Ep. #323 - Deadly Lessons

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss deadly lessons.

[0:04] And the lesson is, watch this movie!

[0:30] hey everyone welcome to the flop house i'm dan mccoy oh hey there dan mccoy it's me stewart

[0:39] wellington your friend i'm elliot calen i also fall into the category of friends not just to

[0:43] dan but also to stewart three friends are we yes friends are us and that's what this is this is a

[0:50] podcast where three friends are friends and they talk about friend stuff in particular the way that

[0:57] friends sometimes watch movies and then talk about it what do we do this week dan on the friend cast

[1:01] welcome to the friend house well we uh this during uh september at the friend house yep we celebrate

[1:09] uh small timber small which is a uh made up holiday month where we watch

[1:16] uh there's a lot of religious people who'll be very unhappy with you saying that story

[1:21] oh burn they can come find me at dan's apartment i mean you do have it but also so you have like

[1:27] a public business

[1:28] that people can go to

[1:29] to talk to you

[1:30] face to face

[1:31] and write mean

[1:31] Yelp reviews

[1:32] apparently

[1:32] oh yeah

[1:34] I'm sorry about that

[1:36] I thought it would be

[1:36] a funny goof

[1:37] if I wrote a thousand

[1:38] mean Yelp reviews

[1:39] about your car

[1:39] not a goof

[1:40] not a goof Elliot

[1:41] uh okay

[1:43] I

[1:43] where was I

[1:44] oh

[1:44] Small Timber

[1:45] that's where we watch

[1:46] movies that are

[1:47] slightly smaller

[1:49] than we normally do

[1:50] now this movie

[1:50] is probably

[1:51] sometimes very old

[1:52] yeah this is from 2006

[1:54] this is probably

[1:54] the largest

[1:55] uh

[1:56] small movie

[1:57] well this had a reported budget of 30 million dollars would you make it a mid-sized movie

[2:02] these days i guess it's all on the screen you know i mean to be honest it does look better

[2:06] than most of the small member movies we see i mean like this it productions production value

[2:12] wise compared to something like love on a leash from last year this is like you know uh saving

[2:17] private ryan production well did you look into the i mean they had like the cinematographers

[2:23] were like there was a guy from bad boys there's a guy from uh what was the other thing oh no no uh

[2:30] jesus i should have had this i thought i would remember this information and now it's gone away

[2:34] the secret is that this movie is a crystal sky production crystal sky is the company that also

[2:39] makes the baby geniuses movies among other things uh and it was founded by stephen paul who's also

[2:44] john voight's manager which is why john voight is also involved in a lot of these things but this

[2:48] seems to be and i'm not quite sure so according to imdb which is very uh not always the best source

[2:54] uh it was co-written by simon paul and it was co-written and directed and i think starring

[3:00] stewart paul so it's like was it just three brothers got together to make a movie and if so

[3:06] why why is it not about three brothers who are always bickering and have to i guess bury their

[3:10] mom or something their fourth brother aaron paul was too busy making breaking bad yeah sorry guys

[3:15] And their fifth brother, Paul of Tarsus, was busy having died over 1,000 years ago.

[3:20] You know, almost 2,000 years ago.

[3:21] Yeah, that keeps you pretty busy.

[3:22] This movie had two cinematographers.

[3:25] One, Douglas Milsom, did Full Metal Jacket and The Last of the Mohicans, among other movies.

[3:33] The other, Howard Atherton, did Bad Boys, Fatal Attraction, Deep Rising.

[3:38] I know you love Deep Rising, Stu.

[3:40] Yeah, because I got two eyes on the ability to watch movies.

[3:44] Yeah, so there's that, and the composer is Michelle Legrand,

[3:48] who did The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

[3:50] And was it edited by the editor of Jeepers Creepers?

[3:53] Yes, it was.

[3:54] So the guy, this is a vanity project,

[3:58] but it's a vanity project by a guy with a lot of Hollywood connections

[4:01] who was able to raise $30 million to put his nutty vision on screen.

[4:07] And that madman is Stuart Paul,

[4:11] Another one of us handsome Hollywood stewards.

[4:14] Me, Stuart Pankin, now Stuart Paul.

[4:17] The pantheon grows.

[4:19] Yeah, yeah.

[4:20] All the stewards.

[4:21] Gloria Stewart.

[4:22] The main guy looks kind of like a cross between Steve Guttenberg now and thin Penn Jillette.

[4:29] Like, he's...

[4:30] I kind of consider him like a cross between Howard Stern and Neil Gaiman.

[4:34] Yes, those are good ones, too.

[4:37] Yeah, he looks a lot like a stepdad who always wears sandals with socks.

[4:41] but thinks he's really cool.

[4:43] Like, he goes to a lot of Steely Dan concerts.

[4:44] He's always rocking out in the garage

[4:46] and asking you to join him.

[4:48] And look, I don't want to, you know,

[4:50] I don't know the man personally.

[4:51] I don't want to say anything about

[4:53] what he might be like as a human being.

[4:55] If you did, it would be incredibly unethical

[4:56] for you to then go on and slam his movie.

[4:58] But on screen, like, as the lead to this movie,

[5:03] you know, like, the movie has Jon Voight,

[5:05] Oscar winner Jon Voight,

[5:06] and then, like, a cabal of what I would say

[5:09] are competent actors and then it has this lead performance which is bereft of any sort of charisma

[5:16] or energy it's like a hole in the middle of the donut yeah jordan can you just uh can you just uh

[5:24] loop in the uh monologue that uh daniel craig does in uh in knives out please uh okay guys wait

[5:31] okay yeah still going okay yeah there you go i don't know if you know how cutting works

[5:36] no no no it's we're gonna she's gonna do it live right she's gonna do an overlay is what you're

[5:41] saying okay i get it all right well let's pause for that yes no no we already did it dan yeah we

[5:47] already did it we're not finished that big why don't we anyway why don't i just talk about this

[5:50] movie huh so anyway this is technically i'm gonna i'm gonna allow it as judge kalen i'm gonna allow

[5:55] this to be a small member movie uh jordan please put in that gavel sound effect i'll allow it this

[5:59] is officially a small member even though it's much bigger than others and it comes from professionals

[6:03] Add in that little animation we made of Elliot crossing his arms and nodding his head like he's a genie while the gavel's being slammed down.

[6:11] And then the wind blows up my judge robes and it's just heart boxer shorts underneath.

[6:15] But nobody laughs because we all take Elliot very seriously.

[6:21] Yeah, no, that's the authority I have as a judge is even after seeing that I'm just wearing underpants under the robe, you're still like, yeah, but his mind is first rate, first rate legal mind.

[6:29] If anything, we fear you more at that point because the fact that you may feel embarrassed makes us scared to see what, you know, like what vengeance you may wreak on us if we laugh.

[6:40] Exactly. Yeah. I'm an angry God. Yeah. Speaking of gods, this movie is somewhat about the existence of God, but not really.

[6:47] Let's get into it, shall we? And I'll mention that my notes for this movie are very long, so I've condensed them.

[6:53] They're not quite as short as I'd like them to be normally, but there's a lot that happens in this movie that I'm not going to go into.

[6:58] So if there's any details that you guys – that I'm skipping over, feel free to stop me and introduce them because I cannot go into every detail.

[7:05] I do have one question, Elliot, and it's that did you take notes on the Tubi commercials that you watched because Tubi is the only place you can find this movie?

[7:13] I did not.

[7:14] This is already a long movie.

[7:15] It is over two and a quarter hours long, and yet Tubi is the only place you can watch it online, and they put commercials in frequently.

[7:22] So it was like, oh, boy.

[7:24] So I had to set up a Tubi account in order to watch this movie, and no, this is no slam against Tubi.

[7:30] I kind of want to leave my profile having only watched this movie.

[7:34] Stuart, you can leave it after you find out what movies Tubi suggests to you now after having watched only this movie.

[7:45] That's what I'm curious about.

[7:46] Well, it immediately went from, on mine, it was just about to start playing Alex Cross before I shut down the website angrily.

[7:53] mine because i did not need to see alex cross again corners so i don't know what that's five

[7:58] corners i don't know why they chose that i don't know it started with the sequel yesterday on the

[8:04] soundtrack by the beatles so they had beatles money i guess firing up and audrey's like stop

[8:09] it dan stop it dan and then the two of you were both typing on the computer at the same time to

[8:12] try and stop the feed and it wouldn't happen and then elliot came over and unplugged it and you're

[8:16] like elliot then he nodded his head gavel sound everybody laughs stewart you'll be having a person

[8:21] wins again. We're taping this the day

[8:23] after Rosh Hashanah, and at last night's

[8:25] Rosh Hashanah dinner, I described to my

[8:27] in-laws that very scene.

[8:28] So, anyway,

[8:31] it's Blue Sky Productions,

[8:33] oh no, Crystal Skies, right, Crystal Sky Productions comes

[8:35] up. In Comic Sans. In Comic Sans,

[8:37] the logo is

[8:38] the cheapest-looking logo you can get.

[8:41] And we start hearing some voiceover

[8:43] by a guy who says that his mom says

[8:45] his mind is messed up,

[8:47] and for help, she's gonna go to one

[8:49] simon conjurer who's kind of a long-haired guy who it's pronounced conjurer and he has kind of a new

[8:55] york accent rural conjurer like i said he reminds me of howard stern crossed with neil gaiman but

[9:00] he's steeped in existential whimsy as we'll learn and we're introduced him as he is teaching a

[9:04] classroom of children not to fear flying by literally talking them into having the magical

[9:09] ability to fly around the classroom like they're little miniature airplanes and the music that is

[9:14] playing tells us we're in real wonder emporium territory this is supposed to be magical and

[9:18] amazing you know yeah it's it's the kind of score that charles band dreams of filling his castle

[9:24] halls well it's also one of these uh movie uh it is a movie yes one of these movie classes where

[9:32] you're like wait what is being taught here because it starts off like not flying on airplanes need to

[9:38] be frightened flying but then like he has a globe that he takes out that turns into a a bird oh yeah

[9:45] And he's like, okay, we've got to take care of the earth.

[9:47] And I'm like – and then he's asking the kids, what did we learn here today?

[9:51] And I'm like, yeah, what did we learn here today?

[9:53] Is this what my tax dollars are going to summon conjurer?

[9:57] And later it's – the thing is also that later there's some trouble around whether the dean of his school is going to throw him out I guess.

[10:05] And it's not clear if the – is that the dean of this elementary school?

[10:09] Because usually they're called principals.

[10:10] Like you don't usually have deans for elementary schools.

[10:13] And it's just very, I guess for like a private school, maybe this is a fancy private school.

[10:18] And it's one of those private schools where it costs a lot of money and celebrities send their kids there, but they don't actually teach them very much, you know.

[10:24] This is a dean that later on, not to jump too far ahead, but this is a dean who later on has the ability to command the police to arrest someone.

[10:32] Yeah, that's part of being a dean.

[10:34] So Simon, he has a reputation for curing the seemingly incurable.

[10:38] And the mom, Betsy, she says, oh, there was a man in my neighborhood who called himself Mr. Evil.

[10:42] He was a violent homeless man, but now that you talk to him, he just runs around distributing candy to strangers, which I would say is another form of violence.

[10:51] If I was walking down the street, I do not want a stranger shoving candy into my hands, especially if he still calls himself Mr. Evil.

[10:56] But she has a son named – who calls himself Rebel, who hates everything, and this is the beginning of the movie's –

[11:04] Apparently he doesn't hate on-the-nose nicknames.

[11:07] This is the beginning of the movie's lack of sense – thank you.

[11:12] This is the beginning of the movie's lack of sensitivity about emotional issues in that we're told that he tried to jump off a building but was saved by landing in a mattress truck.

[11:21] So we're living in a cartoon world for sure.

[11:24] Simon, he says there's only one thing to do.

[11:26] So next scene, he has kidnapped Rebel and handcuffed him to the inside of this big truck that he has that's full of video screens playing a self-help video that Simon made.

[11:36] And it's weird because we never see anything like this in terms of Simon ever again.

[11:42] Like, why does he have this Simon Mobile full of screens playing his videos, and he's handcuffed a young man to it?

[11:48] It doesn't make sense.

[11:49] And they argue for a long time.

[11:50] Rebel gets free, and then Simon gives him some money and lets him crash his truck.

[11:54] And so Rebel agrees to go with Simon to his late-night self-help class.

[11:59] But first, we're going to have to meet the real star of the show.

[12:02] That's right, Jon Voight as Dr. Crazex, a Pulitzer Prize-winning psychologist who either writes novels or self-help books.

[12:11] It's not clear.

[12:12] And, guys, I want you to describe this performance for me.

[12:14] Well, first, I want to specify for the audience,

[12:17] if you're asking how Craze X is spelled,

[12:20] it is spelled the traditional way, like crazy,

[12:22] but replace the Y with an X.

[12:24] And Jon Voight is wearing, like, nose and face prosthetics

[12:30] like he is Orson Welles reborn.

[12:32] But Orson Welles, like, playing, I don't know,

[12:36] like Dr. Robotnik in a cartoon or something.

[12:40] He is constantly stuffing his face with candy.

[12:43] And now we can all, I think we can all agree that Jon Voight, the person, not cool.

[12:47] Not a thumbs up to you.

[12:48] Not someone we approve of, no.

[12:50] But Dr. Kray-Zex in this movie brings a lot of energy.

[12:55] I would argue this is the only performance that comes close to successfully doing what the movie needs.

[13:05] I mean, this is the biggest performance I think I've ever seen in a movie.

[13:09] it's so big and over the top and it's he has an english accent but he's always wheezing

[13:13] and like like it's he's trying to do i assume he's trying to do sydney green street basically

[13:18] like this kind of jovial big fat wheezing guy who's always eating candy and hopping around

[13:23] like a little imp like he there's everyone else in this movie is striving to appear as if they're

[13:29] like a one-dimensional version of a real person and he's like no no no no no i'm going to be a

[13:34] multi-dimensional version of a fake person i'm gonna give you this the biggest most energetic

[13:39] fake person that never existed you know and it is like a bugs bunny villain is hopping through this

[13:43] movie it feels like he has defined he has decided i am going to make the most loathsome character

[13:50] that everyone hates and i'm going to play it crazy and i'm going to make sure that everyone

[13:55] treats me like crap like that is his like it's this weird like masochistic desire where he's

[14:02] like i want my kink today is everyone being mean to me and i'm gonna be a mean weirdo well also

[14:08] i we haven't addressed the um the dialogue in this movie quite yet but um it's wonderful i have

[14:17] wait can i can i wait you said finish what you're saying and i'll say my favorite up to this moment

[14:20] the movie piece of dialogue okay well simon conjure in particular talks in a like this very

[14:26] literary

[14:28] extravagant way

[14:30] like he's proclaiming something off of a

[14:32] scroll most of the time

[14:34] but and it would be okay

[14:36] if one character

[14:38] in the movie talked that way but you know

[14:40] from time to time every character in the

[14:42] movie will talk in this very affected

[14:44] strange high

[14:46] language manner and

[14:48] John Voight is also the only one who comes

[14:50] close to making that dialogue work

[14:52] like it makes sense coming out of

[14:54] a crazed performance. It makes

[14:56] sense coming out of a character who seems to have who seems to be a trickster of of mythology who

[15:02] has like come out and is and basically is a hop goblin of some kind like uh but there's dan i

[15:07] want to mention my favorite up to this moment piece of simon conjurer dialogue is uh betsy says

[15:13] you've got to help my son she says i'll pay you anything and he says you can afford such and it's

[15:18] like what like one they haven't they haven't named a price but you can afford such and then he agrees

[15:26] to do it for free but it's also this guy has such a like uh like such a tri-state area new york

[15:33] new jersey accent that you can afford such and it's like come on he is like he's like the gandalf

[15:41] of borough park yes exactly should have been the title of the movie yes like he is a bad

[15:48] renaissance fair cosplayer with like long curly hair yeah yeah he's a he's an interesting guy

[15:58] he's an interesting interesting guy um and then later on we're later on it's implied that he and

[16:05] john boyd have known each other since they were children which makes no sense like unless one of

[16:10] them was an exchange student i don't understand oh so john which one dr crazax he's uh he's talking

[16:16] to dean elkwood uh who is the dean of the school simon teaches at again it's not clear if it's the

[16:22] elementary school or if it is the school where his night classes the college where his night

[16:25] classes are done yeah and he says simon conjurer is a menace and he but he says that in 700 more

[16:31] words than i just said it he goes on and on and on and you need to fire him or i'll pull my name

[16:36] and my funding from this school that's something that is never touched on again that apparently he

[16:40] has some kind of leverage over this school why he would i don't know but it's but anyway she and the

[16:46] dean is kind of introduced initially on uh initially on crazex's side right well at least

[16:52] that was the impression i got and then she reveals that she secretly uh yes was a former student of

[16:57] his and a former lover and so the she has a we see her first smoking a cigar which is usually

[17:03] movie shorthand for either this is an elderly comedian or an evil person or evil rich person

[17:10] but it turns out it's neither she's just a good-hearted school administrator who loves

[17:14] smoking cigars in her office i guess but yeah she seems to be going along with him until he leaves

[17:19] and then she goes you really are crazy or something like that she opens her drawer where

[17:23] there's a framed picture of her and simon okay so simon and rebel they show up at simon's night

[17:28] school self-help group therapy class and we go through there's a group of people there who each

[17:32] have one specific vice and we go through all of them in extreme detail and it's like one guy has

[17:40] an overeating problem one woman has an anorexia problem one guy's a drug addict oh no one woman's

[17:45] a drug one's an alcoholic one is a depressive named tears they all have like offensive nicknames

[17:50] too and oh like but i feel like they probably deal with all of the emotional problems with uh

[17:56] you know a fair amount of solemnity right like they deal with it pretty reasonably it's a real

[18:01] source of jokes it as in my notes i refer to as the barest minimum of sensitivity by the filmmaker

[18:06] and the characters are their personalities are not really clear from one moment to the next and

[18:11] there's so many of them for the it makes me yearn for the sensitivity of moving violations

[18:16] or like the movie the movie nuts or the or mixed nuts or anything that's in the title

[18:22] there's there's a i'm just gonna say and and jumping into this classroom it felt like reading

[18:27] an x-men comic in the 90s and being like wait who are all these people hold on yeah this is

[18:32] definitely like pitched about halfway between uh like nightmare on elm street three dream warriors

[18:37] and like a bad sitcom about like an encounter group and uh yeah i just wanted to tell people

[18:45] if you want to watch this movie which is an experience like uh just be aware of watch it

[18:51] On Tubi, because you can't see it anywhere else.

[18:53] If you're sensitive to insensitive portrayals of mental health issues, you might not enjoy that part of it.

[19:04] Yeah, I mean, it's pretty offensive.

[19:04] And also, there are things that are treated as pathologies that are not pathologies, like a young man being sexually uncertain about his sexuality.

[19:13] you know yeah it is uh not a movie to go to for a nuanced look at uh emotional problems yeah

[19:24] it is i mean as you might guess from the title deadly lessons which is so yeah and the classroom

[19:31] is filled with all with all these people and they none of them seem to be uh happy to be there so

[19:37] it made me what like maybe i missed something but uh were they like court ordered to be there like

[19:41] why did they all get kidnapped by him in his van yes there were they all chained and then but

[19:48] apparently left behind where they were safe not to leave the classroom yeah to the classroom but

[19:54] what you what what you do there is your own thing and you got to imagine that for the first person

[19:58] that he picked up and brought to the classroom it was a long night because they had to wait for him

[20:01] to get one by one every other person what a weird santa claus i mean dan think about it let's think

[20:08] about it santa claus as he is is pretty weird okay so he's a big fat guy who chooses the chimney

[20:14] perhaps the narrowest form of entrance to a house to go through he delivers toys to he says all the

[20:20] children in the world but i would beg to differ as a non-christian child he lives at the north

[20:25] pole not a pleasant place to live i'll tell you why one cold two polar bears three he has a candy

[20:32] cane themed house which is again strange that's a weird thing uh he also has and i'm i'm i'm setting

[20:38] across the weirdest thing about him which i guess is not weird so much as evil that he has

[20:41] enslaved both a group of little people to make toys for him and also a herd of reindeer and the

[20:48] reindeers have this have this cruel culture based around uh taunting and verbally assaulting any

[20:53] members of the reindeer group who have different noses than the rest of the group there's a lot

[20:57] about santa claus that's weird kind of glossing over the thing that i think is weirdest is that

[21:01] he's played by Tim Allen.

[21:03] Well, I mean, only that Santa Claus

[21:07] was. What?

[21:09] I mean, that movie specifically...

[21:11] Tim Allen wasn't in the sequel? That movie specifically

[21:13] postulates that there have been several

[21:15] Santa Clauses over

[21:16] the course of history. You're right, and if you kill

[21:19] one, you become one. There's nothing

[21:21] weird about that.

[21:22] I mean, it's a ballsy move

[21:25] for a children's movie to start with the main character

[21:27] murdering Santa Claus.

[21:28] Yeah. Imagine being in that pitch meeting.

[21:31] okay stay with me guys i'm gonna pitch a movie to you it's a children's movie

[21:37] now five minutes in you're gonna think i'm a madman but you promise me you will wait till

[21:42] five more minutes give me five more after that because it will get he's locked the door we can't

[21:47] get out because uh now you'll have to listen to my pitch mr jones why if you want the antidote

[21:55] to the poison you just swallowed.

[21:57] I guess it's Dr. Jones, it's not Mr. Jones.

[22:02] If you're the screenwriter to the Santa Claus,

[22:04] write in, let us know how close this scenario was

[22:08] to your actual pitch experience.

[22:10] Yeah.

[22:10] We'd love to know.

[22:11] When you pitched it, did you have to say,

[22:12] did you have to say, stay with me now, stay with me?

[22:15] Okay, so among, and I just want to mention

[22:19] that among the students is a woman played by Skylar Shea,

[22:22] who flop fans may recognize as Chloe from Bratz.

[22:25] the movie yeah she's in a bunch of baby geniuses things i looked her up on wikipedia she's

[22:32] apparently john voight's goddaughter which is why there's so much crossover between their projects

[22:37] and sometimes performers just click you know i get it yeah it's not like robert de niro is

[22:43] martin scorsese's godson i'm not i'm not saying that wait a minute wait a minute to make it on

[22:49] her own i'm just saying that you know they probably like to work together yeah yeah probably i mean

[22:54] Because it's a family thing.

[22:56] They've known each other for so long.

[22:58] And that's why in this movie they share zero scenes together.

[23:02] So Simon hands everyone in class big leather-bound books.

[23:06] These are real grimoire-type ancient tomes.

[23:09] And it turns out to be a novel called Prophet Without a God.

[23:12] And the text in the book describes the students in the class.

[23:16] And it describes a teacher just like Simon the Conjurer, but it gives him a different name,

[23:20] which is a detail that the book seems to forget,

[23:23] and it just starts calling him Simon later on.

[23:25] But the teacher, it mentions, had lost faith that there was a God,

[23:29] which had driven him to an existential dread.

[23:31] The book also, they're all like, you wrote this, you wrote this,

[23:34] and you just hand it out.

[23:35] And he goes, there's information in there that I don't know, keep reading.

[23:38] And the book then, we go through as the book describes

[23:41] every single person in the class's tattoos or scars,

[23:44] and each one of them has to prove it's true by revealing their tattoos and scars.

[23:49] It goes on forever, and for some reason, Tears, the woman with depression, has to pull down her pants to show them her butt because she thinks she has a tattoo there.

[23:58] This whole scene, I was just like, why is this still going on?

[24:02] Why does the male model have to show us he only has one nipple?

[24:04] I don't understand.

[24:04] Also, this poor character.

[24:06] Yeah, the scene ends on this woman being bullied into mooning the class.

[24:11] She's then assaulted while she's mooning them.

[24:15] Well, verbally, yeah.

[24:16] No, but the thing is, like, later on you find out, like,

[24:19] blessedly they do not show this,

[24:22] but the implication is that she was molested as a child.

[24:26] So, like, looking back on that scene, like, it feels even worse.

[24:31] They're like, no, no, pull your pants down.

[24:34] That's what would be bad enough on its own.

[24:37] I'm just saying, like, that character, don't do that.

[24:40] When the character is bullied into showing everyone her butt,

[24:44] It's not the whimsical, magical moment that the soundtrack would have us believe it is.

[24:47] Yes, exactly.

[24:48] Guys, we're like 40 minutes into the movie, and I've got to say,

[24:50] why the fuck do they pronounce it conjurer, guys?

[24:54] As soon as I heard it, I was shouting, what the fuck?

[24:58] And I aroused my sleeping wife, who is blissfully sleeping and not watching the movie.

[25:03] See, Stuart, conjurer would be too on the nose and obvious.

[25:07] But conjurer, now you've got something.

[25:09] It's also possible that the filmmakers didn't know, like the movie Coven,

[25:14] how like uh the long thing in american movie how it's like well he thinks that coven sounds better

[25:19] than coven like i wonder if they just didn't know it was pronounced conjurer but it is annoying and

[25:25] strange every single time someone in the movie says conjurer at first i thought it was john

[25:29] voight's affectation like i used to do a uh i used to do a uh sketch with my old sketch partner

[25:35] brock mayhan where it's about goofus and gallant all grown up and gallant has kidnapped goofus

[25:40] and tied him up and is and it's one of those things where it's like all my life i've lived

[25:43] in your shadow and he keeps calling gallant gallant because he's got this very affected accent

[25:47] i thought it was that but no they just all say conjurer and it's a very it's a weird choice it's

[25:53] an interesting choice but then again i think there are no right choices in this entire movie like

[25:57] there's no choice in it that i can mention i mean there's a waterfall later that i think works out

[26:01] but you know we'll go on yeah yeah i mean at the point the part where uh where john voight's

[26:05] character lustfully uh uh fondles a penis's statue before lifting it up to reveal a hidden gun

[26:11] underneath maybe that maybe that was the right choice i don't know but anyway or the metaphor

[26:16] real zardoz reference there the moment where someone pushes the moment where someone pushes

[26:21] a button and a pig is shot out through a tube into a snake's mouth maybe that was the right

[26:25] choice i don't know we'll get to those scenes but okay so uh the book it tells them that dr

[26:30] crazax is on his way he's gonna frame simon for murder and they all run out right as crazax and

[26:35] the cops come in this book after as stewart mentioned there's roughly 25 minutes of them

[26:39] hanging out in this room it's like you're watching a one-act play all of a sudden they're all on team

[26:42] simon now this book has swayed them if they don't fix themselves and solve this mystery they're

[26:47] going to be arrested as accessories for murder uh what's this crime of murder well we find out that

[26:52] one of the little kids from simon's class has fallen to her death uh it would be tasteless to

[26:57] just show a kid's body lying on the sidewalk while characters walked around talking about it right

[27:01] let's go ahead let's do it so they do and if that kid is lying there for a long time and there's

[27:06] little number markers on

[27:08] it like you would put for like bullet casings

[27:11] at a murder scene and I was like

[27:12] what clues could these possibly be marking

[27:14] I don't understand like the

[27:16] places where her teeth fell I don't understand

[27:18] but

[27:18] and so

[27:22] they fell out before she fell Dan

[27:24] she's a kid

[27:25] she was on the way down and she was like

[27:28] Tooth Fairy save me so she was pulling

[27:30] getting her loose teeth out just so Tooth Fairy could

[27:32] swoop in and save her

[27:34] so uh this is the only currency i have i'm a child there are these two detectives who are

[27:39] talking about the case and they're like big beefy guys with mustaches they don't look alike

[27:43] enough to be twins but they could definitely be brothers and one of them says the classic line

[27:47] i'm sick of murder but they're on the case i guess you think you think those two actors every time

[27:52] they see like a sonic commercial they're like that should have been us that should have been us we

[27:57] could do that also when they listen to car talk on the radio anything where there's two guys you

[28:01] out they figure that should be there but uh yeah the i'm sick of murder is such a funny it's such

[28:05] a funny line to me it's just like um what's that line in in plan nine something about like aliens

[28:10] or something like that can't stand them or something like that anyway so now the movie

[28:15] falls and this i'm not gonna do everything in detail this movie falls into a rhythm of

[28:18] team simon goes from one location to another frantically doing nothing like just kind of

[28:24] frantically getting somewhere and then just talking and each of them takes a turn having

[28:28] an incredibly simplistic breakthrough

[28:29] where a phrase or an object

[28:32] suddenly reminds them

[28:34] of a repressed memory

[28:35] that caused their specific trauma

[28:37] and as soon as they know about it,

[28:38] they're cured

[28:39] and their personal addiction

[28:40] goes away.

[28:41] Simon, meanwhile,

[28:42] does nothing, says nothing.

[28:45] Sometimes I forgot

[28:46] he was in the movie

[28:47] while these characters

[28:48] were having their breakthroughs.

[28:49] I have been blessed

[28:54] with a very easy life

[28:56] but a propensity toward depression, and I would say that it is a falsehood that understanding

[29:04] why your brain works a certain way allows you to immediately drop that behavior. It is helpful,

[29:12] don't get me wrong, but you need to work after recognizing and turn yourself around.

[29:19] Going back to my Temple of Doom reference earlier, it's as if they said to Dr. Jones,

[29:23] you just took poison and he goes oh well now i know it's killing me thank you i don't need the

[29:26] antidote anymore now they don't need the antidote i can just walk away because i know it's poison

[29:30] that's inside me and i think we should like obviously we should return to this but just to

[29:34] clarify like what you're saying like the the gang is basically on the run with their teacher because

[29:41] everyone thinks their teacher killed this child and i guess and i guess they're like sticking with

[29:47] him because of these magic books that you know are a pretty good indication that maybe they should

[29:52] hang out with this guy but i mean if a magic book tells you to do something either it's the right

[29:57] thing to do or it is very much the wrong thing to do yeah depending on the book if that book is

[30:01] if it's bound in human skin do not listen to that book yeah if it's if it's a death note don't read

[30:06] yeah but elliot's right they do a whole lot of nothing but the kind of general idea i think is

[30:11] like they're trying to find some uh some some something on dr crazex to prove that uh simon

[30:18] is innocent that craze x is behind everything and along the way things will happen like the gang

[30:22] member scorpio will accidentally catch some terrorists and have a breakthrough that he's

[30:28] violent because he was a he was verbally abused by his father and then it's over he's fine it's

[30:33] okay it's gonna it's gonna put him on the path to justice yes yeah he basically becomes he basically

[30:38] becomes a vigilante he's like i should only fight bad people which is not a good lesson yeah that's

[30:43] put curtis lee well that's what happened to him before he became a guardian angel yeah it was not

[30:48] an anti-violence message it's just a pro-violence against the right people message can you explain

[30:53] this terrorism thing to me because like so i i guarantee you i can't but i'll try i must have

[30:59] missed a scene because suddenly they're in like the back of this truck and i assume that this

[31:04] truck was driven by one of them but no apparently they i guess got into the truck of a couple of

[31:09] terrorists yes who had like bombs in the back and then like scorpio or scorpion or whatever his name

[31:15] is scorpio is like screw this i'm not gonna get chased by the cops and he goes through a door to

[31:21] i guess the front of the truck to the cab and i assume like beats up the people driving the truck

[31:28] because it's a hard cut then to the truck being stopped by the side of the road and the police

[31:34] having been and everyone's in a crowd and they're not being arrested under suspicion of anything

[31:38] Even though they're in this terrorism truck, the police just take their word that they caught these bombers.

[31:44] Did I get this correct?

[31:45] Yes, you're exactly right, and I had the exact same confusion.

[31:48] At first I thought that they had stolen a truck or had someone owned a truck since we know Simon Conjurer had a truck earlier.

[31:55] Maybe this is another one of his truck fleet.

[31:57] But no, apparently they must have either, as they were running out of the school, been kidnapped by terrorists in a scene that we were not blessed enough to see.

[32:04] Or they just jumped into a passing truck to get away.

[32:07] That truck happened to have terrorists in it

[32:10] And that information is given to us after the fact

[32:12] When the truck has already been pulled over

[32:14] I mean they're being chased by the police

[32:16] And Scorpio goes up to do something

[32:18] In the front seat

[32:19] And the next thing we know the police are saying

[32:21] Well you caught those terrorists and the truck is full of C4

[32:24] There's a reward for you Mr. Scorpio

[32:26] You'll be getting that reward

[32:28] From what the mayor

[32:29] And it is

[32:31] Based on later in the movie

[32:34] When awards are meted out

[32:35] I'm assuming he would just go to the local bodega

[32:37] where they have to fork over piles of cash to him.

[32:39] That's how the FBI's most wanted list works.

[32:42] If you get the reward, they give you a chit or a coupon

[32:45] that you bring to bodega and they just give you $1 million.

[32:47] That's why you always see Dog the Bounty Hunter hanging out in bodegas.

[32:50] I mean, it's one of the two reasons. He also loves Slim Jims.

[32:52] Yeah, I feel like this bears a little more examination

[32:55] when it actually comes up in the plot.

[32:57] But in general, I want to say that this movie about

[32:59] sort of self-actualization and getting rid of your emotional scars

[33:05] is also seems really concerned

[33:07] with money because

[33:09] there's this part where he gets a reward

[33:11] and there's bets and at the end

[33:13] like Conjurer

[33:15] like really cleans up on like all these bets

[33:17] that have been made throughout the movie and then

[33:19] everyone in the group wins the lottery too

[33:21] exactly it's very strange

[33:23] well there's only two lessons that we really

[33:25] learn from Simon Conjurer and we have to read them

[33:27] on blackboards in the back of

[33:29] the room and the first one we see it says

[33:31] E equals MC squared enlightenment

[33:33] equals mind control which i guess that which we'll find out maybe what his his strategy is and at the

[33:39] very end we see that behind the blackboard it says belief over justice equals magic which is

[33:45] i i've been trying to puzzle out what that means yeah and i don't i don't understand i don't know

[33:50] so i don't know the how do you how do you divide belief by justice guys and what that has to do

[33:57] with magic i'm not sure because i like magic i've seen magic perform many times and it there's a

[34:04] certain amount of belief like you have to say to yourself for this trick i'm going to believe that

[34:08] there's some special thing going on and it's not just the magician distracting me while he

[34:11] throws the card away but i don't know how justice factors into it that card better not be a land

[34:15] because you're gonna need that to bring other cards in yeah yeah exactly sure or an energy if

[34:20] i'm gonna want to do my uh my gx attack once per game uh so the uh uh so so i wonder if maybe it's

[34:28] a sly little statement of like hey justice doesn't exist you can believe in it but that's magical

[34:32] thinking there's no justice in this world but the movie seems to be telling us that there's nothing

[34:36] but coincidental justice in the grand plan of the world if we harness anyway the movie the philosophy

[34:41] of the movie doesn't make sense so anyway our heroes are they eventually end up at craze x's

[34:45] apartment i'm gonna i'm glad we went through the truck stuff i was gonna skip it eventually

[34:48] originally but i'm glad we went through it uh and crazex apartment again i want you guys tell

[34:53] me describe it is it like it's like a batman villains apartment right yes yeah instead of a

[34:59] giant coin there's a giant penis that hides a gun yeah and they say it's i couldn't tell if it was

[35:05] like the lost library of alexandria or somehow it's supposed to be the lost library it's not

[35:11] clear but his his apartment is full of ancient artifacts and a very cold hannibal-esque kitchen

[35:17] And also what is a room that is either a complete replica of the Library of Alexandra or a time portal that takes you there because it's stocked with all the books.

[35:26] And that's explained by a gambling addict, what, Plankhead or Platehead?

[35:30] Platehead.

[35:31] Platehead, who wears a crucifix around his neck that's so tight, I'm worried his head is just going to fall clean off.

[35:41] Platehead, he got his name because he was an ambulance driver who fell out of an ambulance or something and had to put a plate in his head, which led to gambling.

[35:47] But anyway, I also want to remind people of what I mentioned earlier.

[35:50] There is a terrarium in the middle of the room with a pet snake in it with a big button that says, like, edible delicacies or something like that.

[35:59] And if you push it, a squealing baby pig is shot out of a tube straight into the snake's mouth.

[36:05] It was the only moment in the movie where I was like, okay, movie, I didn't expect that, and that was pretty funny.

[36:11] Oh, there's a lot I didn't expect in the movie, but that was the only time it really worked.

[36:16] Although, it doesn't come back in any way.

[36:18] No, never.

[36:20] There's no reason why this happens.

[36:22] I thought maybe there would be a scene where there's a fight and it shoots out pigs at people, but no.

[36:28] Dan, justify the existence of this, please.

[36:30] You're rewriting the script.

[36:33] Chekhov's pig gun.

[36:34] I mean, ironically, it's the one thing in the movie I feel like I can justify

[36:37] just on the basis of like, well, I never thought I'd see that in a movie.

[36:40] So there's more miraculous breakthroughs because if you see a bicycle,

[36:46] it's going to remind you of how something bad happened with your family

[36:51] or if you see the ashtray that your uncle used to use when he told you you were ugly

[36:55] and that's why you became a male model who smokes and stuff like that.

[36:58] By the way, I got to just, like, take a pause to talk about the uncle who tells the kid that he's ugly.

[37:07] Because, you know, it's like this little kid, and they're in, like, I don't know, like a tool shed or something, like a shack.

[37:16] And this uncle looks like an old prospector type.

[37:20] He's like, you're never going to be anything, kid.

[37:23] You're ugly.

[37:24] And he goes, as he's walking out, he just goes, you're ugly.

[37:27] And it all sounds like an ADR done by someone who normally does voices for cartoons whenever this guy talks.

[37:33] Yeah.

[37:34] And so then they eventually end up in the Library of Alexander room and Platehead goes on for a while about the great minds of antiquity.

[37:41] And this is when I was like, oh, this movie thinks that it is like kind of a lasagna or a layer cake of ideas that like there's this whimsical mystery comedy.

[37:51] And underneath that is this story of emotional growth, like a Celestine prophecy type thing.

[37:55] because underneath that are these big ideas that humanity has grappled with for millennia is there

[38:00] a god is there chance or is there meaning in the universe but it really is none of those things but

[38:06] like clearly the movie thinks it has more on its mind or else why have the character go on and on

[38:10] about the library of alexandria yeah it feels like it feels like when you're having a conversation

[38:15] with somebody that you just met and you're like just joking around and then all of a sudden he

[38:19] starts getting the guy it's always a guy starts getting super serious and you're like uh no let's

[38:24] keep this light let's keep this surface level please yeah no in in the uh the fool's errand

[38:30] that is trying to explain the particular feel of this movie i also have a couple of touchstones it

[38:36] some of it felt to me weirdly like book of henry where there's this elaborate kind of magical plot

[38:42] that is dealing with uh issues that are far more sensitive than the movie is and then it also kind

[38:50] of felt like this was all you know funded by some cult that you like never heard of as like

[38:58] a way to get people interested in their you know particular belief system i mean if the movie ended

[39:03] with them all at the church of scientology i would have been like oh okay this makes sense i get this

[39:07] yeah like now i understand what this is about but it doesn't it it ends in a in a even more baffling

[39:13] way that makes no sense but we'll get to that uh so uh simon finds hidden in one of crazex's own

[39:19] books which you got to give craze x credit for this he did not put his own books in the library

[39:22] of alexandria room as far as i can tell which shows the the one thing one restraint one moment

[39:27] of restraint that craze x or john boyd has that you're imagining that he would just like go down

[39:33] the line and be like oh wait what what's what's the kite runner doing in here what's the finance

[39:39] for dummies what was this doing the library of alexandria i mean at a certain point you just

[39:43] need bookshelf space i mean in my house we try to separate by fiction and non-fiction into different

[39:47] shelves but like you know you don't have the exact same number of fiction and non-fiction books

[39:51] there's gonna be some lincoln books in the novels you know yeah and i have to i have to separate my

[39:55] role-playing manuals from my uh my comic books and that's you know a pain in the ass yeah and

[40:00] dan i assume you have to you have to separate your 1970s playboys from your 1980s penthouses

[40:05] so and they're on a bookcase that's the thing you're out for display i mean you know if you're

[40:13] not gonna have pride about who you are sure and i love that you went to that bookbinding place in

[40:20] williams in uh in brooklyn and you got them bound in leather editions that have the title of the

[40:26] magazine and the dates and then on the back you've actually written the centerfold names

[40:30] yeah the weird thing is after i did that though i glued all the pages together and carved out a spot

[40:34] for a flask so there's a lot of work for that but so simon finds this in one of the books the

[40:41] bracelet that belonged to the little girl who died and then the class finds it on him and briefly

[40:45] suspects him but he says turn to the books they turn to this book and the book says something

[40:50] about how he took the bracelet and brought it put it on his own person to test fate and the chaos of

[40:55] the universe to see if taking it got him into trouble anyway whatever it means it's nonsense

[41:00] and gobbledygook it it makes it leads chloe from brats to realize that simon is a man in need of

[41:05] guidance and hey he needs them as much as they need him oh yeah then she has a breakthrough about

[41:11] how her eating disorder stems from a time that she threw away her friend's valentine's card

[41:16] and yeah this one was uh arguably the uh least sensical justification yeah for uh one of the

[41:26] the problems they're seeking help with and she gets the longest explanation and it the more she

[41:30] talks the less sense it makes do you think the line that keeps being repeated prophet without a

[41:36] god is that referring to simon conjurer because initially i assumed that it had something to do

[41:42] with uh the john prophets the race of clone soldiers of the earth empire who kind of worship

[41:49] the earth mothers as like a god but not really i mean that's really not in their like mental

[41:54] programming no that i mean guess their their only real god is conquest right it's the expansion of

[41:59] the empire of john prophet so yeah and they're doing their duty yeah that makes sense yeah so

[42:04] So it could be it could be the prophet without a god.

[42:06] I mean, again, you could think maybe Bad Rock becomes the god at the end since, you know, he awakens and is one of the, you know, tipping point moments.

[42:14] For a troll.

[42:15] He and troll converge and like create a new galaxy or something.

[42:20] But maybe it means old man prophet who, you know, created a race of free johns to oppose the Earth Empire.

[42:26] I don't know.

[42:27] I mean, I assume the movie is not saying that, but it might be.

[42:31] I mean, considering the movie seems to have no either financial, corporate, or creative relationship to Brandon Graham's run on profit, the Image comic, I don't know that they're actually based on each other.

[42:42] For a second, I thought maybe it was my book, P-R-O-F-I-T, Without a God, which is just about how atheists can cash in.

[42:51] Oh, wow. Is that a how-to book?

[42:53] Yeah, it's like a personal finance guide.

[42:56] And I thought it was Profit Without a Dog. I misheard it and misread it at first.

[43:00] which I thought was about how Moses lost his dog.

[43:04] It's a sad story.

[43:05] Wow.

[43:06] Well, I mean, you're wandering for 40 years.

[43:09] That dog's not going to stick with you the whole time?

[43:11] Well, no.

[43:12] I mean, if he's a good dog, he will.

[43:14] But unfortunately, he was not a good dog, and he ran off.

[43:16] Very sad story.

[43:17] I'm pretty sure they're all good dogs.

[43:18] I mean, if they all go to heaven, I guess by tautology definition,

[43:22] they must all be good dogs, or else heaven has no boundaries.

[43:25] So that's when the detectives break into Crazax's apartment

[43:29] without a warrant to find clues everyone hides uh then crazex comes in the detectives hide

[43:34] and crazex looks for the dead girl's locket because an earlier scene that i didn't mention

[43:38] about dean elkwood implies to crazex that she knows he's a murderer leading him to have what

[43:43] i thought was a heart attack but it's i guess just a panic attack uh the locket isn't there

[43:47] we know simon conjurer has it but crazex in the library of alexandria room does find simon's book

[43:53] he goes on for a while with a kind of goofy paranoid monologue about the book and about

[43:57] whether he's going to read it or not because it might be a trap he calls simon the r word at one

[44:02] point which seemed again not okay and he decides he'll read it at random to see if what information

[44:08] he can find and he chooses the sentence by spitting the chocolate in his mouth up into the

[44:12] air and it spins around a bunch of times and then splats on a page and he's like that's the page

[44:16] i'll read and he reads a scene that is set up as if it's the climax of the movie but it's something

[44:22] that net it it seems like a uh almost like he is having a fugue state and going into an alternate

[44:28] version of this movie and where he's on he's having a rooftop confrontation with simon

[44:33] and crazex has apparently kidnapped the dean and simon and him they've known each other since they

[44:38] were kids crazex says you shot me in the side and simon says you killed my wife and it's like

[44:43] when did any of this happen it's not really clear if they're the wife they're talking about is the

[44:46] dean or not apparently they both like when you it's like when you start a role-playing game and

[44:50] all the players have much more interesting backstories than the adventure you're actually

[44:54] playing yeah yeah exactly uh they've both been chasing proof of the existence of god

[44:59] and crazex decided there isn't one and crazex admits to simon yeah i killed her because there's

[45:04] nothing worth living about in this world and to frame you and he takes the he takes the girl's

[45:08] locket from simon at gunpoint then he pulls a lever which reveals a plank in the roof and he

[45:14] takes out a pirate saber or a cutlass and he forces simon to walk it at sword point and he

[45:20] pushes simon off and then simon falls for a long time cut back to the apartment craze axe slurps

[45:26] the chocolate off the book like he's just licking and slurping the chocolate off and then while he's

[45:30] doing that team simon run out having also seen in their minds what craze axe was just reading and

[45:36] imagining in his mind so they know all the information that craze axe had in his mind

[45:41] it's and yeah at this point the listener to the podcast is surely elliot is just engaged on another

[45:47] flight of fancy improv as he is so keen on doing but all of this is accurate to the film

[45:53] deadly lessons aka was the something of simon conjurer i forget the alternate title

[45:59] the legend yeah so uh sorry for the break-in no but i just needed to reassure them that they have

[46:05] not come untethered no no only only we and the movie have but it's it's one of those moments

[46:11] where like it's almost like the movie was like how are we going to communicate that they know

[46:16] all this information now uh they they just they saw what was in his head at that moment they and

[46:20] they they're like hey it was like we could see it in our heads too they run out uh that's when

[46:24] craze acts of course goes over to a stat a nude statue with a huge penis rubs the penis a bunch

[46:29] of times then lifts it up to find to a place where there's a gun hidden and then he runs off himself

[46:34] and it is a the movie from this point on it's like at that point when we saw that rooftop thing

[46:41] the movie broke and at this point it is no longer even following the pattern of a real story anymore

[46:47] like up to that point you could be like okay i get what they're doing they're kind of going on

[46:51] this journey and they're each having their moments and i get it simon is a man looking for answers

[46:55] too he doesn't have all the answers from this point on it's not even really clear what's actually

[47:00] happening in the movie because they go to dean elkwood's house because they know from the vision

[47:04] they had of what craze x read in the book which again is like not it's not like craze x said i'm

[47:10] to go kidnap the dean he read in a book a scene where he mentions kidnapping a dean and they

[47:16] assume that that's his plan they go to so the heroes go to dean elkwood's house where she is

[47:20] having a sexy nude shower under an indoor waterfall and how long does this shower go for

[47:25] would you guys dan i think dan said not long enough in his text message it go no it goes on

[47:31] for quite some time we did gloss over the fact that um when you say our heroes go there simon

[47:36] goes there as well who last we saw fell off a building no no but that was he fell off a building

[47:42] in craze axe's mind uh well the scene from the book crazy that none of that scene was actually

[47:48] happening that was all what craze axe was reading in the book so simon's still with our heroes

[47:52] but then but wait there's a flashback that explains how he survived falling later on so

[47:58] that is just another scene no that's just another scene in the book it is it's as if the it's as if

[48:04] the book is is a what if story about this movie at this point oh i guess i i thought we saw what

[48:12] i thought we were literally seeing what happened and the movie didn't explain why simon was still

[48:17] alive until a little later in the movie thinking that like we were just going to accept that he

[48:22] fell off a building and was okay that is very it was explained you know what i was going to push

[48:27] back and say no that's not what happened but honestly who am i to question the meaning of

[48:32] of Deadly Lessons, Simon Conjurer.

[48:33] That could be what happened.

[48:34] But let's, okay, so...

[48:36] Where was I when Simon Conjurer created the Leviathan?

[48:38] I wasn't there.

[48:39] Anyway, Simon Conjurer comes in

[48:42] and starts talking to the dean,

[48:43] like, you know, trying to get her to come with him,

[48:46] and she is...

[48:47] Now, this set, this bathroom with a waterfall,

[48:50] it feels like...

[48:52] Now, was it a bathroom, or...?

[48:53] I don't know.

[48:53] It seems like it's a greenhouse where she takes showers.

[48:56] Yeah, it feels like the thing that I would imagine

[48:58] my, like, my girlfriend would have

[49:01] when i was like 12 years old i'd be like i'm gonna date a girl with a waterfall for a bathroom

[49:06] uh which at the you know i'm only 12 years old i have no concept of the upkeep that a waterfall

[49:13] greenhouse room is gonna be like it's such a pain in the ass oh yeah butterflies all over the place

[49:19] you have jim lee style obscuring fog covering up all the good parts

[49:24] it really the upkeep is expensive for all that stuff that's why you got to have a dean's salary

[49:30] if you're going to afford that.

[49:31] But it is a magical, mystical room.

[49:33] Yeah, Simon comes in and is like,

[49:34] we've got to get you to safety.

[49:35] And she, no, she must have sex with him

[49:38] right then and there.

[49:39] And they talk about,

[49:40] so they used to be married

[49:41] or they're still married

[49:42] and they're estranged.

[49:44] They were in a committed relationship.

[49:47] And even though they're both

[49:49] totally into each other still,

[49:50] for some reason they were not.

[49:52] I mean, it's a huge conflict of interest

[49:53] for her to be married

[49:54] to one of the professors

[49:55] at her college

[49:57] or possibly elementary school.

[49:59] And in much the way that this movie feels like kind of a less poisonous Neil Breen movie with money,

[50:07] like, this feels like the scene in the movie where the guy who's in charge of the movie is like,

[50:12] okay, I'm going to, like, be, like, fondled by this naked woman in the shower.

[50:18] And I felt even worse for this woman than I do the Neil Breen woman.

[50:22] Because in the Neil Breen, like, in, like, Fateful Findings, like, she's not nude.

[50:27] So at least the actress won that argument on set, I can only assume.

[50:32] Whereas here, it's like, no, no, no, no.

[50:34] It's very important to the story that we have you naked in the shower at this point.

[50:39] It's also, and at a certain point, the obscuring objects just stop obscuring.

[50:43] And it's weird because this movie is like, the tone of this movie is so strange.

[50:49] That's when you have to put up your own obscuring objects so that you don't have to see anything.

[50:53] like hands fingers a book uh you create fog or something in your room just like jim lee would

[50:58] want me to yeah yeah just rub chicken oil all over the screen so it gets all blurry yeah oh

[51:03] like ridley scott shoots action scenes at the because the tone of this movie at sometimes is

[51:09] it feels like it's supposed to be like light-hearted wonderment and sometimes supposed

[51:13] to be goofy but then it's hard to it's hard to have a light-hearted silly scene in a movie with

[51:20] naked shower sex scene when that is interrupted by a man at gunpoint a man with a gun ordering

[51:27] simon to strip and then kidnapping a naked dean elkwood it is like the tone is all over you know

[51:31] well i said while watching like because up until that point the closest thing this has to like

[51:36] a tone in what what one might call uh mainstream uh typical media is like maybe like a tween

[51:46] fantasy where like all these like mostly younger people are in the support group and learning to

[51:52] cope and like crazy things are happening but then like the nude scene comes in and you're like oh

[51:58] wait this is an r-rated movie which makes it even more baffling like who did they think they were

[52:03] making it for you know yeah it's a it's a strange i guess what i'm saying is i'm like the it fails

[52:10] to combine nudity and light-hearted whimsy in the successful way of a great bikini off-road

[52:15] adventure or something like that you know it failed it is striving for and failing to reach

[52:19] what what uh kind of like b-grade softcore porn does yes almost naturally but anyway

[52:25] and then we get to the scene where the two detectives have taken the book with chocolate

[52:30] on it to a scientist so he can use x-ray lasers to read the words covered by the chocolate and

[52:35] that's where it describes simon surviving his fall off the building by landing in a mattress

[52:39] truck that rebel is also in and while they're well they're getting so maybe it was all a flashback

[52:44] now that i'm getting that analyzed they point out that the and the like laser tech has like a big

[52:51] scar on the back of his head and the two detectives make note of it but i don't think it ever comes up

[52:56] again no i assumed it was supposed to be a joke that he had mishandled the laser at some point

[53:01] oh that would make sense because i mean it's hilarious is why it makes sense it keys into

[53:09] the theme of the movie that everyone has some sort of marker on their body yeah and also it's

[53:13] not how lasers work we're all covered in scars yeah i mean the worst i mean but the worst scars

[53:18] the ones you can't see oh wow actually you know what no the worst scar is from lion king he kills

[53:23] his brother and tries to it takes over the lions and he leaves his nephew to die that's the worst

[53:29] scar i think yeah not and hulk's son is scar right doesn't he like invade a planet or something

[53:36] that's pretty bad hulk okay no hulk gets sent to a planet by the illuminati are heroes who are

[53:43] acting like bad guys because it was during that period

[53:45] when everyone was acting out of character.

[53:46] And the Hulk is called the Green Scar when he's on this planet,

[53:51] and then his son, I think, is Succar, maybe?

[53:53] Maybe it's just Scar.

[53:54] Are you following this, Dan?

[53:55] I was just sitting around thinking about the scene in Jaws

[54:00] where they compare Scars.

[54:01] What I like about this and talking about the Prophet comic

[54:04] is it's revealing that the fiction that I like

[54:06] is not that much clearer than The Deadly Lessons,

[54:09] The Legend of Simon Conjurer.

[54:11] like it's all pretty nonsensical yeah but uh so they all have more breakthroughs they run they

[54:17] go back to class uh there's a plate head but is late because he bought some lottery tickets

[54:22] and they realize rebel is missing where's rebel what happened to him and to be honest rebel has

[54:27] fallen into the background of the movie for quite a while we he was set up to be a major character

[54:31] and he's just kind of like not there that much the class can also rebel uh narrates the movie

[54:36] at like i would say there maybe four times like i'd forgotten that he narrated at the beginning

[54:43] at all until it like kicked in again like halfway through the movie yeah and i thought wait this

[54:50] movie has narration and uh it's very erratic unlike and i mean erratic and erotic if you're

[54:56] talking about that shower scene the uh so unlike the princess bride where you get the feeling that

[55:01] peter falk is narrating the whole movie but if you actually go through and look at it he only

[55:04] appears a handful of times throughout the course of it because it's such a well-told movie in this

[55:09] one you instantly forget that rebel is narrating and and eventually that he's a character in the

[55:14] movie so they're like where's rebel where's rebel but let's consult the book the book has all the

[55:18] answers uh because they've already fallen to that level of a new religion where they can't do

[55:23] anything without consulting their magic book and the book it's not giving them any answers in fact

[55:28] the pages are all blank and simon reveals to them they they they'll go like what's this all about

[55:34] watch this for a long time for like three or four minutes and then simon says you were all having a

[55:38] mass hallucination you imagined that that text was there it never existed and you were filling it in

[55:43] with the information that you knew from your own lives and the glimpses you had of your classmates

[55:47] lives and the natural coincidence of the coincidences of the universe filled in the rest

[55:52] but what does it matter because you're cured now it's an explanation that doesn't really make sense

[55:57] but we don't have time we don't have time to go into it because craze acts and the police burst in

[56:01] and simon is arrested then the two detectives burst in and they go hey we have proof that

[56:06] crazex did it we have an eyewitness dan which which character from the movie is going to come

[56:11] back and be the eyewitness uh which character that we have seen before in the film his existence

[56:18] foreshadowed and us being like oh he saw it was going to come back wait wait did we see them

[56:23] before i know who the character is right it's it's it's rebel's dad right that's what i'm getting to

[56:27] dan which i was hoping you'd catch on to is that we have never seen this character before and in

[56:31] fact we were told earlier in the film that he was dead and did not exist anymore i am so confused by

[56:37] this movie that like you can't play this game with me because i'll just be like oh i missed

[56:42] something but yeah no he was supposed to be dead and he shows up that's how you set up a twist guys

[56:46] yeah is you didn't use you give the audience no information whatsoever to expect anything to

[56:52] Now, this movie that was confusing at the beginning, you know, in the grand tradition of a lot of movies with twists, actually got more confusing when the twist was revealed.

[57:04] Because at this point, I'm like, okay, wait, wait, wait.

[57:07] So all the crazex stuff about this child murder actually happened and wasn't part of their hallucination?

[57:14] Yes, it makes no sense.

[57:16] So at this point, you're left to wonder what is real and what is not real in this movie.

[57:19] So the detectives say we have an eyewitness, this wealthy philanthropist who's actually Rebel's dad.

[57:24] He saw Krasak's push the girl off the roof from his helicopter, which happened to be landing in a nearby building at the same time.

[57:32] And so we see a flashback of a helicopter footage beaming a spotlight on John Voight, who is carrying a child around and then chucks it off a building.

[57:44] And it's so funny.

[57:48] this is like well it's funny yeah number one because john void is like but who could have

[57:53] seen me do this like maybe the spotlight helicopter but number two like you think

[57:58] this movie is going to be like gentle and be like oh that child murder was just part of the thing

[58:02] don't worry we didn't put child murder in this lighthearted no no extended scene of him carrying

[58:08] this kicking child who blessedly like the one thing that makes it okay sort of is that she

[58:14] clearly is not scared like if you look at the actress's face she's having a ball kicking her

[58:19] her legs and john voight she's probably john voight's granddaughter or something i don't know

[58:23] yeah but but yeah it's a but yeah you expect the movie to be like don't worry none of that bad

[58:28] stuff happened oh no no no a kid did die a kid was murdered john voight's character is a murderer

[58:32] and uh so john voight and john voight goes how could you tell it was me i was wearing a hat and

[58:37] coat oops and it's like yep he's a genius all right so he gets arrested uh everyone's happy

[58:43] they've instantly forgotten that just earlier that night a child was killed uh simon and dean

[58:48] elkwood they kiss and eyewitness is like yeah i'm rebel's dad uh it turns out i'm rich and rebel is

[58:54] a wonderful child and uh so rebels angry with the world right no but rebel did tell me that he

[59:00] crashed your truck so i'm gonna pay you i'm gonna give you this check for it and it's for a lot of

[59:04] money it's like wait so hold on a second which of these things happen and all the classmates are

[59:10] like we did it we're cured they leave and simon opens a letter signed friend giving him instructions

[59:15] on how to hypnotize the class to get them to breakthroughs and simon goes simon looks at the

[59:20] letter as if he has never seen it before like he is baffled by and he goes right rebel and then so

[59:25] this is when wait and before and dan i just mentioned for you something this is when the

[59:28] movie collapses under its own weight but dan what are you gonna say well i mean like okay so there's

[59:33] these nested series of revelations and each one tries to address the last one but it only

[59:39] raises more questions because at this point you're like oh okay i guess simon conjurer is

[59:46] simon conjurer conjurer sorry is also the word conjurer yes he is also basically uh uh uh going

[59:55] under the same treatment as his own like students like some force is compelling him to do what he

[1:00:02] does in part to heal him as well as heal these students so surely when that is revealed then

[1:00:10] things will be explained but not really as we'll see that's all i want yeah so simon i guess i

[1:00:16] guess we're supposed to take from is that he hypnotized himself and the class based on these

[1:00:19] instructions given to him by we don't know because rebel we go to now to the narration and we see

[1:00:26] that rebel is actually roberto a clean-cut kid who's just palling around with the old people at

[1:00:32] the hospital and helping his mom the nurse with the patients there he's such a lovely boy and he

[1:00:36] talks about how like he made up the rebel person he dreamed the whole rebel persona which i don't

[1:00:41] know what that means i don't understand how that sentence applies what we've seen he was like

[1:00:45] saying that like he doesn't know what was real but he's putting it together now i think he's

[1:00:49] like coming out of this like his own sort of haze of being this other alter ego i i now and here's

[1:00:56] one of those moments too we were like you almost like i for a moment i was like oh is this like

[1:01:00] identity and this was all happening in roberto's mind and he had to like pull himself together

[1:01:05] uh but no because then he goes in and his mother is talking to a sick woman who's very distraught

[1:01:11] and his mother calms the woman down by talking her into floating around the room flying like

[1:01:16] the kids from the classroom which somehow heals her completely and it's one of those things too

[1:01:21] where you're like okay so his mom has the ability to talk people into surviving life-threatening

[1:01:26] illnesses why does she not use this more often like heals the woman so much that a different

[1:01:30] nurse walks into the room and is shocked that the like put uh you know taken aback by how healthy

[1:01:37] this person now is yeah so yeah but it's like did she learn that from simon or was well no it seems

[1:01:44] like maybe she is so at first i'm like okay are there like a bunch of people like simon conjure

[1:01:53] in the world mutants let's call them yeah they've superpowered people yes superpowered mutants who

[1:02:00] are bound by um impulse to help people and maybe like one of those is now helping simon conjurer

[1:02:11] himself who's also one of these magical people because at first i'm like oh does he have any

[1:02:16] magic powers at all as soon as i see this letter but then you see him later on doing his same like

[1:02:22] tricks floating kid tricks to a new group of kids so we seem to be it seems like the movie is going

[1:02:28] to tell us actually this was all in roberto's head either he lives in a magical realist world

[1:02:33] or actually his mom is the one who has this power this magic and but then roberto tells us that the

[1:02:40] class still gets together regularly to support each other and keep them away from their addictions so

[1:02:44] they're real and that simon has gone back to teaching little kids how to fly so he's real

[1:02:49] And then in jail, Krasax is writing a new novel.

[1:02:53] And the title of that novel?

[1:02:54] Prophet Without a God.

[1:02:56] So Krasax was real?

[1:02:57] And he wrote the book, I guess, maybe, is implied, that told them how to do this?

[1:03:05] Like, that's the part that, like...

[1:03:07] And he looks like he's in jail at the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

[1:03:11] His cellmate appears to be the man in the iron mask, based on the jail that he's in.

[1:03:16] Yeah, and during this end montage.

[1:03:19] We get the scene referenced before where they all win the lottery and they're down at the local bodega and the bodega guy is like pulling stacks of money out from behind the counter.

[1:03:29] Yeah.

[1:03:30] As if that's how, you know, your money is awarded when you win a major lottery prize and not just like $2.

[1:03:36] It's such a, there's a, when Platehead buys the tickets.

[1:03:40] I mean, that's a pretty nice bodega.

[1:03:40] They can afford to give the guy working behind the counter a name tag.

[1:03:44] They also say that Platehead won like $34 million or something and donated it all.

[1:03:49] But it's – so the movie is like, hey, they have a magic book, and they're all receiving breakthroughs.

[1:03:56] Actually, it's not a magic book.

[1:03:59] They were just hypnotized by Simon Conjurer.

[1:04:01] Actually, Simon Conjurer doesn't know who hypnotized them.

[1:04:04] Actually, it was all a dream Roberto had.

[1:04:06] Actually, everybody's real.

[1:04:07] It wasn't a dream.

[1:04:07] Forget about it.

[1:04:08] The movie, like, it's not even nested reveals.

[1:04:12] It's like they're throwing hot dogs at the wall reveals.

[1:04:15] Like, that's what it feels like.

[1:04:17] it feels like you're watching a movie made by someone throwing

[1:04:19] just food at the wall and being like, that's the

[1:04:21] thing now. Oh, that's it. Yeah, no,

[1:04:23] I mean, with just, like, a tweak,

[1:04:25] it would be a sketch parodying

[1:04:27] twist endings.

[1:04:29] Like, just a little tweak. Yeah.

[1:04:31] It is a... So, it was great.

[1:04:33] It is a crazy thing,

[1:04:35] as you said, Dan, that part of the twist

[1:04:37] reveal is that much of

[1:04:39] it was not real, but the murderer was.

[1:04:41] Like, the actual crime was real.

[1:04:45] So that's Deadly Lessons.

[1:04:47] That is Deadly Lessons.

[1:04:49] Hope you were able to follow it.

[1:04:50] I mean, if you were able to follow it, write in.

[1:04:54] I want you to tell me what is going on at the end of this movie

[1:04:56] or even the middle of the movie.

[1:04:57] If you wrote the movie, you can't write in.

[1:05:01] No.

[1:05:02] Well, maybe.

[1:05:03] You just got to write in that fancy dialogue style.

[1:05:08] So final judgments.

[1:05:10] Is this a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie,

[1:05:13] or a movie you kind of like?

[1:05:14] I'm going to say, guys, now, as I alluded to before, this movie has issues with its presentation of mental health and of therapy to help mental health.

[1:05:29] And there is a slur against a mental disability later in.

[1:05:39] So there's stuff in it that if you're sensitive to that, by all means.

[1:05:43] i'm not saying run out and watch it but if you are able to view it with the inherent ridiculousness

[1:05:51] that the whole movie projects i mean like the thing is like i this movie is too silly for me

[1:05:57] to get that offended by it just because it is like i don't know a child's story like it's like

[1:06:04] writing like and then what then this happened and then this happened and then this happened

[1:06:08] And in a world where we have to watch your Robocop remakes and your 10,000 BCs to encounter something this just rambling and strange and have it also be a $30 million movie is just a special treat.

[1:06:29] So I'm going to say it's a good, bad movie.

[1:06:31] Yeah, keeping all those caveats in mind, I would also say good, bad movie.

[1:06:37] just be ready to be a little upset by its portrayal of mental health and

[1:06:43] therapy,

[1:06:44] but then just sit back and get ready for John Voight to literally like put

[1:06:49] the scenery in a blender and then chug it down as like a scenery smoothie.

[1:06:53] Yeah.

[1:06:54] And some,

[1:06:55] at some points it felt like John Voight was auditioning to be in like the

[1:06:58] next spy kids movie or something.

[1:07:00] That's not a slam on spy kids,

[1:07:02] but I feel like they have like a,

[1:07:04] an,

[1:07:04] you know,

[1:07:04] an arch quality to them.

[1:07:07] Yeah, no, I totally agree with you guys.

[1:07:08] It is fairly insensitive about how it portrays everything,

[1:07:13] but it also is made, it's also made poorly,

[1:07:16] but also it looks kind of expensive,

[1:07:19] but it also looks like crap.

[1:07:20] The music is hilariously bad.

[1:07:24] There's a, and it is like that perfect vanity project

[1:07:27] where the writer-director has cast himself,

[1:07:29] like it feels like the script probably describes

[1:07:33] Simon Conjurer as like a handsome,

[1:07:36] You know, like a handsome man who looks much younger than his 50 years or something.

[1:07:40] And he like showed up with the script and he's like, I don't know.

[1:07:44] We're having a lot of trouble finding a Simon Conjurer.

[1:07:46] I mean, I guess I could do it.

[1:07:49] I mean, I know the script and everyone's like, uh, do you want to do it, dude?

[1:07:53] Why is your hair so wet?

[1:07:56] And he, uh, yeah, he's, there's even a scene where Simon Conjurer gets in a, a brief fight

[1:08:02] with Scorpio, the, uh, the violent guy.

[1:08:05] And he grabs him and throws him across the room up against a wall.

[1:08:09] And he just explains it in a way that he has taught himself martial arts.

[1:08:13] It's so great.

[1:08:14] It's crazy.

[1:08:15] That was one of the moments where I'm like, oh, so he has powers now.

[1:08:19] Yeah, he was throwing him like he was wearing an Iron Man suit or something.

[1:08:22] Now, one thing that we didn't mention, which I'll mention quickly before we finish,

[1:08:26] is that the writer, director, and star of the movie, his name is not in the credits.

[1:08:31] He actually took his name off the film.

[1:08:33] And I only just learned in looking up stuff now while you guys were talking that at the end of the credits, I guess, is his explanation for that.

[1:08:40] So I'm just going to let the credits roll on my end over here, and I'll let you know when that explanation comes up as to why his name is not on the film.

[1:09:03] Totally zany prompts.

[1:09:04] Like that time we reimagined Star Wars based on our phone's autocomplete.

[1:09:08] Luke Skywalker is a family man, and it's Star Wars, but it's a good idea.

[1:09:12] How about that time we broke the story of a bunch of Disney Channel original movies

[1:09:16] based solely on the title and the poster?

[1:09:17] Okay, Sarah Hyland is a 50-foot woman. Let's just go with it, guys.

[1:09:20] Or the time we finally cracked the Adobe Photoshop feature film.

[1:09:23] The stamp tool is your Woody, and then the autofill is the new Buzz Lightyear.

[1:09:27] Join us as we have a good time at matching all the movies Hollywood is too cowardly to make.

[1:09:32] Story Break comes out every Thursday on Maximum Fun.

[1:09:35] I don't know why I'm using this voice now.

[1:09:36] Welcome back to Fireside Chat on KMAX.

[1:09:41] With me in studio to take your calls is the dopest duo on the West Coast,

[1:09:45] Oliver Wong and Morgan Rhodes.

[1:09:48] Go ahead, caller.

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[1:09:53] but also helps me discover artists and albums that I've never heard of.

[1:09:57] Yeah, man, sounds like you need to listen to Heat Rocks every week.

[1:10:00] Myself and I'm Morgan Rhodes and my co-host here, Oliver Wong, talk to influential guests about a canonical album that has changed their lives.

[1:10:08] Guests like Moby, Open Mic Eagle, talk about albums by Prince, Joni Mitchell, and so much more.

[1:10:14] Yo, what's that show called again?

[1:10:16] Heat Rocks, deep dives into hot records.

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[1:11:15] uh hey dan i was wondering if uh by the way i went through the credits and i couldn't find the thing

[1:11:19] that i that i read was there but he did take his name off anyway so dan i have a website that i an

[1:11:23] idea that i was wondering if i could get help from squarespace to make that do you think they'd be

[1:11:27] able to probably always the first time so uh anyway you've heard of facebook well this movie

[1:11:34] it made me realize there's a bigger problem involving books so that's why i'm creating

[1:11:38] fudgebook.com do your books have chocolate in them like are the pages covered in chocolate

[1:11:43] how are you going to find out you've been to dan's house you've seen what his books are like

[1:11:47] they're covered in chocolate they're covered in chocolate so how are you going to find other

[1:11:51] people in the books covered with chocolate community to figure out how to remove that

[1:11:54] chocolate from the books or if you prefer your books that way how to get more chocolate on your

[1:11:59] books that's where fudgebook.com comes in fudge book is your place on the internet for the fudge

[1:12:03] book community that's people who either like having chocolate on their books or don't like

[1:12:07] having chocolate on their books but have chocolate on their books maybe you want to trade your

[1:12:11] chocolate covered copy of stranger in a strange land to another person who doesn't have chocolate

[1:12:15] on their copy of stranger on a strange land but would prefer to have a copy of stranger in a

[1:12:19] strange land with chocolate on it well that's where fudgebook.com comes in it's like social

[1:12:23] media it's it's the most social media because it's around the three things people love most

[1:12:27] one books two chocolate or the removal of said chocolate and three communication so that's

[1:12:34] fudgebook.com uh dan you think squarespace will be able to help me with that uh probably i mean

[1:12:39] if you pay them i mean that's how business works guys let's not pretend that yeah let's not sugar

[1:12:47] coat it yeah it's a exchange of uh money for services okay fair point fair point uh hey i

[1:12:54] believe that you both have jumbotrons this week am i right or am i wrong oh yeah and i am raring

[1:12:59] to go with my jumbotron happy birthday to a man who hates attention he will no doubt

[1:13:09] feel equally thrilled and mortified by this spotlight immortalizing him in the annals of

[1:13:15] his favorite podcast's history. Even though he's wrong about Chaplin and will always fight about

[1:13:23] Batman, we still manage a happy union. Happy birthday, Scott. This message is for Scott

[1:13:31] Crider

[1:13:32] and the message is from

[1:13:34] Billy Harrison

[1:13:36] happy birthday

[1:13:37] sweet and embarrassing

[1:13:39] I will say

[1:13:40] fighting about Batman

[1:13:41] better than fighting Batman

[1:13:42] that's true

[1:13:44] he has trained his body

[1:13:45] into a weapon

[1:13:46] to beat up criminals

[1:13:47] yep

[1:13:48] he is a

[1:13:49] he is violence

[1:13:50] as a tool

[1:13:51] for mental health

[1:13:52] anyway

[1:13:52] so there's another jumbotron

[1:13:54] it goes like this

[1:13:55] ever feel like

[1:13:56] there's too much

[1:13:57] pop culture out there

[1:13:58] have you wanted to become

[1:13:59] a Stanley Kubrick

[1:14:00] film expert but instead settled for watching the office for the fifth time while 2001 collects dust

[1:14:04] the monkey off my backlog podcast is here to help you exercise your pop culture demons join hosts

[1:14:09] andy tessa and sam each week as they offer advice and talk about checking movies tv books video

[1:14:15] games and more off their lists join the conversation and start tackling your own list today listen and

[1:14:20] subscribe to the monkey off my backlog podcast that's at monkey backlog on twitter on itunes

[1:14:25] spotify or wherever you get your podcasts oh man yeah i've been dying to get through uh get to that

[1:14:32] last season of dexter okay okay and uh there's two other things we'd like to highlight before

[1:14:41] we get out of the uh sponsors and advertising what do you think happens do you think dexter

[1:14:45] gets murdered himself because he's a serial killer dexter murders santa claus now he's santa

[1:14:50] claus and he has to kill bad children while giving gifts to good children god damn it that like if

[1:14:56] that series had ended that way like it would shoot to number one no spoilers on my i mean no spoilers

[1:15:02] i just told you what happens but no spoilers yeah but you didn't do a very good job describing it

[1:15:07] so it didn't spoil it for me well he's sorry his dark passenger drives him to kill santa claus is

[1:15:12] that better you thank you and uh so guys hey remember when we used to do flop house live

[1:15:19] shows where we'd go to someone's city and then we'd do a show on a stage for them do i we'd fly

[1:15:24] on a plane we'd stay in a hotel maybe in the same room together you know who knows yeah and most of

[1:15:30] the trip would be based around most of the trip would be based around trying to figure out how

[1:15:33] much time we had to eat breakfast before we had to do our work oh man we got so mad about that

[1:15:38] remember that guys so we're we're all a little bit of a lingerer a breakfast lingerer so i like

[1:15:44] to take my time get a second cup third cup it's a whole day of of work what if we could bring that

[1:15:51] live show energy without the anxiety about breakfast straight to your home we did it once

[1:15:57] a couple months ago we did our howard the duck live zoom cast and we're doing it again october

[1:16:02] 24th 9 p.m eastern 6 p.m pacific that's right it's a shock tober live flop house zoom and we're

[1:16:10] going to be watching the exorcist 2 the heretic now it's going to be just like that how are the

[1:16:15] duck show we're going to do presentations beforehand we'll have some kind of charity

[1:16:18] that we're promoting and want people to donate for and it's going to be right in your home you

[1:16:22] don't have to go anywhere which is great because now is a difficult time to go anywhere so that's

[1:16:27] october 24th one week before halloween so you know it's still going to be scary spooky times

[1:16:32] because november 1st the spook time is over and it's on to turkey time october 24th 9 p.m eastern

[1:16:37] 6 p.m pacific the exorcist to the heretic and if and don't worry if for some reason you don't want

[1:16:43] to watch us uh in the moment live you know with no safety belts no harness just raw dog in the show

[1:16:52] it's pretty scary when we do actually uh if you don't want to do that we're going to archive it

[1:16:58] so you can watch it later yeah yeah it'll be up it's going to be streaming through our youtube

[1:17:01] page and it will stay on the youtube page yeah it'll say the only advantage and i would say

[1:17:06] It's not nothing is if you watch it live, maybe you can organize a group watch with other listeners or last time we didn't have the comments enabled because we were scared of of of meanies.

[1:17:20] You know, we don't want any meanies dropping by.

[1:17:22] Sure.

[1:17:23] But we had all blue and everything.

[1:17:25] But we had the YouTube live chat on for our screenplay reading of the boy next door.

[1:17:32] And that went just fine.

[1:17:33] So we'll probably allow it this time.

[1:17:35] Oh, they tricked us.

[1:17:36] Dan's going to be watching the feed the whole time.

[1:17:39] He's going to be losing his shit.

[1:17:41] And, well, last time we had questions from Twitter that we answered,

[1:17:46] and we'll probably do that again, or maybe we'll use the comments.

[1:17:49] I don't know.

[1:17:49] But that's going to be through the Flophouse YouTube page, October 24th,

[1:17:52] 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific, The Exorcist 2, The Heretic,

[1:17:55] a movie none of us have seen, but it's supposed to be not very good.

[1:17:59] I have another thing that I'd like to plug that's just for me.

[1:18:03] It has nothing to do with Stuart and Dan.

[1:18:04] That's that.

[1:18:05] As I've mentioned before on the podcast, September 29th, I have a children's book coming out, Sharko and Hippo.

[1:18:11] It's by me, arts by Andrea Turumi.

[1:18:13] It's kind of like the Marx Brothers if one of the Marx Brothers was a hippo and the other was a shark.

[1:18:19] It's a fun story.

[1:18:21] It's a picture book for kids, and it's got a lot of jokes about words that sound like other words.

[1:18:26] So if that sounds like fun to you, and I bet it does, Sharko and Hippo.

[1:18:29] Pre-order it now or pick it up from your independent bookstore's website or other websites.

[1:18:33] Go for it.

[1:18:35] uh stuart do you have anything to plug uh yeah i own a couple of bars hinterlands and minnie's bar

[1:18:40] in brooklyn you should uh come by and grab something to go or sit in the patio please

[1:18:45] it's a tough time out here yeah okay well letters we all get them from time to time

[1:18:54] or sometimes yeah some you know like maybe you're george washington writing martha from the front

[1:18:59] or maybe you're writing us about something or writing her from the back who knows

[1:19:03] he was into all sorts of stuff

[1:19:05] Jesus God

[1:19:08] okay well I'll just keep

[1:19:09] keep rolling

[1:19:10] this first letter

[1:19:11] hey you know guys

[1:19:12] it can be a tough time

[1:19:14] but it's always a good time

[1:19:16] for letters

[1:19:16] sometimes you can feel real sad

[1:19:20] but you can't feel sad

[1:19:22] about letters

[1:19:23] although now that I think of it

[1:19:25] sometimes letters

[1:19:26] can have bad news

[1:19:28] and real sad dudes

[1:19:29] can have letters be sad

[1:19:32] yes can

[1:19:33] have letters been mad yes sometimes letters are just real bad and your grammar falls apart when

[1:19:40] you're singing about letters oh yeah letters oh boy letters just a hot seaming pile of letters

[1:19:50] get them while they're fresh off the grill letters letters today what's the special today

[1:19:57] letters a hot bowl of letters for you you've been driving cross country delivering toilet paper to

[1:20:04] people who need it because the store shelves are sometimes out and now you get to sit down and have

[1:20:09] yourself a big hot platter of letters it's like a tv dinner but all of the things have letters in

[1:20:16] them where there would be cream corn there's letters where there would be meatloaf there's

[1:20:22] letters. I feel like he missed the off-ramp.

[1:20:24] Where there would be green beans, it's letters.

[1:20:25] He's got to keep going.

[1:20:27] Yeah, and you're sitting in the back of the lift and you're like,

[1:20:29] oh, where are we going? Am I going to have to pay for this?

[1:20:32] Alright, so this first

[1:20:34] one's from Leighton. A big plate of letters

[1:20:36] for you.

[1:20:36] This is from

[1:20:40] Nate, last name redacted.

[1:20:42] Hi, Peaches.

[1:20:44] Nathan Summers. I'm a

[1:20:46] long-time tabletop

[1:20:47] I'm a long-time

[1:20:49] tabletop RPG player and wanted

[1:20:52] You have to pick your brain about D&D movies.

[1:20:55] What's their best class?

[1:20:56] That's what he's going to ask.

[1:20:58] Dan, what's your elite combo?

[1:21:00] What's the best stats you ever rolled?

[1:21:01] Well, clearly the best class is Simon Conjurer's night class,

[1:21:04] where you fix all of your problems in one night.

[1:21:06] If I could only go to Simon Conjurer.

[1:21:08] Nate is asking,

[1:21:10] there have been tons of successful high fantasy movies over the past few decades,

[1:21:14] but every single attempt at a D&D movie has failed.

[1:21:18] Why do you think the past D&D movies have failed,

[1:21:22] And what do you think a successful D&D movie would look like?

[1:21:26] Thanks for all the laughs.

[1:21:27] Nate, last name, redacted.

[1:21:29] Now, I have thoughts on this, but I'd like to hear Stuart's thoughts first,

[1:21:32] because I feel like he's got more of a dog in this fight.

[1:21:34] Yeah, so, well, I think a couple things factor into this.

[1:21:40] And I think it partly is tied in also with why it's so hard to make a successful movie based on a video game.

[1:21:50] But I think with D&D, part of the, and this is going to be undercut a little bit by something else, but I think a big part of it is that part of the joy of games like D&D is that the people that are the audience are also playing in it and they're creating their own story and they're invested in it.

[1:22:12] And I, I think that's a big part of it. Like, I feel like the story that you make with your friends and your D and D group, you're going to have a bigger personal stake and you're going to like it more. Um, that's undercut a little bit by the success of actual play podcasts, uh, like, like the one we make. But I think part of the joy of those is also the, the fact that everybody involved is very passionate about it and, uh, you know, yada, yada, yada. And the market is often smaller. I don't know.

[1:22:40] I think that's a big part of it though.

[1:22:42] I think that's definitely part of it, and another part I would say is that D&D is essentially a world for you to create a story and create your own characters.

[1:22:50] There's no characters that preexist necessarily, and there's no story.

[1:22:54] So if you're adapting it into a movie, it's like the thing that you're working with is not necessarily the most important thing that an audience that's not already into D&D is looking for.

[1:23:04] like when people go to a movie the setting is a big is something that they enjoy but they're

[1:23:08] invested in the story and the characters and dnd doesn't really come with story and characters it's

[1:23:14] kind of like except for like lord soth or something yeah well it's like if you're making a like a sim

[1:23:18] city movie you'd be like is it duoden or something yeah but if you're making a sim city movie you'd

[1:23:23] be like okay i guess it's a movie about building like elminster sage or something oh god you're

[1:23:29] Right, I forgot.

[1:23:30] D&D has a rich cast of characters.

[1:23:32] Like, real household names.

[1:23:35] But none of those are characters that...

[1:23:36] Well, I mean, you don't have to have household names to make a movie.

[1:23:38] Like, Guardians of the Galaxy was a huge hit.

[1:23:40] Yeah.

[1:23:40] And those were...

[1:23:40] Nobody knew who those characters were except me,

[1:23:42] because I loved Abnett and Lanning's run on the title,

[1:23:44] which was kind of the main influence on the movie.

[1:23:45] But it's like a...

[1:23:47] If you're making a SimCity game, you'd be like,

[1:23:48] I guess it's about building a city,

[1:23:50] but, like, I need to create the characters and the plot

[1:23:52] and what's going on.

[1:23:53] And they were able to...

[1:23:54] It's like...

[1:23:55] Isn't, like, Marv in SimCity, though?

[1:23:57] Not SimCity, Stuart.

[1:23:59] sim city the game come on stew yeah well i mean i'm sorry i'm sorry i would say just two things

[1:24:06] one is that i think the only people have really been able to pull off something like that are

[1:24:10] are the people behind the lego movies because they were taking something that was just blocks

[1:24:16] it's not there's no story to legos you know and there's no characters to legos except i know

[1:24:22] there's that astronaut character and all that stuff my son will run in and be like actually

[1:24:25] there's a lot of lego characters but they had to create what is the tone of this movie what is the

[1:24:30] characters what are the stories what's the because all they have to work off of was legos are a thing

[1:24:34] you can build with yeah yeah and so you'd need people who really like can fill in that stuff and

[1:24:40] if they're gonna fill in all that they might as well just make a movie that's not beholden to the

[1:24:45] dungeons and dragons license i would say though i feel like the dungeons and dragons saturday

[1:24:49] morning cartoon show was fairly successful because they kind of translated the idea

[1:24:55] stewart's talking about what was a group of people a group of friends who were like

[1:24:58] had to live out the roles in the game you know yeah and so it had a little bit of that feeling

[1:25:04] yet again by not needing to take a breath and breathing through uh the gills on his uh uh neck

[1:25:11] elliot has scooped me because i was gonna say that i think that the closest thing to a success was

[1:25:15] that because for that very reason it was the idea that these adventurers were sucked into this game

[1:25:21] and uh you know like had to had to take on these characteristics of these classes that existed

[1:25:28] because if you remove the interactivity what are you left with you're left with a world that was

[1:25:33] heavily influenced by tolkien and we already have good tolkien movies with the story uh added not

[1:25:41] just the world and some songs yeah some you know some great tunes that i assume stew has on his uh

[1:25:47] his ipod shuffle for runs at the gym yeah but yeah i agree with everything people have said

[1:25:55] i mean i also said i don't think any of the dungeons and dragons things have had owlbears in

[1:25:58] them yep that's actually a good point i mean and also like uh like kieran gillen's comic die

[1:26:04] is basically kind of like a like a more modern take on that kind of a uh the dungeon dragons

[1:26:11] cartoon like you know gamers sucked into the game uh moving on to a letter from naja last name with

[1:26:21] you forgot we forgot to answer the question on how to make a successful version of that and

[1:26:24] obviously in your head that is conan uh the destroyer the second of the conan movies is

[1:26:29] the closest thing to an actual dnd uh session uh in you know in game form or in uh movie form

[1:26:36] uh it seems like with dungeons and dragons stuff they're like they're uh they it also there's kind

[1:26:43] of like a i want they're like running away from the things that dungeons and dragons fans like

[1:26:49] about dungeons and dragons yeah in the because it's like we got to make a dungeon dragons movie

[1:26:53] but we don't make it to be like a nerdy movie whereas like you just steer into it like it's

[1:26:58] like superhero comics for a while where superhero movies for a while where they're like okay so

[1:27:02] we're gonna we're gonna do a superhero movie but we're gonna make them look cool and you're like

[1:27:07] uh they already look cool i like the way they look at the comic book just make them look like that

[1:27:11] well when they finally realize like oh spider-man has an amazing costume we don't have to make

[1:27:16] changes too much to it you know or like captain there's a reason captain america's wearing the

[1:27:20] same clothes for 80 years but yeah the uh and then they look but then that can go crazy when

[1:27:26] And you have Han Solo wearing the same clothes for 40 years.

[1:27:28] And it's like, I think he would change the vest at some point.

[1:27:31] But there's like a feeling of like with the Lord of the Rings movies that like one of the reasons they're so successful is because they really go for it on the level of the Lord of the Rings story.

[1:27:41] And it's not like, OK, this is kind of a nerdy story.

[1:27:45] So let's put in some let's undercut it with gags to bring other people.

[1:27:49] Yeah, like I know the cave troll showed up.

[1:27:51] Cue the music.

[1:27:51] Cut my life in two pieces.

[1:27:56] so instead it's like oh we love this story like let's do this story to the hilt you know

[1:28:01] so yeah that's what you do you do dungeons and dragons movie that's super taking dungeons and

[1:28:05] dragons seriously and you hire stewart to write it uh-huh mm-hmm uh yeah me and my producing

[1:28:12] partner partner joe manganello and you have you have uh all the those household name beloved

[1:28:17] what character store is mentioning, like Zazapoff and Digimon and Hieronymus Gorman?

[1:28:27] Yeah, Abe Vigoda.

[1:28:28] So this next letter goes like this.

[1:28:33] It's customary for me to tell a bedtime story to my three kids, ages three, five, and nine each night,

[1:28:40] and I tend to just make it up as I go instead of actually reading something.

[1:28:45] I tried to come up with funny-sounding names for characters and couldn't resist using Rocket Crocodile.

[1:28:51] My kids keep demanding, tell us more about the Crocodile, Daddy.

[1:28:54] So, R.C. has become the main protagonist recently.

[1:28:57] To keep it kid-friendly, I've decided to omit all the Gina Gershon stuff that Elliot stipulated in Rocket's origin story.

[1:29:04] As of last night's episode...

[1:29:06] What about the Carla Gugino stuff?

[1:29:07] I only assumed it was still in there, based on the letter of the law.

[1:29:13] As of last night's episode, Rocket Crocodile has found himself trying to escape the pursuit of the villainous Sith donkey, Darth Mule, as he navigates a Star Wars adjacent galaxy.

[1:29:26] And that's from Nadja, last name withheld.

[1:29:31] Now that Star Wars is under the same umbrella as Marvel, I guess Darth Mule would be part of the Spider-Ham universe, right?

[1:29:37] Yep. I hope they have that joke in the sequel.

[1:29:42] I love that letter.

[1:29:44] I think that's super sweet, and you will be hearing from my lawyers.

[1:29:47] To tell you that you think it's super sweet.

[1:29:51] We'd like to ask the court to serve a writ of super sweetness.

[1:29:56] That rivals a 16th birthday party for its super sweetness.

[1:30:05] We're serving a writ of habeas awe.

[1:30:09] So now we are on to the last segment where we recommend movies that we enjoyed for non-silly reasons.

[1:30:18] Let's say it that way.

[1:30:19] I'm going to say that I was curious about the new Charlie's Angels movie directed by Elizabeth Banks and starring Kristen Stewart and some other people who are less famous, so I've forgotten who they are.

[1:30:35] Apologies to them.

[1:30:36] They did a great job.

[1:30:37] There was no way for you to find out that information.

[1:30:39] No way at all.

[1:30:41] I thought it was a lot of fun.

[1:30:43] It was a movie that combined some genuine hangout comedy with much better and more clearly choreographed action movies than I was expecting out of Charlie's Angels reboot.

[1:30:59] And Kristen Stewart is just a delight in the movie.

[1:31:04] She seems to be having so much fun.

[1:31:07] She gets saddled with so many, like, mopey roles sometimes that I think she was just relishing being this kind of offbeat action hero.

[1:31:16] And it got a lot more shit than I think it should have by far.

[1:31:23] I think mostly from maybe male movie critics who are like, this is, like, too overt in its feminist messaging or something.

[1:31:31] And I think that they are just not realizing how much of a sort of male

[1:31:36] targeted action movies are male wish fulfillment and not examining that.

[1:31:41] Like,

[1:31:41] you know,

[1:31:42] maybe you're,

[1:31:43] you're not realizing that it's fine.

[1:31:46] It's fine for us both to get some of that stuff.

[1:31:50] But I just really enjoyed it.

[1:31:54] A lot more fun kind of action blockbuster than I thought it would be

[1:31:57] Charlie's angels.

[1:32:00] I'm going to recommend a movie I don't think has been recommended by us before.

[1:32:04] I'm going to recommend the recent movie Palm Springs, starring Andy Samberg.

[1:32:10] And I think I'm going to pronounce this right.

[1:32:12] Kristen Milioti?

[1:32:14] Kristen Malati, I think.

[1:32:18] Malati, okay.

[1:32:18] Yeah, it's, I feel like, a very apt movie to watch at a time like this.

[1:32:24] kind of a movie about being stuck in one place and being stuck in you know a repetitive cycle

[1:32:31] it's a comedy but it's also kind of dark i don't want to go too much into the plot details because

[1:32:37] i think that's part of the fun of the movie uh but everybody is very winning uh and it i feel

[1:32:45] like it's a movie that deserves an academy award for casting characters based on their eyebrows

[1:32:52] matching up so that you can tell they're all related uh i mean if you're gonna cast peter

[1:32:58] gallagher in a movie you're like everyone else has to also have great eyebrows uh and speaking

[1:33:03] of academy awards it also features lifetime academy award for best supporting actor jk

[1:33:09] simmons is in the movie as well he is not playing his iconic role of j jonah jameson

[1:33:13] uh the movie that the role that won him that award no in my apartment not not the movie that

[1:33:21] won him the award and also the supporting actor is not a lifetime award it's awarded for a specific

[1:33:26] role i mean yeah but you can win that award every year right for the same role even if you're not in

[1:33:31] a movie based with that character right not how the award works no i mean but i could watch that

[1:33:37] movie this year so i don't see why he couldn't win it elliot that's a good point that's a good

[1:33:43] point past uh you know since the 80s or whenever that movie came out best movie named after a type

[1:33:49] of animal has gone to the bear over and over again so i don't know what you're talking about

[1:33:53] it's not an award not an award and also the movie won zero academy awards

[1:33:59] just stared at me blankly after i said that uh yeah so palm springs the movie watch it

[1:34:08] uh i'm gonna recommend a movie that uh i don't know if stewart has seen but if he hasn't seen

[1:34:14] i would specifically recommend it to him because i think he would like it a lot uh this is a movie

[1:34:19] from 1988 from new zealand called the navigator a medieval odyssey uh it's current it's currently

[1:34:25] streaming on canopy uh and there is a an english village in the 14th century that is worried that

[1:34:31] black death will soon be visiting them and they decide that the only way to keep the plague away

[1:34:37] from their village is for a mission to uh set up a cross for them to uh take some uh was it copper

[1:34:47] take copper to a to a forge to make a cross and put it up at a church in a in a big town

[1:34:51] and so this group of guys being guided by a young boy who has visions and seems to be able to tell

[1:34:59] them where to go go on this mission and what happens to them i don't want to say even though

[1:35:03] every description of the movie kind of gives it away but uh it goes into what could have turned

[1:35:08] into a ridiculous or goofy plot but which actually uh felt stayed stuck with the tone that it starts

[1:35:16] with in the beginning which is kind of like um medieval austerity so anyway it's a medieval movie

[1:35:21] with a big twist in the middle that i won't tell you what it is but it's the navigator a medieval

[1:35:25] odyssey okay i'll check it out that sounds awesome you'll find out what the twist is instantly because

[1:35:29] it's in all the descriptions on anywhere you see about it but uh before we get into our uh goodbyes

[1:35:35] as a small timber comes to an end i want to um thank in particular for this episode

[1:35:44] peter kaplowski who uh is one of the guys who brought us to toronto for a live show and is a

[1:35:51] film programmer who uh alerted us to the existence of deadly lessons so i want to give credit where

[1:35:58] that's due i want to thank our editor jordan cowling who uh does a great job for us every

[1:36:05] week but as i said jordan jordan to celebrate can you uh can you just loop in that gavel sound with

[1:36:11] the elliot nodding clip again yeah it's not really a celebratory sound that a gavel if you're hearing

[1:36:18] that it's probably bad news well it's a gavel that has an air horn attached to it so every time you

[1:36:23] jordan also edit out all of elliot dan's bullshit just there i mean then i'm gonna be left with

[1:36:28] nothing stewart that's all that i do i will jordan jordan really like she uh are the last mini that

[1:36:33] we did it was a quick turnaround mini and i could not stick a final bit that i was trying to do so

[1:36:39] She had a lot of editing to figure out.

[1:36:42] So thank you very much, Jordan, for doing that.

[1:36:44] But as I said, Small Timber is coming to an end.

[1:36:46] But cry not, because Shocktober is just around the corner.

[1:36:49] And I wanted to tease that for all the people who are asking on Twitter and Instagram, we announced that one of our guests for Shocktober will be Gillian Flynn.

[1:37:01] It is, in fact, that Gillian Flynn of Gone Girl and Sharp Objects and Dark Places and other stuff.

[1:37:10] I could not be more excited.

[1:37:12] I know we could all not be more excited.

[1:37:13] So that's a tease.

[1:37:15] Unless something unforeseen happens, she'll be on.

[1:37:20] I mean, I can't guarantee.

[1:37:21] A tease followed by a threat.

[1:37:23] You don't need to hedge against acts of God, Dan.

[1:37:27] The world may, you know, every morning, every night, I'm like, I can't guarantee that the sun will rise next morning.

[1:37:36] Hey, you know what, Dan?

[1:37:38] If there's a catastrophe of some kind, I don't think people's first thought would be, well, Dan said there'd be another flophouse, so I'm going to hold him to it.

[1:37:46] While I'm running across the wasteland from these oil-hunting biker gangs because civilization has collapsed, I'm not going to hold a special piece of anger just for Dan because he told me there'd be a flophouse no matter what.

[1:38:00] You know, I used to think that it was ridiculous in Mad Max that this gasoline-short society was so based around cars.

[1:38:08] But now that I've seen how dumb people are during the actual apocalypse that's going on, I'm like, okay, sure, it checks out.

[1:38:15] But none of you, Listers.

[1:38:16] You're all doing great.

[1:38:19] National treasures, every one of you.

[1:38:22] This has been Dan, the hedge and bets.

[1:38:26] Mr. Hedge, they call me.

[1:38:29] Tweet about us.

[1:38:31] Put us on iTunes.

[1:38:33] Well, don't put us on iTunes.

[1:38:34] We're already there.

[1:38:35] Just rate us.

[1:38:35] No, review us on iTunes.

[1:38:37] Review us on iTunes.

[1:38:38] Feel free to tweet about us.

[1:38:39] Despite my recent babble, please make it positive.

[1:38:43] us help us spread the word about this goofy show although i don't know why after after well after

[1:38:48] what we've been hearing lately yeah but uh on that note for the flop house i've been dan mccoy

[1:38:54] i'm steward wellington and i'm elliot kalin bye

[1:38:58] on this episode we discuss deadly lessons featuring me

[1:39:16] tom roga just kidding it's elliot i'm back

[1:39:20] maximum fun.org comedy and culture artist owned audience supported

Ep. #323 - Deadly Lessons

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