Ep. #314 - Gemini Man

Stuart Wellington

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Gemini Man.

[0:05] Not to be confused with Gemini Dan, my new podcast where Dan McCoy reads horoscopes for Geminis.

[0:12] You know, I am a Gemini.

[0:13] Oh, cool.

[0:30] Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Flop House. I'm Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[0:45] Oh, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:46] I'm Elliot Kalin, trying to pick up the cues a little faster than everybody else today.

[0:50] And, Dan, we've got a special guest with us today, don't we?

Dan McCoy

[0:53] Yes, we've got our, well, I mean, she's our editor on this show, Jordan Cowling.

[0:59] She also is an associate producer at MaxFun.

[1:02] She produces the wildly successful, as you described it, podcast iPodius.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09] And appears on it as well.

[1:10] Yes, that's true.

Dan McCoy

[1:11] Hello, Jordan.

[1:13] What's up, who's?

[1:14] Whoa.

[1:16] Whoa.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17] That's, I mean.

[1:18] No, but that's Jordan's catchphrase.

[1:19] That's Jordan's classic catchphrase.

[1:21] It's like a different.

[1:22] A capuchy thing.

[1:24] Yeah.

[1:25] And now that we've introduced Jordan, we're going to swerve away from Jordan for a moment.

[1:28] Uh, and we're going to just take a brief moment to remind listeners, if they know already,

[1:33] and tell them if they don't know, that we are going to do our live In Your House show,

[1:39] uh, Saturday, June 6th at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[1:42] The Flophouse will be doing our online version of one of our live, uh, stage shows.

[1:46] We're going to have presentations.

[1:47] We're going to talk about the movie Howard the Duck.

[1:49] Uh, we're going to try to, in some way, simulate the idea of audience interaction.

[1:53] We're not quite sure what we're going to do with that.

[1:54] It probably will just involve Twitter or something.

[1:56] Uh, you will find it at youtube.com slash C slash the Flophouse Podcast.

[2:02] And you can find all the information about it at theflophousepodcast.com.

[2:05] It will be for charity.

[2:07] And there'll be a list of our approved charities, uh, on that website, theflophousepodcast.com.

[2:12] And if you donate and send us the receipt, you'll be entered into raffles and stuff.

[2:16] And we'll go into that in more detail later.

[2:18] Now it's back to Jordan.

[2:19] Jordan.

[2:21] Were you ready?

[2:22] Wait a second.

[2:22] That's June 6th at 6 p.m. Pacific.

[2:26] That's right.

[2:26] 6, 6, 6.

[2:27] We're officially devil worshippers now.

[2:29] June 6th, 6 p.m. Pacific time, 9 p.m. Eastern.

[2:32] For people on the East Coast, it's 6, 6, 9.

[2:34] Three more than the devil.

[2:36] Jordan, back to you.

Dan McCoy

[2:38] Uh, okay.

[2:39] Well, this is a podcast.

[2:41] You probably know that.

[2:42] Uh-huh.

[2:42] What do we do on this podcast?

[2:43] We watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[2:46] Or, you know, maybe we don't know ahead of time.

[2:49] Sometimes it turns out to be good.

[2:51] Sometimes it turns out to be bad.

[2:52] Usually we've been led to believe it's bad.

[2:55] And on this episode, as I said in the beginning, in the introduction.

[3:00] Wait.

Elliott Kalan

[3:01] Is this memento?

[3:02] Hold on a second.

[3:02] Is this?

[3:03] Are we last year at Marion Madding all of a sudden?

[3:05] Hold on.

Dan McCoy

[3:06] Jim and I, man, was what we watched.

[3:08] Starring William Smith.

Stuart Wellington

[3:09] Uh-huh.

[3:10] Directed by Flophouse fave, Ang Lee.

[3:13] Yeah.

[3:13] I mean...

[3:14] I mean, I do like him a lot.

[3:15] Yeah.

[3:15] Is he a Flophouse fave?

[3:18] I mean, he's a fave of mine.

[3:20] Okay.

[3:21] That's...

[3:21] But we've...

[3:22] I don't think we've ever done an Ang Lee movie.

[3:23] No, because he...

[3:24] It was kind of a joke.

Elliott Kalan

[3:24] Because he makes good movies.

Stuart Wellington

[3:25] Because this is a comedy podcast and I make jokes sometimes.

Elliott Kalan

[3:29] Logic checks out.

[3:29] Now, Jordan, you were interested in doing this movie and I believe there's a geographical

[3:33] reason.

S4

[3:35] Yes.

[3:35] I've spent the last 10 years in West Philadelphia.

[3:38] Not born and raised, but the playground is where I spent most of my days.

[3:42] And so I wanted to do...

[3:44] When you guys had given me like a selection of movies that I could pick from, I saw this

[3:49] and I was like, yeah, we're definitely going to do a Will Smith movie.

[3:53] I regret that decision, but life is about choices.

[3:57] So what are you going to do?

[3:58] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[3:58] Well, we'll see as we go along.

[4:00] Well, we'll see what the reason is for that regret.

[4:02] Now, I do have a question.

[4:04] Now, on the playground those days, what were you doing there?

[4:07] Chilling?

[4:08] Maxing?

[4:08] Relaxing?

[4:09] All cool.

[4:09] Yeah.

[4:10] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[4:13] Excellent.

[4:13] Shooting some meatball outside of my school.

Elliott Kalan

[4:15] For some reason, that is...

[4:17] I cannot remember so many things and yet the lyrics to that song are buried so deeply

[4:21] in my brain that I'm sure on my deathbed I'll be croaking them out through my dementia at

[4:26] my grandchildren and they'll be like, he wasn't raised in West Philadelphia.

[4:29] Why is he saying these things?

[4:31] At the end of his life, dad thought he was raised in West Philadelphia.

Dan McCoy

[4:36] Yes.

[4:37] You imagine that later in life he lived with his auntie and uncle in Bel Air, though.

Elliott Kalan

[4:42] Yeah.

[4:43] Well, yeah, it's a good song.

[4:44] It's a good theme song.

[4:46] It's a solid theme song.

[4:47] Tells you the story.

[4:48] Exactly what you can do.

[4:49] Now, Stuart, I believe you are the summary man today for Gemini Man.

Stuart Wellington

[4:54] I am.

[4:54] Yeah, exactly.

[4:55] So, the movie opens in Belgium.

[5:00] We're introduced to Henry Brogan, played by Will Smith.

Elliott Kalan

[5:05] Osmosis Jones himself.

[5:06] Will Smith.

[5:07] Wait, he was Osmosis Jones?

[5:09] No, he wasn't.

[5:10] He was not Osmosis Jones.

[5:12] You guys, you fell into my trap.

Stuart Wellington

[5:15] I feel like Osmosis Jones would have been a bigger hit, because Will Smith's a huge name.

[5:19] No, Osmosis Jones was, who was it?

S4

[5:22] He was the devil in that one dumb Colin Farrell movie.

Elliott Kalan

[5:26] Oh, The Witcher's Tale, right?

[5:28] Is that?

[5:28] Yep, yep.

[5:29] And he was a genie in Aladdin.

[5:30] So he's, and now he plays a clone.

[5:33] So he's portrayed a number of science fictional and mystical characters.

[5:36] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[5:37] Okay, so we open on, oh, I hit the wrong button.

[5:40] We open in Belgium.

[5:43] Henry Brogan, played by Will Smith, is an assassin, and he uses a high-powered sniper rifle to

[5:50] carefully shoot a bad guy who is riding on a high-speed train.

[5:55] It's an almost impossible shot, but he is just that.

Dan McCoy

[5:58] Yeah, he's kind of a dead shot, if you will.

[6:01] Uh-huh.

[6:01] I've never heard of that.

[6:02] Is that a name of something?

[6:04] Did you just coin that phrase?

[6:08] Now, so he literally, like, this is a very fast-moving train.

[6:12] He literally makes the shot of this guy through a window of the train from Hills, like, it looks

[6:18] like a mile away or more.

[6:22] Now, why, he has a man on the train.

[6:25] Why doesn't that man just kill the guy?

[6:27] Oh, actually, that's a good question.

[6:29] Guys?

Elliott Kalan

[6:29] I think it's probably a lot easier to get away from an assassination if you're on the

[6:33] train with the body than if you are a mile away and just walk away.

Dan McCoy

[6:37] Yeah, but I mean, like, he could poison him.

[6:39] You know, it could be a subtle killing.

[6:41] It doesn't need to be, like...

Elliott Kalan

[6:41] Dan, Dan, come on.

[6:44] You've been reading too many Agatha Christie books.

[6:45] Okay.

[6:46] That's not how...

[6:46] That's not how anybody does it.

[6:48] Poison him.

Stuart Wellington

[6:49] Dan, were you really hoping that they were...

[6:51] That the movie was going to open with poisoning and the guy and then the whole thing's a murder

[6:54] mystery on the train?

[6:56] Why not?

[6:58] So, he manages this impossible shot and then we cut to a little bit later.

[7:04] Henry's hanging out on his isolated home all by himself.

[7:07] It's in the country.

[7:08] It's nice.

[7:09] You know, he's wearing sweaters.

[7:11] He looks great.

[7:12] But you know what?

[7:13] He's retiring.

[7:14] He's getting old.

[7:14] He's lost a step.

[7:15] He's the best killer in the world, according to his handler, Del.

[7:19] But he's, you know, he's worried that he might be slipping and he might kill someone.

Elliott Kalan

[7:23] You know what they told him when they assigned him that handler?

[7:25] What's that?

[7:26] They said, dude, you're getting Adele.

Stuart Wellington

[7:28] Oh, I guess that would make sense because his handler's name's Del, right?

Elliott Kalan

[7:32] But he misunderstood and he was like, Adele the singer is going to be my handler?

[7:35] No, no, no.

[7:36] And they said, no, no, you're not getting Adele.

[7:38] You're getting Adele.

[7:39] Wait, but you just said, yeah, Adele the singer.

[7:42] Rolling in the deep.

[7:42] That one.

[7:43] And they were like, no, no, no, no.

[7:44] Hold on.

[7:44] Let me write the sentence out for you.

[7:46] And that's when he finally understood what they were saying.

Dan McCoy

[7:48] Yep.

[7:49] Now, when Jordan came to us to be our editor, which I was very excited about because

[7:55] it was right when I was getting burned out that she appeared.

[7:58] We were told that she enjoyed the show, but watching her face as Elliot talks.

Elliott Kalan

[8:06] Well, that's she doesn't.

[8:07] She doesn't like that part.

[8:08] Okay.

[8:09] Her favorite part of the show is when we sign off at the end and she's like, ah, it's over.

S4

[8:13] My favorite part is when the song goes dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

Stuart Wellington

[8:20] Yeah.

[8:20] Then your curse is lifted for another two weeks.

S4

[8:22] I'm kidding.

[8:23] I absolutely love this show.

[8:24] And I'm so happy to be on the show and talk about this really, really silly movie.

Elliott Kalan

[8:31] It's in some ways silly, in some ways serious.

[8:34] We'll get to that later.

[8:36] But yeah, so he's the best of the best.

[8:38] He's the best super killer, but he's getting tired of it.

[8:40] He can't look at himself in the mirror anymore, right?

Stuart Wellington

[8:42] But he's also got a weakness, guys.

[8:44] He's got a conscience.

[8:45] He doesn't want to shoot little kids.

[8:46] So I'm interested.

Dan McCoy

[8:47] But this is the...

[8:48] He has developed this conscience.

[8:51] 72 kills into his life as an assassin.

[8:54] And that was one of my biggest problems with the movie right off the bat is I wasn't quite

[8:59] sure why we were supposed to sympathize with this guy who was like...

Elliott Kalan

[9:02] Because he's Will Smith, Dan.

[9:04] That's why we sympathize with him.

[9:05] That's actually a good point.

Dan McCoy

[9:07] No, I know that that's what the movie makers count on.

[9:10] But I was like, oh, 72 kills in, you've suddenly realized that maybe shooting people is bad.

Elliott Kalan

[9:17] Now, the clue to that might be also that this script apparently was floating around Hollywood

[9:21] trying to get made for about 20 years.

Stuart Wellington

[9:24] Yeah, it was one of those blacklist scripts, right?

[9:26] Oh, was it?

[9:27] For the people who are tuning in, blacklist scripts are scripts that James Spader writes

[9:32] down in his little black book.

[9:33] And then Brittany Murphy's always trying to steal it.

Elliott Kalan

[9:36] And only when he's got a hat on, right?

Stuart Wellington

[9:39] No, of course.

Dan McCoy

[9:40] He hides it in his hat.

[9:41] Stu is, of course, goofing.

[9:43] Blacklist scripts are scripts that a guy puts on a list claiming that they're the best

[9:48] scripts that haven't been produced.

[9:49] And then when they're made into movies, they're always a bad.

Elliott Kalan

[9:52] Yeah, they're...

[9:53] I don't know that I've ever seen a blacklist movie that turned out to be a good movie.

[9:57] Yeah.

[9:57] But I haven't seen them all.

[9:58] I don't know.

[9:58] But this feels like a late 90s, early 2000s premise where we love assassins and we love

[10:05] people who shoot people.

[10:07] To be honest, though, people still like that.

[10:09] Like, why is Deadpool the hero of this movie?

[10:11] Because he feels bad about himself?

[10:14] Like, he kills lots of people.

[10:15] But this is a movie that a lot of different stars, they tried to make it with at one point

[10:19] or another.

[10:20] And I think it only really works with Will Smith at all.

[10:23] Yeah.

[10:23] Because he's got so much natural charisma.

[10:25] And I totally buy him as someone who is like the best at something and now wants to get

[10:33] out and they won't let him.

[10:34] But also because, hey guys, guess what?

[10:36] He's now the Tommy Lee Jones of the Men in Black.

[10:40] He's no longer the new young guy who's joining the secret government group.

[10:43] Now he's the old guy who wants to leave.

[10:46] And now it's like full circle.

[10:49] Okay.

[10:50] We all start as Will Smith and we end up as Tommy Lee Jones.

[10:53] That's life.

S4

[10:53] One thing that stood out to me in this movie is that there was almost a complete lack of

[10:58] charisma from Will Smith that I could pick up on.

Elliott Kalan

[11:02] Well, it was...

[11:03] I'll give you that it's the least charisma that I think Will Smith has ever had in a movie.

[11:07] And there's...

Stuart Wellington

[11:08] What about that one with his son where they're trapped on that planet?

Elliott Kalan

[11:12] Oh, you're right.

[11:12] After Earth.

Stuart Wellington

[11:13] Where he plays like Cypher Rage or whatever is this character's name?

Elliott Kalan

[11:18] Well, he's just...

[11:19] I don't think that's his name.

[11:20] I think that's a different one.

[11:22] Well, he's a shell of a man.

[11:25] But you have to admit, he's really good at fighting.

[11:28] But Stuart, he just wants to be in a boat, right?

Stuart Wellington

[11:32] Yeah.

[11:32] So we're introduced to our other lead of this movie.

[11:36] We're introduced to Danny, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

[11:41] And she is a...

[11:42] She's just a grad student who just started working at the local marina.

[11:46] Now, she and Henry have a little bit of fun.

[11:49] They do a little bit of flirting.

[11:50] He's...

[11:50] I actually think he's pretty good at flirting for a murderous loner.

[11:54] You know?

[11:55] For a guy who lives all by himself and just kills people.

[11:57] You know, he's got some...

[11:59] I mean, this is...

Dan McCoy

[11:59] I will say, this is like mild flirting, though.

[12:02] Like, uh...

[12:04] When we were watching...

[12:04] I would even go as far as to call it small talk.

Stuart Wellington

[12:06] Yeah, like...

Dan McCoy

[12:08] Well, Audrey was worried that she was going to end up being his love interest.

[12:11] And there is like a...

[12:12] Something like a...

[12:13] A 16-year difference between them or something.

[12:16] Uh...

[12:17] But...

[12:18] Yeah, but she's...

Stuart Wellington

[12:19] Isn't she dating Ewan McGregor in real life?

[12:21] That's about the same...

[12:22] They're about the same age, right?

Dan McCoy

[12:22] Look, I'm not going to cast aspersions on anyone's real life dating life.

[12:29] I'm just saying that it's a bad habit of movies to always have this happen with an older man and a younger woman.

[12:36] But to the movie's credit...

[12:37] I mean, I would date either of those guys.

[12:40] They're great.

[12:41] Again, I'm not saying that.

[12:43] I'm just pointing out.

[12:44] To the movie's credit...

[12:45] No, I...

[12:45] It does not shoehorn in a romantic thing between them.

[12:49] Like, there's actually a scene where...

[12:51] Where, like, he says something like, oh, if he was the younger version of himself, maybe.

[12:57] Like, because there is...

[12:59] Spoiler alert.

[13:00] A younger version of himself in this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[13:02] Yeah, well, it's on the poster, so...

[13:04] I think that's okay.

[13:05] That spoiler.

[13:07] But I think, one...

[13:09] Dan...

[13:10] The pull quote, I think, from this episode is that Dan thinks...

[13:12] Would not deign to date either Will Smith or Ewan McGregor.

[13:15] They're not...

[13:16] They're too old for him.

[13:17] No fogies.

[13:18] The other thing...

[13:19] The other thing I would say is...

Stuart Wellington

[13:19] It's kind of weird, though, because I think, like, between...

[13:21] If you compare the two of them, I feel like Ewan McGregor's, like, later career stuff has been a little more exciting.

[13:27] Than Will Smith's stuff.

[13:29] Why don't you guys discuss?

Elliott Kalan

[13:31] But also, I would say that...

[13:32] I bet you there was an earlier version of this script that was...

[13:35] Where they did have a relationship.

[13:37] Just like...

[13:38] There's a scene where, later on, where...

[13:39] She has to strip to show that she's not wearing a wire.

[13:43] And it's handled as tastefully as that can be done.

[13:46] Where she's off camera for most of it.

[13:48] And I guarantee you there's a version of this movie that could have been made 20 years ago where...

[13:52] It's a woman who takes off all her clothes on camera for that scene.

[13:55] Like, it feels like there are times when this movie is kind of trying to fight what the movie...

[13:58] The shape that the movie is in.

[14:01] And...

[14:01] But...

Stuart Wellington

[14:01] I'm sure that original script...

[14:03] Henry lived in, like, a warehouse that just had a bunch of, like, curtains draped around.

[14:09] And he would be practicing his karate and his, like...

[14:12] Like, underpants for a bunch of it.

[14:13] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[14:13] But he's also a huge fan of whatever band they made a deal with to have on the soundtrack.

[14:18] So, like, Garbage or something like that.

[14:20] Like, he's huge with...

[14:21] Or, like, I don't know, Chumbawamba or something.

[14:24] Or...

[14:24] Yeah!

[14:25] What's the band that did the Walking on the Sun song?

[14:29] Uh...

[14:29] Smash Mouth?

[14:30] Like, he's a big Smash Mouth fan?

[14:32] Like...

Dan McCoy

[14:33] I had the same thought, though, Elliot, with that scene later on where she's asked to strip to show she doesn't have a wire.

[14:37] Because it was, like, Ang Lee, like, shoots it, like, so...

[14:43] Like, he does not want the camera to be ogling her.

[14:46] Which was, uh...

[14:48] Kind of...

[14:48] It was like a nice...

Elliott Kalan

[14:49] Much to Dan's...

[14:51] No, no.

[14:51] It almost makes you wonder...

[14:52] It almost makes you wonder why they left that part in.

[14:54] Well, that's what I was gonna say.

[14:55] It was a nice...

Dan McCoy

[14:56] It was a nice way of handling it, but I'm like, you know you can just cut that scene, right?

[14:59] Like, you can just change the...

[15:01] The script if you don't want to be exploitative.

[15:05] But, anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[15:06] So, anyway, I...

[15:07] But I think...

[15:08] And later on, I think it's implied...

[15:09] I mean, he...

[15:10] It's the young Will Smith, we are told, is a virgin.

[15:13] And it's kind of implied that the older Will Smith is a virgin.

[15:15] Which makes me think that the kind of light, small-talk flirting he does is actually supposed to be not that attractive.

[15:21] So that he can deflect women who are drawn into his natural charisma.

S4

[15:25] It really comes off to me.

[15:26] This was the point in the movie I nicknamed Henry sensitive incel.

[15:32] Because he really came off as a creepy guy to me.

[15:37] Especially with that relationship with Danny.

[15:39] Which was really weird.

[15:40] Because I wouldn't judge anyone, you know, for an age difference in a relationship, you know, as long as two people are consenting adults.

[15:47] But there was an age difference between the two Fresh Prince and Fresh King characters.

[15:54] Yeah.

[15:54] It was...

[15:55] He was kind of a weirdo.

Elliott Kalan

[15:57] Yeah, I think it's a weirdo.

[15:58] But it's also...

[15:59] I think if you...

[16:00] I would read it as that flirting is him trying to flush out whether she is a spy.

[16:05] Which is the thing that he...

[16:06] Which is ultimately his objective.

[16:08] But I think you're right.

[16:09] Sensitive incel is a good way to describe it.

[16:10] Especially because when you clone someone, it involves their cells.

[16:13] And going in the cell.

[16:15] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[16:15] Well, we're jumping all over the place.

[16:16] Let's get back to Stu here.

Elliott Kalan

[16:18] Yeah, we're jumping all over the place like a regular Gemini man.

[16:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[16:21] Uh-huh.

[16:21] So instead of jumping all over the place, we're going to jump onto a boat where Henry takes a boat out to see his friend Jack, who has a matching tattoo with him.

[16:29] So they clearly have history.

[16:31] They are hanging out on Jack's yacht.

[16:33] Yacht's just one of those guys who wears a shirt buttoned down to about the middle of his chest.

[16:38] And he's old, but he's got a young girlfriend.

[16:40] You know, he's one of those guys.

[16:42] And he's ex-intelligence.

[16:43] He's like retired a little bit, but he's still, you know, he's still cool.

[16:46] But he's still got his finger in the game because he just got information that Henry's last hit, who he thought was a bad guy, is not actually a bad guy.

[16:55] That he'd been lied to by his contact at the DIA, which is a government organization that he seems to take hits from.

Elliott Kalan

[17:05] Now, this character was one of several where I'm like, all these older white guys want to show that they're real cool with Will Smith and that he thinks they're really cool friends.

[17:13] Like, there's just a string of them throughout where it's like his different bosses and buddies that he works with who are all like, hey, man, great to see you.

[17:20] And he like gives them a big hug.

[17:22] And I was like, all these guys want to brag to their kids, I guess, that they're big friends with Will Smith.

[17:27] But I don't think it came off as realistic.

[17:29] Do you guys think so?

Dan McCoy

[17:30] Elliot, I think you may be misunderstanding something about the movie.

[17:32] He's not playing himself Will Smith.

[17:35] He's a man who is employed by them.

Elliott Kalan

[17:39] I thought it was called Will Smith, Gemini Man.

Dan McCoy

[17:42] I mean, it probably would have done better in theaters under that title.

[17:46] Although it's not like people didn't know that Will Smith was in the film.

[17:49] Or there are two of them.

Elliott Kalan

[17:50] To be honest, how different would the movie be if he was not a government assassin, but he was Will Smith, movie star?

[17:58] And he found out he was clones.

Stuart Wellington

[18:00] I mean, I feel like that's an interesting idea that they're like, this guy has made the studio so much money, they now need to replace him with the younger version.

[18:07] I mean, in a way, that's such an interesting meta commentary on the current state of digital effects and whatnot.

S4

[18:13] That's what After Earth was supposed to be.

[18:15] What's his son's name?

[18:16] Jaden?

[18:17] Jalen?

[18:17] Jaden.

[18:17] He was supposed to be the new Will Smith, except he can't act at all.

Elliott Kalan

[18:21] Do you think it's possible that he's a clone that they just raised as his son and they were like, this is how I keep going?

S4

[18:27] I think it's absolutely possible.

[18:28] In fact, it is.

[18:29] That's exactly what happened.

Elliott Kalan

[18:32] Wow.

[18:32] As a former, not exactly native of Philadelphia, but resident, you're privy to that sort of information.

Stuart Wellington

[18:42] Oh, that's great.

[18:42] So while they're having this conversation, we cut to a secret chamber somewhere in a government building where his, the leader or head of the DIA, a woman who goes by Lasseter, and Clive Owen, everybody's favorite English guy, playing a character name.

[19:02] No, Stuart, my favorite English guy is Sherlock Holmes.

Dan McCoy

[19:07] I know he's fictional, but he still qualifies.

Elliott Kalan

[19:09] I think your second favorite English guy is Michael Caine, right?

Dan McCoy

[19:12] No, he's just the English guy most associated with me.

Elliott Kalan

[19:16] Oh, I see.

[19:17] And of course, my favorite English guy is the Beefeater on the Beefeater Gin Bottle, because I like his hat.

Stuart Wellington

[19:22] And Jordan, who's your favorite English guy?

[19:25] John Boyega.

[19:26] Oh, actually, that's a good call.

[19:29] Okay, so Clive Owen is playing a character named Clay Varys.

[19:36] And they are, the two of them are surveilling Henry and Jack on their yacht using some kind of a drone, I'm assuming.

[19:42] And they listen into the conversation.

[19:44] They realize that Henry knows that there's something up.

[19:47] And they decide he's too big of a risk, and they need to get rid of him.

[19:51] He cannot retire.

[19:52] They're going to kill him.

[19:54] Or retire him permanently.

[19:56] But his former boss, the DIA, wants to handle it internally, though Clive Owen thinks he should use his own team, a thing called Gemini.

[20:06] Now, I want to say something here.

Dan McCoy

[20:09] So, if he was retiring anyway, did he really need to know this information?

[20:15] Because it seems like this is the information that triggers Clive Owen to want to kill him.

[20:20] This is, like, the only loose end that really needs to be tied up with Will Smith.

[20:23] So, it's not really nice of his friend to be like, hey, you shot this wrong dude.

Elliott Kalan

[20:30] You're right, Dan.

[20:31] You're right.

[20:32] It was not nice of his friend to tell him that he had been suckered and led to kill an innocent person.

[20:37] He should have just let him just retire blissfully with that stain on his soul.

[20:41] And when he showed up in hell and the devil was like, you killed 71 bad people and one good person.

[20:47] And that's why you're here.

[20:48] And then Will Smith would look up to heaven and his friend Jack would be like, sorry, pal.

[20:52] I just didn't have the heart.

[20:53] Oh, I'm sorry.

[20:54] And just rides his cloud yacht into the gates of heaven.

Dan McCoy

[20:55] Do you think that anything Will Smith does in the rest of this film, like, makes up for killing that guy?

[21:01] I'm not really sure what you're...

Elliott Kalan

[21:02] I mean, I was watching the director's cut where every now and then it cuts to God going, I'll allow it.

[21:07] And then at the end, his heart is weighed by Anubis and Anubis is like, you just made it.

[21:12] All right.

Stuart Wellington

[21:13] Yeah, I think there was originally a sequence like in Dead or Alive 2 where the hitman is killing a bunch of people and then sending the money to starving people.

[21:21] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[21:22] And then he grows angel wings.

Elliott Kalan

[21:24] So, Dan, you say the real villain of this movie is not Clay Varys who, without Henry's knowledge, clones him and raises that boy into a murder machine man.

[21:33] And then creates, spoiler alert, even more bad stuff.

[21:36] But it's actually his friend Jack who ruined his retirement.

Dan McCoy

[21:40] Yeah, that's right.

[21:42] Well, I mean, he was going to go away and not shoot anyone anymore.

[21:45] And now he's got to shoot a bunch of people to protect himself.

Stuart Wellington

[21:51] So, well, with that in mind, we get to see him.

Elliott Kalan

[21:55] Hey, guys, remind me to say at the end that the real Gemini was the friends we made along the way.

[21:59] Because he does end up with a circle of friends at the end.

[22:01] Dan, put that in the notes.

[22:02] Can't you say it now?

Dan McCoy

[22:02] I think you did say it now, actually.

Elliott Kalan

[22:04] Well, we haven't met the friends yet, though.

[22:06] So the audience, audience, forget I said that.

Stuart Wellington

[22:08] Oh, so speaking of friends, Henry and Danny are having a little bit of playful flirting as he ferrets out that she's actually working for the DIA to monitor Henry.

Elliott Kalan

[22:21] I think it was kind of a tip-off when Danny ordered Henry the beer he likes to drink before he arrived.

Dan McCoy

[22:27] Well, I think it was more of a tip-off when he, like, hassles her very threateningly about whether she's going to be – she's, like, spying on him.

[22:37] And she denies it and denies it and denies it, but then agrees to go to dinner with him.

[22:42] Like, something that I think would only make sense if she was surveilling him.

[22:47] Fair.

S4

[22:47] That's why he's the sensitive incel because if – I mean, yeah, she was spying on him, but just – if I was a regular woman out on the street and a guy comes up to me and he's like, no, I got to go to your house.

[22:58] Let me buy you a – I would be like – I would pepper spray him.

[23:02] So I just don't understand why we treat this as normal in this movie.

[23:06] It's not normal.

Elliott Kalan

[23:06] It is the spy equivalent of when a girl breaks up with a guy and the guy is like, give me your reasons.

[23:12] What's your reason for breaking up with me?

[23:14] Because if it's not a good enough reason, we're still going out.

[23:17] But in this case, it's like – she's like, I'm not a spy.

[23:19] Oh, yeah, take me to your house so I can search it for spy stuff.

[23:22] Well, why don't we just go on a date instead?

Stuart Wellington

[23:24] That was probably the wildest part.

[23:27] That's like the equivalent of me, like, lecturing a woman on the merits of a katana and then making her go on a date with me.

Elliott Kalan

[23:33] I mean, to be fair, it was – seeing him – to make that impossible shot on the train, I was like, yeah, it's a movie.

[23:39] But then seeing this scene, I was like, this doesn't make any sense.

Dan McCoy

[23:43] I want to say that Stuart did it the right way.

[23:45] He made someone marry him and then lectured her on the benefits of a katana.

Elliott Kalan

[23:50] Uh-huh.

[23:51] And that's why he's been recording from a storage space the past couple weeks.

Stuart Wellington

[23:55] Oh, yeah, I guess my family drama is all out in the open, guys.

Elliott Kalan

[24:03] So she admits that she is a spy, right?

Stuart Wellington

[24:07] Yeah, but they seem kind of cool with it.

[24:09] Like, they make some jokes and shit, whatever.

[24:12] However, the DIA is not cool with it, and they make their own move to clean up this mess.

[24:18] They send a team that kills Jack on his yacht, and they kill Henry's buddy, Marino, while he's out on a surveillance mission.

[24:28] They send a team to kill Henry, but he just – he smokes them.

[24:31] And then he goes and he wakes up Danny, creepy style, and then she agrees to team up with him.

[24:38] And then they go kill some more goons and figure out who's trying to kill them.

Dan McCoy

[24:42] Well, she agrees to team up with him because they're trying to kill her, too.

[24:47] It's not like – like, she kind of does it out of necessity to stay alive.

[24:51] It's not like she's like, you made a good point.

Elliott Kalan

[24:53] That was – but that was one of the points where I was like, well, why did they send anyone to kill her?

[24:56] No, I agree.

[24:57] Why didn't they just reassign her?

Dan McCoy

[24:58] Yeah, I – and then –

[25:00] The only thing I could think of is maybe because she was surveilling him, she also heard the stuff on the boat?

[25:07] But otherwise, it does not make sense that they're like – like, she's not a loose end at this point.

S4

[25:11] No.

[25:12] This was my second favorite part of the movie because he comes to her house.

[25:15] I guess he breaks in.

[25:16] She's sleeping in bed and he's just like, you're burnt.

[25:18] I'm burnt.

[25:19] Everybody's burnt.

[25:21] Like, this is definitely incel nonsense.

Stuart Wellington

[25:26] Yeah, there's a fair amount of presumptiveness coming off of Henry.

[25:30] But there was – I did like the scene when she is trying to get the keys to the boat in the little boat shack.

[25:36] And she gets jumped by a dude.

[25:37] And the whole time I was assuming that Henry was going to save her.

[25:40] But nope, she whips that dude's ass and finds out the information they need.

[25:45] So that was cool.

Dan McCoy

[25:45] I think Mary Elizabeth Winstead – I mean, like, she was also in Brothers of Prey.

[25:49] But I think she's like really good in these action roles.

[25:51] I mean, I like her a lot as an actress in general.

[25:54] But she just – I don't know.

[25:56] She had a solid competence radiating off of her in this part.

S4

[26:01] She didn't just whoop his ass.

[26:03] She like broke all of his teeth and handed them to Will Smith like someone asked you for change for a dollar.

Dan McCoy

[26:09] It was pretty badass.

[26:12] And I wanted Will Smith to be like, ooh, why did you hand me teeth?

Elliott Kalan

[26:16] It was weirder that he just threw them back in his mouth like they were Tic Tacs and just went – and was just like, cool, now I got extra teeth.

Stuart Wellington

[26:23] And he's like, is this your change for the keys?

Elliott Kalan

[26:27] What's – I gave you a 20.

[26:29] It was a better fight scene than in Last Blood when Rambo just sticks his fingers into a man's sternum – or not sternum.

[26:37] It sticks his fingers and just rips out a man's collarbone.

[26:40] This was almost as nonsensical.

Stuart Wellington

[26:43] I don't think that counts as a fight scene.

Elliott Kalan

[26:45] He was fighting the surface tension of the man's skin to get in there and get that collarbone out.

Stuart Wellington

[26:50] I'm wrong.

[26:52] Okay, so they – you know, there's another feverish meeting between Clive Owen and the head of the DIA.

[27:01] And he's like, I think we need to send Gemini after him again.

[27:05] I have a special soldier to clean up this mess.

[27:09] Whatever, you know, we know who that special soldier is going to be in a second.

[27:12] So Henry then calls another old war buddy with another matching tattoo, a guy named Baron, who's also retired, played by Benedict Wong, who is very charismatic and fun.

Dan McCoy

[27:24] You may know him as one of the other wizards from the Doctor Strange corner of the MCU.

Elliott Kalan

[27:33] His character's name is Wong, Dan.

[27:34] It's his real last name.

[27:36] Like, it's just – it's not that hard to remember.

Dan McCoy

[27:37] I didn't say I didn't remember his name.

[27:39] I was explaining who he was in a way that would appeal to the widest swath of our audience.

[27:44] Perhaps people who don't memorize character names.

Elliott Kalan

[27:47] All you have to say is he plays Wong, Doctor Strange's assistant in the Doctor Strange movies.

[27:51] I don't think there was anything wrong with the way I described who he was.

[27:55] But the way – you just – I think it raised more questions than it answered because suddenly I was like, how many wizards are there in the Doctor Strange corner of the Marvel Universe?

[28:02] Does his character have a name?

[28:03] As far as I know, he doesn't.

Dan McCoy

[28:04] I mean, there was Tilda Swinton before – spoiler alert – she gets killed.

[28:09] There were the other, like, monks at her, like, Doctor Strange retreat.

Stuart Wellington

[28:17] So this is – so if you're describing Gemini, man –

[28:19] I guess Baron Mordo doesn't count anymore, huh?

Elliott Kalan

[28:22] Yeah.

[28:22] No, I just – if Dan was talking about Gemini, man, he'd be like, Will Smith stars as one of many special ops soldiers in Gemini, man.

[28:29] They're like, well, no, he's one of the major characters in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[28:31] I mean, I don't know when the last time you saw Doctor Strange was, Elliot, but there are several notable masters of the mystic arts in that film.

Elliott Kalan

[28:41] You're like, now, C-3PO is one of many droids in the Star Wars universe.

Dan McCoy

[28:46] This was a very needless –

Elliott Kalan

[28:49] Now, next we're introduced to Darth Vader, one of many Imperial officers in the Imperial Navy.

[28:54] That's the Empire's Armada that enforces the Emperor's laws throughout the galaxy.

Stuart Wellington

[29:00] So, Benedict Wong in this movie, his character's that, like – you know, that type of character that shows up in an action-adventure movie?

[29:08] He's the, like, retired friend who only wears Hawaiian shirts and, like, can fly a plane.

[29:13] Like, that's – you know, that's – it's everybody's dream.

Dan McCoy

[29:16] He's totally burned noticing.

[29:17] He's also the friend in every one of these movies who's, like, willing to drop everything, including his home to help the hero.

[29:25] Like, he gets burned, too, and can't go back.

[29:27] And he's like, well, whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[29:28] I mean, he literally gets burned to death eventually.

[29:31] Oh, spoiler.

[29:32] Spoiler alert.

[29:34] In case you wanted to stop the podcast now and watch the movie.

[29:37] Run out and watch it.

Stuart Wellington

[29:38] Okay, so, Baron hides them out in his home in Cartagena.

[29:44] And he – Henry tracks down – he uses a phone to call and threaten his old handler, Del.

[29:51] And Del kind of spills a little bit of the history of Gemini, which is a private military contractor that is run by Clay Varys, played by Clive Owen.

[30:01] And they're involved in some way.

[30:05] I don't remember exactly which parts of the background is explained at this point.

[30:09] But it's one of multiple info dumps that are kind of spread out throughout the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[30:13] There's also a brief moment of Baron just watching soccer on TV with his dog that I really liked a lot.

Stuart Wellington

[30:21] So, of course, a killer tracks them to Cartagena.

[30:26] Henry leads the killer away so that his friends can escape.

[30:30] He gets the drop on that killer.

[30:32] But, guys, what makes this killer different?

Elliott Kalan

[30:37] He's mostly computer animation?

Stuart Wellington

[30:41] Nope.

[30:42] Well, maybe.

[30:43] I don't know the actual technical details.

[30:45] But it looks like a younger version of Henry.

[30:47] It looks like a young Will Smith.

Elliott Kalan

[30:49] And, guys, I'm going to go out on a limb here.

[30:50] This action sequence is phenomenal.

Dan McCoy

[30:52] This is a great action sequence.

[30:54] Like, it goes on for a while.

[30:57] And it's, you know, super well choreographed.

[30:59] Although there are, like, weird moments, like, toward the end where younger Henry is, like, beating up older Henry using a motorcycle.

[31:08] And older Henry seems only sort of mildly inconvenienced by this.

[31:12] And I kept expecting there to be another shoe that was dropping, saying that Will Smith was a super soldier of some kind.

[31:18] Because I had no idea how he's still alive after being slammed with a motorcycle wheel.

Elliott Kalan

[31:24] That he kind of shrugged off getting hit in the face with a motorcycle?

[31:28] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[31:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[31:29] Having seen Pet Sematary 2, I know that a motorcycle wheel is the ideal way to kill somebody.

Elliott Kalan

[31:33] There's also the part where he, where Junior, the young clone, he swipes the motorcycle wheel under.

[31:39] And Will Smith, like a frog would, leaps in the air just high enough to do it.

[31:45] Yeah.

[31:45] And it's like you can kind of see the wires pulling his clothes up at that moment.

[31:50] So it's like, there were moments where it was this amazing action scene, and in the end they kind of ran out of realistic things for him to do.

[31:56] And it briefly became Commander.

[31:57] Yeah.

[31:57] But that was okay, you know.

[31:59] Why not?

[31:59] It's a movie about clones.

[32:00] Why not?

[32:01] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[32:01] I love, I love that you also, you also, this is an action scene that begins in one place, and it turns into a chase.

[32:08] And it, you really get a sense of the geography of Cartagena.

Elliott Kalan

[32:11] It looks like a really beautiful city.

[32:13] You really learned the schedule of most of the working people of Cartagena.

[32:16] Because early on in the fight, there is nobody on the streets.

[32:19] And then suddenly there is tons of people.

[32:21] So it's like they're fighting past when everybody wakes up and showers, and then it's time to go to work.

[32:26] Because they were running around the streets of Cartagena just firing guns at each other for a while.

[32:29] And I was like, oh, I guess nobody's up and about.

[32:32] But when it turns into a chase sequence on motorcycles, and you need cars to zoom around, suddenly there are people everywhere.

Dan McCoy

[32:37] And I'm going to tip my hand a little bit here and say like.

[32:40] No, Dan, there's a drink in it.

[32:41] You can spill everywhere.

[32:43] No, we said that this is a good action sequence.

[32:47] A lot of the shots, like this movie is shot beautifully.

[32:50] Like there are a lot of like things that could be just boring, like exposition shots that he finds some interesting way of framing or of, you know, like doing the choreography of the scene.

[33:06] And it really is like, okay, this script that isn't much of anything got handed to a really, really good director.

[33:14] And you can see that.

Elliott Kalan

[33:16] It is a movie where the whole time you're like, why did Ang Lee make this movie?

Stuart Wellington

[33:20] I like how, and I like how like bright and colorful most of the movie is, but particularly this action scene.

Elliott Kalan

[33:26] There's a part in this action scene where there's one shot where there's a lot of firing and then young Will Smith slides down a palm tree and throws a grenade in.

[33:35] And Will Smith just slaps it out of the way so that, and then it explodes down below him.

[33:39] And I had, I watched that, I think three times.

Stuart Wellington

[33:42] Yeah, I watched it as almost as many times as I watched that footage of the protester full volleying a gas canister being lobbed at him that was floating around Twitter the other day.

[33:53] Okay, so not to let the real world bleed into this silly movie.

[33:58] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[33:59] We don't want to let the real world bleed into this movie about a black man whose body is used as property by a paternalistic older white man who pretends that he's a good friend of this young black man and a father figure while using him as a soldier and a tool, and then later develops another young black man who can't feel pain.

[34:16] There's a lot of things going on underneath this movie that the movie is just kind of not dealing with.

S4

[34:20] Shit, Gemini Man is a documentary.

[34:23] Oh no.

Stuart Wellington

[34:25] Yeah, well, I mean, we'll get to all this stuff over time, I'm sure.

[34:28] Okay, so there's the chase and fight sequence ends.

[34:34] It looks, Henry seems to be holding back.

[34:36] He knows there's something up.

[34:37] Junior is, before Junior's able to kill him.

[34:41] And also, I kind of like that, like, they specifically show Junior's gun running out of ammo, so that's why he's using his motorcycle to try and kill Henry.

[34:50] Okay, but then the cops show up, Junior runs, Henry is briefly arrested, and then immediately gets out of jail.

[34:57] Yeah, they're sort of hand-waved away.

Elliott Kalan

[34:59] Yeah, they're like, I mean, also the fact that they're like, if we're going to go where we need to go, we're going to need a private airplane.

[35:05] Wait, I know a guy.

[35:06] Cut to them on a private airplane.

[35:07] That was the moment where I was like, hold on a second.

Stuart Wellington

[35:10] I do like that they have a little bit of throwaway dialogue, too, as they're leaving the police station, where, like, Henry's like, to Danny, who had, like, sprung him from jail.

[35:19] He's like, oh, wow, that was amazing.

[35:24] Oh, that was great.

[35:25] So, yeah, so they borrow a jet.

[35:28] We get a little bit of backstory in the two of them.

[35:30] They're on their way to Budapest, where they're going to try and meet up with Yuri, the contact of his former friend, Jack,

[35:38] that had given him the information that Henry's last hit had actually been a bad job.

Dan McCoy

[35:45] And Yuri is a big fan of Henry and, like, makes specific reference to a lot of stuff that Henry did recently in a way that, you know, like, Henry comments on.

[35:57] And I'm like, oh, okay, this is going to be some sort of plot thread, and it does not develop anything.

[36:02] Like, I guess he just has, like, ESPN Henry that he watches at home and knows everything that he does.

Elliott Kalan

[36:10] They're edging into, uh, um...

[36:12] John Wick character.

[36:13] Oh, I can't remember.

[36:14] You know, those...

[36:14] Yeah, John Wick stuff where it's like, oh, he's a famous assassin who has fans who follow his exploits.

[36:20] Like, there was a certain point in Marvel Comics where Wolverine became famous, and I was like, uh, this character doesn't work for me the same way if everyone recognizes him.

Stuart Wellington

[36:29] The, I mean, I think it...

[36:31] I'm...

[36:32] I could be giving the movie too much credit, but I think it's implied that, uh, later on we find out that, uh, Henry is being tracked because he has been chipped.

[36:41] Yeah.

[36:41] Uh, and I suspect that Yuri is using some kind of spy satellite to watch this badass assassin battle dudes, but I could be wrong.

[36:50] That's very possible.

[36:51] Uh, I mean, I...

[36:52] If I had access to that stuff, I'd watch all kinds of crazy battles.

[36:55] Um...

[36:56] Battle dudes, battle toads, uh, any sort of battles.

[37:01] Yeah.

[37:01] Battle bots.

[37:02] Uh-huh.

[37:03] Um, okay, so, uh, meanwhile, we cut to Junior, this young assassin that looks exactly like Henry, but a younger version.

[37:11] And he is recuperating in this palatial manor house, and it's the house of Clay Varys.

[37:18] Oh, no!

[37:19] He's like, uh, they have this, like, weird father-son dynamic, which I wrote down, but is wrong, because they're actually father-son in this case.

[37:26] Adopted son, obviously.

[37:28] Um, but Junior can tell that there's something different or wrong about this job.

[37:32] Uh, Clay treats him both as a son, but he's also, like, an emotionally abusive father in this case.

[37:39] He's, uh, he's, he's made, he makes Junior, obviously.

[37:42] He's making his son kill people, so that's not good.

Elliott Kalan

[37:45] It's like varsity blues, if instead of James Van Der Beek being forced to play high school football, he was being forced to murder people all over the globe.

[37:52] Thank you.

[37:52] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[37:53] That's what I was reaching for, like, thank you.

[37:55] You know, also, like, I think it's because I watch too many movies.

[37:58] Like, this is one of those things that if you're, like, a viewer of a movie, like, you're like, ugh, why don't people realize this thing already?

[38:05] But in real life, you wouldn't realize that you're a clone immediately.

[38:08] But at the same time, like, Henry Junior, uh, seems very, like, it takes him a long time to be like, hey, I look exactly like a young Will Smith.

Stuart Wellington

[38:18] Well, the scene-

[38:19] I've been watching a couple episodes of the new Twilight Zone, and I like it, but it feels like every single episode, the character figures out what's going on, like, three or four scenes too slow for me.

[38:33] And I'm like, no, dude, this is happening.

[38:35] Come on.

[38:36] Come on.

[38:37] You made a deal with the devil.

Elliott Kalan

[38:39] I mean, I thought it was especially strange that it happened while he was channel surfing and Hancock happened to be playing on FX.

[38:44] And he was like, oh, I look like Hancock.

[38:47] And Clay Varys is like, no, no, no, Hancock's not a real person.

S4

[38:50] I could almost excuse Junior not recognizing that he looks just like the older Henry, but I can't excuse Henry not recognizing his own younger face.

[38:59] Like, if I saw someone who was me at the age of 20, I would look, that's me.

[39:04] Obviously, someone has cloned me because I remember what I look like.

Elliott Kalan

[39:08] Yeah, but he's, you know, he has that face blindness thing that Oliver Sacks writes about.

[39:14] So he actually thinks Junior is a hat.

[39:15] Oh, no.

Stuart Wellington

[39:16] Seems like a terrible quality for an assassin.

Elliott Kalan

[39:20] Yeah, yeah.

[39:20] That's why.

[39:21] The 72 people, that was two missions.

[39:24] So the weird thing is that we also learned.

[39:27] So we learned that Junior's a clone, but we also learned that he's called Junior because he was gestated inside the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

[39:33] Movie crossover.

Stuart Wellington

[39:35] Oh, man.

[39:36] That isn't that weird.

[39:37] Check the dates, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[39:38] Check the dates.

[39:38] They check out.

Stuart Wellington

[39:39] So this is where we really get a good look at the digital effects of the young Will Smith.

[39:48] And what do you guys think?

[39:49] I actually, I thought they were pretty good.

[39:50] And like, I really like the emotion that they are able to get out of like the young Will Smith face.

Elliott Kalan

[39:58] You guys know me.

[39:59] I'm usually pretty tough on CGI humans that are supposed to look real.

[40:03] I thought in the scenes where he's not with Will Smith, it was really convincing to me.

[40:09] But for some reason, every time he was with Will Smith, I would be like, oh, wait a minute.

[40:13] It looks like he's talking to a cartoon character version of himself.

Dan McCoy

[40:16] I thought he looked weird in like the first scenes.

[40:19] Then I think I just got used to it.

[40:21] But I will say like, I liked the movie's first hour because it was so sun drenched.

[40:26] And then the second hour, things got really dark all the time.

[40:31] Like they're always doing stuff at night.

[40:33] And I think it was because they had computer generated Will Smith talking to real Will Smith all the time.

[40:40] And it was like, we got to put this in the dark or else people are going to be like, this looks weird.

S4

[40:44] I think maybe I've been watching a lot of reruns of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air recently.

[40:51] So I wasn't convinced.

[40:52] There are certain scenes where the young, where Junior looks convincing to me.

[40:57] There are other scenes, specifically the last, the final scene, where it just looks like a cut scene.

Elliott Kalan

[41:03] Definitely as that last scene where they're like, the like wrap up scene of the three of them.

[41:08] He looks terrible.

Stuart Wellington

[41:10] Yeah, that's arguably the worst movie, worst scene in the whole movie.

[41:14] So, yep, let me see where we're at.

[41:16] Okay, we get a shot of a like a Gemini training facility where we see this like team of armored black ops dudes blowing stuff up in like a training course.

[41:28] And Junior's watching it the whole time and kind of analyzing it.

[41:32] And of course, we're going to see that black ops team later.

[41:36] They're going to show up.

[41:37] You don't introduce them and waste time on them.

Elliott Kalan

[41:39] This was when I started asking the question that you really shouldn't ask with this, which was like, what's the economics of Gemini?

[41:44] Because they seem to spend so much money.

[41:46] They have a whole fake town.

[41:48] Yeah.

[41:48] With actors playing townspeople so that they could train like six dudes.

[41:53] And they put all this money into cloning one, possibly two, Will Smith's as we'll learn.

[41:58] Like, how much are they charging the government on these for their emissions?

[42:01] Because they seem to spend a lot of it on facilities, R&D.

[42:06] And that, you know, Clay Varys' house looks pretty sweet.

[42:08] I'm sure he's raking in a pretty nice salary.

Dan McCoy

[42:10] Well, the other thing about this, too, is like you start asking the question.

[42:13] You know, I don't think it will surprise anyone to learn that Clive Owen does not make it out of this movie alive as the villain.

[42:20] All villains must be killed.

Stuart Wellington

[42:21] Even though his name has live in it.

[42:23] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[42:24] But he dies and then, like, you know, basically it's one of those things where, like, oh, we've killed the villain.

[42:34] All the loose ends are tied off because I guess, like, the idea is supposed to be that he was a loose cannon within the government.

[42:41] And they just, like, are, like, cutting ties the same way.

Stuart Wellington

[42:44] And it's just, like, they, like, the government was clearly putting a lot of money into cloning someone.

Dan McCoy

[42:51] Like, I don't think that just because they killed the one guy, this would stop being a problem.

Elliott Kalan

[42:57] Well, Gemini was putting money into cloning people.

[43:00] Yeah.

[43:00] Because Gemini is a private organization.

[43:02] And that's why I wonder if there was – I want to see the scene where he's on the phone with his unicorn investors.

[43:07] And they're like, when is Gemini going to start showing a profit?

[43:09] And he's like, the future of assassination isn't about profit, man.

[43:12] It's about market dominance.

[43:15] We're disrupting how people are killed.

Stuart Wellington

[43:17] Yeah, there was a scene in the movie that was cut where Clay Varys went on the Joe Rogan show.

[43:21] Oh, boy.

Dan McCoy

[43:23] He's like, it's a volume business.

[43:25] As soon as we have enough Will Smiths on the street, we'll start making money.

Elliott Kalan

[43:31] We're looking at the numbers, and that doesn't really make sense.

[43:33] Hey, I just need another 500 million, and maybe someday.

Stuart Wellington

[43:38] Okay.

[43:38] So, yeah, what you guys are saying is that the government is an evil.

[43:42] This one rogue company is evil.

Elliott Kalan

[43:44] Well, I mean, certainly parts of the government are very evil, too.

[43:47] But the rogue company can also be evil.

Stuart Wellington

[43:49] Okay, okay, okay.

[43:51] So, wait, I lost my notes.

[43:54] Okay, so, meanwhile, in Budapest, Danny goes to get a DNA test of some blood and some stuff from Will Smith.

[44:04] Including a hat.

[44:05] Including a hat.

[44:05] And so she goes to get a DNA test, and guys, guess what?

[44:09] Turns out they're 100% each other.

[44:17] Get it?

[44:18] Get it?

[44:19] Okay.

[44:20] So, yeah, it turns out, like, so Danny reveals that not only is their DNA similar, it is exactly identical.

[44:27] The junior is Henry's clone.

[44:29] And Henry thinks about it, and then he's like, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[44:32] Well, I also like that once, I have to assume once he was like, they're like, they cloned you.

[44:36] He's like, oh, now the company name makes sense.

[44:40] Gemini.

[44:41] Because there's nothing particularly Gemini about, like, having a private soldier organization.

[44:45] But if they're making twins, then the name makes sense.

[44:49] And he calls up Clive Owen, and he's like, is this why you chose the name Gemini?

[44:53] Because you were going to clone someone at some point?

[44:54] And Clive is like, it's just a happy coincidence, man.

[44:56] My first wife was a Gemini.

[44:58] She wanted me to name the company after her, so I named it after her a star sign.

Stuart Wellington

[45:02] Yep, he's like, this company has big Gemini energy.

[45:06] He's really into crystals.

S4

[45:08] I would love...

[45:09] You know how into astrology I am.

[45:12] You're such a Taurus.

[45:13] Only Taurus would say that.

Elliott Kalan

[45:16] That's a character thing I would have loved, is if it turned out that Clive Owen's character was really into astrology,

[45:22] and was always, like, doing junior star charts.

[45:24] And he's like, I don't know if it works the same as you, because you weren't born, you were clones, and we grew you into that.

[45:30] But maybe it's the same.

Stuart Wellington

[45:31] If you want that kind of character work, you hire Nicolas fucking Cage to do your movie.

[45:35] Oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[45:36] Yeah.

[45:36] He would have done star charts for everybody on set.

[45:39] He'd be carrying crystals around.

[45:40] Sure.

[45:41] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[45:42] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[45:43] So, where are we at?

[45:44] Wait, how likely...

[45:45] So, he's supposed to play the Tiger King in that Tiger King TV show?

[45:47] How likely do you think it is that he buys a real tiger to keep in his house to prepare?

Stuart Wellington

[45:52] And we're assuming he doesn't already own a tiger.

Elliott Kalan

[45:55] That's a fair...

[45:56] I should not have made that assumption.

[45:59] Because what do you keep a tiger in?

[46:01] A cage.

[46:03] Oh, okay.

[46:04] Yeah.

[46:05] Nicolas Cage.

Stuart Wellington

[46:07] So, Jordan, you're editing all this out, right?

[46:11] You're just editing it on the fly.

S4

[46:12] Is this the same scene where Danny has the line, Nelson Mandela couldn't kill a man on a moving train from two kilometers away?

Elliott Kalan

[46:21] Yeah.

[46:21] Because he's like, why don't they clone Nelson Mandela?

S4

[46:24] I was like, yikes, movie.

[46:26] Why leave Nelson Mandela alone?

[46:28] He didn't.

Stuart Wellington

[46:29] Why are you going to drag Nelson Mandela like that?

[46:33] And also, how do we know?

[46:34] He never had the chance.

[46:35] Well, that's the thing.

Dan McCoy

[46:36] The movie lost a step with me by not having Will Smith say something like, we don't know.

[46:43] He could have been taught.

Elliott Kalan

[46:46] Now, here's something about...

[46:48] Now, this is getting a little ahead of us, but as we later learn, Junior also has Henry's conscience, which again, as we know, his conscience only kicked in after 72 kills and 30 years on the job.

[47:00] But something I learned recently talking to a celebrity dog groomer was that when you clone an animal, they look exactly the same, but they do not have the same personality because they are raised differently.

[47:11] So here's my pitch for you guys about this movie.

[47:13] What if it was the same movie, but the young Henry was totally, totally amoral, loved being an assassin, was so eager to get old Henry out of the way because he doesn't want this old man clogging up his face.

[47:25] And he could just be...

[47:26] Would that be a better movie or a worse movie?

[47:28] Well...

[47:28] Discussion.

Dan McCoy

[47:29] I mean, like, the movie keeps trying to claim, like, Clive Owen's like, we edited it out, all of your, like, doubt and conscience.

[47:36] And I'm like, I don't think so.

[47:37] Like, he seems to be basically the same dude.

S4

[47:41] If he could edit that stuff out, how come they couldn't edit out Junior being allergic to bees?

Elliott Kalan

[47:48] That's a very good point.

[47:49] And it's something that is brought up multiple times for minimal plot development.

[47:53] And you'd think that would be the first thing.

[47:55] They're like, we gotta send Junior on a mission to Macedonia.

[47:59] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[48:00] It's not near those beehives, right?

[48:02] Uh, it is.

[48:03] Okay, forget it.

[48:03] Send somebody else.

Dan McCoy

[48:04] He's lying down in a field in the first scene.

[48:07] I feel like once he actually does get poisoned, like, I wish that Will Smith would have said, my one weakness, bees!

[48:14] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[48:15] I mean, do you think, uh, do you think colony collapse all over the world and the demise of bees is just Gemini trying to clear the way to make it so that Junior can operate anywhere on the globe?

Stuart Wellington

[48:24] Yeah, murder hornets are their latest, uh, latest weapon.

Elliott Kalan

[48:29] Yeah, yeah.

[48:29] In the fight against bees.

Stuart Wellington

[48:30] So, uh, so Henry, Henry meets with Yuri, uh, his friend's contact, uh, in a bathhouse, of course, because he's Russian.

[48:40] Um, and he gives, uh, he gives another info dump.

[48:43] I think it kind of explains all the basics, uh, that Gemini has this cloning facility.

[48:48] They're trying to make clone soldiers, yada, yada, yada.

Elliott Kalan

[48:51] And the Russian that he killed in the first scene on the train was actually the scientist who was working on the cloning project.

[48:58] Exactly.

Stuart Wellington

[48:59] Um, and that, and that, uh, that Varys took him out, I guess, so that they couldn't share that information.

[49:04] I don't quite remember.

[49:05] There's a lot of information, but it's all exactly what you'd expect.

[49:08] Uh, the only kind of surprise that Yuri reveals that he's a big fan of Henry's and that he has been watching some of his shootouts.

[49:14] How did this happen?

[49:15] Does it matter?

[49:16] It doesn't.

[49:17] He has a, uh, he has a guy, a delivery guy show up with a phone.

[49:22] A bike messenger.

[49:23] A bike messenger.

[49:23] Thank you.

[49:24] And he has paid this bike messenger to deliver a phone to her.

[49:28] Uh, and they call and have a phone conversation.

Dan McCoy

[49:31] Sorry, before that, the bike messenger reads, uh, a long message about, like, hey, uh, you know, like, you tried to kill me.

[49:40] I'm gonna kill you.

[49:41] I know where you live.

[49:42] I know you're, like, where, where you go to get your coffee.

[49:45] And the bike messenger seems totally cool with delivering this message.

Elliott Kalan

[49:49] Hey man, it's a gig economy.

[49:51] He got paid a thousand dollars.

[49:52] Yeah.

[49:53] Of course, he'll deliver what he probably thinks it's some prank.

[49:55] He's like, where's Ashton?

[49:56] In a van somewhere.

[49:58] Yep.

[49:59] Where are the impractical jokers?

Dan McCoy

[50:00] So wait, did this guy also just, like, wake up from a really, really long sleep?

Elliott Kalan

[50:06] Dan, it's a 20-year-old screenplay.

[50:08] That was, Punk'd was still on the air back then.

Dan McCoy

[50:11] So this thing that's not in the movie, because the screenplay's so old, it makes sense.

[50:17] Yes, thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[50:18] That's why everyone in the movie is talking about how great the Matrix was.

Stuart Wellington

[50:22] So, uh, yeah, I did, I did this scene a disservice.

[50:25] It, it has some humor in it.

[50:27] But, so he basically bargains with his old boss, uh, for Danny's life.

[50:32] Um, and he sets up an exchange where he will turn her over, but he'll only turn her over to the killer who had been sent to kill him, Junior.

[50:42] Uh, and they set up a meet in a castle in Budapest.

Elliott Kalan

[50:47] They're like, they're like, they're like, they're like grave catacombs.

Stuart Wellington

[50:52] Yeah, it's just like, it's like a castle.

[50:53] It's like a tourist attraction.

[50:55] Uh, this is where Junior makes, uh, to check Danny for bugs, because he's nervous that, uh, you know, he's, he's just being cautious.

[51:02] He makes her strip in a both exploitative, but restrained scene.

[51:06] Uh, and he checks her for, uh, like, uh, he checks her for bugs.

[51:10] And she, the whole time, is like, trying to get to know him.

[51:14] She's asking him a bunch of questions.

[51:15] She's talking quite a bit.

[51:17] She's explaining what's happening.

[51:19] She's trying to work on his emotions.

[51:21] Uh, he takes her to these catacombs, uh, and he sets up a whole bunch of traps.

[51:26] But Henry, of course, gets through these, uh, uh, he gets through all the traps that have been set up, because the whole time, Danny had been messaging Henry through a hidden bug.

[51:36] Uh, and we have a, finally, we have, uh, old Henry and Junior, the younger version of him.

[51:43] Uh, they have a face-off, and they, uh, they start, you know, they have, they have Junior dead to rights, and they lay out the situation to him.

[51:51] But he is not buying it.

Elliott Kalan

[51:53] Okay, now, technically, it's not a face-off, because they both have the same face on.

Stuart Wellington

[51:57] Oh, okay.

[51:58] So, uh, rewind the tape, guys.

[52:00] So, it's a face-on.

[52:02] And.

Dan McCoy

[52:03] It's a head-on, applied directly to the forehead situation.

Elliott Kalan

[52:07] Oh, wow, I haven't thought about that in a long time.

[52:09] Those heads.

[52:10] So, Jordan, is this what you wanted to see from a Will Smith movie?

[52:13] Is Will, a younger Will Smith hitting him, an older himself in the face with a bone that he grabbed out of a wall?

S4

[52:19] I actually did want to see more of this in the movie.

[52:21] This was the only, like, one of the only times where the movie was kind of not taking itself too seriously, and it was just kind of silly.

[52:28] And I was having a good time.

[52:30] So, yeah, I wanted more of this.

[52:32] I mean, the, again, the Junior doesn't look real to me in any way.

[52:35] It would be, if Will Smith was fighting, you know, the younger Robert De Niro from The Irishman, it would have been, you know, equally.

Stuart Wellington

[52:43] Or if, like, or if, like, one of the digital characters from one of Disney's new live-action remakes was battling the animated version.

[52:52] Yeah, absolutely.

S4

[52:53] I mean, if they could get Will Smith and then his Aladdin character to fight.

Dan McCoy

[52:58] Now, I will say, you know, like, Henry gets the best of Junior, like, in basically every situation.

[53:05] And I guess the movie plays it off, like, okay, it's because, like, he's cagier most of the time.

[53:11] Like, living so long has...

[53:14] Well, he's more experienced.

[53:15] Given him more experience.

[53:16] But in, like, these fights, I think also you can, you see that they have made the younger version of Will Smith, like, smaller.

[53:26] Like, he's not as jacked as 50-year-old Will Smith.

[53:30] And I think that is to be, like, to give it a way that 50-year-old Will Smith could possibly win a fight with a much younger version of himself.

Elliott Kalan

[53:40] It's possible.

[53:41] I mean, I was watching the behind-the-scenes stuff, and the person they had doing the motion capture fighting was actually Eddie Deason.

[53:46] So it makes a lot of sense why Will Smith had no trouble defeating him.

[53:49] Yeah.

[53:51] It's just not a fair matchup.

S4

[53:52] Because sometimes Junior is, like, a little baby Terminator, and then other times they're equally matched.

[53:58] And other times, you know, Henry is able to get the drop on him, so.

[54:01] Yeah.

[54:02] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[54:03] And I feel like, I mean, fast forward to the very end of the movie, there's a scene where the two of them are walking next to each other.

[54:10] And it feels like Junior is, like, a head taller than him.

[54:14] Yeah, spinal compression as he age.

[54:16] Yeah.

[54:16] Maybe he's wearing lifts.

[54:17] Who knows?

[54:18] Okay.

[54:19] You're right, Jordan.

Elliott Kalan

[54:19] There's, like, no.

[54:20] It would be a stronger movie if it was like, oh, I can't beat myself at my physical peak, so I'll have to outthink him.

[54:27] But there's only a little bit of that.

[54:28] It's usually like, I'm going to outpunch him.

[54:30] Yeah.

[54:31] Like, and the two of them can take so many hits to the face.

[54:35] It's crazy.

[54:36] And especially without wrecking those beautiful faces.

Stuart Wellington

[54:39] I mean, I think they do a pretty good job of having the makeup reflect that they've taken some kind of damage.

[54:45] Some.

[54:46] A little bit.

[54:47] Some.

[54:47] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[54:48] It's as much damage as I would get from, like, falling and smashing the face on the ground.

[54:52] Again, this guy got whacked with a motorcycle.

Stuart Wellington

[54:58] He just got a little road rash.

[55:00] Okay.

[55:01] So, as we said, they have a fight.

[55:05] The Danny manages to get a hold of the gun, but Henry's holding back.

[55:09] He doesn't want Junior to get shot.

[55:13] They're battling.

[55:14] They end up in the water, which is, as we've learned earlier, Henry's biggest weakness.

[55:19] He's frightened of drowning.

[55:21] Danny comes down and shoots Junior in the shoulder to rescue Henry, and Junior escapes.

[55:28] They flee the catacombs.

[55:30] Baron picks up Henry and Danny, and they take that private jet back to the U.S. of A.

[55:35] to shut down the cloning project.

[55:39] Meanwhile, Junior's also back in the U.S. of A., and he confronts his father, Clay Varys, about the whole situation.

[55:47] And I think this is where Varys gives him another one of those, like, abusive dad talks, right?

[55:53] Where he's, like, convincing him that he's doing the right thing, etc., etc.

[55:56] I mean, this is...

Dan McCoy

[55:57] I don't want to give it too much credit, but this is a slight stab at a more interesting villain, because, like, he's a bad man.

[56:05] I mean, we can all agree he's a bad man, but he does...

[56:08] I don't know, Dan.

[56:09] Name one thing that he does that's bad.

[56:11] He does believe that he loves his son in his own way, and he's trying to protect him throughout the movie, even as he's trying to kill the man he cloned him from.

Stuart Wellington

[56:22] Although the justification of, like, sending his son to kill his older clone to, like, battle his demons seems like...

[56:33] That's a reach.

Elliott Kalan

[56:35] Yeah, I think that's how a psychiatrist would describe it.

[56:38] Nutty.

S4

[56:38] He's kind of like Thanos for me, where he's explaining his motive behind, you know, his evil plot, and I'm kind of...

[56:44] I'm almost like, ah, this guy's got some great ideas.

[56:47] Does that make me a bad person?

Stuart Wellington

[56:51] Yeah, you're like, maybe we should workshop this a little bit.

[56:54] Let's get a little more diversity in your writing than Thanos.

Elliott Kalan

[57:00] Well, and later on, Clay is talking to these guys, the other guys, the heroes, and he's like,

[57:06] I was going to have a whole army of just clones.

[57:09] No parents would ever lose their children again.

[57:11] No real people would die.

[57:13] And Junior is, like, standing right there, and it's like, uh, like, so, uh, like, am I...

[57:20] Hold on a second.

S4

[57:21] No, no, no, you're one of the good ones.

[57:22] You're one of the good ones.

Elliott Kalan

[57:23] No, no, Junior, you're like a person clone.

[57:26] You're totally cool.

[57:27] But these other clones...

[57:28] So he's a bad dude.

Stuart Wellington

[57:31] So Henry, Danny, and Baron, you know, they touch down.

[57:35] Baron gives his private jet a kiss.

[57:37] It has served them well this entire movie.

[57:40] They're running through a barn where they get ambushed by Junior, and Junior tests Henry by shooting him in the neck with bee venom just to prove that he is allergic to bees.

[57:50] Because that's the only way to prove that they are clones.

Elliott Kalan

[57:54] And also, and by giving him the antidote, he proves that he's not there to murder Henry, I guess.

[58:02] Yeah.

[58:02] I guess neither of those tests really prove the thing that they intend to prove, since it's not like Will Smith is uniquely allergic to bees among all the humans in the world.

[58:11] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[58:12] Yeah, that was kind of...

S4

[58:13] He gives him an EpiPen, and then he goes, Epinephrine.

[58:15] Like, dude, I know.

[58:17] I'm allergic to bees.

[58:18] I know what an EpiPen looks like.

Stuart Wellington

[58:21] He's like, I know I'm allergic to bees.

[58:23] I travel around the world, and I kill things.

[58:25] You would think I would have a couple of these on me at all times, but I guess not.

[58:29] That was what I was thinking.

Dan McCoy

[58:30] Like, wait, why doesn't older Will Smith have one of these?

Elliott Kalan

[58:33] Now I wish I had seen a scene where Junior is like, it's Epinephrine.

[58:38] Let me use it.

[58:39] And Will Smith's like, I know how to do it.

[58:40] Just let me do it.

[58:41] And they're just arguing over which one of them is going to give the shot.

[58:43] No, let me do it.

[58:44] You need me to do this.

[58:45] I can do it.

[58:45] I've done this before.

[58:46] I'm older than you.

Stuart Wellington

[58:47] So this is where we find out how they've been tracked.

[58:51] Junior cuts out a tracker that's been embedded in Henry's arm.

[58:55] I guess it had been embedded in him during a previous surgery.

[59:00] Then they are driving to go take out the clone facility.

[59:04] They catch up.

[59:05] They, you know, they, you know, talk some stuff.

[59:07] And then, but then they get ambushed by, in a small town that looks surprised.

[59:13] I guess not that surprisingly, a lot like that model village we saw the Black Ops guys training

[59:19] in earlier.

[59:20] So they get ambushed and a tank shoots their car, killing Benedict Wong's character, Baron.

[59:27] Everybody's super sad.

[59:29] Everybody else gets out.

Elliott Kalan

[59:30] Now, when I watched this movie earlier in the week, a military style police response to

[59:36] a few people walking down the street seemed crazier than it does now.

[59:41] So I'm glad I watched it a week ago when I was like, well, this is nuts.

[59:46] Anyway, moving on.

Stuart Wellington

[59:48] Yeah, it wasn't quite the fun escape I was hoping for at that moment.

[59:52] So yeah, so the, we find out that Varys is on site.

[59:56] He, you know, he diverts police away.

[59:58] He's having his own team try and take out these guys, clean up this mess.

[1:00:03] I keep using that term because that's what they say in action movies.

[1:00:05] Okay.

[1:00:06] And of course-

[1:00:07] They secure the perimeter and so forth.

[1:00:08] Yeah.

[1:00:09] At this point, at this point, Junior runs away from Henry and Danny.

[1:00:14] I can't quite, and he goes to confront his father.

[1:00:16] I can't quite tell.

[1:00:18] Did he intend to lead them into that ambush?

[1:00:21] No.

[1:00:21] I don't think so.

[1:00:22] Was he still working for his dad at this point?

[1:00:24] No, no.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:24] Well, maybe he's worried they think that.

[1:00:27] I was understanding it as Clay has now ambushed all of them because he doesn't trust Junior anymore to get the job done.

[1:00:34] Yeah.

[1:00:34] And here's the thing, because then Clay is really ready to argue with Junior.

[1:00:38] When Junior shows up, Clay isn't like, great job, buddy.

[1:00:41] Thanks, sonny boy.

[1:00:42] You did it.

[1:00:43] You led him into the ambush.

[1:00:44] He's like, what are you doing?

Dan McCoy

[1:00:45] Well, Clay also tells Junior to run, like when they're in the car.

[1:00:49] He calls Junior up and is like, hey, get out of there.

[1:00:53] That's true.

[1:00:54] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:54] And this is the scene when, no, he starts arguing with Clay and they have a fight.

[1:00:59] And Junior, the super assassin, who is so skilled that he had to be a clone of the greatest assassin in the world,

[1:01:06] gets his ass handed to him handily by Clive Owen, a man who is older than Will Smith, I think.

[1:01:12] And this is the scene where I was like, why did they just clone Clive Owen?

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:17] I kind of thought that was what was going to come later on, but it didn't happen.

[1:01:21] Okay.

[1:01:21] So meanwhile, Henry and Danny get some guns.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:24] Oh, and he goes, my name's not Clive Owen, it's Clive 01.

[1:01:26] And then Clive 02 and Clive 03 and Clive 04.

[1:01:30] Oh, shit.

[1:01:30] An army of Clive clones comes out.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:33] It's a real, the sixth day.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:35] And it's Clive 0 and it's Clive 0 and from all his movies.

[1:01:38] Croupier.

[1:01:38] Children of men.

[1:01:40] What was that one he did with like Julia Roberts?

[1:01:43] Shoot him up.

[1:01:45] Yeah.

[1:01:46] Did he do a movie with Julia Roberts?

[1:01:47] Wait, Julia Roberts isn't shoot him up?

[1:01:49] What are you talking about?

[1:01:49] No, not shoot him up.

[1:01:50] That's Monica.

[1:01:50] That wasn't Julia Roberts.

[1:01:51] No, that's not the one he was talking about.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:53] Is that the movie where he plays Buzz Bunny?

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:56] Oh, Closer.

[1:01:57] That's what I was thinking of.

[1:01:58] Yeah, it's him from Closer.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:01] What was that, Jordan?

[1:02:02] You were wondering if shoot him up was the movie, he's a killer who chants on a carrot

[1:02:05] the whole time?

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:07] That's the one where when every time he takes a bite out of a carrot, his eyesight instantly

[1:02:10] gets a little better.

[1:02:12] Oh, I love that movie.

[1:02:12] It's so stupid.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:14] In a smart way.

[1:02:15] What a movie.

[1:02:16] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:16] That's the movie where he shoots the umbilical cord off a baby that he's just delivered.

[1:02:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:21] So Henry and Danny start taking out this kill team quite efficiently.

[1:02:25] I don't know why they've been training so much because they just keep getting smoked.

[1:02:30] Junior fights with Varys.

[1:02:31] Danny gets shot and they end up getting like holing up in like some kind of like a machine

[1:02:37] shop or something.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:38] It's like a hardware and things you would use to stop Assassin's Store.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:43] Yeah, so it's like they prepare to make a last stand.

[1:02:46] They only have one bullet left.

[1:02:47] A couple guys run in and Henry manages to kill both of them with the same bullet because

[1:02:52] he's just that good as we've already addressed.

[1:02:55] It looks like things are curtains for them.

[1:02:56] But of course, Junior shows up.

[1:02:58] He kills the remaining Black Ops guys.

[1:03:00] He rescues them.

[1:03:02] Hooray.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:02] Well, this is after Will Smith has given Mary Elizabeth Winstead and himself axes because

[1:03:07] they don't have guns anymore.

[1:03:08] And I was like, OK, I'm ready for this scene.

[1:03:10] But that didn't happen.

[1:03:12] They don't actually fight with axes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:14] So cut to the rooftop.

[1:03:16] Clay Varys has realized that his plan is in ruins and he has to initiate his fight.

[1:03:21] His plan B when he he brings in a secret bulletproof ninja who who like like runs around the building.

[1:03:31] And where's that?

[1:03:32] Where's that?

[1:03:33] A full face mask helmet.

[1:03:34] Yes.

[1:03:34] He's like a real daft punk.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:37] If like daft punk.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:38] It's like a or like snake eyes who's a ninja.

[1:03:41] No, no.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:41] But if daft punk was a ninja, that's what he would be like.

[1:03:44] OK, cool.

[1:03:44] I guess instead of being partial credit.

[1:03:47] Instead of being too old or French guys.

S4

[1:03:48] I wrote down scuba ninja.

[1:03:50] So that's what that's what it looked like to me.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:52] Yeah.

[1:03:53] Yeah.

[1:03:54] But instead of jumping, taking a splash into the water, he splashes into our hero's blood as he kicks and punches them.

[1:04:00] And they keep shooting him.

[1:04:01] But the bullets just keep bouncing off.

[1:04:03] And this, you know, this one this one bulletproof assassin is beating up all three of our heroes.

[1:04:10] It's crazy.

[1:04:10] Now here's.

[1:04:11] And he seems unstoppable.

[1:04:13] They're like blasting with shotguns.

[1:04:15] They throw explosions at him.

[1:04:16] It's all kinds of stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:17] And this is we learn that he is.

[1:04:19] He cannot feel pain, but he's being shot in the head.

[1:04:22] Like even if it's not hurting him, like it's good.

[1:04:25] Like it's causing brain trauma that he keeps getting up.

[1:04:29] I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:29] It is unclear the degree to which like it's the armor that he's wearing versus like his painlessness.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:38] There is no helmet you can wear.

[1:04:40] That is so strong that if you get shot multiple times in the head, it's not going to like make it harder for you to get up and keep.

[1:04:46] I mean, this is a special clone helmet.

[1:04:49] We're through the looking glass here.

[1:04:52] They cloned a regular helmet and they removed the parts of the helmet that break.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:56] They cloned the best helmet in the world.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:01] Every part of him is the best.

[1:05:03] They found the best pants in the world and they cloned them.

[1:05:06] They found the best boots in the world.

[1:05:08] They cloned those.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:09] It's Serpentor all over again.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:11] You can't see, but he's wearing underneath the shirt.

[1:05:12] He's wearing the best puka shell necklace on a little piece of rope in the world.

[1:05:16] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:16] After much battling and blasting, the bulletproof assassin collapses.

[1:05:23] They have defeated him.

[1:05:24] They go up and remove his helmet.

[1:05:26] And it's another young Will Smith under there.

[1:05:30] And I got to say, I mean, even though it wasn't that big of a surprise, it was kind of rough.

[1:05:36] Like, I found this to be kind of affecting to see, to have this feeling of like endless, like young black faces on like dead soldiers.

[1:05:47] Like, it was pretty rough right then.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:48] It was rough.

[1:05:49] But it was also one of those things I like.

[1:05:51] I found, I also felt that way at first.

[1:05:53] And then I was like, why did they send him in the first place?

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:56] Yeah.

[1:05:56] Why are they wasting time with Junior?

[1:05:58] Yeah.

[1:05:58] He's better.

[1:05:59] And like, he can't even, at this point, he can't even like this.

[1:06:01] Like, it's not addressed whether or not he can't, the super assassin is dying and can't talk.

[1:06:08] Or if like, the ability to talk had been cloned out of him.

[1:06:12] Yeah.

[1:06:12] Like, it's this horrible moment.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:14] It's a, and that's when Clay comes out and he's like, oh, we were going to have an army of Henry clones.

[1:06:19] And it was going to be great for everybody.

[1:06:21] Not the clones, but come on, they're clones, right?

[1:06:23] Who cares?

[1:06:23] Right, Junior?

[1:06:24] Oh, I mean, Junior, I didn't realize you were here.

[1:06:26] Oh boy.

[1:06:27] But this is when Junior has a moral choice to make, guys.

[1:06:33] And it's a moral choice that, after Stuart explains it, I'm going to go into why I've started hating this part of the past few movies I've seen it in.

[1:06:41] Stuart, do you know which one I'm talking about?

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:43] Are you, I mean, I don't know.

[1:06:44] So, Junior has his super shotgun placed at his father's face.

[1:06:50] And he's like, I'm going to kill you.

[1:06:51] And Henry steps up and he's like, no, you won't be able to live with the guilt.

[1:06:56] That's a choice you shouldn't have to make, killing your own father.

[1:06:59] You won't be able to come back from that.

[1:07:01] You'll be irrevocably changed.

[1:07:03] So he takes the gun away and then he blasts him himself.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:07] And this is the thing I've seen in a bunch of movies.

[1:07:08] This made me think of Rise of Skywalker the most, where the hero has blown away endless cannon fodder.

[1:07:15] People who oftentimes were just maybe ex, in the world of Gemini Man, they're ex-military who now work for this evil company.

[1:07:23] Where they're, you know, police officers who got kicked off the force or something and now they work for this sort of thing.

[1:07:27] And after killing swaths of those, they get to the one guy who's responsible for all of it and they're like, no, don't kill him.

[1:07:34] It would be wrong to.

[1:07:35] The same how in Rise of Skywalker, how many people has Rey killed in those movies by this point?

[1:07:39] And she gets to the Emperor and he's like, hey, hey, if you kill me, everything will go even worse.

[1:07:44] And she's like, I can't do it.

[1:07:45] I can't give in to hate and kill the Emperor, even though she's killed hundreds of people in cold blood.

[1:07:50] And the Emperor is murdering thousands of people at the same time.

[1:07:54] Like this idea that once you get to the person in power, it becomes a moral choice of whether to kill them or not.

[1:08:00] And it's the high road to not kill them.

[1:08:02] That it's better to kill an army of nobodies than to kill the one somebody who's responsible for it.

[1:08:07] It's not a thing that I block.

[1:08:09] Hold up, Elliot, though.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:10] Like this is not an exact analog because the reason specifically here is that he's shooting his surrogate father.

[1:08:18] Now, the part I find weird is the way where Henry's like, hey, if you kill your dad, you're not coming back.

[1:08:25] And then he like shoots the kid's dad right in front of him.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:28] Right in front of him.

[1:08:29] I mean, if I was Henry, I'd be like, this will give you the closure that you need to get out of this relationship with this dude.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:35] Yeah, this is the Angela Bassett blowing up the car.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:40] Yeah, exactly.

[1:08:41] Yeah.

[1:08:42] Freud tells us that we want to kill our fathers.

[1:08:45] And finally, he has the chance to do it.

[1:08:47] I just it's the idea that it's more the idea that like, hey, you're never going to be able to live with yourself if you kill this guy.

[1:08:55] But I killed a lot of people.

[1:08:56] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:08:56] But this guy is a movie star.

[1:08:58] So let me do it instead.

[1:09:00] Or maybe there was something in Will Smith's contract where he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but the real me gets to kill the bad guy, not the clone me.

[1:09:05] And Ang Lee was like, but Will, you play both characters.

[1:09:08] Yeah, yeah, but the real me gets to kill him, right?

[1:09:09] Not the clone.

[1:09:10] But Will, you're both of them.

[1:09:12] They're both Will.

[1:09:13] The same way there's an old story about, I think, Joey Bishop.

[1:09:17] That there's used on the Joey Bishop show.

[1:09:18] There was a character who was like his cousin that he also played.

[1:09:21] And he would get mad because the cousin had more funny lines than he did.

[1:09:24] And to be like, Joey, you're playing both characters.

[1:09:27] Like, why do you matter if the jokes come from Joey Bishop or Joey Bishop's cousin?

[1:09:31] That's what it feels like.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:31] I do think that the moral issue that comes into play here, actually, for me, Elliot, is sort of a different one, which is like in these movies, they should get to the bad guy and not kill him.

[1:09:45] Because they're like, they've killed everyone else in self-defense.

[1:09:49] Now they have this man dead to rights.

[1:09:52] Like, apparently he's operating way off the reservation at this point based on the way the movie wraps up.

[1:10:01] You know, so if the movie is like, oh, I'm so tired of killing, take the fucking guy in and have him arrested.

[1:10:10] Like, it's so weird.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:11] I think maybe seven years ago I might have felt the same way.

[1:10:15] But now I'm like, no, the world would be better without Clive Owen in it.

[1:10:18] And I mean that about the actor Clive Owen, too, guys.

[1:10:21] Whoa.

[1:10:22] No, I'm just kidding.

[1:10:22] I love Clive Owen, the actor.

[1:10:23] He's great.

[1:10:24] I love it.

[1:10:25] But at this point, do you really believe that that guy is going to get taken in and go to jail?

[1:10:29] Look at Eric Prince.

[1:10:30] He's still out there and he's the same character.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:33] I, okay.

[1:10:34] I just think that the whole point of the movie, like, the moral, like, point of it, if there is one, has been, like, I'm tired of killing.

[1:10:45] So, I don't know.

[1:10:47] It just seems weird that, like, they've got him captured.

[1:10:51] I guess I'm angry more that every action movie has to end with killing being the solution to all of the problems in the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:02] Yeah, then I think maybe Gemini Man is not the movie for you.

[1:11:05] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:05] So, Clive Owen's character is dead.

[1:11:09] We now cut to a college campus.

[1:11:11] There's probably some other bullshit, but we cut to a college campus.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:14] Henry meets up with his old boss and his old boss is like, all the bad guys are gone.

[1:11:18] It's nothing but good guys now.

[1:11:20] And Henry's like, hey, even though you let everybody try to kill me, we're cool.

[1:11:24] And that's the end of that scene.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:26] So, Henry, Danny, and Junior are walking around a college campus.

[1:11:32] Junior is the new cool freshman.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:34] He's got a great group of friends that he's...

[1:11:38] And they walk around and tell some jokes.

[1:11:40] Yeah, just walking out wearing a sweater under a denim jacket.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:42] I just kept being like, he must be so hot.

[1:11:44] A sweater under a denim jacket and it's sunny out.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:47] Yeah.

[1:11:48] Well, you know.

[1:11:50] So, I mean, sometimes you make sacrifice for fashion, I would.

[1:11:53] So, you know, they walk around and they, like,

[1:11:56] tell jokes and shit and then the movie ends.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:58] They make a point of saying, oh, that was the only other clone,

[1:12:01] which I thought was weird.

[1:12:03] They're like, everything's wrapped up tight.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:06] The, this, I mean, I'm assuming this scene was added late in production.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:11] Maybe the end, question mark, starts rolling on screen

[1:12:13] and Will Smith pushes it off and goes, nope, that's the end.

[1:12:16] No unanswered questions.

[1:12:17] No sequels, please.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:19] I mean, honestly, like, there were parts of this last scene

[1:12:21] that I thought were affecting in the sense of, like,

[1:12:24] okay, well, now they have this surrogate family,

[1:12:26] like, a thing that none of them seemingly had had before.

[1:12:30] But it goes on at least three times longer than you think it's going to.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:36] It's a very long scene.

[1:12:37] And at the end, it's fading out as Will Smith is explaining to Junior

[1:12:40] how he's still tougher than him, even though he's older.

[1:12:43] And it's just Will Smith talking.

[1:12:44] You don't hear any of the characters as it, like, pulls back.

[1:12:47] And at a certain point, I was like, is he talking to himself?

[1:12:49] Like, is he just a, was this all in his head?

[1:12:51] And he's a crazy person wandering around this college campus,

[1:12:54] like, talking to his imaginary clone?

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:56] Feels like they're making all this effort to identify that, like,

[1:12:59] yeah, we get it, you're clones.

[1:13:00] Well, you don't have to tell me again.

[1:13:01] It's the end of the fucking movie.

S4

[1:13:03] I definitely think they added this scene in later.

[1:13:06] It looks terrible.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:09] It feels really rushed.

[1:13:11] And everything, and it, it feels like it comes out of a different movie.

[1:13:14] I mean, this is one where I was like,

[1:13:15] there's something refreshing about the fact that

[1:13:17] Junior is just going to try to live a normal life now.

[1:13:20] Although, he's going to college, and they're like,

[1:13:23] here's your new identity, new passport, new social security card.

[1:13:26] And I'm like, how did he get into college without any of that stuff?

[1:13:28] Like, did he, did he enroll at college as Junior R clone?

[1:13:32] Like, I don't understand.

S4

[1:13:34] Yeah, because this scene is supposed to take place six months

[1:13:36] after everything else happened.

[1:13:38] So what have they been doing the past six months?

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:41] Yeah, I mean, probably teaching about all the pop culture

[1:13:43] that he never got to see, because Clive Owen wouldn't let him.

[1:13:46] So, like, they watched all the, all the Marvel movies.

S4

[1:13:49] He's like, this is a movie called Bad Boys 2.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:52] Oh, wow.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:55] Now, there's some stuff in it that's not great.

[1:13:57] They do drive through a shantytown, but if you can ignore that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:02] We're going to watch all the best movies ever made.

[1:14:05] Pursuit of Happiness, Concussion, Focus.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:10] Guys, let's wrap this up.

[1:14:11] Let's do Final Judgments.

[1:14:13] Is this a good, bad movie?

[1:14:15] A bad, bad movie?

[1:14:16] A movie you kind of like?

[1:14:19] I'm going to be honest.

[1:14:22] I think I know where Jordan is.

[1:14:24] She seems to have a great distaste for this movie.

[1:14:27] I got to say, I kind of liked it.

[1:14:29] You know, like, the first hour, I thought was pretty solid.

[1:14:34] That action sequence was great.

[1:14:36] The middle part, I was pretty bored by when they were started, like,

[1:14:40] getting into the moral implications of everything.

[1:14:43] And I'm like, this movie's not well-written enough to make me care about all these characters.

[1:14:50] But then the end was exciting.

[1:14:51] Like, as long as this movie's an action movie, I think it's fun.

[1:14:55] I think Mary Elizabeth Winstead, in particular, is good.

[1:14:58] And Benedict Wong is good.

[1:15:00] And I think that this movie probably would have played better when the script was written

[1:15:03] before, like, we'd already seen The Bourne Identity and Looper.

[1:15:09] Yeah.

[1:15:10] But that's what I have to say.

[1:15:11] What do you guys say?

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:12] I would, I also was coming down on, kind of like, for basically the same reasons.

[1:15:17] Like, there's a couple really good action sequences in it.

[1:15:20] I think it is, it's a pretty dumb plot for a movie.

[1:15:24] And it, like, almost touches on interesting things, but doesn't quite go all the way there.

[1:15:30] But it might just be that my standards are at the usual level for the movies we watch.

[1:15:36] That as soon as I started watching it, and I was like, oh, this isn't as bad as I thought

[1:15:40] it was going to be.

[1:15:40] Oh, yeah.

[1:15:41] Oh, this action sequence is really good.

[1:15:42] I was like, okay, this is a solid, like, I don't know, we'd say like two and a half star

[1:15:47] movie, something like that.

[1:15:48] Which would be, which to me is like, it's a Saturday, I'm sick, this comes on TNT, okay,

[1:15:53] I'm gonna watch it.

[1:15:55] Yeah.

S4

[1:15:56] I think it's a movie I kind of like, actually.

[1:15:59] I, um, it's...

[1:16:00] This whole time, Jordan, I thought you were gonna get really mad at us for saying that

[1:16:03] I kind of like it.

[1:16:03] It was too, but then I remembered the end of the movie and how silly, and how much it

[1:16:07] made me laugh when I saw the final Fresh Prince.

[1:16:09] Ha ha ha!

[1:16:12] Ha ha ha!

[1:16:13] I, I, it doesn't, it takes itself too seriously, uh, in certain parts.

[1:16:18] But I, the action sequences are pretty solid.

[1:16:21] Uh, I think that, uh, this movie could have starred, you know, any number of people.

[1:16:25] I think that they wanted, uh, Mel Gibson at one point.

[1:16:28] I could see like a Bruce Willis or something like that.

[1:16:31] Like, I, I'm, I'm fine with it.

[1:16:33] I kind of like it.

[1:16:34] Yeah.

[1:16:34] I like it.

[1:16:35] Whatever.

[1:16:36] Ha ha ha!

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:37] Yeah, I mean, I think I'm with, I'm with all you guys.

[1:16:39] It's, uh, I think the, when the action scenes are moving, it's pretty fun.

[1:16:44] I, I actually, I had a, I thought Will Smith was pretty fun in this movie.

[1:16:50] Uh, I thought Mary Elizabeth Winstead was fun in it.

[1:16:53] I thought Clive Owen was like a good creepy skeleton.

[1:16:56] Um, and, uh, yeah, I don't know.

[1:16:58] Like, uh, and it, I don't know.

[1:17:00] Maybe I was like, it was both, uh, escapist, but also it made, it made me think about, uh,

[1:17:06] the world a little bit and made me sad.

[1:17:08] So cool.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:09] Uh, I wonder if we, so we, I watched this on my computer, so I didn't see it in the like

[1:17:14] 120 frames per second that it was supposed to be projected in.

[1:17:17] And I, and that I, did you guys see it that way or, uh, tell or no?

Dan McCoy

[1:17:22] I don't, I mean, is that something that you, is that something that's possible on like

[1:17:26] normal televisions?

[1:17:27] Like I, I don't know.

[1:17:29] It looks like a normal movie to me.

[1:17:31] And honestly, Elliot, I was meant to say something about this, but I forgot.

[1:17:34] I wonder whether like, uh, you know, it's not a great movie, but the outsized critical

[1:17:41] rejection of this movie, I wonder if it was because it was done in that high frame rate

[1:17:45] that everyone seems to hate.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:47] Oh yeah.

[1:17:48] Could be.

[1:17:48] Well, actually I, I, when I, I watched it last night, but I watched it in Peter Jackson's

[1:17:52] screening room in New Zealand.

[1:17:54] It's Wellington, New Zealand.

[1:17:56] So I'm allowed in.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:56] Oh sure.

[1:17:57] Of course.

[1:17:57] And now, so that's the screen room where everything is 120 frames per second.

[1:18:01] And also they just insert CGI hobbits into every movie.

[1:18:04] Uh huh.

[1:18:05] Yep.

[1:18:06] So you thought this whole time that he had a sidekick who was a hobbit.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:08] It's, well, it's weird because every movie comes, uh, every, every movie you watch there

[1:18:13] is actually twice as long as the original.

[1:18:15] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:15] It's split into three, even though there's no real reason to.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:19] So you watched the Gemini Man trilogy and you're like, uh, it's weird that Junior and

[1:18:23] Will Smith are doing this song about washing the dishes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:27] Makes sense though.

[1:18:28] It was in the book.

[1:18:29] Gemini Man the book.

[1:18:30] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:31] By Gem R.R.

[1:18:33] Mankin.

[1:18:34] All right.

[1:18:34] And we made.

[1:18:35] I should have, I should have said, I should have said Gem N.I.

[1:18:38] Mankin.

[1:18:39] Yeah.

[1:18:39] Next time.

[1:18:40] I think if, if you, if, if nothing else, I think our listeners owed themselves to watch

[1:18:43] that Cartagena action sequence.

[1:18:46] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:46] I mean.

[1:18:47] Yeah.

[1:18:48] Wait till it's free somewhere, but yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:50] Yeah.

[1:18:50] I mean, yeah.

[1:18:51] I mean, or, or I don't know, do or don't, I don't know.

[1:18:54] It's a, but it, this reminded me a little bit of our Doolittle experience where I went

[1:18:57] into it being like, this is going to be nuts.

[1:18:59] And then I was like, all right, this is, you know, it's just a movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:02] Yeah.

[1:19:02] And we made it through without, uh, Elliot ever singing Send in the Clones.

[1:19:07] So it's a win for all of us.

[1:19:09] Uh, now.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:11] Now, now I, now I, the idea comes in.

[1:19:14] Why couldn't you have done that earlier?

S5

[1:19:20] Hi, I'm James, host of Minority Corner, which is a podcast that's all about intersectionality.

[1:19:25] It's hosted by James with a guest host every week.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:27] Discussing all sorts of wonderful issues, nerdy and political.

S5

[1:19:31] Pop culture.

[1:19:32] Black queer.

[1:19:34] Feminism.

[1:19:34] Race.

[1:19:35] Sexuality.

[1:19:36] News.

[1:19:37] You're going to learn your history, their self-empowerment, and it's told by what feels

[1:19:40] like your best friend.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:42] Why should someone listen to Minority Corner?

S5

[1:19:44] Why not?

[1:19:44] Oh my God.

[1:19:45] Free stuff.

[1:19:46] There's not free stuff.

S4

[1:19:46] The listeners of Minority Corner will enjoy some necessary LOLs, but mainly a look at

S5

[1:19:51] what's happening in our world through a colorful lens.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:54] People will get the perspective of marginalized communities.

S5

[1:19:57] I feel heard.

[1:19:58] I feel seen.

S4

[1:19:59] Like you said, you need to understand how to be more proactive in your community, and

[1:20:02] this is a great way to get started.

S5

[1:20:03] Join us every Friday on MaxFun or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1:20:07] Minority Corner.

[1:20:08] Because together, we're the majority.

[1:20:12] Hi, this is Rachel McElroy.

[1:20:14] Hello, this is Griffin McElroy.

[1:20:15] And this is Wonderful.

[1:20:16] It's a podcast that we do as we are married.

[1:20:20] And how's the ad going so far?

[1:20:22] Because I think it's going very good.

[1:20:23] We talk about things we like every week on Wednesdays.

[1:20:26] One time, Rachel talked about pumpernickel bread.

[1:20:27] It was so tight.

[1:20:28] You cannot afford to miss her talking about this sweet brown bread.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:31] We also talk about music and poems and, you know, weather.

[1:20:36] There is one...

[1:20:36] Weather?

[1:20:37] Weather?

S5

[1:20:37] One time, Rachel talked about Baby Beluga, the song, for like 14 minutes, and it just

[1:20:41] really blew my hair back.

[1:20:44] So check us out on MaximumFun.org.

[1:20:46] It's a cool podcast with chill vibes.

[1:20:48] Amber is the color of our energy, is what all the iTunes reviews say.

[1:20:52] They will now.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:58] Hey, guys.

[1:20:59] Here's a quick word from Squarespace, one of our beloved sponsors.

[1:21:04] With Squarespace, you can create a beautiful website to blog or publish content, sell products

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[1:21:35] use the offer code FLOP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:43] Hey, Dan, I had an idea for a website, and I was wondering if Squarespace could help me

[1:21:47] with that.

[1:21:48] What do you think?

Dan McCoy

[1:21:48] Go on.

[1:21:49] Uh, sure.

[1:21:50] Let's hear it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:51] Okay, here's the problem.

[1:21:52] You live in the United States.

[1:21:54] Your clone is in a laboratory in Hungary.

[1:21:57] How are you going to send it to you?

[1:21:58] Well, sendintheclones.com sends clones to you from anywhere to anywhere.

[1:22:04] That's right.

[1:22:05] Send in the clones is the top clone delivery service, getting your clone from whatever back

[1:22:11] to tank it was bred in to your home.

[1:22:14] And you'll remember the name, sendintheclones.com, because of the jingle.

[1:22:18] Send in the clones.

[1:22:19] Send in those clones.

[1:22:21] Sendmemyclones.com.

[1:22:23] But the URL is not sendmemyclones.com.

[1:22:25] It's actually sendintheclones.com.

[1:22:28] Please disregard the first part of the jingle.

[1:22:30] It's sendintheclones.com.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:32] Now, are you wedded to that jingle, Elliot?

[1:22:35] Or I think I, there's some edits I could suggest to you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:39] I mean, I paid Alan Menken to write it, so I feel like I can't really afford to get a new

[1:22:42] one right now.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:44] Okay.

[1:22:44] Well, our second sponsor for today's show is ExpressVPN.

[1:22:51] Now, you know that ExpressVPN can protect your privacy and security online.

[1:22:58] But did you also know you can use it to unlock movies and shows that are only available in

[1:23:03] other countries?

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[1:23:10] Or say you're a big Will Smith fan after watching this and you want to see Fresh Prince of

[1:23:17] Bel-Air on Netflix Australia.

[1:23:20] Well, you can use ExpressVPN for that.

[1:23:23] Now that so many of us are stuck at home, it's only a matter of time until you run out of stuff

[1:23:27] to watch, so you can use your ExpressVPN to change your location to almost 100 different countries.

[1:23:33] Just think about all the extra libraries you'll be able to access.

[1:23:37] It's fast, so you can say goodbye to buffering or lag and stream in HD with no problem.

[1:23:42] It's compatible with all your devices, phones, media consoles, smart TVs, and more.

[1:23:47] So you can watch what you want on a personal device or on the big screen, wherever you are.

[1:23:52] So visit our special link right now at expressvpn.com slash flop and get an extra three months of

[1:24:01] ExpressVPN for free.

[1:24:03] Support the show, watch what you want, and protect yourself with ExpressVPN at expressvpn.com

[1:24:09] slash flop.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:12] It's crazy that, or amazing, I guess, or crying, whichever Aerosmith title you want to use,

[1:24:17] that our screens have gotten so small that the TV is now the big screen.

[1:24:21] It used to be the little screen, and movies were the big screen.

[1:24:24] Now TV is the big screen, and phones are the little screen.

[1:24:25] Is this another Andy Rooney bit?

Dan McCoy

[1:24:27] Is that what's going on?

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:29] Speaking of people whose names sound kind of like Andy Rooney, Randy Newman just came in

[1:24:33] with another jingle for sendingtheclones.com.

[1:24:37] Randy, you want to hit it?

[1:24:39] Sometimes you got clones, and you gotta send them around.

[1:24:43] Sendintheclones.com, cause you got a friend in me.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:46] Every single one of your impressions is merging.

[1:24:48] Hey guys, I think you got some Jumbotrons you want to read.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:57] Yeah, we do.

[1:24:58] Stu, you want to go first, or should I go first?

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:01] I can go first.

[1:25:02] Wait, you go first.

[1:25:03] I gotta find it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:04] Okay, this message is for Cody Mason, and it's from Gail Kelly.

[1:25:09] And it says,

[1:25:10] We had to postpone our wedding due to COVID.

[1:25:13] You're quarantining with your future in-laws, and you still manage to make me laugh each day.

[1:25:17] I love you, and I can't wait to get married as soon as we get the chance.

[1:25:20] I hope this message makes you smile, and maybe you'll even get a special Elliot song out of it.

[1:25:24] Here's to more years of love and good bad movies.

[1:25:27] That's a very sweet sentiment.

[1:25:29] I don't appreciate being dragooned into singing a song, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

[1:25:35] Wow, the first time he's ever been at a loss for words.

[1:25:37] Oh, wow.

[1:25:38] They didn't give me a lot of hooks.

[1:25:39] Anyway, oh, oh.

[1:25:42] So you're in a house with your in-laws, and you can't get married right now.

[1:25:46] I guess there's only one thing to do, and that's to go to sendintheclones.com.

[1:25:51] That's right, sendintheclones.com.

[1:25:54] So does that work as a jingle, or?

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:56] Uh, yeah.

[1:25:58] Uh, yeah, I mean, for today's purposes, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:01] Okay, how about this?

[1:26:02] I'll do it in the persona of Gail, who sent the message.

[1:26:06] Mm-hmm.

[1:26:06] Hey, Cody, thanks for all the stuff that you're doing right now.

[1:26:11] We'll get married someday, I promise, at sendintheclones.com.

[1:26:17] Oh, did I forget to mention you can get married at the site also?

[1:26:19] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:20] Oh, wow.

[1:26:21] All of the clones are ordained.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:25] Yeah.

[1:26:26] What, what, what, what, what, what, what?

[1:26:28] Jumbotron!

[1:26:29] Jumbotron alert!

[1:26:31] Two expatriates from opposite sides of the world talk about modern and classic Japanese animation together in Tokyo, Japan.

[1:26:41] Join hosts Ian McAfee and Mark Heath for a highly casual and hilarious look at the politics, philosophy, and production of anime.

[1:26:53] Just search for animeignorant, like ignorant and anime smushed together, in iTunes slash wherever and subscribe.

[1:27:04] That's A-N-I-M-E-G-N-O-R-A-N-T.

[1:27:11] Do it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:13] Hey guys, I got another song for Gail and Cody.

[1:27:15] Uh-huh, yep.

[1:27:16] Should I go for it?

[1:27:16] Okay.

[1:27:18] Sometimes things seem sad.

[1:27:21] Sometimes you're gonna get mad.

[1:27:23] Uh-huh.

[1:27:23] Because COVID canceled your wedding.

[1:27:26] And I'm betting COVID took the deposit and put it into its bank account.

[1:27:32] But hey, keep looking for a brighter day.

[1:27:35] Because love is stronger than viruses.

[1:27:37] That's right, love is stronger than viruses.

[1:27:40] The math works out.

[1:27:42] Put a virus and love in a jar and shake it up so they fight.

[1:27:45] And the love's come out the winner.

[1:27:48] This is misinformation.

[1:27:50] Of course, sometimes love can give you a virus.

[1:27:53] But hey, that's okay.

[1:27:54] Because love is stronger than viruses.

[1:27:56] And the greatest medicine is love.

[1:27:59] Love, love.

[1:28:00] From below or above, it's love.

[1:28:02] No.

[1:28:02] Stronger than viruses.

[1:28:04] Send in the clones.com.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:06] Woof, no thanks.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:09] Not medically accurate.

[1:28:11] Okay.

[1:28:12] Elliot, we teased our live show earlier.

[1:28:17] Would you like to give more full information about the live show that is happening?

[1:28:20] If you are listening to this on the day it's released, it is happening tonight.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:25] This episode comes out Saturday, June 6th, correct?

[1:28:27] Well, today is Saturday, June 6th if you're listening on the day of release.

[1:28:30] And tonight, Saturday, June 6th at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern.

[1:28:35] 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[1:28:37] The Flophouse will be coming to you live over the internet.

[1:28:40] It's just like if you went to go see The Flophouse because they went to your city, but now nobody has to go anywhere.

[1:28:46] We'll be broadcasting from our houses direct to your house.

[1:28:49] What are we going to be talking about?

[1:28:50] Well, a little movie called Howard T. Duck.

[1:28:53] Actually, the movie's called Howard The Duck.

[1:28:55] I shortened it a little bit, but it didn't save a lot of time because then I had to explain it.

[1:28:59] George Lucas's classic story based on the Steve Gerber, Gene Colen comics about a duck from another dimension where ducks have boobs who gets dropped into Leah Thompson's lap and has to fight alongside Tim Robbins against Jeffrey Jones.

[1:29:11] It's Howard the Duck.

[1:29:12] I haven't seen it since I was a kid, and yet clearly I remember more of it than I should.

[1:29:15] I'm excited to watch it again.

[1:29:17] How do I watch this, and why are we doing it?

[1:29:18] Well, we're doing it to interview you, the listeners and viewers.

[1:29:21] But also, we're doing it for charity.

[1:29:23] We're going to have a list of charities that you can donate to during the show.

[1:29:27] It's going to be on our website.

[1:29:28] I'll give you the information for that in a second.

[1:29:29] And if you donate, you'll be entered into raffles.

[1:29:32] That's right, raffles.

[1:29:33] We'll explain that in a minute, or rather Dan will.

[1:29:35] For more information, go to theflophousepodcast.com.

[1:29:38] That'll tell you how to go see it, or I'll tell you right now.

[1:29:40] Go to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash c slash theflophousepodcast.

[1:29:45] Go to theflophousepodcast.com.

[1:29:47] It's all there.

[1:29:47] Go to the Flophouse Facebook page.

[1:29:49] All the information is there as well.

[1:29:50] Dan, tell us about some of these raffles, huh?

[1:29:52] Is that raffles, the famous literary, like, the race?

[1:29:56] The gentleman cat burglar?

Dan McCoy

[1:29:57] Well, yet again, you took the joke right out of my mouth.

[1:30:00] So I won't talk about that.

[1:30:02] But I will say, I want to backtrack a little bit.

[1:30:05] I will say that, yes, this is for charity in the sense that we'll be asking for donations.

[1:30:10] But it is entirely free to watch.

[1:30:13] We're just trying to, you know, use the power of a free-to-watch livestream to get some money out there,

[1:30:20] to get some worthy causes.

[1:30:22] And, yes, if you donate to any of the charities that are suggested on the website,

[1:30:28] or, you know, any charity, basically, send us your receipt.

[1:30:33] If it's over $20, this is just mostly, actually, to keep the work down on my end,

[1:30:39] so I'm not deluged by receipts.

[1:30:41] But also to encourage generosity.

[1:30:43] $20 or more.

[1:30:44] Hey, that's when you pay for a ticket anyway.

[1:30:46] You get entered into the raffle.

[1:30:48] And you will get, if you win, we're going to pick out three people to get prize packs of some Flophouse merch.

[1:30:56] That was to be our touring merch.

[1:30:58] We don't know when we're going to tour because of the pandemic.

[1:31:00] But you can have it early if you win.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:03] And this is new merch.

[1:31:04] This is merch that has not been sold on Flophouse Tours before.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:06] All new, beautiful merch.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:09] Never been sold to anyone before.

[1:31:11] So that's today.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:12] Currently collecting dust in my basement.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:14] Oh, yeah.

[1:31:15] It's going to be real good and dusty.

[1:31:18] So that's Saturday, June 6th at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern.

[1:31:23] You want to hear us talk about Howard the Duck?

[1:31:24] Yes, you do.

[1:31:25] Are we going to have presentations beforehand, like at a live show?

[1:31:28] You betcha we're going to with slides and everything.

[1:31:31] That's going to be at youtube.com slash c slash the Flophouse Podcast.

[1:31:35] Or if you don't want to remember all that, for more information, just go to theflophousepodcast.com

[1:31:39] or our Facebook page to find out the information.

[1:31:42] And we'll be explaining more about the charity stuff during the show itself.

[1:31:46] Just remember, if you go to the YouTube page and you don't see it, refresh the page and

[1:31:50] the video should come up.

[1:31:51] That's a little tip from a pro.

[1:31:53] A professional YouTube watcher.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:55] I do want to say, you called it George Lucas' Howard the Duck.

[1:31:59] I want to make it clear that Lucas produced Howard the Duck.

[1:32:02] It was, of course, directed by Willard Hiuk, who wrote American Graffiti and More American

[1:32:07] Graffiti, Temple of Doom, Radio Land Murders.

[1:32:12] He also wrote and directed Best Defense, the movie where Eddie Murphy was added after bad

[1:32:21] test screenings to a Dudley Moore comedy about a defense contractor.

[1:32:28] And Howard the Duck looks to have ended his directing career.

[1:32:31] That is his last directing credit.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:34] No, but you're right, Dan.

[1:32:35] George Lucas notoriously hands off when he produces things.

[1:32:39] I'm sure he just slapped his name on it and let the director do it.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:41] Look, I just want Willard Hiuk to get the credit he deserves for his work.

[1:32:47] Yeah, he ended on a high note.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:50] So that's our show then.

[1:32:51] What do we do next on this, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[1:32:53] Next, we answer letters from listeners or just read them.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:57] Hey, send us a letter.

[1:33:00] Maybe with a clone in it.

[1:33:01] Send in the clones.com.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:03] Great.

[1:33:04] This first letter is...

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:05] I can see Jordan marking time codes in her head.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:08] Cutting all of those.

[1:33:11] Yeah, should I just be...

[1:33:12] Should I be clapping?

[1:33:13] Should I be clapping, Jordan?

Dan McCoy

[1:33:15] She's wielding her power with an iron fist.

[1:33:19] So Gus, last name withheld, writes...

[1:33:23] Gus Van Sant.

[1:33:24] Hey, Peaches.

[1:33:25] Oh, wow.

[1:33:25] Long time listener, first time writer.

[1:33:27] I'm in my early 20s and I'm frequently lost when it comes to the references used on your show.

[1:33:34] Years of listening and re-listening to the podcast have made it...

[1:33:37] Wait, hold on.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:38] This early 20s guy isn't hip to raffles?

[1:33:40] The gentleman cat burglar?

Dan McCoy

[1:33:42] Well, I don't think that's of our time either, Elliot.

[1:33:45] Yeah, true, true.

[1:33:47] If you're an aficionado of Victoriana, maybe you'll...

[1:33:53] Anyway, I'm in my early 20s and I'm frequently lost when it comes to the references used on the show.

[1:33:59] Years of listening and re-listening to the podcast have made it feel like I have watched some of the frequently referenced films just through osmosis.

[1:34:06] But I've actually sought out some movies because of how often they come up on the show.

[1:34:10] I'm wondering what you all would include in a Flophouse Essentials list.

[1:34:14] A list of movies, television, or other media that are frequently referenced or just a good starting point for understanding your humor.

[1:34:22] Some examples that come to mind are Robocop, Night Court, and The Road Warrior.

[1:34:26] Keep flopping in the free world, Gus.

[1:34:29] Well, you know, DuckTales comes to mind, of course.

[1:34:34] The classic DuckTales, the cartoon, part of the new wave of Disney television cartoons.

[1:34:43] The Disney Afternoon.

[1:34:44] Yeah, based on the works of Karl Barks, who I recommend you seek out.

[1:34:49] What else?

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:50] I don't know.

[1:34:51] Are there any movies that are essential to understanding the things I like?

[1:34:58] I don't talk about any movie individually that often.

[1:35:02] Yeah, I don't know.

[1:35:03] This is a tough one.

[1:35:05] No, it's Castle Freak.

[1:35:07] I would recommend watching Castle Freak.

[1:35:09] Watch the special edition that has all the scenes.

[1:35:11] Not this one that most people have watched.

[1:35:14] Castle Freak, directed by Stuart Gordon.

[1:35:16] R.I.P.

[1:35:17] A king.

[1:35:17] Columbo, maybe?

[1:35:19] What do you got, Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:21] I think if you can go watch old episodes of 60 Minutes to see Andy Rooney in them.

[1:35:25] And I guess watch Tango and Cash for Sylvester Stallone.

[1:35:30] And I guess watch...

[1:35:31] I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:34] Tango and Cash is a good one.

[1:35:36] That basically sums up everything we like about movies.

[1:35:39] Everything.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:40] Yeah, exactly.

[1:35:41] I think so.

[1:35:41] God.

[1:35:42] I don't know.

[1:35:43] I think it's...

[1:35:43] Here's what I would say.

[1:35:44] Much as when I was a lad and I was watching Mystery Science Theater

[1:35:47] and I didn't understand some of their references.

[1:35:49] I just looked up...

[1:35:50] I did some research.

[1:35:51] And back then I had to use books, not the internet,

[1:35:54] to find out what that thing was.

[1:35:55] And I watched it.

[1:35:56] So just kind of like, don't look for a quick solution.

[1:35:59] Pick up...

[1:35:59] When a reference is particularly intriguing to you,

[1:36:01] be like, I need to find out what that means.

[1:36:03] Or don't.

[1:36:04] It might just be a...

[1:36:05] I mean, sometimes it's an ad jingle from when we were kids.

[1:36:08] And it won't be worth looking up.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:09] Save some time and don't.

[1:36:10] You know, this exercise has made me feel almost older than anything else.

[1:36:15] But...

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:16] Well, Dan, that says more about your physical being

[1:36:19] than any kind of exercise like this made you feel so old.

[1:36:21] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:21] Now, Jordan, I'm led to believe that you have listened to the show before.

[1:36:25] Is there any reference you find that we make a lot that is baffling?

S4

[1:36:31] I'm not baffled by any of the references.

[1:36:34] I've been listening to the show for much longer than I've been on as an associate producer.

[1:36:39] So I think, yeah, your advice to, you know, Google is your friend.

[1:36:42] If it sounds like something cool, I would definitely look it up.

[1:36:47] Maybe dig into Randy Newman's back catalog.

[1:36:50] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:51] Is there...

[1:36:51] Was there ever a time...

[1:36:52] Was there ever a time you remember listening to the show and you were like,

[1:36:55] what are they talking about?

S4

[1:36:56] You used to talk about theater a lot more.

[1:36:58] Of course, now, you know, no one can really go out and see a show on Broadway.

[1:37:02] But I definitely remember in the before times, Elliot talking about

[1:37:06] different stage plays that I had never heard of before.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:10] That's also a consequence of my having children and never getting to go to the theater anymore.

[1:37:15] I used to see so many shows, so many amazing shows.

[1:37:18] And yet, what was the last play I saw?

[1:37:20] I don't even remember.

[1:37:23] Maybe I never saw a play.

[1:37:24] Maybe I dreamed it all.

[1:37:25] A beautiful theater dream.

[1:37:27] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:28] Okay.

[1:37:29] Uh, so...

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:30] Oh, no, wait.

[1:37:31] It was Matilda.

[1:37:32] What?

[1:37:33] Oh, okay.

[1:37:33] I saw that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:34] Yeah, the musical.

[1:37:35] All right.

[1:37:36] Uh...

[1:37:37] Uh, and it's...

[1:37:37] And you're talking about the stage play, not the book, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:41] No, no.

[1:37:41] I saw the book sitting on a stage.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:44] That doesn't answer...

[1:37:45] That's not a stage play, then.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:46] Oh, oh, I'm sorry.

[1:37:47] The last one I saw was probably then Twelfth Night.

[1:37:50] The book.

[1:37:50] Sitting on a stage.

[1:37:51] Yeah.

[1:37:52] Maybe it was Hamilton by Ron Chernow.

[1:37:54] It was sitting on a stage.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:56] Oh, man.

[1:37:56] These just keep being books.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:57] Oh, gosh.

[1:38:00] I gotta look back to find one.

[1:38:02] There was one that was actual person.

[1:38:03] People.

[1:38:04] Oh, it was probably The Addams Family.

[1:38:06] Book of Charles Addams cartoons.

[1:38:10] Okay.

[1:38:11] No, you know what?

[1:38:12] I think...

[1:38:12] You know what?

[1:38:12] I think it was wicked.

[1:38:14] The book.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:15] Sure.

[1:38:16] These were all books.

[1:38:17] Fun Home?

[1:38:18] Yeah.

[1:38:18] That's another book.

[1:38:19] Okay.

[1:38:20] Yep.

[1:38:20] It is.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:24] Hey, this is a fun game for listeners.

[1:38:26] If you can think of a play that isn't a book, I don't know, go tell it to the Marines.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:31] You know, I think, you know, the last one I saw was probably...

[1:38:33] Like the Monster Squad.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:34] Write in a note to the Marines.

[1:38:37] They'll come to your town.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:38] I think it was probably Tootsie.

[1:38:41] The screenplay.

[1:38:42] Okay.

[1:38:42] The screenplay of Tootsie was sitting on the stage.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:44] It's a real stretch now.

[1:38:45] Okay.

[1:38:46] This next...

[1:38:47] This next...

[1:38:47] You know what?

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:48] Oh, it was Blue Man Group.

[1:38:50] Oh, wow.

[1:38:51] Where's this going?

[1:38:52] The book?

Dan McCoy

[1:38:55] Okay.

[1:38:56] This next letter is from Adam Lastname Withheld, who writes...

[1:39:01] Adam Treiber.

[1:39:02] Dear Flophouse, I started a podcast about the TV show Home Improvement called Home in Podcast,

[1:39:07] but now everyone keeps asking me to hang their shelves slash refinish their hardwood floor

[1:39:11] and assuming I'm a conservative.

[1:39:13] What should I do?

[1:39:15] Question mark exclamation point.

S4

[1:39:16] I can't do the voice.

[1:39:17] I tried to do the ground.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:20] No, I'll try again.

[1:39:21] Do it.

[1:39:21] Do the caveman grunt or whatever it is.

[1:39:27] It's pretty good.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:29] Not bad.

[1:39:29] I got one.

[1:39:31] More power.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:34] Right?

[1:39:35] Okay.

[1:39:35] Well, what about this?

[1:39:36] What about this?

[1:39:36] I'm the baby.

[1:39:37] Gotta love me.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:38] Oh, yeah.

[1:39:39] You did that.

[1:39:42] Hey, do you guys remember when the youngest son got super into nu metal?

[1:39:46] That was really awesome.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:46] Yeah, near the end of the run, he turned really goth.

[1:39:48] So the problem that the writer is having is that their Home Improvement podcast, people

[1:39:54] think that he is an actual Home Improvement guy, or they think he's Tim Allen, because who

[1:39:59] else would want to do a podcast about Home Improvement?

[1:40:01] Oh, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:01] I mean...

[1:40:02] It's like that Sopranos podcast.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:04] Yeah, I...

[1:40:05] Like, this is obviously a podcast driven in large part by nostalgia, and the problem he

[1:40:12] seems to be running into is that Tim Allen has turned out to be not a great human.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:20] Yeah.

[1:40:21] Wait, the Tim Allen who went to jail for cocaine sales?

[1:40:24] Before he was a television star?

S4

[1:40:25] I know that Tim Allen ratted out all of his friends.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:31] Oh, okay.

[1:40:32] Well...

[1:40:33] Yeah, that's the one that Dan liked, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:35] What, Home Improvement?

[1:40:36] That Tim Allen?

[1:40:37] Yeah, I think so.

[1:40:38] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:38] Yeah, no, the only one I like is the disembodied voice that does Buzz Lightyear.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:43] Yeah.

[1:40:44] When Galaxy Quest came out, Dan was like, ugh, just do some commercials about how great

[1:40:48] Michigan is.

[1:40:49] That's what I want to hear from you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:51] Yeah.

[1:40:52] When Galaxy Quest came out, Dan's like, what's up with all these lame actors that aren't Tim

[1:40:57] Allen that are in this movie?

[1:40:59] Some sort of Rick man?

[1:41:01] What is this all about?

Dan McCoy

[1:41:02] Clone them in some sort of Gemini man situation.

[1:41:07] They could all be played by Tim Allen.

[1:41:08] In the future, all restaurants are Tim Allen.

[1:41:11] Anyway.

[1:41:12] That's a reference.

[1:41:13] Look that one up.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:14] That's a Demolition Man reference that you've rolled into a Gemini Man reference, like a

[1:41:18] turducken of references.

[1:41:21] It's a reference to Tim Allen being in Galaxy Quest in the future of Demolition Man.

[1:41:27] But he's also a restaurant, anyway.

[1:41:29] With some Gemini Man sprinkled on it.

[1:41:31] Interesting.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:33] Last letter is from Jen, last name withheld.

[1:41:35] It's very short.

[1:41:36] This is regarding Canadians having sex.

[1:41:39] I believe we asked whether they did it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:43] When was that?

[1:41:44] What possible context would we have asked that?

[1:41:46] I have no idea.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:47] Jen, last name withheld.

[1:41:49] Care of a Mountie, maybe?

[1:41:51] And Jen says, absolutely not.

[1:41:53] So there you have it.

[1:41:54] Canadians do not have sex.

Stuart Wellington

[1:41:57] Okay.

[1:41:57] Wow.

[1:41:58] Somebody update that Wikipedia article.

S4

[1:42:01] Drake is a Canadian, and I'm pretty sure Drake fucks.

Stuart Wellington

[1:42:06] Okay.

[1:42:06] Well, I don't know.

[1:42:07] This person knows everybody in Canada.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:10] I don't know.

[1:42:10] Drake seems pretty busy cheering at women's basketball games.

[1:42:13] I don't think he has time for that sort of thing.

Dan McCoy

[1:42:15] I mean, Rick Moranis has kids, so I guess, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:19] Jordan, your eye roll when I brought up Drake's WNBA fandom was fantastic.

Dan McCoy

[1:42:26] Well, that's letters.

[1:42:27] That's our segment called letters.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:29] I guess we need to ask a question.

[1:42:31] We need to ask, does Leslie Nielsen have any kids?

[1:42:33] That's the only one we'll find out for sure if Canadians have sex or not.

[1:42:36] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:42:37] Hey, let's recommend movies.

[1:42:39] Movies that you can watch if you like instead of Gemini Man or in addition to.

[1:42:44] We don't control you.

[1:42:46] What am I going to recommend?

[1:42:47] I watched...

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:49] I'll tell you, Dan.

[1:42:51] You were going to recommend Galaxy Quest, but they're all Tim Allen.

Dan McCoy

[1:42:53] It's a pretty good movie, Galaxy Quest.

[1:42:56] Yeah, of course it is.

[1:42:58] Yeah, no objections there.

[1:43:00] Let's see.

[1:43:00] Oh, I remember.

[1:43:02] So I watched...

[1:43:04] So Raising Cane is a Brian De Palma movie that was greeted with great derision when it

[1:43:10] came out, and I remember...

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:12] It's also the inspiration for a fast food chain that sells...

[1:43:16] Chicken Fingers.

[1:43:17] Oh.

[1:43:18] I watched as...

[1:43:20] I think it's localized in like Kentucky, maybe?

[1:43:24] I'm not sure.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:24] I watched this movie also as a young man, and I thought it was bonkers and kind of fun,

[1:43:34] but I could see definitely why it was disliked.

[1:43:39] And then recently there was a fan edit, I believe it was, that resequenced the movie

[1:43:46] per Brian De Palma's original script and original intention for the movie.

[1:43:54] The movie had been resequenced by the studio, and he liked it so much that it became the

[1:44:00] official director's cut.

[1:44:02] And I watched that, and the movie is still a very strange, overheated movie, but maybe a

[1:44:11] good version of that?

[1:44:12] My favorite...

[1:44:14] He's a very divisive director, and I understand if you don't like him, and there's some stuff

[1:44:20] that is gross in his filmography, but I like him the best when he's taking absolutely absurd

[1:44:29] thriller plots and raising them...

[1:44:33] Raising the absurdity through pure cinema.

[1:44:36] And this movie has a crazy climax that plays on three planes of height simultaneously.

[1:44:47] Like, you see what's going on on three levels, and just as an exercise in filmmaking, it's

[1:44:56] quite something to see.

[1:44:57] So that's my recommendation.

[1:44:59] See the recut version, if you can, of Raising Cain.

[1:45:04] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:06] That movie was on...

[1:45:07] That movie was on, like...

[1:45:10] When I first moved to a new house when I was a kid, it was like the first time I remember

[1:45:14] moving to a new house.

[1:45:15] My parents got a satellite dish, so we had never had cable or anything, and then all of

[1:45:19] a sudden we had a satellite dish which had, like, everything.

[1:45:21] It would have, like, movie channels that would play the same movie over and over and over

[1:45:25] all day long.

[1:45:27] And Raising Cain was one of the first movies that I watched on one of those things.

[1:45:32] So I remember seeing a lot, but since it was constantly cycling, I, like, never knew where

[1:45:38] it began or ended.

[1:45:39] It was just always Raising Cain.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:41] Well, also, the movie, like, jumps around in chronology and does weird dream sequences,

[1:45:46] so it would be very baffling if you saw it that way.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:49] It made watching Third Rock from the Sun very strange for me, because I was so used to Raising

[1:45:54] Cain is John Lithgow's main credit.

[1:45:56] I'm going to recommend a movie called Extraordinary.

[1:45:59] It's a spooky comedy starring Maeve Higgins and featuring a bunch of other people in Ireland.

[1:46:09] It's about some ghost hunters and evil wizards, and it's funny, and Will Forte's funny, and it

[1:46:19] manages to be, like, sweet but not overly saccharine.

[1:46:23] It's funny and weird, and though it does have a fair amount of special effects, I don't feel

[1:46:29] like...

[1:46:29] Sometimes a special effects-driven comedy can be...

[1:46:33] I don't know, like, it'll be less funny for me, but this one worked.

[1:46:38] I liked it.

[1:46:39] I'd recommend it.

[1:46:40] Extraordinary.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:42] Okay, Jordan, what have you got?

S4

[1:46:44] So I wanted to recommend a black film because this week has been really trying for the African-American

[1:46:50] community in America, and I wanted to recommend 1991's Daughters of the Dust from director

[1:46:56] Julie Dash.

[1:46:58] It's beautifully shot, beautifully directed.

[1:47:01] I really like it.

[1:47:02] I think that you'll, if you haven't watched it before, it's a great film to kind of just

[1:47:09] decompress to, and if you've seen it before, it's a great film to return to, and yeah, I

[1:47:15] think it's great.

[1:47:15] Daughters of the Dust.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:17] Mm-hmm.

[1:47:18] Daughters of the Dust is kind of like a dream vision movie.

S4

[1:47:21] It's like a dream vision, and it has a quality to it, and one thing that I really like about

[1:47:26] it is it's just black people in a time period that we don't really look at from that angle

[1:47:31] in, you know, American entertainment.

[1:47:34] Just black people minding their black-ass business.

[1:47:36] I love it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:40] Put it on the poster.

[1:47:44] I'm going to recommend a Japanese movie.

[1:47:47] That's right, guys.

[1:47:47] We're continuing my strain lately of rediscovering Japanese cinema.

[1:47:51] I saw recently a movie called Funeral Parade of Roses.

[1:47:54] It's from 1969.

[1:47:56] It's directed by Toshio Matsumoto and stars the performer known as Peter, who you may know

[1:48:01] as the fool character from Ron Akira Kurosawa's King Lear story.

[1:48:05] But Funeral Parade of Roses, it's kind of like part retelling of Oedipus Rex, part retelling

[1:48:11] of All About Eve, part documentary about the 1960s, what they called in Japan the gay boy

[1:48:17] subculture, which was kind of the very early stirrings in Japan of...

[1:48:21] of transsexualism and homosexual identity over there.

[1:48:27] And part kind of Jean-Luc Godard style, new wave collage of styles.

[1:48:32] And it's in some ways about the way that left-wing art and this kind of new, for Japan, kind

[1:48:38] of like exploration of sexual polarity was merging together.

[1:48:44] But it's also kind of a suspense movie where you have to puzzle out the backstory.

[1:48:49] And it's just really interestingly put together.

[1:48:52] And the photography is great.

[1:48:53] Like the images are super sharp and exciting.

[1:48:55] And there's all sorts of formal tricks with editing and things like that that are real neat.

[1:49:00] And it's just like a real...

[1:49:02] It's just a really unique movie.

[1:49:04] So Funeral Parade of Roses, a movie that is a real experience.

[1:49:08] I'll tell you that.

[1:49:11] Wonderful.

[1:49:12] Four movies.

[1:49:14] Four movies.

[1:49:16] Four action blockbusters.

[1:49:18] All on one DVD at your local video store.

[1:49:24] Raising Cane.

[1:49:26] Extraordinary.

[1:49:26] Daughters of the Dust.

[1:49:27] And Funeral Parade of Roses.

[1:49:29] Now available in one set.

Dan McCoy

[1:49:31] Fled.

[1:49:33] Chill Factor.

[1:49:37] Guaranteed Entertainment.

Stuart Wellington

[1:49:38] Hard Target.

Elliott Kalan

[1:49:40] They would have those DVDs where it would be like...

[1:49:41] It would be like Chill Factor.

[1:49:43] Hard Target.

[1:49:44] The Fugitive.

[1:49:45] And I'd be like, how did The Fugitive get thrown onto this thing?

Dan McCoy

[1:49:48] Yeah.

[1:49:49] That's what you call a loss leader, Elliot.

[1:49:51] Yeah.

[1:49:52] I guess so.

Elliott Kalan

[1:49:53] It'd be like Back to the Future.

[1:49:56] Losing It.

[1:49:57] Screwballs.

[1:49:58] Yeah.

[1:49:58] Like, why did they throw in these movies on the same desk?

[1:50:00] Teen comedy classics, Elliot.

[1:50:02] I guess so.

Dan McCoy

[1:50:05] Well, that's our show.

[1:50:08] Hey, guys.

[1:50:09] Great to be here.

[1:50:10] Great to see you.

[1:50:12] Jordan, thanks for being here.

[1:50:13] Is it great to be here, Dan?

Elliott Kalan

[1:50:15] Jordan, thanks so much for being here.

[1:50:16] I want to apologize in person and on the podcast for the way we consistently forget to credit

[1:50:20] you at the end of the podcast.

[1:50:22] But we hope you enjoyed your time as a member of the Peaches on-camera microphone, as opposed

[1:50:29] to when you're usually just backstage.

Stuart Wellington

[1:50:32] This has been so much fun.

[1:50:34] Thanks, guys.

Dan McCoy

[1:50:35] Hey, one last appeal to watch us on the live stream tonight.

[1:50:40] And even if you don't, you know, donate to a charity.

[1:50:43] Now's the time.

[1:50:45] But thank you for listening.

[1:50:47] We'll be back soon.

[1:50:49] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:50:51] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:50:53] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:50:54] And I'm Jordan Cowling.

[1:50:55] Bye.

[1:50:57] Bye.

Elliott Kalan

[1:51:11] So, Jordan, how many of those Send in the Clones do you think you're going to cut?

[1:51:14] All of them.

[1:51:16] Thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:51:18] Oh, man.

[1:51:19] It's good to have somebody on our team.

[1:51:26] MaximumFun.org.

Dan McCoy

[1:51:28] Comedy and culture.

[1:51:29] Artist owned.

[1:51:30] Audience supported.

Ep. #314 - Gemini Man

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