After Last Season, with J.D. Amato

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss After Last Season.

[0:03] The movie that dares to ask the question,

[0:05] What's a movie?

[0:07] Yep.

[0:31] Hey, everyone, and welcome to The Flophouse.

[0:33] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:35] Hey, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:37] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:39] And we have.

[0:41] We're pretty sedate today, I think, because of the movie you watched.

[0:44] But we do have a guest, right, Dan?

[0:46] We have a special guest.

[0:48] We've been wanting to get him on the show for a long time,

[0:51] but it had to be a very special movie,

[0:54] and a very special reason.

[0:56] And so...

[0:58] Here he is.

[1:00] J.D. Amato. You know him from other podcasts.

[1:03] You probably listen to if you listen to this one.

[1:06] Because they're more popular.

[1:08] You know him from...

[1:10] He was the showrunner for The McElroy Show,

[1:13] a wonderful comedy show that then disappeared from the world.

[1:17] It was on a streaming service dedicated to comedy, Dan.

[1:20] See So.

[1:22] The name itself screams comedy.

[1:24] Yeah.

[1:27] What did they call the After Midnight reboot?

[1:30] What was it?

[1:32] It was After Midnight.

[1:34] I was the showrunner of After Midnight.

[1:36] Wow, Dan has the credits in front of him,

[1:38] and it's still totally business.

[1:40] It's funny because I could see Dan just kind of trying to pull

[1:43] what he knows from our friendship.

[1:45] You might know J.D. from this dinner party I went to that he was at.

[1:49] Dan says the credits for guests the way my dad would

[1:54] when he was trying to tell me about restaurants he's eaten at in different cities.

[1:58] The problem is that our listenership has sort of rewarded us

[2:02] for the sort of ramshackle nature of the show,

[2:05] so we never saw fit to get better at it.

[2:08] That's the issue.

[2:10] You may know J.D. from Ben Hosley's Christmas party

[2:13] where Stuart, Dan, and J.D. did a bit to avoid talking to other people.

[2:17] Mainly argued about the necessity of video and podcasting.

[2:21] Yeah.

[2:23] Welcome, J.D.

[2:25] I guess I've told the audience about you.

[2:27] Normally I might be like, say something about yourself.

[2:30] You were so kind as to come do the show, though,

[2:33] after running a half marathon today,

[2:36] so thank you in particular for being here.

[2:39] Here's the context of this.

[2:41] I'm a Flophouse fan.

[2:43] I listen to Flophouse.

[2:45] As all right-thinking people are.

[2:47] Yes, of course. I'm an American citizen.

[2:50] I do what's right.

[2:53] I'm a big Flophouse fan.

[2:55] We've long discussed coming on,

[2:58] but we had to find the right time and the right project to work together on,

[3:03] and this is a great collaboration between us.

[3:06] I will say a couple of things that I think are worth noting about

[3:11] coming on here.

[3:13] Number one, at said Christmas party, we discussed all of this,

[3:16] and then I texted with Dan and Stuart and was like,

[3:19] great, let's do it. I want to come on.

[3:21] And they're like, what movie?

[3:23] And I was like, this movie after last season,

[3:25] and then we had a whole text thread talking about it.

[3:27] And then we all realized if we just scrolled up,

[3:30] we had had this exact same conversation one year prior.

[3:33] That is the most after-last-season thing that could have possibly happened.

[3:37] Yeah, very fitting.

[3:39] And the most us just forgetting.

[3:43] I mean, Dan lives what I would call a Groundhog Day existence.

[3:48] Day in, day out, forgetting what he did the day before.

[3:51] Actually, more of a blank slate existence, I guess,

[3:54] or a 51st dates existence.

[3:56] I mean, this is 100% true.

[3:58] Now that I have had a diagnosis,

[4:02] I've learned that ADHD has a lot of memory problems associated with it,

[4:07] so I like to attribute it to that now, I guess.

[4:10] But I do remember the names.

[4:12] Dan, you explained your ADHD memory thing last episode.

[4:15] Oh, my God.

[4:16] I don't remember.

[4:18] But I do remember the names of actors in movies.

[4:23] That's true.

[4:24] For some reason.

[4:25] So we recorded some episodes out of order today

[4:27] to accommodate that J.D. was literally running a race this morning.

[4:31] And we did a mini about Stephen King movies that will come out next week.

[4:36] And Dan's memory for the Stephen King movies that he had seen is really phenomenal.

[4:41] It's really astonishing.

[4:42] I think Dan had seen almost every of the 74 movies I mentioned.

[4:48] Yes.

[4:49] So get ready for that next week.

[4:50] But this week we're talking about after last season

[4:52] because, Dan, what do we do on this podcast?

[4:54] This is a podcast where we watch a movie that was either a critical or commercial flop,

[5:00] and then we talk about it.

[5:01] I mean, I don't know that.

[5:03] I love the circumlocutions that Dan goes through to avoid saying bad these days.

[5:07] It's very sweet of him.

[5:08] It's very nice.

[5:09] I don't want to take anyone down.

[5:11] I don't need to be taken down.

[5:12] This is a movie that, like, honestly, normally would be in small timber or small vember, as Elliott prefers.

[5:19] That's all right, thinking people say.

[5:21] But, you know, we wanted to have J.D. on, and this is near and dear to his heart.

[5:27] I'm glad to believe.

[5:29] What brought this into your life, J.D.?

[5:32] Yes, yes.

[5:33] Before we get into the movie, what's your relationship with after last season?

[5:35] Okay.

[5:36] Well, first I want to appreciate Dan for not saying it's a bad movie

[5:40] because I think it's a good movie, and you're right.

[5:43] You cover movies that are either critical or an artistic failure,

[5:48] and this was one that just financially didn't make its money.

[5:52] But otherwise, listen, I love movies, and, guys, this is a good movie.

[6:00] This is a great movie.

[6:01] I'm so excited to hear your argument as we go through the movie about what makes this a good or great movie.

[6:07] Here is my initial experience with this.

[6:09] So I'm a big movie head like you all, and if we take our – we travel back in time to the year.

[6:16] The year is 2009.

[6:18] Wow.

[6:19] And the way that you learned about –

[6:20] I've only been podcasting for two years at that point.

[6:23] There are only three podcasts in existence, and this was one of them.

[6:30] And the way you learned about movies that were coming out was through Apple trailers.

[6:35] At least that's how I did in my contemporaries.

[6:38] You would go to Apple.com slash trailers, and every whatever, like once a week, they would drop a bunch of trailers,

[6:44] and you'd be like, ooh, this is going to be like a cool season of movies or whatever.

[6:48] I loved it, yeah.

[6:49] I was in college.

[6:50] We had it so good, guys.

[6:52] We had it so good.

[6:53] You went to one place, and you got to see all the trailers.

[6:55] Yeah.

[6:56] And then people made sure to make cool trailers.

[6:58] Yeah, and if your internet was bad, it took you a long time, but you still got to see the trailer.

[7:02] Yes, you'd click on the trailer, and you got to choose.

[7:05] Am I going to wait 40 minutes for the high quality?

[7:08] Am I going to wait 20 minutes for the medium?

[7:10] Or in five minutes, am I going to watch the low quality and not be totally sure who's in the movie?

[7:14] Yeah.

[7:15] If it ain't Lord of the Rings, give me the fastest one.

[7:18] You said to yourself, how much time do I have to wait to find out who's in G.I. Joe The Rise of Cobra?

[7:23] I need to figure this out because I need it fast or I need it better.

[7:28] Furious, yeah.

[7:29] And I need to figure out how, when, and why Cobra is rising.

[7:33] Yeah.

[7:34] Ironically, Cobra falls in that movie, which the trailer wouldn't tell you.

[7:38] The trailer really makes it look like they rise.

[7:40] Yeah.

[7:42] We can talk about that movie now also.

[7:44] We can get into Cobra as well.

[7:46] I still have a sore spot with that one because that was the one where I made a joke that the American people would never elect a president with crazy hair.

[7:54] You were wrong.

[7:56] Egg on my face, really.

[7:59] So the year is 2009.

[8:01] You're clicking onto Apple.com slash trailers.

[8:03] What do you find, J.D.?

[8:05] Okay.

[8:07] The big upcoming movie that everyone was talking about was Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are.

[8:13] Sure.

[8:14] He was directing an adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are.

[8:16] And among the – I was at NYU, a young film school lad with eyes as big as dinner plates looking to the horizon of cinema.

[8:25] And Spike Jonze, the master of art and weirdness, was going to cover Where the Wild Things Are.

[8:31] So the trailer drops, which I will say my hot take is I think the best film of 2009 was the trailer to Where the Wild Things Are.

[8:39] Okay.

[8:40] Interesting.

[8:41] The trailer has a bespoke Arcade Fire song that was like an acoustic version of one of their hits.

[8:47] And it had all this imagery of where the – I don't know that Where the Wild Things Are didn't quite hit me.

[8:52] The movie itself didn't hit me the same way that the trailer hit me.

[8:54] It has a melancholy sadness that I wasn't necessarily looking for out of Where the Wild Things Are.

[8:59] You wanted twee joy exclusively.

[9:02] Yes.

[9:03] Well, you wanted something – I mean there are things I admire about that movie.

[9:07] But I think you wanted the movie to in some way represent the feeling of the book Where the Wild Things Are, which is not about the regrets that adults have that childhood is ending necessarily.

[9:19] Totally.

[9:20] And the thing about this project is that there wasn't much about it out in the world, right?

[9:24] So the things that we knew is we knew some of the cast.

[9:27] It was like a lot of folks that were like – it wasn't like a huge big name because it was mostly monsters and a kid.

[9:32] We knew that the Jim Henson Company was making the puppets.

[9:35] But they're using – it was like all this mystery shroud.

[9:37] So when the trailer dropped, everyone was like, whoa, this is like we're getting our first hints into this.

[9:41] Also in 2009, a big thing is that this was the era of Lost.

[9:45] This was the era of the internet being a resource under which people did like alternate reality experiences and like stunt marketing stuff.

[9:53] And so at the same time, the same moment that the Where the Wild Things Are trailer released, right next to it on Apple Trailers.

[10:00] was a trailer for a movie called After Last Season.

[10:04] And when you-

[10:05] Probably start with A's after where the wild ones are.

[10:08] Exactly.

[10:09] Exactly.

[10:12] Yeah, they did it based on like seasons

[10:15] and verbs and adjectives.

[10:17] So when you watch the trailer,

[10:20] the trailer has a quality to it that felt almost

[10:25] like that like twee Spike Jones confusing strangeness.

[10:30] And it has some of its weird digital effects

[10:32] and all and it's like the lines that are being said

[10:35] don't seem to connect and it's shot in such a way

[10:37] that you are unable to discern

[10:39] whether this is intentionally supposed to be a movie or not.

[10:43] And so the internet, I remember became a flutter

[10:45] with the theory that this movie perhaps

[10:49] was an alternate reality promo

[10:51] for where the wild things are.

[10:53] And so people were pouring over it

[10:54] trying to like Google lines

[10:56] and see if like some of the things they were saying

[10:58] were related to where the wild things are in some way.

[11:01] They're like, this weird trailer came out.

[11:03] Occam's Razor tells us that it must be a prank

[11:06] from that notorious trickster Spike Jones

[11:09] to in some way draw attention to his movie

[11:12] by drawing attention away from his movie

[11:14] when there's already a trailer for his movie.

[11:16] This is very internet film nerd thinking, I think.

[11:19] Yeah, totally.

[11:20] The feeling that like anything that I experienced

[11:22] has been tailored for me and is someone speaking to me.

[11:25] Yes, yeah.

[11:26] And so of course that was not the case.

[11:29] And then what happened was people going,

[11:30] what is this movie?

[11:32] Because it was like the only title card

[11:35] was a production company called Index Square.

[11:38] And then it seemed to be directed

[11:40] by someone named Mark Regan,

[11:42] which is a name that feels almost writerly in its simplicity.

[11:47] Yeah, it feels like something you would call out

[11:49] if you were working on a shoot or something.

[11:52] It turned out that is like a pseudonym,

[11:54] but not for Spike Jones.

[11:56] Yes, exactly.

[11:58] And then there were rumors,

[11:59] I remember there was rumors that the film

[12:01] was only screened once in like Maine.

[12:04] And everybody died in the theater.

[12:06] Exactly.

[12:07] And if you met someone who saw it,

[12:09] then you were gonna die too in 24 hours.

[12:12] And that it was like a dentist that paid for it.

[12:15] And then like over the years,

[12:16] more and more information came out about like,

[12:18] who this guy was that wrote, directed,

[12:20] shot and produced the film.

[12:23] And like what was real and what wasn't real about it

[12:26] in terms of there's a lot of rumors

[12:28] of it costing millions of dollars.

[12:30] And it was a very strange thing that unfolded.

[12:32] But very quickly, it was unable to be seen anywhere.

[12:35] I believe in total,

[12:37] there were only four public screenings of it ever.

[12:40] And then there's no way to view it digitally

[12:43] or buy it or purchase it or see it online.

[12:45] So it became one of these movies

[12:47] that's just known as being this strange curio

[12:50] that no one can really wrap their hands around.

[12:51] And in the absence, of course, of it being available,

[12:54] everyone assumes it must be amazing in some way or other.

[12:57] Sure.

[12:58] The idea that the thing that is not available

[13:01] could be maybe not worth the time of watching it

[13:04] is an idea that I think in film people,

[13:06] if they can't watch something,

[13:08] they jump to the conclusion,

[13:09] obviously, this must be a singular experience.

[13:11] It must be.

[13:12] I mean, it is a singular experience.

[13:13] It is a singular experience.

[13:14] That's true.

[13:15] It's like you don't like art is what I'm getting at.

[13:18] It must be it, it must be it.

[13:20] But it turned out so, but this movie is-

[13:22] Elliot's in the pocket of big Hollywood.

[13:24] Yeah, clearly.

[13:25] I am in the pocket of well-made films.

[13:30] Elliot's working for big Hollywood

[13:33] and they're scared like a movie like this

[13:34] is gonna get the ball rolling again

[13:35] if people are thinking outside the box.

[13:37] That's true, that's true.

[13:38] You're trying to put them back in the box.

[13:39] I am literally working on, I think,

[13:40] what is the ironically the opposite of this,

[13:42] which is a Ghostbusters television show

[13:45] as opposed to this, which is a kind of

[13:46] maybe has a ghost in it, homemade,

[13:49] not quite story, almost.

[13:52] Wait, there's a ghost in this?

[13:53] Taping up printer paper on things.

[13:55] Yeah, but-

[13:56] Elliot, we're gonna be on the lookout

[13:58] if there's a Ghostbusters episode that includes-

[14:00] A paper mache fucking MRI.

[14:03] I really wish-

[14:04] A ghost that seems to push aside objects

[14:07] on the floor very slowly as it walks towards you.

[14:10] To be honest, I wish I had seen this movie

[14:12] before we started writing the series.

[14:13] I definitely would have put something in.

[14:16] For who?

[14:17] For us.

[14:18] There's no one that will have watched that.

[14:20] No, that's why-

[14:21] No one would be like,

[14:22] oh, that's an after last season reference.

[14:23] No, it's a little wink to his boys, us.

[14:26] Exactly, the same way that,

[14:28] so the one, there are two jokes

[14:30] on the Netflix Mystery Science Theater.

[14:31] There are two jokes in the first season,

[14:33] I think it was the first season,

[14:34] that I fought so hard for.

[14:36] And one of them was a reference

[14:37] to Italo Calvino's novel, The Non-Existent Night.

[14:40] And that was just for me, that was for nobody else.

[14:42] And the other one was a reference to the jingle

[14:45] for a hotel in the Poconos called Mount Airy Lodge

[14:49] that this commercial used to run all the time

[14:51] in the tri-state area.

[14:52] And I had such a big argument

[14:54] with the other people on the show

[14:55] because they're like, cut that joke out.

[14:57] Nobody's gonna get that joke.

[14:59] It's a waste.

[14:59] It's a nobody, nobody's gonna get that.

[15:01] And that's the one joke I hear about the most from people.

[15:04] They go, oh, I really love that Mount Airy Lodge joke

[15:07] because it hit just the right people.

[15:08] It seems weird to me that anyone,

[15:11] like to have Joel back on the show

[15:13] and be like, that people were like, that joke's too obscure.

[15:17] I feel like that was what I loved

[15:18] about the original Mystery Science Theater.

[15:20] When there was a joke that Joel,

[15:21] even Joel didn't get the reference, he'd go,

[15:23] it's okay, man, it's texture, it's cool.

[15:25] So he didn't have a problem with it.

[15:26] It was the cast was like, why are we doing this?

[15:28] I was like, you're not saying the jingle right.

[15:30] And the cast were like, who cares?

[15:31] Let's not do this joke.

[15:32] It's stupid.

[15:33] No one's gonna get it.

[15:35] I will say Mystery,

[15:36] that the Netflix Mystery Science Theater was my,

[15:38] it was my comfort watch during tumultuous years

[15:41] where I would, every Sunday,

[15:42] I would get my black and white cookie.

[15:45] Like a flat cake, you said?

[15:46] Like a flat cake.

[15:47] And I would eat that and I'd fall asleep

[15:50] with the dulcet tones of Mystery Science Theater.

[15:52] Yeah, how do you guys feel on black and white cookies?

[15:54] They're a big hit in the Wellington house.

[15:57] So I am not from the East Coast,

[15:59] so I don't have any, like-

[16:00] Oh, you don't say.

[16:01] I don't.

[16:02] Really, Brooklyn Dan from what?

[16:06] I don't even know what that means.

[16:06] That is such a specific.

[16:09] I don't have like a specific, like nostalgic fondness for it

[16:12] and I'm not a fan of Cakey Cookies.

[16:16] So it's not for me.

[16:17] A nostalgic fondant for it?

[16:18] But you were a fan of Cakey, the character in the,

[16:22] in that movie when Cakey got fakey.

[16:24] Yeah.

[16:25] I was a big fan of the line,

[16:26] Cakey got fakey, specifically.

[16:27] I mean, I mainly ask because I feel like Elliot

[16:29] has opinions being from New Jersey.

[16:31] Oh yeah, I mean, black and white cookies,

[16:32] I don't always want them,

[16:33] but when I want them, I want them bad.

[16:35] Yeah, you shouldn't want them all the time.

[16:37] That's bad for you.

[16:38] No, they're sometimes food.

[16:40] When I see them in the pastry case of a diner or a deli,

[16:43] it doesn't make me very happy just to see them there,

[16:45] just to know they're there.

[16:46] Yeah, especially when they're not like wrapped up

[16:48] in plastic like Laura Palmer.

[16:49] Well, yeah, that's how you know that Bob

[16:57] has been in the deli or diner.

[16:58] Yeah, exactly.

[16:59] Or how you know that Laura Palmer

[17:01] is chock full of preservatives, you know?

[17:03] Yeah.

[17:04] Now, JD, I know from your many appearances

[17:08] on Blank Check that you are sort of an expert

[17:11] in like film innovations.

[17:13] Sure.

[17:14] Different, like film tech.

[17:16] I'm a fan.

[17:16] I'm a fan of people innovating in cinema.

[17:18] Yeah, like technologies.

[17:20] Now, what would you say about After Last Season

[17:24] in terms of the filming techniques and styles?

[17:27] Well, I think that's the kind of thing

[17:29] we should talk about while we talk about the movie

[17:31] because I think most people

[17:32] probably have not seen this movie.

[17:34] And I think it's hard to know,

[17:36] it's hard to really get a sense.

[17:37] I will say this about the movie.

[17:38] It's an experience.

[17:39] And it's hard to really understand

[17:41] what this movie is without watching it.

[17:43] The same way we were talking about,

[17:46] I think when Evan Dworkin was here,

[17:47] I think we were talking about One Cut of the Dead,

[17:48] which is a similar movie where you kind of have to watch it

[17:51] to experience it and get what it's doing.

[17:52] I would argue that that's a really good version of it.

[17:55] While this is, I'm not so sure.

[17:58] I don't know that I would say you can watch this movie

[18:00] and even understand it or get what it's doing.

[18:04] I don't think you get what it's doing,

[18:05] but I think you get how it feels to watch it.

[18:07] Let's talk about it a little bit.

[18:09] And J.D., as we're going through,

[18:10] I want you to point out the parts

[18:11] where you're particularly finding the filmmaking

[18:13] particularly interesting or innovative or exciting.

[18:17] So after last season, we start with the title.

[18:19] It appears on the screen in pieces very slowly.

[18:22] And then we have a scene that there's a lady scientist

[18:24] or a doctor, I guess,

[18:26] who's very slowly explaining how it works

[18:28] and giving an MRI to a patient with Parkinson's.

[18:31] The room is nearly empty.

[18:32] Let me just set the scene for you.

[18:34] They're in a nearly empty room.

[18:36] There are pieces of paper with printouts

[18:38] of MRI images taped to the walls.

[18:39] And there's an MRI machine that appears to be made

[18:41] out of just white cardboard.

[18:43] Paper crafts.

[18:44] Paper crafts, yeah.

[18:45] What type of room would you describe it as?

[18:47] Not even white.

[18:47] Is it a hospital room?

[18:49] Is it a doctor's office?

[18:50] That's a good question.

[18:51] It's the fact, the prominent existence

[18:53] of a ceiling fan in the room

[18:55] and the way the blinds and the floor and everything about it,

[18:58] it feels to be more of a guest room

[19:00] that has had the furniture taken out.

[19:02] Yeah.

[19:03] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[19:04] And I want to clarify something.

[19:05] I believe this is an MRI machine made of white cardboard.

[19:08] It is a MRI machine made of, I would assume cardboard,

[19:11] that has had sheets of white paper taped over it.

[19:15] It looks like they've covered the cardboard

[19:17] with white printer paper to make it look the color

[19:20] of normal MRIs, which is blinding white.

[19:22] Like a-

[19:23] You know, I assume that they had an actual MRI machine

[19:26] that was just covered in corporate logos

[19:27] and they're like, we don't have clearance for this.

[19:29] So we got to cover it in paper.

[19:30] That's not possible.

[19:31] Yeah.

[19:32] When you hold the MRI machine,

[19:33] make sure to have your hand over the label

[19:35] because we don't have the rights to show the brands.

[19:37] Now, there's a lot of shots-

[19:38] Yeah, it's covered in like stickers,

[19:39] like Kaneda's motorcycle.

[19:41] No, I should mention, there are a lot of shots of walls,

[19:46] window shades, a fan, a door.

[19:49] And so even scenes-

[19:50] Texture.

[19:51] Even scenes that you think would be just dialogue

[19:53] between two characters will often be intercut seemingly

[19:56] at random or arbitrarily by shots of objects.

[20:00] walls, locations, and I read an interview with the director, actually, where he talked

[20:07] about using that to show that time had passed, but this does not actually, there's not internally

[20:12] true.

[20:13] Well, here's the thing.

[20:14] Often time has not passed in those scenes.

[20:15] What I'd like to point out is that in film, we have a phenomenon known as the Kuleshov

[20:21] effect, right?

[20:22] Yes.

[20:23] Yes, of course, yeah.

[20:24] Where you can put, by cutting-

[20:25] If you put sunglasses on anything, they turn cool.

[20:28] Yes, exactly.

[20:29] And Top Gun really showed that off.

[20:31] The Kuleshov effect is you take two images and you put them next to each other.

[20:36] The audience will draw a meaning.

[20:39] It'll add meaning between the two shots.

[20:40] So the great example would be like, oh, if you show a neutral-faced man, was the original

[20:45] sort of test of it, but then you show some audiences a baby as the next shot, the audience

[20:50] would be like, oh, the man's like worried about the baby.

[20:52] Or if you show-

[20:53] He wants to eat that baby.

[20:54] Yeah.

[20:55] Yes.

[20:56] If you show food, it'll be like, oh, the man's hungry.

[20:57] So the Kuleshov effect is when you cut two images that might not be related together,

[21:02] the audience draws distinction between them.

[21:03] I would like to posit the first advancement that After Last Season makes is what I would

[21:08] like to call the region effect, which is Mark Region has found a way to cut things together

[21:14] to actually take information away from the scene.

[21:18] Exactly.

[21:19] He's breaking the Kuleshov effect.

[21:22] You are losing the connection you would have had between things that are logically connected.

[21:26] You have a scene that you did understand, and then through the region effect, you no

[21:30] longer understand what's going on.

[21:32] You know what?

[21:33] You won me over.

[21:34] Now I like the movie already.

[21:37] Because you're right.

[21:38] The movie is constantly daring you to find what's happening in it.

[21:45] It's constantly throwing chaff in your face as if the movie is trying to escape from you

[21:49] and is throwing sand at you to blind you so that it can leave.

[21:52] It's skittering away from you.

[21:55] Another thing that I'd like to point out in this first scene, it's like trying to hold

[21:58] a block of like a little an ice trying to pick an ice cube up off the floor.

[22:01] Yeah, that's what this movie is like.

[22:03] It's like your hands are made of lava.

[22:06] It's the raccoon putting cotton candy in a puddle and then it disappears.

[22:11] Did that happen?

[22:12] You haven't seen it.

[22:13] It's very sad.

[22:14] I haven't seen that video.

[22:15] He's like he's like having the puddle like where'd my cotton candy go?

[22:18] Yeah.

[22:19] Yeah.

[22:20] It's delicious.

[22:21] Cotton candy.

[22:22] The saddest thing in the universe.

[22:23] That's what watching this movie is.

[22:24] So raccoons and cotton candy and puddles aside, that doesn't happen in this movie.

[22:28] That would be the most exciting thing that would happen in the entire movie.

[22:30] We then go to Dr. Marlin.

[22:32] This is a neurosurgeon.

[22:33] He brings in two med students.

[22:35] One of them is a woman named Sarah who's going to become a major character and takes a long

[22:39] time explaining to them why you would use an MRI.

[22:42] Now this will lead you to believe that the MRI is going to be a big part of the movie.

[22:46] No, it is not a big part of the movie except for these sequences.

[22:49] This is intercut with there's a woman.

[22:51] At first I thought this was just that I accidentally loaded up a MRI like a like a demo reel for

[22:58] a very early days because they didn't have the actual MRI or like a rehearsal for a tech

[23:04] demo.

[23:05] All right.

[23:06] Thank you.

[23:07] Yeah.

[23:08] You're thinking of purchasing the Klaxico Tech MRI.

[23:09] Well, here's the starter model that we'd like you to take home for a little bit and see

[23:13] if you're ready for it.

[23:14] That's that's what it feels like.

[23:16] But so this scene is intercut with a couple other scenes.

[23:19] A woman is having a boring phone call in a hallway and a man is sitting alone in his

[23:23] apartment.

[23:24] We're later going to learn this man is named Ed Brown.

[23:26] But when we're introduced to him, he is just a man who is writing, looking around, sitting

[23:29] down, gets down again, boarding a very British belt.

[23:33] Yes.

[23:34] There's definitely Captain Britain belt going on.

[23:36] That seems heavily featured to the point that you it begs the question.

[23:40] Is this man British?

[23:41] The answer is no.

[23:42] No, it's not resolved.

[23:43] Yeah.

[23:44] But he may have been there at some point.

[23:45] We get a lot of talk later in the movie about places people have been to or through, but

[23:49] we never find out where he's been.

[23:51] I also like to point out another thing that region does that I think is actually innovative

[23:55] directorially.

[23:56] OK, it's something that I like is that in movies I think it's really great texture when

[24:00] you leave in, you know, as we talk amongst ourselves as real humans, the world, you don't

[24:04] get everything.

[24:06] We mess things up.

[24:07] Oh, yeah.

[24:08] Stop and start.

[24:09] You call teacher mom.

[24:10] You call mom teacher.

[24:11] Yeah.

[24:12] There is a moment in this first scene where an actor just does a retake of a line.

[24:17] They the actor forgets a word and it does a retake right live in the moment and it's

[24:21] left in the movie.

[24:22] And I like that because that's real life.

[24:23] We say the wrong thing and I take retakes all the time.

[24:26] I mean, my understanding of the movie is that Mark Regan thought that making it feel real

[24:31] or feel like real life would mean leaving in mistakes, having characters talk about

[24:35] banal things that are completely unrelated to the way we'll get to it later.

[24:38] But one of the most exciting parts of the movie is a woman telling a story about going

[24:42] to dinner with a friend and her friend discovering that she's allergic to shrimp by ordering

[24:46] a shrimp dish and having an allergic reaction to it.

[24:48] And while you're like this is you're like this has this isn't doesn't have anything

[24:52] to do with anything.

[24:53] This is just a conversation.

[24:54] I'm just watching a conversation like I'm just watching people kill time, having a conversation

[24:58] that neither one of them are actually that interested in and that feels that could feel

[25:02] very real.

[25:03] Now, of course, everything is done with this air of you're watching aliens trying and trying

[25:07] and failing to integrate themselves into human society without anybody noticing.

[25:11] Yeah.

[25:12] It does feel like the most boring person you've ever met at a dinner party suddenly

[25:17] got to script out a whole movie.

[25:20] Yes.

[25:21] Yeah.

[25:22] Also, apparently, like the lines were sort of untethered in time, like if you had several

[25:27] lines in the same room, like they wouldn't be like recorded, like by scene.

[25:32] So the actors could get like an idea of what they were acting about.

[25:37] It would just be like, OK, like run through all the lines for this set up or whatever.

[25:41] And they would just be cut together later.

[25:43] Apparently, also that the lead I was reading something about one of the lead actors in

[25:47] an interview and he was saying that it was very cold when they were shooting.

[25:50] And so often they were having trouble saying the lines because because they were so cold

[25:54] that they would have to run in between takes to to a heater that they had set up.

[25:59] And also that if an actor was not on screen, they would be off trying to warm up and they

[26:04] would not be feeding their their lines to the other actor.

[26:07] So it was literally that they were literally having trouble saying the lines in a natural

[26:10] way because they were so cold.

[26:12] So I think is an efficient way to make a film.

[26:16] And on top of that, I would say that based on all this, I think we can agree.

[26:20] And this is Elliot's thought.

[26:21] And I'm just going to underline it.

[26:22] And I agree with you, Elliot, that this mark region is dedicated to realism.

[26:28] This film, this film is all about realism and capture capturing the real human experience.

[26:34] I mean, I don't know about the real human experience, because it's also about having

[26:38] a dream about stopping a murderer using microchips on your on your temple.

[26:42] But but it is a it is very much about capturing people sitting in cheap rooms and talking

[26:49] about nothing, which is what you would think if if you were shooting a movie, he's looking

[26:54] around.

[26:55] What are you saying about my room?

[26:56] J.D.

[26:57] I know.

[26:58] I thought J.D. was looking around saying, yeah, get it, guys.

[27:02] You agree with me, right?

[27:03] I'm saying what I'm thinking.

[27:04] Like a normal slash boring filmmaker, if they were facing budgetary limitations and had

[27:09] to, I don't know, decorate most of the room using paper squares, they might not cut away

[27:14] to shots of said paper squares to draw attention to it.

[27:19] But no, Mark Reid is like, you know what?

[27:20] This is real life.

[27:21] Yeah.

[27:22] Well, it's great.

[27:23] I would argue it's the opposite.

[27:25] This is a Brechtian thing.

[27:26] These are distancing effects.

[27:27] He is drawing attention to drawing attention to how fake this all is.

[27:30] The artifice, whereas a lesser movie like Taxi Driver is striving for a sort of realism

[27:35] that you believe these are real characters in a real city having real emotions, whereas

[27:39] this is this a greater work of art is showing you it's all it's all fake and it's there's

[27:44] nothing here.

[27:45] Yeah, it's it's refusing to allow you to invest yourself moving on.

[27:47] I got to keep moving on the block because we're like five minutes or less than five

[27:50] minutes in the movie.

[27:51] The so the point is, we're watching three things happen.

[27:54] A woman's having a boring phone call.

[27:56] Ed Brown seems to hear something and wanders around that sits down again.

[28:00] And the surgeon is telling his residents about schizophrenia and different types of schizophrenia.

[28:05] People hear voices.

[28:06] Then Ed Brown calls the library.

[28:09] He hears a knock on the door.

[28:11] We go to the woman on the phone.

[28:12] She stumbles on a man's dead body.

[28:14] It's Ed Brown.

[28:15] It's his dead body.

[28:16] We cut to two women talk about their family histories and towns they've been in.

[28:19] One compliments another's radio clock.

[28:21] We've never been to that town, right?

[28:25] She's never been to that town, but she's been through that town.

[28:28] There's like a lot of early scenes where I'm like, OK, they're establishing these characters.

[28:32] They're establishing things, you know, this will this will come back.

[28:34] And then I believe that certain of these characters we see in these early scenes are not seen

[28:38] again.

[28:39] No, these two characters are Sarah's roommate and another woman.

[28:43] And she goes, oh, I have this roommate, Sarah.

[28:45] Sarah walks in.

[28:46] She's the med student.

[28:47] We saw earlier the woman talk about a patient they knew who had nerve damage in her hand.

[28:51] Sarah walks through the room, leaves the house while those women are talking about

[28:54] their apartments and how big they are.

[28:56] We go to then the very, let's just say, unrealistic looking headquarters for the Pro Rolis Corporation,

[29:03] which is, I think, maybe my favorite fake name for a company I've ever seen in a movie.

[29:06] It doesn't even sound like anything, you know, now that there's so when there's a sign identifying

[29:12] this as the Pro Rolis Corporation, this we have to assume founded by Gerald Pro Rolis.

[29:21] They do this by John Outterbridge or whatever, like, just like, you know, a font is superimposed

[29:28] on the thing, the outside of the building as if it is a sign on the outside of the building.

[29:33] But I'm like, but it looks like there's our credit still going on by the Pro Rolis Association

[29:41] or something, because it's just like a title card.

[29:43] Yeah.

[29:44] In a way, isn't that like isn't that what paint is in the real world?

[29:48] Good point.

[29:49] Thank you.

[29:50] Paint is just like credits that have been slapped onto buildings.

[29:53] And Regent is giving us an audience all time because the audience at that point is all

[29:58] sharing stories about what their...

[30:00] radio clock look like when they grew up. Yeah, exactly, and what towns they've been through.

[30:04] Now, here's that, Stuart, I will say that the ProRollist Corporation is deposited to be like a

[30:07] large pharmaceutical or medical technologies company. Their signs usually are not painted

[30:13] on the front of the buildings, but they are usually made out of like three-dimensional

[30:17] materials that are affixed to the front of the building. Yeah, I mean, I'm just kind of like a

[30:21] regular blue-collar Joe, so I don't understand those like high-minded things. Yeah, all your

[30:26] signs are painted. All Stuart's is small-town corporations. All you know are hot dog stands

[30:31] and car garages, yeah. So, there's a man there. Just give me a six-pack and my dog,

[30:36] back in my truck, I'm happy. So, a man will learn his math. I mean, do you have a dog?

[30:43] You don't have a dog, you have a cat. I mean, two cats. Two cats? I feel like this is...

[30:48] Wait a minute, you don't have a truck, you have a jeep. Hold on a second, Stuart, all this time

[30:52] I thought you were a down-home country boy. Yeah, I know. It turns out you're an urban

[30:55] sophisticate. Yeah, I'm a grifter. There's also, can I... Wait, you're a grifter from Wildcats?

[31:01] Oh, wow. I'm a grifter from Wildcats. How do you keep your mask on? It just hangs in front of your

[31:05] face. I tie it behind my head. My name is Cole Cash. I think that was his name, right? I think

[31:11] that was it. Certainly Cole something. Why was he called Grifter, Elliot? He grifts. Anyway,

[31:18] moving on. Do you guys want to talk about Wildcats? So, they're wild covert action teams,

[31:24] I think. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, so a man, Matt, he reads a printed out news article. This,

[31:30] a lot of people online will say, oh, it's supposed to be a newspaper and it's clearly a printout.

[31:33] The director has stated this is supposed to be an article printed out from Yahoo News.

[31:37] Which we all do. Which we all do. And certainly in 2009, we were still doing that. And then he

[31:42] had it converted to text to print out, right? Yes. So, the news article says that that dead man

[31:46] from earlier is the third murder victim discovered recently. Sarah shows up. She's a new intern at

[31:51] Pro Rolis. She runs into Matt. They talk about the woman who discovered Ed Brown's body, another

[31:56] student. And she hands him a questionnaire she filled out. And they plan to continue the research

[32:00] project that he is running that she's a part of. Then when Sarah goes to a lecture in a room that

[32:05] I would call unfinished, where a professor talks about. So critical of all these rooms.

[32:10] Interesting. I mean, the thing is, it feels like they were going out of their way to find rooms

[32:15] that did not look like real places that humans exist in. And if there's anything I feel like you

[32:20] can find, it is a room. People live in them. They have them in their houses. Buildings are full of

[32:25] them. Building blocks of society. Maybe that's kind of what the Pro Rolis Corporation is going

[32:29] for, is trying to create an environment that you might not have already seen before. Maybe.

[32:33] Maybe that's sort of a separate thinking. Just because you're good at finding rooms doesn't

[32:38] mean that the average person is as good as you. So I feel like you have to sort of like

[32:42] reject your privilege. And it's not like this is the movie The Room, which is full of rooms.

[32:46] You know, this is a different kind of movie. So Sarah goes to a lecture about brain function.

[32:54] So this part from my notes, it's clear that I was unclear what was going on. There's a woman,

[32:59] I think it's Sarah. She's like in a home and she looks at a piece of furniture and Dr. Marlon

[33:04] walks in and the woman says there was a cup on a cabinet. And then it turns out, I think they're

[33:08] looking at objects from Ed Brown's apartment. Then we cut to a shot of an overhead fan.

[33:12] And then the doctor is back in his fake MRI room examining a woman whose nerves are healing from

[33:19] a graft operation. She can lift her arm higher. Her foot still doesn't feel great because that's

[33:24] where they took the nerves from. But she says she's willing to take the numbness in the foot

[33:27] to get the movement back in her arm. Not since Twin Peaks are there so many cutaways to ceiling

[33:32] fans. There's also a moment where there's, I swear to God, there's one shot where there's

[33:37] a digitally inserted shadow behind the woman. Did you notice this?

[33:41] I did not notice that. But I'll also mention, I watched this on YouTube, so it wasn't the

[33:45] best transfer. When I found out this movie was shot on 35 millimeter, which it does not,

[33:49] they did not take advantage of the format. I know what you're talking about, J.D. I was like,

[33:55] is this, is everything behind this person like green screen? Because the shadow looks so weird

[34:02] and digitally, but then I'm like, they're just in a room. They wouldn't have green screen that.

[34:06] It looked like one of the demons from Ghost, you know, that like crawls.

[34:10] Maybe it was foreshadowing of where the movie is going. So this movie, I should mention also

[34:14] by this point, there is foreshadowing. The shadows in this movie are crazy. It made me think about

[34:19] how few shadows I see in other movies, unless they specifically are like the point of this

[34:24] is shot as a shadow. Yeah. Yeah. Unless. Yeah. I like Baldwin's blasting dudes.

[34:29] Yeah. And reading minds. Yeah. I should mention that at this point there's been almost no

[34:33] background music there. And the movie almost every now and then there's like a,

[34:39] like a slightly dramatic two, two tones, like midi sound. And there will be long sections later

[34:47] where not only is there no music, but the sounds seem to be like the room tone of whatever room

[34:53] maybe the, it was being edited in. There's just kind of like either pipes behind walls or just

[34:59] kind of that, that blurbary sound to get from poor audio. You know, certainly late in the film,

[35:04] there's a scene where you, you hear, I think the outdoor traffic noise whenever someone talks. Yes,

[35:10] that's true. And there is also a scene where there's a handheld camera and you can hear the

[35:13] footsteps of the man walking with the camera, which I think is very funny. But anyway, so,

[35:17] so back from that riveting scene of the woman being examined for her, her nerve damage in her

[35:21] arm, Matt talks on the phone. This is, this is, this is genuinely a very funny scene.

[35:26] Matt is talking to someone on the phone who needs help finding a printer. And Matt is just telling

[35:30] him where there are printers. And I think this is a line that was in the trailer where he goes,

[35:34] oh yeah, there's printers in the basement. And this is from this is again, the movie is calling,

[35:40] daring to call attention to how much of the sets are printed pieces of paper by talking about

[35:45] printers. But Sarah calls home. She has a similarly banal conversation about school and someone she

[35:50] hasn't seen in a while. Then her roommate walks in and tells her story about having dinner with

[35:54] a friend who suddenly developed an allergy to shrimp. I think this is the closest thing to a

[35:57] tight, tense narrative in the entire movie is the story her roommate is telling about another

[36:02] character we never meet discovering they have an allergy to shrimp. And they both talk about the

[36:07] towns they grew up in. Matt sets up. Now the movie is really kicking into gear. This is when the

[36:12] story really starts up. What gear would you describe it as? Low. First, maybe neutral.

[36:19] Yeah. Before the movie had been rolling backwards down a hill and they hit the emergency break,

[36:25] at least. I mean, they're they're kind of pressing down slightly on it so that it falls back less.

[36:32] So Matt sets up a room for a psychology exercise. We know this because he puts a piece of paper that

[36:36] says psychology exercise on the door. He reads an article about a device that reads brain signals.

[36:41] And then Sarah shows up the experiment and he explains. He explains. It takes him a long time

[36:45] to explain this. They're testing computer chips that all they have to do is hold them to their

[36:49] temples and then one of them can read the other one's thoughts. It's not a two way, two direction

[36:54] thing. One of them will read the thoughts of the other. They start the trial. They make a lot of

[36:59] effort to make sure that the audience understands there's no potential negative side effects of this

[37:05] technology. Yes. Yeah. And then we're not worried. Yeah. And because I'm sure they knew the audience

[37:12] would be concerned because they're like, I've seen I've seen things like this. I've seen movies

[37:16] where someone gets a chip on them and they get Johnny Mnemonic. Suddenly they're on the run.

[37:20] No, don't worry. There's not going to be any drama. No. And it's what's cool is that if we're

[37:25] living, this movie lives in a world where the technology is so advanced that this microchip

[37:29] is it's so compact and the technology is so advanced that it almost looks like,

[37:33] you know, just one of those post-it sticky notes that you use to mark a textbook.

[37:37] It almost looks like you're holding just that up. But it's actually advanced microchip.

[37:41] You know what, Dan, what you said reminded me that there's the scene in Hitchhiker's Guide to

[37:45] the Galaxy where it says there's too much stress in the universe. So just to tell you,

[37:48] when these missiles are flying towards a spaceship, we're just going to tell you

[37:51] nobody's going to get hurt. It's going to be OK. This movie is kind of like that.

[37:54] The movie is like, don't get excited. Don't worry. Nothing will happen. So but this is

[38:00] when we really get into the meat of the movie. Yes. They start the trial and he says now Matt

[38:06] is going to give her prompts that she has to imagine. And we're going to see those imaginings

[38:09] presented as computer generated animated images. And this is where apparently the bulk of the

[38:15] reportedly five million dollar budget. Yeah, I wanted to put your finger right on. So, yeah,

[38:21] they said they said there was a five million dollar budget. You're watching the movie.

[38:24] You're like, where is this money going? Five million dollars. I spent it all on

[38:29] printer paper. But then apparently that's where like supposedly it's these computer generated.

[38:36] Yeah, I mean, I would say this is that if you look at the computer images in this film,

[38:42] I think it's a train. I think an untrained eye might think that they look almost like maybe a

[38:49] camera shooting a screen while like a ram cache playback render on Maya is playing back the sort

[38:56] of like rough parts of a basic animation. But if you if you actually understand cinema,

[39:02] film and what goes into it, you know that that region is operating at a level that's that's

[39:07] beyond that, because here's the thing in the they're describing things and then you see

[39:14] shapes that are close to those things. I would say not necessarily close,

[39:19] but you are seeing shapes. I do know that apparently this apparently was reported that

[39:24] that Weta really went hard after Mark Regan to reveal where he got the technology to do

[39:28] these amazing things. And he refused, you know, a lot of rumors about how it may go.

[39:32] So they strapped him, chained him up in a basement. He wouldn't he wouldn't bend after

[39:37] weeks. I don't want to jump ahead too much. But there is a later scene where like,

[39:41] you know, someone is kind of being threatened within the world of this like lawnmower Manny

[39:45] world and like nothing. She like has to like throw something at the person threatening.

[39:52] It's like she bats the square at him. It's totally weightless manner. That is just so funny.

[40:00] I had this where there's a moment where birds come on screen and I thought there were birds

[40:06] in my apartment.

[40:07] Because it was so realistic.

[40:08] I was touching the screen and I was like, oh my god, this is the movie.

[40:13] Now we're having a lot of fun here.

[40:15] But just to be serious, the animation...

[40:18] Elliot, you should set a baseline of reality for the listeners.

[40:21] I don't want the audience to be like, oh, I gotta see these amazing effects.

[40:25] These are the kind of effects that would have been incredibly impressive in 1978, potentially.

[40:31] To be honest, even then.

[40:34] There's a moment where he's like, imagine a letter rising out of a flat plane.

[40:40] And she goes, from the alphabet?

[40:42] It is very funny.

[40:44] As if he was asking her to describe a piece of postage or something.

[40:50] So Sarah's thoughts, so he goes, imagine a shape.

[40:54] So we get the first of the CGI scenes, which is rectangles zooming around, they're changing

[40:57] shape and size.

[40:58] A cylinder arrives and Matt goes, wow, that worked really well.

[41:01] I saw a cylinder.

[41:02] And Sarah goes, oh no, I was imagining a basket.

[41:04] Which is, one, a basket is not a shape.

[41:06] But also the idea that these amazing chips don't work that well.

[41:11] But no, here's the thing.

[41:12] If I say, think of a shape, immediately you guys all thought basket.

[41:17] Then we go through a lot more of these CGI brain reading tests.

[41:22] We see cubes, orbs, birds, flowers, and finally, a man being stabbed.

[41:27] Which startles Sarah.

[41:28] But Dan, what were you going to say?

[41:30] Well, to be mildly fair to a movie that maybe doesn't require it, as they practice using

[41:36] these chips, the things start looking more like actual...

[41:39] They look more realistic is what you're saying.

[41:41] They still look bad.

[41:42] When she sees the man being stabbed, she describes features on him that are not even reflected

[41:49] in the image.

[41:50] That's so...

[41:51] Yes.

[41:52] So I was...

[41:53] Specifically, she can see the pupil in his eye.

[41:54] And I couldn't.

[41:55] I could barely...

[41:56] No.

[41:57] It took me a while to understand they were even people.

[41:58] Now, I think there's something to be done.

[41:59] I see what they're going for, which is that they start out with simple shapes, and it's

[42:00] becoming more and more detailed, more and more complex.

[42:01] Yeah.

[42:02] But...

[42:03] Beautiful.

[42:04] It still always looks like crap the whole way through.

[42:05] It just still really looks bad.

[42:06] But she startles Sarah, and she goes, I didn't think of that.

[42:07] It just appeared.

[42:08] And pretty quickly, they come to the conclusion that this was a vision of a man being stabbed.

[42:09] Which is...

[42:10] Which is...

[42:11] Which is...

[42:12] Which is...

[42:13] Which is...

[42:14] Which is...

[42:21] And she goes, oh, yeah, I had a vision of his murder before it happened, too.

[42:25] And Matt is like...

[42:27] That was the interesting...

[42:28] That's the twist there...

[42:29] Yeah...

[42:30] Even before we had brain reading shifts, she started having premonitions of murder.

[42:33] And I was like, did I miss a scene...

[42:35] Why didn't she stop it?

[42:36] Where they set this up in any way?

[42:38] I did not miss a scene, I think, where they set this up in any way.

[42:41] Matt figures they can use her visions to stop the next murder.

[42:46] All they have to do is keep doing the same boring stuff they've already been doing.

[42:49] So now we get a very long sequence, punctuated by shots of walls and empty rooms and what

[42:54] appears to be a kitchen storage area.

[42:56] As she visualizes CGI shapes that become cars driving around, then weird trees next to a

[43:02] road.

[43:03] Cool cars...

[43:04] And this all feels like demo sampler stuff.

[43:05] And, wait, the kitchen...

[43:07] You said a kitchen storage area.

[43:11] It looks like it's a room with carpet.

[43:13] That seems like a bad place to store your, like, drying dishes, right?

[43:16] But there are racks of dishes there.

[43:18] Yeah, okay.

[43:20] The cars seem fast and cool.

[43:22] The cars seem like...

[43:23] I mean, the cars seem like future cars, but, you know...

[43:26] And so, CGI house, CGI woman throwing cubes at something, as Dan mentioned.

[43:30] And finally, through the wall comes a faceless, knife-wielding killer.

[43:33] It's not really a knife.

[43:34] It's a spike.

[43:35] It looks like he ripped it off a stegosaurus's tail.

[43:37] And by faceless, like, other than this character, the characters that are presented, the digital

[43:44] characters, are hyper-realistic.

[43:45] This one has, like, a face like Cobra Commander's mask, right?

[43:50] Yes, it's like a mirror, just for a face.

[43:52] And this happens, and the killer attacks the CGI woman.

[43:54] And my favorite part of this is, Sarah's describing the woman, she goes, it's a woman.

[43:58] She's wearing some sort of blouse, which is, like, not the most important detail.

[44:03] Not really represented by what we're seeing.

[44:06] So now we see a man in that kitchen storage area calling through a door for someone named

[44:09] Angie.

[44:11] And then Matt walks into the test room and says he just found out a woman was stabbed

[44:15] in a house.

[44:16] And so I guess that Angie was the woman who got killed, that they saw the vision of.

[44:19] He was listening to the police scanner, I guess.

[44:22] He kind of, like, I guess was driving by that house, and I don't know.

[44:25] They go back to the test.

[44:26] What else can you do?

[44:27] They go back to the test.

[44:29] So did time pass between this?

[44:32] How did he find that information out?

[44:34] Did he, like, check in the Citizen app?

[44:36] The region effect.

[44:37] You're all victim to it.

[44:38] Yeah.

[44:39] I think he says something about driving past the house.

[44:41] But as far as we know, we didn't even see him leave that room, which we don't have to

[44:44] see.

[44:45] It feels like we are in a timeless space where they are experiencing the same moment for

[44:50] eternity, but they're free to leave and expand that moment.

[44:53] It's really just it is really just disorienting this whole movie.

[44:58] Then they go back to the test.

[45:00] They see some CGI fish that we have, then we have point of view footage of someone walking

[45:04] around outside.

[45:05] And it's a lot of shots of chairs and hallways and walls and our leads sitting there not

[45:10] talking and then CGI shapes, the ambiguous room tones and then chairs again.

[45:15] And this goes on for like 15 minutes.

[45:16] Like, this is a huge chunk of the movie.

[45:18] It's really it's a whole lot of nothing.

[45:21] Eventually, the CGI comes, they arrange themselves in the human shape and the faceless stabber

[45:27] is outside a door marked psychology exercise.

[45:29] Oh, no, that's where they are.

[45:31] Right.

[45:32] We know that.

[45:33] We know that sign.

[45:34] We've seen it.

[45:35] That's good filmmaking.

[45:36] Our heroes open their eyes and the door slowly opens and closes seemingly by itself.

[45:39] There's nobody there.

[45:40] And then chairs and other objects in the room start moving very slowly.

[45:44] Now, J.D., as a filmmaker, how challenging is it to make believable ghost effects like

[45:52] this?

[45:53] Yeah, I think this scene rips legitimately.

[45:57] I think this is a great scene.

[45:58] I will say the fact that they don't just have the door open as though someone is walking

[46:03] in instead.

[46:04] It's sort of like teeters back and forth and then opens an amount that a person might not

[46:08] be able to slide even through is actually an interesting choice because you're not sure

[46:12] what's going on, which creates suspense.

[46:13] Yeah, it's really mystifying.

[46:15] The effects, for example, you're seeing a lot of the door.

[46:19] Like I would say you're going to see 40 percent of the door.

[46:23] At least, yeah.

[46:24] Which if someone if there was actually someone like a crew member moving it, there's a good

[46:28] chance it would be in that 40 percent.

[46:30] So when I see this, I'm like, I don't understand how they're doing this.

[46:33] Like is there an actual invisible man?

[46:35] And then you're seeing some of this stuff like you see a chair move.

[46:38] And you see like the top 80 percent of the chair.

[46:40] And I'm like, statistically, if someone's going to move that chair, they're touching

[46:43] the top.

[46:44] So the fact that it's moving.

[46:45] Actually, I was texting with a friend of the pod, Todd Vaziri, who's doing visual effects

[46:50] work.

[46:51] And he's like, I don't know how they did this.

[46:52] It's mystifying.

[46:54] I got to say, there's a part later on in the movie where I think it's later on where they're

[46:59] like asking the ghost to move something.

[47:02] And the ghost's like, that's too heavy.

[47:04] I'm going to move this ruler instead.

[47:07] That is 100 percent of the filmmakers being like, OK, well, I don't know, the fishing

[47:10] line that we have here isn't good enough.

[47:12] But it's so funny because it's such an unforced error because the movie does not need to introduce

[47:15] an object too heavy for the ghost to pick up.

[47:18] It could just not do that.

[47:20] But that's realism.

[47:21] That's realism though.

[47:23] If you were confronted with a ghost, you'd be like, pick up my couch.

[47:26] And the ghost would be like, I can't do that.

[47:28] And in real life.

[47:30] Ha ha, Vicky, the ghost would say.

[47:33] In real life, ghosts have limits to what they can do.

[47:35] Unlike Vicky, who's limitless.

[47:37] Vicky can do anything.

[47:39] She took the pill.

[47:41] Vicky on a limitless pill.

[47:43] Oh, my God.

[47:44] Oh, wow.

[47:45] That should be illegal.

[47:47] That is illegal.

[47:49] Anyway, I guess what we're saying is.

[47:51] I'm a one issue voter.

[47:53] She's limitless.

[47:55] She goes away from that little girl.

[47:57] She's a robot, not really a girl.

[48:00] J.D., why did you vote for Trump three times?

[48:04] He's strong on Vicky not getting that limitless pill.

[48:06] He said Vicky and the pill.

[48:08] They're in different states.

[48:10] He said he wasn't going to let it happen.

[48:12] He said.

[48:14] Wow.

[48:15] That's pretty poetic.

[48:17] So back to the movie.

[48:19] So what this scene lacks in clarity, it also lacks in drama.

[48:21] So it's got that.

[48:23] So the chair and the others are moving on their own.

[48:25] Suddenly Matt shouts as if he's been stabbed.

[48:27] But he's fine.

[48:28] There's no wound.

[48:29] Then Sarah shouts and blood appears on her sleeve.

[48:31] Oh, no, there's an invisible attacker in the room.

[48:32] They do what anyone would do in this case.

[48:34] They line up plastic bins in a line to try to block the attacker.

[48:38] The attacker.

[48:40] They also do not communicate in any other way.

[48:42] No, they do not speak to each other.

[48:44] They don't figure out the situation.

[48:46] They do not leave the room or even attempt to leave the room at this point.

[48:48] They try later.

[48:50] But the they line up these bins in a straight line.

[48:52] You are the invisible attacker.

[48:54] You would not walk around those bins.

[48:56] You would move each one very slowly, one at a time to show you are getting closer to your victims.

[49:00] And then he knocks down Matt and he attacks Sarah.

[49:02] Oh, no.

[49:04] Oh, no.

[49:05] Oh, no, Sarah.

[49:07] She's gonna be killed by this invisible attacker.

[49:09] That's what you think.

[49:11] No, because Matt wakes up and Sarah walks in and Matt tells her,

[49:13] I just had this dream where we were using telepathy chips.

[49:15] And then Ed Brown's murderer came after us.

[49:17] And I'd also like to point out that, number one, that scene is legitimately tense.

[49:21] There's a lot.

[49:23] There's a lot of energy there.

[49:25] To your point.

[49:27] I would say a lot of energy.

[49:28] The invisible attacker, you said, jumps on them.

[49:30] What happens is he gets close enough.

[49:32] And then it seems he minorly cuts both of their arms.

[49:34] And they both go, ow.

[49:36] But then stay where they are.

[49:38] While the invisible.

[49:40] And then the thing that I like to imagine watching that scene is,

[49:42] what is the invisible attacker doing?

[49:44] Because it seems like he slowly opens the door, closes it, opens it,

[49:46] moves the chair to a side, walks to the left, scoots the one box,

[49:48] walks forward, scoots the other box.

[49:50] Scoots the other box.

[49:52] And then the thing that I like to imagine watching that scene is,

[49:54] what is the invisible attacker doing?

[49:56] Because it seems like he slowly opens the door, closes it, opens it,

[49:58] moves the chair to a side, walks to the left, scoots the one box,

[50:00] walks forward, scoots the other box, scoots the other box.

[50:00] then walks up, pauses in front of the one guy,

[50:02] sort of nicks him with the knife, and then moves.

[50:05] It's asking a lot of questions

[50:08] that as an audience member, we get to imagine the result.

[50:10] That's true, we get to make up the story,

[50:12] like we're collaborators in this, but I think that we-

[50:14] On some level, the stuff that you said that preceded this,

[50:18] the 15 minutes of boring stuff,

[50:20] that was to add more weight to this moment,

[50:23] so you're like, oh shit, now things are getting crazy.

[50:27] And now it makes sense because you,

[50:29] and also, you're like, Elliot, you were like,

[50:31] I don't know what's going on.

[50:32] This seems random, this seems crazy.

[50:34] Well, every writer doesn't leave,

[50:38] a thread that leaves nowhere, region pays off.

[50:40] It seemed nonsensical because it was a dream.

[50:43] Because it was a dream, yeah.

[50:45] 30 to 40 minutes of the movie were a dream.

[50:48] The last, yeah, 30 to 40 minutes were a dream,

[50:50] so you think, oh, this movie was all a dream.

[50:52] No, the movie continues after the dream

[50:55] to tell a slightly different-

[50:57] Like life.

[50:58] To tell a slightly similar story.

[50:58] Like life, it continues.

[51:00] That's true, after dreams.

[51:02] So-

[51:03] Tell it, tell it.

[51:04] So they go to a different,

[51:06] and now they go on to doing

[51:07] a different psychological experiment.

[51:09] This time, she's asking him opinion questions

[51:11] that I think she just made up.

[51:12] I think she says, I made up these questions.

[51:14] Eventually, they hear a sound and they run out.

[51:15] There's a man in the hall who has stabbed a lab worker,

[51:18] and he's saying,

[51:19] what are the last six digits of the access code?

[51:21] What are the last six digits of the access code?

[51:23] Matt and Sarah run back into their room,

[51:24] but the killer follows.

[51:26] A chair moves on its own,

[51:28] but wait, he's not dreaming anymore.

[51:29] The chair knocks out the killer,

[51:32] and Sarah calls the police on her phone,

[51:34] and then a disembodied voice tells them,

[51:36] hey, can you hear me?

[51:37] Some people can hear me and some can't.

[51:39] I can move some objects.

[51:41] She goes, lift my backpack.

[51:41] He goes, that's too heavy,

[51:43] but I can lift this ruler.

[51:44] And they realize that this is Craig,

[51:46] a previous victim of the killer,

[51:48] and then he seems to vanish.

[51:50] Oh, wow.

[51:51] Pro Rolla security shows up.

[51:53] The killer is put in a room

[51:54] in front of a piece of paper

[51:55] that says cell one.

[51:57] Implying that there's other cells.

[51:59] Implying other cells, yeah.

[52:00] World building, yeah.

[52:02] And there's an FBI agent,

[52:03] who I think is,

[52:04] he's the MRI patient

[52:05] from the beginning of the movie, right?

[52:06] He has a noticeable tremor in his hand

[52:08] from the Parkinson's that he has.

[52:09] Are you saying that FBI agents

[52:11] can get sick or have issues?

[52:12] No, I'm just saying that

[52:14] they're paying off this character

[52:16] from earlier who had not appeared

[52:17] in the movie after that first scene.

[52:19] And he explains over the phone

[52:21] the most dramatic way to explain anything,

[52:23] as we saw in the Lucille Ball movie

[52:26] that came out a couple of years ago.

[52:28] The most dramatic way to explain something

[52:29] is to have someone tell you over the phone.

[52:31] Explains that the killer is Eric Nelson,

[52:33] a former Pro Rolla's employee,

[52:35] who had been hired to steal research materials.

[52:37] That's why he needed the code.

[52:39] And all his victims had worked

[52:40] on the same project.

[52:42] Case closed.

[52:44] Why would they get someone

[52:45] who used to work there,

[52:46] but doesn't know the code?

[52:48] And also,

[52:49] he lied about it.

[52:50] He told them he knew the code, yeah.

[52:51] Something interesting worth noting

[52:52] is that he's looking for the code,

[52:54] but we see several staff members

[52:56] enter the facility and it seems

[52:58] that they hold up what appears

[52:59] to be a Panera gift card for a red light.

[53:02] The red light remains red,

[53:03] but the door opens.

[53:05] So he was searching for a code

[53:06] and the entire time he just needed

[53:07] one of those gift cards.

[53:08] Like a dongle, yeah.

[53:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[53:10] My guess is that he said to them,

[53:12] I have the code,

[53:13] I used to work there.

[53:14] But then when he went,

[53:15] they changed the code

[53:16] since after they fired him.

[53:16] He goes, uh-oh, I need the code now.

[53:18] Nothing to do but murder people.

[53:20] Yeah, because in his exit interview,

[53:22] he talked about how he's gonna get

[53:23] into stealing secrets after this.

[53:26] Well, that's when they upgraded

[53:27] their security from a code-based system

[53:29] to a gift card-based system.

[53:31] Yeah, yeah.

[53:32] So he's still like,

[53:32] he's just yelling into this.

[53:34] That's company.

[53:35] Gift card reader.

[53:36] Company script.

[53:37] A code.

[53:38] 738492.

[53:40] And also, he needs the last six digits.

[53:42] This is a long code.

[53:43] This is a long code.

[53:44] To put into a door, yeah.

[53:45] I mean, ProMoralist is a pretty serious place.

[53:47] That's true, yeah.

[53:48] I mean, ProMoralist,

[53:50] that's why they,

[53:50] you guys are,

[53:51] that's why I called amateur rulers.

[53:53] It's kind of bothering me,

[53:54] because you guys are acting like

[53:55] they still have the code system.

[53:56] The whole point is they don't have it.

[53:57] They also saw that it didn't make sense,

[53:59] so they changed it to another system.

[54:00] But he got into the building somehow

[54:02] without knowing they don't have a code system anymore.

[54:04] Because he's still killing people

[54:05] asking for the access codes.

[54:07] So, back to the lady with arm nerve damage.

[54:09] She has her follow-up appointment

[54:11] with the doctor from earlier.

[54:12] She's doing better.

[54:13] Arm much higher.

[54:13] Yeah, her arm can go up higher.

[54:15] Sarah goes to a computer

[54:16] and thinks about the ruler that moved before.

[54:19] And Matt talks on the phone about the killer.

[54:21] This is my other favorite part of the movie.

[54:23] Actually, I have three favorite parts of the movie.

[54:25] The printer conversation,

[54:26] the shrimp allergy conversation,

[54:27] and this conversation where it's like,

[54:29] yeah, there was this killer.

[54:30] He killed Ed Brown.

[54:31] And the conversation veers into,

[54:32] oh yeah, I have a friend whose brother

[54:34] lives near some hot springs.

[54:35] Yeah, I think my uncle goes there sometimes.

[54:37] It's a tourist-like,

[54:38] so they have a lot of tourist stuff there.

[54:40] And the conversation.

[54:40] So good.

[54:42] This is like a real conversation.

[54:43] It doesn't stay in one subject

[54:44] that's related to the movie.

[54:45] It veers off to unrelated conversation.

[54:48] Later, Matt is on his computer.

[54:50] It appears that a coat falls off the wall

[54:52] and Matt calls out for Craig.

[54:54] No response.

[54:55] Finally, we're in the homestretch of the movie.

[54:58] Sarah and another woman.

[55:00] Is this the woman with the arm damage?

[55:01] I couldn't tell.

[55:02] They're at a house talking about the neighborhood,

[55:04] the work that they did on the house,

[55:05] where certain pictures were taken.

[55:07] One of the pictures they look at is of Craig,

[55:09] who would have been graduating

[55:11] from the med school program soon

[55:12] if he was still alive.

[55:13] Makes you think, doesn't it?

[55:14] The end.

[55:15] They're having a conversation

[55:17] in one of the rare outdoor shots.

[55:18] And one of the characters,

[55:20] they're standing on like a pathway,

[55:22] like a stone pathway leading up to a front door.

[55:24] And one of the characters

[55:25] just like walks a few feet into the snow

[55:28] and then walks back in the main door of the house.

[55:31] So I'm like,

[55:31] you just want to get some snow on your boots?

[55:33] What's going on?

[55:34] Usually, now in every bad movie that's low budget,

[55:37] there are scenes where,

[55:38] through either bad writing, bad acting, bad directing,

[55:40] whatever reason,

[55:41] where human behavior doesn't quite match up

[55:43] with the real life behavior.

[55:44] I have to say,

[55:45] this is maybe the movie

[55:46] where I've seen the most of this,

[55:49] where characters do stuff like that, Stuart,

[55:50] where I'm like,

[55:51] I don't know what possible reason

[55:52] a human would have to do that thing.

[55:54] Like there's something about this behavior

[55:56] that is,

[55:56] there are actors doing it

[55:58] as if this is a thing that makes sense,

[55:59] but it's not making sense at all.

[56:00] Yeah.

[56:01] Now be honest.

[56:03] Be honest.

[56:04] Yeah.

[56:05] Where I know the masculinity,

[56:07] you know, there's a lot of gender norms.

[56:08] Who cried when they saw Craig?

[56:11] Who cried when you saw Craig

[56:12] and learned that he would have been graduating that day?

[56:14] I mean, I cried a little

[56:15] because I was like,

[56:16] why do they have these pictures

[56:17] turned away from the camera?

[56:19] Yeah, they're all turned towards a window

[56:22] as if they want passers-by to just see the pictures.

[56:25] Yeah.

[56:26] No, it's so that you can let your loved ones

[56:27] look out the window.

[56:27] That was an implication

[56:29] that Craig and Sarah were in a relationship

[56:31] because when the Craig ghost shows up,

[56:33] she doesn't treat him like it's anything special,

[56:36] but she has a picture of him in her house.

[56:40] Yeah, I don't know.

[56:42] Like the thing about this movie.

[56:43] I think this is a JD question.

[56:45] The thing about this movie,

[56:46] and I've said this a lot on this podcast

[56:48] when we watched one of these more baffling movies

[56:51] is that like Elliot's description of it

[56:55] to the podcast listener

[56:57] probably sounded largely incomprehensible,

[57:00] but it was at least 50% more comprehensible

[57:04] than the film itself.

[57:05] I put work into putting this summary together

[57:07] because this movie is,

[57:09] it's hard to express the experience of watching this movie,

[57:11] which is that it is like,

[57:13] the movie is like at every turn,

[57:16] it is doing the best it can

[57:17] to not give you a thing to hold on to,

[57:19] to understand why the movie is happening

[57:21] and what's going on.

[57:22] And I'm sure you had like extensive online resources

[57:25] to turn to for this plot summary

[57:27] that explains all the different character ideas

[57:31] and motivation.

[57:32] I mean, not extensive,

[57:33] but I did some research on it,

[57:34] but I will say this also.

[57:35] It's like, and you can't,

[57:40] you don't get-

[57:41] He's at a loss for words.

[57:43] It's such a singular misunderstanding

[57:47] of how stories are told and how movies work.

[57:49] And it is amazing to me,

[57:51] someone who, maybe I just take it for granted

[57:52] that stories make a certain amount of sense.

[57:54] I'm a professional writer.

[57:55] Maybe it's because I have an affinity for stories

[57:57] or how things work like that,

[57:58] that I do that for a living.

[58:00] But this is someone in his interviews,

[58:03] the director in his interview,

[58:05] the director's like,

[58:05] oh yeah, I want to do something like

[58:06] The Sixth Sense or The Exorcist,

[58:08] but I also want to talk about brain science

[58:10] and schizophrenia and what it's like to be a med student.

[58:13] And that it is such a total lack of understanding

[58:17] of how to do any of those things in a story

[58:19] that even like if my kids made a movie,

[58:23] they'd have a basic understanding of like,

[58:24] oh yeah, you introduce this character

[58:26] and he does something

[58:26] and then a thing happens as a result of that.

[58:28] And then he's got to solve the problem.

[58:29] Whereas this is so,

[58:31] it just exists in a different plane of thinking.

[58:33] Okay, so I have,

[58:34] I've been doing a bit of being,

[58:36] trying to be kind of a antagonist here.

[58:38] Like a little stinker, yeah.

[58:40] This is a real Charles Roden on The Tonight Show

[58:42] type character.

[58:45] But I will say something that I love

[58:46] and being a long time Flophouse fan,

[58:49] also I want to shout out one of my childhood dear friends,

[58:52] Jay, who is a Flophouse super fan,

[58:56] who I'm sure is listening right now and is very excited.

[58:59] Thanks Jay.

[59:00] Yeah, he's been listening for a long time

[59:02] and we text about the show often.

[59:05] As a long time,

[59:06] I grew up in the Chicago suburbs where we had Sven Gulli.

[59:09] And so on Sundays,

[59:10] Sven Gulli would show sort of horror movies

[59:12] and usually it was like horror movies

[59:14] they get the licenses to.

[59:15] And part of it is like,

[59:16] you're seeing these bad movies.

[59:17] So I've a lifelong full of bad movies.

[59:22] And to me, what I think is genuinely interesting

[59:24] is a movie can,

[59:27] lots of movies can be bad, right?

[59:28] There's tons of bad movies all the time.

[59:30] But what makes them unique

[59:31] is when someone genuinely tries to make something,

[59:34] but just does it in a way that doesn't line up

[59:38] as Elliot aptly described,

[59:40] doesn't line up with any of the language

[59:42] of how things have been done before.

[59:44] And that's why I think

[59:45] After Last Season is really interesting

[59:46] is it's like The Room, like Birdemic,

[59:49] like any of these big movies.

[59:50] It's like, this is someone who genuinely

[59:52] seemed to try to make a movie,

[59:55] but did it in a way that defies all logic

[59:58] around all of what we've learned about.

[1:00:00] about cinema, and I think that's actually exciting and fun

[1:00:03] because a lot of times, and I'm sure you guys

[1:00:05] can attest to this, bad movies often are very the same.

[1:00:09] The things that are bad about them can be the same things

[1:00:11] over and over again, or there's a knowing sense of winkiness

[1:00:14] and sometimes it's just laziness that makes them bad

[1:00:17] or apathy, and I think when bad movies are interesting

[1:00:20] is when it's people that are genuinely trying

[1:00:22] to make something and just do not know how to do it,

[1:00:26] and I think this movie in itself is a type of bad movie

[1:00:30] that is very specific and different

[1:00:32] than a lot of the other bad movies out there,

[1:00:34] and for that, I applaud it because also,

[1:00:37] to what Dan was saying about the story

[1:00:38] is when Dan texted and said that Elliot,

[1:00:41] you were on summary duty, number one, I felt very guilty

[1:00:43] because you have a family and a life,

[1:00:45] and I was like, this isn't a movie

[1:00:47] where I could not have done that

[1:00:49] because the plot to this movie is a list of scenes

[1:00:53] that you have to infer how they are connected necessarily,

[1:00:58] and I think that's such an interesting thing

[1:01:00] because it doesn't feel, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it

[1:01:03] to anyone to sit down and watch it

[1:01:04] because it doesn't necessarily make logical sense

[1:01:06] in its paces, it doesn't sort of grab you and pull you along

[1:01:10] but I do think it's interesting because it is a bad movie

[1:01:12] that has a tone and a style and an approach

[1:01:15] that is different than I would say many,

[1:01:17] the majority of other bad movies.

[1:01:19] I think so, I mean, even The Room or Birdemic

[1:01:21] have a more inherent understanding of traditional,

[1:01:25] how a movie is and how a story is told.

[1:01:26] Film language.

[1:01:27] Film language, and I will say,

[1:01:29] well, what I would say, the other thing I wanna say

[1:01:30] is that this guy doesn't know what he's doing,

[1:01:33] the movie makes no sense, but also, kudos to him,

[1:01:36] I didn't come up and make a movie, he did it.

[1:01:39] I'm the guy who's like, oh, I know how to tell a story,

[1:01:41] blah, blah, blah, I'm not the one who's out there

[1:01:42] making a movie to express myself no matter,

[1:01:45] despite not even having the language to express myself in,

[1:01:49] so you gotta give him credit for that.

[1:01:50] What I also like, too, is that,

[1:01:52] I'm sure you all have seen it, it's a lot of bad movies,

[1:01:55] once it gets claimed as a bad movie,

[1:01:57] the creators are like, oh, yeah, it's kind of,

[1:01:59] yeah, it's kind of fun and intentional.

[1:02:00] Oh, yeah, I meant it to be silly, yeah,

[1:02:02] we did that on purpose.

[1:02:03] And if you read interviews with so-called Mark Regan,

[1:02:06] literally, the interview is like him being like,

[1:02:08] this isn't a comedy, it's not a spoof, it's not funny,

[1:02:12] it's a thriller, that's the thing,

[1:02:13] then that one interview that I think you also read, Elliot,

[1:02:15] he ends it by being like,

[1:02:17] and I think he's wanna say, and he's like, yeah,

[1:02:18] it's not a spoof, it's a thriller,

[1:02:19] I want people to know that it's a thriller,

[1:02:21] because I think they think it's funny and it's not.

[1:02:23] And I appreciate that, that he's just like,

[1:02:25] this is what it is, I made what I made,

[1:02:28] take it or leave it.

[1:02:29] Yeah.

[1:02:30] Yeah, well, this, I mean, we're already there,

[1:02:32] but this also dovetails so much

[1:02:33] with what I wanted to say in Final Judgments,

[1:02:35] let's go to Final Judgments.

[1:02:37] Let's do it.

[1:02:38] Where we opine on whether this is a good, bad movie,

[1:02:41] a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of liked.

[1:02:43] And like, I don't recommend watching this movie

[1:02:47] the way that I watched it, which is, you know,

[1:02:50] alone from a file that J.D. sent me, like,

[1:02:56] but I think that-

[1:02:56] This is not a movie to watch alone.

[1:02:58] This is a movie that, to like, it feels like,

[1:03:00] if someone says to you, oh, I'm gonna go home

[1:03:01] and watch After Last Season by myself tonight,

[1:03:03] then you should, you should be like, I'm worried about you.

[1:03:06] Take a lot of pizza.

[1:03:07] I think you would have more fun watching it with others

[1:03:11] and just sort of discussing it,

[1:03:13] but not in like, also like a classic good, bad way.

[1:03:17] Like, I don't think there's a lot of laughs in this per se,

[1:03:22] but I think it's an interesting movie in the same,

[1:03:25] like, in the way that J.D. is talking about,

[1:03:27] where like, sometimes if you're like us sickos,

[1:03:31] if you like love movies so much,

[1:03:33] if you love stories so much,

[1:03:34] you like watching a thing that kind of breaks your brain

[1:03:37] because it's like, oh, this doesn't have any

[1:03:39] of the language I'm used to.

[1:03:40] Like, this is a totally different thing.

[1:03:43] And you know, it might be because of a lack of understanding,

[1:03:49] but it is interesting to see that different perception

[1:03:52] of like, oh, I'm gonna do it this way.

[1:03:54] So like, I guess I'm coming down on good, bad,

[1:03:59] even though I found myself bored for most of the movie,

[1:04:03] because it is such a singular experience.

[1:04:07] But what do you guys have to say?

[1:04:08] I mean, I think 100% this is a good, bad movie.

[1:04:11] I mean, I think it's a movie that is,

[1:04:13] if you are into watching like, silly, bad movies

[1:04:17] that are definitely thrillers, not comedies,

[1:04:20] then yeah, I mean, watch it

[1:04:21] with your sicko, weirdo movie friends.

[1:04:23] I think it also, for me, what I do find fascinating,

[1:04:27] I think this is similar to what you guys

[1:04:28] have been talking about, is how like,

[1:04:30] you know, I've made some comics

[1:04:32] and I have some understanding of film language

[1:04:36] and just like, this is the first time

[1:04:38] in a really long time that I'm watching a bad movie,

[1:04:41] I'm like, why do they make it this way?

[1:04:45] Like, how, like, that's not how you do that.

[1:04:50] Like, why are you doing this like this?

[1:04:52] And it's, I think that like, just the fact

[1:04:55] that it forces you to think about movies is interesting.

[1:04:59] It really shows you how much film language you,

[1:05:02] how much film grammar you have internalized

[1:05:05] when you watch something like this

[1:05:06] and you're like, oh wow, like, I don't even know how to,

[1:05:08] I don't know how to read this.

[1:05:09] I'm gonna call this, I'm gonna call it,

[1:05:11] bad, bad if you're by yourself,

[1:05:13] good, bad if you're with the right people,

[1:05:14] but do not watch this movie by yourself.

[1:05:16] Similar to, I think-

[1:05:17] If you're too scared.

[1:05:18] Bad, bad in the sheets.

[1:05:20] I think if I hadn't had-

[1:05:21] Good, bad in the streets.

[1:05:22] I think if I hadn't had the need to take notes

[1:05:25] to say the summary later, I think, at certain points,

[1:05:29] I think I probably would have just started

[1:05:30] looking through the screen

[1:05:32] and not even being able to pay attention

[1:05:33] to what was going on.

[1:05:34] The letter that rose up out of the plane.

[1:05:36] Exactly.

[1:05:37] I kept waiting for that letter to be like

[1:05:39] the first letter of the name of the killer

[1:05:41] or something like that.

[1:05:41] No, it's just a thing.

[1:05:43] Like, it's not connecting.

[1:05:45] That's not the language he's using, Ellen, no.

[1:05:47] I'm trying to force a connection

[1:05:48] when it doesn't really exist.

[1:05:49] You're trying to get into a triangular car

[1:05:51] and drive away and instead,

[1:05:52] you just need to look at three of them

[1:05:54] and sort of float by you.

[1:05:57] Like the old saying says.

[1:06:01] Chitty chitty.

[1:06:02] What's your definitive?

[1:06:03] I agree with everything you guys have said.

[1:06:05] I think that this, to me, this is a good bad movie.

[1:06:07] That doesn't mean it's an enjoyable bad movie.

[1:06:10] And Stuart, I think what you're saying is interesting

[1:06:12] because as someone who, you know,

[1:06:15] and we all make stuff artistically in different ways,

[1:06:17] truly watching this, it reminds me,

[1:06:20] I'm like, oh, there are no rules.

[1:06:22] You can kind of do anything.

[1:06:23] And the fact that you can sit through this

[1:06:25] and suss out a story and you are,

[1:06:28] you know, you have some semblance

[1:06:29] that's still stuck in our head

[1:06:30] of what these characters experienced.

[1:06:32] It reminds you that it's like, you can do anything,

[1:06:35] which I sort of like about it.

[1:06:36] So I would say it is a good bad movie

[1:06:38] and I agree with everyone.

[1:06:39] It is not a good bad movie that would be fun

[1:06:41] to queue up by yourself and watch

[1:06:43] and you need a very specific group of friends

[1:06:45] that would understand what's fun about it.

[1:06:47] And I would say, do not,

[1:06:49] officially do not do a drinking game

[1:06:51] where you drink every time there is a cutaway

[1:06:53] that doesn't make sense.

[1:06:54] No, you don't. That would be dangerous.

[1:06:56] Yeah. You would die.

[1:06:57] You would die.

[1:06:58] Yeah, watching this on your own

[1:06:59] is like the equivalent. Your liver will burst

[1:07:01] out of your body and run away.

[1:07:02] Yeah, it's like watching this on your own

[1:07:04] would be like the equivalent of going to

[1:07:07] some kind of amateur in a garage playhouse production

[1:07:11] by all amateur people of some kind of play

[1:07:13] that one of them wrote about their life

[1:07:16] and not doing that because you know anyone in the cast.

[1:07:22] Very specific.

[1:07:23] There's something about this movie

[1:07:25] that like it feels like the kind of movie you would see

[1:07:27] if you, it's the kind of movie you see

[1:07:31] where you're in a movie where like you're on a road trip,

[1:07:33] your car breaks down, you add a play,

[1:07:36] you have to bring it into like a grimy like garage

[1:07:40] and they go, oh, don't worry.

[1:07:41] My brother runs a motel just across the street.

[1:07:44] You've got to dodge across a highway to get this motel.

[1:07:47] It's full of bugs.

[1:07:49] You turn on the TV.

[1:07:50] This is the movie that's playing.

[1:07:51] And then the guy from the hotel

[1:07:53] and the guy from the garage come in and kill you and eat you.

[1:07:55] Like that's the kind of movie this is.

[1:07:56] It's what you're watching when you were in a horror movie.

[1:07:59] It also reminded me of like when I was a kid,

[1:08:01] I have these different memories

[1:08:02] of going to like art museums and seeing video art

[1:08:04] and being like, I guess I'll understand that

[1:08:06] when I'm an adult.

[1:08:08] That's kind of how after last season feels

[1:08:10] is you watch it and you're like,

[1:08:11] I guess when I grow up, this will make sense to me.

[1:08:12] That and sex.

[1:08:13] Those are the two things that you understand.

[1:08:17] And you see them in museums.

[1:08:19] Yeah.

[1:08:24] What's more action packed than prestige television?

[1:08:28] With more continuity than comic books?

[1:08:30] And more reality than reality television?

[1:08:36] It's professional wrestling.

[1:08:44] And to better understand wrestling

[1:08:46] is the ultimate form of entertainment.

[1:08:48] You need the tights and fights podcast.

[1:08:50] This is the perfect wrestling show

[1:08:52] with a lot of love, a lack of toxic masculinity

[1:08:55] and just the right amount of butts, cats and spandex.

[1:09:00] Listen to tights and fights every Saturday on Maximum Fun.

[1:09:06] You know, we've been doing

[1:09:07] My Brother, My Brother, Me for 15 years.

[1:09:09] And maybe you stopped listening for a while.

[1:09:12] Maybe you never listened.

[1:09:14] And you're probably assuming three white guys

[1:09:16] talking for 15 years.

[1:09:17] I know where this has ended up.

[1:09:19] But no, no, you would be wrong.

[1:09:22] We're as shocked as you are

[1:09:23] that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal

[1:09:27] or just turned into a big crypto thing.

[1:09:30] Yeah.

[1:09:31] You don't even really know how crypto works.

[1:09:33] The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things

[1:09:36] which is what we talk about

[1:09:37] on My Brother, My Brother, and Me.

[1:09:39] We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

[1:09:42] And if not, we just leave it out back until it goes rotten.

[1:09:46] So check it out on Maximum Fun

[1:09:48] or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1:09:51] Good morrow to you, Flophouse listener.

[1:09:54] Oh, hail and well met.

[1:09:57] Hey, we got a sponsor.

[1:10:00] mattresses just despite that you know that vigorous welcome I don't I don't

[1:10:07] sleep well you might you might be surprised to learn that Dan McCoy

[1:10:11] doesn't sleep well perhaps it is his bad joints perhaps it is the state of the

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[1:10:58] night sleep trial that's a lot of sleeping before you got to commit Lisa

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[1:11:48] know we sent you after checkout leesa.com promo code flop let's let's

[1:11:56] let's answer some letters from listeners letters that rose up out of a out of a

[1:12:01] yeah we're gonna read them and then answer them yeah the first one is T so

[1:12:07] we got that one out of the way this next letter is from Sebastian last name

[1:12:12] withheld I hope the microphones picked up my heavy sigh it goes like this dear

[1:12:22] peaches Elliot's dive into the IMDB trivia section for Gabby's dollhouse

[1:12:27] reminded me of my all-time favorite factoid from the trivia page for 2011

[1:12:32] x-men first class okay and here's the trivia it says this is the second time

[1:12:38] that January Jones has been cast in a night cast in 1962 opposite an actor

[1:12:44] with a pork based name the first was in Mad Men opposite John Hamm and then this

[1:12:50] alongside Kevin Bacon 158 of 233 found this interesting three more one one more

[1:13:01] in it beginning getting NY in New York Times style piece that is January Jones

[1:13:04] because the 1962 opposite ham

[1:13:12] Frederico guanciale friend and sausage boss hog okay Sebastian goes on to write

[1:13:29] it has since been deleted doesn't want you to know yeah Sebastian wrote this

[1:13:39] trivia yeah yeah he's very mad but can still be found in the internet archive

[1:13:46] they do good work over there yeah my question water how much clean fresh

[1:13:51] water is being wasted cooling the servers that are maintaining the internet

[1:13:57] archive like that's a take down the AI centers um why do I have to why do I

[1:14:02] have to choose we can get rid of dumb things everybody we don't hold on to all

[1:14:05] of them my question what's the last movie you bought on physical media wait

[1:14:11] what classic exact on us I actually I actually just this week bought the DVD

[1:14:18] of Joe Dante's the movie orgy after Dan and I talked about it existing on DVD

[1:14:23] and I was like I'm just gonna do it I'm gonna buy it so I can watch this thing

[1:14:26] so it's just this week that I bought yeah yeah you know what I'm gonna go

[1:14:31] because I bought a Joe Dante movie as the last movie that I bought in physical

[1:14:35] media for my birthday this year upcoming in June I was like I'm just gonna have a

[1:14:41] few people over not like a huge thing we're gonna watch me we're gonna watch a

[1:14:45] couple movie I mean if you were in town Elliot obviously you we're gonna watch a

[1:14:49] couple movies I hear is what I use you putting requirements on our friendship

[1:14:53] I'll send you an invite so you can say no I'm gonna fly out you don't know

[1:14:58] anyway with a good time come out much anyway the point is I yeah I titled my

[1:15:06] birthday Dante's Day Inferno because I was gonna show to Joe Dante movies you

[1:15:12] know not my pronouns Joe Dante yeah yeah not my not my absolute favorite top tier

[1:15:21] Joe Dante movies but ones I really enjoy yes what the small soldiers is one

[1:15:25] of them that's the one I bought most recently and the other is interspace

[1:15:28] which I got in that interspace movie poster he sent us yeah when and I

[1:15:37] informed you guys that I in David Milch's memoirs which I just read he

[1:15:41] goes out of his way to compare something to interspace and then point out that

[1:15:45] it's a good movie but he does not name the movie he says oh it's like it like

[1:15:48] it was like that guy inside I felt like Martin Short in that movie where the

[1:15:51] guys inside of him which is a pretty good movie anyway it was my birthday was

[1:15:58] my party was a good excuse to give myself an early birthday present of

[1:16:03] getting small soldiers on a 4k happy birthday thank you thank you

[1:16:09] JD have you buy anything recently yes I recently bought I I gifted a friend for

[1:16:15] his birthday a copy of the Wizard of Speed and Time my oh wow so I purchased

[1:16:20] a new copy to replace it and along with it I got a Korean version as well that

[1:16:24] is a movie that I was introduced to by Cassetti's creator John Holt who does

[1:16:30] our animations yeah and it's great and the creator Mike Jitlov is a real

[1:16:35] character I have us I believe that I mean he still hosts that he hosts the

[1:16:41] website it's like an old-school website it's him defending the movie and putting

[1:16:46] his gripes publicly and it's for a while so if you buy you can like buy post I

[1:16:50] have a signed poster of it and you buy it from him in his website yeah yeah and

[1:16:57] I what like a week or two ago I I ordered a movie I've never seen I

[1:17:02] ordered a black hat okay because it's the controversial but I I got the

[1:17:08] director's cut version that apparently is superior why'd you decide to go

[1:17:13] physical media because you can't get the director's cut visually and I'm going

[1:17:18] through a little bit of a crush on lead actress what tongue why who is in

[1:17:23] decision to leave and and lust caution so I'm like I gotta complete the sure

[1:17:29] the big trifecta there anyway I'll watch it at some point I and I just a shout

[1:17:36] out to Sebastian for asking a question that is very easy to answer definitive

[1:17:41] yeah thank you let's see what do we got here this next one is from morrow morrow

[1:17:48] sorry for butchering from the island of doctor yeah yeah yeah howdy peaches I've

[1:17:56] been a fan since the days when you were just a few slightly cranky single men

[1:18:00] now that I was I was previously married I was I was single and cranky in the

[1:18:05] middle I don't think we're all single at the same time so that that goes the

[1:18:09] goose that's the microphone for this sigh for this one to let her put this in

[1:18:13] the goose actually a trivia section thing this might be a trivia section

[1:18:17] thing the Internet Archive on it here's my confession I stopped collecting comic

[1:18:23] books in October here's my confession I killed a man well wrap the flop house up

[1:18:29] it's been a sting got it the bodies in the East River the current is probably

[1:18:33] taking it north here's my confession I stopped collecting comic books in

[1:18:40] October 2010 it was becoming a real problem so I had to quit since then I've

[1:18:46] occasionally bought a floppy or a trade paperback but I haven't read any of them

[1:18:51] out of fear that I'd dive headfirst back down that slippery Wow yeah lately though

[1:18:56] life paper dragon mm-hmm lately life and these end times vibes have had me

[1:19:03] craving the escapist joy of comic skin so I finally broke the seal with maniac

[1:19:08] of New York volume 1 by a linen mute moody is that moody watch a witch full

[1:19:14] disclosure I bought almost three years ago naturally like any still green baby

[1:19:19] yeah yeah like any good comic book junkie I immediately went to revenge for

[1:19:24] the comics revenge of comics in Los Angeles and picked up a maniac of New

[1:19:28] York my local bookstore one of my local comic stores along with barbarian bar

[1:19:33] behind bars issues one and two the cashier asked how I'd heard about them

[1:19:37] and I somehow ended up unintentionally fanboying for a solid minute shouting out

[1:19:42] the flop house mystery science theater and Harley Quinn so yes well I curse you

[1:19:47] all for breaking my comic book sobriety I also love these books and remain a

[1:19:51] die-hard flop house fan with all that said other than mr. Kalin's work are

[1:19:56] what comic book series or creators would you recommend to a

[1:20:00] collector before going cold turkey. I was a devout reader of Astro Astro City,

[1:20:05] Ed Brubaker's Criminal, and anything by artist Juan Jose Rip. So what's been

[1:20:12] floating your boats lately? Thank you, Mauro. I'll do a little log rolling for

[1:20:20] our guests and say that the comic I read most recently is JD's book,

[1:20:25] The Endless Game, which was a delight. It's a YA

[1:20:38] graphic novel and it's very sweet and funny. Is there like a Batman in there?

[1:20:45] Yeah, yeah, you should sell it. There's no Batman. So, I mean, my answer is, this is my

[1:20:50] debut graphic novel. It's a middle grade graphic novel. And middle grade is like

[1:20:55] that like seven to twelve range. And so I've been very like immersed in that

[1:21:00] space over the past year. And so, you know, growing up, for all of us, we didn't

[1:21:05] really have the middle grade graphic novel universe. Like the closest thing

[1:21:08] was like Mouse. I feel like when we were growing up, it was either, you were either

[1:21:13] reading like Archie comics, superhero comics, or Cerebus. Like those are the

[1:21:19] only level or Love and Rockets. Like there was nothing for someone who wanted

[1:21:22] to read a story that wasn't superheroes but was not old enough to read Love and

[1:21:27] Rockets or American Splendor or something like that. Yeah, and likewise

[1:21:30] also on the other side of that was just books that were like prose prose. It was

[1:21:33] like, is this or Johnny Tremaine? And for me, I was like a reluctant reader. It took

[1:21:37] me a minute. And so, I think... You don't like reading about the travails of a

[1:21:41] silversmith's apprentice during the Revolutionary War? I would have, but

[1:21:45] reading didn't, it wasn't, you know, here's a question. What if it was called

[1:21:49] Johnny Deformed? I love that, Simpson. I would just, as a kid, I read it and I was

[1:21:56] like, there's not enough like ghosts and dreams and murderers and cutaways to

[1:22:00] things. But so, I've been reading a ton of, so on top of, I would love everyone to

[1:22:07] purchase my book and, you know, give it good reviews on all the places, your good

[1:22:12] reads, your Amazons, whatever. Especially if you have a 7 or 12 year old in your

[1:22:16] life. But I'll also recommend, you know, Raina Telgemeier has a bunch of books

[1:22:21] that are great for middle grade kids about sort of the the toils of growing

[1:22:26] up. The Amulet series is a great like fantasy series for kids that is super

[1:22:31] fun. And then also, I love Once Upon a Space Time, which is Jeffrey Brown, who

[1:22:35] did like adult comics and now he does a lot of stuff in the kids space and those

[1:22:38] are amazing. Those are a big favorite with my kids, the Once Upon a Space Time

[1:22:42] books. Yeah. So, if you don't want to support me and get my book, which I

[1:22:46] understand, check out those ones. You're like, fuck this guy. No, get JD's book

[1:22:51] first. I would love that. It would mean a lot. But you guys, you guys are more

[1:22:57] into, plugged into modern comics, I think. Well, kind of. I mean, I don't, I really

[1:23:02] only get to the shop to buy floppies if like it's something Elliot wrote or

[1:23:08] something. A friend of the podcast, Xander Cannon, makes his recent series,

[1:23:12] Sleep. I thought it was a ton of fun and also because it's Xander Cannon, super

[1:23:16] sad. It's so great. But the the creator I want to highlight is one who I almost

[1:23:24] exclusively at this point get his work through Kickstarters and that is comic

[1:23:31] creator Simon Roy. I thought it was going to be Simon Roy. I love his stuff so

[1:23:35] much. Like he does this like really weirdo science fiction. And he and a team

[1:23:41] of collaborators have made so many great little books. I just recently read Sharp

[1:23:46] Eye, which was an expansion of the universe created with the book First

[1:23:52] Knife that they put out through Image. That's about this like, you know, United

[1:23:58] States, you know, 10,000 years in the future or something. And how and how like

[1:24:05] the the the world is now like very tribal and strange and it's it's awesome.

[1:24:10] Yeah, he does science fiction stuff better than anyone out there.

[1:24:12] He does. He has a book called Habitat that I think is a really good kind of like

[1:24:16] first first one for him where it's like it's not a long it's not long. It's a

[1:24:19] quick read. But it's like you're like this book is there's so much stuff going

[1:24:22] on in this book. Like there's so many ideas and things going on in it. You know,

[1:24:26] it's real fun. I'm otherwise I'm a little bit outside of regular comics right now.

[1:24:32] I just haven't had as much time to read them in my regular life. And so I'm sad

[1:24:36] to say that the comic that I've been reading the most lately is there was a

[1:24:39] Kickstarter campaign by Mike Barron, the writer of Nexus, which is one of my

[1:24:44] favorite series to collect in big omnibuses, hopefully eventually that whole

[1:24:49] series. And I got the I contributed Kickstarter for the first volume. And so

[1:24:52] I'm rereading that the first issues of that series. And I'm like, this is great.

[1:24:58] I love this series. And Nexus is like it's space opera, but it's also there's

[1:25:04] also comedy stuff in it. And there's also the art is beautiful because it's

[1:25:06] mostly Steve Rood drawing it. And the the the dialogue in it is super sharp and

[1:25:12] the characters are really fun. And so it's an old comic, but I'd recommend it.

[1:25:18] But I think I need to read some new ones, too. So if this letter writer reads any

[1:25:22] new comics and likes them a lot, write in again. Tell us which ones you liked.

[1:25:26] I'm looking for recommendations.

[1:25:29] Let's move on to our final segment, which is recommendations, movies that we saw

[1:25:35] recently that we really enjoyed.

[1:25:41] So you mentioned Black Cat. I actually had never seen Black Cat.

[1:25:46] You mean Kuroneko, the samurai movie?

[1:25:48] Yeah, that's what I that's what I said. Stuart mentioned Black Hat.

[1:25:53] Oh, I actually had never seen Michael Mann's Heat until just this week.

[1:26:01] I everyone told me or not. Not he's what am I talking about? Thief.

[1:26:06] Thief. Jesus Christ. I saw Heat at the time. I like Heat fine. It's not actually

[1:26:12] one of my favorites, but like I saw Thief for the first time.

[1:26:17] Um, there's there's so many, you know, sometimes the interruptions interfere

[1:26:22] with Dan's brainwaves. You're right. This is a safe space. It's a very unsafe.

[1:26:28] Thank you. Yeah. Do you think he would have been better if he shot it in his

[1:26:31] like digital video era? Public enemies? Yeah, sure. I mean, Miami Vice looks

[1:26:38] fucking great. Thief. Sorry. Thief, the movie with James Kahn and Tuesday Weld

[1:26:46] and Robert Proskey. Jesus. Robert Proskey being scary in a way that I've never seen

[1:26:50] him in other things. And Jim Belushi. Thank you. Jim Belushi has a line in it

[1:26:56] that made me laugh more than like Jim Belushi comedies when he's like seeing

[1:27:00] James Kahn's like house. He's like, well, you got to hear a tree or something.

[1:27:04] It's very funny. Anyway, like I had somehow not seen it despite years of people being like,

[1:27:11] oh, Dan, you would love Thief. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm sure I would love Thief.

[1:27:14] I love JD. You're from Chicago. They make you watch that shit. And as soon as you're born.

[1:27:18] Yeah, I love movies with lots of neon and, you know, light shining off of wet things and

[1:27:25] tangerine dream soundtracks. But what I also really liked about this movie

[1:27:29] is that I kind of, you know, sometimes Michael Mann gets a little too like,

[1:27:34] for lack of a better word, like male for me, like, you know,

[1:27:38] gender essentialist way, like, like masculine, like, you know, it's about men who are like kind

[1:27:43] of they're assholes. Yeah. But maybe that's what they need to be to get things done.

[1:27:48] And your soul can be represented by a collage you keep in your pocket.

[1:27:51] Well, but the thing about Thief is it's clear. He does have a sensitive side with that collage.

[1:27:57] If someone showed you that collage on a first date, you'd be like, check, please.

[1:28:00] Well, I mean, it almost does. But like I was setting that up in opposition to Thief. We're

[1:28:06] like, yeah, there's that stuff in it. But it's clear that this is a lonely weirdo who has a lot

[1:28:12] of emotions. And like, yeah, as you say, a sensitive side. He has love to give, but he

[1:28:16] doesn't know how to express it or how to appropriately go about finding a way to express

[1:28:22] it. And, you know, he's kind of in a trap of his own making, like all of his, like,

[1:28:28] Thief code is kind of, you know, stuff to protect him. Like he's trying to exert control over a

[1:28:34] world he can't control. And so I found that a lot more meaningful than some of the other,

[1:28:41] like, you know, I like, like I said, I don't want to cause a lot of controversy.

[1:28:45] I think Heat's a great movie, but I like it less because I feel like it's a little too much like

[1:28:50] men doing men stuff. And also, like, what's the difference between this cop and this crook?

[1:28:55] Yeah, two sides of the same coin. Well, not in a in a good world. They would not be two sides of

[1:28:59] the same coin. Like you can make a movie about damaged guys without seeming to be endorsing that.

[1:29:04] Yeah, that you need damaged men on both sides of that coin to shoot each other at airports. But

[1:29:08] Dan, Heat's a great movie. I'm glad you finally saw it. I think it might be my favorite Michael

[1:29:13] Mann movie, to be honest. I think it might be now that I've seen it finally. I'm going to recommend

[1:29:18] this is actually a this is a partial recommendation, I guess. I just watched.

[1:29:25] And also, this is tied in with the themes we've had tonight of movies that are hard to find and

[1:29:31] have mysterious backgrounds. I just watched the recent Faces of Death movie, which is

[1:29:37] kind of loosely inspired by the original Faces of Death, which I've actually never seen and never

[1:29:42] actually never seen and never intend to see and has since, you know, the as the like,

[1:29:47] is he too scared? Yeah, because I'm not I'm not I'm not as tough as a Michael Mann hero.

[1:29:53] Stuart's fine with death, scared of faces. I just don't like to be perceived.

[1:30:00] I've never seen it, but in the years since the movie came out, a lot of the actual deaths

[1:30:07] have been disproven as being fake.

[1:30:10] And so this recent movie is not obviously a remake of that, but it's a fairly in some

[1:30:16] ways straightforward serial killer who's kind of inspired by that and also like playing

[1:30:21] around with social media and various people's attention spans.

[1:30:27] And it's directed by, it's made by Daniel, is it Daniel Goldhaber, Donald, I don't remember.

[1:30:35] But the guy who made Cam and he made How to Blow Up a Pipeline, two movies that I liked

[1:30:42] quite a bit.

[1:30:43] And I think this has-

[1:30:45] Daniel Goldhaber.

[1:30:46] Thank you.

[1:30:47] I was right the first time and I questioned myself because I had blank looks from my co-host.

[1:30:52] Don't doubt yourself.

[1:30:53] I know, you know.

[1:30:56] So I think there's a lot of really good stuff there and I think the performances are good

[1:31:00] and it's gross in places and it continues the themes that this guy's movies have of

[1:31:06] like existing and not only is the internet a terrifying place, but also that like we

[1:31:13] live in a world where a lot of the things that we turn to to protect us will not protect

[1:31:21] us or save us in any way, that like the institutions like the police and things like that are either

[1:31:28] outdated or they don't care and that you kind of have to survive in whatever way you can.

[1:31:36] And it's, yeah, I would say it's bleak, but it's not super bleak.

[1:31:43] Would I like it to be more than just a kind of a straightforward like serial killer movie?

[1:31:50] Yeah, but I think there's a lot of good stuff there, soundtrack, the way it's shot.

[1:31:53] I think it's good.

[1:31:54] Cool.

[1:31:55] I am going to recommend a movie that I actually mentioned in a previous episode that I was

[1:31:59] in the middle of watching and then I finished it and I liked it a lot.

[1:32:03] And that's a movie called, it's a, guys, you're going to laugh at me.

[1:32:07] It's a Czech movie, but it's under, it's listed under a couple different titles.

[1:32:11] It's either called Dinner for Adele or Adele Hasn't Had Her Dinner Yet or Nick Carver and

[1:32:15] Prague or Adele Hasn't Had Her Dinner Yet.

[1:32:17] Adele is hangry.

[1:32:18] And this is, this is another movie by, by Old Rich Lipsky, the director of Lemonade

[1:32:24] Joe.

[1:32:25] Old Rich Lipsky?

[1:32:26] Well, I don't know how it's pronounced.

[1:32:27] It's a Czech name.

[1:32:28] It's one of those.

[1:32:29] That's Old Rich Lipsky up to these days.

[1:32:32] Well, his lips are still pretty rich.

[1:32:36] The rest of him is poor, his lips inherited all the money.

[1:32:41] And it's the story.

[1:32:42] It is a parody of the kind of like pulp adventure mysteries that you would have seen at the

[1:32:48] turn of the 20th century.

[1:32:50] And the greatest detective in America, Nick Carter, he goes to Prague to deal with a,

[1:32:54] to deal with a mysterious case of disappearance.

[1:32:58] And it gets, he gets wrapped up in a story about with a mad scientist with a man eating

[1:33:03] plant and there's a lot of scenes of about how great the beer and sausages in Prague

[1:33:09] are and things like that.

[1:33:11] And it's just really funny.

[1:33:12] Similar to the director's previous movie that I talked about, Lemonade Joe, it like feels

[1:33:16] like a Mel Brooks movie.

[1:33:17] Like it's just really silly.

[1:33:18] I thought it was really funny.

[1:33:20] But there's also some stop motion animation by Jan Svankmajer.

[1:33:24] So he did the animation for the man eating plant.

[1:33:28] And it's just, it's a, I thought it was a really fun, funny movie and I'm watching it.

[1:33:33] There was just a lot of times I was laughing out loud.

[1:33:35] So it feels like with this director, it's not exactly like Mel Brooks's stuff, but it

[1:33:40] does feel at times like I've discovered like a hidden vein of Mel Brooks movies that Mel

[1:33:45] Brooks didn't make.

[1:33:46] Um, and I'm getting the same kind of enjoyment out of them.

[1:33:48] So I would recommend it if you want to watch a comedy, a comedy mystery where it doesn't

[1:33:52] really matter what the mystery, like, don't worry about the plot that much.

[1:33:55] It's called Dinner for Adele and all of these, uh, or this one.

[1:33:59] And I think the movie that another movie has that I'll probably recommend next time are

[1:34:02] both available on Tubi.

[1:34:04] So it's easy to get added it to my letterbox watch list, which means I will forget it's

[1:34:10] there and not see it.

[1:34:12] But I also, I should mention one of the funny things in it that was funny is, um, that one

[1:34:17] of the actors in it, this, uh, Rudolph Russinsky, he is a, um, in this, he plays the local police,

[1:34:23] police officer who like, all he cares about is getting the best beer and eating sausages.

[1:34:27] And he's kind of a, he's not a doof, but he's just like not taking the mystery seriously,

[1:34:31] but he is played by the lead, the same actor who played the lead in the movie, The Cremator,

[1:34:35] which I recommended a long time ago, which is a very chilling movie and a very like intense

[1:34:40] movie.

[1:34:41] And it was just very funny to see him play this very, this comedy role, this very silly

[1:34:44] role.

[1:34:45] So, um, so I'd recommend it.

[1:34:46] Dinner for Adele.

[1:34:47] J.D., do you have a movie you want to highlight?

[1:34:49] I mean, I'm a big Tati head and I recently got to see Mon Oncle on the big screen for

[1:34:53] the first time in a theater, which I would say if you have a similar to Ellie, if you

[1:34:58] want to go back in time and find some interesting comedy, I know Jacques Tati is, I think maybe

[1:35:03] my favorite filmmaker of just like doing unique, very specific, very specifically paced comedy.

[1:35:09] And it's funny because Mon Oncle, I brought friends to it and not unlike After Last Season,

[1:35:15] it has a very, a very particular pace to it that if you are having other people watch

[1:35:21] it with you, you have this feeling of like, come on, come on, just get to the joke, come

[1:35:24] on, come on.

[1:35:25] Get to the joke, my friends are bored.

[1:35:26] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:35:27] And it's actually a lovely movie.

[1:35:28] And I think like Tati films are meant to be seen in the theater with lots of people so

[1:35:32] you can enjoy it.

[1:35:33] So you want to say he does stuff with the with the frame to where like it's much there.

[1:35:38] Those are much better on the big screen because you want to make see all the details of what's

[1:35:40] happening.

[1:35:41] Yes.

[1:35:42] He called it democratic filmmaking.

[1:35:43] He would.

[1:35:44] Yeah.

[1:35:45] He's shot on 70 millimeter and he would highly choreograph everything.

[1:35:47] And I mean, playtime is really where this happens.

[1:35:49] But yeah, he's playing with it in Mon Oncle where in the background and foreground, you

[1:35:54] know, separate from Monsieur Hulot, you can sort of see little scenes taking place.

[1:35:58] And so at its best moments and we like playtime, different parts of the audience will be laughing

[1:36:03] at different things because there's sort of different stuff happening in the corners of

[1:36:06] the scene, which is brilliant.

[1:36:07] And you can also he's so like he'll distract you sometimes in a way where like the real

[1:36:12] joke is happening in that corner, you know, but it's a he does.

[1:36:16] There's a is it?

[1:36:17] Oh, no, it's in Hulot's Holiday, right?

[1:36:19] There's a or maybe I don't remember which way there's a there's a bit he has where a guy

[1:36:22] is painting a boat and the can of paint is washing in and out on the tide and it always

[1:36:27] shows up just as he needs to dip his brush back in.

[1:36:29] And I'm always like, how did he do it?

[1:36:31] Like that's that.

[1:36:32] Unlike almost last after last season where we were joking about, like, how did he move

[1:36:35] that chair?

[1:36:36] That is one shot where I was like, how did he how did he do that shot?

[1:36:39] Like, I don't get it.

[1:36:40] I mean, it's funny because Mr. Hulot's Holiday is kind of like the most like Mr. Bean.

[1:36:44] Yeah.

[1:36:45] And then like Mon Oncle, it's like gets closer and closer to this being like art.

[1:36:49] And then like Playtime is like if Mr. Bean made a film that was like a three hour long

[1:36:54] art piece that Mr. Bean mostly wasn't in and like bankrupted his entire estate, but is

[1:37:01] like an epic opus.

[1:37:02] So I got to see one of these on the big screen sometime because I I confess that I have trouble

[1:37:08] locking in to the pace and everything like when I when I first when I went to France

[1:37:14] for a week on an exchange program when I was in school, in high school, that my host

[1:37:20] family is like, well, this is Mr. Hulot's Holiday.

[1:37:24] This is, you know, he's he's the greatest of French comedians.

[1:37:27] I'm like, great.

[1:37:28] Great.

[1:37:29] This is going to be.

[1:37:30] Yeah.

[1:37:31] And.

[1:37:32] Oh, you want to see Jacques Taddy?

[1:37:33] Oh, my God.

[1:37:34] And I was like Mon Cher.

[1:37:35] This is whimsical.

[1:37:36] But I'm not laughing at it.

[1:37:37] I think I think it really it requires such attention and it helps when you're in a movie

[1:37:45] theater.

[1:37:46] I think that that would be on it.

[1:37:47] Yeah.

[1:37:48] But also playtime has more like hard laughs where I think like Mon Oncle truly it'll be

[1:37:52] like five minutes set up to something like, oh, that kind of does look like a face.

[1:37:56] Yeah, that's kind of fun.

[1:37:57] It is.

[1:37:58] It is more.

[1:37:59] Yeah.

[1:38:00] Oh, yeah.

[1:38:01] That dog.

[1:38:02] That dog and that person do kind of look alike.

[1:38:03] Yeah.

[1:38:04] Which I enjoy.

[1:38:05] But I get if you're like looking for big walloping laughs.

[1:38:09] Yeah.

[1:38:10] Mon Oncle is the one with the house.

[1:38:11] Right.

[1:38:12] Yes.

[1:38:13] Where where it's like, yeah.

[1:38:14] Like, yeah.

[1:38:15] You're like, yeah.

[1:38:16] When they when they turn on the lights, the windows does look kind of like it's a face

[1:38:17] with eyes.

[1:38:18] Oh, yeah.

[1:38:19] And it's looking over there.

[1:38:20] Yeah.

[1:38:21] Exactly.

[1:38:22] And over here.

[1:38:23] Yeah.

[1:38:24] Yeah.

[1:38:25] Is it like Scary Movie 2?

[1:38:26] Yeah.

[1:38:27] How much is it like Scary Movie 2?

[1:38:28] Yeah.

[1:38:29] Yeah.

[1:38:30] There's just jokes packed into every frame.

[1:38:32] man with an umbrella and a hat and a trench coat sort of observing the modernity of France

[1:38:36] that develops.

[1:38:37] And then there's also a bunch of like Britney Spears topical jokes thrown into it also.

[1:38:42] They're weirdly like mean about her for no real reason.

[1:38:44] Yeah.

[1:38:45] I don't know the reason.

[1:38:46] For some reason, there's a lot of parodies of movies that came out in 2003 specifically.

[1:38:51] Yeah.

[1:38:52] And it's also parodies of other comedy movies.

[1:38:54] Yeah.

[1:38:55] Yeah.

[1:38:56] It's a parody as if it was like the same way that the movie quiz, if you were sitting in

[1:39:00] the movie theater, would all be for movies that are either just out or recently out.

[1:39:04] Yeah.

[1:39:05] It reminds me of just just recently, I don't remember why the on some list of something

[1:39:10] it was.

[1:39:11] Maybe I was thinking of movies from a specific year, but it was just like I was reminded

[1:39:14] of the existence of Remember the Spartans.

[1:39:16] And I was like, oh, yeah, that existed.

[1:39:20] That's the thing that was made and exists and is real.

[1:39:23] You know, Stuart, what you just said reminded me.

[1:39:25] So I I've switched over to Regal Unlimited recently because I was like, I don't we're

[1:39:30] trying to boycott the.

[1:39:31] I don't know.

[1:39:32] Well, I don't like.

[1:39:33] Yeah.

[1:39:34] I don't like what the Alamo is about.

[1:39:35] Meet the Spartans.

[1:39:36] Meet the Spartans.

[1:39:37] Yeah.

[1:39:38] Like phone ordering.

[1:39:39] And then they had, you know, I mean, labor issues before.

[1:39:42] But so I'm going I'm going to the Regal and they've got, you know, like never very good

[1:39:49] pre-show entertainment has gotten like shittier over the years, I think it's gotten really

[1:39:54] bad.

[1:39:55] Yeah.

[1:39:56] With a Regal movie, you can show up like 30 minutes late and you haven't missed it.

[1:40:00] Because there's so much stuff that goes into it.

[1:40:02] Here's the last five minutes of a Toyota commercial.

[1:40:04] Have you guys seen this thing where there's like...

[1:40:06] It's about like perfect movie lines or whatever.

[1:40:08] Yes. It's always just that one line from Casablanca.

[1:40:10] Yeah, it's like,

[1:40:12] We'll always have gin joints.

[1:40:14] It's like the false ones.

[1:40:16] And then finally it's like,

[1:40:18] Oh, we'll always have Paris.

[1:40:20] I did a whole breakdown of it for a Blank Check live show,

[1:40:22] but one of my favorite things is

[1:40:24] the evolution of the Coca-Cola

[1:40:26] student filmmaking challenge.

[1:40:28] Because it started as this thing where it was like,

[1:40:30] The students could kind of make something

[1:40:32] and now it's like, they get to make an

[1:40:34] eight-second short film,

[1:40:36] but it's literally just a straight-up

[1:40:38] commercial for Coca-Cola.

[1:40:40] But they still have the student to be like,

[1:40:42] Hi, watch my short film.

[1:40:44] Coca-Cola is great.

[1:40:46] And you're like, this was your short film

[1:40:48] that you had an idea for?

[1:40:50] It's clearly just Coke being like,

[1:40:52] Here's what you're going to make.

[1:40:54] And fucking Mark Regan sitting in the theater being like,

[1:40:56] Mark Regan's like,

[1:40:58] They went from wide shot to close-up.

[1:41:00] There's no fan. There's no wall in between.

[1:41:02] What is this 180-degree line

[1:41:04] that they're following?

[1:41:06] This is the scariest movie I've ever seen.

[1:41:08] This is amazing.

[1:41:10] I think Mark Regan's issue is that

[1:41:12] I don't think he should be writing, directing,

[1:41:14] shooting, and producing.

[1:41:16] But I'd be curious if you gave Mark Regan

[1:41:18] a script that someone else wrote,

[1:41:20] what he would do with it.

[1:41:22] He'd mess it up.

[1:41:24] But in an interesting way.

[1:41:28] J.D.,

[1:41:30] thank you so much for

[1:41:32] being here along with your

[1:41:34] book. Is there anything else you want to plug

[1:41:36] before we... No, that's it.

[1:41:38] The Endless Game bookstores everywhere.

[1:41:40] It's about a kid who moves to a new town

[1:41:42] where every kid in the town is part of a game

[1:41:44] of capture the flag that's been going on for 80 years

[1:41:46] and has split the town in two.

[1:41:48] It's really a book about

[1:41:50] that

[1:41:52] period of time as a kid

[1:41:54] where you're trying to figure out your identity.

[1:41:56] For me, growing up in the suburbs,

[1:41:58] it was out with my friends.

[1:42:00] This is a heightened, fantastical version of that.

[1:42:02] Bookstores everywhere.

[1:42:04] Also, j.d.amato

[1:42:06] on Instagram.

[1:42:08] You can see book events and links

[1:42:10] to where to get the book.

[1:42:12] I recommend it

[1:42:14] very much.

[1:42:16] I enjoyed it even not as a child.

[1:42:18] I have the brain of a child.

[1:42:20] But I'm ostensibly an adult man.

[1:42:22] Well, thank you

[1:42:24] for being here. Thank you also to

[1:42:26] Maximum Fun. Go to MaximumFun.org.

[1:42:28] Check out all the other great

[1:42:30] shows on the MaxFun network.

[1:42:32] Thank you to Alex, our producer.

[1:42:34] He goes by the name HowlDotty.

[1:42:36] If you want

[1:42:38] a few laughs, download

[1:42:40] Big Howl and Possum.

[1:42:42] It's a very strange podcast

[1:42:44] that Alex does. It's very funny.

[1:42:46] But for this

[1:42:48] episode of The Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:42:50] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:42:52] I've been Elliot Kalin, and we've been

[1:42:54] joined by j.d.amato.

[1:42:56] Okay. And hi, J.

[1:42:58] Hi, J.

[1:43:00] Bye, J.

[1:43:10] On this episode, we discuss

[1:43:12] After Last Season.

[1:43:14] Yeah.

[1:43:16] No one?

[1:43:18] I didn't have a hot one.

[1:43:20] Dan, try again.

[1:43:22] I'll get one in a second.

[1:43:24] Heat it up.

[1:43:26] On this episode, we discuss After Last Season.

[1:43:28] Alternate title,

[1:43:30] Halls and Walls, the movie.

[1:43:32] That's also an alternate title

[1:43:34] for The Back Rooms.

[1:43:36] Okay, I've got another one.

[1:43:42] I thought you had one.

[1:43:44] I thought I had one.

[1:43:46] I hadn't quite phrased it right.

[1:43:48] Wait, wait. I've got one.

[1:43:50] Oh, wow. Unprecedented, but let's do it.

[1:43:56] An MRI is a type of image

[1:43:58] that you can learn

[1:44:00] a lot of things about the brain from inside.

[1:44:02] You take a scan,

[1:44:04] and...

[1:44:06] Perfect.

[1:44:08] Just a 20-minute long opening.

[1:44:10] Actually, Dan, I've got another one.

[1:44:12] I've got another one now.

[1:44:14] Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network

[1:44:16] of artist-owned shows

[1:44:18] supported directly by you.

After Last Season, with J.D. Amato

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