#30. Hobbs and Shaw and Books About Movies
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Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw defeats the very idea of a review, as Sonny explains: there's no point, because it's "just a collection of things that happen on the screen in a mildly reasonable way until they're mildly unreasonable until they're extremely unreasonable." A self-described Fast & Furious skeptic, he hated this one less than most, enjoys the Dwayne Johnson/Jason Statham odd-couple bickering as the one thing that works, and marvels that a series which began with an undercover cop breaking up a DVD trafficking ring now has Idris Elba calling himself black Superman — "we're like one step from Moonraker here." JVL disagrees flatly on the only point that matters for a buddy movie: the two leads "looked like they were having root canals on screen," the insult-trading scene at the CIA that should bring the house down produces nothing quotable, and he blames writing that never crackles. His bigger complaint is structural — the film sets up saving the world, finds Vanessa Kirby within five minutes and thus subverts its own stakes, then sends everyone chasing a machine that turns out to be the size of a briefcase, then breaks it so The Rock's estranged brother in Samoa can rebuild it from whiteboard sketches, an implausibility that takes Denise Richards' Christmas Jones title belt for most preposterous movie scientist. He also wonders whether a $60 million opening on that budget means the franchise is one weak entry from exhaustion. Vic gives it a B-plus, would cut an hour, notes several jokes died even in an audience desperate to like it, and says Vanessa Kirby is the only person really trying; he also flags Cliff Curtis, Eddie Marsan's ubiquity, and the Rock holding a helicopter by a chain. Much time goes to whether the Handsome Rob nod means somebody had to pay Paramount for The Italian Job, which Sonny dismisses as "an Easter egg for stupid people." Up top, Sonny answers Father Harrison's request for film books — the Library of America criticism collections, Pauline Kael, Manny Farber, James Agee, Anthony Lane's Nobody's Perfect, Stephen Hunter's Pulitzer collection, Sidney Lumet's Making Movies and, read unironically, The Film Snob's Dictionary — while JVL adds William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade, Final Cut on the Heaven's Gate debacle, and Michael Ondaatje's Walter Murch interview book The Conversations. There's also the show cracking 700 reviews, and a Red Dawn rewatch during which Vic and Sonny both belatedly clock the subtext behind Lea Thompson throwing the pans.
From the show notes
#cdata-section -------------- In this latest episode, sponsored by ExpressVPN and LendingClub, we try to make sense of Fast & Furious Prese...
Full transcript
?00:00:01I can't breathe this way
Guest00:00:05Three shocks will kill a man. There we go. It's a bad guy speech. You had to open your big mouth didn't ya, huh? Yeah, I thought it was a cool thing to say at the moment.
Vic00:00:30Sub- Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon sponsored by ExpressVPN and Lending Club. 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, and Stitcher. Just look at a podcast and search for Sub-Beacon. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. You know we recently broke through 700 starred reviews. Hey, alright.
Sonny00:00:56There you go.
Vic00:00:57That's great. Is that good? For us. Yeah. It's better than most. We'll do something special when we get to 1,000.
Sonny00:01:05I feel like that's in the top. It's probably in like the top 5% of rating numbers.
JVL00:01:11It's like being in the top 5% of blogs back in 2002.
Sonny00:01:15What was the ranking? What was that website that was like-- It was the Truth Laid Bare. B-E-A-R. No, no, no. That was the ecosystem. Technorati or something like that.
JVL00:01:27Oh, Technorati. That was the Technorati, but then there was also the Truth Laid Bare, which was this blogger who had like an ecosystem where he ranked you by where you were on the food chain. Oh, boy. Like you were a flippery fish or a magnificent marsupial. That's the worst. You remember this?
Vic00:01:40Blogs. Technorati, I remember.
JVL00:01:42Look, everything is terrible, but on the other hand, I'm thrilled the bloggers are all dead.
Vic00:01:46Wait, isn't that what we do for a living, basically?
JVL00:01:49I don't mean dead literally. I mean metaphorically.
Sonny00:01:52Did the blogs die or did they really just change shape? I don't know. They just all moved to Twitter. I feel like--
JVL00:01:57Were there even more bloggers?
Sonny00:01:58Yeah. Well, Twitter has-- Twitter has led to an explosion of bloggers, but also I feel like once-- That's what they do, thread. Once really grand and beloved publications like Vanity Fair, for instance, are publishing pieces with headlines like, "When are we going to get to the post-gun action movie?"
Vic00:02:16Speaking of which, Sonny, this is what you were just doing earlier today and the answer was Lord of the Rings. What?
Sonny00:02:24Well, it depends on how you want to define--
Vic00:02:26All right. Explain to our listeners what happened. No, I don't-- No, you don't want to get into it. That is true. You don't want to get into it. It's not worth getting into a big Twitter fight.
JVL00:02:31That's right. It's technically political.
Sonny00:02:32It's stupid. Okay. All right. But it's just stupid. People are dumb. People on the internet are dumb? Websites are dumb. I don't believe it. Websites are basically just blogs. Blogs were dumb. We should just ban it all. The internet has been a mistake from top to bottom.
Vic00:02:47I'd say strictly podcast. That's it.
Sonny00:02:49No, get rid of the podcast too. Frankly, get rid of the podcast, get rid of the websites.
JVL00:02:52I wish we were assembling at an AM radio station at 3:00 in the morning to do this show.
Vic00:02:58Oh, back in the day.
JVL00:02:59Back in the day. That would have been so much better and we were doing it live.
Vic00:03:03That's how it was done. Cam radio. I noticed my wife worked for the Georgetown radio station. There was a jazz thing or whatever station it was and her slot was 1:00 to 4:00 AM or something ridiculous. You had stuff
JVL00:03:19in the middle of the night. All the Kylie Minogue that you Hoyas want to listen to. No, she was jazz. She was jazz. She liked jazz. Really?
Vic00:03:25Yeah, yeah. She did that. I think I could be wrong. I may get a correction next week. If it turns out that she was playing more sophisticated, I don't know, Stan Getz and Brubeck. Maybe I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I'll look into that. But anyway, but yeah, middle of the night. That's your shift, right? That's your shift.
Sonny00:03:42We should, or we would do public access TV. Well, like that's, that's how the sports junkies in DC get there.
JVL00:03:48We missed public access TV, didn't we? Aren't we too late for that?
Sonny00:03:51Well, I'm saying that's what we could do. And if the internet wasn't a thing, I mean, the internet has displaced public access television because the internet has.
JVL00:03:58At which point. This whole thing has gone off the rails. Should we just cut all of it?
Vic00:04:01This is good stuff. It's good stuff. And including JVL, some of our listeners from the tri-state area are going to ask, particularly in New Jersey, if you remember the Uncle Floyd show. Oh yeah. Oh, there you go. Look it up on YouTube. It's still there. And that was, that was just a region.
JVL00:04:16That was like the tri-state areas version of Benny Hill. That's right.
Vic00:04:19Now we've gone off the rails. Oh, this is the best part. No one cares. Absolutely. No one cares about this. It might've been based out of Secaucus. I'm not sure. Okay. Sonny, how are you otherwise? Order now the studios for MSNBC. Right. That's right. That's right. That's right. But it was formerly Uncle Floyd. Sonny,
Sonny00:04:31what's going on? Not a whole lot in my world. I don't know. Doing okay? Works good?
JVL00:04:36Yeah. Works good. You know, just, just flowing along here.
Sonny00:04:39Okay. There was one thing. So our friend, friend of the show, Father Harrison last night had asked some recommendations on books to read if you are interested in becoming more knowledgeable about film. And it's weird. I have actually gotten this question a couple of times before. So, I just wanted to offer some, some suggestions to our listeners if they, if they want to, if they want to, you know, check things out. But the Library of America has a bunch of great criticism collections. There's one called American Film Critics, which is kind of an overview, but they also put together a Cale, Pauline Cale book and the collected film writings of Philip Agee and also Manny Farber. Manny Farber, they have his whole film writing catalog, all very much recommended. One other recommendation, I'll make two other criticism recommendations. First is Anthony Lane's book, Nobody's Perfect. Very entertaining from start to finish. He is, he is, he takes a lot of guff from the, the, the cool kid critics. They don't, they don't like him because they don't think he's, you know, they think he hates movies, which is, I think is very unfair to, to Anthony Lane. But, and also Stephen Hunter's book, At the Valencia, his collection of Pulitzer Prize winning criticism. He was the second film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize after Ebert.
Vic00:06:01Did I miss this? Did I miss your mentioning, because I was looking over some notes here about Roger Ebert. Did you just say him?
Sonny00:06:06You know, I didn't, I didn't mention any Ebert because I, I, Ebert, I like and respect. And you have his stuff. And I have, I have several of his books, but I will be honest, I have never found, I think he's a very good movie reviewer. I think he's very knowledgeable, obviously. But he has always, he has never really done it for me as a stylist or as a, I just, I, I, I don't by his prose. A couple other things. One is Sidney Lumet's book, Making Movies, which I find, which I read in college and have found to be extremely useful in like educating people on the very basic things about filmmaking, editing, sound design, et cetera. Totally, totally worth picking up. Not very expensive and very slim. It's like a 200 page book. You'll, you'll get through it quick. And also the Film Snobs Dictionary, which if you read it unironically, like this, the Film Snobs Dictionary is like kind of drenched in this irony, like, oh, here are these cool critics and we're going to make fun of them. And here are these cool filmmakers. We're going to make fun of them. But if you just read it, if you read it unironically for the actual like lingo, like diegetic sound, non-diegetic sound, et cetera, it's actually a very good crash course on how to sound kind of like a film critic. So those would be some recommendations. Can I throw in three books that I'm shocked you didn't mention?
JVL00:07:26Sure, go for it. The first is William Goldman's original Adventures in the Screen Trade.
Sonny00:07:31I mentioned both of these books last night. Both of his biographies, autobiographies, very good.
JVL00:07:35Adventures in the Screen Trade is great. Final Cut by Stephen Bach, B-A-C-H, which is the story of Heaven's Gate, the movie which destroyed the studio United Artists by the guy who greenlit Heaven's Gate.
Sonny00:07:49Basically.
JVL00:07:50And it also serves, the first 90 pages or so, a potted history of the United Artists studio. Which is essentially a 90 page history of all of Hollywood up until like 1970, which is really interesting. And the third is one that I don't know if you've ever read, and I should have given it to you years ago if you haven't. It's called The Conversations, and it's by Michael Ondaatje, the guy who wrote The English Patient. And it is an oral, it's just a long interview of him with Walter Murch, who is the great film editor of the last 70 years or so. It's about film editing, but it's also about film itself. And it's incredibly readable because it is literally just the transcript of a series of conversations between the two guys and really, really enlightening if you're interested in, again, both of these are what I'm talking about. Essentially, the books I'm interested are both the business side and then the technical side and much less the criticism side.
Vic00:08:47And you were a fan of Peter Bishkin's book too, weren't you? Easy Riders and Raging Bulls.
JVL00:08:51Yeah, but that's more about the age. The age. It's, you know what I'm saying, it's more of a period piece than like really about the film.
Sonny00:08:58It's very much like about the 70s, like the late 60s to late 70s time frame. And it's good. It's good. It's also like kind of gossipy and like catty. Yes. Which is nice.
Vic00:09:10I have a number of these books in mint condition. Never read. Like new. If you open it, if you open the crack, it's got the great smell. Like new. Like new. I can resell it like new. Anyway, lots of good choices there. Thank you. That was like summer reading list a little bit. We have lots of good choices there. Sub-Beacon summer reading list. Thank you, Sonny. JVL, how are you? I'm fine.
JVL00:09:29You know, I did something the other night just for poops and giggles. Oh, bye. Because I don't want you to have to edit, Sonny. Yeah, that's right. I went and I tried to edit a piece in Calibria. Yeah, here we go. Cambria, whatever. Calibri. Calibri.
Vic00:09:46You went into Twitter and said Calibri. I've never used Calibri. What is it you use now? Cambria. Cambria. Okay, 14 points.
JVL00:09:53Well, then I didn't try. I didn't try Cambria.
Vic00:09:54And people went crazy and condemned me for Calibri, which I've never used. And this is how fake news spreads. This is what happens on social media.
JVL00:10:01I'll have to try it in Cambria. But it was, my eyes rebelled after like 45 seconds. No, I would never use Calibria.
Vic00:10:05But that is the reset. That is the preset. I think if you open up the Word doc, it just appears in that form. And I immediately have to change it. Why do they hate us?
JVL00:10:14So the serifs in Cambria don't bother you while you're editing? No. Not at 14 points. Not at 24 points. Because here's the weird thing. As a reader, I want serif fonts. As an editor, I've got to have serifs. I've got to get the serifs out of there. I need a sans serif font. Oh, that's interesting you should say that. Because otherwise it's just too, I've got to focus. Right, right, right.
Vic00:10:33But I'm not going to go like, what, Helvetica crazy or whatever it is. It's Helvetica, the old, the basic. Century school book. Right, no. But, you know, I mean, for example, Chris Caldwell was a big fan of Garamond. And somebody else mentioned that on Twitter. People are killing themselves right now with his font.
Sonny00:10:47Conversation.
Vic00:10:48I'm a font of wisdom. People are into fonts. Into fonts, okay.
Sonny00:10:51One question.
Vic00:10:53Monospace, monotype, 821. I used to do that at a standard.
Sonny00:10:57I didn't think that. That's what I said you did. Are you, do you, when you guys are editing something, do you turn off the red squiggle lines on the spell check? Oh, oh, yeah.
Vic00:11:06I try to disable those early on. That drives me crazy.
Sonny00:11:10What I do usually is go through and check all of them individually, like through the piece, right? Because if I have all those red squiggles while I'm trying to edit, I get super distracted. I'm like, what's wrong? What's wrong? So I go through them. I either have my library or dictionary. Learn what the word is. So if it's like a name, I'm like, learn this. Add it to the dictionary. Just add it to the dictionary and that takes care of most of the problem. Or like I have to go through individually and be like, okay, that's how you spell this. It's not how you spell this.
JVL00:11:41So I had a writer who both of you will know, but who I will not rename, who would file to me on Word documents. And when I would open them on my version of Word or even in Google Docs, it was clear that his word was set. To use UK English. And for some reason, all of those presets came through. And so none of his Britishized versions of words were marked as misspellings. And so I always had to like on my own, make sure I caught all of the schedules and the Zs. But isn't that weird that it would, you know, I would say the preferences for which version of English you use follow the document, not the user.
Vic00:12:27Yes, no, it imported.
Sonny00:12:29That is interesting. I'm kind of surprised. Can you change that in the thing? Can you spell back and forth?
JVL00:12:36I'm sure somebody, some hacker, like for instance, Charlize Theron in the Fast and Furious Fate of the Furious could have changed that. But I, Sinestro, was that her name? I don't know. But I was not able to.
Sonny00:12:47I could not tell you a single thing about that movie because I've not thought about it since I stepped out of the movie theater.
Vic00:12:52Which was when? Remind me when. It was 2017. Was that?
Sonny00:12:56It was Fate of the Furious. Was it 2018? I don't know.
Vic00:12:58I feel like it was yesterday. That was an aeon flux. I get confused. What are we talking about here? Atomic Blonde. Okay. So you know what I did recently? I had a rewatch. Victorino, how are you? I'm doing great, JVL. I rewatched with my son, Red Dawn. The original, not the remake. I didn't realize the remake started. Wolverine. Yes, exactly. I didn't realize the remake started Chris Hemsworth. Yes. But I guess that didn't help. Well, it started Chris Hemsworth before he was Thor.
Sonny00:13:25Oh. Interesting. I think, right? Because that came out in 2008 or 2009. Wow, really? And he was not Thor until I think 2010.
Vic00:13:34And the enemy is North Korea. Is that correct?
Sonny00:13:37The enemy. Yeah. Well, so they originally shot the film to have in mind the Chinese as the enemy. It was all like- I'm not going to sell that.
Vic00:13:46You are not going to sell that.
Sonny00:13:48PLA signs everywhere, et cetera. So they changed it instead to North Koreans because, you know. If we know anything about the state of North Korea right now,
JVL00:13:57is that they have the resources to drop dozens of people- Over the heartland. Over the American heartland across an ocean. They've got gasoline. They've got in-air refuelers, tankers.
Vic00:14:10Well, I mean, because in Red Dawn, it's a combined effort, right? So you have the Cubans coming up from the South along. They're mixed. Cubans and Russians are mixed together.
Sonny00:14:21Shockingly, John Milius put a lot more thought into this than some jackass studio exec.
Vic00:14:25Well, it's an amazing movie. It largely holds up. Although, I mean, he would never be able to get this through now, obviously, right? I mean, you know, the idea, even the language, the certain problematic language that's being used. We'll get into that.
Sonny00:14:39Well, it's fascinating. So I watched this maybe a year ago, maybe after Powers Booth died. I can't remember. Which was like two weeks ago. A year ago, two weeks ago, you can say. And there are a couple of very fascinating- One is that it is like, it is outright reactionary. Like the Cuban general or whoever who's walking through the town with the list of everyone who has the guns. That's exactly right. And he's like, they registered all their guns. Now we know where to take them. You gotta put them in the camp.
JVL00:15:14And it's like, oh, this is amazing. This is exactly like what we said would happen. You end up in the drive-in movie theater camp.
Sonny00:15:20You end up in the gulag. The gulag drive-in. The drive-in gulag. And so like there. There's like a whole lot of stuff in that range. Again, Powers Booth is amazing in this movie. Like where he's talking about, you know, the 500 million screaming Chinamen.
JVL00:15:37This is Chinamen.
Sonny00:15:38He's like, I thought there were a billion screaming Chinamen. There were. And he puts the whiskey into the fire and it goes up. And there's also this weird subtext that one of the girls has been like sexually assaulted. That's what I wanted to talk about.
Vic00:15:53Oh, that's what you wanted to talk about. No, no, I figured it out. I just wanted to talk about it.
Sonny00:15:57Sorry. I'm glad I could provide this transition for you.
Vic00:16:00Thank you, Sonny. Also, it's not my voice. I didn't mean to come out like this.
JVL00:16:04That's what I wanted to talk about. That's what I wanted to talk about. Speaking of which.
Vic00:16:09No. So I remember watching this as a kid, right? Because it was like one of the first PG-13 movies, I think. And it was like, what happened? Like, why are they there? Right. Why are these girls? They were hiding. The grandfather was hiding them underneath the in the cabin space.
Sonny00:16:22It was like it was like a Anne Frank situation. They were like, that's right. Yeah.
Vic00:16:25And he said, like, oh. You know, they don't they're not talking about it. And one of the you know, I think they tried something. And but then they don't they leave it at that. However, they're sitting around later in the having the camp. You know where I'm going? You know, I know exactly. I didn't. I'm watching with my son and I'm like, oh, this is interesting because I, you know, I can get into dialogue, know what they're talking about before you're just like whatever. And they're sitting around the campfire. And then Charlie, Charlie Sheen says to Leah Thompson, like, why don't you, you know, you clean up the pot? The kitchen, you know, the pots and pans, rather. And she says, you clean it. And he goes, geez, he goes, what's up your ass? And then she flips out and, you know, and throws the pans. Don't you ever say that. Right, right. And he goes, what did I say? And Jennifer Grey goes, what you said was wrong. And I was like, oh. So it was a real eye opener is what I'm saying.
Sonny00:17:19No, I read the same exact line jumped out at me when I rewatched. I was like, oh, OK. I understand subtext now. It's the same thing that's below the text.
Vic00:17:29That's right. That's right. And whatever happened must have been fast and furious. Speaking of which, over the week, I had a different transition. You want to hear the other one? No. Oh, I don't.
JVL00:17:38Why did I never get a hind helicopter?
Vic00:17:40I know. I know.
JVL00:17:41Because as boys, we needed a cobra version of the hind.
Vic00:17:45Yeah, because the hind helicopter is amazing. Rather than the rinky dink gyrocopter. What are you talking about? The gyrocopter. The hind, the MI-24, which is the Russian gun, the gunship. The greatest helicopter gunship. Which shows up at the end of it. In Red Dawn at the end. And my thought is this, though. When you look at the machinery that's used, obviously there's no CGI, right? It looks very flimsy. If you look at the tanks and the APCs, it's like if you got really up close, it would be like, oh, this is cardboard. Yeah, you've got that feeling of it. But the other thing I was going to say was terrific cast, but you would never guess watching it, Jennifer Grey and Patrick Sazey in a few years from now would be one of the biggest movies of the 80s. It was a real Rat Pack preview. Yeah, it was fantastic. C. Thomas Howell was in that, right? C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Grey, Lea Thompson. Was Emilio Estevez in that? No, he was not. Only one brother. Only one brother. Okay, let's get to that. Over the weekend, Fast and Furious presents Hobbs and Shaw. Does everyone have to say it that way? Fast and Furious presents Hobbs and Shaw.
Sonny00:18:44Well, there's actually a story about this, which is kind of interesting. We can talk about it in a minute.
Vic00:18:48Okay, please. I'd like to know. That took the top spot at the box office with $60 million. Oh, that's a lot. Interestingly, I originally... It was only at $61 million, but then they... They ticked it down, huh? They adjusted it down.
Sonny00:19:01When you checked it, you looked at the actuals. It's so interesting.
Vic00:19:04Followed by The Lion King with $38.5 million. And in third place, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with $20 million. I'd like to think that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is going to stay around for a while, but I don't know. People are still talking about it. People talk about wanting to see it still, but they haven't gotten to it yet. Right. And I hope it lingers.
Sonny00:19:23It's a movie that's aimed at older people, and those movies tend to have better third, fourth, fifth weekend drops. We'll see what it does. Okay. So, did you have any other... See what it does after this week.
Vic00:19:32...box office thoughts, and maybe you can explain about the Hobbs and Shaw thing.
Sonny00:19:35Well, the Hobbs and Shaw thing... So, the reason it is called Fast and Furious Presents Hobbs and Shaw is because this is... I mean, this is... I read this, you know, Hollywood Reporter or someplace. But basically, Universal got tired of dealing with the producer of the Fast and Furious movies, a guy named Neil Moritz, who, due to the contract that he drew up with the first one, had... ...the right to produce all of the Fast and Furious movies and, you know, take a cut of profits, et cetera. Any movie that bore, like, Fast and Furious, any sequel in the series was, in theory, he had the right to produce. So, what Universal has done is said, well, Hobbs and Shaw is a spinoff. It's not a sequel, so you don't get any... You have no participation in this. We are freezing you out. Wow. We're freezing you out economically. We're freezing you out creatively. We don't... We don't want you to have anything to do with this. And he, like, lost his mind and sued them and sued everyone. Sue everyone. Yeah. I can't remember. I honestly am not 100% sure if that has worked its way through the legal system. I'm sure it'll be fought over for years. But it is... So, the reason they call it Fast and Furious Presents Hobbs and Shaw, as opposed to Fast and Furious Hobbs and Shaw, is because they are trying to create a little bit of distance from the franchise. So, it is clearly not a sequel. It's a spinoff.
Vic00:20:59Ah, thank you, Sonny, for that. We all saw... JVL, did you manage to see Hobbs and Shaw? I saw Hobbs and Shaw.
JVL00:21:08I saw it, too. Did you see it?
Vic00:21:10Sonny, you saw it. I saw Hobbs and Shaw.
JVL00:21:11Did anyone else see it?
Vic00:21:12All three of us saw it. Oh, God.
JVL00:21:15If he doesn't show up next week for Dora, I'm quitting the show.
Vic00:21:18I will quit the show. We don't get a gene review of Dora. I almost said I. I don't know why I would say I.
Sonny00:21:23I will quit the show if we have a gene review of Dora the Explorer. Thank you.
Vic00:21:27You know, he has to draw the line somewhere. Anyway, Sonny, how about a big boy review? Why? Why would I give a review of Dora the Explorer?
JVL00:21:39What's the point of doing a big boy review of Hobbs and Shaw?
Sonny00:21:43So here's the thing about Fast and Furious presents Hobbs and Shaw. There is no reason for me to give a review because it is just a collection of things that happen on the screen. In a mildly reasonable way until they're mildly unreasonable until they're extremely unreasonable. I really like Dwayne the Rock Johnson. I really like Jason Statham. I think they have amusing chemistry together as kind of an odd couple type. I like Idris Elba fine. I think there's something weird and amusing about the fact that the Fast and the Furious movies, this is not an original observation by me. I'm stealing it from someone. But there's something amusing about how the series has gone from like an undercover cop trying to break up a DVD trafficking ring to essentially superheroes fighting black Superman. That's what Idris Elba calls himself at one point.
JVL00:22:44They no longer live in the same universe. No, it's just the original universe is a, you know, true crime type drama. And this is Star Wars.
Sonny00:22:52Yeah, basically. More or less. We're like one step from Moonraker here, basically, is what it is. That's what it comes down to.
Vic00:22:59You're saying Moonraker was not realistic. Is that what you're saying?
Sonny00:23:02So, you know, this movie is filled with funny banter and quips. Is it? No, not really. It's not funny enough to justify itself, though it is funny enough for me not to want to like throw things at the screen. I was never bored by the film. I wasn't. I wasn't. I wasn't not. Tell me the funniest line.
JVL00:23:27In truly funny movies, you always remember one line that's really funny.
Sonny00:23:30No, I don't. I don't think that's necessarily true. This is more of a situation. In Rush Hour, Chris Tucker says, do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? That was racist, though. That was racist. So we can't remember that anymore. Make sure you believe that.
JVL00:23:43Make sure you believe that. In Shanghai Noon, Owen Wilson says, you know, there's something about your eyes.
Sonny00:23:48So basically, you want me to remember the most racist moment.
JVL00:23:52Danny Glover says, I'm too old for this ass. So in actually funny movies. You always remember something if you can't remember a single line or joke from it.
Sonny00:24:02It's more about the banter between the two of them that is, you know, it's fine. It's fine. I liked Ryan Reynolds showing up for some reason. Yeah, Deadpool was there. It was weird. They clearly shot his scene in one day. One day. Because he's in the same set. He's on the same set for both. Because then they could use it later on. So they could do the setup. The single highest hourly rate any actor has ever made ever. If you had to guess, how much do you think he got paid for that? That's a great question. Do you think he got a million bucks for that day? I'm sure it was more than that. If you're Ryan Reynolds, you don't work for less than five. Because he's not in any of the advertising or anything. It's not like they're selling this as a Ryan Reynolds movie. He's literally just like there for the day.
JVL00:24:41But he has to be there for the next sequel. Now, what about. Right, so that he's available as a chess piece for them to bring in for the next sequel and expand the cast to 18 people.
Sonny00:24:49What about, what's his name?
JVL00:24:52Dinkley, Kevin Hart.
Sonny00:24:54Yeah, thank you, Kevin Hart. Do you think he. Do you think he got the same rate as Ryan Reynolds? Because I bet he had to work for two days. He's on two sets. He's on two sets. He's on two sets. They had many setups there.
JVL00:25:06Well, I heard he was racist, so probably no.
Sonny00:25:08He probably did not make as much. You're right. You're right. Anyway, so I actually enjoy. I think, I think Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart are a big step up from like, I don't know. Who, who are.
JVL00:25:19The guy who plays Vince.
Sonny00:25:20Who's the, who are the other actors in the Fast and the Furious movies? Who are like. Gail Gadot. No, she's great. She's great. She's great. Oh. But everyone else is, is annoying and terrible.
JVL00:25:30Tyrese Gibson.
Sonny00:25:31Tyrese. That's who I was thinking of. Tyrese.
JVL00:25:32Tyrese is 50 times funnier than either.
Sonny00:25:35No. You're crazy. Just in that part. I'm sorry. I don't mean naturally.
JVL00:25:39I mean in the role. Funnier than the Tyrese stuff killed in the Fast and Furious movies.
Sonny00:25:44I hate Tyrese in those movies so much. He's just lame and annoying. I don't like him. Anyway, but I hate all of these movies really. I, this, I, I, I probably hated this one less than most of the other Fast and Furious movies. As longtime listeners will know, I'm a Fast and Furious skeptic. I do not, I do not particularly care for this series. I probably enjoyed this one. Tenth time is the charm. I probably enjoyed this one a little bit more. I don't know. Oh, there's a plot.
Vic00:26:11Oh. There's a plot. There's relevance. There's bioterrorism is a big concern these days. I have a question for both of you. Sure.
JVL00:26:17Can you explain to me. Yeah. Jason Statham's character over the course of the Fast and Furious movies.
Sonny00:26:27Okay, so.
JVL00:26:27As sort of good guy, bad guy, good guy, bad guy, heel turns. Because this movie retcons all of it. Right, right. So he shows up.
Sonny00:26:33And makes it a good guy the whole time. He shows up, what, at the end of the fourth one? And he kills Han, right? Doesn't he kill Han?
JVL00:26:42Yes. So he kills Han. Because they killed his brother or wounded his brother or something, his brother.
Sonny00:26:47So he kills Han and he's like, I'm coming for you. And then the next movie, he's the villain. But then the movie after that. So wait, so that's the fifth one. And then the movie after that, in the sixth or seventh one, he has to fight Luke Evans for some reason. Who has somebody's daughter.
JVL00:27:07He gets redeemed. I don't know. He goes onto the plane and he saves somebody's daughter. He goes onto a plane and he saves somebody's daughter from Luke Evans. That's what I remember. His mother, Helen Mirren, is a bad guy who's a gangster, right? And he's a gangster, but he's a gangster who is good. But now in this movie, it turns out he's been good the whole time. There's a frame where he was set up. He was set up the whole time. So he was invalid. He was invalidated like two whole movies worth of Fast and Furious.
Sonny00:27:28He was an MI5 agent who went rogue, right? That was his backstory. But apparently he didn't go rogue because Etienne and Idris Elba set him up. They set him up. They set him up.
JVL00:27:40So all of that stuff we saw. So when he was a super bad guy in those other Fast and Furious movies.
Sonny00:27:44So when he was doing all the villainous stuff, he was just playing along with a part that had been created for him by Etienne because he wanted to clear his name eventually. Or something. Something. I don't know. If we're going to get into nitpicking the movies. This isn't nitpicking.
JVL00:27:58This is invalidating the dramatic tension in previous movies.
Sonny00:28:03And Etienne has this sort of. Why would anybody go back and watch any of the previous movies?
Vic00:28:07Because a couple of them are really good. But the villain network here, it looks like a call center. So they have a bunch of people working there. And then they somehow hack into the news to say these guys are wanted.
JVL00:28:23They own 1,400 newspapers and media outlets. Oh, big, big media.
Vic00:28:29I didn't realize. Is the government like, oh, my gosh, what's happening there?
JVL00:28:33Well, the government seems to know what's real. Because after they are framed and all the government is after them, even though we don't ever see government agents coming after them, they get in touch with the CIA. And the CIA knows that they're totally OK.
Sonny00:28:44I assume that the guys who were in Jason Statham's sister's apartment were MI5 agents.
JVL00:28:51No, no, those are Etienne agents.
Sonny00:28:53Oh, those are Etienne agents? See?
Vic00:28:54It's very hard confusing. But I just thought. If they could get into the network, I guess it's not a very good virtual private network, is it?
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Vic00:30:51Thank you, JVL. You know, that's why I... Yeah, I... Okay, I thought you were... I use that also because I'm concerned about people reading the political content on my phone. That's a heck of an ad copy. That is. It is. It's the political content.
Sonny00:31:10You're worried about them seeing the political content of the Dora subreddits? Yeah, I was going to say... The Dora film subreddits that you go to?
Vic00:31:16You're ridiculous. I know most of the political content is in Japanese, but still. Okay. You're the man of a people. Yes. Yes. I came in going in here to this movie with extremely low expectations. It was fine if it's extremely low expectations. Give me your letter grades.
JVL00:31:38Man of the people, letter grade. B plus. B plus. Victorino Matus. Yeah, I didn't think it was that great. I didn't think it was that great.
Vic00:31:46I didn't think it was that great. I give it a B plus. I would have taken an hour off this movie, at least. So I'm watching this and I'm watching... I remember having seen the trailer and I'm like, wait a minute. Don't I remember in the trailer there's some scene that takes place in Samoa and we haven't gotten to Samoa yet and I feel like we've been here for three hours.
Sonny00:32:04You looked at your watch and you had already been through an hour and 50 minutes of the movie.
Vic00:32:08That didn't feel like it. It felt much longer. So I thought that was a problem. I have written out here as well, a lot of bad dialogue. There were people... The audience was excited. The audience wanted to like this. I don't know how it was in your experiences. They wanted to. So there are moments throughout the movie where they say funny things and they're laughing. And when you see the cameos, which I think saved the movie because otherwise you have Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart. Everyone's like, hey, this is great. A minus from CinemaScore.
Sonny00:32:37A minus from CinemaScore. Audiences got what they wanted.
Vic00:32:39They got what they wanted. However, there were a few lines that even in my audience, there was like duds. It didn't go over well. But I do like the cast in different capacities. I love Vanessa Kirby. She was better though. And Pod mentioned this in his review. A mission impossible. Vanessa Kirby is the only person in this movie really trying.
JVL00:33:03I think that's fair to say.
Sonny00:33:04I don't think that's true at all. I think The Rock is trying. I think The Rock is very committed to what he does, even if what he does is dumb and terrible.
JVL00:33:12I disagree. I really like The Rock as a screen presence. I don't want to cut you off here, Victorino. There are two things that occur. You're not. I often, when we talk about movies, that we don't like, I often blame the writing. In this case, I blame the writing. Again, as I say, the dialogue actually doesn't work. It's not snappy for buddy cop movies to work. All of that banter stuff needs to really crackle. And that's what makes for good buddy cop movies. When you think about the Pantheon, the Rush Hours, the Shanghai Noons, the Lethal Weapons, the dialogue really sparkles. And so there are writing problems, which I'll get to in a minute. But the big one is the chemistry problem. So this is a buddy cop movie. It is not... The Fast and Furious movies are not buddy cop movies. They're essentially an action-adventure. This is not... Sometimes they're spy movies. This is not that. A buddy cop movie cannot succeed unless the two leads have fantastic chemistry and it looks like they're having fun on screen. We, the audience, have fun when they are having fun. To me, in my eyes, and at least the audience I was looking at, Statham and Dwayne Johnson looked like they were having root canals on screen. Like they just had no interest in really being there or they were trying to make it work but it just wasn't working. They weren't on the same page. And I don't know if it was an unhappy set or because the Fast and Furious movies have long been plagued by rumors of the leads not actually getting along all that well.
Sonny00:34:45This is the reason why we have The Rock spun off into this and not still with Vin Diesel. Because The Rock can't stand Vin Diesel. So this gets back to my point that I do think... I don't think it's fair to say The Rock isn't trying or is checked out. I'm sorry, that's not what I meant.
JVL00:35:00I didn't mean checked out
Sonny00:35:01because I would never accuse him of being checked out. He is a hard-working guy. Because I think he's incredibly hard-working and I think one of the reasons he got tired of working with the other Fast and Furious guys is because a lot of, you know... The rumors on set were that Vin Diesel was not putting in 100% effort. How would you know? How would you know? I don't know. The relationship between Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham I think is the only thing that really works in this movie. When they are going back and forth at each other I think all that stuff basically works. I think that more or less works. I just disagree totally. Everything else...
JVL00:35:45When they go back and forth it's like forced. When they're standing trading insults in the CIA center again, this is a scene which should bring the house down. This should be where we walk walk away with some line of dialogue or insult that is just pure gold and that we say, yeah, that was awesome.
Sonny00:36:04And there's just none of that. Did you guys see the story in the Wall Street Journal about how all these guys have written into their contracts that they basically can't lose fights? They have people counting the number of punches they take and how many they dish out. And I wonder if the inability to get a really good zinger off on either of them is part of that? It has to be.
JVL00:36:26They're protecting their weird actorly vanity about the brand. They're brand protecting instead of engaging in the project, which I think is actually a mistake for the brand, which leads me to the second thing I want to talk to about. $60 million opening, which is just a little bit more than Too Fast, Too Furious. And it was a big budget. And this is a large budget. Now they will say, oh, but they're so great overseas. Again, overseas is caveated. That was true of the last. Is this a franchise that's in real decline? And if you get one more subpar, performance over here at that point, do we just say, okay, the well is dry. We're done with Fast and Furious.
Sonny00:37:01I mean, these movies have always been domestically in the $200 to $300 million range, except for the seventh one, which got a big boost because Paul Walker died. But also it was a good movie. Was it?
JVL00:37:17Yeah. No, by the standards of Fast and Furious, it was good.
Sonny00:37:20Domestically, all of these movies since, I don't know, since the, fifth one have grossed between 200, so like 206 and $238 million. The seventh one grossed a lot more, again,
JVL00:37:38because of Paul Walker. I think, but also you got to understand the cost structure keeps increasing because they're bigger stars, you need more money. I just feel like we are one Fast and Furious opening away from the franchise essentially being exhausted. The other thing I wanted to talk about was the writing. Oh, yeah. So they do this weird thing where the stakes of the film are entirely about whether or not Vanessa Kirby's character survives. The stakes of the film are not can we save the world because they present to you the stakes are the world is in danger, except that they then find her after five minutes. And once they have her, then anytime they want, they can just set her on fire and she dies, but the virus is gone and the world is saved. And so they subvert all of that very, very early on.
Vic00:38:34How were they thinking the virus was going to spread in her? The capsules would break and then she'd have it
JVL00:38:41and then she would infect them, they would infect more people. But that isn't really a problem because they have her, right? They say we've got to find her otherwise and then like five minutes later, they're like, oh, we solved that. And so they have her. So this is the central conflict of the story. And how do they, how do they make the conflict play? Well, they say in order to save her life, we've got to get the virus out of her. And the two-time Nobel winning scientist says,
Vic00:39:06there's only one way to do it.
JVL00:39:08There's this machine that you've got to get and it's locked away in the very bottom basement of a bad guy's secret lair. And you're like, okay, well, as an audience, that seems a little extreme, but we're willing to play along with it. And then they go to the lair and they get the machine. It turns out the machine is like the size of a briefcase. And you're like, huh.
Sonny00:39:29Yeah, it's just like a bunch of tubes, kind of, with a screen.
JVL00:39:32And then the machine gets broken.
Sonny00:39:33I assumed it was like a big room that you would have to go in. You'd assume it's something that is so big and complicated. It's literally the size of my bag.
Vic00:39:41Or at least the chamber in Superman 2 where he reverses his powers, something that size.
JVL00:39:47So it breaks then. And again, all of the stakes, everything about the movie is, can we save this girl? And you're like, oh no, it's broken. What are they going to do? This is a real problem. At which point The Rock says, we're going to go to Samoa. I got a brother who does custom cars.
Sonny00:40:04I got a brother who does cars.
JVL00:40:05And he can fix this.
Sonny00:40:07I thought the same exact thing as this was happening. I was like, wait a second.
JVL00:40:10And if this is the answer, if the two time... Are you saying that that part is not realistic? No, what I'm saying is that I understand movie logic. And I do not come to Fast and Furious movies looking for realism. What I do come for is for some minimal amount of effort to be made. Effort. In order to have some tiny shred or fig leaf of logic that doesn't lead everybody in the office to say, oh, we have a new Christmas Jones. Right. Because this guy has now taken Denise Richards' title belt from her as the most implausible super scientist in the history of movies.
Vic00:40:49Well, I think the point, Jonathan, is that looks can be deceiving.
JVL00:40:53And family. The power of family. And the power of family.
Vic00:40:56Family, which has always been important to the Furious franchise. It's true.
JVL00:40:59But you can get these three people to Samoa with his family for like a dozen other reasons that have nothing to do. You can set up all of this conflict about this, right? It turns out that actually the CIA has been turned against them and everybody's coming to capture. You can do all of this. They need, they have the machine and the machine is working, but actually it will take 72 hours for it to run its full, full cycle and they have to put her someplace safe while it runs its course. And so the only place safe is back in Samoa. You know, it's Samoa. Do you see what I'm saying? There are literally a dozen reasons to put them in Samoa there that have nothing to do with any of this that don't then rely on turning Jonah into Jonah Hobbes or Jonah Shaw. What is his last name?
Vic00:41:50I don't even remember which one is he. Hobbes. Deckard Shaw.
JVL00:41:55Deckard Shaw. One of these super scientists so that the two-time Nobel winner is like, I have no idea how they built something like this. Don't even try to go into the CIA and getting like the U.S. government's research team at DARPA on this because they won't have any idea how to build this machine.
Vic00:42:11Also, by the way, and Eddie Marsan yet again. Eddie Marsan. He's having a real moment. He's everywhere. That's really something, isn't it?
Sonny00:42:19Yeah, no. I thought the same exact thing when like the montage of our guy is taking apart the incredibly complicated machinery and is like drawing pictures of it on his whiteboard. And he's like, okay, yeah, this is what I need to manufacture in my like 3D printing lab. Yeah, 3D printer right there. He's fine. That stuff, tech is big.
Vic00:42:41It's the A-team moment. You know, in the A-team, every episode there's the let's build this thing together. And that was that moment in that movie. I thought... And I like that stuff.
JVL00:42:50When they're burying the oil drums and setting up their perimeter, that stuff was fine.
Vic00:42:54I thought they went to Samoa to hide from Idris Elba and then they just happened to have the brother fix it. I also went to the bathroom. I actually went to the bathroom at some point. It's so long, Sonny. At some point... The bathroom. I mean, the movie is so long.
Sonny00:43:14At some point after the repairs on the machine were being made. So I may have missed something.
Vic00:43:22I figured that would be the time to know.
Sonny00:43:24I wouldn't say you missed anything, Sonny. You know what I think I missed? I missed some explanation of why they were all mad at The Rock for being away for 25 minutes. Oh, because he turned in their dad. So their dad was a criminal
JVL00:43:36and he was making The Rock and Jonah join his criminal gang and do more and more dangerous things. And so The Rock wanted to be a cop. And so The Rock, in order to save his family... No, no. In order to save his family, the only way to do it because the dad wouldn't stop using them for his criminal ways, he turned the dad in.
Sonny00:43:53So is the dad going to end up being the voice on the other end of Etienne? I mean, obviously. Oh. Is that...
JVL00:44:01Because he made... There was some reference to... There's a picture of his dad in there. I know. Like the real Rock. There's a picture of Rocky Johnson. I don't know if you noticed this. In Jonah's workshop or office, there is a picture of Rocky Johnson in his wrestling tights.
Vic00:44:13I will say, I like Cliff Curtis. And he was so good in Training Day. If you remember, he played Smiley in one of the most harrowing, terrifying scenes ever in Training Day. And so...
JVL00:44:26You're going to say...
Vic00:44:26No, no, I'm not going to say. I'm not going to say that line. It's a scary line. I'm not going to say it. Have you ever? No, not that line. But... But he was so good, so to speak. He was so good that when I'm watching him, I said, oh, this guy is... I thought the actor was Hispanic playing the Samoan. But in fact, Cliff Curtis, he's a New Zealander. He's closer to being a Samoan than he is playing... He was that good. You know, in my mind, I'm like, oh, this guy is, you know...
Sonny00:44:54Did you see that Roman Reigns is also... In the movie? Yeah. I saw Roman Reigns in there. I was disappointed there was no Jason Momoa. Like, if we're going to get all the...
Vic00:45:02Yeah, get them all... We're going to get all the Samoan guys together. Oh, because you think they all know each other?
Sonny00:45:05Well, I mean, I just assume that they're all, you know, hanging out.
JVL00:45:08So did you guys pick up on the one real mind-blowing thing in this movie? No. The suggestion that Dexter Shaw... Deckard. Deckard. Deckard Shaw, whatever his effing name is... Deckard Shaw. Yes. ...was once known as Handsome Rob in The Italian Job. Oh, I did see that. I did see that. We used... So that was an alias.
Sonny00:45:35But it was so obvious. Like... No, they were saying the same thing. Here's my problem.
Vic00:45:40They're merging worlds. Yeah, they're... Yeah, because they made the reference when they passed the Mini Cooper, right?
Sonny00:45:44Here's my problem with that line is that he walks past the Mini Cooper and he's like, we use this for a job in Italy. And it's just like, okay, come on. And we call it... I got it. ...The Italian Job. You could have just walked by it, frankly.
JVL00:45:57Easter eggs for morons.
Sonny00:45:59Well, yes. Well, this is... The whole series is a series for morons, so...
Vic00:46:03What did you think about, though? Weren't you impressed? Admit it. You were impressed. No. When he's on the flatbed and the chain comes loose and he was able... The rock was able to hold the helicopter for... I know it was just a few seconds, but with the chain... That was an amazing feat of strength. But see, that stuff doesn't bother me.
JVL00:46:22That stuff doesn't bother me. The Jonah being the guy who... You can fix this. Oh, that was... That's what bothers me, because...
Vic00:46:29You don't know Jonah's background? He might have gone to MIT? No, but what it bothers me, right? Because for that other scene...
JVL00:46:33He probably...
Sonny00:46:34The rock actually has to hold them together. There's no other way to get around that thing. He probably built the whole Etion mainframe, Jonah did, and that is why... That's why you know Jonah has...
Vic00:46:43Because the father, you know. See? It's more than you think. Did you catch, by the way, yet again, in Brixton's speech, he talks about what man has done to the environment.
Sonny00:46:54He lists a trio. A trio of evils, capitalism, environmental destruction, and terrorism. See?
JVL00:47:01There you go.
Sonny00:47:01Because of those things, they have to. They have to. They have to wipe out. They have to wipe out half the world. Only the weak. That's the only reason. Only the weak. Only the weak part. Only the weak part.
JVL00:47:08They're going to leave the strong parts.
Sonny00:47:09They're going to get rid of the weak part with their weak virus. I don't even know.
JVL00:47:13It's a virus that only kills the weak.
Sonny00:47:14It's a virus that only kills weak people. So, like, a lot of children, probably.
JVL00:47:18You know? Wait, so... But back to the Italian job. That is a clear insinuation that this character was... This character who was known as, a.k.a. Handsome Rob, in that other thing, which I...
Vic00:47:31The first thing I thought was, who owns the rights to Handsome Rob and how does that work?
JVL00:47:37Did they have to... Was that also a Universal movie? Was the Italian job Universal? Did they have to pay rights to somebody? I thought it was Paramount, too, without checking.
Sonny00:47:46I think it's Paramount because there used to be an Italian job ride at King's Dominion when it was Paramount's King's Dominion. And then when they... So smart. King's Dominion to somebody else. So they had to rename all of the rides. And now it's like... It's something like Backlot... The Roman Project. It's something like Backlot Studio Chase or something. It's the Leppin version of the Italian job. It's the most pathetic thing ever.
JVL00:48:14Wait, so... But this is what I immediately... I would thought you would be interested in this, Sonny. The first thing I thought was, did somebody have to get paid for them to do that?
Sonny00:48:22Well, I don't think so because you're not actually saying... You're not... You're not actually, like, making a reference.
Vic00:48:30Does he say job in Italy?
Sonny00:48:32No, because, again, it's an Easter egg for stupid people. So they hammer you over the head with it, but they don't actually say... I don't know. We needed this for the Italian job. He's like, I needed this car for a job.
JVL00:48:44As with Fast and Furious Presents rather than Fast and Furious colon Hobbs and Shaw, this strikes me as a distinction which, legally speaking, may not have a difference.
Sonny00:48:56I think you can probably have Easter eggs to things that are not owned by... As long as you don't have... So this was actually a big thing in Ready Player One. Yes, they had to get permission on all of this, didn't they? They had to get permission on a bunch of things, and they couldn't use any Star Wars stuff, I think was the one they couldn't get. So they couldn't use any of the Star Wars stuff. But that was because they wanted to depict the actual things. They wanted to show, like, X-Wings. Right, yeah, yeah. Lightsabers and stuff. And so here, if you're just making a passing reference that could... I don't think it's the same realm.
Vic00:49:33Whereas the Iron Giant, that was up for sale.
JVL00:49:36Yeah, see, but I think by saying it's the same character, you are insinuating that you are using a character who belongs to that other intellectual property in your intellectual property.
Sonny00:49:45It's like saying... But there's another...
JVL00:49:47It's like having a Harrison Ford character in Cowboys vs. Aliens and making a nod and a wink and be like, yeah, you know, I used to be a professor of archaeology who went out after stuff. But you could... I think you could totally do that.
Sonny00:49:59I think you could totally do that and it would be fine. I don't think... There would be no... There would be no... Because, I mean, the thing is, Deckard Shaw is like an already established character within this universe. It's not like they're introducing him and being like... It's not like they're introducing, like, what's his name? The red... Seth Green. And Seth Green shows up and he's like, hey, I know how to fix computers, guys. Hey, I'm a hacker and I worked out... I used that car in my Italian job. Wink, wink, wink.
Vic00:50:26Very good. Very good. Well, we'll find out, as you say. And if JVL is right, then somebody is going to owe the studio a big debt. Speaking of which, if you're carrying revolving debt, that means you're not paying off your card every month and could be paying thousands in interest every year that you don't have to. With Lending Club, you can consolidate your debt and pay off credit cards with one fixed monthly payment. Since 2007, Lending Club has helped millions of people regain control of their finances with a fixed rate personal loans. No trips to a bank. No high interest cards. Just go to LendingClub.com. Tell them about yourself and how much you want to borrow. Pick the terms that are right for you. And if you're approved, your loan is automatically deposited into your bank account in as little as a few days. Lending Club is the number one peer-to-peer lending platform with over $35 billion in loans issued. Go to LendingClub.com slash SubBeacon. Check your rate in minutes and borrow up to $40,000. That's Lending Club. LendingClub.com slash SubBeacon. LendingClub.com slash SubBeacon. All loans made by a web bank member FDIC equal housing lender. Corrections. Additions. I have a correction.
JVL00:51:38Please. During font talk last week, I said that I did aerial 12 point at 125, 125% magnification with 1.25 line spacing. Incorrect. I use 1.15 line spacing. And I don't know about you guys, but 1.15 is for me the gold. Standard 1.5 is way too big. Too much.
Vic00:51:59Yeah.
JVL00:51:59One line. Impossible. Everything's jumbled together. 1.25.
Vic00:52:03No, 1.15. But 1.25 is better. Do you remember the font? Do you remember the font of the weekly standard? On Adobe inside, InDesign rather, InDesign. No. Aldine 721 BD, BT. That was it. Interesting. Headline was Aldine 401 and the text was Aldine 721. There you go. You learn something every day. Okay. That is all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Victorino Matus, at Sonny Bunch. Are you sure you're not on? Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher. Just type in Sub-Beacon at a podcast. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time. A little bit of a late taping today, and I'm barely keeping it together because of my intermittent fast. But thank goodness, thank goodness I have leftovers in the fridge.
Sonny00:53:05What do you have?
Vic00:53:06Leftovers from Amu's, the Persian fusion Iranian restaurant that I love. The only thing I don't have is the dukh, which is the sour, salty yogurt. You didn't want to suck on a dukh while you were at work? I was thinking, you know what, though? I can make some myself.
Sonny00:53:25I'm not saying. it after that, that's gross. I'm sure it's fine.
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