Ep. #381 - Countdown (2019)

[0:00] on this episode we discuss countdown so you guys remember in the movie Suicide

[0:06] Squad where Slipknot got his head exploded because flag uses little thing

[0:11] and he like hit a button on his phone and it blew off Slipknot's head and then

[0:14] Harley Quinn's like wow what a that's a killer app well what she was really

[0:18] talking about is the movie we watched today Countdown a movie about a killer

[0:51] McCoy I'm Stuart Wellington and I'm Elliot Kaelin this is a show that we

[1:01] know that much so far yeah you're already familiar with the premise of it

[1:05] being a show we're working from first principles a priori it's a show building

[1:11] from there there's two parts to a show 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 Stewart and Elliot the members of the flop house this is a podcast now

[1:26] Marcel Duchamp in his essay the role of the spectator in art would say that you

[1:29] the audience have an equal part to play in this process but in this case you

[1:33] don't because we can't hear you yeah anyway so we talk about bad movies on

[1:39] this number when you like tweeted us after the show and we're like oh that's

[1:42] a really interesting thing you thought of and that's a good point we will

[1:46] pretend to be interested Wow JK JK JK it's genuine interest

[1:53] JGI JK GI GI Joe genuine interest Joe that's when GI Joe nods and goes oh

[2:00] that's interesting he means it yeah yeah he's an active listener yeah during the

[2:06] month of October or shocktober as we call it here at the flock flop house and

[2:11] about birds it's also about applying fake grass to miniature dioramas the two

[2:19] things that the flock talks about so we watch horror movies during the spooky

[2:24] season shocktober we watched countdown from 2019 this time around guys I was

[2:31] surprised to learn looking at the Wikipedia page that countdown was a major

[2:36] return on investment it was a hit it cost like 6.5 million and made something

[2:42] like 40 something I'm looking at the Wikipedia page now says 48 million now

[2:46] again we don't know how much marketing and publicity cost you have to assume

[2:49] that that's at least the budget again usually but for a movie like this I

[2:53] don't know maybe not yeah well I don't recall there you don't remember seeing

[2:57] all the subway ads and the Burger King kids meal and saw it in spite of all the

[3:03] bad reviews they got at the time according to the trivia on IMDB

[3:07] apparently we did a lot more research for this than we usually do the trivia

[3:11] says the app featured in the film actually exists is owned by the studio

[3:15] was used to promote the film so you gotta assume a lot of money went into

[3:17] the research and development of an app that actually can tell you with exact

[3:21] prediction the second you're going to die I mean you cut out the middleman by

[3:25] just involving a demon in the process but I think I'm getting ahead of myself

[3:28] yeah it's true yeah you go to one of those you go to one of those Russian

[3:32] demon farms where they just have demons mining Bitcoin hour after hour one could

[3:36] argue that all tech companies are kind of demons and they're bad but uh I mean

[3:40] I don't want to make that argument right now because you might be listening to it

[3:43] this podcast you want one of those tech companies products yeah the Twitter bird

[3:47] might be listening to this and going well I never tweet tweet let me let me

[3:51] go amplify some misinformation and then put a tiny widget at the bottom that

[3:54] makes me feel like I did my job now here's the thing I was sent an email

[3:59] option to report people who are being horrible but then do nothing about it

[4:03] you could choose not to the I once sent an email to someone and instead of going

[4:07] the person I meant it to go to it went to a mailer demon and I was like ah and

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

[4:15] membership and he was a long story so Stuart why don't you tell us about this

[4:20] movie okay well we're off to an auspicious start because there's not

[4:24] that many production logos it was at this point I'm like I usually when I'm

[4:29] doing the summaries just to pull back the curtain I usually kick back my heels

[4:33] chill drink a cup of coffee because I know there's like 50 production logos I

[4:37] can do whatever the fuck I want that's me time unfortunately I had to watch the

[4:42] movie so you're scrambling to get to your pad and pen oh shit

[4:46] dust off my typewriter real quick okay so the movie opens on a house party

[4:53] filled with teens slash college students our hero group of teens are

[4:57] sitting around the table playing a drinking game these are roughly the

[5:05] Drew Barrymore in scream for this movie mm-hmm so they're playing a drinking

[5:10] game but they quickly get distracted like teens do by talking about social

[5:15] media and other apps they stumble upon and they accidentally stumble on this

[5:21] app countdown looking for a weight-loss app instead they find counting countdown

[5:26] which very impressive that this app man should get in there and get the name

[5:30] countdown lockdown I'm gonna I'm gonna say this a surprising amount during this

[5:36] this this episode I think I liked the way the movie handled this like I

[5:40] thought this was pretty efficient that there were just like this let's all

[5:45] agree that in the app that counts down to when you die as a horror movie

[5:51] premise is maybe I wouldn't say it's inherently a bad idea because all ideas

[5:57] can can work but knowing the history of internet-based horror I had there's a

[6:03] lot of yeah there's a lot of speed bumps on the on the road I mean because once

[6:09] you introduce that you're also like who made this or like who made it and who

[6:13] the Apple Store like approved it yes and also it's got 3.6 stars which is

[6:18] madness I love that I love that I thought that was so hilarious because

[6:23] it's like pretty a lot of people like it there's a few people there like demon

[6:29] came and killed me when I tried to save my life one star that the people who

[6:33] died didn't rate the thing so it's like my my brother downloaded this app and

[6:38] died yeah when the app tells you you've got 70 more years to live and you're

[6:44] like five stars yeah and this is the exact like someone pointed this out I

[6:49] think I I might be stealing something for someone's letterbox review but so I

[6:53] apologize research on this but I love that like 3.6 stars I feel like is the

[6:59] exact number where you're like okay I'll still download this it's probably gonna

[7:04] do something to my phone but I just wanted to say like I think it's good

[7:10] that it jumped into this because otherwise setting up the idea that all

[7:15] these people are gonna download this app I don't know I'm not necessarily there's

[7:18] a lot of ways to go about that I'm not gonna really buy but the idea that

[7:22] they're just like at a party they're looking for another app they see this

[7:25] happen they're like yeah sure we can make a dumb drinking game out of this

[7:27] let's do this which I'm like okay let's do it I'm definitely I remember a night

[7:31] at the bar we're like a bunch of the regulars and I all just downloaded

[7:34] co-star and matched and then compared our astrology charts to each other

[7:38] because there's nothing else to do except drink yeah okay remember speaking

[7:42] of drinking and apps that years ago someone made a lot of money off of an

[7:46] app you had to pay for and all it did was it looked like the screen on your

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

[7:53] pouring on the screen that's all it did I think it cost two dollars and I

[7:57] remember having many friends that paid to have that yeah yeah so I totally

[8:01] believe that for free the thing that I don't the thing that is a hard thing for

[8:05] this hard thread for this needle of thread this movie thread the hard needle

[8:08] of thread for this movie you get them that we won't make fun of you for a myth

[8:13] thank you it's the kind of gray area between people downloading it as a lark

[8:19] and treating it as a joke but also kind of treating it as real which I guess

[8:24] fits into teen life where things are both a joke and and not but it's all

[8:29] about irony you know I feel like people would download it and they'd be like 60

[8:33] years pretty sweet but then they would immediately ingest that as that is the

[8:38] amount of time that I'm living you know they wouldn't nobody ever they download

[8:42] it as a joke and but nobody but everyone kind of took it as real right off the

[8:46] bat you know it's a greater level great and and we're gonna like we're kind of

[8:50] getting into the meat of this app thing but part of it is that nobody the joke

[8:54] is that nobody reads the user agreement which makes sense and then but part of

[8:59] the user agreement is if you change up if you change your life decisions in any

[9:03] way based on this information you break the user agreement and a demon kills you

[9:08] and the thing that's wild is that we only deal with people that are like I'm

[9:13] dying soon I'm just gonna break these plans as opposed to people they're like

[9:16] I'm gonna live 70 years I'm just gonna go hog-wild yeah there's a whole flip

[9:22] side of this that we never see like that would be a good idea like you're

[9:26] breaking the user agreement you're like oh I'm gonna live till I'm 90 uh-huh

[9:29] fuck it I'm yeah fuck well now man as we see later on the app is so in intent on

[9:37] enforcing that countdown a specific countdown that it means that this busy

[9:41] demon to be constantly like doing stuff to save your life

[9:45] to be honest that's the premise I would really love if it's like fuck it I'm

[9:57] gonna live like I'm I'm never wearing

[10:00] Condom again. I'm eating nothing but garbage. I'm gonna throw myself out of windows and the demon is like

[10:08] Okay, so our heroine Courtney reluctantly downloads the app

[10:18] She finds out she only has three hours to live so her boyfriend Evan decides to get super drunk and

[10:23] Drive her home and she's like no I'm gonna die and he's like get out of here 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. There's a few jump scares app keeps making spooky sounds, which is a great feature the UI

[10:47] I don't know about you. But like who leaves the notifications

[10:51] Every time it apps like can we send you notifications? I'm like no or hammer army list making app

[10:56] You don't need to send me fucking notification

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

[11:03] I'm pretty sure that the app is a demonic app

[11:08] Limited options to customize. Okay, I will only give it three stars then. Okay, so

[11:16] She then goes home to a dark house and then she gets you I mean we can assume it's her house. Yeah

[11:23] The listeners were probably like she just went into some strange dark

[11:27] well

[11:28] it is funny cuz like the guy was about to get like drive her drunk home and

[11:32] Based on this walk it like it feels like she lives maybe two blocks. Oh, yeah

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

[11:41] You you would drive those two blocks. Welcome to LA Dan

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

[11:51] It's my it's my right as an American to use gasoline for all movement of any kind outside of buildings

[11:58] so

[12:00] She is in the bathroom

[12:01] There's a few scares and then she gets yanked up in the air by some invisible force and like it's smashed and then her broken

[12:08] Body is smashed against the floor right when she was supposed to die

[12:12] Oh, and then we cut to ours to that app and then before the end of this cold

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

[12:24] For the end of the cold open here

[12:26] 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] Oh, how does that tie in together?

[12:35] okay cut to a hospital where that same boyfriend Evan is preparing for a surgery and he is nervous he's

[12:42] He's scared that he's going to die during surgery because he had also downloaded the app and

[12:47] It says basically that he's going to die when the surgery scheduled

[12:51] Yeah

[12:51] He doesn't like this information unless a safe is gonna fall through the ceiling and crush him on his way to the OR he is

[12:58] Yeah

[13:00] And he complains about this to Quinn the real hero of the movie played by Beck from you the first season of you

[13:08] Now you could call Quinn a medicine woman, couldn't you?

[13:12] The whole time I guess I'll just delete that from every instance in my notes

[13:18] Okay, he's a nurse. Yeah

[13:21] Well, in fact, she just passed her test. She's officially a nurse. So they throw her a party

[13:26] Ever 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 that ain't good

[13:37] And then a doctor played by Peter Fastonelli 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. Okay, so then Quinn has to go to her childhood

[13:54] She says more than no, thanks. I want to make it clear. I'm not laughing at the idea

[13:59] She's just like no, thanks, it's more. Yeah, he's more handsy and

[14:03] It's a real pressure and assault situation. Well initially 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

[14:16] He's being inappropriate but he is not yet being threatening yeah or violence, you know, um, 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 do

[14:30] So she didn't have to fill it out before cuz she was she was because she was like a resident student or

[14:37] Audrey who works in payroll points out the hell like

[14:40] Like this is like all a weird excuse for the movie to get her to go back home to get her birth certificate

[14:47] No

[14:49] Because because she she's she doesn't want to be near her family

[14:52] I guess but it really is creating a very big reason for have to

[14:57] Go to see her family who live in the same town that yeah

[15:00] Yeah, so she has to go to her childhood home to get that birth certificate

[15:04] While she's home. She never does too

[15:06] So all the scenes afterwards as far as I know all the scenes afterwards where she's working

[15:10] She's there. Yeah later on later on when she has that HR meeting. I'm like, this is probably about the

[15:16] Under the table

[15:20] Permanent resident the United States

[15:22] So she 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. They clearly have some strained relationship

[15:34] resulting from the death of their mother

[15:37] And their father is like hey, we're gonna go put flowers on your mom's grave on Saturday and she's like, okay, let's do it

[15:42] Don't worry. She's gonna but you don't know like those flowers were for Algernon. Yeah

[15:48] Yep, exactly about it. Uh-huh. Do you think florists have to deal with a lot of that joke? I

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

[15:57] I I would say that that is probably a joke that has been made at some point

[16:02] Okay, although I was buying nothing not recently

[16:06] I

[16:08] Feel like if the if the florist sees that a middle school English teacher is walking into the into the place then maybe they get

[16:15] a little worried that the

[16:17] Steal yourself. Did it seem to you like their their dad was very young. I

[16:24] Guess I mean

[16:25] Yeah, just that movies have made it impossible for me to tell how old people I think it's that in general aging and so

[16:32] People look young to us

[16:36] I saw Timothy Oliphant on and Johnny Knoxville both on Seth Meyers recently and both of them live their fucking faces are so smooth

[16:44] Like they look they they're very sexy men, but I gotta tell you I don't know

[16:48] I wouldn't call either of those faces smooth, but like watch watch this

[16:52] Myers, maybe there's a digital artist

[16:55] Cleaning that shit up

[16:56] I think is a extremely handsome handsome, man

[16:59] Yeah, very very handsome Johnny Knoxville's also a handsome man

[17:03] Very a lot of character, but both of them have like that's what I would say that character in their face

[17:07] Johnny Maxwell in particular has like

[17:10] And Johnny Knoxville's on that I've been thinking that he actually looks quite old and craggy. Yeah, so, okay

[17:15] Well you guys go back and watch I guess there's a plug for an episode of a late night with Seth Meyers and see him

[17:21] for whatever reason

[17:23] Much smoother than I expected them to look and it threw me off because I'm like, hey guys, you guys look great

[17:28] Just age naturally, whatever, but I'm trying to still play teenagers

[17:32] I think they were trying to do a new thing where the camera is is

[17:35] Watching the show through the app that makes sees what you would look like as a baby

[17:40] Okay, so yeah, of course she makes the plans of their dad and you're like is she even gonna be alive?

[17:46] But don't worry like three scenes later. She just breaks those plans

[17:49] She breaks the plans it's like if you're gonna die just keep the plans, okay, you know, yeah, it's yeah, it's like

[17:57] Before I don't want your dad's last thing to be like, oh man, I'd really miss her but she did break plans with me

[18:03] I guess she doesn't have time to put flowers on the grave of her dead mom

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

[18:12] Okay, so Evan the injured drunk-driving exploit or well boyfriend

[18:16] Is nervous, he's gonna die during surgery. So he decides to make a run for it

[18:20] He legs it down the hall

[18:21] He writes a letter to himself saying dear Evan hands on because his hands are still on his arms. They were not removed right yet

[18:31] The letter he's writing to himself

[18:33] He has to remind himself that he's not talking to his other friend Evan who I suppose who has no hands. Yeah, exactly

[18:40] Yeah, Evan handless. Yeah

[18:42] But yeah, it's interesting that he

[18:45] You know on crutches decides that the best thing to do to avoid death is to go down a lot of flights of stairs

[18:53] This is not exactly Final Destination where it feels like death has to work pretty hard to set up these elaborate traps here

[19:00] It's almost like if it's like if a mouse was throwing himself at a mousetrap and you were like

[19:03] Let me put the cheese on it. At least let me give me a moment to set it

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

[19:13] Destination Wow

[19:16] He he's looking at you're not wearing pants

[19:19] That's exactly. Thank you. That was it was all it's this character a thing that I'm doing

[19:23] He's looking at a reflective surface and he sees a like a shadowy demonic figure in the background and I'm like

[19:29] Oh

[19:29] this is your daddy's final destination because there's none of that in that shit and of course like there's a bit where like he looks

[19:34] In the mirror and then all of a sudden the thing like rushes the mirror and it cracks

[19:38] So he's like, okay, I'm gonna go down a stairwell immediately gets locked in lights go out. Oh fuck. What am I gonna do?

[19:44] His time's running out. He hears somebody else coming up the stairs turns around. Oh, no, it's his girlfriend Courtney, but she's dead

[19:50] She turns her face around. It's totally monsterfied. He falls down what?

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

[20:00] time is running out and then right when it hits zero his time hits zero his battered body splats

[20:06] against the stairs period on the end of that sentence uh cool okay uh let's see quinn goes

[20:14] to the morgue to inspect the body she unlocks his phone using his uh dead she goes to the morgue

[20:20] because she got his phone right because she knows because he he told her that he had the countdown

[20:26] app right yeah yeah that was their first conversation connection she is yeah not just

[20:31] scared because the countdown app exists she's scared because he has told her like oh my my

[20:37] girlfriend did die when countdown said so she has at least some reason to believe that there

[20:44] might be something to this and yeah she goes into unlock the phone to do a little investigating and

[20:49] there's you know there's a couple of dead body bits where like it seems like the body's moving

[20:54] or is it yeah it's like turns and look at her oh yeah she has to open up the dead body's eyes

[20:58] which is a little fun little yep yep time lock the phone yeah it was so funny shenanigans there's

[21:05] four or five levels of security and first it's eyes then it's fingerprint then it's toe print

[21:11] for some reason and then it's navel print so she's like oh so why why is his phone so secure

[21:17] she's a teenager do you guys do you think i could pull off a penis print shirt

[21:21] yeah you look great i mean i think you could you look amazing um quinn uh so quinn breaks

[21:27] your plans with her dad then immediately gets a user agreement notification she has broken her

[21:32] user agreement because i guess you changed your plans because she was worried she was going to die

[21:36] at a cemetery which seems like the most convenient place to die yeah yeah that's really the thing

[21:42] that's concerning yeah yeah she's not worried about her mortality so it's not inconveniencing

[21:46] other people have to deal with her her remains yeah and if you die at a cemetery they don't even

[21:51] have to dig a hole they just smush you into the ground and they walk away throw her in the

[21:55] mulcher um yeah and then there's uh then shadowy figures start appear in the background what uh oh

[22:01] that's what happens when you break your user agreement folks because because that's the it's

[22:04] one of these this is this is one of these demons where it's like you're already going to kill these

[22:08] people is do you really have to keep going like maybe now no i'm not touching you yeah like it

[22:16] seems like this this is a pretty dicky demon it's a dickish demon yeah yeah yeah i mean i feel like

[22:21] demons are probably not cool probably i don't know haven't you ever seen a tattoo on a on a

[22:27] on a young jazz musician's arm of like a cool devil man i did and then i saw oh wait what he

[22:33] dies and the tattoo's gone what yeah yeah it goes my time my job here is done when i say jazz musician

[22:40] what i really should have said is swing dancer oh okay okay um so uh then quinn uh gets assaulted

[22:48] by her supervising doctor played by peter fascinelli uh who then uh and she she fights

[22:54] fights him off uh and then before she can alert her supervising nurse he calls the nurse away

[23:01] um to theoretically to like undercut her and change the narrative and then she immediately

[23:07] gets another notification from this fucking app and at this point i'm like who fucking cares about

[23:12] the demon anymore like this this shit is serious well also like it is i mean look uh i want to

[23:23] choose my words carefully because like like the sexual harassment is is not funny but the way that

[23:27] this movie handles it is so goofy because she like is going to talk to someone about it and then she

[23:33] is thwarted so quickly yeah and and then never follows up on that and then later on they like

[23:41] suspend her without any investigation or like taking her without even asking her taking her

[23:46] side right what her perspective was and look i know that a lot of people have a lot of horrible

[23:53] experiences where they're not believed but for a movie made now to have like a major hospital be

[24:00] like we're not going to do any sort of investigation like i just feel like to cover their

[24:05] own asses they would do a little more than automatically assuming that the first person

[24:10] they talk to i'm of two minds dan i'm of two minds because one it really it's so ham-handedly handled

[24:16] yes that it is very like it you do think that something even the fact that like she's like

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

[24:26] do something for me and she's like can it wait a minute and at that moment she just has to say

[24:29] look that doctor just i mean it's hard to say those things especially when he's right there

[24:33] obviously like no this is really serious i need your help but instead she's just like

[24:37] like sitcom kind of can't say it but also i'm gonna say more is that rather than blaming

[24:43] her actions i would argue the the way that the hospital reacts well that's what i'm gonna say

[24:48] i think dan is being a little naive at the same time that even in the time we live in

[24:52] he is a powerful doctor he's seemingly the only doctor in the whole hospital we never see any

[24:56] other ones she is the newest nurse on the job the hospital it and hospitals do not like even

[25:03] they do not like to have those stories even today in the world we live in dan

[25:06] power still gets to cover up you believe me i agree that like but it's it's so ridiculous as

[25:12] a surgeon like he has the power in that situation compared to this i thought you meant to say i

[25:16] believe as a surgeon that that and i was like dan you're not a surgeon no i i believe that i but

[25:22] the movie the movie does not do it in any way that like like they have made up their decision

[25:29] before she walks in the door yeah and they're like we're not even gonna listen to anything and

[25:34] like even he even says like oh he said she said scenario i'm like yeah she hasn't said anything

[25:39] yet 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 this is

[25:51] silly let's talk about the serious thing serious issues what it really what it really says is

[25:58] if you're making what i think it is that uh if you're gonna make a horror movie that is relevant

[26:03] in some way that relevance should play into the main gimmick or conceit of the movie as opposed

[26:08] to there's a there's a demonic app we're making this movie about how people social media i guess

[26:13] or apps there's a demonic app that kills people uh but we should also put some me too stuff in

[26:17] there maybe we shouldn't put some meat no you gotta understand that the demon ozen is the demon

[26:22] of knowing when you're supposed to die and changing the rules and also abuse of power

[26:27] and sexual oh i see it's like if you want to address that issue make him maybe make a movie

[26:31] about that issue yeah as opposed to anyway i i want to make it clear i am aware that there are

[26:36] a lot of situations in real life where there are terrible miscarriages of justice i'm just saying

[26:41] that in this movie the movie doesn't do a very good job of what it wants to do which is to be

[26:47] like this is so unfair but like it's still i don't know not seeming like it it just is being

[26:53] handled in the silliest way possible because it's such a tangential issue in this and it's not it's

[26:58] not the main focus of the movies they really don't have a lot of real estate to to spend on it yeah

[27:03] and they uh but they just wave it away i do like that dan you mentioned about how in real life it

[27:08] would be different because you of course are a real life expert since you're dan in real life

[27:13] in general that's true i pancake enthusiast i had waffles this morning is that do you think

[27:19] that's a betrayal that is a betrayal depends on what you do did you eat or did you lay your head

[27:23] on them like a sad pillow i just just held them up to my face and jelly crisps okay so uh quinn

[27:33] goes home and she starts looking up stuff uh she looks up some reports on the countdown app being

[27:39] tied to deaths she watches a video that a woman who uh was bedeviled by the countdown app of her

[27:46] dying and people of course are like cap cap this is bullshit this is fake uh well i do have a

[27:52] question which is like who uploaded this video because 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 like

[28:03] a live stream but then someone else that's what i would suggest is it was a live stream or a twitch

[28:07] stream i forgot to mention that one of the video i forgot that to mention that one of the comments

[28:11] that said it was fake was actually from user dank mccoy who uploaded i think uh i debate me that's

[28:20] how he ends that comment yeah uh i think that uh i what i like about this scene is that it harkens

[28:26] back to my first flop house episode i know who killed me where she's doing research on telepathy

[28:32] or something like that and she pulls up a video with that with the host of a coast to coast uh

[28:38] what's his name bell and it was one of the things art bell and it was like it was like you know what

[28:43] the internet doesn't really work this way and now almost 20 years later the internet still does it

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

[28:53] works uh by at least including comments that that are hating on the video so you know what

[28:59] movies you're trying your best you're making slow progress but you know one small step for

[29:03] countdown one giant leap for depictions of the internet in low-ish budget horror movies so

[29:09] research complete quinn closes her laptop only to see a the ghost of evan now monsterfied sitting

[29:15] on the edge of her bed and she gets scared so she runs out of there uh any questions

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

[29:25] uh she then gets woken up by her sister jordan they get in a fight but in the process her sister

[29:32] learns about the countdown app uh-oh is that going to play into the story of course it does

[29:38] she goes to buy a new phone from tom sagura who is pretty funny this movie this is one of two

[29:46] scenes in the movie where the movie starts embracing the inherent ridiculousness of the

[29:50] premise by having very comedy characters and i thought he was really funny in it yeah yeah well

[29:55] yes and i kind of feel bad that this movie was

[30:00] you know, to offer a preview of my feelings later. Well, no, I

[30:04] feel bad that this movie was so shat upon just because we have

[30:09] watched so many movies like this for the Flophouse that are

[30:13] sort of aiming at a similar thing and doing it with so much

[30:18] less at least attempt to like or care like there are moments

[30:23] in this film where like a scene shows up where an ancillary

[30:27] character like this phone seller comes up. And I'm like,

[30:33] oh, whoever made this, they were trying to make this work.

[30:37] They're trying something. They're adding a little extra

[30:40] pepper to it in a way that I've seen so many other movies do

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

[30:48] interesting. And so I really appreciate when we meet this

[30:51] character who is just introduced being an absolute asshole to

[30:54] each other. So she buys this new phone. And of course, the

[30:58] app mysteriously appears on it before she leaves the store.

[31:02] What she throws a fit in the store goes out in her car gets

[31:05] attacked by a specter and then gets rescued by a guy who

[31:09] overheard her talking about the app in the store. This guy

[31:11] Matt who turns out also has downloaded the countdown app

[31:15] and doesn't have long to live. They go to a bar. They find an

[31:20] old drunk conspiracy. This is one of those. This reminds me

[31:23] of a lot of these movies where they're like, we've only got

[31:28] we've only got hours to live. We've got to get on top of this

[31:30] and then it cuts to nighttime and they're at a bar and I was

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

[31:39] It was kind of like how I would write papers in college.

[31:42] There's a scene in Ringu where they're like, they only have

[31:46] a week to live. They got that phone call and they're researching

[31:48] and they go, oh, a lot of research. I guess I'll go home

[31:51] now and I'm like, I don't think you should keep working Elliot.

[31:55] You know, you need a work-life balance. Okay. Yeah.

[32:01] I think when I when I know I only have a limited number of

[32:04] days to live. I'm going to be on that grind.

[32:07] I'm not going to give up guys. If this was me, if I download

[32:10] the app, I'd be like, okay, I get it. That's fine.

[32:14] I cut. Well, I kind of was hoping at a certain point that

[32:16] the moral of the movie was going to be acceptance of fate

[32:19] that it was going to be like if this is what's allotted to

[32:21] me. I'm going to meet it with with calm and with except

[32:24] with with like peacefulness and acceptance and I'm not

[32:28] going to make a fuss but it's not what this movie is about

[32:30] in which case don't go to a bar. Just have a drink later

[32:32] in the day. Like do you work so there but they're they're

[32:35] commiserating over their mutual situation where neither

[32:38] of them have read the user agreement. So they're talking

[32:40] to this old this old drunk guy who is spouting some general

[32:45] conspiracy stuff and they're and they're like, hey, why

[32:47] don't we get this guy to download the app onto his phone

[32:50] and and Quinn's like, no, I don't want to, you know, tie

[32:52] this guy's soul to a devil and then the guy says something

[32:56] about not believing in the Holocaust and she's like, okay,

[32:58] let's get them to download it which they do and they read

[33:01] the user agreement and this movie. I'm realizing it exists

[33:06] in two different worlds that it keeps going back and forth

[33:08] between the kind of standard not that interesting takes

[33:12] itself very seriously boilerplate horror movie world

[33:15] that we've seen so many times and this kooky world where

[33:18] there's just kind of nutty character like this Daniel

[33:20] clothes world that is just a slightly sideways or where

[33:24] Daniel Klaus. I don't remember how to pronounce Klaus where

[33:25] we're Klaus where it's like there where there's this

[33:28] super insulting phone guy and later on there's the fanboy

[33:32] priest and then there's this there's this conspiracy

[33:35] nutball at the who's so so loudly and bigly a cartoon

[33:41] of that kind of person at the bar like I kind of wondered

[33:44] I mean, I see these guys all the time. I guess that's

[33:48] true as long as we're correcting name pronunciations.

[33:51] I believe it's Peter Fetch and Ellie Fetch and Ellie.

[33:54] Okay, Peter Fetch and Ellie if you're listening right

[33:56] in tell us if you're we're right or wrong and let me

[33:59] know if in New Jersey. I should say Fetch and now. Oh,

[34:02] yeah. Yep. Okay. So they go to the hospital where Matt

[34:09] has a scary encounter with a little boy. He goes to

[34:11] the men's room. I don't did we talk about what they

[34:14] learned from the user agreement though? Yeah, I guess

[34:16] I guess we talked about it earlier. Okay, if after

[34:19] learning the time of their death if they change their

[34:21] life in any way they break the agreement, which again

[34:24] I feel like it's almost impossible not to yeah, I have

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

[34:30] is that if you if it says you'll live to be 70 years

[34:33] old and then at some point you just make a different

[34:35] decision. You don't even know it's related to like you

[34:37] go into this room instead of that room and you don't

[34:39] meet the woman that you'll marry and then she'll murder

[34:41] you eventually like how do you does it then?

[34:44] I don't know. I think it has to be conscious choice.

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

[34:50] that's my other thing is that it seems like a really

[34:52] poor understanding of what fate is because my

[34:54] understanding of fate is it's like an Oedipus Rex

[34:57] where every single thing they did to try to avoid

[34:59] the prophecy made it happen as opposed to you did

[35:03] something different and now a ghost comes and kills

[35:05] you, you know, it's not like it wasn't like, okay,

[35:08] Tiresias said that my son is going to kill me and

[35:11] have sex with his mother, right? I guess I'll get

[35:12] rid of him and then a demon goes. No, no, no, no,

[35:14] no and picks up the sun and pushes him on top of

[35:17] the mountain. I understand what you're saying, but

[35:18] this this move this app plays by Final Destination

[35:21] rules where it's like, oh, I've never liked the

[35:24] I say now another thing that's totally unrelated

[35:26] is going to come get you. That brings me up my

[35:28] thing about Final Destination that I must have

[35:29] mentioned before where I just think it's so goofy

[35:31] that death is like, oh, you escaped me. I'm going

[35:33] to get you and it's like just wait it out death.

[35:36] Everybody dies like it's not it's not like you

[35:39] job. Yeah, but it's super fun. It is really fun

[35:43] the way they do. But the idea that like, oh now

[35:47] you've escaped my clutches and I've got to work

[35:48] extra hard to get you. It reminds me of a something

[35:51] that a good old co-worker of mine Rich Blomquist

[35:54] once said when a woman who was the last survivor

[35:56] of the Titanic died and she had been a baby when

[35:59] the ship went down and he goes first the Titanic

[36:03] nobody gets away. The Titanic had tracked her down

[36:07] a hundred years later and finally took her out.

[36:10] Yeah. Okay. So Matt has a scary encounter with a

[36:14] little boy ghost in the men's room. This had a

[36:17] couple of good scares. I like the bit where you

[36:19] see the little boys feet walking behind the

[36:23] stall like he's like in the stalls, but he's like

[36:25] going through the dividers unless they had removed

[36:29] the dividers like this one bathroom at one of

[36:31] the dorms and it's called it's called a neighbor

[36:36] bathroom where they want everyone sitting in the

[36:37] stalls to be neighbors and talk and things to

[36:40] each other. We've shielded you from the outside

[36:42] world of the the bathroom foyer. I guess inside

[36:46] here. They're like they're like look you're either

[36:49] in or you're out. If you want to see these people

[36:51] you got to get in a stall and start pooping. It's

[36:53] like I'm going to take that step. It's a modern.

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

[36:59] Interesting. Okay. So and then like and there's

[37:02] a bit like why can't everyone be a Louis the 16th

[37:05] being watched while you poop and talking to your

[37:07] courtiers? Yeah. Okay. So and also this is when

[37:13] the evil doctor Dr. Sullivan tries to ruin Quinn's

[37:16] life. They bring her into a meeting with HR

[37:19] department who immediately accused her of assaulting

[37:23] him and they are going to suspend her and she

[37:27] obviously is dealing with a lot and she can't deal

[37:29] with this situation and she doesn't even have like

[37:32] any representative to help her out. It's really

[37:34] bad. So she storms out and so Quinn and Matt then

[37:41] at the direction of the hospital pastor go to speak

[37:43] with father John a kind of non-traditional priest

[37:47] who's into demonology and stuff and listen yet.

[37:49] What to like trap music. Yeah, we might as well

[37:52] have called him father otaku because he's just

[37:54] like super super demon fanboy. Yeah, and I think

[37:57] he is implied to be maybe stoned when they show

[38:01] up because he's really concerned about his grub

[38:02] hub arriving and he's eating the communion wafers

[38:05] as if they are like chips. Uh-huh. And so maybe

[38:09] yeah, I didn't think I didn't put it together

[38:10] that he's stoned but he is certainly not your

[38:13] daddy's priest. Yeah, unless your daddy was Jerry

[38:16] Garcia, I guess. I don't know. He immediately is

[38:18] on board and he explains to them this story about

[38:25] this a general who learned the time of his death.

[38:28] So he swapped places with his brother, but then

[38:30] he still died. Anyway, he uses he uses a commonly

[38:33] used but but not acceptable slur for Roma many

[38:36] times and each time it really it really didn't

[38:39] like the sound of it. Yeah, and the yeah, and

[38:43] the it's all tied in with his demon ozon. Okay.

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

[38:48] with is ozon the demon ozone. Yep. He's the demon

[38:53] that's causing global warning learning to and

[38:55] they realize if they're going to if they're going

[38:57] to figure out the because this is all tied in

[38:59] with like a contractual agreement. They're going

[39:02] to need to hack that. They're going to need to

[39:04] get into that app. So they need a hacker. So they

[39:06] track down the guy who runs the cell phone store

[39:09] Tom Segura who to hack the app. He has to postpone

[39:14] his Tinder date. Don't worry. He still has it in

[39:16] the mid credit sequence. I'm so glad because I

[39:22] skip forward to see if there's a mid credit

[39:23] sequence. I'm like, I'm sure hope that Stewart

[39:25] is doing this too. Yeah in the summary. Yeah. I

[39:28] mean it was just lucky that I just left the TV

[39:30] running while I was doing other stuff. Okay,

[39:33] because you were so scared you couldn't bear to

[39:35] turn it off. Yeah. I feel like if I poked my

[39:38] hand out from under the blanket to get the

[39:40] remote that the demon ozon would rip my arm

[39:43] clean off my body. Now. I want to ask our

[39:46] audience. I'm looking at my brief internet

[39:48] research. No, no, I want them to write in later

[39:51] as I established early on. I'm aware of this

[39:53] a one-way street that is ozon a real demon. Is

[39:57] it based on a real demon or is it totally made

[39:59] up for?

[40:00] Because all I can find online is references to the movie, and I'm curious whether they made up a fake demon or had the balls to use a real demon and risk that demon coming along and suing them.

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

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

[40:16] Also, the legend, they didn't try and make that story into something from the Bible, right?

[40:23] That was just something that – because I don't think that that's from anything.

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

[40:30] Yes. Well, there's the story of the appointment in Samara and things like that.

[40:34] Yeah, exactly.

[40:35] So it's like – I think that – it's not exactly the same, I guess, 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, but I don't think he says that this particular story is from.

[40:52] OK. So he – so Tom Segura hacks into their phones.

[40:56] He hacks into the app.

[40:58] 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, and we find out, oh, no, Quinn's sister Jordan has downloaded the app.

[41:08] Of course.

[41:09] 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.

[41:17] Ozen has been defeated.

[41:19] It seems to work on their apps, and I love this idea that – obviously we all know this is not going to stick, but I do love the idea that there's –

[41:26] No, because there's lots of movie left.

[41:27] There's enough actual code involved in this mystical app that it's like, OK, well, I guess the number does have to change.

[41:37] Yeah, at least temporarily.

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

[41:42] 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 but without any of the greatness of Prince of Darkness.

[41:53] Without being incredible, yeah.

[41:54] Without being amazing, yeah, without being a waking nightmare that even finds horror in VHS video formats.

[42:01] 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, and they do this sleepover confess sesh where they reveal their deepest, darkest secrets, and then they end up in bed together.

[42:15] Ozen attacks and deletes a bunch of time, so their apps go back to normal.

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

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

[42:24] 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 and that's like –

[42:34] That's scary.

[42:35] Yeah, it's pretty scary.

[42:36] Ozen uses like the nightlight.

[42:39] He uses mom ghosts.

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

[42:43] But then Quinn and Matt show up and take her away.

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

[42:51] 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.

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

[43:16] And so they make a –

[43:19] And Apple removes the app from the store.

[43:22] 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, but you know.

[43:37] I mean is it a star of David inside a circle of pentagram?

[43:41] No.

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

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

[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.

[43:57] When you were like, don't mess with me.

[43:59] I've got power, and you show people the pentagrams you draw.

[44:02] Look at me.

[44:04] Look at me.

[44:05] I'm Alan Moore.

[44:06] I've got to start studying my Hebrew.

[44:08] I'm way overdue for my bar mitzvah.

[44:10] Yeah, you've got to be bar mitzvahed now, Dan.

[44:12] Okay, so –

[44:14] At least I'll get that money.

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

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

[44:23] That's just the fact that you're greedy for it.

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

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

[44:30] I'll be greedy now.

[44:34] Why is Dan applying for a job at the bank in the JK Rowling book?

[44:39] Yeah, why is he applying for a job?

[44:42] Oh, woof.

[44:45] Okay, so Matt's time is almost up.

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

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

[44:53] He kind of looks like the curator, the lead singer from the band Portal.

[44:58] He's like a tall monster draped in a black sheet, and he's dusty.

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

[45:06] Yeah, yeah.

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

[45:09] I mean, not exciting, but there's a couple of moments where—

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

[45:16] That's true. I like that, too.

[45:18] Not the best, but could have been worse is my review of Ozen.

[45:23] 3.6 stars.

[45:25] Yeah, 3.6 stars.

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

[45:31] Uh-oh.

[45:32] Just like the hit song, stymied by the salt.

[45:35] Oh, my God.

[45:36] Elliot, high-five across the world.

[45:38] Boom, we did it.

[45:39] Okay, so—

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

[45:43] Mm-hmm. Wrapped up like a douche.

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

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

[45:56] Now, this makes sense because of the story that Matt told earlier

[46:00] about his guilt over stealing a toy dinosaur from his dying brother.

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

[46:05] he was like, cool, I love dinos.

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

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

[46:13] So he—

[46:14] Stegosaur.

[46:15] Yep.

[46:16] Stegosaur, he's up there, man. He's got all those spikes.

[46:19] Yeah, that's my wife's favorite dinosaur.

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

[46:25] Yep. What about you, Dan?

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

[46:32] Triceratops?

[46:33] Yeah, I like that one.

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

[46:38] Elysiosaurs?

[46:39] Elysiosaurs are technically not dinosaurs.

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

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

[46:47] 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] That's true.

[46:53] And also if a fossil is being transported, usually put it on a plane, I guess.

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

[47:00] You're thinking of dinosaucers.

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

[47:03] Oh, fuck.

[47:04] I am thinking of dinosaucers.

[47:06] Okay.

[47:07] So he leaves the protection of the circle.

[47:11] Ozin snatches him by the leg and drags him outside into the street.

[47:15] Get over here.

[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.

[47:33] 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.

[47:44] 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.

[47:52] Dr. Sullivan at the time is currently healing, using a heal spell on her sister, Jordan.

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

[48:01] He just seems to be, like, looking at her abdomen, where she got hurt.

[48:05] Yeah.

[48:07] And Quinn comes up with the idea, too.

[48:10] 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.

[48:25] Every hospital has a spooky wing.

[48:27] It's abandoned.

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

[48:29] 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.

[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 sexual favors.

[48:45] Yep.

[48:46] But instead, she—

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

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

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

[49:13] Yeah, exactly.

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

[49:16] Jordan's time is running out.

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

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

[49:24] So she's running around.

[49:26] Ozen attacks her.

[49:27] Do we ever get any—sorry.

[49:29] I'm just realizing.

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

[49:34] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[49:35] We'll get to that at the end.

[49:36] Okay.

[49:37] I didn't—I missed it.

[49:39] Ozen's about to kill Jordan when Quinn shows up and she makes a desperate last ploy to commit suicide using an overdose of morphine.

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

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

[50:00] choice on Ozen's part because Ozen doesn't have a lot of time. Yes, Ozen and I'll say he I don't

[50:05] know what gender Ozen is but I'll say Ozen and say Ozen needs to stop her from killing herself

[50:12] at the same time Ozen has to kill Jordan. You'd think that Ozen would choose a faster method like

[50:18] maybe snatching the morphine out of her hands or something like that pushing her down rather

[50:22] than the psychological method of pretending to be her mom to talk her out of it. Yeah if you're

[50:26] gonna morph into something morph into like an old-timey cowboy with a lariat to like lasso it

[50:30] out of her hand. Morphers just for fun do that. Because she would be fucking shocked if you if

[50:35] you were just hanging out in the hospital wing and all of a sudden there's a cowboy there.

[50:39] Yeah, Pecosville, your lariat's a snake? This is amazing. I'd just like to take a moment also to

[50:44] say that her dead mom or at least the version of her that we see played by Andrea Anders who

[50:51] I know best from she was the love interest in Better Off Ted. She was in the short-lived but

[51:00] full of future stars sitcom The Class that I watched and most recently she's a Ted Lasso's

[51:06] estranged wife so a sitcom a bit of sitcom royalty kind of. There's a bunch of there's a lot of there's

[51:13] a lot of more small screen best-known actors in this like everyone here they're best known for

[51:18] their television work. You know probably what in the script it was probably ozen morphs into the

[51:23] cowboy but they're like wait a minute we have this actress let's do let's have her be the mom

[51:27] and they're like from the class yeah sorry sorry sorry Tex we gotta we gotta cut you we got a

[51:33] better replacement oh shucks they were gonna put me in the movie. No I understand Better Off Ted was

[51:40] a great show it was kind of hampered by a stupid name and a bad time slot. Didn't really tell people

[51:46] what to expect from the show. It's like Happy Endings like what the fuck?

[51:54] Okay so but Quinn injects herself with the morphine. Ozen is not pleased with this and

[52:03] turns morphs into dust a final morph. Quinn falls down and dies and Jordan rushes over to her

[52:12] sister's dead body only to see that there are instructions written on her body in sharpie

[52:17] instructing where to insert the Narcan. A plot point that was mentioned way earlier in the movie

[52:22] but I didn't mention it because it seemed like it didn't matter but it does matter and you should

[52:27] have been paying attention. Except except for as IMDB goofs points out uh Narcan. This is a true

[52:33] goof this is a true goof. Dan is prone to point out fake goofs. Yeah this is a real one Narcan

[52:38] will not bring back someone who has died from a morphine overdose. It makes up the idea that if

[52:44] your heart has stopped then then putting a an overdose fighting drug will not restart your

[52:50] heart. So what happens is of course uh Jordan injects the Narcan into Quinn and Quinn comes

[52:55] back to life and all of a sudden Bring Me to Life by Evanescence starts blasting. Ozen's like this

[53:00] song's dope actually and everybody's fucking rocking it rules. I love this shit. It's just

[53:05] like the end of Satoichi the Blind Assassin where they all just dance. Yeah it's incredible and then

[53:11] uh we get a fast forward flash forward. Blind swordsman sorry sorry. Yeah uh so we are in the

[53:16] graveyard uh Quinn Jordan and their dad are leaving flowers at their mother's grave uh then they read

[53:23] on their cell phone uh that the doctor has been uh that the doctor has been arrested for assaulting

[53:31] multiple women more women have come forward there's a mug shot of him that's pretty that's

[53:36] fine but she also did hit him with like a crowbar this this is the part that I like I'm not sure that

[53:43] the film self-defense Dan it's adequately resolves that uh okay well anyway okay um and then they're

[53:50] like okay well next time you drive and then immediately they get a uh they they get a

[53:57] notification hey guys I just saw this cool new app here we go again well that's what happens they

[54:02] get a notification that the app has been updated and she's like what the fuck and then the movie's

[54:07] over fired whatever until we get developer had the flaw on the first version and they look we're

[54:13] coming we're coming out with countdown 2.0 we're looking for unicorns we got to get this thing off

[54:18] the ground we're valued at four billion dollars right now so we think we can get a little bit of

[54:22] vc get this thing going yeah yeah what looking for unicorns yeah yeah yeah they're investors yeah

[54:29] angel investors unicorns is different than angel investors is it um okay well I only know the the

[54:35] sexual application the only thing I know about unicorns is that I feel like it was a waste of

[54:42] fucking Walton Goggins talent to make it play a fucking pilsner guy on this bullshit network sitcom

[54:47] okay movie's over I don't think so there's a lengthy mid-credit sequence where Tom Segura's

[54:53] character is on his tinder date he is clearly uh mismatched with this woman he is a kind of an

[54:59] asshole talking over her making inappropriate comments she kind of realized my terrible Tom

[55:04] my limit with Tom Segura I guess is two scenes because by this scene I was like I don't

[55:09] really need any more of him in this movie yeah yeah they really play up how big of a creep

[55:13] asshole he is and then he is alone in a dark restaurant all the lights go out and then we hear

[55:19] like Ozen chuckle or something and he's like oh no I'm dead end of movie bring me to life by

[55:24] Evanescence starts cranking everybody's headbanging everyone in the cast comes out and takes a bow

[55:32] multiple bows take a bow by Madonna plays it's very sad they take another bow somber yeah it's

[55:38] amazing yeah okay so well this is the part where r.i.p Angela Lansbury across the screen and we're

[55:43] like what is this 2019 how did they know because of the app that's how they knew yeah um so this

[55:52] is where we'd give our final judgments and we have our shocktober categories whether I gotta say

[55:56] guys I killed that summer you did a great job you did a great job that summer you killed the

[56:02] fucking peach bit uh but is this movie totally scarifying the fake podcast you host talk about

[56:10] your summary I feel like it's going to be favorable is this movie totally scarifying

[56:17] is it totally snorifying or is it frighteningly funny of course nonsense categories I'm just

[56:23] going to say like I I got I kind of liked this I I mean I tipped towards it before I think the

[56:33] thing is I've seen tip towards through the tulips to it I've I've seen so many movies like this that

[56:40] are trying to do basically this kind of thing and do it badly that I appreciate that this movie

[56:47] is a trim 90 minutes it mostly feels like 90 minutes there's a bit towards like the start

[56:54] of act three that I thought dragged more than the rest of the movie but in general I felt like it

[56:59] was pretty fleet it tried to do a few more fun things with its dumb premise it's not as good as

[57:07] like a final destination movie but it's aiming towards that tone and it's you know like there's

[57:13] a lot of elevated horror this is like a different type of horror this is like a traditional like I

[57:18] don't know young teens want a pop horror movie that's going to have a few jump scares that they

[57:24] can go to that's not going to be too brutal in any way and I don't know on a silly level I liked it

[57:31] I I looked at the Wikipedia page and I found with delight that um my good friend Kimber Myers uh

[57:38] is the quoted uh critic from the her review in the LA times she was like the one like more positive

[57:45] review they could find to put on the Wikipedia page to have like a balanced idea of what the

[57:50] critical response was and I'm like I texted her I'm like I liked it too I liked it too uh you know

[57:55] not great like there's certainly don't run out and see it but of the movies that I'm forced to

[58:00] watch for this podcast I liked it okay what do you guys have to say yeah I mean I feel I'm I'm

[58:07] kind of in between a I feel like it's a between a bad bad movie and a movie I kind of liked because

[58:13] there's definitely stuff that I like about it the there are some jokes and there's some silly stuff

[58:18] that actually works uh I feel like there is a bit of a tone misjudgment when it comes to

[58:25] the mixing of silly app demon and uh sexual assault by a superior um but yeah I think like I feel like

[58:34] if it had leaned more into the sillier stuff it could have been closer to something like a happy

[58:38] death day territory um yeah 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 I'm shooting for definitely yeah I wish it was like I wish it they I wish

[58:49] they had stepped back and were like how can we make this a little bit sillier yeah yeah I think

[58:55] it's a movie that is having trouble finding that balance that doesn't know exactly what kind of

[58:59] movie it is or wants to be in that way I have to admit uh I found it mostly fairly

[59:05] snorifying but not as snorifying as other movies we've watched it I give it a solid

[59:11] two to two and a half stars you know on a on a four or five star rating uh not even 3.6 not even

[59:17] 3.6 you could do worse but you could also do a lot better maybe but I feel like I'm coming to it from

[59:22] 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 so to see a movie that

[59:32] is merely kind of mediocre to sub is you know maybe I should be I probably shouldn't have

[59:38] watched a movie for a couple weeks and then watch it and I'd be like this is amazing it's like

[59:42] there's people in right and right on my screen frankly I'm jealous that you've got to watch a

[59:45] bunch of good movies oh it's been it's all it's all been about very strict curating of what I

[59:51] other things that I watch but also of the two Shocktober movies we watched this year I'd say

[59:55] go with Orphan because it knows what kind of movie it is it is a it's a bonk

[1:00:00] opera and this and this is doesn't know it doesn't know if it's gonna be serious

[1:00:06] or silly so it becomes Scyllaris which is not a word yeah yeah learn your words

[1:00:16] Her Majesty served Great Britain and the Commonwealth loyally for over 70 years

[1:00:25] and while of course we feel a profound sadness we must remember she lived a long life and died

[1:00:35] in such a way that I think many of us would want for ourselves. She was at home surrounded by her

[1:00:42] family and of course she was listening to the Beef and Dairy Network podcast. The Beef and

[1:00:51] Dairy Network podcast is a multi award-winning comedy podcast and you can find it at maximum

[1:00:56] fun org or wherever you get your podcasts. You're in a theater the lights go down you're about to

[1:01:03] get swept up by the characters and all their little details and interpersonal dramas. You

[1:01:08] look at them and think that person is so obviously in love with their best friend. Wait am I in love

[1:01:13] with my best friend? That character's mom is so overbearing why doesn't she just stand up to her

[1:01:17] oh god do I need to stand up to my own mother? If you've ever recognized yourself in a movie then

[1:01:21] join me Jordan Cruciola for the podcast Feeling Seen. We've talked to author Susan Orlean on

[1:01:27] realizing her own marriage was falling apart after watching adaptation an adaptation of her own work

[1:01:32] and comedian Hari Kondabolu on why Harold and Kumar was a depressingly important movie for

[1:01:38] Southeast Asians. So join me every Thursday for the Feeling Seen podcast here on Maximum Fun.

[1:01:44] Let's quickly acknowledge that we can't do this all on our own I mean we could but it wouldn't

[1:01:51] we did for a number of years it wouldn't be profitable for us yeah wouldn't be rewarding

[1:01:55] in the sense of the literal sense of there being rewards given. So I want to thank everyone who

[1:02:04] is a member of Maximum Fun and helps make the show possible because by this point we probably

[1:02:09] you know as much as we love it couldn't keep doing it 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 yeah uh but also we have

[1:02:21] some sponsors that I would like to say thank you to as well and one of them is Squarespace which

[1:02:26] allows you to build a lovely website where you can engage your with your audience you can sell

[1:02:31] anything products content you create even your time it's the all-in-one platform for building

[1:02:37] your brand and growing your business online and some of the things you can do with Squarespace

[1:02:42] what are they well you could sell your products on an online store whether physical or digital

[1:02:47] projects products Squarespace has the tools you need to sell online you can create pro-level videos

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[1:03:12] social profiles on your website you can automatically push website content to your

[1:03:16] favorite social media channels so followers can share it too so why not check out squarespace.com

[1:03:25] slash flop for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use offer code flop to save 10 off your

[1:03:33] first purchase of a website or domain elliot i believe you have a jumbotron i do indeed have a

[1:03:45] jumbotron and this jumbotron goes like this do you love musicals do you love cast albums

[1:03:54] excuse me i'm trying to read these are not these are rhetorical questions for the jumbotron i'll

[1:03:57] start from the beginning yes do you love musicals do you love cast albums are you people if you

[1:04:03] answered yes at least twice you'll love the original cast a podcast about original cast

[1:04:08] albums and the people who love them each episode dramatist patrick flynn invites a guest to choose

[1:04:12] the cast album they love and then they talk about the album theater musicals resurrection machines

[1:04:17] whatever past guests include tony winners npr hosts record producers critics and two-thirds

[1:04:22] of the peaches stewart the door is always open that resurrection machines references to my episode

[1:04:27] of it uh here's your call to action get on your podcast or choice and listen to the occasionally

[1:04:32] number one performing arts podcast in south korea no joke and no clue why the original cast so i'm

[1:04:38] going to add that jumbotron the original cast is a really great podcast it's all about original

[1:04:42] cast albums for broadway shows steward i i yeah get on there if you can i i had a really good time

[1:04:47] i you know like i don't think it's awful to say that sometimes i make an agreement to guests on

[1:04:55] a podcast i'm like oh i'm so busy this week do i like this is going to be a hassle is it's not

[1:05:00] going to be great i once i started doing the original cast i had so much fun talking musicals

[1:05:06] uh like patrick was a great host i really had a good time so me too what did you talk about

[1:05:10] on your episode i talked about sweeney todd the demon barber of fleet street which cast album

[1:05:16] the original or the revival the original cast yes okay and i talked about the music man original

[1:05:23] cast album when i was on uh i only asked because rest in peace yet again angela lansbury yeah don't

[1:05:30] hate me people i kind of like the revival of sweeney todd the album more than the original

[1:05:35] sweet time album but that's maybe because i saw one in person and when i didn't anyway stew

[1:05:39] if you were going to be on that podcast what musical album would you talk about uh let's see

[1:05:45] uh is power slave by iron maiden a uh musical album i mean their stage show is pretty close to

[1:05:52] a theatrical event so maybe yeah maybe they can do some storytelling in that record for you

[1:05:58] i've never been to a wedding that had a music man or sweeney todd cake as i

[1:06:02] saw a power slave cake at jenny jaffe's recent wedding so maybe so that's one up on the others

[1:06:07] so when you go on the original cake cast you can talk about oh cool i can do that i can talk about

[1:06:12] a cake you saw one time it's called it's called overheard cakes and it's and it's about cakes

[1:06:18] that you heard someone else talking about okay uh before we move on do you guys want to make

[1:06:21] any plugs for yourselves always please please i own two bars in brooklyn new york and you know

[1:06:29] what you should come visit them we have booze we have snacks we have nice bartenders sometimes i'm

[1:06:35] there uh hinterland's bar and minnie's bar in brooklyn new york bye i've got two i've got

[1:06:42] three things i want to plug dan one is yeah he left well i guess we'll do the rest without him

[1:06:47] uh the three things i want to plug one if you've got kids why not listen to the who was podcast on

[1:06:53] iheart radio that's a podcast i co-host and it's really fun it's a quiz show for kids about history

[1:07:03] you don't have kids or you want to spend your time away from your kids how about maniac of

[1:07:07] new york my super violent comic book from aftershock comics volumes one and two are

[1:07:11] collected in stores now volume three don't call it a comeback that's the name of it

[1:07:16] maniac of new york's don't call it a comeback comes out i think december 7th the first issue

[1:07:19] and number three let's go back to the kids again my kids books sharko and hippo and horse meets dog

[1:07:25] still in bookstores so that's some things for kids and some things for not for kids yeah

[1:07:31] well uh my book proposal that i sent out came back with a lot of people being very positive

[1:07:36] about my voice 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 wow like no no i i'll probably have to

[1:07:47] reconceive it so uh i mean having read your book proposal i think it's a very funny proposal and i

[1:07:51] think you yeah you probably just need like a little bit more of a framework yeah the framework

[1:07:54] is the is the key but also you know if you want to save me time if you're a big time editor and

[1:07:59] you just want to put the book out if anyone if anyone's listening is an editor at a publishing

[1:08:06] publisher big time talk to my agent dan has dan has a has a has a proposal for a for a comedic

[1:08:13] book and i have a novel that i'm that i want to start trying to sell so get in touch yeah oh

[1:08:18] stew what about you do what publishing projects are you trying to launch uh i'm still trying to

[1:08:22] publish that fucking coffee table book that's just pictures of dog's faces while they're shitting

[1:08:27] yeah because they either look like super serious or super confused and i think it's fucking hilarious

[1:08:33] like and then would you divide it in two and one half of the book is serious and one's funny or

[1:08:37] you would it'd be all mixed up that's part of the joy of a coffee table book is just picking it up

[1:08:41] and flipping through that shit sounds good um hey let's move on to letters why not let's do it this

[1:08:50] letter is from jonathan last name with health who writes elliot's favorite movie as mentioned

[1:08:57] in episode i assume that they're referring to the previous episode based on the rest of the

[1:09:03] email is taking of pelham one two three and yet charlie varick is snubbed a markedly more

[1:09:11] successful criminal than michael cain and it has charlie in the title jonathan last name with health

[1:09:16] taking you to task that your favorite charlie's didn't include varick as portrayed by walter

[1:09:22] mathau you're right i mean to be honest walter math out of me is lieutenant zachary garber i

[1:09:28] or the or grumpy old man it's hard for me to think of him as any other character uh charlie

[1:09:32] varick i have to say i like it i don't love it it's not my favorites to his yeah i kind of

[1:09:37] it it feels to me like a movie that i wish had either a little bit more comedy or a little bit

[1:09:41] less comedy but that's okay you know i like different people can disagree about things

[1:09:46] that i mean pelham obviously is also like an action thriller although you know matthew doesn't

[1:09:52] do any action but no i mean it's not it's talking action it's very conversational

[1:09:58] what about that 10 minute long

[1:10:00] martial arts sequence he does.

[1:10:01] I was just gonna say that.

[1:10:02] I mean, he does, he does shoot someone at one point.

[1:10:04] I liked that in Charlie Varrick.

[1:10:06] 10 minute long, yeah, the part,

[1:10:07] that single, that single shot sequence

[1:10:09] where Baltimore is fighting his way down a hallway.

[1:10:11] Yeah, yeah.

[1:10:12] In both Charlie Varrick and Hopscotch,

[1:10:14] he gets to be, like, an actual, like, tough guy,

[1:10:17] and I think that that's,

[1:10:18] I mean, Hopscotch is a lot goofier,

[1:10:20] but, like, I-

[1:10:20] Hopscotch is, I can buy it more in Hopscotch

[1:10:22] because it's goofier.

[1:10:23] There's a part in Charlie Varrick 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.

[1:10:29] I'm sorry.

[1:10:30] I just, I, you know,

[1:10:31] I think it's fun that he got to do those things.

[1:10:32] Although, on the other hand-

[1:10:34] Sure.

[1:10:34] As I've been talking to Elliot about,

[1:10:36] I've been reading Mark Harris's biography of Mike Nichols,

[1:10:39] and, well, Matt, that sounds like a real asshole.

[1:10:43] He does come off like a real, like a real,

[1:10:45] like, I've never read anything about him

[1:10:47] where someone other than Jack Lemmon was talking,

[1:10:49] where he came off as a friendly guy

[1:10:51] or someone you wanted to be around.

[1:10:52] Yeah. Yeah.

[1:10:54] So I hope that answers your question about Charlie Varrick.

[1:10:57] Kind of like all the stories that are coming out now

[1:10:59] about Bill Murray, and you're like, yeah,

[1:11:01] he always seemed like a guy

[1:11:02] that would be very difficult to be around.

[1:11:04] Very, like, yeah.

[1:11:05] Not an easy guy to spend time with.

[1:11:06] As much as, yeah, the screen persona is appealing.

[1:11:10] You could see how this person is nuts

[1:11:11] when you want to see in life, necessarily.

[1:11:14] Yeah.

[1:11:15] Ben Lasting with Held Rights.

[1:11:17] Dear Flophouse-

[1:11:17] Ben Mankiewicz?

[1:11:18] Wow.

[1:11:19] Probably.

[1:11:20] Dear Flophouse, it's the most wonderful time of the year.

[1:11:22] Halloween, spooky season to the youths,

[1:11:25] and it always makes me reminisce

[1:11:27] on my favorite batty fanged icons of pop culture,

[1:11:31] the Night Lords.

[1:11:34] Heretic, Astartes of the first founding,

[1:11:39] Big E's Eighth Legion, but number two in my heart,

[1:11:42] Space Wolves are number one,

[1:11:44] but I'm burnt out of those guys.

[1:11:46] Stuart, what kind of metal would you suggest

[1:11:49] an enthusiast blast whilst cladding their plastic

[1:11:53] in shades of midnight?

[1:11:55] I thought Slayer initially, but is that too on the nose?

[1:11:58] Much love, and thank you for making

[1:12:00] my Saturday morning commutes delightful.

[1:12:02] Ave Dominus Nox.

[1:12:04] Mm-hmm, cool, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:12:06] That's from Ben Lasting with Held.

[1:12:08] Dan, is there any mention of Conrad Kurz

[1:12:11] or the Night Haunter in there?

[1:12:13] I mean, you heard the letter.

[1:12:14] Okay.

[1:12:15] I don't know what you want from me.

[1:12:17] Dan, turn it over, look on the back.

[1:12:20] Is there anything on the back?

[1:12:21] On the back, it's my iPhone case.

[1:12:25] It's green.

[1:12:26] Oh, okay.

[1:12:27] Is that what you're looking for, Stu?

[1:12:29] Yep, that's what I was looking for, thank you.

[1:12:31] Painting Night Lords.

[1:12:32] They are a Chaos Space Marine Legion,

[1:12:35] and they're baddies, and they're a little spooky.

[1:12:38] You know what, I would recommend

[1:12:41] any of the Roadrunner King Diamond records.

[1:12:44] That's right, you got, what, Fatal Portrait,

[1:12:49] Abigail, of course, Them, Conspiracy, all those.

[1:12:54] Check those out, they're great.

[1:12:55] The Eye, all those albums, they're great.

[1:12:58] They're spooky, and you know what, King Diamond rules.

[1:13:01] Sounds good.

[1:13:04] 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] Mm-hmm, I'm like, simmering.

[1:13:12] It's like I'm talking about Warhammer,

[1:13:14] and metal, this is important.

[1:13:16] Two of my favorite things.

[1:13:17] I know, sorry, I was distracted to look through

[1:13:20] my film diary to see what I was gonna recommend,

[1:13:24] and of course, I've seen, I've actually seen.

[1:13:26] Can I talk about weightlifting or something else I like?

[1:13:28] Sure.

[1:13:29] Or are you just gonna roll your fuckin' eyes at me again?

[1:13:32] I, you know, I look at all of your weightlifting TikToks.

[1:13:37] Well, the ones that get posted to Instagram.

[1:13:39] I don't actually look at your TikToks.

[1:13:39] You don't look at my fuckin' TikTok?

[1:13:41] What are you jacked off to?

[1:13:42] I don't look at TikTok ever, I don't know.

[1:13:44] It confuses and angers me.

[1:13:47] This.

[1:13:48] Because it reminds you of a clock.

[1:13:49] Uh-huh, yeah.

[1:13:51] I mean, that's, yeah, it has, there's two ways

[1:13:52] in which it reminds me of how old I am.

[1:13:58] Let's move on to the final part of the show

[1:14:00] where we recommend movies that,

[1:14:02] and I've seen a lot of good movies lately.

[1:14:05] Like, Ellen has seen a lot of good movies,

[1:14:07] but one in particular I saw recently

[1:14:11] that I wanted to highlight.

[1:14:13] I saw Tar.

[1:14:14] Tar!

[1:14:16] I thought you were going to be like,

[1:14:17] I saw a lot of good movies lately, like Elliot,

[1:14:19] and I want to highlight one of them.

[1:14:19] It's called Screwballs.

[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.

[1:14:31] No, it's Tar, with the little accent over the A.

[1:14:34] It's Todd Field's new film,

[1:14:36] the first in, I think, like 12 years,

[1:14:38] starring Cate Blanchett.

[1:14:41] And one of the things I really-

[1:14:43] The first one he's made in 12 years,

[1:14:45] what's the first one in 12 years that stars Cate Blanchett?

[1:14:47] The first one he has made as a director

[1:14:49] 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

[1:14:57] to make a lot lately, but Tar is even a giant leap forward,

[1:15:01] I think, from those other previous works of his.

[1:15:06] I think that it gets tarred, if you will,

[1:15:09] by being the cancel culture movie,

[1:15:11] but that would be sort of diminishing to it.

[1:15:14] I think that there are a lot of movies out there

[1:15:15] that pretend to be character studies

[1:15:19] because they want to talk about

[1:15:21] some sort of thing in society.

[1:15:23] Like they use the character study

[1:15:24] as an excuse to get to the societal thing,

[1:15:26] whereas I think that this movie actually uses

[1:15:30] sort of public reckonings of figures

[1:15:33] who have misbehaved in some way

[1:15:36] as a way to get to a character study,

[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

[1:15:45] is it plays out almost like a stage play,

[1:15:49] at least the first half,

[1:15:50] where we see Cate Blanchett's character

[1:15:52] interact with all people from different facets of her life,

[1:15:58] like whether it be her wife, whether it be a fan,

[1:16:02] her assistant, the other conductor,

[1:16:07] like the assistant conductor, a student that she's teaching,

[1:16:12] and you get all the facets of who she is,

[1:16:15] like showing how people are very different

[1:16:18] depending on who they're interacting with

[1:16:20] and showing sort of what her strengths

[1:16:25] and her shortcomings are,

[1:16:26] and as the movie comes on,

[1:16:28] we learn that she has done some things that are terrible

[1:16:32] and that she absolutely deserves

[1:16:34] to have some sort of reckoning for,

[1:16:36] but you also have enough of a sense of her

[1:16:38] as a complex character that you,

[1:16:41] I don't, like...

[1:16:43] You don't have to tell us

[1:16:44] everything that happens in the movie.

[1:16:44] I don't know, 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

[1:16:50] as she deals with her carefully constructed life

[1:16:55] sort of whirling out of control, and I don't know.

[1:16:59] It was a movie that, unlike Elliot,

[1:17:02] I watch a lot of trash on my spare time.

[1:17:05] What?

[1:17:06] In addition to the good things.

[1:17:08] I mean, I watch good things, too.

[1:17:09] I just re-watched Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf,

[1:17:11] for one thing, but...

[1:17:13] Checks out, Dan's not lying.

[1:17:16] Let's check his movie diary.

[1:17:17] Aforementioned Mike Nichols biography,

[1:17:19] but watching this, I was like, oh, yeah.

[1:17:22] You're like, I watch good movies, too.

[1:17:24] I watched Woolf because of the Mike Nichols biography.

[1:17:26] But this movie, I was watching, I was like,

[1:17:28] oh, yeah, movies can do this.

[1:17:31] Like, this is like...

[1:17:32] Yeah, yeah.

[1:17:33] Like, even beyond not watching,

[1:17:37] like, maybe watching too much goofball shit,

[1:17:39] like, this is a movie that is doing something

[1:17:42] that I really haven't seen a film try and tackle,

[1:17:48] at least in a long, long time, and I enjoyed.

[1:17:52] I really appreciated sort of being enveloped

[1:17:54] in something that was genuinely great, for once.

[1:17:58] Anyway.

[1:17:59] Now I wanna hear what Elliot is gonna recommend.

[1:18:01] Yeah, what are you gonna recommend,

[1:18:02] Mr. I-Watch-Good-Movies-Now?

[1:18:05] Anyway, so there's a little movie called Predator 2,

[1:18:08] and it's the story of...

[1:18:11] John Predator.

[1:18:12] No, the movie I watched that I wanna talk about

[1:18:15] 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 Arise,

[1:18:24] I think his name's pronounced,

[1:18:25] who made Spirit of the Beehive,

[1:18:27] if you're familiar with that film,

[1:18:28] which I feel like if there's any Spanish movie

[1:18:32] that's not made by either Bunuel or Almodovar

[1:18:38] that gets mentioned, it's Spirit of the Beehive.

[1:18:40] But El Sur is a movie about a young girl

[1:18:45] and her relationship with her family,

[1:18:47] 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

[1:18:53] and how her father,

[1:18:55] who seems to have kind of secrets in his past,

[1:18:58] that she can't fully penetrate,

[1:18:59] but there's something about him

[1:19:02] 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

[1:19:09] and she doesn't quite understand him.

[1:19:10] And it's a movie that the director considered

[1:19:13] a kind of half-made movie.

[1:19:15] It's only 95 minutes long,

[1:19:17] and it ends at a point

[1:19:18] where the director was hoping to continue the film.

[1:19:20] But to me, it felt very fulfilling and very complete.

[1:19:24] And the south of the title is where her father is from,

[1:19:26] this place that she's never been

[1:19:27] and she's very curious about.

[1:19:29] But because of a political disagreement with his father

[1:19:32] in the Spanish Civil War years,

[1:19:34] 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,

[1:19:41] is how I would say a lot of the visuals

[1:19:43] in this very early 80s way.

[1:19:46] And it just felt to me like a movie about a real thing

[1:19:50] that I'd never really thought that much about before,

[1:19:52] which is that even when you know your parents

[1:19:55] or you learn more about them,

[1:19:56] there's always an emotional truth to them

[1:19:58] that remains a mystery to you.

[1:20:00] and an emotional truth about you

[1:20:01] that remains a mystery to them.

[1:20:02] That no matter how much you love a member of your family,

[1:20:06] specifically a parent or a child,

[1:20:08] there's always gonna be a part of them

[1:20:09] that you don't know,

[1:20:11] but which to them feels omnipresent and inescapable.

[1:20:14] And I feel like this movie really captured that

[1:20:15] in a way that really moved me and I found very beautiful.

[1:20:18] And so it was after seeing a lot of,

[1:20:20] not terrible movies,

[1:20:21] but movies where I was like,

[1:20:22] that was fun, that was okay.

[1:20:23] Seeing a movie like this that really

[1:20:25] touched me very deeply,

[1:20:27] which I thought was visually very beautiful,

[1:20:29] it was like, it's similar to what Dan was,

[1:20:31] his reaction to Tar was like,

[1:20:32] oh, right, like this is why I love movies

[1:20:36] is because they can,

[1:20:38] they speak to me in a way that otherwise

[1:20:41] I don't know how to be spoken to or how to speak to others.

[1:20:44] And so I really loved it.

[1:20:45] And it coming as a movie that

[1:20:48] I didn't know anything about going into it.

[1:20:49] I had never heard of it until I did the thing I do

[1:20:52] where I record any foreign movie I've never heard of

[1:20:55] that comes up on Turner Classic Movies.

[1:20:57] And so I really liked a lot.

[1:20:59] So that's El Sur, literally the South for 1983.

[1:21:02] Don't know where you can find it.

[1:21:03] I don't know where it's streaming,

[1:21:04] but look for it, why not?

[1:21:06] And I have a little bit of a qualified recommendation.

[1:21:09] It's a movie that you can currently stream on Shudder

[1:21:13] called The Innocence.

[1:21:15] It was written and directed by the guy

[1:21:18] who wrote my favorite movie from last year,

[1:21:20] The Worst Person in the World,

[1:21:21] a movie that also reaffirmed my love of film

[1:21:24] and touched me deeply.

[1:21:25] The Innocence, maybe not as much,

[1:21:28] but it is a thriller about a group of children

[1:21:32] living in a housing complex in Norway.

[1:21:35] And the children start to develop kind of strange powers.

[1:21:43] And it is very kind of deliberate, patient.

[1:21:49] It makes a lot of effort to kind of build

[1:21:51] the world that these children inhabit.

[1:21:54] It relies a lot on the acting chops of a group of,

[1:21:58] you know, a small group of children.

[1:22:01] And it ends up, it kind of plays out a little bit like,

[1:22:05] it reminded me a little bit of like Domo, A Child's Dream,

[1:22:07] the Katsuhiro Otomo comic.

[1:22:10] And also, you know, with some like, you know,

[1:22:12] like Lord of the Flies, like kids making decisions

[1:22:15] that are, you know, get increasingly more dangerous.

[1:22:19] And part of the reason it's qualified is that it is,

[1:22:23] like it is fairly slow and deliberate.

[1:22:25] It's also violent and the violence is often directed

[1:22:30] 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.

[1:22:38] I just want to, that's a great recommendation.

[1:22:41] I just want to backtrack and say that Elser,

[1:22:43] 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,

[1:22:52] give 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

[1:22:57] that are allowed to extend longer

[1:22:59] 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.

[1:23:11] We don't just watch, we don't just watch.

[1:23:13] Countdown.

[1:23:14] We just all count down.

[1:23:16] A movie that we could, a movie that was fine for what it is.

[1:23:19] It was fine.

[1:23:20] It was okay.

[1:23:22] You know, you only have so many, according to my phone,

[1:23:26] 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, I'm fine with it.

[1:23:33] It's cool.

[1:23:34] I get, you know, life, I get it.

[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, but you know.

[1:23:43] He was probably fucking drunk when he said that.

[1:23:46] Wow, I mean, probably, yeah.

[1:23:49] That kind of makes me feel like Stuart

[1:23:50] doesn't have that much time left,

[1:23:52] so we should probably sign off.

[1:23:53] I just want to say, before we go,

[1:23:55] thank you to Maximum Fun.

[1:23:58] Check out all the other great podcasts

[1:24:00] 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.

[1:24:11] It goes by the name HowlDotty.

[1:24:12] Did you just remember that you have to record some?

[1:24:14] No, I mean, I remembered that we recorded a hot new track.

[1:24:18] Yeah, there's a track.

[1:24:19] That's gonna be dropping soon.

[1:24:20] Alex sent the guide track for this song

[1:24:23] that we're gonna do.

[1:24:23] It's gonna be burning up your ears.

[1:24:24] I love it already, and we haven't even done our parts yet,

[1:24:27] so I gotta record that.

[1:24:29] I gotta record my part too, yeah.

[1:24:31] But anyway, so check him out, HowlDotty on Twitter,

[1:24:35] and thank you for listening.

[1:24:37] For The Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:24:39] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:24:41] And I'm

[1:24:47] Elliot Caleb.

[1:24:48] Okay, Alex, make sure to drop in

[1:24:51] Bring Me to Life by Evanescence right now.

[1:24:55] We don't have the rights.

[1:25:00] Hemingway-esque is how I would describe that.

[1:25:03] That was his classic six-word story,

[1:25:06] baby shoes, for sale, baby shoes.

[1:25:09] You know how usually you put baby shoes

[1:25:11] 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 yet, as new.

[1:25:16] They're basically new, mid-condition.

[1:25:18] 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,

[1:25:22] and either we didn't have a baby or we had and it died.

[1:25:24] You read into it.

[1:25:25] It was very sad.

[1:25:26] Yeah, my intro was tight enough

[1:25:29] that even sicko Cormac McCarthy would applaud me.

[1:25:32] Okay.

[1:25:35] Maximumfun.org, comedy and culture.

[1:25:38] Artist-owned, audience-supported.

Ep. #381 - Countdown (2019)

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