Ep. #424 - Baby Geniuses, with Linda Holmes

[0:00] Hey there floppers, this is Elliot speaking.

[0:02] Before we begin this week's,

[0:03] let's be nice and call it nonsense.

[0:05] I just wanted to make sure you knew

[0:06] about the live show stuff we have coming up

[0:09] in case you miss it later in the episode

[0:11] or just can't wait to hear about it.

[0:13] We are still in the streaming window

[0:14] for the Flophouse Sinks Speed 2,

[0:16] our virtual online video event.

[0:18] Just go to stagepilot.com slash speed

[0:21] and you'll be able to see that whole show

[0:23] with exclusive footage that the in-theater audience

[0:26] didn't get to see through May 19th.

[0:29] After May 19th, of course,

[0:30] it goes back to the Flophouse Vault

[0:32] where it will never be seen again for a long time.

[0:35] Then on May 24th, we will be in Oxford, England

[0:38] as part of the St. Audio Podcast Festival.

[0:40] We're doing two shows in one night, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.,

[0:43] two totally different shows, totally different movies,

[0:45] totally different presentations,

[0:46] totally different questions.

[0:47] It'll be great.

[0:48] And then for something even more completely different,

[0:50] on July 26th, we will be in Boston in person

[0:53] at WBUR City Space.

[0:55] We don't know what movie we're doing yet,

[0:57] but it'll be a fun show.

[0:58] It's gonna be all new stuff.

[0:59] You're gonna love it.

[1:00] So that's the Flophouse Sing Speed II

[1:02] streaming now in Oxford May 24th

[1:04] and in Boston July 26th.

[1:06] And now, on with our regular nonsense.

[1:09] On this episode, we discuss baby geniuses.

[1:12] Not like normal babies that are dumbasses.

[1:15] That's right.

[1:17] Hey everyone, welcome to the Flophouse.

[1:43] I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:44] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:46] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:48] And guys, before we say anything else,

[1:51] before we say anything else,

[1:52] anything else like how the weather is,

[1:54] how are we doing, what's in the news these days,

[1:57] those clowns in Congress,

[1:58] before we say anything else,

[2:00] before we say anything about the biodiversity

[2:02] in the world today,

[2:03] all the way from alligators to zebras

[2:05] with tapirs almost in the middle.

[2:06] Nothing is being said.

[2:07] Before we say anything about just the new technology

[2:10] coming our way, AI and stuff,

[2:12] let's, before we say anything about any of that stuff

[2:14] or even the movie today, which is baby geniuses

[2:16] or what we do on this podcast,

[2:17] which is watch a bad movie and talk about it,

[2:19] we've got a very exciting guest today

[2:20] that I'm excited to talk about before we say anything else.

[2:23] That guest, why it's the one, the only, Linda Holmes,

[2:26] one of the hosts of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour,

[2:29] author of the novels Evie Drake Starts Over

[2:31] and Flying Solo.

[2:32] And I believe there's another one coming up at some point.

[2:36] Linda, thank you so much for joining us

[2:37] and being on the Flophouse today.

[2:39] Oh, thank you so much.

[2:40] This is so exciting.

[2:41] And thank you so much for watching Baby Geniuses.

[2:45] I brought it on myself.

[2:46] I brought it on myself.

[2:48] It absolutely was my choice.

[2:50] I'm just going to say, like, I had some options

[2:53] and I was like, baby geniuses, sure.

[2:55] And oh, wait, I know you can't really do,

[2:57] you can't really do show and tell on a podcast.

[3:00] So I apologize in advance.

[3:01] It's just tell.

[3:02] Oh, she'll do it.

[3:03] But.

[3:04] Whoa.

[3:05] This is Talking Baby Sly.

[3:09] Oh.

[3:10] From Baby Geniuses.

[3:10] Oh, and he's got an outfit.

[3:12] What are, is that from the Tryon montage?

[3:14] That must be that.

[3:15] It's like a tuxedo.

[3:17] Well, he's got a little graduation cap on.

[3:19] That's how you can tell he's a genius.

[3:21] Now, unfortunately, no matter how many fresh batteries

[3:24] we put in him, he does not talk anymore.

[3:27] But it used to be that if you squeezed one hand,

[3:30] he talked like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, baby talk.

[3:33] And if you did the other hand, he would say, for example,

[3:37] don't mess with the sly man.

[3:41] Just like a real baby.

[3:43] I'm the genius here.

[3:45] And this, I should say, this is actually the property

[3:47] of my best friend, Stephen Thompson,

[3:50] who was the founder of the A.V. Club

[3:52] and who is a collector of that kind of thing.

[3:56] A memora, let's call it.

[3:58] One of his.

[3:58] Normal stuff.

[4:00] There is a Talking Master P-Doll

[4:02] that lives behind the tiny desk at NPR

[4:05] that belongs to Stephen.

[4:06] It is one of his two Talking Master P-Dolls,

[4:09] which he is down to after giving away

[4:12] his third Talking Master P-Doll.

[4:14] Wow.

[4:16] And yes, when you poke its stomach, it goes, uh.

[4:20] Yes.

[4:22] Anyway, so that's my.

[4:23] Nothing else can come out of his mouth.

[4:24] That's my brief introduction to baby geniuses.

[4:28] I brought my fast-talking sly doll.

[4:31] That's, so is the doll as much of just a jerk

[4:37] as the sly in the movie?

[4:39] Because.

[4:39] Yeah, yeah, I mean.

[4:40] I don't know if you guys felt at all

[4:42] that the sly man, the titular baby genius,

[4:45] is, I did the entire movie, I just wanted to,

[4:47] like, I don't know, hit him?

[4:48] Yeah.

[4:49] He's like the, just.

[4:50] Wow.

[4:51] Yeah.

[4:52] He admits wanting to commit child abuse.

[4:54] Just to a fictional character,

[4:55] he's the most arrogant baby I've ever seen.

[4:58] His list of.

[4:58] That fucking baby thinks he's so big.

[5:00] His list of talking baby phrases is hasta la vista, baby.

[5:04] Uh-huh.

[5:05] Look out world, the sly man is here.

[5:07] Yeah.

[5:08] Don't mess with the sly man.

[5:09] See you on the outside, suckers.

[5:11] I'm the genius here, and the classic,

[5:14] and I think you will agree, very witty,

[5:16] give me a break.

[5:18] So.

[5:19] Give me a break.

[5:20] Yeah.

[5:21] So yes, he's a jerk, yes.

[5:23] You know.

[5:24] Wow, wow.

[5:24] Like, I'm sure if this doll had come out

[5:25] a couple years later, one of those would have been like,

[5:28] Jeff, you can't melt steel beams or something.

[5:32] Yeah, yeah, hurry the nails.

[5:34] Yeah, do your own research, that kind of stuff, yeah.

[5:36] Yep, yep, yep.

[5:38] That's the vibe he gives off.

[5:39] I can see baby sly being like,

[5:41] I don't trust the authorities,

[5:42] I'm gonna figure this out for myself.

[5:44] Yeah, sure.

[5:45] It makes sense.

[5:46] So, Elliot talked about this back

[5:48] when we weren't talking about anything

[5:50] before introducing Linda, but we are a podcast

[5:53] where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[5:56] Quite frequently, it's a more recent bad movie,

[5:58] but we've been dipping back into the well of the classics,

[6:02] the bad movie canon.

[6:03] Yep, yep, yeah, the worst of the worst, yeah.

[6:08] I've heard, actually, that Super Babies,

[6:11] Baby Geniuses 2, is even worse than Baby Geniuses,

[6:14] but obviously that film would make no sense to us

[6:16] having not seen the foundational work Baby Geniuses.

[6:20] You joke, Dan, but watching Boss Baby Family Business

[6:23] without seeing the first one,

[6:24] I was legitimately lost for much of that movie's runtime.

[6:27] So I was like, what?

[6:28] Who are these characters?

[6:29] What is going on here?

[6:31] Why is this baby a boss?

[6:32] It assumes so much foreknowledge

[6:35] of the Boss Baby continuity on the part of the audience.

[6:38] So maybe Super Babies, Baby Geniuses 2

[6:40] would be the same way.

[6:41] I mean, I have no way of knowing at this point.

[6:43] I kind of believe that probably

[6:46] the continuity would not be as important.

[6:48] That's mostly based on looking at the cast list

[6:51] and not seeing a lot of carryover,

[6:52] at least in the adult characters.

[6:54] I mean, also the baby characters.

[6:55] I assume they had all grown up by the time of the film.

[6:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably.

[6:59] They're not just baby geniuses.

[7:02] I mean, they're adults now.

[7:03] They're not babies in the first place, exactly,

[7:05] I would argue.

[7:06] But that's true.

[7:07] Yeah, that's true.

[7:08] They're leaving toddlerhood.

[7:10] Are you referring to the stunt people

[7:14] who make up here to be babies?

[7:18] I will say that it is weird to me

[7:19] that this movie is so predicated on the idea

[7:23] that these babies have their secret baby language

[7:27] and they're clearly of an age

[7:29] that they would have started talking.

[7:31] At least a few words.

[7:32] That is the part that I kept trying to figure out.

[7:35] And listen, I feel like I have to predicate

[7:38] literally everything I say about this movie

[7:40] by saying I don't care.

[7:42] I'm not saying that I care.

[7:44] But I was watching this and sort of-

[7:45] You heard it here first, folks,

[7:46] right into NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour

[7:48] with your baby geniuses theories and explainers.

[7:51] I'm thinking, first of all, okay,

[7:54] my main question is what does this company actually do?

[7:59] Like this baby company that is making baby geniuses?

[8:02] BabyCo?

[8:03] They seem to specialize in two things.

[8:05] We see them specialize in two things on screen,

[8:07] indoor theme parks,

[8:09] which are located in their corporate headquarters,

[8:11] and also education slash indoctrination of babies.

[8:15] Seems like they're more of a robot co than a baby co

[8:18] if you look at their theme park.

[8:19] Well, this is the kind of thing-

[8:20] And they have robot, yeah.

[8:22] This is the classic supervillain thing

[8:24] where it's like, instead of robbing banks,

[8:27] why didn't you patent your machine that can melt anything

[8:30] or creates vibro shocks that can destabilize anything?

[8:34] Why don't you sell that?

[8:35] Because that you're really, or your freeze gun,

[8:37] if you have a freeze gun,

[8:39] why aren't you using it to commit crime?

[8:40] Yeah, the United States government will give you that,

[8:42] will just pay you for that a lot.

[8:44] Yeah.

[8:45] You can say your prices.

[8:46] They don't care.

[8:47] They'll give you whatever.

[8:48] If you say it's a weapon, they're going to love that shit.

[8:50] Yeah.

[8:51] And the BabyCo logo is like an atomic energy looking thing.

[8:55] Yeah.

[8:56] It's supposed to look like they're a science company.

[8:58] Dan, help me.

[8:59] I don't, well, I was wondering-

[9:01] You asking the wrong guy.

[9:03] Thank you.

[9:04] I was wondering, you know,

[9:05] like when Baby Einstein came out in relation to this,

[9:09] because like-

[9:10] I thought about that too.

[9:11] One side of their business seems to be

[9:12] sort of maybe a Baby Einstein style, like-

[9:15] Yeah, make your baby smart.

[9:17] Make your baby smart thing.

[9:19] But then, yeah, they have this other secret thing.

[9:22] I don't want to get too far into the actual plot

[9:24] because Stuart will talk about it.

[9:26] But I laughed early on when,

[9:29] I think it was Christopher Lloyd said,

[9:30] take them back to the secret laboratory.

[9:32] And I'm like, around here, we just call it the laboratory.

[9:34] You know what I mean?

[9:36] Like, underlined.

[9:37] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[9:38] Lloyd was worried they were going to take them

[9:38] to the regular laboratory.

[9:39] Yeah.

[9:40] But there's a secret one underneath.

[9:41] Yeah, the regular laboratory

[9:42] where they're just working on polymers.

[9:43] And they'd be like, why is a live baby right here?

[9:45] What are you doing?

[9:47] Why is this live baby karate-ing us?

[9:50] And I do want to get into the plot.

[9:52] But before we do that,

[9:53] I do want to take a moment to talk about Bob Clark, maybe.

[9:57] Oh, there's two human beings involved in this.

[10:00] love to talk about. One is, producer Jon Voight, this was a passion project for him for a while

[10:05] to get this made. But also, yeah, director Bob Clark, who has one of the more scattershot

[10:09] filmographies, you might say.

[10:10] Yeah. A couple of noted classics, very influential films.

[10:16] I don't, I wouldn't call Porky's a classic.

[10:19] Well, depending on whatever, depending on whatever, well, yeah, that's a very influential

[10:22] movie. Three extremely influential movies, whether or not you think they're good. On

[10:30] the more critically acclaimed side, of course, Black Christmas, one of the earliest slashers.

[10:36] You've got A Christmas Story, which became just a great, you know, a cable classic.

[10:42] And then, of course, Porky's, which kicked off a wave of more mainstream TNA teen sex

[10:50] comedies after like that being sort of like bubbling under the surface in the late 70s

[10:56] for a while.

[10:57] America had, America had decided that college kids, they were done with. College kids were

[11:01] not sexy enough. They needed high school students to be sexy in American movies. A movement

[11:06] that I disagree with, but other people may feel differently.

[11:09] To be clear, the actors were not. Which, by the way, that was the joke that Audrey made

[11:14] when she came in and saw the babies kung fuing people. She's like, you know that that baby's

[11:18] 15. That's the way they do it in Hollywood.

[11:21] And I will say, Bob Clark also made a movie called Death Dream that I recommended on a

[11:24] Flap House episode a long time ago. That's a good movie about a a dead Vietnam vet who

[11:28] comes back to his family and is a as as close as it feels like Bob Clark came to making

[11:34] like a political statement, you know, right.

[11:35] But on the other hand, until this was like, yeah, he's got Rhinestone, the movie where

[11:42] Sly Stallone learns to sing. You've got to do that one at some point. That one's a fun

[11:48] bad movie. I've been trying to think, like, you know how Jamal has the the hedgehog beat?

[11:53] Yeah, I've been trying to think, like, did I want my beat to be babies or geniuses? But

[11:59] I think maybe it should be Bob Clark. Yeah. Yeah. You could be our Bob Clark correspondent

[12:03] if there's a limit to how many of those movies there are.

[12:06] But there's also a limit to how many hedgehogs. I was just going to say, the beat doesn't

[12:09] have to be infinite. The beat just has to have as much as you would ever want to have

[12:13] me on anyway. Oh, yeah. But did you want to say anything about Jon Voight and his relationship

[12:19] to this movie now that we've talked about a little bit about Bob Clark?

[12:22] This because Bob, because you might think yourself, Bob Clark, he made a lot of schlock.

[12:26] He probably pitched this movie. No, Jon Voight pitched this movie to Bob Clark to make Jon

[12:31] Voight's production company had this script called Baby Geniuses. I was doing some research

[12:34] and they were saying how there was like a portal to a baby land, like a world where

[12:38] babies ruled and which is kind of what the boss baby and adults ruled. Yeah. And yeah,

[12:43] babies ruled and adults ruled. Just like in the movie when dinosaurs drooled the earth.

[12:48] And the end that they had like a special effects test reel showing that they could make babies

[12:55] look like they were talking using. Can they, though? That's a good question. That's a good

[12:59] question. True. And and that Bob Clark was like, OK, I'll rewrite this script and make

[13:03] it something different. But this was for whatever reason, this was just like a thing.

[13:07] Jon Voight really wanted to get off the ground. And when this movie was coming out, none of

[13:11] the stars of the movie, as far as I know, did the talk show rounds. Jon Voight did the

[13:14] talk show rounds because I remember him being on The Daily Show to promote this movie, Baby

[13:18] Geniuses. And they showed the clip where the baby is like where Sly is like trying on different

[13:22] clothes and they're like, somebody stop me. And it's like I remember like how baffling

[13:27] it was that Jon Voight was doing this. And this was, I guess, the beginning of his descent

[13:31] into madness as he became like just like a hardcore conservative. But I don't know.

[13:35] It was very strange. I love the idea that Bob Clark was convinced by this test reel

[13:41] because that feels like such a Jurassic Park moment where it's like just because you can

[13:46] do it, you never stop. I always assume that what changed Jon Voight was Anaconda, right?

[13:53] Yeah. Like once you've been inside the snake. Yeah. Being filmed on the inside, the snake

[13:59] cam. Yeah. Oh, the snake cam is so good. But the inside the snake cam is so much better.

[14:05] I have a friend who every time back in high school, every time he would get drunk, we'd

[14:08] be like, do it, do it again. Do Jon Voight. And he goes, these are my babies. They like

[14:15] hold up. Fake eggs is so funny. Do it every time. Anaconda, man. That's a classic, terrible

[14:21] movie. What a picture. OK, so let's get into the plot of Baby Geniuses. Now, if I sound

[14:27] a little bit weird, that's because I'm coming to you live from the Courtyard Marriott in

[14:32] Fort Worth, Indiana. As you can see, if Alex posts this clip, I look like I'm the most

[14:38] divorced podcaster. But now I'm in Indiana helping my parents with some stuff. And that

[14:45] means I watch Baby Geniuses on the plane. So if I missed anything, it's because I wasn't

[14:50] paying attention to the screen and was trying to hide it so that I didn't get like arrested

[14:54] by a fucking air marshal or something for watching Baby Geniuses. OK, so the movie opens

[15:01] with Sylvester, who I have to insist is a baby, escapes from a top secret lab and he

[15:09] can walk and despite that he has and he can karate. Despite his karate skills, he is still

[15:16] captured by evil Dr. Christopher Lloyd and taken back to a secret lab run by Dr. Kinder,

[15:24] played by Kathleen Turner. Yeah, it's also a sad, you know, auger of things to come for

[15:30] Kathleen Turner. I was confused by the kung fu powers just right from the start because

[15:36] he's a genius, Dan. Yeah. OK, so he has the proportional strength of a genius, I guess.

[15:42] Well, that's like he's able to get he's able to get leverage. There's moments where babies

[15:46] are swinging from ropes, kicking people. And I'm like, yeah, I don't give a shit. It's

[15:50] a baby. It's not like they weigh that much. Which is where babies swing on a rope. Adults

[15:55] are sitting there going, oh, for a while. Plenty of time to brace themselves as a parent.

[16:01] Little small children throw themselves at me constantly to try to knock me over or because

[16:05] they want me to hold them. You get it's not that. Yeah, it's not going to knock you over

[16:09] unless you're taken by surprise, which almost everybody is anything. Yeah. Yeah. They're

[16:12] so small. You can pick them up and throw them really easily. But I guess kung fu powers.

[16:17] It's like judo. They're using your bigness against you, you know? Yeah. Speaking of battling

[16:21] babies, Sylvester is battling. Maybe is the project we should be working on right now.

[16:26] So it's like going to the barbarian. He's a baby. It's the prequel to Million Dollar

[16:30] Baby. You know that. So Sylvester's main mode later, as we'll see, is kicking guys in the

[16:36] crotch. And I feel like he used a lot of weapons. And I feel like kids are already pretty good

[16:41] at hitting you in the crotch without weapons. Like I've seen like Elliot, I've seen you

[16:46] get hit in the crotch hundreds of times by just the other day. They'll do it accidentally.

[16:51] They'll do it on purpose. They know it hurts and they and they want to go for it. Yeah.

[16:56] OK, so we get a little bit of back story from the doctors. They have a top secret lab under

[17:00] a building. There are twin babies, Sylvester, who we are going to call Sly from now on Sly

[17:06] and Witt, who are raised separately. Witt is raised with normal parents and Sly is raised

[17:16] by. I don't know. OK, granted, there are those normal parents are portrayed by TV superstars

[17:23] Kim Cattrall and Peter McNichol. But so he's raised by normals. The film work of those

[17:29] two fine actors, the star of Dragon Slayer, Stu, Split Second, Ghostbusters two. And of

[17:36] course, Kim Cattrall in Porky's where she was. Or Big Trouble in Little China, the movie

[17:42] that I don't like that much, but you guys like it. Mannequin. Sure. Yeah. Probably at

[17:47] City Limits. More known for Ally McBeal and Sex in the City. Well, the thing I love about

[17:53] this is they made this before Sex in the City started, but it came out after Sex in

[17:59] the City. Oh, dear. And you got to think for her, that's like Sex in the City is hitting.

[18:04] It's doing great. She's like, oh, she's like, oh, I still got that. You know, because she's

[18:10] and I will say also, Stuart, you kind of you know, you went right by the the masterful

[18:14] exposition on that like TRS-80 level computer that they have in the lab. Yeah. Where they

[18:20] like have that. And this was 1999. I feel like this looks like a 19. I mean, this looks

[18:26] like like this looks like, you know, the computer in Pretty in Pink when they morph into the.

[18:33] Yeah. OK. Yes. Also, that computer in Pretty in Pink. Like, could you do that with computers

[18:37] back then? That seems wild. I mean, Stuart, there was a movie around that time where a

[18:41] computer made a woman. So like there's lots of things for movies that I feel like the

[18:46] exposition, the exposition 5000 or whatever this computer is called, is on the level with

[18:51] that Pretty in Pink computer. And that was like many years earlier. This is like even

[18:55] for 1999. It's like, guys, I was on AOL by then. They are. Why are you skimping on your

[19:02] corporate graphics, your corporate videos to show each other your plans? I will say

[19:06] they are a baby company. So maybe the money is going into the baby step. But it is it

[19:10] is very funny. Anytime a character in a movie as Christopher Lloyd does here goes computer

[19:14] explain to me all the stuff I know already. And then it just tells you everything about

[19:18] the story. It's like, oh, good. Yes. I was checking your computer. I was testing whether

[19:22] you knew it. Yeah. I do want to take. Oh, sorry. I just got just because we brought

[19:26] it up. Sorry, Stuart. I know. We're doing a lot of this up just because we brought it

[19:30] up. I do feel like for me and I don't need to get back to talking about Magic Babies

[19:36] or whatever. It's plotting of baby geniuses. Magic Babies. Magic Babies. I I texted the

[19:43] guys that like we're talking about Kim Cattrall to me, guys, the Pep Boys, you guys, you're

[19:49] one of them. Let's do the other for me. Kim Cattrall comes out of this looking the best,

[19:55] actually, because I don't I don't know what she's doing. She's got a nothing part.

[20:00] But she hits it just right, she gets the tone just right in the way that a lot of the movie around her is chaotic and unpleasant.

[20:08] I think there's two MVPs in this movie, I feel like. It is Kim Cattrall, who is doing as good a job as she can in it.

[20:15] And Kathleen Turner, who at least is trying to reach that note of like, I'm an evil businesswoman who's yelling at a baby going, oh baby!

[20:24] And occasionally looking, there is one moment in particular where she looks like she's going to hit on the baby.

[20:31] And I was like, oh, I don't know.

[20:36] Kathleen Turner is very sexy, but I don't really want to see her coming up behind a baby like, slide!

[20:44] She can't control her sultriness.

[20:47] And then on the other end you have Peter McNichol, an actor who I think is really great.

[20:51] Who is, it's maybe the worst I've ever seen him do in anything.

[20:55] I don't know, he's playing his character like his character is a baby who's an adult, like the way he talks and everything.

[21:02] But you're also afraid there's a lot of other big stars in here.

[21:05] Dom DeLuise is the comic relief.

[21:07] Ruby Dee, the legend, shows up.

[21:09] How did Ruby Dee end up with this? How?

[21:12] It's amazing sometimes when you're watching movies and you're like, this is a person who, like, God should have stepped in and said, Ruby Dee, you're too good for this.

[21:20] Like, you shouldn't be doing this right now.

[21:22] But, you know, actors like working.

[21:24] Well, it always makes me want to, and I'm sure it's not the case in this case, but it always makes me want to Google, like, Ruby Dee IRS.

[21:32] You know what I mean?

[21:34] How did people end up in this situation?

[21:39] It was around the same time that she was doing this that Ossie Davis, her husband, was doing like Bubba Hotep, right?

[21:47] And that's the kind of thing that could have been like, what are you doing here?

[21:50] But he's really good in it.

[21:51] And that's a real fun movie.

[21:52] So you never know.

[21:53] You never know when a movie's going to turn out good or not.

[21:55] I mean, Ruby Dee should have probably known that Baby Geniuses was not going to turn out good, but you never know.

[22:00] Maybe she just wanted to hang out with some toddlers.

[22:02] Yeah, she wanted to get out of the house.

[22:04] You know, I get it.

[22:05] OK, so, you know, they did.

[22:07] They did shoot this in Tuscany, right?

[22:09] So that explains it.

[22:10] Like, every summer in Tuscany.

[22:12] Classic Sandler motivation.

[22:14] I was just going to say, it's the Sandler thing.

[22:17] The Sandman.

[22:18] Just her and all her friends.

[22:20] Just hanging out.

[22:22] OK, so to get back to that actual exposition, these two twin babies have been separated since birth.

[22:28] One of them raised normal style.

[22:30] One raised with a bunch of super secret babies in a, like, Akira-style nursery where the magic babies just kind of sit around and talk.

[22:38] They have, like, a salon or something.

[22:41] I'm very glad, Stuart, that you brought up the Akira comparison.

[22:44] Because my first thought when I saw that world was, I was like, this is why Hollywood should not do an American remake of Akira.

[22:49] They do not get it.

[22:50] It's going to look just like this.

[22:52] And the idea is that when they are both – when these two babies are each six years old, not six years old combined, like three – that wouldn't make sense.

[23:00] But when they're both six years old – when they're both six years old, they're going to bring them together and they're going to see which – I guess which baby is better.

[23:11] I guess they have metrics.

[23:13] I don't know.

[23:14] They're trying to prove that the kinder method, Kathleen Turner's scientist character, that her method is better, I guess, at raising super babies, which we'll find out in part two.

[23:27] What is her method?

[23:29] What is the method other than the, like, Plan 9 from Outer Space Dinner Theater?

[23:35] That's kind of all it is.

[23:36] You find the best babies and then you stick them in a basement.

[23:40] I don't understand the method.

[23:41] You never let them see sunlight, and you have computers around, especially because what they're doing isn't that – it's not like – well, what are they doing that's making them – I mean I guess he's really good at building things and he can reprogram a security system and stuff, and later on he has a sense of style.

[24:00] It's all his baby genius stuff.

[24:01] Later on we learn that, like, babies are sort of attuned to the mysteries of the universe when they're young and they lose that as they get older, and so maybe she's doing absolutely nothing.

[24:15] Like, it seems like it's a weird sort of conflicting thing to have her have this system but then also be like, oh, you know, the Tibetans thought or whatever.

[24:25] The babies are carriers of a genetic legacy and they're able to live and understand our ancestors.

[24:31] Okay, so we flash forward to the opening of the BabyCo theme park, Joy World.

[24:38] Kathleen Turner is – she's there, I guess, cutting the ribbon.

[24:44] This is a theme park that is filled with a lot of robots.

[24:47] Everything is robot-controlled including the animals at the robot zoo.

[24:52] Everybody gets a –

[24:53] Tell me about the robot baby.

[24:55] Giant robot baby is a crime against nature.

[24:57] It's a horror that I was terrified to behold.

[25:03] Do you guys have thoughts?

[25:05] For a while I thought it was a guy in a costume.

[25:07] I posted a picture of it to – although we are trying to divest from this particular website, it's still where our largest number of followers are.

[25:15] So there's a –

[25:17] Silk road?

[25:18] A tweet on X that shows the giant baby if you want to dig back through the archives.

[25:26] Why would you have that?

[25:27] It will haunt your dreams.

[25:28] Why would you have that at a theme park?

[25:30] Like when I was little, my parents took us to Walt Disney World and my sister was scared to death of Smee the pirate from Peter Pan.

[25:39] Is it because he's like less in charge, like he's more desperate than Captain Hook?

[25:47] I don't really remember why.

[25:49] I just remember Smee was very scary to her.

[25:52] Or just afraid of Bob Hoskins?

[25:55] It could be that it was scary to me and I'm projecting it onto my sister to avoid admitting my vulnerabilities.

[26:01] But kids are very weird about like what is scary.

[26:05] And so if you have like an eight-foot baby who's walking around going, hello, little girl.

[26:11] Who would put that in a theme park?

[26:14] You're trying to make money.

[26:16] What – I don't care.

[26:20] It's also – it's prohibitively expensive to say just dress someone up like a big baby when it would be much cheaper to create an entire robot baby that still has to be controlled manually by someone in a booth.

[26:32] Like they're not very good robots.

[26:34] Exactly.

[26:35] Disney doesn't use robots, Smee.

[26:37] No, and as we see later, they also have like a robot alien that shoots actual lasers.

[26:44] I was like did the baby genius reprogram that somehow or do they just have like live ray guns that they walk around with?

[26:51] In a children's theme park.

[26:53] I feel like the day of shooting, they showed up and Jon Voight is like, hey, we got the robot baby already.

[26:58] And Bob Clark is like, oh, yeah.

[27:01] Thought we axed that, Jon.

[27:04] And Jon is like, nope, it's all ready.

[27:05] He's like, I didn't think we could afford it.

[27:07] He's like, I found the money.

[27:09] This is from my personal – I funded this myself.

[27:11] I have a diverse mortgage on my house so we can do the robot baby.

[27:14] Yeah, Tom's always counting his money.

[27:17] Okay, so, yeah, we see the RoboZoo.

[27:20] A key thing is that they make a point that all the children get access to a remote control for the robot animals.

[27:25] That is our Chekhov's robots.

[27:30] We then cut to Peter McNichol and Kim Cattrall run a child care out of their home.

[27:36] It's like a child care research center.

[27:41] Okay.

[27:42] Send your kid to daycare to get experimented on.

[27:46] Yes, exactly.

[27:47] Everybody wouldn't do that.

[27:49] And help Dom DeLuise do plumbing stuff and handyman stuff.

[27:54] I was really happy to see Dom DeLuise show up in this.

[27:58] I got to admit that like as a kid, I was like this guy is dumb.

[28:04] Like this guy is a dumb guy who does dumb comedy and dumb things, which is not wrong.

[28:09] But now that I'm an adult, I have a fondness for it.

[28:12] I'm like this is a man who is really committed to being dumb and broad.

[28:16] I definitely – I also – the same way that I appreciate the Three Stooges much more now than I did when I was a kid when I did not care for them.

[28:23] Like Dom DeLuise, I appreciate him more now.

[28:26] But when I was a kid, I was like this guy is sweaty.

[28:28] He is trying so hard, and he always seems like he's on the verge of like failing and collapsing.

[28:34] Now I get that that's kind of like part of his shtick.

[28:37] Because I just remember his voice performance in American Tail when I was a kid.

[28:42] I was always like I don't like this.

[28:44] It's like he's trying so hard to please me, and it just makes him seem pathetic in my eyes.

[28:49] But now I'm like, oh, I see.

[28:50] He's supposed to be pathetic.

[28:51] I get it.

[28:52] All right.

[28:53] Yeah, sure.

[28:54] Yeah, the same thing with Secret of an M.

[28:55] We rewatched that recently, and I love that movie.

[28:59] But I think – maybe I'm putting this on Audrey and it wasn't her.

[29:03] I feel like she reacted to like what is this annoying girl?

[29:06] I'm like, well, that's Dom DeLuise.

[29:07] It just comes with the territory.

[29:09] That's Dom of Louise.

[29:11] Yeah.

[29:12] He was like – have you ever played Planet Zoo or Planet Coaster?

[29:16] No.

[29:17] You build like a zoo or a theme park.

[29:20] This is a game, of course.

[29:23] I don't actually build zoos.

[29:24] But you go in and you –

[29:26] Someday.

[29:27] You should try.

[29:28] I heard about this family that bought one.

[29:29] Well, Elliot, you'll be glad to know that the first time I made one, I titled my zoo the We Bought a Zoo.

[29:36] Which is exactly that joke because I'm that dork.

[29:39] But when you go in, you can like build buildings from scratch or you can just go in and you can just like import an entire building already built, right?

[29:46] Like I'm just going to build the – take the little slurpee stand already built.

[29:51] Yeah, here's falling water.

[29:53] Just stick it in there.

[29:54] Exactly.

[29:55] And when you put Dom DeLuise in your movie, you're basically taking all his Dom DeLuiseness.

[30:00] the thing and you're just like moving it over and putting it in the movie.

[30:03] You're not like building a character from scratch.

[30:06] You're just using the blueprint that is Dom Della, which is fine.

[30:10] You're just taking him, you're putting him directly into the movie

[30:14] and he will do the same thing that he does and people will still like it

[30:17] the same way that they will like your prefab slurpee stand at your zoo.

[30:20] Yeah, arguably Al Pacino is kind of the same way.

[30:24] I mean now, Al Pacino wasn't always that.

[30:26] I mean Dom Della Lewis I guess wasn't always that way either.

[30:28] Like you watch his in Blazing Saddles.

[30:30] He's such a different character in that in his one scene in that but

[30:34] he went dramatic with Fatso.

[30:36] It's a movie that I have never seen in its entirety.

[30:40] I just remember like it being on HBO and be like, why would I want to watch

[30:45] a movie about this man being sad?

[30:48] Okay.

[30:49] Well, so we are introduced to Dom Della Lewis who plays a plumber handyman

[30:53] character and we also meet Wit who is the twin brother of Sly and we

[30:58] can tell that they are twins because his first act is to smash Dom

[31:02] Della Lewis in the balls with a wrench.

[31:04] That would hurt so bad.

[31:06] Have a wrench thrown at your crotch.

[31:08] Yeah.

[31:08] Yeah, that's the whole point.

[31:11] Meanwhile, meanwhile Kathleen Turner and Christopher Lloyd are running

[31:17] a secret lab for eight genius babies.

[31:19] These genius babies are the product of their very expensive orphanage

[31:23] program.

[31:23] It's like the orphanage program is like a loss leader for their babies.

[31:27] I don't I don't quite get it.

[31:30] I don't understand the business behind it.

[31:35] Okay, man, I think and that's what's up Kathleen Turner have the

[31:39] orphanage.

[31:39] I think that they're that I think that's their like farm team for

[31:42] who's going to be baby geniuses.

[31:43] They're like baby scouting out.

[31:45] Who's got the talent to be important thing is like every children's

[31:49] movie made in the 1980s and 1990s.

[31:52] There was a certain amount of talk of corporate hierarchy and structure

[31:57] and also tax planning for the expansion of a family business.

[32:01] You have to have that in the kids movie from this area kids love

[32:04] corporate hijinks.

[32:06] They love knowing who's in charge of a company and how that company

[32:09] operates kids.

[32:10] Love it.

[32:10] Well, I saw the restructuring our loan kids and I all my kids my

[32:15] kids every night.

[32:16] They're like, can you read us barbarians at the gate?

[32:18] Can you read us the smartest guys in the room?

[32:20] All right.

[32:21] Can I read you a picture book?

[32:22] No, no, no read us.

[32:23] I ran out of business books.

[32:24] Those the only ones I know but who moved by Jesus that one.

[32:27] No, but that's more of an inspirational kind of motivational

[32:30] book.

[32:30] Yeah, I saw this little bonfire the vanities.

[32:33] Oh, yeah.

[32:33] Yeah.

[32:34] I mean, you know, it's kind of a Wall Street satire, but I think

[32:37] that would work.

[32:37] I think that would yeah, I'll try it.

[32:39] You know what?

[32:39] I'll try it.

[32:39] I think if they care, I think if they care about business, but I

[32:43] saw the same thing that you saw Elliot about John Boyd's original

[32:46] script for this and then like how Bob Clark came on and he's like

[32:50] no, we got it.

[32:50] We got to ground this in reality.

[32:52] We got to put it in this world of corporate intrigue and I felt the

[32:56] same way like why do you why did adults back then think that this

[32:59] is what kids wanted out of their movies?

[33:03] Well, I guess it was just in the air.

[33:04] You know, this was the go-go 1999's, you know, so yeah, every

[33:09] Reagan required it every movie about companies or the Millennium.

[33:12] They've done it in like big I guess.

[33:14] Yeah, the the kid goes into a big business and you know, I don't

[33:20] know Wrangles corporate guys know how much business is in the movie

[33:25] big business though a lot of business.

[33:30] I just remember liking it but that's probably my childhood affection

[33:33] for the twin based farce.

[33:35] Isn't it?

[33:36] Yeah.

[33:36] Okay.

[33:37] Okay.

[33:38] So the the important thing is down in the secret lab.

[33:41] They have figured something out.

[33:42] It's important still but that the dumb baby crap that we have come

[33:47] to believe whether it's their baby art baby communication all that

[33:52] stuff.

[33:53] It is actually highly advanced and it retains this like genetic

[33:57] legacy of everybody who has come before them.

[34:00] So what it sounds like mishmash.

[34:02] It sounds like some kind of grindcore record instead.

[34:04] It's actually like very highly detailed orchestral compositions

[34:10] on you know on par with Rachmaninoff or some crap.

[34:13] Yeah, one of the babies like scribbles are like, oh, it's actually

[34:16] cuneiform and I like how the computer like takes random parts of

[34:20] the scribbles and reassembles them and that's not that doesn't

[34:24] they're not writing cuneiform if you have to do that.

[34:27] Yep, and this is when Kathleen Turner says my favorite line of

[34:30] the movie every baby might know the secrets of the universe.

[34:34] I feel like it is such this movie takes a couple of big leaps and

[34:38] the first one is okay when babies are jabbering with each other.

[34:41] That's a language.

[34:42] Okay.

[34:42] I'll buy that leap.

[34:43] Another one is babies are really smart.

[34:46] But once they start learning English or their you know, grown-up

[34:49] language, they kind of lose that smartness and they become dumb

[34:52] as they develop into adults.

[34:53] Okay, there's something kind of satirical in that like all you

[34:55] know, when we lose the innocence of childhood, you know, we lose

[34:58] a little bit of wisdom.

[34:59] I understand that and then they jump to these babies are in touch

[35:02] with the secrets of the universe and they never define what these

[35:05] secrets of the universe are that they're even looking for.

[35:07] What is that about?

[35:08] It's a big leap.

[35:09] It's a big logical leap.

[35:11] Well, but also I went to Roger Ebert's review of this as I often

[35:15] do for like these older movies and he points out that these babies

[35:19] are stars, right?

[35:20] These babies may be like wise, you know cosmic geniuses, but they

[35:24] use terms like diaper gravy.

[35:26] Okay, I assume we're going to get there because I need to talk about

[35:30] that fucking joke like I heard it and then I heard it again.

[35:38] Then I heard it again and then I saw it in captions again when a

[35:44] dog said it.

[35:45] Yeah, this is all in five minutes.

[35:48] Yeah, this term diaper gravy when I feel like I should let Stewart

[35:52] get back to the plot, but I just will now the this was that I was

[35:57] I also was like, what is this?

[35:59] But then I was so distracted by the sex banter between hobo sly

[36:03] and and the girl like the baby girl in the carriage that I was

[36:06] like, I can't you know, what type of gravy is taking a backseat

[36:09] is implied.

[36:10] It is implied that they've had a dalliance in the carriage.

[36:12] Am I insane?

[36:13] Yeah.

[36:14] Yeah.

[36:14] I mean he said he sells her clothes.

[36:15] So this is what we'll talk about.

[36:16] He needs her clothes and he says take your clothes off and she

[36:18] goes at least buy me dinner first and I'm like, I don't want this

[36:20] in a kid's movie.

[36:21] I'm listening to any movie when he leaves.

[36:23] She's like call me.

[36:24] I'm listed.

[36:25] I'm like she's smoking a cigar.

[36:26] Yeah.

[36:27] So bad.

[36:29] Oh man.

[36:31] Yeah, let's get back to this plot.

[36:34] Sly may be in touch with the secrets of the universe, but he also

[36:36] knows a lot of catchphrases because the other kids say he's always

[36:38] watching TV guys.

[36:41] We've been talking about how these babies are talking all the

[36:43] time and saying all this shit.

[36:45] Well, actually in the movie the babies don't start talking until

[36:48] right now when all of a sudden the be the the eight super genius

[36:52] babies start talking to each other their lips digitally enhanced.

[36:57] Yeah, whatever to make it seem like they're able to talk.

[37:00] It's a short story about the device you put on a baby to make

[37:04] it look like it's saying I love you because they want the babies

[37:07] to talk in it and and the well, anyway, there's a whole short

[37:10] I will say I did that to these babies.

[37:12] I've seen some really bad computer-assisted like baby mouth

[37:17] movements and like commercials or other bullshit baby.

[37:21] Yeah, this is I you know, I'll give it to baby geniuses.

[37:25] This looks pretty natural.

[37:26] Like it was done by like, I guess like recording these babies

[37:30] just subscribe.

[37:32] Yeah, I mean not natural.

[37:33] This is like obviously your brain rejects it like your brain is

[37:37] like back in but back in my day.

[37:39] We would make babies look lips move by slapping some peanut

[37:41] butter in them.

[37:42] I just say like like they recorded I guess these babies just

[37:47] saying like their normal like around the the set and then would

[37:53] find like the phenomes or whatever and like put them together.

[37:57] It was better than I expected out of baby geniuses.

[38:00] I'm not going to say it's should have like won the fucking Oscar

[38:02] for best baby.

[38:05] You just said it should have won the Oscar.

[38:06] It's just they're just the sounds coming out and the lips are

[38:09] just the lips are just like moving but I I reject the idea that

[38:14] they I Dan you are a kind and optimistic and always and I understand

[38:20] that you are taking them at their word and normally I would do

[38:23] that too.

[38:24] But I I look at this and I just saw just flappy flappy flappy

[38:29] cartoon lips.

[38:30] Do you think these babies?

[38:31] They did it like Mr.

[38:32] Ed style.

[38:33] They just gave the baby some peanut butter.

[38:35] No, I think they animated it but I think they animated it kind

[38:38] of randomly.

[38:39] I think just like this is how long this baby is talking.

[38:41] We're going to give seven flaps of I'll be the peacemaker between

[38:45] you two so that this rift doesn't destroy the podcast.

[38:47] I will say there were times when the lips looked pretty good

[38:50] and there are times when it looks really random and just like

[38:53] they shoved whatever into whatever movements.

[38:55] Now, this is a Kaelin raves babies look pretty good in my in

[39:01] my research.

[39:01] I also saw that one point they experimented with having grown-up

[39:04] voices coming out of the babies, which would have been horrifying.

[39:07] I don't like that.

[39:08] The only thing that makes look who's talking not a total nightmare

[39:11] is that they the baby's mouths are not moving while they're all

[39:14] grown-up voices.

[39:14] Yeah out.

[39:15] Yeah, you know what?

[39:16] I'll admit I had a hard time paying attention to these babies.

[39:19] So maybe I saw a moment that it was good and then my brain just

[39:23] checked out.

[39:23] I mean these babies are so unlikable.

[39:26] They're so unfunny.

[39:27] They're so full of themselves.

[39:28] One's a narc one's a narc and that they're the this baby named

[39:32] Basil to be honest by the end.

[39:34] I was sympathetic with Basil just because sly is so unlikable.

[39:37] He's such an unlikable main character.

[39:39] It's the thing when like you agree with somebody but they are so

[39:42] unlikable at your like, I guess I'm going to side with your opponent

[39:45] just because I find you so detestable, you know, sly is I don't

[39:49] like him.

[39:49] He is the ultimate kind of 90s movie hero in that he's always

[39:53] quipping.

[39:54] He thinks he's great.

[39:55] He calls himself the sly man.

[39:57] He just has such a totally unearned sense of entitlement.

[40:00] man that comes with these white male babies that he's like he's a he's a poochie they just think

[40:05] they're better than everybody else he's got what he's got the quality that has caused a certain

[40:10] reconsideration of ferris bueller as a as a movie character yeah he's got that kind of like i get

[40:15] away with everything isn't that amazing doesn't everybody love me and then you're kind of like

[40:21] yeah not maybe i've met too many entitled people in my life at this point

[40:25] exactly seemed like a charming power fantasy is now a disturbing power fantasy well because when

[40:31] when you're young you're like i wish i could do that and then when you're older yeah exactly

[40:33] you're like well i've met people like that i hate them you're like that guy's the reason

[40:37] everybody else has to stay late at work like yeah that he's the reason that they have all

[40:42] that security at parades now so nobody just jumps up on a float and takes over

[40:49] so speaking of annoying people we meet ice pick the uh nephew i guess is he the nephew of kim

[40:55] cattrall i don't remember how he's related works for them i believe it or not i tried to figure

[41:01] this out and he i think he's got a deep wardrobe yeah he has a lot of style looks throughout he's

[41:08] trying on different personas from buddhist monk to london punk you know he's got a lot of different

[41:13] ways he looks you know i sympathized a bit with ice pick because you know the adults were kind of

[41:18] condescending to to the style choices i mean you know kim cattrall is pretty nicely joking about

[41:25] it but you know ruby d would be like plucking out his earrings or whatever so no thanks like let let

[41:31] ice pick be ice pick you know okay i mean it's like moving on ice pick keeps trying on different

[41:38] different personalities and different personas like young people do but instead of really

[41:42] exploring who he is he's just putting on different costumes he's just appropriating other people's

[41:46] ideas rather than exploring his own feelings i i want ice pick to be ice pick but ice pick isn't

[41:51] letting ice pick be ice pick dan ice pick let ice pick be ice pick you know dan back in the day more

[41:58] than 20 years ago when i used to write for a website called television without pity they teased

[42:04] me one time and they said your problem is you're the nice one and i was very offended and i said

[42:10] i'm not the nice one but i realized later that in many ways i was the nice one and dan you're the

[42:17] nice one well i appreciate that i think my problem is that i'm mostly the nice one about movies and

[42:24] then in real life i can be sort of grumpy well you're like you're like you're like the neighbor

[42:31] and home alone you're real grumpy and off-putting but there's a heart of gold in there when when a

[42:35] little kid gets through it you seek the you seek the good quality in every in every movie it's

[42:42] i appreciate very endearing yeah thank you it's what we should all and and even to somebody as

[42:47] terrible as ice pick i'm just saying yeah no i mean ice pick was kind of irritating i just didn't

[42:53] like that they were making fun of his clothes now the truth comes out yeah so meanwhile at this

[42:59] daycare research center whatever the fuck it is peter mcnickle is filming the baby's faces

[43:05] and he suspects that wit is speaking english he thinks he catches an actual english phrase

[43:13] from the baby's mouth now he plays back to take english or that he understood what he said in baby

[43:18] talk i have the same question as elliot i mean which is why dan you're the expert on baby geniuses

[43:26] well i mean dan you wrote the movie what was the attention in the scene based on subsequent scenes

[43:33] he seems to be the only one who can understand it so i think that like everyone else is hearing

[43:38] gibberish and and peter mcnickle as you said he's like a big baby so maybe he retains that

[43:43] connection to baby language because of it my that's my guess is that peter mcnickle is like

[43:48] this character is going to eventually decode baby language so i have to play him like an innocent

[43:53] and he seems like a kid who's pretending to be an adult throughout the entire movie

[43:58] a good actor he's been a lot of great stuff like yeah he's he's great so the i have to

[44:03] assume that was there was some kind of reasoning behind that those choices you know okay uh we also

[44:09] learned that wit believes that he is psychically implanting uh ideas into his father's head his

[44:15] adoptive father's head which seems to bear fruit since he gives uh peter mcnickle the idea to

[44:21] refinance their loan so they can take out an additional wing and get additional uh research

[44:27] babies so they can make more money i really understand this the important thing is it gets

[44:32] explained in more than one scene that's the important thing about it that in a in a what

[44:37] 95 minute movie about about talking babies or geniuses we heard about how they needed a loan

[44:43] to invest money because ultimately they would make more money if they had the larger facility

[44:47] we it's good it's good that that stuff's in there not padding at all yeah

[44:52] uh so so meanwhile in the only way the only way they that they could have padded it more is if

[44:57] kim cattrall was like well while you're doing that i'll just finish this recipe that you can

[45:01] do around the house with just these simple ingredients and then just pulled out a bunch

[45:04] of things and then just cooked on camera while explaining what she was doing i mean there is

[45:09] i will get there she doesn't come get ready with me or something

[45:14] i'm not i'm not gonna skip there because like it'll be our little treat at the end of the movie

[45:17] but there is some some aggressive padding at the very end of the movie and it's weird to me

[45:22] because this movie is like i don't know like it's like an hour 50 or something like it's not

[45:27] that last scene of the movie the stuff that happens again would make sense if this movie

[45:32] would just barely squeak to 90 minutes and they're like we got to put this in here to

[45:36] pull it out but otherwise it's inexplicable to me but we'll we'll get there and then the

[45:40] movies that i expect to have padding there's a movie i saw i thought there's going to be a ton

[45:43] of padding in it it was called padding ton there was no padding that's a good movie it was the

[45:47] scenes needed to be there you know i was sitting here waiting for that truck to arrive and i was

[45:52] when the wells fargo wagon came coming down the street and delivered that to me i was happy

[45:58] okay guys so time to get some baby action uh sly escapes his secret lab using a variety of gadgets

[46:05] that he built or scavenged and then he hides in the laundry and this is where he uh uses the

[46:11] catchphrase diaper gravy to describe the contents of those diapers and then that phrase is repeated

[46:17] diaper gravy yeah it is repeated like five times within a like two minute period which i have to

[46:23] assume the filmmakers are like kids are gonna love this and not stop saying it so we gotta

[46:27] get on top we gotta get on top of this landmine and say it ourselves it's really gross no it's

[46:36] really gross bad phrases my dog is barking by the way if you hear him a little bit is it the

[46:44] implication that you would eat what's in the diaper is that what's so gross about it particularly

[46:47] since it's a gravy i think it's the implication about the consistency consistency i think with

[46:53] lumps or without lumps do you think okay i mean it depends on the baby linda's so disturbed already

[46:58] just so uh so sly is able to escape and then he runs loose on the city streets this is where we

[47:06] also learn that sly and wit have some kind of psychic link not unlike et and elliot it's true

[47:14] like all twins they can they can fly uh kind of sensations to each other sensationism and concepts

[47:22] yeah um so then sly gets picked up by a cartoonish hobo fellow who wants to sell him

[47:29] for a reward uh so sly beats him up and then steals his clothes and cigar

[47:34] uh and then he sneaks into the perambulator of a very fancy lady baby where we believe we are led

[47:42] to believe that they had some kind of romantic twist and end up swapping clothes while they're

[47:47] in the mall what do you guys think of this so here's here's my if this was a grown-up movie

[47:52] and the joke of it was he's like james bond but he's a baby and he's going to do all it's going

[47:58] to show you how ridiculous a james bond story is by having a baby do it he's betting women he's

[48:03] having action uh sequences the same way there's a uh is it johnny ryan who has the character stud

[48:07] baby who's the baby probably the baby who's so hot that women are like oh i can't i gotta get

[48:13] that baby the uh this if it was a joke like that if it was like a taboo breaking joke where it's

[48:18] like we're gonna show you how dumb this is by having a baby do it but it's not this is a

[48:21] children's movie so the idea that like he had like a romantic dalliance for a moment with this

[48:25] with and that not that it's even like hinted at but that she that she says when he says take off

[48:30] your clothes she that she says at least buy me dinner first like i don't like any of that it's

[48:33] so hard all of it it's what most of the jokes in the movie are lazy but this one is grotesque yeah

[48:39] exactly it's uh yeah i don't want my baby characters to have sex maybe i'm on a limb here

[48:44] maybe we got a ritual i don't want my baby characters it's very bad it's very bad and

[48:48] as you said you get the you get the take off your clothes and then at the end he's leaving and she's

[48:53] saying call me i'm listed it's like oh god are we and she doesn't even hold up a toy phone i mean

[49:00] come on she can't be listed who has what baby is listed in the phone book that's crazy well

[49:06] i don't think they traded names so like how's he even gonna find her also i think where you

[49:12] start to get some of the use of movie uh catchphrases is in sort of this section i

[49:18] think you get the hasta la vista baby somewhere in this section maybe yeah uh and when he starts

[49:24] when he as i'm sure stewart will get to when he gets to his changing montage which is uh

[49:28] which to me was the most grotesque the after the implication that these babies made love

[49:32] the most grotesque moment to me is is the what they do with him in the clothes changing montage

[49:37] yeah go ahead go ahead go ahead it looks like my notes have like four paragraphs about how

[49:42] peter mcnichol is now planning on taking out a loan to save the business like i guess i can

[49:46] i can skip that also luckily none of that information plays into the rest of the movie

[49:52] and it doesn't matter okay some financing paperwork he was gonna read

[49:57] just for the texture it's like a robert altman movie some of the stuff

[50:00] It's just there to build a world.

[50:01] Yeah, exactly.

[50:02] Uh, just like a Robert Altman movie, we then see, uh, Sly hiding

[50:07] out in the mall playing Crash Bandicoot.

[50:10] That, okay.

[50:11] I did enjoy seeing Crash Bandicoot.

[50:13] Yeah.

[50:13] I was like, what am I watching someone else play Crash Bandicoot is like that

[50:17] scene in Uncharted 4 where you get to play Crash Bandicoot in, uh, Uncharted.

[50:23] It's amazing.

[50:24] Okay.

[50:24] So now this is the most important thing.

[50:26] Watching other people play Crash Bandicoot.

[50:28] Yeah.

[50:28] We are at the putting on the Ritz montage where he puts on a bunch

[50:33] of different baby size clothes.

[50:36] Was he at a fucking Photoshop?

[50:37] Like what's going on here?

[50:38] He is at a Baby Gap, I think.

[50:39] Right.

[50:40] But that they have like...

[50:40] Baby Gaps have tuxedos?

[50:42] Do they have tuxedos?

[50:43] That they have disco leisure suits.

[50:45] Like what is going on in this life?

[50:47] But the choice to do the, what the eighties cover of putting on the Ritz.

[50:51] Taco, yeah.

[50:51] Is a weird one.

[50:52] It's a creepy song.

[50:54] It's very creepy.

[50:55] The fact that they have him dress up as Tony Manero and do the

[50:58] dance from Saturday Night Fever, which is like, who is that for?

[51:01] The kids watching this movie don't know what that is.

[51:04] It's all for Jon Voight.

[51:05] Shouldn't be watching this.

[51:06] It's all for Jon Voight.

[51:08] He's like, make the baby dance.

[51:10] He goes on for a long time.

[51:12] I feel like there's, it was, there was nothing.

[51:14] It was so grotesque to me that you're like, we're going to use computers to

[51:17] make a baby do a pop culture reference for adults and I found it was like,

[51:22] truly you are, you are staining the idea of childhood at this point.

[51:26] Sorry, what'd you do in that?

[51:27] Yeah.

[51:27] Stuart, you just had me imagining, you know, Jon Voight just like throwing

[51:32] crumpled dollar bills of like, make the baby dance around some more.

[51:37] I do think we lost something as a culture when they stopped making like new covers

[51:43] of arguably novelty old songs.

[51:47] Like when the They Might Be Giants did a Istanbul was Constantinople.

[51:49] I was just going to say that Istanbul was Constantinople thing, putting on the

[51:54] Ritz.

[51:54] I want to see like, uh, I want to see like, uh, uh, how much is that doggie in

[51:59] the window from, you know, from like a very, very cool current musician.

[52:04] Yeah.

[52:05] Why doesn't Lil Nas X do a Jeepers Creepers cover?

[52:08] Yeah.

[52:10] Yeah.

[52:10] Lil Nas X do a Jeepers Creepers.

[52:12] Who's cool?

[52:13] You got like a...

[52:14] Who's cool these days?

[52:15] What are the kids listening to?

[52:17] We haven't had a cover of Tiptoe Through the Tulips in decades.

[52:20] Like, why isn't Billie Eilish doing that?

[52:21] Yeah.

[52:22] Yeah.

[52:22] Oh, that's a good one.

[52:23] It's like that was that charted, that taco version of putting on the Ritz.

[52:26] Like that was a hit.

[52:27] That was a hit.

[52:28] Yeah.

[52:28] In spite of the major handicap of being irritating.

[52:31] It was, it was huge.

[52:33] And you guys know, we were like, time-wise, we were so close to one of those outfits

[52:39] being fucking Austin Powers, right?

[52:41] Well, he does an Austin Powers line.

[52:43] He does an Austin Powers?

[52:44] Yeah.

[52:45] He says, Oh, behave.

[52:47] And I'm like, movie, go take yourself straight to hell, movie.

[52:50] Like, don't do that.

[52:53] I had the same reaction.

[52:56] Straight to hell with the babies.

[53:00] Uh, okay.

[53:00] So, uh, let's see.

[53:03] Uh, Kim Cattrall takes wit to the mall.

[53:05] Oh, wow.

[53:06] That rhymed.

[53:07] Uh, of course, uh, Sly spots them and then they all get spotted by undercover goons.

[53:14] This mall is more goons than shoppers.

[53:17] Um, wit gets snatched up by the goons.

[53:20] Sly gets picked up by Kim Cattrall, who's a little confused that he's not wearing

[53:24] overalls, but she's like, it's still a baby.

[53:26] He's wearing a different outfit.

[53:28] And she's like, yeah, that's odd.

[53:29] And then she just takes them home anyway.

[53:32] She's like, Oh, mommy brain.

[53:33] You're wearing a different outfit than the one I put you in this morning.

[53:35] You know?

[53:36] Yeah.

[53:37] Uh, wit doesn't adapt well to imprisonment as you would imagine.

[53:41] This was no, actually I've said a bunch of times.

[53:44] This is where the movie I wanted to go to this, where wit is just crying.

[53:47] Like, because, and I was like, yeah, this is scary.

[53:49] Like he's been taken to a secret lab, a secret Akira kids lab by like, and like

[53:55] this, not, there's nothing fun or exciting or adventurous about this to me.

[53:58] Like it's just, you want, you want baby geniuses to just be all little animals

[54:02] from guardians of the galaxy montage, right?

[54:06] Nothing but animals being sad in cages and wondering when they're going to die

[54:10] and stuff like that.

[54:11] You want like the Werner Herzog baby geniuses.

[54:14] Werner Herzog's baby geniuses, to be honest, go in that direction then at

[54:17] least, because then I can make it, make it so dark that I'm like, Oh, I guess

[54:21] it's, it's, there's some kind of sick joke to it, you know?

[54:25] Although if Werner Herzog was playing the Christopher Lloyd character, that

[54:28] would have been fantastic.

[54:29] If he was the doctor who was doing, who was like yelling at babies and things

[54:33] like that, that'd be pretty fun.

[54:34] These babies.

[54:35] I see no joy, no humanity, man.

[54:39] Just imagining Kathleen Turner and Werner Herzog's voices in the same scene is so

[54:43] perfect.

[54:44] I will say, if you have never heard, there's an old episode of our podcast

[54:47] where Glenn Weldon, who has done this show with you guys, uh, did a, um, did a

[54:53] supposed, like, what if Werner Herzog made a romantic comedy and it's extremely

[54:57] funny and it devolves into a whole bunch of Glenn, German Glenn voice.

[55:02] And it's, it's very good.

[55:04] If you like a Werner Herzog voice, which I do.

[55:07] And he talks about, it's very good.

[55:09] Very, very good.

[55:11] I never missed a chance to plug my pals.

[55:13] Yeah.

[55:14] Stuart, how's your, how's your bicep, uh, circumference compared

[55:18] to Glenn's these days?

[55:19] Would you say?

[55:19] I don't think it's as good.

[55:20] I mean, he's a beefcake, man.

[55:23] He's a big guy.

[55:24] Yeah.

[55:24] He doesn't, he doesn't post as many thirst traps as I do though.

[55:27] Unless he's posting them on a burner account.

[55:31] I think he tries not to, you know, but, but there was a poster on your Facebook

[55:36] page, the Facebook page for this show.

[55:38] Um, who said that when you said that I was going to come on and do this, they

[55:42] said, I am almost as excited about this as I was when it was Glenn Weldon.

[55:45] And I was like, you know what?

[55:47] Appropriate and fair.

[55:49] I was like, that's appropriate.

[55:51] That's correct.

[55:51] Oh, that's correct.

[55:53] I feel like that's the, that's the social, uh, that's the social etiquette

[55:56] level of a lot of our fans is, uh, they are enthusiastic, but not always tactful.

[56:02] I got it.

[56:03] I was, I read it and I was like, agree.

[56:05] Reasonable.

[56:07] Yep.

[56:07] Well, uh, I think I speak for Dan Elliott when we're saying we're even more

[56:11] excited.

[56:11] Glenn is super strong.

[56:13] You're the best.

[56:13] Take that.

[56:15] The feud begins now.

[56:17] Oh no.

[56:19] Uh, let's see.

[56:20] Uh, almost immediately.

[56:22] Dr.

[56:22] Kinder realized there that the switch was on that sly and wit have been swapped

[56:26] somehow that her goons are all idiots.

[56:30] Um, they also find out that like when a baby hits two years old, then, uh, they're

[56:35] like brain, their limbic activity slows down and they become dumb normal kids.

[56:41] Again.

[56:42] This is kind of like, this is a pretty common trope where it's like all of a

[56:45] sudden they lose the wonder of being a child or like how in lock and key you

[56:49] stop paying attention to the magic of the keys or some shit or flowers or for

[56:54] Algernon.

[56:55] It all makes sense.

[56:56] Uh, but this is very specific.

[56:58] It's like a two year mark and one baby hits it and all the other babies are

[57:01] like, oh, you're not going to remember us.

[57:05] And it could have been sad, but it wasn't because it's this movie.

[57:07] This is dumb.

[57:07] They call it crossing over and it starts with a tummy ache and then, and then it,

[57:12] and then it quickly becomes them not understanding baby language anymore.

[57:15] Yeah.

[57:15] It's a lot like ginger snaps.

[57:16] I think, um, also started with a tummy ache.

[57:22] Um, okay.

[57:22] So Dr.

[57:23] Kinder goes to visit her.

[57:25] What's her relationship with Kim control?

[57:27] Are they like cousins?

[57:28] They are kinder says she's Kim controls aunt.

[57:31] And oh, I, is that what it is?

[57:33] I thought, and admittedly, part of this understanding comes from reading the

[57:40] Wikipedia, it's trying to clear things up, but like, it's a pretty complicated

[57:44] at one point, the exhaustive, uh, Wikipedia tree.

[57:48] Yeah.

[57:48] I thought there were sisters because like, like they find out that Kim

[57:53] control is adopted or something at the end and throughout the movie, they

[57:58] say that she's her aunt and at the very end of the movie, Kim control

[58:03] says, I'm not really your aunt.

[58:05] You were adopted when you were two.

[58:07] Yeah.

[58:07] And Kim control is very happy about this and apparently not thrown at all because

[58:14] it means she's not related to Kathleen Turner.

[58:17] Yeah.

[58:19] Okay.

[58:19] I guess I, I assumed a, you know, a more sort of close relationship because as

[58:27] some people are very close to their aunt, I know, I know, I know, but culturally

[58:30] like sort of in my Midwestern family, like my aunts are like, yeah, I'll see

[58:35] them occasionally, I guess, you know, the fact that Kim control is two years

[58:40] younger than Kathleen Turner.

[58:42] Uh, but in this movie there, there is a larger age gap.

[58:45] I assume characters.

[58:47] Anyway.

[58:48] Yeah.

[58:48] But maybe Kim controls mom, but it doesn't matter.

[58:50] Um, so Dr.

[58:51] Kinder goes to visit, uh, family tree.

[58:56] I mean, it's true.

[58:57] My, my grandmother, she had, uh, she had an aunt who is not that much older than

[59:02] her because she had a lot of aunts and there was a big gap between her mother,

[59:05] who was the eldest and her aunt who was the youngest.

[59:08] So I could see, yeah, yeah, that can happen.

[59:09] I guess.

[59:11] They called the Kathleen Turner character, Dr.

[59:13] Kinder.

[59:14] It's like somebody was standing off screen going, try less, try less.

[59:18] Yeah.

[59:19] It's, it was the laziest moment.

[59:21] It's, it's a lazy moment in a film filled with them.

[59:25] They were like, they're like in the first draft to go now, uh, Kathleen

[59:27] Turner's character, Dr.

[59:28] Mean lady.

[59:29] Can we make it a little too on the nose?

[59:33] Mean man.

[59:33] Cruelsome.

[59:35] Okay.

[59:37] Uh, villain X bad man.

[59:40] Can we change the name to something a little bit less on the nose?

[59:43] Okay.

[59:43] So I was playing him.

[59:45] Oh, you're right.

[59:45] You're right.

[59:46] He can sometimes be a nice guy.

[59:49] That's true.

[59:50] He's heroic in some movies.

[59:51] Like strange brew.

[59:53] Um,

[59:54] uh, so he's, she's trying to steal slide back, but it doesn't seem to work.

[1:00:00] out. She doesn't try that hard. Sly can apparently still communicate a little bit with Peter

[1:00:04] McNichol, but it's also, you know, it's garbled. Goons show up to try and capture Sly, including

[1:00:11] who's that actor who's-

[1:00:12] So these are both well-known. So this is Sam McMurray is one of them from Raising Arizona

[1:00:16] from Reef Reef Leaks. The other one is Jim Hanks, Tom Hanks's brother, who will sometimes

[1:00:21] do voice work or stand-in work for Tom Hanks. So these are, this is Hollywood royalty.

[1:00:27] I was legitimately standing there looking at that guy going, he really reminds me of

[1:00:31] Tom Hanks, but I know that's not Tom Hanks. And I thought, does Tom Hanks have a brother?

[1:00:34] And I looked him up and I was like, come on, yes.

[1:00:36] He does. Dan, you would probably know him best for starring in the movie

[1:00:38] Buford's Speech Bunnies.

[1:00:39] Buford's Speech Bunnies. Yes, I was going to ask if he was the same one.

[1:00:45] The same one.

[1:00:46] So the goons show up to try and capture Sly, but of course he takes the high ground and he tricks

[1:00:52] both of them into getting whacked in the balls.

[1:00:56] In an ideal sequence, identical sequences.

[1:00:59] Identical sequences.

[1:01:00] Right after each other.

[1:01:01] This is the one part of the movie that I found genuinely, not exactly funny, but the fact that,

[1:01:06] so Sam McMurray is like, let me guess, you want me to stand here and you're going to jump on that.

[1:01:10] It's going to hit me in the groin, in the gonads, then I'm going to make a funny face

[1:01:14] and fall down the stairs. Well, it's not going to happen. And Sly tricks him into doing it in a way

[1:01:17] that's not funny. But then that Jim Hanks comes up and has the same exact conversation,

[1:01:21] but the same exact outcome. I was like, you know what, baby genius, this is kind of a funny bit.

[1:01:25] I agree, Elliot. I was like, did someone slightly funnier come in?

[1:01:30] And the thing that really helped that scene for me is when it happens to Jim McMurray

[1:01:35] and he gets whacked in the balls. Sorry, Sam. And when he falls down the stairs, it is clearly the

[1:01:41] most fakest looking stuntman swap. It's like he does not have the same hair. It's like it's very

[1:01:48] silly. And it's really it's like the icing on that cake. So they immediately they're like,

[1:01:54] OK, we can't stunt the stunt matchups in this movie are not done with a lot of exacting care.

[1:02:01] Let's just say not like Garbage Pail Kids, the movie, for instance.

[1:02:05] So at this point, Kathleen Turner is immediately like, OK, we got to dismantle the lab, burn

[1:02:11] everything. We're all going to prison. And I was like, yeah, she's what for what? Yeah,

[1:02:18] yeah. They're not going to put a baby on the stand like he's a pretty smart baby,

[1:02:23] a genius even. But I don't think they're going to put him on the stand.

[1:02:25] Can you read back what the witness just said? Gugu Gaga. I rest my case.

[1:02:34] Strike that from the record. OK, so the babies decide to help each other.

[1:02:39] We have some training montages right where the babies are. My notes start to break down here.

[1:02:44] I was a couple of days. So there's a little bit of a training montage. There's a there's a scene

[1:02:51] where the babies are in a truck going to save the other babies. Right. And they're like singing like

[1:03:00] military pep songs. And here's where they line. Like, I don't know what I've been told.

[1:03:07] Eskimo girls are mighty cold. And I'm like, what the fuck?

[1:03:12] Like, well, multiple problems with that. Is Don Delaware's hypnotized by this point?

[1:03:19] I think so. Because he's driving the bus. Yeah. By the time he's driving the bus,

[1:03:23] they've hypnotized him. Yeah. Yeah. I forgot the wit has the ability or

[1:03:28] I guess Sly has the ability to hypnotize people also.

[1:03:32] I'd say the medical field. Yeah, sure. That was a good thing. You did slide. No,

[1:03:37] no. It was good that you made all those pop culture references. No,

[1:03:39] no. It doesn't instantly date the movie slide. Those were good. Those were good. Yeah.

[1:03:45] Peter McNichol and Kim Cattrall are confused by why babies are running all over the place.

[1:03:50] Their daughter explains the whole situation. They're understandably getting calls from

[1:03:54] parents saying, why are my babies not at home? Where are they?

[1:03:57] Yeah. There's a there's a big showdown at the theme park.

[1:04:03] I did. There was there's one line and there's another line coming up. So Peter McNichol,

[1:04:07] he calls 911. They don't believe him because his story is so crazy. I don't like that part. But

[1:04:11] then Kim Cattrall calls 911 and goes, you know, baby, we put a bomb there. And I was like, I was

[1:04:16] like, that's because you want cops there. You got cops there. And I was like, that was a funny way

[1:04:19] for them to deal with that, too. That's MVP. That's co-MVP Kim Cattrall for you. I think

[1:04:25] kind of like, you know, somebody good enough, they can put it over.

[1:04:29] Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But I agree with Stuart. This this this mayhem at the end, like my my brain,

[1:04:37] like, yeah, it's incomprehensible. Like I texted you something similar where I'm like, as I get

[1:04:42] older, like comedy, just like general comedy mayhem, unless it's like really funny gags,

[1:04:47] which this is not just bores me. I'm like, yeah, wrap it up, guys. Like,

[1:04:53] not half like robots. Yeah. Like kick someone in the butt. Like, I mean, that's funny, actually.

[1:04:58] Now that I'm saying it. No, but it doesn't. It's not funny when you see it. You are if the highest

[1:05:03] you're hoping to achieve is like a mild chuckle from your beer. Maybe don't put put it in the

[1:05:10] movie. It's also one of the it's this is one of those movies where the I feel like Argyle,

[1:05:15] which we watch recently, had the same problem where the main character, the hero of the movie

[1:05:20] is so incredibly uber competent that no one can stand in their way. And so by the end of this

[1:05:25] movie, it's just sly in a control room, sending out the robots to beat up the adults while he

[1:05:30] makes just snap. He makes wisecracks and has the same annoying kid laugh over and over again.

[1:05:36] And everything that happens. And it's like, you know what? I'm not on your side at this point.

[1:05:39] Like, you're just you're just torturing. I know that you were basically kidnapped and raised to

[1:05:44] be a sort of child experiment. But at this point, you're I want you to be challenged in some way or

[1:05:49] else. You're not the hero of the movie anymore. Sly is just like Argyle. Not to be overly

[1:05:53] philosophical about action comedies, but I just recently saw The Fall Guy, which I loved. I heard

[1:05:58] really good, which I loved it so much. I was such a sucker for that movie. And one of the reasons

[1:06:02] why I love it is that because it's about this stuntman and because I think they wanted to be

[1:06:06] true to, you know, admiration for some people. Every time that Ryan Gosling is doing something

[1:06:11] that looks like it would really hurt in this movie, it looks like it really hurts and he lands

[1:06:15] and he'll immediately be like, oh, you can tell he can only do so much of this. And that's part

[1:06:21] of one of that's one of the things maybe turned out to be about. And those kinds of things where

[1:06:25] you actually have, you know, a person who is has some vulnerabilities. I think it really helps put

[1:06:31] an action sequence over even in an action comedy. Yeah. My favorite, my favorite moment in any

[1:06:35] Mission Impossible movie is when Tom Cruise is climbing the Burj Khalifa and he has to slide

[1:06:39] into that window and he hits his head on it. And I know that he didn't really get hurt, but like

[1:06:43] that Ethan Hunt is like, ow, like he didn't do it right. And he gets hurt. Yeah, I love it. I mean,

[1:06:47] somebody I saw somebody point out, like the best part of the Mission Impossible movies is the look

[1:06:51] on Ethan Hunt's face when he realizes, oh, shit, I have to how am I going to get out of this? Yeah,

[1:06:55] yeah, yeah. He the way Tom Cruise does sell that. And that's part of what Ryan Gosling does so well

[1:07:01] in Fall Guy is the like he sells the vulnerability of that character and he sells the like the pain

[1:07:08] that he's going through so well. And we mentioned a lot, but for me, like it's going back a while,

[1:07:13] but the gold standard is like Indiana Jones, where like he there's like a whole scene in

[1:07:18] Raiders of the Lost Ark. The movie pauses for him to be grumpy about how every part of them hurts.

[1:07:26] And I love that. I love that the movie acknowledges like this is just a guy who

[1:07:31] like is really good at it, but it's really lucky and like is in pain.

[1:07:34] That Indiana Jones in the in the best of those movies, he looks genuinely worried

[1:07:39] and unhappy in the he's running from that giant boulder and stuff. He's not like,

[1:07:43] oh, I guess we're having a ball. He's like, oh, shit, I got to do punch up for Raiders of the Lost

[1:07:51] Ark. How how how much did the the when the spikes come out after? Why am I forgetting his name?

[1:08:00] Dr. Octopus, after he betrays him. He's not like spikes to see you. You got the point.

[1:08:07] Like, instead, he's just like, oh, OK, how much did the Dan, how much did the sequence where

[1:08:14] Indiana Jones uses his injuries and his general grumpiness to seduce somebody? How much did that

[1:08:19] inform your own love stuff? I mean, it's Karen Allen. So I have to imagine that I was like,

[1:08:27] OK, if this is the way, if this is how you do it, this is why you're standing outside

[1:08:32] of Karen Allen's house with a boombox just playing you going out. Yeah, I'm sending her

[1:08:38] my doctor's reports about, you know, my early onset arthritis. Guys, so the the bad guys lose.

[1:08:46] The good guys win. Oh, OK. There's a moment. Appropriately. Appropriately. Yeah. Let's talk

[1:08:52] about this montage because, like, there's a montage that wraps up, you know, yada yada.

[1:08:56] The babies, you know, lose their magical babies with stuff. But in the end, nobody wins. Death

[1:09:03] comes for us all eventually. Yeah, it's but to me, there is this baffling like montage set to

[1:09:08] like a country ballad about how babies are like God. Yeah, it's a Randy Travis song. We haven't

[1:09:14] even talked about the fact that one of the guards who is running the robots in the theme park is

[1:09:21] Randy Travis. And so that's Randy Travis. And then you get a Randy Travis song at the end,

[1:09:26] which I guess is all part of the same, you know, maybe they made a deal with the record company or

[1:09:32] somebody knows Randy Travis's manager or whatever. But yeah, so that's a Randy Travis song at the

[1:09:36] end, but perhaps sung in the story by one of the guards. Who knows? I have to say this would make

[1:09:44] sense to me if like over the credits they had scenes from the production of Baby Geniuses

[1:09:50] just showing the kids running around being kids. And then you've got the sentimental song about

[1:09:54] kids. What it is instead is like within the diegetic world of the film, we just get like very

[1:10:00] Flashbacks to the kids doing stuff. We saw in the movie already while this song plays and I'm like, what is going on?

[1:10:08] Wasn't this a good movie

[1:10:10] Wasn't this a good movie remember all the characters you fell in love with and the moments you'll remember forever and the ride we've been

[1:10:16] On remember this thing that happened eight minutes ago

[1:10:19] This song that should be playing over the closing credits

[1:10:22] Why not just remember some of these special times with our new friends the baby geniuses?

[1:10:27] Yeah, I imagine on set a PA comes right came running up to Bob Clark and John Boyd and was like guys guys guys get this

[1:10:34] Randy Travis loves babies

[1:10:40] I've been looking for a way to do a project with babies

[1:10:45] I thought you were gonna say somebody ran up and said guys were short. We're short

[1:10:52] Always a montage that's a good way

[1:10:55] You guys I mean you guys la you're a school of

[1:11:00] music

[1:11:02] You know you pay attention to the pop music

[1:11:04] Song was a huge hit right? It was a Grammy winner. So this was a Grammy it won for best original song best original

[1:11:11] best album

[1:11:13] Look in word, which is strange

[1:11:15] It was number one on the pop charts number one in the country charts and number one on the jazz

[1:11:19] Adult easy listening charts as well as number one on the hip-hop R&B charts, which it's not even one of those quadruple threat

[1:11:26] It took the world by storm. I think

[1:11:29] Right that the war in Kosovo ended when they played this song and everyone was said. Yeah, we all yeah

[1:11:33] I think you're right. He's once they hugged each other. It was just this song brought that world together

[1:11:37] We have Randy Travis and baby geniuses to thank for that

[1:11:40] Unfortunately, we've since forgotten that because we all crossed over when the year 1999 turned to the year 2000

[1:11:46] we all crossed over and forgot our knowledge of the 20th century and so

[1:11:49] Once again, we live in a fallen world that the magic of Randy Travis no longer holds together. Yeah

[1:11:55] No, I think that's the song. I think that's the song where they abolished the baby the baby music chart, right?

[1:12:02] Never gonna sell this well again. Yeah. Yeah, there's no point in having it probably is still number one on the baby music chart

[1:12:09] That was number one. Number two. Is that yeah, I am own baby that French song that

[1:12:15] Geordie song Geordie. Yeah, baby shark. Yeah

[1:12:20] You know ready Travis is clean the baby shark and he's like they're baby music these days it's not what's really about there's no message

[1:12:27] It's just gear candy. And then after that this baby. I love you, which is not actually a baby song

[1:12:32] He just has baby in it, but they're

[1:12:35] Again, it wasn't about a baby Santa Claus. That would be a baby's not appropriate

[1:12:42] I feel like the makers of this movie would have been like

[1:12:45] Yeah, I mean there's Santa in the movie and there's babies and there's mention of a robot Santa and you know

[1:12:51] We've been playing it pretty fast and loose with how sexualized these babies

[1:12:56] Yeah, I do want to I do want to point out one thing that one detail that we missed which was the robot clown

[1:13:00] that is holding a sort of cross with chattering teeth all along the the crossbar and he kind of he

[1:13:07] Frightens the these security goons at the end. What was the making behind that? Do you think we're gonna enjoy that?

[1:13:14] Yeah

[1:13:16] Hey, we're testing out a new Chainsaw Man character. I

[1:13:20] Got to say in another movie that is not baby geniuses. I think I would like that very much. Okay, okay fair

[1:13:27] Before we close the book on baby geniuses, I just want I also want to say after the montage, of course the main

[1:13:34] Baby is wandering around muttering to himself that if they want him in the sequel

[1:13:39] They have to pay him 20 million dollars and then the end is stamped on his this diaper, but so

[1:13:54] Do you think $20 million for babies geniuses

[1:13:59] Aged out of the the franchise and has maybe

[1:14:05] You know emotional problems from

[1:14:09] Superbabies came out five years later. So yeah, probably all those babies were too old

[1:14:14] Yeah, it features a cousin of sly and wit. Ah, okay. Oh, thank God. Yeah, I knew it is preserved

[1:14:23] Let's give our final judgments. Well, this is a good baby with super strength in it. Sorry

[1:14:28] I'm just reading the plots right now. Well Elliot sly can karate chop adults. So his super strength that his strength is pretty super

[1:14:36] Oh, yeah, that's true. But these ones they're like super babies with super powers

[1:14:40] Bouncing boy, that's a real superhero. That's a legion of superiors character. Anyway, Dan, what are we talking about?

[1:14:44] No, if you're if you mean if you're this trans face with super babies babies geniuses, too

[1:14:47] We could try and figure out some way of getting it to it down the line. Maybe on flop TV

[1:14:51] Who knows I'm looking at the cast right now. John Boyd appears finally Scott Bayon Vanessa Angel TV's Lisa from TV science

[1:14:59] Which other people will be Goldberg?

[1:15:02] Snap

[1:15:06] Very important, okay young Stewart, I assume

[1:15:09] Yeah, let's go to final judgments Dan O town appears as themselves. Okay, let's not final judgments

[1:15:14] Okay, whether this is a good bad movie a bad bad movie or a movie. We kind of like I will I

[1:15:21] Do not be

[1:15:23] roundly

[1:15:25] Laughed at I will clarify up front. This is a bad bad movie. Absolutely

[1:15:30] Absolutely a bad bad movie do not watch baby geniuses

[1:15:36] On the weird curve that we have built for ourselves within the flop house I

[1:15:44] Whilst I did not like this movie

[1:15:45] I had a better experience watching it than a lot of the bad movies just by virtue of it being like oh

[1:15:51] This is a type of thing. We don't get anymore this sort of like

[1:15:56] like super

[1:15:58] Shitty family

[1:15:59] comedy like like like the landscape of what movies are have changed so much that so many of the bad movies we

[1:16:07] watch

[1:16:09] Just file into this sort of boring

[1:16:11] Slop in my brain. So I'm like, oh, this is a throwback. This is a nostalgic throwback to the era when a

[1:16:19] Wonderful cast such as this one was forced

[1:16:22] exists in this schlock

[1:16:24] So bad bad, but kind of an interesting experience is what I'm saying

[1:16:31] Stewart why you go you're smirking at me? Yeah. No Dan's right. It's bad bad

[1:16:37] Yeah, it's just I it's not it's not weird enough to be

[1:16:42] Interesting and to overcome the general unpleasantness of it. I would say so I would say bad bad avoid

[1:16:49] I'm gonna second Stewart and

[1:16:52] Third the part of Dan's that was about how bad it is

[1:16:57] It's not fun. It's just I think it's yeah, I think it's not it's not worth watch

[1:17:01] There's so many other things you can have fun with why why are you spending time with this?

[1:17:04] this is one of those move luckily this movie my experience of it went back and forth between being disgusted and

[1:17:10] Not really being able to pay too much attention because as Dan said, there's a lot of hijinks that kind of

[1:17:16] Slide right off your brain. But yes, I would I would say don't watch it Linda proved me wrong

[1:17:22] oh, I can't know I I

[1:17:25] Think it is a very much a bad bad movie and

[1:17:29] I Dan knows this but I fell asleep the first time I tried to watch this

[1:17:34] movie

[1:17:35] I feel I'm so weirded out by the way that like every line in this movie sounds like ADR to me

[1:17:42] Yeah, there's something very strange about how they just some of the basic execution

[1:17:48] Is incompetent?

[1:17:50] That we didn't really talk about it but that opening

[1:17:52] Sequence where Sly is trying to escape the first time has this

[1:17:57] like really ugly weird aesthetic with these like extreme close-ups and it's to me a little fisheye right like a

[1:18:06] Fish I mean, it's not as distorted as I associate with fisheye

[1:18:09] but it was like the same like it's at your nose and it but it had that feel of like

[1:18:16] fading

[1:18:17] Regional department store Halloween sale kind of thing ad for

[1:18:23] So to me it's just not competent enough to be a good bad movie

[1:18:28] It's very bad. It's very boring

[1:18:31] yes, I as I said, I appreciate I think Dan has a spirit of kindness, but I

[1:18:38] I cannot share it

[1:18:47] Sound heap with John Luke Roberts is a real podcast made up of fake podcasts

[1:18:52] Like if you had a cupboard in your lower back, what would you keep in it?

[1:18:55] So I'm gonna say mugs a little yogurt and a spoon a small handkerchief

[1:18:59] That was given to me by my grandmother on her deathbed. Maybe some spare honey. I keep batteries in it

[1:19:05] I pretend to be a toy if I had a cupboard in my lower back

[1:19:08] I'd probably fill it with spines if you had a cupboard in your lower back. What would you keep in it doesn't exist

[1:19:14] We made it up for sound heap with John Luke Roberts an award-winning comedy podcast from maximum fun made up of hundreds of stupid

[1:19:22] Podcasts listen and subscribe to sound heap with John Luke Roberts now. Oh

[1:19:29] My gosh, hi, it's me Dave Holmes host of the pop culture game show troubled waters on troubled waters

[1:19:34] We play a whole host of games like one where I describe a show using a limerick

[1:19:38] And I guess have to figure out what it is. Let's do one right now

[1:19:41] What show am I talking about this podcast has game after game and brilliant guests who come play him host is named Dave

[1:19:48] It could be your faith. So try it life won't be the same a big business starring Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin close, but no

[1:19:56] Oh, is it troubled waters the pop culture quiz show with all your favorite comedians?

[1:20:00] Yes, Troubled Waters is the answer to this question and all of my life's problems now legally

[1:20:06] We actually can't guarantee that but you can find it on maximumfund.org or wherever you get your podcasts

[1:20:14] Hey there listeners, it's me Dan McCoy coming at you solo for a few

[1:20:20] Advertisements and if anyone has listened to me talking solo, you know how weird it can eventually get so

[1:20:28] Let's see what let's take this trip together

[1:20:31] we hope that the sponsors like it and one sponsor we have is

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[1:22:36] we also have a

[1:22:38] Jumbotron this is for Maya from dad and mom

[1:22:42] Maya

[1:22:44] Congratulations on your amazing performance and mama Mia

[1:22:47] We were so proud of all the hard work you put into a spectacular performance and can't wait to see what next year brings

[1:22:54] Love you mom and dad. I

[1:22:57] Love this jumbotron as a former theater kid. I love it and

[1:23:03] I just you know, what a supportive thing to do to buy a jumbotron

[1:23:08] on our dumb

[1:23:10] show

[1:23:11] my I

[1:23:13] Didn't see you obviously a mama Mia, but I also

[1:23:18] Congratulate you on a great performance

[1:23:22] And hey, we don't do only plugs for other things. No, we we plug ourselves. Sometimes we plug ourselves good

[1:23:29] Anyway, that's gross. Uh

[1:23:31] If you are listening to this before May 19th, and I think you are

[1:23:36] I mean, maybe you aren't. I don't know. Why did I say that?

[1:23:40] before May 19th

[1:23:42] 2024 you can still get tickets to the virtual event the Flophouse syncs speed to

[1:23:50] The video on demand is still available

[1:23:53] until

[1:23:54] midnight on May 19th

[1:23:58] and so if you want to get tickets for that you can go to

[1:24:02] stage pilot

[1:24:04] Comm

[1:24:06] Speed also, we are coming to Oxford, England on the 24th of May for two

[1:24:14] Shows at Oxford Town Hall. There is an early show that is at 7 p.m

[1:24:20] And we'll be talking about the Avengers. That's the Uma Thurman

[1:24:24] refines version of

[1:24:27] the British television show The Avengers not you know, the big Marvel one and of course

[1:24:34] We're in England, so we're gonna do Spice World at 9 p.m

[1:24:39] Of course the great classic of British cinema towering above them all there was one

[1:24:44] Crown jewel and that is Spice World. So if you want to see those again, they're on May 24th

[1:24:51] 2024 at Oxford Town Hall in Oxford, England

[1:24:55] There's a 7 p.m. Show and there's a 9 show and also

[1:24:59] We will we will be live in Boston in

[1:25:05] July on

[1:25:06] The 26th of July in fact at 7 p.m. At WB your city space

[1:25:14] Tickets are available

[1:25:16] You know the easiest way go to flop house podcast comm slash events. There's listings for all these shows

[1:25:23] I'm mentioning we don't know what we'll be talking about in Boston

[1:25:27] This time around but we do know that we had a great time at WB you are city space in the past and we

[1:25:33] Anticipate having a great time again in the future. We would love to see you there and

[1:25:39] Now hey

[1:25:42] Why get back to that show?

[1:25:48] Let's take some letters from listeners listeners like you

[1:25:53] Provided that you are a letter-writing listener and this is from Kevin last name being held very close to the vest

[1:25:59] Oh, no, someone bumped into me and I'm bobbling it. I got it. No don't got it. And now it's spilled everywhere

[1:26:04] So thank you for the short story and your last name Kevin

[1:26:08] Mm-hmm. I couldn't tell if that was you reading or you narrating what was happening to you know, this is in the email

[1:26:14] Kevin writes

[1:26:15] Dear floppers. I have four kids. Yes, it's a lot and while I was putting my two-year-old to bed

[1:26:21] I heard my nine-year-old telling me telling one of his little brothers

[1:26:25] Dude, you need to read horse meets dog. It's so funny

[1:26:30] All my kids love the illustrations which have some good visual gags. So a little compliment for you Elliot at the top

[1:26:38] Nice. I'm glad they enjoy it

[1:26:41] He continues the rest of the letter is a drag on

[1:26:45] Then it's like shark going hippo on the other hand fails to reach the heights of more slump we call it here in this house

[1:26:51] so a horse meets dog has been a

[1:26:54] Been newly rediscovered in my household and it's I find it very gratifying when my son

[1:26:59] He laughs whenever the horse goes woohoo oats and he thinks that's the funniest line that was ever written

[1:27:05] And he's right. I can't argue with him

[1:27:08] Okay. Well, he continues Kevin continues

[1:27:11] We also recently

[1:27:13] Rewatched pardon me wall-e as a family, which is

[1:27:17] Sorry as a family comma, which is good full of great physical comedy

[1:27:22] So my question is this in the era of

[1:27:26] Say feral McKay s comedy which prioritizes silly improvised dialogue

[1:27:32] What are some recent ish films or TV shows that you thought did a great job of using?

[1:27:38] Visual gags or physical comedy to get a laugh

[1:27:45] It's not that

[1:27:47] Recent overall, but I think when Dick Van Dyke would trip over the Ottomans. Yeah

[1:27:56] Is it every frame of painting that did this like someone who does video essays did one on Edgar Wright's like shooting of

[1:28:04] And I think it was it's not so much necessarily like

[1:28:10] That the like I

[1:28:12] mean there are a lot of great slapstick gags, but like the

[1:28:15] Talk about it was like also how beautifully they were shot to like maximize the comedy of it

[1:28:20] Which I think is a big problem with a lot of gags if if they are

[1:28:25] Done at all physical gags these days. I feel like they're done in the flattest way possible

[1:28:30] like they do they go to the trouble of

[1:28:34] Figuring out what a physical joke might be but then not how to present it in a way that would maximize the comedy

[1:28:39] And I think Edgar Wright's very good at that

[1:28:42] Also, I have not seen it yet, but I'm very excited that I just earlier today bought a ticket to a screening in the one theater

[1:28:49] That's playing it around here of hundreds of Beavers, which I hear is I want to see that very funny

[1:28:54] Oh a lot of physical gags, so I have high hopes

[1:28:58] What do you guys think there's none that none specific gags that come immediately to mind

[1:29:04] But I was a big fan of the recent show Losa spooky's and there were a lot of funny verbal gags

[1:29:09] but there also were a lot of funny visuals, and it wasn't always like wasn't slapstick necessarily, but like

[1:29:15] things that looked funny or like characters that were designed in a funny way or were kind of

[1:29:21] Positioned in a funny way. It's like the visual of the show very much was a part of the joke which I agree Dan often

[1:29:27] it is especially because so much of comedy seems to come from the that improv world that like

[1:29:33] There's this sense of like it doesn't matter what it looks like and you can't plan for it necessarily because it's just

[1:29:38] Riffin, let's just get riffs, and I've never been a huge fan of riff based

[1:29:44] movie comedy

[1:29:51] It does make it harder to

[1:29:53] And on the other hand you don't want to go the other way where you're so tied to a very elaborate visual joke that

[1:30:00] that it feels, what's the word?

[1:30:03] That it feels like either forced or,

[1:30:05] I'm not a huge fan of the movie Caddyshack,

[1:30:07] but there are funny things in that movie,

[1:30:08] but the least funny part of that movie

[1:30:10] is that huge scene where boats are crashing into each other

[1:30:13] and it's all the broadest physical smash-ups.

[1:30:16] It's like, oh boy, what is,

[1:30:18] they must have spent more money on this

[1:30:19] than the rest of the movie combined and it's so unfunny.

[1:30:21] I mean, yeah, well, that's the weird,

[1:30:25] there's this illusion among Hollywood,

[1:30:27] I think, that crashes are inherently funny.

[1:30:29] There's not really jokes in that scene.

[1:30:30] Yeah, that is called John Landis.

[1:30:32] That was the, and then he had that one crash

[1:30:34] that was very much not funny.

[1:30:35] Well, that's not such a good crash.

[1:30:38] He's like, let's have a huge car crash.

[1:30:39] That'll be hilarious, you know?

[1:30:41] I was gonna bring up Blues Brothers to say, though,

[1:30:43] like, that's the one case where I'm like,

[1:30:46] well, these car crashes aren't funny,

[1:30:49] but I do find these chase scenes exciting.

[1:30:52] Like, they're well done on a technical level on that end,

[1:30:55] so at least that's okay.

[1:30:57] I guess if I'm not expected to laugh,

[1:30:58] I'll enjoy them, you know?

[1:31:00] You're like, as long as I'm not expected

[1:31:01] to laugh at this comedy scene, then it's all right, you know?

[1:31:05] Yeah, I think the most recent Mission Impossible,

[1:31:07] a couple of the action sequences are really funny

[1:31:10] in a way that they don't necessarily play it

[1:31:12] entirely overtly for jokes,

[1:31:14] but I think the Hayley Atwell driving scene is very funny.

[1:31:17] It's great.

[1:31:18] And that train scene at the end is very funny.

[1:31:20] I kept sort of, as that was,

[1:31:22] I remember being in the theater for that train sequence,

[1:31:25] and as you could kind of see what the next thing was

[1:31:27] that was gonna happen, like they're in the kitchen,

[1:31:29] so it's gonna be oil all over the ground,

[1:31:30] I would just go, yup!

[1:31:31] And that's a very funny take.

[1:31:34] The other thing I would mention,

[1:31:35] which is commercially speaking pretty close

[1:31:38] to the opposite of a Mission Impossible movie,

[1:31:41] is the recent movie, Lisa Frankenstein,

[1:31:45] which nobody liked except me, but I kind of dug it.

[1:31:49] It was written by Diablo Cody, who I run hot and cold on,

[1:31:53] as I think a lot of people do, but I really liked it,

[1:31:56] and the main character is this teenager in the 80s

[1:32:00] who reanimates the corpse of this guy

[1:32:04] who becomes her boyfriend, and he's still basically dead.

[1:32:07] And the kid is played by Cole Sprouse,

[1:32:09] who was one of the Zack and Cody Sprouses.

[1:32:14] And I think he's actually great in it.

[1:32:16] I think he gets in a lot of really funny kind of,

[1:32:19] because he doesn't talk pretty much through the whole movie,

[1:32:21] because he's just, because he's dead.

[1:32:24] And so everything has to be done with face and body,

[1:32:27] and I actually think he's very funny,

[1:32:29] and I was really surprised

[1:32:31] that nobody liked that movie except me,

[1:32:32] because I kind of dug it, but even on my own team,

[1:32:34] nobody liked it except me.

[1:32:37] But I liked it.

[1:32:37] I thought it was sweet.

[1:32:39] Yeah, I know Stuart liked it for a fact,

[1:32:41] because he recommended it, and we watched it,

[1:32:43] and I didn't love it, but I did like it.

[1:32:47] I did enjoy it more than in general.

[1:32:48] I don't know how I missed that,

[1:32:49] because normally I would.

[1:32:51] I feel like those two leads are so fun

[1:32:54] that it's hard not to at least like it a little bit.

[1:32:56] Yeah.

[1:32:57] You made me realize, Stuart's not gonna like this,

[1:33:01] but I find that in a number of Yorgos Lanthimos movies,

[1:33:04] he has funny physical stuff.

[1:33:06] Stuart hates it, but before Poor Things

[1:33:11] becomes mainly a sex movie,

[1:33:12] when Emma Stone is being a baby,

[1:33:14] a lot of that stuff is really funny,

[1:33:16] and there are parts of Killing of a Sacred Deer

[1:33:19] that are so off-puttingly funny to me, in a way.

[1:33:24] Colin Farrell.

[1:33:25] You get a sicko, and he's gonna give you sicko stuff.

[1:33:28] When their son is essentially paralyzed from the waist down,

[1:33:31] and they think it's psychosomatic,

[1:33:34] and they're picking him up

[1:33:35] and trying to force him to walk in a hallway,

[1:33:37] and he just falls down in the hallway of the hospital,

[1:33:39] it's a horrifying moment.

[1:33:41] It's also a very funny physical comedy bit,

[1:33:43] when someone just falls down.

[1:33:44] Yeah.

[1:33:45] Linda, sorry, I know that Stuart hasn't gone,

[1:33:47] but before, just saying Mission Impossible

[1:33:50] made me remember, on the action side,

[1:33:54] the end of the most recent John Wick,

[1:33:56] that stairway sequence in particular,

[1:33:58] is just classic physical comedy,

[1:34:02] in addition to being thrilling as an action sequence.

[1:34:05] We're talking about getting beat up.

[1:34:07] His growing frustration every time he has to start

[1:34:11] from square one is very funny in that.

[1:34:13] Yeah, and I think the John Wick movies in general,

[1:34:17] when you're talking about the stuff

[1:34:18] like fighting with the horse, which is the previous one,

[1:34:22] but the fighting with the horse,

[1:34:24] or fighting with the slamming the book

[1:34:25] on the guy in the library,

[1:34:26] and even, I know you guys did the recent Roadhouse,

[1:34:31] I think the first time that Jake Gyllenhaal

[1:34:36] confronts the group of Tufts,

[1:34:38] and I think that's pretty,

[1:34:40] I think the physicality of that is pretty funny,

[1:34:43] and I think in any good,

[1:34:45] in any kind of action movie that I'm going to like,

[1:34:48] there is an element of slapstick to the action.

[1:34:52] So it's common to see it come out in stuff like,

[1:34:54] and the Fall Guys the same way.

[1:34:55] That makes sense.

[1:34:56] I mean, there's an argument to be made

[1:34:57] that Buster Keaton is the greatest action filmmaker

[1:34:59] of all time. Sure.

[1:35:00] But the stuff he was doing. Absolutely.

[1:35:02] Stuart, sorry.

[1:35:03] I'm not going to recommend an action comedy

[1:35:05] or a recent thing,

[1:35:07] but my wife has been doing a Friends re-watch,

[1:35:12] and one of the things,

[1:35:13] I feel like the whole cast is very good.

[1:35:15] Just watching her friends with binoculars or telescopes?

[1:35:17] And, should I acknowledge Elliot's bit?

[1:35:21] No, go on. Just keep going.

[1:35:22] No, don't worry about it.

[1:35:23] You know, I'm bringing this up, of course,

[1:35:25] to tie in with Cole Sprouse,

[1:35:27] but one of the things that,

[1:35:31] I mean, all six of the Friends are such good performers,

[1:35:34] and their physicality is really impressive.

[1:35:37] And, you know, obviously it's a comedy,

[1:35:41] so not all the jokes work and yada, yada, yada, but-

[1:35:44] That's a French thing.

[1:35:46] Yeah, but they're definitely like,

[1:35:50] watching it, I'm like,

[1:35:51] oh yeah, I get why this was a huge hit.

[1:35:53] Everybody is so good.

[1:35:55] Yeah.

[1:35:57] Yeah.

[1:35:58] So, moving on to our second and final letter.

[1:36:01] This is from Zach, last name withheld.

[1:36:03] Zach Braff.

[1:36:04] What about me?

[1:36:04] I do physical comedy.

[1:36:06] I was in a podcast-related TV show.

[1:36:09] And a TV show-related podcast.

[1:36:12] Your discussion of the happy-go-lucky violence in Argyle

[1:36:15] made me think back to the disturbing ending

[1:36:18] of the first Kingsman movie.

[1:36:20] Though it's never represented on screen,

[1:36:21] it is implied that millions of parents across the globe

[1:36:25] have just come to their senses

[1:36:26] and discovered they have bludgeoned their children to death.

[1:36:29] Clearly knowing that something like this must have occurred-

[1:36:31] What a family-friendly entertainment.

[1:36:34] I mean, I know Kingsman is not family-friendly.

[1:36:35] I don't even remember this,

[1:36:36] but I'm gonna take the letter writer's word for it.

[1:36:39] Clearly knowing that something like this must have occurred,

[1:36:42] Taron Egerton proceeds to smile

[1:36:44] and slip away to have anal sex with a princess.

[1:36:46] And the film seems to end on a mirthful note.

[1:36:50] My question, what's another movie

[1:36:53] where the writing and its treatment of violence

[1:36:54] seems terribly tonally off,

[1:36:57] i.e. something very bad is taking place off-screen

[1:36:59] and something the characters know has happened

[1:37:02] and everyone, including the movie's tone itself,

[1:37:04] stays cheery or even comical?

[1:37:07] Keep on flopping.

[1:37:08] I don't think we have to stick to that particular scenario.

[1:37:10] It's just an example, but-

[1:37:12] No, but I've talked to before,

[1:37:13] especially in the Quantumania episode,

[1:37:15] but I've talked about that moment at the end of Quantumania

[1:37:17] where MODOK literally dies to save the other characters

[1:37:22] and they joke about it and they're like,

[1:37:23] this is a weird day, huh?

[1:37:24] And it rubbed me, I think about it every now and then,

[1:37:27] just how much it rubbed me the wrong way.

[1:37:29] I cannot exist in the world of this movie

[1:37:32] if the characters cannot even react

[1:37:35] with the slightest bit of gravity

[1:37:36] to someone they know dying right in front of them.

[1:37:38] Like, come on, come on, guys.

[1:37:39] What are you doing?

[1:37:40] Even if it's a comedy.

[1:37:41] I would say most, I mean, my answer to this

[1:37:44] would be most of the time, it's tonally off to me.

[1:37:49] For example, there is,

[1:37:53] I know you guys did Olympus Has Fallen at some point,

[1:37:57] and that movie opens with this sequence

[1:38:01] in which just hundreds of people get machine gunned,

[1:38:04] just hundreds of people.

[1:38:06] And so by the end, to me, when you're dealing

[1:38:09] with the sort of triumphant, we beat the bad guy,

[1:38:14] it's like, well, yeah, but you're gonna be thinking

[1:38:15] about nothing but funerals

[1:38:17] for the next six months to a year, right?

[1:38:20] And you're gonna have to bring in like 25 trucks

[1:38:24] to carry out all the guys

[1:38:25] who got machine gunned in the first part.

[1:38:27] And I think even in a, like, look,

[1:38:29] I can, even in a movie like Speed,

[1:38:32] I think the fact that you see the end of that movie

[1:38:34] and they're kind of like, oh, they're kind of snuggling

[1:38:36] and they're kind of kissing and it's kind of funny.

[1:38:40] Like, his best friend just died.

[1:38:41] Like, if you scratch the surface

[1:38:44] of almost any action comedy or triumphant action movie,

[1:38:51] you'll get to the end and be like, okay, you won, however.

[1:38:56] And it will be, you know, if you count the dead,

[1:38:59] it gets pretty incredible,

[1:39:01] which actually is one of the things that I like

[1:39:04] about the Avengers is that at the end of that movie,

[1:39:08] we are very devastated by what has happened

[1:39:10] and it carries over to the, you know,

[1:39:12] as odd as it is to sort of defend that franchise,

[1:39:16] it carries over to the future movies

[1:39:19] that everybody's very traumatized by all of this.

[1:39:22] It also made the public conclude

[1:39:23] that maybe you're the bad guys.

[1:39:25] And I did like the fact that it had consequences

[1:39:28] despite the other things that kind of are going on

[1:39:31] in that franchise as it progressed.

[1:39:33] Yeah, you know what, like that makes me think about,

[1:39:37] you know, at the same time that was out

[1:39:40] or coming out like just earlier,

[1:39:42] like I think was that just after Man of Steel

[1:39:45] where it was like, there's all of this generalized

[1:39:49] destruction and no one seems to care.

[1:39:51] And I feel like a lot of the stuff in the Avengers,

[1:39:54] like, you know, I'm sure they have it all widely planned out

[1:39:58] knowing what happened.

[1:40:00] But also it feels like a reaction to that where there's a lot of stuff about like hey save the civilians like this is what?

[1:40:07] Heroes are supposed to be doing in these kinds of movies rather than just like smashing people through buildings

[1:40:12] Willy nilly the thing that comes to my mind. I know that this is widely

[1:40:18] Viewed as a classic especially among people maybe just slightly younger than me, but it's even even when I was a kid

[1:40:26] Even when I was a kid, I could not take the second half of home alone. I was like, yeah

[1:40:32] I we watched with with Sammy not too long ago, and he had real trouble with that part with it

[1:40:37] Bandits are getting beaten up. Yeah. Yeah, it's supposed to be Looney Tunes violence

[1:40:40] But these are real human being stepping on nails, you know, like getting hit with paint cans

[1:40:45] I'm like what what why am I what what the fuck is this?

[1:40:49] You know, so that's fine. I think yeah

[1:40:52] I I think Linda that's such a good point about those first Avengers movies that like they they really do

[1:40:59] They really make it feel like okay something happened here

[1:41:01] I like that that that what end credits or mid credits scene where they're just sitting and eating and they're not talking to each other

[1:41:07] And it's like it's a joke. Ah, they're finally having that shawarma, but they seem really like worn out

[1:41:11] They seem yeah, it's not like it's not a it's like a funny idea, but it's not a funny scene

[1:41:15] You know

[1:41:16] They seem so and that like this shawarma is not feeling the hole in them that right that is existing right now

[1:41:22] And the opposite of that and there's a moment before that when Downey looks around and he says what do we win?

[1:41:27] Yeah, yay, cuz it

[1:41:30] Same thing. Yeah. Yeah at the I was thinking about with this

[1:41:34] There's that there was that run of movies in the 90s where it was like, isn't it?

[1:41:38] funny when people die like very bad things and stuff like that, which is where it's they just didn't seem to

[1:41:43] Know what they were doing and they were chasing something

[1:41:45] but I but then I started thinking about one of my least favorite movies the 21st century the rise of Skywalker and how

[1:41:52] The heroes are like, oh

[1:41:55] We're fighting a bunch of child people who were kidnapped as children and brainwashed. Well sucks for them

[1:42:00] I guess I'll blow them up

[1:42:02] There's just so many every one of those ships that blows up

[1:42:05] there's hundreds if not thousands of people on it and the body count is so enormous and

[1:42:09] It's a I find it so distasteful, you know for exactly that reason the action movies that I like tend to have a

[1:42:19] Specific reason why people who get killed have to get killed and especially if they're not bad guys

[1:42:25] and I have said this a million times about diehard is that the reason why you get that really grisly gruesome execution of mr

[1:42:32] Takagi early in diehard is that if you didn't you would root for Hans and you can't root for Hans and have the

[1:42:39] Work, so he has to do something really bad in the early part of the movie so that he's established to be the bad guy

[1:42:46] You still have to want them to catch him. You have to want him to die and to do that

[1:42:50] You have to have that really brutal

[1:42:54] Execution because that establishes the movies kind of like the movie still has like a moral sort of

[1:43:00] World that it occupies. They don't just execute 20 of the people who were at the Christmas party, you know

[1:43:06] Yeah, the only other way you can get people to root against Alan Rickman is by having him cheat on Emma Emma

[1:43:14] Accurate

[1:43:16] Yeah, I mean I feel like when it comes to like

[1:43:19] flippant violence

[1:43:21] There is there is that moment in game night at the end. That's really great

[1:43:27] Because she's reacting

[1:43:29] Reacts reasonably to it. Yeah, it's it's really it's so funny. Like I'll every time that clip gets posted

[1:43:37] Century so so funny and it was such like a funny setup when she's like don't shoot me. I have kids

[1:43:42] He's like now with an ass like that

[1:43:45] Okay, I was gonna say a

[1:43:49] Movie that I remember talking about with with producer Alex Smith

[1:43:53] Is that movie wanted where at the end like James McAvoy after like?

[1:43:58] Assassinating somebody with a fucking scrimshawed bullet is like what the fuck have you done today? I'm like, I haven't assassinated anybody

[1:44:06] Don't question my life choice

[1:44:11] And that's a toned-down

[1:44:13] Version of the ending of the house book, which is even more

[1:44:16] Disgusting and kind of and and hostile and toxic. Yeah. Yeah, it's about it's bad. It's a bad there's a

[1:44:23] There's a I mean it goes back to the beginning of movies that there's something cool for a lot of audience about seeing someone

[1:44:30] Shoot someone specifically or kill someone but yeah in the in the better movies

[1:44:34] they find some way to morally show why it had to be done or justify it rather than just kind of like

[1:44:40] Yeah, this guy kills people. Isn't that cool?

[1:44:46] Not liking hitman movies movies about hitmen for that reason except for gross point-blank because it was just all about him struggling with that

[1:44:51] But like the that it's like it's not cool to go kill people. I hate to say again

[1:44:55] I I hate to be on a limb here. It's like I earlier when I said, I don't want babies having sex with each other

[1:44:59] It's not cool to kill people

[1:45:02] Well, I mean, I think we're all talking about movies that seem to be made by people with emotional maturity

[1:45:08] Yeah, not to throw shade

[1:45:11] But also like I'm not saying every movie has to be Margaret either

[1:45:14] I but you know this the hero should have some some compunction about killing, you know

[1:45:18] And I also have to say like look I love emotional immaturity movies sometimes

[1:45:23] But then you have to have like the tonal control to like pull it off that's the other half of what's being said here

[1:45:31] It's not just like oh what's reprehensible is like if you can create a tone within the movie that supports

[1:45:37] the gross joke

[1:45:38] Yeah, it'll work

[1:45:39] Yeah

[1:45:40] Or if it's like do I think it's funny and Monty Python the Holy Grail when the the night just slashes the throat of the

[1:45:46] Historian who's talking? Yeah, of course I do. It's really funny

[1:45:48] But the tone in that movie is that this is a cartoon these characters don't exist. Nothing's real, you know

[1:45:53] It's similar to why

[1:45:55] when you have your like gross out immature comedies, and then they they inevitably try and

[1:46:01] Pull off like a heart of gold at the center. So, you know what we are

[1:46:06] I'm like fuck this

[1:46:08] All the way

[1:46:14] Gross get are you gross in there Michael gross some kind of gross. Yeah. Mm-hmm a gross of pencils. I don't know

[1:46:22] Let's

[1:46:24] Let's move from sort of our moral outrage to some

[1:46:30] recommendations of movies that we

[1:46:32] Think are more worthy of your time than baby genius if such a thing as possible hard to imagine. Yeah speaking of children

[1:46:40] Guys, so I was gonna get weird. No, I recently I think I've mentioned it before

[1:46:46] Got the criterion channel back if you're not having it for a little while

[1:46:50] My body was craving nutrients after watching all of these

[1:46:54] movies for the flop house

[1:46:55] And so I had kind of a list of like movies that I should catch up on that are on the channel

[1:47:02] I sort of picked one at random

[1:47:05] On a nice Sunday afternoon and it was Lynn Ramsey's ratcatcher

[1:47:10] A

[1:47:15] Movie that begins with a death of a child and does not get easier to watch

[1:47:22] Thereafter as opposed to the other kind of a death of a child. That's not tragic. Dan. What would that be? I

[1:47:28] think I

[1:47:29] Larry is death of a guy. I mean dead alive as a pretty hilarious

[1:47:34] Stewart you got I got Dan and you got me. Okay, but there's a

[1:47:38] Particular like sort of

[1:47:40] Realism and matter-of-factness to the death that opens the movie that makes it like very difficult

[1:47:46] I guess it's what I'm trying to get at by saying that

[1:47:50] He has a movie about

[1:47:53] Horrible conditions amongst his poor family in Ireland during a garbage strike when there rats all around

[1:47:59] I've now seen all four of Lynn Ramsey's movies. I think she's one of the best there is I think she's her movies are great

[1:48:07] This one is the roughest one to watch I think but I'm glad to have you know closed out before

[1:48:14] So a rat catcher, I guess the full range of a recommendation if you can handle it

[1:48:19] Who wants to go next?

[1:48:22] Wow, okay speaking of children

[1:48:26] No, I'm gonna recommend I'm gonna

[1:48:28] People who have followed my recommendations are not going to be surprised by this at all

[1:48:33] I'm gonna recommend the new Luca Guadagnino movie challengers. I love that guy's movies

[1:48:39] Everyone's a hit. I love it. And this one is no exception. It is

[1:48:43] like faster more kinetic than some of his other movies, but it's still got that same like emotional depth and also like a

[1:48:49] Physicality and like a sense of place. That's so great

[1:48:53] I mean, it's loosely up. I guess it's about a

[1:48:58] Two competing tennis players as

[1:49:01] well as a third competing tennis player played by Zendaya and

[1:49:06] Yeah, I don't want to talk too much about the plot of this go see it. It's great. It's sexy. It's about tennis. It's intense

[1:49:12] It's got an amazing score. I loved it. It was great. Thumbs up

[1:49:17] Love that movie. Absolutely. Love that movie. It's great. I

[1:49:21] Was thinking about what's a movie I could recommend that is a better version of a movie about a talking baby

[1:49:27] Let's um, what's a movie with a talking baby in it? That's not bad and

[1:49:30] Guys, you know what? It has to be that talking baby classic being two isn't easy from 1962

[1:49:36] This is a Japanese movie that is also on the Criterion Channel right now

[1:49:41] which is just about a kid who is almost two and

[1:49:45] his parents and it's about kind of those the a

[1:49:48] Series of months in this family's life and there are parts of it that I found very sweet and very touching and parts

[1:49:53] Where you can hear the child's thoughts and he is confused that his conclusions about things are not the same as his

[1:50:00] There's a part where they're trying to get the crib to stay closed so that he can't get

[1:50:04] out of it.

[1:50:05] And they tried a latch, they tried tying it shut, and they're getting very frustrated.

[1:50:08] And the kid is like, I don't understand why they're mad at me.

[1:50:11] It was really hard to untie that knot.

[1:50:13] It was hard to undo the latch.

[1:50:14] I solved it.

[1:50:15] Why are they mad at me?

[1:50:16] Like, the child thinks that this is a puzzle that's been presented to him.

[1:50:20] And it's a series of scenes.

[1:50:24] It's not a plot-driven movie.

[1:50:26] Maybe it touched me a little bit deeper as a parent.

[1:50:28] There were times when I was like, I remember when I felt like that or when this child was

[1:50:31] like that.

[1:50:32] But there's some funny parts.

[1:50:33] And at the end, there is a scene where, spoiler alert, the kid turns two.

[1:50:38] And there's a part that involves him blowing out his candles that I found so beautiful

[1:50:43] and genuinely tear-jerking.

[1:50:45] And so I would recommend it.

[1:50:47] I really loved it.

[1:50:48] It's called Being Two Isn't Easy.

[1:50:49] That's beautiful.

[1:50:50] That is beautiful.

[1:50:52] I, having seen Kathleen Turner in Baby Geniuses, was very interesting because recently for

[1:50:59] a different work-related project, I had watched Kathleen Turner in Body Heat.

[1:51:05] Body Heat, which came out in like 1981 to I think 1982, maybe.

[1:51:10] It was really where she became famous.

[1:51:13] It's a neo-noir.

[1:51:15] I think some people credit it with being one of the most important neo-noirs.

[1:51:20] It's semi of a reimagining of something like Double Indemnity, not exactly.

[1:51:26] It is still a very hot woman who seduces an idiot and things get worse from there.

[1:51:36] Ultimately, it is a movie about the most boring thing I learned in law school, which is the

[1:51:41] rule against perpetuities.

[1:51:44] But it is also a movie in which I think the atmospheric qualities of how it's shot, the

[1:51:54] way that they use airy spaces versus closed-in spaces and some of those things are really,

[1:52:02] really cool and good.

[1:52:05] But also, she is just such a hot movie star in that film and she's such a wonderful presence

[1:52:13] and that's a kind of role that can be really hard to pull off because it can really be,

[1:52:17] I don't know if I want to say dehumanizing, but it can be really a shallow kind of role

[1:52:25] for an actress to play.

[1:52:26] I think she finds a lot of good stuff in that character.

[1:52:33] It has really sexy sex without being, it's not the same kind of vulgar, really sexy sex

[1:52:41] that people sometimes associate with really sexy sex.

[1:52:44] In a way, it's like challengers and that you see a little bit more, a little bit less than

[1:52:48] you feel like you saw in some ways.

[1:52:56] It's like you feel like you saw the people very much having sex and you didn't necessarily.

[1:53:01] So anyway, Body Heat, Kathleen Turner, William Hurt, very, very young Ted Danson, preach

[1:53:08] years.

[1:53:10] Who's Danson?

[1:53:11] That movie.

[1:53:12] Huh?

[1:53:13] He does Danson at one point.

[1:53:14] Yeah.

[1:53:15] It's true.

[1:53:16] Danson Danson.

[1:53:17] And again, learn the rule against perpetuities.

[1:53:21] They do such a good job in that movie.

[1:53:22] I feel like when I think of film noir, I think of coolness and they do such a good job of

[1:53:28] making a movie of heat.

[1:53:29] It's such a sweaty movie in a really palpable way, in a way that is sometimes sexy and sometimes

[1:53:35] just feels like, oh, this seems like such an unimpressively humid place to be.

[1:53:39] Absolutely.

[1:53:40] Absolutely.

[1:53:41] That's why they put, I mean, they sit it right down there and in, it's in Florida, I think.

[1:53:47] And you know, as, as was the recent Roadhouse, you know, you put it in that, like, I don't

[1:53:52] know, hot, sweaty environment.

[1:53:54] Yeah.

[1:53:55] Well, there's fewer boat chases in Body Heat than in Roadhouse.

[1:53:59] Just a little bit.

[1:54:00] Only, only a couple.

[1:54:02] We should really wrap things up, but Linda, it was a joy to have you on, like I, you fit,

[1:54:09] you fit in perfectly.

[1:54:11] You were, you felt like a natural member of it all.

[1:54:16] It was so nice to have you.

[1:54:17] My favorite thing I do all year.

[1:54:19] I'm so excited.

[1:54:20] Is there anything in particular you want to plug before we do our usual stuff?

[1:54:24] No, just, you know, pop culture happy hour.

[1:54:27] And as, as Elliott mentioned at the top, Evie Drake Starts Over and Flying Solo are

[1:54:32] my novels.

[1:54:33] I have one coming out in 2025, which is called Back After This, which takes place in the

[1:54:38] world of audio and podcasting.

[1:54:40] So, so we'll see how that goes.

[1:54:43] We'll see a thinly veiled Dan McCoy in there.

[1:54:47] It's like everything hurts, babe.

[1:54:52] But but no, that's, this is like, this is very exciting.

[1:54:55] And I do want to say, like, I, as somebody who has been making a podcast with the same

[1:54:59] team for almost 15 years, I am very well positioned to understand what you guys have done by by

[1:55:05] working together for this long and successfully without, I told Jesse Thorne once that when

[1:55:10] I listened to this show, my hobby is trying to figure out when people are actually irritated

[1:55:13] versus pretending to be irritated.

[1:55:17] Usually when I'm talking, the other guys are pretty irritated.

[1:55:19] I know that from from my own show as well.

[1:55:21] So I just want to say that I do appreciate the accomplishment of keeping a team together

[1:55:27] and working for this this long so successfully and the fact that it's still so much fun to

[1:55:31] listen to is really is really quite a special thing.

[1:55:35] So kudos for that.

[1:55:36] Thank you.

[1:55:37] Thank you.

[1:55:38] I think it's a testament to our genuine affection, how we are able to weather the not infrequent

[1:55:44] irritation that comes along with it.

[1:55:45] Listen, all I'm asking is that every once in a while, now that we're pals, every once

[1:55:48] in a while, just shoot me a little note.

[1:55:50] I was really annoyed when this is happening, you know, and then I'll just be able to put

[1:55:53] it away in my little diary in my brain.

[1:55:55] That's all I ask.

[1:55:56] How can a Sagittarius, a Gemini and a Pisces get along for this long, especially when one

[1:56:04] of them gets annoyed at the implication that that means anything, the Gemini.

[1:56:11] It's happening.

[1:56:15] Before I thank our team of one other person, I want to say check us out on our socials.

[1:56:25] You can find us on Instagram.

[1:56:27] We now have a Mastodon.

[1:56:29] There's a fan made discord, Blue Sky.

[1:56:34] You know, there's a long range Facebook group and YouTube videos like any of that stuff.

[1:56:40] Look it up.

[1:56:42] But also thank you to that aforementioned man, Mr. Alex Smith.

[1:56:46] He goes by HowlDotty online.

[1:56:49] He does Twitch streams.

[1:56:50] He does music.

[1:56:51] Check his stuff out.

[1:56:53] Thank you to Maximum Fun at MaximumFun.org.

[1:56:56] You can find a lot of other great podcasts.

[1:56:59] I'm sure at least one other one will tickle your fancy.

[1:57:03] So check them out.

[1:57:05] But yeah, that's it.

[1:57:07] Thank you again to our guest for the Flophouse.

[1:57:10] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:57:11] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:57:13] I'm Ellie Kalin, and we've been joined by Linda Holmes.

[1:57:16] Bye.

[1:57:17] Bye.

[1:57:18] So if you haven't been recording locally, now is the time to start on it.

[1:57:33] I've been recording locally, but thinking globally.

[1:57:35] I'm recording hyper locally.

[1:57:38] I've been visualizing world peas.

[1:57:41] Yeah, shaving the whales.

[1:57:44] So Dan...

[1:57:45] Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artists-owned shows supported directly by you.

Ep. #424 - Baby Geniuses, with Linda Holmes

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