Ep.#403 - Wild Wild West

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Wild Wild West based on the hit TV show THE Wild Wild West.

[0:07] Factually true.

[0:08] Can't argue with it, he ain't lying.

[0:09] Hey everyone and welcome to the Flophouse.

[0:38] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:39] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:41] I'm Elliot Kalin and I can't wait to tell you more about Flop TV, our monthly TV series,

[0:45] but we'll get to that later.

[0:47] Howdy, partners.

[0:48] We're doing an episode of the podcast.

[0:50] What's this podcast about, Danny?

[0:52] It's a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[0:57] Previously in our history, we had usually done...

[1:00] Previously on the Flophouse?

[1:01] Previously on the Flophouse.

[1:02] Dan, you're the father.

[1:05] I'm having this baby.

[1:06] And then Stuart goes, yikes-o.

[1:07] Gross.

[1:08] Gross.

[1:09] This is...

[1:10] I'm contractually obligated to say that childbirth is beautiful.

[1:18] Yeah.

[1:19] Anyway.

[1:20] What contract did you sign that you have to say that?

[1:21] I don't know.

[1:22] It was with the Childbirth Council.

[1:23] Yeah.

[1:24] Part of our birth is beautiful campaign, who would be the perfect spokesman?

[1:32] How about a man who's never had children and doesn't want children?

[1:35] This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[1:39] And typically in the past, we had usually done more recent films, films that were new

[1:45] to streaming, films that were new to rental, etc.

[1:49] Or sometimes in the theaters.

[1:50] Yeah.

[1:51] Sometimes in the theaters.

[1:53] But since we are in the midst of a strike, both the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA are striking

[2:00] against the producers.

[2:03] We decided, why don't we focus on some older stuff?

[2:06] So we're not even coming close to promoting something new.

[2:11] And we're in the midst of a 90s flashback, 90s flashback weekend on the Blophouse.

[2:16] And we did.

[2:19] And what song would kick off from that?

[2:21] Like, You Oughta Know?

[2:22] Just like a little sting of that?

[2:24] 90s flashback weekend.

[2:25] You oughta know.

[2:26] Yeah.

[2:27] That's good.

[2:28] Or, Cut My Life Into Pieces.

[2:31] That's the 90s thing.

[2:34] Oh, yeah.

[2:35] No, that's good.

[2:36] Do you have the time to listen to us talk about Wild, Wild West?

[2:42] Speaking of songs, Wild, Wild West.

[2:48] I'll tell you what I want.

[2:49] What I really, really want.

[2:50] Blophouse 90s weekend.

[2:52] So yeah, we're talking about Wild, Wild West, a film that, before we get into it, I just

[2:57] want to talk about briefly, like, how it nearly derailed many people's careers.

[3:02] Barry Seinfeld, before this, made the only movie that people don't remember is a comedy

[3:10] he made with Michael J. Fox.

[3:11] I forget the title.

[3:12] But he did both of the Addams Family movies, Get Shorty, and Men in Black before this.

[3:18] He was just on a rocket to the top.

[3:20] And before that, worked with the Coen brothers on their early films for that.

[3:25] And I'll tell you guys, I'm a big fan of Barry Seinfeld.

[3:27] I read his memoir.

[3:29] Not a lot about Wild, Wild West in there.

[3:31] Yeah.

[3:32] Well, I mean, after this, you know, he retreats into Men in Black sequels.

[3:36] Probably his best movie of his later films after Wild, Wild West is maybe Men in Black

[3:42] 3.

[3:44] But he does stuff like RV and Nine Lives.

[3:47] You know, his career goes down.

[3:50] Will Smith doesn't suffer a lot from this.

[3:54] But before this, it was like he could do no wrong.

[3:56] And then he was a little bit more in the wilderness for a while.

[3:59] This was this was the movie that he turned the lead role in The Matrix down.

[4:04] Yeah.

[4:05] Yes.

[4:06] Yeah.

[4:07] And Kevin Kline, you know, had been a Hollywood leading man up until this point.

[4:13] And then after this point, after In-N-Out, right, which was a big movie for him.

[4:18] Yeah.

[4:19] You know, won an Academy Award for Fish Called Wanda.

[4:23] But after this.

[4:24] What about Dave?

[4:25] Did he win an Academy Award for Dave?

[4:26] No, but Dave, I haven't seen it in years, but Dave was a movie that I had a real fondness

[4:30] for when I saw it when it came out in theaters.

[4:32] He's great.

[4:33] He's great.

[4:34] He's great.

[4:35] But after this, not a leading man in Hollywood pictures anymore.

[4:38] He would show up in supporting roles.

[4:40] You know, he might lead a smaller film.

[4:42] And I think I think part of this is not just that the movie was not successful.

[4:46] It sounds like the experience of making the movie was unpleasant.

[4:49] Yeah.

[4:50] I think a lot of people may have rethought their relationship with film after this is

[4:54] also the movie that famously, according to Kevin Smith's monologue, like the giant mechanical

[5:00] spider in this is a holdover from what the producer wanted to happen in his new Superman

[5:06] movie.

[5:07] Yeah.

[5:08] So this I think a lot of the unpleasantness in the movie may be at the feet of the producer,

[5:11] John Peters, who if you've seen Licorice Pizza, you'll have seen Bradley Cooper playing him.

[5:19] Oh, OK.

[5:20] He's the guy who started his career as like Barbra Streisand's, I think, hairdresser slash

[5:25] lover and parlayed that into being a film producer.

[5:29] And I did not get to meet him when I was briefly involved in a Tango and Cash related project.

[5:34] But he was in he was involved with that as well, I believe.

[5:37] And the from all stories, he just seems like a real madman.

[5:41] And I don't mean I don't mean Frank Einstein, the beloved madman superhero created by Mike

[5:47] Allred.

[5:48] But the just seems like a real hard person to work with.

[5:53] And as Dan was saying, Kevin Smith was going to write a Superman movie for him, the one

[5:56] that was going to star Nicolas Cage.

[5:57] And he just one of the things he demanded was that there be a giant mechanical spider

[6:00] in it.

[6:01] And then Wild Wild West, I think, was the next movie that he produced.

[6:04] And lo and behold, the climax is all about a giant mechanical spider.

[6:08] Now, I didn't see that here, I think.

[6:10] I didn't see that shitty The Flash movie, but I saw clips of it online.

[6:15] Isn't there a clip where like Nicolas Cage Superman fights a giant mechanical spider?

[6:20] Yeah, so The Flash is I didn't see it either, but I saw that clip where The Flash is going

[6:23] through the different multiverse, what the DC version of the multiverse.

[6:27] And he sees like George Reeves from the black and white Superman TV show.

[6:30] And one of the things he sees is Nicolas Cage Superman fighting a giant mechanical spider.

[6:34] And it was like, well, I guess that's the level this movie is that is that it is devoting

[6:38] a whole almost a whole scene to an in joke about the production of a previous Superman

[6:43] movie that didn't exist.

[6:45] Yeah, but don't worry.

[6:46] It also looks terrible and it's bad.

[6:48] It's a bad thing.

[6:49] And it also someone told me recently they're like, yeah, they brought Nicolas Cage in for

[6:53] that part.

[6:54] And I was like, it all looks like they brought they like they just used A.I. to recreate

[6:58] his face from old movies.

[6:59] Yeah, it's yeah.

[7:00] Anyway, so I guess as we go into this summary, keep in mind that this movie did not have

[7:04] the makings of a good movie.

[7:06] Now, did you guys see it when it came out?

[7:09] This was a big summer tentpole.

[7:10] It had the makings of a good movie.

[7:11] I mean, it had the makings.

[7:12] The people involved are not bad.

[7:14] The leads are great.

[7:15] The director's great.

[7:16] It's co-written by the guys who wrote Tremors.

[7:18] So like and also the short circuit movies.

[7:20] So there's not.

[7:21] Well, there are a few teams like there's like another team that like also did.

[7:26] I forget what they were also attached to some good things anyway.

[7:30] But did you guys did you guys see this the summer it came out?

[7:33] I hadn't seen it until literally yesterday.

[7:35] Yes.

[7:36] I had not watched it until I watched it for this podcast.

[7:39] I saw it, you know, on like HBO after it came out.

[7:44] I was like, surely Barry Sonnenfeld, don't tell me this cast can't be bad.

[7:50] And even as a child, I was like, I find that film lacking.

[7:55] As we'll talk about, I'm very confused about who the audience for this movie was supposed

[7:58] to be.

[7:59] I feel like Men in Black is such a perfect version of that kind of movie.

[8:03] Yes.

[8:04] It's a fun action movie.

[8:05] It's a funny comedy.

[8:06] You can watch it with pretty much anyone over the age of seven or eight.

[8:09] You know, it's not and it feels cool.

[8:11] It doesn't feel like dumbed down, but there's nothing like there's some effects that might

[8:15] be scary, but there's nothing like too too sexy or too adult with Wild Wild West.

[8:19] And you have a villain giving one of the best physical comedy performances of all time.

[8:24] I mean, it's he's amazing.

[8:26] It's Vincent D'Onofrio you're talking about, right?

[8:28] Yeah.

[8:29] He's amazing in it.

[8:30] And the it manages to introduce kids to the idea of the 1964 World's Fair, which I approve

[8:35] of, even though it's the lesser of the two New York World's Fairs, the 39, of course,

[8:38] being the dream.

[8:39] But the this movie, it's like they took that model and they were like, what if the action

[8:46] wasn't fun?

[8:47] The comedy wasn't funny.

[8:48] And the characters were constantly leering at women and ogling and just talking about

[8:52] sex all the time.

[8:54] And it was just it's like this movie is a tribute to like steampunk and boobs and butts.

[8:58] And it manages to not make that fun in the way that it may sound fun.

[9:03] I want to take a brief personal moment to tell a story about what it's like being friends

[9:08] with Elliot Kalin, where where this is a thought that I've had more than once, like I've on

[9:12] more than one occasion given Elliot some New York World's Fair memorabilia.

[9:20] All from the 39.

[9:21] From my favorite one.

[9:22] Yeah.

[9:23] Well, good, because I because I like the thought I was saying that I have from time to time

[9:26] is now which World's Fair does Elliot like?

[9:31] Yeah.

[9:32] Yeah.

[9:33] That's that would be one of those questions on what the newlywed game when Elliot and

[9:37] Danielle would be on the newlywed game and they're like, which is your husband's favorite

[9:41] World's Fair?

[9:42] You want it.

[9:43] You want to seduce your husband by dressing up as a World's Fair.

[9:46] Which one do you dress up as?

[9:48] And she would know.

[9:49] She would say the 1939 New York World's Fair in the world of tomorrow.

[9:53] And they would go, you're right.

[9:56] So let's talk about Wild Wild West, a movie that is.

[9:59] It was baffling.

[10:00] to me while watching it. Now I'm also glad that you're doing the summary because if I was doing

[10:05] the summary I would just be reading the lyrics to Will Smith's Wild Wild West featuring Drew Hill

[10:11] and uh I'd just be reading those lyrics verbatim and you guys would be chiming in. Dan of course

[10:17] would be playing the role of Kool Moe Dee and Elliot you're Drew Hill all the way. Well who's

[10:21] the one who sings it into the Wild Wild West which is the best part of that song? That's Drew Hill.

[10:26] That's Drew Hill okay that's what I thought yeah that he that's that's my favorite part of this

[10:29] it's not a song I don't like this the part that goes Wild Wild West I don't like that kind of

[10:33] That's the Kool Moe Dee part. I don't like that part as much the same way I've never liked the

[10:36] like bow wow wow yippee yo yippee like I don't like it when voices sound like that but I love

[10:41] that that full-throated into the Wild Wild West makes the song. I enjoy like the little backing

[10:49] parts where I get to like do that sort of like you know or like a blue moon like do do do bom bom

[10:55] yeah I've never loved those either it's amazing to me there was a whole period in early rock and

[11:00] roll kind of late jazz or you know where it was like well of course we need a big guy in the back

[11:05] who goes beep beep boop you know or something like that you know we need more nonsense levels

[11:08] and deep bass voices more please yeah I mean when I remember the summer this movie came out seeing

[11:17] the this music video a lot because it was inescapable uh and perhaps I was one of those

[11:22] uh teens at the time I was 19 at the time so it wouldn't have mattered but maybe I was one of

[11:26] those kids who bought a ticket to uh Wild Wild West so I could sneak into American Pie so that

[11:32] Chris Weitz wouldn't get a single dollar from me wow wow take that nothing but nice to us I don't

[11:42] are you playing the heel yeah it's one of the many what the Wild Wild West song also one of

[11:47] the many songs that later on I'm like oh that's a Stevie Wonder so yeah yeah yeah because he's in

[11:52] the video yeah I didn't I mean that's why it's you know what I said it's a bad song it's a solid

[11:57] movie tie-in song you know I mean that's that's his b&b bread and butter it didn't achieve the

[12:03] heights of the Men in Black song which is super danceable you know but what are you gonna do but

[12:09] then there was also uh that was your first dance at your wedding was the Men in Black song uh and

[12:14] you dressed up Daniel both dressed up and then pointed uh little lights at the audience yeah

[12:19] yeah exactly so that they wouldn't remember the wedding yeah we had a whole choreographed thing

[12:23] joke I mean you don't have a real forget no we had a real one by accident it was why would you

[12:27] neuralize the whole yeah this is why I have no memory of your wedding then we brought yeah that

[12:32] we robbed everybody to pay for the wedding yeah we're like the like the ringmaster in his circus

[12:36] of crime and his hypnotic son of a bitch damn I think you're using old-fashioned neuralyzer

[12:41] aka booze oh yeah yeah that's true yeah that's like the old david tell joke because have you

[12:46] ever blacked out or as I call it time travel I what I remember of the actual uh reception

[12:52] you know I mostly remember us going to see piranha 3d earlier in the day what I remember

[12:55] what a great day that was the greatest day of my life from beginning to end honestly was mostly

[13:01] being worried that you would fall when they were carrying you around on the chairs yeah yeah that's

[13:08] that was my wife was worried about too that she would fall off that chair because nobody we didn't

[13:11] have enough I think strong jews because they didn't know how you're supposed to do it yeah

[13:14] we had a lot of strong gentiles were just hurling the chairs up into the air as we were trying to

[13:19] hold on to them you know god uh so anyway let's talk about wild wild west now that we're done

[13:23] talking about my wedding reception let's talk about wild wild west uh we began it's a title

[13:29] tells us louisiana 1869 there's a guy with this weird metal ring around his neck that's running

[13:34] away from a flying circular saw blade that cuts his head off and then a guy looks at him and is

[13:39] like well how about that and then we get credits some guy ted levine yeah some guy eventually well

[13:46] i've got a character steampunk ear yes so this character we see he has an ear a listening horn

[13:53] attached to the side of his head well later learns because he lost an ear in battle during the civil

[13:56] war but first we get credits that are i assume in the style of the wild west tv show and i want to

[14:01] ask guys i've never seen this show when the movie was announced i had never heard of it before

[14:06] have you ever seen this show the wild wild west i so okay yeah i have seen a little bit of it

[14:12] the the movie made me aware that it existed like because let's back up let's set the stage of what

[14:21] it was like when wild wild west came out it was summer of 1999 well it was still exciting to see

[14:28] a western where it was like but what's different is there's this anachronistic technology in it

[14:34] because that was not an idea that has been done so much now that i pray for the days of like just

[14:40] having a straightforward version of something yeah much as much as when the office came out

[14:45] characters addressing the camera directly to talk about a scene yeah it's very funny and

[14:49] very terrified audiences they're like they ran out of their house and they go demons demons yeah

[14:56] uh they that and now it has become cliche to the point that i would love to see a sitcom i

[15:01] recently started watching the golden girls again and i am so blown away by how basic and stripped

[15:07] down it is in a group in a good way you know dog if sofia turned and looked at you and made a quip

[15:12] you would lose your shit i mean i wouldn't be my body and mind wouldn't be able to handle it i would

[15:16] go i would go bananas but but uh much like herbie uh but but you're right now steampunk stuff has

[15:23] become so yes de rigueur you know that it was to the point that i'm assuming most people assume

[15:28] that there was plenty of steampunk garbage in the yeah i bet that's probably true yeah but um

[15:34] but that being true i was then kind of like shocked to learn that it was based on a tv

[15:40] show from the 60s like this was i like an idea that felt fresh then had been you know from

[15:47] something much earlier that had been on television like it didn't jive with my idea of like what was

[15:52] on tv at that time in my head which is which is you know probably wildly wrong because i wasn't

[15:58] there wild wild wesley wrong but it makes sense in the 60s they were like spies are big westerns

[16:03] are big yes western spy show and we'll have a science fiction element we'll mash up and i

[16:08] it will call him briscoe county jr. oh if only and it ran i think for like four years but i've

[16:14] never seen an episode of it and i feel like when this it's much easier i'm sure to watch it now

[16:19] than it was in 1999 when the only way you could watch old tv was nick at night or tv land or if

[16:26] it had been released on vhs at some point and i don't think there's any way to watch wild wild

[16:29] west when the movie came out well that's what i was getting to in the longest way possible i think

[16:35] that nick at night or a and e at some point did show some and i tuned in because i'm like okay

[16:40] well i like the premise maybe this is better but i found it very slow in the way a lot of old tv

[16:46] feels yeah a lot of time to kill there's a it's fun i mean this is different because they had a

[16:50] longer time slot to fill but you watch the old columbo movies and there's just a lot of him like

[16:55] long phone calls him getting from one place to another you watch the rockford files there's

[16:59] so much that's him driving from one place to another yeah i love those shows but yeah it's

[17:03] true yeah i mean it's like you're watching once upon a time in hollywood or something

[17:07] yeah i'm but well i like it once upon a time in hollywood until the end not a fan of the end of

[17:11] that movie but i like everything up to like the last 25 minutes okay so after the credits we're

[17:15] in west virginia captain james west will smith he's trying to multitask by both spying on the

[17:21] criminal gang of general bloodbath mcgrath who's which are loading objects onto a wagon while also

[17:26] having sex with a woman inside a water tower like a half-filled water tower he can't do both it turns

[17:32] out even that's too much for a very complicated little water tower setup too yes and until the

[17:37] willenium he's not going to be able to achieve that those skills of both spying on the bad guys

[17:42] and having sex at the same time well this is also setting up that this will be like a hornier movie

[17:46] than you expect and it's yeah it really struck me i guess maybe because i don't know modern action

[17:52] big budget blockbusters we've gotten so de-sexed but i was like this is unusual guys did you

[17:59] realize that the character's name is jim west and the movie's called wild wild west i did notice

[18:04] that and he is being he is being wild wild by having sex on the job uh yeah yeah it's a what

[18:13] i don't know i'm i think it's supposed to come off as like he's this super cool dude the ladies love

[18:17] him and he's also a secret agent but we came off as played by will smith who is by will smith who

[18:22] at that time was probably the coolest man in the world to most people uh slightly less cool now

[18:26] that he is a he's known as the guy who hits people on television uh but the i think the

[18:33] i think they're trying to get across that he's a super cool sexy secret agent but instead what

[18:36] i got from it was he's bad at his job and he's bad to women like he's both a creep and he's bad

[18:41] as a spy and so eventually mcgrath's henchmen somehow knock over the water tower i don't

[18:47] remember how it happens accidentally accidentally and will drops out naked and has a fight you know

[18:53] yeah he covers his his penis with his hat yeah thank you to everyone who tweeted at the flop

[18:59] house to tell us that you can see will smith or more likely the stuntman's uh testicles yes

[19:07] and part of his penis at one point at one point what part you were looking through when he comes

[19:12] out i noticed it when you when you're looking through his legs as he first appears you can

[19:16] very clearly see the at least the silhouettes of his of his genitalia which is again it was also

[19:22] like well this movie's being more adult than i expected but not in a way that i'm enjoying

[19:28] you know uh meanwhile across town at a brothel saloon type place general mcgrath bloodbath

[19:33] mcgrath himself the man with the ear horn attached to his head he is he's kind of trading a kidnap

[19:39] played by tv hunk monk's boss ted levine yeah he is trading like a person who's trapped in a box

[19:47] for guns or something for weapons and he's being watched by our other hero artemis gordon

[19:52] played by kevin klein he's a u.s marshal who is undercover in drag and through a series of events

[19:57] manages to hypnotize mcgrath with

[20:00] these swirling gadgets hidden in his fake boobs.

[20:03] And he means to get some information from McGrath.

[20:05] He's like, where did you take the kidnapped scientist?

[20:07] And instead, he just makes McGrath act like a dog,

[20:10] which was not what he intended.

[20:12] But that psychosexual drama of a man

[20:15] who's been hypnotized into a dog after being seduced

[20:18] is interrupted by Jim West swinging in

[20:20] and interrupting them that leads to a big brawl,

[20:23] which eventually ends with a shadowy, top-headed bad guy

[20:26] pushing a wagon full of nitroglycerin down a hill

[20:28] and into the brothel, which explodes.

[20:31] Our heroes survive with no problem.

[20:33] The next scene, we just see West

[20:35] riding a horse down the street, and it's like,

[20:36] okay, so I guess explosions don't stop them.

[20:38] I do love how the explosion happens,

[20:42] scene over, that's it, we just cut to something else.

[20:45] It's like the least professional

[20:48] I've seen one of these cuts.

[20:50] Someone once described to me, or not described to me,

[20:52] I was reading an article where they're talking about

[20:54] how abruptly a movie ends, and they were like,

[20:56] imagine if, I forget where it was,

[20:57] I wish I could give them credit.

[20:59] Imagine if in Star Wars,

[21:00] it's the whole Death Star trench scene.

[21:02] Luke fires the missiles, the Death Star blows up,

[21:04] and in mid-explosion, it goes freeze frame,

[21:06] and then the credits roll, and that's the end of the movie.

[21:09] Like, that's kind of what it feels like right here.

[21:10] This building explodes, and just like, we're done with it.

[21:13] On to the next scene, who cares, you know?

[21:16] Yeah, and this introduces, but does not justify,

[21:19] in my mind, Jim West and Kevin Kline's character.

[21:24] Artemis Gordon. Artemis Gordon.

[21:25] The two of theirs, working relationship,

[21:28] which is one of the main things I found irritating

[21:29] about this movie in general,

[21:31] is they're trying to set up a classic sort of mismatch,

[21:35] like, oh, okay, well, like, there's the hothead,

[21:38] and there's the, yes.

[21:40] And it's weird, because it's not like

[21:43] the elements aren't there,

[21:46] but the movie expects you to jump right to finding them,

[21:51] like, being mad at each other,

[21:54] and pulling shit on each other,

[21:56] like, charming and fun,

[21:58] rather than, my reaction is, like,

[22:02] you guys are supposed to both be, like, the best.

[22:05] You're supposed to be professionals,

[22:07] and you're constantly, like, undermining the mission

[22:10] by undermining each other

[22:11] in a way that is just irritating to watch.

[22:14] Well, rather than their styles clashing,

[22:15] they just don't like each other personally.

[22:17] Yeah, and they're, like, constantly trying

[22:18] to kick each other off of the train

[22:20] that's taking them on the mission and stuff,

[22:21] so we cut to West inexplicably not exploded,

[22:25] but fine.

[22:26] He arrives at the White House,

[22:27] where, like, a butler tries to stop him from entering,

[22:30] I guess because he's black,

[22:31] but he's there for an appointment, so it-

[22:34] Tries to stop him from entering

[22:35] to see the president with a gun.

[22:38] Yes, yeah.

[22:38] So he pulls an extra gun.

[22:40] So he pulls a second gun.

[22:41] He says, you're gonna let me

[22:42] into the president with this gun.

[22:43] I have a second gun.

[22:44] Which, by the way, that's,

[22:45] if you want to introduce a character

[22:46] and show that he's cool, don't have him do that.

[22:48] Yeah.

[22:49] Have them disarm him and keep finding guns.

[22:52] That's always the right answer.

[22:54] Or have them take the guns,

[22:55] and then he's got a knife on him,

[22:57] or he's good with kung fu or something.

[23:00] Removing the presumed racism from the equation,

[23:03] I think that that's a perfectly valid thing

[23:05] to want to do, is to remove a gun

[23:08] before someone meets with the president.

[23:10] But, Dan, I'll remind you,

[23:11] this is happening four years

[23:12] after the previous president,

[23:14] or two presidents ago,

[23:15] was shot in the head by a gun and murdered.

[23:17] So maybe guns are cool now.

[23:20] Maybe they're like, hey, we need that gun,

[23:21] and give somebody else the gun.

[23:22] Yeah, they're like, that was four years ago.

[23:24] We don't care anymore.

[23:25] Yeah, the NRA lobby is pretty strong at this point.

[23:27] And I wish I could say walking into the White House

[23:29] with guns all over him is the least cool thing

[23:31] that Will Smith is gonna do in this movie.

[23:33] But it's like, it barely registers by the end.

[23:35] We have not gotten to the part,

[23:36] which we will get to,

[23:37] where he just plays a woman's boobs like bongo drums,

[23:41] because he assumes it's Kevin Kline in drag.

[23:43] Anyway, we'll get to that.

[23:44] It's so dumb.

[23:45] So he arrives.

[23:46] He's gonna see President Ulysses S. Grant,

[23:48] who turns out to be Kevin Kline in disguise.

[23:50] And then the real President Grant,

[23:52] who is also played by Kevin Kline, walks in.

[23:55] And so Kevin Kline has dual roles in this.

[23:57] He plays Artemis Gordon and Ulysses S. Grant,

[24:00] and he often plays Artemis Gordon

[24:02] pretending to be Ulysses S. Grant,

[24:04] which should be funny, but it's not funny.

[24:06] It's not funny,

[24:07] but it does show Kevin Kline's acting skill.

[24:10] I like that Artemis Gordon playing Ulysses S. Grant

[24:14] is like this hammy impression

[24:17] of the much more realistic Ulysses S. Grant that he does.

[24:22] Could I use a touch hammier, personally?

[24:25] Maybe, but there's a real difference between the two.

[24:27] You can tell when it's Artemis playing Grant

[24:29] and when it's Kevin Kline playing Grant.

[24:30] And I think that's, I mean, Kevin Kline's a great actor.

[24:33] You know, we don't need to, you don't need to hear it from me.

[24:35] He's an amazing actor.

[24:36] And he is, let's just say like misused by this film,

[24:40] but everything is misused by this film.

[24:41] So Grant says, you have to work together.

[24:44] There's a mysterious bad guy who hired McGrath

[24:46] to kidnap all these scientists,

[24:47] and they're making super weapons for him.

[24:49] And now he's demanding control of the U.S. government.

[24:51] They sent us a letter.

[24:52] And West and Gordon, as Dan said, they hate each other,

[24:54] but they got to stop him because Grant has to go hammer

[24:56] in the final golden spike

[24:58] to complete the transcontinental railroad.

[25:00] And so we know what the climax is going to be.

[25:03] Yeah, there's a ticking clock.

[25:04] Gordon's all about machines.

[25:06] He's a regular Donatello.

[25:07] He's got a steampunk motorcycle

[25:09] that's like a big bone shaker.

[25:10] Yeah, he's got a mind of gears and pistons or whatever.

[25:14] He doesn't go as far as to having gears on his hat,

[25:16] but he does have goggles on his hat, I guess.

[25:19] He's got a train car full of traps and gadgets,

[25:21] and also in the train car as the conductor,

[25:23] Emmett Walsh, as a character

[25:25] who literally never needs to be in the movie.

[25:28] There is no plot reason ever.

[25:29] He's named Coal Man.

[25:30] I love that he's Coal Man who shovels coal into the train.

[25:33] He is 100% there to react to various things,

[25:37] which he does in a funny way.

[25:38] I don't like that a lot of what he's reacting to

[25:41] is gay panic humor.

[25:42] Yeah, we'll get to that, yeah.

[25:44] But his ability as a comic reaction man

[25:49] is good at least, even though the jokes are not good.

[25:52] Emmett Walsh, again, like there's no,

[25:54] we're gonna keep going through this episode

[25:55] saying like, no surprise,

[25:56] this performer is a great performer,

[25:57] but he's not best used by Wild Wild,

[25:59] this is a Wild Wild Best.

[26:01] Some would say, some would say Wild Wild Worst.

[26:03] But anyway, so they have-

[26:06] It was the Wild Wild Blurst of times?

[26:09] Mm-hmm, stupid monkeys.

[26:12] There is a, it's a Simpsons reference,

[26:14] I'm not calling Dan a monkey, or Stewart for that matter.

[26:17] Oh, thanks.

[26:18] So you're both, you are both humans,

[26:20] you both stand erect, you don't live in trees.

[26:23] Stewart, I've been meaning to pay you

[26:25] that compliment as well.

[26:26] Wow.

[26:27] I'm not calling you a monkey.

[26:28] And Elliot sniped you, now it just sounds

[26:29] like you're piggybacking.

[26:31] Yeah, yeah, now you've cheapened it, thank you, Dan.

[26:33] So somehow, Kevin Kline has gotten ahold

[26:36] of the severed head of the scientist

[26:37] that was killed early on,

[26:39] and they're able to use light to project the image

[26:42] stored on its retinas,

[26:43] which is the last thing that the dead person sees.

[26:45] Okay.

[26:46] This is an old myth that goes back to medieval times,

[26:47] I think, that you could see the image

[26:49] of the last of Simpsons.

[26:50] It happened at a medieval times restaurant?

[26:51] Yes, it goes back to a medieval times restaurant,

[26:53] that's how they got the idea for the restaurant, yeah.

[26:55] Is that someone in, they had a fake jousting area,

[26:58] and they're like, something's missing,

[26:59] and they found a severed head

[27:00] that at last looked at a chicken leg

[27:02] and a big bowl of soup that you had to pick up

[27:04] with your hands.

[27:05] Wow.

[27:06] Tomato soup, yeah.

[27:07] Yeah, so using that image-

[27:08] You eat all your life without knowing these things.

[27:10] Yeah, and then someone tells you,

[27:12] and then your life is never the same.

[27:15] So they see this image of McGrath,

[27:17] and they're able to magnify,

[27:19] this retina has amazing recording fidelity.

[27:22] They're able to magnify and see an invitation

[27:24] sticking out of his pocket to a New Orleans costume ball.

[27:27] And it's funny because West, this whole time,

[27:28] has been like, we gotta get to New Orleans,

[27:30] we gotta get to New Orleans,

[27:31] and they find this invitation.

[27:33] They were already going there.

[27:34] Like, it's unnecessary.

[27:35] They argue about disguises, which leads to this,

[27:38] the dumbest, least funny scene,

[27:39] I think, maybe I've ever seen in a movie,

[27:41] where, as Dan says, what they're saying,

[27:44] talking about Kevin Kline's fake breast costume

[27:48] is overheard by M. Emmett Walsh,

[27:49] and he assumes he's overhearing them

[27:51] having sex with each other, and is horrified by it.

[27:53] And it is just-

[27:54] Well, but also, I mean, specifically-

[27:56] It's so bad.

[27:57] Kevin Kline asking him to-

[28:00] Like, feel my breast, and stuff like that.

[28:02] Oh, I feel it, it's hard.

[28:03] Yeah, and stuff like that.

[28:05] Backwards, they, you know, goes both ways.

[28:09] Yeah, it's-

[28:09] It wasn't feeling.

[28:10] It's terrible.

[28:11] It's a terrible scene.

[28:13] It's a terrible scene.

[28:14] So, Jim West, he sneaks into that party.

[28:16] He is stopped for a moment by Bai Ling,

[28:19] who is playing the assistant to Dr. Arlo Loveless.

[28:22] It's a real flashback to see Bai Ling in something,

[28:25] and remember, like, oh, there's a time that-

[28:27] Which I'm glad that, when he introduces himself,

[28:30] she introduces herself by her last name, which is East,

[28:32] and I'm like, great, now we got more racist jokes.

[28:35] Yeah, and she goes, and she keeps,

[28:36] she's kind of flirting with him, she goes,

[28:38] East meets West, and it's like,

[28:40] ah, all right, this is no good.

[28:42] Now, when you hear it, she goes,

[28:44] I'm the assistant to Dr. Arlo Loveless.

[28:45] This is a name we have never heard in the movie before now.

[28:48] And West goes, oh, I thought he was dead.

[28:50] And it's like, are we supposed to,

[28:52] is this backstory we were supposed to know something?

[28:54] Like, it's a poor way to include this.

[28:55] Finally-

[28:56] I mean, again, I only know because I've heard

[28:58] the Wild Wild West song by Will Smith

[29:01] featuring Drew Hill like a million times.

[29:03] So, where he describes Loveless in detail.

[29:06] Yeah, he does.

[29:07] And we're gonna need some of that detail.

[29:08] So, Stuart, Loveless shows up,

[29:10] and this is Kenneth Branagh.

[29:11] Stuart, can you describe for us Dr. Arlo Loveless,

[29:14] the villian, villian of the-

[29:16] The villian.

[29:17] Yeah.

[29:18] Of this pavilion.

[29:19] That's a villian crossed with a pavilion, yeah.

[29:22] Well, where to start?

[29:23] I mean, we could start with his accent,

[29:25] which is a lovingly created Southern drawl.

[29:30] We could talk about his facial hair,

[29:31] which would put to shame Jackson Galaxy, the cat daddy.

[29:36] Or his long-

[29:37] His facial hair seems like a V for Vendetta mask.

[29:40] It looks like a Guy Fawkes mask,

[29:41] like the red V for Vendetta,

[29:42] because I don't think the movie had come out yet.

[29:44] And he was like, cool, cool, anarchy, yeah, cool.

[29:48] That's what it looks like to me, yeah.

[29:50] He's got long, flowing black hair.

[29:52] He wears cool little outfits.

[29:54] Unfortunately, he's missing his legs, okay?

[29:57] So, he's missing his body below about his-

[30:00] tummy button. And below that, he is connected to like a steampunk wheelchair that he drives

[30:06] around.

[30:07] Yes, exactly.

[30:08] And he's always surrounded by a bevy of beautiful sort of henchmaidens.

[30:14] Henchmaidens wearing kind of like bordello bustier attire, you know. So yeah, he is this

[30:19] flamboyantly evil confederate. He rides a steampunk wheelchair. He's missing his waist

[30:25] down.

[30:26] Very easily. It's like a Bond villain that crosses into like Austin Powers villain territory.

[30:32] Yes. And this first scene, there's so many bad moments in this movie, but his first interaction

[30:37] with West where he makes a series of racist puns and West makes a series of disabled wordplay

[30:43] puns to both get each other is disgusting. Like it is objectively disgusting. Everything

[30:48] about it.

[30:49] It's an unpleasant movie. I mean, like we should have known it was unpleasant time.

[30:54] It's extra unpleasant now. I like everything is bad racial humor, bad gay panic humor.

[31:03] Like bad disability humor. Yeah. And a constant and a constant. And look, let me put all my

[31:10] cards on the table. I've said it before. I'll say it again. I like looking at women and

[31:13] their bodies. I'm attracted to them. I think they're beautiful. But this movie is so leering

[31:17] and so ogling in a way that is like makes me feel icky, you know, that, yeah, it's weird

[31:22] to do it.

[31:23] It feels weird to do it in a big budget action adventure comedy. It feels gross to me. Yeah.

[31:28] I don't know if you guys felt the same way. Yeah. Well, I mean, it feels it feels gross

[31:32] because it's so unmotivated. Like, yeah, I like I agree like an adult. I'm not a zoomer

[31:39] or whatever. Like I'm an I'm an elder millennial. We know you're not a boomer or a boomer. But,

[31:47] you know, like you're a Gen Xer, right? Yeah, you're probably a Gen Xer. Yeah. Dan, there's

[31:50] a real generation divide between me and elder millennial Gen Xer. Yeah. I know what we're

[31:54] going to do. I'm all about making my brand. And you're all about. I'm so disaffected.

[31:59] The single soundtrack. Yeah. So but when you look at it, I I like sex in movies when it's

[32:07] motivated, like unlike seeing all the Brian De Palma movies that I've watched. Generation

[32:12] does not. But but like you have to buy in, like you're buying into like a certain type

[32:17] of thing. And like it is weird when it's like this feels odd in this film. You know what

[32:25] it feels like? Is it feel it feels adolescent. It like it feels like there's a lack of not

[32:30] that not that you can't be funny around sex, not that you can't even be gross, funny about

[32:34] sex. But like it feels like like like and I'm sure adults made this movie, but doesn't

[32:39] feel adult. It feels kind of like like boobs, like that kind of thing. So not to not to

[32:47] change the tempo at all. But I will say that Kenneth Branagh gives a performance. I wanted

[32:52] to say this again. This Dan, you say what you're going to say. And I'm probably going

[32:56] to say the same thing. Oh, just like I don't know that this is. In fact, I wouldn't. I'd

[33:01] say this is not a good performance. But this man realizes that he is in a bad cartoon of

[33:06] a movie and gives a performance that hits that tone better than his performances. Hamlet

[33:11] maybe I don't know if I go that far necessarily. The but he is. I agree that like David, when

[33:19] this movie came out, I'm sure he got critiqued for like being big and over the top. But I

[33:24] feel like critical understanding has come around to the idea that like you're in a bad

[33:28] movie, go big, like be big and be memorable or like energy into it, especially considering

[33:35] he had to do this whole role like on his knees, even though you don't see them.

[33:40] But he had to be like kneeling the whole time. And there's so many times there's so many

[33:44] times when he's in the wheelchair and it's spinning around. And like he has to perform

[33:47] these monologues while he is literally spinning around like it's ridiculous, you know, and

[33:51] like he had to like keep taking breaks because his legs would fall asleep. Yeah. Like that's

[33:55] commitment, baby. Yeah, that's Lon Chaney Senior type stuff. Lon Chaney Senior did a

[33:59] movie called The Penalty, where he's playing a character who had the bottom half of his

[34:02] legs amputated. And the way he did it was he bent his leg. He made these kind of like

[34:06] fake stump legs that he then bent his leg backwards in so that he could he was constantly

[34:12] walking on his knees. And he would do this for hours. You know, it hurt him really badly.

[34:16] And so like there's a reason people don't do that anymore because it's bad for you.

[34:21] Also, if I don't know, sometimes if you're looking for a character with a specific thing,

[34:26] maybe hire an actor that has that thing. Yes, that's true. I think it's yeah, that's that's

[34:31] also a possibility that they did not look into, I'm sure. But I think we can all say

[34:34] Kenneth Branagh did his best with this terrible with the terrible opportunity that was handed

[34:39] him. Yes. Yeah. So so speaking of Kenneth Branagh, he then makes a big entrance literally

[34:44] exploding out of a giant paper mache Abraham Lincoln head, which you must have loved. You

[34:48] were like, I love this crap. No, it was weird was they started the band starts playing Battle

[34:53] Hymn of the Republic. And I was like I was and I was literally thinking at the time,

[34:58] this makes no sense to play at this Confederate ball like they would not like.

[35:01] But then he explodes out of an Abraham Lincoln head. He goes, I hate that song.

[35:05] Yeah. Then he goes, remix. Did you bring your son who who is named lovingly after Abraham

[35:12] Lincoln? You brought him in. You're like, look, there's your namesake. And then his

[35:16] you know, get out of here. Get out of here. Shield your eyes.

[35:23] Oh, for a second, I thought Elliot was confused about whether the shooter

[35:27] was in the hall. It's happening again. Take cover. Take cover. Yeah. It's the office all

[35:33] over again. Yeah. It's the office all over again. They can see me through the through the screen.

[35:39] So anyway, that's not what happened. So just and loveless. Thank you. Loveless has his

[35:45] interaction with West. Loveless meets with McGrath. And then after the meeting is like,

[35:49] meet me at this other place. So West goes to where they had Loveless McGrath. He snoops around

[35:54] and Biling catches him and she tries to seduce him. So, of course, we get literally a close up

[35:59] upskirt of her. But like it's again, it's this is a it's a leering movie. And West realizes that

[36:05] it's a trap and shoots a bunch of gunmen. Biling is killed in the crossfire. And West does not

[36:10] give it a second thought. He just walks out of that room. And I think a dead body falls from

[36:14] the ceiling and supposed to be like funny. It's like, well, a bunch of people just died.

[36:18] You know, this is it reminds me of I finally saw a dial of destiny. And I was like, these are the

[36:23] maybe the most trigger happy bad guys I've seen in a major motion picture in a long time. They

[36:27] just are constantly killing everybody except the two people that it would make the most. Yeah.

[36:32] The heroes that are getting in their way. They refuse to kill them, but they'll kill everybody

[36:36] else. Well, that's what you don't know about. He clouds men's mind. He sort of just this field

[36:42] around. He learns this mystic, this mystic power in the adventures. You know, I just wanted to say

[36:49] the shooters, just because it's one of the few brief moments of any sort of visual gag that

[36:56] works for a moment. Yeah. In the film, the shooters are like hidden in the paintings,

[37:00] like a person like turns out you thought was just, you know, someone hunting out in the scrub

[37:07] and points the rifle towards West. That is a cool thing. It means that they're just standing

[37:11] there all day in case someone in case a bad guy wanders in. But that is a cool visual.

[37:17] Meanwhile, he goes downstairs. He sees a woman who vaguely looks like Kevin Kline in drag,

[37:21] but she's wearing a mask and is like, oh, it's you again, huh? Let me ruin the mission by calling you

[37:26] out and play your boobs like bongo drums. And the actual Kevin Kline, who's disguised as a mountain

[37:31] man, yells out, hang him. So now one of our heroes has just has just called for the other hero to be

[37:38] lynched for harassing a white woman. And it's like I was like movie. It felt like I was sinking

[37:42] ever deeper into just sludge and so toxic waste. The intent of this moment, I believe, is that

[37:49] it's more high spirited hijinks. He knows that West can take care of himself. He needs a

[37:53] distraction. So, yeah, but the reality is I'll get everybody to leave the house so I can snoop

[37:59] around. So I'll just have the I'll have I'll put the other hero in a situation where he's going to

[38:03] be lynched. The realities of American history are too ugly for the scene to work as anything other

[38:11] than horrifying. Yeah. Oh, well, now Will Smith has been accused of sexually harassing a white

[38:19] woman in the old South and the antebellum South. What is going to happen? It's the postbellum

[38:25] South. OK, yeah. Sorry. And and he's standing next to a literal noose. And you're like,

[38:31] what the fuck are you doing, Wild Wild West? Yeah, they do like they do put it up there next

[38:36] to the noose. And he does drop like, you know, like a decent type five to the assembled crowd.

[38:41] Like he's telling jokes. He's trying to get him on his side. Yeah. Yeah. He has to try to talk

[38:45] his way out of it. And he almost does it. But the the jokes he's saying are not funny. Like,

[38:50] it's not. Yeah. So now it's another thing. Sorry. I wanted to say about the movie is like Will

[38:56] Smith, like obviously extremely charismatic performer, as we said before, like up until this

[39:02] point could do no wrong. This movie sort of this was the fresh prince down. Princes don't get

[39:09] fresher. Yeah. But like nothing in this movie is played with any sense of like stakes or whether

[39:18] anyone has any concern at any point during it, really like in any way that feels any kind of

[39:27] grounded. And I feel like this movie deserves like Kevin Kline and Will Smith so much by having like

[39:33] Kevin Kline is just kind of a jerk to Will Smith the whole time. And Will Smith like runs through

[39:40] doing the laziest version of his sort of blithe like I don't care about anything that's happening

[39:45] attitude, but too much like nothing feels like it has any weight at all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.

[39:52] I didn't have to go off that long, but the movie is both. It's it's the characters are acting.

[39:57] They never come off as cool and like suave, but

[40:00] The movie is also never exciting or putting them in, I guess there's one scene later on

[40:05] where they're falling and they keep, and it cuts to closeups of them going, ah, which

[40:09] is my least favorite thing a movie can do, I think, possibly.

[40:13] But at that point, at least they're excited about what's going on, they're scared.

[40:16] So now it's Gordon's turn to snoop.

[40:18] And he goes into a bedroom and finds Selma Hayek in lingerie in a giant birdcage.

[40:23] And we'll find out that she's Rita, the daughter, she says, of one of the kidnapped scientists

[40:27] who was trying to find this kidnapped scientist who became part of Lovelace's harem-slash-bodyguard.

[40:33] And together, they save Wes from being lynched and, you know, they all get away.

[40:38] To talk about Selma Hayek's performance, I feel like the whole time, I kept expecting

[40:42] there to be an extra layer to her character, like there was a twist.

[40:47] And I think that she injected all of that, because there is no extra layer over the course

[40:51] of the movie.

[40:52] But there is kind of an extra layer at the very end when, spoiler, you learn that this

[40:56] person that she's been wanting to rescue is not her father, but her husband.

[41:03] And I guess the implication is she didn't tell them this because she knows that by playing

[41:11] her sex appeal, they will be more invested maybe in it if they think they have a shot

[41:16] with her.

[41:17] But they tell her at the end, you could have told us this from the beginning.

[41:23] They were already on the mission.

[41:25] Exactly.

[41:26] I believe that.

[41:27] I believe that they totally would have done the same thing if this was not being dangled.

[41:32] So it is such a weird, unnecessary thing at the end.

[41:35] Yeah, that this carrot will somehow empower them like Popeye's spinach to do the job better.

[41:40] But I think you're right, Stuart, that Selma Hayek is injecting a little bit of extra something

[41:44] to this character, because if anyone in this movie is given nothing to do, it's Selma Hayek

[41:49] in this role.

[41:50] Yeah, the only thing that she's given to do is to be like sexy and kind of a daffy

[41:54] way.

[41:55] She's essentially like a good, good at it, you know, but that's it.

[41:59] The movie treats her essentially as a cleavage delivery mechanism, you know, which she's

[42:05] also super talented.

[42:06] Like, she's great when you give her the opportunity to be great.

[42:08] And she can do like, and I don't want to sound like a creep, but she can do sexy in like

[42:15] really intriguing way.

[42:16] I mean, like the movie, I'm not a huge fan of From Dawn Till Dusk because I feel like

[42:20] it gets a little too silly for me.

[42:21] You even get the name wrong.

[42:22] Oh, sorry, sorry.

[42:23] From Dusk Till Dawn.

[42:24] You're right.

[42:25] From Dawn Till Dusk is just a regular day.

[42:26] Regular, you know, working hours.

[42:27] Yeah.

[42:28] From Dawn Till Dusk is you wake up, you go to work, you come back home.

[42:31] Also known as nine to five.

[42:33] But what a way to make a living.

[42:34] When she shows up in From Dusk Till Dawn, it's such an intense blast of kind of like,

[42:40] just like sexual power in a way that I, that just, it's a weird movie.

[42:45] But that, I guess Robert is able to harness that in a way that adds this like power and

[42:49] mystique to her that instantly she's in control of the movie from in those moments.

[42:54] And it is a weird movie because all of a sudden a bunch of vampires show up.

[42:58] What?

[42:59] Tom Savini's in front of the camera.

[43:01] Yeah.

[43:02] None of it makes sense.

[43:03] Tom Savini in an acting role.

[43:04] Vamps?

[43:05] What's going on?

[43:07] And he has that, it's Tom Savini, right?

[43:08] Who has the, who has that gun in his crotch.

[43:11] Yeah, sex machine.

[43:12] That has, that is two, six, two chambers, which doesn't, which makes sense to make them

[43:16] look like testicles, but it's not how a gun works.

[43:18] Like you wouldn't have like two revolving barrels.

[43:20] Maybe instead of chambers.

[43:22] Maybe they're, they, they're like gears.

[43:24] Like there's like a space between the barrel, the interlock barrels.

[43:27] It seems like it probably would jam a lot though.

[43:29] I'm not a gunsmith, but I think that would jam a lot.

[43:31] Yeah.

[43:32] Anyway.

[43:33] Are you a gunsmith cat?

[43:34] Sir Jamalot.

[43:35] Yeah.

[43:36] Sir Jamalot.

[43:37] I feel like, no, sir Jamalot feels like, like a real early eighties rapper, like early

[43:43] mid eighties rapper when hip hop's pretty new.

[43:46] Yeah.

[43:47] Sir Jamalot from Camelot, you know?

[43:51] And there's a, there's a, there's a, there's another rapper he partners with named like

[43:55] King Arthur and it's like spelled differently.

[43:57] And oh man, I'll say this.

[43:59] One thing I'm not.

[44:00] This is some like early sitcom rap reference type stuff.

[44:02] This is some real midsize sedan shit you're coming up with.

[44:06] Sedan.

[44:07] That's so funny.

[44:08] I was thinking about this recently that I'm not a big hip hop fan.

[44:10] It's just not my kind of music, but I do love the spellings that go into the names of rappers

[44:15] and their albums.

[44:16] I may do it for the spellings.

[44:17] I really love it.

[44:18] I love the malleability of the English language there.

[44:20] I've not, I wish I liked the music more cause I love the spellings and the posturing so,

[44:24] so much the same with it.

[44:26] To me it's like professional wrestling where I love the characters.

[44:28] I love the trash talk.

[44:29] Don't like the wrestling.

[44:30] What do you think of the spelling of Torrey spelling?

[44:33] Oh, I mean the way it's spelled.

[44:35] Sure, it works.

[44:36] You can, you can read it.

[44:37] Yeah.

[44:38] So, okay.

[44:39] McGrath, soldiers.

[44:40] A plus.

[44:41] So, getting back to the movie.

[44:42] Yeah.

[44:43] We get back to A plus for Torrey Spelling's way of spelling.

[44:45] So, we get back to the movie after the longest, dumbest digression I think we've had in a

[44:50] while.

[44:51] So, Bloodbath McGrath, his soldiers are assembling in the night, but it's a trap.

[44:55] Arlo Loveless sends this kind of steampunk tank to massacre all of them and it's a way

[45:01] of showing off what his new weaponry can do cause he wants to sell it to these foreign

[45:04] dignitaries that are with him.

[45:05] Loveless kills McGrath and he announces his plans.

[45:08] He's going to take over America and he's going to sell his weapons to these foreign countries.

[45:12] Our heroes show up just a little bit too late to catch him, but they recognize the massacre

[45:16] site.

[45:17] West recognizes the carnage as similar to that of a freedman's town called New Liberty

[45:21] that had previously been slaughtered.

[45:23] That was what Bloodbath McGrath apparently got his name for, was slaughtering this town

[45:27] of freedmen.

[45:28] And West finds the dying McGrath who says, no, it was Loveless who was responsible for

[45:32] both massacres.

[45:36] And this is the only scene in the movie that gets mentioned in Barry Sonnenfeld's memoirs

[45:40] and he mentions that the tank kept breaking down and they were using Civil War reenactors

[45:44] who were very frustrating to him because they kept saying, that's not how we would do it

[45:48] if this was really the Civil War.

[45:50] And he was like, this is a cartoon movie, like who cares?

[45:54] Rita is like, oh, when I was with Loveless's bodyguards, I overheard them talking about

[45:57] going to Utah.

[45:58] So that's where we've got to head next.

[46:00] Our heroes go there on the train, it gives Gordon a lot of opportunities to lust after

[46:04] Rita and for Rita to overhear him and Rita gets, Gordon gets embarrassed.

[46:07] Rita alternately flirts with both of our heroes, but no, there's no chemistry at all.

[46:11] It's less a love triangle and more three love points that are having trouble organizing

[46:16] themselves and can't get into a shape.

[46:17] Well, it's a more realistic, two horny guys and a woman who's not interested triangle.

[46:24] And West is annoyed.

[46:25] He's like, Rita's distracting you from the mission.

[46:27] But the whole, literally all of this is basically just an excuse for Selma Hayek to wear long

[46:30] johns where the back door is falling open so you can see her butt through them.

[46:34] That's basically why this exists.

[46:36] Dan, as a lover of butts, how did you feel about this?

[46:39] It's basically like a Playboy one panel cartoon.

[46:43] This is some leering.

[46:45] I remember liking this as a leering kid.

[46:49] I do find it a little more uncomfortable now.

[46:51] That was your old West name.

[46:52] Your gunfighter name was the leering kid.

[46:53] You're always losing gunfights because you're too busy leering at ladies.

[46:56] I kind of like this sort of like cutesy nudity, though.

[47:01] Like there's something sort of sweet about this in the way that there isn't about just

[47:04] being like, and now here's Bailing's ass, you know, in the way that it's true like that.

[47:10] So there you go.

[47:11] That's my butt opinion.

[47:12] I know you can't.

[47:13] OK.

[47:14] So there you go.

[47:16] Cracking news.

[47:17] Thanks, Wallace.

[47:18] Is that what Wallace was talking about every time when he said that?

[47:24] I didn't realize.

[47:25] OK.

[47:26] The next morning, Gordon reveals, I added some gadgets to your clothes, Jim West, while

[47:29] you were sleeping, which is weird.

[47:31] And Lovelace's tank on a train ambushes their train.

[47:35] There's a lot of steampunk stuff in and perhaps the moment that I think best defines the movie.

[47:39] If you wanted this movie to be boiled down to one moment, Lovelace's henchwoman fires

[47:43] an enormous steampunk harpoon gun at our hero's train while Lovelace is just staring at her

[47:49] butt talking about her butt.

[47:51] That is this moment.

[47:52] It's like this is the whole movie in a couple of seconds is steampunk harpoon gun and the

[47:56] and one of the male characters just kind of just looking in from inches away at a woman's

[48:01] butt and going, I've got a good view or whatever he says, you know, she goes, I've got them

[48:05] in my sights.

[48:06] And he's like, I do, too.

[48:07] And it's like, oh, come on.

[48:09] Does he say it like that or?

[48:11] Yeah, that's OK.

[48:13] That's his his performance is a lot of like, well, that kind of stuff.

[48:17] Yeah.

[48:18] That's pretty good.

[48:19] Yeah.

[48:20] And then Salma knocks them all out with their own gadget.

[48:23] And then we have another one of those abrupt cuts we love so much.

[48:26] It's a gadget that West meant that that Gordon mentioned earlier.

[48:28] It's a billiard ball full of sleeping gas.

[48:30] Rita knocks them out.

[48:31] Yeah.

[48:32] Abrupt cut.

[48:33] West and Gordon wake up sitting on the ground, fitted with those metal collars that we saw

[48:36] on the sides earlier.

[48:37] And it does feel like a scene is missing.

[48:38] Like there should be a title screen that says real missing.

[48:41] And then suddenly you're onto this scene like Planet Terror or something like that.

[48:45] Not to bring in another Robert Rodriguez film all about it.

[48:49] Yeah.

[48:50] Loveless takes a moment to brag about how he invented a metal prosthetic penis for himself

[48:53] so that he can have sex, then leaves to go assassinate Ulysses S. Grant.

[48:57] And our heroes, they get chased by the circular saw blades through a cornfield.

[49:02] And they they escape by.

[49:04] It turns out they have magnets in their collars that the blades are attracted to.

[49:08] I remember seeing clips from this in the trailer and in the music video.

[49:13] And I was surprised at how short the sequence was.

[49:15] Yeah, it's very short.

[49:17] There's a surprising lack of action in this action movie.

[49:20] And so they really made the most of this.

[49:22] They escape by jumping into a crevasse full of mud, leading them to argue a lot and their

[49:26] magnets get stuck together and so forth.

[49:28] But that mud.

[49:29] I mean, it looks like it might be poop.

[49:31] That's a lot of poop.

[49:32] They never make a joke about it smelling or it being.

[49:35] Yes.

[49:36] And so I couldn't tell if it was mud or poop.

[49:38] I did not care to do the research.

[49:39] But the flurry.

[49:41] I didn't read the novelization to see how they described it.

[49:43] It felt like probably I'm not all poop, but farm animals, you know, is washed into this

[49:49] crevasse.

[49:50] Sure.

[49:51] Sure.

[49:52] Possible.

[49:53] That night, they finally get the magnets off because Jim, Jim Gordon, Jim Gordon, whatever

[49:56] his name is, Artemis Gordon.

[50:00] That's a fucking crossover. Jim Gordon shows up. What time am I? I need to get back.

[50:09] Jim Gordon shows up, he's like, I'm in a world with no bat signal. What am I

[50:13] gonna do? It's my one move. If they put Jim Gordon in an Injustice game, his one

[50:22] special move is bat signal. You know that some kind of Wild West Batman

[50:27] would show up. There was a Batman Elseworlds called, I think, the Blue,

[50:31] the Grey, and the Bat that had an Old West Batman. We're gonna get some angry

[50:35] nerds writing and being like, Jim Gordon is a bat horse. He might have had a bat horse, yeah.

[50:42] Well, there is a bat horse in the comics, right? I don't know. Wow, you really

[50:48] infuriated Stuart. Now, when I say bat horse, I mean a horse wearing a Batman mask. I don't know

[50:53] the cooler thing would be a horse with enormous bat wings. That would be awesome.

[50:56] That's the kind of thing Elric would ride around on. Yeah, yeah, the fucking Brain Gremlin showed up and

[51:01] squirted the juice on it. So the Brain Gremlin is also in the Old West for some reason? Oh no! I can't stop! Oh no, history will be changed forever.

[51:13] This is kind of like a time vortex. All people get drawn, all travelers get

[51:17] drawn to this one nexus. Yeah, yeah, like Man-Thing's nexus of all realities, yeah. We'll fix the

[51:22] problem. We'll bring gremlins in here. Gordon is like, okay, Wes, this is my plan. It might not work. We need to bring some gremlins in. Won't they get you in the end? No, no, they won't. You're thinking of ghoulies. What you got here is a ghoulie. No, that's a different, I'm gonna have to call a different specialist for that. Now, I'm imagining, Dan, you're Robert Shaw in Jaws, and they're trying to figure out how to get rid of the ghoulies, and he scratches his nails and goes, I'll get you a ghoulie. I'll find you a ghoulie, I'll get you a ghoulie, I'll get you a ghoulie, I'll get you a ghoulie, I'll get you a ghoulie, I'll get you a ghoulie, I'll get you a ghoulie, I'll get you a ghoulie, I'll get you

[51:52] a ghoulie, I'll get you a ghoulie, I'll get you a ghoulie, I'll get you a ghoulie, I'll get you a ghoulie. I'll get you a ghoulie. I'll find them and catch them for even more money. He's just standing above the toilet with a harpoon. You ever hear the story of the USS Indianapolis' toilets? The sharks started coming up through the toilets. Black, like doll's poop. Anyway, so that was gross. They escape. They start arguing with each other, but then it's night time, they bond around

[52:22] a campfire. West explains that he ran away from slavery as a child and his birth parents, and he

[52:27] was raised by indigenous people of the desert, his birth parents were among those killed by loveless

[52:32] at New Liberties. That's why it's personal for him. And they also see a CGI wasp kill a CGI spider

[52:38] in perhaps the most blatant foreshadowing of what's going to happen later in the movie.

[52:42] It was, and it comes out of nowhere. It's not done organically. Anyway, they eventually...

[52:47] Not as good as the CGI scorpion fight in what, five million miles to Graceland or whatever,

[52:53] but it's pretty close. In 20 million miles to Graceland, the one where the emir

[52:59] falls from space to Graceland. Ray Harryhausen's only work with Elvis. So eventually they find

[53:07] Loveless' hidden city in Spider Gulch, where scientists have built him an enormous steampunk

[53:11] spider. It has a super cannon on it. Producer John Peter's dream has come to life. Finally,

[53:17] he can rest. His thousand years sleep can return and he can return to his pyramid tomb.

[53:23] What do you guys think of this big honking spider?

[53:28] Yeah, sure. In a better movie, I would love this spider.

[53:31] It looks pretty cool. It moves pretty cool. It's got lots of gears and stuff. It's a neat thing.

[53:35] What do you think? Yeah, it seems pretty cool. I mean, it shakes around a lot. It feels like it

[53:40] wouldn't be a particularly comfortable mode of conveyance, but that's okay.

[53:44] It's a weapon of war, I guess. No, I mean, it has the same problem that the AT-ATs have,

[53:49] where you're like, why build a walker when the wheel exists? But that's true.

[53:54] Sure. Maybe Loveless is tired of wheels. He's on wheels all the time.

[53:58] I mean, you just invalidated all robo anime, but that's fine. I'm just saying as a question I have.

[54:05] I'm not saying that maybe there's a good reason. I guess it's probably better for all terrain.

[54:09] It is like in Pacific Rim, where they're like, there was only one weapon that could stop them,

[54:13] giant robot people. I don't know. It seems like a less efficient way to attack something.

[54:19] Why not just a big gun? Yeah, well, I mean, we have nuclear missiles. I feel like a giant

[54:24] robot's fist is not as effective in destroying a monster, but okay. Well, at the end of Jurassic

[54:30] World 2, the second Jurassic World, where the dinosaurs are free, and they're like,

[54:35] uh-oh, can humanity stand up to these dinosaurs? It's like, we're great at just destroying things

[54:40] with guns. We don't have weapons. Stony-faced, you're like ruining all of his t-shirts.

[54:45] Yeah, ask the blue whale how well it's doing. Ask all the other macro animals.

[54:52] Yeah, all the megafauna that we have gotten rid of. Let me see. Can humans defeat these

[54:58] big animals? Let me ask the giant ground sloth. Let me find one. Hold on a sec.

[55:03] Is there a way to eat it? Or can we render components of its body to fuel our society?

[55:10] Early humans were like, can we eat it? Can we use its skin for something? Or would it be funny

[55:14] to kill it? And that's the reason they would kill things. We see the dinosaurs, and we're like,

[55:18] oh, cool, new oil. It doesn't get fresher than this, right off the beast.

[55:26] Just slice off a hunk and stuff it in the gas tank, honey.

[55:30] It's easy to say, how dare humans do this? But then go play Oregon Trail and go out hunting in

[55:35] it. And it is so hard to resist the urge to just shoot every single thing that wanders across your

[55:39] path. And then it's like, you can carry 40 pounds of meat. You killed 7,000 pounds of meat. It's so

[55:46] hard not to overdo it. So they get back on the train to pursue this giant spider. And Gordon is

[55:53] like, oh, I've inspired to create a flying machine. I'm inspired by that wasp. I'll create a flying

[55:57] machine to attack the spider. And Wes says, there's no time. There's no time, which objectively,

[56:01] there is no time to design and build a flying machine right now.

[56:04] Lovelace interrupts Grant hammering in that golden spike, and he demands Grant surrender

[56:08] the US government. Then Gordon appears, dressed as Grant, to distract Lovelace. And Lovelace just

[56:15] puts both of them in a big net, the kind of net you would catch fish in, not the kind of net

[56:19] Sandra Bullock got in trouble with in our last big episode. No, it does. It is an odd way of trying

[56:26] to like slow things down to be like, oh, how will you know which is the real Grant? I mean,

[56:31] like this guy's not, just shoot them both. He has two bullets, presumably.

[56:36] At this point, yeah. And Lovelace is holding up a $50 bill to see which one looks the most

[56:41] like him. Yeah, he holds out like a big bottle of whiskey to see which Grant is the alcoholic.

[56:47] Which one lunges for it. Yeah. So Wes has a fight scene on the spider. He gets shot off of it. He

[56:53] gets shot point blank in the chest by one of the by one of the lady bodyguards. But luckily,

[56:58] Gordon had snuck some chain mail under his coat. And Gordon, he describes earlier his knitting it.

[57:02] And he's like, I've created this type of mesh armor. It's like it's chain mail. It's existed

[57:07] for hundreds of years. Like, please don't pretend that you invented this concept of armor made out

[57:11] of little links like blacksmiths have been making it for centuries. Lovelace gives a presentation,

[57:17] a kind of early PowerPoint presentation to all the other characters while constantly spinning in his

[57:21] chair. And he explains his plan is to split up the United States among its original colonizers.

[57:26] The English will get the 13 colonies. France will get the Louisiana Territory. Spain gets Florida.

[57:32] And he'll take a big chunk of it for himself, which he has named Lovelace Land, which is

[57:36] which sounds like the worst theme park, just like a bad place, like a bad swingers theme park.

[57:42] And I don't mean swingers the movie. I mean, swingers like it's a place, you know, for

[57:45] swapping. Yeah, Lovelace Swingers, the movie theme park exists in Universal Studios. It's

[57:51] called Las Vegas Swingers theme park. The you go see how money you are in the swingers themed

[58:00] mirrors. You must be this money to ride this ride. There's like a minion holding.

[58:05] Oh, that's even better. Yes, it's a cardboard. Vince Juan says you must be this.

[58:08] Do you know how money you are? If not, welcome.

[58:13] And there's nothing else in that movie. That's pretty much the whole ride is you get strapped

[58:17] into a chair and then Vince Vaughn's like, let's see how money you are. And then it shakes around

[58:21] for a while and it's like, thanks for holding out of the all spark. Do you like you did it?

[58:25] You're the most money, guys. You can you can you can swing with us anytime. But I was talking,

[58:31] I was talking to my older son recently about he's like, it's like you're on the ride. And they're

[58:35] like, thanks, you did it. You're super cool. And it's like, I didn't do anything. I just sat here.

[58:39] I'm like, you got it. Oh, you can see the Matrix. Yeah, he can see through the other side. Yeah,

[58:46] I I was just trying to imagine what our younger listeners who who perhaps didn't live through

[58:52] swingers must have made. Yeah, I mean, I one I don't think we have that many younger viewers.

[59:00] But I have to say when swingers came out, I was what, 14, 15. I thought it was the coolest movie.

[59:06] I thought it was a fun movie. It's a fun movie, but I thought it was so inspired. So many. Yeah,

[59:12] my friends and I started calling each other money for like one day. And then we were like,

[59:16] well, this doesn't work. This sounds terrible. But anyway, Lovelace gives this presentation.

[59:20] And then he threatens to shoot Gordon if if Ulysses Grant won't surrender the United States,

[59:24] which is objectively, there's no way the president is going to surrender the entire

[59:28] nation to save one dude who is already a secret agent who knows he might die in line of duty.

[59:33] But luckily, he doesn't have to make that choice because somehow a belly dancer who is obviously

[59:39] Will Smith in disguise appears out of nowhere. And it is like a Tex Avery cartoon. Lovelace

[59:44] immediately forgets everything else in the room. Right. And it's so his eyes bug out,

[59:49] his tongue falls on the ground. And it's like, how did Will Smith get on the spider? It doesn't

[59:54] none of it makes it's like he appears like likes Bugs Bunny would just out of nowhere.

[59:58] You know, yeah, I would say that.

[1:00:00] body turns into a steam-powered carriage and shoots out steam, but he already kind of is like that.

[1:00:05] Yeah. Unfortunately, the ruse is undone by his fake breasts, which become mechanical

[1:00:10] flamethrowers and are just throwing flames everywhere. Loveless manages to escape with

[1:00:15] the real Grant, and Gordon wants to run after them, but Wes goes, no, we need a new plan.

[1:00:20] And so when this presentation is not happening on the spider, right? This presentation is happening

[1:00:24] back at spider city. I assume because, and I'll just mention it now. Take me down to spider city

[1:00:30] where the grass is green and the girls are spiders. Take me down. Yeah. Spider city.

[1:00:37] Take me. That's that's the commercial for the pet shop. Take me down to spider city where this week

[1:00:42] scorpions are half off. That's right. It's scorpion week here at spider city. Not technically a spider,

[1:00:47] but arachnids. It is related. And we need the money because we're being sued by Axel Rose

[1:00:53] for our jingle. So anyway, they they Loveless and Grant escape. Gordon wants to go after them,

[1:01:01] but Wes goes, no, we need a plan. And the man who was impulsively jumping into action,

[1:01:05] now he's all about plans. There is also a moment where they're like, should we go after him?

[1:01:10] And he looks to Rita and she's like, yeah, you can go after him. Like, oh, OK. Like she

[1:01:14] there's a moment where he's like, should I pursue a romantic interest here? And she's like, no,

[1:01:19] you can go. No, you can go. You should you should do that. You should save the country instead.

[1:01:22] So Gordon quickly, he turns his motorcycle into a flying machine. They use it. They drop bombs on

[1:01:28] the spider. They get shot down. And there's a lot of henchmen fighting on the spider. It goes on

[1:01:33] for a long time until finally each of the henchmen has some sort of deformity or or or like a

[1:01:40] handicap of some kind. It's it and they're kind of the bad guys from the Judge Red movie of Sylvester

[1:01:45] Sloane. And let's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to say Seinfeld's like clearly he's trying to,

[1:01:52] as we said before, read, capture the men in black magic. Yes. But Seinfeld is great at doing these

[1:02:00] like big outlandish sort of kinetic films. He's not necessarily a good action director, though,

[1:02:10] like the action sequences are just sort of like, I don't know, a bunch of stuff happening.

[1:02:15] And he's a he's a he's a comedy and visual director. But I would say they're I mean,

[1:02:19] they're good action scenes, the men in black stuff. And like in the I guess you're right.

[1:02:23] It's kinetic, like in the Addams Family movies. It's not exactly action, but it's dynamic.

[1:02:26] There's a lot of dynamic movement, you know, that comes off really exciting.

[1:02:30] But I just say this to like this is in a boring movie. The action is some of the

[1:02:35] most boring part. There's a lot of it, especially these fights where there's one point where West

[1:02:40] defeats the final bad guy by somehow electrocuting him. And I rewound and I still could not figure

[1:02:45] out how it happened. It's like the bad guy is looking at him and then suddenly is just

[1:02:48] filled with electricity and dies. And I was like, that happened spontaneously.

[1:02:53] There was I was reading a bit of trivia and apparently the original cut of the movie,

[1:02:58] the climax was just West beating up the bevy of babes. And they're like, oh, this is weird.

[1:03:05] So they had to do a whole bunch of reshoots to add these these like that spider workers

[1:03:11] or whatever. Yeah, these like thugs who are one guy's a metal plate on his head and stuff like

[1:03:14] that, which which is better. And so finally, Will Smith confronts Loveless. And we're going to end

[1:03:23] the Green Lantern movie where a handsome, cool guy, he has to beat up a nerd in a wheelchair.

[1:03:29] And this was and it was like, do you know what your audience is like? This is not a dynamic.

[1:03:35] One hundred percent the problem with it, because at the beginning he has this

[1:03:38] robot wheelchair with robot legs that can like beat up Will Smith. But the moment he was actually

[1:03:46] a smaller mechanical spider that also has legs. Yeah. Once they short out that wheelchair spider,

[1:03:51] Will Smith is essentially just beating up a disabled man. And the whole movie changes at

[1:03:57] that point. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. It changes from amazing to not as good

[1:04:03] from amazing to Oscar winning. I'm just saying it's a miscalculation to at that point.

[1:04:09] Yes. No, but I would say I would feel like the movie does not change at that point,

[1:04:12] which is the problem. It doesn't feel like a misstep in a movie that is otherwise

[1:04:16] walking the tightrope or the balance beam. It feels like the movie is now

[1:04:19] coming back to what it is, which is gross, which is a movie that does not

[1:04:24] is not has no respect for any human being and is is, you know, is gross to women and all that stuff.

[1:04:30] Guys, another little another little Easter egg in there. When Loveless was

[1:04:34] dry, there's a sequence where Loveless is driving his giant spider and he's forcing the president

[1:04:39] Grant to watch him blow up Western towns. And he's like, are you going to are you going to

[1:04:44] sign it over to me? He's like, no. So he blows up a town and they, I guess, presumably are

[1:04:48] walking off to do it all over again and blow up another town. Like, I love the

[1:04:52] I kind of wish there was a montage, you know, like Christopher Walken blowing up

[1:04:57] Country Bears. But just one town after another. Really? Six towns?

[1:05:04] Town they blow up named Silverado after another Kevin Kline movie called Silverado.

[1:05:12] Called The Big Chill. Grand. And the whole time the whole time I'm watching this movie,

[1:05:20] I just I kept thinking to myself. And at the end of the day, Kevin Kline goes home

[1:05:25] and just, I guess, complains to Phoebe Cates about making this movie. And just like the I'm

[1:05:31] constantly the there's something there's this is maybe a weird feeling. But whenever I think

[1:05:35] about Kevin Kline, I cannot help but think about how lucky he is to be married to Phoebe Cates.

[1:05:39] I literally super talented, super charming, super handsome. But like the fact that that he's like,

[1:05:44] yeah, I get Phoebe Cates all to myself. She doesn't even make movies anymore. She's just

[1:05:48] someone I live with. Like it's and have a family with like texting my friend, essentially the same

[1:05:52] thing, complaining about this movie. And and they're saying something about, you know, sort

[1:05:58] of half derailed his career. I'm like, yeah, but, you know, he's married to Phoebe Cates.

[1:06:01] So how much can you complain? Yeah, exactly. And his and his son made a good movie last year.

[1:06:06] And his daughter's an indie musician who's who's I listen to her stuff. It's pretty good.

[1:06:11] What was what was his son's movie? Funny Pages. Oh, I didn't realize that was his son. OK,

[1:06:16] I know. I haven't seen it. Oh, I mean, totally. Kline Dynasty now. I feel like it will be it might

[1:06:22] be a little too close. Yeah, that's if anything, that's why I'm worried about watching it. Yeah.

[1:06:26] It's kind of rough in that way. Yeah. And and he's great on Bob's Burgers. Super. But yeah,

[1:06:31] there's something about like the and maybe I'm wrong, maybe behind the scenes, Phoebe Cates

[1:06:35] is a monster. But there's just something about like I'm always like, oh, yeah, like what a like

[1:06:39] what a what a thing to be incredibly thankful and grateful for. Kevin Kline above everything else

[1:06:44] is that is that you're married to Phoebe Cates. Anyway, she's great. She's she's up there. There's

[1:06:49] a few people that I wish had not left professional film acting. And she's right at the top. It's like

[1:06:56] her and Rick Moranis and a few other people that I that I wish were still. Yeah, it's still been

[1:07:00] working for the past couple of decades, you know. But anyway, where were we? Oh, yeah. So

[1:07:05] West and Loveless, they end up hanging off the spider over a cliff. I on somehow West causes

[1:07:10] Loveless to fall to his death. Honestly, I didn't care enough to pay close attention to it. It

[1:07:15] happens. This is a button on something and he falls off somehow. And I think they both just

[1:07:19] like essentially he lets them both go. But because he's our hero, he can grab a chain on the way down

[1:07:25] and not all those death. Yeah, something like that. And so now it's the end. Present grant

[1:07:31] names West and Gordon, the first agents of the Secret Service. This is a historical. The Secret

[1:07:36] Service did not start then. It was, I think, earlier than that. It was begun as an anti

[1:07:40] counterfeiting. But in the goofs, but I could be wrong about when it started. Maybe maybe that is

[1:07:46] when it started. I don't know. Oh, so this movie is kind of like a prequel to to live and die in

[1:07:50] L.A. Yes, exactly. This movie is it takes place in the same universe as to live and die in L.A.

[1:07:56] And that's why you can notice in the background the portraits of James West, of Jim West and

[1:08:02] Artemis Gordon. And it and it says our first agents. Yeah, yeah, sure. Now, Elliot, tell us

[1:08:07] the other ways in which when they when they set up that when they accidentally killed another guy

[1:08:10] who's also also an agent, they're like they're like, what would West and Gordon think about this?

[1:08:16] Yeah, they save the president. Yeah. No, I just looking forward to you going through the other

[1:08:21] ways in which Wild Wild West is historically inaccurate. OK, I will also mention. So I don't

[1:08:26] believe Ulysses S. Grant hammered in the golden spike that connected the Transcontinental Railroad.

[1:08:31] Also, at no point, another goof at no point were America's scientists kidnapped to build a giant

[1:08:36] robot. Oh, yeah, we got you. We got you, Master General. There was as far as I know, there was no

[1:08:43] there was no Arlo Lovelace. That's a fictional character. Oh, I'm going to get that wrong.

[1:08:48] That's right. Killed Ulysses S. Grant. Yeah. And so Rita reveals this is when Rita reveals,

[1:08:54] as Dan mentioned, that the scientist she was after was not her father, but her husband.

[1:08:58] And she just leaves. And it just ends with West and Gordon riding the giant movie ends with a

[1:09:02] giant whipper. Yeah. There's there's a moment where Gordon goes, can I ask you a question?

[1:09:09] No. And that's it. That's the last. Those are the last exchange of the film. Right up there with

[1:09:16] nobody's perfect. Right up there. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Can I ask

[1:09:20] you a question? No. It's like shutting down an improv scene immediately. The most interesting

[1:09:27] thing you can do is say no. And then and then you get that and then you hear the Wild Wild West

[1:09:31] song as Stewart has mentioned. Yeah. Well, maybe that's it. They were like, this is really the

[1:09:37] last line of the film. Yeah. Well, it was song. So I don't know about you guys. I immediately

[1:09:41] went and watched the the the music video. And you know what? Still good. OK. I did not. I

[1:09:47] immediately watched a different movie to watch the taste of this one out of my mouth. OK.

[1:09:53] Yeah. Let's get final judgments. Is this a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie or a movie you kind

[1:09:59] of like?

[1:10:00] Um, I'm going to say that this is a bad, bad movie.

[1:10:03] There's nothing quite as painful as a comedy that doesn't work.

[1:10:08] And you've got two people who have made me laugh a lot in the past and Will Smith

[1:10:12] and, uh, Kevin Kline, and this and hysterical Kenneth Rana celebrity Woody

[1:10:21] Allen celebrity, but nothing works.

[1:10:25] Maybe the only performance of his that's more cartoonish than this one, his, his

[1:10:28] Woody Allen impression in celebrity, the jokes don't work on their own terms.

[1:10:33] And then on top of that, most of them are uncomfortably, uh, race

[1:10:40] related or gay panic or misogynist.

[1:10:44] Yeah.

[1:10:44] And so, yeah, it's just not fun to watch.

[1:10:48] So I say don't do it.

[1:10:49] Yeah.

[1:10:50] I'm with you.

[1:10:50] It's no, no, no.

[1:10:52] Either way, I'm going to say this is a bad, bad movie.

[1:10:54] I, uh, you know, I'd put it off for a long time, not watching it.

[1:10:59] Like I put off watching it for a long time.

[1:11:01] When it first came out, I was, uh, deep into the deadlines role-playing universe.

[1:11:05] And I'm like, oh man, this doesn't take the thing that I think is cool.

[1:11:08] Seriously.

[1:11:09] So I don't want to watch this fucking shit.

[1:11:10] And you know what?

[1:11:11] I was right.

[1:11:12] This movie sucks.

[1:11:13] If you want to watch a movie that is a, like a historical action adventure with

[1:11:18] like a little bit of steam, bunky, anachronistic elements, and maybe some

[1:11:22] supernatural elements, and is also just a little bit horny, I would direct your

[1:11:26] attention to the mummy franchise, which is way better.

[1:11:30] I thought you might've been talking about bone Tomahawk

[1:11:32] until you got to the horny part.

[1:11:34] I don't know.

[1:11:35] You do get to see that guy's butt before he gets split in half.

[1:11:39] I think, yeah, it's a bad, bad movie and it's too bad.

[1:11:41] I was really hoping that we would watch this and I'd be like, oh, this is something

[1:11:43] that it turns out has a lot of gem moments in it because I like the stars.

[1:11:48] I love Barry Sonnenfeld's movies that he made before this.

[1:11:51] Like the, um, and even among those, like get shorty is a movie that I love.

[1:11:55] I just think it's a fantastic comedy and it's, it manages to pull off the idea of

[1:11:59] a cool movie with low-ish stakes, but it still really pulls you along and you're

[1:12:04] just really enjoying it the whole time.

[1:12:05] And.

[1:12:07] It's just, it's, it feels like a movie that was out of control and nobody knows

[1:12:11] what they're doing or why they're doing it.

[1:12:13] And on top of that, as Dan said, it's gross.

[1:12:15] It's not enough that it's bad.

[1:12:16] It's also gross and bad and gross.

[1:12:18] That's gross.

[1:12:19] That's the worst.

[1:12:20] That's the worst.

[1:12:22] Well, uh, we have a couple of sponsors for our show.

[1:12:26] The Flophouse is sponsored in part by Squarespace, which is the all-in-one

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[1:12:44] Well, I'd say for your own good, maybe stick to things that are legal, lest you

[1:12:50] be pinched by the fuzz.

[1:12:55] Dan, you really are a Gen X, uh, cool guy.

[1:12:59] Yep.

[1:13:00] Not a zoomer.

[1:13:00] Certainly not a zoomer.

[1:13:02] No.

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[1:13:44] Nope.

[1:13:45] That's not even close.

[1:13:47] Nope.

[1:13:48] I'm going to say that one more time.

[1:13:50] Head to square to please.

[1:13:54] This is an advertisement.

[1:13:55] Everyone be serious for one moment.

[1:13:57] Head to squarespace.com slash flop.

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[1:14:07] And when you are ready to launch, use offer code flop to save 10% off your

[1:14:12] first purchase of a website or domain.

[1:14:16] Dan, that was a delightfully pushy ad.

[1:14:18] Thank you.

[1:14:19] Yeah.

[1:14:20] You know who else is pushy?

[1:14:22] My cats when they are hungry.

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[1:14:25] Muscles and meatball.

[1:14:26] When they want food, they make sure I know about it.

[1:14:29] And when I want to give them food, I turn to Smalls.

[1:14:33] That's right.

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[1:15:00] So remember high quality ingredients mean a healthier and

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[1:15:23] One last time for everybody in the back row.

[1:15:25] That's promo code fallop for 50% off your first order plus free shipping.

[1:15:33] Those sound like amazing deals.

[1:15:34] I'll tell you another amazing deal.

[1:15:35] More entertainment from the flop guys.

[1:15:38] It's flop TV.

[1:15:39] Our monthly live video show that we broadcast live once a month.

[1:15:44] It's like a TV show version of the podcast.

[1:15:46] And I still hour long kind of TV watching kind of thing.

[1:15:51] Versions of this podcast.

[1:15:52] Good description.

[1:15:53] So good.

[1:15:54] We hope you managed to see our first episode beastmaster two, which was hilarious.

[1:15:58] I had a lot of fun doing it with you guys and I think the audience liked it too.

[1:16:01] If not, your next chance is coming up.

[1:16:03] Our next show is cool world on September 9th at 9 p.m.

[1:16:06] Eastern, 6 p.m.

[1:16:07] Pacific.

[1:16:08] Cool world.

[1:16:09] Stewart's on PowerPoint presentation patrol.

[1:16:11] Dan will be doing the summary.

[1:16:13] So get ready to hear us talk about sexy cartoons and why Ralph Bakshi

[1:16:16] movies never really work.

[1:16:18] Like I said, we'll talk about that at some point.

[1:16:20] Yeah.

[1:16:20] And as you know, if Dan is doing the summary of a sexy cartoon movie.

[1:16:25] Wow.

[1:16:25] You thought this episode had some gross stuff in it?

[1:16:27] Well, get ready.

[1:16:28] It's going to be a wolf whistle, parents only, only adults.

[1:16:32] And I guess adults without kids also.

[1:16:35] Yeah.

[1:16:35] Come on.

[1:16:37] No, we're not invited.

[1:16:39] No, only parents.

[1:16:40] If you can't make it on September 9th, don't rend your

[1:16:43] garments in rage and grief.

[1:16:44] Your ticket gets you access to a recording of the show for

[1:16:47] two weeks after the air dates.

[1:16:49] That's until September 23rd or so.

[1:16:51] So September.

[1:16:52] Yeah.

[1:16:52] So like if you're watching it and it gets too gross and you have to go take a

[1:16:55] shower and come back to it later, you can.

[1:16:57] Yes, you can.

[1:16:58] Exactly.

[1:16:59] September 9th, 9 p.m.

[1:17:00] Eastern, 6 p.m.

[1:17:01] Pacific cool world.

[1:17:02] Episode two of flop TV.

[1:17:04] We're doing six episodes over six months.

[1:17:06] Single tickets and season passes for the rest of the run.

[1:17:08] The shows are available at the flop house dot simple ticks dot com.

[1:17:13] And you'll see more movies that we have coming up listed there.

[1:17:16] Flop TV.

[1:17:17] Hey, don't forget about it.

[1:17:21] It has that first slogan.

[1:17:23] Different than the one before.

[1:17:25] Well, your last week's was, uh, was flop TV.

[1:17:28] What was it?

[1:17:28] Flop.

[1:17:28] Won't you?

[1:17:29] I don't remember what it was.

[1:17:30] Yeah.

[1:17:30] Okay.

[1:17:31] Well, we'll get this settled, I'm sure, by the end of the season.

[1:17:36] When we're done, we'll have a good we'll have a good slogan for it.

[1:17:42] I'm Emily Heller and I'm Lisa Hanawalt and we're the hosts of Baby Geniuses.

[1:17:47] We've been doing our podcast for over 10 years.

[1:17:49] When we started, it was about trying to learn something new every episode.

[1:17:53] Now it's about us trying to actively get stupider and it's working.

[1:17:58] Hang out with us and you'll hear us chat about gardening, horses, various

[1:18:03] problems with our butts and all the weird stuff that makes us horny.

[1:18:07] That's so weird.

[1:18:08] All that stuff.

[1:18:10] Baby Geniuses, a show for adult idiots every other week on Maximum Fun.

[1:18:23] The following pro wrestling contest is scheduled for one week only.

[1:18:28] Making their way to the ring for the tights and fights podcast are the

[1:18:32] baddest trio of audio, the hair to beware, Danielle Radford.

[1:18:37] It really is great hair.

[1:18:41] The Brit with a permit to hit, Lindsay Kell.

[1:18:45] The queen is dead, Long live the queen.

[1:18:47] And the fast talking, fist clocking, Hal Upland.

[1:18:52] See, I can wrestle and be an announcer.

[1:18:54] Get ready for tights and fight.

[1:18:58] Listen every Saturday or face the pain.

[1:19:01] Find us on Maximum Fun.

[1:19:03] Now ring the bell.

[1:19:06] Let's, uh, read a few letters from listeners, listeners.

[1:19:10] We have, we have a few.

[1:19:12] This is from Jaffer lasting withheld.

[1:19:16] He writes dear peaches as a longtime fan and attendee of two live shows.

[1:19:22] Thank you forward to my next time to I'm looking forward to the

[1:19:26] next time you all hit the road.

[1:19:28] Since my niece took my flop house house cat t-shirt, I'm

[1:19:32] hoping you do a new tour short.

[1:19:34] When I listen, I can't help, but get strong vibes of a year with frog and

[1:19:37] toad, the musical based on the books by Arnold Labelle, Dan is the grumpy

[1:19:41] toad stewards that beat frog.

[1:19:43] And Elliot is the course of birds.

[1:19:45] And obviously the snail with the male singing songs of delivery.

[1:19:48] Oh, I love that snail.

[1:19:49] It takes him so long to deliver that letter.

[1:19:52] What a great story.

[1:19:53] I love those books.

[1:19:54] You three is frog toad and snail would kill on a t-shirt.

[1:19:57] Hope you consider it when plotting your next tour.

[1:20:00] I also have a question.

[1:20:02] Was it Ben Mankiewicz who said you shouldn't remake good movies, only bad movies?

[1:20:07] I don't think he's the first person to say it, but it has been said, yeah.

[1:20:11] Are there any bad movies that if you were a producer with a budget to tempt any director,

[1:20:15] you would have that director remake?

[1:20:18] David Fincher's Chopping Mall?

[1:20:19] I mean, Chopping Mall's pretty great.

[1:20:21] Yeah, that's a fucking banger of a movie right there.

[1:20:24] Steven Spielberg's Over the Brooklyn Bridge?

[1:20:27] Ellie could time travel to deliver a script to any director from the past.

[1:20:30] Stuart could reanimate Stuart Gordon as needed.

[1:20:33] Exasperated Size, Ripped Ding Dongs, and Rocket Crocodiles for all, Jaffer, last name withheld.

[1:20:39] That's an interesting one.

[1:20:41] Now this question was first posed to us by Dan via email ahead of time.

[1:20:45] I did not know that I could go anywhere in space and time to get past directors to do

[1:20:50] it.

[1:20:51] Because then it opens up a whole new world of film.

[1:20:54] A whole new world of film.

[1:20:55] Finally, we'll have Ingmar Bergman's Wild Wild West.

[1:21:00] I have some answers, but they're all modern filmmakers remaking older movies.

[1:21:07] You guys want to hear them?

[1:21:08] Sure.

[1:21:09] Sure.

[1:21:10] So this is a bad old movie that not everything about it is terrible, but it is not a wholly

[1:21:16] successful movie.

[1:21:18] For a while, it was being talked about as a remake for Tim Burton, and that's X the

[1:21:22] man with x-ray eyes, and starring Ray Moland as a man who gets x-ray eyes, and his eyes

[1:21:28] allow him to penetrate even further and further into reality.

[1:21:30] And I think that could be an interesting premise for one Jordan Peele.

[1:21:34] I haven't loved his last movie, but I didn't love it particularly.

[1:21:38] Oh, it's great.

[1:21:40] You loved it.

[1:21:41] I didn't love it.

[1:21:42] But I think that he could handle that and also bring an element of social commentary

[1:21:47] to the idea of someone who can now see through the surface reality into hidden things that

[1:21:52] I think he could do interesting things with.

[1:21:54] And it could be funny, too.

[1:21:55] I got two other examples.

[1:21:57] One is you remember that League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie that was so bad?

[1:22:02] I need a director who can handle kind of fussy recreations of like overdetailed past things.

[1:22:11] You guessed it.

[1:22:12] Wes Anderson's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

[1:22:14] I think it.

[1:22:15] Hear me out.

[1:22:17] It's kind of unorthodox, but if you've seen Grand Budapest Hotel, you know he can handle

[1:22:20] kind of somewhat actiony things.

[1:22:22] There's chase sequences in that.

[1:22:24] And the man will pack as much detail into a frame as possible.

[1:22:28] So I think if someone's going to get across the cluttered Victoriana of Kevin O'Neill's

[1:22:33] artwork, it's going to be Wes Anderson.

[1:22:36] And finally, sometimes you have a movie that's about a strong female character, but it doesn't

[1:22:41] have a strong female director.

[1:22:42] And that movie I'm talking about is Trog, starring Joan Crawford.

[1:22:45] And I think her final role is a scientist who finds a living caveman.

[1:22:49] And you know who's going to direct it?

[1:22:50] Greta Gerwig.

[1:22:52] Greta Gerwig's Trog.

[1:22:53] I don't know who's going to play the scientist yet.

[1:22:54] I don't know who's going to play the troglodyte yet.

[1:22:56] But I'm interested to see what she does with the premise.

[1:22:59] So those three movies, I guess, will be coming out next year.

[1:23:02] Jordan Peele's X the Man with X-Ray Eyes.

[1:23:04] Wes Anderson's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

[1:23:06] And Greta Gerwig's Trog.

[1:23:08] So guys, what do you think?

[1:23:09] What are you going to suggest?

[1:23:10] All these movies will be made.

[1:23:12] How about...

[1:23:13] Wait, hold on.

[1:23:14] I'm trying...

[1:23:15] I start...

[1:23:16] I was about to say something, and then I was like, do I have the right name?

[1:23:20] So Stuart, if you have something...

[1:23:23] Yeah, I guess, you know, we...

[1:23:26] Last year, we watched a movie with Marmaduke, where Pete Davidson did the voice.

[1:23:35] A movie with Marmaduke, or the movie Marmaduke?

[1:23:37] I think it was called Marmaduke.

[1:23:38] Okay, so it wasn't just a movie that Marmaduke happened to be in?

[1:23:41] No.

[1:23:43] If you want to make a movie with animal characters where I'll actually connect with it, that's

[1:23:49] right.

[1:23:50] I think you're going to have to remake Marmaduke and have George Miller direct it.

[1:23:54] He's got quite a hit rate.

[1:23:56] And also...

[1:23:57] He does talking animals.

[1:23:58] He does them great, yeah.

[1:23:59] He does do animal movies.

[1:24:00] It's a lot of fun.

[1:24:02] Also he can inject a little bit of...

[1:24:03] He can handle the action that a Marmaduke movie requires.

[1:24:07] I don't know if these are the best ideas, but here's some that I have.

[1:24:13] Let's take Wild Wild West.

[1:24:14] Let's start out there.

[1:24:15] Sure.

[1:24:16] What we just watched.

[1:24:17] Okay.

[1:24:18] Toss it over to Martin Brest.

[1:24:21] He did one of the best buddy comedy action things in Midnight Run.

[1:24:27] And he...

[1:24:28] Milly made up for his involvement with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which took Russia

[1:24:32] out of World War I and caused a lot of trouble for everybody.

[1:24:36] And that would get him out of director jail, too, because he's been in there for a while.

[1:24:46] And...

[1:24:47] Him and Eugene Levy.

[1:24:48] And then maybe...

[1:24:49] Yeah, he and Eugene are hanging out.

[1:24:51] And then how about this?

[1:24:54] Jonathan Glazer's Land 9 from Outer Space.

[1:24:58] Huh?

[1:24:59] Okay.

[1:25:00] What do you think about that?

[1:25:01] Okay.

[1:25:02] Tell me more.

[1:25:03] Have I convinced you?

[1:25:04] Nope.

[1:25:05] Tell me more.

[1:25:07] No, they'll bring some of that under-the-skin energy to the tale of, you know, space visitors

[1:25:13] who come back, come to Earth and reanimate the dead for some reason that I forget.

[1:25:18] I guess it was that Plan 9.

[1:25:19] To take over the world.

[1:25:20] That was the plan.

[1:25:21] To take over the world.

[1:25:22] I mean, Plan 9 was one that came to mind for me, too, and I felt like I didn't have quite

[1:25:25] the right director on hand for it.

[1:25:27] I could see it working.

[1:25:28] I could see that working.

[1:25:31] Let's go on to another letter.

[1:25:33] My phone will unlock.

[1:25:34] There it is.

[1:25:36] Gary Marshall's Plan 9 from Outer Space.

[1:25:39] Now you're cooking with gas.

[1:25:41] Gary Marshall and his son, Neil Marshall, collaborate for the first time on Plan 9 from

[1:25:45] Outer Space.

[1:25:47] Dear Peaches.

[1:25:49] That's us.

[1:25:50] I can't remain silent any longer.

[1:25:52] Then say it out loud.

[1:25:54] Speak your truth.

[1:25:55] I've uncovered a global conspiracy about Monkey Bone and your curious silence about it.

[1:26:01] It has everything the Fluff House should love.

[1:26:02] It has a giant bust of Abraham Lincoln whose mouth is a portal to the waking world.

[1:26:07] It has Whoopi Goldberg as Death driving a giant mech suit.

[1:26:11] It even has Chris Kattan as a reanimated corpse who drops internal organs while getting chased

[1:26:16] by the corrupt doctor played by Bob Odenkirk.

[1:26:19] This movie is such a wildly ambitious trainwreck and a genuine box office flop that it is the

[1:26:23] perfect movie to come up on the Fluff House, but you three have been conspicuously silent.

[1:26:28] The only logical explanation is that Brendan Fraser has been paying you off for years.

[1:26:34] How can you live with yourselves knowing you are part of the global conspiracy?

[1:26:37] I demand answers, all names withheld, so Brendan Fraser can't find me.

[1:26:44] Wow.

[1:26:45] Wow.

[1:26:46] We are through the looking glass, people.

[1:26:47] I have to admit, what stopped us from talking about Monkey Bone is I have never seen it

[1:26:52] and I remember seeing the trailer when it was first coming out and thinking, that seems

[1:26:55] a bit much.

[1:26:57] I did not have much access to it because again, it was almost out of the theaters almost immediately.

[1:27:01] I think they took out two newspaper print ads in the entire country to advertise it,

[1:27:05] I heard.

[1:27:06] I mean, we get a lot of these, why haven't you done this emails and in general, the answer

[1:27:12] is as described towards the beginning of this show, normally we have done newer movies,

[1:27:19] so if there's something that existed before the Fluff House, we didn't get around to it.

[1:27:22] Why have you done Cries and Whispers?

[1:27:27] I will say that I actually have seen Monkey Bone twice and I'm of the camp.

[1:27:33] To have the time.

[1:27:34] I'm of the camp.

[1:27:35] Oh, you're telling me, to be so frivolous with the hours that God has set for us.

[1:27:42] I mean, if you enjoy what you're doing, is it frivolity, Elliot?

[1:27:46] No, I guess you're right.

[1:27:47] I mean, it's the definition of frivolity, but no, it's pleasant frivolity.

[1:27:49] We all make choices about how we spend our time.

[1:27:52] That's true.

[1:27:53] Now I'm out feeding the hungry, housing the homeless.

[1:27:57] You are watching Monkey Bone yet again.

[1:27:59] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:28:00] I must have missed the pictures of you doing those things.

[1:28:03] Dan, Dan, I don't do it for the felicity.

[1:28:09] When somebody comes up to take a picture of me doing my charitable work, I pull a Sonny

[1:28:12] Corleone and I throw that camera to the ground.

[1:28:15] Monkey Bone, famously the live action film by stop motion animating director Henry Salek,

[1:28:22] who did The Nightmare Before Christmas, among other things, not directed by Tim Burton,

[1:28:26] produced by Tim Burton.

[1:28:27] Henry Salek was the director.

[1:28:28] He did Monkey Bone.

[1:28:30] It is a live action comedy with some cartoon elements, animated elements in it.

[1:28:39] But it has a lot in common with the look of something like PBS Big Adventure.

[1:28:47] It's a fun movie.

[1:28:48] I'm of the camp that thinks it is unfairly maligned.

[1:28:52] It has got a lot of crazy imagery, like beautiful stuff, silly stuff.

[1:29:00] It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[1:29:04] It's not that funny until the very end, when it gets very funny, when Chris Kattan is being

[1:29:09] chased around by Bob Odenkirk as a reanimated corpse who's losing his organs.

[1:29:15] So those are my views on Monkey Bone.

[1:29:18] Okay, you sold us on Monkey Bone, okay.

[1:29:20] Yeah.

[1:29:21] I mean, I'm curious to watch it at some point.

[1:29:22] I don't know if it, should we do it for the podcast at some point?

[1:29:26] I mean, we could if we keep going back like this.

[1:29:29] I mean, this is actually, Monkey Bone came out after the movies that we have done.

[1:29:32] Oh, wow.

[1:29:33] So we'd have to go forward a little bit.

[1:29:35] But we could do it.

[1:29:36] But I don't know.

[1:29:37] Would covering Monkey Bone be really helping the studios who are using Monkey Bone profits

[1:29:41] to prop up their...

[1:29:42] Yeah, there's so much Monkey Bone merchandise out there.

[1:29:44] Yeah.

[1:29:45] It's true.

[1:29:46] I did ride on the Boner, the Monkey Bone roller coaster over at whatever studio it was.

[1:29:51] Yeah, yeah.

[1:29:52] The one that's like, you must be this Boner to ride this ride.

[1:29:54] You must be this Boner.

[1:29:56] Well, they, you know, whatever studio it is.

[1:29:58] You must be this Monkey.

[1:30:00] I'm sure they refer to it as the house that Monkey Bone built.

[1:30:04] Sure, yeah.

[1:30:05] A24.

[1:30:06] Yeah.

[1:30:07] I can't even find it.

[1:30:08] Okay, well, let's move on to recommendations.

[1:30:13] Again, because of the ongoing strikes, we've been steering away from new stuff, but there's

[1:30:20] plenty of stuff that's older or things that are not even movies that we can recommend.

[1:30:26] I'm going to return to the tradition of recommending a movie this time around.

[1:30:32] I saw...

[1:30:33] Didn't you recommend Hammocks at one point?

[1:30:36] Yeah, the cognizant of Hammocks.

[1:30:38] I stand by it.

[1:30:42] You know what I watched just recently?

[1:30:44] A Smile on an Old Lady's Face?

[1:30:49] I watched...

[1:30:51] It's a foreign film.

[1:30:52] It's from 2005.

[1:30:53] It is called Caché by Michael Hanica as the director.

[1:30:58] I think it's just cash.

[1:30:59] I think it's pronounced just cash, but I could be wrong.

[1:31:01] It has an accent.

[1:31:02] Does it have an accent?

[1:31:03] A U on it.

[1:31:04] Oh, then maybe I'm wrong.

[1:31:05] Then maybe I'm wrong.

[1:31:06] You know what?

[1:31:07] He's like, cash money?

[1:31:08] You know what, Alex, just go back and replace everything I've said in this episode with

[1:31:11] fart noises.

[1:31:12] That's all I deserve.

[1:31:13] Wow.

[1:31:14] A harsh punishment, but fair.

[1:31:18] I tried to watch this at home and kind of not gotten into it, and then the Quad Cinema

[1:31:24] is doing a Juliette Binoche retrospective, and I went out and saw it in the theater.

[1:31:28] It's pronounced Binoche.

[1:31:29] And it's a movie that really is well-served by being in a theater where you have to put

[1:31:39] all of your attention on it, because part of its strategy is long takes that...

[1:31:46] The premise is that this couple gets tapes of their home, surveillance tapes.

[1:31:51] They don't know where they're coming from.

[1:31:52] Kind of like in Lost Highway.

[1:31:54] The thing is that even the parts of the movie that aren't these surveillance tapes are sort

[1:32:00] of deliberately shot from a remove, often in one long shot without camera movement to

[1:32:06] give that feeling of an observer, even when it's not part of what's actually happening

[1:32:12] in the text of the film.

[1:32:14] Back in the day, this was sort of sold as a thriller just because I think people didn't

[1:32:19] know how to describe it.

[1:32:20] If you go in thinking of it that way, I think you'll be disappointed at the way it does

[1:32:26] not want to hit the usual plot points and give you the catharsis that a thriller will.

[1:32:33] It is much more about the guilt people carry with them.

[1:32:37] It is about specific French guilt, but that also serves as just kind of a metaphor for

[1:32:45] the general ways in which people...

[1:32:46] That's where you only tuck in the one half of your shirt.

[1:32:50] But it was excellent.

[1:32:52] Caché is great.

[1:32:53] That's what I recommend.

[1:32:55] Cool.

[1:32:56] You guys, don't be mad at me.

[1:32:58] I'm going to recommend an indie movie that's kind of new.

[1:33:02] Okay, but I don't think it's under the guild if you're going to...

[1:33:06] I don't know.

[1:33:07] Well, let's find out.

[1:33:09] I'm going to recommend How to Blow Up a Pipeline.

[1:33:12] I don't know.

[1:33:13] They blow me up.

[1:33:14] I don't know what it is.

[1:33:15] We're doing this voluntarily.

[1:33:16] Don't hold our feet to the fire too much.

[1:33:17] Okay, so I'm recommending How to Blow Up a Pipeline.

[1:33:20] It's directed by the guy who directed Cam from a few years ago.

[1:33:23] And just like Cam, it is a tense, timely, and vital thriller.

[1:33:30] It is about a group of young people who, for a variety of reasons, choose to engage

[1:33:36] in an act of, I guess, what they describe themselves as eco-terrorism, where they blow

[1:33:42] up an oil pipeline.

[1:33:44] And it's great.

[1:33:45] It's like a super tight, almost heist-like thriller.

[1:33:50] And it touches on the fact that our world is dying, and nobody seems to give a shit.

[1:33:56] So it's great.

[1:33:57] Thumbs up.

[1:33:58] How to Blow Up a Pipeline.

[1:33:59] Sounds like a real spirit raiser.

[1:34:02] Wow, you guys really bring in smiles to America with your downer picks.

[1:34:11] So I'm going to recommend a movie that is an older movie also.

[1:34:13] I'm going to recommend a movie from 1972.

[1:34:17] The swingin' 70s.

[1:34:18] This is a documentary that actually won the Academy Award for Best Documentary that year

[1:34:23] in 1972.

[1:34:24] It's called Marjo.

[1:34:26] And it is a documentary about Marjo Gortner, who many people may know as one of the stars

[1:34:29] of the movie Star Crash.

[1:34:31] He had an acting career that is not the most impressive.

[1:34:38] He's still alive, but he's not acting as much.

[1:34:40] But earlier in his life, when he was a child and then a young man, he made his living as

[1:34:45] a Pentecostal kind of tent preacher.

[1:34:48] And his whole thing was that he was the child preacher who was preaching the word of God

[1:34:52] from the age of, I think, four onwards.

[1:34:56] And this documentary is about Marjo Gortner returning to that life to make a certain amount

[1:35:02] of money so that he can get out of it and kind of revealing to the documentary makers

[1:35:08] how much he was coached as a child, what the tricks are in this kind of thing, how fake

[1:35:12] it all is and things you have to do to get a congregation worked up so that you can get

[1:35:15] money out of them.

[1:35:16] And that's intercut with a lot of footage of him actually at these, you know, revival

[1:35:21] evangelist meetings and just kind of working himself up into a frenzy and working the

[1:35:28] audience up into a frenzy in this intense religiosity.

[1:35:33] And most of the movie is setting up this kind of you not laughing at exactly because you

[1:35:40] become almost overwhelmed by the passion of the people who are at these revival or these

[1:35:45] evangelist meetings.

[1:35:47] But kind of, you know, looking above them and Marjo is kind of like your ally.

[1:35:51] And by the end of the movie, I ended up really finding him to be an unlikable person for

[1:35:57] the way that for the way he treated the people that he was bilking, not just for the bilking,

[1:36:02] but how he was looking down on them.

[1:36:04] And it made me feel guilty about the way I had looked down on them early in the movie.

[1:36:07] So it's a movie that is feels relatively straightforward, but by the end of it, I had very complex feelings

[1:36:12] about its subjects.

[1:36:14] And it's available online.

[1:36:17] It's called Marjo.

[1:36:19] And it's real good.

[1:36:20] It's not a long movie.

[1:36:21] Usually, I'm like, watch this four hour movie.

[1:36:23] This time, it's like less than 90 minutes.

[1:36:25] Go for it.

[1:36:26] It's really good.

[1:36:27] Don't watch Scarjo, which is a documentary about Scarlett Johansson, her work as a preacher

[1:36:33] bilking people off money.

[1:36:36] That's a joke.

[1:36:37] Don't sue me.

[1:36:38] That's my new catchphrase.

[1:36:39] It's a joke.

[1:36:40] Don't sue me.

[1:36:41] Don't watch the documentary Larjo about the Largo comedy club that is mispronounced.

[1:36:51] OK, and if you want to watch Key Larjo, which, again, is the movie Key Largo with Miss Browns,

[1:36:56] go ahead.

[1:36:57] It's a good movie.

[1:36:58] It's a gangster thriller.

[1:36:59] It's a good movie.

[1:37:00] Yeah.

[1:37:01] Scores by the Beach Boys.

[1:37:02] I've been on Key Largo anyway.

[1:37:06] So with that whimper of a relevant fact, let's put.

[1:37:12] Oh, and if you want spaghetti sauce, then it's Praja, Praja or Prego.

[1:37:17] OK.

[1:37:19] Ragu or Reggio.

[1:37:20] Old world style.

[1:37:22] Oh, hey, this is a podcast that's on a network and that network network is called Maximum

[1:37:29] Fun.

[1:37:30] You can go to Maximum Fun dot org.

[1:37:32] See the other shows on the network.

[1:37:36] There's stuff about comedy.

[1:37:38] There's other stuff about culture.

[1:37:40] There's a podcast that helps you sleep.

[1:37:43] I'm sure you would enjoy something else over there if you just take a look.

[1:37:47] Why don't you?

[1:37:51] This flop has turned into a disapproving old man by the end.

[1:37:55] It's also produced by Alex Smith.

[1:37:58] You can find him all over the Web as Howl Dottie.

[1:38:02] He does Twitch streams.

[1:38:03] He does music.

[1:38:04] He does his own podcast, Fast Track.

[1:38:07] Look him up.

[1:38:09] But for now, for the flop house.

[1:38:11] Oh, also, Flop TV on sale.

[1:38:13] Flop TV.

[1:38:14] Go to it.

[1:38:15] What is it?

[1:38:17] Let me look up the Web site again.

[1:38:18] Sorry.

[1:38:19] Simple text.

[1:38:21] The flop house.

[1:38:22] Simple text dot com.

[1:38:23] Yeah.

[1:38:24] Also, if you just go to the Flop House Web site, there's links on there.

[1:38:25] And what's that?

[1:38:26] When was that?

[1:38:27] You were all Flop House podcast dot com.

[1:38:29] OK, we did.

[1:38:30] But for the Flop House, I have been Dan McCoy now and forever.

[1:38:36] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:38:38] And in this moment in time, I am taking the form of Elliot Kalin.

[1:38:41] But who knows what, who or how I'll be in the future?

[1:38:44] Goodbye, mortals.

[1:38:45] Hee hee hee hee.

[1:38:46] Guys, I got a real smoker for the for the intro.

[1:38:55] Oh, boy.

[1:38:56] All right.

[1:38:57] You're in the net one.

[1:38:58] I laugh at it still just thinking about it.

[1:39:01] And then I played it for Sammy and Sammy was like, what?

[1:39:06] Like, he just did not get it.

[1:39:09] Because he probably was just thinking of that kind of net.

[1:39:15] Yeah.

[1:39:16] Yeah.

[1:39:17] He doesn't know the net means the Internet.

[1:39:18] Yeah.

[1:39:19] Yeah.

[1:39:20] Maximum fun.

[1:39:21] A worker owned network of artists owned shows supported directly by you.

Ep.#403 - Wild Wild West

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