Ep.#371 - The King's Daughter

[0:00] On this episode we discuss the king's daughter.

[0:04] Does this princess become a bride?

[0:07] We'll see!

[0:09] Okay.

[0:11] Mine was also princess-bride related.

[0:30] Hey everyone!

[0:40] Welcome to the Flop House.

[0:41] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:43] Uh oh, evil Dan McCoy's here.

[0:46] I guess good Stuart is going to say hi.

[0:48] It's me, Stuart Wellington.

[0:50] Yeah, that's actually Waa-Dan, the evil version of Dan.

[0:53] Oh no!

[0:54] What's his color?

[0:55] What's the color of his outfit?

[0:56] Beige.

[0:57] Beige!

[0:58] Okay, what's good Dan's outfit?

[0:59] Beige.

[1:02] They share clothes because they're the same size.

[1:04] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:05] Hey, what's different about this episode everybody?

[1:09] It's about the king's daughter?

[1:10] No, we're in the same room, dummy.

[1:12] Oh, right, right, right, right.

[1:14] I think you've got to call me dummy.

[1:16] Sorry, I'm talking to Waa-Dan, the evil Dan there.

[1:19] Yeah, we're all in the same room.

[1:20] Elliot is in town due to personal business.

[1:24] I was officiating a wedding.

[1:26] Personal business.

[1:28] He's tracking down my target.

[1:30] So he'll probably take him out for the contract that the Medellin cartel has put on.

[1:36] Yeah, so he made the time.

[1:39] He made the time to come over to my apartment where now I have two cats for him to sneeze at.

[1:43] And I'm looking at a clock in the shape of a cat and there's like drawings of pillows of cats around.

[1:48] It's true.

[1:49] This is a very cat-centered decoration scheme in this immediate area.

[1:55] That's mainly to put Elliot on his back feet so he can't take control of the podcast like he usually does.

[2:01] Now, this is a podcast where we talk about movies in Topeka, Kansas.

[2:04] Thanks for covering both.

[2:07] Will we talk about both?

[2:08] Who knows?

[2:09] We'll find out.

[2:10] I'm Stuart Wellington of the Flop House.

[2:12] Joining me today is –

[2:13] Wait, we did this part.

[2:15] We're so unused to being in the same spot.

[2:19] They call him Dan Bitblocker McCoy.

[2:23] My doctor prescribes the Bitblockers.

[2:25] That's good because your arteries get full of bits.

[2:28] It's called comedy heart.

[2:29] You just got loose bits floating around inside there.

[2:34] Yeah, yeah.

[2:35] We talk about movies, movies that have gotten critical or commercial drubbing, in this case both.

[2:42] Yeah, this showed up on a lot of worst of the year lists, this one, The King's Daughter.

[2:47] Which year was that?

[2:48] Last, was it?

[2:49] Well, it's a good question because it's a movie that was supposed to have been released years ago, and it's been in development for roughly 20-some odd years.

[2:57] And for several –

[2:59] And it shows.

[3:00] It managed to climb its way out of the gray of the most ridiculous movie screens all due to the amazing superpower of Chinese financing.

[3:10] This movie has the most Chinese money in it of any movie made outside of China.

[3:15] Really?

[3:16] That's what I read.

[3:17] Or at least any studio movie made outside of China.

[3:19] Because I'm sure we'll get into it, but The Mermaid is played by a Chinese actress.

[3:26] It's Fan Bingbing.

[3:27] But they westernized her features through the CGI, which is very strange on obviously many levels.

[3:35] It feels like – yes.

[3:36] I mean there's a lot of things that are off about this movie.

[3:38] To the point that she appears to be an entirely CGI character, right?

[3:42] Yeah.

[3:43] I think it is a CGI character that –

[3:46] I think they Robert Zemeckis-ed it.

[3:48] What's her – oh, so it's like green screen, like she wears a mo-cap suit?

[3:53] Yeah, it's mo-cap as opposed to Larry Cap or Curly Cap, which are the brothers of mo-cap.

[3:57] Well, Larry was not a brother of mo.

[3:59] Or Snow Caps, which are nonpareils.

[4:01] They're crunchy little chocolates.

[4:04] Or Andy Cap, who's just a misunderstood hot fries peddler.

[4:08] You think he'd have –

[4:09] Misunderstood.

[4:10] You think he and his pet would live in a nicer apartment since he has that hot fries millions behind him.

[4:15] Yeah, he just spends it all at the bar.

[4:17] Yeah.

[4:18] Oh, that's why no wonder she's in it with that solid gold.

[4:19] Man, to have a customer like Andy Cap, oh, every bar owner's fantasy.

[4:23] You'll put my kids through college.

[4:25] And all you have to do is roll them home at the end of the night.

[4:28] So this movie – no, this movie felt very much like it is a Chinese producer attempt to break into the Western market with something that is kind of like if The Princess Bride was bad.

[4:39] That's kind of what they're going for.

[4:41] And they took most of the jokes out.

[4:44] Yeah.

[4:45] It doesn't really have jokes.

[4:46] There's no jokes.

[4:47] There's a sense of the characters not being interesting or hanging together.

[4:51] But we'll get into it.

[4:52] But you expect more because it was directed by Dan.

[4:55] Sean McNamara, who we know, of course, from Bratz, the movie Bratz.

[5:00] He directed Bratz.

[5:01] Wow.

[5:02] Longtime Flat Out's favorite.

[5:03] Of course, he also is most famous for The Three Ninjas, High Noon at Mega Mountain starring Terry Holcogan.

[5:08] Yeah, he did some cats and dogs.

[5:10] He drops a banger like Bratz and then, like, he could just retire at that point.

[5:15] Toast on that Bratz money.

[5:17] Yeah.

[5:18] But he – this movie – it's weird to say this, but it shows none of the snap and vigor of Bratz.

[5:24] I mean say what you will about Bratz, a movie that, like, I've come around to thinking, like, not only is kind of a good, bad movie but might actually be kind of fun.

[5:33] It moves quickly.

[5:35] This movie is barely over 90 minutes.

[5:38] It jumps, like, two years.

[5:39] And it is slow as molasses.

[5:41] Yeah, there's one cut that covers two years of time, not just 2001, A Space Odyssey.

[5:46] It covered millions of years of human evolution in one cut.

[5:50] And so this movie, it's based on the novel The Moon and the Sun, which actually –

[5:55] Vague title.

[5:56] Won the Nebula Award.

[5:57] It actually –

[5:58] Asks questions.

[5:59] Does the book answer?

[6:01] It won the Nebula Award for best novel in 1998 beating out a book called A Game of Thrones.

[6:05] Wow.

[6:06] Apparently not as good as the book that this movie is based on.

[6:08] So how do you feel about that, Stuart?

[6:10] Wait a minute.

[6:13] It beat out A Game of Thrones.

[6:15] For the Nebula for best novel, yeah.

[6:17] Okay.

[6:18] Well, I mean, let's see.

[6:20] And then the adaptation was better also.

[6:21] Doesn't sound like there's any wildlings in this book.

[6:23] I read about the book.

[6:27] The book seems substantially different.

[6:29] Yes, very different.

[6:30] As is usually the case in such things.

[6:32] I'm willing to bet that the book is much better than the movie.

[6:34] What happens in the movie?

[6:36] Have to be.

[6:37] Well, not necessarily, but it probably is.

[6:40] Let's jump into the movie, shall we, fellows?

[6:42] Yes.

[6:43] So the movie begins with on-screen text telling us that it's the year 1684 and King Louis XIV of France wants to live forever.

[6:50] So he sends an expedition to find Atlantis and the secret of immortality.

[6:53] Cut to a big book that says The King's Daughter and a voiceover from I think Julie Andrews that tells us the exact same information.

[7:01] Well, this Julie Andrews narration is one of the things that got added later in the process from my research.

[7:10] I think, like, this movie actually, like, passed from, like, one production company to another.

[7:15] Yeah.

[7:16] And I think that it was.

[7:17] At one point it was going to be a Jim Henson production.

[7:19] Not Jim Henson the person, but Jim Henson production.

[7:21] Well, that was, like, the earliest.

[7:22] It was going to be a DreamWorks movie at one point, I think, or a Disney movie.

[7:26] So, yeah, as I approach the judges' table, I say, OK, so I present here a duo of exposition.

[7:31] Exposition two ways.

[7:34] Two ways.

[7:35] And the judges, they're like, you're not giving us anything new with these two ways.

[7:39] It's just fried fish and baked fish, but they taste the same.

[7:43] It was also, like, literally, I don't think since the sort of, you know, classic period of Disney animation have I.

[7:51] I don't know if I've seen a movie that starts with book being opened, you know, with title of movie narration explaining book.

[8:00] You know, it was just it felt very old sort of fairy tale.

[8:04] Well, isn't that how Superbad opens?

[8:07] Let me tell you the tale of Superbad.

[8:10] I don't know.

[8:12] That book says it's Superbad.

[8:14] No, no, no.

[8:15] It's actually bad meaning good.

[8:17] The marketing team would have done another pass on this one.

[8:20] And so so Julie Andrews tells us, I assume from the line at the bank where she's cashing the check, that this is the story about Marie Joseph.

[8:30] She's the titular king's daughter.

[8:32] She's a secret daughter.

[8:33] She doesn't even know the king is her dad.

[8:35] Because normally if you hear the name king's daughter, you're like, that's a princess.

[8:38] I don't know why they're going through all this rigmarole.

[8:40] Well, it turns out she's a bastard.

[8:41] Yeah, she's.

[8:42] Well, yes.

[8:43] A natural daughter.

[8:44] She's our best itch, as Lobo would say.

[8:46] Thank you.

[8:47] Yeah.

[8:48] For all the Lobo fans out there, just to put it in terms.

[8:50] I mean, this is one of the changes from the book that I was able to see that, like, in the book, no relation to the king.

[8:57] In the book, there is no king's daughter.

[8:58] Yes, exactly.

[8:59] Just a lady.

[9:00] Fundamentally different.

[9:02] And she's played by Kaya Scodelario, an actress I'm not really familiar with.

[9:06] Not familiar.

[9:07] But I think she does a good.

[9:08] Like, I think that there are a few good, like, acting performances in this.

[9:11] And they're stuck in a movie that was never going to be rescued by anything.

[9:15] But I think that she puts in her best effort.

[9:18] She does fine.

[9:19] I think she's the best.

[9:20] So she's a young woman.

[9:21] She's living at a convent run by the evil head abbess Rachel Griffiths, Academy Award nominee for Hillary and Jackie.

[9:28] And the head abbess is horrified that Marie is always running off to go swim in the unholy sea.

[9:33] The devil's water.

[9:34] Maybe it's just because I just read a big chunk of Elric's stories.

[9:37] But the idea of an unholy sea is so much more interesting than anything in the movie.

[9:41] Well, also, this sets me up to believe, like, that this movie is going to take a strong anti-religion hand.

[9:47] Because, like, clearly, you know, like, to be like, oh, you can't swim because of God.

[9:52] Like, that seems pretty bad.

[9:54] But then later on, like.

[9:56] This movie becomes so anti-science and pro-religion.

[9:58] Yeah.

[10:00] And also this setup having recently watched Benedetta. I'm like, oh, this is gonna be good

[10:08] But I was I was like it this is movie gets so anti-science it's like that

[10:12] Yeah, that Chinese dance show that advertises everywhere in LA. I don't know what you're talking. Oh genuine. Yeah

[10:18] Yeah, where they sing songs about evolution is bad. But anyway, so

[10:21] That's the the craziest thing about like I've seen ads for Shen Yun all the time like all the time

[10:26] I've been in New York every year, but recently they've been changing the the the pitch is now see China before

[10:34] communism and I'm like

[10:38] So

[10:39] meanwhile in in the in the court of the king of France King Louie the 14th Pierce Brosnan and this is

[10:45] this create this begins the I guess continues the

[10:49] movie's theme of having French characters played by people from the British Isles or Ireland where it's like

[10:55] there's almost no French people and except for Pierce Brosnan and and John Hurt, there's no one doing a

[11:03] William Hurt, sorry, William John Hurt. Oh what a performance. Oh

[11:07] Great, but he passed away before the movie was made as opposed to William Hurt who passed away after the movie was made

[11:11] but the

[11:12] Nobody is attempting to do a French accent

[11:14] See if all these people with English accents including the titular King's daughter running around France and it's ridiculous

[11:19] Okay, so anyway King Louie, he's just returned from a very expensive war. He's an orangutan

[11:26] The secret of man's red fire

[11:30] He

[11:31] He gets he's giving a speech and he gets shot and he survives giving the the shooting

[11:36] But it makes him wonder about his own mortality

[11:38] And I'll just mention this actually happened to Teddy Roosevelt and he didn't go around killing mermaids to become a mortal

[11:43] He just dealt with it. Thank you. Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah, and then we'll kill mermaids to avoid going to therapy

[11:49] If there was ever a guy who was gonna go out and kill a mermaid you'd think it would be Teddy Roosevelt

[11:55] He killed every other type of animal

[11:57] So and and the person I like I like that the speech he's giving is to like a crowd like ten people and one of them

[12:03] has a

[12:05] And so King Louie talks to his head priest a pair la chaise the inventor

[12:10] I assume of the chair of the same name the lounge William Hurt in what I assume is his last role

[12:15] I don't know if any it was his last role released

[12:18] Made so long ago that yeah

[12:20] and he's talking to perilous is and dr. Labarthe played by Pablo Schreiber and

[12:27] Labarthe tells him that that's Nick. That's a Nick Sabatka. You got a Nick Sabatka in your movie

[12:31] Mm-hmm. He knows a thing or two about water. He's worth the ports

[12:35] I mean his dad really the one who knows or his uncle is really the one about it

[12:38] Yeah, and if only if only he was his uncle's son instead of that wastrel Ziggy. Yeah

[12:44] always causing trouble

[12:47] Wastrel is like the shorthand for that. Yeah, that's a lot of wires season two talks with his daughter

[12:53] But they shouldn't have cast Pablo Schreiber

[12:56] And so Labarthe tells tells the king there's a sea creature who has the secret of eternal life

[13:01] So now we see this Atlantis expedition. It's led by Captain Eve's returning flop star Benjamin Walker. Yeah, Benjamin Walker

[13:08] What he was he was an Abraham Lincoln vampire. He was also he looks like a combination of like de-aged

[13:15] Pablo Pascal and Liam Neeson and I looked it up. He actually played young Liam Neeson in Kinsey

[13:21] So he also he's also known for when young Liam Neeson goes to talk to Alfred Kinsey

[13:30] He also

[13:32] He on stage I think he was Andrew Jackson and bloody bloody Andrew Jackson

[13:37] That's a great segue to our new segment the great white way too much hosted by me Elliot Kalin Dan and Stuart

[13:43] Can you guess how many actors in this movie? I have seen perform on stage live theater. Okay, you say five

[13:53] I'm gonna I'm going with

[13:56] Three. Okay, you went over to the answer to actually two as far as I know

[14:01] I saw Benjamin Walker in the original public theater version of bloody by the Andrew Jackson before it moved to Broadway and and

[14:07] Failed and I also saw Pablo Schreiber in a 2006 Broadway revival of Clifford Odette's awake and sing and this is where we get

[14:15] No, no, no way too much information sections

[14:20] Don't don't say it it's because a cat was coming up behind me. I assumed to attack me

[14:24] I was trying to distract my cat from Elliot. Yeah sleepwalker the

[14:28] My story. Okay, this this this show awakens saying featuring Pablo Schreiber was the show that my now wife's parents took me to

[14:36] When we first when I first met them

[14:38] So they came into New York to see their daughter and see this new amazing guy

[14:43] She was dating that guy was me

[14:44] And because we're all Jews

[14:46] We went to go see awake and sing on Broadway the story of a Jewish lower East Side family and Pablo Schreiber was in it

[14:51] So that's two people in this movie this far as I know I've seen on stage live now

[14:55] Wasn't Benjamin Walker was also Patrick Bateman in the American Psycho musical, right? Yes, I believe so

[15:01] And I believe he was married for a while to Mamie Gummer Meryl Streep's daughter

[15:06] I don't know and then her daughter with Louie Gomer

[15:15] I'm not expected to pronounce every name, right and then and then but they got a divorce and he is now married to

[15:22] That's right. The King's daughter herself

[15:26] Did they fall in love while making this movie it said they got married in 2016, so I'm assuming you so yeah

[15:31] I think so. So this was a real what was it Dreamhouse the movie that or bad house the movie that a dream race and

[15:38] James Bond fell in love on

[15:40] Craig is called Daniel Craig

[15:42] I mean, I can only assume that Daniel Craig has was in love with Rachel Weiss since the moment he saw her

[15:46] Oh, yeah, finally. We're able to yeah, we all are. Yeah. So anyway, we see this atlantic exhibition featuring Andrew Jackson

[15:53] Abraham Lincoln himself Benjamin Walker

[15:55] He's throwing exploding barrels into the sea during a storm

[15:58] I'm not sure how this is helping them to catch a live mermaid, but they do they catch what we call mermaid bait

[16:05] Mermaids eat explosion. Yeah, that's how they stay young forever and they catch a female Mary mermaid

[16:11] They throw the male away. They say let it swim away. It's useless to them, but we don't really see the mermaids yet

[16:16] They're in it. They're their visuals have been hidden from us. You know, we just see they've caught something something murderous. Yeah, they're also dangerous

[16:22] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're don't your daddy's mermaids. No, in fact, I mean they're I mean, I mean there are pretty much

[16:28] Mermaids are dangerous. So yes, they lure sailors to their death. Then I guess they're not your daddy's mermaid

[16:38] There's a lot of woodcuts where you can notice that back in that day man manatees were a lot more makeup

[16:48] And as they would lure sailors to the rocks, yeah

[16:51] So anyway, and also, you know what people make fun. They're like the sailors looked at manatees and thought they were mermaids

[16:57] You know what if they're attracted to mermaid to manatees, I'm not gonna kink shame them

[17:01] You know if that's what they're into, you know

[17:03] My friends always made fun of me because when I was younger, I liked mermaids that look like manatees

[17:11] As a man who has admitted that he would he would get murdered by a species

[17:15] I feel like if I was into manatees, I would totally like kill myself thrown now

[17:21] He's it means of course

[17:27] Any species

[17:30] Yes, she's the character the alien

[17:34] Despite species like all the red flag

[17:37] The sitcom where where you did that's called species roommate and it's about and it's like species

[17:42] Did you take a man home last night? Maybe and eat him? Maybe

[17:47] Oh

[17:54] So and and because the roommate has a crush on species and doesn't like that she's always bringing other people so anyway, uh, so

[18:01] Will they won't they until the final episode of the first season when she eats him? Yeah where she eats him? Yeah

[18:08] So just like in just like in bewitched when when she kids she murdered him for a

[18:14] Sacrificial right? Yeah, they she ate the heart of the first Darren and they'd replace him

[18:18] So dr. Labarthe tells the king that if they sacrifice the mermaid during Eclipse and in the book

[18:23] Apparently he has to eat the flesh of the mermaid

[18:25] But here it's not quite clear how they're gonna transfer the immortality of the mermaid to the king by the end of the movie

[18:31] You know, they're shooting at the mermaid

[18:37] And I guess the mermaid soul will leap out and the king just has to grab

[18:44] So dr. Labarthe says if we sacrifice the mermaid during the Eclipse that's coming up

[18:47] They can transfer its eternal life to him and father Lachaise is like I don't like this plan

[18:51] And he I guess as part of his plan to stop the mermaid to stop the mermaid stuff

[18:57] He goes to the convent and gets Marie-Joseph and brings her to to the court of Versailles

[19:02] Yeah, she doesn't know that she's the king's daughter

[19:04] She thinks she's being brought there to be a new court musician and she is in awe of Versailles who wouldn't be and they shot

[19:10] Amazing if there's any reason to see this movie and it's doubtful it might be that yeah

[19:16] They shot at Versailles, although then they populated it with a bunch of people wearing just seemingly like random

[19:23] Flashy clothes from the past. It does not look like clothes of the time

[19:28] It looks like they just were like, I mean some people look like they're flappers

[19:32] Like I if this movie it looks like Versailles was populated by vampires there and they're all from different

[19:37] Periods where they go out and party. Yeah, well if this movie is clear about its intentions like it does feel like a LARP, basically

[19:44] acceptable because it's like is

[19:46] This trying to do like I don't know like a Baz Luhrmann. Yeah

[19:51] Or like or like a Marie Antoinette. Yeah, it's where it's like

[19:55] We're deliberately mixing times because we want to give you the impression of what it was like

[19:58] but it's

[20:00] only way that that comes out is in the people at Versailles.

[20:02] Yeah.

[20:03] It just feels best.

[20:04] Yeah, like some guys have short hair.

[20:05] Other guys, mainly Pierce Brosnan, have long, beautiful, flowing hair that's just constantly

[20:10] caught by the wind and the light and it looks amazing.

[20:13] Yeah.

[20:14] And so, King Louie, he gets woken up every morning with an orchestra, or a small orchestra,

[20:18] like a quintet, playing for him and he yells, this is my favorite moment, when he wakes

[20:21] up and goes, BORING!

[20:22] Because he thinks the music is boring.

[20:25] And he tries to confess to-

[20:27] Where's that new sound I've been looking for?

[20:30] Listen, the E to this.

[20:33] And so, she tries to confess to William Hurt, his father confessor, but he can't even remember

[20:37] which woman he had sex with last night and Lachaise has to correct him.

[20:42] And meanwhile, Marie gets brought to her small room at Versailles, which she's enchanted

[20:46] by, and she meets Margulie, her attendant.

[20:48] In the book, this character, I guess, is a slave who's trying to get her freedom, but

[20:53] here that's not touched on at all.

[20:57] And later, Marie will be brought to a better room, and I'm like, why did you just cut straight

[21:01] to the chase and have her brought to that room at the beginning?

[21:04] Why the extra room?

[21:05] So, anyway, it's the king's birthday, and this really annoys him because it just reminds

[21:09] him of his mortality, that he's getting older, and he still needs that mermaid to-

[21:12] But he looks great.

[21:13] But he looks fantastic.

[21:14] And he meets Lintelac, or Lintia, or something like that.

[21:18] He's a young heir to a lace fortune who has a lot of money, and the king is like, I need

[21:22] that money, because that war really put us in debt.

[21:24] This is back in the era when nations didn't really have budgets.

[21:29] It was all based around whatever finances the king could steal away from everybody else,

[21:33] and royalty was always- and countries were always running out of money, and they hadn't

[21:37] realized about debt financing.

[21:39] A lot of modern-day mercantile budgetary financing just wasn't there.

[21:43] So, anyway, the court-

[21:44] Thank you for that.

[21:45] Hardcore history.

[21:46] Well, they said because it's a big plot development that he needs this lace heir's money to keep

[21:52] the country afloat.

[21:53] I know.

[21:54] But you just do the things countries do.

[21:55] Like, I don't understand.

[21:56] Yeah.

[21:57] But the court is all- it's all preening.

[21:58] They're all dressed up like they're- yeah, they're trust fund kids going to, like, an

[22:02] antiquated club or something like that.

[22:04] Their idea of what a Versailles-themed party would be.

[22:07] Yeah.

[22:08] Yeah, I mean, and I would- like, I would have expected a larger wig budget, but that's okay.

[22:13] That's fine.

[22:14] It pretty much went to Pierce Brosnan's wig.

[22:16] Yeah.

[22:17] Yeah.

[22:18] And everyone's-

[22:19] Wait, that was a wig?

[22:20] I hate to break it to you.

[22:21] Everyone's gossiping about Marie, because she just dresses plainly, and they're like,

[22:25] what's her deal?

[22:26] And meanwhile, the king thunders around on a horse in slow motion.

[22:28] Oh, it's great.

[22:29] And he startles her into falling into a fountain, and the- and Lintiac, the- or whatever it

[22:33] was pronounced, Lintilac, or Lintaloo.

[22:37] It's French.

[22:38] Just re-pronounce it a million times.

[22:41] He helps her out of the fountain and seems instantly smitten.

[22:44] And so Marie is hired as the new court composer, and she gets a fancy apartment.

[22:48] This is great.

[22:49] And meanwhile, the mermaid is being kept prisoner in a sort of underground steampunk cavern.

[22:54] It's pretty cool.

[22:56] And it's supply- it's like a lair.

[22:57] It's very much a lair, and it supplies for size fountains with all their water.

[23:00] Yeah, it definitely feels like a part of a level in an Uncharted game where I'm like,

[23:04] ugh, how do I figure out this fucking puzzle?

[23:06] Okay, do I gotta push that box onto this other fucking thing?

[23:11] Okay, if I push the box onto the water wheel, will that then stop it, or will it- maybe

[23:18] the box will fall over?

[23:19] How am I gonna time all these jumps under all these fountains?

[23:23] So Father Lacheyus and the king, they go down to stare at the sad mermaid, which won't eat.

[23:26] And the king commands Benjamin Walker, Captain Eves, you keep it alive, or else I'll throw

[23:30] you in jail.

[23:31] And it's like, is he gonna- I guess he's gotta force- do an animal force feed on this mermaid,

[23:36] but where do you find the butt?

[23:37] I don't understand.

[23:38] It's a mermaid.

[23:39] That's true.

[23:40] That's a good question.

[23:41] Listeners, why don't you write in.

[23:42] Tell us where the butt is.

[23:43] It seems like they were having trouble- Only on a mermaid.

[23:45] I know where the butt is on other animals.

[23:47] They're like, what does this mermaid eat?

[23:49] And like, it felt like they threw a stick at it.

[23:52] Well not that, I'm assuming fish.

[23:56] Well they're throwing dead fish.

[23:58] Obviously the mermaid's also not eating because it's been imprisoned.

[24:00] No, no, I know.

[24:01] But also, you'd think that they'd be throwing in good food.

[24:04] It is France.

[24:05] Yeah.

[24:06] But that night- Yeah, shouldn't they be throwing in like a peacock brain?

[24:09] Yeah, they're throwing in a macaron.

[24:11] Yeah, here's a sardine macaron.

[24:14] Oh, wow.

[24:15] So that night, Marie is called to the cave by the mermaid's sad song.

[24:18] She's the only person in Versailles who can hear this song.

[24:20] And we finally see the CGI mermaid, who is, it's like the characters out of Beowulf, the

[24:25] Robert Zemeckis movie, or Polar Express or something like that.

[24:28] Yeah, it looks like a Navi mermaid.

[24:31] Yeah, my guess is that maybe Fan Bingbing, who plays the mermaid, she is a huge star

[24:36] in China.

[24:37] She's one of the highest paid stars in China.

[24:39] And my guess is that she was like, I'm not getting into a mermaid costume and like swimming

[24:44] around in a tank.

[24:45] Like, let's mocap this.

[24:46] What are you doing?

[24:47] Yeah, just like Andy Serkis.

[24:48] Yeah, exactly.

[24:49] Oh, have you guys ever been to the Andy Serkis?

[24:52] He plays all the animals.

[24:53] Oh, wow.

[24:54] Yeah.

[24:55] It's so amazing.

[24:56] And they don't have to use real elephants.

[24:57] Well, that's the thing.

[24:58] Like, you have to wait, though.

[24:59] You have to wait around.

[25:00] He like plays one at a time.

[25:01] And it's like, wait, we're going to composite this in.

[25:03] And then by the end of the night, it's amazing.

[25:06] Yeah.

[25:07] It's just like five to 10 seconds of actual circus content.

[25:10] But you see him doing it throughout.

[25:11] It's really fantastic.

[25:12] Yeah.

[25:13] His motto, there's a circus born every minute.

[25:20] So this is where Captain Benjamin Walker shows up.

[25:24] He was sitting up late in his room reading a little book that I'm assuming is a little

[25:28] manga.

[25:29] Why is that?

[25:30] I mean, because what else are you going to do at night?

[25:32] Like, you know, you got to read something.

[25:35] It's going to be manga.

[25:37] Well, it's a tiny little book.

[25:38] That's what comes in tiny books, right?

[25:40] He's just reading his little lone wolf and cub or something.

[25:43] Yeah.

[25:44] And so so it's the mermaid is kind of whispering this mystery language to to Marie and Eve

[25:50] catches them.

[25:51] And Marie says, I'm going to use this mermaid song in my music.

[25:54] Steal her song.

[25:55] I just get a cultural culturally appropriate from this mermaid.

[25:58] I will not help her get free, but I will steal her music.

[26:01] And the next morning she plays the song and the king loves it.

[26:04] He loves this new song and this composer.

[26:07] So she gets invited to the king's grand ball, which would be awkward if she wasn't invited

[26:11] because she lives at Versailles.

[26:12] That's true.

[26:13] Sitting in her room, hearing everybody dancing.

[26:15] And she's not going to wear all this makeup that Margalie puts on her.

[26:18] So she goes down, you know, plain Jane and everyone is astonished by it.

[26:22] And the king is like, I love it.

[26:23] You're an individual.

[26:24] You remind me of a woman I once knew.

[26:26] Like every weird dude who's like, oh, you look so much prettier without makeup lady

[26:30] on the Internet.

[26:33] And this is what leads us into the section of the movie that that is the like creepy

[26:38] daddy daughter dance.

[26:39] Yeah.

[26:40] Yeah.

[26:41] There are other like we know she's his daughter.

[26:44] She does not know that.

[26:45] So she would probably be assuming this lecherous king is like, I can't wait to get to stabbing.

[26:50] Wow.

[26:51] Is that the way she puts it?

[26:53] I mean, yeah.

[26:54] Yeah.

[26:55] Yeah.

[26:56] That's what she put.

[26:57] How she put her letters to me.

[26:58] She grew up in a convent where the head app is told that a man's penis is sharp like a

[27:01] knife.

[27:02] So I do agree, though.

[27:04] There's this sequence.

[27:05] Yeah.

[27:06] Like this area in the middle of the movie where you're like, this feels like quasi romantic

[27:11] in a way that I'm like, I was genuinely confused.

[27:15] Like, does the king know?

[27:17] Yeah.

[27:18] Yeah.

[27:19] And he's also French, though.

[27:20] So that's just the way the French are.

[27:21] But the incestuous.

[27:22] Is it?

[27:23] Yeah.

[27:24] I mean.

[27:25] Listeners right in.

[27:26] Listeners from France.

[27:27] What's that?

[27:28] What's that Louis Vuitton movie?

[27:29] I'm sorry.

[27:30] The one where the one where the guy is in love with his mother.

[27:32] He's in love with his mother.

[27:33] Anyway.

[27:34] So the.

[27:35] So my father, the hero.

[27:36] Yeah.

[27:37] My father.

[27:38] Again, a Frenchman.

[27:39] Yeah.

[27:40] No.

[27:41] Hundred twelve.

[27:42] Well, there they call it love.

[27:43] I'm trying to move.

[27:44] So the king is like, oh, you're a real individual.

[27:48] And he starts dancing with her.

[27:49] And the dance goes on for a while.

[27:50] She's enchanted.

[27:51] And then he suddenly sees her as a different woman.

[27:53] And he's unnerved.

[27:54] And he has to stop.

[27:55] And we because we've seen stories.

[27:56] We know that he has suddenly seen he suddenly imagined that it's her mother that he's dancing

[28:01] with.

[28:02] We know is some woman that he loved and lost.

[28:03] So anyway, Marie goes to visit the mermaid and tells the mermaid all about the ball,

[28:07] which seems like rubbing it in her face.

[28:09] She's trapped in a cave.

[28:10] It was so great.

[28:11] I was walking around on my cool legs.

[28:13] I could go wherever I wanted.

[28:15] No one would stop me.

[28:16] There's a thing called dancing.

[28:17] You wouldn't know anything about that.

[28:20] And then you want the mermaid to sing part of the world.

[28:23] But she doesn't sing it.

[28:24] Maybe she doesn't.

[28:25] That weird language.

[28:26] Anyway.

[28:27] And she and Captain Eve start bonding over their love of the sea.

[28:30] But, oh, they're being watched by Dr. Lebarth.

[28:32] So earlier, Marie went down to see the mermaid and was watched by the captain.

[28:36] Now she and the captain are looking at the mermaid and they're being watched by Dr.

[28:39] Lebarth.

[28:40] Who's going to watch them when Dr. Lebarth joins?

[28:41] Great.

[28:43] And the next day, the king starts telling Marie about Louisa, a woman he loved, who

[28:47] Marie reminds him of, because obviously it's going to turn out to be her mom.

[28:51] And later, the king is doing like a little drawing, right?

[28:54] He's in a drawing of her.

[28:55] And he's like, I used to sketch her as well.

[28:57] And there's a fountain that looks like her.

[28:59] Later, the king sells...

[29:01] Wait, so when...

[29:02] So in Titanic, when Kate Winslet says, like, draw me like one of your French girls, does

[29:06] she mean draw me like your French daughter that doesn't know that you're her dad?

[29:10] Yes.

[29:11] That's exactly it.

[29:12] It'll add to the tension in the little car they're in.

[29:14] Okay.

[29:15] The little car.

[29:16] Whose car was that?

[29:17] And they got to it and they were like, oh, gross.

[29:19] Yeah.

[29:20] Yep.

[29:21] Well, they made sure to put that car on a life raft.

[29:24] I think that that sank with the Titanic.

[29:27] Well, before anybody went to...

[29:28] A fish got into it and is like, why is there jizz all over the place?

[29:32] It was sinking.

[29:33] He goes, I know.

[29:34] We'll drive away.

[29:35] I brought my car with me.

[29:36] And he opened the door and he went, oh, this is disgusting.

[29:39] I like the idea too.

[29:41] Stuart, this fish is like, oh, now I got to wait for another car to sink.

[29:47] And they start sinking those subway cars to make artificial reefs.

[29:51] And they're like, not what I wanted.

[29:53] Mass transit?

[29:54] Gross.

[29:55] The king sells a dukedom to Lintelac in exchange for a...

[30:00] of money and uh that night lintelac is rude to the sailors and they spar verbally and almost come

[30:05] to blows so they're setting up one at the captain eaves is the man of the people and lintelac this

[30:10] isn't my bad boy favorite uh fancy dinner scene in a movie uh that still goes to dark crystal where

[30:17] the skeksis are shutting down all the rose nebrian shit we showed dark crystal to to sammy and i was

[30:23] like just get ready for this scene where they're just eating and he was not impressed and i was

[30:26] like are you kidding when i was a kid i watched it over and over again yeah i liked it so much

[30:32] that for years like i think to a current day whenever we eat like whenever we would eat meat

[30:39] at dinner my mom would call it rose nebrian oh that's sweet uh as we know you have the best mom

[30:46] yeah so it's another night another song inspired visit from marie to the mermaid

[30:51] and the next day marie and eve's they're flirting around versailles and everyone's

[30:55] watching them and they start riding horses together but marie falls off and breaks her arm

[30:59] of course dr labarthe says they need to amputate which is nuts like that's bonkers

[31:05] and even in 18th century medicine they weren't like your arm's broken i guess you have to lose

[31:08] it and then he looks to the camera he's like she said she wanted to lose some weight

[31:14] he does look yeah it's crazy weird uh you know he looks at the camera wait and he goes he goes

[31:22] as a doctor i did swear to do no arm oh my god dan you gotta do it now

[31:31] uh i would amputate

[31:37] this is hard yeah this is difficult this is like watching a kid riding a bicycle you can't help

[31:42] what you want to say some arms say he took the hippocutt it off instead of the hippocratic

[31:52] okay so anyway uh they uh the king is like wait maybe let's wait one day until you

[31:57] cut her arm off and uh the captain brings marie down to the mermaid who heals her

[32:01] by swimming around her until they're engulfed in glowing light that's right

[32:05] healing powers it's the glowing light from the book

[32:09] no the mermaid was a mermaid from the book that'd be so funny if the book was based on had no

[32:13] mermaid pull out the book what the fuck he can't even about see if there's any entry for glowing

[32:20] well that's like there i remember reading there's an article in new york years ago when about schmidt

[32:24] was was coming out with the author of the book about schmidt and how it was like in the book

[32:29] it's not set in nebraska the characters are apparently very jewish i think it's like barely

[32:33] about schmidt it's on the upper east or upper west side and they're talking to um to alexander

[32:39] payne and he's like well i changed it all but of course i'll keep in the title it's a great title

[32:42] it's like okay so really you just like the title and you made up the rest of it uh but anyway uh

[32:49] marie tells says like says the king the mermaid healed me and the king kind of lets marie believe

[32:54] that he's going to use the mermaid's power to heal the common people of france and then let

[32:58] the mermaid go you gotta assume there's a lot of injuries in france at that time yeah it's

[33:02] gonna take a while i mean like even if even if he's telling the truth like that mermaid's never

[33:06] getting out of there it's still not great and uh and captain eaves is like no the king wants to kill

[33:12] the mermaid to be immortal and he's like you're wrong you don't you need to trust people you're

[33:16] too cynical but they walk around for a long time and he shows her his little lighthouse that he

[33:20] lives in and eventually they kiss i have to say ellie every time you say captain eaves i there's

[33:26] every time i expect you're going to say captain eo

[33:32] spin it for me how would this story be different if it was captain eo instead

[33:34] obviously there'd be some kind of elephant robot dancing but it'd be a different kind of dancing

[33:38] true yeah um so instead so it would be what like angelica houston as a spider queen trying to live

[33:43] forever i have never seen captain eo i don't know anything about i saw it when i was a kid and i

[33:49] thought it was so strange yeah and it felt what was strangest about i think was that as opposed

[33:54] to this where they have all that voice over the beginning captain eo treats that the story as if

[33:58] you know who captain eo is you love these characters you're very familiar with them

[34:02] they exist outside of this incredibly expensive like 20 minute movie you can only see at a theme

[34:07] park yeah like it's and i didn't understand it from one moment to the next and i know there's

[34:12] a robot that turns into a drum set like i remember that love it sounds good there's a

[34:16] but it was i remember seeing it as a kid just being baffled by it it was so strange

[34:21] oh but yeah it feels like a like a cultural artifact from a completely different

[34:26] dimension yes exactly yeah yeah and so uh yeah so if it was captain it would be a very different

[34:31] story one because it'd be michael jackson uh and also because there'd be like a lot of aliens

[34:37] running around and stuff but maybe a better movie except for the michael jackson part because

[34:41] you know not a known actor also dead i mean he was in movies true he was in the whiz he was in

[34:46] moonwalker which is really more a compilation of videos thriller video yeah he was i mean

[34:52] the thing is also yes he made a bunch of like direct video not full length but long like 40

[34:58] minute or so things that i remember re i remember reading about them after he died these like things

[35:04] that would be released on video that people didn't really see very much uh and were often uh like

[35:09] thinly veiled defenses of his of his bizarre lifestyle you know but anyway um so he did

[35:15] michael jackson's not in this no okay it's not captain you nailed it uh and uh so they're in love

[35:21] now but the king has promised marie's hand to the to the new duke lintelac uh-oh that's not a big

[35:27] deal because she's not anybody's daughter right uh-oh because after another night of mermaid

[35:33] communing the king tells marie i'm your father it's just like an empire strikes back spoiler

[35:37] alert because then he because then he cuts her hand off oh the doctor is like yikes we did it

[35:43] but no he tells her he's her father and she's excited at first and he says you need to marry

[35:48] the duke so france can have money and she's like i don't want to and he says and he says you have to

[35:52] obey me i'm your king and so she's mad and she says of course for france and she walks out and

[35:57] collapses crying in the hall and it's at this point that the movie goes through a number of

[36:01] sequences with like kind of pop ballads in the background um and father lachey's he goes to

[36:06] visit the mermaid and he tells the doctor and the king that he is risking damning the king's soul

[36:12] forever by killing this mermaid you gotta believe this king has done so much that has already

[36:16] damaged all the hell he's the king of france now we've yeah now that we've gotten here let's talk

[36:20] a little bit about this is we we we fainted towards talking about it but this is the weird

[36:26] thing about the movie where like the man of science the doctor is the one who's like okay

[36:32] what we've got to do is as science teaches us we murder this mermaid and you get to be a mortal

[36:38] whereas the christian advisor to the king who is played by william hurt and you're set up by

[36:45] every other movie you've ever seen to think like this guy's bad news yeah he's the one who's like

[36:50] no no no you can't kill this the only thing immortal is the soul and the love of god this

[36:55] is wrong this is wrong sir rather than in life what i would assume being the case would be like

[37:01] this is an abomination of god this well but also like there are you know science does go overboard

[37:07] often that's why we have like atomic bombs and facebook but and the overboard remake and the

[37:12] overboard remake which was scientists never asked to do it they only asked if they could do it yeah

[37:17] uh and but this movie goes so overboard in being anti-science and the idea that science it's not

[37:22] just this that science causes the need for ethical inquiry but that science itself is

[37:27] supposed to murder mermaids i mean i'm not as much of a history buff as you guys but uh

[37:33] uh in in uh in france at this time the church was a force of good right

[37:41] it was such a force for good that they soon afterwards when they killed the king they

[37:45] tried to eliminate the church from france it didn't work out because the common people wanted

[37:49] it but yeah it was a uh this is i mean it's like not it's if i'm getting my time right and i'm

[37:54] probably not it's not that long after like the huguenots were massacred and forced to leave

[37:58] because of religious differences like it's this is yeah the the it's it's a historical i mean and

[38:04] again it's also a movie with a mermaid so of course it is in real life the king of france never

[38:08] tried to kill a mermaid for immortality but i can't i can't prove a negative so you're right

[38:13] there's still a chance lack of evidence is not evidence of lack as duke lintelac tells us but uh

[38:19] that's why it's called lintelac but i mean the uh but it's it yeah it's it's it's weird to set up a

[38:25] movie where science is it's not just like uh it's it's not just oh we shouldn't tamper in god's

[38:30] domain but like no science please yeah science says we gotta cut off your arm and kill this

[38:35] mermaid yeah and so uh so uh lachese is like and it's ironic since lachese himself again is an

[38:42] inventor he invented the type of chair uh so um he's saying you're gonna you're going to damn your

[38:48] soul if you do this and uh the king's like well if god doesn't want me to do it may he strike me

[38:54] down right now that old chestnut uh which which implies that god has doesn't have more important

[38:59] things to do with his time like superman yeah and the mermaid calls to marie again and kind of

[39:05] mind melts with her in the water to show her that when she was taken from atlantis she was taken also

[39:10] from her baby who was waiting for her back in atlantis a little a little mer baby yeah yeah

[39:15] take her back to her baby she wants her baby back baby back baby back she wants her baby back baby

[39:19] back mermaids babies are back

[39:27] anyway lachese and the doctor and the king they're arguing about it and the king is like look

[39:33] if we kill this mermaid and i become immortal clearly it's god's will that i be immortal

[39:38] so just let me do this thing which is a bad argument yeah yeah i like it though it's it's

[39:43] very throw someone in the water to see if they're a witch they died they weren't a witch so it's

[39:48] kind of funny because obviously he's the king of france and i assume he's a baddie but leading up

[39:54] to about halfway through this movie i'm like he's not that bad yeah

[40:00] They're setting him up to be a character who you want to like.

[40:04] He's not an out-and-out.

[40:05] Barth is the villain of the movie.

[40:06] And he has that real-

[40:07] And Lintelec.

[40:09] And Lintelec.

[40:09] It's like Barth was the villain of-

[40:12] Of modern literature?

[40:12] Yeah.

[40:14] Of Barth of You Can't Do That On Television?

[40:16] The chef that served Barth to people?

[40:18] Yeah.

[40:20] That was the-

[40:20] I feel so bad.

[40:21] Like, when you have a name like Barth, I guess you're assumed like, yeah.

[40:25] That's like, there's a restaurant that I drove by a few weeks ago called Gorf's.

[40:30] I was like, what?

[40:31] Like, I meant to look it up and see if I know who Gorf was.

[40:34] Yeah, yeah.

[40:38] Just imagine being the person who-

[40:40] The host.

[40:40] And being like, yes, this is Gorf.

[40:43] Welcome to Gorf's, yeah?

[40:46] Yes, we have live jazz music.

[40:49] Mr. Affleck, yes?

[40:55] It sounds like a weird contraction of Dorf on golf.

[40:58] Yeah.

[40:59] Do you have Gorf food?

[41:00] What?

[41:01] I was thinking the other day about a movie called Snow White and the Seven Dorfs.

[41:07] Where it's seven Tim Conways.

[41:10] I mean, you can't go wrong with that.

[41:12] That guy is a comedy genius.

[41:13] He's hilarious.

[41:17] He's just like, he's like-

[41:18] This is gonna be a-

[41:19] This is a hot take, but Tim Conway is like Martin Short in that he is a

[41:24] objectively hilarious person who also made a lot of very unfunny things.

[41:28] Yeah, yeah.

[41:30] So anyway, the sailor, he's-

[41:34] Captain Eve's and his friend, who I don't remember his name,

[41:36] but he's another sailor who's kind of the goofier of the two.

[41:38] But he doesn't have enough time on screen to really develop a personality.

[41:41] They're searching the doctor's study and they essentially just find drawings

[41:45] of him killing the mermaid.

[41:46] And he has his plans for the next day that he drew in case he forgot how to read that day.

[41:51] Insert knife here.

[41:53] And it's like, it's like Ikea.

[41:56] It's like two people to carry this mermaid, not a one person job.

[41:59] So, and they slip it under Maria's door right before they're arrested and locked up

[42:03] under the orders of the doctor.

[42:05] And Marie sees the plans and she's so mad.

[42:07] She smashes all of her beloved musical instruments.

[42:08] Stop sending me this shit.

[42:11] She's like, look, I don't want to vote for Caruso in the LA mayoral election.

[42:16] Stop slipping this stuff under my door.

[42:18] That's some local humor for a city I'm not in right now.

[42:20] Anyway, we're getting a lot of flyers for this guy that we're not voting for.

[42:24] And she says, tells the king, I'll marry the Duke.

[42:27] David Caruso, right?

[42:28] The actor.

[42:28] Yeah, David, David Caruso of Jade fame.

[42:32] Yeah, that's what he's most known for.

[42:35] Yeah, so she says, I'll marry him if you free the mermaid.

[42:39] And the king goes, no, you're going to marry him.

[42:43] And I'm going to kill the mermaid.

[42:44] Yeah, it turns out when you're not the king, you don't have that much leverage.

[42:47] It's like you have you have nothing over me in this situation.

[42:50] And he looks and then everyone's preparing for the eclipse.

[42:54] And you get this this dramatic stutter zoom in of Pierce Brosnan on a balcony,

[42:59] staring straight at the eclipse as if trying to stare it down, you know.

[43:05] And so Marie, she's like, let's chase.

[43:07] You've got to help me save the mermaid.

[43:09] And her room is guarded.

[43:10] But he helps her sneak out of the guarded room so that they can go to the cave.

[43:14] And I forgot how Captain Eves got out of jail.

[43:16] But he is he he gets out and he's in there in the cave.

[43:20] And they're like, hmm, if we drain all the fountains in Versailles,

[43:23] we can raise the water in the cave enough so that the mermaid

[43:26] can jump over the retaining wall free.

[43:28] Really?

[43:29] It was like it was when we push the box on the fucking water.

[43:33] Yeah, that's going to tip over a candle, which burns through this rope that frees

[43:37] a mouse that goes for the cheese, which turns on a ledge.

[43:40] But if I don't do it fast enough, it all resets.

[43:44] Yeah, we got we got a Prince of Persia, this thing.

[43:47] And so they they do it anyway.

[43:49] But while they're trying to do it, oh, Dr.

[43:51] Labarthe shows up with his gunmen because he's a doctor.

[43:53] He can order around soldiers and they shoot eaves.

[43:55] But he keeps fighting the baddies until he and Dr.

[43:58] Labarthe tumble into the water.

[44:00] Only the doctor resurfaces.

[44:02] Oh, no.

[44:03] And Marie fights the doctor.

[44:04] I got to say the doctor resurfaces in like the this was my pick for cool shot of the movie.

[44:12] OK, I like that.

[44:13] Compliment it.

[44:13] Give it something nice.

[44:14] So we're not like the our hero is looking down at the water, you know, like not knowing

[44:21] there's blood in the water.

[44:22] She doesn't know who survived, you know, her love or this evil doctor.

[44:26] And meanwhile, behind behind her, we see the evil doctor rising up on the water wheel.

[44:32] So I like that.

[44:34] I like that.

[44:34] That was a nice shot.

[44:35] Good work, Sean McNamara.

[44:37] You did it.

[44:38] That was the only thing I enjoyed.

[44:40] One perfect shot.

[44:41] And the doctor's like, great.

[44:42] I killed this guy and dropped him in the cocoon pool of healing.

[44:46] Yeah, well, that's then he fights her and he manages.

[44:49] She manages to tie his ankle to the water wheel.

[44:51] So he's dragged under and drowns.

[44:53] Take that.

[44:53] And and the mermaid will give it.

[44:58] You live by the water.

[44:59] Will you die by the water?

[45:00] We'll have all.

[45:01] So the mermaid escapes with with the captain.

[45:05] Marie rides off on a horse, leaving the duke at the altar.

[45:08] And then the king chases her on horseback.

[45:11] And suddenly they already know he's a badass horse.

[45:14] And I've only been to Versailles once.

[45:16] I've never I don't know the French geography that much.

[45:18] But they're they're a minute's horse ride away from the ocean and a cliff.

[45:21] Yeah, I don't think it's accurate.

[45:23] True.

[45:24] I could be wrong, but I don't think that's accurate.

[45:26] Well, correct me, correct me.

[45:29] Do mermaids exist?

[45:30] You bring an excellent point up that this is that the most the biggest difference between

[45:34] our reality and that one is the mermaid.

[45:36] So who knows what other different variants there might be?

[45:40] Uh, that Versailles might be an ocean side estate in in this world.

[45:44] Uh, and they chase her to this cliff and she gives an impassioned speech.

[45:47] And she looks down and sees that the captain has been healed by the mermaid.

[45:51] Uh, they they the mermaid and the captain kind of shoot out of a hole in the cliff

[45:54] into the into the ocean.

[45:56] And the king's men are ready to shoot the mermaid dead, which I don't.

[45:59] Kingsman from the Kingsman movies?

[46:01] No, I hate to.

[46:02] Sorry, I hate to make you do.

[46:02] The men who belong to the king.

[46:04] Oh, OK.

[46:05] Who worked for him.

[46:06] And but it's one of those things, as Dan said, like, I don't know how this how this

[46:10] is going to give him immortality if they just they just snipe a mermaid from thousands of

[46:15] feet away and its body floats away into the ocean.

[46:17] Yeah, but it's like they say in Riddick, you keep what you kill.

[46:21] Yeah, I looked it up.

[46:22] Versailles, I wouldn't say is the most landlocked place in France.

[46:25] OK, get further inland, but pretty far.

[46:31] It's not a it's not a two minute horsey ride.

[46:33] No, no, no, no, no, no.

[46:34] This would this would take quite a while on a horse to get to the ocean.

[46:38] OK.

[46:38] And so they're ready to shoot him dead.

[46:40] And Marie says, if the mermaids live, it will save my life.

[46:43] And she jumps off the cliff into the ocean, breaking her body to pieces.

[46:46] And the doctor, if he were alive, would be like, got to cut those pieces off now.

[46:50] And the king is distraught and he sees the eclipses taking place.

[46:53] It's time to kill that mermaid.

[46:54] But he tells the men not to shoot.

[46:56] And the mermaid pulls her glowy swim move on Marie and saves her.

[46:59] And they all swim away to the captain's ship, which is waiting offshore.

[47:03] And the king says, don't stop the ship.

[47:05] Just just let it go.

[47:07] Please don't stop the music.

[47:08] And I've learned my lesson that even kings die.

[47:11] Yeah.

[47:12] And Lachey's and he kneels in repentance before Lachey's and Lachey says,

[47:16] you were a great king, which is debatable.

[47:18] Now you now you become a great man.

[47:19] And Lachey's forgives him.

[47:20] Also debatable.

[47:21] Yeah.

[47:21] Forgives him for sins.

[47:22] This only love is immortal.

[47:25] Now we get back to the Julie Andrews voiceover, wrapping up, telling us how

[47:28] the captain and Marie, which is to the entity.

[47:32] They maybe that's the deal's first name.

[47:34] I don't know.

[47:35] They they're searching the seas for Atlantis, and they finally find it.

[47:38] And rather than throwing exploding barrels in Marie dives in and her mermaid

[47:43] just happens to be there right at right there.

[47:45] And you can tell that's her mermaid.

[47:47] I mean, it comes to greet her and says, hey, like, unless the legend of her.

[47:51] I mean, they say that crows that later generations of crows can recognize

[47:57] people that they never met somehow, that a person who encounters a flock of

[48:02] crows who then returns months later or years later when it's a new generation

[48:06] of crows, that they will recognize them, I guess, because the story of that

[48:09] person has been passed down by the crows.

[48:12] So maybe it's something like that.

[48:13] You find this to be true in your work with the crow puppets at mystery

[48:16] science theaters that like future generations would still recognize.

[48:19] These generations of crow puppets.

[48:20] They would still I mean, they would still know me depending on the puppeteer

[48:23] operating the puppet and and the mermaid takes Marie on a ride through Atlantis,

[48:28] which is kind of like an underwater Las Vegas.

[48:30] Yeah, it's very glowy and pastel and like a pop.

[48:34] And you kind of wonder what it's made out of.

[48:35] And the mermaids have no hands.

[48:37] It's run by Andrew Ryan.

[48:38] That's terrible.

[48:39] Yeah.

[48:40] These mermaids, let's we haven't really said that instead of hands, they've got

[48:44] like big, like razor sharp, long fins.

[48:47] They're huge fins.

[48:48] Yeah.

[48:49] So they have no hands and they but they somehow maybe they hired maybe Steve

[48:53] Wynn built this whole mermaid complex.

[48:55] And at one point, the doctors or the captains suggest that the mermaid could

[49:00] slice you in half with their fins.

[49:02] Yes.

[49:02] Although we never see anything like that ever happen.

[49:04] I want I thought that was just them kind of being superstitious about the mermaid.

[49:07] Oh, yeah.

[49:08] I guess I could be wrong.

[49:09] But we'll see.

[49:10] Because I mean, if if they had that ability and you're making a movie, you know, you got

[49:13] to have them slice shit.

[49:14] Well, maybe they were saving it for the King's Daughter tournament fighting game.

[49:17] I mean, like if if if if the mermaid is up against Blanca, like he tries his

[49:22] electro move.

[49:23] She just cuts him.

[49:23] Yeah.

[49:24] Your breaker meter goes all the way up and then you can do your super move.

[49:27] Yeah.

[49:27] I don't know whether this sort of gentle fairy tale esque story ever had anyone being

[49:32] murdered by a mermaid.

[49:33] But I do think that's probable that a lot of things in this movie that seem to go nowhere.

[49:39] That's because it got retooled so many times and could have been improved by mermaid

[49:44] murder.

[49:44] Yeah.

[49:45] Now, Dan, you maybe if you want to start final judgments, we get a good thing is referring

[49:50] to it as a fairy tale type movie because it is it is attempting a kind of like I'm

[49:56] not I assume it's supposed to be a family kind of picture for a fairy.

[50:00] Because there's nothing particularly violent in it, there's no particular sex in it.

[50:04] It's like, you could show it to children, but at the same time, it's so boring.

[50:07] Why?

[50:08] Why would you do that to kids?

[50:09] And so overcomplicated, you know.

[50:10] I don't see a kid liking it, you know.

[50:12] Unless you're trying to teach them that, you know, not everything in the world is going

[50:17] to be good.

[50:18] Well, yeah, there's no jokes.

[50:19] Like, it's not fun enough for a kid's movie, and it's not sexy enough to be kind of like

[50:26] a grown-up romance in a time of corsets and...

[50:29] You don't actually see that much of a mermaid.

[50:32] So we are currently soaking in Final Judgments, whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad,

[50:37] bad movie, a movie kind of like, yeah, I'm gonna, I'll kick us off on that tone.

[50:42] I think it's a bad, bad movie, and a large portion of it is, like, I don't know for whom

[50:49] this movie was made.

[50:50] It is not, like, I have faith.

[50:53] Chinese investors.

[50:54] I have faith.

[50:55] Yeah, well, it is, it was made for Chinese investors that wanted to break into the Western

[50:59] movie market.

[51:00] But at the same time, this wasn't always...

[51:01] Yeah, but why would they make a good movie?

[51:02] Yeah, that's the question.

[51:03] That's actually a really good point, man, because if you're gonna spend a lot of money

[51:07] making a movie, why don't you make a good movie?

[51:09] Well, but the thing is, I see there could be a good, I can, this movie, different people

[51:14] have been very passionate about making it for 20-some odd years, and it's, I can, there's

[51:18] a good version of this movie that has a certain amount of, like, wit and lightness and magic

[51:24] to it.

[51:25] The way that, like, the Princess Bride exists.

[51:26] Like, that movie exists, and it's great.

[51:29] Yeah.

[51:30] And, like, you could do this movie like that, and they just, but they didn't know how to

[51:32] do it.

[51:33] But that, but that movie is, to some degree, like, you know, it's taking the piss out of

[51:39] fairy tales.

[51:40] Except, it is, but at the same time, it's so, it's so, the same way that, like, we were

[51:45] watching My Kids Love the Old Lion King, and there are parts in that movie where you can

[51:50] tell are...

[51:51] Is that different than the animated Lion King movie?

[51:53] I mean, it's, I mean, they're both animated.

[51:55] It's the...

[51:56] Well, wait a minute.

[51:57] One's a live action version.

[51:58] One is an animated movie.

[51:59] It looks like a 2D cartoon, and one is an animated movie that is faking live action

[52:03] animals.

[52:04] And which is the one on Broadway?

[52:05] That's not a movie.

[52:06] That's...

[52:07] That's a stage play.

[52:08] Olympics and, and just human performers.

[52:10] Yeah.

[52:11] Okay, okay, okay.

[52:12] In suits, on stage.

[52:13] Yeah, so, but, uh, the, uh, the old, there's the scene where, uh, Zazu the bird, as played

[52:18] by Rowan Atkinson.

[52:19] Uh...

[52:20] Sean Oliver.

[52:21] In the, in the new one, that Scar, played by Jeremy Irons, I don't know who plays him

[52:25] in the new one.

[52:26] Jewetel Jefford.

[52:28] Yeah.

[52:29] He, uh, he, he wants him to sing a song, and he starts singing, It's a Small World, and

[52:32] Scar goes, ugh, no, no, no.

[52:34] And at that time, that was kind of a taking the piss out of Disney joke.

[52:37] But that joke seems so quaint now compared to the new one, where, in the old one, they

[52:42] kind of hint at the word fart, but they don't say it.

[52:44] And the new one, they just say fart, and they talk about the word fart for a while.

[52:48] And it's like...

[52:49] I'm always farting and shitting.

[52:50] It's me, Pumbaa.

[52:51] I'm sure when the...

[52:52] That's what I'm known for.

[52:53] I'm a shit pig.

[52:54] That's what I do.

[52:55] Hey, kid.

[52:56] Hey, kids.

[52:58] And Timon is like, I love Dick.

[53:01] This is the Lion King 2020.

[53:05] And so the...

[53:09] Oh, man.

[53:10] That's awesome.

[53:11] But in the...

[53:12] The Princess Bride, at the time, was like, oh, it's a tongue-in-cheek kind of winking

[53:15] fairy tale.

[53:16] But you watch it now, and it just feels like a fairy tale.

[53:18] Like it...

[53:19] Yeah.

[53:20] Even the jokes feel like fairy tale jokes.

[53:21] No, no, no.

[53:22] That sort of cynical, like, let's say, like, Shrek, you know, like, the worst version.

[53:28] Like, you know, like, William Goldman wanted to write, like, a tale of high adventure.

[53:33] And he wanted to, like, put, like, jokes in it and make it, like, sort of sophisticated

[53:39] for a modern audience.

[53:40] But, like, it's really a throwback.

[53:42] And this one...

[53:43] It wants to be a throwback.

[53:44] Has no jokes.

[53:45] Yeah.

[53:46] And it has no high adventure in it.

[53:47] It wants to be a throwback, but it has...

[53:48] Yeah, it has very little of the things that you like of those...

[53:51] Or that I like.

[53:52] So that maybe there are people who love, like, like, there's a very heavy romance element

[53:56] to it.

[53:57] It's not a particularly well-drawn romance, but, like, maybe that's...

[53:59] Maybe that is something that doesn't...

[54:00] Yeah, I mean, it's not as well-drawn a romance as, say, like, the romance between Shrek and

[54:04] Fiona.

[54:05] Where they learn that it's okay for...

[54:08] She can love him for being ugly because she is also an ugly ogre.

[54:11] They are on the same level of attractiveness.

[54:13] So it's okay.

[54:15] Just don't try and punch above your weight class.

[54:17] And also, it's okay to make fun of the king's height because he's a bad guy so they can

[54:21] make fun of his appearance as much as they want.

[54:23] Oh, there's so much about that movie I don't like.

[54:26] So are you saying King's Daughter is better or worse than Shrek?

[54:28] Oh, don't make...

[54:29] This is a real Solomon's Choice, you know?

[54:33] But I will...

[54:34] I'm also going to call the King's Daughter a bad, bad movie.

[54:36] But there's the part of me that, like, I think I've said in the past, I like the idea of,

[54:40] like, adventure movies.

[54:41] Like, they don't make them really anymore the same way.

[54:43] And so there's part of me that wanted to like it because it's a throwback kind of fairy

[54:46] tale-ish movie.

[54:47] But there's no adventure.

[54:48] They just hang out at Versailles the whole time.

[54:49] There's no adventure and there's no...

[54:51] The characters are not fun or exciting.

[54:54] There's no excitement or fun.

[54:55] And an adventure movie should be both exciting and fun.

[54:58] Or else, why...

[54:59] I mean, or else, why be going on an adventure, you know?

[55:02] I mean, I guess there's, like, Sorcerer.

[55:04] That's an adventure movie that's not exciting.

[55:06] That's not fun.

[55:07] Yeah.

[55:08] Yeah.

[55:09] Show me a movie more exciting than Sorcerer, Elliot.

[55:11] I'll fucking wait.

[55:12] I mean, it's tense.

[55:13] Elliot sounded like...

[55:14] Elliot sounded so much like Bilbo right then.

[55:17] Like, if an adventure's not gonna be exciting or fun, I'm like, why, let me just stay here

[55:22] in my hobbit hole and have some tea, man.

[55:24] Well, yeah, basically.

[55:25] Don't come in here, sing songs, and fuck up my plates.

[55:28] Hey, hey, put my plates down, you jerks.

[55:31] Oh, that movie.

[55:32] I wish...

[55:33] This is my very...

[55:34] I mean, that plate scene goes on for so long and I kind of wish every time they were about

[55:37] to go on the adventure, they just started singing...

[55:40] Ooh, baby.

[55:41] Yeah, another plate...

[55:42] Give me more of that.

[55:43] Give me more of that shit.

[55:45] And Peter Jackson's like, actually, it turned out to be a five-movie series, because they

[55:49] don't go on the adventure until movie two.

[55:51] The first movie is three hours of them being bad house guests.

[55:58] Oh, man.

[55:59] Now I kind of wish that the poster for the first movie was Bilbo opening, like, his mailbox,

[56:04] and, like, all the characters were, like, all the doors were sticking to the mailbox.

[56:10] And then they're all looking at the camera.

[56:12] They're all looking at the...

[56:13] How else do you make a fucking movie poster?

[56:15] You have to look at the camera.

[56:17] Peter Jackson's like, you know, there's a lot of extra songs in the Silmarillion that

[56:22] we weren't using, so we just put them in here.

[56:24] We paid for that shit.

[56:25] Put them in.

[56:26] A lot of people don't know that the movie House Guest was based on the Silmarillion.

[56:31] We took that in.

[56:32] We paid for this.

[56:33] It was the...

[56:34] I'm very curious about this Amazon Lord of the Rings TV show that they spent a billion-some-odd

[56:38] dollars on, because I'm worried that there aren't enough stories left that people are

[56:41] that interested in in the realm of Middle Earth, you know?

[56:44] I could be wrong, though.

[56:45] So, Stuart, you thought it was a good movie?

[56:47] Oh, yeah.

[56:48] It was...

[56:49] Well, the thing is, it's tough.

[56:51] Is there a category between good, great, and best movie ever?

[56:55] No, this is a bad, bad movie.

[56:57] Yeah, there's just not...

[57:00] It's an adventure movie with no adventure.

[57:02] There's no real...

[57:04] There's no jokes.

[57:05] Yeah.

[57:06] There's no sense of magic in it.

[57:08] At the very least, it should make you feel like, I'm seeing something that I can't see

[57:11] otherwise.

[57:12] I feel like there's a bigger sense of connection between our hero and the mermaid than her

[57:17] love interest.

[57:18] Maybe she should have fallen in love with the mermaid.

[57:19] She should have...

[57:20] Real-life actress should have married that mermaid.

[57:23] Marry that mermaid!

[57:25] Yeah.

[57:26] Okay, well, there you have it.

[57:28] Go watch Splash if you want a mermaid movie.

[57:31] John Candy's character is fucking gross as hell in Splash.

[57:34] I watched it recently.

[57:35] It's fucked up.

[57:36] I haven't seen Splash in a long time, and I have to assume that there's a lot of stuff

[57:38] wrong with that movie.

[57:39] That movie that doesn't fly these days.

[57:40] Or swim, I should say.

[57:45] Can't do that over Zoom.

[57:46] And it's also...

[57:47] Yeah, we can't...

[57:48] Well, we could try to high-five over Zoom.

[57:49] We'd break our computers.

[57:50] We'd hit the screens.

[57:51] Break Dan's computers.

[57:52] It's the...

[57:53] I watched a video about it a while back.

[57:54] Splash is one of those ones where it's the idea of, like, sexy born yesterday or something

[57:58] like that.

[57:59] Born sexiest.

[58:00] Where it's like, finally, a sexy woman that I get to teach about the world.

[58:03] Yeah.

[58:06] I guess that alien's gonna be your new step-mom.

[58:11] Honey, I married a species.

[58:13] Yep.

[58:14] That Terminator's looking thick.

[58:22] Hi, I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart.

[58:25] And I'm Jordan Morris, boy detective.

[58:27] Our comedy podcast, Jordan Jesse Go, just celebrated its 15th anniversary.

[58:33] It was a couple months ago, but we forgot.

[58:36] Yeah, completely.

[58:37] Our silly show is 15 years old.

[58:40] That makes it old enough to get its learner's permit.

[58:43] And almost old enough to get the talk.

[58:45] Wow, I hope you got the talk before then.

[58:47] A lot of things have changed in 15 years.

[58:50] Our show's not one of them.

[58:51] We're never changing, and you can't make us.

[58:55] Jordan Jesse Go, the same forever at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

[59:04] I'm going first. It's me, Jackie Cashion.

[59:07] Man, she's always this bossy.

[59:09] Hi, I'm Lori Kiltmartin.

[59:12] We're a bunch of stand-up comics, and we've been doing comedy like 60 years total,

[59:18] both of us, but we look amazing.

[59:21] I'm working out.

[59:23] We drop every Monday on MaxFun, and it's called The Jackie and Lori Show.

[59:26] And you can listen to it and learn about comedy and learn about anger management and all the things.

[59:31] And Jackie is married but childless, and I'm unmarried but childful,

[59:36] so together we make one complete woman.

[59:41] Is that just what's going to end?

[59:43] Yeah, yeah.

[59:45] And we try to make Kyle laugh just like that and say, oh, my God, every episode.

[59:49] It's a good job.

[59:50] Jackie and Lori Show, Mondays, only on MaximumFun.

[59:54] Hey, listener, we got sponsors.

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[1:01:59] and accessories. Whatever will make you and your kitty happy. Now, what kind of accessories?

[1:02:05] Yeah, a little chain belt, bullet belts, spiked gauntlets. You often tell your cats,

[1:02:11] before you go out, take off one piece of jewelry. And they're like, no, no, no, dad, I know better.

[1:02:16] And then they come back and they're like, you were right. And right now, Kitty Poo Club is

[1:02:21] offering an awesome discount for your first litter box order and free shipping when you set up an

[1:02:26] auto ship. Just go to kittypooclub.com to save on your first auto ship order of litter boxes with

[1:02:32] free shipping and be sure to let them know that the Flophouse sent you after you check out.

[1:02:38] That's kittypooclub.com. Elliot, hey, you're in town. Do you have anything to plug?

[1:02:45] Because of being in town or just in general? Is this a press tour you're on?

[1:02:49] No, it's a press tour. I'm only appearing on my own podcast. Sure, I'll mention, I think I've

[1:02:54] mentioned before, I have a new podcast on iHeartRadio that's just for kids. That's JFK,

[1:02:59] just for kids. That's what JFK Airport is. Just for kids airport.

[1:03:03] What if an adult like me shows up wearing a mustache or something?

[1:03:06] Well, don't wear a mustache. That makes you look like more of a grown up.

[1:03:09] But that's a disguise. I mean, but disguise as a grown up. I mean,

[1:03:11] at least show up with like a backwards baseball cap and overalls.

[1:03:14] I don't know. I feel like I'm kind of jealous that like, oh,

[1:03:17] these like 20 year old zoomers can pull off like little mustaches.

[1:03:21] Like, I wish I could go back in time and have a little mustache.

[1:03:23] You could have a mustache. I'll tell you a piece of advice that I got.

[1:03:27] And like, and like a curly mullet. Could I have a curly mullet?

[1:03:30] Yeah, I'll do whatever you want.

[1:03:31] And like a single dangling earring.

[1:03:33] Yes. Here's the piece of advice that a fashion person gave to me. If you act like you can pull

[1:03:37] it off, you can pull it off. Oh, that's that's good to know.

[1:03:40] Be the change you want to be in your appearance. Anyway, I have a new podcast called

[1:03:44] Who Was Podcast. It's a quiz show about history for kids. It's on iHeart Media,

[1:03:47] but you can get it wherever on wherever podcast apps are.

[1:03:51] So that's the Who Was Podcast. And it's a fun podcast for kids about historical figures.

[1:03:56] And also, what's this all about? Maniac of New York. Sure. That's still in comic book stores.

[1:04:00] New York. I think the collected volume two comes out in July.

[1:04:04] Yay. Hooray.

[1:04:06] And I own some bars. Go to them. Hinterland's Bar and Minnie's Bar. Yippee.

[1:04:11] I'm sure I do something. Hey, not yet. Let's move on.

[1:04:18] In his own house. I said that. Wow. Dogging them out.

[1:04:22] Letters is a thing that we get from you listeners who are listening. And now we will read them.

[1:04:28] I will read them. OK, both of them. Well, Stuart and Elliot stare at you uncomfortably.

[1:04:32] Yeah. Hey, this is the letter section segment. Hey, this is the letters section.

[1:04:39] Hey, letters are things that we get. What are some other things that we get? Well,

[1:04:44] we get older, that's for sure. And we get oxygen into our blood when we breathe.

[1:04:50] That's another thing that we get. If we're outside in the sun too long, we get discoloration.

[1:04:56] Again, we're older. That's something we get. When we go to the store, we get groceries.

[1:05:02] If it's a grocery store. Sir, this is a Best Buy. We're not getting groceries there.

[1:05:07] What are some other things that we get? Well, we get wet when we jump in the pool.

[1:05:12] When we're in the shade, we get real cool. Those are things we get. Things we get. If

[1:05:18] we shave a sheep, we get wool, which doesn't quite rhyme with pool. But I tried something.

[1:05:24] I tried something I got. And now we're getting letters from you and you were getting letters

[1:05:30] from you. If you sent us a letter, if you didn't send us a letter, then we're not going to get

[1:05:35] a letter from you. That's something we're not going to get. Not yet. Send us that letter.

[1:05:41] Better yet. I rhymed yet with yet. You bet. We got some letters because that's something we get.

[1:05:52] Say it, Ubu. Say it. Good dog.

[1:05:56] Hey, Flopperinos. This one's from Monty, last name withheld. Monty Hellman,

[1:06:01] director of Toon Lane Blacktop. Since Stuart is an amazing dungeon master, and the other two of

[1:06:07] you know how to play games now, thanks to him. Thanks to him, yeah, sure. He taught us everything

[1:06:13] we know. I thought I'd ask, what movies would make the best premise for an adventure? Thanks,

[1:06:21] Monty, last name withheld. What movies? Yeah, that's a tough one. I feel like a lot of times

[1:06:27] when we're reviewing movies, I'm like, this would have made a good RPG adventure. I don't

[1:06:33] know if The King's Daughter would have made a pretty good, I don't know. It's such a localized,

[1:06:37] specific incident, and like our hero, we don't have a party. No, they do have a party. They

[1:06:41] go to a big ball. Oh, that's true, but that's not what I mean. Oh, right. The other person's party.

[1:06:47] I will say, though this doesn't directly answer the question, the number one best example of

[1:06:52] a RPG adventure on screen is still Conan the Destroyer. That's the best D&D movie that isn't

[1:06:59] a D&D movie. What about you guys? Well, I was trying to think like what, I mean, honestly,

[1:07:06] the most interesting RPGs to me now are the ones that like go off in like weirder directions,

[1:07:12] like are less tied to what's traditionally thought of as like RPG stuff. Give me an example.

[1:07:18] Well, when Stuart made us all play Cartoon Dogs. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like if there was something

[1:07:24] like creative where we all like got to be like the Marx Brothers ruining a party. That does sound

[1:07:31] fun. Yeah. A role-playing game like that. That's like the new wave. That's the kind of party I was

[1:07:36] talking about. So the party would be the Marx Brothers, but they go to a party. But in terms

[1:07:41] of like things that are like sort of already ready-made for that sort of thing, I was thinking

[1:07:45] about something like Buckaroo Banzai, which is already sort of set up to be in that tradition

[1:07:51] where it's like you're already part of a party that is like scientists and a rock band and you

[1:08:00] travel the world like. Buckaroo Banzai is more successful as a world-building module than it is

[1:08:05] as a movie. Yeah. I was thinking, so I think those are all really good answers. I think that I was

[1:08:12] thinking instead of an RPG, if it was kind of like kind of pandemic style timed board game of

[1:08:17] taking a Pelham one, two, three, the hot and you've got like the train on the board and you've got the

[1:08:22] dispatch center and you've also got the car that has to get the money over to where that to the

[1:08:26] train station. And it's all you got to coordinate those elements. You got to get there on time or

[1:08:30] else they start killing hostages. And you had some like classic euro resource management in there

[1:08:35] like, oh, man, maybe some kind of like an action bartering system, an auctioning system. Yeah,

[1:08:40] that's great. And the turns are timed because you got to you got to keep talking.

[1:08:45] Or just someone. Are there also people playing the kidnappers? That's a good question. I feel

[1:08:49] like the kidnappers would make an excellent that would be like a bot element that would be like

[1:08:54] the game against you. So, yeah, I feel like a cooperative cooperative makes the most sense

[1:08:58] unless you can see victory conditions applying to the different players, because each player

[1:09:03] is playing a different what city agency. Yeah, well, you have someone. So here you would have

[1:09:09] Victor Garber, transit cop who's doing negotiating. You'd have the Tony Roberts

[1:09:13] character who is the mayor's aide, the deputy mayor. You'd have someone playing maybe the

[1:09:18] cop who's on the tracks, who's the police officer who is like in the middle of the

[1:09:25] crossfire. And, you know, and maybe there's different victory conditions for each. But

[1:09:28] ultimately, I think you'd be cooperative to to stop the hostages, to stop the hostage takers.

[1:09:33] Hostages, you don't want to stop. Let them go to escape. Oh, wow. That's a big or it's a big

[1:09:37] deal. And someone is playing as the undercover cop on board the train. And in the movie, that

[1:09:42] person does very little. Yeah. They do very poorly in the game. Yeah. But in the game,

[1:09:46] maybe they have a chance to shine. You know, great answers all. Now the next the next letter

[1:09:53] goes like this. You seem mad. Are you OK? OK. I was mad at the burp that was coming out.

[1:10:00] Get back in my throat, Bert.

[1:10:02] In the last 40 seconds of episode 123,

[1:10:05] hey, another, I'm taking your poem, 123.

[1:10:08] Oh, wow, it's the secret thing that runs the world.

[1:10:11] In the last 40 episodes of episode 123,

[1:10:14] Stuart seems to be in the middle

[1:10:16] of describing a wrestler named Dr. Nuts,

[1:10:23] who his thing is he always got his nuts out.

[1:10:27] And after an extensive Google image search.

[1:10:29] This is a dumb show.

[1:10:30] After an extensive, see I stole that joke from someone,

[1:10:33] Google image search and some psychosexual confusion,

[1:10:37] I find this character does not seem to exist on Earth.

[1:10:39] Any followup will be much.

[1:10:41] Maybe in the Galactic Wrestling Federation.

[1:10:44] Any followup, thank you for really opening

[1:10:46] the door to that possibility.

[1:10:48] Any followup will be much appreciated.

[1:10:49] XOXO, Jon Hamm from Mad Men, last name with L.

[1:10:52] Wow.

[1:10:54] Wow, that's a big star writing in,

[1:10:56] but that makes sense, that tracks with his interests.

[1:10:59] So, yeah, I feel like that was an inside joke

[1:11:02] with some friends of mine where we're all inventing wrestlers

[1:11:05] that we would like to have in our wrestling federation.

[1:11:08] And Dr. Nuts was one of them.

[1:11:11] I probably could remember some others,

[1:11:13] but you know what, guys?

[1:11:15] I drink a lot and my memory's bad.

[1:11:17] That was before you became healthy, Stu.

[1:11:19] No, I still drink.

[1:11:22] My memory's still bad.

[1:11:24] Hey, let's move on to recommendations of movies

[1:11:29] that we saw, that we enjoyed, that why not?

[1:11:33] We might-

[1:11:34] Yeah, let's do it.

[1:11:35] Let's just give it a whirl.

[1:11:36] Let's go crazy, yeah, let's go crazy, let's do it.

[1:11:37] You know what, I'm looking back on my diary.

[1:11:40] Your diary?

[1:11:41] Well, my movie diary.

[1:11:42] Oh.

[1:11:43] To your diary, I'm seeing Elliot and Stuart today.

[1:11:46] I can't wait to talk about movies.

[1:11:48] This is my diary where I only talk about things

[1:11:50] that haven't happened yet.

[1:11:52] Yeah.

[1:11:54] I watched a lot of movies lately

[1:11:56] because Audrey had COVID for a while,

[1:12:00] and so we were quarantining on opposite sides

[1:12:02] of the apartment, and I was-

[1:12:04] You were just going through those Cinemax

[1:12:05] late night offerings?

[1:12:06] Just going through, yeah.

[1:12:07] All of those, Showtime as well.

[1:12:11] No.

[1:12:12] The Showtime ones I always found were not,

[1:12:14] I mean, not that I've looked at any of them in years,

[1:12:16] but the Showtime ones I always found

[1:12:17] were not quite at the same level of sleaze as the Cinemax.

[1:12:21] With the Showtime ones, it was like-

[1:12:22] You tried your nose up on those, yeah.

[1:12:23] The Showtime ones, it was like,

[1:12:24] we're making a TV show that has some nudity in it,

[1:12:26] but we're still pretending we're making a TV show,

[1:12:28] whereas Cinemax was like, we know what you're here for.

[1:12:30] Yeah, well, they have Boner Police 4,

[1:12:32] but it's only Pan and Scan.

[1:12:36] Not as the director intended.

[1:12:39] You know what, I'm gonna recommend a movie, though,

[1:12:41] that I saw a ways back at a,

[1:12:44] actually at a weird Wednesday,

[1:12:46] wait, I can't Tuesday. So why were you telling us

[1:12:47] the story about-

[1:12:48] I don't know. Watching movies

[1:12:49] on the other end of the apartment?

[1:12:51] I mean, the point was-

[1:12:51] It's not relevant at all?

[1:12:53] No, it's not really relevant.

[1:12:54] He's establishing a connection with the original.

[1:12:55] I'm establishing that I went through,

[1:12:57] I watched a lot of movies,

[1:12:58] but nothing really stuck out to me, but-

[1:13:03] You're showing us your work, okay.

[1:13:04] But the movie that did stick out to me

[1:13:07] is a movie that I can't,

[1:13:09] I cannot sell to you as a good movie per se,

[1:13:13] but it is an interesting movie,

[1:13:14] a movie that has its own weird corner of film history

[1:13:19] in that it was the first shot on video horror movie

[1:13:22] that was released theatrically.

[1:13:23] It was a direct-to-video movie,

[1:13:26] and then they blew it up to 35 millimeter,

[1:13:28] which made it look very strange.

[1:13:29] Wow, terrible, probably.

[1:13:32] It's called Boarding House.

[1:13:35] It is a weird movie about a guy who,

[1:13:39] there were a lot of incidents in this house.

[1:13:44] This house had some sort of paranormal energies,

[1:13:48] they did telekinesis experiments in it,

[1:13:51] but also it just seems like

[1:13:53] maybe there's supernatural shit, I don't know.

[1:13:55] That is supernatural shit.

[1:13:57] Well, but like-

[1:13:57] You're like, there might be ghosts in the house,

[1:13:59] but there also might be supernatural stuff.

[1:14:00] Well, I mean, telekinesis is like pseudoscience stuff,

[1:14:04] whereas like, okay, well, anyway, it's not-

[1:14:07] No, no, it's cool, yeah, yeah.

[1:14:08] Yeah, yeah, dubious.

[1:14:09] I'm saying that it's not ghosts,

[1:14:11] but then later on it seems like maybe it's also ghosts.

[1:14:13] It's like one of these movies where,

[1:14:16] you know, in the tradition of like How Sue or Poltergeist,

[1:14:20] where like, there's not necessarily a clear through line

[1:14:27] through all of the scary stuff that happens.

[1:14:29] It's just like, I don't know, what are some scary images?

[1:14:31] We'll throw those in this house, you know?

[1:14:33] To put it in layman's terms,

[1:14:34] you can't tell if it's actual supernatural stuff

[1:14:36] or if just Lowe's spookies are on the case.

[1:14:39] It could be.

[1:14:42] But it's funny, this guy starts this boarding house

[1:14:45] and he like puts an ad in the paper saying like,

[1:14:48] looking for young women for my boarding house,

[1:14:51] which apparently-

[1:14:52] Oh, that works?

[1:14:53] Is not a red flag because a bunch of hot young women

[1:14:58] show up and there's a lot of like hot tubbing in this movie.

[1:15:03] But also-

[1:15:04] Wanted, women lodgers from my boarding house

[1:15:06] must be young slash topless.

[1:15:08] Yeah, but also there's like telekinesis going on.

[1:15:11] Like this is the main, the makers of this movie,

[1:15:15] they did Transcendental Meditation, like that was like-

[1:15:18] Oh, so David Lynch made it.

[1:15:20] Yeah, but this movie postulates

[1:15:23] that if you just meditate hard enough,

[1:15:24] you can get telekinesis.

[1:15:26] Wow, yeah, that's cool.

[1:15:28] Anyway, so all of this should make it clear,

[1:15:32] not a traditionally good movie,

[1:15:35] but a very fascinating, weird one.

[1:15:39] Like it feels like a half-remembered dream

[1:15:42] of falling asleep to late night cable programming.

[1:15:50] It's a beautiful way to put it.

[1:15:52] Yeah, boarding house, like it's not for everyone,

[1:15:55] but if you like the kind of thing that I'm talking about,

[1:15:59] this will interest you.

[1:16:00] I'm gonna recommend a Korean action movie

[1:16:04] from 2017 called The Outlaws.

[1:16:08] It's based on some real events about a gang war

[1:16:12] that took place in Seoul between Chinese-Korean gangs.

[1:16:16] There's some really great inspired action scenes,

[1:16:19] there's some fun performances,

[1:16:20] and it's also the whole movie is anchored on its star.

[1:16:23] That's right, the massive Ma Dong-seok,

[1:16:27] who performs also under the name Don Lee.

[1:16:30] He is the beefiest dude.

[1:16:31] Oh, body goals, what a monster, he's great.

[1:16:34] I believe they actually, you know this guy.

[1:16:37] Is he the, yeah.

[1:16:38] Yeah, he's the, and his character is referred to as,

[1:16:44] his character is referred to as the Beast Cop.

[1:16:49] Yeah, he's, you know, from Train to Busan,

[1:16:51] he's also in The Eternals as Gilgamesh,

[1:16:54] you know, everyone's favorite character,

[1:16:55] everyone's favorite Eternal.

[1:16:57] Everyone's favorite MCU character,

[1:16:59] Gilgamesh the Forgotten One.

[1:17:00] But he's just such a beefy dude, and he's great,

[1:17:02] and what you should do to brighten your day,

[1:17:04] is to just Google Ma Dong-seok kitten,

[1:17:07] and you will be covered in a deluge of pictures of him

[1:17:12] cradling the tiniest little kittens in his beefy hands.

[1:17:16] It's amazing.

[1:17:17] So that's why I'm recommending The Outlaws,

[1:17:19] and I think there's a sequel, The Roundup.

[1:17:21] I'm gonna recommend a movie from 1931,

[1:17:24] because I'm me, this is a movie starring Barbara Stanwyck,

[1:17:26] and Clark Gable, and Joan Blondel,

[1:17:29] and directed by William Wellman, it's called Night Nurse.

[1:17:31] That's right, it's one of the more, I guess-

[1:17:35] Sounds risque.

[1:17:36] It is, one of the more notorious pre-code movies

[1:17:39] from the 30s, and I thought I had seen it,

[1:17:41] and it turns out I hadn't, and I watched it,

[1:17:42] and it's super fun.

[1:17:43] It's a really fun movie, Barbara Stanwyck's a young woman,

[1:17:45] she becomes a nurse, she and Joan Blondel are roommates

[1:17:49] who are frequently just wearing skirt slips and bras,

[1:17:52] and she gets a job as the night nurse

[1:17:56] for some rich children, who it seems are possibly

[1:17:59] being allowed to wither away and die

[1:18:03] by the people in charge of them,

[1:18:05] because they are heirs to a lot of money.

[1:18:08] But anyway, it's really fun, it's super fast and snappy,

[1:18:11] it's less than 80 minutes long,

[1:18:13] and there's a couple of scenes in it that are really funny,

[1:18:16] there's a couple scenes that are just fun,

[1:18:18] the characters are always yelling at each other,

[1:18:20] and you get to see Barbara Stanwyck in her underwear,

[1:18:24] so it's super fun.

[1:18:25] Yeah, everybody wins, I guess.

[1:18:27] And there's a, it's one of these movies,

[1:18:31] so William Wellman was a director who was really great

[1:18:34] at doing kind of snappy action,

[1:18:36] and snappy thrills and suspense and all sorts of things,

[1:18:42] and this is very much in keeping with that.

[1:18:44] So that's Night Nurse.

[1:18:45] If you like old movies that are kind of fun,

[1:18:46] it's well worth seeing.

[1:18:47] I spaced out on Elliott,

[1:18:50] perving out on Barbara Stanwyck,

[1:18:52] because I was looking at this picture,

[1:18:53] perving out on Ma D'Alessio holding kittens.

[1:18:56] His arm is so huge.

[1:18:58] Yeah, he's a monster.

[1:18:59] Big arm and a little cat.

[1:19:00] Yeah, that's why he plays the Beast Cop.

[1:19:03] Mm-hmm.

[1:19:06] Well, what a pleasure to all be in the same room, guys.

[1:19:08] Yeah, baby.

[1:19:09] Yeah, it's nice.

[1:19:10] Feel the energy, hear the noise.

[1:19:12] Bring in Da Noise, bring in Da Funk, bring in the kittens.

[1:19:17] Unfortunately, we only have enough room for Da Noise.

[1:19:19] We can't bring in Da Funk right now

[1:19:21] until we take Da Noise out.

[1:19:22] I feel like we've made reference to bring in Da Noise,

[1:19:26] bring in Da Funk more times.

[1:19:27] Really?

[1:19:28] I don't know, maybe.

[1:19:30] More times than zero.

[1:19:31] Yeah.

[1:19:33] Well, I always just think of,

[1:19:34] do you remember Charles Holman from Earlham?

[1:19:37] Yes.

[1:19:38] He was our theater professor,

[1:19:42] and he was this big, shambling,

[1:19:47] 60-year-old gay black man who had,

[1:19:51] he was just like gravel voice and loved all the kids.

[1:19:55] And he was like, he would just like...

[1:20:00] newspaper to himself in the arts office where I was working as a like work-study student and he was

[1:20:06] like, bring in the noise, bring in the funk. And he'd like turn to me like, I'd like to see you

[1:20:12] and bring in the noise, bring in the funk. And I was like, I don't think I can, I don't have either

[1:20:19] of those things. I'll bring, I'll bring in the snacks. He's like, oh, you're bringing in the

[1:20:22] snacks. Okay. He was such a, he was a great, he was a great professor. I wonder if he was trying

[1:20:28] to challenge you. He'd be like, I'll show you, I will be in bring in the noise, bring in the funk.

[1:20:32] And then you only get into stomp and he's like, not the same thing. Oh, captain, my captain.

[1:20:38] Oh, captain, my noise and funk. So this is where we're going to sign off. Do we want to thank

[1:20:44] anyone? Oh yeah, we should thank the academy, of course, and of course all of our agents.

[1:20:50] Yeah. Thank you to Maximum Fun for having us. They run the network that we were on.

[1:20:58] Maximumfun.org is the website where you can go and look at other podcasts on our network.

[1:21:06] If you go to flophousepodcast.com, you can find our official site, which has links to

[1:21:13] merch and all of our socials and stuff like that. And I don't know, poke around, take a look. Alex

[1:21:20] Smith is our producer. If you want to find him on the internet, he is at HowlDody on Twitter.

[1:21:29] Uh, that's like H O W E L L D A W D Y. Yep. You did it. Um, but, uh, that's it. I think,

[1:21:42] uh, thank you for listening for the flop house. I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:21:48] I've been Elliot Kalin in New York city of all places.

[1:21:52] In New York. That is where Elliot is now. Soon he will go. Keep it going. Keep it going.

[1:22:02] But now he's in New York. Concrete jungle where Elliot is.

[1:22:10] When he goes to New Jersey. No, it's not a Muppets type song. Okay. No. Bye everyone.

[1:22:15] You're going to like the way it's warehouse. That's men's, men's sleepy wearer sleep.

[1:22:25] It's warehouse. You're going to like the way you look at our pajamas.

[1:22:32] Yeah. That's a little bit of a Nicholas Cade. We're all alive. The way you look.

[1:22:39] All right. Let's do it. Let's start. Let's do it. Yeah. Why not do the thing? Okay.

[1:22:45] maximumfund.org comedy and culture artists owned audience supported

Ep.#371 - The King's Daughter

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