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#82. The Substandard Loves Denzel Washington and Disco Fries!
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Full episode (54:08). All three hosts present. Vic is audibly ill throughout.
Dudes Chatting — Thanksgiving travels, Lepin build update, Coco, and Denzel Washington: Vic reports a smooth Thanksgiving drive to New Jersey — leaving at 5:56 AM, arriving in about three and a half hours. A highlight was a stop at a Greek diner in Wall Township, the Princess Maria, where Vic had Disco Fries (French fries topped with brown gravy and melted American cheese — described as "trash poutine") and a skillet mixed grill. JVL continues his Lepin Avengers Helicarrier build (3,600 pieces, randomly bagged, about 60% complete); Sonny remains outraged on Lego's behalf. Ice skating with the family is mentioned, and Vic's daughter Sabrina's birthday celebrations stretched across the entire week. Brief detour on Coco — the hosts are curious but haven't seen it — and frustration at the reportedly 21-minute Frozen short playing before the feature. JVL notes Frozen Fever is a bad sign for the franchise.
The main conversation is an extended appreciation of Denzel Washington prompted by Sonny's review of Roman J. Israel, Esq. Sonny traces Denzel's career from Carbon Copy (1981) through St. Elsewhere, A Soldier's Story, Cry Freedom, and Glory (his Oscar win). Sonny argues Denzel has the best hit-to-miss ratio of any major leading man; JVL proposes that Denzel is less of a movie star in the Harrison Ford/Tom Hanks mold and more of a great actor who uses his name to get mid-budget pictures made. Sonny pushes back, pointing to Denzel's long run of genre action films (The Equalizer, Safe House, Unstoppable, Man on Fire, etc.) as evidence he is very much a traditional star. Both agree he is the best thing in everything he's in. Training Day is discussed at length, including a specific scene where Denzel's character's dominance is established the moment Ethan Hawke is told to sit down. Crimson Tide also comes up, with Vic criticizing the film's heavy-handed dialogue about Lipizzaner horses near the climax.
Reviews:
Roman J. Israel, Esq. — Sonny: Denzel Washington is great as always, but the surrounding characters are entirely subservient to the plot and react in contrived ways; the film doesn't quite work. Colin Farrell plays a slick corporate lawyer whose transformation feels schematic.
Box Office: Coco debuted at #1 with $49M. Justice League fell to #2 with $40M. Wonder held at #3 with $22M. Roman J. Israel, Esq. opened at #9 with $4.5M in limited release.
Spirit/Whiskey of the Week: "Clearing Out My Bar" — Sonny finished Wassmann's Single Malt from Rappahannock (Virginia whiskey); Vic finished a jug of Maker's Mark. Corrections: the "wide stance" airport senator was Larry Craig of Idaho.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00- Captain, I cannot concur. - Repeat my command. Sir, we don't know what this message means. Our target package could have changed.
Vic00:00:05You repeat this order, or I'll find somebody who will.
Guest00:00:10- No, you won't, sir. - You're relieved of your position.
Vic00:00:12Cobb, remove Mr. Hunter from the control room. Get Lieutenant Zimmer in here right now!
Guest00:00:16No, sir. I do not concur, and I do not recognize your authority to relieve me under command, under Navy regulations. - Cobb, arrest this man and get him out of here! - Captain, under operating procedures governing the release of nuclear weapons, we cannot launch our missiles unless both you and I agree. - Cobb, what are you waiting for? - Now, this is not a formality, sir. This is expressly why your command must be repeated. It requires my assent. I do not give it. And furthermore, you continue upon this course and insist upon this launch without confirming this message first, I will be forced... Chief of the boat, as captain and commanding officer of the USS Alabama, I order you to place the XO under arrest on the charge of mutiny. I say again, I order you to place the XO under arrest on the charge of mutiny.
?00:00:57Cobb!
Vic00:00:58♪ ♪ Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Substandard, sponsored by Donors Trust. Donors Trust is the community foundation for the liberty movement. If you want to support groups committed to limited government, personal responsibility, and free enterprise with your charitable giving, you should learn how Donors Trust can simplify your giving. Go to DonorsTrust.org/standard right now to get your free investing and liberty- liberty guide. 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 a podcast and search for "Substandard." You'll easily find us. Please subscribe. Tell your friends.
Sonny00:01:41Leave a review. You know, those jerks at National Review keep turning out new podcasts that are better and more popular than ours. Endless resistances. Jonah's, The Remnant, then there's the...
JVL00:01:52There's a new one? What's the one with Ross and Kyle Smith, their movie one?
Sonny00:01:57They got a movie podcast now? What?
Vic00:01:59Oh, no.
JVL00:02:00I don't know. Yeah, but how many dick jokes does their movie podcast do per episode?
Sonny00:02:03I hope it has more than ours. Ah! We don't... Classy. We've really been falling down in the dick joke department.
Vic00:02:07We have been classy. How are we? Obviously, I'm a little bit under the weather. You really sound fine. I honestly don't know what you're complaining.
Sonny00:02:17Can everyone tweet at... Oh, I'm sure. ...Vick and tell him he sounds fine.
JVL00:02:21Even better, go to our Facebook. Go to The Weekly Standard's Facebook page and leave a comment about how they dick sounds because we would appreciate your comments on the Facebook page. I sound like Nina Blackwood from MTV. Not the Substandard Facebook page, the Weekly Standard Facebook page.
Sonny00:02:35Just go comment on anything. Wait, is there a... So, wait, there's a Substandard page that's not related to The Weekly Standard? Eh. It's kind of related? Does any... I don't understand how Facebook works.
JVL00:02:43It's a non-state actor. So, it's the ISIS of... It's Hezbollah.
Sonny00:02:47Yeah, kind of. So, our Substandard page is the ISIS of Weekly Standard. More Hezbollah. Whereas, The Weekly Standard page is the Iran of... But ISIS is not Iran. Because you're that... Well, that's a good point. This is...
JVL00:03:01So, yeah, Hezbollah. The Weekly Standard is Iran. The Substandard page is Hezbollah. Okay, good.
Vic00:03:05Sonny, how was your Thanksgiving? I've been great.
Sonny00:03:07I mean, I am, like, in the... I'm in the middle of... Again, following up on last week's discussion, I am in the middle of awards season screeners. And, as such, I've just been pounding movies down. So, you know, it's one of these things where I try to watch two a day and don't always quite make it. But, since we last chatted, let me... I'll just run through what I've seen. Yes. I've seen The Post. The Steven Spielberg... Oh! You saw it? Wow. I'm not allowed to talk. I'm actually not even supposed to say that I've seen it. So... Wow. Everybody keep this under the hat. And the good news is nobody listens to this show anymore.
Vic00:03:42And, plus, you... You know, could you work for The Post? We'll talk about it later. We'll talk about it later. So, this is gonna be really awkward.
Sonny00:03:47We'll talk about it later. We can't talk about it right now. I've also seen A Ghost Story, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lego Batman Movie, The Florida Project. The Big Sick, Good Time, The Square, and Call Me By Your Name. Now, I would say of all these movies, the only one that is a surefire top 10 for me is The Florida Project, which is very... It's a... What's it about? It's about... It's a... It's basically about the people who live in a hotel, like, kind of just on the outskirts of Disney World, and it's like a slum hotel. It's like a temporary...
JVL00:04:20Is this a documentary?
Sonny00:04:21Or a... No, it's a narrative. It's a narrative drama. It is like... It is... It's the only movie about intergenerational dysfunction and poverty I've ever seen. It's about... Like, the main character is this... What would be the number two movie on that list?
JVL00:04:34I don't know. Sorry. Got it.
Sonny00:04:37Like, Moonlight, I guess? I don't know. It's... It is... The movie Moonlight wished it had been, I think. Like, I didn't much care for Moonlight, but... I quite like that. Willem Dafoe's great in it. The movie that I hated the most out of all these is probably the Lego Batman movie, which I did not care for at all. Not good. Oh, the kids love it.
Vic00:04:57The kids love it.
JVL00:04:57They can't stop talking about it. My kid, who thought that Justice League was Casablanca, said that the Lego Batman was trash. Oh, he didn't like it. So even by those debauched tastes...
Sonny00:05:07I hated this movie. And it's one of these movies that's kind of designed specifically to troll me. It's a movie about how... Take the Dark Knight seriously! All the other Batman movies are bad because they take it seriously, and like... But like... What if heroes were real? It is... It's... It's not just bad because it's unfunny. I mean, like, literally, the line "I'm not wearing hockey pads" is funnier than any line in the Lego Batman movie. And... So it's not just that it's not funny, it's also that it's kind of incoherent. Like for some reason, all of the other Warner villains show... You've got Voldemort and Sauron and like...
JVL00:05:49For some reason.
Sonny00:05:50Well, I mean, I understand. But like, the problem...
JVL00:05:53Who could say why?
Sonny00:05:54Within the world of the Lego... The world of the Lego movie, the original Lego movie, this made some sense. Because it's like they're playing with all the different sets and they're going from land to land and okay. But here they just kind of show up. Like why is Sauron in the Phantom Zone? Why is he in the Phantom Zone? Explain this to me! Nostalgia. Anyway, I hated... He's the only... I hated that movie.
JVL00:06:16What about Will Arnett?
Sonny00:06:18Sober Will Arnett, lesser signed drunk Will Arnett. I guess. I mean, is he sober now? Mm-hmm. The problem... I mean, the problem with Will Arnett's character is that it works much better. It works better in very small doses. Again, like in the Lego movie, where he is like kind of doing a jokey, schticky thing instead of like a whole character.
JVL00:06:34When he shows up as Lego Batman for 30 seconds every 10 minutes, pretty good. Perfect. Perfect. A whole movie of that? Does not work.
Sonny00:06:42Hard pass.
Vic00:06:43Does not work. Speaking of Legos, JVL. Oh, yeah. Oh, good transition. What do you think, huh? Maybe.
JVL00:06:49So the Lepin Adventure is continuing.
Vic00:06:52I want you to take a look at this and tell me, does this look like a Chinese knockoff?
JVL00:06:55Or does this look like the real thing? Victorino.
Vic00:06:57It looks like the real, I think it looks like the real thing.
JVL00:07:00It looks exactly, what I'm holding up right now is the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier figurine stand with Maria Hill, Black Widow, Captain America, Hawkeye, and who's Nick Fury? Who's Maria Hill? Is that Corby Cummer? What?
Vic00:07:17Not Corby Cummer. What's her name? Colby Smulders. Colby Smulders. Who's Corby Cummer? Is that a different? That's not even a, that's not a.
Sonny00:07:24Is that an actor? Are you having a stroke?
Vic00:07:26I told you I'm not well. I forgot her name.
JVL00:07:30I forgot her name. So, I will say this about the Leppin experience. It has been. It is or it isn't.
Vic00:07:35What? It is or it isn't.
Sonny00:07:38Uh, uh, Smulders. Colby Smulder is her name. Yeah.
Vic00:07:43Oh, that's the actress's name. Yes. Yeah, but who's Maria Hill? That's her. That's her. That's what I was asking. Thank you. You could have just said yes. No. If you had said the real name, we would have said yes. If you had said the real name instead of, instead of. Who's Corby?
Sonny00:07:56Who's Corbyn? Corbyn Birdson? Does anyone else smell oranges in here? Does anyone else? Can you move your right hand? I, I, I smell Bert's hair.
Vic00:08:02I take it, I take it back, Vic. You sound much worse than I thought. I, I smell Bert's hair. We, I, I, we, we need that.
Sonny00:08:06Don't you smell almonds? If you want to sit the rest of this episode out, you can.
Vic00:08:08Sonny will do the read for Donors Trust. I'm taking a break.
Sonny00:08:10You just sit back and relax, Grandpa. I'm sweating now. Okay, go ahead. I'm sweating here. All right, please, continue with your questions. I'm going to go.
JVL00:08:16I'm going to go. I'm going to go. It's great. It's great. So we opened up the, we broke out the 3,600 piece Lepin set of the Mar-Wall helicopter aircraft carrier.
Sonny00:08:36I'm sorry, the what?
JVL00:08:37The Mar-Wall.
Sonny00:08:38The Mar-Wall? The Nar-Wall? Is it like one of the- Mar-Wall. Mar-Wall. Is it like the- Mar-Wall.
JVL00:08:45The dolphin with the big thing on its head?
Sonny00:08:46It's not Mar-Wall.
JVL00:08:47It's Mar-Wall. And it has been a fantastic building experience. It's been great. We had a minor hiccup early in that it comes in about 60 different plastic bags with the pieces all essentially randomly mixed in, unlike a normal Lego set where it's like bag number one, here's what you need for the first 12 steps, and bag number two. So at the scale of 3,600 pieces, that presented a little bit of a challenge.
Sonny00:09:13So it's not only like putting together a Lego set, it's like figuring out a puzzle.
JVL00:09:18Basically.
Vic00:09:19I find that it enhances the experience. Are the instructions similar to Lego instructions, the layout and format?
Sonny00:09:25No, they're not similar. They're exactly the same.
JVL00:09:29So Lego, you can go ahead and download the PDF instructions for any Lego set ever made. Lego keeps them all there in case you ever lose them.
Vic00:09:35Including the Helicarrier.
JVL00:09:36Yeah. And so you don't need to ever save Lego instructions. When you have Lego instructions, you don't like ... This is why I made the mistake early on with my kids, like, "Oh, God, I got to file this away so if she breaks the pony stables, I know how to fix it." No. All of them are available on PDF.
Sonny00:09:52Just throw them away. Well, don't you want to hold onto those so you can include them in your package when you're reselling them to fund their college educations? No, you don't. And ... Wait, I'm sorry, but do you keep the boxes? Only for sets that are large enough to resell, to bother reselling. But you don't keep the instructions for those sets?
JVL00:10:10No.
Sonny00:10:11Why wouldn't you just put the instructions back in the box? Because the truth is I'm never going to sell any of these things.
JVL00:10:14The only ones I'm going to sell are the ones that are still boxed that I never undid.
Sonny00:10:18Like what? What you got socked away there? You know what? What you got socked away there?
JVL00:10:22You know what? Doesn't matter what.
Sonny00:10:24What's in the vault? Doesn't matter what. Just give us one. Just give us a taste. The London Tower Bridge. I don't know what that is. Is that like a big set? Is that like a ... Yeah, it's massive.
JVL00:10:33How many pieces is it? It's okay.
Sonny00:10:35I don't know. Who could say?
JVL00:10:37I bet you know exactly how many pieces it is. So it was a challenge getting this thing originally sorted out, but ... Oh, the instructions are exactly the same, like panel for panel, exactly. Exactly the same. And it's been great. We are really ... I'd say we're 60% of the way through the build. I will probably have it for display on next week's Facebook Live. How are you going to get it in here? It's huge, isn't it? There is a concern as to how I'm going to get it to the office, yes. I mean, it will fit inside the car, obviously, but you've got to put it in such a way that it won't fall and teeter.
Sonny00:11:08Is it like six feet long?
JVL00:11:09How long is it? No. It's probably three feet long. Oh, that's not ... It's pretty sizable. You could do trunk. Unclear. I'm going to just drive with it on my lap. Okay.
Vic00:11:20All right. No, it's great.
JVL00:11:22It's great. Okay, good. I ... How are you, Victor? You're still a monster, by the way.
Sonny00:11:27Yes. FYI. You're stealing. You're stealing from your favorite company. That's true. You know what?
JVL00:11:33Look. You're stealing from your favorite company. It seems to me that there has been one ... People say, "I get a lot of this." "Oh, you're a monster. It's criminal." Okay. In fact, my nine-year-old says to me. We're sitting there in the first hour, and he leans over me conspiratorially and he goes, "Dad, could we go to jail for building this?" I said, "No, son. Only in China." Not even there.
Vic00:12:02In China, they say it's all good.
JVL00:12:03This is so wrong.
Vic00:12:04It's so identical, by the way. The only difference, of course, is that Leppin is painted with lead. Yes?
JVL00:12:12The Lego pieces. I am telling you. I was curious as to whether or not the plastics would be noticeably different. Mm-hmm. They are exactly the same, which leads me to believe that this is coming out of the same factory. There was a question going in on this as to whether or not these were knockoffs. They stole the mold and set up their own factory, or they're just running them off in the same. I'm now leaning in the latter direction. There has been one legal challenge on this, and the court's found in favor of Leppin. So why are we all supposed to believe that this is illegal? You show me where they're-
Sonny00:12:47The court also says abortion is good, so you know what? You show me where- So you show me- The court has ruled. Look, the court said people are fine, abortion is fine, so we just deal with that, right? We just live with it? There's no moral compunction? You could've chosen eminent domain. No, I'm just going straight to the jugular.
Vic00:13:04You go right for it. I know what you two Catholics get riled by. I'm fanning myself. So JVL, I left at 5:56 AM. Was it?
JVL00:13:14That's an hour later. You were gonna be at five.
Vic00:13:16There was nobody there. What? Yeah, it was fine. It's a miracle. It took us three hours and 45 minutes. It's a Thanksgiving miracle. There was nobody. I mean, I could tell you this, on the Beltway, on 495, as you get off to go north on 95 North, so it's the exit for Baltimore on 95 North.
JVL00:13:32You take 95 North, not 295 North? That's so interesting.
Vic00:13:35No, yeah, no. We're right by the ... You just go out to the Beltway and loop up and go up. No, but once you come on the Beltway, you have a choice.
JVL00:13:41Do you take 95 North or the Baltimore-Washington Parkway North? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, that's further down. No, no, no. The Baltimore-Washington Parkway is shorter. Yes. But the speed limit ... Yes. ... on 95 is higher. And it also is 65.
Sonny00:13:53That's exactly right. The speed limit on 95 is higher, but also 295 jams up because it's only two lanes. That's right. That's right. 95 is like four lanes, most of the way, I think.
Vic00:14:01That exit from 495 to 95 was already beginning to slow down. People were trying to figure out where they're going, but then we escaped it, made it all the way without incident. Fantastic. And on the way down, get this, we left my parents' house in Toms River at 10 after seven in the morning and made it in ... Sunday? Sunday. Three and a half hours. But we saw an awful wreck on the New Jersey Turnpike, so people are in a hurry. It's pretty crazy. But ... Stopping any good rest stops on the way? No, but I was going to say, when I was up in Jersey, went to a fantastic diner called the Princess Maria. Shockingly, it's Greek. It's like the owner's grandmother or something, her name is Maria, and it's up in Wall Township Wall. Up there. Wall. We were visiting, seeing our friends Sue Moroney and her husband, Rich, and so they were up there. We said, "We'll go up to Wall," and it was ... The menu is like the Ten Commandments tablet. It's a diner menu because there's so much there, and we had Disco Fries for our listeners who were at Disco Fries. They had Disco Fries on the menu? Labeled as such? Not even on the menu. No. You just told them, "Disco Fries," and they said, "Sure. No problem."
JVL00:15:12What are Disco Fries? Okay. Hold on. Hold on. He is deep into the restaurant trade. He is. He is deep in the trade. Is this just insider knowledge where he knows how to talk to these people?
Vic00:15:22No. He and my buddy, Stevie Staris, also ordered the same thing. He had a pork roll, which is very South Jersey.
JVL00:15:27Okay. He didn't need to use any secret code. No. He just said, "How would you like it?"
Vic00:15:31"Hey, I run Carrabba's." You want your fries? They say, "You want your fries?" "Yeah. Can we make them Disco?"
Sonny00:15:36The waitress says, "Sure.
Vic00:15:37No problem." Wait. Your friend runs Carrabba's? No. He was the owner of a Carrabba's in New Jersey. Oh.
Sonny00:15:43Yes. Not the entire ... We're doing a show live from Carrabba's every week.
Vic00:15:47It had the highest revenue, I think, of any of the Carrabba's, I think, on the Eastern Seaboard. It was the one in New Brunswick, and then he went down to Brick. It was great, because we'd have Thanksgiving Fridays there, and all these plates would just come in.
Sonny00:16:01Whatever. I'm sorry. Can you explain these fries to me?
Vic00:16:04Disco fries. What are Disco fries? To you and our non-Jersey listeners. It's like French fries, really nice and crisp, on a bed of brown gravy and melted American cheese on top.
?00:16:14So it's like ...
Vic00:16:15It's like trash poutine.
JVL00:16:17Is that right? It's like-
Vic00:16:19All I'm going to say is it's delicious. Yeah, well, there's a poutine element. Am I wrong? I mean, that's-
Sonny00:16:23No, there is a poutine element because of the- It's like instead of cheese curds, instead of cheese curds, you have American cheese. It's melted. Yeah, and it's Disco fries.
Vic00:16:28You have like Kraft singles on top. Yes, because the one good thing about American cheese is it melts easily. And it must've ... I wonder where it originated. I'm obviously going to say the '70s and Disco. So I had a mixed grill, which was a skillet.
Sonny00:16:40You had to eat those to get the LSD to wear off? Yes, that's right.
Vic00:16:43Back in the day. Otherwise, you fall off the Verrazano Bridge. Oh, sorry. That was a Saturday Night Fever reference. Anyway, I had a mixed grill, which was like a skillet. They actually give you a skillet, and it was mixed. It was potatoes, onions, tomatoes, peppers, and it was bacon and sausage, and two fried eggs on top. I don't know why you think I'm going to have a heart attack, by the way.
JVL00:17:07This is why Jonah makes fun of us.
Vic00:17:08Yeah. People love this. Read the rest of the bill. What else did everybody else at the table order? Well, again, Stevie Starr's got a pork roll. Anyway- What's a pork roll? Oh, my gosh.
Sonny00:17:19That's so- I don't understand.
Vic00:17:21What's a pork roll?
JVL00:17:22Is it like a hot dog? When you grow up in London, when you grow up in London, governor, you don't know what American foods is like?
Sonny00:17:26I don't know. I don't know what a ... I didn't grow up in London.
JVL00:17:28No, no, no. He had toad in the hole. He had a banger in the mouth.
Sonny00:17:33Whoa.
JVL00:17:34Oh, come on. I forgot you Yanks call it a sausage in the mouth.
Vic00:17:38That's right. Very good.
JVL00:17:40Very good.
Vic00:17:41Okay.
JVL00:17:42The other thing is ice skating. The other ice skating rink. Was it cold enough?
Vic00:17:45It was an indoor rink. Indoor rink. Okay. And there's free skate for two hours. We went in and it's closing in 45 minutes and the guy's like, "You're from here?" And I just said, "This is a guy with long hair, kid." And I just said, "I used to live here." And he goes, "Ah, don't worry about it." And so they gave us a discount. And you know what? 45 minutes in a rink is enough.
JVL00:18:06Sweating. My eye goes, "It's cold and sweating? You ever have that cold and sweating?"
Sonny00:18:11But you didn't break anything.
JVL00:18:12No wonder you feel sick.
Vic00:18:13You didn't break anything. No, no. I don't fall. I didn't fall. Michael has really gotten good. Sabrina, it's hard when you're holding her hand because instead of falling, she'll just yank your arm. And so it's like you feel all this pain in the lower back. Okay. Transitioning to the next subject, I had a lot to say here. It was also Sabrina's birthday fest. I know.
JVL00:18:31I believe I texted you to wish her a happy birthday. You did?
Vic00:18:34I can't believe you remembered. Of course I do. Sonny did not. Sonny. So her birthday was just yesterday and she was born on Thanksgiving. But nobody wants to get together for birthday parties this weekend. So she had her little party the weekend before. We go up to Jersey and then my mother has a cake. We did a party for her. We came home to Virginia and my in-laws come over and my mother-in-law made a cake in presents.
JVL00:18:57It's really your birthday month for Sabrina. I called it Sabrina Fest because it reminded me of Sunny Fest.
Sonny00:19:03Sonny, you want to talk about Sunny Fest? I mean, there's not really much to talk about. It's just the most legendary week in the history of The Weekly Standard.
Vic00:19:09It was the most ridiculous ... I believe some people we work with called it excessive.
Sonny00:19:13It was ... Well, those people, they didn't understand what I did for the magazine and the website. I don't think I remember. You don't remember? It was the week I left the magazine. I went out for lunch and then drinks afterwards.
Vic00:19:25You must have been involved at some point, Jonathan.
Sonny00:19:27Every day that week. It was every ... It was a whole week. People would take Sunny out. The whole week of going away celebrations.
Vic00:19:32Oh, no.
Sonny00:19:33It was very nice.
Vic00:19:34Very nice.
JVL00:19:35Maybe you were home. Somebody ... Maybe you were working from home. We just didn't invite you. You mean this was when you were an intern?
Vic00:19:40No. No. When I was working for Phil. You don't remember any of the parties?
Sonny00:19:46I 100% was not invited to any of these things. You were definitely involved in things. But anyway, the point is, Sunnyfest is the gold standard.
JVL00:19:53And from where I sit, I think of you as one of my best friends.
Sonny00:19:56Well, it's not my fault you don't remember this and you were definitely there. Yeah.
JVL00:20:02You don't remember?
Vic00:20:03No, no. I was probably there and I just don't remember it. I don't remember. Because we would go out for four hour lunches and drink. Maybe that's why you weren't there.
Sonny00:20:08Maybe not your cup of tea, per se. Was this the time when you were working from home for months at a time? I don't really remember.
Vic00:20:14I did two or three of the Sunnyfest events. Well, you were like the ringleader. You had to wear a bracelet.
Sonny00:20:21I mean, everybody wanted to take me out.
Vic00:20:24It was fine. That's true. Okay. All right. I guess we'll just move on. I actually sadly don't have a transition because I haven't ... I don't know what Coco is. What is Coco? What is it about?
Sonny00:20:35It's something Pixar. Something about Mexico.
Vic00:20:37You don't even ... Oh.
Sonny00:20:38The only thing I know about Coco, which I've not seen yet. I need to see it. I need to see it before the end of the year.
JVL00:20:43The old is a strong word.
Sonny00:20:44Well, I mean, for awards season consideration, et cetera. But the only thing I really know about this is that apparently there's a 21-minute Frozen cartoon. Oh. I guess you're going to have to bring my daughter. A short. No, she hates Frozen. Ahead of it. And people are freaking out. They're like, "Why is this giant commercial for Frozen in front of ... Why is this unending, never-ending commercial for Frozen ahead of it?" That's crazy.
JVL00:21:08Don't you know about Frozen Fever?
Sonny00:21:10But I thought people liked it. People were complaining about it.
JVL00:21:12No, no. No, no. Do you know about Frozen Fever?
Sonny00:21:15I don't know what Frozen Fever is.
?00:21:16I don't know what this is.
JVL00:21:17What is Frozen Fever? So there is, on Netflix, a long hour-and-a-half compendium of Disney animation shorts. Most of which ... No, check that. All of which are hot garbage, which have zero interest to anybody under the age of 40 or
Sonny00:21:3650. So these aren't the shorts that they show before the Pixar movies? No.
JVL00:21:40They're just like ... They're just shorts. This is like Disney's community outreach. "Look, we care about the little animator." The final short is called Frozen Fever, and it features the Frozen characters. And it is as charming ... I'm very pro-Frozen. Yes.
Sonny00:21:57You're a big fan of Frozen.
JVL00:21:58It is artless and cloying, and it is the Poochie of Frozen. I mean, this is the moment that Frozen has jumped the shark. This is 185. 180 seconds of a 90-minute thing. And the cover image for Frozen Fever and the Disney image is Elsa and the Frozen characters. And so every child who is allowed to play around on the Netflix app, on the iPad, sees this and goes to it, and then is immediately, "Where's Frozen?" Because they're saddled with 90 minutes of just crap in front of them until they learn how to manipulate to run all the way to the end. And then they can get the payoff. All of which is to say that I believe that ... That whatever happens with the Frozen franchise from here on out is going to be very bad.
Sonny00:22:47But Frozen Fever itself is bad.
JVL00:22:49Frozen Fever itself is bad. This new commercial in front of Coco sounds bad, and whatever they try to do with Frozen 2 will be bad.
Sonny00:22:58Was there a Frozen short that played in front of Cinderella?
Vic00:23:01Yes.
Sonny00:23:02Very good. Wasn't it? I never actually saw Cinderella.
Vic00:23:05It was like a birthday party or something.
JVL00:23:06Oh, that is Frozen Fever. With the sneezing. Elsa sneezes.
Vic00:23:10Elsa sneezes. And little mini snowmen running around. But it wasn't 21 minutes. Yeah, that's right. But it wasn't 21.
Sonny00:23:15This is something else. Well, the one that's playing in front of Coco is apparently like 20 minutes long. Wow. Okay. It's like a mini movie. I mean, it's not even a short. It's like a sitcom episode.
Vic00:23:24I'm ready now, by the way. Okay. Sorry. Go. Okay. So, you know, Sunnyfest was a real fiesta. Speaking of fiestas, over the weekend, Coco took top honors with $49 million, followed by Justice League with $40 million, and Wonder going strong. And third with $22 million.
Sonny00:23:43Wonder, which is apparently not Christian at all. I was totally wrong about that last week.
JVL00:23:48Yeah, it's funny how you didn't believe me when I said it. It was only when Ann Continetti weighed in that you were like, "Oh, okay."
Sonny00:23:55Well, I mean, I stand by the argument that I would be willing to wager that there are a lot of church groups that are buying group tickets to this, but whatever. I don't know. I don't know.
Vic00:24:05I don't know things.
Sonny00:24:06It sounded very good, the way she described it. It sounds awful. I know what you mean. I can't imagine ever watching it again.
JVL00:24:13Sonny doesn't want to experience genuine human emotions when he watches cinema. Nope.
Vic00:24:17Nope. Don't need that. How hard was Interstellar for you to watch?
Sonny00:24:20Oh, man. The second time. After the baby. Well, I guess the third time after she'd actually been born. Why aren't you staying? Stay with her. Arrival was much worse.
Vic00:24:33Arrival was...
Sonny00:24:34I need to see that again. I know we've talked about this at length, but Arrival, I cried ugly tears. I cried tears twice in that movie, both at the beginning and at the end.
Vic00:24:44I would pay money to see you cry. So would I. I just can't picture it. No. No. I cried at the end of La Bamba, which is a very sad ending. Okay, down in ninth place was Roman J. Israel, Esquire, with four and a half million, obviously not in 4,000 screens like Justice League, but Sonny, you saw Roman J. Israel, Esquire. I've seen it.
Sonny00:25:05I'm the only one in this room who's seen it.
Vic00:25:08Okay, give it to us.
Sonny00:25:09Roman J. Israel stars Denzel Washington as kind of a spectrumy lawyer who works for this firm. It's a small firm, two guys, him and another, who kind of take on the cases of the little guys. They're out there hustling and getting the small-time hoods who are getting hit with robbery charges, that sort of thing. And as the movie opens, his partner, the guy who actually goes to the courtrooms and argues all the cases, has a debilitating stroke, ends up in a induced coma, dies, whatever. He, Roman J. Israel/Denzel Washington, cannot run the business because he cannot actually go into courtrooms. In his first foray into the courtroom that we see, he gets a $5,000 contempt citation because he can't stop arguing with the judges. And he's not good at making deals with the prosecutors because he believes it's a corrupt system. The idea of this film is basically that we have a justice system that is predisposed to making people avoid their day in court. Makes it way too costly to go to court and lose by overcharging and hitting people with 20-year, 30-year sentences when they could instead plead out to a five-year sentence. In the course of liquidating the firm, which is what they decide to do instead of going Colin Farrell plays a character called George Pierce. He comes in and he's a real shark type, you know, his suits are very tightly fitted and very slick, he's got slick back hair, you know, and he is trying to, as the film begins, he is kind of this shark-like character who decides to bring Roman J. Israel on to the firm because he can help them make money, and then he decides, oh wait, I have a conscience, we need to help these people, and the whole movie is about the way one man with his idealism can help save everyone. It doesn't quite work for me because all of the characters surrounding Roman J. Israel are totally... subservient to the plot. They just do whatever we need them to do to get to the next thing, and none of them really react in a kind of believable or spontaneous matter, and I, it just doesn't, all that doesn't work to me. Now, for me, Denzel Washington is great, and Denzel Washington is great in everything. Denzel Washington is like our one great starring actor, I think, and I was discussing this with someone online. You know, when you come up with a list of his worst movies, which I've actually done here, I've actually compiled a list of his worst movies, even in those movies, he's the best thing in it, and the number of movies that he is in that are bad, his batting average is exceptionally good. - Yes. - I would say that of everyone, of all the major actors, of all the leading men, of all the starring types, he is the one with the best hit to miss ratio.
Vic00:28:04- It's no secret that Denzel Washington is sort of the most successful. - Most successful element in any film, obviously. He's the magic. But you know what else is not a secret? That the best policy ideas are not coming from politicians, instead, they're coming from think tanks, public interest law centers, and other principled individuals and groups from around the country, and the best ones are those that do not rely on government money to operate. If you want to help move the ideas of liberty forward, invest your charitable giving in those doing the real work of conservative causes, and the simplest way to do this is through Donors Trust. Donors Trust is the community foundation for... ...for the liberty movement. With a donor-advised fund at Donors Trust, you'll simplify your giving and receive excellent tax benefits, all in a way that gives you an additional layer of privacy. All donor-advised funds offer the same basic services, but Donors Trust is the only donor-advised fund that shares your commitment to conservative principles. Go to DonorsTrust.org/standard for your free investing and liberty guide that gives practical advice on how to identify principle-driven charities that deserve your support. So near the end of 2017, Donors Trust is the partner you need. The stock market is booming and the tax code is changing. Donors Trust experts can help you navigate all of this and equip you to give in a way that best benefits you, your family, and the principles you hold dear. Visit DonorsTrust.org/standard right now to download a free copy of your helpful guide. Discover a better way to support the conservative values you believe in. That's DonorsTrust.org/standard. So we were talking about... You were talking something about Denzel Washington and his track record, and early on. I remember as a kid seeing a commercial for a comedy starring George Segal in 1981 called Carbon Copy, and you... It's the kind of thing that wouldn't work obviously now because nobody knows what a carbon copy is, but of course this is like... What's a carbon copy? This is, you know, with photocopy things, I think. And it was George Segal finds out...
Sonny00:30:06No, a carbon copy is like when you... It's like a typewriter, right? There's a thing underneath it.
Vic00:30:09Like you type on the thing and then there's like... Yeah, there's a thing underneath it and that's the carbon copy. The... Ruining my shtick. Sorry. George Segal in this movie finds out he has an illegitimate black son played by Denzel Washington, and it's like, "I'm your son," and then all chaos and craziness ensues. Friends he thought were his friends are no longer his friends. That sort of a thing.
Sonny00:30:31Because he had sex with a black woman?
Vic00:30:32I don't know. I don't know. Because he has a black son. So something like that. Kind of messed up. I remember not even realizing that the actor was Denzel Washington, and then of course a little bit later on was Saint Elsewhere.
JVL00:30:45I was going to ask if you remember him on Saint Elsewhere, because I remember very little of Saint Elsewhere. So do I. And I had no recollection that he was... I'm stuck on like Howie Mandel and Ed Begley Jr.
Vic00:30:56Me too. Me too. Yeah. Same thing. Those are the... Did not realize he was... Why do we all remember Howie Mandel?
JVL00:31:03And, you know, I mean... Because he put the rubber glove on, surgical glove over his head.
Vic00:31:06It was crazy. He was a prop comic. Really, yes. And really, a quick aside. I saw Howie Mandel do stand-up like on an HBO special. It was terrible. He was so mean to people in the audience. If I had gotten into Georgetown, I would have been a doctor, much like Howie Mandel's character on Saint Elsewhere. Or Dr. Chandler. So that is Denzel Washington. What is interesting is he already started to have a movie career while still on contract under... with Saint Elsewhere. And so he did A Soldier's Story, which I also saw, and he's great in that, with a number of other great actors. But he was sort of the surprise new up-and-coming actor in that movie. There were established actors in that movie already. And then he did, in '87, he did that Steven Biko movie, Cry Freedom. Yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:31:56I actually watched that in high school. Oh, yeah, right. It was like one of our foreign, I don't know, world geography class or whatever.
Vic00:32:03I just saw an interview where he was explaining he had to fly back. He had to fly back and forth from Zimbabwe to LA and go to MTM, as he calls it, Mary Tyler Moore Studios, do St. Elsewhere, and then fly back. God. That must have been. Crazy. It was a crazy time. But anyway, go ahead. Think he was flying coach? I don't know. It was the '80s, though. He was mentioning TWA in Pan Am sometimes.
Sonny00:32:24And then Glory, of course, was his big breakout. Was he nominated for an Oscar? He won. He won an Oscar. He won the Oscar for that.
Vic00:32:34He was fantastic in Glory. I always thought... And I'm a big fan of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but I always thought Matthew Broderick, that was a weird thing, casting him opposite Denzel Washington. Maybe that was the whole point, because he was like a kid officer, young officer type, but it's kind of odd. But I thought Denzel Washington was solid in that. And you know who else was in that movie? Andre Braugher.
Sonny00:32:57Yeah.
JVL00:32:58Andre Braugher. Andre Braugher was the best thing in that movie. Excellent. He's the best thing in everything he's in. JVL, you have Denzel thoughts. You know, there was a moment... From 1989 to about 1995, where he looked like Tom Hanks. He was in Glory. He was in Malcolm X as the lead in Philadelphia, The Pelican Brief, which is a big Julia Roberts starring John Grisham movie, Crimson Tide then, which is a Tony Scott, I believe a Tony Scott movie. That was the late Tony Scott. Which, you know, should have been better than it was. He had Devil in a Blue Dress on the horizon. And he never, I would argue, that Denzel Washington is not, his career has not turned out to be as an actual movie star. He is less Harrison Ford and Tom Hanks, and much more great actor, like Daniel Day Lewis.
Sonny00:33:54No, that's nonsense.
JVL00:33:55I mean, he does more movies, and he does more accessible movies. But when he does small films, I don't know that he's ever been in a movie that cost more than $100 million. In a world where it is really, really hard to make a mid-budget $60 or $80 million flick, this is what Denzel does. He does lots of them, and these are movies that simply could not get made without him in them. And I think he ought to be commended for it. I don't mean any of this to disparage him. I actually think what he is is more valuable than being just a movie star. And he's tremendous. I mean, look at his box office. Box office returns, right? I mean, the biggest grossing movie he's ever made was The Pelican Brief, which was $215 million. Wow. I mean, he's had very few movies that are titanic hits, but what he does is- And very few that are titanic bombs. And very few that are titanic bombs. So he's this great artist who is able to get small pictures made. Who is not running around doing Mission Impossible 17 and tell actual stories, but is not caught - thank God - in doing important movies.
Sonny00:35:07I mean, he just tells good stories.
JVL00:35:09I just think he's one of the most admirable artists in that way in all of Hollywood.
Sonny00:35:14All right, I'm just going to read some of the titles of movies he's been in, okay? Yeah, yeah. And this is just recently. Magnificent Seven, The Equalizer, Two Guns, Safe House, Unstoppable, The Book of Eli, The Taking of Pelham 123, Deja Vu, The Manchurian Candidate, Man on Fire- now look, I like a lot of those movies. I don't think I've seen almost any of those movies. But those are like generic lead action movies. That's his work for the last 15 years. Has been almost, like not exclusively, but very, very, very, very, very heavily toward generic action.
JVL00:35:55I would say these are not, no, I would say no, no, but these are not generic action movies. I mean, so these are action movies. What I'm saying is, because they are not generic, they would not be getting made in any other way. So the Book of Eli is the Hughes brothers doing a very highly stylized and kind of interesting action movie, even though it's too on the nose, and even though there are lots of problems with it. And that movie does not get made outside of Denzel Washington coming in to star in it. Unstoppable is a Tony Scott movie, which is about a train. You're totally right.
Sonny00:36:30It's just about a freight train. Look, you're totally right that these movies don't get made without Denzel Washington. The point is that that is because he is an action star. He is a star. He is a star actor. Well, so he's certainly a leading man.
JVL00:36:43He's great. I mean, he's a leading man. I'm just saying.
Sonny00:36:46Once again, I think he's the best thing in everything that he's in.
JVL00:36:49I agree. I don't disagree.
Sonny00:36:51But like, but we're not we're not talking like outside of Fences. He hasn't made like a flight flight is not a I guess flight movie.
JVL00:37:03He makes non action movies. He makes non action movies. What I'm saying is that he so maybe Daniel Day-Lewis is the wrong. The wrong absolutely thing to reach for. So maybe what we should be saying something more like Robert Duvall or Reynolds or even
Sonny00:37:20a Tom Cruise.
JVL00:37:23But I think again, I love Tom Cruise, I would say what he does is different than Tom Cruise, although interesting, and it's different in I would not place one of them above the other. I just think he's great. And I think it is admirable that he takes these interesting genre films that are mid budget and he gets them made and he keeps them reasonably close to profitability. And but that's different than what Harrison Ford does, and it's different than what Tom Hanks does.
Sonny00:37:50That's different than what Harrison Ford used to do. I mean, Harrison Ford doesn't really know exactly. Yes.
Vic00:37:55JVL, I hope you never saw the movie Flight.
JVL00:37:57I did not. Good. You couldn't pay me.
Vic00:38:00I saw on YouTube the clip of the actual plane landing. No. You'll never get on a plane again.
JVL00:38:05You could not. You will never get on a plane again. Pay me to see that. I checked out of the TV series Lost after the first 90 seconds because it opens with the plane crash. It opens with the crash. And people told me, "Oh, there's a lot of flashbacks to it, but it's not what I used to know."
Sonny00:38:17Thank you. What about Sully?
JVL00:38:19Hard pass. Hard pass.
Vic00:38:21Oh. Hard pass.
Sonny00:38:23Sully was totally fine. Yeah.
JVL00:38:25You know they land the plane.
Vic00:38:26Yeah. No, thank you. I must have had that DVD of Sully for weeks. Who did I borrow that from? Oh, never mind.
JVL00:38:33Never mind. No, but I mean, if you think about the classes of movie star, I think what he is is something distinct and much more actorly than it is movie star-ish. No?
Sonny00:38:44I think- Sonny. I would say that the definition of a movie star is somebody who, when you're just talking about a movie star, I think it's somebody who plays a recognizable type repeatedly, and you see that type in a lot of the characters, right? And I think that if you look through a lot of these movies, you've got Denzel being kind of Denzel.
?00:39:08Fair.
Sonny00:39:09And I think that that is not always the case, of course. It's not really the case in Fences, where he's playing kind of an older, bitterer type, and it's not really the case in Roman G. Israel, where he's playing a kind of autistic-y, spectrum-y type, but if you look at, like, again, like, Deja Vu, Safe House, both of the train movies, you know, he was in two train movies in a row, directed by Tony Scott, Taking a Pelham 1-2-3 and Unstoppable. Taking a Pelham 1-2-3 is not a train movie. That's a train, it's literally a train movie. It's literally a movie about a train that needs to be stopped. It's literally about an unstoppable train. So, anyway, but, like, you're looking at a lot of movies where Denzel is kind of Denzel, and all of those movies, you know, reach their apex. And Training Day, which is, like, you know, kind of the most, like, this is, like, this is, like, the, I don't know, Samuel L. Jackson of Denzel movies. He is, like, the kind of the heightened version of that. And Training Day is a totally, is a totally fine movie. It's not, it's not great. It's not terrible. But he is really, really good. Oh, my God. He is, I mean, he's. Vic loves the crap out of that movie. You love that movie?
Vic00:40:27I wouldn't use the word. I wouldn't use that word. But it is a fantastic movie. I think it's, it's, it's, it's terrifying. It's terrifying. It's, it's harrowing. He loves it. When he's sitting around that card table and a gang member asks him a question. Go ahead. Have you ever had your bleep, your bleep pushed in?
JVL00:40:41I knew the minute Training Day came up that that is the scene you were going to go to. The, why this fascinates you, I have no idea.
Vic00:40:52Can you imagine, like, if you were Ethan Hawke, put yourself in this position, per se, and this is happening, you're like, that's it, I got to get out of here. How do you get out? A friend of mine, who's a cop. A cop in, uh, up in Jersey, uh, I talked to him about Training Day, and he said, he thought the movie was obviously fascinating from a police officer's point of view, he said from the very minute that Ethan Hawke meets Denzel Washington's character, he knew it was going to be a problem, because he's sitting in a diner, and it's Denzel Washington telling Ethan Hawke, sit down. Even though it's a diner, and you're sitting there, and it's a banquette, of course I'm going to sit down. Why am I not going to stand? But it's the fact that he tells you, sit down, that he knows that you're going to sit down, he knows that what's happening next is this guy is going to dominate you, and he's going to find ways to put you in bad position, and something bad is going to happen, and it's just one of those things. And I thought that was interesting, and so, I mean, thinking about that, I mean, you get so, you know, glued to this, um, thing, and how do you get yourself, how do you extricate yourself from the gang member's house when he gets sold out? And of course, there's a great twist in the end, uh, in the bathtub, I thought that was
Sonny00:41:58fantastic. Yeah, you buy a deus ex machina, basically.
Vic00:42:00Yeah, kind of, you know? Because he stopped prior to that on the way to save the girl. We don't have to get into details. You don't want to spoil it for people who haven't seen the 17-year-old movie. Yes, I can't believe it's 17 years old, but it's 16. This is 2001? Yes, 2001. I remember our former colleague, David Skinner, saw it in the theater, and he said his reaction, he thought it was a great movie, but he said it was the kind of thing that you just wanted to get out of there, because it felt like your skin was falling.
Sonny00:42:24Can I play devil's advocate for just a moment? Sure, go ahead. Uh, Street King's Greater Sign Than Training. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen Street King, so. That's the Keanu Reeves, David, it's written and directed by David Ayer, who wrote Training. You guys are the worst.
Vic00:42:38The Mambo Kings, maybe? Were you thinking of the Mambo Kings? Suicide Kings. Yeah.
Sonny00:42:42No, Suicide Kings is the Quentin Tarantino knockoff starring- Like Seth Green or something. No, no, starring the comic that you think looks like me.
Vic00:42:51Oh, Dennis Leary. Dennis Leary. Yes, yes, yes. Actually, if anyone's curious, Sonny's alter ego is Jimmy Simpson. Pick him up.
Sonny00:42:59None of these- Look him up. None of these make any sense.
JVL00:43:01So, tell me. How is The Magnificent Seven? Because I've never seen it. Neither have I. It's Antoine Fuqua. Yes. I didn't- I like Antoine Fuqua.
Sonny00:43:09My problem with The Magnificent Seven is that it builds up to this huge battle in a town, right? Like the original Magnificent Seven. Yeah, the original. But it doesn't actually-
JVL00:43:18Which wasn't very good.
Sonny00:43:20I'm glad they made this one to fix all the problems with the original. Kurosawa's a bit of a hack. The original? No, no. Kurosawa, who's that? Oh, you mean- Oh, you mean- I'm sorry. You mean- The Yul Brynner Magnificent Seven. Yeah. Yeah, the classic one.
JVL00:43:35Who's this Kurosawa?
Sonny00:43:38Kurosawa? What do you mean? Akira. Akira Kurosawa.
JVL00:43:42Wait, you're not telling me that the original Magnificent Seven owes some debt to something else that has subtitles, are you?
Sonny00:43:48No comment. I don't know. That would be beyond my scope of knowledge, generally. My biggest problem-
Vic00:43:54I hope it wasn't a black and white.
Sonny00:43:55My biggest problem with this is that, A, there were- I mean, there are too many characters. There are seven characters, and they're trying to like- That's far too many. They're trying to- Even six too many in Justice League. And my biggest problem with it, though, was that you had no sense of the geography of the town that they're trying to defend. So at the end of the film, the big shootout is just like a series of things happening on screen. You're like, where is everyone? What's going- Like, I don't know. It didn't quite work for me.
Vic00:44:22Crimson Tide. If we can go back to that. I saw it in the theater. In fact, I saw it- I was a senior in college, and we saw it at AMC Courthouse, and the new thing I remembered at the time was there were some other classmates we knew, and one of them, she had nachos, like, you know, with cheese. And I said, what is this? In a movie theater? That is the craziest thing ever.
Sonny00:44:45This is what you remember about the movie Crimson Tide. Yes, that's right. You remember the nachos in the movie theater.
Vic00:44:50Before it started. Two movies I saw senior year. We could have a whole debate about the ethics of firing the missile, or we could talk about- Whether or not you should have followed orders.
Sonny00:44:58Whether who was right and who was wrong, but instead, we're going to talk about- We're going to discuss the nachos.
Vic00:45:03Whether or not you should have nachos and cheese in the theater. Is that appropriate?
JVL00:45:05Were they disco nachos? Oh, that would have been even better. I will posit this to you. That movie, the linchpin of that movie- James Gandolfini. Sorry. George Zudza.
Vic00:45:15Oh, right. George Zudza is terrific. Without George Zudza's performance- He's the con. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, he's not the con. He's not the con.
JVL00:45:21He's the cob. The cob, cob. The chief of the boat. Thank you. Chief of the boat. Without him in that role, everything falls apart in that movie.
Vic00:45:28He's so good. I'll tell you, him and Danny Nucci, just kidding. But I love Crimson Tide, and I love Gene Hackman. Oh, also, Viggo Mortensen is in that movie. I mean, it is an all-star cast.
JVL00:45:41He's a bit selfish, too.
Vic00:45:42He's amazing in many ways. But the part I did not like about Crimson Tide is they're waiting at the end. They're waiting for the message. They say, I'll give you the better two minutes, and we'll see what the message is. And if you're wrong, then, you know, whatever. And while they're talking, Gene Hackman talks to Denzel Washington about the Lippin Zahner horses. Do you remember that? Are you familiar with horses at Denzel Washington? Yes, I'm familiar with the Lippin Zahners. And Gene Hackman goes, yes, they're all white. Really? Was that necessary? They're all white.
JVL00:46:15They had to make sure people identified him as the bad guy. Yeah, well, that's the thing. Because you didn't want people to get to the end of that movie and think, you know, Hackman's position of intentional retaliation is a reasonable one. Right. They had to underscore, just in case you were on the fence, he's the bad guy. Low blow.
Vic00:46:30And then Denzel's response is, yes, but when the horses are born, they're born black. And then the theater, like, oh. As if it was that Volcano movie, the ending of Volcano.
JVL00:46:42He should have responded with Passenger 57. Oh, yeah, Captain, do you ever play roulette?
Sonny00:46:47Right, exactly.
Vic00:46:48No, remember, what's the end of Volcano?
Sonny00:46:51Look, they're all gray. Or something. They're all the same color. They're all the same color. Right, it was after the L.A. riots. Yeah, yeah. This whole thing. This whole thing, okay. That's what we need to bring us together. Volcano. Volcano. In Los Angeles.
Vic00:47:03That just might be the last thing that will work. Do we have any more? No. No. We don't. We can kill this episode. Yeah, let's just stop. This is short. Spirit of the Week is called Clearing Out My Bar. That's a good spirit. It was good. Sonny's was what was left over of Wassman's Single Malt Whiskey, non-chill filtered, from Rappahannock. So that's a Virginia whiskey. And mine was whatever was left of a Maker's Mark jug. So we're clearing it out. Did you mix them? No, I did not mix them.
JVL00:47:35Can you mix whiskeys or bourbons or whatever these things are? You could, but I don't know why you would want to. You could.
Sonny00:47:39I mean, I don't see why you would.
JVL00:47:40Okay, so let's pretend you have bottles, each with like a quarter inch left, not enough, like a mouthful each. Could you pour them all into the same cup, or would that be disgusting, like pouring a bunch of beers together?
Sonny00:47:52You could physically do it.
JVL00:47:54I don't mean is it possible. I mean, like if you pour them together, would it taste-
Sonny00:47:58If you raised the bottle more than 45 degrees, the liquid would come out- You know what? I'll just go ask Google.
Vic00:48:07This is one of the best episodes ever. Man, we've got to move on now to corrections. I'm going to ask Quora. Corrections and additions, and we have plenty of time. Sonny, you have anything? Nothing. JVL, do you have anything?
JVL00:48:18No.
Vic00:48:19I got one, which is thank you to A.D. Lewis, who reminds us that the wide stance senator was Larry Craig of Idaho.
JVL00:48:28Oh, yes. Larry Craig.
Vic00:48:30You know what I always find works in these situations?
JVL00:48:32My friend John McArdle broke that story.
Vic00:48:34Really?
Sonny00:48:34At roll call, yeah, back in the day. He's on C-SPAN now. He's one of the morning journalists.
Vic00:48:39Oh, there you go. You know what I always find works? If you find yourself- This is just a little tip to our listeners. If you find yourself in a Larry Craig situation, the best thing to say is, I forgot to take my meds. Or, alternatively, I had too much of my medication. That's why I did bleep.
Sonny00:48:57I'm sorry. What- What sort of Larry Craig situation are we going to find ourselves in? Well, you never know. How many Larry Craig situations have you found yourself in, Vic?
Vic00:49:05Sometimes I forget to take my medication. Oh, I'm sorry. I can't believe I just did that to you. I forgot I was off my meds. That always seems to work. Well, that's the Patrick Kennedy excuse, right?
Sonny00:49:15Well, yeah, that too. Wasn't he hopped up on like- All sorts of- Well, no, it was allergy pills or something. Yeah, allergy pills.
JVL00:49:23And also a quart of vodka.
Vic00:49:25Yes. It was the Sudafed and the- Salute. Excuse me. Okay. Well, I guess we're moving on. That's all the time we could give to this episode. Yeah.
Guest00:49:38Questions?
Vic00:49:39You know, this is always, after Thanksgiving, same thing with writers, by the way.
JVL00:49:44We're just saving it all for The Force Awakens Last Jedi Revenge. Extravaganza.
Sonny00:49:49That's good.
Vic00:49:50Last Jedi, more like the last substandard. Did you want to talk about anything about the final trailer? I'm so glad to keep on including the Porg. I love the noise. I haven't even seen it. Stop. I love the noise of the Porg. Finish it. Finish the episode. That's going to be my ringtone. Stop it.
JVL00:50:05Thank you.
Vic00:50:06Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Victorino Matus, at Sonny Bunge. At JV Last. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play or Stitcher. Just type in substandard under podcasts. We're there. Leave a review. Leave a nice review.
Sonny00:50:24Leave a nice review. Don't yell at Jonah and those guys. And that's true. You know, they're nice. They're nice people. They try very hard with their little podcast, and it's, you know, they can't have the long-running success like we have, the great chemistry, the great ideas for topics. Oh, let's see if they still have anything to talk about. Like, let's all say how much we liked Enzel Washington, I guess. I don't, you know, it's such a good. It was good. It was really great. Good show, you guys.
Vic00:50:48Follow me on Instagram if you want to see the Leppin build. Okay, there you go. So, tell your friends until. Like us on Facebook. And like us on Facebook.
Sonny00:50:57Did we already say that one? Comment on Facebook.
Vic00:50:59Both. You have to interact on Facebook. That's what we do. Like, until next time, maybe.
JVL00:51:13Okay.
Vic00:51:14Do you have anything?
JVL00:51:15Any thoughts? So, do you want the story? I'll recount it for the people who didn't look on Twitter, unless you guys have other outtakes. Go for it. Go for it. I don't even know what you're talking about. Yeah, me too. So, you will notice that I am wearing a different one. I am wearing a watch band. Whoa! Oh, right. This could have been in the intro.
Sonny00:51:33Or are you telling that story?
Vic00:51:35I don't have to.
JVL00:51:36Oh.
Vic00:51:37I think you should. You should.
JVL00:51:38That was like the ending of Shawshank.
Sonny00:51:40Yeah, let's go into it. Let's tell the people.
JVL00:51:43So, I'm wearing a new band on my Apple Series 3 Nike Edition for athletes, and this is because we've been, all four of my kids have been sick over the last week. We've sort of... Just, anyway. My four-year-old, I had her in the bath, and she had something, a stomach virus, and didn't get out of the bath in time. And so it was a mild calamity. It was horrifying. But, you know, I rescued her. I took her into the other bathroom. We showered her off. We got her clean. Everything was okay. We get through the crisis period and move to the after crisis, and the mop-up phase of the crisis. And so I go into the first bathroom, and it's, you know, the water's just sitting there in the tub, and you can't really see the bottom of the tub, of course, because the water's muddy. This happens, by the way, too.
Vic00:52:39This will happen at least once in your life if you're a parent. And this happened to me, and I remember the words I said. I believe I said, Kate, help. And then I went downstairs.
JVL00:52:48Go ahead. As one of my Twitter buddies said, if I had a dollar for every time that happened to me, I'd have four bucks. And so without thinking, I just reached in to... undo the drain. And I reached in with my right hand, which is the hand I wear my watch on, and the minute it got submerged, I realized what I had done. I hadn't even made it all the way down. And so I pulled my hand out and looked at my Apple Series 3 Nike Edition for athletes watch, and I looked at the band, which is one of the really cool Velcro-y, mesh-y bands, which is essentially... Sonny just gassed. ...100,000 tiny fibers of nylon intricately woven together, and I realized that this could never be cleaned. Ever. I mean, you could trust yourself that the, you know, Cat 5 sealing processes that go into waterproofing the watch itself will protect the watch, make it possible to clean the watch off itself. I'm not even sure about that.
Sonny00:53:53But the band, no.
JVL00:53:55And so I no longer wear that. That band, and I have the new one, I'm sure it's fine.
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