Episode #392 - The Bubble

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss the bubble.

Stuart Wellington

[0:04] The movie equivalent of the Celebrity Imagine video.

[0:10] Harsh, harsh, but fair.

Dan McCoy

[0:12] Should we even do the episode now?

[0:13] I feel like it's summed up.

[0:15] I did it.

[0:30] The movie equivalent of the Celebrity Imagine video.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00] I saw a lamp post and the power was flowing.

Dan McCoy

[1:03] That's pretty groovy.

[1:05] The bridge that that song is named after is not really much of a pedestrian bridge.

[1:09] So I don't know why it's about walking along and seeing lamp posts.

[1:11] But anyway.

[1:12] Wait, Feeling Groovy is about a fucking bridge?

[1:16] Looking for love and Feeling Groovy?

[1:17] Yeah, I guess.

[1:19] The 59th Street bridge song?

[1:21] Oh, I thought it was like.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23] I think now is the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, right?

[1:28] Or is it the Ed Koch Bridge?

[1:29] I don't live in New York anymore.

[1:30] I don't care about those people.

Dan McCoy

[1:31] Well, now that we've got you all on the edge of your seats with all this bridge talk,

[1:34] we're going to talk about how this is a very special time, why we're feeling so groovy.

[1:40] It's MaxFun Drive.

[1:41] The one time during the year that we come to you and ask the listeners for a little support.

[1:46] Let me talk to you about it.

[1:48] This is the time when we ask our listeners, hey, if you enjoy the show, you like what we do,

[1:52] and you like it to continue to be part of your life for years to come, please consider becoming a supporting member of Maximum Fun with a monthly payment that helps sustain our show and the network.

[2:02] And I'm not going to say a lot more about it now.

[2:05] We're going to talk about it a little later.

[2:06] But please listen when we do talk about it a bit.

[2:09] I know it's a pain.

[2:10] When I was a kid, I didn't like it when PBS would interrupt me watching Sherlock Holmes on Mystery to talk about the importance of public-supported media and hold up their tote bags.

[2:19] But we're going to have some cool gifts, some rewards to talk about at both the network level and rewards that are unique to our show.

[2:29] So please don't skip ahead when we get to that.

[2:32] Unless you just go join now at MaximumFun.org forward slash join and then fuck it, skip whatever you like.

[2:39] But now, for now, back to the show.

[2:41] This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[2:45] And, oh boy, we talked – this week, we did a movie that we were sort of hoping to avoid, I think, all of us.

Elliott Kalan

[2:52] Yeah, we put it off a lot.

[2:53] We kept delaying it.

[2:55] And I like a master torturer out of a Gene Wolfe novel.

Stuart Wellington

[3:00] Well, you're severing the torture with perfect memory?

[3:04] I kept saying –

[3:05] And you're sort of Terminus Est?

Elliott Kalan

[3:07] I kept saying, what about the bubble?

[3:09] What about the bubble?

[3:10] And then we would all be like –

Stuart Wellington

[3:11] Am I saying that right?

[3:12] Is it Terminus Est?

[3:13] Is that how you pronounce that shit?

[3:14] Because that's also –

[3:15] Obviously, before you interrupt me, guys, I know it's also the flagship of Typhus the Plague Lord and Warhammer 40,000.

[3:22] Oh, thank God.

[3:23] This is the kind of stuff that our pledgers love.

Elliott Kalan

[3:26] So if you want more of that kind of extremely esoteric Stuart role-playing game and 70s fantasy novel knowledge, please support us now.

Stuart Wellington

[3:35] I don't think it's technically a fantasy because it happens – wait, does it happen far in the future or far in the past?

[3:39] It happens far in the future, right?

Elliott Kalan

[3:41] Yeah, I don't remember.

[3:42] But Jack Vance's Dying Earth novels happen far in the future, and there's still fantasy.

[3:46] There's wizards and stuff.

Dan McCoy

[3:48] Yeah, I think wizards and stuff is the key to whether it's a fantasy novel.

[3:52] Yeah.

[3:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[3:54] If you look up fantasy in the dictionary, it says noun, subject, wizards and stuff, adjective, descriptor, wizards and stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[4:03] That's how fucking – when Ian McShane gets hired to be in the Jack Vance novel movies, he's like, yeah, it's just wizards and stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[4:11] So we put off the bubble quite a bit, and then we watched the movie.

[4:15] Were we right to put off the bubble as long as we did?

[4:18] Yes, we were.

Dan McCoy

[4:18] I think we knew that this was one that was going to specifically just make us unhappy.

[4:24] Yeah.

[4:24] And for a long time, we didn't do it.

[4:26] And then we're like, oh, the Flophouse cupboards are bare.

[4:29] We can't come up with a better idea.

Stuart Wellington

[4:31] Time to chap our own asses for two hours.

Dan McCoy

[4:35] And this was – the thing is like this was a big picture in the sense that it has major stars and it's directed by Judd Apatow, but many people would be –

[4:43] Elliot's favorite comedic director and dramatic director.

[4:47] Well, we'll talk about it.

[4:48] We'll talk about it.

[4:49] But like this – in the olden days, this would be released to theater where it would be a major flop.

[4:57] A huge hit.

[4:58] It was on Netflix where when we announced the bubble, many listeners were like, now what is this movie?

[5:05] Now, you're not talking about Steven Soderbergh's bubble?

Elliott Kalan

[5:08] Yeah, you're not talking about the 1966 The Bubble directed by Arch Obler that was recently done on Mystery Science Theater 3000 through their Gizmoplex website?

Stuart Wellington

[5:16] You're not talking about the hit graphic novel written by Jordan Morris?

[5:20] Yeah.

[5:20] Bubble?

[5:21] We're pre-flopping the movie.

[5:23] Oh, wow.

[5:24] Take that, Jordan.

Elliott Kalan

[5:25] You're not talking about Michael Buble, many moms' favorite singer?

[5:29] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[5:30] You're not talking about the carbonated alcoholic beverage?

[5:34] It's alcoholic.

[5:35] Just bubbles?

[5:36] No.

[5:37] Bubbly or bubbly?

[5:39] There's a beverage just called bubble?

[5:40] I don't know.

[5:41] I see drag queens drinking on Drag Race.

[5:43] Okay.

[5:44] You just want to be cool.

[5:45] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[5:45] I just figured Stuart knew what he was talking about when he came to the beverage industry.

[5:48] Thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[5:49] I didn't realize I wasn't expecting immediate pushback.

[5:54] And then I folded.

Elliott Kalan

[5:55] That's when Michael Palin rushes in.

[5:57] Nobody expects immediate pushback.

Stuart Wellington

[5:59] Yep.

[6:00] So I'm going to pull back the apron here and let everybody know.

[6:06] Pull aside the apron.

[6:07] Pull aside the apron and let our listeners know that we had actually intended to do this episode a few days before, but Dan got very, very sick.

[6:16] Yes.

[6:16] I did.

[6:16] This is not a joke.

[6:17] I'm being 100% serious.

Elliott Kalan

[6:19] No, almost as if his body was rejecting the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[6:21] Yeah.

[6:21] Rejecting the movie bubble.

[6:23] It caused a bubble in his tumbo and it made him go to the bathroom.

Dan McCoy

[6:27] I had set up all the recording equipment.

[6:30] Stuart had not gotten like that.

[6:32] It was like close enough that Stuart had not gotten the text saying, I can't do this right now.

Stuart Wellington

[6:36] Like somebody in a horror movie expecting to be warned that the killer is on their way.

[6:41] I was like, I was using a hot air dryer on my hair and obviously on my other parts to make sure my whole body's dried like a normal person.

[6:50] Sure.

[6:51] But I didn't even hear all the notifications.

[6:53] I was just like humming a little song to myself like at the body shop or whatever that is.

[6:58] And I was having a really good time.

[7:01] I show up to Dan's apartment and Audrey's like, do not come in.

[7:04] Dan says you're not allowed.

Dan McCoy

[7:06] No, it was, I mean like 45 minutes beforehand, like the contents of my body violently ejected themselves through my mouth.

[7:15] And all of the sweat in my face came to the surface of my head.

[7:21] Yep.

[7:21] And I was like, oh, now I've got a 101 fever all of a sudden.

Elliott Kalan

[7:25] Dan, that's Hellraiser type stuff.

[7:27] If the sweat comes out on your face and then it pulls up to the top of your head.

[7:31] Dan's description is getting Ruben Oslin salivating in this episode.

Dan McCoy

[7:36] And look, if anyone's worried about Stuart, I've tested for COVID multiple times.

[7:42] You know, vomiting is not a typical symptom, but it can be in some cases.

[7:46] But I'm not.

[7:47] It was like a 24-hour stomach bug.

[7:49] I'm feeling a lot better.

[7:50] But thank you for…

Stuart Wellington

[7:51] Such a good movie, 24-hour stomach bug with Steve Coogan.

[7:54] It's great.

[7:56] So, well, this whole thing is to set up.

[7:58] I hope that with all this time that's passed, I hope I remember all of the hilarious jokes and bits in the movie.

[8:05] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[8:05] It's all kind of flown out in my brain.

[8:08] Ooh, it's going to be fun.

[8:09] I want to take a moment before we talk about the bubble to apologize to the makers of the movie Airplane 2, the sequel.

[8:16] A movie that we recorded a special bonus content episode about, and you'll hear more about it at a future time for this pledge drive.

[8:25] When we talked about that movie, spoiler alert, it made me so mad.

[8:29] And I was like, these people are so lazy.

[8:30] They're using the same joke over and over again.

[8:32] I didn't realize there was another level where you just don't make jokes.

[8:34] Instead of repeating the same joke over and again, you just have no jokes in the movie.

[8:38] So I apologize.

Dan McCoy

[8:39] You keep making feints in various directions of where some comedy could be found.

[8:44] If an enterprising miner came along and dug it up, but there's no.

Elliott Kalan

[8:48] Well, here's, well, I'll tell you what, here's the thing.

[8:49] Maybe this is a new step towards really including the audience where it's like, hey, here's a space for a joke.

[8:56] What would you put here?

[8:57] It's like, you make the call, but instead it's you make the joke.

[9:00] And in that way, maybe this is the greatest comedy movie ever made because it really makes the audience, the observer, a full collaborator in that they have to fill in the jokes that would be there but are not there.

Dan McCoy

[9:11] I will say this is such a stacked cast.

[9:13] These are all funny performers, people I've laughed at before.

[9:18] That for the first 30 minutes, I wasn't enjoying it, but every once in a while I would laugh at something and then stony silence for the next 90 minutes as I got worn down by this film.

Stuart Wellington

[9:31] Yeah, getting sicker and sicker.

Dan McCoy

[9:32] Resolute refusal to like figure out what it's about or why anyone's supposed to be watching it.

Elliott Kalan

[9:38] That is also every time a plot is about to erupt, the movie tamps it down.

[9:42] It's like, shh, shh, people are worried right now.

[9:44] They don't need this stress, this tension.

[9:46] So should I talk, should I go through this movie?

[9:48] Yeah, please.

[9:49] I'm not going to go through it.

[9:50] Yeah, I'm not going to go through it super, super detailed in some places because it's, yeah, it's kind of more an Altman-esque, you know, free-flowing group of characters, you know.

[10:04] I would also describe it as what if day for night was not good.

[10:08] But, okay, we start with a bunch of posters for the Cliff Beasts action movie series.

[10:13] And there's a caption which tells us this is the 23rd biggest movie franchise of all time.

[10:17] And now they're about to film Cliff Beast 6 during COVID in England.

[10:21] And we haven't seen the Cliff Beasts yet.

[10:23] We do see them dance too.

[10:24] How would you describe a Cliff Beast?

[10:25] Because the idea is that this is a huge action series that everyone's familiar with.

Dan McCoy

[10:29] Well, yeah, Cliff Beast appears to be kind of a T-Rex with wings, like a little T-Rex with wings or like in between a Velociraptor and T-Rex.

[10:39] Like clearly this is meant to evoke the Jurassic Park series, but it is more of a fantasy version of it, like a little more violent.

Elliott Kalan

[10:52] I mean, Jurassic Park series is pretty violent.

[10:53] A guy gets eaten by a T-Rex while he's not sitting on the shitter.

Dan McCoy

[10:56] Sure.

[10:57] What a way to go.

[10:58] Sure.

[10:58] But like I think that this seems to be –

Elliott Kalan

[11:00] It does not fulfill the promise of ghoulies where the T-Rex would come up through the toilet seat and bite him in the butt as we talked about in the Critters episode.

Dan McCoy

[11:07] You know how long they fucking tried to get that gag to work.

Stuart Wellington

[11:09] They're like, well, his snout doesn't actually fit.

[11:11] And they're like, but what if we made a giant toilet?

[11:15] And they're like, well, that wouldn't make sense at all.

[11:17] They're like, but no, the joke –

Elliott Kalan

[11:19] It's a theme park.

[11:20] So it's like a multi-person public toilet where everyone sits in a ring around the edge of the bowl.

Dan McCoy

[11:26] See, now I'm just imagining how you would do it in effects where you would have to build like a bigger toilet with a bigger ghoulie and then composite it with a regular-sized person.

Stuart Wellington

[11:36] It wouldn't be really cool if in the first Jurassic Park movie, when he's sitting on the thing, he's frightened of the T-Rex and instead a ghoulie climbs up the toilet.

[11:44] You didn't expect me, did you?

[11:46] Surprising twist.

[11:48] No, but I mean –

[11:50] No, nature finds a way.

[11:51] That's what I'm saying.

[11:52] Yeah, nature finds a way.

[11:53] Let's say –

[11:53] Except ghoulies didn't find a way.

Dan McCoy

[11:55] Let's say gorier.

[11:57] It looks a little more like disreputable than the –

[12:00] Yes.

[12:01] Part of the problem with this movie –

[12:03] Go on.

[12:03] One of its many problems.

[12:05] But one of the problems is the movie within the movie –

[12:08] And I see this in a lot of comedies and I hate it every time.

[12:11] Like the movie within the movie I feel like shouldn't look like a parody in a comedy for the most part.

Elliott Kalan

[12:17] It's like the movie within a movie, it shouldn't – it should not look like a parody.

[12:21] Instead, it should look like you are taking those elements that are sincere about it so far that it becomes funny.

[12:27] And that was the thing.

[12:28] I agree that these scenes – if this is what you're saying, the scenes in the movie kind of didn't go far enough to be like a funny takedown of those types of movies.

[12:36] And instead, they were just kind of like goofy, kind of silly slapdash.

Stuart Wellington

[12:39] Or the serious stuff just seems funnier when put next to seeing their actual lives and how like dysfunctional everybody is.

[12:49] Right, right.

Elliott Kalan

[12:50] I think there was one scene – the scene – skipping ahead – the scene later on where the TikTok girl teaches one of the cliff beasts how to do a dance.

[12:58] That scene like almost got there where I was like, okay, this is a funny like exaggeration of Chris Pratt and Blue, you know.

Dan McCoy

[13:06] If you're going to go that outrageous, sure.

[13:07] But that's a different – it's like a tone issue.

[13:10] It's like figuring out what kind of comedy you're making because I would argue that for the most part though, like if you're making this kind of movie, I don't know.

[13:17] I always have the problem.

[13:18] If it looks like a comedy sketch, if it looks like an SNL like trailer, I'm like, okay, well, this works at that length.

[13:24] But if we are to believe that these are all professional people making a movie, like what is this movie?

[13:31] Like why do we think that this is a movie that people who are professionals think that other people are going to go see?

[13:37] Well, but it's interesting.

[13:38] I want at least that grounding and then the wackiness can be in the off-screen shit.

Stuart Wellington

[13:42] Yeah, the filmmaker is saying that the people who go to movies are fucking idiots.

Elliott Kalan

[13:47] And that the people who make movies are idiots.

[13:49] It's a movie that is – but it's also – the real tone issue I have overall with this is that it is a movie that is all about like skewering Hollywood pretensions, but it doesn't really.

[13:58] Like it doesn't really go very far in that.

Dan McCoy

[13:59] Well, that's the other thing.

[14:00] Yeah.

[14:01] If the people making the movie were all idiots, if that was the point of the movie – this movie does not have fangs enough for anyone.

[14:08] Like if the point of the movie was that these people are all like incompetent and we are to laugh at them, that would be one thing.

[14:18] But I think that you're ultimately supposed to like some of them, which was a problem.

Elliott Kalan

[14:21] Well, it reminds me of – do you guys remember the movie State in Maine from years ago?

[14:26] That's another movie where I felt like it had the same problem where it was like we're going to take down the movie business.

[14:31] But the movie – but we also want you to like these characters.

[14:33] So they're not like bad people.

[14:35] And what they're doing isn't that bad.

[14:36] It's just kind of light and silly, but it's not that silly.

[14:40] Okay, but let's get to the plot.

[14:41] We haven't met these characters yet.

[14:42] Okay, first off we meet the producer, Gavin, Peter Serafinowicz.

[14:46] And he's explaining to two new staffers, Gunther and Bola, that they are going to be working to take care of the actors in this COVID-free bubble they've created at this luxury hotel in the middle of nowhere in England.

[14:59] And this means we're going to have to manage the volatile emotions of these actors.

Stuart Wellington

[15:03] And I was really excited at this point because I'm like, Darth Maul's in this fucking thing?

[15:07] Awesome.

[15:09] The voice of Darth Maul.

[15:10] That's how you mostly know him when you see him in a comedy.

Dan McCoy

[15:14] That's the voice of Darth Maul.

[15:16] The lovable cut-up of Darth Maul.

[15:17] At last, they're going to reveal themselves to the Jedi?

Elliott Kalan

[15:20] I mean, Darth Maul was cut-up.

[15:22] Like he was cut-in-two.

[15:23] So he is a lovable cut-up.

[15:24] Yeah.

[15:25] One of those actors we soon meet is Carol Cobb played by Karen Gillan.

[15:29] And she skipped Cliff Beasts 5 to make a movie where she played a half-Israeli, half-Palestinian woman who fights aliens and brings peace to the Middle East.

[15:37] And we only get to see a glimpse of this.

[15:39] And similarly, it looks more like a sketch scene than it does a real movie.

[15:42] And that movie was a bomb.

[15:43] So her agent, Rob Delaney, is like, you have to take this role.

[15:47] And you're going to go into this COVID bubble for the whole production and leave your fiancé and your soon-to-be stepchildren behind.

[15:53] And she arrives.

[15:54] And there's a lot of stale jokes about COVID tests and distancing.

[15:58] And like she has to quarantine herself.

[16:00] And there's just a montage of her for two weeks drinking and eating snacks.

[16:03] And it feels like this is not the movie's fault.

[16:06] But all of this COVID material feels super outdated and old already.

Dan McCoy

[16:10] Yeah.

[16:10] And let's talk about – because – so for all the audience members who were in the camp of like the bubble, what's that?

[16:18] Like the bubble, the titular bubble, we're talking about a COVID bubble.

[16:22] Yeah.

[16:22] That they are all filming this movie.

[16:24] This movie is a product.

Elliott Kalan

[16:25] It's not like the Steven Soderbergh movie Bubble, which was about an enormous sentient bubble that eats the town.

Dan McCoy

[16:30] Mm-hmm.

[16:31] This is a product of early pandemic.

[16:35] And, you know, to get back to like the characters like being these dumb actors, I think that part of the problem that one's brain rejects this movie is like you're like, okay, we all went through the pandemic.

[16:51] Why are we caring about the travails of these like the most pampered people in the middle of the pandemic?

[16:58] And again, if it was a meaner movie, like the joke of it would be that like these are the most pampered people and experiencing hardship for the first time undoes them.

Stuart Wellington

[17:11] And it's going to take them apart.

Dan McCoy

[17:13] Yeah.

[17:14] If it went full bore in that, that could be a good premise.

[17:17] But because it doesn't, it's like, what are you guys – what's going – I mean like even when like later on when people are like starting to get shot, you're like, well, you know, you kind of brought this on yourself by whining so much.

Elliott Kalan

[17:27] Well, but even then it still doesn't feel harsh enough.

[17:30] Yeah.

[17:31] What was the Anne Hathaway movie that we watched?

[17:33] Was it called Lockdown?

[17:34] Lockdown.

[17:35] Lockdown?

[17:35] Yeah.

[17:36] I had so much more respect for that movie after this because I was like, I didn't like that movie, but it still felt like it was getting a little bit closer to a real feeling about what it was like during that time than this was.

[17:47] Whereas this is – the minute it's like, uh-oh, they're in a bubble at a huge luxury hotel.

[17:53] Well, everything they want is right there and there's no real hardship except that they don't have to leave this luxury hotel.

[17:59] It's like, uh, that sounds great.

[18:01] It's fantastic.

Stuart Wellington

[18:02] Let's send that copy over to the makers of Lockdown so they can add it to the movie poster.

[18:07] Better than bubble.

Elliott Kalan

[18:09] And you can send the quote to Airplane 2.

[18:11] I owe this movie an apology, says Elliot Kalin on the plot house.

Dan McCoy

[18:14] I saw the bubble, he screamed.

[18:18] It was a bubble.

Elliott Kalan

[18:20] That's that episode of MASH, right?

Dan McCoy

[18:22] They usually attribute quotes that way with, like, descriptions of stage direction and such.

Elliott Kalan

[18:28] R.E. colon the bubble.

[18:31] Not as good as Lockdown.

[18:34] So there's a lot – so anyway, they're all going crazy.

[18:36] Quarantine – quarantine – quarantine.

[18:37] Quarantine time.

[18:39] Quarantine.

Dan McCoy

[18:39] Quarantine cow.

Elliott Kalan

[18:42] One of the lesser Disney characters, quarantine cow.

[18:45] Yeah.

[18:45] So quarantine time ends.

[18:47] The cast meets for cocktail party.

[18:48] We meet the rest of the actors.

[18:49] I'm just going to go through all the other characters are.

Stuart Wellington

[18:51] Now, luckily, you don't actually have to put too much time into describing them

[18:54] because they don't really have a lot of personality.

[18:57] No.

Elliott Kalan

[18:57] They're really playing off of their already being famous.

[19:00] There's Lauren, played by Leslie Mann.

[19:02] She's mad at Carol for skipping the last movie.

[19:03] There's Dustin, played by David Duchovny,

[19:06] Lauren's ex-husband who immediately tries to rekindle their relationship

[19:08] and they start screwing again.

[19:10] Crystal, played by Iris Apatow.

[19:12] She's a TikTok influencer who's been brought to the cast as a new cast member.

[19:15] And she quickly makes friends with Carla,

[19:17] the sarcastic daughter of the movie's stunt coordinator.

[19:20] And we don't find out until later in the movie,

[19:21] why Carla is there when the stunt coordinator character

[19:24] is just John Cena in a cameo over an iPad later on, as we see.

Stuart Wellington

[19:28] And played by Dennis Hopper's daughter.

[19:32] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[19:32] What?

[19:33] Yeah.

[19:33] I didn't know that.

[19:34] Dennis Hopper.

[19:35] His daughter, Denise Hopper.

[19:36] Yeah.

[19:37] Wait, are you sure it was Dennis Hopper's daughter and not Doc Hopper's daughter from the Muppet movie?

[19:44] Oh, yeah.

[19:44] You're right.

[19:45] It's Doc Hopper's daughter.

Dan McCoy

[19:46] The clue was, was she constantly trying to kill Kermit and harvest his legs?

Stuart Wellington

[19:51] Yeah.

[19:51] That's what would tell us.

[19:52] Yeah.

[19:52] Galen Hopper?

[19:53] Hmm.

[19:54] Let me check the...

[19:55] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[19:56] There's Dieter, played by Pedro Pascal, who's a decadent, burnt-out Oscar winner,

[20:00] who is also joining the cast for the first night.

Stuart Wellington

[20:02] Who also, like...

[20:04] I have to get, like, the guy has so much charisma.

[20:07] I mean, he...

[20:08] He can kind of get through almost anything.

Elliott Kalan

[20:09] He's got a lot of charisma, but they still...

[20:12] I mean, they don't give him a lot to do other than that.

[20:14] Yeah, that's the thing.

[20:14] They're kind of wasted, you know, and burnt-out.

Dan McCoy

[20:15] Of the main cast, like, I was most happy to see when he appeared on screen.

[20:20] Well, like...

[20:21] But, yeah, I...

[20:23] Like, as the movie went on, they really didn't seem to know what to do with him.

[20:27] Like, at all.

[20:27] No, they don't...

Elliott Kalan

[20:27] Well, they don't really seem to know what to do with him.

[20:29] There's Sean, played by Keegan-Michael Key, because I'm not done with the rest of the characters.

[20:33] There's Sean, played by Keegan-Michael Key, who has recently started a self-help cult.

[20:37] There's Howie, played by Guz Khan.

[20:40] He's the big, loud comic relief actor.

[20:42] There's Annika, who's a clerk at the hotel, who's played by Maria Bakalova,

[20:45] and apparently it was while making this movie that she was notified

[20:48] and she had been nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for Borat 2,

[20:52] in which they give her so much more to do.

[20:54] Again, she's very charming.

[20:55] And she's just great and charming, yeah.

[20:56] And there's Darren, played by Fred Armisen, who is the director of this Cliff B6.

[21:02] He's an indie director who's making his first big-budget movie.

[21:04] Again, this is a thing that happens in Hollywood.

[21:07] They could have really satirized it, and they don't really go after it.

[21:10] The idea of someone who has made a small indie darling movie

[21:14] and is now in charge of this enormous operation and is flailing.

[21:18] A lot of characters, and yet this first group scene is incredibly low energy.

[21:21] It really does feel like all the actors were brought in on the first day

[21:24] to mingle with each other, and they shot it,

[21:27] and they were like, pretend to be in your characters for a couple minutes.

[21:29] There's not a lot going on here.

Dan McCoy

[21:30] I mean, so I don't know how this was produced.

[21:35] I don't know the story behind it.

[21:37] It seems like, you know, Apatow, obviously known for doing a lot of improv,

[21:42] and mostly that works when it's like, let's do a lot of alts for something,

[21:46] and maybe something interesting will happen.

[21:49] And unlike Elliot, like…

[21:50] Would you call him an alt-man?

[21:52] Yeah.

[21:53] Well, I would say that's the thing.

Elliott Kalan

[21:54] Here he's going in more of an alt-man direction,

[21:56] where it's like, you have your character.

[21:58] You're going to exist as your character and just interact,

[22:01] and we're just going to record all of it.

[22:02] Like, Robert Altman obviously was working off a screenplay with stories,

[22:05] but he did so much more where it was just kind of…

[22:07] No, but it was just like he's…

[22:09] Wow, stories, huh?

[22:10] Yeah.

[22:11] But you look at a movie like Nashville or McCabe and Mrs. Miller

[22:14] or even like A Wedding,

[22:16] where it's clear that there's a certain amount of just kind of like open room

[22:19] for everyone to play in.

Dan McCoy

[22:21] Yeah.

[22:21] This seems like more the ultimate of Pret-a-Porter,

[22:24] where it's like, I don't know how much screenplay there was.

Stuart Wellington

[22:27] Yeah.

[22:27] That's what I was getting at.

[22:28] Or like Prairie Home Companion.

Dan McCoy

[22:30] It feels like they just like threw everyone together,

[22:32] like, ah, it'll work itself out.

[22:34] And like, look, I like Apatow a lot more than Elliot,

[22:38] is what I was going to say.

[22:39] Like, I think the early things he directed are very funny,

[22:43] and like he was a necessary corrective to some things

[22:47] that were happening in comedy before that.

[22:49] But at this point, like, he needs to go back.

[22:54] I'm still talking.

[22:55] Okay, sorry, sorry.

[22:56] He needs to go back to like actually writing a script out and doing that.

[23:01] That's all I want to say.

[23:02] Yeah, go on.

[23:02] Sorry, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[23:03] No, I'll say he certainly brought like a real humanity to comedy.

[23:06] I feel like him and like, you know, like, what?

[23:10] In TV, like Mike Schur and Greg Daniels and stuff.

[23:13] Like, at a time when comedy had gotten very, like, ironic bitter.

[23:17] Yes.

[23:17] They brought a real kind of like heart back to it,

[23:19] which is very valuable.

[23:21] But here it's kind of doesn't have that even.

[23:25] Yeah.

[23:25] You know, so it's kind of missing that.

[23:27] I'm not going to go scene by scene through the movie because, again, it's more kind of like you're just watching characters.

[23:31] I will say that there's a lot of montages.

[23:33] We watch the cast rehearse a bunch of fight scenes and animal stunts.

[23:36] There's no jokes there.

[23:37] They do a very elaborate TikTok lip sync dance video, which seems more like a scene that is meant to be clipped from the movie and shared virally than like a joke scene.

[23:46] Like, it's not funny.

Dan McCoy

[23:47] It's not funny.

[23:48] Like, the first time a TikTok scene comes up, I'm like, oh, this kind of makes sense, like, because there's a TikTok star here, of course.

[23:54] Not stick stock, which is a different social media thing where you're talking about what stocks are going to stick and what stocks are going to get stuck.

[24:00] Oh, I thought it was stock footage of sticks that you can buy.

Elliott Kalan

[24:03] It's stock footage of both sticks, like branches, and also sticks, the band.

[24:07] Yeah.

[24:08] Yeah.

[24:09] All your sticks, Steve.

[24:09] So if you need images of Dennis DeYoung or a twig, that's where you go.

[24:14] Stick stock, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[24:15] The short story sticks.

Elliott Kalan

[24:18] Now, the thing is, though, if you remember stick stock, you weren't there, man.

Dan McCoy

[24:24] I've totally forgot.

Elliott Kalan

[24:26] So you're saying it makes sense for them to do a TikTok thing?

[24:29] Yeah, yeah, because there's a TikTok person.

[24:30] And I was about to say tip top for TikTok, so I apologize for making fun of your mispeaking.

Dan McCoy

[24:34] A tip top stick stock.

[24:37] No, like, I feel like if they're in a bubble, like, that's what they would do.

[24:40] Like, oh, yeah, we'll get together.

[24:41] It'll be fun.

[24:42] But then it becomes, like, such a runner for the fucking movie.

[24:46] And it's not inherently funny that this person is a TikTok star.

[24:50] And the movie seems to think it is.

Stuart Wellington

[24:51] That's a good point.

[24:52] I think I'm going to flip flop on my TikTok stick stock.

Dan McCoy

[24:56] Tip top.

[24:57] I thought your stick stuck on your previous position.

Elliott Kalan

[25:01] Guys, I have to go down to the ship shop.

[25:02] That's where I buy ships.

[25:04] Wow.

[25:05] I hope everything's ship shape.

[25:06] At the ship shop?

[25:07] Tip top.

[25:08] This is good stuff.

[25:08] Tip top, ship shape, ship shop.

[25:10] Stop by the chip shop.

[25:12] And then I'll go to the chip shop, a Brooklyn restaurant, which is no longer there anymore.

[25:16] Yeah, unfortunately.

[25:17] It was a delicious place to get fish and chips.

[25:19] Yeah, one place you could get a fried Mars bar in Brooklyn.

[25:21] Anyway, so the – but it's – I think – what you're saying is right that they seem to think that just mentioning that she's a TikTok influencer is kind of like enough of a joke.

[25:31] Yeah.

[25:31] But the reference is enough of a joke, but it's – it's not really – there's no joke there.

[25:35] The producer gets calls from the head of the studio.

[25:37] It's played by Kate McKinnon.

[25:39] And she's always in a different kind of lavish 1% vacation resort, you know.

[25:44] And a very chaste romance starts between Pedro Pascal and Ria Bakalova where she refuses to sleep with him until he agrees to different types of long-term relationship contracts.

Stuart Wellington

[25:53] Which is kind of a funny bit where he's like, do you want to have sex with me?

[25:56] She's like, yes, but first we have to do all these things.

[25:59] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[26:00] Yeah.

[26:00] And of all the runners, that's the one that I liked the most.

[26:03] And it's the one that at the – by the end feels the most like a story has happened, you know.

[26:08] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[26:08] And eventually we see some scenes from the movies.

[26:11] Dan's already talked about those.

Stuart Wellington

[26:13] I got to talk about that though.

[26:14] Okay.

[26:14] So this is a movie that's meant to be shot entirely on green screen and filled in with tons of effects.

[26:20] Yeah, or as they say in Germany, grunscroon.

[26:22] So when they show these grunscroon scenes, but it's all – all the effects are finished.

[26:29] They show – it's all finished effects, which are also, as Dan pointed out, very much like a parody movie.

[26:34] Yeah.

[26:34] But I don't know – would it have been better if they just kept it – I mean, I feel like for realism's sake –

[26:41] because it's not like they're doing the fucking special effects on the fly.

[26:44] No, they're not rendering it on the fly.

Elliott Kalan

[26:45] I mean, we might need –

[26:46] As much as Marvel would love that to happen.

[26:49] Yeah.

[26:50] I mean, oh, I guarantee you they're working on some kind of AI special effects program that would render in real time.

[26:57] Yeah, wonderful.

Stuart Wellington

[26:58] Yeah.

[26:59] But I don't – do you think it would have been – I feel like it would have been better if they played it straight,

[27:04] but just kept it all done on these green screens, which make it inherently silly,

[27:10] even though their performances would be not silly.

[27:13] I wonder.

Elliott Kalan

[27:14] I think that would have worked.

[27:15] I think that would have gotten – not that seeing the scenes from the movies isn't tiring after a while,

[27:19] but I think that would have gotten tired much faster.

[27:22] Yeah.

[27:22] Because the joke is that the thing that they're doing just isn't there, which is a joke.

[27:25] They have the two guys who are representing the cliff beasts on the green screen,

[27:29] and they have jokes and stuff.

[27:30] And I mean –

[27:31] I think that to break it up visually, it helps a little bit to have those scenes.

[27:35] You just wish that they looked more different than the rest of the movie.

[27:38] Yeah.

[27:39] You wish they were shot differently, that they looked like real things.

Stuart Wellington

[27:42] Or they were like shot with like the different – like they were shot with one of those Michael Bay cameras.

Elliott Kalan

[27:48] Yeah, that shakes all the time.

Stuart Wellington

[27:50] Yeah, that shakes all the time.

[27:51] Like everything's like overly saturated.

Elliott Kalan

[27:53] Michael Bay is like, I've invented a new camera.

[27:55] It's constantly shaking.

[27:56] It can only take – it only records shots that go for a half a second before it shuts down.

[28:01] Or spins around.

[28:02] Or spins around.

[28:04] And I think that the – oh, I had another thing I was going to say about it, but I don't know.

[28:08] Dan, what are we going to say?

Dan McCoy

[28:09] Well, I do agree with Stu to some degree that like, oh, you know, I think just them acting as tennis balls is funnier than all the effects stuff.

[28:21] And I mean maybe it's just the part of me that's too much of a movie fan to like just go with the movie.

[28:28] Like there is like a nerdy part of me that's just like, that's not how it would be.

[28:32] That doesn't make any sense.

[28:33] They didn't have those right away.

[28:34] But there are moments where I do find it funny.

[28:38] There's the scene where they're –

[28:39] Like it goes on too long, but I like when they're all sick.

[28:43] Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

[28:44] With the stomach flu, much like I had.

[28:46] And they just start like falling and drifting away from the cliff and floating in air because on wires.

Elliott Kalan

[28:50] That they're supposed to be climbing a cliff and then they keep letting go and they're just floating in midair because they're clearly on wires.

[28:56] That – I think that – I thought the first time I saw that, I thought like that's a really funny visual because it looks like a finished movie where they're just kind of floating in midair because they've given up.

[29:05] But it's – I wish they had been that inventive with the rest of it.

[29:09] That like each time they had had a thing like that where it was paid off that it was looked finished.

Dan McCoy

[29:16] Yeah, like so many things in the movie, they're just like – it seems like, I don't know, this is the scene that we improvised this morning.

[29:23] Let's make it happen rather than like a payoff.

Elliott Kalan

[29:26] So David Duchovny's character, he wants to rewrite the script.

[29:29] The director won't let him.

[29:31] Everybody hangs out.

[29:32] They get news that someone had a positive COVID test.

[29:34] They all have to quarantine again.

[29:35] Cut to a montage of them killing time alone in their rooms like building skills.

[29:39] And Leslie Mann, we see, starts out very clumsy on roller skates and then gets very good at roller skate dancing.

[29:44] And I was like, did she get really good at roller skate dancing for the role?

[29:48] Was she already really good at roller skate dancing?

[29:50] And the best acting in the movie is her pretending she's not good at roller skating.

[29:54] Yeah, that's actually a really good point.

[29:55] The same way that Michelle Yeoh, for all the reasons she earned that Best Actress award that she won not too long ago before we recorded this,

[30:02] is playing a character who convincingly does not know how to do kung fu and is doing martial arts clumsily and looking like she has no idea what she's doing,

[30:12] must be the hardest thing for Michelle Yeoh to do in the world.

[30:14] So maybe Leslie Mann is just pulling out all the stops to make it seem like she's not good at roller skating.

[30:19] Maybe she's an amazing roller skater.

[30:20] Right in, Leslie Mann.

[30:22] Leslie Mann, I want to see you in a roller skate movie.

[30:24] Like, I think that would be hilarious.

[30:25] I'd love to see Leslie Mann star in a movie about a champion roller skater, someone who owns a roller rink.

[30:31] What would it be, guys?

Dan McCoy

[30:32] Let's get that Xanadu reboot off the ground.

Elliott Kalan

[30:34] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[30:35] Call it Manadu because it's Leslie Mann.

[30:37] Yeah.

[30:38] Better yet, call it Manitou.

[30:40] Yeah.

[30:41] This is a sequel, yeah?

[30:42] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[30:43] No, call it Manatee.

[30:44] And she's a roller skating Manatee.

[30:47] Oh, wow.

[30:48] Okay, yeah.

[30:48] Get on this, Hollywood.

Stuart Wellington

[30:49] I mean, at that point, you don't even need the roller skates.

[30:52] I mean, just Manatee.

[30:52] No, no, no, no.

Elliott Kalan

[30:53] That's the roller skates to make the movie.

[30:54] You know what?

[30:55] Yeah, actually, you're right.

[30:56] Forget the roller skates.

[30:57] She's just a Manatee with Leslie Mann's face.

[30:59] But there's still a remake of Xanadu.

Stuart Wellington

[31:00] There's probably already an Asylum production about, like, a killer manatee called Manatee, right?

[31:06] Dan?

[31:07] Probably.

Dan McCoy

[31:09] Probably.

[31:09] I'm sorry.

[31:10] This is flashing me back to one of my, as Jesse Thorne very insultingly calls them, my low effort tweets, where I talked about Leslie Mann.

[31:23] Yeah, you sweat over those fucking things.

[31:25] I'm sorry.

Dan McCoy

[31:25] Man-Man.

Stuart Wellington

[31:26] Like Hephaestus over the forge.

Dan McCoy

[31:28] Man-Man, who has all the powers of Leslie Mann because, of course, Man-Man was bitten by a radioactive Leslie Mann.

Elliott Kalan

[31:35] That is a low-energy tweet delivered with even less energy.

[31:39] Well, you know, it was interrupted by two doofuses.

[31:45] Would a doofus suggest that the movie Manatee is not a remake of Xanadu but a remake of Mannequin, where the main character is a mannequin of a manatee?

[31:52] Tell me if I'm a doofus now, dumbass.

Stuart Wellington

[31:55] You had my attention, but now you have my interest.

[31:58] I mean, like certain suit coats would look great on a manatee.

[32:02] Yeah, so the first one's called Manatee.

Elliott Kalan

[32:04] The second one, of course, is now Manatee on the move again.

[32:07] On the move.

[32:08] Yeah, on the move again.

[32:09] And then Manatee.

[32:09] Manatee.

[32:10] Manatee.

[32:11] Oh, my God.

[32:11] It writes itself.

[32:13] And you got the sponsor tie-ins, Manatee, Manashevitz.

[32:16] It's the only sweet wine that tastes like a manatee.

[32:19] Manatees.

[32:19] They're men's undershirts that have a manatee on them.

Dan McCoy

[32:22] Oh, I thought you were talking about Manatees, the only fans with the hottest manatees.

Elliott Kalan

[32:28] Yeah, yeah.

[32:29] The manatee just teases you.

[32:30] Just waves its tail.

[32:31] And you're like, I understand why those pirates and sailors thought these were mermaids.

[32:35] Hello.

Stuart Wellington

[32:37] Suddenly, I get it.

[32:38] I'll be taking the role of Odysseus, please.

[32:41] I don't think there's any manatees in the Odysseus, are there?

[32:44] Well, yeah, no, but like the sirens.

[32:46] He had the rest of his crew all like, and he's like-

[32:48] The sirens were the Greeks explaining manatees.

[32:51] Well, he's like, keep the beeswax out of my ears because I want to hear that shit.

Dan McCoy

[32:55] Elliot, is that why sirens on an ambulance and such are called sirens?

[33:01] Is it from the sirens?

Elliott Kalan

[33:03] That's a good question.

[33:04] I don't know if the word siren has a deeper root that involves sound or if it's a response to that,

[33:09] but it's very possible.

[33:10] Very possible.

Dan McCoy

[33:11] You could write in, listeners, but probably by that time, I'll have Googled it and or forgotten I asked a question.

[33:17] So, you know, take your pick.

[33:19] Choose your own adventure.

[33:21] Maximumfun.org slash join.

Elliott Kalan

[33:23] Anyway, so DeCovny and Leslie-

[33:25] Have we gotten to the fucking drug scene yet?

[33:27] No, we're getting there.

[33:28] That's way later.

[33:29] So, characters start having sex with each other.

[33:31] DeCovny and Leslie may have sex on the set.

[33:33] Carol meets a soccer player who's staying at the same hotel, which is weird.

[33:37] That their bubble overlaps with another bubble like a Venn diagram between a soccer team and a movie shoot.

[33:43] It doesn't make sense.

[33:44] They have sex after she learns her fiancé has left her.

[33:46] Howie, the comic relief actor, he gets stressed out and punches DeCovny in the nuts and runs away.

[33:50] And this leads to the hiring of Mr. Best, a mean security guy who attaches tracking badges to the actors.

[33:56] This doesn't really pay off.

[33:57] The tracking badges don't pay off.

[33:58] Mr. Best pays off.

Dan McCoy

[33:59] Yeah, you know what?

[34:01] Like, I don't remember laughing at it at the time, but in retrospect, remembering how seedy Mr. Best is kind of makes me laugh.

[34:09] Okay.

[34:10] That's fair.

[34:10] He's a very, like, sort of low-level British gangster kind of thing.

[34:14] Yeah, he's a little ponytail.

Elliott Kalan

[34:16] He's played by the actor Ross Lee, who I'm not particularly familiar with.

[34:21] Although, according to Wikipedia, he did have a show called Ross Lee's Ghoulies, a horror comedy-themed Saturday morning studio-based show.

[34:28] So, maybe it was something in which Ghoulies bit people on the toilet.

[34:32] Or maybe Ross Lee bit people.

[34:35] I'm fulfilling Ghoulies fans' dreams by finally biting them on the butt from the toilet.

[34:42] I'm going to mention—

[34:43] So, wait.

Dan McCoy

[34:43] Wait, wait, wait, wait.

[34:45] Fans appear on the show.

[34:47] Yes.

[34:47] And it's always been their dream to be bitten on the butt.

[34:50] I mean, I feel like that's just like—

[34:51] Yeah, it's the movie left them hanging.

Stuart Wellington

[34:51] It's basically just a horror convention type thing, right?

[34:54] Exactly.

[34:54] It's like where you go to one of those horror conventions,

[34:56] and you pay for Michael Myers to, like, choke you.

Elliott Kalan

[34:59] Yeah, exactly.

[34:59] Or, like, when you go to a comic convention and you see people—

[35:02] Now.

[35:02] Everyone wants to take pictures on their knees in front of the members of the 501st Legion

[35:06] as if the stormtroopers are about to execute—

[35:08] This is something you see at a lot of comic conventions.

[35:10] Nobody wants to take a picture of them defeating a stormtrooper.

[35:13] They only want pictures where they are at the mercy of the stormtroopers.

Stuart Wellington

[35:16] I wonder if that's in the 501st contract where they're like,

[35:19] We can't lose.

[35:20] We have to look super cool.

Elliott Kalan

[35:23] Unless we're fighting The Rock or Vin Diesel.

[35:25] Well, that's why Vin Diesel is a member of the 501st, I'm sure.

[35:28] I'm sure he dresses up and goes out to conventions as a stormtrooper.

[35:32] But anyway, then next comes the second weirdest scene in the movie.

[35:36] Pedro Pascal is exercising to this full-length video where Daisy Ridley is like an exercise teacher.

[35:41] Oh, yeah.

[35:41] And then she starts sex-talking to him, and then he enters the screen like Videodrome style and has sex with her.

[35:48] And it is—

[35:48] Go on.

[35:49] Nothing about it makes that much sense.

Stuart Wellington

[35:51] Is it super long and sexy or anything?

Dan McCoy

[35:55] No, not at all.

[35:56] I mean, the idea of Pedro Pascal and Daisy Ridley in my head feels sexy, but on the screen now.

[36:05] Didn't seem to work.

Elliott Kalan

[36:06] No, it doesn't work quite right.

Dan McCoy

[36:09] Audrey was like another young woman with an old man in a movie.

[36:14] And I'm like, well, I mean, I agree with you in general.

[36:17] This is the situation in which it makes the most sense, in which he is just fantasizing about.

Stuart Wellington

[36:21] It's supposed to be a fantasy, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[36:23] Yeah.

[36:24] A hallucination of this woman that he's already seeing.

[36:27] And between the two of them—

Stuart Wellington

[36:28] It's not like something super egregious where it's like Gabriel Byrne married to Toni Collette in Hereditary, and you're like, wait, what?

Elliott Kalan

[36:38] So the actors come down with the flu.

[36:40] Then we have the scene where they're climbing a mountain in the movie, and they start throwing up on themselves, and they are just hanging in the air throwing up on themselves.

[36:47] It's okay.

[36:47] The soccer player convinces Carol to start a mutiny among the cast, but they refuse to.

[36:51] And I was like, phew, a plot almost broke out.

[36:55] That's a relief.

[36:57] Carol finds out that as a result of her agitation, her lines have been given to Crystal, the TikTok influencer.

[37:03] And we watch this movie scene where Crystal teaches a cliff beast, a young cliff beast, a dance, which is kind of a funny idea.

[37:10] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[37:11] I think in the context of the bubble, it made me angry, but—

Elliott Kalan

[37:15] I think if you saw that scene in a parody of a Jurassic Park-type movie, you would think it was a funny scene.

Stuart Wellington

[37:21] And I kind of liked it in addition to losing her lines.

[37:24] She also got yelled at by a cliff beast and pees her pants a lot.

Elliott Kalan

[37:28] Yeah.

[37:28] And there's like a tube with fake pee in it that's just spraying out of her pants.

[37:32] The rest of the cast—

Dan McCoy

[37:33] Why are you doing this to me?

[37:34] You're making me pee.

Elliott Kalan

[37:35] The one issue I have with this scene is that the rest of the cast also starts dancing.

[37:39] And it's just like this is not the first or last scene in the movie of just the cast dancing.

[37:44] And I'm going to tell you something, guys.

[37:45] Something I realized watching this movie that I kind of always knew deep inside, but now I really know.

[37:49] I hate scenes in movies.

[37:51] This especially happens during the credits of movies where it's just the cast dancing.

[37:54] I hate it.

[37:55] I don't want to see it.

[37:55] Well, look.

[37:56] It's like I finished watching Barb and Star, and I was like, I really enjoyed that.

[38:00] I liked that movie a lot.

[38:00] And then the credits was just the cast dancing together, and I was like, turn this shit off.

[38:05] And Danielle was like, I wanted to watch that.

[38:08] And I'm like, I'm leaving the room.

[38:09] I can't.

[38:09] I don't want to see the cast having a great time.

Dan McCoy

[38:12] I mean, that movie is so good.

[38:13] Otherwise, I don't begrudge it.

[38:16] But I understand what you're saying.

[38:18] It's funny.

[38:19] It's like I enjoyed it the first time I saw it, and there's something about Mary.

[38:24] When it's new, I'm like, oh, this is very joyful and fun.

[38:27] Look at this.

Elliott Kalan

[38:28] And it plays into your hopes as a naive viewer that all the actors are friends.

[38:33] They had fun.

[38:34] It's a party to make a movie.

[38:35] They all have a special relationship.

[38:38] But after a while –

Stuart Wellington

[38:38] Jonathan Richman's just hanging out, playing songs.

Elliott Kalan

[38:41] Yeah.

[38:41] And after a while, it starts to feel to me like, hey, check out this cool party you weren't

[38:44] invited to.

[38:45] But you get to watch it.

Dan McCoy

[38:46] If I wanted that, I'd watch The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

[38:49] Some of that might be about you.

[38:50] It's not that cool, Marty.

[38:52] I do think that as – yeah, the success of it in There's Something About Mary led to

[38:56] Hollywood being like, these saps eat it up.

[39:00] They love it when we pretend to like each other.

[39:02] Let's do this at the end of every comedy.

Elliott Kalan

[39:04] Well, similar to the end of every SNL where the cast is just hugging, like, oh, what an

[39:08] experience we've been through.

[39:09] And I'm like, I don't want to see this.

[39:11] I don't care.

Stuart Wellington

[39:12] All I want is to read stuff about Orson Welles talking shit about other people or Brian

[39:17] Cox talking shit about other people.

[39:19] That's exactly what I want.

[39:20] Dream guest for the Flophouse.

[39:21] Brian Cox, you're probably listening to this shit.

[39:23] Come on here, buddy.

Elliott Kalan

[39:24] Yeah, Stuart has been – he's been lobbying us in our Flophouse text chain to get Brian

[39:30] Cox on the show.

[39:30] And it's like, yeah, we're not against it.

[39:32] So, Stuart, I think you've got to take that public.

[39:34] Start asking Brian Cox.

Dan McCoy

[39:35] Agamemnon himself should come on our show.

[39:37] Yeah, manifest that somehow, Stuart.

[39:39] Yeah, I'm trying.

Elliott Kalan

[39:40] Did I see him on Broadway?

[39:41] Of course I did.

[39:41] And the Tom Stoppard play rock and roll.

[39:43] It was great.

[39:44] Brian Cox did come on the show.

[39:45] America's Greatest Living Playwright, Tom Stoppard.

[39:48] I don't think – you can't call Tom Stoppard America's Greatest Living Playwright.

[39:51] He's not American.

[39:54] He's not even – he's a British person of Czech extraction.

[39:57] So, he's not American at all.

Stuart Wellington

[39:59] There's a ad that keeps running on New York, one here in New York City, where I live,

[40:04] the big city, Big Apple, advertising the current run of Leopoldstadt.

[40:09] And that's a word-for-word recreation of the ad.

[40:12] Really?

[40:12] Did they say America's Greatest Living Playwright?

[40:13] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[40:14] Or like our Greatest Living Playwright.

[40:16] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[40:16] Our Greatest Living Playwright, I would totally consider.

[40:19] Yeah, humanity.

[40:20] I would consider that.

[40:20] Humanity, yeah.

[40:20] Although, I have to say, I recently watched –

[40:22] Oh, the humanity.

[40:23] I recently watched On the Razzle, which I had never seen before.

[40:25] I saw the, like, Great Performances version of it.

[40:28] And I don't know that farce is Tom Stoppard's greatest strength, as much as I love his other plays.

Stuart Wellington

[40:35] You're like, stop Ard making farce.

Elliott Kalan

[40:40] Stop Ard.

[40:41] Man Animation does a lot of good stuff.

[40:43] Have you ever worked with them?

[40:45] But so, Tom Stoppard, we'd still love to have you on the show.

[40:48] Brian Cox, of course, we'd love to have you on the show.

[40:49] Come on the show.

[40:50] If anyone wants to pledge, not money, but that Brian Cox will appear on the show thanks to their efforts –

[40:55] Cox and Stoppard.

[40:57] Cox and Stoppard.

[40:57] They're cops.

[40:58] Hold on a second.

[40:58] We're detectives?

[41:00] Is Brian Cox and Tom Stoppard as they are now?

[41:02] They're detectives.

[41:03] Oh, I would love to see that.

Stuart Wellington

[41:04] Cox Stoppard.

[41:05] Maybe Ronnie Cox shows up?

[41:07] We'll figure it all out.

[41:08] We'll figure it out.

Elliott Kalan

[41:09] And Bob Stoppard.

[41:11] I don't know who that is.

[41:12] So, they have this thing, and then Duchovny and Mann break up again.

[41:17] Leslie Mann tries to escape the hotel, and this is when, in the middle of the night,

[41:20] she's running out to a cover of Heart of Glass, I think.

[41:24] Yeah, it's Miley Cyrus singing Heart of Glass.

[41:26] Okay.

[41:26] It's an interesting choice for this scene.

[41:28] And a security guard, assuming that she is a crazed fan, shoots her hand off.

[41:32] And that's a wrap for Leslie Mann for most of the rest of the movie.

[41:37] Did you guys feel like it was an escalation or not a far enough escalation when she got her hand shut off?

Dan McCoy

[41:42] Well, it's a weird effect that this had on me because I was like,

[41:48] that is far more brutal than I expected out of the movie.

[41:51] Like, you see—

Stuart Wellington

[41:52] Shut up and down normally doesn't include hand explosions in these movies.

Dan McCoy

[41:55] Her stuffy hand with, like, just, like, one finger on it.

Elliott Kalan

[41:59] It's more the kind of thing you expect to see when Travis Bickle goes on a rampage.

[42:02] Than in the Judd Apatow movie.

Dan McCoy

[42:04] And yet, after an hour of nothing happening, it had curiously little effect on me.

Elliott Kalan

[42:11] So you're saying you were already so numb from the movie that seeing Leslie Mann,

[42:15] one of America's sweethearts, have her fingers blown off on screen in front of you was not enough.

Stuart Wellington

[42:19] And, you know, I've watched a number of movies.

[42:23] And a lot of them have plots.

[42:25] Oh, yeah, name them.

[42:25] And so seeing this happen, I'm like, okay, so they're going to do a bit where she has, like, a weird robot hand or some kind of a fake hand.

[42:35] And that's going to be, you know, fodder for some more hilarious jokes.

[42:38] But nope, she just disappears at that point.

[42:40] And it feels weird.

[42:42] Like, I don't know.

[42:43] At that point, if you're going to shoot her, just have her explode.

Dan McCoy

[42:48] That's Stuart's rule for filmmakers.

Elliott Kalan

[42:51] If they're not going to get a robot hand, just have them explode.

[42:53] Just have them explode.

[42:55] So understandably, after the security guards have mutilated one of his stars, the producer, Peter Serafinowicz, he wants to shut down the movie.

[43:03] But Kate McKinnon won't let him.

[43:04] And this leads to a series of Zoom calls up the chain where she calls her boss and says, we've got to shut it down.

[43:10] And then he calls his boss and says, we've got to shut it down.

[43:12] But they won't let them.

Stuart Wellington

[43:13] Her boss, Raising Cane's John Lithgow?

Elliott Kalan

[43:16] That's right.

[43:16] Raising Cane and Buckaroo Banzai's own John Lithgow.

[43:19] And it ends with John Lithgow and his Chinese boss making plans to play tennis because they're on the same beach together and didn't realize it.

[43:27] Guys, how did this – it seems like this is heading towards a satirical point.

[43:32] The idea that everyone up the chain doesn't want to do this but is being forced by the person above them.

[43:38] And that at the very end, this Hollywood studio is owned by a Chinese finance executive.

[43:42] But it doesn't really go anywhere.

[43:44] It doesn't make a point.

[43:46] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[43:46] I mean, in theory, sure, I could see where this could go somewhere.

[43:51] In practice, this part of the movie made me really annoyed, again, from a reality of the business angle where this is all happening because Karen Gillan is flagging, like, hey, all this horrible stuff has happened, culminating in an actor's hand getting shot off.

[44:08] And the idea that, like –

Stuart Wellington

[44:11] Is John Landis running this show?

Dan McCoy

[44:13] What's going on here?

[44:14] He wouldn't have stopped with a hand.

[44:17] They try and set it up with, like, look, COVID has shut everything down.

[44:21] Like, we really need this movie to go forward, et cetera, et cetera.

[44:24] But the idea that they wouldn't – that they would treat talent this poorly on a major picture is odd to me.

[44:34] Like, at least that no one would have any concerns.

[44:37] Like, look, I know that –

Elliott Kalan

[44:38] I mean, considering Trent Tarantino almost killed Uma Thurman, you know, right?

[44:42] Yeah, but, like, is that – I don't know.

[44:45] But I know what you're saying.

[44:46] I know what you're saying.

[44:47] Well, especially when they've taken so many COVID precautions, the idea that they would have no other precautions whatsoever.

Stuart Wellington

[44:52] Well, and there's something that feels a little disconnected when the – what that shows is that the low man on the totem pole, the people who have to deal with the worst conditions, in this case, are actors.

[45:04] Yeah.

[45:04] Whereas, I don't know, an actual satirist might be like, no, okay, why don't we show the people who get shit on by the actors?

Dan McCoy

[45:11] Yeah, that's what – like, it's all focused on how poorly these actors are treated.

[45:15] Like, actors would be treated the best of anyone on this goddamn production.

Elliott Kalan

[45:20] The movie wants it both ways because they keep making jokes about how actors demand pampering and they get all this stuff.

[45:26] But then also, you're right.

[45:27] They are the ones who are, like, supposed to be the ones we're sympathetic with or at least, if not sympathetic, the ones that are being shown.

[45:34] They've taken the hits the most.

[45:35] Yeah.

[45:36] You know, literally in Leslie Mann's case.

[45:39] John Cena has a cameo after this as a stunt coordinator who is working remotely through an iPad.

[45:45] This is such a funny idea for this scene and they just don't – I feel like they just don't execute it as well as they – they don't go as far with it.

[45:51] Because the idea of a stunt coordinator who's appearing via an iPad, can't really see anything, is lagging and freezing up, and then someone getting hurt badly.

[45:59] Like, this is where – this is the scene where a character should get their fingers blown off.

[46:02] It's like –

[46:02] Yeah.

[46:03] I mean, that might be a little too close to actual reality that a stunt goes wrong and someone gets shot on set since – but I can't remember the timeline if that happened before or after this movie was made.

Stuart Wellington

[46:13] Well, that's what, like, good satire, like Judd Aptow loves to deliver, holds up a mirror to society.

[46:19] And I think in this case, being a little too close to home might work, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[46:22] Maybe.

[46:22] Okay.

[46:23] Maybe you're right.

[46:24] But it's a – then – but no one seems to either – no one seems to really get hurt from this stunt go wrong.

[46:29] And it was like, I want the movie to have the courage of its convictions and really injure somebody, especially since it's coming after a scene where someone's hand got blown off.

[46:36] Carol wants to leave.

[46:38] Her agent says if she does –

Dan McCoy

[46:38] More blood, cries Elliot.

[46:40] Well, more satirical blood.

Elliott Kalan

[46:42] You know, go all the way.

[46:42] If you're going to make the joke, go all the way and do the whole joke, you know.

[46:46] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[46:46] I mean, if you want me to care about these characters, give them traits.

[46:50] Beat them up.

Elliott Kalan

[46:51] Yeah.

[46:52] Well, there's a reason that Spider-Man is the greatest and most beloved character in fiction, and it's because he never catches a break.

[46:59] He's always getting beat up.

[47:00] Whenever they do a series where it's like, and now everything's working out great for Spider-Man, those are the worst Spider-Man stories.

[47:06] Like you want to see your main characters have trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for pool.

[47:12] And there's a scene in a pool in this movie, but I don't remember if it's around here or not.

[47:15] Anyway, Carol wants to leave.

[47:18] Her agent says, if you leave, you are going to owe the studio for all the money it's going to cost them, which is tens of millions of dollars.

[47:24] Everyone in the cast is unhappy.

[47:26] There's a weird scene where the hotel workers are celebrating how bad the movie is going because the longer the actors stay there, the more money the hotel makes.

[47:34] And that did feel like a weirdly tone-deaf scene where the service workers are like, yeah, yeah, we love this.

[47:40] This is great.

[47:41] Like they're the villains all of a sudden.

[47:43] And the service workers all sing together.

[47:46] I don't remember what song they sing.

[47:47] Do you guys remember?

[47:49] No.

[47:50] Okay.

[47:51] There's an actor standing in for Leslie Mann, and while working with her, David Duchovny is like, I feel bad.

[47:57] I left my family to do this, and he storms off.

[48:00] Carol learns that her grandmother died, but the studio won't let her leave to attend the funeral.

[48:05] And Kate McKinnon decides it's time to pump up the cast by having Beck play a concert for them remotely.

[48:11] Oh, yeah.

[48:12] And they all dance around while Beck plays, what, Lady Night?

[48:15] Ladies Night?

[48:16] And I have become very, very inured to celebrity cameos as jokes in movies.

[48:23] I feel like the John Cena one works a little bit because it's like, oh, I buy him as the guy doing this thing.

[48:28] It's not just someone walking on and going, I'm John Cena.

[48:31] John Cena, what are you doing here?

[48:32] But just having Beck come on and just kind of sing a song while everyone dances, I'm like, what's the joke?

[48:38] What's going on here?

Dan McCoy

[48:39] I mean, the joke is that, like, clearly this is just, like, one of a million of these he's doing because, like, they – he doesn't even bother to replace, like, the title of the movie or whatever.

[48:49] Or, like – and, like, he and Kate McKinnon are, like, talking over each other on this thing.

[48:54] Like, they aren't timing it outright.

[48:56] But it's not much of a joke.

[48:59] No, it's not.

[48:59] I'm just identifying that there was an attempt at a joke.

[49:02] Yeah, there was an attempt, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[49:03] But you know what has a lot of jokes?

[49:05] The Flophouse Podcast.

[49:06] Dan, let's take a break from the movie and can you tell our listeners how they can support the Flophouse Podcast?

[49:11] A veritable sea of jokes that they can swim in.

Dan McCoy

[49:15] Yeah, cornucopia.

[49:16] I mean, don't swim in it.

[49:18] I don't think it would support your body weight.

Elliott Kalan

[49:21] This coming from a guy who loves Uncle Scrooge, a character who swims in money.

Dan McCoy

[49:26] Yeah.

[49:26] Okay, well, let's talk about MaxFunDrive.

[49:28] What's MaxFunDrive?

[49:29] Well, some shows make their money with corporate funding that comes with a lot of strings attached.

[49:34] Some shows paywall.

[49:36] Some are all of their content behind services that take a cut without giving much back.

[49:41] But MaxFun, that's an artist collective, baby, that's also now completely employee-owned and managed.

[49:48] And it says, hey, we're going to make all our content, well, almost all our content, free to you up front.

[49:55] And if you like it, consider tipping the creators for their time and effort so they can continue to make a living making the shows that you love.

[50:02] And when you give it to MaxFun, some goes off the top for operating costs to pay those employee owners.

[50:07] But the vast majority of it goes directly to the shows that you personally select when you become a member saying, this is what I like, this is what I listen to.

[50:16] Now, no one likes interruptions.

[50:18] And believe you me.

[50:20] Except me, when it's me making the interruptions.

[50:22] Yeah, you love them.

[50:24] And believe you me, no one of us likes coming out here asking for money.

[50:27] So that's why we do it only once a year.

[50:29] So the rest of the time, we're out here just making the show.

[50:32] So help us keep it to just once a year.

[50:35] Please join us as a member.

[50:37] I want to say, believe me, we know times are tight.

[50:40] The world is uncertain.

[50:41] If you are a person who cannot afford it right now, we're not talking to you.

[50:46] You don't need to feel bad about any of this.

[50:48] But maybe you'll be in a better position to become a member another year.

[50:51] If you can afford it, I say as someone who supports Maximum Fun and other podcasts myself,

[50:57] it feels good to feel like you're a patron of the arts or whatever it is that we do at the Flophouse.

[51:04] And there are multiple ways to support.

[51:06] You can join or upgrade or boost by a few bucks between levels.

[51:11] All memberships at the $5 a month or more level get bonus content.

[51:16] There's hundreds of hours of extra shows from across the network.

[51:20] I'll get into our specific bonus content in just a few moments.

[51:24] Or you can purchase a gift membership for a friend or anonymous Max Funster.

[51:29] And the recipient will get access to all that bonus content.

[51:33] Let me get into some of the thank you gifts.

[51:36] At the $10 a month or more level, you get access to the bonus content as well as a reusable vinyl sticker of Tom Brokaw in a Dune still suit with a slogan that says,

[51:48] If it ain't Brokaw, Dune fix it.

Elliott Kalan

[51:50] I have already affixed one of mine to my laptop.

[51:53] So I think I might post a picture of it.

Dan McCoy

[51:56] Baffle your friends and confound your enemies with this beautiful sticker of Tom Brokaw, fan of Dune.

[52:01] At $20 a month, you get all that I've mentioned.

[52:04] Plus, you get to pick either a sporty cap with the Max Fun rocket ship logo or you get the Max Fun culinary kit, a secret blend of herbs and spices that will give your tongue maximum flavor.

[52:18] It's not actually a secret.

[52:19] I think you can see what's in it on the label.

[52:21] So don't worry if you've got problems.

[52:24] Allergies.

[52:25] Let's just call them problems.

[52:27] Yeah, problems.

[52:28] Food problems, we call them.

[52:30] Second volume of the Max Fun family cookbook with recipes beloved by various hosts.

[52:34] I know Stu contributed a cocktail recipe and I wrote a very long explanation of a Vietnamese pork dish I make at home.

[52:43] But those are the network gifts.

[52:45] What about Flophouse specific stuff?

[52:47] Yeah.

[52:48] Let's start with bonus content.

[52:49] We've already recorded Flop Tales bonus adventure with Dan, that's me, Elliot, and Jubin Pereng as your favorite cartoon dog heroes with Stuart as the game master controlling our adventure or guiding us.

[53:07] I mean, not controlling us.

[53:08] We made our own choices.

[53:09] The first episode of the new adventure should be in your member bonus fee for 2023 right away.

[53:15] And the thrilling conclusion will drop sometime thereafter.

[53:20] That bonus content will be there no matter what else happens.

[53:23] But also, if the Flophouse specifically gets 2,000 new or upgrading members, we will record a member bonus audio commentary for Bratz.

[53:33] The first Flophouse movie to bring us true joy.

[53:36] We did a listener poll and Bratz won one out over us yanking the Mank Crank or the Babylon Baton.

[53:43] So, some people may say, didn't you already do a commentary for Bratz?

[53:46] That was kind of a janky audio from a live show we did a long time ago.

[53:49] That was more of a riff show.

[53:51] Yeah, a riff show.

[53:52] This will be a crisp new audio commentary.

[53:55] And I think that will be a delight.

[53:59] If we reach 2,300 new or upgrading members, we have a double prize.

[54:06] First, we promised you an episode on one of the top 10 money-losing flops we haven't already covered on the show.

[54:11] And release the full video of that episode to YouTube so you can see Stu's beautiful face and Elliot's and my passable ones.

[54:20] In addition, we will get to do...

[54:23] Hey, passable is great in this world.

[54:25] We'll get to do what we've done in previous years and we'll pick 30 of our new or upgrading listeners to get personalized gifts from one of us.

[54:37] 10 will get signed copies of Maniac of New York from Elliot.

[54:40] 10 will get Hinterlags, Hinterlands.

[54:43] Hinterlags?

Stuart Wellington

[54:44] Hinterlags.

Dan McCoy

[54:45] Sorry, I'm not used to reading so much copy at once.

[54:48] Hinterlands, swag from Stu.

[54:50] And 10 will get drawings of a movie character they request drawn by me.

[54:54] I call it copy.

[54:55] It's stuff that I wrote out to remind myself ahead of time.

[54:59] Anyway.

[55:00] And lastly, if we really do well on this drive and hit 2,600 new or upgrading members,

[55:08] we will record a member bonus audio commentary for Food Fight!

[55:13] The movie that caused Stuart's soul to leave his body.

[55:16] The movie he actively campaigned against last year when we offered commentaries.

[55:21] Make him pay for that transgression.

[55:24] Make him pay by paying him and the rest of us through the medium of MaxFun Drive.

[55:28] We get enough new members.

[55:29] We will torture Stu audiovisually via Food Fight.

Stuart Wellington

[55:34] No, no.

[55:34] Don't torture me.

[55:35] Oh, I'd hate it.

[55:37] Yeah.

[55:37] Ouch.

Dan McCoy

[55:38] I don't like it anymore.

[55:39] This is really transitioning to Stu's OnlyFans fast.

[55:43] And remember, while these perks are nice, these are thank you gifts.

[55:47] Again, we don't hide half our content behind a paywall.

[55:50] We make our show free and we offer extra fun tidbits as tokens of thanks because we can't do it without you, the listener.

[55:57] So will you please join us as a member?

[56:01] MaximumFun.org slash join is where you go to do that.

[56:05] Go to MaximumFun.org slash join.

[56:09] Elliot, take us back into the bubble.

[56:11] We've decontaminated.

[56:13] We're going back into the bubble.

[56:14] What's happening in the bubble?

Elliott Kalan

[56:15] Can't fight it.

[56:16] Get back in the bubble.

[56:18] Okay.

[56:19] No.

[56:20] The stars are going to shoot an interview for Entertainment Tonight and the cast learns that things are going so great that when they finish Cliff B6, they're just going to roll right into Cliff B7.

[56:29] And Carol's like, no, no, and tries to get the word out that this needs to stop.

[56:34] And Crystal helps Carol shoot a viral video pleading for help.

[56:36] But the stuntman's daughter deletes it, and then they all slap each other, you know, one at a time.

[56:42] Carol reaches out to Key for emotional help, but he breaks down and admits that he's a fraud.

[56:46] He didn't write his own self-help book.

[56:47] He barely even read it.

[56:48] And he doesn't have anything.

[56:51] Video of Crystal, the TikTok lady, sneaking out to get drunk.

[56:55] This is something that she did very early in the movie, and I was like, oh, so is this going to pay off at all?

[56:59] It finally pays off.

[57:00] It spreads everywhere, and now she's canceled online as a COVID risk.

[57:04] And that leads to the weirdest scene in the movie.

[57:08] I said the second weirdest was Pedro Bescal entering a full-body exercise screen and having sex with Daisy Ridley.

[57:14] This is the weirdest scene in the movie.

[57:16] Do you guys want to describe it, or should I describe it?

Dan McCoy

[57:19] Well, they all take a bunch of drugs, right?

[57:23] And they sit around.

Stuart Wellington

[57:24] They're all sitting around doing drugs.

Dan McCoy

[57:25] In a circle, as you do when you take your drugs.

Stuart Wellington

[57:29] David Duchovny looked right at home.

Elliott Kalan

[57:33] And he did at one point.

[57:35] For legal purposes, that is entirely a joke that is not in any way related to the real David Duchovny.

[57:41] No, no.

[57:41] That was the fictional David Duchovny.

Stuart Wellington

[57:42] I'm saying he's a good actor.

[57:44] And he, at one point, he does a line off of Keegan-Michael Key's head, which is pretty funny, right?

[57:50] That's pretty funny.

[57:51] So that's not the weird part, though.

Elliott Kalan

[57:52] So they're doing drugs.

[57:54] And for some reason, maybe you guys can help figure this out.

[57:57] Their faces start to morph into, like, baby's faces.

Stuart Wellington

[58:01] David Duchovny's face morphs into very young David Duchovny, which is weird.

Elliott Kalan

[58:07] And one of them morphs into Benedict Cumberbatch, and I don't remember why.

Dan McCoy

[58:13] Well, someone says that they look like Benedict Cumberbatch, and you see them, and then they have morphed into Benedict Cumberbatch.

[58:20] And also, like, Karen Gillan, like, has morphed into, like, someone else.

[58:25] Like, is that a character we saw?

[58:26] Like, a guy with a beard?

[58:28] Is that something specific?

[58:28] Oh, yeah, that's right.

[58:29] I think it's just a face.

[58:31] Just a face.

[58:32] So they're like, oh, it's hilarious.

[58:33] When you're on drugs, you think that Karen Gillan looks like this beard man.

[58:37] I don't—

[58:38] Like a beard papa, if you will.

[58:40] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[58:40] You know, I just got done watching the most recent episode of Party Down, the new season of Party Down, which is great.

[58:46] And I'm very happy to see it again.

[58:48] But there's—in this episode, all the caterers take mushrooms, and they're all tripping.

[58:53] And at no point in the whole episode do they do any weird visual effects.

[58:57] It relies exclusively on performers doing very good performances of people on drugs.

[59:02] And I'm like, oh, this is how this shit's supposed to be.

[59:04] Not grotesque, baby-faced, digital-enhanced jokes.

Elliott Kalan

[59:09] What it feels like to me is I wonder if it's a scene that wasn't working, and they decided to kind of, like, gag it up by putting the special effects in.

[59:16] I don't know, but there's a—

Dan McCoy

[59:17] Well, yeah, especially because other than the Benedict Cumberbatch thing, none of the visuals have anything to do with what is happening.

[59:23] Like, it's not like they're related in some way.

Elliott Kalan

[59:26] That was when Pat Boone had his version of the show, What's Happening.

[59:30] It was called What Is Happening.

[59:32] The way you just said it, Dan.

[59:33] Yeah.

[59:34] That's right.

Dan McCoy

[59:35] Welcome to What Is Happening.

[59:38] Hey, what is happening?

[59:40] And now, here's some smooth, inoffensive sounds.

Elliott Kalan

[59:44] So, it's just—it's a very weird scene, and I don't know enough about drugs.

[59:50] I don't know what drug they're doing.

[59:52] Like, it looks like cocaine, but as far as I know, cocaine doesn't usually make you, like, hallucinate.

[59:56] So, maybe there's other stuff they're doing.

[59:57] It just makes you super funny and interesting.

[59:59] It just makes you really interested in something and really eager to tell other people about it.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:03] Like, even hallucinogens, like, there's a whole spectrum.

[1:00:06] Like, you know, I guess some of them cause—

[1:00:08] Tell me more, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:08] Dan, you're officially now my shaman who's going to take me through this.

[1:00:12] I mean, like—

[1:00:13] He's an onironaut.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:15] Look, I haven't taken LSD, but I have taken mushrooms, and I know that, like, on mushrooms—

[1:00:21] Have you never done LSD?

[1:00:21] It's just, you know, like, designs and patterns start, like, sort of moving and feeling sort of alive and pulsing and breathing.

[1:00:32] And, like, you know, there's some synesthesia that goes along with it sometimes.

[1:00:35] If you're listening to music, you get some visuals.

[1:00:37] But it's not like it transforms people into other stuff.

[1:00:40] Now, Stuart, it sounds like you have taken LSD.

[1:00:43] So does it transform people's faces into Benedict Cumberbatch?

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:47] So my most memorable experience—let me see.

[1:00:50] I think what happens when you take LSD is you play a bunch of hours of Killer Instinct in your friend's basement,

[1:00:57] and then you watch Reckless Kelly starring Yahoo! Sirius and Captain Ron back-to-back.

[1:01:02] That's a double feat.

[1:01:03] Are those movies on LSD?

[1:01:05] I thought they were both the funniest movies I've ever seen in my entire life.

[1:01:09] This is a pretty standard LSD experience is playing Killer Instinct and watching.

[1:01:13] Reckless Kelly, yeah.

[1:01:14] And I'm like, I just got to break this dude's combos, but I'm just slipping.

[1:01:18] I'm not good at Killer Instinct anymore.

[1:01:19] But, yeah, so I feel like that's the only difference.

[1:01:22] So I feel like if this movie wanted to show these characters being on LSD,

[1:01:27] they would have, of course, had them playing Killer Instinct,

[1:01:29] which I think would have actually kind of enhanced the sequence.

[1:01:31] What do you guys think?

[1:01:32] Do you think—

Dan McCoy

[1:01:33] I was going to say that the problem was that they couldn't get the rights to Reckless Kelly,

[1:01:38] but that's impossible.

[1:01:39] There's no way.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:41] Young Einstein, maybe I could see that.

[1:01:43] Maybe.

[1:01:43] But Reckless Kelly, they're just getting that away.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:45] Send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Yahoo!

[1:01:48] Sirius and you get the rights.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:51] So it's a very strange scene.

[1:01:53] They do another TikTok lip sync together,

[1:01:56] and during that, Dieter, Pedro Pascal, has a heart attack,

[1:01:59] and everyone takes turns giving him different types of medical care.

[1:02:03] They're just shoving, you know, drugs and things into him,

[1:02:06] until Annika, the hotel clerk that is in love with him,

[1:02:10] gives him a shot of, I don't know, adrenaline or something.

[1:02:13] Adrenaline, yeah.

[1:02:14] It's like Pulp Fiction,

[1:02:15] except everyone acts as if that's the crazy thing.

[1:02:18] They're like, what are you doing?

[1:02:19] When we've just seen them, like,

[1:02:21] shoving his body into a bathtub full of ice

[1:02:23] and throwing drugs into his system and things like—

[1:02:25] Which, again—

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:25] He climbed into a mirror, like, workout machine.

[1:02:30] Like, he can do almost anything, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:02:32] I mean, he's a cartoon character, essentially, yeah.

[1:02:36] And there is a seed of a funny idea in this to me,

[1:02:38] the idea that these actors, none of whom have medical training,

[1:02:41] are just making wild leaps about what's wrong with them

[1:02:43] and trying different treatments.

[1:02:45] I think that could be funny, but—

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:46] It's potentially a very funny idea,

[1:02:48] but she brings him back.

[1:02:50] They declare their love for each other,

[1:02:51] and Carol's like, we came together.

[1:02:53] I can lead us to freedom if we just work together.

[1:02:56] But we can't get to that first,

[1:02:57] because first we need to see another Cliff Beats scene.

[1:02:59] Cliff Beats scene.

[1:03:00] Not Cliff Beats, which is, of course, my dub album.

[1:03:05] But it's recorded entirely on a mountain.

[1:03:07] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:03:09] So not Cliff Beats, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:11] Yeah, it's your bootleg tape

[1:03:13] of only Cliff Burton bass solos.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:16] You gotta—look, look, they mixed them down too low.

[1:03:19] They mixed them down too low.

[1:03:20] Gotta bring the mix up so you can hear them.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:22] Cliff Beats would also be a great album

[1:03:23] for someone named Clifford Beats.

[1:03:26] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:27] What's weird is he was born with the last name Beats

[1:03:30] spelled with a Z at the end.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:31] Yeah.

[1:03:32] And it's crazy,

[1:03:33] because he's also a big red dog, right?

[1:03:34] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:38] And played by Martin Short.

[1:03:39] So yeah, that's a long line.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:41] Clifford, the big red dog, got—

[1:03:43] He did the mocap for the big red dog.

[1:03:45] Hold on.

[1:03:46] He had to have.

[1:03:47] He had to have.

[1:03:47] Hold on.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:47] I got something here.

[1:03:48] I got something.

[1:03:49] Okay, lay it on us.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:50] Lay it on us.

[1:03:50] Make it happen.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:51] Clifford, Clifford, the big red dog,

[1:03:53] he got so red from eating Cliff Beats.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:58] Wow.

[1:03:59] You did have something.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:00] I did.

[1:04:01] You had something there.

[1:04:02] Look, scientists can go back and measure

[1:04:05] which was the better way we could have gone.

[1:04:07] You're right.

[1:04:08] History will be the judge of those jokes.

[1:04:11] Yeah.

[1:04:11] Oh.

[1:04:12] Oh, calm.

[1:04:13] See Elliot?

[1:04:14] No, no, no, no, no.

[1:04:14] I'm too sensitive right now.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:16] Calm down.

[1:04:17] Yeah, yeah.

[1:04:17] No more jokes.

[1:04:18] No more jokes.

[1:04:18] He had a joke orgasm just now.

[1:04:20] Yeah.

[1:04:21] Okay, cool.

[1:04:22] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:23] So anyway, they're shooting this scene

[1:04:24] where they have to destroy the Cliff Beasts

[1:04:26] by shooting them in the genitals

[1:04:27] and putting them on fire.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:29] Okay.

[1:04:30] So most of these jokes aren't funny.

[1:04:32] I do like that Pedro Pascal is kind of funny

[1:04:37] in the movie clips.

[1:04:39] Like, and the captions are always saying

[1:04:41] like unintelligible accent.

[1:04:44] Like he has chosen some kind of weird accent to do

[1:04:47] and he's doing some kind of weird character

[1:04:49] and at least like, I don't know,

[1:04:50] there's something, like he's making an effort.

[1:04:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:53] Does it work?

[1:04:54] Probably not.

[1:04:54] I mean, you be the judge.

[1:04:55] So Dave Duchovny stops the scene

[1:04:57] and he argues with the director

[1:04:58] that it's really just a diversion

[1:05:00] so the other actors can escape the set

[1:05:02] and security chases them

[1:05:03] and Carla, the stunt daughter,

[1:05:05] reveals that she was hired to befriend Crystal

[1:05:07] so she could be a mole in the group

[1:05:09] and they have a fight.

[1:05:10] And then there's an incredibly pointless cameo scene

[1:05:12] where Carol runs into James McAvoy

[1:05:14] who's apparently shooting a movie somewhere else

[1:05:16] in the same bubble

[1:05:17] and they date it at some point.

[1:05:19] It's useless.

[1:05:21] Eventually, after David Duchovny has a stage fight

[1:05:24] with the director

[1:05:24] and then a real fight

[1:05:25] and beats him up for real,

[1:05:27] the cast gets away,

[1:05:28] they get into a helicopter.

[1:05:29] Keegan-Michael Key is supposed to fly a helicopter

[1:05:31] in the movie

[1:05:32] so he's learned how to lift it up and down.

[1:05:34] He doesn't know how to fly it

[1:05:34] but together,

[1:05:35] all with their hands on the stick to guide it,

[1:05:38] they manage to fly the helicopter away.

[1:05:40] And then we get our favorite title screen

[1:05:43] that ever shows up in a movie

[1:05:44] two years later.

[1:05:46] We gotta record that Bratz audio commentary

[1:05:49] so we can get to a sweet two years later screen.

[1:05:52] Two years later,

[1:05:53] what I didn't mention is that

[1:05:54] there's a guy who's making

[1:05:55] a behind-the-scenes documentary the whole time

[1:05:57] who's supposed to shoot the extra features or whatever

[1:05:59] and he just pops up every now and then

[1:06:01] to get insulted.

[1:06:02] He has made a documentary

[1:06:03] about the making of the movie.

[1:06:04] That documentary is somehow already a big hit

[1:06:07] but is also having its premiere

[1:06:08] and we see the cast being interviewed

[1:06:10] on the red carpet

[1:06:11] for the premiere of the documentary

[1:06:12] and nothing is learned

[1:06:14] and they're just doing the same old stuff.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:16] Yeah, well, it's also weird.

[1:06:18] So much of we see...

[1:06:20] And they show a trailer for the movie.

[1:06:22] A trailer for the documentary

[1:06:23] and so much of we see

[1:06:24] is just reiterating things

[1:06:27] that we saw before

[1:06:29] in a way that I'm like,

[1:06:30] this is wild that this is going on for so long.

[1:06:33] If you're gonna do this time leap ahead,

[1:06:35] you just do a couple of jokes

[1:06:37] about how everyone's life has changed since then

[1:06:39] or whatever.

[1:06:39] Yes, and they do none of that stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:41] There's nothing about that there.

[1:06:43] Then there's a very meta scene

[1:06:45] at the very end

[1:06:45] where the producers

[1:06:47] and the director

[1:06:48] are watching the helicopter fly away

[1:06:49] and they're talking about how,

[1:06:51] well, we tried.

[1:06:52] I mean, it's during COVID

[1:06:53] that we're making this.

[1:06:54] If the movie's not very good,

[1:06:56] they can't get mad at us

[1:06:57] because we're just trying

[1:06:57] to entertain people

[1:06:58] during a hard time, right?

[1:06:59] And that's how the movie ends.

[1:07:01] And it was like,

[1:07:01] movie, don't give me an apologia

[1:07:04] for the movie at the very end.

[1:07:06] And then there's some kind

[1:07:07] of end credit scene,

[1:07:09] but I could not watch it

[1:07:10] because every time I tried,

[1:07:12] Netflix would jump me straight

[1:07:13] to a trailer

[1:07:13] for the new season of Luther.

[1:07:15] So I just didn't see it.

[1:07:16] And so thus ends the bubble,

[1:07:17] not with a bang,

[1:07:18] but with a trailer for Luther.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:20] I think I fast forwarded to the end

[1:07:22] and I did see it

[1:07:22] and it was like,

[1:07:24] just like a whole lot.

[1:07:26] It was like literally

[1:07:26] just like Fred Armisen

[1:07:28] like turning to the screen

[1:07:28] going like,

[1:07:29] or something like that.

[1:07:30] Like something like that.

[1:07:32] But yeah,

[1:07:33] that ending,

[1:07:34] look,

[1:07:35] it's accomplishing

[1:07:37] exactly the opposite

[1:07:38] of what it wants.

[1:07:39] Because I think it was just like,

[1:07:40] hey,

[1:07:40] don't be too mad at us.

[1:07:41] But I'm like,

[1:07:42] hey,

[1:07:42] if you knew how bad this was,

[1:07:44] I am so much madder at you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:46] It's like if Steven Spielberg

[1:07:48] ended the Fablemans

[1:07:49] with whatever his name is,

[1:07:51] Jack Fable,

[1:07:51] Sammy Fableman,

[1:07:52] turning to the camera

[1:07:53] and being like,

[1:07:54] hey,

[1:07:54] if you don't relate to it,

[1:07:55] that's because it's

[1:07:56] one person's story

[1:07:57] and he got to finally

[1:07:58] tell the story on film,

[1:07:59] right?

[1:07:59] Even if you didn't enjoy it,

[1:08:00] it's good therapy

[1:08:01] for the director.

[1:08:02] Anyway,

[1:08:03] and it's like,

[1:08:03] wait a minute,

[1:08:04] hold on,

[1:08:04] now I don't like the movie

[1:08:05] because it feels like

[1:08:06] you think people

[1:08:06] are not going to like it

[1:08:07] and you're not doing

[1:08:10] the Fablemans

[1:08:11] I really enjoyed though.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:12] Right.

[1:08:13] I mean like,

[1:08:13] yeah,

[1:08:13] to me that's a,

[1:08:15] maybe not the most apt

[1:08:16] because it is a good movie

[1:08:18] where it's like,

[1:08:19] you're saying it's not

[1:08:19] Judd Apatow,

[1:08:20] my comparison.

[1:08:21] that's like,

[1:08:22] hey,

[1:08:22] we knew it was a bad movie

[1:08:23] but what are you going to do?

[1:08:24] We made it.

[1:08:24] A different Judd was involved.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:26] A little Judd named Hirsch.

[1:08:28] That's true.

[1:08:29] I got my Judds mixed up.

[1:08:30] And my man kills it

[1:08:31] with a very intense accent.

[1:08:33] Yep.

[1:08:34] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:35] That's some of the best

[1:08:36] undershirt acting

[1:08:37] I've seen in a movie

[1:08:38] in the past year.

[1:08:38] He's great.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:39] Hey,

[1:08:41] let's talk about

[1:08:42] our final judgments

[1:08:43] whether we thought

[1:08:43] this was a good bad movie,

[1:08:44] a bad bad movie,

[1:08:46] a movie we kind of like.

[1:08:47] I'm going to say,

[1:08:48] look,

[1:08:49] don't hate Judd Apatow.

[1:08:52] I'm sorry.

[1:08:54] You know,

[1:08:55] if you're out there

[1:08:56] feeling,

[1:08:57] feeling your hurt feelings

[1:08:58] about the movie.

[1:08:59] I know that

[1:09:00] he has admitted himself

[1:09:01] like,

[1:09:02] maybe this wasn't

[1:09:03] my best work.

[1:09:05] I like all of the

[1:09:07] actors in it

[1:09:08] to one degree or another.

[1:09:09] Like,

[1:09:10] including some

[1:09:10] like,

[1:09:11] big favorites of mine

[1:09:12] in this film.

[1:09:14] But,

[1:09:15] I also...

[1:09:15] You've always been a huge

[1:09:16] Karen Gillan fan.

[1:09:16] I'm a big Karen Gillan fan.

[1:09:18] She's great.

[1:09:19] As mentioned,

[1:09:20] Pedro Pascal

[1:09:20] is particularly good.

[1:09:22] You know,

[1:09:22] I can...

[1:09:23] There's a ton of great people

[1:09:24] in this movie.

[1:09:25] But...

[1:09:26] Griffin Newman's co-star,

[1:09:27] Peter Serafinowicz?

[1:09:29] Peter Serafinowicz,

[1:09:30] a dream.

[1:09:33] Briefly

[1:09:33] said hello to him once

[1:09:35] when Steve Bodo

[1:09:36] brought him into the office

[1:09:37] for reasons

[1:09:39] I probably shouldn't...

[1:09:40] I mean,

[1:09:40] I don't know.

[1:09:41] It doesn't...

[1:09:41] He was around

[1:09:42] for reasons

[1:09:43] and he looked very like...

[1:09:46] Was he there

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:46] to murder somebody?

Dan McCoy

[1:09:47] Yeah, yeah.

[1:09:48] He just kind of

[1:09:49] looked confused

[1:09:49] as to why he was there.

[1:09:50] Steve was working

[1:09:51] on a possible project

[1:09:52] that...

[1:09:53] Oh, I see.

[1:09:54] But...

[1:09:54] Darth Maul animated series.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:57] Yeah, anyway...

[1:09:58] He's called Darth Maul

[1:09:59] at the Maul.

[1:10:00] He's just a kid.

[1:10:01] Just a normal kid

[1:10:01] trying to grow up

[1:10:02] as a dark side Jedi apprentice.

[1:10:04] Or sorry, Sith apprentice.

[1:10:04] Doing skateboard tricks.

[1:10:05] Thank you.

[1:10:05] Yeah, doing force

[1:10:06] skateboard tricks, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:08] Yep, go on.

[1:10:08] Point is,

[1:10:09] I just want to say

[1:10:11] I've liked all these people before.

[1:10:12] I will like them again.

[1:10:14] But this particular film

[1:10:15] I found to be

[1:10:17] one of the most trying

[1:10:19] experiences I've had

[1:10:21] for this podcast

[1:10:21] and that's saying something.

[1:10:24] So it's a bad, bad movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:25] Yeah, I'm also going to say

[1:10:26] it's bad, bad.

[1:10:27] I feel like this movie

[1:10:28] is a weird challenge

[1:10:30] in that it's a movie

[1:10:31] that at the same time

[1:10:33] seems to have

[1:10:33] way more resources

[1:10:34] than it needs

[1:10:35] and is kind of drowning

[1:10:36] in effects

[1:10:37] and things like that.

[1:10:38] Yeah.

[1:10:38] And also not enough resources

[1:10:39] and because so much of it

[1:10:41] is just them

[1:10:41] hanging around this

[1:10:42] one location,

[1:10:44] this one hotel.

[1:10:45] And I kind of wonder

[1:10:46] would this movie be better

[1:10:48] if it went bigger?

[1:10:49] Would it be better

[1:10:49] if it went smaller

[1:10:50] and more intimate?

[1:10:51] Like it's kind of

[1:10:52] just in the middle

[1:10:53] and the result is that

[1:10:54] there's not a lot

[1:10:56] for the comedy

[1:10:57] to latch on to.

[1:10:58] And it feels like

[1:10:58] a movie that

[1:10:59] doesn't know

[1:11:01] what choices

[1:11:02] it wants to make

[1:11:02] and so it doesn't

[1:11:03] make choices.

[1:11:04] And I think

[1:11:05] there's a good version

[1:11:06] of this movie

[1:11:07] that would exist

[1:11:07] and you just have to

[1:11:08] choose what tone it has

[1:11:10] and how far it wants to go

[1:11:11] and stuff like that.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:12] Yeah.

[1:11:12] You saying that

[1:11:13] reminds me of

[1:11:14] there's that scene

[1:11:15] in Wonder Boys

[1:11:16] where Katie Holmes

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:17] the movie

[1:11:18] where Michael Douglas

[1:11:20] and Tony McGuire

[1:11:23] are floating

[1:11:24] in an ocean.

[1:11:25] In a way

[1:11:25] they kind of are.

[1:11:27] The emotion of emotions.

[1:11:28] The emotion ocean.

[1:11:29] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:30] That's what that

[1:11:31] manatee swims in.

[1:11:33] The emotion ocean.

[1:11:34] Katie Holmes

[1:11:35] reads

[1:11:37] Michael Douglas'

[1:11:38] like

[1:11:38] at that point

[1:11:39] like 800

[1:11:39] and 900 page

[1:11:40] manuscript

[1:11:41] and she's like

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:42] remember how you tell us

[1:11:44] that writing is making choices?

[1:11:45] It kind of feels like

[1:11:46] you didn't make any.

[1:11:48] Like

Dan McCoy

[1:11:49] that's this movie.

[1:11:51] You put your finger on it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:53] Yeah.

[1:11:53] I was kind of a

[1:11:54] grouchy boy

[1:11:55] about this one.

[1:11:56] A little bit of a

[1:11:57] steward stinker

[1:11:58] on this one.

[1:12:00] Yeah.

[1:12:00] I mean I'll echo

[1:12:01] both of you guys.

[1:12:02] Like I like a lot of the cast.

[1:12:03] I have liked

[1:12:04] a lot of Judd Apidow movies.

[1:12:07] But yeah.

[1:12:07] This one

[1:12:08] doesn't really work

[1:12:09] and

[1:12:10] it feels very thrown together

[1:12:12] and it feels

[1:12:13] like another

[1:12:14] I mean it feels

[1:12:15] it

[1:12:16] it reminded me

[1:12:17] of COVID lockdown

[1:12:18] which is

[1:12:19] yeah

[1:12:19] not a

[1:12:20] not a place

[1:12:21] I want to go back to.

[1:12:22] And it also

[1:12:23] it also feels like

[1:12:25] another symptom

[1:12:25] of

[1:12:26] the like

[1:12:27] endless

[1:12:28] glut of content

[1:12:29] coming out of

[1:12:30] the current

[1:12:30] streaming marketplace

[1:12:32] of just like

[1:12:33] stuff being

[1:12:34] shoveled out there

[1:12:35] and it feels

[1:12:36] underdone

[1:12:37] and underthought

[1:12:37] through

[1:12:38] and yeah

[1:12:39] it's not for me.

[1:12:40] No thanks.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:42] Let's move on

[1:12:43] to letters

[1:12:44] from listeners.

[1:12:46] Hey

[1:12:47] you not only

[1:12:48] support

[1:12:49] The Flophouse

[1:12:50] and other great

[1:12:51] Maximum Fun podcasts

[1:12:52] but you also

[1:12:53] write us letters.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:56] Giving us free content.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:58] Sucker.

[1:12:59] Stuart shut up.

[1:13:01] You're blowing the game

[1:13:02] Stuart.

[1:13:03] Keep kayfabe.

[1:13:04] Keep kayfabe.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:05] Here's one from

[1:13:06] Jacqueline

[1:13:07] last name withheld.

[1:13:09] Jacqueline Bissette.

[1:13:10] Who writes

[1:13:11] hello floppies

[1:13:12] I have listened

[1:13:13] to y'all

[1:13:14] from 2019

[1:13:15] when I was

[1:13:16] 19 years old.

[1:13:18] I wonder

[1:13:18] how many

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:19] Stuart had a look

[1:13:20] on his face

[1:13:21] like were people

[1:13:21] that young

[1:13:22] in 2019?

Dan McCoy

[1:13:23] Is that possible?

[1:13:24] I wonder

[1:13:25] how many other

[1:13:26] quirky young adults

[1:13:27] have had The Flophouse

[1:13:28] be such a cornerstone

[1:13:29] of their cooking

[1:13:30] cleaning during

[1:13:30] their uni years.

[1:13:32] that's a clue

[1:13:32] to where

[1:13:33] this letter

[1:13:34] is from.

[1:13:35] Oh,

[1:13:35] I think we're

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:36] traveling across

[1:13:37] the pond.

[1:13:38] Okay.

[1:13:39] Stuart,

[1:13:40] I love it.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:40] I love this new character.

[1:13:41] I hate it.

[1:13:43] See,

[1:13:45] I like it

[1:13:46] in a vacuum

[1:13:47] but now that we're

[1:13:48] actually talking

[1:13:48] to an English person

[1:13:49] I can't think

[1:13:50] of how much pain.

[1:13:53] I don't have

[1:13:54] any witty detours

[1:13:54] for you

[1:13:55] but my question is

[1:13:56] would you ever

[1:13:56] like to write

[1:13:57] or direct

[1:13:58] a short film

[1:13:58] of your own?

[1:13:59] What vibe

[1:13:59] or style

[1:14:00] would it have?

[1:14:01] Secondly,

[1:14:01] what are the top

[1:14:02] countries listening

[1:14:03] to you besides

[1:14:04] the US?

[1:14:05] That's it.

[1:14:05] Many flops

[1:14:06] from the UK.

[1:14:07] Jacqueline,

[1:14:07] last name with help.

[1:14:08] I'll start

[1:14:08] with the first one.

[1:14:10] As one might expect,

[1:14:11] mostly English

[1:14:12] speaking countries

[1:14:13] because it's

[1:14:14] an audio medium.

[1:14:16] There are plenty

[1:14:17] of bilingual

[1:14:19] or minilingual

[1:14:20] people in other

[1:14:21] countries but

[1:14:22] we have a lot

[1:14:23] of listeners.

[1:14:24] Yeah,

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:24] name names,

[1:14:24] Dan.

[1:14:25] What countries

[1:14:26] are we talking

Dan McCoy

[1:14:26] about?

[1:14:26] Ahem.

[1:14:27] We have a lot

[1:14:27] of listeners

[1:14:28] in the UK.

[1:14:31] and

[1:14:33] Australia

[1:14:36] and

[1:14:37] where else?

[1:14:40] Also Germany.

[1:14:41] That's not

[1:14:42] an English

[1:14:42] speaking country

[1:14:43] but a lot of

[1:14:44] Germans.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:44] It's because

[1:14:44] of my fucking

[1:14:45] killer

[1:14:45] Werner Herzog

[1:14:46] impression,

[1:14:47] I bet.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:47] Well,

[1:14:47] the problem

[1:14:48] is a lot

[1:14:48] of German

[1:14:48] listeners listen

[1:14:49] because they

[1:14:49] think Werner

[1:14:50] Herzog is on

[1:14:50] the show.

[1:14:51] Yeah,

[1:14:51] exactly.

[1:14:52] it's just me.

[1:14:53] Denmark.

[1:14:54] Do my little

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:54] goofs.

[1:14:55] I guess we

[1:14:56] got some live

[1:14:57] shows to plan

[1:14:57] in these

[1:14:58] countries.

[1:14:58] Let's do

[1:14:59] it.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:01] But if you

[1:15:01] were going to

[1:15:02] make movies,

[1:15:03] I don't know,

[1:15:05] specifies short

[1:15:06] movies but I

[1:15:08] don't know why

[1:15:08] we have to keep

[1:15:09] ourselves to that.

[1:15:10] I mean,

[1:15:11] this is burning

[1:15:13] material.

[1:15:14] We can't get

[1:15:14] into Elliot and

[1:15:15] I,

[1:15:16] any ideas we

[1:15:17] have.

[1:15:18] I have a

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:20] screenplay that's

[1:15:20] out now for

[1:15:21] producers looking

[1:15:22] at it and I

[1:15:22] don't want to

[1:15:23] say what it is

[1:15:24] because I want

[1:15:25] it to get made.

[1:15:27] But I will

[1:15:28] say there is a

[1:15:29] short film that

[1:15:29] I've been

[1:15:30] planning to write

[1:15:31] that I would

[1:15:32] like to direct

[1:15:32] and I just

[1:15:34] haven't gotten

[1:15:34] around to it

[1:15:35] because I've

[1:15:35] been so busy.

[1:15:36] But it is a,

[1:15:36] I would call it

[1:15:37] a deadpan

[1:15:39] comedy.

[1:15:40] A historical

[1:15:40] deadpan comedy

[1:15:41] that I think I

[1:15:42] could shoot

[1:15:43] very cheaply.

[1:15:44] As a,

[1:15:45] as a,

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:45] as the non

[1:15:47] creative of

[1:15:48] the gang,

[1:15:48] I can answer.

[1:15:50] I wouldn't say

[1:15:50] that's true.

[1:15:50] And I don't

[1:15:51] know,

[1:15:51] I feel like

[1:15:52] generally when

[1:15:53] I work,

[1:15:54] mainly when I

[1:15:55] like write or

[1:15:55] work on comics

[1:15:56] and stuff,

[1:15:57] I usually

[1:15:58] kind of gear

[1:15:59] toward the

[1:16:00] horror or

[1:16:01] horror comedy

[1:16:01] because I

[1:16:03] both like

[1:16:04] things to be

[1:16:04] scary and

[1:16:05] also I just

[1:16:05] can't help

[1:16:06] but make

[1:16:06] things funny,

[1:16:07] you know?

[1:16:09] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:10] I know,

[1:16:11] I mean,

[1:16:12] definitely would

[1:16:13] be like my,

[1:16:14] it's my favorite

[1:16:15] genre and the

[1:16:16] one I would

[1:16:16] want to do

[1:16:17] and up

[1:16:18] until recently

[1:16:18] it has been,

[1:16:20] I feel like it

[1:16:21] was labeled box

[1:16:22] office poison

[1:16:22] for a long

[1:16:23] time for

[1:16:24] reasons I'm

[1:16:25] not sure about.

[1:16:26] It's like one

[1:16:26] of these things

[1:16:27] where like

[1:16:27] there's a

[1:16:28] period where

[1:16:29] there are

[1:16:31] hits like

[1:16:31] an American

[1:16:32] werewolf in

[1:16:32] London and

[1:16:33] then like

[1:16:33] they're,

[1:16:34] you know,

[1:16:35] high profile.

[1:16:36] American werewolves

[1:16:36] in Paris.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:37] Yeah,

[1:16:38] well,

[1:16:38] but also like

[1:16:39] high profile

Dan McCoy

[1:16:39] failures like

[1:16:40] early James

[1:16:41] Gunnworks,

[1:16:42] Slither was a

[1:16:44] big,

[1:16:44] like the

[1:16:45] Frighteners

[1:16:46] was a big

[1:16:46] bomb.

[1:16:47] People were

[1:16:47] already so

[1:16:48] hyped on

[1:16:48] Night of the

[1:16:49] Creeps that

[1:16:49] they're like,

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:50] we don't need

[1:16:50] Slither too.

[1:16:51] Yeah.

[1:16:52] But I feel

[1:16:53] like,

[1:16:53] I think the

[1:16:53] part of the

[1:16:54] issue is that

[1:16:54] we like horror

[1:16:55] and we like

[1:16:56] comedy,

[1:16:56] but I think

[1:16:57] your civilians,

[1:16:59] your average

[1:17:00] person does not

[1:17:01] like to mix

[1:17:02] those two

[1:17:02] things.

[1:17:03] They like to

[1:17:03] know whether

[1:17:03] they're supposed

[1:17:04] to laugh

Dan McCoy

[1:17:04] or be scared

[1:17:06] or something.

[1:17:06] except it

[1:17:06] seems to,

[1:17:07] you know,

[1:17:08] be on a

[1:17:08] serious upswing.

[1:17:10] You know,

[1:17:10] like what with

[1:17:11] you got your

[1:17:12] Megan,

[1:17:13] Barbarian,

[1:17:14] Cocaine Bear,

[1:17:16] you got...

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:17] I would say

[1:17:18] those are,

[1:17:19] that's a,

[1:17:19] except for Megan,

[1:17:20] that is a

[1:17:21] different level

[1:17:21] of success

[1:17:22] though.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:24] Well,

[1:17:24] but we're

[1:17:25] living in a

[1:17:25] world where

[1:17:26] that's the

[1:17:28] new marker.

[1:17:29] Like what

[1:17:30] movies can

[1:17:30] actually get

[1:17:31] people into

[1:17:31] the theaters

[1:17:32] enough success?

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:33] At least it's

[1:17:33] like,

[1:17:33] oh,

[1:17:33] they didn't

[1:17:34] make as much

[1:17:34] Avatar 2

[1:17:35] the way

[1:17:35] of water.

[1:17:36] So,

[1:17:36] they're

[1:17:37] automatically

[1:17:37] failures.

[1:17:39] No,

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:39] but I feel

[1:17:40] like something

[1:17:41] that I feel

[1:17:42] like I'm

[1:17:43] learning about

[1:17:43] your average

[1:17:45] viewer is that

[1:17:46] they have a

[1:17:46] certain amount

[1:17:46] of appetite

[1:17:47] for certain

[1:17:47] things,

[1:17:48] but they

[1:17:48] don't want

[1:17:49] just nonstop

[1:17:51] that thing.

[1:17:51] And the

[1:17:51] problem that

[1:17:52] a lot of

[1:17:53] film and

[1:17:55] TV makers

[1:17:55] have,

[1:17:56] I think,

[1:17:56] is they say,

[1:17:56] people like

[1:17:57] this thing,

[1:17:58] let's make

[1:17:59] more of that.

[1:17:59] Where I think

[1:18:00] with a lot

[1:18:00] of people,

[1:18:00] it's like,

[1:18:00] oh,

[1:18:01] I had that

[1:18:01] thing.

[1:18:01] Like,

[1:18:01] I think a lot

[1:18:02] of average

[1:18:03] viewers are like,

[1:18:03] I saw Megan.

[1:18:04] I love that.

[1:18:05] That was

[1:18:05] really fun.

[1:18:06] Okay,

[1:18:06] what else

[1:18:07] am I going

[1:18:07] to do?

[1:18:07] That ticked

[1:18:07] off that

[1:18:08] box for a

[1:18:08] little bit.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:09] But I do

[1:18:10] think,

[1:18:10] I don't

[1:18:10] know,

[1:18:11] I do

[1:18:11] think that

[1:18:12] there's a

[1:18:12] many resurgence

[1:18:13] of horror

[1:18:14] comedy as a

[1:18:15] viable thing.

[1:18:17] Could be.

[1:18:17] I mean,

[1:18:18] I hope so.

[1:18:18] I love them,

[1:18:19] so.

[1:18:20] You know,

[1:18:20] I'm looking

[1:18:21] back at

[1:18:22] Happy Death

[1:18:23] Day,

[1:18:24] et cetera.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:25] I'm glad that.

[1:18:26] And certainly

[1:18:26] horror movies

[1:18:27] that are pitched

[1:18:28] as fun.

[1:18:30] Like,

[1:18:30] if you go to

[1:18:31] this thing,

[1:18:31] you will have

[1:18:32] a good time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:33] Well,

[1:18:33] I think maybe

[1:18:33] that's it,

[1:18:34] is that if

[1:18:34] you pitch

[1:18:35] something as

[1:18:35] like a

[1:18:37] horror comedy,

[1:18:38] it confuses

[1:18:40] people.

[1:18:40] But if you

[1:18:40] say like,

[1:18:41] this is a

[1:18:41] fun horror

[1:18:42] movie,

[1:18:42] then they're

[1:18:43] like,

[1:18:43] yeah,

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:43] yeah.

[1:18:44] That they

[1:18:44] don't want

[1:18:44] to,

[1:18:45] that they

[1:18:45] don't.

[1:18:45] It's not

[1:18:46] about trauma.

[1:18:47] Yeah,

[1:18:47] you show.

[1:18:48] It's not

[1:18:48] about trauma.

[1:18:49] Yeah,

[1:18:49] A24.

[1:18:50] Yeah,

[1:18:51] what you do

[1:18:51] is you show

[1:18:52] the cast

[1:18:52] having a

[1:18:53] little dance

[1:18:54] party on the

[1:18:55] set.

[1:18:55] No,

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:55] no,

[1:18:56] you do not

[1:18:57] do that.

[1:18:57] This looks

[1:18:57] great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:58] Don't do it.

[1:18:59] You don't do it.

[1:19:00] Do not do that.

[1:19:03] Don't do it.

[1:19:04] Not a do-do,

[1:19:05] yeah.

[1:19:05] And I love

[1:19:06] seeing actors

[1:19:07] dancing when

[1:19:08] they're in a

[1:19:08] musical or

[1:19:09] when it's a

[1:19:09] dance scene.

[1:19:10] I just don't,

[1:19:10] I don't need

[1:19:11] to see them

[1:19:11] dancing the

[1:19:12] way people

[1:19:12] dance at

[1:19:13] weddings,

[1:19:13] you know.

[1:19:14] I don't

[1:19:14] need to see

Dan McCoy

[1:19:14] that.

[1:19:15] I also want

[1:19:17] to make

[1:19:17] clear,

[1:19:17] we like

[1:19:18] A24 style

[1:19:20] horror movies

[1:19:20] too.

[1:19:20] Yeah,

Dan McCoy

[1:19:20] of course.

[1:19:21] We just like

[1:19:22] having the

[1:19:23] option on the

[1:19:23] buffet to have

[1:19:24] something that's

[1:19:24] A24 is

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:25] listening.

[1:19:26] We still

[1:19:26] like your

[1:19:26] shit.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:28] No,

[1:19:28] I know.

[1:19:28] I just,

[1:19:29] look,

[1:19:31] who cares?

[1:19:34] Okay,

[1:19:34] this next

[1:19:36] letter,

[1:19:36] I was going

[1:19:37] to explain

[1:19:37] myself,

[1:19:38] but it's

[1:19:38] not important.

[1:19:39] Brandon

[1:19:39] last name

[1:19:40] withheld

[1:19:40] rights.

[1:19:42] The subject

[1:19:43] heading for

[1:19:44] this email

[1:19:44] is,

[1:19:45] who says

[1:19:45] Godzilla

[1:19:45] can't just

[1:19:46] step on

[1:19:46] a house?

[1:19:48] All right,

[1:19:50] let's hear it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:50] Let's hear it.

[1:19:51] I mean,

[1:19:51] he stepped on

[1:19:52] Bambi once.

[1:19:52] That's smaller

[1:19:53] than a house.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:54] That's the

[1:19:57] news.

[1:19:57] Is it bigger

[1:19:58] than a

[1:19:58] breakbox?

[1:19:59] Is it bigger

[1:19:59] than Bambi?

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:00] How many

[1:20:01] Bambis tall

[1:20:01] is your

[1:20:02] house?

Dan McCoy

[1:20:04] Dearest

[1:20:04] Peaches,

[1:20:05] in your last

[1:20:05] episode,

[1:20:06] Elliot put

[1:20:06] forward as

[1:20:07] a fact,

[1:20:09] the idea

[1:20:09] that you

[1:20:09] couldn't have

[1:20:10] Godzilla just

[1:20:11] attack a

[1:20:11] single house.

[1:20:13] Fair enough.

[1:20:14] Normally,

[1:20:14] the movie would

[1:20:15] be quick and

[1:20:15] boring,

[1:20:16] but I ask

[1:20:16] you this,

[1:20:17] Sharks,

[1:20:17] what if in

[1:20:18] that house

[1:20:18] was one

[1:20:19] Kevin McAllister,

[1:20:20] a home

[1:20:21] Godzilla-one,

[1:20:22] if you will?

[1:20:23] How interested

[1:20:24] are you now?

[1:20:25] How interested

[1:20:26] are you now?

[1:20:27] You don't know

[1:20:28] what's going to

[1:20:28] happen in that

[1:20:29] movie.

[1:20:29] Anything could

[1:20:30] happen.

[1:20:31] It's the last

[1:20:31] truly original

[1:20:32] Hollywood movie.

[1:20:33] I don't know

[1:20:33] if it's truly

[1:20:33] original.

[1:20:34] It's literally

[1:20:35] mashing up two

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:37] things.

[1:20:38] It's not original

[1:20:38] at all.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:39] Does Kevin fight

[1:20:40] up Godzilla?

[1:20:41] If so,

[1:20:42] how much prep

[1:20:42] time does he

[1:20:43] need?

[1:20:43] What would be

[1:20:43] the traps?

[1:20:44] Or does Godzilla

[1:20:44] defeat,

[1:20:45] but ultimately

[1:20:46] respect the

[1:20:47] crafty home

[1:20:47] defender after a

[1:20:48] lengthy,

[1:20:49] but narratively

[1:20:50] bittersweet

[1:20:51] battle?

[1:20:52] Should you

[1:20:52] find this

[1:20:53] a tempting

[1:20:53] offer,

[1:20:54] let me suggest

[1:20:54] that Godzilla

[1:20:55] is not the

[1:20:56] only movie

[1:20:56] monster,

[1:20:58] I don't,

[1:21:00] oh,

[1:21:00] a de-aged

[1:21:01] Macaulay Culkin

[1:21:02] CGI'd onto a

[1:21:03] tiny child's

[1:21:04] body could go

[1:21:05] up against.

[1:21:05] The limits

[1:21:06] are only your

[1:21:07] imagination.

[1:21:07] I was stumbling

[1:21:08] over the word

[1:21:09] de-aged,

[1:21:10] which without a

[1:21:11] hyphen is very

[1:21:12] confusing.

[1:21:12] Yeah,

[1:21:13] de-aged,

[1:21:13] yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:14] I will say the

[1:21:15] limits are not so

[1:21:16] much our imagination

[1:21:16] as the imaginations

[1:21:17] of people who have

[1:21:18] already made movies

[1:21:19] about monsters.

[1:21:20] Sure.

[1:21:20] Since we're

[1:21:20] pulling from a toy

[1:21:21] box.

[1:21:21] And the imaginations

Dan McCoy

[1:21:22] of, yeah,

[1:21:23] Godzilla and

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:24] Chris Columbus.

[1:21:26] Sure,

[1:21:26] we'd all love to

[1:21:27] see Kevin McAllister

[1:21:28] go up against a

[1:21:29] bigger challenge,

[1:21:30] and there's no

[1:21:30] bigger challenge,

[1:21:31] literally,

[1:21:32] than Godzilla.

[1:21:33] But I have,

[1:21:34] there's a thing

[1:21:35] called proportionality.

[1:21:37] Okay,

[1:21:38] go on.

[1:21:38] The wet bandits

[1:21:39] are proportionally

[1:21:40] a good challenge

[1:21:41] for Kevin because

[1:21:42] they are dumber

[1:21:42] than him,

[1:21:43] but they are

[1:21:44] slightly bigger

[1:21:44] and slightly

[1:21:45] stronger being adults,

[1:21:46] and there's two

[1:21:47] of them.

[1:21:48] The Godzilla threat

[1:21:49] seems out of

[1:21:50] proportion for Kevin

[1:21:51] since, again,

[1:21:51] he can put as many

[1:21:52] nails on steps

[1:21:53] or little

[1:21:54] micromachines

[1:21:54] on the floor.

[1:21:55] Godzilla's just

[1:21:56] going to crush

[1:21:56] them all

[1:21:56] under his giant

[1:21:57] foot.

[1:21:58] There's it

[1:21:58] between his toes.

[1:21:59] He's not going

[1:22:00] to slip on the

[1:22:00] marbles or the

[1:22:01] micromachines.

[1:22:02] If he steps on a

[1:22:03] nail, it's going

[1:22:04] to get bent

[1:22:04] because he's so

[1:22:05] strong.

[1:22:05] It's not going

[1:22:06] to go into his

[1:22:06] foot.

[1:22:07] And he's also

[1:22:07] emitting radiation,

[1:22:08] which I don't

[1:22:09] know how Kevin

[1:22:09] is going to

[1:22:10] defend himself

[1:22:11] against that

[1:22:11] unless he's

[1:22:12] in a lead

[1:22:12] line suit,

[1:22:13] which is going

[1:22:13] to make it

[1:22:13] harder for him

[1:22:14] to accurately

[1:22:15] aim a BB

[1:22:15] gun, which

[1:22:16] again would

[1:22:16] have no effect

[1:22:17] on the inches

[1:22:18] if not feet

[1:22:19] thick derma

[1:22:20] of Godzilla

[1:22:20] and the armor

[1:22:21] plating.

[1:22:22] That's just a

[1:22:22] part of his

[1:22:23] scales.

[1:22:23] And so I

[1:22:25] think maybe

[1:22:25] Kevin should

[1:22:26] level up to

[1:22:27] something more

[1:22:27] on the Jason

[1:22:28] level of

[1:22:29] Monster,

[1:22:30] possibly,

[1:22:30] as opposed to

[1:22:32] going all the

[1:22:32] way to a

[1:22:32] kaiju.

[1:22:33] You want him

[1:22:33] to pay his

[1:22:34] dues.

[1:22:35] Elliot's

[1:22:35] basically

[1:22:35] paraphrasing

[1:22:36] the concept

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:37] of challenge

[1:22:38] ratings in

[1:22:38] TNT.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:39] Yeah,

[1:22:40] exactly.

[1:22:40] Exactly.

[1:22:41] Oh, I see.

[1:22:42] It's not that I

[1:22:43] want him to

[1:22:43] level.

[1:22:43] It's not Renfield,

[1:22:44] where he's

[1:22:44] got to fight

[1:22:45] bigger and

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:46] bigger monsters.

[1:22:47] Increases hit

Dan McCoy

[1:22:47] points and

[1:22:48] endurance.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:49] Yep,

[1:22:49] absolutely.

[1:22:50] Once he gets

[1:22:51] to a certain

[1:22:51] level and he

[1:22:52] gets enough

[1:22:52] magic items

[1:22:53] that are

[1:22:53] appropriate for

[1:22:54] his level,

[1:22:54] he'll be able

[1:22:55] to take

[1:22:55] on a Godzilla.

[1:22:56] No, I

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:56] don't think

[1:22:58] that's true.

[1:22:58] I mean,

[1:22:58] if there are

[1:22:59] magic items

[1:22:59] in the

[1:23:00] home alone

[1:23:00] universe right

[1:23:00] now,

[1:23:01] the most

[1:23:01] magic item

[1:23:02] is like the

[1:23:02] shovel that

[1:23:03] the lonely

[1:23:03] old man

[1:23:04] next door

[1:23:04] has.

[1:23:06] But there's

[1:23:07] a certain

[1:23:08] limit as to

[1:23:08] how powerful.

[1:23:09] There's a

[1:23:10] ceiling to the

[1:23:10] power of Kevin

[1:23:11] McAllister.

[1:23:12] He is a

[1:23:12] human child

[1:23:14] magical or

[1:23:15] paranormal

[1:23:15] abilities who

[1:23:16] is dealing

[1:23:16] with human

[1:23:17] sized objects.

[1:23:17] And so I

[1:23:18] think a

[1:23:18] human sized

[1:23:19] opponent is

[1:23:19] really what

[1:23:20] he is most

[1:23:20] capable of.

[1:23:21] I could see

[1:23:21] him getting

[1:23:22] like an

[1:23:22] ultra man

[1:23:23] suit or

[1:23:23] something.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:24] A doorknob

[1:23:25] until it

[1:23:25] glowed.

[1:23:26] Yes.

[1:23:26] And to make

[1:23:27] a man's

[1:23:27] skeleton appear

[1:23:28] inside his

[1:23:29] body.

[1:23:29] You're saying

[1:23:29] this child

[1:23:30] is not

[1:23:30] magical?

[1:23:30] Now,

[1:23:31] I believe

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:31] the skeleton

[1:23:31] appeared in

[1:23:32] his body

[1:23:32] because he

[1:23:33] was electrified

[1:23:34] by,

[1:23:34] not by the

[1:23:35] heat,

[1:23:35] right?

[1:23:35] Was that?

[1:23:36] Was it

[1:23:36] the doorknob?

[1:23:37] It was the

[1:23:38] electricity.

[1:23:39] These are

[1:23:39] two separate

[1:23:40] examples of

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:41] outlandish

[1:23:42] things.

[1:23:44] both those

[1:23:44] traps would

[1:23:45] have no

[1:23:45] effect on

[1:23:46] Godzilla.

[1:23:46] Yes,

[1:23:47] that's what

[1:23:47] I was about

[1:23:47] to say.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:48] Godzilla,

[1:23:48] again,

[1:23:48] born in the

[1:23:49] heart of a

[1:23:49] nuclear blast.

[1:23:50] He literally

[1:23:51] has radioactive

[1:23:52] fire inside

[1:23:52] of himself

[1:23:53] that he

[1:23:53] could use

[1:23:53] to just

[1:23:54] destroy

[1:23:55] Kevin McAllister

[1:23:56] instantly,

[1:23:56] including the

[1:23:57] house that

[1:23:57] he's in.

[1:23:58] And the

[1:23:59] electricity,

[1:24:00] he walks

[1:24:00] through power

[1:24:01] lines all

[1:24:02] the time.

[1:24:02] If anything,

[1:24:03] it might

[1:24:03] charge him

[1:24:04] up more.

[1:24:05] But overall,

[1:24:05] it all comes

[1:24:06] back to the

[1:24:06] same thing,

[1:24:07] which is,

[1:24:07] again,

[1:24:08] the home that

[1:24:09] Kevin is

[1:24:09] protecting.

[1:24:10] Itself not

[1:24:10] strong enough

[1:24:11] to withstand

[1:24:11] the might

[1:24:12] of Godzilla's

[1:24:13] giant foot.

[1:24:15] Now,

[1:24:15] again,

[1:24:15] certainly not

[1:24:16] the home

Dan McCoy

[1:24:16] alone,

[1:24:17] but if the

[1:24:18] home had

[1:24:18] help.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:20] Now,

[1:24:21] if you were

[1:24:22] saying,

[1:24:22] could Kevin

[1:24:22] go up against

[1:24:23] the monster

[1:24:23] from Relic?

[1:24:24] Possibly.

[1:24:25] That's not a

[1:24:26] human monster.

[1:24:27] It's bigger than

[1:24:27] a human monster.

[1:24:28] Or the evil

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:30] granny from

[1:24:31] Relic.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:33] Or is

[1:24:35] the granny

[1:24:36] from Granny

[1:24:37] evil?

[1:24:37] Or is

[1:24:37] someone else

[1:24:38] evil in it?

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:38] She becomes

[1:24:39] evil halfway

[1:24:40] through.

[1:24:41] Now,

[1:24:41] here's the

[1:24:42] crossover I

[1:24:42] want to see.

[1:24:43] What happens

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:44] is she abuses

[1:24:45] the powers

[1:24:45] of the

[1:24:46] me-chow

[1:24:46] that she

[1:24:47] takes.

[1:24:47] It's supposed

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:48] to make her

[1:24:48] live a long,

[1:24:49] you know,

[1:24:49] we'll watch it.

[1:24:50] Sure, sure.

[1:24:51] So,

[1:24:51] what I want

[1:24:52] to see is

[1:24:52] Kevin McAllister

[1:24:52] up against

[1:24:53] the babysitter

[1:24:54] from Don't

[1:24:55] Tell Mom

[1:24:55] the Babysitter's

[1:24:56] Dead.

[1:24:56] And here's

[1:24:57] how that

[1:24:57] trilogy goes.

[1:24:57] First one,

[1:24:59] prequel.

[1:25:00] He's up

[1:25:00] against the

[1:25:00] babysitter,

[1:25:01] she's mean,

[1:25:02] they come to

[1:25:02] an understanding.

[1:25:03] They have to

[1:25:03] team up at

[1:25:04] the end to

[1:25:04] go up against

[1:25:04] a bigger

[1:25:05] monster,

[1:25:05] not Godzilla

[1:25:06] big.

[1:25:07] Second one,

[1:25:08] it's the movie

[1:25:08] we know,

[1:25:08] The Babysitter's

[1:25:09] Dead,

[1:25:09] pretty early on.

[1:25:10] Third movie,

[1:25:11] Zombie Babysitter

[1:25:12] comes back to

[1:25:12] after Kevin

[1:25:13] McAllister.

[1:25:13] Oh, okay.

[1:25:15] Yeah.

[1:25:15] Okay.

[1:25:16] All right.

[1:25:16] Well, we figured

[1:25:17] it out.

[1:25:18] The great thing

[1:25:18] about that is

Dan McCoy

[1:25:19] that for that

[1:25:19] storyline,

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:20] you can skip

[1:25:20] most of

[1:25:21] Don't Tell Mom

[1:25:22] Dead.

[1:25:23] Just make

[1:25:23] your own

[1:25:23] machete cut,

[1:25:24] I guess,

[1:25:24] of the movies

[1:25:26] where it's

[1:25:26] just the

[1:25:26] beginning of

[1:25:27] Don't Tell Mom

[1:25:28] Dead.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:28] Well, yeah,

[1:25:29] it'll be like

[1:25:30] in Evil Dead 2

[1:25:31] where it has

[1:25:32] that five minutes

[1:25:33] that's basically

[1:25:33] just like really

[1:25:34] running through

[1:25:35] Evil Dead

[1:25:35] very quickly.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:37] And now,

[1:25:37] okay,

[1:25:38] there's a threat

[1:25:38] for Kevin McAllister.

[1:25:39] Kevin's family,

[1:25:40] so Kevin's family

[1:25:41] goes to Tokyo

[1:25:43] or something

[1:25:43] on vacation.

[1:25:44] Kevin took

[1:25:45] the wrong plane.

[1:25:45] He ends up

[1:25:46] at the cabin

[1:25:46] from Evil Dead.

[1:25:47] Now he's got

[1:25:48] to fight

[1:25:48] off the dead.

[1:25:48] So he goes

[1:25:49] to Michigan?

[1:25:50] Yeah,

[1:25:51] exactly.

[1:25:53] Yeah,

[1:25:53] so Kevin goes

[1:25:54] to Michigan

[1:25:54] and he's

[1:25:56] with his buddies.

[1:25:57] That's not far.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:58] He's based

[1:25:59] out of Chicago.

[1:26:00] But he's feeling

[1:26:00] Minnesota.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:02] Yeah,

[1:26:02] but he's in Denver

[1:26:03] and he's dead,

[1:26:03] so who knows

[1:26:04] what's going to happen.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:05] He doesn't know

[1:26:05] what to do

[1:26:06] in that situation.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:07] Ever since

[1:26:07] they shut down

[1:26:08] the Denver

[1:26:08] Tourism Bureau's

Dan McCoy

[1:26:09] things to do

[1:26:10] here when you're

[1:26:10] dead department.

[1:26:12] That's what

[1:26:13] the thrillist

[1:26:13] for Denver

[1:26:16] says.

[1:26:17] If you're dead,

[1:26:18] here's some

[1:26:18] things to do

[1:26:19] this weekend.

[1:26:19] Anyway,

[1:26:20] let's do

[1:26:22] So I think

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:22] we put that

[1:26:23] one to rest.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:23] Yeah,

[1:26:24] let's do

[1:26:24] movie recommendations.

[1:26:25] You know

[1:26:26] what I saw

[1:26:26] recently?

[1:26:28] Design?

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:28] Did it open

[1:26:29] up your eyes?

Dan McCoy

[1:26:30] Yeah.

[1:26:32] Life is demanding.

[1:26:35] I went

[1:26:36] to the

[1:26:37] Prospect Park

[1:26:38] Nighthawk.

[1:26:38] I saw myself

[1:26:39] a sweet

[1:26:40] repertory

[1:26:40] screening

[1:26:41] of Psycho 2

[1:26:43] directed by

[1:26:43] Richard Franklin.

[1:26:45] I have

[1:26:45] long

[1:26:46] maintained

[1:26:47] that the

[1:26:47] biggest

[1:26:47] problem

[1:26:48] with Psycho 2

[1:26:49] is that

[1:26:50] it is

[1:26:50] impossible

[1:26:50] for any

[1:26:51] movie

[1:26:51] to be

[1:26:52] Psycho.

[1:26:54] We already

[1:26:54] have a

[1:26:55] Psycho.

[1:26:55] It's possible

[1:26:56] for one

[1:26:56] movie to be

[1:26:57] Psycho.

[1:26:57] The thing

[1:26:58] is,

[1:26:58] at this

[1:26:59] point,

[1:26:59] even

[1:26:59] Psycho

[1:27:00] isn't

[1:27:00] Psycho

[1:27:00] because it's

[1:27:01] had so much

[1:27:01] cultural impact.

[1:27:02] You cannot

[1:27:03] recreate

[1:27:04] Psycho.

[1:27:06] The shock

[1:27:06] of it.

[1:27:07] The beauty

[1:27:08] of Psycho 2

[1:27:10] is that

[1:27:10] the plot

[1:27:11] takes into

[1:27:11] account,

[1:27:12] we all

[1:27:13] know

[1:27:13] Psycho,

[1:27:14] so let's

[1:27:15] I don't

[1:27:17] want to

[1:27:17] say too

[1:27:18] much,

[1:27:18] but the

[1:27:18] movie uses

[1:27:19] the knowledge

[1:27:20] that you

[1:27:20] know what

[1:27:20] Psycho is

[1:27:21] against you

[1:27:22] in a way

[1:27:23] that I

[1:27:23] feel like

[1:27:24] more

[1:27:24] sequels

[1:27:27] should

[1:27:28] sort of

[1:27:29] think of

[1:27:30] entry points

[1:27:31] like,

[1:27:32] okay,

[1:27:32] how does

[1:27:32] this movie

[1:27:33] relate to

[1:27:33] the first

[1:27:34] one?

[1:27:34] Less than

[1:27:35] a sense

[1:27:35] of,

[1:27:35] oh,

[1:27:36] let's

[1:27:36] continue

[1:27:36] the story

[1:27:37] or let's

[1:27:37] repeat

[1:27:37] the story.

[1:27:38] It's not

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:38] just

[1:27:39] Norman's

[1:27:39] on a

[1:27:39] rampage

[1:27:40] again.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:41] Yeah,

[1:27:41] like,

[1:27:41] how does

[1:27:42] this relate

[1:27:42] to the

[1:27:42] story

[1:27:43] in a more

[1:27:43] holistic way?

[1:27:45] What can

[1:27:46] we turn

[1:27:46] on its

[1:27:47] head?

[1:27:48] What can

[1:27:48] we change?

[1:27:49] What do

[1:27:50] we want

[1:27:50] to learn

[1:27:50] more about?

[1:27:52] I don't

[1:27:52] know.

[1:27:52] It's a

[1:27:54] good movie

[1:27:56] Richard

[1:27:56] Franklin,

[1:27:57] the Aussie

[1:27:58] director who

[1:27:59] was an

[1:27:59] acolyte of

[1:28:00] Hitchcock's

[1:28:01] and I

[1:28:03] enjoy it.

[1:28:04] Anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:06] That's cool.

[1:28:06] I'm going to

[1:28:07] recommend a

[1:28:07] movie from

[1:28:08] 1987.

[1:28:09] Yep,

[1:28:09] perfect year.

[1:28:11] I'm

[1:28:12] recommending a

[1:28:12] movie called

[1:28:13] Light of

[1:28:13] Day,

[1:28:14] directed by,

[1:28:15] of course,

[1:28:16] director of

[1:28:16] Heartbeeps,

[1:28:17] Paul Schrader.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:21] And Light of

[1:28:22] Day.

[1:28:24] Listeners,

[1:28:24] there's nothing I

[1:28:25] would like more

[1:28:25] than for you to

[1:28:26] go to

[1:28:26] MaximumFun.org

[1:28:27] slash join and

[1:28:28] pledge us.

[1:28:28] But other than

[1:28:29] that,

[1:28:29] if you could go

[1:28:30] to the

[1:28:30] Heartbeeps

[1:28:31] Wikipedia page

[1:28:32] and just have

[1:28:32] it say that

[1:28:33] Paul Schrader

[1:28:33] directed it,

[1:28:34] that'd be

[1:28:34] great.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:35] And then

[1:28:35] somebody record

[1:28:36] Paul Schrader's

[1:28:37] reactions live

[1:28:38] off of

[1:28:39] Facebook.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:42] I don't,

[1:28:43] this is all

[1:28:44] going to end

[1:28:44] up with Paul

[1:28:45] Schrader tracking

[1:28:45] us down somehow.

[1:28:47] No,

[1:28:47] no.

[1:28:47] It doesn't seem

[1:28:48] like a,

[1:28:48] but I like his

[1:28:49] movies.

[1:28:49] I would love to

[1:28:49] meet Paul Schrader.

[1:28:50] Yeah.

[1:28:50] I just,

[1:28:52] there's good,

[1:28:53] there's something

[1:28:53] hidden inside

[1:28:54] that man.

[1:28:54] I challenge him

[1:28:54] to a poker game.

[1:28:56] I mean,

[1:28:56] I don't love

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:57] that he was

[1:28:57] always fighting

[1:28:57] the Ninja

[1:28:58] Turtles,

[1:28:58] you know,

[1:28:58] but still.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:01] He did that.

[1:29:03] So,

[1:29:03] Light of Day

[1:29:04] is,

[1:29:05] it's an

[1:29:05] interesting little

[1:29:06] movie.

[1:29:06] It's not one

[1:29:07] of my favorite

[1:29:08] Paul Schrader

[1:29:08] movies,

[1:29:09] but I think

[1:29:09] it's worth a

[1:29:10] watch.

[1:29:10] That would be

[1:29:11] heartbeeps.

[1:29:11] This movie stars

[1:29:13] Michael J. Fox

[1:29:14] and Joan Jett

[1:29:15] as a pair of

[1:29:16] siblings who

[1:29:17] are in their

[1:29:18] early 20s

[1:29:19] living in

[1:29:19] Cleveland,

[1:29:19] and they

[1:29:21] are living

[1:29:23] like a

[1:29:23] blue-collar

[1:29:24] life,

[1:29:24] but they

[1:29:25] are also

[1:29:26] trying to

[1:29:27] make it

[1:29:27] as like

[1:29:29] a small-time

[1:29:30] rock and roll

[1:29:30] band.

[1:29:31] And Joan Jett,

[1:29:32] the sister,

[1:29:33] has a young

[1:29:34] child,

[1:29:35] and she

[1:29:35] cannot give up

[1:29:36] her dream

[1:29:37] of being

[1:29:38] a rock star,

[1:29:39] or at least

[1:29:40] living a rock

[1:29:41] and roll

[1:29:41] lifestyle.

[1:29:42] And so,

[1:29:43] it means that

[1:29:43] Michael J. Fox

[1:29:44] has to take on

[1:29:45] the responsibility

[1:29:46] of watching

[1:29:47] this child.

[1:29:50] And it's,

[1:29:51] you know,

[1:29:52] it's,

[1:29:52] and there's

[1:29:52] additional

[1:29:53] family drama.

[1:29:54] It shows

[1:29:55] the,

[1:29:56] like,

[1:29:57] the side

[1:29:57] of the Midwest,

[1:29:58] like a blue-collar

[1:29:59] Midwest that you

[1:30:00] don't get to see

[1:30:01] very often.

[1:30:02] The mullets

[1:30:02] are great.

[1:30:04] There's a very

[1:30:05] small cameo

[1:30:06] from Michael

[1:30:07] Rooker,

[1:30:08] which I'm

[1:30:08] assuming was

[1:30:09] shot before,

[1:30:11] like,

[1:30:12] I'm assuming

[1:30:12] it was shot,

[1:30:13] like,

[1:30:13] around when

[1:30:14] Henry Portrait

[1:30:14] of a Serial

[1:30:15] Killer was being

[1:30:16] made.

[1:30:16] Like,

[1:30:16] he had not

[1:30:17] been in much

[1:30:17] stuff at this

[1:30:18] point.

[1:30:18] And it also

[1:30:19] has Michael

[1:30:20] McKean,

[1:30:20] who plays

[1:30:20] the bassist

[1:30:21] in their band,

[1:30:22] who's in it

[1:30:22] quite a bit,

[1:30:23] and has a

[1:30:23] variety of

[1:30:24] different facial

[1:30:24] hairs,

[1:30:25] so that's

[1:30:25] worth watching.

[1:30:27] Again,

[1:30:28] like,

[1:30:28] it verges

[1:30:30] a little bit

[1:30:30] into,

[1:30:31] like,

[1:30:31] TV movie

[1:30:33] or movie

[1:30:33] of the week,

[1:30:34] but that

[1:30:34] could also

[1:30:34] just be

[1:30:35] how much,

[1:30:36] like,

[1:30:36] big movies

[1:30:37] have altered

[1:30:38] my brain.

[1:30:39] But if you're

[1:30:39] interested in

[1:30:40] watching kind

[1:30:40] of like a

[1:30:40] smaller movie

[1:30:41] that's set

[1:30:43] in kind

[1:30:44] of a part

[1:30:44] of America

[1:30:44] that you

[1:30:45] don't really

[1:30:45] see very

[1:30:46] often in

[1:30:46] movies,

[1:30:47] check out

[1:30:48] Light of Day.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:49] I want to

[1:30:50] recommend two

[1:30:50] movies.

[1:30:51] One of them

[1:30:51] has the word

[1:30:52] day in the

[1:30:53] title,

[1:30:53] so it doesn't

[1:30:54] get more

[1:30:55] thought out

[1:30:55] than that.

[1:30:56] This actually

[1:30:56] was not the

[1:30:57] movie that I

[1:30:57] was originally

[1:30:58] going to

[1:30:58] recommend,

[1:30:59] but after

[1:30:59] watching the

[1:30:59] bubble and

[1:31:00] thinking about

[1:31:00] it,

[1:31:00] I was like,

[1:31:01] and mentioning,

[1:31:02] there's a good

[1:31:02] version of this

[1:31:02] movie,

[1:31:03] and it's

[1:31:03] called Day

[1:31:03] for Night.

[1:31:04] So that's

[1:31:04] the first

[1:31:04] thing I'm

[1:31:05] going to

[1:31:05] recommend

[1:31:05] is Day

[1:31:06] for Night,

[1:31:07] or the

[1:31:07] original French

[1:31:08] title is

[1:31:08] La Nuit

[1:31:09] American,

[1:31:10] the American

[1:31:10] Night.

[1:31:11] It's directed

[1:31:12] by Francois

[1:31:12] Truffaut,

[1:31:13] and it's about

[1:31:13] the making

[1:31:13] of a movie

[1:31:14] in France.

[1:31:15] Bessette,

[1:31:16] who wrote

[1:31:16] us that

[1:31:16] letter earlier,

[1:31:17] is in it,

[1:31:17] and it's

[1:31:19] just,

[1:31:20] it feels

[1:31:20] very Robert

[1:31:21] Altman-y,

[1:31:21] where it is

[1:31:22] about people

[1:31:22] making a movie,

[1:31:23] there's a number

[1:31:24] of different

[1:31:24] storylines going

[1:31:25] on with the

[1:31:25] different people

[1:31:26] in the movie,

[1:31:26] and it shows

[1:31:26] you so many

[1:31:27] different people

[1:31:28] involved,

[1:31:29] but because

[1:31:29] it's a French

[1:31:29] movie,

[1:31:30] it's a much

[1:31:30] smaller crew

[1:31:31] than an American

[1:31:32] movie would

[1:31:33] have,

[1:31:33] so there's a

[1:31:34] real sense

[1:31:34] of intimacy

[1:31:34] to it,

[1:31:35] and it's just

[1:31:35] really good,

[1:31:36] and parts of

[1:31:36] it are very

[1:31:37] funny,

[1:31:37] and parts of

[1:31:38] that are

[1:31:38] very kind

[1:31:38] of like

[1:31:39] dramatic

[1:31:39] or heartbreaking,

[1:31:41] and characters

[1:31:42] do foolish

[1:31:43] things,

[1:31:44] and it's

[1:31:45] just a really

[1:31:47] enjoyable movie,

[1:31:48] but it's also

[1:31:48] a very wise

[1:31:49] movie about

[1:31:50] what the

[1:31:51] process of

[1:31:51] filmmaking is

[1:31:51] like,

[1:31:52] as you would

[1:31:52] expect Francois

[1:31:53] Truffaut to

[1:31:54] have,

[1:31:54] since he'd

[1:31:55] been making

[1:31:55] movies for

[1:31:55] years by

[1:31:56] that point,

[1:31:57] so that's

[1:31:57] day for

[1:31:57] night,

[1:31:58] but the

[1:31:59] movie I

[1:31:59] wanted to

[1:31:59] recommend,

[1:32:00] I think it

[1:32:01] was last

[1:32:01] episode,

[1:32:02] I think I

[1:32:02] also recommended

[1:32:03] a movie

[1:32:03] about some

[1:32:04] women who

[1:32:04] are going

[1:32:05] through

[1:32:05] challenges

[1:32:05] in their

[1:32:06] lives,

[1:32:07] this,

[1:32:07] I want to

[1:32:07] do another

[1:32:08] one of

[1:32:08] those,

[1:32:08] and this

[1:32:09] one stars

[1:32:10] recent Academy

[1:32:12] Award nominee

[1:32:12] Michelle Yeoh,

[1:32:13] that's right,

[1:32:14] it's a movie

[1:32:14] about women

[1:32:14] dealing with

[1:32:15] challenges,

[1:32:16] that's the

[1:32:16] Heroic Trio

[1:32:17] from 1993,

[1:32:19] Johnny Toe,

[1:32:20] and you

[1:32:21] have,

[1:32:21] it is,

[1:32:22] watching it,

[1:32:23] it's like,

[1:32:23] oh,

[1:32:24] this is like

[1:32:24] what,

[1:32:25] a 90s Hong

[1:32:26] Kong idea

[1:32:26] of a superhero

[1:32:27] movie,

[1:32:28] before the

[1:32:29] Marvel movies

[1:32:30] had kind of

[1:32:31] codified what

[1:32:32] a superhero movie

[1:32:32] was supposed

[1:32:33] to be,

[1:32:33] but after the

[1:32:34] Batman movies

[1:32:34] had come in

[1:32:35] and kind of

[1:32:36] made their

[1:32:37] impression of

[1:32:37] what a

[1:32:38] superhero movie

[1:32:38] is supposed

[1:32:38] to be,

[1:32:39] but filtered

[1:32:39] through a

[1:32:40] very Hong Kong

[1:32:41] filter,

[1:32:41] there's three

[1:32:41] powerful women,

[1:32:43] there's Michelle Yeoh,

[1:32:44] Anita Mui,

[1:32:45] and Maggie Chung,

[1:32:46] I'm sure

[1:32:46] mispronouncing names,

[1:32:47] and they play

[1:32:49] Wonder Woman,

[1:32:50] the Invisible Woman,

[1:32:51] and Thief Catcher,

[1:32:52] but not the ones,

[1:32:53] not the Wonder Woman

[1:32:54] and Invisible Woman

[1:32:54] we're familiar with,

[1:32:56] but they're three women

[1:32:57] who find themselves

[1:32:58] on different sides

[1:32:59] at first,

[1:33:00] when an evil villain

[1:33:02] who lives under the streets

[1:33:03] in the sewers,

[1:33:04] but the sewers

[1:33:04] look kind of like

[1:33:05] caverns of a city,

[1:33:07] is collecting babies,

[1:33:09] thinking that one of them

[1:33:10] will become the foretold

[1:33:12] new king of China,

[1:33:14] and there is a lot of

[1:33:16] real fun fights,

[1:33:17] it gets very strange

[1:33:19] at times,

[1:33:19] and the climax of the movie,

[1:33:22] you watch it,

[1:33:22] and you're like,

[1:33:23] oh,

[1:33:24] Michelle Yeoh's gonna go

[1:33:25] onto an Academy Award,

[1:33:26] but she still did this

[1:33:27] bonkers scene

[1:33:28] that involves her fighting

[1:33:30] the charred body

[1:33:32] of a super powerful

[1:33:32] wizard magician.

[1:33:35] It's just,

[1:33:36] it's a super fun movie,

[1:33:37] so that's

[1:33:37] The Heroic Trio.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:39] That's on Criterion

[1:33:40] right now, right?

[1:33:41] It is on Criterion

[1:33:41] right now.

[1:33:42] They have a Michelle Yeoh

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:43] collection on right now.

[1:33:44] With Yes Madam!

[1:33:46] Yeah,

[1:33:46] Yes Madam's on there also,

[1:33:47] and Supercop,

[1:33:49] you know,

[1:33:49] a lot of stuff she was in.

[1:33:51] That's good.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:52] Yay!

[1:33:53] Hey,

[1:33:54] before we go,

[1:33:56] just one last pitch

[1:33:57] for becoming a MaxFun member.

[1:33:59] I know I'm coming into this

[1:34:00] with some aggressive energy

[1:34:01] because it's actually

[1:34:02] gonna get a little personal

[1:34:05] here in a second.

[1:34:05] Be aggressive, Dan.

[1:34:06] No, no, no.

[1:34:07] I talked last show

[1:34:08] a little bit

[1:34:08] about how the Flophouse

[1:34:09] has almost magically

[1:34:11] changed my life.

[1:34:13] It's introduced me

[1:34:13] to people I wouldn't

[1:34:14] have known otherwise,

[1:34:15] whether it be kind,

[1:34:16] enthusiastic,

[1:34:18] wonderful listeners

[1:34:18] we meet on the road,

[1:34:21] or if it's a chance

[1:34:22] to text our guest

[1:34:23] Gillian Flynn

[1:34:24] about bad wigs

[1:34:25] in a movie,

[1:34:26] or if it's even

[1:34:28] meeting my wife

[1:34:29] through a karaoke event

[1:34:31] arranged by

[1:34:32] MaxFun New York.

[1:34:34] So, like,

[1:34:35] it's just been

[1:34:36] a wild thing to be...

[1:34:37] Wait, who'd you meet

[1:34:38] at the karaoke event?

[1:34:39] My wife, Audrey.

[1:34:41] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:41] I was hoping

[1:34:42] you were gonna say it funnier.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:43] Yeah.

[1:34:44] My wife...

[1:34:46] It's allowed me

[1:34:47] to showcase...

[1:34:47] Shouldn't have needed

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:48] the prompting.

[1:34:48] Shouldn't have needed it.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:49] I was...

[1:34:50] You know what?

[1:34:51] It's...

[1:34:51] I think it's to my credit

[1:34:53] that I didn't know

[1:34:54] where he was going with it.

[1:34:57] Fair, fair.

[1:34:57] It's allowed me

[1:34:58] to showcase

[1:34:59] both my own voice

[1:35:00] and my voice...

[1:35:01] The voice of my dear friends,

[1:35:03] Stuart and Elliot,

[1:35:03] in a way that actually

[1:35:04] gets out into the world

[1:35:05] and connects with people.

[1:35:06] It's kept me

[1:35:07] and Elliot and Stuart

[1:35:09] financially afloat

[1:35:10] during times

[1:35:10] where we've all gone through

[1:35:11] a bunch of ups and downs.

[1:35:13] And most importantly,

[1:35:14] it's made me feel

[1:35:15] connected

[1:35:16] and less alone

[1:35:16] in this world,

[1:35:17] knowing that other people

[1:35:18] like the same

[1:35:19] dumb nonsense

[1:35:20] I do

[1:35:21] and we do,

[1:35:22] whether it's

[1:35:23] my co-hosts

[1:35:24] or you out there

[1:35:25] in listener land.

[1:35:27] I'd like to thank

[1:35:28] everyone for that.

[1:35:29] And I know it's been important

[1:35:30] for our listeners as well

[1:35:32] because I've heard stories

[1:35:33] about people

[1:35:33] meeting their partners

[1:35:34] because of the podcast

[1:35:35] or adopting a child

[1:35:36] through context

[1:35:38] to the podcast

[1:35:39] or folks going through

[1:35:40] a tough time

[1:35:40] who've been helped

[1:35:41] by listening to us

[1:35:42] be silly.

[1:35:43] And I honestly

[1:35:44] kind of don't like

[1:35:45] to think about it too much

[1:35:46] because I'm a 44-year-old man

[1:35:48] from the Midwest

[1:35:49] and emotions

[1:35:50] confuse and frighten me.

[1:35:52] But it's honestly

[1:35:53] been very meaningful

[1:35:54] to me

[1:35:55] to know that

[1:35:55] if some angel

[1:35:56] pulled an

[1:35:57] It's a Wonderful Life

[1:35:57] on me

[1:35:58] and showed me

[1:35:59] how life would be different

[1:36:00] if I'd never been born

[1:36:01] that because of this podcast

[1:36:02] in large part

[1:36:03] there would actually be

[1:36:04] a significant difference

[1:36:05] in the world.

[1:36:06] So,

[1:36:07] we've got a lot of new stuff

[1:36:09] in store for this year.

[1:36:10] We've been trying to do

[1:36:10] more video content

[1:36:11] and fun tidbits.

[1:36:12] We're working on

[1:36:13] an ambitious plan

[1:36:14] for more live streaming shows

[1:36:16] in the coming year.

[1:36:17] So,

[1:36:17] if you want the show

[1:36:18] to not just survive

[1:36:19] but to continue

[1:36:20] to thrive

[1:36:21] and expand,

[1:36:23] consider becoming

[1:36:23] a member

[1:36:24] at MaximumFun.org

[1:36:25] slash join.

[1:36:26] That site again

[1:36:27] is MaximumFun.org

[1:36:29] If you like us,

[1:36:31] pick the Flophouse

[1:36:31] as one of your shows

[1:36:32] to support

[1:36:33] and thank you so much

[1:36:34] for being a listener.

[1:36:37] And that's it

[1:36:38] other than

[1:36:39] also thanking

[1:36:39] our producer

[1:36:40] Alex Smith

[1:36:41] who puts the show together.

[1:36:43] You can find him

[1:36:44] on various socials

[1:36:45] as HowlDotty.

[1:36:47] But I will say

[1:36:48] for the Flophouse,

[1:36:49] I have been Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:51] I'm still Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:53] My name is

[1:36:56] I'm sorry,

[1:36:57] it's Elliot.

[1:36:57] See it.

[1:36:58] Bye.

[1:36:59] Bye.

[1:37:03] Hey everybody,

[1:37:04] it's Flophouse time

[1:37:06] from coast to coast.

[1:37:08] We're the most

[1:37:09] Flophouse podcast

[1:37:10] that there is

[1:37:11] because we're

[1:37:12] the only one.

[1:37:13] So by definition,

[1:37:14] we are the most

[1:37:14] Flophouse podcast

[1:37:15] there is.

[1:37:17] Flophouse.

[1:37:18] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:21] Stu's unimpressed.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:23] No, I loved it.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:26] Comedy and culture.

S4

[1:37:28] Artist owned.

[1:37:29] Audience supported.

Episode #392 - The Bubble

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