Ep. #361 - Accidental Love, with Matthew Silverstein and Dave Jeser

Elliott Kalan

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Accidental Love.

[0:03] Also known as Nailed, directed by David O. Russell under the name Stephen Green, it's confusing.

[0:30] Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flop Pass. I'm Dan McCoy.

Dan McCoy

[0:40] Hey, Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:43] Hey, Dan McCoy and Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliot Kalin, and we've got some very special guests with us today.

[0:49] May I introduce them to you guys?

[0:51] Yes.

[0:51] Please do.

[0:52] Yes, I wanted to get your full consent before introducing them.

[0:54] I did not want to surprise you with them, or just spring them on you as surprise guests.

[0:59] These aren't surprise witnesses, although I do have those later on.

[1:02] We emailed about it.

[1:04] Okay, don't pull back the curtains, too.

[1:07] So we have some special guests today.

[1:11] This doesn't happen a lot for us.

[1:12] We're going to talk about a movie, and we have with us the writers of the movie.

[1:16] That's right, joining us.

[1:18] You may know their work from The Man Show, or Crank Yankers, or Solar Opposites.

[1:22] They created the shows drawn together and What Just Happened, and they're currently writing on Housebroken on Fox.

[1:27] You can also watch it on Hulu, but it's also on Fox Monday nights.

[1:30] They're Matt Silverstein and Dave Jesser, the writers of Accidental Love, a.k.a. Nailed.

[1:36] Right?

[1:36] Hey!

[1:37] Hey, guys.

[1:37] Thanks for joining us.

[1:38] Well, thanks, guys.

S4

[1:38] Thanks for having us.

[1:40] It's nice to be on a show about a movie we wrote.

[1:42] And this is a podcast where you talk about the worst movies ever.

S5

[1:46] Right?

[1:47] It's not the worst.

[1:47] I didn't know the premise of the show.

[1:50] I feel like I've been blindsided.

Elliott Kalan

[1:51] Yeah, I told them it was more of an inside the screenwriter studio type of thing.

[1:55] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:56] I think this is the first time this has happened.

[1:58] We, of course, Chris White was on a mini where we talked a little bit about New Moon, the movie that we made fun of before.

[2:05] And we talked a little bit.

Elliott Kalan

[2:06] We had a mini where we talked to the writer of the Super Mario Brothers movie.

[2:10] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[2:11] But this is the first sort of main episode where we're talking to people deeply involved in the film.

Elliott Kalan

[2:16] It's the first time where we're really going to be dissecting the movie with the people who are somewhat.

Stuart Wellington

[2:22] This is all on our quest to eventually have Paul Schrader on here, and then our show will immediately be canceled.

[2:30] What's he going to be talking about?

[2:31] Marmaduke?

[2:32] He talks about all kinds of shit.

[2:33] Is that the movie you keep claiming he wrote?

[2:35] No, he wrote Heart Beeps, Dan.

[2:38] I've said it like a million times.

Elliott Kalan

[2:39] Paul Schrader was not involved with Heart Beeps, Stuart.

[2:41] I don't know why.

[2:43] And you go on Wikipedia now and it says Heart Beeps, a Paul Schrader joint, which is not accurate at all.

Stuart Wellington

[2:48] When I was watching The Card Counter, I couldn't help but think about Heart Beeps the whole time.

Elliott Kalan

[2:52] I think that's just you.

[2:53] I mean, The Card Counter, it is about a somewhat robotic man.

[2:55] I can understand that.

[2:56] But anyway, this isn't a podcast about Paul Schrader, Dan.

[2:59] What do we do on this podcast?

Dan McCoy

[3:01] Well, we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[3:04] And this is a movie, I'm sure we'll get into it, that had all the pieces in place to be a good movie.

[3:12] A very fine director of films, David O. Russell.

[3:16] Although, I mean, I've heard negative personal things about him, but I like his movies.

Elliott Kalan

[3:19] I mean, as a human being, I think we can't give him top marks, but he's certainly a talented filmmaker.

[3:24] He's a talented filmmaker.

[3:24] And it's got a top-notch cast full of big-name stars.

[3:28] And behind the scenes, you've got two of the best screenwriters in the biz, Jesser and Silverstein.

[3:33] Silverstein and Jesser.

Dan McCoy

[3:34] But it went through a lot of production things.

S4

[3:37] Yes.

[3:38] Well, Matt, our career, we've sort of based on the guiding principle that we want to make something that either everyone loves or hates.

[3:45] And I think this is another success.

Elliott Kalan

[3:49] You don't want to make a wishy-washy movie.

[3:51] Not for you, the two-and-a-half star.

[3:52] Yeah, it was fine.

[3:53] You really wanted to buy the opinion.

[3:54] All stars or no stars, Elliot.

[3:58] So, full disclosure, I work with Matt and Davon, Housebroken.

[4:04] And they're really fantastic, both fantastic writers and great people.

[4:09] And I love talking to them.

[4:10] And so I was very excited to have them here when I found out that they wrote this movie.

[4:15] And can you explain to the audience kind of where you were in your careers?

[4:19] This is 2015 and how you got involved in this movie, which had all the earmarks of a hit.

[4:24] Totally, yeah.

[4:24] Big-name director, big-name stars.

S5

[4:26] Yeah, we had just finished.

[4:27] We Drawn Together was just canceled.

[4:30] And I think, I don't know if we were doing anything specific, right?

[4:33] We were probably just starting to work with 20th.

[4:35] I think we worked on a show called Unhitched, which was a fairly brother show.

S4

[4:39] We had come off the strike, right?

[4:41] There was a strike, and we were in desperate need of health insurance.

S5

[4:44] Oh, that's what it was.

S4

[4:45] That's right.

[4:46] We need health insurance.

[4:46] Ironically, this is the movie we ended up working on because we needed health insurance.

[4:51] And the movie's about getting health insurance.

Elliott Kalan

[4:53] The secret to how big-name Hollywood people get involved in bad projects,

[4:56] a lot of times with actors, it's that they have a divorce they have to pay for.

[4:59] And with screenwriters, it's that they need health insurance.

[5:01] And that seems to be the constant tale.

[5:03] Yeah, that's right.

S5

[5:04] Because we worked on our animated show, drawn together, a lot of animated shows aren't Guild,

[5:08] and drawn together wasn't.

[5:09] So we didn't get health insurance.

[5:10] That's right.

[5:10] And then a strike came.

[5:11] Like, oh my gosh, we need our health insurance.

S4

[5:13] My wife was pregnant.

[5:14] And we needed to make a combined total.

[5:18] I think it was $40,000.

[5:20] And we said, we just need to make a Guild $40,000.

[5:23] And through our manager or agent or someone, they said, oh, David O. Russell is making a movie

[5:28] based on Kristen Gore, Al Gore's daughter's book called Sammy's Hill.

[5:33] And he wanted some crazier, dumber writers.

[5:38] And then Kristen Gore was too smart.

Stuart Wellington

[5:40] I'm not in the biz, so you guys can help me read between the lines.

[5:43] But when you say health insurance and pregnant wife, does that just mean gambling dance?

[5:50] Gambling and meth.

S5

[5:51] Oh, wow.

[5:52] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[5:53] Designer drugs.

S5

[5:54] So then we went and we met with him.

[5:57] And it was great.

[5:57] We went to his house, which looked like a frat house, right?

[6:01] Like, there was only like a dirty couch and a half-filled pool in the backyard and crappy

[6:07] lawn furniture.

[6:08] And we just went outside and just started talking to him.

[6:10] And he was in a bathrobe, at least in my memory.

[6:13] He was in a bathrobe.

[6:14] What year are we talking, Dave?

[6:15] What is this?

[6:16] 2002?

[6:18] 2004?

[6:19] Yeah, talking 15 years ago.

[6:20] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[6:20] So this sounds to me like Alfred Molina in Boogie Nights.

[6:24] Oh, it was a little bit like that.

S5

[6:26] It had that whole vibe.

[6:28] And so he's like, listen, I wrote a script for this book.

[6:30] I'm writing it with Kristen Gore.

[6:32] It's her book, Sammy Hill.

[6:33] And we're adapting it to a movie.

[6:35] And I'm like, well, would you like me to read the book?

[6:37] And he's like, no, we don't want it to be anything like the book.

[6:40] Let's get rid of the book.

[6:41] And I was like, well, do you want me to read the draft you guys did?

[6:43] No, we don't want you guys to read the draft.

[6:45] We don't want it to be based on the book or the draft we did.

[6:48] But I do want to do a movie about a hot girl going to Washington.

[6:53] And then so then we started riffing on ideas off of that brilliant idea.

Elliott Kalan

[6:58] The original title was Sexy Smith Goes to Washington, I think.

[7:00] It was, yeah.

[7:01] Yeah.

S5

[7:02] So that's what we had to start with.

[7:04] And then I'm not quite sure how it all ended up, but I think we started pitching on ideas about a woman trying to get health care in D.C.

[7:12] And then we brought up an episode we did of Drawn Together where one of our characters had a brain tumor that hit different parts of her brain and activated different parts of her personality.

[7:22] So she was sometime a big nymphomaniac or a racist stereotype.

[7:27] And I think he really sparked to that.

[7:30] And then we came up with the nail on the head.

[7:32] And then the rest is history.

[7:34] And then we're all –

Elliott Kalan

[7:35] Because when you were working on this movie, it was called Nailed.

[7:37] Because it's – to give away some of the plot, it involves a woman who gets a nail in her head that changes her personality sometimes.

[7:43] As opposed to – this is a – it's a confusing movie because it's available under the title Nailed on Tubi.

[7:49] But when you watch the movie, the title card says Accidental Love.

[7:52] Yeah.

[7:53] And so it's like even the movie – I guess it's a real sign that the movie doesn't know what it wants to be.

Stuart Wellington

[7:57] Wait, I could have watched this on Tubi?

[7:58] I watched it on IMDb TV with all those stupid commercials.

[8:01] Tubi also has stupid commercials.

[8:02] Yeah, I don't know what you're like –

[8:03] Oh!

[8:04] Oh my god!

S5

[8:06] And the other fascinating thing is like where David O'Russell was in his career at that point.

[8:11] He had just – he did I Heart Huckabees.

[8:13] And I think there was nothing really going on.

[8:15] He was sort of in a lull.

[8:17] I guess that's why we were able to get in there.

[8:19] And –

Stuart Wellington

[8:20] Did he do Three Kings before that as well?

[8:22] He did a bunch of great movies.

Dan McCoy

[8:24] I guess Spanking the Monkey is his first one.

[8:26] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[8:27] I remember getting off at the Astoria subway – in Forest Hills, the subway station there.

[8:32] And there was still like 10 to 15 years later, there was still a Three Kings poster kind of stuffed behind a ticket kiosk thing where they're just like,

[8:41] well, we can't really use this anymore, so we'll just leave this artifact forever.

Elliott Kalan

[8:45] Well, that's like the – there used to be like a gas station on Broadway around Houston.

[8:52] I don't know if it's there anymore.

[8:53] And it's – or it was a parking lot.

[8:54] And they had a huge ad for The Majestic starring Jim Carrey.

[8:58] I remember that.

[8:59] It was an enormous standee, probably 20 feet tall of a sad Jim Carrey.

[9:04] And it was – and the movie opened and closed within weeks, but that was there for – it felt like 10 years.

[9:09] Like you would walk by it and it was just – yeah, it was a relic of an ancient civilization where he worshipped the Majestic.

[9:14] Jim Carrey's Ozymandias.

[9:15] Yeah.

[9:16] Yeah.

[9:16] Look upon my works, see you funny.

[9:17] He was the biggest star.

[9:19] Yeah.

[9:19] He was a huge star.

[9:21] So do you want to talk at all, Matt and Dave, about the conflict behind the scenes with this movie?

[9:28] Or would you rather help your careers than not?

S4

[9:30] Let me set you up, Matt, because basically it was clear with David O. Russell.

[9:36] We had never worked with him.

[9:37] We had a great time working with him, but it was always a new idea, new idea, new idea.

[9:41] He saw the movie Monster House and that changed his perspective on the movie.

[9:44] So at some point Matt and I did get a job and had to move on and left him and Kristen Gore to finish writing the movie.

[9:52] We had no idea if it was getting made and we heard it was.

[9:55] Anyway, it was years later when we got a call from the Writers Guild saying, hey, there was a submission for credits for this movie.

[10:02] And just so you know, you are not getting any credit.

[10:05] And we said, well, that makes sense.

[10:06] We had moved on in our careers.

[10:07] We weren't around for the shooting of the movie or the finishing of the script.

[10:11] So we thought, all right, that makes sense that Kristen Gore would rewrite everything we wrote.

[10:16] Because most of the stuff we wrote was about a guy who had a boner forever and a guy who had a prolapsed rectum.

[10:22] And that stuff didn't seem like it was in Kristen Gore's world.

[10:25] But it was the night we got the call or the day we got the call from the Guild saying, hey, if you don't put in a file to get credit or whatever it is, then you won't get credit in the movie.

[10:36] And Matt decided, oh, I should just read at least the script.

Elliott Kalan

[10:39] I'll read what they submitted.

[10:42] And you had something like 24 hours left.

[10:44] Yeah.

[10:44] I mean, yeah.

S5

[10:45] They had called me like a few times.

[10:47] And then it was literally like, yeah, like it's the end of the day today or by midnight.

[10:52] If you don't file something, you can't get credit.

[10:54] And so I'm like, whatever.

[10:55] I'll at least read what they submitted.

[10:58] And then I read the treatment.

[11:00] And it was a treatment that we wrote, but our names were taken off of it.

[11:04] So then I immediately look on my, you know, I look back.

[11:06] I mean, we're talking.

[11:07] It was already like three or four years after the fact.

[11:09] I look on my computer and I find the exact document.

[11:12] But with our names also on it.

[11:14] At which point then I was like, well, I just kind of lost my mind.

[11:17] I'm like, well, now I do want credit.

[11:19] I don't care how shitty this movie is.

[11:22] They erased my name.

[11:24] I want to go ahead.

[11:25] And then Dave got a copy of the script or a version of a shooting draft or something.

[11:29] And he started, he just sort of skimmed through it.

[11:30] It was like, yeah, there's some stuff here that we, you know, stuff from the original draft.

[11:34] I'm like, well, fuck then.

[11:35] Let's try to get some credit.

[11:37] Like at least get a story by credit, which is what we really felt we deserved because we thought we helped develop the story.

S4

[11:43] And by the way, just as a coda, we didn't get paid enough for the movie to get health insurance.

[11:49] If we did not, if we got story, if we got credit for the movie, you know, you get a certain bump.

[11:56] That bump would have taken it past the threshold where we would have had, you know, in the Writers Guild, you use credits.

[12:04] So you basically use up credits until you can't have health insurance.

[12:07] So we had to use up these credits and then lose our health insurance ultimately.

[12:10] But this would have gotten us back over that threshold.

Elliott Kalan

[12:13] So you weren't just doing this for vanity.

[12:16] You weren't just doing this to see your name in lights.

[12:17] You were doing this for your family.

[12:19] I was doing this for my family.

[12:21] I was doing this for my family.

[12:23] So Matt's was out of spite and Dave's was out of his love for his family.

S4

[12:26] Yeah, Matt married well.

[12:27] He didn't need health insurance.

[12:28] I was having a baby.

[12:30] I had my meth and gambling problem.

[12:31] So we had our own reason.

S5

[12:33] So then, you know, we sat down and we penned a letter to the arbitration committee, the WJ,

[12:38] the people that then look a neutral party who looks at the scripts, looks at all the materials and decides who deserves credit.

[12:45] And so then I wrote this letter.

Elliott Kalan

[12:47] Matt, if you would feel comfortable with reading some of this letter to us.

S5

[12:50] I don't know if I'm comfortable, but I'll do it.

[12:52] Here it is.

[12:53] It's July 29th, 2013.

[12:56] Wow.

[12:57] Heady times.

[12:58] Yeah.

[12:59] All right.

[12:59] Dear members of the arbitration committee.

[13:01] While you have most certainly read in the trades that we, Dave Jesser and Matt Silverstein, are seeking story credit on the Jessica Biel vehicle nailed, do not be fooled.

[13:11] The stakes have never been lower.

[13:13] Even the director, David O. Russell, is refusing credit on this tasteless piece of cinematic diarrhea.

[13:18] Unfortunately, given the current status of our writing careers, we cannot afford to be denied the credit we deserve on any crappy movie.

[13:25] And make no mistake, this movie is total shit.

[13:29] But we are responsible for at least taking half of this shit.

[13:32] And it's important for the world to know that Matt Silverstein and Dave Jesser squeezed out a painfully large portion.

[13:39] Wow.

[13:40] Okay, so it goes on.

[13:42] Now, Kristen Gore believes she deserves sole credit writing because she took the biggest shit out of all of us.

[13:48] And to get sole credit, Kristen Gore has proved repeatedly throughout this process that she is full of more shit than anybody.

[13:55] Starting with the first treatment she submitted to the committee, claiming that only she and David O. Russell authored the treatment without us.

[14:02] Now, to her credit, once we reminded her, she was able to recall spending weeks in a small house with us while we wrote the majority of the treatment.

[14:11] We don't hold any of that against her because people forget stuff like that all the time.

[14:15] Especially when they erase the names of the people they don't want to share credit with from the actual document.

[14:21] Wow.

[14:22] This is crazy that I wrote this.

[14:25] Here's the ending.

[14:26] Anyhow, listen.

[14:27] We all spent way too much time discussing who's responsible for this movie no one is going to see.

[14:31] We really do wish we had better careers so we could distance ourselves from Nailed 2.

[14:36] But the sad fact is, we can't.

[14:38] But all we're asking of you, dear members of this committee, is take a deep whiff of this shitty movie and ask yourself this simple question.

[14:45] Who's shit does this smell like?

[14:47] And then look at our credits or just reread this poorly written statement.

[14:52] Do that.

[14:52] And we believe you'll agree that Nailed stinks like us.

[14:56] God bless Madden and Dave.

[14:59] So that was our statement to try to get credit on a movie that's a giant piece of shit.

Elliott Kalan

[15:06] And it was successful.

[15:07] And it's a story of triumph of the human spirit because it was successful.

[15:11] And you did get credit on this.

[15:13] I'm just going to be polite because you're in the room.

[15:15] Not very good movie.

S5

[15:16] And here's the crazy twist ending, the big six-cent thing.

[15:20] I never watched the movie until yesterday to prepare for this podcast.

[15:25] And we didn't write this movie.

[15:29] We just didn't.

[15:30] We didn't write it.

[15:31] We definitely helped come up with the story, but we had very little to do with this movie.

[15:34] Well, I'm curious to hear what we're credited for it.

S4

[15:37] Yeah, I watched it last night for the first time.

[15:38] I'm curious to hear what you guys think.

[15:40] Because it seemed to me that, you know, David O. Russell jumped off the movie before they even finished shooting it.

[15:46] He was sick of them not giving him enough.

[15:48] Whatever.

[15:48] I don't know the reasons.

[15:51] But he jumped off.

[15:52] He didn't want credit for the movie.

[15:53] Then they shot the first scene where the nail gets in her head and read.

[15:57] And then edited it and got it out because David O. Russell was winning Oscars by then.

[16:01] But it seemed to me that probably David O. Russell, because he has a movie in his head, probably had an idea of how this movie would look.

[16:09] And then new people came in, finished it, and had no idea.

[16:13] Now, who knows what David O. Russell's version would have been like.

[16:15] But I can't imagine this is the version he had in his head as he shot those scenes.

Dan McCoy

[16:21] I mean, watching it, my impression was definitely that, like, yeah, there was a movie in here.

[16:29] And then it just got rearranged by people who are like, I don't know.

[16:33] Like, we came in.

[16:33] We found this footage.

[16:35] Like, what can we do with it?

Elliott Kalan

[16:37] Because, like.

[16:38] It's a little bit like the actual story of this movie, of its making, is the fake story of the Blair Witch Project.

[16:43] Which is stumbling on footage that you then assemble into some kind of releasable product.

[16:48] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[16:49] Yeah.

[16:49] Like, I mean, I don't know how accurate anything online is.

[16:54] But it seemed to be that, like, there was all this stuff where, like, funding would fall through.

[16:59] And then, like, they would deny more funding.

[17:01] And they wanted to fire people off of it.

[17:04] So, by that point, David O. Russell had lost interest.

[17:07] And, like, there was stuff that they left off shooting.

[17:09] Like, key important stuff to the end.

[17:12] Kind of like that giant Bruce Lee movie.

[17:13] Because they're like, oh, if we, like, wait to, like, do the nail gun accident to the end, they have to give us more money.

[17:18] And then there was, like, a strike.

[17:20] And they couldn't do it.

[17:21] And which is very interesting.

[17:22] Like, if you see the nail gun accident, it just seems like, yeah.

[17:25] Like, there might as well be, like, a scene missing card that gets put up on the screen at that point.

Elliott Kalan

[17:30] Yeah, it's like the lap dance in Death Proof in Grindhouse.

[17:34] Yeah.

[17:34] Where it just says real missing.

[17:35] Or was that Planet Terror?

[17:36] I don't remember.

[17:37] No, no.

[17:37] It's Death Proof.

[17:38] Yeah.

[17:39] So, why don't we talk about what this movie is about?

[17:42] We talked about that it doesn't, that Matt and Dave in a story of victory for all writers, I think, managed to wrest their names back onto it.

[17:51] So, what is this movie that, called Accidental Love Slash Nailed, that they're on?

[17:56] Well, we know, as we were talking about it, that it involves a woman with a nail on her head.

[18:00] So, let's start.

[18:01] So, the movie, for some reason, starts with the text a few years ago.

[18:04] And then it goes to a CGI map of America.

[18:07] And we zoom into Indiana, where we meet Alice Eccle, Jessica Biel.

[18:11] She's a roller skating waitress at a car hop.

Stuart Wellington

[18:12] It's weird that it takes place a few years ago in Indiana.

[18:15] And it doesn't mention where I'm at, since I was in Indiana a few years ago.

[18:19] Yeah, that's true.

[18:20] We forgot the old thing.

Elliott Kalan

[18:21] So, put that under film gloves, anybody.

[18:23] I guess that's true.

[18:23] Stuart, was this an accurate representation of Indiana, what we see on screen?

Stuart Wellington

[18:28] I mean, it felt, I actually got homesick and I started crying.

[18:33] Because of all the roller skating waitresses that used to serve you when I was there?

[18:36] Yep.

[18:36] And classic cars.

Dan McCoy

[18:37] I will say, I wonder whether a few years ago, I mean, like, that's, you know, look, that's kind of a joke thing that sometimes happens where it's just, like, the day after tomorrow when they don't want to, like, set it in time.

[18:48] But I also wonder if, like, by the time this movie was released, like, Obamacare had come out.

[18:54] Yes.

[18:55] And, you know, Lord knows it's not the best healthcare system.

[18:58] But the premise of this movie, you know, is kind of no longer correct.

[19:03] Is that healthcare is impossible to get.

[19:04] Yeah.

[19:04] Yes.

[19:05] So, I don't know.

[19:06] I wonder if that was part of it.

Elliott Kalan

[19:08] That's, that makes, that's a very good point.

[19:10] That's a good point that I hadn't thought about.

[19:11] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[19:11] Because it does, it is, it's just a very vague, they should have just put before Obamacare on the front.

[19:15] Yeah.

S5

[19:16] But then they go to this diner with all, like, these 50s cars and she's on roller skates.

[19:20] So, you think it's, well, now we're back in 1950, which is really bizarre.

[19:23] Yeah.

[19:23] But you're not.

Elliott Kalan

[19:25] You're living, you're living in, I mean, it's a sort of a historical time in American history.

[19:30] It's kind of like you're living in a mythic version of America.

[19:33] She's, anyway, she's great on her skates.

[19:34] She does knock a guy over.

[19:36] It's weird.

[19:37] You see a bunch of shots of her doing really great skating tricks and then she just bumps into a guy and knocks him down.

[19:42] And it's one of the things where you're like, so is she bad on her skates?

[19:44] I don't, anyway.

[19:45] It's not the most important thing.

Dan McCoy

[19:46] She's bringing up the important thing that she often gets hit in the head, which will come into play later.

[19:50] Oh, right, right.

Elliott Kalan

[19:51] So, her boyfriend is Scott.

[19:52] He's James Marsden.

[19:53] He's a state trooper, which you know because he has a mustache and he always wears his uniform.

[19:57] And he is planning to propose to her at the fanciest restaurant in town, the Fancy Gondola, it's called.

[20:03] And he got, he secured, weeks ahead, he secured the best table, the one next to the gondola, which is suspended from ropes or chains above the ceiling.

[20:11] But the proposal gets interrupted by a guy using a nail gun to fix the gondola, which seems like a weird thing to do in the middle of dinner service anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[20:19] I would recommend, as a bar owner, I would recommend against doing that while you're in the middle of a busy service.

[20:25] Well, it's like the one talker.

[20:26] But, you know, it's hard to get a contractor out, so I guess I understand.

Elliott Kalan

[20:29] There's like, there was that movie we watched where, I forget, was it Nicolas Cage or somebody else?

[20:33] They had to turn off, they had to get the lights off in a place, so they stood on the toilet in the public bathroom.

[20:38] Yeah, the fuse box was in the bathroom.

[20:38] The fuse box was on the ceiling directly above the toilet, and you were talking about, as a bar owner, that's a poor place to put your fuse box.

[20:45] So, there's a confusingly edited accident, I'll call it, and Alice ends up with a nail in her head, but, yeah, you kind of don't see it.

[20:55] It's all done through suggestion.

[20:56] It's almost like they're making the audience complicit in the act of the nail going in.

[21:01] Like the way that you don't see the knife go into Janet Leigh in Psycho, you don't see the nail go into Jessica Biel's head.

[21:08] But it makes sense that they, I guess they put off shooting that scene until the end, and then they didn't have money to do it, and so it's, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[21:13] And it couldn't get some sick-ass practical effects of, like, you know, like stuff squirting out of the head.

Elliott Kalan

[21:19] Well, the sad thing is, you know that Tom Savini, when he watched this, was like, why didn't they hire me?

[21:25] I would have done it.

[21:26] It would have been great.

[21:26] Blood everywhere.

Dan McCoy

[21:27] You know, Three Kings had that great scene where you see the bullet go inside the body and what happens.

Elliott Kalan

[21:32] Well, that's, it makes you think that, I wonder if he had something in mind where you would see the nail go in and, like, go into her brain, which would, the whole movie is about that.

[21:41] Yeah, three-dimensional, Sonny Chiba style, yeah.

[21:45] Yeah, exactly.

[21:46] Yeah, it suddenly goes to x-ray.

[21:48] You see the bones get broken.

[21:49] They go to the hospital where Dr. Bill Hader refuses to operate to remove the nail because Alice doesn't have insurance.

[21:56] And while they eat hamburgers in the operating room, they talk about how the nail is so deep in her brain that it could cause personality changes and loss of inhibitions and speaking languages that she vaguely remembers from childhood.

[22:08] And so whenever she gets mad in the movie from now on, she just speaks Portuguese.

[22:11] And Scott, he takes back the engagement ring and gives her his lucky eagle talon, which is something that I was expecting her to carry through the rest of the movie, and it just disappears.

[22:20] And I was disappointed that that was not a rent.

[22:22] So by this point, that day—

S4

[22:23] Well, but just to be clear, he takes back the engagement ring because he doesn't want to be engaged to someone who has a nail on her head and who does not have health insurance.

[22:31] Yeah.

[22:31] Like, that's a deal breaker.

[22:33] The nail on the head he was okay with because he thought, oh my god, she's on her parents' health insurance.

[22:37] But the minute he finds out she's not on her parents' health insurance, he subtly takes off the ring because he can't be married to a burden.

Stuart Wellington

[22:45] Her parents, one of whom is played by Beverly D'Angelo.

[22:48] She could have played both, though.

[22:49] She's great.

[22:50] Yeah.

[22:50] She could play both parents?

Elliott Kalan

[22:52] Yeah, she could play both parents.

[22:53] So do you think they'd both be female characters or she would be playing a man and a woman?

Stuart Wellington

[22:57] I mean, I think she's got range, Elliot.

[22:59] I don't—

[22:59] I mean, I'd leave it up to her, you know?

Elliott Kalan

[23:01] Okay.

[23:02] I mean, yeah, we'll see what the D'Angelo wants.

Stuart Wellington

[23:03] That's usually what you do in movies, right?

Dan McCoy

[23:05] There are—look, this movie, like we said, has been chopped up and put back together in a Frankenstein shambling monster of a film.

[23:17] But it does have funny bits in it, particularly because a lot of the actors are talented comic actors.

[23:26] And I liked James Marsden just, like, constantly giving percentage chances for various things.

[23:35] Like, okay, it's a 60% chance we're still engaged, you know?

[23:39] And there's, like, one point later on when one of the women's like, I don't like your numbers or something that was very funny.

Elliott Kalan

[23:46] James Marsden, I mean, he's been the saving grace of a number of Flophouse movies in the past.

[23:52] He's a really talented comic actor.

[23:54] Not a great Cyclops, but it's a hard character to do.

[23:57] You know, it's a hard character to do anything with.

S5

[23:59] That's what—I mean, that's kind of what makes this whole movie fascinating is, like, the cast is insane.

[24:03] It's such a great cast.

[24:05] I mean, even—

[24:06] Yeah, we—

[24:06] I mean, Bill Hader was in that part.

[24:08] Yeah, Bill Hader shows up.

[24:09] He's fantastic.

[24:10] Like, everyone in Tracy is also—

[24:11] Tracy Morgan shows up.

[24:12] They're doing their best.

[24:13] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[24:14] Yeah.

[24:14] Yeah, whenever Tracy Morgan says anything, I laugh at it just because it's impossible for me to have to laugh at his delivery, even if the film around it is not holding it to the market.

Elliott Kalan

[24:22] That's why they kicked you out of that Holocaust memorial that he was doing.

[24:26] Because he was talking about—

[24:28] Well, he shouldn't have been in charge of that.

[24:30] I mean, he was trying his best to make it somber, and you just wouldn't stop laughing.

[24:33] I mean, I think the blame's on the organizer in that case.

Stuart Wellington

[24:36] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[24:37] I don't know about that.

[24:38] Maybe.

[24:39] I mean, it was called remembering through our laughter, which was, you know, it was a bad idea for a Holocaust memorial.

[24:46] Yeah.

[24:47] So Alice's parents, they hold a fundraiser.

[24:49] This is where we meet the local veterinarian, Christy Alley, and some of the other kooky characters in this town.

[24:54] There's Reverend Norm, played by Kurt Fuller, who you may remember from, like, Ghostbusters 2 and things like that.

[24:58] And he's a minister with a constant boner because of a Viagra accident.

[25:04] And we meet Keyshawn, played by Tracy Morgan, who will later learn has a prolapsed anus because of a prolapsed rectum from a weightlifting accident.

[25:11] So they are also in desperate need of health care.

[25:14] They can't get these problems solved.

S4

[25:14] I remember showing David O. Russell—have you guys seen that image online of that weightlifter from the Olympics?

[25:20] He was squatting.

[25:21] I don't know if it was the Olympics.

[25:22] And his whole butt hole fell out of his—

[25:24] Yeah.

[25:25] Like his—yeah, his little singlet ripped.

[25:28] And I remember showing him that, and he was so excited.

[25:30] And then that's what I remember looking in the script as soon as someone showed up with a prolapsed rectum.

[25:35] I was like, Matt, we did write this.

[25:37] Yeah.

S4

[25:37] Wait a minute.

S5

[25:37] Kristen Gore didn't write prolapsed rectum.

[25:40] We showed him that picture.

[25:41] That's our vision.

Elliott Kalan

[25:43] Now, I haven't—I also—like almost everybody else in the world, I haven't read the book that it's based on.

[25:49] But I did look up the summary, and it is about a woman trying to pass health care—a health care bill in the Capitol.

[25:53] No way!

[25:54] So it does seem like, yeah, the main Silverstein Jester edition is the new tone of boners and prolapsed rectums.

Dan McCoy

[26:02] I also looked into it.

[26:03] Like, she's a lobbyist in the book.

[26:05] Like, she just—like, she already is a creature of Washington.

[26:08] I'm glad that you explained that you did not read the script because I was like, there's not a very good synopsis of the book online, but nothing about the book seemed to sound like the movie at all.

Stuart Wellington

[26:19] Yeah, and I mean, like at this point, I feel like the tone of the movie is fairly wacky, and the—a lot of the, like, angles, like, there's a lot of close-ups, and it's—the angles are all askew.

[26:31] Like, it's meant to be—

[26:32] And the music's very wacky, yeah.

[26:33] Yeah.

[26:34] It feels like—almost like—I mean, Tim Burton-y isn't the right thing to say, but, like, it feels like they're trying to, like—I don't know.

S4

[26:41] It felt to me like someone who is trying to emulate wacky comedy but doesn't know how—

[26:46] Yes, yeah.

[26:46] —doesn't have a good sense of humor or understand why.

[26:49] And I don't know if that was David O. Russell's original intent, to be as wacky.

[26:53] I have no idea.

[26:55] But, yeah, it definitely came across wacky.

[26:57] It also came across as an incredibly horny movie without ever reaching any moment of sexy.

Stuart Wellington

[27:07] Despite Jake Gyllenhaal's bicep veins you see later, and I'm like, wow, he's on a serious cut to get there.

[27:12] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[27:13] It's a really, like—yeah, it feels like a teenager's idea of sex, too, because whenever there's a sex scene, it's like you just see legs flinging around in the air, and you hear, like, ooh, ah, ooh, ah, ee, ooh.

[27:24] It's like there's—but we'll get to that.

[27:26] So they don't raise enough money.

[27:28] Alice loses her job because of her mood swings, because of that nail.

[27:31] Kirstie Alley tries to remove the nail with some home surgery, and it just causes her to get so violent that Scott finally breaks up with Alice.

[27:39] Now, three weeks later—don't know why we needed it to be three weeks later, but it is—

[27:43] Alice is watching TV, and she sees an ad on TV for her local congressman, Representative Howard Birdwell, Jake Gyllenhaal, who is not yet at—he's not at Okja levels of wacky Jake Gyllenhaal, but he gets pretty high up there.

[27:57] He's on his way.

[27:58] Yeah, and—

Dan McCoy

[27:59] I enjoy the—I mean, you know, you can tell me whether this was intended or whether I'm reading too much into the movie, but I do think that, like, there's a bit of a sly joke in the fact that later on we will see how Jessica Biel's, like, lack of shame, like, allows her to fit into Washington, like, immediately and skillfully.

[28:26] Like, her shamelessness is her success.

[28:30] And Jake Gyllenhaal's character is shameless in sort of a, like, gormless, like, weak man way, whereas, like—

[28:40] Very clammy-handed, yeah.

[28:42] Yeah, she is shameless to a good cause, but they are a good match in part because, like, her injury and subsequent, like, you know, honestly, mental illness, like, makes her fit right in.

[28:56] It's kind of the being there gag, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[28:59] Yeah.

[28:59] But there is, yeah, the implication that to get ahead in Washington, you have to be missing the part of your brain that controls your behavior.

[29:06] Exactly.

[29:07] Yeah.

[29:08] That's—yeah, this is a deep movie.

[29:10] That's a good point.

S5

[29:11] Thank you.

[29:11] Yeah, that was—that was what we—that's what we added to it.

[29:14] That's smart stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[29:16] So, Representative Howard Birdwell, he got elected on a platform of providing colored glues for school kids.

[29:21] They need glues in more than color, which is a funny joke.

[29:25] And he asked—he says, if you need help, contact me.

[29:27] So she and the Reverend and Keyshawn, they go to D.C. to get help with their health care needs.

[29:32] They have a brief dust-up with a security guard at the Capitol building, Rakesha, who just leaves with Keyshawn immediately on a date.

[29:38] And I was like, oh, well, that's not going to come back.

[29:40] No, it does.

[29:41] That's a storyline throughout the movie is Keyshawn and Rakesha's relationship.

[29:44] Yeah.

[29:45] And Birdwell's aide, he won't let Alice meet with him.

[29:48] Birdwell's too busy meeting with house whip Pam Hendrickson, played by Catherine Keener.

[29:53] Who's almost unrecognizable in this wig.

[29:56] There were times when I was like—I had to remind myself, I was like, this—she was—this is like—when she was in, like, Being John Malkovich,

[30:01] she seems so cool all the time.

[30:03] And here she manages to be, like, I guess just a Washington person.

[30:07] Like, not cool.

[30:07] It's a very different character for her to play.

[30:09] But she's super talented.

[30:11] That's what happens.

Stuart Wellington

[30:12] Yeah, she—I mean, she's giving off, like, Alice and Janney-type energy in this role.

Elliott Kalan

[30:16] Yes, yeah.

[30:17] Alice and Janney energy, which hopefully the country will be operating off of by 2050.

[30:21] That's the goal.

[30:22] That's in Biden's Build Back Better program.

Dan McCoy

[30:24] We've got to replace oil with Alice and Janney.

[30:26] Allie, you're living in a fool's paradise.

[30:28] That's not going to, like—you know, like that—

[30:31] We've got, you know, a few more decades of Alice and Janney energy, God willing.

Stuart Wellington

[30:35] Here's lobbying for Christine Baranski energy over here.

Elliott Kalan

[30:39] I mean, that's also solid energy.

[30:42] I mean, if only—if only we could—we could harness all of our—all of our—all of our

[30:47] talented television and film actresses, Jean Smart could power Chicago.

[30:51] We know that.

[30:52] And stage.

[30:53] And stage, yes.

[30:54] And they're also stage actresses, yeah.

[30:56] Anyway, Catherine Keener, she wants to—she wants Gyllenhaal support for a bill that would

[31:00] build a military base on the moon.

[31:02] And she's already gotten the support of this Girl Scout group by promising that she'll get

[31:06] Shakira to perform at their jamboree, even though that's just a lie.

[31:09] And this is, I think, where the movie kind of misunderstands comedy is that her lead aide

[31:14] is Paul Rubens, and he's given very little to do in the movie.

[31:18] And Paul Rubens is like—he's playing maybe the least wacky character in the entire movie,

[31:23] which is a strange choice when this is literally Pee Wee Herman running around.

[31:27] He actually made me laugh really hard.

S4

[31:29] He, like, looked at camera and narrowed his eyes a couple times.

[31:33] He was definitely his own—hey, can I make just a quick comment about the moon base?

[31:38] Sure, sure, yeah.

[31:39] When we were breaking the story, I knew the Catherine Keener character existed, and David

[31:45] Russell really wanted her to be trying to pass a bill for something really evil.

[31:50] And he was looking for pitches, and Matt pitched, well, what if she's trying to build,

[31:54] like, a Death Star?

[31:55] And I think you were just sort of half-joking, half-serious.

[31:58] I know that David O. Russell was like, that's a terrible idea.

S5

[32:00] Oh, no.

[32:01] I mean, like, I literally thought he was going to throw something at me.

[32:03] Like, he thought it was the worst idea he'd ever heard.

[32:07] And so I was like, oh, okay.

[32:09] All right.

[32:09] We'll pitch another thing.

[32:10] I mean, I don't know.

S4

[32:10] Death Star has only been—up until that point, it's only been successful in movies,

[32:14] so I don't know why.

[32:16] And then when he went to—we went with him to pitch the movie once we broke it out with

[32:21] Kristen, and it was the weirdest thing.

[32:23] I mean, we've been pitching, you know, to varying degrees of success, but we're always

[32:27] as prepared as we can be.

[32:29] We had written half the outline for the pitch that David hadn't read when we went in to pitch

[32:34] the movie.

[32:35] So he was reading things for the first time in front of the head of Sony, you know, even

[32:39] to the point where he was reading it going, oh, this is pretty good.

[32:41] And then he would read what we had written or what Kristen had written.

[32:44] And then at some point, he said—and then they meet this Catherine Keener character, and

[32:48] she's trying to get a bill going for—what was it again, Matt?

[32:53] What was your pitch?

S5

[32:54] And I was like, oh, the Death Star?

[32:58] Like, I was so scared to say it.

S4

[33:01] And he goes, yes, the Death Star.

[33:03] I'm like, oh my god.

[33:05] And he sort of went on with the pitch, and then eventually he was like, ah, you know,

[33:08] he hadn't read any of the third act that we had tried to put together for him.

[33:12] And he was like, ah, they go to Washington, it pretty much all works out.

[33:15] You get it, right?

[33:16] And I remember thinking we were going to get, all right, well, thanks for coming in.

[33:19] That was weird.

[33:20] But they bought the movie immediately.

[33:22] Yeah, like right in the room.

[33:23] He's like, wow, that sounds like a great movie.

[33:24] Let's do it.

[33:25] I'm like, what?

[33:26] Where am I?

[33:27] How does this work?

[33:29] So we assumed there'd be no Death Star.

[33:31] And in any of our treatments, because he was so against it, we didn't have it in.

[33:35] And then last night, when I watched the movie the first time, it wasn't, unfortunately,

[33:38] the Death Star, but it was a moon base, which I'd like to think was from your pitch.

Elliott Kalan

[33:43] There's not that big a leap.

[33:45] I mean, they make it very clear in Star Wars that that's not a small moon, that's a battle

[33:49] station.

[33:50] But it's pretty close.

[33:54] It's not that different.

[33:55] So Paul Rubens is like, hey, Howard, you got to find a likable, ordinary person to be

[34:00] at this PR event tomorrow to endorse the moon base, because we've got the Girl Scouts on

[34:05] board.

[34:05] We need to make it look like ordinary Americans really want this moon base that can blow things

[34:09] up from space.

[34:10] And Jake Gyllenhaal runs into Jessica Biel in the hallway, and she's like, I need your

[34:15] help with health care.

[34:15] And he's like, that's way too complicated.

[34:16] I'm a freshman representative.

[34:18] I can't do that.

[34:18] And she gets hit in the head by a passing eagle statue that someone's carrying, and that,

[34:23] I guess, shifts the nail on her head enough that she becomes suddenly uncontrollably horny.

[34:28] And they have such cartoonish sex in an office in the Capitol.

[34:32] And Alice has her first ever orgasm.

[34:33] And she's reaching up to portraits of presidents and tearing their crotches out.

[34:37] Wow.

[34:38] You know, in the throes of this earth-shattering orgasm.

[34:41] It's very cartoonish.

[34:43] And she's like, I can't believe I did that.

[34:45] I blame it on the nail.

[34:46] That's not how you do it all the time.

[34:47] I mean, the problem is my wife won't let us do it near portraits anymore because I've destroyed

[34:51] so many of them.

[34:52] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[34:52] And just the cost to get things framed is fucking so expensive.

Elliott Kalan

[34:55] Oh, it's so expensive.

[34:56] And my hands get all cut up from breaking through the glass and all that.

S4

[35:01] And this was an important moment, right?

[35:03] Because they had set up Jessica Biel had never had an orgasm with her fiance.

Elliott Kalan

[35:07] With James Marsden, which is not likely.

S4

[35:11] It's hard for me to buy.

[35:12] Look at that mustache.

[35:13] Look at him.

[35:14] And then only when she has this horrible affliction, this nail on her head that's, you know,

[35:19] tearing apart her brain uncontrollably to the point where she has sex with random people

[35:23] in, I guess, a hallway or a closet of framed pictures.

Elliott Kalan

[35:27] It was hard because, like, it wasn't his office and it wasn't someone else's office because

[35:31] nobody was like, get out.

[35:32] I'm working here.

[35:33] It was just, yeah, like a random room.

[35:33] And the camera came panning around.

[35:35] Portraits.

[35:36] And portraits of presidents, which this is Congress.

[35:40] Like, you'd think they'd be portraits of representatives, you know, but, you know, nobody's

[35:43] going to recognize Sam Rayburn's crotch.

[35:44] So I guess put Bill Clinton up there.

[35:46] So you're saying, Dave, sorry.

S4

[35:48] No, no, that was it.

[35:49] That finally, it was in that special romantic circumstance.

[35:53] She could finally feel comfortable enough to have an orgasm.

Elliott Kalan

[35:56] Yeah.

[35:56] It turns out she has a very specific kink, which is it has to be in the Capitol building

[36:00] office with portraits in it.

[36:02] Otherwise, you just can't get there.

[36:02] Yeah.

S4

[36:03] Within five to seven minutes of being hit in the head by a 12 foot wide statue of a golden

[36:08] eagle.

Stuart Wellington

[36:09] Which someone's just carrying through the halls.

[36:11] Yeah.

[36:11] And with a super cut up Jake Gyllenhaal.

Dan McCoy

[36:14] I mean, he's fucking jacked.

Stuart Wellington

[36:16] He is ripped in this.

[36:17] Yeah.

[36:17] We do see him later.

Dan McCoy

[36:18] And I'm like, what was he making at this point in his career?

[36:23] He probably too.

[36:24] It was like right around Prince of Persia.

Elliott Kalan

[36:26] Yeah.

[36:27] Oh, really?

[36:27] Then that makes sense.

[36:28] Yeah.

[36:28] Because he's pretty jacked in Prince of Persia, right?

[36:31] He's got to do all that jumping within time limits.

[36:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[36:33] That's like the main thing Prince of Persia does is jump.

[36:36] Yeah.

[36:36] It's all jumping.

[36:36] According to the video games.

Elliott Kalan

[36:38] Yeah.

[36:39] That's what the main responsibility is when in ancient times when you were a prince of

[36:42] Persia was jumping from platform to platform.

[36:44] That was the main role.

[36:46] Yeah.

[36:46] In preparing to become a sultan.

[36:48] So she's like, I can't believe I did that.

[36:51] It's this nail on my head.

[36:52] And he goes, look, I'll put the health care bill as a rider on this moon base bill.

[36:56] If you'll come speak at this PR event, this moment of crazy sex has proven to me that

[37:00] you are the average American that I need to get the approval of America for this.

[37:04] And there's a scene where Alice and the Reverend and Keyshawn, they all seem to be sharing

[37:08] one hotel room.

[37:10] And all we learn in that is Keyshawn did not tell Rakesha about his prolapsed rectum.

[37:13] And he does.

[37:14] And he wants them to help him lie to her about it.

[37:16] It's a very, it's a very sitcom-y storyline because it's literally like.

[37:19] A little character moment.

[37:20] Yeah.

[37:21] The next day it's the moon event.

S4

[37:22] Wait, can I ask you guys a question about that scene?

[37:24] I think I saw who played the minister or the priest?

[37:27] Kurt Fuller.

[37:28] Right.

[37:28] Kurt Fuller.

[37:29] That scene, because I looked for it a lot, was one of the only scenes you actually saw

[37:32] his boner.

[37:34] Not in, you know, through his pants.

[37:36] So this joke where he was supposed to be running around with a boner the whole time,

[37:39] they never even, except for in that scene in this hotel room they may have been sharing,

[37:43] he was on the bed and you saw it sort of like subtly pushing up against the side of his

[37:48] pants.

[37:48] Yeah, it's more of a radio gag.

[37:49] They do a lot of describing.

Stuart Wellington

[37:50] The performer was, Kurt Fuller was probably like, no, I take this role really

[37:54] seriously, I'm going to make sure that I have a real boner the whole time.

[37:57] And they're like, don't you want to go with the prosthetic?

[37:59] He's like, nope.

[38:00] Even though I'm wearing black pants, you're going to definitely be able to tell that I

[38:03] have a boner the whole time.

Dan McCoy

[38:04] I have to admit, I was distracted during the scene where they explained what like the other

[38:08] main characters with medical issues, their problems were.

[38:12] So I spent the rest of the movie kind of like piecing it together.

[38:17] A little chalkboard.

[38:18] Well, he seems concerned about his penis.

[38:20] Do he like, is it like chafed in some way?

[38:23] Like what is it?

[38:24] I don't realize it was.

[38:26] It does happen to penises quite a lot.

Elliott Kalan

[38:28] This is like Robert Altman's images.

[38:30] You really got to pay close attention to figure out the story.

[38:32] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[38:33] Also, I do like how in their hotel room she has a x-ray of the nail in her head taped

[38:40] to the lamp.

[38:40] So we will always remember that she has a nail in her head.

[38:44] Like you would think she wouldn't want to see that all the time.

[38:47] But maybe, you know.

Elliott Kalan

[38:48] I mean, maybe it keeps hitting the part of her brain that makes her forget that there's

[38:51] a nail in her head.

[38:51] Right.

[38:51] It's like Memento.

[38:52] Yeah, yeah.

[38:53] Memento.

[38:54] It's tattooed across her clavicles in backwards.

[39:00] It says, you have a nail in your head.

[39:02] So when she looks in the mirror, it says that.

[39:03] Yeah.

[39:04] So the next day, it's the moon event.

[39:05] Alice gives a speech that's kind of confused, but it's very passionate.

[39:08] She's a big hit.

[39:09] The moon base gets more popular thanks to her support.

[39:12] Everyone celebrates with a drinking party at the hotel room.

[39:16] And everyone leaves so that Jessica Biel and Jake Gyllenhaal can have sex again.

[39:20] It's the next day.

[39:22] They're doing a photo op.

[39:23] And what's funny is that she's always got her crew of people with her.

[39:28] Like Tracy Morgan and Kerr Filler are always with her.

[39:30] And Rikisha after a certain point.

[39:32] And later on, Catherine Keener is like, can you tell her not to bring her crazy friends?

S4

[39:38] Well, that was something I remember, Matt, you and I pitched.

[39:41] Originally, there was the other guy who was fused to his couch, a shut-in, based on all the stories.

[39:47] And so he went with them to Washington.

[39:50] And wherever they were, on the bus to Washington, all of a sudden in the Capitol or at the hotel room, he was still on his couch.

S5

[39:57] Yeah, we would never explain – that's right.

[39:59] We never explained how he got there, but he would always be there like Jabba the Hutt on his thing.

[40:04] Just always there at any given space.

S4

[40:07] And watching the movie, I really am upset they cut that out because that would have been amazing if it had been seen there.

[40:11] I think they shot it.

S5

[40:12] They just cut out all the scenes of the guy on the couch.

[40:15] Really?

[40:15] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[40:16] I hope that's true.

[40:17] That's disappointing.

[40:19] They figured it pushed the movie a little too far.

[40:21] You know what?

[40:22] That was too wacky.

Stuart Wellington

[40:23] Yeah, they want to keep the more serious tone.

Elliott Kalan

[40:26] Yeah, yeah.

[40:27] This is about politics.

[40:28] So they're doing a photo op in the office of House Speaker Buck McCoy.

[40:32] He's played by James Brolin.

[40:33] And now James Brolin is taking credit for the Moonbase bill, which annoys Keener.

[40:37] And Alice learns –

[40:38] Did he say it was originally supposed to be James Caan?

[40:40] It was originally supposed to be James Caan.

[40:42] And according to Wikipedia, there was a creative disagreement about his death scene.

[40:46] And I think it was probably the fact that James Brolin starts choking on a piece of a cookie

[40:51] and Kurt Fuller tries to give him a Heimlich.

[40:53] And this is one of the few times we see his boner is –

[40:55] the joke is that his boner keeps jabbing him –

[40:57] keeps jabbing James Brolin in the butt while he's giving the Heimlich.

[40:59] My guess is James Caan didn't want to do that scene.

[41:02] That's my guess.

[41:03] So they're like, get me another James.

[41:05] We need a James.

[41:07] We already started making the credits.

[41:08] We wrote the James part, but we didn't make the Caan part.

[41:11] So who else do we have?

[41:13] And the Catherine Keener –

[41:13] Backspace.

S4

[41:14] Catherine Keener unplugging it was just so awkward and weird.

[41:19] I know that was –

Elliott Kalan

[41:20] Yeah, so he's choking and they try to defibrillate him.

[41:23] And Catherine Keener now, she's mad that he's taking credit.

[41:25] So she knocks the plug of the defibrillator out and he dies.

[41:28] But it's also like –

[41:29] Right.

[41:29] At that point, he's dying.

[41:30] He's choking.

[41:31] So the defibrillator is not the thing to go to.

[41:32] I guess it's hard to stop.

[41:34] But you've got to remove the obstruction in his trachea.

[41:36] That's what's going to save him.

[41:37] You know?

Dan McCoy

[41:37] That didn't – yeah.

[41:38] Paul Reuben's character does his angry squint some more at Catherine Keener.

[41:45] And this is the moment where he totally loses faith with her as we see later on in the movies.

[41:51] Because she did murder the speaker of the house.

[41:53] Switch aside.

[41:53] But she didn't though.

[41:56] That's the thing.

[41:56] It's like they're trying to –

[41:58] I don't know.

[41:59] They're trying to zap a man who is choking out of choking.

[42:03] So you're suggesting that she did it because she knew it was the wrong treatment.

[42:06] You're saying she actually almost saved him.

[42:09] I'm just saying it has no basis on it one way or the other.

S4

[42:12] It did seem like they wanted –

[42:14] All right.

[42:14] We need the joke of him getting poked in the ass by the guy with the heart on.

[42:18] But we also want Catherine Keener to unplug the paddles.

[42:22] Those two things, he can't have the same issue.

[42:24] No, no, no.

[42:25] We need both of those things.

[42:26] We need both.

Elliott Kalan

[42:27] The movie doesn't work without both.

[42:28] And Dan is having an issue with the medical factuality of the movie where a woman has a nail in her head

[42:33] that causes her to become a nymphomaniac.

[42:35] Yes.

[42:36] So at the end, also the Girl Scouts learned that Shakira was never going to come to their rally.

[42:40] That happens too.

[42:41] Yeah.

[42:42] Next, it's the speaker's funeral.

[42:44] Of course, Alice and all her friends are there.

[42:46] How they got invited to what is a fairly sparsely attended funeral for the speaker of the House of Representatives,

[42:52] the third in line for the presidency.

[42:55] Scott sees her on TV and he's instantly into her again.

[42:58] And Paul Rubens is like, I know you unplugged that defibrillator.

[43:01] And Catherine Keener is like, don't ruin this day for me.

[43:03] And she just kind of drops it.

[43:05] And Alice is mad at Howard for lying to her about putting the health care writer on the bill.

[43:09] She finds out that was never going to happen.

[43:10] He says, look, something dramatic would have to happen to save that health care bill.

[43:14] So she gives up.

[43:14] She says, how's this for dramatic?

[43:15] And she gives a big impromptu eulogy where she says that she heard the speaker's dying words and that his dying words were to support the health care bill and were against the moon base.

[43:25] And his widow, the speaker's widow, loves it.

[43:27] And everyone applauds.

[43:28] And Catherine Keener is so pissed.

[43:29] Now her moon base is in the balance because of this young upstart.

[43:34] And Howard is like, I'm so amazed that you did that.

[43:37] I love you.

[43:37] I think I love you.

[43:38] And she's like, I think I love you too.

[43:39] And he goes, I'm too scared to face Catherine Keener though.

[43:41] And he jumps out a window and runs away.

[43:44] And so Alice, she decides to form an alliance with the Girl Scouts.

[43:48] Now they're selling cookies to support the health care bill.

[43:51] And Catherine Keener retaliates with an anonymous smear accusing the Girl Scouts of promoting child lesbianism, which seemed like a real low point for the movie and for the characters.

Dan McCoy

[44:01] Yeah, it was a strange moment.

[44:02] But, you know.

[44:03] Yeah.

[44:04] It happened.

[44:06] We have to report the news as it occurs.

[44:09] We can't cover up.

Elliott Kalan

[44:09] Look, future generations need to know about the sins of accidental love.

[44:13] No, they can't.

[44:13] We can't whitewash this anymore.

[44:15] You know.

[44:16] We have to show them that our gods do have feet of clay, you know, in this case.

[44:21] And they have a big Squaw Girls Girl Scout jamboree.

[44:25] Scott shows up to win Alice back.

[44:27] And he's like, actually, Catherine Keener put me up to it.

[44:31] But I'll prove myself to you by finding Howard, Representative Birdwell, so he can introduce that health care bill.

[44:36] And he finds Howard Birdwell at a kind of masculinity retreat.

Dan McCoy

[44:40] Yeah, like an Iron John sort of.

[44:42] Like, this was a thing that.

[44:44] Like, I don't feel like this was, like, contemporary really at the time that this movie was made.

[44:50] No, it was more of an 80s thing, I feel like.

[44:52] Yeah, growing up.

[44:54] And Audrey, while here with me, was like, why is he at this thing?

[44:57] I'm like, you know, it's one of those masculinity retreats.

[45:00] And she's like, that's a thing that happened?

Elliott Kalan

[45:02] Well, because growing up, also, in today's world, when you're worried about losing your masculinity, you don't go to a retreat where you go around a fire and a loincloth and wrestle people.

[45:10] You get really into conspiracies and you try to overthrow the government.

[45:13] Like, that's what you do when you're worried about your masculinity now.

[45:15] So you go to a town that's having civil uprisings and you try to shoot people.

[45:23] That's what you do now.

[45:24] So I can see why Audrey was confused about it.

[45:27] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[45:28] Anyway, Howard.

[45:28] He's bumming us all out.

[45:29] That's great.

[45:30] Yeah, no problem.

[45:31] Hey, did I bum everybody out?

[45:32] Sorry about that.

[45:33] Let's go back to this movie.

[45:33] It's fine, yeah.

[45:34] I mean, does it help to mention again that Jake Gyllenhaal is completely ripped?

[45:38] Like, he's huge.

[45:39] Yeah, this is where he's in the world.

[45:40] And, like, oiled up, baby.

Stuart Wellington

[45:41] Like, hell yeah.

[45:42] Price of a mission.

[45:44] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[45:45] And he's like, I can't go until I finish Ritual Fire Combat with four more people and prove that I'm a man.

[45:51] And James Ritual is like, well, why don't you just leave and say that you're a man?

[45:55] And he's like, yeah, I can do that.

[45:57] What did he take off the table?

[45:58] So it's a trophy.

[46:00] He's like, I can't go unless I earn this trophy.

[46:02] And it's only later after he takes it that it's revealed that it's, like, moose testicles that he has to earn.

[46:07] Yeah, I guess it's something like that.

[46:07] So first it just looks like he's grabbing, like, a bunch of, like, a couple of rotten crab apples off a table.

[46:13] Yeah, it looked like baked apples to me.

[46:14] Yeah, okay.

[46:15] Yeah, yeah, baked apples.

[46:15] I thought they were prunes.

Dan McCoy

[46:16] So this makes sense now.

Stuart Wellington

[46:17] Yeah, that would have been weird if you said prunes?

[46:19] Yeah, a couple prunes.

[46:20] I mean, hey, helps you pass.

[46:22] Yeah, at this point, James Marsden's acting because he is trying to win Alice back.

[46:29] And, like, you don't kind of know where any of the characters are.

[46:33] Like, the romance balance is kind of weird because, I mean, like, it's called Accidental Love.

[46:39] I went into it assuming it was going to be some kind of romantic comedy.

[46:42] And I feel like that's kind of how they pitched the movie at this point because the political stuff didn't quite match anymore.

Elliott Kalan

[46:47] I mean, we literally have the guys here who pitched the movie.

[46:49] Did you pitch the movie at all as a romantic comedy?

Stuart Wellington

[46:50] Yeah.

[46:51] God, I don't know how, what it was pitched as.

S5

[46:56] How was this pitched, Dave?

S4

[46:57] It was just sort of like a nonsense.

[46:58] It was a romantic comedy.

[47:00] A young ingenue goes to Hollywood to change the world and on her way deals with all sorts of love and romance that she's not ready to handle.

Dan McCoy

[47:09] I agree with you, Stuart.

[47:10] It's hard to sort of see where you're supposed to come out here because neither of the men are particularly good choices in terms of who they are.

[47:19] James Marsden wants to, like, abandon her, assuming that she seems like she might have health issues.

[47:26] And Jake Gyllenhaal is this sort of, like, callow opportunist.

[47:31] And it really is one of these situations where you're like, are these the only two men in the world?

[47:36] And meanwhile, you know, she's only kind of shown to be into Jake Gyllenhaal, at least at first, because she has a nail on her head.

[47:45] So it's not a healthy relationship.

Elliott Kalan

[47:46] The best partner available seems to be Tracy Morgan.

[47:48] All he did was lie about a medical disability that he, you know, is very embarrassed about.

[47:53] Otherwise, he seems like a real stand-up guy who's supportive of everyone.

[47:56] Immediately committing.

[47:57] No, he seems like a very nice man.

[47:59] He meets Rakesha instantly.

[48:00] And it's not a pleasant meeting.

[48:02] Like, she's mad at them because they tried to bring a nail gun into Congress.

[48:05] And he instantly is supportive of her and is just like, and never leaves her side.

[48:09] And they're together for the rest of the movie.

S4

[48:11] When they head off in that first scene and they're like, where are you going?

[48:15] We just got here.

[48:16] What about our whole, and he's like, oh, this is how it works in the black community.

[48:19] It happens really quick.

[48:20] We take off.

[48:21] I was like, wait, what joke are they referencing?

[48:24] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[48:25] Yeah, I feel like that's a stereotype that doesn't exist, but they're kind of willing it into existence.

[48:30] Like, you know how it is with us Egyptians.

[48:33] We love the circus.

[48:34] Really?

[48:35] Is that true?

[48:37] As you know, here in Japan, we're all about collecting hats.

[48:40] Is that something that people say about the Japanese?

[48:45] Anyway, Howard shows up.

[48:46] He says, he announces that this big, Alice is about to tell the Squaw Girl, Girl Scouts.

Stuart Wellington

[48:51] Which, I feel like the movie has a number of sins, but for some reason, the, like, obviously they couldn't say Girl Scouts.

[49:00] Yes.

[49:00] Changing it to Girl Squaw's felt, I mean, obviously it's the time and, like, but it felt extra tone deaf with, I don't know.

[49:08] I guess it's probably because I'm watching it now in 2020.

Dan McCoy

[49:11] I mean, look, I don't, I'm not going to mount a spirited defense of that, but I think it probably was intended as, like, satirical in the way that, like, you know, Boy Scout organizations, you know, like, I feel like there is an element of, in the past of, like, stealing.

Elliott Kalan

[49:29] Well, yeah, there's an element of, and, like, in summer camps and then, like, kid organizations in summer camps, outdoors stuff, there's a real history of appropriating the idea of indigenous Americans.

Dan McCoy

[49:42] But the version of the movie that we see does not make that, uh, doesn't make it that clear.

[49:47] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[49:48] It doesn't really make it a joke, and I can only blame the screenwriters in this case, you know?

[49:51] Yep.

[49:52] Because if it's not on the page, it's not on the stage, you know?

[49:54] That's just how it is.

[49:56] So Alice is like, we should just give up.

[49:58] This is never going to happen.

[49:59] When Scott returns with Howard and Howard says, I'm going to quit my party and introduce the healthcare bill, and he kisses Alice, which really angers Scott.

[50:05] And they very briefly fight, and then Alice is like, I'm sorry that I used you to bring Howard back.

[50:10] We use each other now.

[50:11] Like, we're Washington people.

[50:13] And Scott walks out as the Girl Scouts all argue over, which suitor is cuter?

[50:17] They're like, I like Howard.

[50:18] Well, I like Scott.

[50:19] And it's like, they're both very handsome men.

[50:21] Like, I get it.

[50:21] They're both, you know, it's the next day.

[50:25] Okay, we're getting, we're in the home stretch of the movie.

[50:27] Congress has come into session under temporary speaker, Catherine Keener.

[50:31] She's going to be voted on.

[50:32] She keeps saying, remember tomorrow when you vote on the new speaker, how good I was.

[50:37] And it's like, so what, but is this, they keep acting as if it's like the first day of the congressional session, which it just, it's not clear.

[50:44] It's not clear where this is in the congressional calendar and why they couldn't just vote today on who the new speaker is.

[50:48] It seems like that would be the most important thing to do right off the bat.

[50:52] But Howard gets up and he proposes the health care bill.

[50:56] And that's when Catherine Keener drops the hammer.

[50:58] She presents evidence in the form of women that Howard had previously promised bills, introduced bills that lobbyists had given him in exchange for sex.

[51:07] And she says, this must be the same scenario.

[51:09] And there's multiple shots as the women are walking up.

[51:13] It seems unnecessary of congressmen like leering at the women and being like, ooh, yeah.

[51:18] Like it seems, it's so totally, it's almost like the movie was like, we've got to show that congressmen would find these women sexy or else this, this plot point doesn't work.

[51:25] So we got to have them all just be like biting their knuckles and just going like, whew, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[51:30] I do like, I do like the, the, the shots of Jake Gyllenhaal, like trying to make himself smaller and weasel out of it.

[51:36] Like he's a Roman Roy or something.

[51:37] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[51:38] And, uh, yeah.

[51:40] It's an odd moment too, because like, I feel at this, at this juncture, we're supposed to kind of like Jake Gyllenhaal a bit more.

[51:48] And, and, and I kept expecting, like the movie just presents this genuinely like gross behavior on his part and then just kind of leaves it.

Elliott Kalan

[52:00] Well, cause here we're seeing, we're seeing the behavior of the old Jake Gyllenhaal before he found love with Alice.

[52:05] I think it's what it's supposed to be.

[52:07] And, uh, you know, they're, they're reminding us that he used to be a cad and now he's a catch.

[52:11] Uh, from cad to catch.

[52:12] That's my new, my new romance novel.

[52:15] Yeah.

[52:16] It's not, and then the sequel cad catchers.

Dan McCoy

[52:20] But it's actually about the, uh, program cad.

[52:22] It's not, uh.

Elliott Kalan

[52:23] Yeah.

[52:24] Yeah.

[52:24] It's a, it's a computer thing.

[52:25] And of course the sequel cod catchers is just about how hard it is to be a fisherman these days when the oceans are depleted.

[52:29] So again, I don't mean to bum us out, but.

Stuart Wellington

[52:31] Damn you Poseidon.

Elliott Kalan

[52:34] Yeah.

[52:34] Yes.

[52:35] I, if only Odysseus hadn't pissed him off, we'd have plenty of fish to eat.

[52:38] Yeah.

[52:39] Yeah.

[52:39] It goes back that far.

[52:41] Uh, so, and so everyone's like boo boo.

[52:44] But then they're like, let Alice speak.

[52:45] Give her a chance to speak.

[52:47] Like it's, the, the, the congressman really acts just like a local town hall meeting anywhere.

[52:51] Uh, and Alice gives a speech, uh, and then fake passes out for drama.

[52:56] And Congress is like, yeah, yeah, let's vote on her healthcare bill.

[52:59] She gives this big rousing speech for it.

[53:00] And they vote and it fails by a landslide.

[53:03] And then Alice faints for real.

[53:05] And Gavin Gator did have a line here that I liked.

[53:07] She goes, healthcare fails just like always.

[53:09] Anyway, moving on.

[53:11] But, uh, this is also, this is the low point for everybody.

[53:14] Rakesha learns that Keyshawn lied to her, that Keyshawn lied to her about his, his prolapsed

[53:19] rectum.

[53:19] And then, and it really offends her that that's why he won't let her near her, his butt.

[53:23] And she dumps him.

[53:25] And Reverend Norm is like.

Dan McCoy

[53:26] And she guesses, she guesses what's happening with him with, with a, you know, like real perception.

[53:31] She's like immediately like, oh, do you have one of those baboon asses?

Elliott Kalan

[53:36] And, uh.

[53:36] Somebody must have showed her that video.

[53:38] Yeah.

[53:39] Yeah.

[53:39] Reverend Norm loses his faith in God.

[53:41] And, uh, they see Howard shaking hands with Paul Rubens.

[53:44] Oh no.

[53:45] And he gives a speech recanting his support for Alice.

[53:48] He reaffirms his support for the Moonbase bill.

[53:50] And he's introducing a new bill to rename the house gym after Speaker McCoy, James Rowland's

[53:55] character.

[53:56] And Alice is disgusted and she leaves.

[53:57] And they're back at the motel and she's packing up.

[54:00] And then she hears on the TV, the news announces that the bill to rename the house gym just

[54:04] passed.

[54:05] And it included a rider for healthcare for people with very specific catastrophic consequences,

[54:09] which include her and all of her friends.

[54:11] And the anchor goes, so I guess everybody else is still on their own, which is a funny joke.

[54:16] And, uh, the, it turns out nobody read the bill that Howard submitted except for Paul Rubens

[54:21] who didn't tell Catherine Keener about it.

[54:23] Cause that's what they really shaking hands on.

[54:24] And we see Paul Rubens kind of like, he, he, he, like run by in the background and she's

[54:28] being interviewed.

[54:29] Which is, it's like, just let Peewee be Peewee.

[54:31] You know, he's every, every glimpse we get of it.

[54:33] And, uh, she's like the Moonbase passed, but it doesn't matter anymore.

[54:37] And, uh, Howard's scheduled for what they call a rare triple censure.

[54:40] But he says on TV, it was all worth it, uh, to help Alice who he loves.

[54:44] And Alice starts kissing his face on the TV, which I thought was, it was, it was a pretty

[54:49] funny bit where she's like trying to French kiss the television screen.

[54:51] Um, but, uh, they find out he's, he's broadcasting from the parking lot of their motel.

[54:56] And so she runs out and kisses him and all, all is, well, we cut to a wedding for a congressional

[55:02] candidate.

[55:03] Uh, is Howard running again?

[55:05] Uh, is Alice running?

[55:06] Are they getting married?

[55:07] No.

[55:08] It's the marriage of Keyshawn and Rikisha.

[55:10] And Keyshawn is running for Congress, something he never seemed interested in until this moment

[55:14] when we see that he's got a campaign button on him and, uh, they get married and everyone

[55:18] dances through the credits and it goes on for such a long time.

[55:22] We see so much dancing from them.

[55:24] Halfway through the credits, there's a scene where Alice gets up to give a toast and then

[55:28] a champagne cork hits her in the eye.

[55:30] And then, and then that scene is over.

[55:33] We never hear what he was going to say.

[55:34] And then we get some bloopers, mostly Jake Gyllenhaal's.

[55:37] And you're like, okay, we saw them dancing.

[55:39] There was a mid credit scene pre Marvel Cinematic Universe, I think.

[55:43] And then we had bloopers.

[55:44] The movie must be over.

[55:45] No, there's more dancing.

[55:46] We see them dancing for a long time.

[55:49] And she, and Jessica Biel has a bandage over her eyes.

[55:51] So this is clearly in continuity.

[55:53] It's supposed to be after the scene we saw.

[55:55] So it's, and I have to admit, like watching them dance was probably the most fun I had

[55:59] watching the movie.

[56:00] Like they, they really seem to be into dancing and having a good time for the first time.

S5

[56:03] Well, that was, that was the thing about the ending.

[56:05] I'm like, oh, wait a minute.

[56:06] I think I had fun watching this because they're all dancing.

[56:09] Really?

[56:10] Wait a minute.

[56:11] This was, they're tricking me at the end.

[56:13] I'm thinking I actually had a good time watching this.

Elliott Kalan

[56:15] And it's like, and usually I don't like, usually I don't like credits where the cast is dancing.

[56:20] At the end of Barb and Star, I go to Castle Mar.

[56:21] They started kind of all dancing during the credits.

[56:24] And I turned off the TV immediately and said, nope.

[56:26] And my wife was like, I wanted to see that.

[56:28] Turn it on.

[56:30] But with this, they really, I don't know.

[56:32] And so did you guys write the dancing part?

Stuart Wellington

[56:34] He's like, these aren't bloopers.

[56:35] I don't want to watch this.

Elliott Kalan

[56:36] Well, every movie I check, every movie we finish, I check and see if there's bloops.

[56:39] I'm like, yeah, the card counter.

[56:41] Where are the bloops?

[56:42] I want to see the times he counted the cards wrong.

[56:45] Card counter.

Stuart Wellington

[56:45] The movie where halfway through I had to pause it and Google card counter Oscar Isaac sunglasses

[56:50] to find that they're only like $250.

[56:53] I could get those sunglasses.

[56:54] Good.

Elliott Kalan

[56:55] And so, guys, did you write the part with the dancing?

[56:57] Was that in the original treatment?

[56:58] We did.

[56:59] We did dance for like 10 minutes.

[57:00] I think we wrote the bloopers, but no, not the dancing.

S4

[57:04] I don't think we wrote any.

S5

[57:05] We really truly didn't write any of this.

[57:09] And so that was the greatest revelation watching this.

[57:11] Like, oh, my gosh, we fought for credit, got it, didn't deserve it, and really don't want it.

[57:16] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[57:17] I think you deserved that story by credit if you had gotten it.

S5

[57:19] That would make sense.

Stuart Wellington

[57:20] How did it feel when you realized that it was less of what you wrote?

[57:23] Was it like, oh, thank God?

[57:24] Or was it like, oh, my God, all my gold?

S5

[57:27] Boy, I think I felt, well, yeah, like on one hand relieved.

[57:31] Like, well, yeah, I'm not responsible for any of this garbage.

[57:35] On the other hand, I felt real stupid for fighting for any kind of credit.

Elliott Kalan

[57:42] To be fair, you didn't fight that hard.

[57:43] No, I didn't.

[57:44] You really put it off to the last minute.

[57:45] I actually tried to.

S5

[57:46] It was more about being funny with the way we were fighting for it.

[57:48] That was what was more fun about it.

S4

[57:51] I think we heard about it for so long, and I was always fascinated, but not enough to actually watch the movie.

[57:57] And in the way back of my head, I thought we would watch something fantastically weird.

[58:01] You know, because I heard about the cast, and I heard the stories you guys heard where they held off shooting the gondola scene until the very end.

[58:08] And David O. Russell, there's something, even in stuff I don't like of his, it's amazing and weird.

[58:13] But when you watch it, it all adds up to, I guess Elliot put it best, watching them dance at the end was the most fun part of the movie.

[58:22] It didn't add up to anything outside of, you know, just not a good movie.

Elliott Kalan

[58:26] Well, it makes you, it makes you really wonder.

[58:28] It's like, it's one of those movies kind of like Mike Nichols making Day of the Dolphin.

[58:33] Well, you're like, why was this the movie that this person was making?

[58:35] I mean, in that case, it was a contractual obligation that he had to make a movie.

[58:38] So he decided to make a movie about talking dolphins trying to assassinate the president.

[58:42] But the, the, you kind of, you wonder kind of like, what is it?

[58:45] Did David O. Russell just feel like he needed maybe like a more mainstream movie after I Heart Huckabees to get back or something like that?

[58:51] Or is he just a guy who pinballs from one thing to another?

[58:54] Or what did he want to do with it?

S5

[58:57] You know, he was very passionate about this.

[58:58] And he had to be because they kept trying to shoot this, shut the shoot down.

[59:02] And he kept fighting and fighting.

[59:04] And I mean, this was not an easy movie for him to get made.

[59:07] So it really was like a passion project for him.

[59:10] Yeah.

[59:11] So, yeah.

[59:12] But I, I don't understand where, I don't understand why.

[59:15] But it certainly was.

[59:17] Well, we did have one moment that I forgot.

[59:21] One other fun story where we were, where we were in the development of it.

[59:24] And we were talking to the producers with David.

[59:27] And the script was terrible at that point.

[59:29] And the producers weren't happy with it.

[59:31] And then David sort of got kind of quiet on the notes phone call.

[59:34] And they're like, what's the matter, David?

[59:35] He goes, yeah, I don't know.

[59:37] You guys aren't making this fun for me anymore.

[59:39] And when things aren't fun, sometimes I just, I kind of just walk away.

[59:43] And then all the producers were like, oh, no, no, no.

[59:44] No, David, we love it.

[59:45] It's going to be great.

Elliott Kalan

[59:48] Yeah.

S5

[59:48] I was like, wow, that really worked.

[59:49] And it saved the movie.

[59:51] So I don't know how.

[59:52] Wow.

Elliott Kalan

[59:53] Oh, man.

[59:54] Maybe.

[59:54] He seems, he seems like a volatile human being.

[59:57] That's some toxic shit there, dude.

Dan McCoy

[59:59] Well, I know that at least one half of our special guests has to leave for a family obligation.

[1:00:07] So, you know, this is probably a good time to do final judgments and wrap up this part.

[1:00:14] And then you can go.

[1:00:16] But final judgments, of course, where we say whether the movie was a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie or movie you kind of like.

[1:00:24] Guys, I got to say, this may be controversial.

[1:00:28] I kind of enjoyed watching this.

[1:00:31] I know that it's not good.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:33] I wish the listeners could see my face right now.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:35] Could see the expression of just like, eww.

[1:00:39] It is so chopped to pieces.

[1:00:42] Like, it is clearly looking around Dan's apartment like, he lives like this.

[1:00:46] I mean, let me give my reasons.

[1:00:50] Like, it is chopped to pieces.

[1:00:51] It is a hobbled movie.

[1:00:54] But I can squint and see the movie that was trying to be made.

[1:01:00] I can see that there was a talented filmmaker with some ideas behind it.

[1:01:05] Like, you don't see a big budget Hollywood movie with stars that is about, like, political issues very frequently.

[1:01:13] Only when Adam McKay is making them.

[1:01:15] Yeah.

[1:01:16] And I don't know.

[1:01:18] Like, I.

[1:01:19] The parts that, like, kind of, like, still make it through, I enjoyed, even though, you know, it's only interesting really as a curio of something that, like, could have been something it isn't.

[1:01:33] But I still, I still kind of got a kick out of it.

[1:01:36] But what do you guys have to say?

S5

[1:01:37] You know, off of that, I kind of thought, like, when I was watching it, it did feel like a student film that had potential.

[1:01:44] Like, you're like, all right, this is not a good film.

[1:01:45] But some of the people behind it, oh, wow, they're going to go on to do great things.

[1:01:48] Not me and Dave.

[1:01:49] But the other people who were involved.

S4

[1:01:53] So, yeah.

[1:01:55] So we've got one that's bad good.

[1:01:58] And Matt, what do you say?

S5

[1:01:59] No, well, no, yours is, I kind of liked it, right?

[1:02:00] Mine's bad bad.

[1:02:01] I kind of liked it a little bit.

[1:02:02] Mine's a bad bad until the dancing at the end.

[1:02:04] I'm like, oh, wait a minute.

[1:02:05] No, it's good.

S4

[1:02:07] No, bad bad.

[1:02:08] Bad bad.

[1:02:10] I think I'm going to go with bad bad or bad boring, which is the worst kind of bad.

[1:02:15] Oh, wow, that's the worst.

[1:02:16] That's the worst kind.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:17] I would say, like, I feel like the first half was bad bad, but it was interesting.

[1:02:24] You know, there's something special about a comedy that is made wrong by somebody like David O. Russell,

[1:02:31] who doesn't seem to understand, or whoever else took over who doesn't seem to understand, like, you know, comedy.

[1:02:39] Despite having a lot of talented comedians involved.

[1:02:42] But then I guess it got kind of bogged down and I lost interest until the dancing, of course.

[1:02:47] And then I was back in.

[1:02:48] So bad bad, baby.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:50] Yeah, I'm going to say bad bad.

[1:02:51] I agree that it's it feel I think I would I would be more I would be more merciful towards it if it was a student film.

[1:02:59] Like it feels like an unfinished student film.

[1:03:01] But it's not an unfinished student film.

[1:03:04] It's a it's very much a movie that was made by professionals.

[1:03:07] And there's just like I think it kind of gets less and less interesting the more it gets into politics and Washington and things like that.

[1:03:15] And there's a I mean, if the movie can't pull off someone not wanting to get the Heimlich because they keep getting poked with a boner, then then I don't know.

[1:03:25] What are they what are they what are they doing?

[1:03:26] Why are we even here?

[1:03:27] It's it's like it's it feels like a.

[1:03:31] Yeah, it's just it kind of doesn't know.

[1:03:33] It doesn't know how to tell the jokes that it's that it's trying to tell.

[1:03:36] And it does feel like a movie that was not finished.

[1:03:38] Like it looks really weird.

[1:03:39] It looks like it wasn't it wasn't finished.

[1:03:41] Like it wasn't color corrected or anything like that.

[1:03:43] But it's so I'm going to say bad bad.

[1:03:47] But I'm going to say good good to our guests.

[1:03:53] I'm not not the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:54] Like you are the dancing at the end.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:57] And now this is the dance.

[1:03:58] Yeah, now it's the dancing part.

[1:04:00] But it's it's yeah, it's rare when you watch a movie.

[1:04:03] And the and the best part of it is the cast just just having a ball afterwards at what I assume probably doubled as the wrap party because they because the funding was so low, you know.

[1:04:14] Yeah.

[1:04:14] Well, I'm glad you guys.

[1:04:16] I'm sorry.

[1:04:18] You see them dancing together and their show and like Jessica Biel and Jake Gyllenhaal show chemistry dancing together.

[1:04:25] They don't show throughout the rest of the movie.

[1:04:27] Like you're and like James Marsden, the rest of them.

[1:04:28] Like it's like, oh, they really seem to like each other when they're when they're just dancing, when they're not playing the characters, you know.

[1:04:34] But Matt, what are we going to say?

S5

[1:04:35] No.

[1:04:35] Yeah, it does.

[1:04:36] It feels like an ensemble of like like friends and you feel like, well, this is a great party.

[1:04:39] This is gonna be a fun time.

[1:04:41] And but it's not.

[1:04:43] It's terrible.

[1:04:44] But I'm glad you guys made me watch it.

[1:04:47] That was really.

[1:04:48] And now I got to figure out my feelings.

S4

[1:04:50] I actually, I disagree with you on that one, Matt.

[1:04:54] I'm happy to do this podcast.

[1:04:55] I'm happy to stay on for as long as you want.

[1:04:58] I'm very annoyed at the time I wasted.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:01] Welcome to our lives, Dave.

[1:05:03] 14 years of my life.

[1:05:04] Yeah, that's our life.

[1:05:05] There are times when I look at I keep a list each year of the movies I watch that year.

[1:05:09] And the times I look at the list and I'm like, oh, like, why?

[1:05:11] Why did I why did I spend so much of my life?

Dan McCoy

[1:05:13] I'm sorry that the money and personal fame isn't enough for me for you, Elliot.

[1:05:18] Wow.

[1:05:19] I'm just saying it's a high price to pay.

S4

[1:05:21] I just remember like, I remember thinking to myself, I texted you, Matt.

[1:05:23] I'm like, I could be in bed right now scrolling through nonsense on Instagram.

[1:05:28] Instead, I'm watching this movie I fought credit for that I thought would be interesting.

S6

[1:05:36] Hey there, I'm Ellen Weatherford.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:37] And I'm Christian Weatherford.

S6

[1:05:38] And we've got big feelings about animals that we just got to share.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:43] On Just the Zoo of Us, your new favorite animal review podcast.

[1:05:47] We're here to critically evaluate how each animal excels and how it doesn't.

[1:05:51] Rating them out of 10 on their effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics.

S6

[1:05:55] Guest experts give you their takes informed by actual real life experiences studying and working with very cool animals like sharks, cheetahs, and sea turtles.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:05] It's a field trip to the zoo for your ears.

S6

[1:06:07] So if you or your kids have ever wondered if a pigeon can count, why sloths move so slow, or how a spider sees the world,

[1:06:15] find out with us every Wednesday on Just the Zoo of Us in its natural habitat on MaximumFun.org.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:20] Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:29] Look, your daughter doesn't say she's a demon. She says she's the devil himself.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:41] That thing is not my daughter.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:44] And I want you to tell me there's a show where the hosts don't just report on French science and spirituality, but take part themselves.

S5

[1:06:54] Well, there is. And it's Oh No, Ross and Carrie on Maximum Fun.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:58] This year, we actually became certified exorcists.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:01] So yes, Carrie and I can help your daughter.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:05] Or we can just talk about it on the show.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:08] Oh No, Ross and Carrie on MaximumFun.org.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:12] Hey, everybody. I've got some exciting news for you.

[1:07:15] Now that we're done talking about Accidental Love, aka Nailed.

[1:07:18] That exciting news is, that's right, the Flophouse is coming back live again on your computer screens, just like last year.

[1:07:25] But again, it's been a while.

[1:07:27] You haven't seen us in a few months.

[1:07:28] So it's time for us to show our pretty faces to you and remind you that we are aging somewhat.

[1:07:36] We're going to be doing a-

[1:07:36] Yeah, you get to see Elliot's garage again.

[1:07:38] Yeah, you get to see my garage again on my big bulletin board with new things on it, hopefully, and not the same Super Mario Brothers page that's still up there on the bulletin board.

[1:07:46] We're going to be doing a live show online, not in person, but online, Saturday, March 19th at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[1:07:55] We're going to be talking about, I'm very excited about this one, Masters of the Universe.

[1:07:59] That's right, the He-Man movie with such big stars as Dolph Lundgren, Courtney Cox, and Billy Barty, and Frank Langella.

[1:08:05] I should, I was so excited about Billy Barty that I mentioned him before, Frank Langella.

[1:08:09] But this is a movie that I have not seen since I was a kid.

[1:08:12] I have very few memories of it, except that at one point they eat chicken, and I'm very excited to see it with these guys again.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:20] Is that the origin of your chicken love in a, like, Last Crusade sort of way?

[1:08:26] Like, all in one day, you know, you, like, fell into a vat of, I don't know, chicken and watched Masters of the Universe.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:33] Masters of the Universe was screening somehow inside a vat of chicken.

[1:08:36] I guess they used it to keep the chickens sedated.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:38] And you were going to drown in the chicken, and then Spider-Man saved you?

[1:08:42] What are other things Elliot likes?

[1:08:43] I don't know.

[1:08:43] You saw a dinosaur.

[1:08:45] Yes, a dinosaur, yeah.

[1:08:46] And then you went to an old movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:48] Exactly.

[1:08:49] It all happened that one day.

[1:08:49] It was a big day.

[1:08:50] Let me check my diaries.

[1:08:51] Yep, it all checks out.

[1:08:52] So that's Saturday, March 19th at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern, or rather 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[1:08:59] We're going to be talking about Masters of the Universe.

[1:09:00] It's one of our live shows.

[1:09:01] We're going to have PowerPoint presentations we do at the beginning that are exclusive to this show.

[1:09:05] We'll never do them again.

[1:09:06] We're going to have a live question and answer afterwards where you can write your questions into the chat box or whatever, and we'll read it.

[1:09:13] We'll try to have some audience polls in the middle of it.

[1:09:16] Lots of fun stuff.

[1:09:17] We'll get you involved.

[1:09:17] You make the call.

[1:09:18] You be on the show somewhat.

[1:09:20] And as always with these shows, if you can't make it to that date, if you buy a ticket, you'll have access to a recording of the live show for a week afterwards.

[1:09:29] So let's say you live in a part of the world where Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern is not the easiest time for you to get on your computer and start watching something.

[1:09:36] Don't worry.

[1:09:37] Get a ticket.

[1:09:37] It's only $10, and you'll get a week's worth of access to the recording so you still get to watch it.

[1:09:42] So it's Saturday, March 19th, 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[1:09:46] The Flophouse is going head on into elder millennial nostalgia with Masters of the Universe, the movie, and it's only $10.

[1:09:53] You want to buy a ticket?

[1:09:54] I know you do.

[1:09:55] Go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[1:09:58] That's simple T-I-X.

[1:10:00] Theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[1:10:02] Or also tinyurl.com slash flophouse live.

[1:10:05] Those are the two links.

[1:10:06] Go to them and buy a ticket.

[1:10:09] Why not?

[1:10:09] It's going to be fun.

[1:10:10] We'll be there.

[1:10:10] Why not?

[1:10:11] Yeah, why not?

[1:10:12] Give me one reason why not.

[1:10:13] Exactly.

[1:10:14] I couldn't hear it.

[1:10:14] There's none.

[1:10:15] So we'll be there.

[1:10:16] I hope you will be too.

[1:10:18] Saturday, March 19th, 9 p.m. Eastern, 6% Pacific.

[1:10:21] But you will have access to the recording for a week afterwards.

[1:10:23] Thank you.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:24] We got some sponsors.

[1:10:26] The Flophouse is overwhelmingly kept in business by the contributions of listeners like you.

[1:10:31] But we have some lovely advertisers, including Stitch Fix.

[1:10:37] Your style isn't one size fits all.

[1:10:40] It's about what suits your body and what suits the moment.

[1:10:43] So why not shop at a store that is personalized to your size and style?

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[1:11:10] Plus, there's no subscription required.

[1:11:12] They offer free shipping, returns, and exchanges.

[1:11:17] You know, I use Stitch Fix Freestyle.

[1:11:20] The shirt I'm wearing is actually a Stitch Fix thing.

[1:11:23] Oh, I was going to say, I like it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:24] I was going to mention it looks really nice, your shirt.

[1:11:26] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:27] You know, we can't all be a Stuart Wellington who used the pandemic to get more into shape.

[1:11:33] In my personal experience, I got less in shape and I needed some new clothes to fit my new body.

[1:11:40] And Stitch Fix Freestyle really helped me out on that.

[1:11:43] I appreciate it.

[1:11:44] I mean, I also needed new clothes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:46] Yeah, yeah.

[1:11:47] I needed a fit.

[1:11:47] Yeah, Stuart also had a new body.

[1:11:48] The sleeves on all my shirts got ripped off.

[1:11:50] That's true.

[1:11:50] Stuart's new, hotter body.

[1:11:51] Yeah, because your muscles were just busting through the seams.

[1:11:55] Yeah.

[1:11:55] That was the Stitch that needed fixing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:57] Blowing the crotch out of all my pants.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:02] That's because that lady popped the button off of it with her stiletto heel.

[1:12:07] But anyway.

[1:12:08] Oh, my lordy.

[1:12:08] Let's get started with Stitch Fix today by filling out your style quiz at stitchfix.com slash flophouse.

[1:12:16] That's stitchfix.com slash flophouse.

[1:12:19] Just try Stitch Fix Freestyle.

[1:12:22] Stitchfix.com slash flophouse.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:26] This podcast is also sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy.

[1:12:29] We talk about BetterHelp a lot on this show because they sponsor us.

[1:12:32] And let's talk about some of the stigmas around mental health.

[1:12:35] A lot of people think that it is something that you only need when you are falling apart.

[1:12:41] You should wait until life is just completely unbearable and you are bursting at the seams like Stuart's clothes.

[1:12:46] But that's not true.

[1:12:47] The therapy is a tool that you can use any time in your life.

[1:12:51] You can use it before things get worse.

[1:12:52] I call it preventative maintenance.

[1:12:53] That's what they call it in the military.

[1:12:55] And it can help you avoid getting to the place where you feel like you're unbalanced and things are falling apart.

[1:13:00] I'm a big believer in therapy.

[1:13:02] I've used it a lot myself.

[1:13:03] It's a special time for me to focus on myself and have someone else there to bounce ideas about myself off of or just to listen to me.

[1:13:12] Because growing up in a house full of Jewish people, I was not listened to often because everyone was always talking all the time.

[1:13:19] And now as the parent of two young boys, I am also not listened to ever at all by anybody.

[1:13:25] Anytime I try to read a historical plaque to them, they just walk away.

[1:13:28] They will not listen.

[1:13:29] So try it out.

[1:13:32] BetterHelp could be yours.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:33] Is that what you do in your therapy sessions?

[1:13:34] You read your therapist a bunch of historical plaques?

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:37] I've taken pictures of the historical plaques my children would listen to and I just read them to him.

[1:13:40] And he goes, oh, interesting.

[1:13:42] So therapy, it's a useful thing for whatever you need it to, either whether you're just tuning yourself up, whether you need space to talk out, just the things you need to talk out to get out the emotions that you don't have an outlet for.

[1:13:52] Or just to spend time focusing on yourself, which is valuable to all of us.

[1:13:57] We're living in the end times of civilization.

[1:14:00] Things are rough.

[1:14:01] Why not take some time for yourself?

[1:14:03] Maybe BetterHelp is your way to do that.

[1:14:04] It's a customized online therapy that offers video, phone, or even live chat sessions with therapists if you don't want to be on camera, which I know I sometimes feel like.

[1:14:12] It can be more affordable than in-person therapy.

[1:14:14] You can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours.

[1:14:17] Try it out.

[1:14:18] The person they match it to the first time might not be the right person, so you might try it out again.

[1:14:22] That's the thing with therapy.

[1:14:24] Sometimes it takes time to find the right therapist relationship, but when you do, it can be really, really rewarding and something that just helps you when you need the help.

[1:14:32] Give it a try.

[1:14:33] See why over 2 million people have used BetterHelp Online Therapy.

[1:14:37] And because this podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp, Flophouse listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.

[1:14:43] Go to betterhelp.com slash flop.

[1:14:47] That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P dot com slash F-L-O-P.

[1:14:52] For 10% off your first month, try it out.

[1:14:55] See if this is the way that therapy is right for you.

[1:14:58] And maybe it'll help you to get to a place where you are finally saying, hey, I don't mind that we're in the end stages of civilization anymore because I'm doing okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:07] And what's that?

[1:15:08] It looks like we have a JUMBOTRON!

[1:15:12] And this message is for Clara.

[1:15:16] And the message is from Derek.

[1:15:18] You're a real Bobby Dazzler and I can't think of anyone else to flee a foreign country before their borders close with than you.

[1:15:27] I'll never kick you out of bed for eating crackers, no matter how much bedroom honey and crumbs you get on the sheets.

[1:15:34] You want to wistfully look at me through a window and be my top pocket find in matrimony forever?

[1:15:43] Was that a proposal?

[1:15:44] It might have been a proposal.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:46] It might have been.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:47] I hope that I did it right then.

[1:15:50] Yeah.

[1:15:50] Yeah, you got to write in and let us know how that went.

[1:15:54] A Clara or a Clara out there.

[1:15:57] Man, there's a real minefield.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:00] Right into Stuart Wellington ruined my relationship, care of the flophouse.

[1:16:04] If that's what happened.

[1:16:05] Or write into Stuart Wellington made my dreams come true, care of the flophouse.

[1:16:10] If that's what happened.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:10] And if you want Stuart to make your dreams come true.

[1:16:14] Wow.

[1:16:15] You can get up on the JUMBOTRON by going to MaximumFun.org slash JUMBOTRON

[1:16:23] where you can get a personal message for $100 or a promotional one for $200.

[1:16:28] Dreams coming true via Stuart, not guaranteed.

[1:16:32] But Stuart and Elliot, do you have anything you want to plug before we get back to the meat of the show?

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:37] I have a couple of bars.

[1:16:38] Hinterland's Bar and Minnie's Bar.

[1:16:39] You should go support them and check them out if you are comfortable going out in New York City, that is.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:44] And my new series of Maniac of New York Comics is on store shelves now.

[1:16:48] So that's Maniac of New York from Aftershock Comics.

[1:16:51] Ask for it by name.

[1:16:52] If your local comic store doesn't have it, ask them to order it for you.

[1:16:55] Maniac of New York from Aftershock Comics.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:02] Okay.

[1:17:03] Well, now let's roll right into letters from listeners.

[1:17:08] Like you.

[1:17:09] Like you.

[1:17:09] Sometimes.

[1:17:10] Me?

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:10] But I'm not.

[1:17:11] I mean, I'm listening right now, but I'm not.

[1:17:12] I'm one of the co-hosts.

[1:17:13] I'm not a listener.

[1:17:14] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:15] You can still write a letter if you really wanted to.

[1:17:17] You could.

[1:17:17] You finally need your voice to be fucking heard.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:19] Okay.

[1:17:19] Maybe.

[1:17:20] Yeah.

[1:17:20] This is my chance to finally express my opinion on the show.

[1:17:23] Yeah.

[1:17:23] Dear Dan and Stuart.

[1:17:25] Hey, it's Elliot, your friend.

[1:17:27] How are things going?

[1:17:28] So I've got some bad news.

[1:17:30] Maybe I should tell you later.

[1:17:31] This doesn't seem like the best time.

[1:17:33] So expect another letter from me where that's more on topic.

[1:17:37] Now I'm going to be worried about that bad news.

[1:17:39] I do have a question.

[1:17:40] What's your favorite thing about working with Elliot?

[1:17:42] I hope it's something good.

[1:17:43] Love the show.

[1:17:45] Keep on flopping.

[1:17:45] Love Elliot.

[1:17:46] You know what?

Dan McCoy

[1:17:47] My favorite thing about working with Elliot is I know that if I find myself at a loss for words,

[1:17:51] which does happen frequently, I can count on Elliot to plug that hole in the sinking ship.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:58] That's technically a good thing.

[1:18:00] Yeah, wait, we got another letter it looks like.

[1:18:02] Dear Dan, hey, it's Elliot again.

[1:18:04] I heard what you said and while it was phrased as a compliment, it was kind of a dig.

[1:18:08] I don't know that I really appreciate you talking about me that way.

[1:18:12] I mean it makes sense because I've spent many years insulting you on the podcast.

[1:18:16] But it still seems a little bit like it was kind of a backhanded compliment.

[1:18:20] Was I reading too much?

[1:18:22] Wait, the letter is not over, Dan.

[1:18:23] Was I reading too much into it?

[1:18:26] Again, let's make those plans so I can tell you that bad news that I have.

[1:18:29] Keep on flopping.

[1:18:31] Stay cool.

[1:18:32] Have a great summer.

[1:18:33] Love, Elliot.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:33] No, no.

[1:18:34] Elliot, now we're getting into real stuff here.

[1:18:38] I know.

[1:18:40] As is often the case with me who is maybe a kind-hearted man who doesn't know how to express such things and often is rude accidentally.

[1:18:50] I genuinely appreciate the fact that I know that you always have my back both as a friend and on the show with some sort of clip.

[1:19:00] He did describe it as a hole in a ship.

S4

[1:19:03] And then when he can't talk, you're sinking.

[1:19:05] And you saved his life, Elliot.

[1:19:06] Oh.

[1:19:07] With your constant never-ending babble.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:10] Yeah, wait.

[1:19:11] We got another letter coming in.

[1:19:12] Hold on.

[1:19:13] Dear Daniel Kirk McCoy.

[1:19:15] Oh.

[1:19:17] This one's for me, guys.

[1:19:17] Elliot Kalin has decided not to bring action against you after hearing your recent explanation.

[1:19:24] Though he has initiated legal proceedings against you on charges of slander and defamation, he has decided after remembering your friendship not to do so.

[1:19:34] Please consider this a favor he has done you.

[1:19:37] You now owe him a favor in a very legally binding sense.

[1:19:40] Oh, wow.

[1:19:42] Sincerely yours, love the law offices of Kalin, Kalin and Kalin.

[1:19:46] P.S.

[1:19:47] We are not related to Elliot Kalin and therefore it is still ethical for us to represent him in court.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:52] Oh, well, I was worried.

[1:19:53] So, Elliot, I haven't been able to give you a compliment yet.

[1:19:56] But before I do that, I'm going to need your birth date, the location of your birth, and the time you were born.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:04] It seems like a lot of information.

[1:20:06] Yeah, just put that on the podcast.

[1:20:08] Well, Stuart, I'll give you that information later so that I guess you can have access to my bank account.

[1:20:15] And Dan, what's our other letter?

[1:20:16] Are there any letters that are not from me today?

Dan McCoy

[1:20:18] We have a couple of them.

[1:20:20] This first one's from Kevin, last name withheld, who writes,

[1:20:23] Hey, Floppers, I know it's become a popular cliche to complain that Hollywood doesn't have any original ideas anymore.

[1:20:29] Does it ever?

[1:20:31] Even though I think people have probably been saying that since the concept of Hollywood became a thing.

[1:20:36] But as trite as it sounds, I've been thinking lately about films that have potential to be good, but suffer too much from their connection to the source material.

[1:20:45] For example, I think I would have enjoyed the movie Joker a lot more if it had been the story of a failed comedian dealing with a murderous, trauma-induced mental illness and didn't also have to carry the burden of the Joker mythology.

[1:20:59] Or, in a different vein, I would have found The Greatest Showman more appealing as an ambitious musical about a fictional circus manager than a biopic about terrible human being P.T. Barnum.

[1:21:13] Plus, the creators could likely have made more interesting choices without them feeling out of place.

[1:21:19] I'm curious, do you all have movies that you wish had been disconnected from the larger stories that inspired them?

[1:21:24] Thanks for considering Kevin Last Name Withheld.

[1:21:28] One thing that came to my mind is a movie that I'm sure that we will cover on the podcast at some point, Ghostbusters Afterlife, which I saw because my friends were like, you want to see Ghostbusters Afterlife?

[1:21:39] I'm like, yeah, whatever.

[1:21:40] I'll do whatever dumb thing.

[1:21:42] Well, thanks for providing that backstory, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:44] That was an amazing tale.

[1:21:45] Dance down the clown, everybody.

[1:21:47] I'm just so glad we could hear that story of tragedy and triumph against the odds.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:52] I mean, I think it would be slightly unusual that I ran out and saw Ghostbusters Afterlife without encouragement.

[1:21:59] I would say it falls squarely within your demographic as someone who grew up watching Ghostbusters.

[1:22:04] Yeah, but I knew, like, the, I would just say that the trailer contained nothing that appealed to me.

[1:22:10] Oh, I see.

[1:22:11] But having seen it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:12] I remember, I remember talking to you once and you said, you know what was missing from Ghostbusters?

[1:22:16] Cornfields.

[1:22:16] I wish it wasn't set in New York because I wanted more cornfields and wheat fields.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:19] But they kept the, they kept the orangutan Ghostbuster, right?

[1:22:22] That's a different, that's the original.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:25] So you're saying it's based on the original, original Ghostbusters.

[1:22:28] There's two guys and an orangutan.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:30] No, I, this is a weird thing to say for a movie that is so much fan service.

[1:22:38] Like, it seems like without the connection to Ghostbusters, there's no movie left.

[1:22:42] But the stuff in it that I enjoyed had nothing to do with Ghostbusters.

[1:22:46] I mean, particularly, also, there's a whole nother level of poisonousness of, like, it coming after the female-led Ghostbusters and all the, like, I'm giving it back to the fans bullshit.

[1:22:56] Which is like, you know, it's a, it is categorically a worse movie than the Ghostbusters that was all women.

[1:23:03] But the parts of it that were not Ghostbusters, I kind of enjoyed as, like, oh, this is an attempt to do, like, an Amblin-style movie.

[1:23:13] And I like Carrie Coon a lot in it.

[1:23:15] I like McKenna Grace, the young actress who plays Egon's granddaughter.

[1:23:23] He's very good in it, I thought.

[1:23:25] And there's just stuff in it that I'm like, wow, if this was unburdened from being a Ghostbusters movie, I could see myself enjoying this.

[1:23:32] But the fact that it is a largely humorless film that is based on a straight-up comedy is really a tripping point.

[1:23:41] But what other ones do you have, guys?

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:44] I would really, which, seeing, I haven't seen Ghostbusters after all life yet.

[1:23:47] And I would really like to do it for the podcast at some point.

[1:23:50] So, we'll see.

[1:23:52] For me, I think I've talked about this on the podcast before.

[1:23:55] I think that the movie Solo from, this is the movie Solo from 2018, A Star Wars Story, not Solo starring Mario Van Peebles from 1996, which is not connected to a previously existing.

[1:24:06] It's a good movie.

[1:24:07] It's based on a novel, I guess, which is a great movie.

[1:24:10] That the movie Solo, A Star Wars Story, that I would, I think I would have enjoyed it more.

[1:24:16] And I think people would have liked it more if it was not a Star Wars movie.

[1:24:19] Because then it becomes just kind of like a fun science fiction adventure movie, and you don't have the worst parts of it, which is explaining how he got the name Solo, explaining where his jacket came from, explaining how Chewbacca got the nickname Chewie.

[1:24:33] Like, you know, it's like a –

S4

[1:24:35] All the reasons they made the movie were – I'm pretty sure the pitch was we finally get to find out where he got his name.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:42] Yeah.

[1:24:43] It's like Solo is a weird name.

[1:24:44] How did he get that?

[1:24:45] And it's like –

[1:24:46] Yeah.

[1:24:46] It's Star Wars.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:47] In a galaxy filled with normal style names.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:49] Yeah.

[1:24:49] We can finally explain how Dengar or Salacious Crumb or Greedo got their names.

[1:24:54] Like, it's – but –

[1:24:56] Well, see, Greedo is greedy.

[1:24:57] He is greedy.

[1:24:58] He is Italian.

[1:24:59] And Rodians are named for the trait they'll probably have when they grow up.

[1:25:03] So, the same way –

[1:25:05] Greedo, the lost Marx brother.

[1:25:06] Yeah.

[1:25:07] The same way that – well, because not lost.

[1:25:08] He was shot.

[1:25:09] That's why he wasn't in any of the movies.

[1:25:10] He was shot by Han Solo.

[1:25:13] But it's a – it feels like it's a fun movie that only suffers from comparison and connection with the other Star Wars movies.

[1:25:22] And I'm sure that I'll feel that way about some Marvel movie that comes up someday where I'll be like, I kind of wish this wasn't like a Marvel-connected movie.

[1:25:32] You know?

[1:25:32] It hasn't happened yet, but it will.

[1:25:34] Stuart, what about you?

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:36] I mean, I don't think I really have much to add to it.

[1:25:39] I mean, I feel like Solo is such an obvious example, but, like, I feel like for the most part I would prefer more sci-fi properties that aren't tied to an existing property.

[1:25:51] You know, like sci-fi movies and shows.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:54] Well, I would say, like – and I'm sure you'd probably be okay with, like, an adaptation of a book.

[1:25:59] Just not a show that is tied into, like, a large universe of preexisting films, you know, or TV shows.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:05] Yeah, I don't need it.

[1:26:05] I'd rather watch something like fucking Raised by Wolves, that wacky sci-fi Ridley Scott show that's basically like a heavy metal comic come to life than, you know, something that's, you know, Star Wars-y right now.

[1:26:18] Yeah.

S4

[1:26:19] I have – this is the one I thought of, which is weird because I really enjoyed this movie.

[1:26:25] Did you guys see Rampage?

[1:26:27] No, I didn't see it.

[1:26:28] I remember the game very well.

[1:26:30] I remember the game very well.

[1:26:32] Oh, dance out on a plane.

[1:26:33] It got me into the theater.

[1:26:35] My son and I loved it.

[1:26:36] It's a lot of fun.

[1:26:37] But I was randomly talking about this before you guys told me about this letter.

[1:26:41] The beginning of the movie is The Rock, who is very antisocial, doesn't go out, doesn't have friends, doesn't want to date, but mostly because he's really close to his favorite gorilla.

[1:26:53] And he doesn't – at nighttime, he doesn't want to go home.

[1:26:55] He only does whatever he has to do and then comes back to work to hang out with his gorilla.

[1:27:00] And that's sort of the little through line is it's not until the end that he makes a friend.

[1:27:04] It's not really a romantic connection, just any friend.

[1:27:07] But the beginning of the movie is so fun because people are pushing him to go have a social life.

[1:27:12] And it's The Rock.

[1:27:12] And he's not made up to look less like The Rock.

[1:27:15] He's good-looking.

[1:27:16] He's charming.

[1:27:17] He's beefcake.

[1:27:18] Yeah, he's super charismatic.

[1:27:19] He's super sexy.

[1:27:20] But the only friend he has is this gorilla.

S5

[1:27:23] It's the only one he can connect to.

S4

[1:27:25] He really has to get back early in the morning so he can hang out with his gorilla.

[1:27:29] And my son and I were joking, it would be really fun to watch a movie about if you got rid of the rampage part where ultimately him, a giant wolf,

[1:27:36] and this other creature took down the city, if it was just about like a you, me, and Dupree, him, his gorilla, and the new girl in his life,

[1:27:45] seemed like a much funnier, more original movie.

[1:27:48] If you could just shed the whole we need to destroy buildings with giant animals.

[1:27:53] Yeah.

[1:27:54] So when you watch the movie, I highly recommend if you don't.

[1:27:56] Just, I think that's another option, another direction the movie could have gone that we would have liked.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:01] I feel like that's the kind of direction, like, if they had made that movie in the 80s when they're like, we don't have the budget to destroy a city, but we do have a budget to hang out a lot.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:11] Well, it's like how the original, the Tim Burton Batman movie, every time I watch it, I'm like, I forgot how much of this movie is the Joker just watching television and getting mad at the television.

[1:28:20] Like, there's a lot of that.

[1:28:22] And it's fun to watch characters hang out sometimes.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:25] Yeah.

[1:28:27] This last letter is, it falls under the correction house side of letters.

[1:28:33] This is from Joseph, last name with the ask.

[1:28:36] What did I say wrong about something this time?

[1:28:38] No, it's not you.

[1:28:39] I think it was me this time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:40] Because I often get minor things wrong about, like, Star Wars, and people are like, excuse me, actually.

[1:28:45] And I go, I'm the one who's supposed to do that.

[1:28:47] I don't like it being done to me.

[1:28:48] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:50] This whole podcast has been an elaborate way of teaching you, Elliot.

[1:28:54] We got to keep doing it because I still have not learned my lesson.

[1:28:59] Not sure if David's jurisdiction extends to obscure, non-American, hyper-regionally specific sports,

[1:29:05] but I believe the Peaches may have misidentified the sport being played in House of Gucci.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:10] Now, you're referring to David Kalin is the David they're talking about, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:29:15] Yes, yes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:16] Not our guest today, Dave Jester, but my brother, sports fan, David.

[1:29:20] Got it.

[1:29:21] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:23] While rugby is a very physical sport, you are not allowed to just brawl in order to clear a path for the ball to be carried.

[1:29:30] A sport where this is allowed is Calcio Fiorentino or Calcio Storico.

[1:29:37] Normally translated as historic football or Florentine kicking game.

[1:29:42] I like that.

[1:29:43] The game is basically now only played in Florence.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:46] That sounds like the bootleg version of football that you would buy at a bottega.

[1:29:49] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:29:49] It's a Florentine kicking game.

[1:29:51] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:51] Like, oh no, grandma got me the N64 tape of...

[1:29:56] There's a yearly game.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:57] I wanted the Super Bowl and she got me Florentine kicking game.

[1:30:00] She couldn't tell the difference.

[1:30:01] It's still got John Madden on it, though.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:03] Oh, rest in peace.

[1:30:04] There's a yearly tournament between the four quarters of Florence played in Piazza Santa Croce.

[1:30:09] I think that might be what they were playing, but I'm not sure.

[1:30:13] For Elliot, who has stopped listening by now, the sport has a comics connection.

[1:30:18] Megaton from the comic Bitch Planet is based on the game.

[1:30:22] Joseph Laskin.

[1:30:23] Oh.

[1:30:24] So, there you go.

[1:30:26] You learn more about obscure...

S4

[1:30:26] Why does that writer assume Elliot stopped listening?

[1:30:29] Is that a thing on the podcast you often tune out?

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:32] No, I mean, it was a correct assumption because I don't really...

[1:30:35] I just am not that interested in sports and didn't really need to know.

[1:30:38] Yeah.

[1:30:38] But I'm glad that they brought me back.

[1:30:41] That was when I heard my name again.

[1:30:42] I said, huh?

[1:30:42] What?

[1:30:42] And I stopped thinking about...

[1:30:44] I stopped thinking about a cowboy riding a Deinonychus across the American desert being chased by other cowboys that are riding like, you know, Tyrannosaurus.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:54] Yeah.

[1:30:55] Talk about a real blood meridian.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:56] Well, now...

[1:30:57] No, there's no dinosaurs in blood meridians, Stu.

[1:31:00] Wait, for real?

[1:31:02] You've got to reread that book.

[1:31:03] I think you were imagining them riding dinosaurs, which is not in the text.

[1:31:06] I mean, maybe you could bring it in in your adaptation.

[1:31:08] I think this is why Carson McCullers has been denying your attempts to adapt it into a screenplay every time you get in touch with them.

[1:31:15] Who's Carson McCullers?

[1:31:16] Oh, sorry.

[1:31:16] I meant Cormac McCarthy.

[1:31:18] Sorry.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:18] Did he write the book I read?

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:20] No, no.

[1:31:20] Sorry.

[1:31:21] You know what it is?

[1:31:22] Is that Carson McCullers' blood meridian, a different book, is dinosaurs and Cormac McCarthy's not.

[1:31:28] As we established in a previous episode, Cormac McCarthy is all about freaking people out and doing things that are real fucked up.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:33] Dropping some twisted fucked up shit on ye old norms.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:37] Yep.

[1:31:38] Let's move into the last segment, which is, of course, recommendations of films that maybe you should watch instead of the one we watched for this podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:49] Although if you watch the one that we watched today, Dave, do you get residuals still for it?

[1:31:54] Oh, I can't imagine.

S4

[1:31:55] In the end, when we finally did get credit, the production company had gone bankrupt.

[1:32:02] So we never got the money.

[1:32:05] We never got the credit.

[1:32:08] We need it for health insurance.

[1:32:09] I can't imagine I make any money.

[1:32:11] But I –

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:12] You might be able to – maybe there's something legally where you can assert ownership of the rights and now you can own the movie and do what you want with it.

S4

[1:32:18] That's a great idea.

[1:32:19] Would you guys help me edit another version?

[1:32:22] Or maybe –

[1:32:22] Or just an hour and a half of dancing.

[1:32:25] We just pour through the unused dancing footage and see what we can cobble together.

[1:32:30] Yeah, we open on dancing.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:33] Accidental dancing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:35] They're dancing and then it says, er, you're probably wondering how we got to this dance.

[1:32:39] Well, let me explain.

[1:32:40] And then it just cuts to more dancing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:42] Always cool.

[1:32:43] Always a good idea.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:45] So for my recommendation, I'm going to mispronounce some more Italian words and say that –

[1:32:53] Excellent.

[1:32:53] I watched Tenebrae recently on Shudder.

[1:32:58] And, you know, I'm coming around on – like Italian horror I'm up and down on.

[1:33:06] For some reason, the illogic and strange plots bother me more in supernatural horror.

[1:33:15] But Jellos, where it's just, you know, a slasher whodunit, I find that I'm fond of them.

[1:33:24] And I guess, you know, as a Brian De Palma fan, it's not weird that I would like just like sleazy, weird murder mysteries.

[1:33:34] And Tenebrae is a really over-the-top one where it's like – it just seems like Argento is fucking around and being like,

[1:33:41] let me construct a bunch of elaborate thriller sequences just to show off.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:50] Is that the one with Max von Sydow and somebody kills somebody with a flute?

[1:33:55] No, it's not that – John Saxon is in it.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:58] Oh.

[1:34:00] He's not the main character.

[1:34:01] It's like the main character is a book author, you know, like a writer of thrillers who then gets involved in murders in Italy

[1:34:12] where someone is doing copycat stuff.

[1:34:16] And I don't know.

[1:34:17] It's just – it is one of these movies that is just absurd plotting thriller set pieces and sleaze.

[1:34:28] And if that's your kind of thing, it's fun.

[1:34:32] Stuart, what do you got?

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:34] I'm going to recommend a movie that I don't know that's up for a couple of awards right now.

[1:34:40] It's the new Sean Baker movie called Red Rocket.

[1:34:45] It kind of follows along Sean Baker's movies that are like kind of – I feel like they kind of walk the line of exploitative.

[1:34:54] And it is about a down-on-his-luck porn star, former male porn star, who goes back to the small town in Texas that he's from.

[1:35:04] He's at a very low point, and he has to hustle his way back on top.

[1:35:10] And he is like a shitty, scheming hustler character.

[1:35:15] But there's also a certain amount of charm and charisma to him.

[1:35:18] And he also runs around.

[1:35:20] You get to see his giant dong flopping.

[1:35:22] And it has probably the single best use of the one song that's featured in the movie.

[1:35:29] So I totally recommend it for that.

[1:35:31] But it is – like it's a difficult – it can be a difficult movie to watch partly because – I mean there's a certain amount of grooming and sexual creepiness between an older man and a younger woman.

[1:35:44] But I found it to be like a fun and like tense movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:50] I'm going to recommend a movie.

[1:35:52] I've been on a little bit of a Denzel Washington kick lately.

[1:35:56] And why not?

[1:35:56] Because he's great.

[1:35:58] And I really enjoyed his Macbeth movie that he made, which is called Denzel Macbeth.

[1:36:04] And I thought the – that's not the movie I'm recommending tonight.

[1:36:09] But I did like The Tragedy of Macbeth a lot.

[1:36:10] And I did find it amazing that the Macbeth movie was the movie I felt had the fastest and briskest pacing of any major Hollywood film that I saw released this year.

[1:36:20] That it was like – I'm like, ugh, this new James Bond movie is almost three hours long.

[1:36:24] Well, let me see how long Macbeth is.

[1:36:25] An hour and 40 minutes.

[1:36:26] Fantastic.

[1:36:27] Ooh, slam dunk.

[1:36:29] But I recently watched for the first time Devil in a Blue Dress, the mystery that he did in the mid-90s based on the book by Walter Mosley.

[1:36:37] And I'm recommending it even though when I worked at Barnes & Noble, Walter Mosley came in and was very rude to me once.

[1:36:42] But that's a story for another time.

[1:36:44] But it's set right after World War II.

[1:36:48] And Denzel Washington is E.Z. Rollins, this guy who's just lost his job for talking back, which people don't want him to do because he is a black man in the late 40s in L.A.

[1:36:58] And he gets caught up in a mystery that kind of leads him to becoming a detective even though he wasn't one before.

[1:37:05] And the mystery itself is like fine.

[1:37:07] Like it's okay.

[1:37:08] But Denzel Washington is so good in it and the atmosphere of it is so great and the performances are so great.

[1:37:14] They do a great job of making like – I feel like in the early 90s, in the mid-90s, they were still doing like period films where they went all out with like the sets and the costumes and the cars in a way that felt very real.

[1:37:27] And it's just a really – the atmosphere of it is really fantastic.

[1:37:32] And Don Cheadle plays a supporting role in it as E.Z.'s friend, Mouse, who is a very casual psychopathic murderer.

[1:37:41] He's devoted to his friend but he's kind of quick to kill.

[1:37:43] And Don Cheadle is so good in it.

[1:37:46] And it was just a performance of his I hadn't seen before.

[1:37:49] They're both really great in it.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:50] It was kind of a breakout role for him too.

[1:37:52] Like even though that movie was not a huge like box office success.

[1:37:56] If only though.

[1:37:57] It was one that like really catapulted him to bigger things.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:01] I feel like watching you're like why wasn't this a bigger hit and why didn't they make like five or six more of these?

[1:38:07] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:07] Well, you can tell that they would – the plan seems to be like we're going to make an E.Z.

[1:38:12] Rollins series now.

[1:38:13] But I think the real problem is that the mystery at the heart of it is not the most compelling interesting mystery.

[1:38:18] But you want to spend time with these characters.

[1:38:21] And seeing Denzel Washington playing this character is just like really entertaining and affecting.

[1:38:28] So like it's worth watching for the performances and the atmosphere and just don't worry too much about – I mean the plot is fine but it's not like – it feels like one of many movies I've seen where like they're kind of going for Chinatown.

[1:38:39] And the story is just not up to Chinatown level.

[1:38:43] So like Motherless Brooklyn is kind of like that too where they're like this is going to be the Chinatown for New York and the highways and the expressways.

[1:38:52] And it's just like it's not – but like this isn't as good as Chinatown.

[1:38:56] But Devil in a Blue Dress, I really enjoyed it a lot.

[1:38:59] Dave, do you have a movie you'd like to recommend?

S4

[1:39:01] Well, obviously everyone should watch Rampage for sure.

[1:39:05] At least the first ten minutes of it.

[1:39:06] At least the first.

[1:39:07] Another movie that I recently rewatched, you guys are probably, if you're old, horror movie buffs.

[1:39:13] I watched right when like video stores at first opened up and our parents were like, go get whatever you want.

[1:39:20] And I watched an old – it was a 1982 horror film, Basket Case.

[1:39:23] Have you guys seen that movie?

[1:39:25] Oh, sure.

[1:39:25] Oh, yeah.

[1:39:26] And it – well, first of all, I watched it.

[1:39:28] I guess I was nine or ten years old, which might be too young.

[1:39:31] And it always stuck with me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:33] For the movie where a monster twin is killing prostitutes?

S4

[1:39:36] Yeah.

[1:39:37] Not raping and killing prostitutes.

[1:39:39] Oh, right, right.

[1:39:40] The opening scene is them sort of cutting him off of his side.

[1:39:43] And it wasn't until recently, as much as that movie seeped into my nightmares and subconscious for years,

[1:39:49] I had a cyst removed that was determined to be a dermoid cyst, which is the process of the egg splitting.

[1:39:57] When you're born, one of them, it almost turns into a twin, but then can be absorbed by your body.

[1:40:02] So I had one living like right over here, I guess, and I had it removed.

[1:40:07] And that was exactly what that movie was about was that twin obviously grew a little bit more like Quado off of his body.

[1:40:15] It's a little bit more than yours.

[1:40:16] A little bit more.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:17] Yeah.

[1:40:18] So you're saying you were like Basket Case, huh?

[1:40:22] Well, there but for the grace of God.

[1:40:23] Like that could have been my story.

S4

[1:40:25] So it was years later when I had the dermoid cyst and then it came back.

[1:40:29] You know, I had forgotten about it for years.

[1:40:31] So maybe this is more of a movie that you should watch if you want to get to know me, really, what my story could have been.

[1:40:39] And my kids think it's so funny that I had my twin brother or sister living in my head.

[1:40:43] And now that I've watched that movie again, it really speaks to me about what could have been if I had – if my brother or sister had only grown a little bit more.

[1:40:53] But I love that movie.

[1:40:55] It's the first real like twisted, you know, poorly conceived.

[1:41:01] And it was a lot of bad stop motion.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:03] It's a movie too and if you – and it's – a lot of it is shot in 42nd Street or in the Times Square area in New York at the time in the early 80s, late 70s.

[1:41:12] And it's like –

[1:41:13] Full on grimy New York.

[1:41:14] Yeah, full on – like if you want to see – if you want to see the New York that everyone's nostalgic for when it was just like gross and grimy and grimy, then Basket Case is a good place to go for it.

[1:41:27] Grimy and grimy.

[1:41:28] Grimy and grimy is also a children's story that I'm working on where it's a –

[1:41:32] It's one kid's just always dirty and the other one's always committing crimes.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:36] Well, before we sign off, I'd like to thank our guest, Dave Jesser.

[1:41:41] Do you have anything you want to plug?

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:43] I think Dave may have frozen.

[1:41:44] Hold on.

[1:41:45] Oh, no.

[1:41:46] I think he's having internet problems.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:47] Well, I'd like to say thank you to our guests, Matthew Silverstein and Dave Jesser.

[1:41:55] And I would say to our listeners, if you have a moment, please go to iTunes and leave us a review to help spread.

[1:42:01] The word about the show.

[1:42:03] You can follow the Flophouse pod on Twitter and the Flophouse podcast on Instagram.

[1:42:08] Apologies for the difference.

[1:42:10] And you can go to YouTube.com slash the Flophouse podcast.

[1:42:14] You had a third option to see our YouTube channel.

[1:42:19] If you would like Flophouse merch of any kind, if you go to Flophousepodcast.com and click on the merch tab, that's where you can find that.

[1:42:30] We're a member of the Maximum Fun Network.

[1:42:32] Go to Maximum Fun.

[1:42:33] Go to MaximumFun.org to check out all the great podcasts on the network.

[1:42:36] Thank you to our producer, Alex Smith.

[1:42:39] He is at HowellDotty on Twitter.

[1:42:42] That's H-O-W-E-L-L-D-A-W-D-Y on Twitter to see what else he's up to.

[1:42:53] We had briefly lost Dave off of the call earlier.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:59] Yeah, just because of the internet.

[1:43:02] Just because of the internet.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:03] But now that he is back, I just wanted to ask, is there anything you would like to plug before we say our absolute final sign-off?

S4

[1:43:12] I'd just like to say that for about five seconds there, my biggest nightmare came true where I shared the most deepest, most personal, intimate details about my physical repulsion that lived inside of me.

[1:43:23] And I thought you guys cut me off.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:25] I know.

[1:43:26] Cut you off like you were a dermoid cyst.

[1:43:29] Yeah, you're like, kill this asshole's mic.

[1:43:30] We don't need this.

[1:43:31] Get it out of here.

[1:43:32] This is disgusting.

[1:43:33] Who is this freak that you brought on to our podcast?

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:38] No, any time you want to come on and tell us stories about gross things that got cut off of you, please do.

[1:43:44] Yeah, we'd really appreciate it.

S4

[1:43:45] No, I have nothing to plug.

[1:43:46] Watch, I guess, Housebroken.

[1:43:49] And you guys are all awesome.

[1:43:52] This was so much fun.

[1:43:53] Thank you for inviting me.

[1:43:54] Thanks so much for being on the show.

[1:43:56] It was great.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:56] Yes, thanks for being on the show.

[1:43:58] Thank you to the audience for listening.

[1:44:00] But until next time, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:44:03] I've been Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:44:05] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:44:06] And joining us has been...

[1:44:08] Dave Jesser.

[1:44:09] And also Matt Silverstein, but he had to run.

[1:44:11] Bye.

[1:44:17] One.

[1:44:18] Two.

[1:44:19] Three.

[1:44:20] Four.

[1:44:21] Five.

[1:44:22] Excellent.

[1:44:23] Very nicely done.

[1:44:24] Okay, we did.

[1:44:25] Very nicely done.

[1:44:26] Now record.

[1:44:27] No, no.

[1:44:28] No, no.

[1:44:29] No, Dave.

[1:44:30] You should...

[1:44:30] Oh, boy.

[1:44:32] Okay.

[1:44:33] The Three Stooges make a podcast.

[1:44:35] So we start recording after we finish?

[1:44:37] No.

[1:44:38] Go ahead.

[1:44:38] Okay.

[1:44:41] Maximumfun.org.

S5

[1:44:42] Comedy and culture.

S7

[1:44:43] Artist owned.

[1:44:45] Audience supported.

Ep. #361 - Accidental Love, with Matthew Silverstein and Dave Jeser

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