#69. Little Italy, Wearing Pants, and a Sonny Update
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Vic's pick this week is Little Italy, the 2018 rom-com he found while trawling Amazon for the worst movie on the service — Hayden Christensen and Emma Roberts as feuding pizza-family Romeo and Juliet, in Toronto's Little Italy, shot in Canada for the tax credits and thanking Air Canada in the credits. Sonny calls it dog shit from start to finish and a confirmation of all his priors about rom-coms: humor built entirely on ethnic stereotypes, endless shopping montages, a Jane Seymour turn that lifts Gordon Ramsay's "idiot sandwich" meme wholesale, and two love stories so slight that really ripping into it "would be like drowning a bag of puppies." He does rank the stereotypes on request, with the random Indian characters far and away the most offensive and the gay Chinese man who considers himself Italian the least. JVL takes the opposite line — it's so bad it's great — praising Alyssa Milano's full surrender to Italian-mom mode, insisting this is the most charming work Hayden Christensen has ever done despite Sonny's objection that the man has "dull stupid cow eyes," savoring the electrician named Mario Puzo, and admitting he teared up at the sauce reveal after 72 hours alone in a house. Vic, in the character of "Jersey Vic," gives it a B+ with an A+ for plot because he could have written the script, and calls Christensen's accent the best ethnic accent since Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins; he also protests that square Sicilian slices are not a bold innovation and that the secret sauce ingredient, anchovy, is not a secret. The show opens with the real news: Rebeller Media has shuttered, and Sonny eulogizes it, proud that for six months he got to pay people like Bill Ryan, Jacob Knight and Michael Biehn to write about movies, while listeners flood him with liquor, a Chili's gift card and a long list of thank-yous.
From the show notes
#cdata-section -------------- In this Very Special Episode sponsored by Tommy John, we review the Italian-Canadian rom-com Little Italy ....
Full transcript
JVL00:00:00The last place I wanted to go back to was our little Italy where nothing changes
Sonny00:00:07You're so thin what happens to her ass no one trusts a skinny cup
Vic00:00:12As it tastes just like home Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon sponsored by Tommy John 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 podcast and search for Sub-Beacon, you'll easily find us Please subscribe, tell your friends and leave a review Gentlemen, how are we? Sonny, what's going on?
Sonny00:00:47I'm going to tell you guys, I've had a bad week What happened? I had a bad week I woke up on Sunday And had to go out and do some stuff And I came back And I realized that my life Was going to be irrevocably Different I looked at the thermostat And it was up to 78 And I was like, what's happening here? What's going on? And I looked again like an hour later And it was up to about 81 And that's when I realized that My air conditioner had gone out In Texas It doesn't get hot in Texas, does it? In the 100 degree June Early June weather
Vic00:01:29I've been there that time It's like a dry heat
Sonny00:01:32It's a dry heat, alright Let me tell you what isn't dry Is the inside of a house Where it's 100 degrees outside And you've got all the shutters closed It was actually more pleasant outside It was literally more pleasant outside Because there was a breeze And it was like 10% humidity Inside the house it was like 50% humidity And just gross and terrible
Vic00:01:52It's like the moisture in Apollo 13 Yeah Collecting on the capsule
Sonny00:01:56So for about two days Until Tuesday night So like Sunday night was okay But then Monday was bad And then Tuesday all day was bad And the air conditioner repair guy Finally came on Tuesday And we got that taken care of Did you need a whole new unit? No, no, it was just It was a bad fan that was overheating And tripped a circuit breaker or something So they replaced the fan It's under the homeowner's warranty I don't know I was just going to ask you
JVL00:02:26If you still had the homeowner's warranty
Vic00:02:27Amazing that it actually came First time ever
JVL00:02:33You kind of wish that they did have to replace the whole unit
Sonny00:02:35Well that's the thing If it had been like the compressor Or you know something
JVL00:02:40I was going to be just like
Sonny00:02:42You get rid of everything
JVL00:02:44What do you got? You got a four ton unit? I have no idea For the big Texas house I have no idea How does your heating system work? Do you have dual fuel? Is it all HVAC? How do you run things out In Tejas?
Sonny00:02:58I'm pretty sure it's all HVAC So we do have natural gas here My stove runs on natural gas And there's like a hookup for the grill But I'm pretty sure the heating is just It's electric I'm pretty sure I actually don't I'm not 100% sure though because I Don't really, I don't know I'm not an expert on such things Yeah you just moved there And the heating has Worked fine so I haven't had to actually look and be like Wait how does this work Who do I need to call to replace this
Vic00:03:29I remember when my friend Peter Lowe Told us that it got cold in Dallas Nobody believed him How cold does it get
Sonny00:03:36I mean like We moved here in January And it was you know chilly I got to wear cardigans a couple times 40s? Yeah 30s, 40s Did you get frost? Would you have to scrape your car? No definitely Didn't have to scrape the car
Vic00:03:54Your beloved cardigans
Sonny00:03:56But I did get to wear the cardigans Which was nice But it was definitely When it hit June it stopped raining And became 100 degrees Like 90, 95 Between 90 and 100 So anyway it was A miserable couple of days Anything else? That was it That's the only thing going on
Vic00:04:20I'd say a lot of people are tuning in right now It's good for the numbers If you can do this every week
Sonny00:04:24Very sad to announce that Rebellermedia.com Which you could have saved 25% on With the code Sub-Beacon It has ceased to be It is Been It is the victim Of a shuddering Sadly I posted a little thread about What went down on Twitter, you can check that out And My DMs are open If anybody has any questions But the long and the short of it is There was a series of Like relatively bad things That happened And one thing kind of piled up On top of another and it just The site Is no more I don't really want to get into all that here I just wanted to like very briefly Say that I really liked Working on Rebellermedia.com And I thought it was a pretty Good and interesting site And I thought it was doing good and interesting Film writing Among The things I am Very proud of is being the first Person to pay a writer named Bill Ryan to write about movies Bill Ryan is just a really wonderful Writer that nobody Had ever reached out to and asked if You know he wanted to To write about movies And I did and I Paid him and it was great
JVL00:05:58You know it was a Fun site it was like kind of weird and esoteric You know Jacob Knight every Friday
Sonny00:06:05Was writing 2,000 words On you know kind of weird Cult classic type things Sometimes a little more mainstream He did a roadhouse Piece for us and that was a lot of fun And sometimes a little more Obscure and Like I said a little esoteric
Vic00:06:24It was John Milius
Sonny00:06:27That was fine we had We had an interview with John Milius You know which was A lot of fun to commission And work through And publish and I think a lot of people Enjoyed hearing from the director of Red Dawn and Conan the Barbarian and about You know his kind of thoughts on the state of Filmmaking and all that You know we had a Great first person series By Michael Bean The great Michael Bean Writing about Tombstone and his kind of experience Behind the scenes making that It's kind of a legendary You know shit show of a production That one was And he had a lot of thoughts And it's We were you know Talking about doing a podcast together And I hope he can I hope he can find a new Home for that with his writing partner Jim Anderson They were a pleasure to work with And really good people You know There was a lot of good stuff On the site And there was It was a place where People could publish long form Film writing on A variety of Kind of genre and genre adjacent Topics And And Find a home Find a home for that sort of writing It's It makes me sad That it didn't quite work out For a variety of reasons And I You know With the shuttering of like film comment And the You know the dissolution Of the AV club And to you know kind of You know Whatever it is now And you know the closure of places like The Dissolve and that sort of stuff There's a shortage of places For good thoughtful Writing on film That you know Offers up a diversity of viewpoints And diversity of voices And I'm I'm a little bit sad to see it go But You know onward and upward We still have the Sub-Beacon I Want to thank The good people of the The SSEU Who Like Dunkirk, like the evacuation of Dunkirk Flooded my Home with bottles of alcohol To Keep me from having to Become sober and realize that I now live in Texas For some reason And you know Figure out what to do What to do next Going forward etc So yeah I have a whole list of names That I will share at the end of this show In the shoutouts section But Anyway, I'm sad to see it go If you want to read JVL on Layer Cake Hurry, because that piece will disappear Into the ether at some point In the next two weeks to four weeks We're not going to keep The site up and running What would the paywall and everything What would really be the point
JVL00:09:51Print it out
Sonny00:09:53Read JVL, print it out And save it in your scrapbook Yeah, so Rebellermedia.com, RIP I had a blast running it I honestly The thing I like most is that For six months I got to pay people To write about movies Exclusively For a little while
JVL00:10:16I never got paid
Sonny00:10:18You never got paid?
JVL00:10:20No, I thought I was just Doing it as a favor
Sonny00:10:22I paid other people Thank you, Sonny
Vic00:10:30Yeah, that's all the time we have
JVL00:10:32A lot better than I took The murder of my magazine
Sonny00:10:34It's pretty impressive I could be There are things I could be angry about But what's the point of
JVL00:10:42I think you're just a better person
Sonny00:10:44No, I don't know about that I certainly am not going to heaven According to the priests
JVL00:10:50I was I was going to ask At this point I raise a practical question Does this mean you're not doing RCIA? Right now?
Sonny00:10:59No We were one Sub-Beacon promo code away From that being the next promo code And just Sadly it just didn't come together We were one We were either at $4.99 Whatever the one Whatever the next one was It would have made it
JVL00:11:21I would just like to point out That I am being on my very best behavior here
Sonny00:11:26Because my two feelings JVL really wants to go ham On this whole situation
JVL00:11:32I have Some things I would like to say And I am not going to do that Because But But I got your back Thank you
Sonny00:11:46Thank you Jonathan Thank you Jonathan V. Last I really appreciate it And Sonny you know
JVL00:11:52You put together a saw house And I could lock Phil Anschutz in there I'll stop I'm going to stop right now A saw house
Vic00:12:00Like a saw mill You know what I would do I would do the one where you had to stick your hand to get them crushed Versus the pendulum Because I think I would be able to do that I think about this a lot The hand crushing versus pendulum Easily That one or the me versus the heavy Smoker, hold your breath And then it crushes your lungs That's the other one I watched all of them on YouTube Anyway, Sonny You know you could always come back We got a lot of young and talented writers Or at least young That you could
JVL00:12:36Shots fired
Vic00:12:39I'm kidding, I love them all And so do you Well, we can talk Okay, JVL Where are you?
JVL00:12:51I am in my mother-in-law's basement
Vic00:12:52It sounds like a dungeon or something I'm waiting for the It's her quilting space That's what you call it
JVL00:13:03Surrounded by What is the measurement unit for fabric? Is it reams? Is it yards? I don't know what it is Bolts
Sonny00:13:14Bolts of fabric
Vic00:13:16Yeah, that's right, bolts
JVL00:13:18Thousands of them Oh, yeah And everywhere And it's like Multiple sewing machines Multiple irons It's great But I had a week by myself Because my wife brought four kids up here And I was back in Virginia working
Vic00:13:40Oh, oh, oh
JVL00:13:41And You just switched
Vic00:13:43It was amazing Oh, yeah
JVL00:13:46This is like I got to be you For three days What did you Did you order Chinese food every day? That's what I do You know, for different places I didn't do Chinese food But I did One night when I finished Finished work around 11.45 To your body I thought to myself Wait a minute I could I could play the most epic Guitar Hero set ever And I literally turned it up to 11 It was I turned the 5.1 surround sound on Guitar Hero Up to the point Where I thought Even my neighbors might complain about it It's like a risky business moment It was It was amazing The set I The set I I jammed on Unbelievable So, yeah
Vic00:14:33Victorino, how are you? I'm fine Really compared to the big news Still employed? Yeah Nobody's murdered the beacon yet? As far as I know We're just moving along And things are fine I did Go back To the office Earlier this week Just to see what was going on The whole building You know
JVL00:14:58Your gym with the Peloton Is never going to reopen I'm waiting for that So there's no reason For you to ever go back to the office
Vic00:15:03It's just going to be me I will use that
JVL00:15:05You're going to have to get your own Peloton
Vic00:15:07No, you know It's like 30% capacity
JVL00:15:10Do you want Emma to be a casualty of this virus? Her job? What happens if she's out of work?
Vic00:15:15I told you I haven't gone to Emma in ages Jess King Jess King Yes Queen That's what I say Uh-huh She's the best She went through some dark times And she has a great workout Where she tells her life story And the workout For those of you who do have Peloton I don't But I still remember It's in my head Is the Jess King experience The Jess King experience And it is great Wasn't that a Steven Soderbergh movie?
JVL00:15:42The girlfriend experience Oh, sorry Oh, the girlfriend experience Oh, the girlfriend experience Very similar, I'm sure
Vic00:15:47Yes, it is But, you know In the building now So, like, the main lobby They now have the arrows Like, you are to walk You know, this direction on the right And the other arrows going in the other direction Six feet apart And of course
JVL00:16:03How many people in the elevators at a time?
Vic00:16:04Ah, four And there are four foot marks
Sonny00:16:07There are four, like, dots?
Vic00:16:09No, no They're actual imprints of feet This is where your feet go And it's all inclusive So there's the dress shoe There's the high heel shoe And then there's a sneaker That's too many people I was like, what about the flip-flop? Because this is Arlington You need the flip-flop in there The brown flip-flop And that wasn't there Yeah, we were saying that And not only that I was in an elevator with two other colleagues And I'm like, really? I'm supposed to stand right behind you? And that was, you know, I mean You could barely even see the news
Sonny00:16:40If I'm standing Yeah, how have you been keeping up with the news? I don't know Is there anything going on? The past four months First of all
Vic00:16:48Because, you know, they shut down the office I haven't been getting my news on elevator news Why are we shut down? And I don't understand what happened And so I'm still stuck there And I finally caught up It was like, wow It was mind-blowing I stayed in the elevator, you know, for about You rode up and down 30 times Up and down 30 times Luckily, there's nobody there So the weird thing is If you have three people It doesn't make sense to have one behind the other person And then the other person on the other side You would have to be equidistant Like somebody in the middle It's weird And yeah, so
Sonny00:17:19You need like a triangle Yeah, yeah, yeah
Vic00:17:21But that's exactly right, Sonny The devil's triangle I'm into that So I don't, you know But it was weird because When the shutdown first happened I was like, I'll be I'm the only one going into the office, right? And there's nobody there Because I can't get work done at home And I'm used to the routine And after a while You just stop going And you got used to your routine at the house And And what happened is Everybody's work schedule shifted as well So now I used to get into the office at 8 a.m. But sure enough Nobody's really filing until, you know Sonny, if you remember, until later Yeah And then, you know The rush hits around 3, 4 o'clock Up to 8 o'clock And so When you're at home That changes everything You just get a lot of other things done In that time But I don't know I mean, I guess I'm not getting as much, you know I mean, I wrote a couple pieces recently But Other than that It's been You know It's weird It's just weird So I don't know if I can go back to that
JVL00:18:27None of us are going back to that
Vic00:18:298 to 5 experience And then you work again at home
JVL00:18:32None of us are going back to that Because the other part of this is Companies are going to realize They don't need to spend money on their real estate This is They were all trying to downsize This is what the whole move to the open office was The open office was really about reducing square footage That's what it was always It was always It was always about reducing rent for the man For the management Thank you The bourgeoisie Thank you, yeah And us, the workers
Sonny00:18:57Yes So
JVL00:19:00And the other thing is We're never going back So just enjoy it Enjoy being at home
Vic00:19:04And the other thing is Pants You know I didn't
?00:19:08I
Vic00:19:08I was like What did I wear? I'm like I mean I used to wear dress pants But of course back in March I had other You know You know Thicker pants To wear Wool Or blend wool Whatever kind of pants to wear Dress pants You know me I always dressed up And then I'm like What do I have now? And it's like I have one pair of khakis That are so frayed When I looked at them It was like the same It was like the pair of khakis That Alec Guinness wears In Bridge on the River Kwai And it just gets Sort of just worn Over Over time And labor And that's what I wore No I didn't wear it So I ended up wearing I wore shorts Because I couldn't go back
Sonny00:19:45Shorts in the office I know Well
Vic00:19:48Harrison And Brent were there And they were in shorts too And Well Yeah To be expected So they In other words They haven't changed And then we all went out Along with Alex Pastro JVL You remember her The four of us Went out to Open Road The restaurant in Roslyn We sat outside
JVL00:20:05Just think about What this is going to do For the Business wear sector Of clothing Like if you Brooks Brothers Gone Joseph A. Banks Gone No they're adjusting
Vic00:20:16Have you gotten Have you gotten their emails Johnston and Murphy too About you know Dress up for your Zoom You know New casual New casual wear For golf Golf as well There's other So they're They're all trying To figure this out And I'm basically In you know At home Just walking around In my underwear Speaking of which Father's Day Could be stressful Trying to find The perfect gift For dad Thankfully Tommy John The revolutionary Underwear and clothing Brand known For its comfort It's for everyone Yup Even your dad So gift him The softest Most beautiful And breathable Base layer He's ever worn They're new And improved Men's underwear Is now twice as durable As his current pair And infinitely More luxurious Guaranteed Plus Tommy John Is offering their Best Father's Day Deal ever With 25% Off site wide Including easy To gift sets That you can order Straight from your phone Directly to dad's door I finally got my Tommy John Extravaganza The undershirts And the underwear And the underwear And the long pants And it's fantastic It's so comfortable It feels like I'm not wearing anything And And also I'm supposed to say Why it's a Perfect gift for Father's Day And I wrote it down I think This is a great gift For Father's Day Because unlike Edible underwear You can wear it More than once Makes sense Right? Makes sense JVL Why would you wear Fruit roll-ups More than once? That's what I say
JVL00:21:43Assuming you're Using the
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JVL00:22:55Is Paul being a diva? That's not an average Is Paul like Refusing to do these Unless he gets The thing with You know We sent him A thing of M&M's But there were Two brown ones In there So he's like Forget this I'm not doing The Tommy John Reads anymore
Vic00:23:11We violated Paul's contract He's very upset He's making A statement So no It's fair It's fair I feel like I finally I finally got Mine So I said I figured I'd give a read This is funny Because Somehow You know We had this idea That we could take turns About like Okay You pick the movie This week And then so and so Will pick the next week Or whatever And somehow I have now Picked three movies I think That we've watched At least Flash Gordon The Lighthouse Which was a complete bust My apologies again And this week I thought This would be fun I mentioned this Before Because I thought When I was Surfing through Amazon That this may be The worst movie Amazon is offering And that movie Is the 2018 Romantic comedy Little Italy Little Italy Sonny How about a big boy review
Sonny00:24:04Little Italy Stars Hayden Christensen A.K.A. Anakin Skywalker And Emma Roberts A.K.A. Julia Roberts' Something or other Niece As Eric Roberts' Daughter Romeo and Juliet Style Couple Who They Belong to a Feuding Family of Pizza store owners In Little Italy Not Little Italy New York Mind you Little Italy Toronto Canada Little Italy Canada Save this for after the review
Vic00:24:41I have many thoughts
Sonny00:24:42Little Italy In Canada Emma Roberts Has gone off To a High-powered Career In High Dining Fine Dining You know Michelin Four Michelin Stars Four Michelin Stars
Vic00:24:55Four Michelin Stars It's that good by the way It's that good Michelin rewrote it Just for the restaurant
Sonny00:25:00While Hayden Christensen Has stayed home And worked on his pizza shop But he He has ideas About things you can do With pizza Like Put Gouda On the pizza Whoa He beat them all out to it
Vic00:25:13He beat them all out to it
Sonny00:25:14It's a rom-com So it's a It's a rom-com And I Don't watch a lot of rom-coms Because rom-coms are bad Just as It's a bad genre And I feel like this movie Confirms all of my priors With regard to rom-coms Insofar as The humor in this movie Is entirely based on Ethnic stereotypes What? And I I hope at some point In this We will rank The ethnic stereotypes Or really The stereotypes of all sorts Because it's not just Ethnic stereotypes There are also Stereotypes about About Sexual orientation Yes Fantastic Yes there were And And you know The whole thing is about like Will they, won't they Will they get together You know Can they Can they put aside Their family squabbles This is Danny Aiello's Last movie I just want to Put that This is Danny Aiello's Last movie It's him being a horny Old grandpa Trying to get together With the Grandma from the other Pizza Pizza family The movie is bad It's bad But it's bad in All of the sorts of ways
Vic00:26:13It's like Raul Julia By the way It's like Raul Julia's Last movie
Sonny00:26:16Yeah but Street Fighter Is a million times better Than this nonsense The So this movie is As I said This movie is bad And it's bad in all of the ways That I believe That most romantic comedies Are bad It's based entirely on Like the lowest Common denominator humor It's got tons of montages Where they walk through Once again Canada's little Italy And like Take in the sights And they're showing Each other shirts And like Look how cute this is And I
Vic00:26:47It's a wonderful montage
Sonny00:26:49I I don't I don't I don't understand How to review this film In any real way Except to just like Kind of point and laugh at it And say like This is This is All This is This is what I think of When I think of a romantic comedy So I'm like not I'm not super disappointed Just because It's It It is what I expected it to be Yeah Santino I don't know
JVL00:27:17With his focaccia movie stuff Hey Yeah
Sonny00:27:21I just like And that That is very That could have been a line in the movie That could have That could have been a line in the movie It Again it's like
JVL00:27:28Can you believe this guy with his cinema You got
Sonny00:27:31You have these You have these like Italian stereotypes Yes Competing with strangely A couple of Indian stereotypes Oh that one I thought
Vic00:27:39I thought that was far more offensive
Sonny00:27:41Competing with Yes Obviously it's more offensive Because it I mean it's just more offensive It's just more offensive And then competing also with A Chinese guy who thinks he's Italian But he's also gay I mean he's the Vic Matus of the movie He's the hero He's the hero of the movie He's the Vic Matus of the movie
Vic00:28:01I wrote that in my notes Why am I Why do I think that Luigi is me I literally I wrote that down in my notes Okay If I'm anybody in this movie
JVL00:28:10Why am I him But there's something edgy with Luigi Because it is not What he literally What he literally says is Oh right I'm Chinese And when I came out as gay My Chinese culture wouldn't accept me But the Italians did But then I came to the Italians And the Italians loved me for who I am Which is saying Italian culture
Vic00:28:27Greater sign Chinese culture That's an actual moral judgment That's a moral That was really Yeah Yeah that's right No You weren't sort of That was like wow
JVL00:28:36When he said that I thought Geez that's kind of subversive
Sonny00:28:39I wasn't I wasn't surprised by it at all Nor did I think it was subversive It just plays right into All of the other tropes in this movie I mean It's like It's There's nothing subversive about this film It's just
JVL00:28:48Like the trope about him When you're here You're family
Sonny00:28:50When you're here When you're When you're What Which Literally is so It's so little I have to escape from it To be away from everyone Oh wait no I just want to be here With my family Who I love And Jane Seymour playing Literally just Gordon Ramsay Down to the like Putting the bread On the The The line cook The sous chef's Head And saying like You're a moron Sandwich That That's literally a meme That's literally a Gordon Ramsay meme It's It's the laziest Yeah But it's also It's like the laziest plotting I've ever seen
Vic00:29:19It's It's the classic sort of Oh mean scary chef at the end Oh She's She likes it She's great
JVL00:29:24Did you notice Sonny How Jane Seymour was introduced In the opening credits
Sonny00:29:29I did And it was a weird It's a weird credit
JVL00:29:33With a special Appearance By They were so excited They were so excited We got her We got her
Sonny00:29:39She's not She's not the last credited person Though Which was the other weird thing Danny Aiello I believe I believe was the Rightfully so
JVL00:29:47Whenever I see something like that All I can think about Is the agent negotiations Yeah
Sonny00:29:51Yeah Cause that's all it is I mean it's all like about how Right You know Anyway I The movie is Just Dog shit From start to finish And You know I'm gonna go
JVL00:30:03I'm gonna go give myself a pie And I'm gonna get some Prosciutto on it And maybe some Rigotti
Sonny00:30:07First of all There's a scene There's a scene where For instance So like For some reason One of the Pizza family Puts Exchanges the The oregano In one of the In the other house With weed Right
JVL00:30:24And then And then everybody gets all crazy And they're dancing around
Sonny00:30:28And the Indian guy Is like doing He's doing his funny accent Like it's The rise of Taj Like you know We're just You know We're just going We're just going back To Van Wilder man I like I couldn't I couldn't Imagine I can't believe I can't believe This movie was made in 2018
Vic00:30:46Or released in 2018 Sonny Sonny So you You had a problem Giving this sort of A proper review But you know You know You know who can give it A proper review No Not even Jersey Jersey Vic Jersey Vic
JVL00:31:03Oh Jersey Vic Jersey Vic New character There you go Ready This is for you Sonny Alright
Vic00:31:08Little Italy Is the best Italian romantic comedy Since Tony and Tina's wedding Oh Mickey comes Home Has a slice of pizza But she really wants Leo's Brasho Minga Even Noni and Nono Get in on the action Danny Aiello Gives Noni An engagement ring Next thing you know They're under the cover Sweet Donato Guess you could say First he gave her The diamonds And then he gave her The pearls Oh I stole that one From the last one From the Sopranos I'm sorry Okay That's all I had to say And I just wanted to get that In there Particularly because It was Danny Aiello His last movie I guess I called that one When I saw it And I looked at the trailer I thought Can you get through This The two words That came to my mind Were cringe inducing And also The question Can it be so bad That it's good Or so bad That it's bad
Sonny00:32:04It's so bad I mean
Vic00:32:07Is there anything good about this What surprised I watched it with Kate And what surprised her Was how earnest She thought the movie was Totally
Sonny00:32:17There's no Nobody has Any tongues And any cheeks here It's like It's just good old fashioned Ethnic jokes With the Slimmest Slightest Love story That they could possibly slap on it But then they do it twice There are two Slim and slight Love stories And It just I hate I It's I don't even hate this movie Because like What's the point of hating something like this It's like It's It's It's It's It's It's Offensively Inoffensive Or it's Inoffensively Offensive I don't know I'm not exactly sure Which way to go with that But it like The movie is Is so lazy And so Boring And so earnest As As Kate said That I Like Like Really ripping into it Would be like Drowning a bag of puppies Yeah You know
Vic00:33:15I will say this Can I say this I thought Hayden Christensen's Italian accent Was the best ethnic accent Since Dick Van Dyke And Mary Poppins Or maybe Mickey Rooney In Breakfast at Tiffany's Yeah Mickey Rooney Breakfast at I think it was It was that good JVL We know these people We're from Jersey We know these people But of course You go to a Oh I want to see this movie Little Italy Little Italy And of course What's the first Little Italy Little Italy That comes to your mind That's what I want to know Toronto
JVL00:33:45It's not so bad It's good It's so bad It's great Give it to me It's great It's great Okay let's hear it So I mean You got to understand This isn't a Will they or won't they movie Because the movie Literally begins With a double voiceover Of the two of them Explaining Arguing
Vic00:34:10No they do exposition
JVL00:34:13So they not only do the exposition But they deflate any of the Will they won't they Because they begin by telling you Oh can you believe how we got together And so it's really Good point Very good point Lazy Emma Roberts So I don't quite know What to make of Emma Roberts
Vic00:34:33I do
JVL00:34:33She's like Anne Hathaway If Anne Hathaway was And I don't mean that In like a bad way Necessarily Because actually I think she's quite winning But she's not Like a good actress
Sonny00:34:53She's certainly not a good actress in this movie This is not A showcase for her talents
JVL00:35:00No but she also is a winning She's a winsome presence on screen Also I thought Hayden Christensen was great Honestly this is the best Work he's ever done in a feature film
Vic00:35:10I would say second best First win Shattered Glass
JVL00:35:14He's way better in this He's unbelievably charming He's unbelievably charming
Sonny00:35:21No but the problem See this is very wrong When we were watching it last night I said to Beth Does he have dead eyes? Because he does, he has dead eyes He has dead soulless eyes He cannot Doll's eyes, black eyes No I mean like this is the problem With Hayden Christensen He's like He's like 90% there You can see him being an attractive leading man type Except for the fact that he has like Dull stupid cow eyes And not like in a Adorable sort of way There's something weird about those eyes He has like He has these dead eyes And I feel bad saying that about the guy Because like you know I'm not a prize pig I'm no Winning You know looker Over here but like But your eyes I watch him on screen and I'm like Is he Is there anybody in there What's going on So anyway So we alluded to this briefly
JVL00:36:26They talk in the beginning with the exposition They talk about how The Emma Roberts character is so serious That she's at this culinary school Where they go to like great restaurants With four Michelin stars When again the Michelin stars only Go to three and clearly this is a moment Where the producers looked at that and said If we say three stars people won't understand They'll think that it should be Just say it's four stars The only five people who know what the Michelin Guide Is actually about will watch this movie And that was so Batshit earnest That it kind of won me over And then the way
Sonny00:37:05It made you buy into the universe of the film It did make me buy into the universe of the film
JVL00:37:09Actually and the way they lean Into The Italian stuff This is the feature film version of an Olive Garden commercial
Vic00:37:18I was going to say I felt like this would have been a great Movie on CW
JVL00:37:23The electrician Who comes to the pizzeria for 30 seconds The character's name is Mario Puzo Is it really? Yeah And You know who's Who's great in it? Alyssa Milano
Vic00:37:40Yes I wrote it down
JVL00:37:42Who has literally just given over to the Idea of like I know I was a hot Child actress and a hot like teen Actress but I'm going to present Myself as if I am An Italian mom And she's great as it
Sonny00:37:57Everything It's so stupid
JVL00:38:00It's so stupid but it leans into the Stupidity and it embraces it
Sonny00:38:04One of the things I found very amusing about This is that they have a scene So they have a scene where like The two characters are kids together Right there We skip ahead
JVL00:38:14They look nothing like each other
Sonny00:38:17We skip ahead like 15 years And like Alyssa Milano, Danny Aiello All the other like older characters are exactly The same
JVL00:38:24I was like Wait what is going on So I have a An interest I have a comedy Writing question about this So there were Three sex Jokes in this All of which stuck Out like sore thumbs There's a joke about oral A joke that he makes about Asking are you afraid you'll get wet When they go out and then somebody makes A comment to The lead Nikki about diddling Herself And all three of those were so Jarringly out of Tune with everything else in the movie
Sonny00:39:06Well they also have a whole set Piece in the Kama Sutra themed Indian restaurant Right Yes
JVL00:39:11Yes That was a little less I mean that was a little more oblique Than the other stuff And so I found myself wondering Is this a particular form Of like female comedy In the same way Like the Seth Rogen stuff Great question You know like Seth Rogen stuff is pitched to people like us
Sonny00:39:30Not to our wives
JVL00:39:32Is this sort of thing like
Sonny00:39:34If only any of us knew a woman
JVL00:39:36Edgelord No is it like girl edgelord stuff I don't know But it's
Vic00:39:41I know what you're saying I know what you're saying Because it does have that ooh You know like if you're watching it Yes no exactly like that
JVL00:39:49That's what I was wondering I feel like this sort of Hit those notes for female viewers
Sonny00:39:54This sort of thing was Was In place I don't want to say it was prevalent Or like you know But it was definitely in place in Booksmart
Vic00:40:06Oh I didn't see Booksmart Right
JVL00:40:10I'm afraid I'm afraid I did not see that movie
Sonny00:40:12Did we not talk about Booksmart?
JVL00:40:14We talked about it a little bit but we didn't do a show on it
Sonny00:40:16We uh Maybe that's what we do next week
JVL00:40:20No
Sonny00:40:21But Booksmart is a fascinating movie Because it's definitely like Girl super bad Except I found it to be like borderline Unwatchable Just like not funny at all But I do think that it has a lot of Jokes that play better for women And I think JVL you might be right Maybe this is like girl Seth Rogen Comedy
JVL00:40:50I don't know All I'm saying is is the movie stupid? Yes. Is it preposterous? Yes Is Is the stereotyping In it so bad that it Then like becomes even Kind of amazing like you know Ate the whole wheel of cheese? Yes And did I tear up a little bit at The end? You're damn right I did You're damn right I did
Sonny00:41:14I teared it up at the end because I was thinking of all those travelers who were getting Delayed at the checkpoint
JVL00:41:20The TSA checkpoint. No for me it was at the End of the contest when she leaves and He has realized that she gave her sauce To him and You know I'm sitting there I've been alone I haven't spoken to another soul for 72 Hours and it got a little dusty where I was
Vic00:41:35And then you put your clothes back on That was great I love how the secret to the sauce was anchovy Because no Italian ever thinks about Putting anchovy in the sauce but that's a good one I had no idea
JVL00:41:45The Canadian sexual harassment cop Also was a legitimately funny Bit
Sonny00:41:51She was trying to be Kristen Wiggish But it felt like it was from a different movie
JVL00:41:56Yes
Sonny00:41:57That whole segment felt like It was imported in from like A
JVL00:42:03The first draft
Sonny00:42:05It felt like a different movie
JVL00:42:09But I liked it actually you know what I felt it felt like And this could be totally wrong It felt like the actress who plays the cop there Is a standard comedian friend Of the director or something And you put somebody who's a legit comedian Into a movie like this And a legit comedian can be very funny
Sonny00:42:25So is it basically
Vic00:42:27Did they basically decide on Canada because the whole thing Was filmed in Canada Tax credits Let's not even pretend it's New York
Sonny00:42:36If you watch If you watch through the credits The bloopers There's The very first thing is like a big shout out to Thank you to Canada And thank you to Air Canada For their considerations It is 100% obviously A tax credit Or sponsorship Situation But like As I was watching it And the first thing I see is Hayden Christensen walking through Little Italy With a Toronto Blue Jays insignia On his jacket And I'm just like
JVL00:43:15What is happening here Where are we What universe is this
Sonny00:43:22And it just sets such a tone It's almost It's in an alternate universe Little Italy It's not the real thing It's like a simulacrum I've never been to Toronto
Vic00:43:34But it looks so nice If that's all of Toronto
JVL00:43:37The truth is Canada is America's hat is Better than America No one denies this
Vic00:43:42I have only been to Niagara But Vic What is this called Cause there's even this Kefar Yeah that's the curse You know that's the curse You know No I know all the girls But I'm saying It's about Fongool Right I don't know what the They do all of the shit I know nobody Nobody can see what we're doing They're so committed to it But yeah It's like a Will Ferrell thing Kefar Yeah I love it Sonny Question Yes
Sonny00:44:03In this Little Italy There are three flags There's the Italian flag And the Canadian flag But then also The American flag Yes Why is the American flag there Friendship
Vic00:44:14Yeah The Italian Americans That come over You know Canadians are just friendly
JVL00:44:19They're good neighbors
Vic00:44:20The Italian American They're not building walls
Sonny00:44:22You know what We didn't see any of No French Canadians Thank God
Vic00:44:26That wouldn't have worked That wouldn't For beckers That would
JVL00:44:30Is there a Little Italy In Montreal I don't know
Sonny00:44:34It's probably I don't know It's the worst place Suicide bombers Running around Blowing up baguettes Stations
Vic00:44:40Danny Aiello Looked old I will say that
Sonny00:44:44Because he is old It was
Vic00:44:46I would say It's his finest performance Since he played Don Papa don't preach No That's a good one JVL That's a very good one A great video You know
Sonny00:44:57Danny Aiello Has played a pizza man Before
Vic00:44:59Oh yeah Do the right thing That's right I was going to say The last Don On CBS Is Don Clericuzio The person
Sonny00:45:10The professional Come on Yeah the professional It was great
Vic00:45:13It reminds me of Do you remember the The joke Wait so Vic
JVL00:45:17Does this hit quadrants for you It does
Vic00:45:19It does I'll get to his idea Do you remember By the way Do you remember The Friars Club joke It was like for Richard Belzer's roast At the Friars Club And the joke about Danny Aiello And said oh yeah You know Richard came home And found Danny Aiello And he was banging Richard's wife on the table He says Danny What are you doing And the first thing Danny says Is well first of all I got this new miniseries On CBS And then after that I'm going to be over At the Lifetime Show Because he's always working Because he's always working Danny Aiello To those last days Quadrants I wrote it down Okay A plus I could have written the script I thought it was that easy Except for
JVL00:45:54You understood it all right
Vic00:45:55Except for At some point Kate goes Oh I know where this is going And I was like what So I don't know what she meant by that But I said let me figure it out But yeah
JVL00:46:05That was pretty straightforward Was it when he won the pizza contest And you couldn't understand Why his was better
Vic00:46:10No because I saw her down on her knees And did nobody else saw her switch sauce Did nobody else see that Okay so That was there Duration A plus It was like an hour forty eight or something I mean it was nothing
Sonny00:46:25No it was It was a hundred and two minutes With credits I would say Like if you If you didn't want to sit through the outtakes The outtakes actually made me laugh though The outtakes actually made me laugh More than anything else in this movie
Vic00:46:37I would say of recent memory Best outtake scenes ever Bring It On
JVL00:46:42Yes Yes The Bring It On outtakes are fantastic
Vic00:46:45Also Ten Things Oh no no no no no no What's the Ten Things I Hate About You
JVL00:46:48Ten Things I Hate About You Has the same sort of thing
Vic00:46:50Yeah Bring It On is like I wish I was there
JVL00:46:52Outtakes
Vic00:46:53Why are you closing your eyes No I wish I was there Because of all the talent Fair To the actors Okay Obviously Violence in Action gets an F But Sex Nudity A plus I mean it was It was No It was A plus for
JVL00:47:07Come on A plus for a family
Vic00:47:09A family movie I know Going into it I know it's not an R rated movie But what they offered It was great It was great Which averages to about A B plus Or so So B plus
Sonny00:47:20If you like If you like Emma Roberts You should watch Nerve Which is basically A movie about how the internet is terrible And Is gonna Is gonna kill us all But Okay She's very good at that
Vic00:47:32And if you like Anne Hathaway You should watch Havoc Because that's also a movie That's That's about
JVL00:47:38That's also a movie That's a movie That's great
Vic00:47:42I have Okay I'm just gonna What a show this week What a show this was By the way Okay So I had I had some complaints First of all There was the talk about Oh you know like We're not gonna do that modern stuff Right With the pizzas Right Like you were mentioning the Gouda One of the other things they talk about are Square slices Okay That's called Sicilian Maybe there's no Sicilians in Toronto But You know That's When you get a Sicilian slice It's square Or it's a rectangle Yeah So the idea that that's something new Is crazy Sonny you remember here in Virginia You can go to Lido's Pizza That's Those are all squares Mini squares Those are mini squares That's not really
JVL00:48:18Yeah How does he get a 700 degree oven In his apartment?
Sonny00:48:23I No This is a thing I said to Beth He's living in the He's living above a bar He's living He's living above a bar In In a hovel One assumes And all of a sudden There's like a professional grade Yeah Pizza oven There Yeah Like where did that come from? Who put that there?
Vic00:48:40You know what Did you think At all Were you reminded at all In that scene Slightly of Godfather Part 3 Where they're cooking together No And it's Andy Garcia And You know Sofia Coppola And the next thing you know You know So that didn't happen there But it happened And of course The next thing you know It was forbidden You know In Godfather 3 It was forbidden as you know Also They kept on saying prosciutto But maybe it's different Because you know In Jersey You just say prosciutto And like Matagot And rigot You know You wouldn't say the whole thing And so I don't know But you know I noticed the people who wrote the film They were Italian Or their names Are I didn't see any breadsticks
Sonny00:49:23What are the breadsticks? Where was the bottomless salad?
Vic00:49:30That's not real Italian cuisine That's right Yes Endless Summer of endless pasta has begun And the other thing is They actually said Your fugazi pizza Get that out of here Your fugazi Your fugazi pizza Okay That's it I can't make sense of some of my other notes For some reason I have the word perky written I don't know why But okay Are we gonna
Sonny00:49:53Can we rank the stereotypes?
Vic00:49:56You go first I haven't You're catching me off guard here Sonny So go ahead
Sonny00:50:00From Least offensive to most offensive
Vic00:50:07Within the movie?
Sonny00:50:07Within the movie Oh okay Least offensive is the Chinese guy who is also gay
Vic00:50:13No no no Daddy Guy Yellow is like least offensive
Sonny00:50:17Second least offensive is all of the Italian stuff The most offensive by far is the random Indian people Who are in this movie just to be like Indian stereotypes Literally just like jokes about Indians I like I find this As somebody who like I don't get offended very frequently But I thought that was the laziest thing I've ever seen I didn't even understand it It didn't make any Is there like Does So but this raises a whole series of questions for me Like is Toronto's Little Italy Do they have like an underclass of Indians? Who like do the scut work for the like families of pizza barons? I don't like What is going on there?
JVL00:51:00Why aren't they working at the Commerce Sutra?
Vic00:51:03Well they're there too So you know I mean there's obviously a large
JVL00:51:06Are they in the cast?
Sonny00:51:07That isn't allowed to work at the Commerce Sutra? Was Commerce Sutra in Little Italy? Or was that like a different neighborhood? Is there a Little India? Little India Why weren't they working in Little India? It's Canada It's a friendly place Were they not allowed to go to Wee Britain?
Vic00:51:24Thank you Very good Sonny It did have a feel of like Like they all lived in Epcot Should those characters have been Irish?
JVL00:51:35Which
Sonny00:51:35Would that have been better? That would have been better That would have been better actually Yes
Vic00:51:38And at one point One of them could have like Set off a car bomb Quebecers Or Quebecers Let's not get carried away No, no We're better off without that
Sonny00:51:47I don't want any French Canadians That's too much French Canadians are the worst sort of person
Vic00:51:52I loved it Yes, the Indian was awkward And Luigi That was Were you surprised when he tells his life story About why he is this sort of Italian-Chinese? I didn't see that coming
JVL00:52:09I did not see that coming Because again, it was a weird subversive
Vic00:52:17And then it's not You know, when my dad When I came out to my dad You know, he threw me out And then
JVL00:52:23But I came to Luigi's And I'm surrounded by all these goombas And they love me for who I am
Sonny00:52:27Because that's who I am Because that's what we think of When we think of the Italian-American community Is the acceptance of different sexual, you know, behaviors
Vic00:52:35I thought you were going to say what they Anyway, okay Well, thank you I, you know In Tom's River, they accept a lot Believe me There you go Oh Any other thoughts on this before we move on? I can't believe we got 52 minutes out of Little Italy
JVL00:52:50Well, Sonny's website had to be murdered too For us to get 52 minutes for this movie
Vic00:52:55Very good point Speaking of which, corrections and shoutouts Sonny Bunch
Sonny00:52:58I would like to, again, give a nice shoutout To everybody in the SSEU Who has Amongst other things Sent multiple bottles of liquor And also a Chili's gift card That will be put to good use this weekend I can assure you I'm pretty sure the Chili's is open again And I'm going to be there But I asked Shannon last I asked JVL's wife for a list of names To thank And she has supplied a very good one here I'm going to just run through them real quick So thank you to Andrew Rice Chris Haberman, Ryan Kinney, Thomas Lassie Jason Cooper Jason spearheaded the ordering and delivery Because apparently as Shannon says He did not trust the rest of you guys to get it right
JVL00:53:45Also he's about to have a baby any minute
Sonny00:53:47I mean I kept telling him to stop He has to stop Because there's too much I'm okay I am going to be okay Even with the website shutting down Jim Swift, Lara Mason Jen McIntosh, Tanya McKenna Megan Gill, Tom Abella Steven Filippi, Troy Carmella Matt Roberts, Haiku Jonah I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say The real name here But Haiku Jonah, thank you Flag Taylor, Cameron McVay Rick and Erica, Father Harrison Thank you Father Harrison I will enjoy these in hell Ming Lu, Tim Lewis, Adam Novak James Riley, Tyson Olsen Thank you everybody You guys are very kind I am planning on Drowning my sorrows for many weeks As I figure out next steps And It really I have to say I threw my DMs Open on Twitter for the first time Ever Because I didn't Want to have to respond to people on main Frankly And I am deeply appreciative Of all of the people who said that they Really enjoyed Rebeller It was a solid 200 to 1 ratio Of like people who said Nicely, literally one person Like said something kind of shitty And 200 very Nice comments One after the other
Vic00:55:18I didn't see a single one on Twitter
Sonny00:55:20There are a few But you know But It was very Heartening to hear that people enjoyed the site While it existed And you know, we'll see what we do next
Vic00:55:35Thank you Sonny That is all the time we're giving to this episode Questions, comments, complaints, compliments Tweet us at SonnyBunch at Victorino Matus Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes Google Play or Stitcher Just type in Sub-Beacon and a podcast We're there, leave a review, tell your friends Until next time Not sure if I will be able to do a show next week As I will be out of town Visiting my in-laws But maybe we could watch something on Turner Classic Movies Then we could Because they have DCM
JVL00:56:23I'm sorry, your in-laws don't have a basement that you could tape from?
Vic00:56:30Very funny By the way I have one thing and then I can throw it over to you guys We watched the movie And then Kate says, okay, so hold on a minute First of all, she says Emma Roberts, so like She doesn't even look like Hermione anymore Is what Kate said
JVL00:56:49I'm sure it's fine
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