Ep.#403 - Wild Wild West

Stuart Wellington

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Wild Wild West.

[0:03] Based on the hit TV show, The Wild Wild West.

Elliott Kalan

[0:10] Factually true.

[0:12] Can't argue with it. He ain't lying.

[0:30] Hey, everyone, and welcome to The Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

Dan McCoy

[0:39] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:41] I'm Elliot Kalin, and I can't wait to tell you more about Flop TV, our monthly TV series, but we'll get to that later.

Stuart Wellington

[0:47] Howdy, partners. We're doing an episode of the podcast. What's this podcast about, Danny?

Dan McCoy

[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—

Elliott Kalan

[0:59] Previously on The Flophouse.

[1:01] Previously on The Flophouse.

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

[1:04] I'm having this baby.

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

Dan McCoy

[1:09] Gross.

[1:10] Gross.

[1:12] This is—I'm contractually obligated to say that childbirth is beautiful.

[1:19] Uh-huh.

[1:20] Yeah, anyway.

[1:21] What contract did you sign that—

[1:22] I don't know. It was with the Childbirth Council.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25] Yeah.

[1:27] 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?

Dan McCoy

[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 to streaming, films that were new to rental, etc.

[1:49] Or sometimes in the theaters.

[1:51] Yeah, sometimes in the theaters.

[1:52] But since we are in the midst of a strike, both the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA are striking against the producers, we decided, why don't we focus on some older stuff so we're not even coming close to promoting something new.

[2:10] And we're in the midst of a 90s flashback, 90s flashback weekend on the Flophouse.

Elliott Kalan

[2:17] 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.

Dan McCoy

[2:25] You oughta know.

Stuart Wellington

[2:27] Yeah, that's good.

[2:28] Or, cut my life into pieces.

Elliott Kalan

[2:32] Oh, son.

[2:34] Oh, yeah.

[2:34] No, that's good.

[2:34] While you come.

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

[2:40] Uh-huh.

Dan McCoy

[2:42] Speaking of songs.

[2:44] Life is a highway.

Elliott Kalan

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

[2:50] Flophouse 90s weekend.

Dan McCoy

[2:52] So, yeah.

[2:53] We're talking about Wild Wild West.

[2:54] A film that, before we get into it, I just want to talk about briefly how it nearly derailed many people's careers.

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

Elliott Kalan

[3:19] And before that, had 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 Sonnenfeld.

[3:27] I read his memoir.

[3:28] Not a lot about Wild Wild West in there.

Dan McCoy

[3:30] Yeah.

[3:31] Hmm.

[3:31] 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.

[3:42] I don't know.

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

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

[3:49] Will Smith doesn't suffer a lot from this.

[3:53] 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.

Stuart Wellington

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

[4:04] Yeah.

[4:04] Right?

[4:04] Yes.

[4:05] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[4:06] And Kevin Kline, you know, had been a Hollywood leading man up until this point.

[4:13] And then after this point.

Elliott Kalan

[4:14] This is after In-N-Out, right?

[4:16] Yeah.

[4:16] Which was a big movie for him.

[4:17] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

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

[4:22] But after this.

[4:23] What about Dave?

[4:24] Did he win an Academy Award for Dave?

[4:26] No, but Dave's a song.

[4:27] I haven't seen it in years.

Elliott Kalan

[4:28] But Dave was a movie that I had a real fondness for when I saw it when it came out in theaters.

[4:32] He's great.

[4:33] But after this, not a leading man in Hollywood pictures anymore.

Dan McCoy

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

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

Elliott Kalan

[4:42] And 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.

[4:50] Yeah.

[4:50] I think a lot of people may have rethought their relationship with film after being involved in this movie.

Dan McCoy

[4:54] This is also the movie that famously, according to Kevin Smith's monologue, like the giant mechanical spider in this is a holdover from what the producer wanted to happen in his new Superman movie.

Elliott Kalan

[5:07] Yeah.

[5:07] So I think a lot of the unpleasantness in the movie may be at the feet of the producer, John Peters, who if you've seen Licorice Pizza, you'll have seen Bradley Cooper playing him.

[5:19] Oh, okay.

[5:19] He's the guy who started his career as like Barbra Streisand's, I think, hairdresser slash lover and parlayed that into being a film producer.

[5:28] 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 involved with that as well, I believe.

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

[5:42] And I don't mean Frank Einstein, the beloved madman superhero created by Mike Allred.

[5:47] Yeah.

[5:47] No, I love that guy.

[5:48] But he 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 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 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 –

[6:09] It makes more sense here, I think.

Stuart Wellington

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

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

Elliott Kalan

[6:20] Yeah, so The Flash is – I didn't see it either, but I saw that clip where The Flash is going through the different multiverse – the DC version of the multiverse.

[6:26] 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 at, is that it is devoting a whole – almost a whole scene to an in-joke about the production of a previous Superman 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 that part.

[6:53] And I was like, it all looks like they just used AI to recreate his face from old movies.

[6:59] Anyway, so I guess as we go into this summary, keep in mind that this movie did not have –

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

[7:06] Now, did you –

[7:07] Well, hold on.

[7:08] Did you guys see it when it came out?

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

[7:11] 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 –

Dan McCoy

[7:21] Well, it's a few teams.

[7:23] Like there's like another team that like also did –

[7:26] I forget what the –

[7:27] they were also attached to some good things.

Stuart Wellington

[7:30] Anyway.

[7:30] But did you guys –

[7:31] Did you guys see this the summer it came out?

[7:33] No.

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

Elliott Kalan

[7:35] Yes.

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

Dan McCoy

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

[7:44] I was like, surely Barry Seinfeld directing this cast can't be bad.

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

Elliott Kalan

[7:54] And as we'll talk about, I am very confused about who the audience for this movie was supposed to be.

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

[8:03] It's a fun action movie.

[8:04] It's a funny comedy.

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

[8:09] And it feels cool.

[8:11] It doesn't feel like dumbed down, but there's nothing like –

[8:14] there's some effects that might be scary, but there's nothing like too sexy or too adult.

[8:18] With Wild Wild West –

Stuart Wellington

[8:20] And you have a villain giving one of the best physical comedy performances of all time.

Elliott Kalan

[8:25] I mean, he's amazing.

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

[8:27] Yeah.

[8:28] Like, he's amazing in it.

[8:29] And it manages to introduce kids to the idea of the 1964 World's Fair, which I approve of,

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

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

[8:44] what if the action wasn't fun, the comedy wasn't funny,

[8:48] and the characters were constantly leering at women and ogling and just talking about sex all the time.

[8:53] 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 in that description.

Dan McCoy

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

[9:09] where this is a thought that I've had more than once.

[9:11] Like, I've, on more than one occasion, given Elliot some New York World's Fair memorabilia.

[9:20] All from the 39, from my favorite one, yeah.

[9:22] Well, good, because I like – the thought I was saying that I have from time to time is,

[9:27] now which World's Fair does Elliot like?

[9:31] Yeah.

[9:32] Yeah, that's a good question.

Stuart Wellington

[9:33] That would be one of those questions on, what, the newlywed game,

[9:36] when Elliot and Danielle would be on the newlywed game,

[9:39] and they're like, which is your husband's favorite World's Fair?

Elliott Kalan

[9:42] 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.

[9:51] In the butt.

[9:52] 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 – it was baffling to me while watching it.

Stuart Wellington

[10:01] Now, I'm also glad that you're doing the summary, because if I was doing the summary,

[10:06] I would just be reading the lyrics to Will Smith's Wild Wild West featuring Drew Hill,

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

[10:17] Dan, of course, would be playing the role of Cool Moe Dee, and Elliot, you're Drew Hill all the way.

Elliott Kalan

[10:21] Well, who's the one who sings Into the Wild Wild West, which is the best part of that song?

[10:26] That's Drew Hill, yeah.

[10:26] That's Drew Hill.

[10:27] Okay, that's what I thought.

[10:27] Yeah, that's my favorite part.

[10:29] It's not a song – I don't like the part that goes, Wild Wild West.

[10:32] I don't like that kind of –

[10:33] That's the Cool Moe Dee part.

[10:33] I don't like that part as much.

[10:35] The same way that I've never liked the, like, bow, wow, wow, yippee-oh, yippee-oh.

[10:39] I don't like it when voices sound like that, but I love that, that full-throated,

[10:42] Into the Wild Wild West.

[10:45] Oh, makes the song.

[10:46] It's not a good song.

Dan McCoy

[10:47] I enjoy, like, the little backing parts where I get to, like, do that sort of – or, like,

[10:52] a blue moon, like, do-do-do-do-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom.

[10:55] Yeah, I've never loved those either.

Elliott Kalan

[10:57] It's amazing to me there was a whole period in early rock and roll kind of late jazz

[11:01] or, you know, where it was like, well, of course we need a big guy in the back who goes,

[11:05] beep-beep-bom-bom-bom, you know, or something like that.

[11:07] You know, we need more nonsense syllables and deep bass voices.

[11:11] More, please.

Stuart Wellington

[11:13] Yeah, I mean, when I – I remember the summer this movie came out seeing this music video a lot

[11:18] because it was inescapable.

[11:21] And perhaps I was one of those teens at the time – I was 19 at the time, so it wouldn't have mattered.

[11:25] But maybe I was one of those kids who bought a ticket to Wild Wild West

[11:29] so I could sneak into American Pie so that Chris Weitz wouldn't get a single dollar from me.

[11:35] It's awesome.

[11:36] Wow.

Dan McCoy

[11:39] Wow.

[11:39] Take that, Weitz.

S5

[11:40] Nothing but Nice to Us.

Dan McCoy

[11:42] Why are you playing the heel?

[11:44] Yeah, it's one of the many – the Wild Wild West song also, one of the many songs that later on I'm like,

[11:49] oh, that's a Stevie Wonder song.

[11:51] Yeah, yeah.

[11:51] Yeah, because he's in the video.

[11:53] Yeah, I didn't –

Elliott Kalan

[11:54] I mean, that's why it's – you know what?

[11:55] I said it's a bad song.

[11:56] It's a solid movie tie-in song, you know.

[11:59] I mean, that's his B&B, bread and butter.

[12:02] It didn't achieve the heights of the Men in Black song, which is super danceable, you know.

[12:08] But what are you going to do?

[12:09] But then there was also –

Stuart Wellington

[12:10] That was your first dance at your wedding.

Elliott Kalan

[12:12] Yeah, it was the Men in Black song.

[12:13] And you dressed up.

[12:15] Now we're actually Men in Black.

Stuart Wellington

[12:15] You and Danielle both dressed up and then pointed little lights at the audience.

Elliott Kalan

[12:19] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[12:20] So that they wouldn't remember the wedding.

[12:21] Yeah, we had a whole choreographed thing.

[12:22] I mean, it was a joke.

[12:23] I mean, you don't have a real forget-me-not thing.

[12:25] No, we had a real one by accident.

[12:26] It was a mix-up.

[12:27] Why would you neuralize the whole –

[12:28] Yeah.

[12:29] Is this why I have no memory of your wedding?

[12:31] Yeah, that we robbed everybody to pay for the wedding.

[12:33] Yeah.

[12:34] Like the ringmaster in his circus of crime and his hypnotic hat.

[12:37] You son of a bitch.

Stuart Wellington

[12:38] Stan, I think you were using old-fashioned neuralizer, a.k.a. booze.

Elliott Kalan

[12:43] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[12:44] That's true.

[12:44] Yeah, that's like the old David Tell joke.

[12:46] Because have you ever blacked out or as I call it, time travel?

Dan McCoy

[12:49] What I remember of the actual reception –

[12:52] I mostly remember us going to see Piranha 3D earlier in the day.

[12:55] What a great day.

Elliott Kalan

[12:56] That was the greatest day of my life from beginning to end.

Dan McCoy

[13:00] Honestly, it was mostly being worried that you would fall when they were carrying you around on the chairs.

Elliott Kalan

[13:07] Yeah, yeah.

[13:08] That was what my wife was worried about too, that she would fall off that chair.

[13:10] Because nobody – we didn't have enough, I think, strong Jews because they didn't know how you're supposed to do it.

[13:14] Yeah.

[13:15] We had a lot of strong Gentiles who were just hurling the chairs up into the air as we were trying to hold on to them.

[13:19] Oh, God.

[13:21] So anyway, let's talk about Wild Wild West.

[13:22] Now that we're done talking about my wedding reception, let's talk about Wild Wild West.

[13:28] We begin.

[13:29] The title tells us it's Louisiana, 1869.

[13:31] There's a guy with this weird metal ring around his neck that's running away from a flying circular saw blade that cuts his head off.

[13:38] And then a guy looks at him and is like, well, how about that?

[13:40] And then we get credits that are –

Dan McCoy

[13:42] Some guy, Ted Levine, introduced to some guy.

[13:45] As we will eventually – well, I was going to know the character.

[13:48] He's the one who's got the steampunk ear thing?

[13:49] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[13:50] So this character we see, he has an ear, a listening horn attached to the side of his head.

[13:54] Well, later learns because he lost an ear in battle during the Civil War.

[13:57] But first we get credits that are, I assume, in the style of the Wild West TV show.

[14:01] Of the TV show, yeah.

[14:02] And I want to ask, guys, I've never seen this show.

[14:04] When the movie was announced, I had never heard of it before.

[14:06] Have you ever seen this show, The Wild Wild West?

Dan McCoy

[14:08] I – so, okay, yeah.

[14:10] I have seen a little bit of it.

[14:12] The movie made me aware that it existed.

[14:16] Okay.

[14:17] Like, because – let's back up.

[14:20] Let's set the stage of what it was like when Wild Wild West came out.

[14:24] It was –

[14:24] Summer of 1999.

[14:26] Well, it was still exciting to see 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 having a straightforward version of something.

Elliott Kalan

[14:42] Yeah, that's –

[14:43] But the time –

[14:43] Much as when The Office came out, characters addressing the camera directly to talk about a scene.

[14:48] Yeah.

[14:48] It was very funny and very new.

[14:49] It terrified audiences.

[14:51] They're like, can they see me?

[14:52] They ran out of the theater.

[14:53] Oh, oh, oh.

[14:53] They'd run out of their house and they'd go, demons, demons.

[14:56] Yeah.

[14:58] And now it has become cliche to the point that I would love to see a sitcom.

[15:01] I recently started watching The Golden Girls again.

[15:03] And I am so blown away by how basic and stripped down it is in a good way.

Stuart Wellington

[15:09] Dog, if Sophia turned and looked at you and made a quip, you would lose your shit.

Elliott Kalan

[15:14] I mean, I wouldn't be – my body and mind wouldn't be able to handle it.

[15:16] I would go bananas, but much like Herbie.

[15:20] But you're right, Dan.

[15:22] Now steampunk stuff has become so de rigueur, you know, that it was –

Stuart Wellington

[15:26] To the point that I'm assuming most people assume that there is plenty of steampunk garbage in the old list.

[15:31] I bet that's probably true.

[15:32] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[15:33] But that being true, I was then kind of like shocked to learn that it was based on a TV show from the 60s.

[15:41] Like this was – like an idea that felt fresh then had been, you know, from something much earlier that had been on television.

[15:50] Like it didn't jive with my idea of like what was on TV at that time in my head.

[15:54] Which is, you know, probably wildly wrong because I wasn't there.

[15:58] Wild Wild Wesley wrong.

Elliott Kalan

[15:59] But it makes sense.

[16:00] In the 60s, they were like spies are big, westerns are big.

[16:03] Yes.

[16:04] We'll do a western spy show and we'll have a science fiction element.

[16:07] We'll mash up.

[16:08] And we'll call him Briscoe County Junior.

[16:11] Oh, if only.

[16:12] And it ran I think for like four years, but I've never seen an episode of it.

[16:15] And I feel like when this – it's much easier I'm sure to watch it now than it was in 1999 when the only way you could watch old TV was

[16:23] Nick at Night or TV Land or if it had been released on VHS at some point.

[16:28] I don't think there's any way to watch Wild Wild West when the movie came out.

Dan McCoy

[16:32] Well, that's what I was getting to in the longest way possible.

[16:35] I think that Nick at Night or A&E at some point did show some and I tuned in because I'm like, okay, well, I like the premise.

[16:41] Maybe this is better.

[16:42] But I found it very slow in the way a lot of old TV feels now.

Elliott Kalan

[16:47] Yeah, they had a lot of time to kill.

[16:48] There's a – it's fun – I mean this is different because they had a longer time slot to fill, but you watch the old Columbo movies and there's just a lot of him like long phone calls, him getting from one place to another.

[16:58] You watch The Rockford Files and there's so much that's him driving from one place to another.

Dan McCoy

[17:02] I still love those shows, but yeah, it's true.

Elliott Kalan

[17:04] I mean it's more relaxing.

[17:05] I'm watching Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or something.

[17:07] Yeah, but I like it in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood until the end.

[17:10] I'm not a fan of the end of that movie, but I like everything up to like the last 25 minutes.

[17:13] Okay, so after the credits, we're in West Virginia.

[17:16] Captain James West, Will Smith, he's trying to multitask by both spying on the criminal gang of General Bloodbath McGrath, which are loading objects onto a wagon, while also having sex with a woman inside a water tower, like a half-filled water tower.

[17:30] He can't do both.

[17:31] It turns out even that's too much for –

Stuart Wellington

[17:33] It's a very complicated little water tower setup too.

Elliott Kalan

[17:37] Yes, and until the millennium, he's not going to be able to achieve those skills of both spying on the bad guys and having sex at the same time.

Dan McCoy

[17:43] Well, this is also setting up that this will be like a hornier movie than you expect, and it really struck me, I guess, maybe because, I don't know, modern action, big budget blockbusters have gotten so de-sexed.

[17:55] But I was like, this is unusual.

[17:59] Guys, do you realize that the character's name is Jim West and the movie's called Whale?

Stuart Wellington

[18:03] Wild Wild West?

[18:04] I did notice that.

[18:05] I did notice that.

Elliott Kalan

[18:06] He is being wild wild here.

[18:07] And joke, that Easter egg.

[18:09] By having sex on the job.

[18:11] Nope, yeah.

[18:11] But it's a – I don't know.

[18:13] I think it's supposed to come off as like he's this super cool dude.

[18:17] The ladies love him, and he's also a secret agent.

[18:19] But what came off as to me –

[18:20] And it's played by Will Smith, who is –

[18:21] It's played by Will Smith, who at that time was probably the coolest man in the world to most people.

[18:25] Slightly less cool now that he is a – he's known as the guy who hits people on television.

[18:30] But the – I think they're trying to get across that he's a super cool, sexy secret agent.

[18:37] But instead what I got from it was he's bad at his job, and he's bad to women.

[18:41] Like he's both a creep, and he's bad as a spy.

[18:44] Yeah.

[18:44] So eventually McGrath's henchmen somehow knock over the water tower.

[18:48] I don't remember how it happens.

[18:50] Accidentally.

[18:50] And Will drops out naked and has a fight.

[18:53] You know, he covers his penis with his hat.

Dan McCoy

[18:56] Meanwhile –

[18:56] And thank you to everyone who tweeted at the Flophouse to tell us that you can see Will Smith,

[19:03] or more likely the stuntman's testicles.

[19:07] Yes, you can.

[19:07] And part of his penis at one point.

Elliott Kalan

[19:09] At one point –

[19:09] Part of the penis –

[19:10] What part?

[19:11] You were looking through – when he comes down – I noticed it.

[19:13] When you're looking through his legs as he first appears, you can very clearly see the – at least the silhouettes of his genitalia,

[19:21] which is – again, it was also like, well, this movie is being more adult than I expected,

[19:26] but not in a way that I'm enjoying.

[19:27] Yeah, time to go frame by frame.

[19:28] You know.

[19:29] Meanwhile, across town at a brothel saloon type place, General McGrath, Bloodbath McGrath himself,

[19:34] the man with the ear horn attached to his head, he is – he's kind of trading a kidnapped person.

[19:39] Played by TV hunk, monk's boss, Ted Levine.

[19:43] Yeah, Ted Levine.

[19:43] He is trading like a person who's trapped in a box for guns or something, for weapons.

[19:49] And he's being watched by our other hero, Artemis Gordon, played by Kevin Kline.

[19:53] He's a U.S. marshal who is undercover in drag.

[19:56] And through a series of events, manages to hypnotize McGrath with these swirling gadgets hidden in his fake boobs.

[20:03] And he means to get some information for 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, which was not what he intended.

[20:11] But that psychosexual drama of a man who's been hypnotized into a dog after being seduced is interrupted by Jim West swinging in and interrupting them.

[20:21] That leads to a big brawl, which eventually ends with a shadowy, top-headed bad guy pushing a wagon full of nitroglycerin down a hill and into the brothel, which explodes.

[20:30] Our heroes survive with no problem.

[20:33] The next scene, we just see West riding a horse down the street.

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

Stuart Wellington

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

[20:42] Scene over.

[20:43] That's it.

[20:44] We just cut to something else.

[20:45] It's like the least professional I've seen one of these cuts.

Elliott Kalan

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

[20:52] I was reading an article where they're talking about how abruptly a movie ends.

[20:55] And they were like, imagine if – I forget where it was.

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

[20:59] Imagine if in Star Wars, it's the whole Death Star trench scene.

[21:02] Luke fires the missiles.

[21:03] The Death Star blows up.

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

[21:06] And then the credits roll.

[21:07] 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.

[21:14] Who cares?

[21:15] You know.

Dan McCoy

[21:15] Yeah.

[21:16] And this introduces but does not justify, in my mind, Jim West and Kevin Kline's character.

[21:24] Artemis Gordon.

[21:25] Artemis Gordon.

[21:25] The two of theirs working relationship, which is one of the main things.

[21:29] I found irritating about this movie in general.

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

[21:35] Like, oh, okay.

[21:36] Well, like.

[21:37] There's the man of action and the man of ideas.

[21:39] Yes.

[21:40] And it's weird because it's not like the elements aren't there.

[21:45] But the movie expects you to jump right to finding them, like, being mad at each other and pulling shit on each other, like, charming and fun.

[21:58] Rather than my reaction is, like, 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 by undermining each other in a way that is just irritating to watch.

Elliott Kalan

[22:14] Well, rather than their styles clashing, they just don't like each other personally.

[22:17] Yeah.

[22:17] And they're, like, constantly trying to kick each other off of the train that's taking them on the mission and stuff.

[22:21] So we cut to West inexplicably not exploded, but fine.

[22:26] He arrives at the White House where, like, a butler tries to stop him from entering, I guess because he's black, but he's there for an appointment.

[22:33] So it.

Stuart Wellington

[22:33] Tries to stop him from entering to see the president with a gun.

Elliott Kalan

[22:37] Yes.

[22:38] Yeah.

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

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

[22:41] He says, you're going to let me in to the president with this gun.

[22:43] I have a second gun.

Stuart Wellington

[22:44] Which, by the way, if you want to introduce a character 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] Yeah.

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

Elliott Kalan

[22:54] Or have him, or have them take the guns and then he's got some, he's got a knife on him.

[22:57] Or he's good with kung fu or something, you know.

Dan McCoy

[23:00] Removing the presumed racism from the equation, I do, I think that that's a perfectly valid thing to want to do is to remove a gun before someone meets with the president.

Elliott Kalan

[23:09] But, Dan, I'll remind you, this is happening four years after the previous president, or two presidents ago, was shot in the head by a gun and murdered.

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

[23:19] Maybe they're like, hey, you need that gun in case somebody else has a gun.

[23:22] Yeah.

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

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

[23:24] Yeah, the NRA lobby is pretty strong at this point.

[23:27] And I wish I could say walking into the White House with guns all over him is the least cool thing that Will Smith is going to do in this movie.

[23:32] But it's like, it barely registers by the end.

[23:35] Yeah.

[23:35] We have not gotten to the part, which we will get to, where he just plays a woman's boobs like bongo drums because he assumes it's Kevin Kline in drag.

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

[23:44] It's so dumb.

[23:44] So he arrives.

[23:46] He's going to see President Ulysses S. Grant, who turns out to be Kevin Kline in disguise.

[23:50] And then the real President Grant, 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, and he often plays Artemis Gordon pretending to be Ulysses S. Grant, which should be funny, but it's not funny.

Dan McCoy

[24:06] It's not funny, but it does show Kevin Kline's acting skill.

[24:09] I like that Artemis Gordon playing Ulysses S. Grant is like this hammy impression of the much more realistic Ulysses S. Grant that he does.

Elliott Kalan

[24:21] Yes.

[24:22] I could have used it 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 and when it's Kevin Kline playing Grant.

[24:31] And I think that's – I mean, Kevin Kline's a great actor.

[24:33] You don't need to hear from me.

[24:35] He's an amazing actor, 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 to kidnap all these scientists, 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 Weston Gordon, as Dan said, they hate each other, but they've got to stop him because Grant has to go hammer in the finalists.

[24:57] The final golden spike to complete the transcontinental railroad.

[25:00] Okay.

[25:01] We've got a ticking clock.

[25:02] 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 that's like a big bone shaker bicycle with a big wheel on the front.

Stuart Wellington

[25:11] He's got gears and pistons or whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[25:14] He doesn't go as far as having gears on his hat, but he does have goggles on his hat, I guess.

[25:18] He's got a train car full of traps and gadgets.

[25:21] And also in the train car, as the conductor, M. Emmett Walsh, as a character who literally never needs to be in the movie.

[25:27] There is no plot reason ever.

[25:29] He's a coal man.

Stuart Wellington

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

Dan McCoy

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

[25:36] Yes.

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

[25:38] I don't like that a lot of what he's reacting to is gay panic humor.

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

[25:43] Yeah.

[25:44] His ability as a comic reaction man is good at least, even though the jokes are not good.

Elliott Kalan

[25:52] M. Emmett Walsh.

[25:53] Again, we're going to keep going through this episode saying, no surprise, this performer is a great performer.

[25:57] Yeah, exactly.

[25:58] But it's not best used by Wild Wild West.

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

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

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

[26:07] It was the Wild Wild Blurst of time?

[26:10] Stupid monkeys.

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

[26:14] I'm not calling Dan a monkey.

[26:16] Or Stuart, for that matter.

[26:17] Oh, thanks.

[26:18] So you are both humans.

[26:20] You both stand erect.

[26:22] You don't live in dreams.

Dan McCoy

[26:23] Stuart, I've been meaning to pay you that compliment as well.

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

[26:28] And Elliot sniped you.

[26:29] Now it just sounds like you're piggybacking.

Elliott Kalan

[26:31] Yeah.

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

[26:33] Thank you, Dan.

[26:33] So somehow Kevin Kline has gotten a hold of the severed head of the scientist that was killed early on.

[26:39] And they're able to use light to project the image stored on its retinas, which is the last thing that the dead person sees.

[26:45] This is an old myth that goes back to medieval times, I think, that you could see the image.

[26:49] 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.

[26:54] Yeah.

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

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

[26:59] And they found a severed head that had last looked at a chicken leg and a big bowl of soup that you had to pick up with your hands and sit down.

[27:05] Tomato soup, yeah.

[27:07] Yeah.

[27:07] So using that image.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[27:10] Yeah.

[27:11] And then someone tells you.

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

[27:15] So they see this image of McGrath, and they're able to magnify – this retina has amazing recording fidelity.

[27:22] They're able to magnify and see an invitation sticking out of his pocket to a New Orleans costume ball.

[27:27] And it's funny because West this whole time has been like, we've got to get to New Orleans.

[27:30] We've got to get to New Orleans.

[27:31] And they find this invitation.

[27:33] They were already going there.

[27:34] It's unnecessary.

[27:35] They argue about disguises, which leads to this, the dumbest, least funny scene I think maybe I've ever seen in a movie where, as Dan says, what they're saying, talking about Kevin Kline's fake breast costume is overheard by Emmett Walsh.

[27:49] And he assumes he's overhearing them having sex with each other and is horrified by it.

[27:54] And it is just –

[27:54] But also, I mean, specifically –

[27:56] It's so bad.

Dan McCoy

[27:56] Kevin Kline asking him to –

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

[28:02] Oh, I feel it.

[28:03] It's hard.

[28:04] Yeah.

[28:04] Backwards.

[28:06] The, you know, goes both ways.

[28:09] Yeah.

[28:09] It's –

[28:09] The bosom feeling.

Elliott Kalan

[28:10] It's terrible.

[28:11] It's a terrible –

[28:12] 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, who is playing the assistant to Dr. Arlo Loveless.

Dan McCoy

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

[28:26] Yeah.

[28:26] Like, oh, there was a time that –

Stuart Wellington

[28:27] Which I'm glad that he – when he introduces himself, she introduces herself by her last name, which is East.

[28:32] And I'm like, great.

[28:33] Now we got more racist jokes to do.

[28:35] Cool.

Elliott Kalan

[28:36] And she goes – she's kind of flirting with him.

[28:37] She goes, East meets West.

[28:39] And it's like, all right.

[28:41] This is no good.

[28:42] Now, when you hear – she goes, 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 – is this backstory we were supposed to know something?

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

[28:55] Finally –

Stuart Wellington

[28:56] I mean, again, I only know because I've heard the Wild Wild West song by Will Smith featuring Drew Hill like a million times.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[29:06] Yeah, he does.

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

[29:08] Because, Stuart, Loveless shows up.

[29:10] And this is Kenneth Branagh.

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

[29:16] That's not a pavilion.

[29:18] That's a villian crossed with a pavilion.

[29:21] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[29:22] Well, where to start?

[29:23] I mean, we could start with his accent, which is a lovingly created southern drawl.

[29:30] We could talk about his facial hair, which would put to shame Jackson Galaxy, the cat daddy.

[29:36] Or his long hair –

[29:37] His facial hair seemed like –

[29:38] V for Vendetta mask.

Elliott Kalan

[29:40] Yeah, it looks like a Guy Fawkes mask.

[29:41] Like he had read V for Vendetta because I don't think the movie had come out yet.

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

[29:46] Anarchy, yeah, cool.

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

[29:49] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[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 tummy button.

[30:01] And below that, he is connected to like a steampunk wheelchair that he drives around.

[30:07] Yes, exactly.

Dan McCoy

[30:07] And he's always surrounded by a bevy of beautiful sort of henchmaidens.

Elliott Kalan

[30:14] He's wearing kind of like bordello, bustier attire, you know.

[30:18] So yeah, he is this flamboyantly evil confederate.

[30:21] He rides a steampunk wheelchair.

[30:23] He's missing his body from the waist down.

[30:26] And –

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[30:32] Yes, and this first – there are so many bad moments in this movie.

[30:36] But his first interaction with West where he makes a series of racist puns and West makes a series of disabled wordplay puns to both get each other is disgusting.

[30:47] Like it is objectively disgusting.

[30:48] Everything about it.

Dan McCoy

[30:49] An unpleasant movie.

[30:52] I mean like we should have known it was unpleasant at the time.

[30:54] It's extra unpleasant now.

[30:57] Like everything is bad racial humor, bad gay panic humor, like disabled humor.

[31:04] Bad disability humor.

[31:05] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[31:07] And the constant – and the constant – and look, let me put all my cards on the table.

[31:11] I've said it before.

[31:11] I'll say it again.

[31:12] I like looking at women and their bodies.

[31:14] I'm attracted to them.

[31:14] I think they're beautiful.

[31:15] But this movie is so leering and so ogling in a way that is like makes me feel icky, you know.

[31:21] Yeah.

[31:21] It feels weird to do it in a big budget action adventure comedy.

[31:27] It feels gross to me.

[31:28] Yeah.

[31:28] I don't know if you guys felt the same way.

Dan McCoy

[31:30] Yeah.

[31:30] Well, I mean it feels gross because it's so unmotivated.

[31:34] Like I agree.

[31:37] Like an adult – I'm not a Zoomer or whatever.

[31:40] Like I'm –

[31:41] You're an elder millennial.

Elliott Kalan

[31:43] We know you're not a Zoomer.

[31:44] A boomer or a Zoomer.

[31:45] Tail indexer.

Dan McCoy

[31:47] But, you know, like I –

[31:47] Yeah, you're a Gen Xer, right?

Elliott Kalan

[31:48] Yeah, you're probably a Gen – yeah, Dan, there's a real generation divide between me,

[31:51] an elder millennial and you a Gen Xer.

[31:53] Yeah, I know.

[31:54] What are we going to do?

[31:55] I'm all about that hustle.

[31:55] I'm all about making my brand and you're all about like, hey, man.

[31:58] I must listen to the single soundtrack.

[32:01] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[32:02] Reality does bite when you look at it.

Dan McCoy

[32:04] I like sex in movies when it's motivated.

[32:08] Like unlike –

[32:09] See all the Brian De Palma movies that I've watched recently.

[32:12] The current generation does not.

[32:13] But like you have to buy in.

[32:16] Like you're buying into like a certain type of thing and like it is weird when it's like,

[32:21] this feels odd in this film.

Elliott Kalan

[32:24] You know what it feels like?

[32:25] It feels adolescent.

[32:27] Like it feels like there's a lack of –

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

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

[32:34] but like it feels like –

[32:36] and I'm –

[32:37] Adults made this movie, but it doesn't feel adult.

[32:40] It feels kind of like boobs.

[32:42] Like that kind of thing.

[32:44] Yeah.

[32:44] So anyway –

Stuart Wellington

[32:46] Guys, not to change the tempo at all,

[32:49] but I will say that Kenneth Branagh gives a performance.

[32:52] I wanted to say this too.

Elliott Kalan

[32:53] And again, Dan, you say what you're going to say,

[32:56] and I'm probably going to say the same thing.

Dan McCoy

[32:57] Oh, just that like I don't know that this is –

[33:00] in fact, I wouldn't –

[33:00] I'd say this is not a good performance,

[33:02] but this man realizes that he is in a bad cartoon of a movie

[33:06] and gives a performance that hits that tone.

Stuart Wellington

[33:09] Better than his performance as Hamlet?

[33:11] Maybe.

Elliott Kalan

[33:12] I don't know if I'd go that far necessarily.

[33:15] The –

[33:16] but he is –

[33:17] I agree that like –

[33:18] when this movie came out,

[33:20] I'm sure he got critiqued for like being big and over the top.

[33:24] And I feel like critical understanding has come around to the idea that like

[33:28] if you're in a bad movie, go big.

[33:30] Like be big and be memorable or like put energy into it.

Stuart Wellington

[33:34] Especially considering he had to do this whole role like on his knees

[33:39] even though you don't see them,

[33:40] but he had to be like kneeling the whole time.

Elliott Kalan

[33:42] And there's so many times when he's in the wheelchair

[33:45] and it's spinning around and like he has to perform these monologues

[33:48] while he is literally spinning around.

[33:50] Like it's ridiculous, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[33:51] And like he had to like keep taking breaks

[33:53] because his legs would fall asleep.

Elliott Kalan

[33:55] Like that's commitment, baby.

[33:56] Yeah, that's Lon Chaney Sr. type stuff.

[33:58] Lon Chaney Sr. did a movie called The Penalty

[34:00] where he was playing a character who had the bottom half of his legs amputated.

[34:03] And the way he did it was he bent his –

[34:05] he made these kind of like fake stump legs

[34:08] that he then bent his leg backwards in

[34:10] so that he could –

[34:12] so he was constantly walking on his knees.

[34:13] And he would do this for hours.

[34:14] You know, it hurt him really badly.

[34:16] And so like there's a reason people don't do that anymore

[34:19] because it's bad for you.

[34:20] And also if –

Stuart Wellington

[34:22] Sometimes if you're looking for a character with a specific thing,

[34:26] maybe hire an actor that has that thing.

Elliott Kalan

[34:28] Yes, that's true.

[34:29] I think it's – yeah, that's also a possibility that they did not look into, I'm sure.

[34:33] But I think we can all say Kenneth Branagh did his best with this terrible –

[34:37] with the terrible opportunity.

[34:38] With what was handed him, yes.

[34:40] Yeah.

[34:40] So speaking of Kenneth Branagh, he then makes a big entrance,

[34:43] literally exploding out of a giant papier-mâché Abraham Lincoln head.

[34:47] Which you must have loved.

[34:48] You were like, I love this crap.

[34:50] No, what was weird was they started –

[34:51] the band starts playing Battle Hymn of the Republic.

[34:55] And I was like –

[34:56] and I was literally thinking at the time,

[34:58] this makes no sense to play at this Confederate ball.

[35:00] Like they would not like –

[35:01] but then he explodes out of an Abraham Lincoln head and he goes,

[35:04] I hate that song.

[35:05] And I was like, okay, now I get it.

[35:06] Then he goes, remix.

Stuart Wellington

[35:08] Did you bring your son who is named lovingly after Abraham Lincoln?

[35:13] You brought him in.

[35:13] You're like, look, there's your namesake.

[35:15] Yeah, and then his head explodes.

[35:16] Yeah, no.

[35:17] You're like, let's get out of here.

[35:18] Get out of here.

Elliott Kalan

[35:19] Get out of here, dear.

[35:21] Shield your eyes.

[35:22] Shield your eyes.

Dan McCoy

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

[35:27] was in the home of him.

Elliott Kalan

[35:29] It's happening again.

[35:31] Take cover.

[35:32] It's the office all over again.

[35:34] Yeah.

[35:34] It's the office all over again.

[35:36] They can see me through the screen.

[35:38] So anyway, that's not what happened.

[35:41] So he goes in and Loveless –

[35:44] Thank you.

[35:44] Loveless has his interaction with West.

[35:46] Loveless meets with McGrath.

[35:48] And then after the meeting is like, meet me at this other place.

[35:50] So West goes to where they had –

[35:52] Loveless and McGrath had just met.

[35:53] He snoops around and Bai Ling catches him and she tries to seduce him.

[35:57] So of course we get literally a close-up upskirt of her butt.

[36:01] Like it's – again, this is a leering movie.

[36:03] And West realizes that it's a trap and shoots a bunch of gunmen.

[36:07] Bai Ling is killed in the crossfire and West does not give it a second thought.

[36:11] He just walks out of that room.

[36:13] And then I think a dead body falls from the ceiling.

[36:15] It's supposed to be like funny.

[36:16] And it's like, well, a bunch of people just died.

[36:18] You know, this is – it reminds me of – I finally saw Dial of Destiny and I was like, these are the – maybe the most trigger-happy bad guys I've seen in a major motion picture in a long time.

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

[36:32] Yeah, yeah.

[36:32] The heroes that are getting in their way.

[36:33] They refuse to kill them.

[36:35] But they'll kill everybody else.

[36:36] Well, that's what you don't know about Indiana Jones.

Dan McCoy

[36:38] He clouds men's mind.

[36:40] Oh, I see.

[36:41] He zooms sort of just this field around him.

Elliott Kalan

[36:43] He learns this mystic power in the far east in his adventures.

Dan McCoy

[36:46] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[36:46] No, I just wanted to say the shooters, just because it's one of the few brief moments of any sort of visual gag that works.

[36:56] Yeah, it's a cool, clever moment.

[36:56] Yeah.

[36:57] In the film, the shooters are like hidden in the paintings like a person like turns out you thought was just, you know, someone hunting out in the scrub.

[37:07] In a painting.

[37:07] And he points the rifle towards Wes.

Elliott Kalan

[37:10] That is a cool thing.

[37:11] It means that they're just standing there all day in case someone – in case a bad guy wanders in.

[37:15] But that is a cool visual.

[37:17] Meanwhile, he goes downstairs.

[37:18] He sees a woman who vaguely looks like Kevin Kline in drag, but she's wearing a mask.

[37:22] And is like, oh, it's you again, huh?

[37:24] Let me ruin the mission by calling you out and play your boobs like bongo drums.

[37:28] And the actual Kevin Kline, who's disguised as a mountain man, yells out, hang him.

[37:33] So now one of our heroes has just called for the other hero to be lynched for harassing a white woman.

[37:40] And it's like – I was like movie – it felt like I was sinking ever deeper into just sludge and toxic waste.

Dan McCoy

[37:46] The intent of this moment, I believe, is that it's more high-spirited hijinks.

[37:51] He knows that Wes can take care of himself.

[37:53] He needs a distraction.

[37:54] So he's –

[37:55] But the reality is –

Elliott Kalan

[37:57] I'll get everybody to leave the house so I can snoop around.

[37:59] Exactly.

[38:00] So I'll just have – I'll put the other hero in a situation where he's going to be lynched.

Dan McCoy

[38:04] This is hilarious.

[38:05] The realities of American history are too ugly for this scene to work as anything other than horrifying.

[38:12] To be like, oh, well, now Will Smith has been accused of sexually harassing a white woman in the old south, in the antebellum south.

[38:22] What is going to happen?

[38:23] He's like standing –

Elliott Kalan

[38:24] It's the postbellum south.

Dan McCoy

[38:25] Oh, okay.

[38:25] Yeah.

[38:26] Sorry.

[38:26] And he's standing next to a literal noose.

[38:30] And you're like, what the fuck are you doing, Wild Wild West?

[38:34] Yeah.

[38:35] How do you think this works?

Stuart Wellington

[38:36] He's put him up there next to the noose and he does drop like a – you know, like a decent type five to the assembled crowd.

[38:42] Like he's telling jokes.

[38:42] He's trying to get them on his side.

[38:44] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[38:44] Yeah.

[38:44] He has to try to talk his way out of it and he almost does it but the jokes he's saying are not funny.

[38:50] Like it really is not –

[38:51] No, of course not.

[38:51] Yeah.

[38:52] So now it's –

[38:52] Well, that's another thing.

Dan McCoy

[38:53] Sorry.

[38:54] I wanted to say about the movie is like Will Smith, like obviously extremely charismatic performer.

[39:00] As we said before, like up until this point couldn't do no wrong.

[39:05] This movie sort of –

Elliott Kalan

[39:07] This was the fresh prince, Dan.

[39:09] Princes don't get fresher.

Dan McCoy

[39:10] Yeah.

[39:11] Nope.

[39:11] But like nothing in this movie is played with any sense of like stakes or whether anyone has any concern at any point during it really.

[39:24] Like in any way that feels any kind of grounded.

[39:28] And I feel like this movie deserves like Kevin Kline and Will Smith so much by having like – Kevin Kline is just kind of a jerk to Will Smith the whole time.

[39:37] And Will Smith like runs through doing the laziest version of his sort of blithe like I don't care about anything that's happening attitude.

[39:47] But too much.

[39:48] Like nothing feels like it has any weight at all.

[39:50] Yeah.

[39:51] Yeah.

[39:51] Sorry.

[39:52] I didn't have to go off that long.

Elliott Kalan

[39:53] Well, the movie is both – it's the characters are acting – they never come off as cool and like suave.

[39:59] But the movie is also never exciting or putting them in – I guess there's one scene later on where they're falling and they keep – and it cuts to close-ups of them going, ah!

[40:08] Which is my least favorite thing a movie can do I think possibly.

[40:12] Okay.

[40:12] But at that point at least they're excited about what's going on.

[40:15] They're scared.

[40:16] So now it's Gordon's turn to Snoop and he goes into a bedroom and finds Selma Hayek in lingerie in a giant bird cage.

[40:22] And we'll find out that she's Rita, the daughter, she says, of one of the kidnapped scientists who was trying to find this kidnapped scientist who became part of Loveless' harem slash bodyguard.

[40:32] And together they save West from being lynched and, you know, they all get away.

Stuart Wellington

[40:38] To talk about Selma Hayek's performance, I feel like the whole time I kept expecting there to be an extra layer to her character.

[40:46] Like there was a twist.

[40:47] And I think that's – she injected all of that because there is no extra layer over the course of the movie.

Dan McCoy

[40:52] There is no kind of an extra layer at the very end when – spoiler, you learn that this 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, like, she knows that by playing, like, her sex appeal, like, they will be more invested maybe in it if, like, they think they have a shot with her.

[41:17] That sucks.

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

[41:22] And you know what?

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

Elliott Kalan

[41:24] They were already on the mission.

[41:25] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

[41:25] 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.

Stuart Wellington

[41:35] Yeah.

[41:36] This carrot will somehow empower them like Popeye's spinach to do their job better.

Elliott Kalan

[41:40] But I think you're right, Stuart, that Selma Hayek is injecting a little bit of extra something to this character because if anyone in this movie is given nothing to do, it's Selma Hayek in this one.

Dan McCoy

[41:50] Well, yeah.

[41:50] The only thing that she's given to do is to be, like, sexy in kind of a daffy way.

[41:55] She's essentially like a –

[41:56] Like, she's good at it, you know, but that's it.

Elliott Kalan

[41:58] But she's – and the movie treats her essentially as a cleavage delivery mechanism, you know, which, again, she's 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, really intriguing ways.

[42:16] I mean, like, the movie – I'm not a huge fan of From Dawn Till Dusk because I feel like it gets a little too silly for me.

[42:21] You didn't even get the name wrong.

[42:22] Yeah, yeah.

[42:22] Oh, sorry, sorry.

[42:23] From Dusk Till Dawn, you're right.

[42:24] From Dawn Till Dawn, you're right.

[42:26] It's like, regular, you know, working hours.

[42:27] Yeah, From Dawn Till Dusk is you wake up, you go to work, you come back home.

[42:30] Also known as 9 to 5.

[42:32] But it –

[42:33] 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, 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 mystique to her that instantly she's in control of the movie in those moments.

Stuart Wellington

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

[42:57] What?

[42:58] Tom Savini's in front of the camera?

Elliott Kalan

[43:01] Yeah, none of it makes sense.

[43:02] Tom Savini in an acting role?

[43:04] Vamps?

[43:05] What's going on?

[43:06] And he has that – it's Tom Savini, right, who has the – who has that gun in his crotch?

[43:11] Yeah, sex machine, yeah.

[43:12] That has two chambers, which makes sense to make them look like testicles, but it's not how a gun works.

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

Dan McCoy

[43:21] Maybe they're like gears.

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

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[43:31] Yeah, anyway.

[43:32] Are you a gunsmith cat?

[43:33] Yeah.

[43:34] Sir Jamalot.

[43:34] Not that either.

[43:35] Yeah.

[43:36] Sir Jamalot.

[43:37] From Camalot.

[43:38] I feel like – no, Sir Jamalot feels like a real early 80s rapper, like early mid-80s rapper when hip-hop's pretty new.

Dan McCoy

[43:48] Where were we?

[43:48] Sir Jamalot from Camalot, you know?

[43:50] Mm-hmm.

[43:51] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[43:51] And there's another rapper he partners with named, like, King Arthur, and it's, like, spelled differently.

[43:57] Oh, man.

[43:58] I'll say this.

Stuart Wellington

[43:59] One thing I'm not –

[43:59] This is some, like, early sitcom rap reference type stuff.

Dan McCoy

[44:03] This is some real mid-sized sedan shit you're coming up with.

Elliott Kalan

[44:06] Mid-sized 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.

[44:11] But I do love the spellings that go into the names of rappers and their albums.

[44:16] I'm going to 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 wish I liked the music more because I love the spellings and the posturing so much.

[44:25] The same with – 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.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[44:34] I mean, the way it's spelled?

[44:35] Sure, it works.

[44:36] You can read it.

[44:37] So, okay.

[44:38] McGrath's soldiers.

[44:39] A plus.

[44:39] We get back to A plus for Tori 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 while.

[44:50] So, Bloodbath McGrath.

[44:52] 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.

[45:00] And it's a way of showing off what his new weaponry can do because he wants to sell it to these foreign 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.

[45:15] But they recognize the massacre site.

[45:16] West recognizes the carnage as similar to that of a freedman's town called New Liberty that had previously been slaughtered.

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

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

[45:33] Bump, bump, bump.

[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 who were very frustrating to him because they kept saying,

[45:46] that's not how we would do it if this was really the Civil War.

[45:49] I love it.

[45:50] And he was like, this is a cartoon movie.

[45:52] Like, who cares?

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

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

[46:00] Our heroes go there on the train.

[46:01] It gives Gordon a lot of opportunities to lust after Rita and for Rita to overhear him and Gordon gets embarrassed.

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

[46:11] It's less a love triangle and more of three love points that are having trouble organizing themselves and can't get into a shape.

Dan McCoy

[46:18] Well, it's a more realistic two horny guys, a woman who's not interested.

[46:22] Yeah.

[46:23] Triangle.

Elliott Kalan

[46:24] And Wes is annoyed.

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

[46:26] But literally all of this is basically just an excuse for Selma Hayek to wear long 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?

Dan McCoy

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

[46:41] Yes, yes, very much so.

[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 than that.

Elliott Kalan

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

[46:51] Your gunfighter name was the leering kid.

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

Dan McCoy

[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 being like, and now here's Biling's ass.

[47:07] You know, in the way they just shot that.

[47:10] So there you go.

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

[47:12] I know you come to me to be the butts bird.

[47:14] So there you go.

[47:16] Cracking news.

[47:18] Thanks, Wallace.

Elliott Kalan

[47:20] Is that what Wallace was talking about every time when he said that?

[47:24] I didn't realize.

[47:25] Okay, the next morning, Gordon reveals, oh, I added some gadgets to your clothes, Jim West, while you were sleeping, which is weird.

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

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

[47:39] If you wanted this movie to be boiled down to one moment, Loveless' henchwoman fires an enormous steampunk harpoon gun at our hero's train while Loveless is just staring at her butt, talking about her butt.

[47:50] That is this moment.

[47:52] It's like this is the whole movie in a couple seconds is steampunk harpoon gun, and one of the male characters just kind of just looking from inches away at a woman's butt and going, I've got a good view or whatever he says.

[48:04] Oh, no, she goes, I've got them in my sights.

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

[48:07] And he's like, ugh, gross.

[48:09] Come on.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[48:11] I think he does.

[48:12] Yeah, that's his performance.

[48:14] It's a lot of like, well, that kind of stuff.

[48:17] Yeah, that's pretty good.

Stuart Wellington

[48:19] Yeah, 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.

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[48:30] Rita knocks them out.

[48:30] Yeah, abrupt cut.

[48:32] West and Gordon wake up sitting on the ground fitted with those metal collars that we saw on the side earlier, and it does feel like a scene is missing.

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

[48:47] We're all about it.

[48:48] Yeah, Loveless takes a moment to brag about how he invented a metal prosthetic penis for himself 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, and they escape by – it turns out they have magnets in their collars that the saw blades are attracted to.

Stuart Wellington

[49:08] I remember seeing clips from this in the trailer and in the music video, and I was surprised at how short this sequence was.

Elliott Kalan

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

[49:16] There's a surprising lack of action in this action movie, 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 magnets get stuck together and so forth.

Dan McCoy

[49:28] But that mud, I mean, that looks –

[49:30] It might be poop.

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[49:35] Yes.

[49:35] And so I couldn't tell if it was mud or poop.

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

Dan McCoy

[49:39] But the flurry –

Elliott Kalan

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

Dan McCoy

[49:43] It felt like probably – I'm not saying it's all poop, but farm animals, you know, it has washed into this crevasse.

[49:50] Sure.

[49:51] Sure.

[49:51] Possible.

Elliott Kalan

[49:52] Yeah.

[49:52] That night, they finally get the magnets off because Jim Gordon – not Jim Gordon, whatever his name is.

[49:57] Artemis Gordon, he finds his –

[50:00] That's a fucking crossover.

Dan McCoy

[50:02] Yeah.

[50:02] Jim Gordon shows up.

[50:05] What time am I?

[50:07] I need to get back.

Stuart Wellington

[50:09] So they –

[50:09] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[50:10] Jim Gordon shows up.

[50:11] He's like, I'm in a world with no bat signal.

[50:13] What am I going to do?

[50:14] Oh, no.

[50:16] It's my one move.

Dan McCoy

[50:18] The only thing I know how to do.

Stuart Wellington

[50:20] If they put Jim Gordon in an injustice game, his one special move is bat signal.

[50:24] Everything else is like –

Elliott Kalan

[50:25] You know that some kind of Wild West Batman would show up.

[50:28] There was a Batman Elseworlds called, I think, the blue, the gray, and the bat that had an Old West Batman.

Dan McCoy

[50:34] We're going to get some angry nerds writing a big, like, Jim Gordon music.

[50:36] And then instead of, like, a Batmobile, he writes a Bat Horse.

Elliott Kalan

[50:40] Bat Horse?

[50:41] He might have had a Bat Horse, yeah.

[50:42] Well, there is a Bat Horse in the comics, right?

[50:46] In the old ones.

Dan McCoy

[50:47] Wow, you really infuriated Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

[50:49] Now, when I say Bat Horse, I mean a horse wearing a Batman mask.

[50:53] I don't know the cooler thing would be a horse with enormous bat wings.

[50:55] That would be awesome.

[50:56] That's the kind of thing Elric would ride around on.

Stuart Wellington

[50:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[50:59] The fucking brain gremlin showed up and squirted the juice on it.

[51:06] Do you like the juice?

Elliott Kalan

[51:07] Brain gremlin is also in the Old West for some reason.

[51:09] Oh, no.

[51:10] I can't stop.

[51:12] Oh, no.

[51:12] History will be changed forever.

Dan McCoy

[51:14] This is kind of like a time vortex.

[51:15] All people get drawn – all travelers get drawn to this one nexus.

[51:18] Yeah, yeah.

[51:19] It's like man things nexus of all realities, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[51:21] We'll fix the problem.

[51:22] We'll bring gremlins in here.

Elliott Kalan

[51:26] They always help.

[51:27] Gordon is like, okay, Wes, this is my plan.

[51:29] It might not work.

[51:30] We need to bring some gremlins in.

[51:32] Won't they get you in the end?

[51:33] No, no, they won't.

[51:34] You're thinking of ghoulies.

Dan McCoy

[51:36] What you got here is a ghoulie.

[51:40] No, that's a different – I'm going to have to call a different specialist for that.

Elliott Kalan

[51:43] 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 your ghoulie.

[51:51] I'll find your ghoulies.

[51:52] I'll find them and catch them for even more money.

Dan McCoy

[51:55] He's just standing above the toilet with a hard food.

Elliott Kalan

[52:00] You ever hear the story of the USS Indianapolis' toilets?

[52:05] The sharks started coming up through the toilets.

[52:09] Anyway, black – poop like dolls poop.

[52:13] Black, lifeless.

[52:14] Anyway, so the – so that was gross.

[52:17] Anyway, they escape.

[52:19] They start arguing with each other, but then it's nighttime.

[52:21] They bond around a campfire.

[52:23] West explains that he ran away from slavery as a child, and his birth parents – and he was raised by indigenous people in the desert.

[52:29] His birth parents were among those killed by Loveless at New Liberties.

[52:33] That's why it's personal for him.

[52:35] And they also see a CGI wasp kill a CGI spider 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.

[52:44] It's not done organically.

[52:45] Anyway, they eventually –

Stuart Wellington

[52:47] Not as good as the CGI scorpion fight in, what, 5 million miles to Graceland or whatever, but it's pretty close.

Elliott Kalan

[52:55] In 20 million miles to Graceland, the one where the Ymir falls from space to Graceland.

[53:03] If Ray Harryhausen's only worked with Elvis.

[53:06] So eventually they find Loveless' hidden city in Spider Gulch where scientists have built him an enormous steampunk spider.

[53:12] It has a super cannon on it.

[53:14] Producer John Peter's dream has come to life finally.

[53:17] He can rest.

[53:18] His thousand-year sleep can return, and he can return to his pyramid tomb.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[53:28] Yeah, sure.

[53:29] In a better movie, I would love this spider.

[53:31] It looks pretty cool.

[53:32] It moves pretty cool.

[53:33] It's got lots of gears and stuff.

[53:34] It's a neat thing.

[53:35] What do you think, Stuart?

[53:36] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[53:37] Yeah, it seems pretty cool.

[53:38] I mean, it shakes around a lot.

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

[53:44] It's a weapon of war, I guess.

Dan McCoy

[53:46] No, I mean, it has the same problem that the AT-ATs have where you're like, why build a walker when the wheel exists?

[53:54] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[53:55] Maybe Loveless is tired of wheels.

Dan McCoy

[53:57] He's on wheels all the time.

Stuart Wellington

[53:58] I mean, you just invalidated all robo-anime, but that's fine.

[54:02] That's fine.

Dan McCoy

[54:03] I'm just saying there's a question I have.

[54:05] I'm not saying that maybe there's a good reason.

[54:07] I guess it's probably better for all terrain.

Elliott Kalan

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

[54:15] It's like, I don't know.

[54:16] It seems like a less efficient way to attack something.

[54:19] Why not just a big gun?

[54:21] Yeah, well, I mean, we have nuclear missiles.

[54:23] I feel like a giant robot's fist is not as effective in destroying a monster, but okay.

[54:28] Well, at the end of, was it Jurassic World or Jurassic World 2?

[54:32] The second Jurassic World where the dinosaurs are free and they're like, uh-oh.

[54:35] Can humanity stand up to these dinosaurs?

[54:38] And it's like, we're great at just destroying things with guns.

[54:41] Like, the dinosaurs don't have weapons, you know?

Dan McCoy

[54:42] Stony-faced.

[54:43] You're like ruining all of his treasured.

Stuart Wellington

[54:45] Yeah, ask the blue whale how well it's doing.

[54:50] Ask all the other macro animals.

Elliott Kalan

[54:52] Yeah, all the megafauna that we have gotten rid of.

[54:56] Yeah, let me see.

[54:57] Can humans defeat these big animals?

[54:58] Let me ask the giant ground sloth.

[55:00] Let me find one.

[55:01] Hold on a sec.

Stuart Wellington

[55:02] Yeah, is there a way to eat it?

[55:04] Or can we render components of its body to fuel our society?

Elliott Kalan

[55:09] Early humans were like, can we eat it?

[55:12] Can we use its skin for something?

[55:14] Or would it be funny to kill it?

[55:15] Yeah, we see it.

[55:15] And that's the reason they would kill things.

Dan McCoy

[55:17] We see the dinosaurs and we're like, oh, cool, new oil.

[55:20] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[55:23] It doesn't get fresher than this right off the beast.

Dan McCoy

[55:26] Just slice off a hunk and stuff it in the gas tank, honey.

Elliott Kalan

[55:30] And it's easy to say, how dare humans do this?

[55:32] But then go play Oregon Trail and go out hunting in it.

[55:35] And it is so hard to resist the urge to just shoot every single thing that wanders across your path.

[55:40] And then it's like, you needed – you can carry 40 pounds of meat.

[55:43] You killed 7,000 pounds of meat.

[55:46] It's so hard not to overdo it.

[55:48] So they get back on the train to pursue this giant spider.

[55:52] And Gordon is like, I've inspired to create a flying machine.

[55:55] I'm inspired by that wasp.

[55:56] I'll create a flying machine to attack the spider.

[55:58] And Wes says, there's no time.

[55:59] There's no time.

[56:00] Which objectively, there is no time to design and build a flying machine right now.

[56:04] Loveless interrupts Grant hammering in that golden spike.

[56:07] And he demands Grant surrender the US government.

[56:09] Then Gordon appears dressed as Grant to distract Loveless.

[56:14] And Loveless just puts both of them in a big net.

[56:16] The kind of net you would catch fish in.

[56:18] Not the kind of net Sandra Bullock got in trouble with in our last big episode.

Dan McCoy

[56:22] No, it does – it is an odd way of trying to slow things down to be like, oh, how will you know which is the real Grant?

[56:31] I mean like this guy is not – just shoot them both.

[56:34] He has two bullets presumably.

Elliott Kalan

[56:36] At this point, yeah.

[56:37] And Loveless is holding up a $50 bill to see which one looks the most like him.

Stuart Wellington

[56:42] Yeah, he holds out like a big bottle of whiskey to see which Grant is the alcoholic.

Elliott Kalan

[56:47] Which one lunges for it, yeah.

[56:50] So West has a fight scene on the spider.

[56:52] He gets shot off of it.

[56:53] He gets shot point blank in the chest by one of the lady bodyguards.

[56:57] But luckily, Gordon had snuck some chain mail under his coat.

[57:01] And Gordon, he describes this earlier, he's knitting it.

[57:02] And he's like, oh, I've created this type of mesh armor.

[57:05] And it's like, it's chain mail.

[57:06] It's existed for hundreds of years.

[57:08] Like please don't pretend that you invented this concept of armor made out of little links.

[57:12] Like blacksmiths have been making it for centuries.

[57:16] Loveless gives a presentation, a kind of early PowerPoint presentation to all the other characters while constantly spinning in his chair.

[57:22] 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.

[57:28] France will get the Louisiana Territory.

[57:30] Spain gets Florida.

[57:32] And he'll take a big chunk of it for himself, which he has named Loveless Land, which sounds like the worst theme park.

[57:39] Just like a bad place to go.

[57:40] Like a bad Swingers theme park.

[57:42] And I don't mean Swingers the movie.

[57:43] I mean Swingers like it's a place for swapping.

[57:46] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[57:47] Loveless.

[57:47] Swingers the movie theme park exists in Universal Studios.

Dan McCoy

[57:51] It's called Las Vegas.

[57:53] Yeah.

[57:54] Swingers theme park.

Elliott Kalan

[57:56] You go, see how money you are in these Swingers themed mirrors.

[58:01] You must be this money to ride this ride.

[58:03] And there's like a minion holding up.

[58:05] Oh, that's even better.

[58:06] Yeah.

[58:06] It's a cardboard Vince Vaughn that says you must be this money.

Dan McCoy

[58:08] Do you know how money you are?

[58:11] If not, welcome.

[58:13] There's nothing else in that movie.

[58:15] That's pretty much it.

Stuart Wellington

[58:16] The whole ride is you get strapped into a chair and then Vince Vaughn's like, let's see how money you are.

[58:21] And then it shakes you around for a while.

[58:22] And it's like, thanks for holding onto the AllSpark, dude.

[58:24] It's like you did it.

Elliott Kalan

[58:25] You're the most money guys.

[58:27] You can swing with us anytime.

[58:30] I'm imagining.

[58:31] I was talking to my older son recently about, he's like, it's like you're on the ride.

[58:35] And they're like, thanks.

[58:36] You did it.

[58:36] You're super cool.

[58:37] And it's like, I didn't do anything.

[58:38] I just sat here.

[58:39] I'm like, you got it.

[58:40] You've seen it.

[58:41] Oh, no.

[58:41] Oh, he can see the matrix now, Elliot.

[58:44] Yeah.

[58:44] He can see through the other side.

[58:45] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[58:47] I was just trying to imagine what our younger listeners who perhaps didn't live through Swingers must have made in the last few minutes.

Elliott Kalan

[58:57] I mean, one, I don't think we have that many younger listeners.

[59:00] But two, I'll have to say, when Swingers came out, I was what, 14, 15?

[59:04] I thought it was the coolest movie.

[59:06] I thought everyone in it was so cool.

[59:08] Yeah, it's a fun movie.

[59:08] It's a fun movie.

[59:09] But I thought it was so cool.

Dan McCoy

[59:10] It inspired so many douchebags.

Elliott Kalan

[59:12] Yeah, my friends and I started calling each other money for like one day.

[59:15] And then we were like, well, this doesn't work.

[59:17] This sounds terrible.

[59:18] But anyway, Loveless gives this presentation.

[59:20] And then he threatens to shoot Gordon if Ulysses Grant won't surrender the United States, which is objectively, there's no way the president is going to surrender the entire nation to save one dude who is already a secret agent who knows he might die in the line of duty.

[59:32] But luckily, he doesn't have to make that choice because somehow a belly dancer who is obviously Will Smith in disguise appears out of nowhere.

[59:42] And it is like a Tex Avery cartoon.

[59:44] Loveless immediately forgets everything else in the room.

[59:46] It's great.

[59:46] And is so immediately seduced.

[59:48] His eyes bug out.

[59:49] His tongue falls on the ground.

[59:51] And it's like, how did Will Smith get on the spider?

[59:54] It doesn't, none of it makes, it's like he appears like Bugs Bunny would just out of nowhere, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[59:58] Yeah, I would say that his body turns into a steam-powered carriage and shoots out steam, but he already kind of is like that.

[1:00:05] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:06] Unfortunately, the ruse is undone by his fake breasts, which become mechanical flamethrowers and are just throwing flames everywhere.

[1:00:13] Loveless manages to escape with the real Grant.

[1:00:17] And Gordon wants to run after them, but Wes goes, no, we need a new plan.

[1:00:21] And so when this presentation is not happening on the spider, right?

[1:00:23] This presentation is happening back at Spider City, I assume, because, and I'll just mention it now.

[1:00:28] Take me down to Spider City where the grass is green and the girls are spiders.

[1:00:32] Oh!

[1:00:32] For a great deal on spiders.

[1:00:34] Take me down.

[1:00:35] Yeah.

[1:00:36] Spider City.

[1:00:37] Take me, that's the commercial for the pet shop, Spider City.

[1:00:39] Take me down to Spider City where this week scorpions are half off.

[1:00:43] That's right, it's Scorpion Week here at Spider City.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:46] Not technically a spider, but arachnids.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:48] It is related, and we need the money because we're being sued by Axl Rose for our jingle.

[1:00:54] So anyway, they, Loveless and Grant escape.

[1:01:00] Gordon wants to go after them, but Wes goes, no, we need a plan.

[1:01:03] And the man who was impulsively jumping into action, now he's all about plans.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:07] 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.

[1:01:13] I'm like, oh, okay, like she, there's a moment where he's like, should I pursue a romantic interest here?

[1:01:18] And she's like, no, you can go.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:19] No, you can go.

[1:01:20] You should do that.

[1:01:21] You should save the country instead.

[1:01:22] So Gordon quickly, he turns his motorcycle into a flying machine.

[1:01:27] They use it.

[1:01:28] They drop bombs on the spider.

[1:01:29] They get shot down.

[1:01:30] And there's a lot of henchmen fighting on the spider.

[1:01:32] It goes on for a long time.

[1:01:34] Until finally, each of the henchmen has some sort of deformity or like a handicap of some kind.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:42] They're kind of like the bad guys from the Judge Redd movie of Sylvester Stallone, right?

[1:01:46] And let's, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:48] I want to say, Sonnenfeld, like clearly he's trying to, as we said before, recapture the men in black magic.

[1:01:56] Yes.

[1:01:56] But Sonnenfeld is great at doing these like big outlandish sort of kinetic films.

[1:02:06] 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.

[1:02:16] And it's not.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:16] He's a comedy and visual director.

[1:02:18] But I would say like, I mean, there are good action scenes in the men in black stuff.

[1:02:21] And like in the, I guess you're right, it's kinetic.

[1:02:23] 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.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:30] But I just say this to like, this is in a boring movie.

[1:02:34] The action is some of the most boring part.

[1:02:36] There's a lot of it at the end.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:37] Especially these fights where there's one point where Wes defeats the final bad guy by somehow electrocuting him.

[1:02:43] And I rewound and I still could not figure out how it happened.

[1:02:46] It's like the bad guy is looking at him and then suddenly is just filled with electricity and dies.

[1:02:50] And I was like, did that happen spontaneously?

[1:02:52] Like, what?

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:53] There was, I was reading a bit of trivia and apparently the original cut of the movie, the climax was just Wes beating up the bevy of babes.

[1:03:04] And they're like, oh, this is weird.

[1:03:05] So they had to do a whole bunch of reshoots to add these like spider workers or whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:11] Yeah, these like thugs who are, one guy's a metal plate on his head and stuff like that.

[1:03:15] Which is better.

[1:03:17] So finally, Will Smith confronts Loveless.

[1:03:21] And we're going to, and it is, remind me of the Green Lantern movie where a handsome, cool guy 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?

[1:03:33] Like, this is not a good dynamic.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:35] 100% the problem with it.

[1:03:36] Because at the beginning, he has this robot wheelchair with robot legs that can like beat up Will Smith.

[1:03:44] But the moment they short out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:45] Yeah, he reveals the wheelchair is actually a smaller mechanical spider that also has legs.

[1:03:48] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:48] Once they short out that wheelchair spider, Will Smith is essentially just beating up a disabled man.

[1:03:55] And the whole movie changes at that point.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:57] Yeah.

[1:03:58] I mean, I don't know.

[1:03:59] It's more like a thing.

[1:04:00] It changes from amazing to not as good.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:03] From amazing to Oscar winning.

[1:04:06] I'm just saying it's a miscalculation too at that point.

[1:04:09] Yes.

[1:04:09] You're right.

[1:04:09] No, but I would say, I would feel like the movie does not change at that point, which is the problem.

[1:04:13] It doesn't feel like it's a misstep in a movie that is otherwise walking the tightrope or the balance beam.

[1:04:18] It feels like the movie is now coming back to what it is, which is gross.

[1:04:22] Which is a movie that has no respect for any human being and is gross to women and all that stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:30] Guys, did you have another little Easter egg in there?

[1:04:35] There's a sequence where Loveless is driving his giant spider and he's forcing President Grant to watch him blow up western towns.

[1:04:42] And he's like, are you going to sign it over to me?

[1:04:45] He's like, no.

[1:04:45] So he blows up a town and they, I guess, presumably are walking off to do it all over again and blow up another town.

[1:04:51] Like, I love the, I kind of wish there was a montage, you know, like Christopher Walken blowing up.

[1:04:56] Country bears.

[1:04:57] Country bears.

[1:04:58] But.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:59] Just one town after another.

[1:05:01] Really?

[1:05:02] Six towns?

[1:05:02] Still not going to sign the country?

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:03] The town they blow up named Silverado.

[1:05:07] Oh.

[1:05:08] After another Kevin Kline movie called Silverado.

[1:05:12] Called The Big Chill.

[1:05:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:16] Grand.

[1:05:17] The whole time, the whole time I'm watching this movie, I just, I kept thinking to myself, and at the end of the day, Kevin Kline goes home and just, I guess, complains to Phoebe Cates about making this movie.

[1:05:29] And just like the, I'm constantly, there's something, this is maybe a weird feeling, but whenever I think about Kevin Kline, I cannot help but think about how lucky he is to be married to Phoebe Cates.

[1:05:39] I literally said.

[1:05:40] Like, he's super talented, super charming, super handsome, but like, the fact that he's like, yeah, I get Phoebe Cates all to myself.

[1:05:46] She doesn't even make movies anymore.

[1:05:48] She's just someone I live with.

[1:05:49] Like, it's, and have a family with.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:50] I was texting my friend, essentially the same thing, complaining about this movie, and they were saying something about, you know, sort of half derailed his career.

[1:05:59] I'm like, yeah, but, you know, he's married to Phoebe Cates, so how much can he complain?

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:03] Yeah, exactly.

[1:06:03] And his son made a good movie last year.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:06] And his daughter is an indie musician who's, I listen to her stuff.

[1:06:11] It's pretty good.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:12] What was his son's movie?

[1:06:13] Bunny Pages.

[1:06:14] Oh, I didn't realize that was his son.

[1:06:15] Okay.

[1:06:16] I haven't seen it, but it was really good.

[1:06:17] I went to Cline, yeah.

[1:06:18] Oh, dude, you should totally see it.

[1:06:19] I feel like it will be, it might be a little too close to hope.

[1:06:24] Yeah, that's, if anything, that's why I'm worried about watching it.

[1:06:26] Yeah, it's kind of rough in that way.

[1:06:28] Yeah, and he's great on Bob's Burgers, super talented.

[1:06:31] Yeah, there's something about like the, and maybe I'm wrong, maybe behind the scenes Phoebe Cates is a monster,

[1:06:36] but there's just something about like, I'm always like, oh yeah, like what a, like what a, what a thing to be incredibly thankful and grateful for, Kevin Cline.

[1:06:44] Above everything else is that, is that you're married to Phoebe Cates.

[1:06:47] Anyway, she's great.

[1:06:48] She's, she's up there.

[1:06:49] There's a few people that I wish had not left professional film acting and she's right at the top.

[1:06:55] It's like her and Rick Moranis and a few other people that I wish were still, had still been working for the past couple decades, you know.

[1:07:02] But anyway, where were we?

[1:07:04] Oh yeah, so West and Loveless, they end up hanging off the spider over a cliff.

[1:07:09] Somehow West causes Loveless to fall to his death.

[1:07:11] Honestly, I didn't care enough to pay close attention to it.

[1:07:15] It happens.

[1:07:15] He presses a button on something and he falls off somehow.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:18] I think they both just like, essentially he lets them both go, but because he's our hero, he can grab a chain on the way down and not fall to his death.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:26] Yeah.

[1:07:27] Something like that.

[1:07:28] And so now it's the end.

[1:07:30] President Grant names West and Gordon the first agents of the Secret Service.

[1:07:34] This is ahistorical.

[1:07:35] The Secret Service did not start then.

[1:07:37] It was, I think, earlier than that.

[1:07:39] It was begun as an anti-counterfeiting force.

[1:07:42] But in the goofs.

[1:07:44] But in the, I could be wrong about when it started.

[1:07:45] Maybe, maybe that is when it started.

[1:07:46] I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:47] Oh, so this movie is kind of like a prequel to, to live and die in LA.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:51] Yes, exactly.

[1:07:52] This movie is, it takes place in the same universe as to live and die in LA.

[1:07:56] And that's why you can notice in the background the portraits of James West, of Jim West and Artemis Gordon.

[1:08:03] And it, and it says our first agents.

[1:08:04] Yeah, yeah, sure.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:06] Now, Elliot, tell us the other ways in which.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:08] When they set up that, when they accidentally killed that other guy who's also, also an agent.

[1:08:12] They're like, they're like, what would West and Gordon think about this?

[1:08:16] Yeah.

[1:08:17] They saved the president.

[1:08:18] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:19] No, I'm just looking forward to you going through the other ways in which Wild Wild West is historically inaccurate.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:24] Okay.

[1:08:24] I will also mention, so I don't believe Ulysses S. Grant hammered in the golden spike that connected the Transcontinental Railroad.

[1:08:31] Also, at no point were.

[1:08:32] Another goof.

[1:08:33] At no point were America's scientists kidnapped to build a giant robot spider.

[1:08:36] Oh, yeah.

[1:08:37] We got.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:37] Huge goof.

[1:08:37] We got goof master general.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:39] It's a big goof.

[1:08:41] There was, as far as I know, there was no, there was no Arlo Loveless.

[1:08:45] That's a fictional character.

[1:08:46] How could they get that wrong?

[1:08:48] Well, maybe a composite character.

[1:08:48] Maybe a composite.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:48] A man tried to kill Ulysses S. Grant.

[1:08:50] Yeah.

[1:08:51] That's true.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:52] And so, Rita reveals, this is when Rita reveals, as Dan mentioned, that the scientist she was after was not her father, but her husband.

[1:08:57] And she just leaves.

[1:08:59] And it just ends with Weston Gordon riding the giant spider into the sunset.

[1:09:02] The movie ends with a giant whipper.

[1:09:04] Yeah.

[1:09:05] And there's a moment where Gordon goes, can I ask you a question?

[1:09:08] Yeah.

[1:09:08] And Weston Smith goes, no.

[1:09:10] And that's it.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:10] That's the last, that's the last exchange of the film.

[1:09:15] Right up there with, nobody's perfect.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:17] Right up there with, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

[1:09:20] Can I ask you a question?

Dan McCoy

[1:09:21] No.

[1:09:22] It's like shutting down an improv scene immediately.

[1:09:26] The most interesting thing you can do is say no.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:29] And then you get the, and then you hear the Wild Wild West song, as Stuart has mentioned.

[1:09:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:34] Well, maybe that's it.

[1:09:35] They were like, this is really the last line of the film.

[1:09:38] Yeah.

[1:09:38] The Wild Wild West song.

[1:09:40] And I don't know about you guys.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:41] I immediately went and watched the music video.

[1:09:44] And you know what?

[1:09:45] Still good.

[1:09:46] Okay.

[1:09:47] I did not.

[1:09:47] I immediately watched a different movie to watch the taste of this one out of my mouth.

[1:09:51] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:53] Yeah.

[1:09:54] Let's get final judgments.

[1:09:55] Is this a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie you kind of like?

[1:10:00] 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.

[1:10:12] And Will Smith and Kevin Kline.

[1:10:14] Kenneth Branagh.

[1:10:15] And the hysterical Kenneth Branagh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:20] Celebrity.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:20] Woody Allen celebrity.

[1:10:21] Celebrity.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:23] But nothing works.

[1:10:25] That's maybe the only performance of his that's more cartoonish than this one.

[1:10:28] His Woody Allen impression in Celebrity.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:30] The jokes don't work on their own terms.

[1:10:33] And then on top of that, most of them are uncomfortably race-related or gay panic or…

[1:10:43] 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] Oh, Ali?

[1:10:51] I'm going to go first.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:52] No, no.

[1:10:52] Either way.

[1:10:53] I'm going to say this is a bad, bad movie.

[1:10:55] I, you know, I put it off for a long time not watching.

[1:10:59] Like, I put off watching it for a long time.

[1:11:01] When it first came out, I was deep into the Deadlands role-playing universe.

[1:11:05] And I'm like, oh, man, this doesn't take the thing that I think is cool 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, like,

[1:11:19] a little bit of steampunky, anachronistic elements and maybe some supernatural elements

[1:11:23] and is also just a little bit horny, I would direct your attention to the Mummy franchise,

[1:11:28] which is way better.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:30] Hmm.

[1:11:30] Yeah.

[1:11:30] I thought you might have been talking about Bone Tomahawk until you got to the horny part.

Stuart Wellington

[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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:38] I think, yeah, it's a bad, bad movie.

[1:11:40] 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 that

[1:11:43] 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, 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 manages to pull off the idea of a cool movie

[1:12:00] with lowish stakes that still really pulls you along and you're just really enjoying it

[1:12:05] the whole time.

[1:12:06] And it's just, it feels like a movie that was out of control and nobody knows what they're

[1:12:11] 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.

[1:12:17] And bad and gross, that's bros.

[1:12:19] That's the worst.

[1:12:20] That's the worst.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:22] Well, 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 platform for building

[1:12:32] your brand and growing your business online.

[1:12:35] Stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience, and sell anything.

[1:12:40] Your products, content you create, and even your time.

[1:12:44] Well, I'd say for your own good, maybe stick to things that are legal lest you be pinched

[1:12:51] by the fuzz.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:55] Dan, you really are a Gen X cool guy.

[1:12:59] Yep.

[1:12:59] Not a Zoomer.

[1:13:00] Certainly not a Zoomer.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:02] No.

[1:13:03] Hey, here's some things you can do with Squarespace.

[1:13:05] Gain powerful insights into who's visiting your site and how they interact with your content.

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[1:13:24] with a best-in-class website template and customize every design detail with reimagined drag-and-drop

[1:13:31] technology for desktop and mobile.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:33] Old drag-and-drop technology.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:35] They said, no, let's reimagine this for you.

[1:13:39] Head to squarespace.com flap.

[1:13:42] That's not even...

[1:13:43] Flap?

[1:13:44] Nope.

S5

[1:13:45] That's not even close.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:47] Nope.

[1:13:48] I've got to say that one more time.

[1:13:50] Head to...

[1:13:52] Head to...

[1:13:53] 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.

[1:14:02] That's F-L-O-P.

[1:14:04] Flop, as in Flophouse, for a free trial.

[1:14:07] And when you are ready to launch, use offer code FLOP to save 10% off your first purchase

[1:14:13] of a website or domain.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:15] Dan, that was a delightfully pushy ad read.

[1:14:18] Thank you.

[1:14:19] Yeah.

[1:14:20] You know who else is pushy?

[1:14:21] My cats when they are hungry.

[1:14:23] Oh boy.

[1:14:25] Muscles and meatball, 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.

[1:14:33] Smalls cat food is protein-packed recipes made with preservative-free ingredients you could

[1:14:39] find right in your fridge.

[1:14:40] And it's delivered right to your door.

[1:14:43] Cats need fresh protein-packed meals to be at their best.

[1:14:46] After making the switch to Smalls, 78% of cat owners reported their cats had shinier

[1:14:51] and softer fur.

[1:14:53] And 90% reported overall health improvements.

[1:14:57] That's huge.

[1:14:58] Those are big numbers, people.

[1:15:00] Okay.

[1:15:00] So, remember...

[1:15:01] You're mad at me.

[1:15:02] High-quality ingredients mean a healthier and happier life for your kitty.

[1:15:06] So, head to smalls.com slash flop and use promo code FLOP at checkout for 50% off your

[1:15:13] first order, plus free shipping.

[1:15:16] That's the best offer you'll find, and you have to use our code FLOP for 50% off your first

[1:15:22] order.

[1:15:22] One last time, for everybody in the back row, that's promo code FLOP for 50% off your first

[1:15:30] order, plus free shipping.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:32] Those sound like amazing deals.

[1:15:34] I'll tell you another amazing deal.

[1:15:36] More entertainment from the FLOP, guys.

[1:15:38] It's FLOP TV, 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] A nice little hour-long kind of TV-watching kind of thing version of this podcast.

[1:15:52] Good description.

[1:15:53] Sounds so good.

[1:15:54] We hope you managed to see our first episode, Beastmaster 2, 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. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[1:16:08] That's right, Cool World.

[1:16:09] Stuart's on PowerPoint presentation patrol.

[1:16:11] Dan will be doing the summary, so get ready to hear us talk about sexy cartoons and why

[1:16:15] Ralph Bakshi movies never really work.

[1:16:18] Like, I assume we're going to have to talk about that at some point.

[1:16:20] And as you know, if Dan is doing the summary of a sexy cartoon movie, wow, you thought this episode had some gross stuff in it?

[1:16:27] Well, get ready.

[1:16:28] It's going to be-

[1:16:29] Wolf whistle, wolf whistle.

[1:16:30] Parents only.

[1:16:32] Only adults.

[1:16:33] And I guess adults without kids, also.

[1:16:35] Yeah.

[1:16:35] Come on.

[1:16:37] No, we're not invited to it.

[1:16:39] No, only parents.

[1:16:40] If you can't make it on September 9th, don't rend your garments in rage and grief.

[1:16:44] Your ticket gets you access to a recording of the show for two weeks after the air date.

[1:16:49] So that's until September 23rd or so.

[1:16:52] So September 9th-

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:53] So, like, if you're watching it and it gets too gross and you have to go take a shower and come back to it later, you can.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:57] Yes, you can.

[1:16:58] Exactly.

[1:16:59] September 9th, 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific, Cool World.

[1:17:02] Episode 2 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 of the shows are available at theflophouse.simpleticks.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.

[1:17:22] Is that okay?

[1:17:23] Different than the one before again.

[1:17:25] Well, last week's was Flop TV.

[1:17:28] What was it?

[1:17:28] Flop, won't you?

[1:17:29] I don't remember what it was.

Dan McCoy

[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.

[1:17:34] Add it to the whiteboard.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:36] When we're done, we'll have a good slogan for it.

S4

[1:17:43] I'm Emily Heller.

[1:17:44] And I'm Lisa Hanawalt.

[1:17:45] And we're the hosts of Baby Geniuses.

[1:17:47] We've been doing our podcast for over 10 years.

[1:17:50] 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.

[1:17:56] And it's working.

[1:17:59] Hang out with us and you'll hear us chat about...

[1:18:02] Gardening.

[1:18:03] Horses.

[1:18:04] Various problems with our butts.

[1:18:06] And all the weird stuff that makes us horny.

S5

[1:18:08] That's so weird, all that stuff.

S4

[1:18:11] Baby Geniuses.

[1:18:12] A show for adult idiots.

[1:18:14] Every other week on Maximum Fun.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:18] We know everything.

[1:18:21] Tell us something we don't know.

S5

[1:18:24] The following pro wrestling contest is scheduled for one fall.

[1:18:28] Making their way to the ring from the Tights and Fights podcast are the baddest trio of audio.

[1:18:34] The hair to be wear, Danielle Radford.

[1:18:37] It really is.

[1:18:38] Great hair.

[1:18:41] The Brit with a permit to hit, Lindsay Kell.

[1:18:45] The Queen is dead.

[1:18:46] 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 Fights.

[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.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:06] Let's read a few letters from listeners.

[1:19:09] Listeners?

[1:19:10] We have a few.

[1:19:12] This is from Jaffer, last name withheld.

[1:19:15] He writes,

[1:19:16] Dear Peaches,

[1:19:17] As a longtime fan and attendee of two live shows,

[1:19:22] I'm looking forward to the next time you all hit the road.

[1:19:28] Since my niece took my Flophouse Housecat t-shirt,

[1:19:32] I'm 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 Toad,

[1:19:37] the musical based on the books by Arnold LaBelle.

[1:19:40] Dan is the grumpy toad, Stuart is the upbeat frog, and Elliot is the chorus of birds,

[1:19:45] and obviously the snail with the mail singing songs of delivery.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:54] You three as 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?

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:07] I don't think he's the first person to say it, but it has been said.

[1:20:10] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:10] 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?

[1:20:20] I mean, Chopping Mall is pretty great.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:21] Yeah, that's a fucking banger of a movie right there.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:24] Steven Spielberg's Over the Brooklyn Bridge?

[1:20:27] Elliot 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 sighs, ripped ding-dongs, and rocket crocodiles for all.

[1:20:37] Jaffer, last name withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:40] It'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 it,

[1:20:50] because then it opens up a whole new world of film.

[1:20:54] A whole new world of film.

[1:20:55] Could we finally have, finally we'll have Ingmar Bergman's Wild Wild West.

[1:21:02] So 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] Yeah, drop it on us.

[1:21:10] Sure.

[1:21:10] So this is a bad old movie that it's not, not everything about it is terrible,

[1:21:15] but it is not a wholly successful movie.

[1:21:18] And for a while it was being talked about as a remake for Tim Burton.

[1:21:21] And that's X the man with x-ray eyes.

[1:21:23] And starring Ray Moland as a man who gets x-ray eyes.

[1:21:26] And his eyes 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] But I think that-

[1:21:39] Oh, it's great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:40] You loved it.

[1:21:41] I didn't love it.

[1:21:41] 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

[1:21:52] that 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?

[1:22:00] Yeah.

[1:22:01] Do I?

[1:22:02] I need a director who can handle kind of fussy recreations of like over-detailed past things.

[1:22:11] You guessed it, Wes Anderson's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

[1:22:14] I think it-

[1:22:15] Hear me out.

[1:22:16] It's a little unorthodox.

[1:22:17] But if you've seen Grand Budapest Hotel, you know he can handle kind of somewhat action-y things.

[1:22:22] There's chase sequences in that.

[1:22:23] 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 artwork,

[1:22:34] it's going to be Wes Anderson.

[1:22:36] And finally, sometimes you have a movie that's about a strong female character,

[1:22:40] but it doesn't 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 the scientist who finds a living caveman.

[1:22:48] 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.

[1:23:07] So, guys, what do you think?

[1:23:09] What are you going to suggest?

[1:23:09] All these movies will be made.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:12] How about...

[1:23:13] Wait, hold on.

[1:23:15] I'm trying...

[1:23:16] I was about to say something, and then I was like,

[1:23:19] do I have the right name?

[1:23:20] So, Stuart, if you have something...

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:23] Yeah.

[1:23:24] I guess, you know, last year we watched a movie with Marmaduke,

[1:23:33] where Pete Davidson did The Voice.

Elliott Kalan

[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?

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:40] But I feel like if you want to make a movie with animal characters

[1:23:46] where I'll actually connect with it, that's right.

[1:23:49] I think you're going to have to remake Marmaduke

[1:23:51] and have George Miller direct it.

[1:23:54] He's got quite a hit rate.

[1:23:56] He does talking animals.

[1:23:57] He does them great, yeah.

[1:23:58] He does do animal movies.

[1:24:00] It's a lot of fun.

[1:24:01] Also, he can inject a little bit of...

[1:24:03] He can handle the action that a Marmaduke movie requires.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:09] I don't know if these are the best ideas,

[1:24:11] but here's some that I have.

[1:24:13] Let's take Wild Wild West.

[1:24:14] Let's start out there.

[1:24:16] Sure.

[1:24:16] We just watched.

[1:24:17] Okay.

[1:24:18] Toss it over to Martin Brest.

[1:24:20] He did one of the best buddy comedy action things

[1:24:24] in Midnight Run.

[1:24:26] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:27] Billy made up for his involvement

[1:24:29] with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,

[1:24:31] which took Russia out of World War I

[1:24:33] and caused a lot of trouble for everybody.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:35] And that would get him out of...

[1:24:39] Director Jail, too,

[1:24:42] because he's been in there for a while.

[1:24:45] Mm-hmm.

[1:24:46] And...

[1:24:46] Him and Eugene Levy.

[1:24:47] 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 Nine from Outer Space.

[1:24:59] Huh?

[1:24:59] Okay.

[1:25:00] What do you think about that?

[1:25:01] Okay.

[1:25:02] Tell me more.

[1:25:02] Have I convinced you?

[1:25:03] Nope.

[1:25:04] Tell me more.

[1:25:05] No, they'll bring some of that under-the-skin energy

[1:25:09] to the tale of, you know,

[1:25:12] space visitors who come back,

[1:25:14] come to Earth and reanimate the dead

[1:25:16] for some reason that I forget.

[1:25:18] I guess that was that Plan 9 for...

[1:25:19] To take over the world.

[1:25:20] That was the plan.

[1:25:20] To take over the world.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:21] I mean, Plan 9 was one that came to mind for me, too,

[1:25:24] and I felt like I didn't have quite the right

[1:25:26] director on hand for it.

[1:25:27] I could see it working.

[1:25:28] I could see that working.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:30] Let's go on to another letter,

[1:25:33] if my phone will unlock.

[1:25:34] There it is.

[1:25:36] And it did.

[1:25:36] Gary Marshall's Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:39] Now you're cooking with gas.

[1:25:41] Gary Marshall and his son, Neil Marshall,

[1:25:43] collaborate for the first time

[1:25:44] on Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:48] 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.

[1:25:53] Speak your truth.

[1:25:55] I've uncovered a global conspiracy about Monkey Bone,

[1:25:58] and you're curious silence about it.

[1:26:00] It has everything the Flophouse should love.

[1:26:02] It has a giant bust of Abraham Lincoln,

[1:26:04] whose mouth is a portal to the waking world.

[1:26:07] It has Whoopi Goldberg as Death,

[1:26:09] driving a giant mech suit.

[1:26:11] It even has Chris Kattan as a reanimated corpse,

[1:26:14] 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 train wreck

[1:26:21] in a genuine box office flop

[1:26:22] that it is the perfect movie to come up on the Flophouse,

[1:26:25] but you three have been conspicuously silent.

[1:26:28] The only logical explanation is that Brendan Fraser

[1:26:31] has been paying you off for years.

[1:26:34] How can you live with yourselves

[1:26:35] knowing you are part of the global conspiracy?

[1:26:37] I demand answers.

[1:26:39] All names withheld.

[1:26:41] So Brendan Fraser can't find me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:44] Wow.

[1:26:45] We are through the looking glass, people.

[1:26:47] I have to admit,

[1:26:48] what stopped us from talking about Monkey Bone

[1:26:50] is I have never seen it,

[1:26:52] and I remember seeing the trailer

[1:26:53] when it was first coming out

[1:26:54] and thinking,

[1:26:54] that seems a bit much.

[1:26:57] I did not have much access to it

[1:26:58] because, again,

[1:26:59] it was almost out of the theaters almost immediately.

[1:27:01] I think they took out two newspaper print ads

[1:27:03] in the entire country to advertise it, I heard.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:06] I mean, we get a lot of these,

[1:27:08] why haven't you done this emails,

[1:27:10] and in general,

[1:27:11] the answer is,

[1:27:13] as described towards the beginning of this show,

[1:27:16] normally we have done newer movies,

[1:27:19] so if there's something that existed before the plot house,

[1:27:22] we didn't get around to it.

[1:27:22] Why have you done cries and whispers?

[1:27:26] But I will say that I actually have seen Monkey Bone twice,

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:31] and I'm of the camp.

[1:27:33] To have the time.

[1:27:35] I'm of the camp.

[1:27:36] Oh, you're telling me

[1:27:37] to be so frivolous with the hours that God has set for us.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:42] I mean, if you enjoy what you're doing,

[1:27:44] is it frivolity, Elliot?

[1:27:46] No, I guess you're right.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:47] I mean, it's the definition of frivolity,

[1:27:48] but no, it's pleasant frivolity.

[1:27:49] We all make choices about how we spend our time.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:52] That's true.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:53] While I'm out feeding the hungry,

[1:27:55] housing the homeless,

[1:27:57] you are watching Monkey Bone yet again.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:59] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:27:59] I must have missed the pictures of you doing those things.

[1:28:04] Dan, I don't do it for the publicity.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:08] When somebody comes up to take a picture of me

[1:28:11] doing my charitable work,

[1:28:12] I pull a Sonny Corleone,

[1:28:13] and I throw that camera to the ground.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:15] Monkey Bone famously,

[1:28:16] the live-action film by stop-motion animating director,

[1:28:21] Henry Selick,

[1:28:22] who did The Nightmare Before Christmas,

[1:28:24] among other things.

[1:28:24] Not directed by Tim Burton,

[1:28:26] produced by Tim Burton.

[1:28:27] Henry Selick was the director.

[1:28:28] He did Monkey Bone.

[1:28:29] It is a live-action comedy

[1:28:35] with some cartoon elements,

[1:28:37] animated elements in it,

[1:28:39] but it has a lot in common with the look of something like

[1:28:45] Peavy's Big Adventure.

[1:28:45] It's a fun movie.

[1:28:48] I'm of the camp that thinks it is unfairly maligned.

[1:28:51] It has got a lot of crazy imagery,

[1:28:56] like beautiful stuff,

[1:28:59] silly stuff.

[1:29:00] It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[1:29:03] It's not that funny until the very end

[1:29:06] when it gets very funny

[1:29:07] when Chris Katana is being chased around

[1:29:09] by Bob Odenkirk

[1:29:10] as a reanimated corpse

[1:29:13] who's losing his organs.

[1:29:15] So,

Dan McCoy

[1:29:17] those might be the Monkey Bone.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:18] Okay, you sold us on Monkey Bone.

[1:29:19] Okay.

[1:29:20] Yeah.

[1:29:20] Okay.

[1:29:20] So,

[1:29:21] I mean,

[1:29:21] I'm curious to watch it at some point.

[1:29:22] I don't know if it,

[1:29:23] should we do it for the podcast at some point?

Dan McCoy

[1:29:26] I mean,

[1:29:27] we could if we keep going back like this.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:29] I mean,

[1:29:30] this is actually,

[1:29:30] Monkey Bone came out after the movies

[1:29:32] that we have done.

[1:29:33] So,

[1:29:34] we'd have to go forward a little bit,

[1:29:35] but we could do it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:36] But I don't know.

[1:29:36] Yeah.

[1:29:36] Would covering Monkey Bone

[1:29:37] be really helping the studios

[1:29:39] who are using Monkey Bone profits

[1:29:41] to prop up their monkey bone merchandise

[1:29:44] out there?

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:44] Yeah,

[1:29:45] it's true.

[1:29:45] I did Ryan the Boner,

[1:29:48] the Monkey Bone rollercoaster

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:49] over at whatever.

[1:29:50] studio was.

[1:29:51] Yeah,

[1:29:51] the one that's like,

[1:29:52] you must be this boner

[1:29:53] to ride this ride.

[1:29:54] You must be this boner.

[1:29:56] Well,

[1:29:57] they,

[1:29:57] you know,

[1:29:57] whatever studio it is.

[1:29:58] You must be this monkey.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:01] I'm sure they refer to it

[1:30:03] as the house that Monkey Bone built.

[1:30:04] Sure,

[1:30:05] yeah.

[1:30:06] A24.

[1:30:07] Yeah.

[1:30:09] I can't even find it.

[1:30:11] Okay,

[1:30:11] well,

[1:30:11] let's move on to recommendations.

[1:30:14] Again,

[1:30:14] because of the ongoing strikes,

[1:30:16] we've been steering away from new stuff,

[1:30:19] but there's plenty of stuff

[1:30:22] that's older

[1:30:23] or things that are not even movies

[1:30:25] that we can recommend.

[1:30:26] Yeah.

[1:30:26] I'm going to return to

[1:30:28] the tradition of recommending a movie

[1:30:31] this time around.

[1:30:32] I saw,

[1:30:33] didn't you recommend,

[1:30:35] didn't you recommend hammocks

[1:30:36] at one point?

[1:30:36] Yeah,

[1:30:37] the concept of naps.

[1:30:38] I stand by it.

[1:30:39] Yeah.

[1:30:41] You know what I watched

[1:30:43] just recently?

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:44] The smile on an old lady's face.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:49] I watched,

[1:30:50] it's a foreign film,

[1:30:52] it's from 2005,

[1:30:53] it is called Caché

[1:30:55] by Michael Hanukkah

[1:30:57] as the director.

[1:30:58] I think it's just Caché.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:59] I think it's pronounced just Caché,

[1:31:00] but I could be wrong.

[1:31:01] It has an accent.

[1:31:02] Does it have an accent?

[1:31:03] Oh,

[1:31:04] then maybe I'm wrong.

[1:31:05] Then maybe I'm wrong.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:06] You know what?

[1:31:07] He's a Caché money.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:09] You know what,

[1:31:10] Alex,

[1:31:10] just go back and replace everything

[1:31:11] I've said in this episode

[1:31:12] with fart noises.

[1:31:12] That's all I deserve.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:14] Wow,

[1:31:15] harsh punishment,

[1:31:16] but fair.

[1:31:17] Yeah.

[1:31:18] I tried to watch this at home

[1:31:21] and kind of not gotten into it

[1:31:22] and then the quad cinema

[1:31:24] is doing a Juliette Binoche retrospective

[1:31:26] and I went out and saw it in the theater.

[1:31:28] It's pronounced Binoche.

[1:31:32] And it's a movie that really

[1:31:36] is well served by being in a theater

[1:31:39] where you have to put all of your attention on it

[1:31:41] because part of its strategy

[1:31:42] is long takes that,

[1:31:45] you know,

[1:31:45] the premise is that

[1:31:47] this couple gets tapes

[1:31:49] of their home,

[1:31:51] surveillance tapes.

[1:31:51] They don't know where they're coming from.

[1:31:53] Kind of like in Lost Highway.

[1:31:54] The thing is that

[1:31:55] even the parts of the movie

[1:31:58] that aren't these surveillance tapes

[1:31:59] are sort of deliberately shot

[1:32:01] from a remove

[1:32:02] often in one long shot

[1:32:04] without camera movement

[1:32:06] to give that feeling

[1:32:07] of an observer

[1:32:09] even when

[1:32:10] it's not part of

[1:32:12] what's actually happening

[1:32:13] in the text of the film.

[1:32:14] And back in the day,

[1:32:15] this was sort of sold

[1:32:16] as a thriller

[1:32:17] just because I think

[1:32:18] people didn't know

[1:32:19] how to describe it.

[1:32:20] If you go in

[1:32:21] thinking of it that way,

[1:32:23] I think

[1:32:23] you'll be disappointed

[1:32:25] at the way

[1:32:26] it does not

[1:32:27] want to hit

[1:32:28] the usual

[1:32:29] plot points

[1:32:30] and give you

[1:32:31] the catharsis

[1:32:32] that a thriller will.

[1:32:33] It is much more about

[1:32:34] the guilt

[1:32:36] people carry with them.

[1:32:37] It is about

[1:32:38] specific

[1:32:38] French guilt.

[1:32:40] But that also serves

[1:32:42] as just kind of

[1:32:43] a metaphor

[1:32:43] for the general ways

[1:32:46] in which

[1:32:46] That's where you only

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:46] tuck in the one half

[1:32:48] of your shirt.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:50] But it was excellent.

[1:32:53] Caché is great.

[1:32:53] That's what I recommend.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:55] Cool.

[1:32:56] You guys,

[1:32:57] don't be mad at me.

[1:32:58] I'm going to recommend

[1:32:59] an indie movie

[1:33:00] that's kind of new.

[1:33:02] Caché,

Dan McCoy

[1:33:03] but I don't think

[1:33:04] it's under the guilt

[1:33:05] if you're going to...

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:06] I don't know.

[1:33:07] Well,

[1:33:08] let's find out.

[1:33:10] How to Blow Up a Pipeline.

Dan McCoy

[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

[1:33:17] to the fire too much.

[1:33:17] Okay,

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:17] so I'm recommending

[1:33:20] It's directed by the guy

[1:33:21] who directed Cam

[1:33:22] from a few years ago.

[1:33:23] And just like Cam,

[1:33:25] it is a tense,

[1:33:26] timely,

[1:33:28] and vital thriller.

[1:33:30] It is about

[1:33:31] a group of young people

[1:33:32] who for a variety of reasons

[1:33:35] choose to engage

[1:33:37] in an act of,

[1:33:38] I guess,

[1:33:38] what they describe themselves

[1:33:40] as eco-terrorism

[1:33:41] where they blow up

[1:33:42] an oil pipeline.

[1:33:44] And it's great.

[1:33:45] It's like a super tight,

[1:33:47] almost heist-like thriller.

[1:33:49] And it touches on the fact

[1:33:52] that our world is dying

[1:33:54] and nobody seems to give a shit.

[1:33:56] So it's great.

[1:33:57] Thumbs up.

[1:33:59] Sounds like a real

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:00] spirit raiser

[1:34:02] Wow,

[1:34:02] you guys really,

[1:34:03] really bringing smiles

[1:34:05] to America

[1:34:05] with your downer picks.

[1:34:08] We're doing the podcast, Elliot.

[1:34:10] So I'm going to recommend

[1:34:12] a movie that is an older movie also.

[1:34:14] a movie from 1972.

[1:34:16] That's right,

[1:34:17] The Swingin' 70s.

[1:34:18] This is a documentary

[1:34:19] that actually won

[1:34:20] the Academy Award

[1:34:21] for Best Documentary

[1:34:22] that year in 1972.

[1:34:24] It's called Marjo.

[1:34:25] And it is a documentary

[1:34:26] about Marjo Gortner,

[1:34:28] who many people may know

[1:34:29] as one of the stars

[1:34:30] of the movie Star Crash.

[1:34:31] He had an acting career

[1:34:33] that is not the most impressive.

[1:34:38] You know,

[1:34:38] he's still alive,

[1:34:38] but he's not acting as much.

[1:34:40] But earlier in his life,

[1:34:41] when he was a child

[1:34:42] and then a young man,

[1:34:44] he made his living

[1:34:44] as a Pentecostal

[1:34:46] kind of tent preacher.

[1:34:48] And his whole thing

[1:34:49] was that he was

[1:34:50] the child preacher

[1:34:50] who was preaching

[1:34:52] the word of God

[1:34:53] from the age of,

[1:34:54] I think,

[1:34:54] four onwards.

[1:34:56] And this documentary

[1:34:58] is about Marjo Gortner

[1:34:59] returning to that life

[1:35:01] to make a certain amount

[1:35:02] of money

[1:35:02] so that he can get out of it

[1:35:04] and kind of revealing

[1:35:05] to the documentary makers

[1:35:07] how much he was coached

[1:35:09] as a child,

[1:35:09] what the tricks are

[1:35:11] in this kind of thing,

[1:35:12] how fake it all is,

[1:35:13] and things you have to do

[1:35:13] to get a congregation

[1:35:14] worked up

[1:35:15] so that you can get money

[1:35:16] out of them.

[1:35:16] And that's intercut

[1:35:17] with a lot of footage

[1:35:18] of him actually

[1:35:20] at these, you know,

[1:35:21] revival evangelist meetings

[1:35:23] and just kind of

[1:35:25] working himself

[1:35:27] up into a frenzy

[1:35:27] and working the audience

[1:35:28] up into a frenzy

[1:35:29] in this intense religiosity.

[1:35:33] And most of the movie

[1:35:35] is setting up this kind of,

[1:35:37] you not laughing at exactly

[1:35:39] because you become

[1:35:40] almost overwhelmed

[1:35:42] by the passion

[1:35:43] of the people

[1:35:44] who are at these revival

[1:35:45] or these evangelists

[1:35:46] evangelists meetings.

[1:35:47] But kind of, you know,

[1:35:48] looking above them

[1:35:49] and Marjo

[1:35:50] is kind of like your ally.

[1:35:51] And by the end of the movie,

[1:35:52] I ended up

[1:35:53] really finding him

[1:35:54] to be an unlikable person

[1:35:57] for the way he treated

[1:35:59] the people that he was bilking.

[1:36:01] Not just for the bilking,

[1:36:02] but how he was looking down

[1:36:03] on them.

[1:36:04] And it made me feel guilty

[1:36:05] about the way I had looked down

[1:36:06] on them early in the movie.

[1:36:07] So it's a movie that

[1:36:08] feels relatively straightforward,

[1:36:10] but by the end of it,

[1:36:11] I had very complex feelings

[1:36:13] 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,

[1:36:22] watch this four-hour movie.

[1:36:23] This time it's like

[1:36:23] less than 90 minutes.

[1:36:25] Go for it.

[1:36:25] It's really good.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:26] And don't watch Scarjo,

[1:36:28] which is a documentary

[1:36:29] about Scarlett Johansson.

[1:36:31] Yes.

[1:36:31] Her work as a preacher,

[1:36:33] bilking people out of money.

[1:36:36] That's a joke.

[1:36:37] Don't sue me.

[1:36:39] Notoriously too.

[1:36:40] That's my new catchphrase.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:43] It's a joke.

[1:36:43] Don't sue me.

[1:36:44] Don't watch the documentary Larjo

[1:36:47] about the Largo comedy club

[1:36:49] that is mispronounced.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:50] Okay.

[1:36:51] And if you want to watch Key Larjo,

[1:36:54] which again is the movie

[1:36:55] Key Largo with Miss Browns,

[1:36:56] go ahead.

[1:36:56] It's a good movie.

[1:36:57] It's a tense gangster thriller.

[1:36:58] It's a good movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:00] Yeah.

[1:37:00] That's scores by the Beach Boys.

[1:37:02] I've been on Key Largo.

[1:37:04] Anyway.

[1:37:06] So,

[1:37:07] with that whimper

[1:37:09] of a irrelevant fact,

[1:37:12] let's put a pen in.

[1:37:13] Oh,

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:13] and if you want spaghetti sauce,

[1:37:15] then it's Prejo or Prego.

[1:37:17] Okay.

[1:37:18] And not Ragoo or Raju,

[1:37:20] old world style.

[1:37:21] Ugh.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:24] Hey,

[1:37:25] this is a podcast

[1:37:26] that's on a network

[1:37:26] and that network

[1:37:27] is called Maximum Fun.

[1:37:29] You can go to MaximumFun.org

[1:37:32] to see the other shows

[1:37:34] on the network.

[1:37:36] There's stuff about comedy.

[1:37:38] There's other stuff

[1:37:39] about culture.

[1:37:40] There's a podcast

[1:37:41] that helps you sleep.

[1:37:43] I'm sure

[1:37:43] you would enjoy

[1:37:45] something else over there

[1:37:46] if you just take a look.

[1:37:47] Why don't you?

[1:37:50] This Flophouse podcast is also

[1:37:52] turned into a disapproving old man

[1:37:53] by the end.

[1:37:55] It's also

[1:37:55] produced by Alex Smith.

[1:37:58] You can find him

[1:37:59] all over the web

[1:38:00] as Howl Dottie.

[1:38:02] He does Twitch streams.

[1:38:03] He does music.

[1:38:04] He does his own podcast,

[1:38:06] Fast Track.

[1:38:07] Look him up.

[1:38:09] But for now,

[1:38:10] for the Flophouse,

[1:38:11] oh, also Flop TV

[1:38:12] on sale.

[1:38:14] Flop TV.

[1:38:15] Go to it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:17] What is it?

[1:38:17] Let me look up

[1:38:17] the website again.

[1:38:18] Sorry.

[1:38:18] Simple Ticks.

[1:38:19] Sorry.

[1:38:20] The Flophouse.simpleticks.com.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:22] Yeah.

[1:38:22] Also,

[1:38:23] if you just go to

[1:38:23] the Flophouse website,

[1:38:24] there's links on there.

[1:38:25] And what's that URL?

[1:38:28] Flophousepodcast.com.

[1:38:30] Okay, we did it.

[1:38:30] But for the Flophouse,

[1:38:32] I have been Dan McCoy.

[1:38:34] Now and forever,

[1:38:36] I am Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:38] And in this moment in time,

[1:38:39] I am taking the form

[1:38:40] of Elliot Kalin.

[1:38:41] But who knows what,

[1:38:42] who,

[1:38:43] or how I'll be

[1:38:44] in the future.

[1:38:45] Goodbye, mortals.

[1:38:45] Hee hee hee hee.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:53] Guys, I got a real smoker

[1:38:54] for the intro.

[1:38:56] Oh, boy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:57] All right.

[1:38:58] You're in the net one.

[1:38:59] I laugh at it still.

[1:39:00] Just thinking about it.

[1:39:02] And then I played it for Sammy.

[1:39:03] People really love that.

[1:39:04] I played it for Sammy

[1:39:05] and Sammy was like,

[1:39:06] what?

[1:39:06] Like, he just did not get it.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:11] Because he probably

[1:39:12] was just thinking of

[1:39:13] that kind of net.

[1:39:15] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:15] He doesn't know

[1:39:16] the net means the internet.

[1:39:17] Yeah.

[1:39:18] Yeah.

[1:39:19] Maximum Fun.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:20] A worker-owned network

[1:39:22] of artist-owned shows.

[1:39:24] Supported

[1:39:24] directly

[1:39:25] by you.

Ep.#403 - Wild Wild West

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