Episode #364 - Bliss, with Chuck Bryant

[0:00] Hey, Flophouse listeners, I know you're expecting to hear Dan's voice say on this episode, you will hear that.

[0:04] Don't worry, it's going to be amazing.

[0:06] We're going to have a really funny joke off of it, but I don't know what it is yet.

[0:08] But first, I wanted this is me, Elliot.

[0:10] And I want to talk to you about the Flophouse Live Masters of the Universe Show,

[0:13] which is coming directly to your computer screen if you buy a ticket to it.

[0:17] That's right. One week after this episode comes out Saturday, March 19th at 9 p.m.

[0:23] Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[0:24] We are going to talk about 1987's Masters of the Universe.

[0:28] So far, the only live action He-Man movie ever made.

[0:31] And probably it'll continue to be that way.

[0:32] But we'll see. There's going to be a lot of exciting things in the show.

[0:35] Original PowerPoint presentations we've never done before.

[0:38] I'm going to tell you some embarrassing stories of my childhood in my presentation

[0:42] that are He-Man related.

[0:43] And then we're going to talk about He-Man.

[0:44] We're going to take Q&A from the audience.

[0:46] If you've seen our live shows before, you know they are really fun.

[0:48] If you haven't seen them before, this will be a good one to see.

[0:51] The show is only going to be available for one week.

[0:54] That's right.

[0:55] If you miss the show, you can still watch the recording for one week afterwards

[0:58] if you have a ticket, but we hope you can see it live.

[1:01] If you can't, please buy it anyway so you can access the recording.

[1:03] That's March 19th, Saturday, 9 p.m.

[1:06] Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[1:07] Tickets will be on sale up to the very moment of the show.

[1:11] So please buy yours now.

[1:12] But consider buying it, you know, later if you decide to.

[1:16] But I'd rather you buy it now.

[1:17] And now, without further ado, let me tell you where to get those tickets.

[1:20] Theflophouse.simpletix.com.

[1:22] That's right, theflophouse.simpletix.com.

[1:25] That's where you get your tickets for The Flophouse Live Masters of the Universe show.

[1:28] $10 a ticket is a pretty good deal.

[1:30] You're going to get a lot of entertainment for your dollar.

[1:32] And now, on to the show.

[1:34] Dan, what are we watching on this episode?

[1:36] On this episode, we discuss Bliss, the movie that dares to keep kids off drugs.

[1:52] Hey, everyone, and welcome to The Flophouse.

[2:14] I'm Dan McCoy.

[2:15] Hey!

[2:16] It's me, Stuart Wellington.

[2:17] Oh, wow.

[2:18] Hey!

[2:19] I like hailing over here.

[2:21] And joining us for this very special episode, we have a star of podcast.

[2:30] We are joined by Chuck Bryant, host of Stuff You Should Know, formerly of Movie Crush,

[2:34] a podcast that all three of us were on that was about movies.

[2:37] Hey, Chuck, thanks for joining us.

[2:39] Yes, but I fired myself, so I don't do that show anymore.

[2:43] Oh, I'm so sorry that you fired yourself.

[2:45] Were you at least nice about it?

[2:46] I don't even know who's doing the show now, to be honest.

[2:49] No, the show retired, but after the flop special, the trifecta, the trio, it was hard to continue,

[2:55] to be honest.

[2:56] Yeah, we tend to ruin things.

[2:57] I think the same thing happened to Dissolve.

[2:58] Yeah.

[2:59] Yeah, the Dissolve we ruined, too.

[3:01] We tend to kill a lot of things.

[3:03] I told you guys, right, about, like, it was literally the day that the Dissolve went under.

[3:08] Dissolve.

[3:09] Like, Keith had reached out about, like, doing more stuff with us after we did that week

[3:15] on Taking a Pelham 1-2-3, and I was like, oh, I should get back in touch with him.

[3:20] And I said, hey, you know, do you want to do something else?

[3:23] And he's like, maybe you should look at the front page of the website today.

[3:28] And I'm like, oh, I'm sorry.

[3:30] Yeah.

[3:31] What a great site that was.

[3:32] Anyway, Chuck, Chuck is, yes, podcast royalty.

[3:35] I was looking up chart rankings to make my, to confirm what I knew already.

[3:41] Because Dan is a petty person.

[3:43] We are, we are, no, no, no, no, no.

[3:46] It's impressive.

[3:47] We are in and out of the top 100 comedy podcasts.

[3:52] More often we hang out in the top 200.

[3:55] Hell yeah.

[3:56] But, Chuck, when I saw him, when I saw, he was, the stuff you should know was in the,

[4:05] within the top 30, I can't remember exactly, of podcasts overall.

[4:09] That is all podcasts.

[4:11] And that, that is an amazing number considering as people like to joke, everyone has one now.

[4:17] So congratulations and thank you for wasting our time, wasting your time on our show.

[4:24] That was our regular segment, Dan McCoy, awkward pod ranker.

[4:28] He delivers, he delivers a compliment in a way that feels like he's angry at somebody.

[4:32] I'm not angry at anyone.

[4:33] Dan tries to pin dick our guest over here.

[4:36] I was trying to build up just how impressive that is.

[4:39] So you were in the top 30, but you know, that's cool.

[4:41] That's cool.

[4:42] We were in the top 200 too.

[4:43] So it's, you know, it's not like, uh, I'm trying to give a sense of relative importance

[4:49] to the podcast universe, whereas we are, we are solidly in the like, yeah, yeah, uh, people

[4:55] who know us like us, right.

[4:57] Zone.

[4:58] Whereas, uh, Chuck's in the zone of like, may have actually heard of this podcast.

[5:03] Oh yeah.

[5:04] Well Chuck's like a, like a network broadcast show and we're like, you know, it's one of

[5:09] the higher up cable channels, you know, it's not, it's not speed vision, but it's not the

[5:13] discovery channel.

[5:14] You know, it's somewhere in between.

[5:15] Yeah.

[5:16] It's somewhere in there.

[5:17] Thank you so much for joining us.

[5:19] Yeah, man.

[5:20] This is a dream come true.

[5:21] Cause you know, I am a, a flopper, big time flopper for many years now.

[5:25] It's one of my favorite shows.

[5:26] Awesome.

[5:27] Thank you.

[5:28] It's my, it's my happy go-to place.

[5:29] Uh, when I'm feeling blue.

[5:31] So would you say that it's where you find your bliss?

[5:34] Oh God.

[5:35] Oh, I got really nervous.

[5:36] I was about to start singing blue WD by.

[5:37] Yeah.

[5:38] I know what it's like to feel blue WDW die.

[5:39] Thank you.

[5:40] Stuart.

[5:41] Dan was angry at me for this movie pick.

[5:42] Uh, he just texted me yesterday.

[5:43] You son of a bitch.

[5:44] And then I said, I haven't watched it.

[5:45] I'm watching tonight.

[5:46] And he just said, steal yourself.

[5:47] It's not going to like my feelings about this movie.

[5:48] I'll just tell you that right off the bat.

[5:49] But we'll get into it.

[5:50] Yeah.

[5:51] Yeah.

[5:52] A little bit.

[5:53] I will be the dissenter.

[5:54] I think.

[5:55] Yeah.

[5:56] Yeah.

[5:57] Yeah.

[5:58] Yeah.

[5:59] Yeah.

[6:00] Yeah.

[6:01] Yeah.

[6:02] Yeah.

[6:03] Yeah.

[6:04] Yeah.

[6:05] Yeah.

[6:06] Yeah.

[6:07] I will be the dissenter.

[6:08] I think of this one.

[6:09] Should we fire up the engine on this thing?

[6:10] Let's do it.

[6:11] Let's say what we do on this podcast.

[6:12] Shall we?

[6:13] This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[6:14] In this case, we watched a movie, the movie Bliss, which stars Owen Wilson and Selma Hayek

[6:21] and a bunch of hats, a parade of hats.

[6:24] They don't wear that many hats.

[6:26] They wear more hats than you would expect.

[6:29] I would say.

[6:30] That's a good point.

[6:31] If your expectation was zero to three, then you will be surprised.

[6:34] And if if you're trying to watch the movie in advance of this episode, remember, it's

[6:38] Bliss 2021, not the other movies named Bliss.

[6:42] I know there is like a horror movie on Shutter that I think I recommended.

[6:45] And there's probably a bunch of other movies called Bliss.

[6:47] It's, you know, a one word title.

[6:49] Stuart, are you going to be handling the summary for this one?

[6:52] Oh, you know it, Elliot.

[6:54] Was that did I come on too strong there?

[6:58] Was that no, no, no.

[6:59] That was exactly the level of energy I was hoping for.

[7:02] Yeah, that's great.

[7:03] Right down the middle.

[7:04] OK, so this movie, Bliss stars Owen Wilson as a character named Greg Whittle, which,

[7:09] as you know, is means little in baby talk.

[7:14] And there is something kind of whittle about him.

[7:16] Yeah.

[7:17] He's sitting at his office desk at his job, which is at a business called Technical Difficulties.

[7:23] And he is drawing he's drawing these like black and white pencil sketches of a beautiful,

[7:29] well-appointed Mediterranean villa that looks a lot like the Sapienza level from Hitman.

[7:33] So I think that helps Dan and Elliot picture.

[7:36] Sure.

[7:37] Exactly.

[7:38] I mean, we saw the movie, so we don't really need to picture it for the audience at home.

[7:40] If they know the Hitman games, that'll certainly be helpful.

[7:42] Yeah.

[7:43] So he's a bit of a dreamer.

[7:45] He's got some trouble in his marriage.

[7:47] His daughter is I mean, his marriage is over.

[7:49] Is that he's divorced?

[7:50] That's the ultimate trouble.

[7:51] I'm right.

[7:52] The worst.

[7:53] I get more trouble than that.

[7:54] Yeah.

[7:55] A pool hall hasn't been built in his marriage.

[7:58] That's not the trouble we're talking about.

[8:01] I mean, that starts with D. That rhymes with T. That's trouble.

[8:05] I feel like at the point of divorce, usually most of the troubles over.

[8:09] Yeah.

[8:10] Yeah.

[8:11] Maybe.

[8:12] Maybe the problems are all done.

[8:13] Yeah, exactly.

[8:14] His marriage is doing great is what you're saying.

[8:15] Yeah.

[8:16] Yeah.

[8:17] That's the way the cycle of entropy works.

[8:20] OK.

[8:21] So, you know, he's a bit of a dreamer.

[8:24] His daughter is graduating.

[8:26] So she calls him and is urging him to get his shit together so she can come to her graduation.

[8:31] His job, the office seems to be in chaos.

[8:34] And there's a lot of like ringing phones and shouting while he sits in this office, procrastinating

[8:38] and drawing and not taking pills that he has a prescription for.

[8:43] And it's there.

[8:44] I think the movie is trying to convey something that is is fairly simple, but they draw it

[8:50] out and make it very annoying.

[8:51] How do you guys feel?

[8:52] Well, I was very confused, but like I this movie stressed me out right from the start

[8:58] where Owen Wilson is.

[9:01] He is told that the boss wants to see him and then he dithers around for like eight

[9:06] minutes.

[9:07] He dithers around doing other stuff.

[9:08] He decides that's when it's time to call the pharmacy to re-up his prescription.

[9:12] And that call goes for a long time.

[9:14] And it was it was I think they're trying to get across yet this guy does not have his

[9:18] act together and he lives in a world of stress.

[9:22] It's the way they've done it is at the at the time I was like, what what are we doing

[9:27] here?

[9:28] Like, come on, everybody.

[9:29] And then once the movie settled in on me, I was able to look back on it and go like,

[9:32] you know what?

[9:33] That was kind of a funny way to get it across that he is he is deliberately avoiding seeing

[9:36] his boss, even as the receptionist keeps angrily calling him and he's like, yeah, yeah.

[9:41] What other tasks can I get into right now?

[9:44] I just know that like even, you know, even at a job that I am not worried about getting

[9:50] fired from, which spoiler alert is what's about to happen.

[9:54] If the boss calls me, I I jump out of my chair and for fear of being.

[10:00] uh... being fired for angering the gods uh... yeah this it becomes a little bit

[10:05] clear what it is that uh... within the next couple minutes you'll realize that

[10:08] this movie is a bonkers universe movie and is not

[10:12] not a naturalistic movie and so then if this all makes more sense but at the but

[10:16] at the time you're like dude what's going on like what are you doing

[10:19] did you guys see uh... something that really annoyed me about this movie

[10:23] all throughout was it was

[10:25] humans kept doing things that like

[10:28] humans don't even do like did you see how he

[10:31] did you see how he checked it to see how many pills he had

[10:34] like first of all if you're on medication you'd like you'd know

[10:37] probably when your cycle is and when you're

[10:39] when you should re-up yeah he looked at it he stared at the pill bottle

[10:43] he shook it and then he held it up to the light

[10:45] and I was just like the script probably said he realizes he's low on pills and he's like

[10:51] how would I do that

[10:52] and it was annoying me immediately that's how I check like

[10:57] the liquor level when I'm doing inventory on like dark liquor bottles I have to hold it up to the light

[11:01] and just guesstimate it

[11:02] my guess is that in the script it said like he opens the bottle and pours you know three

[11:06] pills into his hand and then on set Owen Wilson just could not get that he's like

[11:09] I can't get these new caps open like I just the bottle won't open I don't like

[11:14] and at take seventy nine the director was like just shake it just hold him up to the light

[11:18] just shake it all the light he's like what if I do that what if I just shake it and hold it light

[11:21] that's what I'm telling you to do so I can't get this the cap I just can't wow it's like

[11:25] wow this is so hard to open wow and then the prop guy went oh I got the Owen Wilson proof caps

[11:31] I forgot I got the Owen Wilson proof cap

[11:35] yeah so he leaves to go to see his boss

[11:39] and as he walks out of his office he has left his wallet behind which all of a

[11:42] sudden like

[11:43] fuzzes out like it's some kind of digital artifact and I'm like what is going on

[11:48] we're in a matrix baby back to serenity

[11:52] I was like a ghost is stealing your wallet

[11:54] oh okay he didn't yep Samar is grabbing it so he goes to meet his boss

[11:59] his boss fires him for having low productivity and then he stands up too

[12:02] fast

[12:03] and his boss flies backwards cracking his head open on his desk and dies

[12:07] Owen Wilson then props the body that was the moment where I said okay now I think I understand what

[12:11] the way this movie is going oh yeah yeah well I gotta say

[12:16] it happens so quickly too as probably the dissenter here

[12:20] like this is the part that gave me hope this was like the part where I was like oh yeah yeah I'm in for it

[12:24] Elliot and Stu weren't lying on their text this will be great because

[12:29] he also stands up so unnaturally like

[12:33] like they are less than an inch away from each other and he

[12:37] pops up like a jack-in-the-box and the man

[12:40] immediately dies he kills the man and then he picks his boss up and he props him up

[12:45] against the window with an ingenious little bit of

[12:47] prop work where he threads his boss's

[12:50] shirt sleeves through the latches on the window so it looks like his arms are up

[12:55] like he's doing a like a field goal

[12:57] wow yeah it's just in the natural pose of a man pressing his entire face in front and palms against a window

[13:03] and then he draws the curtains across

[13:06] it was really really something else a perfect crime yeah

[13:10] so he quickly exits the

[13:13] the building he leaves he goes to his regular dive bar across the street

[13:18] he orders a double whiskey neat and he meets

[13:21] Isabel Clemens who is played by Salma Hayek

[13:25] who is a interesting way to pronounce it

[13:29] wait Hayek? Hayek? Hayek? I usually heard it

[13:32] what the fuck's wrong with you Elliot? I heard Hayek but Hayek you could try

[13:36] that sounds more Hayekian for sure

[13:40] what's up Elliot? look I'm trying to loosen up on Dan

[13:43] if I ease up on Dan it means I've got a heart up on you Stu

[13:48] okay so Salma Hayek is playing

[13:52] like an eccentric artistic

[13:55] unhoused lady who can manipulate objects

[14:00] and sees the world as either real or fake

[14:03] she manipulates objects with her mind I mean with her mind yeah

[14:06] yeah she doesn't just reach out and pick and smush them

[14:09] yeah she's not just one of those people who like is always

[14:13] I mean she could do that but it's not like she's just reaching out and fiddling with ashtrays and things like that

[14:16] and pouring all the salt out of salt shakers you know? it's true I do manipulate objects

[14:20] daily not just as a normal person

[14:23] at least once a day I try to manipulate an object of some kind just to make sure my hands still work

[14:28] you know? yeah sometimes people say I'm manipulating too much

[14:31] but I say that's private well that particular object you are manipulating too much

[14:34] the hair on your palms could indicate that yeah your eyesight fading is

[14:38] yeah you're manipulating that one object a little too much

[14:40] worth it

[14:43] but I look at the things that I'm using to help me manipulate it

[14:47] wait a minute my imagination of course

[14:52] I found a loophole God

[14:55] so from her window booth seat she has

[15:00] discovered that Owen Wilson has killed his boss and

[15:04] hidden the body because of course he propped him against a window

[15:07] and what can you do through windows Elliot?

[15:09] one of the best shots in the movie actually

[15:11] you can see them yeah that they look across the street

[15:13] and just see his dead body pressed against the window

[15:17] he's like right right that's one of those new two sided windows

[15:20] where you can look through both sides

[15:23] okay so she's like okay I will help you get out of this jam

[15:28] but you need to go to the bathroom and get a necklace

[15:31] that's filled with orange crystal drugs from my boyfriend

[15:35] and he's like oh wow okay and he goes and does it

[15:38] and luckily the boyfriend is passed out

[15:40] so she sets it up like it's going to be a big challenge

[15:42] and he's just passed out

[15:44] boyfriend played by a past guest of the show Ronnie Chang

[15:48] also a friend a nice man

[15:51] was that Ronnie Chang who was playing the boyfriend?

[15:54] Ronnie Chang played Kendo was he also the boyfriend?

[15:57] that's the same guy

[15:59] I don't remember seeing his face when he's passed out was it Ronnie?

[16:02] I'm pretty sure it's the same

[16:04] okay nonetheless we'll talk about Ronnie

[16:06] because I remember saying to myself oh there's Ronnie

[16:09] considering Kendo is the character they get these crystals from

[16:12] throughout the movie it could be

[16:14] that makes perfect sense

[16:16] when his name came up in the credits I was like

[16:18] Ronnie is doing so much work

[16:20] like he's in every movie that I see

[16:22] he's doing great

[16:24] we should have him on the show again he's too big for us

[16:26] I mean he's not Chuck Ryan but you know

[16:29] I realized we had a guest today

[16:32] we can talk about other people who are more famous than the guest

[16:35] he returns the necklace to Selma Hayek

[16:37] who or Isabel I guess

[16:39] who then takes out one of the

[16:41] yeah or Hayek

[16:43] both of them whatever it doesn't matter

[16:45] here's how I try to remember it is it's like I'm staying at the Selma Hayek

[16:47] and then I just instead of ending it

[16:49] Hayek I end it with an X sound

[16:53] like X versus Shepherd

[16:55] which is the other thing that you think of

[16:57] I'm like I'm staying at the Hayek

[16:59] to see X versus

[17:01] Shepherd and I remember it's X

[17:03] not X because of Axe body spray

[17:05] so that's the simple mnemonic I use

[17:07] to remember Selma Hayek

[17:09] I like to sometimes I go Selma

[17:11] and I are going on a kayak

[17:13] and that's how I remember it too

[17:15] so he returns the crystal necklace back

[17:17] to Isabel she then

[17:19] berates him for not stealing the wallet as well

[17:21] so he goes back to the bathroom and while

[17:23] he's on his adventure on his wallet quest

[17:25] she doses his drink with a crystal

[17:27] uh oh she then gives him

[17:29] a speech and then uses her magic to make the

[17:31] dead body of the boss fall out the window

[17:33] and look like he committed suicide

[17:35] case closed

[17:37] and we know it's case closed because there's a surprisingly large

[17:39] amount of news coverage of this

[17:41] of this random guy jumping out of a

[17:43] window they're like we get ongoing

[17:45] coverage about the movie of the investigation

[17:47] and that they've deemed it suicide and

[17:49] this would be at most like a

[17:51] 20 second story on the local news maybe

[17:53] you know did you hear the line

[17:55] that his his annoying you know

[17:57] the colleague that came to his office at the beginning

[17:59] and like really aggressively started like

[18:01] trying to see his drawings

[18:03] did you notice the line when the guy

[18:05] landed on the on the sidewalk

[18:07] no he ran Owen Wilson

[18:09] runs across the street and this guy yelled

[18:11] he just committed suicide in the

[18:13] middle of the day

[18:17] it's inexplicable

[18:19] why he would point that out

[18:21] that's a night time activity

[18:23] don't you know oh man

[18:25] during business hours

[18:29] they make their escape before they

[18:31] get found out and

[18:33] Isabel makes

[18:35] Greg pawn his cell phone

[18:37] at a pawn shop and

[18:39] they end up having to sell because he

[18:41] lost his wallet he can't go back to the hotel

[18:43] he's staying in and he doesn't have ID

[18:45] so when they sell his cell phone

[18:47] it is for only $10

[18:49] and Greg of course says

[18:51] wow they really ground grind you down

[18:53] for that no ID thing

[18:55] which is one of the many observations that

[18:57] Owen Wilson makes to all of

[18:59] Isabel's wild

[19:01] stuff

[19:03] his responses are always more along

[19:05] the lines of like when you're hanging out with

[19:07] your dad and he sees someone with like

[19:09] spiky hair and he's like

[19:11] I guess somebody's going to the barber today

[19:13] like that level of like

[19:15] hmm I guess they really grind you

[19:17] on that no ID thing

[19:19] I feel like that's some of the Owen Wilson

[19:21] charm

[19:23] shining through what's basically

[19:25] the character is

[19:27] going through a lot so the performance

[19:29] is a depressive performance but it's like

[19:31] you can't hide that little bit of

[19:33] Owen Wilson that wants to comment on everything

[19:35] like he's Popeye

[19:37] and it provides an interesting

[19:39] foil to

[19:41] Salma Hayek

[19:43] am I saying it right are you guys going to give me

[19:45] shit every time no I won't give you shit again

[19:47] it's a choose your own pronunciation do it however you would like

[19:49] and she like grabs a hold

[19:51] of this role with both hands and shakes

[19:53] it constantly it is she is

[19:55] all in on this thing which is

[19:57] you know like kind of the complete opposite of

[19:59] Owen Wilson

[20:00] It's like low-key charm.

[20:01] Not low-key, although he wasn't low-key

[20:03] and he was very charming.

[20:04] Do you guys know, have you seen,

[20:06] so I've seen, I saw this at Target

[20:08] and I was so, I was like, well, who would buy this?

[20:10] And they have, it's a 12-inch action figure

[20:12] of Owen Wilson's character from Low-Key

[20:13] and he comes with a clipboard

[20:15] and I think a jet ski magazine

[20:16] and it's like, what would you do with this?

[20:19] It's just a guy in a suit.

[20:21] Like, why would you own this?

[20:22] And the idea that like a child,

[20:24] like a grandma will be like,

[20:26] I got you one of those Marvel toys

[20:29] and it's this guy.

[20:30] I think you're operating on a very outdated sense

[20:33] of who's buying the action figures.

[20:36] Yeah, I feel like, what's the over-under

[20:38] on the number of butts that thing is going up?

[20:40] Well, I can see that.

[20:41] If you're buying it as a marital aid,

[20:43] then sure, I can understand that.

[20:44] Oh boy.

[20:45] You have to be the biggest Marvel completist

[20:47] to be like, you know who I need?

[20:48] I need Owen Wilson's businessman character.

[20:51] He's not a businessman, but you know what I mean?

[20:52] He looks like one.

[20:53] He's a detective.

[20:54] Time cop.

[20:55] But he's not a time cop that like,

[20:56] wears a time cop uniform.

[20:57] He's just in a suit.

[20:58] He doesn't do any splits or anything.

[21:00] Oh.

[21:01] No.

[21:03] That's most of the test too,

[21:05] if you're gonna get on the civil service exam

[21:06] to get into the time cop academy

[21:08] is whether you can do splits, yeah.

[21:10] I saw, I forget which, I think it was Kickboxer.

[21:13] I watched Kickboxer recently, guys.

[21:16] And there's a part in it.

[21:18] I don't know if you've seen Kickboxer.

[21:19] I don't know if I'm telling you stuff

[21:20] you already know, but there's a part in it

[21:22] where while he's getting trained,

[21:26] his legs are being pulled apart by ropes on winches.

[21:30] Like the guy who is training him is like.

[21:34] And I was like, oh man, the origin story

[21:37] of Van Damme's splits is in this movie.

[21:39] Like, they have to explain like,

[21:41] no normal human could do splits like this.

[21:44] No.

[21:44] Yeah, you gotta pop those legs out.

[21:46] So he goes back to her camp

[21:49] that she later refers to as her tarp home.

[21:52] Which is pretty funny.

[21:54] It's like a series of tents that are by an overpass.

[21:58] And they're going there to hide from the law.

[22:00] He can't go back to his hotel,

[22:01] which is where he's been staying since his divorce.

[22:03] So he sticks around.

[22:04] They share a stir fry.

[22:06] They have a drink.

[22:07] They're watching TV, which I think

[22:09] they can only watch on mute, she specifies.

[22:12] He learns that he's innocent.

[22:15] She teaches him how to light candles using her magic.

[22:18] And he says, are you kidding me?

[22:22] Finally, I don't have to walk across the room

[22:24] to light candles.

[22:25] I mean, that is a huge help.

[22:27] Like, let's say you're trying to have Hanukkah

[22:29] from a distance.

[22:30] There's a lot of-

[22:31] Look, I'm a fan of candles, Elliot.

[22:33] I have one lit right now across the room,

[22:36] Stuart can confirm, to make the place smell good.

[22:38] But it's not a big part of my life.

[22:41] Look, here's the scenario.

[22:43] I'm gonna give you two scenarios.

[22:45] One, you're taking a bubble bath.

[22:47] You go, oh no, I forgot to light that candle

[22:49] so I can really relax and get the spa experience.

[22:52] I don't have to get up, I'm all wet.

[22:53] Then you do it from across the room.

[22:55] Scenario number two, you're at a friend's house.

[22:57] They're having a party.

[22:59] You have to go to the bathroom.

[23:00] So bad all of a sudden.

[23:01] And you realize, uh-oh, I can't get up to light that candle

[23:05] because I'm stuck to this toilet

[23:08] and people are gonna smell it.

[23:08] Again, light that candle from across the room.

[23:11] It's an amazing ability.

[23:13] And it can be yours for only $49.99

[23:16] if you just get the Semiac Adelaide candle

[23:19] from across the room at.

[23:22] Is that a one-time cost?

[23:23] No, it's a weekly subscription.

[23:25] No, no, I don't think I'm interested.

[23:28] Okay, so he shows off, shows her his sick drawings

[23:32] of his pencil drawings of various homes

[23:35] that he wants to live in.

[23:36] She seems already kind of familiar with these

[23:39] and she asks where the dream home is

[23:41] and he responds, right here in the brain-powered mind

[23:45] of Greg Whittle.

[23:46] And that line works because she then begs him to kiss her.

[23:50] Yeah, yeah, and it's a little bit of foreshadowing

[23:54] about some brain power.

[23:57] Can I point out one other terrible line real quick?

[24:00] Please. Please.

[24:01] Just like this, I know this guy is supposedly

[24:03] like a pretty good science fiction writer,

[24:05] but did you notice what Salma Hayek was doing

[24:08] literally when she said the words, I'm living off the grid?

[24:13] She plugs in the string lights.

[24:17] And I was like, I don't know if this guy knows

[24:19] what living off the grid means when she says it literally

[24:22] as she's plugging in electricity

[24:24] for her beautiful string lights in her dartboard.

[24:26] And after they've been watching television.

[24:28] Yeah, it was pretty great.

[24:30] Anyway, just another ludicrous line.

[24:32] That's my segment, ludicrous lines.

[24:34] Ludicrous lines with CB.

[24:38] So meanwhile, we see that Greg's daughter

[24:42] is kind of going around town.

[24:45] She tracks down her brother and tries to convince him

[24:50] to help her find their dad,

[24:52] that she doesn't trust what her father's been telling her.

[24:55] And her brother does a pretty passable

[24:58] Owen Wilson impression.

[24:59] I thought that was pretty great.

[25:02] Okay, and then time seems to have passed

[25:03] because we now catch up with Greg and Isabel

[25:06] and they're at the roller rink.

[25:07] Oh boy, this is hot.

[25:09] This sequence is, this is an amazing sequence.

[25:12] Yes, lay it on us, lay it on us.

[25:14] By now, Greg is like full on skater boy.

[25:17] He's got a T-shirt,

[25:18] he's got a long sleeve underneath that thing.

[25:21] And they are roller skating around.

[25:23] Are they wearing hats yet?

[25:24] No, they don't have hats on yet.

[25:25] Well, the hair is floppy now.

[25:27] The hats are at the end of the scene.

[25:28] Yeah, his hair is definitely floppy.

[25:31] So they roller skate around.

[25:33] As befits the flop house.

[25:34] Yeah, thank you Owen for getting hair

[25:35] that works with the podcast.

[25:37] Yeah, they take some orange crystal pills,

[25:39] they fuck in the bathroom,

[25:40] then they use magic to terrorize the other skaters,

[25:43] including some old people,

[25:45] before escaping in stolen trench coats

[25:47] and ill-fitting fedoras.

[25:48] They're tripping skater after skater.

[25:50] And first it's like someone who rushes past them

[25:52] and then it's a guy who grabs a woman's butt.

[25:54] And they're like,

[25:55] he's a vigilante using his telekinesis to trip people.

[25:58] And then it's just everybody.

[25:59] And Isabel's like,

[26:00] I don't like those old people over there, okay?

[26:02] They're not real, go ahead and trip them.

[26:04] And he trips them and then eventually it cuts to them

[26:07] and they're standing in a roller rink

[26:08] where everyone else is lying on the ground prone,

[26:11] I assume killed by Owen Wilson's mind powers.

[26:13] Yeah.

[26:15] Well, it basically became zap.

[26:16] And they scream, king of the rink.

[26:18] And they stack up the bodies and jump on them.

[26:21] And then like Benny and June

[26:23] or like the teens in the 1979er videos,

[26:25] they run out laughing

[26:26] and steal some old people's hats and coats

[26:29] and just run out.

[26:31] So they go running out

[26:32] and the police are showing up at this moment

[26:35] and they stand watching the cops drive away

[26:38] with the suspects that the police have captured.

[26:41] And all of a sudden they see that the suspects are them

[26:44] in the back of the police car.

[26:46] And instead of them standing on the sidewalk,

[26:49] it's some other people wearing trench coats and fedoras.

[26:52] So we're like, what is going on?

[26:54] Is this movie, this movie isn't like a normal movie at all.

[26:57] Yeah.

[26:58] That's one reaction.

[26:59] This movie's a little twisted.

[27:01] Yeah, this movie's a little,

[27:02] this is, what is this?

[27:03] Did Cormac McCarthy write this?

[27:04] Because this thing is twisted.

[27:05] It's fucking twisted, dude.

[27:08] So they've been,

[27:09] they're arrested and they're released.

[27:11] They're released and Omosa goes,

[27:13] ask me if I told them my name.

[27:14] I didn't.

[27:15] And she goes, I didn't tell them your name either.

[27:16] And it's like, well,

[27:17] it's not like when you get arrested,

[27:18] they go, what's your name?

[27:19] And you go, I'm not going to tell you.

[27:20] And they're like, then I guess we can't hold you.

[27:22] We don't even know who you are.

[27:24] You can go.

[27:25] You found the one loophole in the criminal justice system.

[27:29] Yeah, I mean-

[27:30] Says right here in the book,

[27:30] you can't arrest someone without a name.

[27:32] Okay, off you go.

[27:34] They both like look and behave

[27:36] as if they're tweakers, right?

[27:39] Okay.

[27:40] And it's also the middle of the day still, by the way,

[27:42] this packed roller rink of adults

[27:45] and old people on walkers.

[27:47] It's still in the middle of the day.

[27:49] I guess they didn't want to shoot nights or what?

[27:51] No, and just the idea that an old lady with a walker

[27:53] is entering the rink, not just the building,

[27:56] but she's about to step onto the rink

[27:58] where the skaters are.

[28:00] It's a moment where you're like,

[28:01] the more you pull the threads out from it,

[28:03] the less anything makes sense on any basic level.

[28:06] My one dying wish,

[28:08] I remember when I was a young girl,

[28:10] I skated so beautifully.

[28:12] Surely nothing will happen to me

[28:14] that's bad at the roller rink today.

[28:18] No one's ever been hurt at a roller rink.

[28:22] So, time seems to continue passing.

[28:25] His daughter is going to run down motels looking for him.

[28:29] That's possibly just because time is an illusion

[28:31] that our consciousnesses have developed, Stuart.

[28:34] Let's make that clear.

[28:36] That sounds like stuff you should know, Chuck.

[28:37] What do you think?

[28:39] All I know is it's constantly daytime in this world, so.

[28:45] So, now at this point, Greg and Isabelle

[28:47] stop off for some artisanal chicken sandwiches.

[28:51] Artisanal is an interesting way to describe it.

[28:53] You just stole my ludicrous line.

[28:54] That's what he orders.

[28:56] Yeah, oh, that's true, yeah.

[28:58] Well, there are-

[28:59] Now, what artisan carves the chicken?

[29:02] It's two artisanal sandwiches,

[29:05] two orders of fries, and two drinks, and it's $12.

[29:07] So, I'm sure it's very high quality stuff.

[29:10] Yeah.

[29:12] Meanwhile-

[29:13] She goes, get me a chicken sandwich.

[29:15] And he's like, okay.

[29:15] And then he watches her run off,

[29:17] get into a car with a John, and then drive away.

[29:19] And it's like, it takes him a while,

[29:22] it takes it a while for him to realize

[29:23] that his beloved that he's been with

[29:26] for who knows how many days,

[29:27] because again, it's always daytime,

[29:29] that he's just murdered a roller rink full of people for,

[29:33] I guess, is sex working on the side.

[29:36] Yeah, either it seems to be working as a,

[29:39] yeah, either it seems to be working

[29:40] as a full service sex worker,

[29:41] or possibly just tricking them and attacking them,

[29:44] which she does later.

[29:45] Which later happens, yeah.

[29:46] But he still tries to get those Sammies.

[29:48] Yeah, and he gets them, and he gets them,

[29:50] just not the way he expected.

[29:51] Yeah, that's right, the hard way.

[29:52] Yeah.

[29:53] Yeah, I mean, she asked for it,

[29:54] they're in a relationship, it seems.

[29:56] They're soulmates, that's specifically what they say.

[29:58] So, while he's at the-

[30:00] restaurant, his son happens to be there and his son witnesses him behaving like a tweaked

[30:08] out drug guy.

[30:09] He says he doesn't have the $12 on him to buy these sandwiches, so he goes, ìMaybe

[30:14] I'll order them laterî as if the money will miraculously appear in his hands.

[30:20] He goes and hides behind the chicken sandwich restaurant and then the employee who he spoke

[30:25] to previously just gives him a bag of old chicken sandwiches, which of course he's

[30:31] very excited about.

[30:39] The screenwriter felt the need to point out the company policy for how long the chicken

[30:43] sandwiches had to sit, because the guy says, ìYou know, at the two-hour mark when they've

[30:47] been sitting, we can bring them out to youî.

[30:50] You have to understand they're no longer considered artisanal at this point, but you still want

[30:54] them.

[30:55] Formerly artisanal.

[30:56] And he just throws them away and goes, ìI don't want them, noî.

[31:00] This is a much more positive experience than, is it Slamma Jamma?

[31:03] Is that the one where he's sitting outside the back of a grocery store eating moldy bread

[31:09] while crying?

[31:11] Was that the one?

[31:13] This one, Owen Wills is very appreciative and somehow he comes back and he goes, ìThey're

[31:17] cold, but they're goodî and it's like, ìOkay, maybe it is artisanal, you know?

[31:23] So they need to get more of the yellows, the oranges, the crystals.

[31:32] So they go to her drug dealer, so she meets up with him and her connection is played by

[31:40] Ronnie Chang playing Kendo, who is some kind of a drug scientist.

[31:46] And while she's doing that, Owen Wilson is outside and he gets offered a variety of slang

[31:51] drug terms and then shows off his butt.

[31:55] Amazing.

[31:57] One of my favorite parts of this movie was when the drug dealer inexplicably just pulls

[32:02] his pants down as he walks off.

[32:05] It's one of those moments that you're like, I don't know if anyone on set knew what was

[32:10] going on at that moment.

[32:11] I thought I was being fucked with at that point.

[32:13] I was like...

[32:14] It made me wonder if that was not an actor and this is just something that happened while

[32:16] they were shooting at night and they let it stay in the movie.

[32:19] That's his signature move.

[32:21] He does that in everything he's in.

[32:22] It's one of those things where it's like, do you want any drugs?

[32:25] No, I don't want any.

[32:26] You don't want any drugs?

[32:27] You want any now?

[32:28] Well, now that I've seen your butt, yes, I do want drugs.

[32:33] I missed that he was a drug dealer, so I assumed, and maybe this still applies, that it was

[32:39] some sort of come on for other services.

[32:43] That is possible.

[32:44] I wasn't familiar with all the slang terms he used.

[32:47] So, hey, in that case, it's tough if you don't know the slang.

[32:53] It's like when you go to In-N-Out and you don't know the off menu, and you're like,

[32:59] I just want 12 burger patties on top of one another, can you please put it on the menu

[33:03] so I know how to order it, please?

[33:07] Don't treat this like we're spies, like with code words.

[33:09] This isn't a speakeasy, a burger speakeasy.

[33:13] There's nothing illegal about these hamburgers, so just advertise them.

[33:17] I want to give you money in exchange for 12 hamburger patties stacked on top of each other,

[33:21] so just tell me how to do it.

[33:22] Is it a yurtle?

[33:23] Is that what it's called?

[33:24] Just tell me.

[33:25] It's the same way every airport in America seems to have different rules for whether

[33:31] your shoes go on or off the conveyor belt in the metal detector, or the scanning machine.

[33:37] It's like, just tell me.

[33:39] Don't yell at me when I do it wrong, just tell me how to do it.

[33:44] If it's a local thing to different places, like they have different stuff, that's fine,

[33:50] but the level of anger sometimes when you do it wrong, and it's just like, man, it's

[33:55] different all over the place.

[33:57] Just let me take my shoes off, it's fine.

[34:00] You guys don't have known traveler numbers yet?

[34:03] You haven't applied for them?

[34:04] Oh man.

[34:05] It's sheer laziness on my part.

[34:06] Oh man.

[34:07] I thought you had to be a gnome to do that.

[34:08] Yep, it's gnome travelers.

[34:09] Gnome travelers.

[34:10] Like Gnome Chomsky?

[34:11] Yeah, you got it for free.

[34:13] Yeah, Gnome Chomsky, he's such a controversial gnome.

[34:16] More controversial than other gnomes, you know?

[34:19] Okay, so while he is waiting outside, his daughter Emily finally tracks him down.

[34:26] She tries to convince him to come with her and to get cleaned up, but he wants her to

[34:31] wait for Isabel.

[34:33] So Emily's like, no, I'm not going to do that, and just leaves.

[34:35] He goes, no, I'm going to make it to your graduation, and she goes, graduation was two

[34:40] weeks ago, dad.

[34:42] And he is noticeably upset for a moment, but it's Owen Wilson, he's never that upset about

[34:47] much of anything in the movie.

[34:48] He's just kind of like, takes bad news a little roughly, and then gets back to his main thing,

[34:52] which is hanging out with Isabel.

[34:54] He also describes what graduation is earlier in the movie, I don't know if you remember

[34:58] that.

[34:59] Another ludicrous line.

[35:00] Oh!

[35:01] Ding, ding!

[35:02] He's talking about looking forward to it.

[35:03] Here comes another ludicrous line!

[35:04] That's the thing for it.

[35:05] He says, he went, yeah, I'm going to go, I'm going to watch you walk across the stage and

[35:11] in your cap and gown and get your diploma handed to you.

[35:14] I'm like, what?

[35:15] Who is writing this movie?

[35:17] Well, that's for aliens who may be watching the movie and are confused by it.

[35:23] There are a lot of things in the movie where they'll just throw a thing at you and they'll

[35:25] be like, you get it, right?

[35:26] But then, yeah, the most basic aspect of modern life, they're like, we better explain this.

[35:31] Anyway, people need roofs to live under so that rain doesn't hit them while they're sleeping.

[35:36] We should explain that.

[35:38] I like that explanation of why we have roofs.

[35:41] I mean, it's one of them.

[35:43] Rain doesn't get them.

[35:44] It's a big one.

[35:46] So Isabel returns with the crystal drugs.

[35:50] Some guys in a van start to hassle them.

[35:52] So Owen Wilson takes a whole handful of pills and then crushes it with his telekinetic powers.

[35:58] Yeah, time to like Akira.

[36:02] Was the guy in the van, was that the same guy that tried to seduce Owen Wilson with

[36:06] his butt and the promise of drugs?

[36:09] That's the thing.

[36:10] It all blurs together, Elliot.

[36:11] I can't tell.

[36:12] I wasn't sure if it was the same guy or not.

[36:13] I guess this is a real.

[36:14] It was Kendo, the passed out boyfriend situation for me.

[36:16] If he stuck his butt out the window instead of his face, I probably would have recognized

[36:20] and then started talking out of it like Ace Ventura.

[36:23] Oh, man.

[36:24] The thing is, that stuff is still funny.

[36:26] Yes.

[36:27] Still hilarious.

[36:28] It was like, oh, excuse me, I need you to butt out of my neighborhood.

[36:31] And I've got a guy waving a gun around in his butt unless you want to buy some drugs.

[36:37] You better get out of here.

[36:38] You're going to be a rectum.

[36:39] Oh, wait.

[36:40] I guess Guy needs to work on his puns a bit.

[36:46] Can I anus you a question?

[36:48] Oh, God, stop it.

[36:51] I do enjoy watching Stuart laugh at it.

[36:56] Stuart's fake laughter is a joy to me.

[37:00] Yeah.

[37:01] Greg wakes up in the camp and he packs his stuff, including his drawings, and goes to

[37:05] a community center to call his daughter from a pay phone.

[37:09] He leaves a message.

[37:10] When he returns, Isabella is kind of freaking out, worried that he's left her and she's

[37:14] concerned about their dwindling drug supply.

[37:17] And she's behaving like she's going through withdrawal at this point.

[37:20] Yeah.

[37:21] So she thinks he is too attached to his daughter, who is not real.

[37:25] So they're going to need to take a different kind of crystal.

[37:28] They need to take a bunch of blue crystals that you put into like a metal tube that goes

[37:32] up your nose.

[37:33] And then you each have to take 10 of them.

[37:35] And that will take you out of the simulation that you're in as long as you're real and

[37:39] not fake like all the other people.

[37:42] So but they don't have exactly 10.

[37:44] So they take a partial dose and they squirt it up their nose and wake up in the future.

[37:52] They're in a laboratory, all connected through their noses to a giant thing called a brain

[37:55] box filled with brains.

[37:57] Other people, including Ronny Chieng.

[37:59] Yep.

[38:00] Ronny Chieng is also connected to this.

[38:03] Isabel tells a lab tech, Isabel, who is Dr. Clemens at this point, tells a lab, a bunch

[38:09] of jargon to a lab tech that implies that this is one of many simulations and they are

[38:12] forced to eject and that there's a few people that are in the simulation.

[38:17] They're real.

[38:18] And everybody else is an FGP.

[38:20] That stands for fake generated person.

[38:23] Yeah, now, Elliot, this is the part this this whole segment of the movie.

[38:30] Yes.

[38:31] Is the part that angered me the most?

[38:32] Because the scales have fallen from your eyes and you see, you know, you're like, oh, wow,

[38:35] I know it.

[38:36] I know what reality is.

[38:37] The higher reality is I should have taken the red pill.

[38:40] The exact opposite is, in fact, this case, I knew by this point is clear.

[38:47] It should be clear to anyone viewing this film.

[38:50] This is a film about these people who, you know, are down and out.

[38:54] They are engaged in a shared delusion spurred on by the circumstances in their life and

[39:00] their drug addiction.

[39:03] And now we go full into fantasy mode for a very long period of the movie.

[39:07] And I guess the part that angered me about it was just like, yeah, OK, I know that none

[39:12] of this is real.

[39:13] Why are we spending so much time in this universe?

[39:17] This sequence, I actually like a lot of stuff.

[39:19] I mean, I'm going to say spoiler to Final Judgments, I actually like this movie a fair

[39:23] amount.

[39:24] It's a very successful movie.

[39:25] But I like some of the things it does in trying to pull off this trick that it doesn't really

[39:29] pull off particularly well.

[39:30] But the I think you're right.

[39:32] This sequence is too long.

[39:34] But I like how there are certain things in this sequence that are a a person who has

[39:39] who does not know what they're talking about, idea of what what a utopian future would be.

[39:44] So there's a part where Isabel is like, there's three things that made the future perfect.

[39:49] One, automation, two, asteroid mining, three.

[39:54] And I forgot what the third was.

[39:55] Sympathetic biology.

[39:56] She asked him.

[39:57] She's like, what are the three things?

[39:58] Can you guess?

[39:59] And I'm like.

[40:00] synthetic biology and it's like artisanal chicken

[40:03] and those are the kinds of things that like those the kinds of buzzwords that

[40:07] like

[40:08] a person might hear and in their psychosis or in their

[40:11] you know the distortion of a drug mind would try to tie together into some

[40:15] reality or like she later she goes

[40:16] your invention the thought visualizer and it's like

[40:19] yeah a screen where you think things and they appear as a cartoon and it's like

[40:23] yeah I believe this is like someone who's not a scientist's idea of what

[40:26] science might be like in the future

[40:27] like a baby. I did think it was funny though like the third thing

[40:31] was like asteroid mining and what Wilson's

[40:35] reaction was I never would have thought those I never in a million years would have said those

[40:39] ones and I'm like

[40:40] yeah yeah it's true you wouldn't have no one would have

[40:44] I just you know when he asks about the thought visualizer she says

[40:49] you know I'm waiting for the more the obvious explanation

[40:52] that this movie does over and over and she just goes in her great

[40:57] it's a thought visualizer and that's all she says

[41:01] yeah except for wearing a pickle like that's that's the other big

[41:06] like line is they show everything in the thought visualizer except

[41:11] the most like I guess the best joke in the thought visualizer which is wearing

[41:14] a pickle

[41:15] which I assume is them literally in a pickle but it never shows it

[41:19] and that later on

[41:22] they're gonna let your own brain your own brain powered mind

[41:26] do the work on that one. You're like is that a kosher pickle?

[41:29] Is that a half sour? Is that a whole sour? What kind of pickle is it?

[41:33] Or that spoiler alert I assume for what Stuart's gonna say later that they go to a big

[41:37] scientist party and they meet Bill Nye there

[41:40] because he appeared on a television earlier in the movie who's really funny in this

[41:43] and it's like and it's like yeah this guy's not a scientist

[41:47] I mean also what's his name

[41:51] that philosopher

[41:53] Slavoj Zizek is in there and I don't believe that Owen Wilson would have

[41:57] heard of him but I know the filmmakers did but like the like a

[42:00] if a person was like a regular person is not plugged into science would be like

[42:03] yeah I went to this big science party and you know who's there? Bill Nye

[42:07] because he's the most famous scientist like I'm surprised Neil deGrasse Tyson didn't show up

[42:11] because

[42:11] all you have to do to get him in your movie is just say the words Neil deGrasse

[42:14] and he appears before you and just wears a camera

[42:19] so we're jumping ahead so they're currently in a weird futuristic

[42:22] university

[42:23] everything is marble everything's white or beige

[42:26] in addition to the people

[42:29] again looks like Sapienza yeah they in addition to the people walking around

[42:34] there's also holographic projections of people walking around

[42:38] this was my ludicrous line that I liked here he goes what's with all the

[42:41] ghost people or hologram people like he's gotta hedge his bets they might be ghosts

[42:46] and also that the hats get a lot better in this world

[42:50] oh yeah much leaner nicer hats yeah those are carbon free hats those hats

[42:54] aren't contributing to climate change

[42:56] yeah finally so they explore the like the waterfront part of the town

[43:00] and Owen Wilson gets really excited for olive oil at which point Isabel says

[43:04] put that brain boner away

[43:08] unbelievable yeah and there's a

[43:11] and there's these they're all these like I don't know it's

[43:15] it's a ridiculous idea of what a utopia would be like

[43:18] they've got olive oil here we've got to get it for the house

[43:21] yeah put that brain boner away like we've got olive oil at the house

[43:24] we have gallons of it yeah like it's it's the

[43:28] you know there's that old John Mulaney joke about how Donald Trump is a

[43:32] is a homeless person's idea of a rich person where it's like yeah I'm gonna have a big

[43:35] gold building with my name on it

[43:37] like this is his idea of a utopia where he's rich is that he has

[43:41] gallons of olive oil at his house

[43:44] I liked all that stuff but it does go on for too long goes on for a long time

[43:48] so they also point out in the distance there is a hotel that had been featured

[43:52] in his drawing the hotel Pleiades

[43:55] which Isabel says Pleiades what a beautiful name

[43:58] play at ease and I'm like that's I don't think that's what that means

[44:03] she also says what better name for a hotel with an observatory

[44:07] and they never go to the observatory there's no reason for it to be there

[44:11] it's just it's such a strange detail to go out of your way to comment on and

[44:14] never do anything with

[44:15] yeah it was really weird but at least at this point in the movie we know why Owen

[44:19] Wilson signed on because

[44:21] he read the script and he said so I'm gonna go to Italy and make out with Selma

[44:25] Hayek a lot

[44:25] okay yes yeah I don't it'd be hard for him to say no to that project

[44:30] yeah sure yeah for even the character in the movie there's worse

[44:33] reasons to ruin your life sure

[44:37] okay so they're hanging out their villa his memory hasn't returned strangely it

[44:42] should have returned even though they're out of the simulation

[44:44] and then we cut back to the simulation

[44:47] where his daughter Emily is still looking for him that's strange

[44:51] because that's just a simulation and she's an FGP what's going on

[44:55] mm-hmm Selma explains about the three things that cause this utopia again

[45:00] automation synthetic biology and asteroid mining

[45:04] I'm sure you guess all the listeners guessed

[45:06] they're getting really stoned too

[45:09] I mean that that's a utopia they she pulls out a TV screen that is the

[45:13] thought visualizer that has animation similar like the Fallout video game

[45:18] and you like tell the TV what you want and it'll show it to you right

[45:23] it's incredibly useless because

[45:27] it's just visualizing what you're imagining at the moment he's like

[45:31] oh wow like a tiger riding on the beach and there's a dinosaur in a bikini and

[45:35] it's like okay there's like it's not that useful

[45:38] you can cut out the middle man in this yeah I don't have to think about the

[45:42] thing and that's what it looks like she goes she goes and now it's this is

[45:47] we're gonna do it my bit my favorite one we're in say we're in a pickle and he

[45:50] says it and they laugh but you don't get to see the screen yeah and then later

[45:53] Bill Nye is like hey have you tried it with we're in a pickle yeah so they

[45:58] decide to have one more day in paradise because she wants to go back into the

[46:02] simulation he's like no this is amazing why would we do that so they decide to

[46:06] have one more day in paradise they ride a boat they again put on some nice hats

[46:11] they get off the boat immediately go into a mixer so you know it's paradise

[46:16] it's a mixer between artists and scientists Bill Nye shows up he suggests

[46:22] that her research isn't doing so well and then Isabelle and Greg get into a

[46:27] fight we have the philosopher talking about turtles all the way down meanwhile

[46:32] they're being observed by a pair of holograms that look a lot like his FGP

[46:37] daughter what do you guys think it is yeah good work Columbo one more thing

[46:47] this looks like a picture of you yeah it is a picture of me okay well case closed

[46:54] you are you yeah Greg doesn't want to go back into the simulation so he convinces

[47:03] Isabelle to present her findings on stage she says as long as he'll sit and

[47:07] be interviewed for it so they do this big presentation the signs describe it

[47:13] as the ugly simulation process I'm not quite sure what is supposed to be

[47:21] demonstrated here like she says a thing and then she and then I guess she also

[47:28] says the thing that's more true like the her science allows us to hear that I

[47:33] didn't really well it's a mood-altering thing the idea is that you get so used

[47:38] to paradise that you start to know about the tiny things and it's no longer

[47:41] satisfying but then you spend a little time in the brain box experiencing how

[47:45] crappy life used to be and when you come back out of it you feel great and you

[47:48] experience you appreciate things again so she's like showing this vid she asked

[47:52] him hey how's life it was a before and after interview yeah the first interview

[47:57] followed by his like exit yeah so she so she asked him she's like how's life and

[48:01] he's like it's amazing I love everything and then she shows the old interview

[48:04] pre-brain box and she's like how is everything and he's like I can't get the

[48:08] pool temperature right this fucking sucks like the idea is the it's

[48:13] essentially the children's book it could always be worse but you know in an

[48:17] incredible science fiction scenario where you put yourself through a crappy

[48:21] place that when you come out you're like you know what paradise is nice maybe it

[48:24] doesn't matter if the pool is a little cold at least I'm not living under an

[48:28] overpass in a kind of tent city shoving crystals up my nose you know well it

[48:32] turned into a like a rich guy's Yelp review of some really awesome place

[48:36] basically he's and during the interview at one point he gets distracted by the

[48:43] holographic projected projection of his FTP daughter Emily but for all intents

[48:49] and purposes this presentation goes on she she's used him as a successful

[48:54] example of the experiment and the crowd goes crazy like they're loving it it's

[48:58] also it's a hilarious presentation of science because it's like she could have

[49:02] just said hey pretend that you really like stuff now like there's no data you

[49:08] need you would have to do a study of many people under control circumstances

[49:11] let me you don't think it works well let me ask my husband and lover if it

[49:15] works yeah I think it works like it's not even at the level of teaching Peter

[49:22] Boyle how to sing and dance to putting on the wrist so during the after the

[49:30] presentation mixer he tracks down the hologram of his daughter who suddenly

[49:36] becomes real and she urges him to come back and that she's concerned for him

[49:42] but he's confused and then she gives him the crystal necklace and then she's

[49:49] telling some kind of a story and it is summarized with braids not brains right

[49:56] feels like a weird improv yeah

[50:00] So she wants him to choose between the two worlds and the simulation starts to blur into

[50:08] this futuristic world.

[50:10] Sometimes the wall looks like a rundown slum, other times it's this beautiful, I guess,

[50:15] like university.

[50:18] He takes an orange pill and starts to use powers again, making way for Isabel so she

[50:24] can escape the press of rioters.

[50:29] And everything starts to devolve into chaos, they need to get back into the lab and jack

[50:33] back into the brain box so they can get the ten crystals, which is the only place to get

[50:37] the blue crystals.

[50:38] You need to go back into the brain box, which is where they make the blue crystals, and

[50:42] they need to take ten each or else it won't work.

[50:45] The only way to get out, again, this is, Dan, as you've mentioned, the drug-addled dementia

[50:50] of a man having a psychotic break.

[50:52] But yeah, they have to go into the brain box so they can finally escape the brain box.

[50:57] Now was this the part where they had the sort of scene where they were running on the

[51:00] rooftops together?

[51:01] Yes.

[51:02] Oh, no, no, that was later.

[51:05] As soon as they jack back in.

[51:06] Yeah, as soon as they get in.

[51:07] All right, well, probably another Ludacris line coming up.

[51:11] They're like running through the plaza and, like, garbage is appearing around them.

[51:14] Not the band, that would be amazing, just, like, you know, trash.

[51:18] Okay.

[51:19] Well, are you ready with, did you hear what Chuck said?

[51:21] Are you ready with the jingle?

[51:22] Oh, yeah, yeah, wait.

[51:23] I'm trying to remember.

[51:24] Okay.

[51:25] Oh, yeah, okay, sorry.

[51:26] Hey, this is Ludacris.

[51:28] Get ready for another Ludacris line sponsored by me.

[51:31] Ludacris.

[51:32] Okay, now you do it, Chuck.

[51:33] Well, I did want to jump ahead, but it's when they're running on the roof and it goes really

[51:36] fast.

[51:37] I don't even even notice it.

[51:38] But he says something about, like, well, shouldn't we have figured that out before people started

[51:44] shooting or something?

[51:45] And then Salma Hayek goes, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh.

[51:51] It's so weird.

[51:52] It's so weird.

[51:53] And I even played that part for my wife this morning, like, three times and we were just

[51:56] dying.

[51:57] And it's clearly ADR.

[51:58] Like, they were like, well, she's got to say something there because she has no line and

[52:02] like no snappy comeback.

[52:03] Maybe she could just make fun of him.

[52:05] Yeah, I mean, I love that moment because it was like she, by that point, she was so, the

[52:10] first half of the movie is trying to set her up as like this, basically like a, the kind

[52:15] of nightmare version of it, of a manic pixie dream girl.

[52:18] And then she is just so mean to him.

[52:21] Like, from that moment on.

[52:22] And like, she has made his life a nightmare and he's just like, oh, maybe you shouldn't

[52:27] have killed that guy.

[52:28] And she's like, meh, meh, meh, meh.

[52:29] Like, just adding like childish teasing on top of it.

[52:33] It was so weirdly out of place in a movie that didn't even make sense.

[52:37] So it should have.

[52:38] Yeah.

[52:39] Yeah, they're back in the simulation.

[52:40] They start to use their powers to cause all kinds of havoc, cutting people's throats,

[52:44] throwing stuff around.

[52:45] They run into Kendo, who keeps calling her Dr. Clemens, and he starts to reach for something.

[52:51] She claims it's a gun.

[52:52] So she blasts him.

[52:53] Ronny Chieng falls down dead.

[52:55] Turns out he wasn't reaching for a gun, he was reaching for blue crystals.

[52:59] So yeah, they escape over the rooftops.

[53:02] They they're on the run.

[53:05] They need to get back to their tarp home, as she calls it.

[53:08] And they have a gun at this point, too.

[53:10] They have tricked a she has she has gotten into a car with a John and then and then they

[53:16] beat him up and they take a gun in a wallet.

[53:18] Ludicrous line, though.

[53:19] Yeah.

[53:20] Did you catch it?

[53:21] Again, this is me, the rapper Ludicrous.

[53:23] I'm also an actor and I'm back to introduce another ludicrous line.

[53:26] It's a ludicrous line from Chuck.

[53:30] When she gets in the car with the John, she says, like, you know, what do you want?

[53:34] And he says, like every man would say, he went, how about a B.J. and a finger in the

[53:38] butt?

[53:39] I mean, I mean, I got to say, a man who knows what he wants.

[53:44] Yeah.

[53:45] Yeah.

[53:46] I respect the specific the specific order.

[53:49] And, you know, that's a fine thing to want.

[53:51] I was kind of confused, like it seemed like this transaction was going to happen in the

[53:55] car.

[53:56] And that's a hard physical thing to do.

[53:59] I feel like I don't know.

[54:00] In the confines.

[54:01] Stewart's like, I don't know if you're creative about everybody in the car.

[54:06] I mean, the worst thing that happens is her hand's going to fall asleep because because

[54:09] of the weight of him on on her arm, she's putting a finger in his butt, but, you know.

[54:13] True, true, true, true.

[54:14] Anyway, moving on.

[54:15] It's like he's ordering.

[54:16] He is.

[54:17] It's like he's ordering.

[54:18] We should diagram.

[54:19] We should use our thought visualizer and diagram that shit out.

[54:21] OK, but only if it's in a pickle.

[54:24] Yeah.

[54:25] But the way that maybe that's what in a pickle means is a finger in a butt.

[54:28] That's what you see.

[54:29] But the it's like he's ordering off the menu at at the restaurant.

[54:32] How about a B.J. and a finger in the butt?

[54:35] QR code.

[54:36] Yeah.

[54:37] Well, we're running a combo on that right now.

[54:39] I don't usually put those two together, but sure.

[54:40] It's OK.

[54:41] We're right away.

[54:42] Sure.

[54:43] The the cops have them surrounded at their tarp home.

[54:46] They realize they actually don't have enough crystals for both of them to to get out of

[54:52] there.

[54:53] They only have enough for one of them.

[54:54] And so there's a lot of like, well, I'll just take them.

[54:56] Oh, yeah.

[54:57] That's my favorite part.

[54:58] He's like, all right, well, I'm going then.

[54:59] Sorry.

[55:00] I can't stay here.

[55:01] I'm going.

[55:02] But then he's he's not so unsure for long.

[55:05] So she she takes the she takes the drugs.

[55:08] She distracts the cops before squirting the blue crystals up her nose and giving him enough

[55:14] time to escape.

[55:15] He goes running away in a pretty interesting long take, like a long single shot of him

[55:21] like running, running away.

[55:22] I thought that was kind of cool.

[55:23] Yeah.

[55:24] Uh huh.

[55:25] And then he, of course, immediately runs all the way to a rehab clinic where he checks

[55:30] himself in.

[55:31] And at his first meeting, he says that he believes he has a daughter.

[55:35] And we saw him later.

[55:38] He meets up with my daughter.

[55:40] And I believe her, I think is how he puts it.

[55:43] Yeah.

[55:44] Which is an unusual opening thing to say.

[55:49] It's not quite it's not quite a ludicrous line, but it is an out of the ordinary line

[55:53] before this.

[55:54] So I just there's a there's a moral I feel like that the movie gives earlier in a little

[55:59] bit earlier when he's arguing with Isabel that I feel the movie doesn't really earn

[56:03] where he's saying to Isabel, he's like, well, I'll use those crystals.

[56:07] Then he goes, no, wait, you use the crystals.

[56:09] But first, kill me and I'll wake up in the real world.

[56:12] And she goes, I don't know.

[56:13] And he goes, well, that's what you said.

[56:14] That's what happened when you killed Kendo.

[56:15] And she's like, yeah, but I don't really know.

[56:17] Like, she's just going to casually say that she probably did kill Kendo.

[56:21] And the and so he's telling her that, you know what?

[56:24] I also like the idea that he he's like, yeah, just just use a rock and bash my brain.

[56:30] Yeah.

[56:31] I'm like, that's that's intense, dude.

[56:33] Like, if I'm playing a video game and I have to do that, I'm uncomfortable.

[56:36] And he knows he has a person.

[56:38] He knows he has a gun, too.

[56:40] So like, do it faster, do it slow.

[56:42] But you got to kill me.

[56:43] Maybe just use that rock.

[56:45] Use a spoon.

[56:48] He's like, you know what?

[56:49] This that world's beautiful.

[56:50] But this world is beautiful, too, because you never know what's going to happen.

[56:53] It's so unpredictable.

[56:54] You know, anything can happen.

[56:55] And that's beautiful.

[56:56] And I was like, OK, if that's the moral, the movie is pushing that.

[56:59] I don't I don't think the movie has earned that moral because this has been an unpredictable movie.

[57:04] But it's also his life is just a nonstop spiral into chaos.

[57:08] There's never you know, there's very little.

[57:11] There's very little magic going on between him and some Hayek in the in this in this real stimulation fakes real world.

[57:17] Right.

[57:18] In the grim world.

[57:19] Yeah.

[57:20] Yeah.

[57:21] Yeah.

[57:22] So which is clearly the real, real world.

[57:25] Wait, what?

[57:26] It's so real.

[57:27] Real world.

[57:28] The real world.

[57:29] Yeah.

[57:30] Yeah.

[57:31] Because people are stopping polite and they started being real.

[57:32] Nobody is very polite in the movie.

[57:34] So is this boss dead?

[57:36] Well, he shows up later on.

[57:38] That was a confusing part to me because I'm like, I don't.

[57:42] Is his wallet the logic of this movie?

[57:45] Like, I guess, you know, people have fantasies about killing their boss.

[57:51] So, like, if that's part of the fantasy, the early part, then sure, that makes sense.

[57:57] But then why would you have a fantasy where it happens in such a weird way?

[58:01] Yeah.

[58:02] This is a weird guy.

[58:03] As you can tell, he's a strange guy.

[58:05] Did he really have a corner office at a place called Technical Difficulties?

[58:10] I think that – so here's what I'm going to say about this movie.

[58:13] I think to go at it from a literal point of view and say, but which stuff was real then and which stuff was not real is to not get the point of the movie.

[58:21] And again, the movie is not clear in its point.

[58:23] It's not – like I was saying, it's not really successful in what it's doing.

[58:26] But I think the entire time, it is his emotional – the emotional state that he is in.

[58:32] And you can't – the same way that like a more successful version of a movie like this is like Synecdoche, New York where there's no point in that movie.

[58:39] I feel like where you are watching the literal natural world that we all exist in.

[58:43] You are always in Philip Seymour Hoffman's head, the entire movie.

[58:46] So anything is – to ask is this – or the way that I remember once watching Memento with somebody years ago and it was still a newish movie.

[58:54] And they're like – I like to believe that he's just a serial killer and he's made up everything that happens and none of it is real.

[59:01] And I was like, well, that's a boring movie.

[59:03] Like what a boring movie that is.

[59:05] But like there has to be an idea that some of it is real.

[59:07] But you're – like when he's at that company called Technical Difficulties, that is just a room full of people saying into phones over and over again, I'm sorry you're having technical difficulties.

[59:15] Like that is just his emotional understanding of the way he works and things like that.

[59:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[59:22] Guys, when I watch Commando, I like to imagine that Alyssa Milano's character isn't – doesn't actually exist and he's just killing all these people for no reason.

[59:29] That's because like once you do that, you can do that for every movie.

[59:33] There's no movie where you can't say, oh, well, that character doesn't exist.

[59:36] It's all in their head.

[59:38] Now I'm playing with power.

[59:40] No, this is – no, I agree.

[59:42] This is a fault of like internet theorizing that has like gotten so out of hand.

[59:48] I mean there's a confusion between like having an opinion about a movie and being like – and I can also invent whatever extra textural thing that I want to support my view on.

[1:00:00] the film.

[1:00:01] There's a story that Roger Ebert used to tell about showing a class of students, the movie

[1:00:04] being there, where at the end, spoiler alert, he literally, he walks on water at the end

[1:00:09] because he's such an innocent, I guess, or, you know, it's not quite, it's not explained

[1:00:13] to you, you know, and that students in his class were like, well, maybe there was like

[1:00:17] a ridge under the water or like, maybe it wasn't that deep.

[1:00:21] And so that's what he's really walking on.

[1:00:22] Maybe there's like a, there's like a track under the water.

[1:00:25] And he was like, you can't invent stuff that's not on screen in the movie.

[1:00:28] Like the movie is met, like the movie is, is challenging you with something.

[1:00:32] You can't just be like, well, I'm going to make up an explanation that's supported by

[1:00:35] nothing in the film.

[1:00:36] I feel like that's a, it's a, that's a thing that yeah, happens a lot.

[1:00:39] Well, I think the fact that the idea that movies have to be explained, like there's

[1:00:42] so many articles where it's like the ending of Spider-Man, No Way Home explained.

[1:00:46] And I'm like, I don't, it seems pretty clear.

[1:00:48] Like, I don't know what, I don't know what, I don't know what was explained about that.

[1:00:53] Like the end of Power of the Dog explained, I'm like, it's actually pretty clear.

[1:00:57] It's incredibly clear.

[1:00:58] Yeah.

[1:00:59] I tweeted about a, actually, I saw this clickbait article today that was like 10 dangling threads

[1:01:06] that Night Court never got to wrap up.

[1:01:08] I had to see what it was I was reading and I'm like, yeah, these are just things that

[1:01:14] happened.

[1:01:15] Where did he learn magic?

[1:01:16] I know, I know.

[1:01:17] Amazing.

[1:01:18] But it was like, oh, his relationship with this other character never got, and I'm like,

[1:01:22] okay.

[1:01:23] I'll, I'll raise you.

[1:01:24] I'll raise you, Dan.

[1:01:25] I saw an article and I clicked on it cause I had to called all the Back to the Future

[1:01:29] movies ranked.

[1:01:30] And it was like, there's only three of them.

[1:01:31] How do you go?

[1:01:32] Do you go one, two, three?

[1:01:33] That's how I do it.

[1:01:34] Yeah, basically.

[1:01:35] Pretty much.

[1:01:36] Yeah.

[1:01:37] That was, it was, but it was, it was like, it was the most, it was like, hey, they told

[1:01:45] me I need to write five articles today.

[1:01:47] It is 4.50 PM.

[1:01:49] I gotta get this fifth article written.

[1:01:50] I guess I'll rank all the movies in the three movies series.

[1:01:54] It both infuriates me and I'm like, I know this is just some poor writer who wants to

[1:01:58] write, who has to do this, you know, but God, what a world anyway, that was, yeah, that

[1:02:03] was all the movie.

[1:02:04] That was it.

[1:02:05] The whole movie.

[1:02:06] It's called Bliss.

[1:02:12] Most game shows, quiz contestants about topics they don't even care about.

[1:02:16] But for 100 episodes, the Go Fact Yourself podcast has asked celebrity guests trivia

[1:02:21] about topics they choose for themselves.

[1:02:23] And introduce them to some of their personal heroes along the way.

[1:02:26] Oh my gosh.

[1:02:27] Shut up.

[1:02:28] I feel like I'm gonna cry.

[1:02:29] Oh my, stop.

[1:02:30] I'm so, so excited to meet you.

[1:02:35] Join me, J. Keith Van Straten.

[1:02:36] And me, Helen Hong, along with special guests, DJ Jazzy Jeff and Faith Saley, plus some amazing

[1:02:43] surprise experts on the 100th episode of Go Fact Yourself.

[1:02:47] And join us twice a month, every month for new episodes of Go Fact Yourself here on Maximum

[1:02:52] Fun.

[1:02:53] Hi, Maximum Fun.

[1:02:57] It's me, James Arthur M. from Minority Corner.

[1:02:59] Okay, I got some good news and I got some bad news.

[1:03:02] Bad news.

[1:03:03] Minority Corner, after seven years and 340 episodes, we are wrapping up our show.

[1:03:08] I know, I know, but hey, good news.

[1:03:10] Good news is that means we must have solved racism and homophobia and sexism and equality

[1:03:17] and equity for all.

[1:03:18] Yay.

[1:03:19] No, no, we didn't.

[1:03:21] Well, I'd like to think at least that we are better off than when we started seven years

[1:03:24] ago.

[1:03:25] So, don't worry.

[1:03:26] We might be saying goodbye, but our episodes will live on in the podcast airwaves forever.

[1:03:33] Or until the internet crashes and burn.

[1:03:35] Whatever comes first.

[1:03:36] Minority Corner, the final episodes right here on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your

[1:03:40] podcasts.

[1:03:41] Minority Corner, because together, we're the majority.

[1:03:43] The Flophouse has some sponsors this week and we're very excited to tell you about them.

[1:03:48] This podcast, The Flophouse, is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy.

[1:03:53] Look, this is a time in a person's life and also the history of the world when more than

[1:03:58] anything you need to take care of yourself because things are not easy.

[1:04:02] I think, I don't know if anyone listening has noticed, but the past couple of years

[1:04:06] have been difficult.

[1:04:08] And so, this is a time especially when you need to look out for yourself, take care of

[1:04:12] yourself, do what you can to get yourself feeling like you can keep going.

[1:04:17] Not just at the bare subsistence survival level, but also enjoying life and having a

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[1:05:01] and talk in a way that's helpful.

[1:05:03] And that's where maybe BetterHelp is the solution for you.

[1:05:06] Therapy in general, I'd recommend to everybody and perhaps BetterHelp can help you that way.

[1:05:09] It is online therapy that offers video, phone, and even live chat sessions with your therapist

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[1:06:10] Okay.

[1:06:11] So now it's sounding more like another thing I have to check off and it's more pressure

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[1:06:16] I'm sorry.

[1:06:17] I didn't mean it that way.

[1:06:18] BetterHelp.com slash flop.

[1:06:21] The Flophouse is also sponsored in part by.

[1:06:24] Did I get too real with my own thought process there, guys?

[1:06:26] You did, yeah.

[1:06:27] I apologize.

[1:06:28] It was a trip through your internal monologue made extra.

[1:06:32] A real bliss, yeah.

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[1:07:23] I've used Storyblocks multiple times.

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[1:07:34] A little peek behind the curtain, I'm going to do something new for the intermission video

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[1:08:11] We also got us a Jumbotron today, something that you can do too if you want.

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[1:09:10] Let's talk about Final Judgments, whether it's a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie,

[1:09:15] a movie we kind of liked.

[1:09:17] I will kick us off because I think I'm the outlier and I'll just be like, look, I know

[1:09:23] it's not rational.

[1:09:25] Sometimes like a reaction that people have to movies.

[1:09:28] For some reason, this movie just rubbed me the wrong way and made me angry.

[1:09:32] And I think part of it is like, I like Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek and they're giving

[1:09:37] it their best.

[1:09:38] So parts of this movie are, I also like Ronnie Chang.

[1:09:41] I like Ronnie Chang, a very nice human being.

[1:09:47] I just, they're good at what they do.

[1:09:51] And so I actually was emotionally affected by some of the stuff, like the scene where

[1:09:55] Owen Wilson is presented with the fact that he has already missed his.

[1:10:00] Daughter's graduation made me sad, but I think part of it is I make a deal with art and or entertainment that

[1:10:08] Okay

[1:10:10] Movie if you're going to make me sad, you better be good. Like like I

[1:10:15] if if something's dumb and it also makes me feel bad, I

[1:10:20] Feel a lot worse about it. I think and so to me

[1:10:24] this was a case of a lot of miserable things happening and

[1:10:28] I don't think that it did enough to present it in a artful or

[1:10:34] Entertaining way for me to react well to the fact that I just sort of walked out like upset and it

[1:10:41] Told me something that I already knew which was like, okay

[1:10:45] this man's life is in spiral and he needs help and

[1:10:48] At the end he got help and I guess that's good for this fictional man, but I didn't enjoy the journey

[1:10:54] But what do you guys have to say? Yeah

[1:10:57] Sorry, I just got forwarded a movie review by one Chuck

[1:11:03] I

[1:11:04] I'm gonna I'm gonna say, you know what this movie was

[1:11:09] pretty good

[1:11:11] This is a this is a dumb movie. This is a dumb bad movie. It is like a student film that has a

[1:11:20] Wildly high production budget

[1:11:22] And in that it has these like very earnest feelings that it does not know quite how to express

[1:11:31] Owen Wilson is

[1:11:32] Doing his best. So my Hayek is doing her best

[1:11:36] and the there's some very funny line readings that like I saw somebody on Twitter described Danny McBride's line readings and righteous gemstones is

[1:11:44] like the uncanny valley of

[1:11:47] Dialogue and I feel like a lot of this movie is that way too like it's been run through like three different

[1:11:52] Processors before you get some kind of end result with like, you know, the brain powered mind of Greg Whittle

[1:11:58] But yeah, I mean, I would say this is a solid good bad movie. I

[1:12:04] Would say it would work as a good bad movie for sure

[1:12:07] and I actually but I did kind of like it it was a movie that I don't think it's successful it feels like a

[1:12:12] it feels like a

[1:12:14] It's trying to do the kinds of things on a

[1:12:17] Even slightly less pretentious level than mother did and is not anywhere near that

[1:12:23] Level of achievement and mother's movie. I like a lot and there is a I think Owen Wilson is not

[1:12:28] really well cast in it like because he is so incapable of showing shock or

[1:12:34] Amazement or like he's that he's he's so even keeled all the amazement all the time

[1:12:40] Saying wow, but even his wows are so incredibly late when he says wow

[1:12:44] It feels like he is saying it because he thinks you expect a reaction from right?

[1:12:49] That he was not impressed by and he's like no wow. Wow. Yeah. Wow. That's something like it's not I think he's

[1:12:57] He doesn't he doesn't really do manic

[1:13:00] particularly naturally

[1:13:02] And it's a movie that is like it's super ham-handed

[1:13:05] It I think you're right Dan that it does not really earn the emotions

[1:13:08] It's going for but yeah, I really but I liked a lot of it in the world

[1:13:12] and once once it was good to me what this movie is that this is about a guy who is in a

[1:13:17] toxic relationship who has lost his grip on reality and

[1:13:21] It has to make a choice between am I going to stay in this?

[1:13:27] objectively more pleasant

[1:13:30] Fantasy or am I going to return to reality?

[1:13:33] Because there's someone there who is who needs me because my daughter needs me basically

[1:13:37] Then doesn't need me to take care of her but just needs that connection

[1:13:40] Like I really like that aspect of it and I feel like the movie

[1:13:43] Doesn't the movie doesn't fully understand what emotions it's going for but at the same time there's part of me. That's like

[1:13:50] Like Stewart says it feels like a student film on a big budget

[1:13:52] There's a lot in this that I would forgive more if it was a student film or a super independent film

[1:13:57] You know because it has ambition to it

[1:14:00] Unfortunately, it has the budget to meet that ambition which I think is to its detriment because it doesn't have its

[1:14:06] Craft wise it's not meeting that ambition

[1:14:07] So it's like it should be it's not as good a movie as it wants to be or thinks it is

[1:14:12] but there's still a lot in it that like

[1:14:15] Got to me a little bit and that I was enjoying that journey, but I also Dan enjoy movies where people's

[1:14:21] Minds are falling apart and I'm and we're seeing it through that

[1:14:24] So like the there's parts of this where I was like, yeah. Yeah, this is like someone trying to do a not

[1:14:30] arch

[1:14:31] like or not cheeky like Terry Gilliam type story and

[1:14:35] It's not really working

[1:14:37] But I still liked I liked the attempt and I liked him all those ludicrous lines that I was saying

[1:14:41] I was like, yeah, cuz it yes through the mind of someone who's falling apart

[1:14:45] So like I get that is even the fact that the the the non-player characters in the thing are called fake generated people

[1:14:51] It's like yeah, this is this world is the creation of someone who is not a good writer in the in the in the world

[1:14:56] Of the movie so like he doesn't know he's not with a good name for it. But anyway, uh, Chuck, what did you think?

[1:15:02] well, I kind of vacillated between

[1:15:05] Thinking it was really really really bad

[1:15:08] And I think the student film comparison is is really spot-on

[1:15:13] It felt like it's it's the most student film II major production. I think I've ever seen

[1:15:18] But because I was watching it for the show

[1:15:21] I kept wanting to have a good time because I was looking forward to recording with you guys

[1:15:30] I know I was kind of going up and down at one point. I tried to

[1:15:34] Imagine that this character was Dignan

[1:15:36] And this was just like Dignan from bottle rocket years later

[1:15:39] And like this is really what happened to him and then I kind of liked it a little bit more on the run from Johnny

[1:15:45] Yeah

[1:15:48] Well, that's true, that's probably true

[1:15:53] But I'm with Dan like ultimately it what about drill bit Taylor

[1:16:00] Drill bit Taylor, but was was he Dupree or was someone else?

[1:16:06] No, I think he was me was he Marley was he me he was Marley. Yeah and Dupree, right?

[1:16:12] Detective Marley Dupree

[1:16:17] Like 20 books, yeah, and what if he was Lightning McQueen but years later now

[1:16:28] Ultimately I'm with Dan though like it made me mad at a certain point like I can I

[1:16:33] Can wrap my head around a good bad movie if I think the director?

[1:16:37] Can kind of give you a nod and a wink and say have fun with that

[1:16:40] but this feels like a director who was very overly serious about it and

[1:16:46] If you didn't like it, then you didn't get it

[1:16:48] And then I kind of started getting a little angry at it because it felt self-important

[1:16:53] Like I think the director thinks he made a great movie. Oh, he certainly thinks he made a statement. Yeah, you know

[1:17:00] Which he which he doesn't

[1:17:03] But yeah, bad bad bad movie for me

[1:17:05] Overall, we really ran the gamut

[1:17:08] This time. Uh-huh. Yeah, we're providing no guidance for anyone who

[1:17:14] Might be curious about bliss

[1:17:17] That's a good lesson for all of you listeners don't look to us

[1:17:21] To know what's doing to peer pressure kids. Yeah

[1:17:26] And

[1:17:27] And that there's nobody whose taste in movies is always gonna match up with with everybody else's or anything like even in them

[1:17:34] Roger Ebert's book of like I hated this movie reviews like there's movies in there where I'm like, oh, I like that movie

[1:17:39] I guess he didn't like it. Okay, you know

[1:17:41] Well, he famously gave bad reviews to both Raising Arizona and Blue Velvet, which are no, right

[1:17:47] The Google reviews on this are really weird though

[1:17:49] I never look at those but I poked through some of them and it's really

[1:17:54] Evenly divided and it seems like a hundred percent of the people that

[1:17:57] That love there are people that love this movie and think it's like one mass one person called it a masterpiece

[1:18:04] it seems like across the board they all took the interpretation that it was about mental illness and drug addiction only and

[1:18:12] most of these people were people who were formerly addicted who said like he nailed it and like this is what it's like and

[1:18:19] And the director himself said the movie works best if there's a by stability of interpretations

[1:18:26] What does that mean? I had to look it up. It's a scientific term meaning like

[1:18:30] basically, each

[1:18:32] Interpretation is completely valid and equal and kind of cancels each other out or not or supports one another

[1:18:37] I mean that's thing if it's a movie about somebody who is if that's thing to me if the future stuff is taken as real

[1:18:44] I like it if you're existing in a space where you don't quite know for sure

[1:18:47] But if the if the if he was like, no, no the future stuff is real

[1:18:50] Then I'd be like this movie is a piece of junk. Like come on that does it that's that's not none of that makes any

[1:18:54] sense, yeah

[1:18:56] but there were things especially in the relationship between him and Salma Hayek when she is

[1:19:00] Mood swinging wildly and he is kind of caught in her orbit like there are times where I'm like, oh

[1:19:05] Well, this is basically the movie bug but like with yeah with more

[1:19:11] Yeah, well that's I mean like

[1:19:13] I'm glad Chuck said that because I did want to say, you know

[1:19:16] like I could see this movie being meaningful very meaningful to people who have

[1:19:20] struggled with

[1:19:23] Addiction or or

[1:19:25] mental illness in some way

[1:19:27] That I don't feel like I'm totally

[1:19:30] Qualified to say I just know that from my perspective like the is it this or that

[1:19:35] Like even if it's not meant to actually be

[1:19:38] Like trying to trick you as a movie made me angry because I'm just like don't

[1:19:43] mess around with me movie like I'm finding certain parts of this affecting but

[1:19:49] You know, I what game are you playing?

[1:19:52] Now I'm just I'm just imagining if they swapped out Owen Wilson for Ashley Judd or Michael Shannon. Oh, wow. What a movie if it was

[1:20:00] Michael Shannon instead of Owen Wilson can you met like this movie I think would be up

[1:20:04] at a different level because you're like totally yeah I get it this guy is this guy is unhinged

[1:20:08] yeah he doesn't know what's going on you know weird casting yeah uh Dan I think this this

[1:20:13] shows a big I like I like being messed with by movies I think maybe you shouldn't watch

[1:20:17] you should probably not watch all those check new wave movies I was recommending a little

[1:20:20] while ago I don't know if they're gonna be on your wavelength all of them well I did

[1:20:23] like bug so does that change your I told you about the time I saw somebody watching bug

[1:20:29] on their laptop on a plane I'm like wow there's a lot of nudity that's a good call man this

[1:20:33] guy's got no who knows what's up that's like a movie I would pick and then have to like

[1:20:39] cover my laptop with my torso you have to you'd have to try to block the laptop with

[1:20:43] your boner so that no that nobody wasn't supposed to like when I was watching erotic sexy movie

[1:20:51] bug hey let's move on to the letters why not you know it's just for fun let's do this uh

[1:20:58] yeah M that's a good one what also Q you don't use it you don't use it a lot but Q's

[1:21:05] a good letter look at it it's got a pleasingly round shape with that little stick coming

[1:21:09] out and it's like hey kind of getting a bad rep lately yeah yeah well I mean yeah it's

[1:21:14] been put up to some bad uses but the letter itself visually that's true why do you think

[1:21:17] why do you think it's so popular with crazy people because it's a beautiful looking letter

[1:21:21] and it's you're going around it and you're like I know what this letter's got in store

[1:21:24] for me and then there's that little that little cross thing that that goes through it and

[1:21:28] you're like wait a minute I wasn't expecting that it's got a little twist at the end W

[1:21:32] is a pretty good letter but again that's just M upside down uh we can argue over which way

[1:21:36] it looks yeah and what about so Dan what's the letter you like probably like a D because

[1:21:41] your name starts with it well I like this letter um I don't know what it's from because

[1:21:45] I cut it off apparently I'm sorry classic but if it's your letter you should feel proud

[1:21:54] because you did good it's on it's on the first name and the last name have both been

[1:21:59] withheld I hope you're enjoying your moment in the sun your little moment of stardom this

[1:22:03] uh hello I'm one of those kids from the 50s they're like today and we're celebrating the

[1:22:10] birthday of well we don't know the name but there's some kids somewhere with a birthday

[1:22:14] and and the kid would be like wait but I was I wasn't mentioned okay wait it's from Trisha

[1:22:19] last name withheld I found okay thank you great okay um this question is for Stuart

[1:22:25] yay I saw that Tom Holland took on bartending for his role in Uncharted yep would you let

[1:22:32] him bartend at your bar question mark which celebrity would you let bartend at your bar

[1:22:37] given the opportunity thanks for all the laughs I mean I feel like I mean of course I would

[1:22:43] let Tom Holland he's a huge star tons of people would show up uh I would have to get like

[1:22:49] I'd have to get extra people to check fucking IDs I'd imagine yeah yeah yeah because you

[1:22:53] know Tom Holland's if Tom Holland's there then Zendaya is gonna be there also so that's

[1:22:58] gonna watch out again as long as we're on it's Lohan and Zendaya Zendaya just uh I wouldn't

[1:23:07] I would I would make fun of you but then I was I was heavily correcting Stuart earlier

[1:23:11] and probably wrong when I corrected him so I'll take it no I know I know for a fact you

[1:23:14] for it is Zendaya so uh wait is that your way of hinting that you've been seeing her

[1:23:20] on the side don't tell Tom Holland oh I've seen some of his bartending moves he could

[1:23:27] like throw a bottle right at your head yeah he's got some cocktail level uh moves some

[1:23:32] player bartending he was bitten by a radioactive spider I think he can bartend yeah yeah I

[1:23:38] mean there are a lot more goes into it than just physical dexterity Elodie it's uh you

[1:23:42] know ability to like talk to people and read people and uh I mean I guess he can do all

[1:23:47] those things because he's both a human and he has spider abilities yeah he also he has

[1:23:52] the proportional socializing skills of a spider which is actually worse than a regular human

[1:23:56] yeah uh-huh because he'll trap you in his orbit and slowly suck all your life juice

[1:24:01] out which sounds like some customers I know um uh as far as uh as far as not if you're

[1:24:11] listening to this podcast you're not one of those people you're great um the I feel like

[1:24:16] I don't know like I don't know like a Bill Murray type get a Bill Murray behind my bar

[1:24:21] I'm sure he'd be fine that'd bring up a lot of people a lot a lot of drunks like Bill

[1:24:24] Murray right sure I guess I don't know why you would know better than us again you're

[1:24:30] in the liquor industry so you would have a better idea of what people who drink like

[1:24:33] I mean I would want to get somebody like uh like uh like uh like a George Clooney or Ryan

[1:24:38] Reynolds who has a booze brand to come out and hawk their hawk their booze something like

[1:24:42] that what about um Danny DeVito he's got a limoncello yeah of course Danny DeVito yeah

[1:24:49] Ryan Reynolds what am I crazy he's amazing mm-hmm crying there was a stew I was waiting

[1:24:54] for Dan to say cry yeah what's up see there was a ludicrous line from the bartender in

[1:24:59] the movie too I don't know if that bugged you or not which one well I need my cue first

[1:25:05] oh it's a ludicrous line from Chuck it's a ludicrous line sponsored by me ludicrous

[1:25:12] rapper and actor uh in the bar when Owen Wilson orders the double whiskey uh the bartender

[1:25:19] is out of you know almost out of whiskey in the first bottle and you know when you bartend

[1:25:23] you just go grab the other bottle this bartender poured a little bit and then went like this

[1:25:29] he held up the empty bottle and shook it at him and went hey I'll be right back and then

[1:25:33] he goes and gets the other bottle it's just like no bartender does that the bartender

[1:25:38] just like I mean goes and grabs the other bottle and well what's so wild is it's like

[1:25:45] yeah I mean you knew you were gonna pour that for the movie right like it wasn't really

[1:25:49] plot wise I should have held it up to the light actually that would have been great

[1:25:52] he should have checked yeah he should have checked that first uh yeah I mean it it was

[1:25:57] it was a weird scene yeah totally I mean like I I've seen you at at the bar indicate that

[1:26:06] the bottle is done I don't know that you've shaken it in front of my face but you're you

[1:26:11] like Mike hold it up here's proof yeah I'm not lying to you I don't yeah that's the thing

[1:26:16] I don't think I would have been like there was more in there what's you trying to pull

[1:26:21] yeah uh okay this is another letter guys it's from David last name withheld who writes

[1:26:28] dear Elliot in the recent episode about Tom and Jerry your brother I want to tell you something

[1:26:37] no it's not uh from David last name withheld Caitlin it's from uh David I uh in the recent

[1:26:45] you but you're Dan you're not David I Danius in the recent episode about Tom and Jerry

[1:26:53] you explained to us about how meat is also a cartoon this made me wonder is vegan meat in

[1:27:00] this universe also made to look animated what do you think oh David last name withheld I want to

[1:27:07] say yes because I they had such again they had they had such a a uh commitment to every living

[1:27:15] thing that is not a human or a plant in that movie being a cartoon uh but yeah I think they

[1:27:20] probably the the fake meat they just arranged those that soy or whatever it is to make or

[1:27:25] jackfruit to make it look like it's a cartoon yeah I think they should do that in Tom and Jerry too

[1:27:30] where they get a hold of it of a vegan food company for some reason do you guys do you

[1:27:35] guys remember that movie well it shows how long Dan sits on the letters that referred to the recent

[1:27:40] episode about Tom and Jerry which was it's not a question of sitting on them we get a lot of

[1:27:45] letters guys despite what I said earlier you know we're reasonably popular uh we get we get a fair

[1:27:53] number of letters I can't get to them all I'm sorry to to everybody who sent in letters that

[1:27:58] have not been uh addressed on the show uh trust me that it is uh nothing personal it is either

[1:28:05] I have gone too long and feel like I can't go back too far in the archives or it's a question

[1:28:12] maybe that's been asked before and uh you should just go back and listen to them all over again

[1:28:17] drive those numbers up maybe you'll get your answer there or they're not starting off their

[1:28:21] letter with a line like Dan McCoy's the best or letter for Dan how'd you get so cute

[1:28:28] yeah dear Dan who I'd like to have sex with I have a question for Stewart and Elliot

[1:28:34] that kind of thing yeah let's uh let's go on to recommendations of movies why not hey why not

[1:28:42] you know let's treat ourselves movies that we saw that we liked I went and saw um the

[1:28:49] Nighthawk Prospect Park had uh one night only showing of Near Dark on 35 millimeter uh a movie

[1:28:58] that is still very hard to see um I don't know what the rights issues are use your eyes

[1:29:03] what just use your eyes

[1:29:08] I was using my toes it is a movie that cannot be uh I believe can't be streamed right now and

[1:29:14] the dvd is out of print but um a early movie by Catherine Bigelow the first one she directed

[1:29:21] on her own I believe she had like a another one that she co-directed before that um hey Dan I

[1:29:27] remember I got some good news for you it looks like it might be on shutter oh really yeah maybe

[1:29:33] okay well maybe I'm wrong uh anyway it has been historically hard to see and I saw it about 20

[1:29:42] years ago and had not seen it in the interim and I think when I was younger I was expecting the

[1:29:47] wrong thing out of it I knew it was this beloved uh new horror classic uh very influential uh

[1:29:55] vampire movie kind of changing how vampires were always shown on

[1:30:00] In movies because like before that I mean, it's not solely responsible for this in any way

[1:30:05] But there was a lot more of kind of the Dracula style vampire and since then there's more kind of these

[1:30:10] Living on the margins of society, you know out west vampires

[1:30:16] Anyway, I think I was expecting something a bit more

[1:30:22] Silly because it's an 80s horror movie and that's kind of what I always liked about 80s horror and maybe a bit more

[1:30:30] Why like a bright night there or something? Yeah

[1:30:32] Yeah, there's only one really tense scene and it is very intense in the bar

[1:30:38] But what it is is much more about vibe if it feels like you're kind of trapped in this

[1:30:44] dream that is both mundane and fantastic and and

[1:30:49] things get worse and worse and

[1:30:52] I don't know. It's just got a

[1:30:54] Feel a glow about it a an ominous dreamy

[1:30:59] Romantic glow that I responded to a lot this time around liked it a lot near dark

[1:31:05] Stewart, yeah, I'm gonna recommend a

[1:31:09] Similar I guess keeping with a theme of being trapped in fantasy worlds or dealing with addiction

[1:31:15] I'm going to recommend a movie called Oslo August 31st

[1:31:19] It is the second movie in the Oslo trilogy by director. Yacob Trier

[1:31:24] Whose recent movie worst person in the world was my favorite movie of last year and it's incredible you should go see it

[1:31:30] Oslo August 31st is

[1:31:33] follows one day in the life of a

[1:31:37] 34 year old man who is in who's about to get out of rehab for drug use and

[1:31:42] He has given is given the day to go

[1:31:46] into town and go to a job interview so that he can transition back to life and

[1:31:52] He tries to kind of

[1:31:55] Rekindle or like find some of the threads of his past life

[1:32:00] and

[1:32:00] He one of the things that I love about these two this movie and worst person in the world is how the director is able

[1:32:07] to capture at least for me a very like specific almost like elder millennial on we have not feeling like you

[1:32:16] Belong like you don't really have a place in the world or that you haven't kind of figured your life out

[1:32:21] and when you were growing up, you always assumed that as when you got older you would it would all make sense and

[1:32:29] We follow this character played by Anders Danielson lie or Lee I can't pronounce it

[1:32:34] and he's yeah, he's it's it's great and sad and funny and

[1:32:40] Like beautifully shot highly recommend it. It is sad

[1:32:45] But yeah, it's it's great. I

[1:32:48] Am gonna recommend a movie to first though

[1:32:50] I'm gonna I'm gonna say that that same director that Stuart just time at a long long time ago in episode 19

[1:32:56] I recommended his movie reprise, which is also really good. Oh, yeah

[1:33:00] So if if you like those other movies that Stuart mentioned, then you should try that too

[1:33:04] But I'm gonna recommend a movie from 1992 this movie called swoon written and directed by Tom Kaelin. No relation. Come on guys

[1:33:13] And

[1:33:15] this is a movie about the about Leopold and lobe and their relationship in the days leading up to and then the years after

[1:33:23] their the murder that they committed and

[1:33:27] It focuses much more on their relationship and them as two gay men who are drawn into this

[1:33:35] very unhealthy relationship with each other perhaps because

[1:33:39] There's no way for them to find a healthy relationship because it's the 1920s and they cannot be out and gay but uh

[1:33:46] it's told it's in black and white and it's told in this very kind of like

[1:33:51] Uneasy style that's very both very still and also always feels like something's something terrible is about to happen

[1:33:57] It feels a little bit like a guy madden movie in some ways

[1:34:00] Which for me is a very high compliment because I love guy meds movies. Anyway, that's swoon. It's uh,

[1:34:06] I thought was really good. It's one of those movies that like

[1:34:10] it's not a

[1:34:12] It's not a like sit back and relax kind of movie. It's very much alike. This movie is going to keep poking me

[1:34:17] You know and and make me kind of think about what why it's telling me these things and what it's trying to say

[1:34:23] But I enjoyed it a lot Chuck. What would you like to recommend? I got a recommendation another movie from 1987 Dan

[1:34:30] Called five corners

[1:34:32] It's a movie I saw in college years ago and I kind of forgot about and I saw it again

[1:34:37] kind of randomly recently and it was written by the great John Patrick Shanley and

[1:34:42] Was very under the radar kind of a small indie about

[1:34:46] This New York neighborhood in the 1960s. It's got Jodie Foster and Tim Robbins and John Turturro

[1:34:52] I don't want to give away too much, but it's it's kind of a you know, it's John Patrick Shanley

[1:34:57] So it's sort of a quirky in the crime

[1:35:00] Sort of plot

[1:35:02] But it's a movie that tonally is just

[1:35:05] Kind of odd. It's like a not quite real world

[1:35:09] That you're watching but it's kind of hard to describe

[1:35:11] But I always like to recommend little-known films and I think five corners was kind of wildly underseen back then

[1:35:19] That sounds like the kind of movie Dan loves. Mm-hmm. You know, I was the one person

[1:35:23] kind of liked Wild Mountain Time out of the

[1:35:26] Great episode

[1:35:29] Has anyone seen five corners

[1:35:31] No, I haven't

[1:35:33] But but I'm gonna I'm gonna watch it. I'm putting it on my list right now. Yeah, it's on to be it says

[1:35:38] Yeah, so

[1:35:40] Seemingly ever drove like every movie I hear about that. I want to see suddenly it's a pretend

[1:35:45] It turns out is on to be so

[1:35:47] You know, I had the network reach out to see if we could get a two B's

[1:35:52] Sponsorship. Why the fuck would we do that? You're already promoting

[1:35:56] I think I think maybe they don't want to be associated with a podcast about bad movies specifically if I had

[1:36:04] But who knows, you know, and also, you know to the floppers if you hear these guys

[1:36:08] It's a lot of fun hearing them talk about the bad movies

[1:36:11] But if you want to hear them talk about a good movie

[1:36:13] Dan was on movie crush and he we talked about had a great discussion about aliens

[1:36:17] Dan you didn't even remember which movie it was I could see it. Yeah

[1:36:20] You saw my face

[1:36:23] Elliot and I talked about taking a Pelham 1 2 3

[1:36:26] Which is a lot of fun my favorite and Stuart introduced me to the wonderful world of Ricky Oh Ricky Oh story Ricky, baby

[1:36:32] Yeah

[1:36:35] I know you love it. Stu. It's a little it's I don't know if you could say it's the best

[1:36:41] Weird what metrics do you use?

[1:36:46] Who liked bliss punch someone's head off in the movie you like

[1:36:51] Yeah, no one's no one strangles someone with it with their own intestines in the movies I like

[1:36:56] Mm-hmm. Well, that's Chuck. That's great because I was about to ask if you had anything to plug and you already started

[1:37:03] but is there anything else that you want to you know, you should know if you

[1:37:07] if you want to listen to that show, we've been around for a minute and

[1:37:11] Either like it or you don't

[1:37:14] I

[1:37:15] Love I love the casual the casual arrogance of like you've heard it

[1:37:19] You don't need to know you like it at this point. It's entered the lives of all Americans

[1:37:22] You don't need it. It's not new to do commercials. I like about it is

[1:37:27] You know, it has a certain amount of lovable goofballness

[1:37:31] Which if you like our show you probably like but you also actually learn something. I like our show

[1:37:35] So we learned a lot. We learned how to pronounce Lindsay Lohan's name

[1:37:39] Then see a Zendaya and we learned that uh, what graduation was about involves

[1:37:45] Yeah, I learned about the three things that brought about the other thing is our automation synthetic biology and asteroid mining

[1:37:53] Yeah, so, you know, I guess and don't look up when they want to mind that asteroid. They're right after all you guys haven't seen

[1:38:00] I want to see fucking don't look up. What does it nominate for Best Picture?

[1:38:09] Yeah, we may have to tell me licorice pizza is nominated for

[1:38:16] Wow, hey, I love that movie. I was I was like that one

[1:38:20] I wanted to love it so much and I I started it with with real I was like, yeah

[1:38:25] This is gonna be really good. And as it went on it

[1:38:27] I just liked it less and less until by the end. I was like movie you I feel like you

[1:38:32] I've got a bait-and-switch with this movie. Hmm. I did not learn what it's like to run a water mattress business

[1:38:37] You're right. You're right. Ali. It was no bliss that movie

[1:38:41] I'm not I mean, I'm not gonna say that bliss is a great movie

[1:38:44] I got more out of it that I got out of licorice pizza, I guess I don't know where to pickle guys

[1:38:49] We are

[1:38:51] Well, I guess I guess I just I didn't enjoy it as much as I I guess I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed that

[1:38:58] Oscar-nominated pedophilia movie licorice pizza, but anyway

[1:39:08] Jesus deliberately combative and provocative, you know it I wanted

[1:39:17] Wow

[1:39:19] Feel like we had such a clean way out

[1:39:23] Dan there's no way just like there's no way home spider-man. No way home in theaters. Now. Is that a sponsor?

[1:39:29] All over the place

[1:39:31] Most successful movie during the pandemic. It's still in theaters

[1:39:35] Yes, this is this Elliot's lobbying for spider-man. No way home to get nominated for Best Picture

[1:39:40] I'm just saying if you want to watch the Oscars

[1:39:44] You've got to nominate only movies that Pete already make a lot of money. That's

[1:39:48] for yeah words

[1:39:50] Reward the already rewarded when a couple years ago and they were like the people who make the big budget movies are mad that they're

[1:39:56] Rewarded and it's like you are with the money

[1:40:00] Yeah, that's what the money is for.

[1:40:01] You made a choice of what kind of movie you were going to make.

[1:40:05] A movie that people liked, and that's fine.

[1:40:07] That's fine. That's totally fine.

[1:40:10] You know what? You've got the money.

[1:40:11] Pay someone to make an Oscar for you.

[1:40:13] Just put your name on it. Who cares?

[1:40:16] Yeah, it's not like a statue maker's like,

[1:40:19] no, it's against the statue maker's code to replicate somebody's Oscar statue.

[1:40:24] They'll kick me out of the craft guild if I do that.

[1:40:27] The craft cheese guild.

[1:40:30] This Oscar's made of craft cheese, a different color gold.

[1:40:34] The only person who was willing to do it was a guy who sculpts craft cheese.

[1:40:37] And so all these people, all these movie producers go to him and he goes,

[1:40:40] another Oscar.

[1:40:41] He goes, this might be kind of a weird thing,

[1:40:43] but I was wondering if you could sculpt an Oscar out of craft cheese.

[1:40:46] Don't worry, you're not the first.

[1:40:49] Do you remember, Dan, were you there when when Kraft sent us a...

[1:40:52] Prepare the mold.

[1:40:53] When at the Daily Show, Kraft sent us John Stewart sculpted at like a,

[1:40:57] it was like a block with his face sculpted into it.

[1:41:00] Oh, wow. Yeah.

[1:41:02] And I think they were just desperately trying, I think,

[1:41:03] to get mentioned on late night shows.

[1:41:05] I think they sent all the late night hosts a block of cheese

[1:41:07] with their face sculpted in it.

[1:41:09] And it was one of the strangest things,

[1:41:11] especially because people then started eating it.

[1:41:14] Yeah, no, it sat downstairs.

[1:41:16] People like carved a few chunks off of it to eat and got thrown in the trash.

[1:41:21] Yeah. But thanks for the cheese, Kraft.

[1:41:26] I guess your your your plot for more

[1:41:29] publicity works is just

[1:41:32] delayed and on a much smaller scale.

[1:41:35] Yeah. The Bluff House thanks you for that cheese.

[1:41:37] Years later.

[1:41:39] OK, well, I guess now we can officially

[1:41:42] sign off saying, hey, we're part of the MaxFun Network.

[1:41:45] Go to MaximumFun.org to find other great shows on the network.

[1:41:51] Including one by John Hodgman,

[1:41:55] Chuck Bryant's pal.

[1:41:57] The first time we met Chuck was hanging with Hodgman.

[1:42:01] Yeah, just hanging with Hodgman.

[1:42:03] You know, you can go check out HowlDotty on Twitter.

[1:42:07] That's our producer, Alex, who we thank for making us sound less dumb.

[1:42:13] Hopefully. Hopefully.

[1:42:16] And I guess just thank you for listening for the Bluff House.

[1:42:21] I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:42:24] I've been Elliot Kalin. And I've been Chuck Bryant.

[1:42:27] Or have we? What?

[1:42:30] What? Bliff.

[1:42:35] Oh, is it hot in here?

[1:42:37] Yeah, baby. That's why I took my shirt off.

[1:42:39] Yeah, that's why Stuart's wearing no sleeves.

[1:42:41] Mm hmm. Paid for the whole shirt.

[1:42:43] Only kept the torso.

[1:42:44] I like the the Dan was like, let's do the count off.

[1:42:47] And I'm immediately doing something that we don't need.

[1:42:51] Yeah, that's exactly how I hope this is going.

[1:42:54] Uh huh. Yeah. Alex, keep all this.

[1:42:56] This is brilliant. Keep all this. Don't really.

[1:42:58] Don't even save it for the end.

[1:42:59] Just put it right on top so the newbies are like, mmm, cool.

[1:43:03] Start out with a bang.

[1:43:05] MaximumFun.org.

[1:43:07] Comedy and culture.

[1:43:08] Artist owned. Audience supported.

Episode #364 - Bliss, with Chuck Bryant

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