Ep. #381 - Countdown (2019)

Dan McCoy

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

Stuart Wellington

[0:05] So you guys remember in the movie Suicide Squad where Slipknot got his head exploded

[0:09] because Flagg used his little thing and he like hit a button on his phone

[0:13] and it blew off Slipknot's head and then Harley Quinn's like,

[0:15] wow, that's a killer app.

[0:17] Well, what she was really talking about is the movie we watched today,

[0:20] Countdown, a movie about a killer app.

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

Dan McCoy

[0:51] I'm Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[0:53] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:58] And I'm Ellie Kaelin.

Dan McCoy

[0:59] This is a show that we know that much so far.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03] You're already familiar with the premise of it being a show.

[1:06] Great.

[1:07] We're working from first principles, a priori.

[1:09] It's a show.

[1:10] Let's keep building from there.

[1:11] I love this philosophical way of building the show logically.

Dan McCoy

[1:14] There's two parts to a show.

[1:16] There's the performers and the audience.

[1:17] The audience is you listening to us and we're the performers, the three of us.

[1:21] Dan, Stuart, and Elliot, the members of the Flophouse.

[1:25] This is a podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26] Now Marcel Duchamp in his essay,

[1:28] spectator in art would say that you, the audience, have an equal part to play in this process.

[1:32] But in this case, you don't because we can't hear you.

[1:35] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:36] Anyway, so we talk about bad movies on this podcast.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39] Except for when you tweeted us after the show and we're like,

[1:42] oh, that's a really interesting thing you thought of.

[1:45] That's a good point.

[1:45] We will pretend to be interested.

Dan McCoy

[1:48] Wow.

[1:49] During, I was totally serious.

Elliott Kalan

[1:51] JK, JK, JK, JK.

[1:52] It's genuine interest.

[1:53] G.I.

[1:54] JK, G.I.

[1:55] G.I.

[1:56] Joe.

[1:56] Genuine interest Joe.

[1:58] That's when G.I.

[1:59] Joe nods and goes, oh, that's interesting.

[2:01] He means it.

Dan McCoy

[2:02] Yeah.

[2:03] Yeah.

[2:03] He's an active listener.

[2:05] Yeah.

[2:05] During the month of October or Shocktober, as we call it here at the Flophouse.

[2:10] And no one else ever does.

[2:11] At the Flophouse, too.

[2:11] At the Flophouse.

Stuart Wellington

[2:12] It's our podcast about birds.

[2:14] It's also about applying fake grass to miniature dioramas.

Dan McCoy

[2:19] That's the two things that the Flophouse talks about.

[2:22] So we watch horror movies during the spooky season, Shocktober.

[2:26] We watched Countdown from 2019 this time around.

[2:30] Guys, I was surprised to learn, looking at the Wikipedia page,

[2:34] that Countdown was a major return on investment.

[2:38] It was a hit.

[2:39] It cost like $6.5 million and made something like $40-something million.

Elliott Kalan

[2:44] I'm looking at the Wikipedia page now.

[2:45] It says $48 million.

[2:46] Now, again, we don't know how much marketing and publicity cost.

[2:49] You have to assume that that's at least the budget again, usually.

[2:52] But for a movie like this, I don't know.

[2:53] Maybe not.

Dan McCoy

[2:54] Yeah.

[2:54] Well, I don't recall there being a ton of marketing for this.

[2:56] You don't remember seeing all the Subway ads and the Burger King Kids meal.

[3:01] But people went out and saw it in spite of all the bad reviews that it got at the time.

Elliott Kalan

[3:04] Now, according to the trivia on IMDb, apparently we did a lot more research for this than we usually do.

[3:11] The trivia says the app featured in the film actually exists.

[3:14] It is owned by the studio and was used to promote the film.

[3:16] So you've got to assume a lot of money went into the research and development of an app that actually can tell you with exact prediction the second you're going to die.

Stuart Wellington

[3:23] I mean, you cut out the middleman by just involving a demon in the process, but I think I'm getting ahead of myself.

[3:28] Yeah.

[3:29] That's true.

Elliott Kalan

[3:29] You go to one of those Russian demon farms where they just have demons mining Bitcoin hour after hour.

Stuart Wellington

[3:35] Now, one could argue that all tech companies are kind of demons and they're bad.

[3:39] But, I mean, I don't want to make that argument right now because you might be listening to it this podcast using one of those tech companies' products.

Elliott Kalan

[3:46] Yeah, the Twitter bird might be listening to this and going, well, I never.

[3:49] Tweet, tweet.

[3:50] Let me go amplify some misinformation and then put a tiny widget at the bottom.

[3:54] That makes me feel like I did my job.

[3:56] Now, here's the thing.

[3:57] I once sent an email.

Dan McCoy

[3:58] Let's provide the option to report people who are being horrible, but then do nothing about it.

Elliott Kalan

[4:03] You could choose not to.

[4:05] I once sent an email to someone and instead of going to the person I meant it to go to, it went to a mailer demon.

[4:10] And I was like, ah, ah.

[4:11] And I had to get my computer exercised, which, of course, means getting a gym membership.

[4:16] Anyway, it was a long story.

[4:18] So, Stuart, why don't you tell us about this movie countdown?

Stuart Wellington

[4:21] Okay.

[4:21] Well, we're off to an auspicious start because there's not that many production logos.

[4:26] At this point, I'm like, I usually, when I'm doing the summaries, just to pull back the curtain, I usually kick back my heels, chill, drink a cup of coffee because I know there's like 50 production logos.

[4:37] I can do whatever the fuck I want.

[4:39] That's me time.

[4:40] Unfortunately, I had no me time.

[4:42] I had to watch the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[4:43] So, you were scrambling to get to your pad and pen going, oh, shit.

Stuart Wellington

[4:47] Dust off my typewriter real quick.

[4:49] Okay.

[4:50] So, the movie opens on a house party filled with teens slash college students.

[4:55] Our hero group of teens are sitting around the table playing a drinking game.

[4:59] Well, are they?

[5:00] I don't know if I would call them our hero group.

[5:02] We're not going to see again for the most part.

Elliott Kalan

[5:04] These are roughly the Drew Barrymore and Scream of characters for this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[5:09] So, they're playing a drinking game, but they quickly get distracted like teens do by talking about social media and other apps.

[5:18] They accidentally stumble on this app, Countdown, looking for a weight loss app.

[5:24] Yeah, calorie counting.

[5:25] Countdown, which very impressive that this app man should get in there and get the name Countdown locked down.

Dan McCoy

[5:31] I'm going to say this a surprising amount during this episode, I think.

[5:38] I liked the way the movie handled this.

[5:40] I thought this was pretty efficient that there were just like – let's all agree that an app that counts down to when you die as a horror movie premise is maybe – I wouldn't say it's inherently a bad idea because all ideas can work.

[5:58] But knowing the history of internet-based horror, I had –

Elliott Kalan

[6:03] There's a lot of –

[6:04] Not fear.com.

[6:05] There's a lot of speed bumps on the road.

[6:08] I mean, because once you introduce it, you're also like, who at the Apple store –

[6:11] Who made this?

[6:11] Like, why?

[6:12] Like, who made it?

[6:13] And who at the Apple store, like, approved it?

[6:15] Yes.

[6:15] And also –

Stuart Wellington

[6:16] It's got 3.6 stars, which is madness.

[6:19] I loved that detail.

[6:20] That's the craziest part.

Dan McCoy

[6:21] I loved that.

[6:22] I thought that was so hilarious because it's like –

Stuart Wellington

[6:24] Because it's like pretty – a lot of people like it.

[6:25] But there's a few people that are like, I die.

Elliott Kalan

[6:27] There's people who are like, the demon came and killed me when I tried to save my life.

[6:31] One star.

Dan McCoy

[6:31] You've got to assume that the people who died didn't rate the thing.

Elliott Kalan

[6:35] So it's like, my brother downloaded this app and died.

[6:39] Yeah.

[6:39] Like, anything.

[6:40] Yeah, yeah.

[6:40] Yeah, and then other people –

[6:41] But when the app tells you you've got 70 more years to live, then you're like, five stars.

[6:46] Yeah, exactly.

Dan McCoy

[6:47] And this is the exact – like, someone pointed this out.

[6:49] I think I might be stealing something from someone's Letterboxd review, but – so I apologize.

Stuart Wellington

[6:53] You did do research on this.

[6:55] Wow.

Dan McCoy

[6:56] But I love that, like, 3.6 stars, I feel like, is the exact number where you're like,

[7:01] okay, I'll still download this.

[7:02] Any lower, it's probably going to do something to my phone.

[7:06] Yeah, there's something wrong with it.

[7:07] Sure, let's count down.

[7:08] But I just wanted to say, like, I think it's good that it jumped into this because otherwise,

[7:14] setting up the idea that all these people are going to download this app, I don't know.

[7:17] I'm not necessarily – there's a lot of ways to go about it that I'm not going to really buy.

[7:21] But the idea that they're just, like, at a party, they're looking for another app,

[7:24] they see this app, and they're like, yeah, sure, we can make a dumb drinking game out of this.

[7:27] Let's do this.

[7:28] I'm like, okay, let's do it.

[7:29] Let's do it, will we?

Stuart Wellington

[7:30] I remember a night at the bar where, like, a bunch of the regulars and I all just downloaded

[7:34] CoStar and matched and then compared our astrology charts to each other because there's nothing

[7:38] else to do except drink.

Elliott Kalan

[7:41] Yeah, and do you remember, speaking of drinking and apps, that years ago, someone made a lot

[7:45] of money off of an app you had to pay for, and all it did was it looked like the screen

[7:49] on your phone was filled with beer, and then when you tilted it, it looked like it was pouring

[7:54] on the screen.

[7:55] That's all it did.

[7:56] I think it cost $2, and I remember having many friends that paid to have that.

[8:00] So, yeah.

[8:00] So, I totally believe that for free.

[8:02] The thing that I don't, the thing that is a hard thing for this, a hard thread for this

[8:07] needle to thread, this movie to thread, the hard needle to thread for this movie, you get

[8:10] the cliché that you went for.

Stuart Wellington

[8:11] Yeah, we get it.

[8:12] We won't make fun of you for a mistake.

[8:14] Thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[8:14] It's the kind of gray area between people downloading it as a lark and treating it as a joke, but also

[8:20] kind of treating it as real, which I guess fits into teen life where things are both a joke

[8:27] and not.

[8:28] But it's kind of like...

[8:29] It's all about irony, you know?

[8:30] I feel like people would download it and they'd be like, huh, 60 years, pretty sweet.

[8:35] But then they would immediately ingest that as, that is the amount of time that I'm living.

[8:39] You know, they wouldn't...

[8:40] Nobody...

[8:41] They downloaded it as a joke, but nobody...

[8:43] But everyone kind of took it as real right off the bat, you know, to a greater or lesser degree.

Stuart Wellington

[8:48] Well, and we're going to...

[8:49] Like, we're kind of getting into the meat of this app thing.

[8:52] But part of it is that nobody...

[8:53] The joke is that nobody reads the user agreement, which makes sense.

[8:57] And then, but part of the user agreement is if you change...

[9:01] If you change your life decisions in any way based on this information, you break the user agreement

[9:07] and a demon kills you.

[9:09] And the thing that's wild is that we only deal with people that are like, I'm dying soon.

[9:13] I'm just going to break these plans.

[9:15] As opposed to people that are like, I'm going to live 70 years.

[9:18] I'm just going to go hog wild.

[9:19] Yeah.

[9:20] And they're like, wait.

[9:21] That's true.

Dan McCoy

[9:22] There's a whole flip side of this that we never see.

[9:24] Like, that would be a good idea.

[9:26] Like, you're breaking the user agreement.

[9:27] Like, oh, I'm going to live until I'm 90.

[9:29] Fuck it.

[9:30] I'm, yeah.

[9:31] Fuck wild now, man.

[9:32] But the thing is, the app...

[9:33] No seatbelts.

Elliott Kalan

[9:34] As we see later on, the app is so intent on enforcing that countdown, the specific countdown,

[9:40] that it means that this busy demon would be constantly, like, doing stuff to save your life constantly.

[9:45] I got to follow him around all the time and make sure that he lives to be 90 years old.

[9:49] It's very funny.

[9:50] This is a huge...

[9:51] Baby stay out situation.

[9:52] I mean, that is, to be honest, that's a premise I would really love.

[9:56] If someone's like, fuck it.

[9:57] I'm going to live like a...

[9:58] I'm never wearing a condom again.

[10:00] I'm eating nothing but garbage.

[10:02] I'm going to throw myself out of windows.

[10:04] And the demon is like, oh, God.

[10:05] I've got to work so hard to keep this guy alive.

Stuart Wellington

[10:08] Okay.

[10:09] So, our heroine, Courtney, reluctantly downloads the app.

[10:12] I can't.

[10:13] I don't know.

[10:14] Finds out she only has...

[10:15] I think she's in two scenes in the movie.

[10:18] She finds out she only has three hours to live.

[10:20] So, her boyfriend, Evan, decides to get super drunk and drive her home.

[10:24] And she's like, no, I'm going to die.

[10:25] And he's like, get out of here.

[10:26] And he drives off drunk.

[10:28] She then gets a notification from the app that she has broken the user agreement and only has seven minutes to live.

[10:35] So, she walks home.

[10:37] There's a few jump scares.

[10:38] App keeps making spooky sounds, which is a great feature.

[10:41] The UI of this app is incredible.

[10:44] I do love also that everyone is like, I don't know about you, but like, who leaves the notifications?

[10:51] Every time an app's like, can we send you notifications?

[10:54] I'm like, no Warhammer army list making app.

[10:57] You don't need to send me fucking notifications.

Dan McCoy

[10:59] I mean, based on the fact that the app doesn't let you delete it later on, I'm pretty sure that the app...

Stuart Wellington

[11:04] It is a demonic app.

[11:06] I don't think it's really paying attention to your preferences.

Dan McCoy

[11:08] Limited options to customize.

Stuart Wellington

[11:11] Okay, I will only give it three stars then.

[11:14] Okay, so she then goes home to a dark house and then she gets yanked up.

Elliott Kalan

[11:21] I mean, we can assume it's her house.

[11:22] Yeah, I'm assuming.

Stuart Wellington

[11:23] Thank you for clarifying.

[11:25] The listeners were probably like, she just went into some strange dark house?

Dan McCoy

[11:27] Well, it is funny because like, the guy was about to get, like, drive her drunk home.

[11:32] And based on this walk, like, it feels like she lives maybe two blocks away.

[11:37] Yeah.

[11:37] And I understand that in other parts of the country, especially if you have your car,

[11:41] with you, you would drive those two blocks.

[11:44] Welcome to LA, Dan.

[11:46] But the degree to which her boyfriend is like, no, I'm driving drunk.

[11:50] Yeah.

[11:51] It's absurd to me.

Elliott Kalan

[11:52] It's my right as an American to use gasoline for all movement of any kind outside of buildings.

Stuart Wellington

[11:59] So, she is in the bathroom.

[12:02] There's a few scares.

[12:03] And then she gets yanked up in the air by some invisible force and, like, smashed.

[12:07] And then her broken body is smashed against the floor right when she was supposed to die.

[12:12] Uh-oh.

[12:13] And then we cut to-

[12:14] Five stars to that app.

[12:15] And then before the end of this cold open-

Elliott Kalan

[12:18] She has just one moment left of consciousness to tap the five-star rating on the app and type out, very accurate.

Stuart Wellington

[12:24] But before the end of the cold open here, we see that her drunk boyfriend did crash his car and that she would have died that, like, wood went right through her chair.

[12:33] Uh-oh.

[12:34] Yeah.

[12:34] So, how does that tie in together?

[12:35] Okay.

[12:36] Cut to a hospital where that same boyfriend, Evan, is preparing for a surgery.

[12:40] And he is nervous.

[12:41] Oh, he's scared that he's going to die during surgery because he had also downloaded the app.

[12:47] And it says, basically, that he's going to die when the surgery is scheduled.

[12:51] Yeah.

[12:51] He doesn't like this information.

Elliott Kalan

[12:53] Unless a safe is going to fall through the ceiling and crush him on his way to the OR, he's going to die on the table.

Stuart Wellington

[12:59] Yeah.

[13:00] And he complains about this to Quinn, the real hero of the movie.

[13:04] Played by Beck from You, the first season of You.

[13:07] The first season's love intro.

Elliott Kalan

[13:09] Now, you could call Quinn a medicine woman, couldn't you?

Stuart Wellington

[13:12] That's true.

[13:12] Oh, I did the whole time.

[13:14] I guess I'll just delete that from every instance in my notes.

[13:17] Sorry.

[13:18] Okay.

[13:19] Because she's a nurse.

[13:19] She's a nurse at the hospital.

[13:21] Well, in fact, she just passed her test.

[13:23] She's officially a nurse.

[13:24] So, they throw her a party.

[13:27] All the other nurses are talking about this cool countdown app.

[13:31] So, she downloads this fucking app and it says she only has three days to live.

[13:36] That ain't good.

[13:37] And then a doctor played by Peter Fastinelli gets super handsy with her and you're like, what the fuck?

[13:46] He makes a pass at her and she's like, no thanks.

[13:48] Okay.

[13:49] So, then Quinn has to go to her childhood home.

[13:51] I mean, he does more than make a pass at her.

Dan McCoy

[13:53] She says more than no thanks.

[13:55] Yeah, I want to make it clear.

[13:56] I'm not laughing at the idea of harassment.

[13:58] I'm laughing at the idea that she's just like, no thanks.

[14:01] It's more – yeah, he's more handsy and she has to push him off.

Stuart Wellington

[14:05] It's a real pressure and assault situation.

[14:06] Well, initially, it's a thing where he is testing the waters.

[14:11] He's like handsy but he hasn't completely assaulted her yet.

[14:15] That obviously happens later and it's horrible.

Elliott Kalan

[14:17] He's being inappropriate but he is not yet being threatening or violent.

[14:21] That comes later.

Stuart Wellington

[14:22] So, she needs to fill out her I-9.

[14:26] This is great because I'm like, man, this is exactly the kind of shit I have to deal with.

Elliott Kalan

[14:30] It's also like – so, she didn't have to fill it out before because she was like a resident student or what was going on?

Dan McCoy

[14:36] But also, Audrey who works in payroll points out that like this is like all a weird excuse for the movie to get her to go back home to get her birth certificate.

[14:46] And I'm just like, you don't need that.

Elliott Kalan

[14:48] No, it's so funny.

[14:49] The idea that – well, because she doesn't want to be near her family I guess but it really is creating a very big reason for her to just go to see her family who live in the same town that she does.

Stuart Wellington

[15:00] So, she has to go to her childhood home to get that birth certificate while she's home.

Elliott Kalan

[15:05] She never does too.

[15:06] So, all the scenes afterwards – as far as I know, all the scenes afterwards where she's working, she's there legally.

Stuart Wellington

[15:11] Later on when she has that HR meeting, I'm like, this is probably about the I-9.

[15:15] They're paying her under the table.

[15:17] Yeah, she never proves that she's a permanent resident of the United States.

[15:22] So, she interrupts her sister Jordan from having a romantic tryst with a boy, Joe, who is shirtless.

[15:29] But they kick him out and then they get in a fight.

[15:32] They clearly have some – a strained relationship resulting from the death of their mother.

[15:37] And their father is like, hey, we're going to go put flowers on your mom's grave on Saturday.

[15:41] And she's like, okay, let's do it.

[15:43] Don't worry.

[15:44] She's going to – but you don't know she's going to be alive.

Dan McCoy

[15:46] The flowers were for Algernon.

[15:49] Yep, exactly.

[15:49] They have a big fight about it.

Stuart Wellington

[15:51] Do you think flowers have to deal with a lot of that joke?

Dan McCoy

[15:55] I don't know that I think they have to deal with it a lot.

[15:58] I would say that that is probably a joke that has been made at some point.

[16:03] Okay.

[16:03] Although, who is buying flowers just to have that done?

Elliott Kalan

[16:08] I feel like if the florist sees that a middle school English teacher is walking into the place, then maybe they get a little worried that the joke is coming up.

[16:16] Buckle up.

[16:17] Yeah.

[16:18] Steal yourself.

[16:19] Now, did it seem to you like their dad was very young?

[16:23] I guess.

[16:25] I mean, yeah.

[16:26] Or is it just that movies have made it impossible for me to tell how old people are?

Dan McCoy

[16:29] I think it's that we're all aging and so people look young to us now.

[16:35] That's fair.

[16:35] But it's true.

Stuart Wellington

[16:36] I saw Timothy Oliphant and Johnny Knoxville both on Seth Meyers recently.

[16:41] And both of them, their fucking faces are so smooth.

[16:45] Like, they're very sexy men, but I got to tell you.

Dan McCoy

[16:48] I wouldn't call either of those faces smooth.

Stuart Wellington

[16:51] But like, watch this episode of Seth Meyers.

[16:53] Maybe there's a digital artist going in there and cleaning that shit up.

[16:56] I think that's awesome.

Dan McCoy

[16:56] Timothy Oliphant, I think, is an extremely handsome man.

[17:00] Like, very, very handsome.

[17:01] Johnny Knoxville's also a handsome man.

[17:03] Very, a lot of character.

[17:04] But both of them have like, that's what I would say.

[17:06] They have character in their face.

[17:07] Johnny Knoxville in particular has like folds and lines now.

[17:10] I've been watching Reboot and Johnny Knoxville's on that.

Elliott Kalan

[17:11] And I've been thinking that he actually looks quite old and craggy to me.

Stuart Wellington

[17:15] Okay, well, you guys go back and watch.

[17:17] I guess there's a plug for an episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers and see him.

[17:21] For whatever reason, their faces look much smoother than I expected them to look.

[17:25] And it threw me off because I'm like, hey, guys, you guys look great.

[17:28] Just age naturally, whatever.

[17:30] But maybe they're trying to still play teenagers.

Elliott Kalan

[17:32] I think they were trying to do a new thing where the camera is watching the show through the app that sees what you would look like as a baby.

[17:38] Oh, yeah.

[17:39] It's a little baby face app.

Stuart Wellington

[17:40] Okay, so yeah, of course, she makes the plans with her dad.

[17:44] And you're like, is she even going to be alive?

[17:46] But don't worry.

[17:46] Like three scenes later, she just breaks those plans.

[17:49] It's great.

[17:49] Well, I mean, that's the thing.

Elliott Kalan

[17:50] She breaks the plans.

[17:51] It's like, if you're going to die, just keep the plans.

[17:53] Who cares?

[17:53] You know what?

[17:54] Yeah.

[17:54] It's like, oh, I've got to close this loop before I die.

Stuart Wellington

[17:58] You don't want your dad's last thing to be like, oh, man, I'd really miss her.

[18:02] But she did break plans with me.

Elliott Kalan

[18:04] I guess she doesn't have time to put flowers on the grave of her dead mom.

[18:07] That's not the last impression you want to make on your widowed father.

[18:11] Come on.

Stuart Wellington

[18:12] Okay.

[18:12] So Evan, the injured drunk driving ex-boyfriend, I guess, is nervous that he's going to die during

[18:18] surgery.

[18:19] So he decides to make a run for it.

[18:20] He legs it down the hall.

Elliott Kalan

[18:21] So he writes a letter to himself saying, dear Evan, hands on.

[18:25] Because his hands are still on his arms.

Stuart Wellington

[18:26] They were not removed yet in the surgery.

Dan McCoy

[18:29] Okay.

[18:29] It works.

[18:29] He's trying to distinctly.

[18:31] So the letter he's writing to himself, he has to remind himself that he's not talking

[18:36] to his other friend, Evan, who I suppose has no hands.

[18:38] Who has no hands.

[18:41] Yeah.

[18:41] Evan Handless.

[18:41] Interesting.

[18:42] But yeah, it's interesting that he, you know, on crutches decides that the best thing to

[18:48] do to avoid death is to go down a lot of flights of stairs.

Elliott Kalan

[18:52] This is not exactly Final Destination, where it feels like death has to work pretty hard

[18:58] to set up these elaborate traps.

[18:59] Here, it's almost like if a mouse was throwing himself at a mousetrap and you were like,

[19:04] let me put the cheese on it at least.

[19:06] Give me a moment to set it.

Stuart Wellington

[19:07] Well, and also, this is when he's running for it, we also see another big difference from

[19:11] Final Destination.

[19:14] Wow, Porky picked it.

[19:17] He's looking at a mirror.

[19:18] And you're not wearing pants, so you did Porky pick it.

[19:19] That's exactly.

[19:20] Thank you.

[19:21] That was, it was all, it's this character thing that I'm doing.

[19:24] He's looking at a reflective surface and he sees a, like a shadowy demonic figure in the

[19:28] background.

[19:28] And I'm like, oh, this is your daddy's Final Destination because there's none of that and

[19:32] that shit.

[19:32] And of course, like there's a bit where like he looks in the mirror and then all of a sudden

[19:35] the thing like rushes the mirror and it cracks.

[19:38] So he's like, okay, I'm going to go down a stairwell.

[19:41] Immediately he gets locked in.

[19:42] Lights go out.

[19:43] Oh, fuck.

[19:43] What am I going to do?

[19:44] His time's running out.

[19:45] He hears somebody else coming up the stairs, turns around.

[19:48] Oh no, it's his girlfriend, Courtney, but she's dead.

[19:50] She turns her face around.

[19:51] It's totally monster-fied.

[19:53] He falls down.

[19:54] What?

[19:55] Next thing we see, his phone clatters down the stairwell.

[19:59] Time is running out.

[20:01] And then right when it hits zero, his time hits zero, his battered body splats against

[20:06] the stairs.

[20:07] Period.

[20:08] On the end of that sentence.

[20:12] Cool.

[20:12] Okay.

[20:13] Let's see.

[20:14] Quinn goes to the morgue to inspect the body.

[20:16] She unlocks his phone using his dead guy face.

Elliott Kalan

[20:20] She goes to the morgue because she got his phone, right?

[20:23] Because she knows, because he told her that he had the countdown app, right?

[20:26] Yeah.

[20:27] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[20:27] That was their first conversation.

[20:28] That was the connection.

[20:29] She is not just scared because the countdown app exists.

[20:33] She is scared because he has told her like, oh, my girlfriend did die when countdown said.

[20:40] So she has at least some reason to believe that there might be something to this.

[20:45] And yeah, she goes in to unlock the phone to do a little investigating.

[20:49] And there's, you know, some fun gross.

Stuart Wellington

[20:50] There's a couple of dead body bits where like, it seems like the body's moving or is he a zombie?

[20:55] Yeah, it's like turns and look at her.

[20:56] Is he not a zombie?

[20:56] Yeah.

[20:56] Oh yeah.

Dan McCoy

[20:56] She has to open up the dead body's eyes, which is a little fun.

[21:00] Yep.

[21:01] Yep.

[21:01] Time lock the phone.

[21:02] Yep.

[21:03] It was so funny.

Elliott Kalan

[21:04] It was like, there's four or five levels of security.

[21:07] And first it's eyes, then it's fingerprint, then it's toe print, then penis print for some

[21:12] reason.

[21:12] Whoa.

[21:12] And then it's navel print.

[21:13] So she's like, oh, why is his phone so secure?

[21:17] He's just a teenager.

Dan McCoy

[21:18] Do you guys, do you think I could pull off a penis print shirt?

Stuart Wellington

[21:21] Yeah, you look great.

[21:23] I mean, I think you could.

[21:24] You look amazing.

[21:25] Thanks.

[21:25] Quinn, so Quinn breaks her plans with her dad, then immediately gets a user agreement notification.

[21:31] She has broken her user agreement because I guess she changed her plans because she was

[21:35] worried she was going to die at a cemetery, which seems like the most convenient place

[21:38] to die.

[21:39] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[21:40] That's really the thing that's concerning her.

[21:43] Yeah.

[21:43] She's not worried about her mortality, so it's just not inconveniencing other people who

[21:47] have to deal with her remains.

[21:49] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[21:49] If you die at a cemetery, they don't even have to dig a hole.

[21:51] They just smush you into the ground and they walk away.

Stuart Wellington

[21:54] Throw her in the mulcher.

[21:56] Yeah.

[21:56] And then there's, then shadowy figures start appear in the background.

[22:00] What?

[22:00] Uh-oh.

[22:01] That's what happens when you break your user agreement, folks.

Elliott Kalan

[22:03] Because that's the, it's one of these, this is, this is one of these demons where it's

[22:07] like, you're already going to kill these people.

[22:09] Do you really have to keep going like, maybe now, no.

[22:12] Move it up now.

[22:13] Oh, oh.

[22:13] I'm not touching you.

[22:14] Oh, oh.

[22:15] Yeah.

[22:15] Like, it seems like this, this is a pretty dicky demon.

Stuart Wellington

[22:18] It's a dickish demon.

[22:19] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[22:20] I mean, I feel like demons are probably not cool.

Elliott Kalan

[22:24] Probably not.

[22:25] Haven't you ever seen a tattoo on a, on a, on a young jazz musician's arm of like a

[22:29] cool devil man?

Stuart Wellington

[22:30] I did.

[22:31] And then I saw, oh wait, what?

[22:33] He dies and the tattoo's gone?

[22:35] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[22:36] It goes, my time, my job here is done.

[22:39] When I say jazz musician, what I really should have said is swing dancer.

[22:42] Oh, okay.

Stuart Wellington

[22:42] Okay.

[22:43] Yeah.

[22:43] So, uh, then, then Quinn, uh, gets assaulted by her supervising doctor, played by Peter

[22:50] Fascinelli, uh, who then, uh, and she, she fights, fights him off.

[22:56] Uh, and then before she can alert her supervising nurse, he calls the nurse away, um, to theoretically

[23:03] to like undercut her and change the narrative.

[23:06] And then she immediately gets another notification from this fucking app.

[23:10] And at this point I'm like, who fucking cares about the demon anymore?

[23:14] Like this, this shit is serious.

Dan McCoy

[23:16] Well, also like, it is, I mean, look, uh, I want to choose my words carefully because

[23:24] like, like the sexual harassment is, is not funny, but the way that this movie handles it

[23:29] is so goofy because she like is going to talk to someone about it.

[23:32] And then she is thwarted so quickly and, and then never follows up on that.

[23:38] And then later on they like suspend her without any investigation or like taking her, without

Stuart Wellington

[23:45] even asking her, taking her side, right.

Dan McCoy

[23:47] What her perspective was.

[23:48] And look, I know that a lot of people have a lot of horrible experiences where they're not

[23:55] believed, but for a movie made now to have like a major hospital be like, we're not going

[24:01] to do any sort of investigation.

[24:03] Like, I just feel like to cover their own asses, they would do a little more than automatically

[24:09] assuming that the first person they talk to.

Elliott Kalan

[24:11] I'm of two minds, Dan.

[24:12] I'm of two minds because one, it really, it's so ham handedly handled.

[24:16] Yeah.

[24:17] That it is very like, you do think that something, even the fact that like, she's like, I've

[24:21] got to tell you something to the supervisor and the doctor's like, supervisor, I need you

[24:26] to do something for me.

[24:27] And she's like, can it wait a minute?

[24:28] And at that moment she just has to say, look, that doctor just, I mean, it's like,

[24:31] it's hard to say those things, especially when he's right there.

[24:33] Obviously.

[24:33] To say like, no, this is really serious.

[24:34] I need your help.

[24:35] But instead she's just like, like sitcom kind of can't say it.

[24:39] But also.

Stuart Wellington

[24:39] I'm going to say to Dan more is that rather than blaming her actions, I would argue the,

[24:44] the way that the hospital reacts seems wilder to me.

[24:48] Well, that's what I'm going to say.

Elliott Kalan

[24:48] I think Dan is being a little naive at the same time.

[24:50] Yeah.

[24:51] That even in the time we live in, he is a powerful doctor.

[24:54] He's seemingly the only doctor in the whole hospital.

[24:56] We never see any other ones.

[24:57] She is the newest nurse on the job.

[24:59] The hospital and hospitals do not like, even they do not like to have the stories.

[25:04] Even today in the world we live in, Dan, power still gets to cover up.

[25:07] You're right.

[25:08] Believe me.

Dan McCoy

[25:08] I agree that like.

[25:10] But it's handled so ridiculously.

[25:11] As a surgeon, like he has the power in that situation compared to this nurse.

Elliott Kalan

[25:16] I thought you were about to say, I believe as a surgeon that that, and I was like, Dan,

[25:18] you're not a surgeon?

Dan McCoy

[25:19] No, I, I believe that.

[25:21] I, but the movie, the movie does not do it in any way that like, like they have made up

[25:28] their decision before she walks in the door.

[25:30] Yeah.

[25:31] And they're like, we're not even going to listen to anything.

[25:34] And like, even he even says like, oh, it's a, he said, she said scenario.

[25:37] I'm like, yeah, she hasn't said anything yet.

Stuart Wellington

[25:40] Uh, but I think this, I think our conversation about this really highlights one of the issues

[25:44] with the movie is how once this plot is introduced, the idea of the demon stuff is like, okay,

[25:50] this is silly.

[25:51] Let's talk about the serious thing that is happening here.

[25:54] I mean, I think.

[25:54] Serious issues of workplace harassment.

Elliott Kalan

[25:56] What it really says is, if you're making, what I think, it is that, uh, if you're going

[26:01] to make a horror movie that is relevant in some way, that relevance should play into the

[26:05] main gimmick or conceit of the movie, as opposed to there's a, there's a demonic app.

[26:10] We're making this movie about how people, social media, I guess, or apps.

[26:13] There's a demonic app that kills people.

Dan McCoy

[26:15] Uh, but we should also put some me too stuff in there.

[26:18] Maybe we shouldn't put some me too stuff in this way.

Stuart Wellington

[26:19] No, you gotta understand that the demon Ozen is the demon of knowing when you're supposed

[26:24] to die and changing the rules and also abuse of power and sexual assault.

Elliott Kalan

[26:27] Oh, I see.

[26:28] It's like, if you want to address that issue, make him, maybe make a movie about that issue.

[26:31] Yeah.

[26:31] As opposed to trying to push it in.

Dan McCoy

[26:32] I want to make it clear.

[26:34] I am aware that there are a lot of situations in real life where there are terrible miscarriages

[26:40] of justice.

[26:41] I'm just saying that in this movie, the movie doesn't do a very good job of what it wants

[26:46] to do, which is just be like, this is so unfair, but like, it's still, I don't know, not seeming

[26:52] like it, it just is being handled in the silliest way possible.

Elliott Kalan

[26:56] Because it's such a tangential issue in this and it's not, it's not the main focus of the

[27:00] movies.

[27:00] They really don't have a lot of real estate to, to spend on it.

[27:02] Yeah.

[27:03] And they, but I do like that.

[27:05] They just sort of wave it away.

[27:06] I do like that, Dan, that you mentioned about how in real life it'd be different because

[27:09] you, of course, are a real life expert since you're Dan in real life.

Dan McCoy

[27:12] Uh-huh.

[27:13] He is Dan in real life.

[27:14] I.

[27:15] Pancake enthusiast.

[27:16] I had waffles this morning.

[27:18] Is that, do you think that's a betrayal?

[27:20] That is a fucking betrayal.

Elliott Kalan

[27:21] Well, it depends on what you do.

[27:22] Did you eat them or did you lay your head on them like a sad pillow?

Dan McCoy

[27:24] I just, I just held them up to my face and gently caressed them.

[27:29] I guess my cheek.

Stuart Wellington

[27:30] Okay.

[27:31] So, uh, Quinn goes home and she starts looking up stuff.

[27:36] Uh, she looks up some reports on the countdown app being tied to deaths.

[27:40] She watches a video that a woman who, uh, was bedeviled by the countdown app of her dying.

[27:47] And people, of course, are like, cap, cap, this is bullshit.

[27:50] This is fake.

[27:50] Uh, well, I do have a question, which is like, who uploaded this video?

Dan McCoy

[27:56] Cause she like dies at the end of her own video.

[27:59] And it did not seem to be like the movie could have handled this, I guess, by making it look

[28:03] like a live stream that then someone else put up.

[28:05] Yeah, that's what I would suggest is it was a live stream or a Twitch stream.

[28:07] I forgot to mention that one of the.

[28:09] YouTube video.

Stuart Wellington

[28:09] I forgot to mention that one of the comments that said it was fake was actually from user

[28:13] Dank McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[28:15] Who uploaded?

[28:16] Who uploaded?

[28:18] I think, uh, debate me.

[28:20] That's how he ends that comment.

[28:22] Yeah.

[28:22] Uh, I think that, uh, what I like about this scene is that it harkened back to my first

[28:27] Flophouse episode, I Know Who Killed Me, where she's doing research on telepathy or something

[28:33] like that.

[28:33] And she pulls up a video with the host of Coast to Coast.

[28:37] Uh, what's his name?

[28:38] And it was one of the things.

[28:40] Art Bell.

[28:40] And it was like, it was like, you know what?

[28:43] The internet doesn't really work this way.

[28:45] And now, almost 20 years later, the internet still doesn't.

[28:49] They're only making baby steps towards movies, kind of illustrating how the internet actually

[28:53] works.

[28:54] Yeah.

[28:54] By at least including comments that are hating on the video.

[28:58] So, you know what?

[28:59] Movies, you're trying your best.

[29:01] You're making slow progress.

[29:02] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[29:02] But, you know, one small step for Countdown, one giant leap for depictions of the internet

[29:06] in lowish budget horror movies.

Stuart Wellington

[29:09] So, research complete.

[29:10] Quinn closes her laptop only to see the ghost of Evan now monstrified sitting on the end

[29:15] of her bed.

[29:16] And she gets scared.

[29:17] So, she runs out of there.

[29:18] He should have said any questions.

[29:21] She breaks her phone on the ground and then goes and sleeps in her car.

[29:26] She then gets woken up by her sister, Jordan.

[29:29] They get in a fight.

[29:30] But in the process, her sister learns about the Countdown app.

[29:34] Uh-oh.

[29:35] Is that going to play into the story?

[29:36] Of course it does.

[29:38] She goes to buy a new phone from Tom Segura, who is pretty funny in this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[29:45] This is one of two scenes in the movie where the movie starts embracing the inherent ridiculousness

[29:50] of the premise by having very comedy characters.

[29:53] And I thought he was really funny in it.

Dan McCoy

[29:54] Yeah.

[29:55] Well, yes.

[29:56] And I kind of feel bad that this movie was, you know, to offer a preview of my feelings

[30:03] later.

[30:04] Well, no, I feel bad that this movie was so shat upon just because we have watched so many

[30:10] movies like this for the Flophouse that are sort of aiming at a similar thing and doing

[30:17] it with so much less, at least attempt to, like, or care.

[30:22] Like, there are moments in this film where, like, a scene shows up where an ancillary character

[30:27] like this phone seller comes up.

[30:31] Phone doctor.

[30:31] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[30:32] A hacker phone doctor.

Dan McCoy

[30:33] And I'm like, oh, whoever made this, they were trying to make this work.

[30:38] They were trying something.

[30:39] They were adding a little extra pepper to it in a way that I've seen so many other movies

[30:44] do this type of thing and not even bother to make any of it interesting.

[30:49] And so I really appreciate when we meet this character who is just introduced being an

[30:53] absolute asshole to another person.

[30:55] And so she buys this new phone.

Stuart Wellington

[30:57] And of course, the app mysteriously appears on it before she leaves the store.

[31:02] What?

[31:02] She throws a fit in the store, goes out in her car, gets attacked by a specter, and then

[31:07] gets rescued by a guy who overheard her talking about the app in the store.

[31:11] Or this guy, Matt, who turns out also has downloaded the Countdown app and doesn't have long to

[31:16] live.

[31:17] They go to a bar.

[31:19] They find an old drunk conspiracy nut.

Elliott Kalan

[31:22] This is one of those.

[31:22] This reminds me of, like, this happens in a lot of these movies where they're like, we've

[31:27] only got hours to live.

[31:29] We've got to get on top of this.

[31:30] And then it cuts to nighttime.

[31:32] And they're at a bar.

[31:33] And I was like, so I guess you're going to get on this tomorrow?

[31:36] Yeah.

[31:36] It was kind of like how I would write papers in college.

[31:42] Yeah.

[31:42] It's like there's a scene in Ringu where they're like, they only have a week to live.

[31:47] They got that phone call.

[31:47] And they're researching.

[31:48] And they go, oh, a lot of research.

[31:50] I guess I'll go home now.

[31:52] And I'm like, I don't think you should.

[31:53] Just keep working.

Dan McCoy

[31:55] Elliot, you know, you need a work-life balance.

[31:57] Okay?

[31:57] Yeah, dude.

[31:59] Elliot's on that grind set, Danny.

[32:00] You don't care.

Elliott Kalan

[32:01] I think when I know I only have a limited number of days to live, I'm going to be on

[32:05] that grind.

Stuart Wellington

[32:07] I'm not going to give up.

[32:08] Guys, if this was me, if I downloaded the app, I'd be like, okay, I get it.

[32:12] That's fine.

Elliott Kalan

[32:14] Well, I kind of was hoping at a certain point that the moral of the movie was going to be

[32:17] acceptance of fate.

[32:18] That it was going to be like, if this is what's allotted to me, I'm going to meet it with

[32:22] calm and with peacefulness and acceptance.

[32:27] And I'm not going to make a fuss.

[32:28] But that's not what this movie is about.

[32:29] In which case, don't go to a bar and just have a drink later in the day.

[32:32] Like, do your work.

Stuart Wellington

[32:33] So they're, but they're, they're commiserating over their mutual situation where neither of

[32:38] them had read the user agreement.

[32:39] So they're talking to this old, uh, this old drunk guy who is spouting some general conspiracy

[32:45] stuff.

[32:46] And they're like, hey, why don't we get this guy to download the app onto his phone?

[32:49] And, and Quinn's like, no, I don't want to, you know, tie this guy's soul to a devil.

[32:54] And then the guy says something about not believing in the Holocaust.

[32:57] And she's like, okay, let's get him to download it.

[32:59] Which they do.

[33:00] And they read the user agreement.

Elliott Kalan

[33:02] Um, and, uh, this movie, I'm realizing it exists in two different worlds that it keeps

[33:08] going back and forth between the kind of standard, not that interesting, takes itself very seriously.

[33:13] Boilerplate horror movie world that we've seen so many times.

[33:16] And this kooky world where there's just kind of nutty characters, like this Daniel Close

[33:20] world that is just a slightly sideways or, uh, where Daniel Klaus, I don't remember how

[33:24] to pronounce it.

[33:25] Klaus.

Elliott Kalan

[33:25] Where it's like, where there's this super insulting, uh, phone guy.

[33:31] And then later on there's the fanboy priest.

[33:33] And then there's this, there's this conspiracy nutball at the, who's so, so loudly and bigly

[33:40] a cartoon of that kind of person at the bar.

[33:42] Like I kind of wondered, I want to see more of these types of characters.

[33:45] I like these guys all the time.

[33:47] I guess that's true.

Dan McCoy

[33:48] Uh, as long as we're correcting name pronunciations, I believe it's Peter Faccinelli.

Stuart Wellington

[33:53] Faccinelli.

[33:54] Okay.

[33:55] Peter Faccinelli, if you're listening, write in, tell us if we're right or wrong.

[33:58] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[33:59] And let me know if in New Jersey I should say Faccinell.

Stuart Wellington

[34:01] Oh, yeah.

[34:02] Yep.

[34:03] Um, okay.

[34:04] So, um, they, uh, go to the hospital where Matt has a scary encounter with a little boy.

[34:10] Wait, did we, did we, men's room?

Dan McCoy

[34:12] I don't, did we talk about what they learned from the user agreement though?

[34:15] Yeah.

[34:15] I guess, I guess we talked about it earlier.

[34:17] You mentioned it earlier.

[34:18] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[34:18] If after learning the time of their death, if they change their life in any way, they break

[34:23] the agreement, which again, I feel like it's almost impossible not to.

[34:27] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[34:27] I have two, I have two things I want to say about this.

[34:29] First is that if you, if it says you'll live to be 70 years old and then at some point

[34:34] you just make a different decision, you don't even know it's related to, like you go into

[34:37] this room instead of that room and you don't meet the woman that you'll marry and then

[34:40] she'll murder you eventually.

[34:42] Like how do you, does it then tell you?

[34:44] I like this narrative you're, I think it has to be a conscious choice.

[34:48] It has to be, because that's the other thing.

[34:50] Cause that's my other thing is that it seems like a really poor understanding of what fate

[34:54] is.

[34:54] Cause my understanding of fate is it's like in Oedipus Rex where every single thing they

[34:58] did to try to avoid the prophecy made it happen.

[35:01] As opposed to you did something different and now a ghost comes and kills you.

[35:05] You know, it's not like, it wasn't like, okay, Tiresias said that my son is going to kill

[35:10] me and have sex with his mother.

[35:12] Right.

[35:12] I guess I'll get rid of him.

[35:13] And then a demon goes, no, no, no, no, no.

[35:15] And picks up the son and pushes him on top of the mom.

Dan McCoy

[35:17] I understand what you're saying, but this, this move, this app plays by final destination

[35:21] rules where it's like, Oh, you escaped the thing.

[35:24] So now another thing that's totally unrelated is going to come get you.

Elliott Kalan

[35:27] That brings me up.

[35:28] My thing about final destination that I must've mentioned before, where I just think it's so

[35:30] goofy that death is like, Oh, you escaped me.

[35:33] I'm going to get you.

[35:34] And it's like, just wait it out.

[35:35] Death.

[35:36] Everybody dies.

[35:37] Like it's not, it's not like they get away forever.

[35:40] Yeah, but it's super fun.

[35:43] It is really fun the way they do it.

[35:44] He's a jokester.

[35:45] But the idea that like, Ooh, now you've escaped my clutches and I've got to work extra hard

[35:49] to get you.

[35:50] It reminds me of something that a, an old coworker of mine, Rich Blomquist once said when a woman

[35:55] who was the last survivor of the Titanic died and she had been a baby when the ship went

[36:00] down and he goes, curse the Titanic.

[36:03] Nobody gets away.

[36:05] The Titanic had tracked her down a hundred years later and finally took her out.

[36:10] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[36:11] Okay.

[36:12] So, uh, Matt has a scary encounter with a little boy ghost in the men's room.

[36:16] This had a couple of good scares.

[36:18] I like the bit where you see the little boy's feet walking, uh, behind the stall.

[36:23] Like he's like in the stalls, but he's like going through the dividers, uh, unless they had

[36:28] removed the dividers, like this one bathroom at one of the dorms.

[36:32] Yeah.

[36:32] It's a communal bathroom.

Elliott Kalan

[36:34] It's called, it's called a neighbor bathroom where they want everyone sitting in the stalls

[36:37] to be neighbors and talk and things to each other.

Dan McCoy

[36:40] We've shielded you from the outside world of the, the, the bathroom foyer, I guess.

[36:45] But inside here, we're all.

Elliott Kalan

[36:47] They're like, they're like, look, you're either in or you're out.

[36:50] If you want to see these people, you got to get in a stall and start pooping.

[36:53] It's like a modern.

[36:53] If you're not willing to take that step.

[36:54] It's a modern.

[36:55] You can't see them.

Stuart Wellington

[36:55] It's a modern take on the concept of salons.

[36:59] Interesting.

Elliott Kalan

[37:00] Okay.

[37:01] So, and then like, and there's a bit where it's like.

[37:03] Why can't everyone be a Louis the 16th being watched while you poop and talking to your courtiers?

[37:08] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[37:08] Okay.

[37:09] So, and also this is when the evil doctor, Dr. Sullivan tries to ruin Quinn's life.

[37:17] They bring her into a meeting with HR department who immediately accuse her of assaulting him.

[37:23] And they are going to suspend her.

[37:26] And she obviously is dealing with a lot and she can't deal with this situation.

[37:30] And she doesn't even have like any representative to help her out.

[37:34] It's really bad.

[37:34] So she storms out.

[37:36] And so Quinn and Matt then at the direction of the hospital pastor go to speak with Father John,

[37:45] a kind of non-traditional priest who's into demonology and stuff and listens, what, to like trap music or something?

Elliott Kalan

[37:51] Yeah, we might as well have called him Father Otaku because he's just like super, super demon fanboy.

Dan McCoy

[37:56] Yeah, and I think he is implied to be maybe stoned when they show up because he's really concerned about his Grubhub arriving

[38:03] and he's eating the communion wafers as if they're like chips.

Elliott Kalan

[38:07] And so good.

[38:09] Maybe, yeah.

[38:09] I didn't put it together that he's stoned, but he's certainly not your daddy's priest unless your daddy was Jerry Garcia, I guess.

Stuart Wellington

[38:17] He immediately is on board and he explains to them this story about this general who learned the time of his death.

[38:28] So he swapped places with his brother, but then he still died anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[38:31] He uses a commonly used but not acceptable slur for Roma many times.

[38:37] And each time it really – I didn't like the sound of it.

Stuart Wellington

[38:40] And the – yeah, and it's all tied in with his demon, Ozen, okay?

[38:46] So from now on we know the demon we're dealing with is Ozen the demon.

[38:50] Ozen.

[38:51] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[38:52] Ozen.

[38:53] He's the demon that's causing global warning.

[38:54] What are we, too?

Stuart Wellington

[38:55] And they realize if they're going to figure out the – because this is all tied in with like a contractual agreement,

[39:01] they're going to need to hack that – they're going to need to get into that app.

[39:04] So they need a hacker.

[39:05] So they track down the guy who runs the cell phone store, Tom Segura, who – to hack the app,

[39:12] he has to postpone his Tinder date.

[39:14] Don't worry.

[39:15] He still has it in the mid-credit sequence.

[39:18] Oh, sure.

[39:19] You saw the mid-credit sequence.

Elliott Kalan

[39:20] I'm so glad because I skip forward to see if there's a mid-credit sequence.

Stuart Wellington

[39:23] I'm like, I'm sure hope that Stuart is doing this, too.

[39:26] He's doing the summary.

[39:27] Yeah.

[39:27] I mean it was just lucky that I just left the TV running while I was doing other stuff.

[39:32] Okay.

[39:33] Because you were so scared.

[39:34] You couldn't bear to turn it off.

[39:36] Now, I want to –

[39:37] I feel like if I poked my hand out from under the blanket to get the remote,

[39:41] that the demon Ozin would rip my arm clean off my body.

Elliott Kalan

[39:45] Now, I want to ask our audience.

[39:46] I'm looking – my brief internet research –

[39:48] They aren't here, Elliot.

[39:49] No, no.

[39:50] I want them to write in later.

[39:51] As I established early on, I'm aware of this, a one-way street,

[39:54] that is Ozin a real demon?

[39:57] Is it based on a real demon or is it totally made up for the movie?

[40:00] Because all I can find online is references to the movie.

[40:02] And I'm curious whether they made up a fake demon or had the balls to use a real demon

[40:07] and risk that demon coming along and suing them.

Stuart Wellington

[40:09] Yeah.

[40:10] Dan, you're the Christian demonology expert.

Dan McCoy

[40:13] I've never heard of this demon.

[40:16] Also, the legend.

[40:18] They didn't try and make that story into like something from the Bible, right?

[40:22] That was just something that – because I don't think that that's from anything.

[40:27] I've heard versions of like a similar story.

Elliott Kalan

[40:30] Yes.

[40:31] Well, there's the story of the appointment in Samara and things like that.

[40:34] Right.

[40:35] And so it's like – it's – I think that – it's not exactly the same, I guess.

[40:40] But you know what I mean.

[40:41] But like the – I think it's – I don't think he's presenting it as something from the Bible.

[40:46] He does say there are demons in the Bible.

[40:48] But I don't think he says that this particular story is from.

[40:50] Hot take.

Stuart Wellington

[40:52] Okay, so he – so Tom Segura hacks into their phones.

[40:56] He hacks into the app.

[40:57] There's a ton of information there.

[40:59] In fact, it has the name and the countdown clock of everybody who's downloaded the app.

[41:03] And we find out, oh, no, Quinn's sister Jordan has downloaded the app.

[41:07] Of course.

[41:08] So he hacks his data as well as the three of them, Quinn, her sister, and Matt, and gives them all a bunch of years.

[41:16] Oh, wow, Ozen has been defeated.

Dan McCoy

[41:18] And it seems to work on their apps.

[41:20] And I love this idea that like – obviously we all know this is not going to stick.

[41:24] But I do love the idea that there's –

Stuart Wellington

[41:25] No, because there's lots of movie left.

[41:26] There's enough actual like code involved in this mystical app that like – it's like, okay, well, I guess the number does have to change.

Dan McCoy

[41:36] Yeah, yeah.

[41:36] At least temporarily.

Stuart Wellington

[41:39] So Quinn and Matt are still a little shook up.

Elliott Kalan

[41:41] I guess at this point the movie enters – it's kind of like a low-rent version of Prince of Darkness where it's kind of a mix of technology and magic and faith and things like that.

[41:50] But, you know, without any of the greatness that Prince of Darkness has.

[41:52] Without being incredible, yeah.

[41:54] Without being amazing, yeah.

[41:55] Without being a waking nightmare that even finds horror in VHS video formats.

Stuart Wellington

[42:00] And missing a soundtrack that is both banging and terrifying.

[42:04] So Quinn and Matt decide to stay the night together but like as friends.

[42:08] And they do this like sleepover confess sesh where they like reveal their deepest, darkest secrets and then they end up in bed together.

[42:16] Ozen attacks and deletes a bunch of times.

[42:19] So their apps go back to normal.

[42:21] You can't trick Ozen like that.

[42:23] He doesn't fuck around.

[42:25] Sister Jordan starts to see scary stuff.

[42:28] There's like a motion sensor nightlight in the hallway in the place she's staying.

[42:33] And that's like, okay.

[42:34] It's pretty scary.

[42:37] Ozen uses like the nightlight.

[42:40] He uses mom ghosts.

[42:41] He does all kinds of stuff to mess with Jordan.

[42:44] But then Quinn and Matt show up and take her away.

[42:46] They go and meet up with Father John again.

[42:49] And Father John comes up with a plan.

[42:52] They're going to beat the clock using holy magic.

[42:55] What they need to do is they need to prove that the devil is a liar in this case.

[42:59] So they need to prove that somebody survives.

[43:02] Assuming that nobody kills themselves first, they need to prove that the clock is wrong and that somebody is going to outlive the time that is allowed to them.

Dan McCoy

[43:11] Yeah.

[43:11] If they can do something different than what the clock says, then the curse is broken.

Stuart Wellington

[43:16] And so they make a salt.

[43:20] And Apple removes the app from the store.

[43:24] So they make a salt circle in the basement and they try and hide in the holy salt circle before Matt's clock is up.

[43:31] A salt circle and a salt Star of David, which was a little bit of appropriation that I didn't care for.

Elliott Kalan

[43:37] But, you know.

Dan McCoy

[43:38] I mean, isn't a Star of David inside a circle a pentagram?

[43:43] Does that –

[43:43] No.

[43:44] No?

Elliott Kalan

[43:44] A pentagram is a five-sided star.

[43:46] Yeah.

[43:46] A Star of David is a six-sided star.

[43:47] Yeah.

[43:48] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[43:48] Uh-huh.

[43:49] So all those notebooks that you were drawing those images on because you thought they were cool and demonic, you're actually just Jewish.

[43:55] Yeah, you're just Jewish, Dan.

[43:56] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[43:56] When you were like, don't mess with me.

[43:59] I've got power.

[44:00] And you showed people the pentagrams you've drawn.

[44:02] Look at me.

[44:03] Look at me.

[44:04] I'm Alan Moore.

[44:04] I gotta start studying my Hebrew.

Dan McCoy

[44:07] I'm way overdue for my bar mitzvah.

Elliott Kalan

[44:09] Yeah, you've got to be bar mitzvah now, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[44:12] Okay.

[44:13] So –

[44:13] Man, at least I'll get that money.

Elliott Kalan

[44:15] So Ozen, of course –

[44:16] Wait.

[44:17] Dan, I don't like the stereotype that you're already –

Dan McCoy

[44:19] You're already living.

[44:20] I'm talking about the money for my bar mitzvah.

[44:22] I'm not saying –

[44:23] Just the fact that you're greedy for it.

Stuart Wellington

[44:25] Why is Dan rubbing his palms together?

[44:26] And honching his shoulders.

Dan McCoy

[44:28] I was greedy as a gentile.

[44:29] I'll be greedy now.

Elliott Kalan

[44:33] Why is Dan applying for a job at the bank in the TK Rally books?

Stuart Wellington

[44:38] Why is he applying for a job?

[44:42] Oh.

[44:44] Woof.

[44:45] Okay.

[44:46] So Matt's time's almost up.

[44:47] So, of course, it's time for Ozen to show up.

[44:49] And he does.

[44:50] Now, guys, I think Ozen kind of looks cool.

[44:53] He's like –

[44:54] He kind of looks like the curator, the lead singer from the band Portal.

[44:59] He's like a tall monster draped in like a black sheet.

[45:02] And he's like dusty.

[45:03] And you can kind of see his like eyes and teeth a little bit, right?

Elliott Kalan

[45:06] Yeah, yeah.

[45:07] I thought he was a fine-looking kind of demon teacher.

Stuart Wellington

[45:09] I mean, not exciting.

[45:11] But there's a couple of moments where –

Dan McCoy

[45:12] I like him later on when he like gets like sucked into like a black hole.

[45:16] I like that too.

Stuart Wellington

[45:17] Not the best, but could have been worse is how I –

[45:21] Yes.

[45:21] That's my review of Ozen.

[45:24] 3.6 stars.

[45:25] Yeah, 3.6 stars.

[45:27] So he – Ozen is stymied by the salt.

[45:31] Uh-oh.

[45:32] So he decides –

[45:33] Just like the hit song, stymied by the salt.

Dan McCoy

[45:35] Oh, my God.

[45:36] Elliot.

[45:37] High five across the world.

Elliott Kalan

[45:38] Boom.

[45:39] We did it.

[45:40] Okay.

[45:40] Tried to kill him by the countdown, but they made a lot of salt.

Stuart Wellington

[45:45] Wrapped up like a douche.

Elliott Kalan

[45:46] It's not the lyrics, but it sounds like it.

[45:50] That's for sure.

Stuart Wellington

[45:50] So he – Ozen sends a toy dinosaur and lures Matt outside of the circle.

Elliott Kalan

[45:56] Now, this makes sense because of the story that Matt told earlier about his guilt over stealing a toy dinosaur from his dying brother.

[46:03] So it's not like it's just – he was just like, cool.

[46:06] I love dinos.

Stuart Wellington

[46:08] It was a pretty cool dino.

[46:10] Yeah.

[46:10] I mean, it's not a stegosaur, but that's okay.

[46:13] So he –

[46:13] Stegosaur.

[46:15] Stegosaur, he's up there, man.

[46:17] He's got all those spikes.

Elliott Kalan

[46:18] Yeah, that's my wife's favorite dinosaur.

[46:21] Me?

[46:21] I'm all about Deinonychus because I love those theropods.

[46:24] Yep.

[46:25] What about you, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[46:27] Why can't I remember the one that's like kind of like – it's got the horns and it's like –

[46:31] Triceratops?

[46:32] Yeah, I like that one.

[46:33] Oh, that's a cool one.

[46:34] Okay.

[46:34] I also like – you know, the ones that are in water are nice.

[46:38] Elysiosaurs?

[46:39] Elysiosaurs?

Elliott Kalan

[46:40] Those are technically not dinosaurs.

[46:41] They're marine reptiles, but that's okay.

[46:42] Okay.

[46:43] There's a – I've never been able to figure out why, but dinosaurs only live on lands.

[46:46] They don't fly or swim.

[46:48] Very strange, huh?

[46:49] Well, they fly now.

[46:50] Now they fly because they're birds.

[46:52] And also, if a fossil is being transported, usually put it on a plane, I guess.

[46:55] Yeah, true.

Stuart Wellington

[46:56] They also fly because they have developed tech that gives them rocket packs so they can fly around.

Elliott Kalan

[47:00] You're thinking of Dino Saucers.

[47:02] It's a little different.

[47:03] Oh, fuck.

[47:04] I am thinking of Dino Saucers.

Stuart Wellington

[47:06] Yeah.

[47:06] Okay.

[47:07] So, he leaves the protection of the circle, Ozin snatches him by the leg and drags him outside into the street.

[47:15] Get over here.

[47:16] Yeah.

[47:16] That kind of thing.

[47:17] So, they chase after him and he's like, I've survived.

[47:19] And then a truck immediately runs him over.

[47:22] He gets smushed into a tree.

[47:24] He did not survive.

[47:26] And in the process of the whole demon fight there, Jordan was injured.

[47:31] So, they have to rush her to the hospital.

[47:34] A fellow nurse, while they're dealing with the demon stuff, a fellow nurse comes up and is like, I know what you're talking about.

[47:41] Dr. Sullivan also assaulted me.

[47:43] I will stand with you.

[47:45] Solidarity.

[47:45] And she's like, okay, let's do this.

[47:48] We'll do this later, though.

[47:49] I got a demon to deal with.

[47:51] Dr. Sullivan at the time is currently healing, using a heal spell on her daughter or sister, Jordan.

Dan McCoy

[47:59] I don't know about that.

Stuart Wellington

[48:00] It just seems to be like looking at her abdomen where she got hurt.

[48:04] And Quinn comes up with the idea to – she tries to trick Dr. Sullivan into meeting her into the abandoned wing of the hospital, which is filled with, you know, like dust and plastic sheets and ladders.

[48:23] It's the spooky district.

Elliott Kalan

[48:25] Every hospital has a spooky – yeah, every hospital has a spooky wing.

[48:27] It's abandoned.

[48:28] It's full of ghosts.

[48:28] It's full of cobwebs.

[48:30] They call them kingdoms.

[48:32] And that's where you go if you want to have spooky stuff at a hospital, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[48:35] So, she tricks him into meeting her there under the pretense that she is going to try and get her job back by giving him savers.

[48:45] Through sexual savers.

[48:45] Yep.

[48:46] But instead she –

Elliott Kalan

[48:47] Because the way to a man's heart is through your vagina.

Stuart Wellington

[48:49] Uh-huh.

[48:50] She thinks, yeah.

[48:51] So, she starts attacking him and is about to kill him with, what, morphine?

[48:55] An overdose of morphine?

[48:56] Yeah.

[48:57] Because if she can kill him, that'll mess with – he had already downloaded the app and it said he was going to live 70 more years.

[49:04] And she's like, we'll fucking see about that shit.

[49:06] And right before she can kill him, Ozen snatches him away.

[49:10] Yeah.

[49:11] Hey.

[49:11] Like what we were talking about before.

[49:14] Stay in your lane, Ozen yells.

[49:17] Um, Jordan's time is running out.

[49:19] She's supposed to die even before Quinn.

[49:22] Uh, they're both on like minutes at this point.

[49:25] Um, so she's running around.

[49:26] Ozen attacks her.

Dan McCoy

[49:27] Do we ever get any – sorry, I'm just realizing.

[49:30] Do we ever get any clarity on what happens to that doctor?

[49:33] Like –

[49:34] We'll get to that at the end.

[49:35] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[49:36] I didn't – I missed it.

Dan McCoy

[49:38] So –

Stuart Wellington

[49:39] Ozen's about to kill Jordan when Quinn shows up.

[49:43] And she makes a desperate last ploy to commit suicide using an overdose of morphine.

[49:50] And, uh, Ozen is like, wait a minute.

[49:53] I'm going to morph into your mom and – your dead mom and try and convince you not to kill yourself.

Elliott Kalan

[49:58] This was a strange choice on Ozen's part because Ozen doesn't have a lot of time.

[50:03] He has – Ozen, and I'll say he.

[50:05] I don't know what gender Ozen is, but I'll say Ozen.

[50:08] I'd say Ozen needs to stop her from killing herself.

[50:12] At the same time, Ozen has to kill Jordan.

[50:15] You'd think that Ozen would choose a faster method, like maybe snatching the morphine out of her hands or something like that, pushing her down, rather than the psychological method of pretending to be her mom to talk her out of it.

Stuart Wellington

[50:25] Yeah, if you're going to morph into something, morph into like an old-timey cowboy with a lariat to, like, lasso it out of her hand.

[50:31] Or just for fun, do that.

[50:33] Because she would be fucking shocked if you – if you were just hanging out in a hospital wing and all of a sudden there's a cowboy there?

[50:39] Yeah, Pecosville?

[50:40] Your lariat's a snake?

[50:41] This is amazing.

Dan McCoy

[50:43] I'd just like to take a moment also to say that her dead mom, or at least the version of her that we see, played by Andrea Anders, who I know best from – she was the love interest in Better Off Ted.

[50:56] Oh, okay.

[50:57] She was in the short-lived but full of future stars sitcom The Class that I watched, and most recently she's Ted Lasso's A Strange Wife.

[51:07] Whoa.

[51:08] A sitcom – a bit of sitcom royalty, kind of.

Elliott Kalan

[51:12] There's a bunch of – there's a lot of more small screen best-known actors in this.

[51:17] I feel like everyone here, they're best known for their television work.

Stuart Wellington

[51:19] You know, probably what – in the script, it was probably Ozenmorphs into the cowboy, but they're like, wait a minute, we have this actress.

[51:25] Let's have her be the mom.

[51:27] And they're like, from the class?

[51:28] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[51:29] Sorry, Tex.

[51:32] We got to cut you.

[51:33] We got a better replacement.

[51:34] Aw, shucks.

[51:35] They were going to put me in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[51:37] No, I understand.

[51:40] Better Off Ted was a great show.

[51:41] It was kind of hampered by a stupid name and a bad time slot.

[51:45] Didn't really tell people what to expect from the show.

Stuart Wellington

[51:49] It's like happy endings.

[51:50] Like, what the fuck?

[51:54] Okay.

[51:54] So, but Quinn injects herself with the morphine.

[52:01] Ozen is not pleased with this and morphs into dust, a final morph.

[52:07] Quinn falls down and dies.

[52:09] And Jordan rushes over to her sister's dead body only to see that there are instructions written on her body in Sharpie instructing where to insert the Narcan.

[52:20] A plot point that was mentioned way earlier in the movie.

[52:23] But I didn't mention it because it seemed like it didn't matter.

[52:25] But it does matter and you should have been paying attention.

Dan McCoy

[52:28] Except for as IMDb goofs points out.

[52:32] This is a true goof.

[52:34] Dan is prone to point out fake goofs.

[52:37] Yeah, this is a real one.

[52:38] Narcan will not bring back someone who has died from a morphine overdose.

Elliott Kalan

[52:43] It makes the – if your heart has stopped, then putting an overdose fighting drug will not restart your heart.

Stuart Wellington

[52:50] So what happens is, of course, Jordan injects the Narcan into Quinn and Quinn comes back to life and all of a sudden, bring me to life by Evanescence starts blasting.

[53:00] Ozen's like, this song's dope actually.

[53:02] And everybody's fucking rocking.

[53:04] It rules.

[53:05] I love this shit.

[53:05] Yeah, it's just like the end of Zadowichi the Blind Assassin where they all just dance.

[53:09] Yeah, it's incredible.

[53:10] And then we get a fast forward, flash forward.

[53:13] Blind swordsman.

[53:14] Sorry, sorry.

[53:15] Yeah.

[53:15] So we are in the graveyard.

[53:18] Quinn, Jordan, and their dad are leaving flowers at their mother's grave.

[53:22] Then they read on their cell phone that the doctor has been arrested for assaulting multiple women.

[53:32] More women have come forward.

[53:33] There's a mugshot of him that's pretty goofy.

Dan McCoy

[53:35] That's fine, but she also did hit him with like a crowbar.

[53:40] This is the part that I like am not sure that the film adequately resolves.

[53:47] Okay, well, anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[53:49] Okay.

[53:50] And then they're like, okay, well, next time you drive.

[53:53] And then immediately they get a notification.

[53:57] Hey, guys, I just saw this cool new app.

[53:59] Here we go again.

[54:01] Well, that's what happens.

[54:02] They get a notification that the app has been updated and she's like, what the fuck?

[54:06] And then the movie's over.

Dan McCoy

[54:08] They fired whatever web developer had the flaw in the first version.

Elliott Kalan

[54:13] Look, we're coming out with Countdown 2.0.

[54:16] We're looking for unicorns.

[54:17] We got to get this thing off the ground.

[54:19] We're valued at $4 billion right now.

[54:21] So we think we can get a little bit of VC, get this thing going.

[54:24] Yeah, yeah.

[54:24] What?

Dan McCoy

[54:25] Looking for unicorns?

Elliott Kalan

[54:26] Yeah, yeah.

[54:27] Unicorn investors.

[54:28] Yeah, they're investors.

[54:29] Angel investors?

[54:31] Unicorns is different than angel investors.

[54:33] Is it?

Dan McCoy

[54:34] I only know the sexual application of unicorns.

Stuart Wellington

[54:38] The only thing I know about unicorns is that I feel like it was a waste of fucking Walden

[54:42] Goggins talent to make him play a fucking Pilsner guy on this bullshit network sitcom.

[54:47] Okay.

[54:48] Movie's over.

[54:49] I don't think so.

[54:50] There's a lengthy mid-credit sequence where Tom Segura's character is on his Tinder date.

[54:55] He is clearly mismatched with this woman.

[54:58] He is kind of an asshole talking over her, making inappropriate comments.

Elliott Kalan

[55:02] I kind of realized my limit with Tom Segura, I guess, is two scenes.

[55:07] Because by this scene, I was like, I don't really need any more of him in this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[55:11] Yeah.

[55:11] They really play up how big of a creep asshole he is.

[55:14] And then he is alone in a dark restaurant.

[55:17] All the lights go out.

[55:18] And then we hear like Ozen chuckle or something.

[55:20] And he's like, oh no, I'm dead.

[55:22] End of movie.

[55:23] Bring me to life by Evanescence.

[55:25] Starts cranking.

[55:26] Everybody's headbanging.

[55:27] It fucking rules.

Elliott Kalan

[55:29] Everyone in the cast comes out and takes a bow.

[55:32] Multiple bows.

[55:33] Take a bow by Madonna plays.

[55:35] It's very sad.

[55:36] They take out another bow.

[55:37] Somber, yeah.

[55:37] It's amazing.

Stuart Wellington

[55:38] Okay.

[55:39] So this is the part where we-

[55:40] And then R.I.P. Angela Lansbury across the screen.

[55:43] And we're like, what is this?

[55:44] Spelled out.

[55:44] This movie came out in 2019.

[55:46] How did they know?

[55:46] Spelled out the stars.

[55:47] Because of the app.

[55:47] That's how they knew.

[55:48] Because of the app.

[55:49] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[55:51] So this is where we give our final judgments.

[55:53] And we have our Shocktober categories.

Stuart Wellington

[55:55] I gotta say, guys, I killed that summary.

[55:58] You did.

[55:58] You did a great job.

Elliott Kalan

[56:00] You did a great job.

[56:00] You ozened that summary.

[56:01] I can't wait to hear the fucking peach bit.

Stuart Wellington

[56:03] But is this movie totally scarifying?

Elliott Kalan

[56:06] Can we hear the fake podcast you host talk about your summary?

Stuart Wellington

[56:11] I feel like it's going to be favorable.

Dan McCoy

[56:15] Is this movie totally scarifying?

[56:17] Is it totally snorifying?

[56:19] Or is it frighteningly funny?

[56:20] Of course, nonsense categories.

[56:22] I'm just going to say, like-

[56:24] Ha ha ha!

[56:25] I kind of liked this.

[56:28] I mean, I tipped towards it before.

[56:32] I think the thing is, I've seen so many-

[56:34] You tipped towards through the tulips to it.

[56:36] I've seen so many movies like this that are trying to do basically this kind of thing and do it badly that I appreciate that this movie is a trim 90 minutes.

[56:49] It mostly feels like 90 minutes.

[56:52] There's a bit towards, like, the start of Act 3 that I thought dragged more than the rest of the movie.

[56:57] But in general, I felt like it was pretty fleet.

[57:00] It tried to do a few more fun things with its dumb premise.

[57:06] It's not as good as, like, a Final Destination movie, but it's aiming towards that tone.

[57:12] And it's, you know, like, there's a lot of elevated horror.

[57:14] This is, like, a different type of horror.

[57:16] This is, like, a traditional, like, I don't know, young teens want a pop horror movie that's going to have a few jump scares that they can go to that's not going to be too brutal in any way.

[57:28] And, I don't know, on a silly level, I looked at the Wikipedia page and I found with delight that my good friend Kimber Myers is the quoted critic from her review in the L.A. Times.

[57:43] She was, like, the one, like, more positive review they could find to put on the Wikipedia page to have, like, a balanced idea of what the critical response was.

[57:51] And I'm, like, I texted her.

[57:52] I'm, like, I liked it, too.

[57:53] I liked it, too.

[57:55] You know, not great.

[57:56] Like, there's certainly, don't run out and see it, but of the movies that I'm forced to watch for this podcast, I liked it okay.

[58:03] What do you guys have to say?

Stuart Wellington

[58:05] Yeah, I mean, I feel I'm kind of in between a, I feel like it's between a bad, bad movie and a movie I kind of liked.

[58:13] Because there's definitely stuff that I like about it.

[58:15] There are some jokes and there's some silly stuff that actually works.

[58:20] I feel like there is a bit of a tone misjudgment when it comes to the mixing of silly app demon and sexual assault by a superior.

[58:32] But, yeah, I think, like, I feel like if it had leaned more into the sillier stuff, it could have been closer to something like a happy death day territory.

[58:41] Yeah.

[58:41] And it's not, I feel like it's not that far from that kind of a movie.

[58:45] I think that's what it's shooting for, definitely.

[58:47] Yeah.

[58:47] I wish it was, like, I wish it, they, I wish they had stepped back and were, like, how can we make this a little bit sillier?

Elliott Kalan

[58:53] Yeah.

[58:54] Yeah, I think it's a movie that is having trouble finding that balance that doesn't know exactly what kind of movie it is or wants to be in that way.

[59:02] I have to admit, I found it mostly fairly snorifying, but not as snorifying as other movies we've watched.

[59:09] I give it a solid two to two and a half stars, you know, on a four or five star rating.

[59:15] Wow, not even 3.6.

[59:16] Not even 3.6.

[59:18] You could do worse, but you could also do a lot better.

[59:20] But I feel like I'm coming to it from a biased point of view of having seen a number of very good movies recently in my personal life.

[59:28] And so I'm coming to it from the point of view of, oh, movies are wonderful.

[59:32] So to see a movie that is merely kind of mediocre to sub is, you know, maybe I should be, I probably shouldn't have watched a movie for a couple weeks and then watch it.

[59:40] And I'd be like, this is amazing.

[59:41] It's like there's people right on my screen.

[59:44] Frankly, I'm jealous that you got to watch a bunch of good movies.

[59:47] It's all been about very strict curating of the things that I watch.

[59:52] But also of the two Shocktober movies we watched this year, I'd say go with Orphan because it knows what kind of movie it is.

[59:58] It's a bonkers opera.

[1:00:02] And this is, it doesn't know if it's going to be serious or silly.

[1:00:06] So it becomes Sileris, which is not a word.

[1:00:09] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:10] Yeah.

[1:00:10] Learn your words, movie.

S4

[1:00:12] Her Majesty served Great Britain and the Commonwealth loyally for over 70 years.

[1:00:26] And while, of course, we feel a profound sadness, we must remember she lived a long life and died in such a way that I think many of us would want for ourselves.

[1:00:39] She was at home, surrounded by her family.

[1:00:44] And of course, she was listening to the Beef and Dairy Network podcast.

[1:00:50] The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is a multi-award winning comedy podcast and you can find it at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

S5

[1:01:00] You're in a theater.

[1:01:01] The lights go down.

[1:01:02] You're about to get swept up by the characters and all their little details and interpersonal dramas.

[1:01:07] You look at them and think, that person is so obviously in love with their best friend.

[1:01:11] Wait, am I in love with my best friend?

[1:01:14] That character's mom is so overbearing.

[1:01:16] Why doesn't she just stand up to her?

[1:01:17] Oh God, do I need to stand up to my own mother?

[1:01:19] If you've ever recognized yourself in a movie, then join me, Jordan Cruciola, for the podcast Feeling Seen.

[1:01:25] We've talked to author Susan Orlean on realizing her own marriage was falling apart after watching Adaptation, an adaptation of her own work,

[1:01:33] and comedian Hari Kondabolu on why Harold and Kumar was a depressingly important movie for Southeast Asians.

[1:01:39] So join me every Thursday for the Feeling Seen podcast here on Maximum Fun.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:44] Let's quickly acknowledge that we can't do this all on our own.

[1:01:49] I mean, we could, but it wouldn't be.

[1:01:51] We did for a number of years.

[1:01:52] It wouldn't be profitable for us.

[1:01:54] Yeah, it wouldn't be rewarding in the literal sense of there being rewards given.

[1:02:00] So I want to thank everyone who is a member of Maximum Fun and helps make the show possible

[1:02:06] because by this point, we probably, you know, as much as we love it, couldn't keep doing it

[1:02:11] if it wasn't also a second job for all of us.

[1:02:15] But it would be very hard to justify the time away from my family.

[1:02:18] But also, we have some sponsors that I would like to say thank you to as well.

[1:02:24] And one of them is Squarespace, which allows you to build a lovely website where you can engage with your audience.

[1:02:31] You can sell anything, products, content you create, even your time.

[1:02:36] It's the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online.

[1:02:40] And some of the things you can do with Squarespace, what are they?

[1:02:43] Well, you could sell your products on an online store, whether physical or digital products.

[1:02:49] Squarespace has the tools you need to sell online.

[1:02:52] You can create pro-level videos effortlessly.

[1:02:56] Effortlessly, they say.

[1:02:57] The Squarespace Video Studio app, this app's not going to tell you when you die.

[1:03:01] It's going to help you make and share engaging videos to tell your story, grow your audience, and drive sales.

[1:03:07] Much more pleasant.

[1:03:09] Display posts from your social profiles on your website.

[1:03:14] You can automatically push website content to your favorite social media channels so followers can share it too.

[1:03:21] So why not check out squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[1:03:28] And when you're ready to launch, use offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[1:03:38] Elliot, I believe you have a Jumbotron.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:41] I do indeed have a Jumbotron.

[1:03:48] And this Jumbotron goes like this.

[1:03:51] Do you love musicals?

[1:03:52] Yes.

[1:03:52] Do you love cast albums?

[1:03:54] Excuse me, I'm trying to read.

[1:03:55] These are rhetorical questions for the Jumbotron.

[1:03:57] I'll start from the beginning.

[1:03:58] Yes.

[1:03:59] Do you love musicals?

[1:04:00] Do you love cast albums?

[1:04:02] Are you people?

[1:04:03] If you answered yes at least twice, you'll love the original cast.

[1:04:06] A podcast about original cast albums and the people who love them.

[1:04:09] Each episode, dramatist Patrick Flynn invites a guest to choose a cast album they love.

[1:04:13] And then they talk about the album, theater, musicals, Resurrection Machines, whatever.

[1:04:18] Past guests include Tony Winters, NPR hosts, record producers, critics, and two-thirds of the Peaches.

[1:04:22] Stuart, the door is always open.

[1:04:24] That Resurrection Machines references to my episode of it.

[1:04:28] Here's your call to action.

[1:04:30] Get on your podcatcher of choice and listen to the occasionally number one performing arts podcast in South Korea.

[1:04:35] No joke and no clue why.

[1:04:37] The original cast.

[1:04:38] So I'm going to add to that Jumbotron.

[1:04:39] The original cast is a really great podcast.

[1:04:41] It's all about original cast albums to Broadway shows.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:43] Stuart, yeah.

[1:04:45] Get on there if you can.

[1:04:46] I had a really good time.

[1:04:48] I, you know, like, I don't think it's awful to say that sometimes I make an agreement to guests on a podcast.

[1:04:56] I'm like, ugh, I'm so busy this week.

[1:04:58] Do I, like, is this going to be a hassle?

[1:05:00] Is this not going to be great?

[1:05:01] I, once I started doing the original cast, I had so much fun talking musicals.

[1:05:06] Like, Patrick was a great host.

[1:05:08] I really had a good time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:09] Me too.

[1:05:10] What did you talk about on your episode, Dan?

[1:05:11] I talked about Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:15] Which cast album?

[1:05:16] The original or the revival?

[1:05:18] The original cast, yes.

[1:05:20] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:20] And I talked about the Music Man original cast album when I was on.

[1:05:25] I only asked because don't hate me people.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:28] Rest in peace yet again, Angela Lansbury.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:29] Yeah, don't hate me people.

[1:05:30] I kind of like the revival of Sweeney Todd, the album, more than the original Sweeney Todd album.

[1:05:36] But that's maybe because I saw one in person and one I didn't.

[1:05:38] Anyway, Stu, if you were going to be on that podcast, what musical album would you talk about?

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:44] Let's see.

[1:05:46] Is Power Slave by Iron Maiden a musical album?

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:50] I mean, their stage show is pretty close to a theatrical event, so maybe, yeah.

[1:05:54] Maybe they can make an exception for you.

[1:05:58] I've never been to a wedding that had a Music Man or Sweeney Todd cake as I saw a Power Slave cake at Jenny Jaffe's recent wedding.

[1:06:05] Nice.

[1:06:05] So that's one up on the others.

[1:06:07] So when you go on the original cake cast, you can talk about it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:10] Oh, cool.

[1:06:11] I can do that.

[1:06:11] I can talk about a cake you saw one time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:15] It's called Overheard Cakes, and it's about cakes that you heard someone else talking about.

[1:06:19] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:20] Before we move on, do you guys want to make any plugs for yourselves?

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:23] Always.

[1:06:24] Please, please.

[1:06:25] I own two bars in Brooklyn, New York.

[1:06:29] And you know what?

[1:06:29] You should come visit them.

[1:06:30] We have booze.

[1:06:32] We have snacks.

[1:06:33] We have nice bartenders.

[1:06:34] Sometimes I'm there.

[1:06:36] Hinterland's Bar and Minnie's Bar in Brooklyn, New York.

[1:06:40] Bye.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:41] I've got three things I want to plug, Dan.

[1:06:44] Sturge just left.

[1:06:45] Yeah, he left.

[1:06:46] Well, I guess we'll do the rest without him.

[1:06:48] Three things I want to plug.

[1:06:49] One, if you've got kids, why not listen to the Who Was podcast on iHeartRadio?

[1:06:53] That's a podcast I co-host, and it's really fun.

[1:06:56] It's a quiz show for kids about history.

[1:07:00] I'm sorry for laughing.

[1:07:01] That's funny.

[1:07:02] I'm not going to remind you.

[1:07:03] You don't have kids or you want to spend your time away from your kids?

[1:07:06] How about Maniac of New York?

[1:07:07] My super violent comic book from Aftershock Comics.

[1:07:10] Volumes one and two are collected in stores now.

[1:07:13] Volume three, Don't Call It a Comeback.

[1:07:15] That's the name of it.

[1:07:15] The Maniac of New York is Don't Call It a Comeback.

[1:07:17] Comes out, I think, December 7th, the first issue.

[1:07:20] And number three, let's go back to the kids again.

[1:07:22] My kids' books, Sharko and Hippo and Horse Meets Dog, still in bookstores.

[1:07:26] So that's some things for kids and some things for not for kids.

[1:07:30] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:31] Well, my book proposal that I set out came back with a lot of people being very positive about my voice

[1:07:37] and a little confused about whether the book actually would have an audience.

[1:07:41] So if anyone wants to just publish that right now.

[1:07:44] Wow.

[1:07:45] No, no.

[1:07:46] I probably have to reconceive it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:48] I mean, having read your book proposal, I think it's a very funny proposal.

[1:07:51] And I think you probably just need like a little bit more of a framework.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:54] Yeah, the framework is the key.

[1:07:56] But also, you know, if you want to save me time, if you're a big-time editor and you just want to put the book out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:02] If anyone's listening is an editor at a publishing company or a publisher.

[1:08:07] Big-time editor.

[1:08:07] Talk to my agent.

[1:08:09] Dan has a proposal for a comedic book and I have a novel that I want to start trying to sell.

[1:08:16] So get in touch.

[1:08:17] Yeah.

[1:08:18] Oh.

[1:08:18] Stu, what about you?

[1:08:18] What publishing projects are you trying to launch?

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:21] I'm still trying to publish that fucking coffee table book that's just pictures of dogs' faces while they're shitting.

[1:08:27] Yeah.

[1:08:28] Because they either look like super serious or super confused and I think it's fucking hilarious.

[1:08:33] And now would you divide it in two and one half of the book is serious and one is funny or you would split it up?

[1:08:37] It'd be all mixed up.

[1:08:38] That's part of the joy of a coffee table book is just picking it up and flipping through that shit.

[1:08:43] Sounds good.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:45] Hey, let's move on to letters.

[1:08:48] Why not?

[1:08:49] Let's do it.

[1:08:49] This letter is from Jonathan LastnameWithHeld who writes,

[1:08:53] Elliot's favorite movie, as mentioned in episode,

[1:08:58] I assume that they're referring to the previous episode based on the rest of the email,

[1:09:04] is taking of Pelham123.

[1:09:06] And yet, Charlie Varick is snubbed?

[1:09:10] A markedly more successful criminal than Michael Caine and it has Charlie in the title.

[1:09:15] Jonathan LastnameWithHeld taking you to task that your favorite Charlies didn't include.

[1:09:19] Charlie Varick as portrayed by Walter Matthau.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:23] You're right.

[1:09:24] I mean, to be honest, Walter Matthau to me is Lieutenant Zachary Garber or Grumpy Old Man.

[1:09:29] It's hard for me to think of him as any other character.

[1:09:32] Charlie Varick, I have to say, I like it.

[1:09:34] I don't love it.

[1:09:35] It's not one of my favorites of his.

[1:09:36] Oh, really?

[1:09:36] I love it.

[1:09:37] I love it.

[1:09:37] It feels to me like a movie that I wish had either a little bit more comedy or a little bit less comedy.

[1:09:42] But that's okay.

[1:09:43] You know?

[1:09:43] I like...

[1:09:44] Different people can disagree about things.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:46] That, I mean, Pelham obviously is also like an action thriller,

[1:09:50] although, you know, Matthau doesn't do any action.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:54] No, I mean, it's talking action.

[1:09:55] It's very conversational.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:56] What about that 10-minute long martial arts sequence he does?

[1:10:01] I was just going to say that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:02] I mean, he does shoot someone at one point, but still.

[1:10:04] I like that in Charlie Varick.

[1:10:06] 10-minute long.

[1:10:06] Yeah, the part, that single shot sequence.

[1:10:09] Single shot sequence, yeah.

[1:10:09] When Walter Matthau's fighting his way down a hallway.

[1:10:11] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:12] In both Charlie Varick and Hopscotch, he gets to be like an actual tough guy.

[1:10:17] And I think that that's...

[1:10:18] I mean, Hopscotch is a lot goofier, but...

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:20] Hopscotch is a lot...

[1:10:21] I can buy it more in Hopscotch because it's goofier.

[1:10:23] There's a part in Charlie Varick where he is a sex...

[1:10:25] He's like a sex god for a moment.

[1:10:26] And I'm like, this is a bridge I can't cross.

[1:10:28] I'm sorry.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:30] I just, you know, I think it's fun that he got to do those things.

[1:10:32] Although, on the other hand...

[1:10:33] Sure.

[1:10:34] As I've been talking to Elliot about it, I've been reading Mark Harris's biography of Mike Nichols.

[1:10:40] And Matthau sounds like a real asshole.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:42] He does come off like a real...

[1:10:45] Like, I've never read anything about him where someone other than Jack Lemmon was talking,

[1:10:49] where he came off as a friendly guy or someone you wanted to be around.

[1:10:52] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:53] So, I hope that answers your question about Charlie Varick.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:57] It's kind of like all the stories that are coming out now about Bill Murray and you're like,

[1:11:00] yeah, he always seemed like a guy that would be very difficult to be around.

[1:11:04] Yeah.

[1:11:04] Like, yeah.

[1:11:05] Not an easy guy to spend time with.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:06] As much as, yeah, the screen persona is appealing.

[1:11:10] You can see how this person is not someone you want to see in life, necessarily.

[1:11:14] Yeah.

[1:11:14] Ben Lasting withheld rights.

[1:11:17] Dear Flophouse.

[1:11:17] Ben Mankiewicz?

[1:11:18] Wow.

[1:11:19] Probably.

[1:11:19] Dear Flophouse, it's the most wonderful time of the year.

[1:11:22] Halloween.

[1:11:23] Spooky season to the youths.

[1:11:25] And it always makes me reminisce on my favorite batty fanged icons of pop culture.

[1:11:31] The Night Lords.

[1:11:33] Mm-hmm.

[1:11:34] Heretic.

[1:11:35] Astartes.

[1:11:36] Cool.

[1:11:36] Yep.

[1:11:36] Of the first founding.

[1:11:38] Uh-huh.

[1:11:38] Yep.

[1:11:38] Big E's 8th Legion.

[1:11:41] Uh-huh.

[1:11:41] But number two in my heart.

[1:11:42] Space Wolves are number one.

[1:11:44] But I'm burnt out on those guys.

[1:11:45] Cool.

[1:11:46] Stuart.

[1:11:47] What kind of metal would you suggest an enthusiast blast whilst cladding their plastic in shades

[1:11:53] of midnight?

[1:11:54] I thought Slayer initially, but is that too on the nose?

[1:11:58] Much love and thank you for making my Saturday morning commute delightful.

[1:12:02] Ave Dominus Nox.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:04] Mm-hmm.

[1:12:05] Cool.

[1:12:05] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:12:06] That's been last in the world.

[1:12:07] Dan, is there any mention of Conrad Kurz or the Night Haunter in there?

[1:12:13] I mean, you heard the letter.

[1:12:15] I don't know what you want from me.

[1:12:18] Dan, turn it over.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:19] Look on the back.

[1:12:20] Is there anything on the back?

[1:12:21] On the back, it's my iPhone case.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:25] It's green.

[1:12:26] Oh, okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:27] Is that what you're looking for, Stu?

[1:12:28] Yep.

[1:12:29] That's what I was looking for.

[1:12:30] Thank you.

[1:12:31] Painting Night Lords.

[1:12:32] They are a KF Space Marine Legion and they're baddies and they're a little spooky.

[1:12:38] You know what?

[1:12:39] I would recommend any of the Roadrunner King Diamond records.

[1:12:44] That's right.

[1:12:45] You got, what?

[1:12:47] Fatal Portrait.

[1:12:49] Abigail, of course.

[1:12:50] Them.

[1:12:52] Conspiracy.

[1:12:53] All those.

[1:12:54] Check those out.

[1:12:54] They're great.

[1:12:55] The Eye.

[1:12:56] All those albums.

[1:12:57] They're great.

[1:12:58] They're spooky.

[1:12:59] And you know what?

[1:12:59] King Diamond rules.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:01] Sounds good.

[1:13:03] I, as always, I zoned out.

[1:13:06] But now let's do the last part.

[1:13:09] Look at the rage in Stuart's eyes.

[1:13:11] It's like I'm talking about Warhammer and metal.

[1:13:14] This is important.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:15] Two of my favorite things.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:18] No, sorry.

[1:13:19] I was distracted to look through my film diary to see what I was going to recommend.

[1:13:24] And of course, I've seen, I've actually.

[1:13:26] Can I talk about weightlifting or something else I like?

[1:13:28] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:29] Or are you just going to roll your fucking eyes at me again?

Dan McCoy

[1:13:32] You know, I look at all of my weightlifting TikToks.

[1:13:37] Well, the ones that get posted to Instagram.

[1:13:39] I don't actually look at your TikTok.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:40] You don't look at my fucking TikTok?

[1:13:41] What do you jack off to?

Dan McCoy

[1:13:42] I don't look at TikTok ever.

[1:13:43] I don't know.

[1:13:44] It confuses and angers me.

[1:13:47] Because it reminds you of a clock.

[1:13:49] Yeah.

[1:13:51] I mean, that's, yeah.

[1:13:51] It has, there's two ways in which it reminds me of how old I am.

[1:13:58] Let's move on to the final part of the show where we recommend movies

[1:14:01] is that, and I've seen a lot of good movies lately, like Elliot has seen a lot of good movies.

[1:14:07] But one in particular I saw recently that I wanted to highlight.

[1:14:13] I saw Tar.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:14] Tar!

[1:14:16] I thought you were going to be like, I saw a lot of good movies lately, like Elliot,

[1:14:18] and I want to highlight one of them.

[1:14:19] It's called Screwballs.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:23] It's about a group of young sex criminals.

[1:14:25] It's about a little bit of a gentleman's wager.

[1:14:30] No, it's Tar with the little accent over the A.

[1:14:34] It's Todd Fields' new film, the first in I think like 12 years, starring Cate Blanchett.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:42] The first one he's made in 12 years, the first one in 12 years that stars Cate Blanchett?

Dan McCoy

[1:14:46] The first one he has made as a director since Little Children, I believe.

[1:14:51] And prior to that, he had made In the Bedroom.

[1:14:54] So a good director who has not been able to make a lot lately.

[1:14:58] But Tar is even a giant leap forward, I think, from those other previous works of his.

[1:15:05] I think that it gets tarred, if you will, by being the cancel culture movie, but that would be sort of diminishing to it.

[1:15:14] I think that there are a lot of movies out there that pretend to be character studies

[1:15:18] because they want to talk about some sort of thing in society.

[1:15:23] Like they use the character study as an excuse to get to the societal thing.

[1:15:26] Whereas I think that this movie actually uses sort of public reckonings of figures who have misbehaved in some way

[1:15:36] as a way to get to a character study.

[1:15:38] Yeah.

[1:15:39] Which is kind of more interesting, I think, as a film.

[1:15:43] And one of the things I like about it is it plays out almost like a stage play for at least the first half

[1:15:50] where we see Cate Blanchett's character interact with all people from different facets of her life.

[1:15:58] Like whether it be her wife, whether it be a fan, her assistant, the other conductor, like the assistant conductor,

[1:16:09] a student that she's teaching, and you get all the facets of who she is, like showing how people are very different depending on who they're interacting with

[1:16:20] and showing sort of what her strengths and her shortcomings are.

[1:16:26] And like, you know, as the movie comes on, we learn that she has done some things that are terrible

[1:16:32] and that she absolutely deserves to have some sort of reckoning for.

[1:16:36] But you also have enough of a sense of her as a complex character that you, I don't, like...

[1:16:42] You don't have to tell us everything that happens in the movie.

[1:16:44] I don't know.

[1:16:44] You just, like, it's just...

[1:16:47] It is that character study that I'm talking about.

[1:16:49] It's interesting to see this woman as she deals with her carefully constructed life sort of whirling out of control.

[1:16:57] And I don't know.

[1:16:59] It was a movie that, unlike Elliot, I watch a lot of trash in my spare time.

[1:17:05] What?

[1:17:05] In addition to the good things.

[1:17:08] I mean, I watch good things, too.

[1:17:09] I just rewatched Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, for one thing.

[1:17:12] But, uh...

[1:17:13] But...

[1:17:13] Checks out.

[1:17:14] Dan's not lying.

[1:17:15] Mm-hmm.

[1:17:16] Let's check his movie diary.

[1:17:17] Because of that aforementioned Mike Nichols biography.

[1:17:20] But watching this, I was like, oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:22] You're like, I watch good movies, too.

[1:17:24] I watched Woolf because of the Mike Nichols biography.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:26] But this movie, I was watching, I was like, oh, yeah, movies can do this.

[1:17:31] Like, this is like...

[1:17:32] Yeah, yeah.

[1:17:32] Like, even beyond, you know, not watching...

[1:17:37] Like, maybe watching too much goofball shit.

[1:17:39] Like, this is a movie that is doing something that I really haven't seen a film try and tackle, at least in a long, long time.

[1:17:50] And I enjoyed it.

[1:17:52] I really appreciated sort of being involved in something that was genuinely great, for once.

[1:17:58] Anyway.

[1:17:59] Now I want to hear what Elliot is going to recommend.

[1:18:01] Yeah, what are you going to recommend, Mr. I-watch-good-movies-now?

[1:18:05] Anyway, so there's a little movie called Predator 2.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:08] And it's the story of...

[1:18:10] John Predator.

[1:18:12] No, I watched...

[1:18:13] The movie I watched that I want to talk about is not a new movie, but an older movie.

[1:18:18] This is a movie called El Sur.

[1:18:20] It's a Spanish movie from 1983.

[1:18:22] It's by the same director, Victor Erice, I think his name is pronounced, who made Spirit of the Beehive, if you're familiar with that film.

[1:18:28] I feel like if there's any Spanish movie that's not made by either Bunuel or Almodovar that gets mentioned, it's Spirit of the Beehive.

[1:18:40] But El Sur is a movie about a young girl and her relationship with her family, but specifically her father.

[1:18:48] And it's narrated by that girl after she's all grown up.

[1:18:51] But it's telling the story of her childhood and how her father, who seems to have kind of secrets in his past, that she can't fully penetrate.

[1:18:59] But there's something about him that makes him the more special of the two parents to her.

[1:19:05] Maybe it's because of those secrets.

[1:19:06] Maybe it was because he doesn't quite understand her and she doesn't quite understand him.

[1:19:10] And it's a movie that the director considered it a kind of half-made movie.

[1:19:15] It's only 95 minutes long, and it ends at a point where the director was hoping to continue the film.

[1:19:20] But to me, it felt very fulfilling and very complete.

[1:19:23] And the south of the title is where her father is from, this place that she's never been and she's very curious about.

[1:19:29] But because of a political disagreement with his father in the Spanish Civil War years, he's left that place.

[1:19:36] And it's a really beautiful-looking movie.

[1:19:38] It's very kind of like dim and cozy is how I would say a lot of the visuals in this very early 80s way.

[1:19:46] And it just felt to me like a movie about a real thing that I'd never really thought that much about before, which is that even when you know your parents or you learn more about them, there's always an emotional truth to them that remains a mystery to you.

[1:19:59] And an emotional truth about you that remains a mystery to them, that no matter how much you love a member of your family, specifically a parent or a child, you can't – there's always going to be a part of them that you don't know but which to them feels omnipresent and inescapable.

[1:20:14] And I feel like this movie really captured that in a way that really moved me and I found very beautiful.

[1:20:18] And so it was after seeing a lot of – not terrible movies, but movies where I was like, that was fun.

[1:20:23] That was okay.

[1:20:23] Seeing a movie like this that really touched me very deeply, which I thought was visually very beautiful, it was like – similar to what Dan was – his reaction to Tara was like, oh, right.

[1:20:34] Like this is why I love movies is because they can – they speak to me in a way that otherwise I don't know how to be spoken to or how to speak to others.

[1:20:44] And so I really loved it.

[1:20:46] And it coming as a movie that I didn't know anything about going into it.

[1:20:50] I had never heard of it until I did the thing I do where I record any foreign movie I've never heard of that comes up on Turner Classic Movies.

[1:20:57] And so I really liked it a lot.

[1:20:59] So that's El Sur, literally the South for 1983.

[1:21:03] Don't know where you can find it.

[1:21:04] I don't know where it's streaming, but look for it.

[1:21:05] Why not?

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:06] And I have a little bit of a qualified recommendation.

[1:21:10] It's a movie that you can currently stream on Shudder called The Innocents.

[1:21:15] It was written and directed by the guy who wrote my favorite movie from last year, The Worst Person in the World, a movie that also reaffirmed my love of film and touched me deeply.

[1:21:25] The Innocents, maybe not as much, but it is a thriller about a group of children living in a housing complex in Norway.

[1:21:36] And the children start to develop kind of strange powers.

[1:21:42] And it is very kind of deliberate, patient.

[1:21:49] It makes a lot of effort to kind of build the world that these children inhabit.

[1:21:54] It relies a lot on the acting chops of a group of, you know, a small group of children.

[1:22:01] And it ends up, it kind of plays out a little bit like, it reminded me a little bit of like Domu, A Child's Dream, the Katsuhiro Tomo comic.

[1:22:10] And also, you know, with some like, you know, like Lord of the Flies, like kids making decisions that are, you know, get increasingly more dangerous.

[1:22:19] And it, the part of the reason it's qualified is that it is like, it is fairly slow and deliberate.

[1:22:25] It's also violent.

[1:22:28] And the violence is often directed at children and animals.

[1:22:32] So, it can be, it can be a difficult watch.

[1:22:35] But it is a very beautiful movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:38] I just want to, that's a great recommendation.

[1:22:41] I just want to backtrack and say that El Sur, I looked it up, is streaming on Criterion right now.

[1:22:47] Oh, okay.

[1:22:48] And of course, Tar is in theaters.

[1:22:50] I also wanted to say, like, I mentioned Tar giving me the feeling of a play.

[1:22:54] I don't want that to be misinterpreted.

[1:22:55] I just meant in that it has these scenes that are allowed to extend longer than a movie scene usually is.

[1:23:00] So, we can really like live in it with the characters.

[1:23:02] But it's very cinematic, especially with the use of sound.

[1:23:07] But, yeah.

[1:23:09] See, we know movies.

[1:23:10] We know other movies.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:11] We don't just, we don't just watch, we don't just watch.

[1:23:13] We don't just watch Countdown.

[1:23:14] We just all Countdown.

[1:23:15] Yeah, Countdown, come on.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:16] A movie that we kind of like.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:17] A movie that was fine for what it is.

[1:23:19] I mean, it was fine.

[1:23:20] It was okay.

[1:23:21] It does, you know.

[1:23:23] You know, you only have so many, according to my phone, I only have so many hours and days left in my life.

[1:23:29] I kind of don't want to go into it.

[1:23:31] But you know what, guys?

[1:23:32] I'm fine with it.

[1:23:34] It's cool.

[1:23:34] I get, you know, life, I get it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:36] That's the best way to deal with it, probably.

[1:23:39] I mean, Dylan Thomas would disagree.

[1:23:40] He would say rage.

[1:23:41] But, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:43] He was probably fucking drunk when he said that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:46] Wow.

[1:23:47] I mean, probably, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:49] That kind of makes me feel like Stuart doesn't have that much time left, so we should probably sign off.

[1:23:53] I just want to say before we go, thank you to Maximum Fun.

[1:23:58] Check out all the other great podcasts on the Maximum Fun network at MaximumFun.org.

[1:24:05] Check out our producer Alex's other podcast fast track.

[1:24:10] Oh, fuck.

[1:24:10] It goes by the name Howl Dottie.

[1:24:12] Did you just remember that you have to record some?

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:14] No.

[1:24:15] I mean, I remember that we recorded a hot new track.

[1:24:18] Yeah, there's a track.

[1:24:19] That's going to be dropping soon.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:20] Alex sent the guide track for this song that we're going to do.

[1:24:23] It's going to be burning up your ears.

[1:24:24] I love it already, and we haven't even done our parts yet, so I've got to record that.

[1:24:29] I've got to record my part, too, yeah.

[1:24:31] But anyway, so check him out, Howl Dottie on Twitter.

[1:24:36] And thank you for listening.

[1:24:38] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:40] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:24:42] And I'm Elliot Galen.

[1:24:49] Okay, Alex, make sure to drop in Bring Me to Life by Evanescence right now.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:55] You don't have the rights.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:01] Hemingway-esque is how I would describe that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:03] That was his classic six-word story.

[1:25:06] Baby shoes.

[1:25:08] For sale.

[1:25:09] Baby shoes.

[1:25:10] You know how usually you put baby shoes on the feet of a baby?

[1:25:12] Well, this time they weren't on the feet of a baby.

[1:25:14] They actually haven't been on a baby's feet.

[1:25:16] As new.

[1:25:17] They're basically new.

[1:25:18] Mid-condition.

[1:25:19] They haven't been on a baby's foot.

[1:25:20] We didn't have a baby.

[1:25:21] We planned to have a baby, and either we didn't have a baby or we had it and it died.

[1:25:24] You read into it.

[1:25:25] It was very sad.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:26] Yeah.

[1:25:27] My intro was tight enough that even sicko Cormac McCarthy would applaud me.

[1:25:33] Okay.

S6

[1:25:39] audience supported

Ep. #381 - Countdown (2019)

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