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#113. The Substandard on Ready Player One and Close Shaves
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Dudes Chatting — Spielberg's legacy: The gang defends Spielberg against the charge that he's past his prime. Vic recounts his recent New York trip including a shoe shine from the St. Regis butler and a straight-razor shave from a barber named Gianni, which sparks a tangent on close-shave culture.
Reviews: Gene (Vic) gives Ready Player One four stars. Sonny's take is more analytical: the film is superior to the book because the pop-culture references become texture rather than the entire point, and he reads the extended Shining sequence as Spielberg deliberately desecrating Kubrick to comment on the folly of nostalgia and trivia-worship. He praises Mark Rylance and Simon Pegg and thinks the film needs about 20 minutes cut. JVL liked it and appreciated the Frozen-vs-Moana Easter egg debate that happens in the background of a scene; he also spotted the ColecoVision cameo.
Box Office: Ready Player One opens at #1 with $41M; Tyler Perry's Acrimony debuts at #2; Black Panther holds at #3.
Spirit of the Week is a Double Cross Vodka screwdriver. The episode includes an extended Atari nostalgia tangent covering Pitfall, The Legend of Zelda, and the old Nintendo Power Line hotline.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Ready PlayerOne was always going to be chock-full of cameo appearances and references to our favorite pop culture properties, but wow did we underestimate just how many there would be. We may not have Halliday's Keys or an Oasis visor, but we're still going to do our very best to show you just how many easter eggs there are in this movie.
Vic00:00:25Hello and welcome to another edition of The Substandard, sponsored by Casper Mattresses. 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. Gentlemen, how are we? I feel like this is like the NBC production of Jesus Christ Superstar, Sound of Music. We're doing it live. It feels practically live-ish.
Sonny00:00:55Live-ish. I mean, we are actually taping on Thursday. It really is Thursday morning. We've joked so many times, you won't believe us maybe, but it is Thursday morning. It really is. What's some news from today that we can prove? How can we prove life?
JVL00:01:08How about the giant traffic jam on the 14th Street Bridge? That could be anything. Backed everything up down to the 495 Springfield Interchange and made me take two hours to get to the office this morning. That's great. Mm-hmm. Normally two hours will put you close to the New Jersey. New Jersey state line when you leave D.C., but it took me two hours to get 26 miles this morning.
Vic00:01:30Yes. Your colleague, Andy Fergus, said it took him 50 minutes to go three miles. Cry me a river. 50 minutes. Cry me a river. I'm in Arlington with great schools and high property values. Here's what's insane. 50 minutes for three miles. That's insane.
Sonny00:01:44My proof of life here is last night, Matt Davidson and Zach Gosart, both of who were on my fantasy baseball team, hit home runs. That happened last night.
Vic00:01:53Very good. You know what? Because somebody might... Wake up and say, wait a minute. That's wrong because I was at that game.
Sonny00:01:57No.
Vic00:01:58And then they'd run out.
Sonny00:01:59No. Lies.
Vic00:02:00And find out that it's 70 years later. Wait. I don't... Oh, like in Captain America.
Sonny00:02:05Yeah. You like that? Mm-hmm.
Vic00:02:06Yeah. That's how it happened. That movie sucked. Okay. JVL, how are you?
JVL00:02:12I'm sure it's fine. Oh, wow. It's just been a rough week.
Vic00:02:15Okay. But you can't comment.
JVL00:02:17Just some stress at my day job. I mean, most of my income comes from this podcast, but I do have another gig. That I spend a little bit, a couple hours a week on, and we are rolling out a new CMS plus a new site redesign on Monday morning.
Vic00:02:34What does CMS stand for?
JVL00:02:36Content Management System. Jesus.
Vic00:02:37Don't know about it.
JVL00:02:39You run a website. He doesn't run a website. Not me.
Vic00:02:44What does the WWW stand for in a website?
JVL00:02:49How do I get to the internet? Is IT information or internet technology? That's what I want.
Vic00:02:56Okay. Well, okay. We can move right along from you to Sonny then.
Sonny00:03:01I am doing well. I am doing well. Yes. I don't really have anything. I don't know. I'm so thrown off because it's been four days since the weekend. I can't remember what happened. You don't even remember. I can't remember all the things that happened. I think there are reasons for that. I'll just say that I have caught up on Silicon Valley, which is still the funniest show on TV. Everyone should be watching it. Even minus TJ Miller? Even minus TJ Miller. Perhaps especially minus TJ Miller.
Vic00:03:27Now, not to fast forward too quickly to what we're going to be, the movie we're talking about, but was that movie, Ready Player One, when he was the voice, did he record all that before the scandal or after the scandal?
Sonny00:03:42I have no idea. Probably before.
Vic00:03:44Probably before.
JVL00:03:45Okay. Can I give you guys some notes on the minute? JVL, please. So, I loved this week's micro. Oh, wait a minute. That's right. Did you listen to it? I forgot.
Vic00:03:54I forgot you weren't there.
JVL00:03:55I got to experience the show as I think many of our listeners do, which is you guys were talking about stuff that I have no idea about. And having watched the first, like, two episodes of The Americans and then checked out of that. Of season one.
Vic00:04:11Of season one.
JVL00:04:12Four or five years ago. Because of that incident during it, which I think I've spoken to you about offline, about the, I would say, the differing reactions to that scene. And that's why you stopped watching? It was uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable. That's what she thought. Well, that's okay. Yeah. But I have to say, totally enjoyable. Listenable? Listenable. Highly drinkable. Oh. No, but she said podcast product. I am a consumer of many podcasts. It was very, very good.
Vic00:04:40Well, you know, since we're talking about this, and thank you very much, JV, I'm glad you thought it was good. So did Eric Erickson. I saw Eric's very nice. He wrote about podcasts. Eric was very nice. If a podcast sucks, here's how to make it better. It was in the opening. It was right in the lead about listening to us, just for the microphone quality, which that surprised me.
Sonny00:05:01His big tip was, it doesn't really matter what you say. You could be any idiot's jabbering on about anything, as long as you have good mics. You had to have, yeah.
JVL00:05:08This is why we did the secret episode, because we had bad audio, as our friend Michael Graham has always taught us, and Eric confirms this. Bad audio is bad audio. Oh, yeah, the secret episode. And when we had that one episode where the audio went, that's why we didn't actually release it. We only put it on the secret menu.
Vic00:05:24If you can't hear him, you're not going to listen to the celebrities. No, it's true. Okay. Did we not release that? I thought we might have. We did. I think we did, actually. We put it up. Not publicly. Yes, we did.
JVL00:05:33It was in a hidden menu so that people could get it if they went to it. It was an Easter egg. It was an Easter egg. So to speak.
Vic00:05:38Speaking of which, but later, because I still have to talk about my time in the last week. Oh, JBL, hold on. Hold on. Rick's got thoughts. Okay, and I know we're supposed to go, and Eric Erickson talks about how questions should flow from the last answer to the next one, and so that's constantly on my mind. Can you retake your blood test? No, but I should, because people have said I'm looking like I've been losing weight. And you're ready to ace it now. I am ready to ace it. Now it's no longer 36 hours after. Now your triglycerides are just rocking.
Sonny00:06:05I had oatmeal this morning. It's killing me. I opened the fridge at work, and there was a bucket of lard with just a big V on it. It could be somebody else. It could be V for very good. I assume Vic is just holding on to that.
JVL00:06:17But next to it, a little bottle of kombucha. Oh, the kombucha will clear it out.
Sonny00:06:22That'll make you fine. You need to cook the kombucha in the lard. That's how you tell me, right?
Vic00:06:28Well, what you do is you have the lard first, and then the kombucha pushes it through. I don't even know what kombucha is. It's fermented Korean beverage. It's like a fermented tea. Oh, it's a drink? It's a drink. It's not a food? You haven't seen this? No, I don't know.
JVL00:06:44I had it at True Food.
Sonny00:06:46I had it at True Kitchen. JBL, I have a question. Question. How often do you think I go into the raw food aisle of literally any store, let alone a Wegmans? I don't know how you guys live your lives.
Vic00:06:55Not to be confused with Frozen section, which is- I live in the Frozen section.
Sonny00:07:00Oh, speaking of Frozen, my daughter finally saw Frozen for the first time, and has been
JVL00:07:06singing Let It Go and the Snowman song ever since.
Sonny00:07:09Now, I mean, she'd heard the songs before, just kind of out in the world or whatever, but it is amazing how quickly they imprinted on her brain. We were literally at a play area, and they had a rotation of Disney songs on, and Let It Go comes on, and she stops what she's doing. After about 30 seconds into the song, she's like halfway up the Jungle Gym monkey bars,
JVL00:07:31and looks at me and says, that's the Frozen song!
Sonny00:07:35I was like, yeah, that is. Did she like it? She loves it. Yeah? Loves it.
JVL00:07:39Have you seen it before?
Sonny00:07:41Yeah, I'd seen it before.
JVL00:07:42Have you done Moana, Nick, also?
Sonny00:07:43We have not. I have Moana on my Netflix queue. My daughter loves Moana.
JVL00:07:47So, I gotta say, Moana, maybe, greater sign, Frozen?
Sonny00:07:52I don't know.
JVL00:07:53I mean, the music certainly is. The music of Moana is better than the music of Frozen, which is fantastic, but as a product, it might be better. I don't know, it's very close, and I view Frozen as the greatest animated movie of all time. You think Frozen is the greatest animated movie of all time? Yes. But people talk about the backlash. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. There's a backlash.
Sonny00:08:12First off, that's insane. It's not even like a top five Disney film. The Jungle Book. It's not even a top five modern Disney film.
JVL00:08:23Roger Kipling. That's insane.
Sonny00:08:27But also- No, you're just wrong about that. No, there's- In every possible way, you're wrong about that. It's bad. Well, it's not bad. It's fine. It's good. I like it. But it's definitely, I mean, like Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King, and Aladdin, and Pocahontas. Have you seen Aladdin recently? Mulan. And Mulan. Okay, I see what you're doing. And The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I would put all of those ahead of Frozen. Ahead of there, yeah.
JVL00:08:51You know, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, they used to be- They used computers for the backgrounds.
Vic00:08:55Whoa.
JVL00:08:56And that, you know what else was better? That was what the trailer was. I don't know if you remember this, but the trailer, that movie is such a dog that the trailer for it was, with new special process of computer-generated backgrounds.
Sonny00:09:08Didn't they do that for Beauty and the Beast as well? I believe so, but they didn't make a big deal of it because they thought they had a good movie. And that movie also got a Best Picture nomination. You know why? Do you know why?
JVL00:09:19Because the Academy loves show tunes.
Sonny00:09:21Beauty? It's a Broadway show. What is Broadway? It's not Frozen, but a series of Broadway songs.
JVL00:09:25It is literally on Broadway now.
Sonny00:09:26And it's literally on Broadway now.
JVL00:09:29But they are not show tunes songs as all of the numbers in Beauty and the Beast. Let It Go isn't a show tune song. No, Let It Go is a pop song. Let It Go is not a show tune. I'm sorry. Raise your hand here if you've starred in stage musicals before.
Vic00:09:43Oh. Yeah. Oh. Oh, well, yes, we all have. We all have. I was in The King and I, and Sonny was in Oliver. That's true. I was in Oliver as a child. Episode two. Episode 17. JVL, what was that awful movie that Matt Damon did, Animated Planet, and people got fired for this movie. I think it was on Fox. Oh. Titan AE.
JVL00:10:03Titan AE, yes. That was good. People lost their heads over that one.
Vic00:10:07That was peak animation. Now, question for you. Peak CGI. Question. Have your daughter, your daughter is because they're older than Sonny's, and certainly my daughter is, have they gone through the Frozen backlash where they hate Frozen? My daughter, she viscerally hates Frozen. Really? Like, oh, she can't even do it. I said, you made us sit through all of this, listen to it how many times, in the car, at home, do the whole thing, and now, you don't even want to talk about it.
JVL00:10:32My girls will still put their Elsa costumes on, I would say, once every two weeks. Like, just, you know, it's a Saturday morning, they come down in the morning, and they're wearing Frozen costumes.
Vic00:10:40Somebody else on Twitter mentioned this about how their daughters, who used to love Frozen, now are very anti-Frozen, and I don't know why this is happening, but it's happening.
JVL00:10:48Have they, did, is Sabrina just Team Moana now?
Vic00:10:52She loves it. She loves Team, yeah, definitely, Team Moana. Okay. You know? Also, by the way, in a previous episode, you talked about your kids saying dilly dilly, right? Just code, dilly dilly. Okay, yeah. It's in our, it's in the kids' school. It's everywhere. It's everywhere now.
JVL00:11:05One of the great advertising catchphrases, did you see the Masters thing?
Sonny00:11:10Yeah, the Masters is cracking down. No dilly dillies. No dilly dillies. No dilly dillies.
JVL00:11:14No photos during backswings, and no dilly dillies.
Sonny00:11:17No fun of any kind. No, I, but I'm actually pro this, I'm glad that somebody has finally had the decency to stand up for it. For what is just and good in the world, and that is not screaming dilly dilly like a idiot at the top of your lungs, so.
JVL00:11:31Dilly dilly is pretty, I, someday, I hope we get a, not Greenland, I guess, the Ringer oral history of the making of dilly dilly, where they go inside the Anheuser-Busch ad team, and I would like to get-
Vic00:11:43They didn't expect it. I told you our friend over at Anheuser-Busch, they said they did not expect that, the success of it. It's just another thing. They put, they pay for ads and stuff all the time. You know, and see what sticks. Dilly dilly. Of all the things that stuck. Maybe that should be our new catchphrase at the end of the show. Oh, wow. What would you think of that, Sonny? You should see, Sonny has a great face.
JVL00:12:03If only we still did Facebook Live.
Vic00:12:04Oh, that's true, as we explained. I saw you guys were really into the anti-Facebook Live thing. Yeah, we mentioned that on the show. Okay, well, I had a- It's because Facebook Live sucks. And it doesn't help us. No comment. It doesn't help us. So, I was in New York City last week. New York City? It was. We dropped the kids off during Holy Week with my parents, and we did two nights. Just like Jesus would have wanted. Yes! Holy Wednesday, Holy Thursday. Just like Jesus would have wanted. It's a good Friday. Get rid of your family. Yes.
Sonny00:12:34Go to St. Regis. Sodom.
Vic00:12:39Sodom and Gomorrah.
JVL00:12:39You were in the St. Regis on Good Friday?
Vic00:12:41Well, you know, for a part, we had late checkout on Good Friday, so we left at three. And we had- It was so wonderful. We had the butler service. Sonny, I thought of you. I got my shoe shined. The butler comes in.
JVL00:12:54Things must be awesome over at the Washington Free Beacon.
Vic00:12:56I said, well, wow. We had a lot of points, because I don't take vacation.
JVL00:13:01Maybe you guys could do some cost savings over there.
Vic00:13:05Well, don't worry. I'm first up on the chopping block. Good. Yes. So, I had the butler shine my shoes, which was wonderful. Both pairs. I brought them just to get shined. You brought a second pair to get the free shine? Yes, of course, Mr. Mattis. We'll shine your shoes. And then- Was it a good shine? It was a great shine. Are you wearing the shoes right now? Yes, these are from a week, but there's still a little bit of a glow. That shine holds up well. Yeah, it does. It's a St. Richard's shine. And then we had our dinner at LeBurner Den. On Good Friday. No, Wednesday, please. And then on Thursday, we had dinner at Daniel, and Daniel Balloud came over, and then we chatted for about 15 minutes. Who runs LeBurner Den? Eric Repair. He was not in town.
JVL00:13:46But Balloud was, and he was wonderful. Where'd you eat on Friday? Is it Balloud?
Vic00:13:50My mother's house, and we had fish. I thought it was Balloud. Balloud?
Sonny00:13:54Is it Balloud?
Vic00:13:54Do you pronounce the D at the end? I'm not actually sure. I call him Daniel.
Sonny00:13:58Oh, you just...
Vic00:13:59D. It's a big D. D. But I have to tell you... D, D, D. I have to tell you what else I did, and that is I went to get a shave, an actual shave. So I did a shave for two weeks so I can get some stubble, and this is something that you probably won't do for a very long time, although you could do a trim. Yes, you could do a trim. I know.
Sonny00:14:22No, well, yeah, but I would have to get my whole face. Did you do it at the St. Regis?
Vic00:14:26Yes. We had these vouchers. It's an interesting thing where... Did you like it? Yes, I did. I had this done once before. Did you get the hot towel? Yeah, of course, and the guy was great, Gianni, and I just closed my eyes. He put a hot towel on me. I was so relaxed. I just closed my eyes, and then I could tell that he squirted an ointment in my face, and it soothed. It was soothing. It was kind of burning. Salty.
JVL00:14:50Salty, but soothing.
Vic00:14:51Come on now. Let's keep this clean. And he's rubbing it in with, I think, his finger. It was a fat finger. It was a finger. He's rubbing it in, and he said it was organic. He said it was organic. Nutritious. I don't know. Why would he say it's nutritious? I don't know why. Anyway. Just keep your eyes closed, Mr. Matus. Please, keep your eyes closed. Keep your eyes closed, and so I was talking about how I'm going on this diet.
JVL00:15:15That ointment came in a pouch that was a zipper compartment, not like a tube that you screwed
Vic00:15:19on, because you heard the zipper. So, you know what, though? I was talking to him about my diet, and he says, oh, and I said, so I know I'm trying to avoid all carbs. He goes, oh, believe me, there's no carbs in this. I go, what? He goes, nothing, nothing. I said, so. Anyway, it was a lovely shave, and I'll tell you what was very humbling is going from the St. Regis to Port Authority in the wonderful stench of urine, and then having to put my bags in the side of the bus, because the bus driver won't open the side of the bus. The hatch? Yes, Sonny.
Sonny00:15:48I don't understand why you are taking ... Yes. I don't quite understand. You don't quite understand the logistics of this visit. Because of Jersey. You were staying in Jersey for the first couple of days.
Vic00:15:58No, no, no. We dropped our kids off, and literally like an hour later, we took the bus from Tom's River up to New Jersey.
JVL00:16:04Because it's like $11 to go from central Jersey to New York City.
Vic00:16:09Uh-huh. Yeah. Round trip. That's it. It's so cheap. It's very cheap.
JVL00:16:12And parking at the St. Regis in New York, I imagine it is 90 a day? Probably, something like that, yeah. I mean, I'm not kidding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's probably 90 bucks a day. It is 90 bucks a day. Okay, gotcha. Okay.
Vic00:16:22So we just go to the bus station. And again, it's what ... And you have those dedicated lanes for buses. It goes right to ... Once you get out of Lincoln Tunnel, they go right into the bus station. But there I was. A lot of buses have Wi-Fi now.
Sonny00:16:33It's pretty nice.
Vic00:16:33But the bus driver was not helping with the bags.
Sonny00:16:35I used to take Bolt Bus all the time. Oh, yeah. The Bolt. Like Megabus and Bolt Bus.
JVL00:16:39You know what I like to do on that? I buy two seats because they're so cheap, and that's why nobody can sit next to me.
Vic00:16:44Smart. Smart. Wow.
JVL00:16:47Because it's like nine bucks.
Vic00:16:48Yeah.
JVL00:16:48Yeah. I'll just buy a second seat.
Vic00:16:50Thanks. So the bus driver ... The bus driver is not putting the baggage in. I'm putting it in, and then an old lady asked me to put her baggage in, and then another lady asked for her luggage. Next thing you know, I'm like a porter. Did somebody tip you? Oh, no. I should have worn a cap. And then I overthrew one of the bags, and it tumbled to the back of the end of the back part of the bus. And a lady looks at me and said, I didn't do that one. I said, and I just kept on doing it. And all I can think of is, I just wished I were back at the St. Regis, because you know what it was like at the St. Regis? It was like an oasis. Speaking of oasis. Wow.
JVL00:17:21That is ... That is John Podhoretz, whose transitions on the commentary podcast have gotten very rocky. Oh, really? Again, just offering as a criticism.
Vic00:17:31You know, honest feedback. Friendly criticism.
JVL00:17:33Friendly feedback to what is honestly my favorite podcast. But his transitions, nothing on you. You like commentary more than the glop? I do. You know why? That's a good question. It's because they're in the same room. Oh, yeah. No, that's fair. Nobody's in the car. If glop, if we could put those, if we could put Jonah, Rob, and John in the same room together every week, it would be unbelievable.
Sonny00:17:56A hundred thousand people would listen to that show. Yeah.
Vic00:17:57And it's not that I don't like it as it is. As a wise man says, audio is everything.
JVL00:18:03Well, no, it's just, look, we saw this when we tried to do remotely.
Sonny00:18:06It is just harder when you're not together. We tried to do one Skype show when I was in. We've done two.
JVL00:18:11We did you and then we did me from home once. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:18:13It just doesn't work.
Vic00:18:15It just doesn't.
JVL00:18:15It's fine. I mean, look, if you have to do it, you have to do it.
Vic00:18:18But it's better when we're all together. Well. Speaking of Oasis. That was a hell of a transition. You like that? Thank you. I'm glad we stepped all over it. Speaking of Oasis, what's your favorite Oasis song, Sonny? Quick. Slide Away. Oh, okay. JVL. You know, I was going to say.
JVL00:18:34I was actually going to tweet about this just to pick a fight with. With Adam White. With Adam White. I just had my. Oh, did he have a. My phone on, you know, random play. Right. Last night as I was driving home. And the Ryan Adams cover of Wonderwall came on. Oh, I heard it. It's terrible. Don't.
Vic00:18:55I don't like it. Don't do it. Don't do it, JVL. Why is he so cranky? He can't even. He doesn't hit the high notes better than the Oasis original.
JVL00:19:03And it's not even close.
Vic00:19:05I was willing to. It just sounds like he's got. So much better. It sounds like he's constipated. So much better. It is haunting. Well, it's haunting. It's haunting, all right. It's beautiful. It's haunting. And it is so much better than the original. He's not hitting the high notes for some reason. I don't know why he's not hitting the high notes. And I thought. Hi, Jeff. He could do better. I'm white. Okay. Ready Player One took the top spot at the box office with $41 million over the weekend, followed by Tyler Perry's Acrimony with $17 million. Did you guys see that? Yes. We're talking about that, right? That's what we're talking about today.
Sonny00:19:36Tyler Perry's Ouvre. Yes.
Vic00:19:38And then in third place, still, Black Panther, which clawed its way, clawed its way to third place, sorry, with $11 million. And by the way, I just heard in the news, you know, because the Crown Prince. Salman. Salman, yes, is here, and he was with the folks in Hollywood, and they all wanted to meet. I just heard on the news that Black Panther is going to be the first movie that they're going to be airing there. Good. Oh, that's interesting. Good. I hope it makes a lot of money. I was going to say Zero Dark Thirty, but I guess they wouldn't want to do that one.
JVL00:20:10Can I do a five-second digression on Tyler Perry? Please. You could mount a case that he is the most bankable movie star in America.
Sonny00:20:20If you were. That guy. If you were. If you were reliable. If you were working in a certain price range, yes. If you're looking for a movie that will gross.
JVL00:20:29Well, as ROI, if you are looking to invest money in a movie.
Sonny00:20:34Yes. He makes cheap movies, and they do decent.
JVL00:20:37They do very, very well. I am sort of. Those numbers. Tyler Perry's movies are not for me. I'm not the target audience of them, but just as a thing, it has always bothered me that he does not get wider recognition for the amazing achievement, which he has. Which is his career. There. Sorry. Yes. Big fan. No, no, no. I agree.
Sonny00:20:55I agree. So. But you're not a big fan. You're a big fan of his, like, the idea of Tyler Perry. Yeah. The movies are not good. I don't know that. I do. They're not good. I mean, they're just not. Are you the target audience? But no, but, but, but, but, but, that doesn't, that doesn't, that, that's like saying, you know, just because I'm not a child, that I shouldn't be able to judge the talking dog show movie that's coming out, starring Job. Job Bluth. Have you seen any ads for that? Have you seen the previews for this movie? No. So, I'm not going to get into it, but the only reason I think that I didn't tear A Wrinkle in Time apart totally in my review of it is because the previews for A Wrinkle, the previews I had of A Wrinkle in Time were a series of films that was, one was, it was literally just Miss Congeniality, but Sandra Bullock is a dog, and it's in a dog show. Oh, not Miss Congeniality, but they're doing a heist. They're doing, they're doing, no, but it's like a undercover FBI dog goes into a dog show, and Job Bluth has to, like, figure out who is committing crimes or something. I was just like, this is offensive to me on any number of levels. There was also a movie called Sherlock Gnomes. Yes. I think that did pretty well.
Vic00:22:08It's Sherlock Gnomes. It made money. No, I'm kidding. I'm not kidding. I think that did okay.
Sonny00:22:13So, I'm just saying that, like, the idea that I can't judge these films as being good or bad because they're aimed at children is the same thing. I can say, like... Like, Tyler Perry's movies may not be marketed to me, but that doesn't mean they're good just because they're successful. Okay. A lot of successful movies... If you want to take that line, you can. A lot of successful movies are shit.
Vic00:22:29I'm not comfortable doing that. I'm not comfortable doing that. So, who saw Ready Player One here? Sonny, you saw it. Yes, I saw it. I saw it, JVL. I want you guys to know...
JVL00:22:43Uh-huh. Yay! Yay! This has been an incredibly stressful week for me at work, and I have been putting in a lot of hours. And over the last seven days, I think I've averaged four hours of sleep. And last night, instead of going to bed, I took my ass to a 9 p.m. show so that we could have this conversation.
Vic00:23:01Well, it's been a while since you've seen one of the movies that we've had on the show, right? Thank you. It's been a while since you've...
Sonny00:23:06I'd like to thank Eric Erickson for shaming JVL into doing this. Yes.
JVL00:23:10Basically, Eric did shame me into it. Good. Good. So, I went. Okay. And man, that new Avengers movie looks fantastic. The funny quips and the high stakes. High stakes. And they've got all the characters in it. I bet it's going to be amazing. Did you see all the CGI? It looks great. It looks so good. I mean, people understand that that's what draws us to these Marvel movies, is that they're getting all of the heroes together in the same place. I'm saying yes to all of this. Because we don't want arcs and we don't want character arcs. We just want to see things that we recognize, and so we can point them and say, oh my god, I can't believe that's that hero from the other movies, but now he's in this movie.
Sonny00:23:46I feel like this is an esoteric critique of Ready Player One.
Vic00:23:49But when you throw them all together, it writes itself. One more side note.
Sonny00:23:54Did anyone else see the movie?
Vic00:23:57Quite possibly.
JVL00:23:59Before we get to that. Yes, JVL. Since we're in the world of female superhero movies, because that's the only thing that matters anymore, can I finally have my Black Widow movie? Oh, she'd be great. Yeah, you do.
Sonny00:24:09It was called Red Sparrow.
JVL00:24:12I want my Scarlett Johansson Black Widow movie, because that's the movie I want from all of this. Red Sparrow is more up your alley. Really?
Sonny00:24:22Yeah. Wink.
JVL00:24:24We didn't get a Gene review of Red Sparrow, did we? No. Okay. He didn't see it. Okay. But did Gene see? Apparently, he did. Vic, move out of the way.
Vic00:24:41Ready Player One is set in the year 2045. Everyone spends their days at the Oasis, but the Oasis... is really a mirage. If I could escape to a virtual world, I'd choose beautiful Mount Airy Lodge in the Poconos, just for the heart-shaped bathtub. But I digress. So let me get back to the future. Everyone's looking for an Easter egg worth half a trillion dollars. I found one the other day. It was just a Cadbury, but it tasted like a million bucks. Parsifal is great, but I really loved Artemis. It could handle my floppy disk any time. That's right, folks. I still use a TRS-80. Anyway, Ready Player One will have you virtually on the edge of your seat, at least for one shining moment. I give it four stars.
Sonny00:25:38Is that a basketball reference? Yeah, that's it. I don't understand why. It was a basketball reference. Gene, come back.
JVL00:25:43I wanted to ask him if his TRS-80 uses the 5.4-inch disk, or the 3.5-inch disk.
Vic00:25:495.4. Please, verbatim. Verbatim. That was like the one. If you had a good disk.
Sonny00:25:57That's an average-sized floppy disk, all right?
Vic00:26:00Perfectly average. Okay. But my wife says that 3.5 is perfectly fine. Okay.
Sonny00:26:07Size of your floppy disk doesn't matter. It does not matter. It's how much information is in the ocean. Hold on.
Vic00:26:14What does that phrase go? I should say that if not a floppy disk, more like a hard diskette. That was the 3.5. Thank you. Thank you very much. And that's what makes the difference. Sonny, how about a review?
Sonny00:26:26Ready Player One is set about 40 years in the future, something like that. 2045. 2045. 25 years in the future. Some amount of time in the future. And in the future, the future sucks, but people will escape the future. We should note that the future sucks because they have achieved perfect density, as preached by our current, overlords in the population density movement. That's what people want. People want density. They want to live stacked on top of each other, Sonny. People want to live in trailers stacked on top of each other. Trailers stacked on top of trailers.
JVL00:26:58The only reason people live in single-family homes is because urban planners made them do it, and they're not happy. They don't think they're happy.
Sonny00:27:05They built the roads to go to the places where you have yards, and people don't actually want yards. They want trailers stacked on top of each other. I actually agree with that. So, well, I actually do, too. I don't want yards. I don't want a yard, either.
JVL00:27:17I want a rock garden.
Sonny00:27:19I want my trailer to be stacked on its side, like a townhouse, you know, like, anyway. So, anyway, Ready Player One, future, not great, but people escape from the future into the Oasis, which is a virtual reality play world that is a combination of Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and also Counter-Strike, and, you know, all the video games from our past, and also Netflix. It's Second Life. It's Second Life, kind of, but, like, a good version of Second Life instead of a shitty version of Second Life. We are there through the eyes of Parzival, who's a teen. He's just a regular dude. He's just a kid. He wants to do his thing, and he is trying to figure out how to solve Halliday's puzzle. James Halliday is the guy who created the world. He has died, and in his death, he has instituted a game within the world of the game, and if you solve his puzzle, you inherit the, I don't know, half trillion dollar fortune. Half trillion dollar fortune, and total control of the Oasis. Parzival is trying to do this. In addition to Parzival trying to do this, Nolan Sorrento, who is the head of IOI, is trying to do this. IOI is an evil overlord of an evil corporation, and I don't know if you know this, but corporations are bad guys. We don't want the corporations to take over, because really what this movie boils down to is a struggle to, to avoid having to see pop-up ads in the world of the Oasis.
Vic00:28:52Which you don't see. There's no ads. There are no ads. That's a good point.
Sonny00:28:55You know, and it's like, the idea, first off, can we just like, well, we'll get to this in a second, I guess. Anyway, it's a big action adventure movie. I think that this movie works better as a movie than it does as a book. And the reason I think this is because, as a book, it is a series of references, that are just glommed onto the page. It's like, the guy walks through it, and it's all text. It's like, oh, I saw the DeLorean from Back to the Future, and I saw the Akira motorcycle, and I saw, you know,
JVL00:29:28the Battlestar Galactica spaceship. Do you remember that puzzle in The Legend of Zelda? Wasn't that so cool?
Sonny00:29:33Do you remember the dungeon in this Atari game from 50 years ago? Do you remember Bowser?
Vic00:29:39Right.
JVL00:29:39So, this is where, this is, this is, Super Mario Brothers.
Sonny00:29:44So, this is where the whole Member Berries phenomenon comes from, really, is this book. Member Berries. I think we'd say this is like ground zero of that kind of concept. And, and, it is annoying and aggravating, but the book is actually kind of compulsively readable. I enjoyed reading it. I found it totally, totally readable, even as I hated myself while I was reading it. Like, I was like, this is like reading a Playboy. Like, this is how I feel. Like, I feel like I'm reading dirty, dirty pornography. You read Playboy? But it, no, but I mean, Just for the interviews. That's what I'm saying. But like, but the, but the movie, I think works much better because you can turn all of those references into background matter. It is just scene setting. They're costumes. Like, there's a, there's a scene, for instance, in this movie where the villain, one of the villains, who is voiced by T.J. Miller, walks into a big party. It's in a big club, right? And it's in this, the Oasis virtual world. And he walks into like a back private room and there are three women sitting on the couch. And one of them is dressed as Harley Quinn. And I didn't recognize the other two. I don't know who they were. But I recognize Harley Quinn. But I could just imagine it being in the book. Like, Iroq walked into the back room and saw, you know, character A, character B, and character C, Harley Quinn, dressed in her costume from the Dark, the Asylum, the Asylum Night video game from 1994. Like, I, you know, it just doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't work. But in, on the screen, where it's just there and it exists, it's not obtrusive. And I thought it was fine.
JVL00:31:10Every frame is so densely packed.
Sonny00:31:13Johnny Ivey, ladies and gentlemen.
JVL00:31:15No, it's Rick McCallum. I thought it was Johnny Ivey, too. You know what I'm talking about, right?
Vic00:31:22But yeah, yeah. From the Star Wars movie. Right, right, right, right, right.
JVL00:31:24But this is, when this finally comes out on Blu-ray, People will stop frame by frame. People will frame by frame and you will get whole internet boards where people are circling.
Vic00:31:33Oh my God, did you see back here?
JVL00:31:35There is the, that's Chun-Li from Street Fighter 2.
Vic00:31:40And of course, but the only way this will work when you post it on YouTube is by saying, the 10 Easter egg references you missed
JVL00:31:47The 10 Easter video game references you missed, nobody got.
Vic00:31:51I remember early on.
Sonny00:31:53But which everyone actually got. Yes, exactly.
Vic00:31:55I remember this early on really quickly from BuzzFeed or somewhere did a thing about, like everyone totally missed this from Back to the Future. And I'm like, really? Because I remember I watched it in the theater and I've watched it a million times. And it was the Twin Oaks Mall was like One Oaks Mall or whatever it is. And yeah, I got that. You know what I mean? But of course, you click on. You can't get it back. You can't take it back.
Sonny00:32:19The only other thing I will say about this is that I think it, I think the movie is a vast improvement upon the book insofar as the book is a book about childish obsessions and the ways in which we kind of define ourselves by our, we nerds, we, you know, like losers, define ourselves by our mastery of trivia and nonsense and bulls**t. But. The movie is very much a movie about middle-aged regrets. It's a movie about figuring out where you have gone wrong in life and trying to instruct others that the minutiae that you have kind of spent your life absorbing is not actually important. It is important to find a real human connection. And to go to church. I'm sorry. And to go to church, I guess. Sorry, Sonny. Yeah, yeah.
Vic00:33:07That was, you should, you should put that in your next column or something. You should write about this in the post.
Sonny00:33:11If you read about me at the Washington, I have a column at thewashingtonpost.com.
Vic00:33:16If you want to. Now, before we go further, JVL, I couldn't help but notice that you actually do look very tired. You look like you've had very little sleep. How much sleep, how much sleep did you, you said you were averaging? About four hours a night for the last week or so.
JVL00:33:28Yeah, sleep is important. How important? Did you know?
Sonny00:33:32Casper! I love that.
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Vic00:35:16For all your hard work, you deserve a mattress.
JVL00:35:18Thank you. I would love to be able to do a testimonial and tell people exactly how great Casper is. Can I say, the one thing I love about that is the call-out in the script to the Arrested Development Magician's references. So, if you remember what Ben Stiller's character and Job's character call the audience members, they call them the Howdy Doodats. Oh, Michael, you're such a Howdy Doodat. That's good. That's good. Sorry. I liked Ready Player One. I really did. No kidding. I loved it. Of course you did.
Vic00:35:52I'm going to see it again.
JVL00:35:53I love the references. I went with my son.
Vic00:35:57Did they make you happy? Because you remembered things that were better? Remembered berries. My son enjoyed it because, of course, he's been exposed to all of these things already. He's like, hey, that's Beetlejuice. Hey, Chucky. He did not know Chucky and he did not know The Shining. And I said, oh, you're in for a treat. But he got, basically, everything else. And the other funny thing is when Nolan Sorrento makes him the offer and say, come work for me because of this whole thing and I'll give you however much. I see Michael there nodding. Michael would totally take the money. 100%. He goes, I'd take it. He said, I'd work for Krennic. That's what he said. I'd work for Krennic.
Sonny00:36:37Yeah. See, Krennic was right all along.
Vic00:36:40But it was really interesting, the idea of this. Again, I had not read the book. I didn't know until this podcast that there was a book on this. I'm just kidding. IOI, as a villain, first of all, all the drones, right? Everybody's getting their packages delivered by drones and that was really interesting. Of course, this is now. We're seeing this happen. But, you know, in terms of you were saying, yo, it's great. You know, there's no ads in the world of the Oasis versus IOI, which is very corporate. Does IOI offer like free two-day shipping for IOI Prime members? Is that how it works?
Sonny00:37:14I would assume so. Free two-hour shipping?
Vic00:37:16Free two-hour shipping.
JVL00:37:16But yet, they have to answer to a board of directors.
Sonny00:37:22So Sorrento doesn't
JVL00:37:24like run the whole thing himself. Sorrento does not. He's answering to stockholders and shareholders. Sonny, could you take a read of this where Sorrento is actually
Sonny00:37:33the real hero
JVL00:37:35of Ready Player One? JBL,
Sonny00:37:37is that what you want to do?
JVL00:37:38No, I was hoping you would do it. No, I don't.
?00:37:40I've got to.
Sonny00:37:40Oh, you don't? I'm not going to.
JVL00:37:42I'm not going to. I just assumed you had that like in your back pocket ready to go. ready to pull out, no?
Vic00:37:48I,
?00:37:48no.
Sonny00:37:50Okay. I mean, I think the people who wind up in the concentration camps for debtors probably deserve it. Don't get into debt.
Vic00:37:57Virtual debt, virtual punishment. Gold farming.
Sonny00:38:00Don't get into debt if you don't want to get your head strapped to a machine where you're forced to lift bricks in the Oasis.
Vic00:38:06And basically cattle prodded.
JVL00:38:08Yes. Funny that they don't have bots to do that in the Oasis. That's very interesting. You actually need human virtual labor to do things in the Oasis. Well, Halliday was very, very good. Very good programmer. No bots.
Vic00:38:18Question. Was there not an agreement with Marvel for Marvel superheroes? Are there Marvel superheroes in the book versus the movie which had none but there were a ton of DC characters?
JVL00:38:29I believe so. The one thing that I found most interesting about this movie was the intellectual property usage provisions. Yes. Or what was absent. Right. So in the book you can do that. I believe the way IP laws are. You can say Batman, Batman, Batman in a book and nobody can say but in a movie if you want to have a picture of Batman and use Batman's image that's not fair use. You've got to get permission from somebody to do that. And what I would the real thing I want I don't want to get a screenshot with like arrows pointing out who all the characters are. I want a side-by-side scene comparison where they tell us who are the characters who were not given IP permission to show up in the movie. That's what I care about most.
Sonny00:39:15That would be interesting I would it is part of me wonders how much of this was Spielberg himself. For instance there are no Star Wars references.
Vic00:39:29There are verbal references Millennium Falcon Yeah, yeah but no images. Like in the great battle scene there's no AT-AT that would be the most obvious vehicle I think on the field.
Sonny00:39:39My question is does part of my take on this film is that it is Steven Spielberg saying like this is the world we have created and it is not great and I wonder how much of his
JVL00:39:53I wish I'd never directed Jaws
Sonny00:39:55I wish I wonder I wonder how much of his kind of regret for that and not wanting to like bring his friend George Lucas into that critique of the world that they have created. Oh, that's interesting. There is. I just I don't know. I think there are a lot of interesting I think this is a much more interesting movie than a lot of people have given it credit for and I am I'm curious to hear what you actually think, JVL. JVL.
JVL00:40:17Well, then, the meta level I think it's interesting. So, the movie was fine. The book, I agree totally compulsively readable. I also agree very much I thought your Washington Post column on this was great and very true. The the theory of the movie is much more interesting than the theory of the book because the movie is as you said it's about regret and that stuff is the best stuff in the movie all the best stuff in the movie is the stuff with Mark Rylance and Simon Pegg yeah, yeah, yeah totally and the truth is the movie would have been better to have 15 more minutes of that and 15 fewer minutes of battle don't you think?
Sonny00:40:54Yes or 15 fewer minutes in the real world or the real world 20 minutes shorter if you had just made this movie 20 minutes shorter it would have been much, much better
Vic00:41:03in terms of van chasing things like that
JVL00:41:06but where the book was superior was as a storytelling construction I mean, I would say this is one of the rare movies where Spielberg I think did not quite have his arms around storytelling economy which is one of his hallmarks I mean, so he's great at the one perfect shot stuff there are most Spielberg movies whether you find them to be successful or unsuccessful there are shots in it that are fantastic I always go back to The Lost World The Lost World is a disaster of a movie yes but that crane shot of the high grasses with the people going through it and then the velociraptors converging on them from like six different directions that is Hitchcockian level amazing and it sticks with you this because of probably because it's what, 90% of the movie is CGI and takes place in Avatar land there's none of that and this speaks to I don't know if it just speaks to Spielberg's limitations in working within a totally digital context or just to how hard it is doing nothing but digital it lacked that and it also lacked I thought, again storytelling economy there was a lot of wasted motion it is not often that you come out of a Spielberg movie saying, well it could have been a half hour shorter
Sonny00:42:14no, this is this is a movie that could have used another could have been a half hour shorter 15 to 20 minutes I think you could I think you could trim 20 minutes pretty easily half hour would put it at an hour and 15 minutes that would be that would be short would have been just fine
JVL00:42:28yeah it was great I, you know it was fine Mark Rylance is great I think he's amazing I wanted way more Mark Rylance do you know he has 11 movie credits he's 58 years old and 11 movie credits
Vic00:42:39does that does that the feeling that I have with that is hope well he's a stage actor yeah
JVL00:42:44he's a he's considered the greatest stage actor
Vic00:42:46because I was going to say where did he come from before Bridge of Spies right I don't remember him and then and of course he was great in Dunkirk I just know him from Bridge of Spies Dunkirk steady the line George so far as I'm concerned
JVL00:42:57Ben Mendelsohn and Mark Rylance could be in every single movie ever made those two guys are so great I absolutely agree and I am waiting for somebody to put Ben Mendelsohn in a comedy because I bet you he can do it that would be interesting I bet his comic timing is awesome
Vic00:43:11I've seen interviews of him after Darkest Hour he did a very sort of casual interviews with Gary Oldman and he's pretty funny
JVL00:43:18yeah I am looking forward to him but I would say intimidating just because of his character because it'll happen sooner or later he'll be bored of playing this character
Vic00:43:27well it was interesting in Darkest Hour because he plays King George and it's sort of a softer touch to him at the end when he befriends Churchill question did either of you watch this movie in 3D
Sonny00:43:40I did not and I kind of wanted to
Vic00:43:43I watched it even though the thing barely fit on my head what I need is what they have were the 3D glasses broken when you were done cyclops well they you know you got to keep them so what what 3D where did you go that they let you keep the glasses
JVL00:43:58Regal there was no oh Regal is a great theater chain I that's okay great
Vic00:44:04America's best it was actually my son who said you know what maybe we should he hates the 3D thing but he said maybe we should see it in 3D I said you know what considering that these people are going to experience in the movie the Oasis is sort of a 3D thing obviously we decided to and you know what it worked it worked you liked it I did as a thing because it's the whole experience of being doing what they're doing right but to me I thought and I thought the highlight of the movie was the shining scenes and I thought that was really amazing to watch because were they using old footage and superimposing the characters on there or did they recreate them
Sonny00:44:43some of it was definitely old footage but I'm here's what I'm actually more interested about in the shining scene yes is that again on the meta level like the shining stuff is very fascinating because it's so different from how it plays out in the book in the book there's a similar sequence where Parzival has to play Matthew Broderick's character from War Games all the way through the movie War Games you're kidding me and it's basically you're just mimicking what happens on the screen like the point of the challenge is you know all of the things about War Games War Games of all the movies War Games this movie is very different it plays it very differently it takes the it takes the idea of the shining and it takes the setting of the shining and it takes some scenes and shots from the shining but the whole point of it is that it culminates in a challenge that has nothing to do with the shining yeah it's not about that and it is it is it is Steven it is it is Steven Spielberg directing Stanley Kubrick's arguably greatest greatest movie in a way that desecrates it for the point of driving home how foolish it is to just memorize these things I think
Vic00:45:53that's pretty good
Sonny00:45:54I think between between the way it changes and I mean Steven Spielberg has his own Stanley Kubrick thing I mean they were friends he considers him you know Spielberg considered Kubrick to be one of the greatest directors et cetera et cetera but like but the what is happening here on a meta level is far more interesting than what is happening in the film which turns The Shining into basically a dumb slasher flick
JVL00:46:17yes
Sonny00:46:18and The Shining is definitely not
JVL00:46:20but this is the problem the problem with the movie is that what actually is happening as a narrative construction is not particularly interesting
Sonny00:46:26but I this is this is what makes it great is that it's something that you can keep watching and thinking about and talking about in different ways
JVL00:46:36maybe great is probably too much good I think this is a
Sonny00:46:41I think this is a
JVL00:46:42you're gonna call it a top five Spielberg movie aren't you
Sonny00:46:45no no no no but I do think I think it is a true work of art in very weird and in specific ways I mean I do think that there's
JVL00:46:52a true commentary in very specific ways I don't know if that makes it a work of art but yeah criticism can be art
Vic00:46:58you know what I noticed at the very end
JVL00:47:00we're getting so precious
Vic00:47:01we are at the very end of the movie by the way so there are scenes that are real but you know they're not obviously because there's the digitized world and then he enters into James Halliday's you know house you know which is real and he asks him are you alive are you dead and the whole thing but he's dead but it's like what's happening there it's
Sonny00:47:21like an AI it's so advanced in 2045
Vic00:47:25it's so advanced because he can anticipate all the answers I don't know what's happening questions he's able to react okay but you know what the you didn't understand the ending of this movie either did you it's like arrival magical I don't
JVL00:47:40understand what's happening why Mike
Vic00:47:42what was going on what happened to Simon Pegg were they friends they weren't friends I don't know what happened okay but I did notice what the kid was playing with what was the concept you noticed the control the kid had it was very
JVL00:47:53good look I got the reference see and that made me feel good it made me feel so good that I knew it was ColecoVision and that was worth the money that was worth movie good
Sonny00:48:04movie good
Vic00:48:06me like picture five stars
JVL00:48:08Amazon me like
?00:48:10picture
JVL00:48:10okay did we we got into a Twitter fight or you started a Twitter fight about Spielberg last week that's about right
Sonny00:48:19do you remember that no no Comfortably Smug was like Steven Spielberg
JVL00:48:23he said Steven Spielberg sucks I'd want to talk about this
Sonny00:48:26his argument was basically Steven Spielberg is not a good filmmaker hasn't made a good movie in 20 years
JVL00:48:30I don't know that I can
Sonny00:48:33get on board with that
Vic00:48:35when was War of the Worlds
Sonny00:48:36of course you can't get on board with that it's dumb Minority Report came out in 2002 Lincoln is a great movie that came out in War of the Worlds was 2003 I think
JVL00:48:49the BFG is 2016 it was just two years ago
Sonny00:48:53BFG I don't know about that but Bridge of Spies is very good people like that a lot The Post The Post is the great movie about journalism of our times Munich I love I actually love Munich Catch Me
JVL00:49:06If You Can is astonishing I love Catch Me If You Can
Sonny00:49:09that's a terrific movie I love Minority Report the idea that Steven Spielberg stopped being a creative force after Saving Private Ryan is nonsense I don't approve of it and I won't acknowledge the question
Vic00:49:21does Adventure the video game from Atari 2600 figure into the book as prominently I can't remember I never played Atari Atari as a whole you didn't have a 2600 I remember looking at that game I said that looks boring I got combat air sea battle but I did not get Adventure and it's interesting that there was an actual easter egg in there no idea Pitfall Harry Pitfall did you play Pitfall you know it was great when Activision in its early stages got involved in the Atari world then they came up with Pitfall Kaboom Laser Command I was really good at that in fact I took a picture no Laser Command which is like a poor man's because as you know everything in Atari was a poor man's version of if you got the
JVL00:50:09picture of the high score with a Polaroid camera I
Vic00:50:12believe yes because I believe you could get no I had to get the film developed so it took some time like a couple weeks and then I believe if I mailed it in you got a patch that's one of my members only there was
JVL00:50:21a Pitfall version of that and I was over at Chris Chris Worshoven's house when Chris got the high score and went and got his mother's Polaroid and I was this was by extension the most exciting thing that ever happened to me as a kid who's not allowed to have video games in the home I just thought this was the coolest Thing Ever and I don't know if he ever got his patch it's
Vic00:50:41all about the patch that you could put on your members only jacket okay do we have any further thoughts on Ready Player One I
JVL00:50:47wouldn't see it again but I'm not mad that I saw it once so what is that I love the music I was going to say I thought the music was terrible the
Vic00:51:00score was
JVL00:51:03terrible I'm sorry I don't mean the placement of pop songs that you remember fondly that was fabulous this
Sonny00:51:08is the extent to which
JVL00:51:11this movie was just avatar remixed with guardians of the galaxy avatar with the aesthetic and and thematic feel of guardians of the galaxy i found bothersome did you and and also i really didn't like spending time in the real world with those
Sonny00:51:36people people very much i don't think i i could have lost a lot of the stuff that's in like the
JVL00:51:42real world like the real world i wanted to see is again the the video reproductions of the things that would happen between the the two game designers like though that's the real world library and they go through that so i want more of that unless oh boy what happened
Sonny00:51:59no no no no uh the so no but and this is another big change from the book to the movie is the the whole anorak's almanac yeah is is not it hasn't not video right you just read it and it's just like a list of like things that he liked right so this this
JVL00:52:16movie was i believe optioned before the book was published even so before the so spielberg bought the rights to this before it actually hit shelves and this is a not an incredibly not faithful adaptation no very very different i mean i mean totally different made a lot of
Sonny00:52:34changes made a lot of changes and made it a different yeah made it a different story made it anyways made it a different and i think better story well i don't know that i agree as i said i just i like i there's just nothing to there's just nothing to the book there's nothing there it's empty it's like pure it is it's empty but
JVL00:52:55it is a but it is a an efficient storytelling machine i i look i totally agree that you could
Sonny00:53:00have cut again 15 20 minutes out of this and it drives you from point a to point b in ways that
JVL00:53:05this totally doesn't do it explains everything along the way everything makes logical sense in ways that the movie doesn't do it pays off everything in ways that the movie doesn't do it pays off everything in ways that the movie doesn't do and again i am surprised to be saying this about a spielberg movie because he is whether you like his stuff or not like his stuff it is rare that you get like hook where he's not paying off and i guess this does happen with him every once in a while and i cut him a lot of slack because the truth is uh he is a he is not kubrick he is a working director who does not spend six years on little polished masterpieces he's i mean he did he did minority report and if you can in the same year right it's not thin red line what's his name right this is a guy who's constantly working and so he's happy to have things that aren't maybe as good as he could make them because he wants to keep making other movies and i admire
Vic00:53:57that okay spirit of the week as you know this is an early thursday and i'm sure at this currently
Sonny00:54:02it's 10 48 people are normally normally 12 minutes from now people are waiting the show
Vic00:54:08would be debuting that's right they're waiting at this moment and because it was early we decided to go with a little bit of orange juice and vodka this vodka screwdriver brought to us by where does that come from our friends double cross vodka from slovakia and sunny earlier i saw you had a an interesting dilemma and it's a familiar dilemma which is you had the vodka i had the
Sonny00:54:30vodka i had the orange juice and i needed to mix them together and i used a pen i just had to use
Vic00:54:35a pen and i said you know back in the 1930s and 40s the engineers at aramco out in saudi arabia they had the same problem and what they used was their screwdrivers and hence the screwdriver was born you can learn more about this in my book vodka available at amazon.com how close all those flavors spirit conquered america and that's that story is true because it was told to me by my friend john taffer oh your friend your friend john taffer host of bar rescue you you guys hanging out together you and john that's me me and john in the corrections editions i have one standard fan robbie dwyer son of captain bill dwyer asks have you ever played legend of zelda did you like it and how good were you at it i never played legend of zelda that was after my time jvl that was not after your time you're the same age as me i had did you not have nintendo no
JVL00:55:28never did okay so that's not why you didn't play it you just didn't play it because you didn't have
Vic00:55:32nintendo about a year older okay no but this is fifth grade for us i should have gotten really
Sonny00:55:37yeah it came out yeah it came out in like 83 i think it was you know there was no legend for television sonny you probably were a legend i played the second zelda game what was the second zelda a legend of the link adventures of link or something i didn't i didn't know link to the past was a super nintendo i didn't do you didn't do video game sequels no no i did not i'm pure what about super mario brothers 3 arguably the best video game of all time never never had it i never
Vic00:56:08played any of them three is the best was that what was that super mario brothers
Sonny00:56:12four first of all super mario brothers 3 is 100 super nintendo the best super mario brothers game no it's for the regular nintendo it was the game that they debuted in the wizard i have no idea what you're talking about do you remember the ben savage movie fred savage movie oh nope no
JVL00:56:28i do remember that that you don't you don't love the glove chris and i with the who had the gold version because you could save the legend of solid that was it was the first video game that you could save oh which is what the idea was you didn't have to finish it in one setting you just you saved your progress and get back to it and we we were subscribers christopher and i to nintendo power magazine which gave us some hints but there was one challenge that we just we spent like a month trying couldn't figure out and so we called the nintendo zelda tip line the 1 900 number yes because we were like is it worth seven dollars to be able to have somebody tell us how to beat this because there's no internet or anything like otherwise how are you going to figure out how to beat this
Vic00:57:14somebody actually pick up uh wait wait question question yeah why didn't you just go on youtube
JVL00:57:20and watch the walkthrough and so we paid the money and it told us how to do it and we then
Vic00:57:27were able to finish the game was it like a human person on the other side was it like an automated
JVL00:57:30thing no it was an automated thing and i believe this was uh it was the forest where the only way to get out to where you need to go is to go like right three times remember there's that one like endless forest panic anybody who's listening to this show who played that will now be saying i remember that this is awesome and that makes the episode great
Sonny00:57:53thank you wait did you have to did you have to like punch through like a a menu yeah so it was
JVL00:57:58like what game are you playing no no so it was welcome to movie phone and it was like which world which screen which because if you remember nintendo power magazine had an entire pull-out fold-out section that was the map of the legend of zelda world because you could map it out like
Vic00:58:18never mind i always knew you give up i always knew you like gay magazines game game magazines okay that's all the time we're giving to this episode
Sonny00:58:29it was it was lively we should do this every thursday morning yeah i'm thinking we should
Vic00:58:34once every two weeks schedule you know i you know how i feel about that questions what are you against it no pro
Sonny00:58:42he wants to do as few shows as possible i was gonna quarterly
Vic00:58:45the public the public substandard okay questions comments complaints compliments tweet us at victorino matus at sonny bunch at jv last who's now over 10 000 followers i know how much you love twitter please even if you have to mute him if you have to mute him please follow again be sure to subscribe to us on itunes the look jbl just gave i know i know
Sonny00:59:10or google play i know i would be surprised if we do this show once every two weeks more like once every never
Vic00:59:16just type in substandard under podcasts we're there leave a review tell your friends until next time
Sonny00:59:25that's good how did that go over an hour we had so many good things to talk about
Vic00:59:35we had a lot of great about it we were all over the place we're getting to movie season
JVL00:59:38so we are i'm gonna try to go see is it west and
Vic00:59:42anderson next week maybe or something like that we should talk about isle of dogs i you could not pay me oh come on if you if you watch steve zissou and uh and moonlight mile not moonlight sonata whatever that one is i don't know what kingdom i don't know what else there is to talk
JVL00:59:58about i want you to listen very carefully i hate dogs and the only thing i hate more than dogs is claymation dogs are dog people
Vic01:00:11i hate them talking dogs you don't want to know i mean the people
JVL01:00:17here's a twitter of my dog and look at all my dogs and our dogs cute i mean they're just an animal cc they're just another animal uh well i look we can't go out tonight because we have to be home to take out the dog we can't go away for the weekend because we have the dog you know what have children create you want responsibility take responsibility for organic matter that moves around and makes decisions that we're getting it we're getting the cut it we're getting the cut it signal from the window the steve hayes is pounding on the window hey why are we doing that dogs all right well isn't there another big movie coming out
Sonny01:00:55next weekend i don't know i don't know what's coming out next weekend jvl i was planning on doing wes anderson we could do a whole wes anderson thing we don't have to talk about isle of dogs talk about lots of things i'm sure it's fine
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