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#64. The Substandard on mother! Worst Movies Ever, and Ice Cream
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Dudes Chatting — ice cream, mother!, and the taxonomy of worst movies ever: The cold open covers JVL's daughter's strep throat saving him from a camping trip, Vic's weekend air show (F-22 Raptor, B-17, B-29 in formation), and Sonny's fantasy baseball semifinal win. An extended ice cream segment follows: the group debates great ice cream shops (Halo Farms in New Jersey, Murphy's in Ireland), favorite flavors, topping philosophies, and the specific horror of Friendly's Fake Banana flavor. Sonny then reviews Darren Aronofsky's mother! — firmly negative, describing it as a heavy-handed biblical allegory and misanthropic art film that earned a rare F CinemaScore from audiences; he argues it is a film that mistakes cruelty for profundity. This triggers JVL to introduce a detailed taxonomy of "worst movies ever" categories borrowed from pro-wrestling heat terminology: "heel heat" (you hate it and that's the point), "X-Pac heat" (you hate it and no one's happy about it), "hard watches" (technically accomplished but unwatchable), "overpraised," and "guilty pleasures." JVL nominates Lars von Trier's entire filmography for the hardest-watch category; Sonny cites Hardcore Henry; Vic nominates Hercules (1983), Mission to Mars, and Congo. A brief debate about Michael Crichton and Sphere closes the main segment.
Reviews: Sonny reviews mother! (dir. Darren Aronofsky) — negative. Describes it as self-important biblical allegory with an F CinemaScore; technically accomplished but punishing and misanthropic.
Box Office: It led for the second weekend at approximately $60 million. American Assassin opened at $14.5 million. mother! opened at $7.5 million.
Spirit of the Week: Sam Adams Oktoberfest.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00From the depths of space, comes the strongest man on Earth, in the super adventure odyssey. Hercules. The incredible Lou Ferrigno, is Hercules.
Vic00:00:27Hello, and welcome back to The Substandard, brought to you by Dollar Shave Club. I'm Victor Matus, along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. I'd like to remind you that The Substandard is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Just look on a podcast, search for The 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 often available on Fridays at 11 a.m. at Weekly Standard. Gentlemen, how are we? JVL.
JVL00:01:03Tough weekend. Elaborate. Tough weekend. Friday at about 11 p.m. We got a visit from streptococcal pharyngitis in my family.
Sonny00:01:13All right.
JVL00:01:14And it is one of those moments when, you know, it's back to school, which means somebody's going to have strep throat. Immediately. My elder daughter came down with it, and it was one of those moments. I don't know. Do you guys ever get this way with your kids, either because of a wake-up or a time change or sick, when you can literally see your weekend receding away from you, like into the horizon? It's not even midnight. It's not even technically Saturday yet, and I can see my weekend disappear. There it goes. Bye-bye. There it is. Gone. Wave to it as it heads off into the ether. The only good thing about it, frankly, was it meant that I didn't have to go camping.
Sonny00:01:56Yeah. Well, I was able to. I was able to get out of it. That's a big win. I was able to get out of camping.
JVL00:01:59That's a big win.
Vic00:02:00Because camping is garbage. Was camping related to any sort of enforced activity or just- School. School. School camp out.
JVL00:02:07And not only did I not have to go camping, but I could then do a lot of virtue signaling with the other parents at my little hippie Montessori school by saying, you know, my kid has strep throat, and I don't want her to be around to infect any of you guys. Because all parents, like, judge each other constantly, but what they really judge- They judge and hate because it impacts them personally, is people who drop sick kids off at school anyway. Yeah, that's right.
Vic00:02:30I don't want them to miss school, so here you go. Which doesn't mean I don't want them to miss school.
JVL00:02:34I don't want to be inconvenienced by having to take time off from my job to stay home with my children. That's what it really means. But I having to stop at the camp out to drop off all the food that we had committed to bringing when we were going to actually attend. I made a big show of, yeah, no, no, you know, hey, bud, I wish we were here, but we didn't want her to infect anybody else. Were you wearing your vest?
Vic00:02:55Actually, I wasn't.
JVL00:02:56Because it was like 85 degrees. It was really hot this weekend. It was really unpleased. I was unpleased by that. It was very hot.
Sonny00:03:01I was very upset that I couldn't stroll around at a nice cardigan. Shawl collar? Of some sort. Yes. Preferably shawl collar. So that was your weekend, Victorino.
Vic00:03:15Yeah, my weekend was strep throat, and you know what that is all about. Yes, I do. Yes, we're going through the colds right now, and it's passed to the whole family, including myself. But on Saturday, we... We went up to Winchester and visited my brother-in-law, Captain Bill Dwyer, and the family, and everyone had a good time. What does he do for a living? Oh, he's a firefighter, fire marshal, and all around. And he was making a great mango salad, or something that I helped him with. That I said I could help you with. I'll chop up the cilantro. And then he said, you know, but they're getting a renovation or an add-on. In prison, you'll be very... Oh, I'll be needed. I'll be needed. And they were doing some... They're getting... They're getting ready for a big renovation in the house. And he said, you know, when they do the wrecking part, he said, you know, why don't you come over? We're having a big wrecking party, you know, where we, you know, with the sledgehammers. And I'm like, and do what? What would I do? I'm not quite sure. So that was... I said, yeah, sure. You should go and bring Michael.
JVL00:04:16So Michael, like the joys of a boy being told, hey, here's a house. You just wreck something. You just wreck it.
Vic00:04:20They weren't shooting BB guns, but Michael loved that. So, I mean, it's out there. I mean, they're out in the country. Out in the country. Oh, and Sabrina helped feed the horses. So it's out there. It's the farm. It's the farm, man. Anyway, but on Sunday, but on Sunday, I went with our friend Michael Farb and his son. And me and my son, we went to the Andrews Air Show. Hey, how was it? And that was... I got sunburned, but a B-17 in flight, that's really something to see. And here, same thing with the B-29. That was impressive. The B-29 is so much sleeker, and you just see it, and it's so shiny. You compare it to the B-17, and it just goes, and you can just stare at that. How low were they? Low. I mean, you know, you see them take off, and then they're flying around, and then we saw the Thunderbirds, which were great. Not the Blue Angels, but the Thunderbirds. The Golden Knights, you know, those parachute guys were great, and they're doing free fall until they, you know, and then they dropped the chute. But the most incredible thing we saw was the F-22, the Raptor. The Raptor was there. It came out of nowhere, and it just performed acrobatics in the air. For, like, 30 minutes, and doing all sorts of weird moves and things, and it's a shame that they canceled that, that they're not, you know, I think they have only 180 or something. Well, you know, that's okay, because the J-35 is going to be awesome someday, maybe. I'm sure politics did not play a role in that.
JVL00:05:43This is not the topic for this show, obviously. No, of course not. But someday, it is worth having a long discussion about, that if you were looking for signs of American decadence, item number three on the list would have to be the decision to kill the F-22. I am not aware of any major power which has ever killed a superior weapon system. Yeah, for something. Purely because of, like, stupid Namby Pamby, who we want to work well with our allies. Right. It's an amazing...
Vic00:06:14No, the sound... What did it sound like? What did the F-22 sound like? It's like a crackling noise, and it's loud. I mean, all the jets are loud, but particularly, it makes this weird crackling noise, and you saw what... Normally, it would be afterburners. You see the flames coming out the back, but...
JVL00:06:28Supercruise. Exactly. They don't have afterburners.
Vic00:06:30They have supercruise, and of course, they have... And it's full stealth. Yeah. It's like the Indominus Rex of Jurassic World in a plane. It just has features of little everything in the plane, and... Oh, and then they had a great moment where it was the F-22 flying next to a P-51.
?00:06:45Wow.
JVL00:06:45That was very... Powered by dilithium crystals. What's really interesting about that... I don't know how they made that work. Yes. Was there an A-10? Oh, of course.
Vic00:06:54The A-10s were on the ground. The A-10s were on the ground.
JVL00:06:56Could you climb up in the cockpit of the A-10?
Vic00:06:57I couldn't climb up, but Michael was touching the cannon, because he's tall enough now, which is weird.
JVL00:07:00Have you shown him videos of the A-10 cannon? I didn't show him that.
Vic00:07:04I took videos of the F-22. Yeah, exactly. And the F-22 is... I took video of the F-22. It was great. And it reminded me, JVL, of Tom Winkler. Remember? Wink. Yes. Wink. That was his nickname. Tom Winkler was the son of Claudia Anderson, our former... The Weekly Standard former managing editor who retired. Tom, after college, joined the Navy... People should know, he is literally our age, same year as you and I. Yeah, just about, yeah. And he became a Navy fighter pilot, flew an F-18 off of carriers, flew in Afghanistan, then went to Miramar, went to Top Gun School, and became a Blue Angel, and now is a Naval Attaché in Paris. And I don't feel at all, you know, have... You think you stack up.
JVL00:07:45Yeah, I know. It's funny.
Sonny00:07:47It's a funny story about Tom.
JVL00:07:49So I have always, as you and I have always talked about Tom, as if he is literally Maverick from Tom Cruise. Yeah, he is from Top Gun. And my wife... Oh, right, I'm sorry, Maverick from Tom Cruise, Maverick from Top Gun. My wife was always highly amused by this, because Tom is the type of guy who, like, women want to be with him and men want to be him. He's perfect in every single way. He's good-looking, he's charismatic, he's brilliant, he's... went to Top Gun. And my wife would be like, oh, yeah, you with your boy crush on Tom Winkler, blah, blah, blah, blah, that would make fun of me. And we met him, she, for the first time, and he happened to be wearing his dress white, it was at a sort of an event, and I introduced her to Tom, and Tom was like, oh, it's so great to finally meet you, heard so much all about you, we caught up, because Tom, you, Tom and I were like buddies, you know, back in the day, before he became a man. And we turn and walk away from the receiving line at this event, and Shannon looks at me and she goes, okay, I get it.
Vic00:08:46For the longest time, you know, because... She would have left me right there. That was the one thing I used to tell Kate, because, of course, in the old days, Kate, lived two doors down from Claudia, and from time to time... Don't meet Tom. I said, don't meet Tom, whatever you do. We were in a car, and he came by, going, hey, how you doing? I'm like, we're not staying, we gotta go. Just wave as we go. Just wave. I said, I don't want her to get any ideas, because otherwise, you know, unless it's me, of course, you know, then, anyway. But that was the weekend. That gels well with that thing we were talking about before the show today. I wouldn't have mind. I wouldn't have mind. He's a real American. Sonny.
JVL00:09:24Sonny, how are you? Oh, guys. Hey, Sonny.
Sonny00:09:27I'm glad that we kept that one. Yeah. You are trying to earn that E, aren't you? Wait till you hear it when I start with my cold open that I produced by myself this week. Oh, no. My weekend was good. I'm very pleased to announce that my fantasy baseball team is in the finals.
JVL00:09:45You made it. The finals. You beat the top seed.
Sonny00:09:48I beat the top seed, beat the number one guy. Now, after this happens... Beat him six to five. It was very close.
JVL00:09:52Do you sort of... Is it like, you know, hey... Hey, good game, good game. Or do you, like, just trash talk each other? It's usually... It's usually...
Sonny00:09:58We're a pretty casual and civil group. We've been doing this for a long time, so nobody likes... There was a guy who was really abrasive, and we kicked him out of the league. He then threatened to sue one of our commissioners. What? Who he himself is a lawyer. Like, so the commissioner is a lawyer. Oh, that's not good. And the guy, like, sent him papers, was like, I'm suing you in small claims court. And he's like, if you do this, it's going to totally F with my career. Don't do it. And it was like... So this is the sort of person that we... We kick out of the league. We like to have a very casual sort of thing. But I did triumph. It was very close. It was a 6-5 win. You know, it literally... He had Anthony Rendon going on Sunday night, and I was watching the Sunday night game. And he needed... If he had gotten one run, if he had gotten just one run, he would have won. And Anthony Rendon literally on third base in the seventh inning. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going to lose. I'm going to lose. I'm going to lose. And then I didn't lose. So Rendon came through. Rendon came through for you. Rendon came through for me by not scoring. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. So anyway, good weekend for me. Great weekend. You guys with your loser airplane nerd talk, I got the fantasy baseball win. That's all that really matters.
JVL00:11:07Is your kid sick? No. She's actually... She seems to be doing okay. Well, it's only a matter of time.
Sonny00:11:13Yeah. Well, I mean, it has been too long. She will almost certainly get some sort of horrible disease before the end of the month. But... All right. Yeah. So anyway, my weekend was great. Good to hear.
Vic00:11:23Sonny, now, last week we were going to talk about ice cream, but didn't get a chance. Yeah, you had just planned a whole thing. Well, you know, I stick to the script, Sonny.
Sonny00:11:33You were trying to shove it in there at like 48 minutes. I gave you one word. I was looking at the timer. I said, we can do it. We can do it. I was looking at the timer. I was like, God, we're going to do this in like three minutes. We're not even done talking about horror movies yet.
Vic00:11:44We had to get it done because... Oh, we were done. We had to get it done because, you know, we have so many other things we're going to talk about, you know, every episode. It's like, oh my gosh. I mean, there's just a plethora...
Sonny00:11:54There's just so many things and we have to cut so much out. You know, there's so many topics for us to discuss. The script.
JVL00:12:00The script is why this isn't the real friendship. No, but... In a real friendship. But it doesn't have a script.
Vic00:12:05I have a script at home when I'm talking with my wife and kids. I have a script. Maybe I'm wrong.
Sonny00:12:09Maybe Vic really does.
Vic00:12:10And now it is time for dinner.
Sonny00:12:12But it's a better version of the friendship. It's the friendship distilled to its perfect essence.
Vic00:12:16Yeah, without the dribs and drabs and everything. There's no outtakes here. Okay. Until the end. So we were talking about... We were going to talk about ice cream. And since it is still a very hot week, why not let's... People seem to be very animated about that. People like food talk. I don't get it. People love food talk to a certain extent. And they wanted us to talk more about ice cream. I do have... Literally hundreds of people... Hundreds?
Sonny00:12:36Sending in emails. They said, we were promised an ice cream segment. And I want to tell you... You teased us and you took it away. You took it away.
Vic00:12:43And people like to share what they like and things like that. I will say this. I have one observation which I thought was interesting. When I had been doing research for my vodka book, I was out in Death's Door in Madison, Wisconsin. And the guy who does that distillery... I'm sorry, you were where? Death's Door. What is Death's Door? That is a... Well, Door County is in Wisconsin and the brand is called Death's Door. And they do vodka, bourbon, gin, all sorts of things. And they make multiple spirits for other companies as well. And when I was talking with them, his observation, the distiller's observation was that ice cream and vodka are actually of a similar industry. Because vodka, they said, you know, 60% or 65% of American vodkas all come from a handful of ethanol plants right from the Midwest. As it turns out, a lot of the ice cream that we eat originally come from, you know, a handful of dairy farms. And they just send it out to different companies. No. No? Not in China? Some of them maybe. Depends where you go. When are we going to outsource that? Eventually. Think about all the fish that we get. We send more fish. To China. And we're eating more fish from China. That's what's crazy. Anyway, so the ice cream.
JVL00:13:57Can't we just get the fish to swim over there on their own? Through the.
Vic00:14:00And then we would save the shipping costs?
JVL00:14:01You could just catch them over there?
Vic00:14:02That would be ideal. That would be ideal. Aquaman could do that. Yes. Yes. Khaldroga could do that. Okay. So with ice cream, they just, you know, make them dairy farms. They send them to a whole bunch of different companies. And then they can add whatever they want. And the big difference is the amount of air they add. And usually, the cheaper the ice cream, the more air they put into it. You ever get those really cheap brands and it's so light.
Sonny00:14:24So does the air make it easier to scoop? Is that like the soft serve? No.
Vic00:14:29Well, it technically would make it easier to scoop because there's not much there. But they don't have to pack it. They can get 12 boxes of ice cream versus six if they, you know. So the really good ice creams that people tend to love are ones that are very thick. Which are. And creamy.
Sonny00:14:43Wait. So can you name names? What are like some of them? So Breyers is like a better. Oh, that's airy. That's more airy. So what are the ones that are better?
Vic00:14:52Hagen-Dazs, Talenti, any of the gelato products. Most gelatos are not, you know, so as airy. What's the difference between gelato and ice cream? That's a good question. And there is a difference, Sonny. Just on the spot here. I can't tell you. You can't tell me? Besides being Italian. But it is. Great podcast, guys. They say, they say that gelato is healthier for you. I'd like to believe that even though it feels more sinfully rich.
Sonny00:15:17I just like getting ice cream and then pouring sugar on top of it. That's, you know, likewise my grapefruit.
Vic00:15:22Do you remember in Mad Men, January Jones' father was putting, sprinkling salt on top of his chocolate ice cream? Oh, yeah, yeah. Isn't that weird that it sticks with you? It stuck with me and I wondered about that.
Sonny00:15:33It's an interesting, it's an interesting, maybe I should do that, too.
Vic00:15:36It's not a lark. Okay, do you have an ice cream thought, Sonny? And ice cream ranking, because I do. Best and worst, I actually have. Go ahead, Sonny.
Sonny00:15:43I would say, I have one real ice cream thought, which is, like, it is one of the foods where my tastes have changed the most over the year. So, whenever I was growing up and we would go to the Baskin Robbins, I would always get the, do you remember the pink bubblegum ice cream? The ice cream that was, like, it was, like, kind of bubblegum flavor, but it had, like, the pieces of bubblegum in it.
Vic00:16:05I'm going to mention this later, but that's on the list of my worst.
Sonny00:16:08Yeah, yeah, no, but, no, but, so, like, I would always get this as a kid because the way I see it from, again, from a child's perspective, it's, like, I'm getting double desserts. I'm getting double desserts here. I'm getting the ice cream, but then I'm also getting the bubblegum, which I've saved to the side. And then I chew later. It's great. It's, like, it's, like, a Tootsie Pop, you know?
Vic00:16:26Yes, I was going to ask you. Or, like, a Blow Pop. Let me ask you, because I've always looked at it and never, even as a child, thought I want that, okay? I thought, like, ew, this is gross. It looks too weird.
Sonny00:16:34Wait, wait, wait. How can it be on your worst, then, if you've never had it?
Vic00:16:37I look at it and I know. You, no, you, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, yeah, it's 1634. I don't, I don't think that's bleepable. Would you write down 1634? Yeah, yeah, I don't think it's bleepable.
Sonny00:16:49But the, but the, here's, the problem with this is that, is that you are, you are making a judgment on something without actually having experienced it. You know what I've had? This is pure Philistine.
Vic00:16:57I've had ice cream. Philistine. I've had ice cream with gummy bear topping, and I think, this is probably what it tasted like, I thought to myself. Yes.
Sonny00:17:04I've only ever done that at, I've only ever done that at Golden Corral. Like, you know the dessert bar at Golden Corral? They have, like, they have, like, a soft serve fro-yo or whatever. I will, yes. But then they have, like, they have, like, plates of gummy bears and jelly beans or whatever.
Vic00:17:16That was a very popular fro-yo topping. Yeah. And I never understood why anyone would want to do it, but it is basically the same. It's described the texture of bubblegum basket robbers.
Sonny00:17:23Well, the problem with the gummy bears is that, and this is also kind of the problem with the ice cream and the bubblegum, is that it gets really hard. Like, it's really hard. So, like, when you have a frozen gummy bear, trying to eat a frozen gummy bear is not the easiest thing in the world. If I had fillings, I imagine I would have pulled several out over the years. But anyway, but, like, as a child, I was really into bubblegum ice cream just because, again, like, child, child. My reasoning faculties as a child was, like, double desserts means double the pleasure. So, like, this is great. And you separated them, which is interesting. Yeah, but as, well, you can't chew the bubblegum and eat the ice cream at the same time. That's insane. That's crazy. That's an insane thing to do.
Vic00:18:03So, in other words, you can't take a normal scoop and just go, what?
Sonny00:18:05Yeah, but now I'm, like, I, like, as I've gotten older, my tastes have become more vanilla, you could say. And I really just like a good scoop of vanilla ice cream with some, like, maybe some chocolate. Chocolate syrup or something. Just, like, but, like, just, like, straight up vanilla or straight up strawberry.
Vic00:18:22You're becoming a purist.
Sonny00:18:24Yeah, a purist. All these crazy flavors.
Vic00:18:26Fred Barnes' favorite ice cream, vanilla. He says that's the purest. I mean, the real connoisseurs, Fred says, like vanilla.
Sonny00:18:34If you get a real, I mean, a real good scoop of vanilla ice cream.
JVL00:18:37Where are you on French vanilla?
Sonny00:18:39Mmm. I prefer. Vic, where are you on French vanilla? Love it. I prefer regular. French vanilla, there's something weird about the texture of it.
JVL00:18:47And what if you could put white chocolate sauce on your vanilla ice cream?
Sonny00:18:55I mean. Would that make it better? I mean, obviously, I would do that, but I don't live in heaven, JVL. I don't, I'm not a resident of. We have the technology. The great thereafter. I wish, I wish that we had this as a standard option at all restaurants, but it, unfortunately, it just, it does not exist yet.
Vic00:19:13JVL, your ice cream thoughts.
JVL00:19:15I feel as though we are advancing. Advancing in ice cream technology, because what you guys were saying about Maker's Mark last week, or the week before, or whenever that was, that is, oh, that's great. The mic didn't pick that up at all. Don't worry, Vic. So, Ben and Jerry's. Speaking of people who are sick. Ben and Jerry's used to be the gold standard in ice cream, and I now feel like Ben and Jerry's is your median, like, good ice cream.
Sonny00:19:42Right, but it's just another corporate thing. It's not known by Ben and Jerry's. Like, Maker's Mark used to be, like, the premium. Right, and now it's just another bourbon.
Vic00:19:49It's like, it's okay.
JVL00:19:50Yeah, it's good bourbon, right. So, things are getting better. I mean, the two best ice creams I've ever had in my life, I, of course, ranked, and one of them comes from New Jersey, Victorino, and you may have even had it before.
Vic00:20:07I want to know what the brand is. Does it taste like?
JVL00:20:08Halo Farms.
Vic00:20:10Oh, no, no, no. So, it's a dairy farm right outside of. Does it taste like sulfur?
?00:20:14Wow.
Vic00:20:15How dare you? That's North Jersey.
JVL00:20:17It is a dairy farm right outside of what used to be Trenton State, is now the College of New Jersey, which makes it classier. Yes, it is. And they make.
Vic00:20:26So many people who went to Rutgers, wanted to go to Rutgers, got confused, and they ended up at Trenton State. They're like, what? This isn't New Brunswick? Sorry. Go ahead. I don't understand that joke at all. That was deep. I don't understand that joke.
JVL00:20:38They have their own cows. They milk them. They make the ice cream right there. It's tremendous. In the summers I spent at Trenton State, we would go on runs to Halo Farms. And for like $2 for a pint of amazing ice cream, it was tremendous. The other, the best I've ever had, probably even better than Halo Farms, is in Ireland. There's a small chain run by a couple of brothers in Ireland called Murphy's. And these guys make the greatest premium ice cream you have ever tasted. I actually talked with the brothers when I was over there. They had just opened their second shop at the time. And I said, boy, you ought to bring this stuff to America, because you would be printing money if they opened one of these places. Over here, there would be lines around the block for it. They were selling single scoops of their ice cream for nine euros. Nine euros. So that's like $15. You know what?
Vic00:21:26First of all, JVL, when I talked about how was your week, I forget that you've just come back from the Weekly Standard cruise. No, I didn't. Oh. I didn't go in that thick.
JVL00:21:35But that's okay. Sorry. No, no, it's fine. What were you saying?
Vic00:21:39When were you in Ireland?
JVL00:21:41This was years ago.
Vic00:21:42Years ago. I didn't even know you'd been to Ireland. No, no, it's fine. Look, I was asked. They asked me to go. I'm the one who said no to that. Listen, don't worry. We can delete this part. No one will ever know. No one will ever know.
JVL00:21:53So here's how good this ice cream was. It was nine euros for a single scoop. How many dollars is that? I don't know. A lot.
Sonny00:22:00That's like 14. Nine euros doesn't mean ... You might as well tell me you ate a meter of yogurt.
JVL00:22:04I don't know what that means.
Vic00:22:06Sonny, I'll tell you it's about 14 bucks. Okay.
JVL00:22:08So I ate this, and I thought to myself, this ice cream is not worth nine euros, but it's easily worth seven.
Sonny00:22:17That's how good it was.
JVL00:22:17You know, one of these luxury purchases where you consume it and think to yourself, okay, well, this price point's ridiculous, but there's also a ridiculous price point at which it's totally worth it.
Sonny00:22:26But it's still the best. The best ever. This is how I feel.
JVL00:22:30TBE, as CM Punk would once have said.
Sonny00:22:32This is basically how I feel about every time I have a really nice steak at a steakhouse. I'm like, okay, that price point was absurd, but I would have definitely paid 10% less than this very happily.
Vic00:22:41What's annoying me, by the way, really quick aside here about steak price points, we may see tomorrow.
JVL00:22:47Is 60, they're trying to make 60 the new normal for steaks. 60 is the new 40?
Vic00:22:52Yeah, 60 is the new 40. I saved a menu from the early aughts from Morton's and like, ooh, $45, that's crazy. Now it's like 60. And I'm like, there's no way. There's no way. Anyway, okay.
JVL00:23:04First world problems. First world problems, the podcast.
Vic00:23:07Okay, delete that part, too. That was offensive.
JVL00:23:09So I have a quick question about ice cream. Yeah, yeah, sure. Favorite topping, go. Victorino.
Vic00:23:14Oh, like sprinkles? No, no, no, no, no. I would say sprinkles. You know what? If you can get like crushed teeth bar, that'd be great. Sprinkles? Jimmies? Jimmies. As we say in New Jersey. I know, I know, I know the different meanings of jimmies. But I was- Rainbow jimmies are okay.
Sonny00:23:30Yeah, you know what I like- Those are just sprinkles.
Vic00:23:32Are they? Any sort of crushed nuts or toffee. That's what I like. Wet walnuts? I don't think- Well, excuse me?
JVL00:23:40No, you don't like the wet walnuts? All right, Sonny. What? Favorite topping, go. Oh, I've seen that.
Sonny00:23:44No. Just straight up Hershey's. Hershey's chocolate syrup.
JVL00:23:48Okay. Chocolate syrup or chocolate fudge? Chocolate syrup. Chocolate syrup. Why?
Sonny00:23:54I just like the chocolate taste. Interesting. I mean, I've never really thought that hard about it. Okay. What is your favorite topping?
JVL00:24:02I don't really do a lot of toppings.
Sonny00:24:05You just, you're a purist. You just want the ice cream.
JVL00:24:07No, I'm not really. I sort of bounce around flavors. I don't have a- I just, I literally, one of the things is there are plenty of toppings that I like. And because there are plenty of them that I like, I will never order any of them. If I have like a, if I don't have a single overriding compulsion to drive me to do something, then I don't do it. I'm sure this shocks you.
Sonny00:24:25Yeah, no, that sounds about right. Can I just say- I can hear Shannon laughing from here. Your discussion of like very nice ice cream shops has reminded me of my actual favorite like individual ice cream shop. And it's a place called Toffs in Ohio, kind of in between. My mom's family is from Bellevue, Ohio, which is about, I don't know, 30 minutes from Cedar Point, which is like the best roller coaster park in the world. Oh yeah, of course. So like kind of halfway between Bellevue and Cedar Point, basically, if I'm remembering my geography correctly, is a place called Toffs. And it's just like, it's just like a local, you know, chain. I don't know if it's actually even a chain, but it's great.
Vic00:25:02I'll tell you another topping that I like, if you can get it, you know, like on a Sunday, whipped marshmallow. I love whipped marshmallow, more so than I like whipped cream. Whipped marshmallow is like, I think they would put it on a Jim Dandy, for example, at Friendly's. But it's one of the reasons why. I like, here's one from a blast from the past. Some people might, Brian Fotner would know what this is. I don't think JVL does. Seal Test Heavenly Hash. Does that ring a bell? Oh yeah. Oh, okay. Oh yeah. Yeah. Remember Seal Test? Heavenly Hash. Heavenly Hash, because there was marshmallow in it, and chocolate, and chocolate chips.
JVL00:25:33I would never, I would never consume that as a kid, because I thought the entire, the name of it was so dirty and disgusting. That's why I ate it. That's why I ate it. It sounds like something that some, like, 30s hobo would make. Oh, it's heavenly. Heavenly Hash. No thank you.
Vic00:25:47Oh, I just made a Heavenly Hash this morning. Okay, that kind of a thing. Okay. Pass.
JVL00:25:51No, no, no. Okay, pass. I liked it. Did you have Ferrell's by you? No. No. Okay, never mind. I won't go into Ferrell's, but anybody who is listening to this who had Ferrell's, Chris. What is a Ferrell's? Ferrell's is this very small ice cream chain that we had in South Jersey during my childhood. And my small ice cream chain, I mean, they had one in all the local malls, and that's it. So, like, three or four of them. Yeah, except that there's also one of them in Oregon, at the, like, in the downtown area of where the University of Oregon is. And it's, the shtick of is that it's old-timey, like, you know, 1870s ice cream parlor. Oh, I get drunk.
Sonny00:26:30But they do, like, tin roof sundaes.
JVL00:26:32Oh. The gimmick was that you'd bring your tin roof sundae, but they'd also then bring you two pots, like, glycerin silver pots of the hot fudge that you poured on yourself so that you wouldn't... You wouldn't have them pouring it on in the back and then having to wait for three minutes for the ice cream to get to you and have it get all melted and stoopy. JVL.
Vic00:26:52Oh, that's actually pretty smart. Do you remember the... Jersey Strong. Do you remember the tin roof sundae at Ocean Air? They used to do one. Oh, yeah. Spanish peanuts on top of the skin. This is really turning it to the first... At Ocean Air? At Ocean Air? Like, your $20 dessert? Yes. Or the baked Alaska. Or the Dixie Cup.
JVL00:27:09Or you could get the Dixie Cup. Yeah, literally a Dixie Cup with a wooden spoon for a dollar.
Vic00:27:13This is really turning it to the First World episode.
JVL00:27:15Oh, okay. Aren't they all?
Vic00:27:17Yes, yes. So, another good one out there, by the way, is Talenti Toasted Almond. It's very hard to find, but it's, I think, the closest thing to Butter Crunch, which was an old-fashioned Howard Johnson's flavor. In the old days, Howard Johnson, the man himself, like in the 20s and 30s, created his own ice creams. He was really good at it.
JVL00:27:33He was also a very good entrepreneur, obviously.
Vic00:27:35But he did Butter Crunch, and here's a flavor that no longer exists, Grape Nut. Grape Nut? I bet you that's good. I bet you... I tried Grape Nut. If Grape Nut ice cream existed... Do they still make Grape Nut ice cream? Grape Nut cereal? Yes. Grape Nut cereal is pretty good. Yeah. See? There you go. And number one on my list of favorites is, you'd have to take a time machine to Friendly's circa 1978, for Fake Banana. I don't want real... Fake Banana. I don't want real banana. I want with the artificial, so it's like this bright yellow.
Sonny00:28:02So it's like the Runtz flavor? The what? Banana. Have you ever had Runtz? No. Oh, yeah. Well, there you go. They're like the little candies that are shaped like fruits. Oh, yes. And one of them's a banana. And it's like essence of banana. You bite into it, and you're like, that is like what an idea. And that's like what a computer thinks banana tastes like. Right, right.
Vic00:28:18It's not really, but I loved that growing up. So bring me, bring back the Fake Banana. Okay. There's something else I need to tell you guys. By now, everyone knows that Dollar Shave Club ships amazing razors for a few bucks. I've been a member for a while, and I love my shave. What you might not know, I didn't, is that Dollar Shave Club also has products for pretty much everything else I need in the bathroom. Body wash, shampoo, hair gel, lip balm, everything. As soon as I heard Dollar Shave Club had stuff other than razors, I was sold. At the store, there are too many options, and you can't tell the difference between any of them. Then, if you have any questions, the clerk usually doesn't know the difference either, or can't really help you since they are not experts on the products. DSC makes it easy and convenient for you to upgrade your shave and your bathroom. Now, you don't have to step foot in a store to get a high-quality shave and grooming products. We'll deliver them right to your door. Just like their razors, everything is super high-quality and left me looking and feeling amazing. From premium ingredients to sophisticated scents, DSC is changing the game. If you're like me and sick of the nonsense at the store, now is the time to try out Dollar Shave Club for a limited time. DSC is basically giving away their starter set to new members. For only $5, this starter set features their executive razor and three trial-sized versions of their most popular products that help you stay fresh and clean. In your first box, you'll receive their shave butter, body wash, and one-wipe Charlie's butt wipes. You will also receive their executive razor, which includes their premium weighty handle, and full set of cartridges. After the first box, replacement cartridges are sent for only a few bucks a month. This offer is exclusively available at dollarshaveclub.com slash substandard. That's dollarshaveclub.com slash substandard. Dollar Shave Club's high-quality products will have you covered from top to bottom. There's no better time to try the club. I thought it was a plunger. I will say this. People are laughing, but our friend and Sonny, our colleague, Brent Scher, he has had one-wipe Charlie butt wipes. He says they're great, and that's why he's got such a spring in his step.
Sonny00:31:04I assumed it was either that or all the alcohol. I wasn't going to ask any questions.
JVL00:31:09One-wipe Charlies.
Vic00:31:11Sorry, I'm efforting this.
JVL00:31:13Because I do not have a membership. I applied, but was rejected, much like Georgetown. Here it is. It's a real thing. One-wipe Charlies.
Vic00:31:22Yeah, of course it's a real thing. It's a civilized way to wipe. It's a civilized way to wipe. Absolutely. Now, go to Google search and just type in butt wipes and see what comes up. Ooh, they have a gentle peppermint scent. Why would they need that? Now, over the weekend, it continued to dominate the box office with $60 million, followed by American Assassin at $14 million. $14.5 million. And finally, Mother! By the way, does it really have to be lowercase, like E.E. Cummings?
Sonny00:31:50Well, they actually sent a—the PR people sent an email around saying, you know, in your reviews and other writings, please make sure to put Mother as lowercase with an exclamation mark. I'm sorry. Yes, JV.
JVL00:32:02I've got to stop us here. The gentle peppermint scent and a minty tingle. Please continue.
Vic00:32:12I can't wait. I hope we get these swag. I hope we get swag soon. It really helps in a pinch. Sonny, continue. Mother came in at $7.5 million.
JVL00:32:26That's more than it deserved, isn't it? Well, Sonny, you saw Mother. Did Gene see it?
Vic00:32:30No, Gene did not see it. Maybe he should see it next week if it's still in theaters. I doubt that. Sonny, you saw Mother. Tell us, how was it?
Sonny00:32:38I didn't like it. So, Mother is the new film from Darren Aronofsky, who is the guy who directed— directed Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Black Swan, Noah, a bunch of other movies. And it is— they've done a very good job of marketing it, kind of, insofar as—
JVL00:33:02People are talking about it.
Sonny00:33:03They've hidden what it is actually about. It has been kind of marketed as a kind of a straight— or maybe not straightforward, but like kind of a horror movie, you know, with like a— it's being marketed as kind of— it's kind of a scary movie with jump scares and, you know, who knows what's going on in this creepy house. Is it haunted? What's the deal? Are they ghosts? I don't know. And there's a reason it got an F from CinemaScore. Now, CinemaScore is best understood— I think we've discussed this on the show before, but CinemaScore is best understood as a measure of audience expectations because what they do is they poll people who go— who pay money to see the movie on its first day, on like the Thursday night, Friday shows, and they then get the score. So, American Assassin, for instance, which was also new this week, got a B-plus CinemaScore. It was basically what people were expecting to see. They, you know, they were expecting a spy thriller type action movie. And they got it. And they got a spy thriller action movie, and it wasn't great, but it also was more or less what they wanted to see. That's why it got a B+. I mean, American Assassin is a very mediocre-to-bad movie, and even most mediocre-to-bad movies do fine on CinemaScore in like the Bs. B to B-plus range. Because it is what it is. If it's what people were expecting to see. Mother got an F. Mother got an F. Mother's one of the very rare movies to get an F. And it got an F because it was sold as one thing, and it is, in fact, something else. It's not a kind of straightforward horror film. Though it is horrifying, and it has some kind of scary elements, it is what it actually is, is kind of a Bible allegory. So it basically, the movie follows, Javier Bardem, who plays an unnamed poet, creator type. He's an artist. He wants to make and build and create. And his wife, his young wife, who was played by Jennifer Lawrence, also not named.
JVL00:34:56Leaves him when she meets the guy who plays James Bond in another, no?
Sonny00:34:59No, no. Different movie. And these two, they live in a house that they're kind of rebuilding, and he has writer's block. He can't work. She is trying to help him through this, and everything gets started when, a man and a woman show up at his house, at their house, Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer. They have two children, an older son and a younger son. The older son, I forget my Bible stories now, but one of the sons slays the other son by bashing him in the head with a rock. And it's kind of at this point that you realize, okay, this is Cain and Abel. There's a big house party. There's a flood. Everybody has to leave the house, you know, et cetera. So it's like, it is like telling this kind of biblical allegory that is also about really the fact that man is a plague and destructive and ruins the earth, which is embodied both by the house and by Jennifer Lawrence, who's playing kind of this Gaia, Mother Earth type fertility goddess. You know, it's this, and it's about, you know, how, you know, men pray upon women and like rely on them to help create inspiration and then abuse and discard them. It's got all of these different kind of mixed metaphors running around in it. But like the, if you go into it expecting a kind of biblical allegory told from the point of view of somebody who is about on the Richard Dawkins level of like angry atheist, like your God is a lie. He's dumb and he hates you and all he wants is he sucks the life out of you and he gives you nothing back. And how, you know, how can you be with him? It is like that. It is like that for about two hours. And there's any, look, here's the thing about the movie is that it is a very skillfully made film. Darren Aronofsky is a great director. He understands how to ratchet up, not tension exactly, but ratchet up kind of craziness. He just keeps going. And the whole last 30 minutes of this movie are like just told in kind of a nonstop escalatingly violent and angry situation that culminates in the end of the world. It culminates in the house being burned down. Um, and, uh, you know, I, I, I just, I, I didn't, I, I, I didn't care for it. It was just too much. It was, there was, there was a lot going on there. And I am somebody who really likes Darren Aronofsky. I like, I like, I think Requiem for a Dream is a like great and disturbing film. Um, I think, uh, you know, I, I actually like what he did in Noah, which kind of takes the same basic ideas of Mother, which are, again, humanity is a plague and a virus and needs to be wiped out or it will destroy the world. And, and did it in a much more artful, much more interesting, frankly, a better storytelling sort of way. I mean, this is, this is a $30 million art house film that Paramount has spent, I don't know, $20 or $30 million marketing. And I, on the one hand, I want to give them praise for like putting out something interesting and complicated and artistic. But on the other hand, it is, it's just a hateful, ugly movie. It is, it is, I mean, it really is a hateful film. Yeah, I mean. It's a movie, it's, it's like the, it is almost the definition of misanthropic. Right. Insofar as it, like, hates man. Right. As a, as a class of.
Vic00:38:27Well, it doesn't sound like a pleasant experience
Sonny00:38:29or an escapist experience. It was not. It was definitely not. And look.
Vic00:38:32When you saw it, you saw it at a screening.
Sonny00:38:35No, I saw, I saw it, I, I, I saw it on like a Friday morning after it came out.
Vic00:38:40Were there, was there, was there anybody else in the theater?
Sonny00:38:43There were a couple. There were a couple other people in the theater. Yeah, yeah.
Vic00:38:45You get the general sense of the people were also feeling sort of like, ugh, what is this?
Sonny00:38:48Uh, I know, I didn't really get that sense, but I, I, I was reading some of the, some of the, uh, some critics were talking about going to see it with, like, real audiences and audiences just walking out, like, the third of the way through the film, halfway through the film, just like leaving, leaving in droves. Uh, so anyway, it's an unpleasant film and I don't recommend it, but, uh, you know, if you're into that sort of thing, go for it, I guess.
JVL00:39:13Uh, JVL. I knew it was bad because all the Christian-hating film critics hated it, even, and they couldn't, like, weren't willing to make excuses. That's how bad it was. People whose ideological viewpoint agrees with Aronofsky weren't willing to make excuses for the movie. Wow. That's how you know that a film is really terrible.
Vic00:39:29Yeah, yeah. Uh, Sonny, you said, uh, this is a movie that you would not want to sit through again.
Sonny00:39:35Yeah, I, I don't think I would. I mean, I might force myself to do it just because it, again, to see if I have kind of, misjudged it or whatever. And look, again, what I will say is that it is a very well-made movie. It is a, it is like a real piece of artistry. Just because it is a, uh, a hateful, uh, angry piece of artistry does not make it any less of a piece of art. Um, but the, the, uh, I, I have, I have no real interest in sitting through that again, no.
Vic00:40:07Uh, there are probably other movies we have, perhaps, on a list of sorts of movies we would never want to sit through again. Uh, who wants to start us off? JVL, you need some time?
JVL00:40:18Well, no, I was going to say that I think we need to really unpack this a little bit. Okay. Because there are a whole bunch of different subspecies and genuses. Unwatchable how. Once you start talking about, right, unwatchable how. And so we will start with professional wrestling. I realize we use a lot of pro wrestling slang in this, and we have never, like, unpacked it and defined, defined it for people who don't know, so when we say kayfabe, this means that this is within the pretend make-believe storylines of wrestling, where everybody pretends that they are bad or good or have a feud. Um, you have faces who are the good guys, heels who are the bad guys. You have heat, which is the amount of enthusiasm that a character drives with the audience. So you have heel heat being a bad guy who people really get exercised over. But then there is the rarest form of heat, X-Pac heat, X-Pac heat is so named because there was a wrestler in the early 2000s whose ring name was X-Pac, who audiences hated legitimately. And they didn't hate him in the way that they loved to hate him or that they thought he was evil. It's just they wanted him to go away. And so, I think there are heel heat movies that you don't want to see again because you actually can derive some pleasure from hating on them.
Sonny00:41:36X-Pac was the one, two, three kid, right? And then, yeah. And then he was six, right? When he first went to the WC. WCW, he was called six because it was one, two, three added together. And then he was X-Pac.
JVL00:41:47And then he was X-Pac when he became part of
Sonny00:41:49D-Generation. I think this is right. I might be wrong. I don't know. This is like my golden age of wrestling. Not mine. This period.
JVL00:41:55So, the four categories I have here are the movies that you hate and don't want to watch again, but that you derive some pleasure from thinking about or talking about them. There are movies which you hate only because they're overpraised. And so, it's the movies that you hate and that you just rebel from it.
Sonny00:42:14I know which one falls into this category for JBL. I know. Brace yourself.
JVL00:42:19There are movies which you like, legitimately like, but won't watch again because they're such hard watches. And then there is the X-Pac heat. Movies which you just want them to go away. And so, those are the four categories. And I thought I would set that up and say, which would you like to discuss first?
Vic00:42:37Well, I didn't set up my categories that way. It's too hard for me to keep track of. That is very complex. I'm going to let you just... Why don't you just go and do your thing? Why don't you just do your own category?
Sonny00:42:45Just go for it.
JVL00:42:47All right. So, the heel heat movies, the movies that you hate, but they get a rise out of you, are movies that are actively... Like Transformers. Okay. Right. The original Transformers or Showgirls. Showgirls is terrible, but everybody sort of enjoys hating it. Or Goodfellas. Then there are movies that you hate because they're over-priced. Wait a minute. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't even mean that. Goodfellas is fine. They're movies that you hate because they're over-priced, and here, the two I'm thinking of are Crash and Shakespeare in Love. I do not like Crash. I think the cultural reaction to Crash would have been fine had it not won the Best Picture, and the same thing for Shakespeare in Love. I actually love Shakespeare in Love. I mean, it's a lovely movie. I enjoy it tremendously. People hate it out there, especially in film nerd world, and I think it's because it became so radically over-priced.
Sonny00:43:41And also because it beat the movie. I love Saving Private Ryan, which is a movie that people really, really feel strongly about and really love.
JVL00:43:48And which shows up in my third list, which is the movies that you like a lot, but won't watch again because they're hard watches. For me, Saving Private Ryan is in there. Schindler's List is in there, and Raging Bull is in there. All great movies, all hugely admirable movies, all movies that I have zero interest in ever sitting through again. I can watch parts, but I don't think I can go through beginning to end again. There are scenes. Yeah, I can pull scenes. Oh, there are scenes.
Vic00:44:11Yeah, absolutely. For all three movies.
JVL00:44:13Yes, but they're full of it. And then the X-Pac Heat ones, but like the entire oeuvre of Lars von Trier, like Antichrist, the Bjork Dancer in the Dark movie, even Melancholia, which despite having naked Kirsten Dunst, is still unwatchable. That's how bad it is. Nymphomaniac 1 and Nymphomaniac Part 2. Did you actually see those? Yeah, at some point. I never did.
Sonny00:44:35I never bothered.
JVL00:44:36Those movies, I like to think of all the adolescent boys who feel utterly betrayed by the promise of those movies. Who thought they were going to get something very different. I can think of two things that are wrong. Right, again, the naked lunch, Simpsons, right. And even early Steven Soderbergh, like Solaris, which is... Well, Solaris, that was terrible. Schizopolis, which is the great line for me. He said, that was the movie where I had moved from personal to merely private filmmaking. Yeah. You just want to go away. Steven Soderbergh's Full Frontal, same thing. Weird. Full Frontal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So those are... There's a weird fifth class in this for me, which is move to your secret shame movies, which are movies that everybody else loves and you inexplicably hate. Huh. Which is okay.
Sonny00:45:23For me, like Forrest Gump.
JVL00:45:24Everybody loves Forrest Gump. No, I hate...
Sonny00:45:26A lot of people hate that movie. A lot of people hate that movie. You're not alone. You're not alone. You're not alone.
JVL00:45:29There are dozens of us. It's very... I'm like the never nude. I'm wearing cutoffs underneath these.
Sonny00:45:34It's very film nerd to hate Forrest Gump. Yeah. It's very pretentious, like, oh, Forrest Gump, that movie's bad. Because everybody... Because it's... Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're just one of many. I am who I am. Film nerds. Angry film nerds.
JVL00:45:48You want me to go, Sonny, or you want me to go?
Sonny00:45:49Yeah, sure, go ahead. Okay.
Vic00:45:50Mine are very straightforward.
JVL00:45:53Wait, that's it? We're not going to discuss... Well, no, all right. All right, so if we want to...
Sonny00:45:56It's too hard for me to keep track of this. I wish we had gotten a heads up on this before. If I could have whiteboarded this... Oh, I'm sorry. You could have sent us an email saying... I would have, but then you would have said... Hey, here are my various categories. Save it for the show. Well, if you're going to... If we're going to... We don't come in here and say, like, oh, by the way, we're going to rank Romanian films from 1987 to 2013. Awesome, we do. Go. Go for it. Anyway, so in your categories, the movies that I legitimately X-Pac-heat hate... X-Pac-hate? I don't... X-Pac-hate. It's so hard. X-Pac-hate. As somebody who has to see a movie every week, I get a fair number of these, probably more than I would like. The most recent iteration of this for me was the movie Heartbreak. It's called Hardcore Henry, which was the one that was shot entirely from the first person point of view, and it was...
JVL00:46:44It was a fathom event.
Sonny00:46:46Oh, was it a fathom event? Yeah. Well, it got a real... I mean, it got a real release. It was like in... But it was... It's like... It's not... It's not bad because it's stupid, though it is stupid, and it's not bad because it's poorly acted, because there are actually... Oh, what's his name from District 9? Sholto Copley. Sure. Is that his... Whatever. Whatever. The South African guy. He plays a bunch of different roles, and he's kind of clever, and that is actually... But it is shot in such a way that it is literally impossible for me to watch. I wanted to be sick the whole time. I had motion sickness. And if that movie... If that dumb, stupid movie never existed, I would be a much happier person. Let's see. What else was there? There were the movies that you liked...
JVL00:47:29Aren't you glad it didn't make $100 million? Oh, God. Because if it had...
Sonny00:47:32If there were multiple versions of this, it would be the worst. Let's see. Movies that I like but don't really want to watch. Movies that I want to see again.
JVL00:47:39I actually don't have movies like this.
Sonny00:47:43This is the sort of movie that Requiem for a Dream falls into for a lot of people. This is an intense movie that is really well made, obviously, but very unpleasant. Even Schindler's List or something. These are all movies that I don't necessarily... I won't sit down to watch as a fun Friday evening or whatever, but I will watch them for professional and kind of... discussion purposes. And as Variety would put it. I would say the only one actually like that recently was 12 Years a Slave, which, again, it's a very impressive piece of filmmaking. There are a lot of great shots and really horrifying stuff that is done with the camera, in addition to just the action that's actually happening on the screen. But I have no interest in revisiting it again, just because it was unpleasant. And not, I don't know, kind of uplifting in the way that the last scene of Schindler's List is. I mean, the Liam Neeson speech is, you know.
Vic00:48:50And the thing with Schindler's List, it reminds me of, as Variety would put it, perfs across the board, you know, or just stellar. And you think about Ben Kingsley, Ray Fines. I don't think, that was the first time I'd ever seen him on screen in anything. And I said, who is that guy? You know, I mean, he's really sort of terrifying, but hypnotizing. And, of course, Liam Neeson.
JVL00:49:10Are there any movies that everybody else loves and you hate? Movies that everybody else loves and I hate?
Vic00:49:16Dances with Wolves. That's one, JBL, isn't it?
JVL00:49:18But a lot of people hate that, too.
Sonny00:49:20A lot of people hate that. I don't know. I mean, I don't really think so. I don't think I have anything in that category.
Vic00:49:27Victorino? I'll just go through my list, and we can see if it fits in any of these categories. The movie that always stuck out in my mind is something that I thought was a terrible movie that I saw in a theater. It was like the first movie I saw in a movie theater as a kid, and I thought to myself, this is a terrible movie. And it was from 1983, so I was 10, and it was just kids. I think my parents had said, okay, just go in there. And it was Hercules, with Lou Ferrigno. And so it was mythological. It followed on the heels of Clash of the Titans, and you think, oh, that's hokey, but it's hokey enough that they could pull off... It's so ridiculous that, fine, it works. Hercules did not work. And one of the problems was they had to dub Lou Ferrigno's voice, because as you know, Lou Ferrigno is deaf. And so it's like you're watching a foreign film.
Sonny00:50:14It wasn't the Hercules with Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Vic00:50:17No, not this one.
Sonny00:50:18That's a different one? There was a Lou Ferrigno?
Vic00:50:20Yeah, there was a Lou Ferrigno one from 1983. But again, I don't fault Lou Ferrigno. He's a really sweet guy. From everything I've seen, the best thing I've ever seen Lou Ferrigno in was Pumping Iron, about the 1975 competition for Mr. Olympia, and it was him versus Schwarzenegger.
Sonny00:50:34Are you sure you're not thinking of Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Vic00:50:36No. And Ferrigno, in that documentary, Pumping Iron, he's so sweet, you know, and he lives with his Italian family in New York and the whole thing. But that was an unwatchable movie, Hercules. Third one, I remember, because we went to the theater and we didn't know what to watch, so we had to watch something, and we all ended up going in high school to see, in 1990, The Two Jakes. Do you remember this movie?
JVL00:50:57Is that the Chinatown sequel? Yes. In this town, I'm the leper with the most fingers.
Guest00:51:02It's such a great line.
Vic00:51:03Is that from The Two Jakes? Really?
JVL00:51:04It's such a great line.
Vic00:51:06The problem was I didn't see Chinatown at the time. And even still, it was so weird. It was 17. That's probably two. And even with Jack Nicholson and Harvey Keitel, I thought, this is not... People waited for this.
Sonny00:51:20I've actually never seen The Two Jakes. I've never... Yeah, I'm skipping that.
Vic00:51:25Number two, JVL, is a movie that I believe you and I saw together, Mission to Mars. The Brian De Palma? Tim Robbins, Don... Yes, Tim Robbins. Connie Nielsen. Connie Nielsen, Gary Sinise. People laughed at all the wrong parts. That's how you do it was bad. Like, when Don Cheadle was left behind, and he goes back, and his hair was just like, oh, my gosh.
JVL00:51:47Yeah, wasn't that one of these, like, there were two competing Mission to Mars movies? There was Mission to Mars and Red Planet. Yes, that was the problem. This is like the Dante's Peak Volcano. Except they were genuinely bad. Yes, that's right.
Sonny00:52:02Except they were both bad. Genuinely bad. Well, I actually kind of like Mission to Mars, just because it's... But I am totally sympathetic to the people who think it's dumb.
Vic00:52:11There was, like, a scene with, I think it's Tim Robbins dancing with Connie Nielsen, weightless, and I'm like... Yeah, it's a Van Halen.
JVL00:52:17Yes! Dance the night away. Hey, guess what? That's the point.
Vic00:52:20I know why Vic went to see Hercules. Yeah.
JVL00:52:23Because this was the one sheet.
Vic00:52:25Oh, yeah! Look, it looks great!
JVL00:52:29It has a... It's one of these drawing art ones from the early 80s.
Vic00:52:33Yeah, I know, it's like Sidbad in The Eye of the Tiger.
JVL00:52:36The Hercules figure is an unrecognizable cartoon version of Luther Rigno, and he is surrounded by two very buxom, very scantily clad females. It's very Conan.
Vic00:52:48It is Conan, and there is a robotic dragon? Yes. It's like a snake or something? Yes, there is.
JVL00:52:53But it's like he's a space robot or something.
Sonny00:52:55By the way, and I got... It's like a Star Destroyer, but with a snake head stuck on the top of it.
Vic00:52:59They tried to get everything in one movie, and I got news for you. It wasn't real. It was stop action. Great, so now I have to do show notes this week. Okay, number one movie I think we could all agree on. I really, really thought this was an awful movie that I sat through in the theater. Congo, from 1995. Boo! Congo's great. The movie? You shut your mouth. Not the book. The movie?
Sonny00:53:19You shut your whore mouth. The book is terrible, too. That is one of Crichton's lesser books. You're wrong. You're both wrong. You're both wrong. You're both awful people. Can I say this?
Vic00:53:30The scene where he jumps off the plane in the parachute with the gorillas strapped to him. Yeah!
Sonny00:53:36Gorilla suit strapped to the actor. It's great. It was one of the worst things I ever saw. It's got Bruce Campbell in it in the opening scene. Yeah, yeah. That's right. It's got a great Delroy Lindo performance. The stop eating sesame cake. I love it. I love that movie. Oh, my God. It's funny. Ah, you're wrong.
Vic00:53:53Okay, also, by the way, creating a device, by the way, creating a device. Directed by?
Sonny00:53:58Oh, who? It wasn't Barry Levinson. That was Sphere. Frank Marshall. Oh, really? Who produced it? Interesting.
JVL00:54:07A bunch of great movies. Yeah. And directed never again.
Vic00:54:12Here's the other problem with Kago, okay? So they have the device that allows the gorilla to talk. Amy. Amy, yes. Use your name. Sorry. And it was able to communicate. However, Sonny, just because it communicates, so if it communicates, the gorilla should be saying things like, you know, me hungry, me thirsty. Instead, it is, why are you jealous of him? Amy's sad. But it was, and it got more, there was so much new. There was so much nuance in that machine. I'm like, they don't know this about the gorilla? The gorilla has a lot of feelings.
JVL00:54:41Crazy. You know, you're, you're, you're, this is speciesism.
Vic00:54:45That's it. We have to move on.
JVL00:54:46The gorilla could have been our therapist.
Sonny00:54:48Congo's a million times better than Sphere. Sphere was a bad, that was a bad movie.
Vic00:54:51I wanted Sphere to do well, too.
Sonny00:54:52From a great, from a, like, Sphere is actually maybe Crichton's, maybe my favorite Crichton book.
Vic00:54:59JVL, how. Are you kidding?
Sonny00:55:01I just read that in the past year. In that book. Crichton is. Yeah, you read it as a, as a adult, you know, with life experiences and, and stuff. I read it as like a 13-year-old. The third act, everything just falls apart in it.
JVL00:55:18Like, this is, this is the class. So, Crichton's early work, the, the hallmark of it, is that he's great, like J.J. Abrams, fantastic mythology building, fantastic world building, but he often has trouble with third acts, and Sphere's like. No, it's great.
Sonny00:55:33I love, I love, I love the, like, kind of erasing the, erasing the past. That's the first thing that they do. That's Event Horizon. That is also a problem. I mean, Event Horizon is a. That's a different movie. You're thinking of a totally different movie. And Leviathan. No. Nobody erases the past in Sphere. Where they, where they like, where they like go into the, the Sphere, and then they tell themselves to forget all the things.
Vic00:55:52Erasing their own past. Very, very end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. JVL, tell our listeners about your experience of seeing the screening of Sphere.
JVL00:56:02Oh, yeah. The, the, the, the critic screening for Sphere that I went to whenever that came out. Uh, they started the movie with the second reel.
Sonny00:56:10Oh. Oh. How long?
JVL00:56:12No way. We went 18 minutes, I think. Before anybody realized that, you know, I understand avant-garde and everything, but this isn't really tracking and making a lot of sense. And so they then stopped the movie, brought the lights up. The people from the press agency said, we, we just need to rewind everything and reset. It'll only take us another, you know, 10 minutes or so. Hang out. And they just started over again. And I was unsurprised. Unsurprised that the movie got poor reviews from the Washington area film critics.
Sonny00:56:40Shocking. Well, it got, it got poor reviews from just about everyone. I think it was not a well-received. Probably true. Uh, I think we need to move on. Yeah, we're done.
Vic00:56:48I don't know. Those are pretty good lists.
JVL00:56:50But can I mention some movies, which I am surprised that nobody. All right.
Vic00:56:54Oh, by the way, to, to add to, for your category of movies that you like, but you can only see once, uh, Diving Bell Butterfly.
JVL00:57:02Diving Bell Butterfly.
Sonny00:57:03Diving Bell and the Butterfly. You know that one. No. That's the one where, uh. Well, he's got lock-in syndrome, right? Yeah.
Vic00:57:07Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's terrible. It's, uh, it was the editor of, uh, French Vogue, and then he becomes paralyzed in all but one eye and can only communicate by blinking, and he writes the book by blinking. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds exciting.
JVL00:57:19Uh, nobody mentioned Caligula? I know, I'm just going to read off movies. All right. I'm going to read off a list of movies, and you flag me if you'd like to have a conversation about them.
Vic00:57:28I'll raise my hand up like the hearing test. Howard the Duck. Oh, yeah. Definitely terrible. And, uh, and remember, oh my gosh. The kid. I want to see this. It's George Lucas.
JVL00:57:38Not only George Lucas, but also... Lea Thompson. Lea Thompson. That was at her height of, like, adolescent boy bait.
Sonny00:57:45I've loved Lea Thompson.
JVL00:57:46Yeah. Ishtar? Yeah. No one, nobody's going to... That's right. Leonard Part Six.
Sonny00:57:53I've never seen...
JVL00:57:53You don't even know what Leonard Part Six is? That's Bill Cosby. That's Bill Cosby. I don't know what that is. Which now has the added benefit of giving us all of the Bill Cosby backstory, which gives you even new impetus to hate it. You don't... This was Bill Cosby. This was Bill Cosby in science fiction comedy, and it was going to be a summer blockbust. It was like Pluto Nash. Yeah. It was supposed to be.
Vic00:58:13I saw... You know what I saw? I don't know what this is. I think the only Bill Cosby movie I saw at a theater was The Devil and Max Devlin, and that was with Elliot Gould, and Bill Cosby played the devil.
JVL00:58:23Troll 2, starring Jennifer Aniston. Classic of, like, this is when people talk about the best, worst movies ever made. Troll 2 was there.
Sonny00:58:32That's not Jennifer Aniston. Jennifer Aniston was in Leprechaun.
JVL00:58:35She's Leprechaun. Troll 2 was different. In fact, I believe there was a documentary made about the making of Troll 2.
Sonny00:58:41I interviewed the director of that, back when it came out in 08 or 09.
JVL00:58:46Batman and Robin? Eh. Yeah. Spice World? No, that wasn't something. All right. What about Shazam, the movie done by Sinbad? Oh, I thought that was... Do you remember how?
Vic00:58:56Yeah, that was Sinbad.
JVL00:58:59That's right. Sonny, you're with me. I know what you're doing.
Sonny00:59:02You see what I'm doing. I know what you're doing. Don't you? Yeah. You got him. It was good. Pretty good. Pretty good.
JVL00:59:08Pretty, pretty good there. You know what? I'll put that into show notes, too. You should. For anybody who doesn't understand what I'm talking about, the Sinbad Shazam, Vic, you saw it, right?
Vic00:59:17No, actually, I didn't. Sorry. Fine.
JVL00:59:22All right. Okay. I guess we're moving right along. Is that it?
Vic00:59:24Was it a smart choice not to see it? Oh, we already did that. We did the ad. JVL, it's an hour. We're already at an hour. Okay. Corrections, additions, Sonny. Nothing. I got nothing. Good. JVL.
JVL00:59:39My wife says she did all the corrections on Twitter. She and Kyle and Substandard Fan, and they all tweeted each other.
Vic00:59:49It's very sweet. They do. Speaking of which, a trivia question. But not Tom Winkler. Thank God. The trivia question is for you boys. The time that George W. Bush was given a DUI in 1976 in Maine, who else was in the car with him? You ready for this? John Newcomb, who we were just talking about. No. Yeah, the tennis guy. Are you kidding? Isn't that crazy? Yeah, that's wild. Think about that.
JVL01:00:18Well, boys, I would love to know the story.
Vic01:00:19Yeah, no, they were drinking, hanging out, and he was hanging out with W. And there was an interview with John Newcomb, and he said all they were doing was drinking beers, but they were drinking him like, you know, like, can you, John, first of all, I think one of the top rules in drinking is don't challenge an Australian to drinking, because they're notoriously heavy drinkers. And Newcomb was able to take his beer mug with his teeth and raise it up to his glass, and they drank the whole thing down in one shot. And W. was like, yeah, I can do that, and he did that. And then Newcomb was like, I'll drink from the other side. I'd have the beer, you know, pour all over him. And W. said, I can do that, too. Okay, let's drive home, you know. And then by that time, that's when. Hey, here's control of nuclear weapons. Yes, that's right. So that was that. And I only mention that also because, of course, Substandard fan, who goes by the handle Lonely now. But he said that. He knows what's coming. He went to Newcomb Tennis Camp and knew Braunfels. That eliminates many of my suspects of who Newcomb Substandard fan is, by the way. And he never bothered to learn who he was until recently. And Newcomb won seven Grand Slam singles titles. Even I didn't know that.
JVL01:01:24Did you see Substandard fan's new sweet new glasses? No. He has made the. Oh, yes. Oh, those drinking glasses. The high balls. Is that what that is? They look like tumblers. Tumblers. I mean, tumblers with. I can't believe. I'm sure it's fine on them. Fantastic.
Vic01:01:38That's amazing. Okay. And lastly, I want to give a shout out to Substandard fan Anne-Marie Hauser, who recently came back from Europe. And when she was in Vienna, got me a bag of Julius Meinl Jubileum coffee beans. And we had them over the weekend. Thank you, Anne-Marie. And the ratio is one to one. Okay. Spirit of the Week. Sonny.
Sonny01:02:01I brought in some Oktoberfests from Sam Adams. Because it's fall.
Vic01:02:07We were looking for pumpkin. There was no pumpkin yet. No pumpkin. This is the best we could do at the CVS. Yeah, at the CVS.
Sonny01:02:12Is that why it was warm?
Vic01:02:13Yes. There's nothing worse than that. That's all the time we are giving to the episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Victorino Matus at Sonny Bunch. And JV last. Nope. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher. Just type in Substandard under podcasts. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. And don't forget, Substandard show notes will be up on Friday at 11 a.m. Until next time.
JVL01:03:05I don't want to talk too much about it because I don't want to alert the counterintelligence types. That you're married to? But it's real and it is spectacular.
Vic01:03:16Let me ask you this. Are you just having the watch sent directly to your office? Is that what's going to happen?
JVL01:03:20No, I'm going to go pick it up and it's going to be amazing. Come on. Are you wearing a watch? You're a watch guy. Don't you have a Rolex? Is this your Rolex?
Vic01:03:30The only one I own.
JVL01:03:30Is it the day and date? Oyster Perpetual. Oh, it's the Oyster Perpetual. Come on.
Vic01:03:35It was given to me from my parents in 1995 as a graduation present that I didn't feel worthy enough to wear until I started at The Weekly Standard.
Sonny01:03:43Yeah, so we went from talking about the $60 steaks to the ocean air desserts to the Rolexes that Vic wanders around in. Yeah, I'm sure it's fine.
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