Wuthering Heights

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Wuthering Heights.

[0:04] Wrong, Dan.

[0:05] You forgot the quotation marks.

[0:06] Do it again.

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

[0:35] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:36] And I'm Elliot Kaelin.

[0:39] There's something a little different about Elliot today.

[0:42] I can't put my finger on it.

[0:44] Or perhaps, maybe if I talk slightly more, you'll understand what's different about me today.

[0:49] I think it's because Elliot is drawing attention to the fact that when this episode releases,

[0:54] Stuart is going to be floating down the Danube River, which crosses.

[1:00] Germany.

[1:01] I actually didn't know that.

[1:03] I'm just trying to acclimate Stuart to what he's going to hear when he is in Europe.

[1:07] Yeah, because they all talk a little like this, very coy.

[1:11] Oh, I have a little secret or surprise.

[1:13] Well, it's good to know.

[1:15] And I'd hate to look like an idiot over there.

[1:20] And, of course, what's more Wuthering Heights than Germany?

[1:26] A slightly sinister German accent.

[1:29] What could be more?

[1:30] um hey hey everyone who's listening this is uh this is the flop house it's a podcast where we

[1:36] watch uh we used to say a bad movie a movie that um critics or audiences rejected this is a an

[1:44] interesting case because this was a huge financial success actually a bit for especially for a movie

[1:49] like this nowadays this was a huge hit yeah it was and polarizing critically let's say that i would

[1:55] say the pre-release press was very positive a lot of which turned out to be paid advertisement

[2:02] oh really yeah now i would say i would say though that the success of this movie would point you to

[2:07] would point me towards a an appetite for this kind of movie that is so not being met by hollywood

[2:13] that whenever a movie comes out like this i think it will do well for a while until people get tired

[2:17] of them but um because i don't think because i i know a lot of people who went to see this movie

[2:22] opening weekend and then when i talked to them right afterwards we're not satisfied with it

[2:27] we're not yeah really happy with it yeah there are a lot of appetites not being met by hollywood

[2:31] right now it seems that appetites for most kinds of films are not being met it's unusual but

[2:38] especially an industry dedicated to not making stuff i mean it was a bad thing when the hollywood

[2:44] studios realized they could probably make more movie if more money if they made fewer movies

[2:48] as opposed to more movies for more people.

[2:50] More money for less movie.

[2:51] Yeah, exactly.

[2:52] But it is, but especially because,

[2:53] and we'll get into it,

[2:54] like this is the kind of movie

[2:55] that Hollywood used to excel at.

[2:58] Nobody could make this kind of movie

[2:59] as well as the Hollywood Dream Factory.

[3:02] Big budget, costume drama, big stars,

[3:05] big passions, big screen.

[3:09] A big guy, Jacob Elordi, is tall.

[3:11] He's a very tall man.

[3:12] He's a biggin'.

[3:13] I started calling, I was writing this to my wife

[3:14] and we started calling him Timothy Ptolemy

[3:17] because he looks like if Timothee Chalamet

[3:18] was kind of stretched out on a rack.

[3:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah, like you took a mouse

[3:21] and put him on a stretcher.

[3:23] Exactly, yeah, don't do that, please.

[3:24] Don't do that, yeah.

[3:25] Don't, not even for science.

[3:27] No, what would you be learning?

[3:29] Oh, mice don't survive.

[3:30] Yeah, well, I think we can figure that out.

[3:32] Yeah, it's a stretchability of mice.

[3:35] Have you guys-

[3:35] I'm studying the elastability of mice.

[3:38] This is what you're studying?

[3:40] Oh, yes, what my PhD is on.

[3:42] Varying levels of elasticity in mice.

[3:44] What have you found?

[3:45] There is none.

[3:46] But I got to keep testing just in case.

[3:49] Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack, you know.

[3:52] They're actually pretty good at squeezing into gaps that are much smaller than you would expect them to.

[3:57] That's very true.

[3:57] And I have some kind of gross stories I can tell you about off episode.

[4:02] Yeah, I don't know if I want to know about what gaps you didn't think a mouse would squeeze into.

[4:06] You suddenly found a mouse in.

[4:09] So, Elliot, let me – I just sent you an email.

[4:12] Don't open it in front of your children.

[4:14] Okay, you got it.

[4:16] Before we start, I want to say that...

[4:18] Dan, we're only five minutes in.

[4:20] Well, before we start actually talking about Wuthering Heights.

[4:23] Oh, about those heights that weather, yeah.

[4:25] I recently read the novel for the first time, in part because...

[4:29] The novelization by Alan Dean Foster.

[4:30] No, no, the Bronte novel.

[4:33] Oh, Bronte Soros.

[4:35] Yep.

[4:36] In part because I knew that we were thinking about doing this,

[4:40] and I'm like, Stuart can't be the only one who does homework for this, you know?

[4:44] He watched all those Silent Hills.

[4:46] I'm going to read.

[4:46] Thank you, yeah, yeah.

[4:47] I'm going to read Wuthering Heights.

[4:48] You're going to do the-

[4:49] Similar levels of commitment.

[4:51] The literary equivalent of the Silent Hill movies, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

[4:56] Actually, I, and this is important because I, this is a gap in my knowledge.

[5:02] I have not read Wuthering Heights.

[5:04] I'm more of a Jane Eyre guy, but that's a different Bronte.

[5:07] That's a Bronte of a different source.

[5:09] That's a different Bronte.

[5:09] I had read Jane Eyre by a different Bronte source.

[5:13] That's by Charlotte Apatosaurus.

[5:18] Elliot, have you read Wuthering Heights?

[5:20] No, I have not read Wuthering Heights.

[5:22] My wife has read it more than once.

[5:24] And so I was watching this and she was pointing out to me all the stuff that was different.

[5:28] She was like Leonardo DiCaprio meme.

[5:30] So I felt like she was my Sherpa through this.

[5:32] It is wildly different.

[5:33] It is, as Stuart pointed out in a part of the intro that may or may not have made it in, there are quotation marks.

[5:41] Oh, you did.

[5:41] You said it.

[5:42] That was the whole intro.

[5:43] Yeah, like the quotation marks are huge in this.

[5:48] It is, quote, Wuthering Heights.

[5:50] It is a version.

[5:51] Wuthering Heights-ish.

[5:52] It should have been called Wuthering Heights-ish.

[5:54] That would have been a great name for it, to be honest.

[5:56] Because there's a, I think this movie,

[5:58] well, we'll get to it in our final judgment

[5:59] some more time.

[5:59] Like this movie is looking to explode

[6:03] and kind of like extremify Wuthering Heights

[6:07] in that Emerald Fennell style.

[6:08] And I find that it consistently does not achieve that

[6:13] in a way that made an impact on me, to be honest.

[6:16] Yeah.

[6:16] But at the same time, gotta admit, it looks great.

[6:18] This was, it's not, I don't love it as a movie,

[6:20] but it would be a great magazine spread.

[6:21] Those outfits.

[6:22] Yes.

[6:22] That decor.

[6:22] There's a reason why this trailer was a huge success.

[6:25] And also why the movie, I would say in large part,

[6:28] why the movie was a huge success was that you have

[6:30] like maximalist imagery, you have two big stars

[6:34] and you have a soundtrack dominated by one

[6:37] of the premier pop stars of the age,

[6:39] who's also a huge cinephile.

[6:41] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[6:42] Yeah.

[6:42] So I can see why the trailer would, like, is super successful.

[6:47] And the trailer is great.

[6:48] Like, it got me excited for it.

[6:51] But then as you see the content from that trailer, like, drawn out into a larger film, not to spoil things, I don't think it totally works.

[6:59] Now, I do have to—

[7:01] Yeah, go on.

[7:01] Sorry, I didn't mean to—

[7:03] I was just going to say before I go into the summary, I do have to point out that I am in the – I'm starting the recovery stage of a case of strep throat.

[7:13] So you may find my voice a little bit sexy.

[7:16] And if you find people that are very sick sexy, maybe this movie is for you.

[7:22] So if you're listening to this in a public place and you feel the urge to masturbate to Stuart's voice, please find – get off the bus or subway you're on.

[7:29] Find a private place to do it.

[7:30] Find some heights that are weathering.

[7:32] And you just find a private place.

[7:34] Just water those heights.

[7:35] Yeah, go find yourself a blasted whore.

[7:39] A blasted heath.

[7:40] Find yourself a blasted heath and blast on it.

[7:43] Was that a blasted heath?

[7:45] It is now.

[7:46] It is now, yeah.

[7:50] Please.

[7:51] Yeah, the Hound of the Blastervilles.

[7:53] Oh, man.

[7:54] There's got to be a futuristic Sherlock Holmes in space called the Hound of the Blastervilles, right?

[7:58] If there isn't, somebody make that right now.

[8:00] Somebody's fucking up.

[8:00] Airlock Holmes in The Hound of the Blastervilles.

[8:04] Dan, stop the podcast, Dan.

[8:07] You go write this shit.

[8:07] Do it, do it.

[8:08] Actually, Airlock Holmes.

[8:08] TM it right now.

[8:09] That was what I was, yeah.

[8:10] Airlock Holmes.

[8:11] It should be Airlock Holmes in The Hound of the Blastervilles.

[8:13] Dan, this is what you need to be working on next, yeah.

[8:15] Okay.

[8:16] And Watson is a robot.

[8:19] Oh, yeah.

[8:20] It's an acronym.

[8:21] We just gift-wrapped that shit.

[8:22] Yeah, Watson is like this.

[8:23] W period, A period.

[8:24] It's like wireless Android serving, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[8:27] I can't tell the rest, yeah, yeah.

[8:29] Yeah, but you don't have to do everything.

[8:31] Dan can madly test this shit.

[8:33] You're right in the stand.

[8:33] You do the work, okay?

[8:34] Come on.

[8:35] I'm not going to do the work for you.

[8:37] Okay.

[8:38] So the movie, a movie about romance and passion, of course, opens with the hanging of a criminal.

[8:46] Yep.

[8:46] This is when the movie is making a real strong case that this is not your daddy's or your granddaddy's Wuthering Heights.

[8:53] And this is a – I would say this scene is a statement of purpose.

[8:57] And once you've seen it, I feel like you maybe don't need to see the rest of the movie.

[9:00] Like this scene is basically doing the rest of the movie once.

[9:03] Because what's going on when they're hanging the criminal, Stuart?

[9:05] Well, we have a blank screen and we are hearing the sounds of like taut fabric and grunts and like rustling.

[9:15] There was nearly 30-odd foot of grunt that I had in there.

[9:19] And you're like, what are you going to do with all that grunt?

[9:21] I mean, you're not even going to use most of that grunt.

[9:24] It's just going to sit around in your garage for years.

[9:27] Well, so it very much, the movie begins and you're like, are there people fucking or is somebody dying?

[9:33] And, of course, there's a person being hung.

[9:36] But the look on the faces of the crowd, it could be either.

[9:39] They're really into it.

[9:40] Yeah.

[9:41] Particularly a nun who appears to be in ecstasy.

[9:44] Yeah.

[9:45] And the people in the crowd just start having sex right in the town square, you know.

[9:50] It's like Ken Russell's The Devils.

[9:52] You might have flipped the channels.

[9:54] So, and this is where we start meeting our characters.

[9:58] So I'm going to kind of jump ahead here to the idea that we are going to meet the people who populate Wuthering Heights.

[10:05] Wuthering Heights is the name of a dilapidated manor house.

[10:10] And one of the people that is currently watching this hanging is Kathy, a young girl who is very into watching a guy die.

[10:17] Her father is Mr. Earnshaw, who is a drunk and a gambler and kind of a lout who is driven by very—he has some impulse control issues.

[10:29] Played by Doc Martin himself, Ewan Mitchell.

[10:33] Oh, right.

[10:33] By a pair of shoes?

[10:35] No, Doc Martin himself, Martin Clunis.

[10:37] I suddenly glanced at the wrong name.

[10:39] Do you guys know the show Doc Martin, where he's like a grumpy doctor in a seaside town?

[10:43] My parents love it.

[10:44] Yeah, it's a thing that my parents have watched.

[10:47] My mom loves it.

[10:48] It's pretty good.

[10:49] It's a pretty fun show.

[10:50] It was very fun.

[10:51] And in that show, he is the guy who's like, oh, he's kind of a grump and he's like doesn't like all these other characters.

[10:56] So it was very funny to see him as the guy sliding into decadence and just being a disgusting gremlin of a man.

[11:03] Yeah.

[11:04] I liked his performance a lot.

[11:06] It's very like – it's very Klaus Kinski, you know?

[11:09] We also have Nellie, who is kind of like a lady's maid who has been taken in by the family to look after Kathy.

[11:21] Yeah, well, so in this version, she's a companion to Kathy.

[11:25] Yep.

[11:26] She's more of a straight-up housekeeper in the book.

[11:31] She's not the, like, bastard child of anyone here.

[11:33] she's supposed to be like actually like uh the daughter of someone important who has been like

[11:39] kind of disowned or what like that doesn't really figure into anything there's also like this weird

[11:43] implication that maybe she's in love with kathy uh that doesn't really get explored um there's a

[11:49] little bit of that yeah in the movie there's a little bit of that and there's also a little bit

[11:53] of an idea that she kind of is struggling uh struggling for uh to maintain her station or

[11:59] better to survive outside to like her namesake be like a bird she wants to fly away her namesake of

[12:06] course to be for tato to be clear that's what the character was named after yeah to be clear i'm

[12:11] saying that the film appears to add a tiny bit of lesbian subtext there's none of that in the book

[12:16] i did not pick up on that but i did pick up on the idea that nelly kind of like feels a sense

[12:20] of possessiveness over kathy maybe maybe if only because with if kathy without kathy she has she

[12:26] will slip out of this station and just be on her own poor and you know out and about and as we know

[12:32] from every other thing set in 19th century england if you had you did you did not have money you were

[12:37] essentially living in slime like a serpent you know uh and your teeth fell out and you just were

[12:43] the best job you could get would be taking on orphaned babies and slamming their heads against

[12:48] walls like that was that was that was what it was like in england at the time if you didn't have

[12:52] money yeah well one person we will not be meeting is uh kathy's brother who has died in this version

[12:57] she he is a big character in the book mostly because the book like there's a whole second

[13:04] half of the book that's about the children of various characters and how they're caught up

[13:09] in like katherine heathcliff's doomed love uh after katherine has died like mid like she dies

[13:16] like a little bit more than

[13:18] earlier than midway through the book

[13:20] but most of the

[13:22] adaptations just like focus on the

[13:24] first half because I guess they're just like

[13:26] this is what people are here for this love story

[13:28] and also the story gets complicated

[13:30] and the story gets weirder after that part

[13:32] from what I know of it and that's

[13:34] the you know this is a book that I always hear

[13:36] about it and if I want to hear about it as like a progenitor

[13:38] or a part of gothic literature

[13:40] and like I think the

[13:42] gothic aspect of that is usually

[13:44] removed from the stories like the stuff about

[13:45] i mean eventually in the book heathcliff is digging up kathy's body at night right to like

[13:49] to spend time with it and like he talks about how he's done that a couple times and they i don't

[13:54] know that how many adaptations include that stuff in it they don't want to see the dissolute kind

[13:58] of weird heathcliff they want to see the young hot heathcliff you know also maybe that was

[14:03] implied in ways i didn't catch i did know that he would like go and like lie by her grave but

[14:08] heathcliff he is no good and terrorizes the neighborhood uh-huh but we and it's important

[14:15] you bring up Heathcliff because he is the last major character that lives in Wuthering Heights.

[14:20] Heathcliff is a waif who was, I guess, assisting his father as like a great, like a corpse picker

[14:27] or something. I don't know what it was. But he's the only person at the hanging who does not have

[14:33] a smile plastered on his face. And then later that evening, Kathy's father finds him being

[14:40] kicked by his father and adopts him and brings him to Wuthering Heights to be part of the family

[14:45] so he is kind of Kathy's adoptive brother now uh this this character from my understanding

[14:52] in the book is described as not a tall handsome white guy right he's described as being like

[15:00] unclear exactly what his ethnicity is but he is he is he is described as being darker like he

[15:06] might be Romani it's uh it's not clear but there was a uh whitewashing controversy over Jacob

[15:13] Elordi being Heathcliff and the uh the I mean it's it was not as bad as him playing in Frankenstein

[15:19] a person of color that color being blue uh you know but the I mean he's a man of many colors

[15:24] the uh I think they do one of the things they do in this one is that my understanding of the

[15:30] weather and height story is that Heathcliff really has to feel like an outcast right like

[15:34] there has to be something like so passionately charismatic about him but you know that but

[15:38] kathy knows if she's in a relationship with him it is unacceptable it will it will drag her down

[15:42] and i feel like this movie there were times where i'm like i don't know why doesn't kathy just marry

[15:46] heathcliff they live by themselves in this weird old house they don't seem to interact with anybody

[15:50] else who gives a shit like just marry him i don't he just seems like a dude i don't know just do it

[15:55] who cares and he also seems much nicer in this than he is a real fucking asshole in the book

[16:01] in a way that like I found very entertaining.

[16:03] He's no good, he terrorizes the neighborhood, yeah.

[16:05] I found very entertaining,

[16:06] but I'm like, this is the romantic hero

[16:08] that all the ladies are swooning for?

[16:11] Okay.

[16:11] He's a bad boy.

[16:12] Just want to reform him, you know, tame him.

[16:14] Yeah.

[16:15] Then this one, he's not that bad a bad boy.

[16:16] Kathy is like a kind of like,

[16:19] like a real pouty kind of like, you know,

[16:22] like difficult.

[16:22] She is a classic brat.

[16:24] Yeah, she's a brat, exactly.

[16:25] And Heathcliff seems to be the one

[16:26] who often is like, Kathy, don't do that.

[16:28] But also this is,

[16:30] and I think this is something

[16:30] that we should just get out of the way

[16:31] that Margot Robbie,

[16:32] I think she's a great actress.

[16:33] I think she's really wonderful.

[16:35] I can see why they cast her in this.

[16:36] She is not right for this part, though.

[16:38] She's like,

[16:39] you don't believe

[16:40] that she is an impressionable young woman.

[16:41] I don't believe

[16:42] that either of these characters,

[16:43] Keith, Cliff, or Kathy

[16:44] have not had sex before.

[16:46] And that's something I feel like

[16:47] you need to buy from these characters

[16:49] is that they are young

[16:50] and excited by passions

[16:52] they don't understand, you know?

[16:53] And I just didn't,

[16:54] I couldn't believe that from them.

[16:55] Yeah, I mean, Margot Robbie is,

[16:57] like, this is a crazy thing to say,

[16:58] but I think for this specific role,

[17:00] She is too old.

[17:01] It's crazy because she's not too old for most roles.

[17:04] But if she's playing a character who's supposed to be in her late teens, basically, like she just carries herself like a woman.

[17:10] And why wouldn't she?

[17:11] She is incredibly successful.

[17:13] She knows what she's doing.

[17:14] She produced the biggest movie of – and starred in the biggest movie of what last year or the year before whenever Barbie came out.

[17:20] Like the –

[17:21] She's great in most things.

[17:23] She's great in most things.

[17:23] She kind of has too much – one of the few things in Babylon that I think works is her performance.

[17:29] That was just a slight dig at Dan's love of the movie.

[17:31] You know, I'll tell you, I feel so, you know, abused about it at this point that anything positive you say about Babylon is just—

[17:39] I've negged you so hard on Babylon that those few moments where I give you a little bit of sugar on it—

[17:43] It's going to be wild when I watch Babylon and I'm like, Elliot, Dan was right.

[17:48] It'd be wilder if you're just like, oh, whatever, you know, I'm in the mood.

[17:51] If you're like, yeah, I don't have a feeling about it either way.

[17:53] Turn your brain off, you know, popcorn movie, forget about it.

[17:57] But I think both of the leads in this movie are just not cast right, and it really hurts the movie in a big way.

[18:03] And they're trying their best.

[18:04] And this was another one of those movies where part of the promotional tour was how can we make it seem like Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie were fucking while making this movie even though they are both in relation – or like she was married with a kid.

[18:17] Which also implies – I'm just going to say it here.

[18:20] We'll talk about it more later – like a hotter movie than this movie.

[18:23] Yeah.

[18:24] But anyway, we can get into the story.

[18:27] So the Earnshaws adopt Heathcliff, basically.

[18:31] He comes to live with them.

[18:34] A dynamic is immediately set up,

[18:37] which is Kathy treats him like he is a pet or like a toy,

[18:43] and he will do anything to protect her,

[18:46] even if it means sacrificing himself.

[18:50] So he will, even if she does something that would get her in trouble,

[18:54] he takes the blame for it and thus the physical punishment

[18:58] from her drunkard of a father.

[19:01] And they have an immediate...

[19:02] By the way, I don't want to keep doing this too much

[19:05] because, you know, whatever.

[19:07] It's got quotation marks around it.

[19:09] But the dad in the book is just kind of like a dad.

[19:13] Eventually he gets sick and dies.

[19:14] He's not like the drunken wastrel.

[19:16] They've kind of conflated his character

[19:18] with the son who has been written out of this movie

[19:23] Like later he loses Wuthering Heights to Heathcliff because he has been gambling so much.

[19:29] They've just combined that.

[19:31] I think the – I think about those quotes, the quotes around the title.

[19:34] Like the thing that I've seen it described as was that Emerald Fennell was getting it.

[19:39] So trying to do something like this is what it feels like to be a young girl and reading this book for the first time.

[19:45] Like it's more a vibe of the book than anything else.

[19:47] So that's – so I'm willing to buy all the changes from the story and things like that.

[19:52] But it's – but I just – anyway, we'll get to our –

[19:54] But does the movie work?

[19:55] Let's get to that.

[19:56] Does it really work?

[19:58] So they – with that dynamic established, there's already an intense connection that the movie makes you immediately aware of and you know this is – they are in love.

[20:10] Like there's no question.

[20:11] There's no moment like, do they kind of like each other?

[20:14] Do they like each other more than friends?

[20:16] No, immediately you're like, they are into it.

[20:19] Yeah.

[20:19] Okay, flash forward.

[20:23] It is an unnumbered amount of years later,

[20:26] long enough for Margot Robbie to be very grown up

[20:29] and Jacob Lordy to be still pretty grown up.

[20:33] And Nellie is also very grown up.

[20:35] Yes, they're all very,

[20:36] and Nellie is now played by Hong Chao,

[20:38] who I just saw in-

[20:39] Again, Hong Chao is great in things.

[20:42] This is probably her least,

[20:44] her like most thankless role next to The Whale,

[20:47] which is a piece of shit of a movie.

[20:49] I thought – I saw this and then I saw The Sheep Detectives, which she's a supporting character, and I was like, I really like her performance in The Sheep Detectives.

[20:57] Like, I wish that they gave her more to do in – and she's in a lot of this movie, but they just don't – they don't give her a lot to do other than kind of look disdainfully or disapprovingly at things, you know?

[21:05] Like, she's so great in, like, The Menu.

[21:08] Like, she's great in things.

[21:09] Mm-hmm.

[21:10] Okay.

[21:11] So, flash forward.

[21:13] Everybody's a little bit grown up.

[21:16] Mr. Earnshaw has left Wuthering Heights a ruin.

[21:21] He is a horrible drunk who has let everything fall apart.

[21:25] Nellie is older, a little bit bitter at her situation.

[21:31] Kathy is brattier than ever.

[21:35] The problem is Kathy keeps trying on bathing suits

[21:37] and not liking the way she looks at them and going,

[21:38] Yeah, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.

[21:44] What other comic strips can we pull into this one?

[21:47] What if it really was, they were like, it's Weathering Heights and Quotes, and it is the comic strip character Kathy and the comic strip character Heathcliff the Cat in a relationship.

[21:56] Would that be better?

[21:56] Maybe a little bit.

[21:57] And then they had a happy ending, you know, for the kids.

[22:00] Exactly, exactly, yeah.

[22:02] And then their neighbor moves in, Dagwood Bumstead.

[22:06] Uh-oh.

[22:07] Mother's luck of your sandwiches.

[22:09] When he's trying to take a nap, Kathy bothers him.

[22:12] Okay, so, and Heathcliff at this point is like a rugged mountain man with a crazy beard and super long hair.

[22:21] Yeah.

[22:22] And a tall body covered in ropey muscles.

[22:27] If this was a romance novel, it would be described as he has a body that was built from hard work, not bought at the gym.

[22:35] Oh.

[22:36] Which I'm like, bitch, that's hard work.

[22:39] Yeah, why are we-

[22:40] Why are we denigrating any kind of effort?

[22:42] Yeah.

[22:43] But you could say that this is not a romance novel but a romantic novel in the old sense of romanticism.

[22:50] So there's kind of like that, yeah.

[22:52] Okay.

[22:52] So, again, the previously established –

[22:55] So, Dan, in the original book, does Emily Bronte say he had the kind of body that was earned by work and not bought at the gym?

[23:01] Well, I mean she, like, had a real thing against crunch fitness.

[23:06] That's what it was.

[23:07] She wanted to take it down.

[23:09] So, yeah.

[23:10] Take it?

[23:10] Yeah, no judgments.

[23:12] That's fucked up.

[23:14] Okay, so, and again,

[23:17] the established dynamic between Heathcliff and Kathy

[23:20] seems to have only extended.

[23:23] Like, they are very clearly into each other,

[23:26] and they spend a lot of time, like,

[23:28] running around on the moors,

[23:29] like, picking each other up and doing shit like that.

[23:32] You know, romance stuff.

[23:34] I mean, to be fair to them,

[23:35] it is a kind of shorthand for romance

[23:37] that's very old-fashioned,

[23:38] but then doesn't do much.

[23:39] it on the same level. Look where they live. There's

[23:41] nothing but moors. There's nothing to do but

[23:43] climb up a crag and sit there.

[23:46] Like, are you telling me these two people

[23:48] haven't experimented yet?

[23:50] There's nothing else to do.

[23:51] There's nothing to do and there's nobody

[23:53] around? Yeah. Come see, there's

[23:55] a new thistle.

[23:59] That was

[23:59] what they did. So it's, I think it's

[24:01] is it around this point where I

[24:03] actually don't have this part in my notes where

[24:05] Kathy gets mad. When they go to space?

[24:08] Is this where Kathy gets

[24:09] mad at heathcliff and goes uh she gets mad at heathcliff and she goes uh at night she storms

[24:17] over to the uh to the barn that has holes in its roof yes that he lives in and she goes up to yell

[24:24] at him and she is interrupted by uh what one of the maids and the stable master uh having

[24:31] Yeah, aggressive BDSM sex.

[24:33] Aggressive horse-based sex, yeah.

[24:35] Horse-based sex.

[24:36] Horseplay sex, yeah.

[24:37] He is whipping her.

[24:39] And he puts a bridle in her mouth.

[24:41] Yeah.

[24:42] And Kathy, like, watches through, like, a knot hole from the ceiling, and I'm like—

[24:46] Oh, it's not a hole.

[24:47] I thought it was.

[24:47] This movie has stopped being inspired by Wuthering Heights and has started being inspired by the adaptation of The Scarlet Letter at this point.

[24:57] And this should be a really transgressive, sexy scene.

[25:01] right but it just like doesn't it like can't it can't quite get there it's like first of all

[25:07] there's there's very little patience involved i feel like this movie suffers from a total lack

[25:11] of patience like there is no there is not a single moment of foreplay in this movie and

[25:16] the dong in immediately and like even with and even with pornography i would argue not that i'm

[25:21] a porn expert but i've had experiences with it okay that like the anticipation of what's going

[25:26] to happen is often more arousing than the actual thing right like this pizza delivery man doing

[25:33] here but even just like the first the first you see this in movies all the time certainly as in

[25:38] the sexiest part of a love scene in a movie is often in a real movie not just for me is often

[25:42] the characters making those first tentative steps towards each other in an intimate way and then

[25:47] once you get the actual scenes where it's fake thrusting against each other you're like all

[25:51] right well i know what this is like certainly as an older man more in touch with my emotions i'm

[25:56] like what's the story here i need to know what's going on i can't just see bodies what's the

[26:01] scenario what did his stepmom get stuck in yeah that's what dan is wondering uh but like you know

[26:08] it is you say has no patience but the thing that baffles me about this movie and apologize for

[26:14] jumping ahead a little bit in terms of okay something about the end credits no i'm just

[26:19] like you're like the mid-credits scene where she joins the avengers that they gave jacob

[26:23] a Lordy stunt double second billing

[26:25] in the credits. What did he even

[26:27] do?

[26:29] I don't even recall any stunts. No, I mean

[26:31] like this movie's two hours and 20 minutes long.

[26:33] As I said, it adapts

[26:35] half of the novel, which

[26:37] is like not much of a story because

[26:39] it's just like, okay, these two

[26:41] people are in love, but they don't get married

[26:43] and then one of them gets mad about it

[26:45] and then she dies.

[26:47] And it's like, there's so much

[26:49] just like, this movie drags

[26:51] so much for me.

[26:53] Yes, it does.

[26:53] Well, I think in a better version

[26:55] of the movie,

[26:56] it would be like

[26:57] In the Mood for Love,

[26:59] which is an amazing movie,

[27:00] but we're like...

[27:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[27:01] In a better version,

[27:02] it would be an amazing movie.

[27:04] But that is a movie

[27:06] that moves slowly

[27:06] because it's building

[27:07] such a thick atmosphere.

[27:09] It's such a feeling.

[27:10] Like the feeling of it

[27:11] is so strong

[27:12] and so tactile

[27:13] and like you're living in it.

[27:15] You're living in the atmosphere

[27:15] of that movie.

[27:16] You're soaking in it.

[27:17] You're soaking in it.

[27:17] And here I think

[27:18] that's the goal,

[27:20] but you're not really...

[27:21] The air is so thin, like the atmosphere is so thin, like you're not, it's taking its time as if you are luxuriating in this sweat, for lack of a better word, of the movie, but it's not there.

[27:30] The sweat's not there, you know.

[27:31] I would say it's too dry, but everyone's wet all the time.

[27:33] There's too much weathering up there, like all that wind.

[27:36] It's more like dithering heights, am I right?

[27:38] Just kiss her already.

[27:40] So while she's watching this through a knot hole, yes, it's still a hole, Heathcliff climbs on top of her and puts a hand over her mouth and over her eyes,

[27:50] Initially, so she can't scream out, and then I guess to, like, keep her from seeing it so she can just hear the sounds of horse sex.

[27:58] Not with an X.

[27:59] It's horse play.

[28:00] It's horse play.

[28:00] The sounds of horse sex.

[28:02] But it's not horse play like when kids are horse playing around in a pool or something like that.

[28:06] I fucking hope not.

[28:09] So, and then, of course, this will establish a fetish for Kathy later.

[28:15] What's the fetish?

[28:16] Sex?

[28:17] Or her having her mouth covered?

[28:19] Because it's like she's not into horseplay from that point on.

[28:22] I have a crazy fetish.

[28:23] Sex.

[28:25] Of course, it really turns me on.

[28:27] I don't know what about it.

[28:29] There's that old Indian article, Local Man Has Naked Lady Fetish.

[28:31] And it's just about what a perv he is.

[28:33] That he just loves to see women without their clothes on.

[28:35] Like he'll even see women in real life and imagine what they look like without their clothes on.

[28:39] Now part of the reason, this is the moment where after this, this has opened up a whole new world of pleasure for Kathy.

[28:48] She starts seeing sex in all things, whether it's somebody kneading dough.

[28:54] She's imagining, I don't know, hands kneading her dough.

[28:57] She sits up.

[28:59] She's like, the reason she is mad at Heathcliff is she sits down on her bed.

[29:02] Nothing sexier has ever been said.

[29:04] You should be writing romance novels.

[29:09] I can't.

[29:10] I think one of the instigating elements between them like fighting is that one of the, I think

[29:15] she puts eggs in his bed and he sits on it and like when he reveals the eggs like it's like all

[29:23] yolk it's like the thickest yolks you've ever seen i'm like through it yeah and i'm like as a as an

[29:29] egg enthusiast i'm like damn give me some of them eggs well where do you think all those muscles

[29:34] are coming from you just slurping up that yolk yeah just eggs yeah um okay so there's a lot of

[29:40] moments of like close-ups of things like that to indicate sexiness but there isn't it isn't

[29:45] like a slug there's a slug there's a slug not since that ben affleck uh slug snail movie have

[29:50] we have slugs been so sexy yeah a movie that i would say sexier than this i would that movie

[29:56] certainly creates a torrid atmosphere in a way this doesn't this one it's like okay there's all

[30:00] these close-ups torpid so uh but things in withering heights aren't going to uh be normal

[30:08] much longer because they get some new neighbors in the form of edgar linton and his ward isabella

[30:15] edgar what is like a super rich dude i don't remember exactly they're just rich guys they're

[30:19] just rich people yeah uh what's the name of his because back then like your fancy house has a name

[30:25] his name is something like something grange or something thrush cross grange yeah thrush cross

[30:31] grange not as cool as withering heights but it's still pretty cool not as cool she's his ward in

[30:35] Is that what you said?

[30:37] Described as his warden.

[30:38] Okay, because they're just brother and sister.

[30:40] I think they're brother and sister too,

[30:42] but she's like under his...

[30:44] Okay, it's just because he's the guy.

[30:48] Okay, so Kathy is spying on her new neighbors

[30:50] and she falls and she twists her ankle

[30:53] and Edgar goes outside of their very fancy garden

[30:58] to see Kathy.

[30:59] He is immediately in love.

[31:02] At no point is he not in love with her.

[31:04] He's in the middle of 19th century England, and he meets Margot Robbie.

[31:07] Like, I have to assume he would fall in love with her instantly.

[31:09] Yeah, sure.

[31:10] Yeah, yeah.

[31:11] He looks at her, and he's like, this bitch has seen an iPhone before.

[31:16] There's not a lot of other hot singles in his area, too.

[31:20] That's true.

[31:20] Yeah, that's actually true.

[31:22] And I'm honestly like, Isabella, who is probably my favorite character in the movie,

[31:27] she's like very into ribbons, and I'd be like, get me someone else to talk to.

[31:32] I think Isabella is the one character in the movie where I'm like, this is getting into the territory I want this movie to get into.

[31:40] This character has things going on inside of her that are out of the ordinary.

[31:45] And that actress, I don't remember the actress's name, but she was also in, she was really good on that show, Task, where she plays a character with a much different accent.

[31:54] This is Alison Oliver is her name.

[31:55] I'm not familiar with her at all from other stuff, but I really liked her performance in this.

[31:59] Elliot, if you want to see primarily English and Australian actors doing Delco accents, you got to check out Task, buddy.

[32:07] It's so funny.

[32:08] They're like – they're leaning – they're putting so much sauce on that shit.

[32:11] It's amazing.

[32:12] Very specific recommendation.

[32:13] It's awesome.

[32:14] And it's a good show.

[32:15] It's really fun.

[32:16] My movie recommendation today is going to be partly because of a specific accent that's in the movie.

[32:20] So Stuart knows exactly who to talk to.

[32:21] So I know exactly – like I got to tell you, check out Task.

[32:24] And it's the preceding show, Mayor of Easttown.

[32:28] Okay, so Kathy spends what we come to learn is like a month or something at Thrushcross Grange healing.

[32:38] And in that time, Edgar's love has only deepened.

[32:41] He's obsessed with her, and he asks for her hand in marriage.

[32:47] Kathy returns to Wuthering Heights.

[32:50] Heathcliff is pissed.

[32:51] For sure, yeah.

[32:51] They get an argument.

[32:54] She reveals to Nellie that Edgar has proposed to her and that – and Nellie steers the conversation fearing that she will be left alone here in Wuthering Heights to – in squalor and garbage.

[33:13] And we should mention also Wuthering Heights is a weird-looking house.

[33:17] Like these sets are not realistic sets.

[33:19] They're weirdly designed.

[33:20] It was like – throughout it, I was like it's like they bought the sets from an unmade Terry Gilliam version of Wuthering Heights and then just were like these are already made.

[33:29] We'll just use them.

[33:30] It's a weird-looking building.

[33:32] I do like that the entryway you walk through the place they slaughter pigs.

[33:36] Yes.

[33:37] The entryway is right – is the slaughter alley, and it's like there's one side of the house and another side of the house, and they're connected.

[33:43] It's like – it's designed like a TIE fighter.

[33:45] Dan, is the book – do they describe it as looking like a TIE fighter?

[33:49] Well, I do want to say, like, certainly in the book, the Lintons are more well-off than, you know, Kathy and her father.

[33:58] They're in shawls, yeah.

[33:59] They're in shawls.

[34:00] But, like, here it is to a ridiculous degree where, you know, as soon as you go to the Linton's place, it's like we're in Marie Antoinette, you know?

[34:07] And the other thing is, so I kept expecting them to draw some parallel that, like, Wuthering Heights is a dark, gloomy place, but the Linton house is something she can aspire to where it's not weird.

[34:19] Their house is also very weird.

[34:21] Like they have that fireplace that's made out of plaster casts of human hands.

[34:25] Every wall has a human hand coming out of it holding a flower or a candle or something.

[34:31] Kathy's room is covered in her skin.

[34:33] That happens a little bit later.

[34:35] In the words of another podcast, he made it weird by making her room his skin.

[34:41] But like Audrey pointed out that maybe those hands were meant to evoke the Cocteau Beauty and the Beast

[34:47] in the sense that she's sort of

[34:49] like not a prisoner in the same way

[34:51] but like she doesn't necessarily want to be there.

[34:53] I think that's a really astute connection

[34:54] and I bet that's accurate

[34:56] but I would say like

[34:57] that the Earnshaw's

[34:59] or his Edgar's house

[35:02] should not remind us of the Beast's house

[35:05] even if it's the idea that she's a prisoner there

[35:07] like it doesn't

[35:08] it just doesn't fill the same role in the story

[35:10] like those characters are not

[35:11] she's not in the house of a monster

[35:13] who is keeping her prisoner

[35:14] and she's going to have to find the magic within it.

[35:17] No, she's clearly a prisoner of her own desires.

[35:19] Yes.

[35:20] Well, Stuart, that's the name of your romance novel, Prisoner of Her Desires.

[35:24] Dan, you're writing this Airlock Holmes book.

[35:27] Stuart, you're writing Prisoner of Her Desires.

[35:28] She's like, I'm not a number.

[35:31] You are number 69.

[35:36] See, it's a hot book.

[35:37] It is a hot book, yeah, yeah.

[35:39] In this conversation.

[35:40] Be fucking you.

[35:41] That's what they say at the end of each conversation.

[35:44] She ends up arguing with Nellie and tells Nellie that she doesn't understand.

[35:49] She's never been loved or will love anybody.

[35:52] And Nellie steers the conversation in a way so that she has to admit that she is going to accept Edgar's proposal because she can't marry Heathcliff.

[36:03] It's beneath her station.

[36:05] She says it would degrade her.

[36:06] It would degrade her.

[36:07] And Nellie has seen because of the shadow under the door that she knows Heathcliff is listening.

[36:11] Heathcliff can hear this.

[36:12] you know uh-huh and we know based on last parts of the movie heathcliff's a freak who likes to

[36:18] peep you know he's a real castle peep yeah heathcliff hears this shit and he ain't having

[36:25] it so he takes a horse and he goes riding off into a a very interesting like a very non-english

[36:32] sunset to me maybe i'm wrong i mean the sun does set there so i don't know exactly

[36:37] I heard that the sun never sets.

[36:40] Yeah, that's a good point.

[36:41] On the Empire, yeah, that's true.

[36:44] It was so foggy, you can't even tell.

[36:46] They thought that the sun never set on the Empire.

[36:49] It was just the fog.

[36:50] Just the fog, yeah.

[36:51] And all those pirate ghosts were coming out

[36:53] and bothering them when the sun was setting

[36:54] and they get distracted and miss it, yeah.

[36:57] But that's, you know, it's okay.

[36:58] The DJ made it out alive, right?

[37:00] Yeah, finally, yeah.

[37:01] Thank God.

[37:03] DJ Tanner from Full House.

[37:07] We're just free associating now.

[37:09] Kathy wakes up.

[37:10] She's like, oh, wait, I made a big mistake.

[37:12] I think I love Heathcliff.

[37:14] And it's like, no fucking shit, idiot.

[37:16] You knew that already.

[37:17] You knew that.

[37:17] That wasn't a new information, Kathy.

[37:19] I shouldn't have accepted this guy's proposal or whatever.

[37:22] And then she finds out, oh, wait, Heathcliff dipped.

[37:24] He already left.

[37:25] What?

[37:26] And he took one of the horses.

[37:27] So she spends a whole year of longing.

[37:29] And you know what happened to that horse barn.

[37:31] You know what he's doing with that horse, yeah.

[37:32] Yeah.

[37:34] So she spends a year of longing waiting for him to come back.

[37:37] This is when she gets married.

[37:39] Edgar upholsters her bedroom in walls meant to look like her skin,

[37:43] including the veins and the dots.

[37:43] But she waits a whole year before getting married.

[37:46] Oh, that's true.

[37:46] That's true.

[37:47] And then, yeah, then they get married.

[37:50] They have one of these weddings where she's wearing all black.

[37:54] You know, one of those normal weddings.

[37:56] And, yeah, he upholsters her bedroom walls to look like her skin,

[38:00] including her beauty marks.

[38:02] Which is funny because it's like soft.

[38:03] He should do that for his room.

[38:07] It doesn't make sense for her room to be like that.

[38:10] She's not attracted to her own skin as far as I can tell, but he is.

[38:14] So anyway.

[38:15] So we get a little bit of a montage of wedded bliss, which is basically just like goofing around the house.

[38:21] It really looks like they're just having a staycation over winter break or something like that.

[38:26] They're just hanging around.

[38:27] And Isabella has like given up her ribbon room so that Kathy can have a room.

[38:32] And, like, Isabella is very much.

[38:34] And also, that house must be enormous.

[38:36] Like, there's plenty of rooms.

[38:37] They can both have rooms, you know.

[38:38] And Isabella has almost, like, a childlike mind.

[38:42] She is very naive, and she brings a naivete that, like, you kind of would think that the Kathy character would also have to some extent.

[38:51] I don't know.

[38:52] Yeah.

[38:53] Kathy goes back.

[38:54] Is this when she gives her, like, the book she made of all the different, like, things that Kathy looked at or pointed at that Isabella obviously meant a lot to her?

[39:01] This is like the second character where I'm like, so is everyone in love with Kathy?

[39:07] It's Margot Robbie, Dan.

[39:09] It's Margot Robbie.

[39:09] No, I get it.

[39:10] It's just interesting that like I feel like that is laid into the movie without really it meaning anything, you know?

[39:19] But it is the thing where people seem to love her or be obsessed with her without her doing anything.

[39:25] Yes.

[39:25] I will say that there's a – so right now I'm reading The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.

[39:30] And the main character in that, she is this kind of woman where she's so beautiful and she has such grace and elegance that just her presence, people become very obsessed with her but in a way that ultimately hurts her in the long run.

[39:41] But like the – but it's just like people are so drawn to her that they all seem to want to be around her or be close to her.

[39:49] And I would kind of – if that's what they were going for with this, I would buy it.

[39:52] But I'm like – I feel like they don't go – again, with a lot of things in movies, they don't go quite far enough.

[39:56] For a movie that's supposed to be, like, shocking and, like, titillating, I feel like they don't go far enough in that idea of, like, she's just so charismatic that everyone's drawn to her and wants to be involved with her in some way, you know?

[40:07] I'm just laughing.

[40:08] You say it hurts her in the long run.

[40:09] I'm like, oh, did an Edith Wharton book turn out sadly?

[40:14] Yeah.

[40:15] She also makes some mistakes.

[40:17] She makes some mistakes.

[40:18] Sure, sure.

[40:18] Her request to marry Rich, yeah.

[40:20] Kathy, Kathy goes to check in on her dad who has become like a weird little golem gremlin who is begging for, I mean, not literally, but I mean, almost literally like his teeth are rotting.

[40:33] He's, he's just sitting in a corner drunk going, he's begging for money.

[40:38] And when she throws some money on the ground, he's like, no, don't go.

[40:40] You got to watch me pick it up.

[40:42] He goes, it was my punishment.

[40:43] You have to watch me pick up every penny.

[40:45] And like, but he's, he's essentially turning into the leprechaun from the leprechaun movies.

[40:48] That's where he is right now.

[40:50] But also like there seem to still be people working at the house.

[40:53] So it's not like he still has a couple servants and yet he's still somehow turning into a bog gremlin.

[41:00] And yeah, I mean that's a classic English folk tale, right?

[41:04] About a guy who turns into a bog gremlin.

[41:06] Okay, so happy news though everybody.

[41:10] Kathy's pregnant.

[41:11] She probably got pregnant when she has sex with Edgar and she makes him cover her eyes and mouth like Heathcliff did.

[41:17] Sure.

[41:17] And he was like, that was crazy, bae.

[41:23] So, of course, those happy tidings are brought along by a return of Heathcliff.

[41:29] Heathcliff's back.

[41:30] And this time, guess what, guys?

[41:31] He's hot now.

[41:32] And he's rich.

[41:33] He shaved his beard.

[41:33] He's always hot.

[41:35] No way.

[41:36] He's hot now.

[41:36] He's got a little gold tooth.

[41:38] He was hot in like a caveman way, whereas now he's hot in like a dignified gentleman way.

[41:43] Sure, sure.

[41:43] But like there's a dignified gentleman with an earring.

[41:46] What?

[41:47] Yeah, and he's got frilly cuffs that, like, I love the cuffs on his shirts.

[41:51] They're so frilly.

[41:51] It's great.

[41:53] I mean, guys, he looks cool.

[41:56] Yeah.

[41:56] He looks like Lynch from Team 7.

[42:00] You know what, Stu?

[42:01] I didn't even think about it.

[42:02] He does look like Lynch from Team 7.

[42:03] He's like, he should, Jacob already should start on the Young Lynch Adventures.

[42:11] Yeah, he looks like, he looks like he should be, he could play Sebastian Shaw in the Hellfire Club with this getup.

[42:17] Okay, finally a reference I know.

[42:19] Finally a comic book reference that Dan's familiar with.

[42:21] Yeah, yeah.

[42:21] From the 80s instead of the 90s, yeah.

[42:25] So, and he comes back.

[42:27] He would be great casting for Sebastian Shaw, to be honest.

[42:31] Like, if it was a younger Sebastian Shaw, he would be great in it.

[42:34] Yeah, yeah.

[42:36] And he's back.

[42:38] He is rich from some mysterious means.

[42:41] He never kind of reveals it.

[42:44] Dan, in the book, do they ever explain?

[42:46] He just shows up and he's rich now.

[42:49] But the assumption is he did something bad, right?

[42:52] Like there's no way he –

[42:52] Elliot, anytime somebody becomes rich, they did something bad.

[42:55] Yeah.

[42:56] Well, not always.

[42:56] Not always.

[42:57] There's one or two people who got rich not doing bad things.

[43:00] George Lucas.

[43:02] That's one of them.

[43:04] Yeah, yeah.

[43:05] Okay.

[43:06] So Heathcliff returns.

[43:08] He and Kathy, you know, they still have a will.

[43:11] They won't.

[43:12] They're clearly still very much into each other.

[43:16] And meanwhile, Heathcliff buys Wuthering Heights from her father, probably tricks him out to ease his gambling debts.

[43:26] I mean, I think at this point, he's sunken so far, he just has to throw some money on the floor.

[43:30] And he's probably like, ooh, yes, I'll sell the house.

[43:33] Me coins, me coins.

[43:35] Shortly after the dad dies.

[43:38] Oh, hobbitses want to buy me house.

[43:40] Kathy goes to his house to find him lying on his back in a room with like mountains of bottles in the corners.

[43:50] Two piles of bottles framing him.

[43:53] Like some of the extravagant stuff, I'm like, come on.

[43:55] This I like.

[43:56] Some of these just really work, and that one works.

[43:59] When it's taking something that makes sense in the story and like exaggerating it to a grotesque degree, I'm like, I like that.

[44:08] I really like that.

[44:09] When it's just doing strange things for atmosphere but they're not really connected to what's happening.

[44:12] Yeah, when they go to the other side or whatever, upside down.

[44:16] Yeah, I hate that shit.

[44:17] The whole dream sequence where it's the 1930s all of a sudden and they're just Lindy hopping all over the place.

[44:23] Yeah, that didn't work for me.

[44:23] Like, wait, I got to go to a play to understand this?

[44:26] Not for me.

[44:30] JK, you should go to the play.

[44:31] My neighbor's in it and I want to support her.

[44:33] This is what the Stranger Things play?

[44:35] Yeah, yeah, she's in the Stranger Things play.

[44:37] It would be so funny.

[44:38] It would be so funny if halfway through this movie Ahsoka turned up.

[44:43] And it was like, wait, I had to watch Ahsoka to understand the Wuthering Heights adaptation?

[44:48] Oh, man.

[44:49] Okay.

[44:50] There's also when Kathy is raging over her father's death, she initially seems sad about it.

[44:58] And then out of anger, she starts kicking him, and she kicks him in the head, and his teeth come flying out.

[45:04] Yeah, that was good.

[45:05] I like that.

[45:06] That's protest.

[45:06] Okay.

[45:07] So when consoling her at the funeral, Heathcliff consoles Kathy, and that immediately turns to them hooking up.

[45:16] And again, you would think we are this late in the movie.

[45:19] You would think that this is the moment where, like, they are going to connect, and they are giving into their passions.

[45:24] This is like, give me some fucking Zalman King shit here.

[45:28] No dice.

[45:29] They just start hooking up, and you're like, okay, I guess they're hooking up now.

[45:32] Like, there's no, like, it doesn't feel like a payoff.

[45:34] It doesn't feel like an eruption, you know?

[45:36] It's just kind of like a montage of them having sex in different places, and it's – I think it's supposed to have that feeling of like, ugh, they unleashed.

[45:43] Oh, wow.

[45:44] Like the flood walls – the flood has knocked down the walls.

[45:47] Like it's – but it's – yeah, it just doesn't – you don't feel that overcome with emotion.

[45:52] You don't feel that release or that like finally.

[45:55] It's just not – it's not quite there unfortunately.

[45:58] Okay.

[46:00] It's not like the moment when Pee-wee finally gets his bike back in Pee-wee's Big Adventure where you're suddenly like, oh, man.

[46:06] and now these two are together again.

[46:08] Oh, boy.

[46:09] What's going to happen?

[46:09] Oh, lock up your sons.

[46:12] So Nellie is aware of this affair going on.

[46:15] Kathy is not adept enough at sneaking,

[46:20] and Nellie is not happy about it.

[46:23] She's a little stressed.

[46:24] Later on, she gets even more mad.

[46:26] And similar to the Nellie Furtado song, Promiscuous,

[46:32] she's sick of this promiscuous girl,

[46:36] i know where you are etc etc promiscuous boy you know yeah but she doesn't have the passion

[46:42] she doesn't have the passion of the man eater from the nelly for title song man thank you

[46:47] really you get going thank you but she saw kathy turn out the lights and she knows what's going on

[46:53] um okay so she uh kathy is sick of nelly and she decides to banish at her and kick her out

[47:04] and nelly is like uh where am i gonna go and kathy's like i don't give a shit and so nelly

[47:11] goes to uh edgar and basically says uh yeah she's been having an affair with heathcliff

[47:18] which edgar does the thing you the normal thing which he says you can't have heathcliff over

[47:23] anymore of course like i don't want you hanging out with heathcliff which i feel like at this time

[47:29] Most gentlemen would not be super happy with their wives spending unsupervised time with rakes, right?

[47:38] Probably not.

[47:39] What kind of rakes?

[47:41] But I guess this rake is her adoptive brother.

[47:43] Wait, wait, let Dan play this out.

[47:45] Let Dan play this out.

[47:46] The wide ones with kind of the flexible end or like the ones that are more like a hoe?

[47:53] I mean, this rake is kind of a hoe.

[47:56] Like, he's just giving it up to Kathy whenever, wherever, you know.

[47:59] I zoned out.

[48:00] Did we talk about, like, has the weird, like, bondage stuff with Isabella happened yet?

[48:04] We're about to do that now.

[48:05] It hasn't happened yet.

[48:07] Kathy and Heathcliff are hooking up.

[48:10] She reveals that she's pregnant, and Heathcliff seems fine with it.

[48:15] But then when they're hooking up, he, while they're doing it, he's like—

[48:20] Sorry, I just thought of some gross bed talk he could have gotten into.

[48:24] By all means, let's have it.

[48:26] I'm going to squirt that baby in the face.

[48:28] Oh, man.

[48:30] I regret.

[48:31] If he would have said that, I would have been like, Wuthering Heights, I got to give you credit for being gross.

[48:35] I can only assume Elliot's based this off of his real-life experiences as a father.

[48:39] Sure, yeah, of course.

[48:41] Not at all.

[48:42] Heathcliff seems fine with it, but then part of his dirty talk is he's like, yeah, I'll go kill Edgar.

[48:50] I'll just go up and kill him right now.

[48:51] Is my fake dirty talk that I just did any weirder than being like, yeah, I'm just going to kill your husband.

[48:56] I'm going to lick his blood up.

[48:57] I'm going to kill him right now.

[49:00] Don't make me choose.

[49:02] Yeah, okay.

[49:03] So Kathy obviously still is into it in the time, but during her post-nut clarity, she's like, yo, wait, that would cross the line.

[49:13] Maybe don't kill my husband.

[49:14] Yeah, don't do that.

[49:15] Yeah, don't do this.

[49:16] And she's like, I can't see anymore.

[49:17] We're done.

[49:19] And Heathcliff's like, yeah, whatever.

[49:21] You said that last time, but she seems to mean it.

[49:24] So he's like, okay, fuck this.

[49:26] Immediately goes over to Isabella, who is clearly infatuated with him.

[49:30] Yes.

[49:30] And he's like, I'm going to be a piece of shit to you.

[49:34] I'm going to treat you like crap.

[49:36] I am never going to love you.

[49:37] Do you want to get married?

[49:39] And she's like, yup.

[49:40] And like this is one of the few – again, the Isabella stuff is one of the rare points in the movie where I'm like this movie is getting into the kind of like stranger passions that it wants to get into.

[49:51] to we're like he's undressing her piece by piece and he keeps being like i'm gonna be terrible to

[49:55] you i'm never gonna treat you well i'm only gonna marry you so i can get at kathleen do you want me

[50:00] to keep going she goes yes i'm gonna do this i'm gonna be abominable like i'm gonna do all these

[50:03] bad things you make going yes and like that's a and so they get married but like i like the way

[50:08] that that scene is structured where it's not i'm gonna trick isabella into into loving me so i

[50:12] can he's just like look i know you're so desperate for anything that you're gonna take this but maybe

[50:18] you like it too and she's like yeah maybe i do like it like that's the it's an interesting place

[50:22] to go yeah it's a certain amount of modern uh like sub-dom uh kink play yeah yeah they they

[50:29] they engage in a full sub-dom relationship which is even though it is like like textually by sub-dom

[50:38] you mean submissive and dominant not submarine sandwich dom deluise which is a different

[50:42] relationship yeah well there's a certain amount of eating in both but different types of eating

[50:48] But it's just, like, this is a part where, like, you know, textually it's kind of unpleasant because you know, like, how little he cares for her.

[50:59] But it does, it is, like, one of the few things that comes close to being kind of sexy.

[51:05] But it's also kind of, like, a shitty thing to do to the book character, Isabella, who, like, in the book, it's not, you know, he just is abusive towards her.

[51:14] And she is, like, the one character who kind of gets out of there.

[51:18] She's like, I'm not having this.

[51:20] I'm going to escape.

[51:22] You know, she goes off and has, like, part of a life in London.

[51:25] You know, like, she eventually dies within the span of the book.

[51:28] But off screen, free of these weirdos.

[51:33] And, like, to a certain degree, I'm like, well, this is unfair to this.

[51:35] This is unfair to this character.

[51:37] I shouldn't be bringing outside stuff.

[51:39] But it's like you're making her so pathetic here versus kind of like.

[51:43] I don't know about that because I think that the thing that changes that for me is the scene also when Nellie goes to visit and he's treating her like a dog for real.

[51:52] And she – at least the way that Alison Oliver is playing it, she seems to genuinely be into this.

[51:58] No, she's into it.

[51:59] She's genuinely enjoying it.

[52:00] And I'm like this gives this character – because in a dom-sub relationship, I only know it academically.

[52:06] But like in a dom-sub relationship, the sub has a certain amount of power, right?

[52:09] You did your PhD on it.

[52:10] I did, yeah.

[52:11] It was that and the elasticity of mice.

[52:13] The elasticity of mice in a subdominant – but like the sub has a certain amount of power because they are essentially setting the rules of limits and things like that, right?

[52:22] Like it is based – and it's not like they're not being – when they're being punished or whatever or being submissive, it's because they're getting pleasure out of it.

[52:28] They're driving it in that way.

[52:30] And so I think by giving this – making this a pleasurable thing for her, it makes her character much more powerful and has much more agency than she might have been if it was just, oh, it's another victim of Heathcliff's horrible –

[52:40] Well, at least just victimization, sure.

[52:42] I'm talking about how she specifically is like,

[52:45] you know what?

[52:45] Fuck this.

[52:46] I'm out of the book.

[52:47] She's the one who actually leaves.

[52:48] But what this also means, though,

[52:49] is at the end of this movie,

[52:50] when Nellie comes and, like, rescues Isabella,

[52:53] it doesn't really make total sense to me

[52:55] because Isabella, it seems to be, again,

[52:58] super into this moment.

[52:59] Maybe it's just, maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome.

[53:01] Maybe it's just she's just putting up a show.

[53:03] But it feels like, I was like,

[53:05] this is, again, the only other scene where I was like,

[53:06] now this movie is getting into, like,

[53:08] interesting sexual waters, you know,

[53:11] which is where it wants to be.

[53:12] The most interesting sexual waters, of course, being John Waters.

[53:14] But the movie doesn't get into that, you know?

[53:16] Oh, fascinating.

[53:18] You'd write a PhD on that.

[53:20] Yeah, the elasticity of John Waters in mice, you know?

[53:23] And I think it a little bit does a disservice to the Heathcliff character

[53:26] because it effectively absolves him of any wrongdoing here.

[53:29] I think that's true, too.

[53:30] Yeah, which is not right.

[53:32] That is definitely true of this movie in general.

[53:36] Like, everyone is absolved of wrongdoing in a way where the book is just like,

[53:40] This is kind of a Nest of Vipers.

[53:42] Strangely, the one character that seems to be not absolved of wrongdoing is Edgar,

[53:46] the character who is on the surface doing the least amount of anything to anybody.

[53:52] Like he meets a woman.

[53:53] He falls in love with her.

[53:54] He marries her.

[53:55] He has the expectation she's not going to have an affair.

[53:58] Like that's pretty much it, you know, for the most part.

[54:02] But the movie seems to treat him as like, ugh, why is he standing in the way of Heathcliff and Kathy?

[54:08] And it's like, well, she didn't, I mean, she's the one who's not treating him right.

[54:12] You know, so the one weird thing he does is that skin room, you know?

[54:16] Yeah.

[54:17] Okay.

[54:17] So as we said, Heathcliff and Isabella get married.

[54:22] They have this relationship.

[54:24] And this, when Kathy finds out, she begs them to stop.

[54:30] But clearly Isabella's into it.

[54:32] And Heathcliff likes to torment Kathy with it.

[54:38] Kathy gets depressed.

[54:40] She stays at home.

[54:41] She doesn't leave her room.

[54:44] Heathcliff feels bad.

[54:45] Like Heathcliff still wants Kathy in his life, even though she can't, you know, even though he wants to torment her, it's only worth it if she's involved still.

[54:55] So he's writing her letters.

[54:58] But whenever those letters show up, Nellie just burns them again.

[55:02] So Kathy loses the child.

[55:06] This causes sepsis.

[55:08] And she sickens.

[55:09] They don't catch it until it's far too late.

[55:13] Her legs are all gross and she's all sick.

[55:16] She's dying.

[55:18] So Nellie rushes to Heathcliff and frees Isabella.

[55:23] Heathcliff rushes over, but it's too late.

[55:27] Kathy's already toast.

[55:28] And she bleeds out in a massive spreading pool of blood.

[55:32] I mean, the thing is also when a woman gives birth, there is a lot of blood.

[55:36] So it's like there's a lot of blood in that scene, but I was like, I mean, like a regular birth, there's a fair amount of blood coming out too.

[55:43] So I guess this is dramatic, you know, but it's not – if it was a successful birth, it would not have been blood-free.

[55:49] Births are very messy.

[55:50] Yeah, yeah.

[55:53] And again, you know, there's some gross, exciting images here, but, you know, whatever.

[55:59] You know what?

[56:01] We did go over – we slid over one of my favorite weird things, which is the prawns in aspic that they're serving at one of the meals.

[56:09] There's just huge blocks of aspic with prawns in them.

[56:12] And I just kept thinking about, so they boil the prawns first and then put them in the aspic?

[56:16] And for people not familiar with weird foods of olden days that we don't really eat that much anymore, it's like a gelatin mold essentially.

[56:26] Yeah, it's like a big gelatin block full of prawns.

[56:28] savory gelatin thing.

[56:30] Yeah, and she like

[56:31] sticks her finger into it.

[56:33] She just pokes her finger

[56:35] all the way through

[56:35] like into a prawn's mouth

[56:37] or something like that.

[56:38] But anyways.

[56:39] That's sexy.

[56:40] I want to say that

[56:41] Kathy's death here,

[56:43] you know,

[56:43] the fact that it's related

[56:45] to her miscarriage

[56:45] is a lot more

[56:47] sort of like

[56:48] a reason is given

[56:51] more than in the book

[56:53] where in the book

[56:54] she's actually mad at

[56:55] her husband

[56:57] seemingly not caring that she is in hysterics

[57:02] and like she starves herself for a long time.

[57:05] And what I remember about Wuthering Heights

[57:07] most sort of enduringly

[57:09] is that every 30 pages or so,

[57:11] someone would get so emotional

[57:13] that they would fall sick with undisclosed illness.

[57:18] And sometimes they would die of it.

[57:20] Sometimes they would recover and be like weaker forever.

[57:22] But that was what was going on.

[57:25] I mean, they live in a really damp place.

[57:27] I got sick, guys, because I was really upset.

[57:30] You were so emotional.

[57:31] Yeah, you guys weren't complimenting my latest haircut.

[57:35] Oh, I'm sorry.

[57:35] Oh, no, it looks great.

[57:38] You're not fixing it.

[57:39] I'm dead already.

[57:40] Oh, no.

[57:41] Speaking of dead already, Kathy's dead, and Heathcliff is like, no, haunt me.

[57:44] Come back as a ghost.

[57:46] You know, I always want to think of you forever, you know.

[57:49] And that's the end of the movie.

[57:50] And that's the end of the movie, just him howling in anguish.

[57:54] And that's it.

[57:55] Yeah.

[57:56] It doesn't really, like, I feel like in this version, the, like, haunt me as a ghost stuff doesn't really land that much because it doesn't connect to anything.

[58:08] Like, in the book and presumably in other adaptations and in Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights song, it is about Kathy actually showing up at a certain point and, like, it's like, oh, is this actually a ghost?

[58:22] Is this really not?

[58:23] A better adaptation, the Kate Bush Wuthering Heights song.

[58:25] Because he does believe she's haunting him, right, in the book?

[58:28] Well, he wishes for it.

[58:30] He's like, he hangs around kind of waiting for her to haunt him.

[58:34] And she actually, like, shows up, like, the narrator of the book who is cut for obvious reasons.

[58:41] He's, like, totally unnecessary.

[58:44] He goes and he sleeps a night at Wuthering Heights and sees Kathy outside the window.

[58:50] And Heathcliff is so, like, mad that, like, he missed it.

[58:56] He didn't get the haunting.

[58:57] I mean, and then later, at the end, he finally sees her.

[59:00] But anyway, spoilers for the book.

[59:02] Yeah, he wants his screw turned, you know what I mean?

[59:05] Yeah.

[59:06] Yep.

[59:08] This is the part where we do our final judgments,

[59:11] whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie,

[59:14] or a movie we kind of like.

[59:16] And I want to say, I walked into this, you know,

[59:20] All prepared to like it just fine.

[59:23] I, you know, Emerald Fennell is a polarizing writer-director, but I have enjoyed her previous work mostly.

[59:34] And, you know, I also like, I mentioned Marie Antoinette earlier.

[59:40] I like movies that take big swings with, like, maybe we're going to have some anachronistic elements here.

[59:47] Maybe we're going to have, like, huge, like, stylish visuals.

[59:51] But I would argue that something like Marie Antoinette does that in service of making a point about the material.

[1:00:00] Whereas here in Wuthering Heights, like, I see what she was saying about, like, oh, the feeling of reading it.

[1:00:07] But I think that for the most part, a lot of the big swings kind of fights the material.

[1:00:12] doesn't actually feel like it's saying anything about the original and i just found it so slow

[1:00:19] that i have to say bad bad i just didn't really enjoy watching this at all yeah for something

[1:00:25] that's dealing with big passions i find it to be uh kind of kind of dull and a bit lifeless

[1:00:31] um i i feel like there's no like build up it feels very uh yeah it feels and most of the choices feel

[1:00:42] so obvious uh yeah just i i as well i'm a bit of a emerald fennel apologist with the previous movies

[1:00:49] but this one uh this one doesn't work and i was also disappointed that like i generally uh like

[1:00:55] charlie xcx stuff when utilized in in movies and i feel like even the soundtrack was a little bit

[1:01:00] weak so i'm gonna say bad bad i feel like for me it doesn't quite fit into our categories exactly

[1:01:08] Of all of them, it would be bad, bad, I guess, because I did find it, like you guys described, a little lifeless and kind of disappointing, less in that like, well, this isn't the story of Wuthering Heights, but instead, I'm not a Dan McCoy, but instead.

[1:01:20] I really wouldn't have cared if the movie worked.

[1:01:23] It's only that it didn't, that I'm like, well, you've replaced the stuff that I enjoyed with dumb stuff.

[1:01:29] If you replace it with stuff I enjoyed as well, that would be fine.

[1:01:33] I hope you're hungry for nothing.

[1:01:34] But like I think the – going into it, I think I expected it to be more shocking and more out there and kind of like pushing buttons, and I was really disappointed that it wasn't.

[1:01:46] And I think the – if the things that like – I think you're right that some of the stylistic things are fighting what's actually going on in the story and what these characters are doing.

[1:01:55] But if those things had been so like such big swings, then I might have been like, you know what?

[1:02:01] It feels like she is laying another movie on top of that story and she's at least using it as an opportunity to do really big, really memorable things.

[1:02:11] And I wish that there was more.

[1:02:13] It was like there's so many good people who worked on this and there's so much good little pieces in it.

[1:02:17] Like there's pieces of the art design, pieces of the wardrobe, pieces of the, like some

[1:02:22] of the performances, like some of the moments that I like, and it looks beautiful.

[1:02:26] It's a beautiful looking movie, but it just, I wish it either worked better dramatically

[1:02:30] or it was a more out there thing.

[1:02:34] Like if it was, if I was watching it in every couple of minutes, I was like, really?

[1:02:39] Okay.

[1:02:40] Like if it was challenging me more with the things it was doing, but instead it felt a

[1:02:46] like i hate to say it but it feels like a a safe version of an of an like taboo busting movie

[1:02:53] exactly at the and like i was saying at the beginning of the movie you see someone get

[1:02:57] hung and everyone's pointing out how he has an erection and then you see people just start

[1:03:00] making out and mounting each other in the in the town square and i'm like well she did it that's

[1:03:05] the move like there's nothing more that she can reach there's nowhere to build from there like

[1:03:08] this is already a society suffused and there's no there's no subtext to it and there's no once

[1:03:13] you've done that it was hard for her to top that in terms of like outrageousness i wish it was a

[1:03:18] more outrageous movie basically you know uh yeah so what truly outrageous like which one jim

[1:03:25] the musician jim no no she's truly outrageous truly truly truly outrageous i think reach the

[1:03:31] limits of my frame of reference culturally um but but i think uh i i i've been pondering a jim

[1:03:38] many, because I've watched so much

[1:03:40] Jim and become so weirdly

[1:03:43] into it, but... Oh, this is

[1:03:44] Jim and the Holograms? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay.

[1:03:46] I thought it was a new person named Jim. I think

[1:03:48] I didn't know that song, because I don't...

[1:03:51] I think I haven't watched a Jim and the Holograms

[1:03:52] since he was probably nine years old. This is why I gotta explain Jim and the Holograms

[1:03:54] to you guys. But I think you

[1:03:56] surely should. But I think it's a... Yeah, I guess

[1:03:58] it's a bad bad, but it's, like, not terrible.

[1:04:01] It's just not... It's just kind of a

[1:04:02] misfire, you know?

[1:04:05] Misfire! You'll get caught

[1:04:06] up in the misfire!

[1:04:08] It's the Crossfire song.

[1:04:10] Yeah, as we come flying out on, I don't know.

[1:04:12] Little hoverboards, yeah.

[1:04:14] Yeah.

[1:04:14] And a kid with fingerless leather gloves is going, yeah, yeah.

[1:04:19] What a commercial.

[1:04:24] Hey, it's Jon Moe, and I host Depressed Mode and Sleeping with Celebrities.

[1:04:28] And I'm here with Max Fun, Member of the Month, Cara Barnett.

[1:04:32] Hi, Jon.

[1:04:33] It's great to talk to you.

[1:04:34] We appreciate your support, Cara.

[1:04:36] How long have you been listening to the show?

[1:04:38] I've been listening to Depressed Mode since the first promo came out.

[1:04:41] With Patton Oswalt, I've been listening since the very first episode.

[1:04:44] Now, Kara, as our MaxFun member of the month, you'll be getting some prizes here.

[1:04:49] A $25 gift card to the Maximum Fun store, a special member of the month bumper sticker,

[1:04:55] and get this, a parking spot at MaxFun headquarters in Los Angeles just for you, just for a month or so.

[1:05:03] Well, that's so exciting, if only I lived in Los Angeles.

[1:05:06] But I got my eye on some stuff in the MaxFun store.

[1:05:10] Cara Barnett, thank you for being a listener,

[1:05:12] and congratulations on being this month's Member of the Month.

[1:05:15] I hear the Member of the Month promos all the time.

[1:05:19] And I can't wait for my friends who listen to MaxFun shows

[1:05:23] to hear me on the radio, because I haven't told any of them.

[1:05:26] Support the shows you love, including this one.

[1:05:29] Check the show notes for a link, or go to MaximumFun.org slash join.

[1:05:33] Hello, this is Alden Ford and Mujan Zulfagari, two of the creators of Mission to Zix, your favorite improvised, obsessively sound designed sci-fi sitcom here on the MaxFun Network.

[1:05:43] And the news is we're back with an all new miniseries set in the Zix universe.

[1:05:49] The young old Durf Chronicles.

[1:05:51] Yeah.

[1:05:52] Well, Durf, find his own killer before it's too late to find out how that question could possibly make sense.

[1:05:58] Well, you just have to tune in.

[1:05:59] Yeah.

[1:05:59] And as always, it's ambitious and labor-intensive to a frankly absurd degree.

[1:06:04] Indeed.

[1:06:04] So if you are looking for a little break from your own galaxy, we would love for you to check it out.

[1:06:09] That's the Young Old Dirt Chronicles.

[1:06:10] Search Mission to Zix, Z-Y-X-X, in your podcast app.

[1:06:14] Or on MaximumFun.org.

[1:06:15] Keep it fresh.

[1:06:19] If you're anything like me, Dan McCoy of the Flophouse, you got trouble sleeping.

[1:06:25] Oh, man, you should see all the things I put on my body to sleep.

[1:06:28] I got a special pillow.

[1:06:31] I got a CPAP machine.

[1:06:33] Sometimes I wear sleep headphones.

[1:06:36] I got an eye shade so I can block out all the infernal lights that everyone puts on anything these days.

[1:06:44] Sleep can be hard, but you know what?

[1:06:47] It's easy when you're sleeping on a Lisa mattress.

[1:06:50] The best hack for sleep might be just what you're sleeping on.

[1:06:55] And I have heard from many, many persons, as well as, you know, like a lot of ratings online, that people are happy with these Leesa mattresses.

[1:07:07] They've got a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses that are tailored to how you sleep.

[1:07:11] Each is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind.

[1:07:17] If you're like me, if you're a side sleeper, because in my case, again, helps with sleep apnea,

[1:07:22] you want something that's going to cradle you in the right way so your shoulders don't get all messed up.

[1:07:28] Lisa has different types of mattresses for different sleepers.

[1:07:32] They're meticulously designed and assembled in the USA for exceptional quality,

[1:07:35] and they back it up with free shipping, easy returns, and a 120-night sleep trial.

[1:07:42] And Lisa isn't just about sleep.

[1:07:44] They're about impact.

[1:07:46] They work with local nonprofits across the U.S. to donate thousands of mattresses each year to families in need with over 43,000 mattresses donated to date.

[1:07:58] That's a lot of people sleeping.

[1:08:00] Go to Leesa.com for 30% off select mattresses.

[1:08:03] Plus, get an extra $50 off with promo code FLOP, exclusive for our listeners.

[1:08:08] That is L-E-E-S-A.com, promo code FLOP for 30% off select mattresses.

[1:08:15] plus an extra $50 off.

[1:08:18] Support our show and let them know

[1:08:19] we sent you after checkout.

[1:08:21] Lisa.com, promo code FLOP.

[1:08:25] Before we move on,

[1:08:26] I wanted to take a moment to tell people

[1:08:28] that Joke Farming,

[1:08:29] How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense,

[1:08:31] my joke writing book

[1:08:32] from the University of Chicago Press

[1:08:34] is now available in audio book form.

[1:08:37] Let's say you don't want to read it with your eyes.

[1:08:39] Let's say you want to listen to my mellifluous tones

[1:08:42] as they read the book to you

[1:08:44] while you do other things, now you can do just that.

[1:08:47] Joke Farming, the audiobook, as read by me, the author,

[1:08:51] but I didn't read it that way,

[1:08:52] is available wherever you can buy and download audiobooks.

[1:08:56] Please do buy it, listen to it, share it.

[1:08:59] It is all of my joke-writing wisdom in one place for you,

[1:09:04] and I hope you enjoy.

[1:09:06] Let's answer some letters from listeners.

[1:09:08] Before we get into the letters proper,

[1:09:12] I wanted to acknowledge an outpouring from several people who wrote or tweeted.

[1:09:22] I'm not going to use a new word for tweeting, even though I'm not on X anymore for a long time.

[1:09:29] Dan, Dan, Dan, what are we talking about?

[1:09:31] Many people contacted the podcast in many different ways to say how they were confused when listening to the 40 Days and 40 Nights episode because they had either confused that movie with Six Days, Seven Nights.

[1:09:47] With Harrison Ford and Anne Heche, yeah.

[1:09:49] Or 30 Days of Night, which is also a Josh Hartnett film.

[1:09:52] Also is Josh Hartnett, yeah.

[1:09:54] Yeah, more understandable to me.

[1:09:56] That's that movie where Danny Houston's always trying to do it, right?

[1:10:01] But I found this both amusing and it was just another sort of indication of like, oh, I'm not like other humans because like I would never confuse these things.

[1:10:13] But that's because I'm too plugged into every dumb fucking movie that's been made.

[1:10:19] I remember what they are.

[1:10:21] But yeah, several people were like, when are they going to start talking about the vampires?

[1:10:26] Dan, is it possible for you to be a professional movie trivia guy?

[1:10:31] Because I think you would be great at it.

[1:10:32] I think you would be great at it, yeah.

[1:10:34] You should get on Colin Jost.

[1:10:37] Is that show Beat the Geeks still on?

[1:10:38] Unfortunately, Beat the Geeks is not still on.

[1:10:40] Pop Culture Jeopardy is kind of that, and I think you'd do pretty good.

[1:10:43] You just need to team up with somebody who doesn't do just movies.

[1:10:47] You should find somebody who's up on, I don't know, modern, what?

[1:10:52] Are you up on modern?

[1:10:53] What's your weak point in pop culture trivia?

[1:10:56] Uh, I mean, there's, like, a lot of, like, modern, like, internet personalities I would have no context for.

[1:11:03] Yeah, so team up with somebody who's into, like, YouTube or whatever.

[1:11:05] So team up with, like, an eight-year-old, yeah.

[1:11:07] Like, several aging would-be hipsters.

[1:11:09] I gave up on music about ten years ago.

[1:11:12] So, listeners, if you know any eight-year-olds, you should team up with Dan for Pop Culture Jeopardy.

[1:11:18] Just send them in.

[1:11:20] Yeah.

[1:11:21] I would go, like, Dan, what are your pop culture weak points?

[1:11:23] He's like, anything after I was 32 years old.

[1:11:26] like okay that's just part of growing up dan i mean yeah to a large degree i mean other than i

[1:11:31] mean like i'm still i think up on uh movies and tv sure sure yeah um hey let's get into the the the

[1:11:38] meaty letters though i just wanted to acknowledge how amused i was at uh how many people like there

[1:11:44] were like seven or eight people who contacted with that which means that you know sample size

[1:11:48] there must have been at least a thousand people who thought we were talking about vampires yeah

[1:11:53] Yeah, or Harrison Ford.

[1:11:56] Or Harrison Ford in Haitian with a plane crash somewhere?

[1:11:58] Yeah, that was the movie that I saw it,

[1:12:01] and the people came in after the movie being like,

[1:12:06] we're sorry that the movie theater flooded

[1:12:08] while you were watching this.

[1:12:10] Here, have some free tickets.

[1:12:12] And my friend Matt and I were like, what?

[1:12:14] And we looked down and we're like,

[1:12:15] oh, yeah, there's water on the floor.

[1:12:17] You were just so caught up in the movie.

[1:12:19] You were so transported by it.

[1:12:21] That's the mark of a good film.

[1:12:23] uh this one's from brian last name withheld this letter uh it goes like this dan's mention of time

[1:12:31] bandits on the gabby's dollhouse episode reminded me that i've seen time bandits at least three

[1:12:36] times from start to finish and the only things i can remember about it the only things i can

[1:12:42] remember i just what is that even what is it what was that you it's nothing uh literally meaningless

[1:12:49] The only things I can remember about it are, one, John Cleese is in it, and two, so are a bunch of little people.

[1:12:56] Are there any movies that you've watched multiple times and managed to retain almost no information about?

[1:13:02] Flophard, Brian, Last Name of Hell.

[1:13:04] That's interesting to me because Time Balance, I feel like, has so many indelible images, like the giant with a ship on his head.

[1:13:09] Like the arm wrestling and the guy getting his arm ripped off in the arm wrestling match.

[1:13:14] Does that happen?

[1:13:15] I mean, that happens, but that's in the Robin Hood sequence.

[1:13:18] But that's pretty, that's what that's, it's a quick comment.

[1:13:19] Sean Connery is like a Pharaoh.

[1:13:21] It's like a Memnon.

[1:13:23] No, I was thinking more of like, you know, like the cages hanging in a vast void that

[1:13:29] they have to swing across.

[1:13:30] Yeah.

[1:13:30] Pure evil.

[1:13:31] The parents are exploding, yeah.

[1:13:33] Spinning, puffing up like a ball and spinning around and everything, yeah.

[1:13:36] That's a fucking sick move.

[1:13:38] Like, if I'm, if I'm gonna, if I get caught in a, like, jumped in an alley by some toughs,

[1:13:43] I'm gonna puff up like a big ball.

[1:13:46] Yeah.

[1:13:47] I don't know that there are movies that I've seen multiple times that I, you know, haven't – that I don't retain anything for.

[1:13:53] I have noticed since I've been doing Letterboxd, you know, pretty religiously, like, there have been a couple times when I start watching a movie or think about watching a movie and then I go to my own Letterboxd.

[1:14:08] I'm like, oh, I saw this.

[1:14:10] Like, it has been erased from my mind.

[1:14:13] But, you know, nothing is, like, interesting as time bands.

[1:14:18] I don't mean to, like, make fun of the writer of this letter.

[1:14:22] But that's the closest you get to a memento situation is you check your letterbox and you're like, I saw this movie already.

[1:14:28] Yeah.

[1:14:28] What?

[1:14:29] I think I have this experience with some movies that I watched as a kid.

[1:14:32] There's some movies I watched as a kid, like Gremlins, that just imprinted – or Robocop, that imprinted themselves in my mind.

[1:14:38] And I remember them in such detail.

[1:14:40] Like super good movies.

[1:14:41] Yes.

[1:14:42] But then there's movies like – I know as a kid I watched Baby, Secret of the Lost Legend a lot because it has a dinosaur in it.

[1:14:48] I remember almost nothing about it and almost nothing that happens in it.

[1:14:52] I bet if you watched it now, you would be like, I remember everything.

[1:14:56] Only one way to find out.

[1:14:57] Dan, queue it up.

[1:14:58] Fire it up.

[1:14:59] I mean that would kind of be a good nostalgia pick for us I think.

[1:15:03] Maybe, yeah.

[1:15:04] But actually that could be a good flop TV season is movies from our childhood that we don't remember that well.

[1:15:08] Yeah.

[1:15:10] I think otherwise there's movies I've seen like once.

[1:15:12] I know I've seen the movie Stage Fright, the Alfred Hitchcock movie, because I remember a couple moments from it.

[1:15:16] But otherwise, I don't remember most of the movie.

[1:15:18] And there's a few movies like that where I saw it once, and I just – I know I've seen it, and yet somehow I retain very little.

[1:15:24] But mostly it's movies I watched when I was young that were – that they just weren't, I guess, good enough to stick in my head.

[1:15:31] But Stuart, do you have anything like that?

[1:15:34] I feel like there's like entries in large franchises that I'm like, I've probably only seen like one or two, and I've actually seen all of them.

[1:15:45] But I can't think of anything specific here.

[1:15:47] But real quick, so if my secret move is blowing up as a ball to defend myself, how would that compare to your move, Elliot, the what?

[1:15:57] Eradicator?

[1:15:58] The Eliminator?

[1:15:59] The Liberator, yeah.

[1:16:00] The Liberator.

[1:16:01] We haven't talked about this in years.

[1:16:02] This is a move that I dreamed in a dream once.

[1:16:04] uh that a friend of the podcast brendan hay and i in the dream were in a fist we're in a fight with

[1:16:08] two people and i said to the person i was paired up with have a taste of the liberator and it was

[1:16:14] just a straight leg kick right up into the other person's crotch kind of like in train spotting

[1:16:18] there's a kick like that but they don't call it the liberator so yeah i think being the two of us

[1:16:22] i think we're in a fight i'll be on offense you'll be on defense you'll puff up into a big ball and

[1:16:26] i'll just straight leg kick everybody in the crotch yeah okay yeah that's a good team but

[1:16:29] What's the name of your puff move?

[1:16:31] That's a good call.

[1:16:32] I'm going to say the, I mean, the puffer fish would be super accurate,

[1:16:37] but it doesn't sound as cool.

[1:16:39] So I would say probably Maximum Defendor.

[1:16:45] That's great.

[1:16:46] I love it.

[1:16:46] Yeah.

[1:16:48] Okay.

[1:16:48] And this next letter, I was trying to find the writer of it.

[1:16:52] I apologize.

[1:16:53] It seems to have not made its way into my document.

[1:16:55] Richard Bachman.

[1:16:57] It did arrive at your house in a bottle.

[1:16:59] This person says

[1:17:02] I want to point out a Flophouse reference

[1:17:04] made by Jim Carrey in Sonic 3

[1:17:06] In the moment where Grandpa Egghead

[1:17:09] used nanotech to create a giant mechanical hand

[1:17:11] Egghead says

[1:17:12] Ooh, a nano fist

[1:17:14] Haven't seen that since I hate-watched Green Lantern

[1:17:17] in 2011

[1:17:17] Now this seems like a stretch

[1:17:20] but if you go back and listen to your episode on Green Lantern

[1:17:22] in 2011, it is mentioned that

[1:17:25] Dan got a Sonic game for his iPad

[1:17:27] So I find this not

[1:17:29] It's a coincidence, but the great Jim Carrey is shouting you guys out.

[1:17:32] Probably loves you guys.

[1:17:35] So, yeah, thank you for drawing those connections in red twine on the wall.

[1:17:44] I appreciate it.

[1:17:47] But we should move on to recommendations.

[1:17:52] Movies that perhaps would be a better use of your time than Wuthering Heights, which we were all at best mixed on.

[1:18:04] I'm going to recommend a movie that I saw at the most recent Ridiculous Sublime at the Nighthawk last night.

[1:18:14] Stuart was briefly intrigued by this one, but he's got a lot of travel.

[1:18:18] He's been sick.

[1:18:19] He didn't make it.

[1:18:22] And I'm sad about it.

[1:18:23] Yeah, I'm just doing this to taunt you.

[1:18:27] Yeah, every time I see, after a ridiculous blind screening,

[1:18:32] I see Dan post about it on Letterboxd,

[1:18:33] I'm like, fuck, I was supposed to go to that.

[1:18:36] This is from 1989.

[1:18:38] It is the movie Communion, based on the book of the same name.

[1:18:43] A witness driver, yeah.

[1:18:44] Yeah, one that purports to be a true tale of his alien abduction,

[1:18:50] But it was written by the man who wrote Wolfen, and what was the other thing he wrote?

[1:18:57] It was a vampire.

[1:18:59] Oh, The Hunger.

[1:19:01] Oh, I forgot he wrote The Hunger.

[1:19:03] He wrote those two books, and then he wrote Communion.

[1:19:05] He's like, no, no, but this one's real.

[1:19:06] I'm like, I don't think so.

[1:19:10] Nice try.

[1:19:12] An early-ish, you know, UFO abduction narrative.

[1:19:19] And this movie version of it stars Christopher Walken as a supposedly normal author before he gets abducted.

[1:19:27] But he is totally Christopher Walkening the whole time.

[1:19:31] Like, he is going nuts in this movie.

[1:19:34] If you want to see unleashed Christopher Walken where he's like, I'm not going to say anything normal.

[1:19:39] Like, he's great in it.

[1:19:41] He's a lot of fun.

[1:19:43] The movie is kind of weird how it, like, it doesn't really go much of anywhere.

[1:19:48] It's like Christopher Walken slowly realizes that he was abducted and probed and has memories about it.

[1:19:57] And that's pretty much it.

[1:19:58] That's pretty much it.

[1:19:59] You know, like there's a funny kind of half resolution at the end that I don't want to spoil for anyone because it's so silly.

[1:20:06] But like this is like all of the Ridiculous Sublime movies.

[1:20:10] It walks the line of like there's a lot in here that's funny because it's just like what?

[1:20:17] What is going on?

[1:20:18] This is weird.

[1:20:19] And a lot of it that kind of genuinely works, even though, I don't know, like, it's grounded in supposed realism that is, again, thrown off kilter by Christopher Walken's strangeness.

[1:20:32] And then, like, all of the effects are goofy, but goofy in a way that is really charming.

[1:20:39] So, like, I'm not recommending it as, like, a movie that totally works like a normal movie would, but as a fun experience.

[1:20:47] I think that would be a recommendation

[1:20:49] that doesn't hold up to scrutiny

[1:20:50] if you were recommending it that way.

[1:20:52] Yeah, yeah.

[1:20:53] So, Communion, 1989.

[1:20:54] I mean, it's a movie that you're recommending

[1:20:56] that was screened as part of the Ridiculous Sublime series.

[1:21:00] Yes, yes.

[1:21:01] I feel like that does most of the work.

[1:21:04] So, since we're talking about, like,

[1:21:06] stories like love stories of obsession and desire,

[1:21:10] I thought I'd talk about another love story

[1:21:12] that actually doesn't need my help at all

[1:21:14] because it's doing some boffo-be-o.

[1:21:17] I'm talking about the movie Obsession,

[1:21:20] the horror movie from Curry Barker,

[1:21:22] doing big old numbers.

[1:21:24] People are obsessed with it.

[1:21:26] And I think it's really great.

[1:21:28] It's really fun.

[1:21:30] The premise is a kind of cowardly, wimpy dude

[1:21:35] who's like a real nice guy, though,

[1:21:38] is obsessed with a longtime friend of his

[1:21:43] in the friend group

[1:21:44] and he wants to ask her out

[1:21:47] but he doesn't have the guts

[1:21:48] so he breaks a one-wish willow

[1:21:52] to allow him to get his wish

[1:21:54] for her to love him

[1:21:55] more than anyone else in the world

[1:21:57] and it immediately goes crazy.

[1:22:00] And it's great and it's weird.

[1:22:03] It ends up being way weirder

[1:22:04] than I thought it would be

[1:22:05] because I feel like it's a fairly

[1:22:06] straightforward premise

[1:22:07] that they expand on

[1:22:10] in kind of interesting directions

[1:22:11] uh and it's all anchored by just an incredible performance from the lead actress whose name i

[1:22:18] can't remember but she's so good in it uh it's yeah it's really great um and so uh and the

[1:22:24] lighting is incredible like the lighting is really good in it uh so if you haven't seen it yet and

[1:22:29] you want to see something a little bit crazy check it out um i am going to recommend so i

[1:22:37] I – this is a – this is a semi-qualified recommendation.

[1:22:41] So I was thinking with Wuthering Heights, I wanted the movie to be sleazier a little bit, right?

[1:22:45] Like it was still a little too respectable and dignified for what I think it was trying to do.

[1:22:50] Luckily, I happened to watch a movie recently, which I think is one of the sleaziest like professionally made movies I've seen maybe ever, but in a long time.

[1:23:00] And I was wondering, Dan, have you ever seen this movie?

[1:23:02] It's 52 Pickup with Roy Scheider.

[1:23:04] Oh, yeah.

[1:23:04] And, like, I was watching it, and I was like – the whole time I was like, Dan would like this.

[1:23:07] This movie is a sleaze fest.

[1:23:09] But it's a – it's – Roy Scheider plays a very unlikable rich guy who starts being blackmailed because of an affair he's having.

[1:23:18] His wife is about to run for city council in L.A., and he starts being blackmailed for having this affair.

[1:23:24] And the people blackmailing him are the sleaziest bunch of guys.

[1:23:28] He's really sleazy.

[1:23:29] And things just keep descending and getting worse for him.

[1:23:32] And he doesn't really know how to handle this.

[1:23:34] And the, but the bad guys in it are such fun characters.

[1:23:38] And the main, the lead bad guy is played by John Glover,

[1:23:41] who I will always be for me,

[1:23:42] Daniel Clamp from Ghostbusters 2.

[1:23:44] Yeah, and Gremlins 2.

[1:23:46] He is, I'm sorry, what is that Ghostbusters?

[1:23:47] Gremlins 2, I'm sorry.

[1:23:48] Ghostbusters 2.

[1:23:49] But in this one, he's playing this bad guy

[1:23:50] who also has a heavy Baltimore accent.

[1:23:52] And it's such a funny choice.

[1:23:54] And he's such a, like, he's such a villain

[1:23:58] who is a total slime ball, is not, is very,

[1:24:02] like, articulate and thinks he's very charismatic,

[1:24:05] but is just a very off-putting sleazeball.

[1:24:08] And he's just so fun to watch in it.

[1:24:10] And he's such a horrible person in it.

[1:24:12] He's also a great villain, I think,

[1:24:14] because you immediately, like, see this guy

[1:24:17] and hear him talking, like, this guy's an idiot.

[1:24:19] But, like, the problem is, like,

[1:24:20] you underestimate him at your peril.

[1:24:22] Like, he's not, like, a genius criminal or anything,

[1:24:25] but he's, like, a lot wilier

[1:24:27] than this guy's prepared to deal with, the lead.

[1:24:31] So it causes some more trouble.

[1:24:33] And yeah, this is like,

[1:24:34] John Frankenheimer directed this, right?

[1:24:36] John Frankenheimer directed it.

[1:24:37] And it's an Elmore Leonard.

[1:24:39] Yeah, John Frankenstein directed it.

[1:24:40] So John Frankenstein,

[1:24:41] it's based on Elmore Leonard,

[1:24:43] and it's a Golan Globus movie.

[1:24:45] And apparently, or Canon Films,

[1:24:46] apparently they had made,

[1:24:48] they had adapted this Elmore Leonard movie,

[1:24:49] the Elmore Leonard book already,

[1:24:51] into a movie called The Ambassador,

[1:24:52] which I have not seen.

[1:24:53] And they changed it so much

[1:24:54] that John Frankenheimer read the book

[1:24:55] and was like, I want to make a movie of this book.

[1:24:57] And they're like, we did already.

[1:24:58] He's like, well, let me do it again.

[1:24:59] And I'll just be – I'll make it slightly more like the book.

[1:25:02] And it's basically a story about a rich guy who's blackmailed by a bunch of pornographers.

[1:25:06] And it's just the movie keeps like twisting in ways that are not necessarily like surprise shock twists but are ways where I'm like, well, it's not exactly the way I thought this story was going to go.

[1:25:15] And the bad guys in it are just really – John Glover's performance is so funny.

[1:25:19] He's such a terrible person.

[1:25:21] He's such a charmingly terrible person.

[1:25:22] I can't remember if I've seen this one, but I want to.

[1:25:24] Anyway, it's super sleazy.

[1:25:25] It's not one to watch with your parents.

[1:25:27] It's just like –

[1:25:28] You don't know my parents.

[1:25:29] That's true.

[1:25:30] But watching this right around the time I was watching Wuthering Heights, I was like, I wish Wuthering Heights had more of this kind of like, for lack of a better word, sleaze factor, you know.

[1:25:38] And so – and John Glover's performance.

[1:25:40] I think the choice for him to do it with this accent makes everything his character says that much more fun.

[1:25:45] And so I'm just – if there is ever a movie the same way that – what's his face?

[1:25:51] The Superman who had the mustache and they had to blot out his mustache.

[1:25:54] Henry Cavill.

[1:25:55] Henry Cavill.

[1:25:56] That Henry Cavill's mustache in the Mission Impossible movie is the character choice that, like, helps make that movie.

[1:26:02] I feel like John Glover's accent in this movie helps make this movie into something a little better.

[1:26:06] So it's just a real slimy movie.

[1:26:08] So I would recommend that if you want a taste on a heaping dose of sleaze.

[1:26:14] It's 52 pickup.

[1:26:15] Who doesn't?

[1:26:17] So, yeah, that's it for this episode.

[1:26:20] Before we go, we should thank our producer, Alex Smith.

[1:26:24] Check out his work under the name HowlDotty if you like podcasts.

[1:26:29] And I think you do if you're listening to this one.

[1:26:31] And music, Twitch streams, he does them all.

[1:26:35] Thank you to our network, Maximum Fun.

[1:26:37] If you go over to MaximumFun.org, there are a lot of great shows in the network.

[1:26:41] Check out at least one other one, why don't you?

[1:26:44] See if you like it.

[1:26:45] But for The Flophouse, which is this podcast, I have been Dan McCoy.

[1:26:51] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:26:53] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:26:57] Bye.

[1:26:57] Let's go weather some heights, guys.

[1:26:59] Yeah.

[1:27:09] I'm recording here on the local.

[1:27:12] Oh, wow.

[1:27:13] You're doing a cool little Vernon Hertzog voice.

[1:27:14] This is what I, it's not really a Werner Herzog at all.

[1:27:17] No, it's German, but otherwise, it does not sound like him at all.

[1:27:22] Cartoon villain.

[1:27:23] Is this closer to maybe, is it like the MC in Cabaret?

[1:27:27] No, it sounds more like the bad guy from Reacher, or Jack Reacher, I guess.

[1:27:31] I feel like it's someone who'd be like, you know, would be like, oh, Indiana Jones, well.

[1:27:38] Maximum Fun.

[1:27:39] A worker-owned network.

[1:27:40] Of artist-owned shows.

[1:27:42] Supported.

[1:27:43] Directly.

[1:27:43] by you.

Wuthering Heights

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