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#42. The Substandard Wonder Woman Episode
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Dudes Chatting — box office context for Wonder Woman and the DCEU: JVL opens with show-and-tell: he has brought a die-cast Soul of Chogokin Yamato battleship model (70,000 yen) to the studio and is visibly pleased about it. Vic then recounts getting his truck stuck in a ditch in Texas and being rescued sequentially by a pot-smoking couple and an old man in coveralls. The meatiest analytical segment is Sonny debunking a Deadline piece that claimed Rotten Tomatoes scores drive box office results — he runs through the actual DCEU numbers to show that Wonder Woman, while a genuine success at $100 million, is actually DC's lowest-grossing DCEU opening domestically (behind Batman v Superman at $166M, Suicide Squad at $133M, and Man of Steel at $116M). The discussion of Patty Jenkins and the Alamo Drafthouse women-only screenings controversy is touched on, with the hosts generally finding the controversy overwrought.
Reviews: Wonder Woman — Sonny gives it a solid B+, noting it tracks beat-for-beat like Captain America: The First Avenger, praises Gal Gadot as "winsome" and Chris Pine as the best thing in the film, but flags a disappointing CGI-heavy finale, inconsistencies in Wonder Woman's power set, and argues it is slightly overrated at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. JVL gives it a B-minus: he finds it morally sophisticated but "minimally competent" and graded on a steep curve; he prefers portrayals of Wonder Woman as either a warrior (citing Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier) or an aloof princess, and agrees that Chris Pine is genuinely great.
Box Office: Wonder Woman opens to $100 million, a significant number but the lowest domestic debut in the DCEU — framing that Sonny argues is being obscured in most coverage.
No corrections this week (unusually). Spirit of the Week: Jefferson's Ocean Aged at Sea bourbon, poured from a bottle that is nearly empty.
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Most of Washington's listening to James Comey testify. A few of you guys are listening to The Substandard.
Guest00:00:30Be careful of mankind, Diana. They do not deserve you.
Vic00:00:43Hello, 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. That's dollarshaveclub.com. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. I'd like to remind you TheSubstandard is available on iTunes and Google Play. Just look under podcasts and search for Substandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, leave a review. Speaking of which, we are once again thankful for all the reviews that have come in. It helps us with those mysterious iTunes algorithms, and it spreads the word. Gentlemen, do we have a... A favorite review for this week, perhaps? Sonny, did you have one? I have one.
Sonny00:01:35JBL, you go ahead.
JVL00:01:39Chipper and Fun says, TB Farm D, this podcast is the reason all the bees are dying. Don't worry, though. There's a GMO for that.
Sonny00:01:47That's a good review.
JVL00:01:48He's pro-GMO. I like him.
Sonny00:01:50Five stars, of course.
JVL00:01:51Yeah. You know, actually, we got a really funny, awesome review from somebody who clearly likes the show, and they give us four stars. I saw that one. Forget it. I saw that one. And I was like, yeah, yeah. No, no, you don't get red on the air. Nope. Sorry. Chief, TB Farm D, would you drop a tweet or text or email to Victorino or Sonny or me?
Sonny00:02:09Did we hear from last week's winner? I don't remember. I did not. I don't think I did. I get a lot of notifications, though, so you should make sure to tweet at all of us, especially JBL.
JVL00:02:18Yeah, because you wouldn't believe how much attention I pay to my notifications.
Vic00:02:22And, you know, I try to get Sonny on Twitter, and he doesn't reply to me at all.
Sonny00:02:27Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of a big deal. On Twitter, so...
Vic00:02:31I'm waiting for him to hit likes, retweets, comments, DMs, nothing. I get nothing from him. You're on Twitter? But maybe you're wrong. I just surpassed, like, 1,400 followers, so I'm very excited.
JVL00:02:41You know what? Hey, guys, would you all go follow Vic, please? There's no reason that Vic shouldn't be at 5,000 followers by the end of this week. You're very kind. Why are you shaking your head, Sonny?
Vic00:02:51It's at Victorino Mattis.
JVL00:02:52At Victorino Mattis. At Victorino. You should all follow Vic. Go give him a pity follow right now. Vic, why are you Victorino Mattis instead of just Vic Mattis?
Vic00:02:59I wanted to make sure there's only the one and only.
JVL00:03:01You're really destroying the—
Sonny00:03:04Well, the problem is Victorino Mattis is, like, a billion characters long. It's asking too much, isn't it? But Vic Mattis is only eight characters.
JVL00:03:12It's asking too much. Vic Mattis is the parody account.
Vic00:03:14I wonder if Vic Mattis was actually taken. I don't know. For example, I was the first Vic Mattis on AOL.com, and then after that, there's a bunch of Vic Mattises. Back in, like, 1987. Yes, that's right, Sonny.
JVL00:03:25Okay.
Vic00:03:27What is that, three minutes ago? F*** yourself? Oh, f***. All right.
JVL00:03:30Oh, wait. Oh! Whoa! There's a Vic underscore Mattis. Look at this. Okay. And Vic underscore Mattis' first tweet that I pull up is this picture.
Vic00:03:42Yeah, that's not me, but I wish it was. Oh, that's Vic. That's who Vic Mattis is? That's Vic Mattis. I wish.
Sonny00:03:48Now, that's who Vic Mattis is retweeting.
Vic00:03:50Hmm. Yes, it's like my mother-in-law swore that she was following me on Twitter, but she was following a different Vic Mattis at the time. She's like, yeah, and your tweets suck, you know? I'm like, okay.
JVL00:03:59All right. Is she following somebody who's good on Trump?
Vic00:04:01Probably. I don't know. Okay. Anyway, in addition, I want to remind our listeners that the Substandard show notes posted by Jonathan Last are available most Fridays at 11 a.m. at weeklystandard.com. Gentlemen, how are we doing? Sonny, what's going on?
Sonny00:04:17I had a very laid-back weekend.
JVL00:04:19I went to the local pond to go for a walk with my child, and this is a great ... It's
Sonny00:04:26a really neat pond where they have some turtles. They have a giant sea monster turtle, and I really get a thrill out of the idea of that thing, just having the run of the whole pond.
Vic00:04:38Oh, it's like a giant snapping turtle, that kind of a thing?
Sonny00:04:40It's not a snapping turtle. I used to live in a place that had snapping turtles, and it's not a snapping turtle. It's just big. It's just like 80 years old. Yeah. And afraid of mice. I imagine. Yeah, probably. Probably. Making things up.
Vic00:04:52You know what? We got that on Twitter. I saw somebody on Twitter. And he said, in fact, they are. So there you go.
JVL00:04:56Until Ken Jennings fact-checks that, I won't believe it. I won't believe it.
Sonny00:05:00Anyway, so I went and looked at the monster turtle and did some grilling, and it was a good week. Good weekend. Good.
JVL00:05:06Good. JVL. This is a very special episode, guys.
Vic00:05:13Oh, boy. Yes, that's right.
JVL00:05:15It's a very special episode. I'm very excited. It's a show and tell episode. Uh-huh. Yes. Can I just push this monitor back a little bit here? Okay.
Vic00:05:23All right.
JVL00:05:23Yeah. And could I just slide this? Or you'll have to bear with us for a moment.
Vic00:05:27I want to say there's paper towels. I was wondering what was going on over there. There's paper towels, and Jonathan is about to unveil it.
JVL00:05:35Oh, no. Can I say this?
Vic00:05:36Can I say this, JVL, to our listeners? Please. No, please. I want to share through the magic of Ray. There are paper towels involved, and Jonathan is unveiling something long, hard, made in Japan, and requires batteries. That's all I'm going to say.
JVL00:05:49This is the Soul of Chagokin battleship. That's racist. 1 to 450 scale GX57 model. It is electronic. When we shoot up the video that we're going to post on YouTube with you and I, with this Victorino, you will hear the wave motion cannon as it fires. You will see the LED lights emitting.
Vic00:06:15You want to do that on the phone? Can you bring that? Can you bring that to the microphone?
JVL00:06:18Well, it'll take me a minute. You guys will have to fill time.
Vic00:06:20That's fine. Do you notice the fighters? Yes. I was staring. Derek Wildstar's fighter is there. Yes, and his buddy, who I like better than Wildstar. Wait, wait, wait.
JVL00:06:29Watch what happens with the main cannons. Oh, my gosh. They rotate. It's moving. I mean, the cannons are moving.
Vic00:06:35I mean, the cannons on the ship are moving. This is so awful. And on the bottom. Look at the thing on the bottom. I've always wondered what that was. And, of course, the things. And the mini cannons on the side to shoot at incoming planes. The small lasers. Those are the anti-aircraft. The anti-aircraft. Jonathan, that thing is beautiful.
JVL00:06:54It is made of die-cast metal as well as molded plastic. You're kidding. And I really, this is true. I am totally cool about, like, toys and stuff. And, you know, like, kids come into my office or somebody's kids are in the office.
Vic00:07:07I'm always like, yeah, take whatever you want. Play with whatever. This thing is so precious to me.
JVL00:07:12Nobody might touch it.
Vic00:07:13What Jonathan is holding in his hands, I'm mesmerized. And I just want to reach out and grab it. It's the. So, this gets. Sonny, no comment from Sonny. Can I touch it? This gets delivered. Listen. Oh, yeah. There are a lot of. You won't even let. How dare you. Two hands. It takes two hands. Two hands.
JVL00:07:29Because don't mess the little plastic pieces hanging off. Wow, that's heavy. Here's the deal. Uh-huh. This thing gets delivered and my wife texts me and says, a courier just delivered this giant box that is covered with Japanese markings. What the hell is this? And I texted her back and said, don't worry, honey. It's perfect. Look at that. Okay. If you guys fill time here. You have to. Look, the missiles coming out of the stack. Yes, I noticed that. Yes, I know.
Vic00:07:58This whole thing, we may, Sonny's going to recommend we edit this whole section out because there's just a lot of, ooh, yes, ooh, that looks great. And of course, our listeners can't see this. You won't believe it. And I wish more people, oh, here we go.
JVL00:08:18Oh, listen, listen. Yes, it just, with the lights, it just blew up the Comet Empire.
Vic00:08:34The light, the light, I see that. Are you allowed to discuss how much that thing cost? That's what I want to know.
JVL00:08:40You know what? It was actually, this is unbelievably cheap. I got it used, and it was for only 70,000 yen.
Vic00:08:47So in other words, you won't tell us how much that thing cost. It was 70,000 yen, Vic. Because that, plus the mini fighters, fans of the,
JVL00:08:57let me ask you this, Jack, how much would you think was a fair price for this piece of amazing, awesome, I'll show you after the show when we do, again, the full YouTube video, the engines also light up?
Vic00:09:07My guess is $300, but I'm not, look, I've got no comment, okay. Well, that was great, I was very- Not that much. Okay.
JVL00:09:16Oh, and also, I'd throw a shout out, this thing exists in our lives because of one of our listeners. I was bitching on Twitter about how they don't have these, and I forgot, I'm forgetting, his username, but somebody tweeted at me and said, yeah, they do, and sent me a link to this thing, and a whole new world's open, so thank you, buddy.
Vic00:09:36I don't know how to follow that up with anything as good because I did not bring anything to the table, quite literally, like that. Jonathan, you're going to have to get a plastic case for that, like a glass, so that nobody touches it, you know, like somebody would a model ship or something, but that is, that's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, that really is. This is our child. This is our Red Ryder BB gun. It is. Sonny, Sonny, you have no comment? Are you just in awe? Is that what's going on there? Did you tweet about it, Sonny? Sonny, you're not even sitting at the microphone. Good show, guys. This is a good show. Okay.
JVL00:10:12There's a certain demographic for whom this is going to be their favorite episode ever.
Vic00:10:15This is going to be their favorite episode ever. And everyone else. Yeah, that's right. Those of you who are lucky enough to watch this anime Japanese show on Channel 29 will really appreciate that. You know what? The only thing, again, like I said last time, the only thing that can top that is myth. Maybe I can get my wife to make me a Deslock cape.
JVL00:10:33Oh, and look, these cannons are individually articulated.
Vic00:10:37They're also individually, and they move at the same time. So that is, again, if we had that as kids, forget about it. So my weekend moving right along, I was in Texas visiting with good college friends, and we actually were at a lake house on, if anyone is listening from Texas, the Richard, which is a lake house. It's called Chamber's Reservoir, which is somewhere between Dallas and Houston. In other words, in the middle of nowhere. I think the nearest town was called Corsicana, which is known for its Collins Street Bakery. And as soon as we turned onto the dirt road, I mean, there was nothing in sight. The only thing that was in sight was one lonely structure called the Lion's Den Adult Superstore. Oh, yeah, that was it. What do they have? Since it was just me and two other dudes, we actually did not go in there. Actually, that's the reason why you would go in, I guess. But no, we didn't go into the Lion's Den. And other than that, it was just... I'm sorry, you didn't bring back a souvenir for Kate? Scrub brush, brown hills, an oil rig. Yes, I said that very fast. And on our way back, actually, you know, we were out on the deck, and I saw a scorpion. And so I ran back inside, and I stayed indoors the rest of that time. How big? Almost about as big as your thumb, maybe. No, yeah, about as big as your thumb. And it's got that hook. I didn't believe it at first. And sure, it's dark brown, and you saw, you know, its tail and that stinger, you know. The only other scorpion I think I've seen was in Clash of the Titans, and it was much larger. But it otherwise looks exactly the same. On our way back, we were heading to the airport, and we're driving through, and there's, again, there's nothing out there. It's just fields. It's like the ending of Castaway. You know, there's just nothing there. And Twister, you know, that kind of thing. In fact, it was flooded. It was flooding on our way down, and the water's going over the hood and everything. But on our way back, so there was a lot of flooding and lightning, and it was crazy. And on our way back, my friend Peter Lowe takes a wrong turn, and rather than just go backwards, since there's no cars behind us, he decides to try to do a sort of K-turn, and the back wheel goes off the road into a ditch. And he's driving a Toyota Sequoia, but it's not four-wheel, so this thing starts spinning. They make those non-four-wheel drive? Yeah, I was pretty surprised myself. Is it rental? No, no, it's his, but it starts spinning. He gets it because he could fit seven people, I guess, but you don't actually need it in Texas for, you know, there's no snow, I guess. But in this situation, as soon as you felt the back go down, that was it. It was stuck in the mud, and I thought we were going to be there for I don't know how long, and he's calling the tow company and whatever. But sure enough, a truck comes by, and I wave him down, and he slows down, and he rolls down the window, and there's a guy and a girl. And the first thing that gets me was I'm standing in the passenger side is this cloud of pot smoke that just hits me in the face. And I'm like, okay. And the guy just says, I'm bringing my wife to work down at the Oak Cove. I can come back, and I'll get something, and we can tow it out. And I said, that'd be great, thanks. So then he continues on his way. But shortly... Was she going to work at the adult superstore? I don't think the... I think the Oak Cove is like a gas station. Oh, okay. Diner or something. I know. In my mind's eye, there's only one business. Yes, that's right. That's right, that's right. And then another truck, a big truck, comes by, and it's a super Dodge Ram diesel. And it's an old man driving, dressed in coveralls, covered in oil, and wearing a cowboy hat. And he comes out, and he just waves, and he goes, I know, I know, he says, and he just backs his car towards us, and he takes out a chain, and he's connecting it, and I'm just watching this, obviously, because what else can I do? With your soft, soft hands. Yes, exactly. And, you know, and then they said, you know, and just, he's going to slowly, you know, because you don't want to have the thing snap, somebody can get killed, and so, you know, and you slowly step on the gas, or Peter did, and then got us out, and I swear to you, the moment that he pulled us out of that ditch, I heard that truck song, Like a Rock, for those Chevy commercials. The Bob Seger Rock. Yes, I heard it. It was like, this is amazing. And they were nice people. I wanted to shake his hand, but his hand was dirty. A substandard listener, too, probably. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. He was standing far away.
JVL00:14:58This is why he won.
Vic00:14:59Yes, that's right. No, no, kidding. And it was great, you know? I mean, it was real, I mean, these Texas folk in real America, friendly people, they stop, they want to say, can we help? And that's what we do. East Coast, we just keep on driving. Look down. They're trying to get money from you.
JVL00:15:16Yeah, yeah, look down. You don't know,
Vic00:15:17but these people, thank God for that, and thank God for these Texans in real America.
JVL00:15:20The first time this ever happened to me, I was in Indiana for the first time. I was at a gas station, filling up my car, and I was 22 years old, and a guy pulled up to the pump next to me and started filling up his car, and he just sort of looked over at me and said, hey, morning. And I, having grown up in New Jersey, looked right down at the ground and thought, oh God, he's going to ask me for money, he's going to ask me for money. And then I sort of look out of the corner of my eye, and I see him looking at me with this face of just like weird incredulity, like he's confused as to what's wrong with me. And it was only later that I realized, no, he's just a normal person being friendly. That's right. Out there. Yeah, out there, people can be friendly. People can be friendly.
Vic00:15:57Sonny, don't ever leave. Don't ever leave the Beltway. Stay inside the Beltway as long as you can. One of the interesting things I learned, though, is I thought that you could just take any sort of rope
JVL00:16:07and connect it, but as my friend was saying... And you thought that mice scared elephants, too. Yes, I know.
Vic00:16:12Well, again, I think it's one of our Substandard listeners, again, tweeted out that, in fact, it's been proven they get scared. So the rope thing, though, they said it would snap and you can, you know, somebody can get killed, and that's why it needed a chain. I guess that's true, unless the rope was Wonder Woman's lasso. Speaking of which... Hey! That's pretty nice. It's unbreakable. Wonder Woman... Is it? Is that a thing? Yes, just crushed it at the box office with more than $100 million this weekend. Meanwhile, Pirates slipped more than 65%, the third place behind Captain Underpants. Alien dropped 62% as well, so I don't know what's happening here. Boss Baby slipped to 11th place, but it was a hell of a run, Boss Baby. So, Wonder Woman, you guys both saw it. What did you think? Sonny.
Sonny00:16:57Yeah. So, I quite liked it. I think it's a very solid origin story-type movie. It is almost beat-for-beat in certain ways, like Captain America, the first Avenger, down to the period setting and kind of the concluding battle that takes place kind of on a big airplane, or at least involves a big flying fortress-type thing. And it's funny, and it has the kind of... nafe hero, heroine in this case, Wonder Woman, who was never actually called Wonder Woman in the movie, it should be pointed out. She's always Diana, Diana Prince, Diana of Amazon, whatever. Diana of Themyscira. Themyscira. Themyscira. Diana of Paradise Island. Mykonos. I think she was on Mykonos. So, anyway, the movie, again, it's a pretty standard origin story. After a brief moment at her office in the woods, Louvre, I guess? Is this, like, a thing from the comics, by the way? Is she, like, a modern art collector? Does she, like... It depends. Okay.
JVL00:18:05In different versions, she has a different... Sometimes she is literally, like, a diplomat. Okay. Who is the princess of Themyscira, who is their sole representative in the world.
Sonny00:18:16Anyway, so, anyway, she gets the original copy of the photo from Batman v Superman, Dawn of Justice, that we see of her with her, like, team of people at the front in World War I. Bucky is there, right? Bucky is there, yes. Bucky is there. Bucky, a.k.a. Chris Pine.
Vic00:18:32Well, then you meant Bucky from Captain America. I'm sorry. I did. He did. It's a joke. It's a nerd joke.
Sonny00:18:39Anyway, so, after she sees the photo, which she has received from Bruce Wayne, who has obtained it somehow because he's unfathomably rich... Desperate to get in her pants. ...and he is, like, totally into...
JVL00:18:51This is the billionaire equivalent of making her a mixtape.
Sonny00:18:55We flash back to her childhood on Paradise Island. I'm just going to call it Paradise Island. Is that okay? No. No. I mean, they're synonyms, right? No. It's the same. No. Isn't it? Is that not? No. Is that not? Is it... Do I have to... She calls it Paradise Island. No. He calls it Paradise Island. He calls it Paradise Island. Oh, well, I'm going to... Since I'm a man, I'm going to call it Paradise Island, too. He does it only as a euphemism for...
JVL00:19:17It's Themyscira.
Sonny00:19:19Anyway, on Paradise Island, where she is... She learns how to become a brilliant warrior. You know, her mother, the queen, doesn't want her to do it. Her aunt, the fantastic warrior, you know, the best Amazon fighter of all time, decides that she needs to be trained because war always comes. It's very wise. War does always come. And in this movie, it comes in the guise of Chris Pine, who's playing Steve Trevor, who brings a whole team of Germans, World War I Germans, trying to chase him down because he's stolen a notebook that has a very important poison formula on it that will... that will turn the tide of the war in favor of the Germans.
JVL00:20:00That the inventor of which couldn't remember.
Sonny00:20:02The inventor of which could not... Right. She needed that notebook. She needed that notebook. Well, I mean...
JVL00:20:06She has short-term memory loss.
Sonny00:20:08She's a lady scientist. Anyway, the... Sorry. So, anyway, they... That's so wrong, Sonny. They go back...
Vic00:20:16Denise Richards, she played a physicist.
Sonny00:20:18She was awesome. Dr. Christmas Jones?
JVL00:20:20Is that right?
Sonny00:20:21Very good, Sonny. Anyway, the... They go back. So, she says, you know, this is the doing of Ares. The whole idea of the Amazons is that they were created by Zeus to help undo the workings of the god of war, Ares, who hates humanity, and, you know, in order to save them, Zeus creates an unkillable weapon or an unbreakable weapon or something like that. I forget what the actual term they use is. And they go back to England, and it's kind of a fish-out-of-water thing. You know, Gal Gadot is playing Wonder Woman as kind of a, you know, a brash and, like, impetuous in a way. Like, she's very childlike in this early going, and it's actually quite endearing, and it works perfectly with the character and what they're trying to accomplish here. The movie culminates in kind of a big standard CGI battle, and then we're back to the present day. She's ready to do battle again, and she has, you know, learned all of her lessons about the nature of man and the state of humanity. You know, as JV, JVL likes to say, I like this movie because it has a reason for existing. It has a, it has a, it has an idea behind itself. It is a continuation of the DCEU's kind of theme, which is basically how would we react to gods appearing among men, right? So this is Man of Steel's kind of central tension, is, you know, how would, A, how would man react to the appearance of gods? And this is, best seen in the character of Kevin Costner's, you know, Pa Kent, who is kind of, who was kind of made fun of a bit by some folks, but I think is actually a relatively solid performance. Batman v Superman, Dawn of Justice was about, was about how, like, the most powerful man in the world would react to no longer being the most powerful man in the world. How he would kind of see these alien gods appear and what he would do to stop them. Suicide Squad, as terrible as it is, is kind of an examination of what the government would do in response to this, right? It's an idea of, like, okay, the government is no longer able to protect its people. How would it create a form of defense? And the terrible idea that they have is to get a bunch of criminals together and have them fight crime. Now, the movie's bad. It has its own problems, but it's at least an idea. There's an idea there. And Wonder Woman is about, is about gods realizing that humanity is itself flawed. That you cannot necessarily protect it from itself. That it is a race of individuals with their own wills, their own ideas on how they want to live. And, you know, the whole movie is Diana kind of coming to grips with this fact that there is no pure good. There is no corrupting influence ruining the world of man. It's just men. I think this movie's probably a little bit overrated. I think JVL's going to get into this a bit more. But it is definitely getting... If you made the same exact movie and had Zack Snyder under the directed by line, and it is very tonally... Careful. Very tonally similar. I would say it would be 60% fresh. 50% fresh. We'd be in Man of Steel territory. As opposed to... Instead of 93% fresh, Dark Knight.
JVL00:23:45I thought you were going to say it would be 60% better.
Sonny00:23:48No, no. Well, I mean, this movie is 78% as good as Man of Steel. That much? I would say, yeah. I would say this is the second best of the DCEU movies. Man of Steel is the best. I think this is probably the second best. The director's cut of Batman vs. Superman is pretty close to this.
Vic00:24:06Does Wonder Woman age at all? Is she ageless?
Sonny00:24:09Well, she starts as a child, and then she kind of stops at about 27.
JVL00:24:14This is one of the many things which are not done well.
Sonny00:24:17So here's... The real problem with this movie is that it has... And I mentioned this in my review, is it has a deficiency insofar as I... It came out of the movie in a superhero origin movie. Not really knowing what her powers are? Nope. Not really... You're confused by that, actually. They give you conflicting information. Right, right. So I don't really know what her powers are. I don't really know what her weaknesses are. I don't really know how the things that she uses works, like the lasso and the bracelet. Now, I don't need, like... I don't need, like, a scientist sitting there being like, well, this, you know, changes the midichlorians and forces people to obey you, and that's why the lasso works. But, for instance... But, like...
JVL00:24:55You do need to know if she can be cut and bleed because a bullet grazes her, why can she then have a mountain of 700 tons of rubble dropped on her and be unscathed? Yes. Why does she need to deflect bullets with bracelets if she is invulnerable?
Sonny00:25:09Right. So this is... For instance. This is just a... This is a real kind of deficiency that, again, if this was... If, say, this was not a girl power type moment, a lot of critics would have really ripped into and, like, torn apart and also the big battle at the end is kind of one of these... It is a big, like, CGI fest, but it is, like... Terrible CGI. It is kind of a comically bad CGI. It looks like a cut scene from the video game. So I... I mean, for real, it does. It's not great. But I do think that the action in the middle is among the best stuff that's been in the DCEU, at the front in World War I. And it is... As many people have said, very funny. It is, like, an amusingly entertaining movie. It is... It has a lot of good laugh lines. Laughs? There's laughs?
JVL00:26:02Chris Pine is very good. He's very funny.
Sonny00:26:04He's very amusing and entertaining. How is Danny Houston? He plays the villain, right? He plays one of the villains, and he feels slightly out of place in this movie. Like, he's almost campy and over the top. Oh, really?
Vic00:26:18Does he play it with the German, thick German accent? He has a German accent that kind of comes and goes.
Sonny00:26:24It is not... The human portion of the villain cohort is not great. But also, I am... Like, I... You know. Houston is... I do like... I like Ares as a concept. The way they do it in the movie, especially with the big CGI battle at the end, didn't entirely work for me.
Vic00:26:42I was going to say, Danny Houston is the last of the Houston children of the director, John Houston.
JVL00:26:49Oh, really? Yeah.
Vic00:26:49He is, but he is only the half-brother of, say, Angelica and everybody else, you know, because of the various... the different wives of John Houston. So, but he is the youngest. Yeah, John Houston had, like, four wives or something. Yeah, and that's old. I mean, to think about it. So, he probably had Danny when he was already very old.
JVL00:27:07JVL. It's the greatest movie ever committed to digital celluloid. It's a triumph for women everywhere. It's... Did you guys know, actually, that this is the first ever superhero movie starring a female superhero? Oh, okay. Never mind. I'm sorry. That's not true. Did you know that it's the first ever female superhero movie starring a female superhero directed by a woman?
Sonny00:27:29That's also not true. Is that right?
JVL00:27:31Because... No, it is true, but it's like boyhood. This is the... But it took 12 years to make. But it has a lady director. Because it's that hard... That's how hard it is, JVL, in the industry to get this done. You know that. I do not discount that. In fact, at WeeklyStandard.com, we ran a piece over the weekend by my pal Richard Rushfield, which is incredibly sympathetic to how... Like, this is... This is one of the last places where sexism is a real thing, is getting women to the director's chairs. And so I actually do have a great deal of sympathy for it. What I don't have a great deal of sympathy is the post-facto you-must-love-and-praise-this and the grading on a curve. It is graded on a very steep curve. Which the curve on this is as steep as anything. There are a couple things... I mean, ultimately, this is a minimally competent superhero movie. And it's... It's probably a B-minus. It is either the second or third best of the DC... It's certainly better than... I would say B+. I gave it three. No, it is not a B-plus movie. No, a B-plus movie is very good.
?00:28:37A...
JVL00:28:38No.
Vic00:28:39JVL, let me ask you this. Did you go into the movie with certain expectations or no expectations?
JVL00:28:46No, really no expectations because I just assumed it was going to be over-praised all the way up. And so I believe... I'd said my expectations were low. It is... It's certainly better than Suicide Squad. It is certainly not as good as Man of Steel. And it falls right around the line that the cinematic version of Batman v. Superman... The theatrical version of Batman v. Superman. And it's either a little bit above it or a little bit below it depending on your taste.
Sonny00:29:12No, I think it... I mean, I would say it's about the same... I would say it's about as good as the director's cut of Batman v. Superman, which is itself a movie with many flaws and pacing issues and... I would not say that.
JVL00:29:24But you're not wrong. I mean, there are some things to like about it. I don't... The first thing I thought about and the thing I like best about it is exactly the moral sophistication that you put your thumb on, Sonny. It's exactly the right question. I mean, this is a meditation on whether or not human dignity is real. Like, inherent human dignity is real. And it has two truly great scenes in it. Which one? The problem is that both of those scenes really revolve around Diana Trev... Steve Trevor. Diana Trevor. Diana Trevor. This is in many ways...
Sonny00:29:54She would never take his name. This is in many ways a Steve Trevor movie.
JVL00:29:58The two great, great scenes are when Steve has to leave Diana to go save a bunch of people after trying to explain to her that deserve has got nothing to do with it. And she doesn't get it. Yeah. And he just has to go anyway. That's a... He... Chris Pine, as I said, like three episodes ago, is the greatest of all the Chris's. And he's fabulous in this movie, as I knew he would be, because he's really good.
Sonny00:30:21I am... I am open to rejiggering my Chris raking after seeing this movie. Thank you. The second one is when he says goodbye to her on the runway. And they do a beautiful thing
JVL00:30:31where they give you this scene twice. The first time, you can't understand what he's saying, and you only get her reaction. She's been stunned and can't hear, because there's been a large explosion. And then, like, three minutes later, she has been piecing together as her head starts clearing what he said to her. And it's great. It's really... It's very nicely done. There are... There are things that are great about this movie. I think that Gal Gadot, who has never been my favorite, is very winsome in the role. It's hard not to root for her. Chris Pine is fantastic. He's a movie star without ever looking like he's trying to be one. He is soulful and open and funny. All the good laughs come from him. All the laughs from Gal Gadot are bad. They're cheap, fish-out-of-water laughs. There's a big chunk of this movie which feels like Elf. Yeah. Where you have, you know, the Will Ferrell comedy where he's the one who believes in Santa Claus and everybody else thinks he's crazy and he doesn't really fit in in the world and he has these unexplained powers that nobody can quite understand but they're not sure if that means he really is an elf or not. And that humor is bad. When people say, oh, it's really funny. No, this isn't really funny as a movie.
Sonny00:31:36See, I actually liked all that stuff in England where she's trying on the outfits and trying to go through the revolving doors with the sword. I thought it was funny. It's clever. No, it's not clever. It's amusing. It may play, but it is not clever.
Vic00:31:50Hater. No, I'm not a hater. I'm telling you that this is a... I love time travel kind of movies like that, you know?
JVL00:31:58So can I get to my one... And this is not a complaint. This is an observation. The worst form of film criticism is when people say, he didn't make the movie I wanted him to make.
Sonny00:32:10Uh-huh, yeah.
JVL00:32:12That is not a valid form of criticism. That's it. They didn't make the Wonder Woman movie I wanted them to make.
Vic00:32:19What was the one you wanted
JVL00:32:21them to make, JVL? Don't worry, Vic. It's not the one you wanted them to make, either.
Vic00:32:27I thought it was going to start Rachel Bilson. I know the one you wanted them to make. Wasn't there a one with Rachel Bilson?
JVL00:32:32No, you wanted the one with, uh... Wonder Girl from the TV show who pops up the one episode. Oh, no. Debra Winger.
Vic00:32:42Oh, yeah, Debra Winger. No, I was going to say, I was getting confused with Supergirl, which was, uh... Schlatter, what's her name? You know, Christian Slater's Helen Slater. No, wrong one.
JVL00:32:57So the central question of superhero movies is motivation. Why do they do this thing they do? With Batman and Superman, you only have one answer available to the characters. Batman does it because he's a psychopath whose parents were murdered in front of him. Superman does it because he's an all-powerful god who was raised by saints from the Midwest. You know, so this is why. With Wonder Woman, your writers have the luxury of having a couple options for what her central motivation is because they've bounced around between this and the comics. There is no single canon on this. The Wonder Woman movie I wanted would have chosen one of the two other pathways, one of which is that she's a gleeful warrior looking around to mete out vengeance on the fallen world of man. This is the Wonder Woman of Darwin Cook's New Frontier series. There's a scene in New Frontier. Did you ever read that, Sonny? It's really awesome where the superheroes have been sent to Vietnam and in Vietnam, Wonder Woman goes rogue and Superman tracks her down and she's at a Vietcom POW camp and she has liberated the prisoners and she is encouraging them to slaughter the jailers. And Superman gives her this, well, that's not the American way, speech. And she laughs at him and she says, Spaceman, you go back and fight your war. You know nothing of how the real world operates. That's awesome. I would have paid cash money for that sort of Wonder Woman.
Sonny00:34:11See, that would have been a good Zack Snyder Wonder Woman. That would have been a Zack Snyder Wonder Woman movie.
JVL00:34:16The other Wonder Woman sees her as, the defining part about her is not the warrior but the princess aspect where she is very, aloof in the world of morals and she is duty-bound to protect them. And she's not really sure if she likes that job or not, but she's really sure that she believes in the job itself. And she's distant from the people she saves in a way that even Batman isn't. That's the Wonder Woman sort of Greg Rucka's Hecatea. Greg Rucka is actually writing the ongoing Wonder Woman series right now. That would have been also an incredibly interesting version of Wonder Woman. And instead... And that would have been a good Sofia Coppola Wonder Woman movie.
Sonny00:34:48We get the Luc Besson Wonder Woman
JVL00:34:50where we have this idealist who thinks the world can be saved with love. It's all very French, which is actually why I appreciate that they had her in the Louvre. Because I thought, well, of course, this is the French Wonder Woman in a way. And I don't dislike it. Again, I think, as I said, it works. But for me, it's the least interesting choice that they could have made for the character. And there were things that genuinely I didn't like. For one, Queen Hippolyta. So they play Queen Hippolyta as a weak and sentimental figure who is wrong about everything. Is that Connie Nielsen? The Connie Nielsen, yes. And Wonder Woman's mother, should not be that. Wonder Woman's mother should be this fantastic figure that she herself loves and reveres and looks to for wisdom and advice. Instead, it's Robin. It's Robin Wright, yeah. And so, anyway, and there are a bunch of, as I said, like little things that don't work. Diana's conversion to the belief in human dignity should not have come because she actually winds up kissing dreamy Steve Trevor. I actually don't like the fact that there's any romance between them. She should come to believe that because she admires and respects him as a warrior and as, as a person. That she sort of, her respect for him is what convinces her to believe the arguments he makes about the universality of human dignity. There's the power set thing that you brought up. Again, there's just so many parts of this movie that fail, that should work, that in more competent hands at both the writing stage and the directing stage, I blame both, it isn't just Patty Jenkins, would have been better. And that's why I say this is a minimally competent B-minus movie. I enjoy it. There's some things to like and admire about it. But let's not go crazy.
Sonny00:36:27No, the whole 93% and like Rotten Tomatoes is a flawed way to look at this on like a measure of success, like goodness versus badness. It's the whole thumbs up, thumbs down thing doesn't really lead to the, you know, kind of proper Metacritic style Great Asian. But like that being said, if this was not a movie that was directed by a woman and if it was not a And being so important movie as a movie director. Well, no, no. We can discuss this in a minute because I have some thoughts on that. But if this wasn't a like cause, it would definitely be a 60 to 70% fresh movie. I think that, I mean, I think that's a fair thing to say.
JVL00:37:09Not that there's anything wrong with it.
Sonny00:37:10And look, Man of Steel is a 55% fresh movie. And I think that, and I think that's the best of all these films. So like, I'm like, I'm not, you know, I'm not saying that it should be a 70% fresh movie because it's 30% worse than people are saying. I'm just saying that like, a lot of things are being overlooked here in ways that you're totally right about, JVL. I think there are some real problems with it. That being said, I still liked it quite a bit. I had a lot of fun. I could have used, if they had, the one big change I would have made is get rid of Steve Trevor's whole team. We haven't even discussed this. The ridiculous team of like ethnic stereotypes that he assembles. Oh, I like them. Oh, no, but they do nothing. They serve no purpose.
Vic00:37:51Isn't that sort of like Captain America? Right, exactly.
Sonny00:37:53No, no, the purpose they serve is that they're flawed.
JVL00:37:55They're deeply flawed.
Sonny00:37:56The purpose that they serve is that they allow each of them to say to Diana in one way or another, My people have been discriminated against. My people have been hurt. That's the only reason they exist in this film. And the fact that they are, again, nothing but ethnic stereotypes, like the Indian guy who's the tracker and the drunk despondent Irishman, Scott, whatever he is. And then, I don't know, any point, point is, I would have gotten rid of that. You could have saved 10 minutes of screen time and really tightened up that middle section if you just had it be Chris Pine and Gal Gadot going off to war.
Vic00:38:35By the way, did you know that Sally Jenkins directed an episode of Arrested Development? I went to imdb.com. And some entourages, I believe. Yes. She did one episode in the second season. It was the episode called The One Where They Build a House. I love that episode. It's where Joe, they're trying to turn the company around and... The Sally Jenkins? Yes. And she wanted... Are we talking... imdb.com.
Sonny00:38:59It was like... Isn't this Patty Jenkins? Patty Jenkins. That's what it is. Did I say Sally Jenkins?
JVL00:39:04I'm thinking, who's Sally Jenkins? The sports writer. Really?
Vic00:39:08That's amazing. Yeah, we've taken a real right turn here from talking about you. That's right. Patty Jenkins. Patty Jenkins. Did you know that, though? Yeah, I knew she was a TV director. She did Arrested Development. That was a great episode. And it was the one where Michael says that they want to do it in two months and then Jobes says, no, we're going to do it in two weeks. And then the sparkle explodes. Pennies everywhere. And then the whole board loves it, actually. It works. Just, you know, glitz and glitter. I'm just glad I was going to say that you guys liked Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. Both of you did, right? You thought it was a good idea for her.
Sonny00:39:41She was a smart choice.
JVL00:39:42That's right. You know what else is a smart choice, Sonny?
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JVL00:41:09Can I? Hold on. Before we get to that.
Vic00:41:11Oh, okay.
JVL00:41:12JVL. There are two ways of looking at this. The first way is, as Variety put it,
Vic00:41:18and as The New York Times put it,
JVL00:41:20historic box office performance. for Wonder Woman,
Sonny00:41:24because it did make $100 million.
JVL00:41:27Another way of saying it is that this is the fourth movie in the expanded DC universe. It has the lowest opening weekend gross by 30%, and that it continues a downward trend because Batman vs. Superman opened to $166 million, Suicide Squad to $130 million, and Wonder Woman to $100 million.
Vic00:41:46Do you mean downward trend for DC, or downward trend for DC Marvel superheroes in general?
JVL00:41:50DC. For DC. So the other way of saying it is, in fact, is performed worse than any other DC property by at least 30%.
Sonny00:41:5815%. Man of Steel did like $116, $115, something like that.
JVL00:42:01You could adjust that for inflation, though, because Man of Steel is a lot lower. No, no, no. You don't adjust things for inflation. No, no, but down from Suicide Squad. Right, right, right. Going chronologically. But you can't write that headline. You can't write that headline. Why not?
Sonny00:42:13You have to split the middle on this, all right? Because, all right, so first off, Deadline Hollywood Daily, Deadline.com, which is like kind of the variety, Ducks, variety for the internet age, has made a, has decided this year that critics and the RT score are the most important factor in the whole world. They've said this over and over again. They look at the Pirates of the Caribbean gross and the Baywatch gross and they say, well, those movies failed because critics were down on them. This is such nonsense. And they have paired that with looking at the Wonder Woman score and saying, oh, the Wonder Woman score is so good because the Rotten Tomatoes score is so good. Now, as JVL knows, Wonder Woman is actually the lowest gross, has the lowest grossing opening weekend of any DCEU movie. In fact, the freshness to box office gross is almost inverted. So, 55% is Man of Steel, 55% fresh. That's the best rated of these movies except for Wonder Woman. It did, so let's see, all right, let's start with Wonder Woman, which is the freshest. It's 93% fresh, $100 million gross. Man of Steel, 55% fresh, the second highest $116 million. Suicide Squad, 25% fresh, $133 million opening. And Batman v Superman, with a 28% fresh rating, did $166 million. There's no correlation whatsoever to RT score and gross, opening weekend gross. Now, where you can start talking about is, you know, a high rating represents a higher quality movie, which will lead to better word of mouth, et cetera, et cetera. But that's a long-term idea. That is not an, that is not a short-term idea. People go to see opening week, people go to see movies on the opening weekend because the advertising campaign is good, or because it's a sequel they want to see, or because it's a movie that they are excited for.
JVL00:44:05Do you know what had a 93% fresh rating last year? What? La La Land. Yeah. Well, I mean, because Wonder Woman is just as good as La La Land.
Vic00:44:16As a piece of cinema.
Sonny00:44:17Yes, right. No, that makes sense.
Vic00:44:19Didn't Wonder Woman have a good soundtrack? Isn't that what everyone's saying? They like the music?
Sonny00:44:23So anyway, the idea that Wonder Woman is some sort of smashing success is still true, though. But you know why Deadline does this, though? Because they're idiots. No. Because Nikki Fink doesn't run it anymore and everyone there is dumb.
JVL00:44:35No, no, but that's not why. Because they're protecting their industry sources. So what Deadline never does is blame the marketing department. And so they have a bunch of sources who are all working marketing who come to them and say, you know, I'm going to tell you sort of what really happened with this. And the reason this thing, it wasn't their fault. It's not that they sold it. It's not that they sold the movie or made a bad movie. It's just the critics. This isn't easy because you know, you know who is not a source for Deadline for any sort of information whatsoever? No, movie critics. Yeah. They can burn you guys.
Sonny00:45:04They don't care. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so now I do think it is important to say that this is a movie that outperformed expectations. This is a movie, this is a movie, people, no, the studio, Warner Brothers.
JVL00:45:15It outperformed its expectations of two weeks ago but not a week ago.
Sonny00:45:18Warner Brothers, no, even a week ago they were saying the other studio were saying 95 million or so. It outperformed that slightly but the point is, the point is, it is a movie that I think Warner's was hoping for Thor type numbers. They were hoping for 65 to 85 million dollar opening and a 200 million dollar total gross and 100 million dollars on the opening weekend with a multiple of at least three on an A cinema score. This is, I think this movie gets to 300 million dollars without too much trouble. I will be surprised. I believe I'll bet you this right now, I'll bet you a dollar that it outgrosses The Mummy next weekend. I thought you were going to try to bet me the Battleship Yamato and I was going to say no. I thought he was going to say that too, JV. I'll go, don't go there. Don't do it. It's not worth it. Why would I want that garbage hunk of die-cast metal and plastic?
Vic00:46:07That thing destroyed the Gamelons.
Sonny00:46:09I don't care.
Vic00:46:10It blew up the Gamelons.
Sonny00:46:12Fire the wave motion cannon.
Vic00:46:13I bet. I want the Deslock gun. That's what I want.
Sonny00:46:16Anyway, Wonder Woman will, I bet will outgross The Mummy next weekend and I bet it will come in second to Cars in two weekends and I bet by the end of those it's at least $250 million, maybe $270 million and then it gets to $300 million without too much trouble after that. I mean, it's going to, it will gross $300 million domestically. I don't know, I don't know foreign, I don't, I've never been any good at predicting that.
JVL00:46:43I would not say that that's crazy but I would say that is more likely
Sonny00:46:48not to happen than to happen. Do you think The Mummy will beat it next weekend?
JVL00:46:51I don't have any idea what the tracking is on The Mummy. It would surprise me. I think the movie's been sold terribly.
Sonny00:46:56Right. So, I mean, I think Wonder Woman drops, I think, 45 to 50% next weekend.
JVL00:47:02How is it only 45? I mean, so far this summer, everything except for Boss Baby has been collapsing by 55 to 60%.
Sonny00:47:08But everything so far this summer has been shit. It's not.
JVL00:47:12Okay. For instance, Chav King Arthur.
Sonny00:47:14You said you were going to talk about how Chav King Arthur is so much better than Wonder Woman. Please, please make your case. I'm sure our listeners are fascinated to hear this.
JVL00:47:23Well, look, again, this is not a troll. I do not hate Wonder Woman. I think Wonder Woman is a B-minus movie. I think Chav King Arthur is a B or B-plus movie. This is, I mean, yeah, I'm not saying it is a fabulous, amazing, cinematic masterpiece. It isn't. It is more visually striking than Wonder Woman. It is better acted than Wonder Woman. It is more thematically interesting in what it does. There is more dramatic tension. It is legit funnier. It actually earns real laughs. It's, I just can't think, of any vector on which Wonder Woman is better. And again, this isn't because I'm anti-Wonder Woman. I enjoyed it. I liked it. I told you there, it is morally sophisticated. There are things
Sonny00:48:04I really like and admire in it. It's morally more sophisticated than King Arthur.
JVL00:48:08More morally sophisticated, yes. So that's a vector
Sonny00:48:10that it's better on.
JVL00:48:12Okay, fair.
Sonny00:48:12Oh, boom. Fact check immediate. Anyway, the point is you're wrong. Chav King Arthur is garbage. It's a garbage movie with zero interest from the audience. It's a garbage movie with zero interest from audiences and critics.
JVL00:48:25But QED audiences are the worst. And critics, also the worst.
Sonny00:48:30People in general are terrible. That's true.
JVL00:48:33Chav King Arthur is far and away the best movie I've seen this summer. And I agree that that's an incredibly low bar.
Vic00:48:40I have an old person question. Whatever happened to Ain't It Cool News and the guy who did it, Harry Knowles, whose opinion was so valued and then was no longer valued?
Sonny00:48:51Well, he was the first. He was just like the first of these sites on the internet.
Vic00:48:55Was it also, though, because of the studio catering? We'll take you in and you can see our movie and do the whole thing.
JVL00:49:00He was the only one doing it and he had an enormous audience.
Sonny00:49:03He had an enormous audience and he had real sources who were feeding him actual news and information. Because he was the Matt Drudge of Hollywood entertainment blogging. Like even down to the layout of the site, the weird kind of...
Vic00:49:13Is it still around now? Yeah. Yeah, it's still there. Nobody reads it.
JVL00:49:16He alienated a lot of people, I believe, I see. Okay. And maybe ate them.
Vic00:49:22I'm sorry.
JVL00:49:25I'm sorry. He's a big fella.
Vic00:49:27We don't make jokes like that on this studio. I want you to know right now. I feel bad about that already.
JVL00:49:33I'm sorry, Harry.
Vic00:49:35Okay. Do we have any corrections or additions? Sonny, obviously you don't. What about your spirit of the week? Oh, yeah. Come on. We're coming to that. We're coming to that.
JVL00:49:47Corrections. Do we have any corrections? I have none.
Sonny00:49:51Somebody tried to correct me on Twitter. And they were wrong. So I don't care. Go ahead.
JVL00:49:54I actually think I didn't get anything wrong, which is good because last week I got two giant things wrong. Okay.
Vic00:50:01I have two things. One is just pointing out, and this is really interesting. Well, let me go right first on my phone here since I'm looking at it. Substandard listener DTN44 says, Elephants actually are scared of mice. Obsessed. Obsessed with us. Mythbusters took this on and were shocked. Mythbusters is the Bill Nye.
Sonny00:50:22The Bill Nye of, you know, mythbusting.
Vic00:50:25I'm just telling you. Fact check show. Okay. Loyal listener. This is a good one. Loyal listener Tony Martyr, who is listening to us all the way down in Perth, Australia. He says, The most terrific drowning scene is not White Squall, but the movie Sometimes a Great Notion starring Henry Fonda and Paul Neiman from 1970. In that scene, there's a scene it's like they're like, it's a lumberjack people. Richard Jekyll gets snagged by a log in the water, and then the log starts to roll. So it's one of those horrific scenes where it's the slow dawning of, oh my God, I'm going to die, versus, oh, I'm drowning. It's sort of like, everything's okay. No, no, hurry up, hurry up, and then that happens. Hey, this is an interesting video. Okay, what are we looking at? The zookeeper has just put a mouse on top of the elephant. Not doing it right. No, no, no, no, no. Is the elephant freaking out? No, he has to see the elephant on the dirt path. It's not the same. He's carrying them all around.
?00:51:16No, no, no.
Vic00:51:16They're running away. None of those elephants care. None of those elephants care. None of those elephants live leak. Look at the other things that you're looking at.
JVL00:51:25Are the elephants standing up and clutching their pearls off the way they did on Tom and Jerry? You're ridiculous.
Sonny00:51:29Vic, just admit that you're wrong. I don't believe you, too. Just admit that you get your zoological information from Tom and Jerry.
JVL00:51:34I'm going to put that video on our show notes. That's ridiculous. Are we going to have show notes this week? Oh, I'll get them.
Vic00:51:40It's a pretty busy week for me, frankly. I don't know. Spirit of the week is Jefferson's Ocean Aged at Sea. What little left? I think we had two ounces.
Sonny00:51:48Yeah, well, Vic was like, I'm going to bring this bottle and we can finish it. I'm not going to have any, so I was like, okay, that's probably enough for me. And then he decides to drink his own liquor. He decides to drink his own bottle.
Vic00:52:00And I was like, wow, that's... I changed my mind in the studio. That's just unfortunate. It was so little that part of it evaporated on the cab ride.
JVL00:52:07Isn't this like family holdback when you have company unexpectedly and you don't quite have enough food where you say to your kids, hey, don't eat. Don't eat, don't eat. That's an awful thing to be. So you didn't do that with your brown liquor? Again, it was an illusion. That's fine.
Vic00:52:19It looked like there was going to be more. It was quite tasty. Thanks to Bill Dwyer. He got that for me. 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.
Sonny00:52:36That's JV Last. Make sure to get JV Last.
Vic00:52:38Yes. Tell him what your... Anyway. On iTunes or Google Play, just type in Substandard on a podcast and we are there. Leave a review. Tell your friends and don't forget Substandard show notes will possibly be up on Friday at 11 p.m. 11 a.m. Until next time.
Sonny00:52:59Talk to me, Sonny. So, you had mentioned that Warner Brothers is selling Wonder Woman as kind of a big, you know, empowerment, but this is actually not true, I don't think. I think Warner's has done a very good job of avoiding the whole Ghostbusters, Sony, let's make this a cultural moment thing. They're trying to appeal to all quadrants. They know that most comic book movies are watched by dudes and they don't want to antagonize all of the people who would otherwise go see it. Now, what this has done is it has created a vacuum where you have the, like, crazy liberal people who are like, hey, we need this to be, this is an empowerment, this is a historical, world historical moment, we gotta celebrate that. And that's why you have the Alamo-type screenings that are the men's only, we're donating our proceeds to Planned Parenthood. If I worked at Warner Brothers, if I was a Warner Brothers marketing executive, I would have been so pissed off at Alamo that I would have just started jamming needles into a voodoo doll of the Alamo Drafthouse. Because this is, again, it's cultural appropriation. It's exactly what they had avoided trying to do, is making this a culture war moment. And I think it was smart of them. I think avoiding all that helped make the movie more successful.
JVL00:54:11Or they cynically used this as the marketing version of rendition, where they knew that that had to happen, because there were a whole bunch of people who might not ordinarily be excited by a superhero movie that had to get excited and energized about it. And so they trusted the entertainment media to do their dirty work. Those people were going
Sonny00:54:31to be excited anyway. Those people were going to be excited anyway. The whole run-up to this movie has been people complaining about how Warner's isn't marketing it enough, isn't marketing it right. It's been a bunch of, like, again, I know we avoid politics on the show as much as we can, but it was a bunch of whiny liberals saying, why aren't you marketing this movie the way I want it to be? It's not to be marketed. It's a girl movie. It's girl power. And they very wisely avoided all that.
JVL00:54:56We don't ever do politics. So I will merely say this to put a thought picture in your mind and then allow you to use your imagination. Imagine what the press of the last two weeks and today would have been like had Hillary Clinton been elected president. Because all the stories would have tied the two together.
?00:55:18Yeah.
Sonny00:55:18No, thank God that, you know, we didn't have to live through that. But all we have now is the ever-looming threat. Would you have enjoyed that?
Vic00:55:26I'm sure it's fine.
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