#45. The Irishman, Hoyas, and that Peloton Ad
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
The Irishman gets the full three-and-a-half-hour treatment, and the argument turns into a fight over what a movie even is. Sonny, who saw it twice and expected to be the skeptic, defends it as real cinema and finds the last hour devastating — a very Catholic film about damnation, the fake communion of grape juice and bread, and Frank Sheeran realizing he is a cipher in his own story — while insisting it is at least 45 minutes too long because "every scene goes on 20% too long," and that the de-aging fails in the body even when it works in the face, most embarrassingly in the curb-stomping scene where De Niro looks afraid he'll fall over. JVL takes the contrarian line that it is "not a movie" but the best streaming content ever made, ranking it above PewDiePie and A Christmas Prince, arguing cinema requires a communal room where almost nobody walks out, that Netflix's lack of anyone saying no let Scorsese self-indulge, and that handing it Best Picture would be Hollywood committing suicide. Both land on the same note in their pockets: it's mobbed-up Forrest Gump, with a passive numbskull protagonist JVL says should have been closer to Anton Chigurh. Vic loves it unreservedly, treating it as a miniseries across two days, saying he'd happily watch six hours of Goodfellas eating and hanging out, praising an understated, Zen Joe Pesci nothing like Tommy or Nicky Santoro, and using his mafia-history background to spot hits like Albert Anastasia's barbershop killing — while JVL confesses he watched with mafia.wikia.org open. His quadrants, though, are brutal: three hours 29 minutes and no nudity, which JVL notes should be two strikes. They agree on Ray Romano's union lawyer laying the movie's predicate, Stephen Graham's Tony Pro, and the electric "you people" prison argument with Pacino — which Sonny points out you get twice when you only needed once. Earlier: JVL's best Thanksgiving ever because his kids finally watched the whole Macy's parade, Vic's Georgetown basketball scandal walkthrough delivered with relentless "innocent until proven guilty" deadpan, worry over the Palm chain's sale and Vic's $450 in Palm points, an autopsy of the Peloton Christmas ad as a portrait of millennial self-absorption, and Vic's Thanksgiving egg foo young strategy of ordering something nobody else would touch.
From the show notes
#cdata-section -------------- In this latest episode, sponsored by Circle and Calm, we discuss Martin Scorsese's The Irishman. Sonny think...
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00You know, I don't, uh, I don't care whether you did it or not. That makes no difference to me. Yeah, I know. I'm here to defend you, right? Right. What do you want to know? You want to know if I did it or not?
Vic00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Sub-Beacon, sponsored by Calm and Circle. I'm Victor Matus, along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. Just a reminder, The Sub-Beacon is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Look at our podcasts and search for Sub-Beacon. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. Gentlemen, how are we? How was Thanksgiving? JVL. It was fantastic. Good.
JVL00:00:56The best Thanksgiving I've had in years. Maybe the best Thanksgiving I've ever had with children. Wow. How about you guys? How was Nueva Jersey? Did you leave early enough? Oh, yeah, yeah. Actually, I know the answer to this, because my wife was on the phone with your sister.
Vic00:01:14Oh, okay.
JVL00:01:16On Wednesday, before Thanksgiving, and your sister told her that you had gotten up late morning?
Vic00:01:23No, no. That was going home, back to D.C., back to Virginia. So we left. We had a bad start. Wednesday.
JVL00:01:30Before Thanksgiving. Oh, yeah. But you had gotten there by like 11.30 or so? We left. I remember this.
Vic00:01:3411.30 in the morning?
JVL00:01:35Yes. We left at 6.06. If I could just interrupt briefly, because I don't know if we've ever talked about your sister, the great Christine Matus. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Vic00:01:43At law, Matus Law. If you're in Jersey, you need help. She's a great lawyer. She's like one of the top. She's a highly rated lawyer.
JVL00:01:50She actually is as amazing as everybody thinks you are.
Vic00:01:53Yeah. She's real. That's actually her. She's the best. That's actually her for real. Even at home, she actually is genuinely nice. She's amazing. Even when she's not on the air, she's actually very genuinely nice. Yeah. So I left around, I don't know, 6.08 or so, and we got in about four hours. But it was not bad. That's amazing. It is amazing, and I'll tell you what. The one insanity, right? The traffic was not bad. The one insanity, which I imagine after our time, after we went around it, was probably even worse. The early part of the New Jersey Turnpike. Which is like, you know, exit two, three, Swedesboro, that area, you're going up there. Multihill. Everything's fine. All of a sudden, you just see a backup of lights.
JVL00:02:36I'm like, this is too early. That's where it's only two lanes, right?
Vic00:02:39It's only two lanes, but it's also only this early part of the Turnpike where there's never any traffic at that part of the Turnpike going north. Because there's nobody down there. Nobody down there. Nobody gets off on those exits? No, they don't. So I said, what is going on? There must be an accident. No accident. You get closer. And I was like, what is that? In the middle of the Turnpike, in between the two lanes, a giant bike rack. A bike rack with two bikes on the bike rack, just laying there.
Sonny00:03:03Bicyclists, man. They're the worst.
Vic00:03:05Even when they're driving. And they're bringing it. Garbage people with their garbage conveyances. And I looked around. I saw no cars on the shoulder. So I'm like, are these people? Did they not know it came off? Maybe it was on the back of a trailer or something.
Sonny00:03:17It just fell off.
Vic00:03:18And then they're going to show up to wherever they're heading up to the mountains or somewhere and say, man, I've been looking forward to this trip all year. I can't wait to go. And then they look at the back and there's nobody. Hopefully.
Sonny00:03:29Hopefully the police find out who it is and arrest them for being awful people.
Vic00:03:33I'm like, what are you doing? Because you cannot just pull over and run and then pull it out. It's insanity.
Sonny00:03:37Like Frogger. Like Frogger. Like Frogger.
Vic00:03:39But you know how heavy that thing must be. It's insane.
Sonny00:03:42I mean, you would have to stop traffic on the whole highway for like two minutes, which would in turn back everybody up for like seven hours.
Vic00:03:49Yeah, that's right. So everyone just went around it and was like, I'm not going to do this.
Sonny00:03:53That's actually an interesting kind of physics slash math question. What is the bigger delay? Stopping the traffic for five minutes entirely to like run out and grab it.
JVL00:04:03Or hope nobody runs over it.
Sonny00:04:04Or have everybody go around it for the entirety of the day. Well, no, because eventually somebody will hit it.
JVL00:04:11Eventually somebody hits it. Right. And then they break down right there and it all gets. So anyway, your Thanksgiving was good?
Vic00:04:17Oh, yes, it was.
JVL00:04:17It was. It was.
Vic00:04:18It was wonderful.
JVL00:04:19Yes. I can circle back to that later. Speaking of which. And you, Santino, how was Thanksgiving? Was it joyous? Did you guys go to church? You don't go to church. You don't go to church on Thanksgiving. It's a secular holiday.
Vic00:04:31It's a trick question. It's a trick question. It's very good.
Sonny00:04:35It's why it's the great. Sonny, very good. This is why it's the great American holiday. Because it's godless.
JVL00:04:42But yet there's no presents being given. So is it really the greatest American holiday?
Sonny00:04:46There's the present of gluttony that you give yourself. No, Thanksgiving is clearly the greatest American holiday. I mean, like, that's not in dispute. It's essentially the only American holiday. Hard agree. I love Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving. I love eating and drinking. There is no equivalent holiday that Americans celebrate except for the 4th of July, I guess. But even the 4th of July is like a variation on Independence Day that lots of nations celebrate.
JVL00:05:13Macy's Parade, Greater Sign, 4th of July Fireworks, Greater Sign, New Year's Eve Times Square. I hate all those things. The Macy's Parade is the greatest. It used to be. It used to be. I hate it. I don't like that the musical act's lips. Lip-sync? Because you're really upset about the lip-syncing? They ought to just sing live in the wind and see what happens.
Vic00:05:35It's a bit much now. It's just a bit much.
Sonny00:05:37But it's also boring. I mean, parades are boring. The thing about parades is that they're dumb and boring. I hate the Rose Parade, the Parade of Roses. I hate this. All parades are dumb and boring except for the Macy's Parade, which is the great American event. The only good part is when Santa shows up at the end. And my four-year-old daughter was like, is that the real Santa? And we, of course, told her yes. It is, in fact. It's obviously the real Santa. It's the real Santa. That's why you told her yes. Well, it's the real Santa, and that is he goes to his headquarters in the Gimbels, and he directs his... Wait a minute. Not even Macy's? He goes to Gimbels? He directs his minions across the country. He's got a whole command center set up. Like, all right, we need Joe in Sector 7.
JVL00:06:19Right there in Herald Square. The reason this Thanksgiving was so good for me was because for the first time in 11 years, my children watched... Watched the entirety of the Macy's parade with me. It's the only thing I've ever wanted from parenthood. Literally, the only thing I've ever wanted was for my kids to sit and watch the parade with me. How long is that? And in the... Three hours. And in the first 10 years of parenthood, my children wanted nothing to do with any part of it. You know why? Because it's terrible. They just hated it. Because it's boring. And this year, they just were all in.
Vic00:06:52I'll tell you why. Because that man, Matt Lauer, is not there anymore. That's what they said. They're not going to watch it. That bad man, Matt Lauer... Matt Lauer's gone.
JVL00:06:59I got to say, the Hoda-Savannah-Guthrie duo doing the parade is just not the same as Katie and Matt. No, no, no. Well, there you go. That's it. Katie hasn't... Katie Couric and Matt Lauer haven't done it in years. That's right.
Vic00:07:14I know. But Al Roker's there, right? Al Roker's there. He's keen.
JVL00:07:17Well, or the guy who's dressed up like a skinny Al Roker. Yes. It's hard to say. Also not the same. The man wearing the Al Roker skin suit.
Vic00:07:26JVL, you had a question. You wanted to talk about... You wanted to talk about Georgetown. Okay, go ahead.
JVL00:07:30How are things going in Hoya Nation?
Vic00:07:33Amazingly well. They beat Oklahoma State yesterday. That's good, right? It's very good because...
JVL00:07:38What is Oklahoma State ranked?
Vic00:07:39Out of something like 300 and something plus non-conference games at Oklahoma State, only nine teams have won at Oklahoma State, and we're one of them. My theory is they got rid of these players who were holding them back. Cancer. Clubhouse cancer.
JVL00:07:52Yes. Wait, who was that?
Vic00:07:53Oklahoma State got rid of players?
JVL00:07:54No, Georgetown did. Oh, Georgetown got rid of some players.
Vic00:07:57No, there were two players. There were two players, but potentially four.
JVL00:07:59Okay, so one of them, and what they just weren't, they were shooting it out.
Sonny00:08:04Can we just explain to the story? I will right now. I will right now. Because what happened was JVL gleefully texts us two nights ago.
JVL00:08:14Yes, I gleefully text you guys because you're my friends and my only friends, and I would like us to keep being friends.
Sonny00:08:20Gleefully texted us about the state of Hoya Nation. Yes. Vic, what has happened?
Vic00:08:28Okay, so somebody had to go into D.C. court records and look up that there had been a complaint filed against a couple players on the team. They're not even really big players except for Josh LeBlanc, but what happened was somebody else noticed people watch things like the transfer portal, the transfer portal, and they see who's going in or out or whatever, and there are two players who are transferring out of Georgetown, but the way the administration or the athletics, what do you call it? Sports Info handles it. It was so bad because they announced two players are transferring out, one of whom is under some sort of investigation, but the other one isn't, but because it came out that way, everyone assumes the poor other guy, James Akinjo, did something bad. Unrelated. He's transferring because he's been butting heads with Ewing. They don't get along. It's my way or highway.
JVL00:09:18He's afraid Patrick Ewing is going to eat him.
Sonny00:09:20Could happen. He's a big man. Like Patrick Ewing ate Al Roker before he skinned him to give the Al Roker imposter the skin suit.
Vic00:09:28I've seen Ewing in person in his later years, and he wears this shirt that the only adjective I use for is billowy. Moo-moo? Is it a moo-moo? Yeah, you know, it's big. You could hide people. How many Xs? You could hide people in there. How many Xs? It goes beyond Xs. No, you have to go into L. Is it an L50? Yeah, it goes to that. A lot of Xs. So Akinjo is transferring out because he's unhappy, but LeBlanc and two other players, this is why it gets complicated. Two other players are under investigation for a few things.
JVL00:10:01So three players are under investigation. One player is leaving. How many players are on the team total? Twelve. Something like that, yeah. So one-third of the Georgetown men's basketball program.
Vic00:10:15No, no, but here's the thing. Is that good? Two of the players who went under investigation are not transferring, and they played last night. So the question is, okay, and the allegations are very minor. Burglary and sexual assault. Nothing big.
JVL00:10:31So they are not under investigation for helping an old lady across the street a little bit too roughly.
Vic00:10:38You know what people say?
JVL00:10:40They're not under investigation for caring too much.
Vic00:10:43Georgetown listeners might remember, some of our friends here might remember Kenny Bruner. He got expelled for threatening a guy with a samurai sword. He didn't stab anybody with it. He just poked him. He didn't poke somebody with a samurai sword. You know, a little poke. What's the big deal? What's the big deal there? Just the tip. Very nice.
JVL00:11:02Sonny, you're giving me nothing here.
Vic00:11:04He gets nothing anymore. You don't get it. He is so emotionless right now. And then, of course, Victor Page. Victor Page is in jail. Allen Iverson's buddy. The great Victor Page. Well, missing an eye.
JVL00:11:14Was he missing an eye when he played? Because that would be an amazing accomplishment. If he was that good as a one-eyed.
Vic00:11:20He was so inspired by Iverson leaving early that he left early like the next year and then nowhere.
JVL00:11:26And then lost his eye.
Vic00:11:27And then lost his eye. A bullet.
Sonny00:11:30Something. Somebody gave him a BB gun for Christmas.
Vic00:11:31Probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sonny00:11:34Yes, that's right.
Vic00:11:35Totally innocent bystander. So the complication is then, do you suspend players who are under investigation? This is like a, what do you call it, an Antonio Brown situation. Do you allow them to play? Because they're still innocent. These are just charges. You have to hear both sides, right? I'm just saying. I'm just throwing it out. I'm asking. You're just asking questions. I'm not saying. But they got it.
Sonny00:11:54Do we?
Vic00:11:54Question. Do we want?
Sonny00:11:57Do we want to talk about any of the other Georgetown news?
Vic00:11:59You had something else, JVL?
Sonny00:12:01No, I don't want to talk about that.
JVL00:12:02You don't want to talk about that?
Sonny00:12:03All right.
Vic00:12:04Okay.
JVL00:12:04Question.
Vic00:12:05Yes, JVL.
JVL00:12:06I have seared, seared into my memory, listening to a John Thompson radio show on 980, a radio show in which he was lamenting a Georgetown loss under, I believe, Craig Eshrick. And he said that the problem. The problem was that Georgetown didn't have any, quote, thugs. And that we need, we need some, quote, thugs on the team. And I believe what he was referring to was physical players, physical players, guys who were willing to throw bodies around. Hoya Paranoia. Right. Is it, is it possible that Georgetown maybe went out and got some actual thugs?
Vic00:12:57Again, innocent until proven guilty, JV. I don't know why I have to keep on repeating this. These are just charges. Yes. Sonny, you had nothing. Oh, no. I thought you were going to say something. Oh, yeah, yeah.
JVL00:13:05But there's one other thing, which is because it's been a big Vic week. The Palm. Oh, right. At the New York Palm. You are in no panic that the Palm is being sold.
Vic00:13:15Again, let's explain to the readers what is happening. The Palm Steakhouse in New York City has had some very serious financial problems since the, this is the whole chain. It's like 24 locations or something. Well, the D.C. one is fine. I looked into it. Believe me, that's fine.
JVL00:13:31And how did you look into it? Did you ask Tommy?
Vic00:13:33No, Tommy's retired. Tommy's retired.
JVL00:13:36Because if you ask somebody there and they told you everything is fine, I would not take that, for instance, to the bank.
Vic00:13:41Everything is fine. It's a busy place. But after Bazzi and Gansey were the original owners and fell apart, there was a lot going on up there, particularly in New York, and the New York chain has a lot of control over a lot of things. A lot of the other locations, I think Vegas, and there are international locations or wherever they are. So that is problematic for them. And what happens to Bruce Bazzi, the son, that's also a very interesting question. There's a whole side story with Bruce Bazzi, but I don't know.
JVL00:14:15So what I took from the news reports was that there was a lawsuit filed by Cousins, right? So it's two family ownership. The judge ruled that these Cousins... Cousins had been cheated out of like $150 million in supposed profits. And the ownership group currently does not have the resources to pay the debt. That's right. And so they have to sell the chain. And it sounded to me like the chain encompasses like 24 locations. They have a lot of locations. Of which they are the owners of it.
Vic00:14:46They have a lot. Yes. And it didn't lift the locations. No, but the DC one is a separate... You're assuring me.
JVL00:14:52The DC one is its own corporate entity. It's a separate company. Okay. It's a separate company. Really what I want to get at is...
Vic00:14:58I forget the name of the company. I didn't have enough time to let... But there's a name of the company. Your Palm Points are safe. Oh my God.
JVL00:15:03Because when I first read this, my first thought was, oh God, Vic is going to lose all his Palm Points.
Vic00:15:09That's actually a very good question. You got to catch those out now. Because if it's based in New York, I got to do it right now. Actually, I got to go right now. I'll be right back. Question. I need all... Question. Yes? It's like, I don't know, $450 worth of gift cards.
Sonny00:15:24If they shut down... That's half of a lunch. That's half of a lunch. It's... Well, maybe half. Go ahead. A third. Yes. If they shut down the palm, Vic, will they allow you to come in and scrape your head off the wall?
Vic00:15:40Yes, because those were not actually painted on the wall, so I will peel that off the wall. But I have to tell you, I worry about spending too much time at one place or the other. So the other day, I met an old friend, an old writer friend. You don't know him, JVL. But I got together. I got together with him to see how he was doing. Cheating on us. Yeah, I know. And went to Joe's Seafood downtown on 15th and H. It's a great place. But I haven't been there in like, I don't know, eight months, seven, eight months. It's been a while. So I walk in, and they have the gatekeeper in the front there, Billy Carter, where they don't let you sit in the... You know, they don't... Y'all have to wait until you're all there, and then they sit you in the back. Some of us don't have to wait. Well, that's what I'm saying. So I walk in, and I see him, and he looks up, and he goes, Mr. Mattis. He remembered after all this time. That made my day. Like, even the bad stuff that happened today, all I did was replay...
JVL00:16:30It's easy to remember the guy with the head.
Vic00:16:32This was always their theory, especially in Morton's back in the day, that they always remembered me because of the overall package. Did he say, how is Dr. Mattis? Did he ask you how the doctor dad is?
JVL00:16:43No. No, he did not. Although I did take my day there once.
Vic00:16:46Okay, so that's good. I wanted to circle... I wanted to give quickly a Peloton update. Oh, yes. Can we talk about the commercial? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. First, my part is, it's going well. I had a good session yesterday with Emma Lovewell. Live, learn, love well. Live, learn, love well. It was a good session. Long time. You know what? It was low impact. Love well, long time. What is that sound? It was a... You know, it's so funny to say, oh, it's low impact.
JVL00:17:13Oh, this is going to be for babies, low impact or whatever it is.
Vic00:17:15I just like dripping with sweat. And she says, if the sweat's coming down and covering your eyes, good. And it was great. Okay, here's the problem.
JVL00:17:23Mistress of pain. I actually...
Vic00:17:25Yes. And I actually don't know... Before there can be pleasure, there must be pain. And her music, she said she used to be a DJ in a past life. And so there's a lot of hip hop going on there. And it was pretty cool. But I don't know how to adjust the seat. So some of the... Like, there's three Peloton bikes. Some are higher than the... I cannot get it lower for my height. So I ended up one which was a little bit taller. So, you know, like, you could barely get to the bottom when you're doing a full cycle. When you're pedaling, you're like, oh, this is a pain. And then she says, okay, here's the part where, you know, take a break and stand. And do the biking when you're standing. The standing bike thing routine, right? So I'm doing that. But the bike seat's so hard that I'm getting poked from the tip of that seat. Just the tip. Just the tip. And that was very bothersome. So I think what I'm going to do in the future...
JVL00:18:09Didn't make you curious?
Vic00:18:10No, no, no. But I think in the future, I'm just going to put some Vaseline on that bike seat.
JVL00:18:13Yeah. Well, you know, I'll give you the prison experience. The question. The reason I'm talking about the question. Have you thought about getting a Peloton for your wife? And then she can vlog about it?
Vic00:18:24She could vlog about it? I... Let's talk about that commercial. We're talking about a Peloton commercial that came out in the holidays. Sonny.
Sonny00:18:29This is the most random episode of the Sub-Beacon of all time. There was a Peloton ad. It's like one of those Lexus December to Remember ads. Yes. Except instead of a car, the woman gets a Peloton bike, right? And she spends the whole... So like... This woman who looks like Emmy Rossum. This woman who is like 90 pounds.
Vic00:18:51Who looks like she does not need the Peloton.
Sonny00:18:54Why does she need the Peloton? This 90-pound mother gets a bike and she's like... Oh, and she's excitedly... 22-year-old mother. She's like excitedly vlogging all of her exercises and how it's like changed her life. And of course, people on the internet got mad because that's what people on the internet do.
Vic00:19:12But for different reasons than our reasons.
Sonny00:19:14They were like, oh, yes, get your wife a bike so she can get her not fat butt into shape. There was like a whole... There's also a patriarchy thing. There was a whole patriarchy thing. But like the truth of this ad, at least as I took it, was that she was excited to get a Peloton. She didn't say like, oh, you got me an exercise bike. She was like, you got me a Peloton. She knows what it is. Because it's an experience. When she's doing the vlogging, she's talking about improving herself. It's all about self-improvement. So this is clearly... But you got to vlog about it. This is clearly... But she's an overshare. She's a typical millennial overshare. This is what people do. She is just reacting to this as any like upper class, you know, millennial self-obsessed person would. It's not a question of like, oh, get your wife a bike so she can get into shape. It's get your wife a bike so she can be even more self-absorbed and narcissistic than she already is. That's my takeaway from the ad.
Vic00:20:15I would say the two most annoying parts of that commercial were the ones where... I made a joke about this, about getting your call out. But she does. She called my name. But she has to tell the phone. Is she biking while like with one hand lifted up? Was she doing that? One assumes. Okay. And then the other one was where she wakes up in the morning. So the first thing she does, she's barely awake, but she had enough power to hit record to say, oh, we're going to get up to start biking.
JVL00:20:43Well, she probably sleeps with her phone on a selfie stick. Yeah. Out in front of her. JVL. Let me throw to you another possibility. The husband has merely gotten the Peloton. For, quote, his wife. Because what he really wants is to bring Emma Lovewell into his home for him. Oh, wow. And so it's really just a Trojan horse.
Vic00:21:07It was.
JVL00:21:08Which is what you could do for your wife. That's right.
Vic00:21:11Look, I got you a Peloton. It's great for the three. Yeah. No, all three of us. I mean, two of us. It's a marital aid. It's a marital aid.
JVL00:21:19She's something else.
Vic00:21:20Okay. Yeah. No, it is. It's just disturbing because of the. It's like if she doesn't record it, then it didn't happen, right?
JVL00:21:28I mean, it's like, you know.
Vic00:21:29That's true. Then you don't.
JVL00:21:31Nothing in life happens if it's not recorded. Unless it's recorded. And posted. And posted. If you don't post it, then it doesn't happen. This is the whole. You can't just do it.
Sonny00:21:38This is the whole point of the commercial. It is not about exercise. It's not about the relationship between the woman and the husband. It's not about the relationship between the wife and her kids who are in, like, several of the shots where she's doing the exercising. It's so she can, like, exercise while she keeps an eye on the kids, right?
JVL00:21:57She had those children when she was 14 years old, by the way.
Sonny00:22:00I mean, the whole point of that ad is, the whole point of that ad is, here's a thing that you can use to get great Instagrams. Yep. And great Facebook. That's what it is. Great Facebook videos. That's exactly. And great Twitter picks.
Vic00:22:13And then, of course, then the psychological element that revolves around this whole thing. I was, you know, looking on Twitter and somebody was making fun and I was reading the comments and somebody who was offended was like, it's more than just. It's more than just about losing weight.
Sonny00:22:27Tell me what it is. I mean, Peloton, again, we talked about this a little bit the other day, that there was a big piece in New York Magazine about Peloton going public and, like, how it hopes to, you know, overcome the fact that it is basically just an exercise bike with a video streaming service that anybody can replicate. The whole point is that it is a cult. It's a cult that people get into and, like, obsessed with.
Vic00:22:50A thousand of us at the same time are going right now because you can do the live session.
Sonny00:22:55You know, but anyway.
JVL00:22:57You got to pay extra for the live sessions.
Sonny00:23:00It's more real.
JVL00:23:01It's more real. If you put a quarter in, then you can ask the instructor to do something for you. That's right.
Vic00:23:06That's right. But no, I just like that commercial. I thought this woman is spending way too much time on the screen. She's like a kid. Speaking of which, kids are creative, smart, and adventurous, but if they're using their gifts to get on parts of the Internet you want to keep off limits, Circle can help. Circle is the award-winning way to manage your family's online time across all their connected devices inside and outside. With Circle, parents can filter what content is allowed, set limits for screen time, monitor history and usage, and even reward kids for good behavior. Just plug Circle Home Plus into your router, download the app, and you can keep track across every connected device from laptops, phones, and tablets to smart TVs, streaming devices, and video game consoles all from one place. And Circle has been getting rave reviews from the Chicago Tribune, People, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and more. You do. If you want to do anything for your kids, do something easy that will keep your family on the right path and get Circle. Right now, our listeners can get a limited time offer of $30 off of a Circle Home Plus when you visit meetcircle.com slash subbeacon and enter subbeacon at checkout. Get $30 off when you visit meetcircle.com slash subbeacon and enter subbeacon at checkout. That's meetcircle, M-E-E-T, dot com slash subbeacon and enter subbeacon to save $30. Forgot to mention, the night before Thanksgiving is always tricky in terms of what you eat, right? What do you do, right? I mean, do you get like very simple? Do you go simple, Sonny? What do you do? The night before Thanksgiving? The Thanksgiving, yeah, because you have a big meal the next day. So do you do what you take out?
Sonny00:24:41I don't put any thought into it. I just have a normal meal. I mean, like the tricky thing is what do you do at the beginning of the day for Thanksgiving? Oh, yeah. I mean, like the question. So my preferred eating cycle on Thanksgiving. Uh, is big breakfast, little, little snack type thing at lunch with dinner between sometime between like four 30 and five, essentially. Yeah. That is my.
Vic00:25:07Okay. That's good. That's sensible. Yeah. Um, you know what, uh, I did, uh, the night before, uh, we got, uh, we decided to just get Chinese food, Chinese takeout or delivery. Right. And so it was a big group of us at the house. Uh, so I decided, uh, my strategy would be to get something that I wouldn't really have to share. So I did. So I got the egg foo young, uh, since nobody eats egg foo young anymore, it's hard to find that on a menu anywhere, uh, outside of, I don't know, 1979. Uh, and I was right. Uh, are you an egg foo young?
JVL00:25:36I was just going to ask you what it is.
Vic00:25:38It's like a Chinese omelet. It's like a Chinese omelet. So it's roast pork and bean sprouts and onion and, and, and egg. And then with this mysterious gravy on top, uh, and, and, and just as I imagined, uh, I was the only person who ate it. And I pretty much pretty good. All of it. It was good. Uh, I, uh, it's decadent, it's decadent. And in fact, I, my body really didn't know quite how to handle it. I think, uh, did it reject it? No, it, well, it, it sort of just froze. Speaking of which over the weekend, frozen two was chilling at the top of the box office with 86 million followed by knives out with 26.8 million. And in third place Ford versus Ferrari with 13 million box office thoughts. That's a very slight decrease for frozen two. Wasn't it?
Sonny00:26:24Well, it's a weird weekend because it's Thanksgiving and like people, people are like trying to find things to do with the, uh, the kids. This is every, everything had, everything had a very low drop this weekend.
Vic00:26:34This is going to be a very, uh, this is going to be Disney's biggest movie. Is this what's happening to frozen two? Wow. Their biggest movie this year ever.
JVL00:26:46Biggest, biggest, biggest Disney animation movie, I think is what Vic is asking.
Sonny00:26:50Oh, um, maybe. I mean, I guess if you don't count, if you don't count the Pixar movies, Disney, animation, if you don't count the Pixar movies, and if you don't count the Lion King CGI movie, uh, which grossed like about $600 million, I think.
JVL00:27:03Oh, I still don't understand that one. That was terrible. No, this couldn't do that. I guess. Could it? This, this won't do Lion King numbers. I mean, for it to do Lion King numbers, it's hold would have to be like 35% or something.
Sonny00:27:18It, I mean, I, I mean, it's almost at 300 million after what? 12 days. Uh, 13 days. Um, it would be hard. I think there's too much other stuff coming out to, to, uh, to take away from it. Um, I mean, Lion King grossed what? Like $600 million domestic and $1.6 billion, I think, worldwide. It would be hard. It would be hard. It's not impossible.
JVL00:27:43But that's also not, that's also not an animation. I guess I'm, I'm comparing it against the other Frozen, the Tangled, Little Mermaid, the original Lion King.
Sonny00:27:52What, the first Frozen did, hold on. I gotta.
JVL00:27:55The first Frozen. Are you going to go to Box Office Mojo?
Sonny00:27:59The first Frozen did $400 million. This will probably pass that.
JVL00:28:04That's funny. That is, the first Frozen has a much bigger cultural imprint. Yeah, the imprint is huge. Than $400 million domestic.
Sonny00:28:12Don't you think? Well, because that stupid song was like a top 10 hit for 10 months.
JVL00:28:18But even more than that, I mean, you would say it has a much bigger cultural imprint than the recent Lion King, which has already gone. I'd already forgotten that movie happened.
Sonny00:28:27Yeah.
JVL00:28:27I mean, Frozen is created new IP with characters that are beloved and they sell tons of Halloween costumes. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. Hold on. We've got the most important thing at all. Who won the talent show? Oh, at the Mattis Thanksgiving. I can't believe we didn't. Speaking of Disney, it's not a random connected thing.
Vic00:28:48We won, but my daughter and I won and it was kind of weird at the end because there was it was. It was me and there were two other nominees and and my niece, rather than be forced to have to pick one of the three, she was going to do a random drawing out of the three and that would be the winner. And then there was a huge uproar by my daughter. And so we decided, OK, well, the nominees close your eyes, everybody else vote. And from what I understood, it was a landslide. So we got it. It was a great duet and I never want to sing that song.
Sonny00:29:24And I'm just glad you won. I am sorry.
Vic00:29:27I didn't mean to derail things. But actually, we're going to derail it even further because I want to ask you about a movie that is the movie that we're discussing, which is not on the box office. But the question is, does it it has that it it came out in theaters? Could people have people could have seen The Irishman? Martin Scorsese, the Irishman in the theater.
Sonny00:29:47Lots of people saw it in theaters, judging by my Twitter feed. Hold on. Hold on. What is it?
JVL00:29:54It's total theatrical growth. Nobody knows. And Netflix, Netflix doesn't release the numbers. So it would not be on box office.
Sonny00:30:01It's not. Yep, it's not. It is. This is a number of theaters. This is a point. How many screens was it on? This is a point of contention between Netflix and some of the distributors that they that they're essentially everybody releases their numbers via the same, you know, organization. And the fact that Netflix does not do this is causing a lot of heartburn amongst the probably because they're so good.
JVL00:30:29They don't want to embarrass the other movie studios.
Sonny00:30:31That's the only reason I can think. Yeah, sure. I mean, I like the the I realize you're being sarcastic here, but like the the the the the whole point of like everything Netflix does is geared towards secrecy and it is deeply frustrating to everyone else. To the point that I think some of the other distributors are like, if they aren't going to give everybody their box office information, we're not going to either. It's it could get it could get interestingly ugly very quickly, or with Netflix moving into buying more theaters and possibly buying theater chains with the end of the Paramount consent decrees. I wonder if we will start getting more actual box office information from them. It's possible we won't. I don't know. But but there there there are like industry there are industry things going on that like in theory could compel Netflix to start giving up more info on their theatrical numbers.
Vic00:31:28When did it come out on Netflix? Officially Thanksgiving Day, the day before the day before. So it's kind of a Thanksgiving movie. Thanksgiving movie. Totally.
Sonny00:31:35And you can stretch it out. It's not awkward. Not awkward. A half hour is not awkward to watch this movie about this.
Vic00:31:40No, not at all. Not an awful family situation. Minimal violence. Sonny, do you want to give a big boy review?
Sonny00:31:48Sure. So the Irishman is a three and a half hour movie by Martin Scorsese starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci. It is in many ways the culmination of his kind of gangster cycle of a series of films that you could start with Mean Streets, kind of include Raging Bull in that if you wanted. But really, Goodfellas and Casino would be the other two. And it is it is nominally about the the murder of Jimmy Hoffa at the hands of a mid-level mob minion who was his friend. It is factually about the collapse of this man's family, his inability to connect with his children and the the the ways in which he condemns himself to a life of damnation. It's a very Catholic movie. I think is is one of the phrases I have seen tossed around about this movie a lot. And it is very kind of religiously minded about this. This notion of, you know, family and purgatory and damnation and all that at the end. Here's right. So so this this kind of only scratches the surface. Here's I would like to say the following about the Irishman. It is at least 45 minutes too long. The things about it that don't work are very, very jarring for instance, all of the the aging stuff works in the face and it doesn't work in the body. And it looks like I never had any idea how old Robert De Niro actually was because he he looked in the face, he looked like he was about 45, which he looked like he was seven, which still yeah, which still probably isn't actually young enough. He's supposed to be, I think, 30 or like there's one scene
Vic00:33:45where he's going to be like 18 or something. It's insane.
Sonny00:33:47Yeah, there's there or there's the scene where he's driving the truck. And I'm like, how old is he supposed to be 40 because he looks like he's 45 and he kind of moves like he's 70. There are some terrible there are some terrible action sequences where Robert De Niro is curb stomping a guy and it looks like he's afraid he's going to fall down and break his head.
JVL00:34:07I mean, literally, I was stunned by that series. I thought you have a you have a grosser.
Sonny00:34:13Yeah, you have to have that scene in the movie. You have to have that scene in the movie. And if you don't have that scene in the movie, a lot of the rest of the stuff with the daughter doesn't work. But I just can't imagine after seeing the de-aging and seeing how Robert De Niro's body does not match his face and seeing how it just it looks it looks like kind of pathetic that he couldn't reshoot that with a body double with like, just do it, put a put De Niro's face on on John Bernthal's body.
JVL00:34:46I mean, so that De Niro's back is to you, right?
Sonny00:34:49Well, I mean, you you you with the body. So here's so. So you so I I'm guessing he I'm guessing that he couldn't just reshoot it because that was all because it was shot right. And there was set dressing and everything was done. And then six months later, he finally saw how it actually looked with the technology and it like clearly doesn't work. It's just one of these things that they that. Was ill conceived from the start.
Vic00:35:18Well, it's like it could work like in. You're right about but just, you know, CGI the the the head to a body like in what is that social social network, right? I mean, with the twins, you know, anyway, Armie Hammer, the yes, the Winklevoss.
JVL00:35:30Winklevoss, the Winklevoss. And can we just briefly tell people people haven't seen it. What the movie is when we talk about the aging is because the movie is jumping around back and forth in time with a set of characters. And so there are these guys who you see at what should be like 40 year intervals in their lives. So, you know,
Sonny00:35:52when we join as far back as World War Two, that was just after World War Two.
JVL00:35:56So 1947, 1948 through to like 1980.
Sonny00:36:02And so that's yeah. When is it? When is it? When are his like five? That's in the nineties, I think.
JVL00:36:07Actually, I think he dies in like 2003.
Sonny00:36:09Oh, yeah. So like it goes, it goes, it stretches a solid 60 years.
JVL00:36:13Yeah. And but it's not constant. So you jump back and forth. So you jump back and forth in time. And that's why you are seeing in the span of five minutes, you might see De Niro's character as what should be a 25 year old, what should be a 45 year old and what should be an 80 year old. Yeah.
Sonny00:36:28And and there were there were other characters for whom this works better. Like, for instance, Joe Pesci, I think. Oh, actually, I think it actually the de-aging and the like old man.
JVL00:36:38He never really looks young. Even in the first time.
Sonny00:36:40It more or less works because he's not moving. He's doing very little. Like he is he is he is he's not passive, but he's he's just moving slowly when he moves, but it's a lot of standing and sitting and talking for him. So it's not as it's not as glaring. Anyway, the movie, as I said, the movie is about 45 minutes too long because you don't get to the actual point of the movie until two and a half hours into it, until two and a half hours into it, really. Once you don't see once the the I would say the the movie really gets to the the thematic climax in the the party, the party for Robert De Niro's character, Frank Sheeran. At the all the mobsters show up to and they basically at that point hatched the plan to kill Jimmy Hoffa. And, you know, there you see the shots between the daughter and Jimmy Hoffa and who is played by Anna Paquin and has has very few lines, which has caused lots of lots of lots of drama. But the the the again, the the everything that the problem with the movie is not that it has scenes that should be cut. It's that every scene goes on 20% too long, every scene is repetitious in certain ways, in in ways that that a nip and a tuck here could have fixed. Again, 30 minutes shorter. It's a it's a far superior piece of storytelling. And in a weird way, this shows the limits of the of movies in this age of streaming and whatever, because here's the thing. This is actually a movie you should see in theaters. It's a movie you should see in theaters because you can sit there and really absorb it and take in all the detail and not be distracted and not be looking at your phone and not be thinking, OK, I'm going to pause it now, I'm going to finish tomorrow. You just sit there. I did it that way. You do you you accumulate all the detail and you you take it all in and you you you and that last hour is crushing if you if you do it this way. But the problem is 90% of people aren't going to do it that way. And I don't blame them. I don't blame them. Three and a half hours is, you know, I watched it once in theaters with for with a press screening. Did you take a bathroom break? Well, I know this. It's funny. So I actually had to I had to hop on a call for work for like five minutes right in the middle of the movie. And when I came back, nothing had happened. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. You missed it. It was the movie wasn't funny.
Vic00:39:06The movie was, you know, how do you know that the movie?
Sonny00:39:08Because because because then I said we're in the end game. Because then I saw it again. Then I saw it again with my wife and I and I saw the scene that I missed. It was actually an entertaining scene, but it did nothing to move the story forward. You know, David Mamet has has a series of rules for drama. And like the the the whole point of every scene should be who wants what and why. And how do they get it right? Like that is basically what is happening in each of these scenes. And if you're not moving the story forward with each individual scene you're in, you're you're a bit stagnant. So this movie is often stagnant. Now that stagnant quality to it is what gives it its power in that last hour. I'm sorry. So where do you think it actually starts heading towards the climax? I mean, the dinner, the dinner, the dinner. Where where again, where you see where you were. But but this is this is symptomatic of a problem with the whole film, right? Is that you get like five shots of Anna Paquin looking at Jimmy Hoffa and then looking at the mobsters and then then looking at her father and then looking at Jimmy Hoffa and then looking at the mobsters, right? And it just like it keeps going on and on.
JVL00:40:11Then I was talking with one set of mobsters. Yeah, right. And then the mobsters talk to each other and then they talk to Frank.
Sonny00:40:17It just it just it goes on and on. It needed to be tighter. If it was going to be a movie and it is a movie, I think I do think it works. I think that that last again, I think that last hour is actually kind of devastating, but it's buried in so much other stuff that it you I cannot blame the average viewer for getting bored and just kind of checking out.
Vic00:40:41The way I thought of it, of course, in my mind is almost like a miniseries. I did break it up into two different days and but it's like, you know, when you're working with Netflix, obviously, they've got a gazillion dollars. So it's like a blank check to do whatever movie you want with absolutely zero limits. Right.
Sonny00:40:58$300 million budget, Sonny. Is that correct? Budget was $160 million. That you give an award wasn't more for for Irishman for the Irishman. It cost $160 million.
Vic00:41:09That's a number that's been tossed around. But, you know, I mean, and Scorsese says, you know, his favorite part of moviemaking is the film editing. So you can spend hours in the film with fellow Schoonmaker, the two of them working on this thing together. I really like Joe Pesci in this. I think he gets a Oscar nom for your ahead of yourself. I need the quadrants. Not yet. I wanted to say, OK, I wanted to say what I liked about him was so striking is how understated his performance is. You know, he's not like Tommy and Goodfellas or Nicky Santoro and Casino. He was a very Zen gangster, wasn't he? JVL, very calm. That's so good. That's so good.
JVL00:41:47So we're here with our our favorite sponsor. Calm Calm dot com, C-A-L-M dot com. It is an app for your phone which has sleep stories and meditations. And it's the greatest thing ever. Everybody in my family uses it. And actually, not just everybody in my immediate family. I was babysitting my nieces last weekend and I took my my favorite niece up to bed and she is she's three and we tucked her in and she's got a little iPad in her room. And as she's getting all tucked in, all of her stuffies and her fuzzy blanket, she gestures for the iPad. I bring it down. She pulls up calm. She starts scrolling through and then she finds whatever story she wants to listen to that night. And I was looking at the ones that are all marked favorite. They're all read by Tamara Leavitt. So it is Tamara Leavitt's magic voice. So I hear as I tuck her in, she chooses the little mermaid, she puts it in, she says, you know, snuggle, snuggle. And so I snuggle in with her. We listen to Tamara Leavitt and bam, she's out. It was so great. And and this is what calm does. It is essential, an essential tool for anybody with kids because it's like magic and they can do it themselves. They even as young as three years old. So everybody should should have calm, especially if you are a parent. And right now, listeners of the show for a limited time can get 25% off a premium subscription to calm by going to calm.com/subbeacon. It comes with unlimited access to the entire library. New content is added every single week. New, new meditations, new guided breathing exercises and new sleep stories. Get started today at calm.com/subbeacon. That's calm.com/subbeacon.
Vic00:43:50Thank you. JVL. So you asked me about my quadrants.
JVL00:43:55Yeah. OK, so I thought to myself, this is a very problematic movie. From the quadrant perspective, it is.
Vic00:44:00So the duration is three hours and 29 minutes. Again, I treat it as a miniseries. Here's the thing about it. In general, I would say, you know, hour and a half. That's what I like for a lot of movies. Hobbs and Shaw hour and a half. I prefer for all these movies that I, you know, whatever. I just want it to be short. But I am totally biased, and I have a soft spot for Scorsese gangster movies. I used to say this back in the day with, like, Goodfellas. If Goodfellas was six hours long, I'd watch all six hours. I could just sit there and watch them eating and drinking and hanging out. I can do that. I mean, like, so for me, there were no moments of like, oh, this is dragging. It wasn't like Widows, you know, so it was it was like, oh, you know, it's like, oh, I just got into it. I felt like I was absorbed by it and I was in that world. So, hmm, OK. No, although I do like Anna Paquin. But not naked. No, no, no, no. That's OK. That's like the bonus.
JVL00:44:55What should be two strikes against it. Yeah, yeah. It's way too long and it has no nudity.
Vic00:44:59It's fine. OK, violence. Violence was good. I mean, there was no Billy Bats scene, you know. I mean, there was no cornfield scene, but I thought it was all pedestrian. Yeah, it was. There was spatter. It was fine. It was fine. It was fine. It was I thought it was realistically treated. OK, a plot. I found the plot very easy to understand, but that's because I've read and reviewed tons of history of the mafia. So like you're going through and there's all these different players and in many cases I'd be seeing them and I'd already know like, oh, there's a scene they're going to hit this guy in the barbershop. And I said, that's got to be Alberto Anastasio in the Sheraton. And he was killed. It was like Murder Incorporated and killed him. Right. I think at the time. And so I was right about that. And and only this old Joe Gallo played by Maniscalco, the comedian who plays guys. Oh, that's crazy. Joe Gallo. He started a war, you know, with the Profacis and the Colombo family, this whole big power struggle thing.
JVL00:45:49I but maybe if I wasn't the difference between you and me is that I had to watch this with mafia.wikia.org pulled up, which is the Wikipedia for mafia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In order to look. OK, so who is this guy? OK, no. Yeah, exactly. So since you're the editor of that site, you secret editor, you have all of that up at your fingertips.
Vic00:46:12And I find it interesting because it's Midwestern mafia. It's Philly mob. It's not New York mob. Right. Right. New York, Detroit, Chicago. You know, most of these gangster movies all revolve around New York mobsters and stuff. But, you know, the Midwest mob is very interesting. A lot of it was, you know, how they controlled with. There's a little bit of Vegas going on there. So I found it easy to understand. I gave it a start. Sorry. OK. OK. You see him. You see him down. It should have been over for.
JVL00:46:41I know it should have been over for your quadrant. And yet it's like a movie made just for you. If only there were some boobs in it, then it would have been an A plus.
Vic00:46:49A plus. But that's not even Scorsese's thing ever, is it?
Sonny00:46:52Wolf of Wall Street. Wolf of Wall Street is very much an outlier in this. I mean, aside from that, I can only think of a handful of movies with nudity. There's there's a topless scene in like Mean Streets. I think there's there's a little bit in The Last Temptation of Christ, I think. But, you know. OK. JVL, go for it.
Vic00:47:19I, you know. Anything good? I know you didn't like it, but is there anything you liked about the movie?
JVL00:47:25I would say I had prepared for something very different. I had prepared to have a whole thing where I was going to swerve on Sonny because I assumed that Santino was going to be.
Vic00:47:37I kind of did, too. I kind of did, too. You surprised me, Sonny. And I was I was going to make the case that this is the best streaming content ever.
JVL00:47:46It's just not a movie.
Sonny00:47:49Hmm. What? No, it is. It is. It is a movie. I mean, this is the problem is that it's totally I mean, it is a movie is cinema, right?
JVL00:47:58A cinema is a thing. It's a very specific thing. It's a thing where art and commerce and audience meet in a communal setting. And it's projected like 30 feet big. Yeah. And they did that for a month with this movie on like five screens. No, it was more than that. It was it was it was across the country. So I would say there are a lot of great. YouTubers out there making streaming content like PewDiePie and the girl from USC, Lori Loughlin's daughter. There are some great made for TV movies like the Christmas Prince and the Christmas Prince two and the Christmas Prince three. Those webisodes for Battlestar Galactica back in the day were amazing. Dr. Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible singalong blog. Amazing streaming content. And yet the Irishman is better than all of them.
Sonny00:48:44I'm just not a press. It's just not a movie.
JVL00:48:47Let me let me. Let me ask you this very seriously. And this is why I say it's not a movie in a movie. Like when you go to see a garbage movie like Rampage. Okay. Rampage. Remember, we did a rampage.
Vic00:49:02That was horrible. We did Rampage.
JVL00:49:04We didn't see Rampage. 100%. The movie with the rock.
Vic00:49:08Yeah. The one where we're fighting with giant beasts. Yes. I don't remember that at all.
JVL00:49:13We 100% went and did that show. Maybe you were away.
Sonny00:49:16I certainly saw Rampage. Okay.
JVL00:49:18What would you estimate was the percentage of people who walked out of the theater while Rampage was playing? Very few probably. Probably like less than 1%, right? Because, again, we see a lot of movies. The percentage of people who leave the theater in a movie is very, very, very small. I mean, if I see one person leave the theater every two years, it's a lot. What percentage of people who have... Who have begun watching The Irishman on Netflix don't finish it? Would you guess?
Sonny00:49:53I understand we don't know, but I'm just... I guess, certainly, I have no idea. I don't even know how to make an educated guess, but it is certainly higher than people who left the theater.
JVL00:50:03And that's because it's not a movie. It's different. Goldfarb did not finish the movie. I mean, it's just a different beast. This gets us to the point...
Sonny00:50:14All right, Marshall McLuhan, I get it. The message is the medium. But this is what... So here's what Bob... This is what bothers me about it.
JVL00:50:19The whole reason for this thing, this streaming product existing, is so that Netflix can force Hollywood to give it a Best Picture Oscar. That's the whole reason behind it.
Sonny00:50:30Well, and this movie has... This movie has won... It's racking them up already. NBR, NYFCC, AFI. It is starting to rack up the awards.
JVL00:50:38This is like watching an industry commit suicide. Because if they... If the business of Hollywood hands its award for the best movie... Movie to this, they might as well give it to Gears of War. Right? Or Grand Theft Auto. Because it's just a content. It's a form of content that isn't movies. Not to say it's not art. Not to say it's not art. But it's not a movie.
Sonny00:51:06I mean, I... It's... This is... It makes me very upset. It's such a weird metaphysical question. I don't quite know how to answer it. But it's obviously a movie. It played in movie theaters. It works better as a movie. I mean, this is like... This is actually kind of the tragedy of the film is that it works better as a thing that you have to watch in cinemas and you have to sit there and you're one of the 0% of people who don't leave because you have, you know, carved this time out to go see it. You know, again, I think this might just show the limitation of the format or medium of film in an age of streaming. In an age when most people see things for the first time at home, you cannot make a film like this. It needs to either be longer and be a miniseries or it needs to be shorter and be consumable in one evening. Yes.
JVL00:52:01Which is part of what I'm getting at, actually. Wait, wait, no, I understand. I think making it too long by 45 minutes is an act of self-indulgence because he realized he didn't have to make a movie. Does that make sense? Like, if he was constrained... If this was a Warner Brothers, he would have had to make a movie version of that.
Sonny00:52:21No, but this gets to another... This gets to a different problem with Netflix is that nobody there says no to anything. Nobody there is interested in telling creatives that they need to do this or do that. It is a candy land over there for filmmakers of a certain variety and Martin Scorsese is certainly amongst them. But this is a corporate governance problem as much as anything else.
JVL00:52:46Yes.
Sonny00:52:47So that aside,
JVL00:52:50it's mobbed up Forrest Gump.
Sonny00:52:56Yes, 100%. Right? 100%. Right?
JVL00:53:01It's in my note.
Sonny00:53:02Victorino, literally. I wrote Forrest Gump on it.
Vic00:53:06It's only based on his testimony. We don't know. Yeah, I met him. Howard Hunt, I knew that guy.
Sonny00:53:12This is a big problem with the movie from my perspective. It's that I don't care about this person, this idiot. This passive idiot who only snaps into action when he's turning into action star hitman. That shot where he turns around with the two guns and he's like At Umberto's clan house when he killed I was like, that's more activity than I've seen this man do in the rest of the film. He is a totally passive character. He just sits there and he gets told what to do by people and he's like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Apologizing all the time. I don't care about this character who I think is a numbskull. Even as a killer
JVL00:53:53he's not an especially gifted. It seems like his product differentiator, his superpower is just his willingness to just go along with whatever
Vic00:54:04is happening around him. A seeming lack of a conscience. So just, okay.
JVL00:54:07So I am simultaneously listening to the audiobook for No Country for Old Men and the extent to which a character like Frank Sheeran, who again is I don't want to call him a Mary Sue exactly, but he's a little bit of a Mary Sue. No, he's a Forrest Gump. Or maybe the Forrest Gump. He's totally the right. Yeah, he just sort of gets pulled along but also he thinks he's trying his best and thinks that his motives are pure and at best he's a sociopath. Right? I mean he's much more he should be much more like Anton Chigurh than Forrest Gump because he's a guy who kills dozens and dozens of people without seemingly any remorse and that's not a normal human trait. I feel for him. If you're a soldier in the lobby, a button man.
Sonny00:54:55This is why that last 30 minutes or so of the film does work in its own way is that this is where you see him realize that he between the lack of a relationship with Anna Paquin and that scene with the priest at the end where he's like, what kind of man makes a call like that? Where he's remembering he's remembering the call he made to Jimmy Hoffa's wife where he says I don't know where maybe he'll turn up and he realizes the like wasted the fact that he is a cipher in his own story that he has just wasted his own, his life, all of
Vic00:55:35his relationships. When you talk about the Sonny, sort of the Catholic nature of the film, I appreciated that the priest is not a caricature of, all too often in the lot of these movies, the priest is some sort of foil or it's just a caricature and what I appreciate is that there's no confessions you don't see him absolving because he asks him and he wants to, I mean that's the nature they're in the business to save souls and so he's like don't you feel sorry for
JVL00:56:04he's looking for remorse
Vic00:56:05because there is even, there's the, I think it's St. John Vianney's, the trick about well do you feel sorry for not being sorry you know, that you could say yes to and then you can get absolved but he says you don't feel sorry about the families and he goes no I didn't really know, I didn't really know them oh just one of them, you know so I appreciated that and he's searching for it but he's not quite there yet you know and obviously he's trying to go through the prayers and everything else but you know he's not there in his head but I agree about the ending I found it to be very powerful and Joe Pesci, they're sitting around especially after Pesci's character, Buffalino has the stroke and they're, what are they reduced to you know the mortal coil, you know what are they reduced to, the grape juice with the bread and he could barely, because of the teeth I can't do it, this is the good grape juice
JVL00:56:53this is the good grape juice, so Sonny that's actually what we're seeing is a fake communion right, the grape juice, the wine the bread, right and he can't even have it, right because he doesn't have teeth, he can't chew it I I agree the end was powerful, looping back in with Still of the Night which is so one of the things that's interesting about this movie is I believe there is no score yeah it's Robbie Robertson except for one sequence which is a montage towards the end which is a cello and a snare drum and it's fantastic I heard it twice, that runs through the movie
Sonny00:57:32does it? there's an underlying curtain, this is very this is not a almost jukebox musical type thing that Scorsese often does just using, jukebox, like Goodfellas yeah right, like yeah, I mean not, it's not it's the wrong phrase, not jukebox musical but you know, he's not just using pop songs to score the thing it's, there is a Carter, I think it's Carter Burwell score underpinning the whole thing
JVL00:57:58that's funny, well I only noticed it once and I thought it was fantastic but I did not like I'm sorry, not Carter Burwell, Robbie Robertson, Robbie Robertson, yeah I did not like the music cue at the end I thought it undercut things and was too on the nose in a weird way, oh he's dead the still of the night wink wink but there were things I liked about it I agree, Joe Pesci who I have never liked as an actor in anything, what about Home Alone?
Vic00:58:29what about Home Alone?
Sonny00:58:31you've never liked Joe Pesci in anything? even Leo Getz even Leo, I've never
JVL00:58:38liked Joe Pesci in anything I love Joe Pesci in everything I thought he was fantastic yeah, he's great, he's great really nuanced performance he is great in this and everything else
Vic00:58:49he's going to church, you actually felt I don't know, I felt this thing it was like, oh, empathy
JVL00:58:55but he was fabulous you know who else I really liked? Small part Ray Romano so Ray Romano plays the mob lawyer cousin, Bathelino
Vic00:59:05and he
JVL00:59:06I feel like Ray Romano sells the beginning of this movie harder than anybody else, because where Frank the De Niro character falls into the mob is when he is accused of having beef fall off the truck to make a little money on the side accused properly accused he goes to meet his union lawyer played by Ray Romano and Ray Romano asks him you know, you just gotta tell me what you did, just so I know how to defend you and you know, but don't worry I'm gonna defend you no matter what and Frank just won't give an inch and you can tell why he's probing a little bit because he wants to see if this guy is reliable or not
Sonny00:59:52he asks if he'll name names he says, you know, all you gotta do is give up some guys just give up some guys, right?
JVL00:59:59and he does such a subtle little job of that I just thought he is laying down the predicate for the whole rest of the movie and it was really impressive you know who else I liked was the great Stephen Graham
Sonny01:00:11Stephen Graham is my favorite part of this whole movie we haven't even talked about him Tony Provenzano
Vic01:00:15from Snatch or Lockstock
Sonny01:00:18he was in Snatch, he was on Boardwalk Empire he was in Public Enemy he's become like the go-to gangster
Vic01:00:27he's got this mug that can either be an Irish mug an English mug or in this case Italian
Sonny01:00:32so here's my question
JVL01:00:33Scorsese movies typically have really showy acting pieces and they also have typically really showy cinematography like there's something great in the camerawork, there's scenes I don't think there's a single scene in this movie that is worth looking at I like the cameras locked down most of the time
Sonny01:00:55I really like the opening Scorsese does something very interesting in the opening that gets to our discussion about TV vs. Cinema where the shot begins and it is essentially framed as a 4x3 box there's darkness on the sides and the camera pushes into the hallway and it expands to the full widescreen experience and what he is saying visually here is you are watching this on a TV but it is cinema that is what he's doing and then the camera goes through the whole it's a tracking shot that goes through the nursing home and gets you to where he is so I like that it is not definitely not as highly stylized as some of his work but it's loaded with great performances I love Al Pacino
JVL01:01:42what did you think about Al Pacino? I thought Pacino was the only actor who looks like he's clearly having fun with the part and the only scene that I thought crackled as a true piece of great acting was Hoffa and Tony Pro in jail arguing about the pension and so both these guys are in the pen they hate each other they are within the movie within the same union and they start going at each other over the pension but things don't really go wrong until Jimmy Hoffa says to him you people
Vic01:02:21at which point Tony Pro
JVL01:02:23loses his mind over you people what do you mean? because it's an ethnic slur and that's the unforgivable thing that is fantastic and it comes up again in the movie
Sonny01:02:35but here's again here's a problem with the movie you basically get that scene twice you get that scene twice and both of those scenes those two scenes are my favorite two scenes in the movie but you only need one of them you only need one of them when you have both of them it gets self indulgent and a little bit decadent this is the culmination of Scorsese's decadent phase of filmmaking did you guys see Silence?
Vic01:03:02no and I watched it you as Catholics I think you would find it interesting
Sonny01:03:07but again it's a movie that's like 3 hours and 20 minutes long it's insanely long
Vic01:03:11that was not a Netflix thing that was a movie theater
Sonny01:03:14that was a movie theater it was in theaters not for very long it was in theaters and it's good it's got a great Adam Driver performance I like a lot of things in it but I haven't watched it again because I just have no interest in sitting through it again and like Wolf of Wall Street nudges right up to that Wolf of Wall Street is decadent in a different way because it is fall of Rome nudity, excess, etc
Vic01:03:39when you're throwing lobsters at people
Sonny01:03:40but even that movie is a relatively tight three hours, it zips by it just goes from scene to scene shot to shot, it's very well done
Vic01:03:50Speaking of zipping by, how about this show?
Sonny01:03:52Speaking of decadence, this show is getting
Vic01:03:54Let us move on, I have one shout out speaking of Georgetown Georgetown alumna Brianna McGinnis who gave us that nice bottle of Rip Van Winkle before her and her husband Kenan her husband Kenan job announcement you'll find this very interesting, Brianna has a new job, she is now the counsel to the MLB commissioner
Sonny01:04:16that's cool
Vic01:04:18how about some swag how about you
Sonny01:04:22you're going to ask for more things after the
Vic01:04:25box seats, how about after the Rip Van Winkle wasn't enough, now I want the seats
Sonny01:04:29after the thousand dollar bottle of bourbon
JVL01:04:31how about I go the other way on this, Brianna I've got half season tickets to the Nats when you're going to be in DC, you and the husband should come down and we'll go to a game together and then they could throw out those astros those bums, okay
Vic01:04:42that's it for the cheating, thank you that is all the time we're giving to this episode my goodness, questions, comments, complaints compliments, tweet us at SonnyBunch, at Victorino Matus really, still nothing, I'm so happy
JVL01:04:58I was actually thinking about this this morning, about how happy I am that I'm not on Twitter
Vic01:05:02again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher just type in SubBeacon or Podcast we're there, leave a review, tell your friends until next time
?01:05:12music music music
Sonny01:05:14anything, anything we went long, this is a long episode
JVL01:05:22so Sal Bugsy Legs
Sonny01:05:25or whatever his name is Sally Bugs
JVL01:05:28so Sally Bugs gets whacked because he is seen going to a federal courthouse and they say, and he didn't tell anybody that can only mean that he's snitching but he did tell somebody they then say that he did tell somebody but according to mafia.wikia.org he really was flipping oh and so I come to you to adjudicate what this is was he really ratting? was he not ratting? who's right? I don't know, I'm sure it's fine
Spot something wrong in this episode? Suggest a correction →
Comments
Loading…