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#109. The Substandard on The Death of Stalin, Dark Humor, and Swingers
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
Dudes Chatting — Johnny Ivey and Sonny's Weekly Standard cover: The episode opens with JVL doing his "Johnny Ivey" bit — an impression of Jony Ive (Apple's former design chief) describing mundane objects in reverential product-launch language. Sonny mentions his first Weekly Standard cover story, on how television canons form and why certain shows achieve prestige status.
Dudes Chatting — Dark comedy as genre: Prompted by The Death of Stalin, Sonny leads a genre survey of dark comedy. Films discussed include Dr. Strangelove (the benchmark), Brazil, Idiocracy, Pulp Fiction (debated as to whether it qualifies), and Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be as a precursor. The guys debate what distinguishes dark comedy from horror-comedy and why the genre is so difficult to execute. Soviet history's inherent absurdities are discussed as natural material — the chaos of the succession struggle, Beria's arrest at the funeral — and Sonny cites Peter Hitchens' criticism that the film trivializes real atrocities. JVL disagrees, arguing that Iannucci's mode exposes totalitarianism's absurdity rather than minimizing its horror. The episode closes with Vic recounting an anecdote about a suburban swingers party he accidentally learned about.
Box Office: Black Panther is still at #1 with $27 million in its fifth weekend. Tomb Raider opens at #2 with $23.5 million. A Wrinkle in Time is dropping sharply. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle has crossed $400 million domestic.
Reviews: Sonny reviews The Death of Stalin with high enthusiasm: Armando Iannucci's dark comedy about the power struggle following Stalin's 1953 death is brilliantly constructed, with no character speaking in a Russian accent (everyone uses their natural accent, which Sonny argues is a deliberate alienation device). He singles out Jeffrey Tambor as the hapless Malenkov, Steve Buscemi as a scheming Khrushchev, and Jason Isaacs as a hilariously swaggering Zhukov. Sonny calls it one of the best films of the year.
Spirit of the Week: Bushmills Irish Honey.
Full transcript
Sonny00:00:00Do it live! Do it live! I'll write it, and we'll do it live!
Vic00:00:10Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Substandard, sponsored by The Black Tux. I'm Victor Matus, along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. I'd like to remind you, The Substandard is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Just look on our podcast and search for Substandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe. Tell your friends. Leave a review. I warn you now, this could be one of those episodes where it's really, unlike many of our other episodes, it's really about nothing, and short and pointless. But we've got to put something out this week. It's just that hard time of the year when there's not that much to talk about.
Sonny00:00:47When the people who are on the podcast don't go see the things that we're going to be talking about on the podcast. It's ridiculous. I tried.
Vic00:00:55I tried. Sorry, are we taping already? Yes, we are. Oh, hey, hi. Hello. So how are we, JVL? What is that in your hand?
JVL00:01:05We have something very special to share with you today. It's called the pencil. We've taken the most exotic graphite in the world and blended it into a raw that's hard, yet also soft, that leaves a line that's not black, but a rich gray. These lines you create with your pencil can be literally anything in your imagination. The pencil lets you unleash your creativity. And if you make a mistake, no bother. Just flip the pencil around. On the other end, we've installed a device which literally makes the lines disappear. And these erasing devices come in three colors, white, rose pink, and space gray. By inserting the pencil into your new eye sharpener, you can use it over and over again. And we're so proud of our pencil, and we can't wait to see what you do with it. Next.
Vic00:01:57Johnny Ivey, what did you get in here? It's my only contribution to the show this week.
Sonny00:02:02Now I remember. We were talking about this before. I was like, I don't remember who Sonny Bunch is. And now I remember it's... Go f*** yourself.
JVL00:02:10It's my only bit. Leave me alone.
Sonny00:02:13I've been honing my Johnny Ivey pencil bit. I don't understand why you're so angry. Why you're so angry with me. I was just saying that I... He just didn't remember. He just didn't remember. Johnny Ivey is not a person who I remember because... Not because of you. But because I don't remember who Johnny Ivey is. He's the Apple tech guru, right? Is that like the... Or AOL genius? AOL.
Vic00:02:34He's been Steve Case. He wears denim. He wears denim. What is the pencil? So what is this? The Apple has a pencil? This is real? No, this is the joke. The joke.
?00:02:46Sorry.
Sonny00:02:47That's a great start. It's a great start to the show.
JVL00:02:50Great start to the show. Should we just end the episode already? Here. I'm more than happy to. I'm sure it's fine.
Vic00:02:54Oh. Okay. Anyway, how are you and how is life post first cover story of The Weekly Standard? Did anybody notice your cover story?
Sonny00:03:04I got a lot of really great comments and kudos from people. I was pretty excited. From who?
JVL00:03:09Anybody who's a professional comedian, say, who's been, I don't know, the host of Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live?
Sonny00:03:15Did Colin Quinn tweet it out? I didn't... No. Yeah, Norm MacDonald was very nice to...
JVL00:03:20Did he just RT somebody else's mention of it?
Sonny00:03:24Well, he quote tweeted me.
JVL00:03:26He, on his own, typed his own words and said it was great and everybody should read it.
Sonny00:03:31He did. Well, everyone should read it. That's true. Everyone should read it.
JVL00:03:34If I read it, I'm going to link it in show notes.
Sonny00:03:36Good. Excellent. That's great. I wrote the whole thing on one of those eye pencils, so it's good that we're bringing it all back. Great. The first cover story, I had to intern and then work here for three years and then leave for 10 years, and then that's when the cover story... That's good. That's how you make the magic.
JVL00:03:58Well, to be fair... Wait, so from the time you first walked in the door at The Weekly Standard to the time you got on the cover was how long?
Sonny00:04:0416 years. 16 years. 16 years.
JVL00:04:06This is like being the player with the most number of years to never appear in the Super Bowl or something.
Vic00:04:10And then I went... The truth is, I kept on vetoing. People would suggest, how about Sonny? I said, no, don't do it. So that's what happened. I haven't read it yet, but I hear it's great. I never even got to Slash.
Sonny00:04:22Never even got to Slash.
Vic00:04:23When I overheard you were cover, I thought, oh, at most... At most. At most it would be a Slash. At most. People don't know what the Slash is. I'm sorry. It's a term of art. It is a term of art. On C1, the cover, it's usually on the left side. It's a corner, a little feature, but another piece so that you have the main story is on the cover, and then there's a second story you put on the upper left corner.
JVL00:04:45But anyway... Hold on, hold on. Stop. Okay. Sonny's piece was so important that if you look closely at this cover, no Slash.
Vic00:04:53Yeah, that's right. Wow. That's right. Not since 9-11.
JVL00:04:56Sonny's piece was so big that we didn't even want to distract readers with anybody else's things about, like, I don't know, Andrew McCabe and the Mueller investigation. Right.
Sonny00:05:06We just try to hone in. Congress. Russia.
Vic00:05:09That is actually true. There is significance to the no Slash. The first time I noticed it when I was a kid was on a Time magazine when they uncovered Andrew Wyeth's mystery paintings. No Slash. I said, this must be a big deal. Big story. People are still talking about it. People are still talking about it. And likewise... Otherwise, Sonny's cover story. Yeah.
Sonny00:05:28Yeah. Well, it was very popular. Lots of people read it. Got lots of good feedback on Twitter from people who generally hate me. Oh, like who? I don't know. Just everyone. It was great. But thank you to The Weekly Standard for...
JVL00:05:45Do you want to know how many people looked at it?
Sonny00:05:47No.
JVL00:05:48Oh, he can tell you?
Sonny00:05:49I don't want to put that out there on the podcast. A week from now. I feel like those are... Those are trade secrets that you shouldn't reveal.
Vic00:05:58Okay.
JVL00:05:58That's it.
Sonny00:05:59That's it.
JVL00:05:59But I mean, if you're curious, I could just tell you.
Sonny00:06:02So many people. Save it for off the air.
Vic00:06:04Below you away how many people read it. Save it for off the air. Remember, after your comment about Johnny Ivey, don't ask. Good. And how long did it take you to prepare this piece? I don't know.
Sonny00:06:14It's important for people to understand how this works. Craft. The actual writing. So if you haven't read it, it's about 5,500 words on TV and canon formation. It's a lot. It's a lot for me, certainly.
JVL00:06:27Do people understand that this piece came from The Substandard? The genesis of this piece is a conversation we had right here.
Sonny00:06:33Kind of, yeah. Yeah, it's definitely something that we'd been talking about for a long time. Which is that there's two... But you were saying... Basically, I co-wrote it. Basically. I pushed for JVL to actually have a co-byline. I wanted it to be Sonny Bunch and Jonathan Last. I just don't like doing that anymore. After my experience.
Vic00:06:47He was so good at the co-byline, JVL.
Sonny00:06:51And it was vetoed by corporate. They were like, we don't want JVL to get any... I'm getting credit for this. Good. So it was... But the actual writing is probably, I don't know, 30 hours, something like that. But the... I mean, like, you know, there was a lot of reading and thinking. Naval gazing. A lot of naval gazing. A lot of naval gazing. A lot of TV watching. So, I don't know, a couple months. From, like, first conversation with Adam Kuyper, the literary editor here, to on the cover was probably about four months.
Vic00:07:23And I know we have a lot to cover. We have a lot to cover in this jam-packed, monumental episode. But could you give us the gist of the story?
Sonny00:07:32No. I can't really summarize it in one sentence for the... I'm sorry. ...for the Weekly Substandard podcast.
JVL00:07:39This is a 5,500-word piece, and you said it took you 30 hours to write. That's 183 words per hour.
Sonny00:07:50You say that's too little or it's a lot?
Vic00:07:52But I mean... Joe Mitchell would spend two weeks on a paragraph, Jeremy.
Sonny00:07:55No, no, no, no. But I mean, like, in terms of, like, writing, then rewriting, then editing, and all that. I mean, it's...
JVL00:08:01I'm just saying. Not really a professional word rate, when I think about it.
Sonny00:08:05Well, fortunately, I got paid a lot of money to do it, so it all worked out. You'll make it up on volume. It all worked out.
JVL00:08:13That's good. That's good.
Vic00:08:15Anyway, we're watching too much TV is the whole thing. There's too much TV to watch.
JVL00:08:17Too much TV. There's too much... The point of the piece... You can't get off Sonny's lawn with your streaming box TVs.
Sonny00:08:24The point of the piece, really, is that there's... There's so much TV that it is hard to determine what will last, because one of the ways that TV shows become cultural touchstones is by repetition. This is the kind of idea behind...
JVL00:08:37Did you spend any time of your 30 hours working on this piece, Shining Your Shoes, as a sort of zen-like thing?
Sonny00:08:45Is there a particular reason you're being a c*** right now? Is there... I'm just trying to... 844! I'm just trying to figure it out.
JVL00:08:52Because I'm genuinely hurt about the Johnny Ivey thing.
Sonny00:08:55Is it because... Is it because I don't remember who that moron Johnny Ivey is?
Vic00:08:59It's because it's my bit, and I'm hurt by it. In case you're wondering, the C word Sonny used is not the synonym for rooster.
Sonny00:09:06It's the other one. Well, I'm not beeping it. I'm just letting that one fly, so... No, I don't remember who Johnny Ivey is, because Johnny Ivey's not an important person to me. Once you started doing the accent, I remembered your dumb bit.
Vic00:09:21Oh, wow. Okay. That's why I'm hurt. Well, you know, this is early. It's early. And we're still getting started. Okay, well, I'm going to move on.
JVL00:09:28You know, next week we're doing this show remotely.
Vic00:09:30Yeah, if that's going to work out for you. So we don't even need to be...
JVL00:09:33It's the first step into our total breakup. Are we doing... It's like the trial separation. What do you mean?
Vic00:09:37You're not going... You're not going to physically be with us?
JVL00:09:40Oh, I thought you guys were going to stay at the Beacon and I'd be over here. Yeah, and you...
Vic00:09:42No, no, we want you to come over, and then we'll treat you back to Chipotle afterwards or something. Chipotle's pretty good. And now you can get, you know, you can get your carnitas. Now you can get your carnitas.
JVL00:09:52I can't do Chipotle. There's too many carbs and stuff involved in it. But you can get non-carb. The bowl, right? Yeah, you get the bowl.
Vic00:09:59Isn't that a little grotesque? Can you do rice? I wouldn't do it.
JVL00:10:02No, you can't do rice.
Sonny00:10:03Can you do beans? No. What are you talking about?
Vic00:10:05Beans are protein. Beans aren't carbs.
JVL00:10:06Beans are protein. You should do that. Protein and carbs. What? Just like rice. What? Huh?
Vic00:10:13That's crazy. Okay, so stick to potatoes. Anyway, thank you, Sonny, for that. We'll move on. How about that? Let's move on. How was your weekend, Vic? I've been drinking since Friday. Sort of steadily. Oh, is that part of gluttony? Right into the show. Right into the show. Part of your gluttony Lenten sacrifice? No, it's not. Drinking, I don't see ... Gluttony, I think of as food. Drinking is more like whether or not you ... Social drinking or alcoholism. I didn't give up alcoholism for Lent. I gave up gluttony. In terms of the gluttony waste situation, I continue to battle on both fronts. There might have been a baguette involved somewhere, but- No carbs in those. No, definitely not in a baguette. It's a French white baguette. But no, I've just been drinking for one reason or another via St. Paddy's Day, where I made a terrific Guinness stew, and Friday, Sonny and I had gone out to a lunch with the intern and our-
JVL00:11:08Intern lunch. And with Matt Continetti.
Vic00:11:10And then last night, we went over to our in-laws-
JVL00:11:13Is that where you take them up to the top of the roof and you throw the brick that's tied up and string to them?
Vic00:11:17Yes, that's right. That's right. Very good. Very good old school. I was at the in-laws on Sunday night. And I said, we're just having a little pizza, and the kids are going to play nice and easy. And then we had some beers, and the next thing you know, my father-in-law just plops down a bottle of Jack Daniels. He said, look what I got. And I'll just have a little bit, because I'm driving, so just a little bit. And then as soon as it's done, then a little bit more. Just the tip. Just, you know, and next thing you know, the kids are like, Daddy, are you drunk again?
JVL00:11:45I said, no. What are you talking about? While you were drinking- Get in the car, kids. Did he build you a hoopoe while you were drinking? Well, you're lying there on the couch, like passed out, and Dr. Dwyer's like, all right, now we're going to finish the dental molding on this side.
Vic00:12:00Yes. So that's what happens, but you know, my father-in-law, Dr. Bob Dwyer, is a cool cat, so thank you very much for dinner. Speaking of cool cats, over the weekend, Black Panther took the top spot again. I hope this is it, right? This is it? This is the last transition for Black Panther? Oh, really?
Sonny00:12:19Next week? I don't know. I don't know what happens next week.
JVL00:12:22Man, okay.
Vic00:12:23I thought it was Ready Player One, but it's not yet. No, Ready Player One. It's not ready.
Sonny00:12:27Pacific Rim 2 will probably beat Black Panther.
Vic00:12:31Don't count on Gene reviewing Pacific Rim or doing a sort of Pacific Rim job on that. Okay, took the top spot again with $27 million, followed by Tomb Raider with $23.5 million, and I Can Only Imagine with $17 million. What is I Can Only Imagine?
Sonny00:12:51It's a Christian rock. It's a Christian rock movie. Oh, this is what you tweeted about. As best as I can tell. You caused a controversy on Twitter.
Vic00:12:57What did you do?
Sonny00:12:58I didn't really.
Vic00:12:59Somebody was quoting you, and there was comments, and then there was a back and forth. You don't even know. I don't know.
Sonny00:13:03I don't really pay attention to mentions. You can't track mentions. It's some movie about a Christian ... Well, I called it a Christian rock movie, and apparently someone was like, no, it's Christian contemporary. It's like, how on earth would I be able to tell the difference between this? I cannot help you. They do all their music?
Vic00:13:21I mean, it's just ... Oh, Christian rock people call it Christian ... Not that we're not Christian, but we're Catholic, which is a totally different thing.
JVL00:13:29We're not Christian. We're Catholic. We are not.
Vic00:13:31You're going to read the Bible?
JVL00:13:32What? Okay. I remember the first time my son asked me, are we Christians, Dad? I said, absolutely not. We are Roman Catholic.
Vic00:13:39We answered to a Roman dictator. Please. Okay, so that's what I can only imagine is. Okay. And then, here we go. In fourth place is A Wrinkle in Time. Is that good? Well, it is. It has a two-week cube of 500 million. No. Okay. It has a two-week, it's 16.5 million for the week, for a two-week total of 61 million. It was a 50% drop. What's happening there?
JVL00:14:05I believe, if you recall, in our predictions episode that we did around New Year's time, my prediction was, I said, take it to the bank. Wrinkle in Time is going to flop. Oh. Boom.
Sonny00:14:17Done. Surely, the foreign grosses will pick it up, though. They'll love it in China.
JVL00:14:21Oprah's huge in China.
Sonny00:14:24Yeah. Well, a 50% drop isn't bad, but it just didn't start very well. It's not going to hold it. It is doing an undisclosed budget, right? An undisclosed budget. Yeah. Well, it's over $100 million. I mean, they need this movie to make $300 million or so to break even. It's not going to make that much money. And it's not going to make anywhere close to that much money. I mean, it's going to do Tomorrowland numbers, and it's going to be a Tomorrowland-
JVL00:14:47How gross Peter the Rabbit?
Sonny00:14:49I don't know how much Peter Rabbit- I think it's going to be-
JVL00:14:51I think that has crossed the $100 million mark. Has Peter Rabbit grossed more than $100 million? Jesus.
Sonny00:14:56All because of Donald Gleeson. No, no, no. I don't think- I mean, I would be very surprised if it crosses $100 million. I think $90 is probably a safer target.
JVL00:15:05Peter Rabbit, $102. Wow. That's amazing. Good for it.
Vic00:15:09Good for Donald Gleeson. I'm a big fan of his.
JVL00:15:13Okay. Hey, Red Sparrow has just died, too, despite the fact that it looked kind of awesome.
Sonny00:15:17Yeah. Okay. Oh, and Jumanji. Jumanji crossed $400 million this weekend. Yup. Yup. Wow. I mean, that movie could not stop. I mean, it's grossed almost a billion dollars worldwide. It's very close. It's like $930 or $940, something like that. That is like the biggest surprise that I can think of in recent memory. I'm sorry.
JVL00:15:35No. No, the biggest surprise is that The Greatest Showman is knocking on the door of $170.
Sonny00:15:39No, that's not that. I mean, that's not as big a surprise as Jumanji doing for a billion dollars.
JVL00:15:44That's a pretty big surprise. The Greatest Showman was not designed to be a movie that did that.
Sonny00:15:49It was a movie that was designed to-
Vic00:15:51Anybody who saw this? Well, no. I always get the sense that The Greatest Showman is a Baz Luhrmann production, but it's not. It looks kind of like it. Well, it's a musical, right? And it's a thing. By the way, if you go to Vegas, there's a Baz Luhrmann show. Like a Baz Luhrmann? Yeah.
Sonny00:16:05Like one of the Cirque du Soleil shows? Yeah, and it's like the best of Baz Luhrmann. God, that's the saddest thing I've ever heard.
Vic00:16:13I assume it's all the hits from like Moulin Rouge and-
Sonny00:16:17Which are just other songs. Yeah. They're just famous songs from other- Other things. There's a lot of copyright going on there. Can I throw one other thing at you?
JVL00:16:24JVL. The Hurricane Heist, sitting at number 15, with a per theater average of 452. Ooh. What's its cue? Its cue is five million.
Sonny00:16:37That is awful. That movie looked like a parody movie. It looked like a Sharknado. I could not believe that that was getting a major wide theatrical release.
JVL00:16:44And with a real director, right? I mean, this is- I saw a trailer for it.
Vic00:16:48It was from the Coen. Rob Coen, who directed the first-
JVL00:16:51Yeah, it's from- Fast and Furious, right? The Fast and Furious guy, yeah.
Vic00:16:54I walked out of Black Panther with my son after the movie ended, and the door was open to the other theater, and all this noise is coming. I look in, and I just see wind and rain, and it's, what is this movie? And it was Hurricane Heist, and I don't think anybody was in there. Check's out.
Sonny00:17:09Math checks out.
Vic00:17:11If we could talk about Tomb Raider, the reboot. I forgot to ask, who asked for the reboot? Who thought, oh, we need to do this again?
Sonny00:17:20Well, it's fascinating, too, because if you look at the numbers on this, this reboot opened to half of what the previous Tomb Raider movie opened to, and that was not actually a very good opening, either. I mean, this movie is not really asked for by anyone. You know, there is a question to be answered about whether or not you can make a video game movie that is both good and commercially successful. I think the answer is yes. I'm not one of these naysayers who says, like, it is an art form that doesn't translate to movies. But I, like, we've yet to really see one. I mean, the Resident Evil franchise would be, like, the big counter to this, but, yeah.
Vic00:18:06I mean, you think about the, you know, there's the trend now of video games that become movies, and it goes all the way back to, I think Tron was the first one, wasn't it?
Sonny00:18:16Tron wasn't a video game first. It was a movie that was about video games.
JVL00:18:21And was turned into a video game.
Sonny00:18:23Was turned into a video game.
Vic00:18:24Sonny, I was there at the time, in my mind. You were in Flynn's Arcade. I was there at the arcade playing, and it became a movie, in my mind. It was also Disney, I think, if I remember all that. Great actor, by the way, who plays the villain, the English fella, who is also in, oh, he's a great guy. He's been in so many things from, you know, Titanic and everything else. He's wonderful. David, David something, I can't believe I forget it.
JVL00:18:48You know what I had as a, a lot of times.
Vic00:18:51A lot of times it'll be movies that turn into video games, as you say, E.T. But one of the things that I remember, I had for ColecoVision, War Games.
JVL00:19:01Yes.
Vic00:19:02How did it work? Was it just, just by tic-tac-toe? You're basically running Whopper. No, you're playing, no, they didn't do that, although the opening, you know, they have a, they say, you know, good morning or whatever, Professor Falken, do you want to play a game? And then you're basically looking at the map of the United States, and you are trying to block incoming missiles, bombers, and submarines. And it's just toggling between six, like, it's a grid, toggling it between six sectors, and then, but there was a time limit, and if you could survive without everything being blown up, then that was the end of the game.
Sonny00:19:33Shouldn't it just be Mission Control, Mission Command, what was the one with the trackball? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mission, Missile Command? Missile Command.
Vic00:19:40That would have been the easier way to do it, but, you know, technology did not exist at the time for the home console, I assume. Probably.
Sonny00:19:48Okay. Now that we've gone, now that we've wandered our way down the road, we're going to go down the box office charts.
Vic00:19:52We've practically killed 20 minutes on this. Good. Speaking of wandering all the way down the box office charts, down in 19th place was The Death of Stalin, which was only in 32 theaters. Right.
Sonny00:20:03Well, it had, it also had the second highest per theater average, the only one that was
Vic00:20:08higher than that was in four theaters this week, so. And JVL, I know you did not see it. Sonny, I know you saw it. I tried to see it. I drove into the city, and the only place it was playing is at the landmark East Street Cinema. And I said, you know what, it's like 10, 45 in the morning on a Sunday. I could find parking on the street. I did not find parking on the street anywhere. The next thing you know, I'm at the MC, the MC, I said, at the Capital One Arena. And then the next thing you know, I'm towards the Treasury Department, and then I'm all the way up towards New York Avenue. And I do not want to use the garages. Sonny, you're getting very exasperated here, and I do. It cost $5 to park a garage. No, no, no, no, no. Get this. Ready for this? It was like, they were charging $17 for the garage on East Street, and they say if the movie goes down. If the movie goes over two hours, it's $34. The movie. Oh, forget that.
Sonny00:20:55It's out of principle. The movie doesn't go over two hours. It's an hour and 40 minutes. Trailers are 20 minutes.
Vic00:21:01Yeah, but I. Depends on what time you show up.
Sonny00:21:03I can understand that. Yeah. I mean, out of principle. You see your movies for free. Well, I'm glad that you didn't see the movie. I saved a lot of money. So we didn't, we can't really talk about it. So that's great. I'm good at listening. I'm glad that you didn't want to spend a very small amount of money so we could do this show and do it well.
Vic00:21:22Not worth it for, I mean, you know what? Not worth it for this show.
Sonny00:21:25Not worth it for this show in which you see movies for free. How much money, how much money do you spend when you go up to New York to have dinner with the chefs?
JVL00:21:33Excuse me, that's very personal.
Sonny00:21:35And I'm just curious what, what, yeah, so. How dare you? Yeah, so good. I'm glad that we can.
Vic00:21:39You know what? But that's not the show. I get more enjoyment than, than sitting there looking for parking. Okay, so. You don't have to look for parking. There's a garage right there. They have a garage right there.
Sonny00:21:48It's not $17 too. It's like $9 or something.
Vic00:21:51Mm-mm, mm-mm. Okay, so. You know, you can get. Too late. By the time they prove me wrong, the show's already out.
Sonny00:21:56You know, you can get the, you get the, you get the parking validated. Yes. And, and then you don't have to pay the full rate. You understand how parking validation works, right?
Vic00:22:05I read that on the website and they said that we can validate your parking, but if it goes over two hours, it's like $24 or whatever.
JVL00:22:10It's like, forget that.
Vic00:22:11Okay, tell us about this movie. No. F*** it. Well, we have, oh, wow, 2312. We have, otherwise I'd say. 2212. You have to. You have to tell us.
Sonny00:22:22I can't even look at the numbers right now.
Vic00:22:23I can't see it from here.
JVL00:22:24Okay. Okay. We were gonna, are we gonna talk about it?
Vic00:22:27Yeah, we have to. I hope so.
Sonny00:22:29The Death of Stalin is, is, it's a dark comedy, black comedy from Armando Iannucci, who is the creator of Veep and the director of In the Loop. He is kind of the master of the modern bureaucratic comedy. He, like, he, he looks at the, the institutions in which power rests and kind of, you know, pokes fun at them. And what institution is more funny than Stalin's gulags? Uh, but, but you, you, you, it's, it sounds like the sort of thing that wouldn't be funny at all, but it is. It's hilarious because A, bureaucracy is inherently funny. B, totalitarianism is inherently funny. There's a, the, the whole concept of Dumblethink is a, is a, is a humorous contradiction in terms. Uh, so he, he, he, he has put together what is probably one of the darkest and funniest films I've ever seen, but it's, it is so dark, it is so black that it was like not laugh out loud funny. It's, it's cringe humor. There's a lot of like, ooh, uh, it is about the death of Stalin. Stalin, uh, at the beginning of the film is alive and you kind of understand the horror of living under his regime when he asks for a recording of a, the, the, the night on which we, we begins, uh, um, uh, a musical performance and the conductor kind of has to run around and re-perform it and actually tape it and, you know, get it, get it to Stalin. So he won't, he won't kill everyone. He won't kill everyone involved, which is, was a thing that happened in the Soviet Union. Uh, and he, we kind of crossed, we cross cut between that and a dinner of Stalin and his, his cronies. He is, uh, having dinner with Khrushchev and, uh, Malenkov and Beria and, you know, kind of like the upper echelon of the Soviet elite. And they, they, they have to kind of remember who is alive and who is dead, who has been, you know, exiled to the gulags, who is, uh, and it, it is, it's hilarious. I mean, it's, it is a comedy that is based entirely on the fact that when you give somebody the power to end all life instantly without any question or compunction, uh, you, you have created an absurd, uh, uh, well, absurd and evil, but also absurd system. And it is, that absurdity is where the humor comes from. I love this movie. I thought it was great. Uh, I, the thing I really liked that Iannucci does, Iannucci, Iannucci, I don't know, but the thing he does that I love is. Uh, that I love is that he, he just lets the actors kind of talk in their normal accents. Like, there's no effort to make everybody sound Russian. Uh, Steve Buscemi has kind of a, kind of a ratty boardwalk empire, New York, New Jersey thing going on.
Vic00:25:05Basically being himself.
Sonny00:25:06Right. Uh, and the British actors all play their, their, Jason Isaacs plays, uh, plays Zhukov, uh, General Zhukov as like a, as kind of like a bro. Kind of like a. Jason Isaacs. Yeah. Because he's great at everything else. Yes. He's fantastic. I've never seen him be funny. He's fantastic. Uh, but even in movies where he's playing like kind of scary, he's usually funny. There's like a, anyway, uh, he's great. Um, the, the guy who plays Stalin, whose name escapes me, uh, he plays him as kind of like a, uh, I don't want to say Cockney thug, cause that's not quite right, but he's like a character out of a Guy Ritchie movie. He's a thug. He's like, he's like a. He's a brick top. He's, he's a, he's, he's like a, a, a, a, uh, just like a British crook. And that's. But it's scary. I mean, it's like, it's very much like Bricktop. He would have fit perfectly in, in, into the, the crew of Snatch. Um, I, uh, I love this movie. I, I hope more people see it. I hope it expands. I'm guessing it probably won't because the number of people who are like, I want to go watch a comedy about Soviet Russia, uh, is, is small. But, but, well.
JVL00:26:11It's hard to pull that off, I think. How much does it presume that you have some working knowledge of Soviet Russia?
Sonny00:26:18I think the only thing it really presumes.
JVL00:26:21Nobody under the age of 30 even knows this is a really depressing point.
Sonny00:26:25So, uh, I think it presumes that you know who Stalin is. That Stalin is like the leader of Russia. Or the Soviet Union. Um, but I also don't think you need a working knowledge. Like, I, I had totally forgotten that Malenkov succeeded Stalin. For instance. Uh, and at the, the end of the movie. Spoiler alert, that is. The kind of succession. But, uh, who's played by, who's played by George Bluth. Uh, Malenkov is fantastic. Is that a problem? It's, it, I mean, he, and he plays it like George Bluth, too. Like, or kind of a combination of George and Oscar Bluth. Like, kind of Oscar Bluth at the beginning and more George Bluth at the end. Um.
JVL00:27:02Are we allowed to find him funny, still? Yes. Jeffrey Tambor? I think that's, I think it's okay. Is it okay? Well, we're allowed to.
Sonny00:27:08We're allowed to because we don't care.
JVL00:27:09Hasn't he been, hasn't he been literally airbrushed out of the movie marketing?
Sonny00:27:11He was. Well, no, this was, so this was a funny. In the most Stalin-esque thing ever? This was, this was a very funny, uh, controversy. So, Jeffrey Tambor, of course, has gotten into trouble because he touched, uh, assistant or grinded on, uh, actress or something. Uh. During Trans. During the Transparent. Transparent. Um. And, uh, he, so he's been fired from that show and he, and, and after he was fired, they literally, uh, replaced him on the poster for the movie about Stalin with somebody else in a, in a, what I can, I, what I have to hope. Is some sort of self-aware marketing campaign. I, like, I just, I have to, because if you, if you, if you're making a movie about Stalin and you're literally airbrushing political, uh, uh, malcontents out of the, the way, I just. It's amazing. It's, it's, it's too perfect to not be some sort of tongue-in-cheek, uh, marketing campaign. Um, anyway. I forget where we were. What were we talking about? You were talking about. You liked it.
Vic00:28:09You liked it. No, I was asking how much you need to know about this.
JVL00:28:11Oh, yeah. Is this, is this like, so Shakespeare in Love, Tom Stoppard's big genius about it is a movie that flatters the audience always, and it's funny, I would say, if you know a little bit about Shakespeare, but the more Shakespeare you know, the funnier it is, but it's written in such a way that you always think that you are at the bottom layer of the onion. You always think that there is, you know, I know quite a lot about Shakespeare. I've gotten all of these jokes, and there's always more. Is that the way this functions, where the, the more you actually know about Soviet history, the, the funnier it is?
Sonny00:28:39I think there's, I think there's definitely some of that, uh, but I frankly don't know a ton about World War II era, uh, Soviet history. World War II. World War II, Cold War. It would have been nice to have somebody who has literally a whole f***ing bookshelf full of Russian, Russian books, uh, who had, who had seen it, and could have, you guys don't have to say the time, I know what the time is.
Vic00:29:01That ruins the tradition. Uh, even though you are a new sound engineer. Anyway. I, I will give you two points of absurdity that, uh, actually, you know, true in point to this.
JVL00:29:10Sonny, he had to save the seven dollars.
Vic00:29:12He wouldn't want to spend that, wouldn't want to spend that nine dollars.
JVL00:29:15It would have been 24. He's the son of a doctor. Not the son of a hedge fund manager.
Sonny00:29:19It's not like, it's not like you could have expensed that. To whom?
Vic00:29:23Here?
JVL00:29:23Pick one. You could have done it.
Vic00:29:27We are not touching that subject. Uh, anyway, uh, two points of absurdity. One is, uh, it is true, um, uh, I believe, some, some state of listeners can correct me. I'm pretty sure it was General Timoshenko after, uh, Operation Barbarossa and the Germans invaded Russia. Of course, Stalin was caught completely by surprise. And he had, by that point, liquidated something like 37,000 of his own officers. And so he's scrambling around looking for who can get to the front lines in terms of leadership. And, uh, one of the important generals, one of the very smart generals, uh, was, I believe it was Timoshenko, but he was in prison. So they had to release him from the prison so he can, you know, serve his captors in, in war. And Stalin meets with Timoshenko and then he asks him, where have you been all this time? And then he said, oh, I've been in prison. And Stalin. And Stalin apparently said, well, find time for you to be there, he says, you know, so there's that craziness. And then the other story is about, you know, these parties. I mean, Sonny, um, uh, alludes to this where they, you know, Stalin and Beria and all of his other cronies hanging out and drinking and the whole thing. And, and at one of these parties with Molotov, Vyacheslav Molotov, who was the foreign minister, um, things get so out of, you know, hand and crazy and they're drinking a lot. Uh, at some point there's dancing and Stalin is dancing with Molotov. And sort of the absurdity of it and asking about how are things going, how is this, how is your wife? Well, you know, uh, you put her in prison. So Molotov's wife had been in prison by Stalin and yet he is serving Stalin as foreign minister. This is absurd. Yeah, he's just crazy Uncle Joe. Crazy Uncle, yeah, crazy Uncle Joe, that's right. Um, so two thoughts. One was, you know, can they pull this off? Because if you do something about...
Sonny00:31:11Can I, can I just interject? Sonny, please. Briefly, I'm sorry. One of the things, one of the controversies that surrounded this film was that, you know, the first film upon its release in Britain was, uh, Peter Hitchens, uh, the brother of Christopher, wrote a, wrote a column that was said it was a disgusting movie, that it shouldn't, shouldn't be made, it's, there's nothing funny about this, that, and there's a sub-point that he made that I think is fair, which is that there has not been a great movie made about the Stalinist purges. There has not been a great movie made about, uh, Russian excesses on this front. Right. Um, you have, you have the lives of others, but that's about the... The show trials. That's, that's about Germany. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I, like, you, there is no, there is no great cinematic telling of the horror of life under Stalin, and I think that's a fair point. I think that's a totally fair point. That doesn't change the fact that this is a funny movie, that, that, that totalitarianism, again, is kind of premised on this idea, uh, that what the leader says is the truth no matter what, no matter how ridiculous things are around you, and that ridiculousness is inherently funny. There's a, there's a great documentary called Hammer and Tickle, which is, uh, which is a, a documentary about the jokes that the communists used to tell each other living under the USSR. And it is like, look, if they can find humor in it, then we can find humor in it, and, uh, I think there's...
Vic00:32:25Speaking, speaking, speaking of which, you know, the former, uh, late art director of The Weekly Standard, Lev Nisnevich. Oh, boy. May he rest in peace. He told many jokes, most of which are not appropriate for this, uh, podcast, but... Sonny, can you put your hand on the bleep button? No. But, no, no, no, but this one, he, but he used to tell the old Soviet joke he said. It was, you know, um, in Russia, the joke was, what to do in case of nuclear attack? And he said, the answer is, wrap yourself in bed sheet and crawl to cemetery. Why crawl? To prevent a panic. That was it. That was the joke. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because they're just okay. Do we know which side Lev had been on?
JVL00:33:05What? Do we know which side Lev had been on?
Vic00:33:07He was young at the time. I think, well, he, of course, was also, um, um, he, he, he was a Russian Jewish immigrant and... Oh, okay.
JVL00:33:15Yeah. I didn't realize he was a... Okay. So he was one of the good guys then who got out of the big immigration.
Vic00:33:20He eventually ended up in, uh, Italy and then from Italy to New York. Um, and he was a limo driver. Did you know that? I didn't know that. He drove around Mick Jagger. Anyway. Um, but, uh, yes, but it is, that's a good question. That's a good point about sort of the appropriateness because nothing has been done about, you know, that, I mean, as opposed to the Holocaust. Right, right. You could do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we've had other things. Although, again, it's really interesting when you think about Mel Brooks, um, having done, you know, the producers. The producers is one, but also, um, the movie, he did the remake of the, um, the movie To Be or Not To Be, uh, that I believe had Carol Lombard in it and Jack Benny, and To Be or Not To Be is my favorite of the Mel Brooks movies, and that totally makes fun of, again, you know, sort of the idiocy of the Nazis. Charles Durning plays a great chief of Gestapo. If you haven't seen this movie, it's a great remake. I think Brooks won, uh, an Oscar for, uh, Adapted Screenplay or something like that, and, uh, and his wife. Um, uh, was Anne Bancroft plays, you know, they're, they're in Poland, and so it's Charles Durning as chief of Gestapo, and his right-hand man, Schultz, is played by, uh, Christopher Lloyd. And they have a great back and forth, and Charles Durning is so good because he's rattling off in sort of the fake German accent, you know, yelling instructions and orders, and he's terrific. Um, and of course, people will say Hogan's Heroes, and that's even weirder because that's the end of World War II, that they were doing a movie where it's a comedy set in a concentration camp, which is something that you could not do now, but for some reason, 20 years, you know, just after the event, you could do it then. We could make it happen. On Netflix. And, uh, John Banner, of course, whose family, you know, was killed in the Holocaust, and as a Substandard listener pointed out, Robert Clary, who plays the French guy, I think he was a concentration camp survivor doing a comedy about, you know, um, a labor camp. So that was... It was a different time. It was a different time. Do you have any Bob Crane stories you'd like to share, Bec? The only Bob Crane story I, uh, will share, mm, let me think about this.
JVL00:35:24Because you know a lot about Bob Crane.
Vic00:35:25Well, you know, he was big into photography. Was he? Yes, he was. And I might have mentioned this on The Substandard before. He was big into photography, so much so that he just kept it, at some point, there was so much, so many pictures that he just kept them in, like, the backseat of his car. Like landscape? Piling up. It was just piling in the backseat. And he was, you know, he had become friends with, um, his fellow... Actor from Hogan's Heroes. Richard Dawson. Hey, you know, Dawson's notoriously this, this great swordsman, if you will. And he says, hey, you know, check out these photos I have in my car. He brings them over to his car and shows them. Ansel Adams type stuff. Yes. And, uh, so shocking that even Dawson was like, uh, I gotta go. He's like, I can't hang out with this guy. I mean, it was that crazy. Um, so that's the only Bob Crane story I have. Um, okay. Uh, other questions for, uh, you both, uh, gentlemen regarding the movie. Um. Um, is, uh, the accent or no accent. So you said this works probably, uh, because we have, uh, uh, the movie has no, uh, it works better that way as opposed to the fake accents. Yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:36:27Well, I, I, I mean, there's always that weird thing where, like, British English becomes the, the default foreign accent. So, like, in the movie. I'm fine with that, by the way. The movie, the movie Conspiracy, a TV movie, uh, on HBO about the, the kind of final solution, the plan bringing the other, and has all these British actors talking. Yeah. About this German crime. And it's like, it's, it, there's, it, I don't, I don't mind that exactly, but there is some weird, you know, incongruity there. Uh, I actually, I, I really just prefer what, what, uh, Iannucci has done in this movie, where he just, he just lets them go and do their, their natural voice.
Vic00:37:04Question. Sean Connery in The Hunt for October, is he affecting a Russian accent or is he just being his old British self?
Sonny00:37:10You know what I, you know, I've never really, I've never really been able to assume.
Vic00:37:13I, I, I, I've always kind of just assumed it was. Scottish. I think Sam Neill is doing Russian and Sean Connery says, I'm going to do what I want.
JVL00:37:21I think.
Vic00:37:21But, uh, the other one was, do you remember that movie K-19 Widowmaker?
Sonny00:37:25Yeah.
Vic00:37:25Sure. Harrison Ford doing Russian accent.
Sonny00:37:27A little weird.
Vic00:37:28A little awkward. Catherine Bigelow.
Sonny00:37:30Catherine Bigelow. Ah. That's why she went into director jail for a while, because that was a. Because of that movie? That was a big bomb. No, I. It was a very expensive movie, did not gross very much.
Vic00:37:39But then you think about Conspiracy, uh, with the.
JVL00:37:42You wrote about that at the time it first came out for the Daily Standard.
Vic00:37:44The Bryan Singer movie. Yes. No, that wasn't the Bryan Singer movie. Yeah, that Conspiracy was on HBO. That was with, um. Are you thinking. Stanley Tucci and. Are you thinking about Valkyrie? Yes, I was thinking about Valkyrie. Now, we'll jump to Valkyrie first, and Valkyrie, um, I think Tom Cruise is just on Tom Cruise, right? Is he talking with a German accent? No. No. I think it works better that way. Yeah.
Sonny00:38:04Works better that way. Okay. Good. Um, because, I mean, they're not speaking German. They're just speaking English.
Vic00:38:10Just speak English. Yes, that's right. And, and in terms of performances, Sonny, you said, uh, Jeff Raffi Tambor is great, all things considered. Yeah. Everyone in this movie is very good. Steve Buscemi, are you a Buscemi fan? Of course. I have been a Buscemi fan. Who's not a Buscemi fan?
Sonny00:38:24There's nobody on this planet who's not a Steve Buscemi fan, and if they are, we should send them to the gulag. Put them in the prison camps. Ouch.
Vic00:38:33Uh, favorite Buscemi performance?
Sonny00:38:37Uh, ooh, I hadn't really thought about that. Sorry, pick one spot. JVL.
JVL00:38:43Reservoir Dogs. Armageddon.
Vic00:38:44Ah!
JVL00:38:45No. Is that wrong?
Vic00:38:46You could say that. Is that wrong? On this show, you're allowed.
Sonny00:38:49You're allowed. I'm gonna say Tony Blundetto. I was, oh. God damn it. Uh, I would say, then, if I can't do that season of The Sopranos, I will go with his very brief appearance in Billy Madison. Oh, yes.
Vic00:39:05As the shooter. Always a reminder. Be nice to kids you might have been mean to. Um, and speaking of being nice to kids, I wanted to give a shout out to, by the way, our, uh. Our Washington Free Beacon, uh, intern and substandard listener, Graham Pirro, who goes to Georgetown, and he is a senior, uh, and he is heading, as all seniors do on their last semester, going to the big diplomatic ball. Um, why am I looking at JVL? I shouldn't be looking at JVL. I'm just gonna look. I'll look at the monitor and say that he's. Vic, what time is it? I'm sorry.
Sonny00:39:38It's 39.
Vic00:39:3933. Uh. Go f*** yourself. And he's going to the dip ball, but that's black tie. Right? He's got to wear a tux. So, you know what he did? He went to the black tux and got the substandard discount. Yay! So, just smart. He really did. Yeah, so just a reminder, you know, everyone wants to look as great as their date at a wedding or a special event. Trouble is, there's no way you want to spend the amount of time or money she did shopping for her outfit. The black tux dot com is your answer with high quality rental suits and tuxedos delivered to your doorstep. The black tux is the easy way for guys to rent suits and tuxedos online. The black tux lets you create your look or choose from tons of stylists. Suits usually retail for $1,200, but at the black tux, they start at just $95. Expert customer care has your back every step of the way, completely done online. With the black tux free home try-on, you can see the fit and feel the quality of your suit months before your event. After ordering, your suit will arrive 14 days before your event. If anything is less than perfect, the black tux will send you a free replacement right away. When your event's over, just drop your rental back in the mail. Shipping is free both ways. To get $20 off your purchase, visit theblacktux.com slash substandard. That's theblacktux.com slash substandard for $20 off your purchase. The black tux, premium rental suits and tuxedos, delivered. So, do we have any other thoughts on black comedies?
JVL00:41:10Yes. I have a ranking. Good.
Vic00:41:12JVL.
JVL00:41:13Go for it. Number three, Boomerang. Number two, I'm Gonna Get You Sucka. Number one, Coming to America. Okay, explain how that's a black comedy. Oh, I'm sorry. Is that not what we were doing?
Sonny00:41:26JVL. Is that wrong? JVL.
Vic00:41:29You got me. That's why we should have gone with dark comedy. The first thing I thought was Boomerang. What is that movie about? I'm thinking about Boomerang. I'm like, what?
JVL00:41:38You're insane. Explain it to the people. On the other hand, I would say that I'm Gonna Get You Sucka is criminally underrated.
Vic00:41:43No, I think it's properly rated. People love that movie. I think people, yeah, yeah, that's definitely true.
JVL00:41:48I guarantee you, if we walked out of here and I went and talked to any of my kids and said, I'm Gonna Get You Sucka, go, they would all go, what? They wouldn't know. How much for a rip? How much for a rip? Chris Rock. What did you just put in my hands? That's so great. I have a question for you.
Vic00:42:03Yes, JVL.
JVL00:42:04I was thinking about black comedies, and it's a very short list that I was able to come up with. Would you put Pulp Fiction on the list? What is Pulp Fiction? It's definitely dark. We're 20 years Pulp Fiction. It's extremely dark.
Sonny00:42:17And I could not categorize it for you as to what genre that movie belongs in. Well, Pulp Fiction is a canon breaker, right? That it exists beyond genres. It really is. Is it really?
Vic00:42:28Well, it's a little over 20 now. Oh, yeah.
Sonny00:42:30It's like almost 25. It came out in 94. All right.
JVL00:42:33And it's beyond, you cannot categorize that movie.
Vic00:42:36No, it is a thing unto itself. We were channel surfing the other night, and then Kate and I stopped watching it. It was the end of Pulp Fiction. Does it hold up? Oh, it's very weird. It's great.
Sonny00:42:48I think so. It's great. Okay. And it's also a great TV movie, because it's so episodic, you can turn it on for-
JVL00:42:53You've got to get the cursing to capture the full flavor.
Sonny00:42:57I didn't say it was a- Well, okay. It's a good cable movie, not basic cable. Like cable cable. It's a good HBO movie.
JVL00:43:03It's a good HBO movie. That's what you're saying.
Vic00:43:04Okay. It's a good movie to see. You can pop on. It's a good streaming movie. I mean, one day we'll do, maybe there's- Oh, you mentioned Black- Sorry. You mentioned Coming to America. And I'd say one of the funniest lines of all time. From that movie, and that's why I love Coming to America, is when, I believe the line is, you might remember him as Joe the Policeman in the What's Going Down episode of That's My Mama. I think that doesn't get anybody- It does not get better than that, because I used to watch that show, That's My Mama.
JVL00:43:30Okay. Are black comedies typically funny to you guys?
Sonny00:43:33Well, so this is a question I was thinking about when I was coming up with an actual kind of ordering of these things, right? You have the movies that are black comedies that are mocking something lighthearted, right? So like Bad Santa, for example. It's like having fun with Christmas. That's a black comedy. It's also very funny. But then you have the kind of social satires, right?
JVL00:43:55Dr. Strangelove.
Sonny00:43:56Dr. Strangelove is like the quintessential black comedy, or American Psycho, right? That is both a satire and a black comedy. Or Idiocracy. I would say Idiocracy is another kind of movie that is both very funny, but also- Dark commentary of what could happen. Yeah, of our current present. The world in which we live.
JVL00:44:19Is it- I guess I don't view that as the black part of the comedy. I just view it as satire and funny. In the same way that I- Idiocracy is definitely a dark comedy, though. It's definitely a black comedy. Is it dark? I would say it's- You don't think it's dark? I didn't find it particularly dark. That's okay. Okay. But then you have- All right, would you say-
Sonny00:44:40Do you think Brazil is a dark comedy?
JVL00:44:42Yes.
Sonny00:44:43So Brazil is a dark comedy. Brazil is clearly dark. Also a satire. Yes. Do you think that the comedy overwhelms the satire? I mean, I think it's basically a perfect movie. I love Brazil. I watch it once a year. I hate it. You hate it? I hate it. I hate Terry Gilliam. Oh, you hate Terry Gilliam?
JVL00:45:04There's a single Terry Gilliam movie I like. But I- So I simply wanted to- I asked this only so I could try to put a- Including the Monty Python movies? Monty Python and Quest for the Holy Grail. Do you hate that? No. Because he co-directed that. Love Holy Grail. I like his all-terrain movies. My question is The Lobster, is what I was trying to get to. Okay. Because I wanted to see if I could get your reaction to The Lobster and what happens when you wind up in an overly earnest dark comedy like that. Yeah.
Sonny00:45:32If it works for you. Vic, do you know about The Lobster? Mm-mm. Do you want to explain? Colin Farrell.
JVL00:45:37It's a- Oh. A future which is totally like the present where everybody has to have a boyfriend or you have 40 days to find true love, and if you don't, then you go to the special institute and you get turned into an animal, but you get to choose the animal you want to become.
Sonny00:45:57Ta-da. It's like the most independent spirit award movie. Well, no, no. Do you actually get to choose the animal you become? I thought you just become the animal that most represents what you are. I can't remember. You choose. I don't know that The Lobster- Well, I don't like that director. I don't like that director. So, he also made Killing of a Sacred Deer, which was like a big indie movie last year, and it's this pure Kubrick kitsch knockoff that is- Yorgos- Yorgos Lathamos. Wow. You're like a real movie critic.
Vic00:46:33Looks like he's on Rotten Tomatoes or something.
Sonny00:46:37I just don't like what he does with his performers, which is he moves them around in this very mannered sort of way. And it's like a dulled down Wes Anderson. I just don't care for it. I don't like what he does. So, I don't really think Consider- Or, I don't think The Lobster- I almost called it Consider the Lobster. I don't think The Lobster- That's a great essay. It is. I don't think The Lobster is a dark comedy, because I don't think it's particularly funny.
JVL00:47:08Okay. Fair.
Sonny00:47:09We just cut this whole lobster part out of the show, if you like.
JVL00:47:12We sort of meandered. I don't care. I'm done editing. I'm done editing. Okay.
Vic00:47:15Spirit of the Week. Spirit of the Week is Bushmills Irish Honey, since it's just a couple days after St. Patrick's Day. Sonny, you had some apprehensions. You didn't know what spirit I was bringing. What did you fear when we were on our way here? What did you think I was going to bring over?
Sonny00:47:29Well, you pulled that bottle out. I thought it was tequila. No.
Vic00:47:32Earlier, I said something light for the morning, and I think you said Bacardi. What was it? Bacardi 151. 151, which you've had. Which you've had. Yeah, of course. And that is-
Sonny00:47:40I did go to college.
Vic00:47:41Yes. And that is- I remember that from spring breaks, because you would put recipes like Yellow Bird and whatever it is they call it, and those are all 151. And that is, as you know, firsthand, that's flammable? Or is that- Yeah. So, exactly, yeah. Things that burns. Was it- No, it was a guy, you know, who got his face, right? Who did a-
Sonny00:48:03Well, I saw it. It's not a guy I knew. I just saw a guy take a flaming shot to the face, and it just burned.
JVL00:48:09It's like Two-Face.
Sonny00:48:10He's literally-
JVL00:48:11He was literally like Two-Face. Just the whole left side of his head.
Vic00:48:14The worst part is he was actually- They were hamburgers. They were flippant. They had quarters. They were playing quarters, and so it was very fitting for him to be Two-Face. Yeah, the quarter. And your hand. Did you hurt your hand once on a flaming? But that wasn't- Well, no. It was funny. What was that?
Sonny00:48:27Somebody spilled a flaming shot on me, and the little flame went all the way across the table, including across my hand, and I just patted it out real quick. So, I didn't actually get burnt, but it was a weird thing.
Vic00:48:38It was a scary moment. I don't want to find out for myself. That's very scary. Okay. Corrections, additions. I have two. So, last week, I had a lot of questions. Last week's episode, JVL said he didn't think Charles Bronson was in The Great Escape. We've heard this a million times on Twitter now. Sorry, everybody. Yes, he was. He was Danny the Tunnel King. I personally keep getting mixed up between The Great Escape and Escape from Alcatraz, because The Escape from Alcatraz was also pretty great. Anyway, moving right along. A good friend of mine has written a book available on Amazon Kindle. It's called Bleed Out When Reason Dies. It's 99 cents. So, come on. It's 99 cents. The author named it. His name is Strawn Bowman, which is a pen name. He's an ex-Marine. He knows what he's talking about. So, again, check it out. That's Bleed Out When Reason Dies, starring Steven Seagal. Sorry about that. This is not starring Steven Seagal.
JVL00:49:28Is this like your Blue Duck Tavern? No.
Vic00:49:30No, no. This is a family friend.
Sonny00:49:34Yeah, I sure hope this was paid for, this advertisement. Okay.
Vic00:49:40That's all the time we are giving to this really unique episode. Questions, comments, comments, questions. Complaints, compliments. Tweet us at Victorino Matus, at Sonny Bunch. At JBLask. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard on a podcast. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time. A few weekends ago, I had a lovely dinner with some neighbors. Friends of ours. And they told us... Was there an ice storm? You're not going to believe this. So, it's funny you should mention that. Apparently, they say, they said, oh yeah, you know what's crazy? They said out in like Ashburn, Virginia, that area, they say that it's like this, you know, known thing out there that, you know, there are parents of kids who are swingers out there. And like it's a thing that's happening. And I'm like, okay, I'm sure it's not just there then. I mean, there's got to be other places. And we were like, oh my gosh, that's so insane and scary and crazy. And I said, I want to make sure I avoid those parties. Where's the address? I want to make sure I don't go there. I want to make sure I don't go there. And what's the secret knock? Because I don't want to accidentally do the secret knock. Fidelio.
JVL00:51:02Doesn't your brother-in-law live in Ashburn?
Vic00:51:06No, no. He's out in Gore. He's out in Gore. I'm sorry. He's out.
JVL00:51:09So, how did your neighbors, your friends bring it up? Boy, you know, these people, they do some crazy things. I mean... I would totally be doing... Kidding. Just kidding. Not kidding. Totally kidding. I mean, can you imagine that? It's just nuts. Yeah. Hey, Vic. You been working out? And I said, yeah, I'm sure it's fine.
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