Ep. #334 - The New Mutants, with Arnie Niekamp

Elliott Kalan

[0:00] Hi everybody, my name is Elliot Kalin, the Flophouse Podcast on the MaxFun Network.

[0:03] I just want to let you know that we had kind of a bad internet connection at the very beginning of the recording of this episode.

[0:09] And it will improve, so please bear with it.

[0:12] Thanks to the magic of futuristic 21st century technology and the amazing skills of our editor Jordan Cowling, it will improve.

[0:20] So please bear with us, and you'll know when you get to the point where it's fixed, because it sounds better.

[0:26] Thank you very much. Enjoy the show!

Dan McCoy

[0:28] On this episode, we discuss the new mutants!

Elliott Kalan

[0:34] Mmm, they still got that new mutant smell. Love it.

[0:57] Hey everyone, welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06] Hey, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:08] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:09] And joining us, we have a special guest this time, game director, designer for Jackbox Games, and host of the hit podcast, Hello from the Magic Tavern.

[1:21] It's Arnie Knee Camp.

[1:23] Knee Camp, Knee Camp.

[1:25] Hey, it's Arnie Knee Camp. That's alright.

S3

[1:27] Everyone gets it wrong.

[1:29] It's one of those names where you either get it wrong or you don't have any certainty that you got it right.

[1:33] I covered my bases.

[1:35] We've got Arnie Meinkard with us.

[1:37] It's a very common...

Dan McCoy

[1:37] Very excited about it.

[1:38] It's a common word, Stu.

[1:41] It's where, you know, it's where parents send their knees during the summer.

[1:45] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46] Now let's cut that off at the knees, that little bit.

[1:48] I'm sure it was going to develop into something great.

[1:50] I just want to remind listeners, before we go on, that we do have a live show coming up Saturday, February 6th at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[1:57] We're going to be talking about the movie Teen Wolf, one of the most requested movies for us to talk about.

[2:02] Again, that's Saturday, February 6th, 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[2:05] And for tickets, just go to www.theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[2:09] I'll be telling you more about the show later in this show.

[2:12] Let's get back to this hilarious knee camp bit.

[2:14] So, Dan, what kind of activities do they have for knees at knee camp?

Dan McCoy

[2:17] I wanted to keep it short because it's perilously close to just making fun of someone's name, which I don't want it to.

[2:24] But I will say...

Elliott Kalan

[2:25] Wait, when did you start not wanting to do that?

Dan McCoy

[2:28] I don't...

[2:29] I mean, I do a lot of name puns.

[2:33] I wouldn't call them, like, making fun of, but I feel like if it went further down this road, it might turn into that.

Elliott Kalan

[2:40] Perhaps you don't remember the old etiquette rule, saying a pun is still making fun.

[2:45] Uh-oh.

S3

[2:46] As a kid, definitely people always said knee camp, knee camp, knee camp.

[2:50] And I'm realizing as an adult, I think the reason people often think my name is Nye Camp is they're like, well, it can't be knee camp, right?

Elliott Kalan

[3:00] That would be absurd.

[3:02] Yeah.

[3:02] What kind of a name would that be?

[3:05] As if, as if knee camp is any less of a, like, that there's some kind of abstract value to knee camp that is greater than knee camp.

[3:13] Like...

[3:13] The names can't sound like words.

[3:16] No, impossible.

Stuart Wellington

[3:17] Yeah.

[3:18] And I mean, like, it's, do you think it's that people would think, like, no adult would ruin their child's life by naming them Arnie, knee camp?

[3:29] Oh, wow.

S3

[3:30] That's very, that's the thing.

[3:32] And somehow I didn't even, like, I think I didn't discover how dumb that was for a lot of my life because I, as a child, I was focused on how close to Ernie it was.

[3:42] So kids really latched onto that.

[3:44] Ah.

[3:45] They always call me Ernie.

[3:46] And then there was a long period of my life where everyone would assume it was every version close to Arnie.

[3:52] Like, there are a lot of not common, but just subtly more common names than Arnie.

[3:58] Arnie and Ernie.

[4:00] And, yeah.

[4:01] So then, yeah.

[4:02] So then I realized, yeah, Arnie knee camp is horrible to say.

Elliott Kalan

[4:06] No, why don't you just run them together and be Arnie camp?

[4:08] Just be like a one word, like a Madonna or a Cher or a Prometheus.

[4:14] You know, just a one word name, you know.

[4:16] Prometheus.

[4:17] They're icons.

[4:18] Icons.

[4:19] Arnie.

Dan McCoy

[4:19] I want to stop talking about your name and actually start talking about your work.

Stuart Wellington

[4:24] I mean, Prometheus only had, like, the one hit, though.

[4:27] I don't think it's fair to put him in the same.

Elliott Kalan

[4:29] Fire is a big hit, Stu.

[4:31] And it's not fair to judge him against the records of recording artists who are not chained to a rock so that a vulture can rip their liver out every day.

[4:39] That's true.

[4:40] It's going to impede your work.

[4:41] But, yeah, let's talk about your work, Arnie.

Dan McCoy

[4:43] I just wanted to ask, Arnie, how does it feel to know the light and joy and saving that has come into people's lives through Jackbox games during this pandemic?

[4:55] Because I know that I certainly have played more of them during this time.

[5:00] Yeah, Dan's a huge gamer now.

[5:02] I am.

[5:02] I've become a gamer.

[5:04] Except for the ones you like.

Elliott Kalan

[5:07] Dan said he heard about this gamer gate and he wanted to go through it.

[5:11] Oh, no, no.

[5:11] That's really attracted him.

S3

[5:13] I somehow stumbled on one of the things I would least ever want to talk about.

Elliott Kalan

[5:18] Oh, then let's actually talk about your work then.

[5:20] Yeah, does it feel good to be like, yeah, now people have to play my games and they love them?

S3

[5:25] Yeah, it does.

[5:26] I've been working at Jackbox for like 15 years now.

[5:31] And there were definitely launches where it's not a given that it would stay.

[5:38] You know, like and we've sort of made seven, I guess, party packs now.

[5:43] 30 some games.

[5:46] And it's kind of incredible.

[5:48] It's sort of slowly started.

[5:50] More and more people kind of aware of it over the last couple of years.

[5:54] And then, yeah, it kind of exploded during a pandemic.

Stuart Wellington

[5:58] Now, with that much time at Jackbox, do you think it's safe to say that you do know Jack?

[6:07] Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

[6:09] And now watching Stuart cross that off from his pre-written jokes list.

[6:13] Oh, so yeah, you're saying Jack is kind of unknowable.

Dan McCoy

[6:17] Muscles.

[6:17] Stuart's cat just came and started like ramming its face into Stuart as if to say like, is something wrong?

[6:25] Like that laughter.

Elliott Kalan

[6:26] That was the closest I've seen to a cat trying to take the keys away from somebody.

[6:31] Yeah.

[6:32] So you're saying you don't know Jack?

[6:37] I used to.

S3

[6:40] There were periods where I really felt like Jack, but I'm always constantly reminded that it's a lifelong job to know Jack.

Elliott Kalan

[6:49] Yeah, well, he's one of those one word icons.

[6:51] Cher, Prometheus, Arnie Camp, and Jack.

Dan McCoy

[6:54] Just heroes.

[6:57] That's enough nonsense.

[7:00] So, Arnie, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Stuart Wellington

[7:03] We've been wanting to have you on for a while.

[7:05] We love Hello from the Magic Tavern.

[7:08] I think Elliot and I have both been lucky enough to be guests on that program.

[7:13] And so it's great to have you on here.

[7:15] Now, why did you say, I want to be on this show?

[7:18] New Mutants, that's the key to my enjoyment of the Flophouse.

S3

[7:25] You know, I will say, first of all, I didn't just pull New Mutants out of like the whole world of movie going on.

[7:33] Uh-huh.

[7:33] Sure.

[7:34] Okay.

[7:34] It was definitely my favorite of the ones presented to me.

[7:37] And also, I legitimately was looking for an excuse to watch this movie because.

[7:43] Yeah.

[7:43] First of all, I was kind of all on board with the idea of it.

[7:48] I wasn't like an intense, like a comic book reader, but I definitely went through a New Mutants phase.

[7:55] And the whole idea of a New Mutants comic movie, like combined with horror seemed like to me.

[8:05] And then a lot of things happened.

[8:08] And then eventually it came out and I was less excited about seeing it.

Stuart Wellington

[8:12] Eventually it came out, I feel like, as a truncated version of the troubled production history of this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[8:19] Yeah.

[8:19] It seems like the movie had like the kind of production history a normal movie has just, yeah, drawn out over a much longer period of time.

[8:28] And it's interesting when you watch the movie that you watch it and you're like, oh, this is not just jump ahead.

[8:36] This is the movie that they had to keep going back and remaking.

Dan McCoy

[8:39] I didn't want to skip ahead to like final judgments, but that was what I kept asking myself too.

[8:44] Because I'm like, there are movies like, not that this is particularly great.

[8:49] We'll get, we'll get to it.

[8:49] But like, there are movies far worse than this that they just toss on screen without thought and like, with like advertising budgets and everything.

[8:58] And I was like, what was it about this one that they were just like, we got to keep working on it.

Elliott Kalan

[9:04] My guess is that, so there is, I was reading up a little bit about this.

[9:07] And so this was, I think, very much seen as like, this is going to be the way that Fox holds on to, or 20th century holds on to the X-Men license.

[9:16] That the last few X-Men movies were kind of running out of steam.

[9:19] Time for some new mutants, if you will.

[9:22] And the people who made it wanted it to be a horror movie and the studio did not.

[9:26] And then the last X-Men movie, and it was supposed to tie more directly into X-Men Apocalypse.

[9:31] Then X-Men Apocalypse did not do well.

[9:32] So they're like, take all the X-Men Apocalypse stuff out.

[9:35] And then they're like, but we don't want it to be a horror movie.

[9:37] And then the trailer for It came out apparently.

[9:39] And the trailer was such a big hit that they were like, make it a horror movie again.

[9:42] So it was really like, the studio was really chasing what they thought would be the hottest version of this movie.

[9:48] And not letting the filmmakers just get to a regular tale of new mutants run around a hospital being chased by Silent Hill monsters.

S3

[9:57] Hot off of the It trailer, they were like, make it a trailer.

Elliott Kalan

[10:03] Could you cut, I don't know, 92 minutes out of this?

[10:08] I kept reading how the director would send the trailer to people.

[10:11] And they'd be like, you got it.

[10:12] You nailed it.

[10:12] And I'd be like, how can you tell from the trailer that Bill Sienkiewicz was like, you did it based off the trailer.

[10:17] And it's, I don't know.

[10:18] Yeah.

[10:19] But I say this having, I was on Twitter earlier today and saw the teaser for the King Kong vs. Godzilla trailer.

[10:26] And it was like, man, how much pre-selling is the trailer going to have to have?

[10:31] And then I watched the trailer and I was like, oh yeah, this is what I thought King Kong vs. Godzilla would look like.

[10:36] It's King Kong fighting Godzilla.

[10:38] Directed by Adam Wingard.

[10:39] It's crazy.

[10:41] Is he related to Jason Wingard, a.k.a. Mastermind of the Hellfire Club and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants?

[10:47] An X-Men character?

[10:47] I don't know.

[10:48] Dan, what were you going to say?

[10:49] A segue as good as that?

[10:50] I don't think so, but say it.

Dan McCoy

[10:51] Well, no, I guess that is kind of a good segue because I was going to ask two questions.

[10:55] Number one, what is you guys'

[10:57] What's a new mutant?

[10:59] What's sex?

[11:00] No, number one, what is you guys' history with the new mutants, if any?

[11:07] How do you think this would play to someone who has no association with the comic or the extended mutant-iverse?

[11:20] I will quickly say I know that I read the stories that this was based on.

[11:26] Because I read the Claremont-Sienkiewicz period of New Mutants.

[11:32] I really liked those spin-offs, that and Excalibur, I think at the time I enjoyed almost more than X-Men.

[11:40] But I'd forgotten all of it.

[11:43] And I guess this stands alone, but I do think it would confuse people why all this was happening.

[11:49] But anyway, you guys go.

[11:51] Ali, you look like you have something to say.

Elliott Kalan

[11:52] Well, so the thing is, my experience with the new mutants in the comics has been a conflicted one.

[11:56] Because when I was growing up, the new mutants was over, pretty much.

[12:00] And they had already transformed into the much cooler X-Force, led by Cable.

[12:05] And instead of like Wolfsbane the Goody Two Shoes, you had Feral.

[12:10] And Cannonball was still in there.

[12:11] But Shatterstar was in there with his double sword blades and his double ponytails.

[12:15] You got two of everything with Shatterstar.

[12:17] Even the words Shatter and Star kind of sound like the same word.

Dan McCoy

[12:20] Double ponytails, pigtails, is that?

Elliott Kalan

[12:23] No, because they both came out of the back in the same place.

[12:25] I don't know, dude.

[12:25] Anyway, so the new mutants has always seemed to me kind of like, when I was growing up, was like, oh, these are the doll characters that turned into the crazy teen hormone explosion that is X-Force.

Stuart Wellington

[12:40] Yeah, the pouch delivery system.

Elliott Kalan

[12:42] Yeah, because there's nothing teens wanted more than guys covered in pouches.

[12:47] And they never opened those pouches.

Dan McCoy

[12:48] Little tiny lines that don't seem to indicate anything.

[12:51] Are they wrinkles?

Elliott Kalan

[12:53] When I was 13, I loved that stuff.

[12:55] Give me more little lines.

[12:56] And looking back at those issues now, it is hilarious just how ridiculous the art, like it's look-outable.

[13:01] But I've gone back and reread some of the new mutants ones from that run.

[13:05] And they're good books, but they just kind of like don't, I don't know what it is.

[13:09] They don't grab me the way that like Claremont's Uncanny X-Men run or his Excalibur run or – I mean Excalibur, it's – Alan Davis is the secret weapon on that title.

[13:18] But the – so watching this movie, I was like, oh, yeah, these characters – like Danny Moonstar is a character I've never felt much connection to.

[13:25] Dan, obviously you do.

[13:26] It's the same name.

[13:26] And this movie will not change that.

Dan McCoy

[13:28] We were like watching it like, oh, they made the least engaging one of these people the central character.

[13:35] But we'll talk about it.

Elliott Kalan

[13:35] The weird thing is watching it, it did feel like, oh, if I didn't know the X-Men movies, I'd be really lost in this.

[13:41] But it also – yeah, I had no – I wouldn't have a connection to it.

[13:43] But I do know the X-Men movies.

[13:44] So when Dr. Cecilia Reyes shows up, I'm like, wait a minute.

[13:48] That's not the way that character is portrayed in the comic books.

[13:51] Stu, what are your feelings?

Stuart Wellington

[13:53] Yeah, I mean, I worked my way backwards through the New Mutants starting with X-Force.

[13:59] And I remember really liking some of the stuff when they would – you know, the crossovers with the X-Men, the annuals where they would go to Asgard when Danny Moonstar becomes one of the Valkyries.

[14:09] I thought that stuff was all great.

[14:10] And also it had art by Art Adams, which is great.

[14:14] And I always had a huge crush growing up.

[14:17] I had a huge crush on Magic because she's awesome and like a weird brat, sword-slinging, dimension-hopping monster.

[14:27] And I don't know.

[14:28] I don't know if that character was totally translated to the movies, but whatever.

[14:32] No.

Dan McCoy

[14:32] I mean, that's one of the reasons I liked New Mutants, too, because I remember reading the Magic Limited series, which kind of catapulted me into that.

Elliott Kalan

[14:39] Hello.

[14:40] Hi.

[14:40] This is Elliot Kalin interrupting the show.

[14:42] I know.

[14:43] What else is new?

[14:44] Anyway, I'm talking to you from the future compared to what you were just listening to, but the past compared to where you are right now listening.

[14:51] You might have noticed that the connection earlier between us and our guest was kind of bad earlier in the episode.

[14:56] Thankfully, from this point on, we were able to correct it using the power of technology and also our editor, Jordan Cowling.

[15:04] And so we now return to the slightly better sounding end half rest of the episode of New Mutants you've already been listening to.

[15:12] Thank you.

S3

[15:14] I was very drawn to the New Mutants, I think, from the covers.

[15:18] I was kind of just young enough that I was really into, like, Warlock, the robot who I guess is, which I'm sad was.

[15:27] Yeah, you're right.

[15:27] He is an alien robot, like genetic robot.

[15:31] It's too hard.

Elliott Kalan

[15:31] He's a techno-organic being.

[15:33] That's right.

[15:33] And what makes him a mutant is that on his world, they are naturally aggressive and hostile, but he is friendly.

[15:39] And so he's like a programming mutant.

[15:41] That's how they got him in the group.

S3

[15:43] Yeah.

[15:44] You can explain it that way.

[15:45] I prefer to, like, stammer on for about a minute trying to figure out how to explain what Warlock is.

Elliott Kalan

[15:50] You know what?

[15:50] To each their own.

[15:50] I apologize.

[15:51] Let's do it your way.

Dan McCoy

[15:52] He was definitely one of my favorites in the New Mutants, and I'm sad that he was not in this.

[15:57] I guess they kind of nod to it with Illyria's arm a little bit.

Elliott Kalan

[16:01] No, that's her armor that she has in the comics, too.

[16:04] They originally at one point wanted Warlock in this, but it was going to be too expensive.

[16:08] So the plan was to introduce him in the sequel, where the New Mutants go to Brazil.

[16:12] That sequel was not made.

S3

[16:15] And then apparently the third was going to be the Inferno comic book story, which would have been cool as well.

Elliott Kalan

[16:22] It would have been really interesting to see how they do Inferno with not—they cannot have a lot of the characters that are central to Inferno because they're X-Men characters, you know.

[16:31] Unless they'd bring them back.

Stuart Wellington

[16:33] Maybe they'll have the Hobgoblin become an actual monster like he did in the Inferno stories.

Elliott Kalan

[16:39] That was great.

[16:40] I mean, again, that's a different company.

[16:42] Has the Spider-Man movies.

[16:43] But, you know, I mean, they're all Disney now.

[16:45] Let's do it.

[16:46] Let's see it happen.

Stuart Wellington

[16:47] But he's a Spider-Man villain.

[16:49] Does that mean that Sony has the rights to him?

Elliott Kalan

[16:51] It is, exactly.

[16:52] And so the MCU only gets to use Spider-Man.

[16:54] That's why Venom has his own spinoff series.

[16:57] So I guess Hobgoblin would turn into a demon in Inferno in the Venom movies, which would be a strange distortion of the original actual history that happened.

Stuart Wellington

[17:07] But I'm still up for it.

[17:09] So our movie opens with Danny Moonstar giving us a little bit of a monologue about how every human being has two bears living inside of them.

[17:19] Now, guys, is that true?

Dan McCoy

[17:21] I know that good things come in bears.

Elliott Kalan

[17:24] Yeah, that's, I mean, Dan, do not, you have to stop sticking your hand down bears' mouths and into their butts because you're not going to find, you haven't found a good thing yet and you're not going to find anything.

[17:34] At best, you're going to find a half-digested salmon, and I don't think that's what you want.

Stuart Wellington

[17:39] Dan, it's talking like that that got you fired from the Care Bear store.

Elliott Kalan

[17:43] He just has a penknife and he's just digging open all the bears to find the good things, the jewels inside.

[17:48] Because this monologue, it bothered me, too, because I know sometimes my tummy growls and I was like, is that because there's a bear in there?

Dan McCoy

[17:55] Yeah.

[17:55] I mean, I know that I've put on a little weight recently, but I don't think there's enough space in me for two bears.

S3

[18:00] What would it be like to work with someone in an office who really bought into this two-bear theory and explained everything they did?

[18:06] It's like, oh, sorry, guys.

[18:07] Today it's a bad bear day for me.

[18:09] I'm going to be trying to be more of a good bear tomorrow.

Elliott Kalan

[18:13] The bears are not happy right now.

[18:16] I mean, all people have duality.

[18:19] You know, there's a good side and a bad side and a bear side.

Dan McCoy

[18:22] Well, when you put it that way, Elliot, it's like, why do we have to bring bears into it?

[18:29] He's like, oh, there's a duality.

[18:30] People have a good side and a bad side.

[18:31] Great.

[18:32] There's also bears inside you.

[18:34] Well, now I'm confused.

Stuart Wellington

[18:35] And in that office break room, you're not allowed to have one of those little honey containers that looks like a bear because that co-worker gets upset.

Elliott Kalan

[18:42] Yeah, that would be.

[18:43] That's problematic for them.

[18:44] Now, here's the problem is that every now and then someone is born with three bears inside them, and that makes them vulnerable to having little blonde girls just climb in their mouths and sit on their chairs that are in there, eat all the porridge, sleep in the beds.

[18:54] You don't want that.

Stuart Wellington

[18:56] So Danny gives this little monologue about how everybody's got a good bear and a bad bear.

[19:01] Well, young Danny gets woken up by her dad.

[19:04] Something large and unseen is attacking the trailer that they live in.

[19:10] She runs off into the woods.

[19:12] This thing kills her dad.

[19:14] She is left knocked out in the snow, only to wake up in a mental hospital chained to a gurney.

S3

[19:22] Can I just for a second go back?

[19:25] The part where her father is killed was pretty comically bad, I thought.

[19:31] He just walks off screen and then immediately hops back onto screen dead.

Stuart Wellington

[19:39] Yeah.

[19:39] Well, it has all the timing of that scene in, what, Planet Terror, where the kid gets left alone with a gun and immediately kills himself?

[19:47] And instantly shoots himself?

Dan McCoy

[19:49] Now, was the father's death before or was that when it happened that there was just basically total blackness on screen with a bunch of sound effects?

Stuart Wellington

[20:02] Probably around there.

[20:03] I mean, I feel like that whole opening was shot in a way to make it look like it's in the middle of a snowstorm.

[20:10] And it's intentionally obscuring what could be behind them.

[20:15] But it's, yeah, I mean, it doesn't look good.

[20:18] It looks bad.

[20:19] It looks very cheap.

Elliott Kalan

[20:19] There's also, it's a little bit, I think, of them trying to be a little cheap.

[20:23] And also, they want to save what that bear looks like for the big climax.

[20:26] So they're doing a little bit of Godzilla King of the Monsters in here, where they're like, let's have this monster be obscured by snow and darkness.

[20:33] But it doesn't help with the poignancy of the dad's death.

[20:36] But again, Stuart, as you're saying, we don't have long to focus on that because she wakes up handcuffed to a gurney.

[20:41] Uh-oh, did the bear do that?

Stuart Wellington

[20:44] That was the good bear, right?

S3

[20:45] The good bear probably came in and got her to the local hospital.

Stuart Wellington

[20:50] Yeah.

[20:50] So she's introduced to Dr. Reyes, who seems to be a psychiatrist or something at this mental hospital, who tries to comfort and gaslight her at the same time,

[21:04] telling her that it was a tornado that killed her family and her whole town.

[21:10] And then Dr. Reyes welcomes her to a place for new mutants, title, though we don't know what her mutant power is.

Dan McCoy

[21:20] So I just want to say a word about this institution since we just arrived there.

[21:24] It's kind of like, it's like, you know, like a halfway house for, like they're trying to make it sort of like.

[21:31] No, no, it's a whole house.

[21:33] Like it's for like troubled teenage mutants.

[21:36] And the, it will surprise no one who has seen a movie before that ultimately there is more to this institution than meets the eye.

[21:48] But it seems like it takes the kids a very long time to like really have that sink in considering that it appears that Dr. Reyes is the only doctor there.

Elliott Kalan

[21:58] Yes, is the only staff member at all.

[21:59] There's no maintenance staff, no janitorial.

[22:01] There's nobody who works the front desk.

[22:03] It like it from moment one feels like a woman is squatting in an abandoned hospital and has kidnapped several children, which is not that different from, you know, but it's, I was like the whole movie.

[22:15] I was like, are they not going to have anyone else work at this place?

[22:18] Exactly.

[22:19] Like the fact that one of the new mutants is seen cooking and doing the dishes for the others.

[22:23] And it's like, this is, this is weird that he also, I guess, works there.

Dan McCoy

[22:28] Even in Glass, where the fake institution was understaffed and incompetently staffed, they at least had like five people there.

Elliott Kalan

[22:36] Yeah.

[22:36] But no, this is just the one person.

[22:39] Yeah.

[22:39] And the whole place, the whole place feels run down.

Stuart Wellington

[22:42] There's no, like, there's no fence, there's no fence around it.

[22:45] There's like a gate, but the gate is open.

Elliott Kalan

[22:48] There's an abandoned clock tower for some reason.

[22:51] And church.

[22:52] And church.

[22:52] Yeah.

[22:53] It's a whole abandoned church.

[22:53] There's an entire abandoned church.

[22:55] And I could never be quite sure, the kids seem to have the run of the place, except for the times of day when the movie needs them to not have the run of the place.

[23:01] And they need to escape to have the run of the place.

[23:04] Otherwise, they seem to just be able to go wherever.

[23:06] It's got a real, it's got a real Resident Evil Silent Hill feeling of like, here's your limited area that you have freedom of movement in.

[23:13] And you're going to be walking through a lot of empty rooms.

[23:16] But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

S3

[23:18] It's got a real dreamlike quality that I kept trying to figure out if it was a choice, but I think wasn't.

Stuart Wellington

[23:24] Yeah.

[23:24] And it, yeah, it feels unstuck in time as well.

[23:27] I mean, part of it is that it's, this is a movie that will, based on the slang the kids use and the musical choices, feels like it's set in the 80s, I'm guessing.

[23:37] Yes.

[23:38] And there's nothing to indicate, other than a few odd mentions of mutants and the X-Men, there's nothing kind of tying it to a greater world that we understand.

[23:47] Like, it could just exist in some kind of, like, Sart style, like, you know, existentialist prison.

S3

[23:54] They do watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer at one point, so I guess it's at least in the 90s.

Elliott Kalan

[24:00] So this movie apparently was supposed, again, it was supposed to be a follow-up to X-Men Apocalypse.

[24:04] So it was supposed to take place in the 80s.

[24:05] And when X-Men Apocalypse didn't do well, they were like, forget the 80s stuff.

[24:09] And I think they just didn't, it's not like they, they didn't go out of their way being like, hey, do you hear Billie Eilish's song?

[24:15] I love it, like, just to get modern references in there.

[24:17] So I think they, I think they were going, I think it was probably originally written as a, as an 80s set thing, and they just didn't feel the need to, like, put them all on Instagram, you know.

Dan McCoy

[24:27] But if it was, I mean, Buffy would be later than that, but that, I assume, came from the reboot.

Elliott Kalan

[24:30] No, no, I think, I think that was, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised.

[24:33] If you guys saw Mank, we're in a studio meeting, they're talking about movies that haven't been made yet, disparagingly.

[24:40] The scene takes place in, what, 1930, 31, and they're talking about the Wolfman?

[24:43] That wasn't made yet.

[24:44] Excuse me.

[24:46] Take that, Mank.

Stuart Wellington

[24:47] I kind of, I kind of want to arrest whoever let Elliot watch Mank, because it's been making its way into our conversations too often.

Dan McCoy

[24:54] I was about to suggest a new segment on our show, which is every episode, Elliot brings up one more small grievance about Mank.

Elliott Kalan

[25:03] I've got, there's, it's, the problem I have with Mank is that it's, if the movie is not made for people like me, who is it made for?

[25:10] And yet it is not made for people like, it seems to be, here's a movie for people who are really interested in behind the scenes of Ciz and Cain.

[25:15] But if you know about the behind the scenes of Ciz and Cain, you will not be, you will not like what you see.

[25:19] Like, oh man.

[25:21] Anyway, so that's my recommendation is the new Mankettes.

[25:23] That's my version of Mank, where I've re-edited and re-cut it.

[25:27] It's me playing the Gary Oldman part, since I'm closer to Mank's actual age than Gary Oldman is.

Stuart Wellington

[25:33] So yeah, the whole place feels run down and abandoned, but there are a few, a few like high tech security systems.

[25:40] There's cameras, there's special locks.

Elliott Kalan

[25:42] Sorry, sorry.

[25:42] What if this movie is called The New Muppets, and it was all the Muppets that got kicked off, like the host of that Muppets live show or whatever, the weird humanoid robot and like Bean Bunny.

[25:52] Like all the Muppets that were never that popular.

Dan McCoy

[25:54] And that like Caribbean Muppet that was from Muppets Tonight.

Elliott Kalan

[25:58] Muppets Tonight, that's what I'm thinking about.

[25:59] Who's the host of Muppets Tonight?

[26:00] And then they just kind of like, this isn't working out.

[26:02] Let's just, and what if it was that?

[26:04] There's my permit in here.

[26:05] Would that be better?

Stuart Wellington

[26:06] Are you asking me?

[26:07] Yeah.

[26:08] Oh, okay.

[26:10] Let's see.

[26:12] I don't care.

[26:13] Okay.

S3

[26:14] But wait, what would the second and third movie in the Muppets trilogy be about?

[26:20] That's what I would like.

[26:21] Stuart.

[26:22] Well, The New Muppets, I mean, they could go to Brazil.

[26:23] There's no reason for them not to.

Dan McCoy

[26:26] I'd like to point out, Stuart, that if it suddenly becomes allowed to not care about dumb bullshit,

[26:32] then our entire podcast unravels.

Elliott Kalan

[26:34] Yes, this is the house of cards was just going to crumble, fall to the ground.

[26:38] And by crumble, I don't just mean the cards are going to fall.

[26:40] The cards will crumble to dust.

[26:42] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[26:45] So, we meet the other inmates slash patients that kind of form like a weird little support group.

[26:53] For the most part, these kids just kind of hang around and occasionally sit around in chairs and like share their stories and listen to Dr. Reyes.

[27:01] We have Rain played by, oh man, I didn't write that part down.

[27:06] From Game of Thrones.

[27:07] She's from Game of Thrones.

[27:08] We have Rain, who's like a wolf girl.

[27:10] She's sympathetic.

[27:12] She's got a Scottish accent.

[27:14] We have Ilyana.

[27:15] That's Maisie Williams.

[27:16] Maisie Williams.

[27:17] Thank you.

[27:19] We have Ilyana Rasputin, who is the Lord of Limbo.

[27:23] She's bitchy.

[27:24] She's Russian.

[27:26] Well, I think.

S3

[27:28] I literally could not figure out what her I didn't hear her name.

[27:31] I didn't figure out what character she was supposed to be until much later.

[27:35] Really?

[27:36] Because I could not unravel the accent.

Dan McCoy

[27:39] Oh.

[27:39] Yeah.

[27:40] I think they made a mistake with that.

[27:41] Anya Taylor-Joy, I think, is just transfixing like a great actor.

[27:48] I've loved her in basically everything.

[27:51] Here, I'm like, I don't blame her.

[27:53] I blame the director who heard that Russian accent.

[27:57] It's like, yeah, go with that.

[27:58] Like, this is such a, it doesn't sound like anything at all.

[28:03] And there are a lot of, part of the reason why I blame the director is there are multiple

[28:07] weird accents.

[28:08] Like, the kid from Stranger Things has the broadest, like, Appalachian accent.

[28:13] Yeah.

[28:14] Which is like, I mean, it's actually kind of okay in the quieter scenes, but as soon as

[28:18] he gets mad, he's like, well, hey.

[28:20] Yoo-hoo.

Elliott Kalan

[28:21] Sheesh.

[28:21] He might as well be blowing in a jug the whole time and, like, dancing around.

S3

[28:25] Singing which side are you on or something.

[28:28] Characters in this movie are less mutant's aggressive accent choices.

Elliott Kalan

[28:33] Their power is the power to caricature actual regional dialects and sounds.

[28:38] But yeah, Anya Taylor-Joy, I think they would have, another thing where in the comics, of

[28:42] course, Ilyana is the younger sister of Colossus, the Russian X-Man.

[28:45] And I think they probably should have just cut the cord and made her a Russian-American and

[28:50] with an American accent.

[28:51] Because it does not, it doesn't help her to have this kind of like, it's not even, it would

[28:55] have been better if it was way over the top and it was like a, like a Boris Badenov, like

[29:00] Moose and Squirrel type, type Russian accent.

[29:02] But instead it's just kind of like, it sounds like a teen girl who is trying on a persona,

[29:07] you know.

S3

[29:08] Yeah.

[29:09] Even if they had for a second just had a character say, oh, she's Russian.

[29:14] Like when I said that she was Russian, I'm like, okay.

[29:17] Okay.

[29:17] Yeah, yeah.

[29:18] I can kind of hear it.

[29:18] But I was literally spent 15 minutes of this movie trying to figure it out.

Stuart Wellington

[29:23] She's kind of like the troublemaker bad boy of the group, which my wife pointed out, it

[29:28] makes it weird that she was the one selected to give Danny the tour around the place.

[29:32] Like she clearly didn't want the job.

Elliott Kalan

[29:34] Oh, well, I assumed that was a punishment on the part of Dr. Ray.

[29:37] Yeah.

[29:37] Like you're being a jerk.

[29:38] Also, oh, here's my problem.

[29:40] Guys, Russian accent aside, how are we not talking about how she is a puppet named Lockheed

[29:44] who's a little dragon?

[29:45] Lockheed is Shadow Cat's dragon, Ilyana's best friend?

[29:48] What is this all about?

[29:50] Suddenly.

[29:50] Man, I can't believe I lost the bet that you brought that up first.

Dan McCoy

[29:54] Lockheed did come from Limbo, right?

[29:57] Like that's where Kitty Pryde encountered Lockheed?

[30:01] I honestly don't remember.

[30:03] Did Magic bring Lockheed back and then sort of Kitty like inherited Lockheed?

Elliott Kalan

[30:07] No, because I think they went to, I'm trying to remember when they first went to Limbo and

[30:11] fought Velasco.

[30:13] But I think they had gone there before Ilyana was a character.

Dan McCoy

[30:17] I'm not sure about that.

[30:18] Okay.

[30:18] Well, I mean, this is all nonsense that alienates the very small subset of people who listen

[30:24] to our show but don't care about comics.

Elliott Kalan

[30:26] Guys, guys, if you're watching Mank, get ready for some problems.

[30:29] If you're watching this, get ready for some historical errors.

[30:31] And the historical error here is that Lockheed is Kitty Pryde's dragon.

S3

[30:34] Although in the Muppet version of this, does the Muppet that is magic have a human on her

[30:40] hand?

Elliott Kalan

[30:41] Yes.

[30:41] Well, in the Muppet version, I think the dragon is probably, what's his name, Uncle Deadly,

[30:45] the actual kind of dragon-y character.

[30:48] And Miss Piggy, of course, would be Ilyana.

[30:51] But she's not like a cast-off Muppet.

[30:53] She's the one big-name Muppet that they bring in for the movie so that the real Muppet aficionados

[30:58] have to be in there.

[31:00] Okay, okay, okay.

Dan McCoy

[31:01] Okay.

[31:02] I looked it up.

[31:03] All right.

[31:03] Kitty, yes, Kitty found Lockheed, but, and it was, you know, Kitty's dragon mostly.

[31:12] But Lockheed occasionally accompanies Ilyana after she joins the X-Men's junior team, the

[31:19] New Mutants.

[31:20] So this actually, this would be appropriate to the comic Ilyana.

Elliott Kalan

[31:25] All right.

[31:26] I'll allow it.

[31:27] Okay.

[31:27] This is not what I would call an MS, a Mank situation.

[31:30] So I don't have a good argument.

[31:32] So, okay.

[31:32] Who, and what are the other mutants?

Stuart Wellington

[31:33] Thank you.

[31:34] So we're halfway through our mutant descriptions.

[31:38] We have, we have Sam, who has the mutant power to cannonball all over the place.

[31:44] He's kind of a blue collar guy from Kentucky.

[31:47] He's quiet, brooding, has a very, let's say, aggressive accent.

[31:53] Yeah, I think Arnie would be the best.

[31:55] So when he isn't being quiet, he is, you know, you know.

Dan McCoy

[31:59] He's the older brother from Stranger Things.

[32:02] Have we mentioned that?

[32:03] I can't, I can't hear.

[32:03] I don't think so.

Elliott Kalan

[32:04] He's constantly talking about being in the mines in Kentucky, constantly.

[32:08] Like, never stops talking about being in the mines.

Stuart Wellington

[32:10] He's like Matawan.

[32:12] And then we have Roberto, who is a young Brazilian guy.

[32:18] He's kind of a rich, macho jock character who, it's clearly a facade.

[32:24] He doesn't want people getting too close so they don't get burned up, literally.

[32:28] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[32:32] Yeah, I agree that these are things that happen.

Stuart Wellington

[32:35] Okay.

[32:36] So we're introducing these characters, as I said before.

Dan McCoy

[32:39] Dan seconds that cast of characters.

[32:41] Yep.

[32:42] Motion carried and proceed.

[32:45] And that's who's in the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[32:48] During her tour, Dani tries to run away.

[32:50] She tries to get out of there.

[32:52] Of course, she runs right into an invisible wall.

[32:54] There's a force field around the whole place.

Dan McCoy

[32:57] I also like the clumsy shorthand during this tour where they walk outside and immediately

[33:03] Ileana takes some, like, spray paint out of a hiding place and starts, like, she's going

[33:12] to do some graffiti and is like, you're my lookout.

[33:15] And I'm like, wow.

[33:16] Shorthand for bad girl, right?

[33:18] Like, very quick.

Stuart Wellington

[33:21] So, Dani then has a flashback to about 10 minutes ago from the opening sequence of the

[33:26] movie.

[33:27] She then climbs to the top of the abandoned clock tower.

[33:31] She appears to be contemplating suicide.

[33:33] And then Rain shows up and they have a little chat and bonding.

[33:36] And then they, like, fall down the floor and hug.

[33:40] But they don't fall off the clock tower onto the floor.

[33:42] They fall backwards.

[33:43] Yeah, I want to make that clear, too.

Dan McCoy

[33:45] There was a step in between where they went back inside.

[33:48] Yeah.

[33:48] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[33:51] All the kids are being observed.

[33:53] As I said, the high-tech security systems are doing biometric scans.

[33:56] On everybody to tell us how mutant they are.

[34:00] We're told, the kids are all told that if they complete the treatment, that they're going

[34:04] to be able to leave, possibly graduate and join the X-Men.

[34:08] And that Dr. Reyes has a mysterious, like, boss, benefactor, partner figure who the kids all

[34:15] assume is Professor X.

[34:18] Around now, Sam has a...

[34:20] This is when the movie kicks into the real horror gear, where Sam is in the washing room,

[34:27] the laundry room, they call it, or the washing room.

[34:30] They don't really address it.

[34:32] They never actually refer to it by anything, so...

Dan McCoy

[34:35] Yeah, that's in the goof section of the IMDb page.

[34:39] They don't address whether this is a washing room or a laundry room.

Elliott Kalan

[34:42] Unlike most movies that involve washing machines, this movie never addresses what the name of

[34:47] the room in which they're located is.

[34:49] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[34:52] Sam has a psionic ghost event where he touches a washing machine and finds himself transported

[34:58] deep into the mines of Kentucky, surrounded by miners and his father, before being slammed

[35:04] out of it and slammed up against the wall.

[35:07] Spooky.

[35:08] Yeah, what's going on?

[35:11] But during this whole time, the registers are reading psionic activity coming out of Danny,

[35:17] so there's an obvious connection there, at least for us, the viewers.

Elliott Kalan

[35:20] And the psionic readings explain why they picked up Danny in the first place, since everyone

[35:24] keeps saying, what's your power?

[35:25] What's your power?

[35:26] What's your power?

[35:27] That's the way they know she's a mutant, because otherwise, there were parts of the

[35:29] time where I was like, well, how do they know she is a mutant if they don't know what her

[35:33] power is?

[35:33] They've never seen her use it.

Dan McCoy

[35:35] Thank you for that explanation, Ellie, because I had the same question when I was watching.

Elliott Kalan

[35:39] Oh, this is me providing an explanation based on the clues in the movie.

[35:42] They never say that, but I was like...

Dan McCoy

[35:44] Yeah, well, they didn't take any midichlorian levels, so how do they know?

Stuart Wellington

[35:51] So Danny and Ileana get in a fight, and they get stuck in solitary.

[35:55] This is when we get a little bit more of an idea that Ileana, despite her, you know, her

[36:01] bad boy or bad girl front, has, you know, she's got a troubled past.

[36:08] She has dreams of being a child, surrounded by smiley face monster slendermen that dress

[36:14] like European fellows.

Dan McCoy

[36:17] I have to say, these slendermen, so not to spoil what you've probably already surmised.

[36:23] Yeah, you can spoil away.

[36:25] This, all of these manifestations are like the fears of these characters, and I had to

[36:32] look on the Wikipedia page to figure out what Ileana's fear was.

[36:39] Really?

[36:39] Well, because it's the most, like, abstractly suggested one.

[36:43] It is, like, just these, like, smiling men, whereas everyone else's fear is literally,

[36:48] like, a horrible thing that, like, happened to them, you know, presented very straightforwardly.

Stuart Wellington

[36:55] I mean, I thought it was, I mean, I thought it was pretty clear that she was being, like,

[37:00] human trafficked or something by these creepos.

Elliott Kalan

[37:02] It seemed pretty, that seemed pretty clear to me.

[37:04] Maybe, maybe Dan just is a purer heart, and he doesn't think the worst of the world.

Dan McCoy

[37:09] No, I just, they're the only ones that are not, like, a direct representation of the thing.

[37:15] Like, these are monsters because the metaphor is that, you know, she had these monstrous

[37:22] people do this to her, whereas the other ones are, like, basically what happened.

Elliott Kalan

[37:27] Sam being in a mine and then seeing his dad and then blowing things up is not a metaphor

[37:32] for anything.

[37:32] Like, it's, yeah, that's what happened to him.

[37:34] But, yeah, I think it's, I think the movie is rightfully recognizing that it does not have

[37:39] the shoulders and the gravitas to carry a realistic depiction of trafficking, and so has decided

[37:45] to do it in the form of Slenderman.

Dan McCoy

[37:47] Well, let's be clear.

[37:48] I was not arguing for that, necessarily.

[37:51] No, I don't think you were arguing either way.

Elliott Kalan

[37:53] Just, you know, that's...

Dan McCoy

[37:54] Why are these smiley Slenderman all over the place?

[37:56] I mean, it's also possible that...

S3

[37:58] Also, it has a scarcity of things that look or feel scary in any way, so they're just

[38:01] sort of like, maybe we can add this.

Elliott Kalan

[38:04] Yeah.

[38:04] I mean, unless it is a little representation and she was kidnapped by a bunch of Slenderman

[38:08] with smiley faces, and, I mean, that would be, you'd think she would make that clear to

[38:13] them.

[38:14] She would mention, oh, yeah, these are the monsters that actually took me, because we live

[38:17] in a superhero fantasy world, so why can't that exist, you know?

[38:21] That's true.

[38:22] I teleport, and I have a soul sword and one armored arm and a dragon puppet that, you know,

[38:27] is kind of also a dragon, you know, so why not?

[38:29] You know, I live in a magic world.

[38:31] Why not, guys?

[38:32] What's wrong with that?

[38:33] And the character she's telling this to is a Muppet anyway, so, like, you know, if Muppets

[38:37] can be in this world, why not, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[38:39] We didn't really talk about how Ilyana's power is to create these, like, stepping disks

[38:45] that allow her to teleport away, so, and, you know, you know me, my favorite, my favorite

[38:51] X-Men ancillary characters are always the teleporters.

[38:56] I love Leela Chaney.

[38:57] I love magic.

[38:58] Zero.

[38:59] Yep.

[39:00] I love them all.

[39:01] So, why does she stay in the place?

[39:07] Why doesn't she just leave?

Elliott Kalan

[39:09] Yeah.

[39:10] Do they address that?

[39:10] They do not.

[39:12] My guess is that perhaps there's some kind of block going on for her power, that the force

[39:19] fields are also affecting her ability to use her power to do that, or also, she recognizes

[39:23] that, you know what, deep down, I do need help, and I have trauma that I need to deal with,

[39:28] and maybe this isn't the best place to deal with it, a severely understaffed haunted hospital,

[39:33] but, you know, you gotta play the cards, life deals you, you know?

Dan McCoy

[39:37] Now, the first time she teleports, forgive me if I'm wrong, I may have blinked and missed

[39:42] it, I don't think they do the portal thing, which annoyed me.

[39:44] I think she just, like, kind of bamps like Nightcrawler.

[39:47] No, that's true.

[39:47] Later on, you see a portal, but...

Elliott Kalan

[39:49] Well, I think they're making a distinction, I think, between when she teleports in this

[39:53] world, and when she travels through the magical universe of Limbo, which she has either discovered

[39:58] through escaping trauma, or has invented.

[40:01] It's, I think they've just kind of given her general, like, magic powers, you know?

Dan McCoy

[40:04] Yeah, not to get, again, way back too deep into nerd shit, but I guess it's the new mutants,

[40:10] so what are you gonna do?

[40:11] I always thought that her teleportation power always was through Limbo, though.

[40:16] Yeah, it was.

[40:17] Yeah, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[40:18] Hey, man, I'm just telling you what it looks like in the movie.

[40:21] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[40:22] Yeah.

[40:22] So, around now, Rain has her own, like, psychic, psionic ghost event, where she is, she's

[40:30] at the rundown church, the abandoned church, and she's confessing her sins to what you assume

[40:36] to be no one, and then she hears a ghostly voice of a priest who had abused her in the

[40:42] past.

Elliott Kalan

[40:44] The kids that we find out.

[40:46] She is, she's kind of, have she mentioned already that she went to a priest and told

[40:49] him what her, told her about her power, and he told her she was evil, that she was a demon.

[40:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[40:54] And she has either an M or a W branded on her neck.

Dan McCoy

[40:57] I believe it is a W for witch.

Elliott Kalan

[40:59] Or wolf.

[41:00] Well, M also works.

[41:01] Or wolf.

[41:02] Or wolf.

[41:03] Or M also works for mutant, because Rain, as you'll find, has.

[41:06] Or M for Muppet.

[41:07] Yeah, because Rain, as you'll notice, has Luzeland powers, where she kind of puts on

[41:11] a fluff, a frilly outfit and throws fish.

Dan McCoy

[41:15] I throw the fish, and they come back to me.

[41:18] I, I, maybe, maybe that's why he chose a W, because he knew that it could be seen as an

[41:23] M, and there are all these levels.

[41:25] There are all these, yeah.

[41:26] Different levels.

[41:26] He likes references.

Stuart Wellington

[41:28] Yeah.

[41:29] He likes, you know, he likes somebody giving, giving you something to think about.

[41:33] So the kids have a secret addict.

Elliott Kalan

[41:34] I mean, what good is religion if not to give us something to think about?

[41:37] You know?

Stuart Wellington

[41:38] Yeah, no, that's a good point.

[41:39] The kids have a secret addict where they claim there's no cameras, so they can do whatever

[41:43] they want.

[41:44] Although, I think we do see that there is a camera up there watching them.

[41:47] Yeah.

[41:47] And they decide to play a game of Truth or Dare, but actually there's no dare, it's just

[41:51] truth.

[41:51] And they use a lie detector, which they use the blood pressure gauge, and they put that

[41:56] sleeve right over their clothes, which I think is probably a representation of their mutant

[42:00] powers.

Dan McCoy

[42:01] Like a heavy fucking denim jacket.

[42:04] I'm like, what do you think that's going to do, man?

Elliott Kalan

[42:05] I mean, guys, I hate to break it to you.

[42:07] Lie detector tests also don't work, so it's fine.

[42:09] Just like, put it over a hat.

[42:11] Like, who cares?

Stuart Wellington

[42:13] Do you think the actor who plays Sam, when they're like, okay, so you have to take off

[42:17] the denim jacket, and he's like, oh no, I just got this full sleeve of tattoos.

Elliott Kalan

[42:21] He goes, read my contract.

[42:23] It says no jacket, no shoot.

[42:25] Okay, let's see.

[42:26] It does say that.

[42:27] He does not have to shoot scenes without the jacket on.

[42:29] Oh boy.

S3

[42:30] Also, kids that are spending, or teenagers that are spending a lot of their days doing

[42:34] group counseling at night, they like to blow off steam by forcing each other to unburden

[42:38] themselves with stories.

Elliott Kalan

[42:41] That's a good point.

[42:43] They probably don't have secrets from each other at this point.

[42:46] So why, you'd think they would really heavily go on to dare, since they're all mutants and

[42:49] they can do crazy mutant things.

[42:51] But no, truth is it.

Stuart Wellington

[42:52] We were going to do dare, but there's no budget for it.

Elliott Kalan

[42:57] It's like someone who works at an ice cream store and they're like, I got to go home and

[43:00] get some scooping in.

[43:01] I just got to relax this arm and scoop some more.

Stuart Wellington

[43:04] Yeah.

[43:05] So Danny shares that story, the demon bear.

[43:09] Once again, just to do a little flashback.

[43:11] So everybody has two bears living inside them.

[43:14] There's a good bear and a bad bear.

Elliott Kalan

[43:15] When you're a little kid.

[43:17] Danny describes them as a yogi and a boo-boo.

[43:20] And the boo-boo is the good bear and the yogi is the bad bear.

[43:23] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[43:25] I mean, you know, he's a bad bear, but he's not that bad.

[43:28] It's mostly like picnic basket theft.

[43:31] He's a thief, Dan.

[43:32] He's a thief.

Elliott Kalan

[43:33] Okay, imagine this.

[43:35] Yeah, to feed himself.

[43:36] Okay, I'm someone living close to, if not below the poverty line.

[43:39] I don't have a home and this is the only food I've been able to scrounge up.

[43:43] I'm going to go to the park to eat it and a bear takes it from me.

[43:45] A very well-fed bear wearing a hat and a tie.

[43:48] That's right, he's a white-collar bear and he's stealing my only meal.

[43:51] Not okay.

[43:52] That's a hard crime.

[43:54] That's bad.

Stuart Wellington

[43:55] So when you're a little kid, the bad bear starts real small.

[43:59] But as you get older, that bad bear inside you gets way bigger.

[44:03] Right, guys?

[44:03] You can feel it.

[44:04] You can feel it getting bigger inside of you.

Dan McCoy

[44:06] Well, I mean, this last few years, I can feel the bad bear getting bigger inside of me, certainly.

Stuart Wellington

[44:11] So they have this little hang and then the next morning, Dr. Reyes yells at them.

[44:17] She gets mad and tells them that they keep fucking around.

[44:19] They'll never get to leave.

[44:20] So, of course, they drug her and knock her out and they have another breakfast club style 90s kids party where they dance to Bastards of Young.

[44:28] And I'm like, that feels like when you watch a movie from the 80s and the kids are all dancing to fucking doo-wop songs and you're like, what?

Dan McCoy

[44:35] Well, but also I was like, look, I love the replacements.

[44:39] I was thrilled to hear Bastards of Young play.

[44:44] But, yeah, no, I was like, is this what people, the kids this age at this time period were listening to?

Elliott Kalan

[44:49] Well, even the fact that they literally drugged the tea of their only authority and what they're doing stuff they could have done probably when she was awake.

[44:57] They're just dancing to music, you know, unless she's Dr. Footloose.

[45:00] I don't see it as a problem.

Dan McCoy

[45:03] Dr. Footloose, I've come as soon as I can.

[45:06] My foot is falling off my leg.

[45:08] Well, we get this a lot.

[45:09] That's actually a mistake.

Elliott Kalan

[45:11] That's not what I specialize in.

[45:14] It's just a name.

[45:15] It's from the German footlooschen.

Stuart Wellington

[45:22] Yeah, so it does feel a little bit the non, like the media in this movie, whether it's the music or the Buffy the Vampire Slayer, feels a little bit like a dad is forcing his teenage kids to watch what he liked growing up.

[45:35] Yeah, yeah.

[45:37] So now that they have no supervision, they go off and do their fun things.

[45:41] Rain and Danny go out into a graveyard and watch the rain fall on the force field and they make out a little bit.

[45:49] Berto and Ilyana go swimming, or so he thinks, because Berto gets a visit from a little flaming ghost of his dead girlfriend.

[45:59] That's right.

[46:01] He has a psionic ghost event.

[46:03] Uh-oh.

[46:04] And that forces him to manifest his mutant power, which is to turn into a big flaming version of himself, which is the same size as the normal version of himself.

[46:14] And everybody freaks out and then Dr. Reyes grabs a stick and pushes him into the pool, which was pretty funny.

[46:19] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[46:20] You said that as if you thought it was disappointing that he didn't turn into a giant version of himself.

[46:24] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[46:26] So, okay.

[46:27] This flaming ghost is his girlfriend.

[46:31] Great name for a 90s band.

[46:33] The flaming ghost.

[46:34] His girlfriend he actually accidentally set on fire.

[46:37] Now, this butts up against, like, one of my problems with the X-Men and mutant books in general, as much as I love them.

[46:47] So, you've got he killed his girlfriend.

[46:51] Cannonball killed his dad and all of the, like, people in the mine.

[46:57] Danny is causing untold, like, chaos.

[47:01] And I do not, I don't think I need to say this, I do not sanction the kidnapping and either euthanasia or weaponization of these mutants in it.

[47:13] But it also does raise the question, like, well, these people are kind of dangerous.

[47:18] They've killed a lot of people.

[47:20] I mean, it's accidental, but.

Elliott Kalan

[47:22] I mean, in Ilyana's case, it was not accidental.

[47:24] She brags about killing 18 men with her sword.

Dan McCoy

[47:26] Sure, but those were her captors.

[47:28] That's, like, a little more understandable than just, like, you know, a couple of them killed their parents accidentally.

[47:33] I'm not, you know, like, they shouldn't be punished for it at all, but it is, it does, like, cut against this idea of, like, yeah, but they've killed these people.

Elliott Kalan

[47:42] Well, this is, I'm going to let you in on two thoughts I've had about the X-Men.

[47:44] Two of my issues with the X-Men.

[47:47] One is societal and the other is biological.

[47:50] So, societal.

[47:51] The X-Men, it's basically understood as canon in comic books readership world for anyone who's not a comic books reader, that the X-Men are a civil rights allegory where it is about people who are different than everyone else, who are demonized for their differences.

[48:05] But you're right.

[48:06] What they have is genuinely very dangerous.

[48:08] And it's, like, the analogy starts to fall apart when it's, like, well, non-white people can't shoot laser beams, uncontrollable laser beams from their eyes.

[48:16] Or, like, you know, like, it's.

Dan McCoy

[48:17] There's no danger that a gay person is going to Dark Phoenix on you.

[48:22] No, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[48:22] Except that a black person at the age of 13 will accidentally explode and kill a town.

[48:27] You know, like, that doesn't happen.

[48:29] So, that's where that analogy starts to fall apart.

[48:31] But the other thing is that, so, they're always talking about how they're the next step in evolution.

[48:35] Like, homo superior is here.

[48:36] And it's hard for me to see what is the evolutionary advantage of getting so burning hot that you cannot mate and reproduce and pass on your genes to another generation.

[48:46] Or, like, what is the evolutionary advantage of, like, you know, of exploding sometimes and accidentally.

[48:53] Like, it's evolution usually, I mean, there's all sorts of different mutations in nature.

[48:58] But often the mutations that hurt the host or their mate don't pass on because.

[49:05] And the things that.

[49:06] So, it's like.

[49:07] You'd think that they're.

[49:08] I guess what I'm saying is you'd think they would be more useful and less fighting based X-Men powers.

[49:13] Evolution usually.

[49:14] It's not like suddenly someone is born with a sword for a hand because it helps them be a better fighter.

[49:19] Like, fighting is not really one of the things that evolution gets you to.

Dan McCoy

[49:21] Well, I mean, like, what you're saying makes sense in the context of, like, actual evolution as it happens.

[49:28] Although it does.

[49:29] Like, I mean, like, there are all sorts of, you know, as you say, detrimental mutations that aren't passed down.

[49:37] Like, that's how they're filtered out over the years.

[49:39] But mutations as they occur in Marvel Universe are just randomly springing up extremely powerful deviations from the norm.

[49:49] Well, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[49:50] But it's like I understand the evolutionary advantage of being able to control the weather.

[49:54] That would be great.

[49:55] That would help humanity immensely.

[49:56] But, again, the lasers shooting out of the eyes or, like, so many mutants have the ability to absorb energy and then blast it out as lasers.

[50:03] And it's like, how is that helpful in any way?

[50:06] Digging tunnels, I guess?

[50:07] I'm just saying that—

[50:08] It seems like the only evolutionary—

[50:09] Oh, go ahead, Dan.

[50:10] Sorry.

Dan McCoy

[50:11] No, I'm sorry.

[50:12] I just did directly respond to Elliot.

[50:14] It seems like these mutations are not, like, naturally selected for, though, Elliot.

[50:18] What you're saying makes sense in the context of natural selection, not in the context of, like, oh, we gave birth to someone who's a teleporting demon.

Elliott Kalan

[50:27] Well, and also because, I guess, the evolutionary purpose is to make them cool battlers for superhero battles.

[50:33] But, like, I've been reading a lot of the old X-Men issues with my older son.

[50:37] We're going through the first 60-some-odd issues in order.

[50:40] And it's so often, so many times that he's like, why are they not using their powers smarter?

[50:45] Or he'll point at Beast and he'll be like, well, Beast just has big feet.

[50:48] Like, that's his mutation?

[50:49] He's got big feet?

Dan McCoy

[50:51] Sorry, Arnie.

[50:52] What were you saying?

S3

[50:52] I was just going to say, in this movie, their only really evolutionary advantage is the ability to kill their parents.

Elliott Kalan

[50:57] Which, I mean, Freud would tell you is the ultimate mutant power.

[51:02] Ultimate one, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[51:04] Yeah, anytime I got assigned extra chores, I wish I was a mutant, right?

[51:10] Allergic to homework.

Elliott Kalan

[51:12] Okay, so.

[51:13] Well, that's not a power.

[51:15] That is a mutation, an allergy, but it's not.

Stuart Wellington

[51:19] Okay, so Danny's powers continue to intensify.

[51:22] The nightmares become even more vivid and they're having more of an effect on reality.

[51:29] At one point, Rain gets assaulted in the shower by the, like, a zombie version of the priest that she had killed who had previously branded her.

[51:39] And he brands her again, this time on her neck.

[51:42] And it's horrible.

[51:45] And then Reyes, around now Reyes gets a hilariously long loading email where it's one of those, like, sci-fi emails where, like, you're slowly watching it to get typed out.

[51:58] And you're like, shouldn't this, like, why is this worse?

Elliott Kalan

[52:02] I love the idea of a software developer that was like, I want people to feel the excitement of watching a story unfold.

[52:08] So I'll have each word type out individually instead of just all the text coming up on screen, which would take less power, less computing power.

[52:16] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[52:17] I mean, it's got killer graphics and that's what kids like.

S3

[52:20] Can I say, if you could send a dramatic email like that, like, if that was just an option in your Gmail or whatever, I would do it occasionally, if not too much.

Stuart Wellington

[52:31] I think you're right.

[52:32] I think, I mean, I think we're making, we got to TM this shit right now, right?

[52:36] So somebody doesn't, somebody doesn't steal our idea.

[52:40] Dan, this is your idea too.

[52:41] You got to get in on this.

[52:43] Wait, wait, wait, whoa, whoa.

[52:44] Since when was Dan involved in this idea?

Dan McCoy

[52:46] So you're saying, it seems like Stuart is saying that it's a covenant that must be entered into with all parties.

Stuart Wellington

[52:53] Yeah, everybody here, everybody in the room.

[52:56] Otherwise, Smiley will show up and kill us.

[52:58] Exactly.

[52:59] And steal our IP.

[53:01] Yeah, so Reyes gets this email and explains that Danny is too powerful that she has to eliminate Danny.

[53:07] So, Dan, I'm sorry if by saying Danny all this time it makes you uncomfortable.

[53:11] She just has the same name as you, basically.

[53:13] Apology accepted.

[53:14] Reyes takes Danny to the basement.

[53:16] Uh, she, uh, you know, she, I think she explains to do tests or something, but then she, at this point she's like, uh, even though she, that Danny is too powerful to live, Reyes knows she has to kill her.

[53:30] She slowly poisons her, uh, giving her ample time to use her mutant powers to create an army of Slendermen that attack Ilyana, Sam, Berto.

[53:41] There's Slendermen running all over this asylum, right?

[53:44] Attacking everybody except the one person who is hurting Danny at that moment.

[53:48] Mm-hmm.

[53:49] Uh, well, she doesn't have control of her powers yet, Elliot.

[53:52] That's kind of the point.

[53:53] I guess that's true.

[53:54] That's fair.

[53:55] Rain sneaks through the ducks and jumps down on, uh, they, they, at the, like, Rain is sneaking through the ducks.

[54:01] Ilyana is teleporting all over the place.

[54:04] Sam is using his blasting powers, which basically, like, he explodes and flies, blowing up everything near him, which is great in these enclosed hallways.

Elliott Kalan

[54:12] Well, there's a reason his mutant power, his mutant superhero name is Cannonball.

[54:16] Uh, but it's also-

Stuart Wellington

[54:18] Which is, it makes me think, like, if old boy in the movie, old boy had had this power, that fight scene wouldn't have been as cool, right?

Elliott Kalan

[54:26] Mm-hmm.

[54:27] Instead of having the power of looking old even when he's a young man, which is the same power Gary Oldman has in Manc.

Dan McCoy

[54:34] Stuart, I imagined you, uh, like, this was your-

[54:38] That you were one of those senators in an X-Men, uh, movie or comic who's, like, trying to get rid of, uh, mutants, but your reasoning was just, like, how it would make old boy less cool.

Stuart Wellington

[54:48] Now, if old boy had telekinesis, for instance, he could just pick people up and throw them around.

Elliott Kalan

[54:56] Now, uh, I'm Senator Stuart Wellington from the great state of Louisiana.

[55:00] Now, uh, now, let's say your old boy had, uh, ruby quartz, uh, eye lasers, uh, then that hallway fight scene would be over real fast.

[55:08] Well, how do you say to that, uh, Professor Xavier?

[55:10] I like that.

Stuart Wellington

[55:11] I like that.

[55:12] Every time, every time old boy stared at his daughter lover, he would accidentally blast her to pieces.

Dan McCoy

[55:19] This, this, uh, this argument is basically, like, anti-mutant in the same way you'd be, like, anti-cell phones in movies.

Stuart Wellington

[55:26] Like, it ruined all the plot points.

[55:28] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

[55:29] Uh, I do want to point out that Sam uses power, and he blows these Slendermen apart.

[55:35] Uh, but previously they'd addressed that, though he can use his power, he can never land.

[55:40] And so he's always, like, slamming into things, and he's got broken bones, and his face is all fucked up.

[55:44] But he uses power here, and then, like, the next time we see him, he's totally fine.

[55:49] Like, they don't even show him land.

[55:50] I'm guessing it's because there's, I mean, this whole movie feels like there's about a third of the effects shots were just not included.

Elliott Kalan

[55:56] Well, here's my guess, here's my guess about why he's so, why he's so beat up.

[56:00] So, I don't know if it's this way, but in, in the comic books, Cannonball, when he's in Cannonball form, cannot be hurt.

[56:05] He's super tough.

[56:06] So, I think it's because, I think those are his injuries from the mine disaster, that, like, he set off this mine disaster and then broke his arm when it caved in on him, or maybe a Grendel was like, hey, why'd you blow up my mine, and beat him up, or something like that.

[56:18] Uh-huh.

[56:19] Yeah.

[56:20] Hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[56:21] So, uh, so they realize that they've been duped, that they find, like, the files in Reyes' office as, because, once again, there's nobody else in this place.

[56:31] And they realize that they're being trained to be killers, uh, and they decide to turn on Reyes, which is great, because at this point, Rain has already jumped down out of the, uh, out of the ducts and slashed up Reyes super fucking bad.

[56:46] Yeah.

[56:46] Like, Rain, like, at first I'm like, oh, she just scratched her, but later on we see Reyes, and she's, like, ripped to shreds, dude.

[56:52] She's been Freddy Krueger'd in a half.

Elliott Kalan

[56:53] She's, like, holding her innards in with her arm, basically.

[56:56] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[56:58] Uh, yeah, so, they think they, they think they got the jump on her, and Reyes instead traps them in force bubbles, which look terrible.

[57:07] This is a, this is a terrible effect.

[57:10] And I mean.

[57:11] They are in, like, glowing, like, uh, like, Star Trek bubbles.

[57:15] Uh, and she's slowly smushing Danny and smushing them all in these bubbles while giving some kind of a speech about how, I don't know, like, they're too powerful to live or something, and they should have been more respectful or something.

Elliott Kalan

[57:27] Now, I want to, I want to briefly defend not this scene or the bubbles, which do look terrible, but the character of Cecilia Reyes in the comic books, what sets her apart from the others is she is a good person who does not want to be a superhero and just wants to be a doctor.

[57:40] And so, I felt like they were really slandering this character by making her so incredibly evil, when in the comics, she is maybe the most reasonable character in the entire Marvel universe.

[57:49] She's, like, okay, I can make force fields, but, like, I could probably help people more by being a trauma surgeon than, than by, like, fighting Mr. Sinister, who gets hinted at in this movie, but we never actually see him.

S3

[57:59] Maybe they wanted to use her because they're like, we need at least one superpower that we can actually depict in this movie.

[58:04] Because every other, even, like, even, uh, even, uh, werewolf transformation, like, they, they can't depict almost any of the powers in this movie very well, which is one of the bigger problems, I think.

Stuart Wellington

[58:16] Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's because they chose characters that are hard, like, I don't know if they chose Ilyana Rasputin, if they, the script originally had, like, Shadowcat or something, that's why Lockheed's there.

[58:27] Uh, but then they're like, oh, we got Anna Taylor-Joy, she'd be perfect for this role, I don't know.

[58:31] She does such a great Russian accent.

Elliott Kalan

[58:34] Her resume says, does Russian accent, so this is perfect.

[58:38] Do we need to hear the accent first to try it out?

[58:40] No, no, no, she's great.

[58:40] Did you see Queen's Gambit?

[58:41] It's not out yet, but I saw an early cut of it.

[58:43] It's fantastic.

[58:44] And then she gets on set, and she's like, y'all, this is my accent, and they're like, oh, boy.

[58:48] Oh.

[58:49] Ha-hee.

[58:52] Okay, so.

[58:53] She's great in Emma Dot.

[58:54] She'll be great in this.

Dan McCoy

[58:56] Again, great actor.

[58:58] She's really good.

[58:59] Make it clear.

Elliott Kalan

[58:59] She's really good in lots of, she's great in The Witch.

[59:01] Like, she's really good in lots of stuff, but this accent does not.

[59:05] Thoroughbreds, very, very good.

Stuart Wellington

[59:07] And, yeah, and the split glassiverse, right?

[59:11] Yeah.

[59:12] Slashiverse.

[59:13] Yeah, so Reyes has him in forest bubbles.

[59:16] She's slowly smooshing him, and then, uh-oh, what's that?

[59:19] There's snow outside?

[59:20] It sounds like a wind?

[59:21] Uh-oh.

[59:22] The wall gets ripped open, and there's a giant demon bear there.

[59:26] And the demon bear totally scarfs down Reyes, just like in Deep Blue Sea.

[59:30] It's awesome.

Elliott Kalan

[59:31] It is just like in Deep Blue Sea, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[59:35] Let's talk a little bit about this demon bear.

[59:37] So, there are a few things I...

Elliott Kalan

[59:38] No, Dan, let's not.

[59:39] Let's talk about Muppets again.

Stuart Wellington

[59:40] Well, Dan, the thing is that everybody has two bears living inside them.

S3

[59:46] I know this is meant to be up to the audience's interpretation, but do we think that's a good bear or a bad bear?

Elliott Kalan

[59:53] Now, I think it's...

[59:54] That's a good question.

[59:55] That's a good question.

[59:55] Because it is a bad bear who becomes kind of a good bear.

[59:59] Yeah.

[59:59] Well, she says...

[1:00:01] Is it here or is it later?

[1:00:02] She says that the two bears, you decide what you feed them.

[1:00:05] That's the empowering message of the movie is you can feed the bad bear with your fears and your hatred, or you can feed the good bear with love.

[1:00:10] And that's the one that gets stronger is the one that you feed.

[1:00:13] So, maybe she feeds it a bunch of love, and that's why it turns into a good bear.

[1:00:16] Maybe there's two bears...

[1:00:17] No.

[1:00:18] She feeds it a doctor.

[1:00:20] That's true.

[1:00:20] A bad doctor, so it makes it into a good bear.

[1:00:23] This is confusing.

[1:00:24] I guess in every bear, there are two bears, a good bear and a bad bear.

[1:00:27] And depending on which one is, I guess, getting its tummy scratched at the moment, that's how the bear goes.

[1:00:33] Dan, it's all bears all the way down.

[1:00:35] Everything's got two bears in it.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:36] I'm staring into the void, and it's staring back.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:40] When you stare into the bears, the bears also stare into you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:44] Yeah, yeah.

[1:00:44] That's what my buddy Werner Herzog says.

[1:00:47] He says, yeah, well, there's two bears in every party.

[1:00:51] A little bear and a big bear.

[1:00:53] One is good, one is bad.

[1:00:53] Stuart, I think you're ready to be a character in this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:55] And in one bear, there's two people.

[1:00:57] That's the bear from Grizzly Man.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:59] Jawohl.

[1:01:01] Yeah, yeah, it's me, Werner Herzog.

[1:01:05] My power is a secret.

[1:01:07] It's me, Werner Herzog.

[1:01:09] Oh, I'm a sneaky dude.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:09] And we're going to be checking out the 10 hottest spring break beaches today on E's hottest spring break beaches.

[1:01:16] Hosted by me, Werner Herzog.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:19] So, Danny at this point is passed out, and the team is left with this fucking demon bear.

[1:01:23] Hold on.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:24] I wanted to talk about this bear a bit.

[1:01:26] Number one, I genuinely like the look of this bear.

[1:01:30] I like the demon eyes.

[1:01:32] I like the way the fur kind of, like, coils into smoke.

[1:01:36] Like, it gets indistinct on the edges.

[1:01:38] But I do think that there's a weird thing that movies always do, which is they, like, you know, put a little too much sugar in the sauce or something.

[1:01:47] Like, it doesn't, I think this bear would have been much more scary if it was just maybe slightly bigger than a real grizzly bear and just a little more, like, just a solid thing that a human mind, you know, has some sort of familiarity with it.

[1:02:06] Because when it's this big, albeit cool-looking bear, I'm just like, okay, well, this is CGI.

[1:02:13] And if it was a little more, like, fantastic but down-to-earth, I would have been a lot more frightened by it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:20] Oh, see, I have to disagree with you there because I think I like this bear a lot, but I think they're on the side making it look too much like a real bear.

[1:02:27] And I wish it had more of that Bill Sienkiewicz feel of being kind of, like, semi-abstract and scratchy and hard to wrap your mind around.

[1:02:35] But I mean, that's a very good point, too.

[1:02:36] Bears for different cares.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:38] No, no, Elliot, Elliot, I think that you make a good point.

[1:02:41] And I think maybe the problem is it's neither fish nor fowl.

[1:02:44] Like, it should have gone one way or the other.

S3

[1:02:46] They show some of the original drawings or at least recreations of them during the credits as if to say, like, see, this could work.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:53] Yeah, and Bill Sienkiewicz did the art during the credits, too, all the character art.

[1:03:00] Oh, that's good.

[1:03:01] Yeah, surprisingly involved.

[1:03:03] Yeah.

[1:03:03] Yeah, give that man money, please.

[1:03:05] Uh, so, uh, Danny's passed out.

[1:03:08] And, of course, she's passed out of the party.

[1:03:11] And she invited this fucking demon bear that everyone else has to deal with.

[1:03:14] So they spirit Danny away.

[1:03:16] Rain takes her along over to the, uh, she takes, uh, Danny into the abandoned church.

[1:03:23] Uh, Ilyana decides, hey, it's time for me to use my powers.

[1:03:27] Uh, I'm magical.

[1:03:28] Uh, I'm magical.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:28] So she pulls out her soul sword and starts, uh, flipping around, jumping, flipping, cutting at the bear.

[1:03:35] Uh, Sam, uh, tries to help.

[1:03:38] Uh, he starts blasting.

[1:03:39] Bear toe eventually decides to use his powers, uh, and he burns his clothes off.

[1:03:44] And then he briefly fights the bear before getting smushed.

[1:03:48] Uh, and it's great.

[1:03:50] They all get to use their powers.

[1:03:51] They all kind of come together.

[1:03:53] Uh, and then Danny eventually wakes up and calms down the demon bear and pats its nose.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:59] And I guess everything's forgiven.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:04] Well, what are they going to take her to bear court?

[1:04:06] Like, I don't understand.

[1:04:07] Well, she even apologizes, right?

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:09] She's like, I'm sorry, I brought this demon bear.

[1:04:11] And they're like, no, you freed us with this demon bear.

[1:04:15] And she's like, I guess I did.

[1:04:16] And then they find, uh, Dr. Ray's his chunky heel covered in blood.

[1:04:21] So they're like, she's totally dead.

[1:04:23] There's no way.

[1:04:23] Not just covered full, like poured blood out of it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:25] The idea that they're like, well, we saw her swallowed whole by a bear.

[1:04:29] Is she dead?

[1:04:30] Here's her shoe.

[1:04:30] That clinches it.

[1:04:31] She must be.

[1:04:33] There's no other way for her shoe to be removed from her foot other than death.

[1:04:36] It's a real ruby slippers type situation.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:39] It's either her shoe or it's the shoe of the evil stepsisters, the original version of Cinderella.

[1:04:45] I don't know.

[1:04:46] All I know is there's blood in a shoe.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:48] In this chunky shoe.

[1:04:49] Hi, I'm Werner Herzog.

[1:04:50] Welcome down to Werner Herzog's Herzog's Herzog's, where you can find the best in ladies' shoes.

[1:04:55] And if you'll stare into the shoe, you'll see the total emptiness of the cosmos.

[1:05:00] We live in a random universe with no God in charge.

[1:05:04] But I'm in charge of getting you the best shoes at Werner Herzog's.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:08] Now, do not confuse this with Werner Herzog's horseshoes, which is a separate venture of mine.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:15] You want them for horses or luck?

[1:05:17] It's a horseshoe range attached to a bar.

[1:05:19] It's a kind of bar game is horseshoes.

[1:05:22] You're throwing horseshoes.

[1:05:23] And please do not confuse it with Werner Herzog's In Her Shoes, my shot for shot remake of the film In Her Shoes.

S3

[1:05:31] Arnie, do you have any fun accents you like to do?

[1:05:33] No, but I would just like to let the listener know that it's extra enjoyable to get to actually watch these moments.

[1:05:40] Because I enjoy watching Stuart kind of.

[1:05:42] You can tell he's like, I'm waiting this one out.

[1:05:45] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:46] Anyway, I'm supposed to be telling you about Cancun.

[1:05:48] Here in Cancun, we're having the hottest ladies and the hunkiest guys here on spring break.

[1:05:54] Let's go on to Miami Beach.

[1:05:56] Miami Beach is famous for its spring break parties, and I'm enjoying them all.

[1:05:59] Anyway, we've got eight more beaches to get to.

[1:06:01] I'm Werner Herzog.

[1:06:02] Oh, wow.

[1:06:03] Oh, God.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:03] So now our team, now they're free.

[1:06:08] They kind of set off down the road.

[1:06:10] And their only clue is that Reyes was working for the Essex Corporation, of course, a reference to Nathaniel.

[1:06:18] Is it Nathaniel Essex?

[1:06:19] Nathaniel Essex, yes.

[1:06:21] Mr. Sinister.

[1:06:22] So that was a tease.

[1:06:23] Apparently Jon Hamm was even cast to play Mr. Sinister.

[1:06:26] What a shame.

[1:06:27] What a great character.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:29] Okay, well, that's the end of The New Mutants, so we should do our final judgments, whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of liked.

[1:06:41] I'm sorry.

S3

[1:06:42] Before we make the judgment, can I ask, is this the only superhero movie where at the end the superheroes are the only characters alive?

[1:06:50] And in fact, every other character in the movie is dead at the hands of those superheroes?

[1:06:56] That's a good question.

[1:06:58] That is a good question.

[1:06:58] Every character you ever see in the past or present has been killed by the superheroes, except I guess for Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:08] Yeah.

[1:07:09] Wow.

S3

[1:07:10] Trying to remember.

[1:07:11] Let's see.

[1:07:11] The Incredibles?

[1:07:12] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:13] Incredibles 2?

[1:07:14] No.

[1:07:15] Spider-Man 2?

[1:07:16] No.

[1:07:17] Superman 4?

[1:07:19] No.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:21] Yeah.

[1:07:22] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:22] So this movie, when we were watching it earlier today, Audrey said a line that I had to write down, which is, I feel like I've hated better movies.

[1:07:32] Which is not to say that, like, that is not saying, like, oh, this is below hatred.

[1:07:36] It's more that, like, there are films that have inspired an emotional reaction.

[1:07:45] Like, there are, like, a negative one that are better than this.

[1:07:48] Like, the fact that this is just kind of there.

[1:07:51] Like, I don't dislike this movie, but there's not, like, it's almost like everything is in perfect balance, good and bad, such as to make it nothing.

[1:08:03] Everything is in perfect balance.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:04] Rave Stan McCoy of The New Mutants.

[1:08:07] Both bears are the same size.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:10] I mean, like, I guess if I was pressed.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:13] There are two bears in this movie, great and better.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:16] If I was pressed to put this into one of our bullshit categories, I guess the closest one is kind of liked it, because I like this kind of stuff, and nothing in it, like, made me mad.

[1:08:29] And it's of that thing that we've invoked a lot of times where, like, oh, if you're, like, dozing on the couch, this would be a great way to spend your time.

[1:08:38] But what do you guys have to say?

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:39] No, I would also call this a movie I kind of like just because it's fine.

[1:08:43] Like, I didn't – it's not terrible, even though we made fun of it a sure bunch.

[1:08:48] But it's, like, not really scary for a horror movie.

[1:08:51] It's not really exciting for a superhero movie.

[1:08:53] And, again, I'd be curious to have somebody – to watch it with somebody who doesn't know The New Mutants.

[1:08:58] And it's like, why is this happening?

[1:08:59] Who are these people?

[1:09:00] But it's not terrible.

[1:09:02] It's just kind of like, all right.

[1:09:03] Like, in a world where there are 40 superhero movies a year, it seems, coming out, like, there's room for a mediocre superhero movie like this.

[1:09:11] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:14] Yeah.

[1:09:14] I mean, it's kind of tough.

[1:09:16] Like, I obviously – like, I like The Breakfast Club.

[1:09:18] I like Nightmare on Elm Street, Three Dream Warriors.

[1:09:22] But – and I feel like this movie obviously tries to reference those.

[1:09:26] And it tries to reference various, like, coming-of-age stuff.

[1:09:30] And it – I don't know.

[1:09:31] Like, I feel like it doesn't do – I mean, as you said, it's not really scary.

[1:09:37] And the attempt to, like, do coming-of-age – like, a coming-of-age story or a, like, coming into your powers has been done so many times.

[1:09:46] And so many times –

[1:09:48] Or coming in bears.

[1:09:48] Yeah.

[1:09:48] Or coming into bears.

[1:09:50] But, like, I mean, after seeing Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse –

[1:09:55] Wait, hold on.

S3

[1:09:55] I'm so sorry.

[1:09:56] I got to stop.

[1:09:56] Dan, it's the other way around.

[1:09:58] It's not coming into bears.

[1:10:00] It's the other –

[1:10:01] That's gross.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:02] Good things come in bears.

[1:10:03] No, no.

[1:10:04] It's getting out of bears.

[1:10:05] You want to get out of that bear.

[1:10:08] Yeah, you want to get all the cum out of that bear.

[1:10:10] No.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:11] It's good things come in bears.

[1:10:15] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:16] But, like, with something like Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse where we see Miles Morales, like, take his leap of faith, like, and it actually elicits – a movie that actually elicits an emotional response.

[1:10:27] It feels – it's just – it's, like, to see the, like, warmed-over, warmed-over, warmed-over version of that is pretty lame.

[1:10:36] So, I don't know.

[1:10:37] I feel like I'd say bad-bad just because, like, it just washed over me and is going to be forgotten.

S3

[1:10:43] Yeah.

[1:10:43] I mean, I sort of – I did kind of like it.

[1:10:46] It was weird, though.

[1:10:47] I think I would almost – like, is there a category that's bad-good where it's, like, not bad enough to be entertaining?

[1:10:54] Like, it's almost worse than being good-bad because there just wasn't enough of the sort of joy of how bad it was.

[1:11:02] And mostly what pulled me through was being, like, hypothetically, I like a lot of this stuff, but it's just – the movie, it's almost as empty as that weird hospital.

[1:11:13] It's just, like, there's not enough in it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:16] Yeah, not enough bears.

[1:11:18] Yeah.

[1:11:19] Yeah, both bears are too small.

[1:11:20] The – yeah, I mean, I think – actually, I feel like, Arnie, you have done this podcast a service because we have been dancing around this idea for fucking years.

[1:11:30] The idea of a movie that is well-made enough but is clearly bad, like a bad-good movie.

[1:11:38] Like, it's not actually interesting enough to be a good-bad.

[1:11:42] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:43] Yeah, no, no.

[1:11:44] The problem is not the production or the logic or anything like that.

[1:11:47] It's just a certain soullessness that comes with being sent back by the studio to remake the movie several times.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:54] Yeah, and I like the way Arnie put it because while watching it, I did invoke a philosophy that we've espoused on the show a few times,

[1:12:04] which is if this movie was a better movie, this movie would be good.

S3

[1:12:11] Yeah, it's a good point.

[1:12:12] So are you saying that I'm kind of like the Danny of this podcast, a stranger who comes in and sort of brings something new out of everybody?

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:21] Torments us with our past traumas.

[1:12:23] Yeah, and eats a doctor.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:25] Sure.

S5

[1:12:31] I'm going first.

[1:12:32] It's me, Jackie Kation.

[1:12:33] Man, she's always as bossy.

[1:12:37] I'm Lori Kilmartin.

[1:12:39] We're a bunch of stand-up comics, and we've been doing comedy like 60 years total with both of us, but we look amazing.

[1:12:48] And we're working out.

[1:12:49] We drop every Monday on MaxFun, and it's called The Jackie and Lori Show, and you can listen to it and learn about comedy and learn about anger management and all the things.

[1:12:58] And Jackie is married but childless, and I'm unmarried but childful.

[1:13:02] So together, we make one complete woman.

[1:13:08] Is that just what that one's going to end?

[1:13:09] Yeah.

[1:13:10] Yeah.

[1:13:11] And we try to make Kyle laugh just like that and say, oh my God, every episode.

[1:13:16] It's a good job.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:17] The Jackie and Lori Show, Mondays only on Maximum Fun.

S3

[1:13:23] Hi, I'm James, host of Minority Corner, which is a podcast that's all about intersectionality.

S5

[1:13:28] It's hosted by James with a guest host every week.

S3

[1:13:31] Discussing all sorts of wonderful issues, nerdy and political.

S5

[1:13:35] Pop culture.

[1:13:36] Black queer.

[1:13:37] Feminism.

[1:13:38] Race.

[1:13:39] Sexuality.

[1:13:39] News.

[1:13:40] You're going to learn your history.

[1:13:42] There's self-empowerment.

[1:13:43] And it's told by what feels like your best friend.

S3

[1:13:45] Why should someone listen to Minority Corner?

[1:13:47] Why not?

[1:13:48] Oh my God.

[1:13:48] Free stuff.

[1:13:49] There's not free stuff.

S5

[1:13:50] The listeners of Minority Corner will enjoy some necessary LOLs, but mainly a look at what's

[1:13:55] happening in our world through a colorful lens.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:57] People will get the perspective of marginalized communities.

S5

[1:14:01] I feel heard.

[1:14:02] I feel seen.

[1:14:03] Like you said, you need to understand how to be more proactive in your community, and this

[1:14:06] is a great way to get started.

S3

[1:14:07] Join us every Friday on MaxFun or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1:14:10] Minority Corner.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:11] Because together, we're the majority.

[1:14:14] Hey, you know what?

[1:14:15] The Flophouse is sponsored in part by ExpressVPN.

[1:14:20] When you use the bathroom, you always close the door behind you, right?

[1:14:26] You don't want random passerby looking in on you.

[1:14:29] So why would you let people look in on you when you go online?

[1:14:33] Using the internet without ExpressVPN, it's like going to the bathroom and not closing the

[1:14:39] door.

[1:14:39] Now, this is some interesting ad copy.

[1:14:41] Stuart, do you always close the bathroom door?

[1:14:44] You seem to make a noise.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:48] If I close the bathroom door, my cats will yell at me.

[1:14:50] Oh, okay.

[1:14:51] So I have to leave it open so they can come in and brush up against my-

[1:14:55] Your meaty thighs.

[1:14:56] My legs.

[1:14:57] Yeah.

[1:14:57] My meaty thighs, yeah.

[1:14:59] All right.

[1:14:59] Well-

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:00] Same issue with my children, but I keep that door closed and I just let them scratch at

[1:15:03] it and go, daddy, daddy, we want to see you peeing.

[1:15:07] And I say, no, thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:08] Uh-huh.

[1:15:09] They hurl themselves against it.

[1:15:11] Yeah.

[1:15:12] Like so many assaulters on Precinct 13.

[1:15:14] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:15] Yeah, exactly.

[1:15:15] But I think we can all agree that we would prefer privacy.

[1:15:18] So why not have privacy with your ExpressVPN?

[1:15:22] Did you know that your internet service provider like Comcast or Verizon knows every single

[1:15:28] website you visit and can sell this info to ad companies?

[1:15:33] ExpressVPN creates a secure encrypted tunnel between your device and the internet so that

[1:15:38] your online activity can't be seen by anyone.

[1:15:41] It works on phones, laptops, even routers, so everyone who shares your Wi-Fi can still

[1:15:47] be protected even if they don't have ExpressVPN.

[1:15:51] So if you believe your online activity is your business, secure yourself by visiting expressvpn.com

[1:15:58] slash flop today.

[1:16:00] Use our link, expressvpn.com slash flop, and you can get an extra three months free.

[1:16:12] That's expressvpn.com slash flop.

[1:16:16] Sounds great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:17] I think that people should do that.

[1:16:18] I have an ad I'd like to talk about.

[1:16:20] Guys, we're also sponsored in part by Storyblocks.

[1:16:23] Now more than ever, storytellers and content creators, same thing in my opinion, are challenged

[1:16:28] with producing more video content at a higher quality than ever before.

[1:16:32] The standards are higher and you got to keep up with them.

[1:16:34] Keep up with that growing demand for modern video content without sacrificing your vision

[1:16:38] with stock media from Storyblocks.

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[1:16:41] What's dedicated to being the world's best royalty-free stock media subscription service.

[1:16:46] Their library is always growing.

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[1:16:56] They've got affordable subscription plans and tools.

[1:16:58] And with their unlimited all-access plan, that's the Storyblocks unlimited all-access plan,

[1:17:02] you get unlimited downloads of everything in their library.

[1:17:06] And even if your subscription ends, you get to keep the stuff you downloaded.

[1:17:09] It doesn't disappear.

[1:17:10] Like Adam Magic, as if Marty McFly's parents didn't get together.

[1:17:14] It doesn't disappear and fade away.

[1:17:16] Now, I love stock footage.

[1:17:18] I'm very excited about being able to put things together for Storyblocks stock media.

[1:17:24] Dan, you actually made something for our upcoming live show using Storyblocks.

[1:17:28] And how was the experience?

[1:17:29] Was it super smooth?

[1:17:30] Because it seemed to take you no time.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:32] It was actually very smooth.

[1:17:33] You just can search through their library.

[1:17:37] You can find what you want.

[1:17:38] They have many different variations on basically anything you can think of.

[1:17:43] And you just download it straight.

[1:17:45] Use it.

[1:17:45] It looks beautiful.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:47] That's great.

[1:17:48] You'll see the results in our live show.

[1:17:49] More about that live show in a little bit.

[1:17:51] But first, why not go to Storyblocks, explore their library, and subscribe today at storyblocks.com slash flop.

[1:17:57] That's storyblocks.com slash flop.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:02] And I got some j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-jumbotrons.

[1:18:07] That's right.

[1:18:09] Are you at home right now, unable to deal with the existential dread of daily life?

[1:18:15] Well, then you're probably on Netflix.

[1:18:18] But there's just so much there and so little time.

[1:18:22] Well, on every day in 2021, Netflixandchillyear.com will go through every Netflix original movie and talk about what's great about it, what's weird about it, and what it's all about.

[1:18:39] So, go to Netflixandchillyear.com, or if you want a daily email full of Netflix goodness, go to Netflixandchillyear.substack.com.

[1:18:52] Visit Netflixandchillyear.com, or subscribe at Netflixandchillyear.substack.com.

[1:19:01] I got a second jumbotron.

[1:19:03] While my mouth gets used to talking again, there we go.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:13] Did you have to do, like, a hard reboot, or what was that?

[1:19:16] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:17] Ivan, Ivan, Ivan, Vanya, Bubala.

[1:19:21] You can't just Venmo me 69.69 on Christmas Day as a present.

[1:19:27] That's not the Christmas spirit.

[1:19:29] Now, you have to listen to the peaches tell you how much I love you and have Stuart apologize on my behalf for what a sloppy game master I can be.

[1:19:39] Sorry, dude.

[1:19:43] Roarrow!

[1:19:46] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:48] Yep.

[1:19:48] That's it.

[1:19:49] That's the message.

[1:19:49] Dan cosigns on that message.

[1:19:51] Okay, guys.

[1:19:52] I mentioned a live show earlier.

[1:19:54] Let's talk briefly about that.

[1:19:56] And I mentioned it even earlier before that.

[1:19:58] Saturday, February 6th at 9 p.m.

[1:20:01] Eastern, 6 p.m.

[1:20:02] Pacific.

[1:20:02] We're going to be doing our first virtual Zoom live show of the year.

[1:20:07] You'll be able to watch it, what, through our YouTube page or something?

[1:20:11] I don't remember.

[1:20:12] Anyway.

[1:20:14] You'll get a live show.

[1:20:14] No, absolutely not.

[1:20:15] All the information will be with you when you get the tickets.

[1:20:17] So we're going to be talking about the movie Teen Wolf.

[1:20:21] Everyone's favorite movie about a basketball-playing werewolf.

[1:20:24] Tell me one you like more.

[1:20:25] Tell me a basketball-playing werewolf movie that you like more.

[1:20:28] I defy it.

[1:20:29] We're going to have an in-depth but not too long discussion of the movie.

[1:20:33] We're each going to give original presentations.

[1:20:34] Will mine have more monster content?

[1:20:36] You better believe it.

[1:20:37] There's going to be an audience Q&A section and much more.

[1:20:40] I already told you Dan's been messing around with Storyblocks footage, making something for the show.

[1:20:44] The price?

[1:20:45] Only $10.

[1:20:46] And don't worry.

[1:20:47] If you're not available Saturday, February 6th at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific,

[1:20:50] because you have some other thing going on in your life other than wanting to hear three old friends of yours talking about a teenage wolf,

[1:20:57] that's okay.

[1:20:57] The show is going to be up for you, archived, for one week after the event.

[1:21:02] Until Saturday, February 16th, you'll be able to just watch that video.

[1:21:06] Just light it up and let it roll.

[1:21:08] And then watch it up and watch it down.

[1:21:10] Just go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[1:21:14] Don't worry about the www.

[1:21:15] Just go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[1:21:18] Because, Dan, was there an issue of some kind with Internet URL language that you want to tell people about?

Dan McCoy

[1:21:23] Yeah, yeah.

[1:21:23] I'm sorry.

[1:21:24] The last episode I mentioned that I said that if you don't put the HTTP part in, it would go to it.

[1:21:33] Or if you did put it in, it wouldn't go to it.

[1:21:37] That is incorrect.

[1:21:38] Someone had tweeted at me that there were a problem.

[1:21:40] I misremembered.

[1:21:42] The problem is do not put the www in.

[1:21:45] That will take you to a dead link.

[1:21:47] If you do not put it in, it works.

[1:21:51] I have no idea why the modern Internet browser cannot figure that out for you.

[1:21:56] But in the absence of a smarter one, don't put the www in.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:00] Yeah.

[1:22:01] Don't confuse your dumb, stupid Internet browser.

[1:22:04] Just go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com and get ready to laugh as we three guys, Dan McCoy, Stuart Wellington, and, of course, America's Rascal, Elliot Kalin, talk about the movie that catapulted Michael J. Fox to licanthropic stardom.

[1:22:19] That's Teen Wolf featuring The Flophouse, guys.

[1:22:21] Saturday, February 6th at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[1:22:25] Other time zones.

[1:22:26] Please do the math.

[1:22:27] I do not know what time it will be in the other time zones.

[1:22:31] That's fluffophouse.simpleticks.com.

[1:22:33] Only $10.

[1:22:34] Just go ahead and do it.

[1:22:34] Just come and join us.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:36] Well, now let's move on to letters from listeners.

[1:22:40] Listeners have things to say, too.

[1:22:42] We've been hogging the microphone.

[1:22:44] What's going on in their minds?

[1:22:47] Elliot?

[1:22:48] No, you don't have the letters.

[1:22:49] Yeah, he doesn't have the letters.

[1:22:51] No, no, I tried to throw it to you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:52] I mean, okay, if you ask for it, then...

[1:22:56] It's your turn, listeners.

[1:23:03] It's your turn to make your voice heard.

[1:23:06] You've been listening to us, yakking around, talking about mutants and all that stuff.

[1:23:11] And now it's your turn.

[1:23:13] Tell us what's on your mind, listeners.

[1:23:16] Tell us to be more kind, listeners.

[1:23:19] Or tell us to have Richard kind on the show, listeners.

[1:23:22] That's kind.

[1:23:23] I rhymed it with kind.

[1:23:24] That's right, listeners.

[1:23:26] Write in and tell us what you've got to say.

[1:23:29] That's right, listeners.

[1:23:31] Write in and tell us whatever you want, whatever you may.

[1:23:35] Listeners, it's your turn.

[1:23:37] Listeners, don't be burned.

[1:23:39] Because, listeners, this is your chance to be the stars of the flop house.

[1:23:50] Listeners, hey, listeners, don't let this chance pass you up.

[1:23:54] Hey, listeners, this is your time to get the best.

[1:23:57] Hey, listeners, this is the time...

[1:23:58] Did Jim Steinman write this?

[1:23:59] What?

[1:24:00] To be the ones with the spotlight on you.

[1:24:03] It burns your eyes a little.

[1:24:05] That's okay.

[1:24:06] Because now you're the star of the day.

[1:24:09] Listeners, write on in and tell us what you want to say to us at the flop house featuring Arnie Neikamp.

[1:24:17] But it's Arnie Neikamp, really.

S3

[1:24:19] Thank you.

[1:24:20] All right.

[1:24:20] No, you got the name right.

[1:24:21] You got to start the song over.

[1:24:22] Sorry.

[1:24:22] We got to get...

[1:24:23] Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[1:24:24] Ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:27] No, this first letter is from Elizabeth, last name withheld.

[1:24:32] Who writes...

[1:24:32] Elizabeth Montgomery.

[1:24:33] Your many about prequels reminded me of an odd prequel watching experience I had.

[1:24:40] My old job used to take the whole office to the movies every summer.

[1:24:44] We would go to an 8 a.m. screening.

[1:24:46] They bought us popcorn, soda, and candy for breakfast, and we went to work afterwards.

[1:24:51] This was called, without irony, a morale event.

[1:24:54] I don't know.

[1:24:55] That sounds good to me.

[1:24:56] That sounds great.

[1:24:56] Yeah.

[1:24:56] What did they work for?

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:57] A kid-based company?

[1:24:58] A company run by kids?

[1:24:59] Because that sounds amazing.

[1:25:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:01] But anyway, Elizabeth goes on to say,

[1:25:04] The first summer I worked there, we went to see X-Men First Class.

[1:25:08] I'd never seen any X-Men movies and knew nothing about them, but figured since it was a prequel, I wouldn't be confused.

[1:25:15] I enjoyed the movie thoroughly and was probably alone in the audience in finding Magneto's heel turn to be a shocking betrayal.

[1:25:24] To this day, I have never watched another X-Men movie because all I want from the franchise is for Charles and Magneto to be best friends.

[1:25:34] Have any of you ever had a similar experience being blindsided by a plot twist that you really should have seen coming?

[1:25:42] Thanks for all the laughs.

[1:25:43] Elizabeth, last name withheld.

[1:25:45] This is an even dumber one than usual.

[1:25:50] But I remember-

[1:25:52] What?

Dan McCoy

[1:25:52] The letter?

[1:25:53] I thought it was perfectly great.

[1:25:54] No, no, no.

[1:25:54] How rude, Daniel.

[1:25:56] And also-

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:57] Elizabeth, don't take it personal.

[1:25:59] Dan's just working through some things, and I'm going to sing about how much we love that you wrote into us.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:06] No, I was saying what I was about to say was going to be dumb.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:10] Yeah, you just insulted a listener that was dumb.

[1:26:13] Super dumb.

[1:26:14] Yeah.

[1:26:15] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:16] Well, what it was was-

[1:26:16] Arnie looks concerned over there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:18] He's like, I can't believe what a shit show operation they're running over here.

[1:26:21] You're getting the classic kneecap glare.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:23] Okay.

[1:26:24] So, I remember I watched Tim Burton's movie of Sweeney Todd, which I had-

[1:26:34] Like, so I watched it.

[1:26:36] It was the first version of Sweeney Todd that I ever saw.

[1:26:39] Much later, I became like a bit of a fanatic watching three different recorded versions in one live.

[1:26:49] But when I revisited the Burton movie, like, years later, before I had seen it again, I found myself involved in it.

[1:27:02] And I totally forgot until, like, right before he kills the beggar woman that is his wife.

[1:27:09] And I have no idea how, like, the most obvious twist, but also, like, I'd seen the movie before.

[1:27:16] And somehow, my brain had, like, erased all that so I could enjoy yet again and be like, no, no, Sweeney, no, no.

[1:27:27] I guess spoiler alert.

[1:27:29] Yeah, spoiler alert.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:30] I mean, I feel like spoiler alert for a lot of what we'll talk about here, right?

[1:27:33] If we're talking about twists.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:35] I mean, I couldn't think of any particular twists that have blindsided me, though I'm sure there are.

[1:27:39] But I often am the guy who, when it looks like the heroes are about to win, I'm like, great, movie's almost over.

[1:27:44] And then it turns out that this is the part where the heroes almost win and then lose, and then you have the real climax a little bit later.

[1:27:50] And every time I'm like, oh, there's more movie.

[1:27:52] Oh, okay, never mind then.

S3

[1:27:55] You hate third acts, it sounds like.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:58] It's more I want shorter second acts.

[1:28:00] I don't like the second act fake out.

[1:28:01] I'd rather just be like, guys, give me a story.

[1:28:04] Let's do it.

[1:28:04] Unless it's, like, a really good fake out and then a really good third act.

[1:28:08] But there's a lot of movies where there's a kind of satisfying fight scene.

[1:28:12] And I'm like, great, thank you, movie.

[1:28:13] And then it goes on to a big, like, explosions and glowy things ending.

[1:28:18] And I don't need that.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:19] Yeah, it's more like there's a fourth act.

[1:28:20] And the thing is, like, I agree with you overall.

[1:28:24] I want these movies to be more streamlined.

[1:28:26] But then sometimes I will see one that I like and will be a little disappointed that that fourth act isn't there just because my brain has been trained by other worse movies to expect it.

[1:28:39] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:40] I guess there's a movie I recommended a few episodes ago and Dan recommended hundreds of episodes ago called The Silent Partner.

[1:28:46] And there's a character in that who's literally like, oh, the bad guy's going to kill us.

[1:28:49] Oh, he won't stand for this.

[1:28:50] He's going to kill us.

[1:28:51] And then that character gets murdered.

[1:28:53] And I was like, oh, this is – I was not sure that was going to happen.

[1:28:56] And it's so much more gruesome than I expected it to be.

[1:28:59] So that was me kind of getting surprised by a twist.

[1:29:01] What about you guys?

[1:29:02] You like twists, right?

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:03] I'm usually surprised by them.

[1:29:05] I feel like – I think it's because I'm a non-creative.

[1:29:09] But I'm not like – when I'm enjoying like a movie or something, I'm not like – my brain doesn't click over into like how this was made or like what I would do in this situation.

[1:29:21] But I will say I was quite surprised by the twist.

[1:29:25] I was watching – I was in the theater watching a midnight screening on opening night of Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers.

[1:29:33] And, man, I'm like halfway through my popcorn.

[1:29:36] And I'm like, man, this – the movie feels like it's wrapping up.

[1:29:38] But we still got Shelob to go, right?

[1:29:43] And then those credits roll and I'm like, what?

[1:29:47] Where's Shelob?

[1:29:48] And then I like stand up and I start looking around like, we've been duped.

[1:29:53] So that was a twist that totally got me.

S3

[1:29:55] You know, when I saw The Fellowship of the Rings in the theater with my family walking out, my mother was like, I can't believe that whole movie.

[1:30:04] And they never even got where they were going.

[1:30:08] I was like, no, this is the first part of the book.

[1:30:10] There are sequels.

[1:30:11] And she says, they're just trying to get your money.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:14] That happened to me with the fifth Harry Potter movie.

[1:30:17] I had only seen the first Harry Potter movie.

[1:30:19] And then I went to see the fifth one.

[1:30:20] And I was like, oh, boy, this is going to be a big showdown with Voldemort.

[1:30:22] And then they just kind of leave.

[1:30:23] And I was like, oh, yeah, there's more stuff that happens after this.

S3

[1:30:27] After seeing The Princess Bride, my mother, who is delightful, said, that couldn't happen.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:34] There's no way Fred Savage would sit through that story.

S3

[1:30:38] My movie that really surprised me.

[1:30:40] It's a pretty obviously it surprised a lot of people.

[1:30:42] I knew there was a twist and I actually saw it when it first opened, The Sixth Sense.

[1:30:46] But for some reason, it was the weirdest reason that I was distracted because I just saw in the opening credits that Donnie Wahlberg was in the movie.

[1:30:57] And somehow did not put together that the like intruder or whatever at the beginning of the movie was Donnie Wahlberg because I guess it didn't look like him.

[1:31:06] And so the whole movie, I'm using that kind of like movie logic, which is the thing that usually gives away what the ending is going to be.

[1:31:14] And I'm so distracted and be like, oh, it's getting pretty late, but shit's going to get crazy when Donnie Wahlberg shows up.

[1:31:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:21] Yeah.

[1:31:22] Donnie Wahlberg's the she-love of that movie.

[1:31:25] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:27] Shit's going to get crazy when Donnie Wahlberg shows up.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:30] I mean, that's a good rule for life, too, for movies and for life.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:32] It's true.

[1:31:33] Yeah.

[1:31:34] Okay.

[1:31:34] Well, the second and final letter is from Mitchell, last name withheld.

[1:31:39] Mitchell writes,

[1:31:41] You guys often play up how painful it is to watch these movies, and I get that you're doing a bit, but do you ever sincerely regret making this a bad movie podcast?

[1:31:52] If you just made a good movie podcast instead, you could have spent all this time watching good movies.

[1:31:58] Sincerely, Mitchell, last name withheld.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:00] Sincerely, the voice in my head all the time.

[1:32:04] Yeah.

[1:32:06] Yeah, send that fucking message back in time, dude.

[1:32:09] Tenet that shit back to me.

[1:32:11] I was thinking about it.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:15] Obviously, it's more pleasurable to watch a good movie, but in terms of the conversations we've had afterwards, I wouldn't change anything, personally.

[1:32:27] I watch a lot of bad movies on my own recognizance, too, so maybe I'm just a glutton for it.

[1:32:34] Dan will often...

Stuart Wellington

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:37] Dan will often send us texts and be like, hey, I had this Italian exploitation film on while I was working, and check out this crazy scene.

[1:32:57] And I'm like, Dan, you're on your own time.

[1:32:59] Just watch something that's going to be good.

[1:33:02] I think there is a...

[1:33:04] I enjoy watching good movies more, but I kind of enjoy talking about bad movies more.

[1:33:08] Yeah.

S3

[1:33:11] Well...

[1:33:11] Arnie, do you have any podcast-based regrets?

[1:33:14] You know, Mitchell, thanks for asking.

[1:33:16] I would say, am I someone that also occasionally regrets the premise of my podcast?

[1:33:21] Sure.

[1:33:23] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:24] I mean, eventually everything becomes an albatross.

[1:33:27] Do you ever wish that you were playing a crazy character?

[1:33:29] Do you...

[1:33:29] Except for albatrosses.

[1:33:31] They decay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:32] Yeah, that's true.

[1:33:33] Eventually albatrosses become dirt, I guess, but...

[1:33:36] But everything else turns into an albatross when it decays.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:39] Arnie, in your show, Hello from the Magic Tavern, or what, do you have more albatross decomposition bits?

[1:33:47] Well, I was going to say that inside every bear there are two albatrosses.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:50] You can continue being the stealth-only pro on the program.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:55] Arnie, so on your show, Hello from the Magic Tavern, you are the only one who plays basically yourself.

[1:34:01] Do you ever regret that and wish that you were playing, like, a wackier character?

[1:34:05] Like a...

[1:34:06] I don't know.

[1:34:07] Like a latke or something?

[1:34:09] Uh...

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:10] You mean latke, the character from Taxi, not the delicious food.

[1:34:15] They're similar, though, right?

[1:34:17] Yeah, I mean, because Andy Kaufman was also made out of fried potatoes, yeah.

[1:34:20] Yeah.

S3

[1:34:21] You know, when it started, I sort of regretted playing the straight man on the podcast because it seemed like everyone else got to have so much more fun.

[1:34:29] As the show goes on, though, the fact that, like, we try to stay true, like, everything people say is canon, and we sort of try to remember it.

[1:34:37] You know, my character has actually become kind of a weirdo anyway.

[1:34:42] Like, all the weird things that people have just said about me.

[1:34:46] Yeah.

[1:34:46] The thing I do, though, sometimes regret just playing myself, like a fictional version of myself.

[1:34:52] I'm always sort of like, someday this is gonna...

[1:34:55] I'm gonna really look back and regret this.

[1:34:57] But, eh, what are you gonna do?

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:59] Yeah, I mean, also, you...

[1:35:01] Your costume from live shows is pretty easy, right?

S3

[1:35:04] That is true.

[1:35:04] When Matt Young, who plays a wizard, like, is just sweating through a giant beard and thing, and I have to...

[1:35:11] Literally, I do look.

[1:35:12] I do have a costume.

[1:35:13] I do have one particular polo shirt that I have to change into before every show.

[1:35:18] But, yeah, I'm glad that I don't have to put on anything more than that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:21] I remember the one time I did...

[1:35:23] I was a guest on your live show, and I decided to wear an inflatable Beholder costume.

[1:35:30] And I didn't realize that when I turned the fan off, because I thought the fan would get in the way of the mic,

[1:35:36] that the suit would deflate, and that under the hot lights, I would just be like a sweaty ball sack of a man.

[1:35:42] Yeah, that was a moment when I'm like, I'm kind of glad the flop house doesn't require me to wear costumes on stage.

[1:35:48] That was so delightful.

S3

[1:35:49] You were so great in that live show, and I could not believe it when you showed up with that costume, because it was so good.

[1:35:55] Also, I know your parents were in the audience for that show, correct?

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:59] That was the first time my parents had come to any of my performances.

[1:36:03] And there was a point where somebody made me roll around on stage in this costume on a fox face, on a taxidermied fox face.

[1:36:12] It was pretty great.

[1:36:13] And then afterwards, we ran out to meet the people who had come out to see the show.

[1:36:19] And I'm like, oh, I can't wait to see my parents.

[1:36:21] My parents had already left.

[1:36:22] They were in the car.

[1:36:25] They could not face me.

[1:36:28] Oh, dear.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:30] Well, let us move on.

[1:36:32] We have another segment, Dan.

[1:36:33] There's one final segment, and that's one where we recommend films that we've seen recently that we've enjoyed.

[1:36:40] And I would like to recommend a little movie called Psycho Goreman, which stars an up-and-coming young actor named Stuart Wellington as Tube Man.

[1:36:55] Stuart's freaking out.

[1:36:58] And this is a very funny, gory movie, as you might expect from the title.

[1:37:07] It's basically like, what if these kids have a pet sort of cosmic evil sadist?

[1:37:16] He's sort of like a space pinhead almost.

[1:37:18] I don't know how you would describe him.

[1:37:19] He's just like, you know, like an evil conqueror type, but with a tragic backstory.

[1:37:24] And they can control him.

[1:37:26] And they are just sort of, you know, brat kids.

[1:37:32] Everyone in the movie is sort of like self-centered.

[1:37:37] Yeah, they're little sociopath kids.

[1:37:39] Yeah, so it's just funny.

[1:37:41] Like, it's, you know, someone who shouldn't have all that power having control over this evil creature that has all this power.

[1:37:48] And it's a very wacky situation, but it's also weirdly played pretty straight, even though it's so silly.

[1:37:56] It strikes, like, a pretty good tone.

[1:37:58] Like, I mean, you could see, like, a trauma version of this, right, that would go way, like, campy and over the top.

[1:38:05] And this somehow has, like, the most bullshit, weird comic premise, but takes it somewhat seriously.

[1:38:14] So I really enjoyed it.

[1:38:16] And watch out for that tube man.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:18] He's going places.

[1:38:19] Mm-hmm.

[1:38:20] Straight into a bear.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:25] Anyone else?

[1:38:27] Stuart, would you like to go?

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:29] Yeah, I'll recommend something that's on Amazon Prime.

[1:38:33] Well, before that, obviously, go see, go watch Psycho Goreman.

[1:38:37] It's great.

[1:38:37] And it does have me playing, doing the voice of tube man.

[1:38:41] I'd also like to recommend a movie called One Night in Miami.

[1:38:45] It is a movie directed by, it's the directorial debut, I think, of Regina King.

[1:38:50] And it is a fictional story of the very real friendship between Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown.

[1:39:00] And it depicts one night of them basically just hanging out in Miami after a big fight.

[1:39:08] And it is adapted from a stage play.

[1:39:12] And it kind of feels like that.

[1:39:13] But it's just, it does a really amazing job of presenting four, like, larger-than-life men in a moment of, like, a fairly, in some ways, low-stakes moment in their lives of them just spending time with each other.

[1:39:31] And it presents them as, like, I don't know, like, fully formed three-dimensional men with vulnerabilities, but also strong passions.

[1:39:42] And I thought it was really great.

[1:39:44] And the performances are incredible.

[1:39:46] And specifically, Leslie Odom Jr., who plays Sam Cooke in the movie, he recorded a bunch of Sam Cooke songs with him doing the vocals.

[1:39:57] And they play a bunch of them in the movie.

[1:39:59] And they're incredible.

[1:40:01] So check it out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:03] I would like to recommend a documentary movie.

[1:40:06] That's a movie about a real thing that actually happened featuring real footage of the thing as it happened.

[1:40:11] And this is a movie from 1968 that was released in Blu-ray last year.

[1:40:16] And it's called The Queen.

[1:40:17] And it's a documentary about the 1967 Miss All-America Camp Beauty Contest.

[1:40:22] And follows the emcee of the competition and also a number of the different competitors as they prepare for it.

[1:40:28] And then acts in some ways just as, like, you are there in this moment experiencing the 1967 Miss All-America Camp Beauty Contest.

[1:40:39] It was a early drag contest at a time when there was next to no representation of that kind of lifestyle or interest in mainstream media.

[1:40:51] And it was really interesting to me to see people living in that time and without a lot of what we take for granted nowadays in terms of just even awareness of different types of people.

[1:41:05] And there's a bunch of interesting characters in it.

[1:41:07] I mean, they're real people.

[1:41:08] You know what I mean by characters.

[1:41:09] And it's just something that helped me to, I don't know, understand certain aspects of the draw of drag that I didn't fully understand before.

[1:41:21] And so I thought it was really good.

[1:41:22] It's called The Queen and it's on Blu-ray.

S3

[1:41:27] I unfortunately haven't had a, I've been a little too busy to watch that many movies, but I will recommend the first 15 minutes of The January Man.

[1:41:36] Don't watch any more than the first 15 minutes because it's not, it won't get any better.

[1:41:41] But the first 15 minutes are pretty entertaining and crazy.

[1:41:44] And Rod Steiger and Danny Aiello have a scene where they really both go, really go at it.

[1:41:50] And at some point you have to remind yourself, this is a comedy, but these guys are just screaming at each other.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:56] Did we talk about that John Patrick Shanley wrote The January Man when we did our Wild Mountain Time episode?

[1:42:04] I don't think we touched on it.

[1:42:05] I don't think it came up when we did Wild Mountain Time.

[1:42:06] That's very strange.

[1:42:09] Okay, well, the first 15 minutes, that's a great recommendation for our listeners who maybe have a more packed schedule than the other ones.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:19] And again, you're saying not to watch it in 15 minute bites, but just to watch the first 15 minutes and then turn it right off.

[1:42:25] Exactly.

[1:42:26] Oh, yeah.

[1:42:27] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:42:28] Yep, perfect.

[1:42:28] Put the tape back in the box, drive immediately to your local Blockbuster and slip it in the return slot.

S3

[1:42:34] I suppose take a moment to look at the poster of The January Man, which is the whole reason I ever even bothered to watch it, because the poster was somehow burned in my mind from childhood.

[1:42:44] And it was January, and I was like, I guess I'll watch this movie finally.

[1:42:48] It is January Man.

[1:42:49] Can you describe that poster for me, Arnie?

[1:42:51] It's Kevin Kline, right?

[1:42:53] Kevin Kline.

[1:42:53] He's got kind of floppy hair.

[1:42:55] He's standing in a doorway holding.

[1:42:58] He's got kind of like a longer trench coat.

[1:43:02] He's holding up a badge.

[1:43:04] I believe Mary Stewart Masterson.

[1:43:09] Yeah, she is standing behind him.

[1:43:11] Or wait, Mary Elizabeth.

[1:43:11] No, Mary Elizabeth Masterson Antonio.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:13] Yeah, Mary Elizabeth Masterson Antonio.

[1:43:15] I got the three named Marys of the 80s.

[1:43:20] No, but you're right.

[1:43:22] She's kind of just peeking around.

S3

[1:43:24] He's like he's basically like talking to someone in the doorway.

[1:43:27] It's not even that.

[1:43:29] There's not even that much.

[1:43:30] It just works.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:32] And ask more questions than it answers.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:34] I mean, you should mention.

[1:43:34] Did you mention that the door has been forced down?

[1:43:38] The door is no longer connected to the doorway.

[1:43:40] I'm looking at it now and is lying on the floor at Kevin Kline's feet almost as if through the sheer force of the zaniness of the film.

[1:43:46] He has knocked the door down.

S3

[1:43:48] It's also worth mentioning that nothing even vaguely resembling this happens at any point in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:56] It's not like a French door slamming comedy, right?

[1:44:00] I would like to ask, yeah, about the tone of the January man because like I is it comedic?

[1:44:06] Because I remember as a kid, I was kind of interested in seeing it because I liked Kevin Kline, you know, and like this was around the time maybe that I would have been like, oh, he's so funny in A Fish Called Wanda and, you know, a few other things.

[1:44:21] And, you know, it looked wacky.

[1:44:24] But then I think I tried to watch it and it was a pretty straight cop film.

[1:44:28] Like what is the tone?

S3

[1:44:30] That's the problem.

[1:44:31] I mean, I think from what I can tell, the main reason it probably flopped at the time besides just being bad was that the tone was so weird.

[1:44:38] I think, I mean, being Shanley, like he was trying something.

[1:44:45] It was just like Joe versus Volcano also is tonally a little strange.

[1:44:50] But it's trying.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:53] And it hit theaters in March, too.

[1:44:55] And people are like, why would I watch January man in March?

[1:44:58] Exactly.

[1:44:59] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:44:59] I mean, reading the first line of Roger Ebert's contemporary review, the January man is worth study as a film that fails to find its tone.

[1:45:06] So I think that's the issue.

S3

[1:45:08] It's so, I mean, the parts that are serious is, this is a movie about a serial killer that's killing women.

[1:45:14] And, but it's also like a comedy.

[1:45:18] And every time you see Danny Aiello and Rod Steiger, like being like, there's a, you didn't see that dead woman.

[1:45:28] And our fate, you didn't tell her parents.

[1:45:30] And then it's like, and then it's like, let's go look at a rumpled, let's go look at a rumpled detective, try to figure this out.

[1:45:36] And sort of fall in love with a woman that's too young for him.

[1:45:40] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:41] It's available on Prime.

[1:45:42] If you have Amazon Prime, you can watch it for free.

[1:45:45] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:45] If you've already watched Virtuosity and Johnny Mnemonic.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:49] Which I watched both of those last year.

[1:45:52] Along with Lawnmower Man.

[1:45:53] I went on a real kick of like dumb.

[1:45:56] Yeah.

[1:45:56] Dumb.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:57] You were, you were really scared of the internet for a little bit.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:59] Yeah.

[1:46:01] Okay.

[1:46:01] Well, anyways.

[1:46:03] Arnie, thank you so much for being here.

[1:46:06] Is there anything you want to plug here at the end?

S3

[1:46:08] Sure.

[1:46:08] Check out my podcast.

[1:46:10] I love from the magic tavern.

[1:46:12] A totally improvised chat show in a fantasy world.

[1:46:16] And it's great.

[1:46:17] It's great.

[1:46:17] Oh, thank you.

[1:46:18] And if you're looking for games to play with your friends, either in person someday or via Zoom or something like that, the Jackbox Party Packs.

[1:46:30] I think three is a really good collection.

[1:46:32] They're all good.

[1:46:33] Three is a good collection.

[1:46:34] And the most recent one, seven, I think is one of the better ones we've done.

Dan McCoy

[1:46:39] Nice.

[1:46:40] They're very, they're very fun.

[1:46:41] I, yeah, I have come to like games more over the years, knowing Stuart and our mutual friend, John.

[1:46:49] But my favorite type of game still remains the sort of social party game.

[1:46:53] And these are some of the most fun, funniest ones you can do, I think.

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:57] Yeah, your favorite one's called Leisure Suit Larry, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:47:00] Yeah, in the land of the lounge lizards.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:02] Guys, guys, I know this is kind of off topic, but I will say that Amazon Prime does inform me that people who watch January 1,

[1:47:09] also watched Wagons East, starring John Candy and Richard Lewis.

[1:47:12] So if you liked Wagons East, maybe you'll like January Man.

[1:47:16] That sounds about right.

Dan McCoy

[1:47:18] Well, on that note, thanks to our network, Maximum Fun.

[1:47:21] Go to MaximumFun.org for a lot of other great shows.

[1:47:25] Tweet about our show, review it, let people know all the stuff that we always ask for.

[1:47:30] Thank you for doing it all.

[1:47:33] Lo these many years for us, helping us grow an audience.

[1:47:35] But until next time, I've been Dan McCoy.

S3

[1:47:39] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:47:41] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:47:42] And I'm Arnie Neekamp, reminding you that teenage rattlesnakes are the most dangerous kind.

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:48] Oh, no.

[1:47:49] So, Elliot, please, can you just do a whole bunch of bullshit scatting before, so I can't introduce him?

[1:48:08] Already, way ahead of you.

[1:48:10] Way ahead of you.

[1:48:10] MaximumFun.org

S5

[1:48:20] Comedy and culture.

[1:48:22] Artist owned.

[1:48:23] Audience supported.

Ep. #334 - The New Mutants, with Arnie Niekamp

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