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#139. The Substandard on Mission Impossible, Tom Cruise, and Fan Mail!
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Dudes Chatting — the Mission: Impossible franchise and Tom Cruise: All three hosts saw Mission: Impossible – Fallout and unanimously love it. Sonny leads the main review: he calls it the best opening ever for a Mission: Impossible film and its first A from CinemaScore, but frames it as a "more charming, more critically palatable version of a Transformers film" — big set pieces in service of a thin plot. He wishes for more actual spy tradecraft and twists, as the mask-pulls are all telegraphed. JVL calls it the "grim, dark" entry in the series and notes its unusual volume of profanity and extended dream sequences. He also points out it's the first direct sequel (Ethan's wife storyline threading through 3–6). The hosts then rank all six films: all three put Mission: Impossible 2 last (JVL calls it actively bad); the original De Palma film and Rogue Nation trade the top spot depending on the host. JVL ranks Rogue Nation #1, Vic ranks Ghost Protocol #1, and Sonny puts the 1996 original first. All three love the Vienna Staatsoper sequence from Rogue Nation as perhaps the finest set piece in the series — tense, funny, and musically synchronized to Puccini's Turandot. Henry Cavill is praised for his bathroom-fight physicality but faulted for his dialogue delivery. The episode also features the fan-shared trivia that Wilford Brimley in Cocoon (1985) was five years younger than Tom Cruise is now.
Box Office: Mission: Impossible – Fallout opened at $61.5M — the biggest MI debut ever; Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again placed second with $15M; The Equalizer 2 third with $14M.
Fan mail / Expanded Universe segment: JVL recounts attending a Twitter all-hands event in San Francisco as a guest of Jack Dorsey, where he made the case for an edit button on-stage. The outtakes section covers the Substandard Expanded Universe's Pixar/Disney animation bracket tournament and gifts sent by listeners including a cucumber sour beer from Bend, Oregon, and Old Forester bourbon.
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00you had a terrible choice to make in berlin one life over millions
Guest00:00:06and now the world is at risk this is the cia's mission if he had held on to the plutonium we wouldn't be having this conversation his team would be dead yes they would that's the job
Vic00:00:21Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Substandard, sponsored by Quip Electric Toothbrush. I'm Victorino Matus, along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. I'd like to remind you The Substandard is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Just look at our podcast and search for Substandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, leave a review. Gentlemen, how are we? JVL. Welcome back. Thank you. Welcome back. I'm a little bit tired. I want to hear all about, what is it like out there? Tell us what's going on. Tell everybody where you were.
JVL00:01:00I arrived home from San Francisco out in California last night around midnight, thanks to United. What happened? There was wind shear, evidently. The plane was about 1,000 feet off the ground in approach to Dulles, and all of a sudden and the engine spun up, and we took back off and then circled for 20 minutes, and nobody used to hear my travel. It was not fun.
Vic00:01:27But I was in San Francisco as a guest of Twitter.
JVL00:01:30Ooh. Ah. Because you guys know I have long been a fan of the platform Twitter.com. I remember reading your casual about it so many years ago.
Sonny00:01:39Everyone here remembers all of your very nice things. It was funny. When Jack tweeted out the, when at Jack tweeted out the photo of you at the panel, I was halfway tempted to start just emailing him or just start tweeting things at him. Just send the link. Oh, JBL's there, huh? You know, here are some things he said about your platform. Just send the link.
JVL00:02:01People were doing captions of that photo. And my favorite one, I think, was from the Nikachu, which was, you know, record scratch freeze frame. You're probably wondering how I got here.
Sonny00:02:11Right. Somebody noticed your watch?
JVL00:02:14Yeah. And then somebody was like, what watch is that? That's not the Seamaster. I can say I don't feel comfortable yet taking the Seamaster to places where there is a high street crime rate.
Sonny00:02:25Well, that's San Francisco. You're worried that somebody's going to steal your watch? Rip it off. Well, yeah. Do people steal watches still? I don't even know. Yeah. Is that like a thing?
JVL00:02:32A hundred percent that's a thing.
Vic00:02:33But like how would they do it? Because the Seamaster is like secured, isn't it? Is it like the Rolex snap thing? Well, sure.
JVL00:02:39It's secured until somebody puts a gun to your face. Oh, I see. That way.
Vic00:02:42Not like snatch and grab in other words. No. They used to say in the Philippines you had to be careful with the windows down because they would just slash you and then get the watch that way and just cut your hand off.
JVL00:02:55So I was wearing the Orient Saturation Pro
Sonny00:02:58just in case anybody was curious. The Orient Saturation Pro? Yeah. I'm sorry, do you mean the Asian Saturation Pro?
Vic00:03:08The name of the company. The Eastern Japanese Saturation Pro.
JVL00:03:13The Orient is basically Seiko's main competitor. They're great. The Saturation Pro is their lone super high-end watch. Do you want to see it? I'm wearing it right now.
Vic00:03:22Look at that. Here. This thing's amazing.
JVL00:03:25The crystal is almost five millimeters thick. The whole thing is...
Vic00:03:30It's really heavy. Look at that thing.
JVL00:03:32So what's interesting about this technically is it is a 300-meter watch that accomplishes this without needing a helium escape valve. It glows in the dark. Sonny's actually looking at it in the darkness. It's because of all the Ram, Sonny. Oh, my gosh.
Vic00:03:47But it's no Paul Manafort watch, though.
JVL00:03:50We can talk about that later if you want to.
Vic00:03:51Jovan, what's the name of that?
JVL00:03:54It was lovely being with Jack Dorsey at Jack. Very gracious.
Vic00:03:59Do you think he listens to us? No.
Sonny00:04:01No. Maybe this episode. I don't think he listens. I talked about the show a little bit when I was up on stage.
JVL00:04:06I have to say, I really did not like, oh, I love Twitter, like everybody else. I can't really discuss what was said on the panel because it was supposed to be all off the record. But I did say, you know, people are like, what do you use the platform for? And I was like, well, I use it as a suicide machine that lets me play Russian roulette with my career 50 times a day. Well, that's funny. Yeah, and so I did not, you know, I would say I was not there to give them reach-arounds, so to speak. All right, all right. That's great. What is it like out there, though? Silicon Valley is weird.
Vic00:04:37Yeah, okay, so what's it like out there? I mean, it is like the show. Is it in the vicinity of Palo Alto and Twitter? It's not in San Francisco City proper, is it?
JVL00:04:46It is.
Sonny00:04:47Really? So Twitter is downtown San Francisco.
JVL00:04:49Wow. And we were at the convention center because this was the first all Twitter. So all Twitter employees, all 3,700 Twitter employees globally were in one place for the first time. Wow.
Vic00:05:01And so it was at the convention center.
Sonny00:05:02So what you're saying is one well-placed nuclear strike could have saved us all.
JVL00:05:07You know, I said to one of the- Saved us. I said to one of the guys there, I said, so how is Twitter working while you guys are here all week? And he was like, hamsters. We stockpiled a lot of hamsters, and they're all just running and running.
Sonny00:05:23So what you're saying is if we really wanted to harass somebody, this was the weekend to do it?
JVL00:05:27This was the weekend to kill Twitter. Right, right.
Sonny00:05:29For a few hours. I'm so jealous, by the way. I'm actually very annoyed by this.
JVL00:05:36This is the room I was in. And that's their –
Sonny00:05:40That's like the Apple, you know, like demo.
Vic00:05:43But you said, is this Twitter's or is this somewhere else in San Francisco?
JVL00:05:47This is the Moscow Center. This is their convention center. Their own convention center. Not Twitter's. No, no, no. The San Francisco convention center. You know how DC has a convention center that's like a mile away from here? Oh, okay. San Francisco has one of those. I just assumed that Twitter had their own. I was up on those Jumbotrons. It was – Oh, my gosh.
Vic00:06:05But it was great. I mean, literally, you look to the – Did you get a tour of Twitter Campus, though? I did not get to the Twitter Campus.
JVL00:06:12But it's not new. They are downtown. They're an office building downtown.
Vic00:06:15I'd just like to know what the cafeteria is like. I assume they have one. If Google has one, they've got to have one.
JVL00:06:20I mean, I assume cafeterias are de rigueur in Silicon Valley. I mean, this place, when you were not in the meeting space, sorry, the formal presentation space, the meeting space was like an orgy, basically, of food and stuff. And just like thoughtfully designed conversation nooks. And I mean, you can, it was like, you know, here's the hashtag snacks bar. Here's the hashtag buffet.
Vic00:06:49I mean, I'm not even, it was, I'd never, I just eat all the time.
Sonny00:06:56This is why we don't get invited to these. Because we would just be there shoving food in our effing gullets.
Vic00:07:01No, I mean, that's how I feel about the nutter butter and the kettle chips at the Beacon. Yeah, our cafeteria is Nestle and Planner's Peanuts.
JVL00:07:12It was amazing. But I can report this. I can report this. One of the things they asked us as we were presenting to all of Twitter was, do you have anything that you would like us, Twitter, to do for you? Oh, yes.
Vic00:07:28Yes.
JVL00:07:29And I asked for the edit button. I said, please, please give us an edit button, because nothing is worse than firing off a tweet, which you think is really good, and all of a sudden it's got like 500 retweets, and then you realize, oh, you misspelled what? You spelled it W-A-H-T. Surely this drives you crazy. Oh, yeah. Right. And so I requested a Twitter edit.
Vic00:07:56Like smocking gun, to change smocking gun to smoking gun. Yeah, right.
Sonny00:07:59now for all the stupid now did anybody push back on this with all the like so whenever somebody suggests this the pushback is oh well people will change their heavily retweeted things to add in
JVL00:08:10links to porn or whatever oh really the the suggestion we made was have a version history like the way wikipedia is so the front of so imagine it's like a set of cards then a tweet is you know the most recent edited version is here but stacked behind it is the original so anybody can see the original if they want to it's just one click and this keeps people honest i would think and keep people using the edit button for what it is intended for did they just say okay
Vic00:08:39thank you we'll think about that uh or they give you a special uh thing just for you that you can
JVL00:08:46edit no one they they did not i don't know what the reaction was i mean other people must have asked for this too i mean this must be a thing i think this is the holy grail of twitter right Everybody who's not a Twitter wants a Twitter.
Vic00:08:57Once it's up, it's up. But it's great. San Francisco's a weird place. Did you see anybody going to the bathroom on the street?
JVL00:09:03Oh, yeah. No, I mean, it's the streets.
Vic00:09:06Is homelessness an issue in San Francisco? But despite everything.
JVL00:09:12Okay, so I would not want to live in San Francisco. But if I could spend, like, three or four days in San Francisco every three months, that would be perfect.
Vic00:09:20San Francisco proper, the city.
JVL00:09:21Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, despite everything, despite the homelessness and the aggressive, like, socialist politics and the excrement on the streets.
Vic00:09:32Dog? Do we eat from animals? Cats? From animals.
JVL00:09:38It's, the city is kind of cool, and I spent a long time just, like, walking around, and it's really, it's interesting. Now there's some areas. Architecture's interesting. Well, yeah, I mean. And the coffee shops are great, and the food is good.
Vic00:09:48I'd like to live in San Francisco at the time of Vertigo, I think.
JVL00:09:51Yeah, it's got character in a way that DC just doesn't.
Vic00:09:54Or Dirty Harry.
JVL00:09:56Don't get out of the bus, kids. Yes.
Vic00:09:59So I like that. Okay. No, I remember driving around San Francisco when I was there, 2013, I think. It was before the vodka book, because I had visited a bunch of distilleries out there. And I remember it was just hard to navigate driving through the city. And I thought, hey, look, there's a lane that nobody's using, and there's all this other backup truck. I'm getting on that lane. It's the trolley lane. I got on the trolley lane. Did you die? No, it was very weird because I see the cables. I think there were cables. And then I'm just like, oh, it's just me and the trolley. This is great. And we're at a light, and I hear a whistle. And I look over, and a guy from the other lane looks at me, and he's pointing at me and shaking his head. And I thought, uh-oh, I think I might be in the wrong lane.
Sonny00:10:42You were getting shamed.
Vic00:10:43I was getting shamed, but no. And it was just like letting me know. I think, I mean, and luckily people were kind enough to let me back into the regular thing. But good for you, JBL. And the food there, I think, is very good. And you're not far from Napa and all these places that I've never been to, but I'd love to.
JVL00:10:59Yeah, it's cool. I mean, look, we all make fun of San Francisco for good reason. And it really is, the Silicon Valley, the HBO show-ness of it is 100% true. Is that right? Yeah, like every coffee shop you go into is full of two archetypes. Like the super young hipster programmers and then the 45-year-old white guys in Patagonia vests who are like the finance guys. Those are the two.
Vic00:11:30Right. That's it. It is a company town.
JVL00:11:33Interesting.
Vic00:11:34Sonny, how are you?
Sonny00:11:35I'm good.
Vic00:11:36Good. What's going on with you?
Sonny00:11:37Not much. I feel the need to apologize to JBL for going on The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg. I just, you know, I know there's been a lot of tension. I love The Remnant. I know. No, no, I just, it was very amusing the first thing.
JVL00:11:53The show isn't out yet, though, right? Because I tried listening to it last night on the plane, and I couldn't download it.
Sonny00:11:58I think it goes up today, Thursday, because we are actually taping on a Thursday. That's why this episode's going to go up a little bit late. We literally are. But it was funny. The first thing Jonah asked was, like, we actually had an interesting discussion about the various, you know, conservative podcasts. And I felt the need to represent the substandard and the substandard EU and kind of try to draw all of the conservative podcast clans together. I'm basically the Robert the Bruce of. Oh, yeah, sure. And I'm going to sell all of you out. I was going to say. I'm going to sell all of you out. It worked really well for William Wallace. The first chance I can for a lowly title and a little bit of land. So like a Washington Post sub-blog somewhere. No, but it was interesting. I went to the AEI building, which is very, very nice, very new. It's like an embassy. But anyway, it was fun. We had a good talk, and one of the things Jonah wanted to talk about was kind of the first half of the show versus the second half of the show, where we kind of do the dudes chatting part, and then we do the talk about the stuff. And it's funny, JBL, but right before the show, You were saying that you listened to several old episodes on your trip.
JVL00:13:09Yeah, literally I was just wandering the streets of San Francisco.
Sonny00:13:12Do you think the dudes chatting portion kind of holds up in looking back? Yeah, 100%. Do you think that holds up better than the stuff that is more timely? Like the movie stuff and all that?
JVL00:13:28So my general sense is that for me as a consumer of it, the dudes chat and stuff holds up really, really well on re-listens. And in fact, if you are a fan of the show, it gets better on re-listen because there are, I mean, we do, people don't realize this, but I don't even know that we realize this. We're doing both callbacks and call forwards. I mean, there are funny things which are now funny, which you may not have realized at the time were funny, but only. A little bit like Arrested Development style. A lot like Arrested Development style. The stuff which doesn't hold up as much is the conversations specifically about the movie of the week. Oh, that's interesting. So if the movie of the week is Kingsman the Golden Circle, the Kingsman the Golden Circle portion of that conversation is less interesting than the broader conversation we have about movies or about Matthew Vaughn, which follows that so i would say in a weird way we often feel like oh gosh today we're just talking about disaster movies because we have nothing else to talk about but in fact but in fact that
Vic00:14:35conversation holds up very well yeah over time i think in the early uh episodes i i don't i don't remember i don't think we did that much dudes chatting in those early episodes did we just get
Sonny00:14:46right to the substance of it yeah i think i think this first this first portion of the show has kind of expanded over time uh but i think i like my my my take on this was that the show has become kind of like arrested development in that we have developed so many in jokes and that sort of thing that it can be a little bit daunting to people to get into it which is always the fear which is always the fear you know we we just dive in just so anyway if you have friends who don't listen to the show tell them not to be intimidated don't be afraid just tweet at us and we'll we'll tell you what all the jokes mean. That's right. Because nothing works better than a joke you have to explain on Twitter.
Vic00:15:22No, or as your colleague Jonathan Richard Starr said, he had started listening to Substandard midway through our season and then worked his way backwards, and he said it was fascinating to see how the jokes, the evolution of the jokes, like the running gag, where does the running gag come from, you know? And it's kind of weird that way.
JVL00:15:39In a weird way, it's rewarding. If you are a new listener to the show, you should go into the back catalog. The back catalog does still have value.
Sonny00:15:46Yeah, so anyway, to get it super meta, the talk about the talk about the talk about the show anyway that did you go to AEI yeah to tape it yeah yeah their studios their studio is very nice nicer than this one it's ventilated it's ventilated it's cooler it's certainly cooler uh it's nice it's it's very nice um I'd love to do
JVL00:16:06the remnant sometime uh Jack has no no Jack has invited me on a couple times but it's always like last minute and I can't the other Jack my my life doesn't work in ways that I can do things last
Vic00:16:17minute yeah so okay well uh my uh bachelor week finally came to an end oh you have responsibilities
JVL00:16:25again i did question yes did you win any games yes civilization question domination
Vic00:16:32i always said you know i want to do science and then there's culture victory and i what is kate's favorite victory is it she's never diplomatic she has never just wants to win the un no she I think that's what she would like to do, but she's never actually finished a game. And she plays, and she's never finished. She just gets bored with it. She likes, just leave me alone, and I'll tend to my wheat field and pastures. But it's weird because I think the Complete Edition version, there's far less emphasis on conflict. And they really want you to try to win other ways. And I found that the other civilizations were less aggressive, at least at the... It's bad for them, isn't it? Yes. No, it's bad for them, exactly, because all of a sudden everybody hates you. That's okay because you control everything anyway. What happened was-
JVL00:17:23Better to be feared than loved.
Vic00:17:24No, I mean it was ridiculous because, not to get into the weeds here, but I was really killing it at my game as Austria, and then little Phoenicia, or no, Carthage, excuse me, Carthage, kept on, you know, there's a world congress, and she kept on putting up you know a vote to the world a vote to the world to ban the use of luxury items of pearls or gold things that i have and so i see my habits good because everyone's like yeah let's ban that just to you know screw me over so i said guess what carthage your day's done did you sack it did you sack carthage i punished them severely did you raise it i punished them severely and then uh
JVL00:18:03and then everybody else do you still have the option to raise a city rather than yes i think
Vic00:18:08you do i can't remember taking it over that's a good you know i believe you do and in fact did you if you no no no in fact but they warn you they say if you like right before you go in for the they have one last city and they'll say you will you will incur a severe warmonger penalty if you take the city so i actually took all the other cities except for and everyone had only like one city left in the world and then i just took the capital of the last civil and once you take every other capital as you know that's a domination victory but i did everything i had you know anyway so that was one of the things i did i also um uh you know and i get through all those old maxims oh yeah there were two two old maximum both with jennifer love hewitt she was on the cover twice like late early 2000s i mean it was really her at her prime she was really really something and then uh found old newspaper clippings of you know my stuff from the washington times what no Oh, no, you know, I've never written for them. No, but I had Old Washington Post Book World. Oh, yeah, the Jonathan Yardley Book World. Yeah, yeah, and it was Chris Lehman was the editor at the time, well, I edited at the time, so I would do the military book routers. I found all this old stuff, and I saved most of that. And then what happened is then on Sunday, oh, and also—
JVL00:19:22What happened?
Vic00:19:23Well, I also had a lovely breakfast with Terry Eastland. Terry Eastland. Our old friend, and he's doing well. I told him he needs to gain more weight. He didn't say that to me, though. He didn't say it to me. Is he on the RG? No, you know, I mean, he's just, you know, he's just thinner. And I said, he's trying to. He had like an open-faced bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. I don't know why open-faced, but he had an open-faced bacon, egg, and cheese. Meanwhile, I had like Western omelet, you know, and potatoes and the whole thing. But he's doing well. It was nice to see him. And then on Sunday, of course, you know, Kate and the kids are now back. They're on the highway. I found me. My mother told me they left around 10 in the morning, and they were heading down. And then I finally had to go through my list of things I promised to do for the whole week. Oh, let's see here. There was the vacuuming and the dusting and the clearing out of the pantries and all the newspapers and magazines that are stacked pile high. And then it was like, you know what it was like? It was like the end scene in Risky Business where Tom Cruise is running around. And cleaning up the house because the parents are coming home from the airport. But speaking of Tom Cruise, over the weekend, Mission Impossible Fallout took the top spot at the box office with $61.5 million, followed by Mamma Mia 2, here we go again. No, it's just called Mamma Mia 2, with $15 million. And in third place, The Equalizer 2, with $14 million. Box office thoughts, anything? No. Did we all see Mission Impossible?
Sonny00:20:51Best opening ever for a Mission Impossible movie.
Vic00:20:54Yes, JVL. That is correct. Not inflation-adjusted, but... Right, right. No, and it had, obviously, great word of mouth, right? Rotten Tomatoes, everything has been across the board.
Sonny00:21:04First A from CinemaScore for a Mission Impossible movie. There you go. The previous three, I think, had gotten A-minuses.
Vic00:21:10Wow.
Sonny00:21:11People are garbage.
JVL00:21:12Yeah, I know. How could you give a Mission Impossible movie an A-minus?
Sonny00:21:17I'm actually kind of interested by this. Well, the box office numbers on the Mission Impossible movies have always been surprisingly underwhelming to me. Like, these are very good movies, and they struggle to do much more than $200 million domestically.
Vic00:21:33Sonny, you had an observation the other day about Mission Impossible 3's box office.
Sonny00:21:36Yeah, Mission... I was just kind of looking at how the series has gone, and it has basically tracked steadily upwards, except for Mission Impossible 3, which is just a huge valley. Just an enormous valley. And then it goes up again after Ghost Protocol.
JVL00:21:53Mission Impossible 3 was punished for the sins of Mission Impossible 2. Yes, that's what I said. It saved the franchise creatively, but it was punished for it. And this is in a way that Solo was probably even punished for the last time. This happens. Audiences sour on a property.
Vic00:22:08I had been looking for it very much, like you did. I very much loved the first Mission Impossible. Looked forward to the second one. I thought I was very disappointed by the ending, especially the ending. And then because of that, I didn't feel compelled to see the third, even though it starred Philip Seymour Hoffman. So, anyway, that was that. Did you see it, JBL?
JVL00:22:28I saw it in San Francisco.
Vic00:22:30I took myself to a movie. Are you sure it was the right movie?
JVL00:22:35Pretty sure. I had to put a quarter in like every minute and a half to keep the movie going, but yeah. But it starred Tom Cruise.
Vic00:22:43Oh, wow. Wow. Wow, I'm fanning myself. I'm fanning myself. Good. And Sonny, you obviously saw it. I saw it. Did anyone else see it? Quite possibly.
Guest00:22:58Guys!
Vic00:22:59Okay. Can we do it now? All right. Mission Impossible Fallout is impossible not to love. The IMF team is searching for a case of plutonium. They battle so many terrorists around the world, they might as well call it Battlefield Earth, which Tom Cruise was not in. Henry Cavill does a super job as a CIA assassin. Boy, can he fly a helicopter. But then Tom Cruise rams him from behind. Bet he didn't see that coming. Poor Henry gets sprayed all over his face and it burns. That's jet fuel for you. Does Cruise survive? Let's just say you'll find Himalayan in the snow. Malayan in the snow. I give Mission Impossible Fallout four stars. You'll be falling out of your seat.
JVL00:24:04That's a very Arch Campbell finish to it.
Vic00:24:09The only thing you're not seeing is the blinking. Right. Next. Next. He's still alive, isn't he? Isn't he still alive, Arch Campbell?
JVL00:24:16I still see him at the movies every once in a while. Oh, poor Arch.
Vic00:24:20Okay, did one of you want to give a big boy review?
JVL00:24:25JBL? No, the show, having just listened to like 15 episodes of the show, the show doesn't work unless you do the big boy review. Vic does the transitions, you do the big boy review.
Sonny00:24:37So the new Mission Impossible is kind of a weird movie in that it is, I hesitated to call it the first direct sequel because that's not kind of right. Ever since the third one, they've been working through this thread of what to do with Tom Cruise's wife, which is a thing I'll get to in a moment. But this is the first direct sequel in that it is the first repeat villain, and they're kind of dealing with fallout from the previous film. Ethan Hunt is back. He is trying to still take down the Syndicate, which were the villains from the previous film. uh ghost no rogue nation um and as gene mentioned there's some plutonium that they have to catch uh and you know their their reversals and betrayals henry cavill plays a cia agent who is here to keep an eye on tom cruise but you know what henry cavill has this theory that there's a spy inside and he's the one who's feeding all and he's actually the real villain uh well i mean you can pretty much see where this is going um this movie exists solely uh for the set pieces and the action scenes the plot exists solely in service of those and this is why i said in my review for the washington free beacon that this is basically a more competent more charming critically more palatable version of a transformers film this is a movie in which people are going to see the big action scenes and they're really well done and again everybody's extremely charming i love all of the actors in this movie um but it is it is a movie that exists solely to have like big explosions and chase scenes and fights on on the big screen there's nothing wrong with that there's nothing wrong with that i'm not i'm not uh leveling this as a a giant criticism Um, I would say that for a spy thriller, emphasis on the spy thriller or a spy action adventure film, I would like a little more, um, uh, spy, a little more spy, a little more twists and turns. You know, I, I need, I need reveals and trade craft. Right. and this movie doesn't even even on the stuff that is is tradecraft even like the like trademark you know pulling off the mask all of the pulling off the mask scenes are totally obvious while they're happening um and and that is i think that i look i think that's a problem i think the best of these movies the best of the mission impossible movies remains the first one with brian de palma uh in the director's chair it feels like an actual spy movie where there are actual twists and turns and uh it it tells a story that the first time you see it is kind of surprising it's a surprising ending to that film um and it still has the big action set pieces i mean like the scene where tom cruise is dangled over the floor at langley yeah remains great one of the best set pieces in this whole series and that's that's pretty impressive considering this this movie features a literal helicopter chase uh and uh uh and a literal halo jump i still think the suspension over the floor is more thrilling and tense than anything that has happened in the last four three three or four movies i mentioned tom cruise's wife from who we met in mission impossible three they get you know engaged and i don't think they actually get married that happens in between three and four but uh this is you you say that mission impossible 3 saved the series and i think you're right in so far as it rebranded it as a straightforward action adventure series as opposed to a spy thriller series um but i think that giving him a wife has been something they've been trying to figure out how to undo for the last three movies yeah i mean this is ghost protocol uh rogue nation and now mission impossible fallout has been like okay ethan hunt has a wife we need to get rid of her but we don't want to do it in a way that makes ethan hunt bad guy ethan hunt has to be the good guy tom cruise is not the villain in this he is very good and very fair and very righteous and very just so we have to figure out how to like subtly move her off the stage while ethan is still protecting her and like doing right by her um and i think that that has been a drag on the series i think that has i i like i know it's supposed to create this emotional attachment for us but it does nothing for me i think it just i think it doesn't work counterpoint
JVL00:29:13having her attached to him emotionally but off screen has freed the movie up from giving him a love interest sure which is great because you don't have to waste time on that don't need love
Sonny00:29:28interests well except what is rebecca ferguson's right there's a little tension there but that's
JVL00:29:32the beauty of it there is some tension but you don't actually have to make it a love interest until now right right so so i actually so i agree that it creates problems but i think it also
Vic00:29:46solves a problem for them okay well one of the things that uh you guys mentioned in the previous episode uh we were talking about um before fallout was how you know a lot of these you know characters you talk about it as a sequel so they're all connected from a previous one and i had not actually seen Rogue Nation you know and so I actually went back and saw it because I thought it was important for me to brush up on the Mission Impossible series but speaking of brushing up JVL
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Vic00:31:50Thank you, JVL. So, you saw it in San Francisco. A lot of people at the theater? I was shocked.
JVL00:31:58It was a Monday evening screening. Can I ask?
Vic00:32:00It was almost full.
Sonny00:32:01What format you saw it in?
JVL00:32:02Just Dolby Digital.
Sonny00:32:04So, like the Dolby AMC?
JVL00:32:07It might have been just digital. It was not 3D. Okay.
Sonny00:32:13It wasn't like the special Dolby Theater?
JVL00:32:16I think it was not. I think it was just normal, normal Dolby. It was, I'm actually going to see it again tonight. Ah, you're going to. Taking a flash? No. No, I'm not.
Vic00:32:28I'm taking my wife. Oh. We're going on a date to the Alamo together. That's great. We've got a babysitter. I'm so excited. My wife, I thought about this. I brought my son, but I said to him, I said, you know what? Your mom would really like this movie. She enjoyed Rogue Nation a lot. In particular, the scene, and she still was just talking about yesterday, the scene in the... The opera house. Yeah, the Staatsoper. Yeah, absolutely.
JVL00:32:51That opera house scene is one of, I actually think is one of the greatest action set pieces ever. Because there's a lot going on. It is paced perfectly. And what Chris McQuarrie is doing is revealing information about it. He gives you all the information you need about the scene to start. But then he reveals little bits more as you go.
Vic00:33:13There's a lot going on, but it's also not confusing. No, not confusing at all. Which is great, especially for me. I'm always trying to figure out what's going on. And they really filmed it inside the opera. I was there. I've been there a dozen times, and I said, this is exactly where it is. There's the balcony where you get the drinks for intermission.
JVL00:33:30And the hallmark of episodes four and five, which are tonally different than the whole rest of the series, and I want to talk about that a little bit, but the opera scene is perfectly emblematic of that. Incredibly tense and yet funny. Oh. So as Cruz is fighting the assassin, there are all these little moments in it. Like, for instance, when you realize how tall this other guy is compared to little shrimpy Cruz. And the look on his face of just exasperation, like, oh, God, I have to do this again.
Vic00:34:02And then Benji accidentally hitting the button so that he's going up and down on the scaffolds. But it's not slapstick.
JVL00:34:06I mean, this is the other thing. The tone, it is just the right amount of amusement.
Vic00:34:12And the music, of course, because it's Turandot and it crescendos and the big aria and it's perfect.
JVL00:34:18And the little grace notes of shooting to the musical score, showing the fermata. Yes, yes. So there's a zoom and it moves across the score to show you the fermata so that you know when he's going to get shot. in terms of giving partially out information to the audience. It's just perfect.
Sonny00:34:38And Tom Cruise really is the key to making all of this work because he can do so much with a look. Yes. It was funny, I was watching Tales from the Script which is on Amazon Prime and it's basically just a talking head documentary where a bunch of script writers talk about like how great and how terrible their job is. And one of them was talking about being on, the screenwriter for Air Force One was talking about being on the set and he had written a big long speech for harrison ford um you know at one point talking to gary oldman i think you know about you know we do this or we do that and harrison ford like calls the screenwriter over he says this is really good writing this is really good i'm not gonna say a single word of it because i can do this with a look and the screenwriter was like you know he did he did it he did it all he did everything on that page but he did it with his eyes and like that's what tom cruise does i I mean, the scene in Fallout where Benji is like, how are you going to stop that from happening? And Cruise is like, I'm working on it. Like, that is the ethos of the series, basically, in a nutshell. Like, Tom Cruise is going to get himself in a jam and he's going to work out of it. He'll figure it out. Can I... JVL.
JVL00:35:47Can I blow your minds? Swallow what's in your mouth, Sonny. Because if I... You will spit it out.
Vic00:35:53Wow, there's a lot going on in there. There's a lot of subtext.
JVL00:35:55I got an email from a listener and buddy, Aaron Frank, with a trivia nugget that is going to blow your mind. Don't put that down.
Vic00:36:05That's delicious, too.
JVL00:36:07Remember the movie Cocoon? Yes, of course. Cocoon came out in 1985. Wilford Brimley was in that movie.
Vic00:36:14Yes. That's a nice guy.
JVL00:36:16In Cocoon, Wilford Brimley was five years younger than Tom Cruise is in the current Mission Impossible.
Vic00:36:21No, he's not. No, no, no, no. I've seen this.
JVL00:36:23That can't possibly be true. Really? Is it true? 100% true.
Sonny00:36:27Yeah, no, I've seen that little nugget. Wow. I mean, the difference is Tom Cruise doesn't have the diabetes. Diabetes? He doesn't have the diabetes.
Vic00:36:38He doesn't have the diabetes.
JVL00:36:39Here's some letters. Here's some letters from people with the diabetes.
Vic00:36:44Five years older, that's it?
JVL00:36:47Wilford? No, no, no. Cruise is five years older than Brimley. No, no, no. No, what? Yes.
Sonny00:36:54Oh, come on. Wilford Brimley also had many body thetans that Tom Cruise doesn't have. Body what?
Vic00:36:59Thetans. Cruise is clear. According to my e-meter, yes.
JVL00:37:03You know who aged a lot between Rogue Nation and this? Simon Pegg. Yeah, I don't know.
Vic00:37:10Was it just because he lost weight or something? What's going on there? I don't know. Everybody else has aged.
JVL00:37:15So Rogue Nation was, what, three years ago?
Sonny00:37:17Well, Ving Rhames looks like he ate the previous Ving Rhames.
Vic00:37:19You know how you can tell? Because Ving Rhames, I'm sure he's helpful, he's smart, he's good with computers, But half the time, he's a problem for the IMF. He's like, Ethan, they're getting away. Because you're not going to chase them.
JVL00:37:32Ving Rhames looks like the guy who ate Ving Rhames. Simon Pegg looks like he's on heroin. Even Rebecca Ferguson looks like she's lost 20 pounds in three years in ways which are not.
Vic00:37:47Tom Cruise looks great. And I know, obviously, he must dye his hair. But, you know, there was a scene in the helicopter scene. It looks like he had light brown hair. It was crazy.
JVL00:37:56Utterly ageless. It's amazing.
Vic00:37:58Five years older than Wilford Brimley. Oh, God. Right? Yeah, I mean, I think about Wilford Brimley in The Natural. He was great in that, too. But I always figured he was in his 70s at the time. So I really, I'm, this was, to me, the grim, dark Mission Impossible.
JVL00:38:14And it was a huge tonal shift away from what the series had been in four and five. I will drop some... So I say this not, as you guys know, because I am a prude about cursing, because the Lord knows I am not. This is the first Mission Impossible with a lot of cursing in it.
Vic00:38:35Oh, and they drop an F-bomb. Ken McEvil does at the very, very end.
JVL00:38:40There is... Do we have to bleep this? We don't have to bleep this. Did we? I don't know. I don't know what you're going to say. So there is...
Sonny00:38:48Oh, yeah. Over and over and over and over again.
JVL00:38:50probably eight or nine instances of it in i don't believe we've ever had even one before we might have had one uh there is why won't you effing die prick there's i mean and this stuff is again it just sort of jumped out at me not because i object to it but because tonally it is so different from everything that has come before it uh i wonder how much of that is mccorry trying
Sonny00:39:16So McQuarrie has said repeatedly that, you know, each of the previous films has had a different director and has had a different look and a different feel. And part of me wonders how much of that is him trying to write differently.
JVL00:39:28So I think that's exactly. So this is the hard-boiled Mission Impossible. And there's one truly great bit of, like, vintage McQuarrie dialogue in it, which is the line where Ethan Hunt says, you know, What's done is done when we say it's done, which could be right out of the usual suspects. But the rest of it, I tell you, the one thing I didn't like all that much about it, and I would say this is, for me, Fall, I was the lower tier, much lesser Mission Impossible. When we rank it later, you'll see exactly how I feel about it. The dream sequence stuff felt weirdly out of place.
Vic00:40:13It was interesting.
JVL00:40:13And this is the first time in this series since Mission Impossible 3. And I think three in this are the only ones in which Ethan feels more desperate than playful. My preferred incarnation of Ethan Hunt is the playful, cocky Ethan Hunt, who is the same guy who is flirting with Vanessa Redgrave in the first one. yeah is vanessa redgrave is that maybe which one is vanessa redgrave uh but that's the same guy who uh is like joking you know or making those weird faces at benji when he's hanging off of the building in five in rogue nation right yeah i guess that's not rogue nation that's four that's ghost protocol but that sort of playful cocky ethan hunt uh i like that better than the grim dark desperate ethan hunt um and the like the extended dream sequences and yeah i i wasn't
Sonny00:41:15bugged me a little bit i wasn't 100 sure what to what to make of that weird dream sequence scene because it feels like again it feels like macquarie is trying to do something different but it's a cheat for this series where you have guys who just pull their faces off
Vic00:41:31all the time oh i hate that and that's what i particularly hated about the second one i thought that was used too many times. Yeah. You can use it maybe once. And I enjoyed, I got a kick out of, with that, spoiler alert, I liked the Wolf Blitzer cameo. Yeah, that was good. That was great. That was funny. That was great.
Sonny00:41:46I mean, that was great, but it was also one of these things where it's like, once you realize the setup, you've got, okay, this guy's in a darkened room. He is waking up out of a coma to see all this news. You realize at the moment,
JVL00:41:56the moment the set is on.
Vic00:41:58Oh, I was, I didn't at all. Oh, really? I was totally fooled when the walls came down. And then when he took off his mask, I said, who's that guy? I was so confused. What happened to Wolf Blitzer's face?
Sonny00:42:08What happened to Wolf Blitzer? Maybe I was wrong to critique this film for being too simple. There is a lot.
Vic00:42:14I said, I don't know. What's happening here?
JVL00:42:17My other complaint is, well, there are two other complaints. There is a lot of exposition. I mean, this movie has so much exposition. It's everywhere. It's not as lean as previous writings. And Henry Cavill should not talk. Henry Cavill looks like a million bucks whenever he's on screen, in everything he's on screen. He's great in that bathroom fight.
Sonny00:42:42He's fabulous in the bathroom fight. He's like a great physical actor.
Vic00:42:45Yes, and he suffered the kicks and the fists really well. I mean, the look of pain in his face, that looked real. When he puts up his dukes and does that little... Reloads. Yeah, reloads. God, it's so good. Yeah, and he's 6'1".
JVL00:43:01He just shouldn't talk.
Vic00:43:02The dialogue, when he's talking with Angela Bassett, the director of CIA.
Sonny00:43:08Well, this gets back to the man from Uncle problem. Yes. Which is that he and Armie Hammer should have flipped roles. He should have been the stone-faced Russian. Totally. And Armie Hammer should have been the chatty American.
JVL00:43:23So Henry Cavill is okay when he's being stone-faced, But when he's like the cock, you know, when he pulls Ethan's oxygen tube out before they do the, like, again, just the tone of his voice is all wrong there. I like Henry Cavill. This is why, actually, why he's such a good Superman.
Sonny00:43:39This is why I like his Superman. Yeah.
JVL00:43:40No, his Superman is great. Because it's, like, weirdly reserved. Yes.
Vic00:43:44I don't know about that. I kind of pictured in Mission Impossible, I was imagining what it would be like if the CIA assassin was Brendan Routh. And how interesting that would be. Particularly the bathroom scene. Anyway.
JVL00:43:58Yeah, it's fine. I miss the funny. So in Rogue Nation, one of my favorite beats in Rogue Nation is they have just come out of the scuba diving thing. Ilsa has electrocuted Benji. Tom Cruise is one minute after having just woken up from death. Ilsa has taken off. And Cruise runs out to chase her. Yeah. And vaults over the car. And just wipes out. That's fantastic. Yeah, he's totally out of it.
Vic00:44:30He rams into the car as he's driving.
JVL00:44:33But what it is is, what you have to realize what they've done there is they use the comedy as transition from the sort of exhalation from one big set piece before a moment of betrayal. So they've given you new information about the lead character, Ilsa. And then they're about to embark on another set piece. And to help transition from those three elements, they give you this beat of comedy. And it's just perfect. Really perfect. I miss that. I feel like this did not have that sort of... You're sort of shaking your head, Sonny.
Sonny00:45:04I thought this movie had enough funny beats. But I think a lot of it is relegated to the Benji Ving Rhames subplots. It's not so much with the Tom Cruise. And you're right. This is like a slightly... I mean, the movie opens with Tom Cruise seeing the nuclear annihilation of him and his wife at the hands of, you know, the terrorist. Who's great.
JVL00:45:29I can't get enough of Sean Harris. Oh, he's great. He's very good.
Sonny00:45:32What else has he been? I looked him up on IMDb. He's just a British stage actor. Is that right? Perfect. We need more of those.
Vic00:45:37Perfect. I mean, but you know what? I mean, that's how they, when, what's his name, was picked in the late actor from Die Hard, the villain. Alan Rickman. Alan Rickman. When they picked him to do that role, he was not somebody that we knew from movies.
JVL00:45:52You just watched Rogue Nation, Victoria, right? Yeah, yeah. And so surely you noticed that Sean Harris basically whispers all of his lines. Uh-huh. Right? I mean, throughout the whole movie.
Vic00:46:02Of course, he doesn't have to raise his voice. He's just talking like this. My son loved him as a villain. He thought he was great. Great villain. Yes. When you went to the theater, did you get one of these? I did. A movie bill? No. It sounded like Playbill. Was it AMC? No, I went to Regal because it was last night. It was close by. You know what? Regal just blows in the theater chain. Wow. He's done. People don't realize the implications of this. Anyway, the movie bill, right? It comes, it was very, you know, it is what it is. But the funny thing is, inside the movie bill, it's like a complete, you know, it's like a press thing for Mission Impossible and all these puff piece interviews about how awesome everything is and it is but the funny thing is they have these dossiers you know of the different people from Mission Impossible Simon Pegg and I love it Height 5'10 Henry Cavill Height 6'1 there's no dossier for Tom Cruise missing I wonder why that is weird
JVL00:47:01I have a question
Vic00:47:02what would it be by the way do we know it's like 5'6 isn't it it's like 5'5 or 5'6 JVL
JVL00:47:10is Jeremy Renner in movie jail oh
Sonny00:47:12he was filming The Avengers oh I was going to say
JVL00:47:15because he wasn't in the first Avengers and he's not in this. No, he was filming part two of Avengers.
Sonny00:47:22Of the coming up? Or do you mean just the one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Avengers, whatever the next Avengers movie is. Oh, and that's why he couldn't do it. They filmed them back to back.
Vic00:47:29Got it. Interesting. Yeah, because I remember I loved him in Wind River and I was telling, because my son was asking about that and I said, yeah, I guess he did, well, he wasn't in Infinity War and then I thought, well, he did Wind River. Yeah.
Sonny00:47:41Which, well, obviously my son did not see that. He was in that Tag movie. And Tag, my son said
Vic00:47:45he was in Tag. I said, yeah, good point.
Sonny00:47:47Okay. The story of the youngest Romney child.
Vic00:47:52But I also, you know who else is great in this is Vanessa Kirby. If you watch The Crown, she plays Princess Margaret. And she's saucy there and she's saucy here.
JVL00:48:01And she is Max's daughter or granddaughter, right? This is at the benefit. This is a benefit auction that Vanessa Kirby's character is hosting. She talks about her beloved either mother or aunt or grandmother, I forget, whose name
Vic00:48:19is Max, who I believe is certainly Vanessa Redgrave's character. Really?
Sonny00:48:27Glad to know.
Vic00:48:27Very good.
Sonny00:48:28Yeah. Okay. I didn't pick up on that.
JVL00:48:30I did not like the brother, though. No, me neither. I couldn't even figure that out. He's in it, he's not in it. What's going on there? Did you love Victorino? Yes. Victor, the bone doctor in Rogue Knight. Isn't he a fabulous villain? I think he's being played quasi-gay.
Vic00:48:50I don't know. Does he die at the end? I can't remember if he dies. Yeah, she kills him. That's right. She kills him because he gets stabbed. Yeah, stabbed. But there are other members who then disappear that you do see their pictures, I think, their thumbnails in Mission Impossible Fallout, but they didn't actually. You have the apostles, but they don't have a service. No, the bone doctor is great.
JVL00:49:11You know, one of my favorite things about the Rebecca Ferguson character in Rogue Nation is the way they have her fight. It's the first time I had ever seen, and the only people who follow it is Atomic Blonde, the fight choreography in Atomic Blonde, did the same thing afterwards, where they don't just have her fight the way a guy would fight and just ignore the rules of physics. She is doing it. Well, she fights the way, in those situations, a woman would have to because she just doesn't have the upper body strength, can't punch. She has the skill. Has to do everything on dexterity, has to win in a knife fight right at the end. Like, everything is about speed and surprise and dexterity and not like the Tomb Raider style. I'll just get into a punching contest and punch him real hard because I'm Tomb Raider.
Vic00:49:55And a green screen. Yeah. With strings. Okay, do we have any other Mission Impossible thoughts? We're going to rank them, right? All right, go. What are you? You're first.
Sonny00:50:05You're first.
JVL00:50:06from worst to best worst to best uh mission impossible 2 fallout mission impossible 3 followed by ghost protocol in the three hole the original mission impossible number two and rogue nation number one and i went back and forth i've re-watched all but number two in the last six months in preparation for this. And I love the first Mission Impossible like you can't even imagine. The CIA scene is fantastic.
Sonny00:50:40I really could go back and forth between that.
JVL00:50:42But not just that, like Immanuel Baird who is just sort of a revelation for American audiences who hadn't been watching French cinema. And you know who else was great?
Vic00:50:49Emilio Estevez was fantastic in that too.
Sonny00:50:52But that's a great scene because it's such a... Wait a minute, I didn't realize Emilio Estevez is in this. it's such a misdirection
Vic00:51:00but I remember what you said you knew he would not have a lot of screen time because his name in the credits was not top billing it was like later on
JVL00:51:07everything about that first movie Jean Reno there are in the six movies here two of them are perfect movies perfect in the sense that you could not improve them at all every beat is there there's no fat there's nothing you can take out Victorino, do you have a ranking?
Vic00:51:29I didn't remember, I have not seen three, I'm going to, but I haven't seen three, so not counting that I would say at the bottom of my list is Mission Impossible 2 as well I don't know
JVL00:51:41Did we see that together? I think we did
Vic00:51:42Dugray Scott? Yeah, Dugray Scott and the ending in the park with the balloons and whatever it is they're walking there It's John Woo's self-parody Yeah, with Thandie Newton Okay, so yeah Okay, and then after that, maybe part three might be next, but I haven't seen it. So after that would be Fallout for me in the fourth slot. Rogue Nation, I say is three. The original Mission Impossible is two. And I really love Ghost Protocol. I think that's one where there's more Jeremy Renner in that, more Jeremy Renner doing action in that one. And that's the one in Dubai.
JVL00:52:19We all have secrets, Ethan.
Vic00:52:21Right. Fantastic.
Sonny00:52:23From worst to best, two. I think we can all agree. Two is not only the worst of these movies, but it's a bad movie. Bad movie. But it's like actually bad. Three, which again, I think it has its charms, but I think it, as I said, kind of broke the series in a fundamental way.
JVL00:52:40Its charms are all related to Philip Seymour Hoffman. Right.
Sonny00:52:43And Philip Seymour Hoffman is just so good. So good in that movie. And then kind of all bunched.
JVL00:52:49I'm going to find her. I'm going to hurt her.
Sonny00:52:52All kind of bunched up together is the last three films, which all, I mean, it's essentially the, it's the La Carre Carla trilogy, right? You kind of have this kind of unity of theme and action and all that. But I would go six, four, five. So Fallout, then Ghost Protocol, then Rogue Nation. Rogue Nation is really good. I mean, Rogue Nation is, like you say, it's basically a perfect movie. I mean, there's nothing I would change in that. In the spy action genre, it is. It's very enjoyable. And then number one, I still think, is the first one. I mean, I think the first one is, again, just it is the perfect meld of actual spy thriller tropes with actual action. And it's super tense, and it's incredible. And it's well directed by Brian De Palma, which is such a weird choice for a director, but he nails it. I mean, just totally nails it.
Vic00:53:48No, when De Palma is on, he's on, right? And I loved The Untouchables, which was De Palma. But I did not like Snake Eyes with Nicolas Cage, which I think you and I did see in the theater. It was awful. And, of course, the other stuff that he did in the 80s.
JVL00:54:04You get interesting results when you put arthouse directors with mainstream, big-budget action movies. So here's a question, though. My sense has always been that the original Mission Impossible is largely critically reviled. No, I don't think that is. I believe this is 100% true, and people complain at the time, it doesn't make any sense. Maybe at the time. And I have never, ever understood that criticism of it.
Vic00:54:28No, and I remember when they said they had to go into CIA and they had to extract whatever it was they were extracting. The knock list. The knock list, and it's the Hiawatha Act with the lasers and the whole thing. And I remember thinking to myself, how are they going to get out of this mess? And really being interested in seeing it and very pleased about how they solved it. and there was no cheats. I didn't think there was any cheats.
JVL00:54:48And the guy, I'm going to effort this, but the guy who plays Kittredge is one of my, he's a Canadian actor. Henry Zerny. Henry Zerny, who plays essentially the same actor in Clear and Present Danger. Yes, yes. He's the same character as Clear and Present Danger.
Vic00:55:05He's also, you know what is great? He has a great little turn in The Ice Storm when they do the, and it's the key party and he ends up with this woman and that is just terrible. It was really funny, though. Very funny. I love key party humor. Okay. I was like, I've got to add the word humor. Key parties. Dot, dot, dot, humor. Corrections editions. I got two. I got nothing.
JVL00:55:32I got a correction. Oh, okay, correction.
Vic00:55:35Yes, JVL.
JVL00:55:36I saw Black Panther.
Sonny00:55:39Oh, did you see it on the plane?
Guest00:55:41I did.
Sonny00:55:42Did you watch it in portrait? Oh, did you watch it on the plane?
JVL00:55:46I watched it on my phone, on the plane.
Sonny00:55:47You watched it on your phone? Did you watch it in portrait mode?
JVL00:55:50No.
Vic00:55:50What did you think?
JVL00:55:51I loved it.
Vic00:55:52Wow.
JVL00:55:53I totally see why everybody loved it. It's great. It's fun. It's got like four or five characters that you really care about in the course of the story. T'Challa is finally fleshed out in a way that makes him totally interesting. I figured you would like it. Really, because he's not all that smart, but he's very wise. Right.
Vic00:56:12But Michael B. Jordan is a great scene. I mean, he's great. Michael B. Jordan is fantastic.
JVL00:56:16I love it. But the other movie I saw, I finally, because this is the trip where I catch up on the movies that the rest of America has seen. Transcontinental Flights. Jumanji.
Sonny00:56:26Oh, yeah.
JVL00:56:27And I don't understand why everybody went crazy for it. Really?
Sonny00:56:31I'm glad I missed it. I can absolutely see why people went nuts for Black Panther.
JVL00:56:34I cannot understand the mania for Jumanji. I mean, Jumanji is a perfectly fine movie that I could see being hit. I cannot understand the insane legs that that movie had.
Vic00:56:44Was the rock in Jumanji also?
JVL00:56:46He is, and he's good. It's not bad, but it is not a special movie in any way. I'm going to throw this out there. Go ahead. Got propped up by Last Jedi not being good. Probably true. Deep thought.
Sonny00:56:58Because, I mean, so this is whenever I would point out that The Last Jedi's box office was disappointing. It's not a bomb or anything. They're going to make money off the box office of this film. But it was disappointing. people would say oh but that's just because it had to go up against jumanji and i think the opposite is true i think jumanji attracted a lot of audiences who would have gone to repeat viewings of the last jedi uh because jumanji was much better i think that's then expectations then
JVL00:57:25expectations and this is again as we as we've seen in a series it is often not the bad movie that pays the price but the movie after that so like mission impossible 2's box office was fine The original Tomb Raider's box office was fine. The Last Jedi's box office was fine. But when audiences hate a movie, like a big movie they're going to see, they will punish the next one in the series.
Vic00:57:47Okay. Thanks to listener Bruce Dorn, another name for ladder golf, hillbilly golf. So I was delighted to find out that I was playing the sport of the people. Thank you very much. Wow.
Sonny00:58:00Pretty sure this is how you get Trump.
Guest00:58:03And I was good.
Vic00:58:06PSA, our friend Kristen Soltis Anderson, she had just tweeted today, she's on, she's heading out to New Zealand, and she says it's a very, very, very long flight, so please, telling us and a few other podcasts to make nice, great, long podcast episodes she can listen to on her flight.
Sonny00:58:23Deal.
Vic00:58:24So, Kristen, you're listening to this, and you're just finishing the episode. You're probably over Ohio right now. So, you're almost to Auckland. You're almost there. Okay. I think that is it. That's all the time we're going to give to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Victorina Mattis at Sonny Bunch.
Sonny00:58:44At JV Last, the favorite of Twitter.com, Jack's best friend. Jack's best friend. The one who gets to go out there and do all the fancy things.
Vic00:58:53Again. Not bitter. Not bitter. Me too. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard under Podcasts. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time. What's going on, JBL?
JVL00:59:18So I had a lot of stuff in the outtakes from the Expanded Universe because it was a big, big week for the Expanded Universe. Oh, yes. Absolutely. Stephen Phillippe? Stephen Phillippe showed up at the Commentary Live show, which had I not been out at the TwitterCon, I would have actually bought a ticket and gone up to go see. With a giant yellow sign saying the weekly standard, substandard university. Represent. Represent. That's fantastic. With everyone.
Vic00:59:42John and Noah and Abe and so are all the pictures with them.
JVL00:59:46Very nice. Did you listen to the, have you listened to the commentary show? No. So it's fantastic. And I, as soon as I finished, I emailed John and I said, you guys got to do this at least once every three months, but maybe even once every month or two.
Vic00:59:59I think particularly John is sort of- It works for a live audience. Really, and he's also in his element in a comedy club, right? He's good. I mean, he's good. But all of them really fed off of the audience. I got to listen to this.
JVL01:00:10The show works really well live. I was very excited by it.
Sonny01:00:13Do you think the substandard would work that well live, JBL?
JVL01:00:17I don't know.
Vic01:00:19Well, Sonny, how do you think Write and Writer worked out at the AEI podcast summit?
Sonny01:00:23Well, to be fair, that was not Write and Writer's audience.
Vic01:00:27How did it work out? It was a different crowd because, you know, it's like, okay, we're following up the interview with the president, Arthur Brooks, and then after us will be Peter Robinson interviewing Secretary Mattis. But in between that.
Sonny01:00:43Yeah, yeah. No, JBL, let me ask you a question. How do you think it would go if you had a bunch of older AEI donors there to hear sophisticated discussions about politics when Vic Mattis is called up to do five minutes of double entendres about Stormy Daniels.
JVL01:01:04So that was the audience, donors?
Sonny01:01:06You know, you walk on stage and you look at the audience and you're like, wait a minute. I think it was a mix of donors and people who listen to podcasts and interns. But I actually had a nice chat with somebody who was like, you know, J-Pod's very mean to you on Twitter, is it? I'm like, no, no, we're fine and friends. But it was definitely like 50% old people, 40% maybe people who listen to podcasts, and 10% Rob Long just scowling at Vic.
Vic01:01:36You should have seen the look on – and Aaron Harrison. When Aaron's talking, you should have seen the look on Peter Robinson and Rob Long's face. They're sitting at the table with their mouths or jaws hanging there in shock.
Sonny01:01:47When Aaron Harrison at the conference room in AEI says that Donald Trump is a better president than Ronald Reagan. How do you think that went? That's awesome.
Vic01:01:57The altar broke in two, right? The altar crumbled.
JVL01:02:00Anyway. So more and more things. I want to thank Flag Taylor, who actually sent presents to the last household. Whoa. Sent some more coffee for me and Shea Shea. But better than that, sent Flash a limited edition Cubs championship hat. Oh, my gosh.
Vic01:02:17How funny is that? And quickly, did you guys like the little video I sent you of Flash? Yes. That was really impressive.
JVL01:02:26Is that hot or what? That's great. And did you guys pay any attention to the substandard Expanded Universe Pixar Disney animation bracket last week? Because this thing ate up like a day of my life. I voted. This is why people who listen to the show should actually get in on the Expanded Universe. I voted. I voted on most of the categories. What a garbage, garbage tournament this turned out to be.
Vic01:02:49That's what everyone's saying.
JVL01:02:50Very disappointed. Toy Story?
Sonny01:02:52Adam Kuyper here was not happy. I don't know what happened.
JVL01:02:55Utterly trash. I don't quite know what happened or how this happened.
Vic01:03:00Yeah, Op is great. Apparently, I need to see Coco. I haven't seen Coco yet.
JVL01:03:03But, like, three of the final four were all Pixar movies. It's ridiculous. Anyway.
Vic01:03:08And then, of course, most important.
JVL01:03:09Most important. Thanks to Tom Abella and Michael Melillo and everybody else from the Substandard E who sent us, what is this, cucumber beer?
Vic01:03:17Yes, it's called Crush out of Bend, Oregon. You know, it doesn't taste like this 5% alcohol, but it reminds me, it's the kind of beer I'd like. love to drink if i were in bermuda and if i'm not having a dark and stormy i was gonna say stormy daniels if i was not gonna have a dark and stormy i would be having this cucumber sour beer and also
Sonny01:03:35a nice bottle of old forster oh my gosh just the just like the the old forster has replaced buffalo trace for me as like kind of the standard go-to entry level i mean a bottle of this is like 25
JVL01:03:47bucks it's perfect yeah so good very very nice thank you thank you guys you guys are the best and so that was you know that was
Vic01:03:56good and then perhaps next week one of our fans can give us a little Pappy Van Winkle right?
Guest01:04:22I'm sure it's fine That it's fine I'm sure it's fine
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