Ep. #421 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2, with Jamelle Bouie

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

[0:04] With two times the animals.

[0:06] Actually, three times the animals.

[0:08] Are we sure we didn't watch Sonic the Hedgehog 3?

[0:30] Hey everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse.

[0:34] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:35] And I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:37] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:38] Wait, wait, hey you, hey you, sorry, it's you, hey you, it's the MaxFunDrive.

[0:44] Yep, that's right.

[0:45] This is the final weekend of the MaxFunDrive, if you're listening to this episode, when

[0:48] it drops.

[0:49] And this is, you still have time, it may seem like the drive is over, but you still have

[0:53] time.

[0:54] Why don't you go support our show by going to MaximumFun.org slash join.

[0:58] Thank you.

[0:59] And Elliot, I believe we have an extra person here today.

[1:03] We do.

[1:04] He was so ready to introduce himself, which was great.

[1:06] And we love it when people do that, except we had to get in that plug.

[1:11] We're doing today, of course, it's Sonic the Hedgehog Part 2.

[1:13] Or Part 2?

[1:14] Yeah, because the original book was too long for one movie, so they had to break it up.

[1:18] That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:19] I mean, the second book was written because people just missed the message of the first

[1:22] Sonic book, which is that you shouldn't worship heroes.

[1:25] Yeah, the first Sonic, people took him too straightforwardly as a hero.

[1:30] They had to write Sonic Heretic, but...

[1:32] God Emperor of Green Hills?

[1:35] Yeah.

[1:36] Thanks.

[1:37] Joining us, as you recognize, of course, we couldn't do a Sonic movie without the Flophouse

[1:40] Politics and Hedgehogs correspondent, that's right, New York Times writer, co-host of the

[1:45] Unclear and Present Danger podcast, Jamelle Bowie.

[1:47] Jamelle, thank you so much for joining us for another Go Round the Sonic franchise.

[1:52] Thank you for having me.

[1:54] It is a pleasure to talk hedgehogs, Sonic, anything kind of like, you know...

[2:00] You're talking about Sonic the Restaurant, right?

[2:02] You like talking about the restaurant chains?

[2:04] Right, that's right.

[2:05] And also Sonic the Restaurant, right?

[2:06] I love to get those beverages.

[2:07] I guess they sell hot dogs?

[2:08] I don't know, I've never been to a Sonic.

[2:09] I've never been to one either.

[2:10] There was a point, at one point, where there was a flood of ads in the New York area for

[2:16] restaurants that you could not find in New York.

[2:18] Sonic Red Rooster, or whatever it was called.

[2:21] In like a golden corral, I was going to say golden alley, which is not it.

[2:25] Sitting there imagining the exotic tastes that you'll never taste.

[2:28] Yeah, exactly.

[2:29] Yeah, it's transmissions from another dimension.

[2:32] But it must be so disappointing to you that in your work on the New York Times opinion

[2:37] page, you very rarely get to talk about hedgehogs.

[2:42] It doesn't come up very often.

[2:44] Hedgehogs not really a part of the current political scene.

[2:46] It's very disappointing.

[2:48] I'd like to applaud you for your commitment to the bit, because I know for a fact that

[2:52] Elliot offered the possibility of a different movie, and you're like, no, we got to keep

[2:57] it.

[2:58] We got to keep going.

[2:59] We got to keep this train rolling.

[3:00] No, I'm like, I'm totally committed to this.

[3:02] If there's another hedgehog movie that emerges, I expect to be first on the call, first, of

[3:08] course.

[3:09] We're going to do an episode that's the whole series of The Knuckles Show.

[3:12] I know he's not technically a hedgehog.

[3:14] He's an echidna, very clearly.

[3:15] Yeah, echidna.

[3:17] Twice before watching this movie, they were like, we have no other ads, I guess, to put

[3:24] in front of Sonic 2, so you want to see the Knuckles trailer again?

[3:27] It's a confirmation to be like, this is your final chance to just tap out.

[3:33] They ran that long Knuckles ad during the Super Bowl, and rarely have I been so disgusted

[3:39] at what is available to us as a mainstream culture nowadays than just like, yeah, I guess

[3:44] Adam Pally and Knuckles have a TV show together.

[3:48] The bloody team-up we've been waiting for.

[3:52] Seems natural.

[3:53] I thought him and Gabrus was good, but I don't know.

[3:56] Certainly Knuckles is the better partner.

[3:59] So anyway, let's get into the movie, though, because Knuckles comes after.

[4:03] The Knuckles TV show comes after Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

[4:05] It's the, I guess, the third part of the trilogy.

[4:08] For God's sake, let's get this clear, because there's one thing I care about.

[4:12] It's the lore of Sonic the Hedgehog, man.

[4:15] Boy, howdy.

[4:16] Was I watching this saying, thank Christ that they included all of this lore about Sonic.

[4:24] Dan got shit on so hard on one episode where he was complaining there wasn't enough lore

[4:29] in Battle Angel Alita, but now he's trying to complain, retcon, and rechange his character.

[4:34] Now, here's the thing, Dan, you thought you were getting Hedgehog lore.

[4:38] If you happened to watch this on Amazon Prime and you paused it, the comments, the trivia

[4:42] that comes up, because they always show trivia when you pause it, it was paragraphs of text

[4:47] about the history of the different Emeralds and how they're different in the games and

[4:51] how Sonic started snowboarding in the games, and I was like, this is not trivia.

[4:55] This is too much.

[4:56] This is too much information.

[4:57] Well, this is the thing, right?

[5:00] There really is a dense catalog of Sonic lore that for people of our general age, if you

[5:09] play the Genesis games or whatever, did not exist, right?

[5:12] Then it was just sort of like, hey, this guy's super fast, and he's cool, unlike Mario, who's

[5:18] lame.

[5:19] That was the extent of it.

[5:21] Unlike Mario, who's kind of like a blue-collar, salt-to-the-earth, everyday American type,

[5:27] Sonic is like an elite.

[5:28] He's so fast.

[5:29] He has all those rings.

[5:32] But yeah, it's one of those things where I don't know if this is lore from the games,

[5:35] if it's lore from the cartoon show starring Jaleel White as Sonic, lore from the comic

[5:39] book series, which got very lore-heavy, where at one point, I think it was Knuckles became

[5:43] a living universe or something like that.

[5:45] I'm trying to remember, but anyway.

[5:46] I feel like so much has been extrapolated from that one animation that Sonic would do

[5:52] if you didn't do anything for a while, he would tap his foot annoyed, and you're like,

[5:57] So many people are like, this is a cool dude.

[5:59] This guy's got attitude.

[6:00] Yeah.

[6:01] He is, he is.

[6:02] We need to make sure everybody understands that he has a background.

[6:05] I did do some like, you know, I say the mildest of mild research.

[6:10] I glanced at it until I got bored, which was almost immediately to discover that, yeah,

[6:14] a lot of this stuff is drawn from the games, and like Jamel, like I had, you know, my relationship

[6:20] was like, oh, that guy's cool.

[6:21] He goes fast.

[6:22] You know, I didn't know that there was any story behind it.

[6:23] You might as well have lore about the dog in Duck Hunt.

[6:26] That's how I feel about it.

[6:27] Yeah.

[6:28] This is barely a character usually, but as we know, Dan is very interested in the post

[6:34] game lore in which Sonic has a baby.

[6:36] Yeah, that's what I'm fascinated with.

[6:38] Yeah.

[6:39] When Sonic is pregnant.

[6:40] Yeah.

[6:41] It's Shrek's child.

[6:42] Right.

[6:43] That's my understanding.

[6:44] Yeah.

[6:45] It's either Shrek or the green M&M.

[6:46] They can't figure out who the paternity is.

[6:49] So let's get into the movie, though.

[6:50] The movie doesn't cover Sonic being pregnant.

[6:52] I guess they're saving that for the third movie after the Knuckles show.

[6:55] And we watched the first one of these, right?

[6:57] We did.

[6:58] Yes, we did.

[6:59] With Jamel.

[7:00] Jamel was here for it.

[7:01] Yeah.

[7:02] OK.

[7:03] I kind of remember that.

[7:04] So the Paramount logo, you know, it's a special movie because they changed it.

[7:06] It's got rings instead of stars around the mountain.

[7:08] And there's just one logo I want to point out.

[7:10] One of the production companies is called Original Film, which I thought was pretty rich

[7:13] for the sequel to a movie based on a video game to have a company called Original Film

[7:17] making it.

[7:18] Anyway, we start on the Mushroom Planet.

[7:19] How do we know it's the Mushroom Planet, everybody?

[7:21] Wait a minute.

[7:22] This isn't Mario.

[7:23] Is this a is this a knock at Mario?

[7:25] Is this like is this a little swipe being like, oh, no worse.

[7:28] No worse punishment than to be trapped in a kingdom of mushrooms.

[7:32] Very possible.

[7:33] I was thinking about that.

[7:34] I know the last movie does end with Dr. Robotnik is that Dr. Robotnik being sent to a mushroom

[7:41] planet.

[7:42] I'm not really sure.

[7:43] And I was expecting some sort of Mario dig, but that, you know, I don't I didn't see one.

[7:48] Yeah.

[7:49] They seem to just take it for granted that, you know, mushroom plants are bad.

[7:51] And the text, the Mushroom Planet appears on screen later on.

[7:55] We'll see Seattle will appear on screen and then the movie will give up on telling us

[7:59] the locations of things.

[8:00] They just don't care after that, even though we then spend most of the movie in Montana

[8:03] and Hawaii rather than that.

[8:05] Is it?

[8:06] It's Montana, right?

[8:07] The greenhills.

[8:08] And who cares?

[8:09] Anyway, so we hope that there's an elaborate Rube Goldberg device that makes bad tasting

[8:13] mushroom coffee for Dr. Robotnik.

[8:15] Jim Carrey.

[8:16] He's been exiled there.

[8:17] It's day 243.

[8:18] And he's built.

[8:19] He's just like doing his thing.

[8:20] Right.

[8:21] And he's just like falling into that, like that safe zone of being really like wacky

[8:25] man.

[8:26] I mean, children's entertainer.

[8:27] This guy.

[8:28] I mean, I said it about the first movie.

[8:29] As a kid of the 90s, there's something very comforting about seeing Jim Carrey do Jim

[8:34] Carrey stuff.

[8:35] And so throughout the movie, seeing him do like funny things with his body or go like,

[8:39] oh, like pull extend syllables out really long.

[8:41] It's like you're back in 1994 and he cranked out three of the biggest hits.

[8:47] Yeah.

[8:48] I mean, that was far as well.

[8:50] She was this is a forest that was shot in the mask.

[8:55] And what's the other one?

[8:56] Dumb and dumber.

[8:57] Yeah.

[8:58] All one year.

[8:59] That's bonkers.

[9:00] That was his anus.

[9:01] Marilla bliss for Jim Carrey.

[9:03] And so he it's he's built a machine that I'm not exactly sure how it works, but it sends

[9:07] out a bolt of energy which causes alien warriors from another world to open a portal.

[9:12] His traps take out those warriors before he can step to the portal and escape the mushroom

[9:15] planet.

[9:16] And so Knuckles walks through, voiced, of course, by famed animation voice actor Idris

[9:21] Elba.

[9:22] Yeah, he was he was apparently a big fan.

[9:25] So he was excited to do the role.

[9:26] Yeah.

[9:27] I had no idea walking in that this was Idris Elba.

[9:30] And I was like, what is this sort of bizarrely sort of for a cartoon character?

[9:34] Low energy voice.

[9:35] It sounds kind of like, is that Idris Elba?

[9:38] And lo and behold, there he is, Mr. Thank you for that thought process that that that

[9:43] process of discovery was fascinating to hear about as it was to live, I'm sure.

[9:47] The flop house is nothing.

[9:49] It's sort of just an invitation inside our brains.

[9:51] And, you know, sometimes you come a knocking and there's not much there.

[9:54] I'm curious, was was is is Idris like a big Sonic fan?

[9:59] Is he like a.

[10:00] Or a guy, does he know the whole deal?

[10:01] Or...

[10:02] That's what he said.

[10:03] I didn't see him get quizzed on it.

[10:06] There's an actor in one of these,

[10:09] I mean, except for Scarlet Witch, I guess,

[10:11] there's very few actors, or Madam Web,

[10:13] there's very few actors where the actor is like,

[10:16] I don't know, I don't care,

[10:18] I don't know who these characters are,

[10:19] like, I don't know.

[10:20] They're always like,

[10:20] yeah, well, I've always wanted to play Gambit.

[10:23] You know, I've always, ever since I was a kid,

[10:25] I've dreamed of playing Flash Thompson.

[10:28] Just being like, hey, I'm an actor, man.

[10:30] This is my job.

[10:32] I don't know.

[10:33] There was, on Twitter, I remember people got,

[10:35] they were up, Marvel fans were up in arms

[10:36] because Taika Waititi was like,

[10:37] yeah, when I took that Thor gig, that was for money.

[10:40] I had to make money to feed my family.

[10:41] And they were like, you don't,

[10:43] you didn't do it for the love of Thor?

[10:44] Hold on a second.

[10:46] Like, the idea that actors have to be huge fans

[10:49] of the material before they're even in it is bonkers.

[10:52] But maybe Idris Elba is, I don't know.

[10:53] Maybe he's a huge fan of Sonic, I don't know.

[10:55] Yeah, if you're listening.

[10:56] I completely agree with everyone

[10:57] that no one should have to be a fan of these things,

[10:59] but it would be really funny if Idris was like,

[11:02] yeah, and I did this deep dive into Zanga

[11:04] to like, really do some research on Sonic.

[11:08] Uh-huh.

[11:08] DeviantArt.

[11:09] Yeah, there's some DeviantArt out there

[11:11] that posits some interesting fan theories.

[11:14] Interesting, he kept bringing notes to the set,

[11:16] notes to the set that there should be a love scene

[11:18] between Knuckles and Sonic.

[11:20] Just like, this doesn't make,

[11:21] the script doesn't make sense.

[11:22] There's no sex scene.

[11:24] I do have to say, Knuckles, first off,

[11:26] Knuckles is an echidna, which I saw many of

[11:29] when I was in Australia, and they do not look like him.

[11:32] No, they don't.

[11:32] The second thing is, I do love

[11:33] that he has a custom pair of Timbs on.

[11:35] They are not available for sale.

[11:37] I looked around, but they are very cool.

[11:39] Okay, but you're right.

[11:41] He does not really look like an echidna,

[11:42] but Sonic doesn't really look like a hedgehog either.

[11:44] So, you know, that's, we're dealing,

[11:47] we're in a world where it doesn't matter as much.

[11:49] Then we cut to Seattle.

[11:51] There's an armored car robbery in the offing.

[11:54] Sonic, of course, has to get involved and be a hero.

[11:57] There's only one song that makes sense

[11:59] for Sonic's attempt to be a hero.

[12:00] It's tricky.

[12:01] So, of course, that's what's playing on the soundtrack.

[12:03] As he caused a lot of damage,

[12:05] the driver of the armored car keeps being like,

[12:07] you're terrible at this,

[12:08] because everyone in movies nowadays

[12:10] has to be constantly kibitzing on everything that happens.

[12:13] And he only avoids running over a child

[12:16] by speedily disassembling the entire truck

[12:18] as it's going forward.

[12:20] I kind of like that bit.

[12:21] It's kind of a funny bit.

[12:22] I kind of like that bit.

[12:22] It's a funny bit, yeah.

[12:23] But he fails to be a good superhero.

[12:25] He runs all the way back to Greenhills, Montana, I think.

[12:28] It's either Montana or Missouri,

[12:29] where he briefly looks at a feather

[12:31] from his dead owl mom, Longclaw, who he misses.

[12:34] My brain is already shutting down.

[12:38] This is established in the first movie.

[12:39] He wants to go to bed,

[12:40] but he has plans to go fishing that day with Tom,

[12:41] James Marsden, who, when we're recording this episode,

[12:44] is not quite the favorite of the internet that he once was

[12:47] for various reasons we don't need to get into here.

[12:49] Elliot, I just want to jump in here now.

[12:51] You've breezed past two jokes

[12:53] that are like classic Elliot Kaelin hates these jokes.

[12:55] While on the Mushroom Planet,

[12:59] Jim Carrey says, like, holy shiitake or something.

[13:03] Yeah, I don't like that.

[13:04] And then Sonic, before crashing into a ice cream truck,

[13:09] says, like, holy sherbert.

[13:11] Yeah, he says holy sherbert.

[13:12] Both of those less five minutes apart, it's perfect.

[13:14] That is like classic Elliot Kaelin jokes.

[13:16] Don't like it.

[13:18] There's more sherbert like that coming up?

[13:20] It's true.

[13:21] I'd be lying if I said I thought this was a funny movie.

[13:24] Like, occasionally there was a joke where I was like,

[13:26] oh, that's kind of funny.

[13:27] But for the most part, I found it not very funny.

[13:29] I don't like it.

[13:30] So James Marsden takes Sonic fishing.

[13:33] Sonic is so tired, he falls out of the boat.

[13:35] Tom has to save him.

[13:36] And Tom tells Sonic, I know you went to Seattle.

[13:38] Stop playing superhero.

[13:39] You're just putting people in danger.

[13:40] And Sonic goes, you're supposed to be my friend,

[13:42] not my dad.

[13:43] And Tom goes, you're still a kid.

[13:45] You don't choose the moment to be a hero.

[13:46] The moment chooses you.

[13:47] And it's like, how old is Sonic supposed to be?

[13:49] I really can't figure it out.

[13:51] He says you're supposed to be a friend, not my dad.

[13:53] But it seems pretty much like they have adopted Sonic

[13:57] as their child.

[13:58] Like it is a family unit.

[13:59] And this is, they refer to him as being just a kid

[14:03] over and over again.

[14:04] I don't know what that means in outer space.

[14:07] But like, is he 16 or is he 10 or is he five?

[14:11] You know?

[14:11] Yeah, this is something I was wondering about

[14:13] the entire time as well.

[14:14] Because I feel like this wasn't in the first movie.

[14:16] It wasn't sort of implied at all that Sonic was a child.

[14:19] But here, I mean, they referred to him as their kid.

[14:23] Yeah, yeah.

[14:24] It's like poor things.

[14:25] You know, that's what it's saying.

[14:27] Okay, so they say, Sonic again was pregnant,

[14:30] makes sense, took the brain out of the baby Sonic,

[14:32] put it in Sonic's body.

[14:34] Now we get it.

[14:35] I mean, that's what happens in that movie, Dan.

[14:37] No, I know.

[14:38] I'm just extrapolating it out.

[14:39] I'm not Yorgos Lanthimos.

[14:41] I didn't make up, I mean,

[14:42] Poirlings is based on a novel anyway.

[14:43] So you're saying that in the third act,

[14:45] Shrek is gonna show up and take Sonic back

[14:47] and make some novels in him and imagine.

[14:51] Oh, this is me.

[14:52] This is my wife, Sonic.

[14:53] Come back to me now.

[14:55] Oh, it turns out he's shooting people all the time.

[14:56] Terrible.

[14:57] Yeah, okay, so someone, some Flophouse fan,

[14:59] please make the poor things Sonic Shrek poster, I guess.

[15:03] Anyway.

[15:04] Oh, you were just trying to do a Shrek?

[15:06] I was really confused by the accent earlier.

[15:09] No, I can't, I don't wanna know.

[15:10] Yeah, you felt sort of Swedish more than.

[15:12] I wasn't trying that hard, to be honest.

[15:15] So Tom and his wife, Maddie, they're going to Maddie's.

[15:18] I can't believe I'm Shrek.

[15:19] They're going to Maddie's sister,

[15:21] Rachel's wedding in Hawaii.

[15:23] Luckily, you don't have to fly

[15:24] when you've got ring portals that Sonic makes.

[15:27] And so much time is put into this wedding.

[15:30] And the end.

[15:31] Go on.

[15:33] Sonic makes a ring portal for them.

[15:35] And he gives them another ring

[15:37] to make a return home portal.

[15:38] That seems like it's not important,

[15:40] but this is a perfectly written screenplay.

[15:42] So of course that ring is gonna come back

[15:44] when we least expect it.

[15:45] And Sonic, he's home alone.

[15:47] He does a lot of kid home alone stuff.

[15:48] He's goofing off.

[15:49] He's eating junk food, making a mess.

[15:50] A lot of kid home alone stuff.

[15:52] So he listens to exclusively like 90s hip hop.

[15:55] Yeah, that's true.

[15:56] I mean, like every single movie made right now,

[16:00] every single human being's musical

[16:02] and movie frame of reference

[16:04] is that of someone who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s.

[16:07] That is entirely it.

[16:08] Later on, Adam Palin will make

[16:10] a very gratuitous reference to Ghostbusters

[16:12] that I also did not enjoy.

[16:14] I thought it was unnecessary.

[16:15] But anyway, Sonic has a foam party by himself.

[16:19] It seems like,

[16:23] do you guys enjoy any of this stuff?

[16:24] This movie is two hours long.

[16:27] And I would argue that at least an hour of it is cutable.

[16:35] Like this movie makes room for-

[16:37] Not the wedding though.

[16:38] I like the wedding stuff.

[16:38] Well, what would you cut?

[16:39] The dance battle?

[16:40] The dance battle?

[16:41] The inexplicably long dance battle?

[16:45] We haven't gotten to that yet.

[16:47] Unbeknownst to Sonic,

[16:49] a portal opens the outskirts of town

[16:50] and who comes out?

[16:51] Not Knuckles.

[16:53] Jamel, you're Sonic fan number one.

[16:54] Were you excited when you saw Tails,

[16:56] that's right, Sonic's best friend, show up?

[16:59] Yes, I was hugely excited.

[17:01] I can't wait to learn more about this double-tailed fox.

[17:07] I got nothing, guys.

[17:09] His name is Miles Prower, Dan, do you get it?

[17:15] Miles Prower, oh.

[17:17] Oh, that's Carmen San Diego level name writing, yeah.

[17:24] I.E. Criminal or something.

[17:26] In fairness to the writers of this movie,

[17:28] he's been Miles Tails Prower

[17:31] since Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 1993.

[17:34] Yeah, I wanna say that the-

[17:36] Thanks for the New York Times fact check

[17:37] on Sonic the Hedgehog.

[17:39] No pun intended.

[17:40] That's why they pay me.

[17:43] They went one direction for the voice of Knuckles,

[17:47] of course, they got Idris Elba.

[17:48] They got one direction to do the voice of Knuckles.

[17:50] Collectively, like a singular entity.

[17:54] Yeah, yeah, all of one direction together

[17:57] makes one Idris Elba.

[17:57] No, they went in one, I can't,

[18:02] they went one way with the voice of Knuckles,

[18:05] but Tails is, according to my research,

[18:08] the Tails from the games.

[18:11] This is the same voice actress who does Tails,

[18:14] which is why, on the one hand, Idris Elba is giving,

[18:18] you know, he's, like, I like him later on

[18:20] when, like, they use his sort of gruffness

[18:22] for comic effect, but it's not like a high energy thing,

[18:24] but she's giving-

[18:25] No, once he becomes a comedy character, he pays off,

[18:27] but before then, yeah.

[18:29] But she is giving the most voice actory performance,

[18:32] and I'm like, this has to just be like some, you know,

[18:34] and it's weird, because I'm, like,

[18:37] usually pro voice actors, but in this case,

[18:40] I'm like, this just sounds like kind of every, like,

[18:42] Saturday morning cartoon I grew up with,

[18:44] and we don't ever learn anything about Tails

[18:46] other than that they love Sonic.

[18:49] We learn quite a bit about Tails later on.

[18:52] So meanwhile, we go to, Tails flies out,

[18:54] we go to Hawaii, Tom meets Rachel's

[18:56] very handsome fiancee, Randall.

[18:58] So he, this actor, seemed incredibly handsome

[19:02] when I first saw him, but the longer I looked at him,

[19:05] he looked weirder to me.

[19:06] His beard is so weird.

[19:08] He has the tiniest little beard.

[19:09] I can't say I had that experience.

[19:10] I can't say I had any of that.

[19:11] It was like confusing my brain a little bit.

[19:13] It's like the fight scenes in the new Roadhouse,

[19:15] which, while I was watching it, I'm like,

[19:17] my brain isn't functioning.

[19:18] Bodies don't move like this.

[19:19] I don't know what's happening.

[19:21] What was it, like an uncanny valley thing?

[19:23] Yes, I think that's it.

[19:24] Yeah.

[19:25] I guess I could say, well, with this,

[19:27] I guess it's a little bit like when someone

[19:28] first pointed out to me how long the distance is

[19:31] between Bruce Willis's nose and his upper lip,

[19:33] and now I can't see it.

[19:34] Just how ridiculous it is.

[19:35] He just ruined my day.

[19:36] I'm like, look this up.

[19:38] It's just longer than you remember it being.

[19:41] And Rachel's like, Tom, she remembers that she got

[19:44] in trouble with Sonic in the first movie.

[19:46] She's like, Tom, if you wreck my wedding, I will end him.

[19:49] This is the beginning, end you.

[19:50] This is the beginning of a lot of wedding talk in this.

[19:52] At Sonic's house, uh-oh, Robotnik shows up with Knuckles.

[19:55] Knuckles punches Sonic a bunch, and he says,

[19:57] his Echidna tribe were the enemies of the tribe.

[20:00] that long claw belong to. Tails drives up in a police car and slams into Knuckles and

[20:06] is like, Sonic, I'll help you escape. And as Knuckles chases them on foot while they're

[20:09] in the car, Tails introduces himself and explains that Knuckles wants the legendary Master Emerald.

[20:16] Knuckles doesn't say this himself. Tails has to bring this information in. And Tails is

[20:20] a real Sonic fan, a real Sonic otaku, and keeps saying stuff like, only Sonic the Hedgehog

[20:26] would do this, about stuff that is not Sonic specific. Like, Tails starts flying and Sonic

[20:31] goes, did your butt turn into a helicopter? And Tails goes, only Sonic the Hedgehog could

[20:36] think of a butt copter. And there's a lot of that kind of, only Sonic the Hedgehog could

[20:39] save this thing when it's any, it's not that Sonic specific, you know.

[20:43] Elliot, how did you feel about the introduction of an all-powerful Emerald that everyone wanted

[20:49] to get? I mean, it's, it comes from the games, so

[20:53] I guess I have to allow it, but certainly it seems like, uh, it was dropped into our

[20:57] laps in a non-organic way. But I did like, one thing I did like, the movie did not start

[21:02] with five Emeralds were put together by the, by the Echidna clan. They wanted a powerful

[21:08] way, like, there's no opening voiceover prophecy. Instead, there's a middle of the movie voiceover

[21:13] explanation, but I was glad the movie didn't open like that. So, but how did you feel about

[21:17] a giant Emerald being the MacGuffin that they're looking for?

[21:20] My struggle with this film and look, I would like to put it out there into the world. I

[21:26] understand not all art is for me and certainly not maybe a child's movie about a game that

[21:33] I played only the first version of is, you know, maybe that's not a dolphin fan. Uh,

[21:41] but I could not latch into anything about this movie. We were like texting a little

[21:46] bit about it and joking about how there's all the, all that stuff about the wedding.

[21:49] I'm like, at least that stuff I could have my hooks into some sort of human stakes that I

[21:54] understood like here, like just like them all chasing around an Emerald that everyone wants

[22:01] for some reason. And I guess it's bad that Dr. Robotnik gets it because he's a bad guy

[22:06] and it's a powerful thing, but I'm like, I don't give a shit about any of this.

[22:13] What you're saying is it hurt your ability to really get invested in it, that we never really

[22:16] know what the Emerald does or why it is or why knuckles wants it or why anyone cares about it or

[22:22] why it's on earth or why long claw cared about it or any of those or how Sonic was supposed to

[22:27] protect it. Any of those things that hurt your investment because fundamental stakes questions.

[22:32] Yes. And the powers that the Emerald would grant was left up to the imagination until later when

[22:38] we see them actually work. So you don't really know what you're facing. What they should have

[22:42] done is like most modern horror movies, they should have somebody with the Emerald, like

[22:45] murder somebody real gross right at the beginning. Oh, wow. That's scary. Well,

[22:50] I think you're scared the rest of the movie. I mean, but that is a way of setting up the stakes

[22:54] of what's going on. It's like I remember years ago I saw a talk that a cartoonist Evan Dorkin gave at

[22:59] the end went to the NYU Science Fiction Club and he was like, there's always the cop that runs up

[23:04] to the monster in the movie so you can find out what the monster's powers are. And it's like,

[23:09] yeah, that's true. You got to show off what the monster's power and we don't know what it is.

[23:12] Jamal, but you may feel differently. You love movies about emeralds, right? So that's right.

[23:16] If I look to my left, I see my movie shelf and it's just filled with movies about emeralds,

[23:21] green emeralds, red emeralds, yellow emeralds. There's romancing the stone.

[23:27] Other ones, I'm sure. And there's there's I'm sure there's been a movie that Emerald,

[23:30] the chef has been in at some point. Yeah. Emerald finale section.

[23:36] Emerald finale section, which is what, two movies? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have that section.

[23:41] Oh, great. That's that's a filmmaker I enjoy.

[23:47] Wow. It's funny. This movie like kind of exactly replicates the problem with the first movie,

[23:54] which is that like, it's weird that this takes place on Earth and among humans. Like, yeah,

[24:00] I don't understand. Like, if this movie, if the Sonic movies are for kids and it's like all lore,

[24:08] it's like so much lore, then why not just like have it be in Sonic realm? Like, why does there

[24:14] need to be like actual human beings around for this? Because it's like, like you, Dan,

[24:20] I kind of I actually kind of enjoyed the wedding section, but it's also like super weird.

[24:25] It's like, why is there like this wedding, almost like a wedding crashers

[24:30] B-plot happening in this children's movie? It's very strange that so much time is being spent on

[24:37] Tom's feelings of inadequacy around his his sister-in-law's fiance's friends who are all

[24:43] super buff. And there's a part where they're like they're like showing each other biceps.

[24:47] And James Marsden obviously is also a guy who works out the idea that he's like a weakling.

[24:51] Yeah, he was Cyclops. But it wasn't exactly. He was Cyclops, the strongest of the X-Men.

[24:57] I wish in the movie his wife had been like, honey, don't worry. You were Cyclops.

[25:02] You were Cyclops. You weren't a great X-Men.

[25:04] So guys, were you guys so when I was watching the wedding stuff, in addition to being very

[25:09] excited about it, I was really wondering like Natasha Rothwell filmed this probably shortly

[25:14] after filming the first season, The White Lotus. Now, both of those were shot in four seasons,

[25:19] one in Oahu and one in Maui. Like, does she do you think she's got a lot of really good

[25:22] four seasons points? She gets a lot of bennies when she checks in for any question.

[25:28] We got a very strong way of looking at the situation.

[25:33] And those are the questions that the filmmakers want you to be asking while you're watching.

[25:37] I want to say, though, I had a very similar feeling towards the end when it's like we're

[25:42] watching three animated CGI animated animals fight a big robot. And I'm like, why wasn't this

[25:49] all just like animated? Why wasn't this an animated film? Why did they feel like they

[25:52] needed to like do the quote unquote live action Sonic? Well, it's the it's the thing it's it

[25:58] feels very classic to me in some ways, though, because this is the way they would have done

[26:00] this movie in the 80s or early 90s. Like this is the Masters of the Universe version of doing it.

[26:04] Oh, man. But it would have been a guy in a costume or like a puppet.

[26:08] Yeah, he would have been a puppet. He would have looked like Munchie.

[26:11] I would have. I would have. If this were a guy in a costume, five stars instantly.

[26:16] It would have been like it would have been like an animatronic face.

[26:19] And like, but essentially, I mean, I instantly like it more.

[26:27] Yeah, this is OK. Anyway, so.

[26:30] And Jim Carrey is kind of giving Jeffrey Jones and Howard the Duck style performance.

[26:35] Yeah, I guess so. I mean, it's also a Jim Carrey style performance, but

[26:39] but the it's big. It's a big performance. Yeah.

[26:42] Yeah. What came first, the chicken or the Eggman?

[26:48] Great. That was his head. I can't I can't. It makes me glad I have repeatedly not done

[26:54] the Laura Axe joke that I was going to do up to this point because it wouldn't

[26:57] have been able to compete with that word play.

[26:59] Hey, so you're probably asking, what is the Max Fund Drive?

[27:06] Now, the Max Fund Drive just wrapped up or is wrapping up this weekend,

[27:09] but there's still time to act.

[27:11] And I'm going to tell you for a moment what the Max Fund Drive is all about.

[27:14] Now, the Max Fund Drive is the one time of year where we, the creators of these shows,

[27:19] come to you, the listeners of these shows and say, please, why don't you support us

[27:23] with your hard earned money? And why do we ask that?

[27:25] It's because that's the primary way our shows make money.

[27:29] You know, we get to make the show that we want without having to be without having

[27:34] any interference from some corporate overlords. I don't know if you are sick of things

[27:39] just constantly being regurgitated onto your streaming services.

[27:42] Well, we get to make whatever we want. And the big reason we're able to do that

[27:46] is because we are supported through money from you.

[27:50] And that's a big deal. I know my co-host Dan Nelliot

[27:52] struggle with that kind of stuff all the time in their day jobs.

[27:57] I mean, if I had a day job currently, that would be a thing I struggle with.

[28:01] But yeah, no, it's a great advantage of the Max Fund Drive is you get to sort of put your

[28:08] money where your mouth is when it comes to supporting the stuff that you like

[28:13] directly, as directly as possible.

[28:16] And then we get to take that money and use it to do things like, I don't know,

[28:20] hire friends of ours to be the editor of the show, hire friends of ours to

[28:24] design artwork for the show.

[28:26] And that sounds like nepotism.

[28:27] I don't know. I feel like being able to spend money on people that are important to you

[28:32] is good and support art.

[28:35] We don't hoard that money. We're not using it to buy back

[28:37] dividends of Flophouse stock or anything like that.

[28:40] I could be doing that.

[28:42] Or give huge bonuses to executives. We use it to make this show.

[28:46] We use it to support ourselves so that we can live, but also to make this show and

[28:50] to support other artists who either collaborate with us on the show or are just in the

[28:54] That's a much nicer way of putting it than I did.

[28:57] Now, you're probably wondering at this point, you're like,

[28:59] how do I support a show like yours financially?

[29:02] Well, you want to go over to maximumfund.org join.

[29:05] And what you can do is if you're not a supporter yet, you can join.

[29:09] If you join at the $5 a month level or more, that actually grants you access to

[29:15] our entire catalog of bonus content, hours and hours of additional material.

[29:20] If you're already a member, you can actually upgrade,

[29:23] and that'll give you access to some of the other bonus items, some additional cool toys,

[29:28] things that the network had put together this year.

[29:32] Swag is what we call it, just general swag.

[29:34] And you can also, if you can't reach the next tier,

[29:36] you're also able to boost your monthly support, which is great.

[29:40] Which can be nice if like, say you started listening to another Max Fund show,

[29:45] you don't have enough money to jump up in your donations to the next tier,

[29:50] but you're like, you know what?

[29:51] Because I'm listening to multiple things, let me just knock it up a little bit.

[29:56] And Max Fund is also there for you to give you the option to either support.

[30:00] monthly, or if you'd rather do it all in one lump sum, they also provide the option to do it

[30:05] annually, so you don't have to think about it throughout the year.

[30:09] So why don't you please go and support our show? If you've listened to this much nonsense already,

[30:14] I think it's time to support it. So why don't you head over to MaximumFun.org slash join

[30:20] and support us today. So anyway, this is a sequel to a modern movie, so of course,

[30:27] every single character from the earlier movies has to come back. So of course, we see Robotnik's

[30:30] Smithers-style assistant, Stone, who runs a coffee shop in Green Hills. Though, was it clear to you

[30:36] guys that that's where it was located early on? Not really. To me, it was not. I didn't know where

[30:40] it was, and then suddenly Adam Pally showed up at this coffee shop, and I'm like, oh, so it's been

[30:44] in the same town as Sonic all this time. I didn't realize that. I mean, they didn't give you a

[30:48] location card, like the first two locations of the movie, so I could see why you'd be confused.

[30:52] How can I know? Did anyone know? There's a shot, I think, later in the movie where you see

[30:56] the coffee shop's sanitation grade or whatever. It's F-minus. I thought that was funny.

[31:02] That was right. Yeah, it's a great joke. Yeah, he switches from open to close. He

[31:07] switches the grade from A to F-minus, so I thought that was... Oh, man. Yeah. Because he doesn't want

[31:11] people to come in, because he's turning it into a villain HQ when he finds out that Robotnik is

[31:15] back. He sends a spaceship to bring Robotnik an army of robots and a coat. He needs a new coat,

[31:21] and Robotnik makes a deal with Knuckles. They're going to work together to find the Emerald and

[31:24] destroy Sonic. So Sonic takes Tails to Wade's house. Wade is Adam Pally, Tom's loser co-worker,

[31:31] and Sonic has a map from his mom, and the map decides at this moment to project a hologram

[31:36] of Longclaw that explains what the Master Emerald is and why it's on Earth and has the powers to

[31:40] turn thoughts into reality. It's the kind of thing where you're like, so this was not something that

[31:44] the map felt the need to inform Sonic about before this moment. This was just... The map

[31:49] was waiting for someone to say Master Emerald around it or something like that, and this is

[31:53] when they'd cut to a close-up of Wade, and he goes, like the Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters,

[31:58] and I was like, movie, enough. I don't need any more 80s movies telling me how to understand

[32:02] modern movies. It triggered the same reaction in me as in The Flash, when they were like,

[32:09] oh yeah, because Back to the Future, blah blah blah. It's like, can I have a different frame

[32:13] of reference for anything in life that is not movies from the 1980s? Guys, tell me why I'm

[32:18] wrong. Tell me why I'm a curmudgeon. Well, I think that you were wrong in The Flash,

[32:23] because I do think that Back to the Future is still kind of a standard way of thinking

[32:26] about time travel, but here it comes out of nowhere, I agree. It's part of the collective

[32:32] culture, Elliot, where we all absorb similar information. There was a time when the collective

[32:39] culture covered everything from Howdy Doody to William Shakespeare, and now it just seems to be

[32:44] movies that came out between 1982 and 1992. If Howdy Doody or William Shakespeare dealt with

[32:49] time travel, maybe we would talk about it in The Flash. William Shakespeare did deal with

[32:53] time travel in The Timepist. The Timepist, shut up. My problem is, okay, you say that the Emerald

[33:00] can make thoughts real or whatever. Then why is Robotnik's plan later on just to have a big robot

[33:06] that goes around smashing things? It seems like he's unstoppable. And then when he loses the

[33:10] Emerald, the robot stays fine. You wouldn't want a fucking mecha? That wouldn't be your first wish,

[33:13] is to have a giant mecha so you can do a mecha battle? You're unstoppable. You don't have to

[33:19] fight people with a robot. You can have the robot if you want it. Well,

[33:24] pointing to the only frame of reference that exists, media from the mid to 80s to early 90s,

[33:30] in the Infinity Gauntlet series, Thanos gets the Infinity Gauntlet, and it takes him time to get

[33:35] used to being a god. And so first, he's thinking in the way a mortal would think, and he's doing

[33:39] mortal things. He's fighting hand to hand rather than just snapping his enemies out of existence.

[33:43] Maybe it's something like that. It's a process. Yeah, there's a learning curve. Okay. Dan,

[33:48] when you get the Master Emerald and you have godlike power, let me see how fast you get used

[33:52] to it and you understand how to harness it. I'm going to wait for the Emerald.

[33:56] What are you going to do with that Emerald, Dan? What is the first thing you're going to do?

[33:59] I don't know, man. World peace? And then after that's done, I'll attend to my own needs.

[34:05] Just hang out. So one world peace, two butts. That's basically the way it goes? Okay.

[34:11] I'm afraid of any kind of unlimited power, wealth, because I can see my... I'm an immediate path. I'm

[34:17] the Howard Hughes train, you know? Just you and your Emerald DVDs just sitting there

[34:24] all alone in a room. Jars full of Emerald colored piss, you know.

[34:29] Drinking nothing but shamrock shakes.

[34:34] I feel like I do the... We haven't made those in years. We have to make them.

[34:38] Mr. Bui says that's all he'll drink. I feel like if I got one of these Emeralds,

[34:43] I'd go straight to Bezos land or Bezos land and try and turn myself into Pitbull, basically.

[34:50] I mean, you're doing pretty good already. Thank you. That's what I was fishing for.

[34:54] Yeah. My goals are a little less ambitious. I say to my wife all the time, I'm like,

[34:58] I wish I was... If I was rich, I could get the things that I want to get. And she's like,

[35:02] well, what do you want to get? And I'm like, well, there's this person who's selling an

[35:04] ichthyosaurus skeleton on eBay, and I've really wanted it for a long time, and I want to make

[35:09] it into a coffee table. Yeah, you'd be drowning in ichthyosaurus skeletons. I just need the one.

[35:14] But anyway, there's also a triceratops skull that someone's selling. It's very expensive.

[35:18] And Longclaw was like, it was my job to protect the Master Emerald. Now it's your job, Sonic.

[35:22] It's hidden on Earth. And he goes, I'm not gonna let you down, Mom. The map says they need a

[35:25] compass to find the Emerald. Seems like an unnecessary extra step. They already have a map.

[35:30] The compass is in Siberia. Tails is afraid to go, and Sonic is like, I'll protect you.

[35:34] Meanwhile, in Hawaii, Tom is so intimidated by Randall and his friends. And Tom is like,

[35:38] I wish Sonic had close friends. And he entertains the ring bearer, a little girl,

[35:43] with a disappearing ring magic trick. Tom, that's gonna be a mistake down the line.

[35:47] Siberia. Sonic and Tails are lost in a storm. They take shelter inside a tough Russian saloon.

[35:52] And Tails is like, I'm an inventor. I've got all these gadgets. I've been monitoring you,

[35:55] Sonic, all the time using my gadgets. And meanwhile, Robotnik and Knuckles are tracking

[36:00] them through Sonic's phone at this time. Tails has a translation machine, but it doesn't work,

[36:05] it accidentally translates what they're saying into rude Russian sayings and offends everybody.

[36:09] So they have to have a dance battle with some mean-looking Russians. And they win by

[36:14] completely cheating. They use Tails' gadgets to create a hologram field of other Tails'.

[36:20] They dance to Uptown Funk. This goes on for a very long time.

[36:24] Every once in a while, like that. It's cheating to dance to Uptown Funk?

[36:29] The what? It's cheating to dance to Uptown Funk.

[36:31] I feel like a lot of wedding receptions. Uptown Funk is scientifically designed to

[36:36] get everybody to dance. It's a song that I don't like, but I have to dance to it.

[36:40] You have to, scientifically, yeah. You lose control of body and soul,

[36:45] which is a different song, but it describes what happens when you listen to Uptown Funk.

[36:49] There's a sight gag that works for me, just like the F-minus one. There's one here that I enjoyed,

[36:55] where it's them looking around the room, and one person has a knife, and they're like,

[37:00] and another person is scared, and they're like, and they look over at a woman knitting,

[37:04] and they're like, oh, phew. And then she holds up what she's knitting, and it's a skull and

[37:07] crossbones. That's a good joke. That was a good joke. That was a good joke.

[37:10] Credit to the Sonic team. Yeah.

[37:12] Enjoyed that one. They did. And then later,

[37:14] she holds that knitted skull up like a mask when they're all intimidating them, so that was very

[37:19] funny. They win the dance contest. Tails is grateful to have a friend. His double tails,

[37:24] they made him an outcast at home, but seeing Sonic and seeing how weird Sonic is

[37:29] made him feel, hey, there's a friend for me out there, and so that's why Tails decided to go

[37:33] find Sonic. The next day, Randy Newman comes in and sings a song about it, and then, yeah.

[37:38] Yeah, because you got two tails on you. That's how it goes. Yeah, for Tail Story.

[37:44] That's the movie he wrote that for. Start featuring Buzz Lightyear, and anyway.

[37:50] Can he keep going? I can't. That's all I got.

[37:54] That was pretty good, though. Produced by John Assiter. Anyway, so

[38:00] the next day, they find the magical cave. There's carvings everywhere that tell the backstory of the

[38:04] Master Emerald and how the Echidnas made it and the long claws that hit it, and as a viewer right

[38:07] now, I was like, yeah, I got it. I don't need to know that. This is not helpful, but they animated

[38:13] it in a cool style. It was done in a cool animated style. Anyway, they get the magic compass from an

[38:18] owl statue, but then Robotnik and Knuckles ambush them. This turns into a snowboarding laser chase,

[38:23] just like in the video games. Were you guys excited to see Sonic snowboarding,

[38:27] just like in the video games? Right, guys? Yeah, anything extreme, man, you know.

[38:32] I didn't know he snowboarded. Yeah, I didn't either, actually.

[38:37] He snowboards in, you know, I joke that I don't know anything about Sonic, but here I am. He

[38:41] snowboards, I believe, in the Sonic Adventure games. Okay. It's not like Sonic Sports or

[38:47] something like that, because Mario, he'll do anything. He'll do any kind of game. Sports,

[38:50] puzzles. He said he was a doctor for a little while. Yeah, that was not cool.

[38:54] Yeah, people really questioned that one. They were like, Mario,

[38:59] why are you prescribing these pills? Where are you getting this stuff from? Where is it coming from?

[39:04] Today, the best soundtrack of a video game is the soundtrack for Dr. Mario.

[39:08] I don't know if I'd say best, but it's up there. It's right up there with Tetris and Mega Man 2,

[39:12] for sure. Anyway, snowboard chase. During it, Knuckles reveals that his father died in the

[39:19] same battle that Long Claw died in, and Sonic was like, oh, we both lost everything. Robotnik

[39:25] steals the compass and hurts Tails. I don't remember how. Maybe he hits him in the head

[39:28] with a hammer. Maybe he shoots him with a laser. I don't remember. Sonic goes to help Tails not

[39:32] to chase Robotnik, and this impresses Knuckles for a moment. And the bad guys escape, and an

[39:36] avalanche is about to bury our heroes. So he calls, they're snowboarding ahead of this avalanche. He

[39:40] calls Tom, which interrupts the wedding. He's like, use my portal ring to make a portal. Uh-oh.

[39:46] Tom doesn't have the portal ring in his pocket. He has the groom's ring. He switched the rings

[39:50] by accident when he did that magic trick. So he has to go and get the ring in the middle

[39:55] of the wedding ceremony. He can't explain to them, I am the dad of an extra dimension.

[40:00] blue hedgehog and I need to open a portal.

[40:02] But there is something that he can't explain, and this made me so mad because he's just

[40:05] like, all he does is like, uh, can I see the ring?

[40:07] I really need to see the ring.

[40:09] Could you just give me the ring?

[40:10] Like, and you have the other ring that you switched out, just say, this is the wrong

[40:16] one.

[40:17] You want yours right?

[40:18] I'm taking to get it appraised.

[40:19] Yeah.

[40:20] Yes.

[40:21] Instead of saying, I'm sorry, I just realized I was performing a magic trick and I accidentally

[40:23] mixed up your ring with another.

[40:24] He just won't tell them and then punches Randall to get the ring, which again, a worse solution

[40:29] I would argue.

[40:30] You guys, I kind of wish that the wedding had happened slightly, uh, like they'd completed

[40:35] the wedding entirely before all these shenanigans happened and that like the portal had appeared

[40:39] on somebody's hand.

[40:40] I thought that would have been way better body horrors or the, or the honeymoon night.

[40:46] Like there's a, they're, they're, they're in bed for this, especially with the twist

[40:50] that is coming up.

[40:51] I wish that all of the, this had been revealed, uh, the shenanigans happened after the wedding

[40:55] is what I'm saying.

[40:56] Yeah.

[40:57] Yeah.

[40:58] Yeah.

[40:59] Yeah.

[41:00] Yeah.

[41:01] Without it.

[41:02] Oh yeah.

[41:03] The revelations we get.

[41:04] Yeah.

[41:05] Well this, the revelations make you wonder how far this wedding was going to go.

[41:06] So we'll get to there.

[41:07] But, uh, they open up a portal and avalanche comes out at Rex.

[41:08] The wedding doesn't really hurt anybody.

[41:09] So I guess Sonic didn't need help that badly.

[41:12] Uh, but maybe it's just a portion of the snow came through Randall, his groomsmen and the

[41:15] officiant.

[41:16] Now that Sonic is there, they reveal that they are all federal agents set to capture

[41:19] Sonic as part of operation catfish because the easiest way to capture Sonic when you

[41:24] are a federal agent with law enforcement power is to get into a relationship with Sonic's

[41:29] aunt and then get a date for months, presumably sleeping together several times, right?

[41:37] Exactly.

[41:39] They did not strike me as a chaste couple.

[41:40] They struck me as a couple that would give into their physical, you know, they seem fun.

[41:44] They seem to really love each other.

[41:47] Their physical hunger is a very funny way of putting it.

[41:52] Look, I think about sex the way I think about Snickers.

[41:57] There's a hunger inside you, there's a hunger inside me, yeah.

[42:00] I'm going to totally slip that into my therapy session later today.

[42:05] And just the fact that they had to send out invitations and all that, they had to put

[42:10] seating arrangements together, I assume, for this operation.

[42:13] And Rachel, understandably, is livid.

[42:16] She has been used.

[42:17] It's not fair.

[42:18] Yeah.

[42:19] And Sonic and Tom and Tails get captured.

[42:21] Luckily, Rachel and Maddie, Maddie, Sonic's mom, adopted mom, they find Tails' backpack

[42:27] full of gadgets and they use it to save Sonic and Tom and Tails in various ways.

[42:31] We need to talk about all those gadgets.

[42:32] Randall feels guilty about tricking Rachel and the federal agent leader is like, don't

[42:36] be, we had to do this, come on.

[42:38] She goes after them for revenge using like a laser.

[42:41] And when the lead agent tries to tase her, Randall leaps in front of it and gets tased

[42:45] instead.

[42:46] And he admits that he does love her and they kiss.

[42:49] And I was like, again, this is, yeah, in some ways, this is the most, this is the stuff

[42:54] that's most like kind of understandable on a human level.

[42:56] But why is it the Sonic the Hedgehog?

[42:57] I don't, I don't understand.

[42:58] But I just thought, how far were they going to go?

[43:00] Because the wedding was almost over.

[43:02] They were putting rings on each other's fingers.

[43:04] I'm also genuinely curious about the theocracy behind this one.

[43:07] Like, who signed off on this, right?

[43:10] And presumably, right?

[43:11] Like Sonic extraterrestrial being, you know, immense power.

[43:15] Like this isn't, you know, this is the FBI, I guess.

[43:19] So it's like, it's a new, it's a new organization called G.U.N.

[43:22] That I think is international.

[43:23] International.

[43:24] Because if it's like federal, it's like, okay, let's just say they're ATF agents.

[43:30] So I guess they are, they report to the Secretary of Homeland Security.

[43:33] But like if we're dealing with extraterrestrials, that's like going to the present.

[43:37] So it was like, this was filmed in, you know, it was like Biden, sort of like, yeah.

[43:45] And this is why we got a good hedgehog.

[43:47] Dan, do that Joe Biden impression you've been trying to, you were just showing to me.

[43:52] Should I get the ice cream?

[43:53] Malarkey.

[43:54] This is why Jamel is our hedgehog correspondent, because only you know the hierarchy that they

[44:00] have to talk to to get these kinds of operations off the ground.

[44:02] So let's say, let's take a moment.

[44:04] We don't have a lot of time.

[44:05] But let's take a moment to just say, okay.

[44:08] There's an alien hedgehog on Earth.

[44:11] How does the federal government react to this?

[44:13] Like what legally can they do?

[44:15] How does it go up the chain of command?

[44:16] What do you think would happen?

[44:17] Well, I think Dan had it about right.

[44:20] A piece of paper goes to the president.

[44:23] And he either signs it, hell yeah, or malarkey, and then that just authorizes or denies whatever

[44:30] operation they have.

[44:31] I think he has stamps at this point.

[44:32] Yeah, stamps.

[44:33] And is this under, I mean, it can't be the Secretary of Defense, right?

[44:37] Because they can't operate, the army's not supposed to operate domestically, right?

[44:41] So this would be, this would either be the FBI or some homeland security agency.

[44:47] Either way, the president, although if it's the FBI, the president isn't like directly

[44:51] involved.

[44:52] Either way.

[44:53] Is it the Justice Department?

[44:54] Yeah, there's some technical separation there.

[44:56] And now they just released that report, the government just released a report basically

[45:00] being like all those UFO sightings, they weren't UFOs.

[45:03] Do you think this falls under that?

[45:05] Is there some kind of extraterrestrial intelligence gathering operation that would be like, we

[45:09] were wrong, the aliens do exist, and they're blue hedgehogs that want to be superheroes

[45:14] and love 80s and 90s pop music?

[45:16] Is it, that would send tremors through the government, right?

[45:20] Maybe.

[45:21] Okay, so this just reminded me, the funny thing about that UFO report is, you know who

[45:25] was really adamant that the government release whatever it knew about UFOs?

[45:30] Late, now late, but former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was like, we gotta get this

[45:35] stuff out, get this stuff out to the public.

[45:38] We gotta let the people know.

[45:40] So my understanding of that was that he had like one big donor in Nevada who was like

[45:44] aliens.

[45:45] And he's like, yeah, keep the campaign money coming and I'll get some aliens.

[45:49] Because also like Marco Rubio was pretty big on this too at a certain point, right?

[45:53] Yeah, that makes sense.

[45:56] But yeah, you're right, Harry Reid's big thing.

[45:57] It was like with his dying breath, he was like, tell them about the aliens.

[46:02] Tell them about the hedgehog.

[46:03] It can't be a secret, and you have to assume, and so how would, break it down for me before

[46:09] we move on, how would liberals and conservatives, how would they differ their feelings about

[46:12] the hedgehog?

[46:13] What would their takes be?

[46:15] That's a good question.

[46:16] I mean, does this go under open borders, sort of?

[46:20] Well, he's blue, so, you know, Republicans might be like-

[46:24] He's blue, WDWD.

[46:25] Yeah.

[46:26] WDWD indeed.

[46:27] That would be enough for them not to like him right there, yeah.

[46:29] So he'd be like a lib hedgehog.

[46:32] Yeah.

[46:33] They don't like that.

[46:34] It's revealed at the end of the movie, Shadow the Hedgehog has been in cold storage and

[46:39] he's red.

[46:40] Yeah.

[46:41] So he'd be the one they were after.

[46:42] Yeah.

[46:43] So like, the MAGA hedgehog.

[46:44] There's a MAGA hedgehog and Sonic would be like the Brandon hedgehog, I guess, like.

[46:50] But like, Sonic always carries the baby to term, right?

[46:53] So they should like him.

[46:54] Yeah.

[46:55] That's right, yeah.

[46:57] Sonic is pro-life.

[46:58] That's right.

[46:59] Yeah.

[47:00] If they can hate-

[47:01] Based on these memes I have saved in my hidden folder.

[47:02] If they can hate a blonde white lady who is dating a professional football player, then

[47:06] they can hate anybody, Stuart.

[47:08] Yeah.

[47:09] Yeah, you're right.

[47:10] Yeah.

[47:11] I mean, I don't know who's in charge of all this, you know, hedgehog wrangling in the

[47:17] government.

[47:18] All I know is that according to my bumper sticker, the government should have a big

[47:22] sale to fund it because I don't want my tax dollars going towards that.

[47:26] Yeah.

[47:27] Yeah.

[47:28] Fair point.

[47:29] Yeah.

[47:30] So Knuckles and Robotnik, they follow the compass to where the Emerald is, an island

[47:34] that very helpfully is within sight of the Hawaiian wedding site, which is just very

[47:39] convenient for everybody.

[47:42] Sonic runs off to deal with it on his own and he runs across the waves to the Emerald Island.

[47:46] Not Ireland.

[47:47] The island with the emerald on it.

[47:48] And he follows Robotnik and Knuckles as they go through a bunch of Raiders of the Lost

[47:51] Ark style traps, which are so derivative that the movie makes a point of joking about

[47:55] it in a joke.

[47:56] I did think it was funny.

[47:57] Robotnik goes, I don't want to die this day.

[47:58] Wait, it would be too derivative.

[47:59] And I was like, all right, movie, you got me with that one.

[48:03] Sonic Bursts in, fights Knuckles, Robotnik, of course, double crosses Knuckles, steals

[48:07] the Emerald, becomes a glowing power being, causes the island to collapse.

[48:11] We all knew this was going to happen, right, Dan?

[48:14] I mean, you got to have the darkness before the dawn.

[48:17] And he betrays Knuckles and Knuckles is like, I thought you wouldn't betray me because we're

[48:21] friends.

[48:22] Yeah.

[48:23] And Sonic and Knuckles, they each take turns saving each other from drowning.

[48:28] And on the beach, Sonic tells Knuckles his lessons about being a hero and the importance

[48:31] of finding a friend's family.

[48:33] They decide to team up back in Green Hills.

[48:36] Wade earlier discovered an arrested stone.

[48:38] We don't need to go into that.

[48:40] Robotnik shows up.

[48:41] He has godlike electricity powers.

[48:42] The army surrounds the coffee shop.

[48:44] I'm not sure how they knew what was going on there.

[48:47] Maybe Wade called them.

[48:49] It's the secret agent commander and Tom and Maddie.

[48:51] They helicopter in.

[48:52] Tom and Maddie are now, I guess, deputized.

[48:54] They're now leaders of this organization, this assault on Robotnik.

[48:59] Just in time to see Robotnik do what everybody does ever since Akira or Magneto.

[49:05] You rise up in the air with your arms outstretched and then you move your arms to create telekinetic

[49:11] force that then disassembles machines and then rebuilds them into something.

[49:16] He disassembles all the vehicles, turns them into a giant Robotnik mech, as mentioned earlier,

[49:20] just like in the games.

[49:21] The heroes show up.

[49:22] This is the part of the movie I love to do the summary for because I can basically just

[49:26] say, fight, fight, fight, missiles, etc.

[49:28] The movie is like, Elliot, you're really tired.

[49:31] Here's 20 minutes of movie that you don't really need to summarize very much.

[49:34] That's what it felt like to watch it to me.

[49:36] I'm like, okay, fight, fight, fight, missiles.

[49:39] You're not even going to mention that when Stone doesn't remember how to pilot the vehicle

[49:43] or something.

[49:44] He pulls up the user's manual and it is a classic design, like a classic Sega video

[49:49] game manual.

[49:50] I'm not going to mention that at all.

[49:51] It will go unmentioned in this episode.

[49:53] I did like that.

[49:54] I enjoy that.

[49:55] That one got me.

[49:56] That bit of nostalgia.

[49:57] I was like, okay.

[49:58] I like that.

[49:59] I guess that's true.

[50:00] If I was watching, because I was a Nintendo kid,

[50:02] if I was watching a Nintendo movie

[50:03] and they pulled out an issue of Nintendo Power,

[50:05] you know, or something, I'd be like, oh, okay, yeah.

[50:07] Because you're a Nintendo kid,

[50:08] just seeing it made you angry.

[50:11] You like broke your controller in your hand.

[50:13] You're like, Mamma Mia, because you're a Nintendo kid.

[50:17] Yeah, exactly, I was like, it's-a-me, Nintendo kid,

[50:20] Link, Bubble Bobble, you know, that kind of stuff.

[50:23] Of course, of course.

[50:24] Mega Man, they call him. Ice Climbers.

[50:27] Excitebike, yeah.

[50:30] Toe Jam and Earl, although I think

[50:31] that was on both platforms.

[50:35] Anyway, I'm just gonna talk about more Nintendo stuff.

[50:37] We don't need to do that.

[50:38] Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails,

[50:39] Sonic's like, we need to work as a team.

[50:41] And it's like, well, what were you doing up to this point

[50:43] when you said you were gonna be partners?

[50:45] Sonic's gonna distract Robotnik

[50:47] because he knows Robotnik hates him the most,

[50:49] while Knuckles and Tails sneak into the mech.

[50:51] Sonic gets real beat up.

[50:52] Knuckles punches Robotnik,

[50:54] which causes the Emerald to fall out of the mech.

[50:56] Guys, there's a moment where like, you know,

[50:58] where they're standing there seeing this newly created

[51:00] like giant monster thing.

[51:02] And I'm like, wow, this is kind of like the end

[51:04] of Suicide Squad, where Idris Elba's facing down

[51:06] a sudden appearance of a giant monster thing.

[51:09] That's pretty cool, right?

[51:10] Is it cool for him, do you think,

[51:11] that he gets to do the same thing a couple times?

[51:13] It in no way speaks to the creative bankruptcy of Hollywood

[51:17] that all movies operate the exact same way.

[51:19] Instead, that is the majesty

[51:21] of the story circle writing structure,

[51:22] which makes only perfect movies.

[51:25] But yeah, I bet Idris Elba was like,

[51:26] this is pretty funny that I did this in another movie, yeah.

[51:30] Yeah, I'm sure he marvels at the irony all the time.

[51:33] Yeah, he's like, this reminds me

[51:35] of Stringer Bell's final scene in The Wire.

[51:37] I've done this so many times, faced off with an enemy,

[51:40] who in their case was standing on stairs slightly above me.

[51:42] So they seemed bigger than me,

[51:44] even though Brother Mazon and Omar were smaller

[51:46] than me in real life.

[51:47] I'm a very tall man.

[51:48] I'm Idris Elba, of course.

[51:50] He often reminds people who he is

[51:52] while they're talking to him, yeah.

[51:55] And the guy he's talking to is like,

[51:56] I know, I'm your authorized biographer.

[51:58] You hired me to interview you and then write your memoir.

[52:00] Yeah, yeah, I just want to make sure

[52:01] you knew I was Idris Elba.

[52:02] No, I'm aware of it.

[52:03] Yeah, we've been working together for months now.

[52:04] I've lived with your family, really embedded with you.

[52:07] Yeah, yeah, I just want to make sure you know.

[52:08] Wow, this is a real life thing that he does.

[52:10] Biographer character's getting a huge backstory.

[52:12] It's like a fucking Sonic character.

[52:14] Well, Idris Elba's like,

[52:15] I just want to make sure you know who I am

[52:16] because I know you went and lived on the island of Elba

[52:18] for a few months to really get into my head,

[52:20] but that's not me.

[52:21] It's an island where Napoleon was exiled.

[52:23] Yeah, that was a mistake.

[52:24] Yeah, so anyway, Sonic, he's all beat up.

[52:27] He takes the Emerald.

[52:28] Tom and Maddie, they help him briefly.

[52:29] And he's like, go, go, save yourself.

[52:32] And she goes, no, we're a family.

[52:33] And Robotnik steps on them with his giant mech,

[52:35] but the power of the Emerald

[52:37] gives Sonic super golden glow ultra powers.

[52:40] And he saves them all.

[52:41] He defeats Robotnik's robot, seemingly killing Robotnik.

[52:44] And at the end, later on,

[52:46] the leader of the agent commander's like,

[52:47] well, I guess Robotnik disappeared.

[52:49] And it's like, oh, it seems like he died in the wreckage.

[52:51] I guess we're not going to get into that.

[52:55] Having saved the day,

[52:56] he uses his now godlike power to conjure a hot dog

[52:58] with everything on it,

[52:59] and then ejects the power from his body,

[53:02] sending it who knows where.

[53:04] Back to the Emeralds, I'm not sure.

[53:05] Off into space for Jean Grey to encounter it

[53:07] and take it on, I guess.

[53:09] Take it on, yeah,

[53:10] and so that she can eat the planet of the broccoli people.

[53:12] And he goes back to being a kid.

[53:14] Knuckles fixes the Emerald shards

[53:16] by squeezing them really tight,

[53:17] the same way that Ferris Bueller says that Cameron could do

[53:21] with a lump of coal to turn it into a diamond.

[53:23] I can do 80s movie references too, guys.

[53:25] If that's what we're doing now,

[53:26] if that's what everything is related to,

[53:28] I can do that too, right?

[53:29] Jamel, right?

[53:30] Like in Ferris Bueller, he says he's so tight.

[53:33] We do do it on the podcast quite a bit.

[53:35] Do do it.

[53:36] Dan, you have no idea what you just said.

[53:38] You have no idea what you just said.

[53:40] You just said do do it.

[53:42] Dan, you were talking about human excrement just now.

[53:45] And you didn't even mean to.

[53:46] You laughed so hard at me, yeah.

[53:49] Anyway, I'd like to thank again

[53:51] the New York Times opinion writer, Jamel Bui,

[53:52] for being on the episode with us today.

[53:54] Later, so now they decide they're gonna join forces

[53:57] to forever protect the Master Emerald.

[53:59] Later, who knows how many days or years later,

[54:02] Sonic is teaching Tails and Knuckles how to play baseball.

[54:04] Knuckles has some funny lines here.

[54:06] It's funny, anytime someone is like a space warrior

[54:09] who's learning a human sport, the jokes write themselves.

[54:14] Tom is happy that Sonic has friends now.

[54:16] He keeps calling them his squad, right, or whatever,

[54:19] which I did not, don't like,

[54:20] or his wingman or whatever, I don't like it.

[54:21] I don't like that.

[54:22] And Sonic calls Tom dad, which is very,

[54:26] I have to assume that moment is touching,

[54:27] but it's weird when a CGI blues hedgehog

[54:31] from another dimension calls you dad.

[54:32] Like that's, is that, is this the family

[54:34] that Tom saw himself as?

[54:35] Weird the first time, Elliot, but, you know,

[54:37] over the years.

[54:38] It was less weird than when Jim Carrey yelled it

[54:41] while sliding under a closing door,

[54:43] and he said, make room for daddy or something.

[54:45] Yeah, that was weird.

[54:46] I didn't like that.

[54:47] That was pretty weird.

[54:48] And especially, because I don't like it

[54:50] because it's a reference to a thing

[54:51] from before the 1980s, which makes me uncomfortable.

[54:53] Was there culture then?

[54:55] I don't know, and I don't want to know.

[54:57] They end up, but I wish the movie then

[54:59] had cut to Tom imagining Sonic's future as his son,

[55:03] where he's like seeing you graduate from college.

[55:05] He's walking down the aisle at his Jewish wedding

[55:08] because he's marrying a Jewish woman.

[55:09] And both parents walk him down the aisle.

[55:10] And you're raising your son is what you're talking about,

[55:12] right?

[55:13] Yeah, basically he's an old man,

[55:14] and Sonic's half hedgehog, half human,

[55:16] hybrid children are sitting around the table, you know?

[55:20] Oh, gross.

[55:22] Just like people with big spiky blue hair.

[55:25] Yeah, exactly.

[55:27] Or very small humans.

[55:30] Oh, God, thank you.

[55:32] Small, pink hedgehogs.

[55:34] Yeah, you know what?

[55:35] Every option is worse than the one before it.

[55:39] Oh, I love it.

[55:40] And the one that looks like Shrek.

[55:43] Yeah, that's the one they don't talk about,

[55:45] but everyone knows the truth about it, yeah.

[55:47] They all go out for ice cream,

[55:49] and they almost leave the Master Emerald behind.

[55:51] The thing that they just promised

[55:53] they would protect with their lives to the very end,

[55:55] they almost lost within moments.

[55:58] And then, I know, Stuart, you don't stay for these,

[55:59] but there's a mid-credits scene.

[56:01] That's right.

[56:02] What?

[56:03] This is the secret agent commander.

[56:04] He's told, as Jamel said,

[56:06] they've discovered a 50-year-old

[56:07] hidden government facility, Project Shadow.

[56:10] And a containment energy pod opens,

[56:12] and Shadow the hedgehog opens his eyes.

[56:14] And I was confronted with the knowledge in myself

[56:17] that I don't know who Shadow is, and I don't.

[56:19] I have no context for this reveal.

[56:22] Oh, man, Jamel's gearing up.

[56:23] I can see the hands go to the keyboard.

[56:27] There's a reason he's the hedgehog correspondent,

[56:28] Charles, tell me about Shadow the hedgehog.

[56:30] So, Shadow the hedgehog first appears

[56:33] in Sonic Adventure 2 from 2001,

[56:36] and he's like basically Sonic's,

[56:37] and he's like Sonic's Wario, basically.

[56:39] Oh, wow.

[56:40] Oh, cool, so I like him already.

[56:41] He's bad, or he's just misunderstood?

[56:43] He's sort of a Wannick, if you will.

[56:45] He is, so, okay, let me think.

[56:49] So, Wario, as we all know, as we're all aware,

[56:52] is like Greed and Avarice incarnate.

[56:55] And really, he's not, he's not like a villain.

[56:57] We know where he was on January 6th.

[56:59] Oh, for sure, there's a reason

[57:03] that he's been in the hidings.

[57:04] Selling shirts outside of the event.

[57:05] That's right, that's right.

[57:06] Wow.

[57:09] This election, we did a win.

[57:11] But so, Shadow is like, so, Wario's only an antagonist

[57:17] insofar that Mario gets in the way

[57:19] of Wario trying to get those coins.

[57:22] Shadow is more like an anti-hero type

[57:25] who like is an antagonist to the extent that like

[57:28] Sonic's attempt to do something heroic interferes

[57:31] with Shadow's attempt to do something heroic.

[57:33] Oh, I see what you're saying.

[57:34] He's not like a, he's not like evil.

[57:38] He's just sort of, you know.

[57:39] He's like the Hot Topic version of Sonic.

[57:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[57:44] Interesting.

[57:45] He's the Sonic that the Goths are wearing.

[57:48] You know, I'm so much more interested in Sonic lore

[57:51] when it comes from Jamel rather than Sonic 2.

[57:55] Yeah, I wish, I would have really loved it

[57:57] if they had to keep going to explainers

[57:59] that you were doing Jamel.

[58:00] You're like, well.

[58:00] Oh yeah, like, who's that director who I don't like?

[58:03] Adam McKay.

[58:04] Adam McKay, there you go.

[58:06] Yeah.

[58:06] Like an Adam McKay movie.

[58:08] They're like, well.

[58:09] In New York Times opinion column,

[58:11] it's Jamel Booley to talk Shadow the Hedgehog.

[58:14] Remember the Hot Tub?

[58:15] You're in a battle.

[58:16] Yeah.

[58:17] Now imagine Sonic the Hedgehog and Shadow the Hedgehog

[58:20] are the deficit and the debt.

[58:22] Let me explain to you.

[58:26] Yeah, actually, that would make this,

[58:28] now I want to see the big, short Jamel cut

[58:30] where you're the person who's explaining each of the things.

[58:32] And by the end of the movie, you're like, I don't know.

[58:34] Just dramatize this information.

[58:36] Like it's not helpful.

[58:37] It's not helpful to be told this way.

[58:39] Listen, listen, I'm an adult.

[58:41] I can understand exposition in a film.

[58:43] You can just have a character say it.

[58:45] I don't need Margot Robbie.

[58:47] The one that got, well, I mean, what was also funny to me

[58:49] was that they were like Margot Robbie in a hot tub.

[58:51] And I was like, well, this is the most covered up

[58:52] I think I've ever seen Margot Robbie in a movie.

[58:54] So the idea that this is like a sexy way to explain it.

[58:57] But anyway, it was later on when they're like,

[58:59] look, they're finding the prospectuses

[59:01] littering the lobby of that building.

[59:03] And they're like, oh, look at these numbers.

[59:04] And they turn the camera and go,

[59:05] this isn't really how we found this information.

[59:07] Really, we did this other thing.

[59:08] But anyway, we'll go back to it here.

[59:09] And I'm like, well, then if you're gonna tell me,

[59:11] you can just show me them doing it.

[59:12] You know, I don't, what do you gain from this?

[59:13] I feel like that stuff is so much more charming

[59:15] in like a 24-hour party people or something.

[59:19] Yes.

[59:19] Which is at least based on like a bunch of accounts

[59:23] and, you know, drugged up weirdos telling these stories.

[59:25] I mean, it's when you have Steve Coogan doing it,

[59:28] it's instantly more entertaining.

[59:30] But also when the guy from the Buzzcocks is like,

[59:33] I don't remember that happening.

[59:34] Like that's, when you have the real person doing it,

[59:37] if you're gonna do this at all, which you don't have to,

[59:39] there's no one's gonna make you put that in your movie.

[59:42] But if you're gonna do it at all,

[59:44] I like that better than the explainers.

[59:46] I like the acknowledgement, like,

[59:48] look, this isn't exactly how we did it.

[59:49] But for the purpose of the movie, like I kind of,

[59:52] cause I don't know.

[59:53] I get so mad at movies on the other end of things

[59:56] where they're just like,

[59:57] we're gonna basically hold.

[1:00:00] cloth, make up this thing and then put inspired by a true story at the beginning and then

[1:00:04] just be like, well, I guess I can't argue with the idea that it was inspired by that.

[1:00:09] Do you prefer inspired by a true story over some like bullshit quippy thing like, you

[1:00:15] know, based on truth and lies?

[1:00:17] I don't know, because I did when the great started, I did like where it says a was it

[1:00:23] was like a a sometimes true story.

[1:00:26] I like that.

[1:00:28] But the great also has some really fun performances and Nicholas Holt is like the most charming

[1:00:32] fucking gremlin creep you've ever seen.

[1:00:34] Yeah.

[1:00:35] Yeah.

[1:00:36] The most.

[1:00:37] I feel like I should mention one other thing about Shadow.

[1:00:38] He loves to use guns.

[1:00:39] Please.

[1:00:40] Yeah, this is the time.

[1:00:41] What?

[1:00:42] Sorry.

[1:00:43] Yeah.

[1:00:44] In his games, he uses guns.

[1:00:46] He shoots.

[1:00:47] He shoots people.

[1:00:48] Oh, so it's like the punisher.

[1:00:49] He is so fucking cool.

[1:00:50] I don't like that.

[1:00:51] No, I don't like that.

[1:00:52] God damn it.

[1:00:53] He's so cool.

[1:00:54] I don't like this.

[1:00:55] I don't like this.

[1:00:56] Like, is like shadow.

[1:00:57] Oh, this means shadow.

[1:00:58] I there's no reason to have a gun in a Sonic game.

[1:01:01] That's bonkers.

[1:01:02] That's.

[1:01:03] Oh, come on.

[1:01:04] I'm looking at a still here from 2005 Shadow, the hedgehog.

[1:01:07] And he's he has like in Uzi.

[1:01:11] Fucking A and Z that shoots so many bullets.

[1:01:14] Yeah, it doesn't last that long.

[1:01:16] They run out really fast.

[1:01:17] All right.

[1:01:19] The other one, guys that would have been shot.

[1:01:21] The world would be a better place.

[1:01:22] That's actually right.

[1:01:23] We have all these mutants running around like Ivan Ooze or like Secret of the Ooze.

[1:01:28] Like Secret of the Ooze.

[1:01:29] Yeah.

[1:01:31] Yeah.

[1:01:32] Yeah.

[1:01:33] Only 80s references.

[1:01:34] So, yeah.

[1:01:35] Or like, yeah.

[1:01:36] Like the Goo Guns from Ghostbusters 2.

[1:01:37] Like that sort of shit.

[1:01:38] A Goo Gun that shoots Goo Gone.

[1:01:41] Yeah.

[1:01:42] It seems like it's it's it's causing its own problem there.

[1:01:45] Yeah.

[1:01:46] That's a solution in search of something.

[1:01:47] Now, when you said Goo Guns, I thought you said Doogongs.

[1:01:50] And I was like a manatee.

[1:01:51] Yeah.

[1:01:52] Do you remember them from Ghostbusters 2?

[1:01:53] It's crazy.

[1:01:54] Ghostbusters 2, where they go to the equator.

[1:01:57] Viggo did not like them.

[1:01:59] No.

[1:02:00] Well, I think that that's enough gibberish to justify our value in this year's MaxFunDrive.

[1:02:05] We should move on to final judgments, whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie,

[1:02:12] a movie we kind of like.

[1:02:13] I'm going to really quickly say that I did not care for this film.

[1:02:17] The longer we do this, the more I find that the films that really irritate me are the

[1:02:22] ones that just feel like just kind of like the most pro forma versions of the movies

[1:02:28] that you would make out of, say, a property, which is what this is.

[1:02:32] It's like, OK, we got we got to do a Sonic sequel.

[1:02:35] The first one we did, like the obvious thing that everyone always does, like, oh, this

[1:02:39] character is in our real world.

[1:02:40] And now we're going to like he loves to party, dive into a bunch of impenetrable like bullshit

[1:02:46] that I don't like.

[1:02:48] I'm never given a reason to care about.

[1:02:49] I don't know.

[1:02:50] It just it just felt like the most bankrupt shit.

[1:02:54] I'm sorry for being more mean than usual, but I did not care for it.

[1:02:59] Do you think it's possible that the screenwriter, one of the screenwriters who worked on it

[1:03:02] had a spec script about a wedding and was like, I'm never going to be able to sell this

[1:03:06] script to Hollywood.

[1:03:07] I'm just going to shoehorn it into this Sonic sequel.

[1:03:09] I hope to God that's what happened.

[1:03:11] I really want that to be the case, that they were just sort of like, you know what, we

[1:03:15] can add another 20 minutes to this movie.

[1:03:18] This is the script I wrote for the Sundance Lab that I was a member of.

[1:03:21] Could I could I just get it here?

[1:03:22] This is my new God screenplay.

[1:03:25] Stuart, what do you think?

[1:03:29] No, Stuart, what do you think?

[1:03:30] Well, first off, Elliot mentioned the idea of like a character coming to our world and

[1:03:34] loving to party.

[1:03:35] It's like you're not going to bring somebody here and have them not like partying like

[1:03:39] no.

[1:03:40] Yeah.

[1:03:41] What is this like a waste?

[1:03:42] I feel like ALF did it best.

[1:03:44] Why are we still chasing ALF?

[1:03:45] You know, that's ALF.

[1:03:48] ALF is like if Rodney Dangerfield came to our world, of course he would love to party.

[1:03:52] As opposed to the thing on Planet Dangerfield.

[1:03:53] He's here.

[1:03:54] He's been here.

[1:03:55] He is?

[1:03:56] Well, not anymore, but he was.

[1:03:57] Yeah.

[1:03:58] He was being partied as a dog briefly.

[1:03:59] Yeah.

[1:04:00] Yeah.

[1:04:01] Yeah.

[1:04:02] I would say I like that a number of people in this movie got paid to be in it.

[1:04:13] There were a couple of jokes that I thought were funny, mainly sight jokes, and it made

[1:04:18] me wonder, why don't they make like good like Looney Tunes movies with like live action

[1:04:24] elements to like a Wile E. Coyote thing?

[1:04:26] But that'll never have a new legacy.

[1:04:29] And then but yeah, it's just so long.

[1:04:33] It's so long.

[1:04:34] And it has so many.

[1:04:35] It makes you it takes so many extra steps that it doesn't need to.

[1:04:38] I don't understand the point of this.

[1:04:40] Who is this for?

[1:04:41] OK, thanks.

[1:04:42] I would say, yeah, similarly, it's like this could be a much worse movie.

[1:04:46] It's not like there's but it's it's just kind of there's no reason for it.

[1:04:51] And the reason for a movie like this is fun, but it kind of never achieves that level of

[1:04:55] fun.

[1:04:56] That being said, like if my kids were like, hey, you need to work for two hours, you're

[1:05:01] going to show a Sonic the Hedgehog to to keep us busy.

[1:05:03] I wouldn't be against it the same way that I have recently started turning off TV shows

[1:05:08] in the middle of them when I've noticed my kids are watching stuff that I think is it

[1:05:11] I think is, you know, so much fucking blue bloods, dude.

[1:05:16] But they each time I think it's going to be the one where they where they learn something

[1:05:20] important, you know, but I know the last affair like I like I was brought up by television.

[1:05:25] Just let well, that's let them absorb whatever the fuck.

[1:05:27] That's the other thing is I'm always torn because I'm like, well, when I was a kid,

[1:05:31] I did watch it whenever I wanted.

[1:05:32] And there was a lot of crap like it shouldn't I shouldn't be able to identify what episode

[1:05:36] is saved by the bell.

[1:05:37] This is within the first two minutes for every episode that I can.

[1:05:41] But I think it's it's not very good.

[1:05:44] But I wasn't offended by it.

[1:05:45] I didn't not as offended as I was by the commercial for the Knuckles TV show where I was like,

[1:05:50] is there nothing else in the world than IP?

[1:05:52] Like really?

[1:05:53] So, Jamal, tell me why we're wrong.

[1:05:55] Tell us why this is a great movie for all those Sonic heads, all the hedgeheads out

[1:05:58] there.

[1:05:59] Yeah.

[1:06:00] All you hedgeheads out there.

[1:06:01] This is exactly what you're looking for.

[1:06:04] No, Ellie, you know, as as also a father, I very much of the kind of a similar reaction

[1:06:11] like, you know, compared to some other kids entertainment, this is like perfectly fine.

[1:06:14] You know, it's like it's not it's not offensive.

[1:06:17] It's not like it's not too dumb.

[1:06:19] Right.

[1:06:20] It's not like, yeah, egregiously stupid.

[1:06:23] So on that level, I was like, fine with it.

[1:06:25] I, you know, I remember I remember kind of liking the first Sonic movie just because

[1:06:30] precise because it felt like this throwback to the 90s to like how you would do this kind

[1:06:35] of thing when I was a kid.

[1:06:37] This one, I just I guess maybe I was in a bad mood.

[1:06:39] I was like, I don't I don't care for this.

[1:06:42] Like a throwback is fun once and then once this movie really feels like we have no new

[1:06:47] tricks like we're not except we're adding more characters in the game.

[1:06:50] And even the like that first movie, I was like, I really loved seeing Jim Carrey doing

[1:06:55] Jim Carrey stuff.

[1:06:56] And this one, I still enjoyed that somewhat.

[1:06:58] But by the end of the movie, it was really grating on me.

[1:07:00] And this is one of those movies where you can really see some of the parts where they

[1:07:04] threw in. Jokes off camera for moments that they didn't have jokes for before that didn't

[1:07:09] work like it's there's a point at the end where Jim Carrey has no lines that are actual

[1:07:13] dialogue and they're all just quips.

[1:07:15] And I was like, all right, this movie is like it's held together with with string at this

[1:07:19] point.

[1:07:20] Like it's barely it's just we didn't even talk about the moment where he Jim Carrey

[1:07:23] plays his leg like a guitar.

[1:07:25] And then they play like the opening riff for opening riff for Walk by Pantera.

[1:07:30] And I'm like, oh, what?

[1:07:33] OK, this is robots about to walk.

[1:07:35] I did like when he played his leg like a guitar, but it doesn't really go anywhere.

[1:07:38] It's just a thing he does for a moment, you know.

[1:07:40] But yeah, this is so we so we get our highest recommendation.

[1:07:44] Show it to children, but don't watch it if you're an adult or if you're stuck, if you're

[1:07:50] stuck having to watch it with your kids, it's not going to be intolerable.

[1:07:54] Oh, OK.

[1:07:56] Put it on the poster, not intolerable.

[1:07:59] Raves the New York Times.

[1:08:07] Hey, and I'm back here talking about Max Fund Drive Boco.

[1:08:11] I know what you're desperate for.

[1:08:13] You're like, Stuart, you told us about how important is to support art that we love.

[1:08:18] You're probably interested in finding out about some swag, OK?

[1:08:21] So that's one of the great things about the Max Fund Drive.

[1:08:23] If you support or upgrade or if you support or upgrade during this time period, it gives

[1:08:27] you access to a bunch of stuff.

[1:08:29] For one, our entire catalog of bonus content, guys, we've been members of the Max Fund Network

[1:08:35] for years.

[1:08:36] We have made so much bonus material.

[1:08:38] We have done feature length film commentaries of what?

[1:08:42] Bratz.

[1:08:43] We did Bratz.

[1:08:44] We did cats.

[1:08:45] We had the country bears.

[1:08:46] All those all your hits.

[1:08:47] The first two rhymed.

[1:08:48] We also we also did only was the country bats that would have been the best.

[1:08:54] That would have been great.

[1:08:55] Why not?

[1:08:56] We we've done episodes where we do the flop house, classic flop house treatment, but apply

[1:09:01] it to television shows.

[1:09:02] What in the world?

[1:09:04] We have done all kinds of stuff, including my personal favorite, the flop tales episodes

[1:09:09] where I make Dan and Elliot and our friend Juben play a role playing game with me.

[1:09:14] And they make it seem like it's a huge hassle.

[1:09:16] But deep down, I think they love it.

[1:09:18] And they go on all kinds of adventures.

[1:09:19] There's ones where they play Dungeons and Dragons, but I think all those are in the

[1:09:23] adventure zone feed.

[1:09:25] We have episodes where you guys go on like weird, noir, weird, boiled adventures dealing

[1:09:31] with aliens and whatnot.

[1:09:33] The last the last episode that ended with me with a bunch of Martian worms in my head

[1:09:36] that control my my my thoughts.

[1:09:39] You do have worms in your head.

[1:09:41] Yeah.

[1:09:42] You have worms inside you.

[1:09:43] There are ones about where we're dogs.

[1:09:45] Yes, that's true.

[1:09:46] Hopefully your characters don't have worms.

[1:09:49] Yeah.

[1:09:50] Yeah.

[1:09:51] Yeah.

[1:09:52] Those are personal favorites of mine where you guys are dogs.

[1:09:54] The ones where we're dogs, there's a our our editor, producer Alex did a new theme song

[1:09:59] for those that.

[1:10:00] that my kids love to listen to all the time.

[1:10:02] That's great.

[1:10:03] Yeah.

[1:10:04] Okay, so that's the stuff that's available.

[1:10:05] Everybody who supports $5 a month or more

[1:10:08] has access to that,

[1:10:08] plus access to all the content from all the shows.

[1:10:11] There's tons of great stuff out there.

[1:10:14] It's really awesome.

[1:10:16] If you support, then there's some additional gifts.

[1:10:18] If you supported the $10 a month or more,

[1:10:20] you get access to a pin of your choice.

[1:10:23] Each show had a pin design.

[1:10:25] What's our pin design this year, guys?

[1:10:27] It's Werner Herzog.

[1:10:28] Classic Werner Herzog.

[1:10:29] Of course, what he always has been known to say

[1:10:32] many times, I'm a bad widdle boy.

[1:10:34] Mm-hmm, that's true.

[1:10:36] It's the scowling face of Werner Herzog

[1:10:38] with a big word balloon that says, I'm a bad widdle boy.

[1:10:40] It is the perfect accessory if you want people to say,

[1:10:44] wait, what?

[1:10:45] Come on.

[1:10:48] There's some additional other cool swag.

[1:10:50] There's a bandana that serves as a chess board, I believe.

[1:10:54] It's super cute.

[1:10:55] There's a bucket hat option if you wanna look stylin'

[1:10:58] and not get too much sun on your face.

[1:11:01] There's also the Maximum Tote or the Maximum Bag,

[1:11:04] which is the biggest tote bag I've ever seen.

[1:11:06] It's enormous, it's enormous, yeah.

[1:11:08] A large bag.

[1:11:09] I feel like it doubles as a tent.

[1:11:12] I'd have to double-check the specifics on that.

[1:11:13] It's like carrying around the trunk of a car in a tote.

[1:11:17] So there's all this cool stuff.

[1:11:19] That's if you're being strictly mercenary about it.

[1:11:22] So why don't you please support us?

[1:11:24] Get ahold of some of that swag.

[1:11:26] Head over to maximumfun.org slash join.

[1:11:30] Okay, thank you so much, bye.

[1:11:37] Let's move on quickly to letters from listeners,

[1:11:41] like you, the listener.

[1:11:42] This one is from Liam Lastname Withheld, who writes,

[1:11:46] while listening to the Flophouse Mini number 99,

[1:11:49] I was surprised to find out that Elliott

[1:11:51] worked at the Barnes & Nobles in Chelsea around 2002.

[1:11:55] I also worked at that exact location around the same time.

[1:11:58] I worked in the cafe above the bookstore,

[1:12:00] but would often linger in the store after my shift.

[1:12:03] To bring the email back to the Flophouse at large,

[1:12:06] what do you consider to be a novel trope in movies

[1:12:08] that is underused or underrepresented?

[1:12:10] Liam Lastname Withheld, now,

[1:12:12] he could be saying novel as in new,

[1:12:17] but I took it to mean,

[1:12:18] since it was a bookstore-related letter,

[1:12:22] a trope from novels, a trope from the written word

[1:12:25] that is not translated to movies that often,

[1:12:29] which is a difficult question,

[1:12:31] I am realizing as I'm putting it forth.

[1:12:34] Not that I didn't send it to you ahead of time,

[1:12:36] but I'm thinking about it, I'm having a hard time.

[1:12:38] I mean, the first thing that comes to mind,

[1:12:40] you guys can obviously correct me,

[1:12:42] but maybe, and this is inspired by reading

[1:12:45] too many romance novels lately,

[1:12:46] but you don't see as many movies

[1:12:49] that features two main characters,

[1:12:52] and it cuts between their perspectives

[1:12:55] in a way that actually shows you their perspective,

[1:12:58] if that makes sense?

[1:12:59] I feel like, yeah.

[1:13:01] I think, similarly, what I was thinking was,

[1:13:04] it's so much, I think better use is made

[1:13:06] of unreliable narrators in the same way,

[1:13:09] in books than in movies.

[1:13:10] And one of the things that I liked about Tar so much

[1:13:12] is that it wasn't like, this is a crazy person,

[1:13:16] and we're seeing their insane view of humanity,

[1:13:19] but there were times where you're like,

[1:13:19] I can't, I'm not quite sure

[1:13:21] that the perception I'm seeing this through,

[1:13:22] which is very much her perception,

[1:13:24] is totally on the level, totally accurate.

[1:13:27] Right, yeah.

[1:13:28] And I really like that, when there's,

[1:13:29] when they do such a good job there of like,

[1:13:32] just giving you enough to doubt what you're seeing

[1:13:34] without it being bonkers or obvious.

[1:13:37] And I feel like that's something books do very well,

[1:13:38] and movies are not always as good at.

[1:13:40] You know what?

[1:13:41] You saying that reminded me of like,

[1:13:43] walking out of Love Lies Bleeding,

[1:13:44] and I won't spoil the end to Love Lies Bleeding.

[1:13:48] What happens to love?

[1:13:49] It's okay, right?

[1:13:50] It stands up and it is not bleeding.

[1:13:50] Hey, hey buddy.

[1:13:53] But there were some people out,

[1:13:55] outside like talking about it like,

[1:13:57] whoa, what happened?

[1:13:58] Like, what?

[1:13:59] I would stuff them in lockers.

[1:14:01] And I was like, after seeing that movie,

[1:14:03] I feel like a million feet tall.

[1:14:04] No, I love it, but I was just like,

[1:14:07] okay, squares was my thought,

[1:14:11] where it's just like,

[1:14:12] you don't have to take everything in a movie,

[1:14:16] literally, just because it's presented to you.

[1:14:18] Sometimes a movie sort of present,

[1:14:20] can present the emotional reality,

[1:14:22] like the way something feels like to you.

[1:14:25] And it's not necessarily,

[1:14:27] it doesn't have to like,

[1:14:29] make clear delineations of like,

[1:14:31] is this really happening the way we're seeing it,

[1:14:33] or not, you know?

[1:14:35] You're asking entirely too much

[1:14:37] of modern day movie goers.

[1:14:40] Possibly.

[1:14:41] I mean, who, you know,

[1:14:42] there's a lot of,

[1:14:43] if the movie doesn't tell me exactly

[1:14:45] what the lesson of this movie is,

[1:14:47] then that's a plot hole.

[1:14:48] Yeah.

[1:14:49] Yeah, the labeling of so many different things

[1:14:52] as plot holes is a real problem.

[1:14:54] I think in internet movie discourse,

[1:14:55] especially where they're like,

[1:14:56] why didn't the characters do

[1:14:57] the most obvious solution first?

[1:15:00] That's a plot hole.

[1:15:00] Like, well, not really a plot hole.

[1:15:02] If people rarely do the most obvious.

[1:15:04] Why don't you do the most obvious solution first, sir?

[1:15:08] In your life.

[1:15:11] Glad that you took it to them, Dan.

[1:15:12] That's good, that's good.

[1:15:13] Yeah.

[1:15:14] Throw it right back at them.

[1:15:15] I'm trying to think.

[1:15:16] I don't read a ton of novels.

[1:15:17] This is, I'm a Philistine.

[1:15:19] I think what works more-

[1:15:21] You've read Dune, right?

[1:15:22] I mean, I've read Dune, yes, yeah.

[1:15:23] Okay, good.

[1:15:24] Phew, so you've read the novel.

[1:15:25] Yeah.

[1:15:27] Other than the films of Paul Schrader,

[1:15:30] no one really does this sort of like,

[1:15:32] you know, narrator belittling themselves well in film.

[1:15:37] You know?

[1:15:38] Like, I'm thinking of the beginning

[1:15:39] of Desi Efsky's Notes from Underground,

[1:15:41] which is, I am a sick man,

[1:15:44] I am a wicked man.

[1:15:45] Like, that's how the novel starts,

[1:15:47] and I want more movies that start like that,

[1:15:48] with the main character being like,

[1:15:51] I am the worst person alive.

[1:15:53] You shouldn't finish watching this,

[1:15:55] because I'm terrible.

[1:15:59] I feel like that comes across better in print

[1:16:01] than it would in a movie,

[1:16:02] where you'd be like, what's going on here?

[1:16:05] I feel like Paul Giamatti could pull it off, though.

[1:16:08] I think that's like a serious Giamatti line.

[1:16:12] A movie that would open with Paul Giamatti

[1:16:14] looking at himself in the mirror going like,

[1:16:15] what are you even thinking, you piece of shit?

[1:16:17] You're an idiot.

[1:16:18] Like, I'm like, I'm in with that movie.

[1:16:19] Like, I gotta watch it.

[1:16:20] I gotta see who this guy is.

[1:16:21] Yeah.

[1:16:22] There's the, there's a, it's a,

[1:16:25] I guess she's not the main character,

[1:16:26] but in Michael Clayton, Tilda Swinton does that, right?

[1:16:29] She's like, angry at herself in the mirror.

[1:16:31] Yeah, yeah.

[1:16:31] Oh, man.

[1:16:32] But you're right, Paul Schrader does it best.

[1:16:33] Thanks, what a movie.

[1:16:34] Yeah, what a movie.

[1:16:35] Like, Paul Schrader, I think because

[1:16:37] Paul Schrader knows that he's a jerk.

[1:16:40] Yeah.

[1:16:41] Because Paul Schrader is like,

[1:16:42] America's like, last living, like, I don't know,

[1:16:44] like, Calvinist settler, you know?

[1:16:46] There was this, there was this New Yorker article

[1:16:50] about him last year.

[1:16:52] And he's like, he's talking about his philosophy

[1:16:54] of only fucking up.

[1:16:55] You never deal with anybody who's below you.

[1:16:57] You only go up.

[1:16:58] So you always have to be constantly climbing

[1:17:00] socially and professionally.

[1:17:01] And he goes, of course, he goes, it works,

[1:17:03] but of course it leaves a bad impression.

[1:17:05] Oh, yeah, because you're being an asshole.

[1:17:09] But, oh, but the movies he comes, I mean, like,

[1:17:11] but then you have a movie like First Reformed

[1:17:13] where the main character is not an asshole,

[1:17:14] but he has that, he has that amazing doubt

[1:17:16] and like self, self, self-loathing,

[1:17:19] even if he doesn't necessarily deserve it.

[1:17:21] And one of the top 10 movies of the century, in my opinion.

[1:17:24] Yeah, not a joke.

[1:17:26] Yeah, it's incredible.

[1:17:27] Yeah, that's, that's, that, that,

[1:17:30] that won a lot of Academy Awards.

[1:17:32] Fun fact, I saw that, I saw that right before I went

[1:17:34] to one of your guys' shows, like 2018, my wife and I

[1:17:38] were like, we had like three hours

[1:17:40] between your, like what we were doing and your show.

[1:17:43] And I was like, let's go see a movie.

[1:17:45] And I was like, oh, a new Paul Schrader,

[1:17:47] we'll just like pop in there and see that.

[1:17:48] This'll be fun.

[1:17:49] And then we came out and we were like,

[1:17:50] we gotta go see a comedy show.

[1:17:53] I feel like you told us that, I'm like,

[1:17:55] I've heard it's good, but now, now having seen it,

[1:17:58] that's a, that's a tonal shift.

[1:18:00] Yeah, I feel it's a big tonal shift.

[1:18:01] I feel better about you sitting stone-faced

[1:18:03] through our show after that.

[1:18:05] This second letter is from John Lasting Withheld,

[1:18:08] who writes, hi all, I got $2 American from Nielsen

[1:18:13] to answer their poll about what and how I consume media.

[1:18:16] I put the Flophouse down as my main podcast.

[1:18:19] Yes.

[1:18:20] My family was a Nielsen family when I was a kid

[1:18:22] and it involved the installation of a set-top box.

[1:18:24] This was all web, we've arrived.

[1:18:26] I'll hang up and listen.

[1:18:28] Well, thank you for, like, I was in a world

[1:18:33] that the Nielsens were now measuring podcasts,

[1:18:36] but now that I know, I think our mission is clear.

[1:18:40] Everyone out there with access to any sort

[1:18:43] of Nielsen influence, put the Flophouse down,

[1:18:46] get us up there on the ratings, so I don't know.

[1:18:50] At Upfronts, we can ask for, I don't know how it will work.

[1:18:53] I'm just glad that there's another, yet another metric

[1:18:56] that I can use to measure my disappointment in myself

[1:18:59] that I can use to compare myself to other people

[1:19:01] and see that I'm not measuring up to them.

[1:19:02] That's great, I'm glad.

[1:19:03] It's especially weird for me,

[1:19:04] because I grew up in a Nielsen family.

[1:19:06] Of course, my family was in the band Nielsen.

[1:19:08] Wow.

[1:19:09] Yeah.

[1:19:10] Yeah, it's a good way to either measure that

[1:19:13] or sort of our slide, you know,

[1:19:15] from semi-relevance to irrelevance.

[1:19:18] Well, you can always measure your height or something

[1:19:22] to feel better about yourself.

[1:19:23] Yeah, you're right, Stu, you're right.

[1:19:25] That's a good way to measure your height.

[1:19:28] You're right, that's a number that always measures up well.

[1:19:30] That's a metric that all men need to measure.

[1:19:32] Where do you think it started, Stu?

[1:19:33] Where do you think neuroses started with, Stu?

[1:19:36] Whoops.

[1:19:37] I've told the story many times about,

[1:19:38] there's a, about someone I went to elementary school with

[1:19:42] has since become a political commentator,

[1:19:44] and she tweeted out a picture of our first grade class,

[1:19:48] and I was so much smaller than the other kids

[1:19:50] that you could, like,

[1:19:51] I was just kind of like a head hidden behind,

[1:19:53] like something very low, and I was like,

[1:19:56] E.T. in a closet of Steffies.

[1:19:58] Exactly, I was like,

[1:20:00] I really, I really was a small kid.

[1:20:02] This is no wonder I've always felt inadequate.

[1:20:04] Oh well, no wonder I've always had to prove myself

[1:20:06] to be the smartest one in the room,

[1:20:07] constantly interrupting my co-hosts,

[1:20:09] not letting them talk, saying jokes that aren't funny,

[1:20:11] just to annoy people.

[1:20:13] Yeah.

[1:20:14] This has been the most.

[1:20:14] Wow, we really figured some stuff out.

[1:20:15] Wow, that really made some progress in this session.

[1:20:17] I appreciate it, guys.

[1:20:18] How much do I owe you?

[1:20:19] We'll handle it off, Mike.

[1:20:22] Let's move on to recommendations of movies we saw recently,

[1:20:27] stuff that might be more worth your time, perhaps,

[1:20:31] than Sonic 2, unless you're a big Sonic fan,

[1:20:33] in which case, you know, do what you like.

[1:20:35] Yeah.

[1:20:36] We're not the last word.

[1:20:37] Eat some chili dogs.

[1:20:37] We're not the last word.

[1:20:38] You know, if you like Sonic 2, God love ya.

[1:20:40] Like, don't feel like we're trying to insult you personally.

[1:20:44] We're just a podcast.

[1:20:45] Dan's extra frightened of Sonic fans on the internet.

[1:20:48] I just know that.

[1:20:49] What happened after the last Sonic episode, Dan?

[1:20:52] Did they come after you?

[1:20:53] No, but there was a lot of people

[1:20:54] after Super Mario Brothers that were like,

[1:20:57] you know, like, what's the problem?

[1:20:59] It's just, I'm like, yeah, I understand.

[1:21:01] Yeah, my children, they still say to me,

[1:21:03] why did you not like that movie, Dad?

[1:21:04] We're just talking about a personal taste

[1:21:06] or view on things.

[1:21:07] It's that you doesn't have anything.

[1:21:08] Anyway.

[1:21:09] Listen, I think if you don't like Sonic,

[1:21:13] I don't know where we're going with that, I'm sorry.

[1:21:15] It's gonna be brutal, though.

[1:21:17] It's gonna be terrible.

[1:21:18] If you don't like the Sonic the Hedgehog movie,

[1:21:21] or if you do like it, I think it's a better way to put it,

[1:21:24] if you do like it, I don't wanna talk to you.

[1:21:26] Get out of here.

[1:21:27] Oh, wow.

[1:21:29] Dismissed.

[1:21:32] Stuart, why don't you go first for once?

[1:21:33] Let's do it.

[1:21:34] Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna, hey, Dan,

[1:21:36] we saw a movie together, can I recommend it?

[1:21:38] Yeah, I was wondering whether you might.

[1:21:39] That's part of why I'm here.

[1:21:40] Yeah, heck yeah.

[1:21:41] I'm gonna recommend a little horror movie

[1:21:44] that's playing in theaters right now

[1:21:46] called Immaculate, starring Sidney Sweeney.

[1:21:51] It's a trim, what, 89 minutes?

[1:21:53] Perfect.

[1:21:54] What a length.

[1:21:55] In, out, done.

[1:21:57] It is a little bit non-exploitation.

[1:22:00] It is about a young American nun

[1:22:03] who goes to a kind of out-of-the-way,

[1:22:06] kind of mysterious convent,

[1:22:09] and gets involved in some bad stuff,

[1:22:13] and there's definitely a moment.

[1:22:16] It's kind of slow, and it doesn't really show its,

[1:22:21] I mean, it kind of telegraphs the mystery a little bit,

[1:22:24] but it doesn't kind of show its hand

[1:22:25] as to what the kind of movie it's gonna be

[1:22:27] until right near the end,

[1:22:29] then you're like, oh yeah, this is gonna be fun, thumbs up.

[1:22:31] So yeah, I don't wanna go into it too much,

[1:22:33] but if you like a big, fun ending, watch it, it's cool.

[1:22:37] I mean, the ending's great,

[1:22:38] but I don't wanna undersell the rest,

[1:22:40] because part of what worked effectively

[1:22:42] for me watching it was,

[1:22:45] yeah, there's sort of a cold open

[1:22:47] that lets you know, of course, something's going on,

[1:22:52] something's gotta give.

[1:22:53] The movie, unlike a lot of sort of, I don't know,

[1:22:57] mid-budget horror that gets put out there,

[1:22:59] it doesn't telegraph completely,

[1:23:02] like, oh, this convent is a totally evil place

[1:23:05] with evil shit going down all the time.

[1:23:07] Like, you can kind of, you see the workings of it,

[1:23:10] you can understand how people of faith

[1:23:14] might come in here with good intentions

[1:23:16] before you see what those good intentions have led to,

[1:23:20] and what the nature of the horror is,

[1:23:22] and it's, yeah, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.

[1:23:25] Yeah, that's fun.

[1:23:26] Immaculate.

[1:23:28] I will also recommend a horror movie I watched last night,

[1:23:33] late at night on Shudder.

[1:23:34] I watched Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker,

[1:23:39] kind of an oddball horror movie with a lot of element.

[1:23:44] It's sort of about a weird familiarity

[1:23:50] and familial relationship of an aunt and her nephew.

[1:23:56] It's also about, like, the villain in it

[1:23:58] is a homophobic police officer,

[1:24:01] which was a surprisingly progressive thing to see

[1:24:03] in a horror movie of that era.

[1:24:06] It's from the 80s.

[1:24:09] It's got this vibe that I like from sort of

[1:24:11] a lot of these lower-budget horror movies of the time

[1:24:14] where it has a certain flatness

[1:24:18] to the direction because it's kind of this cheaper movie,

[1:24:24] but that combined with how tawdry the elements of it are

[1:24:29] make it feel like a after-school special

[1:24:33] has sort of gone off the rails

[1:24:35] and gotten really weird and gross.

[1:24:38] So I enjoyed that.

[1:24:40] Yeah, I feel like that's like a perfect,

[1:24:42] like, kind of out there oddball 80s slasher

[1:24:44] that's been kind of underseen.

[1:24:46] Yeah.

[1:24:47] Speaking of horror movies that are short,

[1:24:50] I've got a movie that's even shorter than 89 minutes,

[1:24:52] and it's about the horror of fashion gone wrong.

[1:24:55] That's right, everybody.

[1:24:56] It is the 1976 adaptation of the story

[1:24:59] Bernice Bobs Her Hair by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

[1:25:02] This was done for the PBS show, The American Short Story,

[1:25:05] and it was directed by Joan Micklin Silver,

[1:25:07] and Shelley Duvall is in it as the titular Bernice,

[1:25:10] and Veronica Cartwright is the cousin that she is visiting,

[1:25:13] and Veronica Cartwright is,

[1:25:15] this is the 1920s, the roaring 20s,

[1:25:18] Veronica Cartwright is the party girl.

[1:25:20] Bernice wants to live that life

[1:25:22] and be attracted to the boys,

[1:25:23] and she makes the daring promise

[1:25:25] that she is going to bob her hair,

[1:25:26] and it becomes the talk of the town.

[1:25:29] Everyone wants to know if it's gonna happen.

[1:25:30] Blood Court is in it, he's also really funny in it,

[1:25:32] and I found it to just be like a really funny little,

[1:25:35] like, you know, not chamber play exactly,

[1:25:39] but a funny piece of kind of nostalgia filmmaking,

[1:25:44] but it's the 70s being nostalgic for the 20s,

[1:25:47] and I really enjoyed it.

[1:25:48] So I saw it on Kanopy, which is the free service

[1:25:51] you can use through your library if your library subscribes,

[1:25:53] and it was really fun.

[1:25:54] It's called Bernice Bobs Her Hair.

[1:25:56] It's like 45 minutes long.

[1:25:57] Why not go watch it?

[1:25:58] I enjoyed it.

[1:25:59] And Jamel?

[1:26:01] I re-watched over the weekend James O. Brooks'

[1:26:04] 87 movie, Broadcast News, which I'm saying this

[1:26:08] as a journalist, you know, whatever.

[1:26:10] It's a movie that I absolutely love,

[1:26:13] and I really had a great time watching it again.

[1:26:15] If you've never seen it,

[1:26:16] it concerns three reporters, news people.

[1:26:21] Holly Hunter plays a news producer

[1:26:23] for sort of a national television news show.

[1:26:27] Albert Brooks plays her reporter colleague,

[1:26:29] who's sort of prickly and a little unpleasant,

[1:26:32] but very brilliant.

[1:26:33] And then William Hurt plays the kind of news anchor

[1:26:37] that is being trained to kind of take over.

[1:26:40] Young, talented, maybe a little bit unethical.

[1:26:43] And it's both like a love triangle kind of film

[1:26:46] between the three,

[1:26:47] but I think it's also just like a great film

[1:26:49] about the intensity and emotion of like being in a workplace

[1:26:53] and doing something collectively that you care about

[1:26:55] and how that sort of like interacts with your personal life

[1:26:58] and interacts with sort of like how you relate

[1:27:01] to other people.

[1:27:01] I don't know.

[1:27:02] I love the movie.

[1:27:03] I think Holly Hunter is absolutely wonderful in it.

[1:27:06] And it's like one of my favorites of that decade,

[1:27:11] but then like one of my favorites period.

[1:27:13] That's a great movie.

[1:27:15] I'm going to set aside the fact

[1:27:16] that we are once again talking about 80s movies.

[1:27:20] That movie helped me personally

[1:27:21] because when I was a segment producer at The Daily Show,

[1:27:23] I was trying to explain to my dad what my job was like.

[1:27:26] And he was like,

[1:27:26] is it like in broadcast news when she's running across,

[1:27:29] that running through the station with the tape

[1:27:30] and she's got to get it to them right on time?

[1:27:32] And I was like, yeah, it is kind of like that.

[1:27:33] I do run through the halls with tapes.

[1:27:35] So it really helped him to visualize what my life was like

[1:27:37] in a way that I didn't expect.

[1:27:39] And I watched the Criterion Blu-ray.

[1:27:41] That's how I watched it.

[1:27:42] So highly recommend that Blu-ray.

[1:27:44] Yeah.

[1:27:45] Jamal, thank you very much for being here.

[1:27:46] I know we got to get you out of here

[1:27:48] because you're busy.

[1:27:48] Before we go, is there anything you want to plug?

[1:27:52] My column at The Times,

[1:27:54] if you don't like The Times, that's cool too.

[1:27:57] If you do read The Times,

[1:27:58] my column is usually every Tuesday and Friday

[1:28:00] and I have a Saturday newsletter.

[1:28:02] And then my podcast,

[1:28:03] my buddy John Gann's, Unclear and Present Danger,

[1:28:05] where we watch the political and military thrillers

[1:28:08] of the post-Cold War era

[1:28:10] and kind of talk about them, historicize them a bit.

[1:28:13] I think our next movie we're doing is Hackers from 1995.

[1:28:18] So that'll be a lot of fun.

[1:28:20] That's a special one.

[1:28:21] Hack the world, people.

[1:28:22] 1995 was when the two best Hacker movies came out,

[1:28:25] Hackers and The Net.

[1:28:26] And The Net.

[1:28:27] What a special year.

[1:28:28] We've already done The Net, which was a fun episode,

[1:28:30] but Hackers is quite special.

[1:28:32] Well, that's our next episode.

[1:28:33] Check us out.

[1:28:38] Hey, this is Stuart, just chiming in one last time.

[1:28:41] This marks the end of yet another MaxFunDrive.

[1:28:44] Thank you so much.

[1:28:45] It's been a blast.

[1:28:46] I've had a ton of fun

[1:28:48] with these guys recording some extra shows.

[1:28:50] I've had a ton of fun recording extra material

[1:28:52] on my Twitch channel,

[1:28:54] where I painted a model for some reason and shattered it up.

[1:28:58] The MaxFunDrive means a lot to me

[1:29:00] and I can't express how big a part of my life

[1:29:06] MaxFun supporters are.

[1:29:08] I've gone through a number of hard times

[1:29:11] over the last couple of years.

[1:29:12] I know my co-hosts have gone through hard times

[1:29:15] and it's really great to me to know

[1:29:18] that there are people out there

[1:29:19] who have supported my show financially

[1:29:21] and helped me get through some of those hard times.

[1:29:24] It's been one of the great joys of my life

[1:29:27] that a thing that I love to do,

[1:29:29] that I think is worthwhile,

[1:29:31] I have found an audience who believes the same.

[1:29:34] So thank you so much.

[1:29:36] If you haven't had a chance yet,

[1:29:39] head over to maximumfun.org slash join and support our show.

[1:29:43] If you are already a supporter, I can't stress this enough,

[1:29:46] you mean the world to me.

[1:29:47] Thank you.

[1:29:48] I'll just add thanks to all who have listened,

[1:29:52] thanks to all who have given,

[1:29:54] thanks to all that continue to support us.

[1:29:58] It's just wonderful to know that you're.

[1:30:00] out there, you're all with us, you're all helping us out,

[1:30:03] and we hope that we help you out in our small way

[1:30:06] doing dumb stuff, but for this episode of The Flop House,

[1:30:12] I'd like to sign off, say thank you to our producer,

[1:30:14] Alex Smith, and to identify ourselves one last time,

[1:30:16] I have been Dan McCoy.

[1:30:18] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:30:19] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:30:22] Bye!

[1:30:23] Hey!

[1:30:33] On this episode, we discuss Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

[1:30:40] Too fast to furry-us.

[1:30:44] I think that's actually probably in the tagline.

[1:30:46] That was like a Chuck Jones.

[1:30:47] Yeah, I would be shocked if that wasn't

[1:30:50] part of the pitch.

[1:30:52] I think that was the first Wile E. Coyote cartoon,

[1:30:54] actually.

[1:30:55] All right, let me do another one.

[1:30:55] How about do this?

[1:30:56] Okay.

[1:30:57] Maximum fun.

[1:30:59] A worker-owned network.

[1:31:00] Of artist-owned shows.

[1:31:02] Supported.

[1:31:03] Directly.

[1:31:04] By you.

Ep. #421 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2, with Jamelle Bouie

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