I make this totally a choice about mood and where you are in the moment, right?
Sonny00:20:22My number two, my number two individual location that's not a chain that nobody can- Can never find, is the pizza place that's in Penn Station that just says pizza at the top of it, because it's so wonderful. What happens is I get very drunk in New York and I wind up in Penn Station- You? What? And I'm like, God, I need some food. So I order like two slices and a soda for seven bucks or whatever.
Vic00:20:46It is amazing that you've never then gotten on the wrong train to Far Rockaway or something.
Sonny00:20:51Well, I'm not that drunk. And I get the- And of course, I take the pizza immediately out of the oven. And I shove it in. Again, I ball it up and I just shove it in. And that's probably my second favorite pizza place in the whole world. The Penn Station, just pizza. I don't even know what it's called. But of course, the best pizza place, if you're going to New York City, if you want to get a slice, that's the best. You have to go to Sparrow. You've got to go to the Sparrow in Times Square. It's the- I mean, look, as we said, the chains are the best if you're going to New York City and you want to get a good slice. If you want to get a good slice of pizza, you have to go to Sparrow. You and Michael Scott. Biggest chain, best pizzas, fantastic stuff.
JVL00:21:32Well, you know what's great about Sparrow is that if you can't make it all the way to New York, you could just go to any rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike and get a pie which is almost as good as the one in Times Square.
Sonny00:21:42Well, I mean, there's something to be said for-
JVL00:21:45And then you can get something else. There's something to be said for the- On the side, at the rest stop.
Sonny00:21:50No. Some street meats?
JVL00:21:53Don't bring that. Again, you know what? So to speak, I was- I hear that's what Jim McGreevy had both before and after.
Vic00:21:58Okay, thank you. I was 11 when I had that street meat, by the way, in New York, in the 80s. Okay, I have several thoughts.
JVL00:22:06Yeah, Vic, come on. This is, like, you're actually the person whose opinion counts in all this.
Vic00:22:10Okay, all right. First of all, the Papa John's thing is interesting. They used to have canned mushrooms, which make the pizza taste better. If you go to any Jersey place or any New York place, they're not fresh mushrooms, because you put them in the oven, they get all dry and shriveled, and they actually don't taste like anything. You get the canned mushrooms that soak up all that juice, and you could tell, because it has that sort of dark golden color to it. You put it on there, it works. So what happened was Papa John's started with the canned mushrooms, but they had their line about fresh ingredients, you know, the whole thing, and they got called out on it, I think by Pizza Hut or Domino's, and as a result, they switched to fresh mushrooms. Cool. Now, like, was there a Sharks and Jets style fight? Yes, yeah, totally. Oh, absolutely. Papa John versus the nice Catholic Domino's people. Papa John Schnatter was the new kid on the block, and so they fought him on that one. So that's one thought. Now, the other one is Uno's. I've had great Uno's, some of the best. There was a great Uno's in Cherry Hill, JVL.
JVL00:23:01Yes, there was. And I was on my way from- Still is, I think. Really?
Vic00:23:05It's big. And I remember the salad, and it came with these insane-looking growlers of Grolsch that in fact had vinaigrette dressing for the salad, and it was, and a terrific pizza. And at the same time, the worst food poisoning I ever got in my life was from Uno's. It was in the one from Cleveland Park, which is gone in Washington, D.C.
JVL00:23:25So what got you? I think it was- Was it the anchovies on it?
Vic00:23:28It was the bad meat. I had bad meat. It was the- No, it really was. It was sausage.
JVL00:23:33I'm spitting twice shy.
Vic00:23:34It was the Italian sausage. This is true. I'm not making any of this up. That's not a sausage.
?00:23:40God.
Vic00:23:42Okay, so that was in the 90s. Okay, but I'm with Sonny in giving- I'm going to give three locations of places where I like to get good pizza, okay? So one, as Sonny says, and as our friend Mike- Mike Goldfarb says, the pizza at Penn Station. That's a good place. I was there with our friend Mike Goldfarb, and that is a very good pizza. I mean, pizzas have to decide if they're going to be deep dish or they're going to be thin crust. My problem with Sparrow's is it's somewhere in between. It's just like, I don't know what I want to be. I just want to appeal to everybody, like a cruise ship. And it obviously works. It's very successful.
JVL00:24:17Well, also, don't forget the ambiance there, because you get to eat your pizza with homeless people.
Sonny00:24:20So that's awesome. That's how- I mean, that's how all pizza should be consumed, right? It's like within- I suppose so. In-smelling distance of the homeless.
Vic00:24:27Number two is, ready for this? Number two, you actually need a DeLorean to travel back in time to Geppetto's of Georgetown in 1992. I think Geppetto's is gone now, but they used it. I used to go there. Oh, my gosh.
JVL00:24:40Back when I'd be on my visits to campus as a high school kid dying to get in. Don't please tell me all about it. I'm sorry. What was it like when you were at Georgetown as an undergraduate? This is really-
Vic00:24:50We'd all go out. It was like San Elmo's fire, you know? No, it was, they had a pepperoni pizza. That was kind of deep dish-like and stacked pile high with pepperoni. There's Sonny. JBL's banging his head. Poor JBL. Okay, here's an interesting one. This is just an aside. You know what was around when Geppetto's was around was Armand's. Oh, yeah. And that was recently mentioned. If you watch The Americans- It was on The Americans, yeah. That's what they're talking about in The Americans. Isn't it still there?
Sonny00:25:19Well, there was one that was next to Heritage that closed. That's right. I've been to that one, too. Is the one on Wisconsin closed as well? I don't know.
Vic00:25:26No, I think Armand's might be a thing of the past. I haven't been there.
Sonny00:25:29It started to go downhill when it became a chain. Good research. Good research. Thank you.
Vic00:25:33Yes, yes. And then, lastly, Jersey Pizza, and it's really a tie. My hometown, Tom's River, has a place called Shiano's, and a place in Spring Lake, New Jersey, called Spring Lake Pizzeria. Oh, I like that place. Oh, my gosh. I love it. Here's the key. It's sweet. It's not salty. So, a lot of places outside of the tri-state area will say, oh, I want to- We have New York-style pizza, and it's all salt. What they're forgetting is it should be sweeter, and that makes- I love that place.
JVL00:26:03And right, the next town over, Belmar, has Federico's, which is another awesome pie.
Vic00:26:06I've been there, too, and fantastic. Absolutely. In the subcategory, I'll say, Chicago Deep Dish, Giordano's and Lou Malnati's are also both great deep dish pizzas.
JVL00:26:18Okay, give me your go-to pizza topping order. Go. Sonny.
Sonny00:26:26I usually get mushrooms and ham. Mushrooms and ham.
Vic00:26:30Victorino. Pepperoni and green pepper, because it makes my wife happy. If I was alone, I'd say anchovies.
JVL00:26:37I'm sorry, anchovies only? Only anchovies. Don't get crazy.
Vic00:26:40No, no, no, no, no. The anchovy is so overwhelming, if it's really good anchovies, you can't have anything else on it.
JVL00:26:46Maybe onion, but that's insane. Okay.
Vic00:26:48Interesting. JVL.
Sonny00:26:51I go extra cheese.
JVL00:26:53Just cheese.
Sonny00:26:54Let me tell you. Just cheese. Extra cheese and be within like 100 feet of a bathroom. Although, if they have tofu sausage.
JVL00:27:00Kevin McAllister over here. If they have tofu sausage, I'll put some tofu sausage on there. You got to.
Sonny00:27:05You really need to just stop with this tofu thing.
Vic00:27:08And that's what pizza's like in the Soviet Union.
Sonny00:27:11It's bad for the brand of the show for you to be this into tofu. I'm just going to throw that out there. Some of us care about the animals.
Vic00:27:19Okay. God knows I don't. That's a disappointing topic.
Sonny00:27:22It's another way you can tell JVL's talking. If he's talking about caring about animals. Or tofu. Tofurky. That's another great topic.
Vic00:27:30Anyway, so again, that's a little bit of a disappointing topic. But you know what's not disappointing? Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 at the box office with $145 million. It totally crushed. Are we going there now? I think we're going there now. Sonny, you're looking at me crazy. Okay. Here's a little bit of an aside. $145 million at the box office. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. It was followed by Fate of the Furious. And do you know? It was in third place. Boss Baby?
JVL00:27:58Yes! Boss Baby! Boss Baby is going to be like something about Mary. It's just going to keep on going the whole summer. You know what? By August, it'll be number one again. There'll be the third weekend in August when everything else is dead.
Vic00:28:09Boss Baby will make $11 million and it'll be the number one movie in America. Totally. Okay, now I think this is one of those rare moments, I think, where we all saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Yes. You went? I went. I took my son. Okay. Did he have a lot of questions for you? I know what you're saying. No, but he had a ... There is a discussion, excuse me, there is a discussion of a little bit of the birds and the bees, if that's what you're talking about. He hasn't brought it up yet. He's getting to that age. He hasn't brought it up, but he was kind of giggling, so I do not know. But let's ... Sonny, let's go to the professional movie review. Only one of us has Rotten Tomato credentials, yes. It's true. Okay.
Sonny00:28:52Rotten Tomatoes has ordained me to be the ... I kind of want to have Vic do it. One of the most important film critics in the country.
Vic00:29:00I'm not ready to ... I have some thoughts, but okay, go ahead, Sonny. Tell us what you think will go around.
JVL00:29:04I know ... We've tried that before. I know, and I liked it, and it was an interesting experiment. What did I get? B minus? I tried B minus.
Vic00:29:10Yeah, but the curve is ... There's no longer a curve. You're going to give me a hard rating this time. You've got to work on it.
JVL00:29:14You've got to work on it.
Sonny00:29:14Okay. I'll give you a hard rating. So, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is the continuation of the adventures of Star-Lord, played by Chris Pratt. Mora, played by Zoe Saldana. The vicious, maniacal raccoon, Rocket Raccoon, voiced by Bradley Cooper. Little Baby Groot, who is voiced again by Vin Diesel. And Trax, the Destroyer, who's played by the professional wrestler Dave Bautista. If you've seen the original movie, I think that you will like this one a great deal. It takes all of their ... I don't know about a great deal, but you'll enjoy it. It is nothing new. There's nothing particularly fantastic or exciting about this. There are two kind of competing storylines. One involves Kurt Russell playing a godlike character called Ego, who is the father of Star-Lord, Chris Pratt. And then you have Rocket Raccoon and Baby Groot trying to deal with the Ravagers, who are led by ... Michael Rooker, and bringing all that together. My biggest problem with this movie, frankly, is that it keeps the team separated for far too long. You have basically almost three competing storylines, really. One involves Ego and Star-Lord's weird relationship. Another involves the Ravagers and Rocket Raccoon. And then there's a third involving Gamora. And her sister, Nebula, who they're both the daughters of Thanos. And they have their, you know, sibling rivalries and tensions and whatnot. There's just, there's kind of too much going on. And they don't really do a very good job of getting everybody in the same room together. I mean, the whole reason the first one was so good was because everybody was interacting with each other, playing off each other. And there's a lot of, there's just, there isn't enough of that here for me. JBL did not like this movie, though. JBL?
Vic00:31:26Why is that JBL?
Sonny00:31:26No, I kind of hate it.
JVL00:31:28What happened? Well, I don't know. I mean, it's, it's once there's too much going on, but the other hand, there's nothing going on. This, I mean, this movie is purposeless. Whatever. I mean, I'll slag off on it in a minute. Can I tell you the one thing I thought was interesting about it? Yeah. Please. The one thing that's interesting is that you could read this movie as an indictment of 1980s divorce culture and absentee fathers. Okay. Where they go so far as to make it a, a father who's leaving his family to go off and pursue his own goals. And in fact, can we, a spoiler?
Sonny00:32:03I don't think you should, I don't think you should. Really? Say what you're gonna, with the, the. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think you should say that. No, okay.
JVL00:32:09Well, anyway, is really bad. Yeah. I would say this does not look on the idea of single parenthood as something that is like totally cool and, you know, kids are resilient and they'll be fine. This, this sees that as fathers who abandon their children doing really, really bad things to them. And that's kind of interesting. And that is about the only thing interesting in it. Victorino, do you want, I mean, I'll. No, no, no. I'd like to hear what you think.
Vic00:32:32I was thinking about the same thing because Chris Pratt goes off on his father who's been gone all this time and saying, you know, I had to, you know, I pretended that, you know, David Hasselhoff was my father all this time. And he, you know, the whole thing and, you know, with all the other kids and how difficult it was for him growing up and his mother who was sick and dying and this whole thing and you weren't there when she died, you know, and yeah, that's, that's a pretty profound point. Um, I, I liked it overall. I thought it was great. Um. Great? Yeah, great, great by my standards. You would go all the way to great? I'll tell you this, JVL. I'll tell you this to our listeners. Remember, there was a very small moment, a very small window in my time at The Weekly Standard where I reviewed movies. And I think every movie I reviewed was great. I don't think there was anything that was ever a bad movie. So that's just the way I am. Um, it's funny to see Kurt Russell and Sylvester Stallone, uh, in the same movie together. And I thought the last time they were together was what? Tango and Cash?
JVL00:33:26In 1989. I think so. Are they on screen together in this at all?
Vic00:33:30No, they are not on screen together at all. Okay. The other thing is this. You know what? You know why I liked it also? I have a soft spot for great character actors, and I love Michael Rooker. He's great. I like Michael Rooker.
JVL00:33:41And, and, uh. Henry Portrait of a Serial. Yeah, no kidding, right? Which was like rated X. He's come a long way.
Vic00:33:47But he has come a long way, and the great thing about Michael Rooker is, uh, no matter what his skin color is, if it's blue or white or whatever, it's basically the same Michael Rooker, which is always boy, and then fill in the blank. You know? Everything is boy. Boy. You watch Mississippi Birding, you know, or if you see him at JFK. Mall Rats. Mall Rats. You even get a little bit of that in Mall Rats. Yeah, yeah. Mall Rats. He has that in him, and of course, as Yondu, he might be blue, but he still has that Southern drawl. So I was happy for Michael Rooker. The Walking Dead. Yeah, and he's given a lot of scenes to chew. He really does. So that was great. It really had a weird 70s. You know, I always thought that the Guardians of the Galaxy was more 80s, but this is more 70s. And certainly, if you. If you watch. You have to watch the end, because how many stiggers are there, Sonny? Five. Five stiggers. The credits have that 70s feel to it. So it's definitely more of a 70s retro feel. And there's some interesting things you see during the credits, as a matter of fact. But, on the downside, visually exhausting. I just find it to be a bit much when the battle is going on. I thought there was way too much time in the brainstem, or in the brain, without getting any into details. I just felt like I was there forever.
Sonny00:34:55It was boring. I mean, I am not kidding. Maybe that's what it was.
JVL00:34:57I am not kidding when I tell you that when we get to the final battle inside the brainstem, for the first time in my life, I was so uninterested in what was going on, I closed my eyes and nodded off for a minute or two. Wow. Because I could have cared less about what was going on. I did not care about any of the characters. I did not care about any of the conflicts. I knew what the outcome was going to be. And visually, it was boring as hell. It wasn't even overstimulation in the way that... I feel it was boring. It was a blur for me. No, but it is a blur, because the action is all staged incomprehensibly. And I... That's true. I mean, can I drop a bomb on this stupid... What time is it, Vic?
Vic00:35:3639.15.
JVL00:35:37This stupid f***ing movie, because I disliked it initially, but every hour that has passed since I saw it in the theater, I have disliked it more to the point where I now kind of hate it.
Vic00:35:47Hmm. May I? Yeah, but that means that you'll hate it so much that by tomorrow, you'll end up kind of loving it again. You might go... No, I don't think so.
JVL00:35:54So the first... The first Guardians movie gets by on Charm, and that's mostly because the tone is so unexpected. The movie announces that early, very, very early, when Chris Pratt goes dancing as he gets to steal the Golden Idol from the, you know... Oh, it's an orb, right? No, not the Golden Idol. It's got a lot of gags in it. It's kind of salty. It's funny to see a raccoon saying D-bag, and it's funny to see Glenn Close calling someone a prick. And there's that awesome moment when he's in prison, and he does the wind-up middle finger joke, and he goes, Oh, I'm sorry, I don't know how this machine works. And all of that is kind of like the first time you see Jack Sparrow in the original Pirates of the Caribbean, which is that you think you're coming to one movie, and instead you get an off-speed pitch, because this is unlike any Marvel movie you've seen before.
Sonny00:36:40All that stuff was in the ads. How could you be surprised by getting any of this in the movie theater?
JVL00:36:44Because it was the tone of the whole movie. So this is a tone which is utterly foreign to viewers, and is kind of charming because of that. And despite the fact that it has a nothing-burger story with no actual tension, and can you even tell me now, today, who the bad guy was and what his conflict was with Star-Lord? No, you can't. And despite the fact that it didn't really have any direction, and it was kind of meandering, and there were too many characters, it was all sort of fun. And it was a novelty. And I do not think that it holds up well in repeated viewing. I watched it again this weekend. I watched it while I was off running on my birthday on the treadmill. And I could not, having really liked it pretty much in the theater. I was, by mile seven, I was like, God, can this movie get a frickin' move on? And Guardians 2 has nothing, nothing in it, except for an attempt to continue this charm. And this time, it all feels incredibly forced. There's nothing new here. Gunn has not added any other dramatic elements. The story is an absolute mess. There's no structure. There are no compelling dramatic arcs for any of the characters. Everything just meanders, except that now it's in a way that feels cloying and charming. So whenever Chris Pratt or Rocket were crooned says, A-hole or D-bag, it's just box-checking. Gotta give them a funny near-curse word so they'll know it's a Guardians movie. It downgrades the interesting characters. Gamora, who was an interesting character in the first one, is barely there. She's barely in the movie. It's a real problem. And has radically depowered her. Like, in the first movie, she's this galaxy-wide super-assassin, and now she's just some girl with a sword. Because he's miniaturized, he's actually pulled away from the main plot. I found myself, by the end, kind of rooting for the gold people. Yeah, this is...
Sonny00:38:28Oh, wait, you're telling me that Jonathan Last was rooting for the villain, the nominal villain of the movie, by the end of this one? No, not even because they deserve to win or anything.
JVL00:38:35And then the retconning of the Ravagers, who are, in the first movie, kind of heavy and interesting, and now they're just some super-cuddly, high-moral code. They're just hulkers with hearts of gold, or pirates with hearts of gold. And then, again, the incompetence, James Gunn's inability to direct an action sequence in a minimally competent manner just gobsmacks me. And he tries to hide this in the first set piece of the movie by putting the action sequence literally fuzzed into the background to focus on baby Groot dancing, which is cute for 30 seconds, except it keeps going and going and going and going, and there's nothing new in it. The whole thing is tired and stale within 45 seconds of the movie starting. And I just hated this movie like I cannot even tell you.
Vic00:39:23Wow. I think the kids... I think the kids liked it, but it'll probably, you know... Did they like the first one?
JVL00:39:30Yeah.
Vic00:39:30Yeah, they did.
JVL00:39:31I can see kids liking the first one. I guess little kids might like the second one.
Vic00:39:36Well, the baby Groot thing is a thing, you know what I mean? Sure. Baby Groot's adorable. Who doesn't want...
JVL00:39:40My comic book shop has 15 different baby Groot toys in it.
Vic00:39:44How many do you own?
JVL00:39:47Hey, Vic, what time is it?
Vic00:39:4943.28.
JVL00:39:50Go f*** yourself.
Vic00:39:51How about the pizza stone? Do you use that as a Tesseract when you're not cooking on it?
JVL00:39:54You know what I would like to do? I would like to melt the baby Groot on my pizza stone. But then how would you cook pizzas?
Vic00:39:59I have multiple pizza stones. Of course you do. Of course you do. Again, one of them is also a Tesseract when he's cosplaying.
JVL00:40:05No, I mean, do you disagree with any of this, Sonny?
Sonny00:40:09Yeah, I mean, so here's my problem with the movie. And it's the same problem I have with Guardians that you kind of touch on a bit. And it's the same problem I have with literally every Marvel movie, which is that none of them are memorable in any real way. And I enjoyed it in the theater. At the time, I haven't thought about it once since. And I probably won't think about it again. I certainly won't watch it again. I don't rewatch any of these films. They are like utterly disposable confections, as far as I'm concerned. Not all of them. And I thought that this was a totally acceptable, utterly disposable confection. I was entertained for two hours and 20 minutes. It goes on forever. And I thought it was fun. I thought it was actually fun and funny and entertaining, as opposed to Fate of the Furious, which is just stupid. And so I was... If I had paid to see it... I don't pay to see movies, because I'm a very important Rotten Tomatoes certified critic. I don't pay to see movies. But if I had paid to see it, I wouldn't have been disappointed. Wow.
Vic00:41:13Off the top of your head, can you think of any sequels that you liked better than the originals?
JVL00:41:18Yes. And I was actually... So there are two... If you're trying to figure out what has gone wrong here, there are two possibilities. The first is that this is just what happens when you push a sequel out one year after a surprise hit. And they greenlit this sequel at San Diego... So before San Diego Comic-Con a year ago, before the original Guardians had even come out, they had said, we're going to do another one, and we're pushing forward on that now. And they rushed... So they really rushed to get this movie done. So the first thing you could say is, okay, maybe that's what's happening. But the other possibility is that we have reached the moment when Marvel has entered its late decadent phase. Because when is the last time you went to and saw a Marvel movie and thought that it was legitimately good? And I went through all of them looking at this, and for me, I think the last good Marvel movie, I have to go back three years, to Winter Soldier. Civil War. Captain America. Civil War is not very good. It's not very good. Civil War is fine.
Sonny00:42:15I mean, it's... It's fine, but it's not very... I mean, like, I don't... It is a median movie. Here's the problem. It is not actually a good movie. None of these movies... Winter Soldier is a good movie. None of these movies are worth watching again. No Marvel movie that has been made... You know the only one that I've watched again, after seeing in theaters, I'm pretty sure, is Avengers. Which was fine. The first one. I was like, well, I guess that's... That's very good. That's a perfectly okay way to waste, you know, two and a half hours of my time. I just... Like, I think all of these movies are designed... These movies are the... They are actual comic books, insofar as they are... Superhero books that are totally disposable. You forget about them. You forget about them six months later.
JVL00:42:58So, the first five years of the Marvel film universe, you get a bunch of movies which are good to very good to great. You get Iron Man...
Sonny00:43:08Yeah, like Iron Man 2. Not Iron Man 2. So, you get Iron Man, Iron Man 3... The Incredible Hulk. And The Avengers.
JVL00:43:14Which are really good movies.
Sonny00:43:17The Hulk isn't really theirs, is it? Yeah, I guess the Hulk is theirs. Yeah.
JVL00:43:21And then Thor is okay. The first Captain America is okay. But since then, since 2013, what do we have? Doctor Strange, Civil War, Ant-Man, Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor Dark World. This, and the only good movie is Winter Soldier. I mean, their batting average has dropped so far.
Sonny00:43:39The only one of those movies I would have given a thumbs down is Thor Dark World.
JVL00:43:45Okay.
Sonny00:43:45I mean, I...
JVL00:43:46I just don't know how to disagree with that except to say it's wrong. No, I mean, it's... You're wrong, actually. These are two stars.
Sonny00:43:52Just substantially. Just like...
JVL00:43:53You'd have a five. Five-star range. These are two-star movies.
Sonny00:43:56Statistically speaking, if you look at the ratings of these films on websites like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes, you're just wrong.
JVL00:44:03Oh, so you're saying we should use as our stand-in for whether they're good or not what people, what normal garbage people out there think of it?
Sonny00:44:10Well, I mean, look, you're welcome to your terrible opinion and your awful crankiness and your... Look, I know you're a shill for DC who's paid by Warner Brothers to say all these things, JVL. No, that's wrong.
JVL00:44:22This is okay to new listeners. I know it. Sonny is the DC shill. That's true. I am very...
Sonny00:44:27I am so excited for Wonder Woman. Oh, my gosh.
Vic00:44:30So, anyway.
JVL00:44:31So, Vic, I don't know. So, you really... There was nothing to bother you? It was fine, but... It's great.
Vic00:44:35Yeah, that's how I am, as you know. I'm like, yeah, that's a nice movie, but I do think it takes a lot of effort to see it again, to say, oh, I want to... If I'm channel surfing and I see it, I'm probably going to skip past, like, Age of Ultron or whatever. Well, also, by the way, you were talking about The Incredible Hulk. What happened to... What was wrong with Eric Bana? As opposed to Ed Norton. Was it all that much better? Was Ed Norton much better than Eric Bana? Or was it two different studios? This is too complicated to explain. And how come there hasn't been a standalone with Mark Ruffalo?
JVL00:45:06Because nobody wants to see a Mark... Nobody wants to see a Hulk movie. They wise... This, actually, you should give credit Marvel for this. They understand that nobody wants to see a whole movie of Hulk. And that's actually... That's a sophisticated bit of corporate management. He works much better as a bit player.
Vic00:45:20But, you know, and the TV all sucks, too.
JVL00:45:22This is what I'm saying. So, Marvel is putting out these... TV shows, which should be... For somebody like me, I'm the target audience for this. I have said for years, I want to see an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show. And now it exists. I love Luke Cage. I love Iron Fist. I love Jessica Jones. I love Jessica Jones when the Brian Michael Bendis comics were first coming out. Love Daredevil. All the... None of these shows are any good. And so, I just wonder what's going on with Marvel.
Sonny00:45:49I mean, the real problem with the Marvel TV shows is that they are way, way, way too long. They're 13... It's 13... 13 hours of programming for, like, a four-hour story. Yes. No, but this is not unique.
JVL00:45:59This is a problem of streaming, I think, writ large. One of the things... Everybody says, oh, streaming is the golden age of television. I don't know about this. What it seems to me, and I don't watch all the streaming because there's too much for any one person to watch. It seems to me like it is a much worse problem than broadcast series used to be, where you have, like, pulling taffy for a tiny bit of story stretched over hours and hours of programming. And they're just... You're just running in... You're in a different place. Instead of the story moving relentlessly onward, you're not going anywhere. Now, do you disagree, Vic?
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JVL00:47:57Wait, hold on. Yes, JVL. Before we move on to Spirit of the Week, two things. First of all... Please. It's a very, very nice read.
Vic00:48:04Oh, thank you.
JVL00:48:04And also, I would say, only suckers are still buying Gillette these days. Like, this is really... You should, if you are not on the Internet Shave Revolution, you should get on that. Because it's great and you should do it. Secondly, Sonny, you had said before the show that you had wanted to do one final ranking before we moved on to Spirit of the Week.
Sonny00:48:22I want to rank... Chris's. Okay. Everyone talks about... I'm ready. This was a thing this morning. People talking about the Hollywood's diversity problem. Oh, it's all white guys named Chris. This is nonsense because the Chris's are very diverse. So if I were ranking the Chris's, number one is Chris Pratt, most charismatic movie star type since Harrison Ford in American Motion Pictures. Number two is Chris Hemsworth, who's shockingly funny. The only thing we're seeing in the Lady Ghostbusters movie is actually a man, Chris Hemsworth. Number three, Chris Pine, surprisingly good actor. Check him out in Hell or High Water and other great movies. Number four would be a cardboard cutout of a guy named Chris. Number five would be Chris Kattan. Number six would be Chris Cooper. Actually, I would flip Cooper and Kattan. Cooper and Kattan. Yes. And then last and very definitely least is Chris Evans, who is a soggy, wet bag. Kattan brings nothing to the table except for apparently muscles. Ladies love him.
JVL00:49:28I cannot disagree with that enough. That was totally, totally, you are wrong in every, you're so wrong you're not even wrong. Okay. Chris Pine is number one because he is in fact the Harrison Ford analog. No. No, no. That's wrong. Whatever you think of Chris Pratt, even if you're going to say he's great, he isn't Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford does different things. Chris Pratt does not do the things that Harrison Ford does. Chris Pine does. I don't think that's right. Number two, Chris Evans is basically the new Brad Pitt. He functions as an emotional center of things. He's actually really good. He doesn't, what he does doesn't look complicated. It looks simple, but it's important. He sort of glues and serves as the connective tissue for things happening around him. And he's got a great voice. Number three is I was sort of pro Chris Pratt going into Guardians of the Galaxy 2, but I don't know, man. Like all of a sudden he looks like Mark Harmon and I feel like we may have reached the end of his shtick and it turns out he doesn't have a second pitch. He's got one pitch and it's pretty good, but once hitters figure it out, what's he going to do? And number four, Chris Hemsworth, who I like. This is not a slight. I think he could be a sort of new Jack Arnold Schwarzenegger and do all sorts of interesting things with his career.
Vic00:50:45I am... Victorino? Yes. Thank you, JVL. I still like Chris Pratt. He's my number one pick because he's a real American hero. He loves the American flag. Remember that?
Sonny00:50:54Loves America.
Vic00:50:55Yeah, he loves America. Chris Pratt loves America. He can't beat that. Chris Evans, I'm not so sure about, but great voice. He's a man. I think I could not picture a better Captain America than him. I'm not a big fan of Chris Hemsworth. And lastly on my list is Chris Kimball, formerly of America's Test Kitchen and now on Milk Street. Great guy, businessman, and runs a terrific food empire.
Sonny00:51:18Chris Pine, such an amazing movie star that Vic totally forgot about him in his ranking.
Vic00:51:23I remember him from... From Bottle Shock. He's fine. He's fine. Okay. And I know Jonathan was raving about him from, I guess, from the first Star Trek, but I remember him from Bottle Shock. He's fine. Okay. Spirit of the Week is Woodford Reserve. We just celebrated recently the Kentucky Derby, and that's what I had when I was at the Brown Forbid Box. It was delicious. There's different kinds of Woodford Reserve now. It's all good. And that's what we are having today. Corrections Editions. JVL. I have a correction.
JVL00:51:54I said that John Battam had maybe directed Flashdance. I caught myself, and I half-corrected it, but I thought I was wrong, but I wasn't sure. I was wrong. John Battam, most remembered for Saturday Night Fever, Short Circuit, Bird on a Wire, War Games. He has since moved on to television. His daughter Kelly is lovely. Flashdance, directed by Adrian Lin. Oh, yeah.
Sonny00:52:13That's right. Who also directed-
JVL00:52:14Fatal Attraction. Jacob's Ladder. Indecent Proposal, and Victorino. I was going to say Fatal Attraction.
Vic00:52:22Unbutton your top button there. Get ready. Yeah, uh-huh.
JVL00:52:25Something that was very classic to us as 12-year-old boys. Nine and a Half Weeks. Yes. Really? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
Vic00:52:30I totally guessed that. The way you were looking at me.
JVL00:52:34Okay. I don't even know what that movie was about. The Ice Cube.
Vic00:52:37You guys are so old.
JVL00:52:37I can only watch that movie four minutes at a time.
Vic00:52:41Okay. All right. I'm going to take it from there. My brother-in-law, Captain Bill Dwyer, says, Eric Roberts' movie that I mentioned in the micro-episode was best of the best. Yes. Of course, best of the best part two. Yes. That's Eric Roberts. So, he's very skilled in the martial arts. Sonny, do you have anything?
Sonny00:53:01Usually, I have no corrections. Usually, I have no corrections. But this week, I did. I had said, you know, we need to, the best chain is the biggest chain. And I had said McDonald's. And even as I was saying it, I was like, wait, actually, Subway is the best chain. But I did not want to actually have to defend the Subway sandwiches, which are garbage. So, I just stuck with McDonald's and hoped nobody would call me out on it. And I just, I got. I got blown up on Twitter.
Vic00:53:25It's, again. You bastards. But it's the whole bland thing. The broader the flavor, the more people you could draw. And it's very much like a cruise ship. So, you know, that's what's going on there. Also, thanks to listeners JMO and Just Carl for pointing out that the late Casey Kasem didn't just dedicate songs from women to women. He dedicated songs to dead dogs. And he once went ballistic. And they provided the link on YouTube. It's quite classic.
Sonny00:53:47We'll put that in show notes.
Vic00:53:48Okay. And that'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 add JV.
Sonny00:54:01Sorry, I took my headphones off because I had to just get JV Last's voice out of my ears with his nonsense opinions on Guardians of the Galaxy. You should tweet at him to tell him how wrong he is, at JV Last.
Vic00:54:13We'll see who's wrong. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard under Podcasts, and we are there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Don't forget, Substandard. Show notes will be up on Friday at 11 a.m. Until next time. So, do you have any other final thoughts? I have a final thought, but you go first.
JVL00:54:41You know what? The last thing that I hated about Guardians of the Galaxy was the final stinger, which is the Watchers leaving Stan Lee sitting on the rock. To me, that played mean. And Stan, we could have an entire complicated discussion about Stan Lee sometime, and I understand that there is a school of thought which actually really hates him and thinks that he's a vainglorious guy who hogged all the credit and really cheated Jack Kirby. That said, he is a titan, and he's an old man who may not be with us for much longer. And to have what you never know could be his final appearance, which is like him sitting alone with the Watchers, which I believe he created, just walking away from him because they're bored of him. Again, I'm certain they did not intend that in a disparaging way, because they all love Stan, but I thought it played very differently.
Sonny00:55:42It did confirm the fan theory, though, that Stan Lee is a Watcher. This is a thing that... The reason why he pops up in all these different movies is because he's actually a Watcher, which is kind of funny, I thought. That was actually a nice... It didn't bother me. Again, this is a thing that did not bother me.
Vic00:55:56And Jonathan, I know you take it personally, because you actually know Stan Lee.
JVL00:56:00Well, I met him once in a green room, and he was unbelievably sweet. I do own a number of comic books signed by him.
Vic00:56:09If we had a sound effect, it would be... It would be something. Okay. So, my thought was, we were at the Michael Caine party, and I was talking to a... We were at the Michael Caine Kentucky Derby party.
Sonny00:56:21Kentucky Derby party, yes. Probably some people... You did not catch the Kentucky Derby mini-episode, sadly. Oh, right. You should go listen to it now, if you missed it.
JVL00:56:28If you listen to us normally, why would you not listen to the micro-episodes? I just don't understand that. I don't know about that.
Vic00:56:34But at the Derby party was a Substandard listener, Amanda Lupino Esposito. And she was telling us that she loves The Substandard, but what happened was, about a month or two ago, she was driving on the road. It was raining. It was storming, and she lost control of her vehicle. This is a true story. She loses control of the vehicle. She goes crashing into a ditch. The car smashes into a tree. The airbags go off. The car is totaled. You know what she said? The only thing that was working was The Substandard podcast. It was playing. It wouldn't stop. You know, everything else had been destroyed. And she said, her thought was, why is Sonny Bunch still talking to me?
Sonny00:57:19And she's, and well. Yeah, well, I'm sure it was fine.
?00:57:23I'm sure it was fine.
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