Ep.#409 - Mafia Mamma, with Hallie Haglund

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Mafia Mama.

Stuart Wellington

[0:03] Part of our series of best movies of the year.

[0:09] All right.

[0:30] Hey, everyone.

Dan McCoy

[0:34] Welcome to the Flophouse.

[0:34] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:36] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:37] I'm Elliot Kalin.

Hallie Haglund

[0:39] And I'm Hallie Haglund.

Stuart Wellington

[0:41] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[0:41] That's right.

[0:41] We got a Hallie Haglund here.

[0:43] Surprise, Hallie.

[0:46] What were you going to say, Hallie?

[0:47] Are you surprising Hallie, or are you surprising everyone else that Hallie's here?

[0:50] We're surprising everyone else that Hallie's here.

Hallie Haglund

[0:52] What did you get me?

Elliott Kalan

[0:54] Hallie didn't know she was going to be on the show.

[0:55] We're in her room now.

[0:56] We just woke her up.

Hallie Haglund

[0:57] I have had dreams like this.

[1:00] Nightmares.

Dan McCoy

[1:02] It is kind of like we're surprising Hallie because, like, Audrey and I were in the middle

[1:09] of watching Mafia Mama, and she was texting someone who was like, would Hallie like this

[1:14] movie?

[1:15] And Audrey asked me that question.

[1:16] I'm like, shit, we got to get Hallie on this episode because this would be a great episode

[1:22] for her.

[1:23] Hallie's what's known as a tastemaker.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24] So last minute we contacted her.

Hallie Haglund

[1:27] And I'm grateful.

[1:28] I'm so grateful.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29] Does this make up for all the bullshit movies we've made you watch?

Hallie Haglund

[1:33] Almost.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34] Almost.

[1:34] Yay!

[1:36] Like the real Mafia Mama, she doesn't give up praise easily.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39] Yeah.

[1:39] So this is the Flophouse.

[1:40] We watch a bad movie and talk about it, except this week when we watched Mafia Mama, a movie

[1:44] that has loomed large in my imagination.

[1:47] A movie that as soon as I heard about it, I'm like, is this a joke movie?

[1:50] And then I saw it was an actual movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:53] When the strike started and we decided we were not going to do new movies for the duration

[1:56] of the strike, Stuart just kept saying, but when the strike's over, we'll do Mafia Mama,

[1:59] right?

[2:00] Yeah.

[2:00] When we're done with the strike, we'll do Mafia Mama.

[2:02] It was the one movie that, the Flash, not on his cultural radar.

[2:05] Mafia Mama was the big tentpole release.

Stuart Wellington

[2:08] I was flying back from Athens, Greece, not Athens, Ohio, just to make it clear.

[2:14] Sure, sure.

[2:14] And everybody else was watching Mafia Mama, and I had to watch the uncut version of Infinity

[2:21] Pool instead.

[2:23] Just on my laptop.

[2:24] Torture.

[2:25] You've had to?

[2:25] I mean, because that's another movie you talked about for a long time.

[2:28] It is.

[2:28] Yeah.

[2:29] All of that just sprayed out all over the rest of the plane.

Dan McCoy

[2:31] It's funny that the main reason you wanted to watch that uncensored cut is because you

[2:35] knew that there was an actual penis in this cut.

[2:38] Well, not an actual penis, because I believe it was a prosthetic, but there was a penis shot.

Stuart Wellington

[2:41] I'll do my own research, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[2:43] Okay.

[2:44] But it's funny that that was the main draw of the unrated cut, but you were specifically

[2:50] watching it on a plane.

Stuart Wellington

[2:51] You're like, everyone's going to see this penis shot.

[2:53] I'm like, wasn't the theatrical cut missing this?

[2:57] Yeah.

[2:57] Didn't you need to see a big fat rope of jizz shooting out of a prosthetic wiener?

[3:02] Yeah, the person I see.

[3:04] I don't know what this movie is.

[3:05] It looks horrifying to me.

Elliott Kalan

[3:06] So we're talking about Mafia Mama today, or are we talking about the uncut Infinity Pool?

Hallie Haglund

[3:11] Let's talk more about rope jizz.

Elliott Kalan

[3:14] Yeah.

[3:15] I'm glad late.

[3:17] Are you running out of jizz too quick?

[3:19] Pick up rope of jizz.

[3:22] It's the long strand you need.

Dan McCoy

[3:24] That's the porn strategy, rope of jizz.

Elliott Kalan

[3:28] Yeah.

[3:29] Come like a butterfly, jizz like a bee.

[3:32] Yep.

Hallie Haglund

[3:32] No, Mom, I said nerd rope.

[3:36] Not jizz rope.

[3:38] That's a candy, remember?

[3:39] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[3:40] One of my kids got a nerd rope, and he's every day, we're like, you can have one piece of candy.

[3:45] He holds that up, and he goes, this one?

[3:47] No, that's way too big.

[3:48] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[3:51] Well, then how will he ever eat it?

[3:53] That's the catch 22 of nerd rope.

[3:55] Yeah.

[3:56] The thing is, they never should have left Jeffrey Epstein alone with that nerd rope in a cell.

Elliott Kalan

[4:02] God damn it, Stuart.

[4:02] They thought he was just going to eat it.

[4:03] That's why they left him for a while.

[4:05] They said, I can't watch this.

[4:06] It's going to be so sticky.

[4:07] It's going to take a long time.

Hallie Haglund

[4:09] That nerd rope's big.

[4:10] Everyone's going to hate this episode.

Elliott Kalan

[4:12] It's a big candy.

[4:14] Guard, guard.

[4:15] Can I have one piece of my Halloween candy?

[4:17] Which one, Jeffrey?

[4:19] Oh, no.

Stuart Wellington

[4:23] This is going to be the worst episode ever.

[4:24] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[4:25] I should have known when I had to stop him from tagging himself with that candy necklace last time.

Dan McCoy

[4:30] Right.

[4:31] So, Mafia Mama.

[4:32] This is all relevant, right?

[4:33] Stuart, I wanted to ask you, what was it about Mafia Mama that so struck your fancy, that captured your imagination?

Stuart Wellington

[4:40] Well, I mean, it's an alliterative title, Daniel, so I think that helps.

[4:44] Okay.

[4:44] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[4:45] I love—

[4:46] Same as you liked Mama Mia.

Stuart Wellington

[4:47] I love when an actor that I consider to be, you know, like, I don't know if I'd say A-list, but an actor that I consider to be like a serious actor with a big range—

[4:57] Certainly A-list talent.

[4:58] One of the best actors working.

[5:01] Yes.

[5:02] Yes.

[5:02] Takes on a role that looks like it's a movie poster from an episode of 30 Rock.

[5:07] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[5:09] It does seem like if someone said—if in an episode of 30 Rock, they were like, oh, yeah, that's the movie where Tony Colette's a suburban mom who inherits the Mafia.

[5:16] You'd be like, yeah, that makes sense as a joke.

Stuart Wellington

[5:19] And it's also like, I love the idea of I'm a sucker for, you know, ladies getting their groove back movies.

Elliott Kalan

[5:27] And you—I feel like you're also a sucker for the kind of women that show up in mob movies.

[5:32] Brassy, loud-talking, aggressive, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[5:35] Mm-hmm.

[5:35] Yep.

[5:36] All those things—you guys got me dead to rights, booked me, put me in jail with the—

[5:40] It's about fetishes.

[5:41] I get it now.

Elliott Kalan

[5:42] Yeah, exactly.

[5:42] I mean, to be fair, it's not a movie I was looking forward to, but when I found out that Monica Bellucci was in it, I was like, all right, then I'll watch this with at least a certain amount of enjoyment, you know?

Dan McCoy

[5:51] Well, and not to tip my hand, but as I was watching it, I'm like, why am I enjoying this more than I expect?

[5:56] And I think it's because it is very reminiscent to me of, like, the sort of, like, period where they were making these kinds of comedies, very high-concept comedies that they would plug, like, a star into.

[6:07] And then, you know, success or failure, they would end up on HBO being played over and over again during the daylight hours.

[6:14] And so, like, you know, I'm printed on them.

Elliott Kalan

[6:16] Yeah, Dan, when you were watching it, you were texting us that it was giving you real Nuns on the Run vibes.

[6:21] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[6:22] Nuns on the Run, King Ralph, If Looks Could Kill.

[6:25] Exactly.

[6:26] Basically all the best movies.

Elliott Kalan

[6:28] There were a lot of, in the 90s, there were a lot of high-concept comedies about someone being placed in a position that was a silly position for them to be.

[6:35] Yeah.

[6:35] Sister Act.

[6:36] Sister Act, very much so.

Dan McCoy

[6:37] Fishes out of water were big in the 80s.

[6:40] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[6:41] It was probably because of the gutting of the EPA.

[6:43] It was a big environmental problem.

[6:45] People were taking fish out of water and just leaving them on the street.

[6:48] Yeah.

[6:48] And the EPA had to step in.

[6:49] That's why you can go to jail for doing that.

[6:51] They had to raise the penalty to stop people from doing it.

Stuart Wellington

[6:53] Yeah, and the EPA shows up and you're like, I did it as a goof.

[6:56] It's funny.

Elliott Kalan

[6:57] And they're like, well, if you do it as a joke and it doesn't count as a crime, here you go.

Dan McCoy

[7:02] Look at that fish struggling to figure out how to fit in in the air.

[7:05] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[7:07] He's trying his gills.

[7:07] Those won't work.

[7:08] There's only a few fish out of water comedies have the same stakes as taking a fish out of the water, which is nearly instant death.

[7:15] That's true.

[7:15] But this was one of them.

[7:17] This was one of them.

[7:17] I never thought I'd see a movie with Toni Collette running from this many bullets.

Dan McCoy

[7:24] This is a gruesome movie, too, for what it is, but we'll get it.

Stuart Wellington

[7:27] Shockingly gory.

Dan McCoy

[7:28] It is shockingly gory.

[7:29] Maybe I did like this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[7:31] Obviously, I enjoyed this movie with a hearty bowl of pasta that I made myself because, I don't know about you guys, I like the full immersive experience.

[7:40] Okay.

[7:41] What kind of pasta was it?

[7:43] It was cavatappi with broccoli rabe, pesto, spinach, some sun-dried tomatoes, you know, a little bit of parmesan on top.

Elliott Kalan

[7:51] If it's a real Italian thing, they don't just say pasta.

[7:53] They tell you what kind it is.

[7:54] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[7:55] Yep.

[7:56] Unless they say macaroni and gravy and you're like, that's not what that is.

Elliott Kalan

[7:58] Macaroni and gravy.

[7:59] It's spaghetti and tomato sauce.

[8:01] Why are you calling it this?

[8:02] Yeah.

[8:02] Anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[8:03] So, we are introduced to Kristen, played by Toni Collette.

[8:08] Kristen is an L.A. mom who has kind of lost her mojo.

[8:13] She works, I guess, for like a pharmaceutical company doing advertising.

[8:17] She's in marketing for pharmaceuticals.

[8:19] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[8:20] At the most misogynistic pharmaceutical company you can imagine.

Stuart Wellington

[8:23] They are all assholes.

[8:24] Nobody respects her.

[8:26] They don't take her seriously.

[8:28] They love jet skis.

Dan McCoy

[8:29] Yeah.

[8:29] I want to clarify that my hearty laugh there wasn't at the misogyny.

[8:33] It was about remembering how they love to put jet skis and all of them.

[8:36] Yeah.

[8:36] They do love to put jet skis.

Stuart Wellington

[8:37] Every ad had to have someone on a jet ski.

[8:39] Yeah.

[8:40] Her son, Dominic, is going away to college in Portland.

[8:44] That's very far and that's tough for her.

[8:46] And her husband, Paul, who's an aging—

[8:48] Not that far.

[8:48] It's the same coast.

[8:49] I mean, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[8:49] Unless it's Portland, Maine, I guess.

[8:51] That's a far way to go to college.

Stuart Wellington

[8:51] I think it's all relative, Elliot.

[8:53] Just like her husband, Paul, who's her relative because he's her husband.

Elliott Kalan

[8:58] He's an aging rock star.

[9:00] She's only related to her husband by marriage because otherwise there's some problems.

Dan McCoy

[9:03] I think the more significant relativity, if you will, is who her great-grandfather is.

[9:09] But we'll get to that in a second.

[9:10] Just grandfather, right?

[9:10] Well, we'll get to it.

[9:11] Oh, is it?

[9:12] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[9:13] Her husband's an aging rock star.

[9:15] He's kind of a man baby.

[9:16] And he is also cheating on her with her son's guidance counselor.

Elliott Kalan

[9:20] And you can tell this is a certain kind of movie because she catches them having fully clothed sex.

[9:25] This is not a movie for the period to heart.

Stuart Wellington

[9:27] Elliot's mad that we don't get to see fucking buttholes.

Elliott Kalan

[9:32] I just always think it's funny when characters are – at first, watching that scene, I had to realize like, oh, wait, they're having sex right now.

[9:39] Because they were in the position for sex, but they were both wearing all of their clothes.

Stuart Wellington

[9:43] Elliot, I will explain that sometimes it's hotter to be wearing clothes because it feels like you're doing something a little bit.

[9:50] It gets literally hotter.

Dan McCoy

[9:51] You're getting so sweaty.

[9:53] Hallie's eyes are lighting up when Stuart says –

[9:57] Yeah.

[9:58] It's a broadest opinions on it.

Hallie Haglund

[10:00] No, you're going to say it feels like you're doing something naughty.

[10:04] And they were doing something naughty.

[10:06] They were doing something naughty.

Elliott Kalan

[10:06] They were cheating on his wife in the same –

[10:08] Yeah.

[10:09] Hot square.

[10:10] And Tony Colletta's like, it's bad enough you're cheating on me.

[10:12] But in your clothes.

[10:13] In your clothes.

Stuart Wellington

[10:14] All I can think of now is you walking around in your sweaty jeans all day after this.

Hallie Haglund

[10:19] How can I ever see you in clothes again?

Stuart Wellington

[10:22] Yeah.

[10:22] And she's like, I'm probably going to have to clean the fucking cum stains out of your jeans later.

[10:26] The cum rope.

[10:28] Yep.

[10:28] Out of your jeans.

[10:29] Okay.

[10:30] So –

Elliott Kalan

[10:30] I don't want that to be the running theme of this episode.

[10:33] Please.

[10:33] I don't want that to be the rope that runs through it.

[10:35] Elliot, relax.

Stuart Wellington

[10:36] Just flow.

Elliott Kalan

[10:38] You got to go with it.

[10:38] Although now I'm just thinking about the Robert Redford movie, a cum rope runs through it.

[10:41] Mm-hmm.

[10:43] Mm-hmm.

[10:44] And of course the other Robert Redford movie, three days of the cum rope.

[10:47] Oh, God.

Stuart Wellington

[10:53] Okay.

[10:53] So she gets a phone call from Rome.

[10:56] It is a woman named Bianca played by – that's right, Monica Bellucci.

[11:01] Mm-hmm.

[11:01] One of the most great stars.

Hallie Haglund

[11:03] Not to be confused with Monica Bellucci.

Elliott Kalan

[11:06] I assume Jim Bellucci's wife or sister or daughter or niece.

[11:11] Very discerning.

[11:12] Or drag persona.

[11:13] Who knows?

[11:14] If there was a movie with – and maybe this exists and I just don't know about it, in which case I'm going to have to contain my excitement.

[11:22] If there was ever a movie with Monica Bellucci and Michelle Yeoh in it, I would go bananas.

[11:27] That would be so exciting to me.

[11:28] Okay, now –

Elliott Kalan

[11:28] I like talking about his fetishes now.

[11:30] Well, just – like, I feel like they are two kind of, like, world-class stars of international film.

[11:35] Yeah.

[11:35] You know, of foreign film who have made it in the United States.

[11:37] And I want to see them in a movie now.

[11:39] Maybe it's the mob versus, I don't know, a Hong Kong cop.

[11:42] As long as they can be buddies.

Dan McCoy

[11:44] I want them to be buddies.

Elliott Kalan

[11:45] Eventually, they'll be buddies, yes, and perhaps more.

Stuart Wellington

[11:48] Mm-hmm.

[11:48] I mean, they'll be buddies, but I feel like Monica Bellucci cannot –

[11:51] Okay.

[11:52] She cannot do a scene where it doesn't feel like she's about to make out with you.

[11:56] Like, she always –

[11:57] Yeah, well, we'll talk about one of those later on.

[11:58] I kept thinking her – yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[12:00] Yeah, because she's got a certain intense amour feeling to her.

[12:05] Yeah.

[12:05] Okay, so –

Dan McCoy

[12:06] Oh, that's amour-ay.

[12:08] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[12:08] Yeah, yeah.

[12:09] Did you notice the scene where the moon hit her eye like a big piece of pie?

[12:12] That's actually not amour-ay.

[12:13] That's abuse.

[12:14] I did notice it.

[12:15] If the moon hits you in the eye, that is abuse, and you should not have to accept it.

Hallie Haglund

[12:18] And you can stay at my apartment tonight.

Dan McCoy

[12:21] I thought I'd fallen asleep, though, after watching this in Moonfall and just combine the movies together.

Elliott Kalan

[12:26] Yeah, no, here's the question.

[12:26] When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, do big pizza pies routinely hit you in the eyes?

[12:31] I just fucking realized that's what Moonstruck means.

[12:33] That's what my doctor asked me.

[12:35] Well, yeah, the Moonstruck, yeah.

[12:37] So many discoveries.

[12:38] Because, well, Moonstruck is more of a mania, like a love mania that the moon causes, right?

[12:42] Mm-hmm.

[12:42] And a werewolf.

[12:43] Okay.

[12:44] Because Nicolas Cage is kind of a werewolf in that movie.

[12:45] You know what?

[12:46] Yes, he is.

Hallie Haglund

[12:46] I never paid attention to the like.

[12:48] I was always thinking it was about getting hit with a pizza.

[12:51] Uh-huh.

[12:52] Until now.

Elliott Kalan

[12:53] Yeah.

[12:54] We're all learning stuff today, guys.

[12:55] Yeah.

[12:55] That's why you proposed to your husband by throwing a pizza at his face?

[12:57] Yeah.

[12:58] You said, that's a mori, bitch.

[13:00] Deal with it.

[13:01] This is what love is.

[13:02] No, eat it.

[13:03] No.

[13:03] Eat it.

[13:04] In your clothes.

[13:07] So, Stuart, what does she learn?

Stuart Wellington

[13:10] Toni Collette's character.

[13:10] Oh, yeah.

[13:11] She learns.

[13:11] Toni Collette learns that her grandfather has passed away and that she needs to go to Rome

[13:17] to settle the estate, like, right now.

[13:19] She needs to get on a plane right now.

[13:20] And that's a long flight.

[13:22] But she's resistant.

[13:23] She has a conversation with her friend Jenny, who's a lawyer when they're at, like, a boxing

[13:27] class.

[13:28] And this is where we learn-

[13:29] Self-defense class.

[13:29] It's like self-defense fitness.

[13:31] Yeah.

[13:31] Yep.

[13:32] And this is where we learn Kristen's overriding want-goal mission in this movie.

[13:38] If this is a musical, she'd sing a song about it.

[13:41] Summarized as eat, pray, fuck.

[13:43] And if you guys know me, anything about me, you know this is my credo as well.

[13:47] Mm-hmm.

[13:48] I mean, the pray part?

[13:49] That's the credo.

[13:51] Elliot, my church, it's the gym.

[13:53] Prayer for me, pushing plates, baby.

[13:57] So, uh-

[13:58] Pushing plates.

Dan McCoy

[14:01] That's like a Pushing 10 sequel.

[14:05] But it's about being a waiter.

[14:06] I don't work airplanes anymore.

Elliott Kalan

[14:08] I work as a waiter at a restaurant now.

Dan McCoy

[14:10] I want to ask something about, like, this self-defense thing.

[14:14] Was it just me or, like, it sort of gets paid off later in the movie?

[14:19] It very much gets paid off.

[14:20] Yeah, it does.

[14:21] Completely.

[14:22] When she uses what she learned to defend herself.

[14:25] Yeah.

[14:25] Hold on.

[14:26] You mean with the stiletto heel?

[14:29] Yes.

[14:30] Yeah, that's fine.

[14:31] But I kept expecting there'd be a more specific part where the, like, taking the gun away paid off.

[14:38] She does it, like, multiple times.

Hallie Haglund

[14:41] Yeah, but not in the way shown in the movie.

[14:42] Damn, not every movie is Karate Kid.

Dan McCoy

[14:43] Not every movie does the move have to match up exactly.

Hallie Haglund

[14:45] She was, like, saying the same thing.

[14:47] Yeah.

[14:48] How does that not, you know?

Dan McCoy

[14:49] I thought that, look, maybe I'm crazy.

[14:52] I thought that it pays off clumsily because it is not, it does not look enough like, like, I expect in visual language for it to, like, be a mirror if this is going to be, like, a payoff gag.

Elliott Kalan

[15:04] Dan, I never thought I was going to say this.

[15:06] I think you're holding Mafia Mama to a higher standard of sophistication than it needs to be held to.

[15:11] All right.

[15:12] All right.

[15:12] Fair enough.

Hallie Haglund

[15:12] It was also doing a lot of heavy lifting in that scene.

[15:16] Yes.

[15:16] Yeah, that's true.

[15:17] It was already an homage to single white female.

Stuart Wellington

[15:20] Yeah.

[15:20] Mm-hmm.

[15:20] Yep.

[15:21] Now, in this boxing scene, Toni Collette is doing very bad punches.

[15:28] And I think, and she, at this point, is, like, one of the things I love about this movie is how Toni Collette is, like, fully committed to exactly what this movie is.

[15:37] At this point, she is, like, super goofy and silly and, like, yeah, it's great.

[15:41] Her voice for this is perfect.

[15:42] The accent she's using is perfect for it.

[15:44] Yeah, she's two thumbs up.

[15:46] Okay, so she flies to Rome at the airport in Rome.

[15:49] She bumps into Lorenzo, a sexy Italian gentleman who, we learn later, is recently divorced, and he gets her phone number.

[15:57] She also meets her drivers, Dante and Aldo, who give very good comedic performances throughout this entire movie.

[16:05] Two thumbs up to those guys.

Elliott Kalan

[16:06] I would say, with the material they're given, they do a fine job.

Stuart Wellington

[16:09] Okay.

[16:10] Once again, Elliot's on Hater Patrol.

[16:12] I get it.

[16:12] No, but I didn't want waving like Dante and Aldo were the breakout stars, you know?

Dan McCoy

[16:16] It's also, I mean, I guess this is a type of character that always works on me.

[16:21] I always enjoy, like, the goon that turns out to be, like, surprisingly supportive.

[16:27] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[16:28] And there's, like, a kind of, like, a tall, skinny one and, like, a shorter, round one.

[16:32] Like, that's the perfect character.

[16:34] That is classic.

[16:35] Yeah.

[16:35] People.

[16:35] Just like Lady and the Tramp.

[16:37] Exactly.

[16:38] Just like Lady and the Tramp.

[16:40] Yeah.

[16:40] So, was Lady the tall one or the—

Hallie Haglund

[16:42] No, the goons.

[16:43] Oh, the goons, dude.

[16:44] Oh, the goons.

[16:45] Oh, the goons.

Hallie Haglund

[16:45] Oh.

Stuart Wellington

[16:48] So, she is taken to the funeral.

[16:51] She gets dressed in the car.

Elliott Kalan

[16:52] Take me to the funeral.

[16:54] There she meets—

[16:55] Drop me with the mourners.

Stuart Wellington

[16:57] There she meets Bianca.

[17:00] She also meets her cousin, Fabrizio, who has a neck tattoo, looks like a mafioso type guy, does not seem to like her.

Elliott Kalan

[17:08] He's your classic hothead.

[17:08] Classic mafia hothead in all these movies.

[17:11] Yeah.

[17:11] Very mercurial.

[17:13] Yep.

[17:13] Very mercurial.

[17:14] Yeah.

[17:14] Very Mercutio.

[17:16] Like, actually, he's more like Tybalt.

[17:17] He's more like Tybalt.

[17:17] Yeah, he's way more like Tybalt.

[17:19] Tybalt's dead.

[17:19] Yeah, he's like Tybalt.

[17:20] Slow enough if it had ended there.

Hallie Haglund

[17:22] That's the—

[17:23] I can do the whole thing.

[17:24] Okay, never mind.

[17:26] Sorry.

Stuart Wellington

[17:28] Sorry.

[17:29] Thank you for your apology.

[17:31] So, the funeral procession—

[17:32] America's rascal, everybody.

[17:34] What a stinker.

[17:36] The funeral procession gets ambushed.

[17:38] There's a shootout, and they are forced to flee, I believe, with the casket, although I don't remember them taking the casket with them.

Elliott Kalan

[17:46] Maybe they shrink it down and put it in their pockets.

Stuart Wellington

[17:48] This is our first big action sequence ever.

Dan McCoy

[17:50] This was not, like, an important thing to me.

[17:53] Like, where's that casket?

[17:54] It's a dead body, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[17:55] I will say, this was—I found this to be a somewhat underwhelming action sequence, but that's okay.

Hallie Haglund

[18:01] Yeah.

[18:02] I fell asleep during it.

[18:04] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[18:04] Well, maybe that's it.

[18:05] I find myself, as I get older, getting less and less interested or excited by shootout scenes in movies.

[18:11] Like, I kind of start to glaze over when it's just guns firing, and yet martial arts are hand-to-hand fighting scenes.

[18:17] I still am in awe.

Dan McCoy

[18:18] Elliot, I agree with you, but I've been there forever.

[18:21] This is why—this is a controversial position.

[18:24] I understand all of, like, the plot reasons and the influence reasons this is an important movie.

[18:29] I've never been as much of a diehard fan as a lot of people who are like, that's the best action movie.

[18:34] Oh, you mean I'm a fan of diehard.

[18:35] Yeah.

[18:36] Okay.

[18:36] Because it's, like, so much of it—

[18:38] I'm a diehard fan of what?

[18:39] Yeah.

[18:39] Because, like, so much of it, when the action actually happens—

[18:42] There's some good suspense scenes, but when the action happens, it's just shooting at each other.

[18:46] And I want, like, a sequence, man.

[18:48] I want, like—

[18:49] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[18:49] Well, it's like, I just started watching Raiders of the Lost Ark with my older son, Sammy, which he has not seen before.

[18:54] We're about halfway through it now.

[18:55] And it's watching again, it's like, oh, yeah, these are, like, sequences.

[18:58] Like, a thing happens, then a thing happens.

[19:00] And even—

[19:01] Yeah.

[19:01] And when Indiana Jones shoots somebody, usually it's a punctuation point to something, or it's the scene with the swordsman, which gratifyingly Sammy thought was hilarious.

[19:10] Like, I didn't have to explain that joke to him.

[19:12] And he goes, I want to see that again.

[19:14] I'm like, all right, it's questionably racist, but all right, we'll watch it again.

[19:18] It's a great moment.

Stuart Wellington

[19:19] Yeah, I think Die Hard just really needs a sequence where John McClane goes to, like, a droid factory and, like, falls onto a conveyor belt.

[19:26] He's hopping from different platforms.

[19:28] Yeah, sure.

[19:28] Wouldn't that have been—oh, that'd be great.

Elliott Kalan

[19:30] Okay.

[19:31] Stuart, you know that's not what we're talking about.

Stuart Wellington

[19:33] So we're—now we're back at the villa.

[19:36] Bianca and Fabrizio kind of explain the situation.

Elliott Kalan

[19:39] This villa is also—it's classic lady movie affluence porn.

[19:45] Like, it's enormous.

[19:46] It's beautiful.

Hallie Haglund

[19:47] There's a bed outside in the garden.

[19:49] Yeah, it's your idea of what it is.

[19:51] A canopy bed.

[19:51] A canopy bed, yeah, outside.

[19:52] Yum, yum, yum.

[19:53] It's not like it never rains in Italy.

Elliott Kalan

[19:55] It is mostly a dry climate, I guess, but, you know.

Hallie Haglund

[19:57] But, you know, something's got to hydrate that terroir.

[20:04] That's a wine term.

[20:05] That's a wine term.

Stuart Wellington

[20:06] Terroir.

[20:07] Appropriate.

[20:08] So she learns that she is part of the Balbano family, which is a crime family that also make wine poorly as a front, and that they are—

Elliott Kalan

[20:18] Very different than being part of the Balaban family, which is a movie studio in acting dynasty, but not involved in crime as far as I know.

[20:25] Oh, interesting.

[20:26] Can you explain more about that?

Dan McCoy

[20:27] Well, actually, I want to know a little bit more about that.

[20:30] Who are the other people in the dynasty?

Elliott Kalan

[20:31] Well, because Bob Balaban's uncle, I think it was either his uncle or his grandfather, I don't think it was his father.

[20:36] It was like a big studio mogul.

[20:38] He's a Nepo baby?

[20:39] Nepo baby.

[20:40] Bob Balaban is a Nepo baby.

[20:41] You wouldn't guess it.

[20:42] And he looks like a baby.

Dan McCoy

[20:43] A big, overgrown baby.

[20:44] There you go.

[20:45] He's a beard, Dan.

Stuart Wellington

[20:46] I mean, he's a baby with a beard.

[20:47] I need my Bob Balaban.

[20:49] Yeah, give me my Bob Balaban.

[20:50] I'm with Dane.

[20:51] You can put a beard on a baby.

[20:53] There's no law against it.

[20:55] Yeah, I mean, we just—it was just Halloween.

[20:57] There were babies with beards all over the place.

[20:59] Okay, so they—

[21:00] Were there?

[21:01] The Balbanos have a rival crime family, the Romanos.

[21:07] Not to be confused with the Roma.

[21:09] Yeah, the Romanos.

[21:10] Thank you.

[21:10] Oh, everybody loves this mafia family.

[21:13] And that they're in a mafia feud.

[21:17] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[21:18] No, not a feud.

[21:22] That's a good Ray Romano, Dan.

[21:23] Yeah, that's pretty good.

Stuart Wellington

[21:26] It's a little—

[21:27] What's that, Ernie?

[21:28] Is that Ernie?

[21:28] Are we flirting with the Balbanos?

[21:30] I mean, it always teeters on like a Kermit.

[21:32] Yeah, mine is becoming Kermit.

[21:34] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[21:34] Uh, we've got to wipe out our enemies to establish supremacy in the cocaine trade.

[21:40] That's Kermit as a mob boss.

Stuart Wellington

[21:42] As he's explaining to Miss Piggy before they have really hot sex.

Dan McCoy

[21:46] I told you, Miss Piggy, you can ask me about my business once.

Elliott Kalan

[21:49] And he goes, ah, Kermit, are you a mob boss?

[21:52] No, of course not, Piggy.

[21:53] And then as she leaves, she sees Sam the Eagle kissing his hand.

Stuart Wellington

[21:58] Can you imagine a universe where Miss Piggy isn't the crime boss?

[22:01] I know.

[22:02] She's obviously going to be the mob boss.

[22:04] Yeah, it should be the other way around.

Dan McCoy

[22:06] Yeah.

[22:06] You can ask me about my business once, Kermit.

[22:09] Yeah.

[22:10] I'm sorry.

[22:10] I'm thinking about the God Porker.

[22:13] That sounds more like a weird porn.

Elliott Kalan

[22:16] We have a Muppet book where there's a double page spread of pun Muppet movie titles.

[22:21] And I think one of them is the Pork Father or the Pig Father.

[22:23] Pork Father.

[22:24] Yeah.

[22:24] Ooh.

[22:24] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[22:29] Allie's imagining something else when she's your Pig Father.

Hallie Haglund

[22:31] If I were a pig, I would be very offended by being called Pork anything.

Elliott Kalan

[22:37] Yeah.

[22:37] Luckily, you don't understand English as a pig, probably anyway.

Hallie Haglund

[22:40] They have, they're so smart.

[22:42] They're pretty smart.

[22:42] They're as smart as a three-year-old.

[22:44] You think they don't understand pork?

Elliott Kalan

[22:45] Well, three-year-olds don't understand pork.

[22:48] I don't know.

Hallie Haglund

[22:49] Well, you put a three-year-old in charge of a sausage store and see what happens.

[22:52] Okay, I have a two-year-old.

[22:53] I have a four-year-old.

[22:54] Let's put them together and see if they half understand pork.

Stuart Wellington

[22:57] That's a good point.

[22:58] It's a good idea.

[22:59] Okay, so she watches-

[23:00] We call that mommy math.

[23:03] She watches a video message from her grandfather explaining that she has inherited this mafia family.

[23:10] She is the new don of this dynasty.

[23:13] And there's some comedy bits in there.

[23:15] Fabrizio is super angry.

[23:17] He should be the next Don, obviously.

[23:20] And Kristen, you know what?

[23:21] She's resistant.

[23:22] She doesn't want-

[23:23] She came here to eat, pray, fuck.

[23:24] She did not come here to run a crime family.

Elliott Kalan

[23:27] She says, I want my eat, pray, fuck so many times in this movie.

[23:30] So many times.

[23:31] Yeah.

[23:32] Eventually, it does pay off.

Dan McCoy

[23:34] Which I was not wild about the eat, pray, fuck as a joke, but I liked the payoff for it.

Hallie Haglund

[23:38] I loved the payoff.

[23:39] I lulled.

[23:41] I laughed out loud.

Stuart Wellington

[23:42] And there's a bit where one of her guards, Aldo, explains that it's a play on eat, pray, love and is familiar with the book.

[23:51] He's clearly been inspired by the book, was touched by it.

[23:54] Yeah.

[23:54] So she agrees to help with the negotiations for peace, but she makes a stipulation that she'll do it as long as she can have her fling with Lorenzo, the hot guy she met at the airport.

[24:06] So she meets and be slathered in Lorenzo's little.

Elliott Kalan

[24:13] I feel like we're entering rope territory again, and I do not want to go there.

[24:19] No entry.

[24:21] Hallie, what were you going to say about Lorenzo?

Hallie Haglund

[24:23] No, I was just, never mind.

[24:26] Let's just leave it at Lorenzo's island.

[24:29] Lorenzo's island?

Elliott Kalan

[24:32] Welcome to Lorenzo's island.

[24:35] Lorenzo Lamas, you have your own island?

[24:37] Well, I snuck onto the island.

[24:39] I don't own it.

[24:41] He's a renegade.

[24:42] He is a renegade, yeah.

[24:44] Now, do you want me to use my laser pointer to point out where you could lose weight?

[24:47] Nah, I don't think so.

[24:48] I'll probably go.

[24:50] So she meets.

Stuart Wellington

[24:54] After a little bit of a makeover, where she gets dressed up to look like a mafia donya.

[25:01] Donya, whatever, don.

[25:02] Mama.

[25:03] Mama, mafia mama.

[25:04] My mistake.

[25:05] I keep mispronouncing that.

[25:06] She meets Don Carlo, who is the rival mob boss at a restaurant.

Hallie Haglund

[25:11] I feel like there are tons of understated funny moments.

[25:14] The way she was dressed before her makeover, it was like she was out of a Chico's catalog.

[25:19] That was so funny.

[25:21] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[25:21] Yeah, it was funny.

[25:21] It was like all earth tones.

[25:25] Also, I mean, Audrey pointed this out.

[25:26] I was not as attuned to it, but she was totally right.

[25:29] Like the way that over the course of the movie, her costume changes.

[25:33] It becomes more.

[25:34] First, it becomes like, you know, more chic and more looking directly like Monica Bellucci.

[25:39] And then she like sort of gets her own style at the end.

[25:42] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[25:42] By the time she has that.

[25:43] She's like Bridget Fonda in Single White Female.

[25:47] Yeah.

[25:48] Oh, wow.

[25:48] There's one specific outfit, the white.

[25:50] Okay.

[25:51] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[25:51] Single white outfit.

Hallie Haglund

[25:52] Single white outfit.

Elliott Kalan

[25:54] So she meets the rival mob boss at the restaurant from negotiations.

Stuart Wellington

[25:58] She is very.

[25:59] No more.

[25:59] No more of that, Alec.

Elliott Kalan

[26:01] She is very nice.

[26:02] Later.

[26:03] Bring it up again later so I can say, oh, no, not again.

[26:05] No, it's okay.

[26:05] They're having a hang.

[26:06] Stuart's getting mad.

[26:06] I like it.

[26:07] Stuart's getting mad.

[26:09] I'm not getting mad.

[26:10] So she goes to the meeting with the other mob head.

Stuart Wellington

[26:14] Oh, oh, we're doing the summary still.

[26:18] So, yeah.

[26:19] I mean, there's a podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[26:20] I love the way that Stuart gets mad about being interrupted is so different than the way

[26:23] Dan gets mad about being interrupted, but I love both of them equally.

Stuart Wellington

[26:27] So she meets the rival mob boss for negotiations at a restaurant.

[26:31] She's very nice to the waitress.

[26:33] That's going to pay off later.

[26:35] She's a lot of gnocchi.

[26:37] Yeah.

[26:37] She's a lot of gnocchi.

[26:38] She's like super goofy and she gets drunk and she's like horny because this is a hot mob

[26:42] boss.

[26:43] And they kind of hit it off.

[26:44] He seems to agree to her negotiations.

Elliott Kalan

[26:46] And she's at that time in her life when she's hitting that hormonal burst, right?

[26:49] Yeah.

[26:50] That turns older women into sexual prejudice.

[26:52] Yeah.

[26:53] Her libido is at max.

[26:54] Elliot's getting into Harry Knowles territory.

Dan McCoy

[26:57] I also like that.

[26:58] I really hope not.

[26:59] I like that Toni Collette here like honestly is not afraid to play it a little dumb too.

[27:07] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[27:07] A little.

[27:08] She is so into like the idea of this like vacation in her own world and like whatnot.

[27:13] And she is just kind of dumb.

Elliott Kalan

[27:15] There are times when she is so almost deliberately obtuse about the danger of the situation she's

[27:21] Yeah.

[27:21] And what it is called for.

[27:22] That sometimes I found it funny and other times I was like, okay, at this point, a normal

[27:27] human being would know that this is like a dangerous situation.

[27:29] You can't just stop.

[27:30] You can't just keep talking about how much you want to have sex with this one guy.

Dan McCoy

[27:34] Yeah.

[27:34] To him.

[27:34] I get it.

[27:35] But I love the oblivious.

[27:37] It's in a weird way.

[27:38] I mean, maybe it's very American about her.

Stuart Wellington

[27:40] You know?

[27:40] Yeah.

[27:40] So they go off to a hotel room to hook up.

[27:42] They're making out.

[27:43] Things are looking good for her little mission statement here.

Elliott Kalan

[27:47] Looks like she's maybe going to have sex for the first time in three years.

[27:49] In three years.

Dan McCoy

[27:50] He insists.

[27:51] She ate and she's going to fuck.

Elliott Kalan

[27:53] And I think she, I'm assuming she prayed in the bathroom that she doesn't pee too loudly

[27:58] or something.

[27:59] In order.

[28:00] She prayed that he wouldn't hear her fart while she was in the bathroom.

Stuart Wellington

[28:03] Yeah.

[28:03] So, which is a joke that they make later on in the movie.

[28:06] That's true.

[28:06] Later on.

[28:07] I laughed.

[28:08] Yeah.

[28:08] He attempts.

[28:09] He said he prayed fart.

[28:10] He attempts to poison her with some poisoned limoncello.

[28:19] With poison that he snuck up his butthole, which is hilarious because it's like, he probably

[28:23] didn't have to hide out there.

[28:24] I know he got searched, but like.

[28:26] He's very small.

Elliott Kalan

[28:27] And also, he goes through such an elaborate series of facial expressions when he was removing

[28:32] that vial of poison.

[28:33] And when he pulls it out, clean as a whistle.

[28:35] It is shiny and glossy.

[28:37] I mean.

[28:38] It might.

[28:38] I would assume if you pulled it out of your butt, it would be at least a little dirty.

Hallie Haglund

[28:42] He would assume like you've never done it.

Stuart Wellington

[28:45] Well.

[28:45] What I'll probably say is he's probably making use of a tushy, one of our sponsors this episode.

[28:51] So he.

[28:52] It's a great product.

[28:53] He should make use it.

Dan McCoy

[28:54] I mean, the lower part of the colon stays pretty clean in between bowel movements.

[28:57] This is.

[28:58] This is.

[28:58] This could be done.

Stuart Wellington

[28:59] Yeah.

[29:00] So, yeah.

[29:02] So, of course.

[29:03] Dan McCoy.

[29:03] Duty detective.

[29:05] Yeah, yeah.

[29:05] He gets distracted.

Hallie Haglund

[29:07] He's like Dexter for duty.

Stuart Wellington

[29:09] I only poop on people who also poop on other people.

[29:12] Yeah.

[29:13] Yeah.

[29:13] That's Dexter's M.O.

[29:15] That's Dukester.

[29:16] I mean, duty Dexter.

[29:17] Yeah, Dukester.

[29:17] Yeah.

[29:18] So, of course, the limoncellos get switched around.

[29:22] Carlos reveals his hand only to get poisoned and die.

[29:28] Her guards kill the other guards.

[29:30] They clean up the mess.

[29:32] Fabrizio shows up, chops off Don Carlos' hand, and they send the severed hand to the Romanos

[29:39] as a message.

Elliott Kalan

[29:41] What do you think they do with that hand afterwards?

[29:42] They just throw it out?

[29:43] Do they bury it?

[29:44] Give it a little funeral?

[29:45] What do they do?

[29:45] They keep it in the closet?

Stuart Wellington

[29:46] Yeah, they do a little funeral.

[29:48] Or they turn it into some kind of, like, they add it to, like, a reliquary or something

[29:52] that they carry into battle.

Dan McCoy

[29:54] They could shellack it and use it as, like, a thing.

[29:58] What?

Hallie Haglund

[29:58] Or they could get a jewelry made out of it, the way you can get your placenta made into

[30:04] jewelry.

[30:06] Yeah.

[30:06] Or maybe they eat it.

[30:07] Maybe it's not really good for you.

Elliott Kalan

[30:08] Like a placenta, a lot of nutrients in the hand.

[30:10] Exactly.

[30:13] Okay.

[30:13] So, I imagine they put it in a tiny little coffin, and there's a little grave.

Stuart Wellington

[30:17] Yeah, it's a little box that has five little fingers.

Elliott Kalan

[30:22] It's like a wooden glove.

Stuart Wellington

[30:24] Yeah.

[30:25] Yeah, it's a little wooden glove with a little wooden lid.

Dan McCoy

[30:26] Oh, it's like one of those shoes you wear that's, like, just your foot.

[30:31] Yes, and they make people look like they're walking around with gorilla feet.

Stuart Wellington

[30:34] Yes, yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[30:34] And it's got a lot of makeup on to make it look like it's still alive.

[30:38] They're like, oh, it just looks like the hand is sleeping.

[30:40] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[30:43] And the grandkids are like, no, no, I don't want to look at the dead hand.

[30:47] They're like, no, it looks okay.

[30:49] Don't worry about it.

[30:49] It's okay.

[30:50] It's okay.

[30:51] Okay.

[30:52] So back at the villa, Toni Collette, Kristen, gets a business lesson into all the various illegal dealings of her crime family.

[31:00] She is put off by this.

[31:03] And then she insists it's time for her to go on a date with Lorenzo, which she does at his home with his aunt there.

[31:09] And his aunt makes a big pasta meal and keeps feeding Aldo and Dante, her guards.

[31:17] Dante is loving it.

[31:19] Violently forcing them to eat more.

[31:19] Oh, it's great.

[31:20] That's, guys, to me, this is comedy.

[31:23] One guy loves the pasta.

[31:24] The other guy, it's too much pasta.

[31:27] Comedy and tragedy right there in one scene.

[31:30] The date goes really well, but she gets notified.

[31:34] She has a Zoom meeting from her day job, so she has to run out before making out with this hot guy.

[31:40] We've all been there, folks, right?

[31:41] We've all been.

[31:42] Yeah.

[31:43] Tell me about it.

[31:46] I mean, I guess you can.

[31:47] It's a podcast.

[31:48] We can talk about that stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[31:49] But it's not really a relationship.

[31:50] It's the right medium for it.

Stuart Wellington

[31:51] Yeah.

[31:52] Okay.

[31:52] So she sends away her guards.

[31:54] She has to do this Zoom meeting.

[31:55] It's no big deal.

[31:57] And one of them, I think Dante has to take care of his sick mom.

[32:01] Of course, while she's setting up for the Zoom meeting.

[32:04] Who can't afford her medication.

[32:05] Yes.

[32:06] Can't afford her medication.

[32:07] Yeah.

[32:07] And, I mean, it makes these characters more relatable to me, a person living in the modern world,

[32:13] where medication is too expensive.

[32:15] Who's not a mafia mama.

[32:16] That we know of.

[32:17] That we know of.

[32:18] That's true.

[32:18] Very possible that Stuart is a mafia mama.

[32:20] Maybe your grandfather just hasn't died yet.

[32:23] Oh, yeah.

[32:24] Yeah.

[32:24] My grandfather.

[32:25] Yeah.

[32:26] While she is setting up the Zoom, an assassin that the Romano sent shows up.

[32:32] And he attacks her while she is muted and on the Zoom call.

[32:37] And her boss and coworkers are not paying attention to her at all.

[32:41] So there's a little bit of comedy about them talking about how cool these jet skis are while she is fighting for her life.

Elliott Kalan

[32:47] And objectifying the women in the photographs online that they are putting together for this pitch.

[32:55] The stock photo.

[32:56] At first, I was like.

[32:57] The stock photos.

[32:57] I could not remember the phrase stock photo.

[32:59] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[32:59] At first, I was like, this is a little on the nose with, like, how absurdly sexist it was.

[33:05] Although, you know, more fool me for expecting any subtlety from mafia mama.

[33:08] Called mafia mama.

[33:09] Yeah.

[33:09] But as it went on and, like, everything was just putting someone else on a jet ski.

[33:15] I was like, okay, I like this stuff.

[33:16] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[33:17] And the stuff they're saying is pretty over the, you know, it's so over the top.

[33:21] Yeah.

[33:21] The attack by the assassin gets a little rapey in a way that I don't like.

[33:28] I did not, it felt like it was a drop of arsenic in the middle of what could have been otherwise a fun scene of attempted murder.

Stuart Wellington

[33:33] Well, yeah, there's a threat of sexual violence.

[33:36] Yeah.

[33:36] Which she responds by taking off her heel and stabbing him in the groin and eye repeatedly.

[33:42] And it's pretty gross.

[33:44] Yeah, it's very violent.

Elliott Kalan

[33:46] While repeating what she said in the self-defense scene, some would say paying off that scene.

[33:50] Yeah.

[33:50] In a very legitimate way.

Dan McCoy

[33:52] Yeah.

[33:52] I was talking about the taking away the gun part of it.

[33:55] I understand.

[33:56] Anyway.

[33:57] So, she murders this guy.

[33:58] It is very gross.

[33:59] Pops his eyeball out.

[34:00] It's nice and gross.

[34:01] Two thumbs up from Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

[34:02] His eyeball just squirts out under the heel of his shoe on camera.

[34:06] Love it.

Dan McCoy

[34:06] And that's one of the things I like about this movie is like it doesn't seem to care about the normal tonal categories.

[34:13] Yeah.

[34:14] Fair.

[34:14] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[34:15] They just want to have fun.

[34:18] They just want to have fun.

[34:18] Because this is a feminist tome.

[34:20] Girls just want to have fun.

[34:22] And that's the movie in a nutshell.

[34:25] I'll get to that later.

Dan McCoy

[34:27] In your closing arguments.

Elliott Kalan

[34:31] So, she hops back on the-

[34:33] Girls just want to have fun.

[34:35] We've all heard it.

Hallie Haglund

[34:36] Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

[34:38] Especially ladies.

Dan McCoy

[34:40] Because they know what I'm talking about.

[34:43] Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

Elliott Kalan

[34:46] But all the single ladies put their hands up.

[34:51] I'm no big city Beyonce.

[34:54] But seems to me.

[34:57] If you like it.

[34:58] You better put a ring on it.

Dan McCoy

[34:59] I rest my case.

[35:01] You know what makes me want to shoop?

[35:03] Justice.

Hallie Haglund

[35:09] Can I get some fries with that shake shake booty?

Stuart Wellington

[35:15] Let's hear it for the boy.

[35:17] Let's not hear it for the boy, ladies and gentlemen.

[35:22] Okay.

[35:24] Oh, this has been fun.

[35:25] Let's get back to the movie.

[35:26] This has been great, yeah.

[35:27] Of course, she hops back on the Zoom call having just murdered a guy with her heel.

[35:31] And she is promptly fired by her boss.

[35:34] And she flips them the bird.

[35:36] And she no longer has that day job to worry about.

[35:39] Closing that book of her life forever.

[35:43] Yeah.

[35:43] Okay.

[35:44] And that Mac book of her life.

[35:45] Yep.

[35:45] I think forever.

[35:45] And then she storms out, leaving the dead body on the ground.

[35:49] And she heads right over to Lorenzo's to get her groove back.

[35:52] She's like, break my back, sucker.

[35:56] Any other questions?

Dan McCoy

[36:00] Stuart can see my confusion at the use of that idiom, I think.

[36:04] Yeah.

[36:05] Okay.

[36:06] She doesn't actually say that, Dan, in the film.

[36:08] No, no.

[36:09] She says, my back, my back.

[36:13] I can understand what it means from context clues.

[36:17] It was not one I was familiar with.

[36:19] So I'm learning something today.

Elliott Kalan

[36:20] To put it more in your language, Dan, she's telling the driver to put up the partition.

Stuart Wellington

[36:23] That's my Beyonce reference.

[36:25] Okay, sure.

[36:27] So she then goes to meet with the Romanos.

[36:30] They have a peace talk.

[36:32] She makes sure everybody's eating gelato.

[36:35] And she achieves peace out of the-

Hallie Haglund

[36:37] That was a very funny joke also, when she insists on the gelato because it has five stars.

[36:42] And she's just trying to eat her-

[36:44] Pray fuck.

[36:44] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[36:45] You know?

[36:45] They're going to go somewhere else.

[36:47] And she says, no, I want to eat at this gelato place.

Hallie Haglund

[36:49] And I'm the boss.

[36:50] Yeah.

[36:50] Finally starting to embrace.

Elliott Kalan

[36:53] She's owning her power as a woman.

[36:55] Yeah.

[36:56] As a mama.

[36:56] Well, really, her power as a mob boss.

[36:58] Yeah.

[36:59] I mean, owning a mama at this point is unrelated to her center power, which is the violence inherent in organized crime.

Stuart Wellington

[37:05] But, you know.

[37:05] So she, and you guys are right.

[37:07] At this point, she has earned respect to from her enemies and her team.

[37:14] Even from Fabrizio, very briefly.

[37:17] Yeah, because she has a very horny meeting with Fabrizio on her outdoor daybed where he is, like, getting super close.

[37:25] And at one point, he licks her finger and puts one of his rings on her finger.

[37:29] One of his wolf head rings.

[37:31] Yeah.

[37:31] I thought it was, like, a jaguar or something.

[37:33] Oh, was it a jaguar?

[37:34] Yeah.

[37:34] Because they're doing, like, cat sounds.

[37:36] Oh, that's right.

[37:36] That doesn't make it.

[37:37] It should have been a wolf.

[37:38] That's the Roman thing.

Hallie Haglund

[37:39] No, but then they make funny jokes about espresso machines with the noises they're making.

[37:43] Oh, that's right.

[37:44] Like, not the Verbo, but the other thing.

Elliott Kalan

[37:48] But he, in case we forgot the brutality of the previous scene, he mentions that pieces of the assassin's scrotum were found in his eye socket.

[37:55] And you can tell that Fabrizio is just so enamored of whatever brutality she inflicted on him.

Dan McCoy

[38:02] I really laughed at that.

[38:03] How he's like, I think they respect you because it was so grotesque or whatever it was.

[38:09] Obviously.

Stuart Wellington

[38:09] And she is obviously shot.

[38:11] And scrubbed him in his eye socket.

[38:12] And she's also wearing a pretty cool little outfit.

[38:14] It's like lingerie under a sport coat.

[38:16] I love it.

[38:17] And then Bianca shows up and we have another horny meeting.

[38:20] Yeah.

[38:20] Her outfit is very white queen, which she's wearing right now.

[38:23] Yeah.

[38:24] That's probably key to him with that.

Elliott Kalan

[38:25] I mean, like, Monica Bellucci is crawling all over her, sitting on top of her, like.

Stuart Wellington

[38:29] And this is where we learn that Monica Bellucci, we learn a little bit about her backstory, right?

[38:34] And that she has a fake metal leg.

[38:37] I wonder if that's going to matter later.

[38:41] Okay.

[38:42] So, after having these conversations, this is when Kristen decides, I'm going to be.

[38:47] Something in Bianca's story gives her an idea.

[38:51] And she comes up with a plan to be a good mob boss.

Elliott Kalan

[38:54] Well, can I tell you what it was in her story, specifically?

[38:57] So, that Monica Bellucci tells the story about how she says, your grandfather was a mob boss, but he also did good things.

[39:02] When I was a kid, I lost my leg in an accident.

[39:05] And other kids made fun of me.

[39:06] But one day, he just showed up with the top-of-the-line prosthetic leg.

[39:10] And since then, I guess it's been updated many times.

[39:12] So, she's saying, you can do this for people, too.

[39:14] That's the power of the mob.

[39:17] Dant.

Hallie Haglund

[39:18] Dant.

[39:18] Yeah.

[39:18] But it's because Kristen's resistance the whole time.

[39:22] She keeps being like, I can't do this because I'm a good person.

[39:25] I'm a good person.

[39:26] And that's when, you know, Monica says.

Dan McCoy

[39:28] The movie is telling us that when governments fail us, what we need is local crime lords.

[39:35] Yep.

[39:36] Benevolent dictators.

[39:37] Benevolent.

[39:37] Come in.

[39:38] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[39:39] Take care of us.

[39:40] Gathered power themselves through the scenes.

[39:43] I also want to say, Kristen's resistance is a great Lin-Manuel Miranda.

[39:47] Yeah.

[39:48] So, excellent work, Allie.

Stuart Wellington

[39:50] So, after coming up with this plan, we get a cool little montage that covers the next couple

[39:55] months that's like her stealing prescription drugs and then like giving them away or like

[40:02] selling them at a reasonable price.

[40:04] Yeah.

[40:04] It's them like improving the winemaking at their vineyard.

[40:07] And also her going on a bunch of dates with Lorenzo.

Elliott Kalan

[40:11] Stuart, is it dead or alive or is it versus where they are killing people and then sending

[40:17] the money to poor kids in Africa?

Stuart Wellington

[40:19] That's dead or alive too.

[40:21] Dead or alive too.

[40:21] And at the end of the montage, they sprout white and black angel wings.

Elliott Kalan

[40:26] Because that was the sequence that I was, this was reminiscent of to me.

[40:31] Because it's just like, we're criminals for good.

[40:33] We're doing good things.

[40:34] Yeah, we're good criminals.

Stuart Wellington

[40:35] Yeah.

[40:35] Except it isn't filled with stock footage of children playing.

[40:40] No, that's true.

[40:41] Okay.

[40:42] Okay.

[40:43] But the thing is, is that this happiness can't last forever.

[40:47] Paul shows up in Italy.

[40:50] That jerk.

[40:52] He interrupts a lovely date and he causes quite a bit of friction with Lorenzo.

[40:57] Not the kind of friction Kristen wanted with Lorenzo.

[41:00] No, Kristen wants to, Lorenzo wants Kristen to open up.

[41:04] He wants to go to her home.

[41:05] He wants to learn more about her.

[41:07] And he's got some trust issues stemming from his ex-wife that is made up.

[41:12] We'll find out later.

[41:13] But he claims to have trust issues.

[41:15] I did not see that coming.

[41:19] Well, they had done a background check.

[41:20] So they didn't see it coming either.

[41:22] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[41:23] Kristen saw it coming, but not in the way that we're talking about.

[41:26] He saw it come roping.

[41:29] And this is right after Lorenzo tells Kristen that he loves her, right?

[41:32] He loves her, yeah.

[41:33] Yeah.

[41:33] So she stands up to Paul.

Stuart Wellington

[41:35] Truly, the moon has hit his eye like a big pizza pie when it comes to Kristen.

[41:40] She stands up to Paul and is like, you got to pay your own way back to LA.

[41:44] And he leaves and we're like, that's probably the last we're ever going to see of him.

[41:48] That's not going to be the case.

[41:49] And then she takes Bianca's side and she explains her plan.

[41:53] Now that everything's going so good, she's going to walk away.

[41:56] She's going to give it all up for a man.

Elliott Kalan

[41:59] Record scratch.

[42:00] What?

[42:01] I mean, if the thing that she was giving up wasn't a life of crime, I would be like, what?

[42:06] But she should give it up.

Stuart Wellington

[42:08] It's not a thing that can only lead to trouble for her in the end.

[42:11] But mafia films and TV shows have always taught me that being a mobster is only good.

[42:18] There are no downsides.

[42:19] Yeah.

[42:19] Not at all.

[42:20] Tony Soprano, only good things happen to me too.

[42:22] Christopher Maltesanti, only good things happen.

Elliott Kalan

[42:25] Michael Corleone, just a life of pleasure without any anxiety or stress.

Stuart Wellington

[42:30] Yeah.

[42:30] Goodfellas, man, that looked super fun.

[42:34] Running away from helicopters.

[42:35] They should call it the good life fellas.

Dan McCoy

[42:36] It does seem that by, like, towards the end of the movie, like, she has pivoted mostly into legitimate wine selling.

[42:46] Although I do feel like, I don't know, I'm not a mafia person, but I feel like it would be difficult to divest yourself completely from that life.

Elliott Kalan

[42:55] That's really, it feels like you either make a clean break and run away or you are always entangled with it.

Stuart Wellington

[43:00] I thought the saying was, when I'm out, they just keep letting me stay out.

[43:06] They respect my boundaries.

Elliott Kalan

[43:08] Just when I thought I was out, I was.

[43:10] Good night, folks.

Dan McCoy

[43:12] And then he sweeps up the spotlight and then puts it into his under's cap and walks off stage.

[43:16] The end, question mark, and then it says, no, it is the end.

Elliott Kalan

[43:23] Okay.

[43:25] So she sits down with-

[43:26] Yeah, Bugs Bunny's hand reaches in and erases the question mark.

Dan McCoy

[43:28] Yeah, puts an exclamation.

Stuart Wellington

[43:30] At, like, I think, like, a coffee shop or a restaurant or something, she sits down with all the other bosses.

[43:36] She is going to break the news that she's walking away.

[43:39] She gives them all muffins that she baked.

[43:41] Goodbye, muffins.

[43:42] Yeah.

[43:43] The meeting gets pretty heated.

[43:46] Goodbye, muffins.

Elliott Kalan

[43:48] Well, they're mad at her because her good stuff is cutting into their business.

[43:54] It's getting in the way, yeah.

[43:55] Yeah.

[43:57] And then-

[43:58] It's not like they're like, Kristen, no, don't go.

Stuart Wellington

[44:00] We love you.

[44:01] That's not the tone.

[44:02] So it gets heated.

[44:04] But before the bullets start flying, it gets raided by the police, led by, gasp, Lorenzo is a cop?

[44:11] And his aunt, who's also a cop, which means, were they living together?

Elliott Kalan

[44:15] Are they also roommates?

[44:16] Like, what?

Stuart Wellington

[44:17] They're in deep cover.

[44:18] They were in deep cover.

[44:19] Is she even his aunt?

Elliott Kalan

[44:21] Maybe not.

[44:22] Maybe they're boyfriend and girlfriend.

[44:23] I mean, probably not.

[44:24] It seems unethical for your aunt to be your boss if you're in the police.

[44:27] I mean-

[44:27] Why?

[44:28] Well, let's say you're in the police.

[44:29] You don't have to be-

[44:30] You're in the police.

[44:31] You could be any member of the police.

[44:33] Maybe be one of the other guys in the police.

[44:35] I don't know their names.

[44:35] That's not how you speak.

Dan McCoy

[44:36] You're Stuart Copeland, the drummer.

[44:38] Yeah, sure.

Elliott Kalan

[44:38] You're Stuart Copeland, I assume, son of Aaron Copeland.

[44:42] And you're like, oh, my aunt's gonna-

[44:44] And father of Douglas.

[44:46] My aunt's gonna take over the band.

[44:47] And everyone's like, that doesn't seem right, that you would have an extra in with the boss?

Hallie Haglund

[44:50] I don't know.

[44:51] I feel like if it were his uncle, you might be singing a different tune.

Elliott Kalan

[44:56] That tune I would be singing would be Roxanne because it's the police.

[45:01] And they'd be like, well, every move she makes, I'll be watching your aunt.

[45:06] I'll be watching your aunt?

[45:08] I'll be watching You're in Town.

[45:10] That's what I meant to say.

[45:11] The, what, Off-Broadway show did every-

[45:14] It went to Broadway at some point, right?

[45:15] From what, 25 years ago?

[45:18] Let's look it up.

[45:19] Yeah, Google it.

[45:21] Listeners at home.

[45:22] Love that.

[45:22] Listeners at home, look up when You're in Town ran.

[45:24] And if it was Broadway or Off-Broadway, send me the information at-

[45:27] Yell it at your-

[45:28] Yell it out to the heavens and God will get it to me.

Stuart Wellington

[45:32] Yeah.

[45:33] Go tell it to the Marines.

[45:35] Yeah.

[45:36] Tell it on the mountain.

Elliott Kalan

[45:38] Send in the clowns.

Stuart Wellington

[45:43] Don't look in the basement.

Elliott Kalan

[45:45] Don't look back either.

[45:46] And don't look now.

[45:48] Don't speak.

Stuart Wellington

[45:49] Never let me go.

[45:50] Don't stand so close to me.

[45:54] Okay.

[45:55] So we also learned that Lorenzo isn't Lorenzo.

[45:58] He's Rudy, not the football guy.

[46:01] No, not at all.

[46:02] He's not Rudy Huxtable.

[46:04] No, not either of those Rudys.

[46:06] And he has a grudge against the Balbano crime family because his family was killed while

[46:11] he was playing soccer and he missed a goal.

[46:13] Good joke.

[46:14] That's a good joke, everybody.

[46:16] Christian gets arrested along with everybody else that didn't get killed.

[46:20] The head of the Romano family gets his fingers blown off and one of the fingers lands in her

[46:24] hair.

[46:25] That's pretty funny.

Hallie Haglund

[46:27] It's funny because they start playing the Aerosmith song while they're staring into each other's

[46:32] eyes.

Stuart Wellington

[46:33] Yeah.

[46:33] It's the song from Armageddon.

[46:34] Armageddon.

[46:35] Yeah.

[46:35] One of many little musical Easter eggs.

[46:39] Is that an Easter egg?

[46:41] Okay.

[46:42] So she's whisked away to trial.

Hallie Haglund

[46:47] Can you imagine how magical it would be if you cracked open an egg and music started playing?

Elliott Kalan

[46:50] Oh, that would be very magical.

[46:52] Yeah.

[46:53] Thank you.

[46:53] It's like something out of a, something out of like a, I don't know, like a, like a Tim

[46:58] Burton film, you know, something like that.

[47:00] Huh?

[47:00] It would be that Helena Bonham Carter.

[47:03] Although in life, I think I would.

[47:05] She has a head that's a giant egg with a little hat on it.

[47:07] I was on Jordan Jesse Goh when we were talking about.

[47:09] Against the wall.

[47:10] And beautiful Aerosmith.

[47:11] For anyone who missed my recent appearance on Jordan Jesse Goh where we talked about Tim

[47:15] Burton's fetish for huge heads with little hats on them.

[47:18] And we did impressions of Tim Burton where he was talking to Helena Bonham Carter about

[47:21] how he wants her to put a little hat on her head.

[47:23] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[47:25] Okay.

[47:25] So her, the time between being arrested and going to trial seems very short.

[47:32] Hey, this is Italy.

Elliott Kalan

[47:33] A country known for the efficiency of its public institutions.

Stuart Wellington

[47:36] So she is, she is walking up the steps to her trial only for her inexperienced lawyer to

[47:42] be shoved out of the way because her friend Jenny has arrived from LA.

[47:46] And Jenny's going to take it from here, boys.

Elliott Kalan

[47:48] This was an interesting move because Jenny is more experienced, but she is not, I think,

[47:52] a fluent Italian speaker.

[47:53] No, she is.

[47:54] Because I know she speaks multiple languages.

Hallie Haglund

[47:56] Yeah, but when she, when, when, when Kristen called her and she was like, oh my God, I just

[48:01] killed a mob boss.

[48:02] Before she picks up the phone, Jenny is speaking in Italian to someone on the phone.

[48:07] I thought it was something else.

[48:07] Yeah.

[48:07] No, it was Italian.

[48:08] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[48:09] Well, most of the trials conducted English anyway.

Hallie Haglund

[48:10] They don't leave a lot of loose threads, okay?

[48:14] I'd be more concerned.

[48:15] This film is tight.

Elliott Kalan

[48:16] This is, it's tight.

[48:17] Yeah.

[48:17] Tight.

[48:18] About.

[48:18] It's like, it's a perfect, perfectly, like, perfect sphere.

[48:22] There's no edges or loose ends.

Dan McCoy

[48:23] I'd be more concerned about whether she was, like, allowed to practice law in Italy, whether

[48:28] she was familiar with local laws.

Elliott Kalan

[48:30] Dan, as we saw from Book Club, the next chapter, anyone can do anything in Italy.

[48:34] Okay.

[48:34] There's no, there's no legal jurisdictions.

[48:36] It's the purge over there.

[48:36] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[48:36] Candice Bergen can just step in and officiate a wedding, and this lady can just come in and

[48:40] practice law.

[48:41] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[48:41] Amanda Knox can just murder her roommate.

[48:44] You can do whatever you want.

[48:46] Allegedly.

Elliott Kalan

[48:47] A case that they reference in the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[48:49] Okay, so the trial is brief.

[48:54] There's many character witnesses that say very nice things about Kristen.

[48:58] The judge, moved to tears, dismisses the case.

[49:02] Because Kristen did a speech about how.

Elliott Kalan

[49:04] She didn't inherit the mob.

[49:05] She inherited herself.

[49:07] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[49:10] You would think the movie's over at this point.

[49:12] Not so fast.

[49:13] Fabrizio makes a play for power.

[49:15] He shoots Dante.

[49:17] Oh, no.

[49:18] I like that guy.

[49:19] And we think that he has shot and killed Bianca.

[49:21] We learn that, in fact, he just shot her in the metal leg, and she is okay.

[49:25] He is holding Paul and Dominic hostage.

[49:28] What, Dominic?

[49:29] What's he doing in Italy?

[49:31] That's her son, of course.

[49:32] There's a shootout in the winery.

[49:34] Fabrizio gets pushed into a wine press where his blood mixes with the wine, and they sell

[49:42] it as rosé.

[49:43] Yep.

[49:45] Their family goes-

Elliott Kalan

[49:46] Happens more than you'd think.

[49:46] It happens more than you'd think.

Stuart Wellington

[49:47] How do you think they make rosé?

[49:49] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

[49:50] Yeah.

[49:50] I don't think that it would taste very good to have meat in your wine.

[49:57] Well, it's not meat.

[49:57] It's blood.

[49:58] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[49:58] Somewhere Dracula is turning the podcast off.

[50:01] It was ground up.

[50:01] He's like, maybe I will eat.

[50:03] Maybe I will drink.

[50:04] Why?

Dan McCoy

[50:04] I mean, I don't think that part would turn, is what I'm saying.

[50:10] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[50:10] I mean, probably if you're aging the wine, certainly the blood will clot at some point.

[50:15] You never know.

Dan McCoy

[50:16] I guess the vinegar, the acid of the wine would prevent any diseases, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[50:24] There are more than one comic book where blood was mixed with the printer's ink, and it was

[50:28] fine.

[50:28] So maybe it's just that they washed it down with so much wine that it diluted the blood

[50:32] enough that it just adds a little tinge of iron to the wine.

Dan McCoy

[50:36] Iron and wine.

[50:37] It's a very mineral-y wine.

[50:39] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[50:39] A lot of tannins.

[50:41] Is that a thing in blood?

Stuart Wellington

[50:42] Tannins?

[50:43] Tannins.

[50:44] So she sends Paul back home.

[50:47] She sends her son Dominic home, but not before he gets a little bit of a godfather moment

[50:51] because one of the running jokes that Kristen has never seen the godfather.

[50:54] Yes.

[50:55] Much to the chagrin of everybody.

Elliott Kalan

[50:57] And everyone in Italy is horrified and angry at her that she's never seen the godfather.

[51:00] So funny.

[51:01] It is kind of funny.

[51:02] The only thing, it's a funny joke.

[51:03] It's a funny runner.

[51:04] The only thing to me was I was like, Italy has an amazing national film heritage.

Dan McCoy

[51:10] Yeah, but these are mostly mobsters.

[51:13] There's a lot of mob movies from Italy.

Elliott Kalan

[51:16] There's a lot of movies from Italy.

[51:17] But no, it's a funny running gag.

Stuart Wellington

[51:20] Especially because at one point she does make a reference to it and they're like, oh, you

[51:24] finally watched The Godfather.

[51:25] She's like, I read the summary on Wikipedia.

[51:27] Good joke.

[51:27] Those are good jokes, folks.

[51:30] So we get a little godfather moment and then she gets her own mafia mama moment.

[51:36] Enjoying what?

[51:36] Like some gelato at the very end.

Elliott Kalan

[51:38] They're like feeding her?

[51:39] They're just putting it in her mouth for her.

Stuart Wellington

[51:40] Hell yeah.

[51:41] That's what she, because she's the mafia mama.

[51:42] And that is the end of the movie.

[51:43] That's like a mafia baby.

[51:44] Boom, boom, boom.

[51:45] That's the end of the movie.

[51:46] We get a little theme song.

[51:48] Dan's dancing.

[51:49] I'm dancing.

[51:49] Everybody's dancing.

[51:50] That was mafia mama, folks.

[51:52] I was dancing to the theme song.

[51:53] Mafia mama will return in.

[51:54] Audrey took a video.

Elliott Kalan

[51:55] Mafia mama 2.

[51:56] Mafia mama versus the Yakuza.

Dan McCoy

[51:58] I kind of wanted, you know, I mean, I know that part of the thing is her pivoting away

[52:03] from the unsavory aspects of the mafia, but I kind of did want like a post credit of

[52:10] something of like her like sending some goons to scare her old boss or something.

[52:14] Like just like a little bit of a-

[52:16] Yes, her old shitty boss.

Hallie Haglund

[52:17] Well, she sent the finger.

[52:18] I mean, she sent the finger in the rosé.

Stuart Wellington

[52:21] But that was to the rival crime.

[52:22] That was to the rival family.

[52:24] You mean her boss in America at the-

Dan McCoy

[52:25] Yeah, I just wanted like a little bit of like, as long as we're doing all this fantasy wish

[52:29] for them at like, and alas, boom, take that.

[52:32] You're right, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[52:32] The guy, he's in his bed and he's like, huh, what?

[52:35] And his foot hits something and it's the head of his son from who he works with at the

[52:39] company.

[52:40] Sure, yeah.

[52:40] What?

[52:41] That's a little-

[52:42] No, it should have been fortunate.

[52:43] No, the son's alive though.

[52:44] The son's just like, dad, I had a bad dream ever since those mafia goons came by.

[52:47] And he's like, well, you can sleep in the bed with me.

[52:49] That's all right.

Stuart Wellington

[52:49] No, what it should be is he kicks something and his foot's wet and he pulls the sheet aside

[52:54] and it's like a chopped and halved jet ski and he's like, no!

Dan McCoy

[52:58] Get his oil all over the bed.

[53:00] That's a great ending.

Stuart Wellington

[53:02] Okay, so that was Mafia Mama, everybody.

[53:05] You're probably wondering, did this movie live up to Stewart's high expectations?

[53:10] The answer is absolutely.

[53:11] Two thumbs up.

[53:12] Love you, Mafia Mama.

[53:14] So that's your final judgment.

[53:15] Final judgment.

[53:16] This is a movie I liked.

Dan McCoy

[53:17] Yeah, for anyone who inexplicably is just joining us.

[53:24] I don't even know how that would be possible.

[53:25] Final judgments.

Stuart Wellington

[53:28] Just get to 56 minutes.

Dan McCoy

[53:30] A bad, bad movie or a movie kind of like, I just meant this episode.

[53:34] If you haven't-

[53:34] Oh, well, I see.

[53:34] This is where we like give our final opinion.

Elliott Kalan

[53:38] So I said this is a movie I kind of like.

[53:40] The title Final Judgments is kind of self-explanatory about what the segment is.

Dan McCoy

[53:43] Yeah.

[53:43] Sure, sure.

Stuart Wellington

[53:44] Elliot, sometimes you're really hard on Dan.

Dan McCoy

[53:47] Thank you.

[53:48] Wow.

[53:49] Thank you for that performance review.

[53:50] Speaking for the listeners.

[53:54] Very fair.

[53:55] It's very fair.

[53:55] So Stewart doesn't even say kind of like.

[53:56] He just liked it straight up.

[53:58] And I would say, I mean, I might stick with kind of likes because it is, it has issues.

[54:07] Like it's not as funny as I would like it to be necessarily.

[54:10] And even though I respect that its tone goes for it, sometimes it doesn't seem to have full control of itself.

[54:19] But I still got to admit that I really enjoyed it and laughed a lot while watching it.

[54:24] So that's my response.

[54:27] You guys?

[54:29] Me?

[54:29] Yeah.

[54:29] How will you go?

[54:30] I loved it.

[54:31] I'll be the buzzkill at the end.

[54:32] Loved it.

Hallie Haglund

[54:32] Loved it.

[54:33] Loved it.

[54:33] I wish I had written it.

[54:35] I couldn't stop thinking about how fun it must have been to make this movie.

[54:39] Because these are all like, the director was the woman who directed 13.

[54:43] Oh, right.

[54:43] It's a big change.

[54:44] And the first Twilight.

[54:46] And Toni Collette.

[54:47] She obviously has been in numerous renowned films.

[54:53] But they were all like, you know what?

[54:54] Like, we're girls and we want to make a fucking stupid movie.

[54:59] And they did.

[55:00] And it was beautiful.

[55:01] And I loved it.

[55:01] No, I thought it was great.

[55:04] I really did.

[55:05] And I thank you guys for letting me watch it with you.

Elliott Kalan

[55:08] Yeah.

[55:09] I'm just going to say at the end, because I don't want to be too much of a buzzkill.

[55:12] I don't like it that much.

[55:13] Sexist.

[55:13] But I think it's more because it felt like there were a lot of opportunities for humor

[55:19] that were not fully taken.

[55:21] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[55:22] I feel like it could.

[55:23] It has one strike against it in that it's a comedy that Elliot did not write.

[55:27] And came out after the 1970s.

Elliott Kalan

[55:29] That's the issue.

[55:30] No, I just, I wanted to be funnier.

[55:32] You know, like, I was like, oh, there's a lot of, like, it feels like this movie is

[55:35] like always getting up to the edge of being really funny for me.

[55:37] And then it wasn't going quite there.

[55:39] But, you know.

[55:40] But of all the movies we've watched maybe this year, I think, this is in the top three.

[55:47] Certainly.

[55:48] I mean, for the Flophouse, I mean.

[55:50] Not all the movies we've watched in our personal lives.

[55:53] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[55:54] Okay, so that was Mafia Mama.

[55:55] What do we do next here, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[55:58] Let's do some ads.

[56:00] Why not?

[56:03] Let's do them.

[56:03] Okay, let's do it.

[56:04] We can make Hallie sit through them, sure.

[56:07] We'll try and make them fast, especially for Hallie.

[56:10] Okay.

[56:11] Hey.

[56:11] You like.

Hallie Haglund

[56:13] Because remember how I stuck up for you?

Dan McCoy

[56:15] Yeah, thank you.

[56:20] Never forget it.

[56:21] You want to feel as good as you.

[56:22] You're seeing a real Mafia Mama there.

[56:23] You want to feel good.

[56:26] You want to feel like Hallie Hacklin stuck up for you.

[56:29] You want to get that kind of joy in your life?

[56:31] Maybe microdosing is the answer.

[56:32] Our show today is sponsored by Microdose Gummies.

[56:35] Microdose Gummies deliver perfect entry-level doses of THC that help you feel just the right

[56:41] amount of good, and when I say just the right amount of good, I'm saying that warm, warm

[56:45] feeling of friendship and appreciation that you get when Hallie Haglin tells Elliot to shut

[56:52] the fuck up for once and be nice.

[56:56] If you want a similar experience but in a Microdose Gummies form, Microdose Gummies are available

[57:03] nationwide.

[57:04] To learn more about microdosing THC, go to Microdose.com and use code FLOP.

[57:09] That's F-L-O-P to get free shipping and 30% off your first order.

[57:14] Links can be found in the show description, but again, that is Microdose.com, code FLOP.

Stuart Wellington

[57:21] You know, the holidays are right around the corner and you're probably doing a little bit of

[57:24] gift shopping, and what kind of gift does everybody in the world need?

[57:29] That is right.

[57:30] People need a tushy home bidet so that their butts will stay nice and clean because everybody

[57:36] poops.

[57:36] That's a rule.

[57:37] That's one of the rules that, one of the commandments.

[57:40] Yep.

[57:41] That's the second commandment.

[57:43] The number two commandment.

[57:44] Yeah.

[57:46] First one is everybody pees.

[57:48] Uh-huh.

[57:49] Hello Tushy's bidet uses a fresh stream of water that helps clean your butt two times better

[57:54] than wiping and helps provide poop.

Elliott Kalan

[57:56] How do they calculate that?

[57:58] You measure how clean your butt is at the end of it.

[58:02] It feels easy to measure.

Dan McCoy

[58:04] Yeah.

[58:04] We're going to map it out.

[58:05] They can put a grid over the butt area and if there are any particles in any of the grids.

Elliott Kalan

[58:11] There's a book where they basically do that.

[58:14] There was one amazing text on the design of bathrooms.

[58:17] Uh-huh.

[58:17] It's page after page of mapping of like splashback and things like that and urine arc.

[58:23] And I used to have a copy of this book and I wish I still had it.

[58:26] I gave it to someone as a gift.

Stuart Wellington

[58:27] Speaking of bathroom design, Hello Tushy bidets actually connect to your existing toilet.

[58:32] You don't have to rip that thing out and put in a whole new toilet.

[58:35] This goes on top of it.

[58:36] It's very easy to install.

[58:37] Very easy to install.

[58:37] Super easy to install.

[58:40] I have been a user for years.

[58:42] I love it.

[58:43] It is essential.

[58:44] Anytime I have to use a bathroom that does not have a Tushy bidet, I am like, I wasted that.

[58:50] That is a wasted moment of my life.

[58:52] Now I have to go find out a shower real quick.

[58:56] So shop.

[58:57] Don't let him use your shower.

[58:59] Just point it right.

[59:00] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[59:00] I wish I had known before we watched that movie at my house.

[59:03] Sorry.

[59:05] My children bathe in that shower.

Stuart Wellington

[59:07] Yeah.

[59:08] Spoiler.

[59:09] It wasn't your cat that made that mess.

[59:12] So shop from your toilet this Brown Friday and save up to 30% on bidets and bundles.

[59:19] For poop, Hallie?

[59:20] Oh, that's what I thought.

[59:21] Yeah.

[59:21] Okay.

[59:23] Visit HelloTushy.com.

[59:27] HelloTushy.com forward slash flop and use promo code flop for 30%.

[59:33] No, no.

[59:33] Flop.

[59:34] Like the name of the show.

[59:35] And use promo code flop for 30% off your first order.

[59:39] That's HelloTushy.com slash flop for 30% off now through November 25th.

Dan McCoy

[59:45] Now and forever.

[59:46] Now and forever.

[59:47] Cats.

[59:48] Live at the living garden.

[59:49] Cats in your toilet.

Elliott Kalan

[59:51] Before we go on to the next ad, I just want to say I'll also throw in a personal recommendation

[59:55] for the Tushy Bidet.

[59:57] My family loves it.

[59:58] Okay.

[59:58] So guys, we've got some Flophouse related announcements.

[1:00:02] Exciting, exciting, exciting.

[1:00:04] Flop TV continues at pace.

[1:00:06] That's our online live, but then recorded broadcast internet TV version of the Flophouse podcast.

[1:00:12] We, as we record this just days ago, we had our fourth episode over the top.

[1:00:16] The video of that is online now for anyone who has a season pass ticket or is going to buy one.

[1:00:21] Our next episode is December 2nd.

[1:00:23] One day before my birthday.

[1:00:25] You better show up with a present.

[1:00:26] And we're going to be watching and talking about, that's right, Ballistic X versus Sephir.

[1:00:31] The movie that until I watch it, I refuse to believe is a real movie that exists.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:36] Just sounds like a collection of words I don't understand.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:38] Yeah.

[1:00:38] We may turn out to be maybe like the 20th through 22nd people who have ever seen this movie.

[1:00:44] It'll be exciting.

[1:00:45] So that's December 2nd, a Saturday, the first Saturday of the month at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[1:00:50] Or if you can't make it for the live broadcast on Saturday, December 2nd at 9 p.m.,

[1:00:54] your season pass or your ticket gets you access to the recording pretty much the next morning or later that night.

[1:01:00] But definitely by the next morning.

[1:01:02] The Flophouse.Simpleticks.com for tickets or season passes to Flop TV.

[1:01:07] But even more exciting than that, if it's even possible.

[1:01:10] Hey, you like watching The Flophouse on your computer.

[1:01:13] Would you like to watch us in person, in a room with you, sharing the same space?

[1:01:18] Well, guess what?

[1:01:19] If you live in one of a few places on the West Coast, you'll get that chance in January.

[1:01:24] That's right.

[1:01:24] In January 2024, The Flophouse is going on tours, the 2024 tour.

[1:01:29] We're calling it Eras.

[1:01:30] And we're going to a couple different cities on the West Coast.

[1:01:34] Sorry, East Coast.

[1:01:35] We can announce two of those dates right now on January 25th of next year.

[1:01:40] We're going to be at the Aladdin Theater in Portland, Oregon.

[1:01:43] That's right.

[1:01:43] Portland, Oregon, the City of Roses.

[1:01:45] We'll be there doing The Flophouse.

[1:01:47] That's at 8 p.m. on January 25th.

[1:01:50] For tickets, go to Aladdin-Theater.com.

[1:01:53] That's not the word dash, just the pronunciation.

[1:01:56] This is the punctuation.

[1:01:57] Aladdin-Theater.com.

[1:01:58] And then a few days later, January 28th at 7 p.m., we'll be at the Regent Theater in Los Angeles.

[1:02:03] If you missed our Vidiot's Los Angeles show, get ready.

[1:02:06] We're going to be in Los Angeles again doing a different show, not the same shows.

[1:02:10] So that's going to be-

Dan McCoy

[1:02:10] And this will be downtown where there's like parking garages and stuff.

[1:02:14] Yes, it'll be easier to park.

[1:02:15] So maybe it'll be easier for people to-

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:16] It's a cooler place to be.

[1:02:18] It does smell bad, but, you know, it's-

[1:02:20] Wait, what?

Hallie Haglund

[1:02:21] I said, I don't know if it's a cooler place to be.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:23] It's not a cooler place to be, to be honest.

[1:02:25] Yeah, Vidiot is pretty cool.

[1:02:26] Vidiot is pretty cool.

[1:02:26] But the Regent is fine, too.

[1:02:27] Go to RegentDTLA.com for tickets.

[1:02:30] That's January 28th at the Regent Theater.

[1:02:32] We haven't picked our movies yet.

[1:02:33] We do have a surprise special thing that we might be able to announce sometime in the future

[1:02:39] for one of those shows.

[1:02:41] But we're going to pick those movies soon.

[1:02:44] Yeah.

[1:02:44] And let you know what they are.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:46] Let me say, there's a, yeah, there's going to be eventually four dates in this Flophouse

[1:02:51] West Coast tour.

[1:02:52] We can only announce two right now, but we wanted to give people the earliest possible chance

[1:02:57] for those two.

[1:02:58] Once there's all four, you know, I'm going to construct an easy place where you can look

[1:03:02] at all that stuff together.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:04] Big promises coming from Dan McCoy.

[1:03:07] I do these things, I just sometimes forget them.

[1:03:09] That's the problem.

[1:03:10] Hey, Stuart.

Hallie Haglund

[1:03:11] Yes?

[1:03:12] Leave Dan alone.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:13] Yes, mom, you're mama.

[1:03:15] You mess with Dan, you mess with me.

[1:03:17] That's what Hallie says.

[1:03:18] Yeah, go on, kid.

Hallie Haglund

[1:03:19] You come after Dan, you come after me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:23] That's what it is, come after.

[1:03:24] Okay, I also, guys, step aside for a moment.

[1:03:27] I have some non-Flophouse news that I wanted to share that I'm going to be cheating on the

[1:03:33] Flophouse boys next year doing another podcast that I'm going to mention real quick.

[1:03:37] I didn't want you to find out this way, but it is the way I'm telling you.

[1:03:40] I am going to be teaming up next year for a podcast with 99% Invisible Zone, Roman Mars.

[1:03:45] We're going to do a monthly podcast celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of my favorite books,

[1:03:49] probably my favorite book of all time, The Power Broker by Robert Caro.

[1:03:52] He's a mortal masterpiece of political biography and municipal apocalypse.

[1:03:56] We're going to be walking through the book all year.

[1:03:59] Get yourself a copy.

[1:04:00] Read along with us.

[1:04:01] It's going to be really fun.

[1:04:02] We're going to have celebrity interviews, things like that.

[1:04:03] There should be a kind of introductory episode coming out in December,

[1:04:07] and then it's going to be all through 2024 for the 50th anniversary.

[1:04:11] I don't have the title of that podcast yet, but when we do have it, I'll give it to you.

[1:04:15] So that's a lot of me promising titles.

[1:04:18] Shower Broker.

[1:04:19] Shower Broker.

[1:04:19] You could do it in the shower.

[1:04:21] Okay, yeah, maybe I'll podcast in the shower.

[1:04:23] It'll probably ruin my book.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:24] I saw a screenshot of you and Roman talking to Conan O'Brien.

[1:04:28] Yep.

[1:04:28] That was on the internet.

[1:04:29] Did you mention me?

Hallie Haglund

[1:04:30] Did I mention what?

[1:04:30] I was a big fan of Conan O'Brien growing up.

[1:04:32] Did you mention him?

[1:04:33] Yeah, did you mention him?

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:33] I almost did, to be honest, but I didn't.

[1:04:35] Instead, I mentioned Matt O'Brien, someone that we both know in common.

[1:04:39] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[1:04:39] Did you know he's working at The Daily Show again?

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:42] Oh, I didn't know that.

[1:04:42] Yeah.

[1:04:42] I'll have to get in touch with him.

[1:04:43] A longtime Conan writer and former Daily Show co-worker of mine, Matt O'Brien.

[1:04:48] But we interviewed Conan O'Brien.

[1:04:50] We interviewed celebrities and stuff like that.

[1:04:51] But my name was on the tip of his tongue.

[1:04:53] Mm-hmm.

[1:04:54] And one last thing.

[1:04:55] I'll remind people that my Disney Villains Hades comics miniseries is out in stores now

[1:04:59] from Dynamite Comics.

[1:05:00] And that's all the ads that we have this week.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:03] Have you ever wanted to know the sad lore behind Chuck E. Cheese's love of birthday parties?

[1:05:12] Or my Saturday mornings are reserved for cartoons?

S5

[1:05:14] Or have you wanted to know how beloved virtual pet site Neopets fell into the hands of Scientologists?

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:20] Or how a former Mattel employee managed to grow Sega into a video game powerhouse?

S5

[1:05:24] Join us, host Austin and Brenda, and learn all of these things and more at Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries.

[1:05:31] Now on Maximum Fun.

Hallie Haglund

[1:05:36] I'm Yucky Jessica.

[1:05:38] I'm Chuck Crudsworth.

[1:05:40] And this is Terrible.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:42] A podcast where we talk about things we hate that are awful.

Hallie Haglund

[1:05:46] Today we're discussing Wonderful.

[1:05:48] A podcast on the Maximum Fun Network.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:51] Host Rachel and Griffin McElroy.

[1:05:54] A real-life married couple.

Hallie Haglund

[1:05:56] Yuck.

[1:05:56] Discuss a wide range of topics.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:58] Music, video games, poetry, snacks.

Hallie Haglund

[1:06:02] But I hate all that stuff.

[1:06:03] I know you do, Yucky Jessica.

[1:06:06] It comes out every Wednesday.

[1:06:08] The worst day of the week.

[1:06:09] Wherever you download your podcasts.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:11] For our next topic, we're talking Fiona, the baby hippo from the Cincinnati Zoo.

[1:06:16] I hate this little hippo.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:18] Well, then let us move on to letters from listeners like you who are listening to the Flophouse podcast right now.

[1:06:28] Hi, I'm talking to you.

[1:06:30] It's me, Dan McCoy, talking directly to you, the listener.

[1:06:32] Hi there.

[1:06:33] No, not you.

[1:06:35] You in the red.

[1:06:37] Yeah.

[1:06:38] How you doing?

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:40] Anyway, if you're one of the listeners.

[1:06:42] Dan, I'm so proud of the way that you have learned how to waste time.

Hallie Haglund

[1:06:45] Thank you.

[1:06:46] Thank you, Elliot.

[1:06:47] That's how you talk to your friends.

[1:06:49] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:49] It makes me very proud.

[1:06:51] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:53] Anyway, letters from listeners.

[1:06:54] The first one is from Luke, last name withheld, who did the over-the-top slash over-the-flop art that we used for most recent.

[1:07:02] Oh, cool.

[1:07:03] Flophouse.

[1:07:04] If you were in the waiting room.

[1:07:05] Flop TV show.

[1:07:06] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:06] The last episode of Flop TV, you saw it.

[1:07:08] It was great.

[1:07:09] It was a great mock-up poster.

[1:07:11] My favorite part of it was how he changed the slogan.

[1:07:13] The tagline over-the-top was like,

[1:07:15] some fight for, what is it, some fight for, some fight for victory, some for money.

[1:07:20] He's fighting for his son's money.

[1:07:24] Something like that.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:25] That's great.

[1:07:27] Yeah.

[1:07:27] So this is from Luke, last name withheld, over-the-flop.

[1:07:32] Hey there.

[1:07:34] Long time, first time, etc.

[1:07:36] I've listened to you chuckleheads for a while, but only recently subscribed to your YouTube channel.

[1:07:41] Today, the algorithm decided that since I like your channel, I might also like Wood Talk, which as far as I can tell, only has in common with your show that it is three guys with cartoon avatars talking about something.

[1:07:54] I guess I should ask a related question.

[1:07:57] So, what's your favorite use of wood in a movie?

[1:08:00] You have to answer because I finally joined Max Fund this week.

[1:08:03] You owe me, damn it.

[1:08:04] Luke, last name withheld.

[1:08:05] We do owe him, damn it.

[1:08:06] What's your favorite use of wood in a movie?

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:12] Wood.

[1:08:12] I've got an answer for that.

[1:08:13] I don't know if it's really my favorite, but it's the first one that comes to mind is there's a moment in the movie Horse Feathers, the Marx Brothers movie, where Harpo and Chico have been tied up and kidnapped in a room.

[1:08:24] And they get out by each – they each have a saw on their hands, and they saw through the wooden floor in a circle around themselves so that they then fall through the floor, through the ceiling of the room below them and are immediately captured again.

[1:08:36] And I just think it's very funny the way that they're – in another comedy movie, the characters would do this unknowingly, like ignorantly, unknowing that they are about to fall down.

[1:08:45] But it is clear from the looks on their faces that Chico and Harpo are very well aware that they are about to fall through the ceiling of the room below them.

[1:08:51] And they're doing it just for the sheer insanity of wanting to escape that way.

[1:08:56] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:57] You know what I just thought of that I'll throw in here?

[1:09:01] The film Walking Tall, the Hicksploitation movie with Joe Don Baker.

[1:09:05] Yeah, he's a big stick in that.

[1:09:06] Yeah.

[1:09:07] Yeah, he just carries around a plank, and that's how he fights crime with a big piece of wood.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:14] Also, let's not forget the movie Ed Wood.

[1:09:16] Yeah.

[1:09:17] I haven't seen it.

[1:09:18] Is it about wood?

[1:09:19] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:20] What about the movie Mr. Woodcock?

[1:09:23] Is that about wood?

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:25] Yeah, I think so.

[1:09:25] What about a woodcock?

[1:09:26] I heard there was a movie where Holly would, if she could.

[1:09:29] So is that something that would?

[1:09:30] Sounds great.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:33] Yeah, like Place Beyond the Pines.

[1:09:35] Do we see the pines in them?

[1:09:37] Very briefly.

[1:09:38] Because we're really going to the place beyond them.

[1:09:40] Yeah, that makes sense.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:42] How about you?

Hallie Haglund

[1:09:43] But there could be no place beyond the pines if there weren't pines to begin with.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:47] Thank you.

[1:09:48] It helps center us.

[1:09:49] With Luke's forbearance, hopefully, I'm going to expand the question to any type of construction

[1:09:54] or building material.

[1:09:56] Yeah.

[1:09:56] It's seen in a movie.

Hallie Haglund

[1:09:57] This was tough.

[1:09:58] I mean, I felt like the obvious one was the stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

[1:10:02] Sure, yeah.

[1:10:03] But then I was trying to remember, wasn't there a thing in Father of the Bride where he like

[1:10:07] builds a gazebo for her?

[1:10:10] Or did I make that up?

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:11] No, I think they do.

Hallie Haglund

[1:10:12] That's like one of his big things.

[1:10:14] Yeah.

[1:10:14] He wants to finish this gazebo.

[1:10:16] Yeah.

[1:10:17] Or I was thinking about in My Girl, when there's a beehive in a tree.

[1:10:26] Trees are made of wood.

[1:10:27] Fair.

[1:10:28] I'll allow it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:29] Yeah.

[1:10:29] Or in Midsommar where they, spoiler alert, set a bunch of wood on fire.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:35] In Wicker Man, they do the same thing.

[1:10:36] They also set a bunch of, I guess it's wicker.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:38] Guys, I love a gazebo.

Hallie Haglund

[1:10:41] Whoa.

[1:10:41] I thought there was a new person on the podcast.

[1:10:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:10:44] It sounded crazy.

[1:10:45] You love a gazebo.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:46] Oh, Dan, you should try and get on an episode of Catfish because they always meet people

[1:10:50] in gazebos and public parks.

[1:10:52] Yeah, they do.

[1:10:53] You know, you want to be outdoors, but you also want a roof.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:57] A gazebo is one of your top ways.

[1:10:59] Oh, top ways.

[1:11:00] Yeah, absolutely.

Hallie Haglund

[1:11:00] Dan's never been on an episode of Catfish.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:05] Hallie, talk to yourself about being mean to Dan.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:08] Yeah.

[1:11:08] Yeah, I was going to say.

[1:11:09] Be the change you want to see in the world.

[1:11:11] I feel like of the three of us, Dan, do you think you're the most likely to get catfished

[1:11:15] or is it me?

[1:11:16] Because, like, I'm such an optimistic romantic.

[1:11:19] I could always get suckered.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:20] Yeah.

[1:11:21] I mean, well, we're obviously removing ourselves from our current relationships.

[1:11:26] No, you guys are talking about.

[1:11:28] Or is this, like, just as we are right now?

[1:11:29] Yeah.

[1:11:30] You're married.

[1:11:30] You're both married.

[1:11:31] Yeah, I think my catfish, being catfish days, risks.

[1:11:36] The risk has gone down, you think?

[1:11:38] Those days are over, I think.

[1:11:39] Yeah, that's what the insurance insurance is.

Hallie Haglund

[1:11:40] Some might call you a catfish out of water, right?

[1:11:43] Oh!

[1:11:45] And we're back.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:48] Okay.

[1:11:49] Well, in that case, let's move on to the next letter.

[1:11:53] It's from Chris, last name withheld, who writes,

[1:11:55] Howdy.

[1:11:57] A couple of episodes ago, Stuart mentioned he was reading romance novels right now.

[1:12:04] And I'd love his recommendations or thoughts on any compelling ones he or the other floppers

[1:12:09] have read.

[1:12:09] I primarily read sci-fi and fantasy novels, but I've been trying to find something that

[1:12:13] my wife and I can both listen to while we are in the car together.

[1:12:17] She, unfortunately, does not like podcasts and music makes me sleepy while driving.

[1:12:21] Thanks, Chris.

Hallie Haglund

[1:12:22] I don't think they should be listening to romance novels together in the car.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:28] Oh, you think that's going to lead?

Hallie Haglund

[1:12:28] You don't want things to get too sexy when you're in the car.

[1:12:31] It's not safe.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:33] No, unless you pull over to the side of the road.

Hallie Haglund

[1:12:35] Well, you guys promised me that you'll pull over to the side of the road.

[1:12:38] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:38] Because nobody's saying anything unless you promise.

[1:12:42] That's what the phrase safe sex means, is that you pull over to the side of the road.

Hallie Haglund

[1:12:46] But you keep your seatbelts on.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:47] Yes, yes.

[1:12:48] Because someone could hit you.

[1:12:50] Yeah.

[1:12:51] Sideswipe.

[1:12:52] You might get rear-ended and not the way that you want.

Hallie Haglund

[1:12:54] You might get rear-ended while you're getting rear-ended.

[1:12:58] I think I implied that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:00] Play on worse.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:03] Yeah.

[1:13:04] Unless, of course, you're like Charlie Sheen and Christy Swanson in the movie The Chase,

[1:13:07] where they don't have the opportunity to pull over because they're being chased like the title

[1:13:11] of the movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:12] But the erotic tension has gotten so much.

[1:13:17] They can't not do it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:19] Or if your OnlyFans fans have requested that you do it in a Tesla self-driving car.

[1:13:23] That's the other way that people are doing it.

[1:13:26] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:26] Your OnlyFans subs are making that request.

[1:13:28] I don't know.

[1:13:29] As long as it's not—I don't think you're allowed to do it in public anymore.

[1:13:32] I think that's one of their restraints.

[1:13:34] But I don't read the fine print.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:36] Okay.

[1:13:36] So let's see.

[1:13:38] I love how you tried to play off like you weren't well aware of the movie fan suspicions.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:45] The thing is, my love of rules goes way back.

[1:13:47] Whether it's board games, whether it's website documents.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:50] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:51] He's the guy—he often says, he goes, I just watch porn for the rules.

[1:13:54] Yep.

[1:13:56] Rules are important, guys.

[1:13:57] I don't know.

[1:13:59] I've only just started reading romance novels.

[1:14:01] The most recent one I read had the, I would say, somewhat ridiculous title, The Kiss Quotient,

[1:14:07] about an autistic woman who—

[1:14:09] KQ.

[1:14:10] An autistic woman who, in order to become more experienced, starts dating or starts seeing a male escort.

[1:14:18] And, you know, things get a little bit hot and heavy, guys.

[1:14:22] But, you know, it was cute and hot and fun.

[1:14:25] But, yeah, I mean, I'm just starting out.

[1:14:28] So, honestly, I could use your recommendations, please, listeners.

[1:14:32] I have a feeling that a few of our listeners probably could recommend some.

[1:14:36] Or will just tell me to go to that.

[1:14:38] There's like a new romance novel-specific bookstore that opened up in Park Slope.

[1:14:43] What, The Ripped Bodice, I think is the name of it.

[1:14:46] Oh, yeah.

[1:14:46] I've heard of that story.

[1:14:47] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[1:14:48] That's great that bookstores are doing so well that they can be that niche.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:52] Oftentimes, I think the nicheness helps because the bookstore has like an identity that people go to it for.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:58] That's true.

[1:14:59] Like because there's stores that cater just to comic books, guys.

[1:15:03] Surely not.

[1:15:05] There aren't that many nerds in the world.

[1:15:08] And in addition to comic books, they sell little statues of comic book characters.

[1:15:13] Yeah, for what reason would one of these things?

[1:15:16] I mean, I don't know.

[1:15:17] I'm still learning.

[1:15:18] I'm guessing so that when they're reading the comic book,

[1:15:21] they can look over to their shelf and see like a little physical version.

[1:15:25] I need a three-dimensional representation of this so I can understand how it moves through space.

Hallie Haglund

[1:15:29] Did you really do this?

[1:15:32] For real?

Dan McCoy

[1:15:33] Is that you?

[1:15:34] Yeah, you'll hold up the book.

[1:15:35] You're like, I'm reading about you right now.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:36] You hold up the figure and you hold it to the page and you're like, yeah, about the same size as the drawing.

[1:15:41] Make it accurate.

[1:15:42] Make it kiss themselves.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:43] Yeah, sure.

[1:15:45] I guess this fellow, Walt Simonson, did a good job capturing your likeness.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:50] I had to get a little Thor and a little Thor comic so I could pretend the comic book page was a mirror and Thor is looking at himself in it while he's getting ready in the morning.

[1:15:58] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:58] Now, of course, there's a problem of infinite regress where I had to get a smaller or holding a smaller comic.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:05] Dan, you keep telling me to read Infinite Regress by David Foster Wallace and I will not read it.

[1:16:08] I'm sorry.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:11] So I hope that answered your question.

[1:16:13] And now we're moving on to recommendations.

[1:16:20] Movies to watch.

[1:16:22] Normally, other than Mafia Mama.

[1:16:25] But in my case, I'm going to recommend an unchallenging double feature that Audrey and I stumbled upon.

[1:16:34] Before we watched Mafia Mama, we watched A Haunting in Venice.

[1:16:42] And it was an interesting Italy double feature.

[1:16:47] And it was pointed out.

[1:16:50] Yeah, it's like it's two sides of the same coin.

[1:16:53] Like, Haunting in Venice is like over serious to the point of being kind of funny and dark.

[1:17:05] And this is like sun-drenched, Mafia Mama sun-drenched Italy, all wackiness.

[1:17:10] It's so funny it becomes a tragedy.

[1:17:13] Yeah.

[1:17:13] But the thing is, like, I have not liked the other Hercule Poirot Kenneth Branagh movies.

[1:17:21] And this one I only kind of liked and liked mostly as a double feature with Mafia Mama.

[1:17:27] I think it's kind of a fun.

[1:17:28] Strong recommendation.

[1:17:29] Yeah.

[1:17:30] I know.

[1:17:31] I know for a fact there are other listeners out there that would be like, oh, yeah, that does sound fun.

[1:17:35] So, for those listeners, A Haunting in Venice, it is stronger than the other movies by virtue of it doesn't have, like, ugly CGI train or Nile River.

[1:17:52] It is shot in a combination of real locations in Venice, sound stages, and with a little, like, than digital augmentation for things.

[1:17:59] Real ghosts.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:00] They brought real ghosts in for it.

[1:18:01] And they got Armie Hammer to come back, right?

Hallie Haglund

[1:18:04] Well, you can't cast a normal person as a regular ghost these days.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:07] No, you can't do it.

[1:18:09] It's not with both culture.

[1:18:09] Yeah, you'll get canceled.

[1:18:11] Yeah, you'll get canceled.

[1:18:12] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:13] But I made this comparison on Letterboxd and then I discovered that, like, dozens of other people have.

[1:18:18] But it feels like a really high-toned episode of Scooby-Doo in a way that made it, like, a lot more just, like, fun and campy than some of the other ones have been.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:29] Because the Harlem Globetrotters showed up.

[1:18:31] Yeah.

[1:18:32] So I say—

[1:18:33] Yeah, Sonny and Cher had a song in the middle.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:35] My recommendation is the double feature of Haunting and Venice and Mafia Mom.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:40] Man, that's a strong double feature.

[1:18:42] I'm going to recommend a horror movie because we're just getting out of spooky season.

[1:18:47] I'm recommending the latest movie by director Joe Lynch called Suitable Flesh starring friend of the podcast, Barbara Crampton.

[1:18:57] She is great.

[1:18:58] Barbara Crampton and Heather Graham are both in it.

[1:19:01] And it is a—like a modern take on the thing at the doorstep story.

[1:19:07] And it's also—the whole movie is kind of a love letter to the Stuart Gordon, H.P. Lovecraft movies.

[1:19:14] A Lovecraft letter.

[1:19:15] Mm-hmm.

[1:19:16] It's—

Hallie Haglund

[1:19:17] Lovecraft services.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:19] Mm-hmm.

[1:19:20] Yep.

[1:19:21] Before he started writing hard stories, he was a caterer with Lovecraft services.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:25] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:27] Look, can I—

[1:19:27] What do we serve?

[1:19:28] No, it's indescribable.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:30] The food that we serve is indescribable.

[1:19:32] Yeah.

[1:19:33] I can't tell you about it.

[1:19:35] I can't.

[1:19:36] It's Cyclopean.

[1:19:37] Is that a way you can describe food?

[1:19:38] Mm-hmm.

[1:19:39] If you need me, I'm going to be over at Lovecrafty for a moment getting a snack.

[1:19:41] I'll be right back.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:42] He's like, the polyps are flying out the door.

[1:19:46] Okay.

[1:19:47] So, it is a—it's a horror movie.

[1:19:51] It's a little bit gross and campy and, like, weirdly horny.

[1:19:56] And it's fun.

[1:19:57] So, if you're looking for, like, a fun, kind of gross, like, horror movie night,

[1:20:02] Suitable Flesh is a good time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:06] I'm going to recommend a movie that I think has been playing festivals.

[1:20:10] I don't know if it's in theaters yet.

[1:20:12] It's a movie called Property, written and directed by Daniel Benderra.

[1:20:15] It's from Brazil.

[1:20:16] It's a movie that I think they made last year, but it's been playing different festivals and things.

[1:20:20] And it is a super tense, kind of suspenseful thriller.

[1:20:25] This woman who is the survivor of a kind of kidnapping attempt and has been kind of, like,

[1:20:32] afraid to go outside, kind of a shut-in since then, afraid to go outside.

[1:20:35] Her and her husband go to the estate that he inherited.

[1:20:38] Unfortunately, they're arriving on the day that everyone who works on the estate is being told,

[1:20:42] the estate's being sold and you're all going to lose your houses and you're all going to leave.

[1:20:45] But first you have to pay back the overseer the money that you owe them.

[1:20:49] And things spiral out of control as they try to take control of the place and the wife is trying to defend herself from them.

[1:20:59] And one of the things that's great about it is it's super suspenseful, but there's very little of any kind of bad guy characters.

[1:21:08] There are people who are not as nice as other people, but everyone kind of has a point of view to what they're doing.

[1:21:13] And you just see these people getting themselves into worse and worse trouble because they're all part of this system that has given some people everything and some people nothing.

[1:21:23] And I thought it was really good.

[1:21:24] So that's Property.

Hallie Haglund

[1:21:26] Well, I guess I'll recommend the only movie I've seen besides Mafia Mama in the last, I don't know, however long.

[1:21:35] Because you're a real life mama?

[1:21:38] No, recently I was listening to another Maximum Fun podcast, Baby Geniuses, and Lisa Hanawalt mentioned how You Can Count on Me is a perfect screenplay.

[1:21:50] And I thought to myself, hey, I wish I could do that.

[1:21:54] I'll take a read.

[1:21:55] So I read it.

[1:21:56] I remember, I never actually saw this movie when I was younger, but I remember my mom always had the CD for the soundtrack in her car.

[1:22:05] So that's a little piece of my history.

[1:22:07] Anyway, I watched the movie and it is so good.

[1:22:12] I feel like it's the best thing I've seen by Kenneth Lonergan.

[1:22:17] And he gets, like, it's so understated.

[1:22:21] He gets so, you know, Manchester by the Sea was obviously a real tearjerker, but I mean, it's so-

[1:22:27] Have you seen Margaret?

[1:22:28] Track.

[1:22:28] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:29] The longer cut of Margaret is great also.

[1:22:32] Really?

[1:22:32] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:33] Okay.

[1:22:33] But it's very hard to get your hands.

[1:22:35] I've been like, I've been wanting to see that for a while.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:38] Oh, it was on, I think it was on Criterion Channel for a while.

[1:22:41] Oh, really?

[1:22:41] There was some streaming service where they had the longer version of it.

[1:22:44] It may not be up there still, but if you can find it, the three-hour cut of Margaret is very good.

[1:22:48] But You Can Count on Me is great.

[1:22:49] When I went, when I was at, here's a little piece of my personal history.

[1:22:51] When I was at NYU in the dramatic writing program, that was the movie that, like, everyone was talking about.

[1:22:57] You know, it was a recent thing.

[1:22:58] Lonergan, I think, was an alum of the program.

[1:23:00] And they were like, this is what you can be capable of.

[1:23:03] And none of us produced anything anywhere near as good as that.

[1:23:06] Yeah.

[1:23:06] But the other movies they're always telling us to watch were Chinatown and Tootsie.

[1:23:10] And, like, Tootsie is not very good.

[1:23:12] But You Can Count on Me is very good.

[1:23:13] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:14] It was really good.

[1:23:16] Check it out.

[1:23:17] Check it out.

[1:23:19] Four recommendations.

[1:23:21] Yeah.

[1:23:21] Five if you consider Mafia Mama, which I do.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:27] Before we sign off, I don't know.

[1:23:31] Hallie, is there any place that you want people to find you?

[1:23:33] Or are you hiding out?

[1:23:35] You want to say your address on the podcast?

[1:23:37] Do you want us to talk to you?

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:38] What's your favorite restaurant?

[1:23:39] No, I just think.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:40] Is there anything you want to say before we go?

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:42] Is there a place that you hang out with your children that you'd like people to come up and say hello to you?

Hallie Haglund

[1:23:47] Just my home.

[1:23:49] Which is.

[1:23:50] I know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:51] Is there a part of your child that you held on to while dipping them in the river sticks, which makes them almost completely invulnerable except for one small part?

Dan McCoy

[1:23:59] Yeah, yeah.

[1:23:59] People should know.

[1:24:00] People should know that.

[1:24:01] Yeah.

[1:24:01] Especially your enemies.

Hallie Haglund

[1:24:05] I don't know.

[1:24:05] Oh, I got a newsletter, folks.

[1:24:08] Oh, yeah.

[1:24:08] You got your sub stack.

[1:24:09] Yeah.

[1:24:09] Check out my sub stack.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:11] Hallie has a sub stack newsletter, which is phenomenal.

[1:24:14] It's so well written.

[1:24:15] It's so funny.

[1:24:15] It's so honest and, like, heartbreaking and brutal sometimes.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:20] I'm worried about my friends sometimes.

[1:24:23] I'm like, is Hallie okay?

Hallie Haglund

[1:24:24] Is that too real for you?

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:27] But at the same time, it's very funny.

[1:24:29] And so what's the name of your sub stack?

Hallie Haglund

[1:24:30] It's called That Hurts My Feelings.

[1:24:32] Not to be confused with You Hurt My Feelings, starring Toni Collette.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:37] You know, but it's called That Hurts My Feelings.

[1:24:39] Right.

[1:24:39] And I, as a reader, I love it.

[1:24:42] I'm always excited to see it.

[1:24:44] And then I feel bad for Hallie because I'm like, oh, no, she's going through some rough stuff.

Hallie Haglund

[1:24:47] Hey, we're all going.

[1:24:48] That's the point.

[1:24:48] We're all going through rough stuff, guys.

[1:24:50] I see you.

[1:24:51] You see me?

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:52] Am I a book of saw?

[1:24:53] Because I'm spiraling.

[1:24:58] But that is, yeah, you should.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:59] Beautiful.

[1:24:59] If you haven't checked out Hallie's sub stack, you should.

[1:25:02] It's really fantastic.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:03] Thanks.

[1:25:03] Okay.

[1:25:04] Well, yeah.

[1:25:05] Yeah.

[1:25:06] Co-signed.

[1:25:08] And also, check out MaximumFun.org for other great podcasts on our network.

[1:25:14] Look up Howell Doughty or Lydia Burrell or Alexander Smith.

[1:25:21] You decide what the real name is.

[1:25:22] You decide what the real name is there.

[1:25:24] He's our producer.

[1:25:25] He does a great job for us.

[1:25:26] He's the best.

[1:25:28] And just thank you for listening.

[1:25:30] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:32] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:25:34] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:25:35] And I'm Hallie Haglund.

[1:25:37] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:37] Bye.

[1:25:38] See you in the funny pages.

[1:25:40] I'm so surprised you didn't say, ciao.

[1:25:44] What do we got?

[1:25:49] Mafia Mama?

Dan McCoy

[1:25:51] Yeah, yeah.

[1:25:51] Yeah.

[1:25:51] Okay.

[1:25:52] Let's just roll right into it, shall we?

[1:25:56] Sorry.

[1:25:58] Earned.

[1:26:01] I'm just making myself up.

[1:26:03] I'm sorry.

[1:26:03] You should just have a good time.

[1:26:05] Okay.

[1:26:05] Yeah, man.

[1:26:06] I'm having a great time.

[1:26:06] Is that a crime now?

[1:26:07] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:08] Apparently, I'm just in Joe Biden's America.

[1:26:10] Wow.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:12] Trench it.

[1:26:13] Okay.

Hallie Haglund

[1:26:13] Thanks, Brandon.

[1:26:15] That's the thing, right?

[1:26:17] That's what they say.

[1:26:18] Yeah.

[1:26:20] Maximum Fun.

[1:26:21] A worker-owned network.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:23] Of artists-owned shows.

[1:26:24] Supported.

[1:26:25] Directly.

[1:26:26] By you.

Ep.#409 - Mafia Mamma, with Hallie Haglund

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