#32. Springsteen, Spider-Man, and Stranger Things
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With JVL at the beach, Matthew Continetti fills in and introduces himself as the fourth Marx brother, Gummo (listeners would write in to correct him: Zeppo), and for once every panelist has seen the movie — the Springsteen-soundtracked Blinded by the Light, which was Vic's pick and which the other two proceed to demolish. Sonny gives it one and a half stars out of five with three complaints: it's boring, it's boring, and it is beat-for-beat the same film as Bend It Like Beckham, which he'd unluckily watched the day before — a child of immigrants straining against family tradition until a Western cultural practice saves him, wedding subplot included — and its idea of conveying music is putting the lyrics on screen while people half-dance and half-recoil, never committing to the magical realism that would at least have been a choice. Continetti nearly walked out twice, though his troubles started earlier with a $7, 44-ounce "medium" Diet Coke at the Ballston Regal, and his objections pile up: the lead looks like a young Bronson Pinchot, the poetry is genuinely terrible ("the father was right"), and the camera lingers on a Vote Conservative Thatcher poster during the National Front sequence as if the audience might miss the point. Vic somehow lands on a B-minus, mourns that Rob Brydon's serenade has ruined "Thunder Road" for him, pities Rupes the Sikh friend third-wheeling through the "Born to Run" number, and delivers a peak-Sub-Beacon complaint that a movie set in 1987 Britain never once mentions U2 and The Joshua Tree. Elsewhere they work through the collapse of the Sony-Disney Spider-Man deal — Disney reportedly demanding 50 percent of the gross, later reported as 30 — and Disney's march toward 45 percent of the annual box office, then close on Stranger Things 3, which Continetti liked better than season two as the show's summer-blockbuster installment, praising the Terminator-shaped Russian hitman and the Starcourt Mall production design while agreeing the full "Never Ending Story" singalong wrecked the climax's pacing. Opening banter includes Continetti's 500-ticket arcade windfall at Ocean City and Vic's dilemma over the barber who has drawn blood with a straight razor two visits running.
From the show notes
#cdata-section -------------- In this latest episode sponsored by DoorDash and NetSuite, we tackle the Springsteen-themed Blinded by the Light
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon, sponsored by DoorDASH and NetSuite. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is available on iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher. Look at our podcast and search for Sub-Beacon, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends and leave a review. I'm Victor Matus along with Sonny Bunch and in for Jonathan V. Last is our regular guest host Matthew Continetti. Hello Matt.
Guest00:00:45Hi Vic and you know, I've given this some thought. I realized I'm the fourth Marx brother. I'm gummo. You could just, you know, because he doesn't appear in every movie. It's various combinations. Every now and then. You guys are Groucho, Harpo and Chico and then every so often gummo shows up. In a pinch.
Vic00:01:04Gummo shows up. Well, welcome gummo. How have you been all this time?
Guest00:01:09I've been doing well. I've had a good long weekend. Uh-huh. Vacation.
Vic00:01:14How was vacation?
Guest00:01:15A lot of fun at Ocean City.
Vic00:01:18That's in Maryland.
Guest00:01:19I learned a new nickname for Ocean City, apparently in my wife's youth. It was, this is Ocean City, Maryland, not Ocean City, New Jersey, but it was referred to as Ocean . I think I have to beep that. Yeah. Really? But, you know, we've been going there for, this is our second year now. We kind of moved south from Bethany down to Ocean City. Yeah, right. You were in Delaware. And it's great.
Vic00:01:44It's great for the kids. So it's not too skeevy, like, you know, worrying about at night and the teenagers.
Guest00:01:49Well, you have to isolate yourself. You have to isolate yourself from the teenagers. So we stay in this place called Sunset Island, which is on the bay side. It's all the townhomes. Oh, that's nice. And a lot of young families go there. Yes. Mm-hmm . And then every so often, you venture out. And that's where you might. On an excursion. On an excursion. Mm-hmm . During the day. Controlled during the day. Morning. To Trimper's Amusement Park or to one of the mini golf courses. Yeah. Yeah. Which are terrible. Oh.
Sonny00:02:17They really are. Mini golf really is like a plague on beach side towns. I don't know about that. Like, when we went to Virginia Beach, we saw 40. Right. You know, 100.
Guest00:02:26100 of them. Yeah.
Sonny00:02:28100 of those courses are quite creative. Yeah. And they were all empty. Oh. Every time we drove by them, there was never anybody. I don't know. They knew you were coming.
Guest00:02:35I assume they're all fronts.
Vic00:02:36Mm-hmm . For drug lords. Do your kids, are they old enough to play any of the games yet? No.
Guest00:02:42No. Oh, yes. Oh. So this was, began last year. Mm-hmm . With the arcade with my son.
Sonny00:02:48And it only accelerated this year. So, skee-ball. Oh.
Guest00:02:52He likes skee-ball. Throwing games. You know. He's gotta go. Knock the clown down. But also arcade games. Oh. Now what they've done with some of the classic arcade games is they've blown up the screens. So kind of you have. Yes. Yes. And that's why they charge you a dollar. Yeah. Or space invaders at a very. But we. I've seen that. We had a lot of fun playing those together. And then his favorite was a Nerf shoot-em-up. Oh. He was really, he was really good at that. Mm-hmm . And then here's, here's one annoying thing. They had, they have tickets. You know, you get tickets. Yes, of course. So you can get the junk prizes. Yes. And I won 500 tickets. Oh my God. On one game. Whoa. And every single ticket came out of the machine. It's not like you get a credit. So you had 500 actual tickets.
Vic00:03:34No. You're holding it like, like. I had to. A big wad.
Guest00:03:38You had to sit there. A giant wad. It's like you're performing surgery because like every hundred or so tickets you have to rip, rip it off and, and I'm like, Son, hold this. You know, and.
Vic00:03:47You know what though. Suction. I, I like that. And then. I like that because it's a spectacle and then it makes people have to stop and say, look, look at me.
Guest00:03:55Look at. I want, 'cause I'm good. Well, you're desperate for attention. Yeah. That's why you would like that.
Vic00:03:59Well, it's like the slot machine too. I don't want people to look at me. I want, I want coins.
Sonny00:04:02Well, I went out. I was gonna say, it's like in Vegas where you get, instead of getting like the slip, you get like 3000 quarters or something.
Vic00:04:09I want quarters spitting out for five and everyone has to stand up and say. You want the lights going off.
Sonny00:04:13The lights going out. Look at me. Look at this winner. I did it. Look at this person. Look at this. So you did it, but it was too much.
Guest00:04:20It was too much. Look at this skillful slots player over here. It, look, if it would be one thing, if you just had to sit there for the 500 tickets, get them all out and then go to the counter, but instead you have to put them back into a different machine in order to get the coupon. Okay.
Sonny00:04:31That's yeah.
Guest00:04:32It seems to me very, what they need is like a McKinsey study. You know, when mayor Pete drops out of the presidential race, he can, he can do like a consultant study of these arcades because make it make the process more efficient.
Sonny00:04:43But I assume that children are more like Vic though, in that they like to have everything come out and they want, it's so unsatisfying if it's like on your card, if the kids just got like a little slip that said five. 520 tickets, they'd be like, all right.
Vic00:04:57You know what is great though? You get like 500 tickets. That's at least you could at least get like a, a, a water pistol.
Guest00:05:04It probably costs 75 cents, you know, if you ever look at the stuff on there, it's like
Vic00:05:0910,000.
Guest00:05:10Well, you know, one of the, uh, one of the arcades at the mini golf last year, uh, the boy cleaned house, like he got so many, it was the same game that I won the 500 tickets last year. I won like a thousand tickets and, um, for him and, and so he got all of this crap and, but at that place, I think they must've realized we were onto them because it all of a sudden the ticket prices went way up over the course of one year. So they do it. It's definitely stacked against you.
Vic00:05:38The one thing I did well, and this is a few years ago, it was like whack the whack-a-mole thing. Oh yeah. You know, I just told my son, get out of the way. And you handled it. Oh, just like lightning speed. Just whacking those bones. It's all, it's all in the wrist. Sonny, what's going on with you?
Sonny00:05:52Uh, not, not a whole lot, not a whole lot. Just, uh, hanging.
Vic00:05:56You look thinner and thinner.
Sonny00:05:57People won't notice this on the podcast, but you know, I won't sound, I don't know what,
Vic00:06:03so what, what's the, what is going on? Is it, it must be just diet.
Sonny00:06:06It's a real, it's a real, uh, complicated thing. It's called diet and exercise. It's leaving the beacon leaving when he left the beacon and all of his troubles, you miss all the snacks. All of his troubles went away. There are no, I don't have like a giant table of snacks at my house that's full of cookies and, and, uh, that sort of thing.
Vic00:06:25Whenever we get in our office, you know, like a new pack, a new box of snacks. I might take a couple and put them in my drawer. You just gotta hoard them. From that crazy, the crazy war room, I gotta hide them.
Sonny00:06:35It's like a Russian. It's like, it's like the Soviet union, you know, people say there's enough for everyone, but there's not. You're like a squirrel.
Vic00:06:42I'm like, yes, absolutely.
Guest00:06:43I bet you forget where you've put them sometimes. You come across it. Yeah.
Vic00:06:47There's gonna be a cookie tree. Years later, there's a grandma's oatmeal cookie. And you'd eat it.
Sonny00:06:51And I'd eat it cause the shelf life, you know, those are made to, those are made to last
Vic00:06:54the Russian war. So I wanted to mention, uh, I, so I got a tweet from a listener, Kyle Griesinger. And you know what the tweet was? He said, Hey, was that you at Willie and Habib's barbershop in Arlington? I got spotted in the barbershop, spotted, spotted, and you know, Gawker stalker.
Sonny00:07:10Yeah.
Vic00:07:11I know I had to go around in a sunglass and a hat now, but, uh, and I think the reason why he spotted me is because on my way out, I do a whole goodbye to the whole barbershop. Oh, really? You're a regular. I am. I say goodbye. Everybody. Do you have a glad hand at the barbershop? I shake hands. I say, you know, Habib. You do like a line. I do. And I try to remember their names.
Guest00:07:31It's also your enormous head.
Vic00:07:32It's hard to miss. I mean, how could they not recognize you?
Guest00:07:34Well, it takes a long time to cut with that, with that noggin.
Vic00:07:39That's right. I get spotted miles away, miles away. Um, but here's the dilemma that I have. The dilemma that I have is, um, uh, the lady that I've been going to, she's very nice. She was a Vietnamese lady, right? But then she takes out at the end. I always look forward to it. A little bit of the shaving cream and then the straight edge, you know, and then they sharpen things with a straight edge, which is the real deal. The last two times that she's had me, she's cut me.
Guest00:08:03Oh, really?
Vic00:08:04Yeah. I'm like, Ooh, why do I feel, I kind of feel like a little sting, right? And then I'll get in the car. I look in the rear view mirror and I'll see there's blood.
Guest00:08:12That's not supposed to happen. It's not supposed to happen. I even think that they're like safety straight edges.
Vic00:08:17Like I didn't even think they could cut you. That's not a thing. The best.
Sonny00:08:21The whole point of this straight edge is that it's not safe.
Vic00:08:22It's a thing in my mind. I'm usually a really good barber to do that. Right. And I trust the other guys to do the really good. And so what do I do now? Because every time I go in, she's like, Hey, come right here. You know, I'm ready for you.
Sonny00:08:36You just have to go to a whole new barbershop.
Guest00:08:38Well, no. Right. That's what happened with me. That's what happened with you. Yeah, I do. I do. At the weekly standard. Remember, uh, I went, a certain lady cut my hair for years at today's look at, well, we're not going to get into names here, but at a place, well, that was better than the second name. Which is still, it's still there. Yeah. And anyway, and I didn't go for a few weeks. And then when I reemerged, her first words to me were where you've been.
Vic00:09:03Oh yeah. No. Where are you? And I realized I can't. I had to cut it off. So I avoid that place. Yeah.
Guest00:09:10You walk down the street. You see you cross the street. In fact, just the other day I was walking near Scott circle in the city and one of her colleagues who used to cut Goldfarb's hair came, was coming in the other direction and, well, we cut. We kind of both looked to the ground because we were ashamed, you know, of your, to recognize
Vic00:09:30the former relationship. That's really very awkward.
Sonny00:09:34So I, I don't know what this, this gets back to our whole conversation that like the, the, uh, these, the relationship between barber and customer is too personal. We have, we have, we have, we have created, we have created this whole norm in, in our society that this is like a good thing that people should talk to them. No, we need the silent barbershops where nobody says anything. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Guest00:09:55They just sit there in silence. Sit there and let 'em cut you. It still doesn't matter. Cuz I never say anything and the place I've been going to now, it doesn't, they know who I am. They know the way the, the hair and, and of course they're speaking in Vietnamese the whole time. Oh, okay. But then they'll say to me, you know, they'll say like, we know you. We know who you are. I don't say anything. Do they wanna say, do they wanna talk about the news or no?
Sonny00:10:18You need to get, you need to get Frank Costanza in there. They just.
Guest00:10:21That's right. What they're really saying.
Vic00:10:22That's right. So, yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, I mean, that's your, that's your, that's it. Well, I like it. No, I love this place. Oh, okay.
Guest00:10:30All right. But I'm just saying even not talking. Mm-hmm. Doesn't.
Vic00:10:34Right. It does not lend itself to invisibility. Right. Right. Right. But it still, but it still doesn't solve my thing because do I tell her, hey, could you be careful?
Sonny00:10:41Cuz you've been cutting me the last couple. No, you just need to go to another barber shop. Yeah. You just have to leave. I'm at another barber shop. Yeah. Sorry. I, I don't, I guess I'm just gonna have to keep going. Or you, you could kill her.
Vic00:10:50Or maybe a day that she's off. I'm just concerned because if I go back, I don't even wanna wish, I don't wanna scare the other customers.
Guest00:10:56Do you make an appointment?
Vic00:10:57No, I, I walk in. So you walk in. So I know.
Sonny00:11:00It just so happens that she's always free. Mm-hmm. You could, you could, well, you could, uh, you could stalk the place and wait until she's with another customer. Right. Like just walk back and forth. Yeah.
Vic00:11:08Oh, I just go back and forth. Just like boom. And now's my chance. It's close to your house. And not, it, it, it, I, I go to the one on 10th Street. Oh, okay. But I, you know, but he, he moved.
Sonny00:11:15You could, you could set up shop, uh, at a Starbucks or something.
Vic00:11:17It's very awkward when you have a, a barber that likes you and then you choose the other barber in front of them. Oh yeah.
Sonny00:11:23It's a very awkward thing. Mm-mm. Speaking of Seinfeld. It's a whole nother.
Vic00:11:27Uh-huh. That's right. Anyway, I'm just worried that, you know, she's, I'm gonna leave me with a scar. Speaking of scars over the weekend, the Lion King. Get it? The Lion King. Oh, I get it. Scar was still third. In third place, by the way, at the box office with $1.2 million and second place was Fast and Furious presents Hobbs and Shaw.
?00:11:44With $14 million.
Vic00:11:45And in first place was Good Boys, which took in $21.4 million. Box office thoughts.
Sonny00:11:52Uh, I'm sorry, how much, how much did, uh, the Lion King gross in third place?
Vic00:11:56Uh, 12 million. Okay. Cause I thought you said 1.2 million. Oh no, no. Oh yes. I was like, are you talking about the dailies? I know. No, you're right. Okay.
Sonny00:12:05I did say 1.2 because I can't see.
Guest00:12:06Okay. All right.
Vic00:12:08What about my glasses? Uh, we won't get into that right now.
Guest00:12:10You have so many maladies. I do. You're being sliced up by your barber.
Vic00:12:14Like my, I pulled my flexor, my hip flexor, the blood is flowing into your eyes right now. I can't even read this copy. Uh, I, but the Lion King, the Lion King is still lingering. I read somewhere that it made $700 trillion.
Sonny00:12:28It is at $1.4 billion. It is the, I believe 10th highest grossing film of all time, uh, worldwide at this point. Not Disney, of all time. And it's Disney's third. I'm sorry. Ninth highest now. Ninth highest. Cause it just passed Avengers Age of Ultron.
Guest00:12:41And it's Disney's third billion dollar title this year. Fifth. This year. This year. Fifth. So, it, so, uh, Endgame, Far From Home, Lion King. And what were the other two? Uh, hold on one sec, let me just pull it up.
Sonny00:12:56Uh, Aladdin. Aladdin made more than a billion. Wow. Aladdin passed a billion. Uh. Did you take any of your kids to see these movies? Toy Story 4.
Guest00:13:04Did you say Toy Story 4? I did not. Toy Story 4 made, and so, and you were expecting both Frozen 2 and Rise of Skywalker to also cross a billion.
Sonny00:13:12Oh yeah. What a year. This is, this is a real problem. I mean, it's getting to be a real problem. Disney, Disney, I think, has, I saw the numbers, I forget what they were, I don't, I don't want to look them up right now, but the, the number was something like, Disney accounts for 45% of the annual box office, box office, box office stake this year. One studio, almost half of what is made at the box office.
Vic00:13:33People are, so people are going to see, did you take any of your kids to see Aladdin or The Lion King?
Guest00:13:38My children are, uh, so young, we, they don't really go to the movies. Good. What we did, the billion dollar movie that we mentioned. Uh, that they did see, uh, was Toy Story 4 and the whole family, it was family entertainment. The whole family went and we all enjoyed it.
Sonny00:13:52Do your kids, do your kids like the other Toy Story movies?
Guest00:13:55Eh, it kind of off and on. They'll watch them. Not so much. They loved, the boy saw Angry Birds 2, uh, with his grandmother the other day. And he says that Angry Birds 2 is better than Angry Birds 1. What? And it's the sequel. It's the rare sequel that is better than the original. Empire.
Sonny00:14:14Because apparently.
Guest00:14:15It's the Godfather 2. It's the Dark Knight. Of Angry Birds. It's the Dark Knight of the Angry Birds franchise. And he says, what made it, I said, well, what, what made it better? He said, this one has eagles that shoot ice.
Sonny00:14:26What?
Vic00:14:27How does that even work? Exactly. I don't know how it works. I don't know if he's just making it up. Out of their eyes? Out of their eyes?
Guest00:14:33I'm not sure. I should ask more for more details this evening. Please, please do. Because.
Vic00:14:37Yeah, we need to, we need to know. I didn't know Angry Birds. Does anyone play Angry Birds anymore? That was a thing.
Guest00:14:41I want to get my kids to go through the. The animated classics before they see the cannibalized live-action CGI monstrosities that Disney's foisting upon America.
Vic00:14:51The original Jungle King. Jungle, Jungle King. Jungle Book. Jungle Book. It was the Jungle King. Okay. Yes. You were talking about other, you know, Disney. What about the situation with Sony? Is it Sony Disney? Sony and Disney. Sony and Disney. Biderman.
Sonny00:15:07So what, what's happening there? According to various reports, Sony and Disney were not able to come to terms to share Spider-Man with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So like, it, without getting too deep into the weeds, Spider-Man is owned by Sony. Yes. The rights to Spider-Man are owned by Sony. Mm. Uh, and. We're not giving that up. Disney owns now almost every facet of the Marvel Universe since they have absorbed, um. Fox. Fox. They, they now own all of the Avenger stuff. They now all own all the X-Men.
Guest00:15:38X-Men. And Fantastic Four. They own all the Fantastic Four stuff.
Sonny00:15:41And Deadpool now. And Deadpool is part of the, yeah, right. So, uh, this is, this is a, uh, a, a, a character-sharing situation, a very unique one that, that Sony and Disney worked out. Um, and it was frankly to everyone's benefit because, again, this is my understanding of how the economics of it worked, uh, Disney got something like five percent of the gross of the, uh, the, the Spider-Man standalone films, so Far From Home and Homecoming, um, and, uh. So, I don't know that Sony got much of anything from the MCU movies, um, may, maybe they got a couple percent or percentage points, but the, the MCU movies with Spider-Man, so you're. Which were three of them. Which were, which were, I mean, like, Endgame, uh, Infinity War. Infinity War.
Vic00:16:28Civil War. Civil War.
Sonny00:16:30So, even though he's in Civil War. Even though he's in there, they're not getting. Right. So, I, I mean, even if they only got a couple of points, that's still a ton of money. Yeah. Because, I, I mean, those movies were huge, huge, enormous hits. Sony can use that. So, anyway, uh, my understanding is that, uh, Marvel. And Disney came back to Sony and said, okay, we now want 50% of the gross. If you're going to use MCU characters in the next, uh, Spider-Man movie and Sony, I think very reasonably said, get stuffed. That's ridiculous. Uh, you know, we have a good thing going. So I don't know. I, I, uh, it, my understanding again also is that this is not a 100% for sure done a radical separation of all of these, these things, but, uh, the, the long and the short of it. Is Disney wanted more money. Sony thought they had a pretty good thing going and Disney, frankly, look, the other, the other, the flip side of the coin here is that Disney has no real business interest in allowing Sony to create their own cinematic universe, which is what they're trying to do with Spider-Man, right? They've got venom, which was a huge hit, which was a huge surprise, $850 million or whatever that movie grossed worldwide, enormous hit, um, they've got the spider verse into the spider verse, which was a critical hit and not, not as big at the box office, but I think is, is, uh, is primed very well for a sequel because audiences loved it and it picked up some steam on home video. So I mean, Sony has this idea that they are going to create a Spider-Man cinematic universe. Disney says, well, why would we want to help you build that? Why would we want to try and compete with that? So there's, there are, there are, there are good points on both sides here. It is unfortunate that, uh, such callow concerns as money, uh, are getting in the way of really the greatest storytelling. In the history of, uh, the cinema, they could have like dual Spider-Man Sony gets to do
Vic00:18:16their thing.
Sonny00:18:17And then maybe Marvel can bring back Andrew Garfield or Toby McGuire could have old Spider-Man.
Guest00:18:22Well, you know, the thing is that they, um, one of the reasons why I think the fan fan community is so hard hit by all of this is it seems like finally, at least since the first two Sam Raimi films, they got Spidey, right? Right. And he's such a beloved character and Tom Holland's been great in that role. He's great. And the John Watts movies, the standalone movies were great. And Kevin Feige, of course, the genius Louis B. Mayer of our time figured out how to incorporate Spider-Man into the larger MCU. And to just hear that this is broken is really disappointing to a lot of people because Sony, I mean, I don't, you know, Venom, I didn't see, but Sony is not going to be as effective with the character as Marvel. That's just my. I'm going to put that out there and also other elements of the creative team, including the director of the two standalone movies, John Watts. His fate is up in the air too, because he's having a lot of offers being thrown at him from other studios and Feige is there saying, well, I have this whole MCU.
Sonny00:19:26I got to bring in fantastic for 17 million movies on the slate.
Guest00:19:29I got to bring in X-Men.
Sonny00:19:31We're going to lead up to some new four.
Guest00:19:34Yeah. And we'll see how he does it. You know, you don't know how he's going to do it. It's usually good to bring back Jessica Alba. And that would be great.
Sonny00:19:41Well, so I mean, Sony's putting Michael Chiklis is the thing. Sony Sony's putting all their eggs in the Morbius, the living vampire. And I just don't see how that's going to. Yeah, exactly.
Guest00:19:50I just don't see how that works out. And so one hopes that this is part of a negotiation because I also heard so deadline when deadline broke the story, they said it was a 50 50 split that that Disney was demanding. That has since I've now since heard that Disney was actually asking for 30 percent.
Sonny00:20:09Oh, that's still too much. It is.
Guest00:20:11But the fact that it's going down suggests to me that maybe they'll be able to work out some arrangement and keep this thing going, because just for Marvel's purposes, they were clearly working up to have Spider-Man replace Iron Man as kind of the central figure.
Sonny00:20:28But here's so from Disney's perspective, you can't do that when Sony owns Spider-Man. And as long as Spider-Man continues to be successful, Spider-Man has no reason to give
Guest00:20:37up. So here's my solution. Disney should buy Sony.
Vic00:20:40Yes.
Guest00:20:41So we should.
Sonny00:20:42We should. Just like they do with Fox. So Disney should own 20th Century Fox and Columbia TriStar slash Sony. Done. Fox is already. Fox is not long in this world. So once they have 60 percent of the market, you know, you make a play for the Dark Universe and Universal. Right. And you can. Let's not get crazy. You can. I'm just saying that, you know, Disney is verging very close to monopolistic practices and needs to be careful. Careful on how it pursues and throws around its power on the Fox deal.
Guest00:21:13I mean, the shame of this is because I want Spider-Man in the MCU and I'm I think Disney should do anything to keep him there. That's right. But the shame of it is the Fox deal clearly is not working out. And all that seems like Iger is in panic mode, sending Alan Horn and a couple other executives there. The Fox movies aren't performing. That Dark Phoenix movie was a flop was amazing. So they are going to.
Sonny00:21:36I don't. They bought. They bought Fox, not for the slate of films that Fox had for the IP, but for the IP. The real problem is that they are they are again, this is what I've read. Who knows how true it is that the Disney Plus streaming service is basically not going to use any of that IP at all. The number of films from the 20th Century Fox library that will be available on streaming is very small. Again, my understanding, I don't know for sure. But that what's the point of buying that giant library and not putting them all on all on streaming at once? Frankly, just do it and crush Netflix once and for all.
Guest00:22:11Well, we're we're getting there, but yeah, that's interesting. Did they give any reason when you read that about why they're not?
Sonny00:22:17I mean, I think they a lot of it's a part of it. Part of it is because they think that there is not an audience for older films, which is true. And there is not. It's not like there is a zero cost to creating 4K quality streaming, you know, files for these movies. You have to go. You have to find the negatives. You have to. You have to go through a very laborious process of creating a digital file for it. It's it is not it is not free like that. There is a cost involved, but I still don't see, you know, if you are Disney and you have access to this enormous library, what is the point of not utilizing it?
Vic00:22:53You mentioned earlier just really briefly, but Venom and made a lot of money. You said how much it made a huge like eight hundred fifty. You know why? Do you know why? Because because of Michelle Williams, because of Michelle Williams, it was hard. She was the key. It's hard to play a lifeless cyborg. I don't know how she did that. That was really impressive. Was that her character? No, no. It just seemed like it.
Sonny00:23:13She's like, OK, but we're not OK. So what about the matrix? We're not going to talk about the matrix for all more decadence, unless unless they make
Vic00:23:21them. They could CGI her.
Sonny00:23:24So who owns Matrix? So the Matrix is owned by Warners, right? It was a Warner. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. I mean, I it is it's fascinating to me that a only one of the Wachowskis is involved. And I don't think any of the other cast aside from Carrie Ann Moss and Keanu Reeves are confirmed. I think it's. No Lawrence Fishburne. I have not.
Guest00:23:48I have not seen anything who is in the was in the second John Wick. I don't know if he was. He was in.
Vic00:23:53I haven't still haven't seen. Even though he got sliced and diced, he got vivisected and he lived at the end of John Wick. But I bet Joe Pantoliano. So I bet he's around. He'll do the show. He'll go back for me. Well, he would die.
Sonny00:24:03I thought he died, you know. But no, I mean, I like I think it's I think it's very interesting. Very interesting that this is. I know Hugo Weaving. Hugo Weaving. He got blown up. Right. You know, he'll be back.
Vic00:24:13Yeah, sure.
Sonny00:24:14Anyway, I'm what I fear the most with this is that they are going to turn it in because red pilled has become such a, you know, term of art on the on the the right and the far right. Yeah. That they're going to have to try to reclaim this for the, you know, the liberal Trump that it's going to be. It's going to be all about, you know, how terrible. How terrible all of all of the.
Guest00:24:39Why do you need a Matrix film when you have John Wick?
Sonny00:24:42I mean, John Wick. John Wick. Better three are basic feel very much like backdoor Matrix sequels. Right.
Guest00:24:49I mean, I just don't understand.
Sonny00:24:50Absolutely. No, I don't know.
Guest00:24:52And what I assume they drove a dump truck full of money to get back to my favorite subject of Marvel. There are also rumors that Keanu might be joining the Marvel Universe.
Sonny00:25:00Yeah. The Eternals.
Guest00:25:02Maybe part of it. Well, and because Angelina Jolie. Oh, he's going to be is going to be eternal. The Eternals. Yeah.
Vic00:25:07All right. Maybe there's room for Keanu. Well, I mentioned Good Boys. It was at the top of the box office. But, you know, Jonathan has been a big he's been pushing for this movie for a long time.
Sonny00:25:15I went to go see it. It was good.
Vic00:25:17And you liked it. Right. And so people have told me they really enjoy it. And I'm sure Jonathan wants to talk about it. But since he's not here, he's at the beach. We're not going to talk about it. I thought instead we could talk about the number nine movie. Ten. Number ten. Yeah. I'm amazed it got that high. Yeah. Called Blinded by the Light. According to my estimate, it says four point four.
Sonny00:25:40Four point three. Three.
Vic00:25:42Okay. Round and get down.
Sonny00:25:44Four point three million. Three million dollars. The numbers. A lot of money.
Vic00:25:48I don't have that.
Sonny00:25:49It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. Are out of date.
Vic00:25:52I didn't check that one. You didn't update. I did not check Blinded by the Light. But I thought, hey, you know, I mean, I like I like some of Springsteen's stuff. And you guys. You're a Jersey boy. I'm a Jersey boy. Yeah. I don't live far from Freehold. And you guys, of course, are big Springsteen fans. Big Springsteen fans, wouldn't it be great if we saw this movie from the director of Bend It Like Beckham? Okay. Oh, my gosh. We're combining all sorts of things. And so I thought that would be a great idea. So what you're saying is we can blame you.
Sonny00:26:18This is all Vic's fault. This is all your idea.
Vic00:26:21I don't know what you're suggesting. But Sonny, why don't you just give our listeners an explanation? What is this movie about?
Sonny00:26:26This movie is about a person who likes music. No, really likes music. No, I mean, it's just it's it's literally. It's literally just about a guy who likes music and then the music fighting racism. The music, you know, the music changes his life. He likes the music he has. He listens to the songs. He likes the music so much that he he shares he he says the lyrics to people. He's a fan. He's as if they're they have a talismanic power and then they all start dancing and then they all start dancing. So Bend It Like Beckham, Sing It Like Springsteen, as I like to call this movie, is a is a it's it's set in the in 1987 in a small town outside of London where racism is rampant and a young Pakistani boy who learns to to the power within himself through the music of Bruce Springsteen to fight against the racism. And I don't know, man, it's this movie is so here's here's my my problem with this movie. I have two problems with this movie. The first I have three problems with this movie. The first is that it's boring. The second is that it's boring. I was literally just bored in the theater. I was.
Guest00:27:37I almost I almost walked out twice. I mean, out of sheer. Hold on.
Sonny00:27:40Why?
Vic00:27:41Hold on. I want to get to that after the break, after the commercial break, because I really want
Sonny00:27:46the projector stopped working at one point. Oh, that would be an excuse.
Guest00:27:49And I almost I almost walked out who would notice who I almost like that the second my
Sonny00:27:55second problem with this movie is that it is literally the exact same movie has been it like Beckham. It's the child's wedding. It's a child of an immigrant family. An England who strains against his traditional the traditional norms and practices of his family until he discovers a Western cultural practice that gives him a new life and sense of purpose. And there's also a wedding. There's a sibling is getting married and he has to leave the wedding. This the main character leaves the wedding in both films to go do the Western cultural practice. But again, it's it is literally just beat for beat. That's the exact movie, which would have been less annoying if I hadn't watched Bend It Like Beckham literally the day before I went to see Blinded by the Light. And third, the problem is it has the whole aesthetic of the movie is blindingly liberal, literal, literal, like it is like he's he's standing, he's listening to music and he's out in a storm and the lyrics are on the screen and and then he listens to Born to Run with his friends and they're running through the streets of the town and they're doing like weird dances and stuff and and but it's but it's also not quite the magical realism sort of thing that like Rocket Man did, right? Like it's not so literal that it is portraying what is happening in the songs. It's just like the lyrics of the song are on the screen. So like I, I was, you know, kind of iffy on Rocket Man. I don't think the whole thing worked, but I was never bored by it because there was always something kind of crazy happening on the screen. And this is just this is just really, really dull. Like he's he's listening to music and we're searing seeing the lyrics. And it's like, why I why on earth would I possibly care about this? I don't care about any of this. So everything about this movie annoyed me when it wasn't boring me one and a half stars out of five. I thought it was a letterbox.
Vic00:29:54I thank you. I thought that was one and a half out of two. That's what I was saying. You weren't moved at all about like, oh, the father gets laid off. And he's like wandering the streets looking for a job, but there's no job for him.
Sonny00:30:07Get real. See, I'm going to get a little nobody. It's like the father is the best part. I want it. I agree.
Vic00:30:13The father is the best part. He's a great man. And also, I hope there's going to be more of you and Matt singing Springsteen on the show. Well, but this is really good.
Sonny00:30:20This is like this is this is a problem with the film. Is it like these guys just sing lyrics to each other or to other people? You don't think that's real? No, it's nonsense.
Vic00:30:29You didn't do that when you were in high school.
Sonny00:30:31It's annoying. I was I was like, you know what? This movie made me realize that music is childish. It's time to put away childish things and hit the books.
Guest00:30:41Fandom is child. This is a movie about fandom. And I could relate to Javid, the protagonist, in this sense, which is that when so there are times there are certain people at certain times in your life, you get really into something. Yes. And including musicians and I am willing to confess here on air that I got really into Dave Matthews Band in that high school and college. That was your spring. And so I could see some of myself in this character. Now I is I that phase ended right to not. Yeah. I mean, they have the DMV summer channel on XM that I'm listening to on occasion. Nonetheless. Yeah. With but with the journalist to the character Javid is based on who read memoir that Chandra, the director turned into this movie that clearly has not ended. But Springsteen has become almost like a religious symbol in this guy's life or yeah. So it's a movie about fandom. But but Sonny is absolutely right that the the way that the music is integrated into the film doesn't work. And if it had just been a movie about this family. It actually would have been pretty good, a bit more interesting to me if can I tell you
Sonny00:31:52what I was thinking.
Guest00:31:53It had been more like Bend It Like Beckham, frankly, and then it was a fun movie to watch. And this could be the darker version, right? Because you're very dark, you know, you're dealing with racism, you're dealing with dealing with the guy who is the immigrant story that's not quite working out, right? And you're dealing with the teenager who, you know, he's a he's a sensitive soul and old soul. He wants it. So but instead, it's like you just these random things he starts singing.
Vic00:32:19And it's why I just wished I just looked at and I just wished, you know, if this were in 2019, he would have been able to find a job in this gig economy. He could have been an Uber driver, right? He could have been a food deliverer, speaking of which. Here's a scenario for you. Your sweatpants are on for the day, but you're sick of microwaved leftovers and frozen pizza. Enter DoorDash restaurant quality food with a living room dress code. DoorDash connects you to your favorite restaurants in your city. Ordering is easy. Open the DoorDash app. Choose what you want to eat and your food will be delivered to you wherever you are. Not only is your favorite pizza joint already on DoorDash, but there are over three hundred forty thousand restaurants in three thousand three hundred cities. So you might find a new favorite, too. With door to door delivery. In all fifty states in Canada, order from your local go to's or choose from your favorite national restaurants like Chipotle, Wendy's, Chick-Fil-A and the Cheesecake Factory. Don't worry about dinner. Let dinner come to you with DoorDash. Right now, our listeners can get five dollars off their first order of fifteen dollars or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter promo code Sub-Beacon. That's five dollars off your first order. When you download the DoorDash app from the App Store and enter promo code Sub-Beacon, don't forget, that's promo code Sub-Beacon for five dollars off your first order from DoorDash.
Guest00:33:36Matt, you didn't like this movie. I didn't. I really didn't like it. But I will say that my troubles began before the film started. I also like to say, I think this is the first time I've been on the show since Rogue One came out where all of the panelists saw the movie. So I think this is an achievement that we should be proud of. It's progress. We're making progress. But I go to the Ballston Regal Cinema. First, I asked the attendant, I said, "Is there a coffee shop?" Because I'm early. "Is there a coffee shop in this mall?" And they, "No." Apparently, "No." The new Ballston Mall doesn't have a Starbucks.
Vic00:34:12That is what it is. Starbucks is like five on one floor.
Guest00:34:14And if it does, it is invisible. It is invisible to the employees of the Regal Cinema. So, all right. So I said, "Fine. I'll have a medium soda." Oh, boy. And they said, "What size?" They said, "Medium diet Coke." Okay. How many ounces, Sonny Bunch, is in a medium? 64. 44 ounces. Yeah. 44 ounces. 44 ounces. You got like a gallon. And how much does it cost? $7. $7. $7.
Sonny00:34:37$7.
Guest00:34:38$7. $7. $7. $7. $7. $7. $7. $7.
Vic00:34:46$44 ounce soda. So I got this. Do you at least get a free refill? Why would you need one? I almost, you know, I almost had to get dialysis just because I drank all of it at the movie. There's a great thing about this though, man, which is the goal, the thing is you finish the entire soda and then you could use, you don't have to go to the bathroom. You don't need to go to the bathroom. You just use the giant container.
Sonny00:34:57And you're in an empty theater because you're seeing blinded by the light. So it doesn't matter. You're in per se.
Guest00:35:01There are three people in the theater. The movie starts for the first 15 minutes. I'm saying, hold it. Why is Bronson Pinchot starring in this movie? The actor, the actor who plays Javid is literally, it's like a young Bronson Pinchot. So I didn't quite understand that.
Vic00:35:18Cussin.
Guest00:35:19Okay. Uh, the best thing about the film was the dad. The, um. Yeah. The music didn't quite work. Uh, the politics was so heavy handed. It was so heavy to the point where, and you know, the shot, the, there's a, the climactic scene is the funeral. The funeral is interrupted because of a, uh, national front March. Oh, I'm sorry. The wedding, the wedding is interrupted because of the national front March. It's a terrible situation as similarities to Charlottesville, I think was on the director's
Sonny00:35:50mind. Front was a real problem. Right. In, in England. Absolutely.
Guest00:35:54And look, these, these are live issues and everything, but then just to make sure everyone knew what she was talking about, the director just leaves the camera or pans tilt slightly upward. So you can see the Margaret Thatcher reelection poster, Margaret Thatcher, reelection poster. She's waving, but it makes it look unity and underneath it says vote conservative. Yeah. And I was just, oh, come on, you know, um, and it lingered on the shot. I felt like it lingered there for 10 minutes. It's really interesting because it shows how differently British people look at the eighties as opposed to the Americans, right? Because right now we're in the midst of this huge wave of eighties nostalgia in the United States. And as exemplified by stranger things, which you get to in a little bit, we, we, we look, we love, we love it. We, we want to, we just want to kind of like curl up in this blanket of the 1980s. And I think the British have a very different view, um, certainly liberal Brits, right?
Sonny00:36:53Like, and the liberal Brits dominate almost all sectors of opinion, even more than in
Guest00:36:59America. Right. And so you just get that overwhelming negative attitude toward what many Americans think of a hold it. Lady T. Iron Lady.
Vic00:37:07She's awesome. Wasn't she trying to modernize Britain, bring you had the big bang you had, you know?
Guest00:37:14So it was a, it was a very interesting, uh, kind of, um, juxtaposition I think, but overall the, um, then the. Oh, so here's my question. Was the principal of the school, is that the Swedish prime minister from Veep?
Sonny00:37:27Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So she's the best.
Guest00:37:31She's next to the dad. She's also, she has four lines in the movie and yet nonetheless, just because she evoked memories of Veep for me, I was happy. I was happy to see her finally. I would say the problem with this protagonist is he's just so earnest and I just got so tired. He's I just want to be myself. Yeah. I just want to be free. Yeah. I just, no one understands. I just wanted to say, shut the up, you know? I was like, get, get over it. But of course that's many teenagers.
Vic00:37:56Yes, that's right. That's where I think we're coming at it from the old perspective. But he has it pretty good.
Guest00:38:01He gets a girlfriend, he, uh, he has his good friend who introduces him, but he has something he cares about. Bruce Springsteen. He clearly has a lovely family. Yeah. Dad's tough. That's life. You know? I was like, come on, man. Um, his poetry sucked. Yeah. I'm sorry. The poetry was terrible. Yeah. It was the worst. Why are we supposed to think he's a good writer? He was awful. He was so terrible. Yeah. The father was right. Yeah. It was. Why don't you go into engineering? And then I'm on a roll here. The best line of the movie was he has this endearing, um, uh, English friend, uh, named Matt who's across the street and Matt likes more new wave music and the synth, the wave synth is the wave of the future and he has the eighties haircut and everything, but they get into a fight and I burst out laughing when the friend goes. Just you and your Bruce Springsteen philosophies loaded this. What is a Bruce Springsteen philosophy?
Sonny00:39:01I don't know. What is it? Uh, be true to yourself, work hard because you know, here's the thing about Bruce Springsteen
Guest00:39:08as he says in, in the live show and the Broadway show, he made it all up.
Vic00:39:14It's all, it's all narrative. He just makes it up. People can relate. They said he's talking to me and it doesn't. And this is where he transcends. By the way, uh, the, the friend that, you know, that's Tom and Baratheon, do you, did you know that? That's from, oh, really? That's common. Okay.
Sonny00:39:29Game of Thrones. Yeah. Before. Yeah. Well, it's hard to see him under all that hair. It's poor man. Steve from strangers.
Vic00:39:36He does kind of look like Steve Harrigan. I have a, my question to you is this, okay. So they play all the hits, right? They play all the hits. Everything is great. And a lot of the songs, I assume you like all the songs in the movie, did the movie as a result of the movie ruins any of the songs here? It did for me. And I'll tell you what, I, my favorite Springsteen song is Thunder Road. It's amazing. You know, the professor who plays the piano in the beginning, what's his name? Professor Roy Bitton. Roy Bitton. Roy Bitton. He's fantastic. It's, it's a very hard piece to play. It's a beautiful piece. The Clarence Clemens, the sax at the end. I love that song. And now when I hear it, all I could think of is Rob Brydon in that ridiculous way. And they're serenading. I thought. In the square. It ruined it now.
Sonny00:40:18It was Rob Brydon. So that is another instance of where the movie like goes into this weird, almost, but not quite magical realism moment. And like if they had gone full bore with it, right, if they had just like committed to the, like, we're living in the world of Springsteen and I would have been like, okay, that's, that's at least a choice. But instead it's this wishy washy halfway thing where like some of the people are dancing and some of the people are looking on with disgust and like, ah, it just, it annoyed me. Rob, I, so it was funny that you, you mentioned Rob Brydon because I was like, I was like, who is that? And while I was watching it and while I was watching it, I thought to myself, oh, that's the guy from Chernobyl who works at the plant, who like runs the plant, Bruhanov or whatever.
Guest00:41:00I was like, oh yeah, that's him. That's him.
Sonny00:41:02No. And then I looked it up after I was, I was like, oh no, that's Rob Brydon. I like him much more.
Vic00:41:05I like him much more. What is he doing in this terrible movie? I know. And singing and ruining it with his English voice, like that, that, that voice and singing the song and the lyrics.
Sonny00:41:13Oh, I just, I really, I really wanted to like this movie because I do like Bruce Springsteen a lot. Yeah. I really do like Bruce Springsteen being a figure, a transformational figure that works across cultures and uh, you know, ideological boundaries and cultural barriers and all that. And I just was watching this movie. I was like, I hate everybody on screen. I hate all these people. I hate the fact that they like the music I like. I am just like, I, these people all annoy me.
Vic00:41:40I'm uh, I, I had the sense by the way. So you know, you watch the trailer and I thought that going to America was going to be an integral part of this movie. Like I can't wait till they go to New Jersey and then you get to montage.
Sonny00:41:50It's just a montage, but it's, you know what?
Guest00:41:52I enjoyed that part. It is. I enjoyed that montage. I liked the scene at, uh, immigration at the border control where the, you get a sense of, oh, is this a American officer going to be a little bit stereotypical or wonder? And it turns out, oh, that's awesome that you came here to see. So I liked that.
Sonny00:42:10I liked this idea of like Springsteen breaking down the boundaries and pulling people together.
Vic00:42:15America comes off great in this movie because he clearly had a great time, even though he
Guest00:42:19went to Asbury park, which back in the day.
Sonny00:42:20And then he goes back, so then he goes, I was going to say, it actually looks like Luton, right?
Vic00:42:26And that's probably, that's exactly what I was.
Guest00:42:29So then he goes home and it's the sister's wedding. And who, I mean, who in his right mind ditches the sister's wedding to go get tickets to Wembley stadium. And as a, as a viewer, you're watching this and you, I said, he's not going to go to the concert. Well, you already know the plot point. The data is going to rip the tickets up. That's the thing. You're fine. You don't understand me. Why not just have Rupes go get it?
Vic00:42:53Why not have Rupes get it?
Sonny00:42:55He was great.
Guest00:42:56Rupes go get the tickets.
Sonny00:42:57He was great.
Vic00:42:58He was ahead of the curve. I would have watched a whole movie about Rupes. Rupes is, go ahead Sonny, explain who, who is Rupes. He's a friend. He's a Sikh.
Sonny00:43:06Rupes is the Sikh friend who introduces Jonathan to the, to the, the wonders of Bruce Springsteen.
Vic00:43:11And he does not have a girlfriend. So.
Sonny00:43:14Oh my God. So the, the, the, the most ridiculous scene in the movie is the born to run scene where he's running through the streets and poor Rupes is like the third wheel in all of these shots. So it's like, it's, it's like, it's like jobbing with his girlfriend and they're like jumping up in the air. And then you can see Rupes in the background, poor Rupes all by himself in the background. Also jumping like I'm here too. I felt so bad for him.
Vic00:43:37It was very awkward. He was, it's tough to be the third wheel. Yeah. Now let me say this and if we could move on, uh, also I'm watching this carefully and a lot of, I mean, there were a lot of moments that make you cringe, you know, the high school two hours, the kid at the DJ, the high school DJ guy could barely watch that guy. You know, the tunes that was, it was really weird. And, but here's my thing, right? I lived through that. I'm at basically about two years younger than them at that time, right? 1987. So I'm 14. I remember what that was like. And you know what? There is not one mention of you two and the Joshua tree, which was a big deal at that time. Right? It was a big, that was the big album. They, what are they making reference to the Pet Shop Boys or whatever it is?
Sonny00:44:18Your problem with this movie is that there wasn't enough UK. Yeah.
Guest00:44:21And I think, and I think I know. And was U2 as big in England as it was in America?
Vic00:44:24Oh, it has to be. Absolutely. It was just over the, you know, Irish singers. Well, they were Irish.
Guest00:44:28It was interesting that they said.
Vic00:44:29It was a big deal. And I think the reason is they probably, because probably, uh, they couldn't afford it.
Guest00:44:35To have U2 stuff.
Vic00:44:36Yeah. Whereas they could afford Level 42's Lesson in Love. And Pet Shop Boys.
Guest00:44:39And Pet Shop Boys and Debbie Gibson. Yeah. And the, um. That's my theory. You know, I, I did, they kept saying Bruce Springsteen is your dad's music.
Vic00:44:45That was interesting to me. U2, because what we're talking, this is 10 years apart. Because it is.
Sonny00:44:49Maybe only 10. Well, it is a very weird moment in the Bruce Springsteen career, right? That's right. Because, because it's around the time Tunnel of Love is coming out. It's a Tunnel of Love concert that he's supposed to go to. Right. Um, but the E Street Band is breaking up. Like the.
Guest00:45:02Right. Tunnel of Love is kind of one of the, you know, it's a lesser known album.
Sonny00:45:06It's bad. It's not a good album.
Guest00:45:08I love that song though. It's. Oh, it's one of my favorite songs.
Sonny00:45:11Oh my God. You would. Uh, but the, but the, the, it is, it is, it's like right around the time that Springsteen is like breaking up with the E Street Band and they're, he's going to go do his own solo thing. Mm-hmm. Uh, so it is, it is kind of like the beginning of the wilderness years. Yeah. Um, which is, which is, again, I actually kind of appreciate that, that, that sense of, that sense of almost outsider-ness, like liking an, a kind of outsider art or, you know.
Guest00:45:36So, did your theater have the, um. A lot of Indians, you're gonna ask. The. Oh, sorry. Preview. No.
Vic00:45:45The preview for the Bruce. Yes. The live event slash, um.
Guest00:45:47Yes.
Sonny00:45:48Um. Live concert. The western. Yes. Yeah.
Guest00:45:53Like, it's not. The event. It's not like a fathom event or something. It's like half a, you know, but it's a film, but it seemed like it was a special event.
Sonny00:45:57I, I couldn't quite understand what it was. It looks like, well, it looks like they shot a concert in a barn in like Montana or someplace.
Guest00:46:01And him talking. And it was 1,000 times more interesting. Yes. And captivating. The trailer was 100%. 100%. Yeah. Than the two hour runtime movie I had to sit through afterwards. I was like, why can't you just have Springsteen? I mean. Let's just watch that. Yeah.
Vic00:46:14Well, I was thinking, you know, my sister owned the, is it 75 to 85, the live? It's a, you can get that. It's like, it's like, it's like how many albums in that? It's just, I think it was a play five LP, three CDs. They play some tracks from that in the film. Right. Right. And I was, and I was thinking about that time. What did I own at that time in 1980s? You know what I had? I had a cassette tape of Belinda Carlisle's Heaven on Earth. Let me tell you something. Hot stuff. Hot circle of the sun.
Guest00:46:37There were a lot of, there were a lot of Genesis albums in the continuity car. Oh really? Thanks to my dad.
Vic00:46:41Yeah. Yeah. Phil Collins too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good album. Great album. Good album. Okay. You were talking, Matt, we're going to go really quickly through this. Speaking of '80s nostalgia. It's a good transition. of hanging out in the mall. You liked it.
Guest00:47:16I did like Stranger Things 3. I liked it better than Stranger Things 2. Wow.
Vic00:47:23Which was very, 2 I thought was very dark.
Guest00:47:25It was dark. It was their kind of aliens movie. That was the one that was, this one though is a combination of
Vic00:47:32a lot of different movies. Red Dawn.
Guest00:47:34Red Dawn, The Terminator, also The Thing. It's a big influence on them all the time, but you have that. And I liked, so what they did with this one, because it's the first season of Stranger Things that comes out in the summer, is they made their version of a summer blockbuster.
Vic00:47:54That's right.
Guest00:47:55And I liked the over-the-top elements. I liked the fact that the Russian hitman resembles Arnold in profile and shadow. I liked the fact the big blow-ups and the huge conspiracies. I thought that was really entertaining. Now it does raise a question, how are they going to top it? Right. And I have real fears about the future of this franchise. But Stranger Things 3 on the whole, I thought was a lot of fun and very enjoyable.
Vic00:48:26Sonny, did you enjoy it or it was like, eh, for you?
Sonny00:48:29I thought it was fine. It's funny, you had said you wanted to talk about Stranger Things and I asked why. Because here's the thing, I enjoyed it. I watched the whole show. I watched it in like three days, whatever.
Guest00:48:42And it's been out now for two months.
Sonny00:48:44And I am already kind of having, I'm already kind of forgetting like what happened in it. It's like this with the second season for me, I literally could not remember a single thing that happened in that by the time I started watching the third season. Is that right? It resonates with me. I remember, I tend to remember a lot. Like I'm now kind of sitting here, I'm like, okay, yeah, the Terminator thing was good. They had the fun thing in the carnival. That was kind of neat.
Vic00:49:09Did you like the video, the never-ending story montage, which goes completely...
Sonny00:49:13I thought that was silly. I was too silly. You know what, I liked it. It didn't do anything.
Guest00:49:16The thing about it was they sang the whole song. Almost. And if he had just done a verse of it, I thought it would have been fine. But the problem is it hurt the pacing of what was a very exciting climax. The other thing, though, maybe to talk about briefly is mall culture, which is what season three is about. And the Starcourt Mall set is a huge element of the show. And that was, you know, if you think about Stranger Things, obviously they're selling, they're selling nostalgia. And, you know, they're kind of running out of nostalgia in the 80s because they're pushing up at the limits of the decade and the kids are getting older. But they got the mall there. And it was fun to see, I mean, just the level of production design. Remember the fake, like, gravel that would be in the atriums? Yes, absolutely. They even had that. And they had the stores. And, you know, it was fun because now, of course, malls are disappearing. Yeah, that's right. It was kind of fun to see that.
Vic00:50:11It was the future. And small town America is dying because everyone's going to, now, of course, it's the big boxes and nobody goes to the malls anymore. I mean, so I thought that was very true. I could spend, I could talk about malls forever.
Guest00:50:21Yeah, so what were your thoughts about Stranger Things?
Vic00:50:24Again, I love, I mean, it's like,
Guest00:50:26I'm kind of with Sonny. I don't remember much. I remember that I didn't like the cliffhanger. They better not. Oh, yeah. If we do spoiler alert or something, they better not bring back the character who we think is gone. Oh, of course he is. I know that. But that's my point. This is why I don't think the fourth season is going to be very good.
Vic00:50:43Unless the entire season takes place in Kamchatka. You know, how do they get him out? Through a tunnel.
Sonny00:50:48They got to move. They had to move on. No, no. Eleven will get her psychic powers back and she'll be able to transport him. Psychically.
Vic00:50:56Yeah, so the move,
Sonny00:50:58that'll be the thing, is her getting her powers back. Now I just remember they depowered her. They depowered her, which was a smart choice.
Guest00:51:05I liked that choice.
Sonny00:51:06Which was a smart choice because the whole...
Vic00:51:08She had about as much power as Will.
Sonny00:51:10The whole, the whole, the whole... One of the big problems with the show is that... Is that it resembles... Like, do you remember the South Park with the... You guys don't watch South Park, do you? There was a South Park episode where these fake psychics came to town and Cartman pretended he was a psychic and they're like, we're the psychics. And he's like, no, I'm a psychic. And they like, like held their hands out at each other and went, na, na, na, na, na, na. Like they were doing psychic powers. And like, that's everything with Elle. That's Millie Bobby Brown. That's everything with Elle to me is her just kind of like holding her hands out and like doing psychic things. And then screaming. And then like the, and whatever she's pointing at blows up or whatever.
Vic00:51:46And I'm just like, I'm tired of that.
Sonny00:51:47Too powerful. Tired of it. She's overpowered. She's overpowered. So depowering her is a good choice, I think, which gives me a little bit of hope for the next season. Yeah, no, I mean,
Guest00:51:57if they keep it, it depends on when she gets the powers back. She'll get the powers back. Why didn't Paul Reiser have any lines?
Sonny00:52:02If it doesn't happen until the end. Paul Reiser should have been all over this. Paul Reiser was great. I love Paul Reiser. It was great when he was back.
Guest00:52:08I like that. I'll tell you, oh, here's the other thing is that the, and you and I talked about this when, four years ago when we first watched this show, the pairings, so they, because there are so many characters, they paired up into teams. And I thought that the Dustin Steve team was the best by far. I totally agree. I'd rather watch, I could watch that all the time. Then the 11 Mike team was good. I liked that Mad Max. I liked that whole thing. I liked the Billy, you know, but then they had the Joyce. What about the journalism team? The Joyce. The Hopper team was terrible. I got on my nerves so much. I mean,
Vic00:52:51you know what? See, again, this is me. I love, that was my first love was Winona Ryder.
Sonny00:52:55I love her too,
Vic00:52:56but like, you know what? She's quirky. The David Harbour character,
Guest00:52:59just too much. He got annoying. He was good at the beginning of the season where he's protected.
Sonny00:53:04Where he's being, where he's doing the dad stuff. That's great.
Guest00:53:07But then on this mission, and then they get that annoying conspiracy theorist who is actually pretty good because he ends up befriending the science. Well, that's, Smirnoff, yes.
Vic00:53:15But with the Joyce Hopper stuff, I just, I did not like, they're always arguing. How about the newspaper reporters on the trail? I know. Shoe leather. That was real shoe leather.
Sonny00:53:24What's her,
Vic00:53:25what's the character's name? Nancy.
Sonny00:53:26Nancy. And yeah,
Guest00:53:27well, then you have the kind of one, who is that in the, that is one of the, the guy who plays the editor is the son of.
Vic00:53:39The guy who plays the editor. Oh, one of the editors is, Jake Busey. Jake Busey,
Guest00:53:45not Nolte, Gary Busey's son, Jake Busey. Often confused, by the way. Jake Busey, Jake Busey. So, and he kind of played the obnoxious character, but it didn't really mean anything. And they also didn't really use Carrie, Carrie Hughes. Elways? Elways. No, Elways, yeah, Elways. They didn't use him very much. Yeah,
Vic00:54:00he was kind of, I don't know if he was trying to pull off some sort of Reagan thing going on there with his sort of smart.
Guest00:54:05You got it. So, here's my advice to the Duffer brothers, not that they need it. You got to follow Eleven into the town, go to a new town, new antagonists. Well, she's staying in the old town, right? It's Will that's leaving. No, she's going with them. Oh, she's going with them. Joyce has adopted her because she's lost Hopper. that's right, that's right. I forgot, I forgot. So, she's separated from Mike. Because Hopper's not there. So, here's my other piece. What they have not yet done is a Christmas. So, I think you said Christmas and you take Gremlins.
Vic00:54:35Oh, wow. And you make it a little bit funnier, a little bit, you know? I like that.
Guest00:54:40enough with this Mind Flayer guy. It's three seasons now. Move on. Right. Find something new.
Vic00:54:47It's gotta be dead, right?
Guest00:54:49Well, no, it's not dead because the Soviets found one. Just ignore it. Pretend that it's, maybe there's something else in the Upside Down. Maybe there's a little,
Sonny00:54:56you know what I mean? It's a whole universe, right?
Guest00:54:57They promised that. That was the promise in the first season. There's this whole universe. It ends up, no, there's just like two things.
Sonny00:55:02Maybe she goes to the new town and it's like a happier part of the Upside Down with Gremlins and then the Gremlins turn evil and start, mind-flying everyone. You know what? You and I,
Guest00:55:11let's get us in the writer's room. We could have the whole thing outlined by the end of the week.
Vic00:55:16I wanted more about Billy and Mrs. Wheeler. I thought that was going to be interesting. Yeah, I know you did.
Guest00:55:22I'm sure you've done some research.
Vic00:55:24It's a great song to that, two living in stereo. Okay, other, since JVL isn't here, I had a question about the gay veto subplot in The Sopranos. What, no, just kidding.
Guest00:55:36You haven't been able to talk about Sopranos. No,
Vic00:55:38I haven't. Okay, in the, in The Wire, D'Angelo Barksdale. I thought about him actually when Jeffrey Epstein was, you know, died in prison because D'Angelo, of course, they said he hung himself, but in The Wire, but of course, somebody did it. Yeah. Yeah, and made it look like it.
Guest00:55:52See, I've never watched The Wire. I'm in JVL's camp there.
Vic00:55:56Okay, let me, let me, let me ask you to go back because I know how much we want to talk about Blinded by the Light again. When you were their age, did you, did you, did you keep a journal like, oh, by the way, I like the English teacher, by the way, didn't you even like? Haley Atwell,
Guest00:56:09love her. Oh, from Captain America. I hated her character because it's just this annoying, it's the same, it's a trope, it's a, it's just a trope. It's a, oh, you need to find your individuality and speak up. Not that any of you, not that any of you will have unique voices. Yeah, people do not have unique,
Vic00:56:30the more, the older I get.
Guest00:56:31That was so necessary. There's no such thing as a unique voice. You know, Wordsworth had a unique voice.
Vic00:56:37If I wrote, let me tell you, let me tell you something. If this was a movie in the 80s, I'd write it, there would have been a relationship between the teacher and the student.
Guest00:56:43You had so many relationships going on. You got Billy and,
Vic00:56:46It would have been like, I would have turned bright, blind by the light to like My Tutor, which would have been a much better movie and it was a better movie. But you didn't do a journal, you didn't keep it up?
Guest00:56:55I tried. I was, you know, I wanted to be a writer and I thought, oh, that's what you need to do. And, but I could not keep it up and the truth is, again, I just wasn't that interested in my feelings. You know, I was thinking, this is not that,
Vic00:57:09he has a lot of feelings because how many journal books was there? Six, seven books. It's like one for every year.
Guest00:57:13One for every year? He really hated his dad. He did. He did. And, you know, that's, that's common. But,
Vic00:57:21yeah, which is why, I mean,
Guest00:57:23that's why it's not interesting because it's so common.
Vic00:57:25I agree. I give it a B minus. I think that, if a movie, yes, the movie, I give the movie a B minus. That's how much I didn't like the movie.
Sonny00:57:34I mean, his, his, his baseline is an A minus. Are you grading on a curve? The Vick curve.
Vic00:57:39On one of those professors. But I thought, you know, what's funny is, today, of course, I guess they don't carry around journals. They would be all in the, in the cloud. Speaking of the cloud, this episode of the Sub-Beacon is sponsored by NetSuite. If you don't know your numbers, you don't know your business. But the problem growing businesses have that keeps them from knowing their numbers is their hodgepodge of business systems. They have one system for accounting, another for sales, another for inventory, and so on. It's just a big, inefficient mess taking up too much time and too many resources. And that hurts the bottom line. Introducing NetSuite by Oracle, the business management software that handles every aspect of your business in an easy-to-use cloud platform, giving you the visibility and control you need to grow. With NetSuite, you save time, money, and unneeded headaches by managing sales, finance, and accounting orders and HR instantly right from your desktop or phone. That's why NetSuite is the world's number one cloud business system. And right now, NetSuite is offering you valuable insights with a free guide, 7 Key Strategies to Grow Your Profits at NetSuite.com slash Sub-Beacon. That's NetSuite.com slash Sub-Beacon to download your free guide, 7 Key Strategies to Grow Your Profits, NetSuite.com slash Sub-Beacon. Any other corrections, additions? Nothing. We're good. We're good? Okay. Great. That is all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments. Tweet us at Victorino Matus at Sonny Bunch at Continetti. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher. Just type in Sub-Beacon on a podcast. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time. So next... Oh, thank you. Did you enjoy that, Matt?
Guest00:59:35I did. It's fun to all see the movie and be able to talk about the movie. Sometimes that doesn't happen. Sometimes it doesn't. A lot of times that I've been on the show it doesn't happen. Well, the last time I did it was the Guillermo del Toro episode, but I didn't see the Hellboy movie because it was too horror-scary. And then Jonathan didn't see it because he's Jonathan.
Vic00:59:57Well, you're the same way. You don't go for scary movies. I hate scary movies. So what are you going to do when we have you back to do it?
Guest01:00:04I'm going to politely decline.
Sonny01:00:06No, it'll be fine.
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