Ep. #369 - Venom: Let There Be Carnage

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

[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.

[0:30] Hey everyone, welcome to The Flophouse. I am Dan McCoy.

[0:47] Hey, it's me, Stuart Wellington.

[0:50] Beep, beep, boop, boop. I don't have a can,

[0:51] so Elliot Kalin has to provide his own sound effects.

[0:53] I'd like to point out, like, so this is, you know, this is like the old Stu bit of, uh,

[1:00] Crackin' Open a Beer, uh, before recording, but now he's New Fit Stu.

[1:06] It's actually, uh, Waterloo Black Cherry Sparkling Water that he took out of my fridge.

[1:12] Yeah, and it's so, man, I like it.

[1:14] The sparkling water that defeated Napoleon.

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

[1:19] Well, that's how it works.

[1:21] Is that, are you, are you filling up with bubbles because it's a special time of year?

[1:24] Mm-hmm, uh, 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 Max

[1:33] FunDrive 2022. This is the one time a year when we ask you to support our show, and we are going

[1:41] to give out all kinds of cool gifts if you do. If you haven't become a member yet and you're

[1:46] listening to this episode on the weekend of release, stop the damn episode and go over to

[1:51] MaximumFun.org join to support our show and have access to a bunch of cool stuff.

[1:57] There you go.

[1:59] Now, to get back to this whole Waterloo thing, do you think I'm drinking Waterloo because,

[2:03] uh, my last name is Wellington and Wellington was at Waterloo?

[2:06] Oh, I think that has to be it, yeah, as the champion of Waterloo.

[2:11] That's his official title, champion of Waterloo. Now, do you think that, uh,

[2:15] that would classify as an Easter egg for this episode?

[2:18] Well, you pointed it out, so it's, I mean, I think the essential part is the audience is

[2:23] supposed to pick up on it and find it.

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

[2:27] is it has to be so obvious that everyone in the audience gets it.

[2:30] I mean, it's like, it's like I'm treating the audience like they're a little baby at an Easter

[2:35] 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. Yes, you look cute in that dress.

[2:46] That's what, that's what Scorpion says when he's at an Easter egg hunt, too. He goes,

[2:51] get over here, baby.

[2:53] That lights are glitching like my old copy of, uh, Mortal Kombat.

[2:55] Would have been better if I hadn't stumbled over my words a hundred thousand times.

[2:59] Wow, that was a lot of times to stumble. We barely have any more time left over.

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

[3:06] Oh, well, guys.

[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 its famous bodega.

[3:20] Yeah, maybe we'll get back to our mission statement later on, but for now, uh, this is

[3:25] also a podcast where we watch a movie that was either a critical or commercial flop and talk

[3:30] about it. This movie was sort of on the, like, it was successful. It was on the verge, critically.

[3:36] It was more of like kind of reviews. I would say some people thought, eh, not bad. And some

[3:42] people really didn't care for it. Uh, we'll find out later.

[3:47] If you go over to our old pals, uh, if you go over to our pal rotten tomatoes, you'll see that

[3:53] it had a significantly better score than its predecessor. Although I don't know if it

[3:57] necessarily deserves that, but we'll see later in the episode.

[4:00] That's an interesting, interesting to debate prompt that I think we will have some

[4:04] exciting opinions about and everybody, I am not having a stroke. I'm having trouble talking

[4:09] because I woke up very early today. Thanks to my younger child. And I'm already off.

[4:13] Sweetie, little baby. Now I'm so tired.

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

[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, and we had hard ons. Yeah. Which makes it even harder. Very painful.

[4:25] Yeah. Wait, really? Well, that's what, that's how we were able to pee in the same

[4:30] fountain, even though we're on different coasts, because like the difficulty increased the,

[4:34] the, the power of the stream more, more tapped into our symbiotic relationship to get an extra

[4:41] burst of strength. Much like in the movie venom, let there be carnage directed by Andy circus.

[4:45] You're like, you're like the hero in an anime who just really believes himself

[4:49] and then defeats the enemy has been training for 10,000 years.

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

[4:57] urinal all the way where Dan was. And then I saw that the urinal was threatening one of my loved

[5:01] ones. And so it gave me a burst of berserker, berserker fury, berserker strength that got my

[5:06] pee all the way there. As always, I don't want to call me. That's what they call me. Wolverine

[5:11] because at any point I might go into a berserker peeing frenzy. I call you that. I think this is

[5:17] the second drive episode where I've said, you know, like, Oh, I don't want to stop all the

[5:22] pee talk, but I did want to do a side note, which is, uh, Elliot mentioned Andy circus.

[5:28] Of course, the, uh, the actor best known for his family circus motion capture, uh, performances,

[5:35] uh, here, uh, directing, um, generally beloved in these parts. Yeah. The credits for this movie

[5:43] was the first time that Audrey discovered that his name was not spelled like family circus.

[5:48] She was, uh, it was a real paradigm shift for her. Yeah. It must've been rough. I mean,

[5:53] his name is spelled the way that the word circus probably should be spelled. Yeah. It's a more

[5:58] accurate phonetic spelling. Yeah. Anyway. Uh, but that's not the way words work a lot of the time.

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

[6:08] motion capture performances and also his non motion capture performances. I don't know that

[6:12] he is the most, uh, interesting director. He's his last one. Cause this is like, uh, something

[6:21] wasn't for Netflix or whatever it was. It was a Mowgli or he did a movie. He did a movie called

[6:27] breathe, which I have not seen. Um, and then he also did, uh, yeah, Mowgli legend of the jungle,

[6:33] which I have also not seen. Uh, but he, he, for this movie, he is a very, um, workable director,

[6:40] I would say separate strangely, the motion, a lot of the motion capture carnage performing,

[6:44] I thought looked really cool, but battle scenes are, are hard to keep track of.

[6:50] Real mess. But we'll get to that part. And considering carnage has an arsenal of powers

[6:54] 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, but okay. Let's get into it. So for people who we have our live

[7:02] episode of venom that we did a long time ago, you might want to go and listen to that right now.

[7:06] Pause. I'll let you listen to that episode. Okay. Can we come back? That was a funny episode.

[7:10] Anyway, we're back. Let's talk about the sequel venom. Let there be carnage. The movie does not

[7:14] begin with our titular venom. It instead begins with the man who become the titular let there be

[7:19] it's 1996 at the St. Estes reform school. And Cletus Cassidy is a teenage inmate. He's making

[7:26] a little string engagement ring for his girlfriend, Francis, 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

[7:34] superpowers now. And the authorities come to get her. She tries to escape by using her powerful

[7:38] screaming powers. She's like Banshee of the X-Men or siren of X-Force or shrink the character that

[7:44] she is actually in Marvel. It's weird to say she has, she has screaming powers like shriek,

[7:49] which is herself a bit like saying what's plastic man's powers. Well, he's got powers like plastic

[7:53] man. Yeah. I mean, she has her, she has her own woman is what I'm saying. I don't think we need

[7:57] to compare when you're trying to give someone an idea of a character. They may not be aware

[8:01] you compare them to other characters. It's like, it's like why you don't open a dictionary and it

[8:06] says machine noun, a machine. Like, great. That's not helpful. Let's, let's just say we both think

[8:12] a good point. A bird, very much like a penguin. In fact, exactly like the authorities. I do have

[8:20] to point out, it might be a little weird for you, but Cletus Cassidy here is played by a teenager,

[8:24] but he has a voice of Woody Harrelson, which is strange. It's such a, it's such a funny choice

[8:30] that they are, the movie is really running with the idea that Woody Harrelson is in his forties

[8:34] now, as opposed to entering his sixties. They try to young them up a little bit. They put his mouth

[8:40] in a teenager's. And as it's, it's, I recorded a couple of different intros for this episode,

[8:44] so I don't, it's the one Alex used, but one of them, I point out that in 1996, Woody Harrelson

[8:48] had already been on cheers for years, cheers for years, also the name of his memoir at the time,

[8:52] and was a, and was the star of the people versus Larry Flint and had already been in like white

[8:56] men can't jump and things like that. Right. So like in the cowboy way, I think. So by this point,

[9:01] Woody Harrelson was already a movie star. He was not a teenager. So it seems weird.

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

[9:08] trying to match his age to that of Miami Harris, uh, who plays, uh, Shriek or whoever for,

[9:17] I don't remember her character's name, but like, and also similar to the age of Tom Hardy is

[9:21] playing. Yeah. So what they're doing is they're solving the, uh, frequent problem of mismatched

[9:28] ages, like an older actor and a younger actress by just lying about the age of the actor rather

[9:33] than changing it to make it age appropriate. Now, does having him wear a red wig, make his face

[9:40] look younger? No, I am disappointed. I got to say that they're not, he's not wearing the goofy

[9:48] from the first movie. The first movie when we saw him, well, the first movie he's wearing hair that

[9:52] looks like the character from the comics, the character in the comics, Sleaze Cassidy has a

[9:56] huge curly mop of hair. And so they did that.

[10:00] in the in the first movie when they showed him at the end and in this one i

[10:02] think they realized he would look like ronald mcdonald

[10:06] yeah like carrot top's uncle who lives in a van or something like that like you

[10:10] don't you don't want that so anyway she uses

[10:13] her scream powers much like the character shriek

[10:15] you're familiar with uh and uh we get a shot a close-up of the

[10:20] police officer who's escorting hers name tag

[10:22] because that's a hint that that's going to be an important character later and

[10:25] he that but the cop shoots her and she is taken away to ravencroft

[10:29] asylum which is a location from the comics uh let's now before we go to the

[10:34] present day do you guys have any associations

[10:36] beforehand with the character carnage i'm curious about this

[10:40] um yeah yeah yeah uh i remember the issue where the symbiote uh came and

[10:47] broke eddie brock out of prison and squirted out a little baby symbiote

[10:50] you're like that's gonna be important yeah there's like a little uh there's

[10:54] like a little teaser there and then i remember i feel like i remember

[10:57] reading the first arc uh the first carnage arc it was like a

[11:01] three-parter carnage comes out mark man has to go to the desert island

[11:04] to the art yeah mark bagley's drawing david

[11:06] macalani was the author writer still the time

[11:09] and spider-man he's like i can't defeat carnage on my own and venom at this

[11:12] point believes he has killed spider-man and is living alone on a jungle island

[11:16] by himself because in perfect peace because he killed spider-man and spider-

[11:20] man shows up with the human torch because the human

[11:22] torch can help him fight venom and says venom i need your help why the

[11:25] human torch doesn't help spider-man fight carnage

[11:28] because he's not as popular people love venom and i will say when i was

[11:31] i was this was right around the time i was really getting into comics and i

[11:35] loved venom venom was a character i really thought was amazing

[11:38] and carnage i never really cared for because it was like they were thought

[11:41] they said venom's so popular we need to make him

[11:44] into a hero so we'll bring in an even worse venom yeah and he'll be like a

[11:47] tackling crazy serial killer yeah and i don't remember the timeline but this

[11:51] might have been around the time natural born killers came out

[11:54] and like he's very similar to woody harrelson's character in that movie

[11:57] yeah so he's he doesn't have much of a personality beyond being like

[12:01] just a psycho serial killer and uh i never found that interesting but

[12:06] that stopped me from buying all 14 parts of the maximum carnage storyline

[12:09] well that was the thing like after that initial introduction i was like this

[12:13] character is not for me i am uninterested and then but then

[12:16] since then he he became much more popular had a whole

[12:20] arc and then there were many other venom symbiote characters right

[12:24] yes and other people have worn the carnage symbiote uh

[12:27] and carnet clevis cassie's gone on to have more adventures uh

[12:31] and his own books there was a there was a series i think jerry conway wrote that

[12:34] was a horror series where some people are trying to

[12:37] track down carnage and stop him which was really before he can get a hold of

[12:40] the book of the dark hold and open up some kind of mystic portal or whatever

[12:43] seems great it was a really good series it's actually really good

[12:47] but uh so you're dealing with characters who

[12:50] in the comics and this was kind of the problem i have with the first venom

[12:53] they are defined by their relationship with spider-man spider-man is the

[12:56] greatest guy who ever lived venom is a guy who thinks he is a hero

[12:59] but is a psychotic killer and carnage is a psychotic killer who

[13:03] knows his psychotic killer and revels in it and so they're all on

[13:06] this sliding scale of morality and that it feels like that was kind of

[13:09] thrown off for me in this movie when you don't have the spider-man character

[13:12] to anchor it you just have venom who is a monster attached to a loser

[13:17] and carnage who is a psycho monster type of psycho killer

[13:21] i got like this is this is why i find the sony

[13:25] corner of the marvel universe so baffling because they are building this

[13:30] uh you know spider-man without spider-man

[13:33] uh zone for themselves but they're all yeah these villainous

[13:38] characters and look i like a good anti-hero but not really in this type of

[13:45] movie like i don't know like this movie these sorts of movies traffic

[13:50] in such broad strokes that then making our hero someone who like occasionally

[13:56] bites people's heads off bugs me in a way that like if it was a

[14:00] little bit more of a serious movie i i could you know get on board with

[14:04] okay like this is a complex character you know

[14:07] uh yeah well and this movie is it's very it feels very like flat

[14:13] ideologically and morally and character wise in the way that 80s action movies

[14:16] were and like early 90s action movies yeah so this movie gives off and in some

[14:20] ways that could be good but this one it felt like it gave off an antiquated

[14:23] vibe to me and also the plot is incredibly linear like there's no

[14:26] there's no twist in it it's exactly the it feels like

[14:29] this is a movie that was a direct-to-video sequel but with a bigger

[14:32] budget anyway well we'll keep going present day

[14:35] shriek is still in her soundproof cell you remember her she's kind of like

[14:38] shriek and the mean lady in charge of the

[14:40] asylum ravencroft she gives her newspaper with an article by eddie brock

[14:43] about cletus saying he's a convicted serial killer and now played by woody

[14:46] harrelson the title the headline doesn't say

[14:48] convicted serial killer now played by woody harrelson it just says like cletus

[14:51] cassidy we've said the word i just we said

[14:55] cletus several times and i have to say that being unfamiliar with carnage i

[15:00] didn't give my history because like there wasn't any i don't have history

[15:03] of the character carnage we got unfamiliar

[15:05] like the first time someone said cleatus in this movie i said did they say

[15:09] cleatus yeah and that's that's also part of the

[15:12] part of the like this is a not a well put together

[15:15] character originally like cleat they gave him the name cleatus cassidy

[15:18] because he's supposed to be like a southern hillbilly

[15:20] like kind of ignorant freak killer like he's supposed to be like

[15:24] a deliverance type white trash killer a slack jawed yokel if you will

[15:28] yeah exactly which is it's kind of weird that he

[15:31] shared a prison cell with eddie brock right

[15:35] well they were both on i mean they both had been i don't remember if eddie had

[15:39] been convicted but like they're both murderers

[15:41] you know that's true i don't know why cleatus was in a new york area jail cell

[15:44] that's a good question but who knows he committed the crime

[15:47] somewhere but they in the eyes of the law venom is

[15:51] justice is many ways just as bad even though venom thinks he's a hero so he

[15:54] kills people left and right wait hold on back up

[15:56] so in the comics they shared a jail cell or do they have

[16:00] like how do they know each other in this world because i like the movie

[16:03] does not make it very clear i don't think no that's not in the in the in the

[16:07] comics so in the comics eddie brock and cleatus there's a period where eddie

[16:09] lost his venom symbiote and the two and he and cleatus cassidy

[16:13] are in a jail cell together eddie brock if he had the symbiote would

[16:16] of course be at the vault the marvel super prison later

[16:19] superseded by the raft and then by that weird prison in the negative zone

[16:23] uh that i guess they were running without an eyeless knowing it was there

[16:25] because i don't think you'd be that into it but anyway

[16:27] he's the ruler of the negative zone of course like blast are the living

[16:31] bombers but anyway but uh so so eddie brock and cleatus

[16:35] cassie were cellmates the venom symbiote came

[16:38] and came back to eddie and he broke out of jail and left behind a little piece

[16:41] of himself i don't know why cleatus didn't escape at that moment too

[16:44] but apparently he hung around in the jail cell and waited

[16:47] for a later date to escape but uh they so

[16:51] here so they do they know each other in the comics and they hate each other they

[16:54] didn't they never liked each other they didn't like each other's cellmates

[16:57] cleatus is first introduced complaining that eddie is making too much noise

[17:00] by doing clap push-ups and push-ups where you like push yourself up and clap

[17:03] and then landing in i can only do like i can only do like one or two of those

[17:06] they're really hard yeah i think i could do about two and

[17:09] then i fall over and i die but but eddie could do a lot of those

[17:12] he's super strong even without a symbiote it's crazy

[17:14] yeah and so they don't like each other but here cleatus cassidy feels this

[17:18] connection to eddie even before they both have symbiotes that

[17:21] isn't yeah it's never really made entirely clear why so

[17:24] let's explain that so cleatus he demands to be interviewed by eddie

[17:28] uh and eddie is struggling to control the venom symbiote cleatus is in jail

[17:32] he's on death row he wants in at san quentin he wants to be interviewed by

[17:35] eddie and eddie is like always arguing with the venom symbiote

[17:38] which lives in his body most of the time and venom is mad that eddie

[17:41] uh screwed things up with his girlfriend anne in the first movie and uh and left

[17:45] him for that doctor and eddie and venom argue a lot

[17:48] and venom makes a lot of like modern culture references and a lot of

[17:53] off-color swearing remarks and he's and he's basically like

[17:56] it's basically alf he's basically a violent version of alf like

[18:00] he's an alien who lives in the guy's house he has to hide he's an alien life

[18:03] and then he'll and then he'll say things and he'll be

[18:05] like i have these two pet chickens their names are sunny and share

[18:09] and it's like come on dude like he's he's a pop culture loving alien like

[18:12] he's alf he eats weird things he's alf now you can't show him to the neighbors

[18:16] he's alf like you're telling this explanation

[18:20] uh is is is uh confirming for me why this is the part of the movie by far

[18:25] that i enjoyed the most like all of like if alf was a monster yeah

[18:30] all the wacky like monster uh sharing uh uh not only an

[18:35] apartment but a body uh stuff in the movie is the stuff that i

[18:39] like the most and as soon as the movie starts remembering

[18:42] that it has a plot i'm like i'm checking out of this thing

[18:46] well i i thought i would feel that way but so clearly

[18:49] the first movie and i think uh stewart was was uh was hitting this the first

[18:53] movie is a relatively straightforward movie but

[18:55] there's a little every now and then tom hardy goes a little nuts

[18:58] and and it's a little funny we all go and clearly that's what

[19:01] yeah exactly that's it i'm mad you're mad we're all mad here

[19:04] uh that's and uh clearly that's what audiences reacted to and responded to in

[19:09] the first movie and so they said let's amp it up in the

[19:11] second movie we'll go even farther and i think they went

[19:13] too far to the point to the point that tom hardy gets a screenwriting credit on

[19:17] this or a story oh oh i went because i think he really in

[19:21] i mean tom already loves this character it seems like

[19:23] they like frank langella and skeletor tom hardy took this character that could

[19:26] have been a paycheck and really invested himself in it and he loves doing

[19:30] both voices yeah and but i by the by the time that the venom symbiote is

[19:34] making him a goofy breakfast while singing let's call the whole thing off i

[19:37] was like this movie has gone a little too far in that direction

[19:40] well what i also like anymore baby there's moments where i mean maybe if

[19:44] this was like a peter jackson one of peter jackson's early movies i'd be like

[19:47] go for it go for it well and it's it's interesting because there's moments when

[19:50] the symbiote takes over eddie's body and has some pretty pretty precise

[19:56] control of things like do some pretty delicate work

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

[20:04] 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...

[20:12] Maybe he went to a clown college, he's doing classical clowning.

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

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

[20:17] Or there's those times when your own body feels like this clumsy apparatus, but when

[20:23] you're bringing pleasure to a lover, suddenly you're in sync with their body and you understand

[20:27] their body more than your own.

[20:29] I think that's what it's about.

[20:30] Anyway, Eddie goes to visit Cletus at San Quentin, and Cletus is like, if you deliver

[20:34] a message for me, if you get this message out to the world, I'll give you my exclusive

[20:38] life story.

[20:39] And it's one of those things where this deal doesn't seem to matter because Venom notices

[20:45] a bunch of creepy carvings and graffiti on the walls of Carnage's cell.

[20:49] He goes back home, he uses Eddie's body to redraw all of them, and somehow they use those

[20:53] as clues to figure out that Carnage was...

[20:56] Cletus was burying his body at Redondo Beach.

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

[21:02] Eddie never told.

[21:04] The deal didn't matter.

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

[21:06] Yeah, I want to back up.

[21:07] Cletus didn't really tell him anything.

[21:08] I want to back up and say, number one, I'm not sure what the message...

[21:12] Like, the message was clearly directed at his...

[21:15] At Shriek.

[21:16] At Shriek.

[21:17] Some sort of love message, but it's not really clear what it is and what implication it has.

[21:24] But also, like, I object to Eddie Brock's ethics here.

[21:30] Like, not only putting out the message of a serial killer, but it's the headline of

[21:35] his story.

[21:36] 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 something you want to give a voice to.

[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.

[21:51] Like, I think when Son of Sam was writing letters to Jimmy Breslin and they would be

[21:54] on the cover of the newspaper.

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

[21:59] Sure, but that was way back, like, by now in journalistic history.

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

[22:04] I mean, we have, I think, as a culture, you know, tacked in the direction of maybe not

[22:12] putting out murderers' messages, like, and those who do so are looked more down upon

[22:19] in the journalistic world.

[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

[22:27] as the story, serial killer to the world, this, and it's just some cryptic rhyme about

[22:31] 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 they're saying, it's not like

[22:39] 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, you said it.

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

[22:46] We've stopped, by and large, putting, like, the faces of mass shooters out and, like,

[22:52] their story and, like, focusing on that, like, with the feeling, like, too much focus on

[22:57] the murderer is a bad thing.

[23:00] And I just think that, like, it is odd that in this day and age, like, our hero's like,

[23:05] yeah, sure, I'll, yeah, whatever you want, Mr. Serial Killer, I'll put it up for you.

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

[23:12] You know, he's still heartbroken over Ann, and he's also got venom bugging him all the

[23:15] time, which the thing is, like...

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

[23:17] I mean, you know, imagine sharing your body with a symbiote.

[23:21] You never have moments of peace.

[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.

[23:26] It doesn't always do the right thing.

[23:27] Yeah, yeah.

[23:28] 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 tells you to.

[23:34] X3, X3.

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

[23:40] killers, it is podcasting, where every third podcast is the story of someone who died and

[23:44] why it should be entertainment to you.

[23:45] I also...

[23:46] But, okay.

[23:47] So, look.

[23:48] Yeah.

[23:49] I want to say a few words about Woody.

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

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

[23:55] 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

[24:03] much.

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

[24:05] Here, I feel like it's, he's giving the, like, off-the-rack serial killer performance, and

[24:13] it's one that, like, bothers me, because always in movies, serial killers are kind

[24:18] of these cryptic masterminds, whereas in life, they are sad little men who, you know, are

[24:24] trying to...

[24:25] Oh, they are, they're, they're pathetic people with, with horrible sexual dysfunctions that

[24:30] force them, that lead them to murder other people.

[24:32] Like, they're, there's, they're, if, like, I remember when I was a teenager, I got really

[24:35] 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, like, his series of books about cases he had

[24:45] been on, and they all were just so sad.

[24:47] Let's just call him Mr. Mindhunter.

[24:49] Mr. Mindhunter.

[24:50] Yeah, it was M-I-N-D-H-U-N-T-E-R, and Michael Isabel Ndhunter, and, yeah, and they were

[24:56] just, they're all sad stories.

[24:57] Yeah.

[24:58] They're all, like, you'll, if you look at the story of Ed Gein, it's not, like, oh,

[25:02] wow, cool.

[25:03] No, it's upsetting, it's tragic.

[25:04] It's like, oh, this is this, this is this guy who, like, yeah, it's, everything about

[25:07] it is tragic and sad, and, but anyway.

[25:10] Carnage, on the other hand, Cletus, on the other hand, he's a mastermind.

[25:13] He buried all his bodies.

[25:14] He's like Lance Hendrickson in Hannibal, the TV show, where Lance Hendrickson has created

[25:19] a teepee of body, a totem pole of bodies on the beach, and it's, like, how did, sorry,

[25:24] no, my phone over there.

[25:25] I was so flabbergasted.

[25:26] I was so flabbergasted.

[25:27] But it was, like, it was, like, how did this old man do this?

[25:30] How did he even get a ladder onto the beach?

[25:33] Elliot found out one of the one narrative inconsistencies in the Hannibal television

[25:37] show.

[25:38] Yeah.

[25:39] Let's go back in time.

[25:40] A bunch of totally normal killers.

[25:43] It was specifically that Lance Hendrickson, as creepy as he is, is an old man.

[25:46] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[25:47] And so it's, like, why did they give the old man the most climbing and intensive one?

[25:50] He always looks like an old man, though.

[25:52] I feel like youngest Lance Hendrickson could ever have played was old.

[25:57] That's true.

[25:58] That's a good point.

[25:59] So they find the bodies.

[26:00] People are so disgusted by how many people Cletus killed that he gets the death penalty,

[26:04] 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

[26:12] he's doing.

[26:16] Talk about inside baseball.

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

[26:20] Venom wants to eat bad guys because he is to survive.

[26:22] He needs a chemical that's only found in human brains and chocolate.

[26:25] And Eddie is like, no, only chocolate.

[26:27] And sometimes you can eat chickens.

[26:28] And he goes, but I made these two chickens my pets and the chickens are never as funny

[26:32] as they should be.

[26:33] So they go down to the bodega.

[26:34] We saw from last movie, Mrs. Chen, the owner.

[26:36] She knows all about Venom.

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

[26:38] 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

[26:49] 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.

[26:58] And let me say one thing here.

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

[27:01] Okay, guys.

[27:02] Oh, wow.

[27:03] Okay.

[27:04] So Lethal Protector was, of course, the subtitle of the first Venom miniseries, Venom Lethal

[27:07] 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 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.

[27:26] Have I fallen into an alternate universe where Venom first got a miniseries in the 1980s?

[27:30] I don't think so.

[27:31] The character wasn't introduced till the late 80s.

[27:34] Checkmate, I guess.

[27:36] You know, take that, Andy Serkis.

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

[27:41] I know he's a villain at worst, an anti-hero at best.

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

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

[27:54] things also where it's like you're a bad guy right off the bat.

[27:57] Even if it's an accident, your mode of getting around is just pulling windows out of buildings,

[28:03] things like that.

[28:04] That's crazy.

[28:05] Knocking shingles off.

[28:06] No, no thanks.

[28:07] That was one of the things I liked about Venom initially is that he had all the grace and

[28:15] dexterity of Spider-Man, but he was super ripped because Eddie Brock got mad and bulked up.

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

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

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

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

[28:38] Honestly, that's my fantasy, guys.

[28:40] I want to live in the sewer and pump huge weights.

[28:42] Yeah, just hang out with Ninja Turtles through your gym buddies.

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

[28:51] but ultimately loves me.

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

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

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

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

[29:01] Oh, man.

[29:02] Okay, TM, TM, I took it.

[29:04] Wow, you copyrighted my work?

[29:07] All right.

[29:08] So Anne gets in touch 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] He's just a shambling, unshaven mess.

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

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

[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, 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?

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

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

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

[29:55] True.

[29:56] And he steps up later on the movie in a situation that he's in.

[30:00] It could have easily gone terrible for him.

[30:02] Oh yeah, I mean if anyone is the hero of the movie

[30:05] putting their life on the line,

[30:06] we will find out it is Dr. Dan.

[30:08] Like he runs into a situation that

[30:09] would have, should have meant instant death for him

[30:11] and he provides the critical recovery point for Venom

[30:15] 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.

[30:21] It's just him having adventures being a doctor.

[30:24] And then he becomes so popular

[30:25] they actually start writing him into the Spider-Man comics.

[30:30] He gets his own book, Dr. Dan, Non-Lethal Protector.

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

[30:37] So Eddie is sad and Venom's like,

[30:38] you gotta put on your big boy pants.

[30:40] Like 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

[30:45] or like, you know.

[30:47] There's something about Venom that's very like

[30:49] greeting card that has a mustache and bacon on it

[30:52] and is like, this is cool, right?

[30:54] Like, yeah, he's like an inspirational

[30:58] Instagram meme account

[30:59] that just repurposes other people's memes and stuff

[31:02] and shows pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio

[31:04] and it's like lifestyle goals and shit.

[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

[31:12] and he's singing, let's call the whole thing off.

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

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

[31:19] Always just throwing food around

[31:21] and they get a postcard in the mail

[31:23] 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

[31:29] that it turns into an entire monologue

[31:32] through an animated sequence of Cletus's horribly abusive

[31:35] and murderous childhood.

[31:36] Which I loved because I-

[31:37] It doesn't know why you put that many letters on that.

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

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

[31:44] I did like that this turned into like a little cartoon

[31:46] in the middle of it.

[31:48] Like this was a stylistic choice.

[31:49] It was like suddenly we got an episode

[31:50] of Liquid Television.

[31:51] Suddenly an episode of Liquid Television broke out

[31:53] and that should happen in more movies, yeah.

[31:55] It doesn't have to be just this

[31:56] and Sukiyaki Western Django

[31:58] that have little animated sequences in them.

[31:59] Come on, put them in lots of movies.

[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,

[32:10] we're both, we're both, 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,

[32:15] I curse you to be alone forever.

[32:17] Like I wasn't, I mean, Cletus again is a madman

[32:20] but it's not consistent.

[32:21] And Venom is so mad at what Cletus is saying about Eddie

[32:23] that he lashes out and Cletus and Eddie

[32:25] are kind of like grappling

[32:26] through the bars of Cletus's cell

[32:28] and Eddie bites Eddie's finger.

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

[32:33] Uh-oh, we know what that means.

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

[32:38] Back at home, yes.

[32:40] See, so I discovered this,

[32:43] I discovered this factoid

[32:45] while trying to puzzle out a later moment in the movie.

[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.

[32:52] Yeah, well actually factoid

[32:54] originally meant a false fact.

[32:56] So, uh.

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

[32:58] I guess, I mean, I guess this technically counts

[33:01] because it's a fictional world we're living,

[33:03] but I discovered.

[33:05] We're living in a fictional world?

[33:06] Yeah.

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

[33:09] No.

[33:11] No, I discovered that.

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

[33:14] I don't know, it wouldn't change anything.

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

[33:18] Yeah, but still.

[33:19] I guess the offspring of these symbiotes

[33:23] are more powerful than the original for some reason.

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

[33:30] It's for the reason of making it harder

[33:32] for Venom to defeat them in the comics.

[33:34] Yeah, I guess so.

[33:35] But it was, to me, like watching the movie,

[33:38] I'm like, wait, why?

[33:40] Like Venom later on is like, oh, this, you know,

[33:42] 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

[33:50] creates a stronger character

[33:54] is a thing that the movie does not engage with

[33:56] and confused me.

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

[33:59] Like if I had to get in a fight with my dad,

[34:02] I would beat the shit out of him.

[34:04] Okay, I gotcha.

[34:06] So it's just that Carnage is younger,

[34:08] even though Woody Harrelson is older.

[34:11] Yeah.

[34:12] Yeah, so they should equal out.

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

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

[34:16] Wait, Woody Harrelson is older?

[34:17] Because he seems pretty young.

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

[34:21] He drives a hot date, Naomi Harris.

[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,

[34:30] well, let's surround him with old clothes

[34:32] and old cars to make him look younger.

[34:34] The way that we wanted to make Adam West

[34:36] look like a college student

[34:37] by having him beat up middle-aged thugs

[34:39] on the Batman TV show.

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

[34:43] so in the comic, the Venom symbiote

[34:45] 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?

[34:57] And it's just a new baby symbiote.

[34:58] And the symbiote has a personality,

[35:00] gives itself the name Carnage.

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

[35:02] The same way that Venom was like,

[35:03] my name is Venom, which is goofy.

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

[35:07] But anyway, Eddie and Venom go back home

[35:11] and they get in a big fight

[35:12] and Venom smashes up the whole place and then leaves.

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

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

[35:16] I like their fight.

[35:19] It's pretty goofy.

[35:19] Other than whenever a movie involves

[35:22] like the joke trashing of an apartment,

[35:26] I just get really stressed out.

[35:28] Cause I'm like, man, like your place is trashed now.

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

[35:34] You lost your deposit.

[35:37] He takes his big TV and throws out the window.

[35:38] And I think the next scene,

[35:39] 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 I had, if my TV broke,

[35:48] I wouldn't be able to go out and run out

[35:48] and replace it, right?

[35:49] It's the same way that I had to stop watching the show

[35:51] Modern Family, because there was one season

[35:53] where three different episodes

[35:55] involved characters getting into car accidents.

[35:57] And it was not a problem.

[35:58] They never seemed to worry about

[35:59] how am I going to find the time to take this car?

[36:01] What am I going to do for a car?

[36:02] While it's in the shop?

[36:03] What an episode that would be.

[36:05] They did, but like that,

[36:06] I can't relate to a family that loses a car.

[36:08] And it's just like, well,

[36:10] get another one from the machine.

[36:11] Yeah.

[36:12] And they have the tree out back.

[36:14] And they have a full events budget

[36:16] every time they have a Halloween party.

[36:18] Yeah.

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

[36:19] that their Halloween haunted house is like Six Flags.

[36:22] Like 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

[36:31] and he just becomes a big middle finger

[36:34] that he waves at Eddie,

[36:35] which is like, that's the movie in a nutshell,

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

[36:39] Like, so we go to Cassie's execution.

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

[36:44] The lethal injection drugs,

[36:46] I wasn't sure if they were interacting

[36:47] with the symbiote in the system

[36:48] 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

[36:54] or at least is empowering him.

[36:55] And he rampages through the prison

[36:56] 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

[37:03] and he creates a hole in his own belly

[37:06] and the bullet goes through it,

[37:07] which is weird.

[37:08] Because Cletus should be inside that suit.

[37:09] I don't know what happened to Cletus's stomach

[37:11] when that bullet,

[37:12] when the body had a hole in it.

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

[37:15] It's like some kind of like 3D X-ray attack moment

[37:18] where it shows you Cletus's body inside.

[37:20] Like in...

[37:21] Well, what I'd like to have happen

[37:22] is what happens in the comics

[37:23] where the symbiote absorbs the bullets

[37:25] and then spits them out, basically.

[37:27] Like, the bullets would hit Venom's body

[37:29] and then they would kind of like,

[37:30] ploop, ploop, ploop, fall out.

[37:31] As opposed to Venom or Carnage

[37:33] creating a hole in their bodies

[37:34] like they're Roger Rabbit

[37:35] and then closing the hole.

[37:36] Like, essentially giving Cletus a major hernia

[37:38] and then closed it up instantly,

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

[37:41] But anyway, and then,

[37:42] but that, I wasn't worried about that for too long

[37:44] because then Venom starts,

[37:45] Carnage, I'm sorry,

[37:46] Carnage starts spinning around so fast

[37:48] he creates a cyclone.

[37:49] Which blows everyone away,

[37:52] which is ridiculous.

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

[37:55] That this character,

[37:56] it's a power he never uses again, by the way.

[37:58] That he can create,

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

[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.

[38:07] I mean, I do like the Tasmanian devil

[38:10] who is basically a cyclone character.

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

[38:16] Yeah, but that's Riptide's whole power.

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

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

[38:21] Anytime a character turns into a little whirlwind

[38:24] with like a little tornado,

[38:25] but with a normal head on top,

[38:27] I love that shit.

[38:29] Like, if Carnage had done that

[38:30] and his little head was just poking up

[38:32] and he was like smiling,

[38:33] I would have loved it.

[38:35] The best thing about that

[38:36] is what it's implying

[38:36] is that his head is not moving.

[38:38] And so his neck is either,

[38:40] his head is either able to turn 360 degrees

[38:42] or his neck is just twisting, twisting, twisting, twisting.

[38:44] Like when you get on a swing

[38:46] and you turn it, turn it, turn it, turn it, turn it

[38:48] to put the chains together

[38:49] so that you can let go

[38:50] and have it spin around

[38:51] and you spin around real fast.

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

[38:54] Well, what's funny about it

[38:55] is that the artist is like,

[38:57] nobody would know that this is Riptide

[39:00] or Carnage or whatever

[39:02] if their head was spinning too.

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

[39:07] So I better put a little head on it.

[39:10] Yeah, exactly.

[39:11] So everyone knows.

[39:12] So Detective Mulligan,

[39:13] he's this detective who's always on Eddie's case.

[39:15] He tells Eddie that Cletus has escaped

[39:17] and at the same time,

[39:21] Venom goes to like kind of a costume party rave

[39:24] where we've established that Venom,

[39:26] that the symbiotes are hurt by sound and fire.

[39:29] Apparently the music here

[39:30] where Little Sims, the rapper is performing,

[39:32] the music is apparently so low,

[39:33] maybe there's a neighborhood noise ordinance

[39:35] 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.

[39:41] He takes the mic from Little Sims

[39:42] and gives a speech about tolerance

[39:44] and the crowd loves it.

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

[39:49] I love it.

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

[39:53] Yeah.

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

[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-

[40:00] know that. Yeah. But it's this whole scene. It's just like, what kind of party do you

[40:04] think this was? So what was this? Dan, you've been to a lot of costume raves. What's going

[40:07] on with this? It's also apparently happening at like seven in the evening. Well, that's

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

[40:21] it's just like, they're like, yeah, you know, costumes. We like to dance. There's no theme

[40:25] to the costumes either. They're all different costumes. I mean, there's a lot of skull pieces.

[40:30] Yeah. But it's not like you can be like, oh, anime fest is in town. And that's why these

[40:34] people are dressed up like that. Like, they're just very randomly in costumes. And Venom is

[40:38] the king of this of this party. They all love him. A lady hits on him,

[40:43] puts her down, not very gently. He's like, you're not my type. And then after his speech,

[40:50] he walks into a hallway and passes him. The problem with his response is that

[40:53] it asks more questions than it answers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. I was wondering. I'm

[40:58] like, OK, but yeah, who is. Yeah, who would. Yeah, let's pull out. Yeah, let's let's get his

[41:04] full star chart. Yeah, I mean, let's get on Venom's Tinder and like help him swipe.

[41:09] Yeah, let's see what he likes. Venom is on. Venom is on Tungder.

[41:14] Oh, that's such a long time. He's always whipping it around. So and clearly,

[41:18] and as his type, he loves Michelle Williams. He wants to be. Anyway,

[41:21] but Venom is tired. He passes out these bodies. They're not strong enough to support him. These

[41:25] host bodies. So and that also means that somebody is just going to wake up feeling sick

[41:29] in a costume rave and be like, how did I get here? I understand. I mean,

[41:32] how did I get here? This is not my beautiful house. Yeah, of the places you could wake up

[41:36] feeling sick, I think a costumed rave is not the strangest. Yeah, you're not going to. That's fair.

[41:41] You're not going to be like, oh, I got to get Columbo on. Yeah, whoa, why do I feel bad?

[41:46] So you say you say you were just riding your bicycle down the street and suddenly you passed

[41:50] out and you woke up at a costume rave. That makes sense. That makes sense. Oh, well, one question.

[41:54] One question. Was it a costume rave? Case closed. You know, Mrs.

[42:01] Would I be Venom's type? That makes sense. That makes sense. He's an alien creature that people

[42:07] wear as a costume. He's essentially a living jumpsuit. Yeah. Yeah. With a long tongue. Anyway,

[42:11] that makes sense. Oh, one more question. Why is his name Venom? Is there a Mrs.

[42:18] I mean, he's opening the door for it. Yeah. Or a Mr. I just don't know what it is.

[42:23] So Cletus, meanwhile, he's 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. And then he uses the Carnage

[42:34] symbiote just to pick up a truck off the bridge that someone is driving in and throw it off the

[42:38] bridge. And it's like, wait, huh? Come on. That's a little bit too casual of a murder for me.

[42:44] But, you know, what are you going to do? Meanwhile, Eddie, he's like, oh, let me go

[42:49] through my old notes. Oh, I'll go to the old reform school. And he goes there and he finds

[42:53] a tree with Cletus and Francis's initials carved into it in a heart in perhaps the laziest way this

[43:00] information can be discovered. And he calls the detective and he goes, hey, I think I've got

[43:05] something here. Cletus was in love once. Is that anything? And the detective's like, yeah,

[43:10] but she's dead. I killed her when she tried to escape as a teen. I was the cop who was in the

[43:15] cold open. Bum, bum, bum. But she's not dead. We already know that. And now Cletus knows it because

[43:21] of his infallible method of finding his girlfriend that he thinks might be dead.

[43:26] He goes to a bodega. He knocks out or kills the guy who works there. The guy, of course,

[43:30] has a laptop open on the counter, as we've seen in many bodegas. They're always using laptops

[43:34] at their work. And he has his Carnage symbiote go into the laptop. Somehow that allows him to

[43:39] hack into Ravencroft's secret files. And he finds where Shriek is hidden. Can you please explain to

[43:44] me this scene? I wish I wish that Carnage had said learning when he did it like it's biomechanical

[43:54] jazz, man. You know, it's it's OK, then why is why is this guy got a laptop open at work?

[44:01] Well, come on. I mean, that's I mean, maybe he's taking my classes.

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

[44:07] I maybe he's on comiXology reading Maximum Carnage. Not an important. This is not an

[44:13] important thing to say, but it's it's itching at my brain. I just want to say for half the movie,

[44:19] I thought that the detective, by the way, was Donnie Wahlberg. And the detective is not

[44:24] is not Donnie Wahlberg. No, no. The detective is played by Stephen Graham. Yeah. Yeah. From

[44:29] who's been it was in a bunch of like what's what's that guy? You know,

[44:33] the lock, stock and two smoking barrels. Guy Ritchie. Yeah, that guy. That literal guy.

[44:39] I was going to say guy. He's in the Caribbean movies. Guy Lombardo. He also,

[44:43] weirdly enough, just like Tom Hardy, portrayed Al Capone in a movie.

[44:48] Well, in a TV show. Stuart, I see you. Yes. A document open in front of you.

[44:53] In Boardwalk Empire, which is one of those long movies. Are you saying that TV is the new movies?

[44:57] I just see that Stuart has a document in front of him. I wonder whether he's been looking for a

[45:01] chance to to launch into it. Well, I'm just trying to explain that just like Eddie and Venom,

[45:05] our show needs our Max Fund members to be the best that it can be to defeat carnage.

[45:11] Tell me more. Tell me more. I want to take a moment while the drive winds down to thank all

[45:17] of our Max Fund members, new upgrading and longtime supporters. You make this show happen.

[45:25] Your money makes the flop house a priority for us and it makes our lives better. It covers our

[45:31] production costs, but mostly it just goes to us living our lives, you know, paying bills.

[45:37] But we need it, though. But we need it, though. Yeah. Well, it pays our bills. And you know what?

[45:41] You know, we can afford the occasional little treat. You want us to have treats, right?

[45:48] Interesting. This is an interesting tactic. Now, the drive is the time during the year

[45:52] that we push membership. What do you hate? Treats? Yeah. What's going on here?

[45:56] What's your problem with treats? I don't have a problem. And because

[45:58] this is the time that we push membership. Treat Williams? You got a problem with Treat Williams?

[46:00] Yeah, we're talking on my man Treat Williams from Dead Heat. And because this is the time of year

[46:07] that we push membership, it also means that we makes it a perfect time to get a little bit sappy

[46:12] and thank you for all that you've done for our show. Like, to make it a little more clear,

[46:18] Dan is obviously Aragorn in this situation. I'm Legolas and that makes Elliot Gimley, OK?

[46:25] And our Max Fun members are the four hobbits. And like, this is the part where Aragorn leans down

[46:30] and he says, my friends, you bow to no one. And then the projectionist has to stop the movie

[46:38] because I'm crying so violently in the theater that he thinks somebody is dying. OK, so thank you.

[46:45] But if my thanks is not enough, there is 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 their

[47:02] favorite show. Ours features that irascible little hooligan, the house cat bursting out.

[47:08] And there's much more. And for all of you that already support us and might be feeling a little

[47:14] bit generous, we also offer the option to give a listener a gift membership that includes access

[47:19] to all those cool member gifts. So just head over to maximumfund.org join. And we actually

[47:25] have a couple of personal goals that we're going to be checking in in a few days as the drive wraps

[47:31] up. If we receive 1900 new and upgrading members, we're going to be doing a raffle giveaway of

[47:40] Maniac of New York comics or hinterland swag or drawings from Dan. If we hit 2300 new and

[47:50] upgrading members, we're going to be doing another commentary track, this time featuring the country

[47:56] bears, you know, the ones who were so close to defeating cats, but they just couldn't do it.

[48:01] Well, you can make that happen. And at 3500 new and upgrading members, we're going to be doing

[48:06] quarterly movie audio commentaries for a year. That sounds like so much fun. We already did one

[48:11] commentary. I want to do more. Make that happen, please. So thank you again, supporters, Elliot.

[48:19] All right. That was great, Stuart. Thank you so much. Let's get back to the movie. Anyway,

[48:23] when we last left the film, Carnage, a.k.a. Cletus Kasady and Carnage, there are two people who are

[48:28] a person in a suit and they become one thing. They've just discovered where Shriek, the character

[48:34] who, you know, is like Shriek is located. And so they go to Ravencroft, they break her out of there

[48:38] and she loves these new carnage powers. And I am just going to go. I'm just going to say it,

[48:45] guys. I think that Naomi Harris is not given much to do in this movie. She is. She is. She's an actor

[48:52] of amazing talent. I've loved her in many other performances. And she's a very charismatic

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

[49:04] yeah, 80s. That's right. I keep calling the name. She's just Cletus's girlfriend who loves to kill

[49:09] people and is just like a mean, you know, scary person who says things like knock, knock, you

[49:15] know, and stuff like that. It's really just, you know, it's a waste of. I know this sounds weird.

[49:19] She would have made a better carnage. I, to be honest, I think that would have been really cool.

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

[49:29] have swapped roles. I think this is the same situation. Interesting. I think I think Willie

[49:35] Harrison would have made a great shriek. Oh, yeah. Let's just do the old venom shuffle.

[49:43] So they call it that's what they called it when the Chicago Bears recorded that song in the 1980s.

[49:49] I think that would have been. Yeah, I think those are all really cool ideas. Let's do it, guys.

[49:54] Yeah, let's just do it. So they they escape.

[50:00] Um, and, uh, she's basically, her personality is basically chaotic evil.

[50:04] That's pretty much what she is, but her shriek powers, because they're

[50:07] loud when she uses them, it hurts the carnage symbiote.

[50:10] So carnage doesn't like that.

[50:11] Uh, and venom goes to venom.

[50:13] The suit goes to Mrs.

[50:14] 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 while the detective is like, people

[50:22] said something about monsters.

[50:24] And this is another thing I didn't believe is that Cleetus

[50:25] 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 foot, 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 were saying there was a monster there.

[50:43] And it's like, okay, I guess there's no, nobody could take a picture

[50:45] of him like he doesn't exist.

[50:47] You know, uh, they have no idea what's going on, but he

[50:49] learns Cleetus has a symbiote.

[50:49] He calls Ann as his lawyer 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.

[50:57] Chen is wearing Venom again, would have been a more fun movie.

[51:00] If now Mrs.

[51:01] Chen is Venom, what are you going to do?

[51:02] And, uh, Ann has to like praise Venom while flirting with him, uh, in a kind

[51:08] of creepy way, but also kind of a funny way so that it feels like Michelle

[51:11] Williams is like finally something to do in this movie.

[51:14] I mean, she's not awesome.

[51:17] She's also not given much, but she's having fun with what she like.

[51:21] Michelle Williams.

[51:22] I, by the way, like, I like looked her up.

[51:24] Cause 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

[51:31] than Fosse-Verdon, which I hadn't seen, I haven't seen, I heard it was very good.

[51:35] The, the, and that's a, I mean, that's a long miniseries.

[51:39] Like that's, I get why that might've taken a long time and taken a lot out of her.

[51:42] Yes.

[51:43] Other than there's, she had one other movie between, uh, the original Venom

[51:48] 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.

[51:55] So I wouldn't be surprised if she was stepping back from

[51:59] some stuff because of that.

[52:00] But, uh, I would love to see more of her.

[52:03] I think that, uh, there's, I was thinking about this recently because

[52:07] there was that news story where Andrew Garfield was like, I think I'm going to

[52:10] take a little, a little time off from acting, uh, that we've got to this point

[52:14] now where, I mean, this is the way movie stars have always been kind of where it's

[52:17] like, if you're not in a movie for a certain amount of time, people think

[52:20] your career's over, but especially now when entertainment is consumed so quickly

[52:25] and we expect an endless instant feed of stuff that you can not be in a movie for,

[52:30] I mean, between Venom and Venom, Let There Be Carnage is three years.

[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

[52:45] failure if they're not constantly working when they might have other things and

[52:48] they're going on in their life, they might not want to work for a little bit.

[52:50] Like she had two movies in 2018, two in 20, 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

[52:58] for a year, then something's going on and that something's wrong in their

[53:01] career or something like that.

[53:02] Or the thing happens that, uh, this is like, they talk about this, I think, uh,

[53:08] on blank check a fair amount, but I've also like just experienced in my life

[53:12] where I'm like, oh man, that actor, like, oh, it's a shame that they, their career

[53:17] never took off.

[53:17] And then like, you're like, oh wait, they've been on 500 episodes of

[53:21] something on CBS and that's why I haven't been around.

[53:27] I mean, that's the other thing is, is the idea that movies are like the only

[53:29] thing that movie actors do.

[53:31] Like she made a TV show during that time.

[53:33] Like sometimes they make a 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.

[53:40] I apologize to Michelle Williams, Elliot.

[53:43] No, no, no, but no, no, it wasn't me doing it.

[53:45] I'm using the example of someone who is a monster, but there was a period where

[53:47] like Kevin Spacey wasn't making a lot of movies because he was running the old

[53:50] Vick theater in the artistic director there.

[53:52] Like they, I mean, and again, he's, I don't want to use him as an example.

[53:55] It just, the first one came to mind.

[53:56] Cause again, he's a monster, but still the, uh, much like carnage.

[53:59] How are you going to, how are you going to apologize to Michelle Williams?

[54:01] You're going to DM's or you said she went through a divorce.

[54:04] So maybe I'll probably like send an edible arrangement.

[54:07] Oh, that's nice.

[54:08] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[54:08] Oh, that's really nice.

[54:09] What's great about that is so many arrangements are not edible and it's just

[54:12] really nice to finally get an arrangement that sounds like you're

[54:15] not, uh, putting enough effort in LA.

[54:17] Yeah, that's true.

[54:19] Well, how come when I arrange things, they're not edible.

[54:21] Like when I arranged my shoes in the closet, there's suddenly

[54:24] I want them to be edible.

[54:28] Give, give actors some time, you know, and that's, and that goes for writers

[54:31] and directors and all the other people too.

[54:32] Anyway.

[54:33] So, and comes back wearing venom and venom makes Eddie apologize.

[54:37] 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

[54:42] holding him until venom came.

[54:45] Okay.

[54:46] You got your symbiote.

[54:47] You can go now.

[54:48] Uh, meanwhile, Cletus and Shriek, they burned down their old reform school

[54:51] and decide they're going to hold a wedding where they're going to get

[54:54] married and they're going to each get to kill one person.

[54:57] He kills Eddie.

[54:58] Carnage kills venom and Shriek will kill detective Mulligan.

[55:01] And almost instantly detective.

[55:03] And you're like, and yeah, something, so that something old is, uh,

[55:09] well as Woody Harrelson, let's be honest, something, something blue is how Eddie

[55:13] feels having been dumped by Anne.

[55:15] Something new is Shriek new character in the, in the mythos here.

[55:19] And, uh, something borrowed is, I guess this, this is such a

[55:23] twisted concept for a wedding.

[55:25] What did Cormac McCarthy, right?

[55:27] Oh, that,

[55:31] this is now I want to say that Cormac McCarthy is, uh, is he's

[55:34] officially the way he goes.

[55:35] Dearly beloved.

[55:36] We gather here to fuck some people up.

[55:40] Twisted.

[55:43] Do you take Shriek in nasty times and in nastier times?

[55:52] He's wearing like a black leather cassock.

[55:54] Like he's a vampire for one of my.

[55:58] He's wearing a priest collar, but then he's got a sleeveless black

[56:01] t-shirt on muscle shirt.

[56:03] Okay.

[56:03] That's cool too.

[56:04] Yeah.

[56:05] The, like a big knife belted to his bed, his belt.

[56:08] So that like, if a zombie comes out of the church yard, he can

[56:11] cut its head off or something.

[56:13] That's Cormac McCarthy.

[56:14] Uh, and.

[56:15] Uh, the detective.

[56:16] So he's like, I'm going to 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.

[56:23] Shriek kidnaps and to lure Eddie to the wedding.

[56:26] And then there's a little, uh, uh, uh, back and forth between Eddie and Venom

[56:30] that I feel like encapsulates the whole movie, its style and its tone

[56:33] and how it works in three lines.

[56:34] 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, it's banter.

[56:43] 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 venom, 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, in that three lines.

[56:57] That's the movie right there.

[56:59] I do like that.

[57:00] Uh, Eddie is yes.

[57:01] Anding Venom's a thing that like, in a way that doesn't, doesn't make sense.

[57:06] It doesn't make sense.

[57:07] I, I, you know, there were no canapes.

[57:09] I took, I took a look around and I don't know if the implication is like, Eddie's

[57:14] going to let Venom eat some bad guys.

[57:15] 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

[57:20] and think about it, which is not the best kind of banter, but he goes, you bet your

[57:23] 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.

[57:28] Really?

[57:28] This introduces the, um, the question as to whether or not Venom has an ass.

[57:33] That's a good question.

[57:34] We're tough to tell.

[57:36] We are, I mean, if, if, if the, if the venom toy that I bought when I was, when I

[57:40] was an adolescent is ain't the go buy.

[57:42] He has a beautiful ass truck on that guy that this is the, this is the what?

[57:47] 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

[58:00] and it's just so lovingly curved, it's like, wow, they really put a lot, a lot

[58:05] of work into his butt on this one.

[58:06] Yeah.

[58:07] But this is a, we are hurtling towards the, the, the big final fight, the climax

[58:13] of the movie, and it feels like it's a short movie, but it feels like this last

[58:19] fight is one third of it.

[58:21] And, uh, you know, as I said before, whenever this movie kicks into like plot

[58:27] 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

[58:35] things for like half an hour.

[58:38] Uh, very much so.

[58:39] And this is, and this is the kind of scene usually at this point, usually, so

[58:42] 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

[58:51] time, Carnage defeats Venom, but Venom escapes or Carnage gets away.

[58:56] And now there's going to be a bigger fight later on, but instead, this is the final

[59:00] fight.

[59:00] This is a very old fashioned movie where the main hero and villain don't even meet

[59:03] each other face to face until the final conflict.

[59:06] And so they go to the cathedral, Cletus and Shriek, they're staging this wedding

[59:10] with a real priest who looks terrified to be there.

[59:11] Rightfully so.

[59:12] Played by Reese Shearsmith from inside number nine and a league of gentlemen.

[59:16] It was great.

[59:17] Oh, I didn't even recognize him.

[59:19] Uh, I think, 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.

[59:27] Makes sense.

[59:27] The whole movie is shot in the UK.

[59:28] Although apparently I guess some exteriors were done in San Francisco because I was

[59:32] reading in the trivia.

[59:33] There's a part where Venom is looking for carnage and some police helicopters go

[59:35] overhead.

[59:36] And those were actually helicopters for the new matrix movie that was also being shot

[59:40] at the same time.

[59:41] And they were like, keep it in the shot.

[59:43] There's we'll just say they're looking for carnage instead of looking for Neo or

[59:45] whatever.

[59:46] So, uh, so I'd like to think those, that's a crossover.

[59:48] It's a little, those helicopters exist in both universes and venom exists in the

[59:51] matrix, I guess.

[59:52] So, uh, yeah, venom bust in.

[59:56] He's briefly scared that carnage is a red suit, but he fights them anyway.

[59:59] Cause that.

[1:00:00] And he's like, well, you can eat him if you defeat him.

[1:00:02] Eat him if you defeat him.

[1:00:02] That's the motto in my household.

[1:00:05] If you kill it, you fill it.

[1:00:06] And if you defeat him, you eat him.

[1:00:07] Like, that's, if it rhymes.

[1:00:10] Don't ever, ever wrestle your sons, Elliot,

[1:00:13] because I don't want them to eat Elliot.

[1:00:15] Either way, you know, like, you know,

[1:00:18] either way, the world loses.

[1:00:20] Well, what'll happen is-

[1:00:21] I'm like, call me, call me, call me Saturn,

[1:00:24] because I'm devouring my children.

[1:00:25] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:00:26] Well, hopefully, Daniel will be smart enough

[1:00:28] to swap his sons with stones,

[1:00:30] so Elliot'll just eat stones instead.

[1:00:32] Oh, well, he's, she's tried it,

[1:00:34] and I always unswaddle them first

[1:00:35] to make sure they're not sons.

[1:00:36] Yeah, that makes sense, that's smart.

[1:00:38] And once it was all of her stone,

[1:00:39] I was like, I don't want to eat this.

[1:00:41] Threw it away.

[1:00:41] So anyway, so, so,

[1:00:47] Shriek tries to help Carnage,

[1:00:49] but her screen powers hurt Carnage,

[1:00:51] so Carnage slaps her away.

[1:00:52] And so while they're fighting,

[1:00:53] Shriek goes off and chases and tortures the detective

[1:00:55] 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

[1:01:01] as if it's, like, a power-up that gives him,

[1:01:03] I guess-

[1:01:04] It does, yeah.

[1:01:04] 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.

[1:01:11] I don't know how he got onto the scaffolding

[1:01:12] above the church,

[1:01:13] but suddenly he's just pouring lit gasoline onto Carnage,

[1:01:16] saving the day,

[1:01:17] being more effective at fighting Carnage than Venom is.

[1:01:19] Guys, were you as surprised as I was

[1:01:21] to see Dr. Dan be revealed as the hero of the movie?

[1:01:23] Yes, I was not expecting it,

[1:01:26] because he's a character

[1:01:27] that had been derided the whole time,

[1:01:28] but clearly he's the hero.

[1:01:30] Yeah, I mean, and also, like,

[1:01:31] he doesn't need to help his new fiancee's ex-fiancee.

[1:01:36] He could be a much smaller man,

[1:01:39] but instead he's right there fighting by his side.

[1:01:44] And he doesn't have a symbiote to protect him.

[1:01:46] All he has is his medical degree and the Hippocratic Oath,

[1:01:49] although the Hippocratic Oath says do no harm,

[1:01:51] and he's clearly harming Carnage.

[1:01:55] Oh my God, oh my God.

[1:01:56] He's a villain.

[1:01:57] He's the worst of them all.

[1:01:58] He's betrayed his medical training.

[1:02:02] Somewhere at the medical chamber

[1:02:07] that he studied in Germany,

[1:02:10] there's just an old physician who's going,

[1:02:11] oh, Dan, you've betrayed my teaching.

[1:02:16] Oh, no, that kind of thing.

[1:02:18] This guy seeing this,

[1:02:19] is this through, like, a crystal ball?

[1:02:21] Oh, yeah, he has a crystal ball.

[1:02:23] Yeah, he's like a Van Helsing type.

[1:02:26] He dabbles in magic.

[1:02:27] He's also a doctor of the occult, sure, yeah.

[1:02:30] Rich backstory for this character.

[1:02:34] So there's more fighting,

[1:02:35] and Cletus is like, I'm mad, Eddie,

[1:02:36] that you didn't tell my side of my childhood.

[1:02:39] And it's like, to be fair,

[1:02:40] 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,

[1:02:46] and he runs off with him.

[1:02:47] I kind of like, there's a sequence

[1:02:49] where they're fighting each other,

[1:02:51] and the church bell is ringing,

[1:02:54] and so they'll fight,

[1:02:56] and then all of a sudden their symbiotes retreat

[1:02:58] back inside their bodies for a minute,

[1:03:00] and then when the reverberation stopped,

[1:03:02] the symbiotes come back out again.

[1:03:03] I thought that was kind of cool.

[1:03:04] It's a cool idea.

[1:03:05] It kind of happens in the first movie, too,

[1:03:07] 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,

[1:03:11] they're monsters, and then suddenly

[1:03:13] they have to be just human beings

[1:03:14] punching each other, and then they're monsters again.

[1:03:16] It's a really, I can see why they're,

[1:03:17] they're gonna do the third one, too, probably,

[1:03:19] when he fights two symbiotes,

[1:03:21] or something like that, you know?

[1:03:22] Unless, I guess, the next one's gonna be

[1:03:24] Venom versus Morbius, or something like that.

[1:03:26] I mean, it's gonna seem like it's a versus,

[1:03:28] and then they're just gonna team up

[1:03:30] to beat up poachers or something

[1:03:31] that are trying to kill dinosaurs.

[1:03:33] You're right.

[1:03:34] They're gonna have to stop a polluter

[1:03:36] that's trying to cut down the Amazon rainforest.

[1:03:38] And dollar signs in my eyes.

[1:03:39] Yeah.

[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,

[1:03:46] where a guy, he looks at something

[1:03:48] and dollar signs pop in his eyes,

[1:03:49] and he has to go to the doctor,

[1:03:50] gets it removed, and he's like,

[1:03:51] oh, it hurts so much.

[1:03:52] Yeah.

[1:03:53] It's tough.

[1:03:55] So, anyway.

[1:03:57] So, they fight some more.

[1:03:59] Carnage, he wants to,

[1:04:00] Carnage, the symbiote, wants to kill Shriek,

[1:04:02] 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,

[1:04:08] 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

[1:04:19] gives them the strength they need

[1:04:20] to push all this rubble off of them.

[1:04:22] Yeah, that's right.

[1:04:23] It's an emotional breakthrough

[1:04:23] that leads to a physical breakthrough.

[1:04:26] 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

[1:04:32] 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

[1:04:38] than there had been previously in the movie.

[1:04:40] He's fighting Venom, and then Venom,

[1:04:42] in possibly the least heroic thing

[1:04:44] that a hero character can do in a movie,

[1:04:46] pushes Shriek off a tower,

[1:04:48] causing her to scream so loud

[1:04:49] 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

[1:04:55] and eats it.

[1:04:56] And then they pick up Cletus, and Cletus goes,

[1:04:58] I just wanted to be your friend, Eddie.

[1:05:00] And Venom says, fuck this guy, and bites his head off.

[1:05:03] And that was not me paraphrasing.

[1:05:05] That's the exact line from the movie.

[1:05:06] I did kind of laugh at it a little bit

[1:05:08] because it is such a not witty or a graceful thing to say.

[1:05:13] Well, I mean, look, I don't know.

[1:05:17] In real life, I am not one for capital punishment.

[1:05:24] Dan is very anti-biting off people's heads.

[1:05:25] I do think that biting people's heads off

[1:05:27] is a cruel and unusual punishment, both cruel and unusual.

[1:05:32] But in the context of this movie,

[1:05:34] I definitely was like, yeah, yeah,

[1:05:36] just bite this guy's head off.

[1:05:37] Well, he's a fictional character, you know?

[1:05:39] He has almost no personality.

[1:05:41] He's just a serial killer, 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 carnages.

[1:05:48] I'll use my power to push Cletus's girlfriend

[1:05:51] off a high ledge so she dies.

[1:05:54] 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, monsters.

[1:06:03] And when I read the Wikipedia summary,

[1:06:04] 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, yeah, it was pretty divine,

[1:06:12] and that was what led-

[1:06:13] In my defense, Dan, I was watching it on iPad

[1:06:16] while I was doing dishes, so I did miss that moment.

[1:06:18] But this was what led me to my research

[1:06:20] where I found out that apparently symbiote offspring

[1:06:25] are more powerful because this is setting up,

[1:06:28] I guess he's Toxin is the-

[1:06:30] Okay, yeah, because Toxin is a,

[1:06:32] yeah, it's a police officer, I think, with a symbiote.

[1:06:33] But how did he get it from Shriek?

[1:06:35] I don't know.

[1:06:35] Well, that's the thing.

[1:06:37] That's why I had to go look it up online.

[1:06:40] I Googled why cops' eyes blue venom, I think,

[1:06:47] and the internet explained it to me.

[1:06:52] Toxin is, that's around the time, I think,

[1:06:54] when the symbiote stuff started to get

[1:06:57] really deluded for me in the comics.

[1:06:59] They were running out of ideas.

[1:07:01] Yeah, essentially.

[1:07:03] And now, and then you had like, at this point,

[1:07:05] there was a planet of symbiotes,

[1:07:07] and now it's been retconned to all the symbiotes

[1:07:09] are part of a galactic hive mind

[1:07:11] that the King in Black know the embodiment

[1:07:14] of nothingness commands, and Venom had to fight him

[1:07:17] and become the hero of the universe.

[1:07:17] Ooh, that sounds dumb, sounds dumb.

[1:07:19] It was not as dumb as it sounds,

[1:07:22] but it was still a larger-scale story

[1:07:24] than I like my Venom stories to be.

[1:07:26] Yeah.

[1:07:27] Although, there was one Venom story that, who did it?

[1:07:32] Uh-oh, he's Googling something.

[1:07:33] Adam Warren, was that it?

[1:07:34] There was a story called Venom, The End,

[1:07:36] where that, yeah, that Adam Warren wrote,

[1:07:39] where it takes it to the farthest level,

[1:07:42] where at a certain point,

[1:07:43] Venom is the only living thing left in the universe,

[1:07:45] and he uses the internal DNA library

[1:07:48] of all the symbiotes to recreate life,

[1:07:50] and I was like, you know what, that's big enough

[1:07:52] 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,

[1:07:56] Venom was offered a place in the Avengers,

[1:07:58] 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] and I don't need him to be the hero of everybody.

[1:08:06] Anyway, so they, Detective Mulligan's gonna become Toxin

[1:08:10] in, I guess, Venom 3, Let There Be Toxin.

[1:08:13] And now, Venom is like, Venom, the symbiote,

[1:08:15] is like, I need to give myself up,

[1:08:17] and I was like, to who, the police?

[1:08:19] You're not a human, like, I don't understand.

[1:08:21] And Eddie says, you're a team.

[1:08:24] Yeah, he's like McCavity, he can break every human law.

[1:08:26] And Eddie says, no, we're a team now.

[1:08:29] We're gonna be fugitives together,

[1:08:30] and they run off to a tropical beach,

[1:08:31] because Venom earlier said he wanted to feel

[1:08:32] the sand in his toes and the wind in his hair,

[1:08:34] and they decide they're gonna travel around

[1:08:36] and go wherever lethal protectors are needed.

[1:08:39] End of movie, right?

[1:08:40] Wrong, because, of course, there's a mid-credit scene.

[1:08:44] There always is.

[1:08:45] Perhaps, I'm just gonna go out and say,

[1:08:46] perhaps the most anticlimactic, in retrospect,

[1:08:50] mid-credit scene in the history of these movies,

[1:08:53] where Venom is in his bungalow at this tropical resort,

[1:08:57] and the symbiote is like, hey,

[1:09:01] your mind couldn't handle all the knowledge I have

[1:09:03] 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?

[1:09:11] The symbiote's like, I didn't do this.

[1:09:12] They look on TV.

[1:09:13] J. Jonah Jameson is revealing

[1:09:15] that Spider-Man is Peter Parker.

[1:09:16] They're in the Spider-Man universe now?

[1:09:18] Oh, and Venom is like, this guy,

[1:09:20] and he licks the TV screen where Spider-Man is.

[1:09:23] Uh-oh, uh-oh, what kind of mayhem is gonna happen

[1:09:25] now that Venom is in the world of Spider-Man,

[1:09:27] a character who, in the comics, he lives to kill,

[1:09:29] but in the movies, he's never heard of

[1:09:30] and doesn't know who he is,

[1:09:31] and he could be anybody for all you know.

[1:09:32] Yeah, I don't know why he's licking the screen

[1:09:34] and saying, this guy, but.

[1:09:34] Well, I can't wait until Spider-Man,

[1:09:38] No Way Home, when we are revealed,

[1:09:39] it's revealed that Venom spent his whole time

[1:09:41] at that resort, got a drink,

[1:09:43] and then flipped back to his home universe,

[1:09:45] never encountering Spider-Man at all.

[1:09:47] I kinda love that.

[1:09:48] What a fuckin' lie.

[1:09:51] I remember when this movie came out,

[1:09:53] I heard about this credit scene,

[1:09:54] and they're talking about, yeah, yeah,

[1:09:55] we secretly scrambled at the last minute

[1:09:57] to shoot this scene without anybody really knowing.

[1:10:00] 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.

[1:10:07] What's your theory?

[1:10:07] Part of the appeal, honestly.

[1:10:08] Why did they think this would be exciting to anybody

[1:10:13] to find out when they finally watch No Way Home

[1:10:15] that Venom is in the Spider-Man universe

[1:10:18] on a different, in a different country.

[1:10:20] Just hanging out at a resort.

[1:10:20] 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

[1:10:31] 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

[1:10:37] where Venom is a globe-trotting fugitive

[1:10:40] just going around fighting crime.

[1:10:42] And just also the promise of a sequel

[1:10:43] where Venom fights Spider-Man,

[1:10:44] which hasn't happened and probably will never happen

[1:10:47] in these movies.

[1:10:48] Oh boy.

[1:10:49] Let's do our final judgments

[1:10:52] before Stu has a few more words.

[1:10:56] Oh, I can't wait to hear more about the MaxFundDrive.

[1:10:58] Hashtag MaxFundDrive.

[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?

[1:11:03] Um, guys, I, I don't know.

[1:11:06] I, I think it's, I thought it was bad, ultimately.

[1:11:10] I, there's elements in it, like,

[1:11:13] that came close to me enjoying it.

[1:11:15] I liked a lot of the silliness.

[1:11:18] I like, you know, uh, what's-his-face, uh,

[1:11:21] Tom Hardy remains committed to this character.

[1:11:24] And, uh, also, uh, Michelle Williams

[1:11:27] and Dr. Dan are fun.

[1:11:29] But all of the shit with Carnage

[1:11:33] 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,

[1:11:43] like, before they knew kind of how to do

[1:11:45] this sort of thing, I guess.

[1:11:47] I don't know.

[1:11:47] Yes, it feels like any, any 80s or early 90s movie

[1:11:51] where there's a serial killer,

[1:11:53] someone's out to get them.

[1:11:54] The serial killer isn't really a person

[1:11:56] so much as he's, like, a gimmick.

[1:11:58] And it just happens exactly the way

[1:12:00] you think it's going to.

[1:12:01] There's no, like, I've gotten so used to movies

[1:12:03] where the bad guy gets captured on purpose

[1:12:05] and escapes, or the bad guy,

[1:12:07] you think the plan is one thing

[1:12:08] and it turns out to be another,

[1:12:09] which revealed that they're brothers

[1:12:10] or something like that.

[1:12:11] So, and it was almost, almost refreshing

[1:12:13] that there were no twists whatsoever

[1:12:15] in this movie, that it was like,

[1:12:17] this movie, it goes A, B, C, D, E,

[1:12:20] 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] There's, but it's-

[1:12:23] There are plot threads that seem like

[1:12:25] they could lead somewhere.

[1:12:26] Nope, no time.

[1:12:27] No point.

[1:12:28] They do not.

[1:12:29] Hey, guess what?

[1:12:29] We got this, we, Carnage,

[1:12:31] we were going to introduce him

[1:12:32] in the first movie.

[1:12:32] We thought, no, let's hold him

[1:12:33] until the second movie

[1:12:34] 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, why bother?

[1:12:38] Let's just put-

[1:12:39] We should have put him in the first one.

[1:12:40] Yeah, so, I mean, if you have affection

[1:12:42] for Venom, if you have affection

[1:12:43] for the first movie, like,

[1:12:45] I'm not saying that this will be

[1:12:46] a total waste of your time.

[1:12:47] You'll probably get some kicks

[1:12:48] out of certain parts of it.

[1:12:49] But, but overall, within our strictures,

[1:12:54] 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, Ali, you go.

[1:12:57] Oh, I'll say, I'll let Stu go.

[1:12:58] Stu, you go next.

[1:13:00] Yeah, it's, uh, it's probably a bad, bad.

[1:13:02] It's nice and short.

[1:13:04] And I like the, the rave scene.

[1:13:06] That was great.

[1:13:06] Um, but yeah, there's just not much there.

[1:13:09] Um, yeah, whatever.

[1:13:11] Yeah, it's not,

[1:13:12] it's not like offensively bad,

[1:13:14] except for the fact that there's just like,

[1:13:16] and this is kind of my,

[1:13:16] because I'm a dad, I guess,

[1:13:17] but there's so much unnecessary vulgarity,

[1:13:19] like not funny vulgarity,

[1:13:20] but just like people calling

[1:13:21] each other asshole or saying,

[1:13:23] and we're saying like shit for no reason.

[1:13:26] It's not, it's not,

[1:13:26] and vulgarity can be very funny.

[1:13:28] I mean, when he says fuck this guy at the end,

[1:13:29] it's kind of funny.

[1:13:30] But, uh, but the, uh, it's just,

[1:13:32] it's like a bad, bad movie,

[1:13:33] but it's not like, ugh, avoid at all costs.

[1:13:36] It's like, it's for Venom completists only.

[1:13:38] If you really liked the first one,

[1:13:40] you'll probably like this one

[1:13:41] because it's kind of the same movie.

[1:13:42] And it's just, there's part of me

[1:13:44] that is disappointed as a fan of the character,

[1:13:47] that they're just not making the most

[1:13:49] of the potential of this character

[1:13:50] as an interesting character.

[1:13:51] Like when you come down to it,

[1:13:53] he is a former reporter who is wearing an,

[1:13:56] who's wearing an alien,

[1:13:58] and the alien can turn him into a monster

[1:14:01] that has big jagged teeth and a long tongue

[1:14:02] 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

[1:14:08] that I've seen too many movies

[1:14:09] where people wear aliens.

[1:14:10] And that's something that I feel like the movie is,

[1:14:12] the characters have already gotten over.

[1:14:13] And they, but again, like this one

[1:14:15] and the first one,

[1:14:16] they both had Anne wear the costume

[1:14:18] for a short amount of time.

[1:14:19] And in those moments,

[1:14:20] the movie seemed so much cooler

[1:14:22] 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

[1:14:27] in the movie seems to care

[1:14:28] about what he's doing in the movie.

[1:14:29] He really likes this character

[1:14:30] and wants to do more of it.

[1:14:31] So Tom, like do more with it.

[1:14:34] Come on, play it up.

[1:14:35] Let's come up with a real good story next time.

[1:14:37] Yeah, find a better screenwriter

[1:14:40] next time maybe to work with.

[1:14:42] Just do it, just do it better.

[1:14:45] Yeah, just do it better this next time.

[1:14:47] Take that Kelly Marcel,

[1:14:48] co-writer of Saving Mr. Banks

[1:14:50] and the writer of Fifty Shades of Grey,

[1:14:52] the movie.

[1:14:54] You're not making me feel bad.

[1:14:57] Perhaps you'll feel better

[1:14:58] when you find out she co-wrote

[1:15:00] the story to Cruella.

[1:15:01] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:15:04] That's the worry part of it.

[1:15:05] Hopefully the part where is that

[1:15:07] where mom gets killed by Dalmatians.

[1:15:09] That, yeah.

[1:15:12] Does that happen in Cruella?

[1:15:13] I haven't seen the movie.

[1:15:14] No, it's, that's like it's,

[1:15:16] it became a meme.

[1:15:17] It is a, it is a, 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, it's a fake out.

[1:15:26] Like it's a, it's a,

[1:15:27] it's a fake out and a joke in the movie.

[1:15:30] But it was taken out.

[1:15:32] I don't want to see the movie.

[1:15:32] Explain it to me.

[1:15:34] No, they, they, Cruella,

[1:15:36] the character thinks that

[1:15:37] this is what happens,

[1:15:38] but it's not.

[1:15:39] Oh, I see what happens.

[1:15:41] And I think that it's kind of

[1:15:43] a joke on movie motivations

[1:15:48] that then was taken out of context

[1:15:49] and the internet made fun of.

[1:15:51] Yeah, great costumes,

[1:15:52] wonderful needle drops.

[1:15:53] It's a movie.

[1:15:54] Hey guys, we did it.

[1:15:55] We made it to the end of

[1:15:57] another MaxFunDrive.

[1:15:58] And I would like to take this time

[1:15:59] to thank all of our supporters.

[1:16:01] You know, podcasts

[1:16:02] 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

[1:16:09] in the background

[1:16:10] while you go about your day

[1:16:12] or to put on

[1:16:12] when you need to go to sleep

[1:16:14] or to keep you company

[1:16:15] when you want to hear

[1:16:16] a familiar voice.

[1:16:18] There's a little bit of a,

[1:16:20] like a one-sided quality to podcasts

[1:16:22] where you're listening to a conversation

[1:16:24] that you 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, that's what makes.

[1:16:31] I'm loving that Dan is,

[1:16:32] is MSC3K your, your, your driver.

[1:16:35] He's dogging me out, baby.

[1:16:37] Keep me on my toes.

[1:16:38] But that's what makes the moments

[1:16:40] of audience interaction

[1:16:41] like me with Dan.

[1:16:43] That's what makes those moments

[1:16:44] so special to me.

[1:16:45] The audience member of this show.

[1:16:47] Yeah.

[1:16:47] I love that Dan has recast himself

[1:16:49] as the audience member of the show,

[1:16:50] which frankly makes a lot more sense.

[1:16:52] If this is like memento

[1:16:53] or the sixth sense,

[1:16:54] if you go back and listen

[1:16:55] to every episode of the show

[1:16:56] and you realize Dan is an audience member,

[1:16:58] it all makes more sense.

[1:17:01] That's what makes these moments

[1:17:02] so special to me.

[1:17:04] As the most accessible of the peaches,

[1:17:09] it's a joyful part of my life

[1:17:10] to get to meet and chat

[1:17:12] with so many of you at our live shows

[1:17:14] or at my bars or even online

[1:17:19] in my DMs.

[1:17:20] But you know, respectfully,

[1:17:23] it makes me incredibly proud

[1:17:25] that we produce a show

[1:17:26] that makes listeners feel comfortable

[1:17:27] to reach out to us hosts

[1:17:29] to share moments of success,

[1:17:31] moments of personal tragedy,

[1:17:33] or even something as simple

[1:17:34] as obscure horror movie recommendations

[1:17:37] or a well-chosen flame emoji

[1:17:38] for one of my workout videos.

[1:17:41] It really highlights to me...

[1:17:42] I don't know if it's well...

[1:17:43] Well, I mean,

[1:17:44] there's only a limited number of emojis.

[1:17:47] Are they going to do the party explosion one?

[1:17:49] Keep fact-checking.

[1:17:50] How many Pinocchios

[1:17:51] does he get for that one?

[1:17:52] Just one.

[1:17:53] Thank you.

[1:17:56] So all this really highlights to me

[1:17:58] that while the Flophouse

[1:17:59] is important to me,

[1:18:01] I think it's also important to you too.

[1:18:04] So please head over

[1:18:05] to maximumfund.org

[1:18:06] slash join and support us.

[1:18:09] So again, thank you.

[1:18:13] You know what we do next

[1:18:14] is we answer some letters

[1:18:16] from listeners,

[1:18:17] speaking of interacting with listeners.

[1:18:21] And this first one

[1:18:22] is from Kate, last name withheld.

[1:18:24] And Kate writes,

[1:18:26] a question popped into my mind

[1:18:27] yesterday morning when listening.

[1:18:29] Have you ever made a recommendation

[1:18:31] for a film that you later regretted

[1:18:33] or realized wasn't as good as you thought

[1:18:35] upon a second viewing?

[1:18:37] Thank you again for all that you do.

[1:18:39] I love Elliot.

[1:18:41] Wow, could have omitted that part.

[1:18:43] Well, no, I don't think so.

[1:18:44] You can read it a few more times.

[1:18:48] I would say that you could probably

[1:18:50] go back on my recommendations.

[1:18:52] And anytime I tell you

[1:18:53] that I watched it on a plane,

[1:18:55] you can just assume

[1:18:57] that that's the place

[1:18:59] you should probably also watch it.

[1:19:01] And that on the ground,

[1:19:02] you may not enjoy it as much.

[1:19:07] I'm not saying that

[1:19:08] you should buy a ticket just to

[1:19:10] just to watch these movies.

[1:19:11] Yeah, yeah.

[1:19:12] But, you know, if that's why

[1:19:14] when I recommend movies,

[1:19:16] it seems expensive

[1:19:17] when you're only going to be

[1:19:17] needing the edge of your seat,

[1:19:19] but you're paying for a whole seat.

[1:19:20] Right, right, right.

[1:19:22] And if it's so much.

[1:19:23] Yeah.

[1:19:24] Yeah.

[1:19:25] Do you guys have any that offhand?

[1:19:27] I mean, I don't.

[1:19:28] I mean, I've definitely recommend movies

[1:19:29] that later on I've become,

[1:19:32] you know, like I've

[1:19:35] like I've recommended

[1:19:36] S. Craig Zoller movies before,

[1:19:38] and we all kind of know

[1:19:39] that he's not a cool dude.

[1:19:42] But yeah, he makes

[1:19:43] very violent movies.

[1:19:45] So so there's that.

[1:19:46] I mean, I feel like

[1:19:48] there's a lot of things

[1:19:49] that I'd like to qualify.

[1:19:51] But I'm I also like to think

[1:19:53] that over time,

[1:19:54] listeners have learned

[1:19:55] that a lot of the things

[1:19:56] I recommend are dumb.

[1:20:00] 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.

[1:20:13] 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, and apparently

[1:20:23] I recommended it in the same episode that I recommended The Fall, a movie that I love.

[1:20:27] Even though at times that movie is almost embarrassingly sincere and overwrought, but

[1:20:32] I love that movie so much.

[1:20:33] So it just surprised me, like, oh, I had a movie that I love and I still love on there.

[1:20:38] Why didn't I recommend this other movie?

[1:20:39] I was going through all of them and I occasionally found movies that were foreign movies or old

[1:20:45] movies where I didn't really remember them that well.

[1:20:46] I was like, oh, I recommended this movie, I must have liked it a lot, but I don't really

[1:20:49] remember it particularly, and that was a strange experience.

[1:20:53] It's funny that thing you bring up about The Fall being almost embarrassingly overwrought

[1:21:00] and sincere because I feel like movies like that, you will either love it or you will

[1:21:06] not like it at all.

[1:21:08] It'll cringe you to death.

[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, and if you don't vibe with that

[1:21:18] wavelength, it is going to bum you out.

[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] of 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, and that is a, that is like, and I really liked it at the time, I

[1:21:44] haven't watched it 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,

[1:22:07] which I loved.

[1:22:08] 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, this

[1:22:15] is how I feel, and I don't know that anyone else in the world feels this way, or will

[1:22:19] even like this.

[1:22:20] But I did, I did, it felt like, this is how everyone feels at some point in their lives,

[1:22:23] and I connect to you on, that we've all felt this way, at least that's what I got from

[1:22:26] it.

[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 gonna like this movie.

[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.

[1:22:47] But I think there's a difference between, like, an autobiographical movie that way,

[1:22:51] and a personal movie, a movie where it's like, you're not, you're trying less to, I mean,

[1:22:57] there's also like, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, it's a great movie, it's got

[1:23:00] a lot of great kung fu fighting scenes and action, things like that, like, it's still

[1:23:03] delivering the things that a mainstream movie audience wants, even though it's got a lot

[1:23:07] of silly, crazy ideas in it, it's delivering a lot of what makes a modern movie, whereas

[1:23:13] something like The Fall of the Fountain, like, at times, they're actively not delivering

[1:23:17] what a normal movie would deliver, like, or they're just interested in doing a different

[1:23:20] thing that's, there's just, I feel like it's, it gets up to that point, but it's not quite

[1:23:25] all the way there.

[1:23:26] But I could be wrong with that, again, it's just my opinion, but anyway, I would also

[1:23:30] say, but outside of the Flophouse podcast, like, there are many years where I recommended

[1:23:36] the movie Manhattan, and I was like, if you ignore the plot with Woody Allen in it, then

[1:23:41] there's a lot of really good stuff in that movie, but now it just feels like it's kind

[1:23:43] of hard to ignore that part of the plot, and it's hard to recommend a Woody Allen movie.

[1:23:47] There's, I still think there are, he's someone who, like, I'll never stop having, well, I'll

[1:23:53] never stop, I'll never stop having, like, a, an admiration for much of his work, but

[1:23:58] it's, obviously, I wish I could have me, like, mm, at least maybe recommend a different one

[1:24:02] of his movies, because that's one of the most problematic ones, you know.

[1:24:07] So, this second and final letter is from Willie, last name withheld, and the subject is...

[1:24:14] Loman.

[1:24:15] Should I drive my car against a wall for the insurance money for my family?

[1:24:19] No, keep being a salesman, Willie.

[1:24:21] Your family loves you more than the money.

[1:24:23] The subject is Rob Riggle...

[1:24:24] Spoiler alert for the death of a salesman.

[1:24:28] Subject heading is Rob Riggle, Ree, Topeka, Kansas.

[1:24:32] Mm-hmm.

[1:24:33] Dearest floppers.

[1:24:34] Okay.

[1:24:36] 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.

[1:24:46] 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

[1:24:55] Topeka, Kansas, home.

[1:24:57] Oh, we're finally back on point for this podcast.

[1:24:59] Yeah, yeah.

[1:25:00] It took a little while.

[1:25:02] Death on the Nile, 2022.

[1:25:05] Yep, that's your main credit.

[1:25:08] Yep.

[1:25:09] Two, Lois Smith, Tony Award-winning actress, True Blood.

[1:25:13] Three, Gwendolyn Brooks, U.S. Poet Laureate and the first African-American to win a Pulitzer

[1:25:19] Prize.

[1:25:20] Four, Max Yoho, parentheses, cool name.

[1:25:24] Five, Kansas, parentheses, band.

[1:25:28] Six, Ronald Evans, one of 12 people to have flown to the moon without landing on it.

[1:25:35] Seven, Brown.

[1:25:36] So it's kind of, it's an achievement, but it's not the biggest achievement you can have.

[1:25:40] Yeah.

[1:25:41] Seven, Brown versus Board of Education, parentheses, civil rights.

[1:25:45] Not a person, but still very important.

[1:25:48] Yeah.

[1:25:49] I mean, that was, I mean, I mean, Kansas was in the wrong in that one, but you know.

[1:25:52] Sure.

[1:25:53] Well, I don't think that's, they're just, these are just luminaries of some kind or

[1:25:57] another, whether.

[1:25:58] Eight, Pat Roberts, U.S. Senator, parentheses, shitbag.

[1:26:02] Okay.

[1:26:03] Yep.

[1:26:04] Nine, nine, Fred Phelps.

[1:26:07] I assume that the shitbag is missing here as well.

[1:26:11] Yeah.

[1:26:12] Dr. Phil also lives, lived in Topeka for a short time.

[1:26:16] Shitbag number three.

[1:26:17] I hope you're enjoying this high quality, well-researched information.

[1:26:22] I will continue to send Dan Topeka updates, whether he reads them on the podcast or not.

[1:26:26] 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

[1:26:35] with your last name.

[1:26:36] That's a perfect venue for the Flophouse.

[1:26:39] Yeah, just an empty building.

[1:26:41] We shouldn't even advertise it.

[1:26:42] Someone has to stumble on it.

[1:26:43] Uh-huh.

[1:26:44] Yeah.

[1:26:45] That's what makes it cool.

[1:26:46] There's no sign.

[1:26:47] And then at the end, we all climb up into a chandelier and fly off into outer space.

[1:26:51] 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] The heavyside layer is a real layer of the atmosphere, and it is not a safe place for cats to be.

[1:27:04] No.

[1:27:06] So those cats, they are being sent to their death.

[1:27:08] The heavyside layer is a real thing.

[1:27:10] Cat disposal sort of system.

[1:27:12] Yeah, I guess I would like to see a breakdown of all the different layers of the atmosphere

[1:27:17] and whether they are or are not safe for cats.

[1:27:20] Yeah, yeah.

[1:27:22] It's technically called the Kennelly heavyside layer or sometimes called that.

[1:27:27] And it's also known as the E region.

[1:27:29] 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.

[1:27:38] Yeah.

[1:27:39] I mean, it's questionable about whether—

[1:27:42] I don't know how much audience there is.

[1:27:44] I mean, we'll probably lose money on it.

[1:27:47] They'll probably all bring tomatoes, you know, cabbages to throw.

[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 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 the area that we could do a show at.

[1:28:05] Yeah.

[1:28:06] You know, something like that.

[1:28:09] I rewatched—speaking of having things thrown at you, I rewatched Batman Returns recently.

[1:28:18] They had a rep screening of it at the Nighthawk Prospect Park.

[1:28:22] And I—it only increased my love of the movie, but there was a part of 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.

[1:28:47] Why are there vegetables already there to be thrown?

[1:28:51] And then the penguin says that, right?

[1:28:54] 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.

[1:29:09] 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] Yes, and pay us in sparkling water.

[1:29:21] Stuart will drink it.

[1:29:24] Do not—but I should mention, for any Orthodox Jews listening, don't dip your pay us in sparkling water.

[1:29:29] Dan just said pay us 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 pay us, your side curls, and dip them in sparkling water.

[1:29:37] Important clarification.

[1:29:38] It's not going to—it's just going to ruin the sparkling water.

[1:29:40] No one wants hair in their water.

[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—

[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.

[1:29:54] Let's do our movie recommendations, movies that might be—

[1:30:00] better use of your time than, uh, Venom, Let There Be Carnage.

[1:30:03] Oh, yeah.

[1:30:04] For a second, for a second, it sounded like you said Venom, Let There Be Carnage.

[1:30:08] Let There Be Carnage.

[1:30:09] I was like, leather, Let There Be Carnage, that's a cool metal album title.

[1:30:12] Oh, yeah.

[1:30:13] So, I'm assuming Dan has seen like 400 movies since the last recording.

[1:30:16] Uh...

[1:30:17] What are you gonna recommend?

[1:30:18] I've seen a lot, uh, but I'm gonna recommend a movie called, it's a new movie, I saw it

[1:30:23] at the Quad Cinema, uh, here in beautiful...

[1:30:26] Oh, the old Quad Cinema.

[1:30:27] New York, and it's called We're All Going to the World's Fair, uh, it's marketed as

[1:30:34] a horror movie, and I don't want to say too much about it, because I think that it plays

[1:30:39] with expectations well, but it's, uh, it's a movie that I think...

[1:30:43] There's so many horror films, thrillers, psychological thrillers, like, that don't seem to understand

[1:30:51] the internet, which is weird since we've been living with it so long now, like, movies that

[1:30:56] try and capitalize on it as a fearful thing usually get so much wrong, uh, but...

[1:31:04] You're saying I should stop, I should end my membership to Dee Snider's Strangeland.

[1:31:07] Yeah, yeah.

[1:31:08] Yeah, you shouldn't visit fear.com, but this movie really seems...

[1:31:13] Oh, man.

[1:31:14] What about fear.org?

[1:31:15] This movie really seems to understand the way the internet is breaking our brains in

[1:31:22] bad ways.

[1:31:23] Uh, I'll just give you sort of, like, the broad outlines of the main character, um,

[1:31:29] is Casey, uh, she is, uh, she is doing the We're...

[1:31:36] I'm Going to the World's Fair challenge, uh, which is sort of this vaguely defined internet

[1:31:41] creepypasta challenge where something bad will happen to you if you do these things,

[1:31:46] uh, you know, like, it's a new urban legend, uh, and the movie has a lot of ambiguity about

[1:31:55] sort of why various things are happening, what different people's motivations...

[1:32:02] I mean, there's really only two characters, but what their motivations are, how seriously

[1:32:06] they're taking any of it.

[1:32:08] It's a movie that kind of, like, shows the difference between bad and good ambiguity

[1:32:14] in movies.

[1:32:15] Like, I think a lot of movies that do it poorly do it by artificially holding back information,

[1:32:21] whereas this movie presents a lot of information, but there are a lot of sort of plausible character

[1:32:28] 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, you're sort

[1:32:40] of trying to puzzle out people's thoughts and motivations based on what you're seeing,

[1:32:47] uh, and it, it's, you know, it's an upsetting movie, 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

[1:33:01] and stuff like that, but I liked the way that it didn't feel beholden to that.

[1:33:05] It's not fully found footage.

[1:33:07] It's a movie that's like, we'll tell the movie sort of 70% in this found footage way,

[1:33:15] but when we feel the need to step outside of that to just show you stuff that's going

[1:33:20] on in these characters' lives, we will, and it's all the better for it.

[1:33:26] And also, there's, uh, the director of this, uh, film is trans.

[1:33:32] I don't know their pronouns, so I'll just use they, but, um, from doing some readings

[1:33:38] on it, there are some trans readings of the film that are very interesting that I, you

[1:33:44] know, as a cis man, you know, while watching it, we're not, was not, you know, equipped

[1:33:51] to sort of understand and like, you can enjoy it without that level, but it also added kind

[1:33:57] of an interesting level reading about it afterwards.

[1:34:00] Um, but it's, it's, it's a very interesting movie, kind of a movie that I think will be

[1:34:05] ripped off, uh, by much worse films in the future, but this one's very good.

[1:34:11] Yeah.

[1:34:12] I want to see it.

[1:34:13] Uh, 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, uh, the latest Robert Eggers movie.

[1:34:25] Um, 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, uh, it is a very straightforward, uh, tale of Viking revenge.

[1:34:37] Um, it's still a Robert Eggers movie.

[1:34:41] So it goes in some interesting directions and there's, uh, there's enough, like, I feel

[1:34:46] like there's enough, like details in the, in the corners of the movie to make it really

[1:34:51] exciting.

[1:34:52] Uh, there's some fun performances, uh, Bjork, Anya Taylor-Joy.

[1:34:57] And of course, Alexander Skarsgård, who is doing some of the most acting with his

[1:35:02] trap muscles I've ever seen somebody do.

[1:35:04] Like it feels like he literally was just given a Frazetta painting as a direction and it's

[1:35:11] like how to hunch over and look like you're a, like a triangle man.

[1:35:15] Uh, it did make me want to go work out, which I did.

[1:35:19] Um, but yeah, it's, uh, it's fun.

[1:35:22] It's violent.

[1:35:23] Um, it kind of feels like Robert Eggers, like making a play at making a straightforward,

[1:35:28] like, like historical blockbuster-y type movie.

[1:35:31] Um, I don't know how well it succeeds, but, uh, I liked it quite a bit.

[1:35:37] So check it out.

[1:35:38] The North Man.

[1:35:40] And I'm going to recommend a movie you can't see in theaters right now, unless it's a revival

[1:35:45] house.

[1:35:46] That's right.

[1:35:47] It's an old movie.

[1:35:48] I'm going to recommend An American Tragedy from 1931.

[1:35:50] This is a Joseph von Sternberg movie, uh, based on the novel by Theodore Dreiser.

[1:35:55] And for fans out there of the novel, which is an amazing book, uh, this movie handles

[1:36:00] the subject matter a little differently.

[1:36:01] The book is very much about, um, issues of capitalism and religion.

[1:36:06] And instead the movie is very much more about, um, kind of like sexual hypocrisy.

[1:36:11] You know, men being able to kind of cast away women, uh, and women not having the freedom

[1:36:15] to do that, uh, but that the rich have more, they can do that more than the poor.

[1:36:20] There's some class stuff in there, but anyway, uh, it's the story of a young man who comes

[1:36:25] 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

[1:36:32] a richer woman.

[1:36:33] Uh, but at that point he's already impregnated the poor woman and he decides he has to figure

[1:36:37] out a way to get rid of her so that he can marry this, uh, this rich woman before she

[1:36:41] loses interest in him.

[1:36:43] And there's a sort of, uh, neurotic anxiety that kind of hovers around the whole movie.

[1:36:49] Uh, and, uh, it's very, it makes you, it makes me feel very unsettled, uncomfortable in a

[1:36:54] way that I liked a lot.

[1:36:56] And just be, it's a pre-code, uh, Hollywood movie.

[1:36:59] So it just means that it is much more frank in the way it talks about certain things than,

[1:37:02] uh, than movies a few years later would be.

[1:37:06] And I really liked it, especially because it's got Sylvia Sidney in it.

[1:37:08] I love Sylvia Sidney and she plays the factory girl, uh, and is really fantastic in it.

[1:37:13] So that's an American tragedy rated probably like PG 13 now maybe, but at the time it would've

[1:37:21] been kind of hard.

[1:37:22] But the scene where they're surfing on top of vans, yeah, exactly.

[1:37:27] Yeah.

[1:37:28] You can't do that.

[1:37:29] Uh, so that's three recommendations.

[1:37:32] We did it guys.

[1:37:33] Recommendations.

[1:37:34] Guys.

[1:37:35] Three recommendations.

[1:37:36] Great.

[1:37:37] Good stuff.

[1:37:38] Perfect.

[1:37:39] Guys.

[1:37:40] That's from the 12 Nights of Recommendations.

[1:37:44] In a world increasingly controlled by billionaires, where creators are pushed further into the

[1:37:50] margins in order to make a living, it is amazing that we're able to make a show directly supported

[1:37:56] by you.

[1:37:57] Now, Ellie and Dan are more versed in working in the world of entertainment, but being able

[1:38:02] to make a living in a creative field without massive corporate oversight feels like a luxury

[1:38:05] to me.

[1:38:07] 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.

[1:38:18] But again, if we hit, oh wait, I have it right here.

[1:38:22] If we hit 1900 new and upgrading members, we will raffle off a whole bunch of cool stuff,

[1:38:28] including signed Maniac of New York books, Hinterland swag, Dan drawings, all kinds of

[1:38:35] great stuff.

[1:38:36] If we hit 2300, we will be doing a commentary track for That's Right, The Country Bears,

[1:38:43] Dan's favorite movie.

[1:38:44] And if we hit 3500, we'll be doing quarterly movie audio commentaries, maybe even that

[1:38:50] food fight commentary that everybody's gagging for.

[1:38:53] Stewart's favorite movie.

[1:38:54] My favorite movie.

[1:38:57] So at this point, I am assuming I've finally swayed you.

[1:39:01] You should head over to maximumfund.org slash join and support this silly little show today.

[1:39:07] 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.

[1:39:19] Put them in the history book.

[1:39:20] Will there be a third one?

[1:39:22] Maybe.

[1:39:23] Probably.

[1:39:24] They're trying to.

[1:39:25] They're probably not, I guess.

[1:39:26] They're planning one.

[1:39:27] It'll be called what?

[1:39:28] Venom Goes Bananas.

[1:39:29] Venom and Monte Carlo.

[1:39:30] Yeah.

[1:39:31] Venom and Monte Carlo is actually pretty good.

[1:39:32] I like that.

[1:39:33] Yeah.

[1:39:34] OK.

[1:39:35] Well, you know, we've done a lot of talking, so I won't go through the whole spiel.

[1:39:36] I'll just say thank you to our producer, Alex Smith.

[1:39:37] You can find him at HowlDotty on Twitter.

[1:39:38] It's a it's a word that you'll figure out how to spell.

[1:39:39] Yeah, I trust you.

[1:39:40] For now.

[1:39:41] For the flop house.

[1:39:42] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:39:43] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:39:44] And this is Elliott Carrington, and I'll see you in the next one.

[1:39:45] Bye.

[1:39:46] Bye.

[1:39:47] Bye.

[1:39:48] Bye.

[1:39:49] Bye.

[1:39:50] Bye.

[1:39:51] Bye.

[1:39:52] Bye.

[1:39:53] Bye.

[1:39:54] Bye.

[1:39:55] Bye.

[1:39:56] Bye.

[1:39:57] Bye.

[1:39:58] Bye.

[1:39:59] Bye.

[1:40:00] Bye.

[1:40:01] Bye.

[1:40:02] Bye.

[1:40:03] Bye.

[1:40:04] Bye.

[1:40:05] Bye.

[1:40:06] Bye.

[1:40:07] Bye.

[1:40:08] Bye.

[1:40:09] Bye.

[1:40:10] Bye.

[1:40:00] and saying thank you for your support,

[1:40:02] this MaxFunDrive, and thank you for your support

[1:40:04] all year round.

[1:40:05] We really, really, really, really, really,

[1:40:08] really, really appreciate it.

[1:40:10] Bye.

[1:40:11] Bye.

[1:40:12] What is the number that comes after one?

[1:40:18] It's the loneliest number except for one.

[1:40:21] Two, the two.

[1:40:23] Yeah, that's a problem I have with this,

[1:40:25] the one that's the loneliest number,

[1:40:26] because the lyric was 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, you're full of contradictions.

[1:40:34] Stop trying to get a threesome going, buddy.

[1:40:37] Yeah.

[1:40:39] Maximumfun.org, comedy and culture.

[1:40:42] Artist owned, audience supported.

Ep. #369 - Venom: Let There Be Carnage

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