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#36. The Substandard on King Arthur, Guy Ritchie, and Powers Boothe
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Dudes Chatting — tribute to Powers Boothe and Guy Ritchie's filmography: The episode opens with a genuine tribute to Powers Boothe, who died that week at age 68. All three hosts share appreciation for his work: his Emmy speech in which he famously crossed a SAG picket line to accept his award, and his roles in Deadwood, Tombstone, Red Dawn, Sin City, and Nixon are all discussed. From there the conversation widens into a ranking of Guy Ritchie's filmography. JVL puts Sherlock Holmes first, Snatch second, and King Arthur third; Sonny ranks Snatch first, RocknRolla second, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. third; Vic places Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels second with a brief BMW short film also mentioned.
Reviews: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword — Sonny calls it the worst movie he has ever seen, an incoherently edited "Chav King Arthur" with no internal logic; JVL genuinely liked it and gives it a B/B+, calling it the best film he'd seen in 2017 to that point; Vic is neutral. The production's $175 million budget is weighed against its $14.7 million domestic opening, with the hosts comparing the flop to Ishtar.
Box Office: King Arthur opens to a dismal $14.7 million, a spectacular failure relative to its budget.
Corrections segment addressed. Spirit of the Week: Bailey's Irish Cream.
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00To paraphrase Donald Trump, no podcast has been treated worse or more fairly than this one.
Guest00:00:30It is a silly place.
Vic00:01:00We'd also like to remind you that Substandard is available on iTunes and Google Play. Just look at our 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. Gentlemen, how are we doing today, this week? JVL, how are you? How has your week been going?
JVL00:01:28Great. I was at the beach. I was at the beach with the family last weekend, and we had a milestone. What milestone was that? A family milestone. My oldest son, tall enough to drive his own go-kart. When we went to race go-karts.
Sonny00:01:46What's the, is it 48 inches?
JVL00:01:47Oh, it varies by the go-kart place you are and by the type of go-karts they use. And so at the, our go-kart destination of choice, which is at the Golf and Dolphin. The Golf and Dolphin? The Golf and Dolphin. Golf and Dolphin, which has batting cages, miniature golf, driving range, go-karts, arcade, and bowling.
Vic00:02:09And it's open, even before Memorial Day, the stuff is open.
JVL00:02:12Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this is not Jersey Shore. Oh, yeah, okay. And so we go down there, and he basically, because he hasn't gotten a haircut in a while, and his hair was sort of like poofy and windblown, he was able to just squeak under the line. And so we got some awesome races, including some. A fantastic father-son, like, you know, Dale Earnhardt Sr., Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Sonny00:02:37That's very exciting.
JVL00:02:38Getting into crashes with spin-outs where the guys had to come out on the track to turn us around and stuff. And he was so into it, and it was great.
Vic00:02:46Can't wait for that. That's terrific. There's not much of that in Seaside Heights. There's a lot of stuff. Too much space. Yeah. That's the problem. Go-karts require too much square feet. It's kind of loud and obnoxious, and lots of bumpers. And, you know, there's bumper cars, but it's a little bit crazier. Plus, you know, when you get that whole scene from Jersey Shore that come down. It's not as a family-friendly scene. Drunk driving go-karts at Seaside Heights would be how it is. It's not pretty.
Sonny00:03:15Sonny, how about you? I had a fantastic weekend. I was out cleaning my grill so we could start burning animal flesh, not tofu or tofurkey or any of this nonsense. Burning actual dead animal meat on top of fire.
JVL00:03:33What kind of grill do you have?
Sonny00:03:35You know, I actually couldn't even tell you. I'm not like a grill fetishist. You're not a man. I'm not a grill fetishist. I got a four-burner from Home Depot for $200. So is this gas or charcoal? It's gas. We're actually not allowed to have charcoal, and my homeowner's association forbids it. It's against our insurance policy or some nonsense.
JVL00:03:56Does it cook over the flame or with infrared heat? Heating. It cooks over flame.
Sonny00:04:02I'm not a James Bond villain. I don't refract laser beams onto the meat.
JVL00:04:08No, so the infrared systems, which I believe Char-Broil has pioneered, is where the flames are underneath a U-shaped metal pan, almost. And what that does is it disperses the heat more evenly and sears in the flavor. Better than the open flame.
Sonny00:04:28That sounds like nonsense. I don't have that. Oh, yeah, no. It's just science. That sounds like nonsense. I'm sure it's nonsense. I'm sure science has found a better way to burn meat with fire. I'm sure that's totally... The infrared system is a way to bake the GMOs into your meat. Well, look, if Char-Broil offered a GMO-adding fire, I would definitely get that, because that's how you get your nutrients, the GMO injections. But while I was cleaning the grill, I pulled my hamstring. I actually was leaning over and I was scooping the grease out from the bottom of the thing. SMDH, Sonny, SMDH. And I felt the string go out. I felt the string went right out of my leg. You shouldn't exert yourself so much. And it was a clarifying moment for me. I finally understood how all those professional athletes felt. You know, while I'm standing on the metro today, I'm trying to, you know, I'm hopping from one leg to the other, trying to find the proper balance of weight. I really understand what they go through when they have these debilitating on-field injuries.
JVL00:05:36So this is the progression of age. This is what it means to get older. When you are young, you get injured playing sports. As you get a little bit older, you get injured practicing for sports. You get a little older than that, you get injured doing everyday activities like cleaning out your grill. And then when you get older, you get injured in your sleep. Injured in your sleep? You wake up and you're like, oh, God, I pulled something overnight and my back is hurting.
Vic00:05:59I just rolled over. I rolled over the wrong way and then I tore my ACL. Sleep injury. Sleep injury.
JVL00:06:04I hope that doesn't happen.
Vic00:06:05Excellent.
Sonny00:06:06Can't wait for that.
Vic00:06:06I went to-
Sonny00:06:07We should rank those injuries.
Vic00:06:08We should rank injuries. Good.
Sonny00:06:11Obviously, grill cleaning injury is number one. That's pretty number one.
Vic00:06:15It was a million to one shot, Doc. Yeah. I went to grill some steaks myself on Sunday and it was time for me to unveil my charbroil, in fact, which is a lovely gas grill that my sister and her husband got me.
Sonny00:06:30Does it have the parabola infrared meat ray from Dr. No?
Vic00:06:35It does not have that. It does come with all these grills, too, now, these sort of semi-fancy grills with the sear station or the thing that you can grill your vegetables on, that side thing. Oh, yeah. Those are great.
Sonny00:06:45Yeah.
Vic00:06:45I never use it. Never use it. So, I take off the covering because I'm always careful about putting that covering on.
Sonny00:06:50What you mean, like the side burner where you can put the pan on and saute stuff?
Vic00:06:55Yes. It's separate. I've never used it. You've never used it? No, never, never, never. Why not?
Sonny00:06:59Do you just not make vegetables? Oh, what is that? What is vegetable?
Vic00:07:03What are these zucchini strands? I don't understand. Green? So, I take it out. I open up the list, say, okay, I'm getting ready because I bought new grill grates, not the other ones. Oh, do you get the flat ones? No, it's ... Yeah, the wide, flat ones. No, no, no, no. I got them on Amazon, but ...
JVL00:07:18Mine are cast iron. They're so great.
Vic00:07:20I was looking forward to this. I was a little ... I had some reservations because it said made in China, you know? I'm sure it's fine. That could have been a great ending. Where the flames are underneath, and there's that sort of broad metal covering to disperse the heat underneath the grill, it's these long metal plates, had completely disintegrated. Oh, no. So, I guess I hadn't used it since last summer, I guess, or let's see, it's spring now. The drip pan, right?
JVL00:07:48Is the drip pan? No, above the drip pan. Above the drip pan.
Vic00:07:51So, it's above where the blue flames come out, and it is ... The blue flames just obviously turn bright yellow. I'm not a science guy, but it's like this thing that ... You know, it's like a plate that goes over it. Anyway, completely just disintegrated, crumbled on ... It's done.
Sonny00:08:04You mean like the little tent-shaped thing?
Vic00:08:06Yes.
Sonny00:08:06The little tent-shaped thing that goes over the burner, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. That distributes the heat. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's exact ... Thank you so much.
JVL00:08:12I wasn't entirely ... I was imagining like a flat sheet.
Vic00:08:17I don't know how to explain it. Okay. And, but it's done, and ...
Sonny00:08:22You know, Vic's not ... He's not a science guy like you and me. Yeah, no, no. And you can order these parts from Char-Broil.
JVL00:08:27They're like 10 bucks. Yeah, I don't know, but ... Did you just buy them? No, the rest of the whole thing looks a mess. Did you just push it into the ...
Sonny00:08:32There's like rust everywhere. Did you just push it into the river? Well, no. And go buy another one? Because that's what you do.
Vic00:08:38I wanted to do the equivalent of what Mike Goldfarb used to do when he lived in an apartment. You know, he was a deep fry king. Do you remember this? He was a deep fry king, and he said, oh, the pain in the ass is those ... You know, all that oil in the ass. What'd you do? He goes, I just put it in a garbage bag and dropped it down the chute.
?00:08:52Oh, God.
Vic00:08:53He goes, oh, it'd make a great splat, you know, from like 10 floors down. Better than pouring it down the drain. No, no, no. He's better than pouring it down the drain.
JVL00:09:01It's true.
Vic00:09:02Is it?
Sonny00:09:03Is it actually?
Vic00:09:04I don't know about that. Somebody, you know, it made the rats in the city happy. The rats were so happy. And they're out now, by the way. But if anybody has any thoughts on whether I should just continue to maintain gas or go to charcoal ... Don't go to charcoal. Thank you. You want to test? Share your thoughts. Taste the meat, not the heat. Share your thoughts on Twitter. I'll be interested. Get the green egg. You know, I was going to say, you're probably the kibachi.
JVL00:09:28You are the perfect ... Why, why?
Vic00:09:29I'm Asian?
JVL00:09:30No, because you're into all the special ways. The kibachi is for the real foodie types. Oh, sure. You really like to do the special extra ways. No, I took that as a micro. But also because you're Asian. I took that as a micro. You're Japanese, right? No?
Vic00:09:44You should see how I ... Yes, in fact, JVO, when I cook with the knives, I put on a whole show. You should see. I make a volcano with the onion.
JVL00:09:51Okay.
Vic00:09:52We all love the onion volcano. The reviews, by the way, just keep on coming in. I mean, we're somewhere. We have 1 million reviews. A million reviews.
Sonny00:10:03Just keep doing the review prizes, or is that sort of played out? We've got a great new review prize coming, so we better keep doing it.
Vic00:10:11Hang on to that, but we'll do it, but just hang on to that.
Sonny00:10:13JVO, you seemed very, very iffy about this segment when we were discussing the show last week. Are you disappointed by the quality of reviews that we're getting? Do people need to step it up? Do our listeners need to step it up for JVO?
JVL00:10:26Our listeners are fine. My concern is just that ... Us beginning each show by reading three things of people saying nice things about us ... Is self-indulgent, right? Is self-indulgent and tiresome and amusing to us, but not amusing to people who listen to the show.
Vic00:10:41No, it makes listeners want to be heard on the show, so they'll write reviews.
JVL00:10:47Yeah, I agree. If you have thoughts on this ... You have a very low opinion of our listeners. I assume that our listeners are basically just us. Us. Right. I view our median listener as somebody who would be perfectly comfortable sitting right here on the other side of the table, hanging out.
Sonny00:10:59Ah, speaking of which, I've got a great ... That's a great segue. But if our listeners are basically us, wouldn't they just want to hear people saying good things about us, because that's what we like? No, they'd want to hear people saying good things about themselves.
Vic00:11:12I like listening to myself. Yeah, okay.
JVL00:11:13All right, well, go ahead. Can I go first? Yes, go ahead. Waffle Dodger. Waffle Dodger left a fantastic review, the subject of which is, finally, a pair of jeans that fits the way I live my life. Waffle Dodger writes, the Prana Axiom jeans are comfortable and stylish. These aren't skinny. These aren't skinny jeans for some kind of garbage millennial. The legs are ... Okay, I'm not going to read you the whole thing, but the entire review ... We want to talk about self-indulgent. The entire review is about the Prana Axioms, and it's a five-star review, and it's awesome. I saw that.
Sonny00:11:41All right. I saw that. Vic, one of us is going to be the winner, because we have to decide which of ours we want to vote for. Yes, that was ridiculous. Vic, go ahead.
Vic00:11:48I liked Gator Ranger, who said it feels like, quote, sitting in a bar talking pop culture. He says, or she says, I feel like a mute fourth buddy sitting ... Sitting in a dive neighborhood pub listening to these guys talking. The absence of any virtue signaling is refreshing. Maybe centerite people can talk about the world that way. Anyway, that's exactly what we were going for, was having somebody there and feeling like you're a part of this group, because that's how we feel about our listeners. And also, as my friend John Taffer says, why call it a dive bar?
Sonny00:12:26My friend John Taffer. Did you see that? Did you see that? Who's John Taffer? I don't know who that is.
Vic00:12:30Oh, my gosh. Some of our listeners might know if they watch Bar Rescue.
Sonny00:12:34He's the guy on Bar Rescue. What's that?
Vic00:12:35Oh, my God.
JVL00:12:36No, I'm totally...
Sonny00:12:37The fact that you don't watch any TV at all makes this difficult sometimes. Bar Rescue is a fantastic show where John Taffer goes in and he rescues a bar, and he makes it better. He improves the offerings.
Vic00:12:48But he has very tough love tactics. Yeah.
Sonny00:12:51It's kind of like... Did you ever watch Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsay? You're familiar with Gordon Ramsay. Hell's Kitchen? Yes. Not Hell's Kitchen. Not Hell's Kitchen. Hell's Kitchen is like the top... Hell's Kitchen... Hell's Kitchen is like the idiot's top chef.
JVL00:13:01Is that the one with also Gordon Ramsay? Yes.
Sonny00:13:03Yes.
JVL00:13:04Close to. You're getting close. Whatever. Yeah. I don't watch TV.
?00:13:07Any...
Vic00:13:07Anyway.
JVL00:13:08Anyway.
Vic00:13:09So he would yell and berate at people.
JVL00:13:11I have more children than the two of you combined. I should get a pass on this. Eh. Make the children watch this show. It's a good show.
Sonny00:13:18Teach them about bar mechanics.
Vic00:13:19That's right. Bar mechanics. The stools. The height of the stools.
Sonny00:13:21It's really a science. It is a science. It's a science. There's a lot of science in the show. You love science. It's bar science.
JVL00:13:26I will tell you this. The nice people at Shuffer Huffer sent me a load of swag from Shuffer Huffer, and my oldest son really loved the Shuffer Huffer baseball cap, and so while we were at the beach... Wear it in pride. My kid was the kid running around with the beer hat. Excellent.
Sonny00:13:40I thought that's very cool.
JVL00:13:41Child services, probably not concerned by that at all.
Sonny00:13:44Child services wouldn't care because they would have no idea what Shuffer Huffer is. They think, oh, it's a good source of vitamin C. They would assume it's like some sort of GMO that is good for kids.
Vic00:13:53Well, Sonny, as John Taffer would say... Flintstones GMOs. He would say, why call it a dive, he'd say. Just call it a neighborhood bar. That's what he would say. So, there you go.
JVL00:14:01All right, John Taffer. Sonny?
Sonny00:14:03My review comes from Derek Meh. I mostly picked this because I like the name, Derek Meh. Five stars, of course. Five star review. Five star review. All five stars. All these have been five stars. Derek Meh titled his review, A Good Waste of Time. This podcast is proof that sometimes even pooled ignorance can be entertaining and useful. And really, that's what I like to think of the show. It's just a giant pool of ignorance. So, that would be my choice. That was pretty good. Vic, which of ours should win? I can go with... Do you want to go with my... Or we can go with yours.
Vic00:14:35I mean, I'll defer to you if you want. I like the idea. I think that Gator Ranger really hit the nail on the head.
Sonny00:14:42Good job. That's what it is. Good job, Gator Ranger.
Vic00:14:43Welcome to our little studio here.
Sonny00:14:45Yeah, contact Vic on Twitter or me on Twitter or at JVLast on Twitter.
Vic00:14:51In a few weeks or so, I think... We're going to have something great.
Sonny00:14:54We're going to have something really great. It's coming. In the mail, I just... I got to get them. And then we'll get them out. We'll get them out there. It requires batteries. It's... We bought 100 signed copies of Sucker Punch. That's what I... And we're going to distribute them.
JVL00:15:09The problem is Zack Snyder signed the bottom of the disc. He signed on the actual disc.
Vic00:15:16Okay. Now, turning to some sad news, as some of our listeners might be aware, earlier this week, we lost a great character actor, Powers Booth. He was 68. Sonny, you wrote an obit on him at the Washington Free Beacon. Your thoughts?
Sonny00:15:32Yeah. You know, as a garbage millennial, I am most familiar with Powers Booth from his work on Deadwood. Deadwood, of course, he played Cy Tolliver, who was kind of like the foil of Al Swearengen, played by the great Ian McShane, in the first season. He owned like a higher class brothel than the saloon slash whorehouse run by Al. And he had this... He had this very vivid kind of viciousness that was a perfect contrast to Al Swearengen, who was like kind of conniving and kind of... He was trying to build something. He was trying to build this town of Deadwood. And Cy was much more parasitic. He just kind of hopped in there and was like, I'm going to take it for everything I can and I'm going to be a mean bastard doing it. So, you know, that is where I first kind of became aware of how great he was. And then I noticed... I started noticing... I started noticing him in other movies that I'd seen and loved, like Tombstone, for instance. He plays Curly Bill, who's like the head of the gang that Johnny Ringo belongs to. He's like kind of the... The cowboys. The cowboys. And I... You know, one of the things that kind of we now... Powers Booth has achieved true immortality in our awful internet age by becoming a meme. The line, well, bye. You know, it like has... That is like... That gif is now a... A perfect rejoinder to so many things. So he has kind of entered the echelon of greatness in many ways. But also, of course, Red Dawn. Red Dawn. And in Red Dawn, he plays a Air Force colonel who crashes and the Wolverines, you know, rescue him. As an F-15 pilot. And his real purpose in the film is to serve as a font of exposition to explain what has happened in the rest of the country. To explain, like, here are all of the, this is how the Russians took over. This is how the Cubans came up. And it really is, you know, one of the main rules of writing is that you can have awful exposition dumps as long as you put them in the voice of a great character actor. So, like, The Da Vinci Code is a terrible movie that is just, like, nothing but talking and explaining things. But it's halfway watchable because Ian McKellen is doing half of the talking and explaining. He's just like, oh, okay. Ian McKellen is talking. I'll listen to him do just about anything. So, you know, Powers Booth is kind of another perfect example of this where you can get away with just talking on screen as long as the guy doing the talking is interesting and has a great voice. So much of it is about the voice.
Vic00:18:11JVL, did you have Powers Booth Thoughts favorite movies? You know, it's funny.
JVL00:18:15I had always assumed Powers Booth was a stage name. I don't think it was now. I sort of went looking for this and it seems to be his given name, his Christian name. Because it sounds like if you were making a parody of 80s action stars, you would have said, you know, the South Park parody of this, the lead action star is Powers Booth. He was great. No, I loved, man, I just love character actors, as you said, like him. And I don't have, this is like the worst form of the Substandard. Yeah, that guy was great. But he really, you know, I know Lauren Deadwood.
Sonny00:18:50Yeah, no. He was great in Sin City. Yeah. He was Rourke. He was the politician. The politician.
JVL00:18:57No, he's great in everything he did.
Vic00:18:59Sudden Death, the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, which was the hockey movie, and he was the villain in that.
JVL00:19:04The igloo, right, in Pittsburgh.
Vic00:19:06Yes, and he was terrific. But you know where I also liked him in was, he was in Oliver Stone's Nixon, and he plays Al Haig. And he, again, lends, you know, I mean, he's advising the president, or advising him against, you know, fighting this. The impeachment that was impending, and trying to, you know, suggest that, you know, the only choice is going to be to resign. Because the only thing left is what, the army, or something like that. So, but he is a terrific voice of authority.
JVL00:19:39And he played smart really well, which I think is an underrated capability. And he's totally credible as a high IQ guy who can see angles around things.
Sonny00:19:48Well, it's all in the eyes. I mean, every great film actor, you see it in their eyes. And he had these kind of vampires. Very peculiar, almost narrow, like they were kind of narrow slits of eyes that you could just see the...
Vic00:20:01And you could tell, even if it's, I remember watching The Avengers, and they have to go to the council. Yeah, yeah. Samuel Jackson goes to the council, and I'm thinking, I'm like, who's this guy you only see shadow of? I think that's Powers Booth. I know what you're not to be, Powers Booth.
Sonny00:20:15Although, I was a little bit annoyed in some of the obits when people described him as the villain from Sin City and The Avengers.
JVL00:20:20And I was just like, well, okay, this is really pretty...
Sonny00:20:24This is not okay.
JVL00:20:26Obits written by millennials? Goddamn millennials.
Sonny00:20:28Probably. Garbage. Because that's who... That's what it is, right? Totally. I mean, it probably is. Or it's people looking at his highest grossing films or something. Oh, yeah.
Vic00:20:38Stellan Skarsgård. All right.
Sonny00:20:40Not that he died. I don't want to get in trouble. And we should mention, I think it is worth mentioning, that he is one of the few actual out conservatives in Hollywood. He was an actual Republican. He did a John McCain voiceover. He did in 2008. If that counts. This has nothing to do with his quality as an actor. He was great independent of this, but it is just an interesting...
JVL00:21:01Well, he crossed the SAG strike line in 1980, right? Oh, did he? I didn't know that. The big act of defiance for him was there was a SAG strike, and I believe it was 80. He, I don't remember the details of this. I should have efforted this before. He was nominated and won an Emmy Award, and all the actors were boycotting the Emmys, and he showed up. And he went on stage. He went on stage and gave a speech. Was this for his Jim Jones movie? Yes.
Sonny00:21:27I really want to see that. I saw a bunch of people talking about this. I saw a bunch of actual smart film people talking about this, instead of mentioning that he was on screen on The Avengers for two minutes. Three seconds, yeah.
Vic00:21:38But I really want to see that. Have you seen it? No. I've learned everything I need to know about Jim Jones from the Leonard Nimoy show, In Search Of. That's where I learned about Jim Jones. Can we do an entire In Search Of episode at some point?
JVL00:21:51Oh my gosh. Because I was fascinated by that as a kid.
Sonny00:21:54It scared the crap out of me. I think I've only seen the Amityville Horror one. That's a good one, too. The Bigfoot one?
Vic00:22:01Yeah. No, you know what? They did a couple of Bigfoot ones. We'll save this for a future episode. And you can see some of those episodes on YouTube. Pocket that away. And it still scares me. It still scares me, because he's out there. Bigfoot's out there, man. Because, you know, expansion of cities and things like that.
Sonny00:22:15Yeah, we're encroaching on Bigfoot. Any moment now. One of these days. Yes. One of these days, with all of the technology we have, we'll finally catch an image of a Bigfoot. Bigfoot.
Vic00:22:25Okay. Well, I guess that's it for Powers Booth. R.I.P. Powers Booth. May he rest in peace, a voice of authority. You know who else is a voice of authority? King Arthur. Good transition. That was good. He was, if he existed. King Arthur, Legend of the Sword, did what? Something like $14.7 million over the weekend? It's okay, though. It only cost $175 million. $16 million? They rounded it up. It's only $16.
Sonny00:22:50It only cost $175 million to make, so I'm sure it'll be fine. $175.
Vic00:22:54$16 million finishes well behind Guardians of the Galaxy, and Snatched, not Snatch, which we can talk about soon, but Snatched, with Amy Schumer in Goldie Hawn, and in fourth place, by the way, was Fate of the Furious. What was in fifth place? Oh, do you know what was rounding up in the top five in fifth place? Boss Baby.
JVL00:23:16Boss Baby. I'm telling you, it will be either the number one or number two movie in America at some point in the summer. In August. In August.
Vic00:23:22Yes. Right, right. Okay, so what the hell happened with King Arthur? Both of you guys saw it.
Sonny00:23:29Yeah. We did not have a mini episode this week. Apologies to our tens of loyal listeners out there, because JBL wanted to go see it.
JVL00:23:38And it wasn't playing at the beach.
Sonny00:23:39And it wasn't playing at the beach. So here's my question. Do you want to review it, JBL, or do you want me to review it? Why don't you review it? Okay, because I assume you want to agree with me wholeheartedly, and that's why you want me to go first. Maybe. So that's why.
Vic00:23:54I'm envisioning a point-counterpoint, so why don't you-
JVL00:23:57Do you want to know a small bit of trivia before we start this? Please. Perhaps it was an ill omen that this weekend was the 30th anniversary of the opening of-
Sonny00:24:05Ishtar.
JVL00:24:06Ishtar. Ishtar. Which, on a $55 million production budget, at that point, one of the largest ever, opened to $4 million. As a percentage, opening weekend versus total budget, nearly identical to King Arthur. Was- Like 10%. Less than 10%. Like 80%.
Sonny00:24:24Was Heaven's Gate worse than that? Heaven's Gate is much earlier, and so I'd have to go and run the numbers on it. But Ishtar is one of the three or four big clubs.
JVL00:24:33Right, right, right, right, right.
Sonny00:24:35So, King Arthur, or as I like to call- King Arthur, Legend of the Sword, or as I like to call it, Chav King Arthur. Just Chav Arthur?
JVL00:24:42Can we just make that- We'll just agree that it's Chav Arthur.
Sonny00:24:45Well, how about Chav King?
JVL00:24:46The Chav King. That's the proper noun of- You could refer to him as the Chav King, but the movie is Chav Arthur.
Sonny00:24:53Okay, whatever. Chav King Arthur is what I'm going to call it. You call it whatever you want. Chav King Arthur stars Charlie Hunnam as the Chav King. He is kind of like Arthur, insofar as he has to pull the sword from the stone, and once he does this, he gives him the powers of the Matrix, or possibly Dragon Ball Z, or possibly, I don't know, some other mixture of awful special effects nonsense. But before he can wield the sword. Before he can wield, he has to undergo many trials and tribulations. He has to fight rats, rodents of unusual size, in something that is kind of an under, it's a dark land. He has to travel through a portal, and the movie is kind of incomprehensibly edited, especially in the early going. The opening scene is this battle where Eric Bana, who's Arthur's father, is fighting against the evil mage Mordred, and long story short. So, Eric Bana is overthrown by his brother, Jude Law, who becomes King Vordigan. And we see King Vordigan take power and kind of control of the realm, and we also see Arthur grow up into Charlie Hunnam in this awful montage, this truly terribly edited montage that's like a tenth of a second shot of Arthur, and then a smash cut to another four tenths of a second of Arthur. And there's like a hard pan-right zoom, and then we go to Vordigan, and it's really hard to see, and nobody quite can quite... And then, all of a sudden, Charlie Hunnam is there, and he's grown up Arthur, and he's like got allies, and he's got his little gang, and he's like punching the air and yelling. He's like, ah, ah, we see two shots of him punching the air, two shots of him punching the air.
JVL00:26:44God, we need a YouTube videocast of this. If you people could see Sonny.
Sonny00:26:50Careful, Sonny, you might rupture a disc. And then all of a sudden, well, I already pulled my hammy. I was actually preparing for this. This is how I injured myself. And then, all of a sudden, he's like head pimp of this brothel, and he's like working with Jude Law's men to betray the loyal resistance that has sprung up to fight this magic. There's like a Cthulhu-esque octopus woman in the basement of Camelot for some reason. Now I'm intrigued. Yeah, there's... Lots of tentacles, Vic.
JVL00:27:22So many tentacles. Oh, my God.
Sonny00:27:24You would... Well, I mean... This movie will do well overseas. And... As a Japanese person, Vic would be really annoyed.
JVL00:27:29And the octopus tentacle woman has two younger tentacle teenage daughters. Yeah. It's like... Not kidding.
Sonny00:27:35It's like Macbeth's weird sisters, but like with... Vic has passed out. With like Cthulhu. I don't know. Anyway. So anyway, long story short, he becomes King Arthur and uses magic, and everybody is real chavvy, and there's a guy named Kung Fu George in it. There's a... Why are you...
JVL00:27:53Why are you looking at me when you say that?
Sonny00:27:55Sir George... Sir George, one of the loyalists of the Roundtable members, actually was a guy named Kung Fu George before he was knighted. I want everyone to know that. And now he's on the Roundtable. The whole movie is bad and incomprehensibly shot and horribly edited, and it's not... The problem isn't so much that it bears no real relation to the Arthurian legend, so much as it is like totally, tonally wrong. And we'll talk a little bit more about Guy Ritchie and what he does well later, but this movie was bad from start to finish. All the performances are bad. Even Jude Law, who I like a lot in many things, is playing the evil King Vortigern as like kind of a Vegas lounge singer. He's got a shirt that's unbuttoned to his navel almost, and he's got like one leg up on his throne, and he's like, you know, kind of lounging. It's just awful. The whole thing is terrible. And there's a reason nobody saw it, because it looked terrible in the advertising, and sometimes there is truth in advertising. This movie's bad. This movie's one of the worst movies I think I've ever seen.
Vic00:28:57At the very least, Eric Bana was in it. I'm glad he's getting work.
Sonny00:29:01The best part about Eric Bana is he plays Arthur's father, and we find out that the sword in the stone, the stone of the sword in the stone, is actually Eric Bana, because he throws Excalibur up in the air, and then it lands on him, and it stabs him in the back, and that's what kills him, and then it turns him into stone, and he falls into the lake.
Vic00:29:21I can't believe that. Now I'm not going to see it now. Thanks. Thanks a lot. I was going to see it.
Sonny00:29:25I hope I spoiled it for everyone who was really interested in learning the origin story of the stone from the ... This movie really is the origin story of the stone from the sword in the stone. That's how goddamn terrible it is.
Vic00:29:36You know what you can watch? King Arthur, Legend of the Sword, and then watch the Disney cartoon, that wonderful Disney cartoon, Sword in the Stone. Jonathan.
Sonny00:29:43JBL, what did you think of this movie?
JVL00:29:48It's great. I loved the crap out of this movie. Oh my gosh, here we go. It is, in fact, the best movie of 2017 so far. Sonny, I have a question. Did you see it in 3D?
Sonny00:30:00I did not see it in 3D.
JVL00:30:01It's possible that your negative reaction is because you did not see it in the medium to which it was intended.
Sonny00:30:08This movie really rewards 3D viewing. Is it like a lot of swords being stuck in your face? The auteur's intent was spited by me by not ...
JVL00:30:16I was fully prepared to come in here and troll the crap out of you. With a full-on, oh, you had to see it in 3D. This is one of the greatest movies ever, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I can't do that because my honest appraisal of it was that it's a pretty good movie. It is not, in fact, the best movie of 2017. I don't have a trollish, oh, it's the greatest ever.
Sonny00:30:44This is how you set up a good troll, though, is that you say, oh, I'm not trolling. It's not trolling if it's true. I didn't love it. It was just great. Go on.
JVL00:30:52I thought it was pretty good. There was a lot to like about it. I would say it's easily the best sword and sorcery movie since The Two Towers. This is a low bar, but it is. There's just a lot of things to like about it. Do you think it's better than Return of the King? Oh, yeah. Okay.
Sonny00:31:12Remember, folks, he's not trolling. He's not trolling here. He's saying that King Arthur, Legend of the Sword is better than Return of the King. Just FYI.
JVL00:31:22Find a bigger Lord of the Rings fan than this guy. I have Fellowship of the Ring movie memorabilia sitting in my office right now, just a few feet away from here. That said, I am not blinded to the fact that Return of the King is a mess of a movie, which showed you that Peter Jackson had been broken by the experience of trying to make that trilogy. Fellowship is a truly classic, great movie, top 20 all-time movie. Two Towers is a very good movie. And after that, Peter Jackson has not made a single picture that's any good. This is a good movie. It is a movie that is interesting. It has things to say. It has a theory of why it exists. It has been made with care. It is not perfect. I agree with you completely about some of the haphazard editing. Not always, but there are a few little scenes which are so out of place and transitioned into and out of so inartfully that they feel like studio notes. The Dark World? No, I didn't mind the Dark World, but they're almost like exposition scenes where he appears with his French mage girl who may or may not be Guinevere. Anyway, so we'll get to the things I don't like, I guess, in a moment. But there's a lot to like. Jude Law is great in this. I love evil Jude Law. The way he sort of reclines on the throne is fabulous. I mean, he really is lounging across it in a way which is funny and impudent and interesting. But there is a fabulous look, if you were ever a D&D dork or a gauntlet player dork, showing how actual combat with mages, sorcerers, if you will, would work, which is how this movie opens with a big... It's fantastic, of course. The sorcerers are sort of held at a distance while the conventional forces move in front of them. It's very interesting and, again, shows a lot of thought. It's the first time we've ever seen how a plus-five ice sword would actually work in combat. I bet. I'm kidding. I set this up as a joke to you, but I am slightly serious in that if you accept the proposition of a magic sword, what would be magic about it? How would that work? And the idea that it turns things into the Matrix, sort of, is an acceptable explanation for that, I think. What do you think it's made out of? Mithril? Adamantium? So here's what I liked about it, though. The real things I liked about it. It is a fully-lived... To say it takes liberties with the origins of King Arthur is not to go far enough. It really reinvents it all. But it invents it in a way which makes sense, is coherent, and has an interesting idea. And the idea is that a king is indistinguishable from a gangster. And that's not wrong. I mean, you can have a good gangster or a bad gangster. You have a good king or a bad king. But all power flows through the person. The power is absolute and the loyalty is absolute. And so it makes sense that a guy who becomes a king, a good king, begins his start by being a good gangster, which is what he is. And I actually love that montage scene that you hated so much. I felt like it brings us along with Arthur. It tells us who he is. It's probably better in 3D. I didn't actually see it in 3D. As I said, I was prepared to do a full troll of you on all this. It's great. I love the fact. And his crew refers to him as boss. It's funny. I mean, so you have this, as I said, it's a lived-in world. So you have King Vortigern, who's Jude Law's character, with his army of, they call them the Black Legs, his troops. But they're not all bad. Some of them literally are bent cops, which is why they're in King Arthur's, well, he's not king yet. But when he's working at the brothel, he's in there, they're in his pocket, and he's paying them off so he can do his own thing. And there's this great moment early in the film where he is talking with one of the, the Black Legs, and they're just telling a story of how he wound up fighting with some Vikings to get money for a prostitute whom the Vikings had hurt. And it's vintage Guy Ritchie storytelling, and it's where you have intercutting flashbacks with current scenes, and it's very quick, and it's funny. I mean, there were not a ton of people in the audience when I saw this, but everybody laughed. Like, it was really, it played very well.
Sonny00:35:49There were a lot of idiots at my press screening who laughed. My problem with those scenes, and I usually really like that sort of thing from Guy Ritchie. I really liked it in Man From U.N.C.L.E., I like it in Snatch, and it just feels so out of place here. It feels so out of place in this milieu, and it feels...
JVL00:36:09He's reinventing the sword and sorcery pick.
Sonny00:36:11I mean, you can reinvent things poorly, though. The problem is there really hasn't been an extremely good... Like, what is there to reinvent, really? In the sword and sorcery epic. I mean, like, you have the Lord of the Rings movies, and those are the only good ones.
JVL00:36:29Right, and so we've got this tired... We've had, you know, the Warcraft movies, the Hobbit movies, and...
Sonny00:36:34I would say the Warcraft movie is actually much better than King Arthur Legend of the Sword.
JVL00:36:38I have not seen Warcraft, so I could not say that, honestly.
Vic00:36:41Has there ever been a movie made of the video game gauntlet? You know what? Give them time.
Sonny00:36:46I'm sure. I'm sure they're working on it.
JVL00:36:47Somebody in Hollywood is listening to this podcast and going, Yes! Wait a minute, yes! Yes! Tentpole 2025. Right. No, but look, here's what I would say. Again, it has an idea for what a king is, and for a plausible, interesting evolution of Arthur, and explanations to how he becomes who he is. It gives him a totally earned character arc. So Arthur, in this, doesn't want to be king. And the moment where he finally gets worn down to turn around on this is when other people, he realizes that other people have been willing, to die for him. And that freaks him out so much that he tries to abdicate and run away from it. And the only thing that makes him turn is when the Lady of the Lake shows him, George Bailey style, a vision of what the future would look like without his intervention. And that is when he decides, fine, I'll pick up the mantle here and I will do this. And the moment when he...
Sonny00:37:40We certainly haven't seen anything like that before in, say, like, Fellowship of the Ring, where Galadriel shows Hobbit just how awful Hobbiton is when the Hobbit abdicates.
JVL00:37:52What I'm saying is... So what we have here is a Hobbit king. Or I'm not saying it's original, but I'm saying that it earns the character arc when he makes his turn.
Sonny00:38:02It's the laziest character arc of all time. It's one predicated on revenge. It's one that just takes the Arthurian... I mean, a guy I follow on Twitter, Stephen Graydonis, I don't know how to pronounce his last name, a Catholic film critic, made the very good point that this is a movie that takes the Arthurian legend and boils it down to... Down to the laziest Hollywood trope, which is revenge. He wants revenge against the guy who killed his father. And that's really what is motivating him here. It's not the... No, I don't think it is. It's not the sacking of Hobbiton.
JVL00:38:35That's simply wrong. That's simply a wrong reading of what the film shows. Now, he is happy to have revenge. There's the one line where he says, you know, I'll kill him, but I'll kill him for me. But this is bluster that runs counter to everything else he has shown us. And it's... Like I said, I think it's pretty... The costume design is fantastic. Sonny... Is that what we've come down to now? No, every piece of clothing is interesting. It's half period. It's half anachronistic. So, Sonny, can you please recount your... The only... I will just say this to set you up. The only thing missing from the costumes... Needed more pouches. More pouches. More pouches. More pouches. Now, Sonny, can you please explain that?
Sonny00:39:16So, the short version of the story is somebody on Twitter tweeted out, a photo of a poster from the movie, and it is Charlie Hunnam wearing basically a Bane jacket, like one of the shearling coats, kind of, except in a kind of a bomber cut. It looks ridiculous. Like everything else in this movie, it looks ridiculous. But he has two belts on, for some reason. Not one belt, but... And, you know, the caption was like, How do we make King Arthur cool for people? I don't know. Let's give him a Bane coat and two belts. And then immediately after that, I saw Rob Liefeld, the comic book artist who is known for... Belts. Belts on things, tweet, Yeah, I loved King Arthur. So what? And it's just like... It's the most perfect thing ever. This is actually who this movie appeals to, is dum-dums. Dum-dums with no sense of style or clothing taste.
JVL00:40:05Every once in a while, the internet just decides on a thing that they're going to beat up on and hate. And I think that King Arthur became one of those things. I mean, objectively speaking, just as an objective matter, putting away my own predilections, this is a... This is a better movie than Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Just not. Just a better made movie, a better thought-through movie, better in every conceivable way. Not soundtrack. Worse soundtrack than Guardians of the Galaxy.
Sonny00:40:31Worse acted, worse special effects. Oh, no. Worse soundtrack. Worse special effects.
JVL00:40:36Worse special effects, yes.
Sonny00:40:38Worse editing. Worse directing. Worse 3D, I assume. I just disagree on all accounts of this.
JVL00:40:45And yet everybody's willing to give Guardians of the Galaxy 2 a pass, but this they decide, oh, we've got to really... Let's all hate it. Let's all hate it.
Sonny00:40:52You know why I would give Guardians of the Galaxy a pass and recommend people see it and I won't do the same for Chav King Arthur?
JVL00:40:59Because you love Chris Pratt so much.
Sonny00:41:01It's because Guardians of the Galaxy 2 didn't make my eyes hurt when I tried to watch it with all its vicious whip pans and smash cuts. Felt like you were going to get a seizure? I mean, honestly, I thought I was stroking out in the theater.
JVL00:41:12You know, again, this is a thing, this is a criticism that I am sensitive to because I often feel it. I did not have any of those reactions to this.
Vic00:41:21Chaviel, you felt like this was a good choice for Guy Ritchie to do to direct after the last one.
JVL00:41:26Well, so here's what's interesting. Do you know, so this is not really a Guy Ritchie film. Guy Ritchie directs it, but this is not his product. He is brought in as a director for hire because the backstory on this, which is another reason people were willing and ready to hate it, is that this movie is the product of a British screenwriter named Joby Harreld. I was not aware of all this stuff until I read it on the... There's a really fantastic new email newsletter called The Ankler by Richard Rushfeld, who everybody should rush out and subscribe to. It's free for now. You should get it while it's free, and then you should pay him whenever he decides to start charging. So Joby Harreld went and sold this to Warner Brothers as a franchise, and what he said is, I'm going to give you one movie, King Arthur, with a franchise Bible, which will allow you to do... I'm doing finger signs. ...spin-offs, one for each night of the roundtable, and Warner Brothers jumped at it, and the entire thing is literally chasing a franchise, and he then went to Lionsgate and sold Lionsgate. I'm going to give you a Robin Hood, but it'll be a franchise, because it'll be a reimagining. You can do ones on Little John, and ones on Richard, and ones on Made Marian.
Sonny00:42:42So what you're saying is, we need another entry in the Terminator series where someone goes back in time and kills his mother before he's born, because this is the worst person in the movie industry.
JVL00:42:52It's a pretty bad thing. But anyway, so Warner Brothers buys this series, and then went around looking for a director and settled on Guy Ritchie. So this is not, unlike most Guy Ritchie projects, which are his projects that he brings along.
Sonny00:43:05Was The Man From U.N.C.L.E.?
JVL00:43:06I believe it was, and this was actually greenlit before The Man From U.N.C.L.E. came out. So this has been in production for a while. What do you think?
Vic00:43:15Or in development, I should say. Do you think this was a smart choice for Guy Ritchie?
Sonny00:43:18Well, I'm actually a really big fan of Guy Ritchie. I don't like attacking this movie because I am kind of cheering for Guy Ritchie in most things. I actually watched The Man From U.N.C.L.E. for the first time after seeing King Arthur. Because I was like, you know, it had gotten positive reviews. I think mixed positive, but positive reviews. And I was kind of curious, so I went back and watched it. And it's really good. It's fun. It's jazzy. It's entertaining. It's set in the late 60s or early 70s.
JVL00:43:48You would say The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is really good, but you're saying it's not? I would say it's a hundred times better than King Arthur. I don't even know how to respond to that.
Sonny00:43:57It's so much more fun and kind of light. And again, it fits the idea of what it's trying to do, which is to make a kind of light, fun spy movie. With all the slide pan, whatever those, I don't even know what the technique is called where you have three things going on at the same time. Split screens. Split screens, right, right. I really like that. I thought it worked fine. I'm not a big fan of the Sherlock Holmes movies, but those get along on the charms of Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law Fine. But his best movies are his gangster flicks. I mean, he really is like the British Tarantino in the lock, stock, snatch, rock and roll in Arthur works.
JVL00:44:40But it doesn't. It doesn't, though, is the problem. It is a gangster movie, and it's a gangster escape, and it's a very good idea.
Sonny00:44:46So maybe it doesn't work because Charlie Hunnam is so terrible? Maybe we—what if we put somebody else in that role?
JVL00:44:53You know, I went back and forth between thinking, yeah, this guy isn't all that good, to then thinking, well, I don't know, he's not bad. I didn't—I would love to go back and, I don't know, like Vinnie Jones in that role.
Vic00:45:04Okay, well, we'll get to that in a second. Okay, I'm sorry. What you're saying, JVL, is that it was a smart choice from—you're saying it wasn't exactly a smart choice for Guy Ritchie to do this film. You know what's a smart choice? Dollar Shave Club. You will get a great shave at a great price, conveniently delivered right to your door. It's a no-brainer choice. You no longer have to schlep. You can go up to the store to buy a cheap, disposable razor that gives you a cheap shave, or spend a fortune on razors with gimmicky shaving tech you didn't need. When I use my Dollar Shave Club executive razor with their Dr. Carver's Shave Butter, the blade glides ever so gently and gives me such a smooth shave. Plus, their Dr. Carver's Shave Butter is transparent for a more precise shave, helps prevent ingrown hairs, and fights razor bumps. Now, listeners to The Substandard can make the smarter choice by joining Dollar Shave Club. For a limited time, new members get their— first month of the executive razor with a tube of their Dr. Carver's Shave Butter for only $5 with free shipping. After that, razors are just a few bucks a month. That's a $15 value for only $5. In your first month, you get an awesome, weighty handle, a full cassette of four cartridges, and a tube of their Shave Butter. After your first month, replacement cartridges ship automatically at the regular price. There are no hidden fees and no commitments cancel at any time. But why would you? You can only get this exclusive offer at— dollarshaveclub.com slash substandard. That's dollarshaveclub.com slash substandard. You were saying, gentlemen, about the Guy Ritchie oeuvre.
Sonny00:46:32Vic, that was a really good read. And I'm sorry that I didn't get the signal. The Dollar Shave Club really, you know, I feel bad that I stepped on your—
Vic00:46:43I was wondering if you would pick it up, but you guys were getting so into it.
Sonny00:46:47It's very heated right now, and I've taken off my jacket. I've rolled up my sleeves.
Vic00:46:52Your glasses are off. The thermostat, it's out of control here. So talking about the Guy Ritchie oeuvre, King Arthur aside, when you think about him at his best, what do you think of JVL?
JVL00:47:05Are you saying we should rank the Guy Ritchie? Perhaps.
?00:47:08Can we rank them? Rank them!
Vic00:47:11Rank them.
JVL00:47:12Are you going to rank them all? No. Okay, good. I'm just going to give you the three best Guy Ritchie movies. Swept away as number one, right? The three best Guy Ritchie movies. Coming in at number three, King Arthur. I really... No, I'm not... Wow! Something! Again, I'm not... What time is it?
Vic00:47:2649.13.
JVL00:47:27You... It's great, for all the reasons I said. It's funny. It earns its moments. It's an interesting idea. It's an interesting concept. The execution's great. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will watch it again. Number two, Snatch. Snatch is really... So many times when a director goes back to the well off of his break for the same sort of thing after his break, the second version is terrible and a retread. In this, I think Snatch is actually a more fully realized version of Lockstock and Two Smoking Barrels, where Richie is better at everything and has figured out how to do what he was sort of groping his way towards in the dark with Lockstock. Funniest Brad Pitt ever. Made Jason Statham a star. Sort of, you know, Who are you going to shoot with that, Tommy? The Germans? The Germans. Before the Germans get here. Vinnie Jones, the greatest athlete turned actor ever. Certainly a lot better than David Beckham in King Arthur. David Beckham doesn't even stand right in King Arthur.
Sonny00:48:27The problem with David Beckham, if we can just, I forget this every time I see him play, because he's a fantastic soccer player. He's very good at the sport.
JVL00:48:34Does he ever bend the ball? He bends it. He bends it like, like, like a guy. Doesn't matter.
Sonny00:48:41But, like, I forget that he has, like, this really high-pitched, awful voice. Thick. Thick.
JVL00:48:50You know, I, if I could just say, when, when that movie came out, there, the variety was running ads for it constantly, all summer long, in the print variety. Yes, I remember. Which we still got. I remember. And the big banner quote they used from some review was, I'm going to try to remember, Keira Knightley is the sexiest tomboy beanpole ever. And it was the type of, and I would see this every single week. And I would read it and think, I'm sorry, isn't that kind of creepy to say about this girl who's like 16? Just a bit. But not only was it not creepy, but the studio was like, yeah, we're going to use that as our chief way of advertising this movie.
Sonny00:49:34Well, to be fair, they're advertising it to Hollywood perverts, so.
Vic00:49:37And Vic.
Sonny00:49:37And Vic.
Vic00:49:39Okay, you were saying, sorry to interrupt, you were talking about David Beckham.
JVL00:49:42David Beckham's voice is terrible.
Sonny00:49:43Oh, yeah. I mean, it's like, it's like reedy and high-pitched and like.
JVL00:49:46It's Mike Tyson. He's the British Mike Tyson. That's actually a very good comparison, yeah. So, number three, King Arthur. Number two, Snatch. Number one, Sherlock Holmes, which reinvents the Sherlock Holmes myth as essentially lethal weapon. It draws on the Hugh Laurie, House, Wilson dynamic, which is also another Sherlock Holmes adaptation. Many people don't realize this, but House is a straight porting over the Sherlock Holmes myth. It works as an action movie. It works as a mystery. It works as a buddy cop adventure. It works as a comedy. Everything in it is fresh and invigorating. It made marketing. It worked strong into a star in the U.S. It is one extraneous set piece away from being a perfect movie. There's one too many set pieces. If they had pulled one of them out, like it's about a seven minute thing where the pig bodies are exploding, then the movie is literally perfect. There is nothing in it to change.
Sonny00:50:36It was a little bit long, right? Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. This is one.
JVL00:50:39There's just one too many of these grand adventure things. But the real best one, I said that that was number one, but the real number one on this list, Layer Cake. Layer Cake is not the best. It's not directed by Guy Ritchie, but it is the first movie from Guy Ritchie's protege, Matthew Vaughn, who produced both Lock, Stock, and Snatch, and was only given the chance to do Layer Cake on the strength of that and his association with Guy Ritchie.
Vic00:51:03Is Guy Ritchie anywhere in the credits of Layer Cake? No, but his fingerprints are all over it.
JVL00:51:08So it's not a Guy Ritchie movie at all? His fingerprints are all over it, and I love that movie so much that I want to give Guy Ritchie some credit for being involved in it, spiritually.
Vic00:51:16You know what? One of my favorite Spielberg movies is Forrest Gump.
Sonny00:51:20Thank you. One of my favorite Spielberg movies is Super 8. Super 8.
JVL00:51:24But, see, that's a reasonable thing to say. Okay.
Sonny00:51:28Because Super 8 doesn't exist without Steven Spielberg. That's true. That's true.
Vic00:51:32Thank you. You're welcome. You know what? For me, number three on the Guy Ritchie list is a short called Star. Do you remember this? We got this when we were subscribing to Variety, including the Gotham edition of Daily Variety. They would sometimes send you... Promos from different movies. And I got the promo. This is from, like, I don't know, 2000 or whatever, of a DVD... Oh, 2003. It was a DVD of BMW. Oh, I remember this. Put together a car series, sort of like... The Audi. Yes. It was... Well, it was a BMW, and they did it for... It was like their version of the Transporter. Yeah, right. Or... The Driver. The Driver with Ryan Gosling, except for with Clive Owen. Wasn't it called The Driver? It was called The Driver. It was called The Hire. Oh, The Hire. The Hire. And The Driver was the Ryan Gosling movie. It sort of satisfied our curiosity about what would Clive Owen be like if he were James Bond, or something like that. And you know what? Pretty good James Bond. It was pretty great.
JVL00:52:33Now, how did you watch that? Because you didn't have a DVD player at that time, did you?
Vic00:52:36On my iMac or whatever it was at the office.
JVL00:52:39Yes. Popped it in. Or you... I'm sorry. You had a DVD player at home, but you hadn't figured out how to plug it into the television? Was that...
Vic00:52:45It just took 10 years for that one.
Sonny00:52:47Yes, yes.
JVL00:52:47And the...
Sonny00:52:49That's a throwback. That's a throwback. To an early episode of The Substandard.
Vic00:52:51That is a throwback. I was thinking, did we mention about my Blu-ray player? We must have. Anyway, there was... Search through the archives, people.
JVL00:52:59You've got to download all the old episodes. They really do reward repeated listening. They do. They do. They do.
Vic00:53:05There were five shorts, by the way, and they had terrific directors. One of them was John Frankenheimer and Guy Ritchie, of course, Alejandro Iñárritu, Kar-Wai Kong, and Mickey Rourke has a cameo in that one, and Ong Lee. Actually, my favorite... Of those shorts was the one by Ong Lee. It's where Clive Owen picks up this cowboy, and then they go to the mountains, and then they become lovers. Is he... Brokeback? BMW? Is it really brooding?
JVL00:53:28The brokeback hire. Is it brooding and about repression? Yes. Yes.
Vic00:53:32No. The one he does... He wants to drive, but then he's not sure that he should. Yes. And I was going to make a joke, but I won't. In Star, he actually has Madonna be the star in this, and she gets thrown around the car, and gets treated poorly, but that was when Guy Ritchie was married to Madonna. Number two, I would say Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Surprisingly, I did not... I remember when the promos came out, and I got invited to see the screening of it and the whole deal, and I didn't, and I'll tell you why. I had this weird thought at the time that, oh, this sounds like it's just a riff on Pulp Fiction. And I don't know how much of it Guy Ritchie was influenced by Pulp Fiction, but I thought... And I remember somebody... Matt Reese in our office was like, oh, if you love Pulp Fiction... If you love Pulp Fiction, you're going to love Two Smoking... Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. And I thought to myself, that just rubs me the wrong way. Did you not like Pulp Fiction? I liked it, but I liked it so much that I was defensive about it, if that makes any sense. And then I finally watched Lock, Stock, you know, at home, and I thought it was fantastic. But Snatch, as you were saying, is sort of the perfection of that. So he gets everything right in Snatch. And I'll tell you what else I like. The wonderful cast, Benicio Del Toro, Alan Ford, who was in both movies, but also Dennis Farina.
JVL00:54:46Dennis Farina is so great in this movie.
Vic00:54:48Oh, Dennis Farina. Dennis Farina basically being Dennis Farina. But also, you know, he's, but this time not a gangster, but a jeweler gangster, sort of. The jewelry business, as they say.
JVL00:54:56And Brad Pitt, funniest he's ever been. And Brad Pitt is underrated as a comedy presence. He's underrated as an actor. But his pikey stuff, what he does with the language in it is so funny, and it's tremendous. Really, really good stuff.
Sonny00:55:12Sonny. I'll go quickly. Number three, Man from U.N.C.L.E., which, again, I just watched recently, so there's a little bit of recent stuff. But I thought it was really well done, and fun, and light, and jazzy. And this is a movie that actually should have turned into a franchise, and it never will, because it bombed. The one mistake, I think, is that they got the casting slightly wrong. That Armie Hammer and Henry Cavill should have been flipped. Henry Cavill should have played the kind of stoic Russian, prone to fits of anger, and Armie Hammer should have been the suave, kind of roguish American.
JVL00:55:45Frankly, Armie Hammer should have played both parts.
Sonny00:55:49I'm only half that kidding. I don't think he could do that. He couldn't do it. I don't think he's ever done that before. Yeah, no, he's never. He wouldn't know. But I'm only halfway kidding on this. That's an interesting idea, and probably would have... I mean, I like Henry Cavill more than you do, I think, but imagining it as just flipping those two roles makes it 10% better in my mind.
JVL00:56:06He is charmless. Now, he may have screen charisma and can do something. I actually like his Clark Kent and his Superman, but playing a suave guy who charms the ladies does not work at all.
Vic00:56:17You liked him better than Brandon Routh?
Sonny00:56:20Yeah.
Vic00:56:20I think Brian's singing like Brandon Routh better.
Sonny00:56:23Number two, since nobody has mentioned it, I'm going to go with Rock and Rolla, which I think is actually, again, another very underrated kind of one of these British gangster movies. This is the movie where I think Mark Strong turns in his best Guy Ritchie performance in this movie as the kind of fixer helper guy. Everyone should see that. And number one is Snatch. I mean, I really think Snatch is his best film. I think it really is. Like, it is the moment where he goes from Tarantino. Knock off to Tarantino equal. And he only stays there for about two movies. But, like, it is really perfect. Again, you mentioned the cast and it just from top to bottom. I look forward. Gritty. Dogs and pigs. And it's one of these movies where you can jump into at any moment and watch it for like 30 minutes and then jump back out of because it's...
JVL00:57:09And the editing on this is so tight. I mean, you mentioned the editing of King Arthur, and I don't disagree with that. But what's really striking is in his best movies, the editing is absolutely something you notice. And it's brilliant and inventive and smart. And, for instance, even in the very beginning when they're introducing Frankie Four Fingers, who's the Benicio Del Toro, he's on the phone with Dennis Farina. He's just stolen the diamond. Dennis Farina says, whatever you do, don't go to a casino. And you get then like a four-second cut, which is not moving pictures, but still photos of Frankie sitting with Viva Las Vegas in the background. And it's genius.
Vic00:57:51Everything about that is genius.
Sonny00:57:53Yeah, the milk scene, too, also.
Vic00:57:55Cutting together all the guys in the car.
Sonny00:57:56Perfect. Just perfect. And, again, pigs.
Vic00:58:01Corrections, additions.
JVL00:58:03I have none. I have a couple of corrections. Go for it. Aaron Frank, buddy of mine, long-time friend of the show, emails in, I was listening to The Last Substandard while making dough for pizza, and what you were talking about, naan with some sort of sauce and cheese. Faux meat. That's not pizza. Fact. That may be many things. It might even be tasty. But it is definitely not pizza. It's not pizza. Yeah, he may not be wrong. Number two, I got an email from another friend of the show, Kevin Benversi, about The Hulk and explaining something I did not know. I'm surprised I did not know this. There's a reason we don't have a Marvel Hulk. Do you know why, Sonny? This is right up our alley.
Sonny00:58:42It has to do with distribution deals.
JVL00:58:45Shared ownership of the character. So Marvel, if doing a standalone Hulk movie, has to split money with Universal two ways. But when they include Hulk as a team, the percentage they have to give to Universal becomes very small. And so this is why. They're just not going to spend their resources making something where they get a smaller slice of the pie. Makes sense.
Vic00:59:07Substandard listener James FX O'Gara confirms, by the way, that the Armands on Wisconsin Avenue in D.C. is closed. There are only four Armands in Maryland and one in Delaware now. Interestingly, Armands... Armands was the first D.C. pizza place to offer delivery in the city. And they had the city's first food truck, supposedly. Very interesting. Spirit of the week. This week is... We're going a little on the lighter side.
Sonny00:59:34Well, because we are taping at 10 in the morning. So the vodka and... That's right.
Vic00:59:38You're listening to it at 11. We just taped this. And it's Bailey's Irish Cream, which is good with anything or without anything. By the way, you know who makes a good Irish cream? Michael Caine. He makes a very good Irish cream. He brought it over to our New Year's party. And it lasted for a good... He's a man of many talents, Michael Caine.
JVL01:00:00You can make your own Irish cream?
Vic01:00:02Oh, next time you see Michael Caine, ask him about it. How do you do that? Oh, he'll tell you. It involves coffee and Irish whiskey.
Sonny01:00:07Yeah, we don't... There's no time for that right now. It's delicious. Okay. It's a whole process.
Vic01:00:11That's right. Okay, that's all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Victorino Mattis at Sonny Bunch. Again. Be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard at our podcast and we're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends.
Sonny01:00:28Tell JV Last on Twitter, at JV Last, what you think of all the things that you've heard today.
Vic01:00:33Very good. And don't forget, the Substandard show notes will be up on Friday at 11 a.m. Until next time. What's up? Mother's Day. Did you have a nice Mother's Day? No, not, okay, JVL. That's a no-go zone for me. Okay, I'm gonna hit mute for JVL. Sonny, yours was nice.
Sonny01:00:58Yeah, I don't know where this is going. No, no, no, just ask him. Do you have a story you want to tell?
Vic01:01:02You know, it was supposed to be nice and easy, but the kids were the ones who insisted that Mommy get breakfast in bed. Which, by the way, is just an incredible sort of pain in the...
Sonny01:01:10I don't quite, you know, we were discussing this. I've never quite understood the appeal of breakfast in bed. Like, the idea of eating in your own bed and getting your filth all over the sheets and, like, in the mattress. In the mattress, it's terrible. It's a hotel thing. Right. Even in a hotel, I will wheel in the table and I'm sitting in a chair in the hotel room. If they wheel in a table and they're like, where should I put it? I'm like, on the table, because I eat at a table like a civilized human. Right, right.
JVL01:01:34No, but what I'm saying is, at a hotel, you have breakfast in your bed and then the sheets and everything are changed before you sleep in it.
Sonny01:01:40But I don't like to eat in that posture, kind of, like, slouched back, like the...
JVL01:01:44Reclining at table.
Sonny01:01:44Yeah, no, I like to sit at a table. With your sandals on, your belt skirt. Well, I mean... I mean, if it's after five, I'm wearing a full tuxedo, because I'm not a farmer. Lemon, what do you think I am?
Vic01:01:57The fantasy that people have when they think about breakfast in bed is Al Capone and the Untouchables, I think. That scene in Brian De Palma's Untouchables and they have that music and the guy goes up the hotel staircase and there's Al Capone. And by the way, he already looks like he's washed and, you know, showered and his hair is combed. He's gotten back into bed. And he got back into bed wearing the silk pajamas and cigar. And then he gets served the breakfast and that's what people think. But in fact, it's like, look, I did breakfast in bed five days in the hospital once, okay? It's not great. It's not fun. And it's messy. It's like, ah, you know, moving things around. We didn't even have a real tray. So we brought in sort of this fake tray and then Kate had to balance it on her legs. I made eggs and toast. And I said to Sabrina, she wanted to help out. I said, you are not carrying the tray. That's obvious.
Sonny01:02:42That's a recipe for disaster.
Vic01:02:43A recipe for disaster. She put butter on the toast. And Michael says, I'll do the water. And he took the water and went into the pantry and got food coloring and thought it would be cool to make Kate's water colored this, like, fake wild blue.
Sonny01:03:01How did she respond to that?
Vic01:03:02She said, I'm sure it's fine.
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