Ep. #410 - The Flash

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.

Dan McCoy

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

[0:47] On this episode, we discuss The Flash.

Stuart Wellington

[0:50] Or as its North American title, Ricky-O, the story of Ricky and the Flash.

[0:57] We did it. We got all the way there.

[1:01] Double level reference.

Dan McCoy

[1:02] It was a long walk. We got all the way there.

[1:05] Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31] Hey, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:33] I'm Elliot Kalin. Can't wait to do whatever it is we do on this Flophouse podcast.

[1:38] Dan, what is it that we do?

Dan McCoy

[1:40] Well, let me explain it to you, friend.

[1:42] We watch a bad movie.

[1:43] Let's not be familiar, Dan.

[1:44] I've known you. How long now? Is it 20 years?

Elliott Kalan

[1:48] Almost 20 years now, yeah.

[1:50] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:51] It was a best man at your wedding.

[1:53] That's true.

[1:54] You were best man at my second.

[1:56] What was I, a best man?

Elliott Kalan

[1:57] No.

[1:58] No, I wasn't.

[1:59] At that point.

[1:59] At that time, I hadn't known you for quite, you were there, Stuart.

[2:02] Quite as long.

[2:02] You were an invitee.

[2:04] You were both best men at my recent wedding.

[2:08] Yeah.

[2:08] Oh, sure.

[2:09] Not that recent, Dan.

[2:10] You're getting older.

Dan McCoy

[2:10] Well, I mean, two years.

[2:12] I mean, like, the thing is, because I'm getting older, two years is but a drop in the bucket of my life.

[2:16] Yeah, yeah.

[2:17] And the oceans of time that is Dan's life.

[2:19] Yeah.

[2:20] Just a drop in the pee bucket of time.

[2:22] Well, this has been a little stroll down memory lane and airing grievances.

Elliott Kalan

[2:24] So what we do on this podcast is we figure out who's been at whose weddings and how long ago they were.

Dan McCoy

[2:29] Who's the best friend of whom?

Elliott Kalan

[2:32] But what do we really do, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[2:34] No, we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[2:37] Yep.

[2:37] Now, as I told Stuart over text, last week we had the dessert of watching Mafia Mama.

[2:45] Now he has to eat his vegetables and watch The Flash.

Elliott Kalan

[2:48] Of course, for our listeners, that will be two weeks ago.

Dan McCoy

[2:50] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[2:52] And, you know, it's just funny that we're reaching a point in history where Stuart is like, oh, God, we got to watch The Flash.

[3:01] Mafia Mama, yum, yum, yum.

[3:02] Super excited about watching Mafia Mama.

[3:06] And I think audiences were kind of, I mean, they didn't embrace Mafia Mama like Stu did, but they are also getting real tired.

[3:12] But they ultimately did not embrace The Flash particularly either.

Stuart Wellington

[3:15] Yeah, sometimes, guys, I don't want to speak out or anything, but sometimes I think the audiences get it wrong.

Elliott Kalan

[3:22] Mm-hmm.

[3:23] Yeah.

[3:23] But with The Flash or with Mafia Mama?

[3:27] Mafia Mama, The Flash.

[3:28] With Mafia Mama, I feel like it was a lack of access and knowledge necessarily.

[3:32] The Flash was a movie that you really had to go out of your way to not be aware of.

[3:35] Whereas Mafia Mama, until Stuart said, we've got to do Mafia Mama, I had not heard of it.

Dan McCoy

[3:40] I think I saw it once and then forgot about it entirely.

[3:43] That is the question.

[3:44] Like, at this point, like, Mafia Mama, whether or not you—

Elliott Kalan

[3:49] I like that our Flash episode has turned into part two of the coverage of Mafia Mama.

Dan McCoy

[3:52] Whether or not you liked it as Stuart and Hallie and I basically did or Hallie and Stuart's case very much did.

[4:00] Loved it, yeah.

[4:01] Yeah, I did.

[4:02] Or, you know, marginally or more disliked it like Elliot did.

[4:06] Like, it's a movie that, as they would say, needed to find its audience.

[4:10] And we are living in a world now where movies that side are not allowed to find their audience.

[4:15] Well, ironically—

[4:16] Except for maybe seven years later on a streaming service when they inexplicably start trending or something like that.

Elliott Kalan

[4:21] It's going to suddenly become the biggest hit of the summer.

[4:23] Ironically, we're living at a time when it is easier than ever to get access to a movie like Mafia Mama,

[4:30] but it is harder to learn about a movie like Mafia Mama.

[4:33] Because where are you going to hear about it?

[4:34] You're probably not going to see a trailer for it before another movie in the theater.

[4:38] You are probably not—there's not going to be a huge ad campaign.

[4:41] You're not going to look at the film section of the newspaper to see what the showtimes are.

[4:45] Remember that?

[4:46] Oh, that's so good.

[4:47] And they had, like, big full-page ads and shit.

[4:49] And yet, Mafia Mama is available to anyone who has a computer or tablet.

[4:55] You know, whereas in the past, you would have had to at least have access to a video store or a cable channel that might show it.

[5:00] And in earlier times, you'd have to have access to a theater that was actually screening Mafia Mama.

[5:04] So it is both easier to get those movies but harder to learn about them.

[5:09] Strange, huh?

Dan McCoy

[5:09] Whereas The Flash was all over the place, both—

[5:12] Everywhere.

[5:12] Because he runs so fast, he can get everywhere.

[5:13] Both in advertisements and in news stories and, yeah.

[5:19] What kind of news stories were there about The Flash?

[5:21] There was a lot of Ezra Miller news that was—

[5:24] Oh, that's true.

Elliott Kalan

[5:24] That's a fair point.

[5:25] Yeah.

[5:25] Ezra Miller, they did do their best to get out word of The Flash in a—not necessarily positive or helpful way.

[5:31] Yeah.

[5:32] But in a way of becoming a national scandal.

[5:34] Yeah, sure.

Stuart Wellington

[5:35] It's almost like Ezra Miller should have been playing the reverse Flash.

Elliott Kalan

[5:40] They kind of do in this movie.

[5:41] I know.

[5:42] That's the setup, dude.

[5:43] Yeah.

[5:45] Just not the Professor Zoom reverse Flash.

[5:48] And you make a good point.

Stuart Wellington

[5:49] Wait a minute.

[5:50] Wait a minute.

[5:51] There's a guy named Professor Zoom.

Elliott Kalan

[5:53] What I love about the character, the reverse Flash, who is not really in this movie, is that he has two names.

[5:58] Professor Zoom and the reverse Flash.

[6:00] And he's often called Professor Zoom, comma, the reverse Flash, which I love.

Stuart Wellington

[6:03] If you got fucking smoked by a bad guy and his name was Professor Zoom, it's like, what a disgrace.

[6:10] Yeah, I think that's why they started calling him—

[6:11] You cannot cross the bridge of swords, sir.

Elliott Kalan

[6:13] I think that's why they started calling him the reverse Flash, yeah.

[6:15] It's a little bit like if you were a wrestler and you were defeated by Doink.

[6:19] It really hurt your record, I assume.

Dan McCoy

[6:21] Now, wouldn't a reverse Flash be super slow?

[6:23] That's the problem with the—

[6:24] This is a very good point.

[6:25] That's actually a really good point.

Elliott Kalan

[6:26] He's not super slow.

[6:27] He doesn't run backwards, but first.

[6:29] There's really not that much reverse other than he wears a different color costume.

Stuart Wellington

[6:33] Barry Allen runs butt first a bunch in this movie.

[6:35] Six times, yeah.

[6:37] I'm sorry.

[6:40] One thing I do want to—

[6:41] How else do you go back in time?

[6:42] You have to run butt first.

[6:43] That's true.

[6:44] You have to run butt first.

Dan McCoy

[6:45] Otherwise, you'll only go forward in time, yeah.

[6:47] Before we get into it—

Elliott Kalan

[6:49] That's why they call it ass backwards.

Dan McCoy

[6:52] In time.

[6:55] We've said it a few times.

[6:56] I want to acknowledge—

[6:57] Einstein said that, right?

[6:58] I want to acknowledge—

Elliott Kalan

[6:58] And that Iron Maiden album, Some Butt in Time.

[7:02] Dan, what were you going to say?

Dan McCoy

[7:04] No, no, it's fine.

[7:04] Let's talk about butt first for a while.

Elliott Kalan

[7:08] Dan, if ever anyone should be excited to have this platform to talk about butts, it is you.

[7:14] No to the butt lover.

Dan McCoy

[7:15] Look, there's a hierarchy.

[7:17] There's Maslow's hierarchy of interruptions.

[7:20] Oh, I see.

[7:23] It's just like, I'd be happy to—

[7:23] So the top of that would be, help, I'm being eaten by a crocodile.

Elliott Kalan

[7:26] That would be your number one most important interruption.

[7:28] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[7:29] If you were in danger and you were interrupting me saying something, then I would be much more forgiving than just a continuation of this butt bit.

Stuart Wellington

[7:37] Still annoyed, but he'd be forgiving.

Dan McCoy

[7:39] No, I just wanted to acknowledge up top because I'm afraid that I will mess up or something.

[7:45] Like, of course, Ezra Miller uses they, them pronouns.

[7:48] When we talk about Barry Allen, The Flash, we will be saying he, him because that character is he, him.

[7:55] Yes, that character uses those pronouns.

[7:57] But if I ever accidentally refer to the actor, I apologize in advance.

[8:01] I'm going to try and keep my brains straight.

[8:03] Don't worry.

Stuart Wellington

[8:04] Alex will have you record they and them a couple times and then just cut it in whenever you fuck up.

Dan McCoy

[8:11] My good friend, Mr. Black from The Simpsons.

[8:18] Who's in charge here?

[8:19] Who's running this?

Elliott Kalan

[8:20] I'll take this one.

[8:20] You know what?

[8:21] Let me take the wheel on this one.

Stuart Wellington

[8:23] Okay.

[8:24] So are you guys, we're talking about DC movies again.

[8:27] Again.

[8:28] Wow.

[8:28] I know it.

[8:29] The world keeps turning.

[8:31] But for not too much longer probably with the DC movies.

[8:34] I was about to say that like, I don't really know that much about The Flash, but I feel like I watch a bunch of The Flash TV show.

[8:40] Sure.

[8:41] Is that the same as reading the comics?

Elliott Kalan

[8:42] I mean, I can't fact check that.

[8:43] I don't know what you've watched and haven't watched.

Stuart Wellington

[8:44] Was it in The Flash TV show where Gorilla Grodd went back in time to kill Obama when he was in college?

[8:50] What?

[8:51] I think that happens.

[8:51] I mean, probably.

Elliott Kalan

[8:52] That sounds like the kind of great storyline you would have on a Flash TV show.

Dan McCoy

[8:55] I watched, you know, maybe the first four Flashes and enjoyed them.

[9:03] But it was, you know, it's one of these things where much as I think The Flash, the movie suffers from the glut of superhero stuff, I was like, do I need to watch this sort of like maybe B-minus superhero show that in previous years I would be like, yeah, yeah, The Flash.

Elliott Kalan

[9:18] Well, and there's too much superhero stuff.

[9:21] We'll just say that right off the bat.

[9:22] Take it for granted.

[9:23] There's a lot of stuff in this movie that would be fun or exciting if I hadn't seen it many, many times before.

Stuart Wellington

[9:27] And a thing that I, you know, 20 years ago, I could never have imagined saying.

[9:33] Yes.

[9:33] There's too much superhero stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[9:34] Me sitting as, I think I've said before, me as a teenager watching the Spawn movie in the theaters purely because I wanted to support any movie based on a comic book.

[9:42] Even one about a character I do not like and do not care about.

[9:46] Now, what did you think of that movie?

[9:47] It's not a good movie.

[9:48] And just the lasting memory of it is the scene where John Logosamo as the Violator, the clown demon, is standing in front of a little girl and his head shrinks as a balloon in his hand that's also of his head gets bigger.

[10:00] And it looks bizarre.

[10:02] And the little girl watching him is not phased, does not react as if this is not a thing a clown usually does, exchange his head with a balloon, you know, on your doorstep.

Dan McCoy

[10:11] We should revisit that movie maybe for one of our shows.

[10:14] Yeah, we should.

[10:15] Because that has, among other things, some of the wildest early CGI.

[10:20] I saw some of it recently.

[10:22] And it looks so delightfully bad.

Stuart Wellington

[10:26] I wish I had faith in anything as much as the filmmakers had in the CGI department making it look realistic.

Elliott Kalan

[10:35] Now, so, but I will say also, The Flash is an interesting situation because he is both a top tier and a kind of B-level DC superhero.

[10:46] Haters come at me.

[10:47] But, like, he's very famous.

[10:48] He's very well known.

[10:49] I think it's partly because his costume is great and his power is very easy to understand, that he's fast.

[10:54] But he's always been kind of like, and he's a member of the Justice League, but he's not quite at that same level as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, where people generally get excited about the idea of him.

[11:06] You know?

[11:06] He's more of a Green Lantern level where it's like, you are important to the DC universe, but you are not that interesting.

[11:12] I'm sure he has his fans.

[11:14] I'm sure he does, yes.

[11:15] And he can be written very well.

Dan McCoy

[11:17] The beginning of this film makes some hay out of that.

[11:19] Like, that's kind of the vibe we start off with where, you know, he's fourth down the call sheet when there's a disaster, but he has to step up.

Elliott Kalan

[11:29] And this is his first movie, right?

[11:31] This is his first solo film.

[11:32] Okay.

[11:33] The Flash character.

[11:34] So, The Flash has been in the, you know, we saw him in Justice League, you know.

[11:37] And there was also the, like Dan and you said, the Flash TV show that had a different Flash in a different universe, you know.

[11:43] But this is the first Flash solo film.

[11:47] They've been trying to make one for years.

[11:49] This movie was in the making for years with different people involved behind the scenes.

[11:55] But there's something about, well, let's get into it.

[11:57] I think, Dan, the thing, we'll get into it.

[11:58] The thing that bugs me about him being fourth down the call sheet is rather than making him a character who's just not at the same level as the others, they go the way that the Marvel movies have done with Superman where they make him a goof fuck up who cannot do a single fucking thing right.

[12:11] Which makes me so mad.

[12:12] There's so many times where the Flash is just fucking up.

[12:15] It's not even that he does the wrong thing or makes a mistake.

[12:17] He's just doing stupid things.

[12:19] He's being done.

[12:20] Pardon my language, but still.

Dan McCoy

[12:22] I will argue that in that when we first see him, he very accomplished – he does a rescue where he does some pretty amazing things.

[12:32] That's true.

[12:32] We'll talk about it.

[12:34] And then we meet an alternate version.

[12:35] Arguably super thing.

[12:36] Who has not gone through the tempering.

Elliott Kalan

[12:39] No, no.

[12:40] But also, he goes back in time.

[12:42] The first thing he does is starts talking to his parents and then go out of his way to go talk to his past self.

[12:47] What are you, an idiot?

[12:48] Come on.

[12:49] Anyway, so we'll get to it.

[12:50] Let's start with the movie.

[12:51] Barry Allen, the Flash, played by Ezra Miller, just wants his morning sandwich or whatever, and he's annoyed by a gossipy sandwich maker who is taking a long time making a sandwich.

Stuart Wellington

[13:01] And he's got like big Sheldon vibes here, right?

[13:03] Yes.

[13:04] Well, that's the thing.

[13:04] The Zinga Sheldon?

[13:05] I think that they are –

[13:06] You know the Zinga Sheldon?

[13:08] Yeah, the Zinga Sheldon.

[13:09] Who wears like a Flash shirt and shit, right?

Elliott Kalan

[13:11] You may know him as Young or Y Sheldon, but as in Y Sheldon, why this show.

[13:18] But I think they are really leaning into the idea of the Flash as being somewhat in that kind of Big Bang Theory on the spectrum way.

[13:26] Maybe as a result of him moving so fast that it's hard for him to concentrate.

[13:29] It's hard for him to interact with people.

[13:31] But with these movies, it's hard to know when a character is just supposed to be a dork, like an awkward nerd, or when they're supposed to be somewhere neurodivergent.

[13:40] It's hard to know.

Dan McCoy

[13:40] And this opening scene, they do a really good job, I will say as an audience member – or an audio member, an audience member.

Elliott Kalan

[13:48] It is an audio medium, podcasting, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[13:51] Getting you annoyed at this fucking sandwich guy.

[13:54] Yeah.

[13:55] Real, slow, irritating man.

[13:56] Very annoying.

[13:57] Slow.

[13:57] Takes a long time.

Elliott Kalan

[13:59] Irritating man.

[13:59] I mean, as we'll see, takes rough at least 15 minutes or to 20 minutes to make this breakfast sandwich.

[14:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[14:05] And meanwhile –

Stuart Wellington

[14:05] In fact, he should – this service worker should probably be fired, right, Dan?

Elliott Kalan

[14:10] Well, I'm not going to ask this to the manager.

Stuart Wellington

[14:11] Or maybe like killed by a stray bullet or something.

[14:13] The Flash.

Dan McCoy

[14:17] Mr. Barry Allen, The Flash, you know, one of the important things about him is he needs calories.

[14:24] Like he's got that Flash metabolism.

Elliott Kalan

[14:25] Yes, his metabolism is super fast because he's always running.

[14:28] Running on empty.

Dan McCoy

[14:29] He needs this sandwich to save people.

[14:32] And this person is taking so much time.

[14:33] And as someone who doesn't have superpowers but gets very hangry, I was like, get him that fucking food, you dick.

[14:40] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[14:41] So it does do a good – so the movie, if it accomplishes it, it's a good –

[14:43] It does nothing else.

[14:44] He does a very good job of making us annoyed at this slow service worker.

[14:47] Anyway, so while he's waiting, Alfred calls.

[14:49] There's a robbery in Gotham City.

[14:51] All the other heroes are busy.

[14:52] As Dan mentioned, he's fourth down the call sheet.

[14:54] The Flash, he goes, okay.

[14:56] He suits up.

[14:57] The sandwich maker has his back to him, does not even know what's going on.

[15:01] Suits up, is about to run to Gotham.

[15:02] The Flash logo starts coming up on the screen.

[15:04] And then someone, like a nerdy fan, goes, oh my god, The Flash, I love you.

[15:07] And it interrupts him.

[15:09] And it's a very awkward moment.

[15:10] And then the logo comes back up and he runs.

[15:12] And this was one of those things where it was like, oh, I get it.

[15:15] You're kind of being – you want to Deadpool it up.

[15:17] You want to play around with the formal nature of the film in a cheeky, kind of sarcastic way.

[15:21] But it doesn't mean or do anything.

[15:24] And the idea that Flash has fans, even if they are dorky fans, fights against the personification of the Flash from that point on.

[15:32] The idea that he is the one that – a superhero that characters don't really respect or pay attention to.

[15:38] I see what you're saying, but I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[15:39] I mean like there's – you know, every dorky celebrity has fans.

[15:44] That's a good point.

[15:46] Case in point.

[15:47] Yeah, look at us.

[15:48] I wouldn't call it celebrities.

Elliott Kalan

[15:51] What people ask me, they go, are you famous?

[15:53] And I go, I'm a minor notable.

[15:55] That's what I say.

[15:56] I'm a minor notable.

[15:56] I'm a footnote to entertainment.

[15:58] Now, what's your quotable?

[15:59] My quotable is $700,000.

[16:01] So that's why if you want me, that's what it's going to cost.

[16:04] But you get everything for that.

[16:06] For one night.

[16:06] Everything.

[16:08] For one night.

[16:08] For one magical night.

Stuart Wellington

[16:10] That sounds like a decent proposal.

Dan McCoy

[16:11] I'll have to take out a loan, but I can't deny that I'm a little curious.

Stuart Wellington

[16:17] Yeah, I mean, you should try it out.

Elliott Kalan

[16:19] Yeah, let's go for it.

[16:20] Come on.

[16:21] Try anything once.

[16:22] Dan, I'll give you the friends and family rate of $900,000.

[16:25] It's more expensive because it'll be more awkward because you're a friend or family.

[16:28] Wow, yeah, that's true.

[16:28] Because of all the eye contact.

[16:30] Yeah, exactly.

[16:32] Oh, no.

[16:32] One of the rules is no eye contact.

[16:34] Everything except eye contact.

[16:35] And no kissing on the mouth either.

[16:36] No, man.

[16:37] Anyway, but actually, you know what, Dan?

[16:39] For you, I'll kiss you on the mouth.

[16:40] But still no eye contact.

[16:41] Yeah, he's going.

[16:41] You have to close your eyes.

[16:43] So anyway, he races through the CGI landscape of America to get to Gotham City because he's

[16:50] in Central City, which is kind of like Detroit.

[16:52] And Gotham City is, of course, New York.

[16:55] And Ben Affleck, Batman, is dealing with a mobster who stole a deadly virus from a hospital.

[17:01] Somehow this robbery caused the ground under the hospital to collapse.

[17:04] And now the hospital is in danger of collapsing.

[17:06] I'm fine with that.

[17:08] That's fine.

[17:08] Batman is like, Flash, take care of this collapsing.

[17:11] While I chase the bad guys with reckless disregard for the lives of civilians.

[17:16] Like, it says so much about the DC characters, they have no regard for any other human being that might be in their path unless their job is to save that specific person.

[17:25] And it's Flash's job because, uh-oh, what's about to happen?

[17:28] The building tilts and dozens of babies fall out of the window.

[17:32] This is the scene you may have seen online.

[17:33] And I've got to say, uh, out of context, this looks ridiculous.

[17:37] In context, you can tell it's supposed to look ridiculous.

[17:40] You know, this is supposed to be silly.

Dan McCoy

[17:41] I really liked this scene.

[17:44] I got to say, like, of the action sequences in the movie, by far, this is the one I liked the most.

[17:48] This is, I think so too.

[17:49] Yeah, this is the one I like.

[17:50] Yeah, and I like it because it's so silly.

[17:52] It's very silly.

[17:53] Because it's like literally like a bunch of babies are falling.

Elliott Kalan

[17:55] And first he runs out of energy, so he has to smash a vending machine and gobble down as many candy bars as he can.

[18:00] And then he saves the babies in very cartoonish ways.

[18:02] He puts one in an unplugged microwave.

[18:04] He throws a bedpan to knock a flamethrower away, or a flame jet or something away from another one.

[18:10] It feels like, the thing is about this scene, it feels like a parody of a superhero movie.

[18:13] It feels like the movie is trying for Guardians of the Galaxy, Deadpool's silliness,

[18:17] and it has gone all the way forward into Batman 66 kind of parodying the original source material.

Stuart Wellington

[18:24] And there was that part where the Flash's pants catch on fire and one of the baby pees on the fire to put it up.

[18:29] No, wait, there was tequila and hard foil.

[18:31] This is a dream you had after.

Elliott Kalan

[18:33] I mean, I could have believed it in there.

[18:35] Yeah.

[18:36] And the Flash establishes, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[18:38] I want to step back and just like the worried audience member who might be listening to us,

[18:44] the baby gets put in the microwave so it can be safe from some fire.

[18:49] Yeah, this isn't an episode of the fucking boys or something where the baby explodes.

Elliott Kalan

[18:53] And Flash establishes when he's moving really fast, it's difficult for him to touch another human being without hurting them.

[18:59] So he can't just pluck these babies out of the air.

[19:01] He has to use objects around him to get the babies out of danger.

Stuart Wellington

[19:05] And it's a fun—

[19:06] I do like when he touches objects that are kind of frozen by the speed force.

[19:11] Like they light up a different color like you're playing a video game.

Elliott Kalan

[19:14] Yeah, a lot of this movie looks like a video game.

[19:16] We'll get to that.

Stuart Wellington

[19:17] And that's the thing.

[19:18] Like I feel like that is such a cliche to say is to be like, oh, this whole thing looks like a video game.

[19:23] But like for real, there's whole swaths of this movie that look like a fucking cut scene from Injustice.

[19:30] And it's fucked up.

Elliott Kalan

[19:31] But also the fight scenes later on are not just very heavily CGI, but they are framed like a video game level.

[19:36] Like you are watching from a camera point of view that you would be watching from if it was a fighting game of some—

[19:42] If it was a like a—not a side-scrolling fighting game like Street Fighter, but you know what I mean?

[19:45] Like a, you know—

[19:46] Like a beat-em-up game or something.

[19:49] Some game where you're wandering—like if you're playing a Batman video game and you're wandering on Gotham City beating people up.

[19:53] It looks like that.

[19:54] Anyway, this movie is—it's got a hard challenge ahead of it.

[19:59] It wants to make you feel for this character after you have seen a scene where he is plucking babies or he's using bedpans to save babies.

[20:06] I do not think it can clear this bar.

[20:08] Let's find out.

Dan McCoy

[20:09] You're—you're—like he's—this is a save-the-cat moment.

[20:13] This is what makes you care for him.

[20:15] He saves a bunch of babies, which are like human cats.

Elliott Kalan

[20:18] We've established that the reality of this movie is so silly.

Dan McCoy

[20:21] Stuart, why don't you suck that closer to the microphone?

[20:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[20:24] I'm just sucking that in.

Elliott Kalan

[20:26] Anyway, long story short, Bats and Flash, they catch the baddies.

[20:31] Wonder Woman stops by for a completely unnecessary cameo where she uses her truth lasso to make the heroes say embarrassing things about themselves.

[20:39] This is a scene—how did you guys feel about this joke?

[20:41] I felt like this was a joke that was pushing things a little too far for me.

Dan McCoy

[20:44] I figure—I'll be honest.

[20:47] I don't know whether you'll take this as an insult or a compliment or neutral.

[20:50] I was like, Ellie's going to have problems with this moment.

[20:53] Ellie's going to think this breaks it too much.

[20:56] I liked it because I think that the movie does a couple of these things, but not as much as movies that are really just like, fuck it, break the reality.

[21:08] Make a superhero joke.

Elliott Kalan

[21:10] I'll tell you this.

[21:10] It's like, I would like this joke if The Flash was not part of a larger universe that already had an established tone.

[21:17] I feel like this movie is hurt in ways that are maybe unfair to it as a singular film because it is so clashing with the tone that the DC movie universe has set up for me up to this point.

[21:27] And so for Batman to grab a truth lasso and to say, well, really, if I want to stop crime, I should do things like affect the roots of crime, which are poverty.

[21:35] I should give money to people.

[21:37] And then let's go with the lasso.

[21:38] Once you've had Batman say that, I can no longer take a guy who dresses up in a bat costume and beats up people with mental problems.

[21:43] Because he's self-aware.

[21:44] As a hero.

[21:45] Exactly.

[21:45] Because he's self-aware.

[21:46] Once he's said that.

[21:47] Yeah.

[21:48] Like the truth lasso is fucking therapy?

[21:51] Yes.

[21:51] And Ezra Miller, or The Flash rather, not Ezra Miller.

[21:54] The Flash grabs the lasso and says, I've heard of sex, but I've never experienced it.

[21:57] And that was a little too far for me where it was like, okay, maybe this character is a virgin, but it feels like a very easy go-to to establish.

[22:03] Yeah.

[22:03] Oh, he's kind of a, he's a nerd, so he's a virgin.

[22:05] Well, also, I mean, does the truth lasso make you just blurt stuff out?

[22:10] Well, that's the other thing.

[22:10] Or does it make you tell the truth?

[22:11] It does, I think, make you blurt stuff out as according to this, you know.

[22:15] The, anyway, but, and also the fact that the Wonder Woman cameo is unnecessary.

[22:20] There's no reason for her to be there.

Dan McCoy

[22:21] I kind of see what you're saying, Elliot, but also, if you're going to create this big universe,

[22:26] I like that there are different tones in it, and I would certainly prefer this tone to the Justice League tone.

[22:33] Well, I'll give you that.

Elliott Kalan

[22:34] If the Justice League movies were funny, I wouldn't have as big an issue with it, and I would enjoy it more.

[22:39] I think this scene would work for me in an Avengers movie, for instance, or a Marvel movie,

[22:44] just because the other movies are not trying to convince me that they are on Schindler's List level seriousness.

[22:50] Exactly.

[22:50] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[22:51] Well, I mean, I feel like saying this cameo is unnecessary.

[22:55] I mean, it's like part of a joke.

[22:59] I feel like that's fine.

[23:00] Yeah, I guess so.

[23:01] You don't need it to relate to the plot.

Elliott Kalan

[23:04] No, that's true.

[23:04] Speaking of plot, we got some heavy plot we're about to get to.

[23:07] Flash runs back to Central City just in time to get his sandwich, but he's late for work at the Crime's Forensic Lab,

[23:13] where his mean coworkers are making fun of him.

[23:15] And guys, maybe this says more about me than the movie.

[23:17] The most exciting moment to me in this entire movie was when Saoirse Monica Jackson from Derry Girls showed up as one of his mean coworkers.

[23:24] Oh, that's who that is.

[23:24] I love her.

[23:25] I love that show.

[23:26] So it was like the same way that I was telling people this recently,

[23:29] that if I was watching any movie and Rick Moranis showed up in it, I would lose my shit.

[23:33] I would be so excited about it.

[23:34] And so I was like, nothing in this movie is exciting me.

[23:38] Oh, but this actress I like from this TV show is in it.

[23:40] This is great.

Dan McCoy

[23:41] And she's funny as the alternate universe version of herself later on too.

Elliott Kalan

[23:44] Yes.

[23:44] I mean, she's a very funny performer.

[23:46] So anyway, he also runs into his college crush, Iris West, who, as we know from the comic books,

[23:50] that eventually he marries, who is now a reporter covering Flash's dad's murder trial.

[23:55] Because as you may remember from the Justice League movie, Flash's dad is on trial for allegedly murdering Flash's mom.

[24:01] Of course, Barry knows that this is not the case.

[24:04] He has security footage of his dad in a store when the crime is committed.

[24:07] Unfortunately, his dad's wearing a hat and he never looks up at the camera.

[24:11] So he can't see his face clearly enough for the footage to be an alibi for him.

Stuart Wellington

[24:15] He's got to flash that punim, you know?

[24:17] Yeah.

[24:17] Exactly.

[24:17] We all know that.

[24:18] Why hide your lead under a bushel?

Dan McCoy

[24:19] His father's, his father, Ron Livingston, his only real crime was stealing all those portions of a penny in the, in the, in.

Elliott Kalan

[24:29] Oh, Office Space.

[24:31] Oh, right, right.

[24:32] I was like, Superman 3?

[24:34] Well, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[24:35] I mean, they make a point of saying they're just doing the Superman 3 thing.

Elliott Kalan

[24:38] That's right.

[24:38] But I had forgotten about, I'd forgotten that they, that, that, that, that's what, Office Space.

[24:41] See, that's the connection.

[24:42] I barely remember the plot in Office Space.

[24:43] Office Space doesn't seem like an Elliot movie.

[24:44] No?

[24:45] Oh, no, I like Office Space.

[24:46] I just didn't remember the plot.

[24:47] Okay.

[24:48] I mean, I like Mike Judge's stuff.

[24:50] You know?

[24:51] King of the Hills, one of the greatest shows I've ever made.

Dan McCoy

[24:52] It's interesting how little plot there is on Office Space.

[24:55] By the time that rolls around in the movie, it's like, it's more like we've just been hanging out with these guys for a while, you know?

[25:01] Yeah.

[25:01] Yeah, that's true.

[25:03] It's like the movie is like, we should probably have them do something.

Elliott Kalan

[25:07] So, dad on the phone with Flash is like, hey, just give up.

[25:11] I'll go to jail forever.

[25:13] I didn't kill your mom, but I guess there's nothing we can do about it.

Stuart Wellington

[25:15] He's like, stop worrying about me.

[25:16] You should go on dates, kid.

Elliott Kalan

[25:20] Which, classic.

[25:21] Wonder Woman told me you're a virgin.

[25:25] Yeah.

[25:27] The Flash is, I don't believe Jewish, but it is a very Jewish parent to be like, no, go on a date.

[25:33] Let me mold her in jail for a crime I didn't commit.

[25:36] I don't care as long as you're happy, you know?

Dan McCoy

[25:39] Based on his mom later, he's half Italian.

[25:43] But Alan, you know, that sounds like English.

[25:45] Alan is a classic Jewish name.

[25:46] Alan does sound like Italian.

[25:49] So...

[25:49] No, I'm saying the mom is Italian.

[25:51] It also sounds like alien.

[25:51] His father's name, Alan, is probably...

[25:52] Do you think he's an alien?

Elliott Kalan

[25:54] So, you're saying that maybe his mother is Italian-Jewish, like Sephardic, and that's why...

[25:59] I'm not saying anything.

Dan McCoy

[26:00] I'm saying that we have some evidence as to Barry Allen's...

[26:04] To the ethnicity of Barry Allen?

[26:07] Yeah.

[26:07] Okay, that's fair.

Elliott Kalan

[26:08] So, Flash goes into a flashback that is the crux of the film.

[26:13] He flashes back to the day...

Stuart Wellington

[26:14] That's why it's called a flashback.

[26:16] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

[26:17] That's why it's called a flashback, because they knew eventually it would occur in the movie The Flash.

[26:21] The Flash went back in time using his flash powers.

[26:24] Yeah.

[26:24] And they're like, oh, and he invented the word flashback in the past, and that's why we know it now.

[26:29] Oh.

[26:30] It's a paradox.

Stuart Wellington

[26:31] Yeah.

[26:32] So, but he doesn't use his powers for this...

[26:33] Not just one doc, a paradox.

[26:34] Yeah, he doesn't use his powers to do this flashback.

[26:37] He uses the power that we all have access to, our memories, right?

Elliott Kalan

[26:41] Yes, he enters his memory palace, or as it's also known, his memory, to remember something.

[26:46] And so, Flash remembers, as it's going to turn out, the day that his mother died, which starts with his mom telling him, coincidentally enough, the moral of the movie.

[26:55] Yeah.

[26:55] He's doing his math homework, and he's very frustrated.

[26:58] And she goes, look, not every problem has a solution.

[27:00] Sometimes you need to let go, which is good life advice.

[27:03] It's bad advice for math homework.

[27:05] Yes.

[27:05] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[27:05] And also, didn't he, like, I feel like he said something like, I can see so many possible ways of doing this or something, like, before that.

[27:12] Something like that, yeah.

[27:13] It's possible.

[27:14] That's a direct contradiction of what she's saying.

[27:17] Like, if there's, like, a thousand ways of doing it, then she's like, sometimes there's no answer.

[27:22] But also, I don't think anyone's giving math homework that has no answer.

[27:26] That has no answer.

[27:27] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[27:27] Certainly not at that level.

Elliott Kalan

[27:28] He's an elementary school kid.

[27:29] Certainly.

[27:30] They're not dealing with unprovable theorems at that level.

[27:32] Yeah.

[27:33] He's clearly doing addition and multiplication.

Stuart Wellington

[27:34] He's not trying to get in the fucking Starfleet or something.

Elliott Kalan

[27:36] Yeah.

[27:37] No.

[27:37] He's like, Mom, this Kobayashi Maru is not working for me.

[27:42] That's the point of the test, son.

[27:43] You're supposed to learn there's no answer.

Dan McCoy

[27:45] That doesn't make sense as a test for mathematicians.

Elliott Kalan

[27:49] So, anyway, they forgot the tomatoes.

[27:51] Dad goes to the store to get the canned tomatoes.

[27:53] Mom starts singing and dancing with Kid Barry.

[27:56] And cut to dad gets back home.

[27:59] The mom has been stabbed.

[28:00] Young Barry, who I guess was upstairs when this was happening, he's like, his dad is like, call 911.

[28:05] And young Barry instead runs out of the house.

[28:08] And I guess it's supposed to be because the Flash, he's always running.

[28:11] The Flash is so upset by this memory that he just starts running super fast.

[28:15] And he runs so fast that he bursts into a kaleidoscopic memory world that is like a time travel dimension.

[28:21] Let's say it's the speed zone or something.

[28:22] The time arena or whatever.

[28:24] Yeah, he's in the time arena.

[28:25] So, when he gets into the speed zone, that's a stand-up and cheer moment.

[28:29] But in the time arena, it's more of a sit-down and go, huh, moment.

[28:32] You know, it's not quite a stand-up and cheer.

Dan McCoy

[28:33] Well, also, I'm wondering, so, he's got to be running this whole time, right?

[28:37] Yeah.

[28:38] Or is he just vibrating so fast?

[28:40] Is that what's going on?

[28:40] I don't know, because later on, he's just like standing around in the time arena.

Elliott Kalan

[28:43] That's what I'm saying.

Dan McCoy

[28:43] He's like hanging out in this time arena.

[28:45] And I'm wondering, like, in the real world, in our time, is like, he just speeding around

[28:50] the world over and over again.

Elliott Kalan

[28:51] I think he's just, he's no longer on our plane of reality.

[28:53] Running into various things.

[28:54] Once he gets to the time arena, I think he is no longer in our physical reality.

[28:58] He is in some sort of alternate space.

[29:01] Like a multiverse of madness.

[29:03] Yes, exactly.

[29:04] Or like, I just read Avram Davidson's Masters of the Maze, and he's entered this

[29:08] kind of time-space maze that there are many entryways to.

[29:11] But unfortunately, the evil Chalpecs are trying to use it to invade our world with their bizarre

[29:17] insectoid hive society.

[29:19] Anyway, this is a real fun book.

[29:20] But yeah, I think he is not, I don't think he's like, in his mind in this past space, but

[29:25] in reality running around.

[29:27] I think he just burst through the time barrier to this alternate limbo.

[29:30] You know, or this, what they would call in, at one point, the DC universe had something

[29:35] called, I forgot, it was Crisis Time or something.

[29:39] I don't remember what it was.

[29:39] Anyway, it was a thing they, oh, Hyper Time.

[29:41] They introduced this thing called Hyper Time.

[29:42] Oh, cool, okay.

[29:43] As a way of having multiple universes.

[29:44] But anyway.

Dan McCoy

[29:45] It's like time that changes color when you put like some root on it.

[29:48] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[29:48] It's thermally color-changing heat time.

Dan McCoy

[29:52] 90s kids will remember.

Elliott Kalan

[29:56] Yeah, slap bracelets, et cetera.

Stuart Wellington

[29:58] So, and that he-

[29:59] I almost fucking said slap bracelets.

Dan McCoy

[30:01] I was also thinking, that's the other key gimmicky thing you could wear from our childhood.

[30:10] Yep, hyper-color shirts, slap bracelets.

Elliott Kalan

[30:12] Yeah.

[30:13] What a great time.

[30:14] What a time to be alive.

[30:15] The Cold War had just ended.

[30:16] Shirts could change color.

Dan McCoy

[30:17] Uh-huh, yeah.

[30:18] Economic prosperity.

Elliott Kalan

[30:20] And now I'm imagining the Stephen King of our generation who's writing a story and he's

[30:23] like, hmm, back when I was a kid, shirts could change color.

[30:26] Not like these modern shirts.

[30:27] They're so disappointing, you know.

[30:30] We were all listening to Spice Girls back then, real music.

[30:33] Anyway, so Flash manages to transport himself back in time a day by traveling this way.

[30:41] And that night, maybe the next night, I don't know, he's hanging out with Bruce Wayne in

[30:45] what, like an alleyway or something like that?

[30:46] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[30:47] Yeah, they got a lot of that alleyway.

[30:49] I want to take a brief sidebar and just say that this is my favorite-

[30:52] A brief cyborg?

[30:53] This is my brief-

[30:55] He's not in this movie.

[30:56] Oh.

[30:56] This is my favorite iteration of Affleck as Bruce Wayne slash Batman.

[31:04] Partly because like, you know, we all know he's over it by this time.

[31:08] And like, his attitude sort of hanging out with Barry Allen is also like over it.

[31:14] Like, I guess this guy is one of my closest friends.

[31:17] Yeah.

[31:17] I gotta put up with him.

Elliott Kalan

[31:18] It feels very true to Batman to me that he's kind of over it and not enthusiastic about

[31:23] anything, you know?

Dan McCoy

[31:24] Yeah.

[31:25] But I just like him in this mode, this sort of more human.

[31:28] The weirdest part is that-

Stuart Wellington

[31:29] Yeah, I do too.

[31:30] You know, they're having a conversation and Iris West sees this and she's just like,

[31:36] oh, wow, you have rich friends.

[31:37] And I'm like, you know who that is, right?

[31:40] He's like a billionaire.

[31:41] You know, that's Batman.

[31:42] I mean, that's Bruce Wayne.

Elliott Kalan

[31:43] He's got to be one of the most famous people in the country at this point.

[31:47] Who's able to drive himself places.

[31:49] He's a billionaire playboy.

[31:50] Yeah.

[31:51] He's, yeah, he can drive himself places.

Dan McCoy

[31:54] He doesn't have a drive.

[31:55] He doesn't have to ask for his mom or dad to borrow the car.

[31:59] He can rent a car.

[32:01] Famously, they're dead.

[32:02] Whoa.

Elliott Kalan

[32:03] Yeah.

[32:03] So, yeah, he can do it.

[32:04] He can have cereal for breakfast.

[32:06] He doesn't need to ask his parents permission.

[32:07] He can do whatever he wants.

[32:08] Yeah, play video games all day.

[32:10] His parents are, he's-

Stuart Wellington

[32:11] Chicken nugget hop, stuff, stuff, stuff.

[32:13] Talking about this, guys.

[32:14] It's making me very sad.

Elliott Kalan

[32:15] Yeah, it is very sad.

Stuart Wellington

[32:16] What have I done in my life that I don't just do that all day long?

Elliott Kalan

[32:21] And so, Bruce Wayne, oh, so not sad about Bruce Wayne losing his parents as a child.

[32:25] I don't care about that.

[32:26] Sad about the emptiness of your life.

Stuart Wellington

[32:27] What I've lost.

Elliott Kalan

[32:28] My metaphorical loss of parents.

[32:33] Imagining a grown man watching Home Alone and being like, ugh, if only.

[32:37] What a dream.

[32:38] And it's like, but you are Home Alone all the time.

[32:40] Just do what you want.

Stuart Wellington

[32:41] I mean, I feel like there's a lot of action movies that are built around the premise that

[32:47] a guy's family is killed and he has to go on revenge.

[32:49] And I feel like Home Alone is kind of like that.

Dan McCoy

[32:51] Interesting.

[32:52] Yeah, kind of.

[32:52] I thought you were going to pitch a movie where it's like, well, you know, honestly, it's

[32:56] very sad.

[32:57] But on the other hand, I have all this free time.

[32:59] All this time now.

[33:00] So there's a little responsibility.

[33:01] Time enough at last.

Elliott Kalan

[33:02] Well, Home Alone in a way it's kind of-

[33:04] And then the glasses break.

[33:04] Home Alone is kind of like Die Hard in that it's a Christmas movie.

[33:10] Home Alone 2 also like Die Hard in that it is also a Christmas movie.

[33:14] Similarly to Gremlins.

[33:14] Do you have any more?

[33:15] Other Christmas movies?

[33:17] It's a Wonderful Life is kind of a Christmas movie.

[33:19] Is Christmas with the Cranks a Christmas movie or is it an ironic title?

Dan McCoy

[33:22] Miracle on 34th Street.

[33:24] I don't know if you realize this.

[33:24] This is a Christmas movie.

[33:26] Really?

[33:27] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[33:27] What about Santa Claus the movie?

[33:28] Is that a Christmas movie?

[33:30] What about The Ref?

[33:32] That's kind of an elevator.

[33:33] Is The Ref a Christmas movie?

[33:34] The Ref?

[33:35] Yeah.

[33:35] Yeah, sure.

[33:36] The Ref is a Christmas movie.

[33:37] Yeah.

[33:38] Any movie that takes place during Christmas is by definition a Christmas movie.

[33:42] Oh, we did it, guys.

[33:43] Yeah, we did it.

[33:43] Okay, so that night, so they're hanging out and Barry's like, I think I can go back in

[33:47] time.

[33:47] And Bruce Wayne goes, don't do that.

[33:49] Don't change the past.

[33:50] And Batman of all people-

[33:51] Would you say a reasonable thing for a Christmas?

[33:53] Or open the portal of time.

[33:55] And Batman of all people says, don't let your tragedy define you.

[33:58] And I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be Batman being like, I know.

[34:02] Believe me.

[34:02] I've defined my life by a tragedy and I know it's a mistake.

[34:05] Or if the movie is just kind of like winking at us, you know?

[34:07] Yeah.

[34:08] I couldn't tell.

[34:09] Iris stops.

[34:10] Again, Iris sees Flash hanging out with his famous billionaire best friend.

[34:13] She stops by Flash's apartment.

[34:15] He uses his powers to tidy it up and he vibrates through the wall to get some beer from next

[34:19] door.

[34:19] I mean, give me more of that shit.

[34:19] Give me more silly stuff, please.

[34:21] Yeah, yeah.

[34:22] And Barry decides while talking to Iris that he can use his powers to save his mom by

[34:26] just making sure she doesn't forget that can of tomatoes so that his dad doesn't have

[34:30] to go back to the store, leaving his mom unprotected.

Dan McCoy

[34:33] I do.

[34:34] So we can all agree, Barry, you're responsible to fuck with time.

[34:38] Don't do it.

[34:39] Everyone was listening.

Elliott Kalan

[34:40] Is this going to be about canned tomatoes as like a cooking person?

Dan McCoy

[34:43] Mm-hmm.

[34:43] Oh, no, no, no, no.

[34:45] Look, use canned tomatoes.

[34:47] They're just fine.

[34:48] Okay.

[34:49] In many applications, they're better than trying to use a fresh tomato.

Elliott Kalan

[34:51] I was so worried you were going to say, Barry's mom deserves to die for not using fresh tomatoes.

[34:55] No, no, no.

[34:55] That'd be like too far, Daniel.

[34:56] Too far.

[34:57] The point I was going to make was-

[34:58] That is a bridge too far for me.

[34:59] I can't cross it.

Dan McCoy

[35:00] This movie, while inferior to the similarly themed Spider-Man movie with everyone, No Way Home.

[35:13] Is that the most recent one?

[35:14] Spider-Man, All the Homes.

[35:15] Yeah, No Way Home.

[35:17] At least Barry is less irresponsible than Spider-Man in that he is messing with time for something

[35:27] like very important to him rather than just college and helping his friends.

Elliott Kalan

[35:31] And to him, he's saying, this is a small thing I'm doing.

[35:33] I'm going to do a small thing.

Dan McCoy

[35:34] He's trying to be like, he's trying to like thread that needle.

[35:37] He's trying to be like, oh, if I just change the tomato thing, it's, you know, but as we'll see.

Stuart Wellington

[35:43] And Barry has a mentor who's like, don't change time, dude, as opposed to Spider-Man,

[35:49] who's mentor, Dr. Strange.

[35:50] He's like, let's do it, man.

Elliott Kalan

[35:51] Yeah, sure.

[35:52] Why not?

[35:53] Pull out my spell book.

[35:54] I enjoyed that movie a lot.

[35:55] I have so many problems with how they get into that story.

[35:58] I think it's dumb that that's the solution Spider-Man wants.

[36:00] I think it's dumb that Dr. Strange goes along with it.

[36:03] But it's like when Mephisto ended Spider-Man's marriage.

[36:06] Didn't like the way it happened, but I loved the stories that came out of it.

[36:09] So, you know what?

[36:10] I can accept it.

Stuart Wellington

[36:13] Here's to you, Mephisto.

Elliott Kalan

[36:16] Let's raise a glass to the character who's kind of Satan, but kind of not.

[36:20] Mephisto.

Dan McCoy

[36:21] And before anyone tries to get a no prize from us, like, I realize that the fucking

[36:25] Spider-Man movie isn't about time, but it's a multiverse movie just like this one is.

[36:29] Yeah, yeah.

[36:29] And that's another problem with, I think, people's reaction to The Flash is, like, I'm

[36:33] sure when they started developing this, they're like, yeah, yeah, this is going to be so exciting.

[36:39] And especially with, like, the other, like, Michael Keaton.

[36:41] Like, so many things lunch were eaten for The Flash by the time The Flash came around.

Elliott Kalan

[36:47] It's a real problem that both of these universes have gone all in on multiverse when one of

[36:53] them got there first.

[36:54] And also, like, the multiverse does not have as much juice in it as people believe.

[36:59] Even by the time that Spider-Man No Way Home was doing it, we'd already seen Into the

[37:03] Spider-Verse.

[37:03] It's like, there's so many ideas in the world.

[37:06] There's so many that have been yet to be conceived.

[37:08] I've already seen an episode of Rick and Morty.

Stuart Wellington

[37:11] Like, I've already watched all of Sliders.

[37:13] You know, I get it.

Elliott Kalan

[37:15] Parallel universes.

Stuart Wellington

[37:16] It's all roads lead back to Sliders.

[37:19] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[37:20] Well, it's also, it's excellent for sort of, like, individual stories, like, you know,

[37:26] the Spider-Verse animated movies or, you know, outside of superheroes, everything, everywhere

[37:32] all at once.

[37:33] But I think once you make it a cornerstone of your universe, then it becomes a problem because

[37:39] it's like, well, literally everything can be undone.

[37:42] Nothing matters.

[37:43] Like, that's the problem once it becomes such a big part of it.

Elliott Kalan

[37:46] Well, and also, once you have infinite versions of every character, the life of an individual

[37:50] character, unless you've really come to know that specific one, is meaningless.

[37:54] You know, because you can just replace them with another one.

[37:57] One Kang could be impressive.

[38:00] A million Kangs?

[38:01] Who gives a shit?

[38:02] Like, at this point, they're nobody.

[38:04] You know, there's no one.

Dan McCoy

[38:04] Would you rather fight one horse-sized Kang or a horse that's, or a thousand Kang-sized

Elliott Kalan

[38:13] horses?

[38:14] That's actually a really good question, Dan.

[38:15] That's a good question.

[38:16] I think I'm going to take the one horse-sized Kang rather than a thousand Kang-sized horses.

[38:20] Yeah.

[38:22] So, anyway, he goes back to the store where his mom forgot the tomatoes, puts a can of

[38:28] tomatoes in her cart.

[38:29] He's about to race back to his own time, and he's running through new memories that he never

[38:34] had before of his mother at events in his life that she previously had not lived to see,

[38:39] until an evil-looking, shadowy figure.

[38:41] It looks like Doomsday, but we know it's not Doomsday because he was already in one of

[38:43] these movies.

[38:44] Is it reverse Flash?

[38:45] Not exactly, but we'll see.

[38:47] I mean, it's clearly going to be a time paradox of some kind.

[38:49] The only explanation that will ever make sense in these movies is that it's that character

[38:53] from the future doing it.

[38:54] So, you kind of know that that's what it's going to be.

[38:56] It's not, they're not going to, as the movie goes on and they don't introduce a new villain,

[39:00] you kind of know that that has to be the case.

[39:02] But some evil-looking, shadowy figure punches him and knocks him right out of the speed

[39:06] zone or the time arena into the street outside his parents' house, and he soon finds,

[39:11] by going in and visiting them, that it's his freshman year of college.

Dan McCoy

[39:13] That's a good-ass punch, by the way.

[39:15] It's very specific, considering what day it turns out to be.

Elliott Kalan

[39:19] Yes, he punches him into the exact day that it needs to be.

[39:22] That's the thing, as we live right now.

[39:23] For some reason, the Flash, knowing that his own younger self exists, puts a pair of underpants

[39:30] on his head, like for a mask, and then goes out of his way to ask his younger self what

[39:34] year it is.

[39:34] And it's like, just avoid him.

[39:36] Just don't talk to him.

[39:37] What are you doing?

[39:37] You know this is the one thing you're never supposed to do, is go talk to your own past

[39:41] yourself.

[39:41] Two things.

[39:42] Never step on a butterfly when you're hunting dinosaurs.

[39:44] That goes without saying.

[39:45] Yeah.

[39:45] Number two, don't talk to him past self.

[39:46] Shouldn't be hunting dinosaurs.

[39:47] They're cool.

[39:48] Well, you're not Turok.

[39:50] And I want to get into something.

[39:51] There's only one guy who's licensed on dinosaurs.

[39:52] There's only one Turok.

[39:53] Yeah.

[39:53] That's Turok.

[39:54] We can't all be Turok.

[39:56] Trust me.

[39:56] I would love to be.

[39:57] Son of Stone, yes.

[39:59] Dinosaur Hunter, of course.

[40:00] But I can't be Turok.

[40:01] Look.

Dan McCoy

[40:02] This is going to be nitpicky and nerdy.

[40:04] But what are we here for if not that?

Elliott Kalan

[40:05] I don't think we should do that on the Flash podcast.

Dan McCoy

[40:09] So, you know, in the next scene, you know, like they realize this is the day that the Flash

[40:14] gets his powers.

[40:16] And Barry is like, I got to get you to the place to get the powers.

[40:20] So, because if you don't go.

[40:21] OG Barry.

Elliott Kalan

[40:22] So, I'm going to call them Young Barry and OG Barry.

Dan McCoy

[40:25] Because if you don't have the powers and I can't go back, like all this, you know, paradox

[40:28] stuff.

[40:29] Yeah.

[40:30] And, like, and the Flash originally meant to go back to the time that he left from.

[40:37] Yes.

[40:37] Which he's, where he seems to think there's not going to be another Barry.

[40:40] And I'm like, what are you doing?

[40:42] Like, what are you doing?

[40:43] Like, why do you think you can go back and it's all going to be the same?

[40:47] Like, this isn't, like, obviously you've created some sort of branching timeline.

[40:50] Later on, we will learn that time doesn't work that way in this movie.

[40:56] And I think that they handle it kind of as elegantly as they can considering what they

[41:00] want to do.

[41:01] But at this point in the movie, I'm like, why on earth would you think that you could just

[41:04] run back to the same point and pick up your life?

Elliott Kalan

[41:06] He somehow thinks that saving his mom's life will not change anything else about his life.

[41:12] But then when he realizes that it has, he comes up with the dumbest solution, which is,

[41:17] I need you to get Flash powers.

[41:19] When he already has Flash powers, just run back.

[41:22] You have them already.

[41:23] They didn't disappear.

[41:24] Just use them.

[41:24] There's no reason you need to give them to this dude.

[41:26] Anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[41:26] And I feel like this is also kind of a point where the Barry Allen that we had come to

[41:32] know at this point is kind of, as he said, like, a little bit weird, a little maybe on

[41:37] the spectrum, a little awkward.

[41:40] But from this point on, Barry, that Barry is very much normal.

[41:45] I don't want to say normal, but, like, is very much in charge.

[41:48] Is any – he is now, like, the man from the future who is trying to tutor his younger self.

Elliott Kalan

[41:54] He has lost any of that personal awkwardness that he has before because now it is – he's the

[41:58] straight person.

[41:59] Ugh, terrible.

[42:00] I hate all these terms.

[42:01] Now he is the reactive, serious person to the younger Barry who is essentially Pauly Shore.

[42:08] He's, like, dumb.

[42:08] Well, that's the thing.

[42:09] He's annoying.

[42:10] He goes, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

[42:11] And, like, they have so – and it's one of those things where it's, like, I don't believe

[42:15] these are the same person.

[42:16] Like, people mature as they get older.

Stuart Wellington

[42:18] That's what happens to trauma, dude.

[42:20] Well, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[42:21] I guess that's what it is.

[42:22] Without the trauma of his mother's death, he became just a dork, just a dick.

Dan McCoy

[42:26] Like, this is, like, the original Barry Allen, his parents were taken away, and he was

[42:32] forced to grow up too soon, even if he's, like, an awkward guy.

[42:36] And this other kid has experienced, like, no problems in his life.

[42:42] And so –

[42:42] Classic baby boomer.

[42:43] I'm not saying, like, that's, like, you know, like, bad.

[42:46] I'm sure, given time, he'll develop into, like, a better person.

[42:50] But at this point in his life, he's just, like, kind of a stoned, like, goofball.

Stuart Wellington

[42:55] I don't have any issues with the difference between the two Barrys.

[42:59] It's just OG Barry, I think, makes such a character shift at this point to fit the needs

[43:04] of the story, which doesn't work for me.

[43:06] I think that's true.

[43:06] Yeah, I can see that.

[43:07] Okay.

[43:08] It felt a little lazy.

Dan McCoy

[43:09] I'll be the dissenting voice, because I think that when you're presented with this alternate

[43:13] irresponsible version of yourself, like, you kind of, like, change to –

[43:17] Oh, you step up your game.

[43:18] Yeah, you shift.

Elliott Kalan

[43:19] Hopefully I'm never in that situation, is all I'm saying.

[43:21] Hopefully I never have to do that.

[43:24] Let's see.

Elliott Kalan

[43:24] Let's see for the speed force, guys.

[43:25] I think the thing for me is that he doesn't become a responsible authority.

[43:29] Yeah.

[43:29] He just starts acting like one.

[43:31] So maybe that's what it is, because, again, the Flash makes dumb decision after dumb decision

[43:35] for stupid reasons.

[43:37] Yeah.

[43:38] But the one thing I did like about this, which comes up a couple times, is that there's

[43:42] tension between the two Barrys over the way they feel about their mom.

[43:47] To OG Barry, their mom is a murdered saint, and they can only remember the good things.

[43:52] And to young Barry, their mom is their mom who is on his case and is annoying.

[43:57] And he doesn't – he's not grateful enough for, and he doesn't respect enough, and he

[44:02] doesn't appreciate enough.

[44:04] And I thought that that felt very – I wish they had done more with that, because that

[44:07] thread feels very real to me, that resentment over, don't you see how special this person

[44:12] you have is?

[44:12] And young Barry being, I can't see how special she is, because I don't have anything to

[44:17] compare it to.

[44:18] She's always part of my life, and I remember the annoying things as well as the great things.

[44:21] But anyway, that's a – they do that a little bit, but I wish they did it a little

[44:24] more.

[44:25] Anyway, the – so Past Barry is going to go on a date with Iris that night, but OG Barry

[44:31] is like, no, this is the night we get our powers.

[44:33] We've got to sneak into the police lab and reenact our origin so that you can get powers.

[44:38] Dumb.

[44:38] Stupid decision.

[44:39] It doesn't make sense.

[44:40] They go in.

[44:41] They both get hit by lightning.

[44:42] Because of science, Past Barry gets powers, and OG Barry loses his powers.

Stuart Wellington

[44:47] So wait, so wait, wait, wait.

[44:48] Leading to wait.

[44:48] This movie has time travel, and our hero loses his powers.

[44:53] Okay, this is all – taking off all the fucking superhero boxes.

Elliott Kalan

[44:56] Yeah, they are running through all the Spider-Man movies at this point.

[44:58] They're all mashed up into one.

Dan McCoy

[45:00] You know, in middle school science, they teach you one lightning strike, powers.

[45:04] Two lightning strikes, no powers.

[45:06] No powers.

[45:07] Coconut rules.

Elliott Kalan

[45:07] Coconut rules, exactly.

[45:08] It's super coconut rules.

Stuart Wellington

[45:10] However, this movie does not feature a point where Barry is so happy that he doesn't

[45:14] have powers anymore.

[45:15] He walks past an alley where a guy is getting mugged and is screaming for help, and he's

[45:20] just like, not my problem.

[45:21] Yeah, they don't have that.

[45:22] Which is still possibly one of the best moments in a superhero movie for me.

Elliott Kalan

[45:29] It is a realistic moment.

Stuart Wellington

[45:31] Spider-Man 2, what a picture.

Elliott Kalan

[45:33] That's what I'm saying.

[45:33] What a great movie.

[45:34] Spider-Man – I mean, any universe where Spider-Man 2 exists, a movie like The Flash

[45:38] is going to suffer.

[45:39] Because Spider-Man 2 is so good, and I remember it while I'm watching this.

[45:42] Anytime I watch a bad movie, I remember the good movies I've seen, and I go, oh, that

[45:45] was good.

Stuart Wellington

[45:46] Why can't this be like that?

[45:47] Remember when Doc Ock's arms come alive and it's like an Evil Dead movie?

[45:51] Wasn't that awesome?

[45:52] Yeah, that was great.

[45:53] That's great.

Elliott Kalan

[45:53] You got the quad screen of their different points of view.

[45:56] Yeah.

[45:57] Wonderful.

Dan McCoy

[45:58] Turning into the Chris Farley show.

Elliott Kalan

[46:01] Well, only if Sam Raimi was here, I guess.

[46:04] That would be nuts if Sam Raimi was here.

[46:07] I would have so much to talk to him about.

[46:08] Guys, I've got some exciting news for you.

[46:10] Sitting here.

[46:11] My special guest, come on in.

[46:14] Oh, hello, it's me, Sam Raimi.

[46:15] I don't really know what I sound like.

[46:17] That's not a Michigan accent.

[46:20] I remember those days when it was just me and Bruce Campbell hanging out in a gross cabin

[46:25] making Evil Dead movies together.

[46:26] Okay, that checks out.

[46:27] Yep.

[46:27] I hope you enjoy my new film, Oz the Great and Powerful.

[46:31] Oh, no, we took him from the wrong point in time.

[46:33] Oh, no, we took him from right when Oz the Great and Powerful was coming out.

[46:36] Anyway, Sam Raimi, everybody.

[46:38] So, oh, he's leaving now.

[46:39] He's going back in time.

[46:40] Bye, Sam.

[46:42] So, past Barry, of course, he loves having these powers.

[46:45] He causes chaos, runs around, ends up naked in the street as fireworks are going off and

[46:49] musical instruments that fell off a truck are playing themselves.

Dan McCoy

[46:52] I also kind of liked this, like, just how much goes wrong from him irresponsibly using his powers.

[47:01] Like, it's a ridiculous just thing after thing after thing.

[47:04] And just imagining, like, the movie sort of just took the time and the effort to do this big set piece of just showing him being a doofus.

[47:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[47:15] I feel like, again, if this movie was a parody of superhero movies, I think I'd be all in.

[47:19] Yes, yeah.

[47:19] But the tone of the movie is so back and forth that it's hard for me to sit with it.

Stuart Wellington

[47:25] And in a way, it behaves like a parody in that it barely introduces any of the characters.

[47:30] It assumes you know them from – that they're such pop culture icons, just like how a parody movie would do the same thing.

Elliott Kalan

[47:38] Yeah, that's true.

[47:38] That's a very good point.

[47:39] Like, the characters are pre-existing reference points.

[47:42] The movie doesn't really – I mean, who's the character that gets the most, like, new introduction?

[47:48] It's probably Barry's mom, you know?

[47:50] Yeah.

[47:50] Is the only one who's kind of treated as a new character.

[47:52] Even Iris is just kind of like – she gets the one and goes, it's me, Iris.

[47:55] Anyway, da-da-da.

[47:57] So the next day, OG Barry is like, past – young Barry, here's my costume ring.

[48:02] They do a couple jokes about how it's really snug around his dick, which I don't love.

[48:07] This is a movie about the Flash.

[48:08] They use the word shit so many times in it.

[48:11] And they – I feel like this is –

[48:12] They say dick a few times.

[48:13] They say dick a few – and I was like, this is a movie.

[48:15] It's a PG-13 movie.

[48:16] I guess that's the superhero audience.

[48:18] But, like, I know people are taking their kids to see DC movies.

[48:21] And I do not like the idea that the movie is just like, yeah, but we're for adults.

[48:24] So we'll just say shit a lot.

[48:26] When it just – it feels – I don't need my superhero movies to say – just have swear words in them, basically.

Stuart Wellington

[48:31] At this point, Barry is a teenager, right?

[48:33] And so the idea of him being uncomfortable wearing a very tight outfit is – that in itself is funny.

[48:40] You don't have to bring dicks into it.

[48:42] Yes, yeah, exactly.

[48:42] Just the fact that he's like – you know, it doesn't leave much – you know, it's like skin tight, yada, yada, yada.

[48:47] Yeah, yeah.

[48:47] All your imperfections, yada, yada, yada.

[48:49] Yeah, he's awkward.

Elliott Kalan

[48:49] He doesn't want to be seen that.

[48:50] But also, it's like this – the same actor playing both parts.

[48:55] So it's like – so am I supposed to believe that the Flash is always walking around with his dick cramped by this suit?

[48:59] And is that what powers his speed force is the pain that comes from his crotch?

[49:03] Like, it's a weird thing to bring in.

[49:05] Or he's just gotten used to it?

[49:06] Because he made that suit, right?

[49:08] So why didn't he just make it to his own size, you know?

[49:11] Yeah.

[49:12] Did his penis get smaller when he got his powers?

Stuart Wellington

[49:14] I guess he is super smart, right?

Dan McCoy

[49:16] Yeah, like most superheroes, he's also just science genius.

Elliott Kalan

[49:21] Yeah.

[49:22] And so he's a – I mean, he's a forensic scientist.

[49:24] And crime forensics is the same as engineering, you know?

Dan McCoy

[49:28] Yeah.

[49:28] It's the same as what – being a seam – what?

[49:32] Like, I can't even think of the word I'm looking for.

[49:35] A haberdash?

[49:36] That's a hat.

Stuart Wellington

[49:36] Nope, that's hats.

Dan McCoy

[49:37] What am I looking for?

[49:38] Anyway.

[49:39] A tailor?

[49:40] A tailor.

[49:40] A military.

[49:41] I don't know.

[49:41] I'm looking for a fancier word.

[49:44] We can move on.

Elliott Kalan

[49:45] A barrel right, yeah.

[49:46] A cooper?

[49:46] A milliner?

[49:47] A Fletcher?

[49:48] A Jessica Fletcher?

[49:51] But I do –

[49:53] He kind of is a Jessica Fletcher.

[49:55] Textiles.

[49:55] That's what I was looking for.

[49:56] A textile?

[49:57] An expert in textiles.

[49:58] Oh, I see.

[49:59] Well, maybe he went to FIT.

Stuart Wellington

[50:00] He solves and or causes crimes like Jessica Fletcher.

Elliott Kalan

[50:02] Yeah.

[50:03] Maybe he went to FIT, the Flash Institute of Textiles.

[50:05] Point accent.

[50:09] So, we learn that the main – the first main clue that this is an alternate universe and not just the past is that past – young Barry is insistent that Eric Stoltz starred in Back to the Future.

[50:22] And eventually, this will lead to a conversation between Barry and his younger self's roommates, who are his coworkers in his own timeline.

[50:30] But now they're kind of – they're burnout roommates, over which actors were in which movies from the 80s.

[50:36] And –

Stuart Wellington

[50:36] But that's a neat little Easter egg for the real movie nerds out there, right?

Elliott Kalan

[50:40] Because Eric Stoltz did film a bunch of scenes from Back to the Future.

Stuart Wellington

[50:43] Yeah, and then was replaced.

Elliott Kalan

[50:44] Guys, tell me if I'm being too much of a highbrow, stick-up-my-butt jerk.

[50:50] I'm going to say probably.

[50:51] Probably.

[50:52] You can finish your story.

[50:53] I mean, part of it was also – I was like, Avengers Endgame, they also talk about Back to the Future.

[50:57] So, like, this is yet another instance where a movie is just like – where the Flash is just going over old material, basically, old territory.

[51:03] They don't talk about Eric Stoltz, but they talk about, like, the Back to the Future rules of time travel and stuff.

[51:07] Sure.

[51:07] What's your objection?

[51:08] My main thing is, is it a show of how kind of – not ignorant exactly – how little the modern cultural frame of reference has room for that the way that they can show that this is a different world is just kind of who starred in Footloose and who starred in Back to the Future as opposed to something else in all of human history or culture or whatever.

[51:29] I feel like if this movie was made in the 80s, you would have seen that, like, Dewey would have defeated Truman for real in the 48 election or something like that.

[51:37] Like, a famous historical moment would have been different as opposed to who starred in Back to the Future.

Dan McCoy

[51:41] I would argue that what is going on here –

[51:44] Hindenburg doesn't explode.

Elliott Kalan

[51:46] Exactly.

[51:47] Yeah, or like a newspaper headline that says, like, man fails to land on moon, you know?

Dan McCoy

[51:51] I mean, this makes perfect sense to me in the sense that, like, I think that the footprint of Back to the Future is so big, like, you know, I think it is still kind of the iconic time travel story

[52:07] for most people, more so even than, like, HG Wells' time machine or anything that has gone after Back to the Future.

[52:14] And so – and that is, like, everyone's idea of the way time travel would work.

[52:22] And so they're just making references to Back to the Future.

[52:24] And then they're like, oh, what cute thing can we do off of that?

[52:28] You know, like, I think you have to address the Back to the Future thing if you're like, how does time travel work here?

[52:34] Like, that's a shorthand.

Elliott Kalan

[52:35] But that's not the scene where they're talking about how time travel works is the thing.

[52:37] They're just talking about, I guess, maybe a little bit.

[52:39] I think that's why it gets brought up.

[52:41] Oh, that is why it gets brought up.

[52:42] I feel like – I feel like I don't know that Back to the Future is such a huge cultural reference point for people younger than us that it needs to be addressed in a time travel movie.

[52:51] The same way that most of the movies, like, that copy Groundhog Day, they don't say, oh, yeah, I'm in a Groundhog Day situation.

[52:58] You know, they just ignore it.

Dan McCoy

[52:59] No, I don't think it's necessary.

[53:01] I just think that they're addressing it for that reason.

[53:04] And then they're like, we'll kill two birds with one stone here.

[53:07] We'll do a little cute, like, hey.

[53:08] And do a joke out of it.

[53:09] Remember –

[53:10] I could see that.

Elliott Kalan

[53:11] I just – I worry that it's a symptom of the lack of larger frame of reference for either the people making the movie or what they think the audience understands.

[53:19] That, like, if you're making a movie, the only thing you can make a reference to is another movie as opposed to something from real life.

[53:25] It's the thing that people used to say, ironically, about, like, the 60s, 70s, new Hollywood generation is they'd be like, these people don't know life.

[53:32] They just know movies.

[53:33] They're just making movies that play off of earlier movies.

[53:35] And I feel like that wasn't quite the case there, but I kind of feel like it might be.

Stuart Wellington

[53:39] Are you talking about, like, dumbing down or, like, monoculture?

Elliott Kalan

[53:43] A little bit of both, to be honest.

Dan McCoy

[53:44] I both can see your point, and I think the stick is at least halfway up your butt.

Elliott Kalan

[53:50] Let's get up there farther.

[53:51] Okay, let's talk about this movie somewhere.

[53:52] So here's the problem.

[53:54] General Zod appears on TV looking for Superman.

[53:57] Why's that a problem?

Stuart Wellington

[53:58] That's a paycheck for old Mikey Shannon.

Dan McCoy

[54:02] It's true.

[54:02] Good point.

[54:03] G-subway platform buddy, Michael Shannon.

[54:06] Yeah, that's why you're going to wait for a different G.

[54:08] Go, go.

Elliott Kalan

[54:09] Until I someday learn about Michael Shannon's bad behavior, which every actor in the world seems to have.

[54:14] I'm never unhappy with Michael Shannon showing up.

[54:16] The problem is that there's no Superman in this world.

[54:19] No one's ever heard of him.

[54:20] He doesn't exist.

[54:21] And O.G. Barry is like, look, I remember Zod Day.

[54:26] I tried to save some people.

[54:27] I only saved this one kid.

[54:29] So I managed to save a kid while his dad died right in front of him.

[54:32] We've got to get the Justice League together so we can save everybody.

[54:35] And that's when they go to past Barry's roommates and they talk about which actors starred in Footloose and stuff like that.

[54:41] So they're really showing a lot of pressure, a lot of urgency in getting the Justice League together.

Stuart Wellington

[54:50] And they're trying to research, trying to find all the other superheroes.

[54:53] And there is a moment where you're like, he's created a world with no superheroes.

[54:58] That would be kind of neat, right?

[55:00] No more superhero movies.

Elliott Kalan

[55:04] Yeah, that would be kind of neat.

Dan McCoy

[55:06] But at this point in the movie, too, you are confused.

[55:09] Like, wait, how did doing that affect so much stuff?

[55:13] Don't worry.

Elliott Kalan

[55:14] Don't worry.

[55:15] There's going to be a pasta-based half-explanation.

[55:17] Yeah.

[55:18] So they go to – but it wasn't that there were no – he finds that, like, the thing that turned Cyborg into Cyborg, that accident didn't happen.

[55:25] And stuff like Wonder Woman's never shown up.

[55:27] And where do they go first?

[55:28] They've got to go to Wayne Manor, the spooky, overgrown Wayne Manor.

[55:32] I guess young Barry ran there while carrying old Barry because they live in different cities.

[55:37] But I don't know how they got there.

[55:38] It doesn't matter.

Stuart Wellington

[55:39] And speaking of paychecks, Tamura Morrison shows up, and we find out that he never got to hook up with Nicole Kidman.

[55:44] What a bummer.

[55:45] Right?

[55:45] Oh, that's right.

[55:46] That's right.

[55:46] That's no Aquaman.

Elliott Kalan

[55:47] They call Aquaman's parents only to find that in this universe, Aquaman's dad did not marry – what's her name?

[55:54] Murr Nicole?

[55:55] What's her character's name?

[55:57] Queen Fishy.

[56:01] Queen Fishy.

[56:04] They go to Wayne Manor.

[56:05] We learn that the song 25 or 6 to 4 by Chicago does exist in this universe because it's playing loudly on a record player.

[56:11] I love that song.

[56:12] That's fine.

[56:13] I'm okay with the universe where that exists.

[56:15] But we do learn a little bit later on that in this universe, the chain restaurant is called Banana Bees, which I thought was a pretty funny, stupid throwaway joke.

[56:22] That's pretty funny.

[56:24] Yeah.

[56:25] So they get attacked.

[56:26] They walk around Wayne Manor.

[56:27] They get attacked by a shaggy shut-in.

[56:29] It's Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne who explains that he was Batman.

Stuart Wellington

[56:33] Doing all his trademark moves and flips, right?

[56:35] Just like he did in the Batman movies.

Elliott Kalan

[56:37] Yeah.

[56:37] He explains that he was Batman, but he retired because crime stopped.

[56:41] So I guess in this universe it worked like he did it.

[56:45] Yeah.

[56:45] But then he's making spaghetti and he explains using the spaghetti strands that when you change the past, you change the past behind that past as well.

[56:54] It's not that you create a branching universe from that moment.

[56:57] It's that you create a whole new timeline that is different all the way up and down.

Dan McCoy

[57:01] Well, and this is interesting because it kind of head-on approaches the idea of like, look, time is an illusion.

[57:09] We experience time.

[57:10] Lunchtime doubly so, to quote Douglas Adams.

[57:12] Thank you.

[57:14] We approach time linearly, but like it's – that's our perception.

[57:19] And so when you change it, like there's a nexus point and it like shoots in both ways.

[57:25] And then if you do it too much, everything gets all jumbled up.

[57:28] Like for a comic book movie, I'll buy this.

[57:31] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[57:31] I mean it's comic book science.

[57:33] There's nothing in reality that would ever point to this happening.

[57:35] I feel like they didn't spend too much time explaining it, which is great because I've seen so many of these goddamn movies now that I don't need someone else to explain to me

[57:42] how multiverses work.

[57:44] That was – that's – great.

[57:46] They did it.

[57:46] It was funny that he plops a bunch of spaghetti down on a plate.

[57:49] You know, that's funny stuff.

[57:50] Batman's like, I'm not going to help you.

[57:51] I'm retired as Batman.

[57:52] I just listen to Chicago all day and make pasta for myself.

[57:55] The Barrys, they sneak into the Batcave really easily so that OG Barry can use the computer that Batman has in his Batcave.

[58:02] I guess he doesn't expect anyone to sneak in there.

[58:04] There's no password protection or anything like that.

Dan McCoy

[58:05] Well, I mean it's implied later on that like he knows that this is happening.

[58:09] He's not going to actively help.

[58:10] Yeah, Batman's just kind of letting it happen.

[58:11] But he's just like, whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[58:12] They try to use the computer to find Clark Kent.

[58:15] The Clark Kent they're looking for is not around.

[58:17] Meanwhile, young Barry just kind of dicks around.

[58:19] We get so many shots of the Batcave, so many shots of Batman stuff with just this sense of like suffused with awe, this overwhelming awe.

[58:27] Can you believe it that we're in the 1989 Batman Batcave?

[58:31] Do you guys think that audiences gave a shit about this?

Dan McCoy

[58:36] Because certainly younger people I don't think do.

[58:39] I don't think younger people know.

[58:40] But there was like – there was a lot of internet excitement among aging nerds about this.

[58:47] It's not possible.

[58:48] I do feel like Spider-Man –

[58:49] About seeing Michael Keaton as Batman.

[58:50] Well, about seeing Michael Keaton as Batman.

[58:51] I don't know about whether they care about the Batcave.

Stuart Wellington

[58:54] The Batcave didn't feel the same, but that's because it isn't shot by Tim Burton and mainly a badass fucking painting.

[59:00] It's got a bunch of cobwebs in it.

[59:02] It's got a fucking painting.

Elliott Kalan

[59:03] Yeah.

[59:03] There weren't cobwebs in the old days.

[59:05] Or dust.

[59:06] It's true.

[59:08] I feel like we said before, Spider-Man No Way Home really ate this movie's lunch to a great degree.

[59:13] Yeah.

[59:14] Because once you've seen three Spider-Men, it's hard to get that excited over one old Batman.

[59:20] But how are you going to keep – how do you get to keep on the –

Dan McCoy

[59:23] We may get another Batman.

Elliott Kalan

[59:26] How are you going to keep them on the Batman farm when they've seen the lights of gay three Spider-Men?

[59:30] Yeah, it's gay Perry I'm talking about.

[59:32] So they have an argument because –

[59:34] Gay Spidey, I think, is the joke you were.

[59:35] Gay Spidey.

[59:36] That's – yeah.

[59:38] They have an argument because Young Barry doesn't respect their mom enough, but OG Barry, he still won't explain why he came back to Young Barry.

[59:44] They find out that Superman seems to be the prisoner of a Siberian fortress.

[59:49] I don't know how they – what system they hacked into to find out that a Kryptonian is being held by a secret Russian military facility.

[59:55] It's probably TikTok or something.

[59:57] See guys who work there posting videos.

[59:59] They picked up hashtag Kryptonian and there was somebody who was like, I'm a Russian soldier.

[1:00:04] I am guarding this guy.

[1:00:05] Can you believe this?

[1:00:06] Okay, lip sync.

[1:00:07] And then they lip sync to something.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:08] I also want to take a moment and be like, this stuff about him not telling Young Barry what happened in his timeline seems super dumb to me, super contrived.

[1:00:21] Because like, look, maybe it's a failure of empathy on my part.

[1:00:26] But like, I don't think like young Barry who has his mom is going to be so traumatized by the idea that this Barry lost his mom.

[1:00:35] He'll feel sad for this Barry.

[1:00:37] Like, but he's not going to like –

[1:00:38] Or not.

[1:00:38] He's a teenager.

[1:00:40] Yeah.

[1:00:40] Or not.

[1:00:40] Why is he keeping it away?

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:41] I think he's having trouble saying it because it's difficult for him.

[1:00:45] But I agree also that it feels dumb because he has already gone back in time given this Barry superpowers that otherwise he would not have gotten.

[1:00:52] What is he worried about wrecking by giving this information?

[1:00:56] That young Barry will be like, oh, so to fix everything I have to kill mom and then go home and snap her neck with his superpowers?

[1:01:01] Like, that's not going to happen.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:02] It's not like in Back to the Future where it's like, I can't tell Doc Brown that he's going to die in the future.

[1:01:07] Like, this is a thing that happened in the past and didn't happen.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:10] I can't tell my mom that I'm really her son or else she won't sleep with me.

[1:01:13] It's not that kind of paradox.

[1:01:14] Exactly.

[1:01:15] How am I going to achieve every man's dream of sleeping with my mom if I tell her I'm her son from the future?

[1:01:20] Anyway, don't trust me.

[1:01:23] Trust surveys of porn search terms.

[1:01:27] So anyway, Batman shows up.

[1:01:30] He shaved his beard.

[1:01:31] He's suited up.

[1:01:32] He goes, okay, I'll help you with this.

[1:01:33] They fly over to Russia in the Batwing.

[1:01:35] They sneak into this fortress.

[1:01:37] Young Barry makes a ton of noise.

[1:01:39] Fight, fight, fight.

[1:01:40] They're fighting.

[1:01:40] They find in this vault, it's not Superman.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:43] How do you feel about the fights?

[1:01:45] You like the fights?

[1:01:46] To be honest, I kind of glazed over during them.

[1:01:49] Not a lot of choreography on these things, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:52] There's a little – well, here's the thing.

[1:01:53] I was watching Batman fighting and I was like, I wish he fought differently than the Ben Affleck Batman.

[1:01:58] I wish that he moved in his own kind of like 80s Batman way.

[1:02:02] But he does the same kind of like flips and kung fu moves that any superhero does now.

[1:02:06] But I wish he was fighting the way that he did in the 80s Batman movies, which were much less suave.

[1:02:11] Stiffly.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:11] Yeah, Stiffly.

[1:02:12] Because the suit didn't move.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:14] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:15] But that still would have been cool.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:17] Yeah.

[1:02:17] It still would have been cool.

[1:02:18] It would have been a visual difference to be like, oh, this is a different Batman.

[1:02:20] And instead, the fights are kind of generic.

[1:02:22] And as we said earlier, they don't just look video gamey because it's computer graphics.

[1:02:26] It looks video gamey because it's shot like it looks like a video game.

[1:02:29] Like the angles look like video game angles.

[1:02:31] And you never kind of feel like you are in the fight.

[1:02:33] You always look like you're kind of standing slightly apart from it, watching it so that you have enough room to move your character around to fight the other characters.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:42] Over the weekend, I went and saw the Marvels, which, you know, I guess I feel like I'm a little – I grade those Marvel movies kind of on a curve.

[1:02:50] And I generally am pretty easy on them.

[1:02:52] But I feel like the fight sequences in that movie were better and felt real even with like superpower elements of the characters switching like physical spaces.

[1:03:05] Like it still felt choreographed.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:07] It still felt actual.

[1:03:08] Yeah.

[1:03:09] I mean like that specific one, I enjoyed it.

[1:03:12] But like I found it very hard to sort of – like I gave up on it because I'm like there's no percentage in me worrying about this.

[1:03:20] But like hard to understand when characters were going to switch places based on their powers and when they weren't.

[1:03:26] And Dan was like there's three women on the screen?

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:29] No thanks.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:29] Again, that was not – we're trying to paint this reactionary.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:32] Dan goes, well, hopefully I won't get that in the next movie in this surprise movie marathon.

[1:03:38] What are we seeing?

[1:03:38] Three women by Robert Altman.

[1:03:40] Oh, no.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:41] On my letterbox, anyone can see that I gave them a good review.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:44] Well, at least after three women I won't have to deal with another movie like that.

[1:03:46] Nine to five.

[1:03:47] Oh, no.

[1:03:50] Yeah.

[1:03:51] That's me.

[1:03:52] Yep.

[1:03:52] Charlie's Angels.

[1:03:53] Okay.

[1:03:54] At least they're not going full throttle.

[1:03:56] Okay, what's the next movie they're in?

[1:03:57] Uh-oh.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:00] That was fine as long as they're half throttle.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:02] As long as it's half throttle.

[1:04:03] Look, Charlie – sir, Mr. President, we have an issue.

[1:04:08] Charlie's Angels are dangerously close to going full throttle.

[1:04:10] The atomic scientists have changed the throttle clock to show it.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:15] Oh, this is –

[1:04:15] And then they might enter the speed force, which is, as you know, only the flash's domain.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:19] And if that happens, all of America must stand up and cheer.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:24] Our infrastructure can't take that much standing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:27] I always feared this moment would come.

[1:04:29] My predecessor warned me that I might have to deal with this situation.

[1:04:32] But I always prayed that it wouldn't happen.

[1:04:35] Apparently my prayers weren't enough.

[1:04:38] Take out Charlie's Angels.

[1:04:39] They drop a nuclear bomb on whatever city the Charlie's Angels are in.

[1:04:45] And that, of course, leads us to – that leads us to the next movie, Sheen Charlie's Angels, where they come back and they're more powerful.

[1:04:51] So they find not Superman but a young woman who's nearly comatose and a Superman-type costume, and they take that with them.

[1:05:01] They escape.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:01] Yeah, she's all, like, shrunken up like old raisin, right?

[1:05:04] Yeah, well, she's being – they have her in this –

Dan McCoy

[1:05:06] I mean, she doesn't look like when E.T. is sick or anything.

[1:05:08] No, no.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:09] But they have her in a chamber where she's being bombarded constantly with red light, which, as we know, it's the Earth's yellow sun that gives Superman his powers.

[1:05:17] The light from Krypton's red sun would depower them.

[1:05:20] I don't know that that much of it would make her that weak, but I assume they haven't been feeding her also.

[1:05:25] So they've really been treating her poorly.

[1:05:27] They've escaped flat.

[1:05:28] Young Barry gets shot in the leg, a wound that seems to heal pretty quickly.

[1:05:32] He heals pretty quick.

[1:05:33] As they get outside, they're surrounded by Russian soldiers.

[1:05:36] That's when the woman wakes up and super fights her way through.

[1:05:39] This is one of the two most video gamey fights.

[1:05:42] They escape.

[1:05:43] They go back to Wayne Manor.

[1:05:44] She reveals that she is Kara, Kal-El's cousin, who is supposed to be his protector.

[1:05:49] But Kal-El never made it to Earth.

[1:05:51] And when she landed on Earth, she was captured by the Ruskies.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:54] Now, I want to say something.

[1:05:56] I was kind of annoyed at this movie's...

[1:06:00] Spoiler alert.

[1:06:04] Supergirl in the big Zod fight.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:08] I like how it's a spoiler alert for something we're going to talk about 10 minutes from now.

[1:06:11] Yeah, it's fine.

[1:06:11] No, I know.

[1:06:12] I just like...

[1:06:12] I know.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:13] I'm acknowledging that I'm jumping ahead.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:15] You're spoiling my pleasure at revealing the story.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:18] She will get killed by Zod over and over, and this will be something that can't be undone.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:24] Yes.

[1:06:24] And I like when I'm playing a Tomb Raider game, and I keep accidentally getting Lara Croft killed,

[1:06:29] and I have to watch her get killed and make horrible sounds for like 20 minutes in a row.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:33] They don't give her a lot to work with, but I found this incarnation of Kara, like charismatic, charming.

[1:06:41] I liked the vibe she was bringing to the role.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:44] I don't know if I found her charismatic and charming, but I liked this kind of tough, no-nonsense Kara.

[1:06:50] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:50] I mean, charming.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:51] I don't want to spend time with her, but I liked her as a different flavor or color to this personality.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:57] That's more accurate.

[1:06:58] I took to like this...

[1:06:58] She wasn't quipping the whole time or nothing.

[1:07:00] Yes.

[1:07:01] I thought she was likable and cool, and I was like, I was annoyed that the movie was like,

[1:07:06] well, we're going to immediately kill her off for plot reasons.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:10] But let me remind you, she is a woman, and they already have Wonder Woman.

[1:07:15] Oh, that's true.

[1:07:15] That's true.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:16] There can be only one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:17] There can only be one.

[1:07:18] That's what society tells women, is that they can only be one of them at a time.

[1:07:21] That's why Highlander was originally called Highlander-ess.

[1:07:25] Oh, that makes sense.

[1:07:26] Yeah.

[1:07:27] But the makeup to get Christopher Lambert to look like a woman, realistically, was just too time-consuming, too expensive.

[1:07:33] And so they decided to make the character real.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:34] Well, there's other female heroes in the DC universe.

[1:07:37] Yeah, there's...

[1:07:37] There's Zatanna, right?

[1:07:40] There's Zatanna.

[1:07:40] There's Power Girl.

[1:07:41] There's Zatanna.

[1:07:42] I know Power Girl.

[1:07:43] There's Hawk Girl.

[1:07:44] Yeah, you know Power Girl?

[1:07:45] I know Power Girl.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:46] Noted bust lover.

[1:07:47] Stuart Wellington, of course, knows Power Girl.

[1:07:49] The superhero character who, for years, has had a boob window on her costume.

[1:07:53] Was it?

[1:07:54] For a long time...

[1:07:54] They've dialed it back, but for a long time, her main thing was, she's as strong as Superman,

[1:07:59] and she has big boobs.

[1:08:00] And those were her two defining characteristics as a superhero.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:02] Now, is this apocryphal, or is it true that, like, Wally Wood said that he just kept

[1:08:07] making her boobs bigger to see if anyone would notice?

[1:08:09] I've heard that story.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:10] I don't know if it's necessarily true or not.

[1:08:12] That he was just testing to see how far...

[1:08:13] Because in my mind, it wasn't really until much later that the character became known

[1:08:17] for having a very...

[1:08:19] Particularly large chest.

[1:08:20] Even among the large-chested superheroines of comics.

[1:08:23] When Roger Ebert started writing it, right?

[1:08:25] Yeah.

[1:08:25] Yeah, when Russ Meyer did Beyond the Valley of Power Girl,

[1:08:28] when Roger Ebert was the screenwriter, yeah.

[1:08:31] But yeah, there's lots of other female DC characters.

[1:08:34] You go after...

[1:08:35] You know?

[1:08:35] Yeah.

[1:08:35] There's Terra.

[1:08:36] I mean, she turns out to be a spy.

[1:08:38] Spoiler alert for a 40-year-old comic book.

[1:08:40] But, you know, there's lots of them.

[1:08:42] But anyway, there's Huntress.

[1:08:44] There's Batgirl.

[1:08:45] Okay.

[1:08:45] There's Batwoman.

[1:08:47] Of course...

[1:08:47] Canary?

[1:08:48] Is Canary a thing?

[1:08:49] There's Black Canary.

[1:08:50] Yeah, sure.

[1:08:51] There's the whole Birds of Prey group, you know?

[1:08:53] Oh, yeah!

[1:08:55] So, of course, there's Batwoman.

[1:08:58] At this point, her main superpower is being a tax write-off for Warner Brothers.

[1:09:03] Sure.

[1:09:03] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1:09:04] Yeah, that's her main ability.

[1:09:05] So, she is...

[1:09:07] Kara is like...

[1:09:09] They're like, help us save the Earth.

[1:09:10] And she's like, I don't care about the Earth.

[1:09:13] Like, I'm from Krypton.

[1:09:13] I don't care about this.

[1:09:14] She powers up...

[1:09:15] Plus, I got locked up for years.

[1:09:17] Plus, I showed up and humans locked me up and made me a prisoner and treated me badly.

[1:09:21] Why should I help you?

[1:09:23] See ya!

[1:09:23] And she's powered up by the sun.

[1:09:25] She flies away.

[1:09:25] Uh-oh.

[1:09:26] Then she sees General Zod just casually killing people.

[1:09:29] And she comes back and is like...

[1:09:32] And she's horrified by what she sees.

[1:09:33] Meanwhile, while she's being horrified by that, OG Barry is like, I need my powers.

[1:09:38] We're gonna have to recreate the explosion.

[1:09:40] Pour chemicals on me and then hit me with lightning over and over again.

[1:09:43] And Batman is like, I think it's crazy, but I'll do it.

[1:09:46] I like to hurt people.

[1:09:48] That's my secret.

[1:09:49] I like to give people pain.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:51] I haven't been a Dr. Frankenstein yet.

[1:09:53] Time to do it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:54] Yeah.

[1:09:55] I wonder if there's gotta be some Elseworlds comic where Batman is also Dr. Frankenstein, right?

[1:09:59] Or like where Frankenstein makes a bat monster or something that fights crime.

[1:10:04] There's gotta be.

[1:10:05] If there isn't, DC, hire me.

[1:10:08] You're slipping, boys.

[1:10:09] Hire me to write it.

[1:10:10] Come on, do it.

[1:10:11] So they keep hitting Barry with lightning over and over again.

[1:10:15] And it's not working until Kara returns and says, I'll help you.

[1:10:20] And I don't know how she knows what they're doing because they talked about it after she left.

[1:10:23] But she flies him into a lightning storm and he gets his...

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:26] She was probably just trying to get him roasted and then it turns out it worked.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:29] She's like, oh, you're trying to kill him with lightning?

[1:10:31] I'll help you.

[1:10:31] You're doing it really slowly.

[1:10:32] I'll help you with that.

[1:10:33] I'll help you do it faster.

[1:10:34] I'll take him right to the source.

[1:10:36] Barry has his powers back.

[1:10:37] He puts on his costume.

[1:10:38] Young Barry makes his own costume out of a Batman costume, which I thought was a funny touch.

[1:10:43] Yep.

[1:10:43] That he's retrofitting a Batman costume into a Flash costume.

[1:10:46] And it doesn't quite fit him quite right.

[1:10:48] All four heroes, they go to the site of the battle between Zod and the American military.

[1:10:53] They dive into it.

[1:10:54] Kara goes after Zod.

[1:10:55] And she gets especially mad when Zod is like, by the way, when we tried to extract Kal-El's baby DNA from his blood, it killed him.

[1:11:02] Oops.

[1:11:03] Oops.

[1:11:03] That's on my part in Oops that I killed a baby.

[1:11:06] And Kara gets with the master's fighting.

[1:11:07] Chuck that up in the whoopsie column.

[1:11:10] Yeah.

[1:11:10] They fight.

[1:11:11] Meanwhile, Old Flash is teaching young Flash how to use his powers to fight.

[1:11:15] Batman's just flying around the Batwing shooting things.

[1:11:17] Unfortunately, his plane gets hit.

[1:11:19] He kamikazes right into some big spaceship.

[1:11:21] Zod stabs Kara and harvests her DNA.

[1:11:24] All seems lost.

[1:11:25] The two most powerful heroes, Kara, who has Superman powers, and Batman, who is, as he said, a billionaire, they're gone.

[1:11:32] The world's greatest detective, dude.

[1:11:34] What kind of detective skills do you need to fly a plane around shooting people?

[1:11:38] Like, I don't understand.

[1:11:38] Oh, the clues tell me that the bad guys are over there.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:41] I feel like there could be a spinoff show where Maverick, instead of flying planes, is a detective.

[1:11:47] Is a detective.

[1:11:47] It's called Top Gun P.I.

[1:11:49] Plane detective.

[1:11:50] Yes.

[1:11:50] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:51] He only solves plane-related mysteries.

[1:11:54] He's like flying over the crime scene in his plane.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:58] He's like, I can't really see much from up here.

[1:12:00] From up here.

[1:12:00] Wasn't that the plot of Jack?

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:01] I see that there's a scrap of red fabric on the ground that looks like the same as the robe that the Baron was wearing.

[1:12:09] Once again, your eagle eyes definitely did it possible.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:11] From up here, it looks like the irrigation patterns are going downwards.

[1:12:17] Does that help?

[1:12:18] Yes.

[1:12:19] He's been stealing the water in order to enrich himself.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:21] Thanks, Maverick P.I.

[1:12:23] Yeah.

[1:12:25] I like the idea of Batman being like, it's going to take all of my mystery-solving skills to figure out which of these are aliens that I could shoot.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:32] Yeah.

[1:12:33] Kill with impunity.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:35] Because as we've established, this Batman kills people, shoots them, blows things up.

[1:12:38] Anyway, Young Barry is like, we've got to save them.

[1:12:41] He runs into the past to save Kara and Bats, but each time he tries to fix it, they still die.

[1:12:46] As Dan mentioned, Supergirl, or Superwoman, however she likes to be called, is doomed to an infinity of deaths to eternally be murdered by Zod.

[1:12:56] They both go into the time-speed arena, and OG Barry is like, Young Barry, you can't fix the past.

[1:13:02] I tried it.

[1:13:03] It doesn't work.

[1:13:03] And look at the damage we're doing to reality because things are deteriorating around them.

[1:13:08] And he goes, hey—

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:09] And Young Barry has managed to accidentally phase a chunk of Kryptonian metal into his arm, so he has a badass blade weapon that he starts murdering fools with.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:18] More specifically, I mean, you can change the past.

[1:13:21] Obviously, Barry did it, but there are certain fixed points that always happen, apparently.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:26] Much like in the second Spider-Verse movie, there are certain continuity points that always have to be—

[1:13:31] It's almost like I've seen all of this stuff before a Flash movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:38] Now, I do kind of like the idea that Young Barry, having not had to deal with the trauma of losing his parents at an early age,

[1:13:48] he isn't emotionally equipped to deal with a problem he can't solve like that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:52] I think that's at least kind of interesting.

[1:13:55] Or with death.

[1:13:56] He's never seen someone that he cares about die, and he's known Batman and Kara for almost half a day.

[1:14:01] Almost forever.

[1:14:02] Yeah, so it's much like in Star Wars when Luke is like, Obi-Wan, no!

[1:14:06] And it's like, I understand it's tough, but you've known him for a day.

[1:14:09] Like, you haven't known him that long, you know?

[1:14:10] Yeah, you saw your uncle and aunt—

[1:14:11] Oh, Obi-Wan was my teacher for a couple hours.

[1:14:13] Yeah, you saw his uncle and aunt.

[1:14:14] I mean, he's like super roasted, right?

[1:14:15] Like, it's fucked up.

[1:14:16] And his aunt, his uncle and aunt who raised him, he's like, oh, that's rough that you're burnt skeletons now.

[1:14:22] But this dude that he's known for an afternoon, he's like, no!

Dan McCoy

[1:14:25] I mean, he is the one, like, exciting guy he ever knew.

[1:14:29] That's actually true.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:30] He's like on a desert planet.

[1:14:32] That's a good point.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:33] Finally, something awesome's happening.

[1:14:34] No!

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:35] Yeah, there's probably a part of him who's like, fuck, I gotta go back to tattooing.

[1:14:39] Yeah.

[1:14:39] I mean, yeah, that's maybe that's what he's got.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:41] That's the place where they shoot all the shows.

[1:14:44] Power converters now, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:46] Yeah, I guess I just gotta get a job at Tosche Station working at whatever fast food restaurant they've got there.

[1:14:52] I guess I'll smell like Bantha meat every day because I'm working around it all the time.

[1:14:56] Then no wonder my only enjoyment is shooting Womp Rats.

[1:14:59] I've got nothing else in my life, you know?

[1:15:01] I just want to hurt other things the way I feel life has hurt me.

[1:15:03] My name's Luke Skywalker.

[1:15:05] Yeah.

[1:15:09] Sad.

[1:15:09] I mean, he's essentially Batman at that point.

[1:15:11] Batman's just like, I don't even hate crime that much.

[1:15:13] I just want to hurt other people the way I feel I've been hurt.

[1:15:16] And they're like, Bruce, a lot of other people have gone through things like this without having to punch a clown every couple weeks.

[1:15:25] I guess that's accurate.

[1:15:27] Yeah, yeah.

[1:15:29] Someone online pointed out that Batman has all the powers of a bat, like grappling hooks and being a detective.

[1:15:35] And I was like, yeah, but he also fights the noted natural enemies of bats.

[1:15:40] Clowns, riddles, penguins.

[1:15:43] All the things that bats hate.

[1:15:46] Double faces.

[1:15:47] Bats hate that stuff.

[1:15:49] Anyway, Batman, he shouldn't work, but he does.

[1:15:51] He's America's most favorite superhero.

[1:15:52] He shouldn't work.

[1:15:53] After Spider-Man, of course.

[1:15:55] Spider-Man is, at this point, is America's favorite superhero again, right?

[1:15:59] Yeah, I think so.

[1:16:00] I feel like Batman was it for a while.

[1:16:01] But okay.

[1:16:02] Anyway, young Barry, he's getting covered with Kryptonian debris.

[1:16:06] He looks like a 90s image character, how he's got blades sticking out of his arms.

[1:16:10] Oh, yeah.

[1:16:11] And Barry is like, OG Barry is like, you're doing all this damage.

[1:16:15] Sometimes there's no solution.

[1:16:16] Mom told me that when I couldn't do my math homework.

[1:16:19] And that's when a horribly debris-covered kind of elder flash shows up, and he's like, I'm the one who punched you, OG Barry.

[1:16:27] I punched you into this time in the first place so you could create the paradox that would give me my powers so that I could go back in time trying to fix things over and over again.

[1:16:35] Because I'm now obsessed with doing that.

[1:16:37] And it takes OG Barry a fairly long time to recognize that he's talking to himself slash older version of young Barry who's turned evil.

[1:16:46] I'm going to call him Evil Barry.

[1:16:47] Reality starts collapsing in.

[1:16:49] You can call him Scary Barry.

[1:16:50] Scary Barry.

[1:16:51] Okay.

[1:16:51] I feel like that's been taken, but sure.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:54] Brother of Mary Barry from the British Bake Off.

[1:16:58] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:59] Is that a person from him?

[1:17:01] Mary Barry.

[1:17:02] Yeah, one of the original judges.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:03] Oh, I thought you meant Mary Barry, former mayor of Washington, D.C.

[1:17:06] Mm-hmm.

[1:17:07] Sure.

[1:17:07] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:08] Or Harry Carey, who is a noted sports announcer.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:12] Now, there was Harry Carey, the sports announcer, and there was Harry Carey and Harry Carey Jr., the actors, who were members of John Ford's company of actors.

[1:17:19] So there's a lot of Harry Careys out there.

[1:17:20] Amazing Larry.

[1:17:21] Yeah.

[1:17:22] There's also the Amazing Larry, the character who appears in one scene in Baby's Big Adventure.

[1:17:25] It was supposed to be two scenes.

[1:17:28] And there's also the Amazing Randy, who, you know, the arch foe of Uri Geller, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:17:38] Is there, are they arch foes?

[1:17:40] I didn't know this.

[1:17:41] Who am I thinking of?

[1:17:41] You know, maybe I'm thinking of somebody else.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:43] Maybe you're thinking of the Amazing Race.

[1:17:45] Yeah, yeah.

[1:17:45] You know what I'm thinking of?

[1:17:46] The Amazing Race.

[1:17:47] Oh, yeah.

[1:17:48] The Amazing Randy was Uri Geller's arch foe.

[1:17:50] Okay.

[1:17:50] But yeah, the Amazing Race, the TV show.

[1:17:53] Then, of course, there's Race Bannon.

[1:17:55] Is that a real person's name?

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:57] Yes, Race for the Galaxy.

[1:17:59] We're so close to the end.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:01] And, of course, there's Wacky Races, which is when Iraqi Racers.

[1:18:04] Danny said, Wacky Races are Wacky Racers.

[1:18:07] Anyway.

[1:18:07] Closing in.

[1:18:08] The important thing to remember is reality starts to collapse in because of all the time travel they've been doing.

[1:18:13] We see kind of CGI post-death recreations of previous DC movies and TV shows.

[1:18:20] Christopher Reeve's Superman is there.

[1:18:22] The Supergirl from the Supergirl movie is there.

[1:18:24] Adam West's Batman we see for a moment.

[1:18:27] Nicolas Cage's Superman, a character that only exists in Legend because that movie never got made.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:31] Yeah, fighting the giant spider that Kevin Smith talked about how they wanted to be in that movie.

[1:18:37] That eventually ended up in Wild Wild West.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:39] And as Nicolas Cage has said since then, he did not shoot a scene where he shot a giant spider.

[1:18:43] He shot some other scene and then they used special effects to make him fight a giant spider.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:49] It is like super bad deep fake stuff for the Nic Cage Superman.

[1:18:53] It's all bad.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:54] It really doesn't look very good.

[1:18:56] Although, the one thing is it sells me on the idea of Nicolas Cage as Superman, which was something that I never quite –

[1:19:01] I never felt he had quite the look.

[1:19:02] But seeing him in this not great looking CGI –

[1:19:05] With that long ass hair flipping around.

[1:19:06] I feel like, yeah, I could see him as Superman.

[1:19:08] Yeah, for sure.

[1:19:08] Especially with the long hair, that era of Superman.

[1:19:11] But this is – again, this is the idea I think I would have found really cool if I hadn't seen so much of it before.

[1:19:18] It felt like it's just DC's turn to do this.

[1:19:20] And also, if we want –

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:21] Oh, I thought it would have been really cool if they're not like, I don't know, taking TED actors and bringing digital versions of them again.

[1:19:27] If we weren't also –

[1:19:28] They're permanently commodities, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:31] Yes, I think.

[1:19:31] If we weren't already existing in a world where the studios were saying, we have the right to use anyone who has ever worked for us as likeness forever for whatever we want, this would also seem more cool.

[1:19:42] If it was like –

Dan McCoy

[1:19:42] We have stolen your soul by taking a picture of you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:46] And I mean, it's – I assume that they – I don't know how the law is right now.

[1:19:49] I assume they would have to go to the estate of Christopher Reeve and say, can we use this because it's not like –

[1:19:54] Yeah.

[1:19:55] But I don't know.

[1:19:56] Maybe when he made Superman in the contract, so we own your likeness as Superman forever.

[1:19:59] I'm not sure.

[1:20:00] I don't know the law on it.

[1:20:01] Yeah.

[1:20:01] I'm not a legal eagle.

[1:20:02] You know?

[1:20:02] I'm not even an eagle.

[1:20:04] No.

[1:20:04] I'm a human.

[1:20:05] Mm-hmm.

[1:20:06] Yep.

[1:20:06] I can confirm.

[1:20:07] We're looking at them right now.

[1:20:08] Do you need to confirm.

[1:20:09] Back me up on this, guys.

[1:20:10] There's a rumor going around that I'm an eagle and not a human being.

[1:20:12] No beak.

[1:20:13] No talons.

[1:20:14] Not at all.

[1:20:14] Yeah.

[1:20:14] I wish I had beak and talons, though.

[1:20:16] That'd be super cool.

[1:20:17] Yeah.

[1:20:17] I don't have wings.

[1:20:18] I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:19] You wouldn't be able to hug your children with a beak and talons.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:22] I don't use my mouth or my feet to hug my children.

[1:20:25] I use my arms, which would be wings in this case, which you could totally hug someone with.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:28] Feed them by regurgitating into their mouths, though?

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:31] Oh, I do that already.

[1:20:32] Yeah.

[1:20:32] Okay.

[1:20:32] Anyway, so we see all that stuff.

[1:20:34] Evil Barry tries to kill OG Barry, but Young Barry takes the hit, and Evil Barry disintegrates,

[1:20:38] and Young Barry dies.

[1:20:40] So now, Flash has not just seen all these other heroes die, he's seen his younger self die,

[1:20:47] which he shakes off pretty well, or maybe he's just so-

[1:20:49] Yeah, he's pretty cool with it.

[1:20:50] Maybe he's just so shocked and stunned at this point that he can't even react to it.

[1:20:55] He goes back to the supermarket, back in time.

[1:20:57] He watches himself in the past, put the tomato can in.

[1:21:01] He shows up out of costume, incognito, looking for all the world like a transient,

[1:21:05] who has wandered in, bleeding into the supermarket.

[1:21:08] But his mom is so nice that she has a heart-to-heart with him and gives him a hug,

[1:21:11] this stranger who's really weird.

[1:21:14] And then when she's not looking, he removes the tomato can from her cart,

[1:21:18] puts it on the top shelf instead of the lower shelf where it had originally been stocked.

[1:21:22] He returns to his own time, unhappy, chastened.

[1:21:25] He's late for his dad's trial, which is strange since he can travel through time.

[1:21:29] But anyway, he's late for his dad's trial, where we see the defense attorney showing that the newly cleaned up and restored security camera footage

[1:21:37] clearly shows his dad's face as he looks up, as the defense attorney says-

[1:21:42] And he does like a little wink, right?

[1:21:44] Yeah.

[1:21:45] To reach the tomato can placed on the top shelf, as if you are so dumb that you couldn't put two and two together.

[1:21:52] You need him to mention it.

[1:21:54] His dad is acquitted.

[1:21:55] We assume it's not mentioned, and we never see his dad in the movie again.

[1:21:58] So maybe the judge is just like, hmm, interesting point.

[1:22:03] Let's let the trial go on for a while, you know, now that your alibi has been confirmed.

[1:22:08] Outside the courthouse, Iris, who is covering Barry's dad's case, tells Barry to ask her out.

[1:22:13] Extremely unethical.

[1:22:15] Well, I mean, calm down, dude.

[1:22:18] Don't tell the child of the person whose case you're covering to ask you out.

[1:22:22] Case is over.

[1:22:23] Unless she's going to go to the publisher and be like, remove me from this story.

[1:22:26] I shouldn't be on it, you know.

[1:22:27] I don't know, man.

[1:22:28] That's the thing.

[1:22:29] They just got chemistry, baby.

[1:22:31] That's the other thing, is they also don't have any chemistry at all.

[1:22:34] These two performers have no chemistry together.

[1:22:37] Barry's like, yeah, everything worked out.

[1:22:38] Maybe I didn't save my mom, but I did save my dad.

[1:22:41] And I finally get to go out with my college crush.

[1:22:44] That's what Bruce Wayne calls him.

[1:22:45] He's like, Barry, I heard about your dad.

[1:22:48] Congratulations.

[1:22:48] I'm about to show up.

[1:22:49] A car drives up.

[1:22:50] Mr. Wayne, Mr. Wayne, reporters everywhere.

[1:22:52] Bruce Wayne walks out.

[1:22:54] Who is it, Dan?

[1:22:55] Who's Bruce Wayne?

Dan McCoy

[1:22:56] It's George Clooney, baby.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:58] Oh, yeah, Mr. Disparo.

[1:23:00] Everyone's favorite Batman.

[1:23:02] And the flash to his credit is like, who the fuck are you?

[1:23:05] You're not Bruce Wayne.

[1:23:07] And George Clooney's like, come on, Barry.

[1:23:10] And it ends, I guess, on this cliff.

[1:23:11] And then there's a final joke.

[1:23:13] Earlier, Barry had lost his tooth and it glued it back in.

[1:23:17] It had been, knocked it out when he was electrocuted by lightning the first time.

[1:23:20] Not a thing I think you can do, but sure.

[1:23:21] No, and it lasts for all the fighting that he does.

[1:23:24] And now in this awkward moment, his tooth falls out.

[1:23:26] Cut to the credits.

[1:23:27] And the credits, which are all over footage of a dog falling slowly through the sky from the earlier hospital scene.

[1:23:34] Because that's the kind of goofy movie this is.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:36] This is the kind of silly, wacky movie this is.

[1:23:38] I mean, if there's a dog in it, it could technically be a goofy movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:41] And then, of course, a post-credit scene.

[1:23:43] Should I talk about the post-credit scene?

[1:23:45] I mean, it'll only take us another 10 seconds.

[1:23:49] Stuart, I assume, didn't see it.

[1:23:51] So let me tell him about it.

[1:23:52] In perhaps the least necessary post-credit scene I've ever seen in one of these movies, Flash is trying to explain his adventure to Aquaman, who is drunk.

[1:24:01] Aquaman passes out in a puddle on the street.

[1:24:04] And thus dies this era of the DC film universe with the ultimate of whimpers.

[1:24:08] Aquaman drunk in a puddle.

[1:24:10] As if the movie itself is saying, why should you care about this?

[1:24:15] Why should anyone care?

[1:24:16] The ironic thing being, of course, that Aquaman is the only character from this universe who has a movie that is still scheduled to come out.

[1:24:21] The Aquaman sequel.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:23] Although they kept, like, messing with it and pushing it back.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:26] They kept reshooting it.

[1:24:27] They've been reshooting scenes for it for years now.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:30] It's weird the degree to which that's been happening, also considering that that was the most successful one, right?

[1:24:36] Aquaman?

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:36] Well, that's why I think they've been, that's why they're so precious about it.

[1:24:39] It's because Aquaman was by-

[1:24:40] I think the first Wonder Woman was the most successful.

[1:24:42] No, Aquaman is, at this point, the highest grossing DC movie.

[1:24:45] Oh, really?

[1:24:45] It's over a billion dollars.

[1:24:47] Worldwide, it's the biggest.

[1:24:48] And I think that's why they're, like, tinkering with it because they're so, they're like, well, this one certainly will make money.

[1:24:53] We've got to get it perfect, you know?

[1:24:55] Right.

[1:24:56] Whereas in the older days, they would have just been like, slap a new Aquaman movie out there.

[1:24:59] Who cares if it's good or not?

[1:25:01] Now, they need it to be a good enough movie that-

[1:25:02] He's Aquaman.

[1:25:03] Who the fuck cares?

[1:25:04] I think they need it to be a good enough movie that when they fail to release it as a tax write-off, they can get as much money from that as possible.

[1:25:11] Oh, of course, of course.

[1:25:12] Yeah, yeah, smart.

[1:25:13] But it is such a, I feel like this movie is, like I said, it's borderline parody.

[1:25:17] This is the movie that is so taking the piss out of every other aspect of the DC Universe.

[1:25:23] And the ultimate way to do it is to make the coolest member of the team, the one that people like the most, Aquaman,

[1:25:28] a drunk who passes out in a puddle where if he did not have water-breathing powers, he would drown and have the Flash leave him there to do that.

[1:25:35] Not even try to get him out of the puddle.

[1:25:38] It's just such a lack of respect for these characters.

[1:25:41] And I don't know if I respect that lack of respect or not.

[1:25:44] Maybe I do.

[1:25:45] Because, Dan, I think it's time for final judgments, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:25:48] Yes, pardon me.

[1:25:49] I was burping when you said that.

[1:25:50] Final judgments.

[1:25:52] Vinyl birch burpments.

[1:25:54] This is a good, bad movie.

[1:25:56] A bad, bad movie.

[1:25:57] A movie you kind of liked.

[1:26:00] I think I'm going to be the outlier probably, you know, cementing my reputation as the softest touch in the flop house.

[1:26:09] I kind of like this.

[1:26:10] I am a soft, soft defender of the Flash.

[1:26:14] I think its biggest problem, as we've said many times before, is that it's coming to so much of this late.

[1:26:22] But, you know, in a different time, there wasn't such a glut.

[1:26:27] You know, I think this is a pretty fun version of what it is.

[1:26:32] I like that it looks kind of fakey, honestly, because it feels very comic book-y in the way that a lot of things don't feel as specifically comic book-y.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:41] Well, in the old-fashioned use of comic book-y to mean cheap and silly and not realistic.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:46] Well, but that's also what a lot of comic books are, Elliot.

[1:26:49] I'm not sure.

[1:26:50] No, no, no.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:51] But I feel like when people used to say things looked comic book-y, they meant it looked like second tier.

[1:26:57] You know, and now I feel like that you're using it more in that vein than in to say it feels like a comic book in a positive way, in that it tells a story of engaging characters that have a long life, you know.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:09] But it is positive for me to use it that way, though, in the sense that I don't like the self-seriousness of a lot of this stuff.

[1:27:19] I like having something that's a little cheaper and junkier and sillier.

[1:27:25] I think that that's not, as they say, it's a feature, not a bug to have that sometimes.

[1:27:34] I like the fun of it.

[1:27:35] I'm a sucker for time travel stories.

[1:27:40] I will say that I like the sort of breezier first half of the movie way better than sort of the boring slugfest with Zod and all that stuff and the kind of murky, contrived way they get out of all of it.

[1:27:56] Yeah.

[1:27:56] But, you know, I'm putting the emphasis on kind of, but I kind of liked it.

[1:28:01] What do you guys have to say, Stuart?

[1:28:02] You were more down on that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:03] Yeah, I didn't like it.

[1:28:05] I mean, I think part of it is just, I think it just, the whole thing looks so ugly.

[1:28:09] Like, it's so unpleasant for me to look at.

[1:28:14] And, yeah, I mean, it just felt like every story beat was something I'd already seen.

[1:28:21] And, yeah, it just was not for me.

[1:28:24] Not a Flash guy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:27] I find myself somewhere between Bad Bad and I like what they're trying to do with it.

[1:28:34] I like the intention of it, and I wish they were able to pull it off in a way that was better.

[1:28:39] I like that they're trying for something funnier and sillier.

[1:28:42] I like that there's lots of bonkers stuff happens.

[1:28:46] But I agree with Stuart that, like, it doesn't look pleasant to be in.

[1:28:50] And I do like the way that that kind of time zone looks, where there's, like, lots of, it's almost like they're in a carnival attraction with, like, flat.

[1:28:57] Neon lights.

[1:28:58] Neon lights and flat backdrops that pop up.

[1:29:01] But for the most part, it feels like, similarly, I've seen so much of this before.

[1:29:06] And I feel like I would probably judge this movie a little bit kinder if it came out 10, 15 years ago, as opposed to now when it feels very rehashed.

[1:29:15] But I do kind of like it as, this universe is ending, let's burn it all down on the way out.

[1:29:21] So the stuff that I was talking about that I don't like in continuity.

[1:29:22] I can see that, yeah.

[1:29:23] Yeah, the stuff like Batman holding the lasso of truth and basically coming to terms with what a waste he is and how he's doing everything wrong.

[1:29:31] Like, I like that if the filmmakers are like, this universe is dying, so let's have some fun with it.

[1:29:37] Like, the same way that the old Alan Moore story, the Superman, whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow, where they were like, Crisis of Infinite is about to undo all of this.

[1:29:47] So let's have Mr. Mix-A-Pit start killing people.

[1:29:51] You know, like, let's go crazy with this.

[1:29:53] Let's do bonkers things.

[1:29:54] And so I kind of like it that way, but it doesn't fully work for me.

[1:29:57] The tone is kind of all over the place, and it doesn't look good.

[1:30:00] And I don't – I'm just – I'm tired of seeing superheroes that are either super badasses or super fuck-ups.

[1:30:07] And I'd like to see a superhero that has a – they don't have to be realistic necessarily, but has a human level of confidence or mess-up-it-ness, you know, and is not a wacky cartoon character.

[1:30:20] I feel like this is – ironically, this movie would have worked better for me as a cartoon than as a live-action movie.

[1:30:24] Yeah.

S4

[1:30:29] Folks, we get it.

[1:30:30] Keeping up with an actual play podcast in this economy is a tough sell.

[1:30:35] That's why we have great news for you.

[1:30:37] The Adventure Zone is changing up its format.

[1:30:39] We're going to be doing some shorter seasons, more experimental stuff.

[1:30:42] There's never been a better time to get on board the Zone.

[1:30:44] And if you're sick of listening to our voices, we get that too.

[1:30:47] So we're including some guests.

[1:30:49] On this upcoming one, we've got Kate Welch and Gabe Hicks, who are incredible.

[1:30:53] And you want us to try out some new games?

[1:30:55] You got it.

[1:30:56] We've got the new Marvel Multiverse RPG.

[1:30:58] We're using that and with a really brilliant GM doing it.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:02] It's Dad.

[1:31:03] What he's saying is it's Dad.

[1:31:04] Dad is doing it.

S4

[1:31:05] It's Dad doing it.

[1:31:05] You can listen every Thursday on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1:31:12] I'm glad you said that because nobody says that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:14] Can I just say thank you to you for such a thoughtful interview?

S4

[1:31:18] Oh, my God.

[1:31:19] Yeah.

[1:31:19] I think you nailed it.

[1:31:21] Bullseye.

[1:31:22] Interviews with creators you love and creators you need to know.

[1:31:25] Listen to the Bullseye podcast only from NPR and Maximum Fun.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:30] Hey, the holidays are right around the corner.

[1:31:33] And while it's great to get gifts for the people you love, I think there's somebody more important in your life you need to get gifts for.

[1:31:38] That's right.

[1:31:39] Your little kitty boys.

[1:31:40] Your kitty boys and kitty girls are kitty whatevers.

[1:31:43] They are kitties and you need to get them gifts.

[1:31:45] And one of the great ways to do that is to go with Smalls.

[1:31:48] This podcast is sponsored by Smalls.

[1:31:50] Smalls cat food is protein-packed recipes made with preservative-free ingredients you'd find in your fridge.

[1:31:57] And it's delivered right to your door.

[1:32:00] Like capers.

[1:32:01] Like capers.

[1:32:01] Yep.

[1:32:02] Pickled peppers.

[1:32:03] Dan's fridge, which is filled with Arby's sauce and capers.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:07] The Gokujang.

[1:32:08] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:11] Smalls recently kicked off a partnership with the Humane Society.

[1:32:13] They've donated over a million dollars worth of cat food to help cats through the Humane Society.

[1:32:20] And they even give you an opportunity to donate when you check out.

[1:32:23] Whether you donate $3 for treats, $5,000 for vaccines, or $7 for spaying neutering.

[1:32:32] We love Smalls in the Wellington household because my cats are always hungry.

[1:32:37] They are bothering me all the time.

[1:32:38] And I like to make sure that they are getting healthy food instead of whatever garbage that they'll find.

[1:32:43] Like the packaging of whatever thing that gets shipped to me and they try and eat the plastic.

[1:32:47] That's not for them.

[1:32:48] They should be eating food.

[1:32:49] That's where Smalls comes in.

[1:32:50] Cakes.

[1:32:51] They should be eating those.

[1:32:52] Yep.

[1:32:54] So, is your cat food giving back to cats in need?

[1:32:57] Well, Smalls is.

[1:32:58] And if you want to give Smalls a try and ditch kibble forever, head over to smalls.com slash flop and use promo code flop at checkout.

[1:33:05] For 50% off your first order plus free shipping.

[1:33:09] That's the best offer you're going to find.

[1:33:10] But you have to use my code.

[1:33:13] Me, Stuart's code.

[1:33:14] Flop.

[1:33:15] F-L-O-P.

[1:33:15] For 50% off your first order.

[1:33:17] One last time for everybody that's just tuning in for some reason.

[1:33:21] That's promo code flop for 50% off your first order plus free shipping.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:26] The Flop House is also sponsored in part by Babbel.

[1:33:29] Hey, what do you call a person who speaks three languages?

[1:33:32] Trilingual.

[1:33:33] Someone who speaks two?

[1:33:34] Bilingual.

[1:33:34] Someone who speaks only one?

[1:33:37] American.

[1:33:38] Burn.

[1:33:38] Take that, us.

[1:33:40] Only 22% of Americans speak a language other than English at home.

[1:33:44] Start learning a new language this fall and be the exception, not the rule.

[1:33:48] You want to be exceptional because with Babbel, you start speaking a new language in just three weeks.

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[1:33:57] Instead of paying hundreds of dollars for a private tutor or fooling yourself with language apps that are little more than games.

[1:34:04] Take that, other things that we won't mention because we're told not to.

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[1:34:13] But you want to so badly because you love Babbel so much.

[1:34:14] Let us Babbel.

[1:34:16] Over 150 language experts to help you start speaking a new language in as little as three weeks.

[1:34:23] And one study found that using Babbel for 15 hours is equivalent to a full semester at college.

[1:34:29] Save that tuition.

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[1:34:35] Get 55% off your Babbel subscription, but only for our listeners, at babbel.com slash flop.

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[1:34:53] Rules and restrictions may apply.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:56] And hey, everybody, we've got some Flophouse news, although it might not be news if you've been listening to the show.

[1:35:01] But it might be news if you—

[1:35:02] It might be news.

[1:35:03] But it might be news.

[1:35:05] You could lose it or win it.

[1:35:06] It might be news if you've been listening to the show and skipping the ad spots.

[1:35:10] Please don't do that.

[1:35:11] We really appreciate it if you listen to the ad spots.

[1:35:13] The Flophouse is going back on tour.

[1:35:16] In January of next year, which is coming up very soon, we're going to be doing four shows, one of which we can't announce yet.

[1:35:23] So perhaps it'll become three shows.

[1:35:25] We'll see.

[1:35:26] But we're going to be in Portland, Oregon on January 25th at the Aladdin Theater.

[1:35:30] That's a Thursday night.

[1:35:30] We're going to be in San Francisco at Cobb's Comedy Club as part of San Francisco Sketch Fest on Friday, January 26th.

[1:35:37] Very excited about that.

[1:35:38] We've never been part of Sketch Fest before, and we're very excited to be part of that fest of sketches.

[1:35:43] Dan does a lot of sketching in his spare time, and I can't wait to see the sketches that school children from across the country donate to Sketch Fest.

[1:35:50] That's what it's about, right?

[1:35:51] Pencil sketches?

[1:35:52] Anyway, then on Sunday, January 28th, we're going to be back in Los Angeles at the Regent Theater.

[1:35:57] So again, that's January 25th.

[1:35:59] Our LA home.

[1:35:59] Our LA hub home.

[1:36:01] January 25th, we'll be at Portland.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:03] Well, Elliot's LA home is his actual home.

[1:36:05] That's a fair point.

[1:36:06] Elliot has a home?

[1:36:07] Let's not interrupt Elliot to say these things.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:10] No, no, this is great.

[1:36:11] We want to give as little information to the public about things we're doing as possible.

[1:36:15] So that's January 25th in Portland, Oregon at the Aladdin Theater.

[1:36:19] January 26th in San Francisco at Cobb's Comedy Club as part of Sketch Fest.

[1:36:22] January 28th in Los Angeles at the Regent Theater.

[1:36:25] And we have another show that I hope we can announce soon.

[1:36:28] Go to the events section of flophousepodcast.com and you will see that information with links to where you can buy tickets if Dan remembers to put that up on the site.

[1:36:39] So that's our Flophouse January West Coast tour.

[1:36:42] But hey, let's say you don't live on the West Coast, even though it's the best coast.

[1:36:45] They rhyme.

[1:36:46] Let's say you live somewhere else but you still want to see the Flophouse.

[1:36:49] Get ready because we got another episode of Flop TV coming up.

[1:36:52] Oh boy!

[1:36:54] As we're recording this, I think this will be released on the day of the newest episode of Flop TV, if I'm remembering properly.

[1:37:02] If this is being released December 2nd, I can't remember, then it's tonight.

[1:37:06] Yes.

[1:37:07] Yes, because we're recording these out of order.

[1:37:09] So I'm like, what?

Dan McCoy

[1:37:09] And I also just wrote myself a note to put those events on the website.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:13] Great.

[1:37:13] Write yourself a note to remind you to look at the note too.

[1:37:15] That'll be helpful.

[1:37:16] So tonight, December 2nd, 2023, we're talking about, oh boy, Ballistic, X vs. Sever.

[1:37:24] The movie that may not exist.

[1:37:26] It's possible that we're going to find out if it's a real movie or not.

[1:37:30] Starring, what was it, Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu, right, as the titular X and Sever.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:34] Oh, the quest we had to go just to find a viewable version of this film.

[1:37:38] It's true.

[1:37:39] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:39] It's not an easy movie to find, but we found it.

[1:37:42] And we're going to talk about it tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[1:37:45] For tickets, go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[1:37:49] That's theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[1:37:51] Hey, if you can't make it to tonight's show, that's okay.

[1:37:54] Your ticket gets you access to the recording of the show right afterwards.

[1:37:57] And if you have a season pass, you can watch the recordings of all of our Flop TV episodes.

[1:38:02] This is our penultimate episode.

[1:38:04] We've got this one and then one more in January.

[1:38:06] And then that's this season of Flop TV.

[1:38:08] And your season pass still gets you access to those shows.

[1:38:11] So that's the Flophouse live tonight in front of your eyes on your computer screen.

[1:38:15] Talking about a movie that, again, we had to work pretty hard to get a copy of it.

[1:38:19] It may not exist.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:20] Maybe you're like one of those maniacs who's been saving up all your Flop TV episodes

[1:38:25] until the last one comes out.

[1:38:27] And then you're going to watch all of them all in one go just to see if your brain explodes.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:31] Well, it's funny you say that because I was just about to warn the audience.

[1:38:35] You know, by all means, do it.

[1:38:37] But your window is closing.

[1:38:39] If you want to see the earlier ones, it'll all be up through January.

[1:38:43] So it's not that.

[1:38:44] It'll be like a real time capsule.

[1:38:45] But, you know, if you want to see them, I just want to advise no one, you know, get left out if you want to be left in.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:52] Don't get left behind as in the hit series of novels taking place after the rapture.

[1:38:58] You will have through January.

[1:39:00] Get raptured with us.

[1:39:01] Yeah.

[1:39:02] And then feel the rapture of watching us.

[1:39:05] As Dan says, after January, you won't have access to those episodes anymore.

[1:39:09] So watch them while you can.

[1:39:11] That's Flop TV.

[1:39:13] And if you can join us on the West Coast Tour, please come see us in either Portland, San Francisco, or Los Angeles.

[1:39:18] We're going to be announcing those movies eventually when we decide which ones we're doing.

[1:39:22] We should really decide which ones we're doing.

[1:39:25] Yeah.

[1:39:26] And also, I have two things I wanted to mention personally.

[1:39:29] My comic book series Hades, Disney Villains Hades, coming from Dynamite Comics.

[1:39:33] Issue 4 has come out, I think, the week before this episode is released.

[1:39:38] So that may still be on comic book store shelves.

[1:39:40] Issue 5 will come out the next month.

[1:39:42] And it's a really fun series.

[1:39:43] I hope you enjoy it.

[1:39:44] It's a comedy heist set in ancient Greece with all the mythological characters that you love.

[1:39:48] So please pick that up.

[1:39:50] And I'll also remind you that my podcast with Roman Mars about The Power Broker will be starting soon.

[1:39:56] I think it'll be the next episode of 99% Invisible after this episode goes up will be the introductory episode for this Power Broker series.

[1:40:05] So if you don't subscribe to 99% Invisible.

[1:40:07] Whoa.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:07] Do you have a name for it?

[1:40:07] What's the name of it?

[1:40:08] I think it's called The 99% Breakdown, The Power Broker or something like that.

[1:40:13] Oh, okay.

[1:40:14] I wanted to call it The Power Broker Breaker Downers.

[1:40:16] We'll see if I can convince Roman to change the title to that.

[1:40:19] It's going to be a hard sell.

[1:40:20] But I think you can do it.

[1:40:21] It's going to be a hard sell.

[1:40:22] If you don't already subscribe to 99% Invisible, why?

[1:40:25] You should.

[1:40:25] It's a great show.

[1:40:26] But if you don't, start subscribing because that first episode is going to come up and you'll find out more about The Power Broker.

[1:40:31] Stu, I think you had something you want to tell us about too.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:32] Uh-huh.

[1:40:33] My Bar Minis just got a new sweatshirt design and it goes on sale this week.

[1:40:39] It was designed by artist and friend Juan Pablo Ayala who unfortunately passed away earlier this year.

[1:40:46] Those shirts are going to be – the sweatshirts are going to be $50 plus shipping and a portion of the sale will be going to a charity called To Write On Her Arms In His Memory.

[1:40:56] To order one in time for the holidays, go over to MinisBarBK on Instagram and follow the link in our bio.

[1:41:04] Thank you.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:06] Thank you, Stuart.

[1:41:07] I was busy subscribing to 99% Invisible, which I have listened to off and on.

[1:41:12] I don't want to insult our friend Roman.

[1:41:14] That's a great show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:15] I mean, all right.

[1:41:16] I mean, the thing is, he's so successful, he knows you're missing out.

[1:41:19] It's not an insult to him.

Stuart Wellington

[1:41:20] Listening to it, you're like, oh, yeah, podcasts can be cool and informative.

[1:41:24] Here's the thing.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:24] I like a lot dumber podcasts in general.

[1:41:28] It's no reflection on Roman.

[1:41:30] It's a reflection on my particular intellect.

[1:41:34] But let's move on.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:36] You're like, I wish this was more about two or three knuckleheads talking about 1980s pajamas.

[1:41:41] Like pajamas with 1980s cartoon characters on them.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:44] Thank you.

[1:41:46] Let us move on to letters from listeners.

[1:41:50] Listeners like you.

[1:41:51] If you want to write in to the Flophouse, you can do it through our website.

[1:41:56] What's our website?

[1:41:57] Yeah, what's our website?

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:58] Flophousepodcast.com.

[1:41:59] Flophousepodcast.com.

[1:42:01] Write to us.

[1:42:01] We'd love to hear from you.

Dan McCoy

[1:42:03] But this first letter is from Bill Lastname withheld, who writes, Dear Peaches.

[1:42:10] Many quotable lines from movies permeate our culture.

[1:42:13] Most of the time, these are the best combination of a great film, great writing, and sharp delivery.

[1:42:20] For example, inconceivable.

[1:42:23] A single word is immediately connected to Wallace Shawn's perfect character in The Princess Bride.

[1:42:29] It occurred to me the other day that some lesser films have quotable lines that clearly punch above their weight.

[1:42:36] Films that are otherwise nothing special sometimes produce a pithy phrase that is as recognizable as Vizzini's protests.

[1:42:44] What got me thinking about it was, it's not a tumor, which, when delivered in an appropriately frustrated Austrian accent, crisply delivers the sentiment intended.

[1:42:54] I don't know what that's said.

[1:42:55] I guess that is not a tumor.

[1:42:56] Sentiment is frustration.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:57] Frustration with the people you're dealing with, especially if they're kindergartners.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:02] Especially if it's, well, anyway.

[1:43:06] How many people actually remember or even saw the movie it's from?

[1:43:10] What's your favorite quote that outshines its origin?

[1:43:12] It was a hit film, Bill.

[1:43:14] Yeah, from a horror list.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:15] Yeah, kindergarten cap I saw twice in the theater.

[1:43:17] Keep on plopping, Bill.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:18] I almost digressed there.

[1:43:20] It was because I remember often back at The Daily Show when we were having to think of jokes.

[1:43:27] And they were like, give me two more.

[1:43:28] There was always a, it's not a two more.

[1:43:31] Yeah.

[1:43:32] Most responded.

[1:43:34] We did have fun.

[1:43:35] We did have fun.

[1:43:36] We did have fun, yeah.

[1:43:37] No more, though.

[1:43:38] We're old and embittered.

[1:43:40] Yep.

[1:43:41] Let me think.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:44] Badges.

[1:43:45] Badges.

[1:43:46] We don't need no stinking badges.

[1:43:47] Yeah.

[1:43:48] That's a line from a movie.

[1:43:49] Do you mean from, that's a line from a great movie also.

[1:43:53] Great film.

[1:43:54] Let's see.

[1:43:55] You can put it anywhere.

[1:43:56] Okay.

[1:43:57] That's.

[1:43:58] What's that from?

Dan McCoy

[1:43:59] Cruel Intentions.

[1:44:01] That movie stuck in my brain.

[1:44:03] Oh, weird.

[1:44:03] That line.

[1:44:06] Hey, one that I'm thinking of, a movie that I like, but I will not put on, you know, any

[1:44:12] Mount Rushmore movies.

[1:44:13] I think that Wolfman Has Nards.

[1:44:16] Oh, from Monster Squad.

[1:44:17] A line that really permeated the culture.

[1:44:22] Despite.

[1:44:22] Oh, yeah.

[1:44:23] The president was saying it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:24] You couldn't go anywhere without hearing it.

[1:44:25] Yeah.

[1:44:26] Or Wolfman's Got Nards, I guess.

[1:44:29] This is a tough one, because I feel like every time I think of something, I'm like, no, that

[1:44:34] was a pretty popular movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:44:35] Yeah, I'm having trouble.

[1:44:37] Weirdly, the thing that's coming to mind is not a movie, but the song I Need More Allowance

[1:44:42] from the TV show Doug, which was one of the original Nicktoons.

[1:44:45] This is a song that the fictional band The Beats play in one episode, and for some reason,

[1:44:49] I think about it a lot.

[1:44:49] It pops into my head a lot.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:52] Okay.

[1:44:53] Yeah.

[1:44:54] We got, Elliot, I think he could be a pretty good Doug Funny if they had to do a live action

[1:44:59] Doug Funny as a 40-year-old man.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:02] If they did a movie where he's grown up and gotten married and has a family, I think, thank

[1:45:07] you.

[1:45:07] Yeah, I think I could be Doug Funny.

[1:45:08] Yeah, thank you.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:11] Well, we really biffed that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:12] Do you think he married Sally Pickles, or?

[1:45:16] I thought it was Patty Mayonnaise.

[1:45:18] Oh, you're right.

[1:45:18] Patty Mayonnaise.

[1:45:19] Well, maybe that didn't work out, though.

[1:45:21] He married this other character that I've apparently invented.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:24] Well, Pickles, that's from Rugrats, right?

[1:45:28] Oh, yeah.

[1:45:28] So, he might have remarried a younger.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:32] So, he married Patty Mayonnaise, and then they divorced, and he married a younger woman

[1:45:35] who was Tommy Pickles' sister, I guess.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:38] Yeah.

[1:45:38] Classic L.A. swap.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:40] Well, those were all great quotes, guys.

[1:45:43] I think we answered that question.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:44] Let's go to the next one.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:46] This one's from Michael, last name withheld.

[1:45:49] Who writes,

[1:45:50] Hello, my darling peaches.

[1:45:53] I'm currently traveling abroad and suffering through a bout of traveler's tummy, which has

[1:45:57] triggered strange and vivid dreams.

[1:46:00] Last night, I dreamt that I went to Manderley again.

[1:46:03] No, that's not what it said.

[1:46:04] Last night, I dreamt that I was having a serious conversation with you boys about the condition

[1:46:09] of our drum kit.

[1:46:10] The secondhand drum kit, finished in sparkle red, had seen better days and was in need

[1:46:16] of some TLC.

[1:46:17] Mysteriously, the bass drum read Zero Davis in Zoomy 3D lettering.

[1:46:23] That's the name of our band.

[1:46:24] We agreed that if we were going to get this rock band off the ground, we would at least

[1:46:29] need a new head on the snare and better sticks.

[1:46:31] Yeah.

[1:46:31] So, if you three floppers were in a three-piece rock band.

[1:46:35] Is he asking for money?

Dan McCoy

[1:46:35] I don't know.

[1:46:37] Well, we're getting to the ask.

[1:46:39] If you three floppers were in a three-piece rock band, which instruments would you play?

[1:46:44] What style of music?

[1:46:45] Who is your front man?

[1:46:47] Yours rockingly.

[1:46:49] And he's got the devil horns here.

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:50] Oh, cool.

[1:46:51] Michael.

[1:46:53] Dan, why don't you go first?

Dan McCoy

[1:46:56] Well, it's tough because, I mean, to my knowledge, now, maybe I don't know.

[1:47:01] Maybe you've got things that I don't know about you guys.

[1:47:03] And this is a lifelong learning.

[1:47:06] I mean, there's a few things about me you don't know.

[1:47:07] I can learn new things.

[1:47:08] And I'd like to keep it that way.

[1:47:09] Well, mostly stuff I don't want to hear about.

[1:47:11] But to my knowledge, I'm the only one who plays an instrument.

[1:47:19] And I'm arguably the strongest singer.

[1:47:24] I don't want to insult anyone.

[1:47:26] But I think that Stu would be the face, obviously.

[1:47:29] Oh, wow.

[1:47:29] It's a difficult thing.

[1:47:31] I feel like if you're forming a band, I would probably sing.

[1:47:34] But Stu should be the front man.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:36] I could see you being the kind of awkward, kind of quiet, when he's not on stage singer who writes a lot of the songs.

[1:47:45] But you're not the most popular member of the band because Stuart, who's probably like on bass, I'm guessing.

[1:47:50] Yeah, Stu would be on bass.

[1:47:51] No, yeah, yeah.

[1:47:52] Classic.

[1:47:53] That's the cool guy.

[1:47:53] Hire the hot guy to play bass.

[1:47:55] And of course, I'm just playing synth.

[1:47:57] And I don't need anyone to pay attention to me.

[1:47:59] I don't care as long as I got my keyboard with me.

Dan McCoy

[1:48:01] It would be a guitar, bass, and synth band.

[1:48:04] So there's no drums.

[1:48:05] Very much so.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:06] Kai can do that with a synth.

[1:48:07] We don't need it.

[1:48:08] It's true.

Dan McCoy

[1:48:08] It's true.

[1:48:08] And Stu, you know, the bass is a rhythm instrument.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:12] Yeah, we need a synth.

[1:48:13] How else are we going to do all those John Carpenter covers that we do in our band?

Dan McCoy

[1:48:16] Oh, that's what we're in?

[1:48:17] That's our genre?

[1:48:18] Okay.

[1:48:19] I'll take it.

[1:48:20] That's kind of taking away the singing part.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:22] No, no, no.

[1:48:23] We do covers that we then add a bunch of lyrics to.

Dan McCoy

[1:48:26] There's lyrics to the Big Trouble in Little China song.

[1:48:28] It goes, the Halloween thing.

[1:48:31] Halloween thing.

[1:48:32] Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, Halloween.

[1:48:33] Halloween.

Dan McCoy

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:34] I mean, we don't do only John Carpenter covers.

[1:48:36] We just do mostly John Carpenter covers.

[1:48:38] Yeah, mostly.

[1:48:38] We have lyrics added.

[1:48:39] Yeah.

[1:48:40] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:48:41] Okay.

[1:48:42] So, yeah, I think we covered our whole, and we're called like Zero Davis.

[1:48:47] Zero Davis, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:48:49] We'll go on tour, opening for ourselves for our Flophouse tour.

[1:48:53] Oh, wow.

[1:48:54] I mean, our fans would love that, I think.

[1:48:56] Yeah.

[1:48:57] Wow.

[1:48:58] I actually love the idea of we all have false mustaches on.

[1:49:02] I think that's great.

Stuart Wellington

[1:49:04] We'll play a few songs and then come out as ourselves afterwards.

[1:49:07] I love it.

[1:49:08] That would be funny.

[1:49:08] I love the idea of Dan putting a false mustache on top of his actual mustache.

Dan McCoy

[1:49:12] His actual beard, yeah.

[1:49:14] Yeah.

[1:49:15] Mm-hmm.

[1:49:16] Well, I hope we've solved everyone's problems.

[1:49:19] Of course I'm not Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:49:20] Dan McCoy has only one, not two mustaches.

Dan McCoy

[1:49:25] They're like, Kenneth Branagh's Poirot.

[1:49:30] Double mustache, man?

[1:49:32] Okay, well, let's.

[1:49:34] That was one of the lesser Flash villains, double mustache, man.

[1:49:39] But a great, what, viral video, double mustache?

Elliott Kalan

[1:49:43] Yeah, what does it mean?

[1:49:45] Two mustaches, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:49:47] Let us recommend movies that we saw and enjoyed.

[1:49:51] Have you seen any movies lately, Dan?

[1:49:53] A more full-thread.

[1:49:55] Well, I saw one with you.

[1:49:56] I think I'm going to leave that.

[1:49:57] We saw one to you.

[1:49:58] I assume that's what you're going to recommend.

Stuart Wellington

[1:49:59] Oh, okay.

[1:50:00] I can recommend that.

[1:50:01] You're going to have to.

[1:50:02] I see a lot of movies, too.

Dan McCoy

[1:50:03] I was going to recommend, because it has our patron saint in it, Nicolas Cage.

[1:50:12] I saw a dream scenario.

[1:50:13] Oh, I want to see that.

[1:50:16] It's a film that, like, all the reviews I've read have been, like, mostly positive, but sort of, like, shruggingly positive.

[1:50:23] It seems like people are a little, like, they're not full-throated in their endorsement of it.

[1:50:32] And from my perspective, it touches on a lot of stuff about sort of, like, the arc of fame and sudden fame and viral fame.

[1:50:54] And most dangerously, I think people could take it as a cancel culture, like, anti-cancel culture screed.

[1:51:03] But I don't think it's that.

[1:51:05] It touches on it.

[1:51:06] But, like, I think the movie does some theft things to make it clear that that's not really where its heart is.

[1:51:15] I think that it touches on those themes only in so much as, at least for me, it is an exploration of, okay, let's take this absurd premise.

[1:51:25] How would it play out in life?

[1:51:26] And that does end up saying some things about human nature.

[1:51:32] But what I liked about it, it was a lot more sort of ground level than I was expecting.

[1:51:38] It is much more sort of a character study about this guy, what happens to him when he has this fame that he is unequipped for.

[1:51:48] And honestly, like, you know, he's nice enough but sort of a schlub, like, has done nothing in particular to deserve it.

[1:51:57] And how it helps and hurts his life.

[1:52:02] I don't know.

[1:52:03] It approaches it with a sense of, like, emotional realism that I wasn't necessarily expecting but made it a lot richer for me than maybe the movie I thought it could be.

[1:52:14] So, I enjoyed it.

[1:52:15] Dream scenario.

Stuart Wellington

[1:52:17] Yeah.

[1:52:17] Dan and I went and saw Salt Burn the other day and I had a lot of fun with it.

[1:52:24] I previously mentioned Cruel Intentions and I feel like it's – the movie's kind of like Talented Mr. Ripley by way of Cruel Intentions.

[1:52:35] It's kind of less of a thriller.

[1:52:37] Like, I feel like ads are calling it a thriller and I feel like it's more of a black comedy.

[1:52:42] And it's, like, silly and intentionally shocking and gross.

[1:52:48] And the two leads –

[1:52:50] Horny.

[1:52:50] It's certainly horny, which is going to get – already give you at least half a star for me.

[1:52:55] The – like, Barry Kagan's great and, oh, man, what a hog on that guy.

[1:53:00] Jacob Lordi's good but really –

[1:53:02] If you want to see his hog.

[1:53:03] Yeah, if you want to see his hog, go see this movie.

[1:53:05] It's a movie for you.

[1:53:06] But the fucking standout is Rosamund Pike is so fucking funny.

[1:53:11] She walks into this movie and just takes it over.

[1:53:14] Yeah.

[1:53:14] So, I enjoyed it a lot.

[1:53:17] I don't – I didn't really, like – I don't really take away much of a message out of it.

[1:53:22] I don't necessarily think whatever message it's trying to make – I don't even know if it's trying to make a message.

[1:53:27] I think it's just, like, trying to be a fun, horny, like, thriller.

[1:53:30] What do you think, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[1:53:31] Yeah, I think it's – I think it's touching on class stuff but only in the most sort of surface-y way and kind of, like –

[1:53:40] Circus-y?

[1:53:42] In a way.

[1:53:43] Yeah.

[1:53:43] Like a circus?

[1:53:45] I mean, there's, like, provocations in it but I think it's more in sort of terms of, like, let me do some high-tone trash, you know?

[1:53:53] Let me –

[1:53:53] Yeah.

[1:53:54] Just have fun.

Elliott Kalan

[1:53:56] Which sometimes you just need to check your brain at the door, right, Elliot?

[1:54:00] You got it.

[1:54:00] And speaking of high-tone trash and checking your brain at the door, I'm going to recommend a movie that is the exact opposite of that.

[1:54:06] Sorry, everybody.

[1:54:08] This is a movie I think I mentioned in passing on a previous episode and that is actually a trilogy of films called The Human Condition that were directed by Masaaki Kobayashi.

[1:54:18] There are three movies, No Greater Love, Road to Eternity, and A Soldier's Prayer that all came out between 1959 and 1961.

[1:54:24] And they are a lengthy series.

[1:54:28] Altogether, it's about nine hours or so long, telling the story of a young man played by Tatsuya Nakadei, a man named Kaji, who is so devoted to his principles that they often cause him trouble in the real world.

[1:54:45] And he feels like – the first obstacle in this path is he feels like he cannot honorably marry his fiancée because kind of the world is falling apart.

[1:54:55] This is right before – right during World War II.

[1:54:58] And he finally does it.

[1:54:59] And in order to make a life for them, he has to keep kind of making moral compromises.

[1:55:06] In the first movie, he is an overseer at a prisoner of war camp where Chinese prisoners are forced into slave labor.

[1:55:13] In the second movie, he is forced into the army.

[1:55:16] And in the third movie, he is basically on the run as the Japanese army is being destroyed by the Soviets in Manchuria.

[1:55:23] And at each point, you see him trying to live as a principled person by his specific code of ethics and either finding that he cannot because the world is so corrupt around him or finding that in order to survive, he has to compromise in some way because his ethics are untenable.

[1:55:41] And it's a grueling series.

[1:55:44] It's really bleak.

[1:55:45] But the performances in it are great.

[1:55:47] There's some genuinely thrilling sections of it where you think he's going to get caught or you think that they're in battle.

[1:55:55] But it's just really, really good.

[1:55:56] So it is not a movie to watch when you're looking to have some fun or check your brain at the door.

[1:56:00] But it is a really kind of beautiful, rough, shattering experience.

[1:56:05] And that's The Human Condition.

Dan McCoy

[1:56:08] Well, three purely entertaining movies.

[1:56:10] Three last-minute thrill rides.

[1:56:12] Just fun.

Elliott Kalan

[1:56:14] Just like The Flash.

[1:56:16] Just total fun.

[1:56:17] Not trying for anything else.

Dan McCoy

[1:56:19] So thank you all for listening, listeners out there.

[1:56:25] If you want to find more great podcasts, you can go to MaximumFun.org and check out the other podcasts on our network, Maximum Fun.

[1:56:36] Thank you to Alex Smith, who goes by the name Howell Doughty on the internet.

[1:56:42] He is our producer, and he makes us sound good.

[1:56:46] So that's kind of key since this is just audio.

[1:56:50] We're not – you can't see us, you know?

[1:56:52] We can't do a bunch of razzle-dazzle to take away from the audio sound.

[1:56:57] So thanks, Alex.

[1:56:57] Can't touch us, thankfully.

[1:57:01] And Stuart's touching my shoulder.

[1:57:04] And I guess that's it.

[1:57:06] For The Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:57:09] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:57:11] I've been Elliot Kalin.

[1:57:12] Join us later today or in the next couple days with Flop TV, theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[1:57:17] Okay.

[1:57:18] Bye.

[1:57:20] Whoa.

Stuart Wellington

[1:57:22] Oh, man.

[1:57:22] I keep getting better.

[1:57:29] The thing is, when this drops in people's ear holes, they're going to say it's worth it.

[1:57:34] They'll be like, ah, get that out of my ear hole.

Dan McCoy

[1:57:37] Something dropped in there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:57:38] Put something in my ears, as they say in what's up to.

[1:57:40] An unction of a Montabank.

[1:57:41] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:57:42] Rathacon.

Elliott Kalan

[1:57:44] Oh, here's the problem.

[1:57:45] You've got a Rathacon here.

Dan McCoy

[1:57:50] Decepticon.

[1:57:50] Anything there?

[1:57:51] Okay, let's move on.

[1:57:53] I'll tell you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:57:54] No, there's nothing there.

[1:57:56] Maximum Fun.

[1:57:58] A worker-owned network.

S4

[1:57:59] Of artist-owned shows.

[1:58:01] Supported.

[1:58:02] Directly.

[1:58:02] By you.

Ep. #410 - The Flash

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