Ep. #387 - Black Adam

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Black Adam.

[0:03] The first, and probably last, chapter in the Black Adam film series.

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

[0:37] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:38] Hey, yeah, it's me, Stuart Wellington.

[0:41] Oh.

[0:42] And over here, it's Elliot Kalin, once again amused at how Dan says his name perfectly

[0:46] and then turns to Stu, laughs at the very idea of his relationship with Stu and all

[0:51] the joy they've had in the past, and breaks professionalism almost immediately.

[0:55] No, it was the...

[0:56] Love it.

[0:57] I was laughing at...

[0:58] I felt like I came in with a certain amount of energy, and Stu immediately changed it

[1:03] up.

[1:04] Like, his energy suits his...

[1:07] Sweater?

[1:08] Sweater is what I was gonna say.

[1:09] Yeah, I'm going for like a Christmas prince type thing.

[1:14] Maybe I'm a humble, simple log splitter in Christmastown, USA, and maybe I live with

[1:20] a dog.

[1:21] I live in a pretty simple farmer's, woodsman's shack.

[1:24] I thought maybe you had just gotten off the boat, you're a merchant marine, or you work

[1:30] on a whaling ship, maybe, and...

[1:32] Certainly changing my rom-com character, but that's okay, I guess imagining I'm more sort

[1:37] of like the Leonard Nimoy psychologist in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake,

[1:44] like a 70s...

[1:45] Oh, man, yeah.

[1:46] Like, maybe he's a pop psychologist who appears on PBS near Christmas to talk about love,

[1:50] or something.

[1:51] Sure.

[1:52] PBS starts...

[1:53] It stands for Pop Broadcasting System.

[1:55] I'm gonna get like a Leo Biscaglia kind of style, like the love doctor.

[1:59] Maybe I'm like a distant Sutherland.

[2:04] These are all things that Stuart could be...

[2:06] Now I gotta take a photo, Stu, so we can have a record of what that looks like.

[2:09] That was actually...

[2:10] A lot of people don't know that was...

[2:11] Oh, yeah.

[2:12] No, wait, should I put on the glasses, Dan?

[2:13] Yeah, put the glasses on, because they're a really key part of the whole thing.

[2:15] The glasses change the theme quite a bit.

[2:17] Oh, yeah.

[2:18] No, wait.

[2:19] This is exactly perfect.

[2:20] Yeah, I think the glasses informed my...

[2:21] Yeah, so, Distant Sutherland was actually what Donald Sutherland's name was before he

[2:25] came to the United States from Canada through Ellis Island, and changed his name, Distant,

[2:29] of course, the traditional Canadian first name.

[2:32] Yeah, of course.

[2:33] Donald, the traditional American first name.

[2:34] Yeah.

[2:35] So what do we do with this podcast, Dan?

[2:36] Other than describe outfits?

[2:38] We mostly describe things the audience can't see.

[2:42] This is a podcast where we watch a movie that we've been led to believe may be bad, either

[2:47] through critics or audiences saying, no, thank you, please.

[2:52] Personal biases.

[2:53] Personal biases, all these things.

[2:56] And then we talk about it.

[2:58] We try to not walk in with our mind made up, but we've had some tips, maybe, that this

[3:03] might not be up our alley.

[3:06] And this time we watched Black Adam, another in the DC extended cinematic universe, I guess,

[3:16] that is now being changed up and dismantled by James Gunn and whoever else is in charge.

[3:24] Yeah, so this is kind of a weird relic that killed an era, I guess.

[3:30] I mean, in a way, which fits, because the movie is all about a weird relic that killed

[3:34] an era, that being the nation of contact 5,000 years ago.

[3:38] Yeah.

[3:39] Oh, wow.

[3:40] Okay.

[3:41] This is the last gasp, and we'll see there's a mid-credit scene that hints at a future

[3:43] that will never come to pass, which we'll talk about when we get to it.

[3:46] But this is kind of the last...

[3:47] A number of vestigial limbs are present.

[3:50] Yeah, it's an evolutionary dead end.

[3:54] It's the way that history has decided not to go.

[3:57] So let's talk...

[3:58] With history's greatest mysteries, Black Adam.

[4:00] And when you watch the movie, you're like, yeah, that makes sense.

[4:03] It makes sense that this is not the direction that the future DCU will go in.

[4:07] Should we just get right into the movie?

[4:09] Let's do it.

[4:10] Can I ask you a question first?

[4:11] Yeah.

[4:12] Do we have to?

[4:13] Yeah.

[4:14] Could we just talk about outfits some more?

[4:15] No, we promised it.

[4:16] Or maybe Ellie can complain about Babylon a bunch?

[4:18] Actually, no.

[4:20] There was a heated conversation before the recording about Babylon.

[4:22] We should leave that outside the record because we don't need the listeners to hear about

[4:26] that.

[4:27] Now, either of you guys, how familiar are you with the character Black Adam?

[4:32] Not at all.

[4:33] I know that he is related to Captain Marvel, later renamed Shazam, since there's an entire

[4:42] company called Marvel.

[4:43] And that was confusing.

[4:46] And I know that...

[4:47] Wasn't he called Miracle Man at one point?

[4:49] No, no.

[4:50] Oh, Stu.

[4:51] Black Adam is, I guess, in that universe as a villain and then later sort of an anti-hero.

[4:57] But that is all stuff that I was able to glean as The Rock beat his drum for a Black Adam

[5:03] movie all these years that finally came to pass.

[5:07] I don't actually know much else.

[5:08] I mean, that's pretty much it.

[5:10] So everyone knows, everyone now knows Captain Marvel, who...

[5:13] And I read, I read the 52, or 52, whatever that series was.

[5:18] Yeah, 52.

[5:19] When the DC Universe rebooted itself a couple reboots ago.

[5:23] Yeah, without some of the primary heroes, without like your Supermans.

[5:28] And Black Adam was one of the principal, I guess, antagonists in that series?

[5:32] Well, so the original character, I think he only appears once in the old Captain Marvel

[5:36] comics.

[5:37] He's an evil version of Captain Marvel.

[5:38] They fight, he gets rid of him.

[5:40] Many years later, he was brought back and the idea was that he is an anti-hero mainly

[5:45] because his interests are what aligns with his nation rather than any kind of what the

[5:50] liberal West assumes are universal values that the other heroes epitomize.

[5:55] So he is, and he's more violent.

[5:58] This movie cannot stop reminding you that he kills people as if it's the coolest thing

[6:03] a character has ever done in the history of superhero movies.

[6:06] Which also, I mean, by this point in superhero movies, I'm pretty used to superheroes killing

[6:11] people.

[6:12] I mean, Superman killed people, Batman killed people in his movies.

[6:15] Exactly.

[6:16] It would be more amazing to me if we went back to superhero movies where they really,

[6:21] really tried not to kill anyone at this point.

[6:24] Yeah.

[6:25] At this point, I think Spider-Man might be the only character who doesn't go out of his

[6:27] way to either kill people or just allow them to die.

[6:30] But so Black Adam, the idea is he's an anti-heroic hero and maybe his values aren't totally aligned

[6:38] with ours, which could be an interesting thing that could create, say, a debate between characters.

[6:43] Instead, we get kind of like a blunt argument in which neither side does a very good job

[6:47] of making their case and they punch each other a lot.

[6:50] And I know that this character originally was intended to appear in other DC movies,

[6:54] but Dwayne Johnson kept saying like, nah, man, I'm not a supporting character, I'm a

[6:58] star character.

[6:59] I only star in my movie.

[7:01] So he missed his shot at getting paid to be in other movies, I guess.

[7:05] I mean, I don't know if that's a big concern for him these days.

[7:09] Probably not.

[7:10] And I would argue, as we talk about the movie, that he is incredibly miscast in this part,

[7:15] the way that they present him.

[7:17] That Dwayne Johnson, who is, his whole thing is the arched eyebrow, you know, he's the

[7:22] muscle bound guy who's got a little bit of irony about him in the same way that kind

[7:26] of Vin Diesel does.

[7:27] But here, the character is deathly sober and stern.

[7:31] I totally expected.

[7:33] And maybe it's because, you know, he doesn't want to do the eyebrow thing anymore or whatever.

[7:36] Like it's, you know, it's his bazinga or whatever.

[7:39] He doesn't care if you can smell what he's cooking.

[7:41] Yeah, exactly.

[7:42] He's not even cooking anymore.

[7:43] He's not even cooking.

[7:44] Now it's, can you smell what the rock is pooping?

[7:47] I don't want to.

[7:48] No, thank you.

[7:49] The movie ends on like a set up to the name where they're like, you know, maybe Adam Tett

[7:57] or whatever.

[7:58] Like, well, we'll get.

[7:59] Yeah.

[8:00] Yeah.

[8:01] Well, I just want to say, like, yeah, you know, maybe that's outdated now.

[8:05] And there's a close up on him as he's thinking about, like, what we all know is that he's

[8:08] going to name himself Black Adam and it cuts to black.

[8:10] And it's a real missed opportunity.

[8:13] I expected him to arch his eyebrow for the first time in the movie.

[8:16] Yeah.

[8:17] And show like a little levity and like a wink at the audience like we know we saw the name

[8:21] on the poster when we came into the theater.

[8:24] You're saying I think you're right.

[8:25] That would be a more powerful moment than just cutting to the title of the movie that

[8:28] we've just been watching.

[8:30] If it had cut to black and slowly the letters Teth Adam appeared, I would have been like,

[8:34] holy shit.

[8:35] They did it.

[8:36] They did it.

[8:37] They changed the title.

[8:38] Partway through the movie.

[8:39] So never before.

[8:40] So let's talk about this movie.

[8:41] It's a lot of sound and very signifying a lack of box office dollars.

[8:45] So we're we're we're just we're going to do a normal episode now.

[8:49] Yeah.

[8:50] As the rock tweeted, Black Adam made plenty of money.

[8:55] It was a huge hit.

[8:56] They should make a million more.

[8:58] I mean, in a world where movies don't have to make back their budget and then the publicity

[9:02] budget.

[9:03] Yeah.

[9:04] It made a lot of money.

[9:05] I mean, let's let's.

[9:06] I'm looking at the Wikipedia entry right now.

[9:08] It made box office almost four hundred million dollars.

[9:11] That's a lot of buffo.

[9:12] Yeah.

[9:13] I know.

[9:14] Well, here's the thing.

[9:15] It was once buffo B.O.

[9:17] But in a world where the production budget is at least two hundred and fifty million

[9:20] dollars probably and the marketing costs, you have to assume are at least half that

[9:25] again.

[9:26] This movie might have broken even so, but it probably didn't.

[9:31] And that's the thing is, the bigger the star, the more money you've got to spend on publicity

[9:35] because their contracts often stipulate how much publicity is going to be done for the

[9:40] movie so it doesn't get buried.

[9:41] And so it is.

[9:43] That's not a that's not a great when you.

[9:45] It's like four hundred million dollars is an amazing amount of money.

[9:47] But when it takes you.

[9:48] Yeah.

[9:49] If it was like if funny pages made.

[9:50] Exactly.

[9:51] It would be that.

[9:52] Well, it's one of those things where Dan and I were talking about this.

[9:55] It's a comic book movie.

[9:58] Dan and I were either in a previous mini or.

[10:00] Maybe it was just a conversation,

[10:00] we're talking about Avatar and Top Gun Maverick,

[10:03] and how Avatar was seen as a disappointing first weekend,

[10:07] and Top Gun Maverick seen as a hit first weekend,

[10:10] but Top Gun Maverick made less money than Avatar,

[10:12] and it's because different levels of movie

[10:14] have different expectations.

[10:15] So The Rock can't just say,

[10:16] this movie made $400 million,

[10:18] because it cost $400 million.

[10:19] So at best, they made zero dollars for all that effort.

[10:23] Yeah.

[10:24] So, I mean, but people got paid,

[10:25] and any bad movie now, I'm like,

[10:26] well, somebody got paid. Is this a math podcast?

[10:28] What's going on?

[10:29] So welcome to the Fraction House.

[10:31] We're gonna talk about how much of that is half.

[10:34] So anyway, we start with the DC logo,

[10:36] which I only realized this time,

[10:37] prominently features Green Lantern,

[10:39] a character who I don't think has ever appeared

[10:41] in the official DC universe, right?

[10:43] Yep.

[10:44] It was just that Ryan Reynolds movie,

[10:45] which I think is not considered part of it.

[10:46] So clearly they have big things in store

[10:48] for one of the Green Lanterns.

[10:50] Okay, we begin, as any superhero movie does,

[10:54] with an incredibly unnecessary voiceover narration

[10:56] about the history of the character.

[10:58] It's 2600 BCE, almost 5,000 years ago,

[11:01] and we're in Kandak, and a voiceover explains

[11:04] this is the first self-governing people on Earth

[11:06] until King Akhtun made himself a tyrant

[11:09] and tried to forge the crown of Sabak.

[11:12] This is a magic crown that's infused

[11:15] with the power of six demons,

[11:16] and it's made out of a rare metal called Eternium,

[11:19] which is only found in Kandak,

[11:21] and is in no way a ripoff of Vibranium,

[11:23] which is only found in Wakanda,

[11:25] a Marvel place that sounds similar

[11:27] and is also a far-off kingdom.

[11:29] Now, I'm part of a six-demon bag,

[11:31] but a six-demon crown, I don't know.

[11:34] Excellent, good work, good work.

[11:37] Very good.

[11:37] So, before we get too far into the specifics of it-

[11:41] No, it's good, we're a good 30 seconds into the film.

[11:43] What do you wanna talk about?

[11:44] So, the story that this movie wants to tell,

[11:50] they have to have this backstory.

[11:52] Like, you kind of need-

[11:53] You gotta have it.

[11:55] Some version of it in the movie,

[11:58] and Audrey and I were wondering how to do this,

[12:02] because we hate this shit.

[12:04] This is just, we in the Flophouse specifically hate this,

[12:07] but I think that-

[12:08] We hate opening VO explainers,

[12:09] and this is coming from Dan McCoy,

[12:10] a man who, as we know from the Battle Angel episode,

[12:14] loves backstory.

[12:15] I'm thirsty for it.

[12:17] Like, the thing is, if it's not Kate Blanchett

[12:21] explaining Lord of the Rings to me,

[12:23] I don't wanna fucking hear it.

[12:26] Which is why you love Tar so much,

[12:28] because that's basically all the movie is.

[12:29] Yes, it's a buildup to that shit.

[12:32] It just delays the start of the real story.

[12:36] This is information we do need for that story,

[12:38] but it delays the start of the real story.

[12:40] So, Audrey and I were wondering,

[12:42] what do you guys think, like, what's the way to do this?

[12:45] I mean, I hate flashbacks too,

[12:47] but I think it's slightly better

[12:48] to get us invested in these characters

[12:50] and then show us this stuff.

[12:52] I think the way to do this is,

[12:53] the traditional way would be to seed this information

[12:56] throughout the film, which they do.

[12:58] So, this opening narration is even less necessary,

[13:01] because a lot of this information

[13:03] gets repeated to us many times over.

[13:06] And so, I feel like you look at a,

[13:08] I mean, you don't have to go as far

[13:11] as a movie like Chinatown,

[13:12] where you gotta watch it more than once

[13:13] to basically figure out what happens

[13:15] that they're talking about.

[13:16] But I feel like in older movies,

[13:18] they do a better job of seeding the information

[13:20] of what happened before the movie,

[13:22] so you don't need this long prologue.

[13:24] But my guess is, this is my guess,

[13:26] uninformed as I am,

[13:27] that my guess is that the movie

[13:28] did not originally have this opening,

[13:30] and that somebody was like,

[13:32] we gotta explain all this stuff.

[13:33] There's too much stuff for people to pick up along the way.

[13:36] Because there is a lot of exposition to pick up.

[13:38] So, I'm guessing somebody in the studio was like,

[13:41] yeah, but you gotta open it with a whole prologue

[13:43] explaining who this character,

[13:45] basically, what Kondak is,

[13:47] and what the crown of Sabacc is,

[13:50] and what Eternium is.

[13:51] Even though movie is for much of history,

[13:53] and I have not done that.

[13:55] Again, the one I always point to on the podcast

[13:57] is Star Wars, where there's that little opening crawl,

[13:59] but the Force, what the Empire really is,

[14:03] all that stuff, who Luke Skywalker is,

[14:05] you just pick it up as you go along, dude.

[14:07] The movie just kinda tells you when you need to know.

[14:08] Right, I mean, and I do think that people,

[14:11] I don't know, people have gotten more confused

[14:13] about this stuff based on the number of old people

[14:17] who are like, who's that?

[14:18] Before we, just have you not seen a movie before?

[14:22] It'll be explained, trust that later on.

[14:25] There's also, I think there might be

[14:27] a different expectations in people's minds

[14:29] where when you're watching a movie

[14:30] that's part of a larger world,

[14:32] and you haven't seen the other movies,

[14:34] you don't know what stuff is being introduced

[14:36] in that movie, or what stuff you're already

[14:37] supposed to know about.

[14:38] Yeah, that's actually a good point.

[14:39] And I feel like in the olden days,

[14:40] when most movies were stand-alones,

[14:42] that wasn't an issue, but maybe it's just

[14:44] that people are, there's like an anxiety,

[14:47] oh, am I supposed to know about that?

[14:48] I don't know about it yet.

[14:49] Am I missing something?

[14:50] Which I can understand.

[14:52] It's a story FOMO, anyway.

[14:54] Exactly, which is also the name

[14:58] of a Star Wars bounty hunter.

[15:00] So the king has everyone mining Eternium

[15:06] to make this crown, or maybe the,

[15:08] I couldn't tell if the crown was already made

[15:09] and needed more to fuel it, or if he's just,

[15:11] anyway, when a slave in the pits finds some Eternium

[15:15] and tries to hide it, but is killed by the king's guard,

[15:17] and there's a kid who sees this,

[15:18] and he's like, we should be free.

[15:20] We need a hero.

[15:21] And he's told by a grownup, his dad, I guess,

[15:23] it's hopeless, it's hopeless.

[15:25] But the kid steals that lump of Eternium

[15:26] and runs off, and he holds it up on a cliff,

[15:29] and all the slaves are like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[15:31] And the king is like, execute that kid,

[15:34] and we are led to.

[15:35] And the kid starts this new hand gesture

[15:38] that symbolizes freedom, but it looks very similar

[15:41] to either a Triforce or Diamond Alice Page's

[15:44] Diamond Cutter sign, which is a different wrestler.

[15:47] That's true.

[15:48] You think this was Dwayne Johnson

[15:50] like kind of sticking it to Diamond Alice Page?

[15:52] I own this now.

[15:53] And we are led to believe, and spoiler alert,

[15:56] this will turn out to be a misdirect.

[15:58] We're led to believe that the kid is teleported away

[16:00] at the last minute.

[16:02] Oh, actually, I guess that is what happens.

[16:03] That does happen, which is part of what's confusing about it.

[16:05] But it's more complicated later.

[16:06] That he's teleported away at the last minute

[16:08] to the Council of Wizards, featuring the wizard Shazam,

[16:10] who we've seen in the movie Shazam.

[16:12] And the wizard of Id, who.

[16:14] That would be great.

[16:15] Wizard of Id is there too, yeah.

[16:16] And Kroc is there.

[16:18] Making jokes.

[16:19] Yeah, and the Wiz is there because nobody beats him,

[16:22] you know, with great prices on electronics.

[16:24] And so this is, he's given the powers

[16:29] of various Egyptian gods.

[16:30] Now, as you know, Captain Marvel gets his powers

[16:33] from Shazam, the strength of Solomon,

[16:35] or the wisdom of Solomon.

[16:36] How Solomon's actually physically very weak.

[16:38] Wisdom of Solomon, strength of Hercules,

[16:40] strength of Atlas, I guess lightning of Zeus,

[16:42] strength of Achilles maybe, and the speed of Mercury.

[16:45] But here, because this is kind of

[16:47] an ancient Egyptian type time, he gets Egyptian gods,

[16:50] which is the stamina of Shu, the speed of Heru,

[16:52] the strength of Amon, the wisdom of Zuhudi,

[16:54] the power of Aten, and the courage of Mahan.

[16:56] Which makes me wonder, are they just really lucky

[16:59] that there's more than one pantheon

[17:01] that has enough gods in it to fill out the acronym Shazam?

[17:04] Well, that's the thing.

[17:05] If your pantheon isn't big enough, you don't get a Shazam.

[17:09] And to be honest, now that I think about it,

[17:11] Solomon and Zeus are not in the same pantheon.

[17:13] So Solomon is Jewish, and Zeus is Greek.

[17:16] So, but yeah, are they just like,

[17:19] I just have to wonder how many other types of religions

[17:22] they've tried to retrofit into the name Shazam.

[17:24] Because the wizard is like, we're still using my name.

[17:26] We're still using it.

[17:27] We're not using any other magic words.

[17:29] Anyway, they give him the powers.

[17:32] The king's already made the crown, Black Adam,

[17:35] or the kid with the powers,

[17:37] and now he looks like Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

[17:39] He shows up and causes a battle.

[17:41] Black Adam wins, the crown is hidden,

[17:43] the battle crumbles, the royal temple-

[17:46] Destroys the whole town, basically.

[17:48] Destroys the whole town, and the champion disappears.

[17:50] Okay, that was 5,000 years ago.

[17:53] Time to go to the present day.

[17:54] We're back in Kandak, which is now ruled by Intergang.

[17:57] Hey, do we learn that by characters talking to each other?

[17:59] No, still voiceover.

[18:01] We're still with the voiceover.

[18:03] Intergang, of course, is an international

[18:05] criminal organization that in the comics,

[18:07] for some reason, was working for Darkseid for a long time.

[18:10] It always seemed kind of low-ball to me.

[18:11] That's pretty cool.

[18:12] For Darkseid to be sending weapons to mobsters.

[18:14] I gotta admit, I zoned out a little bit on some of this,

[18:17] and for a while until later in the movie,

[18:20] I briefly thought that this was just an occupying force

[18:23] from the U.S., because later on,

[18:27] the Justice Society shows up to protect their interest

[18:30] in the region, I guess, and so I was like,

[18:33] oh wow, this movie's going a little harder

[18:36] than I expected in terms of, I don't know,

[18:38] making the U.S. the villains.

[18:41] Instead, they're more just kind of misguided.

[18:45] I don't know, the whole international,

[18:47] the fact that Black Adam is this more militant superhero

[18:53] based on the exploitation of his people

[18:57] and trying to protect them, like you said earlier, Elliot,

[18:59] could be interesting, but they do their best

[19:02] to soften it at every turn, despite having him,

[19:04] as you mentioned, kill a bunch of people.

[19:06] They're all, the people he kills directly

[19:08] are all terrorists, you know, and we're all like, woo!

[19:11] And many of them are trying to kill him, yeah,

[19:13] or trying to kill a kid, and I think the thing is,

[19:16] the JSA, the movie also does not want you

[19:19] to come out too much on the side of Adam,

[19:22] because they don't want the JSA to be villains,

[19:24] even though the JSA, when we get to them,

[19:25] are basically just going in to beat the shit

[19:28] out of a guy they've never met.

[19:29] Yes, yeah, they're blundering around in another country.

[19:32] Yes, exactly, and there's, and like.

[19:34] A country that they let a criminal gang run.

[19:37] Take over, for years.

[19:38] Until a magic guy shows up, and they're like,

[19:40] okay, we gotta beat that dude up.

[19:42] And they kind of, and they bring that up in the movie,

[19:44] but they can't go all the way with it,

[19:46] because they still want to spin it off,

[19:47] I assume, into a JSA movie, so it's like,

[19:49] I wish they had been able to go all the way

[19:51] with their portrayal of the JSA.

[19:52] And how's that, how's that, how's that looking?

[19:53] How's JSA going? I think it's not

[19:55] ever gonna happen.

[19:56] All right, okay.

[19:58] So, okay.

[19:59] I'm not gonna see my buddy.

[20:00] The Adam Smasher ever again?

[20:02] Sorry, I don't know that you know.

[20:03] And Cyclone?

[20:04] I mean, don't get me wrong, I would love to see more Aldous Hodge.

[20:08] I love that guy, he's great.

[20:09] Yeah, he's great.

[20:10] But...

[20:11] We'll get to it.

[20:12] We'll get to it.

[20:13] Okay, so we're introduced to one of our heroes, this is Amon, who is a kid who skateboards

[20:16] around town listening to the Smashing Pumpkins, because as the opening of the first J.J. Abrams

[20:20] Star Trek movie shows us, kids in any era just love the same music that the person making

[20:25] the movie thinks is cool.

[20:26] L.A., you have to understand, the world is a vampire.

[20:31] And despite all his rage, he is literally a rat in a cage right now.

[20:34] I mean, it's offensive to refer to him as a rat, but he's caged by Intergang.

[20:39] So there's a van that gets stopped at a checkpoint, and the kid shows up and starts talking back

[20:43] to the guards and calling him a neo-imperialist oppressor.

[20:46] We know the kid has a backpack full of DC comics, later see his room is covered in DC

[20:50] posters.

[20:51] And then he runs away, and he's distracting the guards.

[20:53] Is it weird that in this universe, that there's like, posters of an artist's drawing of Batman?

[21:02] I think it would be if it wasn't that kids put up posters of athletes who are real people,

[21:07] you know?

[21:08] I guess you're right.

[21:09] But it is a little weird that he seems to exist in a world where the heroes are real

[21:12] and are also trademarked IP.

[21:15] Yeah, I mean, Marvel's been doing that too, with their movies, there's also comic books

[21:21] and everything.

[21:22] And I keep watching these things, and I'm like, but where's the movie where, like, it's

[21:26] like a Marvel movie, and there's still DC comics in it, but it's like, oh, but these

[21:29] are just made-up characters.

[21:30] We invented some new superheroes.

[21:31] I mean, in one of the Spider-Man movies, Rembrandt May goes, you're not Superman.

[21:38] But there is a, I will say, Dan, I'll buy it more from Marvel, because since the 60s,

[21:44] it's been part of the Marvel Universe, that the Marvel Universe also has comic books in

[21:47] it about those characters.

[21:48] And the idea is that the comics that you are reading are like, are adventures that

[21:55] Jack Kirby and Stan Lee or whoever, like, kind of adapted from real events or something

[22:00] like that.

[22:01] I see, they're the Dr. Watson of that universe.

[22:02] Exactly.

[22:03] But it's a little silly.

[22:04] So, I didn't know if, so, that van gets through, but it's smuggling someone in it.

[22:09] The kid's mother, an archaeologist named Adriana Tomas, and I couldn't tell, the kid is not

[22:15] part of that plan to smuggle the van through, right?

[22:18] It's just a coincidence that he helps his mom's van?

[22:21] I think he is, and it's, like, revealed later.

[22:24] It's...

[22:25] Because later, he's like, let me come with you, and she's like, no, no, I don't want

[22:28] you getting involved.

[22:29] But...

[22:30] Right.

[22:31] No, it is confusing.

[22:34] It seems like he must be, because then he's talking to her within minutes.

[22:38] Yeah.

[22:39] I mean, I think it's to establish those characters and to establish their relationship.

[22:43] Yes.

[22:44] So, that's his mom.

[22:45] She's an archaeologist who, I guess, is not supposed to inter-gang, has a rest-on-site

[22:49] order of work, and she has an Aeternum necklace.

[22:52] It's a family heirloom.

[22:53] And she and her brother...

[22:55] Must be nice.

[22:56] Yeah, tell me about it.

[22:57] She and her brother, Kareem, who is the comedy relief big guy who sings to old pop hits.

[23:05] He sings loudly to Baby Come Back a couple times.

[23:09] And her, another character whose name I don't remember, and also another character named

[23:13] Ishmael, who is almost instantly clear that...

[23:15] Is that what we should call him?

[23:16] Or should we call him something else?

[23:17] No, he told me we can call him that.

[23:18] Yeah, that's okay.

[23:19] Okay, cool.

[23:20] It's almost instantly clear that Ishmael is a sinister character.

[23:26] They're going out into the desert to these mining pits where Aeternum is being looked

[23:29] for, I guess.

[23:30] And they think they know the location of the crowned savant.

[23:32] Oh, yeah.

[23:33] Oh, the archaeologist is played by Sarah Shahi, who was in one of those USA shows, right?

[23:40] Not USA, no.

[23:41] But I understand why you think that.

[23:43] It's Life, the Damien Lewis mystery show.

[23:49] And her brother is Mo Amr, the stand-up.

[23:51] Okay, I didn't know.

[23:53] A lot of the actors in this have done a lot of TV work, and I don't watch a lot of TV,

[23:59] so I didn't recognize them.

[24:01] It's the new movies, dude.

[24:02] That's what I heard.

[24:03] Yeah, I heard it, too.

[24:04] I also heard it's the new novels.

[24:06] It's not true.

[24:07] So she wants to find the crown of Sabak, which has been sitting there for thousands

[24:11] of years untouched, so that she can hide it somewhere else, because she thinks nobody

[24:14] should have it.

[24:15] Sarah Shahi was also in Flop House classic, Bullet to the Head.

[24:19] Oh, really?

[24:20] I forgot about that.

[24:21] Okay.

[24:22] She's also in, like, Sex Lives of Something Something or something like that.

[24:26] Sex Lives of DC Heroes?

[24:28] Videotapes?

[24:29] Sex Lives of Videotapes.

[24:32] Sex Lives of Videotapes.

[24:34] So they go to this excavation site.

[24:37] Sorry, I have to say, is that Sex Lives of Anything?

[24:41] It's Sex slash Life.

[24:42] Oh, okay.

[24:43] That's the name of it.

[24:45] All right, okay.

[24:46] You can choose one or the other.

[24:47] It's about two topics.

[24:48] I picked the wrong one.

[24:51] I picked the wrong door.

[24:54] It was just Life Cereal.

[24:55] Too bad.

[24:56] Behind the other door was a lot of sex.

[24:58] Sorry.

[24:59] Just laying around.

[25:00] Not kid-tested or mother-approved.

[25:01] Oh, that's Kicks, I guess.

[25:03] That's not Life.

[25:04] That's Kicks.

[25:05] Anyway, so they find the intergang is showing up, but Adriana and Ishmael, they manage to

[25:13] find the tomb of this hero that Kondak has been waiting for forever, and the crown is

[25:17] just floating in the air above it.

[25:19] And she jumps up and gets it.

[25:21] Meanwhile, the mercenaries, they kill one of the members of the group, the one whose

[25:25] name I can't remember, and then they kidnap her brother.

[25:29] They threaten her.

[25:30] They say, we'll kill your brother unless you give us the crown, and she gives the crown

[25:34] to them.

[25:35] But then she reads the inscription on this hero's tomb, and it glows and explodes.

[25:40] And who should come out but a shrouded figure who we'll soon learn is Teth-Adam.

[25:44] That's right.

[25:45] The legendary hero, or so we believe.

[25:47] And he appears, and he just melts a terrorist with his electro-touch, and he's just jumping

[25:50] around killing the shit out of terrorists.

[25:53] He's just snapping their necks and hurling them into walls and blasting them with beams

[25:57] and stuff.

[25:58] Now, I want to say, Black Adam, our hero, Teth-Adam, he's not quite Black Adam yet,

[26:03] he shows up 18 minutes into this film.

[26:09] This film is a little over two hours long, and I would argue that the first 20 or so

[26:16] minutes could almost entirely be cut with no consequence.

[26:24] Maybe a little bit of archaeologist Sarah Shahi going in here, we don't know why she

[26:29] is set upon by evil folk, and then we're off to the races.

[26:35] So much of this is just throat clearing up until now.

[26:39] And also, often unanswered questions get us more intrigued in the movie that we're watching.

[26:44] Not always, because sometimes the payoff is non-existent.

[26:49] But in this case, it's really like, she also explains while she's doing it about the hero

[26:54] of Condock, and it's like, yeah, we saw the opening.

[26:56] Did you not see the opening?

[26:57] That's right, you were hidden inside of a van, so you didn't see the opening of the

[27:00] movie.

[27:01] Also, none of this time, arguably the little bit with him, the kid skateboarding around,

[27:06] none of this time has been used to endear us to these characters or let us know who

[27:10] they are as people.

[27:12] We don't care about anyone that we've seen so far, because we know that, we can tell

[27:17] that this woman is going to be somewhat important to the plot, although character-wise, she's

[27:22] given nothing.

[27:23] But none of these are characters that we think are going to be important to a movie called

[27:26] Black Adam, and we've been spending all our time with them and learning nothing about

[27:31] them to make us care about them anymore.

[27:32] Well, guess what, Dan, because luckily, what's going to answer that is a long action sequence

[27:39] where Teth-Adam is just murdering people and throwing helicopters at them in slow-mo while

[27:43] the Rolling Stones' Paint It Black takes place, and our heroes warn him just in time

[27:49] for him to catch a rocket that has Eternium written on the side of it, which is hilarious,

[27:52] like as if nuclear weapons just say Uranium on the side.

[27:57] And bullets say Lead on the side, right?

[28:00] And when it blows up, it knocks him out and makes him all electrocrackly, it gives him

[28:04] a wound that crackles electricity, and some mercenaries on sky cycles, they call in to

[28:09] Ishmael, who it turns out is a bad guy who called in the mercenaries, and he's like,

[28:14] blah, blah, blah, I'm mad.

[28:15] So anyway, now, guess, okay, so we've introduced our main characters, they have an unconscious

[28:20] Teth-Adam, time to find out what happens when Teth-Adam awakes in the present, right, and

[28:25] meets the real world.

[28:26] Nope, because first, Amanda Waller, our favorite connecting tissue character of the DCU, is

[28:31] talking to Carter Hall, that's right, played by Aldous Hodge, about there's a new loose

[28:37] cannon out there, and we've got to take him down, and there's all these news reports playing

[28:41] about Teth-Adam, and it's like, when did the news cameras get to this battle inside a terrorist-controlled

[28:49] foreign country?

[28:50] This is nuts.

[28:51] And also, they so quickly are just like, hey, this new guy showed up, he's a loose cannon,

[28:57] we've got to deal with him, and that's it, and then they just start battling, and they

[29:01] spent so much time explaining other bullshit.

[29:03] Well, no, they do, but they don't.

[29:06] I would like to postulate, so the first 20 minutes could be gone entirely, but then we

[29:11] are, like, I don't know if it's right here, but it's close to here, that we are introduced

[29:15] in rapid succession to all of the Justice Society.

[29:17] This is right here, yeah.

[29:19] And none of them are given a proper introduction, they're given, like, people are just talking

[29:24] about them on the phone, there's no really funny character moment for any of them, and

[29:30] as Audrey points out, this is the good stuff, like assembling a team, like meeting the team,

[29:36] that's some of the fun stuff.

[29:37] The most exciting part is when Henry Winkler shows up in a video call.

[29:41] Yes, it is.

[29:42] He literally phones in his performance.

[29:44] That is the most exciting part of the movie, so we meet the-

[29:47] Guys, if they had just cast Henry Winkler as Adam Smasher, and he had been Adam Smasher

[29:52] in this movie, it might have been better.

[29:54] That would have been fantastic, and he's like, oy, my back.

[29:58] I feel sometimes like these movies-

[30:00] There are like games where you're allotting resources, like new places.

[30:05] And I feel like if the movie's resources could be measured in minutes, as it can,

[30:10] you know, we like, we spent 20 minutes on bullshit and then we like zoom through

[30:15] like these characters that were expected to care about so quickly.

[30:18] We know nothing about them.

[30:19] Like four or five of them are introduced in this movie.

[30:22] Like usually in like a Marvel movie, they'll introduce a secondary

[30:25] character, like one in someone else's movie to give them a little area to

[30:29] breathe. It's just insane to me.

[30:31] Well, I think I, when you talk about allotting resources, I think you're

[30:34] exactly right.

[30:34] Cause I wouldn't be surprised if Dwayne Johnson was like, these characters

[30:38] can't have more time than me.

[30:39] This is the movie black Adam starring Dwayne Johnson.

[30:41] So if you're going to introduce these other new characters, it's got to be super

[30:45] clear that they are not as important as me and they cannot get a lot of time on

[30:48] screen and then they get a surprising amount of time on screen, but none of it

[30:52] is for you, right?

[30:52] It doesn't, they're like, Hey, here's Quintessa.

[30:54] She's cyclone.

[30:55] We won't talk about where her powers are.

[30:56] Who gives a shit?

[30:57] Here's Adam Smasher.

[30:58] He's the nephew of the original Adam Smasher.

[31:00] It was Henry Winkler.

[31:00] Anyway, who cares what he does?

[31:02] I don't give a fuck.

[31:03] Let's get to Dr.

[31:03] Fate.

[31:04] It's Pierce Brosnan.

[31:05] What does he do?

[31:05] I don't know.

[31:06] He wears a helmet or some shit.

[31:07] He and I are friends from a long time past.

[31:09] Maybe.

[31:09] I don't know.

[31:10] Anyway, I'm Hawkman.

[31:11] Uh, what's with the justice society?

[31:12] Let's get moving.

[31:13] And that's the, that's basically what that feels like.

[31:16] Yeah.

[31:16] And they, but they also come up and as a result, that's their catchphrase, right?

[31:20] Let's get moving.

[31:22] Well, their catchphrase, their catchphrase should be, we're the B team because they

[31:26] feel very much from the get go.

[31:28] Like this is the justice league B team.

[31:31] Which could be funny.

[31:33] If they had been like, we're the B team because the A team is too busy

[31:36] fighting dark side or some garbage.

[31:38] Yeah.

[31:39] At least we would be like, okay, that's pretty funny.

[31:41] They, that gives them a little bit of character and personality that they're

[31:45] like, you want to, and if you want to, it doesn't fit with continuity because

[31:48] none of them were members of the JSA.

[31:49] But like, if you wanted to establish more connections to other movies, like

[31:52] throw a suicide squad member on there.

[31:54] Like that's the kind of person Amanda Walter and Walter, Amanda

[31:58] Waller has control of and can send after these things.

[32:01] That's why they exist.

[32:02] You're thinking of on Amanda Walder.

[32:06] Yeah.

[32:07] Yeah.

[32:07] When, when, when Henry David Thoreau spent his time at Amanda Walden pond.

[32:11] Yeah.

[32:11] So, uh, so, uh, now, uh, Teth Adam, he's asleep.

[32:16] He has a flashback.

[32:17] Uh, to being a kid.

[32:19] We think it's him anyway.

[32:20] And he wakes up in that skater kid's room.

[32:22] He heals his own wound with his fingers.

[32:24] And the kid is like, Hey dude, you've been in a tomb for 5,000 years.

[32:27] And he walks out.

[32:28] Uh, the kid's uncle is wearing the crown of sabacc just as a goof on his head,

[32:32] which it runs into, it's like, it's an evil artifact of untold

[32:35] power that erupts instantly.

[32:37] But he can just kind of sit around.

[32:39] It's pretty heavy too.

[32:42] I mean, I could buy this if like he was a skeptic, but they went out

[32:46] specifically to find it and also then woke up a man who like flew around

[32:51] and shot lightning at people.

[32:52] Like he should worry about whether it was helicopters around

[32:57] the found the crown floating in the air.

[32:59] Yeah.

[33:00] Yeah.

[33:00] Well, he wasn't there for that part, but yeah, she could tell him about it.

[33:02] She probably told him.

[33:04] The kid takes this moment to employ probably told about it.

[33:07] Yeah.

[33:07] It takes this moment.

[33:08] Would not believe where this crown was in his butt.

[33:12] No.

[33:12] Why is that the first place he would go to?

[33:15] I wouldn't go to his butt first to look for a crown, but you did apparently.

[33:18] No, that's not.

[33:20] So, uh, the kid tells him the history of conduct and intergang, which we've

[33:23] heard a couple of times already.

[33:24] And, uh, Teth Adam blast their TV and tells them, why don't you go destroy

[33:28] your enemies and then make them beg for mercy?

[33:30] And the kid is like, yeah.

[33:31] And the mom is like the archeologist, like, I don't like violence, but I

[33:34] do want a champion of freedom.

[33:36] Uh, and by the way, the casualness with which they're all dealing with him,

[33:41] I was going to say the house gets destroyed over the course of this

[33:44] movie really disturbed me.

[33:46] And I, I understand that like, Also people get murdered.

[33:50] Are you, are you, but I should care more about these fictional murders

[33:53] than these fictional possessions.

[33:56] But I think that there's too often in movies, like a supposedly heroic

[34:02] character walks around destroying things as a goof and we're supposed to laugh at

[34:09] and I keep thinking like people over property says Dan McCoy, but I'm saying

[34:14] that the hero, but you do believe people over property, the hero of the movie is

[34:18] destroying another hero of the movies house.

[34:22] And there's never any blend who's saying like, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey,

[34:25] stop it.

[34:26] Yeah.

[34:27] Maybe.

[34:27] Could you, you've got super strength and super speed.

[34:29] Can you rebuild this?

[34:30] Can you help us out?

[34:32] A Shia LaBeouf style?

[34:34] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[34:35] Would be called for as he just casually wrecks their apartment.

[34:38] And it reminds me of floats through walls and such.

[34:41] It reminds me of this, of the, and there's a joke about later where

[34:43] Dr.

[34:44] Fate goes, did they not?

[34:44] They didn't have doors in your time because he just always enters through a

[34:48] wall, but it reminds me of the season of modern family that turned me off of that

[34:51] show where at least two times in the season characters got into car accidents.

[34:55] And the rest of the episode was not about what am I going to do without a car now?

[34:58] It was just kind of like a funny thing that happened and they

[35:01] just magically had a new car.

[35:03] I can't, I can't say that as with somebody who, where a car accident doesn't

[35:06] totally throw their life off track.

[35:07] Anyway, if your car accident, does it lead you into a weird, like

[35:10] psychosexual adventure where you start having sex with Elias Kodeas and whatnot?

[35:15] I'm not into it.

[35:16] Can't sympathize with it.

[35:17] Can't, that's not true to life.

[35:18] If not yet.

[35:19] So, uh, so, uh, Teth Adam, he flies out the kid, uh, in one of the silliest

[35:23] moments, uh, lifts up one of what, like a filing cabinet to reveal a secret

[35:27] escape route out of his room and, and it takes that escape chute and he keeps

[35:32] saying Teth Adam, come on, you've got to become a famous superhero.

[35:35] Let's do this.

[35:36] You need a catchphrase.

[35:37] It is.

[35:38] All of that did not, uh, like, Hey y'all, uh, why don't you just want like

[35:43] Edward Furlong and Arnold Schwarzenegger did this so much better.

[35:46] This is exactly what I wanted to say.

[35:48] Like they, 100% were like, this is going to be a Terminator

[35:51] two relationship.

[35:53] And, uh, the JSA, they head to conduct.

[35:56] Dr.

[35:56] Fate has misgivings because he can tell, he can see the future and

[35:59] he sees Hawkman screaming in pain.

[36:01] I can't believe all of the futures.

[36:03] I was watching this movie.

[36:04] Like this can't be the ideal way to do all of this.

[36:08] Like if you have a man who's constantly seeing the future with you, I don't, I

[36:13] don't know, it opened up a lot of questions that black Adam didn't answer

[36:16] for me and was not interested in answering.

[36:19] I can't believe that like Arnold Schwarzenegger who is portraying a robot

[36:24] man, a cyborg has more like soul and pathos to him than Dwayne Johnson.

[36:31] A superhero who at this point we know is driven exclusively by rage.

[36:36] I think a part of that is Dwayne Johnson.

[36:40] I mean, desperately wants to be the new Arnold Schwarzenegger and as much

[36:43] charisma as he has, he does not have that inborn charisma that Arnold

[36:47] Schwarzenegger has, at least I haven't seen it, but the other differences

[36:50] that Terminator and Terminator two are written and directed by James

[36:53] Cameron, a master storyteller, pretty much that kind of story.

[36:57] And this was written by, I have to assume a committee of who knows

[37:00] how many dozens of people and directed by the director of Orphan.

[37:04] So it's a, it's not quite the same.

[37:05] You know, come on, hold on.

[37:06] I Jean Colette, Sarah, I will stand up for as a, a vulgar auteur.

[37:12] He's fine.

[37:13] He's not James Cameron.

[37:15] Orphan.

[37:15] Yeah.

[37:15] Not James Cameron for Orphan.

[37:17] And for, he made a lot of like good, uh, geezer films with, uh, Liam Neeson,

[37:22] but I did, yeah, I did look up, there's like a writing team who like this

[37:26] is their only big, uh, credit.

[37:30] And I assume that they, their stuff got rewritten by the guy that

[37:33] has a bigger filmography of, I apologize.

[37:37] I'm sure you're a nice man.

[37:39] Like nonsense.

[37:41] Uh, he's got Scoob exclamation point rampage, which is okay.

[37:46] Not great.

[37:48] Alvin and the chipmunks, the road chip, uh, due date and made of honor.

[37:52] M A D E.

[37:54] We all recall that man who was made of honor.

[37:56] He was created.

[37:58] It's like virtuosity made out of energy.

[38:01] Um, and so, I don't know, that might be part of the problem.

[38:05] I mean, I don't know if I w I would, I would go as far as to not blame any of

[38:09] the writers involved because any movie like this is going to have so much

[38:12] executive meddling and there's going to be so many other uncredited people who

[38:16] are brought on to do writing passes or to do punch-ups or brainstorming sessions.

[38:20] Or it's such a, this is the, this is like a definition of a movie made by

[38:24] a committee that has the, the reason that James Gunn's superhero movies are

[38:27] so successful is they have such a specific voice and sensibility to them.

[38:32] And this movie does not have any voice or sensibility to it.

[38:35] Like it, it, it feels like it was made by a machine and a machine without

[38:39] the charisma of, of the Terminator, which has a surprising amount of

[38:42] charisma for a Terminator machine.

[38:45] Uh, Teth Adam, he's floating around town.

[38:47] There is a colossal statue of the, of the ancient champion.

[38:51] It's like, it's enormous.

[38:52] It's got to be what, 500 feet tall, almost a thousand feet tall.

[38:55] It's huge.

[38:56] And, uh, and the skateboard kid is following him.

[38:59] And then the kid kind of deliberately antagonizes some intergang

[39:02] soldiers and starts making that ancient triangle hand signal,

[39:05] which everybody recognizes.

[39:07] And the intricate, the internet gang guys tackle him and the, uh, and

[39:11] recognize his mom when she intervenes.

[39:13] And that's when Teth Adam drops in, it saves them.

[39:15] Uh, he has kind of an, he has a Neil Morricone scored standoff.

[39:19] Saves them's a very nice way of putting it.

[39:21] I mean, he kills a lot of people.

[39:23] Uh, it's, it's also like, there's a part where he's, uh, uh, intergang

[39:26] guys has his, they do a Western standoff because he saw a couple

[39:29] seconds of the good, the bad and the ugly on a TV screen earlier.

[39:32] Thus ripping off RoboCop and any other movie where someone sees

[39:35] something on a TV and then does it.

[39:39] Another robot that has more soul.

[39:42] Well, also like this, those are movies also about like RoboCop is

[39:46] explicitly about a man who has been turned into a machine and has to

[39:49] regain his soul and even when he's a machine, yeah, he has more

[39:52] soul than black Adam does.

[39:53] But also this Western moment, like this is not a thing that has been

[39:56] given up weight the first time around that we saw for the call back to.

[40:00] land at all. It was just like a thing that was on the TV.

[40:02] And it is a pointless standoff because if the soldier shoots him first,

[40:06] Black Adam will catch the bullet, curl it as fast as he can into the soldier's

[40:09] head, and murder him. Like, there's no idea that this is a

[40:12] standoff in any sense when Black Adam could just take him out

[40:15] is not in any danger. I do have a question.

[40:18] Do you think that there were anybody in the movie theater

[40:21] watching Black Adam who would see these scenes

[40:24] of Black Adam murdering a bunch of like

[40:27] mercs and be like, awesome? I think, I mean, that's what they're

[40:32] hoping for. Maybe I just got done, it's because I just got done

[40:36] watching RRR and there's scenes where guys are like

[40:38] riding on each other's shoulders blasting dudes with bolt action rifles

[40:42] while doing flips and crap or like shooting a guy off his horse midair and

[40:46] then landing on that same horse in the same jump and then riding it

[40:50] around. What a movie, okay? That's how you do a

[40:52] fucking action sequence. I mean, a man goes one-on-one

[40:58] against a tiger. There is a thing, and I'm sure it's

[41:03] not exclusive to the DC movies, but there seems to be a certain

[41:07] like love of doing these like hyper fast, hyper strong guys

[41:12] just like annihilating people and it's so boring.

[41:16] Because it's the most

[41:19] basic, without any subtext or any gloss, power fantasy. And I can

[41:24] imagine, and certainly when I was a younger man and I was

[41:27] mad at the world and I felt like nothing ever went my way before I

[41:31] embarked on a successful television writing career and received a number of

[41:34] lucky breaks that I'm very thankful for. I certainly fantasized about being

[41:38] the kind of figure that could just bulldoze its way through

[41:42] any situation and was untouchable. And I think even more than the violence

[41:46] of it, it's the invulnerability of it and the

[41:48] untouchability of it that is so appealing and so endearing.

[41:51] The same way that like, why did I idolize Boba Fett when I was

[41:55] young, even though objectively he's crap at his job

[41:57] and can't do anything right. Because he has a fucking sick fit on, dude.

[42:02] Yeah, and he has this aura of, you don't know me, you can't tell what's

[42:06] going on with me, I'm untouchable. Am I a robot?

[42:10] Maybe. You don't know this yet. You don't know it. I mean, IG-88, you know he's a

[42:13] robot. He doesn't even wear a helmet. Yeah, look how skinny he is. He's gotta be a robot.

[42:17] There's no way a person can't fit in that. I mean, maybe some kind of weird sick-ass alien guy.

[42:21] Doug Jones is like, fuck you say, I can fit into an IG-88 costume.

[42:24] All right, Doug, let's see it. 20 bucks.

[42:28] Legendary performer Doug Jones died today, squeezing his own body to death as he

[42:32] tried to put on a homemade IG-88 costume to answer a challenge put forth to him by

[42:36] podcaster Stuart Wellington. All of Hollywood has dimmed its lights

[42:42] to recognize the tragic death of Doug Jones in a challenge.

[42:47] Here's a statement from the International Association

[42:51] of Performers Who Play Monsters and Stuff president Andy Serkis.

[42:54] We salute Doug Jones and we're glad that he died doing what he loved,

[42:58] trying to be a weirdo creature. If only we had the strength of character to do

[43:03] the same, we would all have died a long time ago. A weird stance for Andy Serkis

[43:07] to take to approve of this action.

[43:11] A single tear runs down Ron Perlman's face. But what do you expect from Lord Snoke himself?

[43:16] Anyway, so, uh, anyway, so, uh, but I think that's here that they are playing so hard

[43:21] in that para-fantasy of someone who can just do whatever they want and they're

[43:25] almost unstoppable, but there's no, there's nothing else to hide it.

[43:29] It's a weird, uh, metaphor for a big action star who refuses to lose in fights.

[43:36] Yes, exactly. And also, you know, we, it's a metaphor for what this

[43:39] franchise and what this company wants to be when Warner Brothers is a company that's having a lot

[43:43] of trouble right now and they wish that they were the unstoppable entertainment juggernaut

[43:48] that Disney and Marvel are and that you could, and like, they just can't pull it off.

[43:53] At least in their movies, their characters can just mow their way through bad guys.

[43:56] It's kind of like the way Superman was portrayed in Justice League in the Zack Snyder cut.

[44:01] Where it's like, oh, he's can never be hurt.

[44:03] And he just punches a bad guy in the face until they're dead.

[44:06] And Wonder Woman cuts his head off. And that's, and that's all he has to do.

[44:09] And that's what makes him great. Not that he stands for anything, but that he's just powerful.

[44:13] And here, I guess the idea is that this movie is the journey of Teth Adam towards

[44:16] standing for some kind of principle. But anyway, uh, the JSA...

[44:19] But even at the end, he's like, I will solve my problems through punching.

[44:23] Yeah. The JSA shows up and Hawkman saves two mercenaries that, uh,

[44:27] that Teth Adam tried to kill and the crowd boos him, which understandably I would too.

[44:32] If Mike, if I lived in a country that was under a brutal, violent dictatorship

[44:36] and some guy from, from America came in, in a Hawk costume, which looks a little Nazi-ish

[44:41] and we're holding a, holding a spiked mace and saved two of the bad guys who had been

[44:45] shooting at a kid, I'd boo him too. I would wonder what, what side he was on.

[44:49] And, uh, Adam kills them anyway in the chat crowd, cheers.

[44:53] And Dr. Fate shows up. And this is the weird part. Okay.

[44:56] Teth Adam, he is a man from 5,000 years ago. And the JSA later make it clear.

[45:00] They know this. They know more about him than our other characters know.

[45:04] They know he is super powerful and very violent and that he's just woken up.

[45:08] Instead of coming to him and saying, we have, Hey, we're super beings too.

[45:12] We want to talk to you about something. Dr. Fate comes in and says,

[45:15] you can't exist in this world, kneel or die, which seems like the, the,

[45:19] exactly the right way to get Black Adam's back up. Yeah. It's nuts.

[45:24] And so out of keeping with, with Dr. Fate.

[45:26] We know this guy's backstory at no point. Was he cool about kneeling?

[45:31] Kind of his whole deal was not kneeling for this.

[45:34] As we were watching this, you know, there were a lot of questions coming my way because

[45:38] you know, Audrey correct. That didn't find me as a nerd, but I was like, no, I'm sorry.

[45:42] I don't know. DC characters that much. I know.

[45:45] Marvel characters more. Uh, I was like, what about like Batman and Superman?

[45:50] I know Batman and Superman. Yes. Arguably the two best known.

[45:54] What about, uh, what about, uh, the metalloids or whatever?

[46:00] I don't know who those are, but, but Dan, you know, all the DC heroes, Prez shade,

[46:07] the changing man, ragdoll or whatever his name is.

[46:10] Yeah. I mean, I like looked up Dr. Fate. I'm like, I guess

[46:13] he's kind of like a DC doctor, strange analog in that they're both

[46:18] sorcerers. And Audrey had not seen the first doctor strange.

[46:21] He's familiar with him from later movies that I've seen with her, but she's like, what's,

[46:26] what's his doctorate. And I'm like, oh no, he's a metal medical doctor. He, you know,

[46:29] he was a surgeon. And then she's like, what's Dr. Fate's doctor. I looked it up and I'm like,

[46:34] oh, he's, he's just, you know, it's just a cool name. It's just a cool name.

[46:41] And he has, he has a magic alien helmet or something like that. So that's, there's a big

[46:44] fight. Dr. Fate does a lot of doctor strange type magic. It looks pretty cool. I have to say Dr.

[46:49] Fate's magic throughout the movie. I thought it looks really neat. And when cyclone shows up,

[46:53] there's some like slow motion color, you know, although cyclone arguably maybe the least in this

[47:01] movie, like in terms of any sort of impact that the character makes. I'm like, I've watched all

[47:06] black Adam. I still have no idea what the JSA, the JSA, they do fall into easily slotted

[47:12] characterizations. Hawkman is the leader who is kind of militaristic in a way and is not,

[47:20] he'll, he'd rather go in and fight than kind of, and as he says many times, they keep bringing it

[47:24] up. A bad plan is better than no plan, you know, and force is usually his first choice.

[47:30] Dr. Fate is the mystical kind of scientisty intellectual archaeologist guy who provides

[47:35] information and has a goatee. Adam Smasher is the doof. He's just the big clumsy doof,

[47:41] who's always fucking up all the time. And he's like a rookie. He's like, he's a rookie. Yeah,

[47:45] this is another thing I want. And at one point is able to procure a, is able to procure a bucket

[47:49] of fried chicken for a site gag in the middle of battle. And cyclone is, is like the character who

[47:56] is super smart and super poised, but otherwise has no personality and is kind of just kind of there,

[48:03] but is a, is a commendable character, but it's not an interesting character. Yeah.

[48:07] I want to talk about for a moment to Adam Smasher, who is, as you say, a doof and.

[48:12] And his power is that he can grow enormous. He can grow enormous. He's half an ant man. He cannot

[48:17] shrink. He can grow big. And I have to say, and again, the effects with him look great.

[48:23] And there are times when he's blundering around and I'm like, it is cool. It always is cool to

[48:28] see a giant person bumping, you know, picking up cars. Yeah. And maybe in another project,

[48:32] like I'm watching, uh, the recruit on Netflix starring Noah Centino, the same guy plays Adam

[48:40] Smasher. I'm not going to make like big, super large. No, but he's pretty good about how they

[48:47] recruited him to be Adam Smasher. I I'm just saying, I think he could be funny in something

[48:51] else here. It's like what, like, I think because he is similar to Ant-Man and his powers,

[48:59] they're also kind of like, okay, well he got his suit from his uncle and he also is like a

[49:06] bumbling doofus. But with Ant-Man, like you understand why he's Ant-Man in spite of the

[49:11] fact that he is unqualified for the job. For this, as part of a team that is sent in by like

[49:17] the government, I'm like, why is this guy on here? Because his uncle has a suit? Like,

[49:23] what the fuck are we doing? Yeah. Yeah. It really, he's not qualified for this mission.

[49:27] He seems to have had no training. And that's the other thing, except for Hawkman and Dr. Fate,

[49:32] none of the JSA members have met each other before today. So it makes sense. It would make more

[49:38] sense for Amanda Waller to send in people who know each other's names and have met each other.

[49:41] They got to know each other on the flight over and there's a number of scenes about the movie.

[49:46] If they made an effort to be like, if they like lost the first fight against Black Adam and they

[49:51] made a point of being like, oh yeah, because we didn't know how to work as a team yet.

[49:55] Yeah. Yeah. But they don't really do that either. Anyway, they do lose the first fight against Black

[50:00] He knocks out Adam Smasher with one punch and Adam Smasher continues to be a doof throughout

[50:04] and the crowd chants for Teth Adam and he flies away.

[50:06] If Mark Miller had written this scene he would have like punched through Adam Smasher's head.

[50:12] He would have like punched so hard he would go through Adam Smasher's bowels and all this

[50:15] giant shit would fall all over the city and drown people. Yeah, that's Mark Miller's way

[50:20] of doing things. He's gross. Do you think that this shit grows big too or just the living

[50:26] tissue? That's a really good question. Like the bacteria inside his little tummy.

[50:31] Yeah, so then is he constantly hungry then? If that's the case when he's giant is he constantly

[50:36] hungry because there's not enough food to fuel him? Did we ever have this discussion about if

[50:41] the Hulk eats a lot of food and then changes back to Bruce Banner if Bruce Banner's stomach gets

[50:45] distended and has trouble pooping out all that poop? Okay, well then I must have had that debate

[50:50] with somebody else. I mean that sounds great. Yeah, so he's that so and if anyone knows the

[50:57] answer just write into the flop house that the Hulk eats a lot then changes back to Bruce Banner.

[51:01] How does that affect Bruce Banner? Yeah, so um that covers all characters who morph by the way

[51:06] not just the Hulk. Well, everybody's morphing these days which is a reference that Elliot knows.

[51:13] A reference to a video from 25 years ago I think that we used to watch at the in the Daily Show

[51:18] in this room. Yeah, everybody's morphing these days. Yeah, so Adriana the archaeologist mom

[51:26] she chews out the GSA. She's like oh you never showed up until now you never tried to help us

[51:31] but now when a powerful guy who might help us shows up you try to get rid of him and her son

[51:34] skates away with the crown. He's got the crown. I don't remember how they got it back and Hawkman

[51:39] says hey by the way we have secret texts that you've never seen that say Teth Adam's rage was

[51:45] what destroyed Khandaq thousands of years ago. She instantly accepts this as the truth when

[51:49] anyone else would be like bullshit show me show me that the guys who just showed up and I've never

[51:54] been here before have sacred texts that I a native archaeologist have never seen that talk about this

[51:59] come on but she just takes it as granted. They all go to the castle ruins where uh where Teth

[52:04] Adam is and so I hope you guys like this fucking ruined throne room set because so much of the

[52:10] movie keeps coming back here it felt a lot like a fucking level of the injustice fighting video

[52:16] game where you would like fight in a level punch somebody into a completely different level but

[52:22] then you'd always end up back on the original level after like punching someone to the fucking

[52:26] moon because that basically is what happens in the movie yes and this and this ruined temple or

[52:31] castle is in the center of the town basically right like it was hard for me to keep track of

[52:36] the geography but it seems like it's just kind of in the center of of Khandaq which Khandaq is

[52:41] a city or is it a country yeah I couldn't tell if it was like a city state yeah some kind of city

[52:46] state like a Singapore or something but like Madripoor and yeah or Madripoor all the pores

[52:51] but it shows you it shows you how little thought has been given into where this takes place and

[52:56] it's like the difference with a movie like Black Panther is they clearly put a fair amount of

[53:00] thought into like what is Wakanda how does it operate whereas Khandaq it is so they've done

[53:05] none of that and it takes what could be interesting which is like a superhero story told from a

[53:09] non-american non-western civilization point of view and it does not a non-judeo-christian I assume

[53:16] point of view and like it does doesn't they didn't do the work like they didn't care enough yeah yeah

[53:20] and then those as we've already said those are ideas that we were all excited about yeah I to

[53:27] have a I mean if you told me the basic premise of the movie I'd be like yeah I want to see that I

[53:30] want to see a superhero movie that where the hero he acts off of different cultural assumptions

[53:35] and different loyalties than Superman but and they highlight the fact that western superheroes

[53:40] only care when it might be a threat to their own interests but they do it in the in the like the

[53:45] idea of their universal good which whatever well and that and that the JSA by virtue of being from

[53:53] the west has the right to go into another to tell anyone who has superpowers go to jail or you're

[53:58] or you're done for it you know so they're they're in the ruined temple throne room or castle throne

[54:02] room and um and uh Adriana's like hey Adam you've got some explaining to do here's the story the JSA

[54:09] told me that apparently you went after the king out of revenge not justice and it's like all right

[54:15] well that doesn't really matter who cares but you lost control of your powers and you were imprisoned

[54:20] by the council of wizards is that true I didn't open your tomb did I I opened your prison but now

[54:27] you have the chance to be a hero for real and we cut away from that as Tep Adam faces this moral

[54:34] crossroads and we get to uh the skater skater kid Aman he comes home and uh-oh evil Ishmael is there

[54:40] and he takes the crown and shoots uh shoots Aman's uncle the goofy guy Kareem and uh then we go back

[54:46] to the JSA is now talking to Adam and uh for Adam for for one of the dumbest jokes I think I've ever

[54:52] seen in one of these movies Adam Smasher shows up with a bucket of chicken and Dr. Fate uses magic

[54:57] to magic it away because it's disrespectful and it's like what when did he stop to get it where

[55:02] did he get it like what what it's such a dumb joke like a yeah he's brought like a whole comically

[55:08] large bucket of chicken and no one until this moment said anything about it like yeah like Dr.

[55:13] Fate's like oh I should use my magic on and also like he needs to eat like they should have just

[55:17] left him out like he could have just hung out outside and ate like he needs it because he's big

[55:22] and he like yeah he's not eating because he just loves chicken all screwed up he was he should be

[55:27] like I was just 60 feet tall like I need fuel come on yeah but uh I want to know that part it's not

[55:33] like he's going to like he's not going to convince Teth Adam of anything it's true he is one of the

[55:39] least useful of the members already and honestly I want to know how the fried chicken is in conduct

[55:43] do I should I go there is it worth my time so uh the JSA they're kind of posturing so they they uh

[55:50] they're kind of uh posturing with uh Teth Adam again they're all squaring off and then Adriana

[55:55] gets a call from his from her son oh no he's in trouble uh and so she begs Teth Adam please

[56:00] save my child meanwhile Aman is single-handedly using his skateboard to just show up all these

[56:06] intergang terrorists he home alone's the fuck out of these guys yeah they called it country alone

[56:12] because he's saving his whole country and then uh Teth Adam shows up and fights a bunch and Ishmael

[56:18] shows up and takes the kid but nobody knows where the crown of sabacc is where did he hide it

[56:23] and uh Teth Adam knows that that uh Ishmael has taken Aman into one of his sky cycles and that

[56:29] leaves to a big series of fights where Black Adam's just throwing guys off of sky cycles to their

[56:34] deaths eventually uh he seems they do they do a little bit of a shell game with the sky cycles

[56:39] where you're like which one is the real one that has the kid in the back yes exactly and you think

[56:43] at the last minute that he's found it but it turns out he hasn't and Hawkman is like hey if

[56:48] you stop killing people we'll help you save that kid and Black Adam says no and they fight some

[56:55] more and Adam Smasher accidentally swats Hawkman to the ground and there's this running gag where

[56:58] Hawkman just keeps saying to Adam Smasher you and me after this we need to talk like you and me and

[57:04] anyway uh we never see that i guess he manages to save no Dr. Fate saves Kareem and he starts what

[57:12] i think is one of the funnier running gags in the movie where he says this isn't i've seen the

[57:16] future this isn't how you die you die with electricity and i'm here and Kareem is like

[57:20] but i'm an electrician and throughout the movie Kareem is fine running into dangerous situations

[57:26] because he's like i die by electricity i know i'm not going to die now which is a funny bit

[57:30] yeah um so uh they they fake us out in thinking that Adam has found uh Aman but he hasn't Ishmael

[57:37] is taking away somewhere else uh Black Adam because this kind of movie jokes about throwing

[57:41] a man to his death as he because he's just thrown a man to his death although i gotta say like if

[57:45] the movie had leaned into that stuff a little bit more like did the Terminator 2 thing where it's

[57:50] yes like we had this guy doesn't understand our version of morality so we're gonna have to like

[57:57] babysit him but there's also the funniness of like you know him blundering through and murdering

[58:02] people like the dark comedy of that like they could have done that but they they don't and

[58:07] instead their version of that no their version of that is that he keeps saying his catchphrase

[58:13] that the kid has given him at the wrong moment and so like he'll kill someone and then say the

[58:16] catchphrase and it's oh catchphrase first then kill it's like that's not the joke you should

[58:20] be doing anyway uh Adam Smasher and Cyclone there's a series of the beginning of a series

[58:24] of scenes where they're bonding i guess we're supposed to assume there's like a romance that's

[58:27] going to blossom between them it leads to nothing uh and Hawkman shows that Black Adam that if or

[58:33] if you take prisoners instead of killing them you can get information from them so Adam gets the

[58:39] information he needs about where the kid is and then kills them anyway or drops them to Hawkman

[58:43] and uh this begins a running bit between Dr. Fate and Teth Adam about the difference between

[58:49] about what sarcasm is and the difference between lies and sarcasm anyway uh the running games are

[58:53] all starting uh they there's a big debate between Teth Adam and Hawkman about the debate over the

[58:57] morality of killing which neither side presents that good an argument they fight again they

[59:02] destroy a lot of justice league merchandise in the kid's bedroom they're destroying the apartment

[59:07] uh and their fight reveals the hiding place of the crown of Sobok the kid hid it in his dresser

[59:13] the whole time uh and so next to the fucking cum socks right yep that's he's like no one

[59:19] will want to touch it if it's covered in these he doesn't realize that the crown gives power

[59:25] to the human your cum socks you put them you're saying you put them back in the drawer

[59:33] i'm saying this gross ass kid might do okay dan obviously you're not familiar with the the

[59:38] legendary story of the west of the cum sock load which was a vein of cum socks a rich vein of gum

[59:43] socks that was discovered made many millionaires yeah so anyway uh they now the mom is like hey

[59:50] you heroes are going to work together to save my son and they're like all right we will ma'am

[59:54] and dr fate tells hawkman i've seen your death but don't worry the future can still be changed

[59:59] and they go

[1:00:00] I guess to like the Eternium mine, and the Intergang has Amon there, and Teth-Adam jumps

[1:00:05] the gun and just starts attacking people at the mine, but it's protected by an Eternium-powered

[1:00:09] shield, a force field, that he can't get through, and Ishmael says, I'm gonna kill Amon unless

[1:00:13] you give me the crown, and...

[1:00:14] What I love is that, it's around here where Ishmael reveals that he is the last living

[1:00:21] descendant of King Ak-Tal, and I'm like, wow, 23 and me, man, what the fuck?

[1:00:26] Well, he says, he goes, now I, and he goes, now I'll get the crown, I'm the last descendant

[1:00:32] of King Ak-Tal, this story has been passed down through generation after generation of

[1:00:37] my family, and it's like, for 5,000 years?

[1:00:39] Yeah, that's amazing.

[1:00:40] That's an astonishing amount of time for a lineage to be kept up, that's incredible.

[1:00:46] If even one of those people was like me, and lazy, and uninterested in passing along family

[1:00:52] tales, or if one person was like, you know what, my descendant was an evil king, I don't

[1:00:59] think I wanna continue this.

[1:01:01] Or one person was told by their parents, oh, by the way, you're the last descendant of

[1:01:04] an evil king, and they were like, no, I'm not, come on, it's like the story, I just

[1:01:09] watched an episode of Finding Your Roots, where it turns out that Ed Norton is descendant

[1:01:12] of Pocahontas, and it was like that, I barely believed that the paperwork exists, but I'll

[1:01:17] trust Henry Louis Gates, okay, but the idea that for 5,000 years, this story is passed

[1:01:22] down, and I really wish that Ishmael had put on the crown, and it turned out his family

[1:01:27] was just, it was just family lore that wasn't true, and Teth-Adam, you know, just crushed

[1:01:31] his head.

[1:01:32] Yeah, and then he throws it down, he's like, does this mean I'm not Native American, either?

[1:01:36] So anyway, he ends up, anyway, he gets the crown, but then Teth-Adam, but he's gonna

[1:01:43] shoot the kid anyway, and he fires a bullet, and even though we've seen Teth-Adam flying

[1:01:48] around at almost light speed, catching bullets, the movie extends in slow-mo for so long,

[1:01:52] as if we think that the movie's gonna, Teth-Adam's not gonna be able to save him.

[1:01:56] And what's wild in the slow-mo, is that he shoots, in the time it takes him to shoot

[1:02:00] the bullet, and we watch Teth-Adam slowly, slow-mo fly to try and block it, Ishmael has

[1:02:07] time to drop his gun, lift up the crown, and put it on his fuckin' dome, like, how fast

[1:02:13] is that guy moving?

[1:02:15] He's a quick-draw artist when it comes to crowns.

[1:02:17] Anyway, Adam is so worried that he loses control of his powers, he blows up the whole mine,

[1:02:21] this is one of those movie-controlled explosions where all the good guys are saved, and only

[1:02:26] the bad guys are killed, Ishmael has been turned to a stone statue holding the crown,

[1:02:31] and Hawkman turns to Black Adam, they're about to fight again, and Hawkman goes, how long

[1:02:35] are we gonna keep doing this?

[1:02:36] And I was like, as an audience member, that is my question as well, thank you, Hawkman,

[1:02:40] for saying what we're all thinking.

[1:02:42] And now Teth-Adam finally reveals the final flashback sequence, he tells Hawkman the story

[1:02:48] of his son, the kid from 5,000 years ago who got the wizard power, wait a minute, Teth-Adam's

[1:02:53] not that kid, Teth-Adam was the father of that kid, and the kid got that power and was

[1:02:59] flying around as a champion, but the king, to get revenge, he killed the kid's parents,

[1:03:05] and the kid shows up, his mother's dead and his father's dying, and he gives his father

[1:03:09] the Teth-Adam powers to save him, but then, a sniper with an arrow kills the kid, classic

[1:03:14] sniper move, fucking immediately, he was fucking waiting for it, and Teth-Adam, it turns out

[1:03:22] Teth-Adam was not the original champion, he was given the power by his son, and he went

[1:03:26] mad and out of vengeance and blah blah blah, and that giant statue of the champion isn't

[1:03:30] a statue of Adam, it's a statue of Adam's son, which raises the question to me, so did

[1:03:34] they raise that statue when the king was still around?

[1:03:37] Because it seems weird that the king would allow them to raise an enormous statue of

[1:03:41] the man who's trying to overthrow him, or did they raise it later, in which case it

[1:03:45] could have been a statue of bad Teth-Adam, who knows, I don't know.

[1:03:49] Yeah, that's a good point, also this revelation, there's two things I want to say about it,

[1:03:54] number one, I think this is one of those cases where, you know, surprise as a screenwriter

[1:04:00] is being valued more than like engaging us in the characters and understanding the characters'

[1:04:05] motivation, because I think arguably it would be more effective for us to know the full

[1:04:10] story at the beginning and understand all of his issues, and then get this character

[1:04:19] rather than have it be this reveal, which is not always shocking.

[1:04:23] I think more backstory up front would be a good idea.

[1:04:26] No, I think, or even if they just cut it out, because you know what, it's not that important,

[1:04:33] and also we've already established who Teth-Adam is, like we don't need another twist to help

[1:04:37] us explain why he was always a bad champion, he was never the champion.

[1:04:41] He was never a hero.

[1:04:42] The other part of it is that they're trying so hard to make this character into this tortured

[1:04:49] anti-hero, and the thing is, we've seen superhero movies before, we've seen The Rock before,

[1:04:54] we know that The Rock is the hero of this movie, him like accidentally destroying the

[1:05:01] society in the past is presented so quickly that even though, you know, if we think about it,

[1:05:07] we're like, oh that's a big deal, like in movie language it is waved away, and I think that it's

[1:05:13] part of The Rock just like being scared of actually being an anti-hero, like we have to see the misery

[1:05:20] of like, I fucked up, like what did I do, I like killed my society, like that has to weigh more

[1:05:27] if this is what you want to do with this story, like because as it is, like he's just like, why is

[1:05:32] this guy kind of a dick for a while, and then like slightly less of a dick, yeah, if they played up the

[1:05:36] idea that like, he destroyed the society, if they showed a moment of him like realizing what

[1:05:44] he'd done, and then when the wizards were trapping him, he didn't like resist, he was just like,

[1:05:49] yeah, like, and then he, when waking up in the modern times, he's like, maybe, maybe I can do

[1:05:57] something, which I kind of guess is what they try and go for anyway, no, but I think what they're

[1:06:01] trying to do, if he was seeking redemption rather than hiding from it, yeah, and he, it's, he kind,

[1:06:07] well, yeah, it's hiding from it more, because he tells Hawkman, he says Shazam to lose his power,

[1:06:12] which is funny, because he turns back into himself, who's still pretty buff, like he still

[1:06:15] looks like a pretty big guy, and I mean, but it's definitely a different guy with The Rock's head on

[1:06:21] yes, yes, but they didn't go all the way and make him like a, like a skinny, weak guy, they just

[1:06:27] made him like a slightly less muscular guy, he gives up his power, he tells Hawkman, never let

[1:06:32] me say that again, and the JSA takes him to a Task Force XX secret facility, where he's imprisoned

[1:06:38] and suspended animation, and it's like, this seems, this seems harsh, this seems like a very

[1:06:42] harsh way to treat him, to put him in the minority report prison, if he's willing to give up his

[1:06:46] powers, fine, but maybe do that after you get back the Demon Crown, like, why is he doing it

[1:06:52] now? Well, he thinks, well, well, because he, he thinks that the problem's been solved, and we,

[1:06:57] as the audience, are supposed to think the problem's solved, and, but the archaeologist

[1:07:01] in Cyclone realized that, wait a minute, and this is something they realize based on nothing,

[1:07:06] and we are, and it is so, it's hilarious to me how they reason this, she goes, wait a minute,

[1:07:10] Ishmael died on purpose, because he knew that would send him to the Rock of Finality, where

[1:07:15] the Demon Kings live, and they would make him their champion, and send him back, which is exactly

[1:07:19] what happens, but this is based on the, it's great, that's, yeah, they turn the crown, the crown is an

[1:07:24] inscription that says, the path to death, life is the path to death, and they turn it upside down,

[1:07:29] and apparently upside down, upside down, thank you, that ancient language, I guess, changes meanings

[1:07:34] upside down, because upside down, it means death is the path to life, and she's like, oh, so that

[1:07:39] was Ishmael's plan, and it's, it's such an amazing leap in logic for them to assume, oh yeah, he died

[1:07:43] on purpose, so that he'd go to the demon's house, the demons would turn him into a super powerful

[1:07:47] demon man, but that's exactly what happens, they turn him into the living embodiment of their

[1:07:52] power, he's a demon man, he's got a super powered, kind of upside down star on his chest, that can

[1:07:56] fire flames, anyway, he attacks the JSA, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, a Hawk man does manage to

[1:08:02] injure him with an axe, because we learned with, in JLA, axes are the most powerful instruments of

[1:08:07] violence in the world, they can take out Darkseid instantly, and he has to leave, fate, and then he

[1:08:13] realizes, Hawk man, this is, Dr. Fate says, Hawk man, this is the battle I saw you dying in, but I can

[1:08:18] change the future by dying myself, and so he locks himself inside a force field in that throne room,

[1:08:25] and just fights him for a while, while telepathically, at the same time, speaking to

[1:08:32] Teth-Adam in his prison, and I guess giving him the will to live, to free himself, he uses magic,

[1:08:39] and there's part of it's like, I bet Dr. Fate could have pulled off this plan without dying,

[1:08:44] but you know what, let's let him do that, speaking of like, Dr. Strange, I feel like this is, the

[1:08:50] balls of this movie, trying to pull like, kind of a similar trick to the stuff that happens in

[1:08:56] Infinity War and Endgame, yeah, with this, anyway, yeah, with much less interesting characters, yes,

[1:09:03] and so Teth-Adam, he frees himself, he fights a bunch of Task Force X guards, and he gets shot,

[1:09:09] but he does it, he does it without his powers, he does it without his powers, which should be

[1:09:14] impossible, that he's just taking blow after blow to the head, and fighting past them, and he can't

[1:09:19] say his magic word, because he still has this thing on his mouth, that keeps him from talking,

[1:09:23] and so Sobok, he finally kills Dr. Fate, and from all the others, he sits on his throne,

[1:09:28] which shoots a big laser blast into the sky, and that causes, that causes his,

[1:09:35] your laser blasts don't go into the sky, though, and it causes zombie legions to attack the city,

[1:09:41] luckily, the zombie legions are incredibly easy to fight, and all the people of Kondok,

[1:09:46] Kondok, which has a population of about 50, they're just fighting off these guys,

[1:09:50] and Kareem shows up, and he's able to help the fight off, anyway, so Teth-Adam, he's,

[1:09:56] it's always funny when, like, an army

[1:10:00] have like the living dead show up and they are easily defeated. That is funny when our army of

[1:10:04] undead show up. I laugh and laugh. I think, Dan, you should have waited for the second part of

[1:10:10] Stuart's thought. What? No. They're being defeated incredibly. There's a part where you see

[1:10:18] townspeople and undead running at each other and a townsperson falls and it looks like he slips.

[1:10:21] Like, it doesn't even look like the zombie got him. So, Teth-Adam, I guess, has drowned in trying

[1:10:27] to escape from the prison, but he sees his family gladiator style. Oh, yeah. His son tells him,

[1:10:34] it's not your time. Aman, he inspires people to rise up against the zombies with that triangular

[1:10:41] hand signal because they needed a motivation to stop zombies from eating them, I guess.

[1:10:48] And Teth-Adam's son is like, say Shazam. So, he says it. Sabak finally knocks over that big

[1:10:53] champion statue. It was about to crush the total population of Kondok, which again is a couple

[1:10:57] dozen people, when Teth-Adam shows up and catches it and then hands it to Atom Smasher so that Atom

[1:11:02] can fight. And it's confusing that Atom Smasher and Teth-Adam are the two characters in this movie.

[1:11:08] Give them a different name. Do you think they brought Atom Smasher along because his name is

[1:11:13] Atom? Well, they thought this guy smashes atoms and we're going after Teth-Adam. Your whole power

[1:11:18] is smashing atoms. Yeah, we only heard it. They never saw it written down. He also doesn't

[1:11:23] technically smash atoms. It's because he's in the comics. He's a descendant of the original,

[1:11:27] the Atom, who could not, had no powers, but was just a short guy who fought much like Alpha

[1:11:32] Flight's Puck, who it also, I guess, kind of has powers that he was not originally short,

[1:11:37] but was turned short through magic. Turned short to capture, to find a deal. Yeah. Yeah. So,

[1:11:43] being short is a power. I'm a living example. Teth-Adam and Sabacc fight. It's very video gamey.

[1:11:50] The mob fights the skeletons. Sabacc impales Hawkman. And Black Atom has a new cape when he

[1:11:56] comes back. Yeah. I don't know where he got the cape from, but he's got it now. His whole outfit's

[1:12:01] a little different, right? It's a little different. Yeah, it's a little more heroic. And Sabacc

[1:12:05] impales Hawkman, but it turns out that was a fake Hawkman because Hawkman has Dr. Fate's helmet and

[1:12:09] apparently can do all the things Dr. Fate did. Yeah. Which really takes a lot of impressive,

[1:12:14] really makes me less impressed with Dr. Fate. Yes. Well, it's a very user-friendly helmet.

[1:12:18] Yeah. Yeah. Just plug and play. The OS on that is so instinctive. Yeah. Yeah. And so,

[1:12:25] Hawkman and Teth-Adam, now they cooperate to fight Sabacc, and Teth-Adam remembers his

[1:12:30] catchphrase and says it just in time before he tears Sabacc in two down the middle, reverse

[1:12:36] bone tomahawk style from the head down. All the zombies dissolve. Dr. Fate's helmet dissolves,

[1:12:42] I guess understanding that it's no longer needed for the plot. Yeah. And...

[1:12:47] Back to his home planet. Probably to find a new Dr. Fate. Yeah. Yes, probably. Archaeologist Mom

[1:12:54] takes responsibility for... Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It has to be. He would be great. He's the next of

[1:13:00] everything. Yeah. And Archaeologist Mom, she says, I'll take responsibility for Teth-Adam.

[1:13:06] And Hawkman is like, just watch out, that darkness inside you will corrupt you. And she goes, it's his

[1:13:10] darkness that lets him do what you won't do. As if what he does is anything more impressive than

[1:13:14] just murdering people. And the JSA leaves, the crowd, they say, lead us, lead us to Teth-Adam.

[1:13:20] And he sits down on the throne and then says, this feels wrong, and he destroys the throne.

[1:13:25] And the kid goes, you know, Teth-Adam is kind of an old-fashioned name. Or maybe he says that.

[1:13:29] He says the name Teth-Adam is kind of old-fashioned. And she goes, so what should we call you? And he

[1:13:33] looks at the camera, and then as we mentioned, it cuts to the title, Black Adam, end of movie.

[1:13:38] And then we get to the most exciting part of the movie for me, in the credits, when C.C. Beck

[1:13:44] gets acknowledged as the co-creator of Black Adam. Very exciting to see C.C. Beck, a legendary

[1:13:48] comic creator who died many years ago, with his credits in the movie. Now, it's the mid-credits

[1:13:53] scene. And Black Adam is having a hologram telephone call with Amanda Waller, and she's like,

[1:13:58] here's the deal, you stay in conduct, or I'll kill you instantly. And he goes, do your worst,

[1:14:02] send me your worst people. And she goes, I've got someone better than you. And then Henry Cavill,

[1:14:07] Superman, drops in and says, we should talk. Cut to Black. The sad thing is, they never will.

[1:14:13] Because Henry Cavill no longer plays Superman, and I don't think they're making any more Black

[1:14:16] Adam movies. Maybe he'll convince Dwayne to be in one of his Warhammer shows that he's working on.

[1:14:23] I feel like this mid-credits sequence, it doesn't even rise the level of the Morbius mid-credits

[1:14:27] sequence, which was a matter of like, huh? Why is this happening? That it's like, Superman shows up

[1:14:34] and he's going to talk to Black Adam. And I guess the audience is supposed to be like, oh, these two

[1:14:38] titans, what's going to happen between them? But I have so little investment in either of these

[1:14:43] characters by this point that I don't really care that much. Guys, we took a long time to get

[1:14:48] through Black Adam, a movie that is really by the numbers and is mostly just fight scenes.

[1:14:54] Is it time for final judgments? I think so. Let's do final judgments, whether this is a good, bad

[1:15:00] movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie that we kind of like. Look, this movie is not so great. I

[1:15:12] don't know. I watched a movie last night called B.A.T.S. It's from 1999. You may remember it

[1:15:22] starred Dina Mayer and Lou Diamond Phillips. Yeah, the title was upside down on the poster

[1:15:29] because that's what you read it. Yeah. And I could see the movie. Oh, finally, something for me.

[1:15:37] Representation. I appreciate it. Yeah. And the amazing thing about B.A.T.S. for me is how much

[1:15:44] it is exactly what you imagine a movie called B.A.T.S. would be. It is Jaws, but in, you know,

[1:15:57] Arizona. And it follows all of like the beats of a low budget movie about evil B.A.T.S., including

[1:16:06] like the bad guys, a guy being, you know, the the evil scientist who created super intelligent B.A.T.S.,

[1:16:14] who like thinks he can control the B.A.T.S. and gets hoisted by them. I think that's going to

[1:16:18] work out for him. It hits all the hits at all, you know. And the thing is, real quick, I hate to

[1:16:24] interrupt this, Dan, but if I ever come up with a scheme to create like super intelligent animals or

[1:16:30] dragons or something, tell me to not do that. Yeah. But and we'll do it in a respectful way.

[1:16:36] We won't say, Stuart, you're mad. You've gone mad. You shouldn't. Because I'm fucking sensitive.

[1:16:42] I'm just going to make you want to do it more. Yeah. It's going to hurt your feelings. You're

[1:16:45] going to want to do more. We'll say, Stuart, you're brilliant. I think you could pull it off,

[1:16:49] but I don't think you should. You've thought so much about whether you could. You haven't

[1:16:52] thought about whether that's what I need to hear in that moment. But the reason I bring up B.A.T.S.

[1:16:56] is like they're going to have to pull your funding, unfortunately. Oh, but maybe we could repurpose it

[1:17:02] towards something, a different project. I'm creating super intelligent earthworms. Colossus

[1:17:07] the Forbidden Project. No, those are both dangerous projects. Here's the thing about it is there are

[1:17:14] all these things on the Internet, like on Twitter or whatever, that purport to be like, yeah,

[1:17:19] A.I. generated scripts for things. And most of it is bullshit that some like aspiring comedy writer

[1:17:24] wrote like, ha ha ha. But like this, like B.A.T.S. Dan with no sympathy for aspiring comedy writers,

[1:17:30] despite having read one before. I have sympathy for that. Just don't lie about the A.I. thing.

[1:17:36] Anyway, the point is, that movie feels like the template for a movie like you open Final Draft

[1:17:48] and they're like disaster animal movie. They would just have the template and it would be the script

[1:17:53] for B.A.T.S. And likewise, Black Adam in some ways feels like the template for bad DC action

[1:18:00] superhero movie. But the thing is with B.A.T.S., it's a movie from a while back with almost no

[1:18:06] budget and a bunch of rubber bats. And it's 90 minutes long. And so I find the utter like

[1:18:13] cookie cutter genericness of it charming. Yeah. In the way that it is angering with Black Adam,

[1:18:19] where it's like you have all these resources, you know, big stars, everything behind you,

[1:18:24] and this is what you give us. And it is just frustrating and not fun. And that's my feeling

[1:18:32] about this movie. OK. Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to agree with you. I think it's a bad,

[1:18:37] bad movie. I think they don't make enough effort to make a saying about that movie, if only it's

[1:18:44] yeah, they don't give you any enough to root for any character involved. They don't really justify

[1:18:51] why almost anything is happening. It's just not for me. I think they and the fact that they like

[1:18:58] toy with some actual interesting ideas make the the flaws more glaring for me.

[1:19:05] Yeah, I agree. It's a it's a bad, bad movie. I think that. It's a movie that

[1:19:11] suffers from being like the 30th or 35th of these kinds of movies. And like there's a lot of things

[1:19:17] in it that if this had been the first time I was seeing it, I'd be like, whoa, a giant person,

[1:19:22] a superhero can just kind of smash through things like amazing. But instead, we've seen it all

[1:19:28] before. And it feels like Dan was saying kind of negatively cookie cutter. And it just doesn't

[1:19:33] work. And so I'm going to give it a bad, bad. And looking up the trivia on IMDb, I didn't know this

[1:19:37] according to the trivia, it says Jordan Peele was originally offered the chance to direct the film

[1:19:41] when it was first announced. And I'm wondering, is that just because it has the word black in the

[1:19:45] title, which makes me dislike it even more. But they were like, oh, of course, I direct a superhero

[1:19:49] movie with black in the title. So I would say it's a it's it's a bad, bad movie. And I but I will say

[1:19:55] this. There are a couple of funny jokes in it. There are a couple of times in the movie where

[1:19:58] there were jokes made.

[1:20:00] that I did think were kind of funny.

[1:20:01] There's a part where Black Adam is like,

[1:20:04] he says something, he goes, did you kill those people?

[1:20:06] He goes, no.

[1:20:07] And then you see the people die.

[1:20:09] And he goes, that was sarcasm.

[1:20:10] And Dr. Fate goes, it's not sarcasm, just a lie.

[1:20:12] And I thought that was the way Chris Brosnan said it was funny.

[1:20:15] But other than that, it's even having like-

[1:20:18] Well, that's the thing, you have a great performer.

[1:20:21] Yes, but even to the point of having a goofy side character

[1:20:25] who sings an old pop song,

[1:20:27] like even to the point of having like a doof character

[1:20:31] who's always kind of silly and messing up

[1:20:33] like in the superhero team,

[1:20:34] it feels like such a fourth generation

[1:20:38] of the things that we've seen.

[1:20:39] And it feels weird to have the rock-playing character

[1:20:42] who has no humor to him.

[1:20:43] So I would call it a miss, as in miss this movie.

[1:20:52] J. Keith, do you know what I love more than the trivia,

[1:20:55] comedy, and celebrity guests on our podcast,

[1:20:58] Go Fact Yourself?

[1:20:59] No, what, Ellen?

[1:21:00] Sharing all of those things with an actual audience.

[1:21:04] Yes, well, lucky for you,

[1:21:05] Go Fact Yourself is back to being a live audience show.

[1:21:09] Yeah, we've got a free recording coming up

[1:21:10] on January 15th in Los Angeles

[1:21:12] and February 11th in Pasadena.

[1:21:14] And if you can't make it there,

[1:21:16] all of our recordings will still be available as a podcast

[1:21:20] twice a month, every month on MaximumFun.org.

[1:21:23] Yeah, no excuses.

[1:21:24] So if you're not listening,

[1:21:25] you can go fact yourself.

[1:21:29] Hey there, it's Annabelle Gurwitch.

[1:21:32] And I'm Laura House.

[1:21:33] We host Tiny Victories, the 15-minute podcast

[1:21:35] that's about the little things.

[1:21:37] Getting into the tiny victory frame of mind

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[1:21:44] Isn't it a wonderful day

[1:21:46] when the first password you try actually works?

[1:21:50] When it's freezing cold outside

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[1:21:55] my tiny victory is that I turn off the water

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[1:22:00] We can't change this big, dumb world,

[1:22:02] but we can celebrate the tiny wins.

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[1:23:18] Elliot, I sent you an ad.

[1:23:20] I'm sorry.

[1:23:20] I realized it was lingering in my outbox

[1:23:23] and it had been unsent and I was confused.

[1:23:25] I'm like, where's the ad copy?

[1:23:26] I sent Elliot and then I found it.

[1:23:29] Do you have it now?

[1:23:30] I do have it and I'm going to read it right now.

[1:23:32] So it goes like this.

[1:23:33] Alex, feel free to cut that part if you want to or not.

[1:23:36] I don't know, it's up to you.

[1:23:37] We are also sponsored, I'm happy to say,

[1:23:39] by Square Space.

[1:23:41] Sorry, I was going to say Square Pace.

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[1:23:44] We are also sponsored by Square Pace.

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[1:25:41] Get out there and attract some more polar bears to it.

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[1:25:56] Elliot, I bet you have something to promote.

[1:25:59] But before we do that, I want to say

[1:26:01] we have entries in for the Sexy Xenomorph Contest.

[1:26:05] I will compile them.

[1:26:07] I will put up a page for people to vote

[1:26:10] at flophousepodcast.com, www.flophousepodcast.com.

[1:26:16] If you go to there, you should be able to find a poll

[1:26:21] so we can figure out which Sexy Xenomorph-

[1:26:22] Slide down that poll into the videos.

[1:26:25] The main video you like the best.

[1:26:28] And they will be the winner of the contest.

[1:26:29] I, you know, will give you approximately

[1:26:32] the rest of the month to vote on this.

[1:26:36] And then we'll announce the winner.

[1:26:39] But Elliot, do you have other things to promote?

[1:26:41] I do. I have something very special tomorrow.

[1:26:44] I'm very happy to say that Maniac of New York,

[1:26:46] don't call it a comeback.

[1:26:47] Number one, the first chapter of volume three

[1:26:50] of my wonderful, I'm going to say,

[1:26:53] I'm just going to say it, wonderful.

[1:26:54] You can say that.

[1:26:55] Thanks. Horror, satire, comic.

[1:26:56] It comes out this Wednesday, January 18th.

[1:26:59] If you were listening to this episode

[1:27:00] on the day of its release or the week of its release,

[1:27:02] it comes out this Wednesday, January 18th.

[1:27:04] It'll be in your local comic book store.

[1:27:06] You may be aware, you may have heard

[1:27:07] that the publisher of the comic Aftershock Comics

[1:27:10] recently filed for bankruptcy.

[1:27:11] A lot of people have reached out to me on Twitter

[1:27:13] to see what was going to happen with the book

[1:27:14] and to express their condolences.

[1:27:16] I really appreciate that.

[1:27:17] Thank you so much for your interest.

[1:27:18] Thank you so much for your good wishes.

[1:27:20] It means a lot to me that this book is connected

[1:27:22] with people and that you want to see more of it.

[1:27:23] Don't worry.

[1:27:24] The company, though bankrupt, has not sunk yet.

[1:27:27] And I've been told that don't call it a comeback.

[1:27:28] Number one, it's already been printed

[1:27:30] and it's on its way to stores.

[1:27:31] It may be in the stores now, as I mean,

[1:27:34] and it will be in the stores on January 18th.

[1:27:36] So on January 18th, this Wednesday,

[1:27:38] and if you're listening to this after January 18th,

[1:27:40] go anyway.

[1:27:40] It's not like it's the only day it's going to be on sale

[1:27:42] unless it sells out.

[1:27:43] Make it happen.

[1:27:44] Oh, hopefully.

[1:27:44] Please show your support for the book

[1:27:47] as well as for my great collaborators on it.

[1:27:48] Andrea Moody, one of the greatest comic book artists

[1:27:50] working today.

[1:27:51] Taylor Esposito, one of the greatest letterers

[1:27:53] working today.

[1:27:54] It's just the three of us and our editors making this book.

[1:27:56] And we put a lot of work into it and we hope you like it.

[1:27:58] So please head out to your local comic book store

[1:28:00] this Wednesday, January 18th, and pick up

[1:28:03] Maniac of New York.

[1:28:04] Don't call it a comeback, number one.

[1:28:05] If you've never picked up Maniac before,

[1:28:07] please give it a try.

[1:28:08] We were recently named Horror Comic Mini Series of the Year

[1:28:11] by the Horror News Network website.

[1:28:12] The first two volumes.

[1:28:14] Thank you.

[1:28:14] The first two volumes, The Death Train and The Bronx is Burning

[1:28:17] are both available in paperback right now.

[1:28:19] The story of Gina Green and Zelda Pettibone,

[1:28:21] two women trying to stop an unkillable masked slasher

[1:28:23] who the rest of New York City has just come to accept

[1:28:25] as a part of everyday life.

[1:28:27] If you haven't read the series until now,

[1:28:28] try to pick up those paperbacks.

[1:28:30] But if you don't want to do that,

[1:28:31] you can also just jump aboard this death train

[1:28:33] this Wednesday, January 18th, with Maniac of New York.

[1:28:36] Don't call it a comeback, number one.

[1:28:38] In stores, after a wait.

[1:28:40] We're going to get the rest of the series out there.

[1:28:42] There might be a few delays in between as possible,

[1:28:45] but I guarantee you, I'm going to do everything I can.

[1:28:48] Even if it means Elliot has to drive to different places

[1:28:51] and tell people what happens in the next issue.

[1:28:54] Exactly.

[1:28:54] The story will get out.

[1:28:56] This is a four-issue series, and I will do everything

[1:28:58] in my power to make it out, get it out there.

[1:29:00] Yes, even if I have to old-fashioned

[1:29:02] traveling oral storyteller style,

[1:29:05] go to villages and sit around the campfire

[1:29:07] and tell them what happens at the end of the story.

[1:29:10] Next on the show, we answer letters.

[1:29:14] Don't tell us we don't.

[1:29:15] I don't know why both this and the ads

[1:29:17] were in opposition to an imagined argument with the listener,

[1:29:22] but that's what you got this week.

[1:29:25] This letter is from Daniel, last name withheld.

[1:29:29] McCoy.

[1:29:31] Daniel writes,

[1:29:32] Dear Flophouse,

[1:29:33] I wanted to know what film series or franchises

[1:29:36] you feel completely lost the thread of what they're about.

[1:29:40] What comes to mind for me is the Rambo series,

[1:29:42] which went crazy off the rails from a lone wandering

[1:29:45] Vietnam vet suffering from PTSD,

[1:29:48] being ostracized for his looks,

[1:29:50] to super soldier, freedom fighter,

[1:29:52] and killer of drug cartels.

[1:29:54] Also, the Highlander films come to mind,

[1:29:56] since the first movie of the tagline,

[1:29:58] there can be only one,

[1:29:59] and the movie.

[1:30:00] ends with there being only one any movie beyond the first loses the thread what film series really

[1:30:05] lost the thread of what the first was about thank you keep on flopping daniel last name withheld

[1:30:10] uh one major one that i think of that is still in production of course the fast and the furious

[1:30:15] movies uh what as a they were always about family they're a small scale point break rip off and then

[1:30:24] become large-scale sprawling cast uh zany cartoon physics uh super spies globe-trotting car-based

[1:30:36] uh defenders of justice uh that's a little weird don't they go to outer space in the

[1:30:40] latest one i believe so i you know i how could they not i watched part of the latest one because

[1:30:46] they got to do like a heist of all the fucking cheese on the moon or something i've reached my

[1:30:51] end i was like you know what i don't care uh i think that uh wallace from wallace and gromit

[1:30:57] took them up there oh hell dude if they fucking brought in wallace and gromit into the fast

[1:31:02] family like jesus christ i would love it well he's always inventing machines that don't work

[1:31:07] quite right that for the for the family to use yeah oh wow yeah i mean the planet of the apes

[1:31:13] movies got really strange over time i mean i don't say they lost the thread they just

[1:31:18] pushed it the originals not the recent the recent the originals yeah the original ones yeah because

[1:31:23] they well the original ones became kind of like stranger and stranger time travel exercises

[1:31:28] until the very very last one so it's yes that's but that's one where i think here's here's how

[1:31:34] where i'd say it's a difference i feel like when they made those planet the apes movies

[1:31:37] the only kind of film series franchises before then were kind of like the thin man or things

[1:31:44] like that where it's kind of like characters who have an adventure one after the other and i think

[1:31:49] that was one of the first ones where they're trying to figure out what is the sequel to a

[1:31:52] movie that's not just a detective who has multiple cases or something like that or like someone who

[1:31:57] goes that's how do how do we continue this world it's a it's a series built that becomes about a

[1:32:02] world rather than about a specific set of characters i mean ultimately it reveals itself

[1:32:06] to be about the family of uh an ape family you know that it's it's uh the family of caesar and

[1:32:11] his parents but uh the apelman's i can see that yeah the apelman's yeah and uh i would say i have

[1:32:19] two answers for this one is because i was gonna say fast and furious also one is um the jurassic

[1:32:25] park movies which have really what i think was especially funny is they've kind of done the same

[1:32:32] cycle twice in a way like dress park one and two it's like this park full of dinosaurs that's a bad

[1:32:37] idea they get loose and then dress for two has a little bit of like and now the dinosaurs leave

[1:32:41] the park and the drastic park three is like we found another park let's just go in and find some

[1:32:45] more dinosaurs and with jurassic world it's very funny that it exists in the same continuity it's

[1:32:50] like hey you know that park where the dinosaurs went mad and killed people we're doing it for

[1:32:54] real now hey but now the dinosaurs are loose now there's just dinos now we're just going back for

[1:32:58] some reason and it's yeah the it's it's almost like i wish they'd lose the thread a little more

[1:33:02] to be honest but uh but it kind of lost what was exciting about the first one which is

[1:33:07] like being trapped in a spot where there's dinosaurs and the awe of dinosaurs and because

[1:33:11] yeah the more dinosaurs you show the less exciting it is to see a dinosaur uh but i'm also going to

[1:33:16] say this is not a good series of movies i think none of them are good but the police academy

[1:33:20] movies the first one is explicitly about what they're rookie cops they should be cops and none

[1:33:26] of them are good uh yes and and they go on wacky adventures tackle our rated sex comedy the first

[1:33:34] one yes and the more that they go on both yeah the less the let the more it becomes about just

[1:33:40] like goofy cops when it was like well the whole purpose of the first one is that they're just it's

[1:33:43] the academy they're just recruits like like why did they they're bad at their job like it becomes

[1:33:49] a larger it becomes a larger statement i guess on how all police are bad all cops are bad yeah

[1:33:53] which i know stewart is is definitely on board for but yeah it feels like it wasn't the original

[1:33:58] intention of but by the time it gets to them going to moscow and screwing things up overseas you know

[1:34:02] true yeah another one that occurs to me a recent one that we did for the show obviously ghostbusters

[1:34:07] afterlife which is oh yeah wildly off tone that movie sucks uh i i'm gonna dip my toes into the

[1:34:14] horror franchises i think i think after the second hellraiser movie they all kind of lose the plot

[1:34:20] first off they show way too much pinhead um i think when they when they start to realize when

[1:34:25] they they were like oh i guess this is pinhead's franchise it's like no it's not he's not the hero

[1:34:29] of the movies like what are you doing you know julia is the main character doy uh and then i

[1:34:34] would say the uh none of these movies are good uh but the saw franchise gets super wacky after like

[1:34:44] they kill they kill jigsaw i'm like the fourth movie and they're like okay there's still five

[1:34:48] more how can we and there's one there's all these like flashbacks of jigsaw doing it's so great man

[1:34:54] it's such a dumb series there's uh wow and yeah wow i uh i watched them all when i was laid up with

[1:35:02] an injured back and it was uh not not a great time of my life i feel like uh most maybe not all but

[1:35:10] most superhero series eventually lose the thread of it like you look at the old superman movies oh

[1:35:15] we're the old batman movies and you're like what is going on like did you forget what people liked

[1:35:19] to the first ones and even like the x-men movies there's a certain point where they're just like

[1:35:24] we don't know what we're doing anymore like we don't understand it so they all kind of event if

[1:35:28] you do basically some ideas uh you have more ideas if some some properties you have more ideas for

[1:35:34] what to do with them and some you don't but it's not dictated by what ideas you have it's dictated

[1:35:38] so yeah the market doesn't always know sorry adam smith you busted uh this uh second and final

[1:35:46] letter is from dennis last name withheld from sacramento uh who writes hi guys dennis the

[1:35:53] menace from sacramento i guess he could be could be hi guys and also halle haglund i doubt hallie's

[1:35:58] listening but if she is hi as i type this there's an incredible storm bearing down upon myself and

[1:36:04] my loved ones i live on the west coast so usually west coast yeah so usually things seem like they're

[1:36:12] either on fire about to burst into flame at any moment but we do get the occasional storm

[1:36:18] uh i was wondering if you have any good tips regarding storms and generally unpleasant

[1:36:22] weather or even some fun stories to tell take my answer off the air well that's good because

[1:36:27] you never were on the air i um but the answer is on the air that's the thing we're recording it

[1:36:33] i mean my tip for storms is uh go inside go inside that's a good tip and stay inside for

[1:36:39] the duration of the storm and then once it's over you can leave your house i think the roof is an

[1:36:43] underappreciated invention of humankind it's something that was developed early on and

[1:36:50] it's still usable it's still great still keeps rain and snow off of your head while you're sleeping

[1:36:54] it the roof everybody let's not let's raise the roof in honor of the roof and join us it's

[1:37:01] the roots the band that sounds like the roofs but it's not okay i don't have any there's no

[1:37:07] there's no better thing for putting a fiddler on than a roof thank you everybody this has

[1:37:11] been ali caitlin for the roof council of america rca you don't want it to catch flame but if it

[1:37:16] is on fire just let the motherfucker burn you don't want to have to and i feel like

[1:37:20] i feel like this question would be better answered by friend of the flop house dr roof

[1:37:24] oh wait she just wants to talk about sex stuff i think you should have sex on the roof

[1:37:32] that's what you always say dr roof that's dr roof hausheimer

[1:37:39] and i will say as a as a spokesman for the roof council of america do not let the

[1:37:43] motherfucker burn if the roof is on fire contact your local fire department and get that roof put

[1:37:47] out you're going to be happy you did i don't know scientists told me that i don't need no water

[1:37:53] but um the scientists that don't have any scientists i don't have any stories other

[1:37:58] than like you know i grew up in central illinois there are a lot of tornadoes during the

[1:38:03] during the summers uh did you ever last that one like a payco still not last one

[1:38:11] washington like a bill paxton right yeah a couple years back washington illinois about

[1:38:17] half an hour from where i grew up got hit hard and some things got uh torn up and that was

[1:38:22] sad but eureka geographically for something like it was in like in a dip

[1:38:27] and tornadoes tend to hell mouth right there are a lot of like warnings but then we never

[1:38:33] actually fortunately got hit by anything but i don't know if you guys have any storm storm tales

[1:38:38] no not really uh i mean stay inside stay inside uh candles but that's just that's just a general

[1:38:47] life tip get some good smelling candles dog i light a bunch of them take a bath take a

[1:38:52] fucking bath right and then be like scared the whole time about how many candles are around yeah

[1:38:57] and then and then crack the spine on a sweet little ursula k leguin book that's what i'm gonna do

[1:39:05] particularly that sounds yeah always but again as a spokesman of the roof council of america

[1:39:10] please don't put those candles on the roof the roof is flammable it could go on fire and you

[1:39:14] do not want to let that motherfucker burn okay so keep those candles off the roof put a fiddler

[1:39:19] up there we're a weather vane conflicting reports on this and i don't have any storm stories i grew

[1:39:24] up in new jersey we had a lot of floods a lot of blizzards uh but otherwise my favorite i do have a

[1:39:30] pretty good storm story it has to do with uh when she had a mohawk and was like kind of in her punk

[1:39:36] mode you know what i'm talking about hanging out with yukio on the dark side of tokyo yeah that

[1:39:41] was a that is a good storm story yeah and uh there's another good i have another good storm

[1:39:47] story it's called life death and it's about her and forge life death too not as good a storm story

[1:39:51] but you know it's all right yeah so i guess we do have good storm stories yeah yeah we got plenty

[1:39:57] okay well let's move on thanks chris claremont

[1:40:00] Let's move on to recommendations.

[1:40:03] The movie we saw recently that you'll probably...

[1:40:05] I've seen a shitload lately.

[1:40:07] ...more than Black Adam.

[1:40:09] I watched...

[1:40:10] You know what?

[1:40:11] This is not a movie that I absolutely love,

[1:40:14] but it's probably the movie that I enjoyed the most that I saw recently,

[1:40:17] and it was very warm-hearted, made me feel good.

[1:40:20] You're going to recommend Babylon again, aren't you?

[1:40:22] No, no, I...

[1:40:25] Perhaps an unexpected recommendation.

[1:40:26] I watched Nancy Meyers' film The Intern,

[1:40:29] starring one Robert De Niro and one Anne Hathaway.

[1:40:33] Oh, Bobby D.

[1:40:34] Alias, old pal, Annie H.

[1:40:38] Yeah.

[1:40:38] And it's a movie, like...

[1:40:42] You know, I'll warn you, it's got the usual Nancy Meyers stuff.

[1:40:45] It's about a bunch of wealthy people in big kitchens without real problems,

[1:40:51] but it's also sweet.

[1:40:55] Robert De Niro does a great job as just a guy who's just a decent guy.

[1:41:01] He's a decent, patient guy who's older.

[1:41:05] His wife died.

[1:41:06] He doesn't have a lot in his life.

[1:41:07] He sees an ad for a senior intern program.

[1:41:12] He's like, this will be a thing that I can do with my time.

[1:41:16] He enters Anne Hathaway's life.

[1:41:19] She's a successful young businesswoman who doesn't need his help, per se,

[1:41:24] but could use someone who is supportive and kind

[1:41:28] and doesn't demand anything, is just there to be kind to her.

[1:41:33] And it's just a warm...

[1:41:34] Like, comfy movie.

[1:41:35] Comfy movie.

[1:41:36] It's a total fantasy.

[1:41:40] The comedy's not that great.

[1:41:42] Whenever it tries to get wacky, it's not that great.

[1:41:44] There's some weird stuff in there about elevating traditional masculinity,

[1:41:49] like, where did these kind of guys go, kind of stuff that is a little weird.

[1:41:54] But on balance, it's just nice to see.

[1:41:56] You know, like, I like unlikely animal friends,

[1:41:58] and I like unlikely human friends, too.

[1:42:01] And there's no more unlikely human friends than seeing Robert De Niro

[1:42:05] and Anne Hathaway palling around and having a good time.

[1:42:08] In real life, deadly enemies.

[1:42:09] Yeah, yeah.

[1:42:10] If you put them in a jar together and shake it, they'll fight.

[1:42:13] But I just had a good time.

[1:42:17] It's just sweet.

[1:42:18] It's sweet.

[1:42:19] Sometimes you want something that's sweet, Stuart Williams.

[1:42:22] I get it.

[1:42:24] Yeah, I watch a lot of movies, and I'm probably

[1:42:26] going to be drip feeding them through episodes of The Flophouse.

[1:42:29] Today, I'm going to recommend a movie from A24

[1:42:34] that hopefully will get a little bit of award season attention.

[1:42:37] It's a movie called After Sun.

[1:42:40] It is a very kind of small movie about a woman who is,

[1:42:47] and it's told in a complicated fashion.

[1:42:50] So it's a movie that requires a lot of attention.

[1:42:53] I don't recommend doing dishes while watching it.

[1:42:56] A lot of it is told through what turn out

[1:43:00] to be memories or video clips from a home video camera.

[1:43:06] And it's about a young father who is about to turn 30,

[1:43:11] who is taking his 11-year-old daughter on a vacation

[1:43:15] in the Mediterranean.

[1:43:16] And they are not in each other's lives a lot,

[1:43:21] and they are both in their own ways trying

[1:43:23] to connect with each other.

[1:43:25] And at the same time, the story is also

[1:43:29] kind of being processed by the daughter who is grown up

[1:43:34] and turning 30 herself.

[1:43:36] And she's kind of reflecting on a man

[1:43:39] that she doesn't quite know very well.

[1:43:42] And it has an incredible performance.

[1:43:44] It has a couple of incredible performances,

[1:43:46] particularly Paul Mezcal, who plays the father.

[1:43:51] He was the lead on that show Normal People,

[1:43:54] a show I did not care for.

[1:43:56] But he is so good in this as a young dad who

[1:44:02] is trying to be a good father in whatever ways he knows how.

[1:44:08] And he's also very similar to Paul Tequila, but smokier.

[1:44:11] Very similar.

[1:44:12] But maybe for a more discerning palate.

[1:44:17] But yeah, After Sun, I think it takes a little bit of work

[1:44:21] from the viewer, but I think it's worth it.

[1:44:24] And I'm going to recommend a movie from last year,

[1:44:27] but I just saw it last week, or I might have mentioned it

[1:44:30] on our 2022 show, which is the mini,

[1:44:34] not one of the shows from 2022.

[1:44:35] Anyway, the movie I recommend is The Banshees of Inisharen.

[1:44:38] It's 1923, and Colin Farrell is a fairly thick-headed

[1:44:42] but well-meaning resident of the small Irish island

[1:44:44] of Inisharen, whose days are mostly

[1:44:46] spent palling around with a small donkey

[1:44:47] and chatting about nothing with his friend Brendan Gleeson.

[1:44:50] But when Brendan Gleeson tells Colin Farrell

[1:44:52] he doesn't like him anymore and never wants to see him again,

[1:44:54] it rocks Colin Farrell's world and leads both friends

[1:44:57] down a path that starts with charming humor

[1:44:59] but slips into obsession, anger, and vengeance

[1:45:01] in the macabre Martin McDonough manner.

[1:45:03] And I really liked Banshees of Inisharen.

[1:45:06] That would have been a perfect voiceover right there.

[1:45:11] Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

[1:45:12] If you could do it in an Irish accent,

[1:45:14] that would be a plus, but you don't have to.

[1:45:15] I like it just the way it is.

[1:45:16] Let me try.

[1:45:17] It's 1923, and Colin Farrell is a fairly thick-headed

[1:45:21] but well-meaning, oh, maybe not.

[1:45:23] Why being Irish doesn't mean

[1:45:24] that your voice goes up several years?

[1:45:27] This is the way they talk in Ireland.

[1:45:29] Just got a cease and desist email

[1:45:31] from the Lucky Charms guy.

[1:45:34] The Lucky Charms guy, his name is Lucky.

[1:45:38] I don't respect him.

[1:45:40] It's signed TLC guy, the Lucky Charms guy.

[1:45:43] So I really like this a lot.

[1:45:45] I thought it was really funny and also really heartbreaking.

[1:45:48] Yes.

[1:45:48] And McDonough, he sets up this situation between these two

[1:45:52] and he kind of lets it play out

[1:45:54] without the kind of intervention that a movie

[1:45:57] or turnabout that a movie might introduce.

[1:45:59] And so it just goes to an endpoint that is both shocking

[1:46:03] but also feels inevitable when you get there.

[1:46:05] And I want to especially single out Carrie Condon

[1:46:08] who plays Colin Farrell's sister,

[1:46:10] and she's fantastic in it.

[1:46:11] That scene with her and Barry Keegan

[1:46:15] where near the end of the movie, where he, you know.

[1:46:19] Yeah.

[1:46:20] I don't want to talk too much about the specifics of it

[1:46:22] but it's like a fucking soul crusher.

[1:46:25] It is, but it's played so beautifully.

[1:46:27] It's so gorgeous.

[1:46:28] Yeah, it's great.

[1:46:29] And it's a real, it's a movie that seems really simple

[1:46:31] but there's a lot going on in it.

[1:46:33] And it felt, I mean, I've never been to Ireland.

[1:46:35] I'm not Irish.

[1:46:36] Although you might've thought I was, why the accent?

[1:46:39] But it feels like authentically Irish

[1:46:42] in like an Irish literature way,

[1:46:44] as opposed to like the kind of goofy twee stuff that we,

[1:46:48] I feel like growing up, there was this period

[1:46:50] where there were a bunch of movies

[1:46:51] about Ireland in American theaters

[1:46:53] and it was all like Waking and Divine.

[1:46:54] You're talking about Waking and Divine.

[1:46:55] Yeah.

[1:46:56] Yeah, that kind of stuff.

[1:46:57] Let's be clear.

[1:46:58] Or like, you know, there was like a MasterCard commercial

[1:47:01] where someone goes back to Ireland to learn

[1:47:03] about their roots and they're just dancing and whatever.

[1:47:05] And this felt like, it felt genuinely

[1:47:08] like it tapped into that.

[1:47:10] What's the one with Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt?

[1:47:12] Oh, The Devil's Own?

[1:47:13] Devil's Own, yeah.

[1:47:14] Oh, fuck that.

[1:47:15] And this taps into kind of like,

[1:47:17] that kind of like the undercurrent of kind of like charm

[1:47:22] and sadness that is like, that seems to be such a part

[1:47:26] of the Irish character, you know?

[1:47:28] So I really liked it a lot.

[1:47:29] The Banshees of Inisharren.

[1:47:32] Yeah, that's a good one.

[1:47:33] Although I could not, I had to write down the title

[1:47:34] because I couldn't remember the name of the place.

[1:47:36] So I was like, I was like, Danielle,

[1:47:37] I really liked the Banshees of Innerminerminren.

[1:47:40] Like I could not, I could not remember Inisharren.

[1:47:42] It's a fantasy location.

[1:47:43] So, you know, I remembered that name.

[1:47:46] Elliot, when, to additionally sell Aftersun to you,

[1:47:52] the movie that it reminded me the most of

[1:47:54] was The Lost Daughter, a movie you had mentioned

[1:47:57] in our wrap-up episode.

[1:47:58] Yes, which I really liked a lot.

[1:48:00] I think you would get something out of Aftersun.

[1:48:03] Okay, I got to see it.

[1:48:04] Is it streaming anywhere?

[1:48:07] I think it's just in theaters,

[1:48:08] but I'm assuming it's going to be streaming soon.

[1:48:10] I'll try to find it in the theaters.

[1:48:11] I'm trying to go to the theater more often

[1:48:13] since I think I went twice last year.

[1:48:15] Well, that marks the end of this episode.

[1:48:18] It's been a long one because, you know,

[1:48:21] Black Adam was just such a rich text that we had to-

[1:48:24] So much to dig into.

[1:48:25] Really dissect.

[1:48:26] But as we close up, I'd like to thank Maximum Fun,

[1:48:31] our network, go to maximumfun.org,

[1:48:34] check out other podcasts on the network.

[1:48:38] I think the network's pretty good

[1:48:40] at sort of having a sensibility

[1:48:44] rather than just being like a bunch of things

[1:48:45] thrown together.

[1:48:46] So if you like this show,

[1:48:48] I bet there's something else that you would like

[1:48:51] on our network.

[1:48:52] And also I would like to thank Alex Smith.

[1:48:56] He's at HowlDotty on Twitter and various other spaces

[1:49:02] and he makes us sound good.

[1:49:05] But that's it.

[1:49:07] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCloy.

[1:49:09] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:49:11] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:49:13] But you know, perhaps I need a new name.

[1:49:16] I think I'll call myself,

[1:49:18] okay, Alex, how do you put like a title screen here

[1:49:20] that has my new superhero name?

[1:49:22] That like, it doesn't, you don't hear it,

[1:49:23] but you like, it says it.

[1:49:25] Yeah, do like a whoosh sound effect.

[1:49:27] And like hear the letters.

[1:49:29] Just put that in right there.

[1:49:31] But I'm Elliot Kalin until that title screen goes up

[1:49:34] in your ears, audio wise.

[1:49:36] Okay, bye.

[1:49:42] Normally when I watch a big movie,

[1:49:43] I'm like, okay, which of these characters

[1:49:46] do I identify more with?

[1:49:48] But the problem is I'm a little like

[1:49:49] both Beam and Rom, right?

[1:49:51] Yeah, I guess so, I guess so.

[1:49:55] That's why they call you Stu R.R. Art.

[1:49:58] That's better.

[1:50:00] do tar to your former nickname because he identified with that's that's me man

[1:50:08] time to drink some pineapple juice so my loads are huge huge huge testicles I

[1:50:23] guess Stuart we've got this I'm your doctor we've got you've got an issue

[1:50:29] known as big sperm your sperm is actually too big like the end of like

[1:50:33] the look I got a lot of questions doc maximum fun org comedy and culture

[1:50:41] artists owned audience supported

Ep. #387 - Black Adam

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