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#154. The Substandard on Creed II, Ricky Jay, and Dimming Zones
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Dudes Chatting — Creed II, Ricky Jay, and television technology: The episode opens with an extended riff on JVL's Black Friday TV purchase: a 65-inch TCL 4K full-array LED with 120 local dimming zones. JVL explains the technical difference between LCD local dimming and OLED (where every pixel is its own dimming zone), leading to a deep conversation about plasma vs. LED blacks, motion smoothing, and viewing angles. Vic recounts a difficult Thanksgiving drive to New Jersey. The middle section is a tribute to Ricky Jay, the legendary sleight-of-hand magician who died at 72. JVL first encountered Jay through Paul Thomas Anderson's commentary on Boogie Nights; Vic saw his one-man show Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants at Studio Theatre and calls it the most entertaining live show he's ever seen, describing in loving detail the wind-up toys, the playing cards thrown at 90 mph, and the storytelling. Sonny knew Jay primarily as a character actor (praising his work in Deadwood and the Mamet films) and describes his recurring role in Boogie Nights as the "Lenser." JVL notes that Jay always dodged questions about whether he'd ever used his skills to grift people, making "evil Ricky Jay" a tantalizing what-if. Vic recommends Jay's books, including Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women. The Creed II review follows: Sonny argues the Dragos are the best part of the film by far — Ivan and Victor Drago's arc about restoring family honor in a Russia that rejected them gives the movie a compelling villain for the first time in the franchise. Vic loved it and made audible noises in the theater. JVL, having rewatched Creed the night before, finds the original's promise of an innovative boxing visual language entirely abandoned in its final fight — and thinks both films are slightly overrated. All three rank the Rocky movies; Sonny's order is Rocky IV > Rocky > Creed > Rocky Balboa > Creed II > Rocky III, while JVL and Vic put Rocky III higher.
Reviews: Creed II (Sonny and Vic) — Sonny finds it better than it has any right to be but visually bland in its fights; Vic loved it unreservedly.
Box Office: Ralph Breaks the Internet opened at number one with $56 million; Creed II second with $35 million; The Grinch third with $30 million; Green Book underperforming with $5.5 million in its first wide weekend. The Spirit of the Week is Old Rip Van Winkle 10-Year Handmade Bourbon, from listeners Brianna and Keenan.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Victor Drago, son of Ivan Drago, who infamously killed Apollo Creed appeared today to issue a challenge to Adonis Creed. Don't do this. I ain't got a choice. That's the same thing your father said, and he'll die right here in my hands. That kid was raised in hate. It's dangerous.
Vic00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Substandard, sponsored by Quip, Electric Toothbrush, 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 The Substandard is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Just look on a podcast and search for The Substandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. Gentlemen, how are we? JVL, what's going on?
JVL00:01:11Victorino! Happy Thanksgiving.
Vic00:01:14Happy Thanksgiving to you. How was your Thanksgiving, and what's...
JVL00:01:17Lovely. Lovely. Not as lovely as my back Black Friday. Oh, boy. Here we go. I went over to Best Buy on Black Friday. So, like, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Vic00:01:29Physically or online? Physically.
JVL00:01:31Physically. Okay. I walked into Best Buy. There were... What time did you get there? Approximately... I didn't show up till, like, six o'clock at night. And there were approximately 250 people online to check out.
Sonny00:01:45In line.
JVL00:01:46In line to check out. On the line. In the line to check out.
Sonny00:01:50Were they on their computers? They were all on their phones. Were they on their computers? Sonny, you're outnumbered here. No. No. No. Two to one number of Jersey people. There are two... No. This is ridiculous. This is my biggest vocal pet peeve. I know this. People, you don't stand on a line. Yeah, there's a line. You don't stand on... And you stand on it. There's no line on the ground. Yes, there is.
JVL00:02:07There's no...
Sonny00:02:08Yes, there is. It's not a prison. Yes, there is.
JVL00:02:11You haven't painted a line on the... Yes, there is. Yes, there is. For people to stand on. You know why? You stand in a line. Let me tell you something. You are the line. The people are the line.
Vic00:02:20You're in the line.
JVL00:02:21The line is people.
Vic00:02:22The line is people. New Jersey gets to decide. In a line. New Jersey gets to decide. New Jersey gets . You stand in a line. We were in a parking lot. And you literally stood on the painted line of the parking lot. And that's where it came from. On the line. Go ahead, JVL. You were on line. And what happened?
Sonny00:02:36There were 250 people.
JVL00:02:37There was a line of 250 people waiting to check out at the cashier's. This line went through the snake phase, all the way to the back of the store, then around the back of the store. And I looked at the TV that I wished to purchase, and then I looked at the line, and there was a Best Buy clerk stand. And I pulled out my phone, and I looked at it, and it said, "We can deliver this TV to your home for free on Monday. Would you like to do that?" And I said to the clerk, "Is there any reason that all of these people here are standing on line instead of ordering it to be delivered to their home on Monday, except the fact that they're all idiots?" And he looked at me, and he said, "No." Every single item we have in the store is available on the website for the same price. Almost all of it will be delivered on Monday. And I don't know why these people are giving what will amount to hours of their lives to have it today.
Vic00:03:33I think some people probably ... You see the pictures in Paramus of New Jersey. I think people take pleasure in the throngs, and then like, "I'm going to be the guy to stand on the shopping carts and then tackle somebody." I think that's what they live for. I think people live for the violence.
Sonny00:03:49My concern in this is always for the store itself. Having worked at a McDonald's. When I was a teenager, and having tracked hourly sales. My question, I guess, would be for the Best Buy employee. Is there any sort of demerit to the store for purchasing it online, as opposed to purchasing it here?
JVL00:04:11That's interesting.
Sonny00:04:12I always resent the people who treat Best Buy like a showcase room for Amazon, or even for Best Buy, kind of, because it's like, "The store is here. You should be patronizing the store so they don't shut all the stores down." You know what I mean?
JVL00:04:27This is like saying that you should read the paper version of a magazine versus the website of the magazine. Content is content, Sonny. Ooh. Good point. So I stood there, and I tap, tap, tapped on my phone, and I hit "Purchase," and I purchased my TV, instead of having to lug it outside by myself after standing in line for three hours, and then fit it into the back of my minivan, and then unload it. Two very nice gentlemen brought it to me on Monday in the pouring rain. Ooh. And I unboxed it, and I put 65 inches of 4K full-array dimming up on my wall. It is the gigantic TV, and it's amazing. What kind? What's the brand? TCL. Okay. TCL. I have all sorts of things. Would you like to know about TCL? I would. Here's... So I... TCL's founder was a participant in the Cultural Revolution.
Sonny00:05:25Huh. That sounds about right. No, I want to hear...
Vic00:05:28Sort of like getting a Huawei laptop, something like that, TCL.
Sonny00:05:30I want to hear all about your TV purchase, because I am... For years, I was an obsessive TV... Back when LCD and Plasma were battling for supremacy... Same. You and I are the same. I was riveted by standards and what did what. And I have kind of lost all that, because I haven't bought a TV in so many years. So I would be curious to know what your process was for deciding... On this brand, and what are the benefits of this 4K 65-inch LCD TV, as opposed to others in the general marketplace?
JVL00:06:06So the price divide occurs immediately following 65 inches. Below 65 inches, the televisions are largely commodities. Once you add the extra five inches at 70, the prices have not dropped as fully as they have further down. So you can get a pretty good... 65-inch set for like 600 bucks. You could get a very good 70-inch set for like 1,600 bucks. The linear increase that you get from like 42 to 55 to 65 is all in a straight line, and then the curve jumps.
Sonny00:06:41There's a jump. There's a discontinuity.
JVL00:06:43Right. So please understand, this television is a transition TV, because what I really want is a 70-inch OLED. OLED. LCD screens are amazing.
Sonny00:06:56Do you know about dimming? Sonny? No. I don't know anything about OLED versus LCD. Okay.
JVL00:07:03Here's what you need to know. The way they have finally gotten the LCD and LED screens to have substantial blacks, which
Sonny00:07:11is always the difference.
Vic00:07:12Excuse me. Oh, sorry.
Sonny00:07:15The reason I went with a plasma is because it's black. The blacks are black, and they don't look like grays. Inky. Inky. There's not shadows. It's black.
JVL00:07:27I'm not even commenting. LCDs and LEDs used to be very, very bad about that, but what they have done is they use what is called local dimming, and so they have ... My TV, for instance, has 120 zones behind the screen where, when you are displaying black, you can lower the light output of the LED bulbs in that zone, and then increase it in the bright zones so that you get a much higher contrast, and the blacks appear more black.
Sonny00:07:57I assume this all happens automatically, like the TV is.
JVL00:08:00No, you have to actually press the buttons.
Sonny00:08:01What?
JVL00:08:02So you have to sit with a keyboard. No, no, no. And whenever there is a shadow on screen, you have to press for that region.
Sonny00:08:07Well, you ... And this is what it sounds like to me, because you say that you can actually make the screen dim, and I ... Yes, it handles.
JVL00:08:15It's very ... The processing chips handle this. It's very complicated. There's pulleys, actually, and so you have to pull this, and then you shift a lever, and it changes.
Sonny00:08:23On the screen. There's like a paintbrush.
JVL00:08:25So I get 120 of these local dimming zones. The difference is that on OLED, every single pixel is a dimming zone. Oh. So every single ... All of the eight million pixels are individually dimmable, and so the black levels you get on the OLED sets are nuts. But OLED is now where the LED was like five years ago, so we're gonna have to wait to get that price down to where it's ... Where it's commoditized. And that's why I bought this transition TV, just for a few years.
Sonny00:08:58What is like a 65-inch OLED?
JVL00:09:003,000?
?00:09:01Wow.
JVL00:09:022,700? 2,500? Depending on ... Does this have the ...
Sonny00:09:06They're lovely. Does this have the HDR? Does your TV have the HDR?
JVL00:09:10Not only the HDR, but Dolby Vision.
Sonny00:09:12I don't know what that is. It's the better HDR.
Vic00:09:14It's like Atmos. Yes. Do you have Atmos in your living room?
Sonny00:09:17Yes. Yes, I do. Well, you have built-in speakers, right? Yes.
?00:09:21Yes, I do.
Sonny00:09:22Thank you, Daniel. Plain view? Plain view? The ... So here, do you actually have the Dolby Atmos set up, or is it just the five by one or seven by one? No, it's five by one. Because the Dolby Atmos set up is like a 30-speaker array or something, right? I do not.
JVL00:09:38I do not have that yet. Yet. Yet. But, no, here's the thing. I wish that I was the kind of person who couldn't see the differences between good video and bad video. I really do. Because there are people for whom ... For instance, my wife. When we got our first HDTV, our Panasonic ... No, our Pioneer Plasma, 42-inch, when we moved from standard definition to high definition ... Do you remember what that was like? Oh, my God. The first night, we set it up. We put on a baseball game in high definition, and I sat there on the sofa next to her with my jaw on the floor. Yeah. Blades of grass. Blades of grass. And she looked at it and said, "I don't see the difference." My in-laws, when we got my in-laws their first high definition TV set, and we brought it up, and we installed it, and we put it on, and it had the soap opera effect happening, and I looked at it. The soap opera. Oh, it had the motion smoothing. The motion smoothing hadn't been turned off yet, and we put on something to test, and it was the longest day or something with motion smoothing, looking like a Mexican soap opera. A telenovela. I looked at it, and I was like, "Oh, my God. Why?" Because it just hurts your soul, not even your eyes, your soul. And my mother-in-law and father-in-law looked at it and was like, "What's wrong?" And I said, "Well, look at the screen. Can't you tell what's wrong?"
Vic00:11:02Look at the screen.
JVL00:11:03Look at the screen.
Vic00:11:04Look at it.
JVL00:11:05Look at it. Look at me. My in-laws. That was good. And so my in-laws look at it, and this is no troll, and they are not people to troll, and they said, "I don't understand what's wrong." And then I turned the motion smoothing off. And it looked like cinema, and I said, "Now do you see the difference?" And they said, "No." Oh, God. So if I was like that, then I could have spent $250 on a screen and just be done.
Vic00:11:33No, my in-laws, when they first got a flat screen in their living room up in Connecticut, for a while when you'd go up to visit, you'd turn on, they'd have like, they'd be watching the news or sports, and it was still the old channels. So I said, "You know, there are different channels. There's the high-definition Fox News channel." They're watching the standard definition. Yeah, and the standard def. And then you would change it back, and I'd have to look for it, and I don't know Connecticut, so it's like 805 or something, and it's like, "What is the channel?" And I don't know, maybe a shrug, you know? And then there was an issue with Letterboxd, which is a whole other story, but you know. When the red, yellow, white cable guy is making fun of you for being technologically backward. Wow. Run for cover. Run for cover.
JVL00:12:13It's bad news. So it's an affliction that I have. I am burdened. You are, you are burdened. Burdened with glorious purpose. Burdened by my ability to discern. To discern between quality visual and poor visual, and I really crushed it. And this Gigantv, man, it's awesome. We watched as our first 4K movie, the original Mission Impossible, and man alive, it was
Vic00:12:36great. Man, Emanuel Beert's lips must have been amazing.
JVL00:12:40Bigger than life size. Oh, okay. She is amazing in that. For that moment. She's like 60 now, isn't she? She's 60 probably. For that one moment, she was the world's number one, number one. Don't you agree? Victorino? In that movie? She was something else. Yeah, in that movie. Pound for pound. She was the pound for pound. Pound for pound.
Sonny00:12:57The most beautiful woman in the world. All right. So question. Yeah.
JVL00:13:01Talk about the installation. Oh, well, I had to hang it on the wall. So I just hung it on the wall by myself.
Sonny00:13:09Yeah. Oh, what?
JVL00:13:11Yeah. But I will say this. So I was having trouble mounting my old bracket to this television. I thought it might mean that I need a new bracket, so I went back to Best Buy, and there was a kind gentleman standing right there by the brackets, and I explained to him my problem, and I looked at the brackets there, the cheapest of which was like $94. And he said, "No, no, no, no. You need four M6 16-millimeter bolts. Go over to Home Depot," which was right around the corner, "They will be $2. Don't buy a whole new bracket." Wow. So I said, "Thanks, buddy." Did you a solid. And I went by Home Depot, which was on my way home anyway, and they were $1.89, and it worked like a charm.
Sonny00:13:49If you had gone to Lowe's and tried to put those in your TV, your TV would have exploded.
JVL00:13:53Exploded. So this is one... I don't want to get on the wrong side of Lord Bezos, because I have a feeling in the end he might beat Best Buy. Maybe. Maybe.
Vic00:14:02Who knows? Anything could happen.
JVL00:14:04Possibly. Beat or buy. I would say... But Best Buy, first of all, the TV was way cheaper than it was on Amazon. Well, this is... Oh, yeah. Way cheaper. Mm-hmm. This is... And I got to see it live in person... Things like that. ...to make sure that I liked it. Yeah. And they delivered it to my house, and when I had a question, the guy was there to save
?00:14:18me money.
JVL00:14:18Come on. The...
Sonny00:14:20The... Best Buy for the win. Best Buy has, over the last couple of years, I would say surpassed Amazon on things like TV sales, because they are now price competitive, which they were not for a long time. That's great. They absolutely weren't. But they are now. And because you can actually go there in person and you can see things. So I am... I do think there is actually a place for Best Buy in the ecosystem. But the only reason that they have improved so much is because of the competition from Amazon. Capitalism for the win, JBL.
JVL00:14:54Yeah. There you go. So that... The Gigantv is amazing. Congratulations. When we... When we put it up... Mm-hmm.
?00:15:02My kids are like...
JVL00:15:03Whoa. It's...
Vic00:15:05It's like going to see IMAX for the first time. You know, when we... We... I got a TV... This is several months now... Ago. Maybe it was half a year ago. I got a TV for our basement when we were redoing the basement. And we have a new sort of, like, setup where you could put boxes and things. Sony Trintron? Like that. No. It's a panel... It's an RCA. And Kate was like, "Well, I was thinking that we could... You know, I mean, it comes with the thing you can mount on it, but you could, you know, put it against the wall of the setup thing there. You could put it on the wall there with the brackets." The wall of the setup. The setup thing. It's like a little... What do you call it? The home library thing. You know, it's white. It's like furniture. You could put it on the thing there. You know, the shelf. The shelving unit. You know, you could put it on the shelving unit.
JVL00:15:45Do you have a... So you have like a...
Vic00:15:47Yeah. Yeah. The media center unit thing. And she said, "Well, instead of like propping it on with its, you know, the thing it comes with in the box, you can... You know, it also comes with the brackets." I'm like, "That's not happening." But it looks fine right here. I know it's lower, but you'll get used to it.
JVL00:16:00I'm sure Kate's dad could have put it up there in about five minutes.
Vic00:16:03I came home. He did... He loves doing those anchors for bookshelves. He loves doing stuff like that.
JVL00:16:07Wait. Are you saying that you have it lower because it's resting on the thing?
Vic00:16:11No, no. I'm sitting on the couch and I'm looking straight at it.
JVL00:16:14What I was gonna say, Victorino... I don't wanna look up. You are correct. This is a frequent mistake that people make in helping TV is they put them too high. You should sit where you're gonna be sitting, and it should be a direct line of sight. And mine, because it has to go over a mantel place, we have it so it is tilted down. So when you sit and look, you're looking dead on. You don't want viewing angles, discrepancies.
Vic00:16:38Thank you, JVL. It's perfect for me. It's a little higher for Kate.
?00:16:41Just kidding.
Vic00:16:42You have to think about that one. Okay. Let's move on.
?00:16:48I wasn't sure.
Vic00:16:49I thought that one I threw down so fast. Okay. It's kind of something about Mary Yish, really. Okay. He's taking off his sweater. It's getting hot in here. Sonny, quickly. We just ran through 18 minutes. We just ran through 18 minutes. And that was like, what, a four-second delay? It was like a four-second delay. Sonny, how is your-- Just stop the show. Yeah. We're done. We're done. I think 18 minutes is good for the episode. It's a good episode. It's a good episode. We're done. We're done. It's a good episode. Okay. Until next time.
Sonny00:17:18Good show, guys. Until next time. Sonny, how are you? I'm great. Good. I'm great. Good. Good. Nice Thanksgiving. Yes. My one weekend thought, I'll be brief, because we had a lot of TV talk. Yes, we did. I'll be brief, too. So, as many of you know, I have a small child. And part of having a small child is waking up at about 2:00 in the morning for about two hours while he tries to go back to sleep, which is actually really nice for me because it's the middle of awards season, so I've got a lot of movies to watch at home. Mm-hmm. And that I think JVL would really like, and we very briefly discussed during the Oscar draft, if only to poo-poo it, but Vox Lux, I think it's very good and it's very interesting, and it has an idea behind it about the relationship of pop, for lack of a better word.
JVL00:18:08This is the Pepsi, two stars, Bourne's Coke.
Sonny00:18:10Basically. Basically. But it's... So, briefly, it's about... It is about the... It's the rise and semi-fall of a pop star who comes to national prominence after a school shooting and writes kind of an anthem for her class and for the rest of the country to get over it, and how she kind of descends into drugs and whatever, but is still able to kind of pull it all together for the sake of the show. But it's a fascinating film about the idea of what... What it actually means to be a pop star in this kind of weird, media-saturated environment that we live in now. It has more to say about the times that we live in than A Star Is Born, by a huge margin.
JVL00:19:02Cypress Hill wrote a song about this exact subject once.
Sonny00:19:05Really? Ah. JBL. Anyway. So if you see... Vox Lux. You see Vox Lux playing in a neighborhood near you, you should check it out.
JVL00:19:13Starring Natalie Portman?
Sonny00:19:14Starring Natalie Portman. She's only in it...
JVL00:19:16I'm Ron Burgundy?
Sonny00:19:17She's only in it for like the second half of the film. The first half is her as like, the first half is this character as a teenager navigating the world of pop stardom. And then the second half is her as a 35-year-old trying to, you know, mount kind of a comeback tour after some bad years.
Vic00:19:33So it's been completely overshadowed by A Star Is Born.
Sonny00:19:36Yeah. I mean, nobody's gonna go see it. Nobody's gonna, it's not gonna get any awards buzz. But it's actually, I think it's a far superior cinematic achievement than A Star Is Born.
JVL00:19:44Yeah. Question. Yeah. Do they use computer CGI to de-age Natalie Portman?
Sonny00:19:49No.
JVL00:19:50No.
Sonny00:19:51Sorry, Vic. No. We can't, we can't get back to those golden years.
Vic00:19:54I'm not even gonna, I'm not even gonna comment on that. Okay. Well, I had a... How was your Thanksgiving? A lovely Thanksgiving. A lovely Thanksgiving. Jersey. Yes. Jersey. A very Jersey Thanksgiving. Made it up to Jersey in... Did you watch The Macy's Parade?
?00:20:09Oh my gosh.
Sonny00:20:10Don't.
Vic00:20:11Don't do it. Okay. So I made it up to Jersey. It's like three hours and 50 minutes, which is not bad. That's not bad at all. We actually would have been even... That's a very good time. Thanksgiving morning?
JVL00:20:20Yeah. Oh, no.
Vic00:20:22Wednesday morning. What? Even crazier. That's insane. And you know what? We would have been there in about three hours and 30 minutes, but Kate had... She needs her caffeine. And so she's like, "I need my coffee now," because we left at 5:50 in the morning. I'm like, "I'm not making coffee. We're not making coffee in the morning." And I said, "We just got to get on the road. Don't worry. Just hang out. You don't have to do anything." But she needed her coffee. She wanted to stop in Delaware. I have a secret for you.
JVL00:20:44Get over the bridge. No.
Vic00:20:46I have a secret for you.
JVL00:20:47JVL. At the Delaware Rest Stop? Yes. They also have a separate drive-through Starbucks.
Vic00:20:54A drive-through Starbucks? Yes. At that Delaware Rest Stop?
JVL00:20:57You're kidding? Yes. So the giant new Delaware Rest Stop. Yes. Yeah. They're just very nice. Sonny, this is hot talk. If you could... Not at the main building, but over by the gas station stuff. Is it a separate Starbucks? There's a separate structure.
Vic00:21:08And nobody knows about it. Oh, my gosh. Secret Starbucks.
JVL00:21:11Nobody goes to the Secret Starbucks. So hot. You can get through that Starbucks line in 30 seconds.
Vic00:21:16And then the on-ramp is right there. You literally come out of that, turn right, and you're merged right back to 95. That would have been great. Did I just blow your mind? You did, because I was still telling Kate, "Aren't you glad we got over the bridge?" Because it was already getting... Once it gets to the separation on the Delaware... On the interstate between New Jersey, New York, and Philly, then the bottleneck was starting already. Already. Already. So we ended up having to go... We ended up having to go to James Fenimore Cooper. That's a bad one. That's a bad one. It really is. In every way, it's bad. And Sonny's rolling his eyes. James F. McGreevy. The James F. McGreevy restaurant.
JVL00:21:51Yes. That's right.
Vic00:21:53And the line for Starbucks was too long, of course. And I'm like, "The clock is ticking. We need to go." And so she said, "Fine." And went to Burger King. And that... It was terrible. The Burger King iced coffee. It was terrible. And she was very unhappy. You could have just dropped her off to stay online. Then you could have driven to the far end of the parking lot and just maybe flicked your high beams a couple of times. Yeah.
JVL00:22:07Oh, you get a little action. Just wait. Okay. Just a little action. I mean, if you have time to kill. And then I have also... Sorry.
Vic00:22:14Excuse me.
JVL00:22:15I have also a correction.
Vic00:22:16I said last episode I was gonna do 50 push-ups for the talent show. 31. Sorry. I was short by 19. I could have done 32. Have you ever done 50 push-ups consecutively? No. I guess I haven't. So you were just guesstimating with that insanely impressive... I just threw it out there. I just threw it out there. I just threw it out there. I just threw it out there.
JVL00:22:29And then I was like, "Okay. I'm gonna do this." And then I was like, "Okay. I'm gonna do this."
Vic00:22:33But 31 for a 45-year-old? I'm in the good category there. I think that's a good category. It's okay.
JVL00:22:37It's good for me.
Vic00:22:38And I wasn't even nominated. They had finalists for the talent show. But my niece does the nominating and the fix is in. Like two of the three finalists are her parents. So obviously... And then my daughter won. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. I mean... Shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. And I did two acts. I did two acts. I did the push-ups. I had background music. "You're the Best Around" from the Karate Kid. You know that song? Great song. And then I did a card trick that I learned from the internet. But it was a crappy one. Good for the kids. Like, you can fool the kids. Like, how do they know it? Kate figured it out pretty quickly. How was I able to predict the fourth card in one deck from another deck? It was very simple. But it was no Ricky Jay.
JVL00:23:29Speaking of which.
Vic00:23:30Listen. Last Saturday, the legendary sleight-of-hand master magician Ricky Jay died in Los Angeles of natural causes. He was 72. JVL, I became a fan of Ricky Jay because of you. When did this all happen?
JVL00:23:44Well, in the magic set, Ricky Jay has been a big deal since the '70s. Oh, yes. That's right. I believe he was the youngest. He's the youngest child ever to do magic on television. Really? As a seven-year-old, he booked a gig on, like, one of these, you know, "Your Talent" type, you know, "A McMahon Star is Born" kind of shows. Oh, I had no idea. And I didn't know, because I do not pay a lot of attention to the world of magic. I first saw him in "Boogie Nights" and then learned about him in the Paul Thomas Anderson commentary to "Boogie Nights," where he talks about Ricky Jay. That's right. And I then became interested.
Vic00:24:20And you shared that with me, and that's how I got to know you.
JVL00:24:21There's a phenomenal... There's only one truly great profile written about him. It's a Mark Singer piece in "The New Yorker" from 1927. '93, I think. Yep, that's right. And it's one of these cases where Singer is a longtime pal of his. And the Ricky Jay story is amazing. He is, in addition to everything else, the greatest sleight-of-hand man of his generation, but also the greatest historian of conjuring in a very, very long time. The guy amassed, basically spent, you know, over the course of his life, 85 cents of every dollar he made on rare books.
Sonny00:24:59Yeah. Is there a difference between conjuring and magic?
JVL00:25:04They're the same thing, but I believe conjuring is the more academic term for it, and Jay was essentially almost an academic. And he took a very artistic view of this, and he didn't even like referring to the things as tricks. Because he said, if you talk about it as a trick, then what you're doing is you're saying to the audience, "I'm smarter than you are, and you just try to figure this out." Right. That's not what you want. You want to instill a sense of wonder with them. You're not trying to fool them into thinking that something is magic. Yeah. You're just showing them something amazing. That's right. And he was also very interested in cons. Oh, yeah, right. Of course. Yeah, absolutely. Really, really interested in cons. A longtime friend of David Mamet's. There's a great line in the piece where somebody says to him, "Are you allowed to play cards in a casino?" Because there are some casinos which have asked me not to play there.
Vic00:26:02He sticks out like a sore thumb, but he's easy to spot.
JVL00:26:06The singer said, "I mean, is there anybody who would want to play cards with you?" And Jay sort of pauses for a moment and says, "Sure. Silly people." Because you have to ... I mean, some of the ... Jay, if anybody goes to ... Now, you went to see Ricky Jay and his 52 assistants, which I will forever be jealous. Can you talk a little bit about what it was like to see him work live, because I've only ever seen YouTube videos, and it's not the same.
Vic00:26:31I've seen a lot of shows in my time. I have. I mean, I live in Jersey. We'd always go up to New York for a show. I've seen Blackstone. Remember Harry Blackstone?
JVL00:26:38I believe he had a branded line of toys. He did.
Vic00:26:42He did. He did. He had all sorts of things for kids to be like a Harry Blackstone. He was like his father, who was also a magician and conjurer. But I have never been so entertained as when I went to see Ricky Jay. And I believe it was the 50 ... Ricky Jay and his 52 assistants, and it was at the Studio Theatre on 14th Street. And so I went with Kate, and she had no idea what was coming, right? So because she was vaguely ... When I was raving about him, and I had read the New Yorker piece, and then, of course, I'd seen him in all the movies, and this might have even been before I was with YouTube and seeing all the old stuff, and so I caught his act on HBO once. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, where he's throwing the cards into the water. Directed by David Mamet. Directed by David Mamet. Yeah. And he's throwing the cards like shurikens, like Chinese ... Now you could kill somebody with them.
JVL00:27:29He was clocked throwing a playing card 90 miles an hour.
Vic00:27:32Crazy.
JVL00:27:33It's real life Bullseye. No, it's real, yeah. I mean, he is the cartoon villain Bullseye.
Vic00:27:37So the studio theater's very small, and you're sitting there, and he's walking around the theater, so you're as close to him as I am to you guys right now. And the theater is, you know, what, 10 feet away from ... The stage is 10 feet from where my seat is, and so you could see everything, and it's the same setup I think he does for most of his shows, and he's got the felt table and all the tchotchkes around, and the bookshelves, and he's so great. What was so great about ... I mean, obviously he's a master magician, and the illusion stuff is amazing, but the storytelling is so good that he has everybody, you know, sort of, you know, in his grip, and he has their undivided attention, and he's funny, and he makes fun of himself a lot, you know? I mean, all the ... He embraces the nerddom about it. He does the sword, the scissors, and the scabbard, and he cuts it midair, the other thing is the wind-up toys.
JVL00:28:28Oh, that he kills with the cards?
Vic00:28:30Yes. Oh, no. He had the wind-up toys predicting a woman's card that she had written her name on, you know? So she wrote her name, and he lays it out, and he keeps on getting the wrong card, and then he finally resorts to the wind-up toys, and there's one with a turtle with a baby's head on it, and everyone's in stitches. I mean, it's just fantastic, and then the rabbit that when it ... It either picks the right card or it dies, and then it keels over, you know? And then finally, not the right card, and then he reaches into a chest. Takes up a deck of cards that is still wrapped, opens it up, and then her card's in that deck instead. It's crazy. He's astonishing.
JVL00:29:05Anybody who doesn't know him, he's one of these figures where there are only two types of people. There are people who have never heard of Ricky Jay, and there are people who revere him. That's right. To see him is to fall in love with him, and I am sad that he is gone.
Vic00:29:20Yeah. Sonny, you had ... You were not really familiar with.
Sonny00:29:24Well, yeah. I'm actually in that weird third category. I'm in that third category of people who know him and are aware of him, but aren't super into him. What? Because I'm mostly into his acting. Shame. Which is ... But he is this weird actor where he will show up in a thing, and he's basically always playing the same guy. Slightly shady. But he's always perfect in that role. The first time I remember seeing Ricky Jay and thinking, "Who is that guy?" was the first season of Deadwood. He plays a dealer in the new casino that comes to town. And he's ... He had this sort of world weariness and kind of shady side eye to him that made him perfect for a scam artist in a pop-up mining town. I mean, he was just perfect in that. So then I would notice him more and more in the Mammoth movies and Paul Thomas Anderson movies, and it was ... I was sad to see him go in the way that I am sad to see many character actors go.
Vic00:30:31In Boogie Nights, he plays the Lenser, and he has the great line, of course, when they have to switch up ... when Burt Reynolds has to transition from film to VHS or beta, and he turns to him and Ricky Jay says, "It is what it is." It's amazing. Yeah. He also has that funny exchange with William H. Macy, and his wife is- Why? Right. She's performing with another guy, and after William H. Macy storms out, and he sort of looks at him and shrugs his shoulders, like, "I'll check it out anyway."
JVL00:31:02He's not even performing. It's at a party, and she's stooping some other guy at a party, not even professionally. He was amazing.
Vic00:31:11He had the voice, basically, in my mind. It reminded me of the comic book dungeon guy from The Simpsons voice. Yes.
JVL00:31:18Every interview I've ever read with him, he has been asked about whether or not he himself ever used his powers for evil. And he always dodged the question. Really? So I get the sense that there had been a period of time in his life where he decided to use this stuff to grift people.
Vic00:31:36Wow.
JVL00:31:37And the idea of evil Ricky Jay, bad Ricky Jay out there doing it, I just find delicious. Man, that would have been awesome.
Vic00:31:43And he used to say, like, he would open his show for Ricky Jay and his 52 assistants, and he'd say, you know, "How many people here are into astrology?" And, you know, nobody raises their hand, and he says, you know, something like, "70% of Americans rely on astrology. Why can't any of them come to my show?" You know? And it's just very funny that way. But, yeah, I can see, like, sort of a dark sort of a Ricky Jay, sort of the expert kind. I mean, it's frightening. It would be very frightening. I would say also recommending his books. If you ever go to Amazon, you can find the books. And they make great gifts. There's Jay's Journal of Anomalies, Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women. Yep. And there's one that has a fantastic title. I find it fascinating for obvious reasons. Matthias Buchinger. "The Greatest German Living," by Ricky Jay, whose peregrinations in search of the little
JVL00:32:28man of Nuremberg are herein revealed. Have you read it? It's an amazing book.
Vic00:32:32You know how much the hardcover is? $150. Yeah. On Amazon. So, great gift if you're into it. If you're not into it, maybe you can get them a Quip. When you think of the perfect gift, you probably don't think of an electric toothbrush. But the Quip electric toothbrush is one of the most gift-guided gifts of the season. And here's why. It's perfect for everyone with a mouth. And it's something they'll use twice every day. Quip makes holiday travels clean and easy with a multi-use cover that mounts to mirrors and unmounts to slide over the bristles for on-the-go brushing. Quip doesn't require a clunky charger and runs for three months on one charge. Quip is a gift that keeps refreshing, with brush heads automatically delivered on dentist-recommended schedule for every three months, just $5. And you can even gift prepaid refills for a year to make sure they're never using old, worn-out or ineffective bristles. And that's what I love about Quip. You can take it on your travels, it mounts right to the wall, and you only need one charge and it lasts you for a very long time. Plus they have over 5,000 verified five-star reviews. Quip looks like a big-ticket tech gift, with a stocking stuffer price starting at just $25. And if you go to getquip.com/substandard right now, you'll get your first refill pack for free. Quip Electric Toothbrush. But you don't have to tell your giftee that. That's your first refill pack free at getquip.com/substandard and you can do it all with the greatest of ease on the internet, assuming it's not broken. Speaking of which, over the weekend, Ralph Breaks the Internet took the top spot at the box office with $56 million, followed by Creed II with $35 million and Dr. Seuss' The Grinch in third place with $30 million. Also, Crimes of Grindelwald dropped by more than 50% in its second week with only $29 million. And bringing up the rear is Bohemian Rhapsody, coming in fifth place with $14 million. It's hanging on by a rope, JVL. Okay, box office thoughts. I know you like... Okay, sorry, box office thoughts. Oh, where did Facebook Live go? There we go. Oh, too bad. So, it's not good for Crimes of Grindelwald, is it?
Sonny00:34:58I don't know. The most interesting thing that happened at the box office this weekend was Green Book dying. It did about, I want to say it did six or seven million. Not good for Sonny. I didn't have Green Book. You have Green Book, JVL.
JVL00:35:12You have Green Book. No, I have the other one.
Vic00:35:14No. Sonny stole the other one.
JVL00:35:16You have Green Book.
Vic00:35:17No. Sonny has the one that's going to win all the awards. I can't even keep them straight. Barry Jenkins.
Sonny00:35:22I have Wall Street. You're in trouble. I have Beale Street. And I have A Star Is Born. I'm going to win all of the awards. And Vice. But no, I actually think that Green Book will stick around. So Green Book was in 1,000 screens, and it did $5.5 million this weekend. That's not bad. This weekend for an average of $5,000. That's not bad. It's not good. It's not good, but it's not bad. It's not good. So here's, but it is the sort of movie, but it also got an A+ from CinemaScore. And it, yesterday, the National, or on, I'm sorry, on Tuesday.
JVL00:35:58It's a great movie.
Sonny00:35:59Two days ago. On Tuesday, the National Board of Review named it Best Picture of the Year. So there's a very interesting thing going on where all of the Oscar watchers have anointed Green Book as the movie that is going to kind of rally the old boomer liberal types who want their racially aware films with a dose of humor. And and leaving with some, you know, some some funny Italian stereotypes. And the audiences didn't really show up for it. And with an A plus from CinemaScore, that's, you know, a multiple of five or six or something like that. So maybe it gets to 30 or 40 million dollars total box office. But I'm it's a very it's a very fascinating thing where this is supposed to be the crowd pleasing, socially aware film. And gross is 100 million dollars and people people show up for and and it turns into a an Oscar sensation. And I just don't see that happening.
Vic00:37:02Won't this be Beale Street? If Beale Street could talk, that's going to be the one.
Sonny00:37:05But no, but this is the thing is that this was supposed to be the populist version of if if Beale Street could talk, because if Beale Street could talk is going to I see it Thursday at 2:00 p.m. So I see it today at 2:00 p.m. And in in in. I so I don't know for sure, you know, if it is going to be as difficult, say, as as say Moonlight or a movie like that. But this was this was kind of supposed to be the the crowd pleasing populist film, and it certainly has pleased the crowds who showed up for it. But very few people actually seem that interested in showing up for it, which strikes me as like a kind of a sea change on this sort of movie. This is supposed to be this is supposed to be, again, the the populist. And also award winning film that is not actually a populist success.
JVL00:37:57Question. Yeah. What if we reshoot it with Christopher Plummer in all the Viggo Mortensen scenes?
Sonny00:38:03Maybe. Maybe that does better.
JVL00:38:05Then do people show up for it?
Sonny00:38:06Maybe they do. Maybe they do.
JVL00:38:08I don't know.
Sonny00:38:09I mean, I don't know. I bet he could do Italian. I don't I don't know if this is a function of the rollout strategy. They opened it in, I don't like 10 or 15 theaters or something like that the first weekend. And instead of platforming it, they shot it to a thousand. To a thousand. Which is not, but a thousand's a weird number because a thousand's not wide. No, it's in between.
JVL00:38:27But it's too big.
Sonny00:38:28But it's too big. It's no man's land.
JVL00:38:30It should've only moved to 400.
Sonny00:38:31They should've moved it up to 400, then they should've moved it up to 1,500, and then maybe get it up to 2,500. But like, it's just, everything about this movie has been weird. And I don't know exactly what to make of it, except for the fact that I think it marks a real sea change in what audiences are expecting from their Oscar bait.
?00:38:50Okay.
JVL00:38:51Thank you, Sonny. They want fish sex.
Sonny00:38:53They want fish? Yeah.
Vic00:38:55They want hot fish man on mute woman sex. That's right. That's right. And you did not, did you see Ralph Breaks the Internet, Sonny? I did not. I did not go see it. Didn't have the energy?
Sonny00:39:06I just, I like, I'm only, I'm seeing very few, I'm seeing as few movies in the theater as possible over the, you know, month, next month or so. So I did go see Creed II, though.
Vic00:39:18Well tell us about Creed II.
Sonny00:39:21Creed II is the sequel to Creed, Ryan Coogler's surprise hit from 2015 about the bastard son of Apollo Creed, Adonis Creed, played by Michael B. Jordan, who wants to get into the boxing game and is forced to flee his Los Angeles home and go to Philly and learn from Sylvester Stallone, etc. So by the end of the first film, the first film basically follows all of the beats of Rocky, more or less. Um, up to him losing the big final fight. In the second film, the second film picks up, Creed II picks up as he is winning the championship. He's winning the championship, uh, and he is now the champion and, uh, out of the shadows comes Victor Drago, Ivan Drago's son, who, uh, Victor, Victor, who wants to reclaim the family name and restore the, the greatness of the Drago name, uh, and challenges, uh, Adonis to, uh, a match to get revenge for Ivan killing Apollo Creed. I, the, the, the sequence of events that leads to, uh, Victor Drago, uh, challenging, uh, Adonis Creed make very little sense except in the, in the idea that they are two brand names and that's what boxing is looking for is brand names who will, who will draw people to a fight. It's true. And in, in, in that it is very much like the modern movie, uh, industry. Um, so Creed II is essentially a, uh, a, a sequel to Creed and also Rocky IV. Um, and the best parts of Creed II are the parts that have entirely to do with the Dragos. The thing that is interesting about Creed II is not, is not Adonis Creed. It's certainly not Rocky who Sylvester Stallone gets way too much screen time in this film. There's a whole subplot with him and his kid that I could not possibly care less about. Um, but the, the thing that's interesting about it is the Dragos trying to. Reclaim their status in Russia and what it actually, what, what, what Ivan wants from his son and what Victor wants from his father. It's very much a movie about what, uh, children owe to their parents and more importantly, what, what parents owe to their children. Um, and it is, it, all the stuff with the Dragos is fascinating and compelling. And this is why Creed, Creed II is better than it has any right to be because it actually has a compelling villain and Rocky movies almost. Never have compelling villains. They, they almost are the, it's, it's just some guy to beat, um, uh, this is, this is the rare, this is the rare boxing movie where you actually care about the person you're supposed to beat to the point that he is almost, I, I like you could make a whole movie about Victor Drago that is actually more interesting than the movie about Adonis Creed.
JVL00:42:12Is he the real hero of Creed II?
Sonny00:42:14He's, he's not the real hero, but he is the real protagonist he's like, he actually has an, a character arc where he is, you know, he kind of emerges from his shell of, you know, just being a, a machine that has been programmed by his father to actually question why it is they want reintegration into this Russian society that rejected them so viciously after, uh, after Rocky defeated Ivan, um, on Christmas day in 1987, 86. Well, the movie was 85.
JVL00:42:43I believe it's pronounced Yvonne.
Sonny00:42:44Yvonne. Uh, anyway, I, uh, so Creed II, Creed II is not. Creed II is not a great movie, but it is better than it has any right to be, which is very similar to Creed. Creed, I don't think was a great movie. It was fine, but it was better than it had any right to be because Ryan Coogler actually has a sense of style, um, and he actually has a visual idea of how things should work on film and the, the, the middle fight in Creed, uh, which is basically one take through a round and a half of action. Uh, is the single best shot fight in any of the Rocky series movies, in any of these movies. By far and away the best. And there's nothing, there's nothing quite as good as that in Creed II. It's actually very visually bland and, and kind of dull, um, but the, the story is actually, I think, more interesting in Creed II than in, than in Creed.
Vic00:43:38I definitely found the, the story to be very compelling. Um, I actually forgot, uh, that he lost, uh, his fight in the, at the end of Creed. Uh, and so I sort of. And you kind of refresh you on that because they bring you up to speed and then this sort of anticlimactic where he becomes the, uh, the champion, but that's early on. Uh, but the thing about, you know, Adonis is always so angry, you know, so angry because of his father. Not having a father, why'd my father die and I gotta avenge my father at the same time. So he's always in search of this inner peace, but I keep on thinking there must be other ways besides boxing to find inner peace.
JVL00:44:11JVL. Calm.com. No. Calm.com. C-A-L-M dot com. So my fa- we love all our sponsors equally, of course, but my personal favorite is the folks at calm.com. It is a sleep app. You put it on your phone and, uh, it has filled with meditations and sleep stories and it is amazing. Uh, we talk incessantly about how I use this with my kids and have for the last couple years. Um, let me, let me just throw a little something at you boys. Are you ready? This is, this is the sleep story. Ooh, play it. This is the sleep story. That my five-year-old has been listening to nonstop for the last week.
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JVL00:45:02It's a- it's amazing. So that is Sebastian Koch, who you would remember from The Lives of Others. Oh, really? And, uh, just an amazing voice, a sort of intriguing accent, and he reads a beautiful version of Rapunzel, and my daughter is asleep before the prince even shows up. Yeah. I'm just- just out, you know. By the time that, uh, the- the husband has made the deal with the sorceress to get the rampion so that he can then feed his wife and agree to give her the daughter, uh, she's just bam, out like a light, and it's- it is so great, I can't even tell you. And we are- my- my five-year-old daughter and I are traveling this weekend together for our first ever daddy-daughter getaway, just the two of us. Wow. And I have essentially no concerns about getting her to sleep in a strange bed, uh, away, because I'm gonna have calm on my phone, and when it's bedtime, it's the- you know, you just get to do all the same rituals with you. That's great. They put new versions of these stories, new stories up all the time, so it's a constantly growing library of sleep stories that you can use to put your kids to bed. They add new meditations. Uh, all the time. They have even, like, nap stories for grownups. So if, like, you wanna just give yourself a 20-minute siesta, they'll put- put one of those guys on, and it will lull you to sleep, and then wake you up gently. It's the best. Uh, I really, really love it. I cannot recommend it highly enough to anybody who has kids. Uh, so, the, uh, folks at Calm.com are giving you a 25% off of a subscription, which is a tremendous deal. Uh, we, as I say all the time, we pay full freight for it in our house, and we will continue to pay for it. I would- I would pay for it if it was twice what the actual price is. That's how good it is. Uh, but you can get it for 25% off now. You go to Calm.com/substandard, C-A-L-M.com/substandard. It gives you access to everything they have, and 25% off. You should go do it now.
Vic00:47:14Thank you, JVL. NewThoughts.CreedBlog, creedblog.com. Something like that. I forgot what it is. It was a good, it was a good office trip. That's a great one. It's just a Word document. It's just, that's fine. If you, you should just like press pause, and then you see the stuff he's writing inside. But uh, in any event, um, I really like this movie, and it's like, I don't know, maybe I was just, felt more comfortable, I was more relaxed going into this than I was Widows, and maybe I didn't have as much in my mind. I really got into this, um, uh, it, it, and, and the theater was packed. And the people were into it. People clapped.
Sonny00:47:49People were very into the fight in my, in my screening as well. And I thought it, it might be because we had a, a, um, a radio audience. Oh, yeah. We were, the critics, the critics were watching with a radio audience. We know that, yeah. Which are always top notch audiences. But there was literally, uh, a guy at the top of the theater yelling, "Get that ass!" As, as, uh, Don, Donny Creed was, uh, was taking it to Victor Drago. Oh, okay. So, uh, it was. It was. This is. That's a, that's a quote.
Vic00:48:19I can't. Of course. That's a quote that you can put on the poster. Yes. Get that ass. Get that ass. Um, it's, uh, you, you can't help but think, uh, but think of Eddie Murphy, of course, when he talks about going to see Rocky, you know, "Yo Rocco!" with the, uh, the Italians. And I won't even say, you know, how far it gets, but. One of his greatest bits. One of his greatest bits. Ever. The jujy fruit, and then he's there. That's on YouTube. And then the guy picks a fight. Yeah, you can for now. Go to YouTube for now. It's completely inappropriate. I can't. It's funny stuff. Uh, it brought back memories for me of having seen Rocky IV in the theater. So '85, I was 12, and the, the one thing I remember about going to see that movie was how shocked I was that they allowed Apollo Creed to die, right? You're not expecting that, is it? Like, that's, that's not supposed to happen. And I knew Rocky III, that Mickey died, but he was old. Mr. T, uh, Clipperling, uh, you know, inadvertently killed him, gave him a heart attack. But this thing was so brutal, and it's like, throw the towel. He's out. He's having these convulsions. I'm sure he'll be fine. And then they switch. The next scene is the, the, the, the scene at the gravesite, and I remember being like, "Ugh!" And then, of course, then you're outraged, and you say, "This can't be." And then you're like, "We gotta kill that guy.
Sonny00:49:30We gotta get that, get the Russian," you know? And you get fired up. It really is. It rea—Rocky IV is really the height of American propagand—like, even more than Red Dawn, I think, is like the height of American mainstream cinematic propaganda film. They killed an American. It's fantastic. They killed an American. This is why it's a 13 out of 4 star film. It was just Rocky IV. It's just, like, the greatest movie ever made.
JVL00:49:49Rocky movies are best when they surprise you, and the, the, what makes the original Rocky work, and I don't know how recently you guys have watched it, but that movie is awfully slow. It does not hold up well. Very slow. Uh, what, the movie only succeeds because Rocky doesn't win. Yeah. In the end. If Rocky wins, that movie is sort of a joke. But the fact that the whole point is that he goes the distance, and he loses in the decision anyway, that's what makes it. That's what makes it. And you're not trained to, I mean, you are trained as an audience to think, oh, he's going to win. Right.
Vic00:50:21Uh, which is why people feel different about Rocky II.
JVL00:50:22They don't love it as much. Correct. What makes Rocky IV work is Apollo's death, which again, totally subverts everything we
Vic00:50:29think we know about Rocky movies.
JVL00:50:31Right.
Sonny00:50:32And it raises the stakes for everything. It introduces character development for, for, uh, Rocky Balboa himself. It's just great. And it leads to one of the great montages of all time, where not the workout in the Siberian snow montage. Which is amazing. Which is amazing. Yeah.
JVL00:50:47That, that's also a top five montage. It's sort of the, the KGB guys trailing him.
Sonny00:50:49My favorite, my favorite, my favorite montage in that movie is, is when, uh, Rocky is driving and he's remembering his relationship with Apollo and he shifts his Corvette approximately 73 times. Right. That's right. There must be, there must be a hundred gears on that car.
Vic00:51:03Cause he's just like.
Sonny00:51:04Is he going through the tunnel? Is he going through the tunnel and stuff? And it like cuts, it like cuts to images of, of Apollo and Rocky and he's like... Running on the beach together. Shifting those flash, the flashbacks. Hugging.
Vic00:51:12Right. You know. I thought, um, oh, by the way, you know, the other great thing about Rocky IV, the Gorbachev lookalike.
JVL00:51:20The Gorbachev lookalike is amazing. He's like, oh, he looks good. He's got the thing on his head. The wine stain on the forehead.
Vic00:51:24Yeah, the wine stain. That's him. That's Gorbachev.
JVL00:51:27So that was really exciting. Actually that was, that was the real Mikhail Gorbachev.
Vic00:51:29Cameo. Cause they could pay him to do it. But the, uh, uh, that was very exciting.
JVL00:51:34And, and of course, Bridget Nielsen. Bridget Nielsen. But also I disagree with your contention that the villains in the Rocky movies are beside the point. The villains in the Rocky movies are amazing. The villains in the Rocky movies are amazing. Apollo Creed. A tremendous fleshed out, fully rounded character.
Vic00:51:48Clubber Lang. Clubber Lang. Pretty good character that we know a lot about.
JVL00:51:51We understand his motivation. Ivan Drago. And none of the villains are true villains. Except.
Vic00:51:55Tommy Gunn. One of the most memorable villains of all time.
Sonny00:51:57But, you know, no. What do you mean none of them are true villains?
JVL00:52:00No, no. Except for Drago. So Drago is the, the first true villain. So is Clubber Lang. No, no, no. Clubber Lang kills Mickey.
Sonny00:52:06Oh, come on. I would. He pushed him. Clubber Lang kills Mickey and like threatens to sexually assault Adrian.
JVL00:52:12He's just. He's trying to get him all riled up on. He's just trying to rile him up for the fight.
Sonny00:52:16He's just from the streets. And Tommy Gunn is a joke. And then Pretty Ricky. Rocky Balboa. Hey, rest in peace. Rocky. Who even was the villain in Rocky Balboa? Who could I say? The computer.
JVL00:52:25Who was the villain in Creed? Some British guy. No. But he's not a villain. Is the other thing. So Pretty Ricky. The whole fact is. So everything you need to know about Pretty Ricky is that when he is fighting with his manager about this. And he doesn't want to take the fight. Because for people who don't remember this, Pretty Ricky is about to go away to prison for seven years. It's the last fight he's going to have. He will not be able to fight professionally when he gets out seven years hence. He says, why should I box this guy? This guy is not competitive enough to get into the ring with me. And his manager says, because this is where we get the biggest payday. And you have to get the money now to take care of your children. Because you were such an idiot that you went and got yourself arrested. And Pretty Ricky says, yeah, OK, and consents. This is a guy who is literally just doing this to take care of his family. It is the most perfectly understandable motivation.
Sonny00:53:12I mean, just because he has an understandable motivation doesn't mean it's interesting. Like, I don't care about that character. He's a dick. And he's an idiot. I wish he had gone to jail poor and his family had starved.
Vic00:53:25Can we talk about the perfs? Great perfs across the board.
Sonny00:53:30And it sounds like we like Victor Drago, too. First you say Lenzer. Yeah. First you say Lenzer. And now you say perfs. Have you been reading? I've been reading.
Vic00:53:38Have you been reading Variety? There's an interesting skein. Daily Variety. On the peacock. Great perfs. I'll tell you what. All right. Claire Hoxtable. She's great.
JVL00:53:48She's great. And so nice to see her.
Vic00:53:51Tessa Thompson, who I'm used to. I like her with the British accent, but she's still very nice. And I forgot she was deaf. That's another thing I forgot. She was deaf or mute. I'm not sure what the... No, she's on her way.
JVL00:54:01She has progressive hearing loss.
Vic00:54:02Oh, okay. Is she the girl from the Second Descendants movie? I'll, you know, I'll effort that. No, no, no. No, no, I don't think so. She was in Thor: Ragnarok. That's Ragnarok. Yeah. That's where we first saw her. Unrelated. And if there was any justice... Oh, yeah. I remember that. Yeah. She's good in that. If there was any justice in this world... She was in Annihilation. They should have an Oscar nom for best supporting actor for Dolph Lundgren.
Sonny00:54:25I liked it. Agreed. Agreed. I liked it. The Dragos are the best part of this movie by far.
Vic00:54:30By far. And he's a smart guy. I know he's not Russian, but he sounded Russian. Obviously, Bridget Nielsen, you know, they had very few lines. I don't think... Yeah. Maybe there's deleted scenes, but I thought that it was so... Well, she shows up.
Sonny00:54:42She shows up solely as a reminder slash taunt.
Vic00:54:48A taunt.
Sonny00:54:49Of what... Of what the Dragos have lost.
Vic00:54:51Poor Victor. And Victor looks at the mother's God. The great opening of Creed II, I just thought it was a great opening.
Sonny00:54:59The colors are all bleached. Oh, yeah. In the... It's like, "Get up. Let's go." Ex-Soviet block. Yes. Apartment complex.
Vic00:55:07And, you know, yeah. No, it's great. I really think it was... I think it's compelling, despite the end fight. You're right. The boxing scenes in this scene, they're good, but they're quick. They're not that memorable. And the ending of the last boxing, the last bout, without getting into details, is kind of Karate Kid-esque. Yeah.
Sonny00:55:25Okay. No, the... If you go back to Creed, the first Creed, the middle fight, as we mentioned, is extremely interesting and visually well done, and kind of like, it puts you in the action in a compelling
JVL00:55:39way. It's astonishing. It's the best portrayal of boxing. It's the best portrayal of boxing I've ever seen on screen.
Sonny00:55:44It's really good. It's... I mean, I would say it's up there with Raging Bull. Raging Bull's doing a different thing. It's doing a slightly more impressionistic thing.
JVL00:55:50It's different. Yeah.
Sonny00:55:52No, I thought this was astonishing. But it was... It's fantastic. But the... Compare that fight to the fight at the end of the film, which is just a very standard punch-out. Because... What is... It's... I won't say it's lazy. It's not lazy. But it relies on lazy tropes of you have the announcers telling you how the action is going instead of actually watching it and seeing what is happening. And it is... And all of the fights in Creed II are like that sort of lazy... We get patches of action and Max Kellerman telling us in between rounds how the fight is going. And I hate that.
JVL00:56:28And Jim Lamb? I hate that. I have a question. Because I did not watch Creed II, but I did watch Creed I last night, and I don't understand how that final fight happened. The promise... The movie makes to you with its portrayal of boxing up until that point isn't immense. So the first time we see Adonis fighting, he's in Mexico, and it takes place almost entirely... You're viewing it from outside the ring. You're literally looking over the ropes, you swing around, and then you don't see what's happening for a crucial moment. And then Adonis knocks the guy out, right? So it's weird, like, as if you were in the audience and with an obstructed view. And it's great. And then the middle fight, which is, again, one of the... In the ring. In the ring, where it is mostly from a perspective of one of the fighters. You even follow the two fighters to their corner between...
Sonny00:57:23Amazing. And it switches fighters, too. It's not like you're just doing it from Adonis' perspective. No, it is not hardcore Harry.
JVL00:57:28I mean, it's not hardcore Harry. And what this is promising you as an audience is you are seeing something you've never seen before. You are seeing a really special view of boxing. And then you get to the final fight. And it's just like every other Rocky fight that's ever been filmed. I mean, it's a simple function of time, though.
Sonny00:57:47It's a simple function of time, because a 12-round fight takes 48 minutes. I felt let down. A 12...
JVL00:57:52No, I mean, you felt just let down in the way that the story was told. They told... Even the storytelling is the same as in every other Rocky fight you've ever seen. I felt like it was an enormous letdown. In a way, this is a movie with so much promise that doesn't nail the ending.
Sonny00:58:06Yeah. No, I tend to agree with you. I think it is a slightly overrated film. In that...
JVL00:58:13There's lots of things I love about it.
Sonny00:58:14There are lots of things to love about it, but it is weirdly overpraised and overhyped. That being said, it is better than I thought it would be.
JVL00:58:22Yeah. And I see the things that people love about it. All the Philly stuff was mad. Philly stuff. Cat F for me. And there's still a lot of Philly stuff in at least half the movie.
Sonny00:58:29And Michael B. Jordan's fantastic. He's so good.
JVL00:58:31He's so good. The character of Adonis Creed is a great character. Yeah. Yeah. Again, all of his motivations are totally understandable. Yeah. You're rooting for him. He's such a...
Vic00:58:40And he's believable. Man, you root for him. There's a funny irony in this, because his other trainer in Creed II, of course, is played by Wood Harris, who was Avon Barksdale in The Wire. And of course, Michael B. Jordan was Wallace, and he dies basically because of those guys. Very funny. But now they're together. I like that. It was a... I really enjoyed that. I mean, I was... So good, I made noises. Like, ooh! Ah! Were you yelling, "Get that ass"? That was me. That was me in the theater. At my screening. I said that. I said that. Question. Yes. Sorry. Yes. JVL.
JVL00:59:15Rank the Rocky movies.
Vic00:59:17Of course.
Sonny00:59:18Do it. Now.
Vic00:59:20Oh, God. Including Creed? It's part of the Rocky Expanded Universe, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. All right. I guess... Me personally? Yes.
Sonny00:59:31Me personally? I don't... Pass. Sonny, go. Fortunately, I've tweeted about this, so I have it handy. Yes. Rocky IV. I'm going best to worst. Best to worst. Correct. Rocky IV. Rocky II. Creed. Rocky Balboa. Creed II. Rocky III.
Vic00:59:46That's all of the Rocky movies.
Sonny00:59:47No, no. Rocky III is not at the bottom. Bottom worst.
JVL00:59:50What? Rocky III is the second best. Yes. Rocky III is the... I'm with JVL.
Sonny00:59:55Rocky III is the worst. Plus, you have the fabulous Thunderlips. By the way, when I say it's the worst, I consider all of these to be basically two and a half to three-star movies, except for Rocky IV, which is a 13-star movie.
Vic01:00:04Okay. Okay. I don't...
JVL01:00:07Victorino, you and I agree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rocky IV is the greatest of all the Rocky movies.
Vic01:00:10Yeah. Rocky II. I need to let Creed... But then Rocky II.
JVL01:00:14I need to let the Creed sink in. Rocky II? No. I'm sorry. Then Rocky III. Rocky II is at the bottom. Rocky II is probably towards the bottom with the Rocky Balboa, the stuff we don't
Vic01:00:21want to really acknowledge. That's gotta be the one at the bottom. That's upsetting. I got upset watching Rocky V. Yeah.
Sonny01:00:26Rocky V. I don't know what that... That's Rocky Balboa? Yeah, that's Rocky V. Yeah. Is that Rocky Balboa? Yes. Is that the one where he comes out? It's the one with Tommy Gunn. But I would put... I don't know.
JVL01:00:36That's not a thing that exists in this timeline. I would put... I don't know. I don't know if I... I would have to... I would struggle between where I would place Creed in relation to the original Rocky, because Creed is, in the same way that The Force Awakens is a soft reboot of Star Wars and A New Hope, Creed is a soft reboot of Rocky. It's the same exact movie. It's the same movie.
Vic01:01:00Right.
JVL01:01:01With a Karate Kid ending. But it moves better, and the characters are more interesting. So it is a better movie. In all the ways. Except for the fact that, well, the first one did come up with the ending, which is what makes the entire franchise. Right.
Vic01:01:14And so you have to give it credit for that. And a very... I would say a very poignant end to the last fight in Creed II. I'm not getting any details. Oh, great. It's great. Fantastic ending. Fantastic ending. I said, I bet you... What happened?
JVL01:01:26Full circle. I'm not gonna say it, but it's like, full circle. That's right.
Sonny01:01:29Closure. Here's...
JVL01:01:31Sorry. Wait. Does Rocky kill Drago?
Sonny01:01:34Full circle. In the stands. In the stands. In the stands. He hits him with a ring bell? Creed is a soft reboot of Rocky, and Creed II is essentially Rocky III and Rocky IV put together. So you're saying that it's the best Rocky. It kind of is. It kind of is. So maybe Creed II is the second best? Rocky III even has like the... Like, Victor is basically a clubber-laying... Does he fight John Cena? ...is basically a clubber-laying type character. He is.
JVL01:02:03He's angry. So clubber-laying plus Yvonne Drago in the same movie.
Sonny01:02:06Yeah.
Vic01:02:07Yeah.
JVL01:02:08I don't know why you didn't go see it.
Vic01:02:09I'll make noises now, too. It's really compelling. At some point, you should. You see it on your nice fancy TV. Oh, on the big TV. There you go. In 4K. You'll get blood splattered on you.
JVL01:02:17With all the full array dimming zones. Ooh.
Vic01:02:19Wonderful.
JVL01:02:20Okay. We gotta move on.
Vic01:02:22I'll make the noises now, Vic. Okay. Thank you. Ooh. That was lovely. Spirit of the Week.
JVL01:02:28We have a Spirit of the Week again. Yeah. From JVL. Our friends Brianna and Keenan. This is... We sent us a thank you present for a present we sent them. Yeah.
Vic01:02:36Which is something you don't have to do. No. You do not have to do it, but feel free to do it. This is a really lovely bottle. Tell me about this.
JVL01:02:42This is... Yeah. 'Cause you guys were very excited when I sent you the picture of it when it came
Vic01:02:45to my house. Old Rip. I had no idea what this was. Old Rip Van Winkle Handmade Bourbon. What makes this interesting... And she had this nice note about how saying, "Well, it's no..." What's the... Pappy. What's your bourbon? Pappy Van Winkle. But you know what? Anything aged 10 years, that costs you a pretty penny. And here's the other interesting thing. Most bourbons that I've had... Most bourbons are aged anywhere between the minimum of two years and four years. And they tend not to do well at 10 years because it gets too smoky. This is surprisingly not smoky at all, but very mellow. So I really enjoyed this. So thank you, guys. The Old Rip Van Winkle Handmade Bourbon.
Sonny01:03:18Sonny, do you like it?
Vic01:03:19Aged 10 years. 107 proof. It's very good.
JVL01:03:22107 proof. I even had some.
Vic01:03:24Yeah. Like a big boy. No, he did. He did. I saw it. I saw it. It's true. Thank you, guys. All right.
?01:03:33That's all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments.
Vic01:03:34You can find 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.
?01:03:49So, anything else?
Sonny01:03:55We don't really have a ton of time. Okay. I feel like I had something. Oh, you had something? But then I don't. So, are you gonna get a new TV? Not for a while. Not until one of my... I have two Plasmas. When one of them burns out, I will upgrade to another.
JVL01:04:14Okay. So, you could be doing that for another 10 years.
Sonny01:04:16But this is the thing. I'm hoping they will last long enough to where the OLEDs, or whatever comes after OLED, is actually reasonable. I understand. But my Plasma is so...
JVL01:04:26The Blacks are so good on it. I would say this. The Blacks are not better on my... The Full Array LED, but they are as good, I would say, as the Plasma. And the screen real estate makes a difference. So we jumped from 42 inches to 65 inches, which, in terms of total area of screen, is almost a three times... Yeah, yeah. No, totally.
Sonny01:04:51...increase. I have a... And it... Man, it is like seeing a picture in home IMAX. My problem is, I actually... The way my living room is set up, I don't actually have space for a 65-inch TV, unless I radically reorient how the room is arranged. So where my TV is right now, I have a 42-inch Panasonic Viera, which is like the best... The best of them all. That's a nice one. ...the best TV that has ever been made. Yep. And it sits right in it. There's a perfect spot right against where the stairwell is, and it's right flush against the wall, and it goes right to the edges. So it's perfectly sized. It's perfect. I have a 60-inch in the basement, a 60-inch Plasma in the basement, which is sadly not the Panasonic Viera. It's a Samsung something or other. Yep. But the one in the basement is huge, and it's very nice to watch. That must weigh 150 pounds. I think it was 175. Yep. No, no. It's incredibly heavy. Plasmas are so heavy. It's incredibly heavy, to the point where I was like... When we remodeled the basement, one of the things I had to have help... We had people come and help move the stuff out of the basement, and I was like, "I can't pick this TV up on my side. I gotta have a guy come out and do it," 'cause it is insanely heavy.
Vic01:06:01At some point, I guess, I know I'm happy with my TVs. My thing is, I'm off to... I didn't even ask you. I'm off to Scottsdale, Arizona, this weekend, giving a talk at the Collegiate Network in Arizona, and Kate was disappointed that she said, "I wish I can go to one of these things." I said, "Trust me, you don't wanna spend a whole weekend hanging out with college kids." I'm sure it's fine.
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