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#66. The Substandard on Kingsman, Layer Cake, and Free Samples!
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Dudes Chatting — Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Layer Cake, and Matthew Vaughn: The cold open covers National Hobbit Day, JVL eyeing the $800 Lego Millennium Falcon set while his wife is out of town, Sonny's fantasy baseball championship, and Vic's strategic approach to free samples at Harris Teeter. Vic also tells an extended story about cooking eggy pasta. The main segment begins with Sonny's review of Kingsman: The Golden Circle — mixed positive: the Statesman sequences are great, Channing Tatum is underused, and the film is too long and too focused on resurrecting the Harry character, but it delivers enough of what made the first film fun. JVL then delivers an extended love letter to Layer Cake, calling it "the greatest movie of the last 20 years, non-Batman division," describing the plot in detail and praising Daniel Craig alongside the supporting cast (Michael Gambon, Tom Hardy, Sienna Miller, Colm Meaney). The hosts then rank Matthew Vaughn's full filmography, with Sonny placing Kingsman first, Kick-Ass second (praising Nick Cage's Adam West–style murderous Batman performance and the Hit Girl sequences), X-Men: First Class third, and Stardust fourth (calling it an undiscovered Princess Bride-tier cable classic). JVL's Layer Cake evangelism and Sonny ranking it last among Vaughn's films generates good-natured friction. The episode closes with a brief candy teaser for a future Halloween episode.
Reviews: Sonny reviews Kingsman: The Golden Circle — mixed positive. Fun action sequences and strong Statesman material undercut by an overstuffed runtime and a misguided decision to resurrect Harry Hart.
Box Office: Kingsman: The Golden Circle opened at $39 million; It placed second at $30 million; The Lego Ninjago Movie opened third at $21 million.
Spirit of the Week: Old Forester Statesman bourbon (the Kingsman: The Golden Circle branded release), reviewed very favorably by all three hosts at approximately $50–60 a bottle. Corrections segment included; JVL could not recall the specific correction he owed.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Weekly Standard.
Vic00:00:30This is another edition of The Substandard, brought to you by Casper Mattresses. 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 our podcast and search for Substandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. In addition, we'd also like to remind you that Substandard show notes posted by Jonathan Last are often available on Fridays at 11 a.m. at weeklystandard.com. Gentlemen, how are we? JVL, September 22 is National Hobbit Day. Did you do anything special?
JVL00:01:07I didn't do anything different, if that's what you mean.
Vic00:01:11And my axe! Okay, how was your axe? That's a dwarf. Idiot. I just throwed that in there.
JVL00:01:19No, we got out some gem dice and rolled a couple characters. Most important character attribute. Go. Dexterity.
?00:01:31Yes!
Vic00:01:32Am I right? Yes! Oh, man. I didn't even know what you were going to ask.
JVL00:01:35You put me on the spot. Sonny, for you, most important character. When you were rolling and had to apportion your character points. Constitution. Last week.
Sonny00:01:42I have literally no idea what you're talking about. I have no... I don't understand. Most overrated. Constitution? No, no, that's life.
JVL00:01:50Wisdom.
Vic00:01:50Wisdom, yes, that's what it was. It was one for smarts.
JVL00:01:53Or charisma.
Vic00:01:54Yeah, I'm not into that. I'm not talking, I'm killing. I don't have time. Strength and dexterity. Strength, dexterity. That's all I need. Constitution is important. I don't need a brain. I don't need a brain. Right.
JVL00:02:04You could provide the brain yourself. Oh, I've got it.
Vic00:02:06Would you play as a spellcaster? No. Were you always a warrior or a ranger? No, I love being a warrior or some sort of assassin type, right? Can you be an assassin type?
JVL00:02:13Did you ever do the Rogue Oriental Adventures? No, excuse me.
Vic00:02:17Why would I want to? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why would I want to do Oriental Adventures? Guys, that's a little bit. You know what? It's a little bit much. Actually, I am familiar with it. You know what I'm talking about, right? I am, I am. That's where I learned the word shuriken, because that was the word for Chinese stars. That's what common folks say, Chinese. How did you get it? How did you turn this conversation into the, you ambushed me just now. Oh, no, no.
JVL00:02:37So, I will just briefly, it was an interesting weekend, and we went to the Lego store. Oh. And I saw the new Lego Millennium Falcon Ultimate Home Wrecker Edition.
Sonny00:02:52Oh. Live and in person. That's a nice branding.
JVL00:02:55And it is something else. How many pieces is it? I'd have to effort that, but it's the size, I'm not kidding when I tell you it's the size of this table. You know what, JVL, $800.
Sonny00:03:07The table we are sitting at. The table we're sitting at is about three feet long.
Vic00:03:11JVL, I also saw it a couple of weeks ago, that Millennium Falcon, because it's different than the one that Michael has. It's three times the size of it. Well, what I thought was, I said to Michael, the first thing I said is, this is to scale, isn't it? It's... It's to scale. It's unbelievable. You can match that up with the Slave I Lego, and that's a real fight right there. But, go ahead.
JVL00:03:317,541 pieces, I believe. Is that a lot? $800. $800 for a Lego set.
Vic00:03:41That's more than the Death Star.
JVL00:03:43Raise your hand if your wife is going out of town this weekend. Oh.
Sonny00:03:46Oh my gosh. Shannon, Shannon, take the checkbook.
Vic00:03:50Oh, look at that.
Sonny00:03:51Cancel the credit card. Cancel the credit card. Shannon, whatever you do... You don't... Change the lock on your safe where you keep your diamonds when you leave.
Vic00:04:02Change your ATM pin. Here's the thing.
JVL00:04:05If my wife did not want me to buy the 7,541-piece Lego Millennium Falcon Home Record Edition, then she wouldn't be going out of town and leaving me with four children.
Sonny00:04:15That's a good point. She brought this on herself.
JVL00:04:16The fact that she is leaving me to my own devices with one, two, three, four children... Oh my gosh. ...is I take that as actually tacit approval. Tacit approval of the purchase.
Sonny00:04:26But the problem with having four children there is when you buy it, you're not going to be able to put it together right away because there's too many children. That's what my office is for. So, but you have to... And a door lock. I assume that you're just going to put the children in like a closet or something and like padlock the door. That's why we have a yard. Let them suffocate each other. Kids, go play in the yard.
JVL00:04:45This is why we have a swing set. Daddy's building Legos. That's the big one at the store. I think that was the big showcase, wasn't it? So, Kristen, Kristen Anderson, our buddy, was out of the country for a couple of weeks. And her husband was texting me back and forth pictures of his Lego project while she was away. He got the giant Saturn V rocket. And she came home and was outraged to find that her dining room table had become the launch pad for this. No kidding. It's three and a half feet high. It's an amazing set. And I laughed, laughed, laughed. I said, I knew all about this, that this was happening. It's great. But I'll be honest. Chris let her get off pretty easily. By not getting the Millennium Falcon.
Vic00:05:26She ought to be grateful. Yes. While we're on the topic of Lego, does your, do you, really, do you have any sort of interest in Ninjago or no? Ninjago. Ninjago?
Sonny00:05:40I think it's called Ninjago.
Vic00:05:41I don't think it's Ninjago. Ninjago. No?
JVL00:05:44Ninjago. I tell you, I have minus 17 interest in Ninjago, or however it's pronounced, except that there is a new...
Vic00:05:54Building set tied to the movie, of like a building that's gorgeous, like a temple.
JVL00:06:01No, it's just like a city block in some sort of fictional Asian kind of inner city, and the level of detail on it is quite something you can hold.
Sonny00:06:11Did you see the Lego Batman movie? No. I didn't either, and I, like, kind of on basic principle, just, I wasn't interested and thought it was dumb.
Vic00:06:21My kids, of course, loved it. They loved it. Kate said it was just okay.
Sonny00:06:26I thought the first Lego movie was kind of fun, and it was, like, unexpectedly entertaining, is how I would describe it.
JVL00:06:35It's fine.
Sonny00:06:35And I think the, oh, end of the show. The show's over.
Vic00:06:40No, oversold.
JVL00:06:42No, but it was, I thought it was fine.
Sonny00:06:43I mean, yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was, like, I thought it was, I thought it was unexpectedly entertaining, and this whole, like, the effort to create a, like, Lego universe. Lego cinematic universe. Lego universe is, like, I totally, I don't get it. No. Because all those movies look kind of the same. Well, apparently.
Vic00:07:00Not that fun. In the Batman Lego movies, there are just only, you know, a few, you know, handful of references for adults to enjoy. Mostly it's for the kids.
Sonny00:07:09I don't appreciate their attempts to turn the guy who dresses up like a bat and punches people into a figure of fun, frankly.
JVL00:07:17This is, it's a topic that needs to be treated seriously and with proper respect, and this
Sonny00:07:22whole, like, oh. Will Arnett is fun Batman. That's right, fun Batman. And he's got campy gay Robin or whatever. Like, I'm just not into that.
Vic00:07:30Well, apparently there's a scene where the Joker is talking about this big plot will be bigger than anything before, better than any other plot before, and one of his henchmen says, you mean, what about the two ferry boats? He goes, no, better than that.
JVL00:07:43So, one reference to The Dark Knight.
Vic00:07:45There you go. That sounds dumb.
JVL00:07:47That movie sounds dumb. I'm just telling you, man. I'm not going to see it.
Vic00:07:49I'm just telling you. I'm never going to see that. Sonny, how, I haven't seen either. How are you? How are you?
Sonny00:07:55I'm great. I know everybody here has been on tenterhooks waiting to find out how my fantasy baseball I thought we were talking about Chili's again. Made up the finals. How dare you? How'd it go? How dare you?
JVL00:08:07No, I thought we were talking about how you were coping.
Sonny00:08:09Rubbing salt in the wound. Not salt. Concern. Salt, like, on so many delicious tostada chips and ringed around so many tasty margarita glasses. Big news. I am once again the champion of my fantasy baseball league. Congratulations, Santino. It's been nine years since my last title, but I'm back. Wow. I'm back in the championship. I will be getting my trophy soon. I'll bring it in here. You guys can touch it. We'll do a Stanley Cup thing with it.
Vic00:08:36Is there a big payout? We're not allowed to discuss that.
Sonny00:08:39Well, I mean, like $150 or something like that.
Vic00:08:43Do you guys have an actual trophy?
Sonny00:08:45Because that would be so cool. We get a new one every year. You don't have one to engrave the name on? No, no. Because that's what you should do. That's more effort than, frankly. We were interested in putting into it. Fair.
JVL00:08:57But also, yeah, so big, big... Does each new trophy have the previous winner's names engraved on it? No. No, you just have your name. That's what you need to do. You just have your name on it. This is not Wimbledon. This is not Wimbledon. Everybody gets their own trophy.
Sonny00:09:10You know, if you want to start Fantasy Baseball League, you can start a Fantasy Baseball League with your own trophy rules and your own way of doing things. Just let me have this.
JVL00:09:20I don't want to be running my own Fantasy Baseball League. Why not? Why not?
Sonny00:09:23I volunteer... You're the one who wanted to talk about baseball on the show.
JVL00:09:27I volunteer to handle the trophy stuff for your league, because I can improve it and make it better.
Sonny00:09:34We already have somebody handling the trophy stuff for our league. It's great. Our league is great. Do you have an outside consultant who handles trophies? We have a decade-long league going now, a keeper league. It's been very successful. We've only had to kick out like three people over the years. I just want to improve your trophies. I don't want you to... You don't have any say over our trophies. I'm not going to charge you for this. I'm not worried about paying you money.
JVL00:09:53Pro bono.
Sonny00:09:53I would happily pay money to somebody who was competent at this sort of thing, who had a track record of trophy design, but we don't actually need that, because we have a perfectly fine trophy right now.
JVL00:10:02I was going to get you a trophy designed by Prana, but that's okay.
Sonny00:10:05I don't want a trophy designed by Prana. I don't need a leather studded base. We're in the running for another brand ambassadorship, by the way. Like a riding crop.
JVL00:10:15For real. Which one? There's a surf shop.
Sonny00:10:18Oh, Jesus Christ. Down at the beach. Doesn't this mean you have to be a surfer now? Yeah, don't you actually have to go surfing?
JVL00:10:23You just approached me for a... I did surf before I had children.
Sonny00:10:28Don't you have to know what you're talking about when it comes to surfing? No, I know what I'm talking about. I just don't get to do it anymore.
JVL00:10:34So here's... Point break over here.
Vic00:10:35Anyway, anyway, anyway. A new swing point break.
Sonny00:10:37I am once again the champion. Everyone should send me their kudos. I will accept your praise and respect and admiration.
JVL00:10:46It's funny.
Sonny00:10:47There was a time in my league where I frankly didn't have that good a run from 2009 to 2016 or so. But we're making fantasy baseball great again. We are making fantasy baseball great again this year. That's awesome. Good for you.
Vic00:10:59It makes it all worth it. What is your team name?
Sonny00:11:02My team name for the last couple of years has been the Space Popes. And it's the Space Pope from Futurama.
JVL00:11:07Do you watch Futurama? Have you ever watched Futurama?
Sonny00:11:09First season. There was like a... It's like a two-second joke. But I changed the name when they were picking a new pope. And my blasphemy has finally paid off.
JVL00:11:19You got your Space Pope.
Sonny00:11:21This has gone over real well with the Catholics in the room. I'm like, I'm about to get... I'm about to get...
JVL00:11:26Well, the Space Pope couldn't be any worse than the real one. I'm about to get...
Sonny00:11:28Oh. I'm about to get like... No argument there. Inquisitioned over here.
Vic00:11:33No, no, no. No argument there.
JVL00:11:35Victorino, how was your weekend? How was your weekend, Vic? Did you go and help demo with Captain Bill? No, that hasn't happened yet.
Vic00:11:42Are you trying to plot your excuses? No, no, no.
JVL00:11:45I'll be very... For those of you guys who don't follow the expanded... I have a soup plate in the universe.
Sonny00:11:49For those of you guys who don't follow the expanded substandard universe that plays out on Twitter every week. I don't know if Captain Bill Dwyer is or was doing some... Oh, it hasn't happened yet. Demo. Going to do a demo work.
Vic00:11:59Well, they're adding on to the house, so they have to knock down the old deck.
Sonny00:12:02And this is always the best part of any makeover show, where they take the sledgehammers to stuff, and they tear it down, and you just smash things, and you break it. Vic will be providing the martinis?
Vic00:12:12Well, yes. Sure. And I believe Captain Bill said that he would take pictures, so that would be very interesting. But he's been very busy lately. I want Facebook Live video of you swinging a hammer. I'm afraid of the splitters.
Sonny00:12:24But the... It'd be like that scene in Zoolander, where he's in the coal mine.
Vic00:12:29I was going to say, like, Joda in Veep trying to chop the wood, you know, and he's just doing that thing. No, but he's been very busy, you know... Saving lives. Well, he's a captain, but he's also a fire marshal, and there are not many of those. And I think what happens next is he goes to L.E., law enforcement, so he gets to be sort of like firefighter and cop, where he gets to pack heat. It's much like me being a writer and an editor. At the same time.
Sonny00:12:54This is the senior editor role, basically. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. That's exactly what I was like.
Vic00:12:59It's not for everybody. Not for everybody.
Sonny00:13:01You know, the senior editor edits sometimes, maybe, but mostly they're a writer.
Vic00:13:04You know, something like that.
JVL00:13:06Vic has a red pen for when he's an editor, and a pencil for when he's a writer. That's right.
Vic00:13:11No. What was interesting is, let's see here, over the weekend, I did go to the supermarket to do a supposedly improved Harris Teeter, and I was waiting at the... You know, they just rearranged everything. Well, I don't... The Harris Teeter...
Sonny00:13:25Is Harris Teeter undergoing a makeover? Oh, that one did.
Vic00:13:28That one, they did a full thing. So, I'm at the deli counter waiting, and I'm looking at the... I normally get samples, and this time... Like a child.
Sonny00:13:38Well, you know where we're going with this, because this is... At the deli... So, you want the meat. You want... And cheese. Oh, can I have meat? I never...
Vic00:13:43I don't get the cake samples. You ever see samples of cake? No, I don't want samples of cake.
JVL00:13:47You're like, oh, I want to try that ham.
Sonny00:13:49Maybe I'm going to get some ham today. Oh, no, that wasn't... Maybe roast beef. Yeah, I know. But you know what? I need more than one than that. A little more than roast beef. No, I need more than one. Come on.
Vic00:13:57And so... But the problem is, there's all these kids and old people going in there, and I'm like, ew, gross, even for me. So, what I do is I reach all the way into the back of that little plastic bin.
Sonny00:14:08So, you get your hand over... Possibly. Your hand covers the entire surface area. It's possible. You've got little flakes of your skin are drifting over all of the food as you reach back there.
Vic00:14:18Yes, you would believe. And they're all toothpicks. So, then I just grab... I have one, and I think that was fine for everybody else. The question is, are you a sample sort of guy at the supermarket? Sonny.
Sonny00:14:31Well, so, when I go to the deli, I usually have an idea of what I want, right? I want the ham or the roast beef or whatever. And what they will do is they will slice a slice off and give it to you and say, is this thick enough or thin enough?
Vic00:14:47Do you ever turn it down?
Sonny00:14:48No, of course not. I eat that. I'm like, yeah, give me that. Give me. Give me. Give me. I want to shove it in my face. I'm going to shove that. Food in my face. So, I will eat that, but I don't, like, I don't really do the Sam's Club, Harris Teeter style. The plastic bin reach in. Well, that's like the Harris Teeter style with the plastic. And, like, do you remember, have you ever been to a Sam's Club? Do you know what a Sam's Club is? Yeah, yeah. So, like, Sam's Club would have, like, people with, like, giving out samples. Uh-huh, sure. And I would definitely do that as a kid. I don't really, I don't do that anymore because, frankly, I have a shopping agenda. I want to get in and get out. I don't have time for samples.
Vic00:15:20I always make time for samples.
Sonny00:15:21I don't, I don't need, I don't need little chunks of cheese. Or whatever.
Vic00:15:24No germophobic concerns for you? My hunger overrides them. Even if I was seeing, I'm being, once, JVL, this happened once where my germophobe side won out. And I was on a flight with my buddy Todd. We were heading to Germany, but we had a stopover in Iceland, right? So, you have to Iceland, and you stop at Keflavik Airport. And it's probably six or seven in the morning Iceland time, so it's like 2 a.m. or something. You know, our time. Everyone's tired. You walk out of the plane. There's a dorm. There's a new-to-free shop that's open, and they had free samples of smoked salmon. Oh, my gosh. Icelandic smoked salmon. You know, that sounds delicious. Except for the fact that everybody from the plane went right over there, and all with their hands grabbing the pieces of salmon, supposedly with toothpicks, and it looked shiny and kind of slimy-looking, and you could almost hear, like, a... You know, it was like a scene out of... It's like a horror movie. You know what it was like? It was a zombie film. It was like the chocolate-covered pretzels in Mallrats. Oh. Yeah, you know, like, I took one look at...
Sonny00:16:25Speaking of shopping agendas.
Vic00:16:26See, there you go. I looked at it, and I just thought, even I am not going to go that far. I can't do it. JVL, are you a... I'm going to guess you are not a samples person.
JVL00:16:35I make exceptions for Costco, because in Costco, they do it in little miniature kiosks, and they put out the samples in very small batches, and so if I can watch the food worker putting the samples out, and I can be the first person, so I can see that they're wearing their gloves, and, you know, not sweating or coughing under the food, and I can get the very first sample off of the... Because they only put out, like, six at a time of whatever it is they're putting out. Then I feel okay about it. Okay. Good. But obviously, I'm not going to go in and eat after somebody else has tried to have a sample of something. Definitely.
Sonny00:17:10The last time I got a sample, I was, like, running through a Harris Teeter. I was literally just going in to get, like, a bag of asparagus or something for a recipe, and I, like, noticed that they had, like, a big plate of cheese.
JVL00:17:22And I was like... I was like, you know what? Cheese. Go for it.
Sonny00:17:24That's probably all right.
JVL00:17:25But it was, like... The cheese was, like, stale.
Sonny00:17:28Oh.
JVL00:17:28It was, like, it had been out for a while. It's, like, this is not...
Sonny00:17:31This is not... This is no way for a man to live. Yeah. No, no, no. Man cannot live by sample alone.
Vic00:17:36No. But you could, you know, whet the appetite a little bit, which is fine. You just want to whet your beak. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. The other thing I had done was I sort of looked in the fridge and said, what do we got to work with for food? And we had the whole thing of mushrooms, so, as I told Sonny the other day, what I had in mind was just make a mushroom and cream sauce with pasta. So, kind of an Alfredo. And I whipped that up together, but I forgot to add... Put the ingredients. Put the ingredients. Tell the ingredients. With the ingredients, you have to put... It's, like, two... This is a Mark Bittman recipe. Two eggs, heavy cream, cup of Parmesan cheese in a heated bowl. Whip it up. A cup of Parmesan cheese. Yeah. And then you pour... I had less than a cup, but then you pour it on top of the pasta. And I had already done the mushrooms and butter in a skillet. I forgot to add a pasta. They always tell you pasta water is great for lots of sauces, tomato or cream-based. And I throw it in. It was way too eggy. I think only my daughter and I thought it was great. It was way too rich for my wife and my son. And so, I ended up eating all of their leftovers yesterday. It was way too eggy. Or is it eggs-y? What's the term I'm looking for here? Oh. Speaking of...
Sonny00:18:46Speaking... No, wait. But we're not doing that next, though. Are you sure?
Vic00:18:50I thought we were doing chocolate. Oh, okay. Well, okay. Fine. You just ruined his... He worked hard at that transition. Move chocolate to the back of the bar. Sonny, I told you chocolate is after Matthew Vaughn. Chocolate is after Matthew Vaughn? Sonny, yes. Wait. All right. Let's do that again. Okay. So, wait, wait.
Sonny00:19:04So, what did you put in the... You put in the Parmesan cheese, and then what else?
Vic00:19:09Two eggs, but Sonny, it was way too eggy. Or is it eggs-y? Speaking of which... Speaking of eggs-y, over the weekend, Kingsman, the Golden Circle, led the box office... With $39 million, Stephen King's It came in second at $30 million.
Sonny00:19:28That movie is going to gross $300 million next weekend, probably. Based on a $35 million budget? Based on a $35 million... I, like, it is... Like, of all the box office shocks this year, the failures and the successes, this has to be the biggest one. I mean, like, it's... Like, I'm totally blown away by this. Summer horror success. I don't know what to make of it. I don't know what to make of it.
Vic00:19:49Annabelle already broke $100 million, so there you go. You keep talking about Annabelle.
Sonny00:19:52Yeah, and this is, like, three times as big as Annabelle.
Vic00:19:57Less than half the budget. And finally, Lega Ninjago... Ninjago. ...movie was third, with $21 million. Sonny JVL, did you see Kingsman the Golden Circle? I did not. What did you think?
Sonny00:20:16I saw Kingsman the Golden Circle. JVL, did you see Kingsman the Golden Circle?
JVL00:20:19I was supposed to see it. I was supposed to see it last night, actually. And I got caught. I got caught late at work with some important Weekly Standard business. And I missed the only showing I could possibly stay awake for. And so I went home and just watched Layer Cake. Again.
Sonny00:20:33You see what I have to work with, people? You see what I have to work with here?
Vic00:20:36You're all alone. Can I tell you, though?
JVL00:20:38I did something very interesting with Layer Cake. Because it is, as we're going to discuss for the final 45 minutes of the show... We won't get into this. ...it is the greatest movie of the last 20 years, non-Batman division. And I have seen it. A hundred times, maybe. But never have I experienced it the way I did last night. Which is naked? Last night.
Sonny00:21:03I watched it on... Creased up?
JVL00:21:04On my phone.
Sonny00:21:06Oh, oh, oh, come on.
JVL00:21:08In portrait mode. In portrait mode.
Sonny00:21:11And it is... While working out? So... No, just sitting. Oh, just sitting on your couch.
JVL00:21:16Wearing my Mike Warren greasy headphones. But in portrait mode... You said those to the museum. On your phone. Yeah. It's astonishing.
Sonny00:21:26You really can't get any better than that. That is like... This is what we need the theater goers to do. I recently wrote a piece for the Washington Post about how terrible the movie-going experience is. I read it. Oh, it's really good. It's really sunny. Tell us. And it seems to me like the only way we can really show them how bad it has gotten is to all just watch Layer Cake on our phones. In portrait mode. Vertically. Vertically. We should explain to people that portrait mode, some of you are old and you don't know what portrait mode is. That's the way you hold it vertically and the horizontal...
JVL00:21:55That's the way you shoot video, you idiots. Yeah, you dum-dums.
Sonny00:21:59This is why all of our... This is why two-thirds of our screen is letterbox bars.
JVL00:22:04When people shoot video in portrait mode, it makes me crazy. And how we have this amazing technology which can fix everything in the universe, but can't take vertical video and convert it to landscape somehow.
Sonny00:22:17You just lose information, though.
JVL00:22:20Who cares? Make it up. Make it up. Make it up. Make it up. There has to be some way to trade off resolution and screen size for getting it to the correct aspect ratio.
Sonny00:22:29But you lose... But how would the algorithm that you're suggesting know what to look at on the screen? If you're shooting it in that...
JVL00:22:36Machine learning.
Sonny00:22:36Look, the problem... Neural networks. The problem with this is it's all user error. Just hold your goddamn phone sideways. Just hold it horizontally. People are stupid. Yes, people are stupid. You should be angry at the people, not the machines. The machines are smart.
JVL00:22:50I want the machines to fix this.
Vic00:22:51Anyway, continue. You ever see... This video, by the way, you're trying to watch it on your phone, but whoever recorded it did it in a weird way, so every time you turn it, it keeps on turning the other way. It keeps, like, flipping.
Sonny00:22:59Like, oh, God. Yeah, that is the worst. And you're looking, and you have to tilt your head. No names. No names. People are... Hi, honey. People should... Oh, jeez.
Vic00:23:07All right. Tell us more about... No, tell us about the... Tell us about the movie. Sorry, please. Let's move along. Kingsman's Golden Circle. Kingsman, the Golden Circle. The Golden Shower. Nope.
JVL00:23:17Sorry. Sorry. I thought it was... Did I say...
Vic00:23:21Even I didn't... You didn't go there. I was just...
Sonny00:23:23You were going to get there. I thought it.
Vic00:23:25Okay, go ahead.
Sonny00:23:26Don't lie. We're going to get there eventually. Kingsman, the Golden Circle. So, Kingsman, the Secret Service, came out three years ago, 2014, and it is, I think, one of, like, the kind of key cinematic texts of our time. It is a, like, first off, it's a comic book movie. Not everyone knows that it's a comic book movie. It's, like, designed to be the start of a franchise. So, you have these... You have all of these, kind of, business... Ideas wrapped up in the movie. But also, it is laden with irony, and it is, kind of, this parody of the spy movies from a better time, from a classier time. But it is also, like, one of the most populist films I've ever seen. It's, like, it is literally a movie about how shadowy elites are manipulating climate change, paranoia, and fear-mongering in order to radically reduce the population of the idiots who are in the theaters watching. It's a movie right now, for their own nefarious ends. It is, like, it is, like, it is basically the Donald Trump of movies. Okay. So, that is its own thing. It was great. I loved it. We'll talk about this more a little later, I think. But I thought it was a very successful, for what it was trying to do, I think it's an extremely successful movie, and holds up. Rewatched it recently. I gave you my Blu-ray. You watched it. I did. I don't think you liked it as much as I did. But, no. Really? Yeah. Anyway. We'll get to that. I like Layer Cake better. We, so, the sequel picks up a few years later. Eggsy, the hero, Taron Egerton, however you pronounce his name, is now a full-fledged Kingsman. He is working to save the world on the down low, and as the movie starts, he is attacked by one of the failed Kingsmen from the previous movie. And, like, right here, you almost start to see kind of the problem with this movie. There's a lot of reliance on things from the first film. Instead of building new stuff. And there's a lot of new building and world expansion and that sort of thing. But, like, the first enemy in this movie is a guy who was a pseudo-enemy in the first film, and it is, like, it's not a great sign for where things are going. Eggsy is now married to the Swedish princess, who we met at the end of the, or, not married, I'm sorry, is dating the Swedish princess. They are dating in foggy London town. He is trying to learn how to... You know, wow her royal family. She is trying to learn how to be with his kind of chavvy, you know, English chums. Very chavvy. And as the movie begins, a crazy drug-running CEO played by... Oh, the redhead. Julianne Moore. Julianne Moore, thank you. Destroys the Kingsmen. Blows them all up with rockets and missiles and destroys them, tears up their whole world world, and he has to figure out what's going on with the help of Merlin, who's played by Mark Strong, from the first film again. So to do this, they go to America and they meet up with the statesmen. And this is like, this is the best part of the movie. The best part of the movie is seeing the statesmen in action, who are kind of the American versions of the Kingsmen. They are whiskey distillers. They have electrified bull whips that are, they're like kind of, instead of the umbrellas, you know, the bourbon instead of the tailor on several row. So, et cetera, et cetera. Jeff Bridges is like running the show. Tatum Channing, or Channing Tatum is the, is like the like kind of bad boy. He's almost like the Eggsy of, again, he's like the American Eggsy. And they are the-
Vic00:27:07And Oberyn Martell.
Sonny00:27:08And Oberyn Martell plays like kind of the, like, he is the statesman who is with them the most. And, you know, he like saves day and maybe he's working both sides of the thing. Anyway, the best stuff here is the stuff of the statesman. The stuff with Poppy, who is like kind of created this, this little 1950s Greece style, you know, like Greece the movie, not Greece the country. Greece, Greece the movie, kind of like little play area in the jungles of Cambodia. And she has poisoned the world's drug supply in order to force the American government to legitimate her business. So this is like a, this is a kind of an idea from Layer Cake. Right? That drugs are just a business like any other. And Poppy really wants to be a legitimate businessman. She wants to be on CNBC talking about the day stocks numbers.
Vic00:28:01So we're talking about bad drugs, not pharmaceuticals.
Sonny00:28:04Bad drugs, right. Bad drugs as opposed to good drugs. But again, this is like a very Layer Cake thing. It's like this idea that the drug business is a business like any other. And she wants to be considered a businessman. So in order to legitimate her business, she has poisoned all of her customers and will only release the antidote if... The United States government pardons her for all her crimes and lets her repatriate all her money. And she wants to start paying taxes. So there's this very weird kind of critique of the libertarian idea of, like, we need to legalize all drugs. These are just businessmen. They're not. They're crazy psychopaths. But also, like, the idea that just locking all these people away, as the U.S. government does as they get sicker and sicker, kind of locks them away, is also not really working. There is kind of an idea to this, but it's much more muddled, I think, than the first film.
JVL00:28:57It's fun. It's entertaining. Is it going to stay the same level of fun?
Sonny00:28:59It is not the same level of fun. It's too long. It's two hours and 20 minutes, which is just, like, at least 20 or 25 minutes longer than this needs to be. And what they could have cut out is all the stuff with Harry. So Harry, if you remember from the first film, he's shot in the head by Valentine. He dies. But he doesn't actually die. He's resuscitated.
Vic00:29:18As they show everybody in the trailer.
Sonny00:29:20Yeah, right. Exactly. I'm not spoiling. I'm not spoiling anything. This is all. Everyone should know this if you've seen ads for it. He is resuscitated. He comes back. He is. But, like, a large, an unfortunately large portion of the movie, maybe 20 or 25 minutes, is dealt, like, is kind of centered around him reclaiming his status as a Kingsman. And, like, frankly, I don't care. I don't care about any of this. He should have stayed dead. He should have stayed dead. And they should have just kept the action going and had Mark Strong be the kind of the father figure type, because Mark Strong is great and underrated, and the only person who uses him right is Matthew Vaughn.
JVL00:29:58True. True fact. And I'm done.
Sonny00:30:00Anyway, you should see it. If you like the first one, you'll like this, I think. If you didn't like the first one, you won't like this. And if you didn't see the first one, you kind of won't have any idea what's going on.
Vic00:30:09Yes. JVL, do you have any thoughts?
JVL00:30:14I... Oh, really? Really. Whatever. Sonny, were you able to stay awake? Through the Kingsman, the Golden Circle Shower?
Sonny00:30:25Of course, I was able to stay awake, but I saw some people nodding off. You did. Next to me.
Guest00:30:30They didn't get it.
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Sonny00:32:51Boys, JVL's first read. It's like I'm a big boy.
JVL00:32:55I'm all grossed up now.
Sonny00:32:56You're groans up and you're groans up and you're groans up. And if you don't buy one of these mattresses, JVL's going to be very sad. They won't ever let me read again. Because JVL won't get to read again and he won't get a Casper mattress to try out.
JVL00:33:11I have been aggressively window shopping internet foam mattresses for a couple years now. And I have been, this is a true to life story. Really going back and forth between some of the high level brands. And I think I am now tipped over to Team Casper. That's good to hear. How did it feel giving the read like that? What did you think? It's nice.
Sonny00:33:33You should use promo code. Substandard. Substandard. Casper.com slash substandard.
JVL00:33:39Using the promo code substandard. I don't know. Does it sound okay? It was wonderful.
Vic00:33:44It was good. Smooth.
JVL00:33:46Not like you. Not like last week's read. Well, last week's read was we'll go down in the legends. If you missed last week's episode, you should go back and just skip to like the 23 minute mark to listen to the read. Because it was astonishing.
Sonny00:33:58Some of you seem to have missed last week's episode. I don't know if you were turned off by the idea that Darren Aronofsky is something worth listening to or ranting about Mother, but you know, some of you seem to have missed it. Maybe you should go back and download it now. I don't know. You know.
Vic00:34:14I was happy to squeeze out that ad last week. We want to talk about, however, this week. Uh, since we were talking about the Kingsman, Matthew Vaughn, the Matthew Vaughn oeuvre. He's more of a producer than a director, but let's just talk about it in general because it is, it's, it's his thing. Well, he started as a producer. Yes.
Sonny00:34:33And he's, he's, he's definitely, he's definitely worked into the, uh, realm of director. I mean, I am not the Matthew Vaughn fan boy here. That's Jonathan Last. I would like to hear Jonathan V. Last's take on Matthew Vaughn.
JVL00:34:47Why is he a big deal? What's going on? So, Matthew Vaughn is interesting. To me, because he is a wildly uneven director. Uh, six feature films thus far, uh, of them, Stardust is charming. Kingsman is a pretty good movie. X-Men First Class is a pretty good movie. Uh, but Layer Cake, which is his first feature film, is an A plus five star movie of the decade caliber movie. And I, I mean, I'm, I'm really not exaggerating and I can't think of another director whose debut feature was this. It was that good and who never even swung for the fences again because his ambitions ever since then, you would never, looking at Layer Cake, you would never imagine that any of the other movies he's done were the same director. Well, it is, it is actually. He just winched in his ambitions to an amazing degree.
Sonny00:35:38Well, it is actually very interesting because I was looking at his IMDB, you know, portfolio and you have Layer Cake, which is kind of this like Guy Ritchie knockoff type movie or Quentin Tarantino knockoff type. Oh, Flaring Nostrils, Flaring Nostrils by JBL. And then he immediately shifts into comic book movies and has made nothing but comic book movies ever since. Stardust is adapted from a Neil Gaiman picture. Kick-Ass is like kind of a parody almost of comic book movies, but it is itself a comic book that was written by Mark Millar. And then you have the X-Men movie, which is like, frankly, probably the best of the X-Men movies except for maybe Days of Future Past or maybe X2. Like right in that top tier of X-Men movies. And then the Kingsman films, which are, again, based on comic books. So he takes this kind of lowbrow, auteurist aesthetic and then transfers it over to the big budget, big Hollywood, big comic book idea. And I think it's worked for him. I think getting out of the gutter and into the big time has worked for him.
JVL00:36:47So they're all adaptations. Right. Layer Cake is an adaptation of a J.J. Connolly novel, which is really great.
Sonny00:36:55Oh, but not a comic book.
JVL00:36:56Not a comic book. But it's a very comic bookish novel. I would say it's a very light reading novel. It's a British, like imagine British Elmore Leonard. I am not going to force myself into bleeping because... It's a very complicated process to bleep. I understand what you're doing. You're trying to get a rise out of me. This is your return of the Jedi, return of Revenge of the Sith. I think Sonny was serious. Layercake is an astonishing piece. Anybody who hasn't seen Layercake, it's like $12.99 on Amazon right now. Just go buy it.
Sonny00:37:32Just pick it up at a Walmart bin. You can do that.
JVL00:37:35It's an astonishing piece of filmmaking, from the opening sequence, which is the best opening sequence possibly ever put on film, to even like the establishing shots. There's a shot in it where Daniel Craig's character is taken to the roof of a building that's under construction. By Michael Gambon's character, the scene begins with an establishing shot from a helicopter looking down on the roof while rotating, and then cuts to another establishing shot from below looking straight up the side of the building at the sky. And while the camera's holding the shot for about a second and a half, an airplane crosses across the frame vertically, moving from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen to the top, and this is the type of B-unit grace note, which certainly required hours of extra setup and planning, and really adds something to the scene in which 99% of directors simply wouldn't have bothered to do. Everything about this movie is astonishing. I mean, the lighting in the club when Sienna Miller is dancing. Sienna Miller is an attractive lady, but the way that Vaughn shoots her in Layer Cake, she looks like Helen of Troy. I mean, everything about this movie is sensational. B-unit grace note.
Vic00:38:46I don't remember that one. Are you sure none of that was CGI'd? They didn't CGI the plane? This is not a movie with a budget for CGI.
JVL00:38:54I mean, this is a very low-budget flick. I don't know. It's funny. I mean, this is a movie which is deeply funny. You know, if you haven't seen it, we have our explicit, so you should not be listening to this show with your children. But one of my favorite gags, maybe in all of cinema, is Layer Cake is really telling three interlocking stories. Of which is a story—
Sonny00:39:21We should actually say what the movie is about. Let's, yeah.
Vic00:39:25So Layer Cake is— Not everybody has seen it.
JVL00:39:26Since almost no one has seen this movie. It's a British gangster movie in which there are three interlocking stories being resolved simultaneously. The first is a story of two late-60s-year-old old childhood friends, Jimmy Price and Eddie Temple. Jimmy Price is a high-level gangster. Eddie Temple is a high-level, legit businessman who dabbles in illegal activity. The story of the Duke and Dragon. The Duke is a very low-level, very dumb gangster, and the Dragon is a Serbian hitman. And the final story is the story of Crazy Larry and Morty, which is really the continuation of a story that dates back to the late 1970s, and caught in the middle of each of these three conflicts is Daniel Craig's character. And so that's what—so you have these three conflicts all revolving around Daniel Craig, and he is tangential, but can't get out of any of them. And it's fascinating. And when I say it's funny, I mean it's really, really funny. There is a moment when we are being told by Colm Meaney's character—Colm Meaney is fantastic, he plays this heavy, an enforcer—and he's talking about what it was like back in the 70s. And we were run in this gang by Crazy Larry, and Crazy Larry was killed because he was taking liberties with too many of the boys in the gang. And Daniel Craig's character says to him, what, Crazy Larry was gay? And Colm Meaney does this double take, and he says, gay? No! No, Crazy Larry was never gay. And there is then a smash cut to the actor who plays Crazy Larry in full, like, 1970s gear, and he looks at the camera and he says, f*** females is for p***.
Vic00:41:10It's 4048. It's really funny.
JVL00:41:14Everything about this movie is fantastic. It compares favorably with Boogie Nights and Goodfellas. It is a movie which will hold up for decades, and it rewards repeated viewing like you cannot believe.
Vic00:41:28Vic, you don't, this is, everybody I've passed on to this legit loves this movie. Yes, no, me included. You know who I thought was a wonderful surprise turn was Michael Gambon. Oh, yeah.
Sonny00:41:38You know, I was like, Dumbledore, what?
Vic00:41:41You know? With his orangutan hands. Oh, and he's so tan and leathery looking. He is tan. And the language is just, you know, I mean, but he, it was. Boom, boom, boom. They even made him a member of the tribe.
JVL00:41:54Boom, boom, boom. I mean, he's, everything about this, the act, this is such a showcase for actors.
Sonny00:41:59It is, it is like the great, like, British character actor movie. You've got even Tom Hardy in a small. Tom, young Tom Hardy. Yes, young Tom Hardy. And like the first, the first movie I can remember seeing him in.
JVL00:42:11Stephen Walters, who is now a mainstay, gets one scene as Shanks, and it's this little monologue that he does while he's holding a lollipop. It's fantastic.
Sonny00:42:20And then.
JVL00:42:20Kenneth Branham, who most people in America probably only know from Rome, where he played Pompeii. Yes, yes, yes, yes. He is Jimmy Price. Yeah, yeah. And he's one of the great forgotten British character actors.
Sonny00:42:30And Crazy Larry, who has like shown up in a bunch of different things. Yeah, who is Crazy Larry? I'll go find Crazy Larry.
Vic00:42:36But that's a great flashback in the movie. Sonny, you were going to say.
Sonny00:42:39No, I, I, I, and Sienna Miller, Miller, of course, who went on to become the great British actress of our time. Sienna Miller.
JVL00:42:49Sienna Miller. Sienna Miller's okay. Jason Fleming.
Sonny00:42:52Jason Fleming, yeah. He's great. He's Crazy Larry. I, no, I, I like Layer Cake a lot. I think it's, I think it is underappreciated and underrated. I'm just sad it didn't come out this year, because I would have loved to watch all of the videos on YouTube explaining the ending to me. Layer Cake's ending explained in 15 scenes or less. I, like, it just would have, that would have been really, really good. The book has a tougher ending, believe it or not.
JVL00:43:20In the book, the book ends with the main character being shot in the head, but it not being fatal, but it messing him up so that he can no longer, like, function in society, and he just moves to the Caribbean and becomes a bartender. Like, a bartender who's not quite right in the head.
Vic00:43:38Yeah. You can't, it's, it's really, but at least he lived, because I did, I, you know, it's, that's the thing.
Sonny00:43:42I do like your description of the film, though, as, like, kind of telling three different stories all revolving around Daniel Craig. If you, if you watch it that way, the second part of it is, like, you know, it's, it's the second time, the first time you should just watch it, just sit down and watch it, as the story of Daniel Craig, who's playing a kind of, uh, uh, a low-level gangster who has made some money and wants to get out with his, with his winnings. Because he doesn't see himself as a gangster.
JVL00:44:03He says, I am not a gangster. It's the first line of the movie.
Sonny00:44:07And going, going back to the, uh, discussing the Kingsman, uh, Kingsman and the Golden Circle, like, the idea is drugs are not a legitimate business, but they will be eventually, and we are just trying to skim some money off the top before. Before everything goes straight 15 years later, or 14, 13 years later, you know, thing, things haven't really gotten much better in the illegal, uh, uh, narcotics game. But, uh, you know, I, I do think that it is, it is kind of, it is, it is interesting to think of him as a structural device around which everybody else revolves, kind of a maypole of the film.
JVL00:44:41Yeah, he is. And I would say to people who, who watch it, watch with a sound up, because this is a movie which relies- Turn the subtitles on. Heavily on British slang. Turn the subtitles. Turn the subtitles on. And so, like, there's a line where he says, Bitter Charlie used to be demonized by daily mail readers getting drunk in naff wine bars. It's like five different things that you view. You have to have some passing familiarity with British culture to understand what he means by that. But what, if you do understand, it's really, it's actually a very funny line.
Vic00:45:05And Gambon's accent is not, is, is, is, it's, it's more of, I think it's all, all more working class accents there.
JVL00:45:10Yes, because he's a working class guy who has gotten insanely rich. Yes. Through, uh, commercial real estate. That's right.
Sonny00:45:16And he's also, but he's also probably the most understandable of all these guys. He is like, he is like his, his accent is the least kind of.
JVL00:45:23My, my favorite, one of the things I like about this movie is that it, it's a plot driven movie, but the character stuff works actually. And so Gambon, who's the richest guy in the film, uh, has the boyfriend of his daughter killed. And the boyfriend is this poor drug, drug user, black guy. The reason he has him killed is because he. He makes a deal with this guy that he pays him 5,000 pounds to break up with his daughter and then leave. And the guy just takes the money and doesn't break up with the daughter. And he is, and Michael Gambon says, he took my 5,000 pounds. The audacity of him. This guy who's so insanely rich gets worked up over 5,000 bucks. And this, based on my experience with the super rich, true to form.
Vic00:46:15Yeah.
Sonny00:46:15And also fathers of daughters. Also fathers of daughters.
Vic00:46:18That's a combination. Which is right, because it's the argument of I didn't get this rich by not being stingy. Right. You know, little things. You hear that. Everything about this movie. You hear that. And there's also a great, the sniper scenes are also very good, right? They have the sharpshooter and-
Sonny00:46:32The dragon scene. Dragon. Yeah.
JVL00:46:33Dragon. Dragon's famous. And the guy who plays the, the guy who plays the Serbian war criminal. Yes. Is astonishing. Like every, every little character part. Sally Hawkins, who plays the Duke's girlfriend, who is a serious actress. She's a Shakespearean actress. And she plays whatever the female version of a chav is. This chavvy, you know, wannabe gangster girlfriend of Duke is always screaming. She's great. It's really funny.
Vic00:47:01I mean, you think about the other movies that Matthew Vaughn has produced, though. And it's also in that vein that Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch are very enjoyable, you know, working class gangster Brit movies, right?
JVL00:47:13But, but very rough compared to this. I mean, I, I really think of this rough layer cake as the, this thing is polished to a gleaming surface. It has cinematic ambitions in the way it is shot, in addition to sort of narrative ambitions as a storytelling device. It really is. It's just a beautiful, I'm not kidding. And I'm, I'm really, you guys know that I, I think Scorsese is overrated, but Goodfellas is a great movie. I think this compares favorably to Goodfellas. And I don't mean that in a, you know, try to get a rise out of your way.
Sonny00:47:42No, I, I mean, I understand what you're saying. I do think Snatch is a better movie. I think Snatch is funnier and kind of flows better. It's more of a comedy.
JVL00:47:48I mean, this is, this has... It has, this is not a comedy, but it's funny. Yeah. Snatch is a comedy and is funny. Yeah.
Sonny00:47:55Yeah. Do we want to, do we want to rank Matthew Vaughn films?
JVL00:47:59You guys can. I don't have that feeling. JVL? Yeah, go, go first. You go first. Okay. JVL. You have stronger feelings on this. Yes, go ahead, JVL. Worst, Kick-Ass. Why do you, and you, you really don't like this movie. Kick-Ass does not work for me. It just doesn't work for me.
Sonny00:48:12You really don't like this movie, and I, I'm curious to know why.
JVL00:48:15I, I just think it doesn't work on the screen. Actually, um, I, I don't think anything about it works. It's not funny. It's not interesting. It, it occupies as a comic book, and I, I own the, the very rare variant cover of Kick-Ass number one in 9.9 grade, not to brag or anything.
Sonny00:48:36You should retire now.
JVL00:48:38But, uh, yeah, no, it's, it's, nothing about this thing works. It works on the page. It doesn't work on the screen for me. Uh, Kick-Ass is worst, uh, moving up. We're, we're ranking five films, because I haven't seen Kingsman. So number five, Kick-Ass, uh, number four, Kingsman, number three, Stardust, number two, X-Men First Class, number one, Layer K. But like I said, I don't think this is even close, and what strikes me as strange is the, the gulf between, not just between number one and number two, but between even the ambitions of number one and number two is so gigantic.
Sonny00:49:13Can you think of another director like this? I'm trying to, I'm trying to think.
JVL00:49:16I've spent, I've spent like a week thinking about this, and I cannot think of another director who did something this good, and then...
Vic00:49:23Then went conventional-ish.
JVL00:49:24Yeah, just conventional, and again, yeah, all good movies. I really like many of these movies. But, but just had no, no ambitions for them. I mean, other than Guy Ritchie, of course.
Guest00:49:33Oh.
Sonny00:49:35Going from Lock, Stock, and Snatch, and then... But you did two of them. Then movies like, you know, as much as I like, as much as I like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which is fine, uh, is not like a super ambitious movie. Revolver's terrible. Revolver's just bad.
JVL00:49:51All right. I can say it. No, but... Chav Arfer's pretty, pretty ambitious. Um, anyway, uh... You're on a list, Sonny.
Sonny00:50:00Uh, let's see, so... Is that a Moleskine notebook? It is a Moleskine. I only write in Moleskine notebooks. Stuff white people like. As you should now. The podcast. Uh, number one is Kingsman for me, which I really like, and I, I, as somebody who doesn't really care for the James Bond, uh, movies or the James Bond aesthetic, I really like Kingsman kind of taking the piss at all. But also, like, it is, it is, it is really a bizarre movie. I mean, it is a movie where...
Vic00:50:26It's, yeah, it's...
Sonny00:50:26Where, where they literally... Over the top. They literally blow up Barack Obama's head on screen and, and, like, have this whole sequence in which the world's elite, you know, succumb to the, the, the very plots they had, they had engendered. Uh, and I, I find that all very fascinating. Um, number two, uh, I actually have... I have Kick-Ass as number two, because I am, I, like, I find it totally, I, I, for me, it actually really does work on the screen. Like, Nick Cage doing his kind of Adam West Batman, um, but, like, murderous Adam West Batman, I found totally hilarious and, and, like, kind of clever and, and interesting in ways that I was surprised by. I didn't think it was going to be a very good movie, and then I was, I was kind of taken with it. And all of the stuff with Hit Girl was great. It's, like, really well shot, especially, like, the final kind of, uh... shootout through the library. You know, I, all that stuff I thought was really, was really well done. Um, X-Men First Class, which, again, I think is probably in that top tier of X-Men movies. You have X-Men First Class, and then X2, which is really good, and, um, uh, Days of Future Past. And I was a little bit disappointed that he didn't come back for Days of Future Past, but Bryan Singer really kind of nailed that one, so that was all right.
JVL00:51:42Bryan Singer pushed him out of that project.
Sonny00:51:45Yeah, I know, because Bryan Singer had nothing else to do, um, which is... Which is unfortunate, but I think Bryan Singer actually did very well with it, unlike X-Men Apocalypse, which is just a disaster on every level.
JVL00:51:55Does he direct that?
?00:51:56Oh, yeah.
Sonny00:51:57Poorly. Um, number four, Stardust, which I had never seen until just recently. I just, I just watched it this, this week for the first time, and I was, like, kind of blown away by how, if, I feel like if, if, if this movie had come out 10 years or 20 years earlier, it would be in that Princess Bride category of basic cable classics, where everyone is, like, re-watching it and talking about all the stuff they love, like, it's little things, like the, the, the ghosts of the brothers, the royal brothers, you know, kind of floating through it. Um, there were...
JVL00:52:26Robert De Niro's, like, gay pirate.
Sonny00:52:27Robert De Niro's gay pirate is, like, totally fantastic and, and absurd and great. Um, uh, let's see, uh, after that is Kingsman Golden Circle, which, again, I didn't love, I didn't love, but it was pretty good. It was pretty good. And then Layer Cake, which is fine for being a Guy Ritchie. Knock off.
JVL00:52:45Nick, what time is it?
Vic00:52:4752.25.
JVL00:52:49Yourself. You thought you could resist, but you can't. Couldn't do it. Couldn't do it.
Sonny00:52:57Okay. Um. Well, I guess we're not doing chocolate.
Vic00:53:00Why not?
JVL00:53:01We're not going to do chocolate?
Vic00:53:02Oh, it's 52, we're at 52 minutes. I don't know. We could save chocolate. We don't have to save chocolate. We'll save it for next week. We're getting closer to Halloween anyway. Yeah, next, next. We're getting closer to Halloween.
JVL00:53:10I, for serious, for scheduling purposes, I want an entire episode, definitive, sagrant ranking of Halloween. Halloween candy. Okay. Oh, yeah.
Sonny00:53:20Yeah, we can do that.
JVL00:53:20Yeah, sure. Fine. For real. 50 minutes on candy. For real. I can do it.
Vic00:53:24Number one is good and plenty.
Sonny00:53:26Shut up. Shut up. Save it for the next show.
JVL00:53:29Not a half-assed.
Vic00:53:29That's the new thing. Save it for the next show. We can't even talk. We got to do Spirit of the Week. We're going to get there. We're going to get there. We're going to get there. Okay, good. You want to go? We can do a Spirit of the Week one. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Go. You go. Finish. Finish your dumb script. You get real crazy when we don't do it right. I did talk like Hulk crazy. Additions, corrections. Obviously not. I have none. No. JVL.
JVL00:53:52I have a correct ... Somebody tweeted at me like an hour ago telling me that there was a correction that I needed to do, and I know they were right, and now I forget what it is. I'm sorry. It doesn't really matter. I was wrong about this. Good content. I was wrong about this thing, and now I'm sorry about it, and I should have been correct
Vic00:54:06about that thing. Okay. I have one, which is ... Several listeners have pointed out the difference. Sonny asked. Sonny asked this in the last episode, the difference between ice cream and gelato, and the answer is gelato is slower churned, thereby making it more dense, less airy than ice cream, and generally gelato does not use eggs. It's not so eggsy, if you will, whereas ice cream does, and the other difference is there's no ice cream flavor like, you know, stracciatelle. Okay. Spirit of the week. Spirit of the week. I found this to be very drinkable and delicious. It's extremely good. It's extremely good. I thought it was delicious. There was no bite. What's going on here, Sonny?
Sonny00:54:52So we have the Old Forrester branded, or the Old Forrester Statesman branded bourbon, and of course, Statesman is kind of tied to the Kingsman, the Golden Circle. It is the product that is produced by the Statesman in the United States. You know, there's a bottle of it on the president's liquor. Liquor shelf, you know, and it is kind of showed up throughout the movie, and it's really drinkable. You know, we discussed the Prohibition style Old Forrester a couple weeks ago, and I really loved it. Vic really loved it. JBL even really enjoyed it, and it was a big hit with our listeners. They went out and picked up bottles. If you like that, you're going to love this. It's a slightly lower proof. It's 95 proof, so it's a little bit smoother, a little bit more drinkable, and totally totally worth it at a very reasonable price point, like 50, 60 bucks, something like that.
JVL00:55:48Is that what you paid for, Sonny?
Sonny00:55:50Well, the good folks at Brown Foreman and Old Forrester, they sent me a bottle here to drink here. I'm not a brand ambassador or anything. I was going to ask, does this qualify you to be an ambassador? I'm just a shill, because I love their product. I'm just a fan.
JVL00:56:08You're not. You're nearly an ambassador.
Sonny00:56:11I don't know about that. An influencer. But I am a think-fluencer. I'm certainly a drink-fluencer. And if you enjoy that, you should pick that up. Some wag, some film Twitter wag, joked that this movie is basically just an excuse to sell liquor. And they're partly right, because the liquor's amazing. But also, there is another branded liquor with this movie. And I just want to pull up the press release for it. The Glendore... Glendronach Distillery just released a Kingsman-branded scotch. Oh. And it is very pricey, my friends. It is a $900 bottle. Only 240 bottles coming to the United States. I have not tasted it. I don't know if it's good. It may be great. Whatever. But if you see it on the shelves, you should pick it up, because it's clearly very limited. Limited edition. Only 240 bottles here in the States. I mean, granted, $900 is a lot. I understand. But, you know.
Vic00:57:12Well, it's like one episode of the series.
Sonny00:57:13If you guys, if somebody on this show buys a bottle of that, I think we can get, we could probably convince more people to send us free booze. Glendronach.
JVL00:57:26You didn't get a Kingsman watch as part of this deal, did you? No, I didn't get a Kingsman watch, because I don't care about watches. Watches are dumb. They didn't give you a Bremont? No. God. Is that, how good is the product placement in the movie? Do they use the watches? Oh, yeah. They use the watches all over the place. And they drink the bourbons. They drink the scotches.
Sonny00:57:44It's actually, like, it is product placement that I don't mind, because there are products that are created for the movie, in a way. And it's very different from the product placements. It's like, oh, Coke is so delicious. Let me drink some right here on camera. And also, I mean, look, this Statesman bourbon is, like, really good. Yeah. It's really good.
Vic00:58:01It's really delicious. I have to tell you, I've had many bourbons, and this one is really, really up there.
Sonny00:58:06At this price point, it is a very, very, very good bourbon.
Vic00:58:11Old Forrester goes back to 1870. But it's, you know, now part of the Brown-Forman family, which includes Jack Daniel's Early Times and Woodford Reserve. I've been there. It's great. And that's where I actually saw the Old Forrester being bottled. Yeah. Great stuff. JVL.
Sonny00:58:24I didn't realize that they also made Early Times. I'm a big fan of Early Times. That's a great sipping bourbon.
Vic00:58:29Okay. That is all the time we are giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Victorino Matus at Sonny Bunch.
Sonny00:58:41Again, be sure. And at JV Last. Nope. We're going to get to at JV Last. Nope.
JVL00:58:44How many followers do you have there, Vic?
Vic00:58:46I'm almost at 2,000. I'm like 20 away. I'm so excited.
JVL00:58:50Can you please all go follow him right now? It's the end of the show. You're done listening to it. Just get Vic over the hump, please.
Vic00:58:55You're one of the 50 people who have made it here.
JVL00:58:57We can get 40% of you to follow Vic Matus.
Vic00:58:59I am just so excited. I count every day. I'm like, okay, I'm like 20 away. Kyle, Kristen, can you guys tweet about this? Carl. Please send me a- Substandard fan. Guys, everybody tweet. We need to tweet beg for Vic. Again, you're very kind. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard under podcasts, and we're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. And don't forget, Substandard show notes just might be up on Friday at 11 a.m. Until next time. So what happens when you hit 2,000 followers? Do you have like a big party or something? Yeah.
JVL00:59:42Is that what happens?
Sonny00:59:43Jack Dorsey comes to your house, and he brings you a bottle of champagne. He's like, hey. You've made it. That's very exciting.
Vic00:59:49JVL, I was telling Sonny we had walked down the street heading towards lunch, and we parted ways. And I, for the first time, went to Sweet Green. I've never been there. What's it like? Very interesting. It's like a cleaner version of the other. Not that Chopped isn't clean, but it was.
Sonny01:00:08I really don't understand why you keep saying this. Chopped is not a dirty place.
Vic01:00:12No, it's not, but it's hard to explain, so you have to go and see it for yourself. It's really something. The only thing that's, and the ingredients seem so much fresher, and it was really amazing. And I had a kale Caesar for only like $11 or $12.
Sonny01:00:29You should have seen the salad, too. It was like the size of a bowl of cereal.
Vic01:00:33Half the bowl, but tastier. So I'm going to pay $20 for even tastier salad greens for a cup. I'm going to have a cup of greens for $20.
Sonny01:00:39Well, this is the fine dining rule, right? Half as much. Half as much food costs twice as much, but it's better. It's tastier.
JVL01:00:46I'm sure it's fine.
Vic01:00:49What?
JVL01:00:49Sonny, JVL, we can keep on going. Pretend I didn't say that. I didn't do that. JVL, just give us something. I was going to ask you if you guys had read the variety review of Kingsman Golden Circle, where the reviewer, whose name I will not mention, spends a lot of time talking about how handsome Taron Egerton is. Well, that would be a good one. That would be Eggsy himself, as played by model, handsome Welsh actor Taron Egerton, whose jawline is so sharp you could practically chop wood with it.
?01:01:20Chop wood.
JVL01:01:21He's not terribly convincing as an action hero, and even less so in dramatic scenes, but he sure is purty, P-U-R-T-Y, to look at. There's more. It goes on from there. It's a really interesting review.
Sonny01:01:34Is this an OG review?
JVL01:01:36I'm sure it's fine.
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