The Christmas Martian, with Alonso Duralde

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[0:51] On this episode, we discuss The Christmas Martian, the movie that stretches the definition

[0:56] of only 65 minutes.

[1:24] Hey everyone.

[1:25] Welcome to The Flop House.

[1:26] I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:27] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:29] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:30] And it's that time of year again, the happiest time of year, because at the time we're joined

[1:34] in our annual Christmas visit by that bearded gentleman that we're all waiting to have show

[1:40] up in our houses in the middle of the night, Alonzo Doralde, the greatest film critic there

[1:43] is.

[1:44] Alonzo, give us give us what are the credits you prefer to be used today and what are you

[1:48] promoting today?

[1:49] Oh, you know, I mainly like to be known as a person who breaks into Elliot's house via

[1:54] the chimney.

[1:55] Killer of killers.

[1:56] Let's see, I'm the film critic for The Film Verdict or one of the film critics for The

[2:05] Film Verdict.

[2:06] No, you're the one that counts.

[2:07] Yeah.

[2:08] Oh, stop.

[2:09] A podcast co-host of several shows, including Linoleum Knife and Maximum Film right here

[2:14] on the Maximum Fun Network and author of Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas now out

[2:19] in a revised and updated edition.

[2:22] What were the Christmas innovations that occurred?

[2:27] You know, it's amazing what pops up in 15 years.

[2:30] There was there was a crazy amount of new stuff to get to.

[2:35] I mean, when I wrote the book in 2010, Netflix was still sending discs in the mail.

[2:39] Oh, my.

[2:40] So, you know, it's they really changed the game there.

[2:43] But then there was also a lot of cool older stuff that I just, you know, and a box upon

[2:48] me.

[2:49] I didn't know about when I wrote the first go round.

[2:52] So, like, thanks to Turner Classic Movies is, you know, pre-Christmas week marathons.

[2:56] I now have a much fuller understanding of Christmas noir that I didn't have before.

[3:00] Oh, wow.

[3:01] A bunch of those in there and some other fun stuff.

[3:04] Are there any old movies where Santa has to solve a mystery?

[3:09] You'd think.

[3:10] But, you know, I think he might be a little too omniscient about that.

[3:13] I mean, he does see you when you're sleeping and when you're awake.

[3:15] So he also knows when you shiv that guy.

[3:18] He immediately knows who's been naughty or nice.

[3:20] So there's not a lot of mystery element that's to five minute mysteries with Santa Claus.

[3:25] That would be so fun.

[3:26] It's like a Columbo type show.

[3:28] Every week, Santa has to solve a mystery, but he figures it out instantly because he

[3:31] sees everything.

[3:32] And then the rest of the episode is just him puttering around, yelling at elves, yelling

[3:39] at elves.

[3:40] What are you doing over there?

[3:42] Get back to work, Slacker.

[3:43] He doesn't realize the cameras are on and yeah, not so jolly now, are you?

[3:49] Yeah, it's like that documentary that ruined Shelly Berman's career about Santa.

[3:54] That was a joke for Alonzo.

[3:57] Because Alonzo is the expert, you know, usually he comes with some possible, yes, X-mas films.

[4:06] You're like, practice trying that one out?

[4:08] Yeah.

[4:09] Are you like launching a torch on Santa Alonzo for that one?

[4:11] If you don't pronounce it the right way, it doesn't sound great.

[4:14] Yeah.

[4:15] I'm a pro.

[4:17] And for this year, he suggested The Christmas Martian, which I was very excited was only

[4:22] 65 minutes long until I watched it.

[4:25] Yeah.

[4:26] He totally is doing a lot of lifting in that sentence.

[4:28] It certainly felt more interminable than movies, you know, three times the length.

[4:33] It's amazing.

[4:34] So I think it was last year I watched all of The Human Condition, which is like almost

[4:38] nine hours long.

[4:39] And I found it so captivating.

[4:40] That's a lot of fucking dishes for you, buddy.

[4:43] It sure was.

[4:44] But watching The Christmas Martian, it was like it felt like, yeah, like time had no

[4:48] meaning.

[4:49] And I was like, what is going on?

[4:51] This is it felt so much harder to get through than nine hours of something else.

[4:55] So I'm glad to hear that you guys had the same experience that you guys weren't like

[4:59] I loved it.

[5:00] It was so fun.

[5:01] It also didn't help that I had to keep like rewinding like 20 minutes because I realized

[5:05] that nothing that had happened had entered my brain.

[5:07] Yeah, that's going to be a real challenge in my summary.

[5:11] So I'm probably going to rely on you guys.

[5:14] It's that way that like I can sit down and watch like a two to three hour long movie

[5:19] and I'm like, great, this works perfectly.

[5:21] But if I have to sit down and watch like three episodes of the same television show, I'm

[5:25] like, oh, no, it's time has no meaning.

[5:27] There's a beginning and end every you know, like time keeps resetting like, you know,

[5:32] so that's what this movie felt like every two minutes, maybe if not more.

[5:38] And what made it even harder for me at first was so I found so this movie is available

[5:42] on Amazon Prime.

[5:44] But when I started up that version of it, the audio and the video were out of sync.

[5:47] So I know this movie is so amateurishly done that I didn't know if that was a choice or

[5:53] not.

[5:54] And I was like, so I had to watch the first couple of minutes of it before I realized

[5:57] like, I got it.

[5:58] I got to test this.

[5:59] So I went to the to be version instead.

[6:01] And that one, the audio wasn't sync.

[6:02] And I was like, thank goodness I didn't sit through sixty five minutes of this movie with

[6:06] the audio, not not just out of sync by a couple of seconds out of sync by minutes.

[6:10] So you have the audio from one scene over the video of another scene.

[6:13] And there's a part where you can see video tracking lines like they clearly transferred

[6:18] this from a VHS.

[6:19] And I was like, well, that's just the Amazon version.

[6:21] No, that was on to be to see now I watch.

[6:24] There's a beautiful Blu-ray of this that came out a couple of years from the other Canadian

[6:31] International Pictures label.

[6:34] And I, I watched the original French in subtitles version.

[6:37] I don't know.

[6:38] I don't know what to be has.

[6:40] No, they just have the English dub.

[6:41] Yeah.

[6:42] OK.

[6:43] But yeah.

[6:44] Yeah.

[6:45] It's a great slot.

[6:46] Frankie.

[6:47] Exactly.

[6:48] And who is what they call Catherine?

[6:49] Yeah.

[6:50] Yeah.

[6:51] Yeah.

[6:52] I had a do Noel.

[6:53] Yeah.

[6:54] There was a constantly the title glitching square in the corner of what I watched, where

[6:59] I'm like, is that my television?

[7:01] No, it must be this whatever.

[7:03] Yeah.

[7:04] Yeah.

[7:05] It's old VHS.

[7:06] They use there's certain movies where you just honestly don't know.

[7:10] There's a there's this queer art film from like the 50s or 60s called Pink Narcissus.

[7:16] And it's, you know, it's non-narrative.

[7:17] It's all just sort of this very lush imagery.

[7:20] If you've seen like, like Pierre Agile or like those those kind of artists that very

[7:24] much influenced their like big, big swaths of like, you know, pink silk and glitter and

[7:30] you know, that kind of thing.

[7:31] So all the music videos, the 1980s, a lot of exactly.

[7:34] Yes.

[7:35] Roxy Music was taking notes.

[7:36] And I they they brought it back to Dallas one time and they had they screened it for

[7:41] me because I was reviewing for the gay paper there and they accidentally repeated one of

[7:47] the reels.

[7:48] And I just thought, oh, what a choice.

[7:49] And I had to find out later.

[7:50] Oh, that's not the.

[7:51] Oh, OK.

[7:52] Well, that was in that context.

[7:53] It's like, sure.

[7:54] Why not?

[7:55] It's like the old story of like the abstract painting that's in a museum for years.

[8:00] And then someone comes by and they're like, that's upside down.

[8:01] That's not the way that's supposed to be.

[8:03] True story.

[8:04] And then they bought a piece by the artist Atawa Auerbach and they came with very specific

[8:12] instructions on how and where to get it framed.

[8:15] There's like a place in Los Angeles that does their, you know, version of like it has to

[8:20] be this kind of museum level framing, blah, blah, blah.

[8:24] And they didn't know which side was up until they asked the artist.

[8:27] I was like, this is every hacky joke about contemporary art.

[8:30] And it's true.

[8:31] And then the artist is like, I don't know, because actually my kid did it.

[8:35] Yeah.

[8:36] Yeah.

[8:37] They're like, which side do you think is up?

[8:40] Oh, man.

[8:41] Just tell me.

[8:42] Speaking of not knowing which way is up, what's going on in the Christmas Martian?

[8:46] OK, fine.

[8:48] Let me crack out my two note cards.

[8:52] We open in rural Quebec.

[8:56] It's more like a small town.

[8:57] It's not super rural, but it's fairly rural.

[8:59] We meet two children, Frankie and Kathy or Francois and Kato, who are wandering around

[9:08] a snowy landscape, just two figures on a field of white, the colors blown out by time.

[9:15] It is almost like a scene from McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

[9:18] Yeah.

[9:19] Yeah.

[9:20] We hadn't mentioned it before.

[9:21] Yeah.

[9:22] This is a French-Canadian production.

[9:23] So I assume, I presume we all watched it dubbed, maybe Alonzo saw it.

[9:31] I watched subtitled.

[9:32] That's how I roll, you know.

[9:33] I must see the Christmas Martian as the filmmakers intended it.

[9:38] Yes.

[9:39] Thank you.

[9:40] I will ask some other questions for Alonzo.

[9:41] It was so snowy, I worried I turned on Quintet.

[9:46] Man, that's the second Quintet reference you've made in recent episodes.

[9:51] I know.

[9:52] It's in my head for some reason.

[9:54] I watch it with the kids.

[9:55] I just did a screen drafts episode about Altman and Quintet is mentioned.

[10:00] Really? Oh, wow.

[10:02] So they wander into a like a little grocery store,

[10:07] like a convenience store.

[10:09] And while they're talking to the adult there,

[10:12] a Martian wanders into the store,

[10:16] cleverly disguised as a bunch of coats and a hat.

[10:20] And he steals a bunch of...

[10:21] I think he's just dressed in coats and a hat.

[10:23] Interesting. Interesting.

[10:25] I mean, he does not make that...

[10:26] A fishnet body stocking made of green yarn?

[10:29] Describe the Martian here, guys.

[10:31] He's like a man.

[10:32] Matt Damon gets stuck on Mars.

[10:34] Okay, yeah, go on.

[10:36] It just is. He grows potatoes there.

[10:38] With his own poop.

[10:39] Yeah, he's...

[10:41] I'm pulling up a picture that I have of the Martian.

[10:44] He's a guy... I know he's played by a guy

[10:46] who was like a big children's entertainer.

[10:48] In my house, we call it Barsoom, by the way.

[10:51] Yeah, that's fair.

[10:52] That's probably what your grandma, Deja,

[10:54] always called it. Always called it Barsoom.

[10:56] The old country, she called it.

[10:59] So, this guy, he's wearing just regular winter clothes, right?

[11:03] But over that, yeah, it's literally a fishnet.

[11:06] Like, thick yarn over his whole body.

[11:09] And he looks like a killer in a movie.

[11:12] Mochi Aloe, yeah.

[11:13] And he's got this sort of mesh face mask.

[11:15] He's got a mesh face mask with holes for the eyes

[11:18] and then one big hole that goes over the nose and the mouth.

[11:21] Like, he should be the guy...

[11:23] He's the guy that Hannibal Lecter is helping someone catch.

[11:27] Yeah, this is the Jame Gum callback outfit.

[11:32] It looks like some kind of Martian fetish gear of some stripe.

[11:36] Like, this man...

[11:38] I feel like putting Martian in it at all is being too charitable.

[11:41] Yeah, this movie throws on Martian the way that, like,

[11:44] Americans think anyone who speaks Spanish is from Mexico.

[11:49] Also, he never says he's from Mars, right?

[11:51] He's just from another planet.

[11:52] He says he's very much not from Mars.

[11:54] That it's from a planet that we don't even know where it is yet.

[11:56] Because we're not advanced enough.

[11:58] That is insulting of the filmmakers there.

[12:00] Pretty racist for the Quebecois, I have to say.

[12:03] Do you think they were trying to jump on the

[12:05] Santa Claus Conquers Mars bandwagon?

[12:08] Yes.

[12:09] So, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

[12:11] That's the only other...

[12:12] Please, Elliot.

[12:13] I know, I apologize.

[12:16] I have to respect the debut of Pia Zadora.

[12:18] But it's the only...

[12:20] Because that's the only other thing I can think of

[12:21] that Santa Claus and Martians put together.

[12:23] Yeah, everybody's looking to cash in on that action.

[12:26] One short of a Trent piece.

[12:30] So, the Martian is, like, stealing food.

[12:34] Like, sweet food.

[12:36] Like, whatever...

[12:37] Jelly beans.

[12:38] Yeah, jelly beans.

[12:39] Candy, confections.

[12:40] Yeah.

[12:41] And, of course, the shopkeeper...

[12:42] Maple-based things of various kinds.

[12:44] The shopkeeper calls the cops.

[12:46] And we learn over time that this is not the first sighting

[12:49] or incidents where people are, like,

[12:51] concerned that there seems to be something strange going on

[12:54] in their town.

[12:55] In their neighborhood.

[12:56] Yeah, there have been...

[12:57] Something strange in their neighborhood.

[12:58] Yep.

[12:59] And don't look good.

[13:01] Who would they call, Elliot?

[13:02] It sure don't look good.

[13:03] They would call...

[13:04] They would call...

[13:05] Le Bustier Despectif.

[13:07] De Fanton.

[13:08] Yeah.

[13:10] So, and, like, you know, like, people have seen UFOs

[13:13] flying around in the sky, etc., etc.

[13:16] So, the kids go chasing after this Martian.

[13:20] They follow his footprints in the snow that are green.

[13:23] I couldn't tell that they were green,

[13:24] but we hear that they're green.

[13:27] The Blu-ray makes it clear that they're green.

[13:29] Oh, thank you.

[13:30] Thank you.

[13:31] I'm so glad someone went through frame by frame

[13:33] and restored this.

[13:34] They're also, like...

[13:35] They also...

[13:36] Like, they track him.

[13:37] There's, like, bubbles around.

[13:39] And they find, like, a giant matchstick

[13:41] that when they strike the matchstick,

[13:43] it launches Kathy up into the sky

[13:47] and she flies around for a bunch

[13:49] while she's holding the matchstick.

[13:50] And they shot this using a real crane

[13:53] that they pull around on.

[13:55] So, it was the first thrill of the movie

[13:57] where I was like,

[13:58] I'm worried this kid's going to fall.

[14:00] There's a point...

[14:01] John Landis isn't the fucking supervisor, right?

[14:04] I hope not.

[14:05] Like, her brother's constantly yelling, like,

[14:07] Kathy, you're too high, come down, or whatever.

[14:09] And I'm like, if she had control over this,

[14:12] I think...

[14:13] It's one of these, like, mini things

[14:15] in, like, dumb kids' movies

[14:17] where she's like, well, the kid has to be saying something.

[14:19] It's got to be yelling something.

[14:22] Like, she can't figure this out on her own.

[14:24] Now, yeah, you see that shot

[14:26] of the little girl, like, suspended in the air

[14:28] with nothing under her feet,

[14:29] and you're thinking,

[14:30] the safety standards on this could not have been, like,

[14:34] up to current standards, let us say.

[14:36] Probably not.

[14:37] The terror in her face, real, not acting.

[14:40] Yeah, no, it's... she's method.

[14:42] The kid, by the way, who plays Francois

[14:45] is the son of the director, by the way.

[14:47] Oh, no.

[14:48] How'd he get the role?

[14:49] After a worldwide search.

[14:51] Yeah.

[14:52] Ellie, don't launch into your rant about nepotism.

[14:55] We don't have time for it.

[14:56] Excuse, I'm just...

[14:57] Nepo babies are ruining

[14:58] the French-Canadian independent film community.

[15:01] The Mars films.

[15:03] He auditioned wearing a fake mustache,

[15:05] so his dad never knew it was him.

[15:07] He wrote his name as Joe Hill instead,

[15:09] so now...

[15:10] Exactly.

[15:11] You think Stephen King is just, like,

[15:13] a huge Joe Hill fan and has no idea?

[15:15] This guy looks exactly like me.

[15:17] He's great.

[15:18] Weirdly, I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night.

[15:21] Oh, that is weird.

[15:22] And maybe Joe Hill has memories.

[15:24] He's like, I remember my mom would go out

[15:26] on dates with a guy named Richard Bachman.

[15:31] Okay, he was always a running man.

[15:34] I don't... that didn't work, but I tried it.

[15:36] You know, I tried it.

[15:37] He had a problem with the Turner overdrive.

[15:40] It was a long walk, but it didn't pay off.

[15:42] Yeah, thank you.

[15:45] So, at one point, while she's hanging in the air,

[15:49] her brother's like, just fall, it's snow,

[15:51] it's soft or something.

[15:53] So she falls and, of course, does not injure herself.

[15:55] And is fine, yeah.

[15:56] But there's hard ground beneath that snow.

[15:59] And snow, when compacted, can get pretty hard.

[16:02] Also, no matter how soft the snow is,

[16:04] if you're falling from 20 feet, 30 feet,

[16:08] it'll probably hurt, yeah.

[16:10] If Spider-Man tries to stop you from falling,

[16:12] he'd be good.

[16:13] He could still snap your neck if he does it by the feet.

[16:15] Yeah, exactly.

[16:16] He's lost a good girlfriend that way.

[16:18] At least one.

[16:20] That we know of.

[16:22] I don't know how many he's got stashed in his closet.

[16:27] So, but this is a kid's movie,

[16:29] so, of course, she's not mangled or killed.

[16:31] She's not mangled.

[16:32] So they eventually find the Martian's UFO.

[16:35] It's like a red saucer that is partially covered in snow.

[16:39] And it's, like, lodged in a snowbank.

[16:42] They explore for a little bit.

[16:43] They find their way inside.

[16:46] And they eventually bump into the Martian himself.

[16:50] Who, we'll remind everyone, is not from Mars.

[16:52] Not from Mars at all.

[16:54] He looks like a weird man in fetish gear.

[16:57] And they, after a brief interaction,

[17:01] they bond over a shared love of candy.

[17:04] And they learn that the Martian is stuck there.

[17:07] That he's an alien from a distant galaxy.

[17:10] And that he was, what, like, exploring or observing planets

[17:14] when his ship crashed.

[17:16] And he needs a part fixed in order to leave.

[17:20] I think it's important that this movie,

[17:22] much like Oogie Loves with Generations Later,

[17:24] reminds children that when you meet a stranger,

[17:26] it's always a great idea to go into their vehicle and have candy.

[17:32] He seems super nice and normal for a kid.

[17:35] Sure.

[17:36] Upright guy.

[17:37] Oh, of course.

[17:39] There's a moment in that scene where he's trying to figure out

[17:43] what language they speak.

[17:44] And he's kind of going through different languages.

[17:46] And in this English dub, at least, to find English,

[17:48] he starts reciting the Declaration of Independence.

[17:51] And it was like, wait, this isn't yours.

[17:53] Hold on a second.

[17:57] Canada has a rich history of their own English language documents

[18:00] that they could have leaned upon here.

[18:02] I assume.

[18:03] I don't know any of them.

[18:04] Get Guy Branum in here.

[18:05] He'll tell us all about it.

[18:06] I like the idea that they're swinging for the fences,

[18:09] where they're like, let's use an American thing

[18:11] so that we'll play well in American audiences.

[18:14] That's where the rally is.

[18:15] When it hits the multiplexes.

[18:16] Not reading the Canadian hockey code or whatever.

[18:19] Yeah.

[18:20] Recipe for, I don't know, like maple syrup or Tim Horton's menus.

[18:24] Recipe for maple syrup.

[18:25] Kind of one of the cool ideas here is the idea that he crafts a beverage

[18:30] that allows them to understand each other.

[18:33] Again, like kids, drink what the stranger gives you.

[18:35] But, you know, the idea that it's not just like some mechanical thing,

[18:41] but a liquid, I thought was kind of groovy.

[18:43] Yeah.

[18:44] Because they believe in organic technology that changes the user.

[18:47] Mm-hmm.

[18:48] Yeah.

[18:49] I don't know if you've heard of the little Canadian filmmaker,

[18:51] David Cronenberg.

[18:53] It would be so funny if it was like, this is his earliest work, uncredited.

[18:58] Yeah, the new flesh.

[18:59] The failure of this catapulted him in a different direction.

[19:03] He's told they get to do children's movies.

[19:05] The one scene where the Martian just chomps down on plastic all the time.

[19:08] I mean, that's our future, buddy.

[19:11] I was reading something recently that was talking about,

[19:14] I think it was them reaching out to David Cronenberg

[19:16] to potentially direct Return of the Jedi,

[19:19] maybe after David Lynch had turned them down.

[19:21] And him saying, he said something about like,

[19:23] I lost it halfway through the phone call.

[19:25] What would that sound like when David Lynch turned them down?

[19:28] I don't think it's the right film for me, George.

[19:32] I mean, I appreciate the invitation and all.

[19:36] Trust me, I respect what you're doing, but it's not my kind of work.

[19:40] That's the kind of thing he would say?

[19:41] Yeah.

[19:42] Because that's what he said about it.

[19:43] David Lynch was open about it.

[19:44] He's like, yeah, I knew it wasn't going to be my movie,

[19:46] so I didn't want to make it.

[19:47] I'm more suited for Dune.

[19:52] I don't really want to work with little bears, George.

[19:55] Not this way, anyway.

[19:58] Maybe in a dream.

[20:00] Here's my pitch, they go to a diner, and George Lucas is like, there's no diners in Star Wars.

[20:07] And then years later, he put that one diner in episode two, and David Lynch calls out,

[20:12] George, you told me there were no diners in the Star Wars universe.

[20:16] I'm a Lucas.

[20:18] Okay, so the kids offer.

[20:21] This is the lawsuit of Lynch v. Lucas over the ownership of character Dexter Jetster,

[20:26] space diner owner.

[20:27] So you know, this doesn't happen yet in the movie, but it happens later.

[20:34] But I feel like it's important to bring up the name of the Martian, so I don't just keep

[20:38] calling him the Martian.

[20:40] Now his name, of course, is in an alien tongue that would be far too difficult for a human

[20:44] to pronounce.

[20:45] Oh, your tongue would just tear out and fall out of your mouth if you tried to say it,

[20:48] yeah.

[20:49] Roughly translated into English, it means poo flower.

[20:53] Now that was hilarious.

[20:54] Yeah.

[20:55] Yeah.

[20:57] Yeah, that was, I mean, it was a thing that was in the movie, for sure.

[20:59] Did it wake you up out of your slumber, Dan?

[21:02] I, you know, I was just like watching it, like, why is it, why is this happening?

[21:07] Like, the movie is not like, like, the movie is so, I mean, it's dumb, but it's so innocent

[21:15] otherwise that I'm like, why does, why is there this scatological thing in here that's

[21:18] not like a joke?

[21:19] Like, it's not funny that his name is poo flower.

[21:23] So is this any different in the original French or Quebecois?

[21:27] It is.

[21:28] I don't remember the actual phrase, but it's essentially poo flower.

[21:33] They're being true to the OG.

[21:34] They were playing lowbrow for the English audience.

[21:36] No, no, no.

[21:37] They were respecting the auteur's intention.

[21:39] I mean, give them credit.

[21:41] They got to the joke before Douglas Adams did of having an alien with an embarrassing

[21:45] sounding name, because that was this whole thing with Slaughty Bartfast.

[21:48] The idea that he has a name that he's embarrassed about.

[21:50] So you know what?

[21:51] I mean, that's a badass name.

[21:52] I was going to name my first born Slaughty Bartfast.

[21:54] Slaughty Bartfast is a great name.

[21:56] I have to say as a kid, like, and even now to some degree, but like as a kid, I was like,

[22:01] what?

[22:02] Like, is that like a particularly embarrassing name?

[22:06] Like, I guess it sounds kind of like fart or like it's got like gross sounds in it,

[22:13] but I'm like, what?

[22:14] Let's go to, let's go to, let's go down Adams Avenue to Hitchhiker's Corner, my regular

[22:18] segment where I tell you things about Douglas Adams writing Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

[22:21] I love this segment.

[22:22] So he wanted a name that sounded like it was, could be filthy, but wasn't actually, because

[22:27] he was doing this for the radio.

[22:29] And he says it is in the behind the scenes writings that he started with the name Farty

[22:34] Fuck Balls as the name of the guy, and then like, and kind of like drained it of actual

[22:39] swear words until he got to Slaughty Bartfast, something that sounded vaguely vulgar, but

[22:44] was not actually vulgar.

[22:45] Right.

[22:46] So.

[22:47] Okay.

[22:48] Yeah.

[22:49] I mean, look, I love the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but for me, that part fell

[22:51] flat.

[22:52] I think, I think Farty Fuck Balls was from the original draft of the Christmas Martian.

[22:56] They're like, no, it's for kids.

[22:58] It's for kids.

[22:59] Poo Flower.

[23:00] What about Poo Flower?

[23:01] Sure.

[23:02] I guess so.

[23:03] We have three names for this Martian.

[23:04] We can use Farty Fuck Balls, Sucky Dick Suck, and Poo Flower.

[23:07] I guess we got to go with Poo Flower.

[23:09] Those are the only three options.

[23:10] Yeah.

[23:11] Those are the three options the Canadian Film Court said we could use.

[23:13] We got to pick one of them.

[23:14] All right.

[23:15] Everything else.

[23:16] Yeah.

[23:17] Everything else is already copywritten.

[23:18] It's already copywritten.

[23:19] Every other name that exists.

[23:20] Every other possible name.

[23:21] I'm sorry.

[23:22] We tried to clear Clitoris Jones, but it turns out there was a man with that name, so we

[23:31] couldn't do it.

[23:32] Yeah.

[23:33] Yeah.

[23:34] He lives in Toronto.

[23:35] No.

[23:36] Damn it.

[23:37] What about Queen Elizabeth II?

[23:38] No.

[23:39] Can't do it.

[23:40] Can't do it.

[23:41] Can't do it, Sally.

[23:42] Okay.

[23:43] So the kids offered to help Poo Flower by, I'm just going to call them the Martian again.

[23:50] I don't know why I brought it up.

[23:51] Yeah.

[23:52] They offered to help the Martian because...

[23:53] It certainly meant I got to say a lot of bad words.

[23:54] So that was really worth it, yeah.

[23:55] Because their uncle is a welder.

[23:57] So they decide to pile onto a nearby passing sledge and ride across the landscape, eventually

[24:04] realizing this is going too slow.

[24:05] What's on that sledge?

[24:06] Well, like a bunch of wood.

[24:07] Wait.

[24:08] Is it a bunch of wood?

[24:09] What is it?

[24:10] It's manure.

[24:11] Manure.

[24:12] Oh.

[24:13] And the Martian is like, I don't know what this smell is, but it's certainly vivid.

[24:18] And the girl says, you know, it smells bad, but it sure grows vegetables or something.

[24:23] Oh, that's right.

[24:25] This really doubles as just a catalog of ways to travel across snow.

[24:30] Every way you can find to travel across snow, somebody does in this movie.

[24:34] I'd like to commend Stuart at this point, by the way.

[24:38] I commend him and make it clear to the audience that his summary is so much clearer than anything

[24:43] that happens in the film, because the film alternates between like low speed shenanigans

[24:48] that go on forever and like cutaways to random people in the town doing bits of business.

[24:56] And it all feels so disjointed.

[24:58] This is classic.

[24:59] I mean, there's this the kind of movie I haven't watched in a long time where it's like a classic

[25:02] 60s, 70s, low budget film where none of the shots are long enough or they're way too long.

[25:09] And it's clear they didn't get the coverage they needed for scenes.

[25:12] And it's clear that like dialogue.

[25:14] I mean, we're watching the dubbed version anyway, but I assume the dialogue was dubbed

[25:17] in at the last minute, even in the French one, to explain what's going on on screen

[25:21] at times like the it's a just like real amateurish stuff.

[25:25] It was kind of refreshing.

[25:26] Well, welcome to my childhood.

[25:27] I grew up on all the Disney movies that you won't find on Disney Plus because they're

[25:32] just not all that good.

[25:33] Song of the South.

[25:34] That kind of thing.

[25:35] Yeah.

[25:36] No.

[25:38] I mean, with a name like Million Dollar Duck, though, I mean, like he puts butts in seats.

[25:53] There's only one million dollar duck and that's Howard while Uncle Scrooge is living.

[25:58] Well, he's got so much more than a million.

[26:02] He would be mad.

[26:03] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[26:04] Yeah.

[26:05] Take issue.

[26:06] OK, so the so they ride across, they ride across the snow, they realize this isn't going

[26:12] fast enough.

[26:13] So the Martian takes the kids off the sledge and he strikes one of his giant matches and

[26:18] they fly away.

[26:19] And the adult is like, what the fuck I'm realizing I'm realizing we don't have to spend a lot

[26:24] of time on it.

[26:25] But but we skipped very early on the part where an adult sees the Martian fly away and

[26:28] he's dressed like Mary Poppins, I guess, for some reason.

[26:31] Yeah, the Martians in drag at one point and he calls a cab or he is in a phone booth and

[26:36] a cab shows up.

[26:37] I'm not sure what the connection there is, but then he just flies away like Mary Poppins.

[26:40] Yeah.

[26:41] And even like Cox's legs in that like, woohoo, I'm flying away.

[26:45] It's yeah.

[26:46] It's a moment.

[26:47] I can't remember the order of things.

[26:48] Have we got to the part where the one guy also who has like seen the spaceship like

[26:54] talks about how he saw the this giant egg, the biggest egg.

[26:58] I mean, this is kind of like in interspersed in these scenes with the kids and the Martian.

[27:05] We see the townspeople kind of sharing their suspicions of the strange happenings around

[27:09] town.

[27:10] Usually this is held at like the general store.

[27:12] Maybe the sheriff wants his chest out.

[27:15] It's like the local package store or whatever, you know, you don't get anything and you try

[27:19] to.

[27:20] I don't feel like we need to dwell on any of those scenes.

[27:24] So like the Warriors, there's a DJ who pops in periodically to let us know that like reports

[27:29] of UFOs are a prank.

[27:31] I just want to acknowledge in the children's parents where the mother keeps being like

[27:34] our children never came back home for lunch and dad's like, it's fine.

[27:38] It's fine.

[27:39] They're on vacation.

[27:40] Yeah.

[27:41] I just wanted to acknowledge the existence of those scenes, but also that scene in particular

[27:44] had me clutching my head a little bit because I'm like, why is this fucking idiot like so

[27:48] fixated on the idea that this was like not literally not that just look like an egg.

[27:53] It was a literal giant egg.

[27:54] And man, if I could get my hands on that fucking egg, I'd have the biggest egg.

[27:58] I'd be so rich in egg.

[27:59] It's all that.

[28:00] You're going to make an omelette like nobody's business.

[28:01] And also it's the only, it's the only like flashback in the movie, right?

[28:08] He's telling a story and then we flashback to him seeing it, but we know there's an alien

[28:12] in this movie at this point.

[28:13] Like there's no, this is normally in a, in a regular movie, this is what you would show

[28:16] earlier to build up to the idea that there's something strange in the neighborhood and

[28:21] it don't look good.

[28:22] But this year it's happening in the middle and we already know about it.

[28:25] It's just, yeah.

[28:26] And so, and also the vast majority of this movie has no music and that except for when

[28:30] it does, which is just the theme music.

[28:32] That's like, dude, Luke, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude,

[28:36] right?

[28:37] Something like that.

[28:38] We don't have the rights to that music.

[28:39] Oh no.

[28:40] Oh no.

[28:41] Oh no.

[28:42] Let me get some.

[28:43] Uh, yeah.

[28:44] Like what are they like beaver bucks?

[28:45] When they use

[28:46] to live there right now.

[28:55] Okay.

[28:58] So the shout out to our friend, Eric Mars, Zach, who got while the getting was good and

[29:02] moved from New York to Canada years ago, as I said, the adults are getting suspicious.

[29:09] They are in, they basically form a posse over time, uh, to figure this out.

[29:15] So the kids, uh, eat a stolen turkey and a whole bunch of candy.

[29:19] They learn about their new martian friend turkey that, that they, that they took.

[29:23] It's not like they stole it from the store and ate it raw.

[29:25] You know what I mean?

[29:26] We know that he's not above stealing.

[29:27] So that's fine.

[29:28] They didn't steal a live property off a farm and then tear it apart in a sort of suddenly

[29:32] last summer type, type massacre, you know, is that the second suddenly last summer reference

[29:37] you've made recently?

[29:38] I think so.

[29:39] We did it.

[29:40] We recently did our live shows in Chicago and also made a suddenly last summer for some

[29:42] reason, suddenly last summer and, uh, and a quintet have been on my mind quite a bit.

[29:47] So I don't know why, you know, I like my entire, I would, I would say the majority of my therapy

[29:57] appointment this week was based on.

[30:00] me having seen a movie, which is not uncommon in my therapy session.

[30:03] The Chris' Martian?

[30:04] Yeah.

[30:05] I was like, uh, doc, can you kill me?

[30:10] Can you, yeah, can you do the, uh, can you do the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

[30:15] treatment for me, please?

[30:16] Just for this movie?

[30:17] Just wipe it right out?

[30:18] Yeah.

[30:19] I know what you suddenly did last summer.

[30:20] Is that anything?

[30:22] It could be, yeah.

[30:23] I mean, the audiences that would get either side of it don't match at all.

[30:27] Yeah.

[30:28] Yeah.

[30:29] It's true.

[30:30] It's just Alonzo.

[30:31] I feel like the only way you can test this theory, Dan, is to like, make it into a, what,

[30:36] a one panel gag comic or something?

[30:38] Yeah.

[30:39] But does Dan have the technology to do that?

[30:41] Yeah.

[30:42] Send it into, what, to the New Yorker?

[30:43] New Yorkers looking for shit like that?

[30:45] Yeah.

[30:46] That's what they love.

[30:47] Somebody have like a little comic contest?

[30:50] You could win that shit.

[30:51] A little comic contest.

[30:52] Okay.

[30:53] So, uh.

[30:54] Dan, why don't you just stick that in as the caption of whatever, whatever panel they've

[30:55] got in there.

[30:56] Yeah, sure.

[30:57] So, this is a newly fixed and cleaned of snow, uh, uh, UFO.

[31:02] They managed to fly this flying saucer and they go for a little ride around the world.

[31:07] Not without a couple of false starts and hiccups, like when they're clearing the snow off and

[31:12] they almost get take off and they almost all die.

[31:15] But luckily they don't.

[31:16] Is this the part where they go to the desert?

[31:19] I think so.

[31:20] Yeah.

[31:21] Oh, look, it's the Sahara desert.

[31:23] And they're like, they're like, wow.

[31:24] And then there's just like a static scene of them staring out the fake window where

[31:29] there's like, you know, green screened in, like just dunes, sand dunes, as the caption

[31:35] of it lingers so long.

[31:37] It's worth noting that the UFO is a TARDIS and that it is way bigger on the inside than

[31:41] it would appear to be on the outside.

[31:43] On the outside, it looks like a really cool, like early seventies, like the sort of light

[31:49] fixture you would have hanging over the dining room table.

[31:52] Yeah.

[31:53] You thought so?

[31:54] It looks like an egg.

[31:55] It also looks like an egg.

[31:56] Nothing like an egg.

[31:57] Now that you mention it, no.

[31:59] They also, we should mention also that, so this, this flying saucer has a long antenna

[32:02] on the top that you never really see the top of because there's clearly the wire that it

[32:06] is hanging from.

[32:07] Yes.

[32:08] I was going to ask whether that was intended to be the antenna and that's how they're getting

[32:11] away with the most egregious wire that I have ever seen.

[32:14] Yeah, because it's, it's the same, they're using the same crane that yanked that young

[32:18] girl around.

[32:19] Yeah, they rented it for the day.

[32:21] You got to use it for other things.

[32:22] I love my husband.

[32:24] We recently opened the MoMA design store website, uh, the Nelson saucer bubble from Herman Miller

[32:31] light fixture.

[32:32] And yeah, that's exactly what this thing looks like.

[32:34] Have your own little Christmas version in your house.

[32:36] In red, yeah.

[32:37] It's red.

[32:38] For the Christmas collection.

[32:39] Yeah.

[32:40] Um, okay.

[32:41] So they take a ride.

[32:42] The MoMA Christmas collection.

[32:43] They take a ride around the world.

[32:45] Around the world, around the world.

[32:50] They, uh, they, uh, they return to their town and like, he tells them they're taking

[32:59] a ride around the world.

[33:00] He's just showing them images on a video screen.

[33:02] It's possible.

[33:03] They're not going anywhere.

[33:04] It's like a Disney dark ride, you know, it's like a Nathan Fielder bit.

[33:09] Um, so they are flying over there, Capico town.

[33:13] They're pointing out things they know.

[33:14] They point out the road that leads to grandma's house, which I feel like expands the universe

[33:18] of this movie considerably.

[33:20] Well, they're opening it up for a spinoff sequel.

[33:22] Yeah.

[33:23] The Martian and the grandma.

[33:24] The, uh, they, they say goodbye, uh, they wander off into the night to return home.

[33:33] Oh, wait, I should say before you say the part where they're excited to see their own

[33:37] hometown.

[33:38] That was the one moment in the movie that I genuinely really liked a lot that these

[33:42] kids, he's like, this is Antarctica, here's this desert, but then seeing their own town

[33:47] from above, it seems genuinely thrilling to them.

[33:49] They're like, oh yeah, there's the road there.

[33:51] And I thought that was a, I don't know if they meant it that way, but that felt like

[33:53] a richly observed, you know, the idea that like, yeah, the thing they're most excited

[33:57] about is seeing where they live, but just from a different angle.

[34:00] And this movie came out, by the way, the same year as Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory,

[34:04] which at the end of the movie, they're looking down from the great glass elevator to their

[34:08] own town.

[34:09] So that was the big competition for some reason, that was the competition in the theaters.

[34:13] They're like, who's going to win the weekend?

[34:21] We got to delay the release of Willy Wonka by three weeks.

[34:23] We don't want to get stepped on by the Christmas Martian.

[34:26] So the kids leave right in time for the posse to arrive.

[34:31] So the Martians looking out his view screen and he sees just like a sea of foreboding

[34:37] lights heading in his direction.

[34:39] It looks like all like snowmobiles, which there was briefly a little confusion because

[34:45] the kids stole a snowmobile earlier.

[34:47] Do you remember that?

[34:48] They kept stealing the welder's stuff, their welder uncle, they kept stealing his things

[34:52] and bringing them back.

[34:53] And the police officer would be like, he said it was stolen.

[34:55] Exactly.

[34:56] And now it's back.

[34:57] Arrest someone.

[34:58] But I thought the shot of the snowmobile is all coming through from the darkness.

[35:03] Very Mad Max.

[35:04] Yeah.

[35:05] Very Mad Max.

[35:06] I liked it.

[35:07] It was a little scary.

[35:08] And I was like, all right.

[35:10] It's a better shot from a different movie where it's like evil snowmobile or the Oxbow

[35:12] incident.

[35:13] I want to talk about this moment.

[35:18] At this point, like the Martian can leave in his ship, but he sees these people coming

[35:24] out and he's like, oh, you know, oh, there are more friends are coming in to say hi or

[35:27] whatever.

[35:28] He goes out and because he represents the spirit of fun, Dan, right?

[35:32] But then this posse starts chasing him around.

[35:35] And the fucking Martian doesn't just like get back in his goddamn ship and take off.

[35:40] He like runs around the snow for a long time, which powers like a god.

[35:44] The point at which I text Alonzo saying that I hate him.

[35:48] I hate this idiot.

[35:51] Yeah.

[35:52] You're welcome.

[35:53] He is so advanced that he he has nothing to fear from these primitive humans.

[35:58] Yeah.

[35:59] Martian.

[36:00] And they've moved so far beyond like hate and violence on his planet that, yeah, he

[36:03] just assumes this is like a Lollapalooza like, oh, he doesn't read bad intent into

[36:09] it at all.

[36:10] Much of the much of the movie was the kids showing him different winter sports and ways

[36:14] to have fun in the snow.

[36:16] So maybe he just thinks there's another one.

[36:17] Yeah.

[36:18] True.

[36:19] So he leaves.

[36:20] If he's like, let's chase everybody and they just shoot him and gun him down.

[36:23] And at the end of it is the Martian lying in the snowbank, bleeding to death, like at

[36:26] the end of McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

[36:27] And the kids are at home being like, wow, I hope we get to see the Martian again.

[36:31] He's just dead.

[36:32] So slowly covers his body.

[36:34] Yeah.

[36:35] And we're like, wow, they really build a community out there in the frontier.

[36:39] The kids put the church fire out.

[36:41] Yeah.

[36:42] You'll see it again come springtime.

[36:43] I'm glad you could restore your my faith in my own empathy, because as much as I hate

[36:47] that Marcia, and I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, not with like crazy 70s technology.

[36:55] It's horrifying.

[36:56] They shot Blue Flower.

[36:57] No, it was the best of us.

[37:02] So the kids return home.

[37:03] Their father puts on his Santa outfit to surprise the kids and give them presents.

[37:08] And he starts giving them presents and doesn't go down the chimney because he's seen gremlins.

[37:12] He knows that's a he does.

[37:13] Yeah, he's yeah.

[37:14] He has that that part queued up on his VHS tape.

[37:16] You can see the future.

[37:19] The he is distracted briefly and he leaves the room and then Pooh Flower shows up, also

[37:24] dresses Santa Claus.

[37:26] And then the father returns and there's a big confusion.

[37:29] And then a bunch of cops show up and arrest both of them because they can't tell who's

[37:34] who.

[37:35] Yeah.

[37:36] These cops both never, you know, consider the idea that they could take the big beard

[37:41] off of these two and see what the margin is not not on Christmas anymore.

[37:46] For all they know, maybe these are Jewish policemen.

[37:48] They don't know who Santa Claus is.

[37:49] They think this is what Martians look like.

[37:51] Mm hmm.

[37:52] Yeah.

[37:53] Yeah.

[37:54] Yeah.

[37:55] Yeah.

[37:56] Yeah.

[37:57] Yeah.

[37:58] Yeah.

[37:59] Yeah.

[38:00] Yeah.

[38:01] Yeah.

[38:02] Yeah.

[38:03] Yeah.

[38:04] Yeah.

[38:05] Yeah.

[38:06] Yeah.

[38:07] Yeah.

[38:08] Yeah.

[38:09] Yeah.

[38:10] Yeah.

[38:11] Yeah.

[38:12] So they're both arrested.

[38:13] They ride in the back of a cop car with who's like the chief of police, who is looks like

[38:14] a pig in a pig in a sty.

[38:15] He's so happy.

[38:16] And the but then the Martian just disappears from the back of the car and then like, I

[38:17] guess it's the end of the movie.

[38:18] What happens?

[38:21] What do they do?

[38:22] I don't remember.

[38:23] I think he just leaves.

[38:24] Right.

[38:25] That's it.

[38:26] Right.

[38:27] Yeah.

[38:28] Yeah.

[38:29] No curse to fake us out there.

[38:30] Yeah.

[38:31] And there's no there's no like text at the end that says whether the dad was found guilty

[38:32] of being a Martian and sent to jail.

[38:33] Well, they they had to cut him open to find out.

[38:34] They determined not to turn up.

[38:35] Well, we got good news and bad news.

[38:36] Good news.

[38:37] We dropped the charges.

[38:38] Bad news.

[38:39] Your father is just in his constituent parts now.

[38:40] Yeah.

[38:41] No bad news.

[38:42] We can only do it human.

[38:43] Bad news.

[38:44] It's hard for the Martian to get home because as a Christmas gift, he has given the kids

[38:45] the model of his UFO that I think they used for many for some of the shots.

[38:46] Yeah.

[38:47] So, you know, I don't know how he's going to get away now that they have the craft off

[38:48] camera.

[38:49] Alonzo, do you know anything about this movie that you can tell?

[38:50] Like, I seem to, you know, from poking around the Internet.

[39:36] They are looking down this way.

[39:37] Holy Moly.

[39:38] The human craft and casting and everything is well aced.

[39:39] Right.

[39:40] This, what, this.

[39:41] This is.

[39:42] This is well done.

[39:43] That's what the script says.

[39:44] And um, yeah, he, he just designed to make the people in the movie excited.

[39:45] They, they, they just they just want to watch him again.

[39:46] That's what he really came up with, and he put you, you, you were saying that a couple

[39:47] of years ago that Mr.

[40:00] He has this company called Les Productions Lafettes, which makes all of these bananas

[40:04] live action kids movies.

[40:06] I don't know if you've ever heard of the Peanut Butter Solution, or like, you know, Jacob

[40:13] Tutu and the Hooded Fang, and Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveler.

[40:17] Like Jacob Tutu and the Hooded Fang is, is, I've never seen the movie and I've never read

[40:21] the book, but it was, it was listed as one of the books in the back of a book I had as

[40:26] a kid.

[40:27] I read it as another book available from the publisher and I was like, what is this book

[40:30] about?

[40:31] What is a Hooded Fang?

[40:32] I wish I could tell you having read it, but I just remember it being weird.

[40:36] I was a kid assuming like, I guess he gets a pet cobra or something, but I never went

[40:40] all the way to actually read it.

[40:42] I have not watched that one.

[40:43] I need to.

[40:44] But, but anyway, so yeah, so, but this is the beginning of his career as a kid film

[40:48] producer.

[40:49] So, you know, thanks to the Christmas Martian, we eventually get down the road to Jacob Tutu

[40:55] and the Hooded Fang.

[40:56] So, yeah, so, so this is, you know, I think this is in that category of like, what's that?

[41:04] There's also that Canadian TV special where Gilda Radner voices a witch.

[41:08] Oh, yeah.

[41:10] That's like a Halloween.

[41:11] Yes, yes, yes.

[41:12] The Halloween.

[41:13] Yeah.

[41:14] Yeah.

[41:15] That's a Halloween favorite up there.

[41:16] The witch is something.

[41:17] Yeah.

[41:18] So, yeah, I, you know, I don't know that it's really made it to the lower 48 as much as

[41:21] a cult item, but that was before this episode was recorded.

[41:26] So clearly now the avalanche begins and I think Riff Trax did this one a couple of years

[41:29] ago.

[41:30] That would make sense.

[41:31] Yeah.

[41:32] I was, I was going to recommend this to, to the Mystery Science Theater people should

[41:37] they do more episodes.

[41:38] And then I saw that Riff Trax did one of it and I'm like, all right, never mind, it's

[41:41] been taken care of.

[41:42] Because it just, I realized the reason I, one of the reasons I hadn't seen a movie like

[41:46] this in a long time is that this is the kind of thing I would watch.

[41:49] I would see only on Mystery Science Theater 2000, you know, where they, something where

[41:53] otherwise it would not have fallen into my lap because it didn't reach the level of professionalism

[41:59] that made it to Milburn, New Jersey, you know, and something with a lot of natural space

[42:04] for jokes to fill.

[42:05] Yes.

[42:06] Oh, yeah.

[42:07] No, it's made for it.

[42:08] But these are the worst.

[42:09] I'm speaking from experience.

[42:10] When you get a movie that just has like three minutes with no dialogue and you're like,

[42:13] oh, damn it.

[42:14] What are we going to say?

[42:15] We're just running around in the snow, doing nothing like time for another political rant.

[42:22] I will say this, like there's something about a kids movie that not only feels like it was

[42:27] made for kids, but it was made by kids.

[42:30] That's true.

[42:31] You know, like it really feels like the Frankie and Catherine are like sitting there going,

[42:36] OK, now what happens?

[42:37] And then what?

[42:38] And then and then he does this, you know.

[42:40] It has the feeling.

[42:41] Yeah.

[42:42] Like that's the best thing you can say about it is it's interminable for an adult, but

[42:44] it has the feel of a story kids are making up or even that the kids have the camera and

[42:49] are just like shaking it around and things like that.

[42:51] And I have to admit, compared to the talk of the office where I am has been the live

[42:56] action Moana trailer.

[42:58] And compared to something like that, I think I kind of prefer the Christmas version in

[43:03] some ways.

[43:04] There's no green screen.

[43:05] Yeah.

[43:06] Oh, no.

[43:07] It's all of this is all reality.

[43:08] Yeah.

[43:09] That kid is really way too high.

[43:10] Yeah.

[43:11] So let's do final judgments whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie or a movie

[43:17] we kind of like.

[43:18] I'm going to say, I think I texted some variant of this to Stewart that any like three minutes

[43:24] isolated of this movie is hilarious.

[43:27] But if you watch all 65, it's interminable like it would be a great thing.

[43:33] If you're looking for something weird to put on in the background of your holiday party

[43:37] on mute.

[43:38] Well, if you're the kind of person to do that sort of thing, which feels like 50 percent

[43:42] of Dan's.

[43:43] Yeah.

[43:44] I recommend it for that use and that use alone.

[43:48] I would say it's a bad, bad movie because it really tried my patience.

[43:52] But, you know, it's got its charms.

[43:54] Yeah.

[43:55] I mean, your patience.

[43:56] Did it want to buy?

[43:57] No.

[43:58] I mean, my patience is pretty small on Amazon instead.

[44:02] Yeah.

[44:03] Now.

[44:04] Yeah.

[44:05] I mean, this is a monstrous movie, but I mean, I feel like this is very much a bad, bad movie.

[44:12] But with the caveat, I feel like under with the right audience of bad movie sickos, if

[44:18] you are doing a bad movie night, that is Christmas themed.

[44:21] I could see this one being a fun one to watch with people and watch people squirm and get

[44:27] annoyed and check their phones for 65 minutes.

[44:31] It feels like an eternity.

[44:32] But no, I would say this is a bad, bad movie.

[44:36] I agree with you guys that I think it is a this is a bad, bad movie for solo viewing.

[44:43] But yeah, if you wanted to use it to if if the thing you want to watch is the effect

[44:47] it has on somebody else, then it's a good, bad movie for that.

[44:50] But I feel like by the end of a discussion, I kind of talked myself into liking the concept

[44:54] of it as a low budget for kids, really dumb, you know, little movie.

[45:01] But it is not it's I wouldn't recommend watching it or showing it to people unless you want

[45:05] to see them being uncomfortable.

[45:06] Yeah.

[45:07] I actually watched this movie and then immediately watched Zardoz for the first time to prepare

[45:12] for a flat TV.

[45:13] And I'm like, what a day I'm having.

[45:14] What a time to be alive.

[45:15] A lot.

[45:16] So what do you say?

[45:17] I mean, I can't disagree with anything you're saying.

[45:18] And I will I do say this probably plays best if you're in a situation where you're with

[45:29] people who are enjoying its badness and you can talk to each other during the slacker

[45:33] parts of it.

[45:35] But ultimately, I mean, it's like 75 to 80 percent of it.

[45:40] But ultimately, I have to kind of say this is a movie I kind of like just because I was

[45:44] four years old in 1971.

[45:46] And so, like, I recognize the shape of this sort of misbegotten children's entertainment

[45:52] that was just the the coin of the realm of the early 1970s.

[45:57] And I can see where if you were a kid and you saw this at Christmas time, it'd be the

[46:01] sort of thing that you would want to go back to every year.

[46:04] And then maybe as an adult, the one point go, oh, God, this really isn't very good,

[46:07] is it?

[46:08] But there is something so like, you know, on Project Runway, Heidi Klum used to always

[46:14] use the term home sewn as a kind of disparaging thing.

[46:18] But there's something home sewn about this movie.

[46:21] It literally just feels like some people who are not in any way in the show business were

[46:25] like, let's make a kid's film with these things that we have handy and all of this damn snow.

[46:31] And so, yeah, on that level, I think it kind of works.

[46:34] But yeah, it is a tough sit by yourself.

[46:36] No question.

[46:37] Yeah.

[46:38] It's hard to I like the idea of it more than I like the it, but I will say in a world where

[46:43] the problem is that things are too slick and soulless and and kind of like ultra polished

[46:49] in terms of like A.I. and professional entertainment like that.

[46:52] There's something I do find appealing about like this is the like dumbest, roughest, cuttest,

[46:58] like most slapped together type thing.

[47:02] There is a there were no studio notes involved in the making of this.

[47:05] Yeah, exactly.

[47:06] Nobody was like, how do we get it to be four quadrants?

[47:08] I think they were like, how do we get enough film to get it up to sixty five minutes?

[47:13] So now now I now I kind of want to see the judges from Project Runway give their takes

[47:19] on this movie.

[47:20] If only I want to see like Tim Gunn be nice.

[47:22] I want to see Nina Garcia be, I don't know, unhappy and I just want to see Law Roach's

[47:26] face.

[47:27] I want to see his displeasure or maybe he'd love it.

[47:30] Yeah, I at least want to hear their thoughts about the the the Martians fishnet bodies.

[47:34] You know, I do want to acknowledge they were handed a fishing net and Tim Gunn said, make

[47:39] it work.

[47:40] Come on, make it work.

[47:41] The you know, we we've we've navigated Elliott's now now long ago moved to L.A. as best we

[47:47] can.

[47:48] You know, we've done what we we could for that.

[47:50] And I think it's, you know, not really affected that much, except for that, like watching

[47:56] a bad movie alone is never the ideal way to experience them.

[48:00] So I think that probably the level of bad bad ratings has gone up since then, simply

[48:06] because the three of us aren't all watching these movies together and having a grand old

[48:11] time.

[48:12] Certainly, certainly.

[48:13] I think that's a good point.

[48:14] Certainly.

[48:15] I enjoy these movies much less when I'm by myself.

[48:16] And also, I only have time to watch these movies and no other movies in between.

[48:21] That's I think what makes a user error on life there, buddy.

[48:26] Oh, boy, is it ever?

[48:28] Yeah.

[48:34] Hello.

[48:35] Hello.

[48:36] I'm calling on behalf of the Beef and Dairy Network podcast.

[48:38] No, I'm sorry.

[48:39] No sales calls.

[48:40] Goodbye.

[48:41] It's a multi award winning podcast featuring guests such as Ted Danson, Nick Offerman,

[48:44] Josie Long.

[48:45] I don't know what a Josie Long is.

[48:47] And anyway, I'm about to take my mother into town to see Phantom of the Opera at last.

[48:50] You are wasting my time and even worse, my mother's time.

[48:53] She only has so much time left.

[48:55] She's 98 years old.

[48:56] She's only expected to live for another 20 or 30 years.

[48:58] Mother, get your shoes on.

[49:00] Yes, the orthopedic ones.

[49:01] I don't want to have to carry you home again, do I?

[49:03] Right.

[49:04] Well, if you were looking for a podcast.

[49:05] Mother, you're not wearing that, are you?

[49:06] It's very revealing, mother.

[49:08] This is a musical theater, not a Parisian bordello.

[49:11] Simply go to MaximumFun.org.

[49:13] I'm reaching for my Samsung Galaxy 4 as we speak.

[49:15] Mother, mother, not that hat.

[49:17] Have you been looking for a new podcast all about nerdy pop culture?

[49:20] Well, I have just the thing for you.

[49:23] Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries.

[49:26] Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries is a weekly pop culture history podcast hosted by me, host Austin.

[49:32] And me, host Brenda.

[49:33] We've already tackled mysteries such as what happened to the puppets from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer?

[49:38] Is Snoopy Mexican?

[49:39] And why do people hate Barney so much?

[49:42] From theme parks to cartoons to 80s, 90s, and 2000s nostalgia, we tackle it all.

[49:47] Check us out every Tuesday on MaximumFun.org and wherever you get podcasts.

[49:55] The Internet.

[49:57] We are all on it all the time.

[50:00] all the time. You need to be on it all the time. It's so

[50:04] important these days and have you ever needed to start like a

[50:08] small business or something? You know what you need a website.

[50:12] You know where that website lives on the internet and you

[50:15] know who can help you with that website. That's right. Our

[50:19] sponsor today Squarespace now Squarespace provides a platform

[50:23] for you to set up your website and it gives you every tool you

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[51:06] That's what the internet's for creating schedules. You can

[51:08] create a schedule on that website. Thanks to Squarespace.

[51:11] So you need to head to Squarespace.com slash flop for

[51:15] a free trial and when you're ready to launch that website,

[51:19] use offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a

[51:25] website or domain. Thank you, Stuart and speaking of whole

[51:29] cloth, we're sponsored in part today by Quince. You know,

[51:33] things are getting colder. There's a lot of holiday stuff

[51:36] going on. So you need some wardrobe staples that are going

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[52:58] dot com slash flop. Free shipping and 365 day returns.

[53:03] That's a full year. Quince.com slash flop. Also, we have a

[53:09] pair of j-j-j-j-jumbotrons. The first one. Before we get to

[53:12] that, if Quince is available in Canada, Martians no longer need

[53:15] to wear fishnets. They can now wear clothes. Important

[53:19] clarification for you Martians out there. Uh and also thank

[53:23] you. I I I was going over Canada. I'm like, oh, I should

[53:27] have said something about the Martian movie that we watched.

[53:30] Anyway, Jumbotron. Polyamateur Hour is like the Flophouse if

[53:36] the hosts were in a musical comedy, Polycule. So, it's

[53:39] nothing like the Flophouse but it is in the good bad column.

[53:43] Join Nicole, Laurel, and Daniel for a funny, filthy variety

[53:47] show with segments such as Unicorn Hunter Hunters and Is

[53:51] This Polly? Monogamous folks love it too but they love only

[53:55] one host at a time. So, why listen to helpful polycasts

[53:59] when you can shotgun chaos muppet energy with

[54:02] Polyamateur Hour. There will be jingles. Listen to

[54:06] Polyamateur Hour wherever you get your podcasts. We also have

[54:11] a personal Jumbotron. That's a Jumbotron that's for a person

[54:15] from another person or people and this Jumbotron is for

[54:18] Evelyn Ann and it comes from Jonathan, Fletcher, Ian, and

[54:21] Oscar and it says, happy fifteenth anniversary to my

[54:24] amazing wife. You're my best friend and the most amazing

[54:26] travel partner anyone could ask for it. You've made a Cuisin

[54:29] art if you will of bringing joy to everyone you encounter. We

[54:33] are very blessed. What a sweet message. That's so lovely. Now

[54:37] to go from that sweet message to some more crass

[54:39] commercialism because we got some Flophouse things to

[54:42] promote as well. That's right. As you may know, Flop TV

[54:45] continues apace. The government tried to shut us down but we

[54:48] said no. Every first Saturday of the month, we are doing our

[54:51] live one-hour televised type version over the internet of

[54:55] the Flophouse. It's Flopsterpiece Theater this

[54:57] season. We're doing some of the biggest, most famous flops or

[55:00] most legendariest flops I should say and the next

[55:03] episode as we're recording this but I think we've when this

[55:06] episode airs, I think it will have been done but well, you

[55:09] can still talk about it. I'm unstuck in time. Well, our

[55:12] December episode was Zardoz. That's right. On December 6th,

[55:15] we talked about Zardoz. It was hilarious. It was hilarious.

[55:17] January 3rd, we'll be talking about Dr. Dolittle, the 60s

[55:20] version and February 7th, we'll be talking about Plan Nine from

[55:23] Outer Space. That's live on the internet, 9 PM Eastern, 6 PM

[55:27] Pacific each time but let's say you can't make it at that time.

[55:30] Don't worry. If you have a ticket to a Flop TV show, you

[55:33] can watch the recording of it as many times as you want

[55:36] through the end of February. So, go to theflophouse.simpletics.com.

[55:40] Again, that's theflophouse.simpletics.com. Buy

[55:43] yourself individual tickets or get the season pass. That's six

[55:46] shows for the price of five. Do it. It's like you're stealing

[55:48] money from us. You know, you want to. It's the thrill of

[55:50] crime like in the movie Pickpocket. Anyway, we got

[55:53] another show that I wanna say. That's an in-person show. The

[55:56] Flophouse is returning to San Francisco Sketch Fest for SF

[56:00] Sketch Fest 2026. We're gonna be uh appearing on Sunday,

[56:05] January 25th. It's an afternoon show, 4 PM Pacific time in

[56:08] person. So, you know what? You can still go to work on Monday

[56:11] and you won't be too tired from our show. So, come on by

[56:13] Sunday afternoon, January 25th in the San Francisco Sketch

[56:16] Fest. We'll be at Cobb's Comedy Club again. I love performing

[56:19] at Cobb's. It's a really fun comedy club to be at. Go to SF

[56:23] Sketch Fest.com, I think. Let me double check that. Yes, it's

[56:26] just SF Sketch Fest.com for more information and I just

[56:30] wanna remind everybody, I got a book out right now. That's

[56:32] right. Joke Farming, How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense

[56:35] from the University of Chicago Press written by me. It's got

[56:38] all of my joke writing secrets. Shh, don't tell anybody. You

[56:42] can learn how to write jokes the Elliot Kalin way if you buy

[56:45] the book and it's available anywhere books are sold. So,

[56:47] go buy it. Thank you. Uh let's answer some uh letters from

[56:52] listeners. This first letter comes from Aaron Last Name

[56:56] Withheld. Who writes, like many a millennial, whatever

[57:00] combination of literacy and interest that turns one into a

[57:03] reader, trademark sign, earlier in life, has completely

[57:08] atrophied for me. I used to be a reader and now I can't

[57:11] honestly say that I am. The shame. I've decided on a plan

[57:15] though. Get back into reading through film criticism. Can you

[57:19] recommend columns, books, articles, or newsletters about

[57:22] film that are well-written and genuinely fun enough to rival

[57:26] flicking through brain-rotting short-form video content on my

[57:30] stupid phone? So, yeah. I was just reading. I was just

[57:33] reading about the study that said that uh flipping through

[57:36] short-form video content, the the effect on your brain is bad.

[57:40] Yeah. You're worse at everything afterwards. So, I'm

[57:44] gonna recommend a website. I love it. I hope it goes on a

[57:47] million years. It has some really great uh thoughtful

[57:51] criticism. It's called the Dissolve. Oh, no. No, no, no.

[57:55] Stuart. Yeah. Sorry, guys. Although, I mean, we should

[57:58] recommend, of course, the reveal uh a newsletter from a

[58:02] couple of the Dissolve folks, Keith Fitz and Scott Tobias and

[58:06] Keith was kind enough to come out to our Chicago live shows.

[58:09] Yeah. Uh that's a great newsletter for uh Alonzo, I'm

[58:13] sure has thoughts on. I mean, I feel like Alonzo's work is

[58:17] itself. I always enjoy and I always find. Well, thank you.

[58:19] It's convenient. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna shamelessly

[58:23] recommend my husband's new newsletter on the ghost site

[58:28] uh called Sluggish uh at Sluggish.ghost.io and it is

[58:33] film criticism but also he writes about food or art or

[58:36] music or whatever he has a mind to and uh you know, I've always

[58:41] been a fan of his prose and I think it is he is not here to

[58:46] bum you out with talk about contemporary politics. So, if

[58:48] you're looking to avoid that lane entirely, I think you'll

[58:52] enjoy what you see at Sluggish. Uh and then of course, you

[58:55] know, um Justin Chang over the New Yorker doing a bang up job.

[58:59] Um you know, he's got he's got a Pulitzer in his pocket and

[59:02] the other one is playing a piano. I don't know. I've I

[59:06] lost my Alanis Morissette there but anyway, um he just wrote a

[59:10] really great takedown of Wicked for Good that made me feel less

[59:13] alone in the world. So, I was just reading that yesterday. If

[59:17] you if you don't mind reading older uh criticism, I mean like

[59:21] there are great new critics on the side as well but like all

[59:25] of uh Roger Ebert stuff is at uh you know, Roger Ebert.com and

[59:29] like you can there's a reason why he was a beloved uh critic.

[59:34] He's a very like personable like fun writer. Um and also

[59:39] obviously, if you're on Letterboxd, you should read

[59:42] Dan's Letterboxd reviews. He's a very good Letterboxd

[59:45] reviewer and they call him his generation's Paul Schrader. I

[59:48] feel like but the thing is I feel like Dan does give

[59:52] thoughtful reviews whereas like I'll do like one **** line or

[59:55] joke and I feel like that seems to be there's uh like such a

[1:00:00] the aspirational trend at this point of like,

[1:00:02] can I come up with the best one-liner

[1:00:04] to describe this movie?

[1:00:06] And it really overlooks the impact

[1:00:09] of real thoughtful film writing

[1:00:11] or just writing on art in general

[1:00:13] can have on your enjoyment

[1:00:16] and also your willingness to check out stuff you might not.

[1:00:22] I listen to a lot of heavy metal music

[1:00:24] and part of the reason that I explore so much

[1:00:28] and I make it almost like a hobby

[1:00:31] is that I have found a couple of blogs that I really love

[1:00:35] and I really love these writers

[1:00:36] and like reading critical writing on something like music

[1:00:43] or like reading, having somebody describe something

[1:00:46] that isn't just words, you know,

[1:00:48] like describing, like music and writing are so different

[1:00:51] and like writing and images can be very different.

[1:00:54] Like, it's just an interesting,

[1:00:56] like seeing somebody try and describe the feelings you get

[1:01:00] while watching a movie or like, yeah, it's, I don't know.

[1:01:03] I just think it's really interesting

[1:01:04] and I feel like it's becoming less valued

[1:01:08] in our current culture.

[1:01:11] I also, I want to recommend three books

[1:01:13] that are not necessarily film criticism

[1:01:14] but are about movie making that if you haven't read

[1:01:17] or if you wanna get your eyes off of a screen

[1:01:19] and onto paper, unless you're reading them,

[1:01:21] I guess as eBooks or whatever,

[1:01:23] but I'm sure Alonzo's probably read all of these.

[1:01:25] You guys might've read them too,

[1:01:27] but The Devil's Candy by Julie Salomon,

[1:01:29] which is a great book about the making

[1:01:31] of Bonfire of the Vanities.

[1:01:32] Picture by Lillian Ross, which is a great book

[1:01:35] about the making of The Red Badge of Courage

[1:01:36] where you do not gain respect for John Huston

[1:01:39] by the end of the book, but it's a really fascinating book.

[1:01:42] And also, When the Shooting Stops,

[1:01:44] The Cutting Starts by Ralph Rosenblum about film editing.

[1:01:46] And those are just three,

[1:01:47] those are three great books about movies

[1:01:50] and they're written well as well.

[1:01:52] Even Bach's Final Cut also about the making

[1:01:54] of Heaven's Gate.

[1:01:56] I was gonna mention that too

[1:01:57] and I'm like, it's four books too many,

[1:01:58] but Final Cut is also fantastic.

[1:01:59] Oh, you know what?

[1:02:00] Because we're gonna do Dr. Doolittle

[1:02:03] in a couple of months for Flop TV.

[1:02:05] Pictures at a Revolution is a great book.

[1:02:07] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:02:08] Yeah, yeah, that's also a great book.

[1:02:09] It deals with, one of the things it deals with

[1:02:12] is Dr. Doolittle and the death of like old Hollywood

[1:02:15] filmmaking through that movie.

[1:02:17] Speaking of Mark Harris,

[1:02:18] his Mike Nichols biography is really great too.

[1:02:20] Oh, it's great.

[1:02:21] I just have to read that one.

[1:02:22] And actually, I'm gonna recommend another one.

[1:02:23] It's The Studio by John Geckery Dunn, right?

[1:02:27] John Gregory Dunn, yeah.

[1:02:28] John Philip Dunn.

[1:02:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:02:30] Where he basically was just wandering around.

[1:02:32] Yes, that's right.

[1:02:32] He was just walking around 20th Century Fox for like a year

[1:02:36] and just writing about what's going on

[1:02:37] and what it's like there.

[1:02:38] And it's so, I found there's so much in it

[1:02:40] that is about the making of,

[1:02:41] Dr. Doolittle's coming up.

[1:02:42] It's gonna be our big release.

[1:02:43] We gotta get rid of Dr. Doolittle.

[1:02:45] And there's like a page and a half where they're like,

[1:02:46] we're gonna make this movie about apes, whatever.

[1:02:48] And I'm like, they have no idea

[1:02:50] that that movie is gonna be a huge hit

[1:02:51] and Dr. Doolittle's gonna be a fiasco.

[1:02:54] Also, while we're going down this rabbit hole,

[1:02:56] there's a really fun book called Roadshow

[1:02:58] about the age of the Elephantine 1960s musicals

[1:03:03] and how they basically almost destroyed Hollywood

[1:03:06] because everybody was chasing the dragon

[1:03:07] of Mary Poppins and Sound of Music.

[1:03:09] And like every studio sank a fortune

[1:03:11] into these huge behemoth roadshow intermission musicals

[1:03:16] at a time when the kids just wanted to see Easy Rider.

[1:03:20] I will recommend a book,

[1:03:24] Kyle Buchanan's Blood, Sweat and Chrome

[1:03:26] about the making of Mad Max Fury Road.

[1:03:27] It's really fun and it's like,

[1:03:29] it is one of those things where you're like,

[1:03:31] not only do I love the movie,

[1:03:32] but also it really imparts that feeling of like,

[1:03:34] yeah, this movie shouldn't have gotten made probably

[1:03:38] and we'll probably never see something like this again.

[1:03:41] No, it's amazing when you're reading a book about a movie

[1:03:43] and you know the movie was made.

[1:03:46] That's why you're reading the book.

[1:03:47] But every turn of the page, you're like,

[1:03:48] there's no way they're gonna be able to do this.

[1:03:50] Like, this is impossible.

[1:03:51] Someone's going to die.

[1:03:53] Tom Hardy's involved.

[1:03:56] I also wanna put on my Dave Berg hat

[1:03:58] and the lighter side of film criticism.

[1:04:01] Just because-

[1:04:02] Everyone's favorite Mad Magazine article,

[1:04:04] the lighter side of it.

[1:04:05] This writer was asking for like,

[1:04:08] also some short and engaging stuff.

[1:04:11] Nathan Rabin has been a big supporter

[1:04:14] of the podcast over the years

[1:04:15] and he does a lot of very funny,

[1:04:17] like sillier projects like we might do here on our show.

[1:04:22] His new book, The Fractured Mirror is about to come out,

[1:04:24] which is a terrific look at American movies

[1:04:27] about movie making.

[1:04:29] And so if you're looking for something

[1:04:30] that you want like some short hits

[1:04:33] that you're not gonna get mired

[1:04:34] in the middle of a real long chapter,

[1:04:36] that's the ticket

[1:04:37] and it's really sharp and fun film writing.

[1:04:40] But let's move on to-

[1:04:43] I feel like that's the most time

[1:04:44] we've ever spent answering a question.

[1:04:46] I don't think we could spend like a lot longer.

[1:04:51] But Andrew Lastname Withheld writes this.

[1:04:56] Would you recommend books about movies?

[1:04:58] No.

[1:04:59] Here we go again.

[1:05:02] Based on a recent letter,

[1:05:03] I knew I had to provide some additional reporting.

[1:05:06] In 2008, I got to go on the study abroad trip of my dreams.

[1:05:10] We spent a month living on the Galapagos Islands,

[1:05:13] learning about its human and natural history.

[1:05:15] There was a cute one-room schoolhouse on the island

[1:05:18] where we'd take lessons right next to the beach.

[1:05:20] It was the only inhabited island

[1:05:21] because it had a dormant volcano

[1:05:23] that collected a major source of fresh water.

[1:05:26] The volcano seemed cool,

[1:05:27] so I got two friends to ditch class one day,

[1:05:30] bike across the island

[1:05:31] and hike up to the volcano to the lake.

[1:05:34] We spent an idyllic morning

[1:05:35] swimming around with the warm water and the caldara,

[1:05:38] then took a break to eat Ecuadorian Oreos on the shore.

[1:05:43] Wait, wait, wait.

[1:05:44] I want to know how Ecuadorian Oreos are different

[1:05:46] than domestic Oreos.

[1:05:47] Yeah.

[1:05:48] You know, all these little details.

[1:05:49] Suddenly, this jaunty old white guy

[1:05:51] with a coterie of eight to 10 young women

[1:05:54] came marching down the volcano straight towards us.

[1:05:56] He started chatting us up and seemed a bit zany.

[1:06:00] The women, young American students-

[1:06:01] He told us he was a Martian.

[1:06:02] He was wearing a fishnet sock.

[1:06:04] He was wearing a fishnet of some kind.

[1:06:05] He took our jelly beans.

[1:06:07] The women, young American students

[1:06:09] didn't really say anything.

[1:06:10] They just kind of followed him

[1:06:11] and sat looking as he pontificated to us.

[1:06:14] He then started saying,

[1:06:15] this is a beautiful place,

[1:06:16] but whatever you do,

[1:06:17] never go swimming in fresh water in the Galapagos.

[1:06:20] He said, there's, quote,

[1:06:21] small brain-eating worms in the water,

[1:06:23] and for God's sake,

[1:06:24] whatever you do, don't swim in there.

[1:06:26] I'm wondering which horrible person in the news

[1:06:29] this guy's going to turn out to be.

[1:06:30] I was kind of rolling my eyes at the strange man

[1:06:33] who started lecturing us about brain worms

[1:06:34] when my friend, who had been kind of quiet

[1:06:36] since this guy showed up,

[1:06:37] suddenly asked, are you Patch Adams?

[1:06:40] And he said, yes, of course.

[1:06:42] That's why I know about these brain worms.

[1:06:44] Anyway, it's time for me to go.

[1:06:47] As he and the young-

[1:06:48] He then teleported out.

[1:06:50] As he and the young women-

[1:06:52] The red clown nose should have been the tip-off.

[1:06:55] As he and the young women left,

[1:06:56] they kept saying, don't get brain worms.

[1:06:58] I was stunned, and now actually kind of worried

[1:07:00] that a doctor had told me

[1:07:01] I was going to get brain worms,

[1:07:02] but also because it was apparently Patch Adams.

[1:07:06] I turned to my friend who had identified him

[1:07:08] and was like, how did you know that was Patch Adams?

[1:07:11] He told me that at the University of Illinois,

[1:07:14] there's one dorm that's kind of the hippie dorm,

[1:07:16] and they have various artists in residence

[1:07:18] who live with the students.

[1:07:19] And Patch was a recurring guest

[1:07:21] who apparently had a reputation of sharing his weed.

[1:07:24] We then spent the next few weeks on the Galapagos

[1:07:26] logging many more rapid, weird encounters

[1:07:28] with Patch and his group of young ladies.

[1:07:31] We'd emerge from a hiking trail

[1:07:32] right when their bus happened to be driving by,

[1:07:34] and they would see us and shout, brain worms!

[1:07:37] Or we'd be at a restaurant,

[1:07:38] and they would all happen by and shout, brain worm boys!

[1:07:42] Later, we encountered them swimming on a different island

[1:07:44] and asked, aren't you all worried about the brain worms?

[1:07:47] And Patch Adams was like, oh no, it doesn't affect me.

[1:07:51] Were they just fucking with us about the brain worms,

[1:07:53] or does Patch really have ultimate healing powers?

[1:07:56] So that's another Patch Adamantium update for you

[1:07:59] from Andrew Les, name of whom.

[1:08:00] I feel like it raises so many more questions

[1:08:03] than it answers.

[1:08:05] Get the Director of Health and Human Services on the horn.

[1:08:09] Yeah, anyone who knows about brain worms, yeah.

[1:08:12] Certainly become the number one

[1:08:13] Patch Adams anecdote podcast on the internet.

[1:08:16] If people have stories about Patch Adams,

[1:08:18] write in, tell us your Patches.

[1:08:19] I wanna hear more of the tales of Patch Adams.

[1:08:20] Are we gonna have to fucking watch Patch Adams

[1:08:22] on this show?

[1:08:23] Maybe.

[1:08:23] We're gonna have to eventually watch Patch Adams, yeah.

[1:08:25] Now, I also wanna make it clear,

[1:08:26] these are all secondhand stories

[1:08:29] that I'm just reporting along.

[1:08:31] Yeah, yeah, we're not looking for Richard Simmons

[1:08:33] over here.

[1:08:34] We haven't apparently confirmed any of them.

[1:08:35] I mean, if you're Patch Adams,

[1:08:36] write in and tell us, what were you doing

[1:08:38] in the Galapagos with a bunch of young women

[1:08:39] telling people about brain worms?

[1:08:41] Were there brain worms?

[1:08:42] Yeah, what's your secret on avoiding brain worms?

[1:08:45] Do you have to vibrate your skull

[1:08:47] at a specific frequency?

[1:08:48] Send it to our government.

[1:08:51] Perhaps.

[1:08:52] Anyway, that's our reoccurring segment,

[1:08:55] Tales of Patch Adams.

[1:08:58] Tales from the Adams Patch.

[1:08:59] He is alive, I'm just checking his wiki page.

[1:09:02] 80 years young.

[1:09:04] If you were immune to brain worms,

[1:09:05] you'd be alive, too.

[1:09:06] Yeah.

[1:09:07] It's the number one cause of death is brain worms, yeah.

[1:09:10] Oh, wow, that's him.

[1:09:13] Let's move on to-

[1:09:15] It'd be so funny if he's like,

[1:09:16] someone's like, who are you?

[1:09:17] And then he puts the red nose on,

[1:09:19] and they go, Patch Adams!

[1:09:19] Oh, Patch Adams!

[1:09:21] Or he's gonna go Ronald Banks,

[1:09:22] where he takes the red nose off,

[1:09:24] and nobody knows who he is.

[1:09:27] So let's move on to recommendations,

[1:09:30] movies that may be a better use of your time

[1:09:33] than The Christmas Martian.

[1:09:35] So I saw this movie about this doctor

[1:09:37] who thought laughter was the best medicine.

[1:09:40] It was called Dr. Giggles.

[1:09:47] So this, I'd like to recommend a movie called P.T.U.

[1:09:52] It's-

[1:09:53] With Jeremy Piven?

[1:09:54] No, that's P.T.U.

[1:09:56] It's P.T., so it's Jeremy Tiven.

[1:09:59] Yeah.

[1:10:00] I would look at this title, by the way, and I keep thinking paid time off PTU.

[1:10:11] It's it's on the Hong Kong collection on Criterion right now.

[1:10:16] It's directed by Johnny Cho.

[1:10:17] It's 88 minutes long.

[1:10:20] It's one of these sort of crime movies about, you know, cops being just as bad and dumb

[1:10:28] as the criminals and sort of events spiraling out of control.

[1:10:31] It's kind of a one crazy night top thriller in that way.

[1:10:36] I'll admit that, like some of the machinations of the plot got a little convoluted for me

[1:10:42] to keep track of like who was mad at who for what.

[1:10:45] But it didn't matter.

[1:10:48] It just was like kind of a pleasure to be in the world.

[1:10:51] Like I'm going to sound like the old man that I increasingly am and also have been since

[1:10:57] I was a young man and say that like it really made me feel for like what we've lost with

[1:11:02] the way movies are filmed now.

[1:11:04] Like it just it just looked gorgeous, like it looked beautiful, like it's all shot at

[1:11:10] night, but it's these vivid sort of like neon colors, too.

[1:11:15] And the the staging was gorgeous.

[1:11:19] Like it's just the sort of thing that you don't see much these days with digital photography.

[1:11:25] But if you want to see something just sort of like soak in the atmosphere, I really enjoyed

[1:11:29] it.

[1:11:30] Sounds good.

[1:11:31] Cool.

[1:11:32] I actually have two movies to recommend because I've seen yeah, I know I've seen a lot of

[1:11:36] movies, but both of them I really loved.

[1:11:39] So I can't I don't want to save either of them.

[1:11:41] I hope that's OK.

[1:11:43] Check the rule book.

[1:11:44] Is it allowed?

[1:11:45] Well, I don't care.

[1:11:46] I'm going to write one.

[1:11:47] Yes.

[1:11:48] Are you a golden retriever?

[1:11:51] The depending on my personality, I.

[1:11:57] So the first movie I'm going to recommend is as of as of this moment, my favorite movie

[1:12:02] of the year.

[1:12:03] It's the new movie from Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value.

[1:12:08] Love it so much.

[1:12:09] I am a huge fan of his Oslo trilogy.

[1:12:12] And while this is, I guess, technically part of that, it feels like a natural progression

[1:12:17] of the themes that are in those movies.

[1:12:20] It is this beautiful story about a father and daughter who are estranged.

[1:12:25] The father's a filmmaker who wants to make one more project.

[1:12:29] And his daughter is an actress who has, let's say, a lot of resentment toward her absentee

[1:12:34] father, who's frankly kind of a piece of shit.

[1:12:38] And it's Joachim Trier has a way of taking themes and ideas that seem like they're very

[1:12:46] serious and kind of boring and making it kind of light and like light and fun and makes

[1:12:53] those emotional moments really hit.

[1:12:56] And yeah, I found it to be really beautiful.

[1:12:59] And it's a really fun movie.

[1:13:00] And it's got some great performances from Stellan Skarsgård, of course, and Renata

[1:13:04] Reinsveld.

[1:13:05] Reinsveld.

[1:13:06] And and Elle Fanning's great in it.

[1:13:10] And of course, Anders Danielsen-Lai, Lee Lai manages to sneak his way in there and doesn't

[1:13:16] have too many terrible things happen to him this time, which is unique for Joachim Trier

[1:13:21] movies.

[1:13:22] Yeah, it's I really loved it.

[1:13:24] It's great.

[1:13:26] And I also got a chance to go to Lincoln Center to catch a matinee screening, which meant

[1:13:32] I was there with a lot of very old people of Spain's offering for the Academy Awards

[1:13:39] a movie called Sarat, which is a kind of like what if Wages of Fear was held at a rave

[1:13:46] in the deserts of Morocco, where a father, a middle aged father drags his young son to

[1:13:52] this rave because he's searching for his daughter who has gone missing and he has reason to

[1:13:57] believe that she is at this rave.

[1:13:59] And he continues to follow leads kind of deeper into the desert and putting himself and his

[1:14:07] son into greater danger.

[1:14:10] And a lot of the cast are non actors who have been were like handpicked from like the rave

[1:14:16] scene.

[1:14:18] And so you have these really interesting performances from some like, I would just say interesting

[1:14:24] kind of like looking people and it felt very natural.

[1:14:28] And the sound design is incredible.

[1:14:30] It's all shot in the deserts of Morocco.

[1:14:32] So it's gorgeous.

[1:14:34] And and yeah, and then, of course, the way it incorporates like dance music is really

[1:14:40] interesting, too.

[1:14:41] And it was really fun when my my friend who I went to see the movie with was in the bathroom

[1:14:45] at the after the movie, and then she heard an older lady be like, I'm over raves, which

[1:14:53] is great.

[1:14:54] Yeah.

[1:14:55] Yeah.

[1:14:56] So Sarat, it's great.

[1:14:57] Is it my turn to recommend a movie?

[1:14:58] Yeah.

[1:14:59] No, I got some more.

[1:15:00] I'm going to recommend a movie that I just saw recently.

[1:15:04] And it's not the greatest movie in the world, but I had a lot of fun watching it.

[1:15:07] It's a Samuel Fuller movie from 1950 called The Baron of Arizona, which is stars Vincent

[1:15:12] Price.

[1:15:13] And it's loosely, very loosely based on a true story of this guy who in the right before

[1:15:19] Arizona was a state in the late 19th century, this guy forged a bunch of documents because

[1:15:23] he was present and he found a woman and he said, she's the last heir of this baron who

[1:15:29] had a Spanish land grant that that by law has to be recognized by the United States.

[1:15:34] And it covers all of Arizona.

[1:15:36] And he had gone to all this trouble to to basically basically like turn part of part

[1:15:43] of the U.S. territories into his own personal kingdom and try to get it through the courts

[1:15:48] with all these forged documents.

[1:15:49] And he came very close to actually doing it.

[1:15:52] And again, this movie version of it is I think they changed every single fact in the entire

[1:15:58] thing, the names of the people involved.

[1:16:00] But Vincent Price is really fun in it.

[1:16:03] There's some there's some really fun scenes where he's like, yeah, I guess I just got

[1:16:06] to be a monk for three years in Spain so I can get access to this one document I need

[1:16:10] to I need to forge.

[1:16:12] And it's a it's a short type movie.

[1:16:14] It starts out a little slow, but it's got a lot of fun to it.

[1:16:16] And it's called The Baron of Arizona.

[1:16:18] And is it an amazing movie?

[1:16:20] No.

[1:16:21] But there's like there's a lot of fun stuff and it's a fun story.

[1:16:23] So I would recommend it if you want to watch like I did.

[1:16:26] I was like, I want to watch an old movie that I have not seen that will I'll watch

[1:16:30] it relatively quickly and it'll be fun.

[1:16:32] This was exactly what I needed.

[1:16:33] So that's what I watched.

[1:16:34] Alonzo, what about you?

[1:16:35] What have you what movies about barons have you seen?

[1:16:38] Barons not at the moment, a little slack on the front, but I'm going to take a page from

[1:16:43] Stu and recommend two movies.

[1:16:48] One of them is the new one from Max Walker Silverman, who had a film a couple years ago

[1:16:50] called A Love Story with Dale Dickey.

[1:16:54] This film is rebuilding.

[1:16:55] And like most movies nowadays, it stars Josh O'Connor.

[1:16:59] And he plays a guy in Colorado who's there's a there are fires in the hills that that displace

[1:17:06] him from his land and some of his neighbors as well.

[1:17:10] So they all wind up in kind of like a FEMA trailer camp trying to figure out what to

[1:17:13] do next.

[1:17:14] He has a young daughter that he is jointly raising with his ex-wife played by Megan Fahey.

[1:17:20] And her mom is played by Amy Madigan, giving another great performance this year that is

[1:17:24] not Aunt Gladys.

[1:17:25] But it's a it's a really beautiful and quiet movie about people and the land and about

[1:17:31] sort of, you know, people at turning points in their lives and trying to figure out, you

[1:17:35] know, what they're going to do next.

[1:17:37] And a film that is also, you know, quiet and beautiful and very much about people in nature

[1:17:45] is Train Dreams, which is on or coming to Netflix.

[1:17:50] But if you have the chance to see it in theaters, I really recommend that you do, because it

[1:17:54] is one of the most gorgeous films of this year.

[1:17:57] It stars Joel Edgerton as a guy who in the early 20th century kind of travels to go work

[1:18:02] in like labor at lumber camps to like sort of clear out the forests in the Pacific Northwest

[1:18:08] as the railroads are coming in.

[1:18:11] He gets married to Felicity Jones.

[1:18:13] They have a young child and, you know, he's got like his home life with them, but also

[1:18:18] kind of going off to do these jobs and, you know, things happened to them in their lives.

[1:18:24] And yeah, both of these films, you know, they're they're of the kind of.

[1:18:31] Terrence Mallett, Kelly Reichardt School of like not a ton of dialogue and fast action,

[1:18:35] pulse pounding.

[1:18:36] Exactly.

[1:18:37] Yes.

[1:18:38] The Cray edited in a blender, you know.

[1:18:41] Yeah, I. Terrence Malick, you know, best from Crank Crank.

[1:18:47] So, yeah, I really love both of these movies that are among my favorites of this year,

[1:18:51] and I hope people check them out.

[1:18:54] I'm just I went into a reverie, like imagining a Terrence Malick crank where it's all

[1:18:59] shot at golden hour and, you know, beautiful.

[1:19:03] Yeah. Haunting.

[1:19:06] Thank you, Alonso, for torturing us yet again.

[1:19:10] It's what I do.

[1:19:11] Thank you for having me back.

[1:19:13] You should certainly plug again if there are things you would love to plug your book

[1:19:20] again. Sure. Yes.

[1:19:21] The book is Have Yourself a Movie, Little Christmas, revised and updated is out now.

[1:19:25] It is in stores everywhere.

[1:19:27] Ideally, it's certainly online booksellers.

[1:19:30] I can guarantee you'll find it there.

[1:19:33] Go bug your library, get them to get a copy, too.

[1:19:35] Why not?

[1:19:36] You can also pick up my book, Hollywood Pride, that I did with TCM and running press

[1:19:41] that's still out there in the world as well.

[1:19:43] Read my stuff at the Film Verdict and check me out on the podcast Linoleum Knife with my

[1:19:48] husband, Dave White. We just hit our 15th anniversary.

[1:19:52] Not we're not a flophouse level, but, you know, we're we're we're part of the old guard.

[1:19:58] You can hear me on Maximum.

[1:20:00] here on the Maximum Fun Network.

[1:20:01] I'm also on Breakfast All Day with Christy Lemire.

[1:20:04] It's a YouTube show, but we also do a podcast.

[1:20:07] And I pop in regularly at the Deck the Hallmark podcast

[1:20:09] to talk about Christmas movies on the regular.

[1:20:11] So yes, go get sick of my voice.

[1:20:14] It's impossible.

[1:20:15] We've all been guests on Maximum Film, right?

[1:20:18] Yeah, I believe you have, yes.

[1:20:19] Yeah.

[1:20:21] And linoleum knife is, I should,

[1:20:23] I just want to make a special.

[1:20:24] Linoleum knife.

[1:20:25] Linoleum knife, yeah, linoleum knife.

[1:20:27] Linoleum knife, I want to make a special plea for

[1:20:29] is just, it's such a great podcast.

[1:20:30] I love listening to it.

[1:20:31] Oh, thank you.

[1:20:32] And it's such a, it is like the perfect mixture

[1:20:34] of like intellectual and cozy, you know?

[1:20:38] Like it's like, it feels,

[1:20:39] there's something very cozy about it,

[1:20:40] but also I come away from it always with like an idea

[1:20:43] or a recommendation or something from it

[1:20:45] that I hadn't thought of before.

[1:20:46] And it wouldn't have known about otherwise.

[1:20:48] So I really treasure it.

[1:20:49] Thank you, Elliot, I appreciate it.

[1:20:53] Well, as long as we're thanking people,

[1:20:56] we should thank Alex Smith, our producer.

[1:20:59] He goes by the name HowlDotty all over the internet.

[1:21:02] He sure does.

[1:21:03] Alex came up to see our Chicago live shows

[1:21:06] and it was both a delight to see him

[1:21:08] and he was a big help at the shows.

[1:21:11] He got me way too drunk the night before.

[1:21:13] I blame Alex exclusively.

[1:21:15] Yeah, you had no hand in that.

[1:21:18] You were led astray.

[1:21:20] So thank you, Alex.

[1:21:21] How would Stuart know?

[1:21:22] Stuart doesn't have a lot of experience with alcohol.

[1:21:26] I'm just baby.

[1:21:28] Oh, Stu is baby, okay.

[1:21:30] Yeah, Stu is baby, yeah.

[1:21:33] And thank you, of course, to Maximum Fun,

[1:21:36] the home of our show, the home of Maximum Film,

[1:21:38] the home of a lot of great shows.

[1:21:40] Check them out over at MaximumFun.org.

[1:21:42] But for this episode of The Flophouse,

[1:21:45] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:21:46] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:21:48] I'm Elliot Kaelin, author of Joke Farming,

[1:21:50] How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense,

[1:21:51] on store shelves now, I should have mentioned it.

[1:21:53] And we've been joined by...

[1:21:54] Alonzo Doraldi.

[1:21:56] Bye.

[1:21:57] A merry Christmas Martian to us all.

[1:21:59] And a Martian New Year.

[1:22:01] It's slowly gotten better.

[1:22:04] It's finishing the show.

[1:22:06] It's only taken us almost two decades.

[1:22:08] One of these days, we're gonna nail it.

[1:22:18] Much like people in both of your households,

[1:22:21] I have a cold, so my fucking thing's up.

[1:22:23] Energy's a little low.

[1:22:24] Yeah, you can hear my throat doesn't feel so good.

[1:22:28] Should I go drink a bunch of NyQuil

[1:22:30] so I can match your energy?

[1:22:31] That'd be great, yeah.

[1:22:33] Okay, I don't know what I'm looking for on my phone.

[1:22:35] Let's just start the show.

[1:22:38] Are you DMing with anybody?

[1:22:39] No, I think I was subconsciously like,

[1:22:42] I'm gonna call up this stuff,

[1:22:43] I'm gonna meet you later on the show,

[1:22:44] but that's so far ahead.

[1:22:45] Anyway.

[1:22:45] Yeah, later is not now, by definition.

[1:22:48] You've never said anything truer.

[1:22:52] Okay.

[1:22:52] They call me the tautologist, Batman.

The Christmas Martian, with Alonso Duralde

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