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#84. The Substandard on The Disaster Artist and Cult Classics
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Dudes Chatting — what makes a cult classic?: Following up on The Disaster Artist, the three hosts dig into the definition of a cult classic. JVL asks whether they have to be bad, have to be quotable, and whether cult status can be won and lost — pointing to The Princess Bride as a film that graduated out of cult into simply beloved. Sonny's working definition: a film mostly ignored on release that built a small, intense following through midnight screenings or home video. He traces the mechanism through Donnie Darko (one of the first big DVD cult hits), Rocky Horror Picture Show, John Waters films, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and The Big Lebowski (now too mainstream to qualify). Vic champions Flash Gordon (1980) as a personal favorite camp-cult hybrid; Sonny adds Showgirls as a textbook case given its NC-17 release and devoted camp following. JVL proposes a macro thesis: the monoculture produced cult films as fragments of its own breaking-up, but today everything is already a fragment, so nothing qualifies — "when everybody's special, nobody's special." Sonny endorses this and adds that instant digital availability kills the scarcity that made cult fandom possible.
Box Office: Coco led with $26M; Justice League dropped 60% to $16.5M in week three with Wonder Woman close behind at $12.5M in week four, prompting speculation that Wonder will overtake Justice League. The Disaster Artist opened in a handful of theaters in 12th place.
Reviews: Sonny reviews The Disaster Artist, James Franco's film about the making of The Room, Tommy Wiseau's legendarily inept 2003 cult object. He praises the film's underdog-sports-movie structure, Franco's committed if unavoidably opaque performance as Wiseau, and its savvy audience targeting, but wonders how the film plays for viewers who have never seen The Room and don't know the meme. Verdict: if you're in the 1% who know The Room, you'll love it.
Spirit of the Week is Old Forrester Prohibition Style bourbon. The episode also includes an instant self-correction: Henry & June, not Showgirls, was the first NC-17 release.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00action i did not hit her it's not true it's bullshit i did not hit her i did not oh hi mark
Vic00:00:11hello and welcome back to another edition of the substandard sponsored by hello fresh hello fresh 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 Matys along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. I'd like to remind you the SUBSTANDARD is available on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher. Just look under Podcasts and search for SUBSTANDARD. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe. Tell your friends. Leave a review. I think we've broken, we're what, nearing 500 reviews or something like that?
Sonny00:00:51Nearing 500, yeah. Got to get them in before the new year. Oh, that's what matters. And the end of... Yes. Oh, I'm sorry.
Vic00:00:58And 300 written, at least 300 written reviews. Great stuff, mostly. A few naysayers. Again, there are people who are surprised and disappointed by dudes chatting.
Sonny00:01:10Yeah. It's just dudes chatting. That's what you get.
Vic00:01:12This is what you signed up for. Don't you know this? That should have been called, this should have been the podcast.
Sonny00:01:15It sure should have been called dudes chatting about stuff. Dudeschatting.com.
Vic00:01:21We could have did a whole thing on it.
Sonny00:01:22Dudes chat meet. yeah no absolutely i'm sure that would i'm sure that would you know chat be a great dating site
Vic00:01:28for heterosexual men dudes chat meet uh how are we uh jvl you doing all right yeah i'm fine i uh
JVL00:01:36brought a little something to the show today what do we got what's this from shannon the kids were doing an art project and shannon was amusing herself by coming up with some gift ideas for you two for christmas for goodness sakes we have here sunny a sweater for a dog that's a shawl collar no it's cable oh no no no look look look it says shawl collar like right right there where the removable hood sherpa pajamas no slip bottoms it's cable it's not a shawl collar it's a shawl
Sonny00:02:11that's not a shawl collar it's a cable knit sweater you can take it up on twitter with my wife
JVL00:02:15uh there is then a vic for you uh a smoking gun wood smoke infuser that's i don't understand this but to like make your bourbon no no to make your bourbon smell smoky or something oh how very molecular gastronomically and she says that it's very butch and almost like a real tool mix that's The least butch thing I've ever seen.
Vic00:02:41The mixologists love that in 2007.
Sonny00:02:44Here's, this is actually, so at Fiolamare, you can get a drink where they don't actually, they don't have like a big tube that they stick in your drink. They have like a little thing that they light and it makes the drink, it makes the cocktail very smoky. It only costs $50, this cocktail. Oh, the drink. One drink. I get two or three. It's fine. And that's why you go there. I send that bill straight to the Free Beacon LLC. Me too. What a coincidence.
Vic00:03:11That's good. That's all I have. Delightful. And thank you. And thank you, Shannon. She's always thinking about you guys. Shannon's so nice.
Sonny00:03:18Shannon's so much nicer than you.
Vic00:03:20Oh, yeah. No question. Sonny, how you doing?
Sonny00:03:23I'm great. I had a good weekend. Watched a lot of movies. I went to Roosevelt Island, which is located in the- Yeah, it's actually nice. Looking down from the beacon, Roosevelt Island. Yeah, you can see it from our office. Take your dog. We took our daughter. Oh, wow. She walked around some. Can you please get your phone away from the microphone?
Vic00:03:44No, no, no, I got a script here.
Sonny00:03:46Okay, and then, yeah, so I don't know. It was a nice little getaway, getaway. What are you up to?
Vic00:03:55Sunday. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. I got, there was a knock on the door, and I could tell it was, I could hear the kids. It was the police. Oh, no, not yet, not yet. And it was the kids. They'd finally come for Daddy. It was the kids from across the street. I was not in a rush to get to the door. By the time I opened it, they were gone. And there was a three-foot-tall Santa staring at me, a plastic Santa. I said, oh, my gosh, what did they give us, like lawn decoration or something? Oh, my goodness. And then I turn it around, and there's a note attached to the Santa. And it says this. Tis the season for laughter and joy. This Santa on your porch is not a toy. He is watching you tonight and tomorrow as well. To the North Pole, he will report. What stories will he tell? Only one night may he stay, for he must continue his ride to friends and neighbors that you must decide. While he's staying at your home, take his picture with your phone on his Facebook page you must post so you can see who's been his host. To let others know of his visit to your window pane, proudly display on your window a colorful candy cane. What the shit is this? This is a chain letter. Yes.
JVL00:05:04a chain letter mixed with the pink flamingo thing that all the like the little what is the pink flamingo thing it's a suburban insufferable neighborhood game where neighbors like get a tacky pink flamingo and stick and you move it from your yard to your neighbor's yard then they put in another neighbor's yard and then it's crazy because none of you actually like pink flamingos it's so tacky and it's just something that people who shop at pottery barn and then live in the suburbs and think that they're being whatever it's like it's like meat space Facebook that's the worst thing I've ever heard
Vic00:05:37yes you wait Sonny one day it's gonna come to you I want you to tell me and something happened like this you know what's gonna happen to me
JVL00:05:44opened up your phone started a Facebook live and then beat it to pieces with a bat and then post that on Facebook if you put that on the weekly standard Facebook I bet we get a lot of engagement If you people would like to have a sense of community I don't know, go to church Join a bowling league Join a civic organization No, but don't do this fake community
Vic00:06:09If you want community, then do a real community Not this virtual, ridiculous It's going around I was so You didn't do it I was so tempted Vote Mattis I've never felt that way in my life I was so tempted Just keep Santa in the basement forever. Hostage. Forever.
JVL00:06:30Duct tape around its mouth.
Sonny00:06:31And then people come by, where did that Santa go? I don't know. You could dig a hole. You could dig a hole in your basement and put it down there. Put it down there. And just say, Santa puts the lotion in the basket. Or else it gets the hose again.
Vic00:06:42I was going to make a cask of Amantia. You outdid me, son. You could wall up your Santa.
JVL00:06:47I was going to wall in Santa the cask. You could do a series of pictures every day with Santa. Like I'm posting to Facebook. We've still got him. No. We're not letting him go.
Vic00:06:55We're not letting him go. And I'm also beginning to suspect there are several Santas going around, not just one. You understand what I'm saying? Oh, really?
JVL00:07:04Did you tape the candy cane in your door, too? You did it, didn't you? You put a candy cane in your window.
Vic00:07:09I'm sweating here. Let's move on. I had a terrible sort of annoying—
JVL00:07:12He wants to be loved so badly, doesn't he, Sonny?
Vic00:07:14I had a terrible, annoying commute this morning.
JVL00:07:16He really is pathetic.
Vic00:07:17I had a terrible, annoying commute this morning. You know who wouldn't have done that?
JVL00:07:21Captain Bill Dwyer. No. Captain Bill Dwyer would have done a code red on that Santa.
Vic00:07:25By the way, happy belated birthday to Captain Bill Dwyer was last week. I'm sure he saw that.
Sonny00:07:30How many commas did he fix? There you go. Take that. Take that, your beliefs.
Vic00:07:35So on our way up, Sonny and I had a lively discussion. Yes.
JVL00:07:38But I don't know if this is going to work, though, for the show because many of our listeners
Vic00:07:41from all over the world are not going to really care about I-66 and the new E-ZPass. What is it? Hot lanes? Hot lanes. Hot lanes.
JVL00:07:50We should do that just to annoy Jonah.
Vic00:07:53How so?
JVL00:07:54just because it's like a chinese buffet it's a subject about which oh i thought he had a strong
Vic00:07:59opinion on this no no but you know because you know at its height you know there's no limit to
Sonny00:08:04we should explain we should explain to people sorry so in in dc the very brief of it is the there's a east and west running highway that uh for a long time for many years from i think it was six to nine in the morning or something like that you could only use if you had two or more people in the car it's like the biggest main artery into the city uh except for 395 it's the second biggest second biggest and it was and it was restricted to people who carpool can you let
JVL00:08:30the professional like transportation guy talk about this please please do no i i'm sorry there are only two roads which carry traffic east west into the city only two of them okay route 50 which is a very small, low-grade suburban highway, which has a lot, not even a highway, which has a top speed limit of 50 in stretches, lots of, Vic, are you all right? Are you stroking out again?
Vic00:08:55It's very warm in here.
Sonny00:08:56Literally, he is like mopping sweat off his forehead.
JVL00:09:00Anyway, Route 50 and then I-66. And for years, I-66, the only east-west highway and artery in and out of the city during rush hour was HOV only, meaning you had to carpool if you wanted to take the highway. You had to have at least two people in the car. Which essentially meant that you, by deciding to move west of the city, you were deciding to become a carpooler. What's wrong?
Vic00:09:26Are you hearing me? I'm going in and out of my speakers go in and out. It's like I have no hearing in my left ear, but okay. Continue. But it looks like it's reading fine. Continue. Okay. Well, we'll just cut all that what was the time on that 11 20 no no no okay i'm fine anyway and this was a disaster
JVL00:09:44because and it was only two lanes this is the other thing this is one of the virginia has some of the worst transportation planning in all of america in fact this was this was done up by uh wall street journal over the weekend who did a giant infographic thing about i-95 and in the entire span of 95 which goes main to miami the single worst bottleneck anywhere my exit
Sonny00:10:11exit 160 on virginia and that sounds about right yeah and they said that this is well because
JVL00:10:18that's where it goes from four lanes to three right yep because why would you want to have four lanes throughout the entire dc metropolitan area and and when there are again only two roads leading north south four lanes to three going up or northbound southbound or both or from from south from north to south you go from four lanes to three and then shortly thereafter you go from three lanes to two and so you just have a radically insufficient carrying capacity yeah you do three
Sonny00:10:44395 does not get down or 95 does not get down to two lanes certainly it does not before fredericksburg
JVL00:10:50uh i didn't say right before fredericksburg but like so it's like another 20 miles after you go to three you go down to two okay yeah and don't forget fredericksburg is still very much in the metropolitan area everybody who lives in fredericksburg is commuting north yeah and the the metropolitan area well fredericksburg's kind of a weird point where
Sonny00:11:10you can go from you can go either to richmond or to dc from there anyway we're getting bogged down
JVL00:11:16but this is the point is that things are bad on i-66 so continue yes well so the problem is now
Vic00:11:23um you know people who are you know hov compliant they come in with two three four people whatever they they they go to they take 66 they take 66 you like that sunny here okay i'm done with the show i'm so done i can't do it anymore i can't do this anymore
Sonny00:11:53here's here's my impression of vick vick's like oh i'm gonna talk to the people like this i'm gonna talk all the way over here and i'm gonna yell and that'll almost make it right instead of just sitting instead of just instead of just just sitting and he's is there's literally buckets
Vic00:12:10of sweat pouring off his head right now by the way salty don't try that the kids don't try to bite the microphone phone at all i thought it would be a funny gag it was salty and that's concerning why is it salty congratulations you have hep c now as you can see i just got very worked up and animated over it speaking of animated over the weekend coco took the top spot with 26 million dollars i'm on a roll i'm gonna i should have taken off my coat i don't know how you you're all buttoned up in that wool you're making me sweat just staring at you in second place Justice League Justice League with 16 point 16 and a half million dollars that is great is that good I don't have 16 and a half million dollars that's got to be great it's only a 60% drop after three weeks
Sonny00:12:59it's only a 60% third weekend drop and Wonder
Vic00:13:02on its heels with 12 and a half million dollars in week four Wonder is going to be above Justice League this is my question my question to the two of you is does Justice League next week drop behind Wonder or
Sonny00:13:15even thor ragnarok probably won't drop behind thor ragnar i would be surprised if it dropped behind wonder but i wouldn't be shocked okay uh i'm sorry i'm still getting the taste of
Vic00:13:27uh uh it's gonna be fun stitching this together no no we should just as is as is that's good for the weddings uh this is the other people are gonna wonder about this this is great because this goes right into the disaster artist speaking of disasters speaking of disasters in 12th place but only in a handful of theaters, was The Disaster Artist. I think only Sonny saw The Disaster Artist. You're going to have to explain to us what it's about. I don't know how many people know The Room. You told me about The Room. I thought you were talking about the movie with Brie Larson.
Sonny00:13:58Yeah, Room. You thought it was a making of the movie Room.
Vic00:14:02Yeah, it's kind of interesting maybe. I don't know.
Sonny00:14:05So here this is. Go for it. Speaking of disasters, it was very funny getting this show started. We really just rolled right into, god damn, this is the worst. The Disaster Artist is about the making of the cult classic of The Room. The Room is a movie that defies description. It is much like The Matrix. No one can be told what The Room is. You have to see it for yourself. And if you have seen it, then you will be aware of what is going on in The Disaster Artist. But my question, honestly, is when you are sitting in a room with a studio exec and you're saying, I need $5 million to make this movie or $10 million to make this movie, the disaster artist, and you show them a Venn diagram of the United States population with the people who have seen The Room and also people who are fans of James Franco, is the overlap on this more than like a million people? I don't I don't know more than two million people. can't possibly be more than one percent of the population four million people let's say 3.5 to four million people anyway so the the disaster artist is about the making of this cult classic and it's become a cult classic because it was it was four-walled in hollywood that's industry speak that's an industry term uh for paying a theater to show your movie and uh the the film was made by this guy named Tommy Wiseau, who's like kind of an Eastern European immigrant whose background is very mysterious. This is all part of the appeal of the movie and kind of the making of story. He's an Eastern European of some sort who has apparently a limitless amount of funds, who has a bottomless bank account. Nobody knows. The money, nobody has any idea where it comes from. He's got these, he is friends with this guy, Greg Sestero, who is played by, in the movie, played by Dave Franco, Tommy Wiseau is played by James Franco. This guy, Greg, he's a model who wants to be an actor and who's really a very, very bad actor. And so Tommy and Greg, who are both very, very bad at acting, decide that instead of failing in Hollywood, they're going to make their own movie. And in the process of making the movie, they make all sorts of terrible mistakes. They buy their equipment instead of renting it. They hire a bunch of people who have no idea what they're doing. They hire a bunch of people who know what they're doing and then make fun of them while they're bumbling around the set, whatever. I don't know exactly how many people this movie appeals to. I kind of hoped JBL would see it just so I could get an idea of how it plays to somebody who hasn't seen The Room. But if you folks out there who have not seen The Room see The Disaster Artist, let me know how it plays for you. For me, it's great. I loved it. I'm part of the 1% who, like, enjoys kind of the ridiculousness of the room. Did you watch it at the time? Well, no. So it came out in 2003 and kind of built an audience over. I mean, it wasn't until 2007 or 2008 that it became, like, a thing. There was a story in Entertainment Weekly. There was a, you know, there were, like, lots of people talking about it. There was a making, there was a book about the making of that was co-written with Tom Bissell, who's like a very, you know, very smart writer who sat down with Greg Sestero and turned his idiocy into a book. I am curious to see how this plays for people. The way the film is structured is very smart. It's basically structured like a sports movie where you have a team of underdogs who like do training, montages, like all the stuff where they're trying to get work in Hollywood and trying to become, you know, real actors. And then they have setbacks and then the movie culminates and a kind of come-from-behind, last-minute victory. So the structure of the film itself, the structure of the disaster artist, makes a lot of sense as kind of a classic Hollywood archetype.
Vic00:18:07Right, that's how they would do it.
Sonny00:18:09How it will play to people who don't understand the references that are being shown on film, I don't know. Because it really is very much like watching a meme come to life. It's like watching a meme be brought to life. And if you don't know the meme, if you aren't familiar with the cultural milieu in which that takes place, I don't see how this works for people. I just don't understand it. So anyway, that is kind of-
Vic00:18:30They're counting on the millennials to-
Sonny00:18:32I guess. I mean, the millennials and the Gen Xers, again, this is a movie that has garnered its reputation through midnight screenings and through kind of passed around DVDs. It is number one on Amazon drama DVDs right now. So it's, it's, it's, it is, it is, it's a, you know, this is because people are trying to catch up. They're seeing this, this movie, The Disaster Artist. They want to, they want to get caught up and, you know, figure out what's going on.
Vic00:18:59When did you become aware of, I was not aware of it in 2003 when the movie came out. I became aware of it three days ago.
Sonny00:19:07Nobody was aware of this movie in 2003. It was, the only advertising for it was a billboard in Los Angeles. And, again, in show notes, if we do them this week, there's an Entertainment Weekly story that kind of, like, tracks the rise of this movie. And, like, so for, you know, you have an industry town like Los Angeles, and for weeks and months and years, people are seeing this billboard advertising The Room with a strange person's face on it. And it eventually kind of creates this kind of self-perpetuating cult, you know, fascination. And it wasn't, again, until 2007 or 2008 that it kind of broke out into the mainstream of cult fandom.
JVL00:19:47Do we still not know anything about Tommy Wiseau's background?
Sonny00:19:51To the best of my knowledge, we have no idea where he's really from. Somewhere in Eastern Europe? We have no idea where his money comes from. I don't think it's affected. It might be, but I don't think it's affected. He's not a good enough actor to affect it. The book, The Disaster Artist that was written, the Greg Sestero, Tom Bassell book, was kind of posited a, you know, maybe this is where Tommy comes from idea. And it's the sad story of like immigrants and abuse and he comes into money. But there's no reason to believe that this is any sort of 100% true concrete fashioning of the Tommy Wiseau story. I mean, it's a mystery.
Vic00:20:39But it sort of makes sense that this is a James Franco vehicle because it's kind of a James Franco thing, right?
Sonny00:20:45It is very much. And it's a great movie for James Franco where he gets to be kind of weird but also very actorly. And I think he's actually really good in it. I mean, he's really good in it, but he's only really good in it if, again, you understand what he's doing. Because if you don't understand what he's doing, if you have never seen the movie and if you've never seen any interviews with Lusso, you think he's just kind of mumbling and bumbling and stumbling and like slurring and kind of doing a bad Eastern European accent while wearing this absurd black wig. The whole thing is, again, it's very odd. But it works.
Vic00:21:16Yeah, no. And James Franco, obviously, you know, he's always keeping busy. He's not doing something on movie, TV, writing, stuff like that, soap operas, whatever. But you know who else are busy? HelloFresh customers. That's who. And HelloFresh loves that they wear their busyness as a badge of honor. While the holiday season can creep toward chaos, there's a festive hustle and bustle you should take time to enjoy. In that spirit, HelloFresh says go ahead, embrace the hustle and bustle. They'll be there to calm the chaos in the meantime. HelloFresh does the shopping, planning, and delivery, so all you have to do is hustle, bustle, and enjoy. 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. HelloFresh offers a wide variety of chef-curated recipes that change weekly. You won't spend all night in the kitchen because recipes only take 30 minutes. All the ingredients come pre-measured in handy labeled meal kits, so you know which ingredients go with which recipe. Feel confident when cooking HelloFresh with the simple recipes outlined on pictured step-by-step instruction cards. They offer three plans to choose from, classic, veggie, and family. HelloFresh is delivered right to your door in recyclable, insulated packaging. It's all for less than $10 a meal. I myself cook the Thai spiced meatballs, the adobo loco steak, and the Carolina barbecue chicken. What I loved about it is not having to stress over what's for dinner every night because that's something that's constantly on our minds. And I also like doing work because, you know, cooking and standing and cooking and chopping and everything else because I spend most of my day sitting at a desk. 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 and get $30 off your first week. Go to HelloFresh.com and use promo code SUBSTANDARD30 at checkout. So, cult classics. This is what this falls under, doesn't it? The category of cult classics.
Sonny00:23:15Yeah. I mean, the first thing we need to discuss, I think, is how do you define a cult classic? That's a good question. JBL, you're a big into defining things. How would you define a cult classic?
JVL00:23:31So, I have a lot of questions about this, and I was hoping we could sort through it together.
?00:23:36Yeah.
JVL00:23:38On the one hand, do cult classics have to be bad?
Sonny00:23:43No. I don't think that that is, I don't think that's the case at all.
JVL00:23:48Okay.
Sonny00:23:49Do they have to have a small audience? Well, I think they have to initially have a small audience.
JVL00:23:57For instance. Okay. The Princess Bride was at one point in time a cult classic, but then its audience grew so gigantic that it's now just sort of a beloved classic. Right. Is cult status something which can be won and lost?
Sonny00:24:17I think so. I don't think, for instance, the Princess Bride could at this point in time be considered a cult classic. Does it have to be quotable?
JVL00:24:27A great number of cult classics have lines which are instantly recognizable. You know, it's just a flesh wound. That rabbit's dynamite. Inconceivable. I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubblegum. Have you ever been in a Turkish prison, Bobby? At this point, I ask a practical question.
Sonny00:24:45I'm sorry. Wait. You think Airplane was ever a cult classic? I believe for a short amount of time it was.
JVL00:24:52Keep in mind, though. What was Airplane's box office? It was one of the top grossing films of 1980.
Sonny00:24:59Airplane was a basic cable classic. That's a different thing.
Vic00:25:02Okay. I think, though, there is the- Strong men also cry. Thank you. The commercial box office aspect is important to cult classic status, I think. For example, I was looking here, and I have two for you. One is Office Space, which at the box office, domestic, totaled 10.8 million. And the other one, and here's one that-
Sonny00:25:21I'm surprised it was that high.
Vic00:25:22And then the other one, yes, and the other one that may no longer be considered a cult classic, but that's up for discussion, is Shawshank Redemption, which in the theaters
JVL00:25:29only did $28 million on a $25 million budget. So both of those movies, intensely quotable. Yes. Yeah. So many cult classics are like that. They have a language which people love and which people cling to, but not all movies. Does The Room have anything like that?
Sonny00:25:50They're tearing me apart. Yeah. There are definitely lines from the room that are, but again, by aficionados. Like, yeah, I don't know that that is broken through to the main street.
JVL00:25:59Faces of Death is a cult classic, I think. Right, Vic?
Vic00:26:05Yeah. I mean, in its own snuffish way. In its own snuffish way. In its own snuffish way.
JVL00:26:08This is, what I'm getting at is, I have an idea for an actual definition here, but all of these other things uh are aspects of it which are not not even necessary let alone sufficient they are they are tangential to what makes a movie a cult classic and so i'm interested in
Sonny00:26:31what you boys okay think my definition of a cult classic is a film that has a small but intense following that is like the definition of a cult right that is like so if you look at a movie like say uh rocky horror picture show that's a movie that developed a small audience that loved the film for it loved the film very intensely for a long period of time now whether or not rocky horror has transcended that i but i don't really think it has i don't i don't think it has i think
JVL00:27:02it remains a small cult classic it's become enormously problematic i think well there's
Sonny00:27:07there's that's a different issue because of tim curry yeah yeah uh a movie like pink my gender is not a costume a movie like pink flamingos is remains a cult classic john waters all john waters is basically all john waters is is cult that's true uh and and some so the since we're since i mentioned both rocky horror and john waters we should ask is camp a necessity for it to be cult and i would say or are most camp classics just cult classics because camp is by
JVL00:27:38itself probably not right i mean when we think like i think so monty python on the holy grail is the cult classic of our youth right victorino i mean this was the definition of the cult movie for us it's not campy you could make an argument that the big lebowski is a cult classic the big
Sonny00:27:56the big lebowski was was 100 a cult classic is not a cult class not anymore right it's just a
JVL00:28:01it's now looked on as in fact the coen brothers best movie probably yeah yeah uh i don't know
Sonny00:28:07spinal tap is not but again can't be right this is but this is i i i don't know the numbers off the top of my head but spinal tap has always been a relatively popular film i think it did relatively well in the box office or maybe not i don't i don't know and certainly quotable lines yeah i mean i've always thought of spinal tap as a i don't know i think this is so what i do you think that comedies are specifically very well positioned to become cult classics because of
JVL00:28:35the quotable and yes well first of all because comedies and comedies rarely do very well at the outset right comedies can take a very long time to find an audience can take years for a comedy to find an audience uh when we were i i think of victorino the three biggest cult classics of our adolescence okay monty python on the holy grail amazon women on the moon yes but i didn't see it
Vic00:28:59I have no idea what that is.
JVL00:29:00It's a series of sketches woven around essentially a late night showing of a B-movie on a UHF channel in which they bring out, so you get three minutes of the B-movie and then they go to five minutes of fake commercials. I got confused. I was thinking of Earth Girls Are Easy.
Vic00:29:17No, the different film. Sorry. Different film.
JVL00:29:20And Kentucky Fried Movie, which are, that and Amazon Women of the Moon are-
Sonny00:29:25UHF. Yes. Is in that. In fact, Kentucky Fried Movie.
Vic00:29:29Yes, Kentucky Fried Movie, speaking of it, as we discussed in our micro episode two days ago about a character, the same character in two different movies, Kentucky Fried Movie had the same guy in two different movies, that one in Airplane, and the guy was the host of Point Counterpoint. He's the guy who says, they bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into, I say let them crash, and he plays the same character in Kentucky Fried Movie. So, there you go. That's funny. I would say the other thing about cult classics is even if they're not meant to be funny, if they're unintentionally funny, that that adds to it.
Sonny00:30:04Right. Well, so this is so this is The Room, Zardoz, Zardoz, I think, is has kind of transitioned into that. But that that's a much smaller category. I don't think that that is like a the unintentionally funny movie is like a it in its in its almost impossible to capture. I mean, look, again, my primary definition of cult classic is a movie that was mostly ignored upon release that developed an audience either through midnight screenings or at home. And for instance, a movie like Donnie Darko is a very good example of this. It grossed about a million bucks in the box office and then became one of the first really big DVD hits once it was kind of available for college students and high school students to pick up. and kind of pick over. And that is a movie that is funny and has some good lines in it, but it is also just kind of weird and totally understandable why it didn't find an audience in theaters.
Vic00:31:06Yeah. In terms of talking about commercially unsuccessful but fantastic movies, I don't think I would call it a cult classic, but almost famous, right? That did terrible. Remember, we lamented this at the time. You and I saw it. We thought it was one of the best movies ever.
JVL00:31:20I don't think it has a cult audience outside of you. Oh, jeez.
Sonny00:31:23Me and Robert Messenger. Almost Famous is pretty popular, but I don't think... I don't get enough of that. See, that is a movie I would never consider a cult classic. Just because it has a modestly sized audience of people who are like, yeah, that's a pretty good movie.
JVL00:31:39So I have a question about the pace of production of cult movies. Okay. From my vantage point, it looks like we have many fewer cult movies than we did 20 years ago. but this could be just because I'm past the age where cult movies take hold and I just can't see those things. The last cult movie I can see coming out is probably something like Donnie Darko. I can recognize Donnie Darko as having been a cult movie and I don't see, but it seems like it used to be back when Vic and I were kids that there were tons of cult movies and there were always new movies coming out being added to the cult and that the pace of that has slowed down. And I ask you if this is true, because if it is true, I have a theory as to why.
Sonny00:32:27I don't, I, it again kind of goes back to how you define these things, because I, my theory on.
JVL00:32:40We're having Mike, Mike discipline problems today.
Sonny00:32:45Do you want me to do a Vic? Are you, are you done with that? Can you, do you really need that? I'm trying not to cough into the microphone. I would rather you moved away from the mic and cough.
Vic00:32:54Okay, I'll do it back. I'll just talk from back here. Sonny, it's hard when you're not working with professionals.
Sonny00:33:01I would suggest that there is no such thing as cult anymore in the internet age because everything is instantly accessible to everyone. So once a movie becomes popular, it no longer becomes hard to acquire or hard to see. And if something is not hard to acquire, if you don't have to go to a midnight screening, if you don't have to get a Samizdat DVD passed down of Evil Dead 2 from your VHS, you know, from your older brother's degenerate friends, can you really have cult anymore?
JVL00:33:37I would take this a step further, which is that the reason we had more cult films was because we had a monoculture. And there was this big shared monoculture, and when it fragmented occasionally, people would latch on to one of those shards, and they would then turn that into the cult classic. Today, the shared culture is dissolving. It's all shards.
Sonny00:34:01Yes.
JVL00:34:02There is no monoculture, and so everything is, in its own way, almost by definition, a cult product.
Sonny00:34:08Yes. I think this is very smart and a very, very true point. Once you have a culture where the most popular TV show is seen by less than 10% of the population on a weekly basis, less than, I mean, 5%. Is there anything that averages 15 million viewers a week, really? I don't watch TV. Big, big viewers. No, but I mean, like...
JVL00:34:31No, I'm sure that the number one TV show averages, like, 20 million viewers.
Sonny00:34:34But even, like, a movie... Point taken. A movie that grosses $300 million is seen by maybe 10% of the population at best. And a $300 million grossing film is a huge hit. It's an enormous hit. It's like one of the five biggest grossing movies of the year.
JVL00:34:49You look back on this, like 50 years ago, half of America went to the movies every weekend.
Sonny00:34:54All right. So I do think that there is a very serious point that nothing is, well, everything can be cult, kind of.
JVL00:35:06Which means that nothing is cult.
Sonny00:35:07Which means that nothing is cult.
Vic00:35:08The only everybody's special, the nobody's special. I will tell you my favorite, I was thinking about movies that I like that. Are you going to rank them? No, I just have one cult classic, and my favorite is Flash Gordon from 1980. And I didn't. Aaron Gray. No, no, that's Buck Rogers. The one with the queen? Melody Anderson.
Sonny00:35:27The one with the queen soundtrack? Yes.
Vic00:35:29Fantastic. I saw that in the theater. I was seven, and I remember thinking, wow, this, I remember, you know what I said? this is better than star wars because it's more fresh in your mind and i think later that summer i probably saw empire strikes back and then that you know argument was settled but i mean again
Sonny00:35:44this is another this is another movie that i don't know can qualify as a cult classic because it was like a big movie at the time it was i went to this is why i looked into it it was a big movie at the
Vic00:35:54time and it is it is a camp class yeah and it was totally um you know uh uh i mean the critics
Sonny00:36:01destroyed it obviously and you know the showgirls we had showgirls and the discussion in the discussion leading up to this episode is showgirls so showgirls is definitely a cult classic insofar as it is a movie that was loved it was mostly it was it was a modest bomb it was kind of ignored in theaters because it had the nc-17 and then it developed a uh a a very small but intense and loyal following um in large part because of its camp value because it was it was you know absurd and kind of kitschy and and you know filled with nudity but I don't think the people who were most into it were that into the specific kind of nudity in this movie if you catch my drift but my point is but my point is like it is like that is almost certainly a cult classic right like
Vic00:36:54I saw that in the theater
Sonny00:36:57in Shirley five times
Vic00:36:59i sat in the back row with my trench coat and sunglasses no no no i remember i i went with my uh housemate at the time jose and i thought and they were they were very strict about um making sure kids under 17 were not it was nc-17 it was the first is that right it was the
Sonny00:37:17it was the first nc-17 movie to get a wide release yeah it might have been the first nc-17
JVL00:37:24movie i believe they they invented the nc-17 rating right around that time well they they
Sonny00:37:29invented the nc-17 before that when it was like the way like you replaced x with the nc yeah do you remember henry and june like clerks was supposed to get an nc-17 uh in 93 or 94 whenever that came out and uh uh and they didn't they like cut some they cut some stuff would you boys
JVL00:37:46consider religious movies as cult class i mean different cult different audience but like so So when I was looking up The Room, which is number one on the Amazon DVD drama list, number two is The Shack. Get it? Not The Room. The Shack. The Shack starring Sam Worthington, who you may remember as the leading man from the highest grossing movie of all time, who is now starring in a little Christian movie because Hollywood is unbelievably fickle. The Shack grossed like $50 million at the box office.
Sonny00:38:18I don't... That's not a cult. Which is not a... That's not a cult. It's not a ton of money, but it's not, it's also not, like, it was not ignored. It did not fail. Okay. It received reviews in all the major outlets. I, like, I do think that, well, what about, like, something like God's Not Dead or?
JVL00:38:35Yeah, well, I'm saying there are, I'm sure there are a ton of Christian-type movies, many of which are direct-to-DVD, direct-to-video, that are invisible to us. Yeah, yeah. Right? That find an audience. Would we count that as? Yeah, sure.
Vic00:38:46You could call it a Christian cult classic or something. I don't know.
Sonny00:38:50Well, this is like, somebody... Victorino will play. Thank you.
JVL00:38:54That's very funny.
Sonny00:38:54I'm back. On Twitter, somebody described... My lips are burning. Somebody described Titanic to me as having a mega cult following. And I was like, you realize that this is a total contradiction in terms. It defeats the whole purpose. You cannot have a mega cult. Then it's just a church.
Vic00:39:09Yes. I mean, like, then it... A big one, too.
Sonny00:39:12Like, Titanic was never a cult film. It just had a... There was undoubtedly a dedicated... Oh, there was a dedicated... smaller you know core group that went to go see it 10 times in fact speaking of that there was a
Vic00:39:24great article back in the day in the new york observer when i used to read the pink broadsheets right and uh and a reporter had just went online to see the regarding the titanic phenomenon and get these two girls who are like 13 or 14 and while waiting in line they reenacted the scene between, you know, the two leads and one's on bended knee. They do the whole thing over and over. They couldn't get enough of it.
Sonny00:39:50That in itself, I mean, it's cultish, but it's obviously huge. Right, it's not like a cult classic. No, no, no.
Vic00:39:57You guys gonna rank them cult movies? No, my only other thought was I was comforted to know I wasn't one of the only people who actually liked Flash Gordon growing up when I saw the movie Ted with Mark Wahlberg. Oh, yeah, that's right. And there's a whole homage to Sam J. Jones, and he's at a party and this whole thing with Flash Gordon. I said, oh, this is great. I liked it. My wife had never seen Flash Gordon. But the thing is, we have plenty of time to discuss this, when I was growing up, as you know, JVL, we got a VCR, I think, when I was 10. Yes.
JVL00:40:28At the doctor's house. Yes, we did. It was big. You got a VCR in like 1972.
Vic00:40:32No, no, no, no, no, 81 or 82.
JVL00:40:35DARPA was still testing the VCRs when you guys got them.
Vic00:40:37And we were communicating with other homes that had computers. Uh, anyway, uh, it was an R big RCA, um, uh, VCR and top loader from a top down and you got to even know what this means, Sonny. Oh yeah.
Sonny00:40:51I had a top loader and they would ask you when I was watching cartoons in England in the mid eighties because he was a baby.
Vic00:40:58Uh, and you, they, they let you, if you, since they purchased it for God knows how much money, um, and we purchased up in Bricktown, uh, they, you could choose two movies. Oh, right. You get to take two movies.
JVL00:41:10This is before the sell-through window was invented. Yeah. The movies to buy were like $400 or something.
Vic00:41:17So you got two free movies. I have no idea what the selections were, but when my parents came home, the two movies they got were Flash Gordon and Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee. And as kids, so as like nine, ten-year-olds, watching obviously Flash Gordon a million times, and that's why I love Flash Gordon, But Enter the Dragon was a lot worse for a tenure. There was nudity, heroin, the drug use, and the violence. Ride the Dragon?
JVL00:41:48Enter the Dragon? It should be called Ride the Dragon.
Vic00:41:51Exactly. No, there was a lot of that, and I didn't know what they were making. They were cooking up the drugs. And Bruce Lee's sister commits suicide with a shard of glass in her stomach. It was terrible. And the worst is, people who are familiar with Enter the Dragon, The death of Jim Kelly, who was the black martial arts star from the 70s. I can't believe he agreed to this. Not only was he brutally murdered, he was bludgeoned to death, and then he was lynched. And then they cut the rope and he went into a vat of acid. And I saw this as a 10-year-old. It was horrible. It is, on many levels. But anyway. But at least your parents loved you.
Sonny00:42:27Okay.
Vic00:42:28But again, a great Flash Gordon, by the way. Not only Sam G. Jones and Melody Anderson, but Max von Sydow, who's still working. I shouldn't mention his name, I guess.
JVL00:42:37He was working until five minutes ago. I did mention Jim Neighbors in that match game episode.
Vic00:42:42Sorry. Oh, God, you killed him. And Timothy Dalton was in Flash Gordon as Prince Barret. I should have said. Okay, so do we have any other thoughts? We're leading up. You know, we're all with Sonny's forehead pressed against. Sonny, I wouldn't put your forehead against that microphone for me. You don't know what people have done to that microphone phone. Somebody could have put their mouth on it. Okay. There's nothing to add. And no other thoughts? No. Okay. All right. Spirit of the Week. Sonny brought the Spirit of the Week. Thank you.
Sonny00:43:14Yeah, it's the old Forrester Prohibition style. You guys love it. We love it. Just go buy it.
JVL00:43:18Moose product. Boy, you are really. That's an electric line reading there.
Sonny00:43:22Yeah.
Vic00:43:24Drink it. Drink it, Rummy. Corrections, additions, anything? Instant correction. Yeah, sure.
JVL00:43:30showgirls was not the first nc-17 oh benny and june and benny and june henry i wish benny and
Vic00:43:37june was no i just henry and june was vectorino very good call yeah it was like with fred ward as uh henry miller uh i know i know my i know my nc-17 movies um okay don't question me
Sonny00:43:51uh wikipedia doesn't say when was it when was it introduced the nc-17 nc-17 introduced in
JVL00:43:58September 1990 for Henry and June, which was previously going to be an X movie.
Vic00:44:05Last week, listeners might have thought I was stroking out. I said stroking out when I was trying to ask if actress Cobie Smulders is Maria Hill. Instead, I said Cormie Kummer. Believe it or not, that's a real name. Robert Messenger knows him. He's a food writer. I've seen him on TV, too. He's a senior editor at The Atlantic. And he was kind enough to chime in on a Twitter thread saying, yes, that's me. I'm just glad it wasn't a porn star. That would have been embarrassing. Okay. That's it? Wow. All right. Yeah, good show. That was one of the most wheels-off shows ever. That's all the time we are giving to this episode. Questions, comments?
JVL00:44:47If only people could hear the unedited version. Because I'm going to chop the crap out of this thing.
Vic00:44:54Questions, comments? I know. Questions, comments, compliments? Tweet us at Victorina Mattis at Sonny Bunch.
Sonny00:45:01At JV Last. Follow me on Instagram.
Vic00:45:05Ooh. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in substandard under podcast, and we're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time.
Sonny00:45:24It's really going to be too bad when people don't get to hear
Vic00:45:26all the...
JVL00:45:28It's going to be a 20-minute episode once I finish cutting it.
Vic00:45:31Yeah, there was a lot going on there, including the technical difficulties.
Sonny00:45:34The best part was when it actually took us two minutes to get the show started. I swear to God. It was like Vic was reading lines like he was Tommy Wiseau trying to do his first scene in the room. I couldn't.
Vic00:45:45I just couldn't do it.
Sonny00:45:47I couldn't. I did not do it. I did not hit her.
Vic00:45:50Oh, hi, Mark.
Sonny00:45:50Oh, hi, Mark. That was literally what he was doing for just two minutes. We should.
Vic00:45:54You know what? Maybe there'd be an uncut version, one of these. That would be very interesting.
Sonny00:45:58Maybe there should just be no show.
Vic00:46:00I'm all for that.
Sonny00:46:02Vic really wants to quit, by the way. I do. Everyone out there.
Vic00:46:05I'm taking a two-week vacation during the holidays.
Sonny00:46:08If you want to get at him, if you want to get at Vic, just be like, hey, don't quit.
Vic00:46:11And encourage me to quit. Please encourage me because I've had it.
JVL00:46:14I'd have nothing else to add. In other news, though. Okay, please. If you will just tell Vic that you really like him and you don't want him to quit and apply some peer pressure, he'll not want to disappoint you, and so he won't.
Sonny00:46:24This is actually true.
JVL00:46:25he's the most flexible person he's very sensitive to what other people think about him vote mattis
Vic00:46:30uh i want to give a special okay as an outtake here i want to give a special outtake to our friends connor and ruth sweeney sonny you know connor sweeney they live in england now your old stomping grounds and they listen to the substandard every week across the pond uh connor recently told me when he was in town that his wife likes to listen in bed before she goes to sleep and he says oftentimes you know we're right there in the middle between them in the bed as she listens to it so uh on that note i just wanted to say to ruth uh good night sweet dreams and i hope you wake to a pleasant morning that's not creepy is it oh i'm sure it's fine
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