Ep. #411 - Santa with Muscles, with Alonso Duralde

Elliott Kalan

[0:00] Hi, floppers. Before we start our regular nonsense, we wanted to make sure you knew the Flophouse is going on a four-city West Coast tour this January.

[0:08] It's the Flophouse Errors Tour, the biggest event in pop culture entertainment this year, probably.

[0:15] You can see us in Vancouver on Wednesday, January 24th at the Rio Theater.

[0:18] In Portland on Thursday, January 25th at the Aladdin Theater.

[0:22] In San Francisco on Friday, January 26th at Cobb's Comedy Club as part of San Francisco Sketch Fest.

[0:28] And in Los Angeles on Sunday, January 28th at the Regent Theater.

[0:32] For tickets, go to flophousepodcast.com slash events.

[0:36] Again, that's flophousepodcast.com slash events.

[0:40] The Flophouse Live. It's like the podcast, but you can smell us.

[0:43] And now, without further ado, our regular nonsense.

Dan McCoy

[0:46] On this episode, we discuss Santa with muscles.

Stuart Wellington

[0:51] Santa with muscles? Call me when he's got skin, bones, and organs.

[0:57] Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:24] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Dan McCoy

[1:26] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:28] And we have a guest.

[1:29] Who is it?

[1:31] Identify him.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33] We have a very special guest today.

[1:35] That's right.

[1:36] It's December.

[1:37] That means it's Christmas time.

[1:40] Sigh is the Jewish member of the hosting party.

[1:44] But that also means the good—

[1:45] One of us.

[1:46] I refuse.

[1:47] I refuse to be one of you.

[1:49] But the good thing about Christmas, because otherwise it's nothing but bad things, is that the Flophouse gets joined by one of our favorite guests.

[1:57] It is our annual Christmas movie correspondent.

[2:00] He is the chief U.S. film critic at the film verdict.

[2:04] Sounds very fancy.

[2:05] I'm glad he was able to slum it with us, Flophouse boys.

[2:07] It's Alonzo Duralde, the man who puts the Christ in Christmas.

S6

[2:12] What?

[2:13] Does he?

Alonso Duralde

[2:15] I go by the Christmas atheist usually around here.

[2:18] So, you know, I—

[2:19] Oh, they're the opposite.

Elliott Kalan

[2:20] Well, he's the man that puts the moss in Christmas because we always want more when he's with us.

[2:24] He lives moss.

[2:26] Thanks for having me back.

Alonso Duralde

[2:28] By the way, you know, Elliot, Christmas pop culture was pretty much created entirely by Jewish men.

[2:33] So, without Irving Berlin, without, you know, like—

[2:36] Jesus.

[2:36] So, really, for instance, yes, going that far back.

[2:40] Yeah.

[2:40] So, you know, you've got a hand in.

[2:42] You have a little bit of a stake in this.

Elliott Kalan

[2:45] I guess so.

[2:45] I would call it maybe a collaboration in a sense.

[2:49] But, you know, that's—we wouldn't need to get into that.

[2:51] Christmas, it's a great time of year.

[2:52] People love it.

[2:52] Some people call it the most wonderful time of the year.

[2:56] And do you subscribe to that feeling alongside?

[2:58] To you, it was Tuesday.

Alonso Duralde

[3:01] I am a most wonderful time of year person just because, like, I—this is my obsession and it's become sort of like part of my career now.

[3:09] So, but, you know, when the holidays roll around, I need my tree up.

[3:14] I need some eggnog in the fridge.

[3:16] And I need to see you lovely boys here.

[3:19] So, it's great to be back at the Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[3:22] Thank you.

[3:22] So glad to have you.

[3:23] Dan, what do we do on this podcast usually?

[3:25] Well, this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[3:29] And we consulted with Alonzo who tossed out some titles.

[3:33] And I think it was Stuart who replied to the list of titles with an all-cap, Santa with muscles.

[3:41] Well, now was it the muscles, of course, being a notable bodybuilder that appealed to you or—?

Stuart Wellington

[3:49] Yeah, I mean, obviously, that's part of it.

[3:51] It also is—I think it was the dumbest name.

[3:54] But, yeah, Alonzo, it sounds like you do a lot of podcasts with buff nerds.

[3:59] How do you feel about that?

Alonso Duralde

[4:00] You know, look, we've all got a calling in this life.

[4:04] And apparently, mine is to be with, you know, muscle heads who like to paint Warcraft figures.

[4:09] So, I've accepted it.

[4:10] That's okay.

[4:11] Warhammer.

[4:11] Sorry.

[4:12] I see.

[4:12] It shows you what I know.

[4:13] Don't make me beat you up.

[4:15] Also, my love in life.

[4:17] But, yeah, you know, it's funny.

[4:18] I threw out Santa with muscles thinking, oh, that would be a great Flophouse episode without thinking, oh, wait, I have to watch it again and talk about it.

Elliott Kalan

[4:25] That happens to us, too.

[4:28] It's like we'll talk about movies that we're going to talk about and I'm like, oh, I'm excited about this one.

[4:31] And then I'm watching it and I'm like, ugh, why did I have to do this?

[4:35] Part of our dictate is to—

Alonso Duralde

[4:37] I prefer my Santa with clams, but, you know.

Elliott Kalan

[4:42] Santa marinara.

[4:46] Santa parmesan.

[4:49] Here's the thing with Santa with muscles.

[4:51] It also gave us a chance to drink in the charisma of everybody's favorite public figure, Hulk Hogan.

[4:56] Now, I would.

[4:57] Just a lovable guy.

[4:59] Just a lovable.

[5:00] Dan's about to defend him.

Stuart Wellington

[5:02] No, no, no.

[5:02] I don't think that's the right call.

Elliott Kalan

[5:04] No, no, no, no.

[5:04] Before we get into it, I do—

[5:05] Well, Dan is a Hulkamaniac.

[5:07] He should make that clear, yeah.

[5:09] He's ripping his shirt off right now.

Dan McCoy

[5:12] The strange phenomenon of Hulk Hogan because I was watching this movie and I was remembering, of course, when we were young.

[5:20] And life was so wonderful.

[5:21] There was Hulkamania.

[5:22] Yeah.

[5:23] Hulkamania swept the nation.

[5:24] Everyone loved this firebrand man with a blonde mustache who was balding up front but long hair behind.

[5:33] He would tear his shirt off and the words they think like Hulk was on everyone's lips.

Elliott Kalan

[5:38] Yeah.

[5:38] I feel like it's hard to communicate much as the same way when people who were victims of the dancing sicknesses that would sweep Europe would have to explain to their grandchildren why they suddenly felt the need to dance in medieval times.

[5:49] But to explain to my children why Hulk Hogan became maybe the most popular man in America at a certain point I think would be hard to do.

Dan McCoy

[5:56] Well, that's exactly what I'm getting at because I was watching this movie and I'm like, what was it?

[6:03] Like Gambler, he was a friend to children.

Elliott Kalan

[6:06] He was friends to all children.

[6:07] I think he was such a – I mean this movie is from, what, 1996.

[6:11] Yeah.

[6:12] So it's a little late in the Hulk – in Hulkamania's reign.

[6:15] But he was such the perfect wrestler for the Reagan era especially like where he was – his thing was I'm all American.

[6:23] I love America.

[6:25] And I am kind of the establishment official like wrestler.

[6:29] Like he was not – until he left the WW, then WWF and started – became like a bad boy for WikiLeaks for a while.

Stuart Wellington

[6:37] Yeah, when he joined NWO.

[6:39] Yeah.

[6:39] And he like got a little 5 o'clock shadow painted on.

Elliott Kalan

[6:42] Yeah.

[6:42] But he was – but the idea was he was like – in the wrestling world, his character was the ultimate good guy.

[6:48] The ultimate like I fight for what's right, eat your vegetables, stay in school.

[6:52] And I think maybe what made him exciting was the tension between that and what an obvious – like what an obviously not that person he was.

[7:01] I don't know, underneath all that.

[7:02] But for kids, it was like a real-life superhero maybe.

[7:05] That kind of –

[7:05] Yeah, right.

[7:06] He's so strong and he's real.

Alonso Duralde

[7:08] Yeah, he wound up I think being kind of the model of Florida man.

[7:11] Yes.

[7:11] But before we really had a collective understanding of what that meant, yes, he could pass himself off as like, you know, yeah, America's wow number one USA.

[7:21] You know, guy.

[7:23] He was Mr. T for white people, I guess.

[7:25] Yeah.

[7:25] Okay.

[7:25] Kind of, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:26] That's a way to put it, yeah.

[7:27] I mean, he was like –

[7:28] The best –

[7:29] He was the Pat Boone to Mr. T's Little Richard, I guess.

Dan McCoy

[7:34] No, this is instructive because the best I could come up with was like, I guess he looks really distinctive.

[7:39] Like he's got a big face with a big mustache and big eyebrows, you know, there's something –

[7:44] Here's the thing.

Elliott Kalan

[7:45] He's distinctive.

[7:45] At the same time, he does not look distinctive.

[7:48] He is –

[7:48] Yeah.

[7:48] I think especially for a white wrestling audience, he's just kind of like a big white guy who's blonde.

[7:53] He doesn't look weird aside from his goatee mustache.

[7:56] And the fact that he is still super blonde for his age.

[7:59] Yes.

[8:00] And he's – yeah.

[8:00] And he's also hugely buff, you know.

[8:02] But otherwise, he has – I think there was something that made him stick out because he had the least amount of gimmick compared to other wrestlers.

[8:08] But he knew how to mug, which I think really comes in handy as a pro wrestler.

[8:12] What's weird is that in this movie, though, he does very little of that.

[8:14] It's a very subdued performance from him.

[8:16] At times, it feels like he thinks he's still reciting his lines to himself before the camera rolls.

[8:21] And he does his actual take.

[8:23] Yeah.

[8:23] He's so quiet.

Stuart Wellington

[8:23] I'm worried every time they start a take, I'm like, did they bonk him on the head again?

Dan McCoy

[8:28] I mean, he seems concerned that he might be in a serious drama at times.

[8:32] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[8:32] And one of the things that I think is funny, but you can tell where this is on the Hulk Hogan scale of descent because, you know, this is a guy who – he starred in at least one feature film that was in theaters.

[8:44] It was what?

[8:44] Like Suburban Commando was in theaters.

[8:46] No Holds Barred.

[8:47] No Holds Barred was in theaters.

[8:48] No Holds Barred, yeah.

[8:49] And he would be up against like big guys.

[8:50] And in this one, you actually have a fight between Hulk Hogan and Ed Begley Jr., which is not a matchup that anyone –

[8:57] He's tall, though.

[8:58] He is tall.

[8:59] That's true.

[8:59] I mean –

[9:00] Yeah, his reach is good.

[9:01] The matchup we've all been waiting for.

[9:03] I'd rather see Hulk Hogan versus Ed Begley Sr., to be honest.

[9:06] It seems like more of a fair match.

Dan McCoy

[9:08] This is probably jumping ahead, but like our hero is a big muscle-bound guy who sells like body like supplements.

[9:17] Yeah, yeah.

[9:17] He's like a fitness guru.

[9:18] And the bad guys are a bunch of like reedy science nerds.

[9:23] And I'm like, if you were going to ask me in real life who I thought would be more likely to be an evil man, it's the man hawking his snake oil from his mansion.

Elliott Kalan

[9:35] But also he starts out as a – I mean Stuart will go through this as he talks about the plot.

[9:38] He starts out – it's a classic Christmas redemption arc.

[9:41] He starts out as a selfish guy and he becomes a selfless guy.

[9:45] So there's a little bit of that in there.

[9:46] But it is also – it does feel like the climax of the Green Lantern movie where it is Ryan Reynolds as a hunky jock versus a nerd in a wheelchair.

Alonso Duralde

[9:54] And we're supposed to be rooting for the jock who has superpowers to defeat the nerd in the wheelchair.

[9:59] I was kind of hoping the climactic battle would be about whether or not climate change was real because I think those two would really go at it for that.

Elliott Kalan

[10:04] That's true.

[10:05] I wonder if they talked about it on the set.

[10:06] It was an issue in the 90s, you know.

[10:08] Okay.

[10:09] He made a little bike to work.

[10:11] I'm sure he did.

[10:13] Whereas Hulk Hogan would drive there in a Jeep powered by other Jeeps being crunched up into cubes and then put into the gas tank.

[10:21] He had a Hummer.

[10:22] You know he had a Hummer.

Stuart Wellington

[10:23] Oh, yeah.

[10:24] Yeah, that's a good point.

[10:25] Let me – let's start up this piece.

[10:27] Okay.

[10:28] So act one begins.

[10:32] The movie opens with a letter to Santa warning of a mean man named Ember Frost.

[10:39] Ebner, I think.

[10:41] Is it?

[10:41] Like Ebner, but Ebner, yeah.

[10:43] Yeah, Ebner.

[10:43] Oh, yeah.

[10:44] It only says Ember because every time I write Ebner, my phone autocorrects it reasonably.

[10:52] Surely you meant –

Dan McCoy

[10:53] Yeah, that's incorrect.

[10:54] That's not a word.

Stuart Wellington

[10:57] They're in the town, Lakeville, which is being ruined by Ebner Frost, including he's also trying to get rid of the orphanage.

[11:05] He seems to be some kind of evil land developer of unknown plan.

[11:10] And this letter being written to Santa is being written by a young orphan named Elizabeth Bentley Walsh, which sounds like a fucking blue blood name.

[11:18] It does.

Elliott Kalan

[11:18] It does not sound like an orphan name at all.

[11:21] Unless literally the way she became orphaned was her and her parents were walking through Crime Alley after seeing a movie.

[11:27] The name does not fit her situation at all.

[11:29] Yeah.

Alonso Duralde

[11:30] If her parents died at like Truman Capote's black and white ball, maybe.

Stuart Wellington

[11:34] They were killed by an unknown assailant using lightning gloves or some kind of gas attack.

[11:41] Those are characters later in the movie.

[11:43] Okay.

[11:43] Oh.

[11:44] So after this opening that kind of shows us a town in turmoil, we are introduced to our hero.

[11:50] A town in turmoil.

[11:51] A Santa with buzzles.

[11:53] We are introduced to our hero, Blake Thorne, played by Hulk Hogan, who is dressed up.

[11:59] He's like a rich fitness guru.

[12:01] He's like the richest man in what?

[12:02] Three states?

[12:03] Four states?

[12:04] Something like that.

[12:05] The county at least.

[12:06] Yes.

[12:07] And he is.

Elliott Kalan

[12:08] In this town of Lakeview, which is clearly somewhere in Southern California, there's not a lake to be seen.

[12:13] It's a very dry climate.

[12:15] Yeah.

[12:15] It's a strange name for the town.

[12:16] Arid.

[12:17] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[12:18] So he is a fitness guru.

[12:20] He's dressed up in camouflage fatigues and he is beating.

[12:24] It looks like he's sneaking into a rich mansion and he's beating up a bunch of staff.

[12:30] Turns out they all work for him.

[12:31] This is his regular drill.

[12:33] Which explains why they fought both enthusiastically but also not very well.

Elliott Kalan

[12:39] Yeah.

[12:39] Sorry if you thought this was a how to blow up your pipeline.

[12:41] How to blow up a pipeline.

[12:43] You know, shot at the wrench.

[12:44] How to blow up your pipeline.

[12:45] Blow up your pipeline.

[12:47] How to get your pipeline to blow up on social media.

Dan McCoy

[12:51] Yeah.

[12:51] Also, all of his, you know, his staff seem to really enjoy this too.

[12:58] It's not like a situation where they're like, could we please have a job where we don't get, you know, smacked in the face with golf clubs or whatever.

[13:04] You know, but they're really into it.

[13:07] They're like into it like Cato's.

[13:08] It's a very Inspector Cuso Cato thing happening here.

Stuart Wellington

[13:10] Yeah.

[13:11] Yeah.

[13:11] He's also like clearly a self-obsessed asshole and he's like dictating rules to his staff who kind of give looks like, oh, what an asshole.

[13:20] But the thing is like they've been working for this guy forever.

[13:24] They would be used to it by now, I think.

[13:26] And later they put their lives on the line for him.

Dan McCoy

[13:28] Uh-huh.

[13:29] He like gives some, like the first rule that we hear him say is like something that is just like an aphorism.

[13:34] I forget what it was, but it's like not unique to him.

Stuart Wellington

[13:40] Oh, okay.

[13:40] Yeah.

[13:40] Like you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

[13:42] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[13:43] He's like, put that down.

[13:44] Put that down.

[13:44] It's great.

[13:45] I'm on fire.

[13:46] I'm like, shut up.

Alonso Duralde

[13:47] Mm-hmm.

[13:47] Shut up, future Santa with muscles.

[13:49] There's no real billionaires like that now.

[13:52] Yeah.

[13:53] Not at all.

[13:53] No.

[13:54] The thing is, it's so outlandish.

[13:55] That's the thing.

[13:56] It's unbelievable.

Elliott Kalan

[13:57] When he tells his employees, he goes, if you see me, if you meet me walking down the road, kill me.

[14:03] They're like, you didn't invent that.

[14:04] The Buddha invented that.

[14:05] He's like, whatever, whatever.

Stuart Wellington

[14:08] So yeah, Blake Thorne is clearly like a Scrooge for this modern era.

[14:15] His paintball game gets a little bit out of hand and it leads to a police chase, including police officer Clint Howard.

[14:24] In one of his more dignified roles, right?

[14:27] Yep.

[14:29] I would say so.

Dan McCoy

[14:30] I mean, he gets to kind of be a hero at the end, so sure.

Stuart Wellington

[14:32] The police chase leads them back to Blake's former home, Lakeville, the previously mentioned Lakeville, where he hides out in the nearby mall, which is in a tough situation because they are missing their mall Santa Claus.

[14:46] There's a whole bunch of elves, but nobody can find Santa Claus.

[14:50] So he –

Elliott Kalan

[14:51] It's a classic corporate organizational problem.

[14:55] It's too many elves, not enough Santas.

[14:57] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[14:58] So this is where Act 1 kind of gives us a little bit of a pause.

[15:02] We've learned a little bit of the setup.

[15:05] Now to get a little bit – let's deepen this mystery.

[15:08] Meanwhile, on Ebner Frost's land, one of his henchmen, Dr. Blight, is torturing a local business owner.

[15:16] And then he brings in his trio of other mad scientists who continue to torture this guy, I guess to sell over his land or business.

[15:23] His shoe store.

[15:24] His shoe store.

[15:25] Thank you.

[15:27] Okay.

[15:27] Now back to Blake.

[15:28] Blake sneaks into the mall to avoid the police.

Elliott Kalan

[15:30] Do you want to talk about – do you want to talk about the individual henchmen that Frost has?

[15:35] Were they weird, Elliot?

[15:37] Yeah.

[15:37] They were slightly eccentric.

[15:40] They are all scientists that specialize in things.

Stuart Wellington

[15:43] Dr. Blight looks like Lucas Haas in Widows but with a lab coat on.

Dan McCoy

[15:47] Oh, I was going to say sort of like a stretched out Richard E. Grant.

[15:51] Oh.

[15:52] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[15:52] I feel like a mishmash between the two.

[15:54] Yeah.

[15:55] And then he has a trio of mad scientists who – can you guys describe these guys for me?

Dan McCoy

[16:00] There's one sort of like stocky, balding guy who his thing is smells, I guess.

[16:07] Like he's like gas-oriented chemist but he has like a bunch of methane.

Alonso Duralde

[16:11] Kind of a Hans Moleman type.

[16:13] Dr. Vile, I think, is his name.

[16:15] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[16:15] It's an excuse for like a lot of essentially fart jokes.

[16:19] Yes.

[16:19] Even though he's not farting.

[16:20] He just has gas on him.

[16:22] But he's constantly being like, I'm not actually farting.

[16:26] Yeah.

[16:27] And there's an electro lady.

[16:30] Yeah.

[16:30] She's got like electro gloves.

Elliott Kalan

[16:31] Dr. Watt.

[16:33] Yeah, Dr. Watt.

Dan McCoy

[16:34] Is that it?

[16:35] Is there another one?

[16:35] No, there's the third one.

[16:36] There's one other guy.

Elliott Kalan

[16:37] The third one who – I'm trying to look up the name of the actor because he was the one who was the most recognizable of those actors to me.

[16:42] Who is Dr. Flint, who is the geologist.

[16:46] Kevin West.

[16:47] Kevin West.

[16:47] He's an actor who's in a lot of stuff.

[16:49] Like you'd recognize him from a lot of times.

Stuart Wellington

[16:50] There's not a lot of – not often are your mad scientists geologists.

[16:54] Yeah.

[16:55] What is his –

[16:55] No, very rarely.

Elliott Kalan

[16:57] I mean the most – I guess the maddest scientist it gets is Clarence King, the superstar geologist of the 19th century.

[17:03] And that's more because in his private life, he convinced a black woman that he was also black and lived as her common law husband under an assumed name for many, many years.

[17:12] But that's more of a – that's not like a mad scientist-y type thing to do.

[17:15] No.

Elliott Kalan

[17:16] It's just an out-of-the-ordinary thing for a geologist to do.

Dan McCoy

[17:19] Yeah.

[17:19] And this guy, like I guess he says something menacing like you'd make a beautiful fossil.

[17:24] I'm not really sure how he's menacing himself, but all of these appear to be like criminal scientists.

[17:31] Yeah.

[17:32] Like they broke out of Arkham or something.

Alonso Duralde

[17:34] They were all thrown out of various respectable institutions.

[17:37] Yeah.

[17:37] The geologist will do terrible things to you, but it will take thousands of years for it to happen.

[17:42] Yeah.

[17:42] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[17:43] And he's like, I'll have your bones to study.

[17:48] I'll wait.

[17:49] And just stands there with his watch.

Dan McCoy

[17:51] I'm going to turn you into oil the old-fashioned way.

Elliott Kalan

[17:55] Time and pressure.

[17:57] So, yeah.

[17:57] So, those are Frost's – Frost, who is also like a germaphobe.

[18:01] Right?

[18:02] He always has like a –

[18:02] Yeah, he's a germaphobe.

[18:03] He talks to people via TV.

Stuart Wellington

[18:06] Yeah.

[18:06] He mainly communicates through TV, which is like carried around by his henchmen, which is pretty funny.

[18:12] Okay.

[18:13] And by pretty funny, I mean, come on.

[18:15] What else?

[18:16] He's going to be like, guys.

[18:18] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[18:19] I mean, it is the most fun thing in the whole movie probably that he communicates via television.

[18:24] Yeah, like Dr. Mabuza or something like that.

[18:26] You know.

Stuart Wellington

[18:28] Blake sneaks into the mall to avoid the police.

[18:31] This is, once again, a very rich man.

[18:34] By himself sneaks into a mall to avoid the police.

[18:37] He steals a Santa costume as a disguise, but officer Clint Howard catches on.

[18:42] He hides in a garbage chute.

Elliott Kalan

[18:43] A Santa Claus costume that very unbelievably fits this enormous man who has wandered into the mall.

[18:49] Yeah.

[18:49] Well, also –

[18:50] He's like he's ageing 47.

[18:51] He's mean.

[18:52] Maybe Lou Ferrigno was supposed to play Santa Claus that day.

Alonso Duralde

[18:54] Or if you're a Santa without padding and with muscles, I guess maybe that all works out.

Elliott Kalan

[18:58] Maybe.

[18:59] The muscles don't go in the same place the padding does, right?

[19:02] Good point.

Dan McCoy

[19:03] He's mean to a kid, too, which is what Clint Howard is like.

[19:07] There's something funny here.

[19:08] And I'm like –

Elliott Kalan

[19:08] I'm the one who's mean to kids.

Dan McCoy

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

[19:11] Like, a mall Santa who's not on the job right now being mean to a kid, that tracks for me.

[19:16] Yeah, yeah.

[19:16] But that's the weird thing.

Elliott Kalan

[19:17] This movie is playing a game.

[19:18] It's on a delicate tightrope the whole time between characters kind of understanding that he is just a person pretending to be Santa and also thinking that he is Santa.

[19:28] And it's kind of hard to tell at any given point whether the characters believe he's actually a magical Santa Claus or not.

Stuart Wellington

[19:35] Well, we'll get to that because now that he's in a costume, he hides in a garbage chute, and then he gets bonked on the head by a giant plastic Santa, and he loses memory.

[19:43] Luckily, Lenny the Elf shows up.

[19:45] Lenny the Elf.

[19:46] He steals Blake's wallet, realizes who he's dealing with, and then he convinces Blake that he is in fact Santa Claus and not Blake Thor or a millionaire.

Dan McCoy

[19:55] Yeah, but not before doing a big dance when he finds the wallet.

[19:58] Let's do a big dance.

[19:59] Now, Lenny the Elf, what do we feel about this performance on a scale of overbearingly big to you want to shoot yourself big?

Stuart Wellington

[20:08] Really needed more shtick, I thought.

[20:11] Yeah.

[20:12] It is really funny.

[20:13] This guy is so committed to this that he follows Santa around for the rest of the movie, basically.

[20:21] Willing to sleep in an orphanage just to maintain the ruse.

Dan McCoy

[20:24] He seems to know that he is like the lovable sidekick grifter character.

[20:29] Like, he doesn't ever for a moment feel like he's going to actually like steal a bunch of the money.

[20:35] He feels like he knows like the Santa needs a wacky sidekick.

[20:40] Well, he keeps trying though.

[20:41] He's dying that he didn't get this role.

Alonso Duralde

[20:43] Apparently, it's an ATM that involves a thumbprint.

[20:45] Oh, yes.

[20:45] So, he's like sticking around.

[20:46] Oh, yes.

[20:46] They're trying to get the glass.

[20:48] The performance, I would say, fits in more to the tradition of the British panto.

[20:53] You know, where they just super, everything's wildly exaggerated and forthwalling to the audience and stuff.

[21:02] He's going that hard with it.

[21:04] And so, why he is not like playing Aladdin, you know, somewhere in, you know, upper Hertfordshire right now, I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[21:11] I understand panto because I saw the recent season of Drag Race UK where they did a whole panto challenge.

[21:17] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[21:18] And I understand panto because I often use panto to bread cutlets before frying, yeah.

[21:26] And I understand pantone.

Dan McCoy

[21:29] This is what I use to choose colors for the wall.

Elliott Kalan

[21:31] I'm actually wearing a pair of pantos right now.

Stuart Wellington

[21:34] And I love panettone because it's a delicious cake that lives in a box forever.

[21:39] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[21:41] It lives in a box.

[21:43] For Christmas.

[21:45] It is a baffling product.

Dan McCoy

[21:49] Oh, I love it.

[21:51] It's more of a sweet bread, I'd say.

[21:52] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[21:54] No, it is.

[21:55] They set up, okay, he wants to steal Blake Thorne's money.

[21:59] He wants to clean out his bank account.

[22:01] So, he needs his thumbprint.

[22:02] So, of course, he has to go with him in the guise of an elf to an orphanage and live there indefinitely.

[22:08] And I just get things like, does Lenny not have a house?

[22:11] Does he not have a family?

[22:12] Like, what's going on?

[22:12] It's a long con, Elliot.

[22:14] Yeah.

[22:15] And we know he needs money because he owes – he lost a bet that seems to be with Dr. Blight.

[22:22] Yeah.

[22:23] But it was for like $50.

[22:24] He's like, I'll get you the money.

[22:26] And then the woman who's running the Santa thing at the mall, she goes, $50 to anyone who can get me a Santa.

[22:30] And he's like, hold on.

[22:32] I might be able to get you that money.

[22:34] It's like, wait, so is this over a $50 bet?

Alonso Duralde

[22:36] Yeah.

[22:36] There are hundreds in Blake Thorne's wallet.

[22:39] So, even without the ATM, he's got his hands on some cash immediately.

[22:43] He smells a bigger payday.

[22:45] Hey, $50.

[22:45] Long con.

Elliott Kalan

[22:46] It's the classic sunk cost fallacy where he's like – I think – I don't really know what that means.

[22:51] But it's like, just take the money you've got.

[22:54] Don't go for the big score of, I guess, emptying his bank account and using his credit cards.

[22:58] It's more of a bird in the hand situation, I think.

[23:01] Maybe.

[23:01] Yeah.

[23:02] Is it worth the time you're going to spend living at an orphanage to do this?

Stuart Wellington

[23:06] He is in for the rush of the con.

[23:09] That's what he loves.

[23:10] Yeah.

[23:10] Untouched gems all over the place.

[23:12] Okay.

[23:13] So, Blake decides to be Santa in the mall.

[23:16] We get a montage of that.

[23:19] As we said, Lenny tries to use the talking ATM, but it won't let him because it needs Blake's fingerprint.

Elliott Kalan

[23:25] It needs a thumbprint.

[23:26] And now, when Blake is the Santa, that must be pretty hilarious, right?

[23:29] Him interacting with those kids.

Stuart Wellington

[23:30] Well, it feels like they shot some footage and then they just used everything they shot, none of which is funny or edited.

[23:39] Yeah.

[23:40] There is one point where a misbehaving kid gets lifted up, but I'm like, I could probably do that.

[23:45] Kids aren't that heavy, right?

[23:48] Okay.

[23:48] So, some thugs try to steal the orphanage, the fund.

[23:52] There's like a little fund for the orphanage set up near Santa's workshop.

[23:55] Yeah, they're not trying to steal a whole orphanage.

[23:57] That would be a hookup to your car, pull it away.

[23:59] I mean, that's what Ebner's literally trying to do, Elliot.

[24:02] Good point.

[24:03] So, thugs are trying to steal the fund to like save the orphanage.

[24:08] But Blake, of course, stops them.

[24:10] He throws them around.

[24:11] There's at least one moment where he throws a guy and they speed up the footage to make it look funnier?

[24:17] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[24:20] Guys, I want to ask you something seriously.

[24:23] You know, even when you were a child, was sped up footage ever funny to you?

[24:29] Because for me, there was no point at which I was like, this makes it funnier.

Elliott Kalan

[24:35] Dan, I can't speak for myself because I don't think I ever did.

[24:38] But having recently sat with my older son while he watched The Mighty Ducks for the first time, there is a chase scene in that where the footage is sped up.

[24:45] And he was laughing his shit out.

[24:47] He thought it was so funny to him.

[24:50] He literally said, look at this.

[24:54] Have you seen this?

[24:55] This is a comedy, Dad.

[24:56] He said, look at how fast they're running.

[24:58] Did you know?

[24:59] Can you believe they could do this?

Alonso Duralde

[25:01] It's great.

[25:02] I mean, I think it depends on what it is you're speeding up.

[25:05] If there's like a lot of people like throwing pies or running into walls or falling on their ass, like I think there's a way to make that work.

[25:12] But there's so little happening in this movie that so little happening faster is not going to really be a –

[25:17] Yeah.

[25:18] But if you sped up like a porno, it would be pretty funny.

Stuart Wellington

[25:20] Yeah, like a lascivious older gentleman who is chasing young women around.

[25:24] Sure, sure.

[25:25] Back and forth across the screen.

Dan McCoy

[25:26] And maybe pieces of clothes get caught on things.

Elliott Kalan

[25:29] Yeah, like patting an old bald man on the head is not that funny.

[25:32] But if you speed it up, then it can get pretty funny.

Dan McCoy

[25:36] What kind of sax is playing?

Elliott Kalan

[25:37] I feel like it's happening.

[25:39] I think I'm going to – let me look what I've got.

[25:41] Let's see.

[25:41] Yickety, yackety, yackety.

Stuart Wellington

[25:44] Yickety, yackety, you.

[25:45] I do not know why we are not just packaging this for a BBC maestro course on the art of comedy.

Alonso Duralde

[25:53] Okay.

[25:54] People are listening to this podcast at one and a half speed as we speak.

[25:58] And it's funnier that way.

[25:59] Hurts my heart.

Elliott Kalan

[26:00] Yeah, absolutely.

[26:01] Because your heart has to beat that fast when this gets sped up.

[26:06] So –

[26:07] The podcast of Dorian Gray.

[26:10] When it goes double speed, it ages me twice as fast.

[26:14] Oh, man.

[26:15] This podcast has definitely aged me twice as fast.

[26:19] Oh, man.

Stuart Wellington

[26:19] Would that mean that this ride is almost over, guys?

[26:22] Yeah.

[26:23] Okay.

[26:24] So, Blake has stopped the thugs.

[26:26] Everyone loves Santa with muscles.

[26:29] So, Blake rides off to – on Lenny's moped and they – he sees a sign for the orphanage and he's like, I have to go to there.

[26:39] And they decide to ride off together.

Elliott Kalan

[26:41] He's kind of like a Terminator at this point.

Stuart Wellington

[26:43] Yeah, he kind of is.

[26:44] And that's about the – his line deliveries are, for the most part, robotic.

[26:49] Because he's like, Santa's a robot, right?

[26:51] They're like, only in Futurama.

[26:53] And he's like, works for me.

Dan McCoy

[26:55] I mean, when he was talking to those kids earlier, like, it's interesting to think.

[26:59] Like, he seems to want to play it like a genuinely, like, confused, sad man who has no memories.

[27:06] Yeah.

[27:06] Like, he did a little too much amnesia research.

Elliott Kalan

[27:09] Yeah.

[27:10] Yeah.

[27:10] It does feel weird that Hulk Hogan, of all people, is trying very hard to underplay this part throughout the movie.

[27:17] And I don't know if it is lack of enthusiasm or too much enthusiasm.

[27:21] Like, you're saying, he's like, I'm going to finally get into this character.

[27:24] How would he feel about what's going on?

[27:26] I have to create a contrast with Blake Thorne and Santa.

[27:28] So, I'll make Blake Thorne kind of a loud mouth and I'll make Santa a quiet, thoughtful, meditative man.

Alonso Duralde

[27:34] And the whole time I'm just desperately trying to remember my own name, but I'm also having to function as Santa.

[27:39] Yeah.

[27:40] It's great.

Elliott Kalan

[27:42] So, meanwhile.

[27:43] I'm going to function as Santa.

[27:46] I'm what's called a functional Santa.

[27:49] Being a Santa doesn't get in the way of my regular life that well.

Dan McCoy

[27:51] I was the runner-up of the Santa contest.

[27:55] And since Santa was not able to do his duties, I, of course, take over.

Stuart Wellington

[28:00] Meanwhile, Frost's goons threaten the head, the woman who runs the orphanage, and they steal the statue from out front.

[28:08] They are about to get away and they're about to run over groundskeeper Garrett Morris when Blake, and they're driving an ice cream truck.

[28:18] I forgot about that part.

Elliott Kalan

[28:18] I was shocked by how willing this movie seemed to be to, like, have the villains almost run down Garrett Morris.

Stuart Wellington

[28:34] They get very close.

[28:35] Luckily for everyone involved, Blake grabs the chain that is attached to the back of the ice cream truck and stops them in their place, which is a feat of strength.

[28:47] Shocking.

[28:48] Yeah.

[28:48] Also, tensile strength, because that could have easily destroyed that ice cream truck.

[28:54] Okay.

[28:54] And then—

[28:55] Or pulled his arms right off.

Elliott Kalan

[28:57] Yeah.

[28:57] I mean, more like—

[28:58] Let's just say Santa with muscles has a tortured relationship with physics.

Stuart Wellington

[29:04] So the goons run off.

[29:06] They decide to have Blake and Lanny are welcomed at the orphanage.

[29:11] We get to meet young Mila Kunis in her, I guess, what—is this her big screen debut, Dan?

[29:17] I didn't look it up.

[29:19] I don't know why.

[29:19] I don't know this.

[29:20] Was this released in theaters?

[29:21] Was it a big screen?

[29:22] For two weeks, yes.

[29:23] Okay, then it might have been.

Elliott Kalan

[29:25] Let's take a look at her filmography.

[29:26] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[29:26] It was at Sickies.

[29:29] Okay, so—

Elliott Kalan

[29:31] No, she had previously been in—oh, that was a Showtime TV movie.

[29:34] So you know what?

[29:36] Big screen debut.

[29:36] She was previously in the made-for-television film Piranha.

[29:40] And then right after this, she was in Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.

[29:43] So it was—I think this was the big screen debut.

Stuart Wellington

[29:45] Her theatrical debut.

Elliott Kalan

[29:47] Wow.

[29:47] Mila, if you're listening, get in touch.

Dan McCoy

[29:49] Everybody make a note of it.

[29:50] Tell us your memories of Santa with muscles.

Elliott Kalan

[29:53] She wouldn't appear on the big screen again for another two years

[29:56] when she shook off the curse of Santa with muscles

[29:58] to appear in the blockbuster Krippendorf's Tribe.

Alonso Duralde

[30:01] Oh, boy.

[30:04] But here's the lesson.

[30:06] If you're going to be the—you know,

[30:07] if you have the choice of being the adorable Moppet

[30:09] or the wisecracking, you know, person at the side

[30:13] commenting through the side of their mouth,

[30:15] be the wisecracker, you'll have a better career.

[30:18] Yeah.

[30:18] No, very true.

[30:19] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[30:20] Okay, so they have—

[30:21] I'm living proof.

[30:22] There you go.

[30:23] They have dinner at the orphanage.

[30:25] Santa and Lenny decide to stay the night.

[30:29] And Lenny continues to gaslight Blake.

[30:31] Any chance there's a moment where Blake's like,

[30:33] maybe I'm not Santa.

[30:34] He's like, no, you're totally Santa.

[30:36] Let's put on these pajamas

[30:37] that are actual, like, Christmas pageant costumes

[30:40] and sleep in bunk beds together.

[30:44] I don't know.

[30:45] If I tried to climb into a child's bunk bed,

[30:48] I don't think I'd be able to fit,

[30:49] let alone—and I'm not a Santa with muscles guy.

[30:51] No.

Dan McCoy

[30:52] No, yeah.

[30:52] There would also be other problems if you were doing that.

[30:54] You'd probably get arrested.

[30:55] Yeah, well, that's the main thing.

Elliott Kalan

[30:57] Ebner Frost is trying to shut down this orphanage,

[30:59] and really all he has to do is call child services

[31:01] and say, the orphanage just let in two strange men,

[31:04] and they're sleeping next door to the children.

Dan McCoy

[31:07] Neither of them seems willing to identify themselves.

Alonso Duralde

[31:09] Yes, I know there's only three people in the orphanage,

[31:11] but still.

Elliott Kalan

[31:13] It is a very—the orphanage is running.

[31:14] And it's kind of sad.

[31:15] They go to the orphanage, and they're like,

[31:16] we found parents for all the kids.

[31:18] Well, the kids we could find parents for.

[31:20] And so it's like, the idea that these are the three reject kids

[31:23] that nobody wanted is very sad.

Stuart Wellington

[31:25] Yeah, you have Mila Kunis.

[31:26] You have Elizabeth Bentley Walsh,

[31:29] who wrote the letter in the opening.

[31:30] And then you have a kid who's given off

[31:32] some real Barry Kagan vibes.

[31:34] Yes, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[31:36] That kid, I feel like that kid was in a lot of things.

[31:38] He was in a lot of stuff, too.

[31:39] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[31:40] Okay, so meanwhile, over breakfast,

[31:44] Lenny steals a milk glass with Blake's fingerprints.

[31:47] That's right, we get a very long slow-mo scene

[31:49] of Hulk Hogan drinking milk.

[31:52] For all you milk fetishes out there.

[31:56] Elizabeth schools Blake on all the rules of being Santa.

[31:59] I did not write them down or pay that close attention.

[32:02] Mila Kunis improves the Santa suit

[32:05] by making it look like something you could order

[32:07] out of international mail.

Dan McCoy

[32:08] By making it out of nanobots now.

[32:12] So he can turn into Santa with muscles wherever he is.

Alonso Duralde

[32:15] If you were doing a Santa-themed burlesque show,

[32:18] this is what you'd be wearing.

[32:19] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[32:20] Yeah.

[32:21] It does feel like he's gone from traditional Santa

[32:24] to Chippendale Santa very fast with this costume change.

Stuart Wellington

[32:28] The local reporter shows up and interviews Blake

[32:32] to be for the local news.

[32:33] It doesn't go particularly well.

[32:35] He seems confused.

Dan McCoy

[32:37] This local reporter, not very good at her job,

[32:40] I'll tell you, because there's no free interview

[32:42] before she puts this person on the air.

[32:45] And then later on, right in the middle of interviewing

[32:48] Clint Howard, she decides she's going to run off

[32:51] and talk to one of the perks instead.

[32:52] You've got to go with the scoop.

[32:53] You've got to go where the story is.

[32:55] Maybe she should be live, I think.

[32:57] Yeah, maybe not live.

[32:58] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[32:59] She just needs the rush of live TV.

[33:01] That's what they always talk about.

Elliott Kalan

[33:02] There's also not much of a story that she's chasing here.

Stuart Wellington

[33:05] I mean, yeah.

[33:06] Yeah.

[33:06] All those other really cool stories.

[33:08] Santa has muscles, though.

Elliott Kalan

[33:11] It is the kind of thing you get on public,

[33:13] on local news, though, is where they're like,

[33:16] we talked to a local crazy person

[33:18] who's doing something out of the ordinary.

[33:20] And then the interview goes weirdly.

[33:21] And then they're like, okay, we did it.

[33:23] Goodbye, everybody.

Stuart Wellington

[33:24] I do like that Hulk Hogan was like, as an actor,

[33:28] I'm going to be doing a man on the street interview.

[33:31] My options are be totally crazy or totally confused.

[33:35] I'm going to go confused.

[33:38] Okay, so meanwhile, Ebner Frost and Dr. Blight

[33:42] see the news story, and they do not like this.

[33:45] No.

[33:45] Santa with muscles has got to go.

[33:47] So Santa and Elizabeth sing Angel Baby together

[33:52] in the orphanage's chapel.

Dan McCoy

[33:55] Is this some other song?

[33:58] Because it's not the Angel Baby that I know,

[34:01] which is, of course, the one that goes,

[34:03] Angel Baby, my angel baby.

[34:06] It's not that one.

[34:07] I don't know that song.

[34:08] And I didn't know this song.

[34:09] Yeah, I'm assuming this is an original.

Stuart Wellington

[34:11] Alex, can you put some music underneath Dan

[34:14] singing Angel Baby so I can recognize it?

Elliott Kalan

[34:17] Yeah, Dan, go do it again.

[34:19] Angel Baby, I really had a very good year.

[34:23] That one.

[34:23] That's it.

Dan McCoy

[34:25] Yeah, it's trying to seduce an angel,

[34:27] just like Santa Baby is seducing Santa.

[34:29] I do love this genre of-

Elliott Kalan

[34:30] Want to have sex with an angel made out of lots of wings and eyes?

[34:33] I really want a new seraphim.

[34:36] But I'll accept a cherubim too.

[34:41] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[34:41] As somebody who doesn't, I don't particularly love Christmas,

[34:44] but I do kind of love horny Christmas songs.

[34:48] Okay, interesting.

[34:50] Just because they're super weird.

[34:52] Anna in the Apocalypse has a good one.

[34:55] Okay, I'll check that out.

Dan McCoy

[34:56] That's one of my favorite community bits.

[34:58] Did you see that?

[35:00] There's a bit where Annie sings a song that is basically Santa Baby,

[35:05] but their funny version of it where it's just her being as babyish as possible.

[35:12] And her intelligence devolves over the course of the song.

[35:17] I think you left sexiness behind.

Elliott Kalan

[35:20] It's very good.

[35:21] Check it out.

[35:21] There's no sexy Hanukkah songs.

[35:23] Look for them.

[35:23] You won't find them.

[35:24] Okay, so they sing Angel Baby.

[35:26] I'm just waiting to be filled, Elliot.

[35:27] Get on it.

[35:27] Well, I guess you could do a dirty parody of dreidel, dreidel, dreidel,

[35:31] where it's dildo, dildo, dildo, dildo.

[35:33] But that's not –

[35:34] I think you're halfway there.

Alonso Duralde

[35:35] First, light my fire.

[35:36] Like you've got all kinds of options here.

[35:38] Oil me up.

[35:40] Yeah.

[35:40] You could be what?

[35:41] Make it last eight days, baby.

[35:43] Come on.

[35:43] Something about a miracle.

Elliott Kalan

[35:44] King of winter holidays over here.

[35:46] Yeah.

[35:46] Do it like a Maccabee, something like that.

[35:49] Maccabee, my baby.

[35:50] A lot of hot oil.

[35:51] That's something that could be worth it.

[35:52] Yeah, yeah.

[35:52] Enough oil for eight days.

[35:55] I don't want to know what the oil is, though.

[35:57] That's what I'm saying.

[35:58] Usually we have sex for one minute, but now we're going to do it for eight minutes.

[36:02] Wow.

[36:03] It's Hanukkah.

[36:04] What are you in your 20s?

[36:05] I'm going for enough oil.

[36:08] Eight minutes.

[36:09] It's a Hanukkah miracle.

Stuart Wellington

[36:11] We're going to make it last, baby.

[36:13] So again, Hulk Hogan and a little girl sing this song Angel Baby together in a chapel,

[36:18] and then time passes to night.

[36:22] What a poetic transition, Stuart.

[36:25] Okay.

[36:25] So the Goon Squad shows up.

[36:27] Guys, I keep saying Goon Squad.

Elliott Kalan

[36:28] Now, is this the Goon Squad from the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad?

[36:31] Yes.

[36:32] Yes.

[36:32] Oh, okay.

[36:33] I thought it was the gang from the Goon Show.

[36:37] I wish.

[36:38] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[36:39] I had to explain to my wife, because our friend Ashley Atkinson is one of the featured

[36:44] actors on the show The Gilded Age.

[36:47] Yes.

[36:47] And somebody on Twitter pointed out that they like to engage in gooning parties with their

[36:53] friends whenever her character shows up on screen.

Dan McCoy

[36:56] And I had to explain to my wife what gooning was, which was, you know, pretty fun.

[36:59] Now, can you pretend that I'm your wife and explain it to me?

Stuart Wellington

[37:02] I think it's where, like, you just, like, hang out and jag off for a long time.

[37:06] Possibly denying yourself release.

[37:08] Now there's a party involved in this?

[37:10] Yeah, like, you're just hanging out with your buds.

[37:13] J.O.

[37:13] Yeah, and Dan, now you know why Popeye was always trying to get off the island of the

Elliott Kalan

[37:16] goons, because he didn't want to do that.

[37:18] He didn't want to sit around edging.

Dan McCoy

[37:20] There's a party in my pants, and everyone's invited.

[37:23] Kinda.

Alonso Duralde

[37:24] Okay.

[37:25] Did they Zoom goon, or is this in person?

Stuart Wellington

[37:27] I mean, I didn't get all the details.

[37:29] This was on Twitter.

[37:30] Maybe I should ask more follow-ups.

[37:32] I mean, Mrs. Fish is, you know, a provocative character.

[37:35] Provocative character.

[37:35] In one episode, she even had a boob cutout, a boob window in her dress.

[37:40] Mrs. Fish.

[37:40] That's her character's name.

Dan McCoy

[37:42] Okay, I'm unfamiliar with the show.

[37:42] You gotta watch The Golden Age, dude.

[37:44] It's got Carrie Coon in it.

[37:45] Carrie Coon?

[37:47] Now, there's a Coon-Goon party.

Stuart Wellington

[37:49] Oh, every day.

[37:52] Okay, let's see.

[37:54] So, the Goon Squad shows up, and okay, keep good chill, Dan.

[37:57] What a Christmas episode this is.

[37:58] Oh, boy.

[38:00] Tis the season.

[38:01] So, the Goon Squad shows up, and they threaten-

[38:03] Happy horny days.

[38:07] Oh, God.

[38:07] Dan's turning into one of those text messages.

[38:12] Those, like, group text messages.

[38:14] It's like-

[38:14] And for those to celebrate, happy Goonica.

[38:17] It inserts all the, like, bad porn puns into the-

[38:21] Whatever.

Dan McCoy

[38:22] Okay.

[38:22] I don't get these text messages.

[38:24] What are these text messages you're getting?

Stuart Wellington

[38:25] You got big killer groups, dude.

[38:27] Okay.

[38:29] Okay.

[38:29] So, the bad guys show up, and they threaten them by throwing the statue head through the window.

[38:35] Blake then goes out and promptly just whips their asses.

[38:38] Like, there's no moment when he is not going to whip their asses.

Elliott Kalan

[38:41] And, like, and it's totally self-defense.

[38:43] He walks out, and the Dr. Blight seems to think he can handle Santa with muscles and takes his stethoscope and hits him in the face with it.

[38:50] Like, he's lashing him in the face with a stethoscope strap, or, like, with the end of the stethoscope, which is much more brutal than I expected to see in a movie called Santa with Muscles.

[38:58] Yeah.

[38:59] That opens with a little girl reading a letter to Santa.

[39:01] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[39:02] And he does a couple of spin kicks that I'm sure the actor had been practicing and really wanted to do.

[39:08] But all for naught, Blake beats them up quite easily, and they drive off.

[39:13] But in the mayhem, they don't realize that one of the kids, one of the orphans, has slipped away.

[39:19] Of course, he must have gone to Ebner Frost's mansion.

[39:24] So, and that kid is Taylor.

[39:27] I just checked my notes.

[39:29] The kid's name is Taylor, everybody.

[39:30] Okay.

[39:31] So, they adult, the third and final orphan.

[39:36] Of the three orphsketeers.

[39:38] Everyone always forgets Taylor.

[39:40] They head to Frost's mansion, which is, I don't know, like a house with a bunch of weird steam vents outside, right?

Elliott Kalan

[39:48] It's clearly a mansion that they have rented or belongs to one of the producers of the film, possibly, and that they have outfitted with the least kind of skin of fake science stuff to make it look like a mad scientist mansion.

[40:00] Yeah, that's cool.

[40:00] Oh, which reminds me, Alonzo, we haven't even talked about the producer of the film, which you reminded me of over text earlier.

Alonso Duralde

[40:06] I was, I'm always surprised when I revisit this movie to remember that one of the executive producers is one Jordan Belfort, who you may know better as the Wolf of Wall Street.

[40:17] They left the part out.

[40:18] Why Scorsese didn't cover his years producing Santa with Hustles.

[40:21] I know.

[40:22] I totally wanted to see a scene where Leo is on the scene, the set of this movie.

[40:26] And you have to wonder, it kind of throws the whole thing into perspective, like, is this entire thing some sort of complicated tax dodge, like money laundering scheme?

[40:37] It's like, well, we have to make something.

[40:39] Like, is this basically springtime for Hitler for the Wolf of Wall Street?

[40:43] Like, I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[40:44] Or just an attempt to get to hang out with Hulk Hogan, which is something I could see him wanting to do.

[40:49] Also, yeah.

[40:50] Yeah.

Alonso Duralde

[40:50] This is true.

[40:51] Although it's weird, you talk about this being sort of later era Hulk Hogan.

[40:54] Like, if you're thinking about Fu Manchu mustache, mullet, like muscle shirt Hulk Hogan, he is committed to the bit of playing like this billionaire.

[41:06] So he's almost sort of like keto makeover Hulk Hogan.

[41:10] Yeah.

[41:11] You know?

[41:11] Yeah.

[41:11] It's not the one that we're used to in these movies.

[41:14] No, not at all.

[41:16] None of those, like, what are those, not zebra pants.

[41:18] What are those pants called?

[41:20] Zubas?

[41:20] Zuba, yes.

[41:21] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[41:21] He's not wearing the Zubas.

[41:22] Yeah, yeah.

[41:23] See, that's why you do podcasts with us muscle boys.

[41:26] We know the –

[41:27] We got the vernacular down.

Elliott Kalan

[41:29] And this is also – and this is kind of like late, early Hulk Hogan as opposed to late, late Hulk Hogan where he's mostly suing Gawker out of existence with Peter Thiel's money.

[41:38] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[41:39] I think somebody described him as showing up to court like he's the pallbearer at a boa constrictor's funeral.

[41:48] Okay.

[41:50] I don't deserve credit for that joke.

[41:51] It's not mine.

[41:53] Okay.

[41:54] So, they find Taylor outside of Frost's mansion.

[41:58] They scold him for carrying a slingshot and they send him and Lenny home.

[42:05] They – I guess he decides to, like, investigate what Frost is up to, which is to basically, like, take over the town and find something underneath it.

[42:16] He doesn't learn that much new information.

[42:18] Yeah.

[42:19] To be honest.

[42:19] So, they – but they realize – he does realize that whatever Frost wants is under the orphanage.

[42:26] Mm-hmm.

[42:26] So, that leads – all the orphans and everybody go under – into the catacombs beneath the orphanage.

Elliott Kalan

[42:33] This is where the movie went from the movie I thought it was going to be to the movie I didn't quite expect and I was – but hoped it would take a turn like this.

[42:41] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[42:41] Underneath the church, there's a massive vault that has a combination lock that seems to have stumped the kids.

[42:47] But Blake somehow realizes that he knows the rest of the combination.

[42:51] How curious.

[42:53] Mm-hmm.

[42:53] They open up the vault.

[42:54] It leads into a cavern filled with precious gems, rare electroconductive quartz crystals that explode.

Elliott Kalan

[43:02] Yeah.

[43:02] And they could – they generate – these are stones that generate their own electricity and are explosive.

[43:07] And I remember getting to this point in the movie and just being like, movie, I didn't think you were going to surprise me.

[43:13] But you did it.

[43:14] You surprised me.

Dan McCoy

[43:16] That was my take basically where it's just like this movie could have easily been exactly what you expected.

[43:22] And it's not good, but at least it took the energy to make weird choices.

Alonso Duralde

[43:28] It's like a seven-year-old telling you a story.

Elliott Kalan

[43:30] And it's like, and then they go underground.

[43:33] Like it could have easily been Santa with muscles does a charity wrestling match to save the orphanage.

[43:40] Saves the orphans, yeah.

[43:41] That's it.

[43:42] Yeah.

[43:42] But instead they said, hold on.

[43:44] What's the opposite of that?

[43:45] How about a cavern of electric crystals that exists under the orphanage with a vault door with a mysterious combination?

[43:53] I was like, this just turned into a point-and-click video game.

[43:55] And I love this.

Dan McCoy

[43:56] How about it's not just a land developer who wants the land the orphanage is on.

[44:01] It's a scientist who knows that there are magic crystals underneath it.

Stuart Wellington

[44:05] I mean, it's something that kids can understand.

[44:07] Go on.

[44:08] Yeah, yeah.

[44:09] It's not like kids are like, oh, I understand the value of land.

[44:13] Yeah.

[44:15] Okay, so Lenny continues to keep lying to Blake, but he's starting to get cold feet.

[44:19] He's in contact with Blight, and he doesn't know if he wants to go through with it.

[44:24] Dr. Blight shows up at the orphanage, and he gets chased around by Santa, leading to a confrontation in, I think, like the bell tower.

[44:32] Yeah, the orphanage is bell tower.

[44:34] Very vertigo.

[44:35] And Santa gets knocked off the bell tower and lands, Santa meaning Blake, of course.

[44:41] It's hard.

[44:42] Even I have trouble.

[44:43] I confuse people.

[44:43] Even you are taken in by the magic of Santa.

[44:46] He gets knocked off the bell tower.

[44:47] He lands in a garbage truck where, before passing out, he sees a can of his protein powder.

[44:56] What?

[44:58] Blake then wakes up in his own mansion.

Elliott Kalan

[45:01] Wait, before we move on, I want to give Dr. Blight credit.

[45:03] This is, I think, the third time that Dr. Blight has gone one-on-one with Hulk Hogan.

[45:08] Each time, I'm like, you don't have a chance.

[45:09] This kind of reedy Englishman, but you know what?

[45:11] I guess he's Scottish in real life, but this reedy character.

[45:14] But then, he did it.

[45:15] He beat it.

[45:16] Yeah.

[45:16] So, you know, a little wrong.

[45:19] Good on you, Dr. Blight.

[45:20] You used the geography around you in order to defeat a stronger opponent, and that's what a true master does.

[45:25] Yeah.

[45:25] Clearly, he's read The Art of War.

[45:28] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[45:29] When Hulk Hogan wakes up in his mansion, you know, disoriented, thinking that it was all a dream, and then, like, seeing himself in, you know, Santa outfit.

[45:38] This was, again, a moment where I thought, like, it's not that the acting is good, but it is pitched at a different level than I expected, because he really made me feel the horror of, like, waking up realizing that you've lost several days and not knowing, like, what happened.

[45:56] Like, it was a little too, he was a little too distressed for a movie like this.

Alonso Duralde

[46:00] It's in the same movie as Clint Howard's policeman.

[46:03] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[46:05] So, he, Blake is concerned.

[46:07] He's starting to remember things, and he's remembering what has happened over the last couple days.

[46:11] There's blood on his hands.

[46:12] Why?

[46:13] There's blood all over him.

[46:16] And, yeah, there's a scary note penned on his bathroom mirror.

Alonso Duralde

[46:23] And he's missing a kidney.

[46:24] He wakes up in a bathtub of ice.

[46:27] It's like, I have muscles, but not all my organs.

Stuart Wellington

[46:31] He tries to, so he tries to call the orphanage, but Frost's goons intercept the call and try and scare him off by playing a recording that makes it seem like they don't want to see him anymore.

[46:42] The goons then show up at the orphanage.

[46:44] Classic Home Alone 2.

[46:45] Yep.

[46:46] They start to round up the kids and adults.

[46:49] Even Ebner Frost shows up.

[46:51] He shows up in his full suit.

[46:53] He's like, you got me on set for two days.

[46:57] This is day number two.

Elliott Kalan

[46:59] I will be at two different locations, and this is the other one.

Alonso Duralde

[47:02] One of them has to be a house.

[47:04] I need to be able to watch TV.

[47:05] And when the kids are around, I'm wearing the hazmat suit.

Stuart Wellington

[47:09] They all go down to the vault, but they have to break in.

[47:16] Lenny calls up Blake, who is depressed, but he inspires him to save the day.

[47:21] So Blake gets his staff together.

[47:23] They all jump in the Jeep, and they head out, of course, starting another high-speed chase with police.

[47:29] And then they try and dissuade some of the police by throwing his various food supplements, his weightlifting supplements at the police cars.

[47:38] He and his staff break into the orphanage.

Elliott Kalan

[47:41] Did you skip the part where the police shoot a rocket launcher rocket at his car?

[47:48] I did.

[47:48] Do you want to describe it?

[47:50] I felt like there was no greater indictment of the over-militarization of the police than this moment where one of them has a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher that he fires at.

[48:00] Ostensibly, four civilians were guilty of nothing more than reckless driving.

[48:04] Luckily, they only destroyed Clint Howard's car, which leaving Clint Howard soot-covered but unscathed otherwise.

[48:13] It seemed like the movie was like – it's like the movie had flop sweat on it.

[48:16] It was like, what would make this exciting?

Alonso Duralde

[48:18] This, an explosion, whatever.

[48:19] What do you need?

[48:20] Kids, what do you want?

[48:21] Well, see, now, if another infamous producer made this, Jack Abramoff might have gotten one of those rocket launchers from one of the Mujahideen while making Rambo 3 and then brought him to this set.

[48:31] But instead, it's Jordan Belfort, so who the hell even knows?

Stuart Wellington

[48:34] It looks like John Landis wasn't directing this or he would have died.

Elliott Kalan

[48:38] Or he would throw a bunch of helicopters at those kids.

[48:40] Yeah.

[48:41] Hulk Hogan would have been murdered and we would still have Gawker to this day.

Alonso Duralde

[48:44] And it's a good thing Max Landis didn't write it because that's always a good thing.

[48:48] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[48:50] Okay.

[48:50] So they're at the orphanage.

[48:53] Blake, along with the help of the kids and his staff, managed to pick apart the goon squad one by one.

[49:01] We get lots of laughs.

[49:03] It's hilarious.

[49:04] Let's see.

[49:06] Okay.

[49:06] They beat up all the goons.

[49:08] Garrett Morris then takes Blake aside and reveals that Blake grew up at that orphanage.

Dan McCoy

[49:13] He had a different last name.

Stuart Wellington

[49:15] And that he was close friends with Ebner Frost, who was all the other orphans.

Dan McCoy

[49:21] Does he not know this already as some residual amnesia or has he just put that so far behind him?

[49:29] I was so confused.

[49:31] It's unclear.

[49:31] It's unclear, yeah.

[49:33] Why once he had regained his memory, he was so surprised.

[49:37] He'd be like, oh, okay.

[49:39] Yeah, this guy I've been fighting.

[49:40] I know him and I grew up here.

[49:43] How many Ebners do you meet in the course of a lifetime?

Elliott Kalan

[49:46] Yeah.

[49:48] It is a – this is another twist that took me by surprise.

[49:51] Not quite as big a surprise as the Cavern of Electric Jewels.

[49:55] But the idea that, oh, yeah, by the way, you don't remember you grew up here and he's not just a bad guy.

[50:00] He's your old best friend.

[50:01] It was like, movie, what are you doing?

Dan McCoy

[50:04] It's his own prequel.

[50:06] Don't you remember?

[50:07] You caused him to lose his hair in an accident.

[50:10] That's why he hates you to this day.

[50:13] Hates the world.

Elliott Kalan

[50:13] And also, if Garrett Morris was sitting on this information, why didn't he bring it up at any point when an amnesiac who thought he was Santa was living in his house with him?

Stuart Wellington

[50:22] There were a couple moments where he let slip little tidbits where you're like, he knows more than he's letting on.

[50:28] But he was saving it all for the big reveal.

[50:30] I get it.

[50:31] Good point.

[50:31] Good point, yeah.

[50:32] So, Blake has a showdown with Frost in the Cavern.

[50:36] It's super exciting, everybody.

[50:37] And it leads to a growing explosion.

[50:41] So, they all have to evacuate.

[50:43] And then we see the entire orphanage building destroyed by a, like, magical electro implosion.

[50:49] Yeah.

[50:49] Where, like, it's sucked in on itself.

[50:51] It's kind of cool.

Elliott Kalan

[50:51] And it manages to convert this very real building into a series of obvious flats that have been arranged in the shape of a building.

Stuart Wellington

[50:58] Yeah.

[50:59] Yep.

[51:00] And the police and reporters show up.

[51:03] They take away the goons.

[51:05] They interview everybody.

[51:06] Everybody has a good time.

[51:07] But wait, wait.

[51:09] The orphans have nowhere to live.

[51:11] Or do they?

[51:12] Because everyone moves in with Blake.

[51:14] Hooray!

[51:15] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[51:15] A happy ending.

[51:16] He becomes a true Santa.

[51:18] Yep.

[51:18] He becomes a real-life Santa.

Elliott Kalan

[51:20] Like all billionaires.

[51:20] And I assume he's going to run for Congress as a Republican since having questionable adoption practices in your house or with your family is the thing that they like to do sometimes.

[51:29] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[51:30] And there is a little moment where they, using a telescope, spy on Frost and his goons who are in some kind of, like, prison with a hard time.

[51:39] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[51:39] Yeah, they're in some kind of co-ed prison because the lady henchman is there also.

[51:45] And they're in striped uniforms.

[51:48] Like, it's the most cartoonish prison they could be in.

[51:50] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[51:50] And Blake, yeah, they're looking at him through a telescope.

[51:53] It doesn't have to be grounding the rest of this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[51:55] Yeah.

[51:55] After the realism of the movie, I was thrown off.

[51:57] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[51:58] And Blake looks to see what they're looking at.

[52:00] It's them in prison.

[52:02] They all laugh.

[52:03] And I'm like, wow.

[52:04] You're really, like, teaching these children a great lesson of, like, just, like, take joy in your enemy's pain.

Elliott Kalan

[52:12] Exult in the defeat of your opponents.

[52:13] Yeah.

[52:14] And there's no way.

[52:14] It was your childhood best friend.

[52:16] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[52:18] There's no way that this billionaire would let there be a fucking prison that close to him, right?

[52:23] No, no.

[52:24] We don't know how powerful that telescope is.

Elliott Kalan

[52:25] I was going to say, it's a very strong telescope.

[52:27] Oh, yeah.

[52:27] Okay.

[52:28] Okay, so we have, that's the end of Santa with muscles.

[52:29] It's the telescope from Body Double.

[52:31] So, you know, it can see anything.

Stuart Wellington

[52:33] That's the best telescope.

Dan McCoy

[52:34] Santa with muscles.

[52:37] Let's do final judgments.

[52:39] Whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, a movie you kind of like.

[52:42] Guys, here's the thing that confounded me with this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[52:46] Tell me why you loved it and you cried at one point.

[52:48] No, no, no.

[52:48] All right, I'm ready for it.

Dan McCoy

[52:49] The thing that confounded me was, like, how do I rate this?

[52:52] Because it occurred to me that a normal human, one who had not watched a billion bad movies in their lifetime,

[53:05] and was not watching this alone, but was watching Santa with muscles the only way one should,

[53:14] which would be, you know, with a bunch of drunk friends at a holiday party.

[53:19] Like, someone like that might really enjoy the experience of Santa with muscles,

[53:24] because it is bizarre and miscalculated and a bunch of weird stuff happens.

[53:31] That said, me, Dan McCoy, the human who has seen a lot of these, was pretty bored at a certain point.

[53:39] So, you know, since I believe in criticism, you can't necessarily, like, speak to other people.

[53:47] Like, I feel like you get into a dangerous area there.

Elliott Kalan

[53:48] I feel like you have to speak to other people.

[53:50] Otherwise, you're just talking to yourself as you wander around your house.

[53:53] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[53:55] Look.

[53:56] Or an alleyway.

[53:58] The reason I would be the kind of movie critic that people would get angry at all the time would be is, like,

[54:06] I believe very strongly in only speaking to my subjective, like, experience of something,

[54:12] rather than being like, I don't know.

[54:14] Like, I think that once you start wondering, like, how other people are going to react to something,

[54:17] you're getting into trouble.

[54:18] Personally, that's my philosophy.

[54:21] So, if you want a real Armand White-style letterboxd, follow me and see, like,

[54:26] the whimsical star assignments I give things.

[54:29] Anyway, point is, for me, it was bad, bad, because I got bored.

[54:32] But I recognize that for other people, it probably is a good, bad.

Elliott Kalan

[54:36] So, thanks for that final judgment recommendation of your letterboxd profile.

[54:39] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[54:42] Now I'm trying to find Dan's letterboxd review for Santa with, oh, two stars.

Elliott Kalan

[54:47] I'm going to say, I'm going to call this a good, bad movie.

[54:52] Possibly that's because I watched this right after X vs. Set, Ballistic X vs. Sever,

[54:56] which we did for our last Flop TV.

[54:58] And after that, just the fact that this had a plot I could grasp in characters that did things

[55:05] that made some modicum of sense, that it may have gotten me on those fundamental levels.

[55:11] But I would say I could see this working as a good, bad movie.

[55:14] Not as a good movie.

[55:14] My older son really wanted to watch this movie with me.

[55:17] He kept begging me to watch it alongside me.

[55:20] And I'm glad that I did not give in to that.

[55:22] I think it would have been a waste of his time.

[55:24] I'd rather waste my time on this earth than his time on this earth.

Stuart Wellington

[55:26] And then imagine the late embarrassment years later when he's like,

[55:31] I begged to watch that movie.

[55:34] Yeah.

[55:34] Why didn't you stop me?

[55:36] More of my worries is that when you're-

Elliott Kalan

[55:37] I learned it from you, dad.

[55:38] When you're a kid, sometimes you watch crap and then you love it because you watch it as a kid.

[55:42] That later he'll be like, oh yeah, Santa with Muscles is a good movie.

Dan McCoy

[55:44] It's actually a good movie.

[55:46] I'm curious, Elliot.

[55:47] Were you afraid of the content in Santa with Muscles?

[55:49] Why weren't you-

[55:51] Because this seems like if you're going to do it at any time, sure.

[55:56] Let him watch Santa with Muscles.

Elliott Kalan

[55:57] I had two fears.

[55:59] One, my first fear that I would be wasting-

[56:01] That he'd love it.

[56:02] That I'm wasting my son's time.

[56:03] And my second fear that he would love it.

[56:04] And he'd want to watch it from that point on.

[56:06] And I'd be like, what did I do?

[56:07] Like when you-

[56:08] When I remember-

[56:09] Because I saw-

[56:10] I caught him with a cigarette and I said, okay, you have to smoke a whole carton with cigarettes.

[56:13] An extra carton of cigarettes.

[56:14] And he's addicted to them now.

[56:15] He loves them.

[56:15] Like he's smoking cigars.

[56:17] So that was a bad move.

[56:18] Parents don't do that.

Alonso Duralde

[56:20] No, on Breakfast All Day-

[56:22] Oh man, the worst.

[56:23] We do a regular segment called-

[56:24] At least cigarettes are cool.

[56:27] On Breakfast All Day we have a segment called, was it great or were you eight?

[56:31] Because I think a lot of-

[56:32] Yeah.

[56:32] There's a lot of folks who carry these movies.

[56:33] They're like, oh, it's so awesome.

[56:35] It's like, how old were you when you watched it?

[56:37] And have you watched it since?

[56:38] You know?

Elliott Kalan

[56:39] Not every movie is The Dark Crystal, which I loved at eight and I still love today.

[56:42] Fair enough.

[56:43] But yeah.

Alonso Duralde

[56:43] Yeah, no, they can be both, you know.

[56:45] But I think it's very good parenting on your behalf to like, you know, there's got to be some gatekeeping going on.

Elliott Kalan

[56:51] It also didn't help that I just out of my-

[56:54] The older I get, the more I want to gatekeep the amount of Christmas content that my children are subjected to.

[56:59] They're already complaining that at the holiday concert at school, every year there's one Hanukkah song and it's always sung by a class that my kid is not in.

[57:07] And he's like, why don't I ever get to do the Hanukkah song?

[57:10] So I'm going to say, not just, I would, if I was going to order a movie in a Spanish restaurant, I would not just say Santa sin muscles instead of Santa con muscles.

[57:21] But I would say sin Santa, not con Santa.

Alonso Duralde

[57:24] Because if any movie is going to make your kid Christian, it would be Santa with muscles.

Elliott Kalan

[57:28] Yeah.

Alonso Duralde

[57:29] I want to be part of that.

Elliott Kalan

[57:30] I'm so worried he would find it hilarious.

[57:32] I don't want that.

[57:32] I don't want to live in that world.

Dan McCoy

[57:35] Stu or Alonzo, what do you?

Stuart Wellington

[57:37] Yeah, okay.

[57:38] I guess I'll say good, bad.

[57:39] I mean, it's, yeah, I mean, it's not well made.

[57:44] It's not particularly funny.

[57:46] But it's, I don't know, it's pretty silly.

[57:49] And yeah, I mean, it's not good.

[57:53] So I guess good, bad.

Dan McCoy

[57:55] Inclusive.

[57:55] I guess, you know, by eliminating all the other options, you've come to a...

Alonso Duralde

[58:01] Yeah, I'm a bad, bad on this one.

[58:03] I mean, I'm a famously soft touch for holiday stuff.

[58:06] I will be watching all 40 new Hallmark movies this year.

[58:09] But even I have my limits.

[58:11] And I'm a little older than y'all, so I don't have, like, any kind of childhood affection for Hulk Hogan to get me through it.

[58:19] So it's just a drag.

[58:22] But it is cool to see, like, you know, Mila Kunis already perfecting her, like, mm-hmm stare.

[58:31] Yeah.

[58:32] Which is, you know.

Elliott Kalan

[58:33] There's a moment where, after she's given Hulk Hogan his newer, sexier outfit, and Lenny goes, what about my clothes?

[58:38] And she's like, keep your pants on, and walks away.

[58:41] And I just love, she goes so quickly from friendly kid to acid kid in a moment.

[58:47] Yeah.

S5

[58:51] If you're Black, you probably love you some Paramore, huh?

[58:55] Or what about the TV show Golden Girls?

[58:57] Ginger Ale?

[58:58] Daytime television?

[58:59] Don't lie.

[59:00] I know you love at least one of them.

[59:02] I'm Sequoia Holmes, pop culturist and host of Black People Love Paramore.

[59:06] Contrary to the title, it is not a podcast about the band Paramore.

[59:09] Each episode, I, along with the special guest co-host, dissect one pop culture topic that mainstream media doesn't necessarily associate with Black people, but we know we like.

[59:18] Tune in every other Thursday to the podcast that's dedicated to helping Black people feel more seen.

[59:24] Black People of Paramore is now on the Maximum Fun Network.

[59:28] Check out the most recent episode featuring Char Jacelle today.

Stuart Wellington

[59:34] Throughout history, sirens have captured men's attention, enticed men with their feminine wiles, and fulfilled men's primal needs.

[59:41] The sirens allure persists.

[59:42] They have not.

[59:44] Unless the primal need is, I need to be smashed on the rocks.

[59:47] Yeah, smash me.

[59:49] Smash me, mommy.

[59:50] Smash me, mama.

[59:55] The siren's the Lord.

[59:57] Why do we do this to ourselves?

Dan McCoy

[59:59] Strand me, baby.

[1:00:00] Strand me, mom.

[1:00:01] Strand me, baby.

[1:00:02] So, yeah.

[1:00:03] This is my brother, my brother, and me from Maximum Fun on Mondays.

[1:00:06] It's just like that.

[1:00:08] It's just like that, but more of it.

[1:00:11] There's more of that.

[1:00:17] Our podcast is sponsored in part by Factor.

[1:00:20] What's Factor?

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[1:00:40] Elliot hates chopping and prepping.

[1:00:42] Hate it.

[1:00:42] And cleaning up and get Factor's fresh, never-frozen meals delivered to your door.

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[1:01:05] I try these Factor meals.

[1:01:07] I enjoy cooking, so I am the most apt to be dubious of this kind of thing.

[1:01:14] But I was like, these are great meals, honestly, for like a pre-made thing you can get and just like cook.

[1:01:22] It tastes like a homemade meal.

[1:01:24] It was very nice to have something convenient around as an option for those times that I, even I get tired.

[1:01:31] Even me, the adults you see before you.

[1:01:33] Energy, yeah.

[1:01:34] It's the sleepiest on the podcast.

[1:01:38] Head to factormeals.com slash flop50 and use code flop50.

[1:01:44] That's the numeral 50, not the word 50, to get 50% off.

[1:01:48] That's code flop50 at factormeals.com slash flop50 to get 50% off.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:55] Now we've got food for you and your human companions covered.

[1:02:00] What about those furry friends that live in your home?

[1:02:03] That's right.

[1:02:04] Today's podcast is also sponsored by Smalls.

[1:02:08] Smalls makes protein-packed, preservative-free meals for that kitty in your life.

[1:02:14] That's real ingredients that you put in your fridge and you don't just sit out on a counter somewhere.

[1:02:22] And Smalls has also recently kicked off a partnership with the Humane Society.

[1:02:26] This is a big deal.

[1:02:27] They've donated over a million dollars worth of cat food to help cats through the Humane Society.

[1:02:32] And they even give you a chance to donate when you're checking out.

[1:02:37] I love my cats.

[1:02:39] I put a lot of thought and effort into keeping them off my back and off my chest, yelling at me for giving them food.

[1:02:46] And you know what?

[1:02:48] Smalls provides that food and they love it.

[1:02:50] And if you're anything like me and you like your favorite thing to do is to stick your face directly into your cat's fur,

[1:02:56] well, Smalls does provide food that will often lead to a shinier coat and just a healthier cat in general

[1:03:05] because you want to put your face in a healthy kitty.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:08] I love doing that and I have cat allergies, but I still do it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:12] Yeah.

[1:03:12] You know, it's worth the suffering.

[1:03:15] So, is your cat food giving back to cats in need?

[1:03:18] Well, Smalls is.

[1:03:19] So, if you want to give Smalls a try and ditch kibble forever, head to smalls.com slash flop and use promo code flop at checkout for 50% off your first order.

[1:03:29] Plus free shipping.

[1:03:30] That's the best offer you'll find, but you have to use my code flop for 50% off your first order.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:37] Now use my code flop.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:38] No, one last time.

[1:03:39] That's my promo code flop for 50% off your first order.

[1:03:43] Plus free shipping.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:45] Hey, enough about other people's products.

[1:03:47] What about the Flophouse's products?

[1:03:49] Yeah, that's right.

[1:03:49] The Flophouse has some stuff going on.

[1:03:51] As you heard at the top of the set.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:52] Like this expired Flophouse ground meat.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:57] Here's some stuff we got laying around the house.

[1:03:59] Buy it from us.

[1:04:00] So, as you heard earlier in the episode at the very top of the show, the Flophouse is going on tour.

[1:04:05] It's the Flophouse, the errors tour.

[1:04:07] Four stops on the West Coast, the best coast.

[1:04:10] We're starting on January 24th, Wednesday, in Vancouver.

[1:04:13] It's an international show at the Rio Theater, and we're going to be talking about Cobra starring Sly Stallone himself.

[1:04:20] Will Sylvester Stallone show up?

[1:04:21] Well, I can't promise anything, but perhaps a mediocre impression of him will.

[1:04:25] Then, the next night, Thursday, January 25th, we'll be in Portland, Oregon, at the Aladdin Theater.

[1:04:30] We're going to be talking about Cool as Ice.

[1:04:33] Vanilla Ice is back in a movie that he made 30 years ago, and we're going to talk about it.

[1:04:38] The next night, Friday, January 26th, we're going to be in San Francisco as part of San Francisco Sketch Fest.

[1:04:43] We're so excited to be a part of it at Cobb's Comedy Club, and we're going to be talking about Geely.

[1:04:48] Ben Affleck.

[1:04:49] Jennifer Lopez.

[1:04:50] One movie, two stars, a not very good title.

[1:04:54] Geely.

[1:04:54] It's going to be epic.

[1:04:56] Then, two days later, Sunday, January 28th, we'll be in Los Angeles at the Regent Theater, and we're going to be talking about the movie that kicked off the superhero film craze, Spawn.

[1:05:10] What a trailblazer.

[1:05:12] Wow.

[1:05:12] So again, January 24th in Vancouver, Cobra.

[1:05:15] January 25th in Portland, Cool as Ice.

[1:05:17] January 26th in San Francisco, Geely.

[1:05:20] And January 28th in LA, Spawn.

[1:05:22] Go to flophouse.com slash events for links to tickets and more information.

[1:05:28] And hey, let's say you don't live on the West Coast.

[1:05:30] Let's say you don't love us enough to travel to the West Coast to see us.

[1:05:33] Well, I'm disappointed, but I understand.

[1:05:36] You can still see us broadcasting live in person through your computer screen by watching the last episode of Flop TV.

[1:05:45] Flop TV, our online TV version of the Flophouse.

[1:05:49] It's the first Saturday in January.

[1:05:51] We're going to be talking about a movie that has haunted me like a promise that I didn't keep, and that's New Key.

[1:05:58] The German-South African E.T. Ripoff co-production starring Glynis Johns and Steve Railsback.

[1:06:03] The story of two alien brothers who are really annoying, and they look terrible, and everything about it is bad.

[1:06:10] That's going to be Saturday, January 6th, 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[1:06:13] Get your tickets at theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[1:06:17] Can't make it to the broadcast?

[1:06:18] Can't be there Saturday, January 6th at 9 p.m. Eastern?

[1:06:21] That's okay.

[1:06:22] Your ticket gets you access to the recording, which goes up later that night.

[1:06:25] And if you get a season pass, you'll have access to all the episodes of Flop TV.

[1:06:29] That's six episodes of original Flophouse entertainment.

[1:06:32] Those episodes will be available to watch through the end of January when they will return to the Flophouse vault.

[1:06:38] And now, let's return to our show, The Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:42] Let us move on to the next part of the show, which is Stu making hand noises.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:50] Oh, wait.

[1:06:51] It's called Foleywork.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:52] It's letters.

[1:06:54] Dave Foleywork.

[1:06:56] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:56] He's on Fargo now.

[1:06:58] He's working.

[1:06:59] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:59] I'm happy for him.

[1:07:00] Letters from listeners.

[1:07:02] This first letter is from Juniper, last name withheld, who writes,

[1:07:08] Dearest Floppers, I've been thinking of him again, Mel Brooks.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:14] That was the original line at the beginning of Rebecca, right?

[1:07:17] Yeah.

[1:07:17] I've been thinking of Mel Brooks again.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:19] Last night, I went to Mel Derlay again.

[1:07:25] Dreamed I went to.

[1:07:25] I rewatched Spaceballs recently and remembered how much I love the gag where Dark Helmet learns about his subordinate, Major Asshole, and learns further that he is surrounded by assholes.

[1:07:38] That got me thinking about name jokes.

[1:07:41] And I wonder, my dear peaches, what are your favorite joke names in movies?

[1:07:46] References to Austin Powers are encouraged but not required.

[1:07:50] Yours in floppage, Juniper.

[1:07:54] I mean, I'm not, I got to say, I'm not the biggest name joke fan.

[1:07:58] It seems like, you know, a dumb joke that breaks the reality.

[1:08:04] Take that, listener.

[1:08:06] Thanks for writing in.

[1:08:06] No, I'm just talking about my personal response.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:09] I will say, I'm not a huge fan of name jokes that are like puns, like the kinds you get in Austin Powers.

[1:08:14] But I do like funny sounding names.

[1:08:16] And the first names that came to mind are, my favorite comedy is The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, the Preston Sturges movie.

[1:08:23] And Betty Hutton's character's name is Trudy Cockenlocker, which is just a funny sounding name.

[1:08:27] And much of the movie is her searching for a man named Ignatz Ratsky-Watsky.

[1:08:31] And I think those are very funny names.

[1:08:33] And I laugh every time I hear them.

[1:08:34] But they don't mean anything.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:35] I agree with you.

[1:08:36] I like the Marx Brothers style, like Dr. Hackenbush or whatever, like that kind of.

[1:08:42] Otis B. Driftwood, that kind of thing.

Alonso Duralde

[1:08:44] Yeah.

[1:08:44] Steve Martin as Michael Huffer in The Man with Two Brains is a good one, I think.

[1:08:50] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:52] I guess it's not a name, quite a name joke, but in The Wrong Guy with Dave Foley.

[1:08:58] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:58] You're envisioning the thing that I was thinking of.

[1:09:00] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:01] Can you explain it better than me then, Dan?

[1:09:03] Well, no, no, you can.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:05] I mean, it's just one of those gags that you see in movies all the time where, like, people are, like, looking around the room to come up with a fake name.

[1:09:13] But he sees only the most inappropriate things that make it clear that he's doing a fake name.

[1:09:19] I almost don't.

[1:09:19] Like, I'm not getting more specific because I don't want to ruin it.

[1:09:22] I think people should just look up that scene.

[1:09:25] I'm sure it's hard to see the wrong guy, but I'm sure that that scene's got to be on YouTube.

Alonso Duralde

[1:09:30] I will also give a shout-out to Ned Beatty in Back to School as Dean Martin.

[1:09:36] That's pretty good.

[1:09:37] Yeah, that's good.

[1:09:38] At the college.

[1:09:38] Just because there's a scene where, and it looks like it was just improvised, where Rodney Dangerfield can't not laugh at the idea that this guy's name is Dean Martin.

[1:09:47] It's just dumb, but it makes me laugh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:49] Rodney Dangerfield, normally such a staid performer.

[1:09:53] Yes, hard to break.

[1:09:56] I watched Back to School recently, and so much of that movie is just him doing bits and everybody reacting to him.

[1:10:04] And, I mean, I know that's not a reveal, but, like, there's something very silly.

[1:10:07] Like, you don't see a lot of movies these days where it's just one guy doing dumb shit, and everyone's like, I guess we're just a lot of cutaways to us smiling at him or laughing.

Alonso Duralde

[1:10:16] Well, I do love that early Jim Carrey.

[1:10:19] That's what his movies were.

[1:10:20] Yeah.

[1:10:21] People just observing.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:23] Yeah, that feels like a – I mean, speaking of the Marx Brothers, that feels like a throwback to Marx Brothers to me, just to have, like, Rodney Dangerfield rolls into a party doing, like, bits, like, to an unseen audience while everyone around him reacts in confusion and dismay.

[1:10:39] Adrian Barbeau is his Margaret Dumont.

[1:10:41] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:43] I feel – that's the kind of comedy I miss a little bit of is a comedy where there's a character who's just kind of doing stuff like that as opposed to, like –

[1:10:51] We call it schtick.

[1:10:53] Yeah, schtick.

[1:10:53] Yeah, doing schtick as opposed to the more, let's say, like, riff-based comedy where characters are riffing together.

[1:11:00] I like when someone comes in and does written schtick and other characters – like, this is something that used to bother me in the Marx Brothers, but now I like it, is that characters are super offended by what Groucho just said.

[1:11:08] And then they instantly forget it and are charmed by him until he says the next thing, and then they're offended for a moment again.

[1:11:14] And they never leave the conversation.

[1:11:17] Like, they're –

[1:11:17] It's a real whiplash.

[1:11:18] It's a real whiplash.

[1:11:19] Yeah.

[1:11:21] It really heightens the artifice that they'll be like, oh, well, I never.

[1:11:26] Anyway, continue.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:27] There will always be that turn when, like, suddenly when he's talking to Margaret Dumont, he'll be like, but can't you see what I'm trying to tell you is that I love you?

[1:11:34] And she's like, oh, well.

Alonso Duralde

[1:11:38] Professor Firefly.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:41] Okay, this next letter is from Tracy.

[1:11:44] Last name withheld.

[1:11:45] It's more educational than it is questioning.

[1:11:49] Okay.

[1:11:50] Stuart solicited romance recommendations but did not specify subgenre.

[1:11:55] So I will recommend A Lady of Rook's Grave Manor by Catherine Moon, which is a PNR slash RH.

[1:12:04] Does that mean it's one of those books where a lady has sex with a velociraptor?

[1:12:08] I hope so.

[1:12:09] Well, close.

[1:12:10] Chuck Tingle.

[1:12:11] Apparently that stands for Paranormal Romance slash Reverse Harem, a.k.a. more than one male love interest for our female lead.

[1:12:21] Okay.

[1:12:21] Since Stuart likes monsters, I thought he might like this one.

[1:12:23] A real harem scare him if it's paranormal.

[1:12:26] Since it's a human woman happily getting down with a series of monsters starting from, like, page 10.

[1:12:32] It's a romance and not straight erotica because they all have a H-E-A, Happily Ever After, together.

[1:12:39] Oh.

[1:12:39] Also, it is a well-written book and occasionally something other than sex happens.

[1:12:43] You can skim those parts.

[1:12:44] Since you're just starting the romance genre, I thought you might appreciate learning some of the codes.

[1:12:49] I started reading romance during the pandemic, and for a while there, I didn't know what any of them meant.

[1:12:54] Happy reading, Tracy.

[1:12:55] Now, see, you can enjoy both romance and cryptic codes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:01] Yeah, yeah.

[1:13:02] I like cryptic codes.

[1:13:03] I will say, me mentioning a new interest in romance fiction has been the most listener engagement I've ever had.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:11] I'm sorry.

[1:13:11] Did I add too much to your…

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:13] No, it's great.

[1:13:14] I love it.

[1:13:15] My reading list has gotten longer, though.

[1:13:19] But that's great.

[1:13:19] Thank you so much.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:22] Somehow, when I first developed my love of Czech New Wave Cinema, it did not result in the same kind of average of replies.

[1:13:29] Where are the letters, I ask you?

[1:13:30] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:31] Let us move on to the final segment where we give our recommendations of movies that we've watched and enjoyed recently.

[1:13:45] I want to recommend…

[1:13:46] It's a segment we call A View for You.

[1:13:50] We could start calling it that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:52] Okay, Alex, go back and add this to every single episode.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:01] In passing, because this is our Christmas episode, I'm just going to mention, this is not really my recommendation,

[1:14:07] but Audrey and I watched The Most Wonderful Time of the Year from 2008.

[1:14:12] And on the sliding scale of made-for-television Christmas things, this was some pap that went down easy,

[1:14:19] thanks to Henry Winkler giving it way more than needed for this kind of movie, just showing what a gem he is.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:28] Once again, a Jewish person making Christmas content.

[1:14:31] That people love.

[1:14:32] Making Christmas.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:35] Yeah, all those monsters were Jewish too.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:38] Yeah, Halloween Town is a shtetl.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:40] I finally caught up to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem, which I had wanted to see in the theater because I'd heard good things, but didn't manage to.

[1:14:50] But really enjoyed it and was really surprised by, like, I wouldn't have thought that what I needed out of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie was more heart.

[1:14:59] Like, I never would have thought, like, oh, that's the winning ingredient because it just doesn't seem like that sort of thing.

[1:15:06] But, you know, turns out that adding relatable characters and making you care about them is the secret ingredient to most narrative.

[1:15:17] And I really just appreciated how they felt like, in this case, they were like, let's lean on the teen part of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and tell kind of a weirdly relatable story about, you know, how they feel lonely and what they do to counteract that.

[1:15:38] And, you know, it looks really pretty.

[1:15:42] It's a lot of fun.

[1:15:43] I did, you know, like, there was a bit where, like, we've talked about a lot on the show.

[1:15:48] I've started to check out more in action movies unless the action is really, like, cleverly done.

[1:15:55] And so there's, like, some parts of it where I'm like, ah, I'm less interested in this.

[1:15:59] Get back to the stuff about them being, like, cute teen turtles.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:03] It's the movie that I feel like has best – of all the Ninja Turtles things, it's best captured what I like best about the Turtles comics when they're done well, which is they feel like a family of brothers.

[1:16:13] Splinter is their dad.

[1:16:14] Like, they're not just – it's less about them as a team of ninjas and more about that they're four brothers who have grown up together and they care about each other.

[1:16:22] And that really comes across in the movie, which is really nice.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:24] Yeah.

[1:16:25] So, you know, a lot of fun.

[1:16:26] Very sweet.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:27] That's what I took my older son to, and he really liked it.

[1:16:30] And I want to keep him watching movies like that and not Santa with muscles.

[1:16:34] Good point.

Alonso Duralde

[1:16:35] And part of the sweep of Iowa Debris this year between The Bear on FX and Bottoms, which is one of my favorite movies this year.

[1:16:45] I didn't love Theater Camp, but she's fun in it, and she's the new April O'Neil.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:52] She's so good in everything.

[1:16:53] And a good Letterboxd follow.

[1:16:57] Oh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:58] Okay, man.

[1:16:59] Dan, are you getting paid by Letterboxd?

[1:17:01] What's going on?

[1:17:01] I like Letterboxd.

[1:17:02] You fucking should be, dude.

[1:17:05] Sponsor him.

[1:17:06] If you were going to be an influencer of anything, it would be either that or like baking products.

[1:17:12] Yeah, yeah.

[1:17:13] I feel you'd be great at both of those things.

[1:17:15] Breadboxd.

[1:17:18] Okay, I guess I'll go next.

[1:17:22] What should I recommend?

[1:17:23] Should I recommend a gross movie or a good movie?

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:26] That's a question you're still answering for yourself.

[1:17:29] Don't try to answer.

[1:17:29] Someone else go.

[1:17:32] I'll go then.

[1:17:33] I'm going to recommend, I saw yesterday the movie everybody's talking about, probably the best movie of the year coming out this year, right at the end.

[1:17:40] Godzilla Minus One.

[1:17:42] This is the new Japanese Godzilla movie directed by Takashi Yamazaki.

[1:17:46] And it is set, I don't want to tell you too much about it, but it's set right after World War II.

[1:17:52] And Godzilla is at his best when he is a metaphor, as with all monsters and horror things.

[1:17:58] And this one, it is very much about overcoming the trauma of Japan's experience in World War II and also overcoming the trauma of the kind of the national philosophy that they enacted during that war.

[1:18:11] And to watch a movie that is very much on the side of life against the kind of honorable death aspects that are even there in the original Godzilla.

[1:18:22] And it's got a lot of, as Dan was saying with that Ninja Turtles movie, it's got a lot of heart.

[1:18:26] It's very focused on the human characters and their experience.

[1:18:29] But the Godzilla scenes are genuinely very scary and very, like, devastating.

[1:18:35] You know, and it really plays off of the original film in a lot of ways.

[1:18:40] It uses a number of the songs from the score of the original film in some really powerful ways.

[1:18:45] And I really liked it.

[1:18:46] It's exactly what I wanted from a Godzilla movie, which is a certain amount of awe and a certain amount of character and a certain amount of just like—

[1:18:53] A certain amount of claw.

[1:18:54] A certain amount of claw.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:55] Yeah, awe and claw, you know.

[1:18:57] Elliot, can you just, you know, cut to the end and tell me how chonky is Godzilla in this movie?

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:02] Stu, you are going to be happy as a clam.

[1:19:05] He is super chonky.

[1:19:07] So you first see Godzilla when he's—I'll spoil one thing is that the first time you see Godzilla, it is a younger Godzilla.

[1:19:12] He's a little more lithe.

[1:19:13] But by the time you get your real Godzilla character, they have seen the American Godzilla and they have taken it up a notch in the arm-to-thigh ratio.

[1:19:21] Those arms are small and those thighs are bonkers.

[1:19:25] They are thick, yeah.

[1:19:27] And his head's little.

[1:19:27] Squat daddy.

[1:19:28] So yeah, this is a very—you're going to be very happy.

[1:19:31] Trying to get confused about your interest in Godzilla.

[1:19:34] Godzilla never skips leg day.

[1:19:35] I actually went to see it last night with a friend of the podcast, Brendan Hay, and I said when the movie was over, I'm like, I said, Stu is going to like this Godzilla design.

[1:19:45] That sounds great.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:47] Stu, happy new—

[1:19:48] Yeah, I can go.

[1:19:48] Fuck it.

[1:19:49] Okay.

[1:19:51] I'm going to recommend two movies.

[1:19:53] I hope I'm not sniping our guest again.

[1:19:56] I am going to recommend an Argentinian horror movie that I saw a little while ago called When Evil Lurks.

[1:20:03] It's a gross one.

[1:20:05] It just hit Shudder.

[1:20:07] It is about a pair of brothers who discover a infected—a big guy infected with a demon, and they're like, let's just chuck him down the road.

[1:20:19] Unfortunately, that does not end things.

[1:20:22] And it kind of has the vibe of like, kind of like an Evil Dead, but there's a little bit of rules, but you don't quite know what those rules are.

[1:20:30] So there's mayhem, and it's gross.

[1:20:32] Like, there's genuinely fucked up gross stuff in it.

[1:20:35] But it also feels like there's—I don't know.

[1:20:37] It feels like there's a little bit of a—like a set of rules and like a plan involved.

[1:20:45] It isn't just mayhem for mayhem's sake.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:47] And when does Evil Lurk?

[1:20:49] The whole time until the end or not.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:52] Who knows?

[1:20:52] So much lurking.

[1:20:54] But it—yeah, it's—

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:56] At a certain point, lurking becomes shirking.

[1:20:59] Let's just be honest.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:00] There's a certain amount of bleakness to it, but I feel like it—I think it overcomes it by still having some fun, gross stuff.

[1:21:09] And it doesn't feel as mean-spirited as it could feel.

[1:21:13] And I'm going to recommend a good movie called The Holdovers, which I haven't recommended yet, which I saw the other day.

[1:21:19] I loved it.

[1:21:20] Paul Giamatti is great.

[1:21:22] Divine—wait, what's her full name?

[1:21:23] Joy Randolph.

[1:21:24] Thank you.

[1:21:25] She is great.

[1:21:27] The whole cast is great.

[1:21:28] It's so much fun.

[1:21:29] It was like—I saw it right before Thanksgiving, and I was in kind of a weird place emotionally, and it was kind of the balm that I needed at the time.

[1:21:39] Like, it was something very homey about it.

[1:21:42] And obviously, I'm a sucker for 70s stuff, and any movie where characters are drinking Jim Beam in Miller High Life gets a thumbs up from me.

[1:21:51] Interesting way to judge movies.

[1:21:53] Yep, that's all—those are the only criteria I need, Elliot.

[1:21:55] I wish—I'd love to say—

Dan McCoy

[1:21:57] I'll put those in my movie for Stuart's contingent.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:59] I'd love to say any movie where they eat Popeyes is fine with me, but Little Nicky is the one movie where they really go all out with Popeyes.

Alonso Duralde

[1:22:05] They really still haven't talked about it yet.

[1:22:06] I think Supergirl has a prominent Popeyes.

[1:22:09] Supergirl does have a prominent Popeyes scene.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:11] Yes, that's true.

[1:22:11] They go there on a date—a daytime date of a group of friends.

[1:22:14] Yeah.

Alonso Duralde

[1:22:16] So, yeah.

[1:22:16] Holdovers and when evil lurks.

[1:22:18] Nice.

[1:22:19] Listen, Pat, Argentina reminded me there's a really great movie out called The Delinquents.

[1:22:24] That is the Argentine entry for the Oscars that I highly recommend.

[1:22:28] But we're at the time of year where, for me, like, as we're recording this, I'm about to vote with LA Film Critics.

[1:22:34] I'm about to put together my top ten list.

[1:22:37] I've been looking back at the year.

[1:22:38] And a movie that I really love this year that I kind of feel like a lot of people didn't see or aren't talking about or maybe just liked less than me.

[1:22:44] I don't know, but I want to recommend it anyway.

[1:22:47] It's an Italian film called Lim...

[1:22:48] Barbie?

[1:22:49] Which one?

[1:22:50] Barbie?

[1:22:50] Barbie.

[1:22:51] People just are talking about.

[1:22:51] Have you heard about Barbie, you guys?

[1:22:54] I know.

[1:22:55] It's an Italian film called Limensita.

[1:22:57] It stars Penelope Cruz.

[1:22:58] She plays the mother of a trans son, but no one understands that this kid is trans because it's the early 1970s.

[1:23:07] And so they keep deadnaming him and Penelope Cruz is maybe sort of the one character who kind of figures out what is going on with her oldest child.

[1:23:16] And there's other things happening in the home and in the family that are complicated.

[1:23:20] But it's mainly about this kid sort of figuring his way out in the world and having these really great fantasy musical sequences.

[1:23:28] And also these musical sequences that are not fantasy, but it's just like, hey, we're going to put a record on and set the table.

[1:23:33] And the director turns that into this sort of like cool musical dancey choreographed moment in the midst of this otherwise fairly realistic drama.

[1:23:43] The early 70s production design is just like spot on.

[1:23:47] Like the group of Italian moms took me back to like being a kid in the early 70s and like my parents and their friends who were all like immigrants from Spain or other places.

[1:23:57] It's really moving.

[1:23:58] The director is also trans and I think there's an autobiographical nature to the film.

[1:24:04] But yeah, it is just a wonderful movie.

[1:24:07] It is currently streaming.

[1:24:09] If you are a subscriber to Prime Video, if you get Hoopla through your library, you can watch it for free.

[1:24:14] Otherwise, it is rentable.

[1:24:16] But yeah, the director is Emmanuel Creoleis and it's one of my faves of the year.

[1:24:21] So yeah, Lamenta Ta.

[1:24:22] Check it out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:23] I'm looking forward to watching it.

[1:24:24] I was not familiar with it at all.

[1:24:25] If it had Godzilla in it, maybe I would have heard about it earlier.

Alonso Duralde

[1:24:28] Well, I mean, and Godzilla is immense.

[1:24:30] You know, the title might mislead you into thinking.

[1:24:34] Especially his thighs these days.

[1:24:35] There's no demons in it, right?

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:36] There's no demons that eat brains or anything.

Alonso Duralde

[1:24:38] Only if you count the patriarchy.

[1:24:40] Okay, I do.

[1:24:41] The ultimate brain-eating demon, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:44] Now, Alonzo, before we sign off, I know you do like 80 different things.

[1:24:50] So I would like to afford you some space to plug a few of them or all of them.

Alonso Duralde

[1:24:55] As mentioned, yes, I write reviews for thefilmverdict.com.

[1:24:59] I do a whole bunch of podcasts, including Linoleum Knife with my husband, Dave White,

[1:25:04] here on the Maximum Fun Network.

[1:25:06] I'm one of the hosts of Maximum Film.

[1:25:08] Christy Lemire and I have a show called Breakfast All Day that you can watch on YouTube or subscribe

[1:25:12] to as a podcast.

[1:25:13] And I make very regular appearances on Deck the Hallmark, usually talking about non-Hallmark,

[1:25:19] non-Lifetime, made-for-TV Christmas movies.

[1:25:23] And tis the season to once again mention that I wrote a book called Have Yourself a Movie

[1:25:27] Little Christmas.

[1:25:28] I also co-wrote a book with the Deck the Hallmark guys called I'll Be Home for Christmas

[1:25:31] Movies.

[1:25:32] That latter one is about Hallmark movies.

[1:25:34] Specifically, the other one is more about Christmas movies in general.

[1:25:37] It's always a delight to be here.

[1:25:39] I'm going to put in a request for next December that I want an Elliot Letter song because I

[1:25:44] never get one when I'm here for some reason.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:46] I've been taking some time because I want to make it special, but I'll do it for you.

Alonso Duralde

[1:25:51] I want to witness that magic IRL.

[1:25:54] Be careful.

[1:25:56] Literally be careful what you wish for.

[1:25:58] The monkey's paw is curling as we speak.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:01] Elliot's saving his voice to be called up to be the new vocalist for Kiss when they reform

[1:26:06] without the original members since they just had their final show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:09] That's my main contract demand is not with the original members.

[1:26:13] I don't want to be involved with any of them.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:15] I saw someone online ask, like, has the Letter song officially been retired?

[1:26:20] I haven't heard one in a while.

[1:26:21] I restrained from engaging, but I thought to myself, no, I think that the Letter song is

[1:26:28] something that Elliot didn't want to be trapped into as an obligation.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:34] I found myself repeating myself a little bit more than I would have liked with the Letter

[1:26:38] songs.

[1:26:38] And so I think 2024 is going to be when I bring them back, but I'm going to try to do it in

[1:26:43] a new way or something that, I mean, in a new way.

[1:26:46] It's still going to be the same basic thing.

Alonso Duralde

[1:26:47] I don't want to paint you into an aesthetic corner.

[1:26:49] I understand that you're a creative person and you need to follow the muse where it takes

[1:26:54] you.

[1:26:54] But, you know, sometimes we just want to hear the hits.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:56] I appreciate that.

[1:26:57] Exactly.

[1:26:58] As the late Lemmy said when people asked him, are you tired of playing Ace of Spades at

[1:27:03] every single Motorhead concert?

[1:27:05] He said, yeah, but if I went to see Little Richard, I want to see him do Tutti Frutti.

[1:27:08] So I get it.

[1:27:09] Like, you want to hear the song that you like from the person.

[1:27:11] So I'll do it.

[1:27:12] I'll be back.

[1:27:12] You know what?

[1:27:13] Yeah.

[1:27:13] 2024.

[1:27:14] It's the year of the letter song.

[1:27:15] You know what?

[1:27:16] Nothing but letter songs.

[1:27:17] The whole episode.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:18] So I can retire, right?

[1:27:21] I mean, I guess if he's just singing.

[1:27:25] And before we go, we should say thank you to Maximum Fun.

[1:27:30] There's a lot of great podcasts on there.

[1:27:32] Some of them with Alonzo.

[1:27:33] Go to MaximumFun.org.

[1:27:36] Check that out.

[1:27:37] Thank you to Alex Smith, our producer.

[1:27:41] He goes by Howell Doughty all over the internet.

[1:27:45] Just look him up.

[1:27:46] He just goes all over the internet.

[1:27:48] He just goes.

[1:27:50] He lets rip.

[1:27:51] Yeah.

[1:27:51] Doesn't care who has to clean it up.

[1:27:53] Yeah.

[1:27:53] If you have the time, go to iTunes.

[1:27:58] Leave us a review.

[1:27:59] It really does help.

[1:28:01] They got algorithms and stuff.

[1:28:04] Give these guys five stars.

[1:28:05] They've earned it.

[1:28:07] We've been just grinding away, guys.

[1:28:10] Just, you know, even if you don't like us, just, you know, for the hustle.

[1:28:14] Yeah, respect the hustle.

[1:28:15] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:17] Even if it's just for pity.

[1:28:18] Just for pity that we've locked ourselves in this bad movie cage.

[1:28:21] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:21] We're on Instagram.

[1:28:24] Trying to send people over there so we can abandon more hateful social medias.

[1:28:31] Not familiar.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:32] Are there any social media places that are run by billionaire madmen?

Dan McCoy

[1:28:36] Well, all of them.

[1:28:38] But at least, you know, some are less vocal.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:44] And Letterboxd is going, they might introduce a DM feature.

[1:28:48] Dan is salivating.

[1:28:49] For Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:50] I'm happy to find a place to talk to people that isn't suffused with hatred.

[1:28:58] Let me see Letterboxd.

[1:28:59] What's the number one movie of all time according to it?

[1:29:01] Triumph of the Will?

[1:29:02] Oh, no.

[1:29:03] Oh, no.

Alonso Duralde

[1:29:04] It's the one that we need to slip into my DMs.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:06] I don't know.

[1:29:11] I think I've done all the business.

[1:29:12] So I'll just sign off.

[1:29:14] For the Flop House, I've been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:17] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:29:18] I'm Elliot Kalin, and I'm thankful to have our guest...

[1:29:21] Alonzo Duraldi.

[1:29:23] Bye.

[1:29:24] Bye.

[1:29:24] Oh, God.

[1:29:28] Thanks so much for joining us again, Alonzo.

[1:29:38] Thanks for having me.

Alonso Duralde

[1:29:39] This is now officially part of my December.

[1:29:42] It isn't really happening.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:44] Yeah, this is annual.

[1:29:46] We have two correspondents.

[1:29:47] You are our Christmas correspondent, and Jamel Bowie is our hedgehog correspondent somehow.

[1:29:52] That's true.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:54] It's good to have a niche.

[1:29:56] Yeah, for when we do the life story of Ron Jeremy.

[1:30:02] That's true.

[1:30:03] That was his nickname, Elliot.

[1:30:04] Don't make a face.

[1:30:05] Adrian Brody in a role that will surprise you.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:07] Yeah.

[1:30:10] He put on all that weight to play the part.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:13] He had to extend his penis just to play the part.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:16] I don't know.

[1:30:17] He looks like he's back.

[1:30:18] Yeah, Adrian Brody.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:19] He's pretty tall and thin.

[1:30:21] I think it's the nose that makes you think that.

[1:30:24] Yeah.

[1:30:25] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:25] Well, there's a natural symmetry that way.

[1:30:27] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:29] Especially if he has a beard.

[1:30:30] Careful symmetry sometimes.

[1:30:31] I'm very scared that this is what Alex is going to put at the end of the episode.

[1:30:36] Maximum Fun.

S6

[1:30:37] A worker-owned network.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:38] Of artists-owned shows.

[1:30:40] Supported.

[1:30:41] Directly.

[1:30:42] By you.

Ep. #411 - Santa with Muscles, with Alonso Duralde

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