Ep. #358 - Grand Isle

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Grand Isle.

[0:04] Also known as Accents the Movie.

[0:31] Hello, everyone, and Merry Cagemas!

[0:37] Ho, ho, ho, I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:40] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:44] I'm just regular Elliot Cailin. I'm not a ghost or a Santa or any of those things.

[0:48] Okay.

[0:49] Just a regular old guy.

[0:51] I mean, I feel like part of, I think at its heart, this show is an improv podcast,

[0:56] and Elliot just fucked it up.

[0:59] I did not doubt the reality that either of you guys were living in.

[1:03] I'm the character in the SNL sketch who's like,

[1:06] What? That's crazy.

[1:08] Why would you do that?

[1:10] You know, the character you don't need.

[1:12] It's an audience surrogate.

[1:14] Yeah, finally there's a character in the sketch that's expressing what I want to know.

[1:18] Wow, Elliot Cailin's dismissing the concept of the straight man outright.

[1:23] No, no, no, no, Daniel.

[1:25] No, no, no, there's a difference between a straight man and a character.

[1:28] I think the straight man has had enough say in Hollywood, don't you think, Dan?

[1:32] Let's hear it for the boy? I think not.

[1:36] A clapping hands emoji, clapping hands emoji, great.

[1:39] Dan, I think the difference is the straight man in a sketch is usually the one who is annoyed by what's going on,

[1:44] whereas the straight man in a lot of the older SNL sketches, I don't know if they still do it.

[1:47] I haven't watched the show in a long time,

[1:49] is there to kind of point out to the audience that there is a premise

[1:53] and make sure the audience didn't miss what's going on?

[1:55] I'll be honest, sometimes I need the fact that there's a premise pointed out to me

[1:59] because occasionally they'll put on a sketch where they appear to shift premises every few minutes.

[2:05] That alarms me, yeah.

[2:08] Hey, if you can't deal with the new TikTokification of SNL

[2:11] where it's just a new piece of content every couple of seconds,

[2:13] then I guess I'll leave it up to the young people like me and Stu.

[2:16] Exactly, yeah. I mean, I need all of my content to be immediately GIFified or JIFified, which is it, Dan?

[2:22] Well, GIFified is when it's animated and JIFified is when it becomes peanut butter.

[2:26] Delicious.

[2:28] Well, as you no doubt—

[2:30] What? Not allowed in schools anymore? Thanks, Obama.

[2:33] No, no.

[2:34] As you no doubt guessed by now, this is a podcast about bad movies, not a bad movie.

[2:41] If it was about one bad movie, that would probably be the worst idea of all time,

[2:44] but instead it's about many bad movies. It's called The Flop House.

[2:48] Now, do you mean it would be the worst idea of all time or it would be the podcast the worst idea of all time?

[2:51] The podcast the worst idea of all time.

[2:53] Who are a sponsor of the show, I guess.

[2:55] You know, check them out. They're funny, too.

[2:57] But the point is—

[2:59] No, no, listen to this show. Don't stop listening to this and go to another podcast.

[3:02] I'm not saying stop listening. Rising Tide lifts all ships.

[3:04] Let's get the idea of podcasts out there into the meatspace.

[3:07] Take it, yeah, click it on your desktop, drag the little icon to trash,

[3:10] and then hit delete Flop House forever.

[3:12] Anyway, the point is—

[3:14] No!

[3:15] This is a Flop House.

[3:17] This is where it's fair, dude.

[3:19] Your Honor, I'll allow it.

[3:21] There's nothing untrue about that.

[3:23] Wait a minute.

[3:25] Wait, is the judge a dog, too?

[3:27] This seems unfair.

[3:29] So, and probably not only is this—

[3:31] Your Honor, certainly a dog can't practice law and the judge goes,

[3:35] because it's also a dog.

[3:37] Oh, man, how deep into the Air Bud series is it where Air Bud is now a judge?

[3:43] Yeah, yeah, it's when the Air Bud and the Lincoln lawyer crossed over.

[3:47] So, wait.

[3:49] Now, the weird thing is he's Judge Dredd, but he's a dog.

[3:52] Now, here's my question.

[3:54] So, William Wegman, he did those pictures where he dresses up his dogs in clothes.

[3:57] How come he never dressed them up in, like, costume costumes, like superhero costumes?

[4:01] Wouldn't you want to see, like, a big dog dressed up as, like, the Joker or something like that?

[4:07] Yes, always. Yeah.

[4:09] What do you think Joker-fied that dog?

[4:11] Probably that he was the Joker's dog.

[4:13] We live in a pack.

[4:15] Yeah, thank you.

[4:17] Well done.

[4:18] This is a podcast, and probably based on all that nonsense and foofaram,

[4:24] it's a reasonably successful one, and the premise is we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[4:32] And, Dan, tell us about Cagemas.

[4:35] Cagemas is a special time of year where we honor St. Nicholas Cage,

[4:38] who is a great actor who is known for giving—

[4:43] On a hot streak right now, if you ask me.

[4:45] —big performances, but until—I mean, like, he seems to be coming out of it now.

[4:50] Maybe he's out of his financial difficulties.

[4:52] Until recently, he had not been making the best choices.

[4:56] I say this because I don't want to contribute to, like, this memification of Cage where we're like,

[5:01] oh, what a crazy guy.

[5:05] Like, is he a bad actor? He's a great actor.

[5:07] I mean, go watch Pig and you'll see.

[5:11] Long-time listeners, don't listen to the Overkill song, Pig, which is a great song,

[5:15] but it's not related to the movie in any way.

[5:17] Long-time listeners of this podcast will know our stance on Nicholas Cage

[5:21] is that he is a great actor who does not always know the best way to channel

[5:27] the amazing amounts of acting energy that he has.

[5:30] Much like Havok, the X-Men character who must wear a special costume

[5:33] to contain the cosmic energies that he's always absorbing,

[5:36] Nicholas Cage is kind of like that with acting energy.

[5:40] Hey, Elliot, when you fill out one of those, based on your answers to these questions,

[5:45] which X-Men character are you? Because I usually get, like, Havok.

[5:49] Usually.

[5:50] You do?

[5:51] I fill out a lot of these because the first time I got Havok, I'm like, oh, that sucks.

[5:55] He just explains his powers and then never uses them.

[5:58] I mean, because he's so scared of them and he's always living in his brother's shadow, too.

[6:01] I know.

[6:02] Well, I mean, Timmy, you know that I'm probably Nightcrawler or Beast.

[6:04] I've got to be blue and furry. That's me.

[6:07] That's the life of a Jewish person, blue and furry.

[6:09] Anyway, so, well, the furry part.

[6:12] But Nicholas Cage, it's well known he had a lot of financial issues for a while.

[6:16] He didn't pay his taxes.

[6:17] So he kind of had to take whatever move he was thrown his way.

[6:19] And lately he hasn't been doing as much of that, which is great.

[6:22] Or maybe it's just that people are learning how to use him again.

[6:25] Yeah.

[6:26] Not to do another tangent, but Dan, I think you and I should identify

[6:30] and celebrate Elliot's growth by saying that he needs to be blue and furry

[6:34] and then he did not say da-boo-dee-da-boo-dao.

[6:36] Yeah, I was waiting for it.

[6:39] Did not happen.

[6:40] And, you know, Elliot, the intervention we staged obviously paid off.

[6:45] I remember very well you each told me how I had hurt you by continuing to tell you

[6:49] that I'm blue da-boo-dee-da-boo-dao.

[6:51] Da-boo-dee-da-boo-dao.

[6:53] And in the middle of it, Elliot went into the bathroom

[6:55] and we could clearly hear him singing that song.

[6:58] Sadly to himself.

[7:00] Yeah, but I'm trying to get better and better every day.

[7:02] It's a process.

[7:03] So Nicolas Cage, he's great, and we like to celebrate him at least twice a year.

[7:08] And so we watched a Nicolas Cage movie, right?

[7:10] But we had to dig back a couple years.

[7:12] There was a time when we had a bounty of Nicolas Cage needs-to-pay-his-bills movies

[7:17] usually shot in Eastern Europe for very little money and released on VOD to dig through.

[7:21] But lately, like we were saying, he's been on an upswing.

[7:24] He had Pig and he had other things probably.

[7:27] Colorado Space was good.

[7:29] Oh, yeah, Colorado Space, yeah.

[7:31] He's going to play Dracula, right?

[7:33] Mm-hmm.

[7:34] That sounds great.

[7:35] I mean, going back a little further, you've got Mandy.

[7:38] You've got Into the Spider-Verse, obviously.

[7:42] Into the Spider-Verse.

[7:43] And we have Grand Isle. It's all great.

[7:45] Yeah.

[7:46] Well, I don't know.

[7:47] So, Dan, what brought you to our movie this week, Grand Isle?

[7:52] Because you were like, we've got to see this one, boys.

[7:55] Oh, wow.

[7:56] And you had dollar signs in your eyes and then your mouth hung open

[7:59] and your tongue rolled up out and you hit yourself in the head with a mallet

[8:02] and then your tongue rolled back up again.

[8:03] And his tongue was a giant dollar bill,

[8:05] but it was clearly a novelty dollar bill so we could use it on camera.

[8:09] Yeah, exactly.

[8:10] It was like the money in the wire, which always looks super fakey,

[8:13] like they just photocopied a drawing of a dollar bill.

[8:16] So, Dan, what was it about Grand Isle?

[8:18] Well, you know, so—

[8:20] Other than the fact that everything about this movie screams thick gumbo of accents.

[8:24] Listeners may know that I'm the one of the three of us who,

[8:29] in his personal non-flophouse life,

[8:32] still sort of maintains a dedication to trash in my movies.

[8:39] Even though I am the oldest and theoretically have the least time to waste on this earth.

[8:45] Yeah, that's very true.

[8:47] To put it into layman's terms that everyone will understand,

[8:49] if Dan was walking by the classic East Village clothing store, Trash and Vaudeville,

[8:53] he'd say, I don't need vaudeville, just give me trash.

[8:56] No, you know me, Ellie, and I would want the vaudeville, too.

[8:59] Yeah, actually, Dan would like the vaudeville, too.

[9:01] Actually, Dan's ideal vaudeville show would be like,

[9:04] probably some comedy jugglers from the 30s

[9:08] pretending that there's a ghost in the room

[9:10] and then just like an alien having sex with a woman

[9:12] and someone shooting the head off of a monster.

[9:14] Like, that'd be Dan's ideal vaudeville.

[9:17] I find it very strange to think that there's anyone in the world

[9:21] who wouldn't be entertained by all of that.

[9:25] Anyway, the point is, I had read reviews of this a ways back when it came out

[9:30] and I like a big slab of southern fried ham in my movies.

[9:36] And also seeing that not only Nick Cage was in this,

[9:39] but also Kelsey Grammer felt like a good omen for our podcast.

[9:45] Yep, yep.

[9:47] Wait, are you saying the rumble from Money Plane is in this movie?

[9:50] Yep.

[9:52] What's weird is, so Kelsey Grammer is slowly turning into

[9:55] the late Senator Fred Thompson, who is like an acting senator.

[10:00] And in this movie there were times when I was like, how did they get Fred Thompson? He died years ago. Oh wait, it's Kelsey Grammer

[10:06] It's true and there's also and I'd be other actors in the movie

[10:10] I also I wasn't super familiar with but they also are

[10:13] Very heavy southern accented like to and yeah the writing of this movie

[10:18] You literally have a person a woman in a bathtub saying to a man

[10:21] Why is just standing there like a tree in the woods and it's like come on

[10:27] Like there's so much

[10:29] It's a real like what would you call it Tennessee Williams flotation movie?

[10:34] Yeah, it's it's southern gothics crossed with you know noir up until the end

[10:41] Which I'm sure we'll get to where the movie flies straight off the rails

[10:49] It's kind of like the James Hurley bit from the end of the first what the second season of Twin Peaks

[10:57] Mixed with people under the stairs. Yeah

[11:01] Yeah, it's it's I see and I thought this movie it really kept surprising me not in the not in a pleasant way

[11:08] You thought it was like, oh, you thought it was gonna be a video game created by a son. Mm-hmm

[11:14] Who wanted to reconnect with his father? Yes

[11:15] Oh, that's what I wanted to say in which his dad has sex with a bunch of people

[11:19] And and jumps naked into the ocean scrotum first. Yeah, we're talking about course about the movie. It was called

[11:26] Serenity not not serenity

[11:28] I wanted to call it justice fish

[11:32] Because there's a fish called justice in it, right a fish called justice

[11:37] Yeah, a fish called justice is the sequel to a fish called Wanda where they're all cops now. Oh, wow, that's too bad

[11:42] I don't think it's gonna play in the test audiences and the judge is a dog

[11:45] So this movie it starts out seeming like it's gonna be like a southern crime noir thing

[11:50] Then it's gonna be like a sexual thriller then it's good

[11:54] An action movie kind of and then by the end it's a horror movie and but also it is such a

[12:00] like you could have taken this this same script and

[12:04] Shot it and it released it

[12:05] You shot it in the 70s and released it into like a grindhouse movie in times

[12:09] theater in Times Square and I don't think you would have I mean you changed it not I guess topical references because it takes place

[12:14] In 1988, but yeah, it's it the whole time was watching

[12:17] I was like, oh, yeah

[12:18] This is what it was like to watch like to unironically watch like a grindhouse movie in a movie theater where you feel gross

[12:24] The whole yeah, like there's sludge on you. Well, also I I

[12:29] Mean this this will make a little more sense once we've gotten into it

[12:32] But as long as we're talking like meta things about the the movie

[12:35] yeah, the

[12:37] I've seen this bit of trivia written up a couple places on the internet. I don't know whether it's true or not

[12:42] But supposedly the screenplay was originally called fancy buddy and mr. Walter

[12:49] Fancy buddy and mr. Walter. Yeah, I wonder I mean, but I also saw a trivia that said Nicolas Cage ad-libbed all his lines

[12:56] Which I do not know because there's plot information. Oh, but there is one there is one line

[13:01] I'm gonna probably

[13:03] There's one line where he's so Nicolas Cage's characters talking to the hero question mark buddy

[13:08] And he says so how long has it been since you had your cock?

[13:17] Nicolas Cage in that moment cannot believe what he's saying and the words jump out of him without him

[13:23] Only while he's saying that he's like what?

[13:26] So that was that was a moment

[13:28] I

[13:34] Just wanted to know if you wanted a king-sized or queen-sized bed, it's the Marriott

[13:38] Okay, stick with me guys Ella you're suggesting that this could have been a grindhouse or like a late-night Cinemax movie in the 90s

[13:44] Maybe I'm going to cast that fucker right now

[13:47] Walter is George Hamilton fancy is Shannon tweed

[13:51] Buddy is Billy saying boom scored that. Yeah, no

[13:58] That's amazing for a flawless victory that's on at 1 30 in the morning on Cinemax and here's the problem

[14:04] Here's the problem in the TV guy that says nudity which means a shot of someone's but not sexual situations

[14:09] Yeah, she means a lot of nudity. Yeah, Dan. Oh, I just I don't want my one problem. I get we should

[14:15] I'll go into what the movies about

[14:18] Billy Zane seems to like

[14:21] Both both too smart for this part and too much like he would be the one

[14:28] Embroiling you in a web of that's true sexual desire. I guess that's it's funny how

[14:34] Amazing casting can sometimes improve a move. No, like I just did

[14:39] Movie is our ostensible lead

[14:44] Is is the charisma? Oh, yeah

[14:47] Well when the he has the amount of like sexual chemistry with fancy as say like the chemistry between

[14:54] The entire cast of the movie red notice and I know you're confused

[14:57] Fancy is not a golden retriever

[15:00] Fancy is the name of the female lead

[15:03] Well the name of the of the character. Yes the name of the character. It's Katie Strickland who apparently was on a bunch of private practice

[15:10] that seemed to be her

[15:12] Largest credit, but um, no, I just fancy sounds like a show to hug me and she's she's not the problem in this

[15:19] I feel like the putty is the problem. Yeah. Well, I've and there's there's a number of problems the movie

[15:24] Let's let's go through it. We'll talk about it. Okay, so we start out

[15:28] it's there's a

[15:30] Creepy well-dressed woman in a big house. That's fancy. We'll find out later. She buys some

[15:36] cookies

[15:37] She buys some Girl Scout cookies very creepily at her door

[15:41] This does not play much into the rest of the movie, but I guess it just establishes that there's a creepy lady who

[15:47] Foreshadowing, it's foreshadowing I guess but we never see those cookies again. So it's not like

[15:56] Yeah, that's your that's your go-to or is it Samoas I like a Samoa

[16:00] I just thought that then meant was like I guess a more accessible comedy choice. I don't know

[16:06] That's fair. That's very fair. And do they still call them Samoas?

[16:10] That's a good question Google it, okay audience at home Google it and write into us at do they still call it Samoas?

[16:18] Here of the care of the flop house Dan's real address, Brooklyn, New York

[16:23] United States of America

[16:26] Yeah, so so that's then it's nighttime. We see that it's 1988 and the thief is breaking into the house

[16:33] How do we see that? Do we see it because they're watching a TV show? That's only on in 19

[16:38] No

[16:40] Numbers the numbers 1988 appear on screen. That's the extent of it and later and I guess the TVs we see are all tube TVs

[16:48] and

[16:49] the end

[16:50] Nobody answers a cell phone

[16:52] Nobody has a cell phone. Nobody Googles anything. Nobody has a digipen, you know

[17:00] Cube is an earlier 80s thing, but but they were still around it was it was it was like, you know

[17:05] I feel like that's the lazy movies

[17:07] Way of showing you that you're in the 80s

[17:10] Yeah, so at Nicolas Nicolas Cage will later learn as Walter

[17:14] He's also so I forgot at a certain point this movie was set in the 80s and he starts talking about being in Vietnam

[17:19] And I was like, there's no way he's old enough to have been in Vietnam

[17:21] Yeah, wait a second this movie set in the 80s. So that night a thief breaks into Walters house

[17:26] He gets up in his bathrobe and pajamas and he opens up his bedside drawer

[17:32] That has only like a few items of jewelry

[17:36] Loaded pistol and he goes down and he tells the thief you just broke into the wrong house the thief they start fighting the thief

[17:43] Escapes and but as he is about to jump over the fence and get away from the property

[17:47] Nicolas Cage shoots him in the back from a distance thus maybe killing him

[17:51] We don't know and he does a little bit of banter, right?

[17:54] It's a little bit of like like a little like most dangerous game shit here, huh?

[17:59] Yes, the implication seems to be the implication later on seems to be that they like lured him in somehow

[18:04] But we never see that this thief. It just it's just a random thief. It's it's not James Caan from the movie thief

[18:10] You don't hear any music from Tangerine Dream. It's just it's just a regular regular old thief in a very recognizable hoodie

[18:17] Okay, cut to buddy our hero played by Luke Benward and you have to know if you ever need to go north just

[18:24] Notice which star is pointing Benward and that's the way that you want to go

[18:28] So he's being interrogated by that's right. Kelsey Grammer who is just

[18:33] Just chomping off pieces of this southern fried steak that he's got like and I mean that metaphorically like his he's so there's a part

[18:40] Where there's this line where later on he's like, where do you think you are? New York LA?

[18:49] How many hours did he stuff into the word grand aisle and this thing he's it's just he's really uh

[18:55] He's really doing it doing it up Kelsey Grammer

[18:58] I assumed all of the scenes were shot in one location the same day

[19:01] But he shows up at the end of the movie in a second location

[19:04] So he might have been there for two days and he's like, oh that he says you've been arrested for murder

[19:10] And I thought it was so it took me so long to realize that buddy was not supposed to be the thief for the first

[19:15] Scene, it's not super clear because you've been arrested for murder. You gotta tell me what happened

[19:20] Right now you're going to take you're going to the chair and we have a

[19:28] Sling blade and so forth

[19:30] Buddy is trying he's trying to interest a guy who's just trying to sit at a lunch counter and investing in some kind of project

[19:37] Find out what it is

[19:38] The guy at the counter has no lines

[19:39] But buddy follows him into the restaurant keeps talking to him while he looks at the menu buddy

[19:43] He says I'll talk to me about it later, but he then goes to see his wife and baby who are in the restaurant already

[19:50] I

[19:54] Gotta say if you if you're gonna set up your day, you might as well stack it like that, you know

[19:58] It's like well, I'm gonna be

[20:00] I'm gonna meet this guy at his office,

[20:01] but at a certain point he's gonna get fed up with me

[20:02] and escape to the local diner.

[20:04] You go to the diner and I'll meet you there.

[20:06] Their baby is sick,

[20:08] which is identified by it coughing sometimes,

[20:11] and they need money.

[20:11] Buddy refuses to let his wife work

[20:14] and they haven't had sex in six months,

[20:16] which becomes a big plot point

[20:17] because she's still dealing with having had a baby.

[20:21] She seems to be dealing with some kind

[20:22] of postpartum depression, very common,

[20:25] and there's a lot of tension between them

[20:26] because he has not gotten his beak wet in six months.

[20:30] You know?

[20:31] Wow.

[20:32] Sure.

[20:33] His beak.

[20:34] Yeah.

[20:35] Well, I was assumed that he was uncircumcised,

[20:38] so it was more of a beak than a circumcised penis.

[20:41] A beakman's world, if you would.

[20:42] Was that what beakman's world was about?

[20:45] Yeah, big surprise, right?

[20:47] Yeah, that's what Beakman Place in New York

[20:49] is named after, penises.

[20:51] So Buddy, he gets hired to fix the fence

[20:54] at Nicholas Cage's house,

[20:57] and Nicholas Cage is just kind of chuckling,

[20:58] lighting a cigar.

[20:59] Nicholas Cage always has a cigar,

[21:01] either in his mouth or about to go in his mouth

[21:03] in this movie.

[21:03] Oh boy, yeah.

[21:05] And it's the fence that the thief broke,

[21:07] and Nicholas Cage, they banter over how Nicholas Cage

[21:11] is an ex-Marine and Buddy was in the Navy,

[21:14] and how much he's gonna pay him for the fence

[21:17] if he can get it done today.

[21:18] And meanwhile, Nicholas Cage's wife, Fancy,

[21:22] whose real name is, do you remember what her,

[21:24] it was like Francine something something,

[21:27] but they call her Fancy.

[21:28] I missed that part.

[21:29] And I gotta say, these two are totally giving off

[21:31] that like, me and my wife saw you at the end of the bar

[21:34] and we're like your vibe energy, you know?

[21:36] Like Nicholas Cage has his button down,

[21:38] button downed a little bit too far,

[21:40] and Fancy is very, very, I guess,

[21:43] explicit in her overtures.

[21:46] Right, I mean, they're constantly arguing with each other,

[21:49] Nicholas Cage's wife, but in that way that it feels like

[21:53] maybe it's part of their sex game.

[21:56] It's a real who's afraid of Virginia Woolf type.

[21:59] It's like, who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

[22:01] Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

[22:02] Because it's the South, you know?

[22:04] Because it's Louisiana.

[22:07] Who's afraid of Dr. John?

[22:08] That's the name of the-

[22:09] A lot of Virginia Woolf's out in that swamp.

[22:12] Oh, well, well.

[22:14] See, what a dump.

[22:16] What movie is that from?

[22:18] I don't know.

[22:18] Anyway, so his wife is singing and wearing lingerie

[22:24] because it's their anniversary, but he forgot.

[22:25] And she gets mad and slaps him.

[22:26] And he's like, don't make me mad.

[22:28] And she goes, if you're a real man, you'd hurt me.

[22:30] And then she's like, you don't have the balls.

[22:33] So it's one of those relationships where it's not healthy.

[22:35] It's not a healthy relationship.

[22:36] Oh, okay.

[22:37] I guess that's what I'm saying.

[22:38] I guess a healthy marriage is not built

[22:40] on threats and challenges, you know?

[22:43] Like it is good for your spouse, your partner

[22:45] to challenge you, to make you think new ways,

[22:47] to get you out of your comfort zone sometimes,

[22:49] but not to challenge you to hit them

[22:51] or like show your real nature, yeah, to a duel.

[22:54] That's why I am still in love with my partner,

[22:56] the Dark Souls franchise.

[22:59] You're saying it does challenge you in the right ways?

[23:01] Yeah, exactly.

[23:02] That was such a beautiful ceremony

[23:04] when you and Dark Souls got married.

[23:05] I know.

[23:07] And the dancing.

[23:09] It had to be in Croatia, the only country

[23:11] where a video game and a person can get married,

[23:13] but that's gonna change with meta and everything.

[23:16] And I don't need to tell you guys,

[23:18] but the wedding night was spectacular.

[23:22] Wait, why don't you need to tell us?

[23:24] Were we there?

[23:26] You got it all on camera.

[23:27] Yeah, because he was Twitch streaming the whole thing.

[23:29] Twitch streaming it, speed running it.

[23:33] I don't have to tell you because you watched

[23:35] my YouTube cut down of the night,

[23:38] but it was spectacular.

[23:41] So Buddy's fixing the fence, the wife is drinking,

[23:43] the TV news talks about how there's a missing teen,

[23:46] which we know is that thief, there's a big storm coming,

[23:49] and you can tell that she's got her eye on Buddy.

[23:54] She's got her mind set on him.

[23:55] And they have kind of kindergarten level

[23:58] flirting in innuendo.

[24:00] Even a kid would be like,

[24:01] are you just talking about sex right now?

[24:03] Well, I love how aggressive she is.

[24:08] He's not even really playing it dumb or anything.

[24:10] He's just like, what?

[24:12] Okay, sure, yeah.

[24:13] I mean, it's not too far from the reoccurring

[24:18] Pete Davidson sketch on Saturday Night Live

[24:19] where he's just like a dumb guy

[24:21] who keeps getting flirted with.

[24:21] He just like agrees to everything.

[24:23] Yeah, I mean, there's a real opening couple minutes

[24:27] to a porn video energy between the two of them.

[24:30] There's not, it's like not sexual tension

[24:33] so much as it is like making an appointment for sex

[24:36] at some point later in the movie.

[24:38] And Fancy even says one point,

[24:39] I always loved the calm before the storm.

[24:42] And it's like, come on, come on movie.

[24:45] He hits his finger with a hammer

[24:46] because he's distracted watching

[24:47] because he hates to see her love leave

[24:49] but he loves to watch her go.

[24:50] He was watching her butt as she walks away

[24:54] and he decides to take that moment to nail in the hammer.

[24:58] Hammer in the nail.

[24:59] Like these are two things that could be done

[25:01] sequentially, you don't have to.

[25:04] Well, he's got to get that fence done today

[25:06] if he's going to make that money.

[25:07] So he's got to multitask.

[25:09] I got to save these two seconds and not look at my hand.

[25:13] Yeah, rising from the wind, baby.

[25:15] It's also like he needs it like in the movies

[25:18] where they need to keep the collar on the line

[25:20] so they can trace where the call's coming from.

[25:22] He's like still downloading this image

[25:24] into Spank Bank, deposit not finished,

[25:26] deposit not finished.

[25:27] Ow, oh, oh, I was so close, 99%.

[25:30] Anyway, she gives him a Band-Aid and she kisses his thumb.

[25:33] Nicolas Cage walks in and it's tense.

[25:35] And he and Fancy just keep trying

[25:36] to get a rise out of each other.

[25:38] This is going to happen the whole movie.

[25:40] Nicolas Cage, he's drinking.

[25:41] He starts shooting beer bottles off the fence

[25:43] with a sniper rifle right off the roof

[25:46] right next to where Buddy is.

[25:47] And Buddy, understandably, gets mad.

[25:50] He should report it to OSHA.

[25:51] This is not a safe workplace

[25:52] if your boss is shooting beer bottles next to your head.

[25:55] It reminds me of, Dan, were you there,

[25:58] was this during your time at The Daily Show

[25:59] where there was a dartboard set up

[26:01] next to my head above my desk?

[26:03] Was this before you joined?

[26:05] I think by the time I got there,

[26:07] it was in that little alcove.

[26:09] It was by the emergency exit, but it was still not great.

[26:11] That was constantly filled with chairs.

[26:14] So such that the woman in charge of the space

[26:20] had to keep going back, being like,

[26:22] you can't put these chairs here.

[26:25] Yeah, this is a fire exit.

[26:25] Yeah, there's my then office partner, Sam Means,

[26:30] who's a great television writer.

[26:32] He loves British pub culture.

[26:35] So he wanted to get a dartboard in our office.

[26:37] But I guess the only place to put it,

[26:38] because his framed pictures were on the other wall,

[26:40] was on the wall next to where my head is.

[26:42] And so I would have to work

[26:43] while the other writers would come in

[26:44] and throw darts at the board.

[26:46] And I'm being a nice guy, so I just gritted my teeth

[26:50] and white-knuckled it through my scripts

[26:51] while darts almost hit me in the head.

[26:53] And then when I moved to a different office

[26:55] and another writer took that room,

[26:56] she was like, this is not happening.

[26:57] And they moved the dartboard to the emergency exit area.

[27:00] But it's a little bit like that.

[27:01] It's not safe.

[27:02] Sam is such a sweet, gentle man

[27:04] that it's always surprising to me to think about him

[27:08] like not realizing the danger he's putting you in.

[27:11] I think he just didn't think about it.

[27:13] He was just so excited about setting up that dartboard

[27:16] and making it like a real,

[27:17] like the writers' offices in the movies and the TV shows,

[27:19] you know, where there's games and stuff.

[27:20] Where people are throwing pencils at the ceiling.

[27:22] Exactly, exactly.

[27:24] Oh, fun stuff like that, yep.

[27:26] So the storm is arriving.

[27:27] Buddy's barely done any work fixing the fence,

[27:30] which is ridiculous.

[27:31] He's been working on it all day.

[27:32] And Nicolas Cage is like, I'm not gonna pay you.

[27:34] I told you to finish it in one day.

[27:36] And Buddy wants to leave, but his truck won't start.

[27:38] Uh-oh.

[27:40] And we learn that,

[27:42] we briefly have him talk to Kelsey Grammer.

[27:43] We learned that he was a thief as a teen.

[27:46] He robbed a store.

[27:48] Kelsey Grammer was?

[27:49] No, no, Buddy was.

[27:51] Kelsey Grammer's like, you must have killed those people.

[27:53] You got arrested for robbing a store once when you were a kid.

[27:56] It's like, that seems like a big ramping up.

[27:59] Buddy goes back to the house.

[28:00] He says, Nicolas Cage, can I borrow your car?

[28:02] And Nicolas Cage goes, no.

[28:04] He says, so you leave your truck here

[28:06] and you get to take my Mustang?

[28:07] I don't think so.

[28:09] He says, get comfy.

[28:10] And Buddy calls his wife, who is justifiably annoyed

[28:13] that she's gonna have to ride out a hurricane

[28:14] with a crying baby.

[28:15] Or her husband is having a great time

[28:17] dealing with the violent sexual tension

[28:19] of this horrible couple.

[28:21] Guys, how would you apologize to your wife over the phone

[28:25] for the fact that you're not there with her

[28:26] during a hurricane because you're busy being in

[28:28] like a Z-grade erotic thriller?

[28:31] I mean, I think at this point,

[28:34] at this point, I don't think he's done anything wrong.

[28:36] He's just flirted a bunch, nailed shit poorly.

[28:39] Oh, wow.

[28:40] I would be like, honey, I'm sorry.

[28:42] I've been caught in a web of deceit and seduction.

[28:44] I don't know how to get out of it yet.

[28:46] And like, I mean, granted, he knew when he put on

[28:49] that sleeveless shirt that he was gonna be attracting

[28:52] some undue attention from this couple.

[28:55] I mean, it's a difficult thing because obviously

[28:58] I understand not wanting to be alone

[29:01] with a sick baby in a hurricane,

[29:03] but also he, like Nicolas Cage has set him up

[29:07] so to trap him here for a hurricane.

[29:10] And there's not like, he can't get to her safely.

[29:14] It's one of those situations you enter into

[29:18] where like, no one's totally right.

[29:19] You just gotta say you're sorry.

[29:21] So yeah, Dan, you're like the buddy in this situation,

[29:24] right, I can see you as kind of that guy.

[29:26] You're like a guy who's good with his hands

[29:29] and you're just helping out and then you get tricked

[29:31] or swindled into some kind of homo, not homoerotic.

[29:35] Well, maybe, I mean, there's some interesting.

[29:37] I mean, there's a little bit of that, I think.

[29:38] I see myself more as the sick baby.

[29:40] Yeah.

[29:40] Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

[29:46] Fair, fair.

[29:47] I think, yeah, Stuart's the buddy.

[29:49] I'm probably what, Kelsey Grammer,

[29:52] and I think Dan's the sick baby, okay.

[29:53] I gotta tell you, if I was in Buddy's position,

[29:55] I would probably do the same dumb shit.

[29:57] Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

[30:00] So Buddy joins them for dinner of meatloaf and Fancy,

[30:03] not the singer, but eating the food,

[30:05] and it's not like Rocky Horror where the,

[30:07] and Fancy, she tells the story about how

[30:12] she and Nicholas Cage met, she and Walter met,

[30:14] and she actually has the line,

[30:15] he was an alluring mix of strength, courage, and hope,

[30:18] which is like, don't read the stage directions,

[30:20] come on, what are you doing?

[30:22] And they keep hinting at like a secret backstory

[30:26] that the movie never really quite digs out.

[30:28] There's lots of tension, and Nicholas Cage accuses.

[30:30] For the sequel or the prequel?

[30:33] Yeah, the prequel.

[30:34] The prequel.

[30:37] Walter accuses Buddy of wanting to have sex with his wife,

[30:39] and she's being all sultry, and there's a moment here

[30:42] where Nicholas Cage gets up from his.

[30:43] That's where he makes that amazing line.

[30:45] That's where he says that amazing line

[30:46] where Nicholas Cage cannot even believe

[30:48] the words coming out of his mouth.

[30:50] Like, he's like, he like spits the words out

[30:53] as if he's like, I gotta get these out quick

[30:54] or my brain will stop me from saying them.

[30:57] Or if he puts a big enough pause between cock and son

[31:00] to like, there won't be correlation anymore.

[31:03] Like maybe it'll fly past the censors.

[31:05] Maybe it'll sound like two different thoughts,

[31:07] and the people at standards and practices

[31:11] won't stop me from saying it.

[31:13] You're allowed one non-sexual cock in your movie, so.

[31:18] And that's how they got that G rating.

[31:20] That's why this is on Disney Plus.

[31:22] And then he gets up from his chair so amazingly loudly,

[31:26] and like, I don't know if this struck you guys,

[31:28] but he gets up from his chair super fast,

[31:30] and the chair almost sounds like it's cracking to pieces

[31:33] under the force of him wanting to escape this scene

[31:35] so badly.

[31:37] Nicholas Cage passes out in front of the TV.

[31:39] Fancy briefly shows Buddy around the house.

[31:41] They see the basement door has multiple locks on it,

[31:43] and she teases him that there are very bad things

[31:45] down there.

[31:46] And then they go to her favorite room,

[31:47] which is full of weird little dolls.

[31:49] And normally when I find a,

[31:51] when I find a, in a creepy Southern Gothic house

[31:54] that has a door to the basement with a shitload of locks,

[31:56] I'm like, okay, I'm gonna have to go through

[31:58] all these fucking puzzles to find all this shit

[32:01] so I can open it.

[32:02] Then I'll have a fucking boss fight or something.

[32:05] Yeah.

[32:05] Guys, I just, look, I watched this movie, you know,

[32:10] I think we all often, for the flop house,

[32:12] end up watching these movies in segments.

[32:14] Not like super frequently for me, but.

[32:17] Always.

[32:18] Every single time for me, yeah.

[32:20] If it's not a live show, I watch it in segments.

[32:22] This one, I watched the first half last night

[32:25] and the second half this morning,

[32:27] and I just now remember the scene we're about to get to,

[32:31] and I'm so excited.

[32:32] Yeah.

[32:33] Like.

[32:35] Maybe, well, I want you to talk about the scene.

[32:37] So in this one, she changes to a screen,

[32:38] she's talking about how hot it is,

[32:40] because of course it's the South,

[32:41] and she's becoming the old lady who likes Tin Tin.

[32:44] And she, so she says she's barren, she can't have children,

[32:48] and starts telling him about her fantasy

[32:49] of having sex with a younger man.

[32:51] And she keeps, she's sitting next to him,

[32:53] and she's like, anyway, then he would kiss my breasts.

[32:57] Should I keep going?

[32:58] And he's like, uh, yeah, okay.

[33:00] And she's like, then, he'd kiss my stomach,

[33:03] then down my leg, should I keep going?

[33:05] He's like, uh, okay.

[33:06] And she's like, and it's.

[33:09] Yeah.

[33:10] And he, and what is she doing?

[33:11] She's like, running her hands on his leg

[33:13] or something like that.

[33:14] It all happens, it's happening at such a glacial pace.

[33:17] But I appreciate that she's acting,

[33:18] asking his consent every step of the way.

[33:21] So if I recall correctly, then what happens next

[33:24] is that like, you know, he gets spooked.

[33:28] He realizes, maybe I shouldn't cheat on my wife.

[33:31] He like, gets up, he trips onto the ground.

[33:35] And he trips because he, all the blood

[33:37] that's normally in his head

[33:38] had rushed to his incorch boner.

[33:42] He got lightheaded immediately.

[33:44] Yeah, yeah, his sense of balance was totally thrown off

[33:46] by how much, how much harder his penis was than normal.

[33:49] So Nicholas Cage hears this, you know,

[33:52] this wakes him up downstairs.

[33:53] He very slowly walks upstairs.

[33:57] So slowly.

[33:58] Very slowly ends up like.

[34:00] It's the South, baby.

[34:01] Stay, like being behind the door.

[34:02] Meanwhile, like our hero, I guess we can call him,

[34:08] is on the ground and Fancy puts her stiletto,

[34:12] gold stiletto heels.

[34:13] Her gold stiletto heel on his crotch.

[34:16] And at first I was like, is she going to do

[34:18] some like crushing action here?

[34:19] Is that her kink?

[34:21] Is she going to stomp on those testes?

[34:24] But no, what happens.

[34:25] Dan, don't ever say that again.

[34:26] It's pig and wine, yeah.

[34:27] What happens is the stiletto tip,

[34:32] like she puts it underneath his button on his pants.

[34:39] She flips her leg up with such force

[34:43] that the button flies off.

[34:45] And now he's wearing denim jeans.

[34:47] He's able to pop the button off of denim jeans.

[34:50] Genuinely hot, that was amazing.

[34:52] And like the button like flies

[34:54] so it's almost under the doorway

[34:56] so Nicolas Cage could see it.

[34:58] Nicolas Cage, he's like lingering outside the door

[35:00] but not opening the door ever.

[35:02] No, no.

[35:03] And she managed, she also, like she managed

[35:05] to open his fly with her stiletto heel.

[35:09] Amazing.

[35:10] It's a great scene.

[35:12] She won the Academy Award for Scenes that year.

[35:15] The Academy Award for Most Improbable Sexiness.

[35:18] Where it's like, there's no, none of this makes any sense.

[35:21] Like how, just imagining the physics involved

[35:23] in the leverage she would need

[35:25] to tear the button off of a pair of jeans

[35:28] with her heel.

[35:29] Yeah, I'm sure you guys are just like me.

[35:30] Using just her ankle, just her ankle strength.

[35:33] I was watching this on the couch

[35:34] and I had to take one of those couch cushions

[35:35] and put it over my crotch.

[35:38] And I made a point not to stand up too quickly

[35:40] or else I would have fallen over.

[35:42] Yeah.

[35:44] This was a moment, yeah, this moment it was like,

[35:47] it really felt, I mean, we've said this before

[35:49] for other movies where like an alien doesn't really know

[35:51] how humans do things.

[35:53] And they're trying, they're like,

[35:54] what an alien is like, what is sexy?

[35:57] Well, I think this would do it, right?

[35:59] This is, like, eye heels are sexy.

[36:03] And like buttons popping off of things, I guess.

[36:05] Crotches are sexy.

[36:06] And so what, just the idea that you would like unzip,

[36:10] unzip a pair of pants with the heel of a shoe is.

[36:14] Anyway, they don't get caught.

[36:16] Nicolas Cage, like the mummy,

[36:17] just wanders through the hallways

[36:18] and lingers outside and then walks away.

[36:22] Buddy's sleeping on the couch,

[36:23] all curled up like a little baby.

[36:25] The storm wakes him up.

[36:26] Uh-oh, Nicolas Cage is sitting there with a gun.

[36:29] He takes him to the attic.

[36:30] They talk about death and gratitude.

[36:32] Nicolas Cage talks about how when he was in Vietnam,

[36:34] he got injured in a friendly fire grenade accident,

[36:38] which meant he didn't get to go in country with his squad

[36:41] and they were all wiped out.

[36:42] And ever since then, he's always regretted

[36:43] either not saving them or not dying with them.

[36:45] And Buddy talks about his experience

[36:47] as a sailor on the real ship, the USS Stark,

[36:50] which was attacked by an Iraqi fighter jet in 1987

[36:55] and how his best friend was on the ship with him

[36:57] and he tried to save him and he couldn't and he died.

[37:00] And that's when Nicolas Cage throws a bag

[37:01] with $20,000 in cash in it on the floor

[37:04] and says, hey, Fancy has cancer.

[37:05] Can you kill her so she doesn't die slowly of cancer?

[37:08] Here's some cyanide.

[37:09] Just get her to drink it, I guess.

[37:11] He said, pour it on her rag and stuff it in her face.

[37:14] Yeah, he does a great move that I actually missed

[37:17] and Audrey made me rewind to see

[37:19] and I don't regret spending an extra minute

[37:22] in Grand Isle to see this where she's like, put it on.

[37:25] Eh, eh, eh.

[37:26] And he does a little mine of all three steps.

[37:33] And Buddy takes almost no time in being like, okay.

[37:36] Yeah, this is the part of the movie

[37:37] where I'm like, all right, hold on, movie.

[37:41] I'll buy this popping off of the button

[37:43] with the high heels, but so this guy, Nicolas Cage.

[37:48] I'll buy that Buddy's jeans are so worn in

[37:51] that that button is barely attached.

[37:53] The thread is worn through,

[37:55] that you can just pop that thing off in any way.

[37:57] Or that denim is stretched so tightly

[37:59] that just the slightest shift will cause it to fall off.

[38:02] Yeah, because he's so aroused, yeah.

[38:05] But the idea that Nick Cage,

[38:07] who has been nothing but belligerent to this man,

[38:12] just awful to him the whole time,

[38:16] is gonna try and convince him to kill his wife

[38:21] claiming that she's sick.

[38:23] And the guy is gonna immediately be like, yeah, sure.

[38:27] Rather than being like, can I talk to her

[38:30] about whether she's sick?

[38:31] Or you also seem like an asshole.

[38:34] What's going on here?

[38:35] I mean, he saw those stacks, dude.

[38:37] He saw the 20 grand in the bag.

[38:40] I mean, he needs that money.

[38:41] And also at this point,

[38:42] he's probably just wants to get out of that house.

[38:44] Yeah, well, later on.

[38:45] What do I need to say to get out of this house?

[38:47] It is implied that he's mostly just like trying

[38:49] to play along with whatever happens

[38:51] because he's freaked out, but it is not particularly,

[38:55] I don't know.

[38:56] It just seems like this guy drifts from whatever.

[38:58] Look at the pants button he can buy with that 20 grand.

[39:01] He's like, well, I do need some money to repair my pants.

[39:04] So thank you.

[39:05] Yeah, denim tailoring is harder to get around here.

[39:08] This is when I think the movie officially shifts

[39:11] into what I would call lugubrious territory

[39:14] where Fancy is just hanging out in a bath,

[39:16] drinking and listening to Strange Fruit,

[39:17] which is an interesting choice

[39:18] because it's a protest song about lynching.

[39:21] Like it's not a sexy song.

[39:23] It was a very upsetting choice.

[39:25] And also like she explains the history of it briefly.

[39:29] And then the movie continues.

[39:31] And it's like, why did you think this was a point

[39:34] you needed to make a movie not about race relations

[39:38] in any way?

[39:39] No, it definitely de-sexifies the moment quite a bit,

[39:41] which is maybe what they wanted.

[39:42] Maybe the movie was in danger of getting too sexy.

[39:45] They're like, we're in the red zone.

[39:46] We're in the red zone.

[39:47] Let's remind everybody about America's violent history

[39:49] of racial injustice.

[39:50] Okay, good.

[39:51] We did it.

[39:52] You might have a blowout if you stay in the red zone too long.

[39:54] We don't want the audience members genitalia

[39:56] to just explode from the pent up passion

[39:59] that they're.

[40:00] viewing uh... anyway

[40:02] they talk about their childhoods and she doesn't have said she is and then they

[40:05] start kissing

[40:06] uh...

[40:07] back the interrogation room uh...

[40:10] he uh...

[40:11] the uh... tells the grammars like you started

[40:13] dot what what were you thinking of my man making love to this woman's wife and

[40:18] he's right there

[40:19] and he was like look i felt like i had to hit them against each other to

[40:22] survive

[40:22] and i think that's not you would say pick them against each other right like

[40:25] that

[40:25] resist hitting them against each other and it doesn't look he he means that

[40:29] say pity but he says in a weird way but also i like listening to that i'm like

[40:32] okay kelsey grammar what what is making you

[40:35] mad in this scenario is it the murder

[40:39] is it the fact that you committed adultery or is it the fact that you this

[40:42] guy committed adultery

[40:43] while nicholas cage was around because it seems like that's the part that like

[40:47] bothered him

[40:48] it why does it have to be one or the other i think it's uh... kelsey grammar is a

[40:51] church going man as he says it could be any of those things true yeah

[40:54] uh... you're doing adultery wrong

[40:57] you're stacking up them sins

[41:00] are we trying to shoot the moon with commandments

[41:03] now uh... so the back to the interrogation so back to we realize that interrogation scene is

[41:07] just there so that they don't have to show the sex scene

[41:09] can we come back and they are lying on the ground in a post coital embrace

[41:12] buddy and fancy it's kind of weird because like

[41:15] i didn't get the vibe that this was a the kind of situation that would

[41:18] necessitate a cuddle afterwards

[41:22] buddy wasn't giving me a big cuddler energy afterwards you know and there's so

[41:25] little there's so little

[41:27] sexual chemistry between them

[41:29] that the fact that having sex at all feel so like proforma for both of them

[41:32] yes just feels like

[41:33] this is what we're supposed to do with this part of the movie i guess so you

[41:36] have the fact that they're like hugging when it would be nice to give you a lot

[41:40] and he's not given much

[41:42] yeah that's true maybe it's just not that into her

[41:44] yeah

[41:45] yeah well fancy

[41:46] we know what we can tell the fancy is not great

[41:49] picking guys because look at who she ended up with walter

[41:51] uh... so maybe fancy although we'll later find out that fancy is

[41:54] is a monster so i guess maybe i shouldn't sympathize with her at this point

[41:59] uh... but you know maybe she just needs to she needs the right partner or

[42:02] perhaps she just needs some time by herself

[42:04] to find out who she is

[42:07] because if you don't love yourself no one's going to love you for that reason

[42:09] anyway if only she'd heard that before she started walking down this

[42:13] terrifying path

[42:14] yeah this lonely road

[42:16] uh... the only road that she's ever known

[42:19] yeah uh... so she finds the poison the cyanide that walter gave him

[42:24] i guess it's kind of rolled out while they were having sex

[42:26] he wasn't very terrible with that cyanide yeah

[42:28] and she's like i don't have cancer and he's like oh your husband said i should kill you

[42:32] and uh... she seems kind of unfazed she's just like yeah okay i'll handle that

[42:37] and uh... and nicholas cages is is uh...

[42:40] he's got full on crazy face at this point

[42:42] but he's also he's hammering wood onto the windows in the in on the inside for

[42:46] the storm

[42:47] but he's like

[42:48] and maybe this is how you do it instead of hammering the boards on individually

[42:52] he has big pre-made wooden board screens that he is holding up to the window and

[42:57] then hitting and then nailing in that way is that how you do it when there's a

[43:00] hurricane coming? i mean i think in like places that deal with regular hurricanes

[43:06] because i wasn't i did not knowing it i wasn't sure if it was just a prop thing

[43:09] that that we weren't supposed to see was one big piece

[43:12] or if that's actually how you do it if that's how you do it then

[43:14] walter

[43:15] i apologize for for doubting you anyway

[43:17] she comes over and sweet-talks him which is just a preamble to stabbing him in the hand

[43:21] and it's great

[43:22] they get into a fight

[43:25] uh... he tries to force buddy to poison her at gunpoint

[43:28] then he ends up fighting with buddy buddy punches him a lot really hard in

[43:31] the face these are big wet punches and the storm has gotten so bad now

[43:35] buddy ties up nicholas cage and he's like i want to leave and fancy's like

[43:38] take me with you

[43:39] i want to get out of here

[43:41] and nicholas cage is like

[43:42] she's got a secret why don't you tell him your secret fancy

[43:46] so like nicholas cage has been stabbed beat up and like tied to a banister

[43:50] and then fancy's all up on buddy and she's like

[43:54] fuck me again make me come in front of him

[43:57] lady read the fucking room here

[44:01] i feel like at this point

[44:02] it's the it's the it's the this is the this is the point in an improv scene where

[44:05] the game has been lost and no one's run across the stage to end the scene yet

[44:10] so they're just gonna try to figure out where to go with it next

[44:12] so nicholas cage is like she's got a dark secret and fancy's like

[44:16] uh... let's let's do it right here and buddy's like i just want to get paid for

[44:19] this fence like none of them can agree on what the premise is

[44:22] i don't care about the secret i just want to leave

[44:25] which to be fair if i was him there's no reason why he should care about that

[44:28] secret just get out of there

[44:29] i don't know and we all know dan being naturally curious by nature would be

[44:33] very interesting i mean i'm curious about the secret but that's because i'm watching a

[44:37] movie where it's so clear that there's going to be a secret that's revealed at

[44:40] some point yes so i want him to stay but

[44:43] if nicholas cage wanted to like

[44:45] you know yeah trap him with the secret he could have brought the secret up a

[44:48] little earlier like normally if i ever need to trap dan i just put on

[44:52] uh... a bhs copy of secrets of the masked magician and dan gets to watching

[44:58] i'm so drawn to secrets

[45:02] oh director skinner stop the magician's guild is gonna take you out

[45:09] so the uh... the uh... so but now they're just trying things to keep him

[45:12] there for some reason because then nicholas cage is like hey if you you

[45:16] should kill me now or else i'll kill your whole family i'll come for you but

[45:20] you should first see what's in that basement and fancy's like don't go into

[45:22] the basement and uh... it's like children should walk out of the house

[45:28] yeah exactly like buddy just just buddy just leave instead buddy goes down the

[45:34] basement and uh... let me just tell you real quick that uh... fancy shoots at

[45:38] him the power goes out because the storm and he runs and she unties nicholas

[45:42] cage and she's like laying on a little thick with the secrets and he's like did

[45:45] you have to stab me so much and it's like uh... they at that point the movie

[45:49] is not even pretending that that this is not like some game they've set up yes

[45:53] except for none of that makes sense once everything's revealed like that's true

[45:58] there's no like metagame that appears to have been playing in that way like the

[46:04] only thing i can think of is at that point they have to work together because

[46:10] they'll be implicated together in what is eventually revealed i mean it's

[46:15] really it's really on walter for giving buddy the idea of going into the basement

[46:19] like none of this part makes any sense although i guess they're they he's

[46:23] hoping we'll get him into the basement we'll trap him in there just like we've

[46:26] trapped other people spoiler alert because buddy finds the thief from the

[46:30] beginning of the movie he's like got an ivy in him that's i guess keeping him

[46:33] sedated he's all weak and the thief is like there's more like me in here there's

[46:37] some kind of kidnapping dungeon in the in the basement house there's a lot of

[46:42] fighting and running around the house they buddy goes up to the attic for some

[46:45] reason and and fights nicolas cage there uh fancy knocks out buddy buddy wakes up

[46:51] in his truck covered in blood and the thief's body is there and the police

[46:55] show up they arrest him he's being interrogated for the murder of the thief

[47:00] and we saw the beginning not james conn not james conn not any other thieves from

[47:06] the many great thieves of movie making it's not uh it's not robin hood it's not

[47:12] rafi feed not robin hood it's not arsene lupin or even lupin the third none of

[47:17] these none of these characters none of these famous thieves it's not raffles the

[47:21] gentleman thief it's not it's not catwoman or any of the other any of the

[47:26] great super villain thieves you know yeah ocean uh no none of none of these

[47:31] great thieves none of them yeah it's not the guys from going out in style

[47:35] it's not it's not the silent park address to santa claus it's not like us it's not it's not uh

[47:41] they live by night it's not any of those yeah or they drive by night i can't i know

[47:45] the driver is about truckers so it's not it's not any of these things don't think

[47:49] it's and it's not someone from thebes it's not edifice it's not you know none of that stuff

[47:54] i know so yeah so that the police oh and this and this is when and this is when uh

[47:59] when buddy is like i want my my phone call to my lawyer and and coastal grammar is like where do

[48:03] you think you are you're a grandma well and i want to object to this this scene here too because

[48:11] this is where kelsey graham look we all know that like there are like shitty uh cops uh everywhere

[48:22] and particularly uh like one is happy to believe or not happy to believe but will believe

[48:29] it uh in some small backwater place like there's a guy who's gonna railroad you for a crime that

[48:36] you didn't commit like i'm not saying that that is that is any way unbelievable but the way that

[48:42] kelsey graham dan are you alienating our small but loyal fan base of small town corrupt detectives

[48:50] yeah i think i'm just saying that like the the way that there is there a minority of listeners

[48:54] with a very vocal minority those corrupt small town detectives yeah yeah i'm just i'm saying that

[48:59] sure it's believable that someone might get railroaded for a crime they didn't commit

[49:04] the way that kelsey graham is doing it like seems so half-assed for the amount that he seems to

[49:11] actually believe it himself because he's like it's like i believe that what happened is uh you went

[49:18] out and you had sex with this man's wife and then you because you're a violent veteran you found

[49:26] this unrelated man and you killed him and i have no motive for this and uh there's nothing linking

[49:33] you to the crime other than you woke up beaten next to the body but there's no other physical

[49:39] evidence or a murder weapon or anything what get what gets me dan is that is that he seems to

[49:44] believe the whole story that but yeah yeah that's like yeah it's like when there's no evidence of

[49:49] that there's only evidence of dead body and truck if kelsey graham could say this is all

[49:54] bullshit you know there's no fancy i mean he was no fancy he wouldn't say bullshit he'd say like

[49:59] hog swallow

[50:00] Yeah, like this is this is there's a lot of honey butter going on this turn out

[50:07] But and then and but like he's like, okay

[50:10] I buy your story until the part where you say you didn't kill this guy, but everything up till then. Yes, that's

[50:23] I believe everything you said except for at the end. You are the killer

[50:31] Get me but the wrong way, I mean I see your math, but it's the wrong math, but it brought you to the right answer somehow

[50:37] Anyway, you're rich

[50:39] Charges, I'll tell you the story

[50:43] The fucking the test audiences that felt that way by usual suspects that they had just arrest him at the end

[50:50] Like he like gets into he gets into a limb like a car and there's somebody there slap

[50:56] The driver to Pete Posta wait turns around and puts a gun in his face and goes you're under arrest I was undercover all this

[51:03] Yeah, it's a there must be I guarantee a studio executive at one point was like why doesn't it end with you?

[51:08] Why don't you then show a scene of him getting stopped getting on a plane or something and they and they throw him in jail

[51:12] You know happy endings a great grand aisle though to get to return to the movie that we're talking about this. You mean grand

[51:19] This as soon as they leave, you know, I was just an aisle and then my kids have kids now my grand aisle

[51:27] Portion of the movie

[51:29] which by the way

[51:31] Audrey pointed out that everything that we're seeing earlier in the movie is ostensibly this flashback

[51:36] Although there are plenty of scenes where buddy was not in the room

[51:43] Kelsey grammar those times, but

[51:48] Buddy was anybody's like in this part. I was hiding in a closet

[51:54] I was in the bathroom, but there I could hear through a vent when they were plotting against me

[51:58] Yeah, as soon as the as the flashback ends and we enter

[52:03] present day the movie three, let's call the movie which

[52:07] You know has been shaky but enjoyable up until this point really flies off the rails

[52:13] This is the part where now this is the movie has been us. I'll give it this I did not like this movie, but

[52:18] I think it was I think it was the the ever greater sense of grime and and moral corruption of the universe that it was

[52:30] It is but boy, I'm gonna carry that weight a long time

[52:33] But and so the that that this point it's been a pretty tight movie up till now minimal locations minimal characters

[52:40] yeah, this is when the movie is like, uh,

[52:43] We kind of don't know what happens next in this movie. Yeah, and it reminds me there's the story that

[52:48] Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have told about how they wrote like 40 different endings for Good Will Hunting because they weren't quite sure what

[52:54] To do with it. And so they had an ending where Ben Affleck's character gets killed in a work accident

[52:58] They had a character that an ending where Robin Williams character somehow becomes a construction foreman and becomes their boss

[53:03] Like they really didn't know according to them what they were doing

[53:05] And it feels like that's what happened with this movie where they were like, uh, we have ten different endings

[53:09] Let's just pick one. Yeah, the movie it kind of runs it goes to the it it runs in place for a while

[53:15] They send buddy's wife in for a scene. That doesn't really mean anything other than she's mad at him and

[53:21] Kelsey Grammer's partner sees something in an old missing persons case file that reminds her of something buddy said they go to Nicholas Cage's house and

[53:28] Nicholas and Walter and fancy just kind of stand around while the cops one by one go into the basement

[53:33] I guess disappear for a moment

[53:35] And then I got so mad too cuz like though the woman who makes the connection and like leaves one cop behind to watch them

[53:42] Yeah, he's like and she says like, you know stay on them and he just like keeps like ducking his head

[53:48] So like look at something in the hall, which like it's not even clear what it is. He has not really what?

[53:55] Is an easily distracted cop they find a kidnapped woman in the basement and there's something about they say something about how they wanted to expand

[54:02] Their family and and Walter has an amazing getting away from the cop. Yes. He goes my cats up a tree

[54:08] Can you shoot him down? And he goes what then my cats up a tree shoot him down and he watches

[54:14] Quite reasonably the police officer says what?

[54:19] But it's such a funny and that that I believe is I mean I would believe that as an ad-lib Nicholas Cage

[54:24] I'm that they were like just say something to distract the cop. Okay, my cats up a tree

[54:28] Can you shoot him down and so Nicholas Cage escapes fancy is caught buddy is released

[54:33] But his wife leaves him time passes as represented by a radio news story

[54:37] We have a scene where buddy wakes up in the middle of night because he thought he heard something he walks around and he goes

[54:42] Back to bed. It is the movie is like if we keep making scenes something will happen like

[54:48] and it does because

[54:51] buddy is he's at the diner and

[54:54] And we hear on the radio that Walter has is on the loose

[54:57] Buddy, they found all these all these missing teens were found in the basement of this house. Yeah

[55:03] Buddy's at the diner and Walter shows up shaved up to this point

[55:07] He's had a head long hair and a long beard shaved and in his Marines uniform

[55:10] Uh-huh, which I know from seeing con air that as soon as you see Nicholas Cage in a fucking uniform shits about to go down

[55:17] You're like captain Corelli. Watch out that mandolin is sharp. It will cut

[55:22] Is that what happens does he get cut by a bit by a mandolin? Oh, he's mainland. Yeah, I'm assuming I haven't seen it

[55:32] I'm pretty sure it's a guitar mandolin. It's not the it's not the cooking implement mandolin that you use for. Yeah for making

[55:40] That doesn't make sense. I mean like I

[55:43] Mean, it's a mandolin super useful to have in the kitchen

[55:45] You just have to wear like a chain mail gauntlet to fucking use it, right?

[55:48] No, no, but a mandolin is also like a little like it's like a little guitar

[55:52] I think that's what he has but I've never seen the movie

[55:55] It's on a little guitar

[55:58] Yeah, yeah

[55:59] It's like something that like I think I think in the more than March for those movies

[56:03] They cut something by putting it to the strings of the harpos harp. Like they can it's like that, you know

[56:08] That's how they invented the mandolin. So anyway

[56:11] He has buddy's wife at gunpoint and he's like playing mind games with buddy and he's the whole part doesn't really make it

[56:18] He's like I thought I found another brother-in-arms

[56:20] But you're really a coward and buddy admits that when his ship got attacked. He left his friend to die

[56:24] he didn't really try to save him he gets buddy at gunpoint and the cops show up and

[56:29] Walter's like release fancy and they're like we can't Kelsey grammar shows up and I was like

[56:33] Oh Kelsey grammar went to a second location

[56:35] They maybe they put him up for a night in a hotel

[56:38] And he goes she's in a lockdown mental institution. I can't release her and

[56:43] Walter is like the system was unfair to me and my Marines

[56:46] We came back and we got called names and spat on and I'm like movie. What movie did you turn it?

[56:50] This is not a movie you started as Kelsey Graham was like, hey, we could settle this

[56:56] Over a beer we could all we just talk over a beer. I'm like Kelsey grammar. You have not met this character

[57:06] I think he's low-key trying to sell that fucking Yankee beer that Kelsey Grammar's been hawking in upstate, New York

[57:14] I think

[57:17] It's trying to de-escalate the situation but also it's never clear to me how well-known Walter and fancy are in this town

[57:23] Yeah, I'm not sure how big a town it is whether everyone knows everybody or whether they are

[57:27] Weirdos because the way he talks to him as if he knows who he is already and every house and fancy came from money

[57:33] I think so. But anyway

[57:35] Walter he draws his guns on the cops that they'll kill him

[57:38] He although he seems very surprised when he's dying. I thought it would go a different way

[57:42] I guess he thought he'd just keep killing until there was no one left on earth and the dead with their the hell would be

[57:47] Too full of the dead. They'd have to come back. Kelsey Graham's beer is called faith American, by the way

[57:54] And what is it is their description of the flavor what is this an IPA is loggers a stout it's a that's the brewing company

[58:00] I think they do the faith American ale. I'm guessing it tastes

[58:04] Probably super boring and not very interesting. Yeah, there was that there is that commercial that was going around online recently where it's like

[58:10] two minutes long and it's scenes of Reagan and

[58:14] Bush and stuff and like a man like I'm the American military and we're under attack and that just ends

[58:19] It's a and it's an ad for a wine that just has a Republican elephant on the label

[58:25] This wine that was called like freedom wine or something anyway

[58:37] Freedom in front of things it wasn't in any way political

[58:41] Well, I guess there was it there was a time when freedom was about being like a

[58:50] Yeah, you were a hippie rather than a fascist, but anyway

[58:53] so

[58:55] They and so the the scourge of Walter has ended

[58:59] Buddy reunites of this family and they say well take it one day at a time. And then there's this final coda, which is

[59:06] Baffling where the news is announcing over it and it's it puts it leaves such a bad taste

[59:12] Clarifying the twist of the movie that the movie is not like ineptly deployed earlier

[59:18] It's all the movie is like, oh wait, we forgot to explain what was going on in the movie

[59:22] So the news so interest intercut with shots of fancy like locking doors and and yelling or whatever

[59:28] It says how Walter and fancy were kidnapping teen girls

[59:32] Which we got to expand their family and forcing them to have babies which is for years, which is horrifying

[59:38] Like this is a horrifying thing for them to suddenly throw into the last 30 seconds of the movie

[59:43] Like it's and it's where the movie that I'm like, this is what it's and this is what I was like

[59:48] This is what it's like to see a grindhouse movie because a grindhouse movie would be like hey, you know what?

[59:52] We don't care. We're just gonna throw in the worst thing. Like there's a we're totally tasteless

[59:57] tasteless teens the news

[1:00:00] anchor, like, not, it's just like something you don't usually see in one of these things

[1:00:06] in a movie where, like, the news anchor clarifies.

[1:00:08] The news anchor's also, like, editorializing, too, like, I guess it goes to show you never

[1:00:12] know who your neighbors are, and I'm like, Mufi, like, you're, like, you're trying to

[1:00:16] add these couple of morals at the end about, like, not knowing your neighbors and also

[1:00:21] the way America treats its veterans, and neither of them seems to be of a piece with the rest

[1:00:27] of the film.

[1:00:28] It's so, like, the ending of it feels like a contractual obligation for either Nicolas

[1:00:34] Cage or Kelsey Grammer, that they had to have some point that they were making that's, like,

[1:00:40] their personal bugaboo, you know?

[1:00:41] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:00:43] Can you, I just want to make sure everyone knows that kidnapping and forced pregnancy

[1:00:47] is super yucky.

[1:00:49] And also we should take care of our veterans.

[1:00:51] Anyway, grand aisle, everyone, good night, folks, and it's like, it just, it's such,

[1:00:55] it's one of the few times I've seen a movie where I'm, at the end, I'm like, wait, did

[1:00:59] they forget what movie they were making, and they started making another movie, like, it's

[1:01:02] like a very special episode of grand aisle, what?

[1:01:06] They picked up the last 20 pages of a different script, and they were like, just use that,

[1:01:09] shove it in, change the names of the characters, because it's, anyway, we'll go to final judgments,

[1:01:15] but this movie, suffice it to say, I did not walk out a fan.

[1:01:18] Yeah.

[1:01:19] So what do we do now on the podcast, Dan?

[1:01:23] What we do now is we do final judgments, whether this was a good, bad movie, a bad,

[1:01:29] bad movie, or a movie kind of like, I'm going to say that this is like an interesting split,

[1:01:38] where I would say the first two thirds of this movie is a movie I kind of like, where

[1:01:43] maybe it's not the most skillful example of this type of movie, but I have a real soft

[1:01:49] spot for like, web of sexual intrigue, sweaty, southern gothic, thriller, film noir, like

[1:01:58] that gumbo, as you put it earlier.

[1:02:00] I mean, it is very Serenity in a lot of ways.

[1:02:04] Yeah.

[1:02:05] I find that stuff very enjoyable, even if it's not done at its highest level, and Nicolas

[1:02:09] Cage is having a lot of fun, and Katie Strickland's having a lot of fun, too.

[1:02:13] Yeah, they're both like, swinging for the fences.

[1:02:16] Yeah.

[1:02:17] Oh, for sure.

[1:02:18] And they are just hurling beignets and lobster, and crocodile meat, or alligator meat, all

[1:02:24] over the screen.

[1:02:25] Yeah, constantly.

[1:02:26] And then the last third of the movie, I would say, for me, was a good, bad movie.

[1:02:29] There's a lot of distasteful stuff, as Elliot says, but if, you know, you're able to approach

[1:02:35] it as just some dumb movie, like, it becomes so silly at that point that, like, I still

[1:02:41] enjoyed it.

[1:02:42] But what do you guys have to say?

[1:02:43] No, I mean, I think you're right on the money there, Dan.

[1:02:46] It's that sort of thing where it's like, so over-the-top, the ending reveal twist is so

[1:02:51] over-the-top gross that it becomes funny, because it's so, like, it's so ridiculous

[1:02:58] and horrible, and like, why did they do this?

[1:03:00] No thank you.

[1:03:02] Yeah, I wish I could, I wish I could, like, lose myself in it the way you guys have.

[1:03:09] It was a bad, bad movie for me, because it was one of those things where, like, and I'll

[1:03:14] watch lots of unpleasant movies.

[1:03:16] I'm happy with a movie that delves into, you know, the horrible aspects of humanity, as

[1:03:21] long as it's not just kind of, like, drizzling it on, like, with one of those sauce squirt

[1:03:25] things that they use in fancy restaurants, you know, where they're like, oh, we'll put

[1:03:30] like a swirl of this.

[1:03:34] Raspberry reduction.

[1:03:35] Yeah, exactly.

[1:03:36] Thank you.

[1:03:37] You can't add forced impregnation as a raspberry reduction at the end.

[1:03:42] So it's, I felt like the whole movie, I was like, ugh, this movie, and then at the end,

[1:03:47] it was like, the movie was poking me in the eye, like, the movie's like, look at all this

[1:03:51] bad stuff, and then I'll poke you in the eye afterwards, so I'm going to say bad, bad.

[1:03:54] Hey, Dan, what was that movie that came out that had the blonde guy home-alone-ing those

[1:03:58] kids who broke into his house?

[1:04:00] Don't Breathe.

[1:04:01] Yeah, don't watch that one either, Elliot, that's also got some forced pregnancy gross

[1:04:04] in it.

[1:04:05] Well, I mean, if it's a good movie, and the movie is going towards a, like, that kind

[1:04:11] of horror, then I could probably accept it, it's just like, the fact that they just kind

[1:04:14] of throwed it in, it's like, there's a scene in the book of Blood Meridian, where they

[1:04:20] go to this horrible place, and it says like, oh, yeah, and there's a 12-year-old girl chained

[1:04:24] to a fence post, chained to a stake like an animal, and I was like, I don't like that

[1:04:28] as just a detail you're going to throw in, like, just to show me how super cool, extreme

[1:04:33] badass this place is, I mean, he's not trying to show it as badass, he's trying to show

[1:04:37] it as a horrible place.

[1:04:38] Yeah, Cormac McCarthy's sitting there with his sunglasses staring at his fist in the

[1:04:42] ring, wearing a leather jumper.

[1:04:45] Cormac McCarthy and Garth Ennis are just hanging around talking about how they can make things

[1:04:49] real fucked up in their stories.

[1:04:51] Yeah, we got a couple of Chris Gaines on our hands.

[1:04:55] But just as a wit, too, I feel like when something is, when you're going to put that much, when

[1:04:58] you're going to put something that distasteful and real-world horrifying in, it's just hard

[1:05:03] for me to accept it as like, yeah, the sprinkling at the end, like, did I forget to put some

[1:05:08] paprika on this?

[1:05:09] Oh, yeah, yeah, and I'll put some forced impregnation also, but so, anyway, so I'll say, yeah, you

[1:05:13] know what?

[1:05:14] Great, great movie.

[1:05:15] I just love the idea of Cormac McCarthy being, like, looking at his screen, like, tapping

[1:05:19] his chin, being like, oh, man, that's fucked up.

[1:05:24] I wonder if this will blow some minds.

[1:05:26] I wonder how the squares are going to handle this one.

[1:05:31] Check out how fucked up this is.

[1:05:36] The way I don't use that much punctuation, the squares are going to flip.

[1:05:40] Do it again, kid.

[1:05:44] He sends the, bam, boom, pow, comics aren't for kids anymore, thanks to Cormac McCarthy.

[1:05:48] Mature readers only.

[1:05:50] And he sends it to his publisher with a note that's like, dear editor, watch out, this

[1:05:55] one gets a little fucked up.

[1:05:58] I was listening to a lot of Slipknot while I was writing this one.

[1:06:05] Well, it seems like the only thing we can do is thank our sponsors.

[1:06:11] Now I'm imagining Cormac McCarthy shopping at Hot Topic.

[1:06:16] Mac is back, baby.

[1:06:19] Cormac, more like gore-mac.

[1:06:22] This is going to get bloody.

[1:06:25] Let's take a moment and thank...

[1:06:27] Now, what if instead of Mac tonight being a giant, moon-headed guy, it was Cormac tonight

[1:06:33] and it was Cormac McCarthy pitching McDonald's food for a more sophisticated adult audience?

[1:06:38] Yeah, but it's...

[1:06:39] All the pretty burgers.

[1:06:40] It's more sophisticated, but a fucked up audience, right?

[1:06:44] Hey, hope you can handle these burgers.

[1:06:48] Because they're kind of wicked.

[1:06:52] Okay.

[1:06:58] Hey there, beautiful people.

[1:07:00] I'm Travelle Anderson.

[1:07:01] And I'm Jared Hill.

[1:07:02] We are the hosts of FANTAI, the show where we have complex and complicado conversations about the gray areas in our lives.

[1:07:09] The things that we really, really love sometimes, but also have some problematic feelings about.

[1:07:15] Yes, we get into it all.

[1:07:17] You want to know our thoughts about Nicki Minaj and all her foolishness?

[1:07:20] We got you.

[1:07:21] You want to know our thoughts about gentrification and perhaps some positive, question mark, aspects of gentrification?

[1:07:27] We get into that, too.

[1:07:29] Every single Thursday, you can check us out at MaximumFun.org.

[1:07:34] Listen, you know you want it, honey, so come on and get it.

[1:07:37] Period.

[1:07:39] Hi, my name is Graham Clark, and I'm one half of the podcast Stop Podcasting Yourself, a show that we've recorded for many, many years.

[1:07:48] And at the moment, instead of being in person, we're recording remotely.

[1:07:53] And you wouldn't even notice.

[1:07:55] You don't even notice the lag.

[1:08:00] That's right, Graham.

[1:08:01] And the great thing about this.

[1:08:04] Go ahead.

[1:08:06] No, you go ahead.

[1:08:07] OK.

[1:08:08] Go ahead.

[1:08:10] And you can listen to us every week on MaximumFun.org.

[1:08:15] Or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1:08:18] Your podcasts.

[1:08:21] The Plop House is sponsored in part by Squarespace.

[1:08:24] It's the service that helps you turn your cool idea into a new website, blog or publish content, sell products and services of all kinds, and much, much more.

[1:08:34] And they help you do this by giving you templates created by world-class designers to make it all look nice for you with everything optimized for mobile right out of the blocks.

[1:08:45] Right out of the blocks.

[1:08:46] Right out of the blocks.

[1:08:47] Yeah, boxes like a block, I guess.

[1:08:50] He's right.

[1:08:51] Cubular.

[1:08:52] Cubular.

[1:08:53] Totally cubular.

[1:08:54] Yeah, they're both totally cubular, Dan.

[1:08:58] Everything optimized for mobile right out of the box.

[1:09:02] A new way to buy domains and choose from over 200 extensions.

[1:09:06] Free and secure hosting.

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[1:09:09] Hey, go to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[1:09:14] And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code flop.

[1:09:17] That's F-L-O-P to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[1:09:24] Hey, Dan, I had an idea for a website.

[1:09:26] Anyway, it's called CormacDonalds.com.

[1:09:29] And it's the best.

[1:09:30] And we've got our no country for old meat.

[1:09:32] Yeah, we've got all sorts of stuff.

[1:09:35] Anyway.

[1:09:36] You know those McNuggets characters that were singing and dancing and doing shit?

[1:09:39] Now you're about to eat those guys.

[1:09:40] Isn't that fucked up?

[1:09:41] Yeah, yeah.

[1:09:42] Oh, and they're all just, like, killing people and blowing stuff up.

[1:09:44] I mean, those fry guys kind of look like the haircut that Anton Shakur has.

[1:09:49] Yeah, yeah.

[1:09:50] Yeah, the fry guys are just walking around with those cattle piston guns.

[1:09:54] And the Hamburglar, he stole from the wrong dudes.

[1:09:57] And now they're out to get him.

[1:09:58] Yeah, that makes sense.

[1:10:00] And he's like, Grimace, Grimace, you gotta hide me, but Grimace's throat has already

[1:10:03] been cut.

[1:10:04] Oh no, it's terrible.

[1:10:05] I guess that Bird, what's the Bird's name?

[1:10:09] She's like the ultra-assassin that gets sent after him.

[1:10:11] Birdie.

[1:10:12] I think the name is just Birdie.

[1:10:13] Yeah, yeah.

[1:10:14] Okay.

[1:10:15] This podcast is also sponsored in part by...

[1:10:17] Now, Dan, now, okay, I've got a different author-McDonalds mashup.

[1:10:20] What if instead of Ronald McDonald, it was Roald McDonald, and it's Roald Dahl, but

[1:10:24] with the power of McDonald's.

[1:10:28] So what if the BFG is the Big Fries Giant, that kind of stuff, you know?

[1:10:34] Yeah.

[1:10:35] Obviously, Willy Wonka would have a burger factory in this scenario.

[1:10:38] So Dan, who's next on the sponsors?

[1:10:42] This next sponsor is BetterHelp Online Therapy.

[1:10:45] We talk about BetterHelp a lot on the show, and this month we're discussing some of the

[1:10:49] stigmas around mental health.

[1:10:51] For example, some people think you should wait until things are unbearable to go to

[1:10:56] therapy, but that's not true.

[1:10:59] Therapy is a tool you can use before things get worse to sort of give you the coping mechanisms

[1:11:05] that will help you when things get bad, you know, help you process and deal with your

[1:11:12] emotions in a healthy way so you can avoid the lowest lows.

[1:11:17] You know, you're never gonna be happy all the time, but what you can do is learn how

[1:11:22] to deal with and even appreciate your bad feelings, you know, understand how they're

[1:11:29] part of you.

[1:11:31] It's all stuff that therapy can help with, and BetterHelp is customized online therapy

[1:11:36] offering video, phone, and even live chat sessions with your therapist.

[1:11:41] So if you don't want to see people on camera, you don't have to.

[1:11:46] It can be even more affordable than in-person therapy, and you can be matched with a therapist

[1:11:51] in under 48 hours.

[1:11:53] Give it a try and see why over 2 million people have used BetterHelp online therapy.

[1:11:59] This podcast is sponsored by them, and the Flophouse listeners get 10% off their first

[1:12:03] month at betterhelp.com slash flop.

[1:12:08] That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P.com slash flop.

[1:12:15] I believe you all have some Jumbotrons.

[1:12:20] I'm gonna go first.

[1:12:21] Oh, okay.

[1:12:22] No, Elliot, you go first.

[1:12:23] No, no, go first, Stu.

[1:12:24] Go for it.

[1:12:25] Oh, really?

[1:12:26] For sure?

[1:12:27] Okay.

[1:12:28] I'm gonna go.

[1:12:29] Yeah.

[1:12:30] This message is for the original peaches.

[1:12:32] That's us.

[1:12:33] The message is from Perpetually Flopping in Portland.

[1:12:38] I became a new listener in 2021, and per Spotify's RAPT, I've listened to 30,207 minutes of

[1:12:48] the Flophouse this year.

[1:12:49] Wow.

[1:12:50] Boys, that's 21 straight days of hearing your angelic spirits slowly dying over 14 years.

[1:12:58] For the amount of genuine joy you've brought me in a bad year, the least I could do was

[1:13:02] snag a Tron to sincerely thank you with all my heart.

[1:13:07] Thank you.

[1:13:08] So thank you, Perpetually Flopping in Portland.

[1:13:10] That's a lot of time.

[1:13:11] I also like to celebrate with Tron.

[1:13:13] Uh-huh.

[1:13:14] He does.

[1:13:15] He likes to celebrate with Tron.

[1:13:16] I'm celibate because of Tron.

[1:13:18] It happens.

[1:13:19] Sometimes lasers just shoot off your ding dong.

[1:13:21] And he does get stuck in an arcade game and, you know.

[1:13:25] It makes it hard, right?

[1:13:27] Well, depending on if that's what you're into, it certainly does.

[1:13:30] Anyway, our other Jumbotron is for Nick, and it's from Derek.

[1:13:36] And Derek says to Nick, welcome to your 30s, kid.

[1:13:39] Hard to believe it's already been a decade since you were turning 20 and just starting

[1:13:43] to find your calling.

[1:13:44] A lot has changed in the world and our lives since then.

[1:13:46] Why not the love and pride I have for you?

[1:13:48] I'm so proud of you, the things you've achieved, and the things you're going to achieve.

[1:13:52] Love you and see you soon.

[1:13:54] What a sweet, wonderful message.

[1:13:56] That's adorable.

[1:13:57] That's great.

[1:13:58] I love it when people have nice things to say to each other.

[1:14:00] Mm-hmm.

[1:14:01] Yeah.

[1:14:02] Yeah.

[1:14:03] That's better.

[1:14:04] Now what do we do on this podcast, Danny boy?

[1:14:07] Let's move on to letters from listeners.

[1:14:10] You write them.

[1:14:12] We read them.

[1:14:13] That's the order of events.

[1:14:15] This one is from Amanda, last name withheld.

[1:14:22] It's titled, help a clueless mom learn about comics, three exclamation points.

[1:14:28] Hello.

[1:14:29] I'm looking to start.

[1:14:30] Dan, give us each exclamation point individually.

[1:14:33] Hello!

[1:14:34] Exclamation point.

[1:14:35] I'm looking to start my eight-year-old son reading comics.

[1:14:38] He loves superheroes and drawing, and I think he'd really enjoy reading comics.

[1:14:43] I went online and wow, exclamation point.

[1:14:46] It's overwhelming, exclamation point.

[1:14:49] I never read comics as a kid and have no idea where to start, exclamation point.

[1:14:54] My question is, what comics would you recommend for an eight-year-old?

[1:14:58] Like where do I start?

[1:14:59] Thanks for any recommendations, exclamation point.

[1:15:01] I love the podcast, exclamation point.

[1:15:02] You guys make me laugh every week, exclamation point.

[1:15:08] Well, you know, I kind of found my way into comics through Donald Duck comics and Uncle

[1:15:20] Scrooge comics and old reprints of EC horror comics, and the only superhero comics I would

[1:15:27] read were the ones that my brothers-

[1:15:29] If Jack Davis heard you recommending EC horror comics to an eight-year-old, he would beat

[1:15:33] your ass.

[1:15:35] But I figured you guys would have-

[1:15:37] Well, Jack Davis isn't here.

[1:15:38] Go for it, Dan.

[1:15:39] Oh, wow.

[1:15:40] I guess you guys would be better qualified to-

[1:15:44] I mean, it's not a superhero comic, but I always recommend Bone is a great place to

[1:15:48] start reading comics.

[1:15:49] Oh, that's a great one.

[1:15:50] Yeah.

[1:15:51] If a kid doesn't like Bone, I don't know that kid.

[1:15:53] Yeah.

[1:15:54] Yeah.

[1:15:55] Some ones that are-

[1:15:56] So with superhero comics, it's a little hard.

[1:15:58] There are like younger reader versions of the different Marvel and DC heroes, but they're

[1:16:05] all- There's a certain level of violence in that that I still don't love my kids being

[1:16:10] involved with.

[1:16:11] Although, speaking of Bone, I mean, Jeff Smith also did that Shazam project that would be

[1:16:16] good for kids, maybe.

[1:16:17] Yeah.

[1:16:18] Yeah.

[1:16:19] That one's all right for kids, too.

[1:16:20] But I mean, but Bone is a magical series.

[1:16:21] Like, that's a series that like is a- But there's a series called Hi-Lo by Jud Winnick

[1:16:28] that my kids really like a lot that's a more superhero-y.

[1:16:33] My kids really like James Kachalka's kids comics.

[1:16:36] He has a character called the Glorkian Warrior and that's- that they like a lot.

[1:16:40] And those are more just silly, goofy than like adventure stories.

[1:16:45] But I would say you should ask your local librarian about things.

[1:16:51] There's a- But there's also- There's a series called Secret Coders where there are kids

[1:16:55] who like use math and coding skills to have adventures in high school, but it's for younger

[1:17:01] kids or even middle school kids.

[1:17:04] But that's one that my- that my older son likes a lot because my older son is about

[1:17:07] to turn eight and he's a big comics reader right now.

[1:17:10] And a lot of it is him- Give him one or two things to try or whatever your child's type

[1:17:18] of child is.

[1:17:19] Give them one or two things to try and see where they go from there.

[1:17:21] Like Zeta the Space Girl is a really good book that they might like.

[1:17:25] There's a book called Hereville, which is like a fantasy adventure starring an Orthodox

[1:17:30] Jewish character.

[1:17:31] You don't have to be Jewish to read it and that book is really good.

[1:17:35] So and any of those I think are good starts, but Bone is- that's the one that like I was

[1:17:41] super excited to get my kids into and it's just a- it's just such a really great series.

[1:17:48] And it's one that they can read now and read again later when they're older, who knows.

[1:17:51] But go to the- go to the graphic novel section of your library and I bet they will have stuff

[1:17:58] for kids there and the librarians might be able to help you because it is a growing sector

[1:18:01] of graphic novels is stuff for kids and kind of middle grade readers.

[1:18:06] And a lot of it's not superhero, which is great because the less you can limit what

[1:18:12] this medium can do in your kid's eyes, the more they'll have to enjoy when they get older

[1:18:16] and the less they'll get stuck in the superhero dungeon that I live in.

[1:18:20] Yeah.

[1:18:21] It's a great name for a comic book shop though.

[1:18:25] Superhero dungeon.

[1:18:26] Android's dungeon is the comic book shop from The Simpsons, right?

[1:18:30] Yeah.

[1:18:31] Unless you have anything, Stuart.

[1:18:32] No, I mean, I feel like it's kind of tough because a lot of- at least a lot of the superhero

[1:18:37] comics I remember reading as a kid, I got exposed to when I was in like middle school.

[1:18:42] So that's a few years down the road.

[1:18:45] But I feel like maybe some of the like early Marvel stuff, but even then, like having read

[1:18:51] some early Marvel stuff, I'm like, oh, some of these relationships are pretty booked up.

[1:18:56] That's the thing.

[1:18:57] Not in a cool Cormac McCarthy way either.

[1:18:59] No, not in a like, hey, sorry, I freaked you out type of way.

[1:19:04] But you definitely have in the older, like the older Spider-Man books that the original

[1:19:09] Spider-Man books are some of the best of those.

[1:19:12] But yeah, a lot of the old superhero stuff has, there's a lot of gender assumptions,

[1:19:16] a lot of race assumptions.

[1:19:18] Even when they're trying, like there's a lot of books I've been reading with an older son

[1:19:22] of old X-Men comics, and you're like, they're trying and getting it wrong in this one.

[1:19:27] But there's always a female character that kind of doesn't get to do anything and everyone

[1:19:31] has to protect all the time.

[1:19:33] And that's that's not great stuff.

[1:19:35] But, you know, let them introduce them to one or two things and then kind of let them

[1:19:39] loose to explore and find what they would like, you know, as long as they're not picking

[1:19:42] up Preacher or, you know, Faust or Verodica or something like that, you know, they'll

[1:19:48] be okay.

[1:19:50] You know what, I, I remember, I know that you're a Marvel zombie, but I remember All-Star

[1:19:57] Superman being kind of a gentler.

[1:20:00] I mean, it's a that's a great book, but I wonder if I'd be curious how I haven't read it in years

[1:20:05] So I don't know but I'd be curious how it holds up for someone who is not that book is so

[1:20:10] explicitly

[1:20:11] Nostalgic for an earlier type of comics and I wonder how that book works for someone who is not already

[1:20:16] Steeped in where comics were the time but there are like kind of dense too if I yes

[1:20:20] I think so and it's great Frank Whiteley art, which looks great

[1:20:23] But is I think if I when I was a kid, I think I would have found Frank Whiteley's characters to look kind of weird

[1:20:28] and lumpy

[1:20:29] That's what I like. But uh, I would say take a look at if you really want to show them superhero stuff

[1:20:33] then take a look maybe at some of the all-ages stuff put out by those publishers or

[1:20:37] That or something like something like Zita is a not exactly superhero, but it's like a science fiction fantasy adventure, you know

[1:20:44] So I like that

[1:20:46] Let us move on to our second and final letter. It is from Michael last name withheld imperial way

[1:20:53] I've listened to your entire back catalog

[1:20:56] But this is the first time I've written would you want to come on to my Sopranos podcast? Yeah, sure

[1:21:02] Despite the happiness you've brought to my life over the last decade

[1:21:04] Apparently nothing inspired me to get in touch with you and express my heartfelt gratitude

[1:21:09] Until episode three five seven Santa Claus the movie. What did I get wrong about Star Wars this time guys?

[1:21:17] For a few years now

[1:21:18] This has been my fantasy that one day I'd be famous enough or something

[1:21:22] To be invited as a guest of your show and choose for us and review to review this together

[1:21:27] This thing which left an indelible scar on my teenage years. Let me describe the setting for you

[1:21:33] It was the late 80s an unusually big snowstorm had hit South, Georgia

[1:21:37] I stayed out in the snow too late at night and properly dressed what child in the Deep South knows how to address for snowy weather

[1:21:43] Any anyway and ended up with the flu that year Santa Claus the movie was shown on television

[1:21:48] And I watched it in a state of misery

[1:21:51] Unsure of how much of it was a fever dream

[1:21:54] I distinctly remember the jarring anachronism of Cornelia and Joe being revealed to be in modern-day, New York

[1:21:59] Not only had Joe been portrayed as a Victorian a street urchin as you all noted

[1:22:04] but Cornelia was being forced by her nanny to do Latin homework and

[1:22:08] suddenly McDonald's coca-cola and Joe calling Cornelia corny

[1:22:13] Dudley Moyer's performance seemed insanely annoying and when BZ was revealed to be Cornelia's step-uncle he gave her an

[1:22:20] Incomprehensibly sinister greeting as if she too was finding out for the first time who he was

[1:22:25] I do remember that he does a little whirl around in his chair as if she's gonna be surprised. Oh, it's John Lithgow

[1:22:33] By the time the titular movie got to the drugged-up floating children

[1:22:37] I felt sicker and more miserable than I could remember ever being but for some reason I watched it to the end

[1:22:43] Now it would be natural

[1:22:46] For you suspect that I'm exaggerating about the effect but all of it was true and perhaps that

[1:22:51] Traumatic incident had something to do with why came to hate Christmas. Perhaps. This is why in college

[1:22:57] I preferred decidedly non-jolly and gruesome stories about the Bishop of Myra

[1:23:03] Nicholas such as the one of him resurrecting three children who had been butchered and pickled in a barrel by an

[1:23:09] Unscrupulous businessman who is planning to sell them as pork

[1:23:13] perhaps

[1:23:14] this is why I converted to Judaism and moved to Jerusalem where I only occasionally see hints of a secular and

[1:23:22] Thoroughly rush Russian Father Frost for those residents at New Year's Eve celebration

[1:23:28] Alas, I will probably never be famous enough to be invited as a guest host on my beloved flop house

[1:23:34] But this Hanukkah you gave me a thoroughly unexpected gift of joy

[1:23:39] Keep on flopping sincerely Michael last name withheld Jerusalem Israel

[1:23:44] I've always been confused by the idea of Santa Claus because it feels like you are doing

[1:23:48] You're really making it harder for Christianity to to get across to people. Yeah, you say to kids

[1:23:54] there's a guy there's a magic guy with a beard and

[1:23:58] He can see you and he knows when you're good or bad

[1:24:00] He's gonna reward you if you're good and he won't work your bad

[1:24:02] And then when they're when they grow up, you're like psych that was fake

[1:24:06] But anyway

[1:24:07] The other guy with the beard who could see everything you're doing and rewards you when you're good need and he does not work

[1:24:11] Bad, that's real

[1:24:12] Like it feels like you are you are building in a disbelief in Jesus when you when you pregame it by creating this this by

[1:24:18] Creating the shock of knowing this is good storytelling. This is like you you create the the red herring the fake

[1:24:25] So you can spring the real twist

[1:24:29] So the twist is that Santa's not real but Jesus still is real

[1:24:33] Yeah, I just I don't know anyway speaking of Israel and Israel welcome to Judaism, I guess I don't know when you converted but nice job

[1:24:40] sure

[1:24:42] Now's another part of the show. Uh-huh. Let us talk about movies that we saw

[1:24:48] That we can recommend

[1:24:51] the movie

[1:24:53] That I saw recently that I liked the most was pig which I saw

[1:24:58] On the plane back from celebrating Elliot's birthday it fucking rules, right? Yeah, and it's a really good movie, you know, I

[1:25:05] Want to mention it again just because we're you know, we spend so much time highlight

[1:25:10] Highlighting Nicolas Cage's lesser movies that I feel like I need to even the scales a little bit

[1:25:16] But I Stewart already recommended that one. So I'm gonna

[1:25:20] Go to cop shop another movie. I saw on a plane back to a classic Dan here as the world opens up

[1:25:28] You

[1:25:30] Will want to get more get more of Dan's a Dan in the air our segment. We're done

[1:25:35] Where his critical faculties are a little lower than normal

[1:25:39] Welcome to mile-high viewing Club

[1:25:42] no, a cop shop is a

[1:25:46] Joe Carnahan movie. He is a huge mixed bag as a writer-director, I think but like he can do

[1:25:54] Entertaining sort of on stripped-down thrillers Carnahan. Mm-hmm. Let's see. What else did he do? He did the gray?

[1:26:01] He did the a-team. Okay, he did smoking maces

[1:26:06] and boss level

[1:26:08] those ones is the

[1:26:10] but um, okay, but

[1:26:12] This one was was fun. And you know, it's a redemption of sorts for another

[1:26:18] Flophouse favorite Gerard Butler's in it gremlin battler. Come on battler. He's uh, he's he's good in it Frank Grillo

[1:26:26] Who's do sure crossbones? Yeah crossbones. Yeah

[1:26:31] Toby Huss from Halt and Catch Fire

[1:26:34] right, he's in it Alexis louder is the

[1:26:38] Lead and I was let I mean Toby Huss is I'm amazed that Halt and Catch Fire is your is your go-to for Toby Huss

[1:26:44] What would be what's yours uh already the strongest man in the world from the adventures of Pete and Pete

[1:26:51] And his and his and his many voices on King of the Hill. Yeah. Oh my god

[1:26:55] Alexis louder is a bit of more of a newcomer for me

[1:26:58] but she was terrific as the sort of the person who's revealed over the course of it to be

[1:27:04] Kind of the the lead of the movie. Um, it's just a movie about

[1:27:08] this guy who's looking to

[1:27:11] Not get killed so he deliberately gets himself arrested

[1:27:15] Except for so does one of the people looking to kill him

[1:27:20] And then I thought you meant except for sodas. That's the one thing he's looking to get her

[1:27:27] That's his one exception

[1:27:28] It turns into sort of an assault on precincts 13

[1:27:32] Situation where he's inside this, you know, police station being held and people on the outside want to kill him

[1:27:39] And

[1:27:40] I would say that much like Grand Isle the first couple acts are better than the last it gets a little too crazy

[1:27:47] like I like a

[1:27:49] Movie of this type that's a little more stripped down and with a one foot in reality and at the end

[1:27:54] Reality goes out the window, but if you like like in Takeshi, Miyagi's dead or alive

[1:27:59] Yeah, if you like a not quite that

[1:28:04] If you like a good

[1:28:06] Low-budget action thriller cut you could do worse than cop shop

[1:28:17] No, I understand I understand

[1:28:20] Yeah, man, I get it. It's cool. I'm gonna I'm gonna jump in here and do a recommendation

[1:28:25] I'm gonna recommend what another two movies. I'm gonna recommend two movies that popped up on Netflix

[1:28:32] I'm gonna recommend the fable and its sequel the fable the killer who doesn't kill

[1:28:38] They are Japanese action comedies. I believe they're based on a manga there

[1:28:44] The premise is fairly simple. You have the world's greatest hitman assassin and he gets too much heat on him

[1:28:51] So his boss makes him go undercover in Osaka and he has to live a normal life without killing anybody

[1:28:58] Of course

[1:28:59] He runs into trouble and he has to manage to maintain his vow of not killing anybody while also getting into all kinds of action

[1:29:06] shenanigans

[1:29:07] it's super silly and funny and

[1:29:10] The action sequences are fucking badass

[1:29:14] They're great. I recommend them

[1:29:18] The fable and the fable killer who doesn't kill speaking of super silly and just wacky

[1:29:23] Anyway, I want to recommend Malcolm X directed by Spike Lee in Washington

[1:29:28] I'm in the middle of this thing where every now and then I'm I'm going back and watching movies that came out in the 90s

[1:29:34] Where I was just a little too young to actually go see them

[1:29:37] And so this is one that I was catching up on and I thought it was really great

[1:29:41] Yeah, I was it's the an example of it's a long movie

[1:29:46] But the movie kind of flies by to be honest and it feels like real

[1:29:50] Big budget and I don't know how big the budget was fairly biggest like 80s 90s historical movie making

[1:29:56] And real epic scope, but what I liked about it was that the movie

[1:30:00] the fact that it looks great and it's really,

[1:30:03] it's entertaining but also interesting

[1:30:04] and Denzel Washington's amazing in it, everybody is,

[1:30:06] but that it's very much a biography of a person

[1:30:09] going through several changes emotionally

[1:30:13] and intellectually throughout it

[1:30:14] and they really take his ideas seriously

[1:30:16] and the way they developed throughout his life seriously

[1:30:18] as like, we're not just telling the story

[1:30:20] of this person's life divorced of

[1:30:22] what was actually going on in their head

[1:30:24] that made them an important person.

[1:30:27] We're going to show you,

[1:30:28] and we're not going to show you just one chunk of his life

[1:30:31] and make that representative of the entirety.

[1:30:33] They're showing how he changed throughout his whole life

[1:30:35] and how his thinking changed

[1:30:36] and I thought that was really fascinating

[1:30:38] that it was focused more on his ideas

[1:30:41] and how he changed as a person

[1:30:43] in his cultural and social framework

[1:30:45] than just on like, and then this thing happened in his life

[1:30:47] and then this thing happened.

[1:30:49] Anyway, it was really great.

[1:30:50] That's such a, I mean, that's a really good point.

[1:30:52] I feel like it's so common with biographical movies

[1:30:56] of figures is to just focus,

[1:30:59] like assume they're this one person

[1:31:00] and then just present their life without anything.

[1:31:03] Or there's the oftentimes better choice of like,

[1:31:07] here, let's just show a snippet,

[1:31:09] something like Selma where they're like,

[1:31:10] this is just going to be a little bit,

[1:31:12] we're not trying to give you the entire picture

[1:31:13] of this figure, but Malcolm X kind of does that.

[1:31:18] It's great.

[1:31:19] Yeah.

[1:31:20] I mean, it gives, a lot of those movies

[1:31:21] I think give the impression that

[1:31:23] that people are kind of stuck in one place

[1:31:25] and that they, or that they have a very easily defined arc

[1:31:28] where it's like, and this is where the story

[1:31:30] of their life ends, even if their life continues going.

[1:31:32] Like this is their achievement.

[1:31:34] Whereas Malcolm X really gets across the idea

[1:31:36] of somebody who was changing throughout his whole life

[1:31:38] and was still changing when he was murdered.

[1:31:41] So it's, I thought it was,

[1:31:43] that's something that I haven't seen very much in movies.

[1:31:45] And obviously it's a different type of movie

[1:31:47] than like A Beautiful Mind,

[1:31:48] but it really made me irritated

[1:31:49] that A Beautiful Mind is like,

[1:31:51] this guy's a brilliant mathematician,

[1:31:52] but we don't need to get into his math at all.

[1:31:54] Like we don't really need to like,

[1:31:55] we don't, all we're interested in is the,

[1:31:58] is this, is the kind of like the details of his,

[1:32:02] The easy Oscar bait personal stuff.

[1:32:07] Whereas this is, this feels like a movie

[1:32:08] that really engages with why is this person

[1:32:11] an important person?

[1:32:11] Like why, what is it that made him different

[1:32:14] or galvanizing for other people other than just,

[1:32:17] I feel like the easy way out

[1:32:18] is just to show someone giving speeches

[1:32:20] and have people go, yeah, yeah.

[1:32:21] And there's, this does more than that.

[1:32:23] So anyway, I was really glad that I watched it.

[1:32:25] And if the length of it puts you off at all,

[1:32:28] because it's like three and a half hours long,

[1:32:30] like I said, it's a fast moving three and a half hours,

[1:32:32] or you do it like I did and watch it in segments,

[1:32:34] don't sit through it all the way through.

[1:32:36] And it's just amazing how,

[1:32:38] I feel like this is all I knew about this movie

[1:32:41] when I was a kid was that it was like controversial.

[1:32:43] And the idea that like to make a big biopic of Malcolm X

[1:32:47] was like controversial.

[1:32:48] And it's one of those movies we're watching now,

[1:32:50] I'm like, I don't, like it's hard,

[1:32:51] I don't really see what's controversial about it.

[1:32:54] Like at least where America is now,

[1:32:55] it's like, I don't know,

[1:32:57] just it was interesting to think about that,

[1:32:59] that when I was a kid,

[1:33:00] it was like this was a dangerous movie in a way,

[1:33:03] the way I remember hearing people talk about it.

[1:33:04] And watching it, I was like,

[1:33:06] oh no, this is a really good movie.

[1:33:07] This is not a movie that is going to,

[1:33:10] that I feel like doesn't give you all sides of this person.

[1:33:14] Anyway, so that's Malcolm X.

[1:33:16] Go see it, it's on HBO Max, I guess,

[1:33:17] or buy the DVD, I don't know,

[1:33:18] or go to Spike Lee's house, I'm sure he's got a copy.

[1:33:20] Buy the, what, the VHS double, double set.

[1:33:25] Yeah, there was something about, as a kid,

[1:33:27] seeing any movie that was on two VHS tapes

[1:33:30] and being like, that's a movie, like I remember.

[1:33:32] He used to be in two tapes,

[1:33:35] and I'm like, oh shit, this has gotta be a movie.

[1:33:37] When I was like a teenager,

[1:33:39] seeing Seven Samurai in the library as a two VHS movie

[1:33:43] and being like, this movie must be huge.

[1:33:45] There must be so much movie going on.

[1:33:47] Yeah, each tape only has three and a half samurai.

[1:33:53] I wanna see all seven, I gotta watch both tapes.

[1:33:57] It was, and then when the first DVDs came out

[1:33:59] and you had to flip them over to get to the other side,

[1:34:01] to get to the rest of the movie, you don't remember that?

[1:34:03] Those shitty cardboard, like clamshell things.

[1:34:06] Man, those things were fucking trash.

[1:34:09] And they give you what?

[1:34:10] Give me CD long boxes.

[1:34:11] Bring me back CD long boxes, baby.

[1:34:13] No, it's such a waste of packaging.

[1:34:14] Yeah, but the art, you get that full bleed art, Elliot,

[1:34:17] it's amazing, it looks so great.

[1:34:18] No, but what I liked about those crappy cardboard packaging

[1:34:21] was that, one, you didn't feel bad throwing it away

[1:34:23] because it looked like trash.

[1:34:23] You could just put them in a CD book.

[1:34:25] But also, they give you the titles for all the chapters

[1:34:28] right there on the package.

[1:34:30] When you open it up, you get all the titles

[1:34:32] for all the chapters in the movie,

[1:34:33] which was a job when I was younger I always wanted,

[1:34:36] was the person who named the chapters

[1:34:38] because it seems totally unnecessary.

[1:34:40] It's not like the director and the screenwriter

[1:34:42] sitting there being like, now as we make this movie,

[1:34:44] we gotta name each of the chapters.

[1:34:46] We gotta make it clear what's going on.

[1:34:47] Our friend Bill Hickey always joked about how obvious

[1:34:50] it was in the scene in Roadhouse

[1:34:51] that that scene would be titled, Be Nice.

[1:34:57] Well, that's another Cajuness for the books.

[1:35:00] Another year passed.

[1:35:02] I know it's been a rough one.

[1:35:04] I just wanna say thank you to all of you.

[1:35:08] Next year's gonna be better, right?

[1:35:09] Yeah, well, look, even if it's not,

[1:35:11] I wanna thank all of you listeners for being here with us.

[1:35:16] I wanna thank you, Elliot and Stuart, for being my friend.

[1:35:21] I know that it's hard to live in this world sometimes.

[1:35:26] I don't know why I feel the obligation at Cajuness

[1:35:28] to do a summing up, but just, you know.

[1:35:31] It's the last episode of the year, I guess,

[1:35:34] but I mean, everything's gonna be okay.

[1:35:35] If not, there's more, there's many afterwards.

[1:35:38] I'm just saying, don't let it get you down.

[1:35:41] The only thing you can-

[1:35:42] I don't know why Grand Isle has brought up these emotions.

[1:35:45] You can control it yourself.

[1:35:46] So don't, if you can, don't harden.

[1:35:50] Have empathy towards yourself.

[1:35:51] Have empathy towards others.

[1:35:54] We're glad to have you with us.

[1:35:55] It's like Dalton always says, be nice.

[1:35:57] Be nice until it's time to not be nice.

[1:35:59] No, Dan, there's almost no times

[1:36:01] when you shouldn't be nice.

[1:36:02] Yeah, yeah, but Dalton says he'll tell you

[1:36:05] when the time comes, you'll know.

[1:36:07] Okay, so wait till Dalton tells you, yeah.

[1:36:08] When you get the most-

[1:36:09] Wait, so is that what Be Dalton Booksellers was?

[1:36:11] Was it Be Nice Dalton?

[1:36:12] Yeah.

[1:36:14] Be period Nice Dalton.

[1:36:16] Thank you to Alex Smith, our editor.

[1:36:19] Thank you to Maximum Fun, our network.

[1:36:22] Go to MaximumFun.org for other great podcasts.

[1:36:26] But until next time, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:36:28] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:36:29] I'm Ellie Kalin saying, Merry Cagemas, one and all.

[1:36:33] Bye.

[1:36:34] Bye.

[1:36:35] Bye.

[1:36:36] Bye.

[1:36:37] Bye.

[1:36:38] Bye.

[1:36:39] Bye.

[1:36:40] Bye.

[1:36:41] Bye.

[1:36:42] In the TikTok of me fucking with Dan.

[1:36:44] Woah!

[1:36:45] Stuart, you really live more online

[1:36:47] than in the Meatspace now.

[1:36:48] The only Meatspace I'm thinking about

[1:36:50] is the one between Nicolas Cage's legs.

[1:36:55] That's my first try.

[1:36:57] It's a workshop.

[1:36:59] The first try at what?

[1:37:00] I'm not sure what you're trying at.

[1:37:01] Making like horns with Nicolas Cage joke.

[1:37:04] Oh, I see.

[1:37:04] Okay.

[1:37:05] All right.

[1:37:07] Maximum Fun.org.

[1:37:09] Comedy and culture,

[1:37:10] artist-owned,

[1:37:12] audience-supported.

Ep. #358 - Grand Isle

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