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#54. The Substandard on Atomic Blonde, Death Wish, and 3-D
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Dudes Chatting — The Death Wish Remake and the Decline of 3-D: The trailer for the Death Wish remake (Eli Roth directing, Bruce Willis starring) prompts a debate: JVL argues that "alt-right" has become the new content-free intensifier the way "neocon" was used in the 2000s, applied reflexively to anything vaguely reactionary. Sonny counters that the original Death Wish was genuinely ideologically provocative, but this remake looks like ordinary IP exploitation dressed in familiar clothes. They discuss director Eli Roth as a crypto-conservative: his horror films (Hostel, Cabin Fever, The Green Inferno) carry right-of-center subtexts. The second major topic is IMAX pulling back on 3-D: 3-D's share of box office revenue has dropped from 21% in 2010 to 14% in 2016, with audience resistance driven by germ anxiety about shared glasses and the dim picture quality. JVL recalls the Michael Jackson short Captain EO — directed by Francis Ford Coppola — as an early IMAX spectacle. JVL also presents his ranking of "interesting crime thrillers" featuring lesbian or bisexual characters: Bound #1, Wild Things #2, Embrace of the Vampire #3, Blue Is the Warmest Color #4, Mulholland Drive #5.
Reviews: Atomic Blonde — Vic performs a Gene Shalit parody review (three stars, "Ich bin ein fan"). Sonny is positive overall: calls it the best female-led comic-book-adjacent film of the summer, singles out the 20-minute stairwell fight sequence presented as a single continuous shot, praises James McAvoy's comic relief and John Goodman as the straight man within the film's interrogation frame. JVL thinks it is merely okay — 15 minutes too long, too much blue-filter color grading — and admits he might have preferred a version where Lorraine remained the villain.
Box Office: The Dark Tower opened at #1; Annabelle: Creation, Dunkirk, The Emoji Movie, and Girls Trip follow; Atomic Blonde debuts at #8.
Closes with Corrections (Sonny corrects himself: Pierre Morel directed Taken, not Olivier Megaton) and Spirit of the Week (Old Forester 1920 Prohibition Style bourbon, 115 proof). Outtake note: Vic enthused about a local Chinese buffet called Hunan Garden during recording; it closed four days later.
Full transcript
Sonny00:00:00Hi, I'm Bill Kristol, it's great to have Gene Shalit now on The Substandard, much better than Vic Madden.
Vic00:00:30Hello, and welcome back to The Substandard, brought to you by Dollar Shave Club. Stop spending a fortune on Kimiki's shave tech you don't need. Make the smarter choice by joining Dollar Shave Club. Get your first month for only five bucks 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 that The Substandard is available on iTunes, Google Play, and now Stitcher. Just look under podcast search for Substandard, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, leave a review. In addition, we'd also like to remind you that Substandard show notes posted by Jonathan Last are available most Fridays at 11 a.m. at weeklystandard.com. Gentlemen, how are we? Sonny. Um, I'm great.
Sonny00:01:30I just finished Dune. I just finished, you know.
Vic00:01:35That's like, how many pages is that?
Sonny00:01:36It was, it's like 800 pages, something like that.
Vic00:01:38How long did it take you to finish?
Sonny00:01:39It took me about two weeks, but it would have taken less time. It's a quick read, actually, but it would have taken less time if I hadn't, like, had to fly out to California and stuff. There was a lot of lost reading time.
Vic00:01:50You're a fast reader.
Sonny00:01:51No, I'm not. I'm actually really, if I could pay like $5,000 to double my reading speed, I would do it in a second, because I'm just, I'm actually, I'm not a fast reader. I'm actually a remarkably slow reader.
Vic00:02:00You know how long 800 pages would take me?
Sonny00:02:02800 years. All right, fair enough. I'm faster than you, but that's, and it was, it's another of these sci-fi books that I kind of missed as a child and am catching up on right now. The other is Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, which I read when the movie was coming out. And it is, it's very kind of interesting to think about these two movies, or these two books, from a, from the perspective of an adult reading them, because it's very clear what makes them interesting. What makes them popular to, like, teenage boys in particular. The protagonists of both are, like, kind of these genius experts who are also, like, filled with righteous violence and expert, experts at hand-to-hand combat, who also are, like, super sensitive and can kind of see every, how all of the things are playing out around them, and are also geniuses who are, like, smarter than everyone around them. So it's like, I read these books and I'm like, wow. So basically, if you want to create a best-selling book that will appeal to young boys you just have to come up with a character who is a genius, a narcissist, who's brilliant at combat, and can fulfill all of the fantasies of young teenage boys who are, like, feel maligned and at war with the world.
JVL00:03:10Their wish fulfillment for gifted and talented adolescents. Right, exactly.
Sonny00:03:14I don't plan on reading any more of the Dune books, but, like, it was, it was, it's fine. So it's a series, it's not just one. Oh yeah, there's, there's, like, a hundred of these books.
JVL00:03:22Can I, can I make a suggestion for you? Yeah, sure. You should read Shadow of Ender. There's a whole universe of Ender's game. Yeah, I read those books, yeah. But did you, the Shadow, which is the one we were, which tells the same story, but following Bean, and which is better than Ender's game, I think. More interesting.
Sonny00:03:37I don't know if it's better, but I do think it is, like, kind of a, it feels like a more fully thought out series, because he had the template to follow from, from the, from the Ender's books. I actually really, I, I, I really like the, the, the, what, the first Ender sequel, where he's, like, the, he's, he's sad. Yes. Yeah. Because he's a genocidal, uh, killer. Gotta do what you gotta do. And has to, has to live on the, that planet.
Vic00:04:03Did, did, did reading the book make you more inclined to watch the movie, or less inclined?
Sonny00:04:10Uh, I don't know how to answer that, but I mean, I, I, I was going to, but here's the problem, I was going to have to watch it anyway, because I, I was going to review it, and this is why I was reading it. I was only reading it because I was going to watch it and review it. Um, uh, it's a long movie, too. It's not a long movie. It's less than two hours. Is it really?
Vic00:04:30Yeah, I felt like it was, like, three hours. It's terrible. Yeah, it's just because it's, because it felt long, right?
JVL00:04:33The reason it feels long is because you don't know what's going on unless you've read the book. Right. Got it. Right.
Vic00:04:37Well, that was me.
JVL00:04:38So anyway.
Vic00:04:39Yeah. Okay. Um, I, uh, over the weekend, uh, with my family, who's, who are back now, uh. Oh, sorry. Oh. Oh, I mean, I mean, I'm so glad. Oh, I'm so happy.
Sonny00:04:52How did you, how did you spend your, your, your final days of freedom? Did you go to all of the Chinese buffets in the area?
Vic00:04:58No, you know what? I, I just did that one, Hunan Gate, and then I filled up my social calendar. I saw some Germans on Thursday night. Yes, I did.
Sonny00:05:07Did you go to some beer halls?
Vic00:05:08Uh, no, no, they went to Elephant and Castle. I thought, it was more like Elephant and the High Castle, or whatever.
Sonny00:05:13The Elephant and the High Castle. I, I actually really like Elephant and Castle, as far as, like, uh, crappy, uh, knockoff British pubs go. It's very knockoff. It's, it is like, it's like the TGI Fridays of British. It kind of is. It's that good. Okay. British pubs. The, the poutine. Yeah. The poutine. Oh, I love it. I love it.
Vic00:05:31In fact, I think you and I have probably eaten there. I think we have. At the Elephant and the High Castle. Yeah, yeah, the one on 19th and I. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. All right, so, over the, on Saturday night, um, I had purchased these tickets, you know, either in May or in June, and the whole family went to Wolf Trap. Oh. Uh, and we went to see Jurassic Park with the score provided by the National Symphony Orchestra. Oh, that's cool. And that was very cool. I wondered how it worked, which is, I guess, they're able to... I don't know how they're able to do it. Is it the studio do this? I don't know. We were able to isolate the music from the rest of the audio for the movie, so their dialogue is there, but there's none of the sound effects, with a few exceptions. You know, like, there's some, um, voice effects, uh, that they use that obviously the Symphony Orchestra is not going to provide, like, oh, you know, in the beginning, or some weird, you know, other weird noises, but in terms of...
Sonny00:06:21Wait, when you say voice effects, what do you, when you say sound effects, do you hear, like, the Tyrannosaurus roar? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, you hear all that. Yeah, yeah.
Vic00:06:27All of that is there, um, and obviously that's all provided from the movie. The other interesting thing is, uh, the actual dialogue, the conversation, is sometimes muffled, or it's, it's not the best... Under, under the score. Yeah. It's not the best quality, but the score... So it's kind of like seeing a Christopher Nolan movie. Or it's like Miami Vice, right? It's Miami Vice. Uh, and, but, but the score was so impressive that there are so many moments where you forget that it's not in the movie, that it's actually live. And I had to remind the kids, you know, just take a look at it, and you could see what they're doing, the violinists and the harpists and the drums and everything else is very, very exciting. Uh, a lot, it was packed, first of all. The whole, um, there was not an empty seat in the house, and the picnic area was packed. And so they have a smaller screen for the people in the picnic area, so you can drink and eat, and then, but we had seats. We had seats in orchestra level. It was fantastic, with a big screen. A lot of cosplay. Hmm. I did not expect that for Jurassic Park. Were they dressed up as Ian Malcolm? Yeah, oh, no, no Ian, they were all Alan. Uh, they were all Dr. Grant. What? They were all dressed up, sort of wearing those blue denim shirts and the red neckerchief and the hats. And there was a couple women wearing white, like, blonde wigs. Like Laura Dern? To be like, yes, and then, uh, and then a couple. Anyone Nedry? No, nobody. I think there were. We've got Nedry here. Nedry. Very good. Dachshund. No, not Dachshund. Yeah, but that works. No, no, I think there were a lot of Nedrys who thought they were Alan Grant. I'll just put it to you that way. Like, they showed up thinking they're one, but in fact, when you looked at them, they were the other. Oh. And there were some guys wearing the orange helmets and with the, uh, pretend. With the cattle props? Yeah, with the cattle. Shoot.
JVL00:08:03Yes. So nobody was there as Muldoon?
Vic00:08:05No, I said, that's what I said. If I had to go cosplay, I would easily dress up as Muldoon. No, you've got to be Ian Malcolm.
Sonny00:08:10He's the best. Everyone. You can wear, you can, it's the only excuse you'll ever have in public to wear, like, a shirt unbuttoned down to your navel. By the way. Unless you're Bernard Henri Livy. So, yes, well, very good.
JVL00:08:20Surely, Sonny, you're no stranger to strange attractions.
Vic00:08:25Oh, there it goes again. Chaos theory. The audience was so into the movie, and Sabrina asked me, she goes, do you think people have seen this? I go, yes, I guarantee you, everyone has seen this movie. Except, she goes, not the toddlers. I go, no, not the toddlers.
Sonny00:08:41Well, no, she's very smart. I do wonder, I am kind of curious, would you assume that 100% of the people there have seen the movie? I would assume that's probably, except for, like, the small children, of course. You know what I'll say?
Vic00:08:52I'll say 90%. I will say 10% could be. Ready for this? Little kids and old people who are seasoned tickled holders at Wolf Trap, and they say, oh, let's go see the orchestra, but there were moments where, ooh, oohs and ahs, or maybe people just get themselves into that. People get into that. I mean, yeah. It's a great movie. They laughed at all the right moments, and Ian Malcolm has all the best lines, and the scene where Ian Malcolm is, like, basically shirtless, splayed out on the table, and he's posed in that way, the whole audience starts clapping and hooting and hollering. It was, like, really funny that they got that.
Sonny00:09:27I'm really glad they're bringing him back for the Jurassic World sequel.
Vic00:09:30They brought him back for Lost World. So, I would say the last thing was, I was thinking, you know what, if I had to-
Sonny00:09:35You know, he dies in the book. I know. No, in the first one, then he comes back. He dies in the book, but then Michael Crichton, in one of his- He was like, oh, no, he was fake dead. Right. We were in the middle of that book.
Vic00:09:46You were absolutely right. It's a terrible book. We haven't even finished it. It's so bad. No, the book is fantastic. The Lost World. The Lost World? Oh, The Lost World is terrible. Yeah, The Lost World's terrible. Yes. First one's fantastic. So the last thought was, I was thinking, if we have to go back and, you know, to do this again in cosplay, as you were saying, JVL, I'd want to go as Muldoon, and we're watching the movie, and- Well, you can wear the short shorts. Yes, but I love the hat, and then my daughter leans over to me, and she goes, you're like the lawyer.
Sonny00:10:13Gennaro. Gennaro, yes. You are definitely like, you are definitely a Gennaro.
Vic00:10:16I said, oh, you mean like the suit in the jungle, and he gets eaten? Well, thank you. I said, thank you. That's lovely. That's more sunny. Wearing the loafers. Yeah. Sunny and the loafers. I would definitely be a Gennaro. Not getting in the water with the nature.
Sonny00:10:25No, I would definitely be the one who runs into the port-a-potty and gets eaten. Yeah, I would be Dr. Wu, obviously. Well, I mean, actually, that's a good point. You should wear a Dr. Wu.
Vic00:10:34I just have to put on a lab coat, and they'll know that I'm B.D. Wong.
Sonny00:10:38Yeah, exactly. You look exactly like B.D. Wong. It's weird. It is very funny to think, though, of the season ticket holders who go to this kind of not knowing what it's about. I remember a story when, so do you remember when Metallica did their symphony concerts? The S&M shows, they called it, Symphony of Metallica? Yes, yes. And it was at the San Francisco Opera House or whatever, you know, somewhere out there. And Francis Ford Coppola has season tickets to the Opera House. And James Hetfield one time was telling a story about how Francis Ford Coppola left during the intermission because he was like, ew, these disgusting rock and roll musicians.
Vic00:11:13JVL, have you gone to any more baseball games or anything like that?
JVL00:11:16We have not gone. We're going to go, I think, weekend after this. There will be another bobblehead night at our local. At our local stadium we'll be going to get, I think, the Bryce Harper bobbleheads.
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?00:12:22That's SimpliSafe.com slash standard hurry. That's SimpliSafe.com slash standard hurry. That's SimpliSafe.com slash standard hurry. That's SimpliSafe.com slash standard hurry.
Vic00:12:22That's SimpliSafe.com slash standard to get your $100 off. That's S-I-M-P-L-I-S-A-F-E dot com. SimpliSafe.com slash standard for $100 off your purchase. I was going to jump to the, you have two options. I either jump to the next topic, or I do an awful transition. Awful transition?
Sonny00:12:44Transition. Please.
Vic00:12:45I don't understand. It's really important to have those alarm systems on, because God forbid that you don't, and an intruder comes in, you could have a situation. A situation that turns into, like, Death Wish. Speaking of Death Wish. There we go.
JVL00:12:57That's not terrible.
Vic00:12:58Yeah, that was actually a pretty solid, that was okay, actually. That wasn't even written. That's not even a script. That was just up here in my noggin. Well, it's a giant noggin. There's a lot in there.
Sonny00:13:07There's a lot in there. It's kind of rattling around. Let's talk about this trailer that's been getting all sorts of buzz.
Vic00:13:13It's a reboot, but it's a bit more than that, and timing might be rather appropriate, some might say. I'm talking about Death Wish, which comes to theaters in Thanksgiving. Woo! Family movie of the year. Family movie. Sonny, you have thoughts?
Sonny00:13:28Well, I mean, look, here's the thing about this trailer. It is a, like, totally innocuous, in a very real way, it's a totally innocuous, like, Hollywood remake. It's just IP that they're exploiting and sticking a once-famous face in it, Bruce Willis, and saying, hey, here's the thing you remember. Let's all go see this. And for something that is that innocuous, you would be surprised at how angry everyone was on the internet about it. People were really upset that you would make a movie about a guy whose family is killed by home intruders who then decides to go out and take his revenge on the underbelly of Chicago. I guess people have to be angry about something, so why not this? But, like, this idea that, you know, it is a particularly terrible, or horrifying trailer is kind of amusing to me. I mean, my two favorite parts from the trailer, of course, are when Bruce Willis kills all the bad people, and when he's like, I need to go get a gun. Because you know what? Guns are good. The lesson from this trailer is that guns are good, bad people are bad, and you need guns for the bad people.
Vic00:14:42I thought you were going to say that there was a lot of uproar and criticism about it because people were like, how dare you try to remake the classic Charles Bronson movie. Well, no, I mean... From 1970.
Sonny00:14:52Right, no, I mean, this is not... I would actually be okay with that sort of outrage because that sort of outrage is perfectly acceptable to me. The people who are really upset about it are like, how dare you move it to Chicago, you know? There's a real tragedy in Chicago right now. You know what? Chicago's problem isn't that they're making a movie set in Chicago where criminals are running rampant. Chicago's problem is that criminals are running rampant.
Vic00:15:14JVL, you saw the trailer. Do you have thoughts?
JVL00:15:20Two thoughts. The part of the outrage I understand is that I think there's this transference from the outrage about the original Death Wish, because the truth is, the original Death Wish is an enormously reactionary movie against the liberalism of its times. Yes. And so you could, if you're a right-thinking progressive, people were bothered by Death Wish at the time. They are bothered by Death Wish retrospectively now. And so they're just transposing that onto the new movie, which is fine. I don't understand.
Sonny00:15:53Is it fine, though? No, I want to interrogate this idea. Is it fine?
JVL00:15:56When I say fine, I just mean comprehensible to me. I just mean it's a criticism I understand, even if I disagree with.
Sonny00:16:03But it's such a lazy criticism. Here's the criticism.
JVL00:16:07Have you ever been on the internet, Sonny?
Sonny00:16:08Well, okay, fine. But the criticism is basically like, wow, the original Death Wish was fascist, so this is fascist, too, and fascism is bad, so I'm angry about this trailer. It's just lazy. It is unthinking and... Boring. It's a boring...
JVL00:16:24It's even worse than that. Okay. It isn't the original movie. It's... I need to show people out there on the internet today that I'm a good person who thinks good thoughts. How can I do that? Oh, somebody over here is upset about this thing from the 1970s. I'll tell you I'm upset about it, too. It's less thinking than that, even. Then I guarantee you many of them have not seen. But the part I don't understand is the, hey, look, it's an alt-right movie. This was... Which is the other half of the criticisms about it. I don't know what that means, except if alt-right has become the new neoconservative, which is just a term you use to denote a thing which is super bad. So a thing which is super not good is now alt-right in the way that neocon was 10 years ago.
Sonny00:17:09A friend of mine, who I won't name here to save him more hassle and heartache, called it a fascist alt-right movie, and his mentions, his menchies were RIP on Twitter as a result. And I, like, I... What does that mean? What does that mean? RIP? Do you know what the term RIP means? Rest in peace? Rest in peace. His menchies, his mentions, his notifications on Twitter.com were dead. What does that mean? Because they were filled with anger and hatred.
JVL00:17:38Okay. But from which direction, I guess? I'm trying to understand. From the right, from the right. Oh, okay, okay.
Sonny00:17:42So he called it alt-right, and then all the alt-right people were like, no, it isn't cuck, you Jew cuck, you know? So, like, there was a lot of that. Anyway, and I actually used those reactions to point out to him that, like, the movie itself is not alt-right at all, actually. These people are alt-right, and they're much, much worse than Bruce Willis in this trailer. Like, Bruce Willis killing criminals is totally fine. These a-holes on Twitter, you know, calling you a, you know, using their anti-Semitic vocabularies to denigrate you are actually much worse. But, like, this is the, I think you're exactly right. Alt-right has become the new neocon, which is ironic in a very amusing way. And when I, when I, when I, when I,
JVL00:18:19when I suggested... You know, I hadn't really thought of that.
Sonny00:18:22That's a very good point. Yeah. When I, when I suggested to my friend he was wrong, like, you call it fascist, fine, I understand that, that criticism. I, I think it's wrong and silly, but, like, I understand it. It's just, like, typical weak-kneed, left-wing film criticism of the original Death Wish. But, like, the, the alt-right thing is a very specific kind of conservatism, and I was like, look, did you see any frog memes in this? Where's Pepe? Did you see any, did you see any anti-Semitism in this? Did you see, like, do you think Eli Roth, Jewish filmmaker who played the bear Jew, killing Nazis in Inglourious Bastards, is an anti-Semite, which the alt-right is rife with, if not, you know, kind of defined by? And, and he was like, no, I probably shouldn't have called it that. And it, and it made me wonder, and I think you have actually explained in a very succinct way, why he would use that phrase. It is just a, it is just a, like, intensifier. It is, like, this is... It's, like, very? It's, it is, yeah. Very, very, very. It's not just very-right, it's alt-right. Like,
JVL00:19:18so, this is a... Is this the first mainstream movie that Eli Roth has directed? I was thinking about this, because... Cabin Fever?
Vic00:19:28No, no, JVL. Hostel. He did, he did, Greed Inferno. No, but those are all, like, small genre movies. This is, like, a really, this is a real movie.
JVL00:19:36It's a real movie with Bruce Willis. Right,
Sonny00:19:38with a wide release and a real budget. Who was in Greed Inferno? I do think, I mean, I think Hostel had a pretty wide release and a pretty decent advertising budget. This is definitely a... It's a big step up for him, right? Huge. This is his biggest movie. This is, I would assume, this is his biggest budgeted movie by a fairly wide
JVL00:19:52budget. And I, so I am not a horror guy, so I've never actually seen an Eli Roth movie. My question for you guys, because I assume you've both seen quite, especially you, Vic, have seen all the Eli Roth oeuvre, is he a quite talented filmmaker? Yes. But it's extremely gory. Right, but I just mean, like, qua filmmaker. Yeah, he can do it. He's really, really...
Sonny00:20:11Look, I think within his, I think within his milieu, within, like, the horror milieu, he is a very talented filmmaker who does a decent job of not only introducing splatter and gore and all that, but also building tension. He kind of ratchets up the tension very well in Hostel, in particular, but also Cabin Fever, I think, was like a, was one of the few actually artistically successful teen horror movies of the last 20 years. I don't
Vic00:20:41think Green Inferno actually made it into theaters. I don't think it did. I think it was on VOD. That's right. But the idea behind it, I thought, was hilarious. It is. It is. It's very hilarious.
Sonny00:20:52It's a hilarious idea. Well, I mean, I do wonder, so the Green Inferno, the idea behind it is these social justice warriors go to South America to save a tribe or something, and they end up getting eaten by cannibals. The very cannibals they're trying to save. They're trying to save. It's irony. And I do actually kind of wonder if Eli Roth is, like, not even a crypto-conservative, but, like, actually kind of a reactionary. So, I, the, like, this is a fascist right-wing movie is, like, it may be more true than, it was back in the 1970s.
JVL00:21:23What was the magazine that had the profile of him where he is seen reclining with a prosthetic dong, stroking it? Do you remember this?
Sonny00:21:33I don't have a mental catalog of Eli Roth dong-stroking photos, so this is...
JVL00:21:39Why don't you effort that right now? No, this is one of those things where, you know, I have no interest in anything that Eli Roth does, and he always seems kind of like a D-bag bro, and yet, in reading about him, and following his work, part of me is like, eh, kind of interesting. I guess I'm basically rooting for him. I'll see if I can find that picture while you guys talk.
Sonny00:21:59I do actually kind of want to go see, I want to go back and watch The Green Inferno. I think it's on Netflix or Amazon.
Vic00:22:08I have seen all the highlights on YouTube, and... Is it like Cannibal Holocaust? Oh my gosh. Okay, thank you.
Sonny00:22:16Oh, there it is.
Vic00:22:17You found it, and I don't even want to know what your search terms were.
Sonny00:22:19I'm shocked he had it right there. In a second.
JVL00:22:23I'm not on the internet, this was just in my picture.
Sonny00:22:25I assume your wifi's off. You don't want to interfere with the...
Vic00:22:29In a similar vein... Oh, sorry. You know who I didn't recognize in the trailer was Elizabeth Shue. In Death Wish trailer. My goodness, we're all getting old. We're all going to die. You first. I'll be first. I'm hoping to make it to 50, as you know. In my mind, I can still picture Elizabeth Shue as behind the counter in Burger King, at the Burger King commercial. She was wonderful and just, you know, very cheery and toothy. A great smile. And then, of course, from there, she went on to do The Karate Kid. And then suddenly she was leaving Las Vegas. It's kind of a gap. A little bit. Oh, Adventures of Babysitting. You left out the saint? Yes, that's right. Was she the doctor?
JVL00:23:18Was she the physicist? The nuclear physicist who discovered cold fusion Yes. That nuclear physicist. Right.
Sonny00:23:25I don't know. She was no Christmas Jones.
JVL00:23:28No, thank you. It's a second mention of Christmas Jones. The movie, which actually pairs the two of those characters as just, like, nuclear physicists off in the world doing awesome research, and it's the two of them with their characters and I think that would be an awesome movie. That would be a great movie. You could make it funny, though. You could do it as a comedy. It would be hysterical. Like, legally blonde, but with physicists.
Vic00:23:51Yeah, do it. Bug-a-cheek, so to speak. Speaking of Death Wish, it sounds like... Speaking of death. Speaking of death. Speaking of death. Come on. Don't make me write your transitions for you. It sounds like IMAX as a Death Wish for 3D. That's why I said it. See? There you go. Now, this is a story that you picked up, or which of you gentlemen? I saw it. Sonny, you saw it first. So what's happening in that world?
Sonny00:24:15So, everyone who is a decent person hates 3D at the movies. This is just a fact. This is a fact of science. Everyone hates 3D. Nobody likes it. The only reason we tolerate it as filmgoers is because the studios have decided that this is an easy way to soak money from us. And they jam all of the good screening times into 3D slots. So if you're just, like, showing up at the theater and you... And I was amazed by this. This is how a not insignificant portion of the population decides what movie they want to see on any given night. They go to the theater and they pick what's showing next. And they're just like, ah, sure, maybe the new... Maybe this Dunkirk movie is good. I don't know. This is a thing. I am totally... It makes me want to rethink all of my life choices because it's clear that writing about movies for a living is a fool's game. Nobody pays any attention. They just go to the multiplex and look at what's on the marquee and go in. Anyway,
Vic00:25:14the studios... Didn't kids used to do that, though? Didn't you do that, JVL? Go to the ball and say, what are we going to see today?
Sonny00:25:19But it's one thing to do that as, like, a 13 year old. It's another thing to be an adult and go out for dinner and then afterwards be like, oh, we're going to see, I don't know, maybe a Valerian? Sure, why not?
JVL00:25:31Sonny, have you met people? Why are you surprised
Sonny00:25:34by this? Look, I know that people are garbage human beings and the worst and all that, but still, it just makes me so sad. Anyway, 3D is a thing that has been used to soak money out of us, and we are tired of it. And we are so tired of it that IMAX, the people behind IMAX who run the big IMAX screens and sell the big IMAX cameras, have realized how much audiences hate it, and they are pulling back the number of IMAX 3D screenings. They're going to commit more time to 2D screenings and 2D only screenings. For instance, Blade Runner 2049 is only going to be in 2D in November when it comes out. Forget it. I'm not going to see it. Yeah, I know that's a big blow to you, JVL. But the numbers are actually pretty fascinating here. The Hollywood Reporter the other day had a story out that was talking about how 3D sales are weighing down. I'm just going to read the first couple lines here. Remember when 3D was Hollywood's savior? In 2010, 21% of total box office revenue in North America, $10.6 billion or $2.2 billion, which was the 3D total, came from 3D ticket sales. That was the year 3D hits Toy Story 3 and Alice in Wonderland. Additionally, much of the revenue of James Cameron's groundbreaking Avatar, released in December 29, was earned in 2010. Fast forward to 2000 and 2016, when 3D revenue amounted to just $1.6 billion, down 8% from 2015. That's despite the fact that overall box office revenue hit an all-time high of $11.4 billion. The share of 3D revenue was just 14%. Now,
JVL00:27:05audiences don't like it.
Sonny00:27:09Audiences do not like 3D. They don't like having to wear the glasses. They don't like having to pay the extra money.
Vic00:27:15For a variety of reasons, they don't like wearing the glasses.
Sonny00:27:18Well, not all of us have beach ball-sized heads, but and glasses on top of it.
Vic00:27:23You have to wear it on top of your glasses? Exactly. Those of us
Sonny00:27:26who actually wear glasses, as you and I do, putting the glasses on top of the glasses, it just creates
Vic00:27:30I feel like the screen is smaller, not bigger. Well, I feel like
Sonny00:27:33I have a migraine, because I do, every time I have to watch one of these dumb movies. Now, JVL,
Vic00:27:38you're kind of a germ freak like myself, and do you have issues with when you get the 3D glasses now, right? I think they're still wrapped. Are they still wrapped when they hand it to you?
JVL00:27:50Depends on which screen, because when you go, so when you walk into your local theater, they will have like three different racks of 3D glasses, and depending on what screen you're going to see it on, you'll get a different kind of glasses.
Vic00:28:01And when you're done, I think we just put them and they tell you to put it in the bin. Put it in the bin.
JVL00:28:05And what happens to that? I just hand them to a person walking into the theater. I say, here, you can use
Vic00:28:09mine. You can use yours.
JVL00:28:11I sneeze on them. I was going to say. When you're done, you lick them. I lick them. I throw it in the bin.
Vic00:28:17I assume they get like... You put the, you know, the thing in your mouth when you put glasses. What do you call this part? The stump part. Yeah, I don't know. Let me think about this. I assume they get recycled. I just put it all in my mouth. Do they get recycled? No, they clean them. They clean them and then repackaged back in the bag? Or something. Or something. I don't know.
JVL00:28:37I don't handle movie theater logistics. Yes. But they're disgusting and terrible. Right. And they blow out the resolution. They mess with the picture. It's a terrible experience. I don't know about you guys. I will inconvenience myself to a fairly large degree to not have to see a movie in 3D. Yes. Absolutely.
Vic00:28:53I go out of my way now. I get disappointed if I make the mistake. Because you'll do that from sometimes. You'll say, oh, you don't realize you purchased the wrong ticket for 3D and you walk. That's happened to me. Really? Yes. That's happened to you? That happened to me for like the second or third time. You're easily confused. Yeah, I just got the ticket. I'm like, ugh. And it was worse. Rogue One 3D was worse than...
JVL00:29:13Yeah. Frankly, look. If theaters need to raise prices, then just raise prices. Don't make me suffer through an inferior product. You know, I want to give credit to movie theaters for doing something right. Can I do that or are we still going on 3D IMAX?
Vic00:29:28No. I was going to say I had a 3D question for you. Please. Have you ever seen... I'm going to assume Sonny has not because it's after his time, sort of. Before I... Yes. Before my time. Before your time. I assume. That's what I meant. Have you ever seen Captain EO in 3D at Disney World?
Sonny00:29:45I saw Captain EO. I've seen Captain EO. Not in 3D, but I saw Captain EO. Well, maybe
JVL00:29:49it was in 3D. How did you not see it in
Sonny00:29:513D? I must have seen it in 3D. You were a baby. I mean, I was like... You took the glasses off. I was like six or seven or whatever.
JVL00:29:58When we did our high school senior year trip to... senior class trip to Disney World, I made my friends go and sit through Captain EO, no kidding, five consecutive times. I was
Sonny00:30:09blown away by it. Oh, it was amazing.
JVL00:30:11I thought it was one of the most amazing pieces of cinema I'd ever seen. I just kept saying, we'd come out and be like, come on guys, let's go see it again. Let's go see it again.
Vic00:30:19And it's a log. It's a log show. 20 minutes or something like that. A lot of kids. 20 minutes. A lot of kids. Are there kids? No, there's not kids involved in this one. Isn't Tina Turner in it, too? No, Angelica Houston plays the alien queen. Kind of looks like
JVL00:30:31the Borg Queen, before there was a Borg
Vic00:30:33Queen. Yes. No, absolutely, that's right. Was it in Disney World or Epcot? Disney World. It was Disney World, and you had to wear the 3D glasses. No, I'm wrong. That was in Epcot. It was Epcot. Somewhere in Epcot. And you know what I remember? I had watched this on YouTube recently. Michael Jackson had the power to change these scary monsters in to dancers, but if you look at the dancers, I'd rather be the scary monster than the 80s dancer. They look really bad. This movie did not age well. No, it
JVL00:31:01did not. Directed by... Is it problematic? Coppola. Yes. Isn't it right? Francis Ford. How much do you think his check was for that? Billions.
Sonny00:31:11I assume he got paid like a million dollars or something. Whatever the... I bet it's a sum of money that would not be very surprisingly high right now. Is my point. But at the time... At the time, it was probably a bigger deal.
JVL00:31:25He had to pay for his vineyard. Quickly compliment theaters. So my local, my favorite chain, I don't want to say the name of the chain because of corporate problems, but it's an American movie company. They have recently upped their food offerings to a phenomenal level. They now offer like actual food. Like if you wanted to get a pizza, they do like flatbread pizzas that are pretty good. And you could actually like take your pizza in to the movie and eat it and not feel like you're eating ballpark food. But more than that, they have rolled out gourmet
Vic00:31:57popcorn. What is gourmet popcorn?
JVL00:31:59It's just not the normal, you know, movie theater popcorn. It's good popcorn that tastes like you would get it from a popcorn truck. One of the good popcorn trucks in the city. What is a popcorn truck?
Vic00:32:08You haven't seen them in Roslyn?
JVL00:32:09What is a popcorn truck? It's a truck that sells popcorn. It's a food truck that sells gourmet popcorn,
Sonny00:32:13Sonny. How much does a bag of popcorn from a popcorn truck cost? It depends. How much on average would you pay for one bag of popcorn? This is a very
JVL00:32:21one percent conversation. Why is it that all of your questions to me about the things I love in my life are like, how much money does that cost? Because it's
Sonny00:32:28it is, I think, telling of the absurdity of the popcorn truck that it is an expensive thing. I live in
JVL00:32:35Woodbridge so that I can eat whatever effing popcorn I want without having to
Vic00:32:41think about it. Do you remember when they said, don't get the
JVL00:32:43butter? Yeah. You don't get the butter. Remember that one? So they have now cheddar cheese gourmet popcorn at the American Movie Company concession stand, and it is amazing, and it has changed my life. Okay. There. Okay. I am
Sonny00:32:55a big fan of, like, premium offerings at theaters. The Angelica here in town is just the best. You can get really good food. The only problem is they have, like, a snack box that had an apple in it once, and I saw a movie where somebody was eating an apple
JVL00:33:09behind me. Crunchy, crunchy, crunchy. And I was just like, how did you get an apple? Why did you bring an apple in here? And I realized that the theater
Sonny00:33:15was selling it. I was like, this is a mistake. We need to rectify this. But also the landmark theaters, I think, are the best at this. And the landmark actually bothers to mask their screens, so I will go to the landmark before the AMC if I can help it. When I
JVL00:33:31saw the movie this weekend, the worst masking job I've ever seen in my life. Because it was uneven. The top unmasking was, like, four times the size of the bottom unmasking, so they had not lined the projector up. And I don't want to be... Sonny just
Vic00:33:47banged his head on the microphone, and now the microphone
JVL00:33:49is all out of whack. So I always get a little annoyed when I see people in restaurants sending food back and making a big thing. I ordered the mashed potatoes, not the garlic potatoes. This is too... I don't want to do that. I hate... I'm very uncomfortable about it. But it seems to me not an unreasonable thing to do at a movie theater. You have to. But yet, like, I don't want to be that guy. So when do you complain? What I want is a Twitter, like an emergency Twitter thing in theater where you can text the manager of the theater and say, come to screen 18 and mask the frickin'
Sonny00:34:21thing. Well, you can't have that because you can't have people texting in the theater. What I would like is for them to actually just effing pay attention to what... So I saw something at our local AMC recently that was being projected in the wrong aspect ratio. No! It was being projected in the wrong aspect ratio. The, like, sides of the screen were blurry and, like, things were getting cut off at the top and the bottom. And I just realized I was like, wait a second, they have the wrong aspect. I've never worked in a movie theater and I know that it's being projected in the wrong aspect ratio. So I, like, ran out and caught the guy and I was like, you were projecting it in the, like, in the Dolby Atmos, you know... Oh, you left the theater and yelled at him about it? I left the theater during... And fortunately, I noticed during the... It was for Atomic Blonde, actually, which we're about to discuss. I noticed during the trailers that it was being projected in the wrong aspect ratio because, like, the, you know, the R rating stuff was being cut off at the bottom. Whatever. So I ran out there and I was like, hey... Who did you go to? I need you to fix this. I grabbed the first person I saw. Luckily, it was a kind of older gentleman who seemed to actually give an ass about his job. So he was like, oh, okay, let me go check. And I'm sitting there in the theater and I'm watching them go through the various aspect ratios trying to find the right one. And I'm just like, I know there's, like, a piece of paper somewhere that says what this is supposed to be projected in. Why can't you just find it and turn it on? Fortunately, they fixed it. They fixed it and it was right. It was still... It... Still not masked. Well, no, it didn't need to be masked because it's in the Dolby Atmos. It, like, only projects at a certain ratio or whatever. But, like, it was fine. The masking was fine. But I was just like, I couldn't believe it. Like, I've, you know, I've paid $18 for this ticket or whatever it is. And I, like, I just show it right. Show the movie right.
JVL00:36:07In my mind, all movie theater projectionists are Stan from The Simpsons. You know, the pimply-faced
Sonny00:36:13kid. Please, sir!
Vic00:36:15I'm not sure I know how to make the projector work. You're going to tell them to get it fixed, Sonny. Sounds like you made a smart choice. You know what else is a smart choice? Dollar Shave Club. You'll get a great shave at a great price conveniently delivered right to your door. It's a no-brainer choice. You no longer have to schlep to the store to buy a cheap disposable razor that gives you a cheap shave or spend a fortune on razors with gimmicky shaving tech you didn't need. When I use my Dollar Shave Club Executive Razor with their Dr. Carver's Shave Butter, the blade glides ever so gently and gives me such a smooth shave. Plus, their Dr. Carver's Shave Butter is transparent, for a more precise shave, helps prevent ingrown hairs, and fights razor bumps. Now, listeners to the Substandard 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, razors are just a few bucks a month. That's a $15 value for only $5. In your first month, you get an awesome, weighty handle, a full cassette of four cartridges, and a tube of their Shave Butter. After your first month, replacement cartridges ship automatically at their regular price. There are no hidden fees and no commitments. Cancel any time you like, but why would you? You can only get this offer exclusively at dollarshaveclub.com slash substandard. That's dollarshaveclub.com slash substandard. So, over the weekend, the box office, Dark Tower came in first, followed by Dunkirk, The Emoji Movie, Girls Trip, Kidnap, Spider-Man, and then finally, number nine? Something like that. Number eight or nine? Number eight or nine. Atomic Blonde, which has been two weeks, two weeks, $8.2 million. What happened here?
JVL00:38:11Wait, so we, I'm sorry, before we do this, did we do this again where we did a half hour of the show before we actually get to... Forty minutes. Forty minutes. Forty minutes. That's good. So, Carlos Lozano, you guys saw this. My friend over at the Washington Post said, I just listened to this show for 30 minutes before they got to the point, and I guess that's the point. Carlos, we just decided to take it to, and we'll talk to another 10 minutes on there. Do you like it better this way, even?
Sonny00:38:31We're gonna, next week, it's gonna be 50 minutes of talk before we get to Detroit. We'll put the actual show in, Detroit will just do an outtakes. Yeah, we'll just do it. God. Atomic Blonde. Terrible show. Atomic Blonde. What has happened to Atomic Blonde? I mean, the thing about Atomic Blonde is that it's a hard-R pseudo-John Wick action movie, that features a bisexual Charlize Theron playing a kind of Tinker Taylor soldier spy type hero. And it's a weird movie that I am not surprised isn't really faring particularly well at the box office. I would, I do wish that, like, say the Emoji movie maybe had dropped a little bit harder than Atomic Blonde in its second weekend, but that was not to be. You know, so so, this movie is not a huge success. I'm not shocked by. I'm a little bit saddened because it is good. It's probably the best movie starring a woman adapted from a comic book released this summer. If I can get out there. If I can throw that out there. Interestingly careful. And it has one really great sequence that I think a lot of people will end up watching on YouTube on their phones over and over again. That's where all the money is. There's a scene that kind of takes place in a stairwell. We've seen bits and pieces of it in the trailer. It's a solid 20 minute faux single shot action scene that is not just showy in the way that a lot of these single shot scenes are. It actually works. It has an artistic purpose. You can see the physical toll that a bout of hand-to-hand combat takes on a person. So anyway, I like it for artistic reasons. I like it because it's a fun kind of twisty, turny, nervy sort of spy thriller type movie. It's funny in very real ways. James McAvoy plays very solid comic relief in this picture as a British spy who is possibly a mole, possibly not. It's hard to say. But who has gone feral. Who has gone native as they say in the movie. And it has John Goodman as kind of a straight man in the interrogation scenes that serve as the narrative spine of the film. Basically the movie takes place in a series of flashbacks narrated by Charlize Theron's character who is talking to Toby Jones and John Goodman who are debriefing her. So anyway, it's a movie I like quite a bit but I can understand why it's not a giant box office smash. Do we have a review of the movie? Do we have a better Do we have a better review of this movie? I hope we do.
Vic00:41:27I was going to say, you know who did not a lot of people went to see the movie but I see him. He just came in! Just walked in. Gene Shalit Sir, we're so glad to have you back in the studio. Thank you. It's good to be back. Charlize Theron delivers a monster performance in David Leitch's Atomic Blonde. It's November 1989 and we're about to say Auf Wiedersehen to the Berlin Wall. But guten tag to Miss Theron. Or should I say guten tight. She plays a spy named Lorraine Broughton and nothing will stand in her way. So good luck getting past Checkpoint Charlize Theron. Lorraine must interrogate French spy Delphine LaSalle. Ooh la la. Let's just say she doesn't beat around the bush sapphicly speaking. And it doesn't take long before she has the French spy speaking in tongues. Sonny. Midway through, I sort of fell asleep just after Charlize Theron finished interrogating the French spy. I don't know. I just got very sleepy watching Lorraine. I felt like I wanted to have a piece of quiche. Lorraine. Still, I give Atomic Blonde three stars. Ich bin ein fan of this movie. And that's the Critics' Corner. Gene, that was... That was blue. I don't know if Gene has seen many movies like this. I mean, he might have seen Mulholland Drive, right?
Sonny00:43:10Blue is the warmest color. So I am... I did almost spit bourbon all over the control panel. Almost. Almost. I was very close That was... That made me laugh out loud. Thank you, Gene. Bye. He's left.
Vic00:43:26I don't even know the next movie Gene's gonna see, because we're getting to that part of the summer now. There's not much exciting going on. It really is. We're now a little nervous about what he would have said about The Dark Tower. He's a big fan of Idris Elba. JVL, you saw Atomic Blonde. What did you think about Atomic Blonde?
JVL00:43:47It's okay. It's not... It's not a great movie. I mean, it's a movie with a bunch of problems. A movie with a lot of promise that it doesn't deliver on, I think. It's 15 minutes too long. There's too much of the blue filter. I mean, my God. It is so heavily stylized in terms of its cinematography that I found... I mean, at times it's literally just hard to see what's going on in the details of the screen, because the filters they're using are flattening out the picture so much. It might be my favorite Charlize Theron performance. I thought she was really very, very nice in this role. I thought she was great. Uh... What's no devil's advocate? The 80s music soundtrack for me walked right up to the line of nostalgia porn. Yes, and I don't know if it went over it or not. It might have, it might not have, but it was... The bigger
Sonny00:44:34problem is that it called to mind the Americans. The Americans does this and does it better, which I know you don't watch because it's on the televisions. I don't watch
Vic00:44:43television. But everybody, now, you know, I mean, like, how many... Everyone's playing Major Tom now, right? The Peter Schilling Major Tom, which is... That's when they play it in this movie as well, but I like... The German version, though. Yes, yeah, Peter Schilling version.
Sonny00:44:55Oh, is that what that is? No, no, no, no, no, no. I could hear 99 Luftballons in every song, and I would be okay with that. I just want that on there.
JVL00:45:05Beginning with Boogie Nights, by the way. So I like John Wick quite a lot. I... I worry that David Leitch might not be an especially strong storyteller. Of the two, the two big action scenes that you talked about, the one that impressed me more actually was not the one in the hallway, but in the apartment room. And in that scene, what really impressed me... Where McAvoy takes on... No, no, where Charlize Theron is with... In the apartment room with her is the defector spyglass, and there's a
Sonny00:45:39guy... Well, no, but that's all part of the same sequence. I mean, that, like, 20-minute sequence is...
JVL00:45:43But when they move out of the hallway and into that room, the stuff that they do, Leitch or whoever the cinematographer is, does the camera there. I mean, he is moving it in sort of slow-sweeping arcs, and I personally would have loved a three-camera shot just of the filming of it, watching it, because it literally must have been choreographed to the inch in the way that a ballet would have been. People always talk about, like, oh, the violence is balletic in this. But the actual choreographing of this scene, not just with the actors, but with the cameraman in a very small, confined space, must have been really impressively done, and I
Sonny00:46:19would have liked to have seen that. Is anybody else tired of James McAvoy? I mean, this guy
JVL00:46:23is such an over-actor.
Vic00:46:25I didn't see the M. Night Shyamalan movie. I didn't see that one. Man, I mean, he is
JVL00:46:29he chooses... Did you see Split? No. But he chooses... He's been like this since Wimbledon, frankly. I mean, in Wimbledon he is, he's in a movie with, like, three other movie stars, and he is just, like, begging for attention every screen. Do you think he's like this in the X-Men movies? The only movies he is not like this in is as Xavier in the X-Men movies.
Sonny00:46:48I, well, I know there is an anti-McAvoy element out there right now, but there's also like a fiercely pro... Say something bad about James McAvoy on Twitter. I just want to see what happens to your menchies. If they go
JVL00:47:03R.I.P. Well, I mean, no, but this guy, am I wrong about this? That he is a study in ham and cheese. He is looking... He wants to own every
Sonny00:47:11scene. He's a bit hammy. He can be a bit hammy, but I actually don't mind that in this sort of role. I just, I frankly don't. I don't
JVL00:47:17mind it. I'll tell you this. He's miscast in this role. I mean, this is... So he is a guy who has been the head of station in Berlin for 10 years and he is like 32 years old. How does
Sonny00:47:27that work? I mean, he's like... That's good. He's older than that, though.
JVL00:47:30Not all that much. I mean, so this is... Which gets us into the adaptation problem of this, which we can talk about if you'd like to.
Sonny00:47:36I'm happy to talk about this. I don't know anything about... I have not read the comic on which it's based.
JVL00:47:41So, can we talk... I mean, it's got $8 million after two weeks. Can we talk with spoilers? Yeah, I think it's... Okay. If you really don't want to know about this, then you should turn off...
Sonny00:47:49We're 52 minutes into it.
Vic00:47:51That's enough. You've already downloaded it.
Sonny00:47:53It's fine. Hop ahead to 55, and we'll talk about Spirits. So, the
JVL00:47:56comic book is Anthony Johnston's The Coldest City. It is tremendously good. I like it a lot. It is nothing like the movie. It is a very slow, talky story. It is very much like Tinker Tail or Soldier Spy in that it is... You're being told in retrospective about a mole hunt, and there's almost no action. I believe there's one gunshot fired, and it happens off page in the beginning of the story, and that's it. And so, that's the big change that they make. They turn it into a giant action movie. There are little changes, like Delphine, the lesbian or bisexual French... Boutella. Boutella is, in fact, a guy in the book. But the biggest change they make is that the comic book ends, and the big reveal is that Lorraine Broughton was, in fact, the double agent all along. And so she... Which makes it really interesting, because she... Wasn't she in the movie? She's Kaiser Soze. No, but she is in the movie as well. They then flip again to make her a triple agent so that she's a good guy. For the Americans. Don't worry. In the graphic novel, she's not a triple. She's just a double. No, in the graphic novel, she's a Soviet spy who's killed all these people to cover her tracks. And this is, to me, when... And so, I was... The whole movie, I was interested in how they were going to handle the ending, whether Charlize Theron would have been comfortable playing evil like that. And when they kept her evil, and they showed her as being Satchel, the double agent, I was pretty impressed. And then when they made that turn again, all I could think of was the end of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang when, you know, Gay Perry, you're still alive, and Abraham Lincoln walks out and says, I'm still alive too, and all these other, you know, but I'm still alive too. It was the most... In a movie, which is a hard-R movie, which is uncompromising in so many other ways, to then decide, well, we can't have our lead character be the villain. Like, at that point, why bother?
Vic00:50:01I liked the ending. I was going to be less happy if it turned out to be...
Sonny00:50:04Yeah, I was actually okay with the ending too. Really? I love... Don't get me wrong, I love No Way Out. Which is a great, different ending, but this... Here's the thing, I like it when America wins. Thank you! That's all I care about, frankly. That was the feeling inside me. I was like, yes! What is this feeling? America! America! In my gut! Yeah, yeah. Okay, America, yeah.
Vic00:50:24That's right. I love this movie primarily because it takes place in Berlin, which I've been to, I don't know, half a dozen times. I love the city, and it's always gray like that. Very gray and moody. The once and future capital of Europe. The Berlinopolis. And, uh... And I like that, so it's a little nostalgic for me. And, uh... I thought it was great, and all the great settings. Palace of the Republic, Alexanderplatz. It really is like that. It feels like that. It had a great feel. It also had a very interesting sort of 89-ish feel to it. And they made some effort. Not to the extent of Lives of Others or Goodbye Lenin, where they really go retro of that city at that time. But I thought it
Sonny00:51:04was pretty good. You made an interesting point in our office about Charlize Theron's accent. Can you just... Oh, yes!
Vic00:51:10I really... I was fascinated by the Stasi agent that she's trying to shuttle out. Spyglass? Spyglass. And there's a scene where she's bringing him into the car, and she has to beat up some police officers, and she yells at them in German, and she says to him to get in the car. And he'd been shot, I think, already. He's sitting in the car. They go out for this chase. And when they're driving, he turns to Charlize Theron, and he looks at her in this strange look, and he goes, You really need to work on your accent. Your German is terrible. And he looked at her. And that's when I thought... Because there are differences between English people who speak German and American German, or Americans with a German accent. And she was speaking, I think, German with an American accent, and I think he picked that up as a very good Stasi agent. And I think he knew.
Sonny00:51:56Now, as I said to Vic at the time, I think this may be reading a bit much into it, because frankly, her British accent is not very good either. So it kind of comes and goes. Well, no, he knows that she's
JVL00:52:06a traitor the whole time, though. But this is a thing. Right, exactly. He knows that she works for the
Sonny00:52:10Soviets the entire time. He knows that she's the double agent. So, like, this is why this theory might work, maybe. Yeah, right. Yeah.
JVL00:52:18Are we going to rank things? Well, I didn't do any ranking
Sonny00:52:20What are we going to rank? Well,
JVL00:52:22I have a ranking that I compiled for us. Okay. But because it's a little bit on the edge, instead of contextualizing it, I would just like to give you the ranking. Give it. Number five, Mulholland Drive. Number four, Blue is the Warmest Color. Number three, Embrace of the Vampire. Number two, Wild Things. Number one,
Vic00:52:43Bound. I was waiting for Bound. I was waiting for Bound, and that was number one. And these are all a ranking of really interesting crime thrillers. Thrillers. Thrillers. That's good thrillers. Basic Instinct must have been six. That's also a great thriller. It's in there. Sorry.
JVL00:52:58I would say Atomic Blonde, after being prepped for it to be a contender for this list. No, not even close. Not even top ten.
Vic00:53:06Okay. In terms of
JVL00:53:08being a thriller. Spirit of the Week. Very good. Oh, can we talk about the Spirit of the Week? Yeah, let's talk about the Spirit of the Week.
Sonny00:53:14Spirit of the Week this week. So good, JVL's drinking it. JVL is actually drinking it. It's the Old Forrester, 1920 Prohibition style Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. It is a very solid 115 proof bourbon. It is sweet and strong and it burns and I love it. I have to say that this is... You're really handsome, Sonny. We've had a couple... Well, this is getting weird. We've had a couple of really good bourbons in recent weeks and I just want to throw this out there. The Old Forrester Prohibition style may be my favorite of them. I don't know if it's... I don't know if it's... But it's up there. It helps
Vic00:53:48when the ice melts a little bit. Yeah. Tempers it. Tempers it. Yeah, you got it. You
Sonny00:53:52put an ice cube or two in there. You let it dilute a little bit because, again, it's very
Vic00:53:56strong. And I think Old Forrester... 115 proof. And I think Old Forrester was resurrected, but it was one of the earliest bourbons of this great country. Fantastic. And I think it's... I saw it bottled. It's bottled where Woodford Reserve is. Yeah. So Old Forrester...
Sonny00:54:11There's an Old Forrester branded bourbon... Let's go streaking. Oh my God. You're drunk. You're drunk.
JVL00:54:18Get it together, Jonathan. Is this tied in with the new Kingsman? So the new
Sonny00:54:24Kingsman sequel... Which looks awesome. Which looks awesome. Which looks amazing. Has an Old Forrester branded bourbon that is supposedly made by the statesmen, who are the American version of the Kingsman, etc. And they're selling it, and it's out there for real. And, you know, if the good folks at Old Forrester want to have some solid advertising of their product on a pop culture focused podcast that also has a Spirit of the Week segment... And lots of good drinking listeners. I have a show for them. Maybe they can check this out. You know, it's
JVL00:55:02funny, because you guys may notice, we get people tweeting all the time pictures of their Schufferhofer purchases. We move product. Well, one of us
Sonny00:55:10moves product. We move some product. I'm not saying that Old Forrester should send us a bottle for free to drink on the show. Or a case. But if it happened, I would be pretty okay with that. Pretty okay. Corrections edition. I want
Vic00:55:26free liquor. Thank you. Thank you for getting to the point there. Corrections edition, JVL.
JVL00:55:33No corrections, three comments. One, while we were taping the show today, because I was bored at one point, just started checking Twitter, Trevor Manning tweeted, how many Teslas do I have to firebomb to get the micro-editions bumped up to 30 minutes?
Sonny00:55:46A hundred. You would like them to be 30... Don't bomb any Teslas. Jesus. Come on, people.
JVL00:55:53Two, Jason Cooper, maybe the best tweet we've ever gotten is Jason Cooper tweeted us a video of his kid doing a Sonny Bunch with the sand at the beach. Did you see this? No, I didn't see it. So his kid is like, I don't know, like 12 months old and they're sitting on the beach and he's on the blanket and he puts his foot into the sand and he yanks it back and he just has this disgusted face. It's fantastic.
Sonny00:56:12To be fair, that is what sand is.
JVL00:56:14It's disgusting. Yes, when you're a child or you. And third is that Kyle Foley and Substandard Fan whoever he is, have been live tweeting the show and the show is, if you like the show as it is, it's ten times better if you listen to it while they're live tweeting. It's very, it is the pop-up video version of the podcast and I heartily endorse it. You guys should all go follow them. I have a correction. Oh my goodness. My wife sent you one. Sonny Bunch has a
Sonny00:56:40correction. I said Olivia Megaton directed the first Taken movie. He did not. It was Pierre Morel. Is that what Shannon? I think so.
Vic00:56:48Okay. 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.
Sonny00:57:02Yes, Sonny? I forgot. I forgot that we also need to bother Jonathan.
Vic00:57:08Subscribe to us on Stitcher. Just type in Substandard on a podcast and we're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Don't forget Substandard Showdodes might be up on Friday at 11 a.m. Until next time.
Sonny00:57:20Angel of Death.
JVL00:57:34If you're a wrestler, that would be your wrestling
Sonny00:57:36name. From Tom's
JVL00:57:38River, New Jersey, weighing in at 175 pounds, the Angel of
Vic00:57:42Death, Victorino Lin matters. How did you get my weight right? Pre-lunch weight. My pre-lunch weight is 175. I am 5'11". Okay, no. Last week, we were discussing Chinese food buffet rankings, yes? And high up on my list was the Egg Foo Young, particularly the Egg Foo Young that I had at Hunan Garden, which is in our building. It's been there for decades. We did that recording, and four days later, Hunan Garden closed. Literally. Literally. We
Sonny00:58:14walked in, and it was boarded
JVL00:58:16up. So this is like the scene in the X-Men, where the young mutant learns the full extent of his powers, and it begins with like, hey, I can kill people by talking about them, and now you can kill businesses by talking about them.
Vic00:58:30This has been an establishment in Roslyn for like decades. For decades. Literally decades. Dim Sum was so... People had weddings there. Yeah, people had weddings there. Dim Sum on weekends. So
Sonny00:58:42I just want to throw this out there. In addition to begging for free bourbon, we will also pay... If you pay us money, agents, and possibly old actors who don't have agents anymore, if you pay us money, Vic will not mention you on the show. It's protection money. You just send us a check, and Vic will not ever say your name, and if you send us a little more, he'll mention somebody you hate. How about that? Do you think that will be okay with the police? I'm sure it's fine.
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