Ep. #324 - Hellboy LIVE

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode of the Flophouse, we discuss Hellboy.

Stuart Wellington

[0:05] Live in the Twin Cities!

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

Dan McCoy

[0:52] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:53] I'm Elliot Kalin, and where are we?

[0:55] We're in Minneapolis.

[1:00] Now, wait, are we technically in Minneapolis?

[1:03] Is this part of Minneapolis?

[1:04] Yeah, we're.

[1:05] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06] One of my top three Appalises.

[1:09] Wow.

[1:10] Along with what?

[1:11] Indianapolis and Annapolis.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13] Wow, cool.

[1:14] Yeah.

[1:15] Okay, that's the whole show. See you later.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18] You want to say it's my favorite Appalise.

[1:21] Minneapolis.

[1:23] It's my favorite Appalise.

[1:25] Of all of them.

Dan McCoy

[1:26] I lived here for about four or five months just out of college.

[1:29] I don't know if you know this about me, Stuart, but I.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33] Is that why I saw signs of you around town that say, don't serve this man?

Dan McCoy

[1:38] I came at the wrong time and left at the wrong time.

[1:41] I was here through most of a winter.

[1:44] Okay.

[1:45] Yeah.

[1:45] Anyway.

[1:48] Put that on my Wikipedia page, I guess.

[1:50] And moving on.

Elliott Kalan

[1:51] I'm amazed that you got any sympathy from people who live through those winters routinely.

[1:55] When what you're telling them is you're a pampered city boy who had to run away back to the coasts.

[2:00] Couldn't handle it here in the heart of the country.

Dan McCoy

[2:02] I mean, New York winters are notoriously easy.

Elliott Kalan

[2:07] Yeah.

[2:07] It's all icy.

[2:08] And if you're lucky, you break your neck and die.

[2:09] And you don't have to live in New York anymore.

[2:11] Boo.

[2:12] Take that New York burn.

[2:13] I'm an Angeleno now.

[2:16] East coast, least coast.

Stuart Wellington

[2:18] I will say that at least when it's cold in New York, at least it doesn't smell as terrible.

Elliott Kalan

[2:24] Here's my favorite thing about New York in the winter.

[2:26] Wait, are we doing coast humor now?

[2:29] Humor about the coast.

[2:30] That's if I'm scared of the ocean.

[2:32] Okay.

[2:33] So my favorite thing about New York in the winter, and I wonder if it's the same here.

[2:36] I don't know what the garbage situation is like here.

[2:38] But seeing the garbage piling up under the snow and seeing the urine stains on it and being like,

[2:43] that's going to smell when these thaw out.

[2:45] Just like seeing it and being like, that's a little time bomb someone set for the spring.

Dan McCoy

[2:51] But normally we don't talk so much about cities.

[2:53] Normally we talk about movies.

[2:54] And for this episode, we, as I said earlier, watched Hellboy.

[2:59] Now, not the Guillermo del Toro Hellboy.

[3:01] No.

[3:02] Or Hellboy 2, the Golden Army, also directed by Guillermo del Toro.

[3:07] But the 20, was it this year?

Stuart Wellington

[3:11] 2019 Hellboy.

[3:13] Yep.

[3:13] And real quick, so we had to watch the movie.

[3:16] How many people in the audience had to watch it?

[3:20] I'm super sorry.

Elliott Kalan

[3:22] Had to watch it.

[3:23] Government mandate.

Stuart Wellington

[3:25] Yeah.

[3:25] I was just wondering if they had to watch it.

[3:27] Like, if they were forced to because of a podcast or something.

Elliott Kalan

[3:31] Now, we should, this is something Stuart and I are just going to mention here.

[3:34] We don't have to keep yakking on about it, although we would.

[3:36] We are both huge fans of the Hellboy comic series and the affiliated BPRD comic series, which,

[3:42] at a certain point, it may have topped Nexus as my favorite long-running series of all time.

[3:47] Now, that is just to show that...

Stuart Wellington

[3:49] Oh, look at all the knowing nods in the audience.

[3:51] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[3:51] A lot of Mike Barron fans in the audience.

Stuart Wellington

[3:55] But, and so, when we were watching the movie, of course, we spent a lot of time talking about the comics,

[3:59] much to the bored looks of our companions.

[4:02] Yeah, yeah.

[4:03] And so...

Dan McCoy

[4:03] Yeah, there was definitely a point watching the movie where they were just trading off plot lines.

[4:07] Like, oh, this plot line, Hellboy, was great, right?

[4:09] Like, yes, this other plot line from the comics was also great.

[4:12] Like, great, great.

[4:13] I wish I was reading it instead of watching this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[4:15] Now, there's two reasons I bring that up.

[4:16] One, we may be more harsh on the movie than we would be otherwise, because we love the source material so much.

[4:21] Two, the only reason I can understand what is happening in the movie is because I am so familiar with the source material.

[4:28] It is a convoluted film that oftentimes, inexplicably, will throw to a flashback rather than putting the scenes in the order you'd expect a movie to put them in.

[4:39] So, shall we begin to this flashback-heavy film?

[4:42] And that might be because, as people know, there was a... or may not know, behind the scenes, it was a very tumultuous post-production and production process.

[4:50] I don't know enough about that to go into it.

[4:52] So, the movie begins...

Dan McCoy

[4:54] It's almost as if it wasn't worth bringing up.

Elliott Kalan

[4:57] Dan, if I never brought up things that weren't worth bringing up, we wouldn't have a podcast.

[5:04] So, we begin in media res, as Stuart likes to say, prologue, 517 AD.

[5:10] Comes up in big letters on the screen, because you know what?

[5:13] We're just going to rip off Guardians of the Galaxy in this movie.

[5:16] Many different ways.

[5:17] So, 517 AD, and we get a little Ian McShane voiceover at Infodump about how there was a war between people and the dark forces of whatever,

[5:25] and King Arthur ambushed Nimue, the Queen of Blood, played by Mia Jovovich, and...

[5:30] Jovovich.

[5:31] Jovovich.

[5:32] What did I say?

[5:33] Jovovich?

[5:33] Yes.

[5:34] Okay, I'll probably say that again.

Dan McCoy

[5:36] I'm just, you know, I'm just like, just so the internet doesn't attack us, I'm just going to acknowledge that I, at least, understand how to say Jovovich.

[5:43] Wow.

[5:46] I guess you won this one.

Elliott Kalan

[5:51] King Arthur, he does what you got to do with an evil blood queen.

[5:54] He just dismembers her with Excalibur, and takes all the pieces and puts them in little boxes, and says to his knights,

[6:01] to spread them across the land, so they can never be found.

[6:04] Not even by the devil.

[6:06] Cue Hellboy title card.

Dan McCoy

[6:08] To plant them, so they can grow more Mela Jovovich.

[6:11] Oh no!

Elliott Kalan

[6:12] But it's also like, spread them throughout the land.

[6:14] You mean England?

[6:15] Because it's like, not that big.

[6:18] Like, it's conceivable you could have an England breath treasure hunt for like a radio station promotion,

[6:24] and it would not be that crazy.

Dan McCoy

[6:26] A lot of accents, though.

[6:27] A lot of accents for such little square footage.

Elliott Kalan

[6:30] It's true.

[6:31] A lot of accents.

[6:32] A lot of dislike between people who live very close to each other.

[6:35] But you have to imagine, like, they're like, now it will never be found.

[6:38] And in the 21st century, all these warlocks are like, I gotta take a train ride?

[6:42] Ugh!

[6:43] I'll never collect all these Blood Queen pieces.

[6:46] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[6:47] So, and this opening features a lot of that, like, camera tricks, like slow motion, and then real fast motion.

[6:54] And the whole time, like, we're seeing stuff.

[6:57] But then Ian McShane is delivering a narration that explains exactly what we're seeing,

[7:01] but, like, pretty glib so that we know it's not our daddy's Hellboy movie.

[7:05] If our dad was pretty close to our same age.

Elliott Kalan

[7:09] If our dads were our age.

[7:11] So I guess this is not, like, this is my son's Hellboy movie.

[7:14] Yeah.

[7:14] It's not my Hellboy movie.

[7:16] But, yeah, it's a lot of, like...

[7:17] You let him watch Rated R movies now?

[7:19] Yeah, well, I mean...

[7:20] Just Deadpool.

[7:21] Just Deadpool.

[7:21] I mean, because Deadpool's family friendly.

[7:23] Yeah.

[7:23] Kids love it.

[7:25] And occasionally, I mean, like, we'll probably go see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood together.

[7:29] Yeah, yeah.

[7:29] And, uh...

[7:29] Yep.

[7:30] What was that movie?

Stuart Wellington

[7:31] Because he likes the foot stuff, right?

[7:33] He what?

[7:34] Nothing.

[7:34] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:35] Oh, yeah.

[7:35] Oh, yeah, because he's a huge foot fan.

[7:37] Yeah.

[7:37] And, like, I mean, sometimes he's like, Daddy, can I watch some TV today?

[7:40] And I'm like, yeah, let's catch up on the deuce.

[7:42] Yeah, that'll be good, you know?

[7:44] But, anyway, the point is, there's a lot of...

[7:47] Ian McShane's like, and she was pretty pissed, so she let out this plague that killed a bunch

[7:51] of people.

[7:51] It's...

[7:52] I love Ian McShane.

[7:53] It is not the best use of him.

[7:54] Anyway...

[7:54] It's almost like he doesn't give a shit.

[7:56] Yeah.

[7:58] Tijuana, present day.

[8:00] Hellboy, an agent of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, he's got to go down Mexico

[8:05] way to Tijuana, as I mentioned.

[8:07] He's investigating a nest of vampires that's a luchador match.

[8:12] There was an agent named Ruiz who was down there investigating it, and at first I thought

[8:15] that was racist, but then it's like, you should send the guy who probably speaks Spanish to

[8:19] Mexico for that operation.

[8:20] Anyway, Ruiz has been turned and turned into a professional wrestler vampire.

[8:25] Hellboy's got to fight him.

[8:26] And this whole scene, and much of the movie efforts has a real...

[8:30] I was like, oh, this is kind of the, like, direct-to-video sci-fi channel original Hellboy

[8:35] movie.

[8:35] Like, it's very rubbery and very, like, shot with a lot of bright neon colors.

Dan McCoy

[8:41] Well, it's interesting because, like, you know, if you asked me if I wanted to see Hellboy

[8:45] fight a luchador vampire, I'd be like, hell yeah!

[8:48] But then I watched the movie, I'm like, why is this happening?

[8:50] This has no bearing on anything else.

Elliott Kalan

[8:53] And then he has to...

[8:54] Ruiz goes full man-bat, and Hellboy has to kill him by impaling him on the turnbuckle.

[8:59] And they have a sad goodbye scene where Hellboy's like, come on, man, no, no, you gotta stay

[9:03] with me.

[9:04] And I was like, movie, you know I just met these characters, right?

[9:08] Like, I am not on board for this emotional goodbye.

[9:10] And Ruiz gives him an ominous warning.

[9:12] Apparently, the end is coming.

[9:14] Bum, bum, bum.

[9:15] The end of the movie, he wished?

[9:16] No.

Stuart Wellington

[9:17] It also kind of feels like, like, I wasn't quite sure, was Ruiz always a Batman, or what

[9:24] do you think?

Dan McCoy

[9:24] Well, a bat crashed through his window, and he thought...

Stuart Wellington

[9:27] That is pretty terrifying.

Dan McCoy

[9:29] Criminals are superstitious cowardly a lot, so...

[9:31] So, I shall become a Batman.

[9:35] Okay.

[9:36] And I'll wear a luchador mask also.

[9:38] Okay, that makes sense.

[9:38] Because criminals also are scared of luchadors.

[9:40] Yeah, yeah, sure.

[9:41] Understandably.

Elliott Kalan

[9:41] You know Bruce Wayne is a rich a-hole.

[9:44] Because when a bat crashes through his window, he's not like, ah, oh man.

[9:48] He's just like, hmm, very inspiring.

[9:50] Alfred, take care of the bat in our house, please.

[9:53] Take care of all this glass on the ground.

[9:55] And you have to imagine, Bob Kane just didn't want to put in the scene of Alfred chasing

[9:58] a bat with a broom.

[10:03] Oh, I want to write that story so badly now, where Alfred has to get this bat out of us.

[10:07] Nope, you're a Marvel man.

[10:08] I am a Marvel man, that's true.

[10:10] Which was what Miracle Man was originally called.

[10:12] All right, let's get back to...

Dan McCoy

[10:14] Remember when you told me to keep us on track?

Elliott Kalan

[10:16] Yeah, I did.

[10:17] I told you that before the recording, and you're doing a bad job.

[10:18] So, Hellboy gets drunk because he's so sad, because he's kind of like a blue-collar slob

[10:23] of a superhero, and he gets picked up by BPRD agents taken to their big headquarters in

[10:28] the Colorado mountains.

[10:29] Don't get used to it, we're not going to see it again in this movie.

[10:33] Hellboy is in his apartment, which has a lack of windows, which means that it looks cool,

[10:37] but it's probably pretty depressing to be in there a lot, and his seasonal affective

[10:41] disorder probably really flares up when he's at home.

Stuart Wellington

[10:43] Yeah, and he probably can't cook any steaks in his grill, because it just gets too smoky.

Dan McCoy

[10:48] Yeah, there's no vent over that thing.

Elliott Kalan

[10:50] No, now I imagine him in his bedroom with a George Foreman grill.

[10:53] Just making a sad little burger for himself.

Stuart Wellington

[10:56] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[10:57] Well, he'll throw it in a sous vide first, and then maybe he's got like a pot or something.

[11:01] I mean, he's got the full dorm room kitchen set up.

Dan McCoy

[11:04] Wait, now, what kind of dorm room did you have that there was a sous vide in there?

Elliott Kalan

[11:08] At the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America, Dan.

[11:12] If you ever get a chance to eat at the student restaurant, it's really good.

[11:15] It's up by Rhinebeck, New York.

[11:16] Anyway, okay.

[11:18] Hellboy is shaving down his horns.

[11:20] He's got stumps where the horns would be.

[11:22] And this is, I guess, when we start really getting a good look at his face, which I think

[11:27] Haggard might be a way to describe it.

[11:29] Well, his eyes are like sunken and skull-like.

[11:32] Yeah.

[11:32] And he's very, he's just got, he's got a real skin.

Dan McCoy

[11:35] Yeah, he's Mickey Rourke-esque.

[11:37] Yeah, wow, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[11:39] Again, I said, yeah, I don't want Mickey Rourke going to attack me.

Dan McCoy

[11:42] I mean, you know, if you want to argue with reality, that's your business.

Stuart Wellington

[11:44] I guess we can add Mickey Rourke to our list of enemies.

Elliott Kalan

[11:48] It's such a long list.

[11:49] Anyway, Hellboy's daddy figure, Professor Broom, who is Ian McShane.

[11:53] Surprise, surprise.

[11:54] He comes in and tries to make him feel better.

[11:55] No, you're beautiful.

[11:56] I love you, honey.

[11:57] You're a fantastic son.

[11:57] Anyway, he says, you've been asked to help.

[12:01] Oh, there's a funny part where he goes, he says something and he says like, I think you're,

[12:04] I don't, I don't think you're hideous or whatever.

[12:06] And, and Hellboy goes, yeah, I wish this face could talk.

[12:09] It would tell you something different.

[12:10] And I'm like, Hellboy, your face is talking through your mouth.

[12:15] But it also makes me think, what if, if walls could talk was called if faces could talk?

Dan McCoy

[12:20] Yeah.

[12:20] HBO is like, I don't think you've thought this.

[12:23] Could you just take it back for one more draft?

[12:25] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[12:26] What if it was something that couldn't talk and we were asking if it could talk?

[12:30] All right.

[12:30] Yeah.

[12:30] Play with that idea for a little bit.

[12:32] I guess I can use my imagination.

[12:34] Ian McShane's like, or Professor Broom is like, hey, the Osiris Society, which is kind

[12:41] of like a stuffy British version of what we do.

[12:43] They need your help fighting some giants out in, out in England.

[12:47] So off you go.

[12:48] Then we cut to a bad guy scene.

[12:50] The Baba Yaga.

[12:51] Yes.

[12:52] The famous witch of Russian folklore that Dan thinks is Streganona.

[12:56] The Italian witch who has noodle powers.

[12:58] So she, this is the one that eats children or spaghettis.

[13:02] I mean, it's possible that she grinds the children up and makes a pasta out of them.

[13:06] I don't know.

[13:07] But as everyone knows, she lives in a chicken leg house.

[13:10] She rides around in a big mortar and pestle and she eats children.

[13:13] You know, that's, it's what your Baba told you.

[13:15] Your typical witch stuff.

[13:15] Typical.

[13:16] Well, in Russia, in Russia, witch eats you.

[13:20] That's why he's, why am I forgetting his name?

[13:23] The comedian does that.

Dan McCoy

[13:24] Yakov Shmirnov.

Elliott Kalan

[13:25] Yakov Shmirnov is eating a sandwich and he's like, in America, I eat sandwich.

Dan McCoy

[13:28] In Russia, witch eat me.

[13:30] I saw, by the way, I saw Yakov Shmirnov.

[13:35] Stuart was really hurt by that one.

[13:38] Early in my time in New York, I got free tickets to see Yakov Shmirnov's Broadway show.

Elliott Kalan

[13:44] Is that America, I Love You or something like that?

[13:46] Something like that.

[13:46] America, Let's Get Married or something like that?

Dan McCoy

[13:48] And I thought it would be funny.

[13:49] I was just like, oh, this is funny.

[13:50] We'll see a Broadway show, Yakov Shmirnov.

[13:52] This is crazy.

[13:53] And we watched the first half and we were like, we can leave now.

[13:57] We get the idea.

[13:58] You left before all the nudity.

[14:00] Oh, no.

[14:01] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[14:02] Okay.

[14:02] Baba Yaga's talking to another Hellboy baddie who we don't know who he is at the moment.

[14:06] We're going to find out later.

[14:06] He's called Gruagach or something like that.

[14:08] He's kind of a Gaelic pig demon.

[14:10] They both want revenge on Hellboy.

[14:12] Okay.

[14:12] And she's like, I'll help you get revenge.

[14:14] Hee hee hee hee.

[14:16] Back.

[14:16] Now we go to England.

[14:17] England in big letters.

[14:18] Some kind of pop song on the soundtrack.

[14:21] Because guys, let me tell you.

[14:22] Let me let you in on a hot take secret.

[14:24] I'm not crazy about the Guillermo del Toro Hellboy movies.

[14:27] I love Guillermo del Toro's movies.

[14:28] Ever since I saw the first of his movies, I ever saw Devil's Backbone when that was released

[14:31] in the theaters in New York.

[14:33] Loved it in college.

[14:34] And I love so many of his other movies.

[14:37] Shape of Water.

[14:38] Loved it.

[14:38] My favorite movie that year, I think.

[14:39] Anyway, his Hellboy movies were a little too Men in Blacky for me.

[14:43] A little too goofo.

[14:44] A little too wacky doodle.

[14:46] A little too silly.

Stuart Wellington

[14:46] Yeah, like a feature length Mos Eisley Cantina movie.

Elliott Kalan

[14:49] Well, now you've described the greatest movie in the history of the world.

[14:53] But it was a little bit like that when they were like, oh, what can we turn into a Men in Blacks franchise?

[14:59] Hellboy.

[14:59] And he was like, what can we turn into a Guardians of the Galaxy franchise?

[15:02] Hellboy.

[15:03] You want some more creep-em-ups.

[15:05] I want it to be more like creepy movies.

[15:06] So, as I was saying to you while we were watching it, the scene that says Hellboy to me, there

[15:10] are two scenes that say Hellboy to me.

[15:11] One is, I think it's in the Conqueror worm storyline.

[15:14] He's creeping around an old castle.

[15:15] And he finds there's a cabinet that's making noises.

[15:17] And he opens it up.

[15:18] There's four petrified Nazi heads that are just chattering away, attached to a weird machine.

[15:23] And he says, this is the worst place in the world.

[15:25] And I'm like, yeah, that's a Hellboy story to me entirely.

[15:28] It's super creepy.

[15:29] There's a lot of weird science that's never explained.

[15:31] And he's just like, oh, I hate this.

[15:33] The other one, I think it's Box of Evil, where he and Abe Sapien are investing in a castle.

[15:38] It's always castles.

[15:39] And a monkey jumps out with a gun.

[15:41] And he goes, that monkey's got a gun.

[15:42] And it shoots them.

Stuart Wellington

[15:45] Do you think that's because Mike Mignola finds monkeys scary?

[15:49] Or he just really likes to draw them?

Elliott Kalan

[15:51] Why do you have to pick?

[15:52] It could be both.

[15:52] Yeah, that's right.

[15:53] So Hellboy goes to the Osiris Club.

[15:55] And they're like, oh, we've been hunting giants for hundreds of years.

[15:58] We call it the Wild Hunt.

[16:00] And we dress up in knight's armor and use spears on horseback.

[16:02] It's dumb.

[16:03] Anyway, three giants are on the loose.

[16:06] Look at our giant heads that we've mounted on the walls as trophies.

[16:09] But also, here's a lady psychic who's going to show you in a crystal ball a little flashback of how you came into the world, Hellboy.

[16:16] Flashback.

[16:17] End of World War II.

[16:18] Rasputin's working with the Nazis.

[16:20] They have a ritual that's going to bring some kind of demon to Earth to turn the tide for Hitler.

[16:25] They're always doing that stuff.

[16:26] Lucky for all of us, it didn't work out.

[16:29] Doosplash, Dan.

[16:29] They didn't win.

[16:31] Why am I being singled out?

[16:34] I don't understand.

[16:35] Anyway, that's when, surprise, surprise, out of nowhere, a different Mike Mignola character, Lobster Johnson, a never-too-clearly-defined vigilante character,

[16:44] who carries two guns and he can touch your head and burn a lobster claw image into your head.

[16:48] And he wears, like, aviator goggles and a leather jacket.

[16:51] He jumps out and just starts shooting everybody.

[16:53] Is he played by a probably-too-old-for-this-role Thomas Hayden Church?

[16:56] You bet he is.

Dan McCoy

[16:58] I love only a podcast audience are there knowing applause for Lobster Johnson.

[17:04] For Lobster Johnson.

Elliott Kalan

[17:06] A character who, he is the one weak link for me in that world because he never lived up to his potential.

[17:11] Anyway, then the Osiris Club shows up.

[17:14] Professor Broom is there.

[17:15] They're there to kill whatever the Nazis brought out of hell.

[17:18] But it turns out it's a widow kid hell boy.

Stuart Wellington

[17:20] Dan, Dan.

[17:21] They can't kill him.

[17:22] Dan, that comment reminds me of the time when I was in college and I went to a basement hardcore show.

[17:26] And in between songs, the vocalist said something like, about the comic book Preacher.

[17:31] And I remember after the show going and, like, talking to him for, like, 20 minutes about the comic book Preacher.

[17:37] And he had this look on his face like, stop talking to me, dude.

[17:39] Somebody wants to buy merch.

Dan McCoy

[17:41] Well, that's a bit of stage chatter.

[17:42] I'm cutting out of the act.

[17:46] So.

Stuart Wellington

[17:48] Oh, not this part.

Elliott Kalan

[17:49] You're talking?

[17:51] So, that was all news to Hellboy.

[17:52] Hellby didn't know any of that stuff.

[17:54] He didn't know where he came from.

[17:55] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[17:55] But, I'm sorry.

[17:57] Let's back up.

[17:58] It's only occurring to me now.

[17:59] Why did that seer tell Hellboy this?

[18:02] Like, why?

Elliott Kalan

[18:03] Well, this movie has two things running through it.

[18:06] One is, everyone is constantly on their toes that at any moment, Hellboy is going to turn into the beast of the apocalypse,

[18:12] take over the earth, bring hell to earth, and kill lots of people.

[18:15] And so they're all constantly assuming the worst of him and ready to kill him.

[18:19] And the other thing is, for some reason, they decide not to tell him this straight out,

[18:23] but instead to hint at it in ominous ways at seemingly arbitrary times.

[18:27] Like when he's about to psych himself up for a giant hunt.

[18:30] So it's really like, I don't know, Dan.

[18:32] I guess that's the reason.

[18:33] Because the movie needed that information stuck somewhere,

[18:36] and they decided to stick it where the sun don't shine, the hidden room of the Osiris Club.

[18:39] Why is there a crystal ball that he sees it in?

[18:43] It doesn't, it's, there's no rhyme nor reason.

[18:45] So, speaking of rhymes and reasons, here's a scene that doesn't have a rhyme or reason.

[18:51] They're in a monastery.

[18:53] Grugach, that pig man monster, he breaks in and he kills a bunch of monks.

[18:56] They have one of the casks that Nimue's part is in.

[19:00] And there's a, there's a whole dumb thing.

[19:02] They put a, Merlin put a spell on it so only a man of God could say the words that could open up the casket.

[19:07] It raises a lot of questions about the relationship between Merlin's kind of, you know, Celtic paganism,

[19:14] how that relates to Christianity.

[19:15] At a time when Christianity was, if you've read Mists of Avalon, very much at odds with that type of native religion.

[19:21] Yeah.

[19:22] It's a great book.

[19:23] You should read it.

[19:24] As my wife says many times, it is the book that introduced her as an adolescent to very detailed descriptions of sex in books.

[19:30] So.

[19:31] Tell me more.

[19:34] And so I don't want to ruin this, I don't want to spoil it for you, but there is a medieval threesome.

[19:37] So you'll enjoy that, I think.

[19:38] The best kind.

Stuart Wellington

[19:40] But do they talk about the food in the book?

[19:45] Are there lemon cakes and capons and trenchers?

Elliott Kalan

[19:48] No, I don't think they talk about capons or trenchers of gravy.

[19:51] Not interested.

[19:53] Every, every George R. R. Martin book, let me tell you what they're eating.

[19:56] Is it the same thing they were eating in the last three books, George?

[19:59] You'll find out, yes.

[20:00] Aren't I a scamp?

[20:03] It was the same food.

Dan McCoy

[20:04] Yeah, why is he a bad little boy?

[20:05] He's a bad little boy.

Elliott Kalan

[20:06] I'm not going to finish those books.

[20:09] You want me to write them, but I'm too busy spending my new money.

Dan McCoy

[20:14] I'll write a prequel about things you don't really care about unless you're Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[20:21] It's just me, George R. R. Martin.

[20:23] I'm just a bad little boy enjoying my wife instead of doing these things you want me to do.

[20:29] Anyway, that's my George R. Martin impression.

[20:31] Anyway, so Grogok finds a loophole where he rips the last monk's tongue out and sticks it in his mouth and says the words.

[20:38] And it's like, I don't know.

[20:39] I think God is somewhere going, I'll allow it.

Dan McCoy

[20:42] I'm like, oh, that's the same thing, I guess.

[20:45] The tongue moved, I mean.

Stuart Wellington

[20:47] And if it sounds gross, don't worry.

Elliott Kalan

[20:49] It looks super fake.

[20:51] Yeah.

[20:51] I mean, this movie is super gory, but it's all CGI gore.

[20:54] And the worst of that is later on when a character, it's Nimue, gets shot in the face and her eyeball is dangling out by a thread.

[21:00] It like pops out at the camera.

[21:02] And he's like, uh-oh.

Dan McCoy

[21:03] It's not just, it's not dangling out, it's not dangling down, it's like dangling out as if the optic nerve is like a wire kind of.

[21:12] Like boing, boing, boing.

Elliott Kalan

[21:13] Well, it's like the scene in House of Wax where the guy's advertising that the House of Wax is open and he's just hitting paddle balls at the camera.

[21:20] And if you don't see the movie in 3D, as I did the first time I saw it on WPIX New York's movie station, I was like, why are we watching this paddle ball guy?

[21:28] Okay, so, Groog has Nimue's head now.

[21:31] Bum, bum, bum.

[21:32] The Brits, they arm up with electric taser pikes to go on the giant hunt.

[21:35] But while they're out on that hunt, uh-oh, it's an ambush.

[21:38] They're attacking Hellboy because, again, for reasons no one thought to tell Hellboy about, they want him to die before he can cause the end of the world.

[21:44] It's zap, stab, zap is literally what I wrote here.

[21:47] Is this curtains for Hellboy?

[21:49] I don't know, because we're going to go see Nimue, half-reconstructed, just sitting around watching TV while Groogra collects her parts.

[21:56] That part was kind of funny.

[21:58] Hellboy wakes up to find that their giants, they were real, have eaten the British guys.

[22:02] He fights and kills them all in a, okay.

[22:05] Yeah, it's kind of fun.

[22:06] I like the design of the giants.

[22:07] Yeah.

[22:09] Yeah.

[22:10] Cool.

[22:11] But Hellboy passes out.

[22:13] He wakes up in a house.

[22:14] Now, this is twice in a row Hellboy has passed out and woken up to find something.

[22:19] So, did Raymond Chandler write this story?

[22:23] Because Raymond Chandler's big rule, he used to say, if you don't know how to end a scene, send in a guy with a gun.

[22:27] But his other thing was like, if you don't know how to end a scene, hit the detective over the head and you can wake up in the next scene.

Stuart Wellington

[22:34] So, yeah.

[22:34] And basically every, and that means that like every scene, Hellboy's waking up and then stumbling places.

[22:40] Yeah.

[22:41] Hellboy is.

[22:41] He's kind of clumsy.

[22:42] I don't know if it's a symptom of the prosthetics or the giant.

[22:45] It makes him seem more attainable.

Elliott Kalan

[22:47] That's true, yeah.

[22:48] Yeah, he's so hot.

Stuart Wellington

[22:49] You'd see a guy with a giant stone right hand and you're like, there's no way I can get him.

[22:54] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[22:54] Well, so it probably throws off his balance that he has a giant stone right hand.

[22:58] Now, would he have years to get used to it?

[23:00] Presumably, but I don't know.

[23:02] You know, he's taking OT.

[23:03] He's getting better.

[23:04] Anyway, so he wakes up.

[23:07] He's been saved by Alice Monaghan.

[23:09] Monaghan?

[23:10] Monaghan?

[23:11] Monaghan.

[23:11] She's a young woman who can talk to spirits and she knew Hellboy when she was a baby.

[23:16] How?

[23:17] That's for a flashback for later in the movie.

[23:19] Why would we learn it right now?

[23:22] Professor Broom shows up and she says, these ghosts are telling me to kill you with this gun full of angel bones.

[23:28] And it's like, come on, baby.

Dan McCoy

[23:30] Now, okay.

[23:30] Now, where do you get angel bones?

[23:33] That's.

Elliott Kalan

[23:33] I don't like, I used to go to your mom and pop occult botanica.

[23:38] But now, I guess you got to go to the big, big box botanica that opened up, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[23:42] Yeah, and like, you look at the recipe and the recipe says, just get some angel bones.

[23:45] And you're like, I guess I'll go to my butcher and like, ask him for them.

[23:48] Yeah.

[23:50] I mean, I guess Amazon these days?

[23:52] I don't even know.

[23:53] I mean, I don't want to support Amazon, though.

[23:55] I mean, it's not good for the local economy.

[23:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[23:57] So, I guess it needs to be a real heaven to table restaurant, if you're really going to support it.

[24:01] Yeah.

[24:02] So, Broom shows up, Professor Broom, and he's like, Hellboy, I need your help.

[24:06] And Hellboy's.

Stuart Wellington

[24:06] I'm surprised that you could come up with that joke so quickly, since you've been spending most of the evening

[24:11] trying to come up with porn parody raps based on the musical Hamilton.

[24:14] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[24:16] I did not.

[24:17] I didn't.

Stuart Wellington

[24:17] I would say most of the evening, but a good part of the trick.

Elliott Kalan

[24:20] That was a runner started by Stuart.

[24:22] He said a Hamilton porn rap, and I couldn't let that gauntlet go unthrown down.

[24:29] Most of them.

[24:30] I mean, they're mostly the same thing.

[24:32] We won't go into them.

[24:33] Maybe after the show, I'll tell you some.

[24:34] But I feel like we will get sued like crazy.

[24:37] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[24:37] I mean, I didn't want to culturally appropriate porn.

Elliott Kalan

[24:43] Well timed.

[24:44] Well timed on that punchline.

[24:46] Okay.

[24:47] Hellboy's like, Professor Broom, why didn't you ever tell me about where I came from?

[24:50] Why did you?

[24:51] So you didn't kill me when I was a baby.

[24:52] Why when I have to kill all these other monsters?

[24:54] Wah, wah, wah.

[24:54] Broom's like, we don't have time for that.

[24:56] We don't have time for that.

[24:57] We're introducing a new character.

[24:58] Major Ben Daimyo.

[25:00] Uh-oh.

[25:01] People who read the comics know this guy's got some monster issues.

[25:05] And for the movie, he's English for some reason.

[25:07] Mm-hmm.

[25:08] And they tell Hellboy, hey, the Osiris Club, you remember those guys who tried to kill you?

[25:12] At their other hideout, they have one of the Nimue casks.

[25:15] So we're going to go there.

[25:16] And Alice is like, that's the psychic girl.

[25:18] It's like, I'm coming along.

[25:19] And everyone's like, all right, I guess so.

[25:22] And Professor Broom gives Hellboy a big pistol that's in like a special box.

[25:26] Does he, I guess he uses his pistol once the time he shoots Nimue in the face?

[25:30] They make a big to-do like, this is the origin of his special pistol.

[25:35] And then nothing much comes of it.

Stuart Wellington

[25:37] Similar to the fact that he has a giant stone right hand, and that doesn't matter at all.

Elliott Kalan

[25:40] Ever, yeah.

[25:41] He barely even uses it to hit things with.

[25:43] Yeah.

[25:44] Okay.

[25:44] They go to the Osiris Club mansion.

[25:46] Everyone's been murdered.

[25:47] And Alice is like, ah, I'm having a psychic migraine.

[25:49] And ectoplasm comes out of her mouth and forms that the dead psychic who told Hellboy all about where demons come from.

Dan McCoy

[25:55] Now, Stuart, I think you have a few words about this special effect.

Stuart Wellington

[25:58] I mean, if you're going to do it, like, just make it look like a ghost.

[26:01] It looks so bad.

[26:02] It looks like, it looks like in the movie Funny People when Adam Sandler is a merman.

Dan McCoy

[26:10] Well, it looks like a snake made out of a gack, kind of.

Elliott Kalan

[26:15] Yeah, with the actor's head kind of glued on top.

[26:18] Like when Mike Myers is playing a kid in The Love Guru in the beginning, and you're like, oh, no, this doesn't look right at all.

[26:25] And then later on, I mean, the special effect isn't the worst special effect in the movie.

[26:29] That's when Ian McShane does the same thing at the end of the movie.

[26:32] And it looks like they shot it in his house and just pasted his head onto this thing.

[26:36] Okay.

[26:37] And the dead psychic queen, is she going to explain what's going on in the movie?

[26:41] Nuh-uh.

[26:42] It's time for an ominous prophecy.

[26:44] The queen must never find her king.

[26:45] Ah!

[26:46] Turns out Gruach is there.

[26:48] He's looking for Nimue's arm.

[26:50] They just stumble on him, basically.

[26:52] And Nimue comes out of a portal and is like, hell, boy, we should be working together.

[26:55] It's the old how-to-do.

[26:57] We're not so different.

[26:57] You and I, two sides of the same coin.

[26:59] Join me together.

[27:00] We'll rule the whatever.

[27:01] But Damio, he just starts shooting, and she disappears.

[27:04] And also, Damio's got a little thing.

[27:06] When he gets upset, he starts freaking out a little bit, and he has to stab himself with some kind of special medicine.

[27:12] We'll find out.

[27:12] It's probably nothing.

[27:13] Probably nothing.

[27:14] Yeah, it's probably just insulin, I guess.

[27:16] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[27:17] It's an EpiPen.

[27:18] It's a piece of peanuts.

[27:18] It's fine.

[27:19] Hey, guys.

Elliott Kalan

[27:19] Sounds like they need to get back on the hunt for Nimue.

[27:22] No-oh.

[27:22] Flashing back time.

[27:24] The year is 1992, and Hellboy saves Alice as a baby from being taken by a changeling.

[27:29] That changeling?

[27:30] Little baby Gruagach.

[27:31] That's why he hates Hellboy so much, and waited 20 years for his revenge.

[27:36] As Stuart said while we were watching it, that should have been the first scene in the movie.

[27:39] But no.

[27:40] Yeah.

[27:41] Yeah.

[27:42] No.

[27:42] Anyway, some hags sew Nimue back together.

[27:45] And I'm not saying it absurdly.

[27:46] The closed captions identify them as hag one and hag two.

[27:49] No.

Dan McCoy

[27:51] I just like that this is the sort of movie where you can just, summing it up, you can say dismissively, I don't know, some hag sew Nimue back together.

Elliott Kalan

[28:00] But she's still not, they keep saying she can't get to her full power until she's back together.

[28:05] And I was like, oh, she's back together now, right?

[28:06] Nuh-uh.

[28:06] There's one more part she needs.

[28:08] A very special part that we'll get to.

[28:11] Well, Hellboy is like, let your mind wander on that one.

[28:16] Let's just say it's a part of the body you can't see when someone has their clothes on.

[28:20] Oh, shit.

[28:22] Oh, gross.

[28:22] It turns out it's her blood.

[28:24] Anyway.

[28:26] Anyway, meanwhile, Hellboy's learning about Nimue from old books.

[28:31] And Daimyo goes out and gets a special bullet that can kill Hellboy when Hellboy inevitably goes bad.

[28:36] Hellboy's got all this tension with Broom.

[28:37] It's real daddy issue stuff.

[28:39] And Hellboy's like, well, maybe if humans weren't always trying to kill monsters, monsters and humans could live together.

[28:44] And it's like, dude, have you seen the monsters are always biting people's heads off?

[28:46] Like, I don't know.

[28:47] Hellboy, he storms out and gets trapped in a magic elevator that takes him to a magic forest where Baba Yaga's chicken leg house is.

[28:54] And Baba Yaga is all ring-ooing it up, contorting around and crawling around on all fours with her head upside down.

Dan McCoy

[29:01] Yeah, she's doing a real exorcist spider walk around.

Elliott Kalan

[29:04] And she's like, Hellboy, I was doing this thing and you stopped me and shot my eye out and now I hate you.

[29:09] And it's like, how much backstory is this movie going to lay on us?

[29:14] And it's like, they had the entirety of the Hellboy comic series and they're like, this is our one shot, guys.

[29:19] We've got to stick it all in there.

[29:21] We are not throwing away our shot, which is not the, there was a porn version of that that I was saying earlier.

[29:26] I mean, it works.

Dan McCoy

[29:27] It still works.

Elliott Kalan

[29:28] Yeah, it still works.

[29:29] Anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[29:30] So that, I mean, this is kind of a fun scene because Baba Yaga's flipping all over the place and like, Hellboy seems kind of unsure of himself.

Dan McCoy

[29:36] Yeah, this is definitely my favorite.

Stuart Wellington

[29:38] And he's like, I don't want to eat this soup that's made out of children bodies.

[29:42] And like, I get it, man.

[29:43] I wouldn't want to.

[29:45] Yeah, but you got it.

[29:46] I mean, like, just be polite.

[29:47] Yeah, you got to be nice.

[29:48] You got to be polite.

Elliott Kalan

[29:48] You got to like pull the soup up to your mouth and then be like, mmm, and put it back down again.

Dan McCoy

[29:52] Yeah, or you like flip it over your shoulder.

Elliott Kalan

[29:54] Yeah, you're like dumping in a plant and the plant dies.

[29:58] And there's this one creepy moment in the movie is where he picks up the spoon and there's children's fingers in the soup.

[30:04] And the camera kind of turns and he looks behind him and you see her like meat locker of children's bodies hanging.

[30:10] And I'm like, and you just see it for a short amount of time.

[30:12] And I'm like, oh, yeah, this is what the movie needs.

[30:14] To be creepy.

[30:15] Yeah.

[30:16] Not to have so many radio hits playing all the time during fight scenes.

[30:19] Anyway, she's like, I want my eye to replace the eye you shot out.

[30:24] I'll tell you where Nimue is if you give it to me.

[30:25] And then for some reason, she gives him a big, gross, sloppy kiss where her tongue is literally wiping all over his face.

Dan McCoy

[30:32] I did enjoy him saying like, ooh, how's your tongue, Harry?

[30:34] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[30:36] And he's always got a quip.

[30:37] Hellboy's always got a quip for every occasion, even if there's no one around to hear it.

[30:40] And many of the quips sound a little like they were ADR'd in later.

Stuart Wellington

[30:45] Seems unlikely.

[30:46] I mean, you wouldn't need to punch up this movie.

[30:48] It snaps.

Elliott Kalan

[30:49] I mean, you can't always think of the right thing to say in the moment.

Dan McCoy

[30:51] I would love it if like during the filming, they're like telling David Harbour, is that it?

[30:56] David Harbour.

[30:57] They're like, could you deliver, could you just act more like with your back turned to the camera?

[31:03] So we can just like, whatever we want later on, we can just stick it in.

Elliott Kalan

[31:07] Should we talk about, we take a moment to talk about the design of Hellboy in this one?

[31:10] Sure.

[31:10] Because it's not David Harbour's fault that the design of the character is a little rough.

Stuart Wellington

[31:13] The prosthetic doesn't allow for a lot of motion from his face.

[31:16] And he's also like, he's going up against the last Hellboy, which is Ron Perlman, who is the best actor in prosthetics.

Elliott Kalan

[31:23] Yeah, he's amazing.

[31:23] Like him and, between him and Doug Jones, they're like, you're not going to top those guys.

[31:27] Yeah.

[31:28] And for some reason they made a decision.

[31:30] I mean, Hellboy's always had like, sometimes he's got a little ponytail, sometimes he's got kind of a top knot.

[31:34] One of my less favorite men's hairdos, but that's just me.

[31:37] Sure, yeah.

[31:37] You're not a fan of the Witcher series.

[31:39] Yeah.

[31:39] I think it's mainly just because I'll never have enough hair again to do it.

[31:43] But for this, they decided that his hair should always be out and down in this kind of like long, stringy, like, what does it look like?

[31:49] Like, I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[31:50] He looks kind of like a wrestler.

Elliott Kalan

[31:51] Yeah, he looks like the wrestler.

[31:52] He looks like Mickey Rourke, the wrestler.

[31:53] Yeah, and they're really like...

[31:55] Oh, oh, who's making comparisons to Mickey Rourke now, Elliot?

[31:58] I compared his hair.

[32:00] I didn't imply that Mickey Rourke's face looked like a demon from Hell.

[32:05] I would like to bring in Exhibit A,

Dan McCoy

[32:09] which is Flophouse episode...

[32:11] What you said,

[32:13] then Mickey Rourke was like a bag of mashed potatoes.

Elliott Kalan

[32:17] I was younger then, Dan.

[32:19] I was younger and I didn't live in Los Angeles yet,

[32:22] so it was very unlikely he could find me.

Stuart Wellington

[32:25] Yeah, you probably don't go to the same, like, chihuahua groomer.

Dan McCoy

[32:28] Yeah, he's got a great Instagram with a bunch of chihuahuas.

Elliott Kalan

[32:31] Yeah, I remember when one of his chihuahuas died and he was really sad about it.

[32:35] Maybe twice.

[32:35] I was like, oh, he does have feelings.

[32:36] He's a human being.

[32:37] He's a human, yeah.

[32:38] I should have gotten that from his performance in The Wrestler,

[32:39] which is hauntingly vulnerable.

[32:42] Okay, so he's like, I'll give you my eye.

[32:45] When I'm done with it, see ya!

[32:47] And they have a big fight.

[32:48] Anyway, but he knows where Nimue is now.

[32:50] So he and Alice and Damio and nobody else decide to go confront Nimue.

[32:54] And meanwhile, Alice is like, Damio, why do you hate monsters so much?

[32:57] And he's like, once I was with a special ops group and we were fighting a jaguar demon in Belize and I was the only survivor.

[33:03] And you just catch a glimpse of this jaguar demon and he looks so much like a gritty reboot of Chester Cheetah.

[33:10] Like, all he's missing is the shades.

[33:12] But it's like, you imagine that some Hollywood producer is like, what IP is still available to make a horror movie out of?

[33:19] The Frito Bandito?

[33:20] They did it.

[33:22] What about the Hawaiian Punch guy?

[33:24] They did it.

[33:25] What's left?

[33:26] And he sees a bag of Cheetos across the room and he goes, get me that cheetah.

Dan McCoy

[33:31] I also like that because that seems like almost a parody of backstory.

[33:36] Like, why do you hate monsters so much?

[33:38] Like, flashback, like special ops, like a monster, like monster-fies.

[33:43] And it's just like, you know what?

[33:44] I don't think we need motivation for not liking monsters in this world.

[33:48] That's a good point, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[33:49] Monsters are pretty mean normally.

[33:51] Yeah.

[33:52] I mean, except the ones in real monsters who are kind of hapless.

[33:54] Or Monsters, Inc.

[33:55] Dan, I found a lot of evidence against you.

Dan McCoy

[33:56] Or like a mad monster party, maybe.

Elliott Kalan

[33:58] Yeah.

[33:59] I mean, what was so mad about that monster party?

[34:00] They seemed like they were having a great time.

Dan McCoy

[34:02] I mean, I think it was like mad, like Mad Magazine.

[34:05] But Mad?

Elliott Kalan

[34:06] That was not a mad endorsed.

[34:07] No, no, no.

[34:08] The name is up for grabs now.

[34:09] I'll just take it.

Dan McCoy

[34:10] I'm just saying it has the same spirit of a mad.

Elliott Kalan

[34:12] But you can't just say like, oh, this is.

[34:14] You can't just say this is like Mad Magazine.

[34:16] I'll just call it Mad.

[34:18] If I opened up the Mad Cafe.

[34:20] Oh, we have the spirit of Mad Magazine in our cafe.

[34:22] You can't do that.

Dan McCoy

[34:23] We can do it now.

[34:24] Mad went under.

[34:25] We can do whatever we want.

Elliott Kalan

[34:26] All right.

[34:27] Let's do it, guys.

[34:27] Let's move to Minneapolis and open up the Madiapolis.

[34:30] Mad Magazine Cafe.

Stuart Wellington

[34:33] What are we going to call it?

[34:34] Maybe we can get a, for the grand opening, we can get a big celebrity like Mance Mickelson.

Elliott Kalan

[34:39] I love it.

[34:40] Let's do this.

[34:42] And then I just, it's like Apocalypse Now.

[34:44] I just send back a letter that says, sell the house, sell the kids.

[34:46] I'm done.

[34:47] Like, okay.

[34:49] So they go, they're in the forest.

[34:53] They're in a helicopter, but they can't land too close to Nimue when she's at a magic tree

[34:57] that's full of her blood and she needs to get it back.

[34:59] Zombies attack them and Hellboy just runs off.

[35:02] And Damio, he has to keep injecting himself with this madman medicine that makes it to stop

[35:06] being a monster, I guess.

Stuart Wellington

[35:07] And at the same time, this is when Alice is punching zombies and knocking their ghosts

[35:11] out of their bodies.

Elliott Kalan

[35:12] Yeah, because she can just do that now.

[35:14] That's pretty cool.

[35:14] And he's like, you can do that?

[35:16] And he's like, she's like, I do lots of weird stuff.

[35:18] All right.

[35:18] Yep.

[35:19] Nimue is back to normal and her army of kind of like CGI gremlins shows up and they are

[35:24] not the most intimidating characters.

[35:26] Like they look like if it was a kid's movie and there's like a portal to a gremlin world

[35:30] and a real estate developer wants to steal the land.

[35:32] Or like kidnap the gremlins to sell them as the hot toy of the season and two kids have

[35:37] to save them.

[35:38] Like that's what they look like a little bit.

[35:40] And Hellboy shows up and shoots Nimue in the face.

[35:43] Her eye is dangling.

[35:43] Her army of gremlins runs away instantly.

[35:47] And Nimue is like, Hellboy, you should be my king.

[35:50] Let's rule together.

[35:51] We'll start a new Eden from the ashes of the human world.

[35:53] And he's like, no way, dude.

[35:54] So from her crown of twigs, she snaps a little twig and throws it like Bullseye would throw

[36:00] a toothpick right into Alice's neck.

[36:02] Ah, it's got magic poison in it.

[36:04] And she runs off and another witch comes out and is like, Hellboy, you got to go down

[36:09] this tunnel across this beach over to this place, to that place, to the cave where Merlin

[36:13] is buried.

[36:14] And we see her voiceover in this as they do it.

[36:17] And I'm like, why did you show us them doing this?

[36:20] You know, usually.

[36:20] Just go to Merlin's cave.

Stuart Wellington

[36:22] I mean, the thing is like, do they trust that they assume the audience is like, well, if

[36:26] they don't explain exactly where they're going, it won't make sense.

Elliott Kalan

[36:29] There's a thing, there's an essay Umberto Eco wrote called How to Tell if You're in a

[36:32] Porn Movie or something like that.

[36:34] And he was saying, in movies, there are scenes of things happening.

[36:37] But in porn, it's just sex scenes.

[36:39] But you can't do just sex scenes, sex scenes, sex scenes.

[36:41] It would deaden you.

[36:42] They've got to fill it with something.

[36:43] So they fill it with a lot of people getting from one place to another.

[36:46] So he was saying, if you are going from one place to another and you experience the

[36:50] entire journey from point A, point B, you're in a porn movie.

[36:53] And I feel like that's what's going on here, kind of.

Dan McCoy

[36:57] I mean, I experienced the entire journey from point A to point B whenever I'm going somewhere,

[37:03] Elliot.

[37:03] So am I in a porn movie?

[37:05] You tell me you know a lot more about your private life than I do.

Elliott Kalan

[37:09] I mean, you're probably not in a great porn movie, but you know.

Dan McCoy

[37:13] Oh, you don't know.

[37:14] You don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[37:14] That's true.

[37:15] Okay.

[37:16] So maybe you're in a fantastic one.

[37:17] I'll just go with you and we'll find out.

[37:19] You know?

[37:20] It's a real Schrodinger sex cat scenario.

[37:24] Until it's observed, we won't know.

[37:27] Okay.

[37:28] So they go find Merlin and Merlin's like, hey, let me lay some backstory on you.

[37:32] Because we're like, great.

Stuart Wellington

[37:33] We needed more.

[37:34] And this is one of those moments where they go to somebody that they need to like cast

[37:38] a spell.

[37:39] And Merlin's like, only do it if you kill Nimue for me.

[37:42] And they're like, we're going to do that anyway.

[37:44] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[37:45] Like there's no cost.

[37:46] First, you must do a quest for me.

[37:48] You must destroy Nimue, the blood queen.

[37:50] That's what we're doing.

[37:51] Oh, okay.

[37:52] Well, should I give you a different...

[37:54] Oh, can you give me a Fanta from the corner store?

[37:56] I mean, maybe like a different quest.

[37:58] I feel like there should be a quest in here.

[38:00] Pick up that rock.

[38:01] Hand it to me.

[38:02] You did it.

[38:03] Oh, champion.

[38:04] Now I'll do what you're bidding.

[38:06] All right.

[38:06] But do the other thing too.

[38:07] The Nimue thing.

[38:08] And he saves Alice.

[38:10] And he explains, Hellboy, your mom was a descendant of King Arthur.

[38:13] And she was a witch and had sex with a demon.

[38:16] And you were born.

[38:16] And so since you're half human and descendant of King Arthur, you can wield Excalibur to destroy Nimue.

[38:22] And I'll have to admit, in the comics, this is not one of my favorite parts of the comics is the Arthur stuff.

[38:27] I love almost all the rest of it.

[38:29] But they got to be faithful.

[38:30] And they got to do it by cramming all that exposition into one semi-flashback.

Dan McCoy

[38:33] You know, Elliot, often when you're giving one of these recaps, particularly the live shows,

[38:40] I think, like, okay, this sounds like the craziest bullshit in the world.

[38:44] Like, the audience must be like, what?

[38:47] This is the zaniest movie?

Stuart Wellington

[38:48] Like, what the fuck is...

[38:48] The audience is like, wait, his name's Venom?

[38:50] That doesn't make sense at all.

[38:52] He's a symbiote.

[38:53] But in this case, like...

Elliott Kalan

[38:54] But, Stuart, it gives rise to, again, as we said earlier in the day, my favorite line, I think, in any Flophouse movie,

[39:00] when Michelle Williams sits next to Tom Harding and she goes, I'm sorry about Venom.

Dan McCoy

[39:04] Like, his dog died and his dog was named Venom.

Elliott Kalan

[39:07] I mean, they were very close, literally.

[39:10] Literally.

[39:10] Venom lived in his skin.

Dan McCoy

[39:12] No, I'm just saying that, like, for once, like, the movie is exactly as disjointed and weird as you're describing.

[39:19] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[39:19] It does feel like they had a movie and they put it in a blender and, like, spun it around and they're like...

Dan McCoy

[39:24] Like my tender heart.

Stuart Wellington

[39:25] Anyway.

[39:26] So Merlin conjures up Excalibur, which is sitting there vibrating in reality, kind of like half in, half out,

[39:32] and Hellboy grabs it and they see this magical vision of himself riding a dragon through hell.

[39:39] With a flaming crown.

[39:39] And chopping dudes up.

[39:40] Kind of like running down a dragon tail.

[39:42] And it sounds awesome, but it kind of isn't.

Elliott Kalan

[39:45] Yeah, it's real heavy metal stuff.

[39:46] I mean, like, heavy metal, the movie or the magazine.

[39:49] Yeah.

[39:49] And the music, too, I guess.

[39:50] But it's just like, it's not as cool as it sounds.

[39:52] But he's like, oh, he hesitates and the sword disappears.

[39:55] And Merlin is like, nice work, hotshot, and crumbles to dust.

[40:02] He's like, you fucked it up, Hellboy.

[40:05] Smooth move, X-Lex.

[40:09] So Nimue, at this point, she throws caution to the wind.

[40:12] She's walking around the streets of London throwing plague bugs at people and attacks the BPRD hideout there.

[40:17] They're in the London Auxiliary Annex, I guess.

[40:20] And then Hellboy and Daimyo and Alice show up in a church for some reason.

[40:24] I don't remember.

[40:25] And Nimue is there, and she's made Graghauch enormous.

[40:28] And Hellboy fights him, and it's really got Hellboy on the ropes.

[40:31] So Daimyo, he's like, time for me to let out the beast, if you know what I mean.

Stuart Wellington

[40:36] Hell yeah, he chugs a monster energy drink.

Elliott Kalan

[40:40] And he turns into his jaguar monster.

[40:42] And this is hilarious, because he's like, ah, turning into a jaguar.

[40:46] And it looks just like the scene in An American Werewolf in London, except not as good.

[40:50] Because it's all computers.

[40:52] And I should say, there's a lot of practical makeup effects in this.

Stuart Wellington

[40:54] And it's not just because it's computers.

[40:57] It's done, like, it's very quick and cheap, and this movie didn't have as much money.

[41:01] And Grugrach is like, I'm going to finish you off, Hellboy.

Elliott Kalan

[41:03] He's about to stab him.

[41:05] And wait, Jaguar Man roars.

[41:07] And Grugrach's like, huh?

[41:08] What's that?

[41:08] And he can't see where it came from.

[41:10] And then Jaguar Man jumps out at him.

[41:12] And it was like, why the roar?

[41:13] You already had the element of surprise.

Stuart Wellington

[41:16] Elliot, I think you're overlooking an important part of Grugrach, the pig demon.

[41:20] Because...

Elliott Kalan

[41:21] And we should also mention, he has some kind of Irish-Scottish accent, and he is constantly swearing.

Dan McCoy

[41:27] He's constantly swearing.

[41:28] I would like a version of Meet the Press, where someone turns to someone and looks like,

[41:32] I think you're overlooking an important aspect of Grugrach, the pig demon.

Stuart Wellington

[41:37] But it certainly feels like this character's like, well, we got an R rating.

[41:42] We should just fucking go with it, right?

Dan McCoy

[41:43] Yeah, no, he's swearing up a storm.

Stuart Wellington

[41:46] Every time he's like, Hellboy, fucking shit, butt, butt, fuck.

Dan McCoy

[41:50] That's kind of what it's like.

Elliott Kalan

[41:54] Poop, dong, et cetera.

[41:56] That's like him.

[41:57] Yeah, that's R rated.

[41:58] R rated, yeah.

[42:00] And they fight, Jaguar Monster stops him, and Nimue shows up again, and she's like...

Stuart Wellington

[42:03] But they don't even stop Grugrach.

[42:06] So Grugrach's like, gonna win, and then Nimue shows up, she's like, don't kill Hellboy anymore,

[42:10] now I'm gonna kill you.

Elliott Kalan

[42:12] And she takes all his power, and he turns into a little baby, and he's like, fuck you, Hellboy,

[42:16] and it's like, Nimue, you're really the one who screwed you over on this one.

[42:18] And he just explodes in blood, right?

[42:21] Yeah.

[42:21] When he gets small enough, and it's like...

[42:23] That's what happens to all of us, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[42:26] When you get small enough, you explode in blood.

Elliott Kalan

[42:30] That sounds like an album you would listen to, explode in blood.

[42:32] Totally, that sounds great.

[42:34] So she was like, I needed him to get you as mad as possible, so I can convince you to join

[42:39] me.

[42:39] And it's like, psychology, I guess, I don't know.

[42:42] And she takes Professor Broom out, and she's like, join me or I'll kill him.

[42:45] Eh, I'll do it anyway.

[42:46] And she, with one of her long fingernails, just flicks his throat and kills him.

[42:50] And Hellboy is so mad that he pulls Excalibur out of the stone, because it's there also.

Stuart Wellington

[42:54] Yeah, she probably grew that fingernail for cocaine, but I guess...

[42:58] I gotta assume.

[42:58] ...murdering people is a good secondary use.

[43:00] Yeah, back in the 570s, she was really doing a lot of cocaine.

Dan McCoy

[43:04] She was like, oh, I was chopped up, so I missed the 80s, so I gotta...

Elliott Kalan

[43:09] So I've been doing it all.

[43:10] That's why she's wearing, like, a suit jacket with rolled up sleeves and, like, a super skinny tie.

Dan McCoy

[43:15] Have you guys heard this safety dance song?

Elliott Kalan

[43:19] I'm going to spin you right round, Hellboy, like a record player.

[43:24] And Hellboy's like, what's that?

[43:26] I'm a cool young person.

[43:28] Oh, did I forget to mention earlier that in this world, Hellboy is famous also?

[43:32] And people are always tweeting about him.

[43:34] But anyway, so Hellboy goes so mad, he pulls out Excalibur, and his horns grow out,

[43:39] and his sword goes on fire, and his flaming crown appears hovering above his head.

[43:42] And that's the key cue for a bunch of giant monsters to just walk around London

[43:46] murdering people in the most gruesome way as possible.

[43:49] And it's like a different movie suddenly intruded on this movie.

[43:53] And you know what?

[43:53] I kind of loved it.

[43:55] And this is stuff that's happening, Hellboy I don't think ever knows that this happens.

[44:00] Like, it's all outside of where they are.

Stuart Wellington

[44:02] Yeah, it's like a monster jumps out and, like, rips a guy's face off,

[44:06] or, like, a monster that has a hand where its crotch is ripping a guy in half.

[44:10] Like, it's crazy.

[44:11] Like, at this point I'm like, wow, movie, you really turned around.

[44:14] Yeah.

[44:15] It's like, never has a movie switched so quickly as, like, audition or something.

Elliott Kalan

[44:21] It's super gory.

[44:22] And Hellboy is about to join Nimue, and Damio is about to shoot him with the magic Hellboy

[44:29] killing bullet, which has made us some magic stuff.

[44:31] When Alice raises Broom's spirit with a bunch of ectoplasm out of her mouth.

[44:36] And this is when we see, again, the worst effect in the movie.

[44:39] And Professor Broom tough loves Hellboy into doing the right thing.

[44:43] Hey, man up.

[44:44] You're a human being, so grow some balls and fight this lady.

[44:46] And Hellboy's like, okay.

[44:48] And chops up Nimue with Excalibur.

[44:51] That's the cue for all the demons to get sucked up into Hell.

[44:54] I guess the demons were on, like, they had a recreational leave from Hell jail?

Stuart Wellington

[44:59] I mean, he, at this point, he, like, gives up his...

[45:02] Does he break his horns?

[45:02] Yeah, he breaks his horns again.

[45:03] Okay, he breaks his horns.

[45:04] He decides not to be the Prince of Hell or whatever.

[45:06] Anungun Rama, the right hand of destruction or something.

[45:09] Beast of making blowups.

[45:10] And then he chucks Nimue's head down into Hell.

Elliott Kalan

[45:13] Yeah, he chucks Nimue's head into Hell.

[45:15] And Broom's ghost is like, I'm sorry I wasn't a better dad.

[45:17] I love you, Hellboy.

[45:19] It's genuinely moving.

[45:22] I mean, it's not like the scene in Spoiler Alert.

[45:26] Anne of Green Gables when Richard Farnsworth dies in front of Anne.

[45:28] And he says, I never wanted a boy.

[45:31] Anne, I wanted you.

[45:31] I'm so proud of you.

[45:32] And I was crying so hard when I watched it.

Stuart Wellington

[45:35] And he gives that speech as he's been conjured through somebody's mouth of ectoplasm.

Dan McCoy

[45:40] Yeah.

[45:41] Elliot Canlan's controversial position that Anne of Green Gables is more moving than Ian McShane

[45:46] as a glob ghost saying, I love you, Hellboy.

Elliott Kalan

[45:49] To a demon man.

[45:51] Yeah.

[45:52] The thing is...

[45:53] I'll take that hot take.

[45:55] Hashtag it, yeah.

[45:55] Elliot, I'm sorry about Venom.

[45:58] Thanks.

[45:59] That means a lot to me.

[46:00] I appreciate it.

[46:01] Daimyo shatters his Hellboy killing bullet because he's seen the light.

[46:04] Six months later, the title...

[46:06] Oh, and then the camera pans up and we see that London is in ruins.

[46:08] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[46:09] London has been fucking raised.

Elliott Kalan

[46:12] Yeah.

[46:12] And so six months later, which would have been a funny way to end the movie.

[46:15] Six months later, Siberia.

[46:17] Now, Daimyo, Alice, and Hellboy, they're the new BPRD team.

[46:21] And they're just kicking ass, taking names.

[46:23] They're not taking names.

[46:23] They're beating up faceless bad guys in hazmat suits who look, if anything, like scientists

[46:28] who are trying to get out of the way while these guys are just killing them.

Stuart Wellington

[46:30] They're like running away with clipboards, getting their ghosts punched out of their bodies.

[46:36] We didn't know what the job was.

Elliott Kalan

[46:39] I wanted to put it in a museum.

[46:42] That was Dracula, the archaeologist.

[46:44] It deserves to be in a museum.

[46:47] Do you know how hard it is to dig in the desert only at night?

[46:53] Anyway, I guess there's a reason Indiana Dracula and the Raiders of the Lost Ark didn't work out.

Dan McCoy

[46:58] I never eat bad dates.

Elliott Kalan

[47:04] Nice.

[47:04] Very nice.

[47:05] Very nice.

[47:06] Children all night.

[47:07] They belong in a museum.

Stuart Wellington

[47:10] I hate snakes and steaks.

Elliott Kalan

[47:19] I guess this is our SNL character now.

[47:23] You see, Dracula, we're not so different, you and I, because we're both vampires.

[47:29] Belloc is a vampire in this one, too.

[47:30] Yeah, Belloc's also a vampire.

[47:33] Yeah.

[47:34] And Sean Connery is not a vampire, but he's still like, I guess he is, but he still sounds like Sean Connery.

[47:39] Okay.

[47:39] Indy was my favorite.

[47:41] We called the vampire Dog Indy.

[47:45] Anyway, how great would that be, though?

[47:47] Okay, it's the beginning of Last Crusade.

[47:49] We're so close to the end.

[47:51] And River Phoenix is on that train.

[47:53] Instead of falling in a cattle car with snakes in it, he falls in the cattle car that's transporting

[47:57] Dracula's skeleton.

[47:59] Is it John Carradine from the later Universal Pictures?

[48:02] You bet it is.

[48:03] The steak gets knocked out of the skeleton.

[48:05] He bites him.

[48:06] Ah, I'm a Dracula now.

[48:07] Yep.

[48:08] Ba-da-ba-da.

[48:08] And now you know the rest of the story.

[48:10] Okay.

[48:11] Six months later, they're in Siberia.

[48:13] They kill all these scientists.

[48:14] They find some kind of a big tube.

[48:16] And they wipe away the dust on the nameplate.

[48:19] Sapien, a hand slaps the glass.

[48:21] Cut to black.

[48:22] That's right.

[48:23] Abe Sapien will be in the sequel that was never made.

[48:26] End of credit scenes, right?

[48:28] Incorrecto.

[48:29] Skip ahead.

[48:30] Mid-credit scene.

[48:31] Hellboy's real sad at Broom's grave.

[48:33] It's a real, um...

[48:34] Alas, poor Yorick type scene.

[48:36] And then Lobster Johnson shows up to give him a comedy pep talk.

[48:40] And Hellboy's like, Lobster Johnson's ghost.

[48:42] I love you.

[48:42] You're amazing.

[48:43] Oh, my God.

[48:43] I'm so starstruck.

[48:44] End of scene.

[48:46] Oh, he ends with a line...

Dan McCoy

[48:46] It makes no sense why that's in there other than, like, maybe Thomas Hayden Church is like,

[48:50] I'm only doing this movie if I get two scenes.

[48:53] Two scenes, please.

Elliott Kalan

[48:54] And it ends with Hellboy going, well, that just happened.

[48:58] And you're like, that describes the movie.

[48:59] Yes.

[49:01] End of movie, right?

[49:02] No.

[49:03] Wrong again.

[49:04] Stop.

[49:05] Good-dumping.

[49:05] Two.

[49:06] Conclusion.

[49:07] End of credits scene for the true hellheads who stayed till the end.

[49:12] Or Hellboys, B-O-I-Z.

[49:14] Okay.

[49:15] The Baba Yaga is promising some off-screen monster.

[49:18] I want revenge on Hellboy.

[49:20] If you kill Hellboy, I'll give you what you want most.

[49:23] I'll let you die.

[49:24] Cut to black.

[49:25] Will we ever find out who that monster was?

[49:27] No, we won't.

[49:28] The movie was not a success.

[49:30] There will be no sequel.

[49:31] Much like the end of the Mario Brothers movie when Princess Peach shows back up with a big gun

[49:35] and says, I need your help.

[49:37] We don't know why she needs their help.

[49:39] And I'm going to guess it was Rasputin.

[49:41] That's my guess.

[49:42] But I guess we'll have to talk to Neil Marshall.

Stuart Wellington

[49:44] Princess Peach needed their help to kill Rasputin?

[49:47] No.

[49:48] No, Stuart.

Dan McCoy

[49:49] I mean, if there's anyone you need help to kill, it's Rasputin.

Stuart Wellington

[49:54] Yeah, I guess.

[49:55] He can't just jump up and down his head.

[49:57] You need fireballs or something.

Dan McCoy

[49:59] Yeah.

[49:59] You've got to jump on a turtle shell that knocks him over.

Elliott Kalan

[50:03] You jump on his head three different times.

[50:05] You've got to time his fireballs so you can get over them.

[50:07] Okay, that makes sense.

[50:08] And then his big hovering clown helicopter thing crashes down.

[50:13] But unfortunately, your sequel is in a different castle.

[50:16] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[50:17] And that's the famous bit where we ram a couple of different things together.

[50:21] Anyway.

[50:21] Also known as the whole podcast.

[50:23] Yeah.

[50:25] Let's do our final judgments about this movie.

[50:27] Sure.

[50:28] It's called Hellboy.

[50:30] If you say so.

[50:32] Is it a good bad movie?

[50:34] A bad bad movie?

[50:35] Or a movie you kind of like, Stuart?

[50:36] What do you have to say?

Stuart Wellington

[50:37] Yeah, this was a bad bad movie.

[50:39] I mean, yeah.

[50:41] It was a bummer.

[50:42] Not a fan.

Dan McCoy

[50:44] Yeah, I had hopes for this movie.

[50:45] I don't have the same connection to the character that you guys do.

[50:51] I basically knew him from the Del Toro movies.

[50:54] But Neil Marshall, the director, made The Descent, which I think is probably the best horror movie of that decade.

[51:00] Yeah.

[51:01] And he made Doomsday, which is a lot of fun.

[51:04] Very silly, but fun.

[51:05] And Dog Soldiers is also fun.

Stuart Wellington

[51:07] And this movie is not good at all.

[51:10] Well, this is also the first movie he didn't write.

Dan McCoy

[51:12] Well, and also, as Elliot said, I made fun of him for bringing it up, but it was a tortured production.

Elliott Kalan

[51:18] Well, well, well.

[51:21] What a tangled web we weave.

[51:23] What goes around comes around.

[51:25] It just seems the backstage story is on the other foot now, my friend.

Dan McCoy

[51:31] None of these apply, but what do you have to say, Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[51:34] If wishes were fishes.

[51:38] If its and buts were candy and nuts.

[51:41] That would be a weird world.

[51:44] Very weird world.

[51:47] It's like, I don't know.

[51:48] Maybe I feel like I'm seeing it through the lens of someone who has so much affection for the original source material.

[51:53] I don't know if I can fully judge it fairly.

[51:55] But again, taking my cue from the people we watched it with who could not follow the film because it was so crazy and disjointed.

[52:01] I'm going to say, maybe there's some fun to be had in it if you just want to watch goofy CGI gore, but I thought it was a bad, bad movie.

[52:09] It pains me to say, in a way.

[52:12] Does it?

[52:12] I mean...

[52:13] You seem to take pleasure out of it, but let's move on.

[52:16] I took pleasure and then I regretted that pleasure because everyone who worked on it was trying their best, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[52:21] Their hell best.

[52:22] You're all of their grandmas right now.

Dan McCoy

[52:26] Elliot suddenly quits the podcast.

[52:28] You know what?

[52:29] This whole premise is kind of mean.

[52:32] I'm going to go.

S4

[52:40] Hello there, ghouls and gals.

[52:42] It is I, April Wolf.

[52:44] I'm here to take you through the twisty, scary, heart-pounding world of genre cinema on the exhilarating program known as Switchblade Sisters.

[52:53] The concept is simple.

[52:55] I invite a female filmmaker on each week and we discuss their favorite genre film.

[52:59] Listen in closely to hear past guests like the Babadook director, Jennifer Kent, Winter's Bone director, Deborah Granik, and so many others every Thursday on MaximumFun.org.

[53:11] Tune in if you dare.

[53:15] It's actually a very thought-provoking show that deeply explores the craft and philosophy behind the filmmaking process while also examining film through the lens of the female gaze.

[53:21] So, like, you should listen.

[53:23] Switchblade Sisters.

Jordan Morris

[53:29] Judge John Hodgman ruled in my favor.

S8

[53:30] Judge John Hodgman ruled in my friend's favor.

Jordan Morris

[53:36] I'm Judge John Hodgman.

[53:37] You're hearing the voices of real litigants, real people who have submitted disputes to my internet court at the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

[53:45] I hear their cases.

[53:46] I ask them questions.

[53:47] They're good ones.

[53:48] And then I tell them who's right and who's wrong.

S6

[53:50] Thanks to Judge John Hodgman's ruling, my dad has been forced to retire one of the worst dad jokes of all time.

S8

[53:57] Instead of cutting his own hair with a flowbeat, my husband has his hair cut professionally.

[54:03] I have to join a community theater group.

Jordan Morris

[54:05] And my wife has stopped bringing home wild animals.

[54:08] It's the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

[54:10] Find it every Wednesday at MaximumFun.org or wherever you download podcasts.

[54:17] Thanks, Judge John Hodgman.

Dan McCoy

[54:22] All right.

[54:23] Yeah, this is the part where we answer some questions.

[54:27] And like I said, there are a couple of microphones.

Elliott Kalan

[54:30] I know I'm going to stand up for this one because I'm an old man.

[54:32] I can't sit that long.

[54:33] Ow, ow, ow, ow.

[54:34] You guys, I've said it before.

[54:35] I'll say it again.

[54:36] I know you got cues.

[54:38] Let us A-em.

[54:40] What?

[54:40] There's a Q&A.

[54:41] There's nothing gross about that.

[54:43] It sounded gross.

[54:44] I saved time by not saying the extra syllables.

[54:47] No.

[54:48] Dan, which side should we start from?

[54:50] Should we start from that side or that side?

[54:52] That side or that side?

Dan McCoy

[54:53] Start on the left and then back and forth.

Elliott Kalan

[54:56] Okay, stage left, house right.

[54:59] Correct.

[54:59] Some theater terms for you.

[55:02] Wait, Dan.

[55:04] Someone was in a play once.

[55:07] You know, before we get to questions.

[55:09] Oh, God.

[55:11] The theater's a magical place, you know.

[55:13] Oh, no.

[55:14] And sometimes...

[55:15] Oh, it's time to check in for my flight home.

[55:18] You just...

[55:18] You just can't express that magic in prose.

[55:23] You gotta do it.

[55:24] Jumps up.

[55:25] In song.

[55:30] Well, Dan.

[55:31] Well, Stuart.

[55:32] Well, Stuart.

[55:32] We've gone a lot of places on this big blue marble.

[55:35] But I don't think any place can compare to Minneapolis.

[55:39] I just want to give the city a kiss, Minneapolis.

[55:47] If I had a snake, it would probably hiss Minneapolis.

[55:53] Hey, you know.

[55:55] Like I said, there's a lot of cities around.

[55:59] But hey, you know.

[56:01] When I realized my plane would be touching down in Minneapolis.

[56:06] Well, I jumped for joy in my seat.

[56:08] I had to stay buckled while the plane was landing.

[56:13] Because the FAA is very careful about that.

[56:17] They're very strict with their rules.

[56:20] And you know what else?

[56:21] I'd say rules.

[56:24] Minneapolis.

[56:26] Thank you.

[56:26] You know.

[56:29] Thank you.

Dan McCoy

[56:30] Usually.

[56:31] Thank you.

[56:32] Usually that's the point where either I or Stuart, or sometimes both, would leave the stage to go pee.

[56:37] But there's no green room bathroom.

[56:39] So we had no way to escape that.

[56:42] So we just peed in our pants.

[56:43] We did.

[56:45] All right.

[56:45] Let's answer some questions.

S5

[56:47] Hello.

[56:47] My name is Salem.

[56:48] Last name withheld.

[56:50] I started listening to your podcast when I was 13.

[56:53] No joke.

[56:54] I went through your backlog playing Minecraft on the family computer.

Elliott Kalan

[56:59] It's like you had the Your Generation version of my life.

S5

[57:06] So now I'm 20 and in college.

[57:09] And I was thinking that's like a crazy long time to be doing anything.

[57:13] This podcast.

[57:14] Not playing Minecraft.

[57:16] So when you're working on a project for so long that is a very consistent project, but you're still going through many different periods in your life and having a lot of changes, what makes you stay motivated and interested in your work, even when it's not necessarily changing or doing anything interesting?

[57:31] Whoa.

[57:32] Whoa.

S5

[57:32] Whoa.

[57:33] Whoa.

S5

[57:33] Whoa.

[57:34] Whoa.

[57:35] Whoa.

[57:36] Whoa.

[57:37] Whoa.

Elliott Kalan

[57:37] Whoa.

[57:38] Just kidding.

[57:38] Perfectly fine process question.

[57:41] I'm just kidding.

[57:42] Suddenly it's the roast of the fluff.

[57:43] No, it's the roast of the fluff.

[57:48] I've wasted so much time.

[57:49] I've wasted so much time.

[57:50] Yeah, come on.

[57:51] I'm just kidding.

[57:52] I'm so sorry.

[57:53] I sang the song about your city.

Dan McCoy

[57:54] No, we didn't.

[57:55] We didn't change or grow, so it's fine.

[57:56] The what?

[57:57] No, we've never changed, so it's fine.

Elliott Kalan

[57:59] It's weird and gross.

[58:00] We're doing the same thing.

[58:01] I mean, we're less gross in some of the things we say.

[58:04] Yeah.

S5

[58:05] So your question, how do you keep it challenging, kind of?

[58:07] Yeah.

[58:08] You're like me and I was nervous.

[58:09] No, no, it's all right.

[58:10] No, and also-

Elliott Kalan

[58:11] It happens, it happens.

[58:12] I blame the internet culture.

S5

[58:13] Also, a very important question.

[58:15] If each of you were an animal, what animal would you be?

Elliott Kalan

[58:19] I mean, Stuart, we know, would be a party animal.

Dan McCoy

[58:27] Stuart did a half-hearted fluff.

[58:31] I think it's been established that I'm a sloth.

[58:33] I think that that's already canon.

Elliott Kalan

[58:35] And I think I'd probably be a pangolin, an elegant armadillo, if you will.

[58:40] I would say, I mean, I feel like we've been doing this podcast for different reasons for each of those years.

[58:44] Started out just as a lark.

[58:46] I mean, you guys started it without me.

[58:47] But like, when I joined, it was to have fun.

[58:50] And you know, the babes, obviously.

[58:52] But at this point, it's like, I really enjoy doing it.

[58:56] Plus, we get paid to do it.

[58:57] But also, I don't live in the same part of the country that these guys do anymore.

[59:01] So it's like, it's very exciting to me to know that I'm going to talk to them at least once every two weeks.

[59:05] Because we're going to have to record this show.

[59:07] And so like, it's really nice that this helps us keep that friendship close together.

[59:10] You know?

[59:12] Aww.

Stuart Wellington

[59:14] You know, there's been times in my life where I've been really busy.

[59:19] And it's a good release.

[59:20] And it's also like, is a good way to force me to watch movies.

[59:24] Because in addition to the movie we have to watch for the episode, I try to watch other movies so I can have something to recommend.

[59:31] Because I get kind of stressed out if I don't, if I hadn't seen anything recently.

[59:36] And I don't just want to be like, oh, stop making sense or something.

Dan McCoy

[59:40] I saw this on a plane.

[59:43] I guess it's okay.

[59:44] I have a very bad memory and I just forgot that I recommended it before Stuart, but thanks.

[59:50] No, I don't know.

[59:51] I started it out for fun because it was a good thing, fun thing to do with friends.

[59:55] And then we had an audience which both gave me a feeling of obligation to an audience and also made me want to do it because I thought that maybe the love of strangers could fill the hole in my heart.

[1:00:10] Which, and how's that going?

[1:00:11] It was a mistake.

[1:00:12] Is it working?

[1:00:13] No, it doesn't work at all.

[1:00:15] But, um...

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:16] Thank you for your question.

[1:00:17] Thanks for being here.

[1:00:18] Thanks for listening.

[1:00:19] Woo!

[1:00:21] The other side.

[1:00:22] That's similar to how I realized while we were watching this Hellboy movie that I've been reading Hellboy comics for over two decades, which is nuts.

[1:00:30] One thing I've been doing longer than that, reading Spider-Man stories.

Jordan Morris

[1:00:35] All right, Matt, last name withheld.

[1:00:37] So I think one thing that many of us learned from this movie is the importance of flashbacks in cinema.

[1:00:46] So maybe this is a two-part question.

[1:00:47] Number one, what is a movie that does flashbacks well?

S8

[1:00:50] And number two, maybe if possible, what would a Crawdaddy flashback look like?

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:56] Wow.

[1:00:57] Oh, wow.

[1:00:58] Okay.

[1:00:59] You guys, I'll answer that last one.

[1:01:01] You guys answer the first part of the question.

[1:01:02] Oh, cool.

[1:01:03] Thanks.

[1:01:04] Yeah.

[1:01:05] I mean, Memento is kind of all flashbacks, so maybe that counts.

[1:01:07] I don't know.

[1:01:08] It does flashbacks well.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:09] Uh, I mean, there's certainly some flashbacks in The Lord of the Rings, so those are clearly done perfectly.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:19] Uh, I mean, I guess Citizen Kane is sort of a bunch of interlocking flashbacks, isn't it?

[1:01:25] Yes, that's exactly what it is, Dan.

[1:01:27] That's a good movie.

[1:01:28] Some people might say it's the best movie.

[1:01:30] It's been said before.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:33] And you know, Crawdaddy, here's the- I'll just lay out the Crawdaddy scenario for you.

[1:01:37] Crawdaddy is taking out his son's soccer team for pizza after the game.

[1:01:42] Like a good dad, like a good peewee soccer coach.

[1:01:45] And he's like, ah, well, boys, it's, uh, all this pepperoni pizza reminds me of the time my own grandpappy opened that alligator sausage factory.

[1:01:58] And it would be a very touching scene of his grandpappy going out to get new alligators for the sausage and, tragically, losing his life to Big Mama Gator, the biggest gator in the swamp.

[1:02:11] And Crawdaddy comes back to Crawdaddy and he's like, I always promised grandpappy on his death there that I'd catch Big Mama Gator.

[1:02:21] But, you know, the job market took me elsewhere.

[1:02:27] You boys want any more zar?

Dan McCoy

[1:02:30] Again, again, impenetrable to people who have not heard the podcast before.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:36] I think they can pick up the- again, for people who have not heard the general premise, Crawdaddy grew up in the Louisiana Bayou, and now he lives in the Connecticut-

[1:02:45] Elliot's currently providing a flashback.

[1:02:47] And now he lives in the Connecticut suburbs.

[1:02:52] Growing up in a shack in the bayou, a boy always had to watch his self and learn how to play fiddle real good.

[1:02:59] But now I gotta take advantage of this property tax deduction.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:04] Good stuff.

S6

[1:03:07] Good evening, Peaches. Jaffer, last name withheld.

[1:03:11] If I may, I'd like to thank Stuart for coming out to the Game Company withheld Game Center yesterday and playing some games with us.

[1:03:19] We had a really great time.

[1:03:20] Thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:22] Stuart, the listeners can't see you waving away the praise.

[1:03:25] You gotta say something.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:27] Although I received a phone call from Josh, our booking agent, and I was like, yeah, I'll talk to you after this.

[1:03:34] I'm in a game store playing some games, and he's like, Stuart's just in a strange town playing in a game store.

[1:03:40] Checks out.

S6

[1:03:41] But I do have a real question, which is, if you were to create a Mamma Mia style jukebox musical around one artist or band, what artist or band would that be?

[1:03:53] And what would be your first act swelling I wish song?

[1:03:56] Oh, man.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:57] Ooh.

[1:03:59] I mean, I think mine would probably be Judas Priest.

[1:04:03] Yay!

[1:04:04] Because Judas Priest has three or four types of songs.

[1:04:06] They have pump up power anthems.

[1:04:08] They have, I got hurt by this relationship songs.

[1:04:11] They got songs about monsters that kill people.

[1:04:15] And then miscellaneous.

[1:04:16] And I guess, I guess, yeah, you got another thing coming would be the first act.

[1:04:22] Because you know people are waiting for it, too, you know.

[1:04:25] Get it out early.

[1:04:26] And then you can get to, like, take these chains later on when the relationship falls apart.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:29] Well, as Stuart mentioned earlier, I have recommended Stop Making Sense at least four times on the podcast.

[1:04:37] So, of course, my artist would be Carly Rae Jepsen.

[1:04:43] And the song would be I Really, Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Like You.

[1:04:47] And it would be about, I don't know, a job being in New York for a magazine, as it's in every romantic comedy.

[1:04:59] According to romantic comedies, the magazine market is booming.

[1:05:02] Yeah.

[1:05:03] It's amazing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:04] And obviously, I would do a jukebox musical based on the works of Def Leppard.

[1:05:09] And in our opening pump up sequence, Joe Elliott would be working at a baking school and he'd be talking to a sentient cake of some kind.

[1:05:18] And the cake would, of course, be demanding that some sugar be poured on him.

[1:05:23] All right.

[1:05:24] Thank you very much.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:26] Thank you for the question.

[1:05:29] On that side now.

S8

[1:05:30] Hi, it's me, Abby.

[1:05:32] Last name with health.

Jordan Morris

[1:05:33] Hi.

[1:05:35] Since this podcast doesn't have a rule against bummers, I do want to ask kind of a bummer question.

[1:05:40] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:41] Oh, no.

[1:05:42] Let me check the rule book.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:43] It's a new rule that we're going to have from the future on.

[1:05:46] This is how laws get made.

[1:05:48] Yeah, that's fine.

[1:05:49] You're right.

[1:05:50] I spoke about bummers.

Jordan Morris

[1:05:53] I know I can't watch Big Fish because I have a dead dad and it would bum me out too much.

[1:05:57] And there are other movies that I have watched and I'm like, well, I'm not going to watch that movie again because, you know, it's too real.

[1:06:04] Are there any movies that either make you sad every single time you watch them or you're never going to watch again because they're too sad?

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:12] Hmm.

[1:06:13] I mean, there must be.

[1:06:14] There are definitely movies I've seen where I'm like, I'm glad I saw that, but I don't feel the need to ever see it again.

[1:06:20] I'm trying to think of any specific ones though.

[1:06:22] I mean, there's some movies that make me sad, like the Iron Giant that I watch over and over again, but that's...

Dan McCoy

[1:06:28] Yeah, I don't, I mean, it's tough because like, I don't have that kind of like, oh, this was a personal experience that I had.

[1:06:36] Because you're kind of a cipher, a sociopath.

[1:06:38] Yeah.

[1:06:39] You're a mask that hides nothing.

[1:06:41] I don't have...

[1:06:42] I don't, I mean, I'm, I see your human emotions and I copy them as best I can.

[1:06:46] You mirror them, yeah.

[1:06:47] But, no, I just, I've had a very, like, look, I've been divorced, but like, other than that, like, I've had a very, like, charmed life.

[1:06:57] I feel like I had a very, like, relative.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:59] You would almost say it's a semi-charm kind of life.

[1:07:02] Yes.

[1:07:05] Yes.

[1:07:06] I mean, not legally, but...

Dan McCoy

[1:07:08] I'll just skip to the end.

[1:07:10] I don't have like a personal thing that like, I have that problem with.

[1:07:14] There are movies that I cry all the time at, but they're like movies that I love.

[1:07:18] Like, I cry at the end of Raising Arizona, but those are like happy tears every time.

[1:07:22] Like, every single fucking time I see that movie and I listen to that last monologue that High has, I cry.

[1:07:28] But it's, but it's not a personal thing or anything.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:32] Yeah, I mean, I think the movies that I've seen that I never will watch again are usually things that are, that due to filmmaking techniques end up giving me motion sickness.

[1:07:42] So, like, I'll watch it once and I'll be like, I can't do this again.

[1:07:46] Like, I'm sorry, Requiem for a Dream.

[1:07:48] Maybe multiple viewings will make me get the deeper meaning, but...

[1:07:52] I mean, that's like a feeling, so...

[1:07:54] Yeah.

[1:07:55] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:55] It's similar to what humans call emotions.

[1:07:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:58] I mean, there's definitely, like, since becoming a dad, there's definitely movies that like, I think I would have been able to shrug things off in them that I can't shrug off now.

[1:08:05] And like, I don't know if there are any Jewish people in the audience, but part of my Jewish education was being force fed Holocaust movies at a very high rate.

[1:08:13] Yeah.

[1:08:14] So, there's a lot of like, that people being like, we want you to understand your connection with this.

[1:08:18] And I'm like, I understand.

[1:08:19] I don't ever need to, I don't ever want to see this again.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:22] I, I, there was definitely a period of my life when I went through extreme depression, but the way that that manifested itself, one of the, not the only way, one of the ways that...

[1:08:30] Starting a podcast.

[1:08:31] Yeah.

[1:08:33] And then I got abused by my two best friends.

[1:08:35] Uh, no, I...

[1:08:37] No, I...

[1:08:38] Best friends?

[1:08:43] I...

[1:08:44] Aww.

[1:08:45] I, uh, one of the ways that depression manifested itself was actually like, not being interested in movies at all anymore.

[1:08:51] A thing that I enjoyed very much, which started my, uh, current trend of what I do to entertain myself, which is to listen to podcasts, uh, through my earbuds while having a movie on mute on the television and scrolling through Facebook.

[1:09:10] Which is a pretty...

[1:09:11] To see if they'll all sync up.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:13] Yeah.

[1:09:14] Someday there's gonna be a picture of you doing that in a museum and it's gonna say, 21st century man.

[1:09:18] Anyway.

[1:09:19] And then the, and the next caption will say, 22nd century man.

[1:09:23] None.

[1:09:25] I hope that was something.

[1:09:27] Yeah, we, there's a lot of bummer stuff over there, but thank you.

[1:09:29] Okay, next question over here.

[1:09:31] Okay.

[1:09:32] Good question.

[1:09:33] I like the questions that make us think.

[1:09:34] And make us feel.

[1:09:35] So...

Dan McCoy

[1:09:36] And I like the Chuck Jones, uh, shirt that this gentleman has.

S7

[1:09:39] Oh, thank you.

[1:09:40] I'm, I'm also a fellow Earlham College Theatre alum.

[1:09:43] What?

[1:09:44] I know.

[1:09:45] Wilkinson Theatre.

[1:09:46] Yay!

[1:09:47] Anyways, um, my name is...

[1:09:49] Now the audience is pandering to the host.

[1:09:51] They don't care.

[1:09:53] Um, so my name is Nick, last name with Helm.

[1:09:55] So it seems like critics and people have really turned against the new Lion King movie, citing, you know, the dead eyes and just the creepiness of, of seeing these photorealistic lions.

[1:10:06] So my question for you is, what movie, what non-animal movie would benefit from being remade with photorealistic CGI lions?

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:20] Kinda hard to narrow it down.

S7

[1:10:22] I'm thinking, I'm thinking maybe...

[1:10:24] Like Kramer versus Kramer, I guess?

[1:10:25] Right?

[1:10:26] I'm thinking maybe Beauty and the Beast, except the beast is man.

[1:10:31] Uh...

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:34] I don't know.

[1:10:36] That, that story already has a, several problematic elements.

[1:10:39] I think that, that does feel like a, that does feel like the thing that would have you at the end of a video you watch in school about the environment.

[1:10:45] And the true beast was man.

[1:10:48] Bum, bum, bum.

[1:10:51] Recycle kids.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:52] I would say, cruel intentions.

[1:10:55] Oh yeah, I can see it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:56] I've decided it's cruel intentions.

[1:10:58] I can see it.

[1:10:59] I can see it.

[1:11:01] Uh...

[1:11:02] What are you gonna say, like a manual?

[1:11:03] Let's make it...

Dan McCoy

[1:11:05] What if it's Koyaanisqazi and the lions are just those fast motion people that you occasionally see?

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:11] Just fast motion lions?

[1:11:12] Yeah.

[1:11:13] Are they in cities still or are they just running through the jungle?

[1:11:14] Yeah, still in cities.

[1:11:15] Still in cities.

[1:11:16] Still in cities walking around doing lion business.

[1:11:18] Okay.

[1:11:19] I will say this.

[1:11:20] I recently, because of something that was said on Twitter by a famous, not gonna be president, candidate for president,

[1:11:26] I flipped my opinion on those Disney movies.

[1:11:28] I, like everyone else, was like, I miss the emotion of the characters in the old ones.

[1:11:33] I miss the color.

[1:11:34] I miss the vibrancy of it.

[1:11:35] And then I realized all of Disney's movies, for the most part, are remakes of other things.

[1:11:41] So I said, you know what?

[1:11:42] Why not, everybody?

[1:11:44] We're gonna do 10 more of these in the next 30 years.

[1:11:47] Let's just go for it, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:49] I like the argument that they're just doing it for money.

[1:11:52] It's like, uh, no kidding.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:54] It's like, why do you think they made the first one, dudes?

[1:11:58] Uh, so yeah, I think that's, yeah, lion movies.

[1:12:00] Good job.

[1:12:01] Oh, if I was a real dick, I'd be like, born free.

[1:12:04] Roar.

[1:12:05] What?

[1:12:06] Roar.

[1:12:07] Roar.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:09] If you haven't seen Roar, it is the most buck wild movie.

[1:12:12] Go and watch Roar.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:14] All right, over there, yes.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:15] This gentleman who's already wearing one of our shirts.

Jordan Morris

[1:12:18] Uh, Ben, first time writer, long time listener, last time withheld.

[1:12:23] Uh, if you were going, this podcast talks a lot about, uh, movies that have terribly, badly designed monsters, or other villains.

[1:12:33] If you were gonna design a movie monster, how would you do it?

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:38] I mean, it's hard for me to, when the perfect movie monster design exists, it's the Xenomorph, everybody.

[1:12:45] It's hard for me to compete.

[1:12:46] But when I was a kid, I'll tell you, whenever I was making a monster, I'd be like, I'm gonna throw everything onto this.

[1:12:52] So every monster had like, wings, multiple arms, claws, multiple heads, horns, could breathe fire, shoot lightning bolts, sometimes multiple tails.

[1:13:02] I went through a Ghidra phase.

[1:13:03] He's got two tails.

[1:13:05] So, I don't know what I would do now, but at the time when I was a kid, it would be like, ultra monster.

[1:13:09] And then now I'm like, how would that monster move?

[1:13:11] How would he go, how would he go there?

[1:13:13] I can't believe you didn't say Godzilla.

[1:13:16] What, the best monster design?

[1:13:18] Yeah.

[1:13:19] Have you seen?

[1:13:20] He's shaped kind of like my cat Muscles.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:22] Who, as we've established, is the greatest kitty.

[1:13:26] He's kind of like a triangle, but with stegosaurus spikes.

[1:13:30] That's amazing.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:31] I think that's what...

[1:13:32] Yeah, the best monster is a triangle.

[1:13:34] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:35] The most stable monster is a triangle.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:40] You know what, like, I am very irrationally frightened of spiders.

[1:13:47] That really separates you from a lot of other people.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:51] What?

[1:13:52] You don't hear that a lot.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:53] I'm just saying, like, it's like, I know it's not uncommon, it's just like, it is true

[1:13:58] of me.

[1:13:59] And particularly living in North America, like, the worst I'm gonna get is a black widow bite,

[1:14:04] and unless I'm a baby or an elderly person, I probably won't die of that.

[1:14:09] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:10] I mean, you missed your shot as a baby, but what could still happen as an elderly person?

[1:14:13] Can I still?

Dan McCoy

[1:14:14] Oh, fingers crossed.

[1:14:15] But, um, what I find, like, in a weird way, what I find even creepier than spiders...

[1:14:21] So why did you bring up spiders?

[1:14:24] No, it's all related, my friend.

[1:14:27] Okay.

[1:14:28] It's all related.

[1:14:29] Let him weave his tapestry like Arachne herself.

[1:14:32] I mean, not a spider, but I believe also in Arachnid.

[1:14:38] I believe.

[1:14:39] I may be wrong.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:40] I mean, he's attached these ideas with the thinnest of thread like a spider would.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:46] The daddy long legs freaks me the fuck out.

[1:14:49] Because it is a little ball with the longest, spindliest legs that should not be able to, like,

[1:14:57] do anything.

[1:14:58] And it's the weirdest goddamn thing.

[1:15:01] Oh, I think...

[1:15:02] So if there was a giant fucking daddy long legs, I would kill myself.

[1:15:06] And I think the daddy part is the scariest part of that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:09] That says more about me.

[1:15:10] That's the sexy part.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:11] Oh.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:12] I will say, I did once...

[1:15:14] I was having...

[1:15:15] I was on my way to dreamland a couple weeks ago.

[1:15:18] I was lying down and I was like...

[1:15:20] Whoa, whoa, let's back up.

[1:15:21] Yeah.

[1:15:22] So you're saying you were going to sleep.

[1:15:23] Yeah, I was going to sleep.

[1:15:24] I'm trying...

[1:15:25] I'm trying a colorful way of putting that.

[1:15:28] Dan, I like to vibrant up my language.

[1:15:30] Okay.

[1:15:32] Sorry, I'll talk more like the writer John McPhee in the most boring terms possible.

[1:15:37] Sonia was lying down on top of what I assume was a layer of igneous rock beneath my house.

[1:15:43] And I was like...

[1:15:44] I don't know why this thought entered my house.

[1:15:45] I was like, have they ever done a vampire movie where the vampire turns into a big human-sized bat

[1:15:49] and it has to scramble around on its arms, on the claws of its wings like a real bat walks around.

[1:15:55] Yeah.

[1:15:56] Because that would be super creepy.

[1:15:57] Yeah.

[1:15:58] And there's like a person running away and it's just like scrambling after them with its wings like that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:01] There was a miniature design by a games workshop called a Vargolf that was basically that.

[1:16:06] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:09] Stealing my mic.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:10] I got an applause break for that somehow.

[1:16:14] Okay, over here.

S8

[1:16:15] Hello, my name is Andy, last name withheld, no relation.

[1:16:18] No relation.

[1:16:19] And I have been waiting to use that joke for months now.

[1:16:25] It landed very well.

[1:16:26] It did it great.

[1:16:28] So, for me, the most exciting movie of 2019 and probably the most exciting movie of this decade was Detective Pikachu.

[1:16:36] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:38] Sure.

[1:16:39] Finally, the character and the genre that were meant to go together.

[1:16:41] Yeah, of course.

S8

[1:16:43] Look, unless they make like a Metroid version of Dirty Harry, I'm not.

[1:16:46] I'm not.

[1:16:47] Yeah, no.

[1:16:48] Yeah.

[1:16:49] Yeah.

[1:16:50] So, the big thing for me with Detective Pikachu that really made it stand out was its world building and its ability to create a world and a city that...

[1:17:03] Where Pikachu could be a detective.

Dan McCoy

S8

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:07] There's nothing in the rule book that says a Pikachu can't be a detective.

S8

[1:17:11] And I could be a friend of a Feraligatr, which is Pokemon. It's a big gator.

[1:17:16] Okay.

[1:17:17] One might call it feral.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:18] I'm sure my son will tell me about it at some point.

[1:17:21] He's going through a big Pokemon phase.

S8

[1:17:23] But it really created a world that felt like it existed outside of the movie.

[1:17:30] Mm-hmm.

[1:17:31] And so, I suppose my question is like, what are the movies that have kind of created a world to you that has like kind of existed in your mind outside of like the story it was trying to tell?

[1:17:45] Hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:46] Well, the first place you start with world building is the food.

[1:17:50] What does Pokemon eat?

[1:17:56] I'm just going to interrupt.

[1:17:59] Lemon cakes?

[1:18:00] It's Pokemon.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:02] What kind of size fowl would they eat?

[1:18:06] Capons, perhaps.

[1:18:08] I mean, I could see...

[1:18:10] I mean, kind of the...

[1:18:11] For me, it's a lot of the obvious ones, like your Star Wars and whatnot.

[1:18:14] Like, where I was like, oh, I could live in this world and I could explore it and things like that.

[1:18:17] But also like the Dark Crystal when I was a kid.

[1:18:19] Yep.

[1:18:20] I was...

[1:18:21] There were certain parts of that movie where I'm like, I kind of want to leave the story so I can just go see what other creatures live in this place.

[1:18:26] Because I know they're out there.

[1:18:27] And I assume there's some book of designs of stuff that didn't end up in that movie.

[1:18:31] But I used to just like dream about that movie a lot.

[1:18:34] And like walking around in it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:36] Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the joys of like those heavy, like physical, practical monster costume movies is that it gives you that like lived in feeling that makes you want to just walk around and explore.

[1:18:48] To answer that, Lord of the Rings.

[1:18:50] Of course not.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:52] I'm going to go into like a non like fantasy director, like another like aspect of...

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:56] You're like, you're like...

[1:18:59] My dinner with Andre.

[1:19:00] I want to go, I want to know what's happening at the other tables.

[1:19:03] Because when I saw the movie The Post and it created this whole world of presidents and war and foreign nations, and I just wanted to walk around.

[1:19:10] Like if only I could go to Vietnam and see what it's like there.

[1:19:15] But such a, if only I had a magic movie ticket a la Last Action Hero.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:20] No, I was going to say like, obviously they're the very like clear world building movies like your Star Wars or your Lord of the Rings or whatever, but like...

[1:19:28] Or Last Action Hero like Elliot said.

[1:19:30] Yeah, sure, yeah.

[1:19:31] Also, their movie, like another aspect of that is characters that are so immediately well drawn that you feel like, okay, they have like a life outside of the frame.

[1:19:42] Mm-hmm.

[1:19:43] And like, I know that I mentioned Raising Arizona earlier, but I feel like Coen Brothers movies, like all they have, all these like very, like in some ways broad, but like so well defined, quickly minor characters where it feels like, oh, okay, we could follow this person and see what's going on with them.

[1:20:00] And that would be also an equally entertaining movie.

[1:20:03] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:03] Oh, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:04] Kind of like, like Hell or High Water from a few years ago where it felt like every single side character had a full life outside of it.

[1:20:11] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:11] So that's what I'll say.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:12] Hell or High Water.

[1:20:13] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:14] Okay.

[1:20:15] Texas.

[1:20:16] What a world.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:17] Don't mess with it, says people.

[1:20:19] Okay, over here.

S8

[1:20:21] Hi, Margaret.

[1:20:22] Last name withheld.

[1:20:23] So I was listening to Jordan Jesse go this week and Jordan came up with basically a perfect

[1:20:28] flop house question.

[1:20:29] So I'm going to just channel him.

[1:20:30] He was talking about who would be the female Nicolas Cage.

[1:20:34] And his proposal was Hellboy star Mila Jovovich, which he did pronounce that way.

[1:20:41] And so I-

[1:20:42] Just like Jordan.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:44] Yeah.

[1:20:45] I-Twitch.

S8

[1:20:46] I-

[1:20:47] I love Jordan, but I do not agree.

[1:20:49] I don't think Mila Jovovich has the chops.

[1:20:51] So I became very curious about what you guys would think.

[1:20:54] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:55] What would the female Nicolas Cage-

[1:20:59] I mean, obviously-

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:00] I mean, the question is, yeah, by Nicolas Cage-

[1:21:02] What do you say, sorry?

[1:21:03] Because I have some-

[1:21:04] I'd like to define our terms here.

[1:21:06] I mean-

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:07] Clearly, we want to pick an actor who can go kind of broad, but also have little nuances.

[1:21:14] I think the only choice is Meryl.

[1:21:18] Stewart.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:20] Stewart.

[1:21:22] Stewart.

[1:21:23] Meryl Streep.

[1:21:25] Stewart.

[1:21:26] The one that jumps to mind for me, but I wonder if she is, like, eccentric enough.

[1:21:31] It's like Melissa Leo, you know?

[1:21:34] Where it's like, oh, she can do crazy, but also like very well-defined characters and things like that.

[1:21:40] But you're asking who's like a crazy person in movies.

[1:21:43] You're asking who's like a person where half the time you're like, what are you doing?

[1:21:46] What's going on here?

[1:21:47] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:48] To that end, Carol Kane.

[1:21:50] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:50] Yeah.

[1:21:51] I can see that.

[1:21:53] Because you see a movie like Hester Street, and you're like, this is an incredibly richly drawn character.

[1:21:58] And then you see what, like Adam's Family Values or something?

[1:22:00] I don't know.

[1:22:01] Yeah.

[1:22:02] She's a nut.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:02] And a national treasure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:04] I mean, you know who I would, or, I mean, this is not quite the same, but like, okay, time

[1:22:11] for me to talk about old movies.

[1:22:13] There's an actress who, from 80 years ago, named Zazu Pitts.

[1:22:18] And she was most known for these kind of short comedies that she did, but she's also in

[1:22:23] the movie Greed, and she is like amazing in it.

[1:22:26] And in this movie that is a strange and crazy movie, and her performance is very extreme

[1:22:30] and strange, but it's like the, this really gut-wrenching performance.

[1:22:34] But in most of her movies, she's the character who's like, like Amelia Bedelia, basically.

[1:22:38] So, you know, okay, just wash the baby, I guess, and puts the baby in a dishwasher or something

[1:22:43] like that, you know.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:45] We've gone as long as we probably should, but should we lightning round it?

[1:22:48] Should we like...

[1:22:49] Yeah, let's lightning round it.

Jordan Morris

[1:22:50] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:51] Let's be a live pastor.

Jordan Morris

[1:22:52] So my name's Doug, last name withheld.

[1:22:54] My son and I have always gone to a lot of movies since he became a teenager.

[1:22:58] We've started enjoying seeing a lot of bad movies in theaters, so rock dogs and hell

[1:23:03] boys and whatnot.

[1:23:04] A few weeks ago, a few months ago, he called me and said, Dad, should I see the movies of

[1:23:09] Neil Breen?

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:11] So my question...

[1:23:12] Every parent hates to get that phone call.

[1:23:15] Well, the question is, am I a good dad?

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:20] This is a very tough question.

[1:23:24] I wish we didn't have to do it in the lightning round.

[1:23:26] I'm gonna say, yes, and steal from the Simpsons.

[1:23:29] Short answer, yes with a but.

[1:23:32] Long answer, no with an and.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:37] I don't know, but you can do better than that.

Jordan Morris

[1:23:40] Hi, Mike, last name withheld.

[1:23:43] We're on our second adaptation of Hellboy.

[1:23:45] We're on our third, second Spider-Man movie right now.

[1:23:48] We're doing a lot of adaptations that's been part of cinema.

[1:23:51] What do you feel makes a good adaptation, whether it's a book, theater, video game, what have you?

[1:23:59] Two movies.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:00] This is not funny per se, but I think that the person...

[1:24:06] Why start now, Dan?

[1:24:08] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:09] Boom, he sets it up by knocking it out of the park.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:11] I make my living with comedy, sir.

[1:24:15] And I'm baffled by it daily.

[1:24:17] Um...

[1:24:19] No, I...

[1:24:20] What was I gonna say?

[1:24:21] Oh, um...

[1:24:22] Something that wasn't funny.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:24] He said it himself!

Dan McCoy

[1:24:25] I think that it is the, like, either the...

[1:24:29] One of the driving creative forces, either the screenwriter or the director, finding some sort of, like,

[1:24:36] what they personally find interesting in the character or the story, and, like, emphasizing that to the utmost,

[1:24:43] whether or not it is faithful to the entire story or character,

[1:24:49] but, like, pulling out something that is essential and making that the center of the adaptation.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:55] That's what I was gonna say.

[1:24:56] You find the defining spirit of why it works as the thing it is, and then you figure out how does that...

[1:25:01] How do you do that in this new medium?

[1:25:02] And you don't worry about, like...

[1:25:04] Uh...

[1:25:05] There's a reason that, like, the credit sequence for Watchmen works really well,

[1:25:08] and the rest of Watchmen does not work quite as well.

[1:25:11] Yeah.

[1:25:12] And it's the credit sequence, it's like, oh, well, they kind of captured the spirit of what they're going for.

[1:25:15] And the rest of the movie, you're like, wait, but we're gonna watch the whole movie now?

[1:25:18] Yeah.

[1:25:19] You're like, they did it! Hallelujah!

[1:25:21] Yeah!

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:23] I would say, uh...

[1:25:26] The thing that...

[1:25:27] The adaptation that comes to mind is the third Harry Potter movie,

[1:25:30] where it is maybe not as true to the books as the first two,

[1:25:35] but it is so much more interesting and watchable.

[1:25:39] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:41] Let's keep lightning rounding it.

[1:25:42] We're not holding it up on our ends, but, you know...

Jordan Morris

[1:25:44] Okay, fair enough.

[1:25:45] Uh, my name is Nick, last name withheld,

[1:25:47] and for the podcast, I'm not tricking.

[1:25:49] There was already another Nick.

[1:25:52] Um, so in this movie, forgive me, very nervous.

[1:25:56] Um, you know, Hellboy's asking Ian McShane, you know, he was sent there to Nazi Germany to kill him.

[1:26:03] Why did you save me?

[1:26:04] Why didn't you kill me?

[1:26:05] You had a job to do.

[1:26:06] Why didn't you kill me?

[1:26:07] And I feel like Ian McShane never really answered that question.

[1:26:09] No, I don't think he does.

[1:26:10] No, he just sort of deflected by saying, why are you whining?

[1:26:13] Um, you know, I didn't ask to be a father.

[1:26:16] I did the best I could, but...

[1:26:18] Why do you guys think he saved him?

[1:26:21] I mean...

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:22] Only because he was a cute baby with a stone arm.

[1:26:24] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:25] Was he though?

[1:26:26] It's hard to shoot a little baby, you know?

[1:26:27] I mean, yeah, I think so.

[1:26:28] They, people always say like, well, could you kill Hitler as a baby?

[1:26:31] Cause it's killing a baby.

[1:26:32] And it's like, I mean, probably, yeah.

[1:26:35] As long as I knew it was the right baby, but...

[1:26:39] But the reason that question exists is cause it's hard to kill a baby, so...

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:43] I mean, you're probably able to.

[1:26:44] You're not the strongest guy, but I mean, you're smart.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:47] I mean, if we're talking physically, it is a question.

[1:26:50] The baby might get the better of me.

[1:26:53] As someone who, daily, has to grapple with a baby just to get its diaper back on.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:59] But I think that's it.

[1:27:00] Yeah, I'm sorry about that.

[1:27:01] I just keep taking it off.

[1:27:03] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:06] But I think that's it.

[1:27:07] It's hard to kill a baby.

Jordan Morris

[1:27:09] Fair enough.

[1:27:10] Alright, we will hit this quickly.

[1:27:12] Elliot, you've touched on this before with John Oliver and the Love Guru,

[1:27:15] and how you've been paid to go out to dinner with him because of the royalty.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:19] Well, he paid for that dinner, and so I'm now complicit in the movie that gave him the money to pay for it.

Jordan Morris

[1:27:25] So, you touched on this earlier.

[1:27:27] One of my friends actually helped design the trolls in that fighting scene.

[1:27:32] He refuses to watch the movie because...

[1:27:35] Yeah.

[1:27:36] Yeah, yeah, I get it.

[1:27:38] One of my friends or experiences where you've worked on a movie and it's terrible and you refuse to be a part of it.

[1:27:44] Go for it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:46] I have been lucky that I have yet to work on a project of any kind where I'm like ashamed of it or I think it was really bad.

[1:27:52] But there are two sides of me.

[1:27:54] There's the side of me that's a viewer that's like, check out this shit.

[1:27:57] How could they make this?

[1:27:58] They should all kill themselves.

[1:28:00] And there's the side of me that's a professional that's like, work is work.

[1:28:04] You gotta work.

[1:28:05] You need money to live your life.

[1:28:06] You need money to support your family.

[1:28:08] Any work is good work as long as you're not hurting anybody with it.

[1:28:11] As long as the thing you're not working on is not morally repugnant.

[1:28:13] So like, I can't look down on anyone who worked on the movie because work is work.

[1:28:16] You've gotta work and it's hard to find work in a creative business.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:19] That's a very like elder British actor mentality.

[1:28:23] All the time they're like...

[1:28:25] Yeah, you want me to be a wind elemental? Fuck it.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:32] I'm not Hollywood Kalen.

[1:28:35] I have only worked on the one television show which I've been happy with through...

[1:28:42] What?

[1:28:43] You don't sound too heavy.

[1:28:45] I never do.

[1:28:49] But my friend Matt who also works at the Daily Show,

[1:28:53] every semester we've got interns who come in and do great work for us.

[1:28:58] I think they're paid now.

[1:28:59] They weren't for a while.

[1:29:01] But part of what helps them out is we, each of the departments,

[1:29:05] gives them advice at the end of the semester.

[1:29:07] And Matt makes a point of...

[1:29:11] He takes great joy, I think, in saying like,

[1:29:13] Oh, one of my previous jobs was blogger for Tosh.0.

[1:29:19] So we all do stuff we're not proud of.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:22] Yeah, it's like you, the...

[1:29:23] If a friend of mine was like, should I take this job?

[1:29:26] It's on a movie that really, it's...

[1:29:27] I know it's gonna be bad.

[1:29:28] I'll be like, do you need the job?

[1:29:30] Go for it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:30] You know, there's nothing wrong with that.

[1:29:32] Yeah.

[1:29:33] You don't have to watch it.

[1:29:34] There's no rule that says you have to.

[1:29:35] I checked the rule book.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:38] Hello.

[1:29:39] Nick, last name withheld, first time, long time.

[1:29:42] A lot of nicks today.

[1:29:43] Probably for, yeah.

[1:29:44] A lot of nicks.

[1:29:45] Nick, heavy city.

[1:29:46] Probably for Elliot, more than anybody.

[1:29:48] I know there was Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark,

[1:29:50] and we watched a comic book movie for tonight.

[1:29:53] Any comic book characters that you think should have a musical adapted from them?

[1:30:00] Holy shit.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:00] Probably Booster Gold.

[1:30:02] I mean, a Booster Gold musical could work.

[1:30:05] I know that Madman creator Mike Allred is a real rock and roll guy.

[1:30:09] I'd love to see a Madman musical.

[1:30:12] Yeah.

[1:30:13] But I don't know.

[1:30:14] Otherwise, it's like, the musical, it's weird.

[1:30:16] Comic books are about, a lot of them, not all of them,

[1:30:18] superhero comic books are about characters with big tights and colorful things,

[1:30:22] and like, it should translate well to the big world of the musical.

[1:30:25] But the most successful musical based on a comic is Fun Home.

[1:30:29] And so like, I don't know, maybe comics don't work that well as musicals

[1:30:32] unless they're about a real thing that you can actually sing about.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:36] I think it should be about everyone's favorite character,

[1:30:40] Speedball the Masked Marvel.

[1:30:43] Speedball is a good character.

[1:30:46] That is a controversial idea.

[1:30:48] And we'll talk about it later.

Jordan Morris

[1:30:49] I thought you were going to say Funky Winker Bean.

[1:30:51] Sorry.

[1:30:52] Hey, this is Nathan Laff's name withheld.

[1:30:55] And I think I'm burdened with asking the question that we're all thinking,

[1:30:59] just a practical question about the movie.

[1:31:02] At the beginning, why didn't King Arthur just burn Mia Jovovich?

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:10] This came up while we were watching it, I think.

[1:31:11] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:11] While we were watching it, it was like, why don't you just burn those parts?

[1:31:15] And what do you think guys?

[1:31:16] I don't know how witches work.

[1:31:17] I don't know what's going through King Arthur's head.

[1:31:19] Didn't have any matches.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:20] I mean like I...

[1:31:22] I mean he has a wizard.

[1:31:25] I bought a smoker recently and I didn't have any matches so...

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:30] Something...

[1:31:31] Here's something that happens a lot on Twitter and they go, what a plot hole.

[1:31:34] They should have just done this and it would have taken another problem.

[1:31:36] And it's like, if you study history, as I have as an amateur, you see so many times in history where you're like,

[1:31:42] why don't you just do this thing and it would have solved that problem.

[1:31:44] It turns out people are dumb and they're kind of short-sighted and they don't always think of the right thing in the moment, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:51] Yeah, like a home invasion movie where people are like, plot hole, why didn't the attackers just blow up the house?

[1:31:59] It's like...

[1:32:01] Then there wouldn't be a home to invade, I guess.

[1:32:04] Let's move over here.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:09] I'm very flustered.

[1:32:10] Ian Lasting withheld.

[1:32:12] We saw a French-Canadian Zavi movie a while back in the theaters at a film festival.

[1:32:17] And at the end of the movie, post-credits, after everyone else had left the theater, there's very inexplicably a parrot.

[1:32:24] And since then we've always referred to surprise endings at the end of the movies as parrots.

[1:32:29] I was wondering if you have any language that you picked up from movies that are unrelated to the movie itself,

[1:32:36] but you've carried the terminology into other...

[1:32:38] Like if there's a moment that stuck with you from a movie that you've incorporated as like an in-joke in conversation later.

[1:32:45] Does that make any sense?

[1:32:47] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:47] I feel like that's the majority of the discourse of this podcast.

[1:32:51] I mean, Stuart coined the phrase evidence dungeon, which is a very useful term.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:56] Some TV tropes now, I guess.

[1:32:59] Another one, one of my favorites was from the movie Jonah Hex, where they introduce a character very briefly in a wrestling ring called the Snake Man.

[1:33:08] And so, Snake Man is just an all-purpose.

[1:33:11] Any character who gets almost nothing to do in the movie, but is far more interesting than the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:16] Yeah, I think I might start using tallest building in Pittsburgh as a way to describe promises a movie makes that does not fulfill.

[1:33:22] There's all... I will say, sorry to cut you off, Dan, that I just want to mention my favorite parrot ending in a movie, which is Citizen Kane, when a cockatoo just screams at the audience.

[1:33:34] And Peter Bogdanovich asked Orson Welles, why did you do that?

[1:33:36] And Orson Welles said, late in the movie, wake the people up, movie's almost over.

[1:33:41] And he has a transparent eyeball.

[1:33:44] Yeah, well, because it was a visual effect, they were optical processing, and you can see through the eyeball.

[1:33:48] There's also a movie there where at some one point, you can see in the background animated pterodactyl birds, because they were reusing animation.

[1:33:54] Reusing, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:56] Citizen Kane trivia. Anyway.

S9

[1:33:59] Slightly pointed, but generally to all of you, I believe Dan, you recently called yourself the averagest bodybuilder.

[1:34:10] So when you were here, we had like a slight Twitter invitation through Stuart to come and work out.

[1:34:20] And so I was wondering if any of the three of you were actually available to come work out tomorrow morning.

[1:34:27] To work out?

[1:34:28] Yeah.

[1:34:29] With me at my gym, which is where the invitation to...

[1:34:33] I should start again.

[1:34:34] ...was.

[1:34:35] So...

[1:34:36] Which gym is that?

[1:34:37] Los Campiones.

[1:34:38] Los Campiones.

[1:34:39] On Blaisdell.

[1:34:40] On Blaisdell.

[1:34:41] Okay.

[1:34:42] Well...

[1:34:43] Anybody know it?

[1:34:44] Anybody?

[1:34:45] That's a little bit of pressure.

[1:34:46] Yeah.

[1:34:47] Since we made...

[1:34:48] A little bit more peer pressure.

[1:34:49] Anybody know it?

[1:34:50] Wow.

[1:34:51] I mean...

[1:34:52] Anybody know of it?

[1:34:54] Okay, hold on.

[1:34:55] Hold on.

[1:34:56] Hold on.

[1:34:57] Hold on.

[1:34:58] Hold on.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:59] Now my...

[1:35:00] Now my...

S9

[1:35:01] Now my...

[1:35:02] Now my...

[1:35:03] Now my...

[1:35:04] That's how I live my life.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:05] I would take you up on that offer.

[1:35:07] But the year where I decided I would say yes to everything ended yesterday.

[1:35:12] Oh!

[1:35:13] Oh, I'm so sorry.

[1:35:14] If you would ask me yesterday, I would have to say yes.

[1:35:16] Oh, come on.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:17] Maybe.

[1:35:18] Oh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:18] Come on.

[1:35:19] Guys.

[1:35:20] It's...

[1:35:21] Come on.

[1:35:22] This is not the place for me to make any kinds of commitments.

[1:35:24] Can I wait at the merch?

S9

[1:35:25] Can I wait at merch?

[1:35:26] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:27] We'll talk more merch.

[1:35:28] We'll make up reasons why we can't do it at merch.

[1:35:31] Quick, quick, quick, quick, everyone.

[1:35:33] Okay.

[1:35:34] We got two more questions.

[1:35:35] Let's get through them real fast, which means I'm going to talk for a while.

[1:35:37] Let's go.

S6

[1:35:38] All right.

[1:35:39] Chris, last name with help.

[1:35:40] So, what would best serve a Hellboy movie, like in terms of story?

[1:35:44] It could be a mix-mash of stuff, like say, like Wake the Devil, Chain Cop, and Hellboy

Jordan Morris

[1:35:49] in Mexico, or it would just be like one story arc?

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:51] I think one of the big flaws with this movie is they tried to cram in all these different

[1:35:56] story arcs.

[1:35:57] So, like, you just pick one story arc or an original story, but like we were saying, you

[1:36:00] just got to capture that, what's the spirit that makes the book exciting?

[1:36:03] And then what makes the book exciting is not like, you know, Motley Crue songs blaring

[1:36:07] while you're reading this comic book or something.

[1:36:09] I mean, unless, I don't know, maybe you love the crew, but I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:12] The comics have always struck me as these kind of like tragic gothic horror stories

[1:36:16] where Hellboy is just, in a way, almost like a spectator as he is an active participant.

[1:36:21] So, like, the idea of jamming in a whole bunch of stories and throwing a crazy soundtrack

[1:36:25] doesn't make any sense to me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:27] I mean, Hellboy is in a lot of ways a passive character, which doesn't make for movies in

[1:36:31] some ways.

[1:36:32] Like, he often enters the situation and like Stuart says, he witnesses things going on

[1:36:36] and then he has a fist fight with a monster and then that's the end of the story.

[1:36:39] And it kind of reaches its apotheosis in the Hellboy in Hell series where he is, a lot of it is just him

[1:36:44] hearing stories that people in Hell are telling and then at the end he defeats Satan kind of on the last page.

[1:36:51] So, yeah, I don't know. It's the spirit. They got to capture the spirit, you know.

[1:36:54] Not the movie The Spirit, which itself failed to capture the spirit of the spirit.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:00] One last question.

Jordan Morris

[1:37:04] Hey, so I'm new to the Flophouse, but I love MST3K.

[1:37:10] And for Elliot, I just want to ask, how has consistently watching terrible movies affected your health?

[1:37:18] Are you okay?

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:19] I mean, not great. I'll tell you that.

[1:37:22] Elliot's only 20 years old.

[1:37:24] I would say the effect is...

[1:37:28] Your mental state maybe?

[1:37:29] It's like...

[1:37:30] I don't know how MST3K.

[1:37:31] Well, there's a thing that happens when you watch too many bad movies, which is you kind of forget what a good movie is like.

[1:37:36] And you start to yearn for the pain of a bad movie and think that's what pleasure is.

[1:37:40] And you have to like really detox by watching like good movies.

[1:37:45] And so I would find myself like having to watch a Flophouse movie at the end of a day of like watching Atlantic Rim 10 minutes at a time over every 10 minutes over and over again to write jokes for it.

[1:37:55] And then I'd come home and I'd be like, I don't have time to watch something that I'm going to enjoy.

[1:37:59] And then that weekend, I'd be like, I got to watch one of the 30 movies I recorded off Turner Classic Movies.

[1:38:05] And then I'd watch it and it's like, you feel a shock for a moment because you're waiting for the parts that you're going to laugh at because it's so bad.

[1:38:11] And then you have to like realize at a certain point, like, oh, no, I have to enjoy this on a sincere level.

[1:38:16] And that's when you know you've gone too far.

[1:38:18] But I would say my physical health is affected far more by having two children than it is by watching the bad movies.

Jordan Morris

[1:38:24] Oh, and as the son of Doug, last name, I'm sorry, I'm new. I forgot what the thing is.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:31] That's all right. It's a dumb thing anyway.

Jordan Morris

[1:38:34] And I forgot to say my name too. I'm Wiley.

[1:38:37] Wiley. As the son of Doug.

[1:38:41] I hope your name is Wiley son of Doug.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:45] Wiley Doug son? Wiley son of Doug? We've heard tales.

[1:38:48] Oh, the legends foretold.

Jordan Morris

[1:38:52] He misrepresented me slightly.

[1:38:54] It was not, should I watch the movies of Neil Breen?

[1:38:57] It was, I love Neil Breen. Please buy me all of his movies.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:01] Oh, no, I can't support buying his movies.

[1:39:04] I mean, the thing is.

[1:39:05] He's a horrible, horrible man.

[1:39:06] But, hilarious.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:07] He's a bad man, but his movies are a certain kind of wonderful.

[1:39:10] Some kind of wonderful, you would say.

[1:39:12] Yeah, I guess.

[1:39:13] Here's, if my son said to me, he called me from, I don't know, college or something.

[1:39:17] And he's like, Dad, should I watch this universe?

[1:39:20] Yeah, why is Sammy in college?

[1:39:22] Because he's like Doogie Howser.

[1:39:23] He's a six year old.

[1:39:24] He's good for college.

[1:39:25] This is in the future when he's six.

[1:39:28] If he called me and he said, Daddy, should I watch the Neil Breen movies?

[1:39:32] I would say, not until I get there.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:34] And I would get in my car and drive there right away.

[1:39:37] Okay, well that's kind of an adorable note to end on.

[1:39:39] We have gone way too long because we are soft hearted and wanted to talk to all of you.

[1:39:45] And we can talk to all of you a little bit more.

[1:39:47] We're going to have a merch table out there.

[1:39:49] We promise that we will be there at the merch table as soon as we can clean up and like pee and whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:55] As he waves at the one laptop on the stage.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:58] As soon as we can deal with all this.

[1:40:00] No, I got to get the digital recorder from the sound guy.

[1:40:02] So there's a couple things.

[1:40:03] Like, we're going to be at the merch table.

[1:40:05] And then probably afterwards, some percentage of the flop house will be at the bar next door.

[1:40:12] From 33% to 100%, depending on how tired people are.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:17] And who knows, we may get scared into working out tomorrow.

[1:40:21] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:22] So, some of us might be there.

[1:40:25] It's the one that's not a Mexican restaurant.

[1:40:27] Otherwise, thank you so much.

[1:40:29] The one that's not going to be there is the one that's not a Mexican restaurant?

[1:40:32] Yeah.

[1:40:33] Which one of us is a Mexican restaurant?

[1:40:36] We'll figure that out backstage.

[1:40:38] Thank you so much.

[1:40:40] Minneapolis.

[1:40:41] That's the name of the city we're in.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:45] Thank you for coming.

[1:40:46] Thank you for listening.

[1:40:47] Thank you to the Parkway for having us.

[1:40:49] Everyone here has been great.

[1:40:50] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:40:52] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:40:53] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:40:54] Good night, everyone.

[1:40:55] Good night.

Ep. #324 - Hellboy LIVE

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