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#38. The Substandard on Ridley Scott and 'Alien: Covenant'
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Dudes Chatting — Ridley Scott's career: The episode opens with a cold read from Kristin Soltis-Anderson before the main retrospective on Ridley Scott. JVL frames Scott as a prolific "working British director" whose single greatest achievement is Blade Runner, which he calls the most visually influential film since Metropolis. Sonny argues Scott deserves credit for genuine versatility across four distinct genres: Alien for horror, Blade Runner for science fiction, Gladiator for sword-and-sandal epic, and Black Hawk Down for modern warfare — a range almost no other filmmaker can match. Both hosts offer praise for The Counselor as an underrated late-career work. The conversation extends to Tony Scott, with both brothers discussed in context of their differing approaches to spectacle and craft.
Reviews: Alien: Covenant — Sonny liked it as a gothic space-horror throwback with a genuine philosophical layer about creation and hubris; Vic found it gothic and well-executed, singling out Billy Crudup and Danny McBride as standouts; JVL did not see it (he admits to being scared of horror) but expresses genuine interest in its mythology. Sonny provides his full Alien franchise ranking: Aliens first, Alien second, Covenant third, Alien 3 fourth, then AVP, Prometheus, AVP: Requiem, and Alien Resurrection last.
Box Office: Alien: Covenant opens to $36 million domestically.
Spirit of the Week: Bellion Vodka, notable for containing NTX, a compound marketed as reducing alcohol's negative effects on the liver.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00I'm Kristen Soltis-Anderson, colonist at The Washington Examiner, and I have to say, Donald Trump flying across the ocean to get away from this podcast makes an awful lot of sense. This is some real pretty s**t now, man! You finished? I finished, man. Game over, man! Game over!
Vic00:00:25Hello, and welcome back to The Substandard, sponsored by Dollar Shave Club. Stop 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. That's dollarshaveclub.com slash substandard. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. I'd like to remind you, The Substandard is available on iTunes and Google Play. Just look at our podcast and search for The Substandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, leave a review. Speaking of which, the reviews just keep on coming in. We're ever so grateful. Is there one that we particularly like?
Sonny00:01:09Yeah, I was a big fan of the review from Bumble, who we all here in the studio know. So this is kind of a... Apparently Bumble works here. We're cheating a little bit. Apparently Bumble works here. Cheating a little bit. The review begins, My job requires me to listen to The Weekly Substandard podcast every week. So, you know, captive audience, guys. We've got this one. And I'm not going to read the whole thing, but, you know, since he just says that, since he has to listen to it, he loves it, because, you know, what else is he going to do? Beats working at a slaughterhouse. So that's the vote of confidence I'm looking for.
Vic00:01:45Does it really?
Sonny00:01:46Mr. Bumble, you have made our week with your very kind thoughts and words, and we have a very special prize coming for you soon. Again, the signed Zack Snyder DVDs. Maybe they'll get here eventually. But, yeah, anyway. So that was our five stars, of course. Yes, yes, of course, of course.
Vic00:02:03Also, I want to remind our listeners that Substandard show notes are posted by Jonathan Last every Friday at 11 a.m. at weeklystandard.com. So, gentlemen, how are we doing? JVL, how are you?
JVL00:02:15I'm so great. I just had a weekend in Philly, Delphia, with my best friend since second grade. So, Sands Kids. Wow. Sands Kids in preparation for his. His first kid.
Sonny00:02:31So, this is my buddy, Chris, the worst chauvinist pig. You guys, Vic, you know Chris. Sonny, you do not. I don't know any of your friends. You never introduced me to any of your friends.
JVL00:02:39He is pretty sunny. Daring down the barrel of a baby. And so, we went off to do things and convey wisdom and, you know, drank a lot of bourbon, went to some gentlemen's clubs. Oh, no. Whoa, wait. No, we didn't do those things. We played tennis and went to comic book stores. Well, that sounds like fun. That actually sounds like more fun, frankly.
Vic00:02:58You could do that with your kids. You could do that with your kids.
JVL00:02:59I got you a little something, Victorino. Oh, you're looking at me? Oh, no. What did you get? What have you done? Because this is, I like bringing things to my friends. Oh, I thought it was the Prada catalog.
Sonny00:03:09Ray, what have you done?
JVL00:03:11A little book. So, perhaps you knew that in the 1950s and 1960s, there were a whole lot of comic books for girls. And so, there were comic books like Millie the Model and Young Love and Teen Romance. And then, this book. This book, which I saw, it's a Silver Age book from Dell Publishing. It's worth a little bit of money. It was 12 cents at the time. It's a 12 cent comic. I believe that's 1963. And I shelled out my hard-earned money to get that for you. If you'd like to tell readers what it is, that's fine. Otherwise-
Vic00:03:47What's the title, Vic? You just want to get me arrested, right? That's what you did. Your ultimate plan. You're always laying traps for me. Various honey traps. This one's called 13 Going on 18. I saw 13 Going on 13. But this is 13 Going on 18. And yeah, there's a girl. Does she magically become 18? Is that what happens? Who could say?
JVL00:04:10I haven't read it. You should go read it. It's approved by the Comics Code. It's totally safe for work. Oh, that's good. No, it- Was it actually? I don't see a Comics Code stamp on that. It looks cute. Look, there's a guy-
Sonny00:04:18Oh, yeah, you're right.
JVL00:04:19That's pre-
Vic00:04:19It can't be pre-authority. There's a guy whose boat is sinking. And she says, get me out of here. I'm sinking. And he says, get me out of here. I'm sinking. I don't get it. They're both screwed, but not in that way.
Sonny00:04:34If I could say.
JVL00:04:35The feminists are not wrong that the comics of that age that were designed for women, not the highest quality. No. Yeah, the female readers were getting the short end of the stick during the Silver Age. No, it was like the, what is that, Malibu Stacy. You know, the Simpsons. They need more-
Vic00:04:49She giggles. I don't know. I'm just a girl. But anyway, so thank you, JVL. You're welcome.
Sonny00:04:5713 going on 18 really could have used more. And fang foom, you know? Sonny, how are you? I'm good. I was actually also in the Philadelphia area this weekend. I went to Sesame Place, which is like-
JVL00:05:10Langhorne, Pennsylvania. Sesame Street. That's what it was, Langhorne. Yeah, Langhorne. I don't even know.
Sonny00:05:15I don't know what that means. I just know it's slightly past Philadelphia. It was really fun. My little kid had a great time. She was very excited to meet all of her celebrities in real life. IRL, as the kids say. Yes, IRL. And it was a good time. We had fun. Favorite ride? The carousel, I guess. I mean, they're all basically carnival rides. Like, nice quality, high quality carnival rides, but it's like a carousel and teacups and like a little boat that kind of spins up and down.
Vic00:05:45Did you feel fairly safe? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:05:47I mean, it's like nothing was- There was one roller coaster and nobody was on it because everybody is below like the 48 inches. Oh, right. Of course.
JVL00:05:56So it's really, really for sport games. Minimum. They used to have a really cool ropes course. But she's probably too young for that, too.
Sonny00:06:01I don't think they have that anymore. They have like a big play area and she went in like the little kids version of the play area, which is- But like mostly she was there to meet all of the people in costume.
JVL00:06:10And she was not terrified by them?
Sonny00:06:11Because a lot of kids on Duke, we were a little bit afraid that she was going to like run away screaming. But no, she would like run right up to them and be like, Elmo, Elmo, Elmo. Oh, my gosh.
Vic00:06:23Oscar, Oscar. It was very cute. That's very exciting. It sounds much more pleasant than when- I was a kid and JVL was a kid and could go to Great Adventure and say, have a good time, but just try to avoid the gangs and stabbings. And fire. And accidental deaths.
JVL00:06:37And accidental deaths. Do you know about this, Sonny?
Sonny00:06:40I mean, I assume that lots of people died at Six Flags.
JVL00:06:42This was Six Flags Great Adventure. Jack's in New Jersey. I would say we had a couple people every summer during our youth would die. There's one horrific one where like 19 people died in the haunted house caught on fire.
Vic00:06:53It was a series of connected trailers with fake exit signs. And the exits were all, the fire exits were all. All chains shut. It was a terrible idea. Yeah. And I passed it. I always passed that haunted house, but I was too scared to go in. And of course, the people working there, it was just an excuse for them for cheap feels, you know? So I was like, oh, what happens when you go in? And, you know, the people who go in, they'll tell you, oh, yeah, you know, some guy will just grab me in various places. And that was a guy, that was a guy's job.
Sonny00:07:20Yeah.
Vic00:07:20A guy who would dip his hand into ice cold water and then grab people.
Sonny00:07:23People say that New Jersey is a terrible, terrible place. And they're right. They're right. It's garbage. It's a garbage state.
JVL00:07:30Lightning Loops was one of the first looping roller coasters in America. And this coaster, all it did was go in a loop.
Sonny00:07:37You just go high, in a loop, back up to the top.
JVL00:07:41No, no, no. Oh, it came back down? It was not connected. It was a straight. And I remember there's a Lightning Loops death where somebody fell out of the coaster. Yes, like Final Destination. Survived the drop, only to be run over by the coaster as it comes through. Oh, that felt that way. It just horrified me. That's pretty terrible.
Vic00:07:57Do you remember Free Fall? The Free Fall death?
JVL00:07:59Yes. The hair. The hair. The girl got her hair stuck in the...
Vic00:08:02Broke her neck, ripped it, right?
JVL00:08:03Uh-huh. Yeah. Six Flags Raid Adventure was the original Final Destination.
Vic00:08:08It was the original Final... Roaring Rapids. The guy died on that one, too. No. He stood up, and I think he got tossed around, hit the rocks.
Sonny00:08:14I don't really have that much sympathy for the people who stand up on the rides and then get decapitated or whatever. You kind of had that one coming.
Vic00:08:20But it is Final Destination-ish. Excuse me. It was a so-so weekend, I would say, at the box office for Alien. Alien Covenant, which did $36 million at the box office, edging out Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Chav King Arthur, which fell to sixth place, a 55% drop. It's because it's bad. And, oh, by the way, in the top ten, in eighth place after eight weeks, Boss Baby. Boss Baby.
Sonny00:08:47The problem, Boss Baby is definitely not going to linger around long enough. It's dropping too fast. There are too many more family films coming, sadly. It will not be a Titanic style.
Vic00:08:59So, Alien Covenant Review, that's what I have written here, by the way. Alien Covenant Review, excuse me. JVL, you did not see it, but Sonny saw it and I saw it. Yeah. Vic, do you want to give us your review? No, why don't you go give the official review for that? I'm curious. I mean, you wrote about this in The Beacon, but share with your listeners.
Sonny00:09:22So, Alien Covenant is the sequel to Prometheus. And kind of the prequel to Alien. It takes place a few years. So, it basically opens with a scene with Guy Pearce playing Waylon, Peter Waylon, from the first film. You'll remember that Peter Waylon was like a 100-year-old man in Prometheus. And he was like traveling across the universe to try and meet his makers and et cetera, et cetera. But like the weird thing about him is that he was played by Guy Pearce, who was like 40-something. So, he was buried. He was buried under these mountains of old age makeup. And it didn't really make any sense at the time. But it all makes sense now because they had to have him for this one two-minute prologue to Alien Covenant. Where he explains to David, the android he's created, who is played by Michael Fassbender, that he wants to meet his maker. Basically, you could have avoided all of Prometheus and just had this one two-minute scene. And everything would have made just about as much sense in the movie. We then skip ahead to the comics. Covenant, which is a colony ship. It has 2,000 cryo-frozen colonists and a bunch of embryos to do the second generation. And also, a 12-member crew. They are woken up when there's a neutrino storm or a solar flare or something. Yes, a neutrino storm. Oh, man, those are the worst. Basically, I think I had in my notes, bad science thing happens. Well, if the neutrino storm messes with your dilithium crystals. Oh, yeah. Bad science thing. They wrecked the space sails. The space sails were badly damaged, so they had to wake up from the ship. The hyper-ma-jigger-ba-bob. Right, from the hyper-sleeps. The hyper-sleeps were interrupted. That's a thank you for smoking reference, isn't it? And when they do this, there's kind of a horrible tragedy. One of the crew members dies, who's played by James Franco, strangely. I swear James Franco just did this because Danny McBride put him up to it. Danny McBride is one of the crew members on the ship. And he's fantastic. He's great. He's one of the best parts of the movie.
JVL00:11:30He is.
Sonny00:11:30Anyway, so the crew wakes up. They fix the bad science thing that's happened and get a transmission from a planet that they're nearby that's weirdly a human voice singing Take Me Home Country Roads. And they're like, what is going on here? So they go to check it out. And long story short, they discover that it's the remains of the Prometheus, which has crashed onto this planet. And in the course of doing so, seems to have wiped out all of the life on it. All of the engineers from the first film have been killed by some sort of plague. And now the question is, you know, what actually happened? Let me ask you this, Sonny. Yeah.
Vic00:12:15The ship that the Prometheus arrived and crashed in on the planet where they're from, that's not a human ship.
Sonny00:12:24No, it's an alien ship.
Vic00:12:25But it's not the alien alien ship. It's the engineer ship.
Sonny00:12:29It's the same style of ship that they find in Alien on LV-426 or whatever. It is that kind of like crescent moon shaped ship. But it is not that ship, I guess.
Vic00:12:42Yes.
Sonny00:12:42We can get into the mythology of the series in a minute. But anyway, so, you know, the rest of the movie is, it is nominally a film that it sets out to explain the origins of the xenomorphs and the, or xenomorphs. However you want to pronounce that. And kind of, you know, how they came to be. It is more interestingly thought of as a disquisition on the nature of creation and what it means if, you know, you are to meet your maker and your maker hates you. Which is kind of also what Prometheus was getting at. I, kind of. Anyway, that's, it is very much a horror movie. This is a throwback. This is the movie. I think that people were expecting to see when they heard that Prometheus was a prequel to Alien. This is very much a space horror, survival horror type movie. And the fact that it has a couple of, the fact that it has a couple of kind of more philosophical ideas or insights thrown into it is, is just kind of, you know, a bonus.
Vic00:13:55I was going to say there's something almost gothic about the whole film. It's bloody. I don't know about terrifying in the sense because we know what the xenomorph is capable of, but it's certainly gory and graphic. And I was also, I was going to say, you know, just like the Jurassic Park series, Alien Covenant is a movie about human pride and hubris, right? You know, because all of this is essentially our fault. You know, why do we have to go making synthetic beings that we think could be better than us? And they continue, you know, if you don't do that, you know, why do we have to search for, I suppose, a creator? If Peter Weyland, you know, went to church. There'd be no alien. I just want to point that out. So please stop searching for answers. That's my message. And don't, don't, don't, you know, go a step away from the plan. If the plan is you're going to take seven more years to get to, just no change. Right, right.
Sonny00:14:40So one of the, one of the plot points in the early part of the film is they wake up early to fix the ship and they're still seven years away from their, you know, destination. And they decide, well, you know, we've got, we found this new planet and it's perfect for us. It's like right within normal Earth, you know, calibrations for living here. Well, maybe we should check it out and see if we can live here.
Vic00:14:59Too good to be true. But I'll say this besides Danny McBride. I thought Billy Crudup was good. Yeah. It's like the best thing I've seen him do since Almost Famous. Yeah. He was, he's great.
Sonny00:15:09Right. So Danny McBride basically plays the kind of Yafit Kodo or Bill Paxton type figure in this movie. He is the kind of working class, you know, competent, funny type of character. He really brings a lot of life. And charm to the screen.
Vic00:15:29Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because if not for, you're talking about Danny McBride. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:15:34And Billy Crudup is like the, he's, he's kind of forced into duty.
Vic00:15:37Yeah. Yeah. Danny McBride here in Tennessee is his name. He plays a kind of a, he's a, he's like a smarter Kenny Powers, but there's still a little bit of Kenny Powers in it.
Sonny00:15:45Yeah. Well, there's always, I mean, Danny McBride can't play anything other than something with a little Kenny Powers. Right. Right.
Vic00:15:50Right. Now let me, let me ask you this. Are they going to try to squeeze yet another sequel, prequel out of this before we get to the, because it's not like Rogue One that leads you right into episode four. Yeah.
Sonny00:16:01I, I, who knows? I mean, honestly, the, so the. I'm not really sure how it ends, to be honest with you. So, so the nerds in, in Reddit land are very upset that this kind of junks a lot of the alien mythology. So basically, right, if you remember Alien, the, the space truckers show up and there's a distress signal coming from planet and they find a crack. A crashed alien ship there. And they, and then that's where the, that's where the first face hugger and all that comes from. Right. Well, you know, that is all kind of out the window now. I mean, in terms of discovering the, the xenomorphs and all that. And if you remember, if you, if you think back to the Alien vs. Predator and Alien vs. Predator Requiem, like those are kind of silly movies and they're kind of, you know, kind of actiony, you know, whatever, throw away. We need a, we need to make some money off this property type movies. Um. But, uh, one of the interesting things they did was try to build the mythology of why Weyland-Yutani Corporation would be interested, would like be fascinated with going out into space and finding these things. Like why, why does the original, the Nostromo have to stop and, and search for, uh, the thing that they're looking for? You know, why, why is the, why is the Android program to, you know, uh, make sure that all of this is, is, is done properly. And, and if the, if the. Discovery is that they know that the xenomorphs are out there and these bioweapons are, uh, discoverable and in space somewhere. And that has kind of been programmed through the years. Then it makes some amount of sense. Now it's just kind of like been thrown out the window. It's like Peter Weyland wanted to create, find his maker, you know? And like, that is, that's, it's, it is, it is frankly is a more satisfying storytelling. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, uh, move, but it is for people who are like heavily invested in the alien mythology. It, uh. It, uh, these last two movies kind of junk all that.
Vic00:17:59And, and, and in terms of the box office being kind of depressed at 36 million, you, you were saying there was apparently some confusion some people might have with this movie.
Sonny00:18:10Well, there was a very funny story in Deadline that was like, uh, people didn't know what the movie, if, if the movie was a prequel to Alien or a sequel to, to Prometheus or there was a very funny line that, that said something like, uh, you know, people weren't sure if this was related to internet. Because the soundtracks were very similar. And I just wanted to throw something, uh, I wanted to throw my laptop, uh, out of my window. Just like, who are these idiots who think that Alien Covenant is, uh, related to Interstellar?
JVL00:18:42Yeah, you live in America in the year 2017. That's impossible to think that there would be people out there that dumb.
Sonny00:18:47Well, no, I, I mean, obviously. Yeah, it's crazy. The fact, the fact that there are people out there who are that dumb is not surprising. Just the fact that they are that dumb.
Vic00:18:56Well, how much of the soundtrack are they getting out of, before they, if they're not watching the movie?
Sonny00:19:01That's what I'm saying. Based on the trailers? And, and the movie, and the movie itself actually does a very good job of kind of melding, and it's not something I didn't really mention in my review, but I started thinking about after this dumb, this dumb comment. The movie does a good job of kind of melding the soundtracks of Prometheus and the original Alien. Like, the kind of, anyway, it's so, people are stupid.
JVL00:19:21JVL. Can we have a spoiler conversation about this? Or no? Is that not? Oh, we've already given away a bunch.
Sonny00:19:26Yeah, I mean, I feel like if people, if people want to tune us out, we've already got your download, so, you know, if you want to shut us off, feel free.
Vic00:19:36Go ahead, JVL.
JVL00:19:37So, I didn't see this. I will never see it, but not because I'm not interested. Same thing with Prometheus. I'm just, I have like the sensibility of a nine-year-old girl. It scares me, and so I don't want to.
Sonny00:19:47Did you not see Prometheus?
JVL00:19:48Didn't, but was super interested in it. I liked the story. Read the detailed Wikipedia plot summary.
Vic00:19:53Yeah, you would have loved the self-inflicted C-section.
JVL00:19:56So, when David and Numi Rapace get to this planet, and David kills her, are the engineers still alive?
Sonny00:20:09No, so what happens is he...
JVL00:20:11And David kills them by dropping the black goo? Right. Is that what happens? Yeah. He does that first.
Sonny00:20:15Yeah, he does that first.
JVL00:20:16But the engineers are there when they show up.
Sonny00:20:18Yes. They're all like gathered in a big kind of arena, watching the ship come home and cheering and saying, oh...
Vic00:20:24And I, yes, I'm thinking because that's one of their ships, right? Yes, because I think it's one of their ships.
Sonny00:20:29Right, and all of a sudden... And then he drops all of the canisters of goo, and it like turns them into, it like kills them immediately. It turns them into black.
JVL00:20:36So, they don't have communications, the engineers. They're very sophisticated, and they can make planet-altering bioweapons, and they can terraform. Yeah. But they don't have rudimentary communications of the type that we have in 21st century America. Yeah, that's exactly right.
Vic00:20:49They totally overlooked it for some reason in their technological development.
JVL00:20:53Okay, interesting. Are we given more backstory on... Like, who or what the engineers are?
Sonny00:20:58No, and I think this is actually one of the things that it does well. I mean, I don't think it really matters who or what the engineers are. The whole point of the movie is that when you try to meet or surpass your creator, you end up doing something horrible and terrifying.
Vic00:21:12They don't look... Yeah, they're humanoid-ish, obviously. They're, you know, our descendants in this... Well, our progenitors. Progenitors, yes.
Guest00:21:22Yes, exactly.
Vic00:21:23JVL, so this is not the kind of movie... You don't go for... Obviously, you love sci-fi, but it's not... It's horror. It's graphic violence.
JVL00:21:31Right, no, I love all the sci-fi elements of it. I just don't like the horror, so I would like to be able to consume the portions of it that I like. The mythology. I like the alien mythology a lot. I like the Weyland-Yutani stuff quite a lot. I just don't want to have to see the facehuggers and the chest bursting.
Sonny00:21:49Have you seen... So, you've seen Alien and Aliens. I've seen the first three, and after that, I... I really like the first one.
JVL00:21:57I mean, it's Haunted House, and so we can talk about the first one later.
Vic00:22:00It is definitely Haunted House, and the other interesting thing is Michael Fassbender. I wonder if he's going to get a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. You know, when you're playing twins, it's... I should have had Armie Hammer. I know. Kind of reminded me of that. But he's great in his Michael Fassbender way, but they talk about future iterations of the synthetics, and as Sonny mentioned... In the beginning, you have, you know, Waylon is there with David, and then, of course, Walter is many times better than that, and less human in a way. But the weird thing is, you're working your way up towards Ian Holm's Cyborg in 1970.
Sonny00:22:40Kind of a devolution.
JVL00:22:42It does have that aspect like the Star Wars and the Star Wars prequels, where within this reality, the future is less shiny than the present, right? Or less shiny than the past.
Sonny00:22:55And they're also, like, the ships are doing slightly different things. I mean, like, the Nostromo is a freighter ship. It's like...
JVL00:23:01You know what I really want out of this series? Is a Waylon movie. A Peter Waylon movie? No, totally. I want a movie that's just about his corporate life, like, how he builds his corporation, what his hopes and dreams are. I would like to see... Because we don't ever see Earth, right? In any of the Prometheus movies. Never. We see, like, him talking.
Sonny00:23:20No, in Prometheus, we see Earth. Oh, okay. It starts on Earth.
JVL00:23:23Briefly, right? Very briefly. Like, I would like to see what does Earth in the Aliens universe look like. I'd like to spend some time there.
Vic00:23:28And maybe when Ripley is rescued in Aliens, the James Cameron movie.
Sonny00:23:31That sounds like the most boring movie of all time. Like...
JVL00:23:35The corporate board meeting for Williams, Johnny.
Vic00:23:37That's the movie I want. No, but I mean, like...
Sonny00:23:39Jonathan does not actually want to see, like, people's limbs being torn apart.
Vic00:23:43All right. All right. Well, now, what if we made... That awful shower scene. Sonny, I'm still haunted by it.
Sonny00:23:46What if we made an Aliens movie, but with no aliens?
JVL00:23:51Yes.
Sonny00:23:51And so, you know the story... So, there's the old story of James Cameron. You know, the studio is trying to find a way to resurrect the alien in Bran. And James Cameron walks into the boardroom, and he just writes alien on a whiteboard. And then he writes an S and a dollar sign. He makes the S a dollar sign. So, it's like... Who knows how apocryphal it is? But, like, this is the story. So, this... And this is like... And then he walks... He, like, drops the pen and walks out. You know, like... So, the idea was... But, like, your idea would be to take the aliens with the S dollar sign and just erase that.
JVL00:24:21Yes. Which would be like erasing the dollar sign. Right. Yeah. So... But it's a movie for me. It's a movie for me. Okay. It's a movie for the masses.
Vic00:24:26Well, you were mentioning this before, Sonny. Who got in trouble recently because they brought their kids to watch Alien? Oh, yeah.
Sonny00:24:34Well, it was... I mean, it was a story a couple years back. Matt Zoller Seitz, who's the great critic for RogerEbert.com and New York Times and Vulture and elsewhere, just wrote, like, kind of a casual... Casually wrote a piece about how he had... His 11-year-old son was having a sleepover. So, it was, you know, 10, 11, 12-year-old kids. And they wanted to watch something that was an action movie, but not a comic book movie. They were, like, trying to, you know, grow their cineast palates. And so, MZS picked Aliens, you know? Which, like, Aliens, if you remember, isn't... Like, it's an R-rated movie, and it's a deservedly R-rated movie, but, like, the violence isn't that explosively bad. I mean, it's... There's a lot of cursing, but there's no nudity. There's no sex or anything. It's, like, it's a hard... It's an R, but it's not a hard R.
Vic00:25:22There's lots of explosions. People are... People... People get burned. Yeah, burned, and also being blown to bits,
Sonny00:25:27but it's happening so fast, and the pace of it is so fast. Yeah, yeah. So, how old are these children again? So, like, 11, 12. So, young. Young.
JVL00:25:36That's a close call.
Sonny00:25:37So, this is... So, this is... So, then, Matt writes this piece, kind of, like, not thinking about that aspect of it, and, of course, the internet, being what it is, freaks out, and they're, like, abusive parent dwarps minds of children for, you know, for his own sick pleasures and gains, and, like, it's, okay, well, now you're freaking out, but, like... Like, I actually am sympathetic to the idea that if my 11-year-old was going to a sleepover, I probably would at least want to be given a heads-up that they're going to be seeing a, you know, a legitimately, you know, kind of R-rated movie. It's not Showgirls. It's not, you know, Basic Instinct. No, no, no. But it's, you know, if they were seeing, like, Terminator 2, I might want to know. Yeah.
JVL00:26:22But I don't know.
Sonny00:26:23I mean, it's... No, I think Terminator 2... You didn't take your... You didn't take Michael to see Alien Covenant.
Vic00:26:27No, I toyed around with the idea because I said I'm not going, and he kept on asking me, when's the movie? No, I don't want to see it. When's the movie? No, I don't want to see it. And then he goes, I just want to see a picture of it. Do you have a picture? And I would find some, you know, video clipping of AVP, which is okay to watch that, you know? AVP was PG-13. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a certain making of YouTube videos, how they made the alien. And next thing you know, he's drawing the alien. And AVP, he signs with the alien, he says. Of course. You know, and so he's drawing this, and then I...
Sonny00:26:54Over the predator?
Vic00:26:55Over the predator, I don't... Whoa. Predator is smart, predator is smarter. I don't think alien is that... It's a vicious killing machine.
Sonny00:27:00Well, the queen alien is obviously very intelligent.
Vic00:27:03Yes, and we actually don't know how that happened, you know? I mean, there's a whole chicken and the egg thing going on that I'm not really quite sure with alien, you know? Because the one, you know, there's the head hugger that impregnates you. Face hugger. The face hugger. Head hugger. Head hugger. Look at this noob. I think they call head hugger, I think they call that in Lego, because my son shows me, they have it for Lego.
Sonny00:27:22Oh. Well, I guess that would make sense because you put it on top, because it clicks in on top, I would assume. Yeah, it is awful.
Vic00:27:27I can't believe they do that. In any event, it looked very cool. And they have a queen alien in Lego. But to get back to the point, so I said no, and then I kind of jokingly said to Kate, yeah, you know, Michael's thinking it. She's like, no. I'm like, okay. So I didn't. But of course, I was nine, I think, when I saw Alien, the first movie. The first Alien? Yeah, it was on HBO, you know? And my parents got HBO, and they said, hey, kids, Alien is on. Let's all watch it. And so we piled into their, you know, onto their bed in the bedroom and watched Alien. Yeah. And I remember, the two things I remember is the blood acid in the beginning. And of course, you know, that awful scene where it pops out. But the acid blood, I thought, was why? Because I said, what is that? Yeah. And the other, the last thing I remember in that movie, I don't remember the ending at the time. It was Tom Skerritt in The Air Duct. Oh, yeah. Which was, you know, it was...
Sonny00:28:21It's right above, right on top of you. They don't even realize
Vic00:28:24because they're thinking that it's linear, that he's right behind, but in fact, it's two different layers. It's still to this day, and I'll send the show notes, one of the scariest and exciting scenes in a movie like that. Yeah. I mean, it's just totally gripping.
Sonny00:28:37Yeah. I do, I, again, I'm like kind of torn, but I mean, I do think I saw it when I was 13 or 14, Aliens. Not, I saw Aliens before I saw Alien. I saw them out of sequence.
JVL00:28:48There is no Lego Aliens.
Vic00:28:50What was he showing me?
JVL00:28:52I don't know. It may be an off-branded thing, but Lego, Lego does not make an Alien.
Vic00:28:58He was, it was on my phone. It was wild. I see. So Amazon sells some things, like Funko Reaction,
JVL00:29:04but yeah, I'm sorry. As soon as you said that, I thought, you had to check it out? I'm sorry, no. The nice people in Denmark would not make this.
Vic00:29:10Well, check it out.
JVL00:29:12There are brick toys
Vic00:29:13that are not Lego-branded brick toys. That must be what it is. That was, yeah, yeah. I think he was on Pornhub.com.
JVL00:29:20So having seen, I'm kidding. Having seen it.
Vic00:29:24Yes, yes.
JVL00:29:25Now do you think you could have taken, Michael? Would that have been fine?
Vic00:29:29No, no. There are certain scenes that are so disturbingly graphic. There's a decapitation. Such as? Oh, the woman. Well, we're not, we're not, spoiler alert, right? We're spoiler alert. There's a woman in the cave and she gets, you know. She gets decapitated. And the couple in the bath, in the shower, they're about to do it. It's kind of a Friday the 13th moment, you know. Never do that. Never do that. Yeah, once it's going to happen, impaling, not the good kind of impaling either. So I will say, JVL, that I probably made the smart choice in not having him at the, in the theater with me. But you know what else is a smart choice? Dollar Shave Club. You'll 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 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 don'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, the Dr. Carver's Shave Butter is transparent for a more precise shave, helps preventing 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 $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 their regular price. There are no hidden fees and no commitments. Cancel any time you like, but why would you? You can only get this offer exclusively at DollarShaveClub.com slash Substandard. That's DollarShaveClub.com slash Substandard. So, in the great, grand oeuvre of Ridley Scott, what do we think?
Sonny00:31:26Well, first off, we need to rank the Aliens films. Oh! Victor, obviously we need to rank the Aliens films. Okay, quick. Let me write them up now while you're ranking. You guys think about your rankings. Here's how I'm going to do it. Aliens, the James Cameron. Alien. Are we going top to bottom, bottom to top? Best to worst. Best to worst. Yes, number one. Number one, Aliens. Number two, Alien. Then, Alien Covenant. Then, Alien 3. And only the Fincher work print Alien, not the butchered studio one. Alien vs. Predator. Prometheus, after Alien vs. Predator. Alien vs. Predator Requiem, which I watched on a laptop. I spent a week in a friend's house in between apartments once, and that is where I watched Alien vs. Predator Requiem, which was actually kind of terrifying because I was watching it in the dark on a couch. In a strange house. Anyway. And last and certainly least is Alien Resurrection, which is one of the worst movies I think I've ever seen.
Vic00:32:30Yeah.
Sonny00:32:32JVL, which of the Wikipedia plot summaries do you like the most?
JVL00:32:37I would just flip your top two. I mean, of the ones I've seen. I've seen four of these, not the complete seven or whatever. Have you seen Alien vs. Predator? No, I saw Resurrection. So I've seen Alien, Aliens, Alien Cubed, and Resurrection. I would flip Alien and Aliens, but this is no disparagement to Alien.
Sonny00:32:57I think they're both four-star movies. They're just slightly different movies. One is a horror movie. One is an action movie. Action war movie.
Vic00:33:05Alien Resurrection, is that with Winona Ryder? Yes. Yes, and that's the one where the alien is kind of like a child of Sigourney Weaver and a part of him gets sucked, like his butt or his back. His head gets sucked on the... And then he gets the space vacuum thing. Again, I'm a big fan of Winona Ryder. She was like my first crush in the
JVL00:33:2980s. I thought she was great.
Vic00:33:32I like Winona Ryder a lot, too. The world before Jennifer Love Hewitt. I loved her a lot. I thought she was great. I'll just give you my top three. Covenant is up there. I thought it was very well done. I'll make that my third. Aliens is a great one. You know the interesting about that? I'll put that in second place is Aliens with James Cameron. That has a great sort of riveting, pulsating soundtrack and Bill Paxton is great. The girl who plays... Vasquez? No, no, no, no. The little girl. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Newt. Newt. That's the only movie she ever did. I don't know what the backstory is on that. Was it such an unpleasant experience? I have no idea. Lance Henriksen, of course. Finally! That was the only movie he ever did, too. That was the only Lance Henriksen. I always thought he did a movie, but it was on Fox. And he, he was, he was great as a good cyborg. And then, of course, the first one's Alien. I mean, it's just so well-paced, and you don't know what's happening, and you don't know how it's gonna end. You don't, you know, you don't have any, just no understanding of who's going to make it out, and why, and what this thing is.
Sonny00:34:39It's definitely one of those weird movies where you don't have a lead, or at least the lead kind of changes halfway through. Like, it's kind of like Psycho, like that, where the audience is very much on their toes.
Vic00:34:50Yeah, Tom Skerritt. Tom Skerritt was the lead, and then after that, it became this vehicle for Sigourney Weaver for the next couple, several of them, and then now we've reverted. But again, just briefly to go back, I just really wonder how the ending of Covenant connects to Alien.
Sonny00:35:05I, who knows? Maybe he goes off and he starts his own, you know, colony somewhere, totally divorced from the rest of humanity. But, like, it can't be the LV-426, because the LV-426 didn't have a colony there when the when the ship showed up, right? When the Nostromo shows up, it's just the crashed engineer ship.
JVL00:35:26Well, the eggs are there.
Sonny00:35:29There are a bunch of eggs, they're in the ship. Oh, the eggs were in the ship. But my point is they don't go there on the engineer ship. So, I mean, maybe the engineers show up later, and who knows? You know what, though? This is... But again, this is all like, this is all kind of beside the point. I think like, obsessing over the mythology and continuity of it is... Well, but it's
JVL00:35:47also, this is stuff that has been there from the start. One of the things that is so interesting about Alien is that he is comfortable laying out a whole bunch of mythology, and then just walking away from it. And that's one of the things that makes the universe so lived in. Like, that you don't, you know, if there's a lot of mystery, then the things that make sense to some of the characters, but aren't explained to you, and... I don't know. It seems like that is in keeping with the ethos of the series, no? I mean, he
Sonny00:36:15wasn't involved with the series for 30 years, remember. I mean, or 25 years, or however long, whatever the gap was between Prometheus and Alien. So, I mean, like, I think he mostly just wanted to kind of reset things
JVL00:36:26with Prometheus. I actually, what I actually
Sonny00:36:29honestly think happened was he wanted to make a movie that was like Prometheus and could not get $100 million to make that movie if it was not attached to the Alien property. So he had to find a way to kind of work all that together. That is what my kind of guess on how that actually all played out was. But, you know. The other thing is... Because Prometheus is a very weird movie. It's a very... If you go back and rewatch it, I rewatched it last weekend, and it is a very, very strange movie. Like, it spends about an hour plus just being kind of this, you know, it spends like an hour plus and then like 30 minutes at the end kind of being all about, like, the nature of creation and, like, what if your maker hated you? And, like, it's also a movie that makes it kind of... It seems to be arguing that Christ was an engineer who was killed, and that's why they were coming back to the planet to wipe us all out, is because we killed Christ, the engineer. But, like, the... This is a... Well, we can put that in show notes. There's, like, a whole theory on this. Anyway. But the... Then it takes a very, like, hard right turn into body horror and, like, just kind of, like, cheap scares and it's bad. It's just... That part of it is not very good. When Prometheus
Vic00:37:40first came out, did people know already that this was an alien people? Yes.
Sonny00:37:44It was sold to people as... Even though you don't see it till the end. It was sold as, like, taking place in the alien universe where Ridley Scott returns to his alien roots. Got it. Got it. Got it. An alien
Vic00:37:54story. Right. An alien story. Right. Very good. Basically. Very good. Prometheus.
Sonny00:37:58Prometheus 1, an alien story. But the other
Vic00:38:00thing is, you know, H.R. Giger, who is the designer, again, that stuff holds and if you look back at that 1979 Alien, a lot of the, you know, I mean, they didn't have to be ridiculous about what the future looked like and because everything is so understated, it still holds up. Yeah. So there's no weirdness in that sense about going from these movies connecting in certain ways with the design of that movie. Now you want to talk about Ridley Scott. Ridley Scott. Let's talk about Ridley Scott. In general, because he's more than just aliens. Yeah. JVL.
JVL00:38:35He's really great. So when you think about, he's got Gladiator, Blackhawk Down, The Martian, and those are his B-plus movies. I mean, those are three solid movies that any director could call three or four, and they don't even include Alien and Blade Runner, which are his two signature films. He is the directorial equivalent of a working British actor like Brian Cox or Michael Caine in that he has made a movie every 12 to 24 months for 30 years. That's pretty astonishing. 23 feature films, I think, in 28 years, in addition to doing a bunch of shorts and TV work at the same time. And because of that, he's not making capital-I important films. He's just making movies, and so you wind up with some movies that are really, really great, like Alien and Blade Runner, which are... I would argue that Blade Runner might be the most influential movie visually since Fritz Lang's Metropolis. And you get some of those, and then you get G.I. Jane. You know, and that's... For $14.92. For $14.92. But he's not... You know what? The truth is, I don't begrudge him any of that, because he's almost in a different professional category from Michael Mann or Christopher Nolan. Guys who are really taking their time so that everything is a perfect gem. That's not what Ridley Scott is. Terrence Malick. Is it Terrence Malick? Yeah, Malick. Right, he's not a Malick. And you can really judge his quality by looking at his bad movies. Because even his bad... Like, Hannibal is a bad movie. And yet, for instance, there's a scene in it where Julianne Moore is involved in a shootout with her FBI buddies. I think it's like the opening scene. Yeah. And it is... Directed beautifully. Yeah. It's just a phenomenal little set piece. So even in his bad movies, he has these
Sonny00:40:25perfect moments. I actually liked Hannibal. I think that movie gets kind of a bad rap.
JVL00:40:30That's a bad opinion.
Sonny00:40:31But I would actually like to disagree slightly. I think... My big complaint about Ridley Scott is that the delta between his best pictures and his worst pictures is fairly large, I think. So, you know, on the one hand, you have Blade Runner. And then on the other hand, you have A Good Year or Kingdom of Heaven. And I know there are some revisionists out there who are like, no, Kingdom of Heaven is actually great. Those people are wrong. That movie's trash. And even the director's cut, which is better, is still trash. I subjected myself to both not too long ago and regret it. But it, like, that being said, I do think that Ridley Scott, he has kind of a Kubrick thing going for him where he is not just at the height of his game, he's amongst the best directors working, but he's also a very versatile director who can do a lot of different things. So, you know, he has basically a four-star movie in four different genres, by my count. I don't think that Black Hawk Down is a B-plus movie. I think Black Hawk Down is one of the best war movies of the last 15 years, or 20 years. I agree with that. No, I wasn't. Look, Gladiator's a great movie. I claim that Gladiator is a B-plus movie. And I think Gladiator is...
JVL00:41:49for him. Literally, I only meant within the context of his own career.
Sonny00:41:54Yeah, so I would say he has four four-star films in four different genres. You know, Alien is a horror movie, or you could say, like, horror-sci-fi, but it's a horror movie. Blade Runner is a sci-fi movie. It's like a pure sci-fi movie. Black Hawk Down and Gladiator, sword and sandal flick, which is... Like, there aren't a whole lot of other directors who can do that. I mean, you know, Nolan kind of has. We'll see how good Dunkirk is. Um, Kubrick did be working in multiple genres, working, you know, doing different things. Um, uh, so I really like... I think that he should get more credit for being able to do a bunch of different things well.
JVL00:42:36And look at The Counselor. And The Counselor. That's a really good flick, which falls into none of these.
Sonny00:42:40It's a noir. It's kind of a noir. I don't know. I don't know exactly. It's a nihilist masterpiece, is what it is. I mean, it is just pure bleak sadness. And it's one of the best movies of the last decade, I think.
Vic00:42:56JVL, do you remember seeing Gladiator? Um, we went to see it. We did see that. The Uptown. I think it was at one of those places up there. If not the Uptown, it might have been up in Madness. Yeah. And what I remember is, um, we were sitting, obviously, in the press section, but, you know, the radio stage, we had to give away all those, you know, tickets. And there was a big dispute. Do you remember this? There were more people than there were seats. Oh, yeah. And everybody really wanted to see Gladiator. I mean, there was a lot of
JVL00:43:27hype about this. People wanted to see this because they had heard all about it. It won Best Picture, didn't it? It did.
Vic00:43:31It did. I remember Elizabeth Taylor, you know, announced it in her sort of loopy way. And then I think somebody was left out. And it was like a bunch of buddies, and they couldn't save the seat for him. And it was just drama to see it. But,
JVL00:43:45yeah, go ahead. Well, it just is, you know, in keeping with my bizarre tastes of movies, if you go to the Gladiator disc, there are a whole bunch of deleted scenes that are all about the politics of Rome. And when I watched that, I was like, why weren't these things in the movie? Like, you know, the grain distribution, and what are we going to do with feeding the, you know, and how are we going to do with our Senate majority? And, you know, so you listen to the commentary on those, and really Scott's like, yeah, these things are all just extraneous. And I watched those, and I was
Sonny00:44:11like, oh, I want more of that. Have you seen, have you watched Rome, the HBO series?
JVL00:44:15I watched many episodes of Rome first season and loved every episode of
Sonny00:44:19that I saw. Yeah, you should, the second season too, but they really get into the politics of Rome. I highly recommend it to anybody who has not seen it. No, but this is like my Wayland movie.
Vic00:44:29Like, this is like, these are the things that interest me. Do you remember one of the deleted scenes also involves Christians and the Lions? Do you remember that? Yes.
JVL00:44:35But I think they thought that it would take it in an entirely different direction
Vic00:44:39in terms of theme. I liked Gladiator because it did satisfy that bloodlust that I go into a movie expecting to see, and they, I mean, and it was Lions coming out, or Tigers, whatever, and Tigers coming out, it was fantastic. And the recreation of, I believe, the Second Punic Wars, or the, with Scipio Africa. Yes, with the chariots. Chariots. It's so well done. And the woman who gets split in two. I mean, it's great stuff, and of course, Joaquin Phoenix is great. You know what else we're forgetting here? We're forgetting Thelma and Louise.
JVL00:45:14We have abstracted Thelma and Louise into this overcooked feminist manifesto, and that's what it became in the culture after it came out. But if you look at it before, it becomes freighted with all of this cultural significance. It's just a very tightly constructed road movie. And it is difficult to believe that the same types of directorial talents that can give you a gladiator, or an alien, or a blade runner, can do that movie so
Vic00:45:35competently and so economically. That's right. And to go back, by the way, to Gladiator, the problem that some people had with it, like my friend Peter Lowe, for example, hated it because he just thought that the ending was such a ridiculous ending about, you know, where it veers away from Marcus Aurelius and Commodus and, oh, you know, the Roman Republic is restored. But my thought is, of course, you have so much, you're so emotionally invested in this movie at that point by the ending, you just have to roll with it. Because the rest of it was sort of this, you know, great adventure and drama that you just okay, fine, it goes fine. I'm willing to accept that the way, I'm willing to accept the ending of The Untouchables with Switch the Juries. That never happened! That's ridiculous! But the rest, throw Frank Nitti off a building! Okay, I guess that, you know, whatever. But it's so good at that point, you're just gonna accept it. And that's how I felt about Gladiator. Just have to roll with it.
Sonny00:46:26So, when I was in at UVA from 2000 to 2004, right when Gladiator came out, and we watched some scenes of Gladiator in a, I believe it was Greek and Roman warfare. It was a class it was just Greek and Roman warfare, which is one of the best classes. That's a class? That was a class at UVA, taught by Ted Lennon. One of the best. You received a degree for taking this? Oh yeah, oh yeah.
JVL00:46:48I mean, well, it's like, it's classic stuff. What time is it? 4658. Go f*** yourself. Well, I mean,
Sonny00:46:54look, you know, we couldn't all go to Johns Hopkins. But the best thing about this class was one of the we, you know, we have a final exam and on the final, one of the extra credit questions was, what are five historical inaccuracies from Gladiator? And to show off I actually listed ten. I just went through it. So you were in a class
JVL00:47:16in college in which there was extra credit, like it's third grade or something? Well, it was
Sonny00:47:20for one extra point. It was for one extra point on the final. It was great.
Vic00:47:26Yeah. Okay. In terms of talking about it, JVL's about to explode because, of course, his college experience was nothing like that. That might be a separate episode. College days. We'll do a thing on college movies. We'll talk about days he confused and then our experience. Not days he confused, but whatever. Saddest episode ever. Yes. Ridley Scott, White Squall. Do you remember White Squall? Oh, yeah. He did White Squall. Was that
Sonny00:47:48was Liam Neeson? Yes. Is it Liam Neeson? Jeff Bridges.
Vic00:47:54Jeff Bridges. And Caroline Goodall, who's wonderful. And Ryan Phillippe, that scene, his ending in that scene, I'd say the most terrifying, drowning scene I've ever seen in any movie. In any movie, including Submarine and Perfect Storm type movies. Yes. No. This thing was awful. It was emotional. It's terrible. But crazy. Okay. We talked about Blade Runner. Black Rain. Do you remember Black Rain? With Michael Douglas. The Yakuza. Yes. So you had these sort of Japanese badass villains. It went on a little too long. Yeah. That movie
Sonny00:48:32played on like a loop on cable. 80s Japan Panic. Yeah.
Vic00:48:36Kind of. Yes. It was pre-Rising Sun. The Dark Side of Gung Ho. Yes. Very good. The Dark Side of Gung Ho. Absolutely, JVL. And it's sort of like and, you know, they have their own rules and you know, you can't interfere. And then, of course, Michael Douglas does his things his way. And there's a weird sort of, you know, what's her name there? Kate Capshaw was in that movie. But like in a small role. It was very strange. But I liked it. And, of course, we talked about Black Hawk Down. The movie that I always like to think catapulted Josh Hartnett to the big star that he is today.
JVL00:49:07Evil. Would any of would either of you do anything interesting or counterintuitive on the ranking of the top three Ridley Scott movies? Or would you just go with conventional wisdom, which is Blade Runner Alien Gladiator? If I were being
Sonny00:49:24puckish, I would say Blade Runner Alien, The Counselor. But I'm not feeling particularly puckish today. I don't really want to have to
Vic00:49:32defend that. I'd also throw in Apple 1984. The commercial. Did you guys have thoughts on Tony Scott? The brother, the late brother. Yeah.
Sonny00:49:43I do think, I think there is, there has been a slightly more existential bent to his work since Tony killed himself, Ridley, Ridley's work. You know, with Prometheus and The Counselor and now Alien Covenant, he has made kind of a series of movies about meeting your maker and like, kind of the, you know, what lies beyond. And it's, he's always been kind of into that. But I, and I haven't really had, I haven't had the time or the energy to like kind of noodle this through. Fully. But I, I mean it would be hard to believe that it didn't affect him in some way.
Vic00:50:22When I was thinking about Tony Scott's work, you know, I thought about two obviously, Crimson Tide and Top Gun. I go back and forth, which was better. I guess Top Gun is better. I guess that's no question. No, JVL, you're going to say Crimson Tide.
JVL00:50:34No, no, Top Gun is the icon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah. This is, there's no question. Don't, don't overthink it. Crimson Tide.
Sonny00:50:39Crimson Tide is wonderful. Wonderful. Don't overthink it. Well, True Romance is better than both those. Oh.
Vic00:50:46Nothing is better than Top Gun. Which also, that's, that's two movies that Tony Scott did with James Gandolfini then. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Any other thoughts on the Ridleys? Squared. The Scots.
Sonny00:50:56Yeah. Not, not the Ridleys.
Vic00:50:59Sorry, the Scots.
Sonny00:50:59Sir Ridley. No, we're good? No. Anyway, he's great. He's a great director. Deserves more.
JVL00:51:07Corrections and additions, JVL. You have a correction from last week, which you realized as soon as we were off the air. About Boss
Vic00:51:15Baby? Yeah, because, you know what? I wrote that script on Monday, I think. I was right on Monday, but then it got edged out. As I said, they often do this, right? They estimate.
JVL00:51:25So, Boss Baby did better than you said. The thing we never talked about last week in talking about Guy Ritchie is how Madonna Yoko Ono'd his career. And I don't quite know how we skipped that.
Sonny00:51:37But it was, it's a blip. I mean, she didn't fully
JVL00:51:41Yoko his career. It's an eight-year blip. It's what should have been the meat of his most productive years as a director, and she destroyed it. That's kind of a problem. One thing, if Madonna wants to embarrass herself on screen and pretend to be an actress, like, that's her business. But to do that in service of destroying one of the great directors of our age, Guy Ritchie, and to destroy his artwork, his cinematic product in the process of that, I find that unforgivable. He made one good movie during that time, Rock and Roll, and four Madonna-centric pieces of garbage. So, they made
Sonny00:52:21Swept Away, which nobody saw. And what else did they, what other movies did they make? Not shorts, not ads, but what other that's the only movie of his.
JVL00:52:30Hold on, I'll go effort it. You guys continue your correction.
Vic00:52:33I actually don't have any other corrections except for that Boss Baby thing, which was just you know, an estimate. How about you, Sonny?
Sonny00:52:39No, I don't have any corrections.
Vic00:52:41Do you want to talk about the spirit of the week, Sonny?
Sonny00:52:44Yeah, so I brought in a bottle of Bellion Vodka, it's vodka infused with natural flavors, and it's it is, let's see, it's created with N-T-X it's vodka evolved I got a free bottle of this because they wanted me to review it, and I was like I don't really review vodkas but I was interested by this whole N-T-X thing. I got a bottle as well. So you're just drinking
Vic00:53:09vodka tonics? No, this is just
Sonny00:53:11vodka, and you'll notice I've had barely any of it. My cup is still
Vic00:53:15pretty full. There's definitely a flavor to
Sonny00:53:17it. Yeah, it doesn't taste like vodka.
Vic00:53:19No, and their claim is it has healthful benefits, and there was a big to-do obviously, as we were talking about with the FDA because they said that you can't say that Maurice Kanbar the great inventor, ran into a similar problem when he invented Sky Vodka and he had gone around informally saying, and people, I mean it was one of these sort of underground marketing things where people say, hey, you don't get any hangovers from Sky Vodka and you know what? I got a slight hangover I had 10, I only had 10 vodkas and I'm angry and I'm suing the company. No, and so
JVL00:53:51they dropped that because again, the you know, the TTB, the tax and trade you can't say stuff. You can't say it's good for you.
Vic00:53:57Same thing, and so they ran into the same problem but, you know, they had testimony, they had a big event at the National Press Club for Bellion Vodka and NTX. Do you know what NTX is, Victorino? Okay, go ahead JVL I remember, but I don't remember now.
JVL00:54:09Please read it from the bottle. Glycerin Manitol No. Okay. You're going to correct me on science
Vic00:54:17I was hoping it was glycerin Manitol
Sonny00:54:21He didn't take Greek and Roman warfare, he took science
JVL00:54:23and potassium sorbate Essentially I think that means this is the GMO of vodka, Sonny so you should be really into it. Science!
Sonny00:54:33It's the science vodka. Yeah. I would prefer... Actually, it's beginning to grow on me It has, it doesn't it does not taste like vodka it's not
Vic00:54:43Which is funny because as you know, as I mentioned in my book, Vodka, How a Colorless, Odorless, Flavorless Spirit Conquered America. You wrote a book about this? I did, it's available on Amazon. Is it on Amazon.com? Yes it is, order it right now, that's also sponsored by vodka You know, by definition it's not supposed to have any flavor. We only have one sponsor
JVL00:55:01It's the Dollar Shave Club. Yeah, it's the Dollar Shave Club
Vic00:55:03Don't, don't, I think you actually have to
Sonny00:55:05I think you actually have to pay the Weekly Standard $200 now. Because I just said it?
Vic00:55:09Yes. But I mean, it's by definition not supposed to have a flavor, but of course it does I mean, everything tastes like some chemical or something, you know? But in any event, thank you, Sonny for bringing that in. So this is just sipping vodka? Yes, well, that's what they want you to think
Sonny00:55:22On the website, no, on the website there's a bunch of different recipes. It's like, this isn't a traditional vodka, so you need to drink it in you know, different ways to mask the flavor. Like kettle you can drink on the rocks Kettle you can drink on the rocks. I would actually probably prefer to drink this on the rocks than most other vodkas. There is a slight aftertaste that is not altogether unpleasant Grapish. Yeah, it's
Guest00:55:43fine. Is it still from grapes?
Vic00:55:45I don't know. Okay 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 subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard under podcasts, we're there Leave a review, tell your friends And don't forget the Substandard show notes will be up on Friday. Those are put together
Sonny00:56:09by Jonathan Last, who is on Twitter at JV Last Am I? JV Last, and he loves
Vic00:56:15to hear from you. DMs are great. Loves to hear from you. On Friday at 11am. Until next time
Guest00:56:22You, JVL, look like you're about to
Vic00:56:32You really need to sleep. You should sleep under You should sleep under this table. Nobody will know
JVL00:56:37It was a rough night. Teething Do you remember that? I only remember it twice
Vic00:56:42Yeah, that's hard
JVL00:56:44Cicadas, the cicadas
Vic00:56:46Cicadas are out. Cicadas. Cicadas?
Sonny00:56:48John Cicada. John Cicada just dropping from the sky, you know Remember John Cicada? He's back You know what? And you people were given college degrees
JVL00:57:01You can get a college degree not actually
Sonny00:57:04learning anything. For the record, he said cicada in the elevator on the way down from our office
JVL00:57:08and I didn't say anything. I heard, I was like
Sonny00:57:10he's gonna say that on the air. You know, in some cultures
Vic00:57:12In some cultures, it's cicada
JVL00:57:14Gonna get him. Sonny, do they have anime cicadas? Anime anime cicada
Sonny00:57:20If you get bitten by a cicada, you have to take antibiotics Thank you
Vic00:57:25Thank you, Vitaly Sonny, I don't know if you feel comfortable talking about this but recently you found yet another reason not to venture outdoors early one morning. You were walking and you were attacked. Can we talk about that?
Sonny00:57:40I wasn't expecting to, but okay. Yeah, sure We can discuss this if you want Okay, please. Oh,
JVL00:57:46it's another secret the two of you share that I'm not in on
Sonny00:57:48Well, I, you know, I was out walking my dog at like 5.30 in the morning, because that's when my dog gets up, and we were, you know, we were just minding our own business right off the sidewalk and I heard a noise and all of a sudden just out of nowhere on the, just from my blind side, I got hit in the head I got hit in the head and it was really pretty terrifying. The birds, had decided I was too close to their nest and attacked me via, just swooped in, crashed into my head, fluttered against it, and then flew away, and I was just standing there, minding my own, I was what is going on here, man? Why is nature out to get me? What have I ever done to it? So I went and I got a big vat of oil and I just poured it into the ground I was like, take this, take this nature this is what you get. Tippi Hedren style? Yeah, I was like, you know what, I'm tired of playing by your rules. What kind of birds? Like a mockingbird or something, I don't know. A mockingjay? Not a mockingjay, this isn't the future where, you know, we do live in the Pan Am's capital, but you know, it's it was very scary I was traumatized, I can barely venture outside anymore without you know, without being terrified I'm going to
Vic00:59:12die. And what about those birds?
Sonny00:59:14Well, I'm sure it's fine.
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