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#143. The Substandard on Tom Clancy, 5Ks, and Practice!
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Dudes Chatting — Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (Amazon) and rankings: JVL returns from the beach bearing candy cigarette souvenirs. Flash played his first baseball game; the Allen Iverson "practice" speech is invoked as JVL describes Flash sitting the bench the first inning before pitching well. Sonny's basement carpet is finally going in. Vic has begun preparing for his upcoming 5K with advice from friends. The main segment is the Amazon series Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. Vic finds it feels like a CBS procedural with lower-than-expected production values. Sonny argues Jack Ryan as a character is simply played out — this is the fifth iteration, and the show feels small and cheap. JVL is the most analytical: he defends Jack Ryan as a viable property but says the show misses what makes Clancy special — the bureaucratic machinery — and the reimagining of the James Earl Jones character (Greer) undermines the series' best relationship. All three then rank the Jack Ryan films: Sonny's order is Clear and Present Danger at the top, then Patriot Games, The Hunt for Red October, Shadow Recruit, Sum of All Fears, and the Amazon show last; JVL promotes The Hunt for Red October to first. Book rankings follow: JVL champions Cardinal of the Kremlin at #1; Vic mentions that Red Storm Rising is the only Clancy novel he has read and it holds up. The group notes John McTiernan's remarkable directorial run of Predator, Die Hard, and The Hunt for Red October.
Box Office: Crazy Rich Asians held #1 for its third week with $22 million. A censored Gene review of Crazy Rich Asians provides a brief recurring-segment appearance.
Full transcript
JVL00:00:00- We're going to jail, pal. - What is that? - What do you think you have there? - You broke the law. - You are such a boy scout. Look at you. You see everything in black and white. - No, no, no. Not black and white, Ritter. Right and wrong. - You see? There you go again. - Why was I kept out of it? - You weren't kept out of it. You're neck deep in it. - You went before Congress and you got the money for it. - You went before Congress and you lied to them. - I never lied to Congress. - You lied to them. You said some lying advice. You told them no troops. There are troops, Jack. - I didn't know that. You know I didn't know that. - No, I have no recollection of that. That's the term you have to learn. - If I go down, you're going with me. - Wrong again. - I have an autograph. Get out of jail. Free card. - The President authorizes the Deputy Director CIA Robert Ritter to conduct Operation Reciprocity, including all support necessary to such activity. - This operation is deemed important to the national security of the United States. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. - You don't have one of these, do you, Jack?
Vic00:01:28- Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Substandard, sponsored by ExpressVPN and Calm, the number one app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation. I'm Victor Matus along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. I'd like to remind you TheSubstandard is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Just look at our podcast and search for "substandard." You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. Gentlemen, welcome back. JVL. - Hey, boys.
JVL00:01:57- You're looking very good. - Very tanned, rested, and ready. - Oh, I'm at least one of those things. - How are you, fellas? I missed you. - Just fine. - I missed you a lot. - How have you been doing? How was the beach? - The beach was lovely. I had two weeks of vacation. The first week, I only had to work from about 5:00 in the morning till 9:00 in the morning, and then from 8:00 in the evening till midnight. So I only had to do like eight hours a day for the first week, which was amazing. And then the second week...
Vic00:02:24- Ooh, then you really got like native. You went native.
JVL00:02:27- I did not. - I did nothing. - Whoa. - You wouldn't believe how native I was. - For real. For real. - The things I could tell you about... - Oh, fantastic.
Vic00:02:34- No, for real.
JVL00:02:35- That's great. - And there are no rules at the beach. I don't know if you know this, but when you're at the beach, there are no rules. Literally, I had... - Like you can go naked. - I had my five-year-old wander up to me at 6:00 in the morning one morning and say, "Can I have Pringles for breakfast, Daddy?" You know what I said? - You said... - I said, "Sure thing." We're at the beach.
Sonny00:02:52- What flavor Pringles? - There are no...original.
JVL00:02:54- Breakfast. - Breakfast flavor. - Breakfast flavor. - Bacon flavor. - Bacon flavor. - That counts. - I brought you guys each a little souvenir. - Oh, no. - Oh, my gosh. Props. He's got props, everybody. - What do we have here?
Vic00:03:04- Sonny is dreading this.
JVL00:03:06- Oh, I love playing cards. Oh, no. Ooh.
Vic00:03:09- Candy cigarette. - Candy cigarette. - We were talking about them like last week or the week before or something, remember? - Lucky Lights. Oh, wait a minute. I thought it said Lucky Strike. - Wow. - They even look like real cigarette brands. - You know what? And it's also... - I got you Lucky Strikes.
JVL00:03:21- Yes. - I got Sonny the Marlboro version. - Yes.
Vic00:03:24- Yeah, the Stallions. - Lucky Lights, and it has a horseshoe and a four-leaf clover, so it's extra lucky.
JVL00:03:28- Can I get pictures of the boxes with you guys? - I like how you go up. - Hold on. - Look at yours, Sonny.
Vic00:03:33- I'll put this in the show notes. - Sonny, that looks like Marlboro. That's pretty impressive.
JVL00:03:37- Sonny, give me a...
Sonny00:03:40- There we are. - I just like it because... - Warning, Surgeon General says. - The warning sign... - Lucky Lights will kill you. - The Nutrition Facts thing on the side looks kind of like a warning label. It all works out.
Vic00:03:51- No, this is what... - Seamlessly. - And that's how you want it to be. I want it to be as real as possible. - Oh, and did you see who distributed by?
JVL00:03:57- Do they have the pink tips at the end?
Vic00:03:59- No, I remember that. - They used to.
JVL00:04:02- Yes. - They used to one end of the sugar would be a pink dye. - So you would know. - So that's the end you hold outward. - That's the light?
Vic00:04:07- Yeah, that's the light. - Oh, that's the filter. - Do you see where it says it's distributed? - Filter. - Distributed in the USA by South Orange, New Jersey. - Wow. - Mm-hmm. - So probably Seton Hall students were putting this together. They were working part-time. - - The part-time pirates. Okay, so good. You really had a nice... - It was good.
JVL00:04:24- I have a little flash update. - Oh. - If you guys are interested in that. - Oh, what's going on? - I texted you off. Are you interested? You don't have to be. Fall ball.
Sonny00:04:29- I said, I was giving you the, come on, let's go in here.
JVL00:04:32- So fall, this is another triumph of my parenting. Fall ball has started. - Yes. - First game was last night. The practices were during the period when we were at the beach, and Flash was very hot to leave the beach and come back to practice for his 10 to 12-year-old fall baseball league.
Sonny00:04:45- Yes. Well, you gotta get practicing.
JVL00:04:47- We said no.
Sonny00:04:48- We're talking about practice here. -
JVL00:04:50- I said to him, "Practice? You talking about practice?" - - Not a game. Not a game. - Not a game. Right. It's fair. - So we skipped it, and we showed up for the first game last night. I prepared Flash on the way to the game. I said, "Look, you weren't for any of the practices here. Coach doesn't know you. It's a new coach. It's a new team. You're gonna show up. You're gonna be humble, and you're gonna just take whatever he dishes out." - Yes. - And you're gonna do it with a smile on your face and be a good player, good soldier, good leader. And he said, "Okay. Okay. I'll do it." So we get to the field an hour early. We actually closed 90 minutes early. Beat the coach to the field. Coach comes. Flash goes up and introduces himself. Says, "My name is Flash. Really sorry that I missed the practices. My parents wouldn't bring me back from the beach for them. But I'm really excited to be on the team. I want to help the team. Just tell me what I can do." And Coach says to him, "So what position do you play, son?" And he says, "Well, I'm primarily a pitcher, but I can play anywhere. I'm good on the infield. You can put me at second or short, wherever you need me, Coach." And he says, "Okay, son." And Coach says, "I'm a really good pitcher. I throw the ball in the low 60s." And the coach laughs at him. Says, "10-year-old kids don't throw 60 miles an hour. Why don't you start out on the bench, son?" Oh, boy. And you know what Flash said? "No problem, sir." Jumped up on the bench, spent the first inning cheering for his new teammates, none of whom he knew.
Vic00:06:17It's always hard to.
JVL00:06:18Then came in, played a great game, played it short, played it safe. Played it short, played it second, played it first, and on the ride home, and they lost. It's the first time he's ever lost. He says to me, "So, uh, did you notice I kept it all inside, Dad?" I said, "That's right, buddy." Important life lessons. That's right.
Sonny00:06:37Sports teach important life lessons, like stifle your rage. Yup. Don't take it out on figures of authority. Make sure that you are your-
JVL00:06:44Fake it. Fake a good attitude.
Sonny00:06:46Fake it until you make it, you know?
Vic00:06:48So, he's basically Roy Hobbs.
JVL00:06:50And the coach was Wilford Brimley. Basically.
Vic00:06:53For, like, a third of the movie. A third of the movie. Do you remember this? He sat for a long- No. Sonny rolls his eyes. A third of the- I don't care for The Natural. I love The Natural. And he sits there for at least a third of the movie. And then finally-
JVL00:07:04Wilford Brimley was 19 when he filmed that movie. That's right. That's right. Wilford Brimley was as old as Tom Cruise was. Wilford Brimley is now my age. In risky business.
Vic00:07:12He's 45.
JVL00:07:13Yeah, you're right. He was the same age as Tom Cruise in risky business. Okay. Son, you think you can hit a fastball? Yeah. What? Do you have your diabetes?
Vic00:07:21Oh, no. Do you remember the story about ... I might have heard this story on Glopp, so maybe it was Rob Long who told the story about how Wilford Brimley was a part of that militia in Wyoming or Utah, where it's like in the event of ... It's a special militia. In the event that a person back in the day had chosen ... Was given the death penalty and that he chose- A firing squad. A firing squad. And he was a volunteer. Did he ever shoot anyone? No. Not that I know of. But you know what? I would take ... I would like Wilford Brimley to kill me. If that was me-
JVL00:07:54I just got to fit my finger through the trigger of my diabetes. My fingers are ... The swelling from the diabetes. He'd still get it, though. He'd still hit the heart. The swelling. He'd still hurt. You got to get a special gun. Yeah.
Sonny00:08:05Yeah.
JVL00:08:06You got to cut the trigger guard off. You take the trigger guard off. Look at these letters here from real seniors with the diabetes.
Vic00:08:10You could put a string and just pull the string.
Sonny00:08:12Isn't that one of the guns that Leonardo DiCaprio was trying to sell Russell Crowe in The Quick and the Dead? Triggerless. There's a trigger guard-less pistol. A Brimley special. We call that a Brimley.
Vic00:08:24Yeah. Here's the Brimley. Another great movie. Love that movie. Good. How are you, Victorino? I'm doing fine. I missed you. Well, likewise. I see Sonny, of course, because I mean ...
JVL00:08:37Yeah, we're ... I was texting you guys.
Vic00:08:39Yes. Sonny, Sonny, how are you?
JVL00:08:42I'm fine. I'm fine. Yeah? Do you have any news you'd like to share with the class? No. Any big life stuff coming on?
Sonny00:08:48Basement. Almost. Almost done. Oh! People have been waiting for a basement update, and it's weeks later and we forgot that you're
JVL00:08:55still in a ... We're in the ... They're putting in carpet today. So you were using special marble cut from a quarry outside of ...
Sonny00:09:04From Zeus's head.
JVL00:09:05Rome. Yeah. Right. An Italian crema marfil. That's exactly right. And so what you've been waiting for is for the marble to be shipped across the Atlantic
Sonny00:09:12Ocean? Well, we had ... I actually was building a meth lab under the basement, and that is what has taken so long. They had to dig it out. They had to blast out some rock. We had to put in some centrifuges down there. But it's good now. It's hardened. We're good to go. We're good to go. Good. This is exciting. So that's fun. I'll show you guys the new bookshelf favela when we're ... How close are you to being done? They're literally putting the carpet in today, Thursday morning. And that's the last thing? That's the last thing. That's it. So we're ... By the time you arrive home today on Thursday afternoon. I get home tonight, it should be ... I should be able to do anything I want down there. Not have to worry about workers or ... Anything that Vic wants? No. Well, it's not a sex dungeon. It's not a ... Where do you attach the harnesses? It's a meth lab. It's the entryway to a meth lab, not a sex dungeon. I have some standards.
Vic00:10:05It's a Breaking Bad. It's a Breaking Bad situation for you. Okay. That's your fantasy. Excuse me.
Sonny00:10:10Do you have a Thai love swing? So that's good. That's good. I spent most of the weekend putting together a big girl bed.
JVL00:10:18For my daughter. Yeah. Got one from Ikea. Exciting. Are you doing the side guard to start with, or are you just gonna let her roll out and fall out of the bed? You'll hear it. Oh, she's already rolled out once. She rolled out once. She got right back in there. No side guard. She's a ...
Sonny00:10:36Well, it's got a side guard on one side, but the side with the side guard goes against the wall, so it doesn't really do anything.
JVL00:10:41The side guard should be able to be moved to either side, Sonny.
Sonny00:10:45Well, you would think that, but the way the bed is set up ... Eh, it's not.
JVL00:10:49It's not.
Sonny00:10:50But I actually ... You just turn it around. No, but then you wouldn't be able to get into it, because there would be a side guard there. You turn it around. You couldn't get in, because the side guard goes all the way. It shouldn't be the hole. I'm just telling you what it is. But it's set up this way ... Ikea?
JVL00:11:04Yeah. Swedes. It's set up ...
Sonny00:11:07It's just for you. It's just for you, Tommy. Swedes are the worst. Isn't he Finnish or something, anyway? I don't know. So, anyway, that was fun, and also painted the bathroom upstairs. I had a very masculine ... That's good. ... weekend over Labor Day. I painted a bathroom, and I put together a little girl's bed. I'm basically ... Is it pink? The bathroom? Or the bed?
JVL00:11:28The little girl's bed.
Sonny00:11:29No, it's just like Ikea wood, but it's got Moana sheets. Oh. The best of the Disney movies. Oh. The Neocon. Oh, that's good.
JVL00:11:38Moana. The Neocon. What's that on your lapel there, on your tweed jacket? Oh, it's the unicorn from Blade Runner. Mm-hmm.
Sonny00:11:47Oh. I wear this to remind myself that I'm not real, and none of you are either.
Vic00:11:52Except for in the alternative Sonny version, he is.
Sonny00:11:56Yeah. The Mirror Universe Sonny? Yes. Is real? That's right. That's right. Good.
Vic00:12:03He doesn't have a goatee. He's clean-shaven.
Sonny00:12:05Well, you got a haircut, so you're looking very sharp. I did. So that's good. Okay.
?00:12:09Also, one other item of big life news. Please.
JVL00:12:11Got a pair of Allen Edmonds shoes. Oh, yeah. You sent a picture about that guy. Oh. And I'm not trolling. Yes.
Sonny00:12:17How many Ram do they have? Are 16 gigabytes of Ram. Per sole? Per sole. Yes. Wow.
JVL00:12:27So are these English shoes? No. They're American. They're made here in America. America. Are American shoes better than English shoes? I don't know. I would assume probably not. Are English shoes better than Italian shoes? Give me the greater sign. English. Italian. Is this a watch thing? I'm not sure. I don't quite understand. I'm not sure what the right answer is. I don't understand. What are these shoes? Are they ... How much do they ... I'm sorry. Question. How much did they cost?
Sonny00:12:49Oh, they were actually pretty cheap. I got them for ... Well, they were on clearance, and then an extra 30% off the clearance. They were like 110 bucks or something. It was great.
JVL00:12:58Great deal. That's very cheap. They were very cheap? Yeah. Wow. So why were you excited? They can't be any good. Well, they're pretty nice. They're pretty nice. They're cheap. Well, they weren't originally cheap, but they were on sale, so they were very nice.
Vic00:13:09Yeah. You think about it.
JVL00:13:11If you bought it a year ago ... You got to think. You got to use your dialectic brain on this one. Can you amortize the cost of these shoes over the course of their life? How many cents per wear do you think they will wind up being?
Sonny00:13:21I would assume that I get at least ... I would have to say it's somewhere in the 10 cents per wear range at least, right?
JVL00:13:29That would be like 1,000 wears. A little lower. I would assume they get more than 1,000. 1,000 wears is just like- 1,000 wears in three years?
Sonny00:13:35Well, three years if you're wearing it every day. Who wears the same shoes every day? I have different shoes. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Vic00:13:42It's true. I change it up. I change it up every day. Weird.
Sonny00:13:46I wear the same sneakers every day. Big, big news. Yeah. Big news for me.
Vic00:13:49Which is? Shoes.
Sonny00:13:51Oh, yeah.
JVL00:13:52Okay. That's good. I can't wait to polish them for the first time. Question. Yes. How long do you have to wait before the initial factory polish is off and you have to apply your own?
Sonny00:14:01I will probably give these a couple ... I'll give these at least a month or two where I'm just using lotion to keep the leather supple. And then once they get a little nicked up, I'll start using the polish. Question. Yes. Where do you put the lotion? Do you put it in the basket? Yeah. You get the hose again. Nobody wants the hose. Nobody wants the hose.
JVL00:14:22Question. Yes. Are they slip-on, tie, or Velcro? Well, you can see them right here.
Vic00:14:26Oh, is this them? Oh! You can see them right here. Look at that.
JVL00:14:30Are those rubber soles?
Vic00:14:31A little bit of both. I see some wood in the middle. It looks like there's some wood. It's a style. It's a style.
Sonny00:14:36The laces. Derby shoes. Derby shoes. Derby shoes. Is that why the tweed jacket is 105 degree heat? Actually, no. I don't think they're derby shoes. Hold on.
Vic00:14:44I don't think they're actually derby shoes.
Sonny00:14:45That would have counted that.
Vic00:14:46Victorino, how are you?
JVL00:14:48What did you do on my summer vacation? Oh, let's see here.
Vic00:14:50Did you go away again? No, no, no, no. This is the end of it. We were in the house. We actually did also ... My daughter is now in her own room, which was the den, but it's her own room, and it was all ... Everything you described, the work that you did, my wife did. She painted the walls, but then I said, "You let me know when you need the brawn, the muscle, because I can't figure out how things are ... What's happening here until you ... Just let me know what you want me to do." So, the carrying the bed part was a big ordeal, because we thought we had it together, and then midway down the stairs, it falls apart. And then we were trying to put it back together, but anyway, it was a little stressful, but it worked out. The bed fell apart? The frame, yeah, because we were trying to break up the frame, and then we couldn't, and then when we were bringing it down, it just detached on its own, and I was left carrying
Sonny00:15:36most of it. Was it like one of those metal frames that you put like box springs on?
Vic00:15:40No, it was wood. Yeah, no, but it was wood. It was a pottery barn. But then the rest of her room is Ikea. So, anyway, but that worked out just fine. And I have been on a really good health kick for two weeks, because I had my blood test last Friday. I got the results. I aced it! Your triglycerides? By my standards. Okay, my triglycerides, which were ... I mean, this is very personal information to share with our substandard listeners, but it was over 600, which is not even on the charts, right? That's like any moment stroke, down to 218. So I cut it all the way down, because I've been ...
JVL00:16:12All RG.
Vic00:16:13All RG, and the running. Running. And my total cholesterol, again, I'll share this with listeners, a total, so that includes the whole thing, which apparently no one cares about cholesterol, 181. Below 200.
JVL00:16:25Is that good?
Vic00:16:26Yeah. As long as you're under 200. You're supposed to be under 200.
JVL00:16:29How's your good cholesterol?
Vic00:16:30So-so. Bad cholesterol. How's your bad cholesterol? Slightly bad. Slightly. Two points above. But compared, you should have seen the numbers in six months ago. They were a nightmare. Question. And now I'm a new man. What did you have for lunch after you had your test? Were we ... Oh, we were ... That was on Friday. Yes, it was with you and Liz Harrington. See, I had a-
Sonny00:16:51Host of the Free Beacons Write and Writer podcast, if you're into that sort of thing.
Vic00:16:54Yes. I had a cheeseburger and a couple of Old Fashions, and then later on- French fries. French fries. I normally don't eat all my fries. I ate all of them. And then that night I met out with my buddy Todd, who was in town with Kathleen, and I had several more Old Fashions. And then I was running up the stairs after I got out of my Uber back home. For some reason, I don't know why I took an Uber, but I was running up ... It was raining very hard, and I slipped and fell, and then I had a minor sprain in my hand. But it was only because of the rain. Which hand? The right hand. You sprained your right ... Your hand or your wrist?
Sonny00:17:29I'm lofty. I'm lofty. Your hand or your wrist? I'm lofty. Yes, Sonny. Go ahead. What? Do you expect us to believe that you sprained your wrist slipping up the stairs? I just walked into a door, Doc.
Vic00:17:39Unfortunately, Kate saw me. She opened the door and saw me tumble, but I said, "I'm fine. I'm fine." I don't know why ... Ignore my breath, I said. Ignore my breath.
JVL00:17:48It came out of ... It was a little bit like that.
Vic00:17:52It was like that. But here's the big thing. The big thing is I'm getting ready, because this Saturday, I am doing the 5K. It is the 17th annual Arlington Police Fire and Sheriff 9/11 Memorial 5K, and I'm running with Captain Bill Dwyer's wife, Erin. Fantastic. I'm very excited. Sonny, do you have any running advice?
Sonny00:18:10Don't wear the shoes that I'm wearing when you go running. I got new shoes.
Vic00:18:15I got new shoes, and I tested them out yesterday. I know, no, no. I know. I know. Too late, but they feel very comfortable, because the shoes I've been wearing, I've lost sensation in my big toe, because it's obviously ...
JVL00:18:25Are these the same shoes?
Vic00:18:27No, no, no. These are new shoes. I understand they're new shoes. They're the same kind of shoes. Are they the same same? No. They feel better. No. They feel like I have no shoes on. Pass. Pass.
JVL00:18:39I have no shoes. It feels like I have no shoes. Pass.
Vic00:18:42Okay. Your old shoes are what? Nike.
JVL00:18:44Nike. The new shoes are ...
Vic00:18:46New Balance Running. Okay. It's only a 5K. The truth is ... Okay, so you're never supposed to race in new shoes. I ran 30 minutes yesterday.
JVL00:18:54You're supposed to put about 30 miles on a pair of shoes before you race in them. Before you race in them. But 30 miles of what?
Sonny00:19:00What are you doing for 30 miles on no shoes?
Vic00:19:04This is what I want to hear, JVL. Advice about the Saturday race. Go. I mean, it's a 5K, so it's not a marathon.
JVL00:19:12Well, it's a 5K. You're not going to die. Unless it's 105 degrees outside. The heat wave is supposed to end. It's very hot.
Vic00:19:19The heat wave is supposed to end.
JVL00:19:20Okay. Just the same thing as before. Go out super slow. Be in the back of the pack.
Vic00:19:24Super slow. You like to be in the back. Have fun.
JVL00:19:27Yeah. Start in the ... The only thing not fun about a 5K is getting passed, and so you start all the way in the back. You're not going to get passed. You'll be the passer, not the passie.
Vic00:19:33Yeah. That gives you extra. You feel good about it.
JVL00:19:36Well, it's fun, because you're humiliating other people.
Vic00:19:38I think there's only like one hill. You meet at the DoubleTree.
JVL00:19:41What is best in life?
Vic00:19:43You meet at one ... I think we meet again at the DoubleTree in Arlington, and then it's mostly flat, but I think there is a couple hills in the end. I don't know.
JVL00:19:50I've never done it before.
?00:19:51So with a hill ...
JVL00:19:52Yes. Good runners work one side of the hill, so you've got to either work up the hill or work down the hill. Great runners, of course, work both sides of the hill. Both. But so when you get to the hill ... I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying.
Vic00:20:07You should either really work the incline ... Charge up, and then take it easy. On the down.
JVL00:20:10Take it easy, but go back to normal pace.
?00:20:13Normal.
JVL00:20:13Normal. Not easy. Or take it easy ... Or go at a normal uphill pace up. And then rush down? Not rush, but then really sort of open it up. I don't need to tumble. Open it up as you go down. Okay. Do you listen ... Is music frowned on at races? So a lot of races will say no headphones, and this is more of a safety thing. I think they want to get out of the liability of you getting injured in the race or ... Oh, that's interesting. ... knocked into a car or something. It's like when you did Marine Corps Marathon ...
Vic00:20:42Because you weren't listening. You weren't listening. Right.
JVL00:20:45So when you did Marine Corps Marathon, no music for you. Right. That said, enormous numbers of people listen to music anyway. They do.
Vic00:20:50And it's fine. They flout the law.
JVL00:20:52Okay. This is a thing which is perfectly okay. Okay. Maybe. But if you're running with somebody ... Yeah, yeah. That's also ...
Vic00:20:59Then you should not have music. At some point, I'm sure Erin's going to leave me behind. I'm sure that's going to happen.
JVL00:21:02She's like ... No. She'll stay with you. Oh, a little bit. I'll try. This is your first 5K together. I'll try. This is very exciting. No, no. She should run with you as your friend. I don't want to make you feel bad about it. She should run with you the whole way, even if it's going to make her slower than what her normal time is. That's fine.
Sonny00:21:19If I could ... Erin, I trust you to run with Victorino the whole way. Question. Yes, Sonny. Is this one of these races where you chug a beer every kilometer?
Vic00:21:27No, but I believe there's beer and donuts at the finish line. Oh, okay. So something funny like that. Maybe I'll listen to music. If I did, you know what I'd love to listen to?
JVL00:21:35I'd love to listen to T-Rex's version of "Bang a Gong." Speaking of banging a gong, over the weekend. Crazy Rich Asians. Once again. Oh, no.
Vic00:21:44Don't shake your head at me. Oh, no.
JVL00:21:46Took the top spot. That's Victorino Matus talking. That's Victorino Matus.
Vic00:21:49At the box office.
JVL00:21:50The Filipino American. Oh, no.
Sonny00:21:52You can't say that.
Vic00:21:53Victorino's grandfathers from China, $22 million. It's the third week in a row, followed by The Meg, with $10.5 million, and in third place, Mission Impossible, Fallout, with $7 million.
Sonny00:22:03I like how we've managed to immunize ourself from all of these ... Charges. Horribly racist things that are said on the show. By Asians?
Vic00:22:13By having a token Asian American on the ... Speaking of which, so did we all see Crazy Rich Asians? I still haven't seen it, actually. I keep meaning to get to the ... No. Have you seen it? I think somebody saw it. Oh, no. This is the part you delete, by the way, so for premium listeners, you may get a ... Give
JVL00:22:30me the Gene. Give me the Gene yell.
Vic00:22:32What?
JVL00:22:33Give me the Gene yell. Gene!
Vic00:22:40God forgive me.
?00:22:41I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Sonny00:22:43I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Get out of that chair, Vic. Sorry.
Vic00:22:48God. Gene's got to sit down. I loved Crazy Rich Asians. Now, I know what you are thinking. My review is going to be a bit because I love all romantic comedies. It's true. Crazy Rich Asians is about a Chinese American girl who falls in love with one of Singapore's richest bachelors. His mother does not approve. She pretends to be nice. But she's really mean. I guess you could say she's . The lesson is, money can't buy you happiness. And believe me, this is no happy family. It's more like a poo-poo platter. The women in this movie. And that's because when you get done seeing it. Three minutes later, you'll want to see it again.
JVL00:23:45I give it four stars. And that's the Critics' Corner. I think we have to cut that.
Vic00:23:50It's going to be a long ... You can do the elevator music. You want to just do that?
?00:23:57At least some of it.
JVL00:23:58At least some of it. Okay.
Vic00:24:00JVL, I need you just to ... You need to calm yourself down. But speaking of calming down.
JVL00:24:11So, this shouldn't even be a read. We love all of our sponsors equally, of course. Of course. I am super legit, no kayfabe, legit excited that we now have Calm, which is an app, C-A-L-M, Calm, as our sponsor. We have been using, in the last family, the Calm app for two years. Amazing. I'm not even getting calmed for this. This is amazing. It's just, like, you know, I evangelize for this. I have probably pushed Calm on a dozen of my friends and family members. So here's what it is. It's an app for your phone, and you subscribe to it, and it gives you access to meditations that you listen to, or breathing exercises, or, what we use it for primarily in my family, sleep stories. So this is going to sound like a crazy thing for curious many people, but if you have kids, you know what it is like, sometimes, trying to get your kid to sleep. It's like fighting your own private Vietnam. So Calm has all of these stories, and they have fantastic readers. There's this guy, Eric Braugh, just these amazing speaking voices. Clark Peters, the actor, does one of them with that fantastic voice. It's amazing. From The Wire? Clark Peters? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that guy, his speaking voice is so great, and so the woman I'm obsessed with is actually, she's in-house at Calm, her name is Tamara Levitt, and I think she's their chief content officer, some very Silicon Valley-ish. She's got the most amazing speaking voice you've ever heard. And so, I do this all the time with my girls, where I go to put them to bed, and we put on, every single night, we open up, I have Calm on their iPods, they open it up, they choose a sleep story, and we put it on, I lay down next to them, and it's like magic. Miss Tamara puts them to sleep. It's amazing. Every parent with children under the age of 10 should have this thing. It's so good. This is actually, this is 100% true. For the first 700 times I listened to it, we had these two or three Tamara Levitt stories that my girls really loved, and I probably listened to these stories 700 times without ever making it to the end myself. And one night, I said to the favorite, I said, "So what happens when he gets to the queen of Calm, eventually?" And she's like, "Dad, are you always asleep by then?"
Sonny00:26:44I was like, "Yes, I am, because Tamara is magic."
JVL00:26:46That's great. It's fantastic. So Calm, really, it's great. I am so, I love these guys. I think they're fantastic. I would be doing, this is prana level. That's love. That is. That is how excited I am. That's very serious. Prana level. I would be pushing this even if they were not paying us, but they are paying us. So anyway, everybody should go out and subscribe to it. Go to calm.com/substandard, that's C-A-L-M.com. They will give you 25% off of their premium subscription, which is a great deal. I don't even get 25% off. I'm just paying full freight, because I like the thing so much. Guided meditations, the sleep stories, I'll give you all sorts of more of my private last family Calm stuff over the coming weeks as we do ads for them. So this is just the first installment of a series of Calm advertorials from JBL. You know what, even after they stop paying us, I'm going to keep doing this, because they're so great. God bless. No, they're awesome, especially if you have kids. So Calm.com/substandard, they'll give you 25% off the subscription. You should do it. It will make your life better, especially if you've got small kids. Just put Calm on when you put your kids to bed, and it will ... It's better than Benadryl. That should be their corporate motto. That's a tall order. Their corporate motto should be Calm.com. Better than ... Better than Benadryl.
Sonny00:28:08Better than giving your kid a shot of Jack. It's really great. Pat on the butt into bed.
JVL00:28:12Huge, huge, huge fan. I'm hoping to parlay this thing actually into getting ... The next time I'm out in San Francisco, which is in just a couple weeks, being invited to the Calm HQ. You going back to Twitter? I can't say where I'm going, but I'm going to ... I'm going to be having some meetings with some people in the industry.
Vic00:28:31With his friend Jack.
JVL00:28:32With his friend Jack. Anyway, I would love it if the Calm people would let me come by the office and grab a cup of, I don't know, chai tea with them or something.
Vic00:28:40Something calm. Something calming. Something very calm.
JVL00:28:43Calm and relaxing.
Vic00:28:44No espresso. I see you went with the ad lib ... There were two options for the ad reading. You did your own. That was great.
JVL00:28:50I literally just had a phone call with the people from Calm, and they ...
Vic00:28:52They must be thrilled. They must be thrilled that you actually ... Well, they pretended to be thrilled. I don't know if they actually were. I hadn't heard of it, and then it was amazing.
JVL00:28:58But I was like ... Basically, I said, "Look, I don't need to ... I'm a power user. I would just like to ask you guys questions about your company, because I love it so much." And they laughed at me, and anyway ...
Vic00:29:08Excellent. Thank you, JVL. I just had, really quickly, just a couple of thoughts, quick thoughts on Crazy Rich Asians, if anyone's really wondering about this.
Sonny00:29:17I do. I haven't seen it.
Vic00:29:19I'm curious. It's kind of like a version of Coming to America, in the sense of the, "Oh, he's looking for true love, so he ... " He doesn't reveal what his secret background is as Singapore's richest bachelor, so that he can find, obviously, the right woman, but then brings her back. But then the rest of the story is back in Singapore, where she, as a Chinese-American, is discriminated against. It was not as funny as I thought it was going to be. There are funny moments. Ken Jeong and Awkwafina are scene stealers.
Sonny00:29:48I heard Awkwafina is very problematic in this movie.
Vic00:29:51Interesting you should say that, but I'm not sure why.
Sonny00:29:54Why is she problematic? Because was there ... Well, because she has kind of an African-American affect.
Vic00:29:59Well, she does, but I think that's the way Awkwafina actually talks.
Sonny00:30:02People don't like it.
JVL00:30:03Yeah. No, she did. Where? On Twitter.com? On Twitter.com. Are people angry on Twitter.com? On Twitter.com.
Sonny00:30:11People are so angry on Twitter. That's interesting. People are always angry on Twitter. I can't remember if I told you guys this story the last time we were here, but I was searching for crazy rich Asians on Twitter because I was trying to figure out something. I can't remember what, but the autofill in the search box, it was crazy rich Asians, and after you're done typing that, the next word was black. Oh, wow. And I was just like, "I wonder what this is all about." Click. There you go. Just angry.
Vic00:30:38Angry, angry people. I can't speak for Awkwafina, but my own personal experience growing up as a first generation ... Is it first generation, or are my parents first generation?
Sonny00:30:49No, you're first generation. I'm first generation, yeah. Because I was-
Vic00:30:52Because your parents were immigrants. That's right.
Sonny00:30:54So I was born here.
JVL00:30:55Your parents are generation zero. That's right. We're going to shut this down until we figure out what the hell is going on.
Vic00:30:58I know. Wait until you figure out what I'm going to say. You're going to have a lot of editing to do here, Sonny. Geez. No, I meant the immigrant thing. Oh, the immigrant thing. Oh, come on. The Trump joke. He's making a Trump joke. Oh, yes. I'm sorry.
JVL00:31:10You don't need any more of these doctors coming in. Wait until- What? America's not making enough of our own doctors? We got to bring in doctors from the Philippines?
Vic00:31:20He's getting political. The Philippians? The Philippians. And when you're growing up, I think a lot of Filipino kids tend to adopt the habits and language of ... Some of them might ... A lot of them don't want to be Filipino or sound like Filipino or become Filipino like their parents do. They want to be Americans, right? Because you grew up in America. But that gives you basically a few options, and I knew a lot of Filipinos who ... They were sort of similar to Awkwafina, and they would adopt the attitudes and the lingo of, let's say, another minority. Let's say if it was African Americans, or they would choose to be white, but you wouldn't see a Filipino being exactly like their parents were Filipino, but you would have choices, and that's what you do. Obviously, I chose to sound Filipino.
Sonny00:32:09You're assimilated into the culture. Yeah, yeah.
Vic00:32:12So that's the thing. I don't know. Is that sensitive? Is that kind of a weird thing to bring up? I don't know.
JVL00:32:17Yeah.
Sonny00:32:18We'll probably get some- We could probably ... You could take that part out. Combine this with the Gene Review. That was a lot. The lost Gene Review.
JVL00:32:23That will never be heard. The Gene Clip Show gave me so much joy. People seem to like it. I listen to that on the ... It makes me wonder why we'd bother to do anything else. If we just did Gene, we would still be providing 90% of the entertainment value of the product
Vic00:32:39without anything else. All right. So let's talk about Tom Clancy, because this is the other thing, obviously, we were thinking about doing. I'm sorry. Where's your transition? I have none.
JVL00:32:48I have none. We take two weeks off and all of a sudden there's no transitions anymore?
Vic00:32:51No. No. I was done. We had the comm. Yeah. We had the gong. I got another one coming up. I got another one coming up. But I didn't do a transition from ad to Clancy. Anyway, I saw it last night. I thought I was actually ... I said something must be wrong with my channel changer, because I thought this was on Amazon and not CBS, because ...
Sonny00:33:12Whoa, shots fired at Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan.
Vic00:33:18Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan had the feel of a show on CBS. It did.
Sonny00:33:23It does, doesn't it? You know what I mean?
JVL00:33:25But with lower production values.
Sonny00:33:26Yeah. Ooh. No, it really does. All right. So what are your thoughts? Sonny? Can we ... Before we talk about the new Amazon show. Can we just discuss whether or not Jack Ryan is a played out character at large? Because I get the feeling he kind of is. We're now in the fifth iteration of Jack Ryan. We had Alec Baldwin, and then two Harrison Fords, and then Ben Affleck, and then a Chris Pine reboot that didn't really work, that was not popular, didn't really go anywhere. And now this TV show, which again, as Vic mentions, at least ... At the very least through the first two episodes, which is all I've seen, I haven't watched the whole thing yet, because who has eight hours just to sit down and watch TV anymore? It felt small and cheap and uninteresting, and as much as I like John Krasinski, and I do like John Krasinski a lot, I think John Krasinski is possibly an underrated talent, but also possibly a properly rated talent. As much as I like everything about this show, I like all the actors, I like the idea of Ryan, I like the idea of doing real CIA stuff, but in a serial format, it doesn't work, and I think the problem is we just have had too much Jack Ryan. There's just been too much Jack Ryan. Too much.
JVL00:34:51Wrong. JVL. I am a big Jack Ryan fan, in the sense that I've read all of the Clancy books, almost, even after The Rot set in, when it was real ... I mean, when it was still Tom Clancy himself writing it, not before the estate signed it over to four other co-authors who are now writing it, with Tom Clancy's name taking up half the book title, even though he's been dead for 10 years. People forget that early Tom Clancy is actually very, very good, and not just very good as a yarn, a storyteller, but actually really just well-written books, and then things get really bad after that. You get four or five good books, and then it starts going downhill.
Vic00:35:43What book for you was like, "Oh, this is clearly not as good as the one you wrote?" We'll get to the ranking.
JVL00:35:48Ooh.
Vic00:35:49We'll get to the ranking, Vic. A book ranking? I'm doing a movie ranking. I forgot that there was any books connected to this.
JVL00:35:53What's a book? The central problem, though, is that Jack Ryan is a Cold War figure, and they never figured out how to adapt him to the post-Cold War world. I would suggest that ... That a better fit for our world is not the character of Jack Ryan, but the Jack Ryan expanded universe. Because within the books, Jack Ryan is one central figure, but there are whole books where he is only way out on the periphery. They talk about him once or twice, maybe he shows up for a scene. Red Rabbit is like that. He's nowhere in Red Storm Rising, but Cardinal of the Kremlin, he, again, is a very distant figure. You have all these other ... Mary Pat. And Ed Foley, who are fantastic. You have Bob Ritter, who's fantastic.
Sonny00:36:42You have Judge Greer.
JVL00:36:43Who is the Liev Schreiber character?
Sonny00:36:45That's Mr. Clarke. Because he's my favorite. I would watch a Liev Schreiber, Jack Ryan spin-off movie.
JVL00:36:51This is one of the things I wondered, is why they didn't do a Mr. Clarke instead of ... Because this whole thing ... This is barely Jack Ryan. They have abstracted the character to such a degree that it is barely recognizable as him. And if he wasn't named Jack Ryan, and Admiral Greer, who's no longer an admiral in this ... He's got a bad back. He's now a belligerent D-bag who just curses at everybody and is divorced and is a Muslim. This is the equivalent of Jim Gordon has a beer and cheats on his wife, like that version of the reinvention of the Admiral Greer character. Why bother making ... Why not just create a new thing, you don't have to slap an existing brand on top of this. Of course you do. And if you do need to do that, and you're going to make it not a spy movie, but basically an action ... You don't want to go pure Homeland, you want more action than Homeland has, then just use Mr. Clarke, because Mr. Clarke gives you the best of both worlds, John Clarke. And there's in fact a whole ... Lots of source material to draw from. And also I'd argue John Clarke fits better in the post-9/11 world than ... Sure. ... than Tom. Again, you really need the Soviets and Russia and the Cold War to make proper use of Jack Ryan.
Sonny00:38:09Now, I'm going to disagree with this, because the best Jack Ryan movie, now and forever, will be Clear and Present Danger. Wrong. No. Hunt for Red October, which I re-watched recently, because it's on Amazon Prime now, streaming for free. I'm going to throw this out there.
JVL00:38:24All praise Lord Bezos. I'm going to throw this out there. Little bit dated.
Sonny00:38:27That's just wrong. It's a very well-constructed film, the scenes with the crews are all great, it just is, it's just, the action scenes are, they look like old, bad action scenes. And there's a very disconcerting thing that goes on in the last five minutes or so of the film, where Alec Baldwin and Sean Connery are talking in front of what is clearly a green screen. That's not good. For like, just for like, and I was watching it, and I literally could not pay attention to what they were saying, because I was just like, why did they make this artistic choice? This is the worst thing I've ever seen. You mean when they sail back to Maine?
JVL00:39:06Yeah, in the dark. Because there's, they have all of these on-location shots, they've got all of these
Sonny00:39:11shots out. The opening. In the water, in the open water, and they've got, and they've got shots at the, in the beginning, where they're in the, they're in the bay, and the whole last five minutes, I'm just like, this is lit terribly, oh my god, it's a, it's a green screen.
JVL00:39:22It feels like a studio coming in on top of McTiernan at the last minute, saying, we need a coda.
Sonny00:39:27Yeah, we need. We need a coda. We need five minutes explaining what just happened. What we all just saw.
JVL00:39:31We don't, we don't trust the audiences.
Vic00:39:32Because there's so many locations where you'd be able to, you know, replicate Penobscot Bay,
Sonny00:39:36there's no question. Totally. And, and it was, so there, there, there, and there's nothing like that in Clear and Present Danger, which has the best action sequence of all the Tom Clancy films. Harrowing. By far. The, the alley. Do you want to rank them right now? Or do you want to wait? Yeah, sure, I'll rank, I'll rank the movies. I'll rank it right now. I'll rank the movies right now. Yeah? Alright. Number one, I'm going best to worst. Okay. Number one, Clear and Present Danger. Number two, Patriot Games. Number three, Hunt for Red October. Number four, uh, uh, the Chris Pine one. Shadow Recruit. Number five. Summer of All Fears. And number six, the Amazon TV show, at least the first two hours of it that I've seen.
JVL00:40:14You're nearly correct. Mm-hmm. Just, just flip your first three. It's, uh, Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger, then Patriot Games, clearly.
Vic00:40:22Right, Victorino? From best to worst, Hunt for Red October. Yes. Thank you. I gave a, a tie for second place with Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games. On the one hand, Clear and... Patriot Games is a far inferior movie. Clear and... Come on. I like Sean Bean, though.
Sonny00:40:34I like Sean Bean. Clear and Present Danger is a perfect movie.
Vic00:40:36Patriot Games is a very good movie. And, uh, and I like...
Sonny00:40:38Hunt for Red October is a very good movie.
Vic00:40:39Number four, Some of All Fears. I am not a fan of Ben Affleck, oftentimes as an actor, let alone as, I like him as a
JVL00:40:46director. Do you have that above Shadow Recruit?
Vic00:40:48No, I didn't see Shadow Recruit, so that doesn't, I'm not even touting it. Oh, okay. And then number five is the, uh, CBS series Jack Ryan, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan.
Sonny00:40:55Oh, man, you're really digging that shiv in there.
Vic00:40:56Although I do like, you're right, I like John Krasinski and I want him to succeed. I like John Krasinski a lot.
JVL00:41:00I want him to, and I obviously succeeded with Emily Blunt in The Quiet Place, but... Did, did he just make, which he directed... Right. He was a piece of it. Yeah, yeah, I know. No, he did great. I'm happy for him. So he probably, my guess is he took this gig before he knew that he was gonna walk away with $100 million from Quiet Place, right? Well, he's not gonna walk away with that much.
Vic00:41:12Yeah, let alone Quiet Place 2.
Sonny00:41:15Uh, the, yeah, I, I, I, Hunt for Red October, it's fascinating to look at John McTiernan from like 19, I don't know, was it '87 to 1990 or so? Where he has... His apex. Where he has, uh, Predator, Die Hard, and Hunt for Red October. Just one right after the other. Which are three, you know...
?00:41:35Yeah.
Sonny00:41:35Four star movies.
Vic00:41:36And then, I mean, and I know he had, I mean, he, you know, he gets a lot of crap for, um, Last Action Hero at the time, which was... Great movie.
Sonny00:41:43...at the time. Last Action Hero is a great movie... Ahead of its time. ...that is totally ahead of its time, and in 20 years people will appreciate it fully.
Vic00:41:48But you know what's really, really good is the Thomas Crown Affair. Oh, yeah.
JVL00:41:51The remake.
Vic00:41:52Love it. Oh, yeah. It's fantastic.
JVL00:41:55Love it. Rene Russo. Just something. All right. Can I, can I complain about... Please. ...some, something. So as I said, that the Jack Ryan expanded universe of the books is very rich source to Delvin IP, but what this does and which, which Clancy is very cognizant of throughout his books is under, he really understands the bureaucracy. He understands a lot of things, but he understands the bureaucracy of the CIA and the division between ops and intelligence, right? And that there is a wall between the two of them, and the DCO is always at war with the DCI, and the role of the director of the CIA is basically to play the two off of one another. And the books all get to that, and that is very, a very rich vein for this world that we live in now. Right. If you're not going to do it as a period piece, which by the way, they could have done it as a period piece and it would have been great if they'd just done Jack Ryan in Cold War,
Vic00:42:40it would have been awesome. Yeah, absolutely. And then you would have everyone age appropriate for what's happening, including Admiral Greer, the whole thing.
JVL00:42:46It would have been fantastic. But if you're not going to do that, then at least use the bureaucracy. Instead, he just sketches, "Oh, Timothy Hutton is here and he's a bad, he's a bad bureaucrat." You don't even know where he sits within the organization. No, not at all. You know, I mean, it just like, he's just there. He's just a bad guy. You know he's bad because he went to Yale and Groton.
Sonny00:43:03This is the guy who calls Jonathan, or calls, I was going to say Jim Ryan, calls Jack Ryan up to his office and is like, "Hey, why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself? Thank you for your service." He's the guy who says, "Thank you for your service." Yeah, that guy.
JVL00:43:21Everything in this is so paint by, it's not good. It is very paint by numbers. Are you Suleyman? Who is Suleyman? And the Greer thing chafes me like you would not believe. And I like Wendell Pierce. I love, well, it's not his fault. No, it's not. The character's written the way it's written. No, no, right. I love Admiral Greer, who is James Earl Jones in the movies, but in the books, he is this, he's just this sage. He is a master spy whose secrets have secrets, as Tony Stark would say. And everything, he's an intelligence guy, not an ops guy, and he's always thinking, he's basically Nick Fury. He's always thinking five steps ahead of everybody else. Yeah. He's just a guy who, look, you can go with your gut. Your gut is all you've got.
Vic00:44:07Yeah, the writing's terrible. Instincts.
JVL00:44:09The writing is terrible. Yeah, he's a tough cop who plays by his own rules.
Vic00:44:13Mm-hmm. And I just look at, I'm just, that's not that, what are you doing? No. And the other guy, Matisse, is that his name, who's the other sort of spy guy out in the field? It just wasn't working. It also, the problem for me is, prior to watching this show, Kate and I had just finished watching The Night Manager. The Night Manager, also on Amazon, and I said it before and I'll say it again, I highly recommend it. It's very good. Oh, you've seen it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's very good. Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie. Hugh Laurie's, even when he's evil, he's still so likable. That's so good. He's still so likable.
JVL00:44:46So here's a question for you. Yeah. As this gets to my, the idea about the, why do you have to slap this layer of IP on top of it, there's always a creative decision whether you're gonna do it as your own thing or if you're gonna lean on something else, and for this, I would show, so Sherlock Holmes, as an existing character, and there are two truly great adaptations of Sherlock Holmes on television over the last decade, one is Sherlock, the Benedict Cumberbatch BBC, and the other is House, starring Hugh Laurie. House is, but it is not like a, oh, there are parallels. He is Sherlock Holmes. The whole thing about it is that he is. Without a Dr. Watson, though. No.
Vic00:45:24I mean, he doesn't have a sidekick, per se, does he, in House?
JVL00:45:28His sidekick is the other doc, whose name is. The woman.
Sonny00:45:32No. She's the blonde-looking guy. The guy from Dead Poets Society. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
JVL00:45:37Right? He lives in 221.
Vic00:45:39Robert Sean Leonard.
JVL00:45:40Robert Sean Leonard. Yes. He lives in 221B. That's his street address in Princeton. Like, this is, he is, he has the Baker Street Boys, who are his little kids that he sends off on missions and stuff. This is, so, but they didn't feel the need to say, this is Sherlock Holmes, because they were happy to, like, create their own thing. And what goes into the decision by a place like Amazon that says, we've got to slap Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan on top of this thing, instead of just creating, they've got a story they want to tell, so why not just tell the story?
Sonny00:46:09Did they have a story they wanted to tell? I assume they worked backwards from this. They were like, okay, what's popular? Yeah. Jack Ryan is popular. Tom Clancy is popular. Let's do something in that vein. I mean, they've been looking, they've been very explicit about this, that they've been looking for a Game of Thrones-type show to make Amazon a must-subscribe, must-watch channel. They've got it coming. And they're trying to do it with the-
JVL00:46:32Greg Rucka. Huh? They bought Lazarus, I think. Greg Rucka. Oh. I've been beating this drum for two years now. Nobody knows what that is. No, no, I don't. Well, they will when it eventually shows up on Amazon in two years, the entire country becomes obsessed with it.
Sonny00:46:45Nobody knows what that is, but this is why they bought The Lord of the Rings, the rights to The Lord of the Rings, and that's why they're bringing Peter Jackson back to mine that ground
JVL00:46:53again. This is like saying, in 1960, we gotta find another odd couple. The odd couple's a giant hit, just make us another odd couple. Like, this is ... Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:47:06So anyway, I assume they started with Jack Ryan, we're like, "Okay, how can we make this relevant to today's audiences?" Almost certainly true. Which is unfortunate, 'cause it's not very good.
JVL00:47:16Almost certainly true. Shall we rank the Tom Clancy books?
Vic00:47:19I've only read one.
JVL00:47:21I've read none.
?00:47:22I read ...
JVL00:47:23Let me guess the one ... I read ... No, no. Let me guess.
Vic00:47:27I was in high school.
Sonny00:47:29Red Storm Rising.
Vic00:47:30Yes. Yeah. And I fantasized about that being a movie. But two things, I thought ...
Sonny00:47:35Is this the one where Russia invades Iceland?
Vic00:47:37Yes. Oh my gosh. And there was a computer game for the Apple IIe, which was extremely primitive at the time, because they never had as many games as PCs did. But it was called something like Theater Europe, and you can either take NATO's side or Warsaw Pact and ... Sorry, that was very ... I'm getting into it again. But it was along those lines, and so reading that book ... I devoured that book, but my two thoughts were, one, it's sprawling. There's not a real ... Enormous. Unfilmable. I mean, there is a kind of a main character, but it's unfilmable. And the other thing was, this was pre-CGI, so I said, "How are they going to film these giant scenes that you could easily do now?"
JVL00:48:17So I have reread all of the time ... How did you guess Red Storm Rising? Because I know you. I've reread the entire Tom Clancy series in the last seven years, and so they're all reasonably fresh with me. Red Storm Rising is even better than you remember it. Because if you were to dip back into it as a beach read at some point, it is not the case that you would be embarrassed, like, "I can't believe I loved this when I was 14." No, no, no. Right, right, right. It really holds up. So Tom Clancy books fall into three categories. There is the stuff that is just the trash. There's the stuff that is the military porn, and there's the stuff that is spy porn. And I think Red Storm Rising is the greatest of the military porn. But the best of all of them ... Number one, Cardinal of the Kremlin, which is his masterwork, pure spy cloak and dagger stuff. It's a little slow for you. Okay. Okay. You would have to check it out. Well, I remember Red Storm Rising.
Vic00:49:11I'm like, "God, there's a lot of scenes in the submarine."
JVL00:49:12Is that a Jack Ryan book or ... Cardinal of the Kremlin. He's in it in that he's a character who exists. It takes place entirely in Moscow. And Jack Ryan is a guy back in Washington who's an analyst. And they never turn that into a movie. No. I think it's probably too slow. This is much more ... It's a really ... It's a hardcore spy, Jean Le Carre-like ... No. ... dead drops and everything.
Vic00:49:35I mean, I ... It's so good though. I remember at the time Russia House came out with Sean Connery, thinking that ... I figured they would do also Cardinal of the Kremlin.
Sonny00:49:42Can I just interject briefly? Yeah. Since you mentioned Le Carre, I recently read the Carla Trilogy. And they're all very well written and I think The Honorable Schoolboy is probably the best of them and could make actually a pretty decent two and a half hour movie in a way that the other two I don't ... ... think could. Even though it's the longest, you just pare it down a bit. But the problem with all of these books is that they revolve entirely around spies trying to get other spies for no other reason than they're trying to get the spies, right? They're all about trying to get assets without any actual plot or ... I mean, not plot but like any scheme. They're not trying to defuse ... There's no bomb defuse. There's no bomb to defuse. They're just ... It's just like, "We need to get this guy." And that's it. That's like the whole ... Are you saying that's the case of all of them or just the ... Well, that's the case of these three books. ... the Carlyle Trilogy. Yeah. That's the case of those three books. And it's like, I found it vaguely frustrating. I do not love Le Carre. Okay.
JVL00:50:46I know it's heresy among people who love spy stuff. So, Cardinal of the Kremlin is the story of the highest placed US spy who is actually on the Politburo. And he's on the verge of being ... Yeah. ... compromised, finally. And the CIA, directed by Bob Ritter, who is the Henry Cerny character ... Oh, yeah. ... who's the bad guy. But, of course, in the books, he's not a bad guy. He's a very honorable ops guy. And he decides that they're gonna pull him out. They don't need to pull him out. And there's another side of the CIA that's just like, "Hey, look, we've done what we could for this guy. This is what happens." And Ritter says, "No. We gotta get him out." So, it's the story of how they try to extract their biggest asset.
Vic00:51:32It's fantastic. You mentioned the third category of Tom Clancy books. What was it called?
JVL00:51:36You had ...
Vic00:51:37Just trash. Trash. Okay. Like what? Was that like Rainbow Six?
JVL00:51:42All the Rainbow Six. Executive Orders. Executive Orders is basically Jack Ryan and the Balanced Budget Amendment.
Vic00:51:46Wait, wait. I'm sorry. Yeah, no.
Sonny00:51:49He becomes president. Is this the one where they ... Oh, God.
JVL00:51:52It's so bad.
Sonny00:51:53The ones based on the video game aren't very good.
JVL00:51:54Is that what you're telling me? Is that ... The video game's based on them. But once he becomes president, the books are Ayn Rand style, full of speechifying about ... It was as if our friends at Media Matters were writing a parody of what conservatives doing fiction would write.
Vic00:52:10Right, right, right.
JVL00:52:11Got it, got it. And Jack Ryan said, "Well, we have this amendment. It's right there in the Constitution in the number two hole. Perhaps you've heard of it, because we have to be able to protect our ... " It is ... You do that so well. You do that so well. Why do you hate guns? You do that so well. Why do you hate guns, J.B.? It's so bad. Why? What are you saying? It's really ... But here's the one final thing. Yeah, yeah. That's all I'm saying. It's only because I'm such a Clancy fan. No, no, no, no, no. That's great. That's great. This is perfect. He almost certainly would have been a Trumpkin.
Vic00:52:40Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
JVL00:52:41Sure, Clancy. Despite the fact that the Trumpism stuff is all totally counter to his actual ideological beliefs. Foreign policy-wise. Foreign policy-wise, tax-wise, size of government-wise, et cetera, et cetera. I don't want to get political. What I mean to say, though, that for a guy who was very, very conservative and was a Trumpkin, he was in love with the Russian people. And one of the things that makes the early Clancy stuff so good is that he has clearly read every great Russian novel ever. He loves Russian culture, he loves the Russian people, and he really spends a lot of time trying to get at the fleshed-out soul of the Russian characters in his books. And so the bad guys are not sketched-out cardboard cutouts, and there are plenty of Russians that are legit good guys who are just stuck where they're stuck. And it's so good. Go read Carnal. You've never read Carnal? You would love it.
Sonny00:53:42I've never read any. I've read zero Tom Clancy books.
JVL00:53:44Would you read Carnal?
Vic00:53:45That's the first time I've read something you haven't, by the way.
JVL00:53:47You know who's a huge fan of Carnal the Kremlin? Who? Aaron. Aaron McClain? Mm-hmm.
Vic00:53:53Huge. He was in it, by the way. He's actually the Cardinal. Aaron is actually Jack Ryan. Okay. You know what you all left out, by the way? You left out Netforce Tom Clancy. He's a Netforce, and I think that was a short-lived TV series.
Sonny00:54:06Oh, God.
Vic00:54:07Is that like Tech War? Yeah. He was ahead of his time, because it was all about the cyber ... He knew that cyberterrorism would be a big deal, and all I could think of is, "You know what they could have used in Netforce? They could have used a virtual private network."
JVL00:54:18It's so nice to have two sponsors who I legit really love on the same day. ExpressVPN. Again, I'm just going to go off script, because I love it. ExpressVPN is the other service that ... I have both of these apps, both Calm and ExpressVPN, on my phone right now. If you ever use public wireless networks, you are crazy, because when you're on a public wireless network, if you're at McDonald's, or Starbucks, or the library, or wherever, you are susceptible to anybody else on the public network. Anybody who is sophisticated and malicious can break into your computer, which is why you should be using a virtual private network. It's essentially a little safety device that keeps you anonymized and totally safe and impervious from hackers when you're on public networks. So anybody can set up a VPN on their own, but it's a pain in the ass, and instead of trying to do it, you should just go to ExpressVPN.com and pay them, because it's not that expensive. It's really cheap, and it's really easy, and this is like buying the cheapest insurance you could possibly buy. This is one of those things where they have solved the entire VPN problem for you. It took me, I mean, no kidding, about eight seconds to install the ExpressVPN app. I had to click three different buttons, and it's just done, and then you never have to worry about it. Whenever you want to activate it and turn it on, there's just like a little power button on your browser that you can click, and it just bam, your VPN network is active. It doesn't slow you down. It's really good. You shouldn't be on public Wi-Fi without it. They also have all sorts of benefits about how we protect your privacy at home, and I guess if you care about whether or not your ISP knows where you're going to, Vic, that could be useful to you. Mm-hmm. Because you're looking at anime.
Vic00:56:04It's a callback.
JVL00:56:07You like that? I like that. Anyway, all this to say, ExpressVPN is really good. I use it. I think you can have up to five devices protected by it, so you really can make it like a family plan, where you just buy the one membership, and your laptop is covered, your desktop at home is covered, your phone is covered, your spouse's phone is covered. It's really good. ExpressVPN.com/substandard. They will give you three months free. Again, this is like solid value for people. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com/substandard. I don't know why we have to spell it out. It's just like it says, ExpressVPN.com/substandard. They'll give you three months free with a one-year package. Terms and conditions may apply.
Vic00:56:53Thank you, JVL. Corrections additions, nothing good. That's all the time we're giving to this episode. Welcome back, everybody. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us @VictorinoMatus, @SonnyBunch, @JVLast. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard on a podcast. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time.
?00:57:17Anything for outtakes? Yeah. JVL. What's going on? Anything else? Any other thoughts? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
Sonny00:57:27Anything for outtakes? Yeah.
Vic00:57:29JVL. What's going on? Anything else?
?00:57:32Any other thoughts?
JVL00:57:32God, I thought I had something from the beach for you boys. Yeah.
Vic00:57:36Yeah. Did you come across any jellyfish, sharks, sand crabs? No.
JVL00:57:41We never have any jellyfish down there. No shark sightings by us. Oh, really? I believe there may have been some shark activity in the general vicinity, but we didn't have any problems. Dolphins?
Sonny00:57:56Yeah. I didn't see any dolphins.
JVL00:57:58Oh. It was great. My two-year-old turned two while we were down there. And it was like a switch flipped, and he turned two, and then all of a sudden it was like everything was no, and then it was like, "Why? Why would I do that?" And he was like coming up, "You're being rude, Daddy," and stuff like that. No, it's great. It was super-duper awesome. I'm sure it's fun.
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