#28. The Lion King, Top Gun 2, and Stealing Salad
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Sonny brings the sharpest knife to The Lion King, and his analogy is worth rewinding for: a good editor cuts 20 or 30 percent and you can't tell what's missing, so the sign of a bad movie is adding 20 or 30 percent to the exact same film and still having no idea what the additions are — the 1994 original ran a tight 90 minutes, this one is 120, and apart from a rolling ball of giraffe dung he cannot name a single new scene. He also rejects the photorealism on principle, arguing the whole point of animation is caricature that exaggerates what's great about a creature, and that the film only works when it stops talking and plays as a nature documentary; his one real piece of praise is the hyenas, whose grotesque design and voice work are the best thing in the picture, while Chiwetel Ejiofor's Scar simply evaporates next to Jeremy Irons. JVL grants that the effects are amazing but calls the movie "both pedestrian and grandiose," and reports a packed matinee of 200 or 300 people sitting in stone silence, even through the Beauty and the Beast gag; he's brutal on Beyoncé (still holding her Austin Powers performance against her), on Donald Glover, and on James Earl Jones, who "sounds old and weak as Mufasa." Vic, inevitably, gives it an A. The trio also spar over the box office — Disney lowballed the weekend at $185 million so it could revise up to the actual $191.7 million — and JVL floats a genuine digression on whether $200 million is becoming the new $100 million opening, which Sonny doubts, since there aren't nearly enough IMAX screens to explain it. They also chew over the newly released Top Gun: Maverick trailer, with Sonny doubting Tom Cruise can get it past $140 or $150 million domestic and JVL complaining the trailer hits the nostalgia beats far too hard. Elsewhere: Keurig pod etiquette (JVL insists on removing the spent K-cup, comparing it to flushing a public toilet), Vic's gout apparently cured by the prayers of a listener who is a Carmelite brother, a loving turn-by-turn report on playing Axis & Allies D-Day with his son that lands on the greatest transition in show history, and a long tribunal over whether taking two free mochi and an unbilled portion of extra chicken counts as stealing.
From the show notes
#cdata-section -------------- In this latest episode, sponsored by DoorDash, we review The Lion King remake—was there really a need? Sonn...
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Sub- Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance Sub- While others search for what they can take, a true king searches for what he can give
Vic00:00:30Sub- Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon, sponsored by DoorDash. I'm Victor Matus along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. I'd like to remind you the Sub-Beacon is available on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher. Just look under podcasts, search for Sub-Beacon, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. Gentlemen, how are we? Sonny, what's going on?
Sonny00:00:57Not a whole lot. I got a haircut. JVL mentioned my haircut. Yeah, two haircuts in six weeks, which is like... Yeah, it's bizarre. That is a, it's a very, that's very, usually I'm, I'm the sort of person who, it's funny, I was reading a, like 10 years ago, I was reading an Esquire magazine. Every two weeks? And it, and they were, they were, yeah, Esquire was like, at a certain point, at a certain age, you achieve certain, like, life goals. These are things that, so like, one of them was, you know, like, by, by the age of 25, have a custom fitted suit or something. Like, okay, guys, we're not all, you know, Hollywood. What was I saying? What was I saying? Making a, making a jerk-off motion over here. I didn't get my first custom suit until I was, like, 35. Yeah, exactly. I still don't have mine, so, but, but the...
Vic00:01:38You mean, like, from Brooks Brothers or, like, a tailored thing? No, for my tail. Oh, I'm not rich like you. I don't have that. Sorry, continue, Sonny.
Sonny00:01:44But one of them was, like, by age 30, get a haircut every, like, pick a haircut style and get your haircut every two weeks or three weeks or something like that, so it always looks the same. And I've never subscribed to that notion at all. I basically get it, I get it cut kind of short and then let it grow... For months. Really long. For months.
JVL00:01:59What has your longest interval been?
Sonny00:02:02Well, it was probably, I mean, it was probably after my hairdresser died. I went, like, six or seven months without getting a haircut. You look like Harry. Because it was long. It was long, yeah.
Vic00:02:09You look like Eric Carman from Hungry Eyes. Yeah. You ever see that? I don't know what that means. I don't understand that. Like Richard Marks. I don't understand that.
Sonny00:02:15Like Richard Marks, a large mane. So, you know, twice in six weeks, big change for me, big change.
JVL00:02:22What sort of product are you putting in? Because you've got a sort of wave action going on at the front.
Sonny00:02:26It's American Crew. Oh, American Crew. Of course. Is it the paste? It's the blue top. I don't know what it is, actually, but it's the American Crew with the blue, I don't know. It's not gloss. It's clearly a matte. I don't know. It's definitely a matte. It's not a gloss.
Vic00:02:41For years, Kate was always correcting me because I always referred to any hair product as mousse.
Sonny00:02:46But it hasn't been mousse since 1986. All right, Zach Morris. Sorry.
Vic00:02:50Yes, mousse. Okay. Well, good for you, Sonny.
Sonny00:02:53Yeah. Anyway, that's what's going on in my world, haircut.
Vic00:02:54I, you know, I was always jealous. You always hear about, like, you know, like, well, not the current price. President probably, but they, you know, President's General, you get, like, a hair, they get haircuts whenever they want, and it may be every week that they're, I mean, it's never off. Never. You know, it's just always right. There's not, I mean, it's just always right. I'm jealous about that. If you were, if you were, like, a. Amazing. That sounds amazing.
Sonny00:03:14If you were, if you were a hairdresser slash barber for the president, and you were, you had to keep it at a certain level, a certain very precise, you know, always, would you ever, do you think you were ever, like, struck by the urge to do a little bit? You know how, like, when you're an editor, right, and you're given a piece, and you're like, I gotta, I gotta find something to edit here. I have to, like, tweak something. Is that what the hairdresser is like? Is that what the barber is thinking? Like, I gotta, I gotta cut something here.
JVL00:03:40It's like trimming a bonsai tree.
Sonny00:03:42Just a little bit.
JVL00:03:43Right? Just a little bit. Well, if that's what you call it.
Vic00:03:46JVL, what's going, what's going on with you?
JVL00:03:49It was a big weekend. I'm very tired. I'm, I'm so tired. Tell us about it. That I am drinking Keurig coffee.
Vic00:03:57I believe this is the special. This is the special.
?00:03:59Keurig. Keurig.
Vic00:03:59This is the special bacteria blend. Oh, yeah. Well, we clean it about once a year. No, actually, we don't.
JVL00:04:05I'm so tired that when I went over to your office, Keurig, I opened it and there was another used pod just sitting there, just cooking. Oh, it was cooking. That's right. That was probably mine. And I, I'm so desperate for caffeine that I was just like, okay. Pulled it out, tossed it, popped a new one in. That was Father Harrison's. Question. Go ahead.
Sonny00:04:27What is the preferred caffeine? What is the preferred Keurig etiquette? Is it to take out the pod that you have just brewed? Yes. Or is it to leave it in and let the next person take it out? No, no, no, no. I learned this from JVL. No, no. So here's my point. My point is that it's not like you have, it's not like the Keurig has any sort of your leavings on it. It's just a, it's just a thing in a, in a, in a pod that has water run through it, right?
JVL00:04:53In a public restroom after you dropped a massive deuce. No, that's not the same thing. That's not the same thing. Should you flush it? That's not the same thing at all. Or should you leave it? Not, not, not at all. Leave it to stew. Leave it to stew for the next person. Not at all the same thing.
Sonny00:05:06Because either way, either way, you have to, either way, somebody is taking a pod out of the thing. I think leaving it there is the correct thing to do because it will cool down by the time the next person comes. You don't burn your fingers when you take it out. You don't burn your fingers when you take it out. It's too hot. It's too hot. Maybe for you. It's too hot.
JVL00:05:22You take the edges. The reason you take it out, right? So do you know, do you know what makes coffee? Do you know, do you know what it is that may, turns the water from water into coffee? Coffee grounds. Right. But it's the oils. The oils from the coffee grounds mixing with the heat and the water. The heat extracts the oils from the grinds.
Vic00:05:40Sure.
JVL00:05:40Right? Right. Heat and oils gather together to make an amazing substrate for bacteria. Okay. And so if you leave the oil reservoir that is the K-cup in there. But it's still going to be the moisture. It keeps heating and heating and heating.
Vic00:05:55It doesn't keep heating.
Sonny00:05:56It stops. It stops. It stops heating.
JVL00:05:57But it's all warm. And so what you want to do is remove the substrate so that it is at least nominally clean and hygienic. But it's not clean and hygienic though. It's close enough. Is the thing. It allows us to pretend. It's not. Look, a public toilet isn't clean and hygienic either. It's not clean. But if somebody flushed, at least you can tell yourself, it's okay. Thank you.
Sonny00:06:18I still don't think this is a very good analogy. I think it's the perfect analogy. It's not a good analogy at all.
JVL00:06:22I'm doing fine. I have two things. One. Do I get nothing for the brown trout? I do. Nothing?
Sonny00:06:29No, I thought. I did it just for you. I'm actually. I'm probably going to take that out. I'm going to delete it. The loaf.
Vic00:06:35The loaf. Okay. Yes. I'm doing fine. I have two things. One, really quickly. People are asking me for one reason or another about gout and gout watch and how things were going. After the weekend, I had a lot of, I was drinking a lot, but particularly just to be social because I didn't want to drink a lot of alcohol. I was drinking beer. Were you drinking a lot at my house? No, no, no. By then I was good. Prior to that, I was at my in-laws and of course there was beer there, but it was Michelob Ultra. So I don't think that really counts. But nevertheless. It's basically water. Is that beer? Nevertheless. It's got electrolytes. To our friends who listen from Anheuser-Busch, it's definitely beer, but it's got the beer elements, the yeasty elements. So sure enough, the twinge came back. The twinge. Not for a while. I said, oh no, I got to start drinking water and maybe I don't know what. I said, do I take some? Pain relievers or allopurinol, whatever. And somebody. Did you find some cherry juice? Somebody asked on Twitter, how's the gout? And you know what it was? It was a listener named the Frank Fryer, who is a Carmelite brother. And I said to him, pray for me because it's back. And you know what? It went away that night. Like a miracle.
JVL00:07:47I think for, so if the Frank Fryer is listening, that's one miracle, two more to go. Yeah. That's it.
Vic00:07:52That's all you need. And it counts. Start investigating. The second thing is. So the kids are back and the wife is back. Everything's back. But I wanted to, again, thank Tim, Timothy Lewis for. Time out with Tim Lewis. Yes. Thank you. Axis and Allies D-Day Edition. My son and I played it. Oh, I need a full report. How was it? Oh, it was so good. So first of all, let me just say this. Who did you play as? Excuse me. I said to my son, who do you want to be? I let you choose first. And he said, maybe I'll be. I said, the Allies. You want to be the Allies? Okay, fine. I guess you want to be the Allies. Fine. I'll do it that way.
JVL00:08:27I don't want to be the Wehrmacht, but I'll take it. You did it for him. I did it for him. The things we do for our children.
Vic00:08:32There are a lot more similarities than not with the original game. The numbers are different. Defends and things. There's some differences, but you're still rolling all the dice.
JVL00:08:41Is the map just like Star Green Beach?
Vic00:08:44It is a close-up of northern France. So on the far west is Cherbourg, and then all the way on the far right is, you know, you don't see Calais, actually. So it's really the close-up of the different beaches. What units do you get? You get infantry and artillery. The British and the Americans have howitzers. The Germans have the 88s. Ooh, the 88s are better, right?
JVL00:09:08Yes.
Vic00:09:09The Germans have the Panzers, of course, and the Americans have the Shermans. And then there are Spitfires. P-38s, the P-38s for the Americans, B-17s, bombers. The Germans have no air cover. None? None.
JVL00:09:25The Luftwaffe, by then, they're all in the east, you know, so there's no cover.
Vic00:09:31So basically, the objective, to speed things along here, is the Allies have to be able to— Don't speed things along. We could do an hour on this. I know, really.
JVL00:09:40No, we couldn't. No, we could not.
Vic00:09:42They have to control three cities, Cherbourg, St. Lowe, and Caen, for an entire turn. Okay. An entire turn. The Allies have 10 turns to win. But that's it. That's a 10-turn game, so this is a short game. It is, but each turn is long, there's movement, and there's bombardment. An hour?
JVL00:09:59Would you call it an hour for a game?
Vic00:10:01It took us a couple days.
JVL00:10:03For one game.
Vic00:10:04For one game. But, you know, I mean, the game is on the rug, and I'm sitting there, and my back is hurting, my knees are hurting, so I gotta take a break, walk around.
Sonny00:10:11Who was the real hero of D-Day? Some people say it was the guys who stormed Normandy. I say it's Vic Matus. Thank you.
Vic00:10:18I—we both saw it. My son and I both made tactical errors. I mined early on. I just left Caen completely open, you know?
JVL00:10:25So they just swept right in. Well, you're gonna consolidate your defense.
Vic00:10:28That's what I was doing, and then also—but my other big problem was supply lines.
JVL00:10:33Oh, logistics.
Vic00:10:34So he was very smart. My son started putting air cover through, you know, in order to block me from moving, because every time you go in, they can strafe and, you know, wipe out half your units, the whole thing. So at the very end, I thought I was done for, and it came down to— Research and development? No, they don't have that. But it came down to St. Lowe. So all my forces were there. We held firm, and we lasted. We lasted for the 10 turns.
JVL00:10:57So you won.
Vic00:10:59So it was a happy ending. I'm not gonna say that, but I will say this. It was weird playing with him, because, of course, you know, you and I were about the same age. When I got attacked, I was like his—I was 11, and I loved that game, and now he's loving the game, and I'm playing with him, and it was just very weird. But you know what they say? It's the circle of life. That's what they say.
JVL00:11:17That may be the greatest transition ever. Sonny is unfazed. A plus. Sonny is unfazed. Plus.
Sonny00:11:23Well, the problem is— I didn't know why you wanted to talk about the Top Gun trailer at the end of the show, because you didn't want to interrupt this transition, which makes a lot of sense, frankly.
JVL00:11:37We could talk about it after box office talk.
Sonny00:11:39When JVL said that he wanted to talk about Top Gun, you were like, let's talk about it after The Lion King. I was like, well, that's a weird place to talk about it. We should talk—it's a trailer. We should talk about it before the feature.
Vic00:11:50A trailer about it before the feature.
Sonny00:11:51We should talk about it before the feature. But now you know why. But then when I suggested— When I suggested that, you had a look of disgust on your face that was unusual. You're ruined. You noticed my face? This is what your face looked like. I was like, wow, Vic is really angry. I don't understand why he's so mad. But it's because you had this great transition. You had this great transition that we haven't stepped on at all.
Vic00:12:13No. Amazing. In fact, I actually never played the game with my son. I made the whole lot just for the transition. I didn't even have a son. I didn't even have a son. I didn't have a son. Okay. Over the weekend, The Lion King was— King of the box office, taking the top spot with $185 million, followed by Spider-Man Far From Home with $21 million, and in third place, Toy Story 4 with $14.6 million. Box office thought, Avengers. Are those numbers down?
JVL00:12:41Revised down? Are they lower? No, no. Are they revised down? Because I had seen $192.
Sonny00:12:45The final weekend figure for The Lion King was $191.7.
JVL00:12:50Oof. Oh, okay.
Sonny00:12:52That was the actual. That was the actual. What did you say? $191.7. $185. Vic, you realize that, once again, we're taping this on Wednesday. Okay, I'm pulling the curtain back a little bit here. We're taping this on Wednesday. No, no, no, no. Don't pull that curtain back. When you put together the box office figures and you use the numbers, the estimates, those are often changed slightly one way or the other. Over a couple days. The $185 figure that Disney gave was a low ball, so they could revise it upwards when the actuals came in. Most of the other studios were saying $192. So, just, again, when we're talking about the box office figures and it's not Monday,
Vic00:13:34and we're not taping this on a Monday, you can use better data than the data that you use. Once I prepare the script, I don't change it? No, you don't lock it down. You put it in a vault. I put it in a vault. And number two, I mean, I don't really care, but you're clearly more into movies. You should just get a job in the movies.
JVL00:13:51Do you write your script on red paper? So that nobody can make photocopies of it when it's in the safe?
Vic00:13:58Yeah, that's right.
JVL00:13:58So that we could use it. Absolutely.
Vic00:13:59No, okay. So, box office thoughts, the Avengers, it happened. Who was closest? It happened.
JVL00:14:03Who was closest to the pin?
Sonny00:14:05I don't know.
Vic00:14:05Who was? What? You said it.
JVL00:14:07This guy. I believe I said 192 or 195. I think he said 195.
Sonny00:14:12But you went over, so you lose. I guess that's true. So, Vic wins. Vic wins. Vic wins with his $1.
Vic00:14:17I said $1. I think I said $60 million. Okay.
Sonny00:14:21I think I said, what did I say? $200? Anyway, the point is, it made a lot of sense. It made a ton of money. It made so much money. Avengers, Endgame.
Vic00:14:28It happened. It's done.
Sonny00:14:29It's over.
Vic00:14:30It's past. It's past.
Sonny00:14:32It's now the best movie of all time. Yeah. Avengers, Endgame is now officially the greatest film that was ever made.
JVL00:14:38By the bunch theorem.
Sonny00:14:40Yes. Well, that mostly only applies to restaurants.
Vic00:14:43It only applies to Subway, but Subway's cutting back, so you know what that means. It's not as good. People realize that's not as good.
Sonny00:14:48Oh, I sent you the picture of the Poke Bar, Sonny. The Poke Bowl. You saw that. They're running out of stuff. Wait, wait. So, I wasn't 100% sure what was going on there. They were out of salmon. They were out of salmon.
Vic00:14:56They were out of brown rice.
Sonny00:14:57I have to say, I'm not 100% sure that that is a winning business model there with the fish that's just sitting out sometimes.
Vic00:15:06Yeah, the Bourdain rule. I'm not going to the Poke Bowl on Monday, and I heard the manager speaking very loudly to clearly a supplier or something, and it was a lot of tension. Yeah. And you know what? I bet that guy yells really well.
Sonny00:15:20He looks like it. Yeah, the manager. The manager, very nice guy. When I was working in Roslyn, I would go to the Poke Bowl a couple times a week. Very nice guy. But he looks very much like somebody in the Jersey Shore who would just start yelling at you if you crossed him. So I feel bad for that supplier.
Vic00:15:39I was actually so, I was kind of annoyed by, I don't know, either the fact that they had no salmon or that I thought I should have gotten more in my bowl. They had a thing where they said, okay. Why not both? If you get medium, you get a free one mochi, mochi, ice cream thing. I took two.
Sonny00:15:54So you stole.
Vic00:15:56No, I think things are even now. You stole. I'm just saying they charged more than they should. So we're even. So you stole. Vigilante justice.
Sonny00:16:03You were offered one and you took two.
Vic00:16:06The other day at Sweetgreen, just yesterday.
Sonny00:16:10It's a good thing there's a priest here in the office. You can confess. Confess your sins.
Vic00:16:14It's not a sin. It's not a sin. I'm just making things run in the Ten Commandments anywhere. Stealing isn't a sin. Sonny, they've been stealing from me and just putting up fake numbers there for the price. It's not the price. At Sweetgreen, I got. I got the salad with extra chicken and the lady says to me, okay, but it costs extra for the extra chicken. I said, that's fine. She forgot to tell the cashier. I got it for the regular price.
Sonny00:16:34Once again, that's stealing.
JVL00:16:35And you didn't tell them, no, there's extra chicken in there?
Vic00:16:37I'm not paying $14 for a salad. I'm incensed. I said, no.
JVL00:16:40I said, we're even now.
Vic00:16:42Well, then why did you? You were willing to pay $14 for this.
Sonny00:16:44Yeah, that's true.
Vic00:16:45Yeah.
Sonny00:16:45But I didn't. But you didn't. So you stole.
Vic00:16:47Mm-mm. They charge too much as it is. That's a question. It's a mistake in their favor. They charge too much as it is. They're stealing from me. Question. It's a rip-off.
Sonny00:16:56In your career as an eater of food, how much would you say you've stolen from restaurants over the years?
Vic00:17:05I don't even know what that question means. It's just the skin. I don't know what that question means. Do you want to talk about the Top Gun trailer? Do you want to talk about it now? Go ahead.
JVL00:17:12No, I think we should move it back.
Vic00:17:14Oh, okay.
JVL00:17:14You want to do it after the line? Yeah, I think maybe we should do it.
Vic00:17:17Okay.
JVL00:17:18Has the show gone off the rails? I'm sort of all of a sudden Victorino is the commie who is seizing the means of production. I don't know what that question means. What? These restauranteurs claim they own the food.
Vic00:17:27We the workers own the food. The salad thing is a racket, man. I'm just saying. The salad thing is a racket.
Sonny00:17:33You could get cheaper salads. You could get cheaper salads. Oh, like from McDonald's? You could make your own salads and bring them in. I could. I could. And bring them in. One B is good. You prefer the higher quality, more filling.
Vic00:17:49Mesclun.
JVL00:17:50Micromesclun.
Sonny00:17:51Micromesclun. But then you steal. Then you steal from hard-working small businesses.
JVL00:17:57I say we're even. Thou shalt not. What? What? Thou shalt not overcharge for salad. Thank you, JVL. That's what it says. Thou shalt not charge for oversalad.
Vic00:18:06And if they do, try to get as much out of it as you can.
Sonny00:18:09Look, it's a strange translation. It's not the King James. The original Aramaic. Right.
Vic00:18:14We'll have to ask Father later.
Sonny00:18:16If you look at the Hebrew on the tablets that came down from Mount Sinai, it actually says thou shalt not steal from the customers by charging. By charging them double for extra chicken. And that has been interpreted over the years to mean thou shalt not steal. But really, the full text there. Yes.
Vic00:18:31Much like the Staff of Ra, it's a different measurement if you look carefully at it and flip it over. Okay. So we don't want to. Okay.
Sonny00:18:38Box office. Box office. What's interesting about the box office to me is not so much that Disney continues to dominate everything in sight, but that they continue to have remarkably small drops on all of these movies. Yeah. What story is that? Toy Story 4 dropped only 25% in its fifth week. Let's see. Aladdin, again, continues to hang in there. Dropped only 33%. I had predicted that Aladdin would make $900 million. And? And I think it's going to get to a billion. I'm actually shocked by this.
JVL00:19:11It's because it's so good. Yeah.
Sonny00:19:13Something like that. And Avengers Endgame. Avengers Endgame down only 28%. I mean, it's interesting.
Vic00:19:21Did you... Any of you see... Because they re-released it with deleted scenes. Did you see it by any chance? No.
Sonny00:19:28What are the deleted scenes?
Vic00:19:29Why on earth would I... That's the way it is. Oh, we're going to get it back in the box office. And that's how they got it back in the box office.
JVL00:19:34Re-release it with a different ending, like Clue.
?00:19:37Yeah.
Sonny00:19:38Very good. It worked. Okay. I was obviously not old enough to see Clue in theaters. Were you guys... Did you guys go see Clue in theaters?
Vic00:19:47We were old enough, but I did not.
JVL00:19:48I was old enough to go, and I refused to go because it struck me as a jip.
Vic00:19:53How so?
JVL00:19:54Oh, you mean the different endings to go...
Vic00:19:56The idea was you got to come and pay for 20 minutes.
JVL00:19:59Because it was just the final 20 minutes were different. Pre-DVD, you got to pay every time.
Sonny00:20:05Did you also know which ending was going to be on which movie?
JVL00:20:07Yes, it was ending A, B, C. Okay. And so you would go, like the idea was I want to go see, I want a ticket to see the 9.30 showing of Clue ending A. And I just thought, I'm sorry, we got to sit through... I was like eight years old at the time, I think. And even I thought... This is the moment that radicalized you.
Sonny00:20:25This is the moment that radicalized you against the system of capitalism. The evils of capitalism.
JVL00:20:30I have a long box office digression I want to talk about. Can I make one more? Can I ask one more Clue question?
Sonny00:20:36So when I... It's not really a question, just a statement. When I was growing up, I watched Clue on VHS and on cable. And in those versions, it's just all three endings at the end. It's just like you get one after the other. And they'll go backwards. So the whole story goes through and it does one of the endings. And then there's a title card that says, that's how it could have ended. Or it could have ended like this. And then it does another one. And then it's like, but this is how it really ended. And it was the Tim Curry is the bad guy. Yes, that was the real ending. That was the correct solution.
JVL00:21:11With the rope in the library or something.
Vic00:21:13Wow. JVL, you had deeper box office thoughts.
JVL00:21:17I had deeper box office thoughts. But I wasn't sure if we wanted to have them as part of the box office or we wanted to move them to the Lion King. Whatever you want to do. Do you have a... No. Okay, so I have a question, which is whether or not we are moving to the point where a $200 million three-day weekend is the new $100 million three-day weekend. Because the $100 million three-day weekend is a reasonably new thing. Prior to 2004, 2005, only one movie had ever done it. And once you hit 2004, 2005, that becomes the sort of gold standard for like a really big opening. So a movie like Shrek 2 or Goblet of Fire or Revenge of the Sith, things that are just going to be really monster movies, they open to like just over $100 million. And that became the status quo for like 14, 15 years until we get to 2017, 2018, when all of a sudden really big movies like Infinity War or Jurassic World or Black Panther are doing over $200 million. And I wonder if that is now just where we are. And there will be structural reasons for why this is. So this is, I went back and looked at this. It is not screen count. So if you go back and you look in the early days, like Shrek 2, Shrek 2 is doing, what is it? I have it here somewhere. Something like $108 million on 4,100 screens. The new movies are doing, $200 million on somewhere between 4,000 and 4,500 screens. It's all because of the IMAX and the 3D. And then because of viewing habits. So it is both an advertising thing where they are literally moving more people into opening weekend. And then the 50% premium that they get to charge on IMAX 3D. Because that's what it is. Your normal movie ticket is going to be about $11 and your IMAX 3D ticket is $20.
Sonny00:23:20Yes, the problem with, theory is that there are still a very small number of IMAX screens. There aren't nearly enough IMAX screens to make up the difference here.
JVL00:23:28Yes, that's what I'm saying. It's both that plus they've changed audience habits via advertising, I assume.
Sonny00:23:36Yeah, I mean, I'm just trying to think if $200 million is actually the figure. I think, I would say a big opening is still in the like $150 to $175 range. I mean, $200 is like an extreme opening. And then you have like, I mean, look, all of these are peanuts compared to Avengers Endgame, which opened at, what, $350 million over the three-day weekend? So I think the number is probably not quite at $200 million yet, but yeah, I think we're getting there.
JVL00:24:13And that this then is a conscious decision on the part of the studios that they want to, because as I said, because it isn't just structural factors, it is then they have decided they want to spend the money to move audience behavior to front-load the movies more. Is that good long-term for them or no? You spend a lot of time thinking about economics.
Sonny00:24:37It is good in the sense that it makes some of these movies totally critic-proof, like, for instance, The Lion King, which is 50% fresh and grossed $200 million in its first weekend, or $192 million to whatever. I would be kind of curious to see what the hold is on that. It is good business in the sense that I guess a question is, are they trying to dangerously ape the Netflix model of capturing eyeballs over a very short period of time? But, I mean, it's hard to argue. So the question is, what happens when they try to do this, when they fail? Right. Right, so what happens to the movies that they spend $150 million to advertise and only gross $60 or $70 million on their opening weekend? Which I think happens more frequently than getting to $190 million or $200 million. And it is within our lifetimes,
JVL00:25:36in fact, within our adult lifetimes, that a $60 million opening was enormous.
Sonny00:25:39Yes.
JVL00:25:40When Vic and I were 22, if a movie opened at $60 million, that was a very big movie, and now it's a failure.
Sonny00:25:46Well, this is, I mean, at a certain level. This is kind of part and parcel with the thing that we've been seeing for the last few years, which is a total stratification of the big blockbusters, right? You have the movies that gross between $300 and $600 million. There's like five or six of those a year. And then you have basically a ton of movies that gross under $100 million, and very few that gross in the $150 to $250 million range. You know, a handful, one or two. And it is, I can't imagine that that's a healthy way. It's certainly not a healthy way to build blockbusters. You don't need a movie to gross $150 million to be profitable if you make the movie cheap enough. But if everything costs, you know, $200 million to make and another $150 million to advertise, then you've got to gross $700 million on a movie like that.
JVL00:26:32Like Dark Phoenix did, right?
Sonny00:26:34Exactly, exactly like Dark Phoenix.
JVL00:26:36All right, well, maybe this is too much in the weeds. I just, I thought this was an interesting digression and that it's, I think, indicative of us heading to another inflection point on all this stuff.
Sonny00:26:45Well, what's the next inflection point then?
JVL00:26:48Where the $200 million then becomes the standard that everybody is shooting for
Sonny00:26:52and we judge movies as succeeding. But are we not there? I mean, I thought your point was we are there already. It was a question. Yeah, it was a question. Question, are we there yet? Yeah, I think we're not quite there yet, but I do think that like, I think like $150 million is the minimum for a like, to be considered a great opening.
JVL00:27:10Yeah, I mean, you can now, you can now gross $130 million and have it be a disappointment in your opening weekend, right? I mean, if the movie is big enough and you advertised heavy enough, $130 can be like, you know, that's weird. It is weird. All right.
Vic00:27:24I remember thinking a $20 drink would be outrageous and ridiculous. No one ever paid $20 for a drink. Cocktail, you mean? Cocktail, yeah, but it's happening.
Sonny00:27:30I mean, $20 soda at a movie theater.
Vic00:27:32That makes sense. I'm going to get to that in a little bit. Okay, Lion King. Did you see it, JVL? I saw it. Oh, good. Sonny did? I did. You did, that's right. Did anyone else see it? I saw it. Maybe somebody else saw it. On work release. The Lion King is back and the special effects are enough to give one pause. Donald Glover gives a ferocious performance as Simba. It also has Beyonce and you know who'll want to see Beyonce, Jonathan? Who? All the single ladies.
Sonny00:28:20That's barely even a pun.
JVL00:28:22I love it, it chills.
Vic00:28:24But did we really need a remake? Compared to the original, this Lion King left me catatonic. Not really, I just wanted to say that. Four stars. Was it a catastrophe? It was a catastrophe. The Lion King, however, will fill you with pride. You missed this, by the way. I love it. I love the whole thing. It's part Arch Campbell, it's part Arch Campbell.
JVL00:28:50Best Gene ever. You like that?
Vic00:28:52Best Gene ever. Okay, how about our real review, Sonny Bunch? How do you review this movie?
Sonny00:28:57I don't know. Have you seen the original Lion King? Because if you've seen the original Lion King, you basically have seen this one, except this one is longer, and I'm not entirely sure where it is longer. So here's, this is kind of my analogy for the Lion King. When you're an editor, and you're dealing with a writer, it is always good to review and it's good to hear back from the writer, I don't know what you took out. That's the whole point. The story reads the same to me, but it's about 20% shorter, I don't know what you took out. And sometimes I will submit a piece to an editor, and they take about 20, 30% out, and I don't really know what they've cut out. Sign of a good editor. So if the sign of a good editor is to take 20 or 30%, and you don't know what you're missing, the sign of a bad movie is when you take the exact same movie and you add 20 or 30% to it, and you have no idea what the additions are. Because that's exactly how I feel about The Lion King.
Vic00:29:58I gotta rewind, everybody rewind and listen to that again, because it's worth dwelling on.
Sonny00:30:04The original Lion King is 90 minutes long, it's tight, it's animated, it's fun, it moves from beat to beat, I like it a lot, I know JVL's not a big fan, but whatever. It's a 90 minute animated film. The new one is 100%. It's 120 minutes long somehow, and except for a rolling ball of giraffe poop, I literally cannot think of an added scene. That was it. There are no real additions to the movie, it's just everything plays on about 20% longer than it needs to compared to the original, which is deeply frustrating for me as an editor, but also as a filmgoer and a film watcher and a film reviewer. It's like, why is this, why is this, and it's not like, I mean, the beauty and the beast remake, right, was longer. The beauty and the beast remake was 20 or 30 minutes longer, but they added songs and like you could see, you had a sense of what they were doing and why it was longer. You got more backstory on Belle and her family. This is just, it's just longer. It just is like, it just keeps going and the scenes don't quite end and the beats are missed and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, from a storytelling perspective, that is what is wrong with the movie. From a visual perspective, what is wrong from the, with the movie is that the whole photo realism thing does not work. It looks, it's not that it looks like the uncanny valley because when everything is like, when, when the movie looks like a nature documentary that could be narrated by Richard Attenborough, it looks fine. Like when the ants are running along or, you know, like there, there are little moments that are like, oh, that, that's a nice little, or when the mouse is, when the mouse, when Scar's trying to catch that mouse, you know, and the mouse is just kind of running. I was like, okay, this is like a nice little nature documentary. Style look. Um, but it, when they start talking, it's weird and grotesque and I don't like it. My eyes don't like it. My brain doesn't like it. Um, and, and the whole point of animation, a whole bunch of other people have made this point. I'm stealing from them. The whole point of animation is to create caricatures that emphasize features that highlight what is, what is great and, and, or bad about a certain creature. Right? So like the animated lion King, the lions have their big fluffy manes and they're, you know, they've got big. Expressive eyes, except for scar who has his narrow evil eyes. And like a, and it, it just, it kind of gets, the whole thing looks better. It just makes more sense visually. And this whole photo realism thing, it just looks weird. And, and realism is not what we want from animation. It's just not what we want. Like, I don't like it. I don't want it.
Vic00:32:39I, for me, the thing was, I didn't think it was that big of a deal because they get the animals and then they just put voices to the animals. Right. That's what they did. They, they go out in the wild. It's like, you see these documentaries and Nat Geo, where they just follow the animals around and every time they open their mouth, then they just add dialogue. That's basically what they had to shoot a lot.
JVL00:32:59The number of hours they had to shoot to get everything.
Vic00:33:02I mean, some interesting, how did they get there?
JVL00:33:03Like 12 years at the trainers, I will give an award to shoot the lion king to wait for
Vic00:33:09the right moment for them to do the weird things. And then they can say, Hey, what's that smell or whatever. You know, that's, that's, that's interesting. It's impressive.
JVL00:33:16Do you remember the first time we had mass culture animals talking? Yeah. Remind me, remind me. I was thinking about a beer commercial during the Superbowl, I think like 16 years ago or something where all of a sudden, like the jaws are moving on the llama or something. Do you remember this? Yes. Yeah. And now we're making feature films that gross $192 million on the same concept.
Sonny00:33:40The one thing, my one piece of praise. The one thing I will say is that I think the design of the hyenas on this is much better. It was scary. Because it makes them actually terrifying. Like hyenas are disgusting animals and the way that they are scary and terrifying and grotesque in this movie is I think a better use of the photo realism than the cartoonish kind of funny version of them from the original cartoon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I will say like when they're on the screen, like when all the, the hyena stuff is the best stuff in the movie by far. I would actually much rather watch a movie about the hyenas, frankly.
JVL00:34:15The hyenas are the real heroes.
Sonny00:34:17Well, one, there is a, there is an interesting argument to be made about the, the, the nature of the story being told in Lion King, which is really a story about how filthy outsiders will destroy your homeland. But, uh, that's entirely true. I mean, it's literally, that's, that's not even like, that's not even subtext. That's the text of the film.
JVL00:34:36They're going to build a wall and the hyenas are going to pay for it.
Sonny00:34:38The text, the text of the film is if you let these filthy outsiders into your home, into the pride lands, they will destroy. Uh, everything they touch. So, I mean, that is like that again, not only do is eat and take not, not subtext, just text.
JVL00:34:54That is, that is exactly true.
Vic00:34:57You know, one of the lions actually wanted to offer the hyenas all free healthcare too. You know, what I, what I don't, and this is thinking too deeply about it, obviously.
JVL00:35:06Um, why is it that the circle of life does not include the hyenas, right?
Vic00:35:13Why if everything is precious, they're like on the outside of the circle.
JVL00:35:16We are all, you know, we, we are all doing our own part and we are all sort of, we eat and be eaten. Right to the tiny caterpillars.
Sonny00:35:23Down to the tiny caterpillars. It's, it's pretty, it's pretty convenient for the lions, the circle of life.
JVL00:35:27Isn't it though? Yeah. No, hey, we just get to be the apex predators and then we die and then we are melted to the ground. We turn into grass. Melted to the ground. Really? Wait a minute. Hold on a minute. Isn't this species? But the other, the other, my, I don't know. Are you trying to get to an ad read here? That doesn't matter.
Vic00:35:42I can add it. I can, it can go anytime. So, so I, I have.
JVL00:35:46I'm perpetually bothered by anthropomorphization of animals in film because there's always then some dividing line at which some animals are ensouled and some animals are just not. And this, like everybody's got feelings and is talking except for the insects and the insects just get like, Hey, it's funny that they're eating and murdering the insects, right?
Vic00:36:10They don't have, Hey, here's this fat grub caterpillar.
JVL00:36:14I'm like, wait a minute. I just saw the bee movie. And that insect has a whole entire interior life. It's a bug's life.
Vic00:36:19It's a bug's life. And he was about to become a butterfly.
Sonny00:36:21The Lion King from a perspective of a grub. It's just like 60 minutes of black and then blinding light and then, and then you're dead.
JVL00:36:30So, but this is a thing which as a kid always did actually sort of bother me that the, don't
Vic00:36:36they have like what? Yeah.
JVL00:36:37Well, once you, once you start insouling the, the animals, once you stop dividing the line between people and animals, then there is. There is some other level of animal, which you are othering and which winds up as just food, you know?
Vic00:36:51Right. Right.
JVL00:36:52And I, it, I don't know.
Vic00:36:54I would say Seth Rogen makes the movie. I think without him, it would be a lot less. But I hear this. What was that? Who did that noise come from? You or you? Which one?
Sonny00:37:03Between, between Seth Rogen. I thought it was pretty good. Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner. Seth Rogen is less annoying than Billy Eichner.
Vic00:37:08That is, no, I would have preferred, I would have preferred Nathan Lane.
Sonny00:37:11No, the, the, the, the best, the best voice work in the movie. Wasn't he the original? The best voice work in the movie. Yeah, it was. Nathan Lane and.
Vic00:37:19Yeah.
Sonny00:37:19Who was the other guy? Was it? Robin Williams.
JVL00:37:23Was it Matthew Broderick? Oh, I'll look it up. You guys talk. Okay.
Sonny00:37:27Anyway, the, the best, the best voice work in the, hold on, I'm actually going to look it up. The best voice work in the movie is done by the hyenas. So once again.
Vic00:37:38I don't know her name. Why isn't Peele there?
Sonny00:37:40Well, so I actually thought it was Key and Peele, but it's not, it's Key and Andre. It's Key and Eric Andre. Um, but again. And then the lead hyena. And then the lead hyena. She's great. Uh, is, is great. Terrifying. And. The whole thing. The teeth. It's perfect. Just, just really, really well done. Uh, uh, Shenzi. Isn't that the, is that, isn't that the, the head?
Vic00:38:03Well, I thought it was Serafina, but maybe not. I don't know. I get confused. I'm sorry.
JVL00:38:06Wait, who, I'm sorry. Which character did you, were you asking about from the original? Pumbaa. Pumbaa. Tim, Timon and Pumbaa. Ernie Sabia, Sabella? Oh. Pumbaa. Oh. Okay.
Sonny00:38:16Was Matthew Broderick in the movie? He voiced something.
JVL00:38:18Matthew Broderick was Simba. Oh. And, uh. Really? Robert, Robert Guillaume was, was in, was in Ezra Fiki. The great Robert Guillaume. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. No, of course. I love Robert Guillaume. Benson. I love Benson.
Vic00:38:31Okay. So, you were saying.
Sonny00:38:33Uh, anyway, I, all I was saying was that the, the hyena voices I thought were very good. The head hyena with the kind of, uh, uh, I don't know, the accent, whatever accent that is. Uh, she, she was fantastic. Uh, and so much better, so much better than Tweddle Ejiofora's Scar, who just disappears on the, like, Jeremy Irons, his voice.
Vic00:38:54Oh, Jeremy Irons.
Sonny00:38:55I mean, Jeremy Irons has a perfect voice, so it's, it's maybe unfair to compare the two, but, but the, you know, his Scar kind of has a whole life of his own and, uh.
JVL00:39:05Not as bad as Beyonce.
Sonny00:39:07Beyonce delivers one of the worst line ratings.
JVL00:39:10Oh, I thought it was okay. No, she's terrible.
Vic00:39:12She was one hot lioness.
JVL00:39:14She's terrible. How about the singing?
Vic00:39:16The singing.
JVL00:39:16I am amazed that after what she did in Austin Powers 3, is that the Austin Powers movie she was in? Three gold numbers. Where she gives one of the worst performances ever allowed onto screen. That she was, I mean, they must have thought, well, you know, she'll be able to do it in a studio. I mean, we can just do take after take after take and it doesn't cost us anything. She can't read lines. And it's really, really bad.
Sonny00:39:39It's really bad.
JVL00:39:40And Donald Glover's terrible too. Now, he's saddled with a bad character because Teenage Simba is kind of, like, annoying.
Sonny00:39:44Yeah. Teenage Simba is awful. The, no, you know who else sounds bad? And this is going to be, this is heresy, but James Earl Jones. James Earl Jones sounds old. Yes. He sounded old and weak as Mufasa.
Vic00:39:57Well, it's weird because we know James Earl Jones. We know, you know, generally how old he is. When you see that relationship, it's more like grandfather and grandson than it is father and son.
JVL00:40:09No, he sounds like the James Earl Jones of Patriot Games when the Admiral is second in the hospital. That's what.
Sonny00:40:17I mean, and look, James Earl Jones is old. I feel bad saying this, but he, the, the, the, the, his voice work here bears no resemblance to the voice work from the original, which is deep and timbreous.
Vic00:40:29I noticed the same thing in Rogue One. When he speaks, it's an older Darth Vader voice.
Sonny00:40:36So anyway. Our heroes get old. They are. The icy grip of death approaches all of us.
Vic00:40:42But I, but I still liked it. I gave it an A. What? Of course you did. Are you kidding?
JVL00:40:47So here, I have a real question about this. So my, my audience. I'm not going to see it again. I want to see it fine. I saw it. Pretty packed theater. Middle of the day. Tons of kids. And I don't know. So 200 people in there. 300 people in there. Stone silence the entire time. Really? It just did not play at all.
Vic00:41:06We got chuckles, but we also had, and this is at Courthouse, a very large drunk man sitting in the back. And he talked throughout. The movie. This is supposed to be the best movie. And he repeated that four or five times. And then finally somebody said, be quiet. And then he said, you be quiet. And then all of a sudden there was a loud bang and he had fallen off his chair. And then eventually you left after you picked yourself up off the floor. By a large drunk man, I was referring to me.
Sonny00:41:35After you cinched your belt on your trench coat.
Vic00:41:38You know, that was. I don't have to take this anymore.
JVL00:41:41This movie. Where's my gout medicine? I gotta take my prednisone. Even the Beauty and the Beast callback, right? Which is the first time I think they've ever broken the wall. Oh, when they're about to sing and they don't sing.
Sonny00:41:56Yeah, the Be Our Guest, right?
Vic00:41:57The joke.
Sonny00:41:58I'm sure that is not. That's definitely not the first time they've broken that wall. For instance, in Moana, when Maui is doing a shape-shifting thing, he shape-shifts into Sven. Oh, yeah.
JVL00:42:10I guess that's right. I'm sure there are other examples. No, but those are Easter. Easter eggs. Easter eggs. As opposed to this, which is a full-on tease of the joke. And I thought, okay, so people are really going to react to that? And they didn't.
Sonny00:42:25Crickets. My audience, so I saw it with probably half critics, half non-critics at the Smithsonian IMAX, the Air and Space IMAX.
JVL00:42:36Was it a radio screening?
Sonny00:42:38It was not a radio screening. It was not a radio screening. It was a weird screening in that it was mostly critics. Friends of critics. But it was like enough non-critics that there was a lot of reaction is what I'm saying. There actually was a lot of laughing. And people enjoyed it. People seemed to really, really enjoy it. Was Jon Favreau there? He got an A from CinemaScore. I don't know. I mean, people seem to like this movie. I don't quite. I don't entirely get it.
JVL00:43:02It is both pedestrian and grandiose. It's very. I thought the effects were amazing. I thought the effects were amazing. Score on what is essentially a very pedestrian. A Hans Zimmer.
Vic00:43:13Okay. All right. Good. You mentioned this earlier about $20 sodas and such, right? Okay. So I took my kids. It was a 6 p.m. showing, meaning it doesn't start till 625. You don't get out till 830. We got three candies. Okay. M&M's, Junior Mints, Nestle Crunch, the minis, plus three small waters. Guess how much that came to. Did you have to pay for the waters?
Sonny00:43:37Did you get like the water bottles?
JVL00:43:39Yes. $47.
Sonny00:43:40Wait, hold on. So you got three small candy. I would guess that is $38.
Vic00:43:48$34. Okay. Close enough, though. Anyway, that was, I thought, way ridiculous, and I should have spent my money on something better like DoorDash. DoorDash connects you to all your favorite restaurants in your city. Ordering is easy. Just use the DoorDash app and choose what you want to eat, and your dasher will bring it right to you wherever you are. Not only is that burger place you love on DoorDash already, but over 310,000 other amazing restaurants are, too. DoorDash connects you with door-to-door delivery. In over 3,300 cities in all 50 states across the United States and Canada, order from your local go-tos or choose from your favorite chains like Chipotle, Wendy's, Chick-fil-A, the Cheesecake Factory. My kids love the Cheesecake Factory. Don't worry about dinner. Let dinner come to you with DoorDash. Right now, our listeners can get $5 off their first order or $15 or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter promo code SUBBEACON. That's $5 off your first order when you download the DoorDash app from the app store and enter promo code SUBBEACON. Again, that's promo code SUBBEACON for $5 off your first order from DoorDash. Okay. Now, how about that Top Gun trailer? I wanted to talk about it earlier, but guys, I don't know if you felt like it. So, it came out. What did you think? Sonny, I saw you were tweeting about it. What did you say?
JVL00:45:08I'm not on Twitter.com.
Sonny00:45:09I don't know. I am doubtful that this has... a huge audience in the year of our Lord, 2020. I don't... I'm not entirely sure who is waiting for an unnecessary sequel to a movie that, while beloved kind of ironically, but also like kind of genuinely...
JVL00:45:32Ironically? Who loves it ironically?
Sonny00:45:34The people who... Well, I would say there's a subculture of people who ironically love the homoeroticism of the... The beach volleyball scenes amongst other things. Playing with the boys. I just... I... Tom Cruise is not the box office draw he once was when you take him out of Mission Impossible movies. The numbers are not there. I just... I am... I don't see how this movie tops, I don't know, 140, 150 domestic.
JVL00:46:08Total?
Sonny00:46:09Yes. Total.
JVL00:46:12Well, I don't know. Yeah, it depends. It depends on the story. It depends on if it's good.
Sonny00:46:15Yeah, I don't know.
Vic00:46:16It depends on if it's good. Is the story like Goose's son becomes a pilot and then he wants to help him and sort of be a mentor to him?
Sonny00:46:21I like the director. I like Joseph Kaczynski. He did Tron Legacy and Oblivion as well as Only the Brave. The movie has a lot going for it. That trailer is very good in the sense that it basically promises a remake of the first film. Boy, doesn't it? Vangelis. I believe they play volleyball in it. Yeah, they do. Do they not?
JVL00:46:43Is it Vangelis? Isn't Vangelis due part of the score?
Vic00:46:47Maybe.
JVL00:46:48Not the original. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The original score is Vangelis, no?
Vic00:46:51No. Characters of Fire is Vangelis. I think it was Goldsmith.
JVL00:46:55Jerry Goldsmith does the soundtrack for it.
Vic00:46:57Yeah, no. Goldsmith.
JVL00:46:58No, I'm sorry. It's all Harold Faltemeyer.
Vic00:47:01Oh, Harold Faltemeyer. I knew Faltemeyer did the main theme. As in Beverly Hills Cop, Harold Faltemeyer. I did not know he did.
JVL00:47:05He gets credit with the entire. Faltemeyer. Faltemeyer. Thank you.
Sonny00:47:07The entire music. Bye. Self-correction.
JVL00:47:11Yeah.
Vic00:47:13You know, look, okay, so, you know, it's a funny idea. He's flying an F-18. He's an old F-18 Hornet. And then later on, maybe he was an F-14, but he's over the snowy mountains. Is that Iran? Who knows what the mission is? Why is he only a captain at 60, whatever, however old he is? Why is he allowed to fly combat missions at 60? Why is he allowed?
JVL00:47:34I want to know the story today.
Vic00:47:37And Ed Harris wants to know, too.
JVL00:47:39So, here's the question. Is Ed Harris a new character, or is he replaced? Is he a replacement for, and I can't find. The old bald guy. The old bald guy. The actor of Loser. I cannot find his name. God help us.
Sonny00:47:50The principal from Back to the Future.
Vic00:47:52Yes, and the principal from Back to the Future. Can you think of another movie he was in? I can only think of that. Randall Brady, maybe? Okay. No, I'm going to assume not. I'm going to assume Ed Harris is new. I see Jon Hamm is in there. They say, I was reading the variety write-up, Val Kilmer's supposed to be back. I assume he'll be an admiral. Will he be fat Val Kilmer? Yeah, he'll be fat old admiral Iceman. Admiral. Admiral Iceman. Admiral Iceman. Maybe Rick Rossovich is fat. I was going to ask you if Rick Rossovich.
JVL00:48:17I love Rick Rossovich.
Vic00:48:18Because I'm going to say Rick Rossovich.
JVL00:48:20A hidden gem in that movie.
Vic00:48:21Oh, yeah. Oh, here's another one. Michael Ironside. Did he die? Is he alive?
JVL00:48:26I think he died. Let me look.
Vic00:48:27I think Ironside.
Sonny00:48:28You mean in the movie? No, no, no, no, no.
Vic00:48:31And Tom Skerritt.
JVL00:48:32I think Skerritt might have died.
Sonny00:48:34I think Skerritt might have died. Jester. Yeah. Jester. Jester, sorry. Michael Ironside. Michael Ironside is still alive. He's still alive.
JVL00:48:38He's 100% alive. Yeah. He's 69. He's still acting.
Vic00:48:42Okay. Well, I hope he's there.
JVL00:48:44I love me Tom, Michael Ironside. Yeah, he's great. I can't get enough of that guy.
Vic00:48:48But Sonny, you were talking about how you don't know, why would people want to see a Top Gun 2 movie? Yeah. People saw Iron Eagle 2? Similar. People saw Incredibles 2, right?
JVL00:48:59I mean, there's a real movie. Look, it doesn't need to have a reason for being if it's a good story. Sure. Right? If it is just a soft remake of it. Then we don't need it. Right, right, right. Right. I tell you who's not going to be in this movie, obviously. Kelly McGillis. Why?
Vic00:49:15It was in the news. I'm just saying, type her name in. Oh, did you see that on the elevator?
JVL00:49:20No, no. The elevator has much more decency than that.
Vic00:49:23The elevator has decency. But it was like, oh, here she is now at 62. She is a couple years older than Tom Cruise. That's all I'm going to say. Terrible. You know what?
Sonny00:49:33Well, she didn't get the Dorian Gray painting like Tom Cruise did.
JVL00:49:35Let's see how you look at 62.
Vic00:49:37How about now? Like how I look now.
JVL00:49:40Maybe she has gout. Maybe she has suffered.
Vic00:49:42Maybe she has suffered from gout.
Sonny00:49:43Okay, fine.
JVL00:49:44Any other top gunfights, please? I'm just going to say that as a trailer, it hit me over the head, I would say, like too, too many times with echoes of the original. I could have done with just the music could have been nostalgia enough for me. And show less. And show less. I didn't need to see the volleyball scene. I didn't need to see the karaoke scene.
Vic00:50:07It happened so fast that it almost looked like. It was like a flashback, but you're telling me.
JVL00:50:10I should hope it's a flashback and not a recreated. If it's a recreation, that would be terrible. Because if that's what's happening and they're looking to hit the same, like beat for beat. No, no, no, no. That's not good. Not good. But do we think Tom Cruise would do that? Tongue in cheek. Do we think Tom Cruise would do that? Because I would say his film selection has been pretty good. Yeah. I can't remember the last time he was in a movie that I looked at and thought, well, this is just preposterous. Why does this exist? This is a money grab. I don't think Cruise lives that way as a professional.
Sonny00:50:38Do you? I think he is more inclined to do that now than he might have been in years past as things like The Mummy have crashed and burned.
JVL00:50:50Well, it's like Robert De Niro in a way. Well, that was Russell Crowe's fault.
Sonny00:50:52Or the Jack Reacher series, which flamed out, unfortunately. I would say that he is probably more in need of a big paycheck type movie than he used
JVL00:51:08to be.
Sonny00:51:08Now, granted, he is a producer on the Mission Impossible movies. He probably is banking $50 or $60 million off each of those, but still.
Vic00:51:18And he gives a lot to the church.
Sonny00:51:20Sorry. He's got some tithing he needs to do.
Vic00:51:23Okay. Good. Wow. There was a... Listeners wanted some talk about Cats. Sonny, you mentioned it earlier, or JVL. I thought that was a trailer we were going to talk about. Cats. Oh, okay. Cats trailer. Yeah. Well.
Sonny00:51:38I watched it a hundred times.
Guest00:51:41I'm sure you did.
Vic00:51:43There's a Cats musical. There's a Cats movie coming out. And Taylor Swift's in it. And somebody asked me about that.
Sonny00:51:51It's coming out the same day as episode nine, I believe. Counter program.
Vic00:51:56Well, there you go. Who knows which one I'll see. I'll just say this. I'm not going to address the trailer itself, but to the people who asked the question, the answer is yes.
JVL00:52:03The answer is yes.
Vic00:52:04Okay. What was the... I'm totally in the dark. I need more. It doesn't matter. Taylor Swift is a cat. Oh, okay. Yeah. Corrections. Yeah. Okay. I can see it. You should really see it. Shoutouts. Anything? Nothing? I will say I had a big correction here. Thank you to everyone because it seemed like everyone on Twitter reminded me that Shakedown, the song for Beverly Hills Cop 2, was Bob Seger, not Michael McDonald. Michael McDonald was Sweet Freedom from the other buddy cop movie, Running Scared, with Billy Crystal. Remember that one? Billy Crystal. Oh. Billy Hines.
JVL00:52:40Boy, my brain totally... It's a great song, too. Wow. Yeah. That is weird. I know. My brain just... That is like the... That's it. The Shazam... Oh, yeah. The... You know what I'm talking about. Right, right, right. The fake movie with Sinbad that nobody... That's right. Didn't actually happen. Kazam. My brain put... Kazam. That is my brain put that there. Okay. That's enough.
Vic00:53:00Okay. All right. That's all the time we are giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Victorino Mattis, at Sonny Bunch. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher. Just type in Sub-Beacon at our podcast. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time. You got something, JVL?
JVL00:53:29What do you got? Not really. I got a bunch of Sub-Standard people. I'm sorry. Sub-Beacon people over at my house over the weekend. A little meetup?
Vic00:53:37Like Comic-Con? A little... Victorino Matus, too.
JVL00:53:41It was nice to see everybody. It was nice to see everybody.
Vic00:53:43Meeting some people for the first time. 1967 Mustang Man, A.D. Lewis. I don't know if they wanted me to use their names. I'll go by Twitter handle, which is public. But it was very nice to meet them.
JVL00:53:53Yeah. And Tanya came with her husband and her 15-year-old daughter who listens to the show. A very nice Catholic 15-year-old girl who listens to the show. Victorino, how does that make you feel about yourself? Do you feel like you... Do you conduct yourself appropriately on this program?
Vic00:54:11Well, if she's listening to clarify, what I meant was I love Taylor Swift's music even as a cat. I'm sure that's fine.
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