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#103. The Substandard on Black Panther, Quinoa, and Career Advice
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
Dudes Chatting — Quinoa disaster and Xbox setup chaos: Vic opens with a graphic account of a digestive catastrophe caused by quinoa and kombucha the night before recording, which he describes in more detail than anyone wanted. JVL and Sonny then describe the ordeal of reconnecting an Xbox 360 in the studio, a multi-step nightmare involving wrong cables and an unresponsive TV.
Dudes Chatting — Black Panther cultural context and career advice: JVL fields listener Q&A debunking the media claim that Black Panther is "the first black superhero movie" (citing Blade, Spawn, Steel, and others), then argues that whatever the claim's historical accuracy, the economic case for Hollywood making more Black-audience-targeted films is now irrefutable given the opening weekend. Separately, Sonny answers an aspiring entertainment journalist's request for career advice with the blunt recommendation to "do literally anything else" — the industry is contracting, the pay is poor, and the leverage is gone.
Box Office: Black Panther opens at #1 with a massive $108 million domestic debut.
Reviews: Gene (Vic) reviews Black Panther with a sustained series of cat puns, ultimately awarding it 3 stars. Sonny delivers a detailed analysis: Black Panther lands in the second quartile of MCU films — well-made, culturally important, but not quite top-tier Marvel. His most pointed observation is that Killmonger is "100% right" as a character and functions as the film's true moral center, while Wakanda's history of "cowardly isolationism followed by gentrifying neoliberalism" undermines T'Challa's heroism. JVL largely agrees.
Spirit of the Week: Filibuster Dual Cask Boondoggler bourbon.
Full transcript
Sonny00:00:00Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Substandard, sponsored by Tripping.com.
Vic00:00:20I'm Victor Matus, along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. I'd like to remind you TheSubstandard is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Just look at our podcast and search for Substandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. Gentlemen, how are we today, Thursday? JVL. I'm very tired. What's happening?
JVL00:00:40You both have daughters. Yes. Do you, are your daughters daddy's girls?
Vic00:00:45No. No, but she knows when, if she wants something, she'll know to be adorable, and then I'll give her whatever it is she wants. I'm sure at some point it'll be like the car keys. You know, or here's my wallet, you know, but that hasn't happened yet, but I know when it happens I'll be totally pliable for that. So, anyway, why? What's your situation, JVL?
JVL00:01:05We're in a bad sleep place in the house, and my girls are both having bad dreams. About what? Bad, bad dreams. The five-year-old about alligators and crocodiles, and the seven-year-old about floods. And so I've spent the last couple nights literally just ping-ponging between my girls, beds, like, you know, Daddy, come and cuddle with me, I'm so scared I can't feel so, go in, lie down with her, she falls asleep, I get up, I head back towards my room, I get, like, intercepted in the hallway by the other one,
Sonny00:01:37Daddy, I'm having bad dreams, come on.
JVL00:01:39And it's, I don't know, so, like, I'm, you know, climbing up to the top bunk of a children's bunk bed set, which, thankfully, has not collapsed yet, but surely that's coming, and it's just not a lot of sleep.
Sonny00:01:49But they have so much more room for activities with the bunk beds.
JVL00:01:53Yeah, well, there's that.
Sonny00:01:54The stepbrothers joke, does anyone? Oh, yeah. No, I haven't seen it. No, I haven't seen it. It's great, you guys, everyone should see Stepbrothers. Instead of talking about Black Panther, we should talk about Stepbrothers for an hour. Okay, done, done. Sorry, listeners, that's all. I'm tired, that's all. How are you, Vic?
Vic00:02:07I'm fine. Sonny, first, though.
Sonny00:02:11I'm great. Okay. I'm fine, actually. I'm not great. I wouldn't say I'm great. But I did get a chance to re-watch Ex Machina and Sunshine this week, because I'm getting ready for Annihilation.
Vic00:02:26Which Sunshine is this Sunshine?
Sonny00:02:28Sunshine is the Danny Boyle, the Danny Boyle, directed by Danny Boyle, written by Alex Garland, starring Cillian Murphy and Chris Evans.
Vic00:02:38Sci-fi?
Sonny00:02:39They're in space. They're in space. There's a monster in space. It's alien. But they're not heading towards the sun. Well, they're traveling to the sun to restart it. Oh, yes, yes. With a giant nuclear bomb. That's right. And the first 80% of the film, which is, again, kind of focused on the getting to the sun part of it, is really good. Like, good, interesting, soft, hard sci-fi. I wouldn't say it's, like, hard sci-fi. There's, like, a lot of silly things that happen in it.
JVL00:03:03They show nipples, but no genitals.
Sonny00:03:05Yes. Okay. Yeah. Sure. Get it? Soft, soft sci-fi. I get it. Oh, I get it. It's a porn sci-fi joke. It's very clever. It's very clever. It's very clever. Edgy. But then the last 20 minutes turns into, like, a space monster movie, and it's, like, it is annoyingly bad.
JVL00:03:21So I really wanted to see that movie, except for the space monster stuff, because, like, everything about it looked unique and interesting, except then the trailer was like, oh, and there's a space monster, at which point I was like, I've seen that movie 50 times. Why do I need that?
Sonny00:03:34Yeah, it's unfortunate. And I also, like I said, I also rewatched Ex Machina, which I really love, and is, like, I think is, I don't think it's underrated or anything. I think it's actually properly rated. People rate it very highly. But it is my favorite movie about AI and, like, the kind of different versions of the Turing test, because it was kind of pitched to people as, like, oh, it's the Turing test. You know, can she? Can he tell if she's a robot? Well, that's not actually what it is. It is actually an AI box test. It's a movie about the true test of intelligence, being able to trick someone into letting you out of a box when they know that you shouldn't let them out of the box. When you're only, the only thing you've been told is, like, you can't let this thing out of the box. How long will it take the AI to get you to let it out of the box? So anyway, it's fascinating.
Vic00:04:24I have not seen that. Have you seen? Ex Machina? I have not. It looks great. I want to. People love it. I get confused, though, between Ex Machina and Existence. No, that's something else. Jennifer Jason Leigh? I think so. Which one is the one with drugs? That's a Cronenberg movie? Maybe. There's one that's a dark, deep, drugs movie. I think you and I saw that ourselves. Maybe. I don't know.
Sonny00:04:45Are you thinking of Lost Highway?
Vic00:04:46No, I'm not. I feel like Existence and Lost Highway came out about the same time. They're sort of the same thing. So, Annihilation is coming up. It is a book, right? Wait, what is Annihilation? Is this an anime?
Sonny00:04:56Is this an X-Men movie? No, Annihilation is... Oh, come on. It's a joke. X-Men Annihilation. It sounds right, doesn't it? It does. Go ahead. It does sound like a terrible X-Men movie. It follows Apocalypse. No, it's based on a book that is very mediocre, but a lot of people really love, about an expedition of scientists that go into this area called Area X, and it is alien, possibly, or something. Whatever has happened in this area that has been quarantined off from the rest of the world. And the Earth is changing. Things are decaying rapidly, and humans are becoming monster creatures. Yes.
Vic00:05:34There was the alligator with shark teeth. Right, right. And Natalie Portman firing a machine gun.
Sonny00:05:39No.
Vic00:05:40No, it's Natalie Portman firing a machine gun, and Oscar Isaac. It's the same plot as Suicide Squad, right?
JVL00:05:44I mean, there's an area that's quarantined off, and everything's decaying, and there are people being turned into monsters, and a special team has to go in and save the world.
Sonny00:05:53Yes, right. It's Alex Garland's version of Suicide Squad. Okay, okay. Good.
Vic00:05:56So that's what you've been up to. How about you, Victorino? Well, over the weekend, it was my son's birthday. That's right. Yes, yes. A decade of dominance. A decade of dominance. He asked for something, and Kate relented, and so he got the-
JVL00:06:12Lego edition, home record edition, Millennium Falcon.
Vic00:06:16And Xbox.
JVL00:06:18Happy birthday to you.
Vic00:06:20Xbox 360, because- Xbox 360 or Xbox One? Did you get his uncle to hook it up to the TV for you? I had to get it. I called a technician, and- The Geek Squad from Best Buy. The Geek Squad, or like my mother-in-law, who, by the way, JVL, says hello to you, because she heard on the podcast, you asked if she listened to the podcast. Please tell them I said hello. She will go for her computer to- She'll go to, for her computer, she'll go to the computer lab if she has problems. A computer lab? Yeah, like they exist still. Do you remember in the olden days? In the old days, like in the 80s, 90s, like if you had an issue with your Apple, like with your- Your Mac, your Macintosh, or your 2C, you could always go to one of these stores that were like computer people. Oh, yes.
JVL00:07:02Computer people? I still see these in small, dying towns throughout the industrial world.
Vic00:07:07And for the longest time, she would go there to bring her Apple Cube. Remember the Cube? Oh, yeah. The Mac. The Mac Cube. Yes, the Mac Cube. But there are limitations on that Cube. And it was such a modern-looking thing, like that was going to be the thing. And then, of course, they moved on from there.
JVL00:07:23Johnny Ivey did such a great job designing that. Everything about this Cube computer is so specific and precise. You look at all the angles. We were, at Apple, we decided to design a CPU that's a perfect box. And when you look at the angles, they're actually 90 degrees from every other angle. It's magic. That was a very, a very good, who was that who was just here?
Vic00:07:49We had a special guest.
JVL00:07:50Special guest, Johnny Ivey.
Vic00:07:51Very exciting. Thank you, Johnny Ivey, for explaining this.
JVL00:07:55He's the head of design at Apple. Apple, never mind. All right. I don't want to spoil the joke.
Vic00:07:58So he won it specifically because of Lord of the Rings, the game which is only on 360 and not on 1. It's a Lego Lord of the Rings.
Sonny00:08:05And Xbox One is the new one, right? Yes. I'm a PlayStation guy myself. All these Xbox systems.
Vic00:08:10I've never had that. I think the last thing I had to hook up like that was a ColecoVision. So, you know, and of course my dad did that. So this was okay except for it's, you know, I'm using the HDMI cord if you want to get technical. So I take out the Blu-ray player and I connect the Xbox to the HDMI. I know there's an audio. You could just do it on the side. But it says for high def. I was like, oh, I don't know. I better do high def. So I've been using the HDMI cable for that.
JVL00:08:33And so you then have to unplug that to replug in your Blu-ray player. No, now I have both because we have two outlets in the TV for HDMI.
Vic00:08:40You have two ports. I can't believe you discovered the second HDMI port. I did.
Sonny00:08:44And one of them is gold. Where do you put the cable box HDMI?
Vic00:08:50Right next to it.
Sonny00:08:52Do you have three inputs?
Vic00:08:53Yes. Oh, the other one is like not even. So there's the cable. There's a cable box from Verizon Fios that's connected to whatever it is, like those five things that go in the back of the video.
Sonny00:09:03So you use component video for the cable box. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.
JVL00:09:06Are you drunk? You're using component video?
Vic00:09:11I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just saying yes. I'm actually not sure.
Sonny00:09:15This has been a great podcast from 2007, you guys. How are the New England Patriots doing against the New York football Giants?
JVL00:09:24So we're going to wrap the show early because I'm going to go over to your house and fix this crap because it's ridiculous and I'm offended on behalf of your eyes. You are making your children grow up watching low-definition, scaled-up. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, because what's happening is your TV is scaling up the pictures.
Vic00:09:40No, no, no, that's not true at all. To get to the Xbox, it's AV1 or AV2. Component 1 is for the Blu-ray.
Sonny00:09:49Just stop.
JVL00:09:50Stop.
Sonny00:09:51I'm going to go over to your house and fix this. You run your Blu-ray through a component video? No, Blu-ray is through the HDMI. Oh my God, this is...
Vic00:09:58I don't know what's happening here. I will just fix it this afternoon.
Sonny00:10:00I don't know what's happening. I mean, honestly, you should ask... I just see holes and I plug it. I just stick it in there. You just need... See, this will work. You need to ask people for help. You need to ask people for help because you're helpless. You're like a child... Well, it's working. ...wandering around in a mall saying, Mommy, Mommy, and then everyone looks at the child and they're like, that poor kid has lost his mother. Nobody does anything. Nobody does anything. You are that child.
Vic00:10:23I got lost in a mall, too. That's a true story. Well, I was... Anyway, I was trying to purposely get lost and then I really got lost. Okay, so... But my big thing with the Xbox is the joystick controller. It's not like... The joystick. ...called a joystick. The joystick. It's not Atari 2600 with a button and a stick. There's like... I don't know how many buttons on that thing. How do you play... Twelve?
Sonny00:10:43Twelve? What's your high score on Pac-Man on the Xbox 360, Vic?
Vic00:10:48That's the game I would get. That's the game I would get. So that's what's happening there. Also, if I could just switch gears here for... A moment. The other thing is, last week, and you mentioned this as well on Twitter, I went to True Food Kitchen. Have you ever gone there? Oh, yeah. How did that work out afterwards? That was very... That was very... What was that like? Let me try to eat healthy, because this is the thing I'm doing now. As you know, I'm trying to eat healthy.
JVL00:11:14For Lent.
Vic00:11:15For Lent, as we mentioned yesterday. Remember, he's given up gluttony for Lent. I had... I had... I tried a teriyaki tofu quinoa bowl with a... A bottle of kombucha.
JVL00:11:28You might as well coat your lower intestine with Teflon.
Vic00:11:33Okay. So, but that night, it was Fat Tuesday that I went, so that night, I did go to the Palm. By coincidence, I don't go that often, but I had gone to the Palm and got a steak, and I think that counteracted the movement, shall we say, of the quinoa tofu kombucha, and it came to a standstill. So... I haven't gone to the... Wait, wait, wait.
Sonny00:11:52I haven't gone to the bathroom since. Okay. Wait, wait. So... I'm just at a station. I'm at a station right now. It's like that Simpsons scene where the doctor's trying to force all the little microbes through the door, and they get jammed there. You could die at any moment. At any moment. Your bowels could just fall out.
Vic00:12:08At any moment, because I'm still eating. Question. I'm still eating. Question.
Sonny00:12:11Vic's abdomen, it's rock hard. No, it's... Question. Yes, Sonny. So, just to be clear, you have started your gluttony-free diet with your lunch at the Nonsense Health Food restaurant.
Vic00:12:22Yes, yes, because it was very healthy.
Sonny00:12:24Which you followed up with dinner. At the Palm, where you had a steak. Well, that was Fat Tuesday, so it was before Lent. It was the night before Lent.
JVL00:12:30He had to. It's in the Bible. It's in the Bible. Sonny, since you're not a man of faith, you don't understand that it's in the Bible that on Fat Tuesday, you go to the Palm and have a porterhouse. It's in Leviticus. You have to have the 48-ounce. I know. I have the New York strip.
Sonny00:12:43If you don't eat at least three pounds of red meat, and Moab said to She-Ra, thou shalt have the rib-eye and shrimp cocktail. And the Lord saith, if you order a turkey, you shall have the rib-eye. But above medium rare, I shall smite thee with my vengeance.
Vic00:13:00Do you remember in The Simpsons, and Lisa has the science project that her mother helps her with the digestive system, and it's actually interactive where the food goes through the mouth and out, and then Nelson Muntz says, hey, I think I just solved the world hunger crisis, and he grabs the bottom and stuffs it in the mouth, and the whole thing explodes on the bus. It's basically what's happening. I will end on this note, which is one of a substandard listener, Timothy Lewis, on Twitter, said, and I quote, this is after talking about my taking the teriyaki tofu quinoa bowl and kombucha, he said, sand is to sandblaster as quinoa is to the digestive system. Adding kombucha is like taking the limiter off the air compressor. That's how he, but in other words, explosive. Speaking of explosive, over the weekend, Black Panther, Black Panther was explosive at the by Peter Rabbit at $17.6 million and Fifty Shades Freed with $17.3 million. JVL, you did not see it.
JVL00:14:04No, but I hear we had a special guest, Jimmy the Greek, who saw it for us.
Sonny00:14:09Oh, very good.
JVL00:14:13Wow. Oh, yeah. Not going there.
Vic00:14:14Not going there and explaining. Those were special effects.
JVL00:14:17I did not see it because I am an ally of anti-racism. I chose not to see it on opening weekend, but I bought a ticket. I just didn't go to the theater and I will buy a ticket. I bought the ticket to help with. And I think probably by weekend four, I will, with my ticket purchase, actually go to the theater to sit and absorb all the wisdom that this movie has to give me.
Vic00:14:38Mm-hmm. On thin ice. Sonny, you saw it and I saw it, and I wasn't sure if Gene saw it. He saw it. Oh!
JVL00:14:47Hey, everybody, enjoy the last episode of The Substandard.
Vic00:14:54I wasn't sure. If I should review Black Panther. It's the kind of movie that will give you pause. It'll clot your conscience. Black Panther is ferocious in defending his land and preventing a global cat-tastrophe. Get me out of here. I could go on, but I'm not feline like it. I hope we see more of Chadwick Boseman as the Black Panther, a.k.a. Prince to Shala in Shala. For breakfast, I had Shala, bread. Beware of the villains. Andy Serkis is just precious in his role as Ulysses Klaw, and he's awfully tricksy, too. Killmonger is played by Michael B. Jordan. His battle for the throne goes down to the wire. All he wants is that throne. I guess you could say it's his creed. You might be wondering, what kind of movie is this? Yes. Always bet on Black Panther. It's a fun movie, and I give it three stars. Once you go to see Black Panther, you'll never go back. Gotta go.
JVL00:16:18Sonny, he gave Black Panther three stars.
Sonny00:16:22Was Michael B. Jordan in the wire?
Vic00:16:24Yes, he was Wallace. The most saddest, most powerful scene in the entire series, that's where...
JVL00:16:32You're an editor, and you just said most saddest? Most saddest, that's fine.
Vic00:16:36I was so affected by this, where Bodhi and Poot kill him. That's right. That's right. And who, because of Idris Elba, Idris Elba gives him the order and says that he's probably the snitch, and he wasn't. And he had lived, he was living with his aunt, I think, somewhere out in the sticks, and then he... The biggest mistake he made, he came back, and his death is the saddest thing I've seen in the entire Wire series. Yeah, yeah. Right? Remember how awful that was? Yeah. If you feel like it, check it out on YouTube.
Sonny00:17:08People should watch that show. It's a good show.
Vic00:17:10JVL, don't skip, you don't have to watch the series, but you should watch that scene, it's something else. How about a big boy review, Sonny? Plus, spoiler alert, I assume.
Sonny00:17:17Yeah, spoiler. We're going to be talking, since everybody on the planet saw Black Panther this weekend, apparently, we're going to be seeing, we're going to be talking spoilers here.
Vic00:17:25All right. Go for it.
Sonny00:17:27So, Black Panther is the 18th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It picks up, essentially, it kind of picks up where Captain America Civil War dropped off. If you remember that movie, the King of Wakanda, T'Chaka, was killed by a terrorist who was kind of posing as Bucky Barnes slash the Winter Soldier, whatever, all that. Point is, T'Challa's king, before we get to Wakanda, however, we go through kind of a an origin story of the African nation of Wakanda. Now, Wakanda, not a real place, important to keep that in mind, not a real place, but it is, it was founded many, many, many years ago, thousands of years, hundreds of years ago, some indeterminate amount of time ago, after a big rock, a vibranium, fell into planet Earth, crashed into Earth, crashed into Africa, and the five tribes that were around it came together, and one of the tribes was like, I'm out, I don't want to be a part of this one, I don't want any part of this, but the other four tribes came together, and they created this paradise of technology and excess and et cetera, and while the world around it ripped itself apart, we see a montage of slavery and colonialism and World War II and then, you know, 9-11 or whatever, and then, I can't remember if 9-11 was actually, I'm going to come back to this in a minute, but the point is, Wakanda is secret, but Wakanda sends its spies out through the world, and where the movie picks up, we're in, I think it's 1992 in Oakland, and the brother of the king is trying to prepare an insurrection in the cities. It's one of the uprisings, as we call the riots that take place in the inner cities occasionally. And the king is like, hey, you can't do this, you gotta come back to Wakanda with us, you can't go around stealing our vibranium and selling it to terrorists and giving weapons to the inner city, we don't want that. And he's like, this is BS, man, we're gonna take over the world, and T'Chaka's like, no, you can't do that. Anyway, brother gets killed. T'Chaka kills the brother. And the- Sterling Brown. Who is played by Sterling K. Brown, he's great.
JVL00:19:49You mean the king's actual brother? You're not using slang for a person who is an African American person?
Sonny00:19:55No, I'm not using slang for a person who is an African American person. I'm not gonna use any slang in this, in this review. Just to be clear. This is a slang-free zone. So anyway, fast forward to modern day, T'Challa is taking the throne, and he is faced by a challenge from the one tribe that, you know, went away all those years ago, and they, this is how they choose their kings, is it's, you know, bloodlines, but you can also challenge for the throne. Long story short, T'Challa wins, Wakanda is, you know, joyous and happy. We then pick up the kind of B-plot, which involves Andy Serkis, who is, who plays Claw. Andy Serkis is fantastic in this movie as Claw. He's like over the top and like kind of crazy and wide-eyed, and he should really do more live-action stuff. It's so much better than all that dumb ape nonsense. And he, he is stealing a vibranium artifact from a, from a museum. The museum doesn't know that it's vibranium. They are informed of this by the character who's played by Michael B. Jordan. And his name, he has the best name in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, is Killmonger. Absolutely. He's Killmonger. Is he a bad guy? He is supposedly the bad guy of this movie. We'll get, we'll, again, we'll get what-
JVL00:21:05His name is Killmonger and he's the villain. He's the villain.
Sonny00:21:07I mean, I'm, I'm, frankly, well, we can discuss this again in a minute. Killmonger. That's a great name. So anyway, Killmonger and Claw, they, they get away with the vibranium. And Killmonger then heads to Wakanda and we find out that Killmonger is the, the actual, he's actually the cousin of T'Challa. He was the son of the brother who was killed. And he has come to claim the throne and he wins because he's actually a badass. He's a badass. And he wants to send the weapons, the vibranium weapons out into the world so all of the world governments can be overthrown and black people can take over. So this is like the basic plot of the film and it's, it's about- And he technically won. He technically won that battle. Oh, he won. Oh, he won that battle. He kicked T'Challa's ass right off the bat.
Vic00:21:50You know what? It was like, T'Challa was like Apollo Creed in Rocky IV. It was decisive. Yes.
Sonny00:21:56Yes. Except he doesn't die. Yeah. Right. Apparently. Anyway, so it is a very standard, fair Marvel movie. It is a, it is shot in kind of the house auntie style. There's nothing really that inventive or unique about how it looks. It is, it is fine. It is good. I actually like it. I like it. I would, I would put it firmly in the second quartile of Marvel. Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. It's like better than Ant-Man. It's better than Ant-Man. It's not as good as like Captain America Civil War, I would say. It's about as good as Spider-Man Homecoming. That's about where we are with this movie. That's what I would say.
Vic00:22:39You know, I have to admit, Wakanda looked like a lovely place to visit for vacation, but I thought to myself, how would I go about getting there? For instance, did you know that the average family visits five totally different websites before booking a vacation rental? You could spend less time planning your next trip and more time relaxing, with Tripping.com, the world's number one site for vacation rentals. Tripping.com is trusted by millions of travelers and featured by The New York Times, Travel & Leisure, Forbes, and more. Whether you're looking for a cabin or a beachfront home to get away to this winter, or already looking ahead to vacations this spring, Tripping.com can help you find the perfect place to stay. Vacation rentals offer flexibility, perks, and amenities that hotels don't, like multiple bedrooms, backyards, hot tubs, free Wi-Fi, and even fully stocked kitchens, so you can plan and cook your own meals. Great for families and large groups. With Tripping.com, one search lets you filter, compare, and sort over 10 million available properties on trusted sites, like VRBO, TripAdvisor, Booking.com, and more. Don't wonder if you're getting the best deal. You'll save an average of 18% per night by booking your vacation with Tripping.com. So don't forget, if you want to save time and money while booking the perfect vacation rental, for your next trip, head to Tripping.com slash Substandard today. That's T-R-I-P-P-I-N-G dot com slash Substandard, Tripping.com slash Substandard.
Sonny00:24:07So, before we get into the question and answer session, JVL, which I know you're raring to get at. Oh, yeah. Which I know you're raring to get at, and I want you to know, you have to be careful on this. I'm not trying to... Very careful. But the one thing that should be noted is that Killmonger is 100% right, and totally the hero of this film. Look, the problem... Killmonger looks at what Wakanda has done, which is create a paradise for itself, while its fellows are enslaved, while their nations are destroyed, while its continent is divvied up and stripped of all of its stuff. Natural resources. Natural resources. And Wakanda said, no, we're not going to do anything about this. And this is bullshit. This is bullshit. And Killmonger is totally right that the only way to fight imperialism is, with imperialism of your own.
JVL00:24:58So, Killmonger is a neocon, and Wakandans are Trumpites? Who want to, like, border control? Well, no, I would say they're... Well, definitely make Wakanda a great agent. I mean, they're isolated.
Sonny00:25:09Wakanda first. Literally, they're literally isolationists. They want to... By the end of the film...
JVL00:25:14Of course you'd find the neocon to be the true...
Sonny00:25:17By the end of the film, though, they're actually neoliberals, because, again, at the end of the film, what happens... The stinger? No, not even the stinger. At the end of the film, the Wakandans... They go to the inner city where the movie started, in Oakland, and they say they're going to start buying up properties. They're going to buy up apartment buildings.
JVL00:25:33And put in a Whole Foods.
Sonny00:25:34And they're going to put in cultural centers. Sorry. They're going to put in cultural centers that will serve as beacons of light, but what they're actually going to do is raise all the property values in those areas, because you know who's going to want to go to those Wakandan cultural sites? White hipsters. Just going to be flooding in. It's Richard Florida's argument all over again, and it's going to force out the population that already lives there. It's just gentrification. Wakanda is cowardly isolationism followed by gentrifying neoliberalism. That's what Wakanda stands for. Killmonger.
Vic00:26:04Team Killmonger. Hail President Killmonger.
JVL00:26:08JVL. Question.
Sonny00:26:10Yes.
JVL00:26:11So this is the first ever movie based on a black comic hero, correct?
Sonny00:26:15No, no, no, no. And look, so I know that this drives you particularly batty. Just answer the question, Sonny. This drives you particularly batty. I mean, I've read. It drives you batty, too. I've literally written the piece on this. I've already written it.
JVL00:26:29I'm just setting you up. Just play along.
Sonny00:26:31Okay, go ahead.
JVL00:26:32Yes or no?
Sonny00:26:33Start over again.
JVL00:26:33Question.
Sonny00:26:34Yes.
JVL00:26:35So this is the first ever movie based on a black comic book hero?
Sonny00:26:38No.
JVL00:26:38Question. Yes. So this is the first big budget movie based on a black superhero? No. Question. Yes. So this is the first superhero movie helmed by an African-American director?
Sonny00:26:50No.
JVL00:26:51Question. Yes. Black Panther is the best comic book movie ever made. No. Oh, okay. Okay. That's all very interesting. I have more questions, but if you'd like to take a digression here. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, look. Because this is what I object to about this movie. Right, right.
Sonny00:27:04So you, you, let me, why don't you, why don't you explain to the people your annoyance with the hype about this movie?
JVL00:27:13I don't like being force-fed cultural opinions because they're politically correct. I don't, I just don't like it. I rebel against it. I don't like authority, period, but I especially don't like this. We'll get to this in a minute because I have like an actual realist. I have a real critique of Hollywood and how Hollywood, I think, has done a tremendous disservice to African-American audiences. But that's a separate question from this, which is all virtue signaling. Question.
Sonny00:27:36Yes.
JVL00:27:37Black Panther is the story of a prince of a hidden kingdom that no one knows exists who has magical armor and powers that are ill-defined. And this royal hero realizes he has to go outside of his kingdom to help protect the world from an interlobal who wants global war. Isn't that basically the plot of Wonder Woman? Yes. Question. Yes. Wakanda is a monarchy and not a republic or a representative democracy. Doesn't that make it morally inferior to America?
Sonny00:28:05Ooh, hard to say because, for the record, democracy is broken.
JVL00:28:10Question. Yes. Wakanda is a seat of advanced technology because it randomly got hit with an asteroid that carried with it a precious natural resource. Does the political and economic experience of nations made rich by a single natural resource suggest this is likely or even possible? Like, when you look around the Middle East, do you see a lot of countries that are technologically advanced and have done really well for their people because they have a natural resource? I mean, this is a whole branch of economic theory.
Vic00:28:38But what they don't have, JVL, is vibranium.
Sonny00:28:41Vibranium is basically magic. It's magic metal.
Vic00:28:44It heals spinal injury, too. Cures cancers. Spinal injuries.
JVL00:28:47I mean, the idea of establishing cultural centers throughout the major cities throughout the world is literally what the House of Saud does. It's just Wahhabism. Question. Yes. Isn't it true that T'Challa is actually the least interesting Black Marvel hero?
Sonny00:29:02Compared to?
JVL00:29:04Let's rank the Black Marvel heroes. Number one, Nick Fury. Number two, Luke Cage. Number three, Sam Wilson. Number four, T'Challa. No one denies this. Question.
Vic00:29:14Sam Wilson? Who's Sam Wilson? That's the Falcon. Oh, the Falcon. Oh, excuse me. Nerd alert.
JVL00:29:21Question. Why wasn't Ta-Nehisi Coates given a writing credit?
Sonny00:29:24He was given a. He was given a special thanks in the credits, but he didn't write the script, so.
JVL00:29:28But story by, he wrote the Black Panther series until it got canceled, because only 800 people bought the book each month.
Sonny00:29:34You know who does? Well, the main Black Panther book has not been canceled, but the spin-off was.
JVL00:29:40The Ta-Nehisi Coates Black Panther book got canceled, didn't it? No. No, it's still.
Sonny00:29:44I don't think so. Unless it got canceled in the last two or three months, I don't think it's been canceled.
JVL00:29:49I'll effort this, but I believe the Ta-Nehisi Coates book got canceled, because he was very upset about it. There was like a spin-off.
Sonny00:29:53No, there was like a spin-off book. There was like a team-up book or something that got canceled, but the main Black Panther book has not been canceled.
JVL00:30:00Question. Yes. If Ta-Nehisi Coates had been given a writing credit, Black Panther would be then a shoo-in for Best Picture next year, as opposed to merely being a movie which Variety is already running stories talking about whether or not it's going to win Best Picture next year.
Sonny00:30:17Yeah, that's right.
Vic00:30:18Okay. That's it. Those are all my questions. Yeah.
JVL00:30:20I hate this. I hate it so much, and it drives me crazy.
Sonny00:30:25But here's the thing. Here's the problem. Here's my critique of your critique, which is that it has nothing to do with the actual movie itself, and it has nothing to do- I'm not critiquing the movie. I'm critiquing the culture around the movie. Right, right, but you're angry at the movie. No. You are. No. You are angry at the movie.
JVL00:30:40I am angry at the ridiculous people who treat the movie like it's something else.
Sonny00:30:45Here's my take on this, is that I'm a very Zen individual, as you know. I'm practically Buddhist. You're not angry at all. I'm practically Buddhist, and what I have realized is that I'm not angry at all. What I've realized over the last couple of years of nonsense and silliness online is that I have to stop caring how other people view a product, and how they choose to experience it, and how they choose to be excited about it. I wrote a piece about this at the beginning of the year for the Washington Post. I'm just not going to get worked up about people who are excited in the wrong ways for things. I'm just not going to do it anymore. If people want to get excited about their nonsense, then they can get excited about their nonsense. I don't have to buy into it, and I can critique it, as I did, again, in a piece highlighting the fact that ... Wait, did you leave Blade off your list of black Marvel superheroes? What was ...
JVL00:31:36Oh, I guess I did, because I was thinking of the MCU as we have it currently, and Blade is not integrated into the MCU as it exists now.
Sonny00:31:49If people want to get excited about this, I don't really care. If people want to get excited about this, if they want to say things that are wrong, I'm happy to correct them. If they want to say ... There was an absurd salon piece that went beyond the standard ways of being wrong about Black Panther that said something like, Black Panther is the first blockbuster format film with a black lead, which is just simply ... It's not just wrong, it's offensively wrong. It erases the entire career of Will Smith. It erases most of the career of Denzel Washington. You are just looking ... You are looking ... And while I understand the urge to generate clicks by saying that this is the first of something, this is the best of something, this is the greatest whatever, that is simply factually wrong. And there's no reason not to make fun of people who are like that. But if people are going to get excited about the movie, I can't fault them for it, and it doesn't bother me.
JVL00:32:48It bothers me in the same way that the insane fan reactions for The Last Jedi bothered me. Briefly, Vic, I'll just quickly make a digression here, to the point that I think Hollywood has ill-served African-American audiences historically. And if you look at the economics of it, there's a huge African-American audience there waiting to consume movies made for and by African-Americans. Just about every Tyler Perry movie opens to $25 million. Medea Goes to Jail opens to $40 million. Straight Outta Compton opened to $60 million. When you adjust it for inflation... Martin Lawrence movies have grossed more than $2 billion. There's a reason that he was the biggest star in the world for three years during the mid-aughts. And there is no reason that Hollywood has not made more movies for African-American audiences, except for maybe, you know, the liberal one, which is just that Hollywood is a little bit racist. I mean, just as a matter of economics, I can't understand why this doesn't happen. And so, as an economic proposition, movies like Bad Boys 2 and Boomerang do great. I am all for, all for Hollywood making more movies, buying for African-American filmmakers, starring African-American stars and leads, not only because many of these movies will be good, but also because, just as an economic proposition, this is something Hollywood ought to be doing. It is good for the bottom line. That said, I just don't want people posturing and preening and pretending that something is what it clearly is not. That's all. And I look forward to seeing Black Panther. I plan on fully enjoying it in the theater. That's all.
Vic00:34:31Thank you, JVL. I have some questions. One, first of all, I was disappointed that there were no other superhero cameos in the movie.
Sonny00:34:39Well, I was actually a little bit confused by this, too, because my understanding from the end of Civil War was that basically all of the Avengers, except for the Iron Man team in Civil War, had fled to Wakanda, and the ads for Avengers Infinity War kind of suggest that they're all over there. The only, there was the stinger at the end with the Winter Soldier.
Vic00:35:00Oh, see, I didn't see that. Okay, so tell me about the stingers. There are two of them.
Sonny00:35:03There's two. The first mid-credits one is, so, like, people were worried about this film being overly political and being like, and it isn't for the most part. There is an ideological struggle, as I mentioned, kind of between T'Challa and Killmonger about, like, what is the proper role of Wakandan society in the face of oppression and genocide, whatever. But, like, that is, like, that is an ideological. The first mid-credits stinger is, like, an actual, like, political diatribe. It is T'Challa at the United Nations talking about how we need to tear down borders and walls and we need to build bridges to people, which is pretty rich coming from literally the most isolationist country in the history of the world. Whatever. I don't care. And then there's a post-credits stinger in which Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, is kind of up and wandering around Wakanda and Shuri, that was, I think, the name of T'Challa's sister, Shuri, is saying, you know, we can fix your brain or whatever. I don't know. But the point is... With vibranium. I assume vibranium nanobots will go in his brain and fix it. Because it's magic. It's a magic.
Vic00:36:13Was he wandering the streets of Wakanda?
Sonny00:36:15No, he was, like, by a lake or something. I don't know. He was, like, hanging out with the animals, the hippos or whatever.
Vic00:36:20So that was the only...
Sonny00:36:22That's the only cameo. That's it. Well, but then there's also Klaue, who was in Avengers, Ultron, Age of Ultron, and then there was also Martin Freeman's character, the CIA agent, who was in Captain America's Civil War.
Vic00:36:38I don't even remember him in Civil War. Yeah, he was in Civil War. I always thought that Freeman would have been better off as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.
Sonny00:36:44Well, remember, they don't have S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore because the S.H.I.E.L.D. is the Nazis or whatever. Did you find it very... Huge mistake. It was really... Huge storytelling mistake.
Vic00:36:53Yeah. Did you find it... Odd to have Martin Freeman trying to speak with the American accent? Because part of the time, I thought he didn't have... It's just very weird and distracting listening to him not speaking the way he spoke. No, that didn't bother me. No, really? No. I had issues with that.
Sonny00:37:08Forrest Whitaker was worse. Forrest Whitaker... I really, really like Forrest Whitaker. Oh, so do I. So he's in this movie as a priest who inaugurates the new Black Panther. So the way Black Panthers get their powers, they eat this fruit that's been mutated by vibranium or something. I don't know. I don't know. And he's like the priest who kind of brings everyone into it. And he's like a straight-up exposition dumping device, which he kind of was in Rogue One as well. But in Rogue One, they let him do interesting things with his voice and his bodily tics. And here, he's just kind of talking. And it's like, he's totally wasted.
Vic00:37:45My son recognized him immediately. He said, it's Saw Gerrera. That's what he said.
Sonny00:37:49What did Michael think of the movie?
Vic00:37:51He liked it, but I don't know if he...
Sonny00:37:53I don't think... Did he like... He gave it a thumbs up.
Vic00:37:56He gave it a thumbs up, but I think it was... He's kind of like, eh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He liked it, but it's not like he's still talking about it or obsessed with it the way he was after other movies that he's seen.
JVL00:38:06Have you written your Killmonger is Right take?
Sonny00:38:09I plan on... I didn't want to... Look, I'm going to be honest. I didn't want to write it after the first weekend because I didn't want to seem needlessly provocative. So instead, this week, I've written a ringing defense of Zack Snyder. That's how I spent my time. I think I might write it next weekend because, I mean, look, he's right. He's the hero of this movie, and the fact that T'Challa thinks that he's good for Wakanda is bad for Wakanda.
JVL00:38:39Please make the point that Wakanda has the Trumpian view of foreign policy. Yeah, I'm not... If you want to be provocative and you want to get some hate clicks.
Sonny00:38:46I don't really... Breitbart's already done that. I don't really feel the need to go that way.
Vic00:38:51You know what you would find very... I don't want to be diplomatic, but annoying, I think, with the movie JVL is spaceships. We are now at the point of spaceships now, right? Oh, yeah. This is no longer...
Sonny00:39:02They have flying ships.
Vic00:39:03Yes. It's no longer like a plane... They're like UFOs. The Wakandans have UFOs.
Sonny00:39:08But this goes back to my point, though, right? All right. So, again, the Wakandans show up in Oakland in 1992, and they have these flying ships, right? You know what happened, like, immediately to Wakanda's, I don't know, southern or north... I don't know exactly where Wakanda sits on the geography of Africa, but you know what happened? You know what happened, like, right next to Wakanda a couple years later? The Rwandan genocide. Oh, you mean... When you look at it geographically, where it is. You don't think those flying ships and their vibranium weapons could have maybe stopped all of those people from being slaughtered? I mean, like, again, I don't think that the Wakandans necessarily have the duty to step into World War II and stop the Holocaust. That would have been nice if they had done that, but, you know, whatever. But within their sphere of influence, you have a responsibility to... To stop bad things from happening. And they didn't do it. They neglected their duties. They neglected... They're immoral. The Wakandans? Immoral.
Vic00:40:03And you know who would have stepped in? Killmonger.
Sonny00:40:05Killmonger would have. Right. He would have stopped all this. Right. Killmonger, an American hero, served in the U.S. Special Forces... Oh, yeah. Iraq, Afghanistan. And Iraq, Afghanistan. And lots of kills. Lots of kills. Lots of kills. On his butt. And we're supposed to act like this American hero taking the throne of an advanced African nation is a bad thing? No. Team Killmonger.
JVL00:40:29JVL. As an aside, so the Marvel Universe, one of the differentiation points between it and DC was that DC is always set in these fictional towns and fictional places. Gotham, Metropolis, Central City, and the Marvel...
Sonny00:40:44Keystone City?
JVL00:40:45Keystone City. Marvel is set in the real world with three exceptions. One of the other two. And the three big exceptions are Wakanda. Atveria, which is Dr. Doom's homeland, and the Savage Land, which is just sort of...
Sonny00:41:01Which is in Antarctica.
JVL00:41:02Is that where the Savage Land is?
Sonny00:41:03Yeah, it's like, isn't it in Antarctica? It's never clear to me.
JVL00:41:06I always hated the Savage Land. But I hated all... I did not like, and again, because I don't like mixing things. No, it's a slippery slope, too. I like DC because I'm just sort of all in on the idea of, okay, I'm in a fictionalized world, and I like Marvel because I like the idea of, okay, we're in the real world. I always... I always got a little bit hanky when Marvel started doing the, you know, hey, look, it's real, but it's not real. It's real, but it's not real. And in the same way that I don't like mixing my Guardians of the Galaxy with my Avengers. You know, I don't like the X-Men going out into outer space to Tamaran or whatever, you know, whatever world they headed off to. I just... These... It strikes me that once you start doing that, you wind up in the same storytelling cul-de-sac that time travel puts you in, which is that, you know, you open that up, and you're like, get that genie out of the bottle, and then, like, all things are permitted, and...
Sonny00:41:58Yeah. No, I think this is fair. And I do... But, you know, this kind of also creates a real moral incoherence with Wakanda that I'm kind of picking at here. Right, right, right. Which is, like, if you want to say that Wakanda is real, which is, you know, if you want to say, like, Wakanda forever, and this is the model that we need to live by, we need an Africa untouched by colonialism, and look at what all they could do. Well, you know what they did? They did nothing. They did nothing for the people of Africa. They were happy in their own little world. They were happy in their own little world, and if you want to celebrate that sort of moral iniquity, then go for it. I reject it.
Vic00:42:36Moral iniquity. Sonny Bunch.
JVL00:42:39Well, I'm looking forward to seeing it. Isolationism is bad. I'm looking forward to seeing Black Panther this weekend. It'll be great.
Vic00:42:44Wonderful.
Sonny00:42:45Okay. It's firmly the second quartile of MCU movies. It's right in. How much hate did you get for saying that? I actually didn't get very much because, again, I, like... Well, first off, nobody reads my reviews, so it doesn't really matter. I can write anything I want. I could write it was the worst movie ever made. You've got, like, 48,000 Twitter followers. Yeah, and growing. And burgeoning. But I think I wrote my review in such a way that made it hard to attack from any of the, like, look at these dumb right-wingers angles.
Vic00:43:19Interesting. Okay. Well, I guess we're ready to move on? Sure. All right. All right. Spirit of the Week is... An oldie but a goodie. Filibuster. Dual cask. The Boondoggler, it's called. A bountiful, bloviating blend of rye and bourbon. Artfully aged in a carcass of cooperage, including American French oak and sherry barrels. Thank you to our friends at Filibuster. Corrections, additions. I have one. Shoot. Okay. It's not... It's an addition. It's an addition. Trexasaurus14 recently gave us five stars. Said, loved you guys for a while, et cetera, et cetera. It instantly was required to review you guys because of the reference. P.S. How do I get a job with you guys? I'm an aspiring journalist movie critic. Sonny Bunch, go.
Sonny00:44:05Do literally anything else. Don't do this. It's impossible to make a living. You'll just be unhappy. The only reason I'm able to do this is because I weaseled my way into it 15 years ago. And anyone who's trying to get into it now should just start a letterboxd account and work at a law firm.
Vic00:44:22You did not... When you were in... When you were in high school, you didn't say, I want to grow up to be a movie critic?
Sonny00:44:27No. When I was in high school, I read a bunch of John Grisham books. I was like, I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a lawyer. And then I got to school and I was like... What happened? I got to school and I was like, God, school sucks. College sucks. I don't want to have to actually put in the effort to be good at doing... Go to a good law school. So I'm just going to kind of dick around and wind up at The Weekly Standard and write about movies. And then I'm at The Free Weekend.
Vic00:44:51You decided at The Standard when you were working?
Sonny00:44:53I was at The Standard. And I had a job that really only took about 10 hours a week to do. And because I was a little bit bored, I started writing movie reviews. Yes, you did. Online. Online for the website. John Podhortz, of course, is the great Weekly Standard film critic. And I ran things by him. I was like, hey, I want to write about this this week. And he would say, that's fine. I'm going to write about this singing and dancing movie. So I was like, okay, that's great. I just got that. Instead, I wrote online and just like kind of on some of the smaller films, some of the DVD releases. And it happened that my future editor at The Washington Times was reading some of the stuff and was like, hey, you want to write for me? I was like, yeah, okay, sure. And then because there's literally no one in the conservative media who can write about movies with any sort of intelligence, except for like me and Kyle Smith. And John Podhortz. Well, I already mentioned John Podhortz, the great John Podhortz. You know, anyway, there's a dearth of talent.
Vic00:45:59Okay, great work because you just convinced him, I think, to become a movie critic.
Sonny00:46:02Don't do it. I feel like I want to start writing reviews. Just get a real job. Review things on Letterboxd. You'll be much happier.
Vic00:46:10JVL, to be a journalist, yes, no, what's going on?
JVL00:46:15Complicated question. Email me offline. Oh, wow.
Vic00:46:19Okay. But you didn't go up saying, I want to be a writer.
JVL00:46:23No, I didn't, Vic. And yet you're so happy. Why is it so cold in here suddenly?
Sonny00:46:29You're so happy with the way your life has turned out.
JVL00:46:31No, it's always bad when we go back to my childhood and we talk about how I was supposed to be a doctor and I didn't get into medical school. No, this is an unhappy conversation.
Vic00:46:39We are moving on. I wanted to join the Foreign Service. That's why I went to Georgetown for international relations. And then I failed the exam.
Sonny00:46:48Did you want to be stationed in? The psychological aspect for some reason. Did you want to be stationed in Berlin?
Vic00:46:53Wherever I can get a chance to. I'd go anywhere, but I didn't study for that. You didn't study for the Foreign Service exam?
JVL00:46:59I was at the tombs like the night before.
Vic00:47:01And I thought I'd rise. You know what? Four years or three and a half years, I'm pretty good. I could take this.
JVL00:47:06The pass rate on that thing is only like 10%.
Vic00:47:08I only knew two classmates from our school of Foreign Service that actually went to the Foreign Service that year. And five or six years later, a friend of mine, she decided she wanted to go to the Foreign Service and she did much better and she made it in. So I said, Congratulations to her, but be prepared because you got a hardship post, right? Her first post was Tokyo. And I said, You're awfully lucky because your second post is going to be hard. And her second post was Buenos Aires. And she said, Man, I am on a roll. Her third post was Lahore, Pakistan. Moving on. That's a tough one. Yeah, that was tough. Okay. That is all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments. Tweet us at Victorino Matus, at Sonny Bunch. At JV Last.
Sonny00:47:58If you want to learn how to be a journalist, tweet at JV Last.
Vic00:48:01Again, 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. Tell your friends. Until next time.
Sonny00:48:21Do you have outtakes?
Vic00:48:23I have one.
Sonny00:48:24All right, go on.
Vic00:48:25Do you have something else you want to?
Sonny00:48:26Well, I just want to throw this out there. I want to get on the record on this. I think that it is pretty obvious at this point that Black Panther will outgross Last Jedi. And I would not be shocked if it grosses more than The Avengers as well.
Vic00:48:44Wow.
Sonny00:48:45The original Avengers? The original Avengers. And I'm going to throw this out there. I think it might get as high as Avatar.
Vic00:48:50Oh, jeez.
Sonny00:48:52Really? Because, look, it's grossed 240. It's grossed $42 million already. That is more than Last Jedi. And there's a slight apples to oranges thing here because there was a holiday Monday. But Last Jedi dropped like a stone. And I don't think this movie is going to drop like a stone. There's no competition against it. And it has become a point of political pride to go see it. And I think that that is going to drive business for a long time. I mean, there's really nothing up against it.
JVL00:49:21It's the progressive Titanic.
Sonny00:49:22It is, basically. Yeah, I mean, I do think that this movie is going to do exceedingly well at the box office.
Vic00:49:32Speaking of Avatar, our friend John Podhortz was in Disney World on a family vacation and went on the Avatar ride. Oh, isn't there like a whole Avatar universe? Yes, so he says, you know, he says to remind people, you know, he was never a fan of the movie, right? Did not like the movie. He said, that said, most amazing ride he has ever been on was Avatar.
JVL00:49:54What kind of ride? Did you go on this when you were down there recently? No, it wasn't ready yet. No, it was not there when I was there. It's at Universal, right? Disney World. It's Disney World. Disney owns that too? That doesn't sound right to me. Universal?
Vic00:50:06I don't, I was at Universal, it wasn't there, and they weren't preparing that one. I think it's Disney. So is it, what is it?
JVL00:50:12Like it could be in one of the other, not Magic Kingdom. Is it a coaster with augmented reality?
Vic00:50:17I think it's a slow ride that maybe turns into a roller coaster Jurassic Park.
JVL00:50:20Or do you just sit there in a thing with 3D glasses in front of an IMAX scene and it moves back and forth?
Vic00:50:24No, no, no, you're moving through actual topography, terrain, actual terrain. You're going through actual terrain. And they have that like the floating continent thing effect and everything else. I was reading all about it. Sonny, you're looking it up?
Sonny00:50:36Yeah, I'm, keep going.
Vic00:50:37Yeah, yeah, so that's where he loves.
Sonny00:50:39It is at Disney. It is at Disney.
Vic00:50:41We're at the Animal Kingdom or one of those sections. But it's like, they own everything. Yeah. It's amazing. They do, they do. Okay, so what I was going to say is, playing, you know, the Lego Lord of the Rings on Xbox, it's fine. But it's really not my cup of tea. So I decided that I would get my own game to play when the kids are sleeping for the Xbox 360. And I got Call of Duty, which I've never played before. But people like our friend, Mr. Goldfarb, and others seem to like it. It's good to sort of like, you know, a first-person shooter game. I was really excited. I haven't started playing it yet. And then I turned the back and said, oh, look, who's the president in Call of Duty? Oh.
JVL00:51:24Kevin Spacey.
Vic00:51:25Kevin Spacey is featured on Call of Duty Advanced Warfare. And you forget, he was on top of the world. Yeah. Literally.
Sonny00:51:34Well, I mean, the sneaking around missions where you have to escape from Kevin Spacey's bedroom are really the highlight of that game. Is that in the game? That's my understanding.
JVL00:51:43I'm looking forward to it. I'm sure it's fine.
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