Ep. #345 - Chaos Walking

Stuart Wellington

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Chaos Walking.

[0:03] And joining us is a special guest, Mr. Chaos Walking himself, Christopher Walken.

[0:08] How are you doing, Christopher?

[0:09] Having a great time, Stuart.

[0:15] So is he a robot?

[0:30] Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[0:46] I'm Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[0:47] Oh, hey there, Dan.

[0:48] It's me, Stuart Wellington, back again.

Elliott Kalan

[0:51] And also back again.

[0:52] I don't know why Stuart got to the back again credit, but I'm also back again.

[0:56] And so is Dan.

[0:56] It's Elliot Kalin, me.

[0:58] We're all back again.

[0:59] That's right.

Dan McCoy

[0:59] Yeah, we all saw the recording listed on our calendars, and we clicked the link for the

[1:05] Zoom meeting, and we're back again.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07] So now we're back again.

[1:08] Detective Muldoon back again.

[1:10] Uh-oh.

[1:10] We were trying to get out of the detective job, but we got pulled back in for one last case.

[1:17] Back again is back again in back again.

Dan McCoy

[1:21] This fall on NBC, every episode, he's back again.

[1:26] He keeps trying to quit.

[1:28] He keeps trying to quit, but they won't let him.

[1:30] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31] Sorry, Nathan Fillion is back again.

[1:33] Oh, man.

[1:34] But it's the three of us in a trench coat with a Nathan Fillion mask on top.

[1:38] Yeah.

[1:38] Nathan Fillion.

[1:38] Yeah, we're Nathan Fillion, which is the substitute Nathan Fillion.

Dan McCoy

[1:44] Well, we haven't missed a beat.

[1:46] Okay.

[1:47] Well, this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and we talk about it.

[1:52] And for this episode, we all watched a film that...

[1:55] Did this get released to theaters or was this only put on...

Elliott Kalan

[1:59] It was, I believe, released in theaters, but let me double check that.

[2:03] I have a friend named Pedia, Wikipedia, and let's take a look what he says about it.

Dan McCoy

[2:08] Yeah.

[2:08] This is one of those ones that was meant to be a much bigger release, though.

Elliott Kalan

[2:12] It was released on March 5th, 2021 in the United States and previously on February 24th in South Korea.

[2:19] Okay.

[2:19] It was previously scheduled to be released in 2019, but was delayed to accommodate reshoots.

[2:24] That was a bad idea because then they scheduled it during the pandemic and it was delayed yet again.

[2:30] But it's back again.

Stuart Wellington

[2:31] Well, they were doing reshoots for like two or three years, right?

[2:34] I think they started reshooting it back in like 2017.

Elliott Kalan

[2:37] They actually began reshoots before they began shoots.

[2:39] That was the troubled production of the movie.

[2:41] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[2:42] Well, I mean, this has been through a lot of...

[2:44] I mean, let's just talk about it.

[2:45] This movie's called Chaos Walking.

[2:47] Chaos Walking.

[2:49] Yeah, there's been...

[2:51] So, Charlie Kaufman wrote the original screenplay for this a long time ago.

[2:57] I presume that much of that has been, or most of it, if not all, has been thrown out because he does not receive any guild credit for it.

Elliott Kalan

[3:07] It's originally based on a young adult novel.

[3:11] Yeah, it was published back in 2008.

[3:13] Yeah.

[3:14] And then he, it looks like, yeah, he probably adapted it first and then little enough is used of that that he receives no on-screen credit.

Stuart Wellington

[3:21] Since it was published back in 2008, do you think that like the publisher's like, well, there's this hot new bad movie podcast called The Flophouse out there.

[3:29] Maybe if this does well, we can make a movie.

[3:32] Someday.

Elliott Kalan

[3:33] Someday.

[3:33] And with every delay, they kept being like, we just got to hope they keep doing the podcast.

[3:37] We got to hope against hope these three knuckleheads continue for over a decade to keep doing this podcast.

Dan McCoy

[3:43] Nothing better to do.

[3:44] Nothing, apparently.

[3:46] But Doug Liman is the director, but the reshoots, I believe, were done by also Fede Alvarez, who did the Evil Dead remake and Don't Breathe.

[3:57] And, you know, Doug Liman, obviously, of Bourne Identity, Swingers Go, Edge of Tomorrow.

[4:03] You got big stars in this like Daisy Ridley, Tom Holland, Mads Mikkelsen.

[4:08] We're mad about Mads.

[4:09] A lot of talent was thrown at this film.

[4:11] I can't believe you mentioned Mads third.

[4:12] At this film.

[4:14] Well, I mean, he is, I would say, the third lead villain.

[4:17] He's the lead villain, though.

Stuart Wellington

[4:18] And David Oyewoo, who like is an Oscar nominee.

[4:23] Did he win?

[4:23] Did he win for Selma?

[4:24] He did not win, I don't think.

Elliott Kalan

[4:26] For Selma, you mean?

[4:27] I think he did not win that year.

[4:28] But this is a movie that has a...

Stuart Wellington

[4:30] And Cynthia Erivo, like it's crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[4:32] Yeah.

[4:33] Yeah, that's true.

[4:34] Although her part is very small.

[4:35] A cavalcade of talent.

[4:36] Now, there's a lot of talented people.

[4:38] It's got a great pedigree.

[4:40] And yet, something doesn't quite work.

[4:44] Is this movie chaos walking?

[4:46] Or is it merely chaos boring?

[4:48] That's a question we'll answer today on The Flophouse.

[4:51] But first, a word from Colgate.

Stuart Wellington

[4:53] You want to take another pass at that one, Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[4:55] Oh, okay.

[4:56] Is this chaos walking going to get a chaos drubbing from The Flophouse Boys?

[5:01] First, a word from Syrup.

[5:03] Hey, what are you putting on your pancakes?

[5:05] Not syrup?

[5:06] What's going on with you?

[5:07] Put syrup on those pancakes.

[5:08] That is a huge new sponsor we got.

Dan McCoy

[5:10] The whole, like, just like the idea of syrup.

Elliott Kalan

[5:13] Yeah, yeah.

[5:13] It's for the National Syrup Council.

[5:14] Unfortunately, the nation that it's the Syrup Council of is North Korea.

[5:17] So, hey, North Koreans.

[5:18] What are you putting on your pancakes?

[5:19] You don't have any pancakes?

[5:20] That's terrible.

[5:21] What a tasteless joke for me to make.

[5:22] Okay, guys.

[5:23] Let's keep going with the episode.

[5:24] Wow.

Dan McCoy

[5:25] Okay.

[5:26] And we're going on?

Elliott Kalan

[5:30] So, yeah.

[5:30] Stuart, you want to take us through this movie?

[5:32] What's it about?

[5:33] Oh, absolutely.

[5:33] Because the title doesn't really tell you very much.

Stuart Wellington

[5:36] So, obviously, you're at the movie theater.

[5:39] You have your tub of popcorn.

[5:40] And you're like, what the fuck is this movie going to be about?

[5:43] It's called...

[5:43] Firmly ensconced in it.

[5:44] Warm and buttery.

[5:46] Yep.

[5:46] And you're like, I hope nobody hears my thoughts because that doesn't happen in real life.

[5:50] So, the movie opens with a title card that is a quote that sheds a little light on the title.

[5:55] The quote is...

[5:56] Wait, I wrote it down wrong in my notes because I didn't want to rewind, but I have it here on my phone.

[6:01] I'm just going to vamp for a second.

[6:03] So, what's up with you, Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[6:08] Is that you vamping?

[6:09] I think that's...

[6:10] Okay, I'm back in the game.

Stuart Wellington

[6:11] Okay, so the title card reads...

Elliott Kalan

[6:13] The audience will never know what's up with me.

[6:14] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[6:16] The noise is a man's thoughts unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.

[6:23] And you're like...

[6:24] You read that and you're like, oh, okay, so somebody famous said that.

[6:27] Nope.

[6:28] It is attributed to unknown New World Settler, a character made up for the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[6:33] Yes.

[6:33] And at first you see that quote and you're like, oh, he's talking about Twitter.

Stuart Wellington

[6:36] Okay, yeah, sure.

[6:37] Oh.

[6:39] Oh, man.

[6:39] Who put a...

[6:40] Man, we're all wound up today.

[6:42] So, the movie opens in outer space.

[6:43] Perfect.

Elliott Kalan

[6:45] It is a perfect place for a movie to get to be.

[6:47] I mean, if you expand the definition far enough, every movie opens in outer space because it's

[6:51] all on planets.

Stuart Wellington

[6:52] That's true.

[6:53] Elliot got me again.

[6:55] So, the movie begins in outer space.

[6:57] We fly onto...

[6:59] You know, we get closer to the planet.

[7:01] The card reads that it is, the New World 2257.

[7:06] So, right around the corner.

[7:08] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:08] And this planet has been given the imaginative name of New World.

[7:11] New World.

[7:12] I guess because the colonists in their generations long voyage over here were watching nothing

[7:17] but New Girl.

[7:18] And that was all that they thought of.

[7:20] They said to honor the sitcom that so entertained them during the many decades of space travel,

[7:26] they named it after that.

[7:27] I'm guessing.

Stuart Wellington

[7:28] And, I mean, I think the wish is that the men in this movie behaved a little bit more like Nick

[7:34] and a little less like Schmidt.

[7:35] But we'll get into that.

[7:36] So, we're introduced to Todd Hewitt, who's just hunting around in the forest with his dog, Manchi.

[7:42] He kills some giant bugs.

[7:44] And the whole time, we are hearing constant narration from him.

[7:47] But it turns out that's not just narration.

[7:49] That's his thoughts.

[7:50] On this planet, human men, their thoughts are heard aloud.

[7:55] And their head emits like illusions.

Elliott Kalan

[8:00] Sort of a purpley vapor.

[8:01] Like a corona.

[8:02] It's like a holographic cloud that follows men around and allows you to see their thoughts.

[8:08] And this is Tom Holland, who's playing Todd Hewitt.

[8:10] Tom Holland, yep.

[8:11] And he's really breaking normal form here by playing kind of like a nervous, young, anxious, nebbish guy

[8:17] who's always kind of telling himself he's saying the wrong thing and is constantly second-guessing himself.

[8:22] That's true.

[8:23] I'm just going to jump in and say that one of the things you figure out right away is that this movie is not doing a –

[8:28] they're trying, but they're not doing a fantastic job of representing at least what it is like to me to think.

[8:33] Because most of the thoughts that you hear are just him stating what's going on or reacting immediately in full sentences to things.

[8:40] And he very rarely like – his mind doesn't – he doesn't have a stream of consciousness so much.

[8:44] It's more like he has like Joel and the bots are in his brain just kind of commenting on things that happen around him.

Dan McCoy

[8:49] Right.

[8:50] I mean, look.

[8:51] The – you know, I do not presume to be inside other people's minds.

[8:58] I know that many people –

[8:59] So not like the Danzig song Possession, which is entirely about that.

[9:03] But many people like –

[9:04] Or the character Mastermind.

[9:04] Think in different ways.

[9:08] But I know that my thoughts are more in the vein of sort of a constant inner monologue rather than sort of like, you know, later on he like sees Daisy Ridley and he's like, yellow hair, yellow hair, pretty girl.

[9:22] Like it's all like just like little phrases.

Stuart Wellington

[9:25] Yeah.

[9:25] It's like the dogs from Up.

Elliott Kalan

[9:27] Yeah.

[9:28] Yes.

[9:28] Yeah.

[9:28] Everybody – I mean, in a way, men are basically the dogs from Up.

[9:31] Oh, yeah.

[9:32] But they're walking on two legs.

[9:33] But yeah, it's a very – so keep in mind when we're talking about his thoughts, it's very like – yeah, it doesn't – the most accurate thing about thoughts that came to me during the movie was there's a scene later on where an old man is sleeping and he's just having dreams about baseball that are very loud.

[9:47] And I was like, yeah, okay, I buy that.

[9:49] Yeah, okay, this I buy, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[9:51] So we're introduced to this – we're introduced to this little world.

[9:55] He lives in a – like a settlement that is – I haven't checked, but I think comic artist Simon Roy deserves royalties for this because it's this like kind of, you know, kind of futuristic but also like kind of like Old West.

[10:12] It's this colony that's made up entirely of men.

[10:15] We're introduced to this like super intense preacher character played by David Oyelous, whose name I'm sure I'm butchering at this point.

[10:24] We are introduced to Nick Jonas, who is doing a really good job of playing an unlikable person.

[10:29] I mean, it's probably – it's just – it must be such a huge stretch for him, but he manages to pull it off perfectly.

Elliott Kalan

[10:34] I don't know enough about Nick Jonas to know if that's a solid dig or not.

[10:38] I just don't know enough about him.

Stuart Wellington

[10:38] Wait, what do you mean a dig, Elliot?

[10:40] I'm saying this honestly.

[10:41] I don't know what's wrong with you.

[10:42] Can you see my thoughts today?

[10:44] What's going on?

[10:45] He does.

Dan McCoy

[10:46] He is playing like a very stereotypical, though, like just like this is the bad guy who is a like, you know, an idiot, probable sexual assaulter.

[11:00] Like, speaking of which, content warning.

[11:03] There's a lot in this movie like about violence against women.

[11:06] Multiple animals die.

[11:08] We will be talking about this.

Stuart Wellington

[11:09] So many horses die.

[11:10] I was like, they're really leaning into the walking part of this title.

Dan McCoy

[11:14] Yeah, but it is funny.

[11:16] Like, Audrey has gotten me into the voice.

[11:18] Shaking my head.

Elliott Kalan

[11:19] I'm the guy who made the joke about how North Koreans suffer from famine, and I'm shaking my head at that one still.

Dan McCoy

[11:24] Yeah.

[11:26] Watching Nick Jonas, yeah, in this role is very, very strange.

[11:30] It's like, wait, you're supposed to be like, you know, telling some young artist some bullshit that makes it seem like you care about saving them from America's wrath as a singer rather than, you know, wearing a big duster and licking your lips ominously.

Stuart Wellington

[11:47] He does lick his lips a lot.

[11:49] And also we meet Nick Jonas' father in this movie, who is the mayor of the town, Mads Mikkelsen.

[11:55] We love him.

[11:56] Flophouse fave here.

Elliott Kalan

[11:57] And he's the mayor, but his name is David Prentice, and the town is called Prentice Town.

Stuart Wellington

[12:02] David Prentice, which is one of those great sci-fi names that you just love.

[12:06] Like, George Lucas must have written that down and been like, how did I miss that one?

[12:09] Oh, man.

[12:10] Perfect.

[12:11] Oh, man.

[12:12] And he, and the mayor is kind of, you know, he has this, he's almost like a father figure role model for our hero for a brief period of time before we realize he's the baddie.

Elliott Kalan

[12:24] Before the, I mean, you realize he's a bad guy long before Tom Holland realizes it.

Dan McCoy

[12:31] Yeah, because he's played by Mads Mikkelsen, and he's got a big scar on his face.

[12:33] And he wears a cool coat.

Elliott Kalan

[12:36] And he says to Tom Holland, men need to kill, and gives him a knife.

[12:40] So you know he's the bad guy almost instantly, you know.

[12:43] But Tom Holland takes a long time to figure that out.

Stuart Wellington

[12:45] So Todd lives on a beet farm with his two adoptive fathers, played by Kurt Souther, and returning Flophouse fave, Damien Bashir.

[12:55] Hey, how you doing?

[12:57] Oh, man.

[12:58] We got so many names in this movie.

[13:00] So he, like, he wanders around a bunch.

[13:04] You know, we learn a little bit about the town.

[13:07] And then, of course, now we go into outer space, where Daisy Ridley from the Star Wars movies comes from.

[13:13] And she is with...

Dan McCoy

[13:15] Well, I don't know if Daisy Ridley comes from space, other than, again, in the larger sense that Elliot was talking about.

[13:21] Check the tape, Stan. She's always in space.

Elliott Kalan

[13:22] She's got the same accent as all the people from space in the movies.

[13:25] So that's a space accent.

[13:26] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[13:26] So she's on, like, a landing pod.

[13:31] And they are heading toward the planet.

[13:37] We learn that the colony has been cut off from the rest of humanity for some time.

[13:41] That they were late in arriving.

[13:44] And this pod is landing.

[13:46] As it gets through the atmosphere, this, like, energy wave hits the pod.

[13:51] And all the men start experiencing the noise, which is when they're...

[13:55] Did I address...

[13:56] It's called the noise?

[13:57] The noise is when...

Elliott Kalan

[13:58] Yeah, in the opening quote, it's called the noise.

[14:00] And now, you may be thinking that...

[14:01] Now, it's not as bad as if they were affected by the noise, which would ruin all their pizzas.

[14:06] Instead, this merely makes their thoughts come out loud.

[14:09] And they get disoriented and crash their spaceship.

Dan McCoy

[14:10] Elliot, this is why...

[14:13] I mean, there are many reasons why we're friends.

[14:15] But before you said that, I, in my head, was thinking, avoids the noise?

[14:21] Is that anything?

[14:23] That's something.

[14:24] Yeah, yeah.

[14:24] Let's work on it.

Elliott Kalan

[14:25] Dan, you can make up for it, but I've been trying in my head to figure out a Ridley Walker,

[14:28] Daisy Ridley, chaos walking joke, and I cannot figure out the math on it.

[14:32] So maybe you can pick that one up.

Dan McCoy

[14:34] Well, you know, let's open it up to the listeners.

[14:36] If there's any scientists in the audience who can make that work.

[14:40] You know...

[14:41] Make this joke.

Elliott Kalan

[14:41] It's like in Apollo 13 when they put all the pieces out and they're like, we need to make

[14:44] this fit in this.

[14:45] Here are your pieces.

[14:47] Daisy Ridley, chaos walking, Ridley Walker by Russell Hoban.

[14:50] Those are the pieces you have.

[14:51] Just figure out a joke to make out of it.

[14:53] There's plot similarities.

[14:55] Just see if you can get it done.

Stuart Wellington

[14:56] So this pod quietly crashes in the forest behind Todd's farm.

Elliott Kalan

[15:02] This podcast, yes, it is quietly crashing.

[15:04] Yep.

[15:05] And it raises a question, because it does crash quietly.

[15:07] And it asks you a question, if a space pod crashes in the woods and there's no one around

[15:10] to hear it, does it make a noise?

[15:12] I don't know.

[15:13] It did make the noise.

[15:14] It did in the movie.

[15:14] I mean, it made the noise, because that's what crashed them.

[15:17] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[15:18] You got me.

[15:18] I didn't realize you were doing trick questions now, Elliot.

[15:20] It is.

[15:21] Thanks.

Elliott Kalan

[15:21] So you guys, have you seen that movie Noisies?

[15:23] It's the musical about the young guys who start a union about noise?

[15:30] Or the sequel Noisies Off.

Dan McCoy

[15:32] There is power in a union.

[15:33] Yeah, Noisies Off.

[15:34] Specifically, decibel power.

[15:36] The more people who can yell together, the louder they'll be.

Elliott Kalan

[15:40] Hey, when you got 100 voices singing, who can hear a lousy whistle blow?

[15:43] That's from Noisies.

Stuart Wellington

[15:44] Okay.

[15:46] So Todd thinks he's chasing a thief.

[15:55] Of course, instead he finds the crash shuttle.

[15:57] He goes to town.

[15:58] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[15:59] Sorry.

[15:59] Sure, yeah.

[16:00] Did this bother you?

[16:01] Because it bothered me.

[16:03] So Daisy Ridley is part of this second wave of colonists that they're like, oh, they must

[16:10] be excited that we're coming.

[16:12] You know, it's been so long.

[16:14] We should have been here much earlier.

[16:15] And she crashes.

[16:17] And the first thing she does is sneak into town, steal something, and then run away from

[16:23] the person.

[16:24] Wouldn't she walk straight to town and just ask for help?

Elliott Kalan

[16:29] Well, this is something that bothered me that I want to talk about.

[16:31] Yes, which is that we know she can talk.

[16:33] We know she can pilot a spaceship.

[16:36] But as soon as she lands on the planet, she is suddenly Nell, or what's her name from

[16:41] the fifth element?

[16:42] Suddenly, she doesn't want to talk.

[16:44] Lulu Multipass.

[16:44] Yeah, thank you.

[16:45] Lulu Multipass.

[16:46] You use her to get on certain tollbooths.

[16:48] And so, to get through the highway parts.

[16:51] It's like, suddenly she is acting like one of these alien or savage women that you see

[17:00] in movies, who is like, there was a video I watched a while ago online about it, where

[17:04] the guy refers to it as born sexy yesterday, where they're like, sexy women that a man has

[17:09] to kind of teach how to, civilization, basically, teach how to talk.

[17:13] And she starts acting like this, and it's very weird.

[17:16] So she's in a barn later, and Tom Holland is like, it's okay.

[17:19] It's okay.

[17:20] Like, I'm not going to hurt you.

[17:20] I'm not going to hurt you.

[17:21] And she's like, huh, huh, huh, huh.

[17:22] And it's like, but I don't understand why she's not just talking to him and saying,

[17:25] what's going on here?

[17:25] I came with the other settlers.

[17:27] It's very strange.

[17:28] It doesn't really make sense.

Stuart Wellington

[17:28] It feels like there's a scene missing where she encountered, had like, a very negative

[17:32] early encounter with some settlers or something.

[17:34] Or it gets hit on the head and is disoriented.

[17:36] Or, yeah, a coconut falls from a tree, hits her on the head.

Elliott Kalan

[17:41] This new world, all it seems to have is beets and coconuts.

[17:44] And giant bugs.

[17:45] And big bugs.

[17:46] And an alien race that we see once and then never again.

[17:49] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[17:50] So, you know, Todd goes, they round up a posse.

[17:55] They go looking for her.

[17:56] They eventually, what, they eventually catch her, right?

[18:00] And they, Mads Mikkelsen takes her back to the colony.

[18:06] And he starts to, like, he isolates her and tries to explain to her what's going on.

[18:11] You know, he explains what the noise is all about.

[18:14] He explains about the evil aliens, the spackle, who came and killed all their women one day.

[18:19] But filled all the holes in the walls.

[18:21] Yeah.

[18:21] So that was good.

[18:23] It does.

[18:24] There was a moment where he refers to the aliens as being called the spackle.

[18:29] And I could see him.

[18:31] I could see the struggle there.

[18:32] Like, that's a silly thing to have to say.

[18:34] But he pulled it off.

[18:36] He pulled it off.

[18:36] He's amazing.

Dan McCoy

[18:37] An odd name for your potentially menacing alien creatures.

[18:41] Yeah.

[18:42] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[18:43] Why are they called that?

[18:44] Well, we never find out.

[18:45] No.

[18:46] We don't find out much about them.

Elliott Kalan

[18:48] No, the spackle are an underdefined element in this scenario.

Stuart Wellington

[18:52] I mean, she is immediately suspicious of them.

[18:56] Because she's talking to Mads Mikkelsen.

[18:57] Yeah.

[18:57] She's talking to Mads Mikkelsen, who is fairly scary looking.

[19:02] And, you know, he, I don't know.

[19:04] I think it's funny that he was in Death Stranding recently, which is basically a game that could

[19:08] have been called Chaos Walking.

[19:10] But the, so, and she's in like a barn surrounded by men who are all shouting with their thoughts.

[19:17] So I could understand why she would be a little nervous.

[19:20] So, of course, the mayor leaves his son alone with her.

[19:23] He gets super weird.

[19:25] And then he somehow sets off a device that blows up a bunch of stuff.

[19:28] And she escapes and overhears Mads Mikkelsen's real plan, which is, of course, wait for a

[19:34] new ship of colonists to arrive, bonk them all on the head with coconuts, and take their

[19:38] shit.

[19:39] Yeah.

[19:39] I mean, I think, I think kill them.

Elliott Kalan

[19:41] I don't know that there's just going to be a bonking.

Stuart Wellington

[19:43] I mean, they don't, do they clarify, Elliot?

[19:46] I mean, it's kind of the same thing.

[19:48] Maybe they don't.

Elliott Kalan

[19:48] But he sees these new colonists as a threat to his power because he seems to have some

[19:52] sort of horrible secret that is, I would, I mean, I wouldn't go ahead as to say incredibly

[19:57] obvious, but certainly very obvious.

[20:00] Yeah.

[20:00] And it makes me wonder, it makes me wonder, and here's, here's an issue.

[20:03] And I assume it's a, this is not to get into some kind of critical gender theory, but it

[20:09] feels like this story is built around a very old fashioned structure of there's a young guy.

[20:16] He encounters someone from the outside and that opens his eyes to the problems of the place

[20:22] that he's living in.

[20:23] When, I don't know why you don't just tell the story about Daisy Ridley.

[20:27] Like, I don't know why you don't just make her the hero of this story because she's the

[20:30] one who's totally out of her element and would not have a reason to have suspected these secrets

[20:34] before.

[20:35] Like, I don't, I don't know why we're still holding onto this old fashioned framework of

[20:38] you need a young guy to be your entry point into this story.

Dan McCoy

[20:41] Yeah.

[20:42] Well, I mean, you know, not, not much of a spoiler because we were arguing to talk about

[20:47] the whole damn movie, but like this movie, in so much as it has something on its mind,

[20:51] seems to have on its mind, like the male capacity for violence, um, the way that, uh, the idea

[21:01] of being a man, you know, gets equated to, uh, being violent because like, uh, Tom Holland

[21:10] keeps telling himself in his noise, like, you know, be a man, be a man, be brave, be a man.

[21:14] Like, and that is linked to, uh, Mads being like a man needs to kill sometimes, you know,

[21:21] and him learning like, no killing everything is not the answer.

[21:26] Like, uh, that you should not look on this as, I don't, I don't know, like to, to, to,

[21:34] to argue that like what we hold as masculine is toxic, uh, to put it in the language of our

[21:43] time.

[21:43] And, um, and so maybe they thought that they need to center a man learning that lesson and

[21:51] maybe like, uh, uh, Trojan horse that message in for maybe men who are looking for, uh, uh,

[21:57] an adventure story, but it does seem a little weird.

[22:02] Like, I mean, the story at this time seems a little weird for the reason of, yeah, like,

[22:08] should the guy be the main hero?

[22:10] And also like, it is so tied to the idea of gender being a binary that it opens up problems

[22:17] that it does not address at all, but.

Elliott Kalan

[22:19] Well, that's a whole other issue.

[22:20] Yeah.

[22:20] But it's, it feels like it's the, the Margaret Atwood quote that you see all the time where

[22:24] it says, men are afraid, women will laugh at them.

[22:26] Women are afraid, men will kill them.

[22:28] That is like, it's, this is, it's kind of like, yeah, men are afraid, women will laugh

[22:31] at them.

[22:31] Women are afraid, men will kill them.

[22:33] The movie.

[22:33] Like that's kind of like, it's, it's like someone took that quote and was like, I better

[22:37] build a movie around that.

[22:38] And, uh, they did it.

[22:40] Somehow they did it.

[22:41] And they did.

[22:42] And they made it happen.

[22:42] I couldn't make this damn Ridley Walker joke work.

[22:45] Anyway, I can't figure it out, but they were able to make a movie out of this quote.

Dan McCoy

[22:49] So if you can make a boy out of pencils, then pencils can take some leaves.

[22:54] I don't remember they make a boy out of pencils.

Elliott Kalan

[22:56] I think you might be misremembering what happened in that movie.

[23:00] And speaking of boys.

[23:02] If you can make, if you can make butter out of peanuts, then maybe we can make a peanut

[23:05] out of butter balls.

Stuart Wellington

[23:08] And speaking of peanuts and balls, let's talk about a beet farm.

[23:11] That's the farm that Todd lives at.

[23:13] And, uh, Daisy Ridley's character, who we later learn is named Viola as hidden out in his

[23:19] barn.

[23:19] There's a lot of talk about beets in this movie.

[23:21] I've heard this much.

Dan McCoy

[23:22] Do you think that's a 12th night reference?

[23:24] The fact that she's named Viola?

Elliott Kalan

[23:25] Yeah, maybe.

[23:26] I think it is.

[23:26] Or yeah.

[23:28] I haven't heard this much about beets since the Doug TV show.

[23:31] Oh man, you got it.

[23:32] You got it.

[23:32] I'm sorry I interrupted that.

[23:33] Thank you.

[23:34] Well, that was a joke for my generation.

[23:35] The Nicktoons generation.

[23:36] Anyway, continue.

[23:37] Gen Z, do not apply to that joke.

[23:39] Don't worry about it.

[23:41] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[23:41] Uh, they'll probably reboot it.

[23:43] Um, so, uh, they decide, and Todd decides to protect her.

[23:47] Uh, he informs his two dads that, uh, he is, uh, that, you know, that she's there because

[23:54] he can't hide any information because all his thoughts are rid out in the sky.

[23:58] Um, so they, uh, his father, his father played by Damien Bashir, Ben, uh, explains that

[24:06] he, the, uh, that the, they gotta get her out of there and he has to go with her.

[24:10] And their only choice is to go to a place called Far Branch, which has, uh, there's some

[24:14] like dark mystery tied in there where he can't reveal that he's from, uh, Prentice Town.

[24:20] Uh, which turns out, Prentice Town's pretty shitty.

[24:22] I think we, we can all agree Prentice Town's.

Elliott Kalan

[24:24] It just turns out that Prentice Town is, has a bad reputation because they, because they're

[24:27] terrible.

[24:28] They're terrible.

[24:28] They killed a lot of people.

Stuart Wellington

[24:30] They take baths with their clothes on and they've never taken a hot one before.

Elliott Kalan

[24:33] And, uh, they're not very, they're not, maybe, maybe Todd is not the best example of this.

[24:37] They're not very, uh, uh, observant because there's a, there's a part where, and this shows

[24:43] to me that they did not, they weren't paying super close attention to the, to the writing

[24:47] when they cast the movie afterward or not rewriting the movie for the cast.

[24:50] Cause that he, when he finally hears Viola talk, he goes, her voice is high, kind of nice.

[24:54] And I was like, she has a deeper voice than you.

[24:56] I know.

[24:57] I wrote that in my notes.

[25:00] It was, it bothered me so much because it was like, this is probably a line, maybe it's

[25:03] in the original book and it's carried through all this time.

[25:05] And nobody at any point was like, you know, Tom Holland's voice is higher than, than Daisy

[25:10] Ridley's.

[25:10] Like we, we should probably change that line.

Stuart Wellington

[25:12] Do you think they suggested it to Tom Holland?

[25:14] He's like, what are you talking about?

Elliott Kalan

[25:15] He's like, uh, did you mean I should start talking like this throughout the movie?

[25:19] It's just me, your friendly neighborhood spider-man.

Stuart Wellington

[25:21] And they're like, yeah, and they're like, we've already shot half the movie with his high

[25:24] voice.

[25:24] We can't do this now.

Elliott Kalan

[25:25] There must be, there's an alternate cut that's on the DVD of him being like, Hey, let me,

Stuart Wellington

[25:29] let me take you to the horror branch.

[25:32] Uh, so before they can leave, uh, the, the, the Prentice town posse shows up and they have

[25:38] to escape in a hail of blaster fire.

[25:42] Uh, his father Killian is killed by evil Nick Jonas, but they get out of there.

[25:47] They're chased by other guys on horses and, uh, the first, another Cardinal sin of the

[25:53] movie.

[25:53] They, he rides his horse off a cliff and his horse breaks his leg and he has to kill it

[25:58] and it sucks.

[25:59] Yeah.

[25:59] It sucks.

[26:00] Movie, you suck.

[26:01] I was like, what is this?

[26:02] The Revenant?

[26:03] Yeah.

[26:04] Um, so, uh, Todd and Viola.

Elliott Kalan

[26:08] I mean, Stuart, I hope you know they didn't really kill a horse making the movie.

[26:10] I'm sure.

Stuart Wellington

[26:11] No, I, I, I mean, I checked the credits and it didn't say, they said they didn't kill a

[26:14] horse, so I got to assume, but you know.

Elliott Kalan

[26:16] It didn't say they undedicated to the memory of sparkles or anything like that.

[26:19] Uh-huh.

[26:19] The horse's name was Whiskey.

Stuart Wellington

[26:20] Um, so they form, uh, Todd and, uh, Todd and Viola form kind of an uneasy alliance because

[26:27] they, they got to get to Far Branch so she can, uh, call out to like the ship that her shuttle

[26:34] came from and tell them not to arrive.

[26:36] Watch out danger.

[26:37] Don't fail me around.

[26:38] Turn around.

[26:39] Just, yeah.

[26:40] Pick me up first.

[26:40] Get me out of here.

[26:41] I'm a celebrity.

[26:42] Get me out of here, she says.

[26:43] Yeah.

[26:45] I was in Star Wars.

[26:46] Uh-huh.

[26:47] And, uh, and, but she can't go on her own because Todd, the only map Todd has is his memory

[26:52] of a map.

[26:53] And I'm like, I don't remember.

[26:55] I'm, I have a pretty good spatial memory and I couldn't remember a map perfectly, but

[26:59] whatever.

[27:00] So we get like a bunch of scenes of questing, you know, they're like walking around different

[27:05] areas.

[27:05] We find out that it doesn't really ever get dark there.

[27:08] They go through swamps.

Elliott Kalan

[27:10] You get the classic scene of the, of the man stripping off his clothes to like jump in

[27:14] some water and her like looking at him and then looking away and then looking at him

[27:17] again, just like in Pacific Rim, basically.

Stuart Wellington

[27:20] Or like in that, or like that X-Men comic where Jubilee and Boom Boom see Wolverine naked

[27:25] and then they like lose their shit.

[27:28] I don't think I've read that one.

[27:30] It's crazy.

[27:31] No, it was a real comic.

[27:33] Like Wolverine's meditate.

[27:35] I've talked about this on the podcast before.

[27:37] Long time fans are going to be like just quoting this verbatim, but Wolverine is doing like,

[27:41] you know, like a nude meditation thing.

[27:43] Cause he's, you know, like a bad-ass and, uh, Boom Boom and Jubilee go to grab him.

[27:48] Cause I don't know.

[27:49] They have to go have a meeting or something.

[27:50] That's what the X-Men do.

[27:52] And so Wolverine like gets up and walks past them and there is a panel of both Jubilee

[27:56] and Boom Boom, like looking down at Wolverine's naked body as he walks past.

[28:00] And then like a shot of them, like, like with like sweat bubbles shooting out of their head.

[28:06] Yeah, they do the anime horny face with their eyes crossed.

[28:08] Exactly.

[28:10] Yeah.

[28:10] It's wild.

[28:10] Uh, it real comic canon.

[28:12] Somebody is, somebody is going to, somebody will email you the panels, Dan.

[28:16] Great.

[28:17] Thanks.

[28:18] Yeah.

[28:18] I'll add it to my files.

Dan McCoy

[28:22] I'll put it in my filing cap.

[28:23] Add it to Wolverine thirst files.

[28:25] Yeah.

[28:26] Print it off.

[28:27] I'm sure.

[28:28] Wolverine, comma, girls thirsting over.

[28:31] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[28:31] Put it, tag it and then print it out, put it on your wall, put a piece of red yarn between

[28:34] that and, uh, I don't know.

[28:37] And chaos walking.

[28:38] Yeah.

[28:39] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[28:40] So they, we have a lot of, uh, you know, they have a lot of chatting about who the real

[28:44] aliens are.

[28:45] Humans are the spackle.

[28:46] We, we learn a little bit about Viola's background, about how she's been on this college

[28:50] shift her whole life.

[28:51] She's never seen rain before.

[28:53] This planet sucks.

[28:54] Uh, that her parents are dead.

Elliott Kalan

[28:56] Did we mention already that, uh, that Mads Mikkels, the story at, at Prentice town is

[29:01] always that the spackle killed all the women in the town.

[29:03] The spackle, that, that when, when Tom Holland was a baby, the spackle arrived and killed

[29:08] all the women in town, including his mom.

[29:09] And all he remembers is a song she sang to him when he was a, when he was a wee bab.

[29:13] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[29:13] Yep.

[29:14] Yep.

[29:14] But he can conjure that image up whenever he wants.

[29:16] So it's basically like she's still alive, right?

Elliott Kalan

[29:18] I mean, it's one of those things where like, you know, I'm like, I know how kids' memory

[29:23] works and my memory of being a child work.

[29:25] He is remembering the story his dad told him about that song.

[29:28] There's no way his memory is that clear from when he's like a little baby.

Dan McCoy

[29:31] Well, especially because he is remembering it from a, like, viewpoint outside of, yes.

[29:38] Like, rather than like maybe fuzzy images of like blurry mom face.

Stuart Wellington

[29:43] Yeah, like his memory would be his dad's face telling him the story and maybe his dad would

[29:48] be conjuring some shit at the same time.

[29:50] So maybe, actually, you know what?

Elliott Kalan

[29:51] That's what it is.

[29:52] It's a memory of seeing his dad remembering it from his head.

[29:56] We guys, we fixed the plot hole.

[29:57] It's not a plot hole.

[29:58] He's remembering.

[29:59] We spackled that one up.

[30:00] He's remembering his dad's noise.

[30:02] Yeah, don't call the spackle.

[30:03] We did it already.

[30:04] We don't need them to fill that one in.

Stuart Wellington

[30:06] And there's a moment where Tom Holland is obviously infatuated with Daisy Ridley's character

[30:12] and he even has like an imaginary makeout session with her, which is creepy and would be creepy

[30:17] if that happened.

[30:18] So don't, I mean, don't give me the noise power.

Elliott Kalan

[30:21] No, I think the way the movie handles it is, I don't like that there's a, it's kind of a fakeout

[30:26] where she kisses him.

[30:28] I don't think the movie handles that wrong.

[30:30] I don't, well, they, she kisses him and then we learn that it was actually a noise image.

[30:34] But the way he does it is not creepy.

[30:36] He's a young guy.

[30:37] Like young guys have those thoughts.

[30:38] It's not like he is, he's not creeping on her.

[30:41] And the movie is making it clear like that's an embarrassing thought for someone to see.

[30:44] So I don't think it was, it wasn't that creepy.

Stuart Wellington

[30:46] I mean, I'm just creepy in the sense that I think all teenage boys are creepy and to imagine

[30:50] seeing all their thoughts would be horrifying.

Elliott Kalan

[30:52] Yeah, well that's the purpose and the purpose of the, I mean, the point of the movie is men's

[30:56] thoughts are horrifying and we shouldn't see them ever.

[30:58] Yes, exactly.

Dan McCoy

[30:59] That is, that is the mission statement of the film.

[31:03] I mean, and why do, why do I got to see it in a movie?

Stuart Wellington

[31:05] I had a whole season or so of Herman's Head to watch.

Elliott Kalan

[31:09] Well, with the four people in Herman's Head, there was Lust, Someone Else, Another Thing,

[31:16] and I don't remember what the other thing was.

Stuart Wellington

[31:17] There was like a nerdy guy, there was a big slobby party guy.

Dan McCoy

[31:21] Was there a lady?

[31:22] There was like the hippie lady, and then there's one other one that I forget.

[31:27] And Yardley Smith was not in the head.

Elliott Kalan

[31:29] Yardley Smith was the secretary where he worked, right?

[31:32] I believe that is true.

[31:33] I believe that.

[31:34] I guess I'm going to have to go back and review Herman's Head.

[31:36] I don't really remember it that long.

Stuart Wellington

[31:37] Jane's going to get more emails after this episode because of that.

[31:40] Hermes the Head, Herman's.

[31:42] So they find a, they find a spackle village and they try to avoid it.

[31:47] And then they, of course, get attacked by a spackle dude who kind of looks like,

[31:51] kind of like a gray, like a tall, muscular gray alien, but like all, like, I don't know,

[31:57] like oily.

[31:58] And it's only got one arm.

[32:00] And it's only got one arm, but I don't know his whole story.

[32:02] Maybe they all have only one arm or maybe like.

Dan McCoy

[32:04] It looks like it was maybe, you know, they, in a, in a, in a conflict between the spackle

[32:10] and these colonists lost.

[32:12] Maybe.

Elliott Kalan

[32:12] You kind of have to read that into it.

[32:14] It's, it's another one of these things.

[32:15] I remember like with Cowboys and Aliens where it was like, this is an intelligent, sentient

[32:19] alien being, but because it is not human, it wears no clothes and looks like a monster and

[32:24] acts like a monster.

[32:25] You know, it doesn't, doesn't attempt to communicate.

[32:26] Doesn't even, doesn't move or, or act like it's thinking.

Stuart Wellington

[32:29] But it does have, but it does have the noise around its head.

[32:33] And it seems like, it seems put off by the fact that Daisy Ridley's character does not

[32:38] have the noise.

[32:38] Yeah.

[32:39] Because at first he starts beating the crap out of Tom Holland and then Tom Holland starts

[32:42] knifing it.

[32:43] And it's pretty brutal.

[32:45] And then Daisy Viola convinces him to not kill the spackle who then just leaves.

[32:50] And then that story's done.

[32:51] But he learned that, you know, you can't just kill everything, which is a very important

[32:55] lesson to learn if you're running around with a fucking knife.

[32:58] Yeah, of course.

[32:59] Yeah.

[33:00] So of course, shortly after they find another settlement.

[33:03] We get to Far Branch and it's way nicer.

[33:06] Like they have all kinds of animals.

[33:09] It's clean.

[33:10] Hanging around playing music.

[33:11] It's great.

[33:12] There's men and women and kids.

[33:14] It looks much nicer.

Elliott Kalan

[33:16] The mayor is a woman, which really throws off Tom.

Stuart Wellington

[33:18] Yeah.

[33:18] Played by Cynthia Erivo.

[33:19] She's great.

[33:20] And then, of course, Ray McKinnon shows up and I'm like, that's what this movie needed.

[33:24] It's like a Western.

[33:25] Ray McKinnon's in every fucking Western now, right?

Dan McCoy

[33:27] Yeah.

[33:28] It is very much like a Western.

[33:30] I mean, which makes sense because it's a movie about colonists.

[33:33] And I just want to, you know, in the interest of saying some things I liked about the movie,

[33:39] I think that the look of the movie I enjoyed.

[33:43] Doug Liman, I think, in general, is good at providing something with a stylish look without

[33:50] being aggressive about it, without being like stylish in quotes where it all has to be assaultive.

[33:56] Like this alien world looks different enough to seem like, you know, it's another like unpleasant to live in for humans planet.

[34:07] But it is basically also just a physical space that looks not unlike Earth.

[34:15] It just looks like a frontier somewhere.

[34:17] Yeah.

[34:18] And I liked that.

Stuart Wellington

[34:19] I would say the only real design misstep is the aliens themselves, which are, as you said, very bland.

[34:25] Yeah.

[34:26] But everything else, like I like the mixture of high-tech, low-tech stuff.

[34:32] And there's some pretty shots.

[34:34] Like it's like, I like pretty wilderness shots.

[34:37] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[34:37] I mean, it's hard to look at greenery and forests and not find it pleasant, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[34:43] And it feels tactile.

[34:44] It doesn't feel like it's all on a green screen.

Elliott Kalan

[34:46] They do a good job with the design of it looking like a place where people with technology showed up and then had to make do either with what they had brought with them or building new things that they didn't have all the resources for.

[34:58] And like it looks like a place that started with technology and has had to fill in the gaps of what they didn't have.

Stuart Wellington

[35:03] And the amount of work for the visual artists to be going in there and adding those like the noise to every man in a shot.

[35:11] Like that's a lot.

[35:12] That's very impressive.

[35:13] That's yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[35:14] They did it.

[35:14] I mean, it is.

[35:15] And it is so much.

[35:16] You know, I don't think the movie is totally successful.

[35:17] They do so much.

[35:18] It's so much more worthwhile, the work they're putting it in, than in the Aquaman movie per se, where they must have had hundreds, if not thousands of hours of digital artists making their hair.

[35:28] And capes look like they were waving in water.

[35:30] And I was like, this is a real, this is a real waste of, I mean, I'm glad people got paid to do this work, but this is a real waste of effort when this whole movie could have been set on land just as easily, you know, but instead everyone's hair had to be constantly waving.

[35:42] I would argue, I would argue the premise of an Aquaman movie.

[35:46] I guess what I'm saying is I'm questioning.

Stuart Wellington

[35:48] What are they going to call him?

[35:49] Landlord?

Elliott Kalan

[35:50] I guess I'm, you know, I'm questioning the premise of making an Aquaman movie in the first place.

[35:54] I guess what it really comes down to.

[35:55] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[35:57] Okay.

[35:58] So, uh, let's see.

Elliott Kalan

[36:00] I just wanted to mention that Stuart, yes, uh, Ramekin and does have to be in every Western now.

[36:04] It's called the Lucas Q doctrine.

[36:06] There's one actor who has to be in every Western during a period.

[36:09] Lucas Q was that for an earlier era and now it's Ramekin and I can't wait to see who it is next.

[36:13] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[36:14] So, uh, despite, uh, Todd is allowed to stay even though he's from Prentice town, uh, but he's not really accepted.

[36:20] You know, there's, uh, some grumbling, uh, but he is not hung on site.

[36:24] Uh, but they can't contact the ship from Far Branch because they, uh, they dismantled all their far range communication, uh, equipment.

[36:32] So they are informed by, uh, the mayor that they have to go on to another settlement.

[36:37] There's more settlements on this, on this planet.

[36:39] They have to go to a place called Haven, uh, which they should be able to, uh, contact the ship from there.

[36:46] Uh, we get a little bit of downtime.

[36:48] Uh, Viola reads Todd's mom's journal to him, which real reveals the tragedy of Prentice town.

[36:55] We find out what really happened.

[36:56] Who wants to, uh, Elliot, I think you're champing at the bit here to tell us what actually happened at Prentice town.

Elliott Kalan

[37:00] Uh, what actually happened was, uh, Mads Mikkelsen and David O'Yellow, uh, riled up the men and because, uh, for their reasons that, uh, to, they riled up the men and convinced them to kill all the women.

[37:11] Uh, Mads Mikkelsen because he was ashamed of the things that people, of women seeing the way he thinks.

[37:17] And David O'Yellow because he's the kind of poorly characterized religious zealot who only thinks in terms of fire and brimstone all the time.

[37:25] Like his thoughts are constantly like a martyr is needed.

[37:28] Blood for the sin.

[37:30] Fire.

[37:30] And it's like, does he never think like I have to use the bathroom?

[37:33] I'm hungry now.

Stuart Wellington

[37:34] Is he from a Resident Evil video game?

Dan McCoy

[37:37] I will say that like, I, yes, he is, he is, he, as a character, he is a mystery until sort of like his final scene.

[37:46] Like, I think he snapped into focus for me a little bit more later where like, you know, part of the thing with the, the noise is he like could not distinguish it from the voice of God.

[38:00] Like, and he could hear the voices of the men.

[38:05] The women had no voices.

[38:08] So he says like, oh, like, you know, to him, they had no souls.

[38:13] And it's a case of like, I think we're meant to believe that because of the shame of women being able to keep their secrets and men's horrible thoughts on display all the time.

[38:26] Like, the madness of society breaking down and the difficulty of this hardscrabble, like, colonist life, like, turned him towards, you know, even greater zealotry.

Elliott Kalan

[38:39] No, but I think it's like, I would buy that character if he was an outcast from the village because he is so off-putting and so insane that he should be Rorschach, basically.

[38:49] He should be someone who is on the fringes of this community.

[38:51] But he seemed, but everyone kind of like, even though they're kind of afraid and annoyed by him, he seems to hold a, still a level of authority in the village that he's not dismissed.

[39:01] And it was like, I don't, I don't buy that character being nonstop religious violence in his mind that he is shouting at the world and everyone just being like, oh, preacher.

[39:11] Yeah. Preacher, what should we do?

[39:12] Okay, preacher, you lead the way.

Stuart Wellington

[39:13] There's definitely times where he's, like, leading groups of men and it doesn't, like, you get the feeling, obviously, from the Todd character that, I mean, he mentions multiple times that nobody needs a preacher anymore.

[39:25] Yeah.

[39:26] And, like, and obviously Mads Mikkelsen seems to keep him at arm's length.

[39:31] But I agree with you, Elliot.

Dan McCoy

[39:34] I wonder if the idea is maybe that he was at one point more useful to Mads in, like, sort of keeping his power and they were, now they're bound together by, like, sort of the sin of what they did, killing all these women.

[39:46] I don't think we actually got into the fact before, or at least we didn't dwell on it, that the thing that makes the mayor special is he can control his noise very well.

[39:57] Like, he cannot let, you know, he does not let people into his thoughts and he seems to have sort of mastered it enough that he kind of can control other men's thoughts.

[40:07] Like, his thoughts are so strong that they can overpower others.

[40:10] He's like the shadow.

Elliott Kalan

[40:12] Yes, yeah, exactly.

[40:14] And there's a hint that he recognizes in Todd that same level of ability.

[40:19] Like, Todd does, early in the movie, Todd gets Nick Jonas to back off by imagining a giant snake lunging at Nick Jonas.

[40:26] And it's so real that Nick Jonas gets out of the way.

[40:28] And Mads is like, good, good use of your noise, Todd.

[40:30] And it's like, it's a terrible Mads.

[40:32] That's not a good impression.

[40:33] I apologize, Mr. Mikkelsen.

Dan McCoy

[40:35] Gotham City will be proud of you.

Elliott Kalan

[40:38] Oh, Batman, it's me, Mads Mikkelsen, also a vampire.

[40:43] Well, this is my design.

Stuart Wellington

[40:45] I don't know why, yeah, why is he revealing the fact that he's a vampire?

[40:48] Makes him susceptible to Batman's anti-vampire weapons.

Elliott Kalan

[40:51] I like to play against the type.

[40:53] People think of me as just a great actor, but I'm also a vampire.

[40:57] And people don't know that.

[40:59] And it explains why I don't go out during the day very much.

Stuart Wellington

[41:01] This is Elliot's demo reel to be a guest on What We Do in the Shadows.

Elliott Kalan

[41:05] Yeah, yeah, to be going What We Do in the Shadows as the Jewish vampire trying to hide the fact that he's Jewish.

[41:10] But it keeps coming out.

[41:12] So, yeah, he's got this, yeah, he and Todd are special.

[41:17] And that they're a little bit better at controlling their noise.

[41:19] But Todd is, his leaks out because he's young.

[41:21] And then he just always goes back to going, I'm Todd Hewitt.

[41:23] I'm Todd Hewitt.

Dan McCoy

[41:25] Yeah, which is a very suspicious thing for him to be thinking.

[41:28] Yes.

[41:28] He's like, what are you hiding, boy?

[41:31] Hmm, you seem to be saying your name to yourself a lot.

[41:34] Is something wrong?

[41:36] Do you forget your name?

Stuart Wellington

[41:38] So, before they can head off to Haven, a posse from Prentice Town arrives at Far Branch.

[41:45] And they got their big laser blasters.

[41:47] And they got a bunch of guys.

[41:49] And, you know, there's a standoff.

[41:52] But Prentice manages to start convincing the locals to just let him grab Viola, grab the girl.

[41:59] A guy tries to kidnap Viola, but she saves herself.

[42:03] She doesn't need Todd to help her.

[42:05] And then the two of them sneak off and hide in a barn for a little while.

[42:09] This movie loves hiding in barns.

[42:12] Uh-huh.

[42:13] Yeah.

[42:14] Father Ben, who has been forced to come along, is then forced to convince Todd to give up Viola to the mayor.

[42:25] Ben goes out and makes it appear.

[42:27] He uses a handy allusion to trick the mayor for a second.

[42:33] Giving Todd and Viola enough time to escape.

[42:37] But not enough time because the evil preacher chases them.

[42:40] There's a river chase.

[42:43] Manchi, the dog, who we have at this point come to love, joins them on a riverboat.

[42:49] And then in the scuffle.

[42:51] On like a little rowboat.

[42:53] It's not like a paddle wheel riverboat.

[42:54] They're not riverboat gambling.

[42:55] It's not Macra.

Elliott Kalan

[42:56] Oh, man.

[42:57] But they were.

[42:58] I changed my name to Mark Twain.

[43:01] It's like, we're on the run.

[43:02] We got to hide our noise.

[43:04] The game's pharaoh, boys and girls.

[43:05] Sit down.

[43:07] Take a look, please.

[43:08] Well, well.

[43:08] Belly up to the table.

Stuart Wellington

[43:11] That would be great.

[43:13] Unfortunately, that doesn't happen, which would be great.

[43:15] Nope.

[43:15] The worst thing in the world happens.

[43:17] The evil preacher slowly kills this dog that we love.

[43:21] And it sucks.

[43:22] And I do not like it.

[43:24] Okay.

[43:25] So then they escape.

[43:27] And they find the generation ship, this massive ship that the original colonists came on.

[43:33] It's crashed and like half buried in the earth.

[43:36] And Daisy Ridley's like, leave it to me.

[43:38] I'm an expert at exploring old ships.

[43:41] And then they-

Elliott Kalan

[43:43] Reminds me of Jakku and an asterisk.

[43:46] This is a reference to a character she played in a different movie.

[43:49] So they find the long-

[43:51] Smile with Stan, I guess.

[43:51] Smile, yeah.

[43:53] That's synergistic Stan.

Stuart Wellington

[43:56] So they find a long-range comm unit, but they need to reconnect the antenna.

[44:00] So of course, they need somebody to do some climbing.

[44:03] And Tom Holland's like, hey, that's my expertise.

[44:06] I'm a character who climbs a lot in another movie.

[44:09] So he climbs around like a spider.

Elliott Kalan

[44:11] They're both like, what?

[44:13] That's a little hint of what I was referencing.

[44:14] They're like, what skills do we each have in Disney-owned IP?

[44:17] We'll use both of them in this scene.

Stuart Wellington

[44:19] Yeah.

[44:20] So he climbs up there and reconnects the comm unit.

[44:25] Meanwhile, the posse from Prentice Town show up and surround the crashed ship.

[44:31] The P.P.

[44:32] Prentice starts trying to coax Todd out by threatening his father, Ben, who has been beaten and dragged along.

[44:43] And the preacher sneaks aboard the ship and starts attacking Viola.

[44:50] But then Viola uses some of her fancy equipment and totally roasts him.

[44:55] Hooray!

Dan McCoy

[44:56] And also, this is the scene where I found this honestly kind of interesting because you can hear his noise.

[45:02] And it's clear that whether or not it's conscious thought or the truth sort of coming out from his brain.

[45:11] But he knows that killing all the women was an evil deed.

[45:18] That he did this horrible thing.

[45:21] And he wants her to kill him.

Elliott Kalan

[45:24] He's attacking her not to kill her, but so that she will be forced to kill him too.

[45:28] Yeah.

[45:29] As a form of repentance or penance, you know.

[45:32] Yeah.

[45:32] And as the Mamas and the Papas said, you know the preacher likes the cold.

[45:36] And this preacher probably does because he burns to death.

Dan McCoy

[45:40] Yeah.

[45:42] Oh, yeah.

[45:43] That's a little Easter egg.

[45:43] I'll put another piece of yarn from...

[45:46] Yeah, so if you can print down...

[45:47] Cass walking over to the Mamas and the Papas, California Dreamin'.

Elliott Kalan

[45:50] Print down the California Dreamin', I guess, single cover and put that with yarn attached to that too.

[45:55] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[45:55] And outside the ship, we got Todd confronts Prentice.

[46:00] Father Ben gets shot and killed.

[46:02] Todd gets shot.

[46:04] And then the fight, there's a lot of like conjuring illusions.

[46:08] It's very Mysterio versus Spider-Man.

[46:10] Yeah.

[46:11] Everyone is using their illusion.

[46:12] Yeah.

[46:13] Yep.

[46:14] One and two.

[46:15] Two illusions at a time.

[46:18] And you would almost call this a civil war, the opening track on Use Your Illusion 2.

[46:23] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[46:24] If you don't use your illusion, you'll lose your illusions.

[46:28] So that's the problem.

[46:29] That's true.

Stuart Wellington

[46:29] Then you have a spaghetti incident.

[46:32] Chinese democracy?

[46:35] So, no, that's all lies.

[46:38] Okay, so the...

Elliott Kalan

[46:40] So you're saying that using the noise, they both have an appetite for distraction.

[46:43] Oh, no.

[46:45] That's going to confuse someone so much who has no versing.

[46:53] I mean, if they're not familiar with GNR, then they can figure it out themselves, you know?

[46:56] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[46:57] I mean, we talk about the music video from November Rain like every other episode, right?

[47:01] And that fucking dude who dives through the cake?

[47:05] He hates cakes.

[47:06] He's done that.

[47:07] Or loves them.

[47:07] He does that at every wedding.

[47:08] You know that guy does that before.

Elliott Kalan

[47:10] They're like, don't invite him.

[47:11] He's going to dive through the cake.

[47:13] I promise I won't do it this time.

[47:15] You're like, bring out the decoy cake so he'll dive through it.

[47:18] Then we'll bring out the real cake.

[47:21] I have to invite him.

[47:22] He's my brother.

Stuart Wellington

[47:23] Yeah, sadly he died while diving through a king cake and the baby cut right through his body.

Elliott Kalan

[47:27] Oh, that's what happened.

[47:28] What happened was the little baby figurine just split him in half like...

[47:32] Whose razor hat is that in Mortal Kombat?

Stuart Wellington

[47:37] Kung Lao?

[47:38] Kung Lao, yes.

[47:39] Or like the thumb from Takeshi Kitano's character from Johnny Mnemonic.

[47:43] Depending on what reference is better for you.

Elliott Kalan

[47:46] Which reference will better get me across the idea of a guy diving through a cake and a tiny baby figurine cutting him into...

Stuart Wellington

[47:52] A monomolecular tiny baby slicing a man in half as he dies through a cake.

[47:57] Yeah.

[47:58] In a New Orleans themed wedding.

[48:01] When it's raining.

[48:02] Yeah, okay.

[48:03] So Todd conjures a Greek chorus of women berating Prentiss and then Viola shows up.

[48:10] The real one shows up and blasts him with a pipe and knocks him down a hole.

[48:15] The end.

[48:16] The ship arrives.

[48:17] The posse runs off.

[48:19] Todd wakes up from his injuries, climbs out of his bacta tank.

[48:22] He's on her ship.

[48:24] And the new colonists are gonna stay.

[48:26] Movie over.

[48:27] I did it.

[48:27] Perfect score for Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

[48:29] And you did a great job.

[48:30] And one thing I want to mention is that the movie does not have them kiss at the end.

[48:36] At the end.

[48:37] There's still that kind of hint of like, maybe they like each other now, but it does not go all the way to have them suddenly be in love after several stressful days together.

[48:45] Which I really appreciated.

Dan McCoy

[48:46] And that was very nice.

[48:47] Yeah, that was a good choice by the movie.

[48:49] Like, who knows?

[48:50] Maybe.

[48:51] But who cares, on the other hand.

Elliott Kalan

[48:52] And then, Stuart, do you want to summarize the ten minutes of end credits that follow?

Stuart Wellington

[48:57] I wasn't paying that...

[48:58] I was just...

[48:58] I mean, I was paying attention, but I wasn't paying that close attention, because I was just looking again for that, the no horses were...

Dan McCoy

[49:03] I mean, you could summarize them by a bunch of words went by.

Elliott Kalan

[49:06] Yeah, but it's just one of those things...

[49:08] I was like, okay, there's still some of this movie left, right?

[49:10] And it cut to black.

[49:10] And I was like...

[49:12] I just could see on the timeline, on the screen, that there was a lot...

[49:14] There were ten minutes left, and I was like, wow, that's a lot of credits.

[49:17] I mean, but that's the visual artist working on the noise, I guess.

[49:20] It was a big movie.

Stuart Wellington

[49:21] And there was a ton of reshoots, so I would imagine that were spread out over...

[49:25] And it was shot on location, then it was shot in...

[49:27] A lot of the reshoots were done in Atlanta, too.

[49:29] So I imagine a lot of different people got a crack at this thing.

[49:32] Yeah, that's true.

Dan McCoy

[49:34] So, guys, final judgments.

[49:38] Is this a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie you kind of like?

[49:42] This is a tough one, and I'm going to get a little controversial here.

[49:48] I kind of like the movie.

[49:50] We talked about it.

[49:52] There's a lot of flaws.

[49:54] There are even more flaws the more we talk about it.

[49:57] I think the biggest problem with it is it is a potentially very interesting idea

[50:03] that has been flattened out into a pretty standard YA screenplay.

[50:10] And I am very curious what the Charlie Kaufman version of it was

[50:14] before this version came out.

[50:17] But it has...

[50:19] Mads Mikkelsen is great.

[50:21] The stars, the roles they're playing, not particularly deep,

[50:26] but Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland are extremely charismatic people,

[50:30] and it was fun to watch them.

[50:31] I liked the look of the movie,

[50:33] and I liked that it tried to have some ideas

[50:36] and tried to be saying something about something.

[50:39] I mean, it's...

[50:40] The novels won a shitload of awards.

[50:42] Yeah.

[50:43] I just think it's...

[50:44] But it is like...

[50:47] It does feel like it could be kind of a mid-level sci-fi series

[50:52] as much as, like, a film.

[50:57] I marginally enjoyed it just because I think it looked kind of neat

[51:00] and went down easier than I expected,

[51:04] but I wouldn't recommend it necessarily for anyone.

Elliott Kalan

[51:08] Yeah, I don't think it was...

[51:09] I think it was neither good, bad, nor full-out bad, bad,

[51:12] but it is very...

[51:14] It feels very generic to me.

[51:16] It feels like they did take...

[51:17] They were like,

[51:18] what's the, like, one gimmick of this thing?

[51:23] And now, like you were saying,

[51:24] they just kind of got compressed into the same kind of old structure

[51:26] that you've seen in a lot of movies,

[51:29] and you kind of know where it's going all the time.

[51:31] And it even...

[51:32] It looks very...

[51:33] Like, the way it's shot looks very Hunger Games-y at times,

[51:36] and, like, it's a...

[51:37] It was the movie where I was constantly waiting for the moment

[51:40] where it was going to, like, surprise me in some way,

[51:43] and so, like, it didn't strike me as bad,

[51:45] but it is...

[51:45] I did find it dull because it was...

[51:48] But, like, if you haven't seen a lot of these movies,

[51:51] then go ahead, you know?

[51:52] If you've seen a lot of these movies,

[51:53] then you're going to be...

[51:54] Every beat of the way,

[51:55] you're going to kind of know what's going to happen,

[51:56] but maybe this is...

[51:57] You've never seen a movie before?

[51:58] Go ahead.

[51:58] Watch Chaos Walking.

[51:59] It'll surprise you.

Stuart Wellington

[52:01] It's going to blow your mind

[52:02] if you've never seen a movie before.

[52:04] Yeah.

[52:04] Yeah, I mean, it's...

[52:06] I feel like...

[52:07] I guess when it actually started moving...

[52:09] Like, obviously, I've already mentioned

[52:10] there's a few things that the movie does

[52:12] that I could not...

[52:14] I don't enjoy at all

[52:15] involving animal death.

[52:18] You don't enjoy seeing dogs drowned.

[52:19] Exactly.

[52:20] I don't enjoy that.

[52:21] That's fair.

[52:22] We can disagree.

[52:23] No, I don't like it either.

[52:24] So...

[52:25] Good save.

[52:27] So I feel like once the movie gets going,

[52:30] and I had to take fewer notes,

[52:32] I found it to be more enjoyable

[52:34] because I was actually kind of just watching the movie

[52:36] and stuff was happening.

[52:37] And it's like it's...

[52:38] The locations are beautiful

[52:39] and the performances aren't bad.

[52:42] And I like at least some of the design decisions.

[52:45] But like that first chunk is fucking the labor

[52:49] that goes into trying to explain the setup.

[52:51] When I feel like you guys hit it on the head

[52:53] when you were saying that like,

[52:54] if you focused on the Daisy Ridley character at the start

[52:57] and you saw it through her eyes,

[53:00] like her perspective is so much more understandable.

[53:02] Yeah.

[53:03] So if you just...

[53:04] If you showed that through her,

[53:07] it would make way more sense.

[53:09] It would feel a lot more fleet.

[53:11] But...

[53:11] I know.

[53:11] And I don't know if it's just

[53:13] because I'm like thirsting for like weirder sci-fi,

[53:16] like something like Raised by Wolves,

[53:18] where this feels just kind of bland.

[53:22] Maybe my taste buds have been so desensitized

[53:26] by stranger offerings, you know?

Elliott Kalan

[53:28] Mm-hmm.

[53:28] Well, and also it's like you...

[53:30] Well, with this many talented people on it,

[53:32] you're expecting something that's more

[53:34] than just kind of like the same old, you know?

[53:36] And it feels very same old to me.

[53:39] Yeah.

[53:39] I think it's...

[53:40] I think there's a version of this movie.

[53:42] Here, this is going to be...

[53:43] This is our new...

[53:43] This is our new segment, MovieMD,

[53:46] where we're going to fix it.

[53:48] We're going to doctor up this movie.

[53:49] I think because I know that it is...

[53:51] A lot of people grow up in systems

[53:53] where they don't recognize the sin inherent in the system

[53:56] or the things being...

[53:57] The lies being told to them until they're older

[54:00] because you only know what you grew up with.

[54:01] There's a...

[54:01] I feel like every generation has this moment

[54:05] where they're like,

[54:06] hey, wait a minute.

[54:07] Like, capitalism's not good for most people.

[54:10] And then the next generation has to figure that out again

[54:12] because it's so baked into the way we live.

[54:14] But the Tom...

[54:15] It is so obviously...

[54:17] The town is so obviously sinister

[54:18] that for Todd not to recognize it is ridiculous

[54:22] for the audience to buy.

[54:23] And it's like in real life, I would buy it.

[54:25] In a movie, it's hard for me to buy it.

[54:27] And so there's a version of this movie,

[54:29] I think, starts with Daisy on the ship.

[54:31] And they're talking about how great this place is going to be

[54:33] that they've been journeying to for decades.

[54:35] She talks in the movie about how

[54:36] my grandparents got on the ship

[54:38] and my parents and I was born on the ship

[54:40] and they told me we're leaving for a better life.

[54:42] And they're telling her how great this place is going to be.

[54:44] It's basically...

[54:44] This is the American tale version of it, I guess.

[54:46] And she crash lands on it.

[54:49] She does not know what the noise is.

[54:50] She's being confronted by guys

[54:52] whose thoughts are screaming at her all the time.

[54:53] She's got to figure it out.

[54:55] And she kind of like has to team up with this kid

[54:58] who's like well-meaning but kind of slow

[55:00] when it comes to figuring out what's going on around him.

[55:02] You know, who's just kind of oblivious

[55:04] to anything outside of his own head

[55:06] because he's a teen guy.

[55:07] Why are you pointing at me

[55:08] while you're saying that slow part?

[55:10] And maybe he's painting miniatures a lot.

[55:12] Maybe he's got a cat named Muscles.

[55:14] But anyway, so...

[55:15] So that's cute.

[55:18] Like that's a version of the movie

[55:19] that I think would be more interesting

[55:20] but it's just not the version of the story

[55:23] that they're telling here.

[55:24] Instead they go in a more traditional path.

Stuart Wellington

[55:27] So I guess I didn't come up with a...

[55:30] Yeah, it doesn't really fit our categories.

[55:32] There's elements that I kind of like

[55:33] but also, you know,

[55:36] what I guess would be a bad, bad movie.

Elliott Kalan

[55:39] So was chaos walking chaos watching?

[55:42] No.

Stuart Wellington

[55:43] Or are we chaos balking

[55:45] at the prospect of recommending it?

Dan McCoy

[55:48] I mean, we are chaos balking.

[55:51] I don't know why you're asking that question.

Elliott Kalan

[55:53] Dan, give us a chaos walking pun or play on words.

Dan McCoy

[55:56] Chaos stumbling.

Elliott Kalan

[55:59] Okay.

[55:59] Yeah, that's your review title.

[56:00] Well, that was our...

Stuart Wellington

[56:01] Took an hour, but we got there.

[56:03] Great, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[56:04] I mean, I had it before.

[56:05] I just didn't think it was worth saying.

Stuart Wellington

[56:07] Yeah, guys, let's just end our regular segment,

Elliott Kalan

[56:09] Chaos Talking,

[56:09] where we talk about the movie Chaos Walking

[56:11] and move on to the next segment.

[56:17] I'm going first.

[56:18] It's me, Jackie Kation.

[56:19] Man, she's always this bossy.

[56:22] Hi.

[56:23] I'm Laurie Kilmartin.

[56:25] We're a bunch of stand-up comics

[56:27] and we've been doing comedy like 60 years total.

[56:31] both of us, but we look amazing.

[56:34] And we're working out.

Stuart Wellington

[56:35] We drop every Monday on MaxFun

[56:37] and it's called The Jackie and Laurie Show

[56:39] and you can listen to it

[56:40] and learn about comedy

Elliott Kalan

[56:41] and learn about anger management

[56:42] and all the things.

[56:44] And Jackie is married but childless

[56:46] and I'm unmarried but childful.

[56:49] So together, we make one complete woman.

[56:54] Is that just what that one's going to end?

[56:56] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[56:57] And we try to make Kyle laugh just like that

[57:00] and say, oh my God, every episode.

[57:02] It's a good job.

Dan McCoy

[57:03] The Jackie and Laurie Show.

[57:05] Mondays only on Maximum Fun.

Justin McElroy

[57:10] We are the host of My Brother, My Brother and Me

[57:12] and now nearly 10 years into our podcast,

[57:15] the secret can be revealed.

[57:16] All the clues are in place

[57:18] and the world's greatest treasure hunt can now begin.

Stuart Wellington

[57:21] Embedded in each episode of My Brother, My Brother and Me

Justin McElroy

[57:23] is a micro clue that will lead you

[57:25] to 14 precious gemstones

[57:27] all around this big, beautiful blue world of ours.

[57:31] So start combing through the episodes.

[57:33] Let's say starting at episode 101 on.

Stuart Wellington

[57:35] Yeah, the early episodes are pretty problematic

[57:37] so there's no clues in those episodes.

[57:41] No, no, not at all.

[57:42] The better ones, the good ones, clues ahoy.

Justin McElroy

[57:44] Listen to every episode repeatedly in sequence.

[57:48] Laugh if you must, but mainly get all the great clues.

[57:52] My Brother, My Brother and Me,

[57:53] it's an advice show, kind of,

[57:54] but a treasure hunt mainly.

[57:56] Anywhere you find podcasts or treasure maps.

[57:59] My Brother, My Brother and Me,

[58:00] The Hut is on.

Dan McCoy

[58:03] The next segment is a quick word from Squarespace.

[58:08] One of our sponsors for this episode.

[58:12] With Squarespace, you can create a beautiful website,

[58:16] put your cool idea into a nice site

[58:19] everyone can see on the internet.

[58:22] You can blog or publish content,

[58:25] sell products and services of all kinds,

[58:27] and much, much more.

[58:27] And Squarespace does this by giving you

[58:30] beautiful, customizable templates

[58:32] created by world-class designers.

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[58:38] A new way to buy domains

[58:39] and choose from over 200 extensions

[58:42] and free and secure hosting.

[58:45] So go to squarespace.com

[58:47] slash flop

[58:49] for a free trial,

[58:50] and when you're ready to launch,

[58:52] use the offer code flop

[58:54] to save 10% off

[58:56] your first purchase of a website or domain.

Elliott Kalan

[59:00] So, Dan, I had an idea for a website.

[59:02] I was wondering if Squarespace

[59:03] might be able to help me with it.

[59:05] What a pregnant pause right there.

Dan McCoy

[59:06] They might.

Elliott Kalan

[59:08] Okay, now, we saw the movie Chaos Walking.

[59:10] We know that there's a problem

[59:11] guys are having

[59:12] where people can hear their thoughts

[59:13] and it's called the noise.

[59:13] It's a problem that we're all having these days.

[59:15] Everybody's going through it.

[59:16] At the same time,

[59:18] look,

[59:20] kids need toys

[59:21] and we don't want to make them

[59:23] out of plastic anymore.

[59:24] We want to make them

[59:24] out of biodegradable materials.

[59:26] So, I wanted to start a website

[59:28] where we could hire people

[59:30] with noise problems

[59:32] and harness their ability

[59:33] to come up with new ideas

[59:34] to then design toys

[59:36] to be made out of

[59:38] more biodegradable organic products.

[59:40] And so, that's my website,

[59:42] www.noiseboyssoytoys.com

[59:45] would be your place

[59:46] to get toys made of soy

[59:48] made by boys dealing with noise.

[59:49] Now, you know what?

[59:51] I know what Sparks once said,

[59:51] noisy boys are happy boys.

[59:53] So, who better to design

[59:53] the soy toys that our kids need

[59:55] than noise boys?

[59:55] So, noiseboyssoytoys.com

[59:57] is your place

[59:58] to buy soy-based toys

[59:59] made by boys

[1:00:00] dealing with noise.

[1:00:02] We're giving them something to do

[1:00:03] to take their mind off of the noise

[1:00:04] and we're making better toys

[1:00:07] out of soy.

[1:00:08] So, Dan, you think Squarespace

[1:00:08] will be able to help me

[1:00:09] with this website?

[1:00:10] Now, keep in mind,

[1:00:10] I don't have the company yet

[1:00:12] but I want to set up the site

[1:00:13] so it's ready

[1:00:13] when I finally get the ability

[1:00:15] to make toys out of soy.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:16] I think they will.

[1:00:18] Elliot, you broke up a little bit.

[1:00:19] I think you said something

[1:00:20] about Sparks.

[1:00:21] Did you say something

[1:00:21] about Sparks?

[1:00:22] I did.

[1:00:22] I said that.

[1:00:22] I'm going to see that

[1:00:23] at your right documentary

[1:00:25] on Friday.

[1:00:28] I'm very excited.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:29] I think I'm going to be seeing it

[1:00:30] this weekend too.

[1:00:30] It's the movie I'm most

[1:00:31] looking forward to this year.

[1:00:33] But yeah,

[1:00:33] because Sparks,

[1:00:34] as you know from their album

[1:00:36] Terminal Jive

[1:00:37] on the song Noisy Boys,

[1:00:38] they say noisy boys

[1:00:39] are happy boys.

[1:00:40] So, who better to design

[1:00:41] the toys of tomorrow

[1:00:42] out of soy

[1:00:42] than boys with noise?

[1:00:44] That's noisyboystoitoys.com.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:47] Oh, you know,

[1:00:48] thinking about it,

[1:00:49] this podcast is coming out

[1:00:51] on my birthday

[1:00:51] so I'd just like to

[1:00:53] extend to you

[1:00:54] the chance to say

[1:00:55] happy birthday

[1:00:55] to me, guys.

[1:00:57] If you wanted to.

[1:00:59] But it's not your birthday

[1:01:00] when we're recording this.

[1:01:01] No, but the podcast

[1:01:02] is coming out

[1:01:03] on my birthday

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:04] so maybe...

[1:01:04] Yeah, I mean,

[1:01:05] I'm going to do it, Elliot.

[1:01:07] I'll do it.

[1:01:09] Okay.

[1:01:10] Okay, so happy birthday?

[1:01:14] Happy birthday, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:15] Thanks.

[1:01:16] Thanks.

[1:01:16] I appreciate it.

[1:01:17] Hey, Dan,

[1:01:18] happy birthday

[1:01:18] when this is released

[1:01:19] but not recording it.

[1:01:22] I appreciate it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:23] Keeps a foot on base there.

[1:01:24] I like it.

[1:01:25] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:25] Stuart, I think you have

[1:01:26] another message

[1:01:27] from a sponsor.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:28] I have a word

[1:01:29] from another sponsor.

[1:01:30] That's right.

[1:01:30] So, Dan,

[1:01:30] was that an ad

[1:01:31] for your birthday?

[1:01:32] Yeah, that was a little

Dan McCoy

[1:01:33] plug for my birthday.

[1:01:34] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:36] Yeah, just drop the

[1:01:36] cash app

[1:01:37] after the episode.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:39] Jordan,

[1:01:40] put that birthday

[1:01:40] noise sound effect

[1:01:41] in here.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:42] I was sort of hoping

[1:01:43] nobody'd even remember

[1:01:44] my birthday.

[1:01:47] I don't know what it is.

[1:01:48] Is that like a

[1:01:48] noise maker?

[1:01:49] Like a

[1:01:49] noise maker?

[1:01:50] Is it the whole song?

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:52] Who knows?

[1:01:53] So,

[1:01:54] hey,

[1:01:56] everybody,

[1:01:56] Support for the Flophouse

[1:01:57] is brought to you

[1:01:58] by Manscaped.

[1:02:01] Manscaped is dedicated

[1:02:02] to being the best

[1:02:03] in men's

[1:02:04] below-the-waist grooming.

[1:02:06] And Manscaped

[1:02:07] just launched

[1:02:08] their new

[1:02:09] fourth-generation

[1:02:09] trimmer,

[1:02:10] the Lawn Mower

[1:02:12] 4.0,

[1:02:13] and,

[1:02:14] oh boy,

[1:02:15] I've been

[1:02:15] making some use.

[1:02:16] I'm sure Dan's

[1:02:17] going to be updating

[1:02:18] the Flophouse

[1:02:18] Insta with all

[1:02:19] kinds of pics.

[1:02:20] No.

[1:02:22] So,

[1:02:23] yep,

[1:02:24] it's going to happen.

[1:02:25] It is a sleek,

[1:02:26] well-designed,

[1:02:27] and optimized trimmer.

[1:02:28] It makes

[1:02:29] shaving time

[1:02:31] much easier.

[1:02:33] Having used

[1:02:34] a variety

[1:02:35] of different

[1:02:35] trimmers

[1:02:36] over the years,

[1:02:37] this one is by far

[1:02:38] the best I've used.

[1:02:40] There is some

[1:02:41] interesting topography

[1:02:42] down there,

[1:02:42] and I found it

[1:02:43] to be very

[1:02:44] non-Euclidean

[1:02:47] geography.

[1:02:48] Geography.

[1:02:48] Sorry.

[1:02:50] Geographies.

[1:02:50] Non-Euclidean

[1:02:51] geography, too.

[1:02:52] That works.

[1:02:53] Yeah.

[1:02:54] And also,

[1:02:55] I can't stress

[1:02:56] enough,

[1:02:56] there's also

[1:02:57] the area

[1:02:58] that I'm

[1:02:58] shaving,

[1:03:00] because I'm

[1:03:01] going to talk

[1:03:01] about my

[1:03:01] experience with it.

[1:03:03] area that I'm

[1:03:03] shaving.

[1:03:05] When I'm

[1:03:06] shaving,

[1:03:06] I don't have

[1:03:07] a lot of

[1:03:07] natural light

[1:03:08] going on

[1:03:09] down there.

[1:03:10] There's a lot

[1:03:10] of shade

[1:03:11] being cast.

[1:03:12] You don't have

[1:03:12] a ring light

[1:03:13] you can stand

[1:03:13] in the door?

[1:03:13] I don't think

Dan McCoy

[1:03:14] a lot of people

[1:03:14] have a lot

[1:03:15] of natural

[1:03:15] light around

[1:03:16] their genitals,

[1:03:17] Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:18] Wait,

[1:03:18] Dan,

[1:03:19] are you saying

[1:03:19] the sun

[1:03:19] doesn't shine

[1:03:20] out of your

[1:03:20] ass?

[1:03:21] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:22] So,

[1:03:23] one of the

[1:03:23] great features

[1:03:24] of this new

[1:03:25] trimmer is that

[1:03:26] there's a

[1:03:27] built-in

[1:03:28] LED spotlight,

[1:03:30] which I can't

[1:03:31] stress enough

[1:03:32] is very,

[1:03:33] very useful.

[1:03:35] And it also

[1:03:35] has a travel

[1:03:36] lock so that

[1:03:37] your trimmer

[1:03:38] doesn't just

[1:03:38] turn on in

[1:03:39] your bag when

[1:03:40] you're traveling

[1:03:40] around with

[1:03:41] your trimmer.

[1:03:41] That would

[1:03:41] be embarrassing.

[1:03:42] And waste all

[1:03:42] your precious

[1:03:43] bad, I don't

[1:03:43] care about

[1:03:43] the embarrassment,

[1:03:44] I just don't

[1:03:44] want to waste

[1:03:45] all my precious

[1:03:45] juice.

[1:03:47] So,

[1:03:48] why don't you

[1:03:49] clean yourself

[1:03:50] up?

[1:03:50] You deserve

[1:03:51] it.

[1:03:51] You deserve

[1:03:52] it.

[1:03:52] It's great.

[1:03:54] With a

[1:03:55] Manscaped

[1:03:56] trimmer today

[1:03:58] to make your

[1:03:58] me time the

[1:03:59] best time.

[1:04:00] Yeah.

[1:04:01] Oh,

[1:04:02] damn.

[1:04:02] Have you been

[1:04:03] using your

[1:04:03] Manscaped

[1:04:04] trimmer?

Dan McCoy

[1:04:04] Without going

[1:04:05] into too

[1:04:06] much detail,

[1:04:07] I have,

[1:04:08] in general,

[1:04:09] avoided doing

[1:04:10] too much

[1:04:11] trimming in

[1:04:13] the past just

[1:04:13] because I

[1:04:13] find it

[1:04:14] ends up being

[1:04:15] tremendously

[1:04:16] itchy.

[1:04:17] And I have

[1:04:18] not had that

[1:04:19] issue with

[1:04:20] this product.

[1:04:21] So I assume

[1:04:22] it's some sort

[1:04:22] of miracle

[1:04:23] design that

[1:04:24] keeps you

[1:04:25] from itching.

[1:04:27] That's it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:28] Hey, no.

[1:04:29] It's all

[1:04:30] good info.

[1:04:30] So you

[1:04:32] can get

[1:04:32] 20% off

[1:04:33] and free

[1:04:33] shipping by

[1:04:34] using the

[1:04:34] code FLOP

[1:04:35] over at

[1:04:36] manscaped.com.

[1:04:36] That's 20%

[1:04:37] off with your

[1:04:38] and free

[1:04:38] shipping at

[1:04:39] manscaped.com

[1:04:41] using code

[1:04:41] FLOP.

[1:04:42] Unlock your

[1:04:42] confidence and

[1:04:43] always use the

[1:04:44] right tools for

[1:04:45] the job with

[1:04:46] Manscaped.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:48] And Elliot,

[1:04:49] I think you

[1:04:49] have a

[1:04:50] Jumbotron.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:51] I do.

[1:04:52] I've got a

[1:04:52] Jumbotron.

[1:04:53] Here we go.

[1:04:54] Fake Presidents,

[1:04:55] a podcast that

[1:04:56] looks at fictional

[1:04:56] U.S.

[1:04:57] presidents from

[1:04:57] pop culture to

[1:04:58] see just how

[1:04:59] much fiction there

[1:04:59] really is,

[1:05:00] hosted by a

[1:05:01] former political

[1:05:01] consultant and

[1:05:02] a former speech

[1:05:03] writer who do

[1:05:03] like talking

[1:05:04] politics.

[1:05:04] They just don't

[1:05:05] like talking

[1:05:05] actual current

[1:05:06] politics.

[1:05:07] In other words,

[1:05:07] it's for Flophouse

[1:05:08] listeners who wish

[1:05:09] Elliot would share

[1:05:09] even more

[1:05:10] presidential trivia

[1:05:10] while deconstructing

[1:05:11] the politics of

[1:05:12] films like Dave,

[1:05:13] Air Force One,

[1:05:14] and of course,

[1:05:14] Machete Kills.

[1:05:15] Just look for

[1:05:16] Fake Presidents

[1:05:17] wherever you get

[1:05:17] podcasts.

[1:05:18] We're the only

[1:05:18] show with that

[1:05:19] title.

[1:05:21] I'm glad that

[1:05:21] they pointed that

[1:05:22] out.

[1:05:22] That's very helpful.

[1:05:23] Sounds like a fun

[1:05:24] podcast to me.

[1:05:24] I'm looking forward

[1:05:25] to checking it out.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:27] So, let us

[1:05:28] return to the

[1:05:30] non-sponsor

[1:05:32] related portions

[1:05:34] of our show

[1:05:34] with everyone's

[1:05:36] favorite segment

[1:05:37] is what I'm

[1:05:37] going to claim

[1:05:38] is true.

[1:05:39] Letters!

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:39] Oh, okay.

[1:05:40] That's a big

[1:05:40] claim.

[1:05:41] A big, big

[1:05:42] claim.

[1:05:42] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:43] It's probably

[1:05:43] untrue, but

[1:05:44] probably.

[1:05:47] But this first

[1:05:48] letter...

[1:05:48] I knew you were

[1:05:48] hedging it.

[1:05:49] Okay.

[1:05:50] This first letter...

[1:05:51] Yeah, I made a

[1:05:52] bold claim and

[1:05:52] then I immediately

[1:05:53] just decided.

[1:05:54] Backed off, yeah.

[1:05:54] Yeah.

[1:05:55] This is from

[1:05:56] Juniper, last

[1:05:57] name withheld.

[1:05:58] Love the name.

[1:05:59] And this goes,

[1:06:01] Howdy, peaches.

[1:06:02] Hey.

[1:06:03] I was just

[1:06:03] taking a listen

[1:06:04] to one of the

[1:06:05] episodes in your

[1:06:06] backlog where Dan

[1:06:08] said this...

[1:06:08] Wait, what if it

[1:06:09] was a bat log,

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:09] though, and it

[1:06:10] was Batman's

[1:06:11] backlog?

[1:06:11] Or just a log

[1:06:12] Batman likes

[1:06:13] sitting on and

[1:06:13] thinking.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:14] He has it on

[1:06:15] his utility belt.

[1:06:17] It's very hard to

[1:06:17] walk around with a

[1:06:18] log on his belt,

[1:06:20] but he does it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:21] But when he gets

[1:06:22] his best ideas,

[1:06:22] sitting on it.

[1:06:23] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:24] I was just

[1:06:25] taking a listen

[1:06:26] to one of the

[1:06:26] episodes in your

[1:06:27] backlog where Dan

[1:06:30] said that Stuart

[1:06:31] was yammering

[1:06:32] like a yam.

[1:06:33] I immediately

[1:06:34] had a laughing

[1:06:35] fit at my desk

[1:06:35] that lasted for

[1:06:36] at least a full

[1:06:37] minute, I assume

[1:06:38] complete with

[1:06:38] laughter aftershocks

[1:06:40] or laughter

[1:06:41] shocks.

[1:06:41] Still hurts to

[1:06:42] hear it.

[1:06:43] When I thought

[1:06:44] about it in the

[1:06:45] car hours later

[1:06:46] and even when I

[1:06:46] write this letter,

[1:06:47] my question to

[1:06:48] you three is

[1:06:49] this.

[1:06:50] What is the

[1:06:50] most simply

[1:06:51] inane line or

[1:06:52] moment in media

[1:06:53] that sent you

[1:06:54] into such an

[1:06:55] episode of

[1:06:56] disproportionate

[1:06:57] laughter?

[1:06:58] Keep it yammy.

[1:06:59] Yours always

[1:07:00] Juniper.

[1:07:02] So an inane

[1:07:03] line that sent

[1:07:05] you into

[1:07:05] hysterics.

[1:07:07] Juniper yammy

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:08] sounds like the

[1:07:09] name of a

[1:07:09] character from

[1:07:10] that was an

[1:07:11] Amazon show or

[1:07:11] Netflix show where

[1:07:12] it was like a

[1:07:12] murder mystery among

[1:07:13] fairies and elves.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:15] What was that show

[1:07:15] called?

[1:07:16] Carnival Row.

[1:07:17] Carnival Row, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:18] Juniper yammy.

[1:07:19] Well, this isn't

[1:07:20] exactly an inane

[1:07:21] line, but I think

[1:07:22] on the podcast, I've

[1:07:24] said it on Twitter,

[1:07:25] the biggest laugh that

[1:07:26] a movie got out of

[1:07:27] me in 2020 was the

[1:07:28] moment in Manc when

[1:07:29] he said, I'm 43

[1:07:30] years old.

[1:07:31] And I went, what?

[1:07:35] It was, I'm seeing

[1:07:36] my wife's reaction to

[1:07:37] that line.

[1:07:37] It was hilarious.

[1:07:38] But I will say the

[1:07:39] other big, my big

[1:07:40] laugh line of 2021 is

[1:07:41] Rebecca Hall saying,

[1:07:42] Kong bows to no

[1:07:43] one in Godzilla

[1:07:44] versus Kong because

[1:07:45] it's just a very

[1:07:46] silly line.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:48] Oh man, I don't

[1:07:49] know.

[1:07:50] I mean, just for

[1:07:51] like, like a, I

[1:07:52] don't know if I

[1:07:52] would call it an

[1:07:53] inane line, but

[1:07:54] just the constant

[1:07:55] mentioning of

[1:07:56] official couples

[1:07:57] and Barb and

[1:07:57] star is the

[1:07:58] funniest thing I've

[1:07:59] heard in 2021.

[1:08:00] Extremely funny.

[1:08:01] But then I would

[1:08:02] say for like an

[1:08:03] inane line, there's

[1:08:04] that line, I

[1:08:04] mentioned it before,

[1:08:05] but that line in

[1:08:06] fucking Tenet where

[1:08:07] after having the

[1:08:09] reality that playing

[1:08:11] around with all

[1:08:11] this time shenanigans

[1:08:12] could lead to the

[1:08:13] destruction of the

[1:08:14] universe, that

[1:08:15] beautiful giraffe

[1:08:16] turned into a

[1:08:17] woman like, uh,

[1:08:18] last unicorn

[1:08:19] Elizabeth the

[1:08:20] Bicky leans

[1:08:21] back and says,

[1:08:22] including my

[1:08:24] son.

[1:08:25] It was so

[1:08:26] fucking silly

[1:08:27] because it's

[1:08:27] like, you know,

[1:08:28] shit, dude.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:29] So if we're

[1:08:30] talking about bad

[1:08:31] inane lines, then

[1:08:32] similarly, I think

[1:08:34] that ready player

[1:08:34] one where he's

[1:08:35] upset that the

[1:08:37] villain has killed

[1:08:38] his mom's

[1:08:40] sister rather than

[1:08:40] just saying his

[1:08:41] aunt is a pretty

[1:08:43] good one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:45] Well, that's

[1:08:46] like the line in

[1:08:47] the happening

[1:08:48] where John

[1:08:49] Leguizamo goes,

[1:08:50] I'm on a train

[1:08:51] going to the

[1:08:51] town of

[1:08:52] Princeton, which

[1:08:53] is like, if

[1:08:54] these people live

[1:08:54] on the East

[1:08:55] Coast, they know

[1:08:55] Princeton's a

[1:08:56] town.

[1:08:56] Like, I don't

[1:08:56] know why you

[1:08:57] had to explain

[1:08:57] that.

[1:08:58] The train

[1:08:58] doesn't stop

[1:08:59] at the college,

[1:08:59] is that what

[1:09:00] you're telling

[1:09:00] me?

[1:09:00] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:02] But in terms

[1:09:03] of like more

[1:09:03] like deliberately

[1:09:05] inane, like a

[1:09:07] funny line that

[1:09:08] is, that I am

[1:09:10] shocked at how

[1:09:11] funny I find it

[1:09:11] just because it's

[1:09:12] so stupid, I

[1:09:13] always go back

[1:09:14] to the classic

[1:09:15] look around you

[1:09:16] where they just

[1:09:17] go, thanks,

[1:09:18] aunts.

[1:09:19] Thanks.

[1:09:21] Which is, you

[1:09:23] know, just an

[1:09:23] encapsulation, I

[1:09:24] think of the

[1:09:25] Flophouse's ethos

[1:09:26] when it comes to

[1:09:27] words.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:28] Yeah.

[1:09:29] You mush them

[1:09:30] around.

[1:09:30] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:31] Yeah.

[1:09:31] You mush them

[1:09:32] around and your

[1:09:32] mouth will come

[1:09:33] out different.

[1:09:35] Anyway, so this

[1:09:38] second and final

[1:09:39] letter is, oh,

[1:09:41] it's a lot of

[1:09:41] wordplay as

[1:09:42] well.

[1:09:43] This is from

[1:09:43] Josie, last

[1:09:45] name withheld.

[1:09:46] Josie N.T.

[1:09:47] Pussycats, yeah.

[1:09:48] Mm-hmm.

[1:09:49] Josie writes,

[1:09:50] just wanted to

[1:09:50] say that a

[1:09:51] group of my

[1:09:52] eighth grade

[1:09:53] students is

[1:09:53] reading Dune

[1:09:54] for a student

[1:09:55] led book group.

[1:09:57] I told them

[1:09:57] about the

[1:09:58] Doonies and

[1:09:59] McDonald's menu

[1:10:00] items and they

[1:10:01] got inspired.

[1:10:02] Here are some

[1:10:03] of their ideas.

[1:10:06] Freminems,

[1:10:07] chocolate coated

[1:10:08] bite-sized

[1:10:09] candies.

[1:10:10] Binet and

[1:10:11] Jesseret spice

[1:10:12] cream on a

[1:10:13] Harkone.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:14] That's good.

[1:10:15] The problem

[1:10:16] with Benamems

[1:10:16] is it's full

[1:10:17] of pee.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:19] You got

[1:10:19] Junior's

[1:10:20] Mintats.

[1:10:21] Or Freminems.

[1:10:23] Yeah.

[1:10:24] Pumpkin

[1:10:24] spice latte.

[1:10:26] Mm-hmm.

[1:10:27] And

[1:10:27] Thopter with

[1:10:28] cheese.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:30] So, hope you

[1:10:31] enjoy from

[1:10:32] Josie.

[1:10:33] I think

[1:10:33] somebody on

[1:10:33] Twitter already

[1:10:34] mentioned the

[1:10:35] Gurney

[1:10:35] Haddock.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:37] Yeah.

[1:10:37] I think

[1:10:38] Josie got

[1:10:39] on Twitter

[1:10:39] and I

[1:10:40] think it

[1:10:41] was maybe

[1:10:42] them who

[1:10:43] tweeted some

[1:10:44] extra ones

[1:10:45] after.

[1:10:46] But this

[1:10:46] was the

[1:10:46] mother load

[1:10:48] of Dune

[1:10:50] items.

[1:10:50] Thanks to the

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:50] internet, we can

[1:10:52] reach out and

[1:10:52] connect with

[1:10:53] people who are

[1:10:53] also amused

[1:10:55] by the idea of

[1:10:56] Dune themed

[1:10:57] menu items at a

[1:10:58] fast food

[1:10:58] restaurant.

[1:10:59] That's the

[1:10:59] power of the

[1:11:00] internet.

[1:11:00] It almost

[1:11:00] makes the

[1:11:01] destruction of

[1:11:02] democracy worth

[1:11:02] it.

[1:11:03] That the

[1:11:04] internet has

[1:11:04] made such a

[1:11:05] thing possible.

[1:11:06] So, thank

[1:11:07] you, Tim

[1:11:07] Berners-Lee.

[1:11:08] Is that who I

[1:11:09] should be giving

[1:11:09] thanks to for

[1:11:10] that?

Dan McCoy

[1:11:10] I guess.

[1:11:11] I guess.

[1:11:12] But hey, there's

[1:11:13] one more segment

[1:11:14] on the Flop House

[1:11:15] and that's where we

[1:11:16] recommend movies.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:17] If this was a

[1:11:18] centipede, this

[1:11:19] would be the

[1:11:20] butt segment.

[1:11:21] The butt

[1:11:21] segment.

[1:11:22] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:23] My favorite

[1:11:23] segment.

[1:11:23] Because a

[1:11:24] normal centipede

[1:11:24] is made up of

[1:11:25] three segments.

[1:11:27] It's called a

[1:11:28] butt, the

[1:11:29] head, and

[1:11:29] letters.

[1:11:30] Somebody's been

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:35] watching Wild

[1:11:36] Crats, the

[1:11:36] PBS animal show.

[1:11:38] The centipede

[1:11:39] has three segments.

[1:11:40] Head, letters,

[1:11:41] and butt.

[1:11:43] Thanks,

[1:11:44] centipedes.

[1:11:44] What if we had a

[1:11:45] centipede's letter

[1:11:46] powers?

[1:11:47] What if?

[1:11:48] Anyway, it's a

[1:11:49] show my kids watch

[1:11:49] a lot of.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:50] So, I would

[1:11:51] like to recommend,

[1:11:52] so I had the

[1:11:54] first in-person

[1:11:56] hang with some

[1:11:57] vaccinated friends

[1:11:59] to watch a movie.

[1:12:01] In the world?

[1:12:03] Yours was the

[1:12:03] first one?

[1:12:04] What?

[1:12:05] Not the first of

[1:12:07] everyone.

[1:12:07] The first time

[1:12:08] since quarantine

[1:12:10] that I got

[1:12:11] together with a

[1:12:12] group.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:13] Dan, did they

[1:12:13] show you their

[1:12:14] vaccination cards

[1:12:15] or their

[1:12:15] Excelsior pass?

Dan McCoy

[1:12:17] I guess they did

[1:12:18] not.

[1:12:18] I am vaccinated,

[1:12:21] so they're just

[1:12:22] taking their lives

[1:12:23] into their own

[1:12:23] hands if they're

[1:12:24] not.

[1:12:26] But they all

[1:12:27] claim to be

[1:12:27] vaccinated.

[1:12:28] And we watched

[1:12:28] the movie

[1:12:30] Polyester, the

[1:12:31] John Waters film

[1:12:32] from 1981.

[1:12:35] Our friend Kevin,

[1:12:36] who was hosting it,

[1:12:37] had found enough

[1:12:38] Odorama cards for

[1:12:40] all of us to

[1:12:40] scratch and sniff at

[1:12:42] the appropriate

[1:12:42] times during the

[1:12:43] movie.

[1:12:44] It is, they

[1:12:46] instruct you at

[1:12:47] different times

[1:12:47] during Polycaster.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:48] I remember

[1:12:49] watching that movie

[1:12:50] on TV when I was

[1:12:51] too young to really

[1:12:52] fully understand what

[1:12:53] the movie was

[1:12:53] doing.

[1:12:53] And the part where

[1:12:54] they're explaining

[1:12:54] Odorama in the

[1:12:55] beginning, I was

[1:12:55] like, what?

[1:12:57] I don't have this.

[1:12:59] Was I supposed to

[1:12:59] get this?

[1:13:00] I don't understand.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:01] Should I stop the

[1:13:03] movie?

[1:13:03] Did I scratch the

[1:13:04] TV screen?

[1:13:05] What happened?

[1:13:05] Did I just smell

[1:13:06] the things that

[1:13:06] are around me at

[1:13:07] the moment?

[1:13:09] But I thought, I

[1:13:10] found it so funny.

[1:13:12] I've, prior to

[1:13:13] that, I had only

[1:13:14] seen John Waters

[1:13:17] movies from

[1:13:18] Hairspray onward.

[1:13:21] The more

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:21] mainstream, the

[1:13:22] squarer John

[1:13:23] Waters movies.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:23] Yes.

[1:13:24] And I've still

[1:13:25] not seen any of

[1:13:26] the truly

[1:13:27] transgressive ones,

[1:13:28] I guess.

[1:13:28] But Polyester is

[1:13:29] kind of an in-between

[1:13:31] movie.

[1:13:31] And I found it

[1:13:33] so funny.

[1:13:35] It is kind of

[1:13:37] in the form of

[1:13:38] a parody of

[1:13:39] like a Douglas

[1:13:40] Cirque style

[1:13:41] melodrama, a

[1:13:45] woman's picture, a

[1:13:46] weepy of the

[1:13:47] 40s or 50s.

[1:13:48] But it also is

[1:13:49] just kind of an

[1:13:51] all-out assault

[1:13:52] on suburban

[1:13:54] life.

[1:13:55] And it was

[1:13:57] funny to me.

[1:13:57] I was thinking

[1:13:57] about it.

[1:13:58] I'm like, oh,

[1:13:59] okay.

[1:13:59] You watch a

[1:14:00] movie from

[1:14:01] Hollywood that

[1:14:03] sort of takes

[1:14:04] down suburbia or

[1:14:05] whatever, and it

[1:14:06] feels sort of

[1:14:07] gross and smug

[1:14:09] like, you know

[1:14:10] at some level

[1:14:10] this is the

[1:14:12] wealthy, you

[1:14:16] know, like

[1:14:17] making fun of

[1:14:18] this in their

[1:14:19] satire.

[1:14:20] Whereas,

[1:14:22] watching Polyester,

[1:14:23] you know, it

[1:14:24] comes from this

[1:14:24] very obviously

[1:14:26] queer kind

[1:14:27] of punk

[1:14:28] energy.

[1:14:31] We may have

[1:14:32] affection for

[1:14:32] what we're

[1:14:33] satirizing, but

[1:14:34] we're also

[1:14:34] extending a

[1:14:35] middle finger at

[1:14:36] so-called polite

[1:14:38] society that would

[1:14:39] exclude us and

[1:14:41] make us feel

[1:14:41] lesser.

[1:14:42] And so, even

[1:14:43] though it's a

[1:14:44] very mean movie

[1:14:45] in that way,

[1:14:46] in the way it

[1:14:46] really makes fun

[1:14:47] of everyone, it

[1:14:48] is full of joy

[1:14:50] like, fuck

[1:14:51] you guys for

[1:14:52] making us

[1:14:54] outsiders and

[1:14:55] it was really,

[1:14:56] really, really

[1:14:57] funny and a

[1:14:57] lot of fun.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:59] That's a great

[1:14:59] first movie

[1:15:02] hang back.

[1:15:02] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:03] Yeah, it's

[1:15:04] fun for the

[1:15:04] family.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:05] I'm going to

[1:15:06] recommend a

[1:15:06] movie that's a

[1:15:07] bit of a

[1:15:07] qualified

[1:15:08] recommendation,

[1:15:09] but I still

[1:15:09] enjoyed it quite

[1:15:10] a bit.

[1:15:11] I watched

[1:15:12] the new movie,

[1:15:14] I guess,

[1:15:14] directorial debut,

[1:15:15] I think,

[1:15:15] of Simon

[1:15:17] Barrett.

[1:15:18] He's known for

[1:15:19] writing the

[1:15:19] screenplays for

[1:15:20] The Guest and

[1:15:21] You're Next,

[1:15:22] both movies that

[1:15:23] I hold in

[1:15:23] pretty high

[1:15:23] regard.

[1:15:25] And his

[1:15:25] new movie is

[1:15:26] called Seance.

[1:15:27] It takes place

[1:15:28] in a high-end

[1:15:30] girls'

[1:15:31] boarding school.

[1:15:33] And it has,

[1:15:36] you know,

[1:15:36] it's a bit of a

[1:15:37] ghost story.

[1:15:38] It also borrows a

[1:15:39] lot from, like,

[1:15:40] Giallo,

[1:15:41] which I find,

[1:15:42] like, more and

[1:15:43] more that I love

[1:15:44] movies that are

[1:15:45] inspired by

[1:15:46] Giallo as

[1:15:47] opposed to

[1:15:47] actual Giallo.

[1:15:48] But, you know,

[1:15:49] that's something I'm

[1:15:49] going to have to

[1:15:50] take up with my

[1:15:50] therapist.

[1:15:52] So, yeah,

[1:15:54] it's, I don't

[1:15:54] want to talk

[1:15:55] about it too

[1:15:55] much because

[1:15:55] there's, like,

[1:15:56] there's a mystery

[1:15:57] involved, but

[1:15:58] it's gory and

[1:16:00] funny and it,

[1:16:02] you know, like,

[1:16:03] it looks

[1:16:04] interesting and

[1:16:05] the music's good.

[1:16:07] It's fairly

[1:16:09] light, but I,

[1:16:11] you know, I like

[1:16:12] that kind of thing

[1:16:13] every once in a

[1:16:13] while.

[1:16:14] So, Seance.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:16] I'm going to

[1:16:17] recommend a movie

[1:16:17] that, hey, if

[1:16:19] people have been

[1:16:19] listening to these

[1:16:20] episodes in order,

[1:16:20] they can probably

[1:16:21] guess what country

[1:16:22] it came from and

[1:16:23] what film movement

[1:16:25] it was the result

[1:16:25] of.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:25] Which wave was

[1:16:26] it?

[1:16:27] Was it the old

[1:16:27] wave?

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:28] It was not.

[1:16:29] If you're guessing

[1:16:30] it was an old

[1:16:33] wave, you're wrong.

[1:16:34] It was the opposite

[1:16:34] of that.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:34] How big is this

[1:16:35] wave?

[1:16:35] Because it seems

[1:16:36] like this wave

[1:16:36] has been crashing

[1:16:38] for a while on

[1:16:39] the shores of

[1:16:40] Elliott Beach.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:42] So, this is, as

[1:16:43] new listeners will

[1:16:44] not know, that this

[1:16:45] is the Check New

[1:16:45] Wave that I've

[1:16:46] been going through

[1:16:47] the Criterion

[1:16:47] Channel's Check

[1:16:48] New Wave

[1:16:48] collection, which

[1:16:50] is a fair number

[1:16:51] of movies.

[1:16:52] And I had seen

[1:16:54] probably about a

[1:16:55] third of them,

[1:16:55] and not a lot.

[1:16:56] It's like an

[1:16:57] 18 movie collection

[1:16:58] or something like

[1:16:58] that, and I'd

[1:16:59] seen like a

[1:16:59] third of them.

[1:16:59] So, I'm almost

[1:17:00] done with them.

[1:17:01] There's only one

[1:17:02] more after the

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:02] That's more than

[1:17:04] twice as many

[1:17:05] Saw movies.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:06] Yes, it's two

[1:17:07] Fast and Furiouses,

[1:17:08] basically, of movies.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:10] And in a more

[1:17:11] metaphorical sense,

[1:17:12] it's worth many,

[1:17:14] many, many more

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:15] Saw movies.

[1:17:15] It's worth billions

[1:17:16] of Saw movies, yes.

[1:17:17] And so, we're

[1:17:19] going to be

[1:17:19] surely reaching the

[1:17:21] end soon of my

[1:17:22] Check New Wave

[1:17:22] recommendations.

[1:17:23] I have one today,

[1:17:24] I have another one

[1:17:24] I'd like to

[1:17:24] recommend in the

[1:17:25] future.

[1:17:25] There's only two

[1:17:26] movies left for

[1:17:26] me to watch in

[1:17:27] the series.

[1:17:28] I've started one

[1:17:29] and there's just

[1:17:29] another one left.

[1:17:30] So, unfortunately,

[1:17:31] we're going to be

[1:17:31] bidding a fond

[1:17:32] farewell to the

[1:17:33] in probably another

[1:17:34] couple episodes.

[1:17:35] But today, I

[1:17:36] want to recommend

[1:17:37] another one.

[1:17:37] This is the movie

[1:17:38] The Joke.

[1:17:39] It's directed by

[1:17:39] Yeremul Yeres,

[1:17:41] and it stars

[1:17:42] the actor Joseph

[1:17:44] Sommer, who plays

[1:17:46] a supporting role

[1:17:47] in my favorite

[1:17:48] movie, Closely

[1:17:48] Watch Trains,

[1:17:49] which is one of

[1:17:49] my favorite movies.

[1:17:50] And I would

[1:17:51] recommend, if you've

[1:17:52] never seen a

[1:17:53] movie, then I

[1:17:54] highly recommend

[1:17:54] Closely Watch

[1:17:55] Trains or

[1:17:56] Fireman's Ball,

[1:17:57] I guess.

[1:17:58] Or maybe

[1:17:58] Intimate Lighting.

[1:17:59] No, Closely Watch

[1:17:59] Trains or Fireman's

[1:18:00] Ball.

[1:18:00] Those are the ones

[1:18:00] I would recommend

[1:18:01] if you start with.

[1:18:02] But if you've

[1:18:02] seen those, why

[1:18:03] not try The Joke?

[1:18:04] It's a story of

[1:18:04] a man who, while

[1:18:06] he was a college

[1:18:07] student, it was

[1:18:08] still during the

[1:18:08] kind of Stalinist

[1:18:09] era.

[1:18:10] And after making

[1:18:12] a sarcastic

[1:18:13] reference to

[1:18:14] Trotsky on a

[1:18:15] postcard, he is

[1:18:16] kicked out of the

[1:18:17] Communist Party,

[1:18:17] kicked out of

[1:18:18] college, and

[1:18:19] sent essentially

[1:18:19] to decades of

[1:18:21] being in the

[1:18:22] worst unit in the

[1:18:23] army and then a

[1:18:23] labor camp.

[1:18:24] And now he is a

[1:18:26] man basically in

[1:18:28] middle age who

[1:18:29] has decided he's

[1:18:29] going to get

[1:18:30] revenge on the

[1:18:31] guy who presented

[1:18:32] the motion to

[1:18:33] kick him out of

[1:18:33] the party in

[1:18:34] college by having

[1:18:35] an affair with

[1:18:36] that man's wife.

[1:18:37] And things do

[1:18:37] not work out the

[1:18:38] way he thinks

[1:18:39] they're going to.

[1:18:41] And there are

[1:18:42] parts of it that

[1:18:42] are really funny

[1:18:43] and parts of it

[1:18:43] that are just

[1:18:44] kind of strange.

[1:18:44] But by the end

[1:18:45] of it, there was

[1:18:46] a certain feeling

[1:18:46] of like the

[1:18:48] futility of

[1:18:48] revenge and also

[1:18:49] just how once

[1:18:52] you, if you're in

[1:18:53] a system that

[1:18:53] stamps you as an

[1:18:55] outcast, young,

[1:18:57] you can never

[1:18:57] really fully shake

[1:18:58] that branding.

[1:19:00] Even after other

[1:19:01] people have stopped

[1:19:01] treating you that

[1:19:02] way, you

[1:19:02] can't shake it

[1:19:03] from yourself.

[1:19:04] And I thought it

[1:19:05] was really good.

[1:19:06] So it's called

[1:19:07] The Joke.

[1:19:07] If you have a

[1:19:08] Criterion channel

[1:19:08] that's on there,

[1:19:09] you might also

[1:19:10] find it elsewhere.

[1:19:12] But it's yet

[1:19:13] another Check New

[1:19:13] Wave movie.

[1:19:14] Gotta love those

[1:19:15] Check New

[1:19:16] Wave.

[1:19:16] Like the bargain

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:18] bin of a rest

[1:19:20] stop or something.

[1:19:21] You can probably

[1:19:21] buy it, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:22] Yeah, if you

[1:19:22] stop at a rest

[1:19:24] stop on the

[1:19:24] highway, you look

[1:19:25] in the DVDs

[1:19:25] available, you'll

[1:19:26] probably find the

[1:19:27] joke in there.

[1:19:29] It's from 1969.

[1:19:30] It's based on a

[1:19:31] Milan Kundera novel.

[1:19:32] It's in the

[1:19:32] Check New

Dan McCoy

[1:19:33] Wave section.

[1:19:34] Yeah, it's

[1:19:34] probably on one

[1:19:35] of those discs.

[1:19:36] There's a couple

[1:19:36] different movies on

[1:19:37] it.

[1:19:37] It's got me,

[1:19:38] myself, and

[1:19:39] Irene.

[1:19:40] Yeah, yeah.

[1:19:40] And Huckford

[1:19:41] October.

[1:19:42] And this.

[1:19:43] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:43] And so I'm

[1:19:45] just going to

[1:19:45] remind people of

[1:19:46] the original

[1:19:46] slogan of the

[1:19:47] Check New

[1:19:47] Wave when it

[1:19:48] was first being

[1:19:48] brought to the

[1:19:48] United States

[1:19:49] in the late

[1:19:49] 60s.

[1:19:50] Check, check,

[1:19:50] check, check,

[1:19:51] check this

[1:19:51] new wave that

[1:19:52] used to play on

[1:19:52] the radio and

[1:19:53] on television.

[1:19:54] So go ahead

[1:19:55] and check this

[1:19:56] new wave film,

[1:19:57] The Joke.

[1:19:57] Thank you.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:59] I stuck the

[1:20:00] landing.

[1:20:00] I didn't

[1:20:00] know you

[1:20:01] could do

[1:20:01] it, but

[1:20:01] you did

[1:20:01] it.

[1:20:03] Thank you,

[1:20:04] guys.

[1:20:04] And thanks to

[1:20:05] our listeners.

[1:20:06] Thank you to

[1:20:06] Maximum Fun.

[1:20:08] Go to

[1:20:08] MaximumFun.org

[1:20:10] to check out

[1:20:10] all of the

[1:20:11] other shows

[1:20:12] on the

[1:20:13] Maximum Fun

[1:20:14] podcast network.

[1:20:16] The network

[1:20:17] that we are a

[1:20:17] part of

[1:20:18] provides us

[1:20:19] with great

[1:20:20] support.

[1:20:21] I'm sure

[1:20:21] you'll love

[1:20:22] other shows

[1:20:23] there.

[1:20:24] Maybe

[1:20:25] something like

[1:20:25] Fanti, which

[1:20:26] is also edited

[1:20:27] by Jordan

[1:20:29] Cowling, our

[1:20:29] editor and

[1:20:30] producer.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:31] Best in the

[1:20:32] biz, Jordan

Dan McCoy

[1:20:32] Cowling.

[1:20:33] Yeah, B in the

[1:20:34] B, best in the

[1:20:35] biz.

[1:20:35] Thank you to

[1:20:36] her.

[1:20:37] But for now,

[1:20:39] for the Flophouse,

[1:20:39] I've been Dan

[1:20:40] McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:41] That's right.

[1:20:42] I'm Stuart

[1:20:43] Wellington.

[1:20:43] And I'm

[1:20:45] fan, Elliot

[1:20:45] Kalin.

[1:20:46] Hey, keep

[1:20:47] flopping and

[1:20:48] keep checking.

[1:20:50] Bye.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:50] Bye.

[1:20:54] Oh, boy.

[1:21:03] Someone's got

[1:21:04] something in

[1:21:04] mind.

[1:21:05] Woo-hoo.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:07] Oh, man.

[1:21:08] Who put a

[1:21:08] nickel on me?

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:10] We'll have some

[1:21:10] chaos walking

[1:21:11] today.

[1:21:12] Oh, vielleicht.

[1:21:13] We see chaos.

[1:21:19] MaximumFun.org

[1:21:20] Comedy and

S5

[1:21:21] culture.

[1:21:22] Artist-owned.

[1:21:23] Audience-supported.

Ep. #345 - Chaos Walking

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