Ep. #422 - Road House (2024)

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[0:05] I wanted to make sure you knew about some upcoming live events we are very excited about.

[0:08] On April 27th at 7 p.m. Eastern, we are premiering online the professionally shot,

[0:13] professionally edited online video of our Speed 2 live show.

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

[0:20] text chatting with the audience throughout the entire thing.

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

[0:24] The video will be available to watch at your leisure through May 19th.

[0:28] To see the trailer and buy tickets, go to stagepilot.com slash flop dash house dash speed dash 2.

[0:36] If you want to see us in person and you live in England, remember that on the 24th of May,

[0:40] we'll be in Oxford doing our first and second ever 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, 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 flop house silliness.

[0:59] Take it away, peaches.

Dan McCoy

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

[1:05] Oh, shit, I love that movie with Patrick Swayze.

[1:08] Uh, no, it's the new one.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10] Not the sequel, Roadhouse 2, that doesn't have Patrick Swayze?

[1:13] Uh, what?

[1:15] There's a movie called Roadhouse 2.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17] Guys, I think I watched Toad House.

[1:19] Is that the same movie?

[1:20] Hmm.

Dan McCoy

[1:42] Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse.

[1:44] I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:45] Hey, Dan McCoy.

[1:46] It's me, Stuart Wellington, your friend.

[1:48] Hi.

Elliott Kalan

[1:49] Hey, Dan McCoy.

[1:50] Hey, Stuart Wellington.

[1:50] A third friend is here.

[1:52] Your friend, Elliot Kalin, who is me, speaking right now.

Dan McCoy

[1:55] Yeah, that's right.

[1:56] The three friends.

[1:57] Suck it, Blank Check.

[1:58] We got one more than you.

[1:59] Oh, wow.

[2:00] Anyway, uh, so, this is a podcast.

[2:03] Uh-huh.

[2:04] Where we talk about a bad movie that we've watched, all of us.

[2:08] Or a good movie.

[2:09] Or a good movie.

[2:10] Sometimes it's a good movie.

[2:12] Here's the thing.

Elliott Kalan

[2:12] And sometimes it's neither good nor bad, but just a movie, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[2:16] Yeah.

[2:16] Not everyone's a hero or villain.

Elliott Kalan

[2:17] It's always a movie, though, right?

Dan McCoy

[2:19] We are led to this movie.

[2:20] We sniff it out with our noses.

[2:22] Like cartoon hobos, the smell of a movie wafts towards us, and we fly towards it.

[2:27] And it's because either audiences have rejected it, critics have rejected it, or it's just kind of gotten mediocre reviews, but we're sort of interested in talking about it.

Stuart Wellington

[2:37] I love it when they leave a bad movie to cool on their windowsill for us to snatch away.

[2:41] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[2:43] Sometimes, you see, we walk through the neighborhoods, and we see the markings that other movie hobos have left that say,

[2:49] A nice lady with movies lives here.

[2:50] Yeah.

[2:51] Or a mean man workshears movies.

[2:54] Gerard Butler.

[2:56] Neil Breen inside.

[2:57] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[2:59] Yeah.

[3:00] So this time, we watched Roadhouse, which is interesting because it is a remake of a highly beloved movie of the past that got bad reviews.

[3:12] I was highly beloved within certain circles.

Elliott Kalan

[3:14] It's not The Wizard of Oz.

Dan McCoy

[3:16] Well, this is what I'm saying.

[3:17] I was trying to avoid calling Roadhouse a great bad movie of the past because I've come around to the idea that Roadhouse is doing exactly what Roadhouse needs to do.

[3:28] It's not necessarily bad.

[3:30] It's just highly silly.

[3:31] It's a highly silly kind of lunk-headed movie that's lovable like a big dumb, like, collie dog or whatever.

Stuart Wellington

[3:40] I don't know.

[3:40] You guys, I'm pretty professional when it comes to being a movie podcaster.

[3:43] Sure.

[3:44] So I re-watched the original Roadhouse.

[3:45] What?

[3:46] Yeah, I re-watched it over the weekend.

[3:48] Something tells me you would have done this anyway.

[3:50] Research Wellington.

[3:51] It's really good.

[3:52] Stuart's like, I took the hit.

Elliott Kalan

[3:53] I sacrificed the time I would have spent with anything other than the original Roadhouse and watched the original Roadhouse.

[3:58] A movie I assume you already love?

Stuart Wellington

[4:00] Yeah.

[4:00] Why don't you just make Roadhouse your regular Saturday night thing?

[4:05] I mean, that should be.

[4:06] I feel like that's a great Saturday night.

[4:09] Yeah.

[4:09] Crack open a couple of brews, maybe order some Zah with the rents.

[4:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[4:14] As long as you don't finish any words, I think it'll be okay.

Dan McCoy

[4:17] If you're unfamiliar with the original Roadhouse, directed by Rowdy Harrington, the owner of the best name and directors, it's about a famous bouncer who is lured from his existing bouncing job down to a harder bouncing job in the middle of nowhere where a roadhouse is being bedeviled by, I don't know, bad people.

Elliott Kalan

[4:46] Evil land developer Ben Gazzara.

[4:48] Yeah.

[4:48] Yes.

[4:49] A lot of big names involved.

[4:50] Ben Gazzara, Patrick Swayze, and of course, the director, Rowdy Harrington, like you mentioned, the director of Gladiator.

[4:54] Mm-hmm.

[4:55] Not that one.

[4:56] The 1992 Cuban Junior sports movie.

[4:58] It's a boxing movie.

[4:59] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[5:00] Did Rowdy Harrington, did he also do Ricochet?

[5:03] Was he the electrician on Humanoids from the Deep and Hots?

Elliott Kalan

[5:06] Yes, he was the electrician on Humanoids from the Deep and Hots.

[5:09] You're right.

[5:10] Daniel, flavor movie Hots?

[5:11] Russell Mulcahy.

[5:12] Was he the grip on Repo Man?

Dan McCoy

[5:13] Yes, he was.

[5:15] Well, that's not-

[5:16] That's where he learned his bona fides.

Elliott Kalan

[5:18] Is he credited as the best boy electric for A Nightmare on Elm Street, the original?

[5:21] No, that was Russell Mulcahy.

[5:22] Yes, he is.

[5:23] Sorry.

Dan McCoy

[5:25] What else did Rowdy Harrington direct, though?

[5:27] Directed Jack's Back.

[5:29] Oh, yeah.

[5:29] Directed Roadhouse.

Elliott Kalan

[5:30] Jack's Back.

[5:31] Directed Striking Distance.

Dan McCoy

[5:32] The movie where-

[5:33] Oh, Striking Distance, yeah.

[5:34] Jack the Ripper has returned, maybe, and James Spader's involved somehow.

Elliott Kalan

[5:41] Uh-huh.

[5:41] And he's still alive.

[5:42] His last film was in 2004, but still around.

[5:47] Let's get him on the show.

[5:48] Rowdy?

[5:49] Yeah.

[5:49] Thanks for joining us.

[5:51] Hey, everybody!

[5:53] It's me, Rowdy Harrington.

[5:55] Okay.

[5:55] And I'm just so glad that you're deciding to talk about my magnum opus, Gladiator, starring

[6:02] Cuba Green Jr.

Stuart Wellington

[6:03] No, that was just a passing mention.

[6:05] We're actually talking about Roadhouse, your movie with Patrick Swayze.

Dan McCoy

[6:09] Not familiar.

[6:11] It's your most famous film by far.

Elliott Kalan

[6:13] As you can guess by a man named Rowdy's name, I have been hit in the head many times in

[6:19] the course of my adventures.

[6:20] I don't always remember my films, but I remember one movie, Gladiator, because how do you forget

[6:26] winning Best Picture?

[6:28] Yes, Best Picture winner, Gladiator, starring Cuba Green Jr. in the world of Wonderland.

Dan McCoy

[6:32] Let's just let him have this one.

[6:34] Rowdy, I want to say I appreciate the way you lean back from the microphone every time

[6:40] you get particularly rowdy.

Elliott Kalan

[6:41] You're not too when you're as loud and rowdy as I am.

Dan McCoy

[6:46] Okay, well, thank you for-

Elliott Kalan

[6:47] So you guys seen my movie Striking Distance?

[6:48] Tell you a funny story about it.

[6:50] Originally, it was just called Distance.

[6:52] Oh.

[6:53] And I was like, hey, people are going to wonder what distance this is.

[6:56] And I'm like, is this a distance you could strike at?

[6:59] And the scientists looked at it, and they figured, they ran the numbers, and they said, yes,

[7:04] you could strike at this distance.

[7:05] And I said, let's call it Striking Distance.

[7:08] And that's how the movie got its title.

Stuart Wellington

[7:11] I do have a question about Striking Distance.

[7:12] What was it like working with the dad from Frasier?

Elliott Kalan

[7:17] Well, he has a name.

[7:19] His name is John Mahoney.

[7:21] And I'll tell you, if there's a guy who's rowdier than me, it is the late, lamented John Mahoney.

[7:27] What a star.

[7:28] What a rowdy guy.

[7:29] The number of times we tied one on and closed down not just bars, but also Toys R Uses.

[7:36] It was a rowdy time that we had.

[7:38] But that's what I have.

[7:39] I'm Rowdy Harrington, director of the Academy Award winner Gladiator.

[7:43] And also, Jack's Back, the story of Jack Nicholson.

Dan McCoy

[7:46] Okay, well, you know, we got to record a mini after this one, and I'm in charge of it.

[7:50] It might be a little long, so we're going to have to say goodbye to you, Rowdy.

[7:54] I don't think so.

Elliott Kalan

[7:55] Rowdy Harrington calls the shots.

[7:56] He does, I'm Rowdy.

[7:57] I don't just do what people tell me.

[7:59] Okay.

[8:01] Listen, Daniel, I was the electrician on HOTS, okay?

[8:04] So you don't tell me what to do, I tell you what to do.

Dan McCoy

[8:07] You know what?

[8:08] Suddenly I'm more interested.

[8:09] What was that experience like?

[8:10] Is the electrician a character, or is that his job?

Elliott Kalan

[8:12] Did you know all those women were robots?

[8:14] Wow.

[8:14] They were all robots.

[8:15] The electrician job was very complicated on HOTS.

Dan McCoy

[8:17] That's why they have that acronym name.

Elliott Kalan

[8:21] Yep.

[8:21] It stands for Huronistic, Omnidirectional, Technological, and then the S stands for a word

[8:29] that now is a little sex not positive, so we don't say it anymore.

[8:32] Right, sure, sure.

[8:32] But it was 1979.

[8:34] Things were different.

[8:35] Things were a little rowdier.

[8:37] And to tell you, it kind of makes me kind of sad that the world's not as rowdy as it

[8:42] once was.

[8:42] Sure, it's better in almost every other way, but it's less rowdy.

Dan McCoy

[8:46] Yeah, tales of rowdiness past.

Elliott Kalan

[8:49] Now, before I go, if you'd like to hire me for a children's birthday party so I can help

[8:54] things get rowdy, then please hire me.

[8:59] I operate as a clown who's also named Howdy.

[9:01] Instead of Rowdy Harrington, I'm Rowdy Ha-ha-ington, and that's my clown name.

Dan McCoy

[9:05] That makes sense.

[9:05] I thought you were going to say your name was Howdy Rarrington and you were a cowboy clown.

Elliott Kalan

[9:10] That's a damn good clown name.

[9:11] That's like a cowboy clown.

[9:13] Yes, new clown name.

[9:15] Gotta go.

[9:16] Rowdy out.

Dan McCoy

[9:17] Okay.

[9:18] Well, let's talk about-

[9:19] Howdy in?

Elliott Kalan

[9:22] So that was-

[9:22] So Dan, he didn't direct the one we're talking about today.

Dan McCoy

[9:25] No, that was Old Roadhouse, a movie that, again, very silly.

[9:30] We'll probably reference multiple times over the course of this.

Elliott Kalan

[9:33] A lot of fun.

[9:33] I don't see how we don't.

[9:35] But this is-

[9:36] Especially when at the very end of the movie, a famous line from the original Roadhouse is,

[9:41] it seemed to be ADR'd in and I wasn't even sure which character was saying it.

[9:45] Yeah.

[9:45] Do you remember that?

[9:46] In the final fight scene, you hear someone suddenly say, be nice, and I wasn't sure who

[9:49] was saying it or why.

[9:51] Yeah.

[9:52] I'm like, yeah, but they did say it in the original one.

Stuart Wellington

[9:54] Mm-hmm.

[9:55] Yeah, you expect like Ed Boone to pop up in the corner to show you that like that's a reference.

[10:00] Like get the Easter egg.

[10:02] Exactly.

[10:03] Does a little toasty or something.

Dan McCoy

[10:04] But we're not talking about the old Roadhouse, we're talking about a new one directed by

[10:08] Doug Liman of-

Elliott Kalan

[10:10] The only director with the flavor of lemon and lime.

Dan McCoy

[10:13] Swingers and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Edge of Tomorrow, probably one of his strongest-

Stuart Wellington

[10:19] I know it is Live, Die, Repeat.

[10:21] Yeah, he's a strong director.

Dan McCoy

[10:25] Maybe not the strongest on this one.

Elliott Kalan

[10:27] Director of previous Flophouse film, Jumper.

Dan McCoy

[10:29] Yeah.

[10:30] Oh, yeah.

[10:30] Another one of his minor works.

[10:34] So, yeah, they remade Roadhouse because there's no IP that can't be exploited these days.

[10:40] And let's get into it, shall we?

Stuart Wellington

[10:42] And people are super into famous bouncers, right?

[10:45] So they decided to make a movie about another famous bouncer.

Elliott Kalan

[10:46] I just want to mention, how strange is it that the writer and director of Swingers, a low-budget

[10:52] comedy about L.A. lounge lizards, ended up both becoming like major action directors?

[10:58] Yeah.

[10:59] That with Doug Liman making mostly action movies these days and Jon Favreau living in

[11:04] the Star Wars and Marvel universes, it's not what I expected when I saw Swingers as a teenager

[11:08] and still being a teenager was like, these are the coolest guys in the world.

[11:11] You know?

Stuart Wellington

[11:12] Yeah.

[11:13] You were like, wow, these guys are so money and they don't even know it.

Elliott Kalan

[11:16] Yeah.

[11:16] These guys don't even know how money they are.

[11:18] There was like a week where me and my friends called each other money and we felt so stupid

[11:21] that we stopped doing it.

[11:23] As well you should have.

Stuart Wellington

[11:24] I feel like you should start doing it again.

[11:26] No.

[11:27] I think you're due.

[11:28] Just like Rowdy Harrington, you're due for another.

Elliott Kalan

[11:31] Do you think the cool guys have now called each other crypto?

[11:35] Dan, what do you think?

[11:36] What's your definition of cool here?

[11:39] Well, they wear bowling shirts and sunglasses, so they're pretty cool.

[11:43] Sounds pretty cool.

[11:43] That's actually pretty cool.

[11:45] Yeah.

[11:46] And then Superman's dog is like, me?

[11:48] And they're like, no, not you, crypto.

Dan McCoy

[11:52] Speaking of bowling shirts, so I'm wearing sort of a Hawaiian-esque shirt.

[11:58] Not like maybe full Hawaiian, but like sort of a...

Stuart Wellington

[12:00] Yeah, why don't you give a spin, Dan, so we can show it off.

[12:02] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[12:02] Woo!

Elliott Kalan

[12:05] And, you know, as a middle-aged...

[12:06] That's the sound Dan makes when he spins.

[12:07] It's not from his mouth.

[12:08] It's just the sound that his feet make, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[12:10] I feel like, you know, as a middle-aged man who has grown a little more zaftig over the years...

[12:17] Grooven-esque.

[12:18] The Hawaiian shirt is a choice that I enjoy, I've embraced for some reason, but I also feel like it says a thing about me that I don't necessarily like...

[12:33] I'm not quite sure what that thing is, but it also, like, makes me feel uncool, so...

[12:36] I think it's...

Elliott Kalan

[12:37] What it says is, you are...

[12:39] You're growing older, and you're a little rowdy.

Dan McCoy

[12:43] Yeah, I've been a little rowdy over the years.

[12:46] So, this movie...

[12:47] You're on vacation, dude.

[12:48] Yeah, I'm on island time.

[12:50] Herman in vacation.

[12:51] Jake Gyllenhaal as the Dalton, this version, this new Dalton.

[12:59] We'll get into that later.

[13:00] I don't know why I'm...

Elliott Kalan

[13:01] His name literally is B. Dalton, right?

[13:05] Oh, no, his first name's Elwood.

[13:06] I'm sorry.

[13:06] His first name is...

[13:07] He's B. Dalton.

Dan McCoy

[13:08] Elwood Dalton, you know, the previous Roadhouse man, the bouncer.

[13:16] Patrick Swayze was Jake Dalton, meaning this is, of course, Jake and Elwood, a weird blues

[13:21] brother's reference hidden in here.

[13:23] You have to have done that on purpose, right?

[13:25] Oh, 100%.

Stuart Wellington

[13:25] Yeah, you don't happen upon that.

Dan McCoy

[13:27] Yeah.

[13:28] You don't name a character Elwood by mistake.

[13:31] That's true.

[13:32] Anyway, we see Jake Gyllenhaal.

Elliott Kalan

[13:33] I don't know what happened, doctor.

[13:34] I drank too much, and I blacked out.

[13:36] When I woke up, my character's name was Elwood.

Dan McCoy

[13:39] Jake Gyllenhaal, we see him.

[13:41] He's in a hoodie.

[13:42] He enters an underground MMA tournament.

[13:45] There, you know, he walks very slowly towards it.

[13:49] Also, also in attendance, Jessica Williams, our former co-worker.

[13:53] What's she doing there?

Elliott Kalan

[13:53] Former Flophouse guest and current neighbor of mine.

[13:57] Really?

[13:57] Yeah.

[13:58] You see her ever?

[13:58] I do.

[13:59] Well, when I'm out taking walks, she's usually out walking.

[14:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[14:02] Tell her I like her on that show she's on.

[14:06] What's it called?

[14:06] Shrinking.

[14:07] She's great in shrinking.

[14:08] Very funny.

Elliott Kalan

[14:08] And she's not bad in this.

[14:11] She's great in this.

[14:11] She's good in this.

[14:12] I thought she's really good in it.

[14:13] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[14:14] One of the most sort of likable presences in the movie.

[14:17] Just sort of relaxed, laid back, immediately sympathetic.

Elliott Kalan

[14:21] This is a, for an action movie, this is a very laid back movie.

[14:24] And I want to say, I did not have time to watch the old one.

[14:26] Stuart, is the original Roadhouse as laid back as this one?

[14:28] This one kicks into high gear in the third act.

[14:31] But until then, there's a kind of burn notice, kind of laid back, hangout vibe to it.

[14:36] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[14:36] No, I mean, I feel like this, the original follows that like, that like 80s action movie pace

[14:44] of like, constant stuff is happening.

[14:47] You gotta get on that ride or else it'll leave you at the station.

[14:53] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[14:55] Well, so, you know, Jake enters this Octagon area.

[15:01] The man who has previously been beating all comers is too scared to fight.

Stuart Wellington

[15:06] Notorious hard body.

[15:08] Post Malone.

[15:09] Is that who it is?

[15:10] Yeah.

[15:11] Okay.

[15:12] Who, by all accounts, I'm sure he's a nice fella.

[15:15] But that's part of why I don't quite buy him as like a bare knuckle boxer type.

[15:20] He just seems too nice.

Dan McCoy

[15:24] Well, we'll get a genuinely bad man as a fighter later on.

Elliott Kalan

[15:28] So, Stu, what did you think of the moment when Jake Gyllenhaal comes in to challenge and

[15:32] takes off his hoodie and is ripped?

[15:35] For anyone who saw us on our West Coast tour, Stu had a whole presentation about big, beefy,

[15:39] hard body boys in the movies.

[15:40] Well, that's the thing.

Stuart Wellington

[15:41] Like, he's, I mean, he definitely put in the work, but a lot of it's like, he's just so

[15:45] chopped up.

[15:46] Like, he's so, his body fat is so low.

[15:48] So, he's got those bicep veins popping.

[15:51] He's got his cum gutters nice and deep, right, Dan?

[15:53] I don't like that term.

[15:55] I mean, he, I mean, he, like, he just looks so skinny.

[15:58] Like, the guy should eat something.

[16:01] It's not like he's an iron claw.

[16:02] Those boys were big boys.

Dan McCoy

[16:04] Yeah.

[16:04] Those were big, beefy boys.

[16:06] So, Gyllenhaal takes it all because it's a winner-take-all competition.

[16:11] Just by walking in, he has gotten 500 bucks or whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[16:15] Because the other fighter recognizes him and says, I'm not going to fight this guy.

Dan McCoy

[16:18] Yeah.

[16:18] Out in the parking lot afterwards, that guy, angry at losing his payday, stabs Dalton.

[16:26] But, you know, Dalton's calm and cool.

[16:29] He's just sort of like, do you really want to do this?

[16:31] He's like holding the knife hand and he scares off this guy.

Stuart Wellington

[16:35] How would you describe Gyllenhaal's vibe in this movie?

[16:41] Sort of sedated.

[16:43] He's got like, kind of a-

Elliott Kalan

[16:45] Yeah, I would call him sensitive, vulnerable, tough guy.

Stuart Wellington

[16:48] Somebody pointed out, somebody, I think it was on Letterboxd, pointed out that it's like,

[16:53] Jake Gyllenhaal has already seen the movie.

[16:56] And it's just kind of like explaining it to everybody.

Elliott Kalan

[16:58] And that's something that I, his performance, sometimes I really liked it.

[17:03] Because I was like, this is a really different way to take this kind of character.

[17:05] He is not intense.

[17:07] He is not, he doesn't seem tough.

[17:08] He seems like he's about to cry at any moment.

[17:11] But he also seems ultra confident in how everything's going to turn out and how no one can defeat him.

[17:16] But also, there are times when, by the end of the movie, I was like,

[17:20] I wonder if this character is partly on the spectrum.

[17:23] Because he's in the middle of a fight with somebody.

[17:25] And they bump into a piano.

[17:26] And he goes, this piano is really out of tune.

[17:28] Like, he'll suddenly notice a little detail about the world around him.

[17:31] When he should otherwise be fighting.

[17:33] And I was like, I don't know if this is on purpose or not.

[17:37] But he's a character who is like, who is, feels like he is very disconnected to what's going on.

[17:41] And sometimes it worked for me that Jake Gyllenhaal doesn't have that regular tough guy demeanor.

[17:46] But sometimes I was, when he's like, later on when he's like, I'm afraid of what happens when I get angry.

[17:50] I'm like, I don't, I don't really know.

[17:52] Yeah.

[17:53] I don't like the steely edge beneath the velvet glove here.

[17:55] You know.

Stuart Wellington

[17:56] I don't like the brooding element.

[17:57] Like when he's like, oh, I'm scared of what I'm capable of.

[18:00] I'm not as into that.

[18:01] But like the funnier stuff, I think he does really well.

Elliott Kalan

[18:04] I think he does a good job as a character who is so confident in his own ability to fight anybody.

[18:09] That he does not have to throw his weight around otherwise.

[18:12] And he doesn't have to seem worried at all.

Stuart Wellington

[18:14] Or like take the bait when people are talking shit.

Dan McCoy

[18:17] Yes.

[18:18] He has sort of, yeah, he has this zen politeness, which is explained later on kind of by his tragic backstory that we'll get to, what he's scared of capable of.

[18:28] But, and I like it a lot of times.

[18:29] And then sometimes it just seems like there's something wrong with him.

Elliott Kalan

[18:34] Well, that's, yeah, that's, when there's a part where, there are parts where he does like action movie quips.

[18:38] But the way he delivers them, it's as if he's disconnected from the scene.

[18:41] So it's like later on him and the big fighter bad guy, they're in a boat and the guy goes, ah, our very own octagon.

[18:49] And Jake goes, who taught you shapes?

[18:51] And then they start fighting.

[18:52] And it's not like, he doesn't deliver it like a banter.

[18:55] He delivers it like, I don't understand why you just said that.

[18:58] I'm asking you a question.

[18:59] Now we have to fight.

[19:01] Yeah.

[19:01] So I actually liked those elements of it a lot.

Dan McCoy

[19:03] Let's get back to the story.

[19:07] Well, Jake slash Dalton is duct taping up his wound.

[19:11] Jessica Williams introduces.

Elliott Kalan

[19:12] Not the way you should deal with that wound, by the way.

[19:14] No.

[19:14] Duct tape is not a great bandage.

[19:15] Yeah.

[19:16] And also, if you're going to turn yourself into a mummy, don't use duct tape.

[19:19] Unless you're some kind of future mummy.

[19:21] Like if you're a future mummy from like an Iron Maiden album cover or something like that, then yes, use duct tape.

[19:26] Mummy of the future.

Dan McCoy

[19:28] Remember to leave all of the critical holes open on your body.

[19:33] That's just an important tip.

[19:34] That's your role-playing porn podcast, right, Dan?

[19:36] Critical holes.

[19:37] Critical holes.

Stuart Wellington

[19:40] Yeah.

[19:41] Anyway.

[19:42] Oh, God.

[19:42] That already exists, I'm sure.

[19:44] It's got to.

[19:44] It's got to somewhere.

[19:45] Oh, no.

Dan McCoy

[19:47] So Jessica introduces herself.

[19:50] Her character's name is not Jessica Williams.

[19:52] It's Frankie.

[19:53] She owns a roadhouse down in the Keys that needs protecting from some bad dudes.

Elliott Kalan

[19:57] What's the name of this roadhouse, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[20:00] It's named Roadhouse.

[20:02] Two words.

[20:04] And later on, I was going to get to this, but let's talk about it now.

[20:07] Later on, there's a bit where like Jake Gyllenhaal's like, why is it called Roadhouse when Roadhouse is one word?

[20:15] There's no space in it.

[20:16] And she goes, it's a joke.

[20:17] And I'm like, movie, you did not need to explain this, especially because in the original Roadhouse, the Roadhouse is called the Double Deuce.

[20:25] So you could have just named the Roadhouse any fucking thing you wanted rather than naming it Roadhouse two words and then have a bit about how that's not how Roadhouse is spelled.

Stuart Wellington

[20:34] I would say the weakest parts of the way.

[20:40] Oh, you just wandered into town to try and clean it up.

[20:43] You're just like a sheriff in a western.

[20:45] I'm like, yeah, no shit, dude.

[20:47] I'm watching the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[20:48] When they're calling out the subtext as text so that the people who came here for punching get it.

[20:54] Those are some of the weaker moments.

Dan McCoy

[20:55] Yeah, they lampshade a lot of stuff in here that doesn't need to be commented on.

[21:00] But anyway, so later that night, Dalton contemplates killing himself by letting a car hit him on the railroad tracks.

Elliott Kalan

[21:08] A train hit him, Dan, not just a car.

[21:09] A train, sorry, a train.

[21:10] A train car.

[21:11] A train hit his car.

[21:12] It was the car of a train.

[21:13] You're right, Dan.

[21:14] Dan, do you think trains are, do you get trains and cars mixed up sometimes?

Dan McCoy

[21:17] I mean, what are trains but a bunch of cars that run on rails and are hooked up to each other?

Elliott Kalan

[21:22] Actually, he's got you there, yeah.

[21:24] That's a very good point.

[21:25] Um, anyway, it seems like.

[21:27] Now I'm imagining Dan's like, I have to take the train somewhere and just gets into a stranger's car and drives off.

[21:32] Choo-choo.

[21:34] Puts on a conductor's hat.

[21:36] He's already wearing the overalls.

[21:37] Oh, wow, he's the conductor.

[21:38] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[21:39] He changes his mind, however.

[21:41] And originally I was like, well, why did you, you know, if you're going to do this, why bother winning all that money?

[21:46] But it's a good thing he did because since he doesn't kill himself, his car gets beat up.

[21:50] I'm like, well, you're going to need that money now.

[21:51] But anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[21:54] And the reason he gave earlier for not taking the job was, I like my car, yeah.

[21:58] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[21:59] So, he goes down to the Keys.

[22:03] He makes fast friends with Charlie, a teenage girl who runs a bookstore with her dad, Stephen.

Stuart Wellington

[22:08] That bookstore being located right next to a diner called The Double Deuce.

[22:12] A little Easter egg for all the true fans.

[22:14] Now, I do like, of the changes, I think the idea of moving the location of the Roadhouse down to the Florida Keys works for me.

[22:22] I feel like, I feel like Roadhouse already has kind of a Florida energy.

Dan McCoy

[22:27] I like that except for what I'm going to say literally next in my notes is that the Roadhouse itself looks less like a seedy Roadhouse and more like any of the many, like, touristy fish shacks that I've gone to with my parents when they go down to the Keys.

[22:43] Yeah, that's true.

[22:44] Where you get some coconut shrimp and a Bahama Mama.

Elliott Kalan

[22:46] And judging by the fact that they have a different great live band every night.

Stuart Wellington

[22:52] Except for the band that played a fucking Sublime cover.

[22:54] Get that shit out of here.

Elliott Kalan

[22:56] But they played it better than Sublime.

Stuart Wellington

[22:58] Oh, okay, yeah.

[22:59] Wow, damning with faint praise.

Elliott Kalan

[23:01] And also that the clientele, until they start fighting each other, they don't look particularly rowdy or tough.

[23:08] They do look like.

[23:10] Or even that numerous.

Dan McCoy

[23:12] Yes.

[23:12] I mean, we have to assume that it is the great bands that keeps people coming back because every night there's a dangerous fight.

Stuart Wellington

[23:20] Now, re-watching the original Roadhouse, one of my favorite moments in the movie is when Dalton first goes to the Double Deuce, the Roadhouse.

[23:30] And there's a moment where a patron is trying to, is propositioning other patrons that for $20 they can kiss his girlfriend's breasts.

[23:41] And one guy's reaction is, are you kidding?

[23:46] It has the most like, are we having fun yet energy?

[23:50] It's so great.

[23:51] I love it so much.

[23:52] I like Rewan and watch it three times.

Elliott Kalan

[23:55] So the thing is, this movie doesn't have that.

[23:57] No, this movie is much less sexual than the old Roadhouse.

[24:00] Yeah, yeah.

[24:01] I feel like even in the romance.

[24:02] Well, that was.

[24:02] Probably a son of the times.

[24:04] Roadhouse is what, 89?

Dan McCoy

[24:05] Like that's.

[24:06] That was peak.

[24:06] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[24:07] As with many of the movies of nowadays, this is a, this is a, I'm the million and hundredth person to say this.

[24:14] They seem to have replaced the pleasures of physical love with the pleasures of physical violence.

[24:19] And so any energy that might've been put into like a real sex scene or something like that has gone into Jake Gyllenhaal hitting guys so hard that you hear a wet smack when he, when his fist reaches their face.

Dan McCoy

[24:31] So that night, a bunch of immediately aggro bikers start causing trouble and Dalton steps in and just like Dalton Prime, he's nice until it's time to not be nice.

[24:43] Dalton Prime.

[24:44] Dalton Alpha, yeah.

[24:45] Yeah.

[24:45] He's very polite.

[24:46] He lures the guys to the parking lot to reduce the collateral damage.

[24:50] He asks them politely if they have insurance where the nearest hospital is beforehand.

[24:53] That's a good joke.

[24:54] That's a good joke.

[24:55] Yeah.

[24:56] And he slap fights them until they're all busted up.

Stuart Wellington

[24:59] So we get a, like, we get a fight scene and a lot of the fight scenes in this movie are like super intense and they're fast moving, but they've like clearly been digitally tinkered with so that it like, for some reason it just, it, it didn't work in my brain.

[25:13] Like I was like, what is happening?

[25:15] What's going on?

[25:16] And I would love if we could just reach out to a professional and find out what was happening with the digital effects in this movie.

[25:24] Wait, I think we have a caller on the line, Tame.

Dan McCoy

[25:26] Good news.

[25:27] We have Todd Vaziri, our, our friend, our, uh, uh, CGI, a CGI special effects artist.

Elliott Kalan

[25:34] And maybe CGI too.

[25:35] I don't know what that is.

[25:36] Computer generated really intense.

Dan McCoy

[25:39] Oh yeah.

[25:40] Uh, we asked him to be our special correspondent about these digital fights and, uh, let's see what he had to say.

S4

[25:47] Thanks peaches.

[25:48] Flophouse Hollywood correspondent, Tava Ziri here reporting from Tinseltown, the Hollywood dream factory, where our imaginations come to life on the silver screen in a darkened theater or at minimum folks watching it on their smartphone while riding the bus.

[26:02] Um, Alex, make sure you add some sound effects here to make it seem like I'm on a convention floor or something like that.

[26:07] Anyway, I'm here gathering information about the fight scenes in Roadhouse, the 2024 action movie remake directed by Doug Liman.

[26:14] And I've been hearing a lot of rumblings about people saying there's something about the fight scenes that are, that is a little bit different.

[26:20] It's a little bit off putting.

[26:22] Um, some people really enjoy it.

[26:24] Some people think it's a little bit different.

[26:26] And this is what I've gathered so far.

[26:28] I, you fold a school shirt.

[26:30] I did not work on this movie.

[26:32] Um, just hearing whispers.

[26:34] And, uh, I'm sure as, uh, time goes on, there's going to be more information about how they film these and how they put this together.

[26:39] But this is what I've got so far.

[26:41] The fight scenes were put together in a relatively imaginative and innovative way.

[26:47] Um, because they wanted to, uh, have punches land in a way that they hadn't, we haven't really seen before in Hollywood movies.

[26:58] Um, a lot of films are experimenting with techniques of the actors and stunt people actually punching something that is not a face that you can't actually hurt a face or a stomach.

[27:09] They're, uh, filming these fight scenes in multiple takes, multiple passes.

[27:16] One pass of doing it the typical Hollywood, uh, way of pulling the punches and, and proper camera angles so that nobody gets hurt.

[27:24] And then another pass of the, uh, aggressor, uh, punching a, a foam piece of, uh, uh, prop so they can actually put their full force and hit something that is not an actor's face.

[27:40] Um, and then another pass of none of the actors.

[27:43] And then another pass of the, um, actors, uh, the stunt people doing everything in slow motion.

[27:48] And then all of those passes being put in compositing and digital compositing put together and picking the best little parts of each section.

[27:59] Um, not necessarily for every fight, not necessarily for every punch, but some of the more elaborate shots and sequences, this is how I understand it was done.

[28:08] So, um, these are pretty elaborate, not only in, uh, in terms of onset choreography, but in terms of visual effects.

[28:17] And, um, it's, it's a little bit different.

[28:20] It's different to look at and, you know, partially by design.

[28:24] Um, also to add to that, um, the camera work is supposed to be in concert with the punches.

[28:32] Like, and a lot of action scenes, it seems like the camera work, you know, the best action scenes.

[28:39] You want to stay wide and you want to allow the audience to absorb these fight scenes for what's happening right in front of them.

[28:45] But in this one, it, it, it, the, the camera work almost seems to, um, know what's going to happen next.

[28:51] And is following in more in sync with the punches and with the, the flow of the action scenes, which can be a little bit off-putting.

[28:59] And the, the closest I can come to a comparison is that wonderful movie Upgrade from a few years back.

[29:04] Where the camera knew exactly what the, um, the main, the main character was going to do in terms of its physicality.

[29:11] And that was part of the point of those scenes.

[29:13] Um, so there's a lot of reasons.

[29:17] I'm sure we'll learn more.

[29:18] Um, but, uh, there definitely was an innovative approach, uh, to these fight scenes.

[29:23] That's all I've got right now.

[29:24] We'll return live if we get any more information.

[29:27] Paviziri, Flophouse, Hollywood correspondent, signing off.

[29:30] Now back to the peaches in the studio.

Dan McCoy

[29:34] Thank you, Todd, our special correspondent.

[29:37] Thank you.

[29:37] And thank you genuinely for taking the time to answer our, uh, questions.

Stuart Wellington

[29:42] So I think, I think that kind of helps.

[29:44] Like the, cause this first action sequences outlet, like it's shot in a way that felt a little bit jarring.

[29:49] Not necessarily, again, not necessarily bad.

[29:51] Just like I didn't quite know what was going on.

Elliott Kalan

[29:54] Well, and especially for a movie that up till this point has had a kind of low, it's not realistic because the Dalton character is a cartoon character in a lot of ways.

[30:03] But it is, it feels very low level and grounded for the most part.

[30:07] And then once the fights start up, they feel like superhero fights.

Stuart Wellington

[30:10] I do love that you called Dalton a cartoon character.

[30:12] Cause pretty soon, like genuinely an actual Tasmanian devil shows up and joins, joins the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[30:19] Pretty much, yeah.

[30:20] But I, I actually, I liked a lot of these fight scenes, but it is jarring at first that it feels so different from what I'm used to seeing from fight scenes in general.

[30:28] But also from what I expected from the movie so far.

[30:31] Knowing that they did a remake of Roadhouse, knowing the way that movies are often remade, I was like, okay, this is probably going to be like a grittier, like more realistic take on this kind of goofy movie.

[30:41] And then to know as the movie went on that the movie was like, no, no, this is going to be a silly movie in a lot of ways.

[30:47] Like this movie is going to get bonkers.

[30:48] I was like, okay, this, these fight scenes were, were, until I realized that the fight scenes felt kind of not, not above peace.

[30:55] But once I knew that, I was like, oh, okay.

Dan McCoy

[30:57] I can't decide whether it makes me feel old or young that I didn't really notice.

[31:03] Like I didn't have the same like cognitive dissonance that Stuart had where like either my brain is so young that I've gotten used to like new dissonance.

[31:11] Digital filmmaking and I don't notice it.

Elliott Kalan

[31:13] No wrinkles, smooth like a baby's brain.

[31:15] Smooth like shit.

Dan McCoy

[31:16] Or it's, or I'm, you know, becoming an old person who doesn't notice when motion smoothing is on the television or whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[31:23] I guess we're going to have to come and check your TV to find out for sure.

Stuart Wellington

[31:26] Well, and also this action sequence I think has helped because it is like, it's a little funny.

[31:30] I think adding, they added some comedy actors like Jessica Williams, but also one of the gang members played by, is it Arturo Castro?

[31:38] Yes.

[31:39] Who's really funny and they let him actually.

[31:41] From Broad City.

[31:41] You might remember him.

[31:42] Yeah, he's really good.

[31:43] Yeah, he does a lot of funny stuff.

[31:44] And like Billy Magnuson shows up later as the bad guy and he's, he's just a solid like punchable face, goofy bad guy.

[31:50] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[31:50] Billy Magnuson is such a, he's, he's, he's a great hateful bad guy.

[31:54] Yeah, hateable bad guy.

[31:55] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[31:56] But, so he beats up these guys, you know, breaks some bones, whatnot.

[32:02] But he is so nice.

[32:03] He drives them to the hospital while Elliot's favorite song Kokomo plays on the radio.

Elliott Kalan

[32:07] You better believe I did not enjoy that.

[32:10] Didn't like it.

[32:11] Uh, so in the hospital.

[32:13] I'll take a thousand sublime songs before I'll listen to one Kokomo.

[32:16] Oh, wow.

Dan McCoy

[32:18] Oh, man.

[32:18] What a horrible hell.

[32:19] Did you ever get that reel that I sent you to work, Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[32:23] No, I didn't.

[32:24] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[32:24] It was just a dumb thing I made where like I had been watching, uh, night, night and the city, uh, the Jules Stassen movie.

[32:32] Yeah.

[32:32] Uh, and, uh, there's a great movie where the guy goes, let me take you somewhere.

[32:37] Bermuda, Bermuda, Jamaica.

[32:39] And I, and I, and I matched it up with, ooh, I want to take you.

Elliott Kalan

[32:42] Oh, I'm going to have to see if I can get it to work.

[32:44] The length that you sent me.

[32:45] Yeah.

[32:45] But.

[32:45] That's what I've been doing that.

[32:46] I've been annoying my kids with doing a Kokomo version of Strawberry Fields.

[32:51] Won't you take me down to Kokomo, Bermuda, Bahamas.

[32:58] Come on, pretty mama.

[33:01] We'll get there fast and take it slow.

Dan McCoy

[33:05] Flophouse mashup hour.

[33:07] Um, anyway, at the hospital, he is, uh, berated by an attractive doctor, Ellie, for bringing in, uh, all these people he beat up.

[33:16] And she's played by, uh, Daniela Melchior, who is Rat Catcher 2 in The Suicide Squad, uh, an actress who is, uh, Portuguese in real life.

[33:26] But since this is the keys, I assume that they're, she's playing Cuban, uh, probably.

[33:30] It's unclear.

Elliott Kalan

[33:31] It's unclear, but they don't really get into it.

Dan McCoy

[33:33] Yeah.

[33:33] Uh, even though she is angry, uh, she is disarmed by Dalton's zen politeness.

[33:39] And so she properly treats his wound so he doesn't get sepsis.

[33:44] Yeah.

[33:45] And, uh, so, uh, anyway.

[33:47] He's also very handsome.

[33:48] Yeah.

[33:48] There's a lot of scenes in here.

[33:49] He's a movie star.

[33:51] Yeah.

[33:51] Now we're, not a lot happens, uh, uh, back at the roadhouse, uh, there's that conversation about the, the title roadhouse.

[34:01] Uh, Frankie lets him stay.

[34:03] On her old houseboat that she has.

[34:06] Which is called The Boat.

[34:08] Yeah.

[34:08] Another hilarious joke, courtesy of that character's dad.

[34:13] Um, and on The Houseboat, we get the first taste of his backstory.

[34:17] He has a dream of the past when he was apparently a big, uh, UFC fighter.

[34:22] Uh, there's some bonding.

Stuart Wellington

[34:24] Which, they, they shoot these, like, flashbacks to, you see, uh, the, the, the fighting.

[34:30] All, UFC.

[34:31] What am I thinking?

[34:32] Uh, all the UFC stuff was actually shot at, like, an actual UFC event.

[34:36] So, you have, like, a huge crowd.

[34:38] And it only makes the crowds at the roadhouse seem smaller by goodness.

Elliott Kalan

[34:42] But I think, but I think that's not necessarily against their wishes.

[34:45] They want to show that he's come down in the world.

[34:47] And his personality in, in those flashbacks is, he's not the patient, uh, sensitive young man.

[34:53] Or not young man.

[34:54] Yeah.

[34:54] That he is, that he is now, as we see him.

[34:57] We're like, what, wait a minute.

[34:58] This isn't the Dalton I've come to love over the last 30 minutes or so.

[35:02] This is some kind of animalistic bruiser.

[35:05] Gauche.

[35:05] Rude.

[35:06] Crude.

[35:07] Mm-hmm.

[35:07] With lots of tood.

[35:08] How can it go from that to this?

[35:10] I guess we'll have to find out.

Stuart Wellington

[35:11] I hope we don't encounter a more extreme version of that character later in the movie.

[35:16] Oh, oh.

Elliott Kalan

[35:17] Oh, oh, oh.

[35:18] Okay.

[35:18] A literalization of his worst fears of himself.

[35:20] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[35:21] Yeah.

[35:21] So, uh, around this time, we're introduced to our bad guy.

[35:25] He's out on his yacht and on choppy seas.

[35:28] He's getting a straight razor shave.

Elliott Kalan

[35:29] This is a, this, this is such a great movie shorthand for this guy is dumb.

[35:34] Yeah.

[35:34] Is that he's, the, the boat is rocking and he keeps, and he's getting a straight razor shave

[35:38] and he keeps getting cut and he's not getting, he's not allowing himself to get mad at the

[35:42] barber.

[35:43] He's getting mad at the captain of the boat.

[35:45] Yeah.

[35:45] Which is, the captain can't control the sea.

[35:47] He's not Poseidon.

[35:48] Come on.

Stuart Wellington

[35:49] And we'll, yeah, we'll later, yeah.

[35:50] We do find out that the captain is not Poseidon later.

[35:53] Uh, we also, we also later see that on this.

Elliott Kalan

[35:55] Yeah.

[35:56] When Percy Jackson shows up in the book later.

[35:57] Yeah.

[35:58] In the movie.

[35:58] Yeah.

[35:58] You're not Poseidon.

[36:00] He says.

Stuart Wellington

[36:00] Uh, yeah.

[36:01] And there's a, there's a, a moment later where we see that on this yacht, he also has a scale

[36:06] model of the resort he wants to build, including a scale model of the roadhouse that he wants

[36:12] to destroy.

[36:13] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[36:13] Uh, but he doesn't drop a weight on it.

[36:15] Like in country beers and go, oh no.

Stuart Wellington

[36:18] Over and over again.

[36:20] Missed opportunity.

[36:21] So our bad guy, our evil land developer character is played by Billy Magnuson.

[36:24] I think he does an okay job here.

[36:26] I think he's like kind of a, you know, like a dumb, like a hateable guy.

[36:29] Yeah.

[36:29] Um, he's not, but the thing is, of course, the original roadhouse has Ben Gazzara who

[36:34] gives like such an incredible performance.

[36:36] So there's this moment where Patrick Swayze is doing his like Tai Chi out, uh, by a river

[36:42] wearing just like gray sweatpants and Ben Gazzara pulls up on a four wheeler across the

[36:48] river wearing little riding gloves.

[36:50] And he just like sits and watches his enemy.

[36:52] It's so fucking funny.

[36:53] Yeah.

[36:54] And it kind of makes me wish for a world where they kind of had a similar type of character

[36:57] in mind that they got like Paul Giamatti to do it or something.

Elliott Kalan

[37:00] I think that's one of the things that I really like Billy Magnuson's performance here because

[37:05] he's playing like a comedy villain.

[37:07] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[37:07] He's like a, he's like a Nepo villain.

[37:09] His dad was the real villain and now he's inherited it.

[37:11] He's not smart enough.

Elliott Kalan

[37:12] His dad's in jail and he, exactly.

[37:13] He's the, that Nepo villain is a great way to put it.

[37:15] And now he's, he is fucking up his dad's business, but it means that there's not a

[37:20] lot of.

[37:21] Very weasly.

[37:21] Yeah.

[37:21] There's not a lot of dramatic tension because he's such a screw up that you know that he has

[37:27] no chance against Dalton, especially later when they're fighting fist to fist and it's

[37:31] like, come on, why have we been wasting our time with this?

[37:33] Just get to the other guy.

[37:33] Whereas Ben Gazzara was an older gentleman by the time of the old roadhouse, but he seems

[37:38] like a crazy person.

[37:39] Like there's, there's something genuinely threatening about him, even though that is also a silly

[37:43] movie, you know?

Dan McCoy

[37:45] Yeah.

[37:45] Well, anyway, our, our villain, uh, Brant is his name.

[37:49] Uh, he's getting a report from his, uh, goons who were beat up.

[37:53] Apparently they weren't just random assholes.

[37:55] They were specifically targeting the roadhouse for reasons, uh, as yet unexplained, but as

[38:00] alluded to, it's a land development scheme.

Elliott Kalan

[38:03] I was, I was kind of disappointed because everyone is so, so close lipped about what's

[38:08] going on with the roadhouse that I was like, is there pirate gold buried there?

[38:11] Like what, what is the secret?

[38:13] But there is no secret.

Stuart Wellington

[38:13] Because the land development thing is the most obvious.

[38:15] It should have been pirate gold.

[38:17] And they're like, we need to return this pirate gold back to these haunted treasure chests

[38:21] or else these ghost pirates won't stop bothering me.

[38:24] Yes.

[38:25] And Adrian Barbeau is there.

[38:26] Yeah, exactly.

[38:27] Oh, I love it.

Elliott Kalan

[38:28] They're messing, these ghost pirates are messing with my radio broadcasts.

Dan McCoy

[38:32] It doesn't really make sense the degree to which like Jessica Williams' character is

[38:36] cagey about it.

[38:37] That's, that's the worst part.

[38:38] No.

Elliott Kalan

[38:38] She's like, okay, I'll tell you the truth, but there's, it doesn't, she might've just

[38:41] said that.

[38:42] I guess, I guess she's hidden the fact from him that this is an organized effort, you

[38:46] know, rather than just route, regular old rowdiness.

[38:49] But on the other hand, the fog doesn't make that much sense either.

[38:52] Now that we're talking about ghost pirates.

[38:53] So maybe we don't need movies to make sense these days, huh?

[38:56] You know what?

[38:56] Dan, I've got this movie you might like.

[38:57] It's called Stop Making Sense.

[38:59] Have you heard of it?

Dan McCoy

[39:01] I'm not familiar.

[39:02] Back at the Roadhouse, Dalton is building his bouncer army.

[39:06] He encourages one of the workers there, Billy, to just punch a guy when he pulls a knife

[39:13] on him, which is showing a lot of faith in Billy that he's not going to get the stand.

[39:16] Is that Lucas Gage?

Stuart Wellington

[39:17] Lucas Gage playing that?

Dan McCoy

[39:20] He's been on a bunch of stuff.

[39:21] Let's see.

Stuart Wellington

[39:21] White Lotus, Euphoria.

[39:23] Yes, it is Lucas Gage.

Dan McCoy

[39:23] Yeah.

[39:24] Yeah.

[39:24] And there's another guy who used to be a boxer who gets in two.

[39:30] Meanwhile, bikers lurk ominously outside.

[39:33] Mm-hmm.

[39:34] The next morning, Dalton's eating some conch, the official food of the Florida Keys.

[39:39] Love it.

[39:40] He sees Ellie.

Elliott Kalan

[39:41] Although they shot this in the Dominican Republic.

[39:43] They did.

[39:43] So really, he should have been eating like a-

[39:45] They had to ship that shit in.

Dan McCoy

[39:45] It is a good job, though, of Dominican Republic for the Keys.

[39:50] Yes.

[39:50] Like, it looks like the Keys.

[39:51] Yes, that's true.

[39:52] He sees Ellie the Doctor again, and he speaks for the audience when he asks her at one point,

[39:57] why is everyone around here so aggressive?

[39:59] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[40:00] Well, that's-

[40:01] It made me-

[40:01] It made me think, like, there's a-

[40:03] I would love to see kind of like a science fictional version of this, where someone has

[40:07] built a roadhouse on a place where there's some kind of natural radiation that makes

[40:11] people angry.

[40:12] And then they're drinking, and it makes it even worse.

[40:14] And so it's like, why don't we just move the business?

[40:16] Like, we can't.

[40:17] We have to have it here, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[40:19] There's a part of me that wishes they just took two seconds to be like, yeah, so we have

[40:23] a small town vibe here, but on the weekends, it gets crazy because there's all these partiers

[40:29] from the next key over or something.

[40:31] Just make some effort to explain why they have it both ways, and that it's a small town,

[40:36] but also like a crazy hellscape.

Elliott Kalan

[40:38] And not just a small town.

[40:39] It's like an adorable boutique small town.

[40:41] Like, they have a bookstore, which is not something you have.

[40:44] In many small towns.

[40:45] In the Keys.

Stuart Wellington

[40:46] There's probably, like, there's probably shoppy shops where you can buy regular stuff just

[40:50] marked way up.

Elliott Kalan

[40:52] Yeah.

[40:52] And so to have it both ways where it's like, this is Tulum, but it's also RoboCop's Detroit.

[40:58] Like, it's a hard balance to keep.

[40:59] Oh, man.

Stuart Wellington

[41:00] Everybody's fucked up on Nuke.

[41:02] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[41:05] So, you know, we have that Sublime that Stuart mentioned before.

[41:09] I'm glad that's in the notes.

Elliott Kalan

[41:11] There's a different band every single time we're at the Roadhouse.

[41:13] There's always a different band, and so many of their songs are about drinking.

[41:16] And at a certain point, I was like, I know it's a bar.

[41:19] Do they have to sing just songs about whiskey?

[41:21] Like, I don't understand.

Stuart Wellington

[41:22] And I do like the commitment to the Roadhouse bit where that no matter how much violence

[41:26] is going on, that band is still fucking playing.

[41:29] They never stop.

Elliott Kalan

[41:29] There's a big fight where the Roadhouse clears out, and then it cuts to a shot of the band

[41:33] still playing to an empty Roadhouse.

[41:34] Yeah.

[41:34] And I like that a lot.

[41:36] I mean, and the bands are, I don't, it's not all my type of music, but they're good bands.

[41:39] You know?

Dan McCoy

[41:39] Yeah.

[41:40] That was the band that had, like, the old guy just shaking, like, maracas or something

[41:43] the whole time?

[41:44] Yes, the whole time.

Stuart Wellington

[41:45] You see that guy on the maracas, you know you're going to die in the pit.

Elliott Kalan

[41:48] He's dressed up like one of the Winter Brothers.

[41:51] Not Edgar Winter, but the villain Winter Brothers from the Jonah Hex novel comic books.

[41:58] Like an old man with a white beard dressed as an evil cowboy.

Dan McCoy

[42:03] Anyway, Dalton's walking home, and he gets run off the road into the water by a truck,

[42:10] in a scene that, this one was very digital looking, but it also terrified me.

[42:15] Like, it was a scary scene.

[42:17] Like, the truck backed into him, like, he had to, like, leap into the bed of the truck

[42:21] at one point, and then he's, like, off the side of the bridge, and the truck comes falling

Elliott Kalan

[42:26] down on top of him, and I'm like.

[42:28] Well, it suffered for me a little bit because it was so CGI-ish, but I also, it was scary.

[42:33] The idea, like, well, you can't outfight a truck.

[42:35] Like, you're not going to be able to break the bones or hit the pressure points of a truck.

Stuart Wellington

[42:39] Yeah, there's a digital stunt later that was similarly, like, wild that I had to rewind

[42:47] and watch a couple times.

[42:48] Yeah, yeah.

[42:48] But yeah, this is, yeah, this was, I think they were going for intensity, and I think it

[42:54] works.

Elliott Kalan

[42:55] Yeah.

[42:55] I think so.

[42:55] There's a couple moments like this where it does feel like the movie suddenly jumps up

[42:59] in intensity in a way that, it didn't quite work for me the way that, like, Barbarian

[43:03] will suddenly get very intense suddenly, you know, but, you know, it's fine.

Stuart Wellington

[43:09] Yeah, there's that weird part where Jake Gyllenhaal encounters the subhuman underground dweller.

Elliott Kalan

[43:14] And gets nursed by it.

[43:16] They're like, well, here at Glass Key, we got a problem with chuds.

[43:19] They're pretty maternal, though, so just let them nurse you and it'll be okay.

Stuart Wellington

[43:23] Oh, man.

[43:24] I mean, Jake Gyllenhaal looks like he's half asleep most of these scenes, so go on.

Dan McCoy

[43:29] Back at the houseboat, there's another goon waiting for Dalton with a gun as backup in

[43:34] case the truck scheme didn't work.

Elliott Kalan

[43:36] Is that the same goon?

[43:37] Is that the biker from, at a certain point?

[43:39] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[43:39] That was the main biker from the first fight.

[43:42] And he also was driving the truck.

[43:45] Oh, was he?

[43:46] Yep.

[43:46] Oh, I thought he was a backup goon.

Elliott Kalan

[43:48] There were certain points after this scene with this goon where I cannot keep the goons

[43:52] straight, except for that one guy who is the funny, nice goon.

Dan McCoy

[43:56] Well, you should listen to the goon show, and that'll explain all of it.

[44:00] Yeah.

[44:00] Which goons are which.

Elliott Kalan

[44:02] Peter Sellers taking you through the remake of Roadhouse, goon by goon.

Stuart Wellington

[44:06] Yeah, I mean, if you really want to keep it all straight, Elliot, just go into your Google

[44:10] search bar and just hit gooning, okay?

Elliott Kalan

[44:12] And you'll probably figure it out.

[44:13] All right, let me just see what that is.

[44:16] Go to the video tab.

[44:17] This doesn't remind me of the movie at all.

[44:19] Did I miss this part?

[44:20] Hold on.

Stuart Wellington

[44:20] Well, maybe this part with Jake Gyllenhaal taking his shirt off.

Dan McCoy

[44:25] Go on, Dan.

[44:26] Sorry, it got tossed back to me right when I needed to burp.

[44:29] Dalton disarms this man, throws him into the water, and he's immediately eaten by a huge

[44:35] crocodile.

Elliott Kalan

[44:36] Which they did mention earlier that there was a crocodile.

Dan McCoy

[44:38] They set it up.

[44:39] Yeah, that's a big old croc.

Elliott Kalan

[44:43] It's a big one.

[44:43] It does feel a little bit like Dalton made a plan with the crocodile earlier in the movie

[44:48] in an unshot scene.

Stuart Wellington

[44:49] I feel like if this was strictly going for comedy, he would have tossed him overboard and he

[44:54] would have landed directly in the croc's mouth.

[44:56] But that's okay.

[44:56] It was the next closest thing.

[44:58] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[44:59] Next morning, you know, there's a police, there are police boats around.

[45:03] Jake's sitting there.

[45:04] He's talking to the dock master who's like, these goons are probably mixed up in drugs.

[45:08] But he goes and looks at some maps with Charlie the bookstore kid.

[45:14] And it seems like this is not like a place where they could get drugs.

[45:18] I think that's what that scene was about.

[45:19] Yeah.

[45:19] I think so.

Elliott Kalan

[45:20] It is what I would call unnecessary.

[45:22] Yeah.

[45:23] It is very unnecessary for a theory about the bad guys to be brought up and then dismissed

[45:27] a scene later when, again, the explanation that he just wants to build a resort there is

[45:32] not interesting enough that it needs to be hidden.

[45:34] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[45:35] Outside, he disarms a goon, which is only important because now they know that he's friends with

[45:40] these bookstore people.

[45:43] Frankie is really cagey about what's going on at the Roadhouse.

[45:47] So, again, unnecessary.

[45:48] And now we are introduced to a legitimately bad human being who should not probably be cast

[45:55] in things because he is a litany of assaults.

[45:58] His name is Conor McGregor, the actor.

[46:00] His character's name is Knox.

[46:03] We introduced him.

[46:03] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[46:03] He's basically Taz, right?

[46:05] He's basically Lono from Hunter Bullets.

[46:08] Yes.

[46:08] The character who, like, in the comics starts looking like a normal person, but by the end

[46:12] of the series, he's like some kind of crazy werewolf man.

Elliott Kalan

[46:14] He's like Sabretooth by the end of that series.

[46:16] Yeah.

[46:17] It's kind of great.

[46:18] So, Knox is very much, I will say, the movie, I got tired of this character.

[46:23] But when he first comes up, leaving aside the fact that Conor McGregor is most likely

[46:27] a monster based on the things that he's been accused and arrested for, I thought they were

[46:34] doing a good job of creating a character who is so, in the world of this movie, is so strong

[46:39] and tough that he just does whatever he wants and is entirely id-driven.

[46:43] And he's literally, it's very cartoonish that he literally is leaving names.

[46:48] He's like, I don't know, I don't know.

[46:49] He's like, I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[46:55] And just walks through the streets naked and then finds the guy who has a shirt he likes

[46:58] and beats him up and takes his shirt.

[47:00] And just the idea of someone who is so dangerous because he so refuses to abide by the rules

[47:05] of society and also strong enough that he can get away with it for a little bit.

[47:09] You have to wonder, has no one ever tried to shoot this man?

[47:11] Like, bullets would bounce off him.

[47:13] I don't understand.

Dan McCoy

[47:14] There's a bit of funny filmmaking here where like within like one cut where we sort of

[47:18] cut away to the other side of the phone conversation, you know, he's like in the first scene,

[47:22] he's admiring this man's clothes.

[47:24] And then the next shot, he's walking away in the clothes and like everything is in flames.

[47:29] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[47:29] This whole like street market that he was at is in fire.

[47:32] The idea of him, if he was, and this guy, when he's not talking, when he is just a physical

[47:39] presence, I was really enjoying a lot of those scenes.

[47:43] But I don't, whenever he talks, I'm like, this guy is enjoying being bad in a way that

[47:48] feels genuine rather than an actor playing a character who enjoys being bad.

Stuart Wellington

[47:52] Yeah.

[47:52] Because I mean, his ability to do like a line read isn't good.

[47:56] No.

[47:57] Or consistent.

Elliott Kalan

[47:58] And as the movie goes on, they give him more quips.

[48:00] And the quips get, are by the, eventually you're like, can you just have it?

[48:04] This, this should have been like a, like a, maybe a mute character.

Stuart Wellington

[48:07] No, obviously a guy like this with a body that looks like a Dorito, uh, that he, that

[48:14] he like.

Elliott Kalan

[48:14] Because of the triangular shape you're saying?

[48:17] Yeah, the triangular shape.

[48:17] Not because it's like orange and kind of bright looking.

Stuart Wellington

[48:20] Or it's got dust all over it.

[48:22] Yeah, it's covered in dust.

[48:24] But the thing is like, there is something funny about a character like this who is like,

[48:27] I do whatever I want, whenever I want.

[48:29] And I'm like, I don't know, to get a body like that, you have to have extreme discipline.

Dan McCoy

[48:34] Edward knows.

[48:35] Uh, he's, he's entered the film because he's getting.

Elliott Kalan

[48:37] One of the things, this is the least of, this is the least of his, least of his crimes.

[48:40] I'm looking up Conor McGregor's Wikipedia right now.

[48:42] And there's a, there's a subheading under punching the Miami Heat mascot.

Stuart Wellington

[48:46] Why?

Elliott Kalan

[48:48] So he was there.

[48:49] He was there.

[48:49] That's why they had to film in the Dominican Republic.

[48:52] Yeah.

[48:52] He was at the 2023 NBA finals, I guess.

[48:55] He was, he was recording something to promote his pain relief spray in a skit with the Miami

[49:00] Heat's mascot, Bernie, and just knocked out with a punch.

[49:04] The man wearing the costume in an off script punch.

[49:07] Why would he do that?

[49:08] Why would you ever do that?

[49:10] Horrible.

[49:11] Most of the crowd in attendance booed McGregor for his actions.

[49:13] Yeah, I hope so.

[49:15] An anger problem and respond to things with violence.

[49:18] Oh man, thanks for qualifying.

[49:18] I mean, that seems like he thought it would be funny to do that.

[49:21] That's horrible.

[49:21] I mean, he sounds like a horrible person, but.

[49:23] Yeah, he's a bad person.

[49:24] In that first, but I will say, in not knowing these things when I first watched it, in that

[49:28] first moment when he's just introduced as a, as a ball of destruction, you know, that just

[49:32] want, that rolls through life.

[49:33] I was like, okay, this could go.

[49:35] I like how they're setting this up, this character.

[49:37] Yeah.

[49:37] You know.

Dan McCoy

[49:38] Well, he's being introduced because he is being called by the dad of the villain

[49:44] to clean up his son's mess.

[49:47] Why you would call this man to clean up any mess, who knows?

[49:51] He is better at punching, but if you're, if you're worried about Jake Gyllenhaal, Dalton

[49:57] interfering, just shoot him from a distance.

[50:00] Don't bring in a loose can.

Stuart Wellington

[50:04] I mean, that's why, that's why you're like, like, hey, Jason Voorhees, you want to kill

[50:08] teenagers?

[50:08] Just blow up the house, dude.

[50:10] You don't have to use a machete.

Elliott Kalan

[50:11] Yeah, Dan, it's not a plot hole if they're calling human psychology.

[50:14] I don't think it's that.

[50:15] But it is like in the gray man, it is like in the gray man where they're like, we need

[50:19] to take care of this rogue agent and we need it to be quiet.

[50:21] And Chris Evans is like, you got it.

[50:23] I will have a gun battle in the center of a European city.

[50:26] And it's like, hold on a second.

[50:27] What, what, why would you bring this guy in?

[50:29] I will say this, doing some more research, Bernie, the Miami Heat mascot, he doesn't

[50:33] seem so innocent himself.

[50:36] In 1994, he was sued by a woman that, who he basically kind of violently forced to be

[50:42] a part of a bit during an exhibition game in Puerto Rico.

[50:45] Now here's the thing about this entry.

[50:46] Okay.

[50:47] It treats Bernie as if he is a person.

[50:49] And it always says, Bernie was sued and Bernie's hijinks.

[50:53] This, Bernie is a fictional character, I have to assume.

[50:55] So I like, I don't understand how, if the mascot is legally liable for the actions of

[51:01] the person wearing the costume.

[51:03] I'm going to do some more research on this.

[51:04] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[51:05] It also seems like they would use the person's name because whoever, you know, like the Heat,

[51:09] like wouldn't want the mascot's name associated.

[51:12] They want to make it clear, like, look, the mascot's cool.

[51:15] It was the guy who was embodying the mascot at the time that was not so cool.

Elliott Kalan

[51:19] So this, this first lawsuit was in 1994.

[51:21] And it says, Bernie's hijinks also led to another lawsuit in March, 2015 and March, 2017.

[51:26] On both occasions, people were injured by Bernie while he was performing.

[51:29] Again, Bernie is not a person.

[51:30] Bernie is a character.

Stuart Wellington

[51:31] Elliot, once you take on the role of Bernie, you have to legally change your name to Bernie.

Elliott Kalan

[51:35] I guess that's true.

[51:36] It's what happened to Jack Black when he made the movie Bernie also, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[51:39] I thought you were saying that the character really inhabits you.

[51:42] It takes, you know, sort of an act of possession.

[51:44] Yeah, it's like playing the role of the Joker.

Elliott Kalan

[51:47] Jack Nicholson warned Heath Ledger.

[51:49] He said, don't get into this Joker role too much, you know, that role, you know.

[51:53] It's high risk, high reward.

[51:55] The risk is that you fall into chaos and insanity.

[51:58] The reward is an Academy Award two out of three times.

[52:01] Yeah.

[52:02] I went two out of four times.

[52:03] I forgot about Cesar Romero in the original Batman movie.

[52:05] Did not win an Academy Award.

Dan McCoy

[52:06] Well, he wasn't really eligible.

[52:08] I guess for the Batman movie, yeah.

[52:10] The Batman movie, yeah.

[52:11] Batman 1966, you're correct.

[52:13] Which was nominated for Best Picture, so.

Stuart Wellington

[52:16] What about Mark Hamill in Mask of the Phantasm?

Elliott Kalan

[52:19] Good point, but that's a-

[52:21] Wait, is he in that?

[52:22] He does the voice of the Joker in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[52:23] No, I know, but the Phantasm is like the main, like, bad character, right?

[52:28] I actually don't remember the movie that way.

Elliott Kalan

[52:29] No, but the Joker is in Mask of the-

[52:30] Well, Mask of the Phantasm, the Phantasm is not a bad guy.

[52:32] The Phantasm is technically a competing vigilante that is trying to get revenge.

Dan McCoy

[52:38] It's been a long time.

[52:39] I just didn't think that there was much Joker content in that one, but-

[52:42] Well, there's plenty of Joker.

Stuart Wellington

[52:43] Yeah, yeah, you gotta put a note in the video you upload.

Elliott Kalan

[52:48] I know you were distracted by the voice of Dana Delaney, the character who eventually, spoiler, is revealed as the Phantasm.

[52:56] But no, that is, yeah, the Joker's in there.

Dan McCoy

[52:59] Okay, well, we all learned something today.

[53:01] And to return to the movie we're talking about, just briefly-

[53:06] Gladiator?

[53:08] Ellie shows up to take Dalton on a boat ride.

[53:12] They go hang out on a sandbar.

[53:13] And he gets weird when she starts-

[53:16] It looks nice.

Elliott Kalan

[53:16] It looks like a nice place to have a beer.

[53:17] Yeah, it looks like a good place to have a beer.

[53:18] It changes the whole latitude, yeah.

[53:19] It looks like a real good beer commercial, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[53:21] Maybe crack open some land sharks.

[53:24] They drink that shit down there, right?

Dan McCoy

[53:26] But he gets weird in a cagey when she starts asking questions about his past.

[53:31] And he says, you're a nice person.

[53:32] You don't want to know me.

[53:33] Turns out she already does.

[53:34] She Googled him.

[53:36] She knows whatever his tragic past is that we haven't seen yet.

[53:39] And it's never-

Elliott Kalan

[53:40] The tragic past is left for us to kind of piece those hints together for the most part.

[53:44] Well, no, we get it.

Dan McCoy

[53:45] We get it at the end.

Elliott Kalan

[53:47] Yeah, but it's not like he sits down and tells the whole story or anything like that.

Dan McCoy

[53:50] No, no, that's true.

[53:51] Well, we don't know the answer to the question that is posed to him later, like why he didn't back off.

[53:58] But anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[53:59] But we don't get like a Phoebe Cates talking about her dad in the chimney speech.

[54:02] Yeah.

[54:03] You know, in his past.

Stuart Wellington

[54:03] Oh, if only.

[54:04] It would have been great if they brought in Phoebe Cates just to explain Dalton's backstory.

[54:07] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[54:09] Phoebe Cates returning to acting for the role of UFC fan who runs a blog or a podcast.

[54:16] It's a UFC podcast.

[54:17] How amazing would it be if at some point someone's listening to a UFC fan podcast and you hear a woman's voice and she's describing this thing.

[54:23] And then the credits you see, UFC podcast host Phoebe Cates.

[54:25] You'd be like, what?

[54:26] How did they get her?

[54:27] That's amazing.

[54:28] Yeah.

[54:29] Anyway.

[54:30] Mr. Gyllenhaal stunts by Kevin Kline.

[54:32] Oh, they both worked on it.

[54:34] I guess the marriage that works together.

[54:35] Yeah, that makes sense.

Dan McCoy

[54:36] Works together.

[54:37] Shirts together.

[54:37] Shirts together, yeah.

[54:38] Works together.

[54:40] Ellie and Dalton, they smooch a bit.

[54:43] Meanwhile, Knox has arrived in town.

[54:45] He starts eating some sandwiches menacingly.

[54:49] Just as Ellie.

Elliott Kalan

[54:50] Really the only way to eat a sandwich is menacingly.

[54:52] If you're lunch meat.

Dan McCoy

[54:54] Ellie returns Dalton to his houseboat.

[54:56] And just then the cops show up to ask him some questions.

[55:00] They take him to an abandoned dock where the sheriff sort of threatens him and pulls a gun on him.

[55:07] But Ellie shows up, slaps the sheriff.

[55:09] Turns out, the sheriff's her dad.

[55:12] There's some backstory about how he's corrupt and working for the bad guy.

[55:15] Like, we didn't put that together on our own.

Stuart Wellington

[55:17] And that actor's been, like, in a lot of stuff, right?

[55:19] Yes.

[55:20] I can't remember his name.

[55:21] But he's in, like, he's like a drug dealer or some shit all the time.

[55:24] Joaquim de Almeida.

Elliott Kalan

[55:25] Yeah, he's great.

[55:26] Or Joaquim.

[55:27] Joaquim.

[55:27] He's another Portuguese-American.

[55:28] They may be playing Portuguese characters.

Stuart Wellington

[55:31] There's something about this sequence where I'm like, oh, yeah.

[55:35] Like, there's something actually threatening about, like, you know, how these corrupt policemen can just, like, arrest him and kill him.

[55:42] Yeah.

[55:43] And they can't do anything about it.

Dan McCoy

[55:46] Meanwhile, goons approach the bookstore with gasoline.

[55:48] We cut away before we eat.

Elliott Kalan

[55:49] Dan, did you know that actor who plays the sheriff in this played Sherlock Holmes?

[55:53] I didn't know that.

[55:54] In 2001, he was in a Brazilian comedy, Ozango de Baker Street, released in America as a samba for Sherlock.

Dan McCoy

[56:02] A samba for Sherlock.

[56:03] I got to see this now.

[56:05] Why can't Sherlock get a samba once in a while?

[56:08] Yeah.

[56:08] You know, it's a treat.

[56:09] It's some fun.

Elliott Kalan

[56:09] It seems actress Sarah Bernhardt is performing in Rio, and she gets her friend Sherlock Holmes to solve a case.

Dan McCoy

[56:16] Love this.

[56:16] All right.

[56:17] That sounds fun.

[56:18] Back at the roadhouse.

[56:19] I'll take two, please.

[56:21] Elwood and Ben Brant, the bad guy, finally meet face-to-face.

[56:28] The bad guy asks him some pretty reasonable questions about why he's willing to go through so much shit for this roadhouse and some people he met, like, a week ago.

[56:37] Brant pulls out a YouTube video.

[56:40] We finally see the backstory.

Elliott Kalan

[56:41] He pulls out his phone and plays it.

[56:42] It's not like he, like, pulls it.

[56:44] I think that that, thank you for that clarification.

[56:46] I think that's important.

Elliott Kalan

[56:46] I'm hitting a window out of his pocket.

[56:47] Yeah, yeah.

[56:48] An important thing.

[56:48] He's not in reboot.

Dan McCoy

[56:50] I don't think anyone's mind was blown just by my phrasing right there.

Stuart Wellington

[56:54] You can never be too careful, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[56:57] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[56:58] He doesn't put on, like, a VR headset on Jake Gyllenhaal and then plug it into his phone or something.

[57:01] Here, relive the moment.

Dan McCoy

[57:03] Anyway, we learn what we already suspected, that Dalton killed a guy in the ring and Brant...

[57:10] Killed his friend in the ring.

[57:11] Killed his friend.

[57:11] Well, they think, yeah, they say a friend, you know, I assume in the way that, like, fighters

[57:15] know one another.

[57:17] Oh, maybe.

[57:17] Maybe.

[57:18] Um, Brant needles him.

[57:20] He's like, why didn't you stop punching?

[57:22] He was down.

[57:23] You know, like, he...

[57:24] But Dalton will not answer.

[57:26] Uh, Brant leaves, giving the goons full permission to just, you know, burn the place down, take

[57:32] it over, you know, beat everyone up, whatever.

[57:35] Knox comes in.

[57:36] There's a long time of him just, like, whacking things with a golf club before Dalton does

[57:41] anything.

[57:41] Yeah.

[57:41] Dalton has been so disheartened by, you know, seeing this video that he's just sitting there

[57:47] with his coffee mug.

Stuart Wellington

[57:48] He just had a mirror held up to his soul, Dan.

[57:50] Yeah.

[57:50] He didn't like what he saw.

Dan McCoy

[57:52] But, I mean, like, this is his one job is to bounce people.

[57:55] That's true.

[57:57] They're really, you know, causing a lot of damage before he gets up from the bar.

Elliott Kalan

[58:01] Maybe he's just entertained by Knox's, uh, witty, witty one-liners is that when he takes

[58:06] it to the golf club and then hits things with and he goes, oh, it's been years since I

[58:08] went clubbing.

[58:09] And it's like, ugh, like, again, just don't give him any dialogue.

Dan McCoy

[58:12] Just have a mean breaking stuff.

[58:15] Uh, anyway, they have a brutal fight, uh, which ends essentially with Knox saying, we're

[58:20] not so different, you and I, which, uh, sends Dalton wandering into the night.

[58:25] Mm-hmm.

[58:27] Uh, and Frankie finds him at the houseboat where he's about to pack up and leave.

Stuart Wellington

[58:31] Yeah, he's, like, sitting on the edge of a building, staring at his fist in the rain,

[58:35] that sort of thing.

[58:36] His hair, his hair's grown super long and.

Dan McCoy

[58:39] And, and she's finally like, okay, maybe I should have told you that Grant wants to buy

[58:44] my land.

[58:45] I'm the only holdout for a big resort.

[58:47] But, like, you know, if I can just hold out a while, like, he's in deep with some money

[58:51] people, like, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[58:52] She's like, I didn't tell you because it was the most obvious answer.

[58:55] And it was boring.

Dan McCoy

[58:57] I figured you'd probably guess it already.

[59:00] And she's like, are you going to leave because you're scared?

[59:03] And he's like, yeah.

[59:04] And I'm like, I agree.

[59:06] Get out of town, Dalton.

[59:07] But on his way out of town, he sees the smoldering ruins of the bookstore.

Stuart Wellington

[59:12] No.

[59:13] And we realize he's not scared of what could happen to him.

[59:16] Yeah.

[59:17] Oh, no, no.

[59:18] What he could do to other people.

Dan McCoy

[59:19] Yeah, that's right.

[59:19] Yeah.

[59:20] Instead of getting on the bus.

Stuart Wellington

[59:21] He doesn't want to unleash the beast again.

Dan McCoy

[59:22] You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

[59:23] And he turns green.

[59:25] And he goes to the house of the bad guys.

[59:27] Yeah.

[59:28] And he's, yeah, he says, yeah, I am afraid.

[59:30] I'm afraid of what happens when someone pushes me too far.

[59:33] And he straight up kills the guy.

[59:34] But he doesn't say it like that.

Elliott Kalan

[59:35] He says, yeah, I'm afraid.

[59:36] I'm afraid of what happens when someone pushes me too far.

[59:39] Like, he says it in the kind of matter of fact, kind of soft way he's just saying everything.

Stuart Wellington

[59:42] I prefer that to him, like, I don't know, taking a, being more dark and scary.

Elliott Kalan

[59:47] Suddenly going to grim mode.

[59:48] I do like it.

[59:49] But there are times when his actions really have to back up those words because of the way that he delivers it.

[59:54] You know.

[59:55] It's not one of those moments where I'm like, oh, shit.

[59:58] Oh, no.

[59:58] They just unlocked Pandora's box.

[1:00:00] Instead, I'm like, hmm.

[1:00:01] I think he's hyping himself a little bit too much.

[1:00:04] But we'll see.

[1:00:04] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:05] You want some, like, new metal to start playing in the background.

[1:00:08] Exactly, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:09] They do play a lot of Enter Sandman covers, so you should like that shit.

[1:00:12] I did not.

[1:00:13] I did.

[1:00:13] And I didn't care for it.

[1:00:15] I have to say.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:15] You didn't, like, get up and start dancing around and enjoying it.

[1:00:19] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:20] Aw, that would be cute.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:21] Kicking your heels.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:22] Maybe it's, I'm wistful for the days when Metallica was very careful about licensing their stuff to movies, and they almost never did.

[1:00:28] But it might just be because my kids constantly want to listen to Enter Sandman these days.

[1:00:33] And so I'm like, why couldn't they have played another Metallica song?

[1:00:36] Why couldn't it have been Disposable Heroes?

[1:00:38] Why couldn't it have been, like, Damage Incorporated?

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:40] Why couldn't it have been Unforgiven 2?

[1:00:44] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:46] Why isn't it The Day That Never Comes?

[1:00:47] What are their later songs?

[1:00:48] Yeah.

[1:00:49] Lux Eterna.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:51] Dalton, on Dalton's way out with the corpse, the sweet biker that we mentioned before, Arturo Castro, is like, hey, man, I just like bikes.

[1:01:01] It's hard to not have a gang.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:02] There's a, when the goons are breaking up the bar and he walks by, Dalton just goes, hey, Dalton.

[1:01:09] I love that moment.

[1:01:09] It's funny.

[1:01:10] It's funny.

[1:01:11] But I do like this movie.

[1:01:12] He's like, I just like bikes.

[1:01:13] Maybe these are not the right guys.

[1:01:14] And then Dalton does not beat him up because he's such a sweetie.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:17] And they don't tell him anything.

[1:01:18] I don't know anything.

[1:01:19] Yeah, they don't tell him anything except for he does know the location of, like, one meat.

[1:01:24] So Dalton goes to his place.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:25] One meat?

[1:01:26] What is it?

[1:01:26] Pork?

[1:01:27] Beef?

Dan McCoy

[1:01:28] Yeah.

[1:01:29] He knows the one place that pork exists.

[1:01:32] In a pig, Dan.

[1:01:33] Which is valuable.

[1:01:34] That's the one place that exists.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:35] In a pig.

[1:01:35] That interruption was so tasty.

[1:01:37] Elliot had to chomp his teeth on it.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:40] To borrow a phrase from your son, Elliot, that joke was delicious.

[1:01:50] He goes to this meeting site.

[1:01:52] He intercepts a crooked cock, cop, not cock.

[1:01:54] I mean, they're all a little crooked, right?

[1:01:57] Right?

[1:01:58] Right bend a little bit.

[1:01:59] Right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:59] Well, sorry.

[1:02:01] Like at a right angle?

[1:02:02] Like you really got to maneuver yourself to get it out.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:04] Now we got to slap the shirt down on this.

[1:02:06] It's like an Allen key.

[1:02:09] No, sorry.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:10] Exactly.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:11] A crooked cop.

[1:02:13] Do you have any condoms with right angles in them?

[1:02:17] Yeah, yeah.

[1:02:18] It's like asking where you get those hats that have the bill on the back.

[1:02:22] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:24] It's been a long year.

[1:02:26] Dan, it's April.

[1:02:27] What?

[1:02:29] There's a money drop off.

[1:02:32] He beats up the cop.

[1:02:33] He shoots the corpse several times with the cop's gun and, you know, takes the money.

[1:02:40] Back at the houseboat, Dalton is peacefully taping together some dynamite when the sheriff arrives to say that Ellie has been kidnapped because they want this money back.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:50] I do like this scene because the sheriff's, like, he has such a sinister quality about him that, like, when he's explaining what's happening to him, he's like, my daughter's been kidnapped and they're going to kill her.

[1:03:03] And I'm like, I don't believe this in any way.

[1:03:05] Not what I'm told.

[1:03:06] Yeah.

[1:03:07] This is the least belief.

[1:03:08] And, like, Dalton's like, oh, yeah, okay.

[1:03:10] It's clear that Dalton does not believe it either.

[1:03:13] I love that.

[1:03:13] It's really funny.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:14] They are going through the motions of a ruse that neither one of them thinks is really necessary.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:18] It's funny because the first thing that happens, you know, Dalton steals another cop's motorboat to go out to the bad guy's yacht.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:25] The one Ellie took him out on earlier in the movie.

[1:03:27] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:28] And he sees the sheriff there on the boat immediately.

[1:03:33] And the sheriff says something like, it's a fake kidnapping, dumbass, which seems, like, weird because Dalton had already been like, oh, you seem pretty comfortable for a guy whose, like, daughter has been kidnapped.

[1:03:47] Like, it's clear that Dalton never believed it, but the sheriff still makes fun of him for falling for his rear.

[1:03:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:53] If that had been a little bit more pointed, I think that would have been very funny if it was that – the moment – the bad guy thinking that the good guy has fallen for a trap and not recognizing that the good guy clearly knows what's going on, you know?

Dan McCoy

[1:04:05] Yeah.

[1:04:05] But it actually turns out that Brent did kidnap Ellie as insurance.

[1:04:09] So the joke's on the sheriff, yeah.

[1:04:10] Yeah.

[1:04:11] So Dalton blows up his motorboat to set – to just distract everyone.

[1:04:16] He rampages through the sinking yacht to rescue Ellie.

[1:04:20] Everyone's fist fighting in the water now, which is pretty funny.

[1:04:22] Meanwhile, Knox is showing up, right?

[1:04:24] Knox shows up.

[1:04:25] He runs Dalton over with a speedboat, but Dalton – or tries to, but Dalton climbs on board.

[1:04:32] And living up to his name, Knox gets knocked into the water and dragged to the boat for a while.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:38] That's true.

[1:04:38] You have a lot of hard knocks, yeah.

[1:04:40] Ellie gets – is this when Ellie gets kidnapped again?

Dan McCoy

[1:04:43] By Brant.

[1:04:44] Dalton –

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:45] This is one of those moments like at the end of Speed 2 for anyone who is going to see our Flophouse Sinks Speed 2 online show.

[1:04:54] We'll talk about this.

[1:04:55] Good synergy.

[1:04:56] Where it's tickets available at – well, I'll tell you about it later, but tickets available at stagepilot.com slash speed premieres April 27th.

[1:05:04] Where the bad guy takes the romantic interest with him when he's escaping, and it's like, well, if you didn't do that, you'd probably get away.

[1:05:12] Like, the good guy would have less reason to go after you.

[1:05:15] I don't know why you're doing this, why you're taking it with you, what leverage it gives you.

[1:05:19] But –

[1:05:20] But Brant is also dumb, as we've established.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:22] Yeah, and maybe he just wants a friend.

[1:05:24] Maybe he's not totally comfortable behind the wheel of a speedboat.

[1:05:28] But Dalton –

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:29] He goes, I've been drinking, so I need you with me just in case.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:31] Dalton collides his boat into the one that has Brant and Ellie in a way that throws him into their boat with, like, physics I didn't really understand.

[1:05:41] This stunt was wild.

[1:05:42] I, like, I had to rewind the movie to see, like –

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:45] There's a couple moments starting here where the physics do go out the window at different points.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:48] Yeah, it's like that part in Inception where the fucking hotel room's flipping around.

[1:05:53] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:54] There's a fight on the boat as it goes to shore, and Dalton and Ellie jump off in time.

[1:05:59] But Brant, however, is flying through the air onto the roof of the roadhouse.

[1:06:04] He's somehow still alive, I guess because it's got a thatched roof.

[1:06:07] Who knows?

[1:06:07] Yeah.

[1:06:08] Yeah, yeah.

[1:06:09] Meanwhile, Knox has climbed ashore and stolen a truck, which he crashes through the roadhouse.

[1:06:14] There's another big punch fight that ends with Knox stabbing Dalton in the gut, and Brant is like, kill him, kill him.

[1:06:22] And Knox has had enough of this jibber-jabber and snaps Brant's neck.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:26] I think this is where we now, in the background, we get a little bit of inner Sandman riffing, and you're like, uh-oh, he just hit Jake Gyllenhaal's funny button.

[1:06:35] He's about to start killing him.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:36] The Sandman's about to enter.

[1:06:37] There was a moment where Brant tries to kill Jake Gyllenhaal with a harpoon gun, and Dalton goes, a fishing spear?

[1:06:45] Like, he's insulted that that's how he tried to kill him?

[1:06:48] And there's another of those moments where he picks up on a little detail that is not that important in the long run.

[1:06:52] Yeah, yeah, that's pretty funny.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:54] Yeah, but Knox killing Brant, you know, just enough time for Dalton to activate his rage power.

[1:07:00] And he stabs Knox several times, stopping short of finishing him, really, because he doesn't want to be an animal.

[1:07:09] But it is enough to scare Ellie, who has arrived.

[1:07:13] She has a look in her eyes being like, maybe this is not a long-term commitment for me.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:18] Yeah, I was kind of hoping she was going to show him and be like, finish him.

[1:07:21] And then he would do one of those cool fatalities.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:24] Yeah, pull his neck out, and all the spine comes out.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:27] Maybe he freezes him and punches him, and his whole body shatters, just leaving a skeleton and a beating heart.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:33] What if she said friendship, and now he's got to give Knox a present?

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:36] Yeah, or like a babality and turns Knox into a baby.

[1:07:41] Yeah, I mean, it's essential in order to be a baby.

[1:07:43] I mean, it's tough, because I don't think you're able to do a babality if you've used any blocking during the fight.

[1:07:49] And I'm pretty sure he blocked.

[1:07:51] He definitely blocks at different points, yeah.

[1:07:52] Oh, man, it's going to have to be a fatality, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:54] And then after the fatality, once he kills him, then she's like, oh, no, this is the game that Freddy's in.

[1:08:00] Freddy shows up, and the Predator, Dalton's going to fight them off.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:03] Oh, cool, cool, yeah, yeah, and a xenomorph.

[1:08:05] Yeah.

[1:08:05] We're so close to the end.

[1:08:06] The sheriff shows up.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:07] Rambo shows up, because he's in that game, too, right?

[1:08:10] No, no.

[1:08:11] Oh, yeah, I think so, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:11] No, the sheriff arrives.

[1:08:12] Robo.

[1:08:14] You know, presumably because he's grateful to Dalton.

[1:08:18] He feels like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have been in bed with someone who kidnapped my daughter.

[1:08:21] He's like, I'll cover up all this murdering for you.

[1:08:23] Get out of town.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:24] It's going to be hard to do.

[1:08:25] Then he's like, we'll take care of it.

[1:08:27] And it's like, there's so many bodies.

[1:08:28] The roadhouse is destroyed.

[1:08:30] Boats blew up.

[1:08:31] It would be pretty great if he's like, we're going to take care of it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:33] And he starts, like, tucking in a little bib into his shirt.

[1:08:36] And you're like, what the fuck are you doing, dude?

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:37] We're going to take care of this, bones and all.

[1:08:41] So.

[1:08:41] Where he goes, don't worry, Dalton.

[1:08:43] We'll take care of this.

[1:08:43] And then the next shot is him putting up a wanted poster for Dalton.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:49] Here we are.

[1:08:50] Coda, Jessica Williams, and her team cleaning up the roadhouse.

[1:08:56] Dalton waits for his bus.

[1:08:58] Charlie, the teen from the bookstore, is out of the hospital.

[1:09:01] She says goodbye with one final reference to how this is like a Western.

[1:09:05] She wants him to stay, but he's got to leave.

[1:09:07] But he's left behind a gift for them.

[1:09:09] All the dirty money he stole.

[1:09:12] Dalton rides off.

[1:09:12] And he left a gift.

[1:09:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:15] He left a gift.

[1:09:16] It's like a little kitten rolling around.

[1:09:18] No, a gift.

[1:09:18] It's a guy eating popcorn and then sunglasses float down.

[1:09:23] Wow.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:24] Dalton rides off to another town to punch and stab other people.

[1:09:28] And we get a mid-credit sequence.

[1:09:31] Stuart, did you see this?

[1:09:33] Yeah, I did see this.

[1:09:33] Okay.

[1:09:34] Knox escapes the hospital.

[1:09:36] You know, nurses behind him being like, get that man.

[1:09:40] And he walks off with a bare butt like we were first introduced to him.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:44] Yeah, he entered the world naked and now he leaves the world somewhat naked.

[1:09:47] Yeah.

[1:09:47] The world of the film.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:50] That's Roadhouse, the new version.

[1:09:54] Time for some final judgments, right?

[1:09:55] Yeah, let's give some final judgments on this.

[1:09:57] Whether this was a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie we kind of liked.

[1:10:02] I'm going to give it just a hair, just a hair of a margin of a movie I kind of liked.

[1:10:08] I think I would be – I don't want to be too hung up on this, but I probably would be a little more apt to just give it a recommendation if they didn't have a guy and an employee who clearly should not have a support system propping him up and giving him jobs in big movies.

[1:10:30] Yep, that's fair.

[1:10:30] But for what it is –

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:33] I mean, it's possible they didn't know.

[1:10:34] He's only had accusations against him since, let's see, 2017?

[1:10:42] Yeah.

[1:10:43] Okay.

[1:10:43] So it's only seven years at least of –

[1:10:45] Of multiple incidents.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:48] But, you know, for what it is, it's –

[1:10:50] Well, I mean, he's just such a good actor, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:55] You know how I feel about this movie?

[1:10:57] In a weird way, it suffers from being too professional.

[1:11:02] Just like how – not like the original Roadhouse is not made professionally.

[1:11:08] It's actually kind of beautifully made for what it is.

[1:11:11] But, like, there's a ramshackle, like, lunkheadedness to it, whereas this movie is, like, a lot of resources put behind it, and people are constantly trying to sort of explain why, no, really, this plot makes sense.

[1:11:26] You know, you shouldn't worry about that in Roadhouse.

[1:11:28] But it's not – you know, it kind of does what it needs to do.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:33] It's like if, like, Wes Anderson did the Tango and Cash remake.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:37] I guess I'll agree with that.

[1:11:39] I mean, I want to see that.

[1:11:40] Yeah.

[1:11:41] What do you think, Stuart?

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:43] Yeah, I think I'm with you.

[1:11:44] It's a – I feel like I enjoyed the movie.

[1:11:49] There's – yeah.

[1:11:50] I mean, obviously, the comments about the selection of villain actor are accurate.

[1:11:59] Like, seems like a bad guy.

[1:12:01] I don't want to support him.

[1:12:02] But I do think it's, like, it's funny and weird, and it has some jokes, and it doesn't take itself too seriously.

[1:12:09] I wish it kind of didn't try and make as many ironic jokes as they did.

[1:12:15] But chill and all is fun, and the action sequences are, if anything, interesting.

[1:12:19] So, yeah.

[1:12:21] Movie I kind of liked.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:22] Yeah, I'm also going to call this a movie I kind of liked.

[1:12:24] Going into it, again, not knowing anything about the main villain's personal life or actual villainy.

[1:12:32] I went into it being like, why would they bother remaking Roadhouse?

[1:12:37] Like, what's the point?

[1:12:39] And it felt to me the whole time just kind of like a solid, laid-back action character movie.

[1:12:46] You know, it's a little too long.

[1:12:47] You know, it's a hair over two hours, if you include the credits, I guess.

[1:12:50] Yes, it's too long.

[1:12:51] And there were times when I was like, I kind of wish this was a TV show so I could watch, like, an hour of it and then go away.

[1:12:58] And then because it also is so laid-back at times that it feels like you're watching a padded-out hour-long show.

[1:13:04] And then once the action really gets rip-roaring, you're like, what?

[1:13:08] Like, this is – never mind.

[1:13:09] This could never be a TV show.

[1:13:11] But overall, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I was going to.

[1:13:15] Maybe that's the soft bigotry of low expectations.

[1:13:19] But I thought everyone involved did a pretty good job of it.

[1:13:23] You know, I thought it was very entertaining.

S5

[1:13:28] Are you tired of being picked on for only wanting to talk about your cat at parties?

[1:13:33] Do you feel as though your friends don't understand the depth of love you have for your guinea pig?

[1:13:38] When you look around a room of people, do you wonder if they know sloths only have to eat one leaf a month?

[1:13:43] Have you ever dumped someone for saying they're just not an animal person?

[1:13:47] Us too.

[1:13:47] She's Alexis B. Preston.

[1:13:49] She's Ella McLeod.

[1:13:50] And we host Comfort Creatures, the show where you can't talk about your pets too much,

[1:13:54] animal trivia is our love language, and dragons are just as real as dinosaurs.

[1:13:59] Tune in to Comfort Creatures every Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:05] What is up, people of the world?

[1:14:07] Do you have an argument that you keep having with your friends and you just can't seem to settle it?

[1:14:12] And you're sitting there arguing about whether it's Star Trek or Star Wars,

[1:14:16] or you can't decide what is the best nut,

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:18] or can't agree on what is the best cheese.

S4

[1:14:21] Stop doing that.

[1:14:23] Listen to We Got This with Mark and Hal only on MaxFun.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:26] Your topics ask and answer objectively, definitively, for all time.

[1:14:31] So don't worry, everybody.

[1:14:33] We got this.

[1:14:34] We got this.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:36] Okay, everybody.

[1:14:37] We talked a lot about Roadhouse.

[1:14:38] Now it's time to talk for a few minutes about The Flophouse.

[1:14:41] That's right.

[1:14:42] This podcast and the things that we're going to be doing

[1:14:44] that we hope you help us do by taking part of them as an audience member.

[1:14:49] We've got a virtual event coming up.

[1:14:51] We're very excited about our show from last year at Vidiot's in Los Angeles,

[1:14:55] The Flophouse Sinks Speed 2, in which we talked about Speed 2.

[1:14:59] That show is going to be released in a beautifully professionally photographed and edited version,

[1:15:04] thanks to the people at StagePilot.

[1:15:06] That show is going to premiere Saturday, April 27th,

[1:15:08] and it's going to be available to stream as many times as you want through Sunday, May 19th.

[1:15:13] We are going to be in the chat box chatting along with the audience when it premieres, Saturday, April 27th.

[1:15:19] But if you can't make it to that time, you've got so many opportunities to watch it.

[1:15:23] You can literally watch it whenever you want to until May 19th.

[1:15:26] For those three weeks, yeah.

[1:15:27] For those three weeks that it's available.

[1:15:29] You're going to see the full show.

[1:15:30] There's behind-the-scenes kind of funny footage that we shot that the people who saw the show in person did not get to see.

[1:15:36] Sorry, people who saw the show in person.

[1:15:38] Wow.

[1:15:39] And there's all new presentations.

[1:15:42] The rest of the show is new.

[1:15:43] New question-answer stuff.

[1:15:44] It was a really fun show.

[1:15:45] We had a lot of fun doing it.

[1:15:47] Tickets are available along with VIP packages where you can talk to us one-on-three.

[1:15:51] And also exclusive merchandise for this event featuring art of us by beloved comics artist Xander Cannon of Kaiju Max and many other great books.

[1:16:00] That's all available at stagepilot.com slash speed.

[1:16:05] Stagepilot.com slash speed.

[1:16:08] Or if you like a longer URL, you can also go to stagepilot.com slash flop-house-speed-2.

[1:16:15] It's probably easier to go to stagepilot.com slash speed.

[1:16:20] But hey, let's say you're going to watch us on our computer.

[1:16:24] You're so excited about it.

[1:16:25] But you still want to see us in person.

[1:16:27] You are in luck.

[1:16:28] You are in luck if you live in England or close thereabouts because we're doing two shows, as we mentioned, in Oxford, England, our first ever British shows.

[1:16:39] We're super excited about it.

[1:16:40] We're going to be in Oxford on the night of 24th May 2024, which I think is the way they say it in England.

[1:16:47] They say 24th May.

[1:16:48] They don't say May 24th the way we say it here in the colonies.

[1:16:50] We're going to be there May 24th.

[1:16:51] We're doing two shows in one night, 7 o'clock show, The Avengers, the British version.

[1:16:56] The American version of the British version.

[1:16:59] The American version of the British TV show.

[1:17:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:17:00] From the 90s.

[1:17:02] Starring Sean Connery, Ralph Fiennes, and Uma Thurman, none of whom will be in attendance at the show.

[1:17:06] So we can say whatever we want about it.

[1:17:08] And then at 9 p.m., we're going to be talking Spice World.

[1:17:12] So for tickets and more information.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:13] And unfortunately, all of the Spice Girls are going to be there, so we can't say a word.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:16] So we can't say anything bad.

[1:17:18] No, that's not true.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:19] Although if you want to show up, you know, Jerry, Victoria, the others.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:26] The two Mels.

[1:17:28] Mels.

[1:17:28] Yeah, yeah.

[1:17:30] Sweeney.

[1:17:30] Is that one of them?

[1:17:31] No.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:33] Gerald.

[1:17:33] Oh, man.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:34] If Spice showed up, I'd be so psyched.

[1:17:37] And so for tickets to that, it's easy to go to flophousepodcast.com slash events.

[1:17:42] Go to the Flophouse listing and then click on the tickets link for individual shows.

[1:17:46] I know there's a number of buttons that say get tickets on the site.

[1:17:49] All of those, I'm checking them now, just seem to go back to our listing.

[1:17:53] So don't click where it says get tickets.

[1:17:56] Instead, click where you see the links for wegottickets.com, which is rated by tickets for the event.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:01] Yeah, that's just because the site has, it's just not important.

[1:18:05] There's no way of getting rid of that.

[1:18:08] It's just a long name on the site.

[1:18:09] What was Baby Spice's first name?

[1:18:12] That's the one we didn't remember.

[1:18:14] Widdle Baby?

[1:18:15] Emma.

[1:18:16] Emma Button.

[1:18:17] Yeah, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:17] Oh, yeah.

[1:18:18] The book is about her, Emma.

[1:18:19] So that's our Stage Pilot streaming event starting April 27th and going until May 19th, where you can watch the Flophouse Sink Speed 2.

[1:18:27] Go to stagepilot.com slash speed for tickets and merchandise for that.

[1:18:31] And we'll be at the St. Audio Podcast Festival in Oxford.

[1:18:34] Go to flophousepodcast.com slash events and go to more info and click the individual links for that.

[1:18:41] Or I'll just tell you, you can go to wegottickets.com slash events slash 606297.

[1:18:48] Or wegottickets.com slash events slash 606225.

[1:18:51] But we're super excited about those shows.

[1:18:53] Again, those will be all new shows.

[1:18:55] We've never done a show in England before.

[1:18:56] Can't wait.

[1:18:57] Hope you can join us.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:58] You know what, Elliot?

[1:18:59] Next time, I'll make you a tiny URL.

[1:19:01] Thanks.

[1:19:02] That'd be great.

[1:19:02] That'd be a good idea to have that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:05] Hey.

[1:19:05] A tiny URL that you can look at while you climb into your little acorn bed.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:11] I have to have a tiny URL because I'm just such a widow guy.

[1:19:14] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:15] Yeah.

[1:19:15] We're not good at navigating the online space.

[1:19:18] But you know who is?

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[1:19:26] You know, if you've got to manage a growing brand, Squarespace makes it easy.

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[1:19:32] You can engage with the audience.

[1:19:33] And you can sell stuff to them.

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[1:19:40] So, why not start with a completely personalized new website with the new guided design system that they've got, Squarespace Blueprint, where you can choose from various layouts, professionally curated styling options, and you can build up your online presence from the ground up.

[1:20:00] You can make checkout seamless for customers with the payment tools that Squarespace offers, except credit cards, in fact.

[1:20:09] Maybe not credit cards.

[1:20:12] Guys, what's happening to my speaking?

[1:20:16] I don't know.

[1:20:17] Can you explain it?

[1:20:17] Maybe we should get our…

[1:20:18] Am I getting some sort of aphasia as I age?

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:20] Yeah.

[1:20:20] Maybe we'll get Todd Vaziri to chime in.

[1:20:22] Yeah.

[1:20:22] Todd.

[1:20:23] Have I been digitally altered in some way?

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:26] What's going on with Dan's brain?

[1:20:27] Is AI causing the problem?

[1:20:28] Maybe.

[1:20:29] Anyway.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:29] Squarespace allows you to accept credit cards, PayPal, and Apple Pay.

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[1:20:48] My tongue has been twisted.

[1:20:50] Sell your products and services with an online store.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:52] His tongue is totally twisted.

[1:20:54] Oh, written by…

[1:20:56] Copy by Cormac McCarthy.

Dan McCoy

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[1:21:06] So, go to squarespace.com for a free trial.

[1:21:10] And when you are ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[1:21:22] Elliot, you can stop giggling bemusedly at me because now I'm done talking and someone else is trying to talk.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:29] I was watching that plane circle the runway for a while and I'm like, ooh, I don't know.

[1:21:33] This is going to be a hot one, folks.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:35] It's a little bit like watching my children eating a slice of pizza and gesturing with it.

[1:21:39] Me just worrying that the cheese is going to slide onto the floor.

[1:21:41] Oh, boy.

[1:21:42] But they finally get it in their mouth.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:44] Yeah, yeah.

[1:21:45] It's because they have that New York style speaking, right, where you use your hands a lot.

[1:21:51] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:52] I mean, honestly, Audrey talks with her hands a lot and we have a lot more red wine around the house because her mom gave us a bunch of it.

[1:22:02] And the combination of the two has me worried.

[1:22:05] But we'll see.

[1:22:05] I'll keep you updated.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:06] Yeah, keep us posted.

[1:22:07] Yeah, she's got a red wine in one hand and what, like a butterfly knife in the other?

[1:22:12] And they're just flying all over the place.

[1:22:14] Okay, so the Flap House is also brought to you by Microdose Gummies.

[1:22:20] Now, Microdose Gummies is an easy product for me to pitch because in addition to being a pitch man, I am also a user.

[1:22:28] I speak for both Dan and I in that I find Microdose Gummies to be a really easy way to enjoy THC.

[1:22:34] It provides a perfect entry-level dose of THC.

[1:22:36] Tender-hugging care.

[1:22:38] Exactly.

[1:22:39] That's what it feels like on your brain.

[1:22:40] Kind of, yeah.

[1:22:42] And as somebody who had been standoffish about smoking weed, just because I find that it hits me a little bit too hard these days and too quickly, I find that Microdose Gummies is a nice, easy entry to using THC.

[1:22:57] It's a great way to wind down at the end of the night.

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[1:23:02] Great way to activate the creative centers of my brain so that at the end of the night, I'm like, time to write up a new role-playing adventure for me and Dan to play through.

[1:23:13] Oh, boy.

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Elliott Kalan

[1:23:35] And I've got one more last promotional thing to mention.

[1:23:38] If you're listening to this episode on the day of its release, then just this past Wednesday, Hercules number one, the first issue of my new series from Dynamite Comics came out.

[1:23:47] It should be in comic stores still, unless it sold out, possibly.

[1:23:51] Who knows?

[1:23:51] In which case, tell your comic store to order new ones so that you can have it.

[1:23:55] Continues the story of the Disney version of Hercules from the Disney movie of the same name, but I'm introducing lots of new mythological creatures.

[1:24:03] Well, I mean, they're based on ancient mythological creatures, but there are new versions of them as the series starts with a few kind of one-off adventures that all tie together into a much larger mystery epic that will unfold over the course of 12 issues.

[1:24:17] And so I hope you enjoy it.

[1:24:18] If you liked my Hades series from Dynamite, then I think you're going to like this one too.

[1:24:22] And if you're listening to this episode the day it's released or the day after it's released, then I will be signing comics on Sunday, April 14th, the day after this episode is released, at Golden Apple Comics in Los Angeles.

[1:24:34] Golden Apple Comics, not Golden Apple Comics.

[1:24:37] Golden Apple Comics from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m.

[1:24:39] I'm going to be alongside a bunch of other great comic book writers, Amy Chase, Casey Gilley, Ryan Cady, and, of course, Jordan Morris, our own Maximum Fun neighbor, will be there too.

[1:24:49] We're all signing books that we've written recently, and I hope you can come by if you're in the L.A. area.

[1:24:54] So that's Hercules number one in comic stores now from Dynamite Comics.

[1:24:57] I hope you enjoy it.

[1:24:58] And if you're in L.A., come by Sunday, April 14th, and get it signed by me at Golden Apple Comics and meet Jordan Morris at the same time.

[1:25:06] He's a great guy.

[1:25:07] All right.

[1:25:08] Back to the show.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:09] Let us move along into the section that we call letters from listeners.

[1:25:16] Listeners like you, the listeners.

[1:25:19] This first one is from—

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:21] I mean, you covered all the bases.

[1:25:22] Yeah, sure.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:23] Yeah.

[1:25:24] I mean, you know, it's a sort of a circular explanation.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:26] And not litters from listeners.

[1:25:28] No.

[1:25:28] No, no, no.

[1:25:29] We don't want any litter from listeners or from moroners.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:34] This one is from John, and it says—

[1:25:39] From Cincinnati?

[1:25:40] Yeah.

[1:25:41] That's the one.

[1:25:42] I was just listening to your Sonic 2 episode, and when Dan recommended Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker,

[1:25:48] he mentioned how the flatness of the direction ended up being a plus to the film.

[1:25:52] I'm always fascinated when elements of a film stand out unintentionally but actually help the film.

[1:25:57] The first time this really struck me was with the movie Equinox, which is especially cheap and flat in the early scenes.

[1:26:04] Right up until the heroes find an ancient evil book, the prop of which clearly received much more loving attention than anything else thus far, and so stuck out.

[1:26:15] What could have been a jarring reminder of how cheap everything else looked served to actually bring a level of creepiness to the affair for me,

[1:26:23] as if these bland heroes had found something that truly didn't belong in their universe.

[1:26:27] Are there any favorite examples of elements of movies that unintentionally stood out to you but served to improve the experience for you?

[1:26:35] Keep on flopping in the free world.

[1:26:37] John.

[1:26:39] I mean, go on.

[1:26:40] If you have one, sorry.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:41] Yeah, I mean, I feel like part of the appeal of a lot of like Yorgos Lanthimos stuff is the way that everybody delivers their lines as if their brain had been taken out of one body and put into their body.

[1:26:52] I mean, especially in that one movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:54] I think that's intentional though, right?

[1:26:56] Like, I mean, he's directing.

[1:26:57] I guess you're right.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:58] I mean, I feel like, I don't know, it's tough for me to dictate intentionality on things.

[1:27:04] Sure.

[1:27:04] But I would say an example, one of my favorite movies from one of my favorite directors is the Suspiria remake by Luca Guadagino.

[1:27:12] And in that movie, Tilda Swinton plays multiple characters, including an old German man.

[1:27:17] And when she walks around as an old German man, she walks around a lot like when you can see Kermit walking around full bodied and he has like no weight.

[1:27:26] There's something very strange about the whole thing.

[1:27:29] And while I know for some viewers that the illusion was complete, I mean, for me, at no point did I think that this was an actual old man.

[1:27:38] And with that information in hand, I don't think it makes the movie any less.

[1:27:43] I think it's such an interesting, weird choice that it makes me like the movie more in a way.

[1:27:49] So I think that answers the question.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:52] They do something very similar in the movie The Old Dark House where they have a woman playing an angel.

[1:27:56] And it does create a kind of like, you know, offness, strangeness about it that works for the movie.

[1:28:03] That makes it feel eerie.

[1:28:04] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:05] The stuff that occurs to me is not as specific as I would like, but it's part of the reason why, you know, I like low budget movies a lot of the time.

[1:28:16] If, like, the effects look a little janky, there's that be kind rewind effect of, like, you're like, oh, they really tried hard.

[1:28:24] You know, like, you can see the effort in a way that charms you in the way that, like, a blockbuster movie that has all the money in the world, you are less forgiving of its failings.

[1:28:34] Like, instead, I'm like, oh, they all, you know, wanted to put on a show and they did it.

[1:28:40] And similarly, like, kind of in a similar vein, I enjoy how a bunch of regional horror in particular kind of serves as a documentary of, you know, the people in those areas.

[1:28:54] Because, like, as a low budget movie being made in areas where movies aren't typically made, you're seeing something different than, like, a Hollywood film.

[1:29:04] You're seeing houses that are actually real a lot of the time and how people live.

[1:29:08] Like, there's a film, Fiend, by Don Dallner that I saw because it was, like, a bad movie night pick of some friends.

[1:29:17] And it's just sort of shot in this cul-de-sac of a housing development in, you know, I think the early 80s.

[1:29:25] And I'm like, yeah, I just want to see what this is like.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:28] Let's see what's going on.

[1:29:29] Take me back there.

[1:29:30] Put me in their houses.

[1:29:31] Show me their food products and board games.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:34] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:37] I don't know if this exactly is the same thing along the same lines.

[1:29:40] But what struck me when I was thinking about this question is when I see a movie that is incomplete and either because parts are missing or they were never finished.

[1:29:51] And it enhances the idea that I'm just seeing a little bit of a much larger story.

[1:29:57] And it increases the scope of that story more than if I was seeing the full thing.

[1:30:01] Like, I've seen a couple of different restorations of Metropolis because it feels like every 10 years they discover a reel of film somewhere in a closet that is footage of Metropolis that seemed lost.

[1:30:12] But each time I see it, they have to use text to explain what scenes you're not seeing.

[1:30:17] And it kind of – for some reason, it makes it more exciting to me than if I was watching the movie all the way through.

[1:30:22] And each time it goes from text into a scene, it's like, oh, I'm diving back into the movie after kind of going up for air.

[1:30:28] And I just recently watched a movie called On the Silver Globe.

[1:30:31] It's a Polish science fiction movie by the same director who made Possession.

[1:30:35] And he started making it and then was forced to stop.

[1:30:39] And the scenes that were made are very elaborate.

[1:30:41] And there's a lot of costuming work and a lot of kind of very like kinetic camera work and things like that.

[1:30:47] But he didn't get to finish it.

[1:30:49] And so later on when he was given the money to kind of finish it a little bit, there are sections where he's just narrating what would have happened over footage of everyday Poland.

[1:30:57] Just people on escalators or walking around the street.

[1:31:00] And there's something about dipping in and out of this strange, fantastical science fiction world and then back into reality that enhanced the experience of how weird those science fiction scenes were.

[1:31:11] But also it's supposed to be taking place in the future.

[1:31:14] And so seeing these scenes of just ordinary people walking around, it created a continuity between like what you're seeing is fictional, but imagine it if it's just happening in the future history of this time.

[1:31:24] So these people who existed are just as real as the characters I'm making and vice versa.

[1:31:28] It made the movie more interesting to me than it might have been if it was this complete finished, you know, science fiction epic.

[1:31:36] So that's what comes to mind to me is sometimes a movie is incomplete and it makes it more powerful in that way.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:41] This next letter, the subject line is John effing Adams and it's from Jen, last name withheld.

[1:31:50] Who writes, hey peacher, hey peaches.

[1:31:53] Peaches.

[1:31:54] Peaches.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:54] We're the peaches.

[1:31:55] The peaches do to us, the peaches, you know.

[1:31:58] Yeah.

[1:31:58] I guess we're the peachies.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:00] Who peaches the peaches?

[1:32:04] Neither be a peacher nor a peachy bee.

[1:32:08] I'm a listener from Wales who is very much looking forward to seeing your live show.

[1:32:11] Oh, so like Jonah who was swallowed by a whale.

[1:32:14] No, no, without the H.

[1:32:15] I'm a listener from Wales who is very much looking forward to seeing your live show in Oxford.

[1:32:20] Whenever that is, I hope that our plug earlier cleared up the timing.

[1:32:25] Yeah.

[1:32:25] May 24th.

[1:32:26] Come see us.

[1:32:27] This morning, my cat woke me at 6 a.m., but I wanted to snooze some more, so I thought catching up with the floppers would help.

[1:32:34] I pressed play on the Santa Claus 3.

[1:32:36] Thanks, I guess.

[1:32:38] Stretched out and hoped a lengthy discussion of Martin Short as Jack Frost would send me off into a blissful slumber.

[1:32:45] And it did until you crept into my dreams.

[1:32:49] I was gripped by the powerful sensation that I was with you three and Alonso.

[1:32:53] You were all gabbing away, and I had one question I kept repeating over and over with increasing urgency.

[1:33:00] It was, who the fuck is John Adams?

[1:33:03] I didn't care about Tim Allen or how time must slow for Santa Claus.

[1:33:07] I was begging you to tell me, please, who the fuck John Adams is, and you were all speaking over me.

[1:33:14] Yes, peaches, my sleepy brain had forgotten what a podcast is.

[1:33:18] My question is this.

[1:33:20] Have you ever been watching a film and had a single question you're desperate to ask?

[1:33:25] And for a chaser, who is slash was John Adams?

[1:33:29] Keep flopping in the free world.

[1:33:31] Jen, last name withheld.

[1:33:32] I don't remember Santa Claus 3.

[1:33:35] I can feel that part.

[1:33:36] Well, no, I'm saying I assume we were talking about the president, but I don't know because I don't remember what we were talking about.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:43] Well, there's three possible John Adamses.

[1:33:45] There's John Adams.

[1:33:46] You feel this one.

[1:33:47] The second president of the United States.

[1:33:49] There's John Quincy Adams, his son, who is also president of the United States.

[1:33:52] And then there's John Adams, the opera writer, who wrote like Nixon in China, and he did another one about – what's it called?

[1:34:01] About Prometheus, I think it is.

[1:34:03] I don't know, something like that.

[1:34:04] About the atomic bomb.

[1:34:04] I presume it was the first one.

[1:34:06] Probably not, but only one of them is still alive.

[1:34:08] So John Adams, the composer, if you are still around and you want to feel this about who you are – oh, Dr. Atomic, that's what it was called.

[1:34:16] Yeah, he wrote Dr. Atomic.

[1:34:18] The death of Klinghoffer.

[1:34:19] So if you want to write in and elucidate us some more about you, please do.

[1:34:25] But yeah, the other two are – probably we're talking about the president, John Adams.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:28] Yeah, which I mean as a person writing from Wales, these are not marquee presidents in the way that you're Washington, you're Lincoln, you're Roosevelt, you're Jefferson.

[1:34:39] John Adams is number two.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:40] Yeah, let me just text –

[1:34:41] I know.

[1:34:42] I'm going to text Giamatti and be like, dog.

[1:34:46] Sorry, dog.

[1:34:47] You should have picked a bigger president.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:48] If you're not absorbing this in school as an American, maybe this is one that would –

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:54] It's how me and Giamatti rap, you know.

[1:34:56] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:58] Well, what about the other question about questions while watching a movie?

[1:35:02] Do you guys have any thoughts on this?

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:05] Well, I mean, the most recent one was over the last couple nights, my wife agreed to watch one of my favorite movies from a few years ago, Decision to Leave, the Park Chan-wook movie.

[1:35:17] And even though I was pretty sure this wasn't going to be exactly her thing, she wanted to watch it with me.

[1:35:25] And it did take us three different viewings, so three nights.

[1:35:29] And, of course, each time she fell asleep while watching it, I then would finish watching the movie by myself.

[1:35:37] So I watched the movie basically completely three times.

[1:35:40] And you know what?

[1:35:41] Loved it every time.

[1:35:42] I think it's great.

[1:35:43] Noticing new things each time.

[1:35:45] And one of the things that I looked up that I still didn't really get the answer to, one of the elements of the movie is that there is a language barrier between the two leads.

[1:35:55] He's a Korean detective, and she is a Chinese woman living in Korea.

[1:35:59] And so, and her, admittedly, her Korean is not the best, and she has some difficulty communicating.

[1:36:06] And there's a comment early on that leads to an inside joke between the two of them where she describes something as solitary.

[1:36:13] And I don't, and they seem to, they find it to be funny in a way that I don't quite understand.

[1:36:17] And I don't know if it's part of the translation or I'm just, like, missing an obvious joke.

[1:36:23] So that's something that I would love explained to me by somebody who understands what's going on.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:29] This is tickling something in my brain because I feel like I read something about how, like, there's different sort of, you know, just as in, say, French, you would use different words when you're talking to someone sort of, like, above you, quote, unquote, or, like, at your level.

[1:36:46] Like, that there are nuances of language in that way.

[1:36:50] Like, there's, like, formal sort of Korean versus informal Korean that plays into a lot of the nuances of the movie that we wouldn't get as English speakers.

[1:37:00] But I don't, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:02] I don't know about that specific thing.

[1:37:03] It reminds me of when Old Boy, another Park Joon-Chan-Wook movie came out, where there's the part where he slurps up a live octopus or squid.

[1:37:12] And I remember everyone who saw it in America was like, can you believe that scene where he does that?

[1:37:16] And the Korean audiences were like, that was not one of the weirder scenes in it.

[1:37:19] That's the thing that happens.

[1:37:20] Oh, did you see the end of that movie?

[1:37:22] It's like not everybody does that, but that is the thing people do sometimes, you know.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:27] My answer to this, I apologize, is not quite right because I don't think it's, like, asking people in the movie.

[1:37:35] But, and I also apologize to Stuart because I'm about to talk about a Wes Anderson movie at some point.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:40] Oh, I start ripping my hair out by the roots.

[1:37:44] I want to destroy something beautiful.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:47] But The Life Aquatic, which is, you know, a movie that I think baffled people when it came out who were sort of, you know, jumping on board the Wes Anderson train with Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaums.

[1:38:03] And, like, this then.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:04] Now he knows what a train is?

[1:38:06] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:07] Yeah, is your question, why is this movie so bad?

Dan McCoy

[1:38:11] So, it's a movie that.

[1:38:13] I'm joking, I'm joking.

[1:38:16] I liked when I first saw it and then has only sort of grown for me.

[1:38:19] And I think that now a lot of people who like Wes Anderson movies, it's one that they particularly love.

[1:38:25] And it's one that I love a lot.

[1:38:26] But this is all to say that it's a movie that feels very much like a shaggy dog story.

[1:38:36] And it's not.

[1:38:38] More like a shaggy DA story.

[1:38:41] It doesn't have, like, the most propulsive narrative.

[1:38:46] Through line at any means.

[1:38:47] Like, a lot of stuff happens.

[1:38:48] A lot of sort of stuff happens randomly in the sense of, like, a random world.

[1:38:54] Not, like, it's not, you know, meticulously constructed.

[1:38:59] But I guess my question is, like, at the end, the scene where, you know, Bill Murray, the famous scene where they're all in the submarine.

[1:39:09] They see the shark he's been looking for.

[1:39:12] He says, I wonder if it remembers me.

[1:39:15] And, like, that makes me cry every time.

[1:39:18] And I know I'm not alone in this.

[1:39:20] Like, a bunch of people, like, have this reaction to this.

[1:39:23] And I kind of want to grab Wes Anderson, buttonhole him, and be like, why?

[1:39:30] Why does this make me break down in tears?

[1:39:33] Because it's an unusual moment in an unconventional film.

[1:39:38] And I can't quite put my finger on what's happening there.

[1:39:42] So, I need Wes Anderson to explain my psychology back to me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:47] See, well, that is technically one question, I guess.

[1:39:50] Yeah.

[1:39:51] I don't really have an answer for this one.

[1:39:53] I feel like there's lots of times I've watched movies and I've wanted to know either how'd they do that.

[1:39:57] Or I'd wanted to, like, spend some more time.

[1:39:59] How'd he do that?

[1:40:00] How'd he do that?

[1:40:01] Or I'd wanted to spend some more time with a character and kind of see them existing longer.

[1:40:06] But I don't feel like I have one where there's just one movie with one deep burning question.

[1:40:10] You know, maybe I'm just too afraid to make myself vulnerable by admitting that I need to ask questions to learn things.

[1:40:17] You know, it's possible.

[1:40:17] Yeah, could be.

[1:40:18] You never know.

[1:40:19] Explain that to me, Wes Anderson.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:21] Ellie, you don't need to know everything, you know?

[1:40:23] You don't have to be the smartest guy in the room all the time.

[1:40:26] I neither have to be nor can I be.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:30] Let's move on to the final segment, which is recommendations.

[1:40:35] Movies that we saw recently that we may have enjoyed.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:40] Dan's furiously scrolling through his letterbox to get to Garbage Pail Kids movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:47] Stuart, why don't you go first as I think about something for a moment?

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:52] Okay.

[1:40:53] I've seen a lot of movies with Dan recently.

[1:40:55] So which one should I not – which one do you want to talk about more?

Dan McCoy

[1:40:59] No, just recommend what you want to recommend and then we'll –

Stuart Wellington

[1:41:01] Well, hell yeah.

[1:41:02] I'm going to recommend a movie I saw at the Nighthawk not that long ago.

[1:41:04] Now, granted, I was a pretty shit face when I watched this thing.

[1:41:08] It's Rennie Harlan's movie Prison.

[1:41:11] Not the act, not the actual place in the world prison, but the movie prison is what I'm recommending.

[1:41:16] I do not recommend the prison industrial complex.

[1:41:18] No, no.

[1:41:18] No, good.

[1:41:19] I'm going to go on a limb here and say it's bad.

[1:41:21] It's bad for humanity.

[1:41:23] So the movie prison, however, is good for humanity because it does star a young Viggo Mortensen.

[1:41:32] And what's the – who's the guy that's – who's the warden in that?

[1:41:36] Oh, jeez.

[1:41:36] I'll look it up.

[1:41:37] You'll look it up.

[1:41:38] I can't remember what.

[1:41:38] It's great.

[1:41:39] So this very much feels like Rennie Harlan doing like an audition tape to do a Nightmare on Elm Street movie.

[1:41:46] It's about a haunted prison.

[1:41:47] It does have Andre De Shields doing some amazing monologuing.

[1:41:51] I remember when I saw the trailer for this, I was like – I had never seen this movie before.

[1:41:57] I'd seen the VHS box.

[1:42:00] Who am I thinking of?

Dan McCoy

[1:42:01] Lane Smith.

[1:42:02] Yes.

[1:42:02] You may remember as the other attorney in My Cousin Vinny, among other things.

[1:42:06] Oh, my God.

Stuart Wellington

[1:42:07] He was on Lois and Clark, The New Adventures of Superman.

[1:42:09] He is making a meal out of this role.

[1:42:12] Yeah.

[1:42:12] He is going bonkers.

[1:42:14] Yeah, he was Perry White on it.

[1:42:15] Oh, it's so good.

[1:42:16] So I remember watching – when I saw the trailer for this, Andre De Shields' monologue features lines that were sampled in this skinny puppy song off of the album Rabies.

[1:42:29] And I was like – I remember hearing that song like 20-plus years ago and being like, where the fuck is this from?

[1:42:34] This stuff sounds awesome.

[1:42:36] And then when I saw the trailer at the Nighthawk, I'm like, I got to see this bitch.

[1:42:39] And you know what?

[1:42:39] I did.

[1:42:40] It was great.

[1:42:41] It's a lot of fun.

[1:42:42] It does feature a super awesome ending with lightning and crap.

[1:42:46] And it has those, like, classic old-timey special effects.

[1:42:49] Dan saw Prison With Me and we – man, we were hopping in our seats.

[1:42:54] It was amazing.

Dan McCoy

[1:42:55] Yeah.

[1:42:55] Let me – well, yeah.

[1:42:56] Let me recommend another movie that we both saw at the same time, and that is the film that we saw right before our recent Garbage Pail Kids, the night before, a film that Elliot was exasperated by because we were trying to schedule something.

[1:43:13] That wasn't going to happen anyway, but we were all like –

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:15] The only thing I was exasperated by was that you referred to the screening of this movie as if, of course, I would – we all know about it.

[1:43:20] Of course, we all knew this was happening.

[1:43:22] We were trying to plan something, and Dan said, well, I'm free every night except, of course, for the Clifford screening.

[1:43:27] And I was like, what the hell is he talking about?

[1:43:31] I think I was –

[1:43:31] It was just a presumption that, well, of course, I've heard of the –

[1:43:33] It does feel like a brain teaser at that point.

[1:43:36] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:37] To clarify, I was saying, of course, if I said that, I apologize to you, Elliot, for the confusion.

[1:43:42] I was saying it because multiple other people on the chain were going to the same thing.

[1:43:48] There was a 30th anniversary screening of the film Clifford at BAM, a film that was not successful at its first run but has acquired many admirers over the years.

[1:44:02] And star Martin Short was in attendance, the screenwriter, one of the two screenwriters for Clifford who were –

[1:44:11] I was going to say credited, but they were not at the time.

[1:44:15] Clifford sat on the shelf for like four years during which time the writers were like, maybe we'll take our name off this.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:24] There was also a friend of the Flophouse, Richard Kind.

Dan McCoy

[1:44:26] Richard Kind was there.

[1:44:28] I was getting to it.

[1:44:29] I was just looking up Stephen Campman, sorry, was the writer.

[1:44:34] And Paul Flaherty, brother to the recently sadly departed Joe Flaherty, was also there.

[1:44:42] So there was a – probably the best Q&A I've ever seen afterwards because Martin Short kept it fleet and funny.

[1:44:51] Richard Kind also very funny.

[1:44:53] Anyway, but the movie Clifford is what I'm recommending, not seeing a Q&A that you can no longer see.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:01] I don't know.

[1:45:01] The way you talked about it before, maybe you think everyone has access to this at all times.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:06] Anyway.

[1:45:07] It's also not the best one I've ever seen.

[1:45:09] The best one I've ever seen was still Only God Forgives where Ryan Gosling suggested that he would love to play Freddy Krueger.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:15] That was a great – I remember watching that with you.

[1:45:17] That was a great Q&A.

[1:45:20] Someone said, is there any role that you would love to do?

[1:45:23] And he goes, Freddy Krueger.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:24] And the crowd went insane.

[1:45:26] Like people started ripping the wallpaper up the walls.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:30] That would be a great role to play.

[1:45:31] That was also the Q&A where a guy gets – a young guy gets up and he goes – and Nicholas Wending-Ryphon was there.

[1:45:38] And he goes, I was wondering if you have any advice for a young filmmaker and the audience started booing him for asking that question.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:45] I mean, they were right to do so, but also poor guy.

[1:45:48] Anyway.

[1:45:49] So, yeah.

[1:45:51] What can one say about the movie Clifford?

[1:45:53] Except for in 1994, audiences weren't ready for it.

[1:45:58] A movie where a 40-year-old man played a sociopathic child locked in psychological warfare with Charles Grodin, also not playing a particularly nice man, but slightly more sympathetic when up against Clifford, the child from hell.

[1:46:14] I think that part of the problem was at the time people were like, what's this?

[1:46:19] Are we supposed to take Clifford seriously as an actual kid?

[1:46:23] Like are we supposed to be fooled by this?

[1:46:25] When, you know, I think comedy has caught up with it a little bit where part of the magic of Clifford, part of the joke of it is like, yeah, of course.

[1:46:36] It's not a real kid.

[1:46:38] Like he's utterly committed to it, but there's this distancing effect that's part of it that's funny and also allows for Charles Grodin to be so much meaner than he would if it was a real child, which makes it all the funnier.

[1:46:53] Because they're just being like so horrible to each other while having to keep it, you know, for social reasons bottled up under this layer of false cheerfulness that makes it all the funnier.

[1:47:06] I tell you that, you know, maybe it doesn't work so well at home, but with a crowd, Clifford killed.

[1:47:13] Yeah, it was really fun.

[1:47:16] What do you have to say for yourself, Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:18] I think I'm going to give, I'm going to partly recommend the movie I mentioned earlier in the episode, On the Silver Globe.

[1:47:23] I'm going to give that a qualified recommendation because it's the kind of movie that I think some people will find amazing and other people will not be able to stand at all.

[1:47:31] It is long.

[1:47:32] It is a very kind of abstract and intensely aggressive science fiction epic that does not have a strictly easy-to-follow plot in many ways.

[1:47:43] But the things that they do with the camera in it and the way that they stage things are often incredibly exciting and very, like, genuinely visionary.

[1:47:54] And something that I didn't kind of realize until afterwards is that much of the movie is, in the beginning, is told as if it is a message that was recorded by astronauts in a failed attempt to colonize a planet.

[1:48:05] And it's like, is this the earliest kind of found footage type movie that I've seen?

[1:48:09] I don't know.

[1:48:10] And it does it really well.

[1:48:11] But then the movie, there are things in it where I'm, there are images in it that I'm going to be thinking about for a long, long time.

[1:48:16] And then there are other parts of it that are very unpleasant.

[1:48:18] And it is a grueling and kind of, like, demanding movie in a lot of ways.

[1:48:24] So I'm giving that a qualified recommendation.

[1:48:25] If you like that sort of thing, then go for it on the Silver Globe.

[1:48:29] But if you want to just sit back and instead just check your brain at the door and just watch a really grim kind of nihilistic film noir movie, then I'm going to recommend a movie called The Prowler from 1951.

[1:48:42] I would say 1901.

[1:48:43] From 1951, this is a Joseph Losey movie.

[1:48:46] It was written by Dalton Trumbo when he was still blacklisted.

[1:48:48] So he's writing it under a pseudonym.

[1:48:50] And it is about a woman who has, she is, there's a prowler that is peeping on her through her window.

[1:48:57] She calls the cops and one of the police officers, Van Heflin, becomes kind of obsessed with her and decides to seduce her and then kind of steal her away from her husband and maybe kill her husband since it seems like he has some money on hand.

[1:49:10] And things, as with film noir movies, things go from bad to worse.

[1:49:15] And they just keep getting, the characters keep getting themselves into worse and worse trouble.

[1:49:20] And it was refreshing though to see instead of a movie about a man who has kind of taken down a dark road by a femme fatale, this is about a woman who at first you are geared up to think is going to be a femme fatale.

[1:49:31] And then it becomes apparent eventually that you're like, oh, this guy is bad.

[1:49:35] Like this, I mean, he's pretty bad from the, from the get go.

[1:49:38] But like this guy is, he's the, he's the femme masculine.

[1:49:41] I don't know what the, I don't know what the, the masculine fatale, you know?

[1:49:44] I don't know what it would be, the, the home fatale, but it's a, it's one of these noir movies where you're like, how dark is this movie going to get?

[1:49:51] Oh, even darker?

[1:49:52] And so I really enjoyed it a lot.

[1:49:55] And it's got that kind of a lower budget feel that makes it kind of more exciting rather than less.

[1:50:01] So it's called The Prowler.

Stuart Wellington

[1:50:03] Yeah, I was talking, I was talking to Griffin Newman about noirs after we saw Love Lies Bleeding.

[1:50:08] And he said something that, I don't, I don't know if this is something that he came up with, but the, the idea that like for a noir to be successful, you need to have your central characters to all be like broken on a central level.

[1:50:20] Like there has to be something missing or wrong with this person.

[1:50:23] Yeah.

[1:50:24] And I think, I think that's probably fair.

[1:50:27] Like you want, you want there to be a darkness there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:50:29] You want someone who is broken and knows it or is broken and doesn't know it because they're going to, otherwise it's, it's hard on a plot level to imagine them.

[1:50:38] Making the dumb decisions that characters have to make in film noir movies.

[1:50:41] Where it's like, everything is telling me this is wrong, but I'm going to do it still.

[1:50:47] Or a movie like, or a movie like Red Rock West where it's, Nicolas Cage is like, I could leave this town right now, but I think I'll stick around.

Stuart Wellington

[1:50:55] Or like when Jason Voorhees is like, I could blow up the house with the kids.

[1:51:01] Instead I'll do it one by one.

[1:51:04] Classic noir hero, Jason Voorhees.

Dan McCoy

[1:51:07] I feel like there kept being reasons why Nicolas Cage couldn't leave Red Rock West.

Elliott Kalan

[1:51:10] There's a couple of reasons, there are a couple of times he tries to leave and he can't, but there's a couple of times early on where he's like, you know what?

[1:51:15] I should go back and warn somebody about something.

[1:51:18] And it's like, just get out of there, Nick.

[1:51:19] Just get out of there.

Dan McCoy

[1:51:21] Hey, this, this, this episode is close to a classic link flop house.

[1:51:25] So we should wrap it up fast by saying thank you to our network, maximumfund.org.

[1:51:31] Check out all the other great podcasts over there.

[1:51:34] I'm sure you'll find something that you'll like.

[1:51:36] Thank you to our producer, Alex Smith, who goes by the name Howell Doughty on various socials and such.

[1:51:46] He's also a Twitch streamer if you want to check him out there.

[1:51:50] Speaking of socials, Dan, we're on threads now, right?

[1:51:53] Yeah, sure.

[1:51:55] We're on threads.

[1:51:55] There's a Discord now.

[1:51:57] I believe that at some point there's a message we're going to read about that, but an enterprising fan set up a Discord.

[1:52:04] So if you want to hang out and talk about Flophouse or related stuff, just like with people who enjoy the same things as you, you can check out that Discord.

[1:52:14] Search for that.

[1:52:16] Yeah, and if you have the inclination or the time, please spread the word.

[1:52:21] Tell someone that this is a show that you like.

[1:52:23] Leave a review on iTunes.

[1:52:25] It helps the algorithm with what it promotes.

[1:52:29] You know, all that stuff.

[1:52:31] All of it.

[1:52:32] Come on.

[1:52:32] You know what it is.

[1:52:33] You know what it is.

[1:52:34] You live in this modern world.

[1:52:35] Anyway, thank you for listening.

[1:52:38] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:52:40] I've been Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:52:42] I'm Elliot Roadhouse Kalen.

[1:52:45] Is that my new nickname I'm trying out?

[1:52:47] Do you think it works?

Dan McCoy

[1:52:48] Yeah, I love it.

[1:52:49] Okay, great.

[1:52:51] It's rowdy.

[1:52:56] We get to do our hobby as our job.

Elliott Kalan

[1:52:59] And we get to do a hobbit if we're married to one.

[1:53:03] Maybe on your birthday.

[1:53:07] It's your birthday.

[1:53:08] We'll do it Middle Earth style.

[1:53:10] We'll use computers to shrink me down.

Stuart Wellington

[1:53:12] Yeah, yeah.

[1:53:13] Let's take you to Mount Doom, baby.

Elliott Kalan

[1:53:16] That's where my ring in.

Stuart Wellington

[1:53:18] Good ones.

[1:53:19] Come on.

[1:53:19] Let us.

[1:53:19] Can we do more Weird Lord of the Rings sex puns?

[1:53:21] Yeah, sure.

[1:53:23] Begin the show.

[1:53:23] I'm feeling Nazgul tonight.

[1:53:26] Yeah, yeah.

[1:53:26] The Eagles should have just taken it.

Dan McCoy

[1:53:31] I'll just watch the Eagle do you.

[1:53:33] Anyway.

[1:53:36] Okay, here we go.

Elliott Kalan

[1:53:38] Wait.

[1:53:39] Tom Bombadildo.

[1:53:40] Okay, continue.

[1:53:41] Okay.

[1:53:42] Thank you.

[1:53:44] Maximum Fun.

Dan McCoy

[1:53:45] A worker-owned network.

[1:53:46] Of artists-owned shows.

[1:53:48] Supported.

[1:53:49] Directly.

[1:53:50] By you.

Ep. #422 - Road House (2024)

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