Ep. #387 - Black Adam

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

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

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

Dan McCoy

[0:37] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:38] Hey.

[0:39] Yeah, it's me, Stuart Wellington.

[0:41] Oh.

Elliott Kalan

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

[0:48] laughs at the very idea of his relationship with Stu and all the joy they've had in the past,

[0:52] and breaks professionalism almost instantly.

Dan McCoy

[0:55] No, I was laughing at, I felt like I came in with a certain amount of energy,

[1:00] and Stu immediately changed it up.

[1:04] His energy suits his sweater is what I was going to say.

Stuart Wellington

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

[1:14] Maybe I'm like a humble, simple log splitter in Christmastown, USA.

[1:19] Maybe I live with a dog.

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

Elliott Kalan

[1:24] I thought maybe you had just gotten off the boat.

[1:26] You're a merchant marine.

[1:29] Or you work on a whaling ship, maybe.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32] Certainly changing my rom-com character, but that's okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:34] I was imagining him more sort of like the Leonard Nimoy psychologist in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake,

[1:43] like a 70s.

[1:45] Like maybe he's a pop psychologist who appears on PBS near Christmas to talk about love.

Elliott Kalan

[1:50] PBS stands for Pop Broadcasting System.

[1:53] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[1:54] I'm thinking like a Leo Biscaglia kind of style, like the love doctor.

Stuart Wellington

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

Dan McCoy

[2:03] These are all things that Stuart could be.

[2:05] Now I've got to take a photo, Stu, so we can have a record of what it looks like.

[2:10] Wait, should I put on the glasses, Dan?

[2:12] Yeah, put the glasses on because they're a really key part of the whole thing.

[2:14] Oh, the glasses changed the figure quite a bit.

[2:17] This is exactly perfect.

[2:19] Yeah, I think the glasses informed my…

Elliott Kalan

[2:21] Yeah, so distant Sutherland was actually what Donald Sutherland's name was before he came to the United States from Canada through Ellis Island and changed his name.

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

[2:31] Yeah, of course.

[2:32] Donald, a traditional American first name.

[2:34] Yeah.

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

[2:36] Other than describe outfits.

[2:39] We mostly describe things the audience can't see.

Dan McCoy

[2:42] This is a podcast where we watch a movie that we've been led to believe may be bad, either through critics or audiences saying, no, thank you, please.

[2:52] Personal biases.

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

[2:55] And then we talk about it.

[2:57] We try to not walk in with our mind made up, but we've had, you know, some tips maybe that this might not be up our alley.

[3:06] And this time we watched Black Adam, another in the series…

[3:11] So the DC Extended Cinematic Universe, I guess, that is now being changed up and dismantled by James Gunn and whoever else is in charge.

[3:22] One Jimothy Gunn is changing things.

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

Elliott Kalan

[3:30] I mean, in a way, which fits because the movie is all about a weird relic that killed an era, that being the nation of contact 5,000 years ago.

[3:38] Yeah.

[3:38] Oh, wow.

[3:38] Okay.

[3:39] This is the last gasp.

[3:41] And we'll see, there's a mid-credit scene that hints at a future 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…

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[3:57] History is greatest mystery.

[3:58] It's 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?

[4:08] Let's do it.

Stuart Wellington

[4:09] Can I ask a question first?

[4:11] Yeah.

[4:11] We have to.

[4:12] Could we just talk about outfits some more?

[4:15] Or maybe Ellie could complain about Babylon a bunch?

Elliott Kalan

[4:18] Actually, no.

[4:19] 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 that.

[4:26] Now, either of you guys, how familiar are you with the character Black Adam?

Dan McCoy

[4:31] Not at all.

[4:32] I know that he is related to Captain Marvel, later renamed Shazam, since there's an entire company called Marvel.

[4:43] And that was confusing.

[4:46] And I know that…

Stuart Wellington

[4:47] Is he called Miracle Man at one point?

[4:49] No, I'm just joking.

Dan McCoy

[4:49] No, no.

[4:50] Oh, Stu.

[4:52] 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 movie all these years that finally came to pass.

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[5:09] So, everyone now knows Captain Marvel.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[5:18] Yeah, 52, when the DC universe rebooted itself a couple reboots ago.

Stuart Wellington

[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.

Elliott Kalan

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

[5:36] He's an evil version of Captain Marvel.

[5:38] They fight.

[5:39] He gets rid of him.

[5:39] Many years later, he was brought back.

[5:41] And the idea was that he is an anti-hero mainly because his interests are what aligns with his nation rather than any kind of what the 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 a character has ever done in the history of superhero movies.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[6:11] I mean, Superman killed people.

Dan McCoy

[6:13] Batman killed people in his movies.

[6:15] It would be more amazing to me if we went back to superhero movies where they really, really tried not to kill anyone.

[6:23] Yeah.

[6:24] At this point.

Elliott Kalan

[6:24] At this point, I think Spider-Man might be the only character who doesn't go out of his way to either kill people or just allow them to die.

[6:29] But so, Black Adam, the idea is he is a – he's an anti-heroic hero and maybe his values aren't totally aligned 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 of making their case and they punch each other a lot.

[6:49] Yeah.

[6:49] And I know that this character was – 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.

[6:58] I'm a 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.

Dan McCoy

[7:06] I mean, I don't know if that's a big concern for him these days.

Elliott Kalan

[7:09] Probably not.

[7:09] And I would argue as we talk about the movie that he is incredibly miscast in this part, the way that they present him.

[7:17] That Dwayne Johnson who is – his whole thing is the arched eyebrow.

[7:21] You know, he's the muscle-bound guy who's got a little bit of irony about him in the same way that kind of Vin Diesel does.

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

Dan McCoy

[7:31] I totally expected – 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.

Elliott Kalan

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

Dan McCoy

[7:40] Yeah, exactly.

[7:41] But I did expect –

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[7:45] Now it's – can you smell what the rock is pooping?

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

[7:47] No, thank you.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[7:58] Well, we'll get – yeah, yeah, Teth Adam.

[7:59] Well, no, I just want to say like, you know, maybe that's outdated now.

Dan McCoy

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

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

[8:20] We saw the name on the poster when we came into the theater.

Elliott Kalan

[8:23] You're saying – and I think you're right.

[8:24] That would be a more powerful moment than just cutting to the title of the movie that we've just been watching the whole time.

Stuart Wellington

[8:29] If it had cut to black and slowly the letters Teth Adam appeared, I would have been like, holy shit, they did it.

Elliott Kalan

[8:35] They did it.

[8:36] They changed the title partway through the movie.

[8:39] Never before.

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

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

Stuart Wellington

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

[8:48] Now, now.

[8:49] Yeah, we're just going to do a normal Black Adam episode.

Dan McCoy

[8:51] Okay, okay.

[8:51] Elliot, as The Rock tweeted, Black Adam made plenty of money.

[8:55] It was a huge hit.

[8:57] They should make a million more.

Elliott Kalan

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

[9:04] I mean, let's – I'm looking at the Wikipedia entry right now.

[9:08] It made box office almost $400 million.

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

[9:12] Is that Bafo?

[9:12] Is that Bafo B.O.?

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

[9:15] That was once Bafo B.O.

[9:17] But in a world where the production budget is at least $250 million probably and the marketing costs, you have to assume, are at least half that again.

[9:26] This movie might have broken even.

[9:28] So –

[9:29] Yeah.

[9:29] But it probably didn't.

[9:30] And that's the thing is the bigger the star, the more money you've got to spend on publicity because their contracts often stipulate how much publicity is going to be done for the movie so it doesn't get buried.

[9:41] And so it is – that's not a great – when you – it's like $400 million is an amazing amount of money.

[9:47] But when it takes you –

Stuart Wellington

[9:48] Yeah, if it was like funny pages made that.

Elliott Kalan

[9:51] Exactly.

[9:51] It would be – well, it's one of those things where – Dan and I were talking about this.

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

[9:57] Dan and I, in a previous mini or maybe it was just a conversation, we're talking about Avatar and Top Gun Maverick and how Avatar was seen as a disappointing first weekend and Top Gun Maverick seen as a hit first weekend.

[10:10] But Top Gun Maverick made less money than Avatar and it's because different levels of movie have different expectations.

[10:15] So The Rock can't just say this movie made $400 million because it cost $400 million.

[10:19] So at best, they made $0 for all that effort.

[10:24] Yeah.

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

[10:26] So is this a math podcast?

Stuart Wellington

[10:28] What's going on?

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[10:34] So anyway, we start with the DC logo, which I only realized this time prominently features Green Lantern, a character who I don't think has ever appeared in the official DC universe, right?

[10:43] Yep.

[10:43] There was just that Ryan Reynolds movie, which I think is not considered part of it.

[10:46] So clearly they have big things in store for one of the Green Lanterns.

[10:50] Okay.

[10:51] We begin, as any superhero movie does, with an incredibly unnecessary voiceover narration about the history of the character.

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

[11:01] And we're in Kandak.

[11:03] And a voiceover explains this is the first self-governing people on Earth until King Akhtun made himself a tyrant and tried to forge the Crown of Sabak.

[11:12] This is a magic crown that's infused with the power of six demons, and it's made out of a rare metal called Eternium, which is only found in Kandak and is in no way a ripoff of Vibranium, which is only found in Wakanda, a Marvel place that sounds similar and is also a far-off kingdom.

Stuart Wellington

[11:29] Now, I've heard of a six-demon bag, but a six-demon crown?

[11:33] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[11:35] Excellent.

Dan McCoy

[11:35] Good work.

[11:36] Good work.

[11:36] Very good.

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

[11:41] No, it's good.

Elliott Kalan

[11:41] We're a good 30 seconds into the film.

[11:43] What do you want to talk about?

Dan McCoy

[11:44] So the story that this movie wants to tell, you know, they have to have this backstory.

[11:52] You kind of need some version of it in the movie.

[11:58] And Audrey and I were wondering, like, you know, how to do this because, like, we hate this shit.

[12:04] Like, this is just, you know, we in the Flophouse specifically hate this.

Elliott Kalan

[12:07] We hate opening VO explainers.

[12:09] And this is coming from Dan McCoy, a man who, as we know from the Battle Angel episode, loves backstory.

[12:16] I'm thirsty for it.

Stuart Wellington

[12:17] Like, the thing is, if it's not Cate Blanchett explaining Lord of the Rings to me, I don't want to fucking hear it.

[12:25] Listen, in these movies-

Elliott Kalan

[12:26] Which is why you love Tar so much because that's basically all the movie is.

Stuart Wellington

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

Dan McCoy

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

[12:36] Yes.

[12:36] This is information we do need for that story, but it delays the start of the real story.

[12:40] So, Audrey and I were wondering, like, what do you guys think?

[12:43] Like, what's the way to do this?

[12:45] I mean, I hate flashbacks too, but I think it's slightly better to get us invested in these characters and then show us this stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[12:52] I think the way to do this is, the traditional way would be to seed this information throughout the film, which they do.

[12:58] So, this opening narration is even less necessary because a lot of this information gets repeated to us many times over.

[13:06] And so, I feel like you look at a, I mean, you don't have to go as far as a movie like Chinatown where you got to watch it more than once to basically figure out what happens that they're talking about.

[13:15] But there's a lot, I feel like in older movies, they do a better job of seeding the information of what happened before the movie.

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

[13:23] But my guess is, this is my guess, uninformed as I am, that my guess is that the movie did not originally have this opening and that somebody was like, we got to explain all this stuff.

[13:33] There's too much stuff for people to pick up along the way because there is a lot of exposition to pick up.

[13:38] So, I'm guessing somebody in the studio was like, yeah, but you got to open it with a whole prologue explaining who this character, like basically what Kondok is and what the crown of Sabak is and what Eternium is.

[13:51] Even though movie is for much of history and I have not done that.

[13:55] Like I, again, the one I always point to on the podcast is Star Wars where there's that little opening crawl.

[13:59] But like the Force, what the Empire really is, like all that, who Luke Skywalker is, you just pick it up as you go along, dude.

[14:06] Like the movie just kind of tells you when you need to know.

Dan McCoy

[14:08] Right.

[14:09] I mean, and I do think that people, I don't know, people have gotten more confused about this stuff based on like the number of old people who are like, who's that?

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

[14:22] It'll be explained.

[14:23] You know, trust that later on.

Elliott Kalan

[14:25] There's also, I think there, well, I think there's, there might be a different expectations in people's minds where when you're watching a movie that's part of a larger world and you haven't seen the other movies, you don't know what stuff is being introduced in that movie or what stuff you're already supposed to know about.

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

[14:39] And I feel like in the olden days when most movies were standalones, that wasn't an issue.

[14:43] But maybe, maybe it's just 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.

Dan McCoy

[14:52] Some sort of story FOMO.

Elliott Kalan

[14:54] Anyway.

[14:54] Exactly.

[14:56] Which, which is also the name of a, the name of a Star Wars bounty hunter.

[15:03] So the king has everyone mining Eternium to make this crown or maybe the, I couldn't tell if the crown was already made and needed more to fuel it or if he's just, anyway.

[15:12] Then a slave in the pits finds some Eternium and tries to hide it, but it's killed by the king's guard.

[15:17] And there's a kid who sees this 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.

[15:24] It's hopeless.

Elliott Kalan

[15:24] But the kid steals that lump of Eternium and runs off and he holds it up on a cliff and all the slaves are like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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

[15:33] And we are led to.

Stuart Wellington

[15:35] And the kid starts this new, like, hand gesture that symbolizes freedom.

[15:39] But it looks very similar to either a Triforce or Diamond Dallas Page's diamond cutter sign, which is a different wrestler.

Elliott Kalan

[15:47] That's true.

[15:48] You think this was, this was, this was Dwayne Johnson, like, kind of sticking it to Diamond Dallas Page.

[15:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[15:52] I own this now.

[15:53] And we are led to believe, and I, spoiler alert, this will turn out to be a misdirect.

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

[16:02] Oh, and I guess that does, 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 to the Council of Wizards featuring the wizard Shazam, who we've seen in the movie Shazam.

[16:12] And the wizard of id.

[16:13] That would be great.

[16:15] Wizard of id is there too.

[16:16] And Croc is there.

[16:17] And the wiz is there because nobody beats him, you know, with great prices on electronics.

[16:24] And so this is, he's given the powers of various Egyptian gods.

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

[16:34] The strength of Solomon, the wisdom of Solomon.

[16:36] Solomon is actually physically very weak.

[16:38] Wisdom of Solomon, strength of Hercules, strength of Atlas, I guess lightning of Zeus, strength of Achilles maybe, and the speed of Mercury.

[16:45] But here, because this is kind of an ancient Egyptian type time, he gets Egyptian gods, which the stamina of Shu, the speed of Heru, the strength of Ammon, the wisdom of Zehudi, the power of Aten, and the courage of Mahan.

[16:56] Which makes me wonder, are they just really lucky that there's more than one pantheon that has enough gods in it to fill out the acronym Shazam?

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

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[17:09] And to be honest, now that I think about it, Solomon and Zeus are not in the same pantheon.

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

[17:17] So, but it's, but yeah, are they just like, I just have to wonder how many other types of religions 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.

[17:33] Black Adam, or the kid with the powers, now he looks like Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

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

[17:41] Black Adam wins.

[17:42] The crown is hidden.

[17:43] The battle crumbles.

[17:45] The royal temple.

Stuart Wellington

[17:46] It destroys the whole town, basically.

Elliott Kalan

[17:48] It destroys the whole town.

[17:49] And the champion disappears.

[17:50] Okay.

[17:51] That was 5,000 years ago.

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

[17:54] We're back in Kondak, 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 criminal organization that in the comics, for some reason, was working for Darkseid for a long time.

[18:09] It always seemed kind of lowball to me.

[18:11] That's pretty cool.

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

Dan McCoy

[18:14] I got to admit, I zoned out a little bit on some of this, and for a while until later in the movie,

[18:20] I briefly thought that this was just an occupying force from the U.S.

[18:25] Because, you know, later on, the Justice Society shows up to protect their, like, interest in the region, I guess.

[18:32] And so I was like, oh, wow, this movie's, like, going a little harder than I expected in terms of, like, I don't know, making the U.S. the villains.

[18:40] Instead, they're more, like, just kind of misguided.

[18:45] I don't know, like, the whole international, like, the fact that Black Adam is this more militant superhero based on, like, the exploitation of his people and trying to protect them.

[18:58] Like you said earlier, Elliot, could be interesting, but they do their best to soften it at every turn despite having him, as you mentioned, like, kill a bunch of people.

[19:06] Like, they're all, the people he kills directly are all terrorists, you know, and we're all like, woo-hoo-hoo!

Elliott Kalan

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

[19:12] Yeah.

[19:13] Yeah.

[19:13] Or trying to kill a kid.

[19:14] And I think the thing is, the movie also does not want you to come out too much on the side of Adam because they don't want the JSA to be villains, even though the JSA, when we get to them, are basically just going in to beat the shit out of a guy they've never met.

[19:29] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[19:30] They're blundering around in another country.

Elliott Kalan

[19:32] Yes, exactly.

[19:33] And there's, like—

Stuart Wellington

[19:33] A country that they let a criminal gang run—

[19:37] Take over.

[19:37] For years.

[19:38] Until a magic guy shows up, then they're like, okay, we got to beat that dude up.

Elliott Kalan

[19:42] And they kind of—and they bring that up in the movie, but they can't go all the way with it because they still want to spin it off, I assume, into a JSA movie.

[19:49] So it's like, I wish they had been able to go all the way with their portrayal of the JSA.

Stuart Wellington

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

[19:53] How's JSA going?

[19:54] I think it's not ever going to happen.

Dan McCoy

[19:56] Okay.

[19:57] So, okay.

[19:59] I'm not going to see my buddy the Adam Smasher ever again.

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

Stuart Wellington

[20:03] And Cyclone?

[20:03] I mean, don't get me wrong.

[20:05] I would love to see more Aldous Hodge.

[20:08] I love that guy.

[20:08] He's great.

[20:09] He's great.

Elliott Kalan

[20:10] Well, we'll get to that.

[20:10] But—

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

[20:11] Okay, so.

[20:12] We're introduced to one of our heroes.

[20:14] This is Amon, who is a kid who skateboards around town listening to the Smashing Pumpkins because as the opening of the first J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie shows us, kids in any era just love the same music that the person making the movie thinks is cool.

[20:27] Elliot, you have to understand, the world is a vampire.

[20:30] 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.

[20:35] Yes.

[20:36] He is caged by Intergang.

[20:37] So, he's—so there's a van that gets stopped at a checkpoint.

[20:41] And the kid shows up and starts talking back to the guards and calling him a neo-imperialist depressor.

[20:46] We know the kid has a backpack full of DC comics.

[20:48] Later, see, his room is covered in DC posters.

[20:50] And then he runs away.

[20:51] And he's distracted.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

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

Dan McCoy

[21:16] Yeah.

[21:16] I mean, Marvel's been doing that, too.

[21:18] No, I guess you're right.

[21:19] There's, like, also comic books and other things.

[21:21] Like, I keep watching these things, and I'm like, but where's the movie where, like, it's like a Marvel movie, and there's still DC Comics in it.

[21:29] But it's like, oh, but these are just made-up characters.

[21:32] That'd be pretty funny.

[21:32] We invented some new superheroes.

Elliott Kalan

[21:34] I mean, in one of the Spider-Man movies, remember Aunt May goes, you're not Superman.

[21:38] But there is a—I will say, Dan, I'll buy it more from Marvel because it's—since the 60s, it's been part of the Marvel Universe that the Marvel Universe also has comic books in it about those characters.

[21:48] And the idea is that the comics that you are reading are, like, are adventures that Jack Kirby and Stan Lee or whoever, like, kind of adapted from real events or something like that.

Dan McCoy

[22:00] I see, they're the Dr. Watson of that universe.

[22:02] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[22:03] But it's still 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.

[22:13] And I couldn't tell—the kid is not part of that plan to smuggle the van through, right?

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

Dan McCoy

[22:21] I think he is.

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

[22:24] It's—

Elliott Kalan

[22:25] Because later, he's like, let me come with you.

[22:27] And she's like, no, no, I don't want you getting involved.

Dan McCoy

[22:29] But—

[22:30] Right.

[22:31] No, it is confusing.

[22:33] It seems like he must be because then he's talking to her within minutes.

[22:39] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[22:44] Yes.

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

[22:45] She's an archaeologist who, I guess, is not supposed to—intergang has an arrest on sight order for her.

[22:50] And she has an Eternium 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.

[23:04] He sings loudly to Baby Come Back a couple times.

[23:08] And her—another character whose name I don't remember.

[23:11] And also another character named Ishmael, who is almost instantly clear that—

Dan McCoy

[23:16] Is that what we should call him, or should we call him something else?

Elliott Kalan

[23:18] No, he told me we can call him that.

[23:19] Yeah, that is okay.

[23:20] Okay, cool.

[23:22] It's almost instantly clear that Ishmael is a sinister character.

[23:25] They're going out into the desert to these mining pits where Eternium is being looked for, I guess.

[23:30] And they think they know the location of the crown of Savant.

[23:32] Oh, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

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

Dan McCoy

[23:40] Not USA, no, but I understand why you think that.

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

Stuart Wellington

[23:49] And her brother is Moe Ammer, the stand-up.

Elliott Kalan

[23:52] Okay, I didn't know.

[23:53] A lot of the actors in this are like—have done a lot of TV work.

[23:57] And I don't watch a lot of TV, so I didn't recognize them.

[24:00] 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.

[24:05] It's not true.

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

[24:12] so that she can hide it somewhere else because she thinks nobody should have it.

Stuart Wellington

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

[24:19] Oh, really?

Elliott Kalan

[24:20] I forgot about that.

[24:21] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[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] Oh, videotapes?

Elliott Kalan

[24:29] Sex Lives of videotapes.

Dan McCoy

[24:32] Sex Lives of videotapes.

Elliott Kalan

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

Dan McCoy

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

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

[24:43] Oh, okay.

[24:44] That is the name of it.

Elliott Kalan

[24:45] All right, okay.

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

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

[24:49] I picked the wrong one.

[24:51] I picked the wrong door.

[24:53] It was just life cereal.

[24:55] Too bad.

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

[24:57] Sorry.

[24:59] Just laying around.

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

[25:02] Oh, that's kicks, I guess.

[25:03] That's not life.

[25:04] That's kicks.

[25:05] So, anyway.

[25:06] So, they find the inter-gang is showing up, but...

[25:11] Adriana and Ishmael, they manage to find the tomb of this hero that Kandak has been waiting for forever.

[25:17] And the crown is 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 name I can't remember.

[25:27] 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.

[25:33] And she gives the crown 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.

[25:46] And he appears, and he just melts a terrorist with his electro touch.

[25:50] And he's just jumping around killing the shit out of terrorists.

[25:52] Like, he's just snapping their necks and hurling them into walls and blasting them with beams and stuff.

Dan McCoy

[25:58] Now, I want to say, Black Adam, our hero...

[26:01] Teth Adam.

[26:02] He's not called Black Adam yet.

[26:03] He shows up...

[26:05] We're 18 minutes into this film.

[26:08] This film is a little over two hours long.

[26:13] And I would argue that the first 20 or so minutes could almost entirely be cut with no consequence.

[26:21] Like, maybe a little bit of archaeologist Sarah Shahi going in here.

[26:28] We don't know why she is, like, set upon by, you know, evil folk.

[26:34] And then we're off to the races.

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

Elliott Kalan

[26:38] 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 of Condock.

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

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

[26:57] That's right.

[26:57] You were hidden inside of a van.

[26:58] So you didn't see the opening of the movie.

Dan McCoy

[27:00] Also, none of this time, like, arguably, like, the little, like, bit with, like, him, like, the kid skateboarding around.

[27:06] Like, none of this time has been used to endear us to these characters or, like, let us know who they are as people at all.

[27:12] Like, we don't care about anyone that we've seen so far.

[27:15] Because we know that, like, we can tell that, like, this woman is going to be somewhat important to the plot.

[27:21] Although, character-wise, she's given nothing.

[27:22] But, like, none of these are characters that we think are going to be important to a movie called Black Adam.

[27:27] And we've been spending all our time with them and learning nothing about them to make us care about them anymore.

Elliott Kalan

[27:33] Well, guess what, Dan?

[27:34] Because, luckily, what's going to answer that is a long action sequence where Teth Adam is just murdering people and throwing helicopters at them in slow-mo while the Rolling Stones painted black plays.

[27:47] And our heroes warn him just in time for him to catch a rocket that has Eternium written on the side of it, which is hilarious.

[27:53] Like, as if nuclear weapons just say uranium on the side of it.

[27:56] And when it blows up, it knocks him out and makes him all electro-crackly.

[28:04] It gives him a wound that crackles electricity.

[28:06] And some mercenaries on Sky Cycles, they call into Ishmael, who it turns out is a bad guy who called in the mercenaries.

[28:13] And he's like, blah, blah, blah, I'm mad.

[28:15] So, anyway, now, guess, okay.

[28:18] So, we've introduced our main characters.

[28:19] They have an unconscious Teth Adam.

[28:22] Time to find out what happens when Teth Adam awakes in the present, right?

[28:25] And meets the real world.

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

[28:33] That's right, played by Aldous Hodge.

[28:35] Aldous Hodge, yeah.

[28:36] About there's a new loose cannon out there and we've got to take him down.

[28:39] And there's all these news reports playing about Teth Adam.

[28:43] And it's like, when did the news cameras get to this battle inside a terrorist-controlled foreign country?

Stuart Wellington

[28:50] This is nuts.

[28:50] Yes.

[28:51] And also, like, they so quickly are just like, hey, this new guy showed up.

[28:56] He's a loose cannon.

[28:57] We've got to deal with him.

[28:57] And that's it.

[28:58] And then they just start, like, battling.

[29:00] Yeah.

[29:00] And they spent so much time explaining other bullshit.

Dan McCoy

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

[29:06] I would like to postulate.

[29:07] So the first 20 minutes could be gone entirely.

[29:11] But then we are, like, I don't know if it's right here, but it's close to here that we are introduced in rapid succession to all of the Justice Society.

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

[29:19] None of them are given, like, a proper introduction.

[29:23] They're given, like, people are just, like, talking about them on the phone.

[29:25] There's no really, like, funny character moment for any of them.

[29:29] And as Audrey points out, like, this is the good stuff.

[29:32] Like, assembling a team.

[29:33] Like, meeting the team.

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

Stuart Wellington

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

[29:41] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[29:41] Yes, it is.

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

Stuart Wellington

[29:44] That is the most exciting part of the movie.

[29:46] Guys, if they had just cast Henry Winkler as Adam Smasher and he had been Adam Smasher in this movie, it might have been better.

Elliott Kalan

[29:54] That would have been fantastic.

[29:55] And he's like, oi, my back.

Dan McCoy

[29:57] I feel sometimes, like, these movies are, like, games where you're allotting resources, like, different places.

[30:04] 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.

[30:13] And then we, like, zoom through, like, these characters that we're 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.

[30:21] Like, usually in, like, a Marvel movie, they'll introduce a secondary character, like, one in someone else's movie to give them a little area to breathe.

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[30:34] Because I wouldn't be surprised if Dwayne Johnson was like, these characters 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 clear that they are not as important as me.

[30:47] And they cannot get a lot of time on screen.

[30:49] And then they get a surprising amount of time on screen.

[30:51] But none of it is for, you're right.

[30:52] 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, who's 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. Fate.

[31:04] It's Pierce Brosnan.

[31:05] What does he do?

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

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

[31:09] Maybe.

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

[31:11] We're the Justice Society.

[31:12] Let's get moving.

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

[31:16] Yeah.

[31:17] But they also come off.

[31:17] And as a result, they come off.

Stuart Wellington

[31:19] That's their catchphrase, right?

[31:20] Let's get moving.

Elliott Kalan

[31:21] Well, their catchphrase should be, we're the B team.

[31:25] Because they feel very much from the get-go like this is the Justice League B team.

Stuart Wellington

[31:30] Which could be funny.

[31:33] Yes.

[31:33] If they had been like, we're the B team because the A team is too busy fighting Darkseid or some garbage.

[31:38] Yeah.

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

[31:41] Yeah.

[31:42] That gives them a little bit of character and personality that they're like.

Elliott Kalan

[31:45] And if you want to, it doesn't fit with continuity because none of them are members of the JSA.

[31:49] But like, if you wanted to establish more connections with other movies, like throw a Suicide Squad member on there.

[31:54] Like, that's the kind of person Amanda Walder, Amanda Walder, Amanda Walder has control of and can send after these things.

Stuart Wellington

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

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

Elliott Kalan

[32:06] Yeah.

[32:07] Yeah.

[32:07] When Henry David Rose spent his time at Amanda Walder pond.

[32:11] Yeah.

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

[32:16] He has a flashback 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.

[32:23] 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] The kid's uncle is wearing the crown of sabacc just as a goof on his head.

[32:32] Which is one of those things where it's like, it's an evil artifact of untold power that erupts instantly.

[32:37] But he can just kind of sit around with it because it's a goofy goo.

Stuart Wellington

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

[32:41] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[32:42] I mean, I could buy this if, like, he was a skeptic.

[32:45] But they went out specifically to find it and also then woke up a man who, like, flew around and shot lightning at people.

[32:52] Like, he should worry about whether this is dangerous.

[32:54] And was throwing helicopters around.

Stuart Wellington

[32:56] And found the crown floating in the air.

[32:59] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[33:00] Yeah.

[33:00] Well, he wasn't there for that part.

[33:01] But, yeah, she could tell him about it.

[33:02] She probably told him.

[33:04] Anyway, the kid takes this moment to inform.

[33:06] He probably told about it.

[33:07] Yeah.

[33:07] Takes this moment to inform.

[33:08] He would not believe where this crown was.

[33:11] In his butt?

[33:12] No.

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

[33:14] I wouldn't go to his butt first to look for a crown.

[33:17] But you did, apparently.

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

[33:20] So the kid tells him the history of Kondok and Intergang, which we've heard a couple times already.

[33:24] And Teth Adam blasts their TV and tells them, why don't you go destroy 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 archaeologist is like, I don't like violence, but I do want a champion of freedom.

Dan McCoy

[33:37] And –

[33:37] By the way, the casualness with which –

Elliott Kalan

[33:40] They are all dealing with him?

Dan McCoy

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

[33:45] Really disturbed me.

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

[33:51] Arguably, I should care more about these fictional murders than these fictional possessions.

[33:56] But I think that there's too often in movies, like, a supposedly heroic character walks around destroying things as a goof.

[34:07] And we're supposed to laugh at it.

[34:09] And I keep thinking, like –

[34:10] Yeah, people over property, says Dan McCoy.

[34:13] That's not what I'm saying.

[34:14] But I'm saying that the hero –

[34:15] I mean, but you do believe people over property, right?

[34:16] The hero of the movie is destroying another hero of the movie's house.

[34:22] And there's never anyone who's saying, like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, stop it.

[34:26] Yeah, yeah.

[34:27] Maybe –

[34:27] You've got super strength and super speed.

[34:29] Can you rebuild this?

[34:30] Can you help us out?

Elliott Kalan

[34:31] At the very least, a Shia LaBeouf style, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, would be called for as he just casually wrecks their apartment.

[34:38] And it reminds me of –

Stuart Wellington

[34:39] Just like floats through walls and such.

Elliott Kalan

[34:41] It reminds me of the –

[34:42] And there's a joke about it later where Dr. Fate goes, did they not –

[34:45] They didn't have doors in your time because he just always enters through a wall.

[34:48] But it reminds me of the season of Modern Family that turned me off of that 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 just magically had a new car.

[35:03] I can't say that as with somebody where a car accident doesn't totally throw their life off track.

Stuart Wellington

[35:07] Anyway.

[35:07] If your car accident doesn't lead you into a weird, like, psychosexual adventure where you start having sex with Elias Codius and whatnot.

[35:14] That's a good point.

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[35:17] That's not true to life if not.

[35:19] So Teth Adam, he flies out.

[35:21] The kid in one of the silliest moments lifts up one of – what, like a filing cabinet to reveal a secret escape route out of his room.

[35:29] And it takes that escape route.

[35:32] And he keeps saying, Teth Adam, come on.

[35:33] You've got to become a famous superhero.

[35:35] Let's do this.

[35:36] You need a catchphrase.

[35:37] It is – all of that did not work for me.

Stuart Wellington

[35:39] It is like, hey, y'all.

[35:42] Why don't you just want, like, Edward Furlong and Arnold Schwarzenegger did this so much better.

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

Dan McCoy

[35:48] Like, they 100% were like, this is going to be a Terminator 2 relationship.

Elliott Kalan

[35:52] And the JSA, they head to Condoc.

[35:56] Dr. Fate has misgivings because he can see the future and he sees Hawkman screaming in pain.

Dan McCoy

[36:01] I can't believe all of the futures because, like, I was watching this movie 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 know.

[36:13] It opened up a lot of questions that Black Adam didn't answer for me.

Stuart Wellington

[36:17] And was not interested in answering.

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

[36:25] A cyborg.

[36:26] – has more, like, soul and pathos to him than Dwayne Johnson, who's playing a superhero who, at this point, we know, is driven exclusively by rage.

Elliott Kalan

[36:36] I think a part of that is Dwayne Johnson, I mean, desperately wants to be the new Arnold Schwarzenegger.

[36:42] And as much charisma as he has, he does not have that inborn charisma that Arnold Schwarzenegger has.

[36:48] At least I haven't seen it.

[36:49] But the other difference is that Terminator and Terminator 2 are written and directed by James Cameron, a master storyteller, pretty much, for that kind of story.

[36:57] And this was written by, I have to assume, a committee of who knows how many dozens of people and directed by the director of Orphan.

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

Dan McCoy

[37:05] Now, come on.

[37:06] Hold on.

[37:07] Jean-Colette Serra I will stand up for as a vulgar auteur.

[37:12] He's fine.

[37:13] But he's not James Cameron.

[37:15] Orphan.

[37:15] Yeah, not James Cameron.

[37:16] For Orphan and for, he made a lot of, like, good geezer films with Liam Neeson.

[37:21] Liam Neeson.

[37:22] But I did, yeah, I did look up, there's, like, a writing team who, like, this is their only big credit.

[37:30] And I assume that their stuff got rewritten by the guy that has a bigger filmography of, I apologize, I'm sure you're a nice man, like, nonsense.

[37:42] He's got Scoob!

[37:43] Exclamation point.

[37:44] Rampage, which is okay, not great.

[37:48] Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Road Chip, Due Date, and Maid of Honor, M-A-D-E.

[37:54] We all recall that man who was Maid of Honor.

[37:56] Who was created.

[37:57] Who was created.

[37:57] Forged from honor.

[37:58] Yeah, yeah, he was created.

Elliott Kalan

[37:58] It's like virtuosity.

[38:00] Out of honor.

[38:00] He was created out of energy.

Dan McCoy

[38:02] And so, I don't know, that might be part of the problem.

Elliott Kalan

[38:05] I mean, I don't know, I would go as far as to not blame any of the writers involved.

[38:09] Because any movie like this is going to have so much executive meddling.

[38:13] And there's going to be so many other uncredited people who are brought on to do writing passes or to do punch-ups or brainstorming sessions.

[38:20] It's such a, this is like a definition of a movie made by committee that has, the reason that James Gunn's superhero movies are 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 feels like it was made by a machine.

[38:38] And a machine without the charisma of the Terminator.

[38:41] Which, who has a surprising amount of charisma for a Terminator machine?

[38:44] Exactly.

[38:44] Okay, so.

Elliott Kalan

[38:44] Get back around.

[38:46] Teth Adam, he's floating around town.

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

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

[38:52] It's got to be, what, 500 feet tall, almost 1,000 feet tall.

[38:55] It's huge.

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

[38:58] And then the kid kind of deliberately antagonizes some intergang soldiers and starts making that ancient triangle hand signal, which everybody recognizes.

[39:07] Yeah.

[39:07] And the internet gang guys tackle him and recognize his mom when she intervenes.

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

[39:16] He has kind of an, he has a Neo Morricone scored standoff.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[39:23] It's also like, there's a part where he's, an intergang guy has his, they do a Western standoff because he saw a couple seconds of The Good, The Bad, The Ugly on a TV screen earlier.

[39:32] Thus ripping off RoboCop and any other movie where someone sees something on a TV and then does it.

[39:37] Back to the Future 3.

Stuart Wellington

[39:39] Wow, another robot that has more soul.

Elliott Kalan

[39:42] Well, also like this movie just.

[39:43] It's amazing how those are movies also about, like RoboCop is explicitly about a man who has been turned into a machine and has to regain his soul.

[39:49] And even when he's a machine, yeah, he has more soul than Black Adam does.

Dan McCoy

[39:53] But also this Western moment, like this is not a thing that has been given up weight the first time around that we saw him.

[39:58] No.

[39:59] For the callback to land at all.

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

Elliott Kalan

[40:02] And it is a pointless standoff because if the soldier shoots him first, Black Adam will catch the bullet, curl it as fast as he can into the soldier's head and murder him.

[40:10] Like there's no, the idea that this is a standoff in any sense when Black Adam could just take him out, is not in any danger.

[40:16] I do have a question.

Stuart Wellington

[40:18] Do you think that there were anybody in the movie theater watching Black Adam who would see these scenes?

[40:23] No.

[40:24] Who would see these scenes of Black Adam murdering a bunch of like mercs and be like, awesome.

Elliott Kalan

[40:31] I think, I mean, that's what they're hoping for.

Stuart Wellington

[40:33] Maybe I just got done, it's because I just got done watching RRR and there's scenes where guys are like riding on each other's shoulders, blasting dudes with bolt action rifles while doing flips and crap or like shooting a guy off his horse midair and then landing on that same horse in the same jump and then riding it around.

[40:50] What a movie, okay?

[40:51] That's how you do a fucking action sequence.

[40:54] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[40:55] But like, I feel like-

[40:56] I mean, a man goes one-on-one against a tiger.

Stuart Wellington

[40:59] There is, like, come on.

[41:00] There is a, there's a thing, and I'm sure it's not exclusive to the DC movies, but there seems to be a certain like love of doing these like hyper fast, hyper strong guys just like annihilating people.

[41:14] And it's so boring.

Elliott Kalan

[41:16] Because it's, because it's, it's a, because that's, it's the most basic without any subtext or any gloss power fantasy.

[41:23] And I can imagine, and certainly when I was a younger man and I was mad at the world and I felt like nothing ever went my way.

[41:30] And before I embarked on a successful television writing career and received a number of lucky breaks that I'm very thankful for.

[41:36] It's, I, I certainly fantasized about being the kind of figure that could just bulldoze its way through any situation and was untouchable.

[41:44] And I think even more than the violence of it, it's the invulnerability of it and the untouchability of it that is so, that is so appealing and so endearing.

[41:52] The same way that like, why did I idolize Boba Fett when I was young, even though objectively he's crap at his job and can't do anything right because-

Stuart Wellington

[42:00] Because he, he has a fucking sick fit on, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[42:02] Yeah, exactly.

[42:03] And, and he has this aura of, you don't know me, you can't tell what's going on with me, I'm untouchable.

[42:08] And so I think there's a lot of that going on.

[42:09] Am I a robot?

[42:10] Maybe.

[42:10] You don't know this yet.

[42:11] You don't know it.

[42:12] I mean, IG-88, you know he's a robot.

[42:14] He doesn't even wear a helmet.

[42:15] Yeah, look how skinny he is.

[42:16] He's gotta be a robot.

[42:17] There's no way a person can't fit in that.

[42:19] I mean, maybe some kind of weird stick-and-sector alien guy.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[42:24] Doug, legendary-

[42:25] All right, Doug, let's see it.

[42:27] 20 bucks.

[42:27] Legendary performer Doug Jones died today, squeezing his own body to death as he tried to put on a homemade IG-88 costume to answer a challenge put forth to him by podcaster Stuart Wellington.

[42:37] All of Hollywood has dimmed its lights to recognize the tragic death of Doug Jones in a challenge.

[42:47] Here's a statement from the International Association of Performers Who Play Monsters and Stuff, President Andy Serkis.

[42:55] We salute Doug Jones, and we're glad that he died doing what he loved, trying to be a weirdo creature.

[43:00] If only we had the strength of character to do the same, we would all have died a long time ago.

[43:05] A weird stance for Andy Serkis to take to approve of this action.

[43:10] Single tear runs down Ron Perlman's face.

[43:13] What do you expect from Lord Snoke himself?

[43:16] Anyway, so, anyway, so, but I think that's here that they are playing so hard in that paraffantasy of someone who can just do whatever they want, and they're almost unstoppable.

[43:26] But there's no, there's nothing else to hide it.

Stuart Wellington

[43:28] It's a weird metaphor for a big action star who refuses to lose in fights.

Elliott Kalan

[43:36] And also, you know, it's a metaphor for what this franchise and what this company wants to be.

[43:42] When Warner Brothers is a company that's having a lot of trouble right now, and they wish that they were the unstoppable entertainment juggernaut that Disney and Marvel are.

[43:50] And that you could, and like, they just can't pull it off, at least in their movies.

[43:54] 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 can never be hurt, and he just punches a bad guy in the face until they're dead, and Wonder Woman cuts his head off.

[44:08] And that's all he has to do, and that's what makes him great.

[44:10] 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 standing for some kind of principle.

[44:18] But anyway, the JSA—

Dan McCoy

[44:20] But even at the end, he's like, I will solve my problems through punching.

Elliott Kalan

[44:23] Yeah.

[44:24] The JSA shows up, and Hawkman saves two mercenaries that Teth Adam tried to kill, and the crowd boos him, which, understandably, I would, too.

[44:32] If I lived in a country that was under a brutal, violent dictatorship, and some guy from America came in in a hawk costume, which looks a little Nazi-ish, and holding a spiked mace, and saved two of the bad guys who had been shooting at a kid, I'd boo him, too.

[44:47] I would wonder what side he was on.

[44:49] And Adam kills them anyway, and the crowd cheers, and Dr. Fate shows up.

[44:54] And this is the weird part.

[44:55] Okay.

[44:56] Teth Adam, he's a man from 5,000 years ago.

[44:59] And the JSA later make it clear they know this.

[45:01] They know more about him than our other characters know.

[45:04] Yeah.

[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, hey, we're super beings, too.

[45:12] We want to talk to you about something.

[45:14] Dr. Fate comes in and says, you can't exist in this world.

[45:17] Kneel or die.

[45:18] Which seems like exactly the right way to get Black Adam's back up.

[45:22] Yeah.

[45:23] It's nuts.

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

Stuart Wellington

[45:26] Like, we know this guy's backstory.

[45:28] At no point was he cool about kneeling.

[45:30] No.

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

Dan McCoy

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

[45:37] because, you know, Audrey correctly identified me as a nerd.

[45:41] But I was like, no, I'm sorry.

[45:42] I don't know DC characters that much.

[45:44] I know Marvel characters more.

[45:47] I was, like, looking stuff up.

[45:49] What about, like, Batman and Superman?

[45:50] I know Batman and Superman.

[45:52] Yes, arguably the two best-known superheroes.

Stuart Wellington

[45:55] What about the metalloids or whatever?

[45:58] The metalloids?

[45:59] I don't know who those are.

[46:01] But, you know.

Elliott Kalan

[46:04] But, Dan, you know all the DC heroes.

[46:06] Prez, Shade the Changing Man, Ragdoll, or whatever his name is.

Dan McCoy

[46:10] Yeah, I mean, I, like, looked up Dr. Fate.

[46:12] I'm like, I guess he's kind of like a DC Doctor Strange analog in that they're both sorcerers.

[46:19] 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.

[46:24] But she's like, what's his doctorate?

[46:27] And I'm like, oh, no, he's a medical doctor.

[46:29] He, you know, he was a surgeon.

[46:30] And then she's like, what's Dr. Fate's doctorate?

[46:33] And I looked it up and I'm like, oh, he's just, you know, it's just a cool name.

[46:36] It's just a cool name.

[46:37] Yeah, he's not really a doctor.

[46:37] It's a pretty cool name.

[46:39] It is what it is.

Elliott Kalan

[46:41] And he has a magic alien helmet or something like that.

[46:43] So that's, there's a big fight.

[46:45] Dr. Fate does a lot of Doctor Strange type magic.

[46:47] It looks pretty cool.

[46:48] I have to say, Dr. Fate's magic throughout the movie, I thought, looked really neat.

[46:52] And when Cyclone shows up, there's some, like, slow motion color, you know, effects.

Dan McCoy

[46:56] Although Cyclone, arguably, maybe the least in this movie, like, in terms of any sort of impact that the character makes.

[47:05] I'm like, I've watched all of Black Adam.

[47:07] I still have no idea what her deal is.

Elliott Kalan

[47:09] The JSA, they do fall into easily slotted characterizations.

[47:14] Hawkman is the leader who is kind of militaristic in a way and is not, he'd rather go in and fight than kind of, and as he says many times, they keep bringing it up, a bad plan is better than no plan, you know.

[47:27] And Force is usually his first choice.

[47:30] Dr. Fate is the mystical kind of scientist-y, intellectual archaeologist guy who provides information and has a goatee.

[47:37] Adam Smasher is the doof.

[47:40] He's just the big, clumsy doof who's always fucking up all the time.

Stuart Wellington

[47:43] And he's like a rookie.

Elliott Kalan

[47:44] He's like-

[47:45] He's the rookie, yeah.

[47:45] This is another thing I wanted to-

[47:46] And at one point is able to procure a bucket of fried chicken for a sight gag in the middle of battle of weary conduct.

[47:52] And Cyclone is like the character who is super smart and super poised but otherwise has no personality and is kind of, just kind of there but is a commendable character but is not an interesting character.

[48:06] Yeah.

[48:07] You know.

Dan McCoy

[48:07] I want to talk about for a moment too Adam Smasher who is, as you say, a doof.

[48:12] Yeah.

[48:12] And-

Elliott Kalan

[48:13] And his power is that he can grow enormous.

[48:14] He can grow enormous.

[48:15] He's half an ant man.

Dan McCoy

[48:17] He cannot shrink.

Elliott Kalan

[48:18] He can only be giant.

[48:19] He can grow big.

[48:19] 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 to-

[48:27] It always is cool to see a giant person bumping it, you know, picking up cars and stuff like that.

Dan McCoy

[48:31] Yeah, and maybe in another project, like I'm watching The Recruit on Netflix starring Noah Centino.

[48:39] The same guy who plays Adam Smasher.

[48:41] I'm not going to make like big-

[48:42] Can he get super large in that one too?

Elliott Kalan

[48:45] No, but he's pretty good in it.

[48:46] Is that show about how they recruited him to be Adam Smasher?

Dan McCoy

[48:49] I'm just saying, I think he could be funny in something else.

[48:52] Here it's like, I think because he is similar to Ant-Man in his powers, they're also-

[49:01] Kind of like, okay, well, he got his suit from his uncle and he also is like a bumbling doofus.

[49:07] But with Ant-Man, like you understand why he's Ant-Man in spite of the fact that he is unqualified for the job.

[49:14] For this, as part of a team that is sent in by like the government, I'm like, why is this guy on here?

[49:20] Because his uncle has a suit?

[49:22] Like, what the fuck are we doing?

Elliott Kalan

[49:25] Yeah, it really, he's not qualified for this mission.

[49:27] He seems to have had no training.

[49:29] And that's the other thing.

[49:29] Except for Hawkman and Dr. Fate, none of the JSA members have met each other before today.

Dan McCoy

[49:35] So it makes sense.

Elliott Kalan

[49:37] It would make more sense for Amanda Waller to send in people who know each other's names.

[49:40] And I guess they got to know each other on the flight over.

[49:44] And there's a number of scenes throughout the movie-

Stuart Wellington

[49:45] Or again, like if they had made an effort to be like, if they like lost the first fight against Black Adam and they made a point of being like, oh yeah, because we didn't know how to work as a team yet.

Elliott Kalan

[49:55] Yeah, yeah.

[49:56] But they don't really do that either.

[49:58] Anyway, they do lose the first fight against Black Adam.

[50:00] He knocks out Adam Smasher with one punch.

[50:02] And Adam Smasher continues to be a doof throughout.

[50:04] And the crowd chants for Teth Adam and he flies away.

Stuart Wellington

[50:06] If Mark Miller had written this scene, he would have like punched through Adam Smasher's head.

Elliott Kalan

[50:12] He would have like punched so hard he would go through Adam Smasher's bowels and all this giant shit would fall all over the city and drown people.

[50:18] Yeah.

[50:19] That's Mark Miller's way of doing things.

[50:21] He's gross.

[50:22] Do you think that this shit grows big too?

[50:23] He's like the Cormac McCarthy of comics.

Dan McCoy

[50:25] Just the living tissue.

[50:26] Like is there just like a very small amount of shit?

[50:29] Like the bacteria inside his little tummy.

Elliott Kalan

[50:32] Yeah.

[50:32] Did that – well, that – so then is he constantly hungry then?

[50:34] If that's the case when he's giant, is he constantly hungry because there's not enough food to fuel him?

[50:39] Did we ever have this discussion about if the Hulk eats a lot of food and then changes back to Bruce Banner,

[50:44] if Bruce Banner's stomach gets distended and has trouble pooping out all that poop?

[50:47] No, that's great.

[50:48] Okay.

[50:49] Well, then I must have had that debate with somebody else.

[50:51] I'm just going to say why it's snacks.

[50:52] They should sneak that into a fucking She-Hulk season.

[50:54] I mean that sounds great.

[50:55] Yeah.

[50:56] So he's – and if anyone knows the answer, just write into the flop house.

[50:59] If the Hulk eats a lot, then changes back to Bruce Banner.

[51:01] How does that affect Bruce Banner?

[51:02] Yeah.

[51:03] So –

Stuart Wellington

[51:03] That covers all characters who morph, by the way.

[51:06] Not just the Hulk.

[51:08] Not just the Hulk.

Dan McCoy

[51:08] Well, everybody's morphing these days, which is a reference that Elliot knows.

Elliott Kalan

[51:12] It's a reference to a video from 25 years ago, I think, that we used to watch in the Daily Show right now.

[51:18] In the restroom?

[51:19] Yeah.

[51:20] Ugh.

[51:20] Everybody's morphing these days, yeah.

[51:22] So Adriana, the archaeologist mom, she chews out the JSA.

[51:27] She's like, oh, you never showed up until now.

[51:29] 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.

[51:33] And her son skates away with the crown.

[51:36] He's got the crown.

[51:36] I don't remember how they got it back.

[51:38] And Hawkman says, hey, by the way, we have secret texts that you've never seen that say Teth Adams' rage was what destroyed Kondok thousands of years ago.

[51:47] She instantly accepts this as the truth.

[51:49] When anyone else would be like, bullshit, show me that.

[51:52] The guys who just showed up and have never been here before have sacred texts that I, a native archaeologist, have never seen that talk about this.

[51:59] Come on.

[51:59] But she just takes it as granted.

[52:00] They all go to the castle ruins where Teth Adam is.

Stuart Wellington

[52:05] So I hope you guys like this fucking ruined throne room set because so much of the movie keeps coming back here.

[52:12] It felt a lot like a fucking level of the Injustice fighting video game where you would like fight in a level, punch somebody into a completely different level.

[52:21] But then you'd always end up back on the original level after like punching someone to the fucking moon.

[52:26] Because that basically is what happens in the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[52:29] Yes.

[52:29] And this ruined temple or castle is in the center of the town basically, right?

[52:34] Like it was hard for me to keep track of the geography, but it seems like it's just kind of in the center of Kondok.

[52:40] Which Kondok, is Kondok a city or is it a country?

[52:43] Yeah.

[52:43] I couldn't tell if it was like a city state.

[52:45] Yeah, some kind of city state like a Singapore or something.

[52:48] Like Madripoor?

[52:49] Yeah, or Madripoor.

[52:50] All the poors.

[52:51] But it shows you how little thought has been given into where this takes place.

[52:56] And it's like the difference with a movie like Black Panther is they clearly put a fair amount of thought into like what is Wakanda?

[53:02] How does it operate?

[53:03] Whereas with Kondok, it is so – they've done none of that.

[53:05] And it takes what could be interesting, which is like a superhero story told from a non-American, non-Western civilization point of view and it does not – a non-Judeo-Christian, I assume, point of view.

[53:17] And like it just doesn't – they didn't do the work.

[53:19] Like they didn't care enough.

Stuart Wellington

[53:20] Yeah, yeah.

[53:20] And those – as we've already said, those are ideas that we were all excited about.

[53:25] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[53:26] To have a – I mean if you told me the basic premise of the movie, I'd be like, yeah, I want to see that.

[53:30] I want to see a superhero movie that – where the hero – he acts off of different cultural assumptions and different loyalties than Superman.

Stuart Wellington

[53:38] And they highlight the fact that Western superheroes only care when it might be a threat to their own interests.

[53:44] But they do it in the like the idea of their universal good, which whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[53:49] Well, and that the JSA by virtue of being from the West has the right to go into another – to tell anyone who has superpowers go to jail or you're done for it.

[53:59] So they're in their ruined temple throne room or castle throne room and Adriana is like, hey, Adam, you've got some explaining to do.

[54:08] Here's the story the JSA told me that apparently you went after the king out of revenge, not justice.

[54:14] And it's like, all right, well, that doesn't really matter.

[54:17] Who cares?

[54:17] But you lost control of your powers and you were imprisoned by the council of wizards.

[54:22] Is that true?

[54:23] I didn't open your tomb, did I?

[54:25] I opened your prison, but now you have the chance to be a hero for real.

[54:31] And we cut away from that as Teth Adam faces this moral crossroads.

[54:35] And we get to the skater kid, Amon.

[54:37] He comes home and, uh-oh, evil Ishmael is there.

[54:40] And he takes the crown and shoots, uh, shoots Amon's uncle, the goofy guy, Kareem.

[54:45] And, uh, then we go back to the JSA is now talking to Adam.

[54:48] And, uh, for, uh, for, for one of the dumbest jokes I think I've ever seen in one of these movies, Adam Smasher shows up with a bucket of chicken and Dr. Fate uses magic to magic it away because it's disrespectful.

[54:59] And it's like, what, when did he stop to get it?

Dan McCoy

[55:02] Where did he get it?

Elliott Kalan

[55:03] Like, what, what, it's such a dumb joke.

Dan McCoy

[55:05] He brought, like, a, yeah, he's brought, like, a whole comically large bucket of chicken and no one until this moment said anything about it.

[55:12] Like, like, Dr. Fate's like, oh, I should use my magic on this.

Stuart Wellington

[55:14] And also, like, he needs to eat.

[55:17] Like, they should have just left him out.

[55:18] Like, he could have just hung out outside and ate.

[55:20] Like, he needs it because he's big and he, like, he's not eating because he just loves chicken.

Elliott Kalan

[55:24] Yeah, but, like, metabolism's all screwed up.

[55:26] He was, he, he should be like, I was just 60 feet tall.

[55:28] Like, I need fuel.

[55:29] Come on.

[55:30] Yeah.

[55:30] But, uh, and I want to know.

Stuart Wellington

[55:32] I'm good at that part.

[55:33] It's not like he's going to, like, he's not going to convince Teth Adam of anything.

Elliott Kalan

[55:38] It's true.

[55:38] He is one of the least useful of the members already.

[55:40] And honestly, I want to know how the fried chicken is in conduct.

[55:43] Do I, should I go there?

[55:44] Is it worth my time?

[55:46] So, uh, the JSA, they're kind of posturing.

[55:48] So, they, they, uh, they're kind of, uh, posturing with, uh, Teth Adam again.

[55:53] They're all squaring off.

[55:54] And then Adriana gets a call from his, from her son.

[55:57] Oh, no.

[55:58] He's in trouble.

[55:58] Uh, and so she begs Teth Adam, please save my child.

[56:02] Meanwhile, Amon is single-handedly using his skateboard to just show up all these inter-gang terrorists.

Stuart Wellington

[56:07] He home-alones the fuck out of these guys.

Elliott Kalan

[56:10] Yeah.

[56:11] They called it country alone because he's, he's saving his whole country.

[56:14] And then, uh, Teth Adam shows up and fights a bunch.

[56:17] And Ishmael shows up and takes the kid.

[56:19] But nobody knows where the crown of Sabak is.

[56:21] Where did he hide it?

[56:23] And, uh, Teth Adam knows that, that, uh, Ishmael has taken Amon into one of his sky cycles.

[56:28] And that leads to a big series of fights where Black Adam's just throwing guys off of sky cycles to their deaths.

[56:34] Eventually, uh, he seems to-

Stuart Wellington

[56:36] Yeah, they do a little bit of a shell game with the sky cycles where you're like, which one is the real one that has the kid in the back?

[56:42] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[56:43] And you think at the last minute that he's found it.

[56:44] But it turns out he hasn't.

[56:46] And Hawkman is like, hey, if you stop killing people, we'll help you save that kid.

[56:50] And Black Adam says, no.

[56:54] And they fight some more and Adam Smasher accidentally swats Hawkman to the ground.

[56:57] And there's this running gag where Hawkman just keeps saying to Adam Smasher, you and me, after this, we need to talk.

[57:02] Like, you and me.

[57:03] And anyway, uh, Dr. Fate-

[57:04] Yeah, we never see that, I guess.

[57:06] We never see that.

[57:07] Dr. Fate-

[57:07] He manages to save-

[57:08] Not in those extras.

[57:09] Dr. Fate saves Kareem and he starts what I think is one of the funnier running gags in the movie where he says, this isn't-

[57:16] I've seen the future.

[57:16] This isn't how you die.

[57:18] You die with electricity.

[57:19] And I'm here-

[57:20] And Kareem is like, but I'm an electrician.

[57:21] And throughout the movie, Kareem is fine running into dangerous situations.

[57:25] I guess he'll do this once.

[57:26] Because he's like, I die by electricity.

[57:28] I know I'm not going to die now.

[57:29] Which is a funny bit.

[57:30] Yeah.

[57:31] So, uh, they fake us out into thinking that Adam has found Amon, but he hasn't.

[57:36] Ishmael is taking him away somewhere else.

[57:38] Uh, Black Adam, because this is that kind of movie, jokes about throwing a man to his death as he-

[57:42] Because he's just thrown a man to his death.

Dan McCoy

[57:43] Although, I gotta say, like, if the movie had leaned into that stuff a little bit more, like, did the Terminator 2 thing, where it's like-

[57:50] Yes.

[57:51] Like, we had-

[57:52] This guy doesn't understand our version of morality, so we're gonna have to, like, babysit him.

[57:58] But there's also the funniness of, like, you know, him blundering through and murdering people.

[58:03] Yeah.

[58:03] Like, the dark comedy of that.

[58:04] Yeah.

[58:04] Like, they could have done that, but they don't.

Elliott Kalan

[58:07] And instead, their version of that-

[58:08] Spoiler alert, they don't.

[58:09] No.

[58:10] Their version of that is that he keeps saying his catchphrase that the kid has given him at the wrong moment.

[58:15] And so, like, he'll kill someone and then say the catchphrase.

[58:17] And he goes, oh, catchphrase first, then kill.

[58:19] And it's like, that's not the joke he should be doing.

[58:20] Anyway, Atom Smasher and Cyclone, there's a series of-

[58:23] The beginning of a series of scenes where they're bonding.

[58:25] I guess we're supposed to assume there's, like, a romance that's gonna blossom between them.

[58:28] It leads to nothing.

[58:30] And Hawkman shows Black Adam, or Teth Adam, that if you take prisoners, instead of killing them, you can get information from them.

[58:37] So, Adam gets the information he needs about where the kid is and then kills them anyway, or drops them to Hawkman as a savior.

[58:43] And 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.

[58:51] Anyway, the running gangs are all starting up.

[58:53] Yeah.

[58:54] There's a big debate between Teth Adam and Hawkman about the debate over the morality of killing.

[58:58] Yeah.

[58:59] Which neither side presents that good an argument.

[59:01] They fight again.

[59:02] They destroy a lot of Justice League merchandise in the kid's bedroom.

[59:06] They're destroying the apartment.

[59:07] And their fight reveals the hiding place of the crown of Sabacc.

[59:11] The kid hid it in his dresser the whole time.

[59:15] And so-

[59:15] Right next to the fucking cum socks, right?

[59:18] Yep.

[59:18] He's like, no one will want to touch it if it's covered in these.

[59:22] He doesn't realize that the crown gives power to the semen, turning it into monsters.

Dan McCoy

[59:27] Your cum socks, you put them-

[59:30] You're saying that you put them back in the drawer?

[59:32] I don't ask you.

[59:33] I'm saying this gross-ass kid might do much shit.

Elliott Kalan

[59:36] Dan, obviously you're not familiar with the legendary story of the West of the cum sock load,

[59:40] which was a vein of cum socks, a rich vein of cum socks that was discovered made many millionaires.

[59:46] Yeah.

[59:47] So anyway, now the mom is like, hey, you heroes are going to work together to save my son.

[59:52] 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, I guess, to like the Eternium mine.

[1:00:02] Yeah.

[1:00:02] And the Intergang has Amon there.

[1:00:04] And Teth Adam jumps the gun and just starts attacking people at the mine.

[1:00:07] But it's protected by an Eternium-powered shield, a force field that he can't get through.

[1:00:11] And Ishmael says, I'm going to kill Amon unless you give me the crown.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:14] And-

[1:00:15] What I love is that it's around here where Ishmael reveals that he is the last living descendant of King Akhtal.

[1:00:22] And I'm like, wow, 23 and me, man.

[1:00:25] What the fuck?

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:26] Well, he says, he goes, now I'll get the crown.

[1:00:32] I'm the last descendant of King Akhtal.

[1:00:33] This story has been passed down through generation after generation of my family.

[1:00:37] And it's like, for 5,000 years?

[1:00:39] Yeah, that's amazing.

[1:00:40] It's an astonishing amount of time for a lineage to be kept up.

[1:00:44] Like, that's incredible.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:46] If even one of those people was like me and lazy and like uninterested in passing long family tales.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:53] Or if one person was like, you know what?

[1:00:56] My descendant was an evil king.

[1:00:59] I don't think I want to continue this.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:01] Or one person was told by their parents, oh, by the way, you're the last descendant of an evil king.

[1:01:05] And they were like, no, I'm not.

[1:01:06] Come on.

[1:01:07] It's like the story.

[1:01:08] It's like I just watched an episode of Finding Your Roots where it turns out that Ed Norton is descendant of Pocahontas.

[1:01:14] And it was like that.

[1:01:15] I barely believed that the paperwork exists.

[1:01:17] But I'll trust Henry Louis Gates.

[1:01:18] Okay.

[1:01:19] But the idea that for 5,000 years, this story is passed down.

[1:01:22] And I really wish that Ishmael had put on the crown.

[1:01:26] And it turned out his family was just, it was just family lore that wasn't true.

[1:01:30] And Teth Adam, you know, just crushes his hand or something.

[1:01:31] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:31] And then he throws it down.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:33] 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.

[1:01:42] But then Teth Adam, but he's going to shoot the kid anyway.

[1:01:45] And he fires a bullet.

[1:01:46] And even though we've seen Teth Adam flying around at almost light speed catching bullets,

[1:01:50] the movie extends this in slow-mo for so long as we think that the movie's going to,

[1:01:54] Teth Adam's not going to be able to save him.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:56] And what's wild in this slow-mo is that he shoots, in the time it takes him to shoot the bullet,

[1:02:01] and we watch Teth Adam slowly slow-mo fly to try and block it.

[1:02:06] Ishmael has time to drop his gun, lift up the crown, and put it on his fucking dome.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:12] Like, how fast is that guy moving?

[1:02:14] 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.

[1:02:20] He blows up the whole mine.

[1:02:21] This is one of those movie-controlled explosions where all the good guys are saved,

[1:02:25] and only the bad guys are killed.

[1:02:27] Ishmael has been turned to a stone statue holding the crown.

[1:02:31] And Hawkman turns to Black Adam.

[1:02:33] They're about to fight again.

[1:02:34] And Hawkman goes, how long are we going to keep doing this?

[1:02:36] And I was like, as an audience member, that is my question as well.

[1:02:39] Thank you, Hawkman, for saying what we're all thinking.

[1:02:42] And now Teth Adam finally reveals the final flashback sequence.

[1:02:47] He tells Hawkman the story of his son, the kid from 5,000 years ago who got the wizard power.

[1:02:52] Wait a minute.

[1:02:52] Teth Adam's not that kid.

[1:02:54] Teth Adam was the father of that kid.

[1:02:56] And the kid got that power and was flying around as a champion.

[1:03:00] But the king, to get revenge, he killed the kid's parents.

[1:03:05] And the kid shows up.

[1:03:06] His mother is dead and his father is dying.

[1:03:07] And he gives his father the Teth Adam powers to save him.

[1:03:11] But then a sniper with an arrow kills the kid.

[1:03:14] Classic sniper move.

[1:03:15] Fucking immediately.

[1:03:16] Yeah.

[1:03:17] He was fucking waiting for it.

[1:03:19] Yeah.

[1:03:19] And Teth Adam, it turns out Teth Adam was not the original champion.

[1:03:24] He was given the power by his son.

[1:03:25] And he went mad and out of vengeance and blah, blah, blah.

[1:03:28] And that giant statue of the champion isn't a statue of Adam.

[1:03:31] It's a statue of Adam's son, which raises the question to me.

[1:03:34] So did 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 the man who's trying to overthrow him.

[1:03:42] Or did they raise it later?

[1:03:44] In which case, it could have been a statue of Bad Teth Adam.

[1:03:47] Who knows?

[1:03:48] I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:48] Yeah.

[1:03:49] That's a good point.

[1:03:51] 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 is being valued more than, like, engaging us in the characters and understanding the characters' motivation.

[1:04:05] Because I think, arguably, it would be more effective for us to know the full story at the beginning and understand, like, all of, like, his issues.

[1:04:17] And then, like, get this character rather than have it be, like, this reveal, which is not shocking.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:23] I think more backstory up front would be a good idea.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:26] No, I think, or even if they just cut it out.

[1:04:30] Because you know what?

[1:04:31] It's not that important.

[1:04:32] And also, we've already established who Teth Adam is.

[1:04:35] Like, we don't need another twist to help us explain why he was always a bad champion.

[1:04:39] We don't need the twist.

[1:04:39] He was never the champion.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:41] He was never a hero.

[1:04:42] Well, the other part of it is that, like, they're trying so hard to make this character into this tortured anti-hero.

[1:04:50] And the thing is, we've seen superhero movies before.

[1:04:53] We've seen The Rock before.

[1:04:54] We know that The Rock is the hero of this movie.

[1:04:56] Yep.

[1:04:57] Him, like, him, like, accidentally destroying the society in the past is presented so quickly that even though, you know, if we think about it, we're like, oh, that's a big deal.

[1:05:08] Like, in movie language, it is waved away.

[1:05:12] And I think that it's part of The Rock just, like, being scared of actually being an anti.

[1:05:17] Like, we have to see the misery of, like, I fucked up.

[1:05:22] Like, what did I do?

[1:05:24] I, like, killed my society.

[1:05:26] Yeah.

[1:05:26] Like, that has to weigh more if this is what you want to do with this story.

[1:05:30] Like, because as it is, like, it's just like, why is this guy kind of a dick for a while and then, like, slightly less of a dick?

[1:05:35] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:36] If they played up the idea that, like, he destroyed the society, if they showed a moment of him, like, realizing what he'd done.

[1:05:44] And then when the wizards were trapping him, he didn't, like, resist.

[1:05:48] He was just like, like.

[1:05:50] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:50] This is what I deserve.

[1:05:51] And then he, when waking up in the modern times, he's like, maybe, maybe I can do something.

[1:05:57] Which I kind of guess is what they try and go for anyway.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:00] No, but I think it would be good if he was seeking redemption rather than hiding from it.

[1:06:05] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:05] And he, it's, he kind of, 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.

[1:06:15] Like, he still looks like a pretty big guy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:17] And, uh.

[1:06:18] I mean, but it's definitely a different guy with the rock's head on it.

[1:06:21] Yes.

[1:06:22] Giant rock head.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:23] But they didn't go all the way and make him, like, a skinny, weak guy.

[1:06:27] They just made him, like, a slightly less muscular guy.

[1:06:30] He gives up his power.

[1:06:31] He tells Hawkman, never let me say that again.

[1:06:33] And the JSA takes him to a Task Force XX secret facility where he's imprisoned in suspended animation.

[1:06:39] And it's like, this seems, this seems harsh.

[1:06:41] This seems like a very harsh way to treat him to put him in the minority report prison.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:45] If he's willing to give up his powers, fine.

[1:06:48] But maybe do that after you get back the demon crown.

[1:06:51] Like, why is he doing it now in this story?

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:54] Well, because he thinks that the problem's been solved.

[1:06:57] And we as the audience are supposed to think the problem's solved.

[1:06:59] But the archaeologist and Cyclone realize that, wait a minute.

[1:07:03] 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.

[1:07:09] She goes, wait a minute.

[1:07:11] Ishmael died on purpose because he knew that would send him to the Rock of Finality where the demon kings live.

[1:07:16] And they would make him their champion and send him back, which is exactly what happens.

[1:07:20] But this is based on the, they turn the crown, the crown is a description that says the path to death, life is the path to death.

[1:07:28] And they turn it upside down.

[1:07:29] And apparently upside down.

[1:07:30] Turn it upside down.

[1:07:31] Thank you.

[1:07:32] That ancient language, I guess, changes meanings upside down.

[1:07:35] Because upside down, it means death is the path to life.

[1:07:37] And she's like, oh, so that was Ishmael's plan.

[1:07:39] And it's such an amazing leap in logic for them to assume, oh, yeah, he died on purpose so that he'd go to the demon's house.

[1:07:45] The demons would turn him into a super powerful demon man.

[1:07:48] But that's exactly what happens.

[1:07:49] They turn him into Sabath.

[1:07:50] Exactly what happens.

[1:07:51] The living embodiment of their power.

[1:07:52] He's a demon man.

[1:07:53] He's got a super powered kind of upside down star on his chest that can fire flames.

[1:07:57] Anyway, he attacks the JSA.

[1:07:59] Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight.

[1:08:01] Hawkman does manage to injure him with an axe because as we learned in JLA, axes are the most powerful instruments of violence in the world.

[1:08:08] They can take out Darkseid instantly and he has to leave.

[1:08:12] Fate, and then he realizes, Hawkman, this is the, Dr. Fate says, Hawkman, this is the battle I saw you dying in.

[1:08:18] But I can change the future by dying myself.

[1:08:20] And so he locks himself inside a force field in that throne room and just fights him for a while while telepathically at the same time speaking to Teth Adam in his prison and I guess giving him the will to live to free himself.

[1:08:37] Yeah, pep talk.

[1:08:38] He needs a pep talk.

[1:08:39] And there's part of me that's like, I bet Dr. Fate could have pulled off this plan without dying.

[1:08:44] But you know what?

[1:08:45] Let's let him do that.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:46] Well, and also speaking of like Dr. Strange, I feel like this is, the balls of this movie trying to pull like kind of a similar trick to the stuff that happens in Infinity War and Endgame with this.

[1:08:58] Anyway.

[1:08:59] Yeah.

[1:09:00] With much less interesting characters.

[1:09:02] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:03] And so Teth Adam, he frees himself.

[1:09:05] He fights a bunch of Task Force X guards and he gets shot.

[1:09:09] But he does it without his powers.

[1:09:12] He does it without his powers, which should be impossible.

[1:09:14] That he's just taking blow after blow to the head and fighting past them.

[1:09:18] And he can't say his magic word because he still has this thing on his mouth that keeps him from talking.

[1:09:23] And so Sabacc, he finally kills Dr. Fate and from all the others.

[1:09:27] He sits on his throne, which shoots a big laser blast into the sky.

[1:09:31] That's what happens when I sit on the throne.

[1:09:34] Your laser blasts don't go into the sky though.

[1:09:37] No, no.

[1:09:39] And it causes zombie legions to attack the city.

[1:09:41] Luckily, the zombie legions are incredibly easy to fight.

[1:09:44] And all the people of Khandok, Khandok, which has a population of about 50.

[1:09:48] They're just fighting off these guys and Kareem shows up and he's able to help them fight off.

[1:09:53] Anyway.

[1:09:54] So Teth Adam, he's.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:57] It's always funny when like an army of like the living dead show up and they are easily defeated.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:03] That is funny when an army of the living dead show up.

[1:10:06] Laugh and laugh.

[1:10:07] I think, Dan, you should have waited for the second part of Stuart's thought.

[1:10:12] What?

[1:10:12] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:14] They're being defeated incredibly.

[1:10:16] There's a part where you see townspeople and undead running at each other and a townsperson falls.

[1:10:21] It looks like he slips.

[1:10:22] Like it doesn't even look like the zombie got him.

[1:10:24] So Teth Adam, I guess, has drowned in trying to escape from the prison.

[1:10:28] But he sees his family gladiator style.

[1:10:32] Oh, yeah.

[1:10:33] His son tells him, it's not your time.

[1:10:36] Amon, he inspires people to rise up against the zombies with that triangular hand signal because they needed a motivation.

[1:10:43] Yep.

[1:10:43] To stop zombies from eating them, I guess.

[1:10:46] And Teth Adam's son is like, say Shazam.

[1:10:50] And so he says it.

[1:10:51] Sabacc finally knocks over that big champion statue.

[1:10:54] It was about to crush the total population of Kondok, which again is a couple dozen people.

[1:10:57] When Teth Adam shows up and catches it and then hands it to Adam Smasher so that Adam can fight.

[1:11:03] And it's confusing that Adam Smasher and Teth Adam are the two characters in this movie.

[1:11:08] Give them a different name.

[1:11:09] Don't care about the name Adam Smasher.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:10] Do you think they brought Adam Smasher along because his name is Adam?

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:14] Well, they thought this guy smashes Adams and we're going after Teth Adam.

[1:11:17] Your whole power is smashing Adams.

[1:11:19] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:19] They only heard it.

[1:11:20] They never saw it written down.

[1:11:22] He also doesn't technically smash Adams.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:24] It's because he's in the comics.

[1:11:25] He's a descendant of the original, the Adam, who had no powers but was just a short guy who fought.

[1:11:31] Much like Alpha Flight's Puck.

[1:11:34] I guess Puck kind of has powers in that he was not originally short but was turned short to magic.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:38] Turned short to capture, to find a demon.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:43] Yeah.

[1:11:43] Being short is a power.

[1:11:44] I'm a living example.

[1:11:47] Teth Adam and Sabacc fight.

[1:11:48] It's very video gamey.

[1:11:50] The mob fights the skeletons.

[1:11:52] Sabacc impales Hawkman.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:53] Black Adam has a new cape when he comes back.

[1:11:57] Yeah.

[1:11:57] I don't know where he got the cape from but he's got it now.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:00] His whole outfit's a little different, right?

[1:12:02] It's a little different.

[1:12:03] Yeah, it's a little more heroic.

[1:12:04] And Sabacc impales Hawkman but it turns out that was a fake Hawkman because Hawkman has Dr. Fate's helmet

[1:12:09] and apparently can do all the things Dr. Fate did.

[1:12:12] Yeah.

[1:12:12] Which really takes a lot of impressing.

[1:12:13] It really makes me less impressed with Dr. Fate.

[1:12:15] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:16] Well, it's a very user-friendly helmet.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:18] Yeah.

[1:12:18] Just plug and play.

[1:12:20] The OS on that is so instinctive.

[1:12:22] Yeah.

[1:12:23] And so Hawkman and Teth Adam now they cooperate to fight Sabacc and Teth Adam remembers his catchphrase

[1:12:31] and says it just in time before he tears Sabacc in two down the middle, reverse bone tomahawk style from the head down.

[1:12:39] All the zombies dissolve.

[1:12:41] Dr. Fate's helmet dissolves.

[1:12:42] I guess understanding that it's no longer needed for the plot.

[1:12:45] Yeah.

[1:12:47] Back to its own planet.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:49] Probably to find a new Dr. Fate.

[1:12:51] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:52] Yes, probably.

[1:12:53] Archaeologist mom takes responsibility for-

[1:12:55] Daniel Craig.

[1:12:56] Yeah.

[1:12:57] Yeah.

[1:12:57] It has to be.

[1:12:58] He would be great.

[1:12:59] He's the next of everything.

[1:13:00] Yeah.

[1:13:00] And Archaeologist mom, she says, I'll take responsibility for Teth Adam.

[1:13:06] And Hawkman is like, just watch out.

[1:13:08] That darkness inside you will corrupt you.

[1:13:09] And she goes, it's his darkness that lets him do what you won't do.

[1:13:12] As if what he does is anything more impressive than just murdering people.

[1:13:16] And the JSA leaves.

[1:13:17] 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.

[1:13:23] And he destroys the throne.

[1:13:25] And the kid goes, you know, Teth Adam is kind of an old fashioned name.

[1:13:29] Or maybe he says that.

[1:13:29] He says, the name Teth Adam is kind of old fashioned.

[1:13:31] And she goes, so what should we call you?

[1:13:33] And he looks at the camera.

[1:13:34] And then as we mentioned, it cuts to the title, Black Adam.

[1:13:36] Teth Adam.

[1:13:37] End of movie.

[1:13:38] And then we get to the most exciting part of the movie for me.

[1:13:42] In the credits, when C.C. Beck gets acknowledged as the co-creator of Black Adam.

[1:13:46] Very exciting to see C.C. Beck, a legendary comic creator who died many years ago with his

[1:13:51] credits in a movie.

[1:13:51] Now, it's the mid-credits scene.

[1:13:53] And Black Adam is having a hologram telephone call with Amanda Waller.

[1:13:57] And she's like, here's the deal.

[1:13:59] You stay in conduct or I'll kill you instantly.

[1:14:01] And he goes, do your worst.

[1:14:02] Send me your worst people.

[1:14:03] And she goes, I've got someone better than you.

[1:14:06] And then Henry Cavill, Superman, drops in and says, we should talk.

[1:14:10] Cut to black.

[1:14:11] The sad thing is, they never will.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:13] Because Henry Cavill no longer plays Superman.

[1:14:15] And I don't think they're making any more Black Adam movies.

[1:14:17] Maybe he'll convince Dwayne to be in one of his Warhammer shows that he's working on.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:22] And this, I feel like this mid-credits sequence, it doesn't even rise the level of

[1:14:26] the Morbius mid-credits sequence, which was such a, which was a matter of like, huh?

[1:14:30] What is, why is this happening?

[1:14:31] This is, that it's like Superman shows up and he's going to talk to Black Adam.

[1:14:35] And I guess the audience is supposed to be like, oh, these two Titans, what's going to happen

[1:14:39] between them?

[1:14:40] But I have so little investment in either of these characters by this point that like, I

[1:14:45] don't really care that much.

[1:14:46] Guys, that was a, we took a long time to get through Black Adam, a movie that is really

[1:14:51] by the numbers and is mostly just fight scenes.

[1:14:54] Is it time for final judgments?

[1:14:55] I think so.

[1:14:56] Let's do final judgments.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:57] Let's fucking crank it out.

[1:14:58] Whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie that we kind of like.

[1:15:06] Look, this movie is not so great.

[1:15:11] I, I, I don't know.

[1:15:15] Um, I watched a movie last night called Bat.

[1:15:19] It's from 1999.

[1:15:21] You may remember it.

[1:15:22] It starred, uh, Dina Mayer and, uh.

[1:15:25] And the title's upside down.

[1:15:27] Lou Diamond Phillips.

[1:15:28] LDP.

[1:15:28] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:28] The title was upside down on the poster.

[1:15:30] Cause that's what you.

[1:15:31] That's how a bat would read it.

[1:15:32] Yeah.

[1:15:33] And I, I.

[1:15:34] So that a bat could see the movie.

[1:15:36] Oh, finally, something for me.

[1:15:37] Representation.

[1:15:38] I appreciate it.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:39] Yeah.

[1:15:40] And the amazing thing to bats for me is, is how much it is exactly what you imagine a movie

[1:15:49] called bats would be.

[1:15:51] It like, it is, it is Jaws, but in, you know, Arizona and it, it follows all of like the beats

[1:16:02] of a low budget movie about evil bats, including like a guy being, uh, you know, the, the evil

[1:16:10] scientist who created super intelligent bats who like thinks he can control the bats and

[1:16:15] gets hoisted by his own petard.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:17] I think he's gonna, that's gonna work out for him.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:19] It hits all the, it hits it all, you know, and the thing about.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:23] Guys, real quick.

[1:16:24] I hate to interrupt this, Dan, but if I ever come up with a scheme to create like super intelligent

[1:16:29] animals or dragons or something, tell me to not do that.

[1:16:33] Yeah.

[1:16:34] But, um.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:35] And we'll do it in a respectful way.

[1:16:36] We won't say, Stuart, you're mad.

[1:16:38] You've gone mad.

[1:16:39] You shouldn't take it from God's domain.

[1:16:41] I'm fucking sensitive.

[1:16:42] I'm a Pisces.

[1:16:43] It's just gonna make you want to do it more.

[1:16:44] Yeah.

[1:16:44] It's gonna hurt your feelings.

[1:16:45] You're gonna want to do it more.

[1:16:46] We'll say, Stuart, you're brilliant.

[1:16:48] I think you could pull it off, but I don't think you should.

[1:16:50] You've thought so much about whether you could.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:52] You haven't thought about whether you should.

[1:16:53] We'll do it respectfully.

[1:16:53] That's what I need to hear in that moment.

[1:16:55] But the reason I bring up bats is like, there are always.

[1:16:57] And then I'm gonna have to pull your funding, unfortunately.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:59] Oh, but maybe we could repurpose it toward something, a different project.

[1:17:04] I'm creating super intelligent earthworms.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:06] Colossus the Forbun project, maybe.

[1:17:08] No, those are both dangerous projects.

[1:17:12] Here's the thing about it is there are all these things on the internet, like on Twitter or whatever, that purport to be like AI-generated scripts for things.

[1:17:21] And most of it is bullshit that some aspiring comedy writer wrote.

[1:17:25] Like, ha ha ha.

[1:17:26] But like this, like bats felt like it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:28] Dan with no sympathy for aspiring comedy writers, despite having been one before.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:32] I have sympathy for that.

[1:17:33] Just don't lie about the AI thing.

[1:17:36] Anyway, the point is.

[1:17:37] Yeah, I lie.

[1:17:41] That movie feels like the template for a movie.

[1:17:47] Like, if you open Final Draft and they're like, disaster animal movie.

[1:17:51] They would just have the template and it would be the script for bats.

[1:17:54] And likewise, Black Adam in some ways feels like the template for bad DC action superhero movie.

[1:18:01] But the thing is, with bats, it's a movie from a while back with almost no budget and a bunch of rubber bats.

[1:18:09] And it's 90 minutes long.

[1:18:10] And so I find the utter, like, cookie cutter genericness of it charming.

[1:18:15] Yeah.

[1:18:16] In the way that it is angering with Black Adam, 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.

[1:18:26] And it is just frustrating.

[1:18:29] Yeah.

[1:18:29] And not fun.

[1:18:31] And that's my feeling about this movie.

[1:18:33] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:35] Yeah, I'm going to agree with you.

[1:18:36] I think it's a bad, bad movie.

[1:18:38] I think they don't make enough effort to make us.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:40] And not, as Dan was saying, a bat-bat movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:42] If only.

[1:18:44] It's, yeah, they don't give you any, enough to root for any character involved.

[1:18:50] They don't really justify why almost anything is happening.

[1:18:54] It's just not for me.

[1:18:55] I think they, and the fact that they, like, toy with some actual interesting ideas make the flaws more glaring for me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:05] Yeah, I agree.

[1:19:06] It's a, it's a bad, bad movie.

[1:19:08] I think that it's a movie that suffers from being, like, the 30th or 35th of these kinds of movies.

[1:19:16] And, like, there's a lot of things in it that, if this had been the first time I was seeing it, I'd be like, whoa, a giant person, a superhero who can just kind of smash through things?

[1:19:25] Like, amazing.

[1:19:26] But instead, we've seen it all before.

[1:19:28] And it feels, like Dan was saying, kind of negatively cookie cutter.

[1:19:32] And it just doesn't work.

[1:19:34] And so I'm going to give it a bad, bad.

[1:19:35] 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 when it was first announced.

[1:19:42] And I'm wondering, is that just because it has the word black in the title?

[1:19:45] Which makes me dislike it even more.

[1:19:48] But they were like, oh, of course they'll direct the superhero movie with black in the title.

[1:19:51] So I would say it's a, it's a bad, bad movie.

[1:19:54] But I will say this.

[1:19:56] There are a couple funny jokes in it.

[1:19:57] There are a couple times in the movie where there were jokes made that I did think were kind of funny.

[1:20:01] There's a part where Black Adam is like, he says something.

[1:20:05] He goes, did you kill those people?

[1:20:06] He goes, no.

[1:20:07] And then you see the people, you know, die.

[1:20:09] And he goes, that was sarcasm.

[1:20:10] And Dr. Fate goes, not sarcasm, just a lie.

[1:20:13] And I thought that was the way Pierce Brosnan said it was funny.

[1:20:15] But other than that, it's even having like, there's a goofy.

[1:20:18] Well, that's the thing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:19] Like, you have a great performer.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:21] Yes, but like, even to the point of having like, a goofy side character who sings an old pop song.

[1:20:28] Like, you know, even to the point of having like, a doof character who's always kind of silly and messing up.

[1:20:33] Like, in the superhero team.

[1:20:34] It feels so, it feels like such a fourth generation of the things that we've seen.

[1:20:39] And it feels weird to have the rock playing a character who has no humor to him.

[1:20:43] So, I would call it a miss.

[1:20:45] As in, miss this movie.

S4

[1:20:52] Jay Keith, do you know what I love more than the trivia, comedy, and celebrity guests on our podcast, Go Fact Yourself?

[1:20:59] No, what, Ellen?

[1:21:00] Sharing all of those things with an actual audience.

S5

[1:21:04] Yes, well, lucky for you, Go Fact Yourself is back to being a live audience show.

[1:21:08] Woo-hoo!

[1:21:08] Yeah, we've got a free recording coming up on January 15th in Los Angeles and February 11th in Pasadena.

S4

[1:21:14] And if you can't make it there, all of our recordings will still be available as a podcast.

[1:21:20] Twice a month, every month, on MaximumFun.org.

S5

[1:21:23] Yeah, no excuses.

[1:21:24] So, if you're not listening...

S4

[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 that's about the little things.

[1:21:37] Getting into the Tiny Victory frame of mine is about recognizing minor accomplishments and fleeting joys.

[1:21:44] Isn't it a wonderful day when the first password you try actually works?

Dan McCoy

[1:21:50] When it's freezing cold outside and toasty as all get-out in my shower.

[1:21:55] My tiny victory is that I turn off the water and get on with my day.

S4

[1:22:00] We can't change this big, dumb world, but we can celebrate the tiny wins.

[1:22:04] So, join us on Maximum Fun or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:08] Let's get tiny!

Dan McCoy

[1:22:13] Hey, this podcast has sponsors.

[1:22:16] Don't tell us we don't because we do.

[1:22:17] One of them is...

[1:22:20] Don't you dare tell us we don't.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:21] Don't you dare.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:23] Microdose gummies.

[1:22:24] You may have heard about microdosing.

[1:22:26] Lots of people are doing it.

[1:22:27] They're microdosing daily to feel healthier and perform better.

[1:22:30] And our show today is sponsored by microdose gummies, which deliver perfect entry-level doses of THC that help you feel just the right amount of good.

[1:22:39] If you want to maybe elevate your mood, calm down, fall asleep, feel a little boost in creativity, these have all been benefits that I have felt from using these.

[1:22:51] And, I don't know, it's just a good way to unwind that, I don't know, maybe doesn't involve like a glass of wine or something.

[1:22:59] Have a microdose gummy instead.

[1:23:00] Microdose is available nationwide.

[1:23:02] To learn more about microdosing, go to microdose.com and lose code FLOP to get free shipping and 30% off your first order.

[1:23:12] Links can be found in the show description, but again, that is microdose.com, code FLOP.

[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 and it had been unsent and I was confused.

[1:23:25] I'm like, where's the ad copy I sent Elliot?

[1:23:27] And then I found it.

[1:23:28] Do you have it now?

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:30] I do have it and I'm going to read it right now.

[1:23:33] So, it goes like this.

[1:23:33] Alex, feel free to cut that part if you want to.

[1:23:35] Or not.

[1:23:36] I don't know.

[1:23:36] It's up to you.

[1:23:37] We are also sponsored, I'm happy to say, by Squarespace.

[1:23:41] Sorry, I was going to say SquarePace.

[1:23:42] SquarePace?

[1:23:44] We are also sponsored by SquarePace.

[1:23:46] It's Lee Pace, but he's a square, finally.

[1:23:48] We're also sponsored by Squarespace.

[1:23:50] That's right, the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online.

[1:23:54] Look, let's face it.

[1:23:55] The internet is here and it's not going anywhere.

[1:23:57] It's already destroyed society and now it's destroying itself.

[1:24:00] But that very fractionalization of the entertainment world and the media world creates an opportunity for you.

[1:24:07] We're going back to the old Wild West days and that means you're not literally but on the internet.

[1:24:11] And that means there's no better time to stand out with a beautiful website, to engage with your audience, to sell anything you want within legal reason.

[1:24:20] Your products, your content, everything you create, even your time.

[1:24:24] Squarespace will give you the tools to do just that and this is the time to do it.

[1:24:29] Look, you can create an online store.

[1:24:31] You can sell your products in it.

[1:24:32] Whether it's physical or digital products, Squarespace has the tools to do that.

[1:24:36] Look, you can create professional-level videos effortlessly without effort.

[1:24:40] You know what's not cool?

[1:24:42] Making an effort.

[1:24:42] You want to be all cool and leaning back and whatever.

[1:24:44] You can do it effortlessly with the Squarespace Video Studio app.

[1:24:48] And you can display posts from your social profiles on your website.

[1:24:52] That's right.

[1:24:52] Social media, we're all jumping away from it.

[1:24:55] And create a bridge from social media to your website that people can follow so that they'll know where you are on the internet.

[1:25:00] It's time to stop relying on the big corporations and billionaire weirdos who want to send our brains to Mars for your internet life space.

[1:25:08] It's time to make your own space on the internet.

[1:25:10] Be the hero of your life.

[1:25:12] Be the leader of your life.

[1:25:13] Be the person who's creating the path for you.

[1:25:16] That's Squarespace.

[1:25:17] That can help you do that with your own website.

[1:25:19] So go to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[1:25:23] And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code FLOP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[1:25:30] It's time.

[1:25:31] The internet is cracking up like an ice flow with polar bears on each one separating out from each other.

[1:25:36] More and more frozen or not frozen.

[1:25:38] See between them.

[1:25:39] Create your own ice flow.

[1:25:41] Get out there and attract some more polar bears to it.

[1:25:44] It's a weird metaphor, but I think you should do it.

[1:25:46] Now's the time.

[1:25:47] Take action.

[1:25:48] Carpe Digitum.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:49] Seize the internet with Squarespace.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:52] That's squarespace.com.

[1:25:53] Slash flop.

[1:25:55] Offer code FLOP.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:56] Elliot, I bet you have something to promote.

[1:25:59] But before we do that, I want to say we have entries in for the Sexy Xenomorph contest.

[1:26:04] Yay!

[1:26:05] I will compile them.

[1:26:07] I will put up a page for people to vote at flophousepodcast.com.

[1:26:14] www.flophousepodcast.com.

[1:26:16] If you go to there, you should be able to find a poll so we can figure out which sexy Xenomorph.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:23] Slide down that poll into the videos.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:25] The video you like the best.

[1:26:27] And they will be the winner of the contest.

[1:26:30] I will give you approximately 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?

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:41] I do have something very special to promote.

[1:26:44] I am very happy to say that Maniac of New York, don't call it a comeback.

[1:26:48] Number one, the first chapter of volume three of my wonderful, I'm going to say, I'm just

[1:26:53] going to say it, wonderful.

[1:26:54] Yeah, yeah.

[1:26:54] You can say that.

[1:26:55] Thanks.

[1:26:55] Horror satire comic.

[1:26:56] It comes out this Wednesday, January 18th.

[1:26:59] If you are listening to this episode on the day of its release or the week of its release,

[1:27:02] it comes out this Wednesday, January 18th.

[1:27:05] It'll be in your local comic book store.

[1:27:06] You may be aware, you may have heard that the publisher of the comic, Aftershock Comics,

[1:27:09] recently filed for bankruptcy.

[1:27:11] A lot of people have reached out to me on Twitter to see what was going to happen with

[1:27:14] the book and to express their condolences.

[1:27:16] I really appreciate that.

[1:27:17] Thank you so much for your interest.

[1:27:19] Thank you so much for your good wishes.

[1:27:20] It means a lot to me that this book is connected 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 number one.

[1:27:29] It's already been printed and it's on its way to stores.

[1:27:31] It may be in the stores now.

[1:27:34] I mean, and it will be in the stores on January 18th.

[1:27:36] So on January 18th, this Wednesday, and if you're listening to this after January 18th,

[1:27:40] go anyway.

[1:27:41] It's not like it's the only day it's going to be on sale 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 as well as for my great collaborators on it.

[1:27:49] Andrea Moody, one of the greatest comic artists working today.

[1:27:51] Taylor Esposito, one of the greatest letterers 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 this Wednesday, January 18th,

[1:28:02] and pick up Maniac of New York.

[1:28:04] Don't call it a comeback.

[1:28:05] Number one.

[1:28:05] If you've never picked up Maniac before, please give it a try.

[1:28:08] We recently named Horror Comic Miniseries of the Year by the Horror News Network website.

[1:28:13] Wow.

[1:28:13] The first two volumes.

[1:28:14] The first two volumes, The Death Train and The Bronx is Burning, are both available in paperback right now.

[1:28:19] The story of Gina Green and Zelda Pettibone, two women trying to stop an unkillable masked slasher

[1:28:23] who the rest of New York City has just come to accept as a part of everyday life.

[1:28:27] If you haven't read the series until now, try to pick up those paperbacks.

[1:28:30] But if you don't want to do that, you can also just jump aboard this death train this Wednesday,

[1:28:34] January 18th with Maniac of New York.

[1:28:36] Don't call it a comeback.

[1:28:37] Number one.

[1:28:38] In stores.

[1:28:40] After a wait.

[1:28:41] 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, but I guarantee you, I'm going to do everything I can.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:48] Even if it means Elliot has to drive to different places and tell people what happens in the next issue.

[1:28:54] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:54] The story will get out.

[1:28:55] This is a four-issue series, and I will do everything in my power to get it out there.

[1:29:00] Yes, even if I have to, old-fashioned, traveling, oral storyteller style, go to villages and sit around the campfire

[1:29:07] and tell them what happens at the end of the story.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:10] Next on the show, we answer letters.

[1:29:14] Don't tell us we don't.

[1:29:16] I don't know why both this and the ads 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] Steele?

[1:29:29] McCoy.

[1:29:30] Daniel writes,

[1:29:32] Dear Flophouse,

[1:29:33] I wanted to know what film series or franchises 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 Vietnam vet suffering from PTSD,

[1:29:48] being ostracized for his looks,

[1:29:50] to super soldier, freedom fighter, and killer of drug cartels.

[1:29:54] Also, the Highlander films come to mind.

[1:29:56] It's the first movie with the tagline,

[1:29:58] There Can Be Only One,

[1:29:59] and the movie ends with there being only one.

[1:30:01] Any movie beyond the first loses the thread.

[1:30:04] What film series really lost the thread of what the first was about?

[1:30:07] Keep on flopping.

[1:30:08] Daniel, last name withheld.

[1:30:10] One major one that I think of that is still in production, of course,

[1:30:14] the Fast and the Furious movies,

[1:30:16] which start off as a very small scale point break ripoff and then become large scale sprawling cast,

[1:30:29] zany cartoon physics,

[1:30:31] super spies,

[1:30:33] globetrotting,

[1:30:34] car-based,

[1:30:36] defenders of justice.

[1:30:38] That's a little weird.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:39] Don't they go to outer space in the latest one?

[1:30:41] I believe so.

[1:30:42] Hell yeah.

[1:30:43] How could they not?

Dan McCoy

[1:30:44] I watched part of the latest one.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:46] Because they got to do like a heist of all the fucking cheese on the moon or something?

Dan McCoy

[1:30:50] I've reached my end.

[1:30:51] I was like,

[1:30:52] you know what?

[1:30:52] I don't care.

[1:30:55] I think that-

[1:30:56] Wallace from Wallace and Gromit took them up there.

[1:30:58] Oh, hell.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:59] Dude,

[1:30:59] if they fucking brought in Wallace and Gromit into the Fast family,

[1:31:03] like Jesus Christ.

[1:31:04] I would love it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:05] Well,

[1:31:05] he's always inventing machines that don't work quite right for the family to use.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:10] Oh,

[1:31:11] wow.

[1:31:11] Yeah.

[1:31:12] I mean,

[1:31:12] the Planet of the Apes movies got really strange over time.

[1:31:16] I mean,

[1:31:16] I don't say they lost the thread.

[1:31:17] They just pushed it.

[1:31:18] The originals,

[1:31:19] not the recent trilogy.

[1:31:20] The recent,

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:21] the originals.

[1:31:22] Yeah,

[1:31:22] not the original ones.

[1:31:23] Yeah,

[1:31:23] because they,

[1:31:23] well,

[1:31:23] the original ones became kind of like,

[1:31:25] stranger and stranger time travel exercises until the very,

[1:31:29] very last one.

[1:31:30] So it's,

[1:31:30] yeah,

[1:31:30] it's,

[1:31:31] that's,

[1:31:31] but that's one where,

[1:31:32] I think here's,

[1:31:33] here's how where I'd say it's a difference.

[1:31:35] I feel like when they made those Planet of the Apes movies,

[1:31:37] the only kind of film series franchises before then were kind of like the Thin Man or things like that,

[1:31:45] where it's kind of like characters who have an adventure one after the other.

[1:31:48] And I think that was one of the first ones where they're trying to figure out,

[1:31:51] what is the sequel to a movie that's not just a detective who has multiple characters,

[1:31:55] or something like that.

[1:31:56] Or like,

[1:31:57] so I'm going to go,

[1:31:58] that's,

[1:31:58] how do,

[1:31:59] how do we continue this world?

[1:32:00] It's a,

[1:32:00] it's a series built that becomes about a world rather than about a specific set of characters.

[1:32:04] I mean,

[1:32:05] ultimately it reveals itself to be about the family of,

[1:32:07] uh,

[1:32:08] an ape family,

[1:32:08] you know,

[1:32:09] that it's,

[1:32:10] it's,

[1:32:10] uh,

[1:32:10] the family of Caesar and his parents.

[1:32:12] But,

[1:32:12] uh,

[1:32:13] the Aplemans.

[1:32:13] I can see that.

[1:32:14] Yeah,

[1:32:14] the Aplemans.

[1:32:15] Yeah.

[1:32:16] And,

[1:32:17] uh,

[1:32:17] I would say I have two answers for this.

[1:32:20] One is,

[1:32:21] cause I was gonna say Fast and Furious also.

[1:32:23] One is,

[1:32:24] um,

[1:32:25] the Jurassic Park movies,

[1:32:27] which have really,

[1:32:28] what I think was especially funny is,

[1:32:30] they've kind of done the same cycle twice.

[1:32:33] In a way,

[1:32:33] like Jurassic Park 1 and 2,

[1:32:35] it's like,

[1:32:36] this park full of dinosaurs,

[1:32:37] that's a bad idea.

[1:32:38] They get loose.

[1:32:38] And then Jurassic Park 2 has a little bit of like,

[1:32:40] and now the dinosaurs leave the park.

[1:32:42] And the Jurassic Park 3 is like,

[1:32:43] we found another park.

[1:32:44] Let's just go in and find some more dinosaurs.

[1:32:46] And with Jurassic World,

[1:32:48] it's very funny that it exists in the same continuity,

[1:32:50] but it's like,

[1:32:50] hey,

[1:32:51] you know that park where the dinosaurs went mad and killed people?

[1:32:53] We're doing it for real now.

[1:32:54] Hey,

[1:32:55] but now the dinosaurs are loose.

[1:32:56] Now there's just dinosaurs.

[1:32:57] Now we're just going back for some reason.

[1:32:58] And it's,

[1:32:59] the,

[1:33:00] it's,

[1:33:00] it's almost like,

[1:33:01] I wish they'd lose the thread a little more,

[1:33:02] to be honest.

[1:33:03] But,

[1:33:04] uh,

[1:33:04] but it kind of lost what was exciting about the first one,

[1:33:06] which is,

[1:33:07] like,

[1:33:07] being trapped in a spot where there's dinosaurs and the awe of dinosaurs.

[1:33:11] And because the more dinosaurs you show,

[1:33:12] the less exciting it is to see a dinosaur.

[1:33:15] Uh,

[1:33:15] but I'm also going to say,

[1:33:16] this is not a good series of movies.

[1:33:18] I think none of them are good,

[1:33:19] but the Police Academy movies,

[1:33:21] the first one is explicitly about,

[1:33:23] what?

[1:33:23] They're rookie cops.

[1:33:24] What the fuck?

[1:33:24] They should be cops.

[1:33:26] And they're,

[1:33:26] None of them are good?

[1:33:28] Yeah.

[1:33:28] Uh,

[1:33:28] yes.

[1:33:29] And,

[1:33:29] and they go on wacky adventures.

[1:33:31] Tackle Harry.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:31] It's an R-rated sex comedy,

[1:33:33] the first one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:34] Yes.

[1:33:35] And the more that they go on both,

[1:33:37] yeah,

[1:33:37] the less,

[1:33:38] the less,

[1:33:38] the more it becomes about just like goofy cops when it was like,

[1:33:41] well,

[1:33:41] the whole purpose of the first one is that they're just,

[1:33:43] it's the Academy.

[1:33:44] They're just recruits.

[1:33:45] Like,

[1:33:45] like,

[1:33:46] they're bad at their job.

[1:33:48] And they're bad.

[1:33:48] And it becomes a larger,

[1:33:50] it becomes a larger statement,

[1:33:51] I guess,

[1:33:51] on how all police are bad at their jobs.

[1:33:53] All cops are bad,

[1:33:53] yeah.

[1:33:54] Which I know Stuart is,

[1:33:55] is definitely on board for,

[1:33:56] but it feels like it wasn't the original intention of,

[1:33:59] but by the time it gets to them going to Moscow and screwing things up overseas,

[1:34:02] you know?

[1:34:02] True.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:03] Another one that occurs to me,

[1:34:04] a recent one that we did for the show,

[1:34:06] obviously,

[1:34:06] Ghostbusters Afterlife,

[1:34:07] which is wildly off tone.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:10] Hmm,

[1:34:11] that movie sucks.

[1:34:13] I'm going to dip my toes into the horror franchises.

[1:34:16] I think,

[1:34:16] I think after the second Hellraiser movie,

[1:34:19] they all kind of lose the plot.

[1:34:20] First off,

[1:34:20] they show way too much Pinhead.

[1:34:22] Well,

[1:34:22] that's,

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:23] I think when they,

[1:34:23] when they start to realize,

[1:34:25] when they,

[1:34:25] they were like,

[1:34:25] oh,

[1:34:26] I guess this is Pinhead's franchise.

[1:34:28] And it's like,

[1:34:28] no,

[1:34:28] it's not.

[1:34:29] He's not the hero of the movies.

[1:34:30] Like,

[1:34:30] what are you doing?

[1:34:31] You know?

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:31] Julia is the main character,

[1:34:33] doy.

[1:34:34] And then I would say the,

[1:34:36] none of these movies are good,

[1:34:38] but the Saw franchise,

[1:34:40] gets super wacky.

[1:34:43] After,

[1:34:43] like,

[1:34:44] they kill,

[1:34:44] they kill Jigsaw in like the fourth movie.

[1:34:47] And they're like,

[1:34:47] okay,

[1:34:47] there's still five more.

[1:34:49] How can we,

[1:34:50] and there's one,

[1:34:51] there's all these like flashbacks of Jigsaw doing shit.

[1:34:53] It's so great,

[1:34:54] man.

[1:34:54] It's such a dumb series.

[1:34:56] There's,

[1:34:57] oh,

[1:34:57] wow.

[1:34:57] And yeah,

[1:34:58] wow.

[1:34:59] I,

[1:34:59] I watched them all when I was laid up with an injured back and it was not,

[1:35:05] not a great time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:07] I feel like most,

[1:35:09] maybe not all,

[1:35:10] but most superhero series eventually lose the threat of what,

[1:35:13] like you look at the old Superman movies.

[1:35:15] Oh yeah.

[1:35:15] Or the old Batman movies.

[1:35:17] And you're like,

[1:35:17] what is going on?

[1:35:18] Like,

[1:35:18] did you forget what people liked in the first ones?

[1:35:20] And even like the X-Men movies,

[1:35:22] there's a certain point where they're just like,

[1:35:24] we don't know what we're doing anymore.

[1:35:25] Like,

[1:35:26] we don't understand it.

[1:35:27] So they all kind of event.

[1:35:28] If you do basically some ideas,

[1:35:31] uh,

[1:35:31] you have more ideas.

[1:35:33] If some,

[1:35:33] some properties,

[1:35:34] you have more ideas for what to do with them and some,

[1:35:35] you don't,

[1:35:36] but it's not dictated by what ideas you have.

[1:35:37] It's dictated by the market.

[1:35:38] So the market doesn't always know.

[1:35:41] Sorry,

[1:35:41] Adam Smith,

[1:35:42] you busted.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:43] Uh,

[1:35:44] this,

[1:35:44] uh,

[1:35:45] second and final letter is from Dennis.

[1:35:47] Last name withheld from Sacramento.

[1:35:50] Uh,

[1:35:51] who writes,

[1:35:52] hi guys.

[1:35:52] Dennis,

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:53] the menace from Sacramento.

[1:35:54] I guess it could be.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:56] Could be.

[1:35:56] Hi guys.

[1:35:57] And also Hallie Haglund.

[1:35:58] I doubt Hallie's listening,

[1:35:59] but if she is,

[1:35:59] hi.

[1:36:00] As I type this,

[1:36:01] there's an incredible storm bearing down upon myself and my loved ones.

[1:36:05] I live on the West coast.

[1:36:07] So usually things.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:08] West coast.

[1:36:09] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:11] So usually things seem like they're either on fire,

[1:36:13] or about to burst into flame at any moment,

[1:36:15] but we do get the occasional storm.

[1:36:18] Uh,

[1:36:19] I was wondering if you have any good tips regarding storms and generally

[1:36:22] unpleasant weather,

[1:36:22] or even some fun stories to tell.

[1:36:24] I'll take my answer off the air.

[1:36:26] Well,

[1:36:26] that's good.

[1:36:26] Cause you never were on the air.

[1:36:29] I,

[1:36:29] um,

[1:36:30] but the answer is on the air.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:32] That's the thing.

[1:36:32] We're recording it.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:33] I mean,

[1:36:34] my tip for storms is,

[1:36:35] uh,

[1:36:35] go inside,

[1:36:36] go inside.

[1:36:37] That's a good tip.

[1:36:38] And stay inside for the duration of the storm.

[1:36:40] And then once it's over,

[1:36:41] you can leave your house.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:42] I think the roof is an,

[1:36:43] under appreciated invention of humankind.

[1:36:46] It's something that was developed early on and it's still usable.

[1:36:51] It's still great.

[1:36:52] Still keeps rain and snow off of your head while you're sleeping.

[1:36:54] It the roof,

[1:36:55] everybody let's not,

[1:36:57] let's raise the roof in honor of the roof.

[1:36:59] And to join us,

[1:37:00] it's the roots,

[1:37:02] the band that sounds like the roofs,

[1:37:03] but it's not.

[1:37:05] Okay.

[1:37:06] Uh,

[1:37:06] I don't have any,

[1:37:07] there's no,

[1:37:07] there's no better thing for putting a fiddler on than a roof.

[1:37:10] Thank you everybody.

[1:37:11] This has been Ellie Kaelin for the roof council of America.

[1:37:13] RCA.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:14] You don't want it to catch flame,

[1:37:16] but if it is on fire,

[1:37:17] just let the motherfucker burn.

[1:37:18] You don't want to have to deal with that.

[1:37:20] I feel like,

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:20] I feel like this question would be better answered by friend of the flop house,

[1:37:24] Dr.

[1:37:24] Roof.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:28] Oh wait,

[1:37:28] she just wants to talk about sex stuff.

[1:37:30] I think you should have sex on the roof.

[1:37:33] That's what you always say,

[1:37:33] Dr.

[1:37:34] Roof.

[1:37:34] That's Dr.

[1:37:35] Roof Hausheimer.

[1:37:39] I will say as,

[1:37:40] as a,

[1:37:41] as a spokesman for the roof council of America,

[1:37:42] do not let the motherfucker burn.

[1:37:44] If the roof is on fire,

[1:37:45] contact your local fire department and get that roof put out.

[1:37:48] You're going to be happy.

[1:37:48] You did.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:49] I don't know.

[1:37:49] Scientists told me that I don't need no water,

[1:37:53] but,

[1:37:53] um,

[1:37:53] I don't have any scientists.

[1:37:57] I don't have any stories other than like,

[1:37:59] you know,

[1:37:59] I grew up in central Illinois.

[1:38:00] There were a lot of tornadoes during the,

[1:38:03] during the summers.

[1:38:04] Uh,

[1:38:05] did you ever lasso one like a Pecos bill?

[1:38:07] I do not lasso one.

[1:38:11] Washington,

[1:38:11] Illinois.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:12] But you did go chasing one like a Bill Paxton,

[1:38:13] right?

[1:38:14] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:15] A couple of years back,

[1:38:16] Washington,

[1:38:16] Illinois,

[1:38:16] about half an hour from where I grew up,

[1:38:18] it got hit hard and some things got,

[1:38:20] uh,

[1:38:21] torn up and that was sad.

[1:38:23] But Eureka geographically,

[1:38:25] for so like,

[1:38:25] it was like in a dip and tornadoes tend to help.

[1:38:29] Right.

[1:38:30] There were a lot of like warnings that then we never actually,

[1:38:34] fortunately got hit by anything,

[1:38:35] but I don't know if you guys have any storm,

[1:38:36] storm tales.

[1:38:38] No,

[1:38:39] not really.

[1:38:40] Uh,

[1:38:41] I mean,

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:41] stay inside,

[1:38:42] stay inside,

[1:38:43] uh,

[1:38:44] candles,

[1:38:45] but that's just,

[1:38:46] that's just a general life tip.

[1:38:48] Get some good smelling candles,

[1:38:49] dog.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:49] Light a bunch of them.

[1:38:50] Take a bath.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:52] Take a fucking bath,

[1:38:53] right?

Dan McCoy

[1:38:54] I will.

[1:38:54] And I will say,

[1:38:55] the whole time about how many candles are around you.

[1:38:57] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:57] And then,

[1:38:57] and then crack the spine on a sweet little Ursula K.

[1:39:01] Le Guin book.

[1:39:02] Yeah.

[1:39:02] Oh,

[1:39:02] that's what you're,

[1:39:03] that's what I'm going to do.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:05] Particularly sexy.

[1:39:05] That sounds great.

[1:39:06] Yeah,

[1:39:06] always.

[1:39:07] But again,

[1:39:07] as a spokesman of the roof,

[1:39:09] uh,

[1:39:09] council of America,

[1:39:10] please don't put those candles on the roof.

[1:39:12] The roof is flammable.

[1:39:13] It could go on fire and you do not want to let that motherfucker burn again.

[1:39:16] So keep those candles off the roof.

[1:39:18] Put a fiddler up there.

[1:39:20] Or a weather vane.

[1:39:21] Conflicting reports on this.

[1:39:22] And I don't have any storm stories.

[1:39:24] I grew up in New Jersey.

[1:39:25] We had a lot of floods,

[1:39:26] a lot of blizzards.

[1:39:27] Uh,

[1:39:28] but otherwise,

[1:39:28] my favorite,

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:29] I do have a pretty good storm story.

[1:39:31] It has to do with,

[1:39:32] uh,

[1:39:33] when she had a mohawk and was like kind of in her punk mode.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:37] You know what I'm talking about?

[1:39:38] Yeah.

[1:39:38] Hanging out with Yukio on the dark side of Tokyo.

[1:39:40] Yeah.

[1:39:41] That was a,

[1:39:41] that is a good storm story.

[1:39:42] Yeah.

[1:39:43] And,

[1:39:43] uh,

[1:39:43] there's another good,

[1:39:46] I have another good storm story.

[1:39:47] It's called life death and it's about her and forge life death to not as good a storm story,

[1:39:51] but you know,

[1:39:52] it's all right.

[1:39:52] Yeah.

[1:39:53] So I guess we do have good storm stories.

[1:39:55] Yeah.

[1:39:56] We got plenty.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:57] Okay.

[1:39:58] Well,

[1:39:58] let's move on to,

[1:39:58] Chris Claremont.

[1:40:00] Let's move on to,

[1:40:01] uh,

[1:40:02] recommendations.

[1:40:03] Movie we saw recently that you'll probably,

[1:40:06] 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 I,

[1:40:14] it's probably the movie that I enjoyed the most that I saw recently.

[1:40:17] And it was very warm hearted.

[1:40:20] Made me feel good.

[1:40:20] You're going to recommend Babylon again,

[1:40:22] aren't you?

[1:40:22] No,

[1:40:22] no.

[1:40:22] I,

[1:40:23] uh,

[1:40:23] perhaps an unexpected recommendation.

[1:40:26] I watched Nancy Meyer's film,

[1:40:28] The Intern,

[1:40:29] starring one Robert De Niro and one Anne Hathaway.

[1:40:33] Oh,

[1:40:33] Bobby D.

[1:40:34] Uh,

[1:40:34] Elias,

[1:40:35] old pal,

[1:40:35] Annie H.

[1:40:37] Um,

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:38] and,

[1:40:38] um,

[1:40:39] it's a movie like,

Dan McCoy

[1:40:41] you know,

[1:40:42] I'll warn you.

[1:40:42] It's got the usual Nancy Meyer stuff.

[1:40:45] It's about a bunch of,

[1:40:46] uh,

[1:40:47] wealthy people with,

[1:40:48] in big kitchens without real problems,

[1:40:51] but it's,

[1:40:51] it's,

[1:40:52] it's also sweet.

[1:40:53] Um,

[1:40:55] Robert De Niro does like a great job as just like a guy who's just like a decent guy.

[1:41:01] Like 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's like,

[1:41:08] I see,

[1:41:08] sees an ad for a senior intern program.

[1:41:11] He's like,

[1:41:12] this will be a thing that I can do with my time.

[1:41:15] Uh,

[1:41:16] he enters Anne Hathaway's life.

[1:41:18] You know,

[1:41:19] she's a,

[1:41:20] uh,

[1:41:20] successful young business woman who doesn't need his help per se,

[1:41:24] but could use someone who is supportive and kind and doesn't like demand anything.

[1:41:30] He's just there to be like kind to her.

[1:41:32] And it's just a warm,

[1:41:34] like comfy movie,

[1:41:35] comfy movie.

[1:41:36] It's a,

[1:41:36] it's a,

[1:41:37] it's a total fantasy.

[1:41:39] Uh,

[1:41:40] there's like the comedy is not that great.

[1:41:42] Like whenever it tries to get wacky,

[1:41:43] it's not that great.

[1:41:44] There's some like weird stuff in there about like elevating traditional masculinity.

[1:41:49] Like where did these kinds of guys go?

[1:41:51] Kind of stuff.

[1:41:52] That is a little weird,

[1:41:53] but on balance,

[1:41:55] it's just nice to see,

[1:41:56] you know,

[1:41:56] like I like unlikely animal friends and I like,

[1:41:59] I'm likely human friends too.

[1:42:01] And there's no more unlikely human friends than seeing Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway palling around.

[1:42:07] In real life,

[1:42:08] deadly enemies.

[1:42:09] Yeah.

[1:42:10] Yeah.

[1:42:10] If you put them in this,

[1:42:11] in a jar together and shake it,

[1:42:13] they'll fight.

[1:42:14] But,

Dan McCoy

[1:42:14] uh,

[1:42:15] yeah,

[1:42:15] but I just had a good time.

[1:42:16] I,

[1:42:17] it's just sweet.

[1:42:18] It's sweet.

[1:42:19] Sometimes you want something that's sweet.

[1:42:21] Uh,

[1:42:22] Stuart,

[1:42:22] what do you say?

[1:42:22] I get it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:42:23] Uh,

[1:42:24] yeah,

[1:42:24] I've watched a lot of movies and I'm probably going to be drip feeding them through episodes of the flop house.

[1:42:29] Uh,

[1:42:29] today I'm going to recommend a movie from A24,

[1:42:33] uh,

[1:42:34] that hopefully we'll get a little bit of award season attention.

[1:42:37] It's a movie called After Sun.

[1:42:39] Uh,

[1:42:40] it is a very kind of small movie about a,

[1:42:45] uh,

[1:42:46] a woman who is,

[1:42:47] uh,

[1:42:47] and,

[1:42:48] 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,

[1:42:54] uh,

[1:42:54] doing dishes while watching it.

[1:42:56] Um,

[1:42:56] a lot of it is told through,

[1:42:58] uh,

[1:42:59] basically what,

[1:42:59] what turned out to be memories or,

[1:43:02] uh,

[1:43:02] like video clips from a,

[1:43:04] like a home video camera.

[1:43:06] Uh,

[1:43:06] and it's about a,

[1:43:07] a young father who is about to turn 30,

[1:43:11] who is taking his 11 year old daughter on a vacation in the Mediterranean.

[1:43:16] And,

[1:43:17] uh,

[1:43:17] they are not in each other's lives a lot and they are both in their own ways trying to connect with each other.

[1:43:24] And at the same time,

[1:43:26] uh,

[1:43:27] the story is also kind of being,

[1:43:30] uh,

[1:43:31] processed by the daughter who is grown up and turning 30 herself.

[1:43:36] And she's kind of reflecting on a man that she doesn't quite know very well.

[1:43:41] Uh,

[1:43:42] and it has an incredible performance.

[1:43:44] It has a couple of incredible performances,

[1:43:46] particularly,

[1:43:47] uh,

[1:43:47] Paul Mezcal who,

[1:43:49] uh,

[1:43:50] plays the father.

[1:43:51] He was in,

[1:43:52] uh,

[1:43:52] he was the lead on that show,

[1:43:53] Normal People,

[1:43:54] a show I did not care for.

[1:43:56] Uh,

[1:43:56] but he is,

[1:43:57] he is so good in this as a,

[1:44:00] as like a young man,

[1:44:01] like a young dad who is trying to be a good father,

[1:44:05] um,

[1:44:06] in whatever ways he knows how.

Dan McCoy

[1:44:08] And he's also very similar to Paul Tequila,

[1:44:11] but smoky.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:11] Very similar,

[1:44:13] but you know,

[1:44:14] maybe,

[1:44:14] uh,

[1:44:14] maybe for a more,

[1:44:15] uh,

[1:44:15] discerning palate.

[1:44:16] Uh,

[1:44:17] but yeah,

[1:44:17] after sun,

[1:44:18] um,

[1:44:19] I think it,

[1:44:20] it takes a little bit of work,

[1:44:21] uh,

[1:44:21] from the viewer,

[1:44:22] but I think it's worth it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:44:24] Uh,

[1:44:24] and I'm going to recommend a movie from last year,

[1:44:27] but I just saw it last week,

[1:44:28] uh,

[1:44:29] or I might've mentioned it on our,

[1:44:30] uh,

[1:44:31] 2022 show,

[1:44:32] which is,

[1:44:33] which,

[1:44:33] you know,

[1:44:33] the mini,

[1:44:34] not the one of the shows from 2022.

[1:44:35] Anyway,

[1:44:36] this movie I recommend is the Banshees of Innesharon.

[1:44:38] It's 1923,

[1:44:39] and Colin Farrell is a fairly thick headed,

[1:44:42] but well-meaning resident of the small Irish island of Innesharon,

[1:44:45] whose days are mostly spent palling around with a small donkey and chatting about nothing with his friend Brendan Gleeson.

[1:44:50] But when Brendan Gleeson tells Colin Farrell 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 down a path that starts with charming humor,

[1:44:59] but slips into obsession,

[1:45:00] anger,

[1:45:00] and vengeance in the macabre Martin McDonough manner.

[1:45:03] And I really liked,

[1:45:04] uh,

[1:45:05] Banshees of Innesharon.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:06] That would have been a perfect trailer,

[1:45:08] like,

[1:45:09] re,

[1:45:09] a voiceover right there.

[1:45:11] Thank you very much.

[1:45:12] I appreciate it.

[1:45:12] If you could do it in an Irish accent,

[1:45:14] that would be a plus,

[1:45:15] but you don't have to.

[1:45:15] I like it just the way it is.

[1:45:17] He's 1923,

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:18] and Colin Farrell is a fairly thick.

[1:45:20] Very thick-headed.

[1:45:21] But what meaning?

Dan McCoy

[1:45:22] Oh,

[1:45:22] maybe not.

[1:45:23] Why being Irish doesn't mean that your,

[1:45:24] your voice goes up so weird.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:26] This is the way they talk in Ireland.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:29] Just got a cease and desist email from the Lucky Charms guy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:33] The Lucky Charms guy.

[1:45:35] His name is Lucky.

[1:45:36] Hey.

[1:45:37] I don't,

[1:45:38] I don't respect it.

[1:45:40] It's,

[1:45:40] it's signed TLC guy.

[1:45:42] The Lucky Charms guy.

[1:45:43] So,

[1:45:44] uh,

[1:45:44] I really liked this a lot.

[1:45:45] I thought it was really funny and also really heartbreaking.

[1:45:48] Yes.

[1:45:48] And,

[1:45:48] uh,

[1:45:49] McDonough,

[1:45:50] he sets up this situation between these two,

[1:45:52] and he kind of lets it play out without an inter,

[1:45:55] without the kind of intervention that a movie or,

[1:45:57] or turnabout that a movie might introduce.

[1:45:59] And so it just goes to an end point that is both,

[1:46:01] like,

[1:46:02] shocking,

[1:46:03] but it also feels inevitable when you get there.

[1:46:05] And,

[1:46:06] uh,

[1:46:06] 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] And,

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:11] that scene with her and Barry Keegan,

[1:46:15] where,

[1:46:15] near the end of the movie,

[1:46:17] where he,

[1:46:18] you know,

[1:46:19] it's,

[1:46:20] I don't,

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:20] I don't want to talk too much about the specifics of it,

[1:46:22] but it's like,

[1:46:23] a fucking soul crusher.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:25] It is,

[1:46:26] but it's,

[1:46:26] it's played so beautifully.

[1:46:27] It's so gorgeous.

[1:46:28] Yeah,

[1:46:28] it's great.

[1:46:29] And it's a real,

[1:46:30] it's a movie that seems really simple,

[1:46:31] but there's a lot going on in it.

[1:46:33] And,

[1:46:33] it felt,

[1:46:34] I mean,

[1:46:34] I've never been to Ireland.

[1:46:35] I'm not Irish,

[1:46:36] although you might've thought I was,

[1:46:37] by the accent.

[1:46:39] But,

[1:46:39] it feels like,

[1:46:40] authentically Irish,

[1:46:42] in the,

[1:46:43] like in an Irish literature way,

[1:46:44] as opposed to like,

[1:46:45] the kind of goofy,

[1:46:46] chewy stuff that we,

[1:46:48] I feel like,

[1:46:49] growing up,

[1:46:50] there was this period where there were a bunch of movies about Ireland in American theaters,

[1:46:53] and it was all like,

[1:46:53] You're talking about Waking and Divine.

[1:46:54] Waking and Divine.

[1:46:55] Yeah.

[1:46:56] Yeah,

[1:46:56] that kind of stuff.

[1:46:57] Or like,

[1:46:57] Let's be clear.

[1:46:58] Or like,

[1:46:58] you know,

[1:46:59] there was like a MasterCard commercial where someone goes back to Ireland to,

[1:47:02] to learn about their roots,

[1:47:04] and they're just dancing and whatever.

[1:47:05] And,

[1:47:05] this felt like,

[1:47:07] it felt genuinely like,

[1:47:08] it tapped.

[1:47:08] What's the one,

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:09] what's the one with Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt?

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:12] Oh,

[1:47:12] The Devil's Zone?

[1:47:13] The Devil's Zone.

[1:47:13] Oh,

[1:47:14] fuck that.

[1:47:15] And,

[1:47:15] and this taps into kind of like,

[1:47:17] that kind of like,

[1:47:18] the undercurrent of,

[1:47:20] kind of like,

[1:47:21] charm and sadness,

[1:47:22] that is like,

[1:47:23] that,

[1:47:23] that seems to,

[1:47:24] be such a part of the Irish character,

[1:47:27] you know.

[1:47:28] So,

[1:47:28] I really liked it a lot.

[1:47:29] The Banshees of Inish Aron.

[1:47:32] Yeah,

[1:47:32] that's a good one.

[1:47:33] Although,

[1:47:33] I could not,

[1:47:33] I had to write down the title,

[1:47:34] because I couldn't remember the name of the place.

[1:47:36] So,

[1:47:36] I was like,

[1:47:37] I was like,

[1:47:37] Danielle,

[1:47:37] I really liked the Banshees of In a Minerman,

[1:47:39] or In a Minerman.

[1:47:40] Like,

[1:47:40] I could not,

[1:47:41] I could not remember Inish Aron.

[1:47:41] Well,

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:42] it's a fantasy location,

[1:47:43] so you know,

[1:47:44] I remembered that name.

[1:47:46] Elliot,

[1:47:47] I,

[1:47:47] when,

[1:47:48] when,

[1:47:49] to,

[1:47:49] to additionally sell After Sun to you,

[1:47:51] the movie that it reminded me the most of,

[1:47:54] was The Lost Daughter,

[1:47:56] a movie you had mentioned in our wrap-up episode.

[1:47:58] Yes,

[1:47:59] which I really liked a lot.

[1:48:00] I think,

[1:48:00] I think you would get something out of After Sun.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:03] Okay,

[1:48:04] I gotta see it.

[1:48:04] Is it,

[1:48:04] is it streaming anywhere,

[1:48:06] or is it just in theaters right now?

[1:48:07] I think it's just in theaters,

[1:48:08] but I'm assuming it's gonna 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,

[1:48:14] last year.

Dan McCoy

[1:48:15] Well,

[1:48:15] that marks the end of this episode.

[1:48:18] It's been a long one,

[1:48:19] because,

[1:48:20] you know,

[1:48:21] Black Adam was just such a rich text.

[1:48:23] There's so much to dig into.

[1:48:25] Really dissect.

[1:48:26] But,

[1:48:27] as we close up,

[1:48:29] I'd like to thank Maximum Fun,

[1:48:31] our network.

[1:48:33] 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,

[1:48:43] rather than just being like a bunch of things

[1:48:45] thrown together.

[1:48:46] So,

[1:48:46] if you like this show,

[1:48:47] I bet there's,

[1:48:47] I bet there's something else that you would like

[1:48:50] on our network.

[1:48:52] And also,

[1:48:53] I would like to thank Alex Smith.

[1:48:56] He's at Howell Dottie on Twitter

[1:48:58] and various other spaces.

[1:49:01] And he makes us sound good.

[1:49:05] But,

[1:49:05] but that's it.

[1:49:07] For the Flophouse,

[1:49:08] I've been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:49:09] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:49:12] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:49:13] But,

[1:49:13] you know,

[1:49:14] perhaps I need a new name.

[1:49:15] I think I'll call myself,

[1:49:18] okay,

[1:49:18] Alex,

[1:49:18] how do you put like a title screen here

[1:49:20] that has my new superhero name?

[1:49:22] That like,

[1:49:22] it doesn't,

[1:49:22] you don't hear it,

[1:49:23] but you like,

[1:49:24] it says it.

[1:49:25] Yeah,

Stuart Wellington

[1:49:25] do like a whoosh sound effect.

[1:49:26] Yeah,

[1:49:27] yeah.

[1:49:27] You can like hear the letters.

Elliott Kalan

[1:49:30] Just put that in right there.

[1:49:31] But I'm Elliot Kalin

[1:49:32] until that title screen goes up

[1:49:33] on,

[1:49:34] in your ears,

[1:49:35] audio wise.

[1:49:36] Okay.

[1:49:37] Bye.

Stuart Wellington

[1:49:42] Normally when I watch a big movie,

[1:49:43] I'm like,

[1:49:44] okay,

[1:49:45] 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 Rum,

[1:49:51] right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:49:51] Yeah,

[1:49:52] I guess so.

[1:49:54] Yeah,

[1:49:54] that's why they call you

[1:49:56] Stew R.

[1:49:56] R.

[1:49:57] Art.

[1:49:59] That's better than

[1:50:00] Stew Tar.

[1:50:02] That was your former nickname

[1:50:03] because you identified with Tar so much.

Stuart Wellington

[1:50:05] Yeah,

[1:50:06] yeah,

[1:50:06] yeah.

[1:50:06] That's me.

[1:50:08] Oh,

[1:50:08] man,

[1:50:09] time to drink some pineapple juice.

[1:50:10] So my loads are huge.

[1:50:13] Number one,

[1:50:14] that's not what happens.

Dan McCoy

[1:50:15] Number two,

[1:50:16] that's seltzer.

[1:50:17] I'm not sure how much real pineapple is in there.

[1:50:19] why are my loads so huge then?

[1:50:20] It makes it because your loads are so bubbly.

[1:50:22] Huge testicles,

[1:50:24] I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[1:50:26] Stuart,

[1:50:27] we've got this,

[1:50:27] I'm your doctor.

[1:50:28] We've got,

[1:50:28] you've got an issue known as big sperm.

[1:50:30] Your sperm is actually too big.

[1:50:32] Like the,

[1:50:33] like the,

Stuart Wellington

[1:50:34] I got a lot of questions,

[1:50:37] Doc.

[1:50:38] MaximumFun.org.

S6

[1:50:40] Comedy and culture.

[1:50:41] Artist owned.

[1:50:43] Audience supported.

Ep. #387 - Black Adam

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