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#71. The Substandard on Arby’s, Aging Action Stars, and the Apple Watch
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
Dudes Chatting — Arby's, the Apple Watch, aging action stars, and The Foreigner: The cold open covers the show's first Facebook Live micro-episode (from two days prior), with JVL making love to the camera while Sonny and Vic cringe, and confused Facebook viewers wondering when the news coverage starts. JVL reveals he bought an Apple Watch Series 3 Nike Edition to mark the occasion — and immediately discovers he cannot watch movies on it (screen too small) and had trouble syncing the Nike running app for his treadmill run. Sonny can't understand why you'd need a running watch on a treadmill. Vic describes his first session of a woodworking class with his son at a community center, where he operated the miter saw and the joiner but was too scared to touch the table saw — instructors Arthur and Myra run the class, and Vic clearly loved every minute of it. The sandwich/Arby's segment follows: Vic and Sonny have been seeing Arby's and Subway commercials constantly during sports; this is JVL's first-ever Arby's visit, where he ordered the pepperoni chicken parm sandwich and curly fries (avoiding the roast beef, which he calls disgusting) and found the production scheme surprisingly old-fashioned. A full lunch meat ranking ensues (Sonny: roast beef first, Vic: Genoa salami first, JVL: none of it). The main film segment covers Sonny's review of The Foreigner (Jackie Chan, Pierce Brosnan) — the film is advertised as a Jackie Chan revenge thriller but is actually an IRA political drama, with the Chan action sequences functioning as seasoning rather than the main course. Sonny argues this doesn't work because Jackie Chan is fundamentally a comedian and physical comedian, not a grimdark figure; he suggests Jet Li would have been a more believable casting choice. JVL, who saw Escape Plan (Stallone and Schwarzenegger) for research, argues it is a criminally underappreciated movie that would have made $200 million in 1987 — and that seeing them together makes clear Stallone is a far superior screen presence and actor. Discussion of the death of the solo action-star genre and two career-direction outliers: Liam Neeson (art-house to action) and Mel Gibson (action to prestige). Chris Tucker's apparent retirement after Silver Linings Playbook is noted. A brief Daniel Day-Lewis-does-action-movies fantasy closes the segment.
Reviews: Sonny reviews The Foreigner (dir. Martin Campbell, starring Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan) — mixed negative. Mismarketed as a Jackie Chan revenge thriller; actually a slow-burn IRA political drama. Chan's physical comedy gifts are wasted in a grimdark register that doesn't suit him.
Box Office: Happy Death Day (Blumhouse groundhog-day horror) opened at $26.5 million. Blade Runner 2049 fell to $15 million second weekend. The Foreigner opened third at $12.8 million.
Spirit of the Week: Bushmills Irish Honey, which Sonny found extremely drinkable, comparing it to mead rather than a shooter.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for a ransom, I can tell you I don't have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you. I will find you.
?00:00:36And I will kill you.
Vic00:00:44Hello and welcome back to another edition of 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 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, leave a review. In addition, we'd also like to remind you TheSubstandard show notes posted by Jonathan Last are often available on Fridays at 11 a.m. at weeklystandard.com. So first and foremost, gentlemen, I usually say how are we, but I'll answer your question. I seem to be dying.
Sonny00:01:17Yeah, you sound like it.
Vic00:01:19Yeah, I'm fading. I'm fading fast, but I've got just enough juice for this one episode.
Sonny00:01:24It's like you're fading from the picture in the Back to the Future. You're, you're blinking out right in front of us.
JVL00:01:31I'm the older brother. You're like Jordan playing in the playoffs, having to get an IV infusion at halftime. That's right. That's right. And you're still, you're still going to score 50.
Sonny00:01:39An IV of Irish honey.
Vic00:01:41How, yes, we'll get, that's a great segue. How are you guys doing? JVL, what's going on? Or Sonny?
JVL00:01:48JVL, you go first. JVL. No, well, Sonny and I are both wearing our American Giant hoodies, and today, no, I'm sorry, Tuesday was a big day for us, 'cause we did our very first Facebook Live.
Vic00:02:00I love how you were looking at the, where the camera was. It's not there anymore.
JVL00:02:04Making love to it with my eyes. Were you looking at the camera the whole time? Yes. Of course. Why? Because I'm making love to it with my eyes.
Sonny00:02:12That was throwing me off. It was throwing me off. That's, that's not, that's creepy.
JVL00:02:15That's what people want.
Sonny00:02:16That's not what people want. They want, they want you to stare, haven't you ever watched, like, one of these simulcast shows? Like, uh, no, no, not, not, not like, not like a podcast, but like, uh, one of the, like, Mike and Mike shows or something like that on ESPN or whatever. They don't look at the camera. They look at each other or they look at their, like, notes. They don't stare at the camera like a bunch of goobers.
JVL00:02:33I didn't stare at the camera, but I acknowledged the camera because the camera is the, is the window into our universe.
Vic00:02:38He was talking to it. He was performing. He was performing. That's the worst. For the camera. I noticed it. That's the worst. It was a different JVL. He had lines set up and everything. Man.
JVL00:02:46All I'll say is this. It was a big day, and so I decided to mark the occasion with a new watch.
Vic00:02:52Oh my gosh.
JVL00:02:53That's right. Is that a, is that a swatch? It looks like swatch.
Vic00:02:56What time is it, Vic? 2:23.
JVL00:03:00I have too much work this week. I can't go after stuff. This is the new Apple Series 3 Nike running edition. I went for a run this morning with it.
Vic00:03:09I'm totally confused. So is that a Nike watch or an Apple watch?
JVL00:03:13Both. Both. It is an Apple watch with design input by Nike, meaning that it gets a different band and there are two custom watch faces. And I, I'm going to be honest. I'm having a little bit of trouble with it. So far. I only strapped it on this morning at 4:30 when I woke up. And, uh, had trouble syncing up the Nike running club app with the watch when I went for my run, which was a little bit of a disappointment. But not as big a disappointment as the big thing. It turns out that I cannot watch movies on this.
Sonny00:03:47No! In what way?
JVL00:03:49Too small. What way? No, it does not have the capability to play movies on it. Oh, oh, you can't. You literally can't. I have to watch movies on the iMacs. I have to watch movies on the iMacs-like screen of my iPhone 8. And I gotta say, I don't like that. Wait, wait, wait. There's too much going on? Too much real estate. You can't see the whole screen.
Sonny00:04:05I was overwhelmed. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Let's back up a sec. When you said you went for a run this morning, you mean you ran on your treadmill? Yes. Oh, okay. So you put on your running watch for your treadmill jog. Am I understanding? It counts it. Am I understanding? Okay. What do you...
JVL00:04:22Do you not understand? No, nothing, nothing. Is it a steps thing? Is that what we're talking about?
Sonny00:04:26It counts. I'm trying to paint a picture for our readers, or our listeners, because...
JVL00:04:29Well, if we had the Facebook Live going for this episode.
Sonny00:04:32Because when I hear someone say, "Oh, I threw on my running watch and I went out for a run," I imagine them through some dappled oaks on the streets.
JVL00:04:42I had to finish watching a movie for this fricking show so I could contribute something, and I was working on that.
Sonny00:04:49When has that ever stopped anyone?
JVL00:04:51And I was hoping to watch it on my watch while I was running. And it turns out you can't do that. You can make phone calls with it. Do you talk into it, or does it just go into your...
Sonny00:05:02Do you have to wear your iPod?
Vic00:05:06Do you have to wear a Bluetooth?
Sonny00:05:09Do you talk into it? Nope. Do you just talk out loud?
JVL00:05:12You just talk while you're running, and it picks up your voice, and there's a speaker in it that plays.
Vic00:05:16Oh, so the voice in your head.
JVL00:05:19It's for real. Awesome. Except that you can't watch movies on it. I'm hoping that the Series 4... will finally allow me to see movies the way they were meant, which is in the portrait mode on the watch, which is a screen that is about seven-eighths.
Sonny00:05:35It doesn't really matter if it's portrait... Maybe three-quarters of a... It doesn't really matter if it's portrait mode or not, right? Because it's basically a square, right?
JVL00:05:42No, no, it's not. This is very rectangular. Look at that. And I do not want to see this in a landscape.
Sonny00:05:47Why are there holes on the band? Is that so your wrist can breathe while you're running?
JVL00:05:51Probably.
Sonny00:05:52I don't know. It's for the little nub.
Vic00:05:54So does that mean you don't need a phone?
Sonny00:05:56Yeah, but there's like 50 holes in it on each side. Style. Ask Nike.
JVL00:06:01Nike designed this for athletes. That's what it says on the box from Apple.
Vic00:06:05So you may not even...
JVL00:06:06It says, "Apple Watch designed for athletes." And God knows, when I look at myself in the mirror these days, what I see is an athlete.
Vic00:06:12So you may not need your phone anymore.
JVL00:06:14No, that's the whole point of it, is that you can run without your phone. You can make phone calls without it. I missed the first part. Why do you...
Vic00:06:21If you want to listen to music, you don't have a thing connected to your hands. It's connected to your hand.
JVL00:06:25No, if you want to listen to music, right, you put your wireless headphones on. Wireless, got it. And you leave your phone at home, and you go running,
Sonny00:06:33because this is streaming through the mobile LTE network
JVL00:06:37and pulling music off the cloud and streaming it to your...
Vic00:06:39So it's not even like an iPod Mini. No.
Sonny00:06:42But here's the... But the idea that you would need to run without your phone doesn't really matter if you're on the treadmill. If you're on the treadmill, you just put your phone in the little holder. So it doesn't make any difference.
JVL00:06:53Well, sure, but I wasn't going to get to run outside today because I had to watch a movie. I would have gone running outside today.
Sonny00:06:58How long do you run outside versus running on the treadmill? I'm just curious.
JVL00:07:01Entirely weather dependent. Huh. During the fall, I would say seven-eighths of my runs are outside. During the winter and hot summer months,
Sonny00:07:11it is the opposite. 100% of my exercise is done inside in air conditioning. Well, of course. You wouldn't want to go outside where there's just... Why would you expose yourself to pollen and sun?
Vic00:07:21I agree. I prefer... You know like in Rocky IV? Wind. I prefer to be the Ivan Drago training
Sonny00:07:26versus Rocky in the cabin. He's like carrying logs up mountains. You can get a splinter.
JVL00:07:33The best way to run, Sonny, is on the beach. Well, in your short shorts. On the sand. Running on the sand. Running into the arms of Apollo Crew. Especially running on the sand barefoot so you can get the sand between your toes as you're running. Doesn't that sound awesome to you?
Sonny00:07:46That's how you build up the muscles for the resistance, right? As you're running in the sand.
Vic00:07:52Absolutely. It's science. I'm all for science.
JVL00:07:55That was in Chariots of Fire, wasn't it? I'm all for that. Wasn't that, in fact, the entire point of Chariots of Fire, running on the beach?
Sonny00:08:01All I remember of that is the Vangelis score.
JVL00:08:05Was it Vangelis, not Vangelis?
Sonny00:08:06Apparently, I was reading this book on Blade Runner called Future Noir. If you've ever wanted to know literally anything about Blade Runner, read this book. It's like 600 pages long. We should do a show on that. But one of the notes in it is Harjee Vangelis. Which I don't know that I believe. I've literally never heard that. I've always called it Vangelis. Vangelis, him. He's a Greek man. Is that right?
Vic00:08:28I thought it was like a band. But you're saying it's like Yanni.
Sonny00:08:31Yeah, he's basically the Yanni of '80s synth tracks. That's interesting.
Vic00:08:35I learned about Vangelis the same time I learned about Van McCoy because I get them confused. What's a Van McCoy? Van McCoy was the band that did The Hustle. And then Vangelis did Chariots of Fire.
Sonny00:08:45Like the wedding song?
Vic00:08:46Yes, the wedding song.
Sonny00:08:50Yes, Sonny. How are you? Good. I went to the MGM National Harbor. I know we've talked about the MGM National Harbor before on the show.
Vic00:08:56Oh, this is good. I want to hear about this.
Sonny00:08:58But finally, I finally went out for like an actual meal of food with my lovely wife. We went to the Voltaggio Brothers Steakhouse.
Vic00:09:04Question. Yes. How crowded was the place?
Sonny00:09:07How crowded was the casino? Yeah. Packed. Really? Every table totally full. $25 minimums at best.
Vic00:09:13All the money of Prince George's County is being sucked.
Sonny00:09:16Sucked into a black hole that is set back to headquarters in Vegas or whatever. That's exactly right. Or Macau. I don't even know where they're laundering all their money these days. Did you play? I did not play. I did not play because I ... Because I'm with Beth, she doesn't really gamble, but could you stop looking at Facebook? We're doing a show.
JVL00:09:38No, no. Please continue. I have something to contribute to the show as soon as you're done talking about your weekend.
Vic00:09:42This has happened and I've delivered jokes that have just flown over his head because he didn't hear the joke. All right.
Sonny00:09:47He's fascinated by this Facebook crap. Yes.
Vic00:09:50What were the minimums?
Sonny00:09:50$25 was the lowest I saw, and $50 and $100 was nearby. Every table was totally packed. That's frustrating. The poker room was a little less crowded than I remember it being last time I was there, but still very crowded. I'm sure high-end. Yeah, but it is just packed. Every restaurant packed. Every bar packed. You had made reservations ahead of time at Voltaggio? We did. We made reservations at Voltaggio. The earliest we could go was 8:45. Which actually works out fine, because our daughter goes to bed around 8:00, and then we have a sitter come, just basically sit there while she sleeps.
Vic00:10:27And it's really just over the bridge?
Sonny00:10:29It's 20 minutes away. That's amazing. I mean, without any traffic, which there is very little at 8:45 on a Saturday night, you get there in 20 minutes without any problem at all, which is nice.
Vic00:10:42So, what did you think about Voltaggio Brothers?
Sonny00:10:44I quite liked it, so I do have one complaint that I just want to get out of the way right away. Yes. Ordered medium rare steak, got it medium. Disappointing. Okay. Disappointing. It's good you didn't order it medium. But it's, I mean, like it's one of the, if I'm paying an absurd amount of money, if I'm paying like as much money as I pay for all of my lunches during the week, at one sitting for one piece of meat. For one piece of meat. Did you send it back? Perfectly. No, I didn't send it back, because it wasn't ruined or anything. It just wasn't.
Vic00:11:11It was pink, but it wasn't dark. It was pink, but it wasn't red.
Sonny00:11:13Yeah. You don't want it red. Now. So, if you go to the Voltaggio Brothers Steakhouse, order it rare. Order it medium rare.
Vic00:11:20I complained about the $60 steak in one of our episodes. How much was the steak?
Sonny00:11:24The steak I got was $60. It was $60. It was a bone-in ribeye. A bone-in ribeye. I mean, I only, I get to go out for nice meals like twice a year now. So at this point, I'm just like, F it. I'm doing it. Interesting. I'm doing it. But they have cheaper cups of meat there. There's a flank steak that's like $35 or something like that. Prepared very simply. That's supposed to be pretty good. Tom Sietzma. Yeah. Tom Sietzma, The Washington Post, said that was really good. I almost got that. I went with a ribeye instead.
Vic00:11:48And it was just plainly prepared, not just fancy, no crazy crust. Nothing fancy. No, no. Kona crust.
Sonny00:11:54No. Nothing like that. I got the, I also got the shrimp cocktail starter, which the guy sold me on. He did a very good, the server did a very good job of selling me on it, because he talked about how they make the cocktail sauce in-house, and they put a little bit of banana in it. What? To give it like a tinge of sweetness. It doesn't taste like banana or anything, but it gives it some nice texture. It was really, it was really quite fantastic. How many shrimp? Four. Six. Four shrimp. For 30. No, no, no. No. It was, I think it was 19. It was actually- That's amazing.
Vic00:12:24Yeah, it was either 19 or 20. There are a lot of places that are now down to four shrimp for 20.
Sonny00:12:26Yeah, right. No, I mean it was, I was like, I will say that compared to other extremely nice restaurants that I've been to in the region, it is, you get the most food for your money. If like in a pure like volume- Yes. Like volume per dollar, it's a pretty- I did once a show, a radio show with Brian
Vic00:12:47Altagio, for my vodka book back in the day, for Foodie and the Beast, a different show. And he was great. And he brought in all the foods. And it was delicious. Did you taste it all? I ate it all. Oh, nice. I ate it all. Yeah. It was very nice.
Sonny00:13:02And it came with his family, his wife, the kids. They were really, really, really nice. Yeah. Great, great cocktails. Great. Oh, good. And like the wine was relative.
Vic00:13:09The bottles of wine were expensive, but you could get a glass of wine for like-
Sonny00:13:10So you started with cocktails and you switched to wine. Yes.
Vic00:13:12Mm-hmm. And then went back to cocktails. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the formal thing to do. Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:13:18That's fine, too. Yeah. It's a weird- I get a little wary about switching it up. I like that. You gotta get a good red wine with the- Mm, yes. Delicious. But I also stick with dark liquor, so I'm not going- Good.
Vic00:13:28... from vodka to red wine back to- Good. Yes. Are we still talking about this? Yeah.
JVL00:13:33Sorry. JVL, you had something? I was just going to say, so frequent listeners may remember that we did our micro episode on Facebook way back on Tuesday morning.
Vic00:13:41Oh, my God.
JVL00:13:42I forgot about that. And I was just perusing the Facebook comments, and I would say they break down generically into two veins. One set-
Vic00:13:49Do I want to know this? I don't think I want to know this.
JVL00:13:52One set saying that they are very disappointed that we broadcast in landscape and not portrait mode. It's a good point. Very funny. It's a very good point. The other set about head size. But there is one very confused lady who four minutes in says, "When are you going to start talking about news?" Two minutes later says, "What is this about? I thought you were talking about news." About news. Yes. Ma'am, you've stumbled into the wrong podcast. You are.
Sonny00:14:21You are. You are. Get out of this hell hole while you can.
JVL00:14:24I'm sorry, ma'am. This is not the podcast you were looking for. You are interested in something else that we are not selling at this show.
Vic00:14:31Box office news. We can do that, but that's about it. Okay. Hey, look at that. Did I create a segue for you? Not quite. I didn't talk about my- Oh, that's right. Yeah. What's going on with your weekend? Well, this is very interesting. I've been saving this. JVO will be most amused. Sonny will probably be disappointed. I signed up for ... My son and I are doing a wood shop class. I've never done this before. What?
JVL00:14:57I never did it in high school. Are you going to build a toilet paper holder?
Vic00:15:00No. That would have been easier. We're doing a fancy looking bird house with glass and it's pentagonal and the whole thing. Wow. Well, my wife was reading the paper. You know how they have these things for to know different things. Your taxpayer dollars at work. It costs like 100 bucks or something and they bring you all the equipment. You go to the Thomas Jefferson Community Center and it's like five or six courses and it's two and a half hours every Saturday morning. Wow. What tools have you used, Victorino? Oh my gosh. Things that you've mentioned before in the past, JVL, that I'm just not familiar with until now. Circular saw? No. Jigsaw? No. Miter box? I operated the miter saw.
JVL00:15:40You did a miter.
Vic00:15:41How did you like it? That was very intense. The joiner. I did a joiner. Where you run it through to split, a piece of wood into two. And then I saw but did not operate the table saw that scared the hell out of me. They were talking about the kickback. You gotta be careful with the table saw. Yeah. So there's like a guard on it now. They have all these different- No, Sonny's on his phone.
JVL00:16:02See, again, this is why we need Facebook Live for this, too, because this is gold. Sonny just sitting back on his phone.
Vic00:16:07None of this makes sense because Sonny's gonna say, "Why would you pay for the course? Just pay for the birdhouse."
JVL00:16:11I would just buy the birdhouse. Right. But if you bought the birdhouse, Sonny would say, "That's ridiculous. How much does that birdhouse cost?" Yeah, you gotta build the birdhouse. I know.
Sonny00:16:19It's true. Actually, why do you even need a birdhouse? That's true. Just put up a bird feeder. Actually, yes. Well, it is. Paint a bird on the window. Go buy a bird and let it free in your yard.
Vic00:16:28It'll come back. Well, I have ... The funny thing is I have zero expectations of using the feeder or the birdhouse because we had one and it attracted all sorts of animals, and one day it attracted a rat. I was like, "That's it."
JVL00:16:39Are you sure it wasn't just a squirrel? So you didn't do the table saw? Did you let Michael do the table saw?
Vic00:16:43No. They had other kids there. For liability purposes, they want just the adults. But the lady talked to me. She goes, "Your son could probably use this miter saw, but there's other kids who'll be
JVL00:16:53like, 'I want to use it,' and they won't be able to." Oh, it was a lady who's running the ... There's a man.
Vic00:16:57Of course. A couple. It's a couple. Interesting. They're named Arthur and Myra. How old are they? Probably 70s. Yeah? Yeah.
Sonny00:17:06Does he have a chin strap beard? I imagine this man having a chin strap beard and a straw boater hat.
Vic00:17:10No, sort of scruffy looking hair, flannel shirt. I imagine the couple ... You remember the SNL series?
Sonny00:17:15The SNL skit where Will Ferrell and I think it was Anna Gasteyer. Hot Mike.
JVL00:17:19Hot Mike.
Sonny00:17:20Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's who I imagine. That's actually pretty close to that. Okay.
JVL00:17:24Was that Anna Gasteyer? Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is Anna Gasteyer. Did you learn to hammer a nail?
Vic00:17:28No. There are two options here. One was machine, the other was using the hand saw, and Arthur was saying, he prefers ... He's always done most of the stuff he does with hand tools, but I just got ahead of the line of everybody. I'm like, "Sorry, I got first dibs on the miter saw or the joint." The other kids or other people had to use the actual saw to get their measurements. I had Michael take the tape measure, pencil, always give yourself an extra half an inch, bring it down, and then I think next class we'll switch it up and I'll try the hand tools. We were talking about chisels, and I actually have a chisel at home, believe it or not. Arthur was great because he's talking about be very careful with the chisels. He's like, "Now, kids, look at my hand between the thumb and index finger. See how nice and webbed it is? Now, look at my other hand." And then it was like disaster, talking about how the chisel went right through and cut that web of skin. Chisels are tough. Yes.
JVL00:18:24Router? Use a router? Because that's the other scary thing. Routers are terrifying.
Sonny00:18:29Well, I'll tell you what else we have. I didn't know I said this was going to be home improvement power. You know what else they got? They got a lathe. We're going to talk about lathes? Lathes?
Vic00:18:35Yeah. Michael wants to wear the full guard mask, but apparently there was a guy who was an ex-ball player who was making baseball bats in that particular facility, then he moved out of the way. I don't know who it was.
JVL00:18:45It was fantastic.
Vic00:18:46So what was your favorite tool that you used? The miter saw. I did that several times. It felt safe, but you've got to have your hand ...
JVL00:18:55Do you have a laser sight on it? No, no, no. Just bring it down. You've got to be careful with the laser sights, because the laser sights actually don't point right on the line. They point to one side line, because they're affixed to one side of the blade. My miter saw achieves this by having a high intensity halogen beam behind the saw blade itself, so what it projects is, in fact, the shadow of the blade, which means it's exactly where the saw's going to cut. It's pretty awesome. I'm not going to lie.
Vic00:19:24I don't think they have that. Hey, Sonny. How are you? They don't have that. This is how I felt during the steak talk. They don't have that in the Arlington community center. Most of the stuff is old and used equipment, but it did remind me, because both my father and father-in-law, when they weren't working as doctors, they were doing woodwork. My dad has a table saw in the garage. I didn't do anything. I didn't do any of this stuff. Of course, when you were in high school ... Because you're not a real man. In high school, that's understood. In high school, if you took those, those are trade ... That's for trade schools. That's what we called ... In Jersey, we call that vo-tech.
JVL00:19:58Vo-tech, right.
Vic00:19:59Right? You didn't want to be ... No, no, no.
JVL00:20:01I don't want to. I have to fill that slot with another AP class.
Vic00:20:04That's absolutely right. I have to get my weighted GPA course up. I've got an AP Bible.
JVL00:20:07I have to get into Georgetown. Oh. Instead of ... I have to be a doctor. Oh, sorry. We're on a roll here. We're on a roll here. Instead of- Might have just taken Woodshop.
Vic00:20:16No. A series of disappointments.
Sonny00:20:18We'll learn about a car. You would have been happier taking Woodshop. That's exactly ... No.
JVL00:20:21Would have been much happier taking Auto Shop. Yeah.
Sonny00:20:24That would have been ... That's exactly right, because you know ...
JVL00:20:25Would have saved myself hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
Vic00:20:28Because when it goes down, after that EMP and the NORC missile ... I can help. How am I going to help? I'm useful.
JVL00:20:36Yeah. How am I going to help? Well, you'll edit the signs that say keep out no trespassing on this land.
Vic00:20:40You know what I can do? You know what I can do? I'll make ... At Captain Bill Dwyer's compound out in Winchester. I'll make the sandwiches. Speaking of sandwiches ... Hey.
JVL00:20:49That's an A plus transition.
Vic00:20:50Thank you. It's a good thing I had enough voice for this. We were talking about sandwiches just the other day, I think Sonny and I, and I'll tell you what I've also been seeing. A lot of commercials. There's two commercials we see a lot of these days for sports. One is for Arby's, and the other one is for the Subway Autumn Carved Turkey. They use that song Papa Oomow Mow, and my thought whenever I see Papa Oomow Mow ... How does that go?
Sonny00:21:13I can do it with my voice. I can't. I can't. I can't hear it. Papa Oomow Mow. Papa Oomow Mow. Thank you. I have never seen that ad. You haven't? I've never heard that song.
Vic00:21:23Every time I see it, I'll do it again.
Sonny00:21:24Do people still watch ads on TV? Yes. Me.
Vic00:21:27Because of sports, I guess? Yes. But whenever I see a Subway commercial, there's no way that the sandwich looks like that.
Sonny00:21:34No, because it never does. It never does. Subway's disgusting. It is. Do you ever go to Subway, Sonny? Subway is the trash of sandwich shops. I mean, honestly.
Vic00:21:42I don't think we have one near us, do we? They're everywhere. They're like cockroaches.
Sonny00:21:45Here they are. In Roslyn. But in Roslyn? I don't think we do, actually. I don't think so. I'm trying to think of ... There was a Quiznos that I think closed.
Vic00:21:53Yeah. A lot of Quiznos are closed. Most of them are closed now.
Sonny00:21:56Because Quiznos also kind of sucks, honestly.
Vic00:22:00That was a novelty sort of, wasn't it? Yeah.
Sonny00:22:02We're running it through the oven. Right. And other places do it better, like Potbelly, for instance. But Potbelly is also having trouble, right? Potbelly is losing stores. That's what you say? I am totally fascinated by the chain sandwich business. It's real vicious. It seems to be really doing well as Jimmy John's, and I kind of hate Jimmy
Vic00:22:17John's.
Sonny00:22:18Why do you hate Jimmy John's? Well, I hate Jimmy John's for purely personal reasons. When I lived in Charlottesville, they put a Jimmy John's next to a venerable old Charlottesville restaurant called Little John's. And I thought Jimmy John's was like a one-off knock-off of Little John's. I thought they put it there to confuse people. And maybe they did. Maybe that's why they picked that location. But Little John's is a million times better. They have real sandwiches, big, meaty deli sandwiches. Again, they grill, and...
Vic00:22:45I like the neatness of Jimmy John's, but it's too small. It's too small. And sometimes... It's not enough meat. I'm in the mood for quantity, not quality. Days that end in Y, I guess I could say. But no, I mean... Is that when you go on the subway? The footlong? I do. I'll get a footlong spicy Italian, and try to see how close can I make this look resemble a Jersey sub. And I mentioned this to Bonnie Benwick over at the Food Editor at the Post, and she said that is the saddest thing that she'd ever heard. It is. It's pretty sad. Or I'll do the meatball sub, and melt the provolone. But I mean, a lot of those sandwiches, a lot of the meats are turkey based, as you know? No, I...
JVL00:23:21I believe they're all turkey based.
Sonny00:23:22The subway meats are all...
Vic00:23:23For the...
JVL00:23:24The subway people are very sensitive about this.
Vic00:23:26They are. They're turkey based for one of those cold cut sandwiches.
Sonny00:23:30Yeah, they're all disgusting. It's all fake meat. It's depressing. It's depressing. I...
Vic00:23:36JVL. I don't eat sandwiches. I know. You never did. I don't like 'em. This always amazed me.
Sonny00:23:4220 years ago, and I'm like, "How about a ham sandwich?" Yes. Vic told me about this in the office. So you never... And I almost didn't believe it.
Vic00:23:47Yes, he didn't. 'Cause it's so weird. You never grew up like having a ham sandwich. Ham and cheese. No. Disgusting.
JVL00:23:53Don't understand why. Texture. You know, Vic, I don't know if you picked this up in our long relationship, but I am particular about a lot of things. Yes.
Vic00:24:01No. It's one of those things I learned was about... No.
JVL00:24:04And... I just put it under the category of weird. Cold... I have some eccentricities, and cold animal flesh. Like sushi, or cold cuts, or any... Sushi? Pass. Wow.
Sonny00:24:19I don't eat it. I don't like it.
JVL00:24:21But it's fish. You like fish. Don't you eat fish? But it's cold. It's a living thing that is now dead and cold. And I don't like it. I don't do that. If you really have... So I... What about like... I like chicken parm sandwich. I'll eat a chicken parm sandwich. So it has to be hot.
Vic00:24:34'Cause it's basically like chicken has to be hot. What? When you grew up... But even once it's hot, like it's very...
JVL00:24:38When you grew up in school, what were you brown bagging? Oh, I was eating PBJs.
Vic00:24:40That's kind of cool. Oh, but it's not organic per se. That's it.
JVL00:24:43It's not like meat. I ate PBJs. Right. Right. This is what I'm saying. PBJs through the years. I would do grilled cheese. Grilled cheese is fine. If you want to throw some bacon and avocado on grilled cheese, I would do that, I guess. I would do chicken parm sandwich. Would you have to cook...
Sonny00:24:54I would do a... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Would you have to cook the bacon fresh? Or could you like pull it out of the fridge and put it on the grilled cheese? Well, it has to be hot because it's getting grilled.
Vic00:25:03Okay. But when you're a kid... So it's gonna heat up because... When you're a kid, you can't always have a hot sandwich in school, so you did PB&J.
JVL00:25:10Right. Every day for 12 years.
Sonny00:25:14Is this serious? You ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day for 12 years?
Vic00:25:17Yeah. And you see, he turned out perfectly normal, Sonny.
Sonny00:25:20What? What's the big deal? Did you... Question. What did you have to accompany the PB&J? Did you have like Doritos? Did you have like the mini bags of Lay's or what's the...
JVL00:25:30I think just my mother's scorn.
?00:25:32Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
JVL00:25:35Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Vic00:25:38He would eat the PB&Js before his shock treatment therapy.
JVL00:25:39I... No, I don't really remember. I mean, I would not bring a ton of food. We never bought... Never bought lunches. You never bought lunch? Never bought lunches. Oh, I loved buying lunch.
?00:25:49Wasn't allowed because I wasn't a doctor's kid. Hot lunch is not expensive.
Vic00:25:51It was like a buck.
JVL00:25:52Growing up in a broken home the way I did, and...
Sonny00:25:59The only day I would buy lunch in school was taco salad days because they had like the taco bowl, you know? And they would fill it up? Oh, man.
Vic00:26:07That was the best. I loved the hot lunch because there was always food that was never served in my home.
JVL00:26:11So I went... You know, like American food. This is a story I've never told before. Oh. All right. So the high school I went to before we moved to Moorestown had this amazing policy where everybody was allowed off campus for lunch. So it was like, you know, lunchtime, you could go to the cafeteria or go out. Or something. Like whatever. McDonald's or something. Some schools I did that. That's weird. Just wherever you could walk to. I went to a downtown place and there was a little diner that my crew of friends would go to a couple times a week. And I never had any money growing up. And so like I might scrounge together like $1.35 or something, which would enable me to get just a side of French fries. And so I would sit while my friends bought lunch and I would have my peanut butter and jelly and order a side of French fries and I would just like put sugar on it to just get some extra calories.
Sonny00:27:03It was awesome.
JVL00:27:05My childhood was a cavalcade of wonders. My God. That's sad.
Vic00:27:09When I went in Catholic school, they always had special programs for, you know ...
JVL00:27:13Well, you know, it's hard to tell what was economics and what was just spite.
Vic00:27:17I was going to say, you know, there were programs for ... so kids can have a meal.
JVL00:27:22Yes, it's called adoption. That's the program my brother and sister and I were in.
Sonny00:27:27Hey, what's that cup over there? Oh, so this is ... Yes.
Vic00:27:30I did ...
Sonny00:27:31Oh, let's move on to something happier. I did a ... Hold on. I'm going to go polish my gun. Then I'm going to put it in my mouth and pull the trigger because ...
Vic00:27:38You're like the girl in the movie, the girl next door, and they have the prom video, and then the one prostitute says to them, "Oh, yeah, prom night's a big night. You can lose your virginity that night." That's what I did. "How about you?" And the other girl goes, "I was 11." Sorry.
Sonny00:27:52I didn't mean to walk into this.
Vic00:27:55Jesus. You remember that? It's a great movie.
Sonny00:27:58This is our darkest episode, isn't it? It is a great movie. It's very dark. Okay. Isn't that Mike Goldfarb's favorite movie of all time? That and Bully? Because Elisha Cuthbert is in it. He is. Playing a porn star. Playing a porn star who wants to make good. Yes. He's like a movie with a gold heart. A movie designed for Mike Goldfarb. It really is. It really is.
Vic00:28:14Yes. And not only that, if you could find it in The Weekly Standard archives, one of the funniest movie reviews we've ever run.
JVL00:28:20You were probably his editor. Did Mike review it?
Vic00:28:24Yes. On the web?
JVL00:28:26On the web.
Vic00:28:27It is the funniest. Show notes. Show notes. There's a line in that.
Sonny00:28:31I don't remember it anymore, but there was a line that always brought me to tears. Mike Goldfarb is an underrated writer. It's too bad he- He is. That is 100% true. It's too bad that he makes too much money now to be able to sit down and spend two hours writing something.
JVL00:28:43So I took one for the team last night. I have never in my life been to an Arby's. That's not taking one for the team. We were going to do this.
Sonny00:28:52That's not taking one for the team.
JVL00:28:53That's being gifted an opportunity by your circumstances. Last night, after I wrapped up my 16 hour day at the office, I hopped in the car and drove out to the wilds of Virginia. Virginia. And I went to the Arby's.
Vic00:29:06The one off of Little River Turnpike? Duke Street?
JVL00:29:10Sorry. That's inside the Beltway.
Vic00:29:12Oh, sorry. Come on.
JVL00:29:14You said you went to Alexandria? To the wilds of Virginia. Oh, Virginia. Yes.
Sonny00:29:18Not the wilds of Alexandria. I thought he said Alexandria. He hears the wilds of Virginia and he thinks Alexandria. Alexandria. That's where the animals live.
JVL00:29:23God. Okay, go ahead. So I went- I live in Alexandria. I went to Arby's, which is where they have, I have been informed, the meats. And I went inside. Purchased the pepperoni chicken parm sandwich with the curly fries. Not after I did some research online. They say, they proudly proclaim that they serve, at any given time, they have at least eight different kinds of meat being served at Arby's. So I went there and I consumed some murder meat for the show. And it was an interesting experience. Question.
Sonny00:29:59Yes. Without getting too graphic, how did your stomach react to it?
JVL00:30:04No change, no difference.
Sonny00:30:07Okay. Because sometimes when people don't eat meat for a long time, you reintroduce the meat, sets off some tummy troubles. Issues.
Vic00:30:16Some rumbles. I was okay. Like your bowels might collapse.
Sonny00:30:19I was okay. All right. So my first question is, why did you go with the chicken parm instead of the roast beef, which is of course what Arby's is best known for. This is what they're known for. Arby's roast beef. Because roast beef is disgusting.
Vic00:30:30It's like going to a Japanese sushi place and saying, "I'll have the burger." I've never eaten anything.
JVL00:30:36This sandwich is the sandwich they have been pushing on television for weeks. I don't understand that. And also, I like chicken parm.
Vic00:30:42I have only eaten the roast beef at Arby's. Yeah. I'm not going to eat any of that stuff. Yeah. Roast beef is disgusting.
JVL00:30:48You couldn't pay me enough.
Sonny00:30:49It's so delicious. Roast beef is the best of the lunch meats. It is. Yes, it is. I mean, look, if we're ranking lunch meats, number one is roast beef, number two is honey smoked ham, number three is turkey, and number four is everything else.
Vic00:31:00Literally everything. For me, number one is Genoa salami.
Sonny00:31:03No. I love Genoa. God, that's such an Italian thing to say.
Vic00:31:06I can eat. Well, I am from Jersey. I can eat a ... That's sort of the same thing.
JVL00:31:09You're from Jersey. Salami? If Kate Upton came to me and said, "Why don't we go and have lunch together right now and we can each get a roast beef sandwich," I would say, "You know what? No thanks. I'm good." I just ... I don't ... No. I wouldn't touch it.
Sonny00:31:21It's disgusting. Is this ... No, but wait.
JVL00:31:23Next thing you're going to say, "Well, I'll have a French dip." All of these sandwiches, disgusting. I've had the French dip and it's delicious.
Vic00:31:27French dip is so good. A little on the salty side. Ugh.
Sonny00:31:33And I had a Sanchord the other day. I did. That's a ham sandwich.
Vic00:31:36It was heated. It was heated. And I was not very happy. And you wanted them to remove the sauce mornay. I wanted them to get the ham and the sauce. You wanted to please remove the sauce mornay.
JVL00:31:42They wouldn't do it. I really just wanted grilled cheese on a croissant, but they wouldn't do that.
Sonny00:31:48Anyway, I'm sorry. Continue with your ...
JVL00:31:51But here's my real ... I think this would actually interest both of you. This Arby's, at least, from the exterior, looks reasonably new. But on the interior ...
?00:32:03Ugh.
JVL00:32:03The interior looks about 30 years old. Yeah. That sounds about right. So they've resurfaced it. But what interested me is that the production scheme was easily 30 years old. Yes. I was going to ask Ben to say that. So the way in which orders are collected, orders are processed was the same way, essentially, as when I worked fast food at McDonald's. Question. All of the modern logistics that have been brought into the fast food process at McDonald's, Burger King, Chick-fil-A, everywhere else, at least at this Arby's ... 100% absent, which surprised me because they seem like a super-duper hipster place, now that they've gone with Nihilist Arby's followed by We Have the Meats, which are two virally
Sonny00:32:44awesome slogans. So Nihilist Arby's is run by a punk rock guy somewhere.
JVL00:32:47So do we really believe that, or do we believe that this is a super-duper, triple-flip viral marketing campaign being funneled through shell Twitter corporation people, characters?
Sonny00:32:59It's possible. I'll come back to Nihilist Arby's in a minute. Because it's brilliant. I'll come back to Nihilist Arby's. But here's my question. When you say that the production scheme was very old, did they just have a bin of sandwiches? Or were they making everything to order?
JVL00:33:13Well, there were four people working there and only three human beings in the restaurant. So it seemed as though they were making them to order. But I could not, from my vantage point, see the drive-through line. So I don't know what the drive-through production was going. Because I would assume... And I ate in restaurant because I wanted the full Arby's experience.
Sonny00:33:33The biggest change in the fast food dining experience was, I would say, going from having all of the food in a bin where they just grab it, they grab the cheeseburger or the Big Mac or the Arby's roast beef sandwich or whatever, and they throw it in a bag and they give it to you, whereas now everything is made basically to order. You order it and they...
JVL00:33:54They did not have enough volume to do mass pre-fat production, I would say.
Sonny00:33:59But I would guess that they probably would never do... Because, again, this is, I think... So when you say that the scale feels old, how exactly do you mean? I'm very curious about this because the economics of the fast food industry are totally fascinating
JVL00:34:14to me. So it looked to me... And somebody who knows the business of Arby's and knows fast food economics can talk to us and tweet at us afterwards. It looked to me like they were taking the order at the register. The order was... It's thrown up on a screen in the back. I don't know that it was thrown up on a screen in the back. I mean, they didn't have the microphone there the way they used to, but I... Well, how else would they... The guy turned around... Then how would they get it back there? Because the guy turned around and said to the guy back in the kitchen, "Hey, we need a chicken parm pepperoni sandwich." And then they went and dropped a basket of fries. I mean... Well, at least you got some fresh fries. Of the fries. Were delicious. Question.
Sonny00:34:57Curly. They're great. That's the only one. Are the curly Arby's fries not the best fries you've ever had?
JVL00:35:01They're not. From a fast food...
Vic00:35:02They are not. From a fast food restaurant. No.
JVL00:35:05I would say that when they are good, the Chick-fil-A waffle cut fries are the best. They aren't always good, but I would say 20% of the time, the Chick-fil-A waffle fries are the best. They lack consistency. Although, I would say all fries now lack consistency. I don't know what the difference is.
Sonny00:35:24I don't understand. I think this is mostly a function of... Cleanliness of the oil? Yeah. So there are a lot of different moving parts. No, no, no. There are a lot of different... Earlier in the day is better. Yeah. There are a lot of different moving parts with fries. You have a bunch of different people who are operating the fry station, and the fries sit out for longer. The fries will sit out for a variable period from zero to 10 or 20 minutes, and the grease just gets old. The oil gets old and gross, and the longer you go without changing it, the worse the food tastes. Yeah. So it's like... I would say the reason for this is... Yeah. ...is very obvious. There are just a bunch of different things going on. I will say that Arby's curly fries are my favorite fries. I went so far as to actually buy a bag. I saw them in the freezer section of my local grocery store, frozen bag of Arby's curly fries. And I bought them... You had to do them in the oven? I bought them, and I made them in the oven, and they were great. Really?
Vic00:36:24They were... Did you get to sprinkle some seasoned fries?
Sonny00:36:26They were great. That's amazing. It's hard to... I mean, you got a couple ones that were still kind of... But, like, if you just flip them...
JVL00:36:35Yep.
Vic00:36:36...fine.
JVL00:36:37Yep. That's right. Well, so I have my Arby's experience. I did it for you guys, and I thought it was...
Vic00:36:41I think the only Arby's experience... Okay. No, because you didn't get the roast beef. That's the whole point. Okay. I would never... See? Well, then...
Sonny00:36:49But, I mean, see... That's not really a... You got a chicken parm.
JVL00:36:52I mean, that's not really an Arby's experience. It's their seasonal big... This is the... Look, if the roast beef was really good, then they would be spending money during the Major League Baseball playoffs to advertise the roast beef, but they're not. What's the ridiculous milkshake? The milkshake that they have? The pseudo-vanilla flavor? Oh, the Jamoak? The Jamoak shake? Jamoak? I've had that. They are right now advertising in-store a cookie butter milkshake. Cookie butter? Not batter. Not cookie batter. B-U-T-T-E-R. Not cookie batter, which makes sense to me, but a cookie butter milkshake. Yeah. So, basically, butter... That would've caused problems.
Sonny00:37:24That sounds awful.
Vic00:37:25If I'm looking at the menu screen, I see cookie, I like cookie, butter, I like butter, I guess I'll order it. I like shakes. I like shakes. Put it all in. As long as I'm within 20 feet radius of a bathroom, I'm good.
JVL00:37:38So, here's my question about Arby's. Who is the target audience for Arby's? Has it become the hipster retro thing? No, I don't think so. Is it still Real America, Trump voter type? I think it's Real America.
Vic00:37:52I'm going to say the latter. I'm going to say the latter. I mean, where I live, and Sonny, and also in the district, I think the nearest Arby's is that one old one. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike.
Sonny00:38:10On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike.
JVL00:38:17On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike.
Sonny00:38:20On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. Yeah. On Little River Turnpike. Yeah. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike.
JVL00:38:37On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike.
Sonny00:38:43On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike. On Little River Turnpike.
?00:38:51On Little River Turnpike.
Sonny00:38:52fast food restaurants and i haven't done this i don't want to do it off the top of my head because such a thing should not be done casually no no uh it's easy i would put it subway is the
JVL00:39:00best because they have the most i would put it in the top this is the bunch theorem now
Sonny00:39:03don't don't try and bring that up and throw that in my face like you think it's a trump card it's not if subway wasn't the best they wouldn't have the most locations you know we'll deal with that on a on a different level uh but the the the the the the the problem with with arby's is that it has a connotation i think uh in the kind of like upper middle class young creative class richard florida set like this is where trash people eat and it's too bad because they i do think that they they make they make not only delicious foods but different foods like i can get a burger anywhere i can't get a roast beef sandwich everywhere i can't get curly fries everywhere they're upscale in terms of price
JVL00:39:47my meal at arby's came to like eight dollars and 62 cents or something like that which is more than i would pay for a comparable you know sandwich plus drink plus fries meal at mcdonald's i don't
Sonny00:40:01think that's much more than that's not much more than the fried chicken sandwich at mcdonald's
Vic00:40:04little more than chicken is expensive more than chick-fil-a i would have gotten more expensive chick-fil-a is great though i would have gotten the large roast beef or i want i think i had something called the big montana and it's just pure roast beef if you ever you ever see them shave it that gray slab that briny gray slab i don't want i don't
Sonny00:40:23want to i don't want anything no they're i'm not scared all these rumors yeah i've seen it serious like arby's roast beef is like just gelatinous like liquid that's hardened i don't
Vic00:40:32want it i don't care about that and you know what you know i like it's mouth-watering you know what
Sonny00:40:36i'm i i want plausible deniability on my fast food when it comes out what you've been eating
JVL00:40:43so could if if arby's turns as i assume they want to be turning more young and upscale again just based on the advertising during the baseball playoffs the new slogan we have the meats that it seems like they're making a real push to change so if they succeed in becoming young and hipster would that drive out like normal real estate gentrification because the original arby's customers all of a sudden like oh the millennials are showing up i don't know about customer wise
Vic00:41:11but certainly if they change the menu when they start offering
JVL00:41:13things that are too hipsterish they had they were offering a cinnamon apple crisp for dessert which i thought to myself oh that's interesting did you get it i may have tried it it was
Vic00:41:26disgusting how was it it was bad it was not very good strictly for the roast beef any any non-ice
Sonny00:41:32cream any non-ice cream dessert at a fast food restaurant is going to be bad because desserts take a long time to make and they sit there for a long time chick-fil-a chocolate chip cookies are
JVL00:41:42very good okay oh well all right cookies and they're the only point and i gotta say but you buy a cookie at any other fast food restaurant and you are taking your life in your hands subway cookies actually
Sonny00:41:52not bad i know white chocolate and macadamia i've had it good stuff that's the good stuff i think
Vic00:41:57everybody knows that you know next week we'll talk some more about white chocolate i think that's right that's right but you know what those cookies are pretty good everybody seems to know that by now you know what else everyone knows by now that the dollar shave club ships amazing razors for a few bucks i've been a member for a while with or without my voice 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 in your bathroom now you don't have to step foot in the store to get high quality shave and grooming products we'll deliver them right to your door just like the 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's 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 five dollars the starter set features their executive razor and three trial size versions of the most popular products that help you stay fresh and clean in your first box you will receive their shave butter body wash and one wipe charlie's you will also receive their executive razor which includes the premium weighty handle and full cassette of cartridges after the 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 dollarshaveclub's high quality products will have you covered from cheek to cheek there's no better time to try the club there you go i'm gonna rest my voice now i'm gonna i don't have much left poor guy you really take it you want to talk about you are michael for the team michael jordan team so i'm here's
Sonny00:44:09my hand off to you and then going to arby's is a real treat compared to
Guest00:44:13this oh my god i wish i was at arby's that cured my voice are we going to do the box office yes
Vic00:44:18we got to go right through it over the weekend happy do you want me to read that i can i can read that i'll hand it off to you very soon over the weekend happy death day did 26 and a half
Sonny00:44:26million what is happy death day what is that that's today for for vick that's that's happy
Vic00:44:31that day sonny as jv i'll tell you you don't know the half of it anyway 26 and a half million what
Sonny00:44:38is that it is a movie where it's a bloomhouse production it's a it's a horror movie and which a a sorority girl dies over it's basically groundhog day but uh a horror movie she dies over and over again on the same day and she has to find out who the killer is to break the the streak of deaths is anybody famous in that or no no because it's again it's a bloomhouse oh right okay in
Vic00:44:59second place was blade runner 2049 with 15 million down so 55 i think they probably covered their budget by now yeah yeah pretty much yeah and then in third place was the foreigner with 12.8 million dollars this is where i hand it off to you sonny you saw it what did you think goodbye everybody i
Sonny00:45:18did i did see the foreigner uh i am it's it's a strange movie insofar as it is a very different film from the one that is being advertised if you if you see ads for this movie on tv what you are seeing is basically jackie chan's taken or like john wick but to kill his daughter instead of a dog you're seeing like a straightforward revenge movie with action elements that uh you know kind plays on that jackie chan idea of like little asian guy doing lots of stunts on his own and you know throwing guys out windows and stuff and throwing himself out windows you know it's it's so like that is that is the image that is being sold to people and it's wrong that is not what this movie is this movie is very much a ira thriller it is a movie about um a uh politician who has ties to the ira he's played by pierce brosnan who wants to uh re-establish power over the the people in his orbit and wants to make himself useful to the british government it's basically about a politician who wants to make himself useful again and make himself important and powerful and all of the kind of machinations he goes through to make that happen and all of the jackie stan jackie chan jackie chan daughter revenge stuff is um totally ancillary to the actual plot of the film it's it is almost like seasoning that they put on top of it to like make you not bored when the ira stuff is happening now i uh i wouldn't say it's a bad movie exactly but it is definitely not one that you need to rush out and see it's not something you got to go see in the theaters wait for it to come to amazon prime or whatever um and and check it out uh if you really like jackie chan i'm also not sure that this is the movie for you because this is a very different jackie chan movie he's playing a kind of a dour downbeat as you would be if all of your daughters had been killed throughout the years like he plays a a so he's not funny it's not funny jackie chan it's sad it's not buster keaton no it's not no no no it's not and so like and so and so jackie chan has always been like really really good at physical comedy at at kind of this this idea of the absurdity of the situations that he is in and the situations he finds himself in are absurd but they're not really um funny it's it's it's a very it's kind and i don't think it quite works i don't think it quite works because no whimsical fight sequences like in shanghai noon there are fight sequences like the one in like both there are fight sequences like that but they are not whimsical which is very it's very weird it's like he is again it's like he is taking what has made him famous and like doing a darker take on it it's like the grimdark jackie chan and i don't know that that works it didn't work for me i don't know if it works for other people dcu jackie chan he's basically the zack snyder jackie wait a minute but it doesn't work for me i don't know what to tell you i don't i mean the problem the problem with uh this is that jackie chan is not fundamentally a grimdark character whereas batman is the fundamental best version of batman is the frank miller batman which is why the zack snyder batman works jackie chan is fundamentally a comedian yes he's he's he's like a comedian
Vic00:48:40who does yeah who does martial arts and action and you like shanghai new like oh i love the crap out of that movie that's one with owen wilson right yes yeah yeah yep what's the great line when he's uh which one wilson is talking about is you
JVL00:48:54something about your eyes what does he say that movie is full of great lines and real comedy and it is i think the best of the jackie chan american movies in terms of showcasing exactly the buster
Sonny00:49:08of his thing and it was the first rush hour kind of gets at that but it doesn't do it very well so there is a move why was there never a rush hour for there has to be a well chris tucker retired didn't he didn't chris tucker retire and like go into the whole like churchy preachy thing i don't know but that made rush hour three made
JVL00:49:29so much money yes you would think that this is i mean if hollywood does anything it's finding franchises that there are still pennies left to run out of and that was still in the upswing yes
Sonny00:49:39so chris tucker i once again i'm pretty sure chris tucker retired in the last movie i remember him in was silver linings playbook yes is that right he plays like it was
Vic00:49:48great yeah he plays like the patient fellow patient and the mental ward and he's fantastic
Sonny00:49:53in that have you seen that no oh you should you should it's a very good philadelphia movie it's
JVL00:49:58a philadelphia movie you would like it you started i watched like five minutes on the treadmill and well i mean that's true it doesn't have it's not a treadmill movie it's not a treadmill movie it doesn't have it really is not a scope it is not a treadmill of a treadmill talking um yeah i i say one of the things i do you have this do you have a list in your mind of gifts that you wish that somebody had made so that you could use them because one of my the gifts yes it's the whole
Sonny00:50:22movie of heat i want i want every scene i want a gif of every scene of heat so i can just like
JVL00:50:28pull it up in my i want a gif of chris tucker from rush hour 2 saying do you understand the
Sonny00:50:32words that are coming out of my mouth because that is a 100 funny funny bit there's a 100 chance that exists already do you know how the google machine works no what you do is you go to
JVL00:50:43you go to a kiosk and you shout out it you shout hey google i want i want a gif of chris tucker sergi just sits there and hold on hold and larry's going i've got this one i've got this one yeah
Sonny00:50:56you you you pay by the minute good you pay by the minute uh uh it just it actually literally just occurred to me i wrote this review last week and they have not been uh thinking about it since but it occurs to me that the perfect a better actor for this movie would have been jet lee oh yeah sure basically if you put jet lee in this movie i believe it 100 times more than jackie chan it just doesn't make sense i love me so gently jet lee is great i mean and he's old now
JVL00:51:24he's like 70 and he's he's he was old when he came to america he's old he was old before he
Vic00:51:28made it do you remember watching is he a shelf for the oh he's uh jackie chan too though i know
JVL00:51:36that's true well they have to be what do you i'm sorry this is the life they you know bruce lee do you remember these guys would not be they would not have careers if they weren't towing
Vic00:51:47the party do you remember watching lethal weapon 4 in the theater i do gently i think that might
JVL00:51:51have been the first time a lot of people saw him uh 100 it was for american audiences and people you and i were sitting there and when he takes apart the gun in the stairwell people went wild people went wild i've never seen anything like it was kind of an urban crowd people
Vic00:52:06went wild sorry here's wait wait no wait wait no this is this is okay bleep i want i want no you know what i mean no but no no no i don't think please start explaining it was all well
Sonny00:52:17so the crowd with which i saw the foreigner was also a very urban crowd and they were also like super they found it all very very funny like all right the like it's a movie about this guy with dead daughters and like ira bombings and everyone was just laughing and laughing i was like this
Vic00:52:34doesn't feel like a comedy guys i don't anyway did you have oh i was gonna say the best and most jet uh jackie chan movie he ever did you know what it is don't you it was the tuxedo with jennifer love hewitt why are you laughing and she is the best it's when she became a that's what
Sonny00:52:54really put that's when she that put her over the top yes you paid to see that in the theaters
JVL00:52:57didn't you that was during your your j-love fixation was you was when you could not get
Vic00:53:06enough i was so bothered when she ended up going out and with her co-star from the ghost whisperer the the redhead fellow who absolutely brings nothing to the table and i was like oh and he's
JVL00:53:17got a very small and what she needs is a giant headed man wait so what what so we were going to
Sonny00:53:24talk about aging action stars and we are running and we are running right out of we're gonna hit the fence what what movie did you see that you wanted to talk about so i went and saw escape
JVL00:53:34plan which is an underappreciated totally underappreciated movie which i believe is the
Sonny00:53:43leicester stallone and arnold schwarzenegger as as co-stars yes i think they were in one of the expendables movies before that were they i don't know the answer to that and there were also there was there was also a very funny joke in the last action hero do you remember when they go into the the video yes they go into the video store and arnold schwarzenegger's character shows the kid who's like no this this is all a movie it's you know let's go look at terminator 2 and see who's in that and it's a picture of arnold schwarzenegger that's fantastic that's great uh in
JVL00:54:13this is an underappreciated movie it is directed by a german director who this is like his only foray into american film uh so not wolfgang peters everything else is like german art house fair it it stars the two of these guys it gives them everything you could possibly want together including sylvester stallone suplexing arnold so like like that's great kurt angle style suplexing uh arnold schwarzenegger it is classed up with quality actors like vincent d'onofrio who is in full vincent d'onofrio mode does he have a beard in this i can't remember no no he's big and he's bald uh jim caviezel yes uh uh and the other god i'm now it's now jumping my uh brain from jurassic park help me victorino um sam neill sam neill really he plays he's a doctor oh yes and vinnie jones vinnie jones and so you have all the things you could possibly all the elements you could want in this the oddball character actor the classed up thespians the super duper action stars it is a very tightly constructed movie in terms because it is it is a prison movie and a heist movie it's well plotted this is the type of movie i at the 12 year old version of me had i been allowed to see this movie
Sonny00:55:33would have thought it was fantastic in 1987 this movie would have made two hundred million dollars
Vic00:55:38yeah i mean like yeah those movies don't do that sort of business heal a sunrise and tango and
Sonny00:55:43cash i mean this movie made like this movie made like 20 million right which does not make it but
JVL00:55:49so this genre is dead the action star genre is dead with very limited exceptions so a movie like taken which catches fire catches fire for real you can't just say hey put a big movie star in
Sonny00:56:01action movie and trust that you'll make concepts catch fire now more than action i believe that's
JVL00:56:07right and i i gotta say seeing stallone and schwarzenegger on screen together having always thought that they were basically interchangeable i gotta say that schwarzenegger cannot carry stallone's jock nope you know that's interesting is a better actor more screen charisma better everything on screen and it it was shocking to me
Sonny00:56:33the difference in weight between their two presences on screen i it had never occurred
Vic00:56:38to me that this was true very much i think stallone is very much a pro uh when my buddy todd was the cameraman for grudge match with stallone and de niro and he met him both and he said de niro is very intimidating but he said stallone a really nice guy and a real pro he he's great
JVL00:56:54in this movie yeah actually yeah and i got it so i was thinking through different action stars and something occurred to me that i wanted to run past you guys so most action stars don't do anything else you're stallone's van damme's schwarzenegger's stephen seagal's of the world i can think of two outliers two real outliers in all of this who went in opposite directions with their careers the first is liam neeson who went from being an indie art house guy doing things like schindler's list to doing movies like taken and the other is mel gibson who started out doing mad max and lethal weapon and then moved on to like hamlet so going in opposite directions down the artistic ambition scale are there other guys who fit like that i mean like sean connery is never really an action hero i don't think i know although he's in a ton of action movies but i don't think of an action star bruce willis i've always thought as a rom-com guy who went into action but is still more of a leading man than an action star i guess this is how i think of sean connery more leading man than action star
Sonny00:58:00i think bruce willis has is definitely more action star than anything i mean if you look through his his bruce willis i think is an underrated actor i was watching uh death becomes her the other day i was like again he i'm you go back to that movie all the time don't you my wife my wife will not stop watching that movie it is always on it is always on it was it's anyway but like uh but the but he he does interesting things in that movie and he does interesting things in a lot of movies but he is a leading man action star i mean like he's in the upcoming reboot of death wish
Vic00:58:33yeah like fair enough that's what he is yeah fair enough well one of the weird things of course to remember is when you think about aging action stars in 2017 versus aging action stars in 1987 people just take better care of themselves so i was thinking about um roger moore
JVL00:58:48and he did a view to a kill he was that guy was an action star he was boy he was all about that
Vic00:58:54action boss yeah you know most of those you can see the stunt man there were certain scenes in that where they just don't even bother to you know oh this is not him but we're supposed to pretend he was like 58 but liam neeson was 61 when he did taken three right and all that is
JVL00:59:08very believable but people are just much older yeah hgh probably has nothing to do with that
Vic00:59:12as well but probably nothing and sort of the the kind of living the hard living if you go back
JVL00:59:19some of our skinless chicken low weight high reps that's that's what's still sylvester stallone i believe is 74 that's why his arms look like rocks yes that's because the low rate high what he's really doing is 120 reps of 15 pound bicep it's it's funny it's funny you mentioned liam neeson
Sonny00:59:35because uh liam neeson was originally if i remember my spielbergology correctly he was originally going to be lincoln in the in the well he had the height in the in the in the spielberg lincoln movie and that ended up being daniel day lewis and i would love to see could you imagine seeing a trash daniel day lewis action movie that'd be amazing wouldn't wouldn't that be like the greatest thing i would just i if i i would pay money i would pay cash money to be a reporter on the set watching that movie be filmed as he's like no this is this is all wrong this is your motivations are all wrong on this let me tell you how to do the action right and then he does it better than like jackie chan or somebody that would be funny
Vic01:00:17totally into it okay gotta move on we have to move on do we have any corrections or additions no anything shout outs anybody anybody want to shout out no i don't want to shout out anyone
JVL01:00:27people should shout out us can i can i say this past episode on twitter was we all we always say you should follow us on twitter i don't think that's true last week's episode uh people should if you enjoy the show don't follow us on twitter but come on to twitter for the substandard twitterverse because it's very high quality stuff in many
Sonny01:00:48instances much better than the actual show if you're a big fan of the show and you should be telling all of your friends to listen to us because if you don't we're going away just fyi we need we need more listeners because that's probably uh but uh you should also be checking us
JVL01:01:03out on twitter and and having fun or just come and hang out with the hang out and this is this is a serious question which we will talk about offline is whether or not we want to port that sort of world onto just a substandard facebook page whether that would be easier for people to hang out in than on twitter i don't know facebook is trash though the problem is
Sonny01:01:23that's i know that you're all into the facebook right now do you hear me zuckerberg your
Vic01:01:28platform is trash oh sorry sonny you're editing the episodes this week one hour 57 spear of the week is bush mills irish honey sonny what did you think you had several pores you pretended not to but you're like a freshman in college no but this is it really does taste like college it like it is
Sonny01:01:47extremely drinkable in the in the in the way that in the way that like a fireball really isn't you know that's like a shooter this is like a this is you just you just sip it it's like mead for the
Vic01:01:57yes it's like mead it's like mead we i got this bottle for my wife because i thought she might like it and she said she today she's only had one sip so it must have evaporated the rest it wasn't me it wasn't me and and you know what else is good actually it's only 35 percent alcohol which is why he did you know which is why he did and you know what else is good is uh black bush you ever have that that's very good bush mills black bush you ever have that oh i'm sorry i thought you're talking about something else no it's really but once you go black bush you never go back to uh yeah that's all the time we're giving to this episode questions that wasn't even gene complaints no compliments tweet us at victorina matters at sunny bond at jv last he
Sonny01:02:38loves twitter he hates facebook that's true again be sure to subscribe to us
Vic01:02:42on itunes or google play just type in substandard and a podcast we're there leave a review tell your friends don't forget the substandard show notes will be up on maybe on friday at 11 a.m come on until next time you actually sound like gene today i was you know i'll tell you what was really funny i was gonna go to see uh a movie with my daughter my little pony the the rate you know the the movie and i thought i would review
Sonny01:03:17that i thought that would be really funny well why didn't you do that i don't want to see it time for me to scootaloo see you later you had to go to the wood shop yeah i chose that can we do like 10 more minutes on wood cutting that would be great i found a lot of parallels between
JVL01:03:32woodworking and the kitchen oh my god stop do you do you work with wood ever thick like you're in Is that what you work with? I'm sure it's fine.
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