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#77. Hammer Time: The Substandard on Thor, Fake Lego, and Drinking Tips
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Full episode (57:44). All three hosts present.
Dudes Chatting — Lepin Lego, woodshop, bar-crawl tips, and Murder on the Orient Express: JVL reveals he bought a Chinese knockoff Lego set — a Lepin Avengers Helicarrier — and is building it with his son; Sonny is outraged at the IP theft. Woodshop update: Dr. Bob Dwyer (Vic's father-in-law) stepped in as a substitute instructor and became the star of the class. Vic recounts an all-day bar crawl with old friends in New York City (1:30 PM to 11:30 PM); Sonny offers drinking survival tips: eat beforehand, stay hydrated, take ibuprofen before bed. Sonny also mentions he has just read Murder on the Orient Express for the first time, unspoiled, in preparation for the film.
Reviews:
Thor: Ragnarok — Sonny is negative: the tone is wrong, Thor is reduced to a goofy comic figure, and the film doesn't work as a Thor movie. JVL is positive: it functions as a full-blown buddy road-trip comedy, Chris Hemsworth was born to play this version of the character, Jeff Goldblum's comic timing is exceptional, and JVL laughed out loud three times.
Box Office: Thor: Ragnarok opened at #1 with $121M. A Bad Moms Christmas debuted at #2 with $17M. Jigsaw fell to #3 with $6.7M.
Spirit/Whiskey of the Week: Filibuster Whiskey "The Boondoggler." Corrections: the traditional Wimbledon drink is barley water, not lemonade.
Full transcript
JVL00:00:00So much has happened since I last saw you. I lost my hammer, like yesterday, so that's still pretty fresh.
Vic00:00:11Hello, and welcome back to another edition of The Substandard, brought to you by HelloFresh. HelloFresh is the meal kit delivery service that makes cooking fun, easy, and convenient. For $30 off your first week of deliveries, visit HelloFresh.com and enter SUBSTANDARD30 when you subscribe. 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 at our podcasts 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, The Substandard show notes, posted by Jonathan Last, are sometimes available on Fridays at 11 a.m. at WeeklyStandard.com. Occasionally? Are we still at Sometimes? Biennially? Semiannually? Possibly. Possibly. Possibly. Gentlemen, how are we doing? Sonny?
Sonny00:01:03I'm good. I'm good. I will... Can I just... I want to elucidate. I don't... Wait, that's not the right word. I want to discuss one of my great triumphs. Okay. 35 years old, never read Murder on the Orient Express. Oh, wow. Never seen the movies. Yeah. Or the movie, I guess. Never... Was there a TV show? I never watched that. And I managed...
JVL00:01:24There's two versions. There's a David Suchet version. And an Albert Finney version. Yes.
Sonny00:01:30And then the Kenneth Branagh one is coming out. And now the Kenneth Branagh one is coming out. So, anyway, I was reading it because... But I just want to... I managed to go my entire life without having that spoiled for me. Without having the ending of that book. Oh, that's impressive. I was... And I don't know how it ends. I knew... I knew... I knew kind of... I had some idea of how it ends. But I had... But I didn't know the specifics of it or how... I managed to go my whole life without having... Having the ending of one of the most famous murder mystery stories ever told spoiled for me before I got a chance to read it. And I consider this a personal triumph. So, anyway, that was my weekend.
Vic00:02:09It turns out that the woman is a man. That's the secret.
Sonny00:02:12Yeah, right. Well, that's the Brian De Palma version, isn't it?
Vic00:02:16I had... You know, I'm not familiar at all with the murder... I mean, I know of it, but I didn't see it, let alone read it, obviously.
JVL00:02:23You've never read it or seen either of the...
Vic00:02:25No. I did, however. I did, however, see Death on the Nile, and that's another Agatha Christie.
JVL00:02:29That is my favorite production of any Agatha Christie material ever. I saw the... The David Suchet Death on the Nile, right? No.
Vic00:02:40Peter Ustinov, even before his time. Oh, my mind's the David Suchet. It's Peter Ustinov, Maggie Smith. That's awesome. It's a little graphic, even for me, I think. There's a couple murders that were surprising, but very interesting. Anyway, Bury Your Dead, Mademoiselle. Anyway, so... Go ahead.
Sonny00:02:57Go ahead, Sonny. The reason I had a chance to read it is because Beth was out of town this weekend, so I had a little extra time to myself, and I also...
JVL00:03:05Wait, Beth was out of town with your child?
Sonny00:03:07No, no. She was... The child was still here, but...
JVL00:03:10So how did you have extra time? I'm confused.
Sonny00:03:12Well, during naps, and when she went to bed, there was... Naps.
Vic00:03:16Of one kid.
Sonny00:03:17Yeah. So anyway, that was... But I also watched some old movies this weekend.
Vic00:03:25The time is 3.45, JVO.
JVL00:03:27Okay, go ahead, Sonny.
Vic00:03:28You watched some old movies, because you had lots of time.
Sonny00:03:30Yeah, because I had so much time, and it was very interesting to kind of... The two movies I watched were Blow Up and Blow Out. I don't... It doesn't really matter what they're about, but they're serious.
Vic00:03:42The only one I've seen is Blown Away, and it's not the one with Jeff Bridges. It's the other one.
Sonny00:03:48But it was... With Nicole Eggert. It's really amusing to watch these movies now in the age of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, because they're all... It's all about creative people kind of acting poorly and doing questionable things, but not in a way that really questions what they're doing. That's just kind of accepted, like producers casting women for their breasts as opposed to their acting ability, things like that.
JVL00:04:14The good news is that's never going to happen again.
Sonny00:04:16Yeah, no, I know. That's done, right? It changes now. That's done.
JVL00:04:18It turns out now, no matter what you look like, you can become a movie star. Yeah, sure.
Sonny00:04:24As long as you can act. As long as you can act. That's all that's important. But everything is now just, everything is problematic. Someone should start a blog about that. Yeah, that'd be a nice little Tumblr.
Vic00:04:38But I think the deep question is, much like with O.J. Simpson, after that whole thing happened, I couldn't watch anymore any of his Naked Gun movies or whatever, Towering Inferno, but what about, there's so many great Kevin Spacey movies, does that ruin it now? Can you not watch Usual Suspects anymore? Or Swimming With Sharks, or L.A. Confidential?
Sonny00:04:59Man, I don't know. I haven't actually tried yet, but I'm...
JVL00:05:05Well, I just sort of always assumed this stuff about Kevin Spacey, and so this is not a surprise. You had already accepted it. I would say, if this came out about Tom Hanks, then I would be like, oh my God, I can never watch The Road to Perdition again, or Denzel Washington. I would say, with Kevin Spacey, this was, maybe not all the way to 14 was baked into the cake, but for like, you know, 16, 17 certainly was.
Sonny00:05:27Yeah. I would say that's about right. Who would be the most surprising? Like, who would you actually be shocked and appalled at, leaving aside Hanks and Denzel? Okay, Jeremy Piven. Take the question seriously, dick.
Vic00:05:42Okay, I'll get back to you on that, because I love...
Sonny00:05:45Think about it for a second. I'll give you guys a second to think about it. Mine would probably be Harrison Ford.
Vic00:05:52Oh, yeah.
Sonny00:05:53If it turned out that Harrison Ford was like a real creep, if he was like... Sexually assaulting women, or like... It would radically alter my perception of the universe. I think it would just totally ruin everything about the world for me.
Vic00:06:07I had been bothered. I remember looking at a tabloid once. This was while waiting at the line for groceries. Years ago, after his divorce and before Callista, he went to some bar and got completely trashed. And somebody was there before iPhones and took pictures of him. He was a mess. And even looking at those pictures where he needed help, he's with women. I love him, but he's hanging on them. I felt so awful looking at that. Like, that's not the Harrison Ford I want to know. JVO.
JVL00:06:40I don't know. I would have to think about it. Harrison Ford is an excellent call. Who is amazing for a guy who is the biggest leading man of his generation, or if not the biggest, then top three. A remarkably sedate romantic life. I mean, people... People know very little about him. And we do not believe that he was like Derek Jeter or George Clooney, just doing it all very much on the down low.
Vic00:07:07In the Dustin Hoffman allegation story, the woman that worked with him on Death of a Salesman, I thought there's two really great revelations in that, which were, who were the men, who were the actors she loved on that set? Charles Durning, the great late... Charles Durning, who taught her how to polka, and she fell in love with John Malkovich. John Malkovich. John Malkovich was great.
Sonny00:07:34We watched that in high school. We watched like a VHS of that. And I just remember, because this was, it must have been, I don't know, 99 or so. So Malkovich is at this point like best known for Con Air. And, you know, and I'm just like, wow, wow, he's got hair. I'm sure it was like a toupee or whatever. But I was like, wow, this is weird. This is crazy.
Vic00:07:56Right. I think for me... I always think of Malkovich as in the line of fire and sort of just a little bit off. And I'm sure he is. Yeah. But it's nice to have read that. JVL.
JVL00:08:06Yeah.
Vic00:08:06How are you doing? I'm fine.
JVL00:08:09It's the third consecutive weekend of half of my children being sick. So I'm going around. Yeah. It's not worth it. I want to hear about Woodshop. Well... That's really the only time. I came to work today on Thursday just thinking of nothing but hearing about Woodshop.
Vic00:08:21Okay. So here's the situation. I was in New York City this weekend. So I did not do Woodshop. Instead, my father-in-law, Dr. Bob Dwyer, took my son to Woodshop. And I came back and I said, okay, how did it go? Was everything okay with Grandpa? And supposedly he was a big hit and they loved him. And not only did they put like finishing touches on the feeder, he also carved out wood blocks that spell out Mike on the bandsaw that were really cool looking. And then he really hit it off with Arthur, the instructor, and then apparently, according to my son, Arthur was like, here's my card, telephone number, come back next week. It'll be great. We're going to have a lot of, anytime you want to come back. I'm just not sure if he meant come back with me or come back instead of me.
Sonny00:09:10You've been replaced.
JVL00:09:12I'm sure it's fine.
Sonny00:09:13That would have been a great idea. Good job. Good job, guys.
JVL00:09:15Sorry.
Vic00:09:16That's so fantastic. And I saw the lettering, and I'm still trying to figure out how he did it so well on the bandsaw. He probably just has a lot of experience working with bandsaws.
?00:09:27I know.
Vic00:09:29Yes. And so that's that situation.
JVL00:09:33Look, your father-in-law, as nice a guy as he is, as handsome as he is, as smart as he is, and accomplished. And he was a jock in high school. As a surgeon as he is. He's a three-letter man. He is a lousy, lousy editor. Yeah, you know, I'm not so sure about his writing. I know this about him. He probably leaves adverbs everywhere. Garbage. Run-ons. So what sort of man is he anyway?
Vic00:09:52Really, really, despite having a purple heart from Vietnam, retired neurologist. Yeah.
JVL00:09:57Other than that, what can he do in three-letter sports? You show me an example of where he has caught italicized periods. Thank you. Oh, that's a tricky one. Yes, that's right.
Vic00:10:09That's right. Trickier than the bolded period. The bolded period. The bolded period. The italicized period. People can find that. Kelly Jane Torrance among them. So again, I was in New York City. When I get together with friends, we do this once a year. Oh, did you go to Sparrow? Yeah, did you have the best pizza? Amazingly, we did not get pizza. We went to a place for brunch. For brunch? Yeah, because I arrived early. It's a Saturday. Millennial. Everyone is at brunch. Did you get avocado toast? No, I had steak and eggs, and they were actually really good at Lex Brasserie, I think, in Midtown. And then we went to a seafood place called Crave Fish Bar at night. But I was going to explain the reason why we go, of course, because one of my good friends, Steve Rushford, had passed away last year of cancer. We get together every year, the high school friends, to celebrate life by drinking ourselves to death. Yeah, that's smart. We started at about 1.30 in the afternoon, but then we closed at about 11.30 at night.
Sonny00:11:08Oh, so 10 hours. Yeah, just about. I'm sorry. 11.30 is when everybody starts going out in New York, though, right? I mean, that's like...
Vic00:11:16Yeah, and that's why that time we were back in the hotel room.
JVL00:11:18And your body thought that this was okay?
Vic00:11:22We just kept on going to see what happens, because, you know, we're only in our mid-40s, a bunch of five dudes. In their mid-40s, going from bar to bar. And, yeah, but I said, okay, I know it's going to be a long day from 1.30 to 11.30, whenever. So, you know, what do you do? Sonny, what do you do if you know it's going to be a long day of drinking?
Sonny00:11:40You have to... There are two things, there are three things you have to do. The first is to create a good base that the alcohol can soak into. So steak and eggs, great choice. Thank you. Great choice. Number two is to hydrate before and during. That's the key. You don't want to, like, drink a, you know, glass of water before and be like, I'm fine. You got to keep drinking water. You want to, you got to, you know. I'm not saying that you should carry around, like, a Gatorade bottle or anything, but not a terrible idea.
Vic00:12:09It's the Robert Parker school, which Robert Parker, the wine guy, he does a ratio of one to one in his business. One glass of wine, one glass of water.
Sonny00:12:16It's not a terrible idea. And then third, right before you go to bed, this is my foolproof cure for hangovers. You drink one big glass of water, like eight to 12 ounces, drink the glass of water, but also take two Motrin. Oh, interesting. Chug down some ibuprofen water. You will wake up. I mean, you might be tired still, but you won't have a headache.
Vic00:12:42You'll be achy. I can imagine doing that and then, like, you know, having an accident because I just, you know, passed out and I drank so much water before I passed out. Yes, that's my fear.
Sonny00:12:52Well, this is, well, fortunately, since you're tipping the maids, as we discussed. Oh, absolutely. As we discussed two days ago. Two days ago. Three days ago. Three days ago. Two days ago. They'll take care of that. They'll, you know.
Vic00:13:06My key was consistency, right? I said, you try to be consistent. I thought about this on the train up. I said, let me think about, you know, what I can do to be consistent. So we got to brunch. When you say, just explain consistency to people. Consistency of spirit. You don't want to mix and match. Just say with one thing, I think that the effects of whatever hangover, whatever you might get the next day, are minimized. When you're not all over the place. So I started at brunch with a Bloody Mary, with Tito's Vodka. But then I moved on to bourbon. I had a Woodford Reserve on the rocks. And then I started going to bourbon and club soda, like, you know, Jim Beam. And then we went to a bar, and then I got an old-fashioned with Makers. And then I had a Dewars and Soda. And then during dinner at the Fish Place, I wanted to get a clear spirit. So I got a gin martini. And then I think by the end of the night, I had an Irish whiskey. Irish coffee? So the consistency, I might have failed slightly on the consistency.
Sonny00:14:02I don't think consistency is a good plan. Because, I mean, look, if you're consistently drinking bourbon, you're just going to get really, really drunk. I mean, the consistency only works if you're doing, like, you know, like Miller Lite. I'm going to drink nothing but Miller Lites. I'll be fine.
Vic00:14:16JVL, what is your advice?
JVL00:14:21I'm sure it's fine.
Vic00:14:23You have no advice. What is the last time you've gone on, like, a test? That's what I want to know.
JVL00:14:29I have not gotten for real drunk since that White House Correspondents' Dinner.
Vic00:14:39The one with Larry Miller?
JVL00:14:41Of now 16 years ago, 17 years ago, which is the one which was... Oh, wait. This is the one where you went to that party. The insanity. You got invited and I did not. Like, me and Shannon Doherty, me and Harrison Ford.
Vic00:14:54You were Jeffrey Toobin. Me and Jeff Toobin.
JVL00:14:56Jeff Toobin, Viet Dinh, Drew Carey. Outrage. Just like the...
Sonny00:15:01How did you get into this party?
JVL00:15:03I went as Bill Kristol. I tried to go as Fred Barnes. That didn't work. You tried to go as Fred Barnes and didn't get in.
Sonny00:15:09It is funny because this is exactly how I got into the only White House Correspondents' Dinner after party that I went to. I said I was Nick Sweezy. Yeah. I went and I was like, Nick Sweezy.
Vic00:15:23You white people have it so easy. I should have got as Viet Dinh. I didn't know he was on the list.
JVL00:15:27But that was the last time. I think I said Fred Barnes. I think I said Fred Barnes. So I've never... Since then, I've never had more than two drinks in a sitting. It was so bad. I just thought, I never want to feel like this again.
Vic00:15:43You know who else got rejected from the... I think we mentioned this on the show. Rich Eisen. Me and Rich Eisen. We were standing together at the curb.
JVL00:15:49I tried to pull you both in.
Sonny00:15:51Rich Eisen. And that's at the height of Rich Eisen and SportsCenter's powers.
Vic00:15:55But those girls working there... That were totally clueless. Well, I mean... And again, the name... Or just good at their job. Or maybe. But no, there was a... Well, I mean, there's a list. There was an electric... There was an electronic error where people who had RSVP'd voicemail versus online didn't get it. So a bunch of people did not get it that day. That's what I tell myself. But anyway, I guess you're better for it, JVL, because I did get, I think, particularly hammered. Speaking of getting hammered, Thor Ragnarok. Hey! Smashed the box office. Very nice. Thank you very much. A hundred twenty-one million dollars this weekend. Is that good? It's not Blade Runner good. I mean, it's... It's not... Wonder Woman is good. Oh, no. Oh, well, if you want to compare it... I don't remember. It was in Wonder Woman 135.
Sonny00:16:43Oh, I don't think it was that high. I think it was... I'll effort that while you do your grown-up review. I'm pretty sure it was under... I'm pretty sure it was, like, right at a hundred million. I might be wrong.
Vic00:16:50I mean, and that was in first place of the hundred twenty-one, and far, far away from that in second place was A Bad Mom's Christmas, with seventeen million. Why is a Christmas movie coming out before Thanksgiving? You're correct, Sonny. One-oh-three.
Sonny00:17:05Yeah. Because we live in decadent, awful times. I mean, first off, there never should have been a Bad Moms 2, because Bad Moms 1 was just garbage. It's a garbage, unfunny movie. You shut your mouth.
JVL00:17:17It is such a terrible movie. Bad Moms 2. It's so bad. Kristen Bell can make anything she wants.
Vic00:17:24Anything. I think I'm leaning with JVL on this one.
Sonny00:17:29Wait, was Kristen Bell in that? I thought it was Millie Kunis. She's Bad Moms.
JVL00:17:33Both. They're both in it. Oh, they're both in it? Mm-hmm. All right, here's the problem. Kristen Bell can be in anything she wants. I'll tell you what, there's only-
Sonny00:17:39Period, the end. There's only one good movie that stars Kristen Bell and Millie Kunis. I agree. And it's- Forgetting. Forgetting Sarah Marshall. That's a pretty good movie. That is a far superior movie to Bad Moms. That's a pretty good movie. That is a great movie from beginning to end. I mean, the problem with Bad Moms is that it's not funny. It's not a funny movie. So you saw Bad Moms, you saw Bad Moms. How could it not be funny? And it's not funny. Kristen Bell is hysterical. Have you seen it? No. Well, then you have no idea. Just take my word for it, it's not funny.
Vic00:18:05Hey, how about the Kristen Bell movie where she's the lifeguard? That's gotta be good.
Sonny00:18:09Oh, jeez, Vic. What?
Vic00:18:11That's gotta be, that's a real movie. I don't know what this is. That's how you make it sound like it's snuff. That's a real movie.
JVL00:18:16That's questionable.
Vic00:18:17Okay, well. But my thought was this. Oh, and Jigsaw came in at 6.7 million third place. With Thor electrifying the box office, what sort of lesson does it hammer home to studios? I can't, why aren't, why aren't, why aren't you doing this as Gene? I don't understand. It's almost too good for Gene. It's almost too, Gene would beat you over the head with it. Okay.
Sonny00:18:39See? See? You know, this is what the people want. This is what the people want.
Vic00:18:44Apparently they do. Also, listener Brian Faughton, by the way, mentioned that Gene should have had, where was Goldenberg's Choose? And I agree, Goldenberg's is a good movie. Oh, yeah. It's a good one. But that's a movie theater choice. You don't, I don't see Goldenberg's in Halloween. I don't even know what that is. You go to the theater, go to the concession stand, there's always Goldenberg's Choose. They're delicious. Goldenberg's Choose. It's like dark chocolate, caramel, and peanut, and it's chewy deliciousness.
Sonny00:19:09Dark chocolate is gutter chocolate. Caramel's the worst filling. Listen to this.
Vic00:19:13Here's the, here's the-
Sonny00:19:14Give me a white chocolate and nougat.
Vic00:19:15I have one more question. We can move on from candy for good.
JVL00:19:18We, I totally forgot about- We'll never move on.
Vic00:19:19I've totally forgot about Fifth Avenue. And I like that, and I just, I do, but I don't see- I don't even know what that is. I gotta go, I gotta go to my Ayers Hardware store and get a Fifth Avenue. It's delicious. It's crunchy chocolate. All right.
JVL00:19:31JBL. Because the show is lagging a little bit.
Vic00:19:33Uh-huh.
JVL00:19:33I bought you boys-
Vic00:19:34Oh, Reese's Pieces.
Sonny00:19:36This is the best kind of Reese's. They are the best kind. Thank you. I'm gonna eat these now.
Vic00:19:39I agree. Are you gonna, didn't you just scold Jonathan for not making sure he doesn't have a lozenge? Yeah. And you're gonna start popping Reese's while you're talking? Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. Okay, because- Hear that, Sonny? Because, Sonny, while you open that, unless you don't open it, I was going to say, you saw Thor Ragnarok. JBL, you did not see it.
JVL00:19:59You saw it. Wonderful.
Vic00:20:00I was tweeting from the theater.
Sonny00:20:01Yeah, like a savage.
JVL00:20:05Well, great. How was I supposed to avoid being a savage? Because I was herded into the theater like a savage. I went to a non-seat-selected showing for the first time in a year. Which theater? It was AMC. My hometown AMC, which I'm not going to say which theater it is. But they retain like two or three screens that sit wherever you want, first come, first served.
Sonny00:20:31I'm sorry, excuse me, stadium seating even? Or are they just flat? Yeah, they're stadium seating. Are they flat?
JVL00:20:36They're stadium seating. It's one of these things where you look back and you think, how did we ever live like that? Because standing in line with a bunch of animals all chomping at the bit and running around, and I'm saving this. No, I'm saving it. That seat's taken.
Vic00:20:51Oh, it's the worst. Hey, JVL, not since Gladiator. Remember that mom scene in Gladiator? Hearts were broken, tears were shed.
Sonny00:20:59So I saw Avengers, the first Avengers, in a theater in Mississippi, because I had to go out of town for a wedding. I went to a theater in Mississippi, and it was like going back in time.
Vic00:21:09I love the disdain in the inside, the beltway voice.
Sonny00:21:12But it was really, it was, I mean, obviously there was no assigned seating. And also, this was before assigned seating. There was no assigned seating even, you know, in real America, the Acela Corridor. Even before then, it was, before it was regular. But it wasn't just that it was no assigned seating. It was also non-stadium seating. And I haven't been in a non-stadium seating theater since I was, I don't know, like 13. And it was awful. I honestly don't understand how we survived as movie-going publics without theaters that are like, A, have assigned seating. B, no assigned seating. Have stadium seating. And C, have the giant plushy chairs, you know, those are the best.
JVL00:21:53Here's the complication. For all the problems, no plushy chairs, no reclining chairs, no assigned seating in this theater last night. However, Stephen A. Smith would say, however, they did mask the screen correctly.
Vic00:22:10What? Oh, there's one good thing.
JVL00:22:12And I have to say, if I was forced to choose between properly masked screen and assigned seating, it is not a good thing. It's not an immediate gimme. I would actually have to sit and think about that for a little bit. Because you know what? It made a difference in the presentation of the movie. No, of course it does.
Sonny00:22:27Of course it does. The goddamn theater companies refusing to teach their people how to mask screens properly is the thing that will kill the theatrical experience, I'm convinced of this. No, but I, so here's, there are complicating factors here. I would say, in a non-crowded theater, like a not-opening weekend. Oh, but this was our show.
JVL00:22:49It was opening weekend, big movie.
Sonny00:22:51If it was, if it was, if it was just like a, if it was something that was like coming out in four weeks, and I had to choose, I would probably take the properly masked screen in the, like, crappy theater with the non-assigned seatings. In a, on an opening weekend sort of situation, I would.
JVL00:23:08But by yourself, I only one person, and with one person, your seating options are enormous. Well, yeah. Because you don't have two. Right. So I was able to plop myself down on an aisle midway up, and it was fine. So when I saw. When I saw the, the curtains begin to move when it was showtime, I was so happy. Did you let out a cheer? And excited. No, but, but because of what it meant was that this theater still does that. I had begun to think maybe they just don't do it anymore. Maybe they've just turned off to save five cents a day, just turned off the circuitry that controls the masking of the screen. And no, no, they still do it. Somebody there still knows how to do it. So now next time this happens, I'm going to jump up. I'm going to be like a jackass and go running for the manager and say, hey, hey, hey, over here, theater 15, mask it.
Vic00:23:55Do you picture the screen operator to be like the, uh, the, the, the teen kid in Simpsons?
Sonny00:24:01Oh, I'm just doing my job.
JVL00:24:04That's exactly right.
Vic00:24:04We can't mask the screen, but we can give you this bag of popcorn. That, by the way, of all his various iterations, um, the teen working in the, uh, the theme park in the Simpsons, it's like New Year's. Choose me now.
Sonny00:24:17Somebody kill me or whatever he says.
Vic00:24:19It was like, it's New Year's Eve every five minutes, right? Every five minutes, they do a countdown.
Sonny00:24:23Kill me now. It's T.G.I. McScratchy. Kill me now. T.G.I. McScratchy. That's right.
Vic00:24:27Which of you then wants to review? Both want to review.
JVL00:24:30Why don't you do your big boy review?
Sonny00:24:32Thor Ragnarok. It's the third standalone Thor movie, uh, starring Chris Hemsworth, the giant Australian blonde man as, uh, Thor. He has been away from Asgard for a bit. He comes back and he finds that Loki has replaced Odin on the, on the throne. And, uh, when they go find Odin, Odin dies. And they just like, it's like, they just bang, bang, bang. Odin's dead. And when Odin dies, Hela comes back. Now, I don't know exactly what Hela's powers are. She can like throw spiky things and she can't be killed, I guess. And she says she's the goddess of death and she can bring corpses back to life, I think. But I'm not, I'm not.
JVL00:25:13Only with the power of the fire, the eternal flame, obviously.
Sonny00:25:15Oh, yeah, but yeah, but like, she just, anyway. She can't do that without the eternal flame. So, I'm actually not 100% sure what her powers are, but she's like super bad. She's super bad. Being hot are her powers. Cate Blanchett plays like a, kind of a goth, kind of a goth goddess. And she like. Goth, milf, Cate Blanchett. She like struts around in her leather pants.
Vic00:25:35I didn't even recognize her in the trailer. I didn't realize it was her.
Sonny00:25:37So, anyway, she comes back to Asgard. And while Thor is trying to stop that from happening, he gets kicked off of the Rainbow Road, I guess.
JVL00:25:46He gets kicked off the Bifrost. Do you mean? I should have done this review. This is ridiculous. I can't believe you offloaded this. Hand it off to JVL.
Sonny00:25:53And then he winds up on a dump planet where all of the stuff that falls off the Bifrost, I guess, goes. Again, the existence of this planet doesn't really make any sense to me. I don't quite understand why all the garbage of the universe is coming here, but it is. And it's run by Jeff Goldblum. I'm just going to call him Jeff Goldblum because that's what he is. And he's kind of weird and twitchy and Jeff Goldblum-y. But when Thor's there, he has to fight the Hulk. The Hulk has been gone for, like, five years. No one has seen him since the end of the last Avengers movie. And Thor shows up and they're friends again. But it's just the Hulk. It's not Bruce Banner. It's just the Hulk. And then they've got to get off the planet.
Vic00:26:35So he can't undo himself in this world.
Sonny00:26:39No. Well, no. He's, like, stuck as Hulk. Again, not really explained why. He just kind of wants to be, I guess. He'll be annoying after a while. I've got to be honest. I didn't really care for this movie. And I didn't care for it because the tone of Thor is all wrong. Like, the tone of Thor, the character. So Thor, as a character in the film so far, has been funny, but he's not a comic figure. The humor kind of comes from being a fish out of water. From, like, being a kind of bro-y, you know, Viking type on Earth. And, you know, like, smashing coffee cups. Being like, more! It's weird, but kind of funny and cute. And, like, it all really works. Here, he's just goofy. He's just weird and goofy and, like, screaming like a little girl when somebody comes to cut his hair. And he's, like, you know, doing little riffs and bits with Hulk. And it just, it doesn't work for me. And I didn't love it. I don't know. But I'm very clearly in the minority on this. This movie's, like, 94% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
JVL00:27:43JVL. I liked it a lot. This is a movie I've been waiting for. This is the movie. This is the movie where Marvel has decided they're going to just stop doing superhero movies and make it a genre movie because this is a buddy cop film. I mean, this is Lethal Weapon 2 starring Thor and the Incredible Hulk, essentially.
Sonny00:28:03That's not, it's not a buddy cop movie. It's, like, a stoner flick.
JVL00:28:09No, it's, like, an action buddy. It's, like, two guys, like, road, maybe more road trip than. More road trip.
Sonny00:28:14I mean, they're not cops. They're not trying to solve anything.
JVL00:28:17Well, no, but they are. They're not trying to solve something. No, they're just trying to beat Hela and stop her. But the point is. What are Hela's powers? This is a comedy. This is a pure comedy first. And unlike Guardians of the Galaxy, which is an action adventure movie with comedy grafted around it, this is a comedy first with a little bit of action here and there, all of which is 100% incidental to anybody's enjoyment of the movie. And I would bet that most audiences, like me, found the last five minutes kind of tedious because we don't care about the. Nobody there care in the theater cares about the battle between Hela and what we care about is all the interesting and funny characters which have been assembled around and are allowed to do their thing together. It's great. So you are 100% correct that this is a total rejiggering of the character of Thor. And this is the kind of thing that I normally would have expected Marvel to do when they replaced Chris Hemsworth, because all the beloved Marvel characters that we really cling. To and love are going to go away soon because Marvel doesn't need to pay Chris Hemsworth and the other Chris's and Robert Downey Jr. They're just going to find cheaper people to do that. Right.
Sonny00:29:28Because otherwise those guys in the upcoming over the coals in the upcoming Infinity War movies. There is a 100% chance that 50% of all the people we know will be killed. Right.
Vic00:29:38So you'll you get the Anthony is an Anthony Mack who plays the Falcon.
JVL00:29:43He will become the new Captain America because he's a cheaper actor. So I would have expected this rejiggering of the character when they switched Thors. The problem is that Chris Hemsworth is so gifted as a comedian that he is born to do this stuff. And now that you've seen him be funny and do comedy like this, the old Thor. Now you realize what a stretch the old Thor gig was for him, where he was sort of, you know, kind of regal and put a paw. You know, it's he's great. I just so great at this.
Sonny00:30:15I'm going to agree with you that Chris Hemsworth is great at comedy. He's the only good thing about the Lady Ghostbusters movie. He's like the only thing that's actually funny, right? He's the only person who's actually funny in that. And he was funny in the National Lampoon's Vacation reboot. I mean, he's funny. He's an extremely funny person. He's great on SNL. But again, I do think that the regal Thor with comedy kind of in the background coming through occasionally with a good line or something like that is a superior version of the character. And I think he is better. I think his version of that character is better. Than this one.
JVL00:30:49I mean, so the purist in me would say you're correct. The other regal version of Thor is the better character and the more interesting character in terms of dramatic storytelling. That said, for a way to spend an hour 45 after one pretty good Thor movie and one terrible Thor movie, I enjoy the heck out of this. I do not often laugh out loud in a movie theater, even with something that's very funny. I laughed out loud probably three times in this thing.
Vic00:31:15JVL, what about the rest of the audience? People went crazy for it.
JVL00:31:18People went crazy for it. And part of it is just the cast is so gifted. Tom Hiddleston is a really gifted comic actor. Cate Blanchett is underrated as a comic actor as well.
Sonny00:31:28Too hammy. Again, she had no presence as Hello From Me, other than kind of quirky goth chick.
JVL00:31:36I know what Shannon's getting for Christmas. She's getting the antlers. Oh, jeez. By the way, speak Elvish and leave the antlers on, baby.
Vic00:31:45Oh, my gosh. JVL. I had a question, which was- It was great. And Jeff Goldblum-
JVL00:31:51If I could just continue. Jeff Goldblum is fantastic. I know people now dismiss what he does because they're like, oh, well, that's just what Jeff Goldblum does. But what he does is really interesting. We were just talking. Sonny and I were just talking about this. So he'll start a line read by glancing to the side, then starting his line read, stopping, pausing, cocking his head, and then giving the line, and all the comedy comes from his timing in this sequence. And nobody else can do that.
Vic00:32:21The line itself isn't even that funny. I mean, he's doing-
JVL00:32:24I think Christopher Walken does something different than what Jeff Goldblum does.
Sonny00:32:27He's doing a very Christopher Walken thing, which is where he's putting commas in random places. And then he's mugging for the camera when he does it.
Vic00:32:33So you were down on the performance, Sonny.
Sonny00:32:35It's not that I'm down. Again, look, I don't hate this movie. I don't hate it, but I just think the tone is all wrong compared to the rest of the movies that have- the rest of the Thor movies. It's just so different from the rest of them that I don't think it works-
JVL00:32:51But the other Thor movies aren't great. The first Thor movie- The first-
Sonny00:32:53The Kenneth Branagh Thor movie is very good, I think. I think it's actually- Good, not very good. The most surprisingly good of the first phase of Marvel movies.
JVL00:33:00I would agree with that.
Sonny00:33:01I mean, I don't know that it's- it's not better than Avengers, but I do think it's surprisingly good.
JVL00:33:06Better than Iron Man. Better than Iron Man 1.
Sonny00:33:07I would say it's- I think it is arguably better than the first Iron Man. So anyway, but this- again, this just doesn't- it doesn't work for me. And the Jeff Goldblum- there's a great- This is- it's a Guardians of the Galaxy movie. It's not a Thor movie. And I- I just- I kind of resent the way it has been forced, and I just- it just doesn't work for me. I'm sorry.
JVL00:33:32That's funny. See, I don't even like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, because again, it's the halfway between action and comedy, and this is just full-blown comedy. Are the special effects too distracting, because you're in a completely different planet, galaxy,
Vic00:33:43the whole thing? Or is it done seamlessly that you can enjoy the movie visually, and it's not too much? Not too much, frankly.
JVL00:33:48I- I- but all the funny is in the language. I mean, there's- there's- there's a little bit of visual funny, a little bit of slapstick funny, but a lot of it is- is really just line delivery and just great acting, and great voice acting, right? Yeah. The director, whose name I'm forgetting, because I don't have it up-
Sonny00:34:04Taika Waititi or something like that? I don't know. Excuse me?
JVL00:34:06We may have to- okay, that was 3427, in case we have to bleep that. So he- he voices one of the-
Sonny00:34:12The rock monster. Right.
JVL00:34:13Uh-huh. Waititi. That's his name. Okay. Yeah.
Sonny00:34:15The rock monster. And- He's fantastic.
JVL00:34:19I mean, the- the rock monster character is written very- very nicely, and given a lot of really good material, but his voice work on it is sensational. Mm-hmm. And I- again, I just think it's really funny. It's, uh, the only- the only moments in the movie where my attention flied is when they got into serious action, because I don't actually care about the serious action.
Vic00:34:37Is this how- is this over two hours? Probably right at- It's a little- little- little longer. Yeah. Okay. Uh-huh. And, uh, we were just saying how much, uh, we were talking about the Jeff Goldblum phenomenon. Yeah.
Sonny00:34:47I- well, I- What I said to Vic on the way over before I said we need to save it for the show is that there- it is- it is weird. It- it is, like, impossibly weird that for a solid two-year stretch in the mid-'90s, Jeff Goldblum was the biggest action star in the world. With- between Independence Day and, um, uh- Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park. Yeah. He- he was- he was, like, the big action- it's weird. It's just- it's- I'm sorry, but that's a weird thing. There's a- Because he is not an action star.
JVL00:35:17Yeah. Offline, I'll tell you about his career and why it didn't. Okay.
Sonny00:35:22Oh.
JVL00:35:23Interesting. Offline. There are stories.
Vic00:35:25But, you know, uh, it was funny because he does talk about, uh, if you ever see the, uh, uh, the Steven Spielberg documentary on HBO, is it the Spielberg one? Um, they interviewed, uh, Goldblum about, uh, working with, uh, Spielberg and how on Jurassic Park, you know, Spielberg is constantly talking you through the scene. Okay, look up, look up, you're getting excited, you're gonna say it, say it now, okay, good, and now keep on looking, looking, okay. And it's constantly, and he said, he was, he almost was ready to up and leave, like, uh, what is this? And then they were just, the rest of the guys were like, just, just go with it. It'll, it'll be fine, it'll work, you know, but that's just the way he was, you know. But anyway, but, uh, Spielberg, but, uh, but Goldblum was great in that. I liked him in The Fly, you know. Oh, yeah. And going back to even, but in weird quirky movies, I was saying to Sonny, I remember he had a weird cameo in Annie Hall. It might have been the first thing, I don't know, I'm sure he's not, had done other things. Smaller to that, but he, and he's talking about, he's talking about, he's talking about I think his therapist, and I think he was just Goldblum being very Goldblum. Uh, anyway, but, uh, here he is, and he's still, and he still has, and he's still working. And didn't your wife say that, uh, he plays you in the movie, The Weekly Standard movie? She says a lot of things.
JVL00:36:31Uh, I would say this, Thor Ragnarok has one of the best one, theatrical one sheets that I have seen in a long time. Mm-hmm. I am getting me that, putting it in my office. Which one? Uh, this, this guy.
Vic00:36:45Oh, that's great. Okay, look at that. Yeah.
JVL00:36:47Look at that. Interesting colors. Mm-hmm.
Vic00:36:49Okay. Yeah, this movie loves colors. Well, for our listeners, we'll have to look at it on. Yeah, in the show notes. Show notes. Is there anything you wanted to add to Thor, Sonny?
JVL00:36:59Eh, no. Okay.
Vic00:37:01Uh, there's something I did want to add, which is, uh, HelloFresh is a meal kit delivery service that shops, plans, and delivers your favorite step-by-step recipes and pre-measured ingredients so you can just cook, eat, and enjoy. All the ingredients come pre-measured in handy labeled meal kits so you know which ingredients go with which recipe. HelloFresh is conveniently delivered right to your door in recyclable, insulated packaging. HelloFresh offers a wide variety of chef-curated recipes that change weekly. They employ two full-time registered dieticians on staff who review each recipe to help make it nutritionally balanced. Finally, you can enjoy not having to plan dinner, spending money on takeout for an easy night, or worry about gathering ingredients week after week. And you won't spend all night in the kitchen because the recipes only take around 30 minutes. There are three plans to choose from, classic, veggie, and family. HelloFresh customers can order three, four, or five different meals per week, designed for either two or four people. It's less than $10 a meal. So again, I had done the Thai spiced pork meatballs, adobo loco steak, and the Carolina barbecue chicken. And the interesting thing with the Carolina barbecue chicken is they had you, you know, you have to have some sort of implement and order. They say like a rolling pin, but I have a mallet, and you got to pound that. And it hearkened back for me to the... The episode where I talked about making the chicken schnitzel, exactly the same way. Nice, thin, and the advantage when you pound it thin is it cooks very fast. Do you use like your actual hammer that you use for shop class? No, I actually spend money on this mallet. And it's just to, you know, you can graze, beat. Is it a metal mallet? It's metal. What do you, underneath it, do you have a booze block?
JVL00:38:38Or do you do it right on your granite? I hear you're supposed to hit it on your granite, right? Well, one of the problems was I was using it on the...
Vic00:38:42Wait, is it booze block or bows block? I don't know.
JVL00:38:45B-O-O-S.
Vic00:38:45It has to be booze, right? The problem was I was using it... Initially, I would hammer these schnitzels on the counter where the washing machine is installed and starts shaking. You can, like, dislodge things. And so we switched it to one of our other sort of big, you know, chopping block tables and just, you know... Let's take it out on the patio. That on the concrete helps between two pieces of cellophane. Don't do it straight on the thing. Well, you're going to cook it. All the impurities will just cook right out of your murder meat. That's a good point. Sorry, I'm in the middle of the read. Oh, my gosh. What I loved, however, is that they give you just the right amount of ingredients. So sometimes I'm going to shop for something I want to make, and you buy parsley or chives or cilantro, and you just need a little bit. And you always have to buy it by the bunch, and the rest of it goes in the bin, and you forget about it until you say, hey, what's this liquid in my bin?
Sonny00:39:36That's always the best, when you open up the drawer and you get the, like, sloshing black sludge.
Vic00:39:40And then there's lots of finger-pointing and accusations flying.
Sonny00:39:43Who forgot to get rid of this parsley? It's not pretty. I said, do you want it? Do you want me to just leave it there? I just throw it away. I just throw it away after I'm done, honestly. If I buy a bunch of parsley for a—and this is one of the great things about this meal service, HelloFresh, is that you don't have to feel bad about just wasting tons and tons
Vic00:40:02of food, because that's what I do. Well, thank you, Sonny. There's no wasting. Now, if HelloFresh has a special offer to listeners of The Substandard podcast, for $30 off your first week of HelloFresh, visit HelloFresh.com and enter promo code SUBSTANDARD30 one more time to try HelloFresh. Go to HelloFresh and get $30 off your first week. Go to HelloFresh.com and use promo code SUBSTANDARD30 at checkout. Now, JVL, you mentioned something before the show.
JVL00:40:29Yeah, I— What's going on? Talk to us. Well, I had two things to talk about, but we're running late, and I think our show's been going too long. So I just want to—do you guys listen to Jonah Goldberg's new—we still have about
Vic00:40:4020 minutes. New show.
Sonny00:40:42The Remnant. The Remnant? No, I don't watch—I don't listen to that. I don't listen to that, because he hasn't invited me on yet. Fantastic. Jonah invites me on. I'll listen to his podcast. It's so good.
Vic00:40:50Is that the only podcast that you listen to, or the ones that you've been invited to?
Sonny00:40:52Literally, the only podcasts I listen to are ones that invite me on. So, last week's episode featured Andy Ferguson.
JVL00:41:01Okay, so he does that, but he won't do this. And in the middle of the show, Jonah mentions Bigfoot Erotica. Now, I thought this was—and Jonah's like, oh, yeah, no, it's a thing. It's out there. And I thought— I'm listening to this on my drive-in this morning at 4.30. And I'm sorry, on Monday morning at my drive-in on 4.30. And I thought to myself, that's really inspired schtick. And then I sat down and I thought, but is it schtick? And so I went to the Amazon. Better you than me. And I just searched for Bigfoot Erotica on the Amazon. Would anybody care to guess the number— The number of results.
Sonny00:41:50I'm too scared to. If you put in Bigfoot Erotica, not in quotation marks, just Bigfoot Erotica.
JVL00:41:57I'll put them in quotation marks so we can get a truer sense. Okay. Many, many fewer than when it's not in quotation marks.
Sonny00:42:04Because I assume Bigfoot Erotica just on its own, you get a lot of Bigfoot and a lot of Erotica, not necessarily—
JVL00:42:09So Bigfoot Erotica in quotation marks. I'll say 1,200 hits. 1,000. 1,167. Again, we're only on the Amazon. We're not talking about the Google machine. Yeah. And there were a lot of interesting things. I learned a lot from looking at this stuff. What is it? Without having to bleep yourself. Number one, Bigfoot and the Bridesmaid, written by Houghton Wett.
Vic00:42:39Oh, so like actual— Oh, Houghton. Houghton, I'm a big fan. Houghton Wett.
JVL00:42:43Oh, I like that. That's good. With 14 reviews. An average of three and a half stars. Fourteen reviews.
Sonny00:42:49Fourteen customer reviews. My favorite— How much does this cost? Hold on.
JVL00:42:53Hold on.
Vic00:42:53I believe that's six reviews less than my vodka book. I'd like to point that out. Okay.
JVL00:42:58If you want yours, Destiny Wiens writes, two stars. If you want an erotic book about Bigfoot, here you go. Just wish it had more of a storyline.
Vic00:43:08All I could think of was Maude from Big Lebowski.
JVL00:43:12You can imagine where it goes from here, Jeffrey. He fixes the cable.
Sonny00:43:15He fixes the cable.
Vic00:43:16There's more. There's more. So this is like—do they have like Harlequin covers, like romance?
JVL00:43:24Bigfoot Knocked Me Up, the complete ten book set.
?00:43:27Wow.
Sonny00:43:28One book for each month of the pregnancy.
JVL00:43:30Broken In by Bigfoot. Ganged by Bigfoot. My Yeti Lover 2.
Sonny00:43:40Do you have to have read Yeti Lover 1?
JVL00:43:43Well, I'm interested in whether or not— I have a— I have a question. One of these snuck in through the search results. Enslaved, The Orc Captive, Part 1, 104 reviews.
Vic00:43:55Vic, how many reviews does vodka have?
JVL00:43:57Yeah, I think 20.
Vic00:43:59Well, maybe you should write The Orc Captive, Part 2. What is it called? The Orc Captive. The Orc. Oh, so now we're getting into other sort of— This is the non-quote search. I have a question, though. I have a question.
JVL00:44:14Oh, the Kindle edition of Bigfoot and the Bridesmaid is—
Vic00:44:16Oh, I know what I'm reading. That's when I go up to New York. Books, if you call the books of Bigfoot and the Yeti, and Jonathan's showing us. Okay, yeah. Okay, right. All right, great.
Sonny00:44:29I like that the Bridesmaid in Bigfoot and the Bridesmaid is just on a nude beach.
Vic00:44:34Yeah, I don't know what's happening there.
Sonny00:44:35I don't quite—she's not dressed like a bridesmaid. Wouldn't you put a bridesmaid outfit on her?
Vic00:44:40Do we know—are the Bigfoot, the Bigfeet, are they intelligent or are they like, is it savage love, so to speak? Is it like, ah, or is it like, I am human, you know?
JVL00:44:51Hold on, let me give one of the reviewers—
Vic00:44:53I am not an animal.
JVL00:44:54One of the reviewers had a line in this saying that he was surprised by the depiction of Bigfoot as a gentle lover.
Vic00:45:03Well, I mean, I think that's probably the twist. I mean, that's what you'd watch. You think, oh my gosh, this is so scary, and then, oh my gosh, he's so good. So Jonah has promised me—
JVL00:45:13Or gentle, I should say. Jonah has promised me that he is going to get one. Get one of these books and do a dramatic reading on the next episode of The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg. So if you're done with this podcast, if you feel like you've basically gotten everything you could possibly get out of 52 episodes of the show— I think we're all done with this podcast.
Sonny00:45:30If you've hit rock bottom like we have—
JVL00:45:32I highly recommend you transfer your allegiances to The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, if for nothing else, and to read him, listen to him reading what I hope is Bigfoot and the Bridesmaid. Okay. I mean, it's amazing.
Vic00:45:46It sounds great. So we can talk about that other thing later. So this is not like Harry and the Hendersons.
Sonny00:45:51Okay.
Vic00:45:52That's a deep pull. Did you want to share a Lego thing with us as well?
JVL00:45:57You know, so this is—I have an ethical question for you. We have like 10 minutes. No, we can just have a short episode. Whatever. Sonny, you hate thieves.
Sonny00:46:10Yes.
JVL00:46:11And especially intellectual property thieves. Yes. Okay. So there is a company called Lepin. Okay. L-E-P-I-N. Lepin makes things that look exactly like Lego sets. Yes. Probably using the exact same molds that Lego uses in their Chinese factory. There are YouTube videos of people going to like the guy who's the head of one of the Lego factories with a Lepin minifigure and a Lego minifigure and ask him to choose which is which, and he can't. The difference is you can only buy Lepin through like Alibaba or AliExpress, which is Chinese
Sonny00:47:01eBay. You can only buy it from countries that don't respect intellectual property.
?00:47:05Yeah.
JVL00:47:06And they cost pennies on the dollar. So, for instance, the Avengers Helicarrier set that I have long coveted, but which is a little bit too much for me to justify spending, is on its way from Guangdong province. And I bought it with pocket change. Sonny, is that smoke coming out of your headphones? Well, here's my question. He's trembling. So you are the nice Danish folk from Lego. You live in your Scandinavian paradise where your security is guaranteed by the United States and you don't have to spend any money on the military or anything like that. And you think... Well, I have my company. My Faja has a company right here. And we can save a little bit of money by moving our production out of Europe and over to China. And, you know, we'll save money. And China is just a country. And I'm sure everything will be exactly the same as it is here in Scandinavia. And then you get to China and you discover that there is no law.
Sonny00:48:06There ain't no law in Denmark.
JVL00:48:07There's no law. And so the Lego company has sued Leppin in Chinese courts. And the Chinese courts essentially laughed at them. I'm sorry. What do you want us to do about it? There ain't no law in Deadwood. And so is Lego simply getting what they deserve for going to a country with no rule of law and no IP productions in order to save some money for themselves and increase profits on their...
Sonny00:48:38Well, no, it's immoral. I mean, it's still immoral. I am a big believer in, like, the moral framework of copyright. In intellectual protection, it's very French of me. It's, like, my most French.
JVL00:48:50You have so many French aspects of your personality.
Sonny00:48:53But it is still immoral what has happened. If the Scandinavians had any guts, what they would do is bomb those factories. Burn them right to the f***ing ground.
JVL00:49:04Burn their own factories and retreat to Scandinavia. Yeah, just burn them down. Well, they don't have any guts. That's why they're Scandinavians.
Sonny00:49:11Kill all the Chinese workers who are in there as a message to the people of China. And this is what happens when you mess with Lego. And go back to making their product. Look, my understanding of Scandinavia is that it's overrun by immigrants right now. So just put some of them to work in your rebuilt factories.
JVL00:49:30The Lepin people mess with Lego to such a degree that a few years ago, Lego put out a limited edition set of which they only made, like, 1,500 of them. And it was a set of the model of the house of the guy who founded Lego. And it was given, not sold, but given only to Lego employees. And Lepin somehow went and got the molds and just started churning them out. So now anybody can buy one.
Vic00:49:55Oh, my gosh.
JVL00:49:56They're on Alibaba. They're, like, $12. Let me ask you about Lego pieces.
Vic00:49:59Lego pieces, are they all made in China? Lego's made in China. They're almost all made over there. Everything is made in China.
Sonny00:50:07Wait, I'm sorry. I'm a little bit confused. Did Lego move production from Scandinavia to China recently? Was this in, like, the last decade? The last 10, 20 years? Yes. I don't... Yes. And then there's Lepin. And you have to see.
JVL00:50:20It's fantastic. So, like, you know, the Harry Potter Lepin sets are, you know, Magic World. And the Lord of the Rings, I guess, are, like, you know, Sorcery, Ring and Sorcery or something like that.
Vic00:50:30They just come up with different names, but it's... But the font is the same. Yeah, but it's the font.
JVL00:50:34And they even... I'll find a picture of the box. They even get, like, actors who look exactly like... It could be a problem. It's fantastic. It could be a real problem. Wow. But so is it wrong to purchase these things? It is wrong.
Sonny00:50:46They're available for...
JVL00:50:47I'm paying somebody for them. I'm not stealing them.
Vic00:50:49And the pieces aren't actually interchangeable, then.
Sonny00:50:51You know what you've done.
JVL00:50:52Exactly. You know what you've done. I am paying somebody for a good. You feel... They are selling the good.
Sonny00:50:57Here's the problem. You feel guilt for this, and that's why you're asking. I don't feel any guilt. I just want to see... You do feel guilt. Because you're so bothered by it, you had to bring it to the council to get a sign-off.
JVL00:51:08I was just curious as to what... Because this brings a couple things into conflict for you. No stealing, but also free marketing, right? And the market says, you know, this is all what happens.
Sonny00:51:19No, but the free market has always been based on certain intellectual property protections. I mean, like, it's literally in the Constitution, so... The Constitution is the free market. The Constitution guarantees intellectual property rights. It's literally in the Constitution.
JVL00:51:33Vic, what would you say? Buy Lepin or no? Because let me tell you this. The Millennium Falcon Ultimate Home Record Edition, you can buy the Lepin version of it for nothing.
Vic00:51:44Does it say Lepin on the... On the pieces or something? No!
JVL00:51:48It doesn't say anything on the pieces.
Vic00:51:50I'll get back to you on that. I don't have an answer.
JVL00:51:51So, if I could go out and purchase the Millennium Falcon Ultimate Home Record Edition for, like, 70 bucks, as opposed to $800, I mean...
Sonny00:52:01The real problem is you're spending all this money on children's toys, so... I mean, there's a deeper issue here than your... Sonny, I am a child. ...than your various moral quandaries. We can move on now.
Vic00:52:13We killed enough time. That's good.
JVL00:52:15So, Spirit of the Week. Boy, I wish we'd talked about Stranger Things.
Vic00:52:18Ah, next episode. Maybe next week. Yes, definitely. Spirit of the Week. This is great. This arrived at my office on... It was on my desk when I arrived this morning in a box. Filibuster Whiskey. This is the Dual Cask. This is the Boondoggle. The Boondoggler. Excuse me. The Boondoggler, which is a... They describe it as a bountiful, bloviating blend of rye and bourbon, artfully aged, a Caucasian... Of Cooperage, including American, French, oak, and sherry barrels. So, it moves around. That's why it's like dual, technically triple cask. Sid Dilary over there at Filibuster, they just... He invited me to the grand opening of the distillery out in Morrowtown in Virginia. I said, I couldn't make it, but maybe he could send us, through a distributor, a bottle. And he did. So, very special thanks to Sid Dilary and the folks at Filibuster Whiskey. Sonny, what did you think about it?
Sonny00:53:15I liked it. I liked it. It's very smooth. I'm a big fan of the Filibuster dual cask, and this is a variation on this. So, you've had Filibuster? We've had it here in the... Yeah, we've had the dual cask before. It's good. Okay. But this is an interesting little kind of tweak on that. I quite liked it.
Vic00:53:30Good.
JVL00:53:31Okay.
Vic00:53:33Correction. JVL, you're going with your stand, the good old standby here. Schoffer Hofer.
JVL00:53:39I have some scurvy creeping up on me, and this is going to take care of that for me. I have to get that. Thank God for the... I have a correction. Good. My email buddy, Doreen, writes in to say that the answer to your question about Wimbledon...
Vic00:53:51Oh, yes! ...is barley water. That's right.
?00:53:53Barley water.
JVL00:53:54Barley water was what they... Thank you. Which is funny, because that is a line in Mary Poppins. Right? Was it a remedy or something? They're asking for it in the kids with their nanny song, who doesn't smell like barley water, is one of the lines there.
Vic00:54:10That's good. I have one addition to our micro that we taped three days ago. Which is, in tips about things and service and whatnot, I would say consistency of finding a place to go to eat, if it's a good place. A good enough place. Go to one place, and if you just go there for the next 20 years, like I've been doing in D.C. or whatever, you get to know the people, and you get good service, and you can't... You can never undervalue the importance of good service anywhere. I'll tell you my big pet peeve, for example. Um, places like Joe's Seafood, which is a nice restaurant. It's a great restaurant. But you go in the front, and if you... Let's assume you had 10 people in a party. All right. And they'll say, uh, are all your people... Is everyone in your party here? No, nine out of our 10 people are here. Oh, so you have to wait. Well, the table's right there. No, gotta wait for the one person. You never get that, do you, Vin? I hate that. Well, no, I mean, that basically kind of happened at Joe's, and I'm like, that's got... And that happened at, uh, um, Del Frisco's. Uh, we did that once, where I showed up early before you guys... Years ago, we had lunch, and then they're like, oh, can't wait, let's set the tables down.
Sonny00:55:16Can't I sit at the table? Yeah, but if I remember correctly, that was, like, restaurant week or something. Maybe. Which I can understand.
Vic00:55:22But I can understand why can't I just sit at the table. I'll start ordering now. I'll order all the drinks. I'll order drinks. So that's my only other addition. Okay. Uh, well...
Sonny00:55:32One percenter problems. Expense account problems. That's the... That's what that is. You know, face on the wall, the palm, you kind of want to know these things.
Vic00:55:40Okay, that's all the time we're giving to this episode. Thank you, JVL, for showing me the pictures. Oh, that's such a con of weapon. Uh, that's all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Victorino Matus, at Sonny Bunch.
Sonny00:55:55At JV Last.
Vic00:55:56Again, 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. Until next time. If you have any outtake notes, I have one. Go ahead. Okay. You're up. Okay. It was, you know, after all is said and done, I talked several days ago, earlier today, I guess, in our show about the bar crawl that we did in New York City. I was feeling, you know, the next day, but I wasn't hurting. I kind of did pace myself. But it is funny how friends will push you like, no, we got to keep on going, keep on going. They're no longer making any sense, and you realize that the person, like my friend Stevie Starris, is telling you to go, and then he doesn't even start repeating conversations that we've had already. Apparently, I was told this the next morning, I ate a fried pickle that fell on the floor of a pub. But my argument is, it was at the Stag's Head on 51st Street, but it was fried, so.
Sonny00:57:08Hold on.
JVL00:57:09Don't take us out here yet.
Vic00:57:11Oh, that's why I asked if you had any outtakes.
JVL00:57:13Why didn't we talk to her vamping? No. You're doing your thing on your laptop again. You do this all the time. Go ahead, JVL. Preface. From a book written by Richard Squatchman. Although the following story is a work of fiction, it is reality-based. As a world-renowned Sasquatch researcher, I have had numerous encounters with these magnificent creatures, and I can attest to their remarkably sensual nature. Yeah. Between that and the fried pickle, I'm sure it's fine.
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