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#156. The Substandard: Endgame
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
Dudes Chatting — The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the Avengers: Endgame trailer, and Netflix: This is the final episode of The Weekly Substandard. Vic opens by thanking the 767 reviewers on iTunes (716 of whom gave five stars) and reads a touching note from a listener who used the podcast to get through days of post-PRK surgery blindness. After chatting about Vic's magic loom bracelet from his daughter and Sonny's maternity-leave Office Space-and-The Office binge, the episode turns to its main topics. The newly released Avengers: Endgame teaser sparks speculation about time travel, the Civil War rift, and whether Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. will die — Sonny wants Black Widow's red hair back immediately. JVL warns that introducing time travel into superhero movies always drains dramatic tension. Sonny then reviews The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, calling it possibly his favorite film of the year: a six-story Coen Brothers Western about mortality and what we do with the time we have, funny and dark in equal measure, with the armless/legless orator segment being a perfect metaphor for film as an industry (the counting chicken = Avengers: Infinity War). JVL accidentally watched Falling Down instead. Vic liked but didn't love Buster Scruggs — he found it "really dark" when he was in an upbeat mood. The episode closes with a discussion of Netflix's prestige strategy (Buster Scruggs, Roma) and the tension between Netflix's day-and-date releases and the major theater chains boycotting them.
The hosts make no formal farewell announcement, but Vic's intro notably says the podcast is available on iTunes "for now," and the episode's title — "Endgame" — reflects the imminent closure of The Weekly Standard, the magazine that produced the show. This is the last episode.
Box Office: Ralph Breaks the Internet held at number one with $16 million; The Grinch second with $15 million; Creed II third with $10 million; Bohemian Rhapsody fifth — still hanging on — with $18 million. Also noted: "Bohemian Rhapsody" (the song) became the most-streamed song of the 20th century.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Uh, we have sort of a problem here. Yeah, you apparently didn't put one of the new cover sheets on your TPS reports. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry about that. I forgot. Mmm, yeah. You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out. Did you see the memo about this?
Vic00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Substandard, sponsored by Quip Electric Toothbrush and Mrs. Fields. I'm Victor Matus along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. I'd like to remind you The Substandard is still available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Just look at our podcast and search for "Substandard." You'll easily find us. For now, please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. Speaking of which, uh, I'd like to just take this time to, uh, thank everyone who has left a review. That would be seven hundred and sixty-seven of you, and seven hundred sixteen of which
Sonny00:01:05were five-star ratings. Uh, frankly, I'm disappointed that the other fifty-one weren't.
Vic00:01:11I think they were just mistaken. I think they thought it was a different...
Sonny00:01:14They accidentally hit four stars or three stars.
Vic00:01:16Yeah, wrong one. You know, we do it on your phones, etc. And 384 mostly thoughtfully written reviews. The written reviews, and I'd like to share one with you now. We don't have this I'll put this kind of Casey Kasem music in the background, but I would if we could, okay? It's one of these...
Sonny00:01:36Wait, what are we... This is a dedication. I could probably add that in, if you... What is the Casey Kasem music? You are just...
Vic00:01:41It's just very, you know...
Sonny00:01:42Can you just do... Can you just hum it for a second? No. I almost had him.
Vic00:01:47Okay. I'm recovering from PRK surgery and cannot see very well. The first day I sat in a dark room, unable to open my eyes, doing nothing. The second day I used Siri to find this podcast. Parentheses, knowing JV Last from Twitter. This podcast... From Twitter. From Twitter. This podcast got me through days of darkness. I can barely see to write this review, and I hope autocorrect is helping me, but I had to try. These three guys are highly entertaining and well worth subscribing to. Even though I don't need to spend hours in bed anymore, I am still doing it so I can catch up on older episodes. If this podcast ends and I go back to not being able to see, I'm sure it will not be fine. Don't leave me in the dark. Signed, Goddess Librarian.
JVL00:02:34Look at that. Very nice. I think the music needs to be, "Turn on your heart-light," like little Neil Diamond.
Vic00:02:40Yeah, little Neil Diamond E.T. JVL, how are you?
JVL00:02:45I am fantastic, but you know, everything in my world is going so well this week that I just want to skip over it and go right to you, because underneath the cuff of your
Sonny00:02:56left hand, I see something...
JVL00:02:58Yes! I'm going to bring you out and show the class, because I know all about this. You do? You really? And Sonny is going to look at this and say, "What is it? What fresh hell is this?"
Vic00:03:06You'll know it. I think they've... This has been going on now... Sonny needs to wait two more years. For years. Yes. 24 months from now... That's right.
JVL00:03:12He will be... In fact... Yes. This is a... I should describe what I am seeing.
Vic00:03:16Yes, yes. Victorino is... I got it at Spencer's. Oh, no, no, no, no. Wrong thing. Sorry.
JVL00:03:19Victorino is wearing a bracelet on his left hand made of black and green rubber bands, which have been woven together. Yes. And then fastened with a C-clip or is that an S-clip? S. An S-clip. And this is a Magic Loom rubber band... Magic Loom.
Vic00:03:39There you go.
JVL00:03:40...bracelet. Mm-hmm. Can you tell the class where you got this? I think I know who gave this to you.
Vic00:03:45That would be... Yes. That would be my wife. No, no, no, no. That would be my daughter. It's the big thing. They do it on the playground and it's Magic Loom and they're making bracelets. We had our babysitter come over the other day. She's a freshman now in high school and she said she was doing... Yeah. ...the Magic Loom when she was her age. So this thing apparently has been going on. But it's now for us. We're hitting it now. And your daughter, daughters...
JVL00:04:07I hit this four years ago. Oh, my gosh.
Vic00:04:09Yeah, yeah. That's right.
JVL00:04:10That's right. The people who live in my house 100 years from now will still be finding these little Magic Loom rubber bands. The small ones. Because we had... Yeah. ...literally... It drives me insane. ...dozens of thousands of them in the house.
Vic00:04:23Has your oldest grown out of it already?
JVL00:04:25Flash? Yeah. Yeah. Flash owns no part of this. He's moved on. But my girls will still occasionally do this. And every once in a while, they will come and bring me little presents. Yes.
Sonny00:04:36And they'll be like, "Daddy, here's a ring. Daddy, here's a..." The ring. There's all the...
JVL00:04:39"Kate has a ring." "You can make a necklace." And isn't it lovely when your daughter comes and gives you a little... It is. And I said, "That's all I need." And you want it to work. Good on you.
Vic00:04:46Yes. All I need is... You know, my daughter now makes so many. I said, "You look like Mr. T." And she says so many of those. But with rubber bands. With rubber bands. Rubber bands, Mr. T. Yes, that's right. I wasn't even... This is your future. This is your future. You'll get this if you believe me. It's a big hit.
JVL00:05:00You know what? Hold on. We ought to give Little Bunch her first magic wound kit. Oh, yes. That would be a great idea. We ought to do this. I don't think she's quite... They also...
Sonny00:05:11No, no. I'm saying in a year. Dexter.
Vic00:05:13In a year. You need another year.
Sonny00:05:14But you know, and also... Well, we're not gonna be here in a year, so...
Vic00:05:17And you know, they also do the different necklaces too. And she wanted to make a necklace for me. I said, "I don't think there's enough of those for my head." To get that around. To get it around. No, you could hurt yourself. Does she like to do the fish tail? She could make you a choker. Yeah, she's done that. Yeah, choker. That's what they... She could make you a choker. I don't actually wanna choke though, Sonny. How are you? How are you, Sonny?
Sonny00:05:35I'm great. How's your week? It's been fine. Is it great? You know, as you know, I have a young child, so I spend a lot of time sitting at home on the couch.
JVL00:05:44An adorable young child. Well, 'cause I met the Bunch baby on Sunday. I know.
Sonny00:05:49And he's awesome. Little Winston Churchill-looking. Little adorable.
JVL00:05:52And that works. He's got some of the big... Lots of babies have very big cheeks. He has some of the big... Top five. Top five big cheeks of any baby I've ever seen.
Sonny00:06:01Baby cheeks ranked! Let go! Sonny Bunch. Worst. Worst to best. Go! I think he gets the cheeks from you! Jesus. You know, we're only allowed to make fat face jokes about you. Oh!
JVL00:06:16Come on. He was absolutely adorable. And super, like, sweet and calm. When you got home, did he, like, all hell broke loose with him?
Sonny00:06:24Was he okay with the party? He was fine. I mean, he was hungry, but...
Vic00:06:30Babies tend to like that sort of white noise thing, and then when it gets quiet, then they wake up and go, "Ah!"
Sonny00:06:35He was fine. He was fine. Okay. Yeah. So, anyway, I spent a lot of time with a baby on my lap watching TV, which is unusual because I really, frankly, haven't spent a lot of time just, like, flipping through the channels trying to find something to watch recently. And you know what's always on the cable networks? Office space. Ah! Office space. Real sex. Oh, sorry. Well, in addition to real sex. No, there's been a documentary that's been on recently that I've kind of wanted to watch, just so I can recommend to Vic, called Porn-demic, about the HIV outbreak in the adult film industry in the late '90s, I think it was. Anyway, I have no idea if it's any good, but I just keep seeing it on at, like, 3:00 in the morning on Showtime Extreme or whatever, and I'm like, "God, maybe I should..." Showtime Extreme? Oh, come on. Showtime Barely Legal.
Vic00:07:18Maybe I should... Maybe I should watch that. That's not actually... Don't fool me into this.
JVL00:07:22Showtime Big and Busty.
Vic00:07:23It's not. But is it really called Porn-demic? Porn-demic. That's for real. You're not making that up. Porn-demic. Yeah. But for porn. Yeah, you're not making that up. No. Porn-demic. Pandemic, if you remember from The Wire. I don't know what that is. Pandemic. Pandemic.
JVL00:07:37WMD. So, what is always on? Thank you. You were saying? I'm sorry.
Sonny00:07:42Before we got... Office Space. Yeah. Office Space is always on. Man, that's a great movie. It is a real classic. I mean, like... What do you think that is? What do you think? What is it about? I don't know. You know, I think everyone... Look, without turning this into 20 minutes on Office Space, the appeal of the movie is so innately obvious. Everyone has crappy offices with dumb managers who have no idea what they're doing. And I mean, like, the great thing about this movie, and the great thing about a lot of Mike Judge's movies about, you know, it just, it really provides a lot of clarity to how terrible all of these middle managers are, how they really create nothing of value. Yeah. They just destroy. Yeah. The specialty is making people miserable. And they harass their workers, and it's really... It's just a, it's a fascinating, a fascinating kind of capsule of how awful working in a terrible place that doesn't care about their employees can be. So I, you know, again, I, like, there are so many... That's Sonny Bunch talking. This is Sonny Bunch. For people who confuse our voices. Yeah, no, no, please don't confuse the voices. Anyway, it really is just, you know, you have other shows like this, like, The Office kind of gets at some of this. The Office is more about, like... Yeah. Like, your idiot coworkers and your idiot boss.
Vic00:08:58But there's still more of a family element.
Sonny00:09:00And it, it, it, it's also about, it's also about the way that, like, awful people get promoted and, and, like, you know, like Dwight Schrute, you know, tries to make himself assistant manager and he's assistant to the manager. Right. But then there's also the intern, Ryan, who gets promoted, you know, to the executive ranks of the, the paper mill company and he, like, tries to...
JVL00:09:20That's right.
Sonny00:09:21He goes to business school, remember? That's right, that's right. There's, like, a whole subplot where Ryan goes to business school and he's, like... And then he fails miserably because of his gambit. He fails miserably because he actually, he, and he's worse than Michael Scott in many ways because, at the very least, Michael Scott understands how people work. He's a salesman. He, he can, like, actually sell paper to people. That's right. That's right. But, like, Ryan has all of these ideas about, you know, God, what was the, there, there was some terrible... It was a bit, and they had a massive launch.
Vic00:09:43Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was gonna come out at the same time with everybody and it was, it failed miserably. Anyway.
Sonny00:09:47Yeah. So... It's fantastic. Anyway, so this is what I do. I spend all my days just sitting at home watching The Office and Office Space and thinking to myself, God, that's so much better than being here with this baby throwing up on my lap.
Vic00:09:58That's better. You know, the, I showed the clip of the happy birthday Lomborg to my kids because my daughter's birthday lands around the time of Thanksgiving. So what happens is you have to have the birthday party with her friends before that weekend because nobody's around. And then we go over to, you know, Jersey for Thanksgiving around that time. So my parents want to throw the birthday party. But my in-laws aren't there. So when you get back, then there's, like, my in-laws want to come over and have a little birthday thing for her and it becomes, like, the month of birthday. Yes. It's like SunnyFest. Remember SunnyFest?
Sonny00:10:29SunnyFest! When I left The Weekly Standard, there was a whole week of celebrations.
Vic00:10:32He managed to stretch that out for a week and everyone started to complain
Sonny00:10:36it was SunnyFest. Once I was done, well, I mean, if you remember when I was working at The Weekly Standard, you know, Phil Terzian was running the Books and Art section and he was always very, we were always very efficient, like, we were basically done with the section by Monday or Tuesday morning, you know. And we would just wait on Jon Podhoretz to file his movie review and we could plug that right in because Jon doesn't need much editing. He's one of the great writers. That's right. Of our time. And the, the, the, but we would, we would, I, you know, that week I was done, I was basically done working on Monday. So I was like, who wants to go?
Vic00:11:07We went to a lunch. Drink and get lunch. There was a couple more lunches along the way. I think Matt was incensed by that. But here's the, here's a depressing thing. When we, I saw the video for the Happy Birthday Lomborg, it was like his 41st birthday or 40.
Sonny00:11:21Lomborg. Yeah. Lomborg. Lomborg. Not Lomborg. He's not. He's not a scientist. Bill Lomborg.
Vic00:11:29Bill Lomborg. Lomborg. Lomborg. Lomborg. Yeah. He's great though. Can you believe that though? Can you believe that? Bill. He's younger. 41. That's crazy.
JVL00:11:41I was, you know, it's crazy.
Vic00:11:42And he drove a Porsche. Yeah. Gary, Gary Cole. Gary Cole. The great Gary Cole. The great Gary Cole. But speaking, speaking of office space, you know, our office, my office here, they have the, the window wall, as you know. And you find it, kind of feel like you're in a pen. Sometimes people, you know, can, if they want to just stare and, oh, what is he doing? And also, what is he eating? And on Monday, I felt like that was being invaded because I was being, you know, my, my, my, my privacy is being invaded because I was having lunch and Sonny and another colleague, Zach, were walking down and he, and you saw what I was eating and you pointed at it. And I feel, I felt like I had to justify what I was eating. Do you remember this, Sonny?
Sonny00:12:15Oh, earlier this week? Yes. Earlier this week. Yeah. When, you had the food laid out on your desk and the box was open and I could see the top of the box. And it said. And it just said, 20 piece nuggets.
Vic00:12:27Okay.
Sonny00:12:28Vic Matus housing a 20 piece. First of all. With no shame. First of all.
Vic00:12:34McDonald's? Yes. Oh, yeah. First of all, I went to get salad. Okay. You went to McDonald's to get a salad? No, no, no. That's disgusting. I went to Sweetgreen. I went to Sweetgreen. Uh-huh. And the line was so long. Uh-huh. And I said, I can't, I'm not doing, I could see across the street. You don't have time for this. Yeah, they don't. Yeah, they don't. And I said, I'm not waiting for that. And also, as you know, there's that romaine scare.
Sonny00:12:54Right.
Vic00:12:55Nobody wants romaine anymore. Nobody wants romaine. It's poison. It's poison.
JVL00:12:59Okay. So everyone's staying away from the romaine. I actually have a friend whose cousin's brother's in-laws ate a piece of romaine and they exploded. Whoa.
Vic00:13:07Oh, my gosh. See? There you go. Just everywhere. Like the Scanners guy. I don't. Like Scanners, the Scanners guy's head. Who is the opposite? Michael Ironside, by the way. I believe he was in that. Yeah, Michael Ironside. Yeah, because you know what?
Sonny00:13:19Oh, yeah, because Michael Ironside was doing so much high-class work in the late '80s. Yeah, otherwise. Michael Ironside was like, "Oh, it's either Hamlet or Scanners.
Vic00:13:27I don't know which I'm going to do." He did Top Gun. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And he did V, the TV show. Another good, very serious movie. Okay. So anyway. And then I noticed it was $4.99 for 20 pieces. You could feed a family on that.
Sonny00:13:41Yeah. Or me. Well, I mean, you could feed one person in the family.
Vic00:13:45Yeah. One person in the family.
Sonny00:13:47You could get two 20 pieces. And feed the family.
Vic00:13:49There was no one.
Sonny00:13:50Yeah. There was no one.
Vic00:13:52One for Vic. There was one. Yes.
Sonny00:13:55One for the kids and Kate.
Vic00:13:56And Kate. They divide the three and I actually get 20. But still, that's only $10. Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:14:01No, it's insane how cheap it is. They're feeding America, right? Well, I've always been of the opinion that back when the Double Cheeseburger was $1, the Double Cheeseburger for $1 is the greatest innovation in the history of humankind. Yes. Like more calories per penny than has ever been available.
JVL00:14:14Question. Yes. How do we believe McDonald's settled on the shapes used in the original chicken McNuggets?
Vic00:14:21Because there's that little handle for you to dip.
JVL00:14:23No, but there are two shapes, right? There's the one that is kind of a kidney shape, like an ice cream cone, right? And then there's the other one that it almost looks like a leg with a foot sticking out.
Vic00:14:33Yeah. And I was going to say one looks kind of like post-war Germany.
JVL00:14:37Do we think they field tested those? Do you think there was... I mean, clearly McDonald's doesn't do anything without thought. No. Absolutely.
Vic00:14:44Why those two shapes? I don't know.
Sonny00:14:46But they must have done all sorts of things. They look chicken-like of the shapes.
Vic00:14:49But you know what? Right? Because I mean, you go to Burger King and they try to up them with their chicken tenders and it's more like as if they rip the chicken right off and fried it. And that's it. Disgusting. But of course, it's handy. People still like the nuggets because it's all this... When I interviewed a woman, an executive for McDonald's years ago, the word that kept popping up was portability. They all love talking about portability, being able to walk and eat, drive and eat. Everything is about portability. So there was that. But I will say this, in my defense, I ate it and the gout is gone. I had 20 pieces. The chicken McNuggets cured the gout. And medium fries. And medium fries. I think it... Well, and maybe it was a salad that caused me the gout. Was it still lingering? Because I was eating a lot of salad. Yeah, a little bit. And now it's completely gone. It's like it's just the crystals, the uric acid crystals, flushed out of my body and it's completely gone. And I thought it's either the McDonald's or maybe the masseuse rubbed it out of me. Anyway, speaking of coming attractions, how about that Avengers trailer?
Sonny00:15:51Beep. Hold on. Sorry. I'm just trying to find the censor button. Yeah.
Vic00:15:57There you go. One more transition for the road. The Avengers trailer came out much anticipated. This is the first official? Yes. Right? So would you call this a teaser trailer?
Sonny00:16:07Yes. Okay. There's more footage in it than you would usually get in a teaser trailer. Usually a teaser trailer is like some lines of dialogue over an image or something.
Vic00:16:15And it's gotten how many views already? How many views?
Sonny00:16:18Obviously.
Vic00:16:19Lots of people.
Sonny00:16:20All the views.
JVL00:16:21Yeah. Everybody. All of the views. 100 billion views. That's it. What are your thoughts? The Avengers end game analysis videos are themselves in the double digit millions. You know what?
Sonny00:16:34Very cool. And you know what? Very cool trailer. Very cool.
JVL00:16:38Very cool trailer. No. No. No. The ones where they're freeze framing and then going back with the Infinity War didn't say. But wait a minute. If you look at what Doctor Strange. If you look at the Infinity Stone out of the star, why is the Infinity Stone glowing at that moment? Because previously they only glow when they're being used. So clearly he's being used. The time Infinity Zone he's fooling.
Vic00:16:58That's a good voice, by the way. I love that voice. Also, you know what? I know. You know what Sonny likes? He loves those reaction videos to the trailers.
JVL00:17:05People don't do that anymore, though.
Vic00:17:08That's like so two years ago.
JVL00:17:09That's not a thing anymore. Now it's all a breakdown. Now it's breakdowns. The guy in front of a green screen saying, let me tell you another thing you missed in
Vic00:17:15this trailer. And do they have a show for real? Or is it like this? I mean, is it?
JVL00:17:19I don't know. I mean, some of them. Is it like this? I don't know. Okay. I don't frequent these things. But it sounds like you've watched them.
Vic00:17:26It seems like you've watched them. I've dabbled. You were curious? I was a little curious as to what the rumors were.
JVL00:17:32Okay. What have you learned? Tell me. What have you learned? What do you guys? Well, I mean, we learned what we all knew, which is that everybody's gonna come back
?00:17:41to life.
JVL00:17:42Sorry. Okay.
Vic00:17:44Spoilers?
JVL00:17:45I assume also. They made $400 million. They're not going to kill Spider-Man. Wait.
Sonny00:17:50I'm sorry. How much did Venom make?
JVL00:17:52Didn't it go to $400 million domestic? Venom. Venom. Venom. No. No. No. No. No.
Sonny00:18:01No.
JVL00:18:02Venom made $850 million worldwide? Uh-huh. Venom. Yeah. Black Panther made $1 billion worldwide. He's not dead.
Vic00:18:081.3 billion. They can afford. Can't they afford them? Can't they afford Robert Downey Jr.?
Sonny00:18:12No. I mean, obviously, everyone's coming back. Avengers Infinity War was a big scam.
JVL00:18:19Except for Tony Stark. Except. Tony Stark is going to die.
Sonny00:18:22Except. We're going to get deaths. Captain America will die.
JVL00:18:25All this is driven by. Chris Evans. Yeah.
Sonny00:18:28Chris Evans is going to die. Bottom line. Tony Stark is going to die. Bottom line decisions. I still think they might keep Tony Stark around. I think that he is so integral to what makes ... Here's what I would be curious to know is how badly Marvel panics if Captain Marvel does not do very well. Which. I'm sorry. Why would it not do very well, Sonny?
JVL00:18:49Can we just ... The Captain Marvel trailer. See what makes her a hero, Sonny.
Sonny00:18:53Far more interesting is that the Captain Marvel trailer was bad, and I think most people actually kind of recognize that it's bad.
Vic00:19:00I disagree with that. I thought that the turn from her hero, her hero, was hot.
Sonny00:19:06Hero. That was it. Why did you think it was bad? It was just boring. It was a boring trailer. Boring. There's just nothing in it. There's nothing interesting in it. The first trailer with Samuel L. Jackson. There's a lot in there. It was actually much, much better than the trailer with Brie Larson, who's kind of a nullity.
?00:19:21On the screen.
Sonny00:19:22Wow. I can't believe you said that. Wow. Can you say that? I don't know.
Vic00:19:27I just did. There's a clip of her playing baseball, I think. I'm not going to say softball. Don't say softball. That's all important.
JVL00:19:35Anyway. It's timely. It's a timely trailer. It is difficult trying to launch ... To be fair to them, Captain Marvel is a third-tier character in the Marvel ecosystem. Right. From the 1970s. Right. It is difficult to launch something like that as a go-to franchise.
Sonny00:19:53I mean, look. The simple fact of the matter is it doesn't really matter. The first Doctor Strange movie made about $200 million. The bar on these is actually very low. Right. To be a success. Correct. You don't actually have to make ... It doesn't have to do Wonder Woman money to be a big success. Or Venom money. Or Venom money. Well, nothing does Venom money. Venom is the 60th highest. Most grossing film of all time, by the way. Wow. Makes sense. It's insane. It's the 60th best movie of all time. According to ... What's ahead of it? Yeah. God.
Vic00:20:27I ... I'm sorry. Did you like the trailer? For The Avengers Endgame.
Sonny00:20:31No. I hated it. It was stupid. I'll tell you why it was stupid. It's because Scarlett Johansson still has blonde hair. They're not on the run anymore. You're not on the run. You just give her the red hair back. Black Widow has red hair and this blonde thing. This thing is bull . It's bull . And I'm tired of it. She looks dumb. She looks dumb as a blonde. Back to red hair.
JVL00:20:52Blonde washing? Is that what they're doing to the character? Redheads all over the world.
Sonny00:20:56They couldn't find a blonde who could play this role. JVL, thank you, Sonny. JVL, your thoughts on the trailer? No.
JVL00:21:04It looks ... I will say this. My concern, my only concern about the movie is time travel.
Vic00:21:12Oh, yeah, well, as a fixer?
Sonny00:21:15Yeah. Because they did that in the first Superman. How was time travel any worse than alternate reality?
Vic00:21:22That's a problem, too. Reality stone.
Sonny00:21:24I think it is ... Tinkering.
JVL00:21:26The timeline is ... I don't know that it's worse, but I can't imagine that it wouldn't be worse, because once you open up time stuff, everything just gets ... Nothing holds together. Once you time travel ... This is the two rules of superhero. You never have a superhero who can manipulate time, and you never have a superhero who can suck up the powers of other superheroes. Otherwise ... You can't do those two things. Just like that. Because once you allow that, then all bets are off for everything. No, you just ... It's like you're leeching dramatic tension out of any situation.
Vic00:21:58You might as well say, "Oh, it was all a dream." Right.
Sonny00:22:01It's like that. That said ... They'll have to destroy the Infinity Gauntlet at the end of the film, right?
Vic00:22:05Isn't that ... But that said, that's probably what's going to happen, yes? Probably.
JVL00:22:09I mean, this is what we think ... With Doctor Strange. This is why we think that he is ... Why we think Captain America is back in his Winter Soldier uniform. Oh. Did you notice that? Oh, wow. I did not. I noticed he shaved. So, are we then back with the Captain ... Maybe they've gone back to that era, to ... Now, the real theory here ... All right, get in there. Is that what this is all about is healing the rift from Civil War by bringing the original Avengers all back together to be on one side, and only then can they defeat Thanos.
Sonny00:22:40But they're already on the same side. But they're already on the same side at the end of ... I just blow your mind. No, because they're already on the same side at the end of the film, in Infinity War. I think they may be trying to fix the Civil War rift. But who cares? Go back in time. Who cares?
JVL00:22:55In doing that. So that we never have the Superhero Registration Act and all that stuff. I think we're going to retcon ... So you can go way back. You can go way back. This is like a deep dive. I think we may be on the way to retcon like three different ...
Vic00:23:05No, no, no. Sonny, you look skeptical.
Sonny00:23:07I'm just saying what the real fans out there are theorizing. You're getting into X-Men territory. You're getting into the X-Men film territory. Yes. Which is like ... I think I've made this joke on the show before. But the thing that the X-Men films have done better than any other comic book franchise or comic book is demonstrate to normal people how awful comic book continuity is. Because I defy anyone out there to figure out where exactly on the timeline this X-Men black ... Phoenix. Dark Phoenix movie is supposed to take place. They've erased so many timelines and created so many other ones, I don't even know what's going on.
JVL00:23:45Question. Are they consciously paying attention to timelines, or is what Sony has done with the X-Men, or Fox has done with the X-Men, much more them saying, "Look, just don't fixate on continuity. We're telling stories." No, but I mean, each ... The fans care about the continuity, but if you're a normal person ...
Sonny00:24:00But I mean, Days of Future Past was explicitly a way to undo what was done in the last stand.
JVL00:24:12Or it was just a good movie telling a story.
Sonny00:24:15I mean, I don't think that's ... I don't think that's what it was.
Vic00:24:17I don't know.
Sonny00:24:18And then Wolverine is in Japan suddenly, so ... Wolverine's in Japan. But then they wiped out all of that stuff, too. They wiped out all of the Wolverine original ... The whole thing is so dumb.
Vic00:24:25How does Logan fit into that? That's something way later, right?
Sonny00:24:28Because they're ... Logan is a ... Again, Logan is a standalone movie. This is why I ... Where is Logan in the timeline?
JVL00:24:33Which timeline is it? I don't think there is an X-Men timeline in the X-Men cinematic universe. I do not believe there's a coherent timeline. I believe that is by design. There's certainly not a coherent timeline, and that's funny. No, but it's not by design. They keep trying ...
Sonny00:24:47Isn't that what we want? They keep trying to make it all make sense. They keep trying to explain why one thing is like this.
JVL00:24:51That's just fan service. They don't really care about that. They're just trying to keep the nerds from mutinying. I actually like the idea of we don't need to have everything in one coherent timeline. You don't need to make them all fit together. If you have a story about Aquaman that you would like to tell, and it's just a good Aquaman story, but ... Just tell your story. It's something ... Let's say ... Okay. Yeah. Let's say Aquaman really likes redheads. He just thinks you got to love them because they're crazy. All right.
Sonny00:25:18Got to love them. You could just tell that story where he ...
JVL00:25:20Yeah.
Sonny00:25:21He just jumps out of a plane in the desert.
JVL00:25:22He jumps out of planes in deserts. Why is Aquaman in the desert?
Vic00:25:26Maybe he needs to come back, and really he's the leader to choose, because it's a story
JVL00:25:31about how you can be from two worlds, and that makes you even better. You could just tell that story without worrying if it fits into some broader ... What's her name?
Sonny00:25:38Who's the female in that? Amber Heard.
Vic00:25:40Mrs. Johnny Depp. Yeah. Okay. What would you prefer? Her red hair, or just Scarlett Johansson, or Scarlett Johansson? Scarlett Johansson's blonde hair.
Sonny00:25:47This is the problem. Why would you get a fake red head, when you could get a real red head? I'm excited for Aquaman, because it looks like the best movie about a son coming to run his kingdom, and open it up to the outside world, released this year. Did you see what I ... Did you see what I did there? No, seriously though, the best Marvel movie released this year is Spider- Into the Spider-Verse, but we'll talk about that. Have you seen it?
JVL00:26:16I have. That's going to be our first show, right?
Sonny00:26:18What do you mean, first show?
JVL00:26:19Oh, I'm sorry. What? Our first show of next week is going to be, and then we have Aquaman. No?
Vic00:26:26Yes. Do you ... Okay. Which do we think is better? No. People love it. Pott.
JVL00:26:32Didn't St. Pott say he loved it? Which do we think is going to make more money? I'll see it this weekend. Which do we think is going to make more money, Into the Spider-Verse or Aquaman? Because if Into the Spider-Verse outgrosses Aquaman ...
Sonny00:26:40Yeah, the cartoon. Game over. Mm-hmm. I think Aquaman will be okay. Did you see how much money Aquaman made in China? Yeah. A billion. It made a billion. Made $90 million. Made $94 million. It made more money in one weekend than Wonder Woman made in its entire run in China.
JVL00:26:54Well, what we have always known is that the Chinese are very sexist. They don't like lady superheroes.
Vic00:27:02And they want to resurrect islands out of the sea. That's something that they're into.
JVL00:27:06Chinese movie audiences have incredibly discriminating taste. Yes. That's true. If a movie does well in China, that is essentially a mark of quality that American audiences can look at it. And say, oh, I know this is going to be good cinema.
Sonny00:27:19Of course, the Chinese audiences also rejected The Last Jedi. Reconciled these two thoughts. Ooh. Ah. But that's just part of their anti-Star Wars.
Vic00:27:28What is, do you have a box office prediction for The Avengers when it comes out in March? How big?
JVL00:27:34How big?
Sonny00:27:35Infinity.
JVL00:27:36Infinity. I think it is possible that it becomes the first movie to hit 300.
Vic00:27:43On opening? On opening. Opening. On opening. On opening Thursday, right? Yeah. Sonny.
JVL00:27:50That could happen. Mm-hmm.
Sonny00:27:52Yeah. I mean, ticket prices are up. You need a lot of things to break that way. Mm-hmm. I mean, it'll be on the most screens ever. It'll be on all the IMAX screens. It'll be.
JVL00:27:59All the 3D screens.
Sonny00:28:00All the 3D screens. I think that you could, it could happen.
JVL00:28:04I mean, look, it could happen. I don't know. Mm-hmm. People actually really like Infinity War. I don't think people have soured on it. No, not yet. But I mean, it just, it's a conclusion to a cliffhanger. Yeah. It just seems like it's coming. Yeah. And it will come at a period when we haven't had a good superhero movie in a couple months. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, unless Aquaman is great.
Sonny00:28:25And then maybe people will just say. Wait. When does, when does. And then there's a whole shift to DC. When does Infinity War come out? March, I think. Infinity War comes out. No, because. April, March. It's like April or May, I think, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because I, we should probably know this before we start talking about it. But like the, but the, because Captain Marvel comes out in March. Okay. Oh. Well. Yeah. Captain Marvel comes out first. Captain Marvel comes out first. Superhero movies before you get to. Yeah. Yeah.
JVL00:28:49Yeah. I think Captain Marvel looks okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Vic00:28:53Yeah. I love period pieces. Period superhero movies? Such a cuck. So in other words, the box office is gonna be much bigger than it was this past weekend. When Ralph Breaks the Internet took only 16 million, but was still number one, followed by Dr. Seuss' The Grinch with 15 million, and Creed II was in third place with 10 million. Essentially everybody stayed the same, including in fourth place, Crimes of Grindelwald with seven million, and in fifth place, Bohemian Rhapsody pounded out 18 million.
Sonny00:29:15Still in the fifth.
Vic00:29:18No. It's still got a pulse, JVL. And speaking of streaming, did you hear the news about Bohemian Rhapsody, the song?
Sonny00:29:26That it's back in the top...
Vic00:29:28The most streamed. The most streamed song of the 20th century, Bohemian Rhapsody. The most streamed song of the 20th century? Yeah, of the songs before 2000. So of the songs before that. That is the one that people are downloading now, and there's probably people getting into it again, watching that Bohemian Rhapsody. They love it.
Sonny00:29:46Just like it happened with Wayne's World. There you go. That's exactly right. When Wayne's World came out, it did it.
JVL00:29:50It was back to the top of the charts.
Vic00:29:51It did it. That's right. See? Do you have box office thoughts? Because you know, The Grinch declined only 16%.
JVL00:29:57Vic, did you like The Grinch? I would have loved it if I... No, I like the cartoon, and you know what I like about the cartoon?
Vic00:30:03It's short. That's a short... It's a short book, my kind of book, and it's a short cartoon, the one with Boris Karloff. It's like 20 minutes, isn't it? 20 minutes to count commercials. The commercials... They used to have the commercials... Yeah. For Peter Paul chocolates. It would be like mounds or peppermint patties. Oh, yeah. Do you remember that? They would show that in between for The Grinch. Or maybe I'm thinking of Halloween, but I get confused. But they always did Peter Paul candies. Okay. So, you have no other thoughts other than that? No. Okay. But we're not actually here to talk about any of those movies, and of course, we still refuse to see Ralph Breaks the Internet, or the new Grinch, or Crimes of Grindelwald. Very impressive that none of us want to see that. What are we talking about here?
Sonny00:30:45This is a podcast about movies. We really don't like going to see movies, do we?
Vic00:30:48We're picky. We're picky. What are we talking about today, Sonny?
Sonny00:30:51This week, I thought we could talk about The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and what Netflix is trying to do in its space. I have a question for you.
Vic00:31:01Question. Okay. Was this movie one of these simultaneous things, theaters and, or?
Sonny00:31:07Yes. So, Buster Scruggs was in a handful of theaters. Netflix is trying to make a prestige play this year.
JVL00:31:21They are, why don't I do the review first? Yeah, go for it. Go after it, because I've got lots of questions.
Sonny00:31:26The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is the latest movie from the Coen Brothers. It is a six story, it's a six, basically six short films tied together under the heading of the Old West, but also mortality, and what we choose to make of our lives. It is kind of sprawling. It's their longest film by about 10 or 12 minutes, which is interesting. And I think it is great. I mean, I think it might be my favorite movie of the year. It is funny and dark. It is super, super Coen-y, I mean, like the opening vignette is a kind of homage to the singing cowboys of days gone by, except that it kind of imagines them as a psychopathic killers, as like killers in the Old West. Which is, there's this kind of frizzing between, you know, the absurdity of the singing and the horror of the shooting that is, again, very Coen-y, very, very weird and funny. The second story is essentially a five-minute joke about a robber who- Dark joke. A robber who escapes one noose only to find another, and it has the best, maybe the best performance of the film, Steven Root as the bank teller doing his kind of Steven Rooty sort of thing. And the third segment may be my favorite. It's about a armless, legless orator who is taken on the road by a businessman who's played by Liam Neeson, and it is basically a metaphor for the industry of film. You know, you have this classically trained- High-toned actor who is delivering speeches and monologues and reciting poetry, who is replaced by the end of the film by a counting chicken. People like that chick. People like it. You know what the counting chicken is? The counting chicken is Avengers: Infinity War. Aquaman. And so anyway, I don't want to go through each of the segments, but the whole thing is very good, and it has a great unity to it. These are a series of films. It's about what you choose to make of your life and what we choose to do with the time that we have. I think, I don't know, the Coens are operating on about seven different levels. It's always kind of hard to pin down exactly what they're going for in any specific one. So don't take my word for it. Watch it yourself.
Vic00:34:06Did you like all the performance? The perfs? The perfs are good. Yeah. I love this.
Sonny00:34:13I love the cast. It's lensed well. Helmed? Helmed? It takes advantage of the natural beauty of the American Old West. Oh my gosh. I wonder how much they, I'm actually kind of curious to know how much they spent on this film. Yeah. You know, if this was a $20 million picture or a $50 million picture, I could believe
Vic00:34:29either one. And I'd like to think that that wasn't much digitally enhanced and that they go for that natural look. I'm sure there's some of it.
Sonny00:34:38It's quite stunning. It's quite stunning. Yeah, I mean, I would imagine there's some tinkering in the digital effects suite because all films are tinkered with in the digital effects.
Vic00:34:48But even, you know, and even, you know, as I say, no small parts. And one of the ones I liked also, you saw Clancy Brown in that first one. Clancy Brown's so great. Clancy Brown from Shawshank. He has a very small role in it, but he's a big guy. And you know what I noticed for a little bit of realism is the yellow teeth. Yellow teeth. You know what I said? Very yellow teeth. And I thought to myself, man, if only he had a toothbrush.
Sonny00:35:08Sonny. There's a buzzy gift on everyone's list this year. It's something they'll use twice every day. It was featured on Oprah's O list. And it's perfect for everyone with a mouth. We all have mouths. Even the armless, legless guy in Buster Scruggs had a mouth. The it gift is Quip, an electric toothbrush designed to make brushing better. You know, it's this great little thing. It's got these sensitive sonic vibrations. They're gentle enough on your sensitive gums. There's a built-in timer with guiding pulses to remind you when to switch sides. 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. It doesn't require a clunky charger, goes for three months on one charge. And it's the gift that keeps on refreshing, with brush heads automatically delivered on a dentist-recommended schedule every three months for just $5. You can even gift prepaid refills for a year. If you want to get somebody this, you get them, you know, all the refills for a year, you get them the Quip, it's great. It's one of the first electric toothbrushes accepted by the American Dental Association. It has thousands of verified five-star reviews. You know, there's another, there's another Western that was out this year, The Sisters Brothers. There was an amusing, there's an amusing little bit where one of the characters buys a toothbrush for the first time. He buys a toothbrush, and it's got this, like, paste, you know, this toothpaste. It came with paste. It comes with paste. If you have ever wondered where toothpaste comes from, it's like a little paste he adds water to and he mushes it up and he brushes it. And of course, it's like, it relies on this humor of like, look at these adults back in the old days, they don't know how to use their toothbrushes, but it was kind of an amusing reminder of how far we've come, you know, from horsehair bristles stuck to little sticks to the great Quip with its electric pulses. So you know, anyway, that's why I love Quip, because it reminds me of how far we've come. And it's why they have over 5,000 verified five star reviews, I assume. Quip looks like a big ticket tech gift with stocking stuffer prices starting at just $25. If you go to getquip.com/substandard right now, you get your first refill pack free with a Quip electric toothbrush. Don't tell your giftee that. Come on. You don't want them to know that they're getting all this great stuff for free.
Vic00:37:23Gift toys in the mouth. Okay, go ahead.
Sonny00:37:25That's your first refill pack free at getquip.com/substandard.
Vic00:37:33Thank you, Sonny. JVL, did you get a chance to watch Ballad of Buster Scruggs?
JVL00:37:37You know, I must have misread our text. I actually watched Falling Down instead. And so I did not see this movie at all.
Vic00:37:45Falling Down? Okay. Falling Down?
JVL00:37:48Yeah. You know the Michael Douglas movie? The one where the guy goes a little bit nuts. Hey, hey, hey! Yeah. I'm sorry. That's a good movie, though. Did you have a bad experience at a convenience store? Yeah.
Vic00:37:58That's a good movie. And that's why McDonald's offers breakfast around the clock now. No one's going to shoot it up anymore. Okay. So you missed it.
JVL00:38:05I wouldn't say I'm missing it, Bob. Wow.
Vic00:38:10Okay. Well, I liked it. It's... Of course you did. You did. But I didn't love it. I liked it as much as... What?
?00:38:19... like Green Book.
JVL00:38:20No. What? What? Sonny, what do you think about this?
Vic00:38:24It depends on your... Was it too long for you, Vic? No. It wasn't happy. It just didn't have a happy ending. It was really dark. And I was not in a dark... I was more in an upbeat mood going into it and then left like really depressed. But it was, I thought, very well done. There's no question about that.
Sonny00:38:36And our... Welcome to life, Vic. Maybe your life, Sonny.
Vic00:38:39Welcome to life. I... I'll tell you who I loved. I really loved looking back on this. Because again, I was like, "Give me one happy story. Maybe the guy with the gold diggers." Zoe Cassan story. Yes. Oh. Oh. And you know, and I'm getting old, like, you know, like where Kate has to explain to me... Getting. Yes. Getting older. And Kate has to explain... And she'll tell me ahead of the... Oh, I bet you this happened to her. I go, "What?" And then I'm totally surprised by it because I don't know what's happening until it happens. And even after it happens, I still have questions. It's often terrifying for me to watch a movie alone. And I have no one to explain. I have nobody explaining to me, like, what's going on. I just have to... Eh. Kate. Kate.
Sonny00:39:20I don't know.
Vic00:39:21What happened to her? What did she say?
Sonny00:39:23It's like that...
Vic00:39:24What did she say to him? I miss dialogue.
Sonny00:39:26Who's that? It's totally true. Who's that character? I don't understand what's happening. It's totally true. I miss... Where's my medicine?
Vic00:39:33Got to get on the prednisone. That's, by the way, a line from No Country for Old Men. The mother says it. Got to get on the prednisone. I'm the mother from No Country for Old Men. You're the mother. Got to get on the prednisone. It's a weird movie. I loved Chelsea Ross. He's one of my favorite character actors. And do you remember where... Who is Chelsea Ross? He's the fur trapper in The Last... Oh, yeah. He's great. Yeah. And if you... He can go... You can go all the way back with him to... I remember him from Hoosiers, and he's the angry fan, and he was in Major League, fighting with Dennis Haysbert. And then, of course, in Mad Men, he was Connie Hilton. But he's fantastic, and he goes on a riff for so long, sitting next to tiny... Without interruption. Yeah. And without any cuts. If I'm not... I don't think they cut it.
Sonny00:40:17I think he just went on... No. It felt like...
Vic00:40:20It cuts back and forth. It cuts back on. Reaction shots. Yeah. Okay. All right.
Sonny00:40:26But his dialogue goes on, and I just... I wonder how much of that is just going on. He's really good. I assume none of it. I assume the Coen brothers wrote all of that. I think they're a little bit persnickety about... Are they about that? Is that right? About people saying the words right. Say the words right. It's not a Chris Guest movie. The one thing I do... I've always appreciated about the Coen brothers is the absolute mastery they have over their actors. They do exactly what they want. There's no Stanley Kubrick had to trick George C. Scott to do the crazy over the top stuff in Dr. Strangelove. I don't get the sense that there's any of that in these films. They have a coterie of actors who do what they tell them, who do what Joel and Ethan tell them to do. It's very... And they dance. They dance to the tune. And that's why everything they do is so good. We had mentioned the business of this a little bit. What's interesting... About what Netflix is doing right now is they're trying to make a prestige play. And they've been trying to do this for a couple of years now. Last year they had Mudbound, which was kind of an Oscar-baity sort of film. And this year they have Buster Scruggs and Roma. And the problem that Netflix has is that they can't get their movies in most major theaters because the major theaters, your Regals, your AMCs, your Cinemarks, et cetera, I believe all are boyish. They're boycotting Netflix because Netflix does a day-and-date release. They put their things in the theater and they put their things on Netflix at the same time. And that has changed a little bit. Again, Netflix is bending a little bit on this sort of thing. Like Roma, for instance, your big, your dark horse for the, by dark horse I mean number one pick for the Oscar draft, is playing in New York and L.A. for a couple of weeks. Yeah. Just there and has been playing in D.C. and I think opens on Netflix this Friday. So you don't live in New York or L.A. or D.C., you can finally catch it on Netflix this Friday. But they've only been able to show these movies in, I believe, the landmarks and some of the other smaller theater chains because the big theaters rightly, I think, see that Netflix is an existential threat. I mean, Netflix is an existential threat to theatrical presentation. Yeah.
JVL00:42:41Also, those aren't movies that anyone can watch. Anybody will want to go and pay to see. I mean, let's let's just be clear. Roma or Ballad of Billy Scruggs are movies that might gross nine million dollars. Sure. Total lifetime in a theater.
Sonny00:42:54Right. These are these are these are definitely smaller movies that would not be.
JVL00:42:58But I mean, I don't know.
Sonny00:42:59The Coen brothers made one hundred seventy six million dollars or something like that with True Grit. Like, I think you could sell you can sell a Coen western.
JVL00:43:07Did that have a good ending? The ending of True Grit is a little bit better than Ballad of Billy Scruggs. Was it more upbeat? I think it was slightly more to see it slightly more upbeat.
Sonny00:43:17Actually, it was kind of downbeat, though. Doesn't she like lose her arm at the end of the film?
Vic00:43:20Not like this. No, it's like that other what was that other The Searchers, another one, you know, a great movie. But woof. Anyway. Too far. Hey, Tony Lip. Good to see you. Welcome back, Tony.
Sonny00:43:33Yeah. So anyway, I you know, Netflix is trying to make itself a Oscar worthy production company while also crapping all over the theatrical experience. And it's a it's a it's a hard line to walk. But I think they're starting to get there. I mean, I do think that Roma will will pick up a ton of Oscar nominations. And I think the industry is is getting to the point where they see Netflix as something that they can use for passion projects. Yeah. I mean, like Netflix has a lot of crap out there, but it also has a lot of it also has a lot of stuff like. Yeah.
Vic00:44:13I go channel surfing through Netflix and just you can spend 10 minutes looking and you see nothing.
Sonny00:44:17That's nothing but office space in the office.
Vic00:44:20So they keep on showing what's that a happy feet, you know, like you'll get an email like, oh, maybe tonight Netflix happy feet.
JVL00:44:26Really? So Richard Rushfield has been writing a lot about this over the last couple of weeks. And there is this bizarre disconnect between the studios and their relationship to Netflix. Netflix doesn't give you the numbers on anything. Mm hmm. They will not tell you. They won't tell you how many people are watching anything. The educated guesses are that some enormous majority of all of their views go to licensed properties, not to the Netflix.
Sonny00:44:55There's a reason they spent $100 million to bring Friends back. Right.
JVL00:45:01Which leads to the question, why are the studios and production houses, which view Netflix as an existential threat, selling them the rope to hang themselves with? Right. And they're all in the process of setting up their own thing. Right? They're all going to go with their own over-the-top streaming services, where you pay $9 a month to Disney, and you get access to the full Disney library, or Warner Brothers, or Sony, or blah, blah, blah. Why are they simultaneously feeding Netflix all this stuff to bolster their content? And I don't know. Yeah. But you were right about the Passion Project thing. That's what, when you said, you know, you're not sure if this cost $20 or $50 million, because it's Netflix, I would bet you anything it was $50. I wouldn't, because they are just throwing money at people and saying, cash is no object. Yeah. Because we have this stock that people just keep pouring money into.
Vic00:45:46Right. So, like, the Coen brothers, I mean, they agreed to do this thing on Netflix, which they know, I mean, it's not going to make a ton of money at the box office, and they're not having... All right. It's not the whole thing about getting points or whatever else. Sure. It's strictly that they got their money upfront.
Sonny00:45:58Well, but it's... I mean, I don't even know... They got to make their own. I don't know that it's that they got a ton of money, and they got, you know... Enough to make their movie. They got $40 or $50 million to make this movie, or they got $20 million... I mean, I don't know how much it costs, is the thing. Right. The problem with Netflix is that it's a total black box. It's impossible to know what anything costs, and it's impossible to know how much money anything makes, because nothing actually makes money on Netflix. It's just part of the package. It's just part of the streaming. So, you know, they release these cherry-picked numbers that make no sense at all. Like for instance, I believe they said something like... I'll look this up in a second while you guys talk, but they said something like 20 million hours of The Christmas Chronicles was watched.
JVL00:46:40Right.
Sonny00:46:41What does that mean? What does that mean? What does it mean?
JVL00:46:44Does it mean that when it autoplays for 5 seconds because you've turned on Netflix, and you count that you multiply up every 5 second autoplay ever?
Sonny00:46:52Does that mean, you know, 10 million people have watched 2 minutes of it? Does it mean... I don't know.
JVL00:46:57So, meaningless numbers. I would say it is not unlike what the bad old days of the cable bundling were like, where the cable companies would say, "We're gonna give you 500 networks, and we're gonna charge you $95,000." $95,000 a month. And who cares if you only watch 4 of them? Mm-hmm. Yeah. That is essentially what Netflix is. And you can't... And you can't, by the way... Netflix is the old cable. Remember when everyone used to say 500 channels... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:47:22And nothing to watch? Right.
JVL00:47:24Nothing is on. 57 channels and nothing...
Sonny00:47:26Right. So, that is Netflix.
JVL00:47:28That's the... Netflix has, you know... That's the Rich Springsteen song.
Vic00:47:31Come on. Netflix has 20,000 titles, and there's like 4 things you wanna watch on it. Yeah. That's right. And there's no wiggle room there. You either get it or you don't get it. Right.
Sonny00:47:38There's not... But Netflix is also insanely cheap. I mean... It's like 10 a month now. Not now. Not no more.
Vic00:47:46Netflix costs $12 a month.
JVL00:47:47Right. Versus cable, which is 200 plus a month. Not for my Ultra HD 4K version. Ooh. Oh, how much do you pay for that? I don't know. Is it like 15? I pay whatever they ask. Whatever they... You just gave them your credit card. I don't know.
Vic00:47:58I don't wanna say. Charge me.
JVL00:48:00Charge me what I need. I don't know. I don't know. No, I don't... I would've liked to know how Buster Scruggs looked in 4K. I'm disappointed that we didn't get a readout on that. I'll tell you what. I did a 4K watching last night on Vudu, 'cause Vudu is... Yeah, what's... I see that. So, Vudu is the Walmart streaming service.
Vic00:48:15You have to pay that?
Sonny00:48:16Is that a pay thing? Yes, Victorino.
JVL00:48:18You have to pay creators for their work. Something free. Ugh. Spass. And Vudu has a larger library of 4K and UHD titles than Amazon. How is this possible? Why is this? I don't understand. What is Lord Bezos doing? Why am I having to give Walmart my money instead of giving it to Amazon? Give it to Lord Bezos? I find this very upsetting. I don't know. I don't know. The entire 4K adventure. I've done... Think about this. I've done my entire 4K adventure, from the purchase of the television set to the purchase of the content, independent of Lord Bezos. There is nothing else in my life that I do independent of him. Why has he deserted us?
Sonny00:48:55I don't know. He's forsaken us.
JVL00:48:57Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord.
Sonny00:48:59Why have you abandoned me? Well, I mean, I think Amazon has basically decided that we're all pigs who will eat whatever slop we stream, right? Like the picture quality has never really been like a big selling point on these things, on these streaming services.
Vic00:49:13Well, certainly, but we have better luck at our house watching Netflix than we do Amazon Prime video. Really? You know? Oh, my gosh. It takes like five minutes just to get it. It keeps... It'll stop and say, "Sorry. There's something... There's a disconnect... A connection problem." And then when it... In like the first five minutes of anything, we were watching Mrs. Miss Maisel, Marvelous Miss Maisel, and the first five minutes is all very glitchy.
JVL00:49:35I'm already hating myself for asking this. What is your download speed at home? I have no idea.
Vic00:49:41I have no idea.
JVL00:49:431080i. 8K. 1080i. 1080i. You're just... Download speed is... 1080i. 15 gigs? 10 gigs? Yeah. Yeah.
Vic00:49:54No, I mean... A terabyte? And we paid for the extra for the faster Wi-Fi for Verizon, but you know that's... 14 cubic inches? Something. Something like that. PSI. Something PSI. Phillips head. Yeah. 7 joules.
JVL00:50:07Download speed is 7 joules. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So you should maybe, just as an idea, do an internet speed test from home and see what your down-up rates are. You can find it. Just Google it. Just Google it. You can just Google it. And you could then maybe call Comcast and just say...
Vic00:50:22Verizon and we're... Call Verizon and say, "I'll give you an extra $4 a month. Just give me a higher internet package." Yeah. We already...
JVL00:50:27We already did that. Is your... How far is your TV from your router? I don't know.
Vic00:50:31The router's in the kitchen. And the... I don't know. I don't know. The router's in the kitchen. And the... And the... And the TV's in the TV room. Okay.
?00:50:40Well...
JVL00:50:41So, as I... As I sometimes say to my youngest, G Money, when G Money says, "Get me that," and I say, "Where is it?" And he says, "Over there." I say, "Use your words to describe to me where this thing is." No, no. No, no, no.
Vic00:50:54Can you give me... I can't. Feet. I can't. Because I remember this. I remember... I remember... I'm terrible at these estimates. And I remember when I was in... Let's get one final mention of Vienna here on the show. I was in Vienna. I got stopped at the university by an Austrian student who was doing some sort of research about perspective and asking me about, like, "Well, how far do you think this was?" And the entire conversation was in German. And I said, "And you want me to do this in meters?" As opposed to... I'm just like, "Sure. Sure. 10 meters away." Really? It's like... You destroyed this kid's entire project with bad data. She was very hesitant. She was like, "Really?" I'm like, "Yeah. Yeah. That sounds about right." I have no idea how far 10 meters is. I don't know. 40 feet away? I have no idea.
?00:51:34Okay. Look at Sonny.
Vic00:51:34Look at Sonny. I could not... 400 feet. Ah. All right. That's why I went to Georgetown. Safe from science. Yeah. I think we're good. Okay. Sorry. Yelling about that. Maybe we can get better Wi-Fi as a Christmas present. You know what else makes a great Christmas present? Cookies! For over 40 years, Mrs. Fields has made delicious treats, like their signature chocolate chip cookies to handcrafted, frosted favorites to melt-in-your-mouth brownies. And Mrs. Fields' gourmet gift tins and baskets make the perfect present to surprise and delight anyone on Earth. They're on your list this season. At Mrs. Fields, their cookies and sweets are baked daily and always arrive fresh and flavorful. Ordering is easy, and they can ship your gift anywhere across the U.S. Plus, you can add a personal touch with a custom message, company logo, or family photo. Mrs. Fields even offers a 100% customer satisfaction guarantee suite. This year sent a fresh baked gift no one can resist. We're still waiting for our cookies. Maybe they'll come next week. But as we said in the last episode... We really enjoy Mrs. Fields cookies, they're nice, warm, and chewy, and I look forward to getting a tin. Right now, get 20% off your order when you go to MrsFields.com and enter promo code SUBSTANDARD. That's 20% off any gift at MrsFields.com, promo code SUBSTANDARD, MrsFields.com, promo code SUBSTANDARD. Anything else, gentlemen?
Sonny00:53:00No. I don't have anything.
Vic00:53:04Well, that's all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us @Victoriomatus, @SonnyBunch, again,
Sonny00:53:16be sure to-- @JVLast, he's over there. Yeah. He's not on Twitter anymore, really. Yeah, but we'll need him. Despite all of these people who discover the show that they love through his Twitter
Vic00:53:26account.
Sonny00:53:27Including the blind.
Vic00:53:28The blind. Goddess Librarian. Jeez. Come on. Again, be sure to subscribe to-- Just type in Substandard. If you're listening to this, then obviously we're still on the air. And we'll need you to leave a review and subscribe. Tell your friends about what we're doing next, next week. We don't actually know, but we give it our best.
Sonny00:53:49Until next time. I have an outtake. Two outtakes, one.
Vic00:54:03One is a clarification. There's a lot of people. There was a lot of pushback regarding the massage episode. And I just want to show you. It says it right here. Teen facial. Okay. There you go.
JVL00:54:15I didn't make that up. Hold on. Let me see it. Right there in the bottom. 125 bucks. Recommended for both boys and girls going through change. Oh. Here. Let me. Hold on. Let me just go to Google. Oh, you're typing it into Google image? That's good. I'm just going to go to Google and Google teen. Okay. No. Stop. Stop. And see what. Oh. What is a teen facial? Teen facial. Hand and stone massage and facial. Thank you. Look at this. The first. I'm not looking. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. The first ten results on the Google are all about exactly this sort of massage.
Vic00:54:57Thank you, JVL. When the show's over, take off the filter.
JVL00:54:59What was number two?
Vic00:55:02Oh. Oh. A false advertising. A total letdown. I got this. You know you get catalogs. Catalogs in the mail. What? Tons. Catalogs. What's a catalog? Catalogs in the mail. I got so excited when this. I'm sorry, Grandpa. Is this from Sears? Well, this one I thought was gonna be really good.
?00:55:18Look at what it's called.
Vic00:55:19It's called. It's called Cherry Republic. I ripped this thing open, and it's like food and stuff. What?
JVL00:55:29What did you think it was gonna be, Victorino?
Vic00:55:31I'm sure it's.
Sonny00:55:33I'm sorry. You're telling me you're not interested in a catalog full of like processed foods? They do. I find that hard to believe. It's all bad expectations.
JVL00:55:41I feel.
Vic00:55:42Thank you.
?00:55:43I'm sure it's fine.
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