Episode #388 - Don't Worry Darling

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss, don't worry, darling.

Stuart Wellington

[0:05] I don't even need to do a joke.

[0:07] Dan's already cracking up, baby.

[0:30] Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse.

[0:34] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:35] Oh, hey, Dan McCoy.

[0:36] It's me, Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:38] And it's-a me, Elliot Kalin, pretending to be the hit Nintendo character, Mario, from the Super Mario games.

Stuart Wellington

[0:44] Uh-huh, that's good.

[0:46] That's thematically appropriate for this episode, right?

[0:48] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[0:48] Yeah, yeah, we watched Don't Worry, Darling, the Nintendo movie.

Dan McCoy

[0:53] Don't worry, darling, I'm just playing Nintendo.

[0:55] Don't worry about all those shy guys encircling you.

[1:00] They're shy.

[1:01] They won't do anything.

[1:02] Don't worry, they're very shy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03] They're very shy.

[1:04] Don't worry, darling, you're actually Samus Aran, a girl fighting a Metroid alien.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08] Don't worry, darling, this guy's just going to take you over to that castle for a while.

Dan McCoy

[1:14] Hey, this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[1:18] Or, you know, look, we don't know whether it's bad ahead of time, but the society, the culture has told us certain things.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24] Sure.

[1:24] I mean, we don't know before we watch it, but we have a good sense before we start recording the episode.

Dan McCoy

[1:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:30] You're right there.

[1:31] There is a sort of a liminal space where we have formed our opinions but not broadcast them.

[1:37] But I just want to make it clear we don't, you know, I feel bad.

Stuart Wellington

[1:41] Yeah, and there's a moment when we have our opinions and we're like, could we just keep these to ourselves?

[1:47] Can we just shut the fuck up?

Dan McCoy

[1:48] Are there already enough opinions on the internet?

[1:52] Probably.

[1:53] I mean, definitely.

[1:54] But, you know, what we're –

[1:56] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:56] Very much so.

Dan McCoy

[1:57] I feel like we got –

[1:57] That's not even a problem.

Stuart Wellington

[1:58] Certainly from people of our demographic.

[1:59] Number one, we got –

Dan McCoy

[2:00] Number one, I feel like we got grandfathered in.

[2:04] And number two, we've built too much of our lives around the livelihood that this provides.

[2:09] So we just keep doing it, you know?

Elliott Kalan

[2:12] And I love how – I love Dan's constant provisos against a complaint no one has made.

[2:17] A criticism no one has ever made to us.

[2:19] I have made it in my brain to myself.

[2:21] Dan's like – Dan imagines these hordes of people who are like, you know, the movies aren't always bad that you talk about.

[2:28] I liked that movie and now I hate you.

[2:30] And that – I don't know that we –

[2:31] I can't take it.

[2:31] Even the people who say like, oh, I liked that movie, they go, oh, I disagreed with you.

[2:34] It's fine.

[2:35] Yeah.

[2:35] But Dan, it's okay.

[2:36] I know you're projecting your dislike of the constant internet hate machine.

[2:42] Yes.

[2:43] Onto the audience.

[2:43] It's a pretty hate machine.

[2:44] And then refracting it back to us.

Dan McCoy

[2:45] But no matter how pretty that hate machine is, it's still full of hate.

Elliott Kalan

[2:49] And you're raging against that hate machine, which itself is made of rage.

Dan McCoy

[2:53] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[2:53] So we watched –

[2:54] But despite all your rage, you're still just a podcaster in a cage.

[2:56] What do we do on this podcast, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[2:58] Again, we watch a bad movie.

[2:59] We talk about it.

[3:00] This one has a lot of baggage around it that has very little to do with the movie itself.

[3:06] Very true.

[3:08] Yeah, you want to give us the fucking internet?

[3:10] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[3:11] I think – to be honest, I think if anyone came to this looking for the ins and outs of the soap opera backstory,

[3:17] I think we should show them the door.

[3:18] Yeah.

[3:19] And that door is marked, come back in, please, and listen to us talk about the movie itself.

[3:22] The movie itself.

[3:23] But I don't think we need to get into the shenanigans.

[3:25] No, I don't think so either.

Dan McCoy

[3:26] Except for Audrey originally –

[3:28] Oh, boy.

[3:29] Audrey originally wanted to be on this episode because she has big feelings about it.

[3:34] And then she mysteriously changed her mind.

[3:37] Oh, yeah.

[3:37] She can't take the heat.

[3:38] You're saying Olivia Wilde got to her.

Elliott Kalan

[3:40] Oh, okay.

[3:40] Yeah, yeah.

[3:41] Olivia Wilde, she appeared – you were drugged, so you weren't awake for this.

[3:45] But Olivia Wilde was standing over her bed just punching her fist into an open palm saying,

[3:50] you want to get book smart about this?

[3:51] Yeah.

[3:51] Or you want to be book dumb about this?

Dan McCoy

[3:53] Well, I mean, she did want me to address her feelings, which are also my feelings, which is that –

[3:59] Because you're married.

[4:01] Perhaps it's not the most ideal thing to get involved with an infidelity on set, a workplace infidelity,

[4:11] plus, like, you know, your marriage, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[4:14] But the heat that got generated by this is so far outside – like, this is – the degree to which this is unusual is not.

[4:26] It is not unusual, and Olivia Wilde took, like, a lot of heat that Audrey believes and I agree with is probably because she is a lady rather than a man.

Elliott Kalan

[4:37] Oh, I think that's – I have two explanations for this.

[4:39] One is, as you're saying, the institutional misogyny of it because you look at a movie – I mean, this was a long time ago,

[4:43] but the exact same thing happened in reverse with The Last Picture Show where Peter Bogdanovich left his wife,

[4:49] who is also his collaborative partner in production, for one of the actresses in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[4:54] And he got to hang out in an ascot and talk about movies for decades after.

Elliott Kalan

[5:00] And sure, yes, his career also collapsed because people found it incredibly smarmy and smug.

[5:08] His relationship with that actress was still –

Dan McCoy

[5:10] Polly Platt was an integral part of the process.

Elliott Kalan

[5:13] Of the Bogdanovich machine.

[5:14] Yeah.

[5:14] But I also – here's my – this – but I also have a sinister conspiratorial way of thinking.

[5:18] And you know what?

[5:19] Since this is a movie about a kind of sinister conspiracy – spoiler alert, even though it's the most obvious thing in the world from the moment the title, you hear it –

[5:27] is that I think this is a movie that does not have a lot of obvious selling points for today's theater-going audience.

[5:34] And I wouldn't be surprised if the PR people for the film had a hand in getting a lot of that going to create scandal that would then promote the movie.

[5:43] You know, thumbing the scale.

[5:45] Yes.

[5:46] Because otherwise it is such a relatively small-scale, not big-release movie.

[5:51] And the people involved in it, aside from Harry Styles, they're stars, but they're not the biggest stars in the world.

[5:58] And yet suddenly this was the biggest story.

Dan McCoy

[5:59] Well, that's what I would say.

[6:00] If I was going to go to a conspiracy, it's not really much of a conspiracy.

[6:04] It's just pointing to Harry Styles fans.

[6:07] And I think that that was a huge driver of the controversy.

[6:12] I think you're right.

[6:13] I'm going to say this.

Stuart Wellington

[6:13] I should probably get this out of the way up front is that I am a known Harry Styles disliker.

[6:19] I don't really need to go into it.

[6:20] I also don't need to convince other people why I don't like somebody.

[6:25] Yeah.

[6:25] I just don't care for them.

[6:26] It's like if they had cast – now, I'm hoping it didn't bias me against the movie.

[6:30] It would be like if they cast Drake in a movie, and I don't like that guy either.

[6:36] But, you know, I just –

[6:37] Ludwig von Drake?

[6:38] Yeah.

[6:39] Elliot –

[6:39] I was trying to teach me about science.

[6:40] There's a slightly more contemporary character.

[6:42] There's a cartoon going on.

Elliott Kalan

[6:44] I guess what Stuart is saying is he wishes that Mr. Henderson had never taken Harry from the forest,

[6:49] shaved him, and taught him how to sing.

[6:50] Uh-huh.

[6:50] Just leave him in the forest as a little Bigfoot, and this Harry – he would be better off that way.

[6:56] Is that what you're saying?

[6:56] Or put a mask on him and let him run wild in New York City.

[7:00] Mm-hmm.

[7:00] That is a different Harry, a maniac Harry that we'll hear about perhaps later in the episode during the promos.

[7:06] Maniac of New York, don't call it a comeback number one in the comic stores now.

Dan McCoy

[7:09] I will say when it comes to the promotion of this film, though, it's possible that you're right

[7:12] because although this is appearing on the Flophouse and there was a lot of negative talk about it,

[7:18] this movie was not a flop.

[7:18] This movie made like 80-some million dollars on like a $30 million budget.

Elliott Kalan

[7:24] Would you call that boffo BO or normal BO?

Dan McCoy

[7:27] I don't know if that's boffo BO, but it's like one step below boffo, whatever that is.

Elliott Kalan

[7:32] I would call that depending on the marketing costs – I would call that depending on the marketing costs comfortable BO.

[7:38] Mm-hmm.

[7:39] It's not going to push you out of the room.

[7:41] Warm, enveloping BO.

[7:42] That's boffo BO.

[7:42] BO.

[7:43] Yeah, that kind of BO will make you leave the room when it's boffo.

[7:46] But this is just like I can handle it.

[7:48] Yeah.

[7:48] You know, maybe I'll – if this happens a few more days in a row, I'll ask my coworker to start putting on deodorant.

[7:53] That's the level of BO.

Dan McCoy

[7:54] Okay.

[7:54] Well, we've talked a lot.

[7:55] Stuart, why don't you get into the movie?

[7:57] Yeah, fuck it.

Elliott Kalan

[7:57] Let's just get into this piece.

[7:59] You're like, well, we've talked a lot.

[8:01] Let's talk some more.

[8:01] Let's talk about something else.

[8:02] The movie.

Stuart Wellington

[8:03] Okay.

[8:04] The movie opens with an old-timey song.

[8:08] It opens with the right time.

Elliott Kalan

[8:10] Now, Stuart, should we get used to that?

[8:12] Now, how old-timey are we talking?

[8:13] Because this is not like –

[8:15] It's like what?

[8:16] Like a 50s song or some shit?

Dan McCoy

[8:16] Or writing penny farthings around.

[8:18] Or it's not Daisy, Daisy.

[8:19] Yeah, it's not Greensleeves.

Elliott Kalan

[8:22] No, but this – at one point, I was like, I'm glad I'm not doing the summary today because then I would feel the need to count how many 50s and 60s needle drops are happening in the first four minutes of this movie.

[8:32] What was the –

[8:32] Because it's like every shot has a new old song.

Stuart Wellington

[8:35] What's the name of the song that they keep playing?

[8:37] It's Sleepwalkers.

Elliott Kalan

[8:38] Yeah, Sleepwalker by Santos and John.

[8:40] Yeah, no shit.

[8:41] And that shows up in this movie too.

[8:43] Yeah, no shit.

Stuart Wellington

[8:43] As soon as it shows up, I'm like –

Elliott Kalan

[8:45] And it's also that – and the music they play, it's not always, but it's sometimes a little on the nose.

[8:52] Like it's like, oh, the men are coming home from work.

[8:54] I guess we'll play Coming Home Baby with Mel Torme singing it.

Dan McCoy

[8:57] That's the thing.

[8:58] You know, people – I think there's a lot of anger, sort of general-analyzed anger on the internet towards, quote, needle drops.

[9:04] And I don't have a problem with it.

[9:06] Like one of the best things movies can do is put music and images together.

[9:10] Yeah, without it, like jukebox musicals couldn't exist.

[9:13] Often the problem is that they are uncreative needle drops.

[9:17] Here, there's a mixture of some good ones, some ones that's like, oh, yeah, you could have thought a little more about that.

Elliott Kalan

[9:22] Well, at a certain point, when it's in like Suicide Squad, it just becomes audio wallpaper at a certain point.

[9:27] But I will say, this movie, I really like the score.

[9:30] Like I really liked the original score for it.

[9:33] And so there were times when a needle drop would happen.

[9:35] I'd be like, I'm enjoying the music that was created explicitly for this movie.

[9:39] Like I want to hear more of that.

[9:40] I don't necessarily want to hear just the movie that – the songs that were on the Spotify playlist that Olivia Wilde sent to the actors to get them into the mood for the film.

Stuart Wellington

[9:48] Although earlier this same day, I had watched the movie Pearl that came out this year, and that score is incredible.

[9:56] So I was –

Dan McCoy

[9:57] So your recommendation is the movie score to Pearl.

[10:00] The music.

Stuart Wellington

[10:01] The music to the movie.

[10:01] Is Pearl the original motion picture soundtrack?

[10:03] Yeah.

[10:04] Yeah, yeah.

[10:04] Okay.

[10:05] From Arista Records.

[10:06] So this is going to –

[10:07] Arista Cash.

[10:09] This is going to kind of get into some setup.

[10:11] So we open in like a fun couple's dinner party where everybody's drinking Gibson martinis.

[10:17] I clock those onions.

[10:19] And it's in like a 50s, mid-century modern style house in what is very clearly Palm Springs.

[10:27] All the men are employees of a thing called the Victory Project, which is this like mysterious maybe defense contractor.

[10:36] And all the wives are homemakers.

[10:38] They all live in this like 50s suburban fantasy where all the men go to work every day.

Elliott Kalan

[10:43] It's a real –

[10:44] It's like Mad Men fantasy world.

[10:47] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[10:47] Yeah.

[10:47] And when –

[10:47] These Gibsons, there's like a –

[10:49] There's like a row of like 12 of them.

[10:52] I mean, oh my god.

[10:53] This is when I turned to Audrey and I said, you know, I've never had a Gibson.

[10:56] And she gave me a huh in a way that said either I'm not interested in that or I don't know what a Gibson is but I don't want you to tell me what it is.

Stuart Wellington

[11:06] Or, I mean, I'm going to say huh because that totally seems like something you would do.

Dan McCoy

[11:10] I don't think –

[11:12] I mean, do you have a bunch of cocktail onions in the hinterlands?

[11:14] I can have it at some point.

[11:15] Or I don't think that it's common.

Stuart Wellington

[11:17] No, I mean, we don't have them at any of my bars because as you said, it's not common.

[11:21] Yeah.

[11:21] Although it is a cute little onion.

Elliott Kalan

[11:24] Yeah.

[11:25] It's just too bad.

[11:26] Look at that tiny onion.

[11:26] I mean, it could have been common.

[11:29] But as we know, Common's Cocktail Onions, the only cocktail onion company started by Common, the rapper, was a huge failure.

[11:34] I don't know why.

[11:35] The business plan was really strong.

[11:37] That's why I invested in it.

[11:38] And I'm still digging myself out of that hole.

[11:40] So Common –

[11:41] But if you want cocktail onions, Dan, I've now got crates of them in my garage just moldering away.

Stuart Wellington

[11:48] I mean, you probably should refrigerate them.

[11:49] But you're in some place cold, right?

Elliott Kalan

[11:53] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[11:54] I'm in Los Angeles, California, which for some reason is cold right now.

Stuart Wellington

[11:57] Okay.

[11:58] And like every day, the men get in their cars.

[12:02] They don't carpool, which is insane.

[12:04] They should carpool.

[12:05] They're all going to the same place.

Dan McCoy

[12:07] They're all leaving the house at the exact same time.

[12:10] Exactly.

[12:11] Like they're in fucking wrinkling timeline.

Elliott Kalan

[12:13] No, no, no.

[12:14] These are all alpha males.

[12:16] They got to drive.

[12:17] The passenger seat is the seat for ladies.

[12:20] And I only know that because the listeners can't see my backdrop, but I'm at the Victory Project right now.

[12:25] As Dan and Stuart can see by the beautiful mid-century modern pool.

[12:29] Yeah, I can see those California hills in the distance.

Stuart Wellington

[12:33] Okay.

[12:33] Yeah.

[12:33] And they all get in their cars and drive to a giant dome base in the desert.

[12:39] Not even on a road.

[12:40] It's pretty crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[12:42] I mean, well, that's the other thing is they're driving those cars.

[12:44] There's no way those cars are doing a good job driving in the desert.

[12:47] They're old, big, gas-guzzling, kind of like hard-to-steer cars.

[12:52] But it looks pretty cool.

[12:53] It looks cool.

[12:54] Look, there's a lot of cool-looking shots in this.

[12:56] Yes.

[12:56] Because when you combine like magic hour lighting with mid-century modern design and neat kind of symmetrical compositions, it's going to look beautiful.

[13:05] There's a lot of good-looking stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[13:06] I'm coupled with attractive people in like, you know, beautiful costumes.

Dan McCoy

[13:11] Before this movie came out, I was very excited for it because, as you say, it looks beautiful.

[13:16] And the trailer reflected that.

[13:17] It has a lot of like striking imagery.

[13:20] And Olivia Wilde, part of the reason why I like was rooting for her and kind of annoyed it.

[13:24] Like I love Booksmart so much.

[13:26] So I'm like, this is going to be fun.

Stuart Wellington

[13:29] And I mean, you know, as we'll talk about the cast, it's got Florence Pugh who can do basically anything.

[13:34] She is all charisma.

[13:36] And Chris Pine who is, I'm going to go on record, my favorite Chris.

Elliott Kalan

[13:40] Yeah, a great Chris.

[13:42] I have some Chris's in my personal life that I like a little bit more, but that's okay.

[13:47] But also, and look, any movie that's going to take Kate Berlant and stick her in a supporting role and not have her play and not at any way addressed that she's got a very strange affect that comes out whenever she talks.

[13:58] Like, I'm okay with that.

[13:59] That sounds good.

[14:00] Throw Kate Berlant in your supporting cast.

[14:02] Why not?

Stuart Wellington

[14:03] And like Nick Kroll's in it.

[14:04] Olivia Wilde plays one of the characters, one of the other housewives.

[14:08] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[14:09] Good.

[14:09] I think.

[14:10] With one large exception, a cast of solid actors.

Elliott Kalan

[14:17] Okay.

[14:17] And I think we'll be getting to, I guess, the flaws in this movie, the major ones, which are one of those casting exceptions.

[14:24] And also the fact that all of this has been assembled for perhaps the least original story in the history of modern filmmaking.

[14:31] Certainly one of them.

[14:31] I'm not sure.

[14:32] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[14:32] And so the women stay home and they do housework and they all go shopping.

[14:37] And then they also take dance class.

[14:40] But the first night, Alice and Jack, drunk as shit on Gibson martinis, they go and drive and do donuts in the desert.

[14:49] It's great.

[14:49] They're so in love.

[14:51] That's what people do when they're in love.

Elliott Kalan

[14:53] They do donuts.

[14:54] And they ruin dinners by having sex on the table and pushing all the food off the table.

[14:59] Yeah, of course.

[14:59] Eat that food.

[15:01] And maybe this is a sign of where my mind is that instead of being caught up in the passion of the moment, I was like, you're wasting food.

[15:07] There are people who would love that.

[15:09] Yeah.

[15:10] And I'm like, what are you going to eat when you're done?

[15:13] You still have to have dinner.

Dan McCoy

[15:14] Yeah, I understand having the sex first because after you eat, of course, there's going to be stuff in your stomach.

[15:20] You're like, I don't feel like it.

[15:22] But don't knock the food off.

Stuart Wellington

[15:24] That was like definitely a rookie move in my 20s when I'm like, no, no, no.

[15:30] On a date, we'll go out to dinner first and then we'll have sex.

[15:33] And you're like, you're all fucking full.

[15:34] What are you doing, idiot?

[15:35] Nowadays.

[15:36] Why did I have all that soup?

Elliott Kalan

[15:39] Why did we go to Borscht Belt, the only restaurant that serves so much Borscht you have to get a new belt?

[15:48] Right before sex.

[15:50] And here's the thing.

[15:51] They don't have to have sex on the table.

[15:52] It's mid-century modern furniture.

[15:54] It's all flat.

[15:55] The couches are flat.

[15:56] The coffee table is flat.

[15:57] The floor is flat.

[15:58] Like just have sex on that stuff.

[16:00] Flat floor?

[16:02] Flat floor.

[16:03] Now I've seen everything.

[16:04] 30s and 40s floor.

[16:05] Pre-war.

[16:06] They were all bumpy.

[16:07] They were into bumpy floors back then.

Stuart Wellington

[16:09] Yeah.

[16:09] So in the morning, they're prepping to go to an important dinner at dinner party at Frank's house.

[16:16] Frank seems to be the boss, the leader.

[16:19] Everyone speaks about him in reverence.

Elliott Kalan

[16:21] The only thing that plays on the radio other than old-time hits is Frank giving essentially speeches and sermons.

[16:27] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[16:27] Right?

[16:28] Motivational speeches.

[16:29] And they're like – their conversation's interrupted by an earthquake.

[16:32] These happen multiple times in the movie.

[16:35] And the belief is that they're caused by the victory project, that they're – something they're doing.

[16:41] Yeah.

[16:42] They – later that afternoon at dance class because all the wives also – not all the wives because there's a bunch of them.

[16:51] They go to a dance class that is run by Gemma Chan playing the wife –

[16:58] Frank's wife.

[16:58] Yeah, who's playing Frank's wife.

[17:00] And it's like a ballet class and they're introduced to a new wife, a new couple who's moved into the area, gotten hired.

[17:09] And she shows up – everybody else is dressed in black.

[17:11] She shows up wearing pink.

[17:12] So that kind of shows that she's not kind of into it yet.

[17:15] It's going to take a little while for her to become acclimatized.

[17:20] She likes pink too much.

Elliott Kalan

[17:22] Yep.

[17:22] Now, it feels like this fault to me and I wasn't sure –

Stuart Wellington

[17:25] Pink is incredible.

[17:26] Have you ever seen her do aerial work while singing, Dan?

[17:30] I do like pink.

[17:31] I mean, look.

Elliott Kalan

[17:32] I'll tell you this argument.

[17:34] Longevity.

[17:35] Pink, when she first appeared, seemed like a flash in the pan.

[17:37] Yet still going strong.

[17:39] She's had, what, a 20, 25-year career?

[17:40] I know.

[17:41] 45-year career, 75-year career.

[17:43] She's been around since when?

[17:45] Yes.

[17:45] A dawn of time.

[17:46] If you were –

[17:47] Yeah.

[17:47] Man discovered fire and then fire beget pink.

Stuart Wellington

[17:50] If you are going to Thelma and Louise your life, number one in that song mix is going to be a bunch of pink songs.

[17:56] I got to guarantee that shit.

[17:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[17:57] It's going to – you're going to hear it.

[18:01] You're going to not have that feeling you had when the songs first arrived when you're like, ugh, I'm tired of the song.

[18:05] You're going to have that warm feeling of nostalgia that comes with hearing an old song you used to hate, which you remember from when you're young where you're like, oh, yeah, this song.

[18:12] I guess I will dance to this at my child's wedding and they'll roll their eyes at me.

[18:18] When my grandson gets married and they play uptown funk, I won't be like, ugh, ugh, God.

[18:25] Instead, I'll be like, yeah, I will dance to this.

[18:28] This makes me feel less like I'm a decrepit old mummy.

[18:31] Yeah, of course.

Stuart Wellington

[18:31] So Alice, Alice is Florence Pugh's character.

[18:35] She starts to notice things being a little bit off.

[18:38] Alice, I don't know if you know this.

[18:40] There was this famous Alice that went to Wonderland.

[18:43] Hold on.

[18:44] Weird.

[18:44] I'm just figuring this out.

[18:45] It's kind of strange.

[18:46] Hold on.

[18:47] Maybe if someone were to go ask Alice.

[18:49] Oh, we'll figure this out.

[18:50] There is a looking glass also later on.

Elliott Kalan

[18:53] And a character named Bunny.

[18:55] Hold on a second.

[18:56] It's too big a coincidence.

[18:58] It's too big a coincidence.

[18:59] And Johnny Depp does do a breakdance at the end as the Mad Hatter.

Dan McCoy

[19:03] Oh, weird.

[19:04] I actually didn't realize the bunny connection.

[19:06] That's a little more overt than I.

Stuart Wellington

[19:09] Yeah, that's a reference to the hit movie, The Brown Bunny.

[19:12] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[19:15] Okay, so Alice starts to notice things are a little bit off.

[19:18] Their neighbor.

[19:19] Now, Alice is not the new wife.

Elliott Kalan

[19:21] No, Alice is Florence Pugh's character.

[19:23] She's the new.

[19:23] It's one of those.

[19:24] It makes me wonder why the new wife is included in the story.

[19:28] Because usually with a movie, a story like this, in which there have been many, like a Stepford Wives or something,

[19:33] it's the new person comes into this town and recognizes that it's weird.

[19:37] And instead, they have a person who already lives there and a new person comes in.

[19:40] And the new person doesn't really have anything to do with much of anything.

Dan McCoy

[19:43] And they have a person who's already sort of gone through the, you know, like the realizations that will come up later.

[19:52] Which I think, I mean, that makes a little more sense.

[19:54] But as we were watching it, I think Audrey made a good point that we don't see, like, their friendship in any meaningful way beforehand.

[20:03] Like, it would maybe make a little more impact if the person who's, like, cracking up who we're going to get to.

[20:08] Like, we see her, like, Florence trying to help her early in the movie and then being, like, pressured to conform rather than.

[20:16] Yeah.

[20:16] She's already been shunned at this point.

Stuart Wellington

[20:18] We see the difference.

[20:19] We see a moment where.

[20:20] And the character we're talking about is named Margaret.

[20:24] She has, she was once part of the group but has since been kind of pushed to the outskirts.

[20:30] She, at one point, we will learn later, she claimed she saw something out in the desert where they're not supposed to go.

[20:37] And she took her young son out there.

[20:39] And when she came back, her son was missing.

[20:41] And she claimed that the men of the Victory Project took the son.

[20:45] Okay, Alistair also starts to notice some other weird things, like the eggs in the carton of eggs are all shells.

[20:52] There's nothing inside them.

[20:54] And doing that makes her burn the dinner.

Elliott Kalan

[20:56] Now, that was a moment that I really liked that moment because it's so weird.

[21:00] And it is so, and I was hoping for more moments like that.

[21:03] And there is neither an explanation for it, which is fine, nor is there another moment that I felt like, God, I guess it's such an ominous metaphor for, like.

Stuart Wellington

[21:11] There's, like, two more that I really liked later on.

[21:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[21:14] Okay.

[21:15] Look at it.

[21:15] But it's such an on-the-nose metaphor for, like, it's on the outside, it looks perfect.

[21:19] But on the inside, it's hollow.

[21:21] And I kind of wanted more weirdness from the movie.

[21:24] And you sometimes get weirdness.

[21:25] But in the moment, it was a really fun, weird thing.

[21:27] And also the way they cut it because it just looks like she's cracking open a thousand eggs over a period of hours.

[21:32] It's like, is that?

Stuart Wellington

[21:33] She's just like me for real.

[21:35] I eat so many eggs, guys.

[21:37] I eat so many eggs.

Elliott Kalan

[21:38] And right before sex, that's the mistake.

[21:41] Do it afterwards.

[21:42] I should, right?

Dan McCoy

[21:42] Full hand Luke had to have sex after he ate all those eggs.

[21:45] Oh.

Elliott Kalan

[21:46] It was so, he's like, they're all looking at that girl washing her car.

[21:49] And he's like, oh, why did I have so many eggs?

[21:51] Too many eggs.

[21:52] I agree, though.

[21:54] They should call me bloated hand Luke.

Dan McCoy

[21:56] Oh, the eggs all went to his hand.

[21:58] Yeah.

[21:59] Yeah.

[22:00] Yeah, like in that Foo Fighters video.

[22:01] The guy whose hand gets huge.

[22:02] Or everything everywhere all at once.

[22:05] Yeah.

[22:05] No, fair, fair.

[22:06] I just want to say I agree that I think that it would have been helpful to have almost a little more weirdness.

[22:12] Because I do think that part of the problem that people had with this movie, which is not a problem that I had.

[22:17] I had other problems.

[22:18] But part of the problem that people had with this movie was trying to square the logic of everything.

[22:23] And I didn't really care because I was like, this movie is so based on its themes and like the metaphor it's doing that I don't need it all to make logical sense.

[22:34] And if the film maybe pointed, tipped the, you know, the point of the boat close, like the steer, to steer that direction, it would be clearer to the audience.

[22:43] Like we don't need to take all of this so goddamn seriously.

[22:46] Because like a lot of people I think who had problems with it are like, well, logically, what is this?

[22:51] What is this?

Elliott Kalan

[22:52] Well, I think the problem is that they do explain what it is later on.

[22:56] And it would be a stronger movie without that explanation.

[22:58] It's the difference between something being like Franz Kafka style where you don't reveal that Gregor Samsa was part of a biological experiment to create, you know, the next step in evolution.

[23:09] And like the difference between something that really works on an allegorical level and something that just feels kind of like the same kind of science fiction-y story we've seen before.

Dan McCoy

[23:18] They reveal the twist.

[23:20] They don't explain like specifically why there's no egg in that egg.

[23:23] You can extrapolate why.

[23:25] You can extrapolate.

Elliott Kalan

[23:26] But I mean, I would rather they didn't – I'd rather there was no twist.

[23:30] I'd rather it was just – the same way that like I'm glad that the lighthouse doesn't turn out to be like these two men were floating in space the whole time.

[23:37] And they hallucinated this situation.

[23:37] For a second I thought you were talking about to the lighthouse.

[23:39] And I'm like, wait a minute.

[23:42] There was a twist in that?

[23:44] Yeah.

[23:44] So when it turns out – the twist in to the lighthouse that – when it turns out that humans are just a speck of time in a vast universe that isn't necessarily paying attention to us.

Stuart Wellington

[23:53] There's nothing like the Virginia Woolf-like cinematic universe.

[23:56] I love the way it all ties together when Mrs. Dalloway shows up surfing on the waves.

[24:00] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[24:01] She's like, on your left cap.

Elliott Kalan

[24:04] Well, yeah.

[24:05] When she shows up at the end and goes, have you heard of the hours initiative?

Stuart Wellington

[24:10] Okay.

[24:11] So distracted by these eggs, of course, this whole egg situation.

[24:15] She burns the dinner.

[24:18] And when Jack comes home, he doesn't give a shit.

Elliott Kalan

[24:20] Wait.

[24:20] Hold on.

[24:21] Wait.

[24:21] I hate to go back.

[24:22] But Orlando also would totally work in a superhero type setting.

[24:26] As the character did in – as they did in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

[24:30] Only in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the character stopped being about heroic –

[24:34] I do like that you're saying gentlemen.

[24:37] In that one, in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the story just eventually became about how they all have sex with each other.

[24:41] Which was –

[24:41] I do love the idea of like –

[24:42] That's how the movie version would probably go.

Stuart Wellington

[24:44] Some kid's mom's like, you just love those extraordinary gentlemen.

Dan McCoy

[24:47] Sounds like Elliot's part of that like Key and Peele Liam Neeson stage all of a sudden.

[24:53] Yeah, I guess that's true.

Stuart Wellington

[24:53] It is.

[24:55] Okay.

[24:56] So come on.

[24:57] I've been working toward this the whole fucking time, guys.

[24:59] Sorry.

[25:00] So Jack comes home, but he doesn't care about that dinner.

[25:03] He only has one meal on his mind, and it's between his wife's legs.

[25:06] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[25:07] So you wrote that ahead of time?

[25:09] No.

[25:10] I'm so good at improv, guys.

[25:13] I want to say like one of the things that Olivia Wilde got sort of like dinged for in the press was like she talked about like, oh, I wanted to really like center female pleasure in this movie, which is why like he's going down on her in this scene, which is wild.

[25:29] No pun intended.

[25:30] Olivia Wilde, yeah.

[25:31] Considering what we later find out that this is like essentially like rape under – because he's imprisoned her.

[25:39] Spoiler alert.

Stuart Wellington

[25:41] We'll get to it.

[25:42] We'll get there.

[25:42] Spoiler alert.

[25:42] Yeah, when he's signing up for the project, he's like, I want to be British, and I want to be super good at eating pussy.

Dan McCoy

[25:48] So to say that that's centering female –

[25:51] Well, he's rolling –

[25:53] He's rolling his stats.

Elliott Kalan

[25:55] His stats and his modifiers, and he's like specialty cunnilingus.

[26:00] Yeah, plus two to that.

Stuart Wellington

[26:01] Dancing, not time period appropriately.

Dan McCoy

[26:04] No.

[26:05] To say that that's centering female pleasure is an odd thing to say.

[26:09] I understand from a standpoint of like maybe she didn't want to like reveal the twist.

[26:15] But I do think that you can make an argument that there's kind of an insidiousness to the fact that this is part of like this world that has been created where all of these women, you know, like want for nothing.

[26:27] And the fact that this is the sex scene that we see, like it's a more insidious form of control that like – it was just like, oh, we're going to make you happy in every way.

[26:37] But except for giving you your freedom.

[26:39] But it's just – yeah.

[26:41] I just wanted to say that was an odd controversy that was in floating around.

Elliott Kalan

[26:46] Yeah, I mean –

[26:47] I wasn't even aware of that controversy, to be honest.

[26:49] Although I did shut myself off from Don't Worry Darling updates.

[26:51] Sure.

[26:52] Discourse.

[26:53] I canceled the Google alert I had set up for Don't Worry Darling.

Dan McCoy

[26:57] I imagine you on Twitter being like, which one of these – I can't censor don't.

[27:01] That would eliminate too many.

[27:03] I can't worry.

[27:04] Probably Darling, I guess.

[27:06] I feel like –

[27:06] Darling.

Stuart Wellington

[27:07] And I could be wrong, but I feel like if you're going to do this scene, I feel like – and you want to, I don't know, center it on any kind of female – on like pleasure.

[27:16] You might want to include a scene of like a little bit of aftercare of them like cuddling and maybe like eating the food off of broken plates or something and laughing.

[27:24] I don't know how gross that is for you, but she does clean it all the time.

Dan McCoy

[27:29] Okay.

[27:29] I mean they probably have other plates.

[27:31] They don't have to eat them off of the plates.

[27:32] Yeah, but that's like – it's tying in with –

Elliott Kalan

[27:35] Well, the problem is they do have a second set of plates, but everyone in Victory keeps kosher, so they actually – they can't use the other plates.

[27:41] Those are their dairy plates, not their meat plates.

[27:43] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[27:43] So they go to a dinner party at Frank's home.

[27:47] It looks kind of like a beach club.

[27:49] The party is briefly disrupted by Margaret, the neighbor, who makes some accusations against the Victory Project and specifically Frank.

[27:57] Frank is played by Chris Pine, who is serving up some serious like scenery-chewing cult leader energy, right?

[28:04] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[28:05] I mean he's a skillful cult leader because when Margaret makes a scene there and she says like this isn't right, he doesn't sort of just try and paper over it.

[28:17] He's like, oh, you know, it's sad they've been having troubles.

[28:20] But she's right.

[28:22] It isn't right to be here in the desert where we're carving a new path forward and he uses it as an opportunity to –

Elliott Kalan

[28:29] I'd say he's a pretty good manipulator.

[28:32] He's not that great a cult leader though because – and this is – again, this is not Chris Pine's fault.

[28:37] This is the fault of the writing that everything he says is so incredibly vague.

[28:41] Yeah.

[28:41] And so without meaning.

[28:43] It's just a lot of stuff about this is our world and there's a right order and we're going to create control.

[28:48] And it never quite gets to the level of actually being a comment on anything other than the most vaguest idea of like unequal power.

[28:59] Mm-hmm.

[28:59] And I was waiting for him to – and it's one of those things where I guess after you learn the twist, you're like, oh, that's why these guys are buying into this because they're monsters.

[29:07] Yeah.

[29:07] But the – but you're kind of – you're kind of waiting the whole time for why everyone thinks this is an important thing or a good thing or what they're doing or, you know.

[29:16] Other than the fact that they all live in beautiful houses in the desert and their wives take care of them all the time and the wives get to go to a pool club where one woman is topless but everyone else wears antique bathing suits.

[29:26] But that was in the pool club, right?

Stuart Wellington

[29:28] That was Frank's house.

[29:30] Was that where it was?

[29:30] I thought that was –

Elliott Kalan

[29:31] When it was Frank's house when it was just – when it was all women?

Stuart Wellington

[29:35] Oh, no.

[29:36] I mean I thought like – well, because the wives are talking on one side and the men are talking on another side because it's like a work thing.

[29:41] I thought that was the case but I could be wrong.

Elliott Kalan

[29:42] Maybe it was Frank's house.

[29:43] It just – I just found it very strange that the movie kind of deploys the back of a topless woman and one of the women is like, there's just so much skin around here.

[29:52] And it's like, well, but there isn't.

[29:53] Everyone else is wearing like 50s and 60s bathing suits.

[29:55] Which are enormous.

[29:57] Which are huge.

[29:59] They're one step away from astronaut costumes.

[30:01] Come on.

Stuart Wellington

[30:02] Yeah, diving bells.

[30:03] So –

Elliott Kalan

[30:04] They're all wearing pantomime horse uniform costumes.

[30:08] It takes two and their bodies are completely covered.

Stuart Wellington

[30:10] After this very vague motivational speech from Frank, Jack and Alice go into his home and they start to have sex, which at this point I'm like, oh, wow, two sex scenes.

[30:22] Is this going to be an erotic thriller?

[30:23] And then Frank shows up and like watches for a while and Alice sees him watching them and I'm like, oh, this is going to be a Zalman King style movie.

[30:30] It is not.

[30:31] And then he wanders off, not really mentioned.

[30:34] It's mentioned later, but it's not a big deal.

Elliott Kalan

[30:36] There's also – there's a lot of people wandering into spaces or having to travel distances or sharing the same local space.

[30:43] And then when the twist comes, you're like, oh, well, this – there's no physical reality.

[30:48] So they could be anyway.

[30:49] It doesn't – there's no – the idea that like they're kind of – we have to go into this room where they can't see us.

[30:53] And then Frank shows up.

[30:54] It's like, well, maybe Frank just blipped in.

[30:56] Like, I don't know.

[30:57] Maybe he could be in five different places at once.

[30:59] It's – anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[31:00] It's also a little weird knowing what the whole thing is about, about like controlling and yada yada.

[31:07] You would think that like Frank wouldn't be fucking with them.

Elliott Kalan

[31:11] Yeah.

[31:12] It's that he – you would think he would – I guess unless it's just the scorpion's got to sting the frog.

[31:17] That's true.

[31:18] Manipulator's got to manipulate.

[31:19] But there's a part later on where Frank is like, that wasn't what you said when you were in my – remember when you were in my bedroom?

[31:25] And everyone is like, oh.

[31:27] And the implication is that I guess she slept with Frank.

[31:29] And she never says, you mean when I was having sex with my husband in your bedroom and you walked in like a creep?

[31:33] Like, which would be the best rejoinder to that comment.

[31:36] Because then the husband could be like, oh, yeah, I remember that.

[31:38] I have a human memory.

[31:40] I remember when things that happened.

[31:41] But anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[31:42] So with all the strangeness piling up, Alice decides to go on a trolley or a tram ride that goes around the Victory Project.

[31:51] And while she's riding the tram, she notices a small crashing plane.

[31:56] The driver doesn't want to help or get involved.

[31:59] So she decides to hop off the tram and wander off into the desert alone, which is just not done.

Elliott Kalan

[32:05] Now –

[32:05] It's such a – well, but also it's not the right way to solve that problem.

[32:08] Like you go to the phone and you call the police or the fire department and you say – how is she going to triangulate the position of the plane over the mountains and then pull the guy from the wreck and then give him first aid with no – with just her bare hands?

[32:23] And here's my other thing.

[32:24] When we learn the twist – and this is – Dan, this will get on your nerves.

Stuart Wellington

[32:27] I mean we're spending a lot of time talking about things that don't make sense because of the twist.

[32:31] Should we just talk about the twist?

Dan McCoy

[32:33] We can, but I want to agree with you.

[32:36] I was about to say the same thing.

[32:37] Oh, okay.

[32:38] For the most part, I'm fine just accepting everything as like a combination of like, yeah, it's not – like this is like so clearly a metaphorical film.

[32:48] And I'm going to suspend my disbelief because I'm watching a movie and like I want to enjoy myself rather than like actively pick it apart.

[32:56] But this plane, the context of the twist, which this is a serenity situation.

[33:02] They're all in a simulation.

Elliott Kalan

[33:05] It's a serenity – Dan, that was such a perfect wrap public.

[33:09] I loved it.

Stuart Wellington

[33:10] This is a serenity situation.

[33:11] They're all in a simulation.

[33:12] You're getting going.

[33:13] It's a very popular form of everybody's trapped in a simulation.

[33:17] Okay.

[33:17] It's a matrix.

[33:18] It's a matrix.

[33:18] Fine.

Elliott Kalan

[33:19] But it's one that we did for the –

[33:21] It's a Truman show.

Dan McCoy

[33:22] It's a – yeah.

[33:23] It's all sorts of stuff.

[33:24] I'm not sure what this plane represents that crashes that sets her off.

Stuart Wellington

[33:29] Yes.

[33:30] What's the plane?

[33:31] Is a plane flying over her house?

[33:33] Is her husband at home running – like playing with his toy plane?

Elliott Kalan

[33:39] He's going –

Stuart Wellington

[33:40] Yeah.

[33:41] Over her comatose, semi-comatose body.

Dan McCoy

[33:43] Later on, Chris Pine, like there's a scene where he just straight up basically like admits everything.

[33:50] Not the specifics, but it's like I've been waiting for someone to challenge me.

[33:54] Like I don't know.

[33:55] Maybe he's deliberately trying to like provoke questions in her mind so he can –

[34:01] Yeah, troubleshoot troubleshoot.

[34:03] That's interesting.

Elliott Kalan

[34:03] That's like the theory about Trump that he was deliberately screwing himself up because he knew deep down he didn't deserve these things.

[34:10] So he's trying to –

[34:11] But there's – it's another one of those things where like if you don't have the twist that this is all a simulation, then I'm willing to buy it.

[34:19] Because then it becomes – you know what?

[34:21] Outside of victory, it is a chaotic world.

[34:23] And there are planes that crash behind the mountains.

[34:27] And it becomes about the tradeoff between freedom and safety, which is a real choice that societies have to make.

[34:34] But instead, you're left – because of the twist, you're left afterwards being like, wait.

[34:37] So was that the guy who tries to tell Truman that he's on a show and kind of parachutes in?

[34:43] Like is that someone deliberately trying to screw things up or is that a glitch?

[34:47] Or it gets – as soon as you explain the whole thing, I feel like everything else gets taken out of the world of metaphor and into the world of what does that represent, which hurts it.

[34:56] Yeah.

[34:57] Ultimately.

Stuart Wellington

[34:58] Okay.

[34:58] So she wanders through the desert alone.

[35:01] She makes her way up –

[35:02] Not even on a horse with no name.

[35:03] Nope.

[35:04] No horse.

[35:04] The horse doesn't have a name because there's no horse there.

[35:06] Yeah.

[35:07] I mean if it had a name, it would be wild.

[35:09] It would be foolish to name a horse that didn't exist.

[35:11] Unless you were writing a novel about a horse or a movie or –

[35:16] Okay.

[35:18] So she climbs up a mountain road and finds this like weird domed observatory.

[35:23] She walks up and touches the glass windows and experiences this vision featuring like muffled narration and dancing showgirls and flashing lights and stuff.

[35:33] And then she wakes up back at home in her bed.

[35:36] Jack is there seemingly unconcerned.

[35:38] He's making dinner poorly, might I add.

[35:42] Just like a man.

[35:43] And he does a very –

[35:44] She's confused, but he does a pretty good job of gaslighting her, right?

[35:48] Yeah.

[35:49] He gets at least a B plus in gaslighting.

Dan McCoy

[35:50] I mean, you know, I got to admit, you know, if I was – if I saw a plane crash, walked out to the desert, found a buzzing weird station, and then woke up in my own bed and my spouse told me, oh, it was just a dream.

Stuart Wellington

[36:05] I'd be like, yeah, that makes sense.

Dan McCoy

[36:07] That's more likely than I actually found a weird buzzing station out in the desert.

Elliott Kalan

[36:11] That was beaming Busby Berkeley dance numbers into my brain.

[36:15] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[36:15] So she keeps having issues.

[36:18] She has a vision of being like trapped in her house where she's sandwiched between a wall and a window, which is kind of cool.

[36:23] It's kind of a neat effect.

[36:24] That was great.

Elliott Kalan

[36:24] That was a great book.

[36:25] And that's such a – that's one of those things where it's like – not that we need necessarily more media about the crushing life of housewives in the 1950s and 60s just because there's a lot of that.

[36:35] But that is such a great visual metaphor for that feeling of oppression and suffocation that it kind of takes the place of the whole movie.

[36:42] Like in a way that the movie is adding nothing more than that moment, you know, than what that moment says.

Stuart Wellington

[36:47] And she's at like dance class and instead of her own reflection, she sees her neighbor Margaret reflected in the glass.

[36:55] But wait, nobody else is seeing this?

[36:57] Are these all hallucinations?

[36:58] She runs home just in time to see Margaret standing on the roof of her house.

[37:03] And Margaret sees her then slits her own throat and falls off the roof.

[37:06] But before Alice can go to help her, men in red jumpsuits jump in from the sides of the frame and drag her away.

Elliott Kalan

[37:13] These men in red jumpsuits are also – are a pretty ridiculous element.

[37:18] I understand.

[37:19] Once you know what's going on in it.

Dan McCoy

[37:20] I understand that maybe after everything Margaret's gone through, she feels like she needs the redundancy.

[37:25] But at the time, you're like, why – if you're up on the roof, why act slitting your throat?

[37:30] It's not that high.

[37:31] Like you're doing –

[37:32] No, that's good to make sure.

[37:34] Well, then cut your throat on the ground.

[37:37] But no one would see her.

Elliott Kalan

[37:39] You need redundancies in the system, Dan.

[37:41] That's how success is built on redundancies.

[37:43] And I just want to mention also, Stuart, thank you for adding to Dan's rap.

[37:46] This is a serenity situation.

[37:48] They're all the simulation.

[37:49] Is it a hallucination?

[37:53] Yeah.

[37:53] There's a problem in our nation.

[37:54] We are writing end credits music right now.

[37:58] Yeah.

[37:59] When LL Cool J does his rap about the plot of the movie.

Dan McCoy

[38:03] What is his hat like in this scenario?

Elliott Kalan

[38:07] Well, that's the thing.

[38:08] Is it a mid-century modern hat?

[38:10] I can only assume, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[38:12] And he's – and Dita Von Teese is in the video.

[38:14] It's incredible.

Elliott Kalan

[38:16] Of course.

[38:16] Yeah.

[38:16] It's like he's in the scenes from the movie.

[38:19] So he's dancing with Dita Von Teese and he's with them at the dinner parties.

[38:23] Yeah, yeah, sure.

[38:23] And this –

[38:25] She looks at the mirror and instead of seeing Margaret, she sees LL Cool J rapping at her.

[38:29] And she's like, what is this?

Stuart Wellington

[38:31] Oh, man.

[38:32] Music videos are great, right?

Elliott Kalan

[38:34] So, like, Jack continues to –

[38:37] And then at the end, and then Freddie wakes up and goes, who were those guys?

[38:40] Who was that guy?

Stuart Wellington

[38:43] So she continues to have visions.

[38:46] Jack continues to gaslight her and, like, brush her fears away.

[38:50] And she just – you know, she continues to not fit in.

[38:54] She – one morning she's saran wrapping her leftovers.

[38:58] Then she saran wraps her own face.

[39:00] And I thought this was kind of a cool thing as well.

[39:02] Also great, yeah.

[39:03] Yeah.

[39:03] Because it's –

[39:03] I like that too.

[39:04] It comes out of nowhere.

[39:06] This leads her to getting a visit from the company doctor.

[39:09] Played by Jonah from Veep.

Elliott Kalan

[39:12] Jonah?

[39:12] Yeah.

[39:13] Tim Simons, also the raccoon from Housebroken.

[39:15] Oh, great.

[39:16] On Hulu right now, coming back to Fox later this year at some point.

Dan McCoy

[39:20] Love to see him in things.

[39:21] Again, a lot of great actors in this movie that maybe needed a better script.

Stuart Wellington

[39:28] This is a doctor who carries around a briefcase filled with classified documents.

Dan McCoy

[39:33] Which, again, again, if this is a simulation, why is he carrying this document that basically says, like,

[39:42] the Margaret problem or whatever it was.

[39:44] Well, that's what it says.

Elliott Kalan

[39:45] Well, especially because when she opens it up, it's all redacted anyway.

[39:49] So it's doubly stupid for him to carry this around.

Stuart Wellington

[39:52] So, yeah.

[39:52] I mean he – and this interaction is just like classic 50s doctor bullshit where it's like,

[39:59] oh, you're probably hysterical.

[40:01] Your husband should give you these pills, et cetera, et cetera.

Elliott Kalan

[40:04] Yeah.

[40:04] Smoke two cigarettes.

[40:05] Call me in the morning.

[40:06] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[40:06] But then when he leaves, he forgets his briefcase with the classified documents, which is,

[40:10] again, hilarious.

Dan McCoy

[40:11] I mean, again, maybe it's Chris Pine testing.

[40:14] But at this point, like, why does he have to test this hard?

[40:17] Uh-huh.

Elliott Kalan

[40:19] Well, if he's testing this much, why do it in the first place?

[40:22] Like, things are going great.

[40:24] But what I really want is an arch foe.

[40:27] I mean, I guess it's like the theories that Sherlock Holmes created Moriarty, you know,

[40:31] because he needed somebody to match wits with or whatever.

Stuart Wellington

[40:34] And in the process, the doctor also makes some, like, vague threats about what will happen

[40:38] if she continues believing in her visions, that it could lead to Jack losing his job and

[40:43] they'll get kicked off the project.

[40:45] Which Kate Berlant, Berlant's character earlier was like, if my husband loses his job, I'd kill

[40:50] myself.

[40:51] And I'm like, whoa, this is too much, guys.

[40:54] But coming out of Kate Berlant, I'm like, do you really mean it or is that a joke?

[40:58] Hold on a second.

Elliott Kalan

[40:59] It's so hard to tell with her.

[41:00] That's her whole shtick.

Stuart Wellington

[41:01] So she, Alice has stolen Margaret's file out of the briefcase.

[41:06] She reads it.

[41:07] It's all redacted.

[41:07] So she just burns it.

[41:09] She takes a bath.

[41:10] And then I think this might be the bath where she's, like, looking at herself in the mirror

[41:15] and then she slips into the water, but her reflection does not.

[41:18] And I'm like, ah, this is not a bad bit.

[41:21] But I feel like, what's the, Edgar, Last Night in Soho did something like this better.

Elliott Kalan

[41:27] Well, I think there's the thing.

[41:28] There's a lot of bits in this movie that are not done badly, but have been done better

[41:33] in other places.

[41:34] It's a movie that feels cobbled together from bits and bobs from other similar, like, her

[41:40] going into the water also felt very get out when he sinks into the sunken place or whatever.

[41:46] And it's like, there's a lot of, the movie wears its influences so incredibly heavily on

[41:52] itself without really adding too much to that.

Dan McCoy

[41:54] I mean, this movie wants to be a feminist get out, which is a fine.

Elliott Kalan

[42:03] And don't take that out of context.

[42:04] Dan is not saying feminist get out.

[42:06] Yeah.

[42:06] Dan likes feminists.

[42:07] Get in.

[42:08] Get in.

[42:09] We're going to see Megan, girlies.

Dan McCoy

[42:13] No.

[42:14] But as you say, the problem is more that, like, it is a thing that has been done.

[42:19] I mean, like, Stepford Wives.

[42:21] Like, there's been similar things.

[42:24] Even the fact that it's –

[42:24] This does not add a lot to is the major issue.

[42:27] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[42:28] Even the fact that it's in that kind of mid-century modern setting.

[42:32] And it's like, the movie, I think, thinks it is fooling us into believing it's taking

[42:36] place during that time or at least confusing us.

[42:39] Yes.

[42:39] And I'm like, what's – but from moment one, you kind of know it's not really taking

[42:43] place in the 50s or 60s.

[42:44] And I almost wish that everyone was dressed up in, like, Elizabethan costume or something

[42:48] like that.

[42:49] I actually –

[42:49] Or Victorian.

[42:50] Like, something a little out of the ordinary.

Dan McCoy

[42:51] I actually wanted to address this because, like, it's not, like, a major problem I have

[42:56] with the movie by any means.

[42:57] But I do feel, like, the fact that it is set in this time period is, like, basically only

[43:05] thematic.

[43:06] Like, the only reason for it is thematic.

[43:08] Like, these men want to go back to this time.

[43:13] Like, so we are going to literally set it in this time.

[43:15] Which is fine.

[43:17] But then once you realize it and you start thinking about it, you're like – I mean, at

[43:20] least I was.

[43:21] Like, this could be at any time.

[43:22] It could be a mix-up of times.

[43:24] Like, you're telling me that not one of these guys wants to have a big flat-screen TV inside

[43:28] his, like, mid-century modern simulation?

Elliott Kalan

[43:31] That these – wait, that these young men who want to escape the world don't like video

[43:36] games?

[43:36] Yeah.

[43:36] That they don't want to play video games?

[43:38] Right.

Stuart Wellington

[43:39] Yeah, and that they don't want to, like, Westworld the fuck up and have, like, a cowboy dude

[43:43] or there's one dude who's, like, a really sick samurai.

Dan McCoy

[43:47] And also, I mean – and also, it introduces, like, this –

Stuart Wellington

[43:50] Someone's like a ninja detective.

Dan McCoy

[43:52] Yeah, sure.

[43:53] Oh, man.

Stuart Wellington

[43:54] That sounds like Gambit's arch enemy.

Dan McCoy

[43:56] And because all of the women in this world have been, you know, hypnotized, brainwashed,

[44:02] et cetera.

[44:03] Like, again, not a big problem I have because I can take it metaphorically, but my brain

[44:08] does start working on the problem.

[44:10] And I'm like, well, why would you do something that's so far from their existing circumstances?

[44:15] Like, that seems like a harder brain-rusting job than just being like, oh, maybe this girl

[44:20] didn't dump you and you still live in the same world, you know?

Elliott Kalan

[44:23] Well, yeah.

[44:24] Or I'm married to the same person, but now there's nothing she wants more than to hear me

[44:29] teach her about Steely Dan.

[44:30] Exactly.

[44:31] It feels like that would be the thing they were looking for.

Stuart Wellington

[44:34] Oh, man.

Dan McCoy

[44:38] I put on my turntable the other day and Audrey came on.

[44:43] I was like, what is this?

Elliott Kalan

[44:45] And not what is this in the way you want where you get to teach her about it.

[44:48] What is this in the way of like, take this shit off of here?

Dan McCoy

[44:52] Why would anyone ever?

[44:53] I'm like, I understand.

[44:54] I don't quite understand.

[44:55] It's just a thing that happened to me when I turned 40.

Elliott Kalan

[45:00] Suddenly I get it.

[45:01] Suddenly I understand.

[45:03] They, they, really what these guys want is the, it's this, and I guess it's taking that

[45:07] place a little bit because the women cook for them and clean for them and have sex with

[45:10] them.

[45:10] But it's like that if, if, if, if the analysis of Pornhub search engines have taught us anything,

[45:15] it's that most men seem to desire a woman figure who cooks and takes care of them, who

[45:20] is also a daughter they can have sex with and teach.

[45:22] And it's not, I feel like that is the fantasy, not that I want to see necessarily, but that

[45:26] would be kind of digging a little harder and a little deeper and saying a little bit more

[45:30] than just kind of throwing up this admittedly beautiful 50s, 60s design and just kind of

[45:36] using that to set up a, a more cliched idea of like, well, this is when men were in charge

[45:41] and blah, blah, blah.

[45:42] You know, like if they could get a little bit more for a movie that is trying to be intensely

[45:46] kind of psychological, if they could get a little bit deeper and kind of harsher with

[45:50] it.

Stuart Wellington

[45:50] Well, yeah, if, if the, if the cracks in the, in the simulation started to appear because

[45:56] it was trying to satisfy that like complicated, uh, desire that these men have that is not

[46:04] super linear and easily translated, but it is like a mishmash of things.

[46:08] And for the woman, it might not make sense.

Elliott Kalan

[46:10] Yeah.

[46:11] Yes.

[46:11] And so that, that the, really the only desire that, that the desire these guys have is entirely

[46:16] built around selfishness and about having all of their needs met all the time.

[46:20] In a way that is both denigrates and also, uh, oppresses and exploits the women in their

[46:26] lives.

[46:26] And the movie just doesn't quite get there.

[46:28] I guess what I'm saying is, I, is that I, I, uh, the other night I started watching Crimes

[46:32] of the Future and I want a little bit more Cronenberg in this movie because I feel like he gets things

[46:38] in a way that I want this movie to get things.

Stuart Wellington

[46:40] It's also funnier than this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[46:43] Yes, that's true.

[46:44] This movie that has multiple very funny comedians in it.

[46:47] This movie is Kate Merlant and Nick Kroll and Tim Simons.

[46:49] These are all really funny performers.

[46:51] Yeah.

[46:51] Okay.

[46:51] Olivia Wilde can be a really funny performance.

[46:53] Yeah.

[46:53] Like, you know.

[46:54] She, she made a funny comedy.

Dan McCoy

[46:56] She's not known as a comedy person, but is hilarious whenever she plays, uh, Black Widow

[47:01] and Hawkeye or like, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[47:03] Anyway.

[47:04] She could, she could be a Black Widow or a Hawkeye, but she's kind of a mix between the

[47:08] two.

Elliott Kalan

[47:09] Um, okay.

[47:10] Kind of a Black Hawk, but that's a DC character.

[47:12] Yeah.

[47:12] You can't do that.

Stuart Wellington

[47:13] Uh, for some reason, DC is protective of their IP as we'll get into later in this episode.

[47:19] Um, so, uh, they go to a dance party and like a big dance club.

[47:24] This is a great big set piece.

[47:27] Everybody's in suits, uh, in tuxedos.

Elliott Kalan

[47:29] Everybody's dancing to sing, sing, sing with a swing.

[47:31] Cause it's like, yeah, throw some forties swing music in here.

[47:34] Why not?

[47:34] Okay.

[47:35] Yep.

[47:35] And as a little, I mean, that's like, even for the characters supposedly in the movie,

[47:40] this is an oldie, but I guess again, it's like them dancing to, uh, you know, what was

[47:43] the hit when we were kids?

[47:45] They're dancing to like, uh, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[47:46] Everyone's dancing to like, like in cocktail, they're all dancing to like Louie Louie and

[47:50] shit.

Dan McCoy

[47:50] I mean, people at weddings, you know, are still dancing to Jackson 5 tunes.

[47:54] It's not like.

Stuart Wellington

[47:56] Like the electric song or something.

[47:57] As a little treat for Frank, they bring out a burlesque performer, uh, Dita Von T's,

[48:03] uh, whose character is also named Dita Von T's.

Dan McCoy

[48:06] Mentioned her earlier.

[48:07] Not just cause she's constantly on his mind.

Elliott Kalan

[48:09] Uh huh.

[48:09] Yeah.

[48:10] She's not a castle.

[48:10] And the conversation we were having before the episode was, should I feel ashamed that

[48:14] I immediately recognized Dita Von T's?

[48:16] And I said, no, she's super famous.

[48:17] And they don't mention her by name.

[48:18] She's not even on screen that long, but I guess she's super famous.

[48:21] She's the only famous 50s style burlesque dancer who does, who does a, a, a strip

[48:26] routine involving a giant champagne glass that I know of.

[48:29] So, or is it a martini glass?

[48:31] What kind of glass is that?

[48:32] Stuart, you're a bartender.

[48:32] I think it's like a coop.

Stuart Wellington

[48:33] Yeah.

[48:33] It's like a coop.

[48:34] Uh, that makes it.

[48:35] A what?

[48:35] A coop.

[48:36] A coop?

[48:36] Yeah.

[48:37] I don't even know what that is.

[48:38] It's like a chicken coop?

Dan McCoy

[48:39] It's like a little, like, it's more like a, like a little, uh, parabola rather than the.

[48:43] Oh.

Stuart Wellington

[48:43] Dan, Dan, whose boob is that supposed to be in the shape of?

[48:47] Oh, I don't know.

[48:47] I feel like it's, it was supposed to be in like the shape of like Marie Antoinette's

[48:51] coop or something.

Dan McCoy

[48:52] That sounds like a urban legend that I've heard, but I don't remember what the.

[48:55] Yeah, yeah.

[48:55] Because now.

[48:56] On the streets, Dan heard this legend.

[48:58] Now, Ellie, you should know this.

[48:59] You should, do you know a Nick and Nora glass?

[49:01] That seems like something you should know because of your love of the thin man.

[49:05] It is, but I don't know glassware that well.

[49:07] Now, a Nick and Nora glass is like, is kind of like.

[49:10] It has a dog in it?

[49:10] It's like, it's even more sort of like, it's not, it doesn't go as wide.

Stuart Wellington

[49:15] It's also, it's also large enough to, for you to have enough drink to last for the entire

[49:20] infinite playlist.

[49:22] Yeah.

[49:24] So.

[49:26] Wow.

[49:27] Yeah.

[49:27] So.

[49:28] That shut me up.

[49:29] Now I want to see, now I want to see Nick and Nora's infinite playlist.

[49:31] Yeah, sure.

[49:32] Yeah.

[49:32] So Alice is not enjoying this party.

[49:34] She, uh, she's trying to get out of there.

[49:37] Uh, in the bathroom, she confesses to, uh, Bunny.

[49:41] The Olivia Wilde's character, uh, who doesn't believe her.

[49:43] She's like, I don't believe you.

[49:45] You can't yada, yada.

[49:45] Don't follow this.

[49:46] Yada, yada.

[49:47] And Frank also during this time.

[49:48] You're not going to make me, make me a believer.

[49:50] It's not going to happen.

[49:51] And Alice.

[49:52] Even if I saw her face, I will not be a believer.

[49:54] Alice is trying to pull away.

[49:56] Alice is trying to get out of this.

[49:57] But then as she's doing that, Frank offers in front of everyone, offers Jack a promotion,

[50:03] which involves giving him a ring.

[50:05] And Harry Styles is like, fuck, I missed all my rings.

[50:08] Uh, so he puts the ring on and that gives him the magic powers of doing a dumb fucking dance.

Elliott Kalan

[50:13] I'll be in your movie, Olivia.

[50:15] I've got to have a ring on my finger in one of the scenes.

[50:17] A dumb dance.

[50:18] All right.

[50:18] He dances.

[50:19] I love this dance.

[50:19] He dances forever.

Dan McCoy

[50:20] This is the, to me, this is the best part of Harry Styles being in this movie, is seeing

[50:25] him do this weird ass dance where like, it's clear, like, it's clear that, you know, he

[50:29] knows how to dance.

[50:30] He is doing like, you know, tap moves.

[50:33] Is it?

[50:33] But, yeah, if you look at his feet, you can like, but he has been directed to dance around

[50:38] like a herky jerky marionette man because he is literally being, the strings are being

[50:42] pulled by Jack, which is.

Elliott Kalan

[50:44] And it's one of those things where Chris Pine keeps going, watch him dance.

[50:47] Watch him dance.

[50:48] Keep dancing.

[50:49] Watch him.

[50:49] And I wanted to see shots of the people in the audience getting increasingly like.

[50:52] Uncomfortable.

[50:53] Weirded out.

[50:53] Yeah.

[50:53] And uncomfortable.

[50:54] But everyone just seems to love it.

[50:56] They just love Chris Pine shouting.

[50:58] Look at him dance.

[50:59] Look at him spin.

[51:00] And the dance never builds.

[51:01] Yeah.

[51:01] It never changes.

[51:02] It's just the same moves over and over again.

[51:04] But anyway, but it is meant to be unnerving, I assume.

Stuart Wellington

[51:06] Okay.

[51:06] Right?

[51:07] So shortly after, you know, a day or so later, Jack and Alice are hosting a dinner party at

[51:14] their home and Frank is going to attend.

[51:16] And all the other guys who work there are super jealous.

[51:20] Frank shows up.

[51:21] There's like a good bit where.

Elliott Kalan

[51:22] Even though there's like, aside from when there are crowd scenes, there seems to be like

[51:25] seven guys in all of Victory.

[51:27] But they're all like, I hope Frank notices me.

[51:29] And it's like, well, you're already here.

Stuart Wellington

[51:31] You've been at his house.

[51:32] There was a good bit where Frank shows up not wearing a tie.

[51:35] And one of the other guys is wearing a tie.

[51:36] He's like, oh, fuck.

[51:37] And he takes his tie off so he can look just like Frank.

[51:41] And Frank, during the dinner party, corners Alice.

[51:45] And he reveals that he knows about her concerns.

[51:48] And he kind of flexes on like how he's in control, yada, yada.

[51:52] And then he ends it by calling her good girl, which I'm like, calm down, buddy.

[51:59] I don't think your relationship's there yet.

[52:02] And then Alice starts to – Alice.

[52:05] Alice at the dinner party, she sits at the head of the table.

[52:09] She starts to push everyone to reveal their backstories, which are all eerily similar.

[52:15] Like it's written by a very lazy writer.

Elliott Kalan

[52:20] And also unnecessary since, as we learned, these are all actual real people.

[52:25] Yeah.

[52:25] And so they probably had real stories they could have just used, I guess.

Stuart Wellington

[52:29] And she tries to stand up to Frank, but everybody opposes her.

[52:33] And Frank manages to get everybody to his side.

[52:37] Yeah.

[52:38] Jack is upset.

[52:40] Alice is pleading with Jack to support her.

[52:42] And he's like, he finally caves.

[52:44] He seems to agree.

[52:45] They're going to run away together.

[52:47] They get in the car.

[52:48] But as soon as they get in the car, guys in red jumpsuits grab her.

[52:52] And she pleads.

[52:52] And he's like, no, I'm sorry.

[52:54] I'm sorry.

Dan McCoy

[52:55] I do like the image of these men in red jumpsuits just showing – like it's simultaneously sort of frightening and funny to just have like these red jumpsuit guys run out of nowhere.

Stuart Wellington

[53:07] Yeah, that they just pop out from the sides of the frame basically.

[53:09] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[53:10] Yeah, and that they all just kind of look like lugs.

[53:13] Yeah.

[53:13] Like they all just kind of look like big guys.

[53:15] They don't look like –

[53:15] You don't even see their faces for a while.

[53:18] Yeah, but there's nothing – I mean they're not – they didn't cast like huge, you know, massively muscular people or like sinister looking people.

[53:26] They just – they look like – they do look like the kind – like these are the guys – these are the –

[53:30] It's like the super deer building or whatever.

[53:32] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[53:32] It's the adjustment bureau.

[53:35] Yeah.

[53:37] No, then they'd be wearing hats, too.

[53:39] I know.

[53:39] I'm just fucking –

[53:40] I was trying to get you.

[53:41] Okay.

[53:42] Yeah.

[53:42] So they drag her off and they give her shock treatment and this gives her a vision of a different life.

[53:50] That's right.

[53:51] In this other life, it's set in modern times, our times.

Dan McCoy

[53:55] Which, by the way –

[53:56] With modern problems.

[53:57] Here's another thing that I want to say about this is like –

[53:59] And products.

[54:02] Again, I don't need to take this literally, but part of my issue is like, well, at this point, if this is all in a simulation,

[54:10] we know that in our current world that we live in, we don't have this technology and like to kidnap women and put them inside the simulation would be –

[54:22] It's bad.

[54:23] The flop house is not cool with that.

[54:25] We're not for it.

Elliott Kalan

[54:25] We do not.

[54:26] We are strongly against kidnapping women and forcing them into simulations or anything.

[54:30] What I'm going to say is –

[54:31] Even just the kidnapping.

[54:32] Let's just say – even just the kidnapping is bad.

[54:34] We're against that.

[54:34] It doesn't matter what you do afterwards.

[54:36] It's all going to be bad.

[54:36] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[54:37] This would be a criminal conspiracy, a monstrous criminal conspiracy.

[54:41] So if we're living in a world where there's a simulation, these men could just have simulated girlfriends legally.

[54:50] And I understand that the whole point of this is that it's about control.

[54:54] It's about like sadism.

[54:55] It's about that these men are like – they don't just want a fake girlfriend.

[54:59] They want to be able to control –

[55:00] They don't just want some kind of waifu.

[55:02] Real women.

[55:03] So thematically, I get that.

[55:06] But knowing that we exist in the world that we exist in and that these scenes are taking place now, why not put them in like some sort of dystopian future?

[55:18] Part of me wonders because it's like I'm going to get the theme either way.

[55:22] I guess the idea is like we want to talk about now.

Elliott Kalan

[55:26] But –

[55:26] I think that's the thing.

[55:27] I'm going to push back on you a little bit, Dan, just because I think if you put in a dystopian future,

[55:30] it does allow the male viewer an out to be like, well, I'm glad I don't live in that world.

[55:36] I would never do that.

[55:37] I'm glad we don't have the island in my world.

[55:40] Exactly.

[55:41] And the same way that if it was set in the 50s and 60s, it would give an out to modern viewers too because they'd be like, well, I'm glad we don't live then.

[55:48] I wouldn't have done that.

[55:48] No, that's true.

[55:49] So I get why they're doing that.

[55:51] But at the same time, the whole – if it was a – it's hard for me to get past just the kind of we've seen this stuff before.

[55:59] And I think that's at the root of so much of this.

[56:01] I will say –

[56:02] It's like –

[56:02] It's not shocking what we're seeing because it's like, yeah, I thought it was something like this.

[56:06] I've seen movies.

Dan McCoy

[56:06] I will say that once we do see the details of the criminal conspiracy, I like how shabby it all is.

[56:14] Yeah.

[56:14] Like that is the part that feels real to me.

[56:16] There's like this underground thing of people on message boards online and they have like this tech that is basically just like you stick some shit in your eye.

[56:27] I honestly would have liked to have seen more.

Elliott Kalan

[56:29] And Harry Styles is made up to be particularly kind of like ratty, unappeasing.

[56:33] Yeah, gross.

Stuart Wellington

[56:34] Let's get into this.

[56:35] So in this – this is the twist.

[56:37] We see what is – turns out to be the real world where Alice is –

[56:41] Where people are not polite.

[56:43] No.

[56:44] They are real.

[56:44] Thank you.

[56:45] Well, they're starting to get real.

Elliott Kalan

[56:47] But they stopped being polite, right?

Stuart Wellington

[56:49] So Alice is an overworked doctor in what, like an emergency room?

[56:55] Yeah.

[56:56] And she comes home to her apartment where Harry Styles is her husband and he is like bearded and looks like shit staring at a computer all day.

[57:05] A lot like our producer Alex Smith by hand.

[57:08] Whoa.

Elliott Kalan

[57:09] Whoa.

[57:10] That's not a rule that I was hoping to make.

Dan McCoy

[57:13] Suddenly the episodes start sounding really bad.

[57:20] Particularly when Stuart talks.

Elliott Kalan

[57:22] Every time he talks just fart noises come out.

[57:25] I will say that it is – it's one of those things where you're like, girl, why are you with this man?

[57:31] Because she is a doctor.

[57:33] She can do much better than living in kind of a dank Gilliam-esque hole with this weird doctor.

[57:38] I do like that there's a certain amount.

Stuart Wellington

[57:39] Honestly, it's not even that bad of an – like it's a New York apartment.

Elliott Kalan

[57:43] No, but it's just – but it's also like they seem to have no lights.

[57:46] Like the place is just – it's just an – they've done nothing to make it look livable.

[57:50] So now I'm criticizing their interior design.

Dan McCoy

[57:52] I do like that there's a certain realism to the idea that like it seems like this was a good relationship maybe or at least surface level good back when he had a job and was feeling better about himself.

[58:06] And like the loss of control of that has led him to be a monster in his personal – like trying to exert control over that.

[58:15] Like I like that – honestly, I had learned what the twist was to this movie before I saw it.

[58:22] Like I had not – I had not resisted.

[58:25] I'm shaking my head in disappointment.

[58:27] Thanks for sharing that.

[58:28] But –

[58:29] I guess we can't do a reaction video.

[58:31] I'm being honest with you.

[58:32] Thanks for being vulnerable, Dan.

[58:34] Thanks for allowing yourself to be vulnerable.

[58:35] I just want to say – I mean like perhaps it's not an amazing thing to say that reading the twist made it sound dumber than seeing the twist.

[58:49] Perhaps that's not an astounding reaction.

[58:51] Like obviously if you see a movie that has music and style and whatever, it's going to come off better.

[58:59] Harry Styles.

Stuart Wellington

[59:00] And like a narrative and a story that leads you –

Elliott Kalan

[59:04] Well, as I've said many – as I've said before on the podcast, ultimately Star Wars is about a boy from a farm who – an old man takes him to a bar and they meet a bear man and a space pirate and they blow up a space moon.

[59:15] Like anything sounds dumb to describe it.

Dan McCoy

[59:17] I do think that it's possible that some people have learned about the twist are like, oh, that sounds stupid.

[59:22] And like, yeah, on a certain level, I'm not saying it's not stupid in the sense that we've seen it before.

[59:27] But I will give the movie credit for executing most of this stuff a lot better than I imagined in my brain.

Elliott Kalan

[59:35] And there are a couple of details that are like – the fact that it was like – that they're like, you know – that they're saying to Jack like, you know you're responsible for the upkeep of your machine and the upkeep of your chosen wife.

[59:47] Like that they – that it is a real ramshackle.

[59:49] Like it's like a kit that you can apply for and get.

[59:52] And that Frank, who we've – who we've – is presented in that world as like, you know, this golden god type in real life is kind of like a dark web –

[1:00:00] Yeah, like one of those – like one of those intertates that you like so much, right, Dan?

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:05] What are you saying, Stan?

[1:00:06] One of those masculinity gurus that you like so much, right, Dan?

[1:00:09] Yeah, that Dan listens to so much.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:10] If there's one thing that should be obvious about me is how obsessed with masculinity I am.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:17] Well, you listen to it a lot so you know what to run away from and go in the opposite direction.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:21] You're like, yeah, I'm just going to eat liver all day.

[1:00:25] It's got all that iron.

[1:00:27] Yeah.

[1:00:27] Okay.

[1:00:28] So, yeah, in this case, Jack in this future looks like shit.

[1:00:32] He's an asshole.

[1:00:33] He like doesn't do anything around the house.

[1:00:35] He looks – he watches the computer all day.

[1:00:37] He's like – he – and he blames her for the fact that he didn't do these things, which is, again, this whole like control issue.

[1:00:46] He's – and he's like –

[1:00:48] Yeah, refusing to take control of his life.

[1:00:49] And he's like radicalized – as we said, he's been like radicalized by this Frank character on the internet.

[1:00:55] But then after we – after this realization, we're back in the – we're back in the real – we're back in the simulation.

[1:01:05] She's been – she's come home from treatment.

[1:01:08] She seems to be all better.

[1:01:10] She reunites with all her friends.

[1:01:12] Everything seems like it's going smoothly.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:16] If this was a 1970s version of this movie, this is where it would end.

[1:01:20] Yeah.

[1:01:20] It would end with her back brainwashed in the simulation and the credits would roll and the audience would be supposed to stagger out devastated that evil one in this case.

[1:01:30] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:30] He comes home from work and she's making dinner and everything's going really smoothly until he starts singing a song and it seems to break the spell.

[1:01:39] I guess it's a song that he's –

Dan McCoy

[1:01:40] This is the tune that she also has been trying to remember throughout the entire movie.

[1:01:43] Okay.

[1:01:44] Like, where have I heard this?

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:45] Yeah.

[1:01:45] And it's the song that he sings at home in the real world where people have stopped being polite and started being real, which means singing this song.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:52] To her living corpse simulation body.

[1:01:55] Like the body that's trapped in the –

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:57] And this is –

[1:01:58] The real world body that just has those weird eye things on it.

[1:02:01] Yeah.

[1:02:01] So in –

[1:02:01] And that's the whole machine.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:02] And this song breaks the spell for both her and us because –

[1:02:06] Wait a second.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:07] I just realized the title of this movie should be – the title of this movie should be Florence and the Machine.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:11] Oh, shit.

[1:02:13] Oh, no.

[1:02:15] Oh, no.

[1:02:16] You got to go back.

[1:02:19] It's your kids, Marty.

[1:02:22] So in addition to breaking the spell for Alice, it breaks the spell for the viewer and we get the whole kind of conspiracy laid out in this case.

[1:02:30] Yeah.

[1:02:31] Jack has gotten involved with this online cult.

[1:02:34] He's required to keep Alice stuck in the simulation, which involves her being strapped to a bed with these like things keeping her eyes pried open, Ludovico treatment style, and shooting lasers into her eyes.

[1:02:47] And he has allowed a certain amount of time every day to also be in the simulation, but the rest of the time he has to focus on like dripping water and I'm guessing broth into her mouth.

[1:02:59] And cleaning up the poop.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:01] And cleaning up the poops.

[1:03:02] Like he's working to pay Jack or like he's maybe – he might even be working for Jack in some capacity.

[1:03:07] That's not even really clear.

[1:03:09] You're talking about Frank.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:10] Jack has to work for Frank.

[1:03:11] Yeah, sorry.

[1:03:12] Yeah, Jack has – he has to work to support their lifestyle.

[1:03:15] It's like the capitalist compromise that we all make has been laid bare in the most drastic and dramatic fashion.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:23] And Jack admits to all this in the simulation.

[1:03:26] He's like wrestling with her down on the ground.

[1:03:28] She picks up an old-fashioned glass and cracks him in the dome with it.

[1:03:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:33] Well, I just – I do want to say like this is the – like what we're talking about, the idealized simulation versus the shabby real life is the argument that Jack makes to her.

[1:03:44] Or Jack?

[1:03:45] Jack, yeah.

[1:03:46] Jack, yeah.

[1:03:46] He's like, hey, look.

[1:03:47] You know, you hate that life.

[1:03:49] I'm out in that life.

[1:03:50] That life sucks.

[1:03:51] It's great in here.

[1:03:51] I did this for you.

[1:03:52] Like, you know, not admitting sure, but you have eliminated her choice in any of it.

[1:03:59] Yes, of course.

[1:04:00] Which is like, again, the movie is very specifically a control metaphor.

[1:04:05] But that's also part of why I think the outside world looks so awful is that that's like his twisted argument.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:13] Yeah, and so she cracks him in the dome with that glass, which actually kills him, and immediately Bunny shows up and is like, yo, if you kill this dude in here, he's dead in the real world.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:26] Which is always one of my – that happens so often in movies, and it's always like I know why you're doing that for the stakes.

[1:04:32] But it's hard for me to imagine, like, when they're like, if you die in a dream, you die in real life.

[1:04:37] And it's like, no, you don't.

[1:04:38] Like, that's not – like, video games don't work like that.

[1:04:41] Like, if it – you'd think that would be the first bug that they would work out of the simulation.

[1:04:45] Because with all the drinking and driving they're doing, you've got to believe there's hella casualties in this world.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:50] Yeah, I – like, again, having, like, had it spoiled for me, I assumed at the beginning, like, oh, you know, they're doing these donuts because he knows they can't die.

[1:04:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:59] And also, yeah, it's – that's such a – it's a very strange bug to not fix that – fix it.

[1:05:05] Because it causes a lot of problems later.

[1:05:07] And it also – you would think that they would be like, like, oh, yeah, we don't want to die.

[1:05:15] But do you think – I mean, do you think that was put into the script so that the audience is like, yeah, some of these jerks die?

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:23] Yeah, I mean –

[1:05:24] I mean, I –

[1:05:25] And to make it real danger for her, like, if the danger – if there's no danger, then – but also, I'm sure they've primed the audience to want to see these guys get killed.

[1:05:35] I mean, I think –

[1:05:35] As, you know, it's – at bottom, that mechanic of it is no more noble than, like, I spit on your grave, you know, in a certain sense.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:43] I think it – if anything, it's deflating to the steaks because, like, I think it would be better if it –

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:50] Oh, I remember when I invested in Common's deflated steaks.

[1:05:53] You're supposed to be able to stack more of them because they took the air out of the steak.

[1:05:56] Sometimes I feel –

[1:05:57] Oh, Common.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:57] Sometimes I feel like dry-aged steaks are a little deflated because they don't have as much juice.

[1:06:01] Can't say anything.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:04] I can't.

[1:06:04] Dan, you're saying deflated steaks.

[1:06:05] No, because I think it would make sense – it would be more tense if what happened is –

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:12] It would make sense.

[1:06:13] It would be more tense.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:14] Dan, keep spitting those rhymes.

[1:06:15] I love it.

[1:06:16] You die.

[1:06:17] Fire.

[1:06:18] Spitting fire.

[1:06:18] Stop making sense.

[1:06:19] You're kicked out of the system.

[1:06:21] Like, there has to be, like, a reboot or whatever.

[1:06:23] But, like, the idea that he is out there still and she has to deal with him.

[1:06:28] He might come back into the simulation.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:30] Or that he could kill her body while she's stuck in the simulation.

[1:06:34] That's a scary idea.

[1:06:35] Yeah.

[1:06:35] But the movie is also heading towards the climax.

[1:06:38] That's not the story this movie is.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:39] Yes.

[1:06:39] Yeah.

[1:06:39] So, Bunny is urging Alice to escape.

[1:06:42] She's like, actually, I volunteered for this.

[1:06:44] And you realize it's because that in the real world, her children died.

[1:06:49] And this is the only way she can kind of relive her time with her kids, which is very sad.

[1:06:56] Alice runs away, jumps in a car, runs over Nick Kroll.

[1:07:00] There's a big chase across the desert.

[1:07:03] This is, again, like, yeah.

[1:07:06] I mean, I feel like the highway chase in Matrix Reloaded was kind of an inspiration here.

[1:07:12] I feel like there should have been a point where Alice jumped on top of the car with a katana.

[1:07:16] She does not.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:17] No, she doesn't.

[1:07:19] Well, it's also one of those things where if this is a simulation, if it's not real, why do they have to, like, catch up to her in a car to catch her?

[1:07:27] But at this other time, there's a part, you know, she does some smooth driving and it means that two cars slam into each other and Tim Simon's car flips over and explodes.

[1:07:35] And I was like, you know what?

[1:07:36] If I was a director and I got to do that in a movie, yeah.

[1:07:39] I don't care if it makes sense for the mechanics of this virtual reality twist.

[1:07:43] Like, I want to shoot something where cars are smashing into each other and flipping over and exploding.

[1:07:48] Yeah.

[1:07:48] So, Olivia Wilde, you do you.

[1:07:49] I'm totally okay with that.

[1:07:51] Frank.

[1:07:51] You want a little bit of Fury Road in your movie?

[1:07:53] Go for it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:53] Yeah.

[1:07:54] Fury Road Jr.

[1:07:55] So, Frank gets a phone call explaining the situation.

[1:07:59] He's very angry.

[1:08:00] And as he turns around to explain it to his wife, he walks right into the kitchen knife she's holding.

[1:08:05] She kills him, stabs him in the chest.

[1:08:08] And I didn't quite understand.

[1:08:10] She says something to him like, now it's my time to run things.

[1:08:14] Something like that, yeah.

[1:08:15] So, like, was she aware?

[1:08:17] Like, I don't quite get it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:19] I guess she's aware, but I don't know why she waited until this moment to do that.

[1:08:24] It's mysterious.

[1:08:25] It feels like a twist for the sake of twist and a death for Frank for the sake of a death for Frank.

[1:08:30] And the kind of thing where if this was a TV show, this is the end of, like, the first season.

[1:08:34] And then the second season would be dealing with the new status quo.

[1:08:37] But it's not a TV show.

[1:08:38] It's a movie.

[1:08:38] And what does she mean by running things?

[1:08:39] Wait, it's not a TV show?

[1:08:42] I mean, you watched it on a TV.

[1:08:43] I watched it on a TV and it was on HBO Max, which I guess isn't.

[1:08:47] TV.

[1:08:48] But that's not TV.

[1:08:49] That's HBO Max.

[1:08:50] Although it's getting more and more TV and less and less HBO as time goes on and Discover takes over.

[1:08:55] More and more bad TV.

[1:08:58] I didn't realize the H in HBO stood for HGTV.

[1:09:02] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:02] Whoa.

[1:09:03] But Dan, so you had a question about taking control?

[1:09:06] Well, no.

[1:09:06] I mean, I guess we're going to have to take control.

[1:09:08] You thought it was time for the Ghostbusters to take control?

Dan McCoy

[1:09:11] If it's up to us.

[1:09:13] Anyway.

[1:09:14] No, I just wonder, like, is she just going to be like, and now a utopia for the wives in this simulation.

[1:09:21] Of course, no one's outside feeding broth to us.

[1:09:25] I mean, like, what does that mean?

[1:09:26] I don't know.

[1:09:27] That's all I'm saying.

[1:09:27] I don't know.

[1:09:28] I'm not sure.

[1:09:29] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:29] It's not clear.

[1:09:30] Maybe she's just power mad because she liked running that ballet class, you know, as a little

[1:09:35] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:35] So we're right at the end.

[1:09:37] Alice manages to get her car stuck while driving up a hill.

[1:09:41] She jumps out.

[1:09:42] She runs up there.

[1:09:43] She's got dudes chasing her.

[1:09:45] She has a moment where Jack is there, and he's like, hey, stay with me.

[1:09:48] Just a vision.

[1:09:49] Not actually there.

[1:09:51] And then she touches the window and escapes, and we get, what, like a black screen, and we

[1:09:57] hear the sound of her waking up, and that is it.

[1:10:00] Don't worry, darling.

[1:10:02] We did it.

[1:10:02] Yay.

[1:10:03] Yeah.

[1:10:04] That is the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:06] It's one of the few times where I kind of wished the title was said in the movie because

[1:10:09] otherwise it feels relatively generic compared to, you know, for this.

[1:10:14] There's a lot of, and that image of all those guys chasing her up the hill, like that's

[1:10:18] a great image.

[1:10:19] It's a great looking movie.

[1:10:20] There's a lot of really good images in it.

[1:10:22] There's a lot of talented people working on this movie.

[1:10:24] How do we feel about it, though?

[1:10:26] It's time for.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:27] Final judgments.

[1:10:29] It's a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, a movie we kind of like.

[1:10:32] I'm going to jump right in, and I'm going to say, honestly, out of these categories, I

[1:10:39] kind of liked it.

[1:10:40] I don't think it's anywhere near, like, the disaster it was sort of made out to be.

[1:10:46] Uh-huh.

[1:10:46] And I am certainly looking forward to seeing Olivia Wilde's next movie.

[1:10:51] I hope that this doesn't, you know, tar her with a bad brush because I do think she's

[1:10:55] a talented director and actor.

[1:10:59] This movie, the biggest problem, as we've said before, seen it before.

[1:11:04] Like, it wasn't a big shocker what was happening, but it looks pretty, and Florence Pugh is in

[1:11:10] it, which is always a plus.

[1:11:12] So, I give it a kind of like with an emphasis on the kind of.

[1:11:17] I do think, I want to say, just because there's no other place, the movie that I imagined when

[1:11:22] I saw the trailer was more interesting to me because I was like, okay, there's going to

[1:11:25] be a twist.

[1:11:26] What is it?

[1:11:26] And I came up with this idea of, like, they're out there in the desert.

[1:11:29] They're working on this project.

[1:11:31] It's some sort of, like, time alteration project.

[1:11:33] And the idea would be that whenever something went wrong in their relationship, he would

[1:11:39] just, like, shift the time back to before he did whatever it was that fucked it up, which

[1:11:44] then over time, you know, created, like, sort of rifts in her mind, rifts in the world.

[1:11:49] I thought that kind of would have been interesting, more interesting, at least something different

[1:11:53] than what we've seen.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:53] Dan, write that movie.

[1:11:54] That's a good idea.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:55] Why aren't you writing that?

[1:11:56] I don't know.

[1:11:57] I gave it away for free on a dumb podcast.

[1:12:00] Maybe I can write it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:01] I'm like, have I heard that before in, like, a Black Mirror episode or something?

[1:12:05] There's something similar.

[1:12:07] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:07] Well, anyway, this does feel like a Black...

[1:12:10] Like, the ideal length for this is, like, 40 minutes is the main problem.

[1:12:14] Yeah, yeah.

[1:12:14] It's like a Twilight Zone episode.

[1:12:16] Yeah.

[1:12:16] But anyway, what do you have to say?

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:18] That's the...

[1:12:18] I think you're right that that's one of the big issues is that, like...

[1:12:21] I mean, the big issue for me in the movie is that it's just...

[1:12:23] You've seen it before.

[1:12:24] Yeah.

[1:12:25] Like, this movie, it's just not an original movie, and there's a lot of neat...

[1:12:28] There are a bunch of neat moments in it.

[1:12:30] There's some neat visuals in it.

[1:12:31] But, like, a lot of the movie is trying to fool an audience that, from the moment one,

[1:12:38] knows that something is up.

[1:12:39] But not like, something's up.

[1:12:41] I gotta find out what it is.

[1:12:42] But like, oh, something's up.

[1:12:43] This is gonna be a simulation, or they're brainwashed, or they're robots, or they're clones, or whatever.

[1:12:49] And the details kind of don't hold together to the point where I do wish, like I was saying, that it was more of an allegorical, no explanations, just kind of movie.

[1:12:59] Just, it was the kind of movie that, I feel like if it was made in another country, there may be less explanation.

[1:13:06] You know?

[1:13:06] Because foreign movies can get away with that a little bit more sometimes.

[1:13:09] But, ultimately, it was like, it's not like, it's just kind of like a boring movie.

[1:13:15] You know?

[1:13:15] It's just kind of a movie that doesn't, that, for every now and then there's an image that's really neat, or a moment that is neat.

[1:13:21] But you're kind of waiting for them to get on with the business, you know?

[1:13:25] And the world that they're presenting is not so incredibly exciting and intriguing.

[1:13:30] I gotta, I don't want to bring up Babylon, because Dan, I don't want to, I don't want to open this wound between us.

[1:13:35] Oh, not again.

[1:13:37] But part of the opening of Babylon is that you're supposed to be like, look at this amazing, wild time.

[1:13:41] Like, can you believe it?

[1:13:42] Like, this is, this is both appealing and upsetting at the same time.

[1:13:45] Whereas when I watched it, I was like, I can think of nothing worse than to be in that room with those people.

[1:13:50] Yeah, but that's specifically you.

[1:13:51] Yeah, that's also based on your personal interests.

[1:13:54] I guess so.

[1:13:55] But the, I don't want to be in the room with just people vomiting on each other all the time.

[1:14:00] Yeah, don't invite Elliot to your Bacchanal, guys.

[1:14:02] Yeah, I don't.

[1:14:03] If it's loud, and there's a lot of people I don't know slipping in their own fluids.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:08] Pulls out orgy invitation, rips up.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:11] We're similar with this.

[1:14:13] It's like, I think it's coming from a, the idea universally that this is an appealing life, but there's something wrong.

[1:14:19] And I think it didn't, it didn't, it didn't build it to a high enough level of attraction for me to then feel horrified.

[1:14:25] Yeah.

[1:14:26] You know, at what was being put.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:27] So, you're giving it a, didn't actively dislike.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:30] Well, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, it's like, I'm going to say, I'm going to, I'm going to give it a, see me after class, try harder.

[1:14:36] You're not working up to your potential.

[1:14:37] Okay.

[1:14:38] Basically.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:38] Yeah.

[1:14:38] I mean, following our categories, I would say this is a little bit closer to a bad, bad for me.

[1:14:43] As we've addressed, there's, it's, I think it's, it's made well in a lot of ways.

[1:14:49] I like the performers, yada, yada.

[1:14:50] But yeah, I just, I didn't particularly enjoy the movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:54] And I wish it was a little bit, I wish it was a long episode of television.

[1:14:58] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:00] It would be, if this was a short, it would be much more successful.

[1:15:04] Yeah.

[1:15:04] For sure.

[1:15:05] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:06] Well, you know what?

[1:15:06] You've probably heard about microdosing.

[1:15:10] Probably on this.

[1:15:11] Wow.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:12] Probably.

[1:15:12] Such an abrupt segue.

[1:15:13] I'm not even sure if we're still talking about the movie, but I guess we're talking about microdosing now.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:17] Well, Elliot, you should know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:19] Because it feels like having, having your eyes forced open, laser shot into it feels like a macro dose.

[1:15:23] That seems unhealthy.

[1:15:24] Well, I just want.

[1:15:25] I want a micro dose.

[1:15:25] Here's the thing.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:26] I just want you to know that all sorts of people are microdosing daily to feel healthier and perform better.

[1:15:31] And our show today is sponsored by microdose gummies.

[1:15:35] I'm tripping over my words.

[1:15:36] Microdose gummies deliver.

[1:15:38] Micro tripping though.

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[1:15:43] Maybe you want to try gummies, but you're not, it's not something that's been a part of your life.

[1:15:49] Maybe you don't want to like be high, let's say.

[1:15:55] You just want to feel a little better, more relaxed.

[1:15:58] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:58] You don't want to be like zooted out of your mind.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:00] I want to be zooted, but only because I don't know what that means.

[1:16:03] It sounds appealing.

[1:16:05] You want to be like zoot the puppy.

[1:16:07] Yeah, exactly.

[1:16:08] Shades and a saxophone.

[1:16:10] How cool is that guy?

[1:16:12] Anyway, microdose is available nationwide.

[1:16:15] To learn more about microdosing THC, go to microdose.com and use code FLOP, F-L-O-P, to get free shipping and 30% off your first order.

[1:16:25] Links can be found in the show description.

[1:16:27] But again, that is microdose.com, code FLOP.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:33] We're also sponsored by Babbel.

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[1:17:06] And I'm looking forward to expanding my repertoire.

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[1:17:35] That's the thing.

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[1:17:41] Okay.

[1:17:41] In languages.

[1:17:43] English primarily.

[1:17:44] Mainly.

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Elliott Kalan

[1:18:07] I have to say, I've been using Babbel since they gave us a code to use it.

[1:18:11] And I really enjoy it.

[1:18:12] And I feel like I'm picking up new words and languages all the time.

[1:18:15] What are you learning?

[1:18:16] Yeah, which one?

[1:18:17] I decided that I should brush up on my Spanish.

[1:18:20] It would be the most useful for me.

[1:18:22] I live in Southern California.

[1:18:23] And I want to travel in Mexico more widely.

[1:18:26] And I want to go back to Spain someday.

[1:18:28] I haven't been there since I was a teenager.

[1:18:30] And so, and I just feel like, I feel more confident that I'll be able to at least get to the point in the conversation where I can politely ask them if they speak English.

[1:18:40] Without sounding like I'm just butting in like a bull in a china shop.

[1:18:43] Yeah.

[1:18:43] Or a toro in a china shop, you might say.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:46] Oh, I might say that.

[1:18:47] I should brush up.

[1:18:49] Audrey's mom took us to dim sum for lunch the other day.

[1:18:52] We were in the car and she had a lot of French songs going on.

[1:18:54] And Audrey kept being like, what are they saying?

[1:18:55] And I'm like, you know what?

[1:18:57] I took five years of French.

[1:18:59] I'm getting every fourth word.

[1:19:00] If you want to know what every fourth word means, then I'm your man.

[1:19:02] But I don't know if I can help.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:04] And if I want to maintain my status as ultimate otaku, I should probably learn some more Japanese.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:10] You probably should.

[1:19:11] Well, it's a, they've got a good selection of languages there and it's very easy to use and very easy to learn on.

[1:19:18] But hey, we've got some other stuff to mention.

[1:19:19] Hey, did you know that my comic book, Maniac of New York, Don't Call It a Comeback, number one is on comic book store shelves now.

[1:19:24] Really?

[1:19:25] Did I know that?

[1:19:25] If it hasn't sold out already.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:26] Did you know that?

[1:19:27] I did know that because I monitor your Twitter.

[1:19:29] But others probably don't.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:31] They may be not.

[1:19:31] This is the third volume of the Maniac of New York series.

[1:19:34] I write it.

[1:19:35] Andrea Muti does the art.

[1:19:36] And it's from Aftershock Comics.

[1:19:38] And the first issue of an arc that I'm really happy with.

[1:19:41] I'm excited to see what Andrea does with all the art.

[1:19:43] And I think you're going to like it too.

[1:19:45] We are cranking up the satire and also the blood with this one.

[1:19:50] So get used to it.

[1:19:51] Maniac Harry is back.

[1:19:52] Or is he?

[1:19:53] Deal with it.

[1:19:54] Deal with it.

[1:19:55] Yes, I have to.

[1:19:55] I was told to.

[1:19:57] And we'll see.

[1:19:58] Hopefully the book will be able to hold to a relatively monthly schedule.

[1:20:02] But those issues will come out.

[1:20:03] It's a four-issue series.

[1:20:04] Oh, great.

[1:20:04] But hey, enough of that.

[1:20:06] Let's talk about Flophouse new stuff.

[1:20:08] That's right.

[1:20:08] The Flophouse is doing a live show in person, in your face, if you go to Brooklyn to the

[1:20:14] Bell House.

[1:20:15] Our old stomping grounds, the Bell House in Brooklyn, our favorite venue.

[1:20:18] Sunday, April 2nd, 7.30 p.m.

[1:20:20] It's a Sunday, but it's not too late.

[1:20:22] You can still go to work the next day.

[1:20:23] Still a fun day.

[1:20:24] And yeah, what are you worried?

[1:20:25] You're going to miss the Fox animation lineup?

[1:20:28] DVR it, dude.

[1:20:29] You can watch it later.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:31] Last of Us.

[1:20:32] You can just tape that shit, dude.

[1:20:34] Just play the video game.

[1:20:35] It's the same.

[1:20:36] It's streaming now.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:37] Cut the cord, man.

[1:20:38] You watch it when you want to.

[1:20:40] Anyway, we're going to be doing a live show, which means all new material.

[1:20:44] We're talking about Battlefield Earth, the classic bad movie.

[1:20:48] The movie that really put a damper on John Travolta's career and, to a lesser extent, the other

[1:20:53] stars, which was what?

[1:20:56] What's his face?

[1:20:56] Farce Whitaker.

[1:20:57] And Faginelli in it.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:58] What?

[1:20:59] The Fatch.

[1:20:59] Is he in it?

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:00] I don't know.

[1:21:01] Faginelli.

[1:21:01] Barry, what's his name?

[1:21:03] From Saving Private Ryan.

[1:21:05] Whoa.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:05] Yeah, Barry Pepper.

[1:21:06] Thank you.

[1:21:07] The movie that would have turned Barry Pepper into an even bigger star, but instead put him

[1:21:11] back into supporting actor categories.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:14] Doing ads for Chili's, I'm assuming.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:17] You know what?

[1:21:19] I think I was mistaking Barry Pepper for Faginelli.

[1:21:23] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:24] That's fine.

[1:21:25] That's fine.

[1:21:25] Well, we'll do our research beforehand, but that's Sunday, April 2nd, 7.30 p.m. at the

[1:21:29] Bell House in Brooklyn.

[1:21:31] Battlefield Earth is the movie we're talking about.

[1:21:32] You're also going to get original PowerPoint presentations from us.

[1:21:35] We're going to be there in person doing jokes.

[1:21:37] We're going to have an audience Q&A afterwards.

[1:21:38] All the classic stuff you've come to expect from a Flophouse live show.

[1:21:41] Come see us.

[1:21:42] We haven't done a live show in a while.

[1:21:43] We're very excited about it.

[1:21:45] Go to www.thebellhouseny.com for tickets, which are available now.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:51] Buy them up.

[1:21:52] These shows sell out, so buy them up.

[1:21:54] They do sell out.

[1:21:55] I want to say also, just because people have been writing or tweeting asking, we will be

[1:22:01] touring more widely if you can't make it to Brooklyn.

[1:22:07] But we don't know where yet, so if you're nearby, come out and see this show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:11] And I think we're intending to do a virtual show shortly.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:14] We're also going to do more virtual shows.

[1:22:16] That's another question that has been asked.

[1:22:19] But, you know, Josh, if you're listening, our booking agent, come on.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:24] This seems like the perfect medium for this.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:28] I mean, to be honest, this will sound thirsty.

[1:22:31] But, hey, do you have a theater?

[1:22:34] Would you like to book the Flophouse?

[1:22:35] Yeah.

[1:22:35] Get in touch with us via Twitter or over email and let us know where you are and when we might

[1:22:40] be able to do a show there.

[1:22:41] Let's see.

[1:22:42] If you're in a city where you have enough of an audience for our podcast that they'll

[1:22:46] come buy tickets, then we will do that show.

[1:22:49] Get in touch with us.

S5

[1:22:50] Dear Reading Glasses, it's been years since I've been able to read.

[1:22:58] I missed it so much, but I had no idea where to start.

[1:23:01] I felt so overwhelmed.

[1:23:03] But thanks to your show, now I'm back to enjoying books again and feeling like a reader.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:08] Love, Sarah.

[1:23:09] Yeah, that's an email we actually answered.

[1:23:12] Okay, maybe not that email specifically, but one just like it because most of our listeners

[1:23:16] are named Sarah.

[1:23:19] We're Reading Glasses and we're here to solve all your reader problems.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:22] We give advice, help you find books you love, and discuss reading without making you feel

[1:23:27] pressured.

[1:23:28] No matter what you read or how you read it, we'll help you do it better.

[1:23:32] Reading Glasses, every week on Maximum Fun.

S5

[1:23:36] What happens when you give a bug recreational drugs?

[1:23:40] What was the first recorded sound?

[1:23:42] How do we figure out how old the earth is?

S4

[1:23:44] Let's find out together on our show, Let's Learn Everything, where we learn anything and

[1:23:48] everything interesting.

S5

[1:23:50] My name's Caroline, and I studied biodiversity and conservation.

S4

[1:23:54] My name's Tom, and I studied computer science and cognitive...

[1:23:57] Did you?

S5

[1:24:00] And my name's Ella, and I studied stem cells and regenerative medicine.

S4

[1:24:04] On our show, we do as much research as you would for a class, but we don't get in trouble

[1:24:07] for making each other laugh.

S5

[1:24:09] And we get to say, f***.

S4

[1:24:11] Maybe not in the trailer.

S5

[1:24:12] Subscribe to Let's Learn Everything every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:17] This is where we do letters.

[1:24:20] Letters from listeners.

[1:24:21] We do them.

[1:24:22] We do them.

[1:24:23] We're going to do these letters.

[1:24:23] We're going to f*** them.

[1:24:24] F*** them.

[1:24:25] That's not what I was saying, Dan.

[1:24:26] Not at all.

[1:24:27] I was trying to say, f***ing doing these letters, and then...

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:30] That was too aggressive, too hostile.

[1:24:32] Real quick, guys.

[1:24:33] If you had to f*** a letter, it's got to be Q, right?

[1:24:36] Because Q's thick.

[1:24:39] Ain't a little mysterious.

[1:24:42] It's very mysterious.

[1:24:44] You don't see it that often.

[1:24:45] I just love my red flags.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:47] Okay.

[1:24:47] Well, anyway, I'm sorry for that.

[1:24:50] Willie writes.

[1:24:51] Willie, last name withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:53] Nelson?

[1:24:53] Willie Loman, the titular salesman.

[1:24:56] Sorry to hear about your death.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:57] I'm writing you today with important information regarding your Firestarter episode.

[1:25:01] Firestarter, published in 1980, is Stephen King's 36th longest novel with 426 pages.

[1:25:10] We are now into baseball stat territory.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:12] Sorry.

[1:25:13] But that is...

[1:25:14] This is for your brother, I guess.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:16] The fact that he has written enough books that this is his 36th longest novel at 426 pages.

[1:25:23] This is a mere 86 pages short of Stephen King's 26th longest novel, The Dark Tower 3, The Wastelands,

[1:25:31] in which the quartet of Roland, Susanna, Jake, and Eddie board an insane monorail named Blaine the Mono.

[1:25:40] Many things happened during their monorail lives.

[1:25:42] But ultimately, they end up in Topeka, Kansas.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:46] Anyway...

[1:25:46] I feel like...

[1:25:47] I was supposed to say, I've never read The Dark Tower books, and every now and then I consider doing it.

[1:25:51] But every time I hear a detail of it, I'm like, I just want to keep hearing random details for the rest of my life and never knowing how they connect.

[1:25:57] That's kind of how it feels to me.

[1:25:59] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:01] Anyway, what are your favorite trains and movies?

[1:26:04] Subways don't count because I don't want Elliot to recommend the remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, which everyone knows is his favorite movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:11] Excuse me, sir.

[1:26:12] Excuse me.

[1:26:13] I'm offended and insulted.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:14] Keep on squatting in the free world looking at you, Stu.

[1:26:17] Willie, last name withheld.

[1:26:19] Favorite trains and movies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:21] Favorite trains.

[1:26:23] You got to throw one up there for Snowpiercer because it's got my girl Tilda on it.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:29] You know what?

[1:26:30] I'm going to say there's been a lot of fights on top of trains throughout the film industry.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:36] Sure.

[1:26:37] And that's why you're talking about the 7% solution.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:41] Yeah, I mean, if you're going to have a fight, put it on top of a train, dude, or on top of a bridge above a pit so you can uppercut a dude off that fucking bridge and they fall in the spikes.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:52] I'm going to say one of my favorite fights on top of a train is in the first Mission Impossible movie.

[1:27:00] They got a lot even better with the wild stunts, but that's a pretty great fight on top of a very fast train.

[1:27:09] Elliot, what do you got?

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:11] I think let's not turn against fights inside of trains.

[1:27:14] Sure.

[1:27:14] Because there's the classic train fight scene in On Her Majesty's Secret.

[1:27:17] No, it's From Russia with Love.

[1:27:18] Yeah.

[1:27:18] I'm sorry, In From Russia with Love.

[1:27:20] But also, I was going to say Snowpiercer.

[1:27:23] I'm glad Stuart mentioned it.

[1:27:24] But you know what you can also have on trains is romance.

[1:27:26] And so I'm going to say the train where Janet Leigh hits on Frank Sinatra in The Manchurian Candidate where she just unleashes the string of the strangest non-sequiturs any conversation has ever had.

[1:27:36] And it's such a wonderful scene.

[1:27:39] And it can only happen on a train because they have to be on a transit system together and then be able to go from a public part of it to a private part of it.

[1:27:47] You can't do that as easily on a plane.

[1:27:49] What, are they going to be in the bathroom together?

[1:27:50] I don't think so.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:51] As long as we're talking train romance, we got to talk North by Northwest as well.

[1:27:54] Great stuff.

[1:27:54] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:55] And as long as we're talking about cool trains, I got to talk about that train sequence in what, season four of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure where –

[1:28:04] Not a movie, but okay.

[1:28:06] It depends if you watch it fast enough.

[1:28:08] If you put it on super fast and it ends in an hour and a half, that's a movie, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:12] Yeah, I guess so.

[1:28:13] And also, of course, as listeners know, my fifth favorite movie – I used to have it at number four, but I'm downgrading it slightly.

[1:28:21] My fifth favorite movie, Closely Watch Trains, has a ton of trains in it.

[1:28:25] That's weird.

[1:28:25] There's plenty of trains.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:26] Yeah.

[1:28:27] You know, the longer I'm staring at the second letter I chose for this week, the more I can't remember whether we've done it already.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:32] Guys, I was about to say the train and how to train your dragon, but I realize that's not about trains.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:37] No, it's not about turning your dragon into a train.

[1:28:40] Considering that –

[1:28:41] Considering that –

[1:28:43] And I'll tell you what train I don't want to be on, that train to Busan.

[1:28:47] No, thank you, sir.

[1:28:48] Not a train I would like to be on.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:51] I was going to say, considering that Elliot has a family engagement, and I cannot confidently say we haven't already talked about this,

[1:28:56] I'm just going to move on to our last segment.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:00] Okay.

[1:29:00] And I want everyone to – don't get too excited.

[1:29:02] It's not that someone in my family got engaged.

[1:29:04] It's that I have to take my son somewhere on a schedule.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:07] And you're keeping it vague in case somebody develops a time machine and goes back in time to find you.

[1:29:13] Yeah, exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:14] Exactly.

[1:29:14] I have to keep it vague for that reason.

[1:29:16] I don't want the listeners yet to suddenly run to where I am, see that I'm not there, because we recorded this a week ago.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:22] Yeah, to source code their way back.

[1:29:24] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:25] So –

[1:29:26] On a train.

[1:29:27] On a train.

[1:29:27] Oh.

[1:29:29] I think we've hit on something, which is that trains are the best conveyance to put a movie on.

[1:29:34] You're on it for a long time.

[1:29:36] You can move around a lot within there.

[1:29:37] A lot of different people use them.

[1:29:39] Like, there are thrillers on planes.

[1:29:41] There are thrillers, I assume, in cars.

[1:29:43] I guess there's like, you know, collateral, I guess, is in a car.

[1:29:46] It is.

[1:29:47] Right.

[1:29:47] But –

[1:29:48] And there's thrillers on boats.

[1:29:49] But I got to tell you, for real thrills, got to be on a train.

[1:29:53] Make it trains, everybody.

[1:29:54] Make mine trains.

[1:29:55] Yeah.

[1:29:56] Make mine trains.

[1:29:57] Yeah.

[1:29:57] I'm a member of the Merry Train Marching Society.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:00] The last thing that we do here is we recommend movies that might be a better use of your time than our usual fare.

[1:30:08] My recommendation is I went to see a matinee of the film Matinee recently.

[1:30:15] Oh.

[1:30:16] The Nighthawk Prospect Park was showing Joe Dante's love letter to the Atomic Panic films of the 50s and 60s.

[1:30:29] It's from 1993.

[1:30:31] It's just like – I mean, the brilliance of the movie is a lot of those old, cheesy, science fiction monster films were based on nuclear anxieties.

[1:30:44] And Dante was like, what if I construct a film around one of those movies being shown but also about around real-world panic around the Cuban Missile Crisis?

[1:30:58] They're in Key West, right next to Cuba.

[1:31:03] You can see it from Key West.

[1:31:05] I've done it myself.

[1:31:07] And it's just a movie that's steeped in a lot of Joe Dante's signature love of the trash of his youth, elevated through his own brilliance.

[1:31:18] And it's got a great John Goodman performance that combines a lot of warmth with hucksterism.

[1:31:25] He's playing kind of a William Castle stand-in.

[1:31:29] And it's a movie that sort of takes its time setting up this world.

[1:31:33] And then when it starts paying off in the second half, it really pays off like gangbusters.

[1:31:38] It's very funny and very sweet.

[1:31:40] So I am recommending Matinee if you've never seen it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:43] I'm going to recommend a Indian movie from 2019 called Kaithi, spelled K-A-I-T-H-I, which in Tamil means prisoner, I believe.

[1:31:55] And this fucking movie, guys, this movie is like...

[1:31:58] This fucking thing.

[1:32:00] It's like...

[1:32:01] This guy.

[1:32:02] This movie is like a cross between Assault on Precinct 13 and Con Air.

[1:32:07] The setup is this elite police squad makes the biggest drug bust in history.

[1:32:12] But in the process, the leader of the police team breaks his arm.

[1:32:15] Okay.

[1:32:15] They go to the head chief inspector's house where they are celebrating this bust after disposing of the drugs into a private secure location.

[1:32:24] Wow.

[1:32:24] Somebody's honking.

[1:32:25] They love this movie.

[1:32:27] Now, the drug dealers find out that their stuff's been busted.

[1:32:31] So they get an inside man to drug all the cops except for the broken arm guy who can't drink.

[1:32:37] So everybody gets knocked out on Rohypnol.

[1:32:39] Uh-oh.

[1:32:40] And the drug dealers are coming to kill all the cops.

[1:32:42] So he can't drive.

[1:32:43] He needs to get these guys safe.

[1:32:44] So he has to take a criminal who's been locked up in the back of one of the trucks to help him.

[1:32:48] But it turns out that criminal is an ex-con on his way to see a daughter he's never met before.

[1:32:53] And this guy is a super badass.

[1:32:55] But he can't do anything wrong because he wants to be able to see his daughter.

[1:32:59] Oh, boy.

[1:33:00] It is a – and this all happens before the credits drop.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:03] Wow.

[1:33:04] It's amazing.

[1:33:05] It's like –

[1:33:06] I mean, that doesn't mean anything.

[1:33:08] RRR, the credits drop 40 minutes into the movie.

[1:33:10] So the credits could be at the end of the film.

[1:33:12] And in RRR, I'm like –

[1:33:13] High fidelity, the credits don't show up until the very end.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:15] I'm like, RRR, drive my car, dropped him five minutes after you.

[1:33:20] High octane thrill ride, drive my car.

[1:33:22] But yeah, Kai B, if you're looking for like a great action movie, I 100% recommend it.

[1:33:28] It's super fun.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:30] All right.

[1:33:31] This – the movie I'm going to recommend is not a high octane action movie.

[1:33:34] Weird.

[1:33:34] It is a melodrama.

[1:33:36] How much octane is there?

[1:33:38] Medium octane, I guess.

[1:33:40] Because there's still some kind of thrills in it.

[1:33:41] Okay.

[1:33:42] I'm going to recommend a movie called The Garden of Women.

[1:33:44] This is a Japanese movie from 1954 directed by Kaesuki Kinoshita.

[1:33:48] The Garden of Women is the story of an all-girls boarding school that is run by extremely strict regulations that lead to emotional turmoil and political uprising among the students.

[1:33:56] Very much an ensemble movie with several different plot threads, all painting a portrait of a post-war Japan in which the young struggle against the bars of a metaphorical prison of social standards built by the old.

[1:34:07] And I kept thinking it – well, I kept thinking it.

[1:34:09] I kept thinking while watching it, this would make a great TV show, but it's even better than a TV show because it's only two hours and 20 minutes long.

[1:34:16] So you don't have to sit through like a couple hours of them just setting up the characters.

[1:34:19] And hey, floppers, why not program a little double feature for yourself with this and my previous recommendation, Madgen in Uniform.

[1:34:26] That's right.

[1:34:26] A German movie about an oppressive girls' school and a Japanese movie about an oppressive girls' school.

[1:34:30] I call it the Axis Powers girls' school double feature.

[1:34:33] But if you've already watched Madgen in Uniform, which you should have because I recommended it and it's really good, then The Garden of Women is great on its own.

[1:34:40] So that's The Garden of Women.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:42] Wow.

[1:34:43] We did it.

[1:34:44] We did it in record time.

[1:34:45] We're going to get you there.

[1:34:46] We're going to get you out, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:47] Bingo, bingo.

[1:34:48] I really appreciate it.

[1:34:49] Listeners, I appreciate that you don't get our usual two-plus hours of jokes and japes.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:54] Apologies to you or maybe you like it better this way.

[1:34:57] Either way.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:57] I mean, from what the listeners have told me, they seem to kind of prefer it this way.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:02] But who knows?

[1:35:04] This has been The Flophouse.

[1:35:05] We are part of the Maximum Fun Network.

[1:35:08] Go over to MaximumFun.org.

[1:35:10] Check out all the other great shows.

[1:35:12] Comedy and culture.

[1:35:13] That's what they say.

[1:35:14] It's got both.

[1:35:16] I don't know which your taste is.

[1:35:19] Culture.

[1:35:19] We mixed them.

[1:35:20] We mixed them up.

[1:35:21] Yeah.

[1:35:21] We got peanut butter and your chocolate or whatever.

[1:35:24] And also, thank you to Alex Smith.

[1:35:28] He goes by the name of Howl Dottie on Twitter, other socials while he's making music under that name.

[1:35:35] He is our producer.

[1:35:37] He is our editor.

[1:35:38] He does great stuff for us.

[1:35:39] Sorry that Stuart zinged you earlier.

[1:35:43] And that's all I got to say.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:44] He's got a thick skin.

[1:35:46] Yeah.

[1:35:46] Thick skin crusted from sitting in front of a computer screen.

[1:35:50] Covered in particles.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:52] We love you.

[1:35:54] Thank you to you, the listener.

[1:35:56] And for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:59] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:36:01] And I'm Elliot Kalin, reminding you to go to thebellhouseny.com to get your tickets to our live show on Sunday, April 2nd.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:09] Bye.

[1:36:10] Bye.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:15] On this episode, we discuss Don't Worry Darling.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:19] But honestly, I don't think the series gets good until Don't Worry Darling reloaded.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:26] You're right.

[1:36:27] That was a good one.

[1:36:28] That is a good one.

[1:36:29] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:35] Maximumfun.org

S4

[1:36:37] Comedy and culture.

[1:36:39] Artist owned.

[1:36:40] Audience supported.

Episode #388 - Don't Worry Darling

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