The Bride! with Kenice Mobley

Stuart Wellington

[0:00] Psst! Hey you, come here.

[0:02] I gotta let you know that the Flophouse is going to be doing a live show on September 18th.

[0:07] That's a Friday night in Louisville, Kentucky at the Whirling Tiger.

[0:11] We're going to be covering the famous box office bomb Glitter starring Mariah Carey.

[0:16] And we're going to feature special guest Howell Doughty,

[0:18] who's stepping out from behind his producer duties to be part of the show.

[0:23] Tickets are $20, doors at 7, show at 8.

[0:27] Go to thewhirlingtiger.com now.

[0:31] On this episode, we discuss the bride.

[0:33] You mean the bride!

Dan McCoy

[0:38] Okay.

[0:57] Hey everyone, welcome to the Flophouse.

[1:03] I'm Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07] And I'm the guy you've come to know and loathe, Elliot Kalin.

[1:11] That's right, I'm back.

[1:12] You couldn't shake me, loser.

Dan McCoy

[1:14] Fucking heel of the house.

[1:15] He'll turn you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17] What town are we in right now?

[1:18] Because it sucks.

Dan McCoy

[1:20] Oh, wow.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21] I want them to boo me so that when Stuart defeats me at the end, it's that much more dramatic and exciting.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27] There's a grandma in the audience who's like booing loudly.

Dan McCoy

[1:31] Hold on, I have to introduce our guest who's already encouraging Elliot's shenanigans.

[1:36] And that's Kenise Mobley, a stand-up.

[1:40] You may have seen her on The Tonight Show.

[1:42] If not, look it up.

[1:44] She does the hot guy draft.

[1:46] Google it.

[1:47] I met her doing Uptown Showdown.

[1:50] Yes.

[1:50] Where we talked about fashion.

[1:52] I forget which side of it I was on.

S4

[1:54] Because I think we were on the same side.

[1:56] Which means we were pro suits over sweats.

Dan McCoy

[1:58] Yes.

[1:59] Yeah.

[1:59] Thankfully, it was an easier thing to me.

[2:04] Rather than lying about my fondness for sweats, I'm not.

[2:07] You don't seem like a sweats guy.

[2:09] No.

[2:09] Audrey, since the pandemic, she's like, clothes, why?

[2:13] And the whole time I've been like, no, must put on full outfits.

[2:19] I'm on your side, Pierre.

[2:20] That's the only thing keeping me sane.

Elliott Kalan

[2:23] For the listener at home, just to make it clear, Dan is speaking truth.

[2:27] He is wearing not just a three-piece suit, but actually a seven-piece suit right now.

[2:31] He's got so many vests.

[2:32] He's wearing spats.

[2:33] He's got like those sock garters and things like that.

[2:36] You can see it all.

[2:37] He's wearing a hat.

[2:38] Yeah.

[2:38] He's really dressed up.

Dan McCoy

[2:39] No, I'm wearing a short-sleeved button-up.

[2:41] But it is seersucker.

[2:43] So I am a bit of a fancy lad.

[2:44] Yeah.

[2:45] Yeah, sure.

[2:47] Kenny, thank you for being with us.

S4

[2:49] Thank you for having me.

[2:50] Big fan of the podcast.

Dan McCoy

[2:52] Oh, thank you.

[2:53] That's very nice to say.

[2:54] You saw us during Sketch Fest.

[2:57] I did.

[2:57] And that was very nice of you to come and see the show.

S4

[3:00] I was like, it felt sold out to me.

[3:05] And I was like, I'm not going to bother.

[3:07] They have too many fans.

[3:08] I'll just, I'll sit here.

[3:09] I'll watch the show.

[3:10] I'll text them afterwards.

[3:11] This is lovely.

Dan McCoy

[3:14] I'm glad it was lovely.

[3:15] Yeah.

[3:17] We watched the ride.

[3:18] That attitude, by the way.

[3:19] That's really impressive.

[3:20] Just be like, I don't want to trouble anybody.

[3:23] It's just, let's chill.

[3:24] As opposed to-

[3:25] As a Midwesterner, you love that attitude.

Stuart Wellington

[3:28] Yeah.

[3:29] Anything where I can just be reserved, don't speak up, pretend that I like people.

[3:35] That's very Midwestern of me.

Elliott Kalan

[3:37] See, as opposed to, I've got East Coast vibes.

[3:39] So it's a lot of like, hey, I like this thing.

[3:41] How do I make myself a part of it so I can claim a piece of it and go from fan to owner?

[3:46] You know, that's not a good attitude to have.

S4

[3:50] I'm a Southerner, so I'm just like, yo, that's nice.

Elliott Kalan

[3:56] That's nice.

[3:57] A lot of, Lord, it's hot today.

[3:59] Let's just set a while, that kind of stuff.

[4:00] Oh, sweet tea?

[4:01] Give it to me.

Dan McCoy

[4:04] I'm drinking my, I'm actually literally drinking unsweetened teas right now.

[4:08] Watch out.

[4:09] Sour tea.

[4:10] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[4:10] You just want dirt water?

[4:11] Okay.

[4:13] Dan just, here's what he does.

[4:14] He goes to Prospect Park.

[4:15] He just picks a bunch of leaves off the ground, sticks them in some water that a rat was swimming in,

[4:20] and he calls it New York tea.

[4:21] Doesn't want to sleep in.

Dan McCoy

[4:23] Betterness is sweetness to me, Ellie.

Elliott Kalan

[4:25] Wow.

Dan McCoy

[4:26] We got bizarro, Danny.

[4:30] We could have a nice time just making this into a chatting podcast.

[4:34] Oh, yeah.

[4:35] Sure, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[4:36] Dan, Dan, tell me, what's your body count?

Dan McCoy

[4:39] I don't know what that, oh, I do know what that means.

[4:42] I don't want to get into it.

S4

[4:44] You live in Brooklyn.

[4:45] How could you not know what that means?

Dan McCoy

[4:48] I'm a sweet lad.

[4:50] Oh, okay.

[4:51] See, he's blushing in his seven-piece suit.

[4:55] This is because it's very hot today.

[4:56] No wonder he's drinking that sour tea, yeah.

[4:58] This is a podcast where we watch a movie that was a critical or a commercial flop,

[5:05] and then we talk about it.

[5:07] And I believe this was both.

[5:09] Yeah, yeah.

[5:10] The pride exclamation.

Elliott Kalan

[5:12] Mixed critical reviews very much a financial disappointment, though.

Stuart Wellington

[5:15] Yeah.

[5:15] It did strike me.

[5:16] The reviews going into it, it felt like for a select few, it was very much their shit.

[5:23] And then for a lot of people, it was, I either hate this, or I'm like, they thought it was kind of a swing and a miss.

[5:30] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[5:31] I think it's the kind of movie, it's the kind of movie, it's hard for me to imagine Maggie Gyllenhaal, the director of the movie, writer and director of the movie, making this movie and thinking, this is my four-quadrant hit.

[5:41] Yes.

[5:42] This is when they offer me a Marvel movie afterwards.

Dan McCoy

[5:45] No, I don't think she wanted that, but it is kind of astounding that the money was given for this, which I'm not saying it shouldn't be.

[5:54] No, no.

[5:54] I'm just saying in current Hollywood, it is wild.

[5:55] It is a very big budget for a movie like this.

[5:56] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[5:58] Well, she can bring in stars, and her previous movie, The Lost Daughter, people really liked it.

[6:02] I mean, it's really good.

[6:04] And so, you know.

Dan McCoy

[6:04] And she's, you know, I read she just got signed to work on a new movie as writer-director.

[6:10] A Marvel movie.

[6:11] So I'm glad this is not.

[6:12] Oh, wow.

[6:13] This is not.

Elliott Kalan

[6:15] She's doing the saber-tooth spin-off.

Dan McCoy

[6:18] I like her.

[6:19] I don't want her to be marked by the failure of this movie.

[6:22] I'm glad that she's getting another bite, but this one was not well-received in general.

S4

[6:27] You're being very kind in your words.

[6:29] Yes.

[6:30] You guys are being so kind.

Elliott Kalan

[6:32] We like Maggie Gyllenhaal and the other people involved.

[6:35] So she is the best thing in the film, 40 Days and 40 Nights, which we recently did on the podcast.

[6:40] Wait, Maggie Gyllenhaal is in 40 Days and 40 Nights?

[6:42] Yeah, she's the best friend.

[6:43] She's the best friend of the female lead.

[6:46] Shanna Sossman.

[6:47] Shanna Sossman, yeah.

S4

[6:47] I own 40 Days and 40 Nights.

[6:49] I'm so sorry.

Stuart Wellington

[6:51] Stuart's face just fell.

[6:53] Why did your face fall so hard?

[6:54] I hate it so much.

[6:56] It's Stuart's least favorite movie.

S4

[6:57] And it didn't impact your youth?

Stuart Wellington

[7:01] Well, no.

[7:02] I mean, I was like in my 20s when it came out, so I don't know if it impacted my youth.

[7:08] But yeah, I mean, it was – I just hate it.

[7:11] I hate everything about it.

Elliott Kalan

[7:12] Stuart spent –

[7:13] To quote Ugly Kid Joe.

[7:15] I think it had a big impact on him.

[7:18] He's very – he spent a number of years trying to perfect erotic flower play after that, and he could never get the results.

[7:25] So that love curdled to hate.

Dan McCoy

[7:27] But it was F-L-O-U-R play, unfortunately.

[7:30] Yeah.

[7:31] Wow.

[7:31] Yeah.

[7:32] Dust women with flowers.

[7:33] Wasn't that –

[7:34] I'm sure there's movies where they do that.

[7:35] So they won't stick.

Elliott Kalan

[7:36] Yeah.

[7:37] It's Labor Day, dude.

[7:38] Oh, right, right.

[7:40] So let's talk about The Bride because that's what we're here to talk about.

[7:43] Or as it's typographically listed, The Bride!

[7:47] Because there's a big exclamation point at the end.

[7:50] So this is a –

[7:51] You're on summary duty on this one?

[7:53] I'm on summary duty.

[7:54] It's very summary.

Stuart Wellington

[7:55] Because I watched this on –

[7:57] This is one of the available in-flight entertainment options on my flight back from Frankfurt, Germany.

[8:04] Oh, wow.

[8:05] Tell us a little bit about your trip.

[8:06] Thank you, Lufthansa.

[8:08] I think if I tell people the story of this trip, they would be laughing too hard.

[8:15] They would have to go to a doctor.

Dan McCoy

[8:17] It was like some sort of European vacation.

Elliott Kalan

[8:20] I tell you, before the recording, Stuart said, I have a really funny story to tell you.

[8:24] And I was laughing so hard, I think I tore my esophagus.

[8:27] It was just what he told me.

[8:29] Normally, Elliot has a much deeper voice.

[8:31] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[8:32] Yeah, my resonant base that listeners have gotten so used to.

[8:35] Yeah, Brian Blessed Jr., they call him.

[8:38] Well, that's because of the paternity lawsuit.

[8:40] But you guys may remember the press that I did, the press statement where I said, I always thought of myself as blessed.

[8:49] I suppose Brian doesn't feel the same way about it.

[8:53] Yeah, very Rodan Farrow of you.

[8:56] I call him Brian now and not Papa because of the lawsuit.

Stuart Wellington

[8:59] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[8:59] So anyway, let's talk about – Stuart, did you watch it in English or auf Deutsch?

Stuart Wellington

[9:05] I watched it in English, yeah.

[9:07] And Charlene watched it.

[9:09] We like simultaneously – do you guys ever do this with your partner when you're flying?

[9:13] We're like trying –

[9:14] Yeah, you try to time it.

[9:15] Start at the exact same time.

[9:15] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[9:16] No.

[9:16] But she falls asleep like –

[9:18] That's my time.

[9:19] Yeah.

[9:19] I mean normally I'm pretty strict about my in-flight entertainment.

[9:23] I like read books because I'm like there's time now.

[9:26] Or I will –

[9:27] But then your glasses break and you go, no, no, there was time.

S4

[9:30] I can't get your glasses on the plane.

Stuart Wellington

[9:32] Yeah.

[9:32] I don't know.

[9:33] Maybe it's – if it's a nice flight.

[9:35] Yeah, if it's a snowpiercer.

[9:37] That's true.

[9:38] That's right.

S4

[9:38] They're optometrists on snowpiercer.

Stuart Wellington

[9:40] Snowpiercer would have an optometrist on there, yeah.

[9:45] Draw it up.

[9:46] Give me a drawing, somebody.

[9:49] That's how you request fan art.

[9:51] Yeah.

[9:52] And the art is of you trying on glasses on snowpiercer.

[9:56] That's what it is, yeah.

[9:56] Yes.

[9:58] Like, oh, that's what a baby looks like.

[10:00] So the –

[10:01] That's what I've been eating all this time.

[10:04] Oh, God.

[10:04] He tricked me.

[10:06] Tilda Swinton.

[10:08] The – oh, man.

[10:09] If Tilda Swinton fed me a baby, I'd be like, okay, I guess I trust her.

[10:15] So what I was saying is I normally try and watch my own ship.

[10:19] This time Charlene always wants to watch something with me.

[10:22] And this time we watched The Bride together.

[10:24] She did not watch The Bride the whole way.

[10:26] She fell asleep about ten minutes in.

[10:28] She had that privilege.

[10:30] And then she tried to tell me what she saw.

[10:34] And then I filled in the blanks because she woke up basically right at the end and then was shocked by a very specific musical choice.

[10:44] Yes.

[10:45] Specific.

[10:45] Oh, yeah.

[10:47] Maybe my favorite part of the film.

[10:48] Yeah, no shit it was.

Elliott Kalan

[10:49] I mean, there's a – I assume it's the same one I'm thinking of, in which case the whole time I was like, is she aware that this thing exists already?

[10:55] And then they played that song and I was like, oh, she's certainly aware.

[10:58] Of course.

[10:59] So, ironically, I fall asleep a lot when I'm watching movies at home.

[11:03] This is one of the few movies I did not fall asleep at any point during.

[11:06] So, Charlene and I had totally opposite experiences.

[11:08] You would have broken the dishes.

[11:09] Yeah.

[11:10] This one I watched sitting on the couch with my wife, not doing dishes.

Stuart Wellington

[11:13] Elliot watches movies while he's doing the dishes, which seems challenging.

S4

[11:18] Do you have a TV above your sink?

Dan McCoy

[11:19] I have a little iPad that I watch.

[11:21] Okay.

S4

[11:21] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[11:22] Interesting.

[11:22] I mean, he's a very busy man and we force him to do this podcast.

[11:26] Yeah.

[11:27] Force him.

[11:27] Fit it in.

[11:28] It's against his will to do the podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[11:31] I tried to change my name.

[11:32] I moved to a cabin in the woods and then I was out chopping wood one time with a big beard and a puffy coat and Stuart and Dan drove up in a truck and I said, how'd you find me?

[11:41] They go, well, Elliot.

Dan McCoy

[11:42] We're doing you for 400 last jobs.

[11:45] That's a name I haven't heard in a long time.

Elliott Kalan

[11:48] So anyway, we start in there.

[11:50] We start.

[11:51] There's some text on the screen in black and white.

[11:52] It says in 1888.

[11:54] Sorry, not 1888.

[11:54] In 1818.

[11:56] In 1818, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein on a dare, which is not totally true.

[12:01] It was kind of a storytelling.

[12:02] More of a game.

[12:03] Contest game.

[12:03] Yeah.

[12:04] I'm going to be in.

[12:05] I'm going to be.

Stuart Wellington

[12:06] Guys, we don't get into fucking storytelling contest games enough.

[12:09] No.

[12:10] We're just D&Ding it up and shit.

[12:12] Television, the internet.

[12:13] There's too much other stuff to do.

Elliott Kalan

[12:14] It's rare that we and our libertine friends are stuck by bad weather in a villa on Lake

[12:21] Geneva.

[12:21] That doesn't happen that often, you know.

[12:24] But I'm going to be in the Geneva area in just like a week.

Dan McCoy

[12:27] If we changed our lives, we could.

Elliott Kalan

[12:29] We lived a little differently.

[12:30] Come on, guys.

[12:31] I'm going to be in the Geneva area in like a week for work and I'm very disappointed that

[12:35] I'm not going to have the time to go see the villa where that storytelling contest happened

[12:39] and where Mary Shelley first started writing Frankenstein.

[12:42] I really want to see it.

Stuart Wellington

[12:43] Isn't it wild that one of these dudes is just named Lord Byron?

[12:47] That's crazy.

[12:47] I mean, his name is George.

[12:49] His name is George.

[12:50] I mean, he is Lord Byron, right?

Elliott Kalan

[12:52] Like what?

[12:54] But he has a name.

[12:56] That's crazy.

[12:58] So anyway, he is not in this movie.

[13:01] But Mary Shelley is played.

[13:04] This is one of the two roles played by Jesse Buckley.

[13:07] And I will say, I'm going to give a spoiler ahead of time.

[13:09] I overall pretty much like this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[13:11] I'm softer on this thing than I thought I would.

Elliott Kalan

[13:13] Yeah, but these parts with Mary Shelley are the one thing in the movie that do not work for me.

S4

[13:17] It begs the question.

[13:18] Why?

[13:19] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[13:19] And so, well, let me tell you because the concept is Mary Shelley tells us that Frankenstein was only half the story.

[13:25] She couldn't write the rest of it because she died.

[13:27] And she spent centuries in kind of limbo trying to get the rest of the story told.

[13:31] She goes, is it a ghost story or a love story?

[13:34] And what this sets us up for is a world where Frankenstein is a story.

[13:37] Whereas we get a world where Frankenstein is a real person who exists.

[13:41] And yet Mary Shelley is also a person who exists.

[13:44] And had to write a book called Frankenstein.

[13:45] That's confusing.

[13:46] And they never really tie this knot.

Dan McCoy

[13:48] It's also awfully ballsy for a movie to be like, this is what Mary Shelley would have written if she'd lived longer.

[13:55] And by the way, it's going to be twice the scary shit that that thing was.

Elliott Kalan

[13:59] I will say that except she is.

[14:01] So I think what Maggie Gyllenhaal is trying to do is play off of the opening of Bride of Frankenstein, which opens with Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley and Lord Byron.

[14:07] And Lord Byron goes, that's Frankenstein story.

[14:10] You told us it was so scary.

[14:11] And she goes, well, there's more.

[14:12] And then she starts telling the story of that movie.

[14:14] So I think Maggie Gyllenhaal is very much playing off of what happens in Bride of Frankenstein.

[14:19] But in that movie, it's entirely a story Mary Shelley is telling.

[14:22] There's no part where Mary Shelley is interacting with the characters, which happens throughout this.

[14:26] She's, yeah, possessing a person, yeah.

[14:29] Yeah, so then we're in the 1930s.

[14:31] We're in a restaurant.

[14:32] There's a woman named Ida.

Stuart Wellington

[14:32] A restaurant that is 100% Gage and Tolner in Brooklyn, New York.

[14:36] There's no question.

[14:37] And the funny thing is this scene does feature some oyster issues.

[14:42] And I got to say, I got fucking food poisoning from an oyster there.

[14:45] So I sympathize.

[14:46] I feel like this is verging on libel or slander, whichever one is spoken.

Elliott Kalan

[14:52] All he was telling you, all he's saying is what actually happened.

Stuart Wellington

[14:55] Just the facts, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[14:56] But you weren't possessed by the spirit of an author.

Stuart Wellington

[15:00] I feel like this is actionable.

[15:02] I've been back there multiple times.

[15:04] I think it's a nice restaurant.

[15:05] Maybe because George R. Martin was buying me dinner.

[15:08] I liked it a lot.

[15:09] What?

[15:09] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[15:10] Did I drop that name?

[15:12] What are you picking it back up?

[15:14] That's the entire reason that Stuart brought this up.

Stuart Wellington

[15:16] I mean, it's 100% Gage and Tolner.

[15:19] And also this scene does feature a friend of a friend, indie darling John Magaro, who's friends with a friend of mine.

[15:25] So I can't say anything bad about him.

[15:27] But he's not bad.

[15:28] He's good.

[15:28] He's good in everything.

[15:29] Which one is he?

[15:30] He's the, like, date.

[15:32] Yeah.

[15:32] He's the guy who looks kind of sad.

Dan McCoy

[15:34] He's the one who turns into an assassin.

[15:37] Yeah.

[15:37] Okay.

[15:38] I mean, I won't say anything bad about any of the actors in this.

[15:41] I don't think that they're the issue with the film.

[15:43] They're all committing.

Elliott Kalan

[15:45] Everyone's trying hard.

[15:46] So they're in this restaurant.

[15:47] There's a woman named Ida, also played by Jesse Buckley.

[15:50] And Mary Shelley starts to possess – she's like, I'm going to possess this woman's body.

[15:55] And it's this drunken dinner.

[15:57] She's with these really douchey guys.

[15:58] And suddenly she starts convulsing.

[16:00] And Mary Shelley is entering her mind.

[16:02] And she starts climbing on the table and rambling.

[16:04] And she does a thing which I do not love during the movie where now in Mary Shelley voice, she's just free associating words.

[16:10] You'd think I'd love this because I do it all the time.

Dan McCoy

[16:12] But it turns out that I'm just annoying me as much as I prefer to annoy other people.

[16:17] I mean, you're also doing it for comedy purposes.

[16:19] And here, like, look, I think that this culture should hold up intellectualism a little bit more than it does rather than scoff at it.

Stuart Wellington

[16:33] You would think that egghead.

[16:36] Have you ever seen the Big Bang Theory?

[16:38] Those dudes are hilarious.

Dan McCoy

[16:39] And thus I, like, hate when something's called pretentious because most of the time I feel like that's just, like, people not wanting to engage.

[16:49] With a thing.

[16:50] And, like, being like, oh, this is too uppity for me, like, essentially.

[16:55] But I find this pretentious.

Elliott Kalan

[16:57] It's the kind of thing that I think I would accept more in a play than in a movie.

[17:03] I can't wait to put my finger except that I expect – I think I expect a certain level of pretentiousness from the theater that I am less willing to take for a movie.

[17:11] But she's really scaring people.

[17:13] She seems particularly angry at a gangster who's sitting nearby who we learn more about later.

[17:18] And the guys she's with are like, hey, stop it.

[17:19] And they hit her.

[17:21] And then they push her down a flight of stairs.

[17:23] And in voiceover –

Stuart Wellington

[17:23] One of the guys was on – okay, go on.

[17:26] A flight means death?

[17:27] Yes, that's what I was going to say.

[17:29] And the evil gangster is – the evil gangster is the guy from Triangle of Sadness.

[17:34] I didn't know that.

[17:35] Superman.

[17:35] And Superman?

[17:37] Yeah.

[17:38] He plays Superman.

[17:38] He played Superman?

[17:39] He played Superman.

S4

[17:40] No, he plays the Bravian leader.

[17:43] Right.

[17:44] No, you're right.

[17:45] You're right.

[17:46] He's also in Wonder Man as a famous director.

Elliott Kalan

[17:49] I know him from Wonder Man.

[17:50] I haven't seen either of those yet.

[17:51] I'll have to watch him at some point.

[17:53] In voiceover, she says a revolution is coming that will really frighten you.

[17:57] But Ida is dead at the bottom of the stairs.

[18:01] Then it's Chicago – daytime Chicago.

[18:04] There's a masked man who is clearly Frankenstein, played by Christian Bale.

[18:08] Or Frankenstein's monster.

[18:09] Okay, I was like – we keep calling him Frank, but come on, guys.

[18:12] He says, my name is Frank.

[18:14] Frankenstein's monster if you're nasty.

[18:16] And then he shows up –

[18:18] F monster.

[18:21] He shows up to see Dr. Euphronius, played by Annette Bening.

Stuart Wellington

[18:25] Star of the Great Outdoors, Annette Bening.

Elliott Kalan

[18:28] Star of the Great Outdoors, yeah.

[18:30] And this is where things start to –

[18:33] So he's like, I'm here to see Dr. Euphronius.

[18:35] And she's like, I don't know, da-da-da.

[18:37] And then she reveals I'm actually Dr. Euphronius.

[18:39] So they do a little, oh, the doctor was a woman moment.

[18:42] But then it's weird.

[18:43] That's a reoccurring theme.

[18:45] Because she's like, oh, I've read all of Dr. Frankenstein's books.

[18:48] I'm familiar with his work.

[18:49] And this is another moment where I'm like, wait.

[18:51] So is Frank – so Frankenstein is famous in this world?

[18:54] Like people are familiar with the story because it's – and maybe this is just there are famous scientists who other people have not heard of, which is fine.

[19:03] Like there are plenty of people who don't know who Richard Feynman is and he's a relatively famous scientist.

[19:07] But like there are parts throughout where I'm like, do people know what Frankenstein's monster is in this movie or do they not know what Frankenstein's monster is?

[19:14] Because everyone's aware there are monsters.

[19:16] But he should be famous.

[19:17] It should be like in the X-Men comics when Wolverine shows up places and they're like, you're Wolverine from the X-Men?

[19:21] Like he's famous at this point.

Dan McCoy

[19:23] And this is – I got to say like this is the sort of levels of reality thing that – I know we offer this kind of like kind of non-critique all the time.

[19:32] But like if everything else in the movie was working, I wouldn't be thinking about it.

[19:36] But it's not.

[19:37] So I'm like, okay, what's the reality here?

[19:40] Like where are we in time and space and between fiction and reality?

Elliott Kalan

[19:44] We're also very early in the movie and so there isn't enough movie yet for me to grab onto.

[19:49] So I'm worrying about this stuff.

[19:51] So Dr. Euphronius examines Frankenstein's scars.

[19:53] She wants him to stay at her institute.

[19:54] But he wants to – he's never had a physical relationship.

[19:57] He says the first time he ever shook hands was when he shook hands with Dr. Euphronius minutes ago.

[20:02] So it's a real elephant man type situation.

[20:04] It's been like 100 years.

[20:06] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[20:06] And he looks pretty normal.

[20:08] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[20:09] He looks like a guy who's been in a really bad car accident.

[20:12] I mean he's got a mask on.

Dan McCoy

[20:13] I mean I think he could have – if he wanted to shake hands, he could be shaking hands.

Elliott Kalan

[20:17] Of course to a liberal like you.

[20:19] He could be out there shaking hands.

[20:19] A liberal like you is afraid of COVID, masks are normal.

[20:21] But to someone like me, I'm like why is a guy wearing a mask?

[20:24] I don't understand.

Stuart Wellington

[20:24] Let's put him on the scale of – on one end of the scale we have Darkman.

[20:27] That's probably as gross as you can be and still be the hero versus like Ryan Reynolds Deadpool.

[20:34] Where you're like – Ryan Reynolds Deadpool, you're like, yeah, you look fine.

[20:38] You look like Midwestern Ryan Reynolds.

[20:40] Yeah.

[20:42] Like they make a point of saying how gross he looks but he still – like it still looks like Ryan Reynolds, right?

Elliott Kalan

[20:47] I think with Frankenstein it's the noticeable stitches on the forehead and things like that.

[20:51] He looks like a guy who's been –

Stuart Wellington

[20:52] His nose looks like it's been broken a few times.

Dan McCoy

[20:54] He looks like he's a boxer.

Elliott Kalan

[20:56] He looks like an ex-boxer.

Dan McCoy

[20:57] Yeah.

[20:57] Again, if anything, stitches suggest to me like, oh, this is a man with a medical issue rather than this is a monster.

[21:02] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[21:03] Maybe he was a snitch.

[21:05] And he's also – maybe this is a matter of the way they shoot – like Frank – he's not as – he doesn't feel as enormous as the monster does.

[21:12] Like in the old Frankenstein movies, Boris Karloff looks so much huger than anybody else, you know.

S4

[21:17] I mean Jacob Elordi five months before this is Frankenstein and you're like, whoa, he's big.

[21:21] But this monster is Christian Bale height.

Elliott Kalan

[21:25] I will say though that Jacob Elordi is big but he is also hot Frankenstein.

[21:29] So when people are like, kill it, I'm like, I don't understand.

[21:31] He just looks like a hot dude.

[21:34] Yeah.

[21:35] So he's – unless those – maybe those hunters in the –

[21:37] They're jealous.

[21:38] Exactly.

[21:39] They're like, that man's hotter than we'll ever be.

[21:41] Destroy him.

[21:41] Or women will know that they can have him instead of us.

Dan McCoy

[21:43] All the women around are going to pick him.

[21:46] What women?

[21:46] Where are the Arctic?

[21:48] There might be some.

[21:49] The Arctic women.

Stuart Wellington

[21:51] Those are walruses.

[21:53] He's like so skinny.

[21:55] Like when you got visible abs like that, he doesn't have enough body fat to survive out in the wilds of Antarctica.

Elliott Kalan

[21:59] No, no.

[22:00] That's for sure.

[22:01] He's definitely – he should have died of malnutrition.

[22:03] But again, also he's pieced together by corpses and if you shoot him, nothing happens.

[22:07] Oh, fuck.

[22:08] Yeah, he's magic.

[22:09] I forgot.

[22:09] He's magic.

[22:11] I thought he was regular.

[22:13] No, no.

[22:14] There is a point in that movie where it's like, wait, so if – because he died once already, I guess he's like immune to things that would kill a normal person.

[22:20] Like I don't understand.

Dan McCoy

[22:21] Oh, I wasn't aware that Frankenstein's monster had these superpowers.

[22:25] Yeah.

[22:25] It seems like it would be –

Stuart Wellington

[22:25] I mean I love Del Toro but sometimes he gets into that shit.

[22:29] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[22:29] It seems like it would be easier to kill Frankenstein because like he's just held together with stitching.

[22:34] So like you'd be like a few well-placed gunshots.

[22:37] Yeah.

[22:38] Just sneak up on him with his pair of scissors.

[22:40] Yeah.

[22:40] So he's like I want a physical relationship.

[22:42] I want a bride.

[22:43] I want you to build me one.

[22:45] He's also obsessed with movie musicals, specifically the movie musicals of an actor named Ronnie Reed where the idea is that Ronnie Reed was an actor who had polio and he has – and had to accommodate for that to become a famous dancer.

[22:59] And he's played by Jake Gyllenhaal.

[23:00] And the whole time I'm like how did they get Jake Gyllenhaal for this movie?

[23:02] Yeah.

[23:02] He's a big star.

[23:04] How did they get him in this film?

[23:06] So he's constantly going to the movies and watching these old musicals and he imagines himself in the movies.

[23:11] And this was when I was watching this with my wife and she was like you're seeing Frankenstein in a top hat and tails dancing and she's like – she's like does Maggie – all I can think about is Young Frankenstein.

[23:19] Like does Maggie Gyllenhaal know Young Frankenstein exists?

[23:22] And then later on they sing Putting on the Ritz and you're like okay.

[23:24] She definitely knows that Young Frankenstein exists.

[23:26] Like there's no way.

[23:27] Could be a coincidence.

[23:29] And it really threw me but by the end I came to really like it because it seemed to me like she was like.

[23:34] Oh, that scene in that movie is a joke of how awkward the character is.

[23:37] I'm going to give him grace.

[23:39] I'm going to give him a level of dignity that he doesn't have in that scene, which I thought was kind of cool.

[23:43] But anyway.

[23:43] But that wasn't until later.

[23:44] Anyway, he walks by some sort of red light district.

[23:47] Frankenstein is – he's not comfortable around sin.

[23:50] Dr. Euphronius, she's got issues with the different methods of corpse survival that they're going to try to figure this out.

[23:58] They're on board.

[23:59] Frank wears down her resistance.

[24:01] Next thing you know, they're digging up the body of that same woman, Ida, that Mary Shelley possessed.

[24:04] And it makes you wonder, has Mary Shelley just been sitting in that dead body underground for like days now?

[24:10] Any moment.

[24:11] Any moment now.

[24:12] Any moment now because she's read the script.

[24:14] She knows she'll get like in the Muppet movie.

[24:16] She knows she'll get dug up.

[24:18] And Frank is like, no, she's too beautiful.

[24:20] But we'll try it anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[24:21] I kind of like that moment where he's like she's too beautiful because like, I don't know, like, yeah.

[24:27] What's the thing that happens?

[24:28] His self-esteem is low.

[24:29] That he's like – his self-esteem is low.

[24:30] And also maybe he's like – I don't know.

[24:33] She doesn't – he looks clearly like a monster and she does not.

[24:36] And I think that – I don't know.

[24:37] She looks like she spilled some ink on her face.

S4

[24:39] Yeah.

[24:40] I mean, she's still undead, right?

[24:41] Like we're –

Dan McCoy

[24:42] Yeah.

[24:43] But we don't know.

[24:43] I mean, yeah.

[24:44] We don't know the degree to which there's an odor.

Stuart Wellington

[24:47] Or if Jesse Buckley showed up at a red carpet dress like this, people would be like, she is serving.

Elliott Kalan

[24:53] Yes.

[24:54] Yeah.

[24:54] Sure.

[24:55] She's serving bride realness.

[24:56] Yeah.

[24:58] If it was a – but also I think – again, this is a play I think on the end of Bride of Frankenstein where they finally revive the bride.

[25:04] And the first time she sees Frankenstein, she screams.

[25:06] She's like, I don't want this.

[25:07] This is not anything I'm interested in right now.

[25:10] Yeah.

[25:10] But they're trying to do this experiment.

[25:13] Meanwhile, the doctor's maid, Greta, is suspicious.

[25:16] And I kept thinking they were setting up Greta to be a bad guy, but it never quite happens.

[25:20] No, no, no.

[25:21] They do the experiment.

[25:22] Sort of a minor comic figure.

[25:23] Yes.

[25:24] And then later on, kind of an ally.

[25:25] We'll see.

[25:26] We'll see.

[25:26] Yeah, yeah.

[25:27] Eventually, everyone's just putting ink on their face.

[25:29] Yep.

[25:29] They do the experiment.

[25:30] It works.

[25:31] They revived her.

[25:32] My wife went, it seemed pretty easy.

[25:33] She was not impressed by how easy it was to revive the dead.

[25:37] She coughs up a bunch of black blood.

[25:38] And that's how she gets that stain on her face.

[25:40] And then she laughs.

[25:41] Then she goes back and forth as she will throughout the movie between her two accents, Chicago Mall,

[25:46] Ida, and British Mary Shelley, who rambles lists of words.

[25:50] And she's wary of them.

Stuart Wellington

[25:52] I mean, at some undetermined point midway through the movie, she kind of stops doing it entirely.

[25:59] The Mary Shelley stuff.

[26:00] Yeah, the Mary Shelley stuff.

[26:01] And I don't know if it's because there's a thematical moment that I did not catch or they

[26:06] just forgot about it.

Dan McCoy

[26:07] Well, then she comes back at the end as if re-emerging like the Hulk to take vintage vengeance.

[26:14] That's true.

Elliott Kalan

[26:15] I mean, Mary Shelley has often been compared to the Hulk.

[26:17] I mean, ironically, the Hulk was –

Dan McCoy

[26:19] We're certainly a literary Hulk.

Elliott Kalan

[26:20] I mean, the Hulk was – the Hulk as a character was heavily influenced by Frankenstein.

[26:24] So it makes sense.

[26:24] Yeah.

[26:26] So Frank is in love at first sight.

[26:29] And the bride is asking Euphronius about Frank.

[26:31] And Frank imagines himself tap dancing in a movie.

[26:33] This will happen throughout the movie is Frank imagining himself into being a tap dancer in a Fred Astaire type movie.

[26:39] And Mary Shelley is talking to the bride in her head as the bride floats above her body one night.

[26:43] And she's like, I can't remember my name.

[26:45] And she wakes up on the operating table.

[26:47] Frank is sleeping on the floor.

[26:49] And he wakes up.

[26:49] I kind of like that sequence.

[26:51] Yeah.

[26:51] He hits her by accident.

[26:52] But then he does a little dance routine for her.

[26:54] Yeah.

[26:54] And she lists more words.

S4

[26:55] And they're coming.

[26:56] He hits her.

[26:57] Yeah, he does.

[26:58] He's like, after – he was locked out of her room for a reason.

[27:01] But he broke into her room.

[27:02] He broke into the window.

[27:03] Yeah.

[27:03] He sleeps under her bed.

[27:05] And then she wakes up and he hits her.

[27:08] Yeah.

[27:09] You're a great start to a relationship.

Elliott Kalan

[27:10] I do think that this movie –

[27:12] I think the thing to remember is they are also reanimated corpses.

[27:14] So they're operating on different rules, I guess.

Dan McCoy

[27:16] I will say this movie, for all that it wants to be a feminist reimagining, feels oddly soft on Frankenstein's monster to me.

[27:26] Considering, like, the thing about the Bride of Frankenstein is, like, they go through all this trouble.

[27:32] And as you say, she's reanimated.

[27:36] She's like, no, I don't want that.

[27:37] What?

[27:37] You can't – like, you know, she's only in the very end of the movie.

[27:42] So the feminist, like, impact of it is maybe a little dimmed in that she's such a small part of her own picture.

[27:49] But it is her being like, hey, you can't just invent me to be a wife.

[27:52] Whereas this one, she kind of, like, seems into it by the end, even after she's like, well, okay, you did lie to me about all this stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[28:00] I think that – I would say that's not – I mean, she is – he wins her over and then they have a relationship and they have a messy relationship.

[28:08] And I think that's different than –

S4

[28:09] And you said he wins her over just by, like, being there.

Elliott Kalan

[28:13] I mean, there's a little bit of the, well, he's the man in the movie and he must have a soft heart.

[28:19] And so, I mean, because the doctor, I guess, gave him too soft a heart.

[28:24] He had Stallone's disease.

[28:26] That's going back to an earlier episode where his heart is literally too soft and his blood is too hard.

[28:30] Yeah, so.

Dan McCoy

[28:31] I mean, he's a gentle monster.

[28:32] He is eventually respectful to her and protective.

[28:37] But I do think it's weird that they pull that switch in a movie that's, I think, trying to be like, you know, this is going to be about women.

[28:46] You know, I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[28:47] I guess – I think the difference is that he is consistently supportive of her and everything she does.

[28:53] Yes.

[28:53] And rather than – he has created her for himself.

[28:57] But rather than trying to change her, he changes himself in more ways than she changes.

[29:01] Yes.

[29:01] Like, whenever she does anything, he's like –

[29:03] A reverse grease.

[29:04] Kind of.

[29:05] Yeah, it is a reverse grease.

[29:06] Well, and he doesn't – yeah, he doesn't try to hold her back at any point.

[29:08] It actually makes things drier and less slippery, yeah.

[29:10] Just like a chalk or something.

[29:12] Yeah, exactly.

[29:13] Exactly.

[29:13] Some people call it chalk.

[29:15] I call it reverse grease.

[29:16] Yeah, yeah.

[29:16] Yeah.

[29:17] I put it on my hands when I do my gymnastics routines.

[29:20] I say, hand me the reverse grease.

[29:21] People are so confused.

[29:21] I go into the art store.

[29:22] Can you give me some reverse grease?

[29:24] What?

[29:24] Yeah, yeah.

[29:25] The sticks are reverse grease so I can draw on the – on the yard.

[29:28] Sir, please leave.

Stuart Wellington

[29:31] Officer, where were the dead bodies found?

[29:33] Oh, you can see the outline drawn in reverse grease.

Elliott Kalan

[29:35] Now, I'm also thinking reverse grease is also the bizarro version of grease where – yeah, you're not the one that I want.

[29:43] Do-bop, but do-bop, ooh, ooh, ooh, yeah.

[29:46] And they were actually born to not hand jive.

[29:48] It's the one thing I cannot do.

[29:49] It would be very dangerous for me.

[29:50] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[29:51] Beauty school graduate.

[29:56] And, of course, reverse grease, lightning.

[29:58] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[29:58] So, I think that's the difference here.

[30:02] But I agree.

[30:03] It starts on shaky ground.

[30:04] They have breakfast and the bride keeps saying, I would prefer not to to everything.

[30:07] And it annoyed me so much that at first they misattribute – who wrote that?

[30:12] I'm like, Melville.

[30:14] It's Melville.

[30:14] Come on.

[30:15] Melville.

[30:15] Come on, guys.

[30:17] But the bride starts breaking dishes because she wants to leave.

[30:20] She's just like very casually breaking the dishes.

[30:22] Frank loves it.

[30:23] And they sneak out and they go to the movies.

[30:24] Frank mansplains about Ronnie Reed, the star of the movie tour.

[30:28] And she leads him to –

Stuart Wellington

[30:29] It's like his one fucking thing, dude.

[30:32] Let him –

Elliott Kalan

[30:32] Yeah, he loves that.

[30:34] Yeah.

[30:34] Nothing else.

[30:35] No, but I'm just saying it is a bad – it's a bad idea to give guys the idea that women

[30:38] really want you to take them to the movies and then talk through the movie explaining

[30:41] the backstories of people in the movie.

[30:43] Nobody wants that.

[30:45] Nobody likes it.

[30:46] I learned from my experience.

S4

[30:46] Quite differently, this is a horror film wherein a lady is just minding her own business

[30:51] and then Mary Shelley ruins her life.

Elliott Kalan

[30:54] Yes.

[30:54] That's the movie.

[30:55] That's very – she was having a great time at a dinner eating oysters.

Stuart Wellington

[30:58] I believe Peter Sarsgaard gives us a different picture of her backstories.

Elliott Kalan

[31:03] How did they get –

[31:04] Peter Sarsgaard, our fucking sandwich enthusiast.

[31:08] Sandwich enthusiast.

[31:09] But again, Peter Sarsgaard shows like, how are they getting these big stars?

[31:12] I mean, what did they – anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[31:14] What connection possible?

Elliott Kalan

[31:15] It reminds me of the story of when I was walking down Atlantic Avenue once and Peter Sarsgaard

[31:20] and Maggie Gyllenhaal were walking in the opposite direction towards me and my wife.

[31:23] And it was clear that they were in the situation all couples have been in, which is you are

[31:26] on your way to a social event.

[31:28] You have just had a fight and you are not – you are kind of still mad at each other,

[31:31] but you have to leave to be on time to this thing.

[31:33] And I was like, huh, they really are like us, celebrities.

[31:37] They've gone through those things too.

[31:39] But you could just read it on their faces.

[31:40] It was so clear.

[31:41] It was like, we just had an argument.

[31:42] We have to be somewhere.

[31:43] We're just going to let it sit for now.

[31:45] And I was – I really appreciated it.

[31:46] Anyway, so Frank –

[31:50] Thanks, Peter and Maggie.

[31:52] Remember that moment.

[31:53] They go to like – I guess like a queer dance club and she dances and Frank imagines them

[31:57] dancing.

[31:58] There's a lot of dancing in this movie.

[31:59] And the bride sees herself in a mirror and she's got this all black tongue and she's

[32:02] dancing some more while Frank's watching.

Stuart Wellington

[32:04] And he's like – she's dancing with dudes and he's like, whatever.

[32:07] I just want her to be free.

[32:09] Exactly.

[32:09] He's like, end it.

Elliott Kalan

[32:10] Well, he's also – there's a little bit of Kuckenstein in him too.

[32:13] I think he kind of likes to see her with other guys.

[32:15] But the other guys, they are being too rough.

[32:17] These kind of like gangster types, they're being too rough.

[32:21] They're being too handsy and assaultive.

[32:23] And the bride shouts something about violence and the gangsters attack her.

[32:26] But Frank takes her away.

[32:27] The gangsters follow and attack them and Frank kills both of them and smashes their heads

[32:31] open.

[32:32] He just kicks one guy's head right open.

[32:34] But someone takes their picture and they run away.

[32:36] And it's one of the things where it's like such a clear case of self-defense, but they're

[32:39] monsters.

[32:39] They know they're getting blamed.

S4

[32:41] Also, they didn't take – there was just a conveniently a camera person sitting there

[32:45] while she was about to be assaulted.

[32:48] Yeah, and this is the 30s.

Elliott Kalan

[32:49] Those cameras are not that easy to use.

[32:51] Like you got to be ready and waiting.

[32:52] Maybe there's a paparazzi there to catch monsters.

Stuart Wellington

[32:55] Wasn't it Penelope Cruz who took the picture?

[32:57] I thought that was –

Elliott Kalan

[32:58] Who sold it to the paper?

Dan McCoy

[32:59] Well, no.

[33:00] I mean when she shows up later, the secretary.

[33:04] I do not catch that.

Elliott Kalan

[33:06] If that's the case, I didn't catch it.

[33:09] Let me look it up.

[33:10] You guys keep talking.

[33:11] Okay.

[33:11] Anyway, Frank and the bride, they go on the run.

[33:14] The bride and Mary Shelley.

Stuart Wellington

[33:16] And he also like – at this point, Frankenstein's like, look, I've been through this before.

[33:21] People are going to chase my ass with pitchforks and torches.

[33:24] Yeah.

[33:24] He's like, go on, git.

[33:26] Go on, git.

[33:27] Yeah, he tries to pull a Harry and the Hendersons on her.

[33:29] Yeah, yeah.

[33:29] It doesn't work.

[33:29] And she's like, well, where am I going to go?

[33:33] And he's like, okay, you can come with me.

[33:35] You just made me.

[33:35] I can't confirm.

[33:36] I was probably wrong.

[33:37] Yeah, she's like, I don't know where I live, dog.

Elliott Kalan

[33:40] I don't have a name.

[33:41] I can't wash this spot off my face.

[33:43] Like, come on.

[33:44] It looks cool, though.

Stuart Wellington

[33:46] Does it?

[33:47] Of course it looks cool.

Elliott Kalan

[33:47] Yeah.

[33:48] I think so.

[33:48] I mean, she makes it look cool.

[33:50] So the bride and Mary Shelley, they have a talk about how the bride needs to remember her name.

[33:53] And they hop a freight train.

[33:55] The cops are searching for him, unfortunately.

[33:58] And Frank starts telling the bride stories about her life before she died.

[34:02] He's like making up a past history for her.

[34:05] And throughout the movie, it was unclear to me how much she – by the end, she's like, you lied to me.

[34:10] But it seems like she's playing this game with him to a certain extent.

[34:13] But anyway, she starts doing a Marlena Dietrich impression really loudly, which draws the cops' attention.

[34:19] And the bride has to push – he's about to shoot Frank's line.

[34:22] Nothing draws the cops' attention like a Marlena Dietrich impression.

[34:25] Like, oh, is the German Chanteuse here?

[34:28] Is the blue angel here in the train with us?

[34:30] The most famous legs in the world?

[34:33] So she has to push the cop out and he hits his head on something.

[34:37] People in movies are always hitting their heads fatally when you push them on things.

[34:41] I have never seen this happen in real life, thankfully.

Stuart Wellington

[34:43] How many people have you pushed, Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[34:44] I live in a house with two boys.

[34:46] They're constantly pushing each other.

[34:47] And it would be terrifying if you thought every time they push each other, they might hit their head and die instantly.

[34:52] It happens in movies all the time.

[34:52] I think about this all the time.

[34:53] Really?

[34:54] Really?

S4

[34:54] Since I was a kid and I watched Six Feet Under with my family, a kid is jumping on the bed.

[34:58] Family viewing if ever there was.

[35:00] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[35:01] It's a show about a family.

S4

[35:03] Sure, sure.

[35:03] Yeah.

[35:04] But a kid falls off the bed, hits his head, dies.

[35:07] And I was like, well, that's it.

[35:08] That's how I'm going to go.

[35:09] And so now I'm like, if I hit my head or if I fall in any way, I'm like, this is it.

[35:14] But look how far you've come.

Elliott Kalan

[35:15] Yeah.

[35:16] Well, that's not why you can't –

[35:17] It was an important lesson.

[35:18] That's why you put out that line of helmets for people.

[35:21] Yep.

[35:21] People probably know you best from Kinesis Head Protectors.

[35:24] Which I know.

[35:27] What they do – what I like about it is they're bespoke.

[35:29] Is that you go to the head protector store.

[35:31] They measure your head.

[35:32] Uh-huh.

[35:33] And they give you a bespoke helmet that fits your head.

[35:35] It means you can't share them, but that's okay.

Dan McCoy

[35:37] I like that she named them head protectors rather than helmet, a word that already exists.

[35:43] You can't trademark it.

Stuart Wellington

[35:45] Can't trademark it.

[35:46] I see.

[35:46] No.

[35:46] Yeah.

[35:47] The band Helmet tried and failed.

[35:49] They did.

Elliott Kalan

[35:49] Yeah, they couldn't do it.

[35:51] And also Helmet Cole tried to.

[35:56] Lange.

[35:57] Lange.

[35:58] Helmet Lange, yeah.

[35:59] Yeah.

[35:59] There's a lot of helmets out there.

[36:00] A lot of examples.

[36:02] So now they're really on the run.

[36:04] And we're introduced to our new characters, detectives Wiles and Malloy.

[36:08] This is Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz.

[36:10] Wiles is the detective.

[36:11] Malloy is technically a secretary, but she's the one who really comes up with all the brilliant deductions.

Dan McCoy

[36:15] But she's a woman, so no one trust her.

[36:18] A ring to steel arrangement kind of going on.

Elliott Kalan

[36:20] Yes, very much so, yeah.

[36:21] They're on Frank's trail.

[36:23] Meanwhile, Frank gets in a fountain and collects pennies.

[36:25] I guess they're in New York now, it turns out.

[36:27] Yeah.

[36:28] And the bride sees a newspaper story about them, and he tells her her old name was Penelope Rogers, which she doesn't love.

[36:33] So she says, call me Penny instead.

[36:35] Call me pretty Penny.

[36:36] And she starts giving Frank a blowjob, but he does not want it.

[36:39] And it brings to mind a question that I think Stuart was probably asking.

[36:42] Yeah.

[36:43] Like the castle freak, what is the situation with Frankenstein's penis?

Stuart Wellington

[36:48] Yeah, I want to see that.

[36:49] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[36:49] I want to see that crank.

[36:51] So young Frankenstein would have us believe that he has an amazing penis.

[36:55] But it's not really touched on and probably flesh for Frankenstein also.

Dan McCoy

[36:57] Well, because they had their choice, you know.

[36:59] Like they didn't have to settle with whatever God gave.

Elliott Kalan

[37:02] I mean, they had their choice of who was recently buried in an Eastern European cemetery.

[37:07] I don't know if that's the best place to go dick shopping.

[37:09] Do you?

[37:09] Maybe.

[37:10] I mean, apparently.

[37:11] There was a good selection that day.

[37:13] Yeah.

[37:14] But Frank doesn't want it.

[37:15] He pushes her away.

[37:16] Meanwhile, the detectives are investigating.

[37:18] And we learn their relationship that she's the real detective.

[37:22] She's the sheriff.

[37:23] Whereas he is kind of the face who takes advantage of that.

Stuart Wellington

[37:26] He's a sandwich enthusiast.

[37:28] He's like, he's the one who will distract the, he'll like charm the local cops while she does the actual work.

[37:34] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[37:35] And Frank is, she's with the bride.

[37:39] They're on the run.

[37:39] He assures her that the man from the train is fine.

[37:41] The one that she killed.

[37:43] And they go to the movies.

[37:44] He steals a pretzel for her and says that pretzels were her favorite.

[37:47] And they go see a movie that is kind of white zombie and kind of not.

[37:52] Like it has footage from white zombie.

Stuart Wellington

[37:53] He wants to go to a dance movie, but she's already seen that one.

[37:56] So she takes him to a zombie movie.

Elliott Kalan

[37:58] And they're all wearing 3D glasses.

[37:59] And there's a couple in front of them where the man is very loudly pressuring the woman to have sex with him, I guess, in the theater.

[38:05] In a crowded theater.

[38:06] In a very crowded theater.

[38:08] They're jostling people next to them.

[38:09] And the bride steps in and the man calls for a monster.

[38:13] But I wasn't sure what she did that was particularly monstery there.

[38:17] I guess, again, it's, there's something, there's the thing, I guess it's at this point, people can just tell by looking at them they're monsters.

[38:22] The audience chases them out as a mob and the detectives follow.

[38:25] The detectives there too.

[38:27] And the bride, this one, the bride says, call me Penny.

[38:29] I want to be called Penny.

[38:30] They escape into a fancy soiree where this was the funniest part of the movie.

[38:33] They both pretend to be waiters by picking up trays.

[38:36] Even though she is wearing a torn dress and has ink all over her face and her hair is wild.

[38:42] He is wearing this mask.

[38:44] And he flips his coat inside out.

[38:46] He flips his coat inside out so you can see the filthy inside of it.

[38:49] Like that's going to make him seem like more of a waiter.

[38:51] But it works for a little bit.

[38:53] But who's at this party?

Stuart Wellington

[38:54] I think it shows how little regard rich people have for the servant class.

[38:59] I guess that makes sense.

Elliott Kalan

[39:00] And they're just stealing things.

[39:01] He's just taking shrimp and stuffing it in his pocket, which is a hilarious way to carry shrimp.

Dan McCoy

[39:05] I don't want to tip my hand about my reaction to this movie.

[39:09] But if all of the scenes had been more like this scene, I think I would have liked this movie a lot more.

[39:15] Especially considering that it ends in them somehow dance bewitching the crowd.

[39:20] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[39:21] So it helps that Ronnie Reed is there.

[39:24] Oh, my God.

[39:25] Ronnie Reed, Jake Gyllenhaal himself.

[39:27] And Frankenstein is so overcome.

[39:28] He tells Ronnie, I saw you in Vaughnville.

[39:30] What?

[39:30] How'd they get him?

[39:31] How'd they get Jake?

[39:32] How'd they get the Jakester?

[39:34] There's no way of knowing.

Stuart Wellington

[39:35] Maybe at a day break from filming Roadhouse.

[39:39] Probably just came over from Roadhouse.

Elliott Kalan

[39:42] He probably just came over.

[39:43] I mean, he looks nothing like he does at Roadhouse.

[39:44] He looks half the size than he did in Roadhouse.

[39:46] What are they talking about?

[39:47] Maybe they just deflated him for the day and then reinflated him in Roadhouse.

Stuart Wellington

[39:52] Jesus Christ.

[39:53] I'm watching the same movie?

[39:57] I gotta say, so Frank shows up and he interrupts Ronnie and he is like overcome.

[40:03] He's starstruck.

[40:04] Yeah.

[40:04] And he's starstruck.

[40:05] And I gotta say, I love this performance from Christian Bale.

[40:09] His like level of freaking out starstruckness.

[40:12] I have seen people do this.

[40:13] Yeah.

[40:13] And it's like so wild.

[40:15] It feels like he's really drawn.

Elliott Kalan

[40:17] He must be drawing from experiences he has had where people have been like this.

[40:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[40:21] But what were you going to say to him?

[40:21] And like the Ronnie Reed, Ronnie Reed, like, you know, he, he, he takes it and then he's

[40:27] obviously put off by it.

[40:28] But I feel like he isn't as big of an asshole as he could have been.

Dan McCoy

[40:32] Yeah.

[40:33] There's a version of this definitely where he was like, he's like a total asshole.

[40:36] Whereas this one, he's just kind of like, I don't know what to do right now.

Elliott Kalan

[40:41] I'm, I'm, I'm looking up right now.

[40:43] So the movie they go to see is Revolt of the Zombies, which I have not seen, but it's a,

[40:47] it uses footage from white zombies.

[40:49] So that's why that shot of Bela Lugosi, I was like, that's from white zombie.

[40:52] Thanks for closing that circle.

[40:53] Yeah.

[40:53] Man.

[40:54] I just didn't want anyone to write in about it because it would have been a waste of their

[40:56] time.

[40:57] So yeah, Frank is, he does, Christian Bill does a really great job here of presenting

[41:01] a guy who wants to make an emotional connection with a celebrity so badly and does not recognize

[41:07] that it's not going the way he wants it to.

[41:10] And he's like, I survived because of you.

[41:12] And Ronnie brushes him off.

[41:13] He's like, well, yeah, you're not my type.

[41:14] Ha ha.

[41:14] And Frank goes into this dance and that's when they dance to putting on the Ritz.

[41:18] He and the bride are dancing.

[41:19] The party goers all start dancing.

[41:21] Big dance number.

[41:22] I really like this dance number.

[41:23] There's a lot of, there's a lot of good stuff here.

Dan McCoy

[41:24] Audrey came in for just like this scene basically.

[41:27] And she's like, how are they doing this to people?

[41:30] I'm like, I don't know, man.

[41:32] They're just overcome.

Stuart Wellington

[41:34] Dan dancing along with them.

[41:36] Like, I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[41:39] It's just a thing that happened.

Elliott Kalan

[41:41] And you're like, well, this is also a world where Mary Shelley is a real person and Frankenstein is a real person.

[41:47] So, and then Audrey was like, oh, like in Don Quixote?

[41:51] And you're like, yeah, I guess so.

[41:52] Whatever.

Dan McCoy

[41:54] Shut up.

[41:55] Shut up about Don Quixote.

[41:56] You're always telling me about Don Quixote.

[41:59] Oh, this is like Don Quixote.

[42:00] Great.

Elliott Kalan

[42:01] Fine.

[42:02] In the second part of the book, people are reading Don Quixote and they're talking to Don Quixote about having read his book about him.

[42:07] Anyway, so.

Dan McCoy

[42:07] Trying to shame me about only reading the first half of Don Quixote.

Elliott Kalan

[42:12] It's a long book, buddy.

[42:13] Audrey's like, hey, Dan, I had a question for you.

[42:15] What happens in the second part of Don Quixote?

[42:17] And he's like, shut up.

[42:18] Stop lording it over me.

[42:19] He's over a table.

[42:20] Yeah.

[42:22] So, the audience from the movie and all the detectives enter.

[42:25] The bride recognizes Detective Wiles from her old life.

[42:30] And he definitely recognizes her.

[42:32] Yeah.

[42:32] And the bride gets a gun and puts Ronnie Reed at gunpoint.

[42:34] And she's like, you got to go get this mob boss, Lupino.

[42:37] He kills women and cuts their tongues out.

[42:39] And I'm like, this is a weird way to introduce this new information.

[42:42] Yeah.

[42:43] It's weird.

[42:44] With very little.

[42:45] We mentioned this was the mob boss that Ida mentioned much earlier.

[42:48] But otherwise, he has not been an element in this movie.

[42:51] Not at all.

Dan McCoy

[42:52] It is one of the strangest things to me that this movie about the bride is also a mob movie.

[43:02] Yeah.

[43:02] I was like, why is this what this became?

Elliott Kalan

[43:06] Because it's in the 30s.

[43:07] So, it's also the mob.

[43:09] I mean, it was either going to be that or it was going to bring in Marcel Duchamp's monumental landmark work, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors.

[43:16] Sure.

[43:17] Also known as the large glass.

Dan McCoy

[43:18] It had to do one of those two things.

Elliott Kalan

[43:20] It had to do one of those things.

[43:21] I thought they went with gangsters instead of really engaging with the work of, I'm just going to say it, the most important artist of the 20th century.

[43:28] If you want to engage with it, there's a big retrospective of his work at the Museum of Modern Art right now.

[43:33] I saw it when I was in New York last weekend.

[43:35] I highly recommend it.

[43:36] Sponsored content?

[43:36] Yeah.

[43:37] Sponsored by my interest in Marcel Duchamp.

[43:39] Anyway, so, she starts accusing the men in the room of attacking women.

[43:42] She seems to be able to see things that they have done in their past to women.

[43:47] And she's channeling these angry dead women.

[43:49] And this is an idea that I wish the movie had done more with.

[43:51] The idea that all the wronged dead women of the world are now rushing through the bride to try to get justice.

[43:58] But that – it kind of has dropped a little bit.

[44:00] She shoots a cop.

[44:01] Frank tears down a chandelier.

[44:02] Very Phantom of the Opera.

[44:03] That's a different monster.

[44:05] They escape in the chaos.

[44:07] And Frank is like, I loved it.

[44:08] That was so impressive.

[44:09] And she feels guilty.

[44:10] He's like, no, you're great.

[44:11] And they start making out.

[44:12] But then Wiles shows up and they run away smiling.

[44:15] Then this is when Frank and the bride go on a kind of like sex and movies and driving spree.

[44:20] And in another movie, this would have been a crime spree.

[44:23] But they really just seem to be driving and having sex.

[44:25] Yeah.

[44:26] So it's just a long montage of them doing that.

[44:31] Frank gets a tattoo.

[44:32] They take more pennies from fountains.

[44:34] That's apparently – I mean, in the 30s, you could do that.

[44:36] You could fund your life by pennies from fountains.

[44:38] Pennies from fountains.

[44:39] And Dr. Euphronius is aghast to discover that women are dressing as the bride and rioting as what they call a brain attack revolution.

[44:47] Earlier, the bride said this is a brain attack.

Stuart Wellington

[44:49] I do kind of love that.

[44:50] Brain attack is a really funny thing to shout.

Elliott Kalan

[44:52] She goes, brain attack.

[44:54] This is a brain attack.

[44:55] And so they're all like, yeah, this is a brain attack.

Stuart Wellington

[44:57] Yeah, that's what fucking Professor X says when he starts blasting.

[45:01] He goes, brain attack.

[45:02] He wheels from behind the corner.

[45:06] I expect this brain attack.

[45:09] Magneto's like, fuck.

[45:11] Fuck this guy again with the brain attack shit.

Elliott Kalan

[45:15] Who's saying that exactly?

Stuart Wellington

[45:18] Magneto.

[45:19] Magneto says that shit.

[45:20] He's like, man.

[45:20] He's like, I got a helmet to protect me from your brain attacks.

[45:22] He's like, I survived the fucking camps for this.

[45:25] Whoa.

[45:28] I didn't write the backstory.

Elliott Kalan

[45:30] That is his backstory.

[45:31] Yeah.

[45:32] So it's the same way that in England, instead of an idea, they call it a brain wave.

[45:36] And I'm like, that always seems like a – they're like, oh, I just got a brain wave.

[45:39] And I'm like, that sounds way cooler than it actually is.

[45:41] Yeah.

[45:42] You just got an idea.

[45:43] So this is another thing that's kind of happening way in the background, but you'd think would be a bigger part of the movie, is the fact that women all across America are essentially rebelling against male society because of the bride's example.

[45:54] But the bride is not really engaged in it.

[45:56] Again, she and Frank are just in this more Frankenstein, you could call it.

Stuart Wellington

[46:01] I feel like this is another example.

[46:04] This movie has a number of these moments and ideas where it feels like the filmmaker had an idea that she wanted to present, like a feminist theme or whatever.

[46:16] And the rest of the movie doesn't really support it.

[46:19] There's not enough stuff laid in there.

[46:22] There's just like, hey, we had this big idea we want to champion, but there's not enough groundwork laid.

[46:28] It feels, in a lot of ways, it feels, I hate to say, but it feels fairly an immature handling of the ideas.

Elliott Kalan

[46:35] It feels kind of a little messy and a little disorganized.

[46:39] And it could all be cut out of the movie without affecting the movie.

[46:42] Yes.

S4

[46:43] Like the feminist stuff, like it could simply like win later, like the tongues getting cut out, all that stuff.

[46:50] You could just simply snip it out.

[46:51] It'd be a shorter and maybe better movie.

Elliott Kalan

[46:53] Maybe, perhaps.

[46:54] Although I think – or I would – I mean my argument would be like increase that stuff.

[46:59] Like that's the more – that's more interesting to me than Frankenstein and – because eventually what happens – we'll walk through a point.

Stuart Wellington

[47:04] Frankenstein, Bonnie, and Clyde is what you're doing.

Elliott Kalan

[47:06] Eventually, Bonnie, and Clyde, and it starts to get a little repetitive.

[47:08] And there are times where I'm like I want other things to be happening.

[47:11] Well, here's something that's going to happen.

[47:12] That mob boss, Lupino, he meets with the guys who killed Ida earlier and they refer to the bride by her full name, Ida Bolinski.

[47:20] And he shows off his jars of women's tongues that he collects and just keeps on public display in a bar.

[47:28] And he kills one of the guys because that guy is, I guess, belittling the situation.

[47:33] And he tells the other guy, I want the bride's tongue for my collection.

[47:36] Bum, bum, bum.

Stuart Wellington

[47:38] I wish they actually did that sound effect when he said that.

Elliott Kalan

[47:43] We go back to Wiles and Malloy and Wiles is like, the bride, you know, she's not bad.

[47:47] She had a rough life and Malloy is suspicious about the relationship he must have had with Ida.

[47:51] And Malloy realizes – she's pieced together.

[47:54] Frank and the bride, they only go to towns where they can see Ronnie Reed movies in the theaters.

[47:58] So if you just track where Ronnie Reed's movies are playing, you can find them.

[48:01] So she knows they're going to Niagara Falls.

[48:03] Slowly they turn step by step to the movie theater.

[48:07] And Molly is like, if we catch –

Stuart Wellington

[48:08] My wife makes reference to that all the fucking time.

[48:11] And she looks at me like, do you get it?

[48:14] And I'm like, there's no universe where I would have gotten that.

[48:17] I'm not familiar with what, like an old vaudeville bit?

Elliott Kalan

[48:20] It is an old vaudeville routine that most people – I certainly learned it first when watching The Three Stooges.

[48:25] The Three Stooges.

[48:25] But it really is just an old vaudeville routine where a guy is referring to – whenever he hears the words Niagara Falls, he goes into a trance and remembers something terrible.

[48:34] And it always ends with him throttling the other guy who said Niagara Falls.

[48:37] But all he ever says is what happened is, slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch.

[48:43] And you don't ever learn the story of what happened.

Stuart Wellington

[48:45] It's such a bizarre routine.

[48:47] Every time it's been described to me, I'm like, I don't understand why this is hilarious.

Elliott Kalan

[48:53] It's like no soap radio.

[48:54] It's really only funny if you know it's a joke, basically.

Dan McCoy

[48:57] There's that Abbott and Costello thing, like the hat company.

[49:00] Was that just like a take on that essentially?

[49:02] Do you know what I'm talking about?

[49:03] I don't remember that one.

[49:04] Which one was that?

[49:04] It shows up in the movie Orgy, which I know that you haven't seen.

[49:09] I haven't watched it yet.

[49:10] Yeah.

[49:11] It's just like the Calahonga Hat Company or something like that.

[49:16] Some funny name, Calahoga Hat Company.

[49:18] It's not that funny.

[49:21] And he's like selling this thing of hats and everyone he encounters is like, the Calahoga Hat Company.

[49:27] And they've got like some like beef with the company that ends up with them like punching a hole in the hat.

[49:32] That must be.

Elliott Kalan

[49:33] I think.

[49:33] But do they describe what the beef is or no?

Dan McCoy

[49:36] I think actually they do in that case.

[49:39] So it's a little different.

Elliott Kalan

[49:40] It might be a take, a twist on it where they're like, oh, but we're actually going to bring some reality to it.

[49:45] Because then the joke is that, I guess, that he's shilling for a hat company that everybody hates.

[49:50] He's never going to sell one of these hats.

[49:52] But it's a little, Abbott and Costello would do those routines.

[49:54] They're all old vaudeville things.

[49:55] But the one where it's like they're at a restaurant and they don't want the restaurant people to know that they don't have any money.

[50:01] So Abbott is like, when the waitress comes by, you don't order a thing.

[50:05] Okay.

[50:06] And we're just going to, and when the waitress comes by, she goes, do you want something?

[50:10] And Costello's like, no, no, nothing.

[50:11] And Abbott's like, come on, we're here.

[50:13] Get something.

[50:14] All right.

[50:15] All right.

[50:15] I'll have a ham sandwich.

[50:16] And as soon as the waitress walks away, he's like, what are you doing?

[50:18] And he hits them.

[50:19] He's like, I told you not to order anything.

[50:21] And then when the waitress comes, he goes, forget that sandwich.

[50:23] Forget that sandwich.

[50:23] Sure you don't want anything?

[50:24] Come on.

[50:24] We're here.

[50:25] Get something to eat.

[50:26] You're hungry.

[50:27] And it's one of those things where when you're watching, you're like, why is he doing any of this?

[50:33] He just wants an excuse to hit him.

[50:34] Anyway, so Malloy has pieced it together and she says, if we catch these monsters, I want credit for the bust.

[50:41] And Wiles is like, I can't promise that.

[50:43] And Frank and the bride, they're on their way to Niagara Falls.

[50:45] He makes up a story about how he proposed to her, but the police pull him over.

[50:49] The cop starts sexually harassing the bride.

Stuart Wellington

[50:52] Cop played by Louis Cancel Me.

[50:55] Who is that?

[50:56] His name.

[50:57] Yeah.

[50:57] That's his name?

[50:58] Yeah.

[50:58] His name's Louis Cancel Me.

[51:00] He's in Killers of the Flower Moon.

[51:02] That's it.

[51:02] I recognized him, but I could not remember where I recognized him from.

[51:05] Sorry, baby, too.

[51:06] He's always a bad guy.

[51:07] Yes.

[51:07] He is a bad guy whose behavior would lead him to get canceled.

S4

[51:11] True.

[51:12] He's also in The Penguin doing bad guy shit.

Elliott Kalan

[51:16] And ironically, in this movie, his name is Officer Goodman.

[51:19] And he's certainly not a good man.

[51:20] He's a bad man.

[51:22] Yeah.

[51:22] So he's sexually harassing.

[51:24] That's his name.

[51:25] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[51:27] I mean, the me is spelled M-I, but yeah.

[51:30] Yeah.

[51:31] There you go.

Elliott Kalan

[51:31] Okay.

[51:32] I mean, it was probably like, Cancel Me at some point.

[51:35] So this guy, he's really being a bad man, not a good man.

[51:40] And Frank shoots him.

[51:43] The bride starts biting his tongue out in a scene that my wife found gross.

[51:47] And then a cop shoots the bride.

[51:49] Frank shoots him.

[51:50] It's a full shot.

[51:51] And then the bride finally gets around to finishing biting the guy's tongue out.

[51:54] And Frank and the bride run away on foot.

[51:56] Uh-oh.

[51:56] Now they're really.

[51:57] What does she do with the tongue?

[51:59] Sorry.

[51:59] I think she just spits it out.

[52:00] I think she spits it out.

[52:01] Oh, okay.

[52:01] Or maybe she starts her own collection.

[52:04] Much like.

[52:04] Everybody's doing it.

[52:05] Yeah, you gotta start somewhere.

[52:07] The 30s.

[52:07] Much like the scene in the first issue of Madman where Madman bites a guy's eye out.

[52:11] He then spits it out because he's like, ugh, I don't want this.

[52:14] It turns out.

[52:14] Yes.

[52:15] Thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[52:16] Mike Allred, if you're listening.

[52:17] Hey.

Elliott Kalan

[52:18] Mike Allred, if you're listening.

[52:19] Huge fan.

[52:20] Love your work.

[52:20] Yeah, big fan.

[52:21] Thank you for making it.

[52:21] Love it.

[52:22] I just saw that the big Madman omnibuses are in paperback now, and I'm definitely gonna buy them.

[52:27] Oh, that's great.

[52:27] So, everyone shows up at Niagara Falls.

[52:30] The detectives, our people, Lupino's mob assassin.

[52:35] Meanwhile, the bride's really hungry, but she also feels guilty about biting that guy's tongue off.

[52:39] And she runs out and fires her gun in the air and asks, was I like this before I died?

[52:44] And then Wiles shows up to help her, and he calls her Ida, and he says this was his fault, and he apologizes.

[52:49] I'm not, this is never quite fully explained.

[52:51] I guess you're just gonna have to read into it.

[52:53] Oh, no, actually, no, it kind of is.

[52:54] It kind of is.

[52:55] Yeah, we get the story.

[52:56] We kind of get the story.

[52:57] Malloy shoots Frank.

[52:58] The bride shoots Wiles, says, don't fuck your witnesses.

[53:01] In the foot, though.

[53:02] In the foot, that's right.

[53:03] Frank gets jealous, and they drive off, and the bride is annoyed with Frank that he lied to her about their past, basically.

[53:08] Now I think she kind of understands her past, which it turns out, what was it, that he was investigating Lupino?

Stuart Wellington

[53:14] He was using her as a CI to build a case against Lupino.

[53:19] And he was using women to infiltrate the gang, and then the case just got canceled.

[53:26] Yes, but they fell in love.

[53:27] Yeah, well, the case got canceled, and she came to him and was like, is there any way you can bring it back?

[53:33] And he was like, yeah, I can.

[53:35] And using that energy, he started sleeping with her, even though he knew it wasn't going to happen.

Elliott Kalan

[53:42] Okay, you remembered it much better than I did.

[53:44] And Wiles is like, I'm resigning, but I'm going to name you as my replacement.

Stuart Wellington

[53:48] I don't think you can do that.

[53:49] You don't do that.

Elliott Kalan

[53:50] Yeah.

[53:50] He's allowed to do it.

[53:52] It's a movie.

[53:52] It's like a fucking hedge knight over here.

Dan McCoy

[53:55] I, a detective, have now, yeah, like I pulled out my gun and tapped it on both of your shoulders.

Elliott Kalan

[54:01] What's funny is he kind of gives her his badge, I think, and she uses it later, and it's like, but that has his number, right?

[54:05] That's attached to his name.

[54:07] Like it's, anyway.

[54:08] Here's a different time special deal.

Dan McCoy

[54:10] Yeah.

[54:11] He does, yeah.

[54:11] He's the police department special little boy.

[54:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[54:15] Malloy, like how it always bugged me in Return of the Jedi when they're like, Captain Solo, you'll be leading this mission.

[54:21] Have you picked your team?

[54:22] And it's like all his buddies are like, I'll join you, Han.

[54:24] Yeah, me too.

[54:25] And it's like, yeah, the cool kids get to choose what mission they're on.

[54:28] This is literally the most important mission that Rebellion has ever had.

[54:32] And it's just like, yeah, who wants to be part of the party?

[54:35] Like it doesn't matter what your skills are or anything.

[54:36] So we'll bring along a robot that has to roll in the forest.

[54:40] We'll bring another robot that just kind of stutters, stutters around.

Dan McCoy

[54:43] The team has been responsible for all of the Rebellion's big wins.

[54:46] Fucking the results speak for themselves, bitch.

Elliott Kalan

[54:51] I guess so.

[54:53] That is the A team.

[54:54] Meanwhile, Luke is like, I could help you with this, but I need to talk to my dad.

[54:59] I need to convince my dad he's a good man, even though he's killed probably millions, if not billions of sentients.

[55:04] All evidence shows he's a bad man.

[55:05] He is a bad man.

[55:06] See you later, Luke.

[55:08] But they're like, he can't be all that bad.

[55:10] Even though he killed all those other people, he did save his son.

[55:13] The one person he has an investment in.

[55:15] So he must be a good guy.

[55:16] You know?

[55:17] Anyway.

[55:18] So that's one of my many beefs with Star Wars.

[55:20] Yeah.

[55:21] Wow.

Stuart Wellington

[55:22] I'm so glad you saved it for our episode on Star Wars.

[55:28] We haven't talked about any Star Wars things recently.

Elliott Kalan

[55:31] It's so rare we get to talk about Star Wars on this podcast.

[55:34] So Frank is injured.

[55:36] They get tracked to a drive-in theater showing another Ronnie Reed movie.

[55:40] And Frank, Frank it.

Stuart Wellington

[55:42] She's like, he's been shot.

[55:43] How do I heal him?

[55:44] The power of movies.

[55:45] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[55:46] Nicole Kidman.

[55:47] Lay your hands upon him.

Elliott Kalan

[55:49] Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this.

[55:55] And Frank admits, hey, we didn't have a relationship.

[55:57] You were a dead lady and I revived you.

[56:01] And Ida gets out of the car angrily.

[56:02] She throws up.

[56:03] She renames herself The Bride, which is a weird way for her to differentiate herself from the man is to name herself The Bride.

[56:10] Again, unless she is thinking of Marcel Duchamp's The Bride stripped bare by her bachelors, where the bride covers above The Bachelors.

[56:17] And it is very much that she is the one in control of that situation.

[56:20] Even though they're stripping her bear, they are the ones who are jostling for her support.

[56:24] And she's in this other realm above them.

[56:27] So maybe that's what she's referring to.

[56:27] Why do they have a bear?

[56:33] That's a question modern art critics have been debating for decades and decades.

[56:37] Yeah.

[56:38] Frank declares his love, licks her throat, proposes to her for real.

[56:41] She says no.

[56:42] And then Lupino's guy, I think, shoots Frank in the head.

[56:45] Yeah, blast him.

[56:46] And now the cops are there and she drives off with Frank and the cops chase her.

Stuart Wellington

[56:50] And he also, when he explained the situation, he also let her understand that Euphronius can bring a dead person back to life.

[56:58] Yes, yes.

[56:59] Which is an important element.

[57:00] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[57:00] Yeah.

[57:01] In this tightly plotted piece of work.

[57:03] Thank you.

[57:03] And Mary Shelley, she's like, I like the name The Bride.

[57:06] And it's like, really?

[57:06] Because it seems like that, again, would be against what you were going for.

[57:10] And the bride takes Frank to Euphronius' house.

[57:14] Malloy tracks them there.

[57:15] And Euphronius is like, I can't bring him back to life.

[57:19] And the bride's like, yes, you can.

[57:20] I love him.

[57:21] And Euphronius is like, I had a man I loved.

[57:25] And I brought him back from the dead.

[57:26] And he wasn't the same.

[57:27] So I had to kill him again.

[57:28] Fucking pet cemetery, huh?

Stuart Wellington

[57:31] And it's a backstory she should have brought up earlier, I feel like.

Elliott Kalan

[57:34] I think so.

[57:35] When she pretended that she couldn't do it, you know.

[57:37] And then the mob assassin shows up again, shoots the bride.

[57:41] The police burst in.

[57:42] They shoot her a lot.

[57:43] This is very Bonnie and Clyde.

[57:44] Yes.

[57:45] Until Malloy is like, stop, stop.

[57:46] Everybody go outside.

[57:48] And they all listen to her because she's the detective now.

[57:50] So she's the boss.

[57:51] She's the sheriff.

[57:52] And Mary Shelley laughs at the end of the story.

[57:55] And Euphronius is like, I am not going to bring them back.

[57:57] Or at least acts like she's not going to.

[57:59] Outside, the cops arrest the Lupinos guy, even though he basically just did the same thing they did.

[58:04] Which was she shot the bride a bunch of times.

[58:06] And Malloy looks up and sees electricity.

Dan McCoy

[58:07] You're in the arrest for shooting the bride a bunch of times.

[58:10] You don't have a license to kill.

Elliott Kalan

[58:13] Like we do.

[58:14] You may not know that in this county, shooting the bride a bunch of times is a jailable offense.

[58:19] Oh, but officer.

[58:20] Officer Malloy.

[58:20] So Malloy looks up, sees electricity light up the lab.

[58:24] And I see Frank and the bride, their hands move.

[58:27] And they hold each other's hands as Monster Mash plays.

[58:31] And then we get, and it was so funny because you hear the,

[58:34] and I was like, so this is Monster Mash, right?

[58:37] And it was at that point that it really hit me.

[58:41] I'm like, oh, she's just, she's playing with every single Frankenstein thing that she can get her hands on.

[58:46] So it was like, okay, now I have no more doubts that she is aware that young Frankenstein exists.

[58:50] And that when he's singing, putting on the Ritz, that he did that already in a movie.

Stuart Wellington

[58:53] And the breakfast scene is to elicit comparisons to Frankenberry.

[58:58] Yes, exactly.

[59:00] Now, normally, normally my history with Monster Mash is a little, is a little mixed because I often get angry when Dan McCoy,

[59:08] out of season, does Monster Mash for karaoke.

[59:11] That's the best part about it.

[59:13] If I did it by, right on Halloween, it wouldn't be as fun.

[59:16] So there's usually a picture of me in the background frowning or doing thumbs downs.

Elliott Kalan

[59:21] But I think here it really works.

[59:23] As someone who danced to Monster Mash at my wedding, not my first song.

[59:27] Wow.

[59:27] It was not the first wedding song.

[59:29] No.

[59:30] I only have eyes for you.

[59:31] But the, the, the,

[59:32] The second song?

[59:34] The what?

[59:34] I thought it was the second song.

[59:36] Yeah.

[59:36] Well, this was, it was later in the night.

[59:38] Okay.

[59:38] Someone else told the DJ to play Monster Mash.

[59:40] Mm-hmm.

[59:40] Because they know me.

[59:41] But the, and Dan, as a wedding present, drew a picture of my wife and I dancing with the monsters.

[59:47] So, and it's framed and hangs up in our house.

[59:49] So, but then, Stuart, I was going to ask about your history with mid-credits sequences.

[59:54] Did you see the mid-credits scene in this movie?

Stuart Wellington

[59:56] Elliot, what the fuck do you think?

Elliott Kalan

[59:59] My guess is no.

[1:00:01] As soon as the credits started rolling, you shut the movie off.

[1:00:03] I was on a plane, bitch.

[1:00:04] I want to put up, I want to start reading a book.

[1:00:07] Yeah.

[1:00:07] You're right.

[1:00:07] You're on a plane.

[1:00:08] You don't have the time to sit and see if there's a mid-credits scene.

[1:00:11] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:11] So, but, so the others of us may know that during the mid-credits scene, Wiles sees all these

[1:00:16] women dressed up like the bride and they're wielding weapons and they've captured Lupino,

[1:00:20] the gangster, and there's a pile of tongues in front of him.

[1:00:23] They're collecting their own trophies as they hunt through the men who have done them wrong.

[1:00:26] And so we see that the, not only have the bride and Frankenstein come back to life,

[1:00:29] but the movement she has sparked continues to live.

[1:00:32] Whoa, that's pretty crazy.

[1:00:34] I should have seen that.

[1:00:35] The brain attack lived on.

[1:00:36] You should have seen that.

[1:00:37] It's almost, I mean, I wouldn't say it is sinner's level.

[1:00:40] You need to sit through the credits or else you miss the movie.

[1:00:43] But I will say it is getting towards that level where you're like, well, this is a scene

[1:00:46] that doesn't have to be during the credits, you know.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:48] So that's the bride exclamation point.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:51] Everyone's alive.

[1:00:52] The Monster Mash exists.

[1:00:54] And women are running wild, cutting people's tongues out.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:56] The best of all possible worlds.

[1:00:58] Yeah.

[1:01:00] What do we do next, Dan?

[1:01:01] Oh, what we do next is, well, in a way, in a way, sort of, we sew up our feelings on the bride.

[1:01:08] And where we talk about our final judgments, whether we thought this was a good, bad movie,

[1:01:13] a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of like.

[1:01:16] And Kenise, if these are confusing or limiting as categories.

S4

[1:01:23] Yeah, I don't see Kenise being confused by the characters.

[1:01:25] I feel limited.

[1:01:26] I have strong opinions about it.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:29] Yeah, I just, you know, we're used to them.

[1:01:32] But the guest maybe needs some clarification.

[1:01:34] But anyway, The Bride.

[1:01:37] I found it to be, I know you seem to like it, Elliot.

[1:01:41] I found it to be a bad, bad movie.

[1:01:46] Theoretically, I would like this stuff.

[1:01:48] And I do respect that Maggie Gyllenhaal took a big swing.

[1:01:53] I would rather see something like this from movies.

[1:01:57] I would rather we get more movies where studios throw a bunch of money at something a little weirder, hoping it might work.

[1:02:06] I approve of all that stuff.

[1:02:07] The movie itself, I found surprisingly boring for something that has a bunch of nutty stuff happening in it.

[1:02:14] And was irritated by the Mary Shelley stuff and just kind of drifted away over time.

[1:02:23] But, Elliot, refute me, refute me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:25] I don't, I mean, I can't refute your own, as Robert Worshow says, you are a person sitting in a theater watching a movie and you can only register your own reaction to that.

[1:02:34] You cannot make yourself react in a different way.

[1:02:36] But I will say, I went into this being like, I'm not going to like this movie.

[1:02:39] And maybe that's why I ended up really liking it quite a bit.

[1:02:42] So this is a movie I liked in some way.

[1:02:44] Like, this is the kind of movie, for those of you who listened to our Wuthering Heights episode, this is the kind of movie I wished Wuthering Heights was more like.

[1:02:51] A movie taking big swings that, even if it is kind of a mess, there's a lot of, it feels a little bit like someone is telling you a story and forgetting parts of the story or remembering it partway through.

[1:03:01] Oh, yeah, yeah, I wanted this to happen, too.

[1:03:02] Oh, yeah, this thing.

[1:03:03] I forgot about this thing.

[1:03:05] But it really did take, by the end of it, I was like, this is what I wanted from, like I said, from Wuthering Heights, where it was like taking a piece of existing property and remixing it in a very different way and playing with it in different ways.

[1:03:19] And there was such a, like, sincerity throughout it that really got to me.

[1:03:24] In some ways, I hate to say it, in some ways, I think I like this more than the Del Toro Frankenstein because that felt very straightforward.

[1:03:32] And very, like, I was not that excited by it.

[1:03:35] Whereas this one, even when it wasn't working, I was like, I'm still kind of excited by seeing what's going to happen.

[1:03:40] And eventually it becomes a little repetitive.

[1:03:42] But, like, I ended up really liking it, if anything, because of the things I would normally not like in a movie, which is that it's a big old mess, but it's trying lots of different things.

[1:03:51] And also, there was a time in my life when I would have been like, that's not Frankenstein or whatever.

[1:03:55] But at this point, I feel about those kinds of characters the same way I feel about Shakespeare plays, where, like, if someone does a crazy version of a Shakespeare play, why get mad?

[1:04:05] There's going to be another one.

[1:04:06] This thing exists in other forms.

[1:04:07] This is never going to become the only Frankenstein movie that people are aware of or know of.

[1:04:11] So I'm ready for someone to take a kind of a wild swing with these characters.

[1:04:15] So I ended up really liking it in ways that – I mean, it's also like – in some ways, it's like – she's like, well, I took Frankenstein and I added 1930s Fred Astaire-type musicals.

[1:04:23] I'm like, well, you made a movie for me, I guess.

[1:04:26] So even though I don't – if you were saying to me, does this movie work?

[1:04:30] I would say no.

[1:04:31] I don't think it completely works.

[1:04:32] But I did like it, you know, in contrast to that, you know.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:38] Stuart, what do you guys think?

[1:04:39] Stuart, you go.

[1:04:39] Give Kenice the last word.

[1:04:41] The space, sure.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:42] I'm going to – I don't think I'm going to agree as wholeheartedly as Elliot, but I do – this is a movie that I kind of like.

[1:04:50] I do not think it works.

[1:04:53] No.

[1:04:54] I like things – I like enough things about it.

[1:04:59] And it does remind me of like – I mean, I'm going to say like it reminds me of like a weird 90s indie movie that I'm like expecting it to – like a fucking Tank Girl or something where I'm like, this is not going to work.

[1:05:14] And it's not going to be exactly what I want.

[1:05:16] But at this point in my life, I don't want things to be what I want.

[1:05:21] You know what I mean?

[1:05:22] Like I want to be surprised.

[1:05:23] And I feel like this movie does kind of surprise me in places like how large chunks of it just feel like a natural born killer's riff.

[1:05:30] But yeah, I think, you know, movie I kind of like.

S4

[1:05:34] I think Stuart that you and Elliot are being so kind.

[1:05:39] And I think that's –

[1:05:39] That's fair.

[1:05:40] That's really nice of you to do.

[1:05:42] And I – like we've all established, like so many people who were a part of this movie, to me, it's like adding olives to an apple pie.

[1:05:56] Like you said at this age I don't like things that I like.

[1:06:01] And I was like, well, okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:02] I don't want to be given what I want.

[1:06:05] Yeah, yes.

S4

[1:06:05] You don't want to be given exactly what you want.

[1:06:07] But I don't think the surprise olives in this apple pie works.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:12] And I agree with you.

[1:06:13] I do not think it works.

[1:06:15] But I'm still like, okay.

[1:06:18] That's a choice.

[1:06:19] It's a new experience for Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:21] It's one of those things where like I can't deny that I enjoyed watching it.

[1:06:25] You did.

[1:06:26] Interesting.

[1:06:26] I did.

[1:06:27] Even though watching it, I was like, well, this doesn't make any sense.

[1:06:29] Like what's going on here?

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:30] Yeah, the Mary Shelley stuff is like that's why.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:33] That's the one aspect of it where I was like I don't like this at all.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:35] Jesse Buckley was like I saw that in the script and had to do it.

[1:06:38] So they kept it in.

[1:06:40] Like I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:40] It definitely feels – the way that this was described to me before I saw it by somebody was that it's an actor directing a movie.

[1:06:46] So the actors are given license to just kind of go off and be as big as they want to be.

[1:06:52] And I can see that as a fair criticism of it.

[1:06:54] But I also kind of like that a little bit.

[1:06:56] Also a plus, yeah.

S4

[1:06:57] I hate it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:00] That is totally okay.

S4

[1:07:01] What are these choices?

[1:07:03] Jesse Buckley, I'm sure you're a nice lady, but you're doing a lot.

[1:07:08] And there's twitching and dancing and –

[1:07:10] She's definitely doing too much.

[1:07:12] Yeah.

[1:07:12] There's a lot happening in that.

[1:07:14] And I – also we are feminist in that women are killing men in the streets.

[1:07:20] But we're not feminists because men, anytime she's around dudes, they're going to try to sexually assault her.

[1:07:27] That's just what happens in this movie.

[1:07:29] She's existing sexual assault attempt at the club.

[1:07:32] She's driving sexual assault attempt by a police officer.

[1:07:35] Like it's constant.

[1:07:37] And I'm like, wait, am I as a woman supposed to be enjoying this?

[1:07:41] Just seeing another woman in peril all the time?

[1:07:44] This isn't fun for me.

[1:07:45] I – who is this for?

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:47] I think you're supposed to enjoy seeing those people get killed afterwards, you know.

S4

[1:07:50] I don't need to see her dress get torn open a bunch.

[1:07:53] That's fair.

[1:07:53] Like, okay, so there's the man who she doesn't know.

[1:07:57] And then there's the man who she kind of knows who reanimated her, hits her, lies to her for the entirety of their relationship.

[1:08:06] And is kind of like, hey, I fucked up your life and you don't really have other options.

[1:08:11] So I guess you have to stay with me.

[1:08:12] And she's like, I guess I do.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:14] Wow, romantic.

[1:08:15] And like that's her – and that's part of the thing is like that's her like goal.

[1:08:20] Like that's the end of the movie for her.

[1:08:22] That's her arc.

[1:08:23] And I'm like, that feels stupid.

[1:08:25] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:26] I think it's –

[1:08:27] And shallow.

[1:08:28] It's like – yeah, the movie has like half ideas.

[1:08:31] Yes.

[1:08:31] Like it doesn't really have full ideas.

[1:08:32] It has half ideas.

[1:08:33] And it does – it's not – especially considering – and maybe it's dealing with the fact that this is not – it's kind of original subject matter even though it's pulling from those things.

[1:08:44] Whereas her last movie, The Lost Daughter, was so much more coherent.

[1:08:47] And it's a much smaller scale movie.

[1:08:49] But it's also based on one piece of work, you know?

[1:08:51] And so maybe it was easier then for her to build off of that.

[1:08:54] I hadn't read the original story, so I don't know.

[1:08:56] But the – but it does feel like she's – there's something very – again, it's something that I admire a little bit.

[1:09:04] But you're right.

[1:09:04] It doesn't work, which is that like it's just throwing out kind of half-baked thoughts.

[1:09:07] Yes.

[1:09:07] And not really completing them or thinking about them.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:10] And I think to defend Elliot and I, just for our opinions for one moment.

[1:09:14] I think you're amazing.

[1:09:16] I like you guys so much.

[1:09:17] And I'm saying you're – I'm also saying I think you're right.

[1:09:21] But I think Elliot and I are a little bit biased by the fact that we are watching a movie that is bad for the podcast.

[1:09:28] But it's bad in a way that we're not used to seeing Hollywood movies.

[1:09:32] Our brains have been warped.

[1:09:33] I definitely cannot –

[1:09:35] We have suffered a brain attack.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:36] I definitely cannot – again, like you can't remove your experience of everything from the context of it, right?

[1:09:40] I think this is in the context also of the last couple of movies we watched for this podcast were Wuthering Heights and The Mandalorian and Grogu.

[1:09:47] And those are movies where I'm like I wanted them to be like here's a new thing and said I did not get a new thing.

[1:09:51] So to get a new thing, even if it's a new thing that doesn't really work and has a lot of problems, I'm like, oh, well, it's a new thing.

[1:09:57] In a way, it's like – this is the negative comparison.

[1:10:01] But it's like all those people who are like I don't like Trump but he's different.

[1:10:04] He's new.

[1:10:06] But I would not focus the Trump movies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:08] I don't think this is a new thing but I believe it's a thing that is the – whatever it's like rewarming or like recooking is different than what we're used to getting.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:19] Yes, and there's such theater kid energy throughout the –

[1:10:21] There's other left-hand over in the back of the reader.

[1:10:24] That's what it is.

[1:10:25] This movie is suffused with theater kid energy which is something that I have come to appreciate more and more as I get older and which I found when I was a student at NYU and was surrounded by theater kids.

[1:10:34] It was not an energy I particularly cared for when I'm trying to have lunch and they're just getting up and shouting songs from rent at the next table over and I'm like –

[1:10:41] That sounds awful.

S5

[1:10:42] Can I just have lunch without counting the minutes in a year?

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:46] You're getting bullied by theater kids, Elliot.

[1:10:48] Exactly.

[1:10:49] It was more like –

[1:10:50] Madame.

[1:10:51] Sirs.

[1:10:52] It wasn't bullied so much as psychological torture by theater kids.

[1:10:55] But now I feel like there's a – I'm like, you know what?

[1:10:59] That's an energy I can appreciate more as long as it's happening on the other side of the screen and not right in front of me when I'm eating.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:04] Probably because a lot of the business now is run by executives who have no – have like negative theater kid creative energy.

[1:11:12] Yes.

[1:11:12] Well, yeah, that's true too.

S4

[1:11:13] I would love if they leaned into that.

[1:11:15] Like if instead of it being a two-hour and seven-minute movie that's trying to be all these things, if it had been almost like a visual album where you have these dance sequences and movie weird freakouts and then like ladies shooting people in the street, I would have been more interested in that than what was there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:31] It would have worked much better, to be honest, as a play I think.

[1:11:34] You could get away with that stuff more in a play.

[1:11:35] If I had seen this, I can very clearly see – when I was younger, my grandmother used to take me to the theater a lot.

[1:11:42] She had subscription tickets to a lot of theater companies.

[1:11:45] And we'd go see new plays that often did not work.

[1:11:47] They were often like a little bonkers.

[1:11:49] And I could so see her taking me to a play of this, of exactly this, and me walking out kind of liking it and her hating it and then us spending dinner talking about why we did or didn't like it.

[1:12:00] But I think it would have worked better in that way than it kind of does as a film.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:04] Well, also pre-release, this was sort of – there was all this word like, oh, it's a full-on musical.

[1:12:09] Yes.

[1:12:10] And it really isn't.

[1:12:11] No, it's not.

[1:12:11] But if it was, it would have worked a lot better, I think.

[1:12:13] Yeah, I think so.

[1:12:14] Like that would have been the fantastic element that really like pushes it in a way that's like, oh, I feel what this is, you know.

[1:12:21] Like it's allowing for this bigness maybe.

[1:12:24] Yeah.

[1:12:26] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:28] And I think it would have been good if there was more bigness in Frankenstein himself who is not as big as he usually is.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:33] Yeah.

[1:12:33] You want to get Zilla-sized Frank.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:35] Yeah, put some like shoulder pads on him.

[1:12:38] That's Frankenstein Conquers the World-sized Frankenstein where he fights Baragon.

[1:12:41] That's too big.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:42] You know, like put some like football shoulder pads under his coat so he looks really big.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:45] Give him some big boots.

[1:12:47] Give him some boots that lift him up.

[1:12:49] Yes.

[1:12:49] Come on.

[1:12:50] Come on, boots.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:51] Boots lift us up where we belong.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:55] If we're Frankenstein and we're not tall enough.

S5

[1:13:06] Hey, are you playing a video game right now?

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:09] Maybe you put on a podcast while grinding in an RPG.

[1:13:12] Or maybe you just don't want to hear that boss fight music one more time.

S5

[1:13:15] Been there.

[1:13:16] I'm Maddie Myers.

S4

[1:13:17] I'm Jason Schreier.

[1:13:18] And I'm Kirk Hamilton.

[1:13:20] We're the hosts of Triple Click, a video game podcast.

S5

[1:13:22] A podcast you can listen to while you do other things.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:25] Like driving or cooking or playing video games.

S5

[1:13:30] On Triple Click, we share our thoughts on the latest games.

[1:13:33] And breaking news out of the video game industry.

[1:13:36] And we also talk about other stuff besides games.

[1:13:39] So while you're doing something else, make sure to check out Triple Click.

[1:13:43] Listen on MaximumFun.org or wherever you find your podcasts.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:47] This episode of the Flophouse is sponsored by HIMSS.

[1:13:51] Look, if you are anything like me, two things are true.

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[1:14:40] There are no hidden fees, no surprise costs, just real personalized care on your schedule.

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Dan McCoy

[1:15:31] We have a pair of jumbotrons for you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:36] I'm seeing double here.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:37] Two jumbotrons?

[1:15:39] This first jumbotron is directed at Bert, and it is from Luke.

[1:15:47] And it goes like this.

[1:15:48] Robert, congrats on finishing law school.

[1:15:52] Love you, man.

[1:15:53] Now behold the power of money as I make Dan speak.

[1:15:56] It is I, Dan McCoy.

[1:15:58] And this is my real opinion.

[1:16:00] Talking heads are overrated, and I really only know maybe that one song about arson and that other one about wacky murderers.

[1:16:07] Also, I really did like the introduction of Walter to the Muppets.

[1:16:11] Well.

[1:16:12] Whoa, Dan.

[1:16:14] You cruelly exposed how I will dance for your dollars.

[1:16:18] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:20] That Dan, just like everyone, is just a little monkey with a little organ that he's grinding, holding out a can that he hopes you throw a penny into.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:26] Sitting here in the old content factory.

[1:16:28] It hurts my heart.

[1:16:30] It hurts my heart.

[1:16:31] But I did it.

[1:16:31] I did it for you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:32] You think you need to use AI to make Dan say things they doesn't believe, but no, Dan will do it.

[1:16:37] You know, he'll do that job.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:39] I mean, there are limits.

[1:16:40] I mean, if I object to something morally, we won't be taking that Jumbotron.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:43] Only one way to find out.

[1:16:45] Jumbotron users, find out what Dan won't say for money.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:48] Okay.

[1:16:49] I don't like this game.

[1:16:50] Anyway.

[1:16:52] But you know what?

[1:16:53] The Jumbotron taketh away, but the Jumbotron also giveth.

[1:16:56] Listen to this next Jumbotron.

[1:16:58] Wow.

[1:16:58] This message is for Dan McCoy and it is from Jim L.

[1:17:03] Happy birthday month or maybe belated birthday to Dan, the beating heart of the flop house.

[1:17:07] I know Dan has trouble accepting praise.

[1:17:09] Too bad, Dan.

[1:17:10] On behalf of all floppers, many thanks for the steady hand and hard work it takes to keep the podcast going.

[1:17:16] And for the hours-ish of joy, this nonsense provides every week many happy returns.

[1:17:22] How sweet.

[1:17:23] Thank you for that.

[1:17:25] You know, I will also be paid to say nice things to myself.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:29] You know, Dan's not very good at accepting praise.

[1:17:31] And I think sometimes Elliot and I are a bit scant with it.

[1:17:34] So, Dan, you are great and you are the beating heart.

[1:17:37] And you also were born at a date that was recent.

[1:17:43] He's only doing this because he knows I'm not good at accepting it.

[1:17:47] And you look very handsome today.

[1:17:50] And I'm proud of you for taking kickboxing classes at Jiggle Studio.

[1:17:53] Thank you.

[1:17:54] That is a true thing that actually happened.

[1:17:56] Yeah, I didn't invent it whole cloth.

[1:17:58] I'm not that creative.

[1:17:59] All right.

[1:18:00] Well, let's get back to the show.

[1:18:03] Wow.

[1:18:05] Dan's got to get off the Dan topic, I guess.

[1:18:07] I thought we were going to peel open this onion.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:09] Before we move on, I wanted to take a moment to tell people that joke farming, how to write comedy and other nonsense, my joke writing book from the University of Chicago Press is now available in audiobook form.

[1:18:21] Let's say you don't want to read it with your eyes.

[1:18:23] Let's say you want to listen to my mellifluous tones as they read the book to you while you do other things.

[1:18:30] Now you can do just that.

[1:18:31] Joke farming, the audiobook, as read by me, the author, but I didn't read it that way, is available wherever you can buy and download audiobooks.

[1:18:40] Please do buy it.

[1:18:42] Listen to it.

[1:18:43] Share it.

[1:18:44] It is all of my joke writing wisdom in one place for you.

[1:18:48] And I hope you enjoy.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:50] Let's answer some letters from listeners.

[1:18:53] Oh, I'm banging my microphone with my phone.

[1:18:57] So excited am I about these letters.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:59] Double phone, microphone, and telephone.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:01] Thanks for calling that, Elliot.

[1:19:03] Phone meets phone.

[1:19:04] Wow.

[1:19:05] And only one can win.

[1:19:07] Whoever had that on their Flophouse play-along card.

[1:19:12] Yep.

[1:19:14] I guess you, I don't know, you win some box tops.

[1:19:17] How does it work?

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:18] Yeah, you win the box tops, Dan.

[1:19:20] That's the big prize, yeah.

[1:19:21] You train the box tops for Flophouse script.

[1:19:24] There's a lot of steps.

[1:19:25] Flophouse.

[1:19:26] Wow.

[1:19:26] Yeah.

[1:19:27] You go to the Flophouse company store where you can get a, where you get a Flophouse raffle ticket.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:31] You laugh, but people like the, like the, the steps of it.

[1:19:36] Yeah.

[1:19:36] They like the, yeah.

[1:19:37] It's like a quest that you're on.

[1:19:39] Yeah.

[1:19:39] Yeah, exactly.

[1:19:40] Very boring quest.

[1:19:42] Yeah.

[1:19:45] Spoken like somebody who has never bought a beach towel using camel cash.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:50] You're right.

[1:19:51] I speak a lot of things as someone who's never bought a beach towel using camel cash.

[1:19:55] Roughly everything I say is spoken in that persona.

[1:19:58] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:00] Okay.

[1:20:00] This letter.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:01] Does the beach towel have a cam, have the camel logo on it?

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:04] It has fucking Joe Camel looking cool as hell.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:07] He's looking as the camel?

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:08] Yeah.

[1:20:09] Yeah.

[1:20:09] And he's got sunglasses on.

[1:20:11] Sure.

[1:20:11] He looks like, he looks, he looks like if Chester Cheetah was a camel and he's, and

[1:20:17] he smoked and said just ate, uh, scrotum candle.

[1:20:20] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:21] Scrotum candle.

[1:20:23] A scrotum candle is what they have at Moop, which is the male version of Goop.

[1:20:26] That's what a plenaculture's husband sells.

[1:20:28] Yeah.

[1:20:29] Um.

[1:20:30] So do you think, do you think Chester Cheetah and Joe Camel know each other?

[1:20:33] Of course they do.

[1:20:35] They're friends.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:36] I'm imagining.

[1:20:36] They're part of the like mascot pussy posse.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:40] They're a riot together.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:41] Pussy posse.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:42] I'm imagining a Tom of Finland style drawing of, of Chester Cheetah and Joe Camel having

[1:20:47] sex with each other.

[1:20:48] Is that a thing that exists?

[1:20:50] They're both going to have that, have that sunglasses biker aesthetic, you know?

[1:20:54] So.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:54] Yeah.

[1:20:55] I mean, I'm sure it's out there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:57] I guess, send that to Dan McCoy.

[1:20:58] You don't have to.

[1:20:59] One, two, three, face street.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:00] I believe it.

[1:21:02] I can imagine if I want to.

[1:21:04] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:05] That's what the, that's what the Tom of Finland in the Zootopia world would be drawing.

[1:21:08] That kind of stuff.

[1:21:09] Wow.

[1:21:09] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:10] Uh, this letter.

[1:21:12] That's what we're doing.

[1:21:13] Just reminding everyone.

[1:21:15] Yeah.

[1:21:15] This letter is from Kevin Lasting with Held who writes, I write you at 3 a.m. during my

[1:21:21] nightly baby watching shift for my month old newborn.

[1:21:25] I am currently in the thick of it and getting very little sleep.

[1:21:28] I've been there.

[1:21:29] I find myself exploring my hobbies during the darkest of hours from 1 a.m.

[1:21:34] To 8 a.m.

[1:21:35] Beyond listening or re-listening to your podcast, can each of you recommend any movies, shows,

[1:21:41] video games, or books that are easy to pick up and put down at the drop of a hat or sound

[1:21:46] of a poop and aren't so intense that I will feel the need to continue them when I transition

[1:21:52] to my sleep shift.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:53] The sound of a poop.

[1:21:55] Kevin.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:58] Now that I know the context, I could recommend the movie I used to watch in pieces when my

[1:22:04] second son was a baby.

[1:22:07] Yeah.

[1:22:08] Which was Stalker, the Tarkovsky movie, which I watched very slowly.

[1:22:13] Yeah.

[1:22:14] That's a lot.

[1:22:15] But I will say, but before I do the context, so I would say a couple movies that are very

[1:22:20] easy to pick up and put down because they're just scenes.

[1:22:22] They're not full-length stories are some of the movies that Roy Anderson, the Swedish

[1:22:26] director, has made.

[1:22:27] Songs from the Second Floor is one of them.

[1:22:29] You, the Living is another.

[1:22:30] And they're just kind of, they're almost sketch movies, but they're really well made

[1:22:34] and they're all, each scene is shot from one fixed angle and an entire set has been

[1:22:38] built around the camera, basically.

[1:22:40] And they're really amazing to look at.

[1:22:43] And some of them are really funny.

[1:22:44] And so those are movies where you can like, you watch a little bit, turn it off.

[1:22:47] You don't have to carry the story forward because there is no story.

[1:22:49] It's just one scene after another.

[1:22:51] But they're good.

[1:22:52] And it's all in Swedish.

[1:22:53] So you can watch it with the sound off if you want with subtitles.

[1:22:56] You don't wake the baby.

[1:22:57] And when it comes to books, you can pick up and put down.

[1:22:59] I just read The Life of Samuel Johnson.

[1:23:01] And most of that book is just Samuel Johnson and I went out to dinner and he said these things

[1:23:06] and that's it.

[1:23:07] So you can just pick it up and put it down.

[1:23:09] It's like you're hanging out with your friend Sam Johnson for a little bit and then you put it

[1:23:11] down and see him again later.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:13] Yeah.

[1:23:14] What do you guys have right there?

[1:23:14] When it comes to like reading things that you can pick up and put down, I'm a big fan

[1:23:20] of, oh my Lord, my brain just shut down.

[1:23:26] It just fell apart.

[1:23:27] Were you going to say The Life of Samuel Johnson?

[1:23:28] Yes, I did.

[1:23:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:23:30] No, no, no.

[1:23:31] I was going to say The Horror Comics Collections by Junji Ito.

[1:23:35] Oh, yeah.

[1:23:36] Perfect.

[1:23:36] Yeah, they're great.

[1:23:36] They're nice and short.

[1:23:38] That's something I'll read in the middle of the night.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:40] In the middle of the night when you've got a baby to keep saving.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:44] Yeah, yeah.

[1:23:44] You're going to start seeing odd spirals in your baby's.

[1:23:51] His poop is in a spiral.

[1:23:53] Oh.

[1:23:55] That'd be so concerning.

[1:23:55] I'm sorry.

[1:23:56] Have we talked about the Junji Ito cat comics?

[1:24:00] Those are the best.

[1:24:01] I only have seen those.

[1:24:02] I think, yeah, they're really great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:03] Have you seen, did you read the one?

[1:24:05] Have you seen Junji Ito's cat comics?

[1:24:08] Yeah, after the OJ case, he was going to start doing cat comics.

[1:24:10] He started doing the cat strip.

[1:24:12] He stands in front of a brick wall and he's like, hey, cats.

[1:24:17] Stuart, have you read the Junji Ito one where it's the thing that turns people into

[1:24:21] like gas-powered mechanical crabs or something?

[1:24:25] And there's a shark with robot legs that's running around eating people.

[1:24:28] That's a crazy one.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:34] Here's an idea.

[1:24:35] If you're going to read something in the middle of the night that you want to be sort of bite-sized,

[1:24:41] why not read something that's already sort of chopped up and bite-sized?

[1:24:46] This is heavily influenced by me looking over at my own bookshelf.

[1:24:51] But like get yourself, if you're a listener to this show, you probably like movies.

[1:24:57] You could get yourself like an old collection.

[1:24:59] You could get yourself an old collection of Pauline Kael or Roger Ebert like reviews, something

[1:25:04] like that.

[1:25:05] There's like some great books that Bleeding Skull put out that I liked about horror movies

[1:25:10] of the 80s and horror movies of the 90s where you can just kind of dip in and read some

[1:25:13] blurbs about things.

[1:25:15] And it doesn't take a lot of mental energy.

[1:25:17] But you're like half learning.

[1:25:19] You're learning silly stuff.

[1:25:22] Can you see any ideas?

S4

[1:25:24] Sure.

[1:25:25] As a person without children, that seems really tough what you're going through.

[1:25:29] And thank you for your service, I guess.

[1:25:33] It's great that other people do that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:35] I'm so happy for you guys.

[1:25:36] Keeps the human race going.

S4

[1:25:37] Yeah.

[1:25:38] Thanks.

[1:25:38] Thanks, Elliot.

[1:25:41] I mean, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, you know.

[1:25:43] Yeah.

[1:25:44] Yeah.

[1:25:45] I am a very big dorky lady.

[1:25:49] And I have started listening to Stephen Fry's.

[1:25:56] He has one on Greek mythology, Greek heroes, the Troy, and now the Odyssey.

[1:26:05] And the stories are quite short because they're the stories of Greek mythology.

[1:26:10] And it's just a British.

[1:26:11] I listen to the audiobooks.

[1:26:12] It's just a British man kind of chill.

[1:26:16] He tells you about some stuff that didn't really happen.

[1:26:18] But you get it.

[1:26:19] Yeah.

[1:26:19] And it's nice.

[1:26:20] It's really nice.

[1:26:21] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:22] Hey, that makes me think of like just Stephen Fry being mentioned.

[1:26:25] Pick up a Jeeves and Worcester collection.

[1:26:28] They're short.

[1:26:29] Short little stories.

[1:26:30] Yeah.

[1:26:31] Make you laugh.

[1:26:32] Anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:35] This is from.

[1:26:36] Yeah, that's how I feel about Friends.

[1:26:37] Just watch the whole series run of Friends.

[1:26:40] Yeah.

[1:26:40] Short little stories that will make you laugh.

[1:26:42] Make you laugh.

[1:26:43] Look.

[1:26:43] I'm going to make you laugh.

[1:26:43] You don't have to be invested the whole time.

[1:26:45] It's fine.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:46] Yeah.

[1:26:47] Why not?

[1:26:47] This next one, letter that is, is from W. Seth Hanziek, first name withheld.

[1:26:56] Oh, okay.

[1:26:57] You know, breaking the pattern here.

[1:26:58] Interesting choice.

[1:26:59] I recently watched the decidedly mid-horror film Tarot, which was a bad, bad movie until a bit of dialogue made me laugh out loud.

[1:27:11] The dialogue is, the death card can mean an ending or a beginning, but in this case, it just meant death.

[1:27:21] Transforming it into a good, bad movie.

[1:27:23] Yeah, yeah.

[1:27:24] That's a line like, that's a podcaster line where they're like, I just want to say something.

[1:27:28] When that same line was used as the gotcha final girl smack talk line, I literally cheered.

[1:27:35] What line of dialogue transformed a movie for you in either direction?

[1:27:40] Keep on flopping.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:43] It's from W. Seth.

[1:27:44] Let's see.

[1:27:45] That's the sound the bear makes was pretty good.

[1:27:49] Oh, yeah.

[1:27:49] That's just the sound.

[1:27:50] The sound the bear makes.

[1:27:52] What was that?

[1:27:53] Which one was that from?

Dan McCoy

[1:27:54] One missed call, I think.

[1:27:55] Yeah.

[1:27:57] It's just the sound.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:59] The sound the bear makes.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:01] I thought this was a more interesting letter than I had a great answer for it.

[1:28:06] Because I don't know that I feel like a single line is transformative to me in that way, usually.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:14] Usually not enough to really make or break a movie.

[1:28:17] I couldn't really think of anything for this when I was thinking about it earlier.

[1:28:20] But I thought about, I've talked about this before, that the movie Hell in the Pacific.

[1:28:24] The final seconds of that movie ruin that movie.

[1:28:27] And otherwise, up to then, I think it's a really strong movie.

[1:28:30] And then a choice of how to end it, literally like it's the last 30 seconds of the movie.

[1:28:34] I'm like, well, this movie's bad now.

[1:28:37] So that kind of stuff happens sometimes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:39] What, does Walter Matthau make a face at the camera or something?

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:42] No, that's the perfect way to end a movie, Stuart.

[1:28:44] There's no better way to end the movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:47] No, that's great.

[1:28:48] There's certain line readings that stick with me that elevate a movie that I already like.

[1:28:54] That I'm like, I mean, maybe not elevate, but stick with me forever.

[1:28:57] Like, you know, obviously, in Clue, there's no funnier part in Clue than Flames, Flames on the Side of My Face.

[1:29:04] Yeah, that's the best part.

[1:29:06] The way that just brings the movie up to a different level.

[1:29:09] A movie I already like.

[1:29:10] What a banger.

[1:29:11] I already love is Romancing the Stone, but Stuart and I often talk about.

[1:29:15] You and your sister.

[1:29:16] Joan Wilder.

[1:29:17] You and your sister can go.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:22] That's a line reading I love.

[1:29:24] I just love to think about it.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:27] But I don't have like, yeah, it doesn't shift everything for me.

[1:29:31] Yeah.

S4

[1:29:31] When you read that, I thought of, would the detour so simple?

[1:29:36] Oh, yeah.

[1:29:36] Me and my sister say that to each other all the time, and that made me lock into that movie way more than I had been before.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:42] Yeah.

[1:29:43] No, totally.

[1:29:46] Stuart's thinking, but if he doesn't have anything.

[1:29:47] I don't got anything.

[1:29:49] We can move on.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:50] That's okay.

[1:29:50] You don't have to force it.

[1:29:51] We're allowed to.

[1:29:53] We're allowed to not have an answer.

[1:29:54] Just cut me out, Alex.

[1:29:55] Cut me out so I don't mess up the flow.

[1:29:57] No, no, no.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:58] He's important.

[1:29:58] You know what?

[1:29:59] Yeah, he's not pulling his weight.

[1:30:00] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:02] Yeah, I provide a nice low bar for everyone else to look better by.

[1:30:06] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:08] Hey, let's recommend some movies.

[1:30:11] Movies that may be a better use of your time.

[1:30:14] Why not?

[1:30:14] If you have a limited time, maybe prioritize these.

[1:30:19] That's true.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:21] That's what makes life so sweet, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:25] If we lived forever, it would lose its savor and flavor.

[1:30:28] Yeah, exactly.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:29] Savor and flavor.

[1:30:31] That's one of those great lines I'll remember from this podcast.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:36] I just switched it in my mind.

[1:30:39] Okay.

[1:30:40] So, pardon me.

[1:30:42] Yeah?

[1:30:42] Okay.

[1:30:43] You were choked up.

[1:30:43] Just as I was about to give my recommendation, I had to burp.

[1:30:47] I was texting you about this movie, Elliot.

[1:30:52] Because it was on Criterion, I rewatched Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

[1:30:58] You were texting me about that.

[1:31:01] Yeah, for the first time since I think I was a teenager, maybe.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:04] I watched this movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:07] And it's a movie that, you know, by the time I was watching it, it came out the year before I was born.

[1:31:13] By the time I was watching it, it was already, like, enshrined in, like, this is, like, classic science fiction movie.

[1:31:20] This is classic early blockbuster, like, the real blockbuster wave, you know.

[1:31:27] And seeing it as a kid, I had certain expectations of that that were maybe not fulfilled.

[1:31:34] Like, the movie is kind of a weird movie if you're looking for, like, what we now think of.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:38] I mean, we just talked about The Bride.

[1:31:40] So, like, Close Encounters is not that weird.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:42] No, I know, but, like, if you're talking about, like, big blockbuster entertainment, it doesn't offer the same, like, simple satisfactions, maybe, that you expect.

[1:31:51] And I think that that meant that it was a movie that I didn't quite get as a kid.

[1:31:55] It's also speaking to, like, being older and, like, being presented with, like, you know, something new in life that you didn't ever expect to, like, be part of your life.

[1:32:06] But, I don't know, watching it this time.

[1:32:08] It's like an affair movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:09] It's like he's having an affair with aliens.

[1:32:10] With aliens.

[1:32:11] Yeah.

[1:32:13] And it's like a savor and flavor back into his life.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:15] There's no, like, wisecracking kid characters.

[1:32:18] There's no, like, animated dinosaurs.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:20] Well, and, you know, what you're saying about it being, like, an affair with aliens, it speaks to the fact that, like, this guy is not acting, like, great towards his family.

[1:32:26] No.

[1:32:26] Like, this guy is going nuts.

[1:32:28] He's scaring his family.

[1:32:30] And we sort of understand why, because we are also curious about the aliens, but he's not handling it in a way that you're like, oh, what a great guy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:38] No, I mean, spoiler, it ends with him abandoning Earth.

[1:32:41] Yeah.

[1:32:41] To be with these aliens.

[1:32:43] So, like, it is a.

[1:32:45] But, like, come on.

[1:32:47] Come on.

[1:32:47] Well, but that's the thing.

[1:32:48] And Steven Spielberg has talked to you.

[1:32:49] His family are kind of duds, right?

[1:32:51] Terry Garr?

[1:32:52] Terry Garr, sir.

[1:32:54] That's Dustin Hoffman level mistreatment of Terry Garr, sir.

[1:32:58] Wow.

[1:32:59] As seen in the movie Tootsie.

[1:33:00] Thanks.

[1:33:00] So, Steven Spielberg has talked about how, I mean, I love Close Encounters.

[1:33:04] I think it's great.

[1:33:05] And Steven Spielberg has talked about how that's the movie of the man he was then.

[1:33:08] And now, as the man he, you know, this is something he said years later after he had a family.

[1:33:12] He's like, yeah, I couldn't get on a spaceship and leave my family behind.

[1:33:16] But as a young man, yes, sure, cool.

[1:33:18] Like, let's leave it all behind.

[1:33:19] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:20] Well, I think part of my switching around was like.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:23] There's also something very 70s about it.

[1:33:25] Yeah, man, go with the aliens.

[1:33:26] Come on.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:27] Do what you want.

[1:33:28] Be you.

[1:33:30] No, I mean, like, it has, like, a realism and open-endedness that I responded to more now.

[1:33:38] It is, like, but also I was thinking, like, oh, I saw Close Encounters, you know, back when everyone had tiny televisions.

[1:33:46] And now technology, you know, has come down in price so much that, like, people can have big, beautiful, like, screens that, like, show a movie like Close Encounters in a way that's like, oh, right.

[1:33:59] That's why it's so impressive.

[1:34:01] Like, this is a gorgeous movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:03] Considering, considering the, probably whatever digital version you were looking at, it probably looks better than it would have looked if you had seen it in a theater when it first came out.

[1:34:11] Because you'd still be seeing it being projected by probably some teen idiot who doesn't know what he's doing, you know.

[1:34:16] Wow.

[1:34:17] You know, there's a lot of babies crying in the theater.

[1:34:19] And probably the screen is, like.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:21] The screen is getting roasted over here.

[1:34:22] The screen is all stained and ripped.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:25] Catching a strand.

[1:34:26] No, I'm just kidding.

[1:34:27] Anyway.

[1:34:28] I'm just kidding.

[1:34:29] I'm just kidding.

[1:34:29] Projectionists are great.

[1:34:31] It's not a surprising recommendation that Close Encounters was.

[1:34:34] But I enjoyed it.

[1:34:35] I loved revisiting.

[1:34:37] Stuart, what would you recommend?

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:39] So, I've been traveling a bunch and I haven't gotten to go to the movies.

[1:34:44] And I've been desperate to see a certain liminal space horror movie.

[1:34:49] But I have not seen it yet.

[1:34:50] I've seen it this week.

[1:34:51] So, instead, I'm going to recommend a different recent liminal space horror movie.

[1:34:55] And that is Exit 8, a Japanese movie based on a video game.

[1:35:00] And it is awesome.

[1:35:02] I really loved it.

[1:35:03] It's about a guy who's on a subway train.

[1:35:06] And he gets off at a station that's unfamiliar to him.

[1:35:10] And he kind of loses bearings.

[1:35:12] And then suddenly he realizes that he is trapped in some kind of weird loop of corridors in this subway station.

[1:35:22] And there are some rules to it.

[1:35:25] And it, like it, the idea that it is adapted from a video game that I've never played.

[1:35:30] So, I don't know much about it.

[1:35:31] But I feel like it's a pretty novel concept of adaption.

[1:35:37] And I thought it was really interesting and fun.

[1:35:40] And it manages to be unsettling and scary without relying on gore or really many, like, traditional scares.

[1:35:49] I thought it was really great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:52] I also watched a liminal horror movie recently.

[1:35:56] But it was a horror movie about the liminal state of old age.

[1:36:01] That's right.

[1:36:01] I'm talking about The Straight Story, starring Richard Barnsworth.

[1:36:06] Which I thought I had seen this movie.

[1:36:09] And I didn't remember it particularly well.

[1:36:10] So, I'm wondering if maybe I didn't see it when it first came out.

[1:36:13] But it's on Criterion Channel right now.

[1:36:18] And it's such a great, sweet movie.

[1:36:20] And it's so, like, it feels like the same way that Spike Lee made Inside Man to be like, I can make these kinds of movies as well as anybody.

[1:36:27] I just don't want to.

[1:36:28] That's why I'm not making them.

[1:36:29] It feels like David Lynch is like, I can make a movie without weird stuff in it.

[1:36:32] I just don't want to.

[1:36:33] Look at how well I do it.

[1:36:34] Now I'm back to my own stuff.

[1:36:35] But it feels so much like a David Lynch movie without falling on the, like, tropes that people expect from David Lynch movies.

[1:36:44] And Richard Barnsworth's so great in it.

[1:36:46] It has its own kind of tempo that you fall into.

[1:36:50] And the way that the main character unfolds over time and you learn more about him in little pieces and things is just really great.

[1:36:57] And I – watching it, I was so – I admired so much how they didn't try to, like, movie up the story.

[1:37:05] That it's like, you know, the story is this guy who – he's an old man.

[1:37:08] He can't drive a car anymore.

[1:37:10] His brother lives 350 miles away or 370 miles away, and his brother had a stroke, and he wants to go see him.

[1:37:14] So the only way he can get there is to ride his riding mower, you know, for hundreds of miles.

[1:37:19] And he – just the people he meets along the way.

[1:37:22] And it would be so easy to make this movie and put in, like, and he's got – this other person has to come along with him, and they have to learn to get along.

[1:37:29] Or people hear about it, and suddenly he becomes famous, and, you know, there's a media circus following him.

[1:37:34] Or, you know, he gets mistaken for a criminal or something like that.

[1:37:38] But it's none of that.

[1:37:39] Yeah, that happens.

[1:37:40] Yeah, it's just about this old man, like, having to deal with being old and kind of just having interactions with people along the way.

[1:37:48] But none of them are, like, so incredibly dramatic that they, you know, that they become what the movie is about.

[1:37:54] And I just – it's a really beautiful movie.

[1:37:57] And – but you watch it the whole time, and you're like, yeah, this is a David Lynch movie.

[1:37:59] Like, it's also really funny.

[1:38:01] It feels like one of his movies, but without having to do with dreams or weird sex stuff.

[1:38:06] So that's the straight story.

[1:38:07] I highly recommend it.

[1:38:08] It's technically a G-rated movie, but I would not recommend showing it to kids because they will be bored by it.

[1:38:13] Yes.

S4

[1:38:15] I've never seen that movie, and I'm going to be honest.

[1:38:19] Vulnerable.

[1:38:20] I don't really like a lot of David Lynch movies.

[1:38:24] But the way that you've pitched that –

[1:38:24] Well, maybe this is the one for you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:25] This may be the one for me.

[1:38:27] I would say try it.

[1:38:28] It's definitely – it's like – it's at his kind of pace.

[1:38:30] It's his kind of – it's like the kinds of characters that he deals with sometimes.

[1:38:34] But it is not – but there's nothing strange or supernatural or dreamlike about it.

[1:38:40] It is just like – if there's anything dreamlike about it, it's just kind of like you kind of get into a dream trance state, just driving a riding lawnmower through Midwestern states where there's not a lot going on.

[1:38:49] But it's really – it's one of those movies too where you watch it and afterwards you're like, oh, it makes me feel good about kind of like people.

[1:38:55] Okay.

[1:38:55] You know, like people – you know, that people like to be around people.

[1:38:58] Anyway, it's really good.

[1:38:59] I do recommend it.

[1:39:00] Yeah.

[1:39:00] Just be ready for a lot of shots like kind of drone or – I guess it would have been helicopter shots at the time.

[1:39:04] Helicopter shots of cornfields.

[1:39:06] Like you're going to see a fair amount of those.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:09] Make me feel like it at home.

[1:39:10] Kenise, do you have a recommendation that you want to offer?

S4

[1:39:13] Sure.

[1:39:14] Based on this movie, I thought of a Frankenstein-based movie that I enjoyed more.

[1:39:22] Impossible.

[1:39:23] Impossible.

[1:39:23] This one is very silly and it's not trying to say anything about the nature of feminism in this country.

[1:39:32] Lisa Frankenstein.

[1:39:34] It's a young girl who accidentally brings back a Lord Byron type guy and –

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:41] I can't believe that's his name.

S4

[1:39:43] Yeah.

[1:39:44] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:45] A Lord Byron type guy.

[1:39:46] Arthur Lord Byron type guy.

S4

[1:39:48] Yeah.

[1:39:48] Something like that.

[1:39:49] And then they kind of fall in love and he has to get a penis.

[1:39:55] As you do.

[1:39:56] Yeah.

[1:39:58] Part of the process.

[1:39:59] It's funny.

[1:40:00] It's silly.

[1:40:00] It's quirky.

[1:40:01] And it doesn't take itself nearly this seriously.

[1:40:05] As seriously as The Bride.

[1:40:06] That's a fun one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:06] That's one I've been meaning to watch for a while and I haven't gotten around to watching it.

[1:40:08] So you know what?

[1:40:09] Denise, you and me are going to trade movies.

[1:40:10] Okay.

[1:40:10] We're going to watch each other's recommendations.

S4

[1:40:12] I'm going to write you and be like, I loved it.

[1:40:14] Or, wow, I'm really disappointed in you personally for recommending this to me.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:19] Your taste in movies determines your value as a human.

[1:40:22] Yeah.

[1:40:23] Exactly.

[1:40:23] That's the premise of the –

[1:40:24] The internet has taught us anything.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:25] The premise of this podcast in some ways.

[1:40:27] Yeah.

[1:40:29] Well –

[1:40:29] It's true.

[1:40:30] The internet has taught us that the only thing that matters about you is the things you like or don't like and nothing about your intrinsic qualities otherwise.

[1:40:36] Yeah.

[1:40:37] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:37] Yeah.

[1:40:37] I bet.

[1:40:38] That's all my therapy sessions are about.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:43] Denise, thank you so much for being with us.

[1:40:46] Before we go, is there anything you would like to plug?

[1:40:49] I looked it up.

[1:40:50] This should be released on July the 11th.

[1:40:54] Okay.

[1:40:54] If that affects plugging.

S4

[1:40:56] I was going to plug the same thing unless you said it came out in September.

[1:41:00] I want to plug the Hot Guy Draft.

[1:41:01] Your Best Deal Day Show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:03] We're just going to make it in time for your Best Deal Day Show.

[1:41:05] Yeah.

[1:41:06] I would.

[1:41:07] The Hot Guy Draft.

[1:41:07] Tell us about it.

[1:41:08] Tell us about it.

S4

[1:41:09] So the Hot Guy Draft is a comedy competition of thirst wherein people, comedians on stage create teams of pop culture hot guys.

[1:41:18] And that's gender neutral.

[1:41:19] It's also irrespective of if they actually existed, if they're cartoons, if they're historic figures, whatever.

[1:41:25] And they create a team of hot guys in different categories.

[1:41:28] And the audience votes on who has created the hottest team.

[1:41:32] This time the theme is first crush.

[1:41:34] So we're going to be looking at who we had crushes on when we were younger.

Stuart Wellington

[1:41:37] Robin Hood cartoon fox.

S4

[1:41:39] That cartoon fox is on the poster for the show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:42] Enough people have said the fox from Robin Hood changed me.

[1:41:47] Someone recently said to me, they go, Zootopia probably pretty much started that furry stuff.

[1:41:51] And I'm like, no, sir.

[1:41:53] Not at all.

[1:41:54] It goes back much farther.

Stuart Wellington

[1:41:56] Absolutely.

[1:41:57] We haven't even started talking about the live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

S4

[1:42:03] If you're into April in that, she's – or I guess –

Stuart Wellington

[1:42:06] Raphael is a big thing in that movie.

[1:42:08] Gadget Hack Wrench.

[1:42:09] Yeah.

[1:42:10] Sure.

S4

[1:42:11] That's his name?

[1:42:12] No.

[1:42:12] No, I'm thinking of another –

Stuart Wellington

[1:42:13] That's the mouse from –

[1:42:14] That's the mouse from Rescue Rangers.

[1:42:15] She has a purple jumpsuit.

[1:42:16] Ah.

[1:42:17] That's pretty cool.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:18] Yeah.

[1:42:18] She was like the girl next door crush.

[1:42:20] If you had a crush on a –

[1:42:21] Yeah, the mouse next door.

[1:42:22] – cartoon mouse.

[1:42:22] Yeah.

[1:42:23] Yeah.

[1:42:24] That makes sense to me.

Stuart Wellington

[1:42:25] We're going to get into some deep waters now, so let's start talking.

S4

[1:42:31] But that is on August 23rd at Littlefield at 7 p.m.

[1:42:35] You can get your tickets now, but you can also – because this is built off of a fantasy sports draft and those people have stats,

[1:42:43] to build stats we have an online survey where you can vote on the hotness of different figures.

[1:42:48] And then we use that in our rankings.

[1:42:51] So please visit hotguydraft on Instagram for information about that survey, information about tickets,

[1:42:56] and the cultural work that we're doing to investigate what people find hot and why.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:03] This is right up my alley.

[1:43:05] I love it.

[1:43:06] Yes.

[1:43:06] Yeah.

[1:43:07] Dan, see if Gomez Adams is on there.

[1:43:09] I will after.

[1:43:11] I'm adding him after this.

[1:43:12] I don't think he is.

[1:43:12] He should be.

[1:43:13] I mean, they're all –

[1:43:14] Well, Julia.

[1:43:15] Yeah.

[1:43:15] Come on.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:16] I'm just saying there's other Gomez Adamses, and they're all pretty attractive.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:19] I know, but come on.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:20] John Astin is a very hot Gomez Adams in some way.

[1:43:24] He's a hotter –

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:26] Rell and Julia.

[1:43:27] He's not hotter than Rell and Julia.

[1:43:28] Sure.

[1:43:28] I mean, Rell and Julia was M. Bison for –

Dan McCoy

[1:43:30] Yeah.

[1:43:31] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:33] For me, it was Tuesday.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:36] Okay.

[1:43:37] Well, this has been a delight.

[1:43:39] It's also been The Flophouse.

[1:43:41] We'd like to thank our network.

[1:43:44] It's called Maximum Fun.

[1:43:45] If you go to MaximumFun.org, you can check out a lot of other great podcasts,

[1:43:50] comedy and culture, artist-owned, listener-supported.

[1:43:54] You're going to hear that after the theme song.

[1:43:56] But I said it now, too.

[1:43:58] Wow.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:58] Thank you to Alex Smith.

[1:43:59] Spoiler.

Dan McCoy

[1:44:00] Our producer.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:01] Oh, my ears are here in double.

Dan McCoy

[1:44:05] For outros.

[1:44:07] Thank you to our producer, Alex Smith.

[1:44:09] He goes by the name Howell Doughty on the internet.

[1:44:12] You can listen to his music or his podcast or check out a Twitch stream.

[1:44:18] A lot of great stuff that he does.

[1:44:21] Get his merch.

[1:44:21] Why not?

[1:44:23] Hey, and speaking of plugs, why don't we plug some of our own stuff like the newsletter,

[1:44:27] which I don't mention quite enough.

[1:44:29] No.

[1:44:29] If you go to the website, we have a newsletter.

[1:44:34] You can subscribe.

[1:44:35] And a couple times a month, you'll get updates on what we're up to in a more extensive form.

[1:44:41] And there'll be something funny in there, too, that's not just advertising.

[1:44:45] And also, there's a Discord.

[1:44:49] People know about the Facebook and the Instagram and stuff, but they don't often know that there's a Discord.

[1:44:56] Check that out.

[1:44:58] I wish I could remember how you get there.

[1:45:03] I decided to mention it, and I hadn't done the research.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:06] So, listeners, ask Dan's grandchildren how to get onto the Discord.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:12] I'm sure it's not that hard to figure out.

[1:45:15] But for the Flop House, I have been Dan McCool.

[1:45:21] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:23] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:45:24] And we've been joined by...

[1:45:25] Kenice Mobley.

[1:45:27] Bye.

[1:45:28] Bye.

[1:45:29] Au revoir.

[1:45:31] Brian.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:41] I got questions about hot guy draft now.

S4

[1:45:43] I will answer every single one.

[1:45:45] I'm going to try not to be too enthusiastic about it.

[1:45:47] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:48] Yeah, please, please don't.

[1:45:50] I'm just going to tamp it down.

[1:45:52] The Flop House is the chills.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:54] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[1:45:55] We're all trying to out-cool each other on this one.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:58] Meh, the bride, whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:00] Not really the kind of movie that you have a strong opinion about.

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:03] Exclamation point.

[1:46:04] Get that out of here.

[1:46:06] Put an ellipsis on the end of that.

[1:46:08] Please.

Dan McCoy

[1:46:09] Okay.

[1:46:10] Let's start recording.

[1:46:13] We did.

[1:46:13] Just to see if we remember how we do it, you know?

[1:46:16] Well, the actual show.

[1:46:18] Hold on.

[1:46:19] Let me...

[1:46:20] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:21] This is a classic, Dan.

[1:46:22] Okay, let's start.

[1:46:24] How do we...

Dan McCoy

[1:46:25] My brain goes ahead of its actual capabilities.

[1:46:31] That's the problem.

[1:46:33] I think I got a hot one, guys.

[1:46:35] Okay.

[1:46:35] A hot one.

[1:46:36] Great.

[1:46:36] Hold on.

[1:46:37] We should have light in here.

[1:46:38] What am I doing?

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:41] No, it should be dark.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:44] Just like the world of the bride.

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:47] Wow.

[1:46:47] There we go.

[1:46:48] Yeah.

[1:46:48] That's better.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:49] I mean, it was the fucking 1930s, dude.

[1:46:51] It was a very dark time.

[1:46:53] Yeah.

[1:46:54] You had monsters running around.

[1:46:56] Yeah.

[1:46:56] Trying to go on dates.

[1:46:57] Like Jake Gyllenhaal.

[1:46:58] Like one monster.

Dan McCoy

[1:47:00] Yeah.

[1:47:00] What he did to Taylor?

[1:47:02] Yes.

[1:47:03] Finally, somebody spoke up.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:05] If only that had been expressed creatively in some way, but it just never happened, you

[1:47:09] know?

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:09] Again, I can't stress enough, Taylor Swift's concerts in Melbourne made my hotel costs go very high,

[1:47:15] so I wish he stole a million scarves from this bitch.

[1:47:19] That would give her a million albums.

[1:47:21] I would have a scheduling issue on your part.

[1:47:22] I don't know.

[1:47:23] Anyway.

Dan McCoy

[1:47:24] Take you no Ford.

[1:47:28] Maximum Fun.

S4

[1:47:29] A worker-owned network.

Dan McCoy

[1:47:31] Of artists-owned shows.

[1:47:33] Supported.

[1:47:33] Directly.

[1:47:34] By you.

The Bride! with Kenice Mobley

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