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#49. The Substandard on Talking Apes, Star Wars Fantasies, and ‘Driverless’ Cars
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
Dudes Chatting — Self-Driving Cars, Star Wars Land, and Post-Apocalyptic Movies: Vic opens with a Tesla Model X test drive on I-66, raving about ludicrous-mode acceleration and autopilot. JVL pushes back hard, insisting fully driverless cars are "the jetpack" — a technology that will never arrive at scale because the liability framework alone makes it impossible; Sonny predicts accident rates will spike before society ever accepts them. The Star Wars land / Westworld hotel concept sparks fantasy role-play: Sonny wants to stop the younglings massacre mid-scene; JVL wants to be Grand Moff Tarkin interrogating Leia and then obliterating Alderaan; Vic wants to be an Imperial officer under Admiral Piett aboard a Star Destroyer. The post-apocalyptic movie segment features Sonny nominating Mad Max: Fury Road and the eerie opening of 28 Days Later; JVL nominates Zardoz (defending Sean Connery in a red diaper as visionary); Waterworld and The Postman are floated as underrated. Vic closes with a Charlton Heston anecdote: on the Planet of the Apes set, actors self-segregated by ape species at the lunch table.
Reviews: War for the Planet of the Apes — Sonny is broadly positive but notes the film is relentlessly misanthropic, with the human military serving as cartoonish villains. He raises the recurring Andy Serkis Oscar debate and argues that Steve Zahn as Bad Ape is the actual standout performance and more deserving of awards attention. Vic performs a Gene Shalit parody review of The Crying Game (which he voices as Gene).
Box Office: War for the Planet of the Apes opened at $56.5M, edging out Spider-Man: Homecoming at $45M (which suffered a steep 60% second-weekend drop).
Closes with Corrections (JVL notes Liz Toomes is not the same character as Liz Allen; Vic corrects his own error from episode 48 — the Doom Easter egg head belongs to John Romero, not George Romero) and Spirit of the Week (Glenmorangie Highland single malt, finished off the bottle on air).
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Hi, I'm Bill Kristol. Can you believe these guys are back? Years from now, your children will ask you, what did you do in the greatest war? And you can tell them, I fought to protect this world.
Vic00:00:27Hello, and welcome back to The Substandard. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. I'd like to remind you that The Substandard is available on iTunes and Google Play. Just look at our podcasts and search for Substandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. In addition, we'd also like to remind you that Substandard show notes posted by Jonathan Last are available every Friday at 11 a.m. at weeklystandard.com. So, gentlemen, how are we? JVL?
JVL00:01:00Not great. I had a not great weekend, but it's actually something I can't talk about on air. So, we can talk about it off air.
Sonny00:01:08Mystery.
Vic00:01:09That'll be great in show notes. Go ahead, Sonny.
Sonny00:01:12My weekend was fine. I was enjoying my brand new Kindle Paperwhite that the beneficent Jeff Bezos personally sent me from Prime Day. I had a couple books kind of lined up. What I have discovered as a person who is extremely sensitive to prices, but also has essentially an infinite number of books I want to read, is that the Kindle sales are very interesting because I'll often pick up a book for two or three dollars or something and just kind of store it away and not read it until much later. So, this weekend I actually read, or this week, I actually read Hillbilly Elegy, which I don't know. It's like the hot book of 10 months ago.
Vic00:01:56No, no.
Sonny00:01:57That I picked up on sale. So, I don't know if you know this, guys, but things are bad. Things are bad out there for the white working class. There's a lot of meth. A lot of meth, a lot of drugs, a lot of sadness. So, anyway, that's how I've spent the last several days, is kind of wallowing in sadness. Sorry about that. So, good way to, you know, high energy episode.
Vic00:02:19Yeah, so far so good. I did two things. One, over the weekend, I took the kids from the for the first time to a comic book store. Which one? In Falls Church, Victory Comics.
Sonny00:02:33The one run by Jeff Weaver. Bernie Sanders is the guy. I haven't been there.
Vic00:02:38It's like the only comic book shop in the D.C. area I haven't been to. It's pretty good. I went there on the recommendation of our friend, Matt Continetti, who took his son there. And so, I brought the kids there. We walk in. Sabrina immediately knew what she wanted, which was a Supergirl comic book. A book, but it's more of a book. There's not many, there's not much, there's no illustrations.
JVL00:03:00Is this the Superhero High one?
Vic00:03:01No, this is like Supergirl, but it's like D.C. superheroes for kids level. This is not graphic novel, and it's mostly text. It's like a book? It's like a novel? Yeah, but it's paperback. She's reading words? She reads words. There's not much illustration. Cordelia has the same one. Oh, really? Yeah, she loves it. She loves it. And it's right in this little shelf next to all my little pony stuff and whatever. Michael immediately found... The alien action figure. That was Japanese, and wanted to buy it, and it was very expensive. Not the Maquette?
JVL00:03:34No, no, this is different. And I said it's too expensive. How expensive? Was it too expensive for your son?
Vic00:03:40It was like 80 from Japan, and it was like a collector's thing. I said, this is ridiculous. Is it like a statue? Yeah, you could move it, you could extend the tail, you could do the whole thing. You should have bought it for him, on the condition that he keeps it in the box. Yeah, right. No, no, no.
JVL00:03:55I'm happy to buy it for you, but you do... You do need to keep the box in near-mid condition.
Vic00:03:58Well, what happened was... That's a lesson. That would have been a lesson. What happened was, we went back home, and he broke into his piggy bank, and apparently had taken a piggy bank he found in my room in Jersey. Your childhood piggy bank. Yes, the child, which I had just forgotten. He stole your childhood piggy bank? He basically did, and I said, okay, you can have this. It's just a bunch of pennies and coins. And we went to the coin star machine at Harris Teeter, and dumped it all in. You used the coin star? That's a rip-off. I know. They took like 10% of the skin. 11% of the skin. I said, I'm not going to count all these freaking pennies. You make the child do it. It's a way to improve their... It was way too much. Oh, my God. Anyway, it came to $80, so we bought the figure. You got... So where's the picture? No, I'll provide the picture. I'll send it to you for show notes.
Sonny00:04:45You probably dumped like $40 worth of silver quarters down that thing, by the way.
Vic00:04:51It doesn't exist. And there were like... There's also... It rejects coins that went foreign currency. So we went back. I felt bad the first time we went. Did you pay and change? Well, no, but the... Give it to the comic book client. How is Teeter? Hello. They give you a cash. It's like Kramer at the pizza place. The Calzones. Yes, the Calzones. No. But the funny thing was, or not so funny is, prior to that, I felt bad. I said, let me just get you a graphic novel or something, you know, from Batman. Comic book. Yeah, comic book. And it was like the Joker's... It had to do with like the origins of the Joker.
Sonny00:05:23Oh, was it the Brian Azzarello Joker?
Vic00:05:25It was awful in a very graphic way. So I'm like, oh, you're like, yeah, that's good. And I just... Was it The Killing Joke? Yes, The Killing Joke.
JVL00:05:33How old is your son? Father of the year.
Sonny00:05:35Let's just remind... I had no idea he was nine. Let's just remind everyone how young Michael is.
Vic00:05:40He's nine. And he goes, oh, and he just didn't say he was quiet. Looking through it, he was
Sonny00:05:44just quiet. Folks, you may not have read The Killing Joke. I didn't. I'd like to think a lot of you have. I'm not a nerd. A lot of you probably have, but some of you haven't. And just as a reminder, this is a comic book. This is a comic book where the Joker shoots Batgirl in the stomach and cripples her. She's naked. And then strips her naked and takes photos of it, which he then puts around a carnival fun house in order to drive her father, Jim Gordon, insane, who is also stripped naked, by the way. He's also stripped naked. My wife shows me this later that night. I'm like, ugh. I just remember... I mean, I remember when I would go to my comic book store and I'd pick up like... When I was like 14 or 15 or something. And I'd pick up a copy of Sin City, which is like kind of risque at the time. The guys would be like, you didn't buy that here in case your parents found it. I didn't realize I could have just taken Uncle Vic to the comic book store and he would have bought me anything. I'll buy it for you easily.
JVL00:06:38He would have bought me anything. Sin City is much worse than The Killing Joke, even.
Vic00:06:41Yeah, but... I had no idea.
JVL00:06:43What cannibalism of naked women.
Sonny00:06:46It's less... Let's see, what did I get? I got A Dame to Kill For, which is actually like not super... That's the least of the... Yeah.
JVL00:06:53Yeah.
Sonny00:06:53This is deep.
JVL00:06:54So, wait a minute. Yeah. So, you didn't even realize your problem there. No. Your wife discovered the problem later. Yes, that night she's reading through it.
Vic00:07:01That night she's reading through it like she's like... Oh, like a parent who previews their media consumption for the child. Like a Soviet censor. The Politburo? Yeah, like an East... Stasi. Like a Stasi censor opening up mail for lives of others. She goes, did you see this? How about this? Did you see this? I'm like, oh my gosh. No. Let me see it now. And... Fifteen minutes later Vic came back. I need to see this in the bathroom. Three. Three minutes. So, that was... That was awful and... Got to get a one-star review for that joke. But I'll tell you what... Weissman, he reads quickly. I was... He's a fast reader, that Vic Matus. I was... That McVadis is a fast reader. McVadis is what they call a one-handed mag, right? That's what we call a one-handed mag. It's in the words of... There's the one-star. Sorry. That was Andy.
Sonny00:07:42That's an Andy. We were trying to step it back a notch.
Vic00:07:44I learned that joke from Andy Ferguson, by the way. So, the other thing that was funny was there was all these people there. We turned... We're checking out the... And Sonny, you're familiar with this place. Mm-hmm. So, we're checking out... I've actually never been to Victorino Comics.
Sonny00:07:57I just know... I know that it's the comic book store that's run by Bernie Sanders. Oh, okay. His campaign strategist or whatever.
Vic00:08:01Yeah, you mentioned it before, and I didn't even think about it. So, we check it out. Okay, this is where all the comic books are. And then we turn a corner, and there's another room where, all of a sudden, you know, and I'm there with the kids, and there's all these grown adults, men, sitting around tables. Playing Magic? Magic the Gathering. Yep. Wow.
Sonny00:08:19Yep. I have no idea. I can't believe magic is still a thing. Like, I'm...
Vic00:08:22I never even knew that that was after my time. Because I was a D&D type. I mean... So, I was not familiar until you brought it up in the Substandard.
Sonny00:08:27It's not like it, like, went away and came back. It's been, like, pretty consistently, like, a thing for 25 years now. Yep.
Vic00:08:35I mean, I don't even know how it's played. I walked in, and there was, like, a guy and a woman that were serving as, like, referees. Because they're like, okay, you got five minutes, blah, blah, blah, and people are moving things around, lots of very long beards, but also teens. And I said, this is a wonderful, you know, summer day, and they're all in here playing Magic the Gathering. It was very interesting. I probably would have... I would have been... Yeah. And lots of boxes. Vic thought it was terrible, so he went home and played Civilization. Yeah. Right. That's totally cool. That's what the cool kids did on a summer. And there's all these different boxes of, like, Settlers of Catan. Oh, people love Settlers of Catan. That's a Bill Dwyer game, and there's different variations of it. Like Captain Bill Dwyer? Captain Bill Dwyer. What does he do for a living? He's a captain and a fire marshal. Oh.
JVL00:09:17Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Has he ever saved a human life?
Vic00:09:20A couple times. Yeah, wow.
JVL00:09:21Has he ever caught a... He split infinitive? Never.
Vic00:09:26He actually... You know what? He walked through a floor that gave way once. Dangling modifier, though?
JVL00:09:31But you know what? Not a dangling modifier.
Sonny00:09:33He didn't fix a there, there problem?
Vic00:09:35It's, it's. How about it's, it's? That's so underrated. Okay, here's one other thing that I did, and JVL got a kick out of this. Yesterday, JVL, I took a test drive of a Tesla Model X, the semi-autonomous... Tesla. For a piece? Possibly.
JVL00:09:56I was asked if I wanted to. You sold it to Tesla as if it was for a piece?
Vic00:09:59No, no, no, no, no. They actually, you know, they're a publicist to somebody that we knew through the beacon, and then I was just asked if I wanted to take a test drive. So it was me, Mike Goldfarb, and my son.
JVL00:10:11So it was the X, the SUV? It's the SUV. It fits six. Now they say seven. It has like bat wing doors?
Vic00:10:18The gull wings, yes. So, but only for the back doors. The front door is open normal. Hmm. And the back... The back door is open gull wing style. It's funny because it's a futuristic car, but it's not, didn't have the feel of a luxury futuristic car. Like all the money has clearly gone into the technology, not into, I mean, let's face it, the base price of the Model X is $107,000.
JVL00:10:41It's only $100,000 though, because you get a $7,000 rebate from the taxpayers. No, but I have to say, if there's anything that I like about our government, it's the fact that we subsidized hyper expensive sports cars for our celebrities. With our tax dollars. I think that this is the greatest use of government, because we have to, for the planet, for climate change, because you know, there are a lot of people who can only afford a $100,000 car, but can't afford a $107,000 car. And we need to make sure that those people don't use gas guzzling trucks when they drive. Oh boy. I don't even know where to begin on that. Wow. No, I think Tesla's a great company.
Sonny00:11:19JBL, I have a question for you. Yeah. If you were to give you a Tesla, just give you one, would you drive it off a bridge or into a reservoir? Which would you prefer? Which would be the preferred mode of destruction?
JVL00:11:31I would do something like the old VW commercials where Peter Stormare just pimps the auto, and I would do something like, you know, oh look, this is the air intake valve to suck in air. It certainly is sucking. And then they like drive. Drop a giant anvil on it or something. Put it on a trebuchet.
Vic00:11:57The car would not allow you to do it because it like senses danger. It would drive away. It's got, no kidding, the car has radar. Yeah, thank you. Johnny Five is alive. The car has got radar and sonar. And so, in case it goes underwater, like the Lotus and the Spy Who Loved Me, which he owns by the way, Elon Musk owns that car from James Bond. So, we went out on 66. And then we go into driverless mode. You're not supposed to go driverless like driving through the streets. Yes, because you can kill pedestrians.
JVL00:12:30Because these systems can't actually pick up bicyclists and pedestrians. Goldfarb tried doing this. So, it's not all bad, is what you're saying.
Vic00:12:40We actually used it for that purpose. Pedestrians. And Goldfarb tried going out to autopilot like on Washington Boulevard. But as soon as it's the intersection, it just slows down. Like it's trying to figure out what's going on because there's no lines. But you get on 66. You know, it meanders. It turns, whatever. And it just follows the road. And you can just go on like this. And if you hit your turn signal, you know, it'll wait for cars. It's got eight cameras. And then it'll just turn. And then that's it. Or go the other way.
JVL00:13:07This is an interesting question for you, Vic. Yes. If you are driving that car and you get into an accident with another car, is that driver going to sue Tesla or are they going to sue you? Oh, they're going to sue you. So, it isn't really driverless then, is it? You have to be 100% engaged at all times. Because you are liable for whatever happens in that car.
Vic00:13:25You have to think about this driver. God, I hate Tesla so much.
JVL00:13:27I hate all of this ridiculous driverless car.
Vic00:13:30It's like driverless is like being an autopilot for an airline pilot. So, they're actually there. They're not. Like, when I was going driverless, you still had to keep your hand on the wheel. Yes. Like, otherwise.
JVL00:13:41So, what's the point? This isn't Minority Report. It's not quite there. You can't sit and read while you go back and forth to work. And you will never be able to. Because there's a legal framework which assigns liability to the driver.
Vic00:13:51In fact, the guy who died in Florida, I think he was listening to a, he was watching Harry Potter when he died. He was watching Harry Potter? Yeah, because the truck driver said he heard Harry Potter music coming from his car after he got, you know, sheared off. You can't do that. And so, the future is not here, but it's almost here.
JVL00:14:10So, the future will never be here. The driverless car is the freaking jetpack. So, JBL. This is never going to happen. You might get for long distance trucking because you can build specialized highway lanes for it. I will tell you what was... But for actual, and also you can have convoys of trucks where you have like one lead truck with drivers and everybody follows that. But for actual personal use, consumer use automobiles, this will never, ever happen. Ever. This is the jetpack. This is the undersea city of our time.
Vic00:14:39I'm now a car columnist and I'm just writing about it. I was a voice of expertise and authority.
Sonny00:14:44JBL, here, let me just, let me, I just want to posit a thing for you.
JVL00:14:48Yeah, go ahead.
Sonny00:14:49I'm calmed down. Is your... But let's say... It's humanity now. Let's say you who lives in the exurbs is not only, you are not only forced to use the hot lanes, the pay for, the pay for HOV lanes, but you also can only use them if you have a driverless car. How angry would that... Your eye literally just twitched. I know. I saw that too. Your eye literally twitched when I suggested the idea that the state of Virginia, run by Terry McAuliffe now, basically. Would force you not only to pay for the lanes, but also use a driverless car to access them. How would that make you, Jonathan V. Last, feel?
JVL00:15:31That's my secret, Sonny.
Vic00:15:33I'm always angry.
Sonny00:15:34On a scale of one to Hulk, where does that put you?
Vic00:15:37Red Hulk.
Sonny00:15:38Okay.
Vic00:15:39I'd say, for me, going into driverless mode, I was more alert about driving than less. You know what I mean? Like, you were just watching things like... So what's the point of it? What's the point of it, then? I don't know. This is the first time I've driven it. So I'm looking at it, and my experience was not, oh, I'm not going to only just watch a movie or get on the phone. I couldn't even... I gave my phone to, like, Michael. I said, call your mother, tell her we're coming home, because we took the driverless back to the house. I said, I just got to keep my eyes on the road, because I can't imagine people are using this and then not paying attention. Because for me, it's weird, because you're anticipating, okay, lanes are merging, cars, but it's keeping distance, it's slowing down, it's doing all sorts of weird things. But the annoying thing is, of course... The annoying thing is, of course, that you have to, from time to time, either give a shake of the wheel or you have your hand on the wheel. But what is the common reaction is, every now and then, I might want to pump the brake or turn it, and then it disengages and then goes back into manual mode. What a terrible... Honestly, I don't understand the point of this. I imagine the point is, it's requiring you, supposed to, right, this is just me thinking out loud, to do less thinking about the cars. Not completely, you know, like, I'm going to disengage and watch a Harry Potter movie, but less thinking. But I don't think that's... That's not necessarily a good thing.
Sonny00:16:51I bet if you look at studies, let's say we get a bunch of these on the road in the next 10 years or so, I bet if you look at studies, accidents will increase dramatically after a year or so of use. Once they lull you into a sense of security, that you can kind of, like, zone out a bit, that's when the accidents start spiking.
JVL00:17:12I bet. So the studies that have been done on this show that the accident rates for driverless cars are incredibly high. That's nearly what the accident rates are for. And I say this not as, I'm not making a stereotype, this is an actuarial statement, what it is for 70-year-old women.
Vic00:17:32Did you say seven?
JVL00:17:3370-year-old women. That is what the accident rates for driverless cars are.
Sonny00:17:39So pretty good then. Yeah. Awesome.
JVL00:17:42We'll just say they're incredibly safe drivers.
Vic00:17:44I'll say what was most surprising was acceleration. And this is nothing that they, the big emphasis, of course, is that this is the safest car on the road, they say, and that it's driverless. But the acceleration-
JVL00:17:58Now, this is the secret. The secret of Tesla is that it is a no-compromise, awesome sports car. It is. And they sell it. So here's the thing. But everybody who buys it knows this, and everybody else on the outside go, oh, but look, you love the planet so much. No, you're going to get a luxury sports car, and you're going to get a government rebate for it.
Vic00:18:16What Goldfarb and I did was we engaged- Engaged it on what, it's literally called ludicrous speed. Like, you press it, it says that, and it says to you, you understand this is going to take, make sure you have enough battery power, are you sure you want to go through with it? And then the other button says, no, I want my mommy. It literally says that. And so you say, yeah, let's go for it. And I put my foot down on that gas, and it was like rollercoaster speed. It was insane. With no sound. No, with no sound. And so this is what, for me, is mind-boggling, since I don't know anything about cars, but I mean, there's no gasoline involved, there's not a combustion engine. So there's not even, if you were in a Ferrari or a Porsche, you know, there's the revving up, and then there's the moment where it speeds, and the smoke of the tire, and then you go for it. This thing just jumps. And that was what I, but you don't really hear that in their advertising. It's all about battery, environment, environment.
JVL00:19:01And you realize, of course, that this is all a matter of tuning. This is engineering. And then when you tune the car to do this, what you're doing is you're sacrificing battery. Yeah. And so you're using more energy.
Sonny00:19:11I'm wondering, where does the energy come from for driverless cars?
JVL00:19:13It probably just comes from the air. It probably doesn't come from coal plants.
Vic00:19:16I hope it's nuclear. That's my thing. I'm so glad. I'm so glad you enjoyed that little aside of the Tesla test drive. Do we even need to do a main episode now?
Sonny00:19:23I feel like that was good. Wow. Do we even need a big block?
Vic00:19:26By the way, we've been on for an hour. So that was the big thing for me. We started off slow, but we really got going there. Just like a Tesla. Just like a Tesla. You know, his blood is boiling. But I was going to say it was, Michael loved the acceleration. Michael's not a fan of driverless cars. He likes to drive. He wants to drive. But nevertheless, the acceleration and speed was like, it was like, it was like, it was like hyperspeed. I mean, it was like,
JVL00:19:55Did the stars, the stars like turn into straight lines?
Vic00:19:58Yes, they have a fake thing on the display that does that. And it was like out of Star Wars. Speaking of which, Disney Star Wars Land. I tried. Six of ten. Sonny, you noticed this or was it JVL? That something is happening over at the development. As you know, there's a Star Wars Land being worked on in Disneyland Disney World. I think, yeah, it's going to be,
Sonny00:20:21they're going to have it at multiple parks, right? I'm actually not a big Disney guy, so I'm like only kind of half fascinated by this.
JVL00:20:28I wish we had Kristen Soltis Anderson here, because she is both a Star Wars nerd and a Disney nerd.
Sonny00:20:34Well, my sister and her. Grew up at Disney, worked in the park, knows everything about it. My sister and her husband are like totally into Disneyland. They have a, they have like a timeshare down at Disney World and the whole nine yards. They love it.
Vic00:20:47I think when you do the timeshare thing, you're in. Yeah. You're all in. Like every vacation is going to be that.
Sonny00:20:51Yeah. So, but I am like not a big theme park guy, whatever. But I am kind of fascinated by the Star Wars land that they're building. And part of the park, so like they're, you know, turning it into, my understanding is they're turning it into a, like section of the Star Wars universe that is not actually in the movies, that it's like kind of a, it's kind of a, it's not like you are going to go and do the, the, the, Please be Naboo.
JVL00:21:16Running into the Star Wars. Please be Naboo. Yeah, right?
Sonny00:21:18It's not like you're, you're hanging out on the beaches of Tatooine, you know, endless sand expanses. But, but one of the things that they're talking about doing is having a hotel where you are basically playing a Star Wars character for the week. It's basically like a Westworld hotel.
Guest00:21:33Including clothing, right? Right.
Sonny00:21:34So they give you costumes and they give you like a little, they give you a multi-day storyline to play through and you, you have to talk to characters who are, you know, they have like droids and guys dressed up like aliens and you're doing the whole thing. And I, it really got me, it got me wondering,
JVL00:21:48like America has not reached its decadent phase at all. Don't worry. This is not a civilization on decline.
Sonny00:21:53Look, as far as, as far as like awful things that we could do, this is, this is a very shallow step into that pool.
Vic00:22:02You mentioned Westworld, but it also reminded me of Total Recall, right? It's sort of giving you that adventure.
Sonny00:22:07Yeah, well, but I mean, Total Recall is, you know, they put it directly in your brain. It's much more like Westworld.
JVL00:22:12Let me, just let me make the analogy. Oh yeah, you're in the middle of a thing. Come on.
Sonny00:22:17Anyway, so it got me, it got me wondering, like, what would you actually do? Like, what would your ideal Star Wars subplot be? And of course, I was hoping to get the, invade the temple and cut down the younglings. The madrasa. I want the, I want the, yes, the, where they're, where they're raising the child soldiers to carry out their suicide attacks. That's what I want. I want to put a stop to that, you know, because I'm a, I believe in good and good things. JBL,
JVL00:22:43what would you want to do if you were to go to Star Wars land? Well, there are two things I would want to do. The first, of course, is I would want to play as Grand Moff Tarkin, interrogating Princess Leia and then destroying Alderaan. Yes.
Sonny00:22:54Right. Obviously, that's the awesome. I mean, that is a pretty fun multi-day experience.
Vic00:22:57But the taboo in me,
JVL00:23:00the part of me that wants the frisson of doing something really naughty, would want to be playing as Luke blowing up the peace station. The what station? The peace station. The peace star. Oh, got it. The peace star. Yeah. I mean, that would be, I mean, it's wrong, of course. I mean, they're killing all these innocent people. Yes. There would not be, would not be fun, but to be able to fly around and hear Han in your, you know, in your ears.
Sonny00:23:24The pirate, the space pirate. The space pirate. That would be kind of cool. And this is very much like, again, like Westworld, where, you know, you can do like the normal stuff, but you could also be a bad guy. Yes. You can go around, you can go like burn down a village. Could you be Boba Fett? Or you could be a bounty hunter? Yeah, you can go and you can shoot up some prostitutes or whatever, or you can blow up the peace station. And it, like, it would be perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Vic, what would you want to do?
Vic00:23:46Honestly, I would be perfectly content, like, being like an Imperial officer piloting a Star Destroyer working for Admiral Piet. I think I really liked Admiral Piet. Just being a space trucker. Yeah,
JVL00:23:57no, that's it. And just like, okay,
Vic00:23:59and then doing this. Yeah, I like to work on the ship with, you know, but without the nervousness of having Vader, right, because I was always very, you could tell everybody gets nervous in those scenes. But I like to work for Admiral Piet. It was very, it's like master and commander. It'd be very British, wouldn't it? Yeah. It would just be a very British Navy. My regret is that, they didn't have something like this for like, the wizarding world of Harry Potter, because then I would have, been what? Careful. No, no, no. I'm just saying that my scenario would be called graduation. Oh, no. That's all.
Sonny00:24:29Well, I mean, you could probably get that sort of experience if you went to like, the Jabba's palace. Or Thailand. Part of the land. Yes.
Vic00:24:36Yes, that's right.
JVL00:24:38Hogwarts or Phuket? Take your pick. Oh, my God. Okay. Hey, was there a movie out this week? Oh, yes. Indeed, it was JVL. Sorry, I'm just trying to keep the FBI off our trail. Yeah, that's right.
Vic00:24:49Okay, over the weekend, War for Planet of the Apes did 56 and a half, at least, million dollars. It beat out Spider-Man Homecoming, which did a not too shabby 45 million. Sonny, you saw War for Planet.
JVL00:25:06You have thought.
Sonny00:25:07Let's talk about the box office just for a second here, because the War for the Planet of the Apes opening is pretty unimpressive. I mean, this is about the number, the numbers that Rise of the Planet of the Apes do, but it's about 20 million less than Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which has to be a bit disappointing for the studios. And it's just another indication of franchise fatigue. But I'm actually a little more surprised even by the drop of Spider-Man Homecoming, which dropped 60%.
Vic00:25:36That was a 60% drop?
Sonny00:25:37Dropped 60% in its second weekend. White male director. And I'm a little bit surprised by that, because A, it was very good. It's very entertaining. And B, it got pretty good numbers from audiences. A solid A-minus cinema score. There was some competition from the Planet of the Apes movie, but obviously not a ton, since it didn't do that well. But it just, it really dropped. I was pretty sure that Spider-Man Homecoming was going to be the biggest movie of the summer, and that it's not going to come anywhere close to Wonder Woman, which is the greatest movie of all time. You can smell the privilege coming off of that Spider-Man movie. I mean, you know, this is a real problem that Hollywood has to think about, with all these white men running around.
JVL00:26:28Thank goodness the Wall Street Journal ran a piece over the weekend by an actress saying that, you know, the success of Wonder Woman shows that Hollywood should be casting more women in, even just like bit and throwaway roles, because that's what's good for business. That's what people want.
Vic00:26:42Are there no women in movies?
JVL00:26:44None. None. None. That's horrible.
Vic00:26:48So, Sonny, what did you think? War for Planet of the Apes, is that part two, part three? Part three. So this is the... How many parts are there going to be? Was this the end?
Sonny00:26:56I think this is the end. This is the end. Does it have a conclusion? Yes, it has a conclusion. Who wins? Well, the apes, obviously. I don't know if you know this, but man is bad. Man is a cancer on the planet, and deserves to be wiped out. Fact check true.
Vic00:27:11I have questions, but do explain first. So anyway,
Sonny00:27:13so War for the Planet of the Apes, picks up about two years after Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. If you've seen that movie, you remember that it ended after an ape attack on a human enclave in the Pacific Northwest, was actually thwarted by Caesar, the noble ape played by Andy Serkis, and they kind of retreated into the woods. They said, we want peace, blah, blah, blah. But you know who doesn't want peace is Woody Harrelson. Woody Harrelson playing the colonel or the captain or something. He is a special forces guy. He is running amok amongst the apes, ape communities, just cutting them down and slaughtering them left and right. Talk about guerrilla warfare. Oh my God. Who let Gene Shalit into this office? That's awful.
Vic00:27:56Quit bunking around, Sonny. Oh. Okay, sorry. Go ahead, go ahead. You see what we're dealing with? I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
JVL00:28:01Go ahead.
Sonny00:28:02So anyway, the plot of the movie is Woody Harrelson kills Caesar's family. The apes decide that, like most of the apes, 90% of the apes decide to leave the city. They decide to leave and go find this new paradise that they had sought out. But Caesar is going to take his revenge and he sets off to do this with a couple of friends in tow. Along the way, they pick up another ape who can speak whose name is Bad Ape. He calls himself Bad Ape because that's what all the humans call them because humans are bad. Humans are bad and they're mean to apes and they call this ape Bad Ape. I'm sorry. Have you never been on Twitter? Of course humans are bad. He has self-loathing. He's filled with self-loathing and he calls himself Bad Ape. He calls himself Bad Ape. What kind of ape is he? He's like, I don't know. The gorilla?
JVL00:28:48Is he the orangutan?
Sonny00:28:50No, he's like Caesar. I don't know what those are. He's a chimpanzee. He's like a little chimpanzee. Oh, okay. But he's wonderfully played by. He's wonderfully played by Steve Zahn.
JVL00:28:59So we can get into this in a second
Sonny00:29:01about the motion capture, whatever. Anyway, long story short, humans are bad. The American military, very bad. And we are told this over and over and over again and we are supposed to cheer when the apes, uh, leave for their, their paradise. They have killed the humans. You know, whatever. I'm, I, I, the, the whole thing is like, it's actually entertaining enough in the moment. I, I gave it a thumbs up on Rotten Tomatoes. I enjoyed it.
JVL00:29:28You're on Rotten Tomatoes?
Sonny00:29:29Yes. That's, I am. Thank you. Wow. Thank you.
JVL00:29:35Sonny Bunch, Rotten Tomatoes.
Sonny00:29:36Uh, and, uh, and, and it was, and it's fine, it's entertaining. If you like the rest of these movies, you'll like this movie. I like the rest of these movies, so I like this movie. And it has some, it has some actually pretty impressive special effects. The photorealism is very good. Andy Serkis is fine. Steve Zahn is better, I think. Um, uh, but, uh, it, it is kind of this weirdly misanthropic, like, humans deserve to die and be wiped out. And, uh, I'm not, I'm not totally on board with that. As much as I hate humanity, I'm not totally on board with that.
Vic00:30:06Does the United States of America still exist in this movie? Well, so, Is there a president?
Sonny00:30:11So, unclear. I mean, the, the military still exists, and Woody Harrelson is kind of leading a splinter group of the military that has taken over a weapons depot, and that's how he is able to fight off the main battalion of humans that comes at the end, and there's a big battle. Between humans? Between some humans, and then humans are trying to kill the apes, because humans are bad. Right. Remember, humans are bad. Uh, anyway, this, this, I, I didn't love it, uh, but I did like it, and, you know, if you're into this sort of thing, you should, you should check it out.
Vic00:30:44It reminded me, your review of, uh, the National Geographic special on what would Earth be like if humans no longer were on the planet. You ever see this? And the answer is better. And so there's the, the, the, the, the pictures of the oceans that are teeming with fish and wildlife and everything else is,
JVL00:31:04you know, the world would be a better place. No National Geographic magazines, though.
Vic00:31:08No, no, I mean, you know. Small sacrifice. The animals haven't figured out how to make it, but, or take pictures. And they'll do it better. The whales will do it. Uh, but you were talking about the motion capture image of it.
Sonny00:31:20Yeah, so there's a big push right now to get the motion capture actors Academy Awards nominations. So the idea is that Andy Serkis is so good and so expressive as Caesar that he deserves an Academy Award nomination and that it's really a crying shame that we don't recognize these wonderful performances. And, like, I'm not totally opposed to the idea that we should pay more attention to motion capture actors and that I think that there's a lot of good work being done kind of in this realm. But the problem with this whole theory is that all of these performances are totally collaborative with the hundreds of special effects guys who are running around actually making the facial appearances work, who are giving the apes actual heft in the film that we see. I mean, like, I think that Steve Zahn, for instance, and, like, I have a specific issue with saying that Andy Serkis deserves the award for this movie because basically all he does is kind of scowl for two hours. It's two and a half hours. This movie's so long. Two and a half hours. He just kind of, like, he looks dour and he's always frowning and he's, oh, so angry. And, like, I guess people think that this signifies, like, actual interesting acting, but it doesn't. Gravitas. There's gravitas to him, but it's dull and repetitive and monotonous. Whereas Steve Zahn's Bat-Ape is actually, like, an interesting character who has some real development and he has, like, moments of lightness but also moments of darkness and he is doing a lot of different things. If you want to give anybody an Oscar from this movie, it should be Steve Zahn. The Steve Zahn for Oscar campaign begins now on The Substandard. But, like, this whole Andy Serkis is a great thing. I loved him as Gollum. I thought he was fine. And, like, I think he is doing good and interesting work. And maybe, maybe there needs to be a motion-caption category at the Oscars where you just throw together the big motion-caption performances in any given year. You can have men and women together. You could just do a, you know, we could really get it all in one. But, like, I just think... JVL is shaking his head. I just think that the idea... And then you could reward the whole team. You wouldn't reward the individual actor because the problem is that this is not an individual effort. But, JVL...
JVL00:33:41So, I would argue... So, I am not, to be clear, making an argument that Andy Serkis or Steve Zahn or any specific person should win the Oscar for any performance that has been done. But, in theory, I am totally open to them being considered for the following reasons. All film is collaborative. It does not matter whether you are a traditional actor who is being costumed and made up and moved around and lit by a whole team of people who are collaborative artists on the film project or whether you're doing motion capture stuff. Now, certainly, I'm not being crazy, the motion capture requires more collaboration, but this is a difference of degree, not of kind, I would say. Secondly, I would say that most of what an actor does in film, they do with their voices. The voice is just criminally underrated as an actorly tool. And I am fine with... If you wanted to make an argument that Scarlett Johansson should get a nomination for her work and her, I might disagree on the merits, but not on the principle. If that makes sense.
Vic00:34:50I would have given it to her.
JVL00:34:52Great voice. Given what? Oh, a nomination. A nomination, Victorino. Yes, yes.
Vic00:35:00Sorry, yes.
JVL00:35:02And, you know, look, there's a long tradition of Hollywood lavishing awards on people who bury themselves under practical type effects, like Nicole Kidman's nose for The Hours, or the... So this is what I'm saying. I'm not mounting an argument for Andy Serkis for this performance, but if you were to tell me at some point in the unspecified future, like in next year or two years from now or whatever, that there is a motion capture performance that is so tremendous that we ought to consider it for an Oscar, I would be okay with that. And I wouldn't want a separate category because if you broke out a separate category for that, then you really are going to cheapen the Oscars by having... I mean, there are going to be years when all the motion capture stuff is just BS the kind of work you get on video games. And that means somebody's going to take home an Oscar for that. And it devalues the real acting that gets done by people who are trying to do real acting within the format.
Sonny00:35:56I mean, I totally understand and even agree with a lot of these points, but I do think that there is a degree... There is a difference in kind and not in degree with the work that they're doing in terms of manipulating faces and literally just transforming people entirely. I just... I think that there is... There's a... And maybe this is just a function of, you know, we don't really see people get nominated from superhero movies because so much of the time the action that we're seeing is totally CGI, right? Right. Like, so much of that is not the actor himself. It's the team of technicians who are bringing that kind of performance to life. And I just... I think it's... I do think it is different and I think it is... So is it a CGI is the sticking point for you?
JVL00:36:50So like ScarJo and her, would you be okay with that as a nomination because there is no CGI? What you're getting is pure Scarlett Johansson. She's not being aided by technicians.
Sonny00:36:59Well, but I would also say... So this is a... What about animated films, right? Would you... How do we... No... No... I believe, I think this is right, no actor has ever been nominated for an Oscar who was in an animated or stop-motion picture, right?
JVL00:37:15In theory, I am open to that if there is a vocal performance that is so great. But again, this may be me just being like in love with the idea of how much actors use their voices. But I'm open to that idea. If you have a crappy year where there's no really great performances elsewhere and somebody just does something with voice work that's so amazing, I'm open to that. Or a voiceover. Or a voiceover. Hell, you know what? I... I don't actually think this, but I halfway think this. I would have given a best-supporting nomination, not a win, but nomination to Alec Baldwin for his work in The Royal Tenenbaums. I was literally just thinking of that. Which lasts five minutes and he's not even a character on screen, he's just a narrator. But he's amazing and he's integral to that movie and the movie does not succeed the way it does as an enterprise if not for his work. Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:38:03I... It's a tricky thing and I understand your point about devaluing the Oscar, but I also think that what you would end up with is a situation kind of like with the... animated feature category, right? Where you have some years, you know, kind of crappy Disney movie wins and nobody thinks like, well, the Oscars aren't good anymore because of that.
JVL00:38:25No, I guess... I guess I look at the animated Oscar category now as a mistake. That if we could go back in time and undo it, we probably should. But you can't because it's there. You know, the Oscars grow the way government grows. You can't ramp back programs.
Sonny00:38:38But I also think that that's a totally reasonable and good category. I mean, I do think... Look, I think that animated feature films are doing a different thing than feature live action films. Yeah, that's fair. And I think it is worth acknowledging what is happening in those movies. And I think that if you had a category for... Let's say you had a category that combined voiceover, voice acting, and stop motion animation. Would you be cool with that?
JVL00:39:05Yeah. Yeah, I guess I would. I don't really know how you would... It wouldn't be ideal for me. My first choice would not be to do that, but I wouldn't object to it.
Vic00:39:12Do people want... Do people want Andy Serkis to be nominated for the best actor category? Oh, Andy Serkis wants to be nominated.
JVL00:39:18Andy Serkis is not a guy who hides his lamp under a bushel.
Sonny00:39:21He is very proactive in stating his greatness. Which is fair. He is actually one of the great motion capture actors of our time. His influence is undoubted. Going back to Gollum. He's a guy who, in the industry, helps other actors learn how to do this. I mean, he is like... He is undoubtedly a great artist and he brings a lot to the table, but I just think that in the realm of what we are talking about, where when we think of actors, when we think of great actors, maybe they're buried under makeup, maybe they're buried under prosthetics, or whatever, but we are looking at the person himself and kind of judging how their eyes twitch and their nose flares, and all of that is built in a computer. John Hurt as the Elephant Man, if you can go back to that.
Vic00:40:13I like Andy Serkis in 13 Going on 30, and he played himself as a human being, as a publisher.
JVL00:40:20You saw that as a tragedy, that movie.
Vic00:40:23I'm not going to comment because I made a joke to you once and that joke is not appropriate for our... The sequel. Something about the sequel that you wanted to say. Even for this podcast, I do have... So many things we won't tell our listeners today. I think I mentioned it in the episode that never aired. Anyway, I didn't see this new iteration of Planet Apes. Is it the same direction for all three now?
Sonny00:40:44Well, no. Matt Reeves did this one and the previous one. I forget who did Rise of the Planet Apes. It was the friend of... Rise of the Mark Hemingway's buddy.
Vic00:40:50Molly and Mark Hemingway's. Yeah. But I remember seeing the originals, obviously, and the one with Charlton Heston and it reminded me of the anecdote that a friend told me when he went driving through... He had to take Charlton Heston around and while they were going through a long stretch of road, you know, I was like, what are you talking about? And so somehow he was able to bring up Planet of the Apes because this guy was a big fan and Heston, obviously, when he was still, you know, his mental faculties were still there, he started to happily talk about it and the interesting anecdote, this is a true story about Charlton Heston, what he said was on Planet of the Apes, he said, you know what's interesting? During the lunch breaks, the characters would self-segregate so the lighter-skinned apes would be eating in one section and then the other apes would be eating in another section. Isn't that weird? I'm not making it, I'm just telling you exactly what Charlton Heston said, that they just did that. So, Zaius and his elk are on one side and then, like, the soldiers are on the other side and they're not messing.
Sonny00:41:58Yeah, I mean,
Vic00:41:59I don't know, this is very weird. It's awkward. Yeah, awkward. Awkward. I don't know
Sonny00:42:05how the guy in the car responded to that, but I would have been like,
Vic00:42:09he was quite stunned. Yeah, he was quite stunned. This was, in full disclosure, this was Kate's ex-boyfriend, but he was a nice guy many years ago. So, that was a little anecdote. People didn't know that about the commissary during Planet of the Apes. Only the craft service people knew that secret. Did you want to talk at all about other, what is it that draws us to these post-apocalyptic movies? Before we move on,
JVL00:42:35I offer one observation. I have one observation on apes and only so that I have an excuse to put this into show notes. The greatest Planet of the Apes moment ever.
Sonny00:42:45Victorino? Simpsons? The Simpsons? Yes. Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius?
Vic00:42:48He can talk, he can talk,
?00:42:49he can talk, he can talk,
JVL00:42:50he can talk, he can talk.
Vic00:42:51I can sing it. God, it's great. And the finale, when he says, I guess you made a monkey out of me. I hate every ape I see. I was wrong to chimpanzee. And then the Statue of Liberty comes up in the background. That would have been a great musical.
Sonny00:43:06I love you, Dr. Zaius.
Vic00:43:09That was fantastic. It's so great. I'm sorry. Post-apocalyptic movies. Well, on that note, post-apocalyptic movies, what is it that, I don't know what, it's kind of a thing that would actually make me less inclined to see that movie. Really? I might have been curious about what.
Sonny00:43:24You don't like living in a horrible wasteland?
Vic00:43:26Yes, well, not anymore. It's just too depressing, I think, I guess. Do you think this has changed since you had kids? Yeah, probably.
Sonny00:43:32Yeah, maybe. You don't want to imagine a world in which they are forced to resort to cannibalism.
Vic00:43:37We talk about, you know, what happens if there was an EMP? What happens if there's a national crisis? Would you know? Where to go? What to do? I immediately would go to our FBI neighbor a couple doors down and just say, help me. That's what I would do. I'll shoot you off the porch. We would head over to Captain Builder's compound. Would you bring canned food, though, as an offering?
JVL00:43:56If we have any. Oh, you'd go out to the firefighter and have him protect you?
Vic00:44:00Yes, Captain Builder. I said, you know, he's got all the...
JVL00:44:03And as an offering, you'd bring him a Blu-ray player.
Vic00:44:05I could write, you need us? I can write good signs. We don't want to keep people off the compound. When all hell breaks loose... With great writers, don't you? You need writers, don't you?
JVL00:44:15No typos. Right.
Vic00:44:17No trespassing with a good font. I know, it's really frightening. Good kerning between the letters. Bill, you can use me. Cambria 12-point, please.
Sonny00:44:25Okay, Sonny, please. What draws us to the post-apocalyptic movies? And what other ones
Vic00:44:32do you like?
Sonny00:44:33I mean, I would assume that what draws us to the post-apocalypse is the fact that we are all awful, miserable people who secretly long for the end to come.
JVL00:44:42Loathe ourselves? Because we loathe ourselves?
Sonny00:44:44You know, we all imagine ourselves as like the hero in the zombie movie, but we all secretly, subconsciously know that we're one of the faceless crowd that is trying to find brains to eat. That is, that's what we all, that's what we all know. I don't, I mean, I don't know what it is. I think part of it is that it is an easier story to tell because you know what you can do with a post-apocalyptic setting? You don't need a bunch of extras. You can more easily dress a set. You can kind of, you just throw a bunch of junk together and it's, it's good to go. My favorite kind of in this genre is the opening of 28 Days Later,
JVL00:45:19which is a fantastic bravura sequence. Bravura, bravura? Yeah, bravura.
Sonny00:45:24Weeks, weeks or days? 28 Days Later. Did I say weeks? I'm sorry. No, no, no, you said days. Where they have the empty streets of London and it's, and obviously it took some sort of planning to get everybody off the streets those days, but it is also just like, it's, it is a wonderfully haunting shot that also saved them a lot of money on extras. You don't gotta, you don't have to speculate those. Just at that same, people don't come out.
Vic00:45:46Is that CGI or did they actually close off sections? I think they closed off, I think they like, like remember Times Square and Vanilla Sky.
Sonny00:45:51Yeah, like that, yeah. That's insane.
Vic00:45:53Is that where Killian Murphy wakes up in the hospital or is that 28 Weeks?
Sonny00:45:57No, that's 28 Days. Yeah, that's where Killian wakes up in the hospital. I, I talked about this. 28 Weeks is the one where Bigby, where Begby wakes, Begby, yeah. He comes back to London after abandoning his wife to the, to the monsters.
Vic00:46:11You, we talked about this yesterday and I saw the clip again, you know, when I'd seen the clip on YouTube, that is the most, one of the most disturbing clips ever is when he kisses his wife and, because he loves her so much and then turns into this, He's infected by the rage virus. The rage, the rage virus.
Sonny00:46:27this is a, this is an argument amongst the hardcore zombie aficionados that, that the 28 Days Later universe is not an actual zombie apocalypse. They're infected by the rage virus, which is not really the same thing. You don't have to shoot them in the head. They're not undead. They're not, they're cannibals. They're just super violent. So he's not a zombie. He's just insane. No, he's just a very violent, sick person.
Vic00:46:49But he kills her in like multiple ways. That's the worst part. Multiple. Without getting into details, I'm like, this is, I can't do this. And I did watch it, but I can't do this. I can't do this more than five times. More than five times.
Sonny00:47:00I can only do this like seven, Half the views on YouTube are mine. I can only watch this movie once every four hours. JVL, do you have any thoughts?
JVL00:47:09I do. Please. I do. I have one thought, and again, this is only for show notes, because I want the show notes to be good. I'm going to show you gentlemen a picture. Readers are going to have to bear with me and wait until show notes to see this picture. All right. This picture is from, first of all, this is real.
Vic00:47:23Why am I scared?
JVL00:47:24This is real. This is not a Photoshop. It's not made up. Do we have to guess what it is? Can you tell me? No, no, no. It is from the most terrifying post-apocalyptic movie ever. Are you ready? I'm ready. Prepare yourselves.
Vic00:47:40Okay.
JVL00:47:42Zardoz. Sean Connery. Oh, yes. In Zardoz.
Sonny00:47:51Excellent. What a man.
JVL00:47:52In which he spends the entirety of the movie running around in thigh-high boots. A thong? What do you call it?
Sonny00:47:59A banana hammock? That's a codpiece.
JVL00:48:02Kind of.
Sonny00:48:03I don't, I don't, yeah.
JVL00:48:04Fabric. Banana hammock. Kind of something or another within like fetish gear suspenders crossed over his chest. Like bandoliers. And a long black ponytail. And Sean Connery is so unbelievably cool that this did not destroy his career. Yes. That's how cool he was.
Sonny00:48:20He was able to go from this to James Bond. Right, right, right. No, he, Wait, did Zardoz come out before his first James Bond movie?
Vic00:48:26No, no, no, no.
JVL00:48:27James Bond was first. It couldn't have.
Vic00:48:29This is his life after James Bond. He's like, oh yeah, Roger Moore, I'm gonna do this. Wasn't he still doing James Bond? No, Roger Moore was then. Roger Moore starred in 74. So this is like, and I think, So it kind of did actually kill his career for about a decade. Until Brian DePaulo cast him in The Untouchables.
Sonny00:48:43Yeah, until The Untouchables. And the cameo in Time Bandits. So I'll put that in the show notes
JVL00:48:49for people who don't know what I'm talking about. It's amazing. As you can see,
Vic00:48:52as you'll see on the show notes, I think that's his real hair or lack thereof. For Sean Connery. Wait, what? His hair. What?
JVL00:49:00You said that is his real hair or lack thereof.
Vic00:49:02I don't understand. It's like this receding thing.
Sonny00:49:05Well, there's no chance he was able to grow a four foot long ponytail. Oh, no, not that part.
Vic00:49:10Not that part. I mean the front. It's hard to explain. That's why you'll see it. But I think he had a different hair in Never Say Never Again. Okay, I think we're ready to move on.
Sonny00:49:18Well, the best, can we, what is our favorite post-apocalyptic movie? Oh, jeez. Obviously, the only correct answer is the most recent one, which is Mad Max Fury Road. That's the best post-apocalyptic movie. Okay, I'll go with that. JVM. JVM.
JVL00:49:31Might be the best. It might be the best, yeah. I've always wanted to see, but I've never seen, have you seen The Last Battle, which is Luc Besson's, maybe his first movie No, I've never actually seen it. Starring a young, fresh-faced actor named Jean Reno. Oh. And it is a post-apocalyptic film which only has two lines of dialogue. The idea being that the virus, which has wiped everything out, has also robbed people of their ability to speak. Huh. And it, I would sign up to go see that myself, but I have not. And I, maybe I'll try to see that. Waterworld is underrated. Waterworld is not a terrible movie. It's not a great movie, but as post-apocalyptic movies go, it's pretty good. And you know what else? Postman is better.
Vic00:50:11Postman is pretty good. And Waterworld also had interesting ideas. Just interesting ideas.
JVL00:50:16Did it? I don't remember that. He had gills. Ideas about water? And he landed on
Vic00:50:20when they finally land on land and he's got the land sickness versus the sea sickness. That's interesting. You know, and he starts, you know.
Sonny00:50:25That's not really an idea, Vic. Are you questioning my ideas? It's more of a twist. JBL's, JBL's, JBL's like, you know, the Dark Knight is about the struggle of the liberal order to defend itself. That's too deep. No belie, no belie, no. Vic's like, land sickness
JVL00:50:41Land sickness and gills. I'm sold. I also like the sequel to that, actually. The sequel to The Postman. The Postman always rings twice. Oh, yeah. That is an What's amazing is When they went to Europe In Italy, they called it It went in a totally
Sonny00:50:57different direction. I was not, I did not see that one coming. So, really good. Good.
Vic00:51:03Additions, corrections, JBL.
JVL00:51:05Well, darn she's Spirit of the Week first because I have a long correction.
Vic00:51:08Okay, we can do that. We don't have to. Spirit of the Week is just a nice little bottle of Glenmorangie. We've done this before. Highland single malt scotch. I use it because it's now empty.
JVL00:51:19There's one mouthful left. I dare you to just chug it right from the bottle. There's no Who are you daring? You. Oh, please. The guy with the problem. Look at that. To the face. Beautiful.
Vic00:51:29That's it. That was delicious. 88.
JVL00:51:31Is that what they say in the restaurant trade? The 88 list is the bottles which you've cashed and no longer have any.
Vic00:51:38Oh, that's interesting. I don't know about that. I was going to say, 80. Why is it 88? You get 86. You can get 86. Maybe it's 86. I don't know.
JVL00:51:46There's a term of art. I've never worked in a restaurant higher than McDonald's. Yeah. You do not have that list.
Sonny00:51:51McDonald's, it was like, what you do is you eat all the sandwiches at once. And then if you do that, you get your name up on the wall.
JVL00:52:00Correction, JVL. So somebody on Twitter said that I was wrong last week when I said that the character of Liz Tumiz was all new. In Spider-Man Homecoming. And they said, no, no, that's actually Liz Allen. That's Liz Allen.
Sonny00:52:16Who's Liz Allen?
JVL00:52:17I like that voice. That voice sounds like something I heard at the comic book shop. That sounds like the same voice from Magic the Gathering. Liz Allen debuted in Spider-Man number four. She was Flash's girlfriend. She made fun of Peter Parker. She had a stepbrother who was a third-tier villain named Molten Man, and she later married Harry Osborn. She was white and had blonde hair. Her name was Liz Allen. The character in this movie is named Liz Tumiz, and she is the daughter of the villain, the Vulture. She hates Flash. She's never anything but kind to Peter. She's black. She literally has nothing in common with this other character except that they share an incredibly common first name.
Sonny00:52:55Now, this person on Twitter,
JVL00:52:57who's a fan of the show, I don't mean to be aggressive, it's just that I'm still ramped up over the Tesla stuff, said, oh, but, you know, Kevin Feige said in some interview with IGN that, yeah, this is Liz Allen. This is just crap. What this is is the Marvel people trying to insulate themselves proactively from fanboy backlash about how non-Ken in this movie is by saying, look, see, it's tied to the comics. It's linked back to the comics. But this is something they did not need to do because it turned out nobody other than Max Landis and me even noticed that this movie, like, totally rejiggered the character of Spider-Man.
Sonny00:53:31I like how you have glommed onto this Max Landis thing. Like, you're, you know, he was a little bit out in front of this. Was he?
JVL00:53:40No, he was a deeper read, but no, on the show last week. As I said, this is a non-Ken and Super Sook. I know, I agree, I agree. This is not. Liz Allen is not Liz Toomes.
Vic00:53:47What about Spidey Sense? I can almost go for that. I can buy that. One of our listeners thought, listener Jake Van Kersen said that there's a scene where Spider-Man goes, uh-oh, and there's an object coming from behind and he dodges. I mean, maybe. I don't know. I think so. But, like, here's,
Sonny00:54:05I just want to throw this out there that the vulture in this movie is actually playing the green goblin Goblin role. role. That he is, he is, Toomes has basically taken the Norman Osborn role and if I had to guess, I would bet that Liz becomes some sort of junior vulture at some point in the series. That she is, she is basically filling the Harry Osborn role of Spider-Man's friend who Spider-Man pseudo-betrays by destroying his father's, or her father's industry.
JVL00:54:38Let me say this. If you are correct, and if I'm not wrong, if at some point in the future, Liz, the character of Liz from Spider-Man Homecoming becomes Lady Vulture or Vulture Girl, then that will be a sign that Marvel has reached the point of total creative bankruptcy. They have this brand new franchise where they have all sorts of different directions to go and if they choose to do Vulture Girl, then it means that these people have nothing to say. I don't think they're at that
Sonny00:55:05spot yet myself, but who knows? There's a 100% chance that Vulture is coming back in the next movie. He is definitely going to lead the Sinister Six. And if you don't think that at some point Liz is going to find out that Pete is Spider-Man and is ruining her father's business slash life slash her life, I got a big old bridge to sell ya.
Vic00:55:31We'll see. Substandard friend Nathan Wurzel said he was disappointed I failed to mention a little detail about the Amityville Horror when we were discussing it in the last episode. And that is when they did the movie The Amityville Horror, they did film it in my hometown of Toms River, New Jersey. There was a house that was on the water that was designed in that old colonial style. It was a, I hate to say it, a dead ringer for the Amityville. You don't hate to say it. You don't hate to say it. Say it in the voice. Talk about a dead ringer. It was filmed, and I remember as kids you drive by, I think it's Dock Street, Robin Street, or Water Street. One of those movies, Water Street, and my sister would always say, hold your breath, it's the Amityville Horror, and you had to hold your breath until you were driving past it, and that was a very scary thing, and I remember in the news, like one of the kids complained that the actual, the house for the set was also haunted, just, you know what I mean, and if you go there now, they totally redesigned it. It doesn't have that look anymore, so you would never know. Speaking of Gene Shalit, a substandard friend, Gabe Rossman, conducted a Twitter poll on what Gene Shalit should review next. Oh God, you did it? Maybe. It's short. I'm sitting back. Only because we're about fan service here at The Substandard, and if this is what they want, then this is what they want. Again, it's very short, so here you go, Gabe Rossman. I hope you're happy. The Crying Game. It's directed by Neil Jordan, and boy, do I have a bone to pick with him. When Jimmy untucks Dill's robe, I assure you, that's not the only thing that gets untucked. Talk about luck of the Irish. Let's just say he was hoping to get his toad in the hole, but instead got bangers and mash. I give it two stars. And that's the Critics' Corner.
Sonny00:57:31Oh boy. I just, I don't know. This is all very bad.
Vic00:57:35Do you ever have toad in the hole?
Sonny00:57:36I don't even know what that is. What is toad in the hole? It's like you fry an egg inside a hole of toast Oh, eggy in the basket.
Vic00:57:41Yeah, yes. You were a Brit growing up, too.
Sonny00:57:45Yeah, I spent some time in England.
Vic00:57:47You did, you did. Okay, I think that's definitely all the time we're going to give to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments. Tweet us at Victorino Matus at Sonny Bunch. Again, be sure to... And at JV Last. No.
Sonny00:58:01I think I forgot that last week. I think I forgot to tell people to tweet at you. And you should all do this. At JV Last.
Vic00:58:08Especially those of our many listeners who drive Teslas.
Sonny00:58:11Yes. If you want to really get his goat, send him a picture of your tax return.
JVL00:58:17Send me a picture of your check from the government. I would be surprised if there was one.
Vic00:58:21Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard on the podcasts and we're there. Leave a review, tell your friends, and don't forget the Substandard show notes will be up on Friday at 11 a.m. Until next time.
JVL00:58:40So, J.D.L., you have a concern.
Vic00:58:49So next week we'll do Dunkirk. Yes. Very excited. I am very excited to see this.
JVL00:58:54My pal Richard Rushfield, who runs The Anchler, the newsletter to which everybody should subscribe if you want to know what's going on in Hollywood, says that Dunkirk is tracking to a $35 million opening. I posit to you that if that is true, it would mean that of the 19 major releases this summer, Dunkirk would be number 16. It would be below King Kong, below The Apes movie, below Cars 3, below Boss Baby, below Power Rangers. It would be half of Pirates of the Caribbean or Despicable Me. It would be one-third of The Fast and the Furious. If this happens, all hell is going to break loose in Hollywood because the argument that you can make that the big-budget original idea is going to be under total assault and you think the IP mania we have now is bad, it's going to be even worse.
Sonny00:59:52I mean, I don't see how it could get even worse. We'll go from having one movie in the top 20 grossing movies in a year being original to having zero. So, like, I don't...
JVL01:00:02Well, no, it would get worse in terms of greenlighting. You just won't be able to... Even Christopher Nolan can't open an original movie like this.
Sonny01:00:10The problem with this theory is that Christopher Nolan gets a special pass because he has a very good relationship with Warners and all the other studios and everybody wants to work with him.
JVL01:00:18Even if he... Regardless of...
Sonny01:00:20So, I actually don't know how much money this movie costs to make.
JVL01:00:24I believe it's $175.
Sonny01:00:25So, it needs to gross about $400 million worldwide. I think even at a $35 to $40 million opening, that would still probably multiple out to $150 to $160 million domestic if trends on Christopher Nolan movies and war movies hold. You're looking at a three and a half to four multiple. I have a question. What? Could it have legs? I mean, could it be one of these things? That's what I'm getting to. Well, that's the multiple. I think it will have a decent multiple. But even if it doesn't make a ton of money domestically, he does well at home video, on DVD and Blu-ray, and frankly... Classrooms. People like working with Christopher Nolan. He's professional. He makes... Interesting movies. He gives them a veneer of... Let's say this movie makes 100 million domestic and 200 million international. So it's a loser. It's still gonna get a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars. It's still gonna get some play at home. And I think that these things are not necessarily... I think these numbers are not necessarily panic point numbers. Certainly no more than we are already. Again, there is no... There's nowhere further to go down. You know how... It can always... I'm sorry, are you a conservative?
JVL01:01:44The one thing I will say, like, actual conservatism, is that it can always get worse.
Sonny01:01:50I'm sure it'll be fine. Well...
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