Ep. #348 - Jiu Jitsu, with Jordan Morris

[0:00] On this episode we discuss Jiu-Jitsu.

[0:03] The movie that's not so much a movie as a video catalog of demos of martial artists you can invite to your child's birthday party.

[0:13] It's called Slammio.

[0:30] The movie that's not so much a movie as a video catalog of demos of martial artists you can invite to your child's birthday party.

[1:00] Jordan, thanks for making all the great things in our lives possible.

[1:02] Also, we've got with us, friend of the podcast, fellow MaxFun host, that's right, the host of Jordan & Jesse Go.

[1:09] This is the author of the new hit bubble graphic novel, that's right, Jordan Morris.

[1:14] Hi, everybody. Praise Brax.

[1:17] Praise Brax.

[1:18] That's a reference you'll understand later in the episode, listeners.

[1:21] That's right, dear listeners.

[1:23] That'll be funny upon a second listen.

[1:27] Jordan, thanks so much for joining us. How are you doing?

[1:30] I'm doing good, yeah. Having a lot of fun.

[1:32] Is this, is this, would you call this what we're doing, Cagemas in July?

[1:37] This is, indeed, our official Cagemas in July episode.

[1:42] The thing that we do most years, if I don't forget.

[1:47] Yeah, you're here for a very special Cagemas in July.

[1:50] Partly because there's, it's a movie with, I guess, the USDA minimum required amount of Nicolas Cage to make it a Cagemas in July movie.

[1:58] This would not fly as a Cagemas movie.

[2:00] The Cagemas in July, yes.

[2:02] Are you excited to be here for this lesser Cagemas holiday?

[2:05] It is. It's a real thrill to be here on this lesser episode, thank you.

[2:11] But you're raising it up to normal level.

[2:13] Oh, thank you, yeah.

[2:14] Well, I was going to say the pressure's a little lower so I can just, you know, kind of be myself, which is nice.

[2:19] I don't have to feel like I have to be on, you know.

[2:22] Yeah, no, this is a real thrill.

[2:24] I mean, I know Cagemas is a very, like, you know, sacred part of the Flophouse calendar.

[2:30] Cagemas in July, less so, but still very sacred in its own way.

[2:34] It's secondary. It's not a high holy day, but it's like, it's an observed festival.

[2:38] Thank you, and you know, it's just so nice to be here with three people who understand the reason for the season.

[2:45] It's like Cagemas has gotten so commercial, you know.

[2:50] Less commercially successful, honestly.

[2:53] So it's nice to be here just to celebrate.

[2:56] Yeah, that's very sweet. Well, thank you for joining us.

[2:58] Audrey was pointing out, though, like, Nick Cage...

[3:01] Audrey II, the plant from Little Shop of Horrors.

[3:06] My roommate Audrey II, the large plant, yeah.

[3:09] No, she was saying that, like, it seemed that Nick Cage is on, like, a bit of an upswing.

[3:13] Maybe he has paid off his castles because, like, you know, the last few things he's been doing have been, like,

[3:20] more interesting, more, like, you know, they don't appear to be the same, like,

[3:27] direct-to-video, like, shot-in-Belgrade nonsense that he was doing for a while.

[3:34] So I was wondering, like, will the Cagemas well dry up in further years?

[3:39] Yeah, maybe he sold off all the cursed trinkets he had been collecting.

[3:44] I mean, this, we did, apparently we did, scientists did predict that somewhere we'd reach peak Cagemas,

[3:49] and then there would be lessening production levels of Cagemas from that point on.

[3:53] It's possible we've hit that point, and we're going to have to turn to alternative schlock production sources.

[3:59] John Cusack, very possible.

[4:01] We're looking at you, Liam Neeson.

[4:02] Yeah, Liam Neeson. Oh, boy, yeah, Liam Neeson is, he's on the edge of picking up that slack.

[4:06] Yeah, and then Bruce Willis is kind of hanging out by the red box.

[4:09] Yeah.

[4:10] So Bruce, I think, I think it may, Bruce Willis is probably the best candidate to take over because he is so openly, like,

[4:17] pay this X amount of money, and I will be in your movie, and I don't care what it is,

[4:22] and if I have to smile, it costs extra, and if I can just be bald and frowny, yeah, that's what I do now.

[4:28] Unlike Nicolas Cage, like, you can tell that that is Bruce Willis' attitude on screen.

[4:33] Sometimes you'll get that Cage, but many times you'll, like, Nick Cage will show up and do, like, a great job in a piece of schlock.

[4:41] Like, I actually thought that in this movie that we're talking about today, he seems committed to it.

[4:45] Spoiler alert!

[4:46] It was, I thought, I thought this was one of the, one of the more fun Nick Cage performances we've had on the podcast in a while.

[4:52] Yeah, it's a blast.

[4:53] It's a real blast.

[4:54] I mean, the movie is a mixed bag that I'm sure will.

[4:57] A mixed martial arts bag.

[4:58] A mixed martial arts bag, yeah.

[5:01] I keep getting ads for those in my Instagram feed.

[5:04] Yeah, yeah.

[5:05] You order one, and suddenly they think that you need a ton of them.

[5:08] That's true.

[5:09] If Nicolas Cage had been the star of this movie, this would have been, it would have been a super fun movie.

[5:13] He brings a lot of, he brings a lot of Cage energy to this one.

[5:17] If it was just Cage and Tony Jaa wandering the countryside, hunting for bracks.

[5:22] Yeah.

[5:23] I, like, one of my main problems with this movie was the idea that our wooden lead was the guy and not Tony Jaa.

[5:32] That we're supposed to believe that this guy was the one who could defeat the alien.

[5:36] Well, let's get, let's talk about the movie, because we'll get to that.

[5:38] I think that's probably an issue we all had, that Tony Jaa, who is amazing.

[5:41] Although, I don't want this to be a Jackie Chan situation where we spend a whole episode talking about how great he is.

[5:45] And then he turned out to be a guy that is not so great.

[5:47] We haven't been following his politics.

[5:50] No, yeah.

[5:51] Because I, because, but.

[5:53] You know who I love?

[5:54] Kevin Sorbo.

[5:55] I mean, I don't follow him on Twitter or anything, but Kevin Sorbo.

[6:00] Giving you the cut it off hand motion.

[6:01] What are you doing?

[6:02] I mean, there's a reason.

[6:03] James Woods is just one of our finest actors, and I want to endorse him.

[6:07] Yeah.

[6:08] And let's not forget Emil Jannings.

[6:11] He was a Nazi collaborator.

[6:14] Anyway.

[6:15] Thanks.

[6:16] Thanks.

[6:17] So we'll get to that, but there is, hanging over the whole movie is a sense of why this guy as the lead and not, again, Tony Jaa.

[6:25] So the movie starts out.

[6:27] It's a little disjointed that Comet is heading towards Earth.

[6:29] We don't have time for that.

[6:30] A guy who we'll later learn will be the lead hero is running from some CGI shurikens that are being thrown at him.

[6:36] And they chase him right off a cliff.

[6:38] And then you get the title and the credits for the movie.

[6:41] You know it's going to be a big budget movie when the title sequence is made up of shots from the movie you're about to see.

[6:47] That's always a good sign that you're going to see a quality film.

[6:50] And a lot of – sorry.

[6:53] A lot of the stuff showing the comet coming to Earth is done in comic book style, which only makes sense because this was based on a comic book.

[7:01] Otherwise –

[7:02] Oh, it's based on a comic book?

[7:04] It doesn't really do anything.

[7:06] Yeah, it's actually based on mouse.

[7:08] Oh, no kidding.

[7:10] Yeah, this is a very left-of-center Ghost World adaptation.

[7:16] We need to reboot Ghost World.

[7:18] They're like, we've got the Love and Rockets license, but we want to do a kung fu movie.

[7:22] Yes, you know what?

[7:24] We'll be very loose with it.

[7:26] We'll be loose with it.

[7:27] We'll call it Stone Soup, but it will mostly be jujitsu stuff.

[7:32] I know all of these kind of red boxy cage movies, you get the impression that maybe they're like money laundering operations.

[7:43] It's like what's the economics of these?

[7:46] Why are we flying Nicolas Cage to the Ukraine every five times a year to make these movies?

[7:53] According to Wikipedia, this movie had a budget of $25 million and a box office take of slightly less than $100,000.

[8:00] So that does lend credence to the money laundering hypothesis, which I'm going to call the Morris theorem.

[8:07] Thank you.

[8:08] Oh, hey, I have a theorem.

[8:09] Oh, I've always wanted a theorem.

[8:11] But the two of the production company titles kind of suggest this.

[8:15] Two of the production companies behind this are Ladero Investments.

[8:19] Yes, it's rare that you see a production company logo for an investment firm.

[8:23] Yeah, and then Doubletree Entertainment, the commuter hotel that gives you a warm cookie.

[8:30] You got to have –

[8:31] Yeah, I guess breakfast is covered.

[8:35] So the movie starts.

[8:37] As Dan mentioned, we get these comic book panel transitions, which it's much like the original idea behind –

[8:44] Warriors.

[8:45] The Warriors was to have that kind of stuff or in Ang Lee's Hulk, there's some kind of stuff like that.

[8:49] It never really works, and it doesn't really work here.

[8:53] Especially now since like – I don't know, like 70 percent of all pop culture is based on graphic novels and comics.

[9:01] They're also like the cheapest looking drawings too.

[9:03] It looks like –

[9:04] I mean hopefully even more considering that our two co-hosts today are authors of graphic novels.

[9:09] Yeah, hopefully the two big hit 10-pull movies of 2023 will be Bubble and Maniac of New York or perhaps Maniac of New York Goes to Bubble.

[9:17] Oh, sure.

[9:18] Yeah.

[9:19] Let's start with a crossover.

[9:20] We've all been waiting for it.

[9:21] If the Flintstones beat the Jetsons, anything can happen.

[9:23] Anything's possible.

[9:24] Anything.

[9:25] So these comic book transitions.

[9:27] Nicolas Cage is in a huge hat on a fishing boat, and he rescues this guy who fell off the cliff out of the water.

[9:33] Say goodbye to Nick Cage for a while.

[9:34] You're not going to see him for like an hour.

[9:36] The fisherman's wife takes him to a U.S. soldier base that's in this – they're in Burma.

[9:42] Who's my other favorite character by the way?

[9:44] The fisherman's wife?

[9:45] The fisherman's wife.

[9:46] I mean she's got a real lucky grandma energy in that she is an elderly Asian lady who takes no guff from anybody.

[9:54] The weird thing is she speaks with subtitles and words will be highlighted with different – the subtitles are in the middle of the screen.

[10:00] They're in blocks, they're not on the bottom,

[10:02] and different words will be highlighted,

[10:04] and it's just a very comic book-y way to do subtitles.

[10:07] And I wish they'd done all the way

[10:08] and had word balloons just sticking out of her mouth

[10:10] with the words in it.

[10:12] Many of the words that are highlighted, too,

[10:14] seem to be highlighted at random.

[10:15] Like, sometimes it's for emphasis,

[10:16] and sometimes it's like,

[10:17] why would you put that as the important word

[10:19] of the sentence?

[10:20] Right, yeah.

[10:22] Take him to bed.

[10:24] All right, that's how she said it, I guess.

[10:26] Yeah, so she tries to tell the soldiers,

[10:29] but the interpreter they have,

[10:31] played by, what's his name from?

[10:32] My name is Earl.

[10:34] Yeah, the Crabman character.

[10:35] I don't know his name.

[10:36] Playing a character named Tex.

[10:38] Yeah, so he's not a very good interpreter.

[10:41] She tells these soldiers,

[10:42] every six years, the comet passes overhead,

[10:44] and a hole opens in a temple,

[10:46] and the warrior of death comes through.

[10:49] And this is information that will be repeated to us

[10:52] multiple times throughout the movie

[10:54] in case we are lost in the Byzantine twists and turns

[10:56] of the almost plotless film that we're about to watch.

[11:00] Yeah, it is a very simple plot,

[11:01] but at the same time,

[11:02] there's many things about it that confused me.

[11:07] I guess, how we'll get into it,

[11:09] but I guess Nick Cage is a survivor of a previous time,

[11:13] and I'm like, how?

[11:15] But.

[11:16] He's clearly let himself go.

[11:17] But anyway, okay, so.

[11:18] Well, he explains that.

[11:19] Okay, so there's this army intelligence lady.

[11:22] She's trying to question this mysterious guy.

[11:23] We later learn his name is Jake,

[11:24] so let's just call him Jake.

[11:26] And you can tell he-

[11:27] How many Jakes do you guys know in real life?

[11:30] I feel like Jake is only a movie name.

[11:31] I mean, I do have a stepbrother named Jake.

[11:33] Okay, well, there goes my theory.

[11:34] And there's Body by Jake, so that's two right there.

[11:37] Jake and the Fat Man, but I guess that's not a real person.

[11:39] Jake Gyllenhaal, I don't really know him,

[11:40] but I know of him, you know?

[11:42] There's a fellow with a snake.

[11:45] Yeah, you're thinking of Jake Aconda, yeah.

[11:49] Dwayne the Jake Johnson.

[11:53] But he goes, I have to call myself Dwayne Johnson

[11:55] in the movies because the WWE owns the copyright to Jake.

[12:00] That is not a new addition to the Morris theorem.

[12:01] I guess Jakes exist in the real world.

[12:04] Jake corollary has been disproven, yeah.

[12:07] So this lady is like,

[12:08] hey, you're gonna tell me everything you know about this,

[12:12] and we found this electronic thingy on you.

[12:13] And he goes, I don't know what that is.

[12:14] We never find out what it is.

[12:15] It doesn't matter.

[12:17] But she shows it to him, and he's like, yeah, this is mine.

[12:21] But otherwise-

[12:22] She's also immediately super-

[12:23] I mean, I know that he's on the secret military base,

[12:27] but she's immediately super suspicious

[12:30] and aggressive towards him.

[12:31] And he's just a guy who was found unconscious,

[12:34] who was dropped off there.

[12:36] He was brought to them.

[12:36] It's not like he snuck in.

[12:38] They're very suspicious of his rub-on tattoo.

[12:41] For some reason, they see this very basic-looking tattoo

[12:45] he has of a skull and a snake.

[12:47] Looks like something he got out of a vending machine.

[12:49] It's some of the worst makeup ever.

[12:52] And for some reason, that makes her suspicious.

[12:54] Like, we've gotta find out about this tattoo.

[12:57] Yeah, her commanding officer's like,

[12:58] did you even ask him about the tattoo?

[13:00] She's like, I'm getting to it, okay?

[13:02] Chill out.

[13:02] I've gotta build a rapport

[13:04] before we can start talking about tattoos.

[13:05] You can't just immediately ask about someone's tattoo.

[13:07] People don't get tattoos to draw attention

[13:09] so that other people will ask them about them.

[13:12] She doesn't understand tattoos is what I'm saying.

[13:14] So what we will later find out

[13:15] is there's uranium in the area.

[13:17] And that's why there's a top secret

[13:18] U.S. military mission to hang out

[13:21] and just kind of make sure the uranium

[13:22] stays in the ground.

[13:23] Make sure no tattooed people get near it.

[13:26] Oh, I guess there's plutonium, it's plutonium.

[13:27] Anyway, he's got no memory,

[13:29] but somehow he has incredible fighting skills.

[13:31] And the first of a number of jiu-jitsu demo scenes,

[13:34] he just beats up a bunch of soldiers.

[13:38] And it made me realize,

[13:39] and there's a scene later on that made me realize it more,

[13:41] there's a lot of action movies

[13:42] where the hero has to beat up U.S. soldiers,

[13:44] which seems weird,

[13:46] because you'd think the audience

[13:47] for a lot of these action movies

[13:48] is a pro-U.S. soldier audience.

[13:50] But it's like how in XXX, The Return of Xander Cage,

[13:53] another Cage, unrelated,

[13:56] there's a part where he just pushes

[13:56] a whole bunch of soldiers out of a cargo plane.

[14:00] And it's like, there's our hero, I guess.

[14:04] I would imagine that, yes,

[14:07] it's a very support our troops crowd,

[14:10] but also a bunch of people who are into

[14:13] sort of like a DTCD action movie

[14:15] are also like rugged individualist types

[14:18] who are like, you know,

[14:19] the government's not gonna push me around.

[14:21] If our soldiers can't beat up this tattooed fellow,

[14:24] they deserve what they get.

[14:25] They should come home either with a tattooed fellow dead

[14:27] or on their shields.

[14:29] It's like, they don't carry shields into battle.

[14:31] Well, what are we doing?

[14:34] Well, I feel like almost all the action sequences

[14:36] are like choreographed.

[14:38] You have one guy run up to the hero,

[14:39] the hero performs some maneuvers on him,

[14:41] and then the next guy comes up.

[14:43] Including like, I think the final move in this one

[14:45] is he does like a backwards flip kick thing.

[14:49] You see it from multiple angles, I think.

[14:52] If you didn't step out of the way of that one,

[14:53] you know, you deserve it.

[14:55] I'd like to say a little bit about...

[14:56] I'm sorry, go ahead, Dan.

[14:57] Oh no, just the choreography in this movie,

[15:01] by and large, is pretty good.

[15:03] There are like some scenes that I think are very good

[15:06] and some scenes that are kind of boring.

[15:07] But like, it pays more attention to fight choreography,

[15:10] which is why a lot of people, including Stuart here,

[15:14] love these sort of smaller action movies

[15:16] because it's like where a lot of this stuff

[15:18] is found these days.

[15:20] But the problem with it often is

[15:23] if it gets really choreographed,

[15:24] you like know that it's choreographed.

[15:27] It feels like a dance rather than a fight.

[15:31] And I think our lead is one of the worst people in the movie

[15:34] at not making it seem like just a dance.

[15:38] Like, he doesn't seem to be fighting.

[15:40] That was a big issue I had with it,

[15:41] which is that, yeah, at a certain point

[15:42] when it's so heavily choreographed,

[15:45] it's like the only way this is happening

[15:47] is if both people involved in the fight

[15:49] know what all the moves are.

[15:50] I kept thinking of like the raid redemption,

[15:53] where when I watched the fights in that,

[15:54] I'm like, these people are trying to kill each other.

[15:56] Like this, whereas in this, it's like,

[15:58] it looks like you're watching a sparring match

[15:59] and then afterwards, it's gonna be like,

[16:00] so kids, is karate for you?

[16:02] Sign up right over there.

[16:04] You gotta buy the uniform.

[16:06] I'm gonna need $25.

[16:07] Confidence, fitness.

[16:08] Yeah.

[16:11] And also, it is tough to buy the fact

[16:16] that he's fighting military guys

[16:18] because this entire military base seems to have two guns

[16:23] that they share between everyone,

[16:25] but everyone has a knife.

[16:26] There's so much running at guys with knives,

[16:30] like big crocodile Dundee knives of like,

[16:33] this army is terribly underfunded.

[16:36] They should have at least more than two guns.

[16:37] Well, normally, yeah, after the sixth guy

[16:39] gets beaten up hand to hand,

[16:41] the seventh guy will just shoot.

[16:42] Right, yeah.

[16:43] Maybe we should use that gun.

[16:45] I will say, the one time I was in Afghanistan

[16:48] performing stand-up comedy for the troops

[16:49] when there was a war going on.

[16:50] You weren't performing martial arts?

[16:53] No, I was not performing martial arts.

[16:54] It wasn't some kind of martial arts demo

[16:55] where you like, rip the phone book in half at the end.

[16:58] Yeah, it was all,

[16:59] hey, army guys, maybe karate's for you.

[17:00] Look at this. Confidence, fitness.

[17:02] Sign up.

[17:03] Look, the strength of Christ

[17:04] is helping me rip this phone book in half.

[17:06] Take a look.

[17:07] Wanna sign up?

[17:08] But there was one,

[17:10] the only time I was ever scared

[17:11] by any of the people that I met,

[17:12] this one guy had a huge knife,

[17:14] and he was like,

[17:14] the only thing I haven't gotten to do yet

[17:16] is I haven't had a knife kill.

[17:17] I almost had one, and then someone else shot him,

[17:20] and I was like, I want you to stay here.

[17:22] I don't want you coming back.

[17:24] So maybe they're all that,

[17:25] maybe this is a special unit made up of guys like that

[17:27] where they're like, you know what?

[17:28] Send them to Burma.

[17:29] Yeah.

[17:31] We don't need these guys obsessed with knives.

[17:33] They can't get to the next level on their character

[17:36] until they kill somebody in close combat.

[17:38] They have plenty,

[17:39] they've like maxed out on gun kills.

[17:41] Yeah, yeah.

[17:42] These guys are trophy hunters is what you're saying.

[17:44] These are PlayStation trophy hunters.

[17:47] It's their conflict checklist, yeah.

[17:49] We're trying to 100% this war.

[17:52] Yeah, trying to platinum war.

[17:53] Remember, remember when we raid an enemy base,

[17:58] kick every wall to see if there's a hidden room there.

[18:02] We've got to pick up all the bananas and DK coins.

[18:04] Right.

[18:07] Punch that hay bale.

[18:09] Anything there?

[18:10] No, well, okay, what about that box?

[18:11] Oh, it's part of the background, don't worry about it.

[18:13] Listen, we have to unlock all the skins.

[18:16] Yeah.

[18:17] So if you walk into a room full of clay jars,

[18:19] you know you got to start diving

[18:21] where all the rupees are.

[18:22] Yeah, after an incident with some truth serum

[18:26] that gets them nowhere,

[18:27] the army intel lady starts believing this guy's amnesia

[18:29] is real and she starts going good cop on him.

[18:31] But then, uh-oh, this is going to be taken out of her hands

[18:34] because it's time for the next chapter, reunion.

[18:36] Because who's going to come in?

[18:37] That's right, Tony Jaa is going to come in

[18:39] and beat up a bunch of soldiers.

[18:40] Then the amnesia guy, he's like,

[18:42] hey, come with me.

[18:43] And he's like, okay.

[18:44] Leading to a long POV fighting sequence

[18:47] where we are Jake, just swinging our fists and our feet.

[18:51] And it really makes me glad

[18:53] that I didn't bother to go see Hardcore Harry

[18:54] because I'm like, oh, that's what this is.

[18:56] Sure.

[18:56] Okay, great, you know.

[18:57] This action sequence, I feel,

[19:00] like, I don't like the POVs,

[19:02] like the first part of it is.

[19:03] Especially because it is less impressive

[19:05] since you know they can just strap a GoPro

[19:07] to someone's head and have them,

[19:08] it's not like, how did the camera guy

[19:10] stay out of the way of those flying fists?

[19:12] It's like, well, they just put a GoPro on his head.

[19:14] But the first part.

[19:14] It's like, if you want a shot of a dog

[19:16] walking through places,

[19:17] just strap a GoPro on its head, you know.

[19:19] Yeah, you don't have to like,

[19:20] you don't have to surgically remove one of its eyeballs

[19:23] and put a tiny video camera in its head.

[19:25] Not anymore, thanks to the people at GoPro.

[19:28] Or the way that like a crane shot of like a forest

[19:31] used to be a sign in a low-budget movie,

[19:32] like, look.

[19:33] Or a helicopter shot, like, we did it.

[19:35] We made this.

[19:35] And it adds production values.

[19:36] But now you just.

[19:37] Now just a 16-year-old can fly a drone in there.

[19:39] Just slap a GoPro on your nephew's drone

[19:42] and send it around, yeah.

[19:44] The first half of this action sequence, though,

[19:46] is like, is Tony Jaa like running along the top of walls

[19:51] and hiding behind walls and.

[19:52] It's a lot like a live-action adaptation

[19:54] of the Aladdin game for the Sega Genesis.

[19:56] Running on top of walls, yeah.

[19:58] It does look video game-y.

[20:00] But it is done in this, like, fake long take, there's, you know, there are a couple whip pans where I'm sure they hid the cuts, but it is, it is trying something, and I would argue that this is the part of the movie that sets a high bar for the action sequences that the rest of the movie doesn't quite live up to, like, this is, I think, the high point, the Tony Jaa part of it.

[20:22] Later on, yes, it jumps into his POV, and then it's, like, a weird part where, like, he jumps out of his own POV, like, he, like, leaps over the camera back into, like, third person shooting.

[20:32] It's the kind of thing that happens in – this is revealing too much about myself, I guess – the kind of thing that happens in POV porn, where at a certain point, they're just like, you know what, let's just shoot it as if they're regular people.

[20:43] Like, we're not going to get the angle we want if it's still the camera that's on. The GoPro's stuck to this guy's head. Come on, let's…

[20:49] Yeah, but it's pretty fun.

[20:52] I did like the part where they paused for three minutes and the guy just looked at his own dick.

[20:56] I really felt like I had Jake's dick.

[20:59] Maybe I haven't seen your other videos.

[21:02] This is also three minutes.

[21:04] Three minutes feels like a long time.

[21:06] No, it was the perfect amount of time. I disagree.

[21:08] Because at that point, it's more of a medical test than, like…

[21:11] Yeah, he was checking himself for tics.

[21:14] For tics. Because it was a forest scene, and they wanted – it was a POV porn video from the National Park Service on tic safety and prevention, yeah, Lyme disease prevention.

[21:23] Sure, testicle tics are an issue.

[21:25] Tics-ticles, yeah.

[21:26] This is also where I started noticing, like, what's going to be a theme of the movie, which is, like, fake CGI, like, stuff around.

[21:34] Because every time they would – Tony Jaa would, like, throw someone off a building, he would land, and there would be, like, this CGI cloud of dust that would come up.

[21:42] I'm like, why do you have to add that? Like, I will believe that he fell without adding the dust.

[21:47] Yeah, you're expected, when you, like, jump behind a wall to beat up some guys, that there would be, like, I don't know, like, stars and, like, battle lines flying up.

[21:55] Yeah, swirlies, yeah, and that someone would fall down and little birdies would fly around their head and little bells, yeah.

[22:01] Not to cram more video game references into this, but those CGI hit detectors were just like – that's what happens in Tekken.

[22:08] That is how you know in Tekken you've hit somebody, or you get a little mouth – CGI mouth blood as well.

[22:15] That happens a lot in the movie.

[22:16] Yeah, so Jake runs off with Tony Jaa. He meets a whole cadre of fighters, including Frank Guerrillo – that's right, Crossbones himself.

[22:25] And you know these guys are like – they're not just your average run-of-the-mill, like, run-into-the-street types because they're all wearing these, like, long shawls that don't have sleeves.

[22:38] But they do have hoods.

[22:39] They don't look like a duster, but they do have a hood.

[22:40] It's like the sort of thing that, again, I get in my Instagram ads all the time, and I'm like, can I pull this off?

[22:46] I don't know.

[22:47] It would look good with my genie pants.

[22:49] It's like someone saw a – what's that, Assassin's video game?

[22:55] Oh, Assassin's Creed.

[22:56] Assassin's Creed.

[22:57] You're right.

[22:58] They saw a bus ad for Assassin's Creed and were like, I could pull off that look.

[23:00] Yeah, the hood with no sleeves?

[23:02] Yeah.

[23:04] The same way that a lot of guys after Drive started wearing those jackets, and I think maybe 85 percent could not pull it off.

[23:09] 15 percent, they pulled it off great.

[23:11] Guys, here's what I'm thinking.

[23:15] Group Halloween costume this year.

[23:17] We all go as the Jiu-Jitsu sleeveless warriors.

[23:21] We're the famous cadre of brax-fighting warriors from Jiu-Jitsu.

[23:25] Who's going to be Wily, Dan?

[23:28] I mean Wily is the best character, but I'll be the comic.

[23:32] Oh, wow.

[23:34] I think we're already dressing up as characters who don't wear the hooded sleeveless thing.

[23:38] We need to really –

[23:39] Back up a little bit.

[23:40] Let's center the premise of this Halloween costume, okay?

[23:43] Like if my family – I think we may be doing a Nightmare Before Christmas thing this year because that's what my younger son is obsessed with.

[23:49] But if I was like, yeah, yeah, and you know what?

[23:51] I'll be Wario.

[23:52] Like it wouldn't really go with the main premise of the group costume.

[23:56] But Wario farts.

[23:58] He does.

[23:59] That's true.

[24:00] That's a good point.

[24:01] I read it on a bathroom wall.

[24:03] Yeah, so it must be true.

[24:04] Stu, that's a great point.

[24:06] What about Waluigi?

[24:07] How is he with flatulence?

[24:09] I mean I don't think he farts as much.

[24:11] I don't think it's like his main attack, right?

[24:14] Okay, unlike that ape from Primal.

[24:16] Do they both say wah?

[24:18] Primal Rage.

[24:19] Primal Rage, yeah.

[24:20] Do they both say wah?

[24:21] Do they both scream wah?

[24:22] When they – I don't know.

[24:23] Maybe.

[24:24] Okay.

[24:25] I mean like –

[24:26] Dan's right.

[24:27] They both do say wah.

[24:28] I like that in the Mario Brothers universe, if you have a Mario for a brother, your name

[24:33] will be decided by his name.

[24:35] That's just the way it works.

[24:36] Mario, Mario and Luigi, Mario.

[24:38] Wario's brother has to be Waluigi.

[24:40] You have to assume Luigi and Waluigi are younger brothers, right?

[24:42] Or did they have to change their names when their younger brothers were born?

[24:45] Because that's a big blow to the ego.

[24:47] Sure.

[24:48] If you have a younger brother who's a baby and your parents are like, you have to change

[24:51] your name so that it fits your younger brother's name.

[24:54] That's true.

[24:55] Yeah.

[24:57] It's hard to have confidence after that.

[24:58] No wonder they just follow their brothers around.

[25:00] I mean, I do like that you assume they reproduce like mammals and they don't like burst out

[25:07] of eggs or something.

[25:08] I mean, there's nothing about the Mario Brothers or the Wario Brothers that would

[25:12] lead me to believe they're not human beings.

[25:16] Have you seen the sequence where Mario goes to New Donk City and there's like regular

[25:19] humans walking around, but he looks like a little weirdo?

[25:22] It's true.

[25:23] He does look very different from the –

[25:26] I think I have some information that could be helpful in this discussion.

[25:29] All right.

[25:30] Lay it on us.

[25:31] So we do know –

[25:32] I once watched Mario.

[25:34] We do know canonically that Mario has nipples.

[25:37] They have drawn nipples on Mario.

[25:39] Okay.

[25:40] So we do know that he is at least a mammal.

[25:41] Okay.

[25:42] Fair.

[25:43] Yeah.

[25:44] He comes from a species that produces milk.

[25:45] Yeah.

[25:46] And it's young.

[25:47] Unless they've evolved to some sort of reptile state and those are vestigial nipples,

[25:51] not vestigial nibbles.

[25:53] Vestigial nibbles is a snack food that everybody loves.

[25:57] The little pieces that are left over in the bottom of the bag of other snack foods.

[26:00] They combine them into one –

[26:01] It's just a bunch of fried appendixes.

[26:04] Yeah, yeah.

[26:05] Like a Katamari namaste or whatever.

[26:09] A Katamari namaste.

[26:10] That's the meditation where you roll the ball and –

[26:13] Yeah.

[26:14] It's the pose that pleases your father, the king of all cosmos.

[26:18] Is this the most video game references in a podcast?

[26:20] This is a lot of videos.

[26:21] By far.

[26:22] Yeah.

[26:23] Well, it makes sense.

[26:24] We are talking about jujitsu.

[26:25] Anyway, so this is one of a number of scenes where Jake will be told the plot of the movie

[26:31] and the people keep going, Jake, you remember us, right?

[26:33] You remember us, Jake?

[26:34] And he's like, no, I don't.

[26:35] Come on, Jake.

[26:36] You remember us?

[26:37] It's like, no, he doesn't.

[26:38] But they're not explaining who they are to him.

[26:39] No.

[26:40] People give him shit for having amnesia but they don't try and help him.

[26:44] No, not at all.

[26:45] They don't explain anything to him.

[26:46] The soldiers show up.

[26:47] First, they get tossed around by an invisible force.

[26:49] Then some soldiers show up.

[26:51] And then they fight again.

[26:52] Long, long fighting sequence between these new guys and the soldiers.

[26:55] These are the men.

[26:56] You got Jake.

[26:57] You got Frank Guerrillo.

[26:58] You got this lady who uses nunchucks.

[27:00] You got Tony Jaa.

[27:01] And there's a guy who uses a long metal pipe.

[27:04] It's like a metal bo staff kind of.

[27:06] Tony Jaa looks like he's just using angled plumbing pipes.

[27:11] Yes.

[27:12] Yeah.

[27:13] His fighting sticks look like plumbing pipes.

[27:15] Yeah, they're baton shaped but they're pipes.

[27:18] Yeah.

[27:19] And this is around the time.

[27:20] These are these long martial arts sequences without a lot of story time together.

[27:23] And it was around this point that I was like this is like – this movie is like a meal where you're just having french fries where it's like, yeah, it tastes good in the moment.

[27:30] But it's like not – by the end of it, I'm like, ugh, I didn't really get what I needed to have.

[27:34] Oh, I don't know.

[27:36] Look, I mean you could argue whether you should make a movie about a bunch of martial arts people who fight an alien every six years.

[27:45] That is not the issue I'm having, Dan.

[27:47] But if that movie exists, I feel like it – that you want as much fighting as possible.

[27:52] No, but there are – I'll just say – I'll just posit, which is true, that there are martial arts movies where I am like I hope the characters accomplish the thing that these martial arts are contributing to.

[28:01] And in this movie it was like, oh, boy.

[28:04] This is like the thinnest of fibers connecting these martial arts scenes.

[28:08] Perhaps if the martial arts scenes were more exciting.

[28:12] As we explain the movie, we will – you will come to see audience of this podcast that is basically the – like it starts out like The Bourne Identity and ends like Predator.

[28:23] Yes.

[28:24] And all the Bourne Identity stuff is completely cuttable from the movie, although I actually find the earlier – like this is the rare movie where before the alien shows up, I was more entertained.

[28:34] You were more entertained when he was just sitting in a dentist chair as that lady yelled at him and was like, tell me who you are.

[28:40] The Tony Jaa fight and then the fight – this fight between him and the army.

[28:45] Like the problem with the alien stuff I think is they did a good job creating an alien who could move around, but I think that probably a guy wearing a big suit was not the best choice for a martial arts movie.

[29:00] He does have a hologram face.

[29:01] It took down the temperature of the fights a little bit.

[29:03] Yeah, his face does look like the fog wall from a Chrome software game.

[29:08] I got the feeling that the performer was hampered by having to wear a big rubber suit.

[29:13] Especially when you remember like the Ninja Turtles movies, the old ones.

[29:16] They're wearing rubber suits and their moves are amazing.

[29:18] Yeah.

[29:19] To me, his foggy helmet with his big face looks like he was smoking a joint in his space helmet.

[29:26] He racks his hot box in his own space suit.

[29:29] Oh boy.

[29:30] Well, Jake –

[29:31] He's on the level.

[29:32] So they get thrown away.

[29:33] They get thrown around by electricity again.

[29:35] There's something with heat vision that's zapping them, and Jake tells the army intelligence lady, you've got to leave the area.

[29:39] She's like, okay, that makes sense and appears I think one more time before the movie is over.

[29:44] Hey, you were mentioning Brax.

[29:45] It's time for the section called Brax.

[29:47] Not Bratz.

[29:49] That's a different thing.

[29:50] Brax is four girls who can take on the world, and they're good at everything.

[29:54] Brax is instead an alien that we're going to meet.

[29:57] So the army goes into the jungle.

[29:59] I'm not quite sure.

[30:00] But they're, why? But they're, I guess they're leaving the area.

[30:02] But their Geiger counters are going crazy.

[30:04] And that's when this invincible ninja starts hurling throwing stars at them.

[30:07] And then we see what it is.

[30:08] That's right.

[30:09] It's this kind of Geiver-looking alien in like a techno suit.

[30:13] It's very X-O Manowar.

[30:14] Oh yeah, sure.

[30:16] But it's also a ninja.

[30:17] But here's the thing.

[30:19] He can kill people with a glowing red touch.

[30:20] And he heals almost instantly from all wounds.

[30:22] So it is not really a fair fight that Brax is coming at.

[30:26] Like, they're shooting with machine guns.

[30:28] And he's like, uh, uh, uh, uh.

[30:29] And then he, you know, his body just comes back together again.

[30:33] It's like not a, it's not, it's not really fair.

[30:35] Okay.

[30:35] That's all we need to know about him.

[30:36] He's Brax.

[30:37] He fights.

[30:37] They haven't explained who he is yet.

[30:38] I'll say this.

[30:39] I like that argument though.

[30:40] Do they use that same argument against like the T-1000?

[30:43] When like they shoot him a bunch and he just heals?

[30:45] Well, the problem is the T-1000 is an assassin machine that's trying to kill people.

[30:49] Brax has, as we'll learn, has supposedly come to Earth looking for a competition battle

[30:54] that will be good enough to challenge him.

[30:56] But if you don't sustain damage, it's kind of hard for any challenger who is human and

[31:00] sustains damage and does not have heat vision and, uh, CGI shurikens to throw all over the

[31:06] place.

[31:06] You know, it's hard to compete with that.

[31:07] Yeah.

[31:08] This is like a hunter, you know, with a high powered rifle who, who like goes out to shoot

[31:13] a deer, but claims that he's in like a life and death struggle with that deer, you know?

[31:19] The deer is a sitting deer.

[31:21] He has, he has like a grenade in his hand and then like there's a rabbit and he throws

[31:24] the grenade at the rabbit.

[31:26] Man conquers all.

[31:29] Take that, you dumb bunny.

[31:31] That stupid bunny.

[31:32] If you wanted to survive, you should have invented grenades.

[31:34] Looks like your feet aren't so lucky now.

[31:37] When I was, uh, I was taking notes about the movie, uh, when I was watching because I'm

[31:41] a good podcast guest.

[31:43] Better than some of the hosts.

[31:44] Yeah.

[31:44] Um, and I was doing it in my notes app and whenever I would type Brax, it would auto

[31:49] correct to Brad.

[31:51] How much better would this movie have been if the monster was just called Brad?

[31:56] Well, that, I mean, maybe, yeah, this is like, that makes me think that the alien is like

[32:01] someone's like stepfather, like frustrated, like dude, who's like, this is the only way

[32:07] I can get out of my anger is to go to earth.

[32:10] It's somebody's old college roommate.

[32:12] They're like, Brad comes to earth every six years.

[32:14] Right.

[32:14] Tries to kill us.

[32:15] Drinks all our beer.

[32:17] How fantastic would it have been if it was Tony Braxton that comes to earth every six

[32:20] years for this big fight.

[32:22] And you know, she sings afterwards.

[32:24] That's what she does.

[32:24] That's what she's famous for.

[32:26] So, uh, next section is called.

[32:29] She still fights though.

[32:30] Yeah, of course.

[32:30] Yeah.

[32:31] But then she sings after or during the fight.

[32:33] Next section, rabbit hole.

[32:34] Uh, Jake runs off, which we'll learn is kind of his thing.

[32:37] Uh, and the Intel lady gets hit by a throwing star.

[32:40] Goodbye to her.

[32:41] Uh, Jake lands in an underground hut inhabited by Wiley, AKA Nicholas Cage.

[32:48] That's right, everybody.

[32:49] Nick Cage is back.

[32:50] And is he phoning in this performance?

[32:52] The answer?

[32:54] No, he is not.

[32:56] He seems to be having so much fun being a guy who used to be a martial arts master and

[33:01] chickened out and begged Brax for his life six years ago and was allowed to go on living

[33:06] in a hut by himself where he makes a hat set of newspapers and has a piano.

[33:10] He has the, he has the most random collection of stuff in this hut, which makes it more

[33:14] believable to me.

[33:15] And, uh, but he also, he kind of talks like, um, if Obi-Wan Kenobi hadn't, hadn't interacted

[33:22] with another human being for years and, uh, and had kind of lost his bearings, it's got

[33:26] the, you know what I didn't even realize until now, this is what Yoda should have been like

[33:31] in the prequels.

[33:32] He's Nicholas Cage.

[33:34] He's still kind of weird and crazy.

[33:36] Uh, he's still a hermit.

[33:37] He has a hat made out of a newspaper and he's, and he's helping Jake because immediately

[33:42] he and Jake start fighting.

[33:43] Uh, Nicholas Cage is talking cryptically about how the spaceman chose him to be the true

[33:47] jujitsu or some nonsense.

[33:49] But this, I mean, this is a movie we've already made comments about how the dialogue in general

[33:53] in this movie is pretty stilted, but Nicholas Cage delivers it with a certain panache that

[33:58] is so welcome.

[33:59] I wouldn't be surprised if he, if he wrote, if he rewrote at least some of his stuff,

[34:03] it feels so much more like him than the rest of the movie.

[34:06] Uh, the one thing that doesn't feel like him, his fight double who looks nothing like him.

[34:10] And so you'll see, it's a lot of like a close-up of Nicholas Cage going, oh, and then you'll

[34:13] cut to a wide shot of Jake fighting a guy who looks, who's wearing the same wig is always

[34:18] in his face.

[34:19] His wig is always covering his entire face.

[34:21] Yeah.

[34:21] Uh, so it was, you know, there's a line in here, uh, that I think backs up your Cage

[34:27] rewrote some of this theory, Elliot.

[34:29] Uh, at some point someone says that they're hungry and Cage says, what do you want a pickle,

[34:34] a tickle or a noodle?

[34:36] Anyway, I just, to me, that was like the most nonsensical thing.

[34:39] Why am I laughing at this?

[34:40] Yeah.

[34:41] What is a tickle or a noodle?

[34:42] Wait, a tickle or a noodle?

[34:44] Oh man, I should have been paying more attention.

[34:47] Uh, so Nicholas Cage is the one who says, Jake, you're supposed to fight Brax one-on-one

[34:50] fairly.

[34:51] Then the, and that's what Brax is looking for.

[34:53] The other fighters show up and Nicholas Cage is like, Jake isn't ready.

[34:56] He's crazy.

[34:56] Like me.

[34:57] Ha ha ha.

[34:58] Anyway, uh, the warriors, uh, they walk Jake and Nicholas Cage to this ancient temple.

[35:02] Nicholas Cage is just being a goofball.

[35:04] I mean, like every scene with him in it is more fun.

[35:06] And he, at some point explains that it's all about, uh, the magical power of jujitsu that

[35:11] was given to them by Brax.

[35:13] What?

[35:13] Thousands of years ago.

[35:14] Thousands of years ago, Brax came through this portal in this ancient temple.

[35:18] He taught humanity jujitsu so that they would have something to fight him with when he came

[35:22] back every six years to have fun fighting and killing people.

[35:25] And as long as you don't have to win the fight, as long as you fight him honorably with his,

[35:30] his version of honorably, which is you have your fists and he has CGI laser guided shurikens

[35:35] that he can throw at you.

[35:36] Uh, as long as a new weapon that manifests every fight.

[35:39] Yeah.

[35:40] As long as nine people fight him fairly, then he goes home.

[35:43] But if anyone cheats or doesn't fight him, then he kills.

[35:47] It's, it's unclear whether it is everybody in the world or just everybody in the immediate

[35:51] area.

[35:51] Sure.

[35:52] Yeah.

[35:53] Uh, at one point they say everyone, another point they say innocent villages.

[35:56] So you have, so Brax is like either fight me or I kill everybody.

[35:59] So really every six years, nine people die to Brax is really basically what it is.

[36:04] I posted this explanation scene to, uh, the Flophouse Instagram stories because at the

[36:09] end, the hero, like there's this long, crazy, uh, thing about, you know, what Brax's deal

[36:16] is and how like he, he, he gave us jujitsu so we could fight him.

[36:21] And that's why you have jujitsu.

[36:24] And then like you cut to our hero who just does this, like, look like, whoa, like, like,

[36:30] like, what was that?

[36:31] What, what was that all about?

[36:34] Well, cause he doesn't know the story checks out until you see in the temple.

[36:38] It's an ancient mural of Brax, as we learned from justice league and, uh, and, uh, moral

[36:44] combat, the best way to communicate information is with a mural painted on the wall of an

[36:47] ancient temple.

[36:48] Somebody told Gustav Klimt that too.

[36:50] Um, the, uh, so yeah, it would be, it'd be, it's almost like if in the predator movies,

[36:56] they found a cave that had like cave paintings that showed a predator, like teaching like

[37:01] proto humans, how to hunt.

[37:04] Yeah.

[37:06] Uh, so, uh, they, uh, there's clearly something going on between Jake and darts lady.

[37:10] They used to have a thing together.

[37:12] Uh, they, she helps him to change into a slightly more ridged t-shirt and one of those, uh,

[37:17] sleeveless hoods, which makes you invisible to Brax's heat vision.

[37:21] Uh, and Frank Grillo gives him a sword, which, uh, doesn't, doesn't play that much of a part

[37:27] to the rest of the movie, but I guess he used it.

[37:29] Uh, Jake has to defeat Brax before sundown because of something related to the comet.

[37:33] It's not totally clear, but we get a bunch of ominous shots of the comet.

[37:36] And I guess if it reaches the horizon, maybe like they lose, like, there's a lot of rules

[37:40] to this competition that kind of pop up late.

[37:43] They're like, as long as you fight Brax, everything will be okay.

[37:46] Oh.

[37:46] And you have to defeat him by sundown.

[37:48] Wait, why?

[37:48] Hold on.

[37:49] You didn't mention that before.

[37:49] I mean, in the climax, it seems like the deal is that like Brax, the vortex opens up again

[38:00] and Brax leaves then because of the comet.

[38:02] But it's like, well, that's fine.

[38:05] Like, what, what's, what's wrong with that version of events where like, oh,

[38:08] we didn't defeat him by sundown.

[38:10] Oh, he left.

[38:11] He got bored.

[38:14] Uh, I think, well, I don't know.

[38:16] Uh, I think maybe it's that the portal opens and he can choose to stay or leave at that point.

[38:20] Yeah.

[38:20] Uh, the comet opens the portal, but Brax comes or goes.

[38:24] It's very, it's not clear and it doesn't get any more clear because Jake, as we learn,

[38:29] he chickened out.

[38:30] They call him the rabbit because he ran away from Brax.

[38:34] Unlike Nicolas Cage, who at least had the guts to beg for his life from Brax.

[38:38] So Brax considered him crazy and thus unfit to kill.

[38:41] Unsporting.

[38:42] Jake just ran away and that's why he was being chased by shurikens off a cliff, uh, earlier.

[38:48] Um, anyway.

[38:49] One of the Brax rules that I was having a hard time with was the, you have to fight him one

[38:55] on one thing because there are so many times in the movie where people gang up on Brax and it

[39:01] goes pretty well.

[39:03] Um, but then people just started going at him one.

[39:06] I didn't know that's a Kung Fu movie thing.

[39:08] It's like, you know, you fight each other one on one because it's more fun, but like,

[39:12] yeah, the idea that, that only a certain number of people can fight Brax.

[39:18] Yeah.

[39:18] It's, it's, uh, and then, but they also ignore that rule and everything's fine.

[39:23] Yeah.

[39:23] And at the end, like the old lady comes in and starts shooting Brax with a shotgun and

[39:27] like, that's fine.

[39:28] Like, is she also part of the group that can fight me?

[39:31] Would you, would you argue with her?

[39:33] I don't think so.

[39:37] Later, spoiler for later, like Brax kills Nicholas Cage and like the hero and the lady

[39:44] are literally just like watching it happen from the side.

[39:48] If any time to break the rule of one-on-one fighting is there.

[39:51] It's to save Nicholas Cage.

[39:52] Well, yeah.

[39:53] I mean, they're just watching what happens live.

[39:54] Uh, do you think maybe when the, when the, uh, the, the fisherman's wife.

[40:00] Build up with the shotgun, Brax just assumed she was like one of the other characters summons.

[40:04] Possibly.

[40:05] Like a special move.

[40:06] I mean, they just hit the right buttons and she just jumps in, does her move and jumps

[40:10] out again.

[40:11] Yeah.

[40:12] I mean, if I know, all I know about Fisherman's Wives, she was probably pretty tired out from

[40:17] having sex with that octopus.

[40:18] And so I get, you know, or dreaming about it at the very least.

[40:22] And so she just, she had to rebuild her energy to get, get that shotgun.

[40:26] So she couldn't save Nicolas Cage.

[40:27] But the shotgun too, is the thing that seems to hurt Brax the most.

[40:31] It's like some kind of super shotgun.

[40:33] I don't know where she got it from.

[40:34] Sure.

[40:35] I mean, unless when one of the other fighters died, they, they, they blinked away and then

[40:39] left a shotgun behind and she picked that up.

[40:41] Yeah.

[40:42] Yeah.

[40:43] That's like a, like a very rare drop.

[40:44] Yeah.

[40:45] Or she, or she, it's, it's an in-game purchase and she's like, you know what?

[40:49] We're fighting Brax.

[40:50] Oh yeah, I'm going to pay the 99 cents to get the super shotgun.

[40:53] Pre-order exclusive.

[40:54] I know it's kind of a scam.

[40:56] I can't take it out of here.

[40:58] Yeah.

[40:59] She got the day one edition.

[41:00] Yeah.

[41:01] Jiu-Jitsu.

[41:02] If I do, maybe afterwards I can mint it as an NFT, make some of my money back, you know,

[41:04] but anyway.

[41:05] Topical.

[41:06] So now, now we just got a bunch of, a bunch of sections of Brax fighting people.

[41:09] You get the my time section, Brax fights some people, there's, he kills all of them.

[41:15] Jake gets captured by an army guy from earlier and he's like, Hey, we've been tracking Brax

[41:18] for decades.

[41:19] Here's, and here's your sword, by the way, the one that you got earlier, I'm giving it

[41:22] back to you.

[41:23] He goes, here's the secret.

[41:26] They realized when he gets hurt, it takes him about six or seven seconds to heal.

[41:30] That's when you go after him and it's like, Oh, okay.

[41:33] That's your big secret.

[41:34] Hit him when he's weak.

[41:35] Okay.

[41:36] They hit him when there's still holes in him.

[41:38] Yeah.

[41:39] That army, I mean military intelligence.

[41:41] Am I right?

[41:42] Talking about an oxymoron.

[41:43] Jumbo shrimp over here.

[41:44] Is there like a, is there like a visual cue?

[41:47] Does his like his little visor, the fog clear and you see his face for a second?

[41:51] Like what's going on there?

[41:52] Well, I think it's when he has big holes in his belly, you know, to attack him.

[41:55] No, I know that.

[41:56] But what was going on with his visor?

[41:57] Because every once in a while you see a face there.

[41:59] Yeah.

[42:00] Elliot, what's going on?

[42:01] Tell me.

[42:02] It's like a little cartoon face too.

[42:03] Yeah, it was a little cartoon face.

[42:04] I don't, I not, I mean, I'm not Brax's official spokesperson.

[42:07] We're just friends, despite what the tabloids say, but Brax is, you know, he, sometimes

[42:12] he likes to see and sometimes he doesn't like to be seen.

[42:15] So he allows it to fog, then he defogs it.

[42:18] It's, you know, the, it's the, the yes, no tug and pull, uh, uh, cat and mouse hide and

[42:23] seek relationship that all superstars have with their public.

[42:26] And Brax is no different, you know, much like Toni Braxton.

[42:29] Sure.

[42:30] Yeah.

[42:31] Sometimes when Toni Braxton performs, she has a fogged up visor that covers her whole

[42:35] face and sometimes you can see your face, you know.

[42:37] Sometimes she takes on her competitors one-on-one and sometimes, uh, they have nobody to help

[42:42] them.

[42:43] Yeah.

[42:44] Yeah.

[42:45] Uh, but don't break the rules because you'll destroy the world.

[42:46] The Brax face is never scary.

[42:48] It is either very silly and then occasionally very cute.

[42:53] They'll hit Brax at an angle where you're like, oh, Brax.

[42:56] Well, he looks like a blobfish, which is, which is, yeah, it's like adorably ugly looking

[43:01] and it's like, oh, whoa, where's me?

[43:03] I'm a blobfish.

[43:04] Someone made a meme of me.

[43:06] Yeah.

[43:07] So, so Brax does have a face that's kind of like, oh, I'm Brax.

[43:11] I didn't think you did so.

[43:13] Is it like when Mad Max knocks, uh, Blaster's helmet off and you're like, oh, you shouldn't,

[43:18] you shouldn't kill this guy.

[43:20] That sort of thing.

[43:21] A little bit.

[43:22] A little bit, a little bit, a little bit.

[43:25] Just a little bit.

[43:27] Little bit, a teeny tiny bit, just like a teeny tiny minuscule microscopic bit.

[43:32] Yeah.

[43:33] Like the tiniest little bit.

[43:35] Like, just like a bit of a bit comfortable, look at teeny bit of a bit, a tiny little

[43:38] bit, just a little bit.

[43:40] Like a little bit.

[43:41] You can't even say bit.

[43:42] You can't say T. It's a bit.

[43:43] It's a little bit.

[43:44] Yeah.

[43:45] That's how little that bit is.

[43:46] Yeah.

[43:47] It's a tiny bit.

[43:48] It's a little bit.

[43:49] It's just all it is.

[43:50] Don't even say most of the word.

[43:51] Just Albee.

[43:52] Yeah.

[43:53] Just the abbreviation for pound.

[43:54] Yeah.

[43:55] It's like to say goodbye to all of our new listeners.

[43:58] Thank you for checking us out.

[44:00] No, I, I, what if, what if Brax is the vapor?

[44:03] What if the vapor?

[44:04] Oh shit.

[44:05] Oh, like the, like the theory that Blofeld is the cat and he possesses the minds of various

[44:09] different actors.

[44:10] And that's why there's more than one, it's possible.

[44:13] Maybe Brax is made out of gas.

[44:15] Maybe he's a gas man.

[44:16] No, he's like Johann.

[44:17] What about this guys?

[44:18] Maybe Brax is the friends we made along the way.

[44:20] Oh yeah.

[44:22] Possibly.

[44:23] Thank you for being a Brax.

[44:24] Walk the chat.

[44:25] Do, do, do, do.

[44:26] Travel down the road and fight a Brax.

[44:29] Anyway, so somehow there's 38 minutes left of the movie.

[44:33] Jake finds Wiley cooking a fish and they talk about more stuff.

[44:37] We have a flashback to Brax emerging from a portal.

[44:40] He kills a guy and attacks Jake.

[44:42] Jake runs away.

[44:43] We saw that already.

[44:44] Anyway.

[44:45] Wiley says he has a plan.

[44:46] Brax is hunting Jake as prey to make a point.

[44:49] And then he never really explains what the plan is because a dead body flops near them.

[44:55] And Wiley's like, oh, Brax is trying to vex you.

[44:58] That's why he's killing people and throwing their bodies at you.

[45:01] It seems like there's easier, everyone has a plan that they're not bothering to explain

[45:05] to the movie.

[45:06] You know?

[45:07] But it's a good vocal warmup.

[45:08] It would be vexing.

[45:09] Yeah, it would be very vexing to not be able to walk anywhere with a dead body flopping

[45:11] out.

[45:12] It's a good vocal warmup too.

[45:13] Before you start the podcast, you can just go, Brax is vexing, Brax is vexing.

[45:19] More fighting.

[45:20] Jake keeps running.

[45:22] Eventually, Brax reaches him, but uh-oh, Tony Jaa jumps out and Brax fights him as

[45:27] Jake runs away again.

[45:28] So the plan, and they're like, this was your plan, Jake.

[45:31] So it's like the plan seems to be, okay, so Brax comes to Earth to fight nine people in

[45:36] a row one-on-one.

[45:37] Jake's plan seems to be to make Brax chase him and then have people jump out to fight

[45:41] Brax one-on-one.

[45:43] The chasing doesn't really seem to be necessary for the plot, for the plan.

[45:46] I don't really understand what the plan is supposed to achieve.

[45:49] Tiring Brax out?

[45:50] It just seems to be tiring out Jake, because as we know, Brax can heal.

[45:54] So when the lactic acid builds up on his muscles from all that running, he's just going to

[45:58] heal from it.

[45:59] He'll be fine.

[46:00] He can run again.

[46:01] It's just going to take a couple seconds.

[46:02] Yeah, he doesn't seem any weaker after fighting eight people than he did the first time, right?

[46:06] No, not at all.

[46:07] But here's where we get, okay, it's another big fight.

[46:09] Nicolas Cage's body double has a sword fight with Brax, turns into a long kind of wrestling

[46:13] and jump kick fight, then swords again, and Brax gives Nicolas Cage his sword so that

[46:19] he can kill him honorably.

[46:20] And he cuts him up with a lot of slashes and then holds him Pieta style.

[46:24] And it was like, wait, was Nicolas Cage his son?

[46:26] Like I don't understand.

[46:27] Did Nicolas Cage just die for the sins of the film?

[46:29] I think so.

[46:30] That it's a real touching scene.

[46:33] And it's just too bad that there's no more Wiley in the movie, because he brought a real

[46:36] life and a real spice, a real vim and vigor to the movie.

[46:40] Nick Cage, it was great to have you back for the amount of time that we had you.

[46:43] Can't wait to see you in pig, uh, you know, in theaters now as we speak.

[46:50] That is weird that his dying words are see pig in theaters now, which is crazy because

[47:02] it was released far before pig was released in theaters.

[47:05] That's why it's weird, Stuart.

[47:07] That's why.

[47:08] You're right.

[47:09] Yeah, you're right.

[47:10] Yeah.

[47:11] Well, let's call it Nicolas Cage and find out.

[47:12] Hello?

[47:13] Yeah, it's me.

[47:14] Nicolas Cage.

[47:15] Yeah.

[47:16] You have a question for me?

[47:17] Yeah.

[47:18] Uh, wait, you're in jujitsu, right?

[47:19] Well, first, I have a question for you.

[47:21] Did you find my pig?

[47:25] I want, I have a couple of things I want.

[47:26] I want to know about the, before we talk about the, the pig thing, can we.

[47:30] Because that's really what's on my mind right now, man, is this pig I can't find.

[47:33] Can you explain?

[47:34] It's not easy to lose a pig.

[47:36] Somehow I've managed it.

[47:37] Classic Nick.

[47:38] Can you explain the tickle or a noodle thing?

[47:42] So, okay.

[47:43] He looks hungry.

[47:44] He could have a noodle.

[47:45] But you know what feeds your soul?

[47:46] Laughter.

[47:47] So maybe he wants to be tickled instead.

[47:48] So it's not that crazy.

[47:49] That checks out.

[47:50] You know, my, uh, my, uh, my Zen master told me that there's, there's the opposite.

[47:54] Everyone has a tickle and a noodle inside of them.

[47:56] And the thing is you got to get in touch with the noodle when you're hungry or if you're

[48:00] in a pool.

[48:01] If it's that kind of noodle, right?

[48:02] And you got to get in touch with the tickle when you need to laugh.

[48:05] And you know, laughter is, some would say the best medicine.

[48:08] I would say it's probably like the fourth best medicine.

[48:11] But now, now, now Nick, the top three medicines, obviously are one, number one is love.

[48:18] Number two is penicillin.

[48:20] And number three is if like you could mix love and penicillin into one, one medicine.

[48:25] Yeah.

[48:26] Love.

[48:27] It's called, I call it love.

[48:28] A ceiling.

[48:29] Yeah.

[48:30] Oh, did you also call it that?

[48:31] I do call it that.

[48:32] I mean, oh, well I guess I got to run time.

[48:34] I should probably cut this conversation short and get to the copyright office before you

[48:37] trademark love.

[48:38] Penicillin.

[48:39] Because I've been sitting on that for a while.

[48:41] Much like Charles Darwin waited too long to publish his results and almost got scooped

[48:45] on it.

[48:46] I really got to get that.

[48:47] But what was your other question?

[48:48] Do you have any questions about jujitsu, the movie?

[48:52] I think we wanted to ask how you knew, we did a riff where we were saying that maybe

[48:58] your last words were see pig in theaters now.

[49:01] Yeah.

[49:02] And this movie came out far before pig was released in theaters.

[49:05] So how did you, in the world of our riff, how did you know that while pig is in theater?

[49:11] I think, you know, a stop clock is right at least four or five times a day.

[49:15] And so I said, I said see pig in theaters now knowing that this movie would come out

[49:19] before pig and just that it was likely someone would watch it because it's a great movie.

[49:23] It's a great movie and someone will be watching it when pig was in theaters, which it is now.

[49:28] Now under trivia for jujitsu, it says that you performed all your own stunts, but it

[49:32] doesn't appear that's the case.

[49:34] Can you explain that to me?

[49:35] I have another self that performs stunts for me, but it's still me because when he's performing

[49:42] the stunts, I put myself in his mindset.

[49:47] Oh, like the cat from, from James Bond.

[49:51] Yeah, the one that's exactly, yeah.

[49:53] He throws his mind into all into Telly Savalas or, you know, the other guys.

[49:57] So that's what I do with a, with a body.

[50:00] You know, just knows how to do this stuff, the stunts.

[50:04] And just before before we lose you, Nick.

[50:06] No, I'm here. OK.

[50:07] Well, you're here and that's all I've got on my my agenda just for today

[50:12] was answer calls, should they come in and look for this pig?

[50:15] And, you know, I'm not making too much process on the pig.

[50:17] So which any tips for summertime fun?

[50:20] Here's what I like to do in the summer.

[50:23] OK, number one.

[50:26] Do you have board shorts?

[50:27] Oh, yeah. You don't even need a board.

[50:29] Oh, OK. I get the shorts. Yeah. OK.

[50:31] Number two, I like to put a lot of zinc on my nose

[50:33] because it makes me feel like a lifeguard.

[50:35] And you know what?

[50:35] There's no one we trust more in this world than a teenager

[50:39] who's been hired for the summer to save middle aged people

[50:42] if he notices them while he's trying to chat up the ladies.

[50:45] So I like to put myself in that mindset.

[50:46] And you get to carry around one of those big red thingies that kind of floats.

[50:49] What do they use them for?

[50:51] You know, those lifeguard thingies that they have, the big red things. Yeah.

[50:55] But yeah, I think they're supposed to kind of float, right?

[50:58] That's my assumption.

[50:59] I've never used it. Yeah, Dan.

[51:01] So Stuart's fake trivia about Jujitsu made me sent me to IMDb

[51:05] for the real trivia page.

[51:08] Number one, just because we mentioned him before,

[51:11] it says Nicholas Cage replaced Bruce Willis.

[51:13] So that's. Oh, oh.

[51:16] But now. Wow.

[51:18] Not even in the movie.

[51:20] They told me first choice.

[51:21] But OK, that's good to know.

[51:23] I have some conversations I need to have with the producer of Hard Bodies, too.

[51:28] Here's another piece of trivia.

[51:30] And, you know, this is IMDb.

[51:32] Anyone can put this in here.

[51:33] I don't know if it's accurate, but it says Braxton's face

[51:38] was actually a doodle done by Nick Cage while he was drunk

[51:41] that the producers thought was terrifying enough to put in the movie.

[51:44] Now, it seems like it could be a joke, but I put I put that in

[51:48] and I will not tell you if it's true or not.

[51:50] OK, but I often put in trivia for my movies and it's a little game

[51:54] I play where I like to see which things get picked up by the press.

[51:56] And then I'm like, oh, you got caged.

[51:59] That's another it's another cage classic is, for instance, in in Moonstruck.

[52:03] If you go to the IMDb entry in the trivia section, it just says Cage Rules

[52:07] with a Z at the end of the rule instead of a media to the media.

[52:12] Pick that one up.

[52:13] It was I think I think it was in.

[52:15] It was it was in Ukrainian People magazine.

[52:18] Ukrainian People magazine had a story does cage rules

[52:21] and they didn't really understand the grammar of it.

[52:23] But it got picked up by the wires, I guess.

[52:26] Anyway, I think I just saw a pig.

[52:28] So let me just tell you my other quick summer fun thing,

[52:31] which is load up on load up on noodles and load up on tickles.

[52:34] Yeah. Go wrong with either one.

[52:35] Oh, yeah. So I got it.

[52:36] And if you're going to go swimming, make sure to eat a big spaghetti dinner

[52:39] right before you do.

[52:40] That's Nick Cage with some summer fun safety tips.

[52:43] So it's wrong, but not.

[52:45] But anyway, yeah, I think that's my pig over.

[52:47] It's a pig might be a pig.

[52:48] Let me see. It might be some pig.

[52:50] It's a bit something on the web above.

[52:52] It says some pig. So it might be my pig.

[52:55] So I'll see you guys later.

[52:57] And and I have a goodbye click.

[52:59] So, OK, next we have next we have the memorial section.

[53:04] Elliott, you're back.

[53:05] You won't believe who was on the phone.

[53:07] I always I always seem to miss the exciting things.

[53:10] Who was on the phone?

[53:13] We'll tell you when you're older.

[53:15] When I'm older. OK, so it was sex.

[53:17] It was OK. That's not appropriate now.

[53:19] So we find out in this next section that Wiley was Jake's father,

[53:23] which seems unlikely.

[53:24] But OK, that's what a weird reveal.

[53:28] Like it bears has no bearing on anything else.

[53:31] But then we get a flashback of of a younger man with the same haircut.

[53:35] Yeah. Like it's got to be true.

[53:38] That yeah. Yeah.

[53:39] Because characters in movies, they don't change their hair or clothes.

[53:41] That's why old Han Solo wears the same vest as young Han Solo.

[53:44] And old Wiley has the same hair as young Wiley.

[53:47] We do get a flashback of a kid being taught jujitsu by Nicholas Cage's

[53:52] stunt double on a beach somewhere.

[53:54] Maybe it's in the desert.

[53:55] Anyway, the army translator shows up.

[53:57] I forgot. She's got the old Burmese couple.

[54:00] They give first aid to Nunchuck Lady who needed it.

[54:03] And the Burmese lady is like, Nunchuck Lady shouldn't move.

[54:06] The stitches need to heal.

[54:07] And the interpreter crab man is like, she says she's good to go,

[54:11] which never played.

[54:12] And so you're supposed to be like, oh, in the final fight,

[54:14] is she going to get hurt?

[54:15] No, she's fine.

[54:16] They use those great those insta stitches.

[54:18] Bragg shows up shooting blades everywhere.

[54:20] The interpreter runs off.

[54:21] This is when the old lady, as mentioned before, starts blasting at Bragg

[54:24] with a huge shotgun, and he heals.

[54:26] It's effective. It's pretty effective.

[54:29] I was like, anyway, we're just swords in the sky the whole time.

[54:32] She should have gone for headshots.

[54:33] Just aim for that Nicholas Cage doodle behind that glass.

[54:36] Right in the doodle.

[54:38] Now I feel like it's like if we want to use that Nick Cage doodle,

[54:40] but if we use it on screen the whole time, we got to pay him.

[54:43] So every now and then there'll just be dry ice fog inside that night

[54:46] just to cover it up.

[54:47] Next, it's the final section. Time to die.

[54:51] Braggs and Jake finally have their showdown in the old temple's

[54:54] Braggs Memorial Congregation room, the Braggs Community Center.

[54:58] And Braggs is right by the right by the big portal.

[55:01] Yes, it's not a portal now.

[55:03] It's it's just a stone circle thing.

[55:05] Stone circle, which will become a portal.

[55:06] Braggs really kicks Jake's ass for a while.

[55:09] He is by far the least effective fighter against Braggs up to this point.

[55:13] And it really does make you wonder why he is the chosen jujitsu

[55:15] that Braggs was like so was so into like Braggs is so thirsty to fight him.

[55:20] And he's just like rushing his way through all the other fights.

[55:23] And when he finally gets to it, he's got to be a disappointment.

[55:25] You got to imagine.

[55:26] Yeah, this is like a serious C-grade Scott Adkins type guy.

[55:30] Well, I was going to ask this lead, Stuart, have you seen him in other?

[55:34] No, I looked him up and it looks like his main credits are like

[55:38] our previous movies directed by the same director, like Kickboxer

[55:42] Revelations or something.

[55:44] Kickboxer Vengeance and Kickboxer Retaliation.

[55:47] Thank you. Oh, my mistake.

[55:49] And he's just like an asshole.

[55:51] Yeah. And you maybe recognize him as a.

[55:53] Oh, this is he's a he's a he's a multiple Flophouse appearance guy.

[55:56] He was a stuntman in Immortals, White House Down and and Suicide Squad.

[56:03] So this is actually an uncredited gladiator in Pompeii.

[56:08] Well, so he's so this is actually his sixth movie that the Flophouse is covering.

[56:11] That's amazing.

[56:13] Oh, wow. I didn't I had no idea until this moment that he was a Flophouse

[56:17] he was a multi guy.

[56:19] Yeah. And so, yeah, he's he's Flophouse royalty.

[56:23] It's right up there with that when we did that Nicholas Cage movie.

[56:26] Was that called Primal, the one where he's a hunter and there's that killer

[56:29] and the guy playing the killer, I think Primeval and the guy playing the killer

[56:32] that said that it was like the sixth Flophouse movie he had been in.

[56:34] So the dream is possible.

[56:37] Actors out there, you may never get an EGOT, but you may get the coveted Flop six.

[56:41] Yeah, that's when you've been in six Flophouse movies.

[56:43] We send you a ring in the shape of the number six.

[56:46] You cannot fit it on your finger because it's the ring part is very little

[56:50] or else you'd have like some like this huge thing sticking out of the side of it.

[56:54] You can't wear either way.

[56:55] Anyway, keep keep reaching.

[56:57] You get a congratulatory phone call from Gerard Butler.

[57:01] Yeah. The OG Flop six.

[57:03] Yeah, I'll be I've been where you are.

[57:04] And it's real exciting.

[57:05] Just don't don't don't don't lose sight of who you are.

[57:08] It's the worst thing I've ever done in my life.

[57:10] OK, anyway, so that's your Butler calling guys. OK.

[57:14] Is this this big fight's gone?

[57:15] Jake realizes or actually, I'm not sure if he realizes,

[57:18] but he kind of looks into the fact that if he stands behind a flaming brazier,

[57:22] that it messes with Brax's heat vision.

[57:25] And this is one of those things where how is this the first time

[57:27] they figured this out?

[57:29] I they to me, where I've until this point,

[57:32] I don't think a lot of thought has been put into how Brax works among his fighters.

[57:36] Yeah, the Brax rules just change wildly.

[57:39] Brax has a different set of weapons every fight.

[57:42] Like, yeah, there's there's there's you don't try and figure out Brax, man.

[57:46] He's an enigma.

[57:47] There's a reason there's a sitcom called Eight Simple Rules for Fighting My Brax.

[57:50] Right. Just because there are no rules.

[57:53] Yeah, it's because John Ritter passed away.

[57:55] Yeah, that's why he that's the main was an odd choice for Brax

[57:58] since he didn't have any particular martial arts.

[58:01] I mean, look, if John Ritter approaches you and you're an alien

[58:05] who only gets to be on Earth once every six years because of a comment and says,

[58:08] do you want to do a show with me?

[58:09] Because I want to be in the Brax business. You go with it.

[58:11] John Ritter. Come on. He's a legend.

[58:13] He's hilarious. Super nice guy.

[58:15] Everybody says a star of the hit movie. Stay tuned.

[58:18] You get you don't say no to John Ritter.

[58:19] So, of course, Brax is going to go with that.

[58:21] Of course, things didn't work out.

[58:22] But you can't blame Brax for that.

[58:25] This brings me to another issue I have with Brax,

[58:27] which is much like the Predator or Yul Brynner in Westworld.

[58:30] He is a super intense assassin master

[58:33] whose eyesight is worse than my eyesight.

[58:35] And I have bad eyesight.

[58:37] Like he only sees kind of like heat and the blurriest of forms.

[58:40] Makes you wonder how he's such a good fighter.

[58:42] Jordan, OK, let's say you're Brax.

[58:44] OK, you can't see very well.

[58:45] He has an extreme stigmatism.

[58:47] He can only or estigmatism, I should say.

[58:49] He can only see heat.

[58:51] How do you compensate for that and become such a great fighter?

[58:54] Oh, gosh. I mean, I guess you just you hone those other senses, right?

[58:57] I guess so. Maybe he studied with stick.

[58:59] That's what it is. Just like young Matt Murdoch did.

[59:01] Sure. Sure. Yeah.

[59:02] Maybe Brax has been hunting by smell this whole time.

[59:05] OK. Hunting by smell.

[59:07] The Brax story. Sure.

[59:09] Yeah, I think that begs the question.

[59:10] No, don't eat sardines around Brax.

[59:12] Yeah. I mean, these guys are all super ripped and they're working out all the time

[59:15] and and they're not they don't have like sleeves to contain their smell.

[59:18] So like it's got to be like Onion City in there.

[59:21] That's true. The pheromones are just leaking out of their armpits.

[59:23] I don't know if you've ever had Burmese food either, but it's a very pungent food.

[59:27] Probably. Yeah. Now I got to mention that hunting by smell sounds like

[59:31] Weird Al was trying to do a Guided by Voices parody and he just wasn't there.

[59:34] He just couldn't figure it out.

[59:35] He's like, is Guided by Voices popular enough to parody?

[59:38] So he has a long list of names and hunting by smell is one of them.

[59:41] And he's like, I don't usually parody like the name of the band.

[59:44] What am I doing? Sure. You know what?

[59:46] I'll just I'll just do something off of the bad guy.

[59:48] I'll be the sad guy. OK, great.

[59:50] And it's a whole it's a it's a it's a Billie Eilish parody.

[59:53] That's about the Steve Martin movie, The Lonely Guy.

[59:55] Great. OK, perfect. Done.

[59:57] Al, can I pitch the bad pie?

[1:00:00] Actually, that's a better one. Yeah, okay. I'll go with it. Yeah, the bad pie. I'll give you give you a strong story by

[1:00:10] Weird out talking them. That's true. The last one had a lot of weird out. Okay

[1:00:14] So anyway, they come up with a great plan to defeat Brock's with Brock's to defeat Brax

[1:00:18] Which is break all the rules the comets passing the portal opens. That's when Jake remembers Brax has to heal

[1:00:24] Sometimes he slides him with a sword nun Chuck's lady shoots him with explosive dart the interpreter tosses Jake grenade

[1:00:31] Which he sticks into Brax's wound before it can heal and then he kicks him into the portal just as the grenade explodes

[1:00:37] Oh, yeah, they're just in time. The portal closes

[1:00:39] Everyone is fine and the Burmese Fisherwoman

[1:00:42] She says Jake you were born to do that and end a 2,000 year epoch

[1:00:47] Which is a new idea that is just been introduced into the movie

[1:00:50] Yeah

[1:00:51] This is that this is the end of I guess some sort of era of cosmic and mystical

[1:00:56] well revelation, you know, I

[1:00:59] Yeah, it was hard to tell like is did the explosion in the portal?

[1:01:03] Was it supposed to be that that destroyed the portal because there certainly was a very big

[1:01:09] fireball for a grenade

[1:01:11] grenade not a typical grenade thing in general, but

[1:01:16] Who knows who knows yeah, I mean, I guess I guess we're living in what?

[1:01:20] What one a be after Brax? That's it. That's how we have to number everything

[1:01:25] I'm still writing. I'm still writing a D on my checks, but I need to be writing a a beyond terrible sitcom after Brax

[1:01:34] What happens on this?

[1:01:36] Well, I mean, it's just you know, they're peacefully living their lives

[1:01:40] Remembering Brax fondly, it's kind of most most sitcoms don't take place in a world

[1:01:45] We're a an alien has to fight jujitsu with everybody. So I guess take it up with the producers of after Brax

[1:01:51] I don't know. I guess so. It's in like in the Big Bang Theory or nurses or empty nest

[1:01:55] You don't suddenly have Brax show up and fight everybody. So, you know

[1:01:58] Okay, and and the interpreter starts I feel like of the three you mentioned

[1:02:03] Empty nest is the one that would that Brax would fit in the best

[1:02:06] You think so really that him and Richard Mulligan just be hanging out. Yeah, or would it be fighting a

[1:02:11] Little bit of both. I mean considering okay an old lady here jumps in with a shotgun to save everyone save the day empty nest

[1:02:18] He lives across the street from the Golden Girls. You could totally see

[1:02:22] Dorothy just jumping in with a shotgun and blasting Brax away making a joke about how much he reminds her of is that her ex-husband

[1:02:28] And then leaving. Yeah

[1:02:30] Yeah, I think we've all dated a Brax in our time, huh?

[1:02:33] Fellas, you guys know it up. We've all dated a couple of Brax

[1:02:38] Yeah unclear rules on how to kill them, yeah, they're like Brax enough mind games just tell me what you need, right?

[1:02:46] What are we Brax? What are we?

[1:02:48] Yeah, are you just chasing me around the force of shuriken?

[1:02:52] So you're chasing me with shurikens and then when I need you to come with me to my grandma's funeral

[1:02:57] You went through a portal to your home planet, right? You're unreliable Brax

[1:03:00] You should conveniently show up every time the Comets

[1:03:06] But when I when my biological clock is ticking you're nowhere to be found

[1:03:09] Maybe this is eight simple rules for dating black. Yeah, or after Brax, you know, it's good before Brax

[1:03:15] Anyway, so Elliot Elliot's always talking about his biological clock on this show Jordan

[1:03:20] It's getting to be a little uncomfortable considering that you already have multiple children

[1:03:24] I do but my clock is really ticking and my goal was to beat the Duggars and have

[1:03:29] 27 children and I started late

[1:03:31] So I really got a her if I don't have 10 children in the next two years and then seven the year after that

[1:03:36] I am NOT gonna meet my quota Stu Dan. What do you guys knock him up already?

[1:03:41] Jesus

[1:03:42] Stick a baby in there, please or 10 babies preferably. So they call me DECA mom

[1:03:49] Anyway, there's 10 babies

[1:03:50] So the interpreter toasts the portal as they all walk out and says see you in six years

[1:03:55] Like because clearly he did not understand what the Burmese fish woman was saying because she made it very clear Brax is not coming back

[1:04:02] She well, no, but there was like they were like, I think there was some debate like he was like

[1:04:07] so does that mean it's over and

[1:04:10] It's like who knows. I guess now it's

[1:04:14] performs watch over the world

[1:04:17] I don't know

[1:04:18] Hey, let's let's just do our final judgments whether this is a good bad movie a bad bad movie a movie

[1:04:24] We kind of liked

[1:04:26] For about the first half. I I will say it was a movie. I kind of liked I was like, oh, yeah, this is like

[1:04:33] the the cinematography rides a line between

[1:04:37] innovative and

[1:04:38] goofy as shit and

[1:04:41] some of the

[1:04:42] The fights are really fun. And then like I don't know like there came a point

[1:04:47] I'm like, how is there still 40 minutes in this movie?

[1:04:50] like it really felt like the movie was winding down and I just sort of

[1:04:53] Lost steam so but it is fun to watch like there's a lot of it. That's very silly and Nicolas Cage is fun and

[1:05:03] You know if you want to see a bunch of

[1:05:05] CGI like dust fly everywhere

[1:05:08] I guess I'll say good bad movie for me if you want to see CGI dust flying everywhere

[1:05:12] It's either this or the Golden Compass. There's only two options. Yeah, or old episodes of Buffy

[1:05:17] Yeah, yeah, sure. Sure

[1:05:19] I'm gonna say I think this movie would have achieved. I really like Nicolas Cage in it

[1:05:22] I feel like he brings a real verve to Wiley. Otherwise, I found it just very just very dull

[1:05:28] I think I would have to call it a bad bad movie. I think it would have found its best

[1:05:32] Life as probably like a 15-minute YouTube it movie and then I would have been like wow

[1:05:37] that was some amazing fight choreography for this 15-minute YouTube movie, but as a

[1:05:41] As a movie movie it didn't really hold my attention

[1:05:45] I maybe if there's more variety with the fights, maybe if Brax was a more charismatic villain

[1:05:51] Maybe if Jake had more to him, maybe if Tony job was the star

[1:05:55] I don't know. I can't tell you you don't live in those alternate universes, but didn't quite work for me

[1:06:00] So what do you say?

[1:06:03] Yeah, I mean

[1:06:05] So much of it is like a GoPro martial arts demo reel

[1:06:10] I

[1:06:11] Nicolas Cage does add some much-needed

[1:06:14] Charisma to the film

[1:06:16] and as somebody who consumes a fair amount of

[1:06:20] cheapo martial arts movies

[1:06:22] I found this one to be pretty disappointing. I would say

[1:06:26] It's like it straddles the line between a bad bad and a good bad and Nicolas Cage

[1:06:31] I think might edge it edge it into good bad territory

[1:06:35] Mmm, okay, and Jordan you're the you're the deciding vote. Yeah, I think I'm I'm I'm aligned with Stu on this one

[1:06:43] I have not seen as many of those kind of cheapy red box martial arts movies

[1:06:49] But I have seen a few of the Universal Soldier sequels

[1:06:52] Which I think are a better version of this kind of just like fights for fight's sake

[1:06:57] But they're very impressive and the you know leads have a little more charisma

[1:07:02] so I think if you're looking for kind of like

[1:07:05] You know just a fight soup to put on

[1:07:08] Those are probably better for that, but yeah, I think this has enough goofiness and you know

[1:07:15] It has that big cage performance. We all love I think there's better examples of this

[1:07:19] Certainly you got to drive angry. She got your mom's and dad's you got your Mandy's

[1:07:23] All of those kind of give you this flavor of cage, but in a movie, that's a little bit better

[1:07:30] But yeah, I don't know. I have I had fun with it. I had fun kind of watching it for the purpose of

[1:07:36] Goofing on it for this podcast

[1:07:38] so yeah

[1:07:38] I think I'll give it a

[1:07:40] Slight good bad and definitely it gets points for being kind of an easy stream on Netflix as opposed to something you have to

[1:07:45] Yeah, I read that so if you have Netflix you might as well watch it because it's there. Yeah, it is there

[1:07:54] Like you're still subscribing to us listen, you're giving us the 10 bucks

[1:07:59] Do you guys ever see when they release like the list of like the 10 most popular most watched movies on the list

[1:08:05] It's always these movies. I've not watched at all. They're all like a big action movies

[1:08:09] Yeah, except for like old guard, which is great. But all the other ones are like, what did Adam Sandler make?

[1:08:14] Yeah

[1:08:14] Well because a lot of that is also like people I think literally turn on Netflix and then just press play on whatever

[1:08:19] Netflix puts on display as like the ad on the main screen

[1:08:23] So when Netflix is like our algorithm pick looks at what you've watched and picks the perfect thing for you

[1:08:29] It's like really because it just always recommends whatever the big movie Netflix is pushing that week

[1:08:33] like I don't know there's nothing in my watch history that makes me think that the

[1:08:37] The what was it? The the crazy eight? What was the Western that he did the goofy? Oh, oh the ridiculous six

[1:08:45] Like a ridiculous seven, there's nothing in my watch history that makes me think I would want an Adam Sandler movie

[1:08:49] But you're recommending it to me. So I think it's a lot or at least

[1:08:52] Yeah, you're you you yearn for like an algorithm as tight and as personalized as your pornhub algorithm

[1:08:59] Just saying even I try one thing once and then it sends me more of that thing, you know

[1:09:04] And then of course, it's a lot of QA on stuff, which is exactly what I'm gonna what I'm looking for. So

[1:09:08] But it's QA on porn

[1:09:12] The where we come one we come all

[1:09:15] One thing I will say about the Netflix put the movie on the top and how it auto plays its trailer is

[1:09:21] The trailers are built to tell you everything that happens in the movie

[1:09:24] so there was that movie where there's an architectural dig like behind a house in England in the

[1:09:29] 1930s or something like that in the 1940s and

[1:09:32] And my wife was like, this is exactly the kind of movie

[1:09:35] I would want to watch and we watch the trailer for a few minutes and she's like

[1:09:37] I think I just saw the movie like they showed me all the plot points

[1:09:41] So Thank You Netflix for saving us that time and Thank You Netflix for bringing us

[1:09:45] jiu-jitsu

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[1:15:03] so uh hey sometimes people write us letters and then we answer them on the show and that's a

[1:15:09] segment that's i don't know called the flop house mailbag i guess you can tell dan loves

[1:15:14] it from the energy he's bringing to it hey this one's from kevin last name withheld

[1:15:22] hey do you guys know god's not dead

[1:15:26] follow me on twitter you'll like me more

[1:15:29] hey you guys are making fun of me earlier in the show

[1:15:33] i can take a joke i can take a joke just know that i'll snap your necks i've still got those

[1:15:37] hercules guns and those are that by that i mean the guns i bought while i was working in hercules

[1:15:45] uh-huh that i used to shoot the neemian lion uh hey floppers how would guns help with the

[1:15:50] neemian i guess if you shot him you shoot in the eyeballs oh in the eyeballs because it's

[1:15:54] the skin that's the that's super tough yeah well what you do is you first you you show

[1:15:59] them a picture of something very shocking and the neemian lion opens its eyes super wide

[1:16:03] and then you blast here's what you do you take the neemian lion to see red hot riding hood

[1:16:08] performing at the night right when he sees how sexy she is his eyes will burst out of his head

[1:16:12] and then he'll be so busy pounding the table as his tongue unravels that you can just take your

[1:16:16] time and destroying him works with the hydra too uh kevin writes hey floppers i know it's become

[1:16:26] a popular cliche to complain that hollywood doesn't have any original ideas anymore even

[1:16:31] though i think people have probably been saying that since the concept of hollywood became a thing

[1:16:36] but as try as that sounds i've been thinking lately about films that have potential to be good

[1:16:41] but suffer too much from their connection to their to the source material for example yeah pardon me

[1:16:47] for example i think i would have enjoyed the movie joker a lot more if it had been the story of

[1:16:52] a failed comedian dealing with a murderous trauma-induced mental illness and didn't have

[1:16:56] to carry the burden of the joker mythology or in a different vein i would have found the greatest

[1:17:02] showman more appealing as an ambitious musical about a fictional circus manager than a biopic

[1:17:08] about terrible human being pt barnum plus the creators could likely have made more interesting

[1:17:13] choices without them feeling out of place i'm curious do you all have movies that you wish had

[1:17:18] been disconnected from the larger stories that inspired them thanks for considering kevin last

[1:17:24] name withheld well i think i i think i've gone on record before on either this or other podcasts

[1:17:28] and saying how i think solo would have been a more enjoyable movie if it was not a star wars movie

[1:17:33] this almost the same movie but you take out chewbacca and you just change the character's

[1:17:38] names and then it wouldn't have all the pressure of being it's basically ice pirates then go for

[1:17:45] it okay sure why not that like to see a big budget like fun ice pirates yeah i'll go for it whereas

[1:17:51] when you're watching solo you're like okay i have to see this because of star wars because by law i

[1:17:57] have to see all the star wars content and oh this is they really need to explain to me why chewbacca's

[1:18:02] nickname is chewy or like why his last name is solo like i don't need that so i think i think

[1:18:07] it wouldn't have gotten made if it was not a star wars movie but i think it would have been a more

[1:18:11] enjoyable movie if it was not carrying that freight i i think i think you're you're totally

[1:18:16] right i put on solo the other day and i'm like this is kind of great the the callback stuff is

[1:18:20] really is is clunky certainly but like and you know kind of groany humor but like everything

[1:18:26] that's not that in that movie is a blast it's really fun yeah i feel like maybe solo's under

[1:18:32] a bus unfairly but that stuff is is pretty cringy so i understand how it uh kind of colored people's

[1:18:38] opinion at the movie and also the the whole when they when they free all those droids and the

[1:18:42] droids are like we hate work we hate work we're free right and you're like oh okay so like all

[1:18:47] the other characters are slave owners because like yeah sure without that scene then it doesn't

[1:18:52] the rest of the star wars series does not feel like the droids are are people who are basically

[1:18:57] against their will be being forced to do jobs you know so it's and all and you don't get um

[1:19:02] the implication that lando is like in love with a droid and but then keeps her alive beyond death

[1:19:08] and his in his spaceship which is weird like uh it does it if that if it oh so you never

[1:19:14] fucked a spaceship elliot oh okay god so judgy so fucking judgy well you're you're right i've

[1:19:19] done it many times and as stewart said my my porn porn hub algorithm is all spaceship scenes sure

[1:19:24] but uh but i think it's like i would i like that more as something that a new character that is

[1:19:29] weird does than billy dee williams who i'm supposed to think is cool if morally gray at

[1:19:35] times sure you know yeah what what about you guys now that i picked the easiest easiest one what do

[1:19:39] yeah i mean obviously i mean obviously mine's passion of the christ and yours

[1:19:46] if it was just about some dude just getting tortured and there was some wizard getting

[1:19:52] tortured uh geez i don't i mean i don't really like

[1:20:00] A lot of them are things like, yeah, I think it's more tethered to, I think it's clear

[1:20:08] that I don't have a good answer for this because I'm hemming and hawing and as Elliot points

[1:20:14] out frequently, I've had the letters much longer than anyone else.

[1:20:20] But this is not exactly appropriate but I remember watching, I watched for a podcast

[1:20:29] guest appearance recently, I re-watched The Secret of NIMH and this is not exactly the

[1:20:36] same thing but I think I could accept the weird like magic stuff that gets shoehorned

[1:20:42] into the movie better if I didn't know that the source material doesn't have it.

[1:20:47] Like it's such an unnecessary addition to the film that just isn't there because, you

[1:20:52] know, Don Bluth's like, this is an animated movie, it's got to have magic but it should

[1:20:56] just be a sci-fi story.

[1:20:58] In the book, Nicodemus doesn't have like a magic viewing lens that he can see things

[1:21:01] with and things like that.

[1:21:02] Yes, which also appears to be electrical so it's hard to say this is like weird magic

[1:21:08] hybrid thing that he's looking for.

[1:21:10] Love it.

[1:21:11] Yeah.

[1:21:12] Love it.

[1:21:13] No faults for me.

[1:21:14] It's a beautiful movie.

[1:21:15] I love it.

[1:21:16] I mean, Don Bluth is, and here's my hot take on Don Bluth, is that Don Bluth was a great

[1:21:21] animator, not necessarily a great storyteller.

[1:21:25] Like not a guy who really fully understood story, but his animation is, when he gets

[1:21:30] the budget that he needs, is beautiful.

[1:21:32] You know, there's a reason he felt comfortable leaving Disney and starting his own company,

[1:21:35] you know?

[1:21:36] You know what's fun to, more fun to watch on YouTube is a playthrough of Dragon's Lair.

[1:21:42] Sure.

[1:21:43] And Dragon's Lair 2.

[1:21:44] Those, I mean, cold take, those games fucking suck and we're frustrating and we're just

[1:21:48] like quarter sucks in the arcade, but like, yeah.

[1:21:53] They're gorgeous.

[1:21:55] They're great.

[1:21:56] They're great.

[1:21:58] Yeah.

[1:21:59] Put on fucking Dragon's Lair on YouTube and just like, enjoy some visuals.

[1:22:00] Mm-hmm.

[1:22:01] Mm-hmm.

[1:22:02] Mm-hmm.

[1:22:03] And maybe like an upsettingly scantily clad princess that maybe shouldn't have been so

[1:22:07] scantily clad considering it was a game for kids.

[1:22:10] But you know-

[1:22:11] Hey, look, I-

[1:22:12] But if a kid gets that fucking far in the game, that kid's a grown up.

[1:22:15] Let him see some cleavage, God damn it.

[1:22:18] He put in 18 bucks.

[1:22:20] Don Bluth was like, no kid's ever going to get this far.

[1:22:22] Don't worry about it.

[1:22:24] Yeah.

[1:22:25] That's the dude from a certain point on.

[1:22:26] Yeah.

[1:22:27] The knight's not wearing clothes, you know.

[1:22:28] Gotta learn about princesses somewhere.

[1:22:29] Hey, this is-

[1:22:30] Yeah, Return of the Jedi, Dan.

[1:22:31] That's the place to learn about princesses not wearing enough clothes.

[1:22:34] Return of the Jedi.

[1:22:35] This is from a listener named Kelly, who writes-

[1:22:40] Kelly Ripa.

[1:22:41] Hey, peaches.

[1:22:42] Kapowski.

[1:22:43] Inspired by your prequel mini-

[1:22:44] Kelly Ripa Kapowski.

[1:22:45] Ripa was her maiden name and Kapowski is her married name.

[1:22:49] Inspired by your prequel mini and a recent Indiana Jones binge, I'm thinking about the

[1:22:54] unnecessary explanation of character traits that happens in prequels.

[1:22:58] Specific to Andy, I feel like having a snake phobia with no actual qualifying event makes

[1:23:03] sense.

[1:23:04] I'm terrified of spiders and have never had an actual scary or bad encounter with one,

[1:23:09] as an example.

[1:23:10] It is also-

[1:23:11] What?

[1:23:12] He also could have just seen a hat and a leather jacket in a store and been like, that would

[1:23:14] look cool on me, and bought them.

[1:23:17] So my question for the letter, what aspect of your personality would you like to- would

[1:23:22] have an unnecessary prequel explanation?

[1:23:26] Not to do Elliot's work for him, but like, I don't see the need for a prequel scene establishing

[1:23:30] why he loves Popeyes, but that works as an example for me.

[1:23:34] Say my name, Kelly.

[1:23:36] Mm-hmm.

[1:23:37] I think, I think, I think I would love to see an explanation as to why I have my famous

[1:23:46] eczema.

[1:23:47] Famous.

[1:23:48] Yeah, I'm very famous for my eczema.

[1:23:50] Your trademark eczema, yeah.

[1:23:52] And I don't know, how did it happen?

[1:23:54] Did I, did I get into an accident at a dry skin factory when I was a kid?

[1:23:59] But you can't say it hasn't worked out for you.

[1:24:01] I mean, all those ads you do for the egg council where it says, can't spell eczema without

[1:24:04] eggs and you're holding an egg and your skin is all blotchy and everything.

[1:24:07] Oh, I've made millions on that.

[1:24:11] It's put the kids you don't have through college.

[1:24:13] Yeah, if you're looking for like a classic unnecessary one, then I think you can't do

[1:24:18] better than like being like, let's explain why Dan likes butts.

[1:24:21] I mean, he is, he is a heterosexual man who is attracted to a secondary sex characteristic

[1:24:29] that many other heterosexual men are attracted to.

[1:24:34] Women's butts.

[1:24:35] I mean, men's butts also, fine, a fine choice.

[1:24:40] Maybe like when you were a kid, a butt pulled you out of a raging river.

[1:24:44] I was going to say, save you from drowning.

[1:24:48] Or from a fire.

[1:24:49] It gave him mouth to butt resuscitation.

[1:24:51] And so now I see it all because it's Dan's eye view, it's all, it's black, but then it's

[1:24:55] all blurry and, and slowly the butt comes into focus and Dan is just like, what, what?

[1:25:01] Huh?

[1:25:02] But then the butt, there's a, there's a dog barking because the butt is running from the

[1:25:06] federal marshals and the butt says, got to go and runs away.

[1:25:10] And Dan's just like, what was that?

[1:25:11] Did I dream it?

[1:25:12] And the federal marshals...

[1:25:13] We are getting into Ace Ventura territory here, folks.

[1:25:14] I guess you're right.

[1:25:15] The federal marshals stop, they go, kid, did it hurt you?

[1:25:19] Did it hurt you?

[1:25:20] And you go, no, it saved my life.

[1:25:21] What was it?

[1:25:22] And they go, it was a butt.

[1:25:23] And he goes, really?

[1:25:24] Take me home, Officer Mix-a-Lot.

[1:25:27] Yeah, obviously for me, it would be my award-winning dimples and like, maybe like, uh, like somebody

[1:25:35] like...

[1:25:36] I forgot when you swept the dimpies there.

[1:25:39] Yeah.

[1:25:40] And, uh, yeah, like some, like when I was born, a doctor, like, like poked me with calipers

[1:25:45] or something to measure the circumference of my head.

[1:25:48] And then a doctor was eating at the, at the same time as delivering you and accidentally

[1:25:51] picked you up with chopsticks and left a dimple.

[1:25:53] Yeah.

[1:25:54] That makes a lot of sense, actually.

[1:25:55] Yeah.

[1:25:56] Good stuff.

[1:25:57] Yeah.

[1:25:58] I think for me, it would probably be my height.

[1:26:00] Uh, maybe there was like, like Puck from Alpha Flight, maybe I was a normal size human who

[1:26:04] some kind of magical curse was put on me that made me less than average height.

[1:26:08] I think that could be it.

[1:26:09] Yeah.

[1:26:10] Uh-huh.

[1:26:11] I like this magical realist take on the Flophouse podcast.

[1:26:15] Get, get, get Marquez on the phone.

[1:26:19] He can finally write that Flophouse novel he's been begging us for all this time.

[1:26:22] Yeah.

[1:26:23] Finally.

[1:26:24] Thank you.

[1:26:25] Um, hey, let's move on to recommendations of movies that you probably should watch instead

[1:26:32] of this.

[1:26:33] Mr. Jiu-Jitsu.

[1:26:34] You know, put it on instead.

[1:26:37] Um.

[1:26:38] Dan's just pulling up the old letter box.

[1:26:40] I am.

[1:26:41] Shut up.

[1:26:42] Dan, do you want one of us, do you want one of us to do it while you're looking at your

[1:26:47] list?

[1:26:48] Sure.

[1:26:49] Stuart, why don't you go?

[1:26:50] Yeah.

[1:26:51] I'm going to recommend another thing you can watch on Netflix.

[1:26:52] I'm actually going to recommend three things you can watch on Netflix.

[1:26:55] I'm going to recommend the Fear Street Trilogy that just went up there.

[1:26:58] It's three horror movies, uh, based on a series of books by Mr. R. L. Stein, Reginald

[1:27:04] Lincoln Stein.

[1:27:05] Uh, they are kind of like slashery movies and there's some supernatural elements and

[1:27:13] they have a ton of fucking needle drops.

[1:27:15] Uh, so if you want to hear music from, uh, 1994 and the seventies, you are going to get

[1:27:21] a ton of those, but I found them to be a lot of fun.

[1:27:24] Uh, they, it was probably the most like fun I've had with a kind of a, a take on slasher,

[1:27:31] uh, slasher films in like a super long time.

[1:27:34] It doesn't feel like beholden to some like the grosser conventions of slasher movies.

[1:27:38] The most fun you've had since the hit comic book series, Maniac of New York with Miley

[1:27:43] Kaelin.

[1:27:44] Yeah.

[1:27:45] Which obviously Maniac of New York buttered me up and got me excited about slasher stuff

[1:27:50] again.

[1:27:51] Um, and like Maniac of New York, it, uh, it is much, it's more fun than just the slasher

[1:27:59] stuff that it is, uh, you know, it is referencing.

[1:28:02] It's great.

[1:28:03] It's a lot of fun.

[1:28:04] And it's also super gory.

[1:28:05] I mean, this chick, oh man, there's a bread slicer part.

[1:28:08] It's so fucking gross.

[1:28:09] It's awesome.

[1:28:10] Thumbs up.

[1:28:11] Uh, wait, does the thumb get cut off?

[1:28:13] No, I'm not spoiling it.

[1:28:14] I just already said bread slicer part.

[1:28:16] Yeah.

[1:28:17] Don't spoil it.

[1:28:18] It does.

[1:28:19] Yeah.

[1:28:20] It sounds horrifying already.

[1:28:22] I wasn't going to recommend, uh, what I was thinking about recommending, uh, because we

[1:28:26] went out and we saw the movie together.

[1:28:28] We had a, we had a movie date, we went to the film forum and we saw Blue Collar, the

[1:28:34] film from, uh, 1978 directed by and written by Paul Schrader.

[1:28:39] Yeah.

[1:28:40] Director of heartbeats, right?

[1:28:41] Yep.

[1:28:42] Yep.

[1:28:43] Fame.

[1:28:44] He went right off of that to heartbeats.

[1:28:46] Andy Kaufman saw Blue Collar and said, get me that man.

[1:28:51] He's making my robot love comedy.

[1:28:54] But uh, a terrific cast.

[1:28:57] You got, um, you got Yafit Koto, you got Harvey Keitel, you got Richard Pryor, probably I

[1:29:03] would say the best performance from Richard Pryor we got to have.

[1:29:08] Like he's so good in this that you sort of wish that other people had used him as well,

[1:29:14] but he was, uh, unfortunately kind of ill served in a lot of his movies.

[1:29:18] But, uh, and I learned two things that Richard Pryor without a mustache looks a little weird

[1:29:22] and Harvey Keitel was fucking ripped dude.

[1:29:25] And he wears these, like all the clothes in the movie are amazing, but he wears this fucking

[1:29:29] Big Mac t-shirt that like I would kill for.

[1:29:33] Yeah.

[1:29:34] Um, yeah, it is a movie that is a polemic basically about how, um, you know, capitalism

[1:29:43] screws the worker, but yeah, for, for all that, it's a real period piece.

[1:29:49] It's no longer relevant to nine to five like that, but for all that it is like for, uh,

[1:29:55] being so overtly, um, political and having such a.

[1:30:00] Like clear moral that's basically literally stated at the end of the movie.

[1:30:04] It is also very suspenseful and very funny and very full of life.

[1:30:09] So, uh, blue collar is, is great.

[1:30:11] Look, that was a great movie.

[1:30:13] Even though I was just thinking about the other day, because there's a scene where

[1:30:16] Harvey could tell is going to bed and he's like, Oh, I've got to go check

[1:30:19] something at work and he leaves and has an all night party with Yafit Koto and

[1:30:23] Richard Pryor that doesn't want his wife to know about, and then he goes home in

[1:30:25] the morning and I, and I just think about it being like, He must be so exhausted.

[1:30:30] The whole next day, he got no sleep at all.

[1:30:33] And now he's going to go work in a, like a factory, like a car factory.

[1:30:37] Cocaine, two coffees.

[1:30:39] Yeah.

[1:30:39] He's going to have so much coffee.

[1:30:41] How much soda is he going to drink?

[1:30:42] But anyway, it just, it was one thing where I was like, only in the movies.

[1:30:45] Cause the idea of going without the few hours of sleep I get would be just for

[1:30:48] the purpose of having a, a, an orgy with my friends would be, I'm sorry.

[1:30:52] I'm going to say, no, I need the sleep.

[1:30:54] Yeah.

[1:30:55] Like Elliot in his twenties, he would say yes to the orgy.

[1:30:57] It sounds like, I guess it's just us.

[1:31:00] It'll just be us doing some mouth to butt resuscitation.

[1:31:03] Well, tell me about it.

[1:31:04] I guess.

[1:31:04] Uh, I wanted to recommend a movie that, uh, shares a name with a Nicholas Cage

[1:31:09] movie since this is Cage's in July, but it is not a Nicholas Cage movie.

[1:31:12] That's right.

[1:31:13] Season of the witch, not the Nicholas Cage one that we did on the flop house years ago.

[1:31:17] Uh, this is season of which, uh, also known, uh, in some places under the title

[1:31:22] hungry wives, uh, not to be confused with hungry eyes, the song.

[1:31:25] Uh, and this is a George Romero movie from 1973.

[1:31:29] Uh, for a second, I thought you had gotten to see an early screening of snake

[1:31:32] eyes, which is also a movie, um, the it's cause you know, I love those GI Joe spinoffs.

[1:31:41] Um, so, uh, some season, the witch is it's a George Romero movie and it's

[1:31:46] a ostensibly a horror movie, but the horror in it is more about the suffocating

[1:31:52] lack of satisfaction that comes with being a housewife in the 1970s.

[1:31:56] Uh, this woman who has a teenage daughter and a husband who does not pay attention

[1:31:59] to her, she finds that her life has become kind of empty and meaningless.

[1:32:03] And she's having nightmares and eventually finds herself in dabbling

[1:32:09] in witchcraft and becoming a witch, joining a local coven.

[1:32:13] And I thought it was really great.

[1:32:14] The, the horror stuff really takes a backseat, but it still has this feeling

[1:32:20] of kind of like dread and ominous, uh, tension to it, uh, not all the acting

[1:32:25] is amazing, that's fine, but the movie was kind of like, I started thinking

[1:32:30] about it almost as a prequel to hereditary, like this is the story of

[1:32:33] the mom who has died before hereditary starts and like how a woman like that.

[1:32:38] Gets into witchcraft because she needs it in her life, you know, basically.

[1:32:42] And so, uh, I really enjoyed it and it's called season of the witch, but it's

[1:32:47] again, not the one with Nicholas Cage.

[1:32:49] It's the one from the seventies.

[1:32:51] With Jan White.

[1:32:51] Jordan?

[1:32:52] Uh, yeah.

[1:32:53] So I saw a movie called, uh, let him go.

[1:32:57] This is Diane Lane and Kevin Costner.

[1:32:59] Uh, this was released last year.

[1:33:02] It was kind of one of those, uh, COVID dumps to streaming.

[1:33:06] Um, so it kind of got lost in the shuffle.

[1:33:09] Uh, it is now on HBO.

[1:33:11] Uh, it is terrific.

[1:33:13] Uh, one of, one of the best, uh, kind of recent movies I've seen in a long time.

[1:33:17] It starts out, it is a, um, it is the story of a husband and wife who this

[1:33:24] is kind of happens in the first couple of minutes of the movie, they experience

[1:33:26] a loss and the first half of the movie is like them dealing with the loss.

[1:33:31] It is very like, you know, high drama.

[1:33:35] It is not genre.

[1:33:36] It is just like, it plays like a movie that would win an Oscar in 1996.

[1:33:40] Like it is just like a sad older couple dealing with mortality.

[1:33:44] And then it turns into the classiest fucking taken movie you've ever seen.

[1:33:49] Like it just pivots into being a thriller and it is so tense and so terrifying.

[1:33:56] And then it has this very like action packed, you know, the kind of final,

[1:34:03] you know, final act, uh, and it kind of like gets campy in a way, like it

[1:34:08] gets campy in this really fun way.

[1:34:10] So you kind of start out, you know, in this world of very like straight

[1:34:15] laced drama and it just takes you on a ride and it has a bunch of cool stuff.

[1:34:19] I won't spoil too much of it.

[1:34:21] I think it's, it's maybe best to go in, uh, kind of cold, but just know that

[1:34:25] you're on in for a real genre ride.

[1:34:28] And, uh, yeah, it's terrific.

[1:34:29] I really loved it.

[1:34:30] It's called Let Him Go and, uh, you can watch it on the HBO.

[1:34:34] Let Him Go on HBO.

[1:34:35] Yeah.

[1:34:35] I remember I had forgotten about that movie.

[1:34:37] I haven't seen it, but I remember hearing that it was good

[1:34:39] when it, when it came out originally.

[1:34:40] Yeah.

[1:34:40] I'd like to watch that.

[1:34:42] So thanks for inviting me to watch it with you.

[1:34:45] Oh, I'm sorry, Elliot.

[1:34:46] Do you want to come over tonight?

[1:34:47] I'm watching Bloodshot.

[1:34:48] I'm doing the, I'm doing the dumpster streaming movies of 2020.

[1:34:52] Maybe not that one.

[1:34:54] All right.

[1:34:54] I'll call you for Trolls World Tour.

[1:34:58] Uh, Jordan, thanks.

[1:34:59] Oh yeah, Dan.

[1:35:00] Oh, I just, Trolls World Tour.

[1:35:03] Wonderful to watch Stone, first of all.

[1:35:05] Number two, Let Him Go.

[1:35:07] Uh, I've definitely like scrolled by it and thought maybe, and now

[1:35:11] you've pushed that over to a yes, but also I was going to thank you

[1:35:16] as Elliot was about to thank you.

[1:35:18] But I also wanted to like, I know you're here in part to promote Bubble

[1:35:21] and I want to tell you the fuller version of the story that I told you over text.

[1:35:25] I was like, I'll save this.

[1:35:26] Cause, uh, this is good, good podcast and content.

[1:35:29] Okay.

[1:35:29] We're all warmed up, Dan.

[1:35:31] Um, no, I, so I recently went back.

[1:35:34] A new segment of the show called Dan's continues a

[1:35:37] personal conversation on air.

[1:35:39] Oh, I thought you were going to tell the story of that, uh, Wikipedia

[1:35:43] chunk you sent us where it's a top sizes this movie and says that

[1:35:46] the hero fights with his limbs.

[1:35:50] Yeah.

[1:35:50] Read the whole Wikipedia summary for Jitsu is written, uh, in a wild fashion,

[1:35:56] but no, I was going to say that, um, I know you're here in part to promote,

[1:36:00] uh, bubble your, uh, graphic novel that you wrote.

[1:36:04] Uh, but I based on the hit max fun podcast of the same name, listen to it

[1:36:10] and wherever you get your podcast and also buy bubble in bookstores now.

[1:36:13] Yes, exactly.

[1:36:14] And also maniac of New York while you're at the bookstore, why not take a look at,

[1:36:20] let me read some blurbs.

[1:36:21] Hold on a second.

[1:36:22] Uh, no bubble bubble.

[1:36:26] Yeah.

[1:36:27] When you're done at the bookstore, go to maybe hinterlands

[1:36:29] bar or minis bar, you know,

[1:36:33] head over there.

[1:36:34] Yeah.

[1:36:34] Uh, but bubble, I was a big fan of the podcast.

[1:36:37] I have not read the graphic novel yet, but I'm really excited to do so.

[1:36:40] Um, yeah, everyone should go pick it up.

[1:36:42] Yeah.

[1:36:43] Don't just pick it up, take it to the register, hand the money for it

[1:36:46] and then take it home with you.

[1:36:47] But make sure it's enough money to cover the cost of the book.

[1:36:50] Don't just hand, hand them two or $3.

[1:36:52] Or like monopoly money.

[1:36:54] They're not going to accept that.

[1:36:55] And if you give them a hundred, get your change.

[1:36:58] That's make sure, make sure to get the extra back guys, open the door or you

[1:37:03] won't be able to leave the bookstore.

[1:37:05] Listen, I'll say, listen, I want to Dan do the anecdote and then I'll say

[1:37:09] the premise of the book and then we can do whatever else you do on the pod.

[1:37:13] Yeah.

[1:37:13] No, Dan, I wish Dan hosted the tonight show.

[1:37:15] So he'd be like, so you're here to promote this movie.

[1:37:18] I want you to tell me the premise of the movie, but first you remember, I was

[1:37:20] going to tell you about this thing.

[1:37:21] I saw this is I did.

[1:37:23] I like, I did invite, I did not invite the premise.

[1:37:26] I mean, I had a very like, anyway, the anecdote, I will, this is fun.

[1:37:30] It's a personal way in for people.

[1:37:32] Anyway, burning a hole in my mouth is, uh, what was that dantic dote?

[1:37:37] No, I, I, I went home, uh, recently to central Illinois to visit my parents.

[1:37:43] Um, and I had taken Jordan's, uh, book with me, uh, in the hopes that I would,

[1:37:51] you know, like that might be a little plain reading.

[1:37:53] Um, and, uh, and I was flying back home from the Bloomington normal airport,

[1:37:59] which is a very tiny regional airport.

[1:38:02] And my bag got selected, but for randoms, uh, screening, perhaps because of the.

[1:38:08] CPAP tube in my luggage, maybe the, uh, coin collection from my

[1:38:14] grandfather that was being sent home.

[1:38:16] I don't know what it was, but, um, in the course of this random screen,

[1:38:21] another coin bomb, take him out of here.

[1:38:24] The TSA agent pulled out bubble was thumbing through it and said, Oh, I

[1:38:29] didn't, I didn't know they did a, a graphic novel of this.

[1:38:33] I loved this podcast.

[1:38:35] And Audrey said, Oh, that's our friend wrote that.

[1:38:38] And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:38:39] I'm a, I'm a max fun subscriber.

[1:38:41] I listened to a lot of shows.

[1:38:42] I listened to adventure zone, uh, bim bam too.

[1:38:46] I'm like, and Audrey's like, yeah, we know those guys too.

[1:38:49] And the guy goes, okay, well, here you go.

[1:38:53] And Audrey's like, you listen to all the important shows on the network, all the

[1:38:58] best shows you don't need to listen to anything else.

[1:39:01] So, but anyway.

[1:39:03] Yeah.

[1:39:03] I think the lesson here is that, uh, bubble, the new graphic novel available

[1:39:06] now is a great way to, uh, you know, smuggle heroin through the airport

[1:39:10] because the TSA agent will be so busy looking at the beautiful art by Tony

[1:39:15] Cliff, the wonderful colors by Natalie Reese.

[1:39:18] They won't notice.

[1:39:20] As, as you gesture and the drug mules that you have, not even swallowing

[1:39:24] the, the balloons full of heroin, but just holding them, tossing them to

[1:39:29] each other, like footballs as they pass by, because TSA is too busy

[1:39:32] flipping through this beautiful book.

[1:39:33] Yeah.

[1:39:34] And you just wrap those heroin bricks up in flop house t-shirts and they're

[1:39:38] basically invisible to the TSA.

[1:39:40] The TSA is like, no thank you, not familiar.

[1:39:44] Yeah.

[1:39:44] So bubble, uh, I should say I co-wrote the graphic novel with a great

[1:39:48] comedy writer named Sarah Morgan.

[1:39:50] She worked on the podcast.

[1:39:51] Um, it is a sci-fi comedy.

[1:39:53] It is set in kind of a near future where everybody lives in kind of a domed city.

[1:39:58] Would you call it a bubble?

[1:40:00] would, Elliot. Yes. It's a listen, there's some, some less

[1:40:04] than subtle symbolism in the book. It has some obvious satire

[1:40:09] that we think everyone will enjoy. The characters kind of

[1:40:12] work as part of this life or death gig economy where they

[1:40:16] have to slaughter monsters using this uber like app. There's a

[1:40:20] lot of sex jokes, a lot of gore, a lot of monsters, a lot of

[1:40:23] friendship. And yeah, I think people will like it. If you if

[1:40:27] you heard the podcast, hopefully there's enough kind of

[1:40:29] new stuff and changes to keep you interested. Of course, I

[1:40:33] mentioned that beautiful art by Tony Cliff and those beautiful

[1:40:35] colors by Natalie Reese. But also, if you've never heard the

[1:40:38] podcast, it's it's not necessary. There's no, you know,

[1:40:43] no, no, no information required to enjoy bubble. But also, if

[1:40:47] you're a max fun fan, there might be some fun little cameos

[1:40:50] in there.

[1:40:51] Let's just say this is not a Southland Tales style

[1:40:54] multimedia saga. You need to listen to podcasts and read the

[1:40:57] understand it. This couldn't be more different than the

[1:40:59] brilliant film Southland Tales. No, no, no required other media

[1:41:05] to ingest bubble. It's out there. I think it's fun to talk

[1:41:09] to the to the flop house about this particularly because I can

[1:41:12] take a wild guess and assume that flop house listeners have a

[1:41:15] relationship with their local comic book store and or indie

[1:41:18] bookstore, which is a great place to get it. You can get it

[1:41:20] anywhere. But those are better places to get it.

[1:41:25] Sounds great. Well, I can't wait to get to pick up my own copy.

[1:41:28] I apologize. I'm picking up it. It just came out. It just came

[1:41:30] out. Let's it's been out for a couple weeks.

[1:41:35] I did go to a bookstore and they said we got bubble in and I said

[1:41:41] Where's that Kevin Sorbo collection of tweets?

[1:41:45] The bound collection of Kevin Sorbo tweet.

[1:41:48] And I want the leather bound edition.

[1:41:49] You gotta get the leather bound.

[1:41:51] I want it to last. This is something I'll be handing down

[1:41:53] to my children.

[1:41:54] Yeah, that's gonna be his Zola. They're going to adapt his

[1:41:56] tweets.

[1:41:59] Oh, well, anyway, thank you so much, as always for dropping by.

[1:42:05] Yeah, pleasure. Thanks, everybody.

[1:42:08] Thank you to our editor, Alex Smith, for doing fine work for

[1:42:13] us making us sound good and producing the show and thank you

[1:42:18] to Maximum Fun, our network. Go over to MaximumFun.org for more

[1:42:22] podcasts, like bubble. Why don't you listen to that one?

[1:42:27] You jerk.

[1:42:30] Hard sell. Very hard sell. You're being very hard on

[1:42:33] listener. Yeah.

[1:42:33] Yeah. For the Flophouse. I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:42:37] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:42:38] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:42:40] Hey, I'm Jordan Morris. And I had a great time being here.

[1:42:44] Praise Brax.

[1:42:45] Do you guys have something for this?

[1:42:54] I do. I do. Okay, it's not much.

[1:42:57] On this episode, we discuss jujitsu from the visionary

[1:43:02] director who's also the producer of Hard Bodies 2.

[1:43:08] Wow.

[1:43:09] It's actually accurate.

[1:43:10] That goes deep. Wow.

[1:43:15] MaximumFun.org, comedy and culture, artists owned, audience

[1:43:20] supported.

Ep. #348 - Jiu Jitsu, with Jordan Morris

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