Ep. #369 - Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Venom, Let There Be Carnage.

Elliott Kalan

[0:05] The movie that posits that Woody Harrelson was a teenager in 1996,

[0:09] even though he was starring in The People vs. Larry Flint in 1996.

[0:13] Should a teenager make a Larry Flint movie?

[0:15] I don't think so, Venom, Let There Be Carnage.

Dan McCoy

[0:30] The People vs. Larry Flint in 1996.

[1:00] He's cracking open a beer before recording, but now that he's new fit, Stu,

[1:06] it's actually a Waterloo Black Cherry sparkling water that he took out of my fridge.

[1:12] Yeah, and it's so—

Elliott Kalan

[1:13] The sparkling water that defeated Napoleon.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16] Yeah, the bubble's just going down my throat. It's delicious.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20] Hey, Stu, are you filling up with bubbles because it's a special time of year?

Stuart Wellington

[1:24] Mm-hmm. It's a very special time of year. That's right.

[1:28] I want to quickly mention that this episode is being released on the final weekend of the MaxFunDrive 2022.

[1:35] This is the one time a year when we ask you to support our show,

[1:40] and we are going to give out all kinds of cool gifts if you do.

[1:44] If you haven't become a member yet and you're listening to this episode on the weekend of release,

[1:48] stop the damn episode and go over to MaximumFun.org slash join to support our show and have access to a bunch of cool stuff.

[1:57] There you go.

[1:58] Mm-hmm.

[1:59] Now to get back to this whole Waterloo thing.

[2:01] Okay.

[2:01] Do you think I'm drinking Waterloo because my last name is Wellington and Wellington was at Waterloo?

[2:06] Oh.

[2:07] I think that has to be it, yeah, as the champion of Waterloo.

[2:11] That's his official title, champion of Waterloo.

[2:13] Now, do you think that that would classify as an Easter egg for this episode?

Dan McCoy

[2:18] Well, you pointed it out.

[2:20] So, I mean, I think the essential part is the audience is supposed to pick up on it and find it.

Elliott Kalan

[2:25] To be honest, that's kind of how Easter eggs work nowadays.

[2:28] It has to be so obvious that everyone in the audience gets it.

Stuart Wellington

[2:30] I mean, it's like I'm treating the audience like they're a little baby at an Easter egg hunt and I'm pointing at the eggs so I don't have to endure hours of them not finding them.

[2:40] Yelling, over here, baby.

[2:42] Get over here, baby.

[2:44] Yes, you look cute in that dress.

Elliott Kalan

[2:46] That's what Scorpion says when he's on Easter egg hunt, too.

[2:51] He goes, get over here, baby.

Stuart Wellington

[2:53] Oh, man.

[2:53] Hellights are glitching like my old copy of Mortal Kombat.

Elliott Kalan

[2:56] It would have been better if I hadn't stumbled over my words 100,000 times.

Dan McCoy

[2:59] Wow.

[3:00] That was a lot of times to stumble.

[3:01] We barely have any more time left over.

Stuart Wellington

[3:04] So, what do we do on this here podcast?

[3:06] Oh, well, guys.

Elliott Kalan

[3:08] Well, Topeka is a city in Kansas and people have a lot of opinions about it.

[3:12] Yeah.

[3:12] And we're here to provide a forum for their opinions, pro or con, about the city of Topeka.

[3:17] Yeah.

[3:18] And it's famous bodega.

Dan McCoy

[3:20] Yeah.

[3:20] Maybe we'll get back to our mission statement later on.

[3:22] But for now, this is also a podcast where we watch a movie that was either a critical or commercial flop and talk about it.

[3:31] This movie was sort of on the – like, it was successful.

[3:34] It was on the verge critically.

[3:36] It was more of like kind of mid-link reviews, I would say.

[3:40] Some people thought, eh, not bad.

[3:42] And some people really didn't care for it.

[3:45] Where will we fall?

[3:46] We'll find out later.

[3:47] If you go over to Oral Pal's –

[3:48] Oh, good suspense.

Stuart Wellington

[3:49] If you go over to Oral Pal Rotten Tomatoes, you'll see that it had a significantly better score than its predecessor.

[3:57] Although, I don't know if it necessarily deserves that.

[3:59] But we'll see later in the episode.

Elliott Kalan

[4:00] That's an interesting debate prompt that I think we will have some exciting opinions about.

[4:06] And everybody, I am not having a stroke.

[4:08] I'm having trouble talking because I woke up very early today thanks to my younger child.

[4:12] And I'm already, oh, sweep you little baby now.

[4:14] I'm so tired.

[4:15] Elliot.

[4:15] Even though it's about 1 p.m.

Dan McCoy

[4:17] Also peed in the same fountain, which was hard on us because we live on different coasts.

[4:21] But, you know, we sort of –

[4:22] And we had hard-ons, yeah, which makes it even harder to pee.

[4:24] Hard to pee.

[4:25] Very painful.

[4:25] Yeah.

[4:26] Wait, really?

[4:27] Well, that's how we were able to pee in the same fountain even though we're on a different coasts because the difficulty increased the power of the stream.

[4:37] More penis talk.

Elliott Kalan

[4:38] We tapped into our symbiotic relationship to get an extra burst of strength.

[4:42] Much like in the movie Venom, Let There Be Carnage, directed by Andy Serkis.

Stuart Wellington

[4:45] You're like the hero in an anime who just really believes in himself and then defeats the enemy who's been training for 10,000 years.

Elliott Kalan

[4:53] Well, what happened was I really needed to pee, but I couldn't get the right distance to hit the urinal all the way where Dan was.

[4:59] And then I saw that the urinal was threatening one of my loved ones.

[5:02] And so it gave me a burst of berserker fury, berserker strength that got my pee all the way there.

[5:07] Now, as always, I don't want to –

[5:08] That's why they call me Wolverpean because at any point I might go into a berserker peeing frenzy.

Dan McCoy

[5:14] I do call you that.

[5:16] I think this is the second Drive episode where I've said, you know, like, oh, I don't want to stop all the pee talk.

[5:23] But I did want to do a side note, which is Elliot mentioned Andy Serkis, of course, the actor best known for his motion –

[5:31] The creator of Family Circus.

[5:32] – motion capture performances here directing.

[5:38] Generally beloved in these parts.

[5:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[5:41] The credits for this movie was the first time that Audrey discovered that his name was not spelled like Family Circus.

[5:48] She was –

[5:49] It was a real paradigm shift for her.

[5:52] Yeah, it must have been rough.

Elliott Kalan

[5:52] Yeah, if anything, I mean his name is spelled the way that the word circus probably should be spelled.

[5:57] Yeah, it's a more accurate phonetic spelling.

[6:00] Yeah.

[6:01] Anyway.

[6:02] But that's not the way words work a lot of the time.

[6:04] But anyway, so Andy Serkis, I'll say this right, I'm a huge fan of his.

[6:07] I'm a huge fan of his motion capture performances and also his non-motion capture performances.

[6:12] I don't know that he is the most interesting director.

[6:17] What was his last one?

[6:19] Because this is his second movie.

Dan McCoy

[6:20] He did like something – was it for Netflix or whatever?

[6:23] Was it Mowgli or –

[6:24] Oh, right, right, right, right.

Elliott Kalan

[6:25] He did a movie called Breathe, which I have not seen.

[6:30] And then he also did, yeah, Mowgli Legend of the Jungle, which I have also not seen.

[6:35] But for this movie, he is a very workable director, I would say.

[6:40] Except for, strangely, a lot of the motion capture, Carnage performing, I thought looked really cool.

[6:46] Yeah.

[6:46] But the battle scenes are hard to keep track of.

[6:49] Yeah.

[6:49] They're very hectic.

[6:50] They're a real mess.

[6:50] But we'll get to that part.

[6:51] And considering Carnage has an arsenal of powers that he doesn't really have in the comics either, I was always like, oh, he can do that too, I guess.

[6:58] All right, that's a new thing.

[6:59] But okay, let's get into it.

[7:00] So for people who – we have our live episode of Venom that we did a long time ago.

[7:04] You might want to go and listen to that right now.

[7:06] Pause.

[7:06] I'll let you listen to that episode.

[7:07] Okay, we're coming back.

[7:09] That was a funny episode.

[7:10] It was great.

[7:10] Anyway, we're back.

[7:11] Let's talk about the sequel, Venom, Let There Be Carnage.

[7:13] The movie does not begin with our titular Venom.

[7:16] It instead begins with the man who will become the titular Let There Be.

[7:19] It's 1996 at the St. Estes Reform School.

[7:23] And Cletus Kasady is a teenage inmate.

[7:26] He's making a little string engagement ring for his girlfriend, Frances, who's another inmate.

[7:29] And she says, oh, no, because of my superpowers, they're going to take me away because I have superpowers now.

[7:35] And the authorities come to get her.

[7:36] She tries to escape by using her powerful screaming powers.

[7:39] She's like Banshee of the X-Men or Siren of X-Force.

Dan McCoy

[7:42] Or Shriek, the character that she is actually in Marvel Comics.

Elliott Kalan

[7:46] Well, it's weird to say she has screaming powers like Shriek, which is herself.

[7:50] A bit like saying, well, what's Plastic Man's powers?

[7:52] Well, he's got powers like Plastic Man.

[7:53] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[7:53] I mean, she has her own woman is what I'm saying.

[7:56] I don't think we need to compare.

[7:58] That's true.

Elliott Kalan

[7:58] Usually when you're trying to give someone an idea of a character they may not be aware of, you compare them to other characters.

[8:04] It's like why you don't open a dictionary and it says machine, noun, a machine.

[8:09] Great.

[8:10] That's not helpful.

[8:10] Let's just say we both make a good point.

[8:13] Now, a bird very much like a penguin.

[8:15] In fact, exactly like.

[8:16] So anyway.

[8:18] The authorities come to take –

[8:19] Now, I do have to point out.

Stuart Wellington

[8:20] I do have to point out.

[8:20] It might be a little weird for you.

[8:22] But Cletus Kasady here is played by a teenager.

[8:24] But he has a voice of Woody Harrelson, which is strange for me.

Elliott Kalan

[8:28] It's such a funny choice that they are – the movie is really running with the idea that Woody Harrelson is in his 40s now as opposed to entering his 60s.

[8:36] Yeah.

[8:37] Because they try to young him up a little bit.

[8:39] They put his mouth in a teenager's.

[8:41] And as – I recorded a couple different intros for this episode.

[8:44] So I don't know if it's the one Alex used.

[8:45] But one of them I point out that in 1996, Woody Harrelson had already been on Cheers for years.

[8:49] Cheers for years, also the name of his memoir at the time.

[8:52] And was the star of The People vs. Larry Flint and had already been in like White Men Can't Jump and things like that.

[8:57] Yeah.

[8:57] So like in the cowboy way I think.

[9:00] So by this point, 1996, Woody Harrelson was already a movie star.

[9:02] He was not a teenager.

[9:03] Yeah.

[9:03] So it seems weird.

[9:04] Why didn't they just push it back to when he was actually a teenager?

Dan McCoy

[9:07] They seem to be trying to match his age to that of Naomi Harris who plays Shriek or whoever for – I don't remember her character's name.

Elliott Kalan

[9:18] But like –

[9:20] And also similar to the age of Tom Hardy who's playing –

[9:22] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[9:22] So what they're doing is they're solving the frequent problem of mismatched ages like an older actor and a younger actress by just lying about the age of the actor rather than changing it to make it age appropriate.

Elliott Kalan

[9:37] Now does having him wear a red wig make his face look younger?

Dan McCoy

[9:41] No.

[9:42] I am disappointed.

[9:43] I got to say that they're not – he's not wearing the goofy-ass red wig.

[9:46] The crazy wig.

[9:47] From the first movie.

[9:49] The first movie when we saw him.

Elliott Kalan

[9:51] Well, the first movie he's wearing hair that looks like the character from the comics.

[9:54] The character from the comics, Cleese Cassidy, has a huge curly mop of hair.

[9:59] And so they did that in the first movie when they showed him at the end.

[10:01] And in this one I think they realized he would look ridiculous.

[10:03] It was like Ronald McDonald.

[10:04] The whole movie.

[10:06] Yeah.

[10:07] Like Carrot Top's uncle who lives in a van or something like that.

[10:10] Like you don't want that.

[10:11] So anyway, she uses her scream powers much like the character Shriek you're familiar with.

[10:17] And we get a shot, a close-up of the police officer who's escorting her his name tag because that's a hint that that's going to be an important character later.

[10:25] And he – but the cop shoots her and she is taken away to Ravencroft Asylum, which is a location from the comics.

[10:33] Now, before we go to the present day, do you guys have any associations beforehand with the character Carnage?

[10:38] I'm curious about this.

Stuart Wellington

[10:41] So I remember the issue where the symbiote came and broke Eddie Brock out of prison and squirted out a little baby symbiote.

[10:50] And you're like, that's going to be important.

[10:52] A little baby's not, yeah.

[10:52] There's like a little teaser there.

[10:55] And then I remember – I feel like I remember reading the first arc, the first Carnage arc.

Elliott Kalan

[11:00] It was like a three-parter.

[11:02] Carnage comes out.

[11:03] Spider-Man has to go to the desert island.

[11:04] Mark Bagley did the art.

[11:05] Yeah, Mark Bagley is drawing.

[11:06] David McElaine, he was the author, writer still at the time.

[11:09] And Spider-Man, he's like, I can't defeat Carnage on my own.

[11:11] And Venom at this point believes he has killed Spider-Man and is living alone on a jungle island by himself in perfect peace because he killed Spider-Man.

[11:19] And Spider-Man shows up with the Human Torch because the Human Torch can help him fight Venom and says, Venom, I need your help.

[11:25] Why the Human Torch doesn't help Spider-Man fight Carnage?

[11:28] Because he's not as popular.

[11:29] People love Venom.

[11:30] And I will say when I was – this was right around the time I was really getting into comics and I loved Venom.

[11:36] Venom was a character I really thought was amazing.

[11:38] And Carnage I never really cared for because it was like they were – they said, Venom's so popular, we need to make him into a hero.

[11:44] So we'll bring in an even worse Venom.

[11:47] Yeah.

[11:47] And he'll be like a cackling, crazy serial killer.

[11:49] Yeah, I'm not a fan.

[11:50] I don't remember the timeline but this might have been around the time Natural Born Killers came out and like he's very similar to Woody Harrelson's character in that movie.

[11:57] Yeah.

[11:58] So he doesn't have much of a personality beyond being like just a psycho serial killer and I never found him that interesting.

[12:05] But that didn't stop me from buying all 14 parts of the Maximum Carnage storyline.

[12:09] Well, that was the thing.

Stuart Wellington

[12:10] Like after that initial introduction, I was like this character is not for me.

[12:14] I am uninterested.

[12:15] And then – but then since then he became much more popular, had a whole arc.

[12:20] And then there were many other Venom symbiote characters, right?

Elliott Kalan

[12:24] Yes, and other people have worn the Carnage symbiote and Carnage – Cletus Kasady has gone on to have more adventures and his own books.

[12:32] There was a series that I think Jerry Conway wrote that was a horror series where some people are trying to track down Carnage and stop him which was really – before he can get a hold of the book of the Darkhold and open up some kind of mystic portal or whatever.

[12:43] Seems great.

[12:44] It was a really good series.

[12:45] It was actually really good.

[12:46] But – so you're dealing with characters who in the comics – and this was kind of the problem I had with the first Venom.

[12:53] They are defined by their relationship with Spider-Man.

[12:55] Spider-Man is the greatest guy who ever lived.

[12:57] Venom is a guy who thinks he is a hero but is a psychotic killer.

[13:01] And Carnage is a psychotic killer who knows he's a psychotic killer and revels in it.

[13:05] And so they're all on this sliding scale of morality.

[13:08] And that – it feels like that was kind of thrown off for me in this movie when you don't have the Spider-Man character to anchor it.

[13:13] You just have Venom who is a monster attached to a loser and Carnage who is a psycho monster attached to a psycho killer.

Dan McCoy

[13:20] I got – like this is – this is why I find the Sony corner of the Marvel Universe so baffling because they are building this, you know, Spider-Man without Spider-Man zone for themselves.

[13:36] But they're all, yeah, these villainous characters.

[13:40] And look, I like a good anti-hero but not really in this type of movie.

[13:46] Like I don't know.

[13:47] Like this movie – these sorts of movies traffic in such broad strokes that then making our hero someone who like occasionally bites people's heads off bugs me in a way that like if it was a little bit more of a serious movie, I could, you know, get on board with, okay, like this is a complex character, you know?

[14:07] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[14:08] Well, and this movie is – it's very – it feels very like flat ideologically and morally and character-wise in the way that 80s action movies were and like early 90s action movies.

[14:18] Yeah.

[14:18] So this movie gives off – and in some ways that could be good but this one, it felt like it gave off an antiquated vibe to me.

[14:23] And also the plot is incredibly linear.

[14:26] Like there's no – there's no twist in it.

[14:27] It's exactly – it feels like this is a movie that was a direct-to-video sequel but with a bigger budget.

[14:33] Anyway, well, we'll keep going.

[14:34] Present day.

[14:35] Shriek is still in her soundproof cell.

[14:37] You remember her.

[14:38] She's kind of like Shriek.

[14:39] And the mean lady in charge of the asylum, Ravencroft, she gives her newspaper with an article by Eddie Brock about Cletus saying he's a convicted serial killer and now played by Woody Harrelson.

[14:47] The title – the headline doesn't say convicted serial killer now played by Woody Harrelson.

[14:51] It just says like Cletus Cassidy convicted killer.

Dan McCoy

[14:52] We've said the word – I just – we've said Cletus several times and I have to say that being unfamiliar with Carnage, I didn't give my history because like there wasn't any.

[15:02] I don't have a history with the character Carnage.

[15:04] We get unfamiliar.

[15:05] Like the first time someone said Cletus in this movie, I said, did they say Cletus?

Elliott Kalan

[15:10] Yeah, and that's also part of the – like this is not a well-put-together character originally.

[15:16] Like they gave him the name Cletus Cassidy because he's supposed to be like a southern hillbilly like kind of ignorant freak killer.

[15:23] Like he's supposed to be like a deliverance type white trash killer.

[15:26] A slack-jawed yokel if you will.

Stuart Wellington

[15:28] Yeah.

[15:29] Which is – it's kind of weird that he shared a prison cell with Eddie Brock, right?

Elliott Kalan

[15:35] Well, they were both on – I mean they both had been – I don't remember if Eddie had been convicted but like they're both murderers.

[15:41] That's true.

[15:42] I don't know why Cletus was in a New York area jail cell.

[15:44] That's a good question.

[15:46] But who knows?

[15:46] He committed a crime somewhere.

[15:48] But in the eyes of the law, Venom is just as – in many ways just as bad.

[15:52] Even though Venom thinks he's a hero, he kills people left and right.

Dan McCoy

[15:55] Wait, hold on.

[15:55] Back up.

[15:56] So in the comics, they shared a jail cell or do they have – like how do they know each other in this world?

[16:02] Because I – like the movie does not make it very clear I don't think.

Elliott Kalan

[16:05] No, that's not – in the comics.

[16:07] So in the comics, Eddie Brock and Cletus – there's a period where Eddie lost his Venom symbiote.

[16:11] Yeah.

[16:11] And the two – and he and Cletus Cassidy are in a jail cell together.

[16:14] Eddie Brock, if he had the symbiote, would of course be at the vault, the Marvel super prison later, superseded by the raft and then by that weird prison in the negative zone that I guess they were running without an eyeless knowing it was there because I don't think he would be that into it.

[16:27] But anyway, he's the ruler of the negative zone of course and second rulers like blast star of the living bombers.

[16:31] Key stuff to what I asked.

[16:33] But anyway –

[16:34] So Eddie Brock and Cletus Cassidy were cellmates.

[16:36] The Venom symbiote came and came back to Eddie and he broke out of jail and left behind a little piece of himself.

[16:42] I don't know why Cletus didn't escape at that moment too but apparently he hung around in the jail cell and waited for a later date to escape.

[16:49] But so here – so they do – they know each other in the comics and they hate each other.

[16:54] They didn't – they never liked each other.

[16:55] They didn't like each other as cellmates.

[16:57] Cletus is first introduced complaining that Eddie is making too much noise by doing clap push-ups.

[17:01] Those push-ups where you like push yourself up and clap and then landing in.

[17:04] I can only do like –

Stuart Wellington

[17:05] I can only do like one or two of those.

[17:06] They're really hard.

Elliott Kalan

[17:07] Yeah, I feel like I can do about two and then I fall over and I die.

[17:10] But Eddie can do a lot of those because he's super strong.

[17:12] Even without a symbiote, it's crazy.

[17:14] Yeah, and so they don't like each other.

[17:16] But here, Cletus Cassidy feels this connection to Eddie even before they both have symbiotes that is – yeah, it's never really made entirely clear why.

[17:24] So let's explain that.

[17:25] So Cletus, he demands to be interviewed by Eddie.

[17:28] And Eddie is struggling to control the Venom symbiote.

[17:31] Cletus is in jail.

[17:32] He's on death row.

[17:33] He wants – at San Quentin.

[17:34] He wants to be interviewed by Eddie.

[17:36] And Eddie is like always arguing with the Venom symbiote which lives in his body most of the time.

[17:40] And Venom is mad that Eddie screwed things up with his girlfriend Anne in the first movie.

[17:44] And left him for that doctor.

[17:46] And Eddie and Venom argue a lot.

[17:49] And Venom makes a lot of like modern culture references and a lot of off-color swearing remarks.

[17:54] And he's basically like – it's basically Alf.

[17:57] He's basically a violent version of Alf.

[17:59] Yeah.

[17:59] He's an alien who lives in a guy's house.

[18:02] He has to hide.

[18:02] He's an alien life form.

[18:04] And then he'll say things – and he'll be like, I have these two pet chickens.

[18:07] Their names are Sonny and Cher.

[18:09] And it's like, come on, dude.

[18:10] Like he's a pop culture loving alien.

[18:12] Like he's Alf.

[18:13] He eats weird things.

[18:14] He's Alf.

[18:15] He can't show them to the neighbors.

[18:16] He's Alf.

Dan McCoy

[18:17] You're telling – this explanation is confirming for me why this is the part of the movie by far that I enjoy the most.

Elliott Kalan

[18:27] Because it's like if Alf was a monster.

Dan McCoy

[18:29] Yeah.

[18:30] All of the wacky like monster sharing not only an apartment but a body stuff in the movie is the stuff that I like the most.

[18:40] And as soon as the movie starts remembering that it has a plot, I'm like, I'm checking out of this thing.

Elliott Kalan

[18:45] Well, I thought I would feel that way.

[18:48] But so clearly the first movie – and I think Stuart was hinting this.

[18:53] The first movie is a relatively straightforward movie.

[18:55] But there's a little – every now and then Tom Hardy goes a little nuts and it's a little funny.

[18:59] We all go a little mad sometimes.

[19:00] And clearly that's what – yeah, exactly.

[19:02] I'm mad.

[19:03] You're mad.

[19:03] We're all mad here.

[19:05] And clearly that's what audiences reacted to and responded to in the first movie.

[19:10] And so they said, let's amp it up.

[19:11] In the second movie, we'll go even farther.

[19:13] And I think they went too far.

[19:14] To the point that –

Stuart Wellington

[19:15] Tom Hardy gets a screenwriting credit on this or a story credit.

Elliott Kalan

[19:19] Oh, because I think he really – I mean Tom Hardy loves this character it seems like.

[19:23] Like Frank Langella and Skeletor, Tom Hardy took this character that could have been a paycheck and really invested himself in it.

[19:29] And he loves doing both voices.

[19:31] Yeah.

[19:31] But by the time that the Venom symbiote is making him a goofy breakfast while singing Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, I was like, this movie has gone a little too far in that direction for me.

[19:40] No, no.

[19:40] Give me more, baby.

[19:42] There's moments where the –

[19:43] I mean maybe if this was like one of Peter Jackson's early movies, I'd be like, go for it.

[19:47] Go for it.

Stuart Wellington

[19:48] Well, and it's interesting because there's moments when the symbiote takes over Eddie's body and has some pretty precise control of things.

[19:57] Like can do some pretty delicate work.

[20:00] But then there's other times where it's like, I'm going to make breakfast and break everything.

Dan McCoy

[20:03] It's true that he seems to have a better control over Eddie's body than his own body.

[20:09] Yeah, yeah.

[20:10] Strange.

[20:11] Well, you know how it is sometimes when you –

Stuart Wellington

[20:12] Maybe he went to a clown college.

[20:14] He's doing classical clowning.

[20:15] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[20:16] Yeah, I think that's it.

[20:17] Yeah.

[20:17] I mean there's those times when –

[20:18] There's times when your own body feels like this clumsy apparatus but when you're bringing pleasure to a lover, suddenly you're in sync with their body and you understand their body more than their own.

[20:28] And I think that's what this is about.

[20:30] Anyway, Eddie goes to visit Cletus at St. Quentin.

[20:32] And Cletus is like, if you deliver a message for me, if you get this message out to the world, I'll give you my exclusive life story.

[20:39] And it's one of those things where this deal doesn't seem to matter because Venom notices a bunch of like creepy carvings and graffiti on the walls of Carnage's cell.

[20:49] He goes back home.

[20:49] He uses Eddie's body to redraw all of them.

[20:51] And somehow they use those as clues to figure out that Carnage was – Cletus was buried in his bodies at Redondo Beach.

[20:58] And so Carnage got his message out and he's mad at Eddie for not telling the story.

[21:02] But Eddie never told – like the deal didn't matter.

[21:05] He didn't need it.

[21:05] Yeah, I want to back up.

[21:06] Cletus didn't really tell him anything.

Dan McCoy

[21:08] I want to back up and say, number one, I'm not sure what the message – like the message was clearly directed at his –

[21:15] At Shriek.

[21:16] At Shriek.

[21:16] Some sort of love message.

[21:18] Yeah, Francis.

[21:18] But it's not really clear what it is or what implication it has.

[21:23] But also like I object to Eddie Brock's ethics here.

[21:29] Like not only putting out the message of a serial killer, but it's the headline of his story.

[21:35] Like I don't know.

[21:37] Like you don't know what he's doing, what twisted games he's playing.

[21:41] It seems like this is not someone you want to give a voice to.

Elliott Kalan

[21:45] No, but Eddie has always been kind of a ethically loose reporter.

[21:49] But also like it's not the first time – like I think with Son of Sam was writing letters to Jimmy Breslin and they would be on the cover of the newspaper.

[21:55] Like it's not the first time that a reporter and a serial killer have communicated.

Dan McCoy

[21:59] Sure.

[22:00] But that was way back – like by now in journalistic history.

Elliott Kalan

[22:02] That was back before ethics existed.

[22:04] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[22:04] I mean we have I think as a culture, you know, tacked in the direction of maybe not putting out murderers' messages.

[22:15] Like and those who do so are looked more down upon in the journalistic world.

Elliott Kalan

[22:21] I don't know if that's true.

[22:22] I think if a serial killer says to you, this is my message to the world and you run it as the story, serial killer to the world, this, and it's just some cryptic rhyme about a cathedral, then I don't – that feels like it's a story.

[22:35] If a notable person says something and you report it as their – it's not like Cletus said, plant a fake story in the paper.

[22:42] He said, I'm saying this thing.

[22:43] Put it in your paper.

[22:44] And he goes, yeah, sure.

[22:45] You said it.

[22:45] I'll put it in.

Dan McCoy

[22:45] We've stopped by and large putting like the faces of mass shooters out and like their story and like focusing on that like with the feeling like too much focus on the murderer is a bad thing.

[22:59] And I just think that like it is odd that in this day and age like our heroes like, yeah, sure.

[23:05] I'll – yeah, whatever you want, Mr. Serial Killer.

[23:08] I'll put it out for you.

[23:09] I guess so.

[23:10] And he's got a lot going on though.

Stuart Wellington

[23:11] You know, he's still heartbroken over Anne and he's also got venom bugging him all the time.

[23:15] Which the thing is like –

[23:16] And he's trying to get back on time.

[23:17] I mean, you know, it's fine.

[23:18] Imagine sharing your body with a symbiote.

[23:20] Yes.

[23:20] You never have moments of peace.

Elliott Kalan

[23:23] And Dan, Venom's not a role model.

[23:24] Let's just get that right out there.

[23:25] No, no, no.

Dan McCoy

[23:25] He doesn't always do the right thing.

[23:26] Yeah, yeah.

[23:27] I just, you know, I want to get the message out.

[23:29] Elliot Kalin says, you know, put – you know, do what a serial killer taught you to.

[23:34] That's the X-ray.

Elliott Kalan

[23:35] No, Dan, if ever there is a medium that is okay with amplifying the words of serial killers, it is podcasting.

[23:41] Where every third podcast is a story of someone who died and why it should be entertainment to you.

[23:46] I also –

[23:46] But okay.

[23:46] So look.

[23:47] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[23:48] I want to say a few words about Woody –

Elliott Kalan

[23:50] Take this fictional character to task a little more.

Dan McCoy

[23:52] No, but I want to take – I want to say a few words about Woody Harrelson's performance as this character.

[23:56] Oh, great.

[23:57] Because he's a guy who I think, you know, like 90% of the time an actor I enjoy very much.

[24:04] I think he's very good.

[24:06] Here, I feel like it's – he's giving the, like, off-the-rack serial killer performance.

[24:13] And it's one that, like, bothers me because always in movies serial killers are kind of these cryptic masterminds.

[24:19] Whereas in life they are sad little men who, you know, are trying to –

Elliott Kalan

[24:25] Oh, they are – they're pathetic people with horrible sexual dysfunctions that force them – that lead them to murder other people.

[24:32] Like, there's – like, I remember when I was a teenager I got really into reading about serial killers because in the movies they're always, like, cool.

[24:39] And I read – oh, what's his name?

[24:41] The guy who kind of helped invent profiling.

[24:43] Like, his series of books about cases he had been on.

[24:46] And they all were just so sad.

[24:46] Let's just call him Mr. Mindhunter.

[24:48] Mr. Mindhunter.

[24:49] Yeah, it was M-I-N-D-Hunter.

[24:51] And Michael Isabel-N-D-Hunter.

[24:55] And they were just – they're all sad stories.

[24:57] They're all, like – if you look up the story of Ed Gain, it's not, like, oh, wow, cool.

[25:03] It's upsetting.

[25:03] It's tragic.

[25:04] It's like, oh, this is this guy who, like, yeah, it's – everything about it is tragic and sad.

[25:09] But anyway, Carnage on the other hand – Cletus on the other hand, he's a mastermind.

[25:12] He buried all his bodies.

[25:13] He's like Lance Henriksen in Hannibal, the TV show, where Lance Henriksen has created a teepee of body – a totem pole of bodies on the beach.

[25:21] And it's like –

[25:22] Sorry, I don't want to make phone over though.

[25:24] I was so excited.

[25:26] It was like, how did this old man do this?

[25:29] How did he even get a ladder onto the beach?

Stuart Wellington

[25:32] Elliot found out one of the one narrative inconsistencies in the Hannibal television show.

Elliott Kalan

[25:37] Yeah, that's it.

[25:38] He's a bunch of totally normal killers.

[25:42] It was specifically that Lance Henriksen, as creepy as he is, is an old man.

[25:46] And so it's like, why did they give the old man the most climbing and intensive one?

[25:49] He always looks like an old man though.

Stuart Wellington

[25:51] I feel like youngest –

[25:53] Lance Henriksen could ever have played was old man.

Elliott Kalan

[25:57] That's a good point.

[25:58] Okay.

[25:58] So they find the bodies.

[26:00] People are so disgusted by how many people Cletus killed that he gets the death penalty, which in California has been against the law for many, many years.

[26:07] And Eddie is so famous now that the TV reporters make a point of mentioning him and how well he's doing during the news report, which was hilarious to me.

[26:15] Talk about inside baseball.

[26:18] Anyway, Venom and Eddie are arguing a lot.

[26:20] Venom wants to eat bad guys because to survive he needs a chemical that's only found in human brains and chocolate.

[26:25] And Eddie is like, no, only eat chocolate and sometimes you can eat chickens.

[26:28] And he goes, but I made these two chickens my pets.

[26:31] And the chickens are never as funny as they should be.

[26:33] So they go down to the bodega we saw from the last movie.

[26:35] Mrs. Chen, the owner, she knows all about Venom.

[26:37] She's like, hey, Venom, hey, Eddie.

[26:39] She's out of chocolate.

[26:40] So Venom just suits up, just covers up Eddie and jumps around the city.

[26:44] They stop a mugger.

[26:45] In classic, there's a guy ripping a purse out of a woman's hands in an alley and there's no one else around in the city.

[26:51] But Venom won't let him eat him.

[26:52] And Venom is mad.

[26:53] He wants to be the lethal protector.

[26:55] And Eddie thinks that the name lethal protector is lame.

[26:57] And let me say one thing here.

[26:59] This is what really bugged me.

[27:01] Okay, guys.

[27:02] This is what got me.

[27:03] So Lethal Protector was, of course, the subtitle of the first Venom miniseries, Venom Lethal Protector.

[27:08] And Eddie goes, oh, it's just so 80s.

[27:11] That series didn't come out in the 80s.

[27:13] It came out in the 80s.

[27:13] That series came out in the early 90s.

[27:15] Come on, everybody.

[27:16] What's going on here?

[27:17] You're being gaslit.

[27:18] The Venom miniseries didn't come out in the 80s.

[27:20] Wake up, sheeple.

[27:21] We're through the looking glass.

[27:22] It came out in the 90s.

[27:23] This is the Berenstain Bears all over again.

[27:25] Have I fallen through an alternate universe where Venom first got a miniseries in the 1980s?

[27:29] I don't think so.

[27:30] The character wasn't introduced until the late 80s.

Dan McCoy

[27:34] Checkmate, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[27:36] You know, Venom.

[27:37] Take that, Andy Serkis.

Dan McCoy

[27:38] Here's the small thing that bothers me about Venom.

[27:41] Okay.

[27:41] What bothers you about Venom?

[27:42] I know he's a villain at worst, an antihero at best.

[27:46] I don't like all the property damage he does when he leaps around.

Elliott Kalan

[27:50] When he's jumping around the city, he's ripping walls off of buildings, which is one of the

[27:55] things also where it's like, yeah, you're a bad guy right off the bat.

[27:57] Like, even if it's an accident.

[27:59] Like, your mode of getting around is just pulling windows out of buildings, things like that.

[28:04] Like, that's crazy.

[28:05] Knocking shingles off.

Dan McCoy

[28:07] No, no thanks.

Stuart Wellington

[28:08] No.

[28:08] And again, I don't like saying the word crazy.

[28:10] That was one of the things I liked about Venom initially is that he had all the, like, grace

[28:15] and dexterity of Spider-Man, but he was, like, super ripped.

[28:19] Because Eddie Brock got mad and bulked up.

Elliott Kalan

[28:22] Well, he says, he goes, the stronger I get, the stronger Venom gets because you increase

[28:27] my strength exponentially compared to my natural strength.

[28:30] So, like, Eddie Brock would be just living in the sewers pumping huge weights, just enormous

[28:34] weights.

[28:35] Yeah.

[28:35] Because he knew with Venom it made him even stronger.

[28:37] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[28:37] Honestly, that's my fantasy, guys.

[28:39] I want to live in the sewer and pump huge weights.

[28:42] Yeah, just hanging out with Ninja Turtles.

[28:44] They're your gym buddies.

[28:45] Yeah, yeah.

[28:45] And ideally, have a symbiote that's always talking to me and occasionally deriding me, but ultimately

[28:51] loves me.

[28:52] Yeah, then you're never alone.

Elliott Kalan

[28:53] Stuart, I think this is your new stand-up bit, is that you work out at a gym with the Ninja

[28:57] Turtles, and you go, you've heard of gym rats?

[28:59] This gym has an actual rat.

Stuart Wellington

[29:01] Oh, man.

[29:02] Okay.

[29:03] TM, TM.

[29:03] I took it.

Elliott Kalan

[29:06] Wow.

[29:06] You copyrighted my work?

[29:07] All right.

[29:07] So, Ann gets in touch with...

[29:09] With Eddie.

[29:10] He's like, I got something to tell you.

[29:11] Venom's like, she wants to get back together.

[29:12] That's great.

[29:13] They meet up for drinks.

[29:14] It turns out she got engaged to Dr. Dan, the normal guy she left Eddie for in the first

[29:19] movie, because he makes her feel safe, which, understandably, Eddie is a loose cannon.

[29:22] Even without the symbiote, he's still a mess of a person.

[29:25] Like, he's just a shambling, unshaven mess.

Stuart Wellington

[29:27] He is kind of cleaned up, though.

[29:29] In the first movie, he just looked like shit the whole time.

Dan McCoy

[29:32] Yeah, that's true.

[29:33] And that takes work.

[29:34] Tom Hardy's a good-looking dude.

[29:35] Dr. Dan also played by the actor who played Dan on Veep.

[29:39] So, same character.

[29:40] Who knows?

[29:41] Could be a crossover.

[29:42] Was he a doctor on Veep?

[29:44] No, but maybe he went to medical school.

[29:46] Did you identify with him because his name's Dan?

Stuart Wellington

[29:48] Were you like, stop being so hard on Dan.

Dan McCoy

[29:50] I mean, he's a nice guy.

[29:52] He's arguably the nicest character in the movie.

[29:55] True.

Stuart Wellington

[29:55] And he steps up later on in the movie in a situation that could have easily gone terrible for him.

[30:01] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[30:02] Oh, yeah.

[30:03] I mean, if anyone is the hero of the movie putting their life on the line, we will find

[30:06] out it is Dr. Dan.

[30:07] He runs into a situation that should have meant instant death for him, and he provides the

[30:12] critical recovery point for Venom twice during that climactic scene.

[30:17] It's amazing.

[30:18] He's the hero of the film.

[30:19] They should make a sequel called Venom, Dr. Dan.

Stuart Wellington

[30:21] It's just him.

Elliott Kalan

[30:22] Having adventures.

[30:23] Yeah.

[30:23] Being a doctor.

Stuart Wellington

[30:24] And then he becomes so popular, they actually start writing him into the Spider-Man comics.

Elliott Kalan

[30:29] Yeah.

[30:29] He gets his own book, Dr. Dan, non-lethal protector.

[30:32] He helps people and saves them.

[30:34] Yeah.

[30:35] So, Eddie is sad, and Venom's like, you gotta put on your big boy pants.

[30:40] Venom is always saying stuff like that.

[30:42] I don't like it.

[30:43] He's like a walking kind of novelty t-shirt at times.

[30:47] There's something about Venom that's very like greeting card that has a mustache and bacon

[30:51] on it, and is like, this is cool, right?

[30:54] Yeah.

[30:54] Like, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[30:54] He's like an inspirational Instagram meme account that just repurposes other people's

[31:01] memes and stuff, and shows pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio, and it's like lifestyle goals and

[31:05] shit.

Elliott Kalan

[31:07] Yeah.

[31:08] Yeah, that's Venom.

[31:09] So, the next morning, Venom tries to cheer Eddie up again.

[31:11] He cooks him a huge breakfast, and he's singing Let's Call the Whole Thing Off.

[31:14] It's pretty good.

[31:14] And he's making such a mess.

[31:16] Like Dan said, he is so graceless and so clumsy.

[31:19] I love it.

[31:19] He's just throwing food around.

[31:21] And they get a postcard in the mail inviting Eddie to watch Cletus's execution.

[31:25] It's a postcard from Cletus.

[31:26] And he's written so many tiny words all around it that it turns into an entire monologue

[31:32] through an animated sequence of Cletus's horribly abusive and murderous childhood.

Stuart Wellington

[31:36] Which I loved.

[31:37] Because I...

Elliott Kalan

[31:37] There's no way he fit that many letters on that postcard.

Stuart Wellington

[31:39] It reminded me of, like, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac comics.

[31:43] So, I'm into that.

[31:43] I did like that this turned into, like, a little cartoon in the middle of it.

Elliott Kalan

[31:48] Yeah.

[31:48] It was like suddenly we got an episode of Liquid Television.

[31:51] Yeah.

[31:51] And suddenly an episode of Liquid Television broke out.

[31:53] And that should happen in more movies.

[31:54] Yeah.

[31:55] It doesn't have to be just this and Tsukiaki Western Django that have little animated sequences

[31:59] in them.

[31:59] Come on.

[31:59] Put them in lots of movies.

[32:00] Yeah.

[32:01] So, Eddie goes to visit Cletus.

[32:03] And Cletus is very hot and cold with Eddie in this scene.

[32:06] He is both angry at him.

[32:08] One minute he's like, you know, you and me, we're both...

[32:10] We're both...

[32:11] We're two sides of the same coin.

[32:13] We're both losers in some way.

[32:14] And then the next he's like, I curse you to be alone forever.

[32:17] Like, I wasn't...

[32:17] I mean, Cletus, again, is a madman.

[32:19] But it's not consistent.

[32:21] And Venom is so mad at what Cletus is saying about Eddie that he lashes out.

[32:24] And Cletus and Eddie are kind of, like, grappling through the bars of Cletus' cell.

[32:28] And he bites Eddie's finger.

[32:30] And then he finds a little bit of symbiote in his mouth.

[32:33] Uh-oh.

[32:34] We know what that means.

[32:36] Something's going to let there be carnage.

[32:38] Back at home.

[32:39] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[32:39] See, I...

[32:41] So, I discovered this...

[32:42] Yes.

[32:43] I discovered this factoid while trying to puzzle out a later moment.

[32:47] In the movie, which will...

Elliott Kalan

[32:49] Now, you can just say fact.

[32:49] Facts and factoids are actually the same thing.

[32:51] A lot of people don't know that.

Dan McCoy

[32:52] Yeah.

[32:52] Well, actually, factoid originally meant a false fact.

[32:56] So, uh...

[32:57] Oh, I didn't know that.

[32:58] I guess...

[32:59] I mean, I guess this technically counts because it's a fictional world we're living in.

[33:03] But I discovered...

[33:04] I discovered...

Elliott Kalan

[33:05] Wait, we're living in a fictional world, Dan?

[33:06] We are.

[33:07] You know an Elon Musk hologram and a computer truther?

[33:09] No.

[33:10] Um, no, I discovered that I...

[33:12] Guys, what if this was all just an algorithm and a computer?

[33:14] I don't know.

[33:15] It wouldn't change anything.

[33:16] Yeah.

[33:16] We'd all be doing the exact same stuff, right?

[33:18] Yeah.

[33:18] Yeah, but still.

Dan McCoy

[33:19] I guess the offspring of these symbiotes are more powerful than the original for some reason.

[33:27] Like, that's the way that they work, but...

Elliott Kalan

[33:30] It's for the reason of making it harder for Venom to defeat them in the comics.

Dan McCoy

[33:34] Yeah, I guess so.

[33:35] But it was, to me, like, watching the movie, I'm like, wait, why...

[33:40] Like, Venom later on is like, oh, this, you know, like, it's a more powerful version.

[33:44] He goes, oh, no, it's a red one.

[33:45] Yeah, yeah.

[33:46] And he's scared of it for a little bit.

[33:47] Yeah, and, like, why biting Venom creates a stronger character is a thing that the movie

[33:55] does not engage with and confused me.

[33:57] Dan, just think about it this way, okay?

Stuart Wellington

[33:59] Like, if I had to get in a fight with my dad, I would beat the shit out of him.

[34:03] Okay, I gotcha.

Dan McCoy

[34:05] So it's just that Carnage is younger, even though Woody Harrelson is older.

[34:11] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[34:11] Yeah, so they should equal out.

[34:13] They should balance out in that way.

[34:15] But it's also in the...

Stuart Wellington

[34:16] Woody Harrelson is older because he seems pretty young.

[34:19] He's wearing hip clothes.

[34:20] He drives a hot...

[34:22] Dating Naomi Harris.

[34:23] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[34:23] Even the hip clothes he wears are, like, old clothes.

[34:27] And his hot car is a 66 Mustang.

[34:29] Like, it's like, they're like, well, let's surround him with old clothes and old cars to

[34:32] make him look younger.

[34:34] The way that we want to make Adam West look like a college student by having him beat

[34:37] up middle-aged thugs on the Batman TV show.

[34:41] So, you bring up a good point that...

[34:43] So in the comic, the Venom symbiote just kind of leaves behind a baby.

[34:47] I guess it was just time to reproduce.

[34:48] But in this, yeah, Eddie gets bitten by Cletus.

[34:52] And Cletus is like, oh, that's not blood in my mouth.

[34:55] I know what blood tastes like.

[34:56] What is this?

[34:56] And it's just a new baby symbiote.

[34:58] And the symbiote has a personality, gives itself the name Carnage.

[35:02] We'll get to that.

[35:02] Anyway, the same way that Venom was like, my name is Venom, which is goofy.

[35:05] Like, these are aliens that have Earth names.

[35:07] But anyway, Eddie and Venom go back home, and they get in a big fight, and Venom smashes

[35:13] up the whole place and then leaves.

[35:14] And he jumps out the window.

[35:15] I kind of like this sequence.

Dan McCoy

[35:16] I like their fight.

Elliott Kalan

[35:18] I like it, too.

[35:18] It's pretty goofy, but...

Dan McCoy

[35:19] Other than whenever a movie involves, like, the joke trashing of an apartment, I just get

[35:27] really stressed out.

[35:27] Because I'm like, man, like, your place is trash now.

[35:31] Like, you got to rebuy all that stuff.

[35:34] You got to watch your deposit.

Elliott Kalan

[35:36] He takes his big TV and throws it out the window.

[35:38] And I think the next scene, he has a new TV that he's taking out of the box.

[35:41] And it's like, first world problems.

[35:44] Like, I can afford a new TV.

[35:46] But if my TV broke, I wouldn't be able to go out and run out and replace it, right?

[35:49] It's the same way that I had to stop watching the show Modern Family, because there was

[35:52] one season where three different episodes involved characters getting into car accidents,

[35:56] and it was not a problem.

[35:58] They never seemed to worry about, how am I going to find the time to take this car?

[36:01] What am I going to do for a car while it's in the shop?

[36:03] I don't know if anyone said that would be.

[36:05] But like, I can't relate to a family that loses a car and is just like, well, get another

[36:10] one from the machine.

Stuart Wellington

[36:12] Like a car off the tree out back.

[36:14] And they have a full events budget every time they have a Halloween party.

[36:18] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[36:18] Well, that's the thing.

[36:19] Their Halloween haunted house is like six flags.

[36:23] It's like when Disney decks out for Halloween.

[36:25] Like, it's so professional.

[36:26] But anyway, so Eddie jumps on.

[36:29] The Venom jumps onto the body of a woman biking away, and he just becomes a big middle finger

[36:34] that he waves at Eddie, which is like, that's the movie in a nutshell.

[36:37] Yeah, I love it.

[36:37] Is the symbiote turning into a big middle finger.

[36:39] Yeah.

[36:40] So we go to Cassidy's execution.

[36:42] Eddie has decided not to attend.

[36:44] The lethal injection drugs, I wasn't sure if they were interacting with the symbiote in

[36:48] the system or if they were blocked by the symbiote in the system.

[36:51] But he becomes carnage.

[36:52] The symbiote takes over his body, or at least is empowering him.

[36:55] And he rampages through the prison, and he shows off all of his powers.

[36:58] He can create like saws and knives.

[37:00] He can throw darts.

[37:02] A bullet gets shot at him, and he creates a hole in his own belly, and the bullet goes

[37:06] through it, which is weird, because Cletus should be inside that suit.

[37:09] I don't know what happened to Cletus's stomach when that bullet, when the body had a hole

[37:13] in it.

[37:14] It doesn't make sense.

Stuart Wellington

[37:14] You would like some kind of like 3D x-ray attack moment where it shows you Cletus's

[37:19] body inside, like in-

Elliott Kalan

[37:21] Well, what I'd like to have happen is what happens in the comics, where the symbiote absorbs

[37:24] the bullets and then spits them out, basically.

[37:27] Like, the bullets would hit Venom's body, and then they would kind of like plop, plop,

[37:30] plop, fall out, as opposed to-

[37:31] Venom or Carnage creating a hole in their bodies like they're Roger Rabbit, and then

[37:35] closing the hole.

[37:36] Like, he's essentially giving Cletus a major hernia, and then closed it up instantly, which

[37:40] is not how human bodies work.

[37:41] But anyway, and then, but that, I wasn't worried about that for too long, because then

[37:44] Venom starts, Carnage, I'm sorry, Carnage starts spinning around so fast he creates a

[37:48] cyclone, which blows everyone away, which is ridiculous.

[37:53] Guys, okay, what's your true opinions of this?

[37:55] That this character, it's a parry he never uses again, by the way, that he can create,

[37:59] he can spin so fast he creates cyclones.

Stuart Wellington

[38:01] He must have only had like one use of that ability.

[38:04] He needs to take a long rest to recharge that.

Dan McCoy

[38:07] I mean, I do like the Tasmanian devil, who's basically a cyclone character.

Stuart Wellington

[38:12] I like Riptide from the Marauders.

Elliott Kalan

[38:15] Yeah, but that's Riptide's whole power.

[38:18] Yeah, that's true.

[38:18] Like, that's all he does.

Stuart Wellington

[38:19] He's just constantly doing it.

[38:21] Anytime a character turns into a little whirlwind with like a little tornado, but with a normal

[38:26] head on top, I love that shit.

[38:29] Like, if Carnage had done that and his little head was just poking up and he was like smiling,

[38:33] I would have loved it.

Elliott Kalan

[38:34] Well, the best thing about that is what it's implying is that his head is not moving.

[38:38] And so his neck is either, his head is either able to turn 360 degrees or his neck is just

[38:43] twisting, twisting, twisting, twisting.

[38:44] Like when you get on a swing and you turn it, turn it, turn it, turn it, turn it to put

[38:48] the chains together so that you can let go and have it spin around and you spin around

[38:51] real fast.

Stuart Wellington

[38:52] That's happening with his neck.

[38:54] Well, what's funny about it is that the artist is like, nobody would know that this is Riptide

[39:00] or Carnage or whatever if their head was spinning too.

[39:04] They would just think it's a normal man-sized whirlwind.

Elliott Kalan

[39:09] So I better put a little head on there.

[39:11] Yeah, exactly.

[39:11] That's what everyone knows.

[39:12] So Detective Mulligan, he's this detective who's always on Eddie's case.

[39:16] He tells Eddie that Cletus has escaped and at the same time, Venom goes to like kind of

[39:22] a costume party rave where we've established that Venom, that the symbiotes are hurt by

[39:27] sound and fire.

[39:29] Apparently the music here where Little Sims, the rapper, is performing, the music is apparently

[39:33] so low, maybe there's a neighborhood noise ordinance that it doesn't bother Eddie.

[39:36] It doesn't bother Venom, I'm sorry.

[39:38] And Venom is just walking around.

[39:39] Everyone loves his costume.

[39:40] He takes the mic from Little Sims and gives a speech about tolerance.

[39:44] And the crowd loves it.

Stuart Wellington

[39:46] He's like, trans rights are human rights.

[39:49] I love it.

[39:50] He's got all these like dripping in like glow sticks and shit.

[39:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[39:54] He's like, of course black lives matter.

[39:56] Yeah, I love it.

[39:56] Of course they do.

[39:57] And how is that even a question in this century?

[39:59] I'm an alien and I know that.

[40:00] Yeah.

[40:01] But it's this whole scene.

[40:02] It's just like, what kind of party do you think this was?

[40:04] So what was this?

[40:05] Dan, you've been to a lot of costume raves.

[40:07] What's going on with this?

[40:09] It's also apparently happening at like seven in the evening.

Dan McCoy

[40:11] Well, that's the thing.

[40:12] Like, is it around Halloween?

[40:13] I mean, it's a rave, but they're all costumed.

[40:16] I don't know whether it's like, you know, like because of the time of year or whether it's

[40:21] just like, they're like, yeah, you know, costumes.

[40:24] We like to dance.

[40:24] There's no theme to the costumes either.

Elliott Kalan

[40:26] They're all different costumes.

[40:28] I mean, there's a lot of skull faces.

[40:31] Yeah.

[40:31] But it's not like you can be like, oh, anime fest is in town.

[40:33] And that's why these people are dressed up like that.

[40:35] Like it's, they're, they're just very randomly in costumes.

[40:37] And Venom is the king of this, of this party.

[40:40] They all love him.

[40:41] A lady hits on him.

[40:43] He puts her down, not very gently.

[40:45] He's like, you're not my type.

[40:48] And then after his speech, he walks into a hallway and passes.

Stuart Wellington

[40:51] The problem with his response is that it asks more questions than it answers.

[40:55] No, I did.

[40:57] I was wondering.

[40:58] I'm like, okay, but yeah.

Dan McCoy

[41:00] Who is, yeah, who would Venom go for it?

[41:02] Let's pull out a, yeah, let's get his full star chart.

[41:05] Let's, let's, yeah.

[41:06] I mean.

[41:07] Let's get on Venom's Tinder and like help him swipe.

[41:10] Let's do some co-star with Venom.

[41:11] What he likes.

Elliott Kalan

[41:12] Venom is on, Venom is on tongue-der.

[41:14] Oh, gross.

[41:14] Because he's got such a long tongue.

[41:16] He's always whipping it around.

[41:17] Yeah.

[41:17] So, and clearly Anne is his type.

[41:19] He loves Michelle Williams.

[41:20] He wants to be around her also.

[41:21] Anyway.

[41:21] But Venom is tired.

[41:22] He passes out.

[41:23] These bodies, they're not strong enough to support him.

[41:25] These host bodies.

[41:25] So, and it also means that somebody is just going to wake up feeling sick in a costume

[41:30] rave and be like, how did I get here?

[41:31] I understand.

[41:32] I mean, of the places you could wake up feeling sick.

Stuart Wellington

[41:37] I think a costumed rave is not the strangest.

[41:39] Yeah.

[41:39] You're not going to.

Dan McCoy

[41:40] That's fair.

[41:41] You're not going to be like, oh, I got to get Columbo on this case.

Elliott Kalan

[41:44] Yeah.

[41:44] Whoa.

[41:44] Why do I feel bad?

[41:45] So you say, you say you were just riding your bicycle down the street and suddenly you

[41:49] passed out and you woke up at a costume rave.

[41:52] That makes sense.

[41:53] Oh, one question.

[41:54] One question.

[41:54] Was it a costume rave?

[41:56] It was.

[41:56] Case closed.

[41:58] You know, Mrs. Columbo and I, we were at a costume rave once.

[42:01] Would I be Venom's type?

[42:06] He's an alien creature that people wear as a costume.

[42:08] He's essentially a living jumpsuit.

[42:10] Yeah, yeah.

[42:10] With a long tongue.

[42:11] Anyway, that makes sense.

[42:12] Oh, one more question.

[42:14] Why is his name Venom?

[42:15] Is there a Mrs. Venom?

Dan McCoy

[42:18] I mean, kind of.

Elliott Kalan

[42:19] He's opening the door for it.

[42:20] Yeah.

[42:21] Or a mister.

[42:21] We just don't know what it is.

[42:23] So, Cletus, meanwhile, he steals a car and he makes a deal with the Carnage symbiote.

[42:28] He'll help Carnage kill Venom if Carnage helps him get Shriek.

[42:33] And then he uses the Carnage symbiote just to pick up a truck off the bridge that someone is driving in and throw it off the bridge.

[42:39] Yeah.

[42:39] And it's like, wait, huh?

[42:40] Come on.

[42:41] That's a little bit too casual of a murder for me.

[42:44] But, you know, what are you going to do?

[42:46] He's Carnage.

[42:46] Meanwhile, Eddie, he's like, oh, let me go through my old notes.

[42:50] Oh, I'll go to the old reform school.

[42:51] And he goes there and he finds a tree with Cletus and Francis's initials carved into it in a heart.

[42:58] In perhaps the laziest way this information could be discovered.

[43:01] Open shit case.

Dan McCoy

[43:02] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[43:03] And he calls the detective and he goes, hey, I think I've got something here.

[43:06] Cletus was in love once.

[43:07] Is that anything?

[43:08] And the detective's like, yeah.

[43:10] But she's dead.

[43:11] I killed her when she tried to escape as a teen.

[43:13] I was the cop who was in the cold open.

[43:16] Bum, bum, bum.

[43:17] But she's not dead.

[43:19] We already know that.

[43:20] And now Cletus knows it because of his infallible method of finding his girlfriend that he thinks might be dead.

[43:26] He goes to a bodega.

[43:27] He knocks out or kills the guy who works there.

[43:29] The guy, of course, has a laptop open on the counter, as we've seen in many bodegas.

[43:33] They're always using laptops in their work.

[43:35] And he has his Carnage symbiote go into the laptop.

[43:38] Somehow that allows him to hack into Ravencroft's secret files and he finds where Shriek is hidden.

[43:43] Can you please explain to me this scene?

Stuart Wellington

[43:47] I wish that Carnage had said, learning, when he did it, like Apocalypse did.

Dan McCoy

[43:53] It's biomechanical jazz, man.

[43:55] You know, it's...

Elliott Kalan

[43:57] Okay, then why has this guy got a laptop open at work?

Dan McCoy

[44:01] Well, come on.

[44:02] I mean, that's...

[44:03] I mean, maybe he's taking night classes, dude.

[44:05] I mean, what is he going to do while there's no one in there?

Stuart Wellington

[44:08] Maybe he's on comiXology reading Maximum Carnage.

Dan McCoy

[44:11] This is not an important...

[44:12] This is not an important thing to say, but it's itching at my brain.

[44:16] I just want to say, for half the movie, I thought that the detective, by the way, was Donnie Wahlberg.

[44:22] And the detective is not Donnie Wahlberg.

Elliott Kalan

[44:25] No, no.

[44:25] The detective is played by Stephen Graham.

Stuart Wellington

[44:28] From...

[44:29] Who's been...

[44:29] Was in a bunch of like...

[44:31] What's that guy?

[44:33] You know, the lock stock and two smoking barrels guy.

[44:35] Guy Ritchie.

[44:36] Yeah, that guy.

[44:37] That guy.

[44:38] That literal guy.

[44:38] He's in lots of stuff.

[44:39] I was going to say Guy Corey.

[44:40] He's in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

[44:42] Guy Lombardo.

[44:42] Right?

[44:42] He also, weirdly enough, just like Tom Hardy, portrayed Al Capone in a movie.

[44:48] Well, in a TV show.

Dan McCoy

[44:49] Stuart, I see you have...

[44:50] Yes.

[44:51] ...a document open in front of you.

Elliott Kalan

[44:53] In Boardwalk Empire, which is one of those long movies.

[44:55] What are you saying, Dan?

[44:56] TV is the new movies.

Dan McCoy

[44:57] I just see that Stuart has a document in front of him.

[44:59] I wonder whether he's been looking for a chance to launch into it.

Stuart Wellington

[45:03] Well, I'm just trying to explain that just like Eddie and Venom, our show needs our MaxFun

[45:07] members to be the best that it can be to defeat Carnage.

[45:11] Tell me more.

[45:12] Tell me more.

[45:13] I want to take a moment while the drive winds down to thank all of our MaxFun members,

[45:19] new, upgrading, and longtime supporters.

[45:22] You make this show happen.

[45:25] Your money makes the Flophouse a priority for us, and it makes our lives better.

[45:30] It covers our production costs, but mostly, it just goes to us living our lives.

[45:36] You know, paying bills.

[45:37] But we need it, though.

[45:38] But we need it, though.

[45:39] Yeah.

[45:39] Well, it pays our bills, and you know what?

[45:41] You know, we can afford the occasional little treat.

[45:44] You want us to have treats, right?

[45:48] Interesting.

[45:49] This is an interesting tactic.

[45:51] Now, the drive is the time during the year that we push membership.

[45:53] What, do you hate treats?

[45:54] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[45:54] What's going on here?

[45:56] What's your problem with treats?

[45:57] I don't have a problem with treats.

Stuart Wellington

[45:58] And because this is the time that we push membership.

[45:59] Treat Williams?

Stuart Wellington

[45:59] You got a problem with Treat Williams next?

[46:01] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[46:01] We're dogging on my man Treat Williams from Dead Heat.

[46:06] And because this is the time of year that we push membership, it also means that it makes

[46:10] it a perfect time to get a little bit sappy, and thank you for all that you've done

[46:13] for our show.

[46:15] Like, to make it a little more clear, Dan is obviously Aragorn in this situation.

[46:21] I'm Legolas, and that makes Elliot Gimli, okay?

[46:25] And our MaxFun members are the four hobbits.

[46:28] And like, this is the part where Aragorn leans down and he says, my friends, you bow to no

[46:34] one.

[46:35] And then the projectionist has to stop the movie because I'm crying so violently in the theater

[46:40] that he thinks somebody is dying, okay?

[46:42] So thank you.

[46:45] But if my thanks is not enough, there's also a ton of great member gifts available.

[46:51] There's hours of bonus content with more on the way for $5 a month member.

[46:57] New and upgrading members at the $10 per month level will receive an embroidered patch for

[47:02] their favorite show.

[47:04] Ours features that irascible little hooligan the house cat bursting out.

[47:08] And there's much more.

[47:10] And for all of you that already support us and might be feeling a little bit generous,

[47:15] we also offer the option to give a listener a gift membership that includes access to all

[47:19] those cool member gifts.

[47:21] So just head over to MaximumFun.org slash join.

[47:24] And we actually have a couple of personal goals that we're going to be checking in in a few

[47:30] days as the drive wraps up.

[47:32] If we receive 1,900 new and upgrading members, we're going to be doing a raffle giveaway of

[47:39] signed Maniac of New York comics or Hinterland swag or drawings from Dan.

[47:48] If we hit 2,300 new and upgrading members, we're going to be doing another commentary track,

[47:54] this time featuring the country bears, you know, the ones who were so close to defeating

[47:59] cats, but they just couldn't do it.

[48:01] Well, you can make that happen.

[48:03] And at 3,500 new and upgrading members, we're going to be doing quarterly movie audio commentaries

[48:09] for a year.

[48:09] That sounds like so much fun.

[48:11] We already did one commentary.

[48:12] I want to do more.

[48:13] Make that happen, please.

[48:15] So thank you again, supporters.

[48:18] Elliot?

[48:19] All right.

Elliott Kalan

[48:19] That was great, Stuart.

[48:20] Thank you so much.

[48:21] Let's get back to the movie.

[48:23] Anyway, when we last left the film, Carnage, aka Cletus Kasady and Carnage, they're two

[48:28] people who are a person in a suit and they become one thing.

[48:31] They've just discovered where Shriek, the character who you know is like Shriek, is located.

[48:36] And so they go to Ravencroft, they break her out of there, and she loves these new Carnage

[48:41] powers.

[48:42] And I am just going to go, I'm just going to say it, guys.

[48:45] I think that Naomi Harris is not given much to do in this movie.

[48:50] She is an actor of amazing talent.

[48:54] I've loved her in many other performances.

[48:57] And she's a very charismatic performer.

[48:59] And in this, it's just kind of like, you know, she's basically just like Eddie's, sorry,

[49:05] I keep calling them the wrong names.

[49:06] She's just Cletus's girlfriend who loves to kill people and is just like a mean, you know,

[49:12] scary person who says things like, knock, knock, you know, and stuff like that.

[49:16] It's really just, you know, it's a waste of a talent.

[49:18] I know this sounds weird.

Stuart Wellington

[49:19] She would have made a better Carnage.

Elliott Kalan

[49:22] I, to be honest, I think that would have been really cool.

Stuart Wellington

[49:25] Weirdly enough, just like in the first movie, I thought Michelle Williams and Riz Ahmed should

[49:29] have swapped roles.

[49:30] I think this is the same situation.

[49:32] Interesting.

[49:34] I think Woody Harrison would have made a great shriek.

[49:38] Oh, yeah.

[49:40] Let's just do the old Venom shuffle.

Elliott Kalan

[49:43] So they call it, that's what they called it when the Chicago Bears recorded that song

[49:47] in the 1980s.

[49:51] I think that would have been, yeah, I think those are all really cool ideas.

[49:55] Let's do it, guys.

[49:56] Yeah, let's just do it.

[49:57] So they escape and she's basically, her personality is basically chaotic evil.

[50:04] That's pretty much what she is.

[50:05] But her shriek powers, because they're loud, when she uses them, it hurts the Carnage symbiote.

[50:10] So Carnage doesn't like that.

[50:11] And Venom goes to, Venom the suit goes to Mrs. Chen for help.

[50:14] He's burning through bodies.

[50:15] They're too weak to host him.

[50:16] And meanwhile, Eddie gets picked up by the detective for interrogation.

[50:19] He learns Cletus has a symbiote.

[50:21] Well, the detective is like, people said something about monsters.

[50:24] And this is another thing I didn't believe is that Cletus Cassidy is a famous serial killer.

[50:27] He's being executed.

[50:28] He goes on a rampage in a monster suit and breaks out of the prison.

[50:32] There is no footage.

[50:34] There's no cell phone footage.

[50:35] There's no pictures.

[50:36] There were no news cameras outside where he's being executed.

[50:39] There is no, there's, people, people are saying,

[50:41] man, there was a monster there.

[50:43] And it's like, okay, I guess there's no, nobody could take a picture of him.

[50:46] Like, he doesn't exist, you know.

[50:47] They have no idea what's going on.

[50:48] But he learns Cletus has a symbiote.

[50:49] He calls Anne as his lawyer.

[50:52] And she comes in and he goes, hey, Venom's alive.

[50:54] I need you to go get him for me.

[50:55] She goes to the bodega where Mrs. Chen is wearing Venom.

[50:59] Again, would have been a more fun movie if now Mrs. Chen is Venom.

[51:01] Yeah.

[51:02] What are you going to do?

[51:02] And Anne has to, like, praise Venom while flirting with him in a kind of creepy way, but also kind of a funny way.

Stuart Wellington

[51:10] It feels like Michelle Williams is like, finally something to do in this movie.

Dan McCoy

[51:14] I mean, yeah.

[51:15] She's not, she's also not giving much, but she's having fun with what she, like, Michelle Williams, I, by the way, like, I, like, looked her up because I was like, I haven't seen her in a while.

[51:26] I realized, and it was distressing to realize that, like, other, like, other than Fosse Verdon, which I hadn't seen, I haven't seen, I heard it was very good, the limited series.

Elliott Kalan

[51:37] And that's a, I mean, that's a long miniseries.

[51:39] Like, that's, I get why that might have taken a long time and taken a lot out of her.

[51:42] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[51:43] Other than, there's, she had one other movie between the original Venom and this one, and that's what she's been doing lately.

[51:51] I also read that, you know, apparently she had a divorce recently, so I wouldn't be surprised if she was stepping back from some stuff because of that.

[52:00] But I would love to see more of her.

Elliott Kalan

[52:03] I think that there's, I was thinking about this recently because there was that news story where Andrew Garfield was like, I think I'm going to take a little time off from acting.

[52:12] That we've got to this point now where, I mean, this is the way movie stars have always been kind of, where it's like, if you're not in a movie for a certain amount of time, people think your career's over.

[52:20] Yeah.

[52:21] But especially now, when entertainment is consumed so quickly.

[52:24] Yes.

[52:25] And we expect an endless instant feed of stuff that you cannot be in a movie for, I mean, between Venom and Venom Let There Be Carnage is three years.

[52:34] Yeah.

[52:34] And that's plenty of time for someone to have, to not make another movie.

[52:38] Like, and you never know what's going on in someone's life.

[52:41] And that with performers a lot, it's like, they're kind of, it's seen as a failure if they're not constantly working when they might have other things and they're going on in their life.

[52:48] Yeah.

[52:48] They might not want to work for a little bit.

[52:50] Like, she had two movies in 2018, two in, three in 2017, two in 2016.

[52:54] Like, but, but I think there is this perception that if you don't see an actor for a year, then something's going on and that something's wrong and their career is failing or something like that.

Dan McCoy

[53:03] Or the thing happens that, this, like, they talk about this, I think, on Blank Check a fair amount, but I've also like just experienced it in my life where I'm like, oh man, that actor, like, oh, it's a shame that they, their career never took off.

[53:17] And then like, you're like, oh wait, they've been on 500 episodes of something on CBS.

[53:23] Yeah.

[53:23] That's why I haven't been seeing them around.

Elliott Kalan

[53:27] I mean, that's the other thing is the idea that movies are like the only thing that movie actors do.

[53:31] Like, she made a TV show during that time.

[53:33] Like, sometimes they make TV, sometimes they're doing plays.

[53:36] Like, there's other, there's other things, like, you know, he's a monster.

[53:39] All right, I apologize to Michelle Williams, Elliot.

[53:43] No, no, no, but no, no, I wasn't mean to be, I'm using the example of someone who is a monster, but there was a period where like Kevin Spacey wasn't making a lot of movies because he was running the old Vic Theater in the artistic director there.

[53:53] Like, I mean, and again, he's, I don't use him as an example, just the first one came to mind because again, he's a monster.

[53:57] But still, the, much like Carnage.

Stuart Wellington

[53:59] How are you going to, how are you going to apologize to Michelle Williams?

[54:01] Are you going to, DMs or, you said she went through a divorce, so maybe.

[54:04] I'll probably like send an edible arrangement.

Elliott Kalan

[54:07] Oh, that's nice.

[54:08] Oh, that's really nice.

[54:09] What's great about that is so many arrangements are not edible.

[54:12] Yeah.

[54:12] And it's just really nice to finally get an arrangement that you can eat.

Stuart Wellington

[54:14] It just sounds like you're not putting enough effort in, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[54:17] Yeah, I guess that's true.

[54:19] Well, how come when I arrange things, they're not edible?

[54:21] Like when I arrange my shoes in the closet, they're suddenly, I want them to be edible.

[54:25] I don't know.

[54:26] If it's a cartoon, you can probably eat them.

[54:28] Give actors some time, you know, and that goes for writers and directors and all the other people too.

[54:32] Anyway, so Anne comes back wearing Venom and Venom makes Eddie apologize and Eddie is like, okay, I'll take him back.

[54:39] And Eddie gets released by the police almost as if the police were just holding him until Venom came.

[54:44] Until the plot, yeah.

[54:45] Like, okay, you got your symbiote.

[54:47] You can go now.

[54:48] Meanwhile, Cletus and Shriek, they burn down their old reform school and decide they're going to hold a wedding where they're going to get married and they're going to each get to kill one person.

[54:57] He kills Eddie, Carnage kills Venom, and Shriek will kill Detective Mulligan.

[55:01] And almost instantly, Detective Mulligan is old for Eddie.

[55:04] And you're like, something old, something new.

[55:05] And yeah, so something old is, well, it's Woody Harrelson, let's be honest.

[55:11] Something blue is how Eddie feels having been dumped by Anne.

[55:15] Something new is Shriek, new character in the mythos here.

[55:18] And something borrowed is, I guess, the symbiote powers?

Stuart Wellington

[55:22] This is such a twisted concept for a wedding.

[55:25] What did Cormac McCarthy write?

[55:27] Oh, that motherfucker.

Elliott Kalan

[55:31] Now I want to see, now Cormac McCarthy is, he's officiating when he goes, dearly beloved, we gather here to fuck some people up.

[55:39] This is going to get twisted.

[55:41] Sunglasses go on.

[55:42] Do you take Shriek in nasty times and in nastier times?

[55:47] Oh, shit, yeah.

[55:48] That kind of stuff.

[55:49] Oh, that's crazy.

[55:49] Yeah, Cormac McCarthy.

Stuart Wellington

[55:51] He's wearing like a black leather cassock, like he's a vampire, one of my vampire characters from Vampire.

Elliott Kalan

[55:57] He's wearing a priest collar, but then he's got a sleeveless black t-shirt on, like a black muscle shirt.

[56:03] Okay, that's cool too.

[56:04] Yeah, yeah.

[56:05] And like a big knife belted to his belt so that like if a zombie comes out of the charge yard, he can cut its head off or something.

[56:12] Anyway, that's Cormac McCarthy.

[56:14] And the detective, so he's like, I better go to Eddie's apartment to ask him another question.

[56:19] And Cletus just happens to be showing up at the apartment at the same time.

[56:22] It's ridiculous.

[56:23] He kidnaps him.

[56:24] Shriek kidnaps Anne to lure Eddie to the wedding.

[56:26] And then there's a little back and forth between Eddie and Venom that I feel like encapsulates the whole movie, its style and its tone and how it works in three lines.

[56:35] Eddie says, we're going to a wedding.

[56:37] And Venom says, will there be canapes?

[56:39] And Eddie goes, you bet your ass.

[56:42] And it was like, okay.

[56:43] It's banter that doesn't really make sense.

[56:45] Venom is making like a cutesy reference to a human thing.

[56:48] The characters are just stating the plot.

[56:50] There's going to be this wedding and we're going to go there.

[56:52] And there's this unnecessary vulgarity and you bet your ass.

[56:55] It's all right there in that three lines.

[56:58] That's the movie.

[56:59] Right there.

Dan McCoy

[56:59] I do like that Eddie is yes anding Venom's thing that like in a way that doesn't make sense.

[57:06] It doesn't make sense.

[57:07] I, you know, there were no canapes.

[57:09] I took a look around.

Elliott Kalan

[57:11] And I don't know if the implication is like, Eddie's going to let Venom eat some bad guys and that's the canapes.

[57:17] It's just like, it's banter that has, it's banter where you have to take a moment and think about it, which is not the best kind of banter.

[57:22] Everybody goes, you bet your ass.

[57:24] I remember him saying that and me being like, wait a minute.

[57:26] How do you know?

[57:27] Like you didn't get an invitation really.

Stuart Wellington

[57:28] This introduces the, um.

[57:31] The question as to whether or not Venom has an ass.

[57:33] That's a good question.

Elliott Kalan

[57:35] It's tough to tell.

[57:36] We are.

[57:36] I mean, if, if, if the, if the Venom toy that I bought when I was, when I was an adolescent is ain't the go by, he has a beautiful ass.

[57:43] What a fucking dump truck on that guy.

[57:46] This is the, this is the, what, 13 inch or 12 inch Venom's figure that was released in the early nineties.

[57:51] I still have mine.

[57:52] My kids play with it.

[57:53] And I always thought it was weird.

[57:54] When you buy them in the box, you just see the front of them.

[57:56] So when I took it out of the box and I saw that he has an incredibly sculpted ass and it's just so lovingly curved.

[58:02] It's like, wow, they really put a lot of, they put a lot of work into his butt on this one.

[58:06] Yeah.

[58:06] So is he.

Dan McCoy

[58:07] But this is, we are hurtling towards the, the, the big final fight, the climax of the movie.

[58:13] And yeah, it feels like it's a short movie, but it feels like this last fight is one third of it.

[58:21] And, uh, you know, as I said before, whenever this movie kicks into like plot stuff or action stuff, I am the least interested in it.

[58:31] And this was just a cacophony of like people being hurled into things for like half an hour.

[58:38] Uh.

Elliott Kalan

[58:38] Very much so.

[58:39] Very much so.

Elliott Kalan

[58:39] And this is, and this is the kind of scene usually at this point, usually, so this movie is an hour and 37 minutes long.

[58:44] So a normal superhero movie at this point is 40 to 50 minutes longer than that.

[58:48] So usually this would be the scene where Venom and Carnage fight for the first time.

[58:52] Carnage defeats Venom, but Venom escapes or Carnage gets away.

[58:55] And now there's going to be a bigger fight later on.

[58:58] But instead, this is the final fight.

[59:00] This is a very old fashioned movie where the main hero and villain don't even meet each other face to face until the final conflict.

[59:06] And so they go to the cathedral.

[59:08] Cletus and Shriek, they're staging this wedding with a real priest who looks terrified to be there, rightfully so.

Stuart Wellington

[59:12] Played by Reese Shearsmith from Inside Number Nine and League of Gentlemen.

[59:16] It was great.

Elliott Kalan

[59:17] Oh, I didn't even recognize him.

Stuart Wellington

[59:19] Yeah, it's because I think the, uh, I think I was reading that this whole movie was shot in the UK.

[59:24] That's why there's a lot of UK actors.

Elliott Kalan

[59:27] Makes sense.

[59:27] The whole movie was shot in the UK.

[59:29] Although apparently I guess some exteriors were done in San Francisco.

[59:31] Because I was reading in the trivia, there's a part where Venom is looking for Carnage and some police helicopters go overhead.

[59:36] And those were actually helicopters for the new Matrix movie that was also being shot at the same time.

[59:41] And they were like, keep it in the shot.

[59:43] We'll just say they're looking for Carnage instead of looking for Neo or whatever.

[59:46] So I like to think that's a crossover.

[59:48] Those helicopters exist in both universes.

[59:51] And Venom exists in the Matrix, I guess.

[59:53] Makes sense.

[59:53] Uh, yeah.

[59:55] Venom busts in.

[59:56] He's briefly scared that Carnage is a red suit, but he fights him anyway.

[59:59] Because Eddie's like, well, you can eat him if you defeat him.

[1:00:01] Eat him if you defeat him.

[1:00:02] That's the motto in my household.

[1:00:04] If you kill it, you fill it.

[1:00:05] And if you defeat him, you eat him.

[1:00:07] Like, that's...

Dan McCoy

[1:00:09] Don't ever...

[1:00:10] If it rhymes...

[1:00:10] Don't ever, ever wrestle your sons, Elliot.

[1:00:13] Because I don't want...

[1:00:14] Them to eat Elliot?

[1:00:15] Either way, you know, like...

[1:00:17] You know, either way, the world loses.

[1:00:20] Well, what'll happen is...

[1:00:21] Call me...

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:21] I'm like, call me...

[1:00:22] Call me...

[1:00:23] Call me Saturn, because I'm devouring my children.

[1:00:25] Yeah, yeah.

[1:00:25] You know, that's how it's gonna be.

[1:00:26] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:26] Well, hopefully, Danielle will be smart enough to swap the...

[1:00:29] His sons with stones, so Elliot'll just eat stones instead.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:32] Oh, I mean, she's tried it, and I always unswaddle them first to make sure they're not stones.

[1:00:36] Yeah, that makes sense.

[1:00:37] That's smart.

[1:00:38] And once it was Oliver Stone, I was like, I don't want to eat this.

[1:00:41] Threw it away.

[1:00:41] So, anyway...

[1:00:42] So...

[1:00:43] So...

[1:00:44] Shriek tries to help Carnage, but her scream powers hurt Carnage, so Carnage slaps her away.

[1:00:52] And so while they're fighting, Shriek goes off and chases and tortures the detective and seems to murder him.

[1:00:56] She, like, hangs him with a chain or something.

[1:00:58] And Carnage bites the priest's head off as if it's like a power-up that gives him, I guess...

[1:01:03] It does, yeah.

[1:01:03] Holy God power that makes him stronger.

[1:01:05] Venom is losing, but then who shows up?

[1:01:07] The secret hero of the movie, Dr. Dan.

[1:01:10] I don't know how he got onto the scaffolding above the church, but suddenly he's just pouring lit gasoline onto Carnage, saving the day, being more effective at fighting Carnage than Venom is.

[1:01:19] Guys, were you as surprised as I was to see Dr. Dan be revealed as the hero of the movie?

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:23] Yes.

[1:01:24] I was not expecting it, because he's a character that had been derided the whole time, but clearly, he's the hero.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:29] Yeah, I mean, and also, like, he doesn't need to help his new fiancé's ex-fiancé.

[1:01:36] He could be a much smaller man, but instead, he's right there, fighting by his side.

[1:01:43] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:44] And he doesn't have a symbiote to protect him.

[1:01:46] Yeah.

[1:01:46] All he has is his medical degree and the Hippocratic Oath, although the Hippocratic Oath says do no harm.

[1:01:51] He's clearly harming Carnage.

[1:01:54] Yes, we have to revoke his license.

[1:01:56] Oh, my God.

[1:01:56] He's the villain.

[1:01:57] He's the worst of them all.

[1:01:58] Yeah.

[1:01:58] Oh, he's betrayed his medical training.

[1:02:02] Somewhere at the medical chamber that he studied in in Germany, there's just an old physician who's going,

[1:02:11] oh, Dan, you've better than this.

[1:02:14] No, Dan, you've betrayed my teaching.

[1:02:16] Oh, no.

[1:02:16] Now, how is this guy seeing this?

Dan McCoy

[1:02:19] Is this through, like, a crystal ball or a scrying mirror?

[1:02:22] Yeah, he's a crystal ball.

[1:02:23] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:23] Yeah, he's also, he's like a Van Helsing type.

[1:02:26] He dabbles in magic.

[1:02:27] Interesting.

[1:02:27] He's also a doctor of the cult.

[1:02:29] Sure, yeah.

[1:02:30] Rich backstory for this character.

[1:02:33] So, there's more fighting and Cletus is like, I'm mad, Eddie, that you didn't tell my side of my childhood.

[1:02:39] And it's like, to be fair, he never, you never told him what it was until that postcard.

[1:02:42] Like, you never gave him the chance.

[1:02:44] Carnage traps Venom under some rubble and he runs off with him.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:47] I kind of like, there's a sequence where they're fighting each other and the church bell is ringing.

[1:02:54] And so, they'll fight and then all of a sudden their symbiotes retreat back inside their bodies for a minute.

[1:03:00] And then when the reverberation stopped, the symbiotes come back out again.

[1:03:03] I thought that was kind of cool.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:04] It's a cool idea.

[1:03:05] It kind of happens in the first movie, too, when he's fighting Riz Ahmed.

[1:03:08] I think the same thing happens.

[1:03:09] But it's a cool idea that, like, they're monsters and then suddenly they have to be just human beings punching each other and then they're monsters again.

[1:03:16] It's a really, I can see why they're, they're going to do the third one, too, probably, when he fights two symbiotes.

[1:03:20] Yeah.

[1:03:21] Or something like that.

[1:03:22] You know.

[1:03:22] Unless, I guess, the next one's going to be Venom versus Morbius or something like that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:26] I mean, it's going to seem like it's a versus and then they're just going to team up to beat up poachers or something that are trying to kill dinosaurs.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:34] You're right.

[1:03:34] They're going to have to stop a polluter that's trying to cut down the Amazon rainforest.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:38] I'm seeing dollar signs in my eyes.

[1:03:39] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:40] Guys, take me to the doctor.

[1:03:41] Dan, you have to see a doctor.

[1:03:42] Dr. Dan.

[1:03:44] That was a, wasn't that a Tim and Eric bit once where a guy, he looks at something and dollar signs pop him in his eyes and he has to go to the doctor to get the remove.

[1:03:51] He's like, oh, it hurts so much.

[1:03:52] Yeah.

[1:03:53] Good stuff.

[1:03:55] So, anyway.

[1:03:57] So, they fight some more.

[1:03:59] Carnage, he wants to, Carnage, the symbiote, wants to kill Shriek because her powers hurt him.

[1:04:03] But Cletus won't let him, so they start fighting.

[1:04:05] And Dr. Dan, again, the hero of the movie, he points out, he goes, they're not being symbiotic.

[1:04:10] They're fighting each other.

[1:04:11] They're not cooperating.

[1:04:12] And Venom and Eddie are like, that's right.

[1:04:14] And we are symbiotic.

[1:04:15] We are the lethal protectors.

[1:04:17] And that self-realization of friendship gives them the strength they need to push all this rubble off of them.

[1:04:22] Yeah, that's great.

[1:04:22] It's an emotional breakthrough that leads to a physical breakthrough.

[1:04:25] And they go and fight Carnage again.

[1:04:27] This is roughly round 10 of their fight.

[1:04:30] They free Anne and Carnage gets mad and says, let there be Carnage.

[1:04:33] Someone had to say it.

[1:04:34] Finally, Carnage says it.

[1:04:36] Ironically, there's less Carnage from this point on than there had been previously in the movie.

[1:04:40] He's fighting Venom.

[1:04:41] And then Venom, in possibly the least heroic thing that a hero character can do in a movie, pushes Shriek off a tower, causing her to scream so loud that the church starts crumbling and it hurts Carnage.

[1:04:51] And Carnage and Cletus separate.

[1:04:53] And Venom lands and then picks up the Carnage symbiote and eats it.

[1:04:56] And then they pick up Cletus.

[1:04:57] And Cletus goes, I just wanted to be your friend, Eddie.

[1:05:00] And Venom says, fuck this guy.

[1:05:01] And bites his head off.

[1:05:03] And that was not me paraphrasing.

[1:05:04] That's the exact line from the movie.

[1:05:06] I did kind of laugh at it a little bit because it is such a not witty or a graceful thing to say.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:13] Well, I mean, look, I don't know.

[1:05:16] I'm not – in real life, I am not one for capital punishment.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:23] Yeah, Dan is very anti-biting off people's heads.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:26] I do think that biting people's heads off is a cruel and unusual punishment, both cruel and unusual.

[1:05:31] But I – in the context of this movie, I definitely was like, yeah, yeah, just bite this guy's head off.

[1:05:37] We can't – no sympathy for this guy.

[1:05:38] Well, he's a fictional character, you know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:39] He has almost no personality.

[1:05:41] He's just a serial killer.

[1:05:42] That's his whole life.

[1:05:43] But just that Venom is like, I know what to do.

[1:05:46] I'll push –

[1:05:46] I'll use my power.

[1:05:47] I'll push Carnage's –

[1:05:48] I'll use my power to push Cletus's girlfriend off a high ledge so she dies.

[1:05:53] So the heroes all run off as the police arrive.

[1:05:58] And then we were revealed Detective Mulligan is alive.

[1:06:00] And he's like, monsters.

[1:06:02] Monsters.

[1:06:03] And when I read the Wikipedia summary, it said that his eyes glowed blue like shrieks.

[1:06:07] But I didn't notice that.

[1:06:08] You didn't notice that?

[1:06:09] It was pretty –

Dan McCoy

[1:06:10] Yeah.

[1:06:10] It was pretty defined.

[1:06:12] And that was what –

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:12] In my defense, Dan, I was watching it on iPad while I was doing dishes.

[1:06:16] That's fine.

[1:06:17] So I didn't miss that moment.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:18] But this was what led me to my research where I found out that apparently symbiote offspring are more powerful because this is setting up – I guess he's toxin is the –

[1:06:30] Okay.

[1:06:30] Yeah, because toxin is a – yeah, it's a police officer I think with a symbiote.

[1:06:33] But how did he get it from Shriek?

[1:06:34] I don't know.

[1:06:35] Well, that's the thing.

[1:06:36] I like – that's why I had to go look it up online.

[1:06:40] Like I Googled why cop's eyes blew venom I think.

[1:06:47] And the internet explained it to me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:52] Toxin is – that's around the time I think when the symbiote stuff started to get really deluded for me in the comics.

[1:06:59] We're running out of ideas.

[1:07:01] Yeah, essentially.

[1:07:03] And now – and then you had like – at this point, there was a planet of symbiotes and now it's been retconned to all the symbiotes are part of a galactic hive mind that the king in black null the embodiment of nothingness commands.

[1:07:15] And Venom had to fight him and become the hero of the universe.

[1:07:19] Sounds dumb.

[1:07:19] It was – it was not as dumb as it sounds but it was still a larger scale story than I like my Venom stories to be.

[1:07:26] Although there was one – there was one Venom story that – that – who did it?

[1:07:32] Oh, he's Googling something.

[1:07:33] Was that it?

[1:07:34] There was a story called Venom the End where – yeah, that Adam Warren wrote where it takes it to the farthest level where at a certain point Venom is the only living thing left in the universe.

[1:07:45] And he uses the internal DNA library of all the symbiotes to recreate life.

[1:07:50] And I was like, you know what?

[1:07:51] That's big enough that I'm like, this is crazy enough.

[1:07:53] It just might work.

[1:07:54] But anyway, at this point in the comics, Venom was offered a place in the Avengers and Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk were like ogling him.

[1:08:01] And I was like, this is – I don't like this.

[1:08:02] I like Eddie Brock to be an outcast and a weirdo.

[1:08:05] I don't need him to be the hero of everybody.

[1:08:06] Anyway, so Detective Mulligan is going to become toxin in, I guess, Venom 3, Let There Be Toxin.

[1:08:13] And now Venom is like – Venom the symbiote is like, I need to give myself up.

[1:08:17] And I was like, to who?

[1:08:18] The police?

[1:08:19] You're not a human.

[1:08:20] Like, I don't understand.

[1:08:21] And Eddie says –

[1:08:21] You're not bound by human law.

[1:08:24] Yeah, he's like Macavity.

[1:08:25] He can break every human law.

[1:08:26] And Eddie says, no, we're a team now.

[1:08:29] We're going to be fugitives together.

[1:08:30] And they run off to a tropical beach because Venom earlier said he wanted to feel the sand in his toes and the wind in his hair.

[1:08:34] Yep.

[1:08:34] And they decide they're going to travel around and go wherever lethal protectors are needed.

[1:08:39] End of movie, right?

[1:08:40] Wrong.

[1:08:41] Because, of course, there's a mid-credit scene.

[1:08:44] There always is.

[1:08:45] Perhaps – I'm just going to go out and say perhaps the most anticlimactic, in retrospect, mid-credit scene in the history of these movies.

[1:08:53] Oh, my God.

[1:08:54] Where Venom is in his bungalow at this tropical resort and the symbiote is like, hey, your mind couldn't handle all the knowledge I have from the hive mind of 80 billion symbiotes.

[1:09:05] And he goes, try me.

[1:09:06] He goes, okay, I'll just give you a little bit of it.

[1:09:07] Suddenly, blip, they're in another universe.

[1:09:10] What happened?

[1:09:10] The symbiote's like, I didn't do this.

[1:09:12] They look on TV.

[1:09:13] J. Jonah Jameson is revealing that Spider-Man is Peter Parker.

[1:09:16] They're in the Spider-Man universe now?

[1:09:18] And Venom is like this guy.

[1:09:20] And he licks the TV screen where Spider-Man is.

[1:09:23] Uh-oh.

[1:09:23] What kind of mayhem is going to happen now that Venom is in the world of Spider-Man, a character who in the comics he lives to kill, but in the movies he's never heard of and doesn't know who he is.

[1:09:31] Yeah, I don't know why he's looking at the screen and saying this guy.

[1:09:34] Well, I can't wait.

[1:09:36] I can't wait until Spider-Man, no way home.

[1:09:38] When we are revealed – it's revealed that Venom spent his whole time at that resort, got a drink, and then lipped back to his home universe.

[1:09:44] Kind of love that.

[1:09:45] Never encountering Spider-Man at all.

[1:09:47] Kind of love that.

[1:09:48] What a fucking fool to say.

[1:09:50] I remember when this movie came out.

[1:09:53] I heard about this credit scene, and they're talking about, yeah, yeah, we secretly scrambled at the last minute to shoot this scene without anybody really knowing so it could tie into the new Spider-Man movie.

[1:10:02] And it was like, why?

[1:10:03] Why bother?

[1:10:03] There's no reason.

[1:10:04] It's so pointless.

[1:10:05] It's so stupid.

[1:10:06] That's part of the appeal, honestly.

[1:10:10] I guess – why did they think this would be exciting to anybody to find out when they finally watch No Way Home that Venom is in the Spider-Man universe in a different country.

[1:10:20] Just hanging out at a resort.

[1:10:21] Just hanging out at a beach.

[1:10:23] And then he goes home.

[1:10:25] Unlike Spider-Man, he can go home.

[1:10:28] He can and does.

[1:10:30] But that movie also, like, it wasn't No Way Home because everybody went home at the end.

[1:10:34] So that's – and that's the end of Venom.

[1:10:36] So we're left with the promise of a sequel where Venom is a globetrotting fugitive just going around fighting crime.

[1:10:41] Yeah.

[1:10:42] And also the promise of a sequel where Venom fights Spider-Man, which hasn't happened and probably will never happen in these movies.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:48] Oh, boy.

[1:10:49] Let's do our final judgments before Stu has a few more words.

[1:10:56] Oh, I can't wait to hear more about the MaxFunDrive.

[1:10:58] Hashtag MaxFunDrive.

[1:10:59] Is this a good, bad movie?

[1:11:00] A bad, bad movie?

[1:11:01] A movie we kind of like?

[1:11:04] Guys, I – I don't know.

[1:11:06] I think it's – I thought it was bad, ultimately.

[1:11:11] There's elements in it, like, that came close to me enjoying it.

[1:11:15] I liked a lot of the silliness.

[1:11:17] The run time.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:17] I like, you know, what's-his-face.

[1:11:21] Tom Hardy remains committed to this character.

[1:11:24] And also Michelle Williams and Dr. Dan are fun.

[1:11:29] But all of the shit with Carnage just bored me to tears.

[1:11:35] It was all just the most, like, by the numbers.

[1:11:40] And as you say, Elliot, like, old feeling, like, before they knew kind of how to do this sort of thing, I guess?

[1:11:47] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:48] It feels like any 80s or early 90s movie where there's a serial killer, someone's out to get them.

[1:11:54] The serial killer isn't really a person so much as he's, like, a gimmick.

[1:11:58] And it just happens exactly the way you think it's going to happen.

[1:12:01] There's no, like – I've gotten so used to movies where the bad guy gets captured on purpose and escapes.

[1:12:06] Or the bad guy, you think the plane is one thing and it turns out to be another.

[1:12:09] Or it's revealed that they're brothers or something like that.

[1:12:11] So – and it was almost refreshing that there were no twists whatsoever in this movie.

[1:12:16] That it was like, this movie, it goes A, B, C, D, E, and that's the movie.

[1:12:20] No, we're not going to Z.

[1:12:21] We're not going to H.

[1:12:22] Yeah.

[1:12:23] But it's –

[1:12:23] There are plot threads that seem like they could lead somewhere.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:26] Nope.

[1:12:27] No time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:27] No point.

[1:12:28] They do not – hey, guess what?

[1:12:30] We got this – Carnage, we were going to introduce him in the first movie.

[1:12:32] We thought, no, let's hold him until the second movie to really make the most of him.

[1:12:35] Second movie came around.

[1:12:36] Are we going to make the most of him?

[1:12:37] No.

[1:12:38] Why bother?

[1:12:39] We should have put him in the first one.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:40] Yeah.

[1:12:41] So, I mean, if you have affection for Venom, if you have affection for the first movie, like, I'm not saying that this will be a total waste of your time.

[1:12:47] You'll probably get some kicks out of certain parts of it.

[1:12:49] But overall, within our strictures, I'll call it bad.

[1:12:55] Stu, what do you say?

[1:12:56] Yeah, I'm going to call it –

[1:12:56] Oh, Allie, you go.

[1:12:57] You go.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:57] Oh, I'll say – I'll let Stu go.

[1:12:58] Stu, you go next.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:00] Yeah, it's probably a bad-bad.

[1:13:02] It's nice and short, and I like the rave scene.

[1:13:06] That was great.

[1:13:07] But yeah, there's just not much there.

[1:13:10] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:10] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:11] Whatever.

[1:13:11] Yeah, it's not, it's not like offensively bad, except for the fact that there's just like, and this is kind of because I'm a dad, I guess, but there's so much unnecessary vulgarity.

[1:13:19] Like, not funny vulgarity.

[1:13:20] But just like people calling each other asshole or saying like shit for no reason.

[1:13:25] And vulgarity can be very funny.

[1:13:28] I mean, when he says fuck this guy at the end, it's kind of funny.

[1:13:30] But the – it's just – it's like a bad, bad movie, but it's not like, ugh, avoid at all costs.

[1:13:37] It's like it's for Venom completists only.

[1:13:39] If you really like the first one, you'll probably like this one because it's kind of the same movie.

[1:13:43] And it's just – there's part of me that is disappointed as a fan of the character that they're just not making the most of the potential of this character as an interesting character.

[1:13:51] Like, when you come down to it, he is a former reporter who is wearing an alien, and the alien can turn him into a monster that has big jagged teeth and a long tongue and has Spider-Man's powers.

[1:14:04] And they don't really do that much with it.

[1:14:07] I mean, the fact – I don't know that I've seen too many movies where people wear aliens.

[1:14:10] And that's something that I feel like the movie has – the characters have already gotten over.

[1:14:13] And they – but again, like this one and the first one, they both had Anne wear the costume for a short amount of time.

[1:14:19] And in those moments, the movie seemed so much cooler than the rest of it.

[1:14:24] And I like Tom Hardy a lot.

[1:14:25] I'm a big fan of Tom Hardy.

[1:14:26] And I think he's the one person in the movie who seems to care about what he's doing in the movie.

[1:14:29] He really likes this character and wants to do more of it.

[1:14:31] So, Tom, like, do more with it.

[1:14:34] Come on.

[1:14:34] Play it up.

[1:14:35] Let's come up with a real good story next time.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:37] Yeah, find a better screenwriter next time maybe to work with.

[1:14:42] Just do it –

[1:14:43] Ouch.

[1:14:43] Just do it better.

[1:14:45] Yeah, just do it better next time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:47] Take that, Kelly Marcel, co-writer of Saving Mr. Banks and the writer of Fifty Shades of Grey, the movie.

[1:14:52] Wow.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:53] Wow.

[1:14:54] You're not making me feel bad about my assessment.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:57] I don't know.

[1:14:58] Perhaps you'll feel better when you find out she co-wrote the story to Cruella.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:01] Oh.

[1:15:02] Okay.

[1:15:02] I did like Cruella.

[1:15:03] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:04] The story part of it.

[1:15:05] Hopefully the part where her mom gets killed by Dalmatians.

[1:15:10] That –

[1:15:10] Yeah.

[1:15:10] And that she –

[1:15:11] Does that happen in Cruella?

[1:15:13] Yes.

[1:15:13] I haven't seen the movie.

[1:15:14] Yes.

[1:15:14] No.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:15] That's –

[1:15:16] Like it became a meme.

[1:15:17] It is a –

[1:15:18] It is a –

[1:15:21] What's it?

[1:15:21] What's it called?

[1:15:23] A dream sequence?

[1:15:24] No, no, no.

[1:15:24] It's a fake out.

[1:15:26] Like it's a fake out and a joke in the movie.

[1:15:31] But it was taken out of context.

[1:15:32] I don't want to see the movie.

[1:15:33] Explain that to me.

[1:15:34] No, they –

[1:15:35] Cruella, the character, thinks that this is what happens.

[1:15:38] But it's not –

[1:15:39] Oh, I see.

[1:15:40] What happens.

[1:15:41] And I think that it's kind of a joke on –

[1:15:45] movie motivations that then was taken out of context and the internet made fun of.

[1:15:51] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:51] Great costumes.

[1:15:52] I see.

[1:15:52] Wonderful needle drops.

[1:15:53] It's a movie.

[1:15:54] Hey, guys, we did it.

[1:15:55] I see.

[1:15:55] We made it to the end of another MaxFunDrive.

[1:15:58] And I would like to take this time to thank all of our supporters.

[1:16:01] You know, podcasts are kind of a funny thing.

[1:16:05] They can be something you leave on –

[1:16:06] You laugh right then.

[1:16:07] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[1:16:08] They can be something you leave on in the background while you go about your day.

[1:16:12] Or to put on when you need to go to sleep.

[1:16:14] Or to keep you company when you want to hear a familiar voice.

[1:16:18] There's a little bit of a –

[1:16:20] like a one-sided quality to podcasts where you're listening to a conversation that you

[1:16:24] aren't entirely a part of.

[1:16:26] I'm part of it.

[1:16:27] But that's kind of –

[1:16:28] Well, that's true, yeah.

[1:16:30] But that's what makes –

[1:16:31] I'm loving that Dan is MSC3K-ing your driver.

[1:16:35] Yeah, yeah.

[1:16:35] Just dogging me out, baby.

[1:16:37] Keeping me on my toes.

[1:16:38] But that's what makes the moments of audience interaction like me with Dan.

[1:16:43] That's what makes those moments so special to me.

[1:16:45] Dan, the audience member of this show.

[1:16:47] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:47] I love that Dan has recast himself as the audience member of the show, which frankly makes a lot

[1:16:51] more sense.

[1:16:52] This is like Memento or The Sixth Sense.

[1:16:54] If you go back and listen to every episode of the show and you realize Dan is an audience

[1:16:57] member, it all makes more sense.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:59] That's what makes these moments so special to me.

[1:17:04] As the most accessible of the peaches, it's a joyful part of my life to get to meet and

[1:17:11] chat with so many of you at our live shows or at my bars or even online in my DMs.

[1:17:20] But, you know, respectfully, it makes me incredibly proud that we produce a show that makes listeners

[1:17:27] feel comfortable to reach out to us hosts to share moments of success, moments of personal

[1:17:32] tragedy, or even something as simple as obscure horror movie recommendations or a well-chosen

[1:17:38] flame emoji for one of my workout videos.

[1:17:40] It really highlights to me.

[1:17:42] I don't know if it's well.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:44] I mean, there's only a limited number of emojis.

[1:17:47] Are they going to do the party explosion?

[1:17:49] Keep fact-checking.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:50] How many Pinocchios does he get for that one?

[1:17:52] Just one.

[1:17:53] Thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:56] So all this really highlights to me that while the Flophouse is important to me, I think

[1:18:01] it's also important to you too.

[1:18:04] So please head over to MaximumFun.org slash join and support us.

[1:18:09] So again, thank you.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:13] You know what we do next is we answer some letters from listeners.

[1:18:17] Speaking of interacting with listeners.

[1:18:20] And this first one is from Kate Lastname withheld.

[1:18:24] And Kate writes, a question popped into my mind yesterday morning when listening.

[1:18:29] Have you ever made a recommendation for a film that you later regretted or realized wasn't

[1:18:34] as good as you thought upon a second viewing?

[1:18:36] Thank you again for all that you do.

[1:18:39] I love Elliot.

[1:18:41] Wow.

[1:18:41] Could have omitted that part.

[1:18:43] Well, no.

[1:18:43] I don't think so.

[1:18:44] You could read it a few more times.

[1:18:46] Yeah.

[1:18:48] I would say that you could probably go back on my recommendations.

[1:18:52] And anytime I tell you that I watched it on a plane, you can just assume that that's

[1:18:58] the place you should probably also watch it.

[1:19:01] And that on the ground, you may not enjoy it as much.

[1:19:05] Yeah.

[1:19:07] I'm not saying that you should buy a ticket just to watch these movies.

[1:19:11] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:19:12] But, you know, if...

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:13] That's why when I recommend movies, it seems expensive when you're only going to be needing

[1:19:18] the edge of your seat, but you're paying for a whole seat.

[1:19:20] Right, right, right.

[1:19:21] Mm-hmm.

[1:19:22] And paying so much.

[1:19:23] Yeah.

[1:19:24] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:25] Do you guys have any offhand?

[1:19:27] I mean, I don't...

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:28] I mean, I definitely recommend movies that later on I've become, you know, like...

[1:19:34] Like, I've recommended S. Craig Zoller movies before, and we all kind of know that he's

[1:19:40] not a cool dude.

[1:19:41] But...

[1:19:42] Yeah.

[1:19:42] He makes very violent movies, so there's that.

[1:19:47] I mean, I feel like there's a lot of things that I like to qualify, but I also like to think

[1:19:53] that over time, listeners have learned that a lot of the things I recommend are dumb.

[1:19:59] Mm-hmm.

[1:20:00] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:01] We have learned.

[1:20:02] I was going through my recommendations for each episode on the Flophouse Recommendations

[1:20:06] website.

[1:20:07] A fan created and run Endeavor that is very helpful to me all the time.

[1:20:11] Yeah.

[1:20:12] Yeah.

[1:20:12] And I was surprised that early on I recommended the movie Frost Nixon.

[1:20:17] It surprised me, because in retrospect, I think that movie is fine, but just so-so.

[1:20:22] Yeah.

[1:20:22] Yeah, that's fair.

[1:20:23] And apparently I recommended it in the same episode that I recommended The Fall, a movie

[1:20:26] that I love, even though at times that movie is almost embarrassingly sincere and overwrought.

[1:20:31] But I love that movie so much.

[1:20:33] And so it just surprised me, like, oh, I had a movie that I love and I still love on there.

[1:20:37] Why did I recommend this other movie?

[1:20:39] And so I was going through all of them, and I occasionally found movies that were foreign

[1:20:43] movies, or old movies where I didn't really remember them that well.

[1:20:46] And I was like, oh, I recommended this movie.

[1:20:48] I must have liked it a lot, but I don't really remember it particularly.

[1:20:51] And that was a strange experience.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:53] It's funny that you bring up about The Fall being almost embarrassingly overwrought and

[1:21:00] sincere, because I feel like movies like that will either be like, you will either love

[1:21:05] it or you will not like it at all.

[1:21:07] Like, it'll cringe you to death.

[1:21:09] Like, something like...

[1:21:10] I feel like on some level, Everything Everywhere All at Once kind of walks that line, where

[1:21:14] it's like, this is an incredibly sincere movie at times.

[1:21:16] And if you don't vibe with that wavelength, it is going to bum you out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:21] I think a little bit, I think the difference might be that, so I put The Fall in the category

[1:21:27] as the same movies like The Fountain, which when I saw it, I was in the exact right place

[1:21:31] to see it.

[1:21:32] I was falling in love with my now wife, and we went to go see it, and it's a movie about

[1:21:36] a man falling, who loves a woman so much that he's trying to end death so that they can

[1:21:40] be together forever.

[1:21:41] And that is a, that is like, and I really liked it at the time, I haven't watched it

[1:21:44] since, but that is an embarrassingly kind of like overwrought emotionally movie.

[1:21:50] And there are things in it that don't quite make sense.

[1:21:52] With Everything Everywhere, I feel like it's kind of like that, except the movie is a little

[1:21:57] less personal, I feel like.

[1:21:59] The Fall and The Fountain, the difference to me is, they feel so personal to the filmmaker,

[1:22:04] and Everything Everywhere All at Once, it feels, it's the emotions are really strong, which

[1:22:07] I loved.

[1:22:07] I enjoyed it, and I was crying at the end of it, just like everybody sees it.

[1:22:10] It did not, but it didn't feel the same way to me that it was like, someone saying,

[1:22:14] this is how I feel, and I don't know that anyone else in the world feels this way,

[1:22:18] or will even like this.

[1:22:19] Instead, it felt like, this is how everyone feels at some point in their lives, and I

[1:22:23] connect to you on, that we've all felt this way.

[1:22:25] At least that's what I got from it.

[1:22:26] You know?

[1:22:27] Whereas with The Fountain, it's like, this is how I feel about Rachel Weisz right now,

[1:22:31] and if you don't feel the same way as me, you're not going to like this movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:34] I see what you're saying to some degree in terms of like, how specific, but like, I assume

[1:22:40] that it draws on a lot of Daniel Kwan, like, family immigrant experience stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:47] But I think there's a difference between like, an autobiographical movie that way, and a personal

[1:22:52] movie.

[1:22:52] A movie where it's like, you're not, you're trying less to, I mean, there's also like,

[1:22:58] everything, everywhere, all at once.

[1:22:59] It's a great movie.

[1:22:59] It's got a lot of great kung fu fighting scenes and action and things like that.

[1:23:02] Like, it's still delivering the things that a mainstream movie audience wants, even though

[1:23:06] it's got a lot of silly, crazy ideas in it.

[1:23:08] It's delivering a lot of what makes a modern movie.

[1:23:12] Whereas, something like The Fall or The Fountain, like, at times, they're actively not delivering

[1:23:17] what a normal movie would deliver.

[1:23:19] Like, or they're just interested in doing a different thing that's, there's just, I feel

[1:23:22] like it's, it gets up to that point, but it's not quite all the way there.

[1:23:26] Okay.

[1:23:26] But I could be wrong about that.

[1:23:27] Again, it's, it's just my opinion.

[1:23:29] But anyway, I would also say, but outside of the Flop House podcast, like, there are many

[1:23:34] years where I recommended the movie Manhattan, and I was like, if you ignore the plot with

[1:23:38] Woody Allen in it, and then there's a lot of really good stuff in that movie.

[1:23:42] But now it just feels like it's kind of hard to ignore that part of the plot.

[1:23:45] Yeah.

[1:23:45] And it's hard to recommend a Woody Allen movie.

[1:23:47] There's, I still think there are, he's, he's someone who like, I'll never.

[1:23:50] You still find a way to do it though.

[1:23:52] Well, I'll, I'll never stop, I'll never stop having like a, um, an admiration for much

[1:23:57] of his work, but it's, yeah, obviously I, I wish I could have me like, at least maybe

[1:24:01] recommend a different one of his movies.

[1:24:03] Cause that's one of the most problematic ones, you know?

[1:24:05] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:06] Uh, so this second and final letter is, uh, is from Willie, last name withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:13] And the subject is, should I, should I drive my car against a wall for the insurance money

[1:24:18] for my family?

[1:24:19] No, keep being a salesman, Willie.

[1:24:20] Your family loves you more than the money.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:22] Mm-hmm.

[1:24:23] The subject is Rob Riggle.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:24] Spoiler alert for the death of a sale.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:26] The subject heading is Rob, Rob Riggle re Topeka, Kansas.

[1:24:33] Mm-hmm.

[1:24:33] Dearest floppers.

[1:24:35] I wanted to thank all three of you, but especially Elliot for highlighting the talents of former

[1:24:39] Kansan of the year, Rob Riggle as published in the Topeka Capital Journal in 2008.

[1:24:45] While Rob Riggle hails from Overland Park, Kansas, I thought his mention would be a good

[1:24:50] opportunity to highlight some of the many celebrities and luminaries who once called Topeka, Kansas

[1:24:56] home.

[1:24:57] One.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:57] We're finally back on, on point for this podcast.

[1:24:59] Yeah.

[1:25:00] Took a little while.

[1:25:00] One.

[1:25:01] Annette Bening, parentheses, Death on the Nile, 2022.

[1:25:07] Yeah.

[1:25:07] That's her main credit.

[1:25:09] Yeah.

[1:25:09] Two.

[1:25:10] Lois Smith, Tony Award winning actress, True Blood.

[1:25:14] Three.

[1:25:15] Wendelin Brooks, U.S. Poet Laureate and the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize.

[1:25:20] Four.

[1:25:21] Max Yoho, parentheses, cool name.

[1:25:25] Five.

[1:25:26] Kansas, parentheses, band.

[1:25:29] Six.

[1:25:30] Ronald Evans, one of 12 people to have flown to the moon without landing on it.

[1:25:35] Seven.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:36] Brown.

[1:25:37] So that's kind of, it's an achievement, but it's not the biggest achievement you could

[1:25:40] have.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:40] Yeah.

[1:25:41] Seven.

[1:25:41] Brown versus Board of Education, parentheses, civil rights.

[1:25:46] Eight.

[1:25:46] Not a person, but still, very important.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:49] Eight.

[1:25:49] I mean, that was, I mean, I mean, Kansas was in the wrong in that one, but, you know.

[1:25:53] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:53] Well, I don't think that's, these are just luminaries of some kind or another, whether.

[1:25:59] Eight.

[1:25:59] Pat Roberts, U.S. Senator, parentheses, shitbag.

[1:26:03] Okay.

[1:26:03] Yep.

[1:26:05] Nine.

[1:26:06] Nine.

[1:26:06] Fred Phelps.

[1:26:07] I assume that the shitbag is missing here as well.

[1:26:12] Oof, yeah.

[1:26:13] Dr. Phil also lived in Topeka for a short time.

[1:26:17] Okay.

[1:26:17] Shitbag number three.

[1:26:18] I hope you're enjoying this high quality, well-researched information.

[1:26:23] I will continue to send Dan Topeka updates, whether he reads them on the podcast or not.

[1:26:27] Okay.

[1:26:27] If you're ever interested in having a live recording of the Flophouse in Topeka, I know

[1:26:31] of several empty buildings that would love to have you keep on flopping in the free world.

[1:26:36] What are your last name with that?

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:37] That's a perfect venue for the Flophouse.

[1:26:40] Yeah, just an empty building.

[1:26:41] We shouldn't even advertise it.

[1:26:42] Someone has to stumble on it.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:44] Uh-huh.

[1:26:44] Yeah.

[1:26:45] That's what makes it cool.

[1:26:46] There's no sign.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:47] And then at the end, we all climb up into a chandelier and fly off into outer space.

[1:26:52] To the heavy side layer.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:53] Okay, guys.

[1:26:53] So this is something that – this is hot off the presses.

[1:26:55] This is something that Jenny Jaffe texted me earlier today.

[1:26:58] Yeah.

[1:26:58] The heavy side layer is a real layer of the atmosphere, and it is not a safe place for

[1:27:04] cats to be.

[1:27:05] No.

[1:27:06] So those cats, they are being sent to their death.

[1:27:09] The heavy side layer is a real thing.

[1:27:10] Cat disposal.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:12] Yeah.

[1:27:12] I guess when I would like to see a breakdown of all the different layers of the atmosphere,

[1:27:17] and whether they are or not safe for cats.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:21] Yeah, yeah.

[1:27:22] Yeah, it's technically called the kennelie heavy side layer, or sometimes called that.

[1:27:27] And it's also known as the E region.

[1:27:30] Oh, so it's my region.

[1:27:31] Yeah.

[1:27:32] Anyway, don't send your cats there.

[1:27:34] So, Dan, I think we should do a show in Topeka.

[1:27:36] At this point, I think we have to.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:38] Yeah.

[1:27:39] I mean, it's questionable about whether –

[1:27:43] I don't know how much audience there is.

[1:27:44] I mean, we'll probably lose money on it.

[1:27:46] Yeah.

[1:27:47] They'll probably all bring tomatoes, you know, cabbages to throw.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:52] I kind of want to do it as one of those stunts where, like, we do a show in, like, a community

[1:27:57] center for the elderly.

[1:27:58] Like, it's not for our regular audience, and it's – or, like, if there's a prison in

[1:28:04] the area that we could do a show at.

[1:28:06] Yeah.

[1:28:06] You know, something like that.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:08] I re-watched – I re-watched – speaking of having things thrown at you, I re-watched Batman Returns.

[1:28:18] Recently, they had a rep screening of it at the Nighthawk Prospect Park.

[1:28:23] And I – it only increased my love of the movie, but there was a part in it that I totally forgot where the audience, you know, turns on the penguin on a dime, starts throwing tomatoes and cabbages at him.

[1:28:37] And, you know, up until that point, you know, they had been on board.

[1:28:44] And so the question lingers in the air, why are there vegetables already there to be thrown?

[1:28:51] And then the penguin says outright, why does someone always bring vegetables to these speeches?

[1:29:00] Which is a good joke.

[1:29:02] Let's move on to the final segment, now that Stuart has returned and cracked open another Waterloo Sparkling Water.

[1:29:10] Black cherry flavor.

[1:29:11] Thought we said no ads.

[1:29:12] Not a sponsor, but if you want to, you know, just give us a little kickback, wet our beaks.

[1:29:17] Yeah, with bubbly waters.

[1:29:19] Yeah, send peus in sparkling water.

[1:29:22] Stuart will drink it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:24] But I should mention, for any Orthodox Jews listening, don't dip your peus in sparkling water.

[1:29:29] I know Dan just said peus in sparkling water.

[1:29:31] He meant they should pay us in the form of sparkling water.

[1:29:34] Not that you should take your peus, your side curls, and dip them in sparkling water.

[1:29:38] It's just going to ruin the sparkling water.

[1:29:40] No one wants hair in their water.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:42] I mean, it could clean.

[1:29:44] I mean, I understand that seltzer has cleaning properties.

[1:29:47] Maybe it's a –

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:48] You wouldn't dip your hair in seltzer to clean it though, right?

[1:29:51] You wouldn't steal a DVD.

[1:29:53] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:55] Let's do our movie recommendations.

[1:29:58] Movies that might be a better use of your time than Venom, Let There Be Carnage.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:04] Oh, yeah.

[1:30:05] For a second, it sounded like you said Venom, Leather Be Carnage.

[1:30:08] Leather Be Carnage.

[1:30:09] I was like, Leather Be Carnage.

[1:30:10] That's a cool metal album title.

[1:30:12] Oh, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:12] So, I'm assuming Dan has seen like 400 movies since the last recording.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:16] What are you going to recommend?

[1:30:18] I've seen a lot, but I'm going to recommend a movie called – it's a new movie.

[1:30:23] I saw it at the Quad Cinema here in beautiful New York.

[1:30:28] It's called We're All Going to the World's Fair.

[1:30:32] It's marketed as a horror movie, and I don't want to say too much about it because I think that it plays with expectations well.

[1:30:40] But it's a movie that I think – there's so many horror films, thrillers, psychological thrillers that don't seem to understand the internet, which is weird since we've been living with it so long now.

[1:30:55] Like movies that try and capitalize on it as a fearful thing usually get so much wrong.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:04] You're saying I should stop – I should end my membership to Dee Snider's Strangeland.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:07] Yeah.

[1:31:08] Yeah, you shouldn't visit fear.com.

[1:31:11] But this movie really seems –

[1:31:13] What about fear.org?

[1:31:15] This movie really seems to understand the way the internet is breaking our brains in bad ways.

[1:31:23] I'll just give you sort of like the broad outlines.

[1:31:26] The main character is Casey.

[1:31:32] She is doing the I'm Going to the World's Fair challenge, which is sort of this vaguely defined internet creepypasta challenge where something bad will happen to you if you do these things.

[1:31:47] It's a new urban legend.

[1:31:52] And the movie has a lot of ambiguity about sort of why various things are happening, what different people's motivation – I mean, there's really only two characters, but what their motivations are, how seriously they're taking any of it.

[1:32:07] It's a movie that kind of shows the difference between bad and good ambiguity in movies.

[1:32:15] Like, I think a lot of movies that do it poorly do it by artificially holding back information, whereas this movie presents a lot of information.

[1:32:25] But there are a lot of sort of plausible character motivations for what's going on that you have to sort of sift through in your own brain.

[1:32:35] And I think that oftentimes that's the good kind of ambiguity where you're sort of trying to puzzle out people's thoughts and motivations based on what you're seeing.

[1:32:48] And it's, you know, it's an upsetting movie.

[1:32:51] It's a sad movie in certain ways.

[1:32:54] It's a movie that is told largely through, you know, like YouTube videos and Skype calls and stuff like that.

[1:33:01] But I liked the way that it didn't feel beholden to that.

[1:33:05] It's not fully found footage.

[1:33:06] It's a movie that's like – we'll tell the movie sort of 70% in this found footage way.

[1:33:14] But when we feel the need to step outside of that to just show you stuff that's going on in these characters' lives, we will.

[1:33:22] And it's all the better for it.

[1:33:25] And also, there's – the director of this film is trans.

[1:33:32] I don't know their pronouns, so I'll just use they.

[1:33:35] But from doing some readings on it, there are some trans readings of the film that are very interesting that I, you know, as a cis man, you know, while watching it, was not, you know, equipped to sort of understand.

[1:33:53] And, like, you can enjoy it without that level.

[1:33:56] But it also added kind of an interesting level reading about it afterwards.

[1:34:01] But it's a very interesting movie.

[1:34:03] Kind of a movie that I think will be ripped off by much worse films in the future.

[1:34:09] But this one's very good.

[1:34:11] Yeah, I want to see it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:13] I'm going to recommend a movie that I got to go and see this week.

[1:34:18] I caught a screening of The North Man, the latest Robert Eggers movie.

[1:34:26] It is a movie that I admire quite a bit.

[1:34:28] I don't know if I love it, but I liked it.

[1:34:31] And it is a very straightforward tale of Viking revenge.

[1:34:38] It's still a Robert Eggers movie, so it goes in some interesting directions.

[1:34:43] And there's enough, like, I feel like there's enough, like, details in the corners of the movie to make it really exciting.

[1:34:52] There's some fun performances.

[1:34:55] Bjork, Anya Taylor-Joy, and, of course, Alexander Skarsgård, who is doing some of the most acting with his trap muscles I've ever seen somebody do.

[1:35:04] Like, it feels like he literally was just given a Frazetta painting as direction.

[1:35:10] And it's like, how to hunch over and look like you're a triangle man.

[1:35:15] It did make me want to go work out, which I did.

[1:35:19] But, yeah, it's fun.

[1:35:22] It's violent.

[1:35:23] It kind of feels like Robert Eggers, like, making a play at making a straightforward, like, historical blockbuster-y type movie.

[1:35:31] I don't know how well it succeeds, but I liked it quite a bit.

[1:35:37] So, check it out.

[1:35:38] The North Man.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:39] And I'm going to recommend a movie you can't see in theaters right now unless it's a revival house.

[1:35:45] That's right.

[1:35:46] It's an old movie.

[1:35:46] I'm going to recommend An American Tragedy from 1931.

[1:35:50] This is a Joseph von Sternberg movie based on the novel by Theodore Dreiser.

[1:35:54] And for fans out there of the novel, which is an amazing book, this movie handles the subject matter a little differently.

[1:36:01] The book is very much about issues of capitalism and religion.

[1:36:06] And instead, the movie is very much more about kind of like sexual hypocrisy.

[1:36:11] You know, men being able to kind of cast away women and women not having the freedom to do that.

[1:36:17] But that the rich have more – they can do that more than the poor.

[1:36:19] Anyway, there's some class stuff in there.

[1:36:22] But anyway, it's the story of a young man who comes from a poor background.

[1:36:26] He falls in love with a woman that he works with in a factory and then gets the eye of a richer woman.

[1:36:33] But at that point, he's already impregnated the poor woman.

[1:36:36] And he decides he has to figure out a way to get rid of her so that he can marry this rich woman before she loses interest in him.

[1:36:42] And there's a sort of neurotic anxiety that kind of hovers around the whole movie.

[1:36:49] And it makes me feel very unsettled and uncomfortable in a way that I liked a lot.

[1:36:56] And it's a pre-code Hollywood movie.

[1:36:59] So it just means that it is much more frank in the way it talks about certain things than movies a few years later would be.

[1:37:05] And I really liked it, especially because it's got Sylvia Sidney in it.

[1:37:08] I love Sylvia Sidney.

[1:37:10] And she plays the factory girl and is really fantastic in it.

[1:37:13] So that's An American Tragedy.

[1:37:16] Rated probably like PG-13 now.

[1:37:19] Maybe at the time it would have been kind of R.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:22] The scene where they're surfing on top of Vans.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:25] Yeah, exactly.

[1:37:27] Yeah, you can't do that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:29] So that's three recommendations.

[1:37:32] We did it, guys.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:32] Amazing recommendations.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:34] Guys.

[1:37:35] Three recommendations.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:39] Great.

[1:37:40] Good stuff.

[1:37:40] Perfect.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:41] That's from the 12 nights of recommendations.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:43] In a world increasingly controlled by billionaires, where creators are pushed further into the margins in order to make a living, it is amazing that we're able to make a show directly supported by you.

[1:37:58] Now, Ellie and Dan are more versed in working in the world of entertainment, but being able to make a living in a creative field without massive corporate oversight feels like a luxury to me.

[1:38:06] And you made that happen for us.

[1:38:09] That's right.

[1:38:10] No gods, no masters, just peaches.

[1:38:14] So we'll be posting the results of our max fund drive goals on Monday.

[1:38:17] But again, if we hit, oh wait, I have it right here.

[1:38:22] If we hit 1,900 new and upgrading members, we will raffle off a whole bunch of cool stuff, including signed Maniac of New York books, Hinterland swag, Dan drawings, all kinds of great stuff.

[1:38:36] If we hit 2,300, we will be doing a commentary track for That's Right, The Country Bears, Dan's favorite movie.

[1:38:44] And if we hit 3,500, we'll be doing quarterly movie audio commentaries, maybe even that food fight commentary that everybody's gagging for.

[1:38:53] Stewart's favorite movie.

[1:38:54] My favorite movie.

[1:38:56] So at this point, I am assuming I have finally swayed you.

[1:39:01] You should head over to MaximumFun.org slash join and support this silly little show today.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:08] Yay.

[1:39:08] Well said.

[1:39:10] Well, that's it.

[1:39:12] We did it.

[1:39:14] Max Fund Drive and the Venom duology.

[1:39:18] Uh-huh.

[1:39:19] Put them in the history book.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:20] Will there be a third one?

Dan McCoy

[1:39:22] Maybe.

[1:39:22] Probably.

[1:39:23] They're trying to.

[1:39:24] They're probably not, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:26] They're planning one.

[1:39:27] It'll be called, what, Venom Goes Bananas?

[1:39:31] Yeah, Venom Goes to Monte Carlo.

[1:39:32] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:33] Venom and Monte Carlo is actually pretty good.

[1:39:35] I like that.

[1:39:36] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:37] Okay.

[1:39:37] Well, you know, we've done a lot of talking, so I won't go through the whole spiel.

[1:39:42] I'll just say thank you to our producer, Alex Smith.

[1:39:45] You can find him at Howell Dottie on Twitter.

[1:39:48] It's a word that you'll figure out how to spell.

[1:39:52] Yeah.

[1:39:52] I trust you.

[1:39:53] For now, for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:57] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:39:59] And this is Elliot Kalin saying thank you for your support.

[1:40:02] This is Max Fund Drive.

[1:40:03] And thank you for your support all year round.

[1:40:05] We really, really, really, really, really, really, really appreciate it.

[1:40:10] Bye.

[1:40:11] Bye.

[1:40:15] What is the number that comes after one?

[1:40:18] It's the loneliest number except for one.

[1:40:21] Two.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:22] The two.

[1:40:24] Yeah, that's a problem I have with the one is the loneliest number.

[1:40:27] Because the lyric where it's like two.

[1:40:29] Buckle up.

[1:40:29] It's just as bad as one.

[1:40:31] It's the loneliest number.

[1:40:32] The number one, I'm like, you're full of contradictions.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:34] Stop trying to get a threesome going, buddy.

[1:40:38] Yeah.

[1:40:39] MaximumFun.org.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:41] Comedy and culture.

[1:40:42] Artist owned.

[1:40:44] Audience supported.

[1:40:44] David.

Ep. #369 - Venom: Let There Be Carnage

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