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#107. The Substandard on Death Wish, the 1970s, and Girl Scout Cookies
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Dudes Chatting — Petty spending confessions: The episode opens with competing acts of frivolity: JVL's son spent $100 on Girl Scout cookies, buying from every troop member in the neighborhood except his own sister out of pure spite, which JVL finds both appalling and admirable. Sonny counters by admitting he spent $80 assembling a professional shoe-shining kit.
Dudes Chatting — 1970s crime and vigilantism: Prompted by the Death Wish remake, Sonny walks through the historical context David Frum traces in How We Got Here: the 1970s collapse of urban order, skyrocketing crime rates, and the genuine sense that institutions had failed ordinary citizens. The original 1974 Death Wish is reframed not as a fascist fantasy but as an anarchic, desperate response to that collapse — the protagonist is not a law-and-order authoritarian but a man the system abandoned. The guys debate vigilantism as political philosophy and its relationship to Second Amendment ideology.
Box Office: Black Panther holds at #1 with $41 million in its third weekend. A Wrinkle in Time opens at #2 with $33 million (Sonny is unimpressed by the number given the budget). Death Wish lands at #7 with $6.6 million.
Reviews: Gene (Vic) reviews Death Wish with Bruce Willis puns ("diehard situation," "sciatic nerve," "backdoor"), awarding 4 stars. Sonny reviews the Death Wish remake with full enthusiasm — he loved it: pro-Second Amendment, grotesque in the right ways, and a genuine exploitation film that commits to its premise. He awards it one million stars.
Spirit of the Week: Johnnie Walker Black Blade Runner 2049 edition, chosen to celebrate Roger Deakins finally winning the Oscar. Corrections: the guys note they incorrectly said Charles Bronson was not in The Great Escape — he was.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00-It's way in the morning, it's Shade 45. We gotta talk about what's happening in Chicago. -Everybody's watching this viral video. This guy in the hoodie, they're calling him the Grim Reaper. -He stopped the carjacking. -Is he right for taking the law into his own hands? -He's become a folk hero. -What about the shooter? -You look like a white dude. -You're cocked, locked, and ready to rock. -I'll say.
Vic00:00:30-Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Substandard, sponsored by Casper Mattresses and by Quip Electric Toothbrush. I'm Victor Matus along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. I'd like to remind you The Substandard is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Just look at our podcast and search for "Substandard." You will easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. Well, as I mentioned yesterday, we are back after a week hiatus.
Sonny00:01:02A modest hiatus. People get so angsty when we're gone unexpectedly for one week.
Vic00:01:08They demand 52 episodes a year, I think is what they demand. They get what they pay for.
JVL00:01:12We're on the BBC schedule. They get what they pay for. We're not yoked to some 23-episode a season, got to get it into syndication. We just tell the stories at the length the stories need to be told.
Vic00:01:23Yeah. And if it's six episodes, it's six episodes, whatever. And then the end of the show. JVL. Uh, how are you doing? You survived. You were taking care of kids for several days and you were worried if you were, you, you said there was gonna be one of two consequences. Either you would spend gobs of money on Lego or head to the ER. What happened?
JVL00:01:44Uh, option number one is what is what happened. Good, good, good, good. When we showed up at the Lego store for the second day in the row, the clerk was like, you're back already. Did you build everything that you bought yesterday? And I was like, oh yeah, we did big guy. Yeah. It's a great. And when you spend enough money of Lego, they bring you into the champagne room.
Sonny00:02:03It's great.
JVL00:02:04It's great. Lego VIP rooms. Is it the Lego VIP lounge? Is there sex in the Lego champagne room? Can't talk about it. It's Duplo sex. Okay. I don't know what that means. But I had something funny to tell you guys that you, Sonny won't get this, but you will. Okay. Because you have children. My oldest son. I have a child. You have a child. It's barely like having. Okay. It's true. You don't have children. You have a child. My oldest. My oldest son and oldest daughter have a complicated relationship. Sure.
Vic00:02:33Sure. Same.
JVL00:02:34Love, hate. Yeah. Okay. Or is it hate, hate? So my, it's Girl Scout cookie time. Oh, yes. You're aware of this, right? Yeah, of course. I just sold a bunch. My son saved up allowance and lawn mowing money and spent $100 on Girl Scout cookies. So he really helped his sister out. He bought every single box from somebody else.
Sonny00:02:59Boy, that's ... Question. Was this done out of spite, or was this done to win the affection of someone else? Ah, yes.
JVL00:03:14No, no, because he spread that money around the Girl Scout troop. He bought from everybody, almost everybody, with one exception.
Vic00:03:24So spite is what you're saying.
JVL00:03:26Yeah.
Vic00:03:28$100. $100 is a lot for one customer.
JVL00:03:32And he gave these away. That's the funny part of it. He was like, "Hey, Mrs. Bianca, have a box of Thin Mints. Give them to his friends. Give them to his teachers."
Sonny00:03:43This is ...
JVL00:03:44Wow. I'm trying to ... That's the next level. This is like old boy style revenge. This is planned out and just done premeditated, but it's not revenge, because she is never anything but fantastic to him. It's malice.
Vic00:03:57How did she react when she found this out?
JVL00:03:59I don't know that she fully has internalized this.
Vic00:04:04Did you or your wife ask or provide any sort of guidance?
JVL00:04:10We did not know until one of the other mothers was like, "Well, you know, you bought some from your sister too, right?" And Cody said to her in the school hallway, "No." Wow. Wow. Yeah. That's hardcore. How was your weekend, Sonny?
Vic00:04:24Yes, Sonny.
JVL00:04:25Or your week. Week. Or two. We're going to laugh at this at the rehearsal dinner someday. I didn't realize that...
Sonny00:04:34Fortunately, I did not live through King Lear over the last 14 days. No, I realized that I am an old man this week. This is what I've... I've come to grips with the fact that I'm an old person. The elbow patches didn't give it away? Because what I did... The pocket squares? Let me tell you what I did this week. This week, I spent a lot of time researching the best ways to shine shoes. And I spent a lot of time on YouTube and men's clothing websites. And I went to Allen Edmonds, the Allen Edmonds store, the Pentagon City Mall, and I spent $80 on shoe shine gear. Not even a shoe? Not shoes. $80? $80. $80 on various shoe shine accoutrements.
Vic00:05:18Let me ask you this. Yes.
Sonny00:05:20Question. Were you suckered... Do it right.
Vic00:05:22Were you suckered into... No, no. Because that happens. It happens over at, you know... No, no, no. That other place that I go to. Well, you need to. You need a special raincoat for your shoes.
Sonny00:05:31And then the sheen after the cream. Nope. I went in with the list. And I read off the list. And I just... I knew what I wanted. And I knew what I wanted so specifically that the person who was helping me actually didn't know one of the items that I was asking for. I asked for two daubers, actually. And those are little horsehair brushes that you put the... One for black, one for brown. One for black, one for brown. And she said, "What's a dauber?" And I was like, "No. No, dear. You're not doing this right." It's horsehair, right? Is that what it is? It's like a little horsehair brush and you use it to put on the polish.
Vic00:06:01So you got two daubers and, let me guess, two big brushes?
Sonny00:06:06I got one... You only need the one. The one big brush.
Vic00:06:08You don't mind mixing that black and brown? No, no, no. That's fine. Okay. What else? That's three things. All right.
Sonny00:06:12So I got two daubers, one horsehair brush, two polish cloths, a brown polish cream, and a black polish cream, and a conditioner, as well as a cedar shoe tree set.
Vic00:06:27Oh, well, yep. That's supposed to preserve...
Sonny00:06:29Preserve the longevity of your shoe. You really just need those for when you're actually doing the cleaning, because you want it to have some backing to it. You could keep it there in general, right? You could do it, but I don't like... I feel like I switch out my shoes enough that I don't really need to preserve them.
Vic00:06:44Do you have a shoe shine box? My father gave me one.
Sonny00:06:47Your shine box? Did you get it? You have a shine box. Did you get your shine box? No, no. I don't have a shine box. I feel like I don't really need a shine box.
Vic00:06:53I think you do. It's part of the thing. Should I get a shine box?
Sonny00:06:57Question. Yes.
Vic00:06:58Made out of wood.
JVL00:06:58Question.
Sonny00:06:59Yes.
JVL00:07:02I am somebody with proclivities, and so I, in general, understand zeroing in and obsessing about a thing. Yes. This is ridiculous. What is it that has caused you to get into shoe shine?
Vic00:07:16Talk about a foot fetish.
JVL00:07:17Did you just spend $500 on English brogues or something? No, no, no, no. No, here's what... So this is... My goal is to work up to that. My goal is... So here's... Then stop spending the money on shoe shine stuff and spend it on shoes.
Sonny00:07:28I could spend the $500. It's not the money, JVL. The problem is I go through shoes with abandon. I go through shoes with reckless abandon. My shoes wear out within 12 to 18 months every time that I buy them. And they do this because I don't take very good care of them. Let me ask you... So what I have done... What I've done is I've bought one pair of brown shoes, one pair of black shoes that are decent but not great. They're just... They're fine. How much do they cost? They were $100 each. They were very... They're very basic shoes. And if I can make these shoes last... For three years, I will buy a nice pair of shoes at the end of that three years. What are you doing to your shoes to kill them? I have thought this out.
JVL00:08:06And I'm serious. Are you Quasimodo? Do you walk like Quasimodo where you scrape your toe behind you? I... Well, no... That is a good question, JVL. Do you trip on escalators often? I definitely... Do you trip on love?
Sonny00:08:18Well, I... Are you pigeon-toed? I certainly... I certainly trip on love. Don't we all? But I...
JVL00:08:25There's a combination of things. One, I walk very heavily on my heels, which were
Sonny00:08:28down the heels, and I... That's the worst. You can have those replaced. And I... That... Replacing the heels is, like, a thing I've accepted that that's just what I... That's how I walk. I can't... I can't do that. I can't do anything about that. The problem is, what happens is, like, the creases at, like, kind of where the ball of the foot is, you know, they get torn and cracked, and then the sole breaks, and then the shoe itself gets... Oh, my gosh! So you're really pushing... It's just because I never, ever get them cleaned properly. I never get them cleaned. I never get them polished and scrubbed. That's not why this is happening. Why?
Vic00:08:59Well, we'll see. We'll see.
Sonny00:09:00It's your walk.
Vic00:09:01It's your... Your gait.
Sonny00:09:02Your gait. Maybe my gait is just bad. Your kinesiology is all off.
JVL00:09:05Right.
Sonny00:09:05Well, I mean, how are you supposed to change your walk? This is a you problem, not a shoe problem. This is a me problem, not a shoe problem. Well, we'll see. We'll see. At the end of three years...
JVL00:09:12Physical therapy is what you need, not a shine box.
Sonny00:09:13We'll see. I know what you mean, though. I need a lot of therapy. Okay.
Vic00:09:16Nine minute. That was exactly on the nine minute mark. That's the one thing that I'll notice with my shoes, is the heels. They start getting worn in from the edges or wherever, how I walk. And I see that. And then when it gets really bad, then you have those accidental, you know, where you almost roll over your ankle kind of thing, which is...
Sonny00:09:33Look, and I want shoes that look nice. I want shoes that have a nice little shine to them. I want a patina, JVL. I want my shoes to have a patina. Your time is worth more than this.
JVL00:09:42A sheen. It isn't. A sheen.
Vic00:09:44That's the thing. I'll tell you why.
Sonny00:09:45No, but that's the thing. But here's the thing is, it takes 30 minutes, once every two weeks or so, just watching The Walking Dead or whatever on Sunday nights. It's not like...
Vic00:09:55And you're going back.
Sonny00:09:56If he had a Facebook video, you could see me doing this thing. He's just doing it into his face with two hands. You're doing the... The clock. The clock. You're doing the shake weight. I'm making it. Yeah. The chamois. The chamois.
Vic00:10:05The chamois. The chamois. I get my shoes shined on occasion in our building by Clarence. He's a good man. Here's the problem. He needs the money. Here's the problem with that. I don't like having to interact with people on a regular basis. I love it, as you know. I have no interest in...
Sonny00:10:18As you know, I love talking to people. But I do, when I first started picking up on this was when I went to, when I was doing TV and would have to like go to New York and I would have some time to kill, I would go to that shoe shine stand that's in like Penn Station. Penn Station, yeah. And I would just like, I'd just plop down and be like, shine my shoes. And they always look very nice. And I want my shoes to look like that all the time. And you don't want to have to talk to other people. I don't ever want to have to talk, I don't want to have a relationship with my shoe shine guy. I have too many relationships already. What about the- I don't even want to have relationships with you people. What about- Here I am, every week. What about the machine?
JVL00:10:51I like to run to people on the street. Old school, very expensive men's restrooms. JBL, can you- Sometimes they'd have the machine where you pull the lever- The buffer machine? The buffer machine.
Vic00:10:59Could you get one of those? Hotel floors, hotel floors that have the spinning- Well, I mean that- They make them for shoes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:11:04But that doesn't like, that doesn't re-shine the shoes. It doesn't like replenish the oils, et cetera. I wouldn't know.
Vic00:11:13Spitshine Sonny, that's what I'm going to call him. Victorino, how have you been? Spitshine Sonny. I've been doing okay. Okay, you know, I do have a bit of a sort of, it's a Lenten crisis because of-
JVL00:11:26Oh, your gluttony?
Vic00:11:27Yes, because there's two- Your gluttony is back. Yeah, no, no, because of, okay, on the one hand, gluttony is a sin. We understand that. It's seven deadly sins, right? And so I've been cutting back, much like you have, as you mentioned yesterday on the show, about cutting back on carbs- Back on Wednesday. Back on Wednesday, about cutting back- That's right. I didn't cut back. I eliminated them. Yes, you eliminated. So I'm trying to- Reduce- Because I have an iron will. Yes. So I'm trying to reduce my carbs. At the same time, waste is also a sin. And I'm at the- I'm at the table, and kids are not eating all their food. You're going to finish that bread? You're going to throw the bread in the garbage?
Sonny00:12:09You're talking about your kids and not like when we go out with interns, and there's like a bread basket on the middle of the table. You're not going to finish your- You're not going to eat that cracker?
Vic00:12:19You're not going to finish your pizza crust?
Sonny00:12:20They'll give it to homeless people if you don't eat it.
Vic00:12:22No, they're not the ones that are partly- Well, yeah. So anyway, I hate to see food being wasted, and so I've been doing both. Not wasting and trying to give up- I bet that'll work. The good news is I had my annual doctor visit. They're still waiting to get the blood test back, or it's so bad that they're still trying to figure it out.
Sonny00:12:43But the blood pressure-
JVL00:12:49I just don't understand how he's still alive.
Sonny00:12:51His blood is 50% fat. What is going on?
JVL00:12:55And the other 40% is vodka.
Vic00:12:58Yes. No, my doctor once said to me, she goes, oh, you should go to the NIH. They'd have a field day with you. That's what she said. But anyway, my blood pressure, however, was only 116 over 70. If you know your blood pressure, you know how that works. It was a good number, so she let me go. Could you explain to people what a bad number is,
Sonny00:13:15just in case they, like me, haven't gotten a physical- Ever. It's 30 years. Oh, my gosh.
JVL00:13:20I can explain it. Oh, no, I can't, because I didn't get into medical school. You're not a doctor. Sorry, Vic, go right ahead. As the son of a doctor, surely you know the answer.
Vic00:13:28Yes, systolic, diastolic, it's 120 over 80 used to be the standard, and then they ruthlessly lowered it, I think, to 120 over 70 or something like that. 130, I think, is okay if you're on the move. You know, if you go to a doctor's office, they'll sometimes will measure it twice, because you have what our friend Richard Starr would say, white coat anxiety, when you go and you get nervous, and so your blood pressure goes up. Now, when I, at my worst, which was when I was younger, and before I was on meds, at my worst, I think I was 140 over 110, which is like borderline cardiac arrest or stroke, I think. So think about this, 140 to 110, now I'm at 120 over 70, so things are great, and I celebrate it. Do you want to get the high number lower or the low number lower? The lower, the second number should be low. It should be below 100, like 70, 80, 70 is good. Okay. So I celebrated, and I went to Jimmy John's. You laugh. I went to Jimmy John's. That place sucks. Well, it sucks because the portions are so small. And I said, but I'm looking at the menu.
Sonny00:14:30Because their sandwiches are trash.
Vic00:14:31But I'm looking at the menu, and I say, oh, they have, like, there's now a new option, which is like their club sandwiches, which is not actually a club sandwich, it's just more meat. And then I almost ordered a club sandwich, and I noticed in the corner another sandwich option called the gargantuan. Same amount of bread. Okay, the same French loaf, but a lot of meat. Every meat you can imagine thrown in there. So I tried it so nonchalantly, I tell the lady, okay, I'll just get, no chips. No chips because, you know, I'm on a Lent. No chips. It's Lent. No chips. Because you don't want to be gluttonous during Lent. No. No. And I said, I'll have the gargantuan. And she actually paused. She goes, the gargantuan. Okay. And she orders it, and I can tell that it just, like, it's probably something that's not often ordered. But you know what? Not so gargantuan. I finished that just fine. My question to you boys is.
Sonny00:15:23Did you get caught in the event Horizon? The event Horizon. Of the gargantua?
Vic00:15:27Oh, is that what it was? Oh, an interstellar reference. That's good. That's very good. That's very good. And it reminded me, it reminded me of when I used to go to the subway down here on M Street. You know, the one that was tucked in next to the mud house. It was like a secret subway. I used to go there when I was so hungry that it was quantity over quality. Because I will concede. It's not great, right? But I went there because I need the footlong. Because I'm so hungry. Deadlines here at the magazine.
JVL00:15:54You love having a footlong in your mouth.
Vic00:15:56In my mouth. So, the lady that works behind there, she was always very friendly. Oh, the footlong, whatever. Italian, I get the spicy Italian, whatever. So, I'll get that. Once again, having relationships with your servers. Right.
Sonny00:16:08Big mistake.
Vic00:16:08So, she says, oh, I know what you like. You love. I said, yeah, I do. Thank you. And I get the thing. And I remember talking to Continetti about this. And, you know, he would get the half size, right?
Sonny00:16:17Matthew Continetti, the editor of the Washington Post. Washington Free Beacon.
Vic00:16:19Yes. And part of the Free Beacon podcast panel. And he said, oh, yeah, I know that lady. She's really nice because I'll get my half sandwich. And the lady would say to me, yeah, you don't want the footlong. That's for animals. The lady who I thought was my friend apparently thinks that I'm an animal.
Sonny00:16:38Well, I mean, fact check. JBL, do you think Vic is an animal? You know, I like to think more as, like, one of those giant Olmec heads. Than an animal, per se. Or like an Easter Island statue. Or a modok.
JVL00:16:54I want to tell you, I believe, Vic, that so long as you can drown out the carbs with more calories, then everything's fine. Then everything is fine. Your body can just absorb it all.
Sonny00:17:07It's the Monty Burns theory of health.
Vic00:17:09If you just jam everything in the doorway, nothing can get through to kill you. See? Brilliant. What do you call it? Do you call it Hoagies, Heroes, or Subs, JBL?
JVL00:17:19Uh, it depends on where you are. They're never Heroes, unless you're in South Jersey or Philadelphia. Well, you would call it Hoagies in Philly. Hoagies in Philly, and Subs is more of a Jersey thing. I think Central Jersey thing.
Vic00:17:32You just say Subs. Well, you know what? This gargantuan was like a Hero, was like a Superhero. Speaking of Superheroes, over the weekend. God, I missed it. Back. We're back, ladies and gentlemen. God, I missed it. How many other things? How many other transitions for Black Panther? I'm going to say Black Panther. There's going to be like five more Black Panther transitions? No, you shouldn't.
Sonny00:17:49This will probably be the last one. All right. We'll see. I don't know. Tomb Raider might ... It's going to be close.
Vic00:17:57I've seen enough of the trailer. I feel like I've seen the movie.
Sonny00:17:59I think Black Panther and Tomb Raider are both going to gross about $30 million this weekend, so we'll see. Okay.
Vic00:18:04So, over the weekend, Black Panther continued to dominate the box office with $41 million, followed by A Wrinkle in Time with $33 million, and Strangers, Pray at Night, which is not worship at night. It's like pray. You're like, pray. Yeah. Okay. Pray Upon. Pray Upon at $10.4 million. All the way down in seventh place was Death Wish, which has been out for two weeks, so it did $6.6 over the weekend for a total of $24 million. JVL, did you see Death Wish?
Sonny00:18:35No. Sonny? I did. Yes. Did anybody else in the room watch Death Wish?
Vic00:18:49Come on in.
Sonny00:18:53All right. Vic, you remember, you got to stand over there. It's been a couple weeks. All right. Come on, Gene.
Vic00:19:01Death Wish stars Bruce Willis, a doctor who's moonlighting as a diehard vigilante. He used to be a law-abiding citizen. I guess you could call him the last Boy Scout. But his wife gets killed and his daughter is dead. He's left in a coma, so he goes after the killers, or at least the ones in striking distance. But those killers show a lot of nerve, sciatic nerve. There's also a great performance by Elizabeth Shue as the wife. And just like in Leaving Las Vegas, she gets an unexpected backdoor intruder.
JVL00:19:39Oh, no.
Vic00:19:42I give Death Wish four stars. And something tells me there'll be a sequel. Call it my six. Six cents. Bye-bye. Gene. Gene.
Sonny00:19:54Goodness. Goodness. The worst thing about coming back to the show is having to follow this now with, like, a real review of the movie.
Vic00:20:01Gene is really planning on taking a vacation soon. So how about the big boy review Sonny?
Sonny00:20:07We have Johnny Ivy to come in.
Vic00:20:09I love Johnny Ivy.
Sonny00:20:11Well, we're talking about Death Wish because everybody seemed to want us to talk about Death Wish instead of things that are out more recently, like A Wrinkle in Time, which is the great movie. It's the greatest film ever made, right, JBL? Is it? Is it? I know nothing. Sorry.
JVL00:20:27You're setting me up for something there. Yeah, no, that's okay.
Sonny00:20:30It's okay. You'll figure it out. So Death Wish. Death Wish is a remake of the 1974, I think, classic from Charles Bronson. It is about a doctor, played by Bruce Willis, whose wife is a doctor. His wife and daughter are shot by intruders, and he then takes his revenge on society writ large, but mostly it is a kind of more traditional revenge movie in the mold of A Taken or John Wick, in which he is trying to track down the killers who have ruined his life. And that is different from the original movie. I just want to talk about the original movie a little bit, because it's fascinating. Please, I want to talk about it a lot. Are we going to talk about it later?
Vic00:21:17Yeah, yeah, go for it.
Sonny00:21:18I, well, we can save that for later. The only thing I want to say is that it is different in that the original movie is very much a film about retribution, as opposed to revenge. It's a movie about, like, a guy whose life is ruined, so he takes it out on the dregs of society. He doesn't try to track down the guys who kill his wife and rape his daughter. He just goes out there and, like, waits to get mugged and shoots people. And it's kind of awesome. We'll talk about it more later. This movie is very much more. A straightforward revenge film. You get a little bit of that where he is taking, where Bruce Willis' character is taking his revenge on people. It is a super pro Second Amendment film, which I loved. There's a great scene. As a friend of mine on Twitter said, there's a great scene where Bruce Willis goes out to bury his wife with his father-in-law, Dick Cheney, who shows up, who they, when they're driving home, they see some poachers and they chase them off with a repeating rifle and then they shotgun Bambi. And they shoot Bambi in the face because Bambi needs to be put out of her misery. I mean, that's just, you know, that's what you think. Mercy killing. So, but it is, it's again, it's kind of a straightforward revenge film. It's great. I loved it. It is filled with one-liners and, you know, kind of straightforward action stuff. I saw it. I happened to see it in a Georgetown theater. It was just me and my two bosses, Aaron Harrison and Michael Goldfarb. Did they like it? They loved it. Really? They loved it. It's their Citizen Kane. This is their jam. And it was like watching the movie in our living room with, like, just with a giant TV and great sound system. Because we were kind of cracking wise and, you know. It's like the way every movie theater experience should be.
JVL00:23:06I imagine that movie did not play very well in Georgetown. Well, there's a reason there were just the three of us in that theater. I believe that may have dragged the Perth Theater gross down a little bit.
Sonny00:23:17Probably.
JVL00:23:17Well, there are 30.
Sonny00:23:18$36 or whatever at the, you know, Monday 1 p.m. screening. But I loved it. I loved it. It's silly. It's an Eli Roth movie, so it is a little bit more kind of horror-oriented. You do have some grotesquerie to it. Oh, my gosh. There's a torture scene where Bruce Willis exposes the sciatic nerve. This is why Gene had mentioned the sciatic nerve. It's because there is a torture scene. That was straight out of Hostile. There's some great kills. I just loved it. I loved it. It's grotesque in its simplicity. I love every second of it. And I give this movie one million stars. Thank you, Sonny.
JVL00:23:58That was great.
Vic00:23:59I was going to say, you know, Dr. Kersey. That's his name, right? I mean, he goes after these killers. I guess you could say he really goes to the mattresses with them. Speaking of mattresses, JVL.
JVL00:24:10Casper! I always want to say that, like Jason Bateman does in Dodgeball. Cotton! God, I love it. The Jason Bateman character in Dodgeball is one of my favorite micro-characters. The Ocho commentator? The Ocho commentator.
Sonny00:24:26See how that works out for him, Cotton.
JVL00:24:28Half of what he does in that movie, half is funny, comes from his hair. Because every time he's shot, his hair is like in some other freakish way. Or he's like bent up into a yoga pose with Gary Cole. He's amazing. Casper is a sleep brand that makes expertly designed products to help you get your best rest one night at a time. The experts at Casper work tirelessly to make a quality sleep surface that cradles your natural geometry in all the right places. After all, you spend one-third of your life sleeping, so you should be comfortable. The original Casper mattress combines multiple supportive memory foams for a quality sleep surface with just the right amounts of both sink and bounce. Its breathable design helps you sleep cool and regulates your body temperature throughout the night. Casper now offers two other mattresses. The Wave and The Essential. The Wave features a patent-pending premium support system to mirror the natural shape of your body. The Essential has a streamlined design at a price that won't keep you up at night. All Casper products are designed, developed, and assembled in the U.S. Prices are affordable because Casper cuts out the middleman and sells directly to you. Every Casper mattress is delivered right to your door in a small how-do-they-do-that-sized box. Plus, there's free shipping and hassle. Free returns in the U.S. and Canada. Plus, you can be sure of your purchase with Casper's 100-night risk-free sleep-on-it trial. Here is a special offer to listeners of The Substandard. Get $50 towards select mattresses by visiting casper.com substandard and using the promo code substandard at checkout. That's casper.com substandard and use promo code substandard for $50 off select mattresses. Terms and conditions may apply.
Vic00:26:18Thank you, JVL.
JVL00:26:20How lovely. That is a read.
Vic00:26:22That's nothing to sleep on.
JVL00:26:24Very good read. Is that an okay read? That was great.
Vic00:26:26It was, in fact, flawless. It was flawless. So, one done, one more to go. Okay, JVL, you said you had, so you didn't see this, but you had Death Wish thoughts or Vigilante movie thoughts? Go for it.
JVL00:26:39I have Death Wish thoughts, and I wanted us all, because we've all seen the original. I've seen the original, but that's the only one. Right. I didn't see two, three, or four. Or five.
Vic00:26:47Oh, my gosh.
JVL00:26:49So, I wanted to talk about the original, and I actually had some, at the risk of having like a deep conversation about it, but I thought that we could have a deep conversation. I mean, do you want to do that, or is that a bad idea? I love it. We'll see where we go. So, the original Death Wish, people may or may not know, is based on a novel by Brian Garfield. The actual movie, if you have not revisited it in the last, say, 30 years, feels a lot like Brocklander's. It was shot on location in New York City in 1986. 1972. This is one of those movies that is burned into the public consciousness, because even if you haven't seen Death Wish, even if you're 30 years old and it's too young for you, you know about it, because it captured a moment in America in ways that movies don't really do anymore. I mean, I can't think of a movie, I mean, Black Panther is making a bazillion, bazillion dollars. It does not capture a moment in America. It is not pointing to a thing. And Death Wish did, and what it captured was the rot. Well, no, I guess that's right. I guess that's right. But it wasn't popular in the way that Death Wish, I mean, Death Wish made an enormous amount of money. And it captured the 70s. I mean, this is one of those movies that is emblematic. And was severely criticized. So I would like to talk briefly about the 1970s for our younger listeners before we then talk about Death Wish, if this is okay.
Sonny00:28:16Is this pulled from David Frum's book on the 1970s?
JVL00:28:18I was going to say, anybody who is listening to the show who is curious about the 1970s should go to Amazon and buy David Frum's book, How We Got Here, the 1970s. It should have been called the 1970s, not How We Got Here.
Vic00:28:30I would have called it that 70s book.
JVL00:28:33I like David Frum a great deal. I think he writes great stuff all the time, and I think this is the best thing he's ever done by a mile and a half.
Sonny00:28:42I think he has gotten into a weird rut on the Donald Trump stuff, but I also think that this is the best thing he's ever done. This is one of the best things that anyone has ever written about America. It's an amazing book. In a section of time. His book on the 1970s is perfect.
JVL00:28:57If you are a millennial, you don't quite understand how bad the 1970s were. Airplane hijackings became a thing in the 1970s. In the 1970s, we had the Olympics Munich massacre, where armed terrorists took over the Olympics and just killed a bunch of people from the Israeli delegation. In March of 1970, I'm sorry, March of 1977, Muslim radicals with machine guns and machetes marched into the B'nai B'rith headquarters in Washington, D.C., five blocks north of the White House. They took 100 of the people who worked there hostage. They herded them onto the roof. One of them was killed. Two others were shot over the course of a standoff that lasted two days. This is an armed standoff with Muslim terrorists five blocks from the White House. This is a thing that happened. Can you imagine if that happened today? It would be the biggest story of this. The year. And this is just a thing that nobody even remembers because it's like, hey, just one of those crazy things that happened in the 1970s. Interesting side note to this. It was part of a coordinated attack. A separate attack was launched at the City Hall in Washington, D.C., where a young man was shot. Marion Barry.
Vic00:30:11Wow. How funny is that? That's the... Yeah.
JVL00:30:15So young Marion Barry is shot in the standoff at City Hall. So you have those sorts of things. You have the riots during the cities in the summer of rage and violent crime. And this is now we really get to what Death Wish caught. People may not understand that in the 1950s and even the early 1960s, violent crime was almost non-existent to the United States. It simply did not happen. And by 1973, it had become so rampant that the Department of Justice had to create a new accounting system just to keep track of it all. David Frum says, in 1973, the FBI found that 37 million Americans, which is one out of every four households, had suffered a rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny, or auto theft.
Vic00:31:00Like, it was mad max.
JVL00:31:02In cities, the victimization rate was one in three. In 1960, there are 9,000 murders total in America. By 1975, the number is 20,000. So more than doubling the murders. This is amazing. And the most evocative statistic, I think. Actually, probably concerns schoolchildren. In 1979, one out of every public school teachers reported that they had been assaulted. I'm sorry, what was that number? In 1979, one out of every 20 public school teachers reported that they had been physically assaulted by a student in the previous year. Everything was just falling apart. And this violence that Death Wish tapped into, and the fear that people had of becoming violent, it isn't like, you know, hey, this is something that maybe happens to people and I see it on the news. Everybody knew somebody who had been robbed or carjacked or raped or had been beat. I mean, it was everywhere. And this is where that vigilantism stuff comes from. So that is, I would say, I just want to set that scene for while we talk about what Death Wish did in the culture.
Vic00:32:11Right. Tapping into that panic in the sense of helplessness. Total panic. Right.
Sonny00:32:15And a reaction to it. And this is why I've always been vaguely amused. I'm amused by the reaction to the reaction that was Death Wish by the critics who are like, oh, my God, this is fascism.
JVL00:32:25This is. Is that Vincent Camby?
Sonny00:32:26Yeah. Well, the Vincent Camby review is like the emblematic one. Vincent Camby was a longtime reviewer for The New York Times who called it, you know, awful and terrible and whatever. Bigoted. Offensive. It was offensive. Bigoted and offensive. And I, it's fascinating to go back and watch Death Wish now because there are a couple of very interesting aspects. JVL, did you rewatch it? Yes. So there are a couple of very fascinating things to it. The first is that it is far more, the home invasion sequence is far more grotesque in the original Death Wish than it is in this new one. It is there. I mean, it's a rape. The daughter is raped. And very graphic. Very graphic. And the wife is beaten, like, not shot. In the new version, the wife and the daughter are shot off screen. Off screen. You see gun flashes. And you hear it. But in the original, the wife is beaten with a blackjack. You see the cuts on her head. And she's kind of staggering around, trying to get back to normal. And the daughter is raped. And she becomes catatonic the rest of the film. And it's, like, really actually pretty horrifying. And that comes, like, five minutes into the movie. That is, like, in the opening moments. And it kind of gets at the much more... More personal way that violence affected people in the 1970s, I think, than we have now. I mean, like, a movie about... A Death Wish movie set now is kind of odd because, frankly, we are safer than we have ever been. This is the Steven Pinker thesis. That we are... Things are getting better. Things are always better. We see these... We see crime on the TV. But these are aberrations. These are not the norm. And when you live with it... And you experience it more viscerally, as you did in the 1970s, it is slightly different from 2018. It is slightly different from, you know, what Dr. Kersey goes through in this movie, as opposed to Mr. Kersey in the original. And I think that the movies reflect this. The movies reflect this. There's a reason that Charles Bronson just goes on a rampage against society writ large. He just wanders the streets waiting to be mugged and shoots the people who try to accuse him. As opposed to this movie, where he is very much more trying to track down the guys who do it, or trying to stop the... So there's a very good scene, spoilers, you know, there's a very good scene in this movie where he, the, what's he called? The guy in the... The ice cream man? The ice cream man is shot by Dr. Kersey. And like, there's, it is a very different world that we live in right now.
JVL00:35:17And it wouldn't have been... It wouldn't have worked. I would say pulling the same 1970s and putting him in a situation where he was wandering around waiting to be mugged, that is not believable. Even in like the worst parts, you know, go to Harlem, go to bed, you know, in the Bronx, you're not, this is not going to be a thing that happens. It's really, it's very interesting. And it's not fascist. This is why, I mean, you can criticize the movie for all sorts of reasons, because the other half of the first one, I don't, I have not seen the second one, is the incompetence and malice of the police institutions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it is... Because society is falling apart, both from the top and from the bottom. And this is not fascist at all, right? No, no. So this is why, again, the criticisms of it originally were so lazy.
Sonny00:35:59Yeah, yeah, right. Well, so this is, there's a very interesting book by Chris Sorrentino, I believe, that's basically just a 90-page review of the original Death Wish and kind of the reaction to it and all that. And I recommend people go out and check it out. It's like 10 bucks on Amazon. It's great. What is very fascinating is that this is not, it's not a fascist movie. It's almost an anarchic movie. Yes. Like, it is a movie about the ways in which government fails to protect people and works to protect itself at the expense of people. And that's the second half of the film. The first half of the film, you know, again, I am so annoyed by the description of this movie as fascist because it is actually a deep celebration of our rights as American citizens.
Vic00:36:47Yes.
Sonny00:36:47I mean, like, it is. In the original movie, in the original Death Wish, Charles Bronson goes out to Arizona and he is instructed by a man who's named Ames, literally named Ames, about the greatness of the Second Amendment and the ability to defend yourself against the crime from, you know, from random muggers. And in the film, the cops engineer an illegal search on apartment 4A. I noted this on Twitter. And I love. I love this. I love. It's such a little touch. That's good. And it's. And, you know, who knows if it was intentional? 100%. But it must have been. 100%. Because, like, the cops doing an illegal search on apartment 4A trying to track down, you know, their criminal in the form of Mr. Kersey. And there's a strong First Amendment case to be made here as well. The news organizations go out there, they report on this, and it gives the people an example to live by. They don't have to be afraid.
Vic00:37:50That's right.
Sonny00:37:50They don't have to cower in fear. They don't have to accept the violence that is inflicted upon them. And they, you know, they react. The men on the construction site beat the criminal. The woman who is mugged, or the woman who sees her friend being mugged pulls out her hat pin and goes after the guy. Everybody is rising up.
Vic00:38:09Yeah, everybody is rising up.
Sonny00:38:10I'm not going to take this anymore. We're not. We do not need to accept this level of crime. We can fight back. And the only reason we can fight back? The only reason we can fight back?
JVL00:38:20Second Amendment. Thank you, Sonny. Do you have something, Vic? Because I want to keep plumbing this, actually.
Vic00:38:26I was going to say what was interesting was I actually saw the movie Death Wish with my father. My parents were- You were four.
JVL00:38:34What? No, no, no. You were four. The new Death Wish.
Vic00:38:39The new Death Wish with Bruce Willis. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I was one. It just made sense. I was one. And Jeff Goldblum, by the way. Great turn by Jeff Goldblum.
JVL00:38:48I'm here to rape you.
Sonny00:38:53That's your Jeff Goldblum? Okay, no. Your doctors were so concerned about whether they could rape someone, they never thought about whether they should.
JVL00:39:00Okay, thank you. Lovely.
Vic00:39:02No, so my parents were visiting over the weekend, and I said, I'll see it on Sunday morning. I said to my dad, I go, you want to go see Death Wish? And my dad says, hey, that's supposed to be good. And so he had seen the original, because the original was Charles Bronson. I said, yeah, with Charles Bronson. Okay, let's go see it. So the two of us go see them. And there's a scene where he's in the hospital and removing a bullet hole or something from some patient. And I turned to my dad and I said, oh, you probably had to do that a few times. He goes, a lot. And so I asked him about it later to refresh my memory. And my father was a doctor, a resident, and then chief resident at Columbus Hospital, which no longer exists, in Lower Manhattan between 1968 and 1973, which is really- And he spent a lot of time in the emergency rooms. And I said, so how bad was it? And he goes, well, you know, the hospital was near Chinatown. It's a lot of stabbings, a lot of gunshots. And so it was just normal, though. And the worst, he said, was a guy who came in with an ice pick to his heart. But he managed to save the guy because it was still sticking in him.
JVL00:40:12So it was holding everything together. Exactly. Don't pull it out. That's exactly right. Don't pull it out.
Vic00:40:16And so they reached in. And then I think my dad had to use his hand. Eventually, he'd get his finger and, you know, while they're doing all this sorts of stuff, the guy managed to live. And his advice, of course, is if you ever get stabbed or anything, don't take it out. Yep. Because it's a plug. It serves as a plug. And he was probably in his early 30s when he was doing this. That's cool.
JVL00:40:34What were you doing when you were in your early 30s?
Vic00:40:35You know, I was finding italicized commas. But I don't think my dad can do it.
JVL00:40:39The bolded periods. Boo. Oh, well, you know. That's really intelligent. And you miss one of those, the consequences are enormous.
Vic00:40:46Oh, my gosh, no. I didn't want to say. You know what? My dad probably doesn't know what a gerund is. And you know what? It's kind of sad. But, you know. Anyway. So it is interesting to put into perspective, again, about how bad things were.
JVL00:41:00JVL. So, Sonny, you said, and I think you were only being facetious. Who knows if they were doing it intentionally with Apartment 4A. Everything about that movie is intentional. So it is a schlockish movie if you watch it now. It does not. It feels of the era. It doesn't feel like it did now. Although it was shot on location. It was shot on location in New York. So, I mean, there's a reason it looks grimy like that. Same, by the way, same with French Connection.
Vic00:41:24Also very grimy, gritty, because it's at that time.
JVL00:41:27So the original Death Wish is talking to Westerns throughout. Constantly referencing Westerns. Kirstie gets his inspiration from a fight scene in the Wild West. He has a showdown. We challenge him. He says, you know, fill your hand, which is what John Wayne says in True Grit. And this, now this I may be giving them a little bit too much credit, but whether they meant it or not, I think this is real. I think you could say that in Death Wish and many of those vigilante movies of the period, the underlying theme is that civilization cannot be maintained by laws themselves. That it takes more than that. And if the government is non-present or incompetent, then in order for civilization to survive, normal men must use violence. Well, law doesn't exist. Law is a concept, it's not a... A concept, not a fact. It's not a thing. And if you go down another level on this, what the Western and the vigilante movie of the 70s were saying, is that natural law is insufficient and the basic fact of government must be the monopoly on legitimate use of violence in order to enforce the law. But here's... But I think that's wrong. No, you disagree?
Sonny00:42:43Well, if the monopoly on legitimate use of force... Is the standard.
JVL00:42:49No, but it has to be enforced. It has to be used. So the government has to be actively using force to enforce the laws. Otherwise, everything breaks down. But what I would suggest about this is that this might be a distinctly American view. Because I don't think that if you go over to England, anybody has the same view or that the same facts are even true. Like, England doesn't rely on a gun. And I think the difference in all of this is guns. Guns. Right. I mean, the real, not just a theoretical difference, but the actual difference is the presence of guns.
Sonny00:43:31We had a discussion about this many, many years ago when I was a very young staffer at The Weekly Standard about The Bank Job. Do you remember? Yeah. Remember The Bank Job? Yep. The Bank Job is only an interesting movie insofar as nobody has access to guns. 100%. And I do think that that changes. The calculus quite a bit. I mean, look, if we could magic all guns out of existence today, America would be probably a safer and, you know. Careful. Better. Not better place. Edging closer to politics. There'd be a lot of stabbing sprees, but still. But it's not the same. But, like, there is an argument to be made for magicing all the guns away from everyone. We don't live in that world. Doesn't exist. Can't exist. So we have a different world. We have a world. We have a world in which guns are everywhere. And if guns are everywhere, good people have to have guns.
JVL00:44:22And that's what I'm getting at. The question is, would someone from Great Britain agree that civilization can't function unless the government is frequently exercising violence on behalf of the citizenry? I think they would not. And it isn't that the English are averse to violence. If you look at the way they've managed their colonial possessions, especially, like, you know, in Afghanistan.
Sonny00:44:40But look at how they rejected that over the last 40 years.
JVL00:44:43But I'm saying that as a class, the English have historically been perfectly okay with the African-Americans. But at home, they did not believe that that was essential to English civilization. English civilization could survive without a metropolitan police force in London, like, going around and taking care of all the bad guys. And, in fact, it did for, like, 100 years, essentially. So this is—I guess what I'm getting at, I'm not trying to place a value judgment. But just to say that, actually, what's going on at the philosophical level in the Death Wish movies and throughout the 70s is a distinctly— —American argument and a distinctly American case. And I found that interesting.
Sonny00:45:24I think that's true-ish, but I also think that there is a basic truth that you should be able to defend yourself. And if you do not take the impetus to defend yourself, there is some level of blame that will be laid upon you.
JVL00:45:38But that's an American idea, don't you think?
Sonny00:45:41I don't think that's an American idea. Do people in France view the world that way? I don't know if people in France view the world that way, but I know people in tribal societies in Afghanistan— Yeah. No, but that's what I'm— —and elsewhere do. I think that there's an idea in the continent and England that has kind of accepted this idea that we are beyond the need to protect ourselves. And that's bullshit. I mean, that just doesn't—that doesn't work.
Vic00:46:05You know, in a similar vein, a movie that I saw recently for the first time, Hell or High Water.
Sonny00:46:10Great movie.
Vic00:46:11It is a really, really great movie. And one of the interesting things is, of course, is how there's a bit of a deterrent. There's a bit of a deterrent to holding up banks because of the fear that other people have weapons, you know? And, in fact, I think Ben Foster makes a complaint in the movie about how much he hates concealed carry because, you know, of course, they all carry guns. And then in that last scene— Well, when you're in Texas, too. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's a very Texas thing. And then that last bank job that goes bad, of course, they're all—they chase them out with guns. They all have guns, you know? So I thought that was very interesting. You know what I thought was going to be? I've always—I always used to— Hold out hope that The Punisher would be a great vigilante movie because that was my favorite villain. Well, the Netflix show is pretty good.
JVL00:46:56This is with— Your favorite villain? Villain, villain. Well, hero. John Bernthal. Anti-hero. Yeah, John Bernthal. I believe you own The Punisher's first appearance.
Vic00:47:04I do. I have that. It's encased in—it didn't get a great grade.
Sonny00:47:07You got jobbed on that grade. We had to resubmit it. Thank you. We're talking about a comic, the comic book. What was your CGC grade on Amazing Spider— 57? Something like that, Sonny. Jeez. Did I get it? I have that for that. I think it is.
Vic00:47:23I think it is. It's the picture of The Punisher, and he's got, you know, Spider-Man in the cross—and Spider-Man's falling down. Oh, I know.
Sonny00:47:28I know. I'm very familiar. Do you own that, too?
Vic00:47:31No. I own that, and I bought it sometime in the 1980s. Just a student. I'm just a student of the form, Vic. I got that sometime in the 1980s. Keep talking while I look at this. And anyway— You're wrong! I always saw—
Sonny00:47:42Oh, it's at 158? Hold on. I don't know what it is yet. Keep talking while I look at this.
Vic00:47:46Do a Google image. It'll come up. But I always thought, oh, man, this will be a great movie. And what was the first—do you remember the first Punisher movie starred? Dolph Lundgren. 129.
Sonny00:47:55Oh, 129. I was off by two years.
Vic00:47:57Okay. Dolph Lundgren, that was a disappointment.
Sonny00:48:01Boo, Sonny.
Vic00:48:02And then there was a Thomas Jane Punisher.
JVL00:48:04Well, the Thomas Jane Punisher is underrated, but we should discuss this some other time.
Sonny00:48:08And you said you liked John Bernthal.
JVL00:48:10And there's another Punisher after the Tom Jane Punisher.
Vic00:48:13Yes, it was Punisher something something. Punisher. Punisher.
Sonny00:48:15Punisher, a war journal directed by Lexi Alexander, who's a terrible, terrible woman. You are good. Terrible woman? Terrible woman director. Woman director. I hate her. I mean, she's a horrible person. Well, she's a person on Twitter who is terrible, and I hate her. Oh, okay. But no, it was— That's a whole other issue. Starring the guy from Rome, Ray Stevenson.
Vic00:48:38Oh, really? Okay.
Sonny00:48:39Good for you. Yes.
Vic00:48:41I'll give you—Kudasani has his hands in the air, wanting the— Kudos. I'll give you kudos. I'll give you—I get them all mixed up. I guess I have to brush up on my punishers. Speaking of brushing up, GVL.
JVL00:48:54I'm back. Quip. Quip is the new electric toothbrush that packs just the right amount of vibrations into a slimmer design at a fraction of the cost of bulkier traditional electric brushes, and guiding pulses alert you when to switch sides, making brushing the right amount of effortless. Quip also comes with a mount that suctions right to your mirror. And unsticks to use as a cover for hygienic travel everywhere, whether it's going in your gym bag or carry-on. The gym bag being my preferable way of carrying around my Quip. That's actually what I—it's my favorite travel toothbrush ever. Because the thing that cleans your mouth should also be clean, Quip's subscription plan refreshes your brush on a dentist-recommended schedule, delivering a new brush head every three months for just $5, including free shipping worldwide. Which, by the way, my new Quip brush head is on its way. Got an email letting me know. And $5 for a brush head is really treatable. Even if you get, like, the expensive fancy electric brushes, you're going to pay a lot more than that for brush head replacements. Quip is backed by a network of over 10,000 dental professionals, including dentists, hygienists, and dental students. Most toothbrushes don't get named one of Time Magazine's Best Inventions of the Year, but Quip did. Find out for yourself why. Quip starts at just $25, and if you go to getquip.com slash substandard right now, you'll get your first refill pack for free. With a Quip electric toothbrush. That's your first refill pack free at getquip.com slash substandard, spelled G-E-T-Q-U-I-P dot com slash substandard.
Vic00:50:28You are en fuego, JVL.
JVL00:50:30Dare I say.
Vic00:50:31You are ad-reading en fuego. You explained to me why is it important to change the bristles, what happens after three months or so. Oh, you really want me to go into this? We only have an hour. We only have an hour left, so please.
JVL00:50:45The bristles get sharpened. Isn't that good to get all the dirt out of the sharpener? No, it's bad because it'll peel the enamel right off your teeth. This is why you are hurting yourself and also cut up your gums, too. I mean, people don't understand that the truth is your teeth are important, but the bigger part of what's going on is protecting your gums, and this is the whole universe of periodonture. It's very important to change your brush heads every three months. People who cheap out, and I'm one of them. This is, you know, I always think, oh, it's not so bad. I can do another month on it.
Vic00:51:19Don't. No?
JVL00:51:20Don't do it. This is why Quip is so great, and everybody should use Quip. Getquip.com slash Substandard. That's getquip.com slash Substandard.
Vic00:51:28That was a freebie there. Moving right along, spirit of, we got a good spirit of the week here. Wait, before we go to spirit, can I just drop one more little thing? Please, please. More nuggets?
JVL00:51:38Death Wish is one of those, and this happens all the time, a perfect example of the contingency of events in Hollywood. So, do you know that, maybe you know this, especially if you read the book on it. It was originally supposed to have been directed by Sidney Lumet.
Sonny00:51:54No, I didn't know that. Starring? Yes.
JVL00:51:57Starring Jack Lemmon.
Sonny00:51:58Oh.
JVL00:51:59And when Lumet left, he went and did Serpico instead. After that, Lemmon dropped out. They then offered the lead to Clint Eastwood. He said no. Then Steve McQueen. He said no. Then Frank Sinatra. He said no. They finally give the job. They give the job to Michael Winner, who is just a director for hire. And because he had just wrapped a movie that he shot with Bronson, and he really liked Bronson, and they got along well. Was that The Mechanic? Maybe. I think so. And so, he brings Bronson along with him, and that is why Charles Bronson becomes this giant cultural icon.
Sonny00:52:31Well, Bronson had wanted, so this is in the book, Bronson had wanted to do it in L.A. Yes.
JVL00:52:36And he wanted to shoot in L.A. and do a couple days of exteriors in New York.
Sonny00:52:42Convenient. They stuck to it. They were like, we got to do this in New York. They were right to do it. And they were right to do it. It is a movie about New York. New York is the Ur-City. It is the New York movie. It was dirty.
JVL00:52:52It's crazy. And very funny. And Bronson is, I mean, people think, people who don't, I would say younger people may think of him solely as, oh, he's the guy who was the old guy vigilante.
Sonny00:53:05He is a punchline on Simpsons.
JVL00:53:07But he has been around movies for like 50 years. I mean, he was, he's in Hitchcock. He was in a bunch of Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes. He was in The Magnificent Seven and Dirty Dozen and Rawhide and Hitchcock Presents.
Vic00:53:22And he played the union guy, Jablonski, the true story of the union guy who was killed by union thugs.
JVL00:53:28He is a guy whose career could not happen now, I don't think.
Sonny00:53:32I don't think he was.
JVL00:53:33I can't remember. But I mean, a guy who looks like him with his laconic, they don't make more Charles Bronsons in Hollywood.
Vic00:53:40No, no. They're all pretty boys. Spirit of the Week. Blade Runner 2049, Johnny Walker, Black Sonny. Why are we drinking this?
Sonny00:53:49Because you got it from the folks at Diageo, right?
Vic00:53:52Courtesy of Diageo, but also why this episode? We're celebrating what?
Sonny00:53:56I have no idea. What are you talking about?
Vic00:53:58Roger Deakins.
JVL00:53:58Oh, Roger Deakins. Roger Deakins winning. That's right. That's right. I forgot. Several months ago. Whenever the last time we did this show was.
Sonny00:54:05Many moons ago. No, that's right. Roger Deakins won the Oscar for Best Cinematography. Did you? And we are very excited for him. He deserved this. He deserved this 10 years ago, probably. What is the other stuff that he did that you liked? No Country for Old Men. I mean, he deserved it for No Country for Old Men. That's a movie that is magnificently shot in a subtle way, as opposed to the assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford, which is shot in a showy way. And I'm not too worried he didn't win it for that.
Vic00:54:35He lost out. Roger Deakins lost out to Phil Collins, by the way. That's who he lost out to. That's an old joke. That's a JBL joke. Okay. So anyway. Yeah. No.
Sonny00:54:43But we're very excited. This is a very, very fine bourbon, or scotch, if you can find it. I wanted to have it, but it has carbs in it. Yeah. No carbs. No carbs for you. I said, no, thank you.
JVL00:54:54Oh, my gosh.
Vic00:54:54I hope, like, I've been having- No Schafferhofer? I've been having, okay. So I have no pasta, no bagels, but French fries. I can have some French fries.
JVL00:55:01Oh, yeah. No carbs in those. You know why? Because when you fry them, the carbs fall out. They go away. The carbs are destroyed by the fry oil. They evaporate. They evaporate. Carbs on contact with heat become denatured, and everything just- Cost breaks out. I'm all about denatured, Sonny.
Vic00:55:16Yes. So, anyway, Spirit of the Week, Blade Runner 2049.
Sonny00:55:19It's a great spirit. Okay. It's a great spirit if Diageo, who is advertised, it's very, so, there is a story about all the advertisements in Blade Runner 2049. They kept all the old ones, like Atari and Pan Am, but they also added some new ones, like Diageo, who gets a lot of love in Blade Runner 2049. If they wanted to send us a couple more bottles of this, I would- That's it. ... not be opposed. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint and beef jerky from Dukes.
JVL00:55:50Dukes. Okay. Dukes. We don't want their shorty sausages, though. They also do beef jerky. I have not sampled it. I'm sure it's great, but I love the peach barbecue.
Vic00:56:00Is that the peach beef jerky I just had, or no?
Sonny00:56:01Yeah, the peach barbecue. Oh, yeah. It's delicious. No, no.
JVL00:56:03This is the Hickory Peach Barbecue Smoked Shorty Sausages. I was surprised how good it was. They're amazing.
Vic00:56:07And the plastic bag is the-
JVL00:56:08This is the jerky from Nick's, which is the butcher. Oh, I didn't realize that. This is Nick's, which is the butcher that my boss likes to go to.
Vic00:56:17Oh, wow. Okay. So that was very local. I wanted to say, this listener, Peter Daniels, suggested on Twitter, the weekly substandard should make NyQuil a spirit of the week. Question, as far as drinkable cold and allergy medicines, is NyQuil top, Sonny Bunch?
Sonny00:56:32What do you like? I don't understand the question, and I won't respond to it. Robitussin.
Vic00:56:37Ooh. Dimetap Grape. That's what I'll say, JJ. No, Robitussin's the best.
Sonny00:56:40Do you remember the RISD- No, Dimetap is not a- Dimetap, that's for children. Children who have a cough.
JVL00:56:45You- Child. Do you remember our friend and former colleague? Yes. We had a, I won't name her name, but she was a very artsy type who went to school in Rhode Island. Of course, of course. And would occasionally attend the RISD parties, which I believe are like the craziest college parties in America. And what do they do there? And one of the crazy things they used to do, I don't know if this is still done, is have RoboPound parties, where everybody would bring two- Things of Robitussin and chug two bottles of Robitussin to get messed up. Well, they were RoboTurbing. Interesting. That's awesome. That's a thing. Is that a thing? That's- The kids still do that?
Sonny00:57:24They did it when I was in college 15 years ago.
Vic00:57:28If you get a chance, go to YouTube or find Chris Rock has a great riff on Robitussin. Get that tussin in there. Oh, I remember that. Get that tussin in there. Okay, that's all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliment us. Tweet us at Victorino Mattis at Sonny Bunch. At JV Last. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play or Stitcher. Just type in Substandard on our podcasts. We are there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time. I think it was kind of good that we did a week off. I feel like I have more energy and I actually enjoy being here. And I thought it went well. Maybe we should go to that kind of a schedule every other week.
Sonny00:58:17Yeah, let's put it up to a vote. Maybe we should put it up to a vote. JBL, you can put a Twitter poll up there. Oh, I thought you meant a vote of the three of us. No, no, no. We should put it up to a vote for the people. Fox Populi. Yeah, that's what we believe.
JVL00:58:32We give the substandard to you. We give the substandard to you. Do with it as you will.
Sonny00:58:39And see what they think.
JVL00:58:40Month but first, begin by liberating.
Vic00:58:44The remnant. So do we have a quarterly, monthly, or weekly? And they can decide.
JVL00:58:53A quarterly would be interesting. Yeah, I know. If we want to have 12 people listening to it, that's a great idea. I had an outtake question. Go for it. But this is a similar, a sort of poll question. Now I'm worried that maybe I should have prepped you for it instead of... We'll try our best. Do either of you have a song? Something buried in your iPod or your iPhone somewhere that when it comes on basically makes you want to drive about 115 miles an hour? Like is there a singles, like, you know, so you're out, you're driving to New Jersey, and the roads are clear, there's nobody around, and this comes on. And nobody in you with a car. No kids. You're just by yourself. And this comes on without even realizing it, suddenly you're doing 85. Do you have a song like that in mind?
Sonny00:59:43In your, in your lives? No, but I could imagine songs like that.
Vic00:59:48Okay, well never mind. I just, my working, Victorino, do you? There are, I like, there are great driving songs that I like, that have sort of a constant beat, you know? Like Radar Love, right guys?
Sonny01:00:00Are we, is it the 1980s anymore? Golden Earring, Radar Love. Wow.
JVL01:00:05No, I know Radar Love, I know what you're talking about. That's a overused piece of cinematic music. No, F***ing in the Bushes, that would be the, that would be the.
Vic01:00:1359, 57, okay, JVL, wait, you had to change that.
Sonny01:00:17Nope, that's the name of the song, we don't have to beep that, right? It's just, it's just the name of the, that's what Oasis calls it.
Vic01:00:22You know what, they slap an E on us anyway, makes no difference.
Sonny01:00:24That's what, that's what, yeah, what's up with that, by the way? Can we get that taken off? No matter, even when we're.
Vic01:00:28We want it.
Sonny01:00:29I think it hurts us. Even when we're angels, they still get the E. We should, we should take this up with iTunes High Command.
JVL01:00:36We spent half of our shows talking about taking a sausage in the mouth. Even if we're not actually getting the, the unexpurgated words out there. We deserve an explicit. Do we? Do we? That's not fair. This isn't fair. And by the way, I will, before we sign out of here, I will note that somebody on Twitter the other day said, I think without even knowing it, and had you copied on it, oh, I'd be in the Lacey Chabert business. I'm sure it's fine.
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