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#50. The Substandard on Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan Films, and more Tesla
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Reviews: Dunkirk — unanimous praise. Sonny calls it "the third act of a Christopher Nolan movie" stretched to feature length: pure cinema, almost a horror film about drowning that happens to be set at Dunkirk, structured across three interwoven timelines (beach/week, rescue boats/day, Spitfires/hour) with the payoff being the arrival of ten civilian vessels. JVL declares "if you don't love this movie you don't love movies" and praises the restraint of the aerial combat (two planes against two planes rather than CGI swarms). Vic saw it twice — once in IMAX at Dulles — and says the aerial shots are transcendent on the full-sized screen. The episode opens with a Gene Shalit parody review by Vic (four stars, dense with WWII puns including "the Bane of the Luftwaffe").
Dudes Chatting — Christopher Nolan Rankings: All three rank Nolan's filmography. JVL puts The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises tied at #1, Inception #2, Dunkirk #3, The Prestige #4, Memento #5, Interstellar #6, Batman Begins #7, Insomnia #8. Sonny has a more complicated ranking with Dunkirk in the top four behind The Dark Knight, Interstellar, and Memento. A spirited debate erupts over the Dark Knight Rises cockpit shot — JVL argues it ruins the film's ambiguity about whether Bruce Wayne survived. Dorothy Rabinovitz's Churchill-erasure criticism of Dunkirk is raised and dismissed. The episode opens with a Tesla tangent (following episode 49's test drive) and an Eddie Murphy Raw / Game of Thrones Season 1 chat.
Box Office: Dunkirk projected at $35M opening weekend.
Closes with Corrections (Sonny: zero; JVL corrects himself — Kristen Soltis Anderson worked at the Universal King Kong ride, not Disney) and Spirit of the Week (Filibuster dual cask bourbon).
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00♪♪ ♪♪
?00:00:30♪♪
Vic00:00:31Hello, and welcome back to The Substandard, brought to you by Dollar Shave Club. Stop spending a fortune on gimmicky shave tech you don't need. Make the smarter choice by joining Dollar Shave Club. Get your first month for only $5 with free shipping by going to dollarshaveclub.com slash substandard. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. I'd like to remind you. The Substandard is available on iTunes, Google Play, and now Stitcher.
Sonny00:01:05Stitcher.
Vic00:01:06Don't know what that is, but it sounds good.
Sonny00:01:07Everyone loves Stitcher. When we started this podcast, every time I would announce it on Twitter, I would get tweets from people saying, Why aren't you on Stitcher yet? It was Jeff, right?
JVL00:01:16It was all Jeff.
Sonny00:01:17I don't know. And I was always like, I don't know what that is. I don't know what Stitcher is. Look, all I do is I come here and talk into the microphone. Don't ask me about tech stuff.
Vic00:01:25That's right. That's right. Just look at a podcast. Search for Substandard. You'll easily. Find us. Please subscribe. Tell your friends. And leave a review in the off chance we decide to start reading reviews again.
Sonny00:01:36But also just leave reviews because it helps us. It makes us feel good. It does. You want your old friend Sonny to keep his part-time gig, don't you?
Vic00:01:44The five-star reviews help us, make us feel good. Okay. Gentlemen, how are we doing? Sonny, how are you?
Sonny00:01:51I'm great. I just went to, I'm just back from California. Went to Southern California. Whereabouts? We were staying near the airport. We were staying near Huntington Beach. Like a couple miles from the beach. It was lovely. We were there for my wife's grandfather's funeral. World War II hero. Very sad. Everyone was teary and stuff. R.I.P. How old was he? He was 92 or 93.
Vic00:02:21So I wonder how, did he serve, he must have served in the tail end of the war, 44, 45. We were getting to that point. That's why it's very interesting.
Sonny00:02:28Go ahead. So anyway. I, you know, but Southern California is very fun. And I noticed everywhere, so I go to Southern California about once a year because that's where my wife's from. And I used to notice all the Ferraris. You would see, you know, it's the only place in the world where you see a large number of Ferraris all the time because Southern California is very into conspicuous displays of wealth and also, you know, kind of fashion and like gauche fashion at that. Rodeo drive type stuff. Exactly.
JVL00:02:54Plus the 405 is a place where you can really gun that car and take full advantage of the what the Ferrari can do for you.
Sonny00:03:00Exactly. You see them stuck in traffic or you see them on like the, you know, 30 mile per hour sunset boulevard strip. And it's like, okay, this is just so useful. This is so, but I didn't see very many of them this time. I only saw one or two. What did you see? You know what I saw a lot of? Teslas. I saw a ton of Teslas. I went to a mall, one of those Southern California outdoor malls, you know, and you know what they had? They had a Tesla store. They had a, I don't remember what it, it wasn't the block. It was something else. It was, it was in like near Huntington. The Grove. Not the Grove. Yeah, yeah. I know what you're, what you're thinking of. Grove. The Grove, which is near like Lachma and all that stuff. No, it was, it was near Huntington Beach or in Newport, the city of Newport or something. I don't know. I don't, all of Southern California is basically the same to me. It's just sprawl. Anyway, but it's sprawl that is filled with Teslas. I mean, I must've seen literally 50 of them. Really? In, in, in like three days, in two days.
Vic00:03:54There's probably a lot of power stations there. Yeah.
Sonny00:03:57Well, I mean there, you see. There's probably signs for them, you know, power, quick power, quick charge. Can, can I just say.
Vic00:04:02Is the air cleaner, by the way, because of that? Did it smell cleaner?
Sonny00:04:05So when we were, when we were coming down, I could see the smog out of the airplane, but then once I got to the ground, I was like, wow, all of these electric cars mean there's no more pollution. That's amazing.
JVL00:04:14Just no more pollution. It should be more like California. I know. JVL. I just want to be clear that this is my complaint with Teslas. The Teslas are not replacing inefficient eight-cylinder Buicks. They are not replacing. They are not replacing 1970s era Ford pickup trucks. They're direct competitors. Tesla's direct competitor is Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Maserati. And which is fine. As I said, it is a balls out, awesome sports car. My concern about Tesla is that the government has subsidized to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, this company.
Sonny00:04:57Insane. Insane. And that they subsidize.
JVL00:04:58They subsidize the individual luxury sports car purchasers with $7,000 in tax credits federally, and in California, another $12,000, so that the people who- Really?
Sonny00:05:12Yes. Wait, you, from the state? Yes. You get a $12,000 tax credit? Yes. I didn't know that. Oh, Sonny, you got to go there and get it.
JVL00:05:19God, I got to- So if you are living in Southern California driving a Toyota Corolla, which, by the way, when you do all of- Somebody did this. I think it was Bloomberg Business Week did this. Like, five years ago. Like, when you do the full global environmental impact of these things, including manufacturing and what you do with the lithium ion batteries down the road and all this, the Tesla is not any more fuel efficient or energy efficient than, like, a Toyota Corolla. Those people are subsidizing the California-rich D-bags who are buying a Tesla in the exact same way that if we were to have a program, a government program, which would subsidize Ferrari purchases- People would go crazy about it, but because it's Tesla, everyone just says, blah, environment.
Vic00:06:04Well, doesn't Elon Musk say he doesn't want the subsidy anymore?
JVL00:06:07No.
Vic00:06:08No, this is not-
JVL00:06:08What Elon Musk says is, he says, I'm sorry, I'm a capitalist, and this thing is here for the pickings. You think I'm supposed to not take advantage of it?
Sonny00:06:16That's actually literally what he- He called into the show last week after we debuted, and he left a voicemail on The Weekly Standard, and he said, listen, you jerks. I'm going to take advantage of all this. My friend has taught me, et cetera, et cetera. You know what?
JVL00:06:31You know what? When Amber Heard wants to have half, it's going to be awesome, because he's running around with Amber Heard, and if we know anything about that lady, it's that she understands mathematics.
Sonny00:06:43Also, I find it pretty hard to believe that Elon Musk will not get some sort of- Prenup. Serious prenup to- You don't have to.
JVL00:06:52Half, Eddie. I want half. Another great- We can't play that. We can't play that, but actually, this is a real question. A serious question. So, the Eddie Murphy Raw thing, which we have discussed, I think, vaguely in the past- Delirious and Raw. Delirious, both of the two of them, which are, you are in my formative comedy experiences. Are those even allowed anymore? You notice you don't see it? Because they are so politically incorrect.
Vic00:07:18And so, what he's talking about, gays, and everyone's yucking it up and laughing. And the race is done. In Constitution Hall.
JVL00:07:25So, can you- A DAR Constitution Hall. Yeah. That's where that was. That was taped, really?
Vic00:07:29Yeah. And Reagan had just won re-election. And the whole crowd goes boo and goes crazy like that. Because, of course, you forget it's the district. Despite the fact that 49 states voted for him, the district has always been the district. And that's how I was able to remember, when I watched it a few years ago again, where we were at that time. And then he does his whole thing, his whole riff on gays. And that's why you don't see it. Nobody wants to talk about it.
JVL00:07:51But are you allowed to still think it's funny? No. Or no. You now, we all have to now pretend that it's not funny at all.
Sonny00:07:57I saw someone- I saw this ride, I don't know, maybe last year. Somebody who had re-watched Raw and was like, wow, I can't believe I used to find all this funny. See? I used to find all this funny. Used to. I was just like, wow.
?00:08:07God.
JVL00:08:08The stuff about standing in line to see Rocky. And how there's always some 5'1 Italian guy who's like, oh, I just saw Rocky. I'm going to pick a fight. Right. Getting his juju beads. It's hysterically funny. Yo, Rocco.
Vic00:08:19Yo, Rocco, he would say.
Sonny00:08:21By the way, this whole discussion is very problematic. Getting cut. Very problematic.
JVL00:08:25All right. No, he's fantastic. I can't believe I used to find that funny, Vic. I know. I feel bad about it. I just heard. If I can say anything offensive, Eddie Murphy, there is a bunch of comedy, which as a 12-year-old I did find funny, which now I look back on it and I think, eh, not so much. Right. Eddie Murphy, not true. Like, now I look back on it, it's just really funny stand-up. It's still good.
Vic00:08:42The, yeah, same thing if you look at, go to YouTube, because you can still find all the, you know, they haven't been banned from YouTube yet. And you look at some of the Rodney Dagerfield stand-ups that he does on The Tonight Show. Yeah. And people are laughing. You know, he was talking about going on different diets and he's tried everything, everything failed. He even went on a, he said he even went on a rice diet. The problem was every 30 minutes he felt like he had to iron his shirts. And that's really old because it goes back to cleaners. Now I do feel bad about that.
Sonny00:09:11See, now you laughed, but you laughed.
Vic00:09:13When it goes back, and it goes back to ancient Chinese secret, I mean, the whole, you know, but everyone, it's all forgotten now.
Sonny00:09:17Just as a reminder, Vic is Asian, so he's allowed to find that joke funny. I am allowed to laugh, you can't. I, Sonny Bunch, do not find this sort of humor. My grandfather.
Vic00:09:28My grandfather was from China. Andrew Dice Clay, not funny anymore. Oh my God.
JVL00:09:32And now you look back at Andrew Dice Clay, and you're like, no, this is just. No, I disagree. It was always like.
Vic00:09:37The racist stuff was extremely racist, but the, but it depends on, you know what I mean? Everyone will say, oh, I like that part, but not that part. But it's not even the offensiveness of it. You thought it was the material. You thought the material was bad.
JVL00:09:46No, it's just not funny anymore.
Vic00:09:47Like, it's bad material. Some of it. Some of it. The part where he's talking about, you know, the fur coat, and then the mother says, you know, about the liver, and he said, I had a last night, mom, it was good. You know, I'm not even telling, I don't, there's no back, I'm not giving the description of that one. I don't remember that bit. I'll tell you what I'm excited about, what Kate and I have been doing this past week is watching Game of Thrones. Oh. Finally. And, you know, Game of Thrones is now back, right? Seventh season is coming up. So this is really exciting that we are now just, you know, finishing up the first season. So I was thinking we could do a roundup. Oh, a recap? Yeah, but just on the first season.
Sonny00:10:25On the first season? Oh, okay. Yeah, sure.
Vic00:10:26You will not believe. What happened to Viserys Targaryen? His head melted in gold. It was really intense. I just want to say this.
Sonny00:10:34That's like halfway through the first season.
Vic00:10:35We're not even. Let me just say. How many episodes do you have left? Are you done with the first season? Let me just say this. I, who I, I'll tell you who I really love. I love Ned Stark and Drago, what's his name? Drogo. Khal Drogo. Khal Drogo? Yeah. I love him so much and I can't wait for another six seasons of them.
Sonny00:10:50Yeah. Well, what you should do is really get your hopes up for all that to happen. We just finished. You just finished the first season.
JVL00:10:56We just finished the first season. Yeah, the second. Wow. Why can't we get a Gene Shalit review of the first season of Game of Thrones?
Vic00:11:01Because it's so old. It's so in the past.
JVL00:11:03Can we get Gene Shalit recaps of each season of Game of Thrones? So as you finish them, we get Gene Shalit recaps?
Vic00:11:10That sounds like a lot of work.
JVL00:11:11So wait, did you, you bought. It was amazing.
Vic00:11:13It came as a pack for seasons one to six.
Sonny00:11:15So you bought the first six seasons on Prime Day? Yes. Praise be to Bezos. Now he can finally get with the culture.
JVL00:11:22How much did you pay for the six pack of Blu-rays?
Vic00:11:26Six? Sixty? Sixty bucks, baby. Ten bucks a season. That is a bargain.
JVL00:11:31Yeah. It's a good deal. I want Blu-ray to us. Bargain.
Vic00:11:34But it is, it does kind of feel like, well, you want to talk about it, but of course, people, it's been years. And so it just happened to us when we watched The Wire. Well, so this is. And so we were, so like seven years later, I'm talking to Tabor and the, Tabor Cook at the front desk. Hey, most deaf, right? Most deaf. She just laughs at me. You should just never have done that. She laughs at me. She says, you don't know what it says anymore.
Sonny00:11:51When I, when I, when I, when I was in California, I actually started reading this book called Dune. This, I, and it, you know, it's really good. It's about, it's about these guys and there's the spice and you gotta, and there's aliens. The millennial thing to do would be.
Vic00:12:05The Freeman. The millennial thing to do would be to make the announcement of what you just discovered and hey, everybody, I know you haven't discovered this yet.
Sonny00:12:11Look, this is, look, this is, the hot new thing is Dune. Dune.
JVL00:12:15Sonny, can you write the defense of how Cersei Lannister is the real hero of Game of Thrones? Because I'm actually having only read one of the books and not watch any of it. I'm basically preposterous. I'm prepared to accept this proposition as true. Are you ready for this?
Vic00:12:28Sorry, go ahead, Sonny.
JVL00:12:29Just from the gifts, because all of my favorite gifts online are Cersei Lannister. Are Cersei Lannister gifts? Just holding the wine. Her taking, her taking her kid in her hands and saying, everyone who is not us is an enemy.
Sonny00:12:42Yes! No, she, she is, I think you could, you could.
JVL00:12:45I choose violence.
Sonny00:12:46Yeah, no, you could, you could make the case for her as like the supreme practicer of real politic in the show. I don't know that she's necessarily the hero. The hero, of course. Or the White Walkers. Right.
JVL00:12:56The White Walkers are, the White Walkers are definitely convinced of this.
Sonny00:13:00I mean, I, I, not only are they the heroes, I think they will actually win. I think they, I do think that like the way that the show is set up to kind of subvert expectations. Please don't give away any spoilers. I'm not giving away anything.
Vic00:13:09For the many people who haven't gotten through season two yet. The many listeners who haven't gotten through.
Sonny00:13:15So, but I do think, I, I, I have written before that the White Walkers are the true heroes and it's time we all started cheering for them.
JVL00:13:22Yes. And that was a great piece, but I need a follow up from you on Cersei.
Sonny00:13:26But I, I, my heart wouldn't be in it. I don't, you know, I don't troll JVL. I only tell truths and that is not my truth.
JVL00:13:33Can't she be the real hero of the humans? I mean, if the humans have to have, if it's not going to be the White Walkers who win, surely it should be Cersei Lannister.
Vic00:13:40She, she, she creates her own truths, by the way. She just says, no, either something never happened and then she'll say this happened. She has her own sort of alternative reality. Tell us more about this.
Sonny00:13:50The guy who's watched the first season. Yes.
Vic00:13:52Well, I'll tell you what's really interesting here. I'm throwing this out there. I'm assuming that he's not listening, but you know who Cersei, Cersei Lannister is like, you know, she reminds you, she reminds you of Lauren McCormick. She looks just, they look the same. What?
Sonny00:14:04Mm-hmm.
Vic00:14:05No. Yeah. That's no, totally wrong. That's definitely.
JVL00:14:09I, I, I would, on another, on another podcast, I'm going to make the case for Lena Headey as the definitive Sarah Connor. Her Sarah Connor was so much better.
Sonny00:14:22Right. Well, so much better. Well, it's very, it's actually. I actually had never made this connection before that both Daenerys Targaryen and Cersei Lannister have now played Sarah Connor. That she was, what's her name? Emilia Clarke was the. Really? Terminator Genesis Sarah Connor. Oh, my goodness. And she was terrible. Like, have you seen. She's not a good. Have you seen Terminator. No, she's not a good actress. Emilia Clarke is not a good actress. She's a bad actress. She's lovely, I'm sure. She's actually. Like, like January Jones bad? She's actually. Yes. She's, she's, she's very good in the role of Dany, where she just has to kind of look regal. And like, spout cliches. And platitudes. But like.
Vic00:14:56Do the baby dragons get bigger? Don't tell me. I'll just.
JVL00:14:59Yes. They get bigger. No, but Lena Headey's Sarah. Short-lived Sarah Connor. Yeah, I know.
Sonny00:15:04It's fantastic. I mean, the definitive Sarah Connor is, is Linda Hamilton. I mean, that is.
Vic00:15:08I would say Lena Headey is better than Linda Hamilton. Do you remember Linda Hamilton and who she was dating? And then. Jim Cameron. And then you remember who she left him for?
JVL00:15:21Not Patty Jenkins. Another woman. Her stunt double. Her stunt double. Yes. Yes. Which is, I'm sure, was James Cameron's fantasy all along anyway. He's probably very conflicted about the end of that relationship, because on the one hand it's terrible, but on the other hand.
Vic00:15:34I don't think he was involved in it, though. That's the problem. Right. Well, that's the tragedy. Linda Hamilton also has a twin sister. Really? So in that Terminator scene, like, it's like she is in some of the scenes as her twin. Or twin.
JVL00:15:48Like our buddy, our friend who we met, whose name, the actress who was on Law and Order played one of the sisters. She was in DA's, is a twin. You and I hung out with her at one of the White House Correspondents' dinners.
Sonny00:15:58Angie Harmon?
Vic00:15:59No. No. The other one. Well, just move on with the show. No, no, no. I'll figure it out. I was going to say, because in fact, you know who had met Linda Hamilton? She played DJ Claire. You know who met Linda Hamilton's twin was our mutual friend from many years ago, Mike Sandler. She came into, like, a video rental store in Jersey. Adam Sandler? No, Mike Sandler. Jill Hennessey. Jill Hennessey. Jill Hennessey. I didn't realize she has a twin.
JVL00:16:21Okay. She has a twin. Who's awesome. And she and her twin were both in the Jeremy Irons weird twin movie together. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like her twin's only acting character or something like that. Mm-hmm. Right.
Vic00:16:32Okay. JVL, how was your week weekend?
JVL00:16:35It was fine. Just seeing a lot of baseball, a lot of minor league baseball with my kids, and I, I mean, you guys know how I feel about parenthood and the endless treasure, which is the experience of being a parent and how it's just puppy dogs and rainbows all the way down. But there really is nothing. There's nothing better than going to minor league games with my kids. All of them? No. The two were old enough to, like, sit in the field box next to it. And so we're at the game. There was a rain delay, so we were there early, and we're sitting over in the first row field box, like, really right on the field, about 20 feet from home, from first base. And the guys from the team finish stretching, and the guy who was the number one prospect for the Nationals is there, and he and one of the other dudes come walking past us, and my two kids. My two kids, because we go to a lot of games, know all the players by name. They shout, you know, hey, Victor, hey, Brian, good luck today. And these two guys are still young enough. They turn around and look at my kids and smile.
Sonny00:17:35You could tell that, like, they just had their days made.
JVL00:17:37They couldn't believe that, like, there are kids who know who they are, who cheer for them, even while they're stretching.
Vic00:17:43And it's just cool. I hope when they become pros that they don't change.
JVL00:17:45Well, they are pros. This is, yeah, this is, they're getting, they are living the dream. These guys are getting paid, not a ton of money, but they're getting paid to play baseball. And who wouldn't?
Sonny00:17:53I mean, they're probably, if he's the number one prospect for the Nats, he's probably already a millionaire.
Guest00:17:57Wow.
JVL00:17:58Victor might be. Brian, his buddy, is not. In fact, I think Brian's probably going to top out at single A. I don't think he's going any further. But this is, like, this, he's, he has made it. He's getting paid to play baseball.
Vic00:18:08At some point, do you think you'll end up seeing their Tim Tebow? I mean, with their, I mean, will their paths cross his team? They don't play each other?
JVL00:18:17He's down in South Carolina. We're in the Carolina League, which spans from north at the Delaware. The Wilmington Blue Rocks all the way down to, like, the Kinsmen. It doesn't matter what.
Vic00:18:26Have you made many trips to the beach lately?
JVL00:18:29We have not. We will go down to the beach in August, late August.
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Vic00:25:52Watch it, Dunkirk. You can't help but get that sinking feeling. In fact, I was drowning in sorrow. German panzers have got the Brits surrounded. Tanks a lot. And terror in the skies. Stuka dive bombers. Heinkels. And, oh, fuck, Wolf 190. That was a great plane, the Focke-Wulf 190. I love Tom Hardy as an RAF pilot. But, boy, could he spit fire. I guess you could say he was the Bane of the Luftwaffe. Anyway, for these poor souls on the beach, there's only one way out. That's right, Harry Styles. You're going in one direction. To the English Channel. So go see Dunkirk. Because hope floats. I give it four stars. And that's the Critics' Corner.
JVL00:26:51Slow clap.
Vic00:26:52Slow clap, Gene. You're lucky I left out the joke about the Messerschmitt in a bowl of chili. Yeah, so I'm probably going to go on vacation to the Berkshires. I'm going on vacation with my cat Leonard, Malton.
JVL00:27:09Gene now has his own outtakes.
Vic00:27:11He said, get me out of here. He's got ferocious wit.
Sonny00:27:18Ferocious. Yeah, that one works better. It's better on the page, I think, than it does.
Vic00:27:23It's enough to give one pause. Oh, jeez. Take care.
Sonny00:27:27Bye, Gene.
JVL00:27:29Gene, thank you for coming all the way down here. I hope Gene comes back next week.
Vic00:27:32You know, I'm so relieved that we don't have to bleep the Focke-Wulf 190. That's great. Because I got scared, and I realized, no, he was talking about the plane. Right. Which I think is there. Because bleeping is hard.
Sonny00:27:41Vic's back. Vic's back, everyone. Hey, Vic. Gene's out of the studio. Vic's back.
Vic00:27:45Did you bump into Gene as you came back into the studio? I bumped into his hair. There's not enough room for us, so, you know, one at a time. And I just was waiting outside. So, I saw Dunkirk twice. I saw it. Already? I saw it on Saturday with Kate.
JVL00:27:58Because you were so sad the first time you saw it. And you had to get over the... Until the ending. No. Kate wanted to see it, too.
Vic00:28:04So, we usually... Tragic movie. It was like a movie night. It was like a movie night for me and Kate. And then, like, that night, Michael, who now has braces, like, the wire came out. He's got braces already? Yeah. And he couldn't get, you know, there's no, like, ER dentist. So, he had to wait till Monday. So, he was just really frustrated and annoyed by this thing. So, I thought, you know what? How about I take you out on Sunday to the IMAX in Dulles? To see Dunkirk. To see Dunkirk. Yeah, that's a responsible thing to do with your nine-year-old child. I mean, he's, you know... I explained to him on the map what happened with the different, you know... It's a history lesson. It was a history lesson. And I said how we had them surrounded. I mean, how the Germans had them surrounded.
Sonny00:28:44That's a good callback. That's a good callback.
Vic00:28:46That was a close one. And... And... And... And we let them off the hook. But it was... He loved it. I said, what did you think? He said he thought it was amazing. But... And he understood what was going on. And... And there's limited profanity. I think only by Harry Styles. And... You know, the profanity's not the problem.
JVL00:29:04That's not what makes this inappropriate. The fear of drowning?
Vic00:29:05The fear of drowning? Yes.
Sonny00:29:07It's okay. Yeah, I mean, it's... It's pretty intense. This is definitely a... Intensity.
Vic00:29:11I mean, this is... He had to muffle his ears a lot because of the... It's so loud on the IMAX. Yeah. It's insane. So, you saw... What did you see? What format did you see it in the first time?
Sonny00:29:21Just like a regular theater?
Vic00:29:23The Ballston Theater.
Sonny00:29:24Ooh.
Vic00:29:24Oh, that's a great place. Yeah, I forget which theater that is. But anyway, the Ballston Theater. It's like watching it on your flat screen at home.
Sonny00:29:31Yeah.
Vic00:29:32I mean, it was like, oh, okay.
Sonny00:29:33Small. Yeah.
Vic00:29:34And then when you go to the IMAX, the aerial shots.
Sonny00:29:38Yeah. I saw the...
Vic00:29:39So, I... Just amazing. I just shook my head in silence, by the way.
Sonny00:29:41Yeah. I saw it in... It's good radio. I saw it in 70 millimeter, and it was on, like, a regular-sized screen. At an AMC. They didn't mask it. I don't know why you would bother... I don't know why you would bother setting up a 70 millimeter projector and then not taking the three extra seconds to lower the screens to make it the right size. I don't know why you... Why would you bother? Why would you bother doing that? I don't... Anyway. But it was definitely... It was, like... It was very clear and very pristine, and it, like, had that film feel, you know?
?00:30:13Oh, absolutely.
Sonny00:30:13It had, like, the little nicks in it and stuff, and that was great. But, like, it was definitely just kind of on a roll. I don't want to see it on a regular screen. I want to see it... I want to see it on the big, full IMAX.
JVL00:30:22So, which... The six-story screen is amazing. Here's my question. Which is the ultimate preferred format for this movie?
Sonny00:30:31Is it the 70 millimeter or the IMAX? My understanding is that it's the 65 millimeter IMAX or whatever. The 70 millimeter IMAX. Like, the film IMAX. Right.
JVL00:30:41So, the non-digital projected filmed IMAX.
Sonny00:30:44Which, I don't think there are any of those left in the DC area. We don't have... Yeah, I think the closest one is Baltimore. It doesn't have that, right. Right. The two air and space IMAXs are both now the, like, laser... Which are both really good, too, though. I mean, they're... Those are very exceptionally good screens.
Vic00:30:58JVL, where did you see it?
JVL00:31:00And how did you see it? I... So, I really hated the movie for a whole bunch of reasons that we can go into. But I wanted to see it on the smallest possible screen. And so, I chose the normal Dolby projection at my local AMC. And then... I sat all the way in the back, and I took my phone out, and I put my phone on camera mode, and aimed it at the screen, and I watched the entire movie through my phone. Because that's how the millennials all want to consume their content.
Vic00:31:33Were you recording it, too?
JVL00:31:34Because I'm about to call the police. Not recording. Just watching it through there. I was going to torrent it, and then watch it through my phone. Because that's how all the kids want to do it. Which is why we can't have movies released in theaters anymore. We need this Hollywood will tell you. And this is Jeffrey Katzenberg. He has this big new initiative, where he's trying to raise $2 billion in venture capital for. Because all of our content, because that's all this is. It's just content. Has to be viewed through your phone, because that's what's most important. I want to see it on the phone now. That's what everybody wants. That's what you want. Even if you don't know that you want it. You don't want it in a 70 millimeter iMac. You want it on your phone.
Vic00:32:13The commercials, many commercials of the guy watching. Because now you can get it streaming anytime, anyplace, anywhere. And he's looking on his phone, and he's crossing the street. He's crossing intersections. And he can't look up. He can't look up. You're glued to it, wherever you go. You're just glued to it now. That's right. That's the future.
JVL00:32:31So, I mean, it's a bad movie. There's no 3D. I stayed all the way through the credits. Not a single stinger. Oh, man. I was waiting for Harry Styles to come back on.
Sonny00:32:40You wanted to see what would...
JVL00:32:41Or I want to see Tom Hardy in the prison camp at the end or something. You've been conditioned.
Vic00:32:45And then he turns around, and it's another guy who we know or something. Yeah. There's no... There's no jokes. You know what the truth is? There's no jokes.
JVL00:32:51I don't really like the World War II expanded universe, frankly. As franchises go, the World War II franchise is not... There's no people of color. There's no second act or first act. I don't know why that is. And you know what? Here's the real problem. The real problem is there's just no pre-awareness. I do not know how I, as a content consumer, am supposed to care about something that I don't know anything about and I've never heard about before. I mean, like, so I've heard about comic books. I care about those. I've played board games. I care about those. I know old TV shows that I watched 30 years ago. I care about those. Who's ever heard of a Dunkirk? How am I supposed to care about something that I don't even know what that is? Were there Americans involved? I don't even know. I don't even know. That's not the content that I want to consume. This is America in the year 2017. We don't need content like Dunkirk.
Vic00:33:47Sonny. Do you want to give a review review? Would you really review reviews for me? And then we can have a real conversation. No disrespect to Cheat Shallot. Now I'm sad.
Sonny00:33:58Now I'm sad thinking about all the ways that Dunkirk really let me down subconsciously. I hadn't even realized it. You didn't even realize that you didn't care about it, did you?
Vic00:34:05Until now. Because there's no pre-awareness. The worst part is at the end of the movie, the thought crosses your mind. Oh, do I stay? Is there going to be something? Oh, no, wait a minute. You know, you're thinking.
Sonny00:34:14But you know what? So I will say that one of the nice things about having all the stingers through the one of the things that people should do is sit through credit scenes, not because they need to pay homage to the people who made the film or whatever, the artists. The content. But because it is like it is it is that is part of the movie. It is part of the kind of emotional setting. And I remember when I was when I was in college and taking film classes, one of the one of the movies we saw was Taxi Driver, which has a very kind of revealing final credit scene. And like the the the score, Bernard Ehrman score gets like steadily darker and you're like, OK, this is going to happen again. This is, you know, and it and not all movies are made that way. Not all movies are crafted with that sort of care. But I do think there is something to be said for sitting through the credits and like letting the score kind of wash over.
JVL00:35:04Yeah, no, I felt the same way watching Snatched. Yeah, exactly.
Sonny00:35:09So a review review. So Dunkirk is kind of Dunkirk is basically a the third act of a Nolan movie. Right. It is. I'm so glad you said it is. It is a third act. It's it's it's it is it is the money shot of a Nolan movie. It is you. You're basically cutting out all of the setup. You're cutting out all of the character development and you're getting right to the Nolan style interweaving of timelines and just pure action. As you said, pure cinema.
Vic00:35:37It's the search for the neutron bomb. Right.
Sonny00:35:39And so it's right. If you if you remember the The Dark Knight Rises, you have the scene where Gordon is fighting Bane and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character is trying to get the kids off the bridge. Right. He's trying to get the kids out of the city. And all of that is interwoven seamlessly. I mean, it works perfectly. Or if in in The Dark Knight or I'm sorry, in Interstellar, you have like the the the kind of Jessica Chastain segment in the in the in the bookshelf. And then you've got where you've got Matthew McConaughey actually literally in the bookshelf. And all of that is kind of interwoven together. Perfectly. This is very much like that. You have three you have three segments. You have a segment on the beach, which stretches out over a week. You have a segment on the boats, the civilian captains, which are which stretches out over a day. And then you have a segment in the air with Tom Hardy playing the RAF pilot. And that stretches out over an hour. And these all kind of, again, come together seamlessly in in ways that you you can see coming, but also are kind of surprised by the the the time dilation of the week is probably the weakest link of it. It there are there are moments where you're kind of trying to figure out exactly what is where that fits in the timeline. But it is it is it is such a intense experience that you don't actually really think about it too much. Frankly, you just kind of experience it. And this is an intense movie. It's not intense like a machine gun intense. It's intense like a vice. It's intense like it's ratcheting up the pressure. I mean, like you see it on the biggest screen possible. And what you are what you are taken by is the the claustrophobic tightness of it all. Like all of the shots that are that are under that are that are in like the holds of ships, for instance, are unbearably tense because you know what's coming and what's coming is death. What's coming is death by water. I mean, somebody on somebody on Twitter described it as a horror film about. Growning masquerading as a World War Two movie, and that's not wrong. Exactly. It is it is very it is very tense and about the fear of death and the kind of like just the the the way that the knowledge of death kind of impacts the way you you work. But it's also it is, again, a Christopher Nolan movie, and it is a movie about identity. I mean, all of his movies are about identity in one way or another. The Batman movies are about Batman versus Bruce Wayne, but also the the liberal order, as Jonathan likes to put it. The the way the liberal order defends itself. The prestige is about, you know, the identity of it. It is about literally discovering the identity of some of the characters. I'm like, but also about how you choose to live your life. The the the the the decision to to fully commit to your profession in a way that that hurts people around you.
Vic00:38:43I thought I thought it was just about magic.
Sonny00:38:45And it's also about magic. Magic. All of his movies are also about. Magic. Inception is about, you know, what what, you know, the what you anyway. But like the idea, the idea here, again, is that this is a movie about identity. It's about the identity of a nation. It is very much about the idea of Britain. What is Britain? What is the British identity? And was no, but I think is I mean, I do think that this is very much about how the Brits
Vic00:39:11see themselves really quickly when I was at the IMAX and it was packed. And there were a lot of Brits there just because we were chatting with them, waiting in line to get into the theater. Just a lot of Brits had gone to see this movie.
Sonny00:39:25Well, I mean, Dunkirk is like the foundational myth of the modern British state, basically. Right. I mean, this is like this is how Brits see themselves. This is as like the kind of beleaguered, you know, kind of shambolic, you know, getting things done, but in their own way. And some some smart liberal will write a review comparing this movie to Triumph. The Will and comparing the British lines of retreat to the like German columns of like order and marching and and write about how this is a deeply fascist movie, I think. But like this is what I assume that piece is actually already written. Yeah.
JVL00:40:03But like but it is it is it is a Trump celebration movie has already been written.
Sonny00:40:06I read that on Twitter. But that is that's a different review. That is like this is a movie about resisting Trump. Right. This is like this is a movie. We all need to stand against the fascists.
JVL00:40:16No, no, no, no, no, no. This was this is Chris Trumbull celebrating Trump because it's fascism. Yeah. No, it's amazing. Yeah.
Sonny00:40:24Well, I read that on Twitter. It is. It is. Since Christopher Nolan is basically the only kind of conservative slash reactionary filmmaker out there, it drives critics a little bit nuts. And I'm always curious to see how he's not even politically conservative.
JVL00:40:37No, no, no, no, no, no conservative as temperamentally. Right. Right. Right.
Vic00:40:42JVL.
JVL00:40:44It's I don't know. It's tremendous. I liked it a great deal in the theater the first time I have liked it a little bit more with each passing hour. I am looking forward to seeing it again this week. It's it's a truly great movie. And there of the things that make it great, the one which stands out to me most is how he has taken this is a very interesting trick. He's taken this epic story and told it in the smallest possible way. And so everything is on a small scale. Almost all the conflicts involve just a handful of men. You know, you get like nine guys inside the trawler who are being shot at by the Germans. You have when the planes fight, it's always like two planes versus two other planes. And this is the handful of guys on George's boat as they are making their way across the channel. And I wish all filmmakers could understand that, you know, there's that famous Red Letter Media review. Of Phantom Menace, where they catch, who's the producer? Is it Rick Berman?
Sonny00:41:52Who's, yeah, he's saying, you know, isn't he the Star Trek guy? Yes, he is. So some Lucas, sick of fans.
JVL00:41:58Yeah, who's sitting there saying, every frame so densely packed. And, and this one of the things you said, everything's claustrophobic, except for the aerial scenes. And when you get up into the air, there's nothing but white space. And the aerial combat scenes have, you contrast that with what you see in any other space battle, air battle, whatever, every movie you have seen that features some sort of aerial combat over the last 20 years, has 50,000 ships who have no idea who they are, flying around, shooting a million lasers at each other. And there's no tension to it.
Sonny00:42:33Yeah, compare it to the, the chase, the, the Millennium Falcons kind of escape in The Force Awakens, right? Where they're going through the guts of a Star Destroyer with like four TIE fighters behind them. And like, it just is. Yeah.
JVL00:42:45And there's no tension to that. Whereas this, it's incredible. It's incredibly tense and immersive and amazing.
Vic00:42:50The amount of patience that's required, because it's not, again, as you're saying, it's not this all out sort of machine guns blazing nonstop, short bursts. Yeah.
Sonny00:43:00And you, and you, and.
Vic00:43:01And patience as they get, you're waiting to get into the process. Exactly.
Sonny00:43:04And no, and the, the great thing about this is it, is that it shows you what aerial combat is like. It's not just firing at the plane. It's lining up the engines in your sights. Yeah. Right. It's not just. No, you notice that? Yeah, yeah. It's, I mean, it's, it's, it's so, it's so, and there was some somebody was on Twitter complaining to us about the historical inaccuracies of this movie, and I told them I didn't care about it, and I apologize if I was, if I was short with you, friend. But like, but the, but, but I actually don't care about it. I don't care if like the, the, the wrong airplane was dropping, the wrong kind of bombs, like that sort of authenticity means nothing to me as a film goer and as a film critic. What I care about is the, the emotional reality of it and the, the. Well, that's right. The intensity of it. And like. Yeah. And so if, if, if the guy is dropping the wrong bombs from the wrong airplane, this means nothing to me, and all that matters is what is, what is, what you are experiencing.
Vic00:43:57Andrew Roberts, uh, did you read it? He, he reviewed it from commentary, and he had a bunch of all the little details and big details. He says that Christopher Nolan gets wrong, and he said, yet at the end of the day, it's still a great movie because it gets the spirit right, and he's going to complain because he's a pedant. He's willing to admit that. Yeah. Yeah.
JVL00:44:14So if I can just make one more. Just. Sorry. Just for Nolan's smallness. The other thing he does, which no other director would have done, is when the, the moment when the civilian boats show up, finally, after all this time, any other director would have CGI'd hundreds of boats into that frame to overwhelm you with the impact of, look, look, because the music is swelling. This is the one moment where you get high point music in the entire time, and Nolan gives you like 10 frickin' boats. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. You have open water. You have water everywhere, and about 10 small boats showing up out of the mist together, and that's it. And all of that works. It's better. You get the payoff, the emotional and narrative payoffs are better at a small scale than they are at a giant scale.
Sonny00:45:01And so this is, this is why I actually love the way they, that Nolan introduces Churchill's speech at the end, the fight them on the beach. Great. With one character reading it from a newspaper to another character. I mean, like, there, there was a, there was a big piece in the Wall Street Journal. Somebody was complaining about how this movie erases Churchill. Well, first of all, first, first off, first off, you're, I, I like actually question if you've seen the movie. If you've seen the movie, you know that he's not erased. And, but secondly, if you can't appreciate the emotional, firstly, that whole essay by, uh, I think it was Rabinovitz, Dorothy Rabinovitz, who I love, who is fine. She's normally whatever, but like the, the, the, that, that whole essay boils down to, I wish this movie had been a different movie, which is the worst and lowest form of criticism. And I realized that she's not a film critic. She's not writing a piece of criticism, but writing that, that essay. And frankly, that's what the number, the number of responses I got when I said, I liked the film from people on Twitter saying, well, well, this movie erases Churchill, so it's bad. Shows that she has an outsized impact and should be more careful in what she writes. Uh, because that is, that is, that is absolutely true because that is, that is what she wrote was wrong. And, and, but also bad. I mean, it's just a bad piece of, of, so this is, but this actually,
JVL00:46:17strikes me, it was, I understand that this is not the Dunkirk movie I thought I was going to get from Christopher Nolan and, uh, but I love this so much. Honestly, I could watch another Chris Nolan Dunkirk movie. I mean, if he wanted to go and do a, just take another pass at it and tell a different set of Dunkirk story or a different kind of, which is like the big sweeping Churchill, I would sit through that too. Well, I mean, this is, but that's a different movie, right? No, no, this is what I'm saying. I'm agreeing with you here is that, is that this is not the movie I expected. And, but I would say in, I am normally very, very, very tolerant of the idea that art plays differently to different people and that there's no accounting for taste and all that. This is one of the very rare times where I would say, if you don't love this movie, then you don't actually love movies. You don't have to like it, but if you don't love the fact of this and the ambition of this and the execution of this, it is very much, then you just
Sonny00:47:15don't like what cinema is. It is pure. Cinema in, in this, in the like, kind of vaguely French sense of the term. It is, it is about motion and movement and it is not about plot and story. It is about capturing an idea and showing it through moving picture.
Vic00:47:31Using actual film and not CGI, but usually using actual boats. I, the eye picks that up and same thing with the aircraft. The eye picks it right.
Sonny00:47:41And it studies actual men, 6,000 extras or whatever, rather than, and he
Vic00:47:44used cardboard cutouts too, I think at some point, but he didn't use it any CGI. Um, so I think that was, um, the smart choice by, uh, you know, what else is a smart choice guys? The dollar shave club. You'll get a great shave at a great price. Conveniently delivered right to your door. It's a no brainer choice. You no longer have to schlep to the store to buy a cheap disposable razor that gives you a cheap shave or spend a fortune on razors with gimmicky shaving tech. You didn't need when I use my dollar shave club, executive razor with their Dr. Carver's shave butter, the blade glides ever so gently. It gives me such a smooth shave. Plus their Dr. Carver's shave butter is transparent for a more precise shave helps prevent ingrown hairs and fights razor bumps. Now listeners to the substandard podcast can make the smarter choice by joining dollar shave club for a limited time. New members get their first month of the executive razor with a tube of their Dr. Carver's shave butter for only $5 with free shipping. After that raises are just a few bucks a month. That's a $15 value for only five bucks in your first month. You get an awesome weighty hand. A full cassette of four cartridges and a tube of their shave butter. After your first month replacement cartridges ship automatically at their regular price. There are no hidden fees and no commitments cancel anytime you like, but why would you, you can only get this offer exclusively at dollar shave club.com sat slash substandard. That's dollar shave club.com slash substandard. Are we all done cooked out?
Sonny00:49:12Yeah. Are we going to rank the Nolan films? Yes. We're going to rank it. All right, JVL, you go first. Really? Yes. You first. All of them. None of the top three. Okay. All of them, including following. Where does following go?
JVL00:49:29Do you want me to start from the bottom or the top?
Sonny00:49:31Start from the bottom. Go 10 to one.
JVL00:49:34Number eight, Insomnia. Number seven, Interstellar. Number six, Batman Begins. Flip those. Flip those. I'm sorry. Number seven, number eight, Insomnia. Number seven, Batman Begins. Number six, Interstellar. Number five, Memento. Number four, Prestige. Number three, Dunkirk. Number two, Inception. And number one is Dark Knight slash Dark Knight Rises, because I just can't separate those two films. What about following? I've never seen the following.
Sonny00:50:04It's not the following. That's the terrible TV show. It's following.
JVL00:50:09Get it right.
Sonny00:50:10Get it right, JVL. I've never seen it. Never seen it.
JVL00:50:12You can pick it up half price from Barnes & Noble. They are doing their Criterion sale right now.
Sonny00:50:17Can I ask? Can I ask this? Who did it? For only $20, you can complete your collection.
JVL00:50:20I'm sorry. What would Jeff Bezos think about me buying that from Barnes & Noble? Jeff Bezos understands a deal when he sees one. I think that Jeff would be very, sorry, Mr. Bezos, be very cross when my browser eventually communicates with the Amazon mothership and tells them that I've bought a product from Barnes & Noble.
Sonny00:50:38Mr. Bezos understands that the deal that you can get is the deal that you have to take. All right? So just because Amazon doesn't yet own Criterion Collection. And they should soon, I hope. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed.
Vic00:50:52It's a drop in the bucket. So that's my ranking.
JVL00:50:55That's my ranking. And I'm happy, if you would like to pick a part in it, I'm happy to defend portions of it, if you like.
Sonny00:51:00My problem is your conflation of The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, which I understand, I understand to a certain extent. My problem with The Dark Knight Rises is that it has too many plot holes. So here's, and I don't even mean like the like traveling across the world in a day, but whatever. That stuff doesn't bother me. You mean when he escaped from the prison. Right, right.
JVL00:51:20Because he's Batman.
Sonny00:51:22So here's my big problem with the film. And it's a single shot. If you had taken the shot out, it might be my favorite Nolan movie. The sequence where, all right, so like they're on the bridge, right? And Joseph Gordon-Levitt's like, you've killed us. And then the kid's like, look, it's Batman. And the building explodes and the Batwing comes, right? Right. And he's carrying the bomb underneath it, right? Like the one big giant testicle. He's just carrying it out to sea.
JVL00:51:51Like John Kruk before him.
Sonny00:51:52Exactly. And Nolan cuts. And he cuts from outside. You see the Batwing flying away. He cuts inside the cockpit. And you see Batman's face. And he looks very sad. And he's like, this is the sacrifice I'm making. And then he cuts to the explosion, right? Basically, that's the sequence. Something like that, yeah. That's the sequence. If you had taken out the shot of Batman in, in the cockpit, the end of the movie makes sense. Where he's in France. Where we see the scene with Michael Caine saying, I'm sorry, with Morgan Freeman, where he's like, oh, somebody has already fixed the autopilot.
JVL00:52:32It still makes sense. He bails out at some point over the water.
Sonny00:52:35There's no chance he can bail out over the water and survive that blast. I mean, this is just a problem for me. For a guy who is, he constructs these little puzzle boxes and he makes them, makes them all work. That scene, that shot, that one shot, that one kind of cheap emotional shot,
JVL00:52:53ruins that whole scene. Here's what I would say. So Dark Knight is a perfect movie. There is nothing, everything in it is perfect. Dark Knight Rises is not. And Dark Knight Rises has more, more problematic than that for me, is a bunch of first act problems. Like it just, you know, just beats that don't play right. Stuff with Alfred really doesn't play right. When, you know, he is leaving Christian Bale. But that said, for me, the Dark Knight Rises has the single best second and third act of any movie I've ever seen. It just moves so relentlessly forward on rails. And as all of those tumblers fall home in it, it just, for me, packs the biggest wallop of any movie I've ever seen.
Vic00:53:40The kids singing the Star Spangled Banner at the stadium. The lovely voice. Michael, Michael, I found it on YouTube, and he's like, Dad, want to watch it again? I said, yeah, sure.
Sonny00:53:51I would, I watch, I would say that I, like, just randomly watch the Bane scenes and the Joker scenes on YouTube, like, once every three or four months. Just like, like in my office when I'm bored, because I don't have anything to edit because my writers haven't filed. And I, I just, I just sit there and I watch the Joker and Bane scenes and it's great. So, anyway, Vic, you're ranking.
JVL00:54:15I didn't know we were doing rankings, so I'm going to take a pass.
Vic00:54:18What?
JVL00:54:19You're going to pass? You should have Nolan rankings just tattooed across your heart. I mean, it's hard to decide.
Vic00:54:24What do you spend your time thinking about? It's hard to decide, but I guess you're, What's a smart choice, Vic?
Sonny00:54:28This isn't a smart choice. This is a bad choice. I guess,
Vic00:54:31I guess you're right that Dark Knight is better than Dark Knight Rises. It's a, it's a, it's a perfect movie. I really like Dud Crick, so that's what's resonating in my mind right now. But Inception, even though it's a tragedy for you, I love, yeah, no comment. Inception, what I liked about that is, he makes you work because he's obsessed with temporality, but he makes you work to figure out where are we and what is happening at three different levels of,
JVL00:54:55That's, that third act in Inception is the most amazing The Arctic Fortress film editing I've ever seen. piece of editing. I mean, like, this is the,
Sonny00:55:04the best editing ever. He is, he is underrated. Whoever edits his film, I mean, this is, this is how underrated editing is as an art form. I don't even actually know who edits his films. I assume Nolan is in there in the editing bay. Yeah, but he's got a professional. He's got a professional who is his trusted deputy. But like, whoever, whoever is his guy who is putting it together is a, is a genius.
Vic00:55:20Also, the cinematographer for Dunkirk was Hoidavan Hoidama, who also, Hoidavan Hoidama. That is a great name. That is a great name. He did Interstellar and he did The Fighter working with my friend Todd Palladino as a cameraman. Hoidavan Hoidama. He says Hoida is a very nice guy. No comment on David O. Russell. Does Todd listen to the show? Yes. Oh, good. On occasion. Oh, by the way, you know who else listens to the show? I'm just giving a quick shout-out here of JVL. Did you know Ulf and Christiane Gartsky listen to the show?
JVL00:55:47Ulf told me that when we had lunch the other day. He's only listening, though, because we were having lunch and I told him to listen.
Vic00:55:52Well, hello to Ulf and Christiane if you're listening. Okay.
Sonny00:55:54Okay. Sonny, go. Okay, so I'm going to just kind of rattle them off from memory here because I don't have any notes in front of me. Following, number 10, number 9, insomnia, number 8, I need my, hold on, I'm sorry, number, I have the, number 8, Batman Begins, number 7, The Dark Knight Rises, number 6, Inception, number 5, Batman Begins, number 4, did I already say Inception? You just said Batman Begins. This whole bit has gone off the rails here. I need my notes. Anyway, the problem is that like 5 of these movies are 4 star films and I would put Dunkirk at the bottom range of that 4 stars, right? Like I would say The Dark Knight, Interstellar, and Memento are probably better than Dunkirk. But I also think Dunkirk is in many ways a perfect film. It is a perfect piece of cinema. It is a perfect, you know.
Vic00:57:01We should move on to corrections edition. Okay. I'm sorry, before we move on. Please.
JVL00:57:07His name is Lee Smith. Not just a senior editor at The Weekly Standard. He is Nolan's editor of choice, has done almost all of the Nolan movies. And of course, as you would expect, when you look through the rest of his filmography, there are a bunch of movies that are actually pretty good. And I'm certain that Lee Smith's talents are probably what made, like, you know, X-Men First Class, which is a really underappreciated movie. Oh, yeah, because you have a guy like this behind the scenes turning out a great edit. Master and Commander.
Sonny00:57:38Master and Commander, great. That's a great movie, yeah. Yeah, there are
JVL00:57:41Buffalo Souls, The Soldiers, and The Truman Show.
Vic00:57:45So he's... So he's worked with Peter Weir twice.
JVL00:57:48Yes. Robocop 2. Just... So, Lee Smith. All credit to Lee Smith.
Sonny00:57:56Robocop 2 is kind of underrated. Yes. It's this weird... People should go back and watch it. I vaguely remember...
Vic00:58:01Co-written by Frank Miller. There you go. Corrections, additions. I got a big one for myself.
Sonny00:58:07I have none.
Vic00:58:08Okay. On the last micro-episode, we were talking about the late George Romero, and I said, oh yeah, the little Easter egg in Doom is when you go back and George Romero's head on the spike. I should have known better. It's not George Romero. As many, many, many listeners... When you said it, I thought to myself, that doesn't seem right. The answer is Cesar Romero, the Joker. It's his head on the spike. No, no, no, no, no. It's John Romero. It's John Romero. It's Oscar Romero, the priest from El Salvador. Oh, no, no, no. It's John Romero. And I should have known better because I actually read the book Masters of Doom by David Kushner. We both read that book? I did because I was doing it for my Civilization piece. I wanted to do a read-up.
JVL00:58:47I reviewed that for, like,
Vic00:58:48the journal back in the day. Yeah, by David Kushner. Or is it Jared Kushner? I get confused. David. Okay.
JVL00:58:55I had one large correction about our buddy, Kristen Soltis-Anderson. I had said she worked at Disney. She did not. And I can't believe I didn't know. I knew it. She worked at Universal and she worked specifically the King Kong ride at Universal, which is no longer there. And she even posted to Instagram a picture of, like, her high school self at the park working the ride. And it's adorable. I can put it in show notes if I decide to do show notes this week. I haven't really reached a conclusion on that.
Vic00:59:26Okay. It was a great old ride. It was, like, on a little, like, bus. Like a tour bus. And then you stopped in front of each dioramas set, basically, including a helicopter with a machine gun and then a giant King Kong head. Okay. Spirit of the Week. Sonny Bunch brings this to us. Talk about it.
Sonny00:59:44Yeah. So, this is filibuster dual cask handcrafted in two distinct oak barrels finished in French oak barrels. It's good. I thought it was really good.
JVL00:59:54It's actually really... Yeah. What does it mean to be handcrafted? It just... It doesn't mean anything.
Sonny01:00:01It doesn't mean anything.
JVL01:00:02Are there non-hand... Are there machine-crafted?
Vic01:00:04Exactly. Yeah. It is a... It's what they call a proof point in the business because they know when consumers are looking at what to buy, oh, I like that. I like that because it says handcrafted or small batch or things like that. It doesn't mean anything. Cask strength. Ooh, cask strength. But...
JVL01:00:18But filibuster's from this area,
Vic01:00:20which is why I picked it up. Handcrafted became a very controversial thing with Tito's Vodka because Tito's is handmade vodka. It says it on the label and then people said, well, wait a minute, you use machines, so what counts and what doesn't? Thank you, Sonny. It was delicious.
Sonny01:00:32Yeah, I mean,
JVL01:00:33at a $35 price point, this is an exceptionally...
Sonny01:00:36This is an exceptionally smooth and tasty bourbon.
Vic01:00:39Thank you, thank you. And that's all the time we are giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Victorino Matus at Sonny Bunch. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play or Stitcher. Just type in Substandard on a podcast and we're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. And don't forget, Substandard show notes will possibly be up this Friday at 11 a.m. TBD. If you want to see them, make sure to tweet at JV Last.
Sonny01:01:06Very important. He likes to hear from you and he also needs a little bit of prodding sometimes.
Vic01:01:10Until next time.
Sonny01:01:24So we didn't really talk about Comic-Con at all and one thing from Comic-Con that I saw was Old Forrester is releasing a bourbon that is tied to the new Kingsman movie. It's Statesman, Old Forrester, bourbon.
Vic01:01:41That's too crazy. What's the connection between bourbon and the Kingsman?
Sonny01:01:43So in the new Kingsman movie, apparently the Kingsman of the United States, they're called the Statesmen and they have a whiskey distillery. This is Channing Tatum. Yes. So anyway, if only I knew a movie podcast, a pop culture podcast that had a spirit of the week that we could sample and, you know, dear Old Forrester, I'm begging for bourbon. That's all I'm doing right now. Just FYI. I'm going to send this to someone. We'll get it out there.
Vic01:02:08I think it's owned by Brown Forman. It's the same people that own Woodford Reserve. I think that's where they're doing the bottling.
JVL01:02:13Don't you guys? Don't you have an inn? No people in the industry. Don't you have an inn? Yeah, I'll look into it. Maybe we can get a bottle
Vic01:02:19of Old Forrester. That would be very exciting. Can we talk a little bit about the Justice League trailer? Please. I looked at the chair. I showed it to Michael and we were both nonplussed. So go for it. Aquaman. I'm not sure what was happening. Go for it.
JVL01:02:31Dude. Hey, dude.
Vic01:02:32Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I had one thought and then I'll let you guys talk because, again, I'm not a DC person but I did have one thought which was it strikes me as their Flash is Spider-Man. It's the kid. They have a kid and it's the Flash. Yeah. That's it. Okay.
JVL01:02:48I think they might be aiming to do more with the Flash in the SJW sense of the word.
Sonny01:02:57Well, he is... This gets too close to politics. Right.
JVL01:03:02No, I don't want to do that either. So the big news for Comic-Con is that Joss Whedon has the full... full cast back doing a whole bunch of reshoots for a long while.
Sonny01:03:11But these were... These were scheduled. These were planned. And remember... Yeah, I know. I don't... I'm not a reshoots equal death thing. The only reason Zack Snyder is not there doing them is because he recused himself because of his daughter's suicide.
JVL01:03:22Yes. No, no. This is not a...
Sonny01:03:24There are people who have been tweeting at me like, oh, oh, look at Zack Snyder. He's not there. They're replacing him with the Buffy guy. And I want to tell all... Yeah, no, no, no, no. I want to tell all those people to fuck themselves.
?01:03:33Oh.
Vic01:03:34Thanks, Sonny. You mean Focke-Wulf. What time is that?
Sonny01:03:37Yeah.
JVL01:03:38That's at 1.0430 something. God, this is such... Anybody who has not done editing has no idea
Sonny01:03:45what a pain in the ass this is. Well, I'm sitting here in the editing booth with you this week, so you can show me how it works.
JVL01:03:51So here are my compact thoughts. What made me angry about this is not the reshoots, not the Joss Whedon reshoots. This is... It used to be the case that if a movie had reshoots that was a real sign that there was quality control problems. That I don't think is any longer the case. Most movies are made... They go to production shooting too soon. They are working out problems as they go and oftentimes you just need to come back and that's fine. Did you see who the real sticker was trying to line up actorly schedules to come back for the reshoots?
Sonny01:04:29I did, and this is a massive spoiler and I'm really annoyed that they talked about it. Frankly, I'm...
JVL01:04:35Of course, but it's not a spoiler because if you know any... Henry Cavill. Oh, wait a minute. He's not dead? Is he in the birthing matrix? Is it just the sleep of Superman? He's going to come back and be like, hey, Lois, you know? Like, I didn't know. So, like, you didn't... Eh, anyone, right? I went and watched The Death and Sleep of Superman again yesterday while I was running on the treadmill. And this is just... Everything about this strikes me... On your phone? On my phone. On your phone? I think Max would be cool with that.
Vic01:05:03It's true.
JVL01:05:05And I... So, they are... This is what bothers me. Not that they're reshoots, but they are bringing back Superman again because this is all we can do in DC. You can do... You can do deaths of characters and you can do intro story, origins of characters. And that's it. And that's it. There are no stories to be told. And I... God, it makes me so angry.
Sonny01:05:27Well, I was... I was always vaguely annoyed when they did the Doomsday plot at the end of... Dawn of Justice. Yeah, no kidding. It seemed unnecessary and kind of tacked on. And... But at the same time, I have a hard time getting worked up about this. And you know what? I'm sure it'll be fine.
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