Ep. #423 - Argylle

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

[0:01] Before we get into this episode's classic

[0:03] Flop House shenanigans, I wanted to make sure

[0:06] you knew about some upcoming live events

[0:07] we are very excited about.

[0:08] On April 27th at 7 p.m. Eastern,

[0:11] we are premiering online the professionally shot,

[0:13] professionally edited online video

[0:15] of our Speed 2 live show.

[0:17] Dan, Stuart, and I will be there watching the show with you,

[0:20] text chatting with the audience

[0:22] throughout the entire thing.

[0:23] Can't make it on the 27th?

[0:25] The video will be available to watch at your leisure

[0:27] through May 19th.

[0:28] To see the trailer and buy tickets,

[0:30] go to stagepilot.com slash flop dash house

[0:34] dash speed dash two.

[0:36] If you wanna see us in person and you live in England,

[0:38] remember that on the 24th of May,

[0:40] we'll be in Oxford doing our first and second ever

[0:43] UK live shows in one night.

[0:44] 7 p.m., we're talking The Avengers.

[0:46] 9 p.m., we're talking Spice World.

[0:48] Two shows, one night.

[0:50] For tickets and more information,

[0:51] go to flophousepodcast.com slash events.

[0:54] Now that's enough live show hype from me.

[0:56] Let's get to that patented flophouse silliness.

[0:59] Take it away, peaches.

[1:01] On this episode, we discuss Argyle.

[1:05] That's right, join us on the high seas

[1:08] where Guile from Street Fighter

[1:10] gets press ganged onto a pirate ship.

[1:13] Argyle, they say.

[1:16] Not even a joke about the pattern.

[1:18] No, not at all.

[1:26] Oh, no.

[1:44] Hey, everyone, and welcome to The Flophouse.

[1:46] I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:47] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:48] I'm Elliot Kalen, and I'm so excited to tell you

[1:50] that if you're listening to this on the day we release it,

[1:53] you have a chance to chat with us later today,

[1:56] Saturday, April 27th, when we see you

[1:59] at the online premiere of our Speed 2 streaming event,

[2:02] The Flophouse Sinks Speed 2.

[2:03] I'll tell you more about it later in the show,

[2:05] but that's at stagepilot.com slash speed today.

[2:09] We'll be chatting today while we watch it

[2:12] if you're listening to this on the day it's released.

[2:14] If you're listening to this the next day,

[2:16] well, you're partly in luck,

[2:17] but I'll tell you more about that later.

[2:19] I mean, we'll see you in the sense

[2:21] that we'll see your usernames on the screen as they chat.

[2:24] We will actually be seeing ourselves,

[2:26] which is sort of weird.

[2:27] We're gonna log on to see our own faces

[2:29] as we had a conversation we had several months ago.

[2:33] It'll be fun.

[2:34] Yeah, and that'll be weird for two of us,

[2:35] the two that don't routinely post videos

[2:37] of our own workouts online to then watch them later.

[2:40] Wow, where is this coming from?

[2:42] Elliot says that as if he doesn't masturbate

[2:44] while watching said video.

[2:46] Oh, I thought you were just gonna say.

[2:49] I see the bookmarks.

[2:51] I know he's watching that shit.

[2:53] You see how much you saved, yeah.

[2:54] I thought you were gonna keep it thematically consistent

[2:57] and say he masturbates to videos of himself.

[2:59] No, no, why would I?

[3:01] That's me, baby.

[3:02] There's great A-B cake coming my way.

[3:05] Stew beef for all of you.

[3:06] But Dan, what do we do on this podcast

[3:07] other than reveal that I masturbate to videos of Stew?

[3:11] I have honestly forgot.

[3:12] Wait, we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[3:15] That's what we do.

[3:17] So, you know, it's now on Apple Plus streaming

[3:23] for all who subscribe.

[3:25] It's a new premiere.

[3:26] This podcast or the movie that?

[3:27] Well, not this podcast unless you like,

[3:29] you know, mirror it on your Apple TV,

[3:32] then I guess you could probably like pretend

[3:34] that it's on Apple Plus.

[3:34] But no, the movie that we're talking about,

[3:37] the movie, it's new to streaming for not all, but many.

[3:41] And.

[3:42] He's undercutting the cell.

[3:45] Oh my God.

[3:46] Dan.

[3:47] My commitment to streaming.

[3:48] Dan is the Gil.

[3:50] Gil is the car salesman.

[3:51] Yes.

[3:54] Based on the kind of Jack Lemmon,

[3:55] Glen Gary, Glen Ross character.

[3:56] Dan is so Dan is so under the impression

[3:59] that the streaming release of Argyle

[4:01] is the cultural event of the year.

[4:04] He's been talking about it for weeks leading up to this.

[4:07] Well, I know I've been excited.

[4:08] Well, it's a cultural event other than Madam Web

[4:12] thus far of the year for us, a bad movie podcast.

[4:15] Because I feel like this is the movie,

[4:17] the wide release movie in theaters

[4:20] that got the most sort of baffled and dismayed reactions

[4:25] and a lot of talk around it.

[4:27] There was enough, you know, and it was.

[4:29] There was like a talk beforehand about people lying

[4:32] that Taylor Swift wrote a book

[4:33] that was based on for some reason.

[4:35] Like that's how big the footprint was.

[4:37] I fucking forgot about that part.

[4:39] Yeah, that was good publicity work

[4:42] on the part of whoever publicized this,

[4:44] that they managed to connect it

[4:45] to the most famous person in the world

[4:46] who was otherwise unrelated to the movie

[4:48] in every single way.

[4:50] Not since Mark Millar told the artist of The Ultimates

[4:55] to make Nick Fury look like Samuel L. Jackson,

[4:58] thus creating the role for Samuel L. Jackson.

[5:00] Has there been such a successful marrying of a property

[5:03] and a famous person who is not related

[5:05] to that property in any way?

[5:06] And for old people, they snagged the new Beatles song

[5:11] for this, like a year ahead of time,

[5:13] apparently the guy heard the new Beatles song,

[5:15] he's like, oh, I'll have that, please.

[5:17] And it's in this. Yeah, I was reading about it,

[5:18] how the director was hanging out with his friend,

[5:21] John Lennon's son, I guess, or something,

[5:23] and was like, oh, I've got a new song,

[5:26] would you love to put it in your film?

[5:27] You know, and that's how it happened.

[5:30] So yeah, Argyle, is it possible for a movie

[5:32] to be a parody of itself?

[5:35] Well, I mean, I guess that's the Zen Cohen

[5:37] that Argyle asks us, you know?

[5:39] Yeah, Zen Cohen is a Buddhist rabbi, Zen Cohen.

[5:43] Yeah, that's a good joke.

[5:45] That's not too far off from,

[5:47] Matkoff has that Tiger Shulman pit,

[5:49] the Jewish karate school.

[5:51] Yeah, check out his album, anyway.

[5:56] Sure, should we talk about Argyle?

[5:59] Should I get into what happens in the movie Argyle?

[6:01] Yeah, please, please explain it to me.

[6:03] Let's toss on some Argyle.

[6:04] Get ready for some twists, some turns,

[6:07] and a movie named Argyle, which kind of explains the title,

[6:11] but kind of never explains the title.

[6:14] And going into this, I assumed it was gonna be

[6:16] kind of like a romancing the stone, or the lost city,

[6:21] but it then morphs into a long kiss goodnight,

[6:23] which I wasn't expecting.

[6:25] Very much so.

[6:27] I mean, since Stuart sort of spoiled it already,

[6:30] we'll get to the full spoilers later on,

[6:33] but can I say that I had seen the trailer,

[6:36] I was thinking about Argyle, I was like,

[6:38] yes, one does.

[6:40] All right, the dots are connected, sure, okay.

[6:42] Dan's got his arms crossed behind his back,

[6:45] looking out as the waves crash.

[6:47] I was like, hmm, yeah, in my head,

[6:50] I'm like that meme from all of a sudden in Philadelphia,

[6:52] I'm connecting yarn all over the place,

[6:55] and I'm like, I go to my friend,

[6:57] I'll call her out because she doesn't listen to the show,

[6:59] Liz Babish, I said to Liz, I said,

[7:02] hey, is this the twist behind Argyle?

[7:04] And is this also what's going on

[7:07] with this secondary character in Argyle?

[7:10] And she's like, yeah, you got it.

[7:12] And I'm like, and I felt so pleased.

[7:13] So did she write Argyle?

[7:15] Why is she the person you went to

[7:16] for your Argyle information?

[7:17] Because she had seen it.

[7:18] She had seen it, I had not.

[7:19] That important piece of information had been left out.

[7:21] I didn't know if you just accost your friends

[7:23] and ask them questions about Argyle.

[7:25] I believe I did mention it,

[7:27] but I apologize to the listener if I hadn't in passing.

[7:30] But no, I was so pleased with myself

[7:32] for guessing it off of not having seen it,

[7:36] and Liz immediately deflated me by saying,

[7:39] congratulations, Dan, you've seen a lot of movies.

[7:42] Yeah, yeah.

[7:44] But then watching this movie,

[7:45] I feel like it telegraphs everything way early,

[7:48] but we'll talk about it.

[7:49] Yes, especially that final,

[7:51] the kind of finalist plot twist,

[7:54] which I feel like they telegraph multiple times throughout

[7:56] just in case the audience is a moron.

[7:58] But anyway, Stuart, you're saying?

[8:01] Just speaking of seeing a lot of movies,

[8:02] this movie is directed by Matthew Vaughn,

[8:05] who has made a lot of movies.

[8:06] And I would argue, as he continues to make movies,

[8:09] they get less good.

[8:12] Well, certainly as he continues to make them,

[8:14] he has access to more money and bigger stars.

[8:16] And I think that has been a negative for him

[8:19] in terms of the quality of the films.

[8:21] Yeah, because Layer Cake was his first one, right?

[8:24] I mean, it was definitely the one that got him attention.

[8:26] I don't know if it was his very first, let me look.

[8:29] Yeah, it was his first.

[8:31] You look at a movie like Kick-Ass,

[8:32] which I did not particularly like,

[8:34] but that's a much better movie than this movie.

[8:37] And has a genuinely great sequence

[8:40] where Nicolas Cage is putting on makeup

[8:42] and applying his fake mustache extensions.

[8:45] Yeah, yeah.

[8:46] That's great.

[8:47] Let me quick just run it down.

[8:48] We got Layer Cake, we got Stardust came next,

[8:51] which was pretty good.

[8:52] Kick-Ass, again, like Elliot, I have problems with it,

[8:55] but it has a thing.

[8:58] X-Men First Class was a pretty good X-Men movie.

[9:00] I did like X-Men First Class.

[9:02] I didn't particularly like it,

[9:03] but I did like the sequence where Magneto

[9:05] and Professor X are like wandering around

[9:08] looking for mutants.

[9:09] Yeah, yeah.

[9:10] I feel like it never gets better than that.

[9:12] But then he gets into the world of the King's Man.

[9:15] Oh, right.

[9:16] And I will admit having a certain fondness

[9:19] for the first movie, but that-

[9:20] You just like that last joke, right?

[9:22] You like the last joke about-

[9:22] Yeah, that was particularly-

[9:24] By saving the world, he gets to have anal sex afterwards

[9:28] or something.

[9:29] Thank you for-

[9:29] Yeah, spoiler alert for King's Man.

[9:32] We got to shout it from the rooftops.

[9:33] What's the end of King's Man?

[9:35] And then, I've only seen King's Man, the Golden Circle

[9:39] without sound played on a television strip club.

[9:44] Oh, okay.

[9:44] Which again, I feel like-

[9:45] As it was meant to be seen.

[9:46] Yeah, I feel like-

[9:47] As it was intended, yeah.

[9:48] I mean, this is a movie that in many ways

[9:50] would work better as a series of images

[9:53] in the background somewhere

[9:54] than as a film with sound and story.

[9:58] But it's almost like entering the-

[10:00] Bioworld is his version of James Cameron going underwater,

[10:03] where he is fascinated by it,

[10:05] and I think he's overestimating the audience's interest

[10:08] in that subject matter.

[10:10] Yeah, I think we can all agree.

[10:13] Which is not to say that he's a filmmaker

[10:14] at the same level as James Cameron on a technical level.

[10:17] Yeah.

[10:18] Yeah, I mean, this movie, I will say,

[10:21] for a while goes down easier than I thought

[10:25] just because it's so glossy,

[10:28] but then it piles on about 40 more minutes than it needs,

[10:32] and at least one more plot turn than it needs.

[10:36] Yeah, this movie is long.

[10:37] This movie is very long.

[10:39] Yeah, the glossiness is kind of like how my cousin

[10:41] used to smear his hot dogs with applesauce

[10:45] because he said it made it slide down his throat easier.

[10:48] That's not how you should eat a hot dog.

[10:50] He also did it with mac and cheese,

[10:53] which is wild because that should already be pretty slick.

[10:55] It's already pretty lewd, mac and cheese.

[10:58] You don't have to put more lube on mac and cheese.

[11:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah, unless,

[11:01] who's eating the dusty mac and cheese?

[11:02] Yeah, I mean, it depends on-

[11:04] Maybe he doesn't know that the cheese dust

[11:06] is supposed to be mixed with milk

[11:07] and maybe even butter to get it extra creamy,

[11:09] but you don't just pour it off.

[11:10] If he's eating a lot at once,

[11:13] I could see a clog forming.

[11:15] Yeah, that's true, yeah.

[11:17] You see that in sewer systems also,

[11:18] just big mac and cheese plugs there

[11:20] stopping up the sewage septic tanks.

[11:23] Okay, guys, let's talk about what happens in Argyle.

[11:25] So it's a Matthew Vaughn movie,

[11:26] and it's a glossy spy picture.

[11:29] And it opens up with a scene.

[11:32] I'll go through it in detail,

[11:33] even though a lot of what happens in the scene

[11:35] is not exactly set up.

[11:37] But Henry Cavill, he goes to a dance club.

[11:40] He dances with a sexy blonde lady played by Dua Lipa.

[11:42] Dua Lipa, yeah.

[11:43] And he lifts her and does a dance called the Whirlybird,

[11:46] which we will see performed two more times

[11:49] throughout the movie.

[11:51] We learn that he is Agent Argyle, and she's a villain.

[11:54] She's lured him into a den of killers,

[11:55] but he defeats them all off camera

[11:58] with the help of his tech sidekick, Kira,

[12:00] played by Academy Award winner, Aria DeVos, right?

[12:04] And bad guy blonde Dua Lipa, she shoots Kira,

[12:08] and then Argyle's spy boss, Richard E. Grant,

[12:10] is like, Argyle, you have to go chase her.

[12:12] It's the only time we see Richard E. Grant in the movie.

[12:14] I was so mad about it.

[12:16] Yeah, what a waste of Richard E. Grant.

[12:17] And I literally just, right before watching this movie,

[12:20] finished reading his book, With Nails,

[12:22] which is his kind of an adaptation of his diaries

[12:24] when he was making With Nail, and Hudson Hawk,

[12:27] and The Player, and stuff like that.

[12:29] And I was like, I wanna see more Richard E. Grant.

[12:30] I got a hunger for Grant.

[12:32] I wanna, give me a Grant, Grant.

[12:33] Grant me some more Grant.

[12:34] But that's all we get.

[12:36] A cameo. Give me some Grantland.

[12:38] Exactly.

[12:42] He tells Argyle to chase her.

[12:43] They have a very CGI car motorcycle chase,

[12:46] almost ludicrously CGI.

[12:48] It's just like Ronin, right, guys?

[12:50] Well, and-

[12:50] Yeah, if you took Ronin,

[12:53] and it starred the Looney Tunes characters,

[12:55] but with no jokes, that's kind of what it feels like.

[12:58] But I mean, the ludicrousness of this serves a point here.

[13:01] Yes, later it does not.

[13:03] I kept expecting, oh,

[13:05] and this is one of the big problems of the movie,

[13:07] spoiler to my opinion of the film,

[13:10] but you watch Romancing the Stone,

[13:13] it starts off with that really goofy segment of her book,

[13:17] which is heightened,

[13:18] and then it contrasts it with the real world,

[13:21] which is recognizably real,

[13:23] and it gets goofier later on.

[13:25] Which is the opposite of heightened, yeah.

[13:27] Yeah, it gets goofier later on,

[13:28] but it still feels like real people within this,

[13:32] who are having adventures that they're,

[13:34] but even they're like,

[13:35] how are we having these adventures?

[13:37] This movie, I was like,

[13:38] oh, they're gonna create a contrast,

[13:40] but everything in the real world is just as loopy,

[13:43] and goofy, and weightless.

[13:45] It's a little bit like if in Who Framed Roger Rabbit,

[13:47] the humans were also cartoons.

[13:49] Yeah.

[13:50] An animated world,

[13:51] but the humans are also cartoons here too,

[13:53] they're also animated.

[13:54] So they have this chase,

[13:55] an American agent, Wyatt, played by John Cena,

[13:57] he stops the baddie in a moment,

[13:59] this moment I did like,

[14:00] where he just grabs her off of her motorcycle,

[14:03] and she reveals that their spy boss

[14:05] is actually working for the bad guys,

[14:07] and Wyatt is like, we need to go off the grid,

[14:09] and we discover this is all a story being read out loud

[14:13] by writer Ellie Conway, Bryce Ellis Howard,

[14:15] at her book launch for her fourth Argyle spy novel,

[14:20] and the way she does the book launch

[14:22] is she reads the final chapter, it seems.

[14:25] So she reads the end of the book,

[14:27] and then answers, I think, three questions,

[14:29] and then that's the total event.

[14:30] I gotta point out,

[14:31] there's a moment where one of the fans

[14:33] that are book reading,

[14:34] who we later find out is an enemy spy,

[14:36] but he's like, yeah, your books are,

[14:39] like a lot of other famous spy authors,

[14:41] like John le Carre, were formerly spies,

[14:44] and you're a lot like that,

[14:45] I'm like, have you never read a fucking John le Carre book?

[14:50] Your books are so real,

[14:51] it's clear that real spies read them,

[14:53] and you're like, the thing we just saw

[14:55] was so deliberately over the top,

[14:57] and heightened, and James Bond, it's goofiest.

[14:59] That being said, if the whole movie

[15:01] had been that first scene at that level,

[15:04] I think I would have enjoyed this movie more,

[15:07] because as Dan was saying,

[15:08] instead of it being like, that was her fantasy world,

[15:11] but here's what the real world of spies is like,

[15:13] the real world of spies is just as silly,

[15:15] and crazy, and goofy, and nonsense as that was.

[15:19] I guess he is right, though,

[15:20] I guess real spies are just like the crazy craft

[15:23] we just saw, yeah.

[15:23] In the world of Argyle, actually,

[15:25] that would be a funny thing,

[15:25] if in the world of this movie,

[15:27] that is what real spy craft is,

[15:29] is a lot of quips, and glamorous dance-offs,

[15:33] and things like that.

[15:34] I definitely also had a problem with this moment, though,

[15:36] for the same reason, like this reason and another,

[15:38] I'm like, number one, were we supposed to just have seen

[15:42] a le Carre-style realistic spy story?

[15:45] Yeah, it hurts that he mentions John le Carre,

[15:47] it really hurts that he says that.

[15:49] Pasty old men sitting in shabby rooms,

[15:52] shlubby English guys, just sitting around.

[15:56] Have you ever seen the movie of the spy

[15:58] who came in from the cold, with Richard Merton?

[16:01] If there is any movie that teaches you not to be a spy,

[16:04] it's like, it tells you, don't do it,

[16:06] don't ever do this job, don't do it, it's that one, yeah.

[16:10] But there's that, and then also,

[16:12] this tips the hand right away,

[16:14] not to me, of course, I've seen a lot of movies,

[16:16] I guess, the twist, but I think that the screenwriter

[16:20] was like, oh, I'm having a little fun,

[16:22] this is some clever foreshadowing of they all turned,

[16:26] but he says they all turned out to be spies,

[16:30] he phrases it that way, and she is going to turn out

[16:33] to be a spy later in the thing.

[16:35] Now, I don't know how much of this,

[16:37] now, here's my theory on this movie.

[16:40] It was once told to me by a friend of the show,

[16:43] John Hodgman, that he had been told that

[16:45] they had, that the people who make mystery TV shows

[16:48] had research showing audiences liked guessing the mystery

[16:52] before the characters, they did not like to be surprised

[16:55] or shocked, they liked to know the twist,

[16:57] and this movie feels like that.

[16:59] It is telegraphing those twists so frequently,

[17:02] and in ways that you're like, is this, are you,

[17:06] like, this is a red herring, right,

[17:08] because that can't be the real twist,

[17:10] because you're basically telling me what it is,

[17:11] but I wonder if that's the idea behind it,

[17:13] is like, people like to go, oh, I'm smarter

[17:17] than the characters in this one.

[17:19] I know what's gonna happen, but it also makes

[17:21] the characters in this movie seem really dumb,

[17:23] especially the main character, who,

[17:25] for someone who's supposed to be a best-selling novelist,

[17:27] comes off as so kind of like inept at everything,

[17:32] but also writing, anyway, the point is,

[17:34] she became a writer after an ice skating accident.

[17:37] This is a detail that, this is one of the few details

[17:39] that seemed like a throwaway, and then later,

[17:41] I was like, oh, I guess they are gonna do something

[17:43] with this, but everybody loves her.

[17:44] She's a huge best-selling author.

[17:46] The guy at the thing asked if she's a spy.

[17:48] That night, and someone else asked her out.

[17:51] Do you guys think the, I feel like it would have played

[17:53] better, at least for me, if her spy novels

[17:56] were, like, middling, like, she wasn't that successful.

[17:59] For sure, if she was an unsuccessful spy novelist,

[18:02] and it turned out she had this diehard readership

[18:04] that were all real spies, because she knows,

[18:07] but instead, but this movie doesn't do anything small.

[18:09] It does it all big.

[18:10] It's gotta be as big as possible.

[18:12] If she's a writer, she's gotta be the best-selling writer

[18:15] in the world, if she's, to the point where later on,

[18:17] a fan of hers is live-streaming her sitting at a park bench,

[18:21] because she's, I mean, like, if Stephen King

[18:24] was at a fuckin' park bench, do you think people

[18:25] would be like, I gotta get this on camera.

[18:27] I gotta live-stream it right now.

[18:29] No.

[18:30] I would take a surreptitious picture, perhaps,

[18:33] of Mr. King, I'm sorry.

[18:34] Forgive me, Mr. King, I'm a fan,

[18:37] but I would not live-stream him,

[18:38] because I don't think he's gonna be doing anything

[18:40] particularly interesting.

[18:41] Maybe just kidding Rowling, if she was sitting somewhere,

[18:43] I could see that happening, but they'd be like,

[18:45] oh, shit, we gotta capture whatever she's gonna say.

[18:46] It's gonna be bonkers.

[18:48] She's gonna say something terrible.

[18:49] Yeah, she's gonna.

[18:50] Yeah, so that night, and someone at the reading

[18:54] asks her out on a date, as a question from the audience,

[18:57] which is bad etiquette, please don't do that

[18:58] if you're at a public event, but she goes,

[19:00] no, I've got a hot date.

[19:01] That night, she's alone at home with her cat, Alfie.

[19:03] She's gotta get to work finishing her next book,

[19:06] which is very funny, because she's like,

[19:07] okay, time to get to work, and she has about five sentences

[19:10] left to write in the book, like it's almost over.

[19:13] Dan, you got thoughts on Alfie here?

[19:16] Alfie, I do wanna say, what's it all about, Alfie?

[19:18] I'll tell you.

[19:19] It's about, mostly, Alfie is played by CGI,

[19:22] but when Alfie is played by a-

[19:24] That means cat, great, intelligence.

[19:27] Imaginary.

[19:28] Imaginary, yeah.

[19:30] But in the moments where there's a real cat,

[19:32] apparently that's Matthew Vaughn's wife's cat.

[19:35] And his wife is?

[19:37] I couldn't, I can't.

[19:37] Claudia Shepard.

[19:39] Really?

[19:40] And so I have to assume the cat's name is Claw,

[19:42] C-L-A-W, D-E-A, Shepard.

[19:44] So clearly, I read that name because I know this fact,

[19:50] but my brain somehow, like I'm no longer 13 years old.

[19:54] Yes, you're more interesting than cats,

[19:55] if you're an old man.

[19:56] Or maybe Dan's like, I just,

[19:58] I don't wanna believe that Claudia Shepard.

[20:00] with anyone at all.

[20:02] Dan, you are officially

[20:04] turning into the old man from

[20:06] Logan's Run who just has his cats around

[20:08] him and that's all he cares about.

[20:10] Sounds pretty good.

[20:12] He's got a beard.

[20:14] We got a fake cat going on.

[20:16] I like that when she writes

[20:18] she's surrounded by little

[20:20] cartoony statuettes

[20:22] of the characters from the books. They're not quite

[20:24] Funko Pops. They're more like

[20:26] little statues of the Lupin the Third

[20:28] characters from the popular

[20:30] animated series. Yeah, they're kind of like

[20:32] Bruce Timm style

[20:34] figurines of Argyle and his gang.

[20:36] And Argyle wears what?

[20:38] What kind of jacket is that? He's wearing a weird

[20:40] high... It's a Nehru jacket.

[20:42] Nehru jacket with a...

[20:44] Explain his hair. A flat top which is not

[20:46] unlike Guile from Street Fighter.

[20:48] I don't know if I can explain his hair

[20:50] but Audrey was very dismayed by it

[20:52] and one of the top Letterboxd reviews

[20:54] I saw was just like

[20:56] talking about what a crime the hair was.

[20:58] It looks terrible and I feel like it has

[21:00] Henry Cavill has an interesting relationship

[21:02] with hair because he had that great

[21:04] mustache in Mission Impossible.

[21:06] But then this flat top

[21:08] haircut, it almost undoes how great that

[21:10] was. So it's like, I guess you know

[21:12] what, like any tool or any weapon

[21:14] in the right hands, Henry Cavill's

[21:16] hair is a good

[21:18] for mankind and in the wrong hands it's a crime

[21:20] against mankind. You can't

[21:22] blame the hammer.

[21:24] The hammer could build a house

[21:26] or it can beat up a bunch of guys in Oldboy.

[21:28] Hammer, don't hurt him, but it's not the hammer

[21:30] that's at fault here.

[21:32] So anyway...

[21:34] Give him a mustache for safety, that's always

[21:36] the best.

[21:38] You can't go wrong with a Henry Cavill mustache.

[21:40] Henry Cavill mustache is the only

[21:42] supplier.

[21:44] We take Henry Cavill's actual

[21:46] facial hair, meticulously

[21:48] re-glue it into a mustache you can

[21:50] wear. Now you're the bad guy in

[21:52] Rogue Nation or whichever one it was.

[21:54] Starring in Superman? Need it removed? Come

[21:56] on back down.

[21:58] I think it was Fallout, right?

[22:00] It was Fallout, it was not Rogue Nation, it was Fallout.

[22:02] Thank you.

[22:04] The subtitles for the Mission Impossible movies

[22:06] are unnecessary.

[22:08] They're so totally meaningless.

[22:10] I believe that you'll find

[22:12] that in Ghost Protocol there was a ghost

[22:14] protocol invoked.

[22:16] There was a ghost protocol, that's fair.

[22:18] Was it

[22:20] any better than if they just called it Mission Impossible 4?

[22:22] I don't think so, but still.

[22:24] I mean, and certainly less clear

[22:26] than if they just called it Mission Impossible

[22:28] Disavowed, which means the same thing.

[22:30] Yeah, yeah.

[22:32] So she gets...

[22:34] Anyway, the story she's finishing,

[22:36] she's finishing Book 5. Agent Argyle

[22:38] needs to find the Masterphile to destroy

[22:40] his former bosses in the Directorate

[22:42] who have gone evil. She just finishes the last few sentences...

[22:44] Just like a fucking John LeCarre book.

[22:46] Yeah, he's...

[22:48] All his spies needed

[22:50] Masterphiles on flash drives

[22:52] inside of silver bullets that were hidden somewhere.

[22:54] So she finishes

[22:56] the book and ends on a cliffhanger. The next day, her mom,

[22:58] Catherine O'Hara, always a pleasant

[23:00] thing to find in a movie...

[23:02] There's a point later on where Catherine O'Hara

[23:04] is doing an English accent, and it's

[23:06] the most like Moira Rose she can do.

[23:08] Yes, yes.

[23:10] We had the captions on, because again, I'm the sort of

[23:12] old man who's surrounded by cats.

[23:14] And the cats were covering your ears, is that it?

[23:16] Like living earmuffs?

[23:18] When she switched, it said,

[23:20] British accent in parentheses, and I'm like,

[23:22] oh, thank God it told me, because I would not have...

[23:24] I'm like, what are you doing?

[23:26] Like, I love you, you're great, but this is nothing.

[23:28] I have no problem with her

[23:30] performance at all.

[23:32] I wish she had gone even more with it.

[23:34] Her mom is like, the book, I read it already,

[23:36] it's anticlimactic, it needs another chapter.

[23:38] Why don't I fly out and help you write it?

[23:40] And Ellie is understandably

[23:42] kind of like, I didn't really want my mom

[23:44] to just fly out out of nowhere.

[23:46] And so she decides

[23:48] she's going to write the other chapter herself, but she's got

[23:50] no inspiration, so what's she going to do?

[23:52] Take Alfie, put him in a backpack with a

[23:54] bubble window on it, this is the extent

[23:56] of her luggage apparently, and she's going to

[23:58] take a train to see her parents.

[24:00] Just a cat on my back.

[24:02] Doesn't need clothes, toiletries,

[24:04] just a cat. Like John Reacher.

[24:06] I mean, if you use the cat the right way. Jack Reacher.

[24:08] No, John Reacher is Jack.

[24:10] That's what it says on his birth certificate, Jack is his nickname.

[24:12] John Reacher, where did I fucking get that?

[24:14] John Reacher. I know too many Johns

[24:16] in my life. John's my father, call me Jack.

[24:18] I love that John Reacher is Jack Reacher's

[24:20] brother who is always like, yeah, got another

[24:22] postcard from Jack, having some adventures

[24:24] I guess.

[24:28] His brother got killed, Elliot.

[24:30] Yeah, dude, come on. Have some fucking respect.

[24:32] I'm sorry.

[24:34] It's his formative trauma. Then it's his other

[24:36] brother. Okay.

[24:38] The one he doesn't talk about because there's no trauma there.

[24:40] The funny thing is, I actually know about

[24:42] Jack Reacher, but I couldn't remember.

[24:44] Yeah, Dan knows all about Jack Reacher.

[24:46] He reaches things because he's tall

[24:48] and big and burly.

[24:50] Hands the size of dinner plates.

[24:54] So how does he hold a dinner plate?

[24:56] Just in his palm? Oh my god.

[24:58] Like a BFG? Yes.

[25:00] I mean, in a way, he is

[25:02] the BFG. How does he handle

[25:04] a gun if his hand is that big?

[25:06] How does he get his finger through the trigger guard?

[25:08] As much as the trigger guard.

[25:12] He just slaps the gun and bullets come out?

[25:14] Yeah. The bullets are

[25:16] so scared of him.

[25:18] They're like, we can't get this guy mad at us.

[25:20] I see. That makes sense.

[25:22] Reacher's here.

[25:24] Some kind of Jack creature.

[25:28] She goes on the train. On the train, a guy hits on her.

[25:30] She says, oh no, no, this seat's taken.

[25:32] Then a slovenly, bearded

[25:34] Sam Rockwell, one of these

[25:36] Northwest hitchhiker types.

[25:38] Ugh, gross.

[25:40] He sits down, plops down to the chair across from her

[25:42] and goes, hey, aren't you the famous author,

[25:44] Ellie Conway? I'm a big fan of your books.

[25:46] He has her latest book, which is just called Argyle,

[25:48] even though it's the fourth book in the series.

[25:50] I don't know what the other ones were called, I guess.

[25:52] Introducing Argyle.

[25:54] More Argyle.

[25:56] Yet again, Argyle.

[25:58] And then Argyle.

[26:00] Hey, what's that? Hold on.

[26:02] Let me take a look.

[26:04] By other Argyle.

[26:06] By other Argyle.

[26:10] The fourth one's where Argyle goes into space, right?

[26:14] It has to be, yeah.

[26:16] And he tells her, he goes, I'm a spy.

[26:18] Someone's trying to kill her, so in a minute

[26:20] I'm going to start fighting and then we're going to jump off this train.

[26:22] And you're going to have to hug me when I tell you.

[26:24] And an army of undercover

[26:26] assassins comes by and he fights them off one by one.

[26:28] And she starts hallucinating

[26:30] that he is Agent Argyle doing all this.

[26:32] And they do this thing where you are

[26:34] her eye view as her eyelids

[26:36] close and then open again over the camera

[26:38] and suddenly he's Argyle.

[26:40] And she's like, huh?

[26:42] She is acting in a way that

[26:44] from this moment on through much

[26:46] of the rest of the movie, Ellie Conway does not

[26:48] act like a human being so much as

[26:50] like a walking, I don't know,

[26:52] like a walking collection of plot things.

[26:54] She also seems like she's maybe

[26:56] on some Klonopin or Xanax

[26:58] or something.

[27:00] They should have shown her

[27:02] because we know she doesn't like to fly. Maybe she doesn't like

[27:04] trains either. They should have shown her taking a Xanax

[27:06] before she gets on because it does feel suddenly

[27:08] like she's drugged and there's no explanation for that

[27:10] other than later on as we find out

[27:12] just the drugging of a human psyche

[27:14] in turmoil and

[27:16] fighting against itself.

[27:18] And for somebody who's nervous about flying,

[27:20] she seems much more comfortable

[27:22] around dead bodies than I would

[27:24] expect a normal person to be.

[27:26] Yes, he processes that very fast.

[27:28] Can you explain that? Also,

[27:30] this technique where you're

[27:32] kind of seeing Sam Rockwell and then

[27:34] Henry Cavill back and forth, the first

[27:36] thing I thought is, that's a lot of effort

[27:38] to make something unpleasant to watch.

[27:40] Like to shoot all these things multiple times.

[27:42] The other thing is I was like,

[27:44] are they trying to infer that she would

[27:46] prefer her spy to be the Henry

[27:48] Cavill type over Sam Rockwell

[27:50] because I'm like, I gotta tell you

[27:52] right now, one of those two actors is more

[27:54] charming than the other. Yes, very much.

[27:56] Handsome than the other, I guess.

[27:58] But the other is more...

[28:00] The movie is...

[28:02] It's messy in what it's doing. Later on, it turns out

[28:04] I think that that's not what she is thinking.

[28:06] But at the moment, you're right.

[28:08] It felt like it's supposed to be...

[28:10] You're supposed to be contrasting super suave Henry Cavill

[28:12] with kind of like

[28:14] clumsy, graceless,

[28:16] kind of like gets hurt really badly

[28:18] Sam Rockwell. But what they're doing is

[28:20] not that different.

[28:22] Sam Rockwell, even when he's graceless, is like

[28:24] very charming and he's also

[28:26] like he's a fucking dancer.

[28:28] Yes.

[28:30] No shade to Henry Cavill, my Warhammer

[28:32] buddy. Like me and Henry

[28:34] Cavill, we can play Warhammer. No shade to you, buddy.

[28:36] Yeah, he's doing all the super spy

[28:38] fighting still.

[28:40] He gets distracted every once in a while by

[28:42] looking at her, making sure she's okay, and then

[28:44] someone gets it. But he's not like...

[28:46] Yeah, he's not like doing

[28:48] goofball shit. He's just doing

[28:50] unflappable sort of

[28:52] charming

[28:54] Sam Rockwell, which is very appealing.

[28:56] The difference is he's not like running his

[28:58] fingers through his own hair to show how easy

[29:00] this all is. Although it is, the

[29:02] longer the movie goes on, the easier it gets for

[29:04] both of them to fight wave after wave of

[29:06] thugs. I feel like this

[29:08] happens a lot in modern day action movies.

[29:10] Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm watching the wrong ones. I feel like

[29:12] in old school action movies,

[29:14] the threats get bigger as the

[29:16] movie goes on and the characters get

[29:18] beat up more and more. It gets harder and harder

[29:20] for them to do these things. You look at something like

[29:22] Die Hard and it's getting harder.

[29:24] It's one of the best action movies.

[29:26] Yes, but why not compare it to the best?

[29:28] But then in Argyle,

[29:30] it just gets easier and easier as

[29:32] the movie goes on until by the end, we'll get to it,

[29:34] but they're just mowing down wave

[29:36] after wave of guys who don't even seem to have guns

[29:38] on them. They're so

[29:40] weak.

[29:42] We just... I mean, again,

[29:44] an unfair comparison, but why not

[29:46] compare something good to something that doesn't work?

[29:48] We just finally saw

[29:50] Dune 2.

[29:54] Dan, just watch out. You say it three times, you know who's

[29:56] going to show up.

[30:00] end of that is a fight between two men and it is like weighted with a lot of

[30:06] meaning from the rest of the story but it is all the more powerful that it's

[30:10] just two people who are very good fighters who really want to win this

[30:13] fight. I would argue that I would argue that Paul Trudy's much more than a man

[30:17] at that point. I mean he's been engineered to be more than a man but sure. But you're right

[30:24] that when a fight between two people but I mean there's no fight in there's no

[30:29] fighting scenes in this movie and their fight scenes are very colorful they're

[30:32] very action-packed there's a lot of choreography there are no scenes in that

[30:35] they're as exciting to me as Sean Connery and Robert Shaw fist-fighting in

[30:40] a train compartment in From Russia With Love. Like there's nothing in here that's

[30:44] as exciting as that and it's I think partly because everything feels so

[30:47] weightless in the movie it makes sense when the Argyle scenes are weightless

[30:50] because they're like a fantasy but everything's so it's so cartoonish it's

[30:55] so you know like there's no there's no even sense of reality anyway anyway I

[30:59] was wrong there is a sense of reality because after this long fight scene Sam

[31:03] Rockwell does parachute them out of the back of a train and she faints while

[31:07] holding on to him which should mean that she drops to her death like he like

[31:12] wraps something or he puts a belt around her oh did he okay I missed that I missed

[31:16] the belt she wakes up in a cabin where he has now shaved thank goodness now

[31:20] he's just regular Sam Rockwell not bearded Sam Rockwell and he tells her he

[31:23] is super spy Aiden Wilde and that her books are so great name this is the

[31:29] realist this is not the fantasy of Argyle this is where real spies have

[31:33] real names like Aiden Wilde and they that her books are so accurate that the

[31:38] real-life evil division the real-life version of the directorate from the

[31:41] books wants to catch her and the division is run by director Ritter who

[31:45] was played by Bryan Cranston we see him he's so mad at Rob Delaney his

[31:48] underling for losing Ellie that he just shoots him he just murders him and it's

[31:52] one of those things where it's like fucking Skeletor or Darth Vader if you

[31:58] work at an organization and if someone you see a co-worker messed up and they

[32:03] get killed leave fire just leave that job it's not worth it don't be in that

[32:07] job and Wilde is allergic to cats this is an allergy that comes and goes as the

[32:13] movie decides there are times later when he's just hanging I would think it would

[32:16] I think I would give you sympathy for this character if they handled it in a

[32:21] way that was realistic perhaps but the allergy seems to turn on and off but

[32:25] also it's one of those things where just means he sniffles every now and then like

[32:28] it doesn't really play into anything he explains and he explained this is the

[32:33] first of many info dumps that Sam Rockwell is tasked with performing in the

[32:37] movie and he does a fine job of it mostly he says that he was he had hired a

[32:41] hacker named Bucharan an anarchist hacker whose anarchism is so cartoonishly

[32:46] displayed it's so fun later on we see a flashback to Bucharan's apartment and

[32:51] his his walls are just covered with anarchist a symbols all over the place

[32:55] like so cool it's ridiculous anyway he hired this hacker Bucharan I wish I was

[33:00] that committed to branding so my older son he loves the the LA Dodgers all he

[33:11] talks about is the Dodgers most of his shirts are Dodgers shirts he has some

[33:15] Dodgers stuff in his room but it's not just that the walls are spray-painted

[33:18] with the Dodgers logo over and over again as if he wanted to make his own

[33:21] wallpaper out of the Dodgers yeah he's like the Joker but for the Dodgers yeah

[33:27] yeah I mean are you already prepared to do something like that for his

[33:32] inevitable Dodgers theme department oh it's gonna happen for sure yeah I'll see

[33:37] if I can get Shohei Otani to show up maybe he can be the rabbi what's the

[33:42] Dodgers mascot is it like a baseball a man with a baseball head what is it

[33:46] what's a I don't know that they have a mascot to be honest then I have no

[33:51] interest in seeing one of their games no I need some kind of a cartoon character

[33:55] to keep her about gritty or a mr. met yeah something some kind of a fanatic of

[34:00] some kind so anyway so while just explaining look I hired you Karen it be

[34:07] Karen to steal the division's master file which they it easily they easily

[34:11] organized and collated all the bad things they did and all the evidence

[34:14] for it into one master file it was very helpful he put it on a flash drive

[34:18] inside a silver bullet but the hacker disappeared and I want you to use your

[34:21] writers intuition to find him so they fly to London she's afraid of flying but

[34:25] he talks her through the takeoff which by the way this is a this is a dumb plan

[34:29] that makes more sense when the when they reveal stuff later it does make more

[34:35] sense no this is what I was gonna like the idea that she would be predictive in

[34:38] the way he wants her to be is ludicrous but then like that's not actually what

[34:43] also what's going on but that I would argue that's a better plot for the movie

[34:47] then yeah that's been the twist reveals I think the idea of like somehow she's

[34:52] such a good writer that she can predict things that are gonna happen is kind of

[34:56] I think I'm to me you know it's like a good like procedural show yeah I can see

[35:01] that yeah it's like castle but predictive castle you know oh my god like

[35:06] early edition castle yeah if she's in a fight scene and she's like how would I

[35:10] write this scene okay I would make sure that this got that I was like that guy I

[35:15] would give him like a weakness maybe he's got like like a really bad like an

[35:19] Achilles heel that's not good kick him in the heel that didn't work okay maybe

[35:22] another thing what if he has like a weak heart so if I surprised him but and the

[35:26] guy has a heart attack and dies it's like okay yeah I did it like this is

[35:29] more fun to me predictive castle again you predicted it like that's more fun to

[35:35] me than what we get but anyway they go to London they go to the Alfred Memorial

[35:39] which is a real memorial and that's where he was supposed to meet the hacker

[35:43] he wants her to invent her next chapter right there in the hopes that it'll lead

[35:48] them to be Karen and she envisions Argyle and his sidekick Wyatt finding a

[35:52] fancy phone chip which leads them to a satellite relay which helps them locate

[35:56] the hacker and the division is meanwhile watching all this through a closed

[36:00] circuit TV camera because they got tipped off because one of Ellie's fans

[36:04] was live-streaming that she's sitting at a park bench in a park and so we're

[36:08] cutting between Ellie the division and Argyle who is a fictional character all

[36:13] racing to see who can get the address for the hackers apartment from the

[36:17] satellite relay yeah they figure it out Ellie didn't go to the apartment it's

[36:21] empty except for a little bit of furniture it's empty the walls are have

[36:25] been cleaned of anarchist symbols I will see them later and they find a hollow

[36:29] floor how was it discovered because Sam Rockwell starts dancing well also like

[36:34] before that Ellie's like oh there's clues here I can feel that this means

[36:38] something he's like no we know nothing we got to go and I'm like what are you

[36:41] talking about you're the one who brought her because of your belief that she has

[36:45] this information and now you're immediately dismissing it nothing in the

[36:48] scene makes sense what and the clues that she is finding don't mean anything

[36:52] like they're not real like yeah they find the hiding place for the for the

[36:56] master file logbook purely by chance but yeah why is he suddenly like and this

[37:01] doesn't mean anything when this is his plan she should be the one who's like

[37:05] no this is meaningless and then finds something like it the scene is backwards

[37:09] like they reverse this scene for some reason yeah yeah and also I mean I don't

[37:14] know when best to address this but I'll just do it now to a pause uh the

[37:18] allegations against you yeah uh he said it's all hokum he said he actually said

[37:26] hokum pokum I think he meant hocus pocus yeah yeah because he was referring us to

[37:30] his favorite movie of course I am still aware of who claudia shiffer is I don't

[37:34] just no um no I just don't get the the whole

[37:39] mcguffin angle of this thing where why if this thing is lost

[37:45] you know is the division putting so much energy into like

[37:49] handling it the way they are it's it's it's lost

[37:52] it's lost you're you're you're you're doing good guys like if anything

[37:56] work to like kill the the people who are still working against you

[38:00] uh rockwell and we will meet later sam jackson like

[38:04] that's a much easier task than finding this

[38:07] lost thing through a series of mental manipulations here's what I'll say

[38:11] here's what I'll say just because it's lost doesn't it's

[38:14] not really lost it's being stored somewhere and they don't want

[38:16] somebody else to get it which I understand but also it's one of those

[38:19] things too we were like well if the good guys are looking for

[38:22] this thing why don't you let them find it and then

[38:26] kill them and take it rather than trying to kill them

[38:29] throughout but I guess what they're really trying to do is they're trying to

[38:31] kill sam rockwell but not necessarily ellie as

[38:35] we'll find out later I mean yeah the twist none of the movie I mean the

[38:37] reason is because gotta have action because it's an action

[38:41] movie there's no real reason why you're doing anything you know why

[38:44] there's no meaning behind life come on it's just we're just wasting time till

[38:47] the grim reaper taps just a lot of action

[38:49] buddy you're you're done so the uh action until there's no more action

[38:53] anymore exactly that's called entropy or

[38:56] action for p uh so uh they find the hacker's code

[39:00] book or whatever the division team shows up there's another

[39:03] fight them up scene uh aiden wild the hero of the movie

[39:06] tells ellie that when he shoots someone he wants her to then crush their skulls

[39:10] with her foot to make sure they're really dead like

[39:13] like you're doing the twist yes she has a lot of issues with this

[39:16] understandably because you are murdering someone who has

[39:19] already been taken out as a threat you know uh

[39:23] so he she can't bring also if you're gonna do that

[39:26] why do it in a way that gunks your foot all up you know

[39:29] just take his gun and shoot him again maybe once he's been

[39:33] i don't know involved already is she wearing the right simpler where to

[39:38] mario stomp these guys heads to death yeah i mean

[39:41] and of course the reason is because later on she she is going to have to go

[39:45] through this again in a way that uh where it looks like she's gonna do it

[39:49] to yeah to the hero like it's there's it's one of the things where it's

[39:52] like why is this scene in here so that it can set up a suspense scene

[39:57] later on yeah but it doesn't really make sense why

[39:59] you would have

[40:00] You do it.

[40:00] Yeah, it has a lot of rack.

[40:01] That's how you do it, folks.

[40:02] That's how you, that's, yeah, screenwriters,

[40:04] I hope you guys are taking notes.

[40:06] One thing, one thing-

[40:07] Screenwriters, if you need to know one thing,

[40:08] set up stuff so that it pays off later,

[40:10] but it's okay if the setup is meaningless

[40:12] and doesn't have to happen.

[40:14] One thing I-

[40:15] And if the payoff doesn't have to happen.

[40:16] It's just action.

[40:16] It's just action all the way down.

[40:17] Honestly, nothing has to happen.

[40:19] Nothing has to happen.

[40:20] You don't have to make movies.

[40:22] You don't have to.

[40:23] I just want to say that on this note,

[40:25] like one thing I always really admired

[40:27] about the Cornetto trilogy is like,

[40:31] in all those movies,

[40:32] like so much that is set up in the first half

[40:34] gets an explicit payoff in the second half,

[40:36] but it all works on its own terms.

[40:38] Like you're never like,

[40:38] this is a setup for something

[40:40] because it's always like funny the first time around.

[40:43] You know, and it makes sense.

[40:44] Edgar Wright, at his most stylistically driven,

[40:48] is still more invested in character and reality

[40:52] than Matthew Vaughn at his most realistic, I feel like.

[40:55] You know, that's, they both do different things.

[40:58] I don't think it's going on a limb

[40:59] to say that Edgar Wright is a better filmmaker.

[41:02] Yeah, sure.

[41:03] But his movies will mean more to me

[41:05] and will last longer, you know?

[41:07] But anyway, that's neither here nor there

[41:10] because they've got to escape.

[41:11] They go up to the roof.

[41:12] They see a boat down there.

[41:13] That must have been Bucharan's escape boat

[41:16] to get Ellie to jump off the roof.

[41:17] Aidan just throws Alfie the cat off the roof

[41:19] to show that it's safe.

[41:20] Which Ellie was like,

[41:22] you probably appreciated that.

[41:23] Was that your stand-up and cheer moment?

[41:25] I know, because then the cat survived.

[41:28] The cat entered the speed force.

[41:29] No.

[41:30] When does this cat enter the speed force?

[41:33] That's what I want to stand up and cheer.

[41:34] Do you guys remember the scene in Kramer vs. Kramer

[41:36] when Kramer enters the speed force?

[41:39] Wait, which one?

[41:41] You guys remember that scene in the Shawshank Redemption

[41:45] when Andy Dufresne, he's crawling through

[41:47] that two miles of muck and shit

[41:49] when he enters the speed force?

[41:50] Did you hear the speed force, man?

[41:52] Why are you crawling through all that muck?

[41:54] Don't do it slow, do it fast, come on.

[41:57] Do you guys remember the scene in Rudy

[41:59] when Rudy enters the speed force?

[42:02] Man, he would not ever have to sit on the bench

[42:05] if that bitch was in the speed force.

[42:06] If he was in the speed force,

[42:08] he'd be the greatest athlete of all time.

[42:09] And yet we didn't stand up and cheer until the Flash did it.

[42:12] And that's what makes that movie the classic.

[42:14] Exactly.

[42:15] Nobody stood up and cheered until it happened.

[42:16] I mean, they did flash the words stand up and cheer

[42:18] in big red letters on the screen

[42:20] when he entered the speed force.

[42:24] But we did it.

[42:25] What a stand up and cheer.

[42:26] Do you think anyone in the history

[42:29] of anyone watching that movie ever stood up

[42:31] and cheered watching that movie?

[42:33] Okay, real talk, guys.

[42:34] Listen, we've had a lot of goofs.

[42:36] Yeah, let's get real.

[42:38] When was the last time you stood up and cheered in a movie?

[42:42] I don't know.

[42:43] I mean, like-

[42:44] I've certainly cheered in movies.

[42:45] I don't think I've ever stood up.

[42:47] Yeah, I feel like the closest thing I can think,

[42:49] I mean, I don't, I, you know,

[42:50] I was sitting stock silent

[42:53] because that's the way I watch movies.

[42:55] No, I react to things, but like,

[42:57] but the closest thing was the fucking like Avengers

[43:01] when the hammer, you know, like,

[43:05] I feel like that may have been a stand up cheer.

[43:08] Captain America picked up the hammer, yeah.

[43:09] Oh, right, right.

[43:10] When Captain America took it.

[43:12] When he picked up Thor's hammer.

[43:13] Well, I mean, yes, that was,

[43:14] I've been waiting for that moment for several movies.

[43:17] I knew it had to happen at some point.

[43:19] But you're saying somehow seeing this character

[43:22] that we have come to know and love

[43:23] over a series of films showing that he was worthy

[43:26] to wield the power of a God, another character,

[43:30] was more of a stand up and cheer moment

[43:31] than seeing a character we had just met in that movie.

[43:34] Use his power.

[43:35] Use his power the way we expected him to.

[43:40] But that's the magic of the movies though,

[43:41] even so, we stood up and cheered.

[43:44] Well, Ben, but actually you don't need,

[43:45] but you also don't need,

[43:46] I'm sure that when Luke Skywalker blew up the Death Star,

[43:49] I'm sure people stood up and cheered

[43:51] the first time they saw that.

[43:52] And they didn't know who Luke Skywalker was

[43:53] until the movie started.

[43:54] So you don't need a whole series

[43:55] to introduce someone to build up to it.

[43:57] That being said, when the character's called the Flash

[43:59] and his power is speed,

[44:01] him entering the speed force is not that,

[44:03] yeah, it's not that exciting, yeah.

[44:07] And the first time.

[44:07] To be honest though, to be honest though, I did,

[44:09] I stood up and cheered because I was like,

[44:10] I think the movie's almost over.

[44:13] It isn't though, spoiler alert.

[44:14] It was so funny to go, I'm getting a hot dog.

[44:17] You cheered.

[44:19] Maybe it was like a stand up and go watch cheers moment.

[44:22] Was that what they were talking about?

[44:23] Yeah, that's what they're talking about, yeah.

[44:25] Probably.

[44:26] So that night, they're at a hotel.

[44:28] Ellie is hallucinating that Argyle is talking to her,

[44:30] but he doesn't actually tell her very much of interest.

[44:33] And she goes, go away.

[44:34] And she overhears Aiden on the phone saying,

[44:37] ugh, I hate Ellie Conway.

[44:38] Someone should put a bullet in her head.

[44:40] I'll deliver her to you and then I'm done.

[44:42] And that understandably sounds threatening.

[44:44] So she sneaks out, calls her mom,

[44:46] tells her mom to meet her in London.

[44:48] The next morning, I guess Ellie goes to her mom's hotel room.

[44:50] I don't know how fast that plane is,

[44:52] but that was a fast flight.

[44:54] She hopped on the Concorde.

[44:56] In this world, the Concorde still exists.

[44:58] Yeah, I see.

[44:59] It makes sense, it makes sense.

[45:00] It's a world of super spies, of course.

[45:02] Why wouldn't a super fast, super loud plane

[45:04] that nobody really needs that badly,

[45:06] and so went out of business,

[45:07] why wouldn't it still be around?

[45:08] So, uh-oh, there's a knock on the door.

[45:11] She goes, mom, don't answer it.

[45:12] The door opens, it's director Ritter.

[45:14] And Ellie is shocked until she goes, dad.

[45:18] What, her dad is the evil bad guy director?

[45:20] Twist, didn't see that twist coming, did you, Twisty?

[45:25] I mean.

[45:25] This movie is twisted.

[45:27] Yeah, it's pretty twisted.

[45:28] Audrey just said, you know,

[45:30] that's gotta be her dad, right, before it happened.

[45:32] But yeah, you know, it was a pretty good twist.

[45:33] No, I mean, yes, you know it's gonna happen.

[45:36] Here's what I was hoping.

[45:37] I was like, okay, there's two ways I want this to go.

[45:41] Either he's a bad guy,

[45:43] and Catherine O'Hara doesn't know it,

[45:46] or her dad is identical to director Ritter,

[45:50] and they're gonna get mixed up at some point.

[45:52] That's what I want to see.

[45:53] And then they have to go on a date on the same night.

[45:58] This kind of bumbling Colorado dad is just kind of,

[46:01] or Chicago dad, I guess they live in Chicago.

[46:02] This bumbling Chicago dad is just kind of like

[46:06] thrust into running an evil directorate,

[46:08] and he's like, oh, sure, okay, I would love to see that.

[46:12] That's actually pretty good.

[46:13] I like that one.

[46:14] He turns out to be Ellie's dad.

[46:15] She hands him the logbook.

[46:16] He starts flipping through it,

[46:18] and with noticeable glee on his face,

[46:20] but then Aiden bursts in.

[46:22] Oh no, he puts a gun to the dad's head,

[46:23] and the dad instantly drops his cover,

[46:25] reveals he's a bad guy.

[46:27] Ellie's mom puts a gun to Ellie's head,

[46:29] and starts talking in as Dan saw from the captions,

[46:32] a British accent, and she's like, what's going on?

[46:35] And Wilde shoots Catherine O'Hara, knocks out the dad,

[46:38] and then drives off with Ellie,

[46:40] just as Ellie's about to get in the car.

[46:42] She realizes she left Alfie the cat up in the hotel room,

[46:45] but he's like, you can come with me and learn some things,

[46:47] or you can go try to rescue that cat.

[46:49] She makes the wrong decision.

[46:50] She goes with him instead of going back to get her cat.

[46:52] That's not a heroic thing to do.

[46:54] If she was Sigourney fucking Weaver,

[46:56] she'd go back for that cat.

[46:57] Yeah, it's also in direct opposition

[47:00] to the screenwriting rule that states

[47:02] that one does explicitly that thing.

[47:04] Yeah, that you go back and save said cat.

[47:07] Yeah, that's what makes her an unlikable protagonist.

[47:10] And also, like, if there-

[47:11] That's the only thing.

[47:13] You've set up for me that there is one relationship

[47:15] that means more to her than anything else in the world,

[47:17] and that is this dumb cat, this dumb CGI cat.

[47:21] And then she's like, I guess I will leave the cat behind.

[47:23] Like, come on, what are you doing?

[47:25] Anyway, she hallucinates Argyle again and then passes out,

[47:28] I guess just for the sheer exhaustion

[47:29] of these last couple days.

[47:31] She wakes up, they're driving to the French countryside.

[47:34] I'm sure there's a way to drive from London

[47:35] to the French countryside.

[47:36] I don't know what it is.

[47:37] Maybe a ferry is involved at some point.

[47:39] I don't think there's a bridge across the channel.

[47:41] There's a tunnel, right?

[47:42] The tunnel is a train.

[47:43] I don't know that you can drive a car through it,

[47:45] but maybe I'm wrong.

[47:46] Well, is it the same car?

[47:48] Man's Googling it.

[47:49] Google it.

[47:50] Maybe I'm, again, I've never done it.

[47:52] I'm sure there's some way to do it.

[47:53] There's spies, dude.

[47:54] Maybe their fucking car turns into a gondola.

[47:56] That's, just like, which Roger Moore was that?

[48:00] Moonraker, where the pigeon does a triple take.

[48:05] I feel like Matthew Vaughn saw that scene

[48:08] and he's like, perfect.

[48:09] That's, I'm making a whole movie like that.

[48:10] I want my whole career to be like that.

[48:13] They're driving to the French countryside.

[48:14] They get to an isolated vineyard.

[48:17] There's a channel tunnel that you can use for your car.

[48:19] Oh, okay.

[48:20] So there is a driving tunnel.

[48:21] Okay, that's fine.

[48:22] Then please strike it from the record,

[48:24] my worries about how they drove there.

[48:26] Yeah, leave it in.

[48:27] Double it.

[48:28] Leave it in.

[48:29] No, no.

[48:30] Yeah, make it more.

[48:30] That's the trailer.

[48:31] She wakes up.

[48:32] They go to the vineyard of former CIA Deputy Director

[48:36] Alfred Alfie Solomon, played by Samuel L. Jackson,

[48:40] Nick Fury himself.

[48:41] And he uses winemaking as a very on-the-nose metaphor

[48:45] to reveal that Ellie is actually about to meet

[48:48] the real Agent Argyle because Ellie, Dan,

[48:51] hold on to your fucking socks.

[48:53] You are gonna blast right off your feet.

[48:55] You are gonna flip over backwards with your feet in the air

[48:58] like this is a Bazooka Joe comic.

[48:59] Learn this stunning twist.

[49:01] Ellie is the real Agent Argyle.

[49:05] Or actually Agent R. Kyle, Rachel Kyle,

[49:09] which they have to have found a better way to do that.

[49:11] It's the clumsiest way to get the name Argyle.

[49:13] I love it so much.

[49:16] I gotta hand it to Samuel L. Jackson.

[49:19] He really set up a pretty sweet deal to put in, what,

[49:23] two days of work, hanging out in an office,

[49:24] clapping, watching Lakers games.

[49:26] A lot of it, I love that he's in his vineyard man cave,

[49:29] which has a big screen that he uses

[49:31] either to track the world's evil spies

[49:33] or to watch basketball games.

[49:35] And all the walls have framed basketball jerseys on them.

[49:38] Like memorabilia and shit, yeah.

[49:40] He just loves memorabilia.

[49:42] But yeah, she is actually a secret agent.

[49:44] Her books, they're not fiction.

[49:46] They're her processing her buried memories of being a spy.

[49:50] And Ellie's like, that can't be.

[49:51] But Aiden proves it in the only way to prove things.

[49:54] In these movies, he fights her

[49:56] and unlocks her secret spy fighting skills.

[50:00] Previous times when people were genuinely trying to kill her, her fighting skills remained

[50:04] under lock and key.

[50:06] That's just the power of the human psyche.

[50:08] You know, that's the mind.

[50:09] No one threw a direct punch at her, which I guess is the triggering event that needs

[50:13] to happen, I guess.

[50:14] Yeah, I suppose that's it.

[50:16] It would have been kind of better if she was like, but what about all those other times

[50:21] when you killed all those guys?

[50:22] And Aiden's like, I didn't, I didn't kill them.

[50:25] You killed them all.

[50:26] Like a flashback of her like murdering all these guys, like with like a blank look on

[50:31] her face.

[50:32] To be honest, I would, again, I would have liked that kind of more, but like, but uh,

[50:36] it would have been more serious.

[50:37] Yeah, with like a look of horror on his face.

[50:38] He's like, what are you doing?

[50:39] You were always the...

[50:40] You watched her upgrade her way through these dudes.

[50:43] Yeah, you were always the most brutal of us, a beast, a monster.

[50:47] So guys, you were flabbergasted by this twist, right?

[50:50] Like you did not know how to handle it.

[50:52] Your minds were blown.

[50:53] Again, I would thought to myself beforehand, how would I write this movie based on this

[50:58] trailer?

[50:59] Oh, she probably, she probably repressed memories.

[51:01] She's like been brainwashed.

[51:03] I had to go all the way back to the beginning and start over.

[51:05] Cause I'm like, I must have missed something.

[51:07] Let me pick up the clues and guess what?

[51:11] I'm sure there are clues of a sort, but they're not, it's not like it's, I don't know.

[51:16] It's the only way to deduct this twist is to have seen movies before.

[51:20] But anyway, Alfie and the division, or maybe not just to guess it, Alfie and the division,

[51:24] they're racing to decode this hacker log book as Aiden does some more info dumping on Ellie.

[51:29] So guys get ready for some info to be dumped on you.

[51:31] She was the agent who went to meet with Bucharan in his hilariously anarchist apartment.

[51:38] She ended up in a coma.

[51:41] She was found by the division leaders who posed as her parents.

[51:44] They brainwashed her into believing that she was a writer who was injured in a skating accident

[51:49] so that she would, and they gave her a journal that they said was hers full of story ideas

[51:54] for her to then write as novels so that she could write the novels that would lead them

[51:58] to the hiding place of the master file rather than let's say not giving her a cover story

[52:05] and asking her where's the master file.

[52:08] They instead decided to take the clues that would lead people to the master file and put

[52:12] them into bestselling books that would be available around the world, probably in multiple

[52:17] languages so that anyone could join in on the hunt.

[52:20] I don't think they knew they were going to take off this way.

[52:23] But I also had a problem with I also had a problem with the like encouraging her to write

[52:30] and then it turns into this storyline.

[52:35] I thought, like, why not just if you're writing this, why not just make it like they like

[52:40] are keeping an eye on her.

[52:42] They have this cover like they've given her this other identity.

[52:46] They're, you know, staying close to her in case something comes out and then unbeknownst

[52:51] to them, like she starts writing this story, you know, that's just something that happens

[52:57] like it's so absurd to me that part of their plan is like, oh, she's going to write her

[53:02] memories into these stories.

[53:04] And just sorry, just to clarify before it's not that important, but the reason she was

[53:09] in a coma was like he had some sort of dead man switch the hacker and we don't find that

[53:14] until later.

[53:14] We don't know that till later.

[53:15] What if there is a point where they were like, well, we want her to go through this process

[53:19] so we can figure it out.

[53:20] And then they started selling the books and they're like, man, we're making some fucking

[53:24] money off these books.

[53:25] Yeah.

[53:26] Like maybe we should just focus on publishing instead of being evil spies.

[53:29] Yeah.

[53:30] Well, that's it's one of the things where you look at like you look at James Bond movies

[53:33] and I mean, those are cartoons also.

[53:35] But you're like, you have so much advanced technology.

[53:37] No, that's that's James Bond Junior.

[53:39] So, yes, James Bond Junior is the son is the weird thing.

[53:44] But his dad was also named James Bond.

[53:46] It was like George Foreman's family, wherever all the boys have the same name.

[53:50] So but the idea that you have all this advanced technology, you should just do that, just

[53:54] sell that instead of using it to like hold gold for ransom or whatever, you know, start

[54:00] an undersea kingdom, you know, but it's so there's so many ways to be a bad person with

[54:07] a lot of money in the world that don't run afoul of the law.

[54:10] Yeah, you don't end up having a spy chasing after you and trying to shoot you do one of

[54:15] those evil people.

[54:16] OK, so and every now and then we get a piece of consumer electronics out of it.

[54:19] So so that's the bargain that the devil's bargain we've made made with the evil people

[54:24] of the world.

[54:26] So it turns out the thing that happened in Greece at the beginning of the movie, that

[54:30] whole shootout with Argyle and and and that happened.

[54:35] Aiden was the real life Wyatt.

[54:37] They did have an associate named Kira who got shot in Greece.

[54:40] And Ellie's like, oh, I was going to bring Kira back in book six.

[54:42] A fan sent me a crazy way to do it.

[54:45] And she's like, so I was going to include it into my book and risk litigation.

[54:49] Yeah, that was the that was the biggest problem I had.

[54:54] Not the foreshadowing of who, of course, said this.

[54:57] I know.

[54:58] Charlene's like, that's going to happen.

[54:59] I'm like, but there's no way she could put that in her book.

[55:03] Pause the movie.

[55:05] But this is why you don't get unsolicited manuscripts.

[55:09] And then I'm like stomping around the living room, making a lot of hand motions like I'm

[55:13] fucking Sebastian Maniscalco.

[55:14] You really Sebastian Maniscalco is coming up a lot in the conversation today.

[55:18] Even before the recording, Stewart's got Maniscalco on the brain.

[55:21] Maniscalco fever.

[55:22] No, you can take the man out of the man, you can take the man out of the Maniscalco.

[55:26] Our show today is sponsored by Maniscalco, the best way to shave your nether regions.

[55:32] No, no. Actually, it's sponsored by Manischewitz.

[55:35] The only one that tastes like Sebastian Maniscalco.

[55:38] So Alfie cracks the code, it turns out, and there was no way that anyone is going to be

[55:42] able to guess this, that Ellie, that the master file was in the keeping of a known

[55:48] associate of Ellie is known as the keeper of secrets, a professional secret keeper.

[55:52] How could they have ever thought that?

[55:54] How could they have cracked that?

[55:55] This amazing thing.

[55:57] Ellie is nervous, but Aiden's like, you're going to have to go with me on this mission

[56:00] to get it. They go to, as the Chiron tells us, Arabian

[56:04] Peninsula. No country, no city, nothing.

[56:07] We can say Chicago, but we cannot be any more specific than it's somewhere on the

[56:11] Arabian Peninsula.

[56:12] Which felt racist to me in a way, and I'm not quite sure if it is or not.

[56:16] They show up dressed as glamorous spies.

[56:18] They go to luxurious oasis complex.

[56:21] Ellie is nervous. So what do you do when someone's nervous and you want them to just

[56:24] not worry about it anymore?

[56:25] You dance with them publicly and you do the whirly bird move.

[56:29] And he reveals that they weren't just spy partners.

[56:32] They had a relationship. And this song that's playing, that was their song.

[56:35] That song, of course, is now and then a Beatles song that was not released until

[56:38] 2023. So I'm like, when did this move?

[56:40] When is this movie taking place?

[56:42] Is it taking place in 20 years in the future?

[56:44] Yeah. The I will say you say they're dressed up like glamorous spies.

[56:49] I got to say, I'm not a huge fan of the dress that they put Bryce Dallas

[56:54] Howard in the like glamorous spy dress, because it feels like it both

[56:58] like covers up her body entirely and also does nothing for her.

[57:02] So it's like it should be something that empowers her more, I would argue, rather

[57:07] than covers her up and doesn't look particularly good on camera.

[57:11] Wow. That's Stewart's costume corner.

[57:14] That's my little and I will say Sam Rockwell, the little frosted tips.

[57:19] Thumbs up. More of that. OK, so there's a jeer and a cheer.

[57:24] It is ridiculous that they dress up as Argyle and and Lagrange, the the bad

[57:30] guy lady from the beginning to get into this thing.

[57:32] It's a it's I don't know, it's silly that they that they play those parts,

[57:36] especially because she should be dressed as Argyle like, yeah, he he should be

[57:40] dressed. He should be wearing some kind of spangly thing or not.

[57:43] I don't know. Anyway, but they dance to their song now and then a huge hit

[57:47] Beatles song everybody loves.

[57:48] It's everyone's favorite Beatles song since 2023 when it came out.

[57:51] Ellie meets with the keeper of secrets and who, by the way, just I got to

[57:56] clarify, is not a greater demon of Slanash, which I was hoping for, but was

[58:00] disappointed by the omission.

[58:02] No, no, it is a just a woman who keeps secrets.

[58:05] Who is this?

[58:06] Sophia Botea. Yeah, multiple flop house film.

[58:10] Yeah, we're going to be seeing her soon.

[58:12] We got a date with Rebel Moon, too, right?

[58:14] A date with Rebel Moon, too, sunshine.

[58:15] I forgot that was her in the in the Rebel Moon series.

[58:17] Yeah. You know, it's that old Rebel Moon shining down on us.

[58:21] Yeah, so Ellie meets with the keeper of secrets and she's like nervous and she

[58:28] and the keeper seems like, how do I know you are still the same agent?

[58:31] Our guy agent are Kyle that I remember.

[58:35] And she hallucinates Agent Argyle saying, you don't need me anymore.

[58:38] You're all that you need. You can do it.

[58:40] And I'm like, well, Agent Argyle, have you done anything to help her up to this?

[58:44] Like it feels like this is this is what happens after she has hallucinated

[58:48] Agent Argyle, like giving her tips, you know, or helping her through things.

[58:51] But I like to have a Coleman and cloak and dagger.

[58:56] Yes. Yeah, exactly.

[58:57] Let's get to have any Coleman in here.

[58:59] Yeah. Get to have this place.

[59:01] How many times do I have to say it?

[59:02] Get Dabney Coleman.

[59:03] If we're going to if we're going to have a sexy Gary Coleman, I want it.

[59:08] I said Dabney, I was clear about it.

[59:10] If you're going to have a sexy spy, it better be Dabney Coleman.

[59:13] Yeah. The luxuriousness of that mustache.

[59:16] Well, man, mustaches work.

[59:19] Let's just say it, guys, whether it's on Henry Cavill or Dabney Coleman.

[59:23] Mustaches were my three words again.

[59:26] Mustaches work.

[59:28] Tashes is, of course, that's what they publish.

[59:31] Art books, right?

[59:32] Anyway, so PI, the list goes on.

[59:35] Anyway, yeah, his name stands for mustache.

[59:37] I'm Elliot Roadhouse.

[59:39] Not just are great, not ugly, man.

[59:45] Please inform, please inform, please spread this information about mustaches

[59:51] brought to you by the Facial Hair Council.

[59:53] So she bluffs her way into getting the flash drive with the master file,

[59:58] which is just her being mean.

[59:59] The person.

[1:00:00] How do I know you're the real Agent Argyle?

[1:00:02] Prove it."

[1:00:03] And she's like, fuck you, you piece of shit.

[1:00:04] And she's like, yes, you are the real Agent Argyle, good job.

[1:00:08] And she opens up the file and starts to read it just on the computer right there.

[1:00:12] She is shocked by something she sees, but we're not going to find out what it is until

[1:00:16] a few minutes later, unless you guess what it is, because it's the most obvious thing

[1:00:19] that it could be.

[1:00:20] Catherine Harris shows up alive.

[1:00:22] She reveals she was wearing a bulletproof vest over some tea.

[1:00:25] She reveals that Ellie was actually a bad guy, a devoted evil agent of the Division.

[1:00:30] This is when we learn that she went to Karen's anarchist apartment, killed him, which set

[1:00:35] off a dead man switch bomb, which put her in a coma, and then everyone who drank the

[1:00:39] tea passes out.

[1:00:40] This is, I think, the third time that Ellie has passed out and then woken up again in

[1:00:44] a new place.

[1:00:45] Oh man, she should see a fucking doctor.

[1:00:47] That can't be good for you.

[1:00:48] So if you want to see a movie where the main character is continuously roofied, go ahead,

[1:00:53] go see Argyle.

[1:00:54] I guess that's a review.

[1:00:57] If you want to see a movie where a female lead is continuously passing out and waking

[1:01:02] up in situations she doesn't know she got there, go ahead, watch Argyle, no thanks.

[1:01:07] Wow!

[1:01:08] Ellie, it's a hero, take the stand.

[1:01:11] Don't like it.

[1:01:12] So Ellie wakes up at Division HQ, Director Ritter is destroying the flash drive, and

[1:01:18] he's like, we need you to tell us where Alfie is.

[1:01:20] And she doesn't know, but she figures she can get that out of Aiden.

[1:01:23] And Ritter is like, if you give us our Alfie, we'll give you back your Alfie.

[1:01:26] He has the backpack with the cat in it, and she goes, I hate cats.

[1:01:31] And he just drops the backpack.

[1:01:32] That's how you know she's evil now.

[1:01:33] Aiden's getting beaten up for his info, and Ellie walks in and is like, why don't you

[1:01:37] just tell me?

[1:01:38] And he says no.

[1:01:39] So she shoots him, and then she uses her hacker skills to find Alfie.

[1:01:43] But meanwhile, Aiden, hold on, he's not really dead.

[1:01:47] And he beats up his interrogators and then shoots himself up full of adrenaline, so much

[1:01:50] that it has to kill him.

[1:01:53] We call that a Hong Kong cocktail, especially if it's-

[1:01:57] Oh no, so he's got to keep his heart rate up or he'll die.

[1:02:00] Oh no.

[1:02:01] If he's got an injury near his heart, maybe it would.

[1:02:05] This part really annoyed me.

[1:02:07] Of all the quote unquote twists, I mean, they don't wait that long to reveal what's really

[1:02:13] going on.

[1:02:14] But even so, it bothered me because you're not watching our gal thinking like, oh, shoot.

[1:02:22] She really just killed Sam Rockwell.

[1:02:28] You know that this is going to be undone.

[1:02:30] So why even play it, movie, like we're fools?

[1:02:35] Because twists, Dan.

[1:02:36] Because twists are action.

[1:02:37] It's meaningless.

[1:02:38] Come on, have fun.

[1:02:39] Yeah, you don't think they should stretch it out a little bit, like him give final words.

[1:02:44] Maybe it's like a little bit of blood drips out of his mouth.

[1:02:47] I mean, look, I'm just saying-

[1:02:49] You're saying, why not cut out the middleman, just have her rescue Sam Rockwell?

[1:02:53] I will give the movie the slight credit that it doesn't try and extend this long at all.

[1:03:01] He doesn't try and really fool us.

[1:03:03] But if you're going to do it, I feel at this point, just have them exchange a wink so you

[1:03:08] know.

[1:03:10] I don't know.

[1:03:11] But Aiden doesn't know because she can't blow her cover, but this is up there with Chewbacca's

[1:03:15] death in Rise of Skywalker.

[1:03:20] I know this is not good.

[1:03:21] They undo it.

[1:03:22] You have to undo it really fast because everyone knows Chewbacca is not going to die off screen

[1:03:25] killed by the hero accidentally.

[1:03:30] When it happened, I was like, movie, if this is for real, okay, I'll give you some credit

[1:03:35] for that.

[1:03:36] You're a madman.

[1:03:37] I don't know where you're going.

[1:03:38] You don't give a shit what happens.

[1:03:39] You're just so, you're insane.

[1:03:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:03:41] I looked down, I'm like, I guess I should buckle my seatbelt.

[1:03:44] I don't trust this guy.

[1:03:45] No one's safe.

[1:03:46] I wonder if the theater will give me a refund on the four-fifths of my seat I'm not using

[1:03:51] because I'm just sitting on the edge.

[1:03:53] So it turns out...

[1:03:56] You call fucking Usher over and explain that, like, what did you just say?

[1:04:00] And Usher is like, yeah, yeah.

[1:04:02] Oh, wow.

[1:04:03] Elliot knows a fucking Usher song?

[1:04:06] Just the one.

[1:04:07] That is fucking crazy.

[1:04:08] Just the one.

[1:04:09] That's blowing my mind.

[1:04:12] Oh, wow.

[1:04:13] Does it surprise you more that Usher is working as an Usher at the movie theater?

[1:04:16] No, I'm more surprised that Elliot knows an Usher song.

[1:04:19] He's doing research.

[1:04:20] He's doing research for what?

[1:04:21] His concept album?

[1:04:22] His name.

[1:04:23] Oh, his name.

[1:04:24] He's like, I've been at a wedding.

[1:04:26] I've been at a movie theater.

[1:04:27] Yeah.

[1:04:28] Yeah.

[1:04:29] I spent a little bit of time as a toilet, but that's a flusher.

[1:04:31] That's a little different.

[1:04:32] And I spent a little bit of time as a candy with fruit juice in it, but that's a gusher.

[1:04:37] Also a mistake on my part.

[1:04:38] He just wanted to cover his bases.

[1:04:42] An actor prepares.

[1:04:44] An actor certainly does prepare.

[1:04:46] Especially if you're Usher, who's not really an actor.

[1:04:50] It's the name of a book.

[1:04:52] I don't know.

[1:04:53] I mean, in what was the movie with the Hustlers?

[1:04:57] I mean, he doesn't really act in that.

[1:04:59] He's just playing himself.

[1:05:00] But playing yourself when you're Usher is the role of a lifetime.

[1:05:07] Thanks, BH1, behind the music narrator.

[1:05:11] Usher thought things couldn't get any better.

[1:05:13] But he was wrong.

[1:05:14] And they did.

[1:05:18] The rise and rise of Usher.

[1:05:20] So we're going to find out Usher did something bad that we don't know about.

[1:05:25] That people are going to be like, how can you make jokes about Usher?

[1:05:27] I don't know.

[1:05:28] I only know the one song.

[1:05:29] I watched his whole halftime show, and I still don't know any of his songs.

[1:05:32] Anyway, so he escapes the interrogation room.

[1:05:35] Ellie reveals to the bad guys, actually, I'm a good guy.

[1:05:38] And I just sent the master file to Alfie.

[1:05:40] And then an error message comes up on the screen that's like, file not sent.

[1:05:43] And she goes, uh, see?

[1:05:45] And she knocks out fake mom and dad.

[1:05:47] Which, by the way, why are they constantly knocking him out?

[1:05:52] Well, in movies, for some reason, there is nothing wrong with murdering low-level grunts.

[1:05:57] But there is some moral problem with killing the people at the top who are responsible.

[1:06:02] It's the same thing with Guardians of the Galaxy 3, where they're just mowing down people.

[1:06:06] And then when it's time to kill the High Evolutionary, they're like, no.

[1:06:09] We won't do it.

[1:06:10] Because we're Guardians of the Galaxy.

[1:06:12] It's like, I don't know, man.

[1:06:13] If you're going to kill anybody, kill that one guy.

[1:06:15] And leave everybody else alive.

[1:06:16] I still think they're supposed to have been using stun things.

[1:06:19] They talked about non-lethal force in that movie.

[1:06:21] In Guardians of the Galaxy?

[1:06:22] So when Chris Pratt says, OK, Groot, kill them all.

[1:06:25] And they just start shooting people with blasters.

[1:06:27] Is that the light?

[1:06:28] I don't know.

[1:06:30] When they're fighting those pig monsters, and they're just chopping their limbs off with swords.

[1:06:38] Were those stun swords?

[1:06:39] And they can reattach their limbs later?

[1:06:41] And Star-Lord's like, yeah, use the stun weapons.

[1:06:44] Leave them on the ship that explodes in a few minutes.

[1:06:47] I will say.

[1:06:49] There's that too.

[1:06:50] The only reason I am pushing back at all is, you've used this as an example a few times.

[1:06:56] I'm like, well, even if it doesn't do it well, that is one of the few movies that tries to

[1:07:01] make some nod towards, hey, let's not just kill all of these faceless people because

[1:07:08] they're minions of the bad guy.

[1:07:10] But then they do it.

[1:07:12] I know.

[1:07:14] Or in Rise of Skywalker, where it's like, you can't kill the emperor.

[1:07:17] That would be wrong.

[1:07:18] You're right.

[1:07:19] I guess I'll just murder all these child soldiers who were forced to fight for you.

[1:07:22] I'll just blow them up en masse.

[1:07:24] It's like, movies, check yourself.

[1:07:26] Look at what you're doing.

[1:07:27] I mean, Argyle doesn't do this, but let me do a little Argyle strips doctoring.

[1:07:32] Strip doctoring.

[1:07:34] Take this shirt off.

[1:07:38] I'll just take off my stencils.

[1:07:40] No, you could have her not able to kill them because she has lived thinking that they're

[1:07:47] her mom and dad for a while.

[1:07:49] That's a good thing.

[1:07:50] Some emotional reason, anyway.

[1:07:52] Yeah, no, that makes sense.

[1:07:54] Even though she still has trouble doing that.

[1:07:57] Yeah.

[1:07:58] But she knocks them out.

[1:07:59] She apologized to her cat for saying that she hated it.

[1:08:01] She still loves it.

[1:08:02] She runs off to a weapons room where she is reunited with Aiden.

[1:08:05] And she tells him.

[1:08:06] I want a fucking weapons room.

[1:08:09] You don't want one of these.

[1:08:10] I would have way cooler ones.

[1:08:11] I would have, like, all kinds of katanas.

[1:08:13] Like a Psy.

[1:08:14] Yeah, definitely a Psy.

[1:08:15] Your weapons room is basically just the pawn shop from Pulp Fiction.

[1:08:19] Yes, thank you.

[1:08:20] There's like a baseball bat.

[1:08:21] There's a chainsaw.

[1:08:22] There's a katana.

[1:08:23] Or you know what?

[1:08:24] The Kingsman movies have better weapons rooms than this one.

[1:08:27] I'd have a flying guillotine.

[1:08:29] Oh, that's amazing.

[1:08:30] Really?

[1:08:31] That's hard.

[1:08:32] You've got to master that thing.

[1:08:33] That's hard to use.

[1:08:34] Yeah, I'll accidentally chop my hand off at least twice.

[1:08:36] That's the only number of times you can do it.

[1:08:38] You can't do it at least.

[1:08:40] Yeah.

[1:08:41] That's a great trick.

[1:08:42] I can only do it twice.

[1:08:43] You've got to get it to land right over the other person's head.

[1:08:46] It's like a carnival game.

[1:08:47] Like, it's pretty hard to do.

[1:08:48] And it's not just that.

[1:08:49] You have to do that.

[1:08:51] And then you have to wait for them to register their situation.

[1:08:54] Yes.

[1:08:55] Then you chop their head off.

[1:08:56] And the other thing is...

[1:08:57] You've got to pull so hard that it cuts through a human neck.

[1:08:59] That's hard to do.

[1:09:00] Yeah.

[1:09:01] Like a carnival game, the loop is actually a little smaller than people's heads, most

[1:09:04] of them.

[1:09:05] Yeah, it just bounces off their heads.

[1:09:06] You've got to find someone with a very small head.

[1:09:08] Yeah.

[1:09:09] Yeah.

[1:09:10] Or a baby.

[1:09:11] I could totally do it to a baby.

[1:09:13] Do it to a baby.

[1:09:15] Unless it's Baby Hitler.

[1:09:17] People say all the time.

[1:09:19] This is me saying the opposite of what I was saying before.

[1:09:21] No, similar.

[1:09:22] If people are like, oh, would you be able to kill Baby Hitler?

[1:09:24] Because he's just a baby.

[1:09:25] I'd be like, yeah, you better believe I will.

[1:09:27] Let me tell you.

[1:09:28] Dash its brains out.

[1:09:29] Come on.

[1:09:30] I know that baby's Hitler.

[1:09:31] You know?

[1:09:32] Do it.

[1:09:33] Fingerprint it first.

[1:09:34] Make sure it's Baby Hitler.

[1:09:35] Yeah.

[1:09:36] Do all the...

[1:09:37] Do your due diligence.

[1:09:38] Make sure that Baby Hitler didn't use his sinister genius to switch places with a different

[1:09:41] baby.

[1:09:42] Probably a Jewish baby, because he's that evil.

[1:09:43] Yeah.

[1:09:44] Anyway.

[1:09:45] But, yeah.

[1:09:46] I'll take out Baby Hitler.

[1:09:47] Bring me your time machine.

[1:09:48] Anyway.

[1:09:49] She tells me...

[1:09:50] L.A.'s application.

[1:09:51] She's just pretending.

[1:09:52] She's just pretending.

[1:09:53] L.A.'s application to the fucking looper program.

[1:09:56] Yeah.

[1:09:57] Oh, yes.

[1:09:58] Reasons for applying.

[1:09:59] Yeah.

[1:10:00] baby Hitler, change history.

[1:10:02] I'll do whatever, specifically baby though.

[1:10:05] Can't handle older men.

[1:10:07] Not grown up Hitler, too much of a challenge.

[1:10:10] There's all those stories where they're like,

[1:10:13] we can't kill Hitler, what if someone worse shows up?

[1:10:16] And I'm always like, he's pretty bad, I don't know.

[1:10:19] Let's risk it.

[1:10:20] Let's take the chance, let's see what happens.

[1:10:22] What if his replacement started a war that killed 50 million and three people?

[1:10:27] That's slightly worse.

[1:10:29] Let's treat ourselves.

[1:10:30] You know what, let's live dangerously and kill Hitler.

[1:10:33] Let's take those odds.

[1:10:35] Anyway, she reveals to Aiden, I'm not really bad.

[1:10:38] I shot you, but I shot you.

[1:10:40] He goes, you shot me through the heart.

[1:10:41] And she goes, no, I shot you through the vascular corridor,

[1:10:43] a two-inch passageway that allows a bullet to pass through the body

[1:10:47] while appearing to go through your heart harmlessly,

[1:10:50] as long as the blood is spout.

[1:10:51] And she goes, this is the crazy storyline that was suggested to me by that fan

[1:10:54] about how I was going to bring Kira back.

[1:10:56] And it's like, movie, you don't have to keep telling me.

[1:10:58] I get it.

[1:10:59] Kira is going to come back because that's that way.

[1:11:01] You don't have to keep telling me.

[1:11:02] It's fine.

[1:11:03] Just keep moving, movie.

[1:11:04] And so now we get to the name.

[1:11:06] We've got to keep moving.

[1:11:08] Keep moving.

[1:11:09] Come on.

[1:11:10] It's not a stoppie.

[1:11:11] No.

[1:11:12] It is a talkie, but this is where we get to the two scenes that really soured me

[1:11:17] on this movie.

[1:11:18] Up until this point, I was like, you know what, movie?

[1:11:20] I don't really like you, but whatever.

[1:11:22] I respect you.

[1:11:24] Well, not that either.

[1:11:26] You don't just check your brain at the door with this one.

[1:11:28] You check your whole nervous system, check your circulatory system too,

[1:11:31] check your endocrine system, the whole thing.

[1:11:33] But then they team up to fight their way to the server room where they can

[1:11:37] transmit the file to Alfie, and you get two action scenes in a row.

[1:11:41] One is this big kind of dance shooting scene where the two of them are dancing

[1:11:45] while shooting guys while they're flinging colored smoke grenades everywhere.

[1:11:49] And it's supposed to be big and bright and colorful and fun and silly.

[1:11:52] They're rediscovering their love for each other while they kill people.

[1:11:55] And the bad guys are such low-level threat.

[1:11:58] There is no threat whatsoever.

[1:12:00] It just murdered to me.

[1:12:02] But anyway, Stewart, you were saying.

[1:12:03] Prove me wrong, Stewart.

[1:12:04] I will say that I feel like at least this scene is pretty colorful and visually.

[1:12:09] It's very colorful.

[1:12:11] I think it's colorful.

[1:12:12] I think it has a look that I don't feel is overdone.

[1:12:18] I agree it's not like a particularly good action sequence,

[1:12:23] but I think as like a dance sequence, it's more fun than other parts of this movie.

[1:12:27] Yeah, sure.

[1:12:28] In the color section of the grading card, I'll give this scene an A.

[1:12:32] Ten out of ten, for sure.

[1:12:34] They use all the colors.

[1:12:35] I have some sympathy with what Elliot's saying because I feel like the older I get,

[1:12:39] the more this kind of whimsical, gleeful murder of people on the screen bothers me.

[1:12:45] When I was younger, I might have been more into it.

[1:12:47] The same way when Sin City came out, I was like, this movie is cool.

[1:12:52] Now I think I don't know that I'd be able to watch it.

[1:12:54] It's just so grim and not the fun kind of grim where it's like the grim adventures of Grim and Mandy or whatever it was.

[1:13:02] The Grim Reaper hangs out with those kids.

[1:13:04] But yeah, I think part of it is me getting older, having a family,

[1:13:09] living in a world where people are killed routinely by guns, and it's not fun.

[1:13:13] So to see like them kind of dancing their way through shooting people,

[1:13:17] I just can't take the same enjoyment out of it that I could when I was young and didn't think about that stuff.

[1:13:21] But then – so I will say this sequence is better than the next one where they're in a room that's leaking oil because of all the shooting.

[1:13:28] And so they're like, we can't use our guns, so they have to fight with knives.

[1:13:32] The bad guys are slipping all over the place.

[1:13:34] They cannot stand up.

[1:13:35] Nellie goes, wait, was I really an ice skater?

[1:13:38] And Sam Rockwell's like, yeah, you were a great ice skater.

[1:13:40] So she takes two knives, somehow shoves them into the bottom of her boots and ice skates.

[1:13:44] Unnecessary.

[1:13:45] Ice skates through the oil just stabbing guys and just cutting their hamstrings and stuff.

[1:13:50] And these guys are – there's nothing – they are not – they are so at her mercy because they're slipping and falling down.

[1:13:57] So it's like it's not – and she's kicking them with her boot, which has a blade in it.

[1:14:01] So she's slashing their faces open.

[1:14:03] You don't see their faces get cut open, but you're like there's a blade in the bottom of your boot.

[1:14:09] It's totally bloodless.

[1:14:10] I had a moral problem with the previous scene, but in this scene, that was replaced by just being annoyed like –

[1:14:17] being like those knives would make it harder to slip around on that oil floor.

[1:14:21] Just use your fucking shoes.

[1:14:23] I've seen the fucking transporter, which is the platonic ideal for an oil fight scene.

[1:14:29] And also it's a – I think there's a certain point where characters in a movie get so self-satisfied with what they're doing that it makes the movie feel smug.

[1:14:38] And this scene is where that happens for me.

[1:14:40] She is so proud of herself for doing this, and there is – and it is so not a challenge for her, and the bad guys are at such a disadvantage that it's like, okay.

[1:14:51] Yeah, you're super cool.

[1:14:52] I don't know.

[1:14:53] I don't understand.

[1:14:54] I don't like you.

[1:14:55] I stopped liking the character at that point.

[1:14:57] This makes me think of like I went to see – Alex is going to make fun of me – the fact that I saw this.

[1:15:03] Look, I was feeling down, wanted a movie.

[1:15:06] You're like, look.

[1:15:07] I have – I didn't know what to do.

[1:15:09] I went to the down to Times Square subway station.

[1:15:11] I watched a rat fight.

[1:15:12] Yeah, anyway.

[1:15:13] No, no.

[1:15:14] I went and saw the snuff movie from 8mm.

[1:15:16] I watched –

[1:15:17] They were playing at Nighthawk.

[1:15:20] I had the season pass.

[1:15:21] It's a repertory screening.

[1:15:23] It's not that it was so gross.

[1:15:25] It's that I know Elliot will take umbrage to anyone having the spare time, but I saw The Equalizer 3.

[1:15:31] At the end –

[1:15:33] No, Dan.

[1:15:34] That's one of the essentials.

[1:15:35] You've got to see it.

[1:15:36] At the end of this film –

[1:15:37] It answers all the questions that The Equalizer 2 left unanswered.

[1:15:40] Fucking Mr. Equalizer, Denzel, is doing these – like it is shot and staged like a slasher movie where he is the killer hunting down these goons.

[1:15:53] I'm like I have lost any sympathy with The Equalizer at this point.

[1:15:58] This feels grim and ugly.

[1:16:00] When it gets too easy for the good guy to kill the bad guys, then they become the bad guy.

[1:16:05] If it's done well, then the audience does feel that – is deliberately feeling uncomfortable because it's like you wanted this.

[1:16:11] You're getting it now.

[1:16:12] It's not pleasant.

[1:16:13] While I was watching this, I'm like I love the movie The Raid Redemption.

[1:16:17] What is different between that movie and this one?

[1:16:19] The difference is that it is hard for those guys to get through that building.

[1:16:23] They are constantly in trouble.

[1:16:24] Yes.

[1:16:25] It's really difficult.

[1:16:26] That is a very accurate description of the movie The Raid.

[1:16:29] They are –

[1:16:30] A tough time getting through a building.

[1:16:33] Getting from floor – some days it's just as hard to get from the second floor to the third floor.

[1:16:37] When it's two guys versus one guy in a fight, that one guy is a maniac and amazing.

[1:16:43] That's why it takes two guys to do it.

[1:16:44] He's like a mad dog.

[1:16:45] Like there is – I get no thrill out of seeing a super-skilled assassin hero taking out guys who – the bad guys, they barely get a shot off in the last couple scenes in this movie.

[1:16:55] They're just standing there with guns in their hands, not firing as the good guys take them down, and it makes me – it's not fun.

[1:17:01] But if they were like, this is really difficult, and then they had to meet the challenge, I'd be like, oh, this is a fun movie.

[1:17:08] It takes a very – it takes a certain amount of skill and work to make a – like an ultimate badass character interesting.

[1:17:17] Yeah.

[1:17:18] See the lone wolf and cub stories for instance.

[1:17:21] Or like Wolverine.

[1:17:22] Like Wolverine at his worst is a character who's just so good at everything that he just mows through thousands of guys.

[1:17:28] At his best, he is a guy who is only capable of winning because he can absorb more pain than anybody else.

[1:17:34] And it's not that he's invulnerable.

[1:17:35] It's just that he – or maybe he's invulnerable, but it still hurts, and he looks worn out.

[1:17:39] It's hard for him.

[1:17:40] Like when a hero has to push themselves, it's cool.

[1:17:43] When a hero is just kind of sliding by like Agent Argyle does, Agent Argyle has more of a hard time than Agent Ellie does at this point.

[1:17:51] It's like – or Agent Arkyle I should say.

[1:17:53] Anyway, we don't need to keep belaboring the point.

[1:17:55] The point is they get to the server room.

[1:17:56] They're going to upload this damn file finally.

[1:17:59] Ritter walks in.

[1:18:00] He's about to shoot them with his old-fashioned shotgun, but who steps in?

[1:18:03] The true hero of the story I guess.

[1:18:05] Alfie the cat to claw the shit out of his face.

[1:18:08] And like – and before that, Ritter was like, it's a – you can't use this computer.

[1:18:12] There's a retinal scanner.

[1:18:13] It only works on my eyes.

[1:18:15] And then Alfie jumps at him, and Agent Wilde is like, oh, I better kill him before your cat destroys his eyes because we're going to need it.

[1:18:21] He shoots Agent Ritter, and he's like, oh, it's too bad.

[1:18:24] These eyes are pretty messed up.

[1:18:25] And I'm like, okay, so in this fun action movie, the villain's eyes have been clawed out by the cat.

[1:18:30] I kind of respect it.

[1:18:33] It's a little – it's a little like – I guess I could use a little more edge in this movie.

[1:18:39] Yeah, it works in Event Horizon.

[1:18:41] It's like got a bunch of killing, but no –

[1:18:43] Event Horizon, Stuart, is a horror movie, and that's a hugely freighted moment when he rips his own eyes out.

[1:18:48] It's not like – it's not a laugh line when he does that.

[1:18:51] Yeah.

[1:18:52] Anyway.

[1:18:53] But it reminds me a little bit of that scene that I didn't like so much in Quantumania when MODOK dies, and they're like, oof, weird day today, huh?

[1:19:00] It's like, well, you just saw someone you know die.

[1:19:02] Like this is – even if you don't like him, take a moment.

[1:19:06] Anyway, they're like, okay, luckily there's another computer on this – in this place that we can go use to upload this file.

[1:19:14] They go up on the deck of what turns out to be a giant oil tanker.

[1:19:17] That's where they've been all this time, and maybe it's because we watched Waterworld earlier this year.

[1:19:22] But I was not surprised or excited by the idea of them being on a giant oil tanker.

[1:19:26] Like, okay.

[1:19:27] It explains why there's all that fucking oil.

[1:19:29] Oh, yeah, the oil.

[1:19:30] It does explain all that.

[1:19:31] It does explain the oil.

[1:19:32] Oh.

[1:19:33] No, that's because it's an intricate puzzle box.

[1:19:35] Every piece fits just so.

[1:19:37] Couldn't have just been because they needed oil for some reason for all this machinery that's around.

[1:19:42] No, it couldn't be.

[1:19:43] They're on an oil tanker.

[1:19:45] While the file is uploading to Alfie, Catherine O'Hara turns.

[1:19:48] She has a music box, and the music triggers Ellie's brainwashing, and she commands Ellie to kill Aiden.

[1:19:54] They fistfight for a while, and they're like pressing the button that pauses and unpauses the file transfer.

[1:19:59] Because that's how file transfer works.

[1:20:00] for his work, right? It's just hit pause, and when you hit unpause, it just goes right

[1:20:02] back to where it started.

[1:20:03] I don't know. I'm pretty bad with that shit.

[1:20:04] It's not my experience with Google Drive.

[1:20:05] Yeah, I'm pretty bad with all that stuff. I'm like, why is it not working?

[1:20:09] And every now and then you cut to Alfie and his man cave going, ooh, it stopped. And they're

[1:20:15] fighting, and finally Aiden is like, Ellie, I'm not going to fight you anymore. I know

[1:20:18] you're still in there. I'm going to do, or Rachel or whatever, you're going to do the

[1:20:22] right thing. She knocks him down. She's about to stomp on his skull, as he taught her to

[1:20:27] do. And for some reason, it feels like the movie feels the need to flash back to moments

[1:20:33] of their relationship and the moment when he taught her how to stomp skulls.

[1:20:37] It's like, yeah, I remember. I was watching this damn movie. I mean, it's a long movie.

[1:20:39] It's not that long that I'm forgetting things that happened.

[1:20:42] This really bugs me because he stops fighting. He's like, like you said, I know you're really

[1:20:50] in there. I'm not going to fight you. I don't want to hurt you. That's a big part of it.

[1:20:53] The only way to unleash you before was to fight you. Now the only way to cure you is

[1:20:57] to not fight you. Symmetry. The only reason to do that would be if she overcomes her programming.

[1:21:05] But she doesn't. The only reason that she survives or he survives is, you know, what's

[1:21:11] her face comes in. Kira. Yeah. And like smashes her on the head.

[1:21:16] A masked figure. Dan, you're revealing a twist. A masked figure hits Catherine O'Hara over

[1:21:21] the head with a wrench, probably fracturing her skull, killing her. And that and the music

[1:21:25] box stops and she snaps out of it. Oh, no. And then that and that mass figure, you guessed

[1:21:30] it is Kira. Kira reveals that she is the anonymous fan who sent the vascular Carter plot because

[1:21:37] that's what happened to her. We could have gotten to this after I was done with what

[1:21:40] I was saying. But I'm saying, Dan, you know, I'm just saying that, like, narratively, like,

[1:21:46] why go down this road? Because like Sam Rockwell stops fighting and I'm like, no, like, go

[1:21:54] down and get Catherine O'Hara. Get the thing like he says he's going to do it earlier.

[1:21:58] But then he's just like, you know what? I'm just going to stand here and let you beat

[1:22:01] me up. And and I'm like, OK, well, it's going to be him or her struggling to overcome. I

[1:22:06] got it. I got a better, better version of this action sequence. Catherine O'Hara whips

[1:22:11] out a music box that makes L.A. try and kill Sam Rockwell. Sam Rockwell then spends the

[1:22:15] next the whole fight trying to defend himself while also dancing, while also breaking the

[1:22:21] music box. And each time he does, Catherine O'Hara brings out another one.

[1:22:24] Oh, that's like that's the standard version of it would be. He's trying to get to Catherine

[1:22:29] O'Hara and Ellie keeps stopping him. And yeah, he can't get better. But I do like the idea

[1:22:33] that she has multiple music boxes. Yeah, she just whips them out. And he's like, oh, another

[1:22:38] one. That would be amazing. I think I've got the explanation for why why they're doing

[1:22:42] it. I think it's because this movie is not well written. Oh, OK. I think that's the and

[1:22:47] I never want to blame the writer on a movie. I will always blame the director and I will

[1:22:50] always blame executives who meddle with stuff. But I'm going to say that this movie is it's

[1:22:56] a movie. It's a it's a script that is free from reasons for things to happen or people

[1:23:01] to do things. But you know what, then that could be the director and the yeah, I think

[1:23:06] so. Meddling could be the meddling. But I guess we'll find out the script. We aren't

[1:23:10] necessarily blaming the writer because if what if the same writer who wrote this when

[1:23:15] his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series that was announced a few years ago and I guess

[1:23:19] it's probably I mean, when that comes out, we'll know for sure whether it was him or

[1:23:22] the director, you know, when he takes a truly beloved piece of literature for me and gives

[1:23:28] it the Argyle treatment anyway. But I never want to blame the writer because the writer

[1:23:33] ultimately doesn't get to make the final decisions. It's I will always blame the director or the

[1:23:36] executives because they're the ones who make those decisions. Anyway, that mass figure

[1:23:39] is Kira. She explains she she she survived because this vascular corridor. I didn't do

[1:23:44] the research to find out if it's a real thing or not. I don't care enough. She goes. I said

[1:23:48] when you didn't respond to my email, I decided to go undercover in the division and wait

[1:23:53] until the moment when I was needed. And it was like there were like four hundred four

[1:23:57] hundred moments. You could have stepped in until this one. They finished transmitting

[1:24:00] the file to Alfie and then they leave blowing up the tanker killing, I have to assume, dozens,

[1:24:05] if not hundreds of people who who did not get to evacuate when they're all lying unconscious

[1:24:09] in pools of oil as the as they as a tanker explodes around. And we don't even we don't

[1:24:14] even get a moment to make us feel better about it.

[1:24:17] Like in Waterworld, when Carl the Olsen goes, oh, thank God, as his flame engulfs him. Yeah,

[1:24:23] such a good bit. This what a great performance on his part. Anyway, Ellie then veos that

[1:24:28] Argyle was now free. He had no more missions left. And we see she's reading from the final

[1:24:34] Argyle book to the same audience members who all showed up to this book release. Also,

[1:24:39] yeah, maybe it's a super fans. Yes. Super fans. And one of the people's goes, people

[1:24:44] says, I have to know what happens to the characters after the book. And this sucks.

[1:24:49] This sucks real bad. And Ellie explains each of the characters. Happy endings.

[1:24:53] Samuel Jackson gets a medal. Kira becomes the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or whatever.

[1:24:58] And we see that. Why wasn't this in the book? Why didn't she put it in the book?

[1:25:03] Is it because it sucks? Maybe you could say this after the book came out. You know,

[1:25:09] there's an edict in writing to, you know, get get in at the latest possible moment

[1:25:14] and get out of the earliest. Maybe she's like, this is unnecessary.

[1:25:17] The movie Argyle doesn't learn from usually. I feel like usually spy novels don't have an

[1:25:23] epilogue that explains what happened to the characters later in life. That's more Victorian

[1:25:27] literature thing, I guess. Or like an animal house. Yeah, exactly. And but they each have

[1:25:34] happy endings and they're all there at the reading. Kira, Alfie, Alfie, the cat and Sam

[1:25:39] Rockwell, who has now remembered that he's allergic to Alfie, the cat. But they're now

[1:25:42] living together. They're they're in love. Finally. And this is the dumbest of all the

[1:25:48] twists in the entire movie. Kennedy Cavill stands up. He's got a mullet and a southern accent.

[1:25:53] And she goes, I don't have a question, but I bet you've got two or three for me.

[1:25:56] And Ellie is shocked. Cut to credits. And it's like, wait a minute. So

[1:26:02] it's a twist that means nothing. But except, I guess, how are we supposed to take this twist?

[1:26:06] Guys, explain to me this twist, because it's not like Argyle has a famous face. He's a character.

[1:26:10] Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was just thinking about. Like, does he know how she envisions Argyle?

[1:26:16] Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Especially since we've established that she is Argyle. There's no

[1:26:22] Argyle. But I guess. And why does he have an accent? It literally feels like

[1:26:27] the one of those things where they threw a twist in just to have something,

[1:26:30] but they didn't have an explanation. Well, like the end of Super Mario Brothers,

[1:26:34] the movie where they're like, yeah, we didn't have a story for them to go back to now.

[1:26:38] A cliffhanger. The next. The next. Are we going to go to the to the mid-credits scene?

[1:26:43] Well, then I'm just I want to bring it up because there's some light on what's going on.

[1:26:48] Wait, first, Stewart, I want Stewart never sees the mid-credits. Stewart,

[1:26:52] what do you think the mid-credits scene is for this movie? OK, I can only assume I can only assume

[1:26:58] it's Tom Hanks in a fat suit dancing to a rap song.

[1:27:02] Or Tom Cruise. A little left field. If only, Stewart, if only.

[1:27:08] So, Dan, what happens in the mid-credits scene? Tell me.

[1:27:11] Well, in the mid-credits scene, it's totally we don't see any of the people we've come to

[1:27:19] love over the course of the movie, Argyle. In fact, it says 20 years earlier.

[1:27:23] 20 years earlier. A young guy walks into a bar that.

[1:27:28] Walks into the Kingsman pub as a little Easter egg for those Matthew Vaughn fans.

[1:27:32] Well, and he introduces himself like he asked for like something with a twist or whatever.

[1:27:39] And like they give them a gun and he goes, oh, that's a twist.

[1:27:42] He says he says a bunch of code words. It's like I want this drink minus minus this,

[1:27:46] minus this. And they give him a gun and he says, that's a twist.

[1:27:49] And they go, what's your name? And he goes, Aubrey Argyle.

[1:27:52] Where, again, as you mentioned, there is no one really named Argyle,

[1:27:58] although we come out of this scene and it says Argyle book one, the movie or something,

[1:28:04] a poster coming soon. So it's like, I guess this is the movie version of the book series

[1:28:14] within the universe. And it's tied to the Kingsman somehow.

[1:28:18] This is what I was going to say before with the ending of the thing where it's clearly

[1:28:23] setting something up. And Matthew Vaughn apparently had this idea like, oh, I'm going to have these

[1:28:30] three separate kind of like worlds of espionage.

[1:28:33] And eventually they're going to coalesce into sort of a Matthew Vaughn cinematic espionage

[1:28:38] universe. I love the look on Stuart's face as Dan is saying. It's just so lip snarled and disgust.

[1:28:44] The fact that Argyle was greeted as Argyle was, of course, we're not going to see the fruition of

[1:28:50] whatever the fuck all this is about now. So it just lives on as total gibberish nonsense to

[1:28:56] confuse at the end of a movie. Yes. And I have one comment and two questions.

[1:29:02] And my comment is, this is like we're at an Argyle book event.

[1:29:07] Yeah. Like I did say, yeah, this is less of a question and more of a comment. How dare you?

[1:29:11] But what kind of chutzpah does it take to produce a movie like this and be like, by the way,

[1:29:18] this is going to be one of a series because people are going to care so much about the

[1:29:22] fictional world inside of this movie that they're going to want to see it.

[1:29:26] People didn't even want to see Lightyear, a movie based on a beloved series of movies.

[1:29:31] They were like, oh, yeah, I want to see what the Buzz Lightyear story in universe is.

[1:29:35] The idea that you would do this is bonkers to me. So here are my questions. One.

[1:29:39] Are we ever going to see are we ever going to see any of these movies?

[1:29:43] And are you are you how do you feel about that? And two,

[1:29:46] knowing that we will probably never see these movies, what is your explanation for this?

[1:29:50] How do you think it would play out, this ending where a southern Henry Cavill

[1:29:53] shows up looking like her mind's eye imagining of the Argyle character?

[1:29:58] So I can only presume that this is.

[1:30:00] Part of some other memory that she has and she has transposed his face

[1:30:06] Onto like that's the only thing that makes any sense to me

[1:30:11] It's good question he knows that she used to know him, but I don't know why he would introduce himself necessarily that way

[1:30:19] Because like he doesn't know that she's recovered the memories of him

[1:30:23] So also it feels like a weird thing to do like why do it at a book?

[1:30:27] Yes, why do it at a book event why not but on the that's that we know already that she has reimagined Sam Rockwell as

[1:30:34] John Cena in her memory of in the her imaginings of this book

[1:30:38] So is it so now but they were supposed to believe that her description of Argyle is

[1:30:43] Letter perfect to what the actual guy looks like. Well, he's got you know, he's got different hair. He's a different

[1:30:51] Hair on the back of his head is different. That's true. It is a big change. Yeah

[1:30:55] Stuart how do you feel? Do you are you are you a little do you think we're gonna get these Argyle movies?

[1:31:00] And how do you feel about it?

[1:31:02] We're not gonna get him. Um, what's it wasn't it? I wasn't one of the Kingsman movies where the like post-credits scene has

[1:31:10] Like

[1:31:11] What's what's the Russian wizard guy Rasputin? Yeah shows Rasputin's like introduces Hitler and like a Thanos type moment like

[1:31:20] Like it's a flashback though, it's not and it's like yeah

[1:31:23] Rasputin's like we figured out the guy that you're gonna do all this stuff and he's like, hello. My name is

[1:31:29] Adolf wink and it's like yeah that guy when he was

[1:31:34] Then guitar squeal

[1:31:36] You fight

[1:31:38] Names Adolf. Listen to me like it's all it's like, uh, well, I mean that's basically list of mania

[1:31:43] Isn't it where they're like rock and roll not?

[1:31:46] Yeah

[1:31:48] Rock and roll Nazis you were talking about hammers earlier. That's another situation with hammers where yeah, that's for sure

[1:31:54] look don't blame the hand the there's a

[1:31:57] yeah, this is I I feel like I can almost understand when a DC movie ends with a

[1:32:05] Mid-credits scene and you're like they're probably not gonna pay this off

[1:32:07] But I get it

[1:32:08] These are pre-existing characters that they have some

[1:32:11] Reason for assuming people will want to see when new characters that are made up for the myth

[1:32:16] this movie are then teased at the end as if the audience is gonna be like

[1:32:20] What we're finally gonna get the argyle story

[1:32:24] Like I don't what reaction are you hoping to get from the audience?

[1:32:27] Like I don't I don't understand actually when was the last time a movie went that all-in on

[1:32:33] completely brand new characters that have no

[1:32:36] Pre-existing backstory and they just assumed people would love it and it actually worked and it's not based on it and it's not based

[1:32:42] Yes, or anything. Yeah. Well, there's this movie rebel moon

[1:32:46] Probably I mean to say rebel moon is not based on pre-existing characters

[1:32:51] Yeah, I mean so obviously Star Wars right is it is a big one is is that but that's yeah

[1:32:57] I mean, but even that's almost 50 years ago. Is there anything since then? Oh

[1:33:01] With a movie went all-in and was like you saw these characters they're new and you're gonna love it and they were like

[1:33:07] Like yeah, it worked. It worked. I mean and it's not based on anything

[1:33:11] I want audience members to write in cuz I'm having trouble thinking of anything else

[1:33:14] That's probably because there's so few original movies that are made now that are not based on the way

[1:33:20] Yeah, is the question like people like the act of going all Indiana Jones

[1:33:27] Assuming this or the fact that or when are you asking when it's actually successful

[1:33:32] My my argument is that a movie that introduced brand-new characters was also in the course of the movie was like

[1:33:40] This is gonna be a huge success. We are promising this huge universe

[1:33:44] Yeah, there are definitely sequels and it actually paid off like no, I don't audience. I can't think of

[1:33:51] something like that like the like

[1:33:54] That's true because even like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, it's not like they said we'll be back in you know

[1:33:59] Yeah, I mean James Bond will return but like James Bond was already a successful series of novels

[1:34:03] You know and and the thing almost as successful as the Argyle books

[1:34:06] I would argue that like Star Wars and Indiana Jones both kind of posit a larger world

[1:34:11] And it's one adventure for that character one of many and in both cases it worked

[1:34:16] Yeah, but I don't think other things have

[1:34:19] Do that as long as you tell like a full story within that universe

[1:34:27] No

[1:34:29] Is this yeah

[1:34:31] this is one adventure of a larger that there could be a series of you know because I think because they're both wearing their

[1:34:36] Influences from the serials of old on them, I guess but yet when the last time I've seen a movie

[1:34:41] That was a new movie with original characters then back to the future how it ended on a cliffhanger

[1:34:46] That said to be continued at the end, yeah

[1:34:50] Intended on happening like they just like they're like, okay. Well, let's do it. But like they kind of did that as a joke originally

[1:34:56] You know, they're but that's that's that's how I understand

[1:34:59] I mean Dan

[1:35:00] It may have started as a joke, but it sure didn't end as one

[1:35:03] Back to the future is one of the most beloved franchises in Hollywood history

[1:35:06] Join me, won't you as we look at back to the future and all it loves from the movies to the cartoon show to the comic

[1:35:13] To that's it

[1:35:21] That's what we need

[1:35:25] How's what's his name Roger Bart, yeah is the thing the main thing that makes that show

[1:35:32] Watchable, I would say that the songs are all various degrees of awful and not

[1:35:40] No

[1:35:41] To advance the story. The only good songs are the songs that they steal from you lose to stick in there

[1:35:51] Yeah, I told Elliot this actually if they stole those songs you can sue them you can be here Lewis and the Suze

[1:36:01] Are you I use this

[1:36:03] Metaphor before I was talking to Elliot about this on tour, so I apologize, but no one else has heard it before

[1:36:10] Apologize to me. I'll hear it again. I don't remember it that well. This is a conversation we had in an airport

[1:36:15] straw man sit

[1:36:17] Better I better get out there in case anyone overheard me say this to Elliot in an airport in was it we're in Portland at

[1:36:24] The time I think yeah, because then they might get mad that I'm reusing material. Yeah

[1:36:29] Yeah, so a lot of what is fun about the show is seeing them recreate a show

[1:36:37] Recreate a movie that should absolutely not be on stage

[1:36:42] It's like there's just too much

[1:36:45] Special effects. It's like that King Kong where everyone said if you're gonna see it see it for that giant puppet King Kong

[1:36:50] Yeah, this is not a show that makes sense as a Broadway musical

[1:36:53] I mean you could do it by doing it like super like Michelle Gondry style where it's like

[1:36:58] Oh, it's just like, you know a car that someone holds and runs around with

[1:37:03] Play from yeah from a bunch of years ago, but if you're gonna do a Broadway style

[1:37:06] it's it's ridiculous and you watch it and the fact that it comes as close to

[1:37:14] Recreating the movie as it does is kind of amazing, but it's an amazing in a way

[1:37:19] That's like if you saw someone who owned a duck and we're like, that's a pretty good duck

[1:37:24] But could you make that duck into a horse? And they're like, let me let me try and they come back and it's like

[1:37:30] 75% of the way to a horse and you're like amazed that they did it that well

[1:37:37] Not worth

[1:37:39] Yeah, you know, yeah now I'm getting visions of like a Yorgos Lanthimos duck horse being plopped in front

[1:37:48] Indeed yeah, yeah

[1:37:50] Some lyrics in my head for for Crispin Glover's haunting ballad

[1:37:55] For it. He has a song that he sings while he is in the peeping Tom tree. Yeah

[1:38:03] Can't she see she's my density. It don't make sense to me. That's what she that does sound I mean, is there a possible?

[1:38:12] Where Marty sings about how his mom wants to fuck him. I

[1:38:16] I

[1:38:17] Can't recall. It seems like a missed opportunity if not, but you know what we've what do I do this time?

[1:38:24] How do I deal with the situation?

[1:38:28] Don't want to commit a love crime

[1:38:32] So what we normally do it but Freud says I should do it

[1:38:37] goes no, no

[1:38:40] Understanding that's Roger Barton

[1:38:43] Sigma

[1:38:45] You're telling me Roger Bart can't do a funny Sigmund Freud then I'm then you're a liar

[1:38:50] Yeah, it's like it turns out that most of my theories are complete nonsense. They just kind of made up

[1:38:55] I was kind of taking my own neuroses and projecting them on other people

[1:39:01] Anyway, this is a part of the show where normally we don't talk about back to the future or Sigmund Freud

[1:39:06] But we do our final judgments whether all right movie yet. It's a good bad movie a bad bad movie or movie

[1:39:13] We kind of like I'm gonna say about our gal. I'm gonna say it is a bad bad movie. However

[1:39:19] on the

[1:39:20] steep curve of

[1:39:22] Flop has a flop house. Yeah. Yeah, it did not make me as

[1:39:28] angry or bored as movies do like it is

[1:39:33] Surprisingly watchable for how big a mess it is like and so if you were like, you know what?

[1:39:39] I just want to see colors. I want to

[1:39:43] Basically if you're high or you're a cat

[1:39:47] Check if you're a cat jump off the couch on to the remote jump on the buttons until our gal selected

[1:39:52] Yeah, as

[1:39:54] Elliot said if I want to check my whole nervous system at the door, it's you know, I was a tyrant

[1:40:00] week and you have Apple Plus already, I'm not going to say don't turn on Argyle.

[1:40:04] That's the highest recommendation I could give.

[1:40:09] Sam Rockwell is very charming as he often is.

[1:40:12] But what do you say, Stuart?

[1:40:14] Yeah, I mean, I think this is a bad, bad movie.

[1:40:17] I'll be slightly harsher than Dan because I think whatever charms the movie has, you

[1:40:21] can find elsewhere.

[1:40:24] There's just not very much to it.

[1:40:26] And it is such a mess and it's hard to find joy in the violence of it.

[1:40:34] It's just kind of, it's just not for me.

[1:40:37] No thanks.

[1:40:38] I feel, I wish that, I mean, I feel bad saying it's a bad, bad movie even though I think

[1:40:42] it is because having said all that stuff earlier, it is kind of an original.

[1:40:47] It's not based on pre-existing IP even though they kind of pretended it was when it first

[1:40:51] came out.

[1:40:52] That's being said, it's so heavenly about the James Bond type movie stuff that it's

[1:40:57] not really fully original.

[1:41:02] As Stuart said, it's a romancing the stone that turns into a long kiss goodnight.

[1:41:05] It's pretty derivative still.

[1:41:08] It's original only in that it does not use the names of pre-existing characters.

[1:41:11] Yeah, and again, can I state, Romancing the Stone fucking rocks.

[1:41:18] It's like this is like Dan saying, if you've seen all the other movies and you're not

[1:41:23] feeling up to paying attention to something too closely, I guess you can watch it.

[1:41:26] But there's so many better versions of this and it's such a, it's such a glossy kind

[1:41:31] of mess.

[1:41:32] And sometimes a glossy mess can be a lot of fun just to see famous people doing silly

[1:41:36] things.

[1:41:37] Shoot them up.

[1:41:38] Shoot them up.

[1:41:39] Yeah.

[1:41:40] I mean, shoot them up is funny.

[1:41:41] Shoot them up is genuinely a funny movie.

[1:41:42] Yeah, it's good.

[1:41:43] But it's a, it's just, it wasn't very fun.

[1:41:45] I found it, you know, I was bored by it.

[1:41:47] And then by the end of it, I was kind of disgusted by the heroes because it's just nonstop slaughter.

[1:41:52] So here's how you do it.

[1:41:53] If you want to make a movie that I'm going to like, make those heroes have to pay for

[1:41:55] it, you know, make them work real hard and I don't know, do some other stuff than this

[1:42:01] one does.

[1:42:02] But I'm going to say a bad, bad.

[1:42:03] And I'm going to say, if you have Apple Plus, you're sick, you're, you're tired.

[1:42:07] There's probably better stuff on there.

[1:42:09] You're feeling sick and tired.

[1:42:10] You're feeling sick and tired.

[1:42:11] This is, this is, there's probably better movies on there, but if you watch all the

[1:42:13] other movies on there, this one isn't going to hurt you, I guess.

[1:42:18] Okay.

[1:42:19] Hey, when you listen to podcasts, it really just comes down to whether or not you like

[1:42:26] the sound of everyone's voices.

[1:42:28] My voice is one of the sounds you'll hear on the podcast, Dr. Game Show, and this is

[1:42:32] the voice of co-host and fearless leader, Joe Firestone.

[1:42:37] This is a podcast where we play games submitted by listeners and we play them with callers

[1:42:42] over zoom we've never spoken to in our lives.

[1:42:44] So that is basically the concept of this show.

[1:42:47] Pretty chill.

[1:42:48] So take it or leave it, bucko.

[1:42:51] And here's what some of the listeners have to say.

[1:42:54] It's funny, wholesome, and it never fails to make me smile.

[1:42:57] I just started listening and I'm already binging it.

[1:42:59] I haven't laughed this hard in ages.

[1:43:01] I wish I'd discovered it sooner.

[1:43:03] You can find Dr. Game Show on maximumfun.org.

[1:43:07] The Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, Diablo 4, Final Fantasy 16, Street Fighter

[1:43:13] 6, Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield, Spider-Man 2, Master Detective Archives Rain Code for

[1:43:20] Nintendo Switch.

[1:43:21] No?

[1:43:22] Is that just me?

[1:43:23] It's a huge time for video games.

[1:43:26] You need somebody to tell you what's good, what's not so good, and what's amazing.

[1:43:31] I'm Jason Schreier.

[1:43:32] I'm Maddie Myers.

[1:43:33] And I'm Kirk Hamilton.

[1:43:34] We're the hosts of TripleClick, a video game podcast for anyone who likes games.

[1:43:40] Find us at maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1:43:44] Bye.

[1:43:45] But we got a couple of sponsors for the show that we want to share a few words about.

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[1:45:13] Hey, everybody.

[1:45:14] Moms.

[1:45:15] Am I right?

[1:45:16] You're right.

[1:45:17] Most of us have one.

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[1:45:41] you can preload images and you can manage those images using an app, which is very easy.

[1:45:49] It's a great gift for anyone, but particularly for Mother's Day, it's a great opportunity

[1:45:55] to show someone you care about a way to remember you, them, whatever they want to remember.

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[1:46:25] T's and C's apply.

[1:46:28] Are those terms and conditions?

[1:46:30] Is that the cool way you say terms and conditions?

[1:46:32] That's the cool way to do it.

[1:46:33] That's how they say it in Australia.

[1:46:35] We got some live show stuff coming up we're very excited about.

[1:46:38] If you're listening to this episode today, April 20, wait, April 27th, the date gets

[1:46:42] released.

[1:46:43] Then, as I mentioned earlier, this is the day we're premiering our latest streaming

[1:46:47] video show, The Flophouse Sinks Speed 2.

[1:46:50] It operates like our Battlefield Earth show from last year, I think it was, was that last

[1:46:54] year, guys?

[1:46:55] I can't remember.

[1:46:56] Time's a flash circle.

[1:46:57] Yeah.

[1:46:58] You buy a ticket and it gets you the chance to stream the show as many times as you want,

[1:47:02] whenever you want, until May 19th when the streaming window closes and The Flophouse

[1:47:06] Sinks Speed 2 goes back in the Flophouse vault.

[1:47:09] We'll be watching along with you tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern.

[1:47:12] We'll be live chatting in the chat box.

[1:47:14] I can't wait to see the show again.

[1:47:15] It's a really fun show.

[1:47:16] I think you'll really enjoy it.

[1:47:17] Just go to stagepilot.com slash speed, where you can see the trailer, you can buy tickets

[1:47:22] for the show, or for a Flophouse VIP experience.

[1:47:25] That's where we talk to you, not through a chat box, just directly through your computer,

[1:47:28] like a regular max headroom.

[1:47:29] Yeah.

[1:47:30] It stands for very in-person over Zoom.

[1:47:36] Or you can buy exclusive merchandise that's only available during this streaming window.

[1:47:40] That's stagepilot.com slash speed for The Flophouse Sinks Speed 2.

[1:47:44] That's our latest, greatest, newest online streaming video event.

[1:47:48] But next month, we've got another show, not on a computer.

[1:47:51] Instead, it's in the place where computers were invented, England.

[1:47:54] We'll be making our first ever British public appearance.

[1:47:57] Dan, you didn't stay for the part at the end of the invitation game where it says, today

[1:48:01] we call them computers?

[1:48:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:48:03] He's like, no, the good guys want time to go.

[1:48:06] I don't care what they call this now.

[1:48:09] I care what they called it then, a computer box.

[1:48:13] So, we'll be making our first ever public appearance in Britain as we do two shows in

[1:48:18] one night in Oxford, England as part of the St. Audio Podcast Festival.

[1:48:22] We'll be there the night of May 24th or 24th May.

[1:48:27] Might be the way they say it there.

[1:48:28] I can never figure it out.

[1:48:29] Yeah.

[1:48:30] We're doing two shows.

[1:48:31] At 7pm, we're talking The Avengers, the Uma Thurman, Ralph Fiennes, Sean Connery movie

[1:48:36] based on the television show The Avengers.

[1:48:39] And at 9pm, we'll be talking the official movie of England, Spice World, which is not

[1:48:43] so easy to find.

[1:48:44] We'll actually be appearing at a screening of the movie the night before, right guys?

[1:48:47] Yep, that's right.

[1:48:48] Also in Oxford.

[1:48:49] Yes, also in Oxford.

[1:48:50] But, if you can only come to one of those things, come to see us on the 24th when we

[1:48:54] talk about it.

[1:48:55] Yeah.

[1:48:56] Yeah.

[1:48:57] We're doing all new shows, all new presentations, all new jokes, all new questions from the

[1:49:00] audience which will be said in a new accent for us because you were used to answering

[1:49:04] questions from people with American accents.

[1:49:07] If you're anywhere within traveling distance of Oxford, England, take advantage of this

[1:49:10] opportunity because I don't know when we'll get the chance to perform in the UK again.

[1:49:13] After the things we say, oh boy, we'll be banned from Britain.

[1:49:17] Oh man.

[1:49:18] We're going to be run out like Benny Hill.

[1:49:21] For tickets and more information, just go to flophousepodcast.com slash events, then

[1:49:25] scroll down to the Oxford, England entry and click on where it says more info.

[1:49:29] As I've said in previous episodes, don't click on where it says get tickets.

[1:49:32] That just takes you back to the events page.

[1:49:34] Yeah.

[1:49:35] Click on more info and that will take you to the real links to the ticket pages for

[1:49:38] those shows.

[1:49:39] Speaking of which, thank you for the deluge of offers to be our webmaster.

[1:49:45] I'm going to sift through them and get back to some people.

[1:49:49] Thank you.

[1:49:50] Great.

[1:49:51] So that's the Flophouse in Oxford, England, May 24th at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. to different

[1:49:54] shows and guess what, guys?

[1:49:56] Guess what?

[1:49:57] What?

[1:49:58] We've got a different show coming up in a different England.

[1:50:00] That's right. Sorry, Old England. We're also doing a show in New England. We're going to

[1:50:04] Baston, everybody. On July 26, we'll be in Baston, Massachusetts at WBUR City Space,

[1:50:10] courtesy of WBUR Radio. We're going to be live there. It's Friday, July 26. We don't know what

[1:50:16] movie we're covering yet, but I guarantee you it's going to be a bad one. It'll be a movie.

[1:50:21] It'll be a movie. It'll be bad. We'll talk about it. We haven't been to Boston in years.

[1:50:24] We're excited to be back in Beantown and dig into those famous Beantown beans.

[1:50:29] The last time we were in Boston was when we talked about Battle Angel Alita, right? And we

[1:50:35] learned about Dan's need for backstory. Backstory Angel Alita.

[1:50:40] We did Battle Angel Alita and we did Godzilla King of the Monsters.

[1:50:42] Yeah. Stuart did a presentation that almost murdered me by how much I was laughing.

[1:50:50] And Godzilla King of the Monsters also, I think the climax happened in Boston, right?

[1:50:56] Did it? I think so, yeah.

[1:50:58] Maybe. Yeah, we talked about it on the episode.

[1:50:59] Hometown hero.

[1:51:00] Well, we're not doing Godzilla. We're not doing Godzilla King of the Monsters. We did it already.

[1:51:03] We're doing a different movie.

[1:51:04] He's not going back there? Okay.

[1:51:05] So for tickets-

[1:51:06] He's going to go back there someday, Elliot.

[1:51:08] He will. There's not an entry, as I'm recording this yet, on the Flophouse events page,

[1:51:12] because it's that new. For tickets, you can either go to WBUR.org slash events

[1:51:18] slash 931089 slash the dash flop dash house dash live. To be honest, it might be easier

[1:51:24] to just Google the Flophouse and WBUR. It'll get you right there.

[1:51:27] You know what? This shows how little faith Elliot has in me actually doing this.

[1:51:32] He has already told me to put this on the events page.

[1:51:36] I said I was putting it in my reminders. Theoretically, this does exist on the Flophouse

[1:51:41] page. But Dan, may I quote you?

[1:51:43] You did say you needed a reminder to check your reminder.

[1:51:46] That's true. You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps.

[1:51:49] So go to Flophousepodcast.com slash events, and if it's not there,

[1:51:53] just Google the Flophouse and WBUR, because that's where we'll be at, WBUR City Space.

[1:51:58] So that's three great things. From April 27th to May 19th, you can go to

[1:52:02] stagepilot.com slash speed to see our Speed 2 show.

[1:52:05] If you're in Oxford on May 24th, see us in Oxford at the St. Audio Podcast Festival.

[1:52:10] And if you're in Boston on July 26th, come see us at WBUR City Space.

[1:52:15] It's a good amount of Flophouse. There's a lot of Flophouse in the world that you can see

[1:52:20] in person or through your computer. Very exciting. We're in the golden age of the Flophouse.

[1:52:24] Uh, yeah, let's say that.

[1:52:28] Just like the golden girls are in their golden age.

[1:52:31] Yeah, exactly. Just like Gold's Gym is the golden age of exercise.

[1:52:36] All right. Hey, howdy, partners.

[1:52:40] We get letters here at the Flophouse. Oh, Cowboy Dan is back.

[1:52:43] We're going to do a little letters roundup.

[1:52:46] I lassoed me some letters. Let's see, maybe I pulled some of yours out of the old letters pile.

[1:52:53] Feedback. Yeah, this one is from Bonnie. Last name withheld.

[1:52:57] Who writes, Dear Peaches, while listening to your recent Roadhouse episode at work,

[1:53:02] I was delighted to hear the extended talk about the Miami Heat mascot,

[1:53:06] Bernie. That is because I work at a mascot company.

[1:53:10] And I'm actually one of the very few people who sew all of Bernie's costumes.

[1:53:16] It's amazing.

[1:53:17] While I cannot vouch for his problematic past actions.

[1:53:21] According to Wikipedia.

[1:53:22] I would like to thank three of my favorite podcasters for brightening up this tailor's

[1:53:26] workday. My question is this.

[1:53:29] In the event that the smash success of the Five Nights at Freddy's movie

[1:53:33] spawns a mass interested in mascot-based horror movies, which iconic horror film

[1:53:39] would you choose to remake starring a goofy mascot version of its main villain?

[1:53:44] All the best, Bonnie. Last name withheld.

[1:53:48] But you got to go with something.

[1:53:50] That's that's genuinely like weird, right?

[1:53:55] Because if it's already kind of a cute monster, like one or a yeah, or a critter.

[1:54:01] But he is also already kind of a mascot version of himself.

[1:54:04] So that's true. Yeah, I mean, same outfit.

[1:54:09] Yeah, I mean, Frederick J. Krueger. Yeah.

[1:54:12] I was gonna say something like, I don't know, like Reagan from The Exorcist.

[1:54:18] With a big oversized face.

[1:54:20] I mean, if it's a big mascot head, it'll be that much easier for it to spin around.

[1:54:24] Yeah. Oh, man.

[1:54:26] When someone like, I don't know, hits a home run.

[1:54:32] See, I would say pinhead for a similar reason that.

[1:54:34] Yeah, it's the heads already that they're making a big goofy head.

[1:54:37] Those pins will be huge, you know?

[1:54:38] And like, you don't want that just appearing in your room, covering in chains and shit.

[1:54:44] Not at all.

[1:54:46] And I want to do it sort of like conceptually.

[1:54:49] And let's do let's do the thing because it keeps shifting.

[1:54:53] Like, oh, yeah, one version of the mascot.

[1:54:56] That's like a dog with a bunch of spindly things.

[1:54:59] And then by the end, I don't know.

[1:55:01] No, I love this. Is McCready a mascot?

[1:55:02] Who knows? Yeah, I love that.

[1:55:04] Yeah, I love it.

[1:55:05] I love that super tense scene where they're testing everybody's blood.

[1:55:08] And he's like going down the line and he gets to a guy who's now a mascot.

[1:55:12] And you're like, oh, shit, that's gonna be it.

[1:55:14] Yeah, he gets to that.

[1:55:16] His blood is just yarn that shoots up.

[1:55:24] What a good scene.

[1:55:25] Yeah, great.

[1:55:27] This one.

[1:55:28] Do you guys remember when Mrs.

[1:55:29] Met joined our Antarctic research team?

[1:55:34] She's always here.

[1:55:36] This is from Philip.

[1:55:38] Last name redacted from North Cackalacky.

[1:55:42] Which I read just because I like saying North Cackalacky.

[1:55:47] And Philip writes, long time listener, first time letter writer.

[1:55:50] Adult Swim has recently been live streaming episodes of Space Ghost

[1:55:55] Coast to Coast on YouTube for the 30th anniversary.

[1:55:57] I was watching some yesterday while I was working.

[1:55:59] Yep.

[1:56:00] It's been the perfect second screen work from home show.

[1:56:04] Well, did I write this letter?

[1:56:06] I don't know.

[1:56:07] Watching the classic 60s Hanna-Barbera character slowly turn from late night

[1:56:11] show spoof to some classic surrealist comedy nonsense.

[1:56:14] My question is, if you were given free reign over a forgotten property from

[1:56:19] yesteryear, how would you put your personal spin on it?

[1:56:23] Keep on flopping and best wishes to you and yours.

[1:56:26] Philip, last name redacted.

[1:56:33] Come on, writers.

[1:56:34] You guys are writers.

[1:56:35] Well, I'm gonna be a real buzzkill answering this.

[1:56:36] So I don't know if you want me to go last.

[1:56:39] I just...

[1:56:42] Or I can be a buzzkill and then you can go next and be a hero.

[1:56:44] Yeah, yeah.

[1:56:45] Yeah, just do it that way.

[1:56:46] I'm gonna say, Philip, I can only assume you're Philip K. Dick writing in.

[1:56:50] Not the author, but someone whose last name is K. Dick.

[1:56:54] That, Philip, I think right now so much of entertainment is about taking old

[1:56:59] properties and putting new spins on them.

[1:57:01] It's something that I know I'm starting to get more requests to at least

[1:57:06] pitch those things and stuff like that.

[1:57:08] And I'm happy to do them for work.

[1:57:09] But something like this on the Flophouse where we're just having fun, keeping in

[1:57:13] mind that I just talked about Pinhead as a mascot, I think I'm going to try to

[1:57:17] take every opportunity I can to push original things and to not play into the

[1:57:21] idea of taking a forgotten property and putting a spin on it.

[1:57:24] Let's take properties that are so forgotten they didn't even exist before.

[1:57:28] They're just original things.

[1:57:30] And so I think that's what I'm going to focus on in this moment.

[1:57:33] Sorry that I'm not answering the question the way I wanted.

[1:57:35] But I'm trying to I'm trying to introduce more honesty into my life and less

[1:57:38] people pleasing.

[1:57:39] So, Dan, Stuart, you guys are great.

[1:57:42] I mean that sincerely.

[1:57:43] But what if there's a vision?

[1:57:44] What was their version of Steamboat Willie where he killed everyone?

[1:57:48] Oh, shit.

[1:57:48] Wait a minute.

[1:57:49] McCarthy's on the podcast.

[1:57:50] Hold on.

[1:57:51] Hold on.

[1:57:52] You know why?

[1:57:53] Where's those white gloves everywhere?

[1:57:55] So he doesn't get fingerprints over all the people he killed.

[1:57:59] Oh, man.

[1:58:00] What a twisted guy.

[1:58:01] He goes,

[1:58:02] McCarthy just wanted in here.

[1:58:04] Cormac and morphed into Cormac McCarthy.

[1:58:06] So quick.

[1:58:07] Yeah.

[1:58:08] Now, Cormac McDanthy, Cormac McCarthy.

[1:58:12] What if it was like like the little my little pony?

[1:58:14] What would you do with them?

[1:58:16] Oh, twisted.

[1:58:18] This point is just so little that what they gallop up inside you.

[1:58:22] And then they kill you from the inside.

[1:58:24] Oh, that's pretty, pretty horrifying.

[1:58:26] Yeah, yeah.

[1:58:26] OK, I know it was.

[1:58:28] Now, what if it was the cuddles, the fabrics or snuggles, the fabric?

[1:58:31] I go there.

[1:58:35] You shouldn't let a bear in your house, man.

[1:58:37] That's all I'm going to say about it.

[1:58:39] OK, but what if it was what if it was the scrubbing bubbles?

[1:58:42] Well, what would you do with them?

[1:58:44] Yeah, those bubbles are going to be like, you got to get clean.

[1:58:48] You got to clean, clean all of you, clean the sin away.

[1:58:52] And it rubs you so hard that he kills you.

[1:58:55] Yeah.

[1:58:56] OK, now what about Alf?

[1:58:58] Oh, you can't do anything.

[1:58:59] Alf has had so many shots.

[1:59:01] Yeah, I'll try to make him.

[1:59:03] That's it.

[1:59:04] He's just.

[1:59:04] Yeah, well, I mean, it happens in show business.

[1:59:06] Sometimes you only get so many chances that that that will be bites of that apple.

[1:59:11] Hey, I, I, I keep doing this, but I think my answer is.

[1:59:18] I don't have one.

[1:59:19] Yeah, I'm just going to say fucking gummy bears, do they rule?

[1:59:23] They're bouncing here and there and everywhere.

[1:59:25] They drink the gummy bear juice.

[1:59:26] Yeah, yeah.

[1:59:28] Magic and mystery is part of their history.

[1:59:30] Put me in charge.

[1:59:31] Along with the secret of gummy bear juice.

[1:59:34] Yeah, we're going to find out all their secrets.

[1:59:35] Gummy bears fits into the into that classic category in my mind of shows that I watched

[1:59:39] regularly all the time.

[1:59:41] And remember, no episodes.

[1:59:43] Exactly.

[1:59:44] Yep.

[1:59:45] The Duke wanted gummy bears, the juice.

[1:59:49] Yeah.

[1:59:49] OK, you get to get that bouncing power.

[1:59:51] I don't know what does something else for humans, I guess.

[1:59:54] Maybe.

[1:59:54] Yeah, because what is that?

[1:59:55] What is the big strength about being able to bounce on your butt?

[2:00:00] a magic juice bounce on people yeah i would imagine there's like another thing it's similar

[2:00:03] like how sauron wants his ring back and you're like what so he can be invisible and it's like

[2:00:07] no i guess it does something else for him yeah yeah yeah there's something else for him no that

[2:00:13] was the i mean as a child having read the hobbit but not you know not knowing a lord of the rings

[2:00:19] when i like learned about lord of the rings that was like the big problem i had with it i'm like

[2:00:23] wait this is the ring of power this is like the most powerful like but just it makes you

[2:00:28] invisible like that's what else doesn't do you realize this is just part of golem's junk that

[2:00:32] he just kept in his cave what do you mean it's the most powerful thing uh yeah i don't have a

[2:00:38] good answer i think you're like isn't the most powerful thing friendship honestly if it's a

[2:00:41] forgotten piece of media unless it was a shitty one let's just do it straight the first time let's

[2:00:47] do it normal rather than reimagining it so sorry for that that we totally we took that we took the

[2:00:53] hey there's some ideas in there most i came from dirty dan but you know dirty d mixi has some

[2:01:00] interesting thoughts let's recommend movies movies that we uh think that people you know

[2:01:07] your time may be better served than watching argyle no matter what i may have said about

[2:01:12] turning off your brain um i'm gonna quickly recommend two documentaries both of which i

[2:01:19] enjoyed but also both of which are sort of backdoor uh uh you know plugs for friends uh

[2:01:26] the first one was i you don't have to plug friends dude it's a huge show it's the biggest show in the

[2:01:31] world dan still and having rewatched some of it it's pretty good i get it uh good point uh the

[2:01:38] first one the first one's called the pallbearer and it's like dan that's not a documentary about

[2:01:42] david schwimmer that's just a movie that he's in i saw a screening of uh i'm george lucas the

[2:01:47] conor rat ratliff story which of course um one of the people in the george lucas talk show is uh

[2:01:54] griffin newman our pal from over blank check who guested on our recent garbage pill kids live show

[2:02:02] that will show up in the feed at some point who knows uh but uh i enjoyed this uh documentary

[2:02:10] for its own merits like i think it's interesting on its own it's about

[2:02:14] conor ratliff the guy who does george lucas in the george lucas talk show and sort of

[2:02:20] you know his experience uh as an actor and someone doing this weird like niche show that's only ever

[2:02:25] going to get so uh big kind of by its nature um but i have to admit that a lot of it was just sort

[2:02:34] of personal interest too for me where i'm like okay well this is a movie that's made up of

[2:02:40] like a bunch of people i have met over the years and here are a bunch of comedy stages that i have

[2:02:47] performed on at different times and uh i think that part of what's interesting about that maybe

[2:02:54] for someone who is not me specifically is like it is a very uh specific snapshot of a type of

[2:03:03] independent new york comedy show and what it's like to you know like our show is not as complex

[2:03:10] as what the george lucas talk show has become by any means but um but it is sort of a similar vibe

[2:03:17] of what it's like to put on this sort of diy cheap to produce a show that you can move from theater

[2:03:25] to theater um and uh if you're interested in comedy or seeing like a scene at a specific time

[2:03:35] it's a lot of fun and i also wanted to recommend uh it's on the criterion channel right now i

[2:03:42] watched turn every page the adventures of robert carrow and robert gottlieb twist uh this is a

[2:03:48] backdoor plug for elliot and his side project uh over at 99 percent invisible doing the power

[2:03:56] broker uh read uh they they just talked to alexandria ocasio-cortez on the most recent

[2:04:04] episode and uh it was really fun hearing her speak um but it's a it's about the the movie is about

[2:04:14] um robert carrow's uh sorry robert carrow's relationship with his editor robert gottlieb

[2:04:22] who is also a towering figure like one of he edited so many huge books and was the editor

[2:04:29] of the new yorker and it's interesting to see their working relationship although you're kind

[2:04:35] of shielded they're both very private they don't want to actually let you in too much on the working

[2:04:38] relationship but there's a lot about how committed these two people are at really

[2:04:46] caring about the work they do and what it is to work with an editor who's uh simpatico with what

[2:04:54] you're trying to do even though they also argue incessantly about everything um the filmmaking i

[2:05:01] think was a little more boring to me than the actual people being uh highlighted but they're

[2:05:07] both or you know gottlieb has passed but they're like treasures of people who are interesting to

[2:05:12] watch so uh those are my two recommendations uh yeah i guess i'm gonna recommend another

[2:05:19] comedy no i'm just joking i'm gonna recommend uh the zone of interest um a a harrowing story

[2:05:27] of them after that intro i'm not sure what's what's sincere or what's not

[2:05:32] fine yeah yeah i'm gonna recommend the zone of interest uh a movie that has received a

[2:05:38] fair amount of notoriety uh that is also that also what won an academy award when they came

[2:05:43] with the best foreign language film um directed by jonathan glazer uh it is uh a story about the

[2:05:51] kind of the mundanity of evil following the uh family of a commandant uh who runs auschwitz

[2:05:59] and it is a uh presentation of a holocaust story that is uh uses the like the horror of it as more

[2:06:10] of a like kind of a like a backdrop and it is a very well crafted movie and the like the sound

[2:06:17] design is really in particular is really fascinating the way it uh allows the like the the horrors of

[2:06:24] the camp to kind of like seep into this seemingly normal everyday life uh and it uh it keeps it from

[2:06:34] being just like a bulldozer of a blunt emotional instrument um but i thought it was really well

[2:06:39] done and really affecting and uh yeah a well-made movie that is very sad and gross at the same time

[2:06:46] i'm gonna recommend a movie that is almost the exact opposite of that i think which is

[2:06:51] i was i was thinking about uh the gold diggers of 1933 if only uh the the argyle is like trying

[2:06:59] to be like a goofy action comedy right and i was like okay well what's kind of the the goofiest

[2:07:04] action comedy that you can think of that still manages to have a lot of funny jokes but also

[2:07:08] has a lot of good action scenes but is itself also a mess and the movie the movie that came

[2:07:13] to mind was the eagle shooting heroes the uh it's a this is a hong kong movie from 1993

[2:07:19] that was made in basically to hide the fact that one car wise movie ashes of time had gone so far

[2:07:25] over budget that they were like oh we made a second movie that's why it cost so much and they

[2:07:30] had a lot of the same actors playing very similar characters and it's incredibly goofy just like

[2:07:35] super goofy like a mess of an action comedy that is there are things in it that just do not work

[2:07:42] but there are things in it that that work so well and even the stuff that doesn't work you're like

[2:07:47] all right well this is literally a movie that is doing every possible thing that it could do like

[2:07:50] it's there they're just there is it is a movie that is made seemingly entirely without shame

[2:07:55] for anyone involved in it and so the jokes go from being very funny parody jokes of kind of

[2:08:01] chinese kind of historical adventure movies to the dumbest slapstick to the worst costume comedy

[2:08:08] to like uh some really really good uh kung fu action scenes and it's just like it's a real

[2:08:14] it's a real messy platter of movie but i enjoyed watching it quite a bit and i it did for me what i

[2:08:19] think argyle was trying to do but yeah for me and that that sounds uh that sounds like a lot of fun

[2:08:24] and actually that that reminds uh me of a movie that is going to be the focus of next week's mini

[2:08:31] where we talk about larry cohen's the ambulance which has a similar sort of like uh a reckless

[2:08:37] need to entertain yes yeah that's the eagle shooting heroes is very much like that where

[2:08:42] it's like the uh it feels like you're watching a group of children just being like what about this

[2:08:47] what about this what about this what about this do you like this what about this um and by the end of

[2:08:52] it it's not a long movie but you are like exhausted by the end of it but even if you just watch the

[2:08:56] first um you know 30 minutes you it's a it's fun so that's my recommendation for this week oh great

[2:09:05] um hey uh here's something that i i should say uh more often you can find the flop house

[2:09:12] a lot of places now that are not um the website formerly known as twitter which is uh

[2:09:19] increasingly unpleasant to be on you can find us on mastodon on blue sky

[2:09:25] um there's a threads for us there's an instagram this is a perfect chance for us to plug the brand

[2:09:32] new discord yeah a fan started discord do you want to read what yeah it's really great um so uh

[2:09:39] yeah the discord is the flop house podcast um if you are a friend of the flop house hey isn't this

[2:09:46] podcast great i'll bet you want to talk about it all the time uh so why don't you join the

[2:09:51] new discord over at uh the flop over on discord the flop house podcast uh you can share your

[2:09:57] thoughts on your favorite bad movies show uh bits even

[2:10:00] your latest happenings with our super friendly community.

[2:10:03] The only thing that needs to be added is you.

[2:10:06] They also do movie watch-alongs.

[2:10:08] I think they recently did one on a Neil Breen movie,

[2:10:12] specifically Cade the Tortured Crossing,

[2:10:14] which I believe was a,

[2:10:16] received multiple thumbs up from us here at the Flophouse.

[2:10:20] So why don't you go grab a chicken leg, a beer,

[2:10:23] or your sore knee and join us here at the Discord.

[2:10:26] Just look up, it's the Flophouse Podcast Discord.

[2:10:29] Why don't you go check it out?

[2:10:30] Yeah.

[2:10:31] And as long as we're saying this, of course,

[2:10:33] we gotta shout out the original group on Facebook,

[2:10:37] still going strong.

[2:10:37] There's a lot of people who hang out there

[2:10:40] and we have a YouTube channel that has various videos,

[2:10:45] mostly sort of the shorter videos

[2:10:47] that we post on Instagram and such,

[2:10:48] but there are longer videos,

[2:10:50] like you can find the archive of,

[2:10:52] there were some charity live streams we did of longer shows.

[2:10:56] There's us doing the Boy Next Door screenplay reading.

[2:11:02] Why don't we do more of those, Dan?

[2:11:04] I don't know, it was pretty fun.

[2:11:06] Yeah, we should do more of those.

[2:11:07] Dan, why are you stopping us?

[2:11:08] Why are you underselling it to me?

[2:11:10] You're like, I guess it was pretty fun.

[2:11:12] No, I had a ball doing that, actually.

[2:11:14] But anyway, so that's all squared away, I guess.

[2:11:20] I wanna say thank you to Alex Smith, our producer.

[2:11:24] He makes us sound good.

[2:11:25] You can find him under the name HowlDotty in various places,

[2:11:28] probably a lot of the same places.

[2:11:31] Thank you to Maximum Fun over at MaximumFun.org.

[2:11:34] You can check out other great podcasts.

[2:11:37] And that's it for this time.

[2:11:39] For The Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[2:11:41] Hey, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[2:11:44] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[2:11:46] Okay, bye.

[2:11:47] Bye.

[2:11:56] Let's get into this fucking thing.

[2:11:58] Alex is doing any of that material.

[2:12:00] It will either hurt our careers or be boring.

[2:12:03] You can use this part where we call the podcast

[2:12:05] that we do, this fucking thing.

[2:12:08] Oh!

[2:12:09] Because it's self-deprecating.

[2:12:10] This dumb shit.

[2:12:11] But like in a cool way,

[2:12:13] not a my therapist would be mad at me kind of way.

[2:12:16] Yeah, yeah.

[2:12:17] A therapist shouldn't get mad at you.

[2:12:18] I feel like that's one of the main things

[2:12:20] a therapist shouldn't do is get mad at the patient.

[2:12:22] Yeah, it should be sort of a radical.

[2:12:24] Don't minimize yourself is what he'd say.

[2:12:26] Why are you doing this?

[2:12:27] Don't do that.

[2:12:27] No.

[2:12:28] It's interesting that you read your therapist's concern

[2:12:31] for you as anger, getting angry at you.

[2:12:34] Maybe this is a thing we should.

[2:12:35] Yeah, maybe this is what the episode is about today.

[2:12:37] We can get into this.

[2:12:38] Wow, Dan's bringing the heat.

[2:12:39] Okay, let's fucking peel this onion back.

[2:12:42] Maximum Fun.

[2:12:44] A worker-owned network.

[2:12:45] Of artists-owned shows.

[2:12:47] Supported.

[2:12:48] Directly.

[2:12:48] By you.

Ep. #423 - Argylle

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