Ep. #321 - The Call of the Wild, w/ Jesse Thorn

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss The Call of the Wild.

[0:03] Oh!

[0:04] Wipeout.

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

[0:43] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:45] I'm Elliot Kalin, and who's this special guest we've got with us this week?

[0:49] It's the boss. Not Bruce Springsteen, but Jesse Thorne.

[0:53] That's how I like to enter any podcast, as a mild disappointment.

[1:00] i set you up and i knock you down here it is the boss straight from e street in asbury park new

[1:07] jersey it's jesse thorne little stevie van zandt think about how bummed bruce springsteen would be

[1:16] if he agreed to do our podcast and then found out we were talking about movies and not just like

[1:20] blue collar stuff yeah old trucks and things the same thing that stephen king would be upset about

[1:25] if he was a guest on the podcast.

[1:26] Here's the question.

[1:28] Do you guys not listen to Guitar Tone Cast?

[1:31] He's a regular on that one.

[1:33] He is?

[1:34] I mean, that makes sense.

[1:35] He's in that, what is it, The Remainders?

[1:39] I don't know.

[1:40] The Rock Bottom Remainders?

[1:43] Yeah.

[1:44] Did you know that I know the founder?

[1:46] I knew.

[1:47] She's passed away, sadly.

[1:48] But I knew the founder of the Rock Bottom Remainders

[1:51] literary rock band.

[1:52] I didn't know that.

[1:54] Should I update the personal wiki I have for you on my computer?

[1:57] I have had all of one job in radio,

[2:01] not counting the three weeks that I was an intern on a morning radio show

[2:05] before I realized I could not get up that early.

[2:07] And you and the mad dog just never got along.

[2:10] Yeah, you weren't wild enough for the zoo crew.

[2:13] I was literally not allowed to make eye contact with the hosts of the show.

[2:17] That was one of the rules, really.

[2:20] Oh, no.

[2:21] But on this other wonderful show I worked on called West Coast Live, which was a public radio show out of San Francisco, my boss, Kathy Goldmark, was the founder of that band.

[2:30] Like she had had every publishing job ever before she became producer of this radio show.

[2:34] And so she was just buddies with Dave Barry, Amy Tan, Matt Groening, Maya Angelou, all these people.

[2:47] And they would just come by.

[2:49] They would just come by the radio show to see their rock and roll friend, Kathy Goldmark.

[2:54] That's really nice.

[2:55] Do you guys think that Bruce Springsteen ever watched Who's the Boss on TV and was like,

[2:59] when are they going to invite me on that show?

[3:01] I'm right here.

[3:03] Yep, he keeps looking in the mirror and he's like, am I the boss?

[3:08] Yeah, there's the time he actually went to set and was standing outside the door just waiting for a cue that never came.

[3:13] Yeah, yeah.

[3:15] Maybe I'm supposed to go there.

[3:18] Maybe I'm supposed to start the idea.

[3:20] Dan, the scenario you described is just about sad enough

[3:23] to be the subject of a Bruce Springsteen song.

[3:25] He did write one song about sitting in the movie theater

[3:29] with a single tear rolling down his cheek

[3:31] as he watched Boss Baby

[3:32] and thought about how he hadn't been invited to be in it.

[3:35] Well, that his childhood,

[3:37] he never really got to feel as carefree as a baby, you know?

[3:39] Yeah.

[3:40] Well, so for the possible new listener

[3:44] who's listening right now saying,

[3:45] what the fuck is this show about?

[3:47] Being like, I love bullseye interviews with relevant and sophisticated cultural arts figures.

[3:52] So I followed Jesse Thorne to here, but what is this with these morons?

[3:56] Dan, what do we do that they should know about?

[3:59] Well, these real dinguses watch a bad movie and then talk about it.

[4:04] Or, you know, a movie that has been either commercially or critically drubbed.

[4:10] And this week, as the announcement at the top said, we watched The Call of the Wild based on the book The Call of the Wild by Jack London.

[4:18] Hello, hello.

[4:19] It's me, Jack London.

[4:20] He was a famous American.

[4:22] Oh, hey, Jack London.

[4:22] Hello.

[4:24] Oi, the ripper struck at the end.

[4:27] In me, Jack London.

[4:28] This whole thing was a setup for Elliot's signature character.

[4:32] Jack London.

[4:33] I'm so glad we have Jesse here because Jesse is, of course, the second native favorite son of Northern California.

[4:40] after jack london jack london of course being northern california's favorite native son and

[4:44] jesse being the second favorite so what you knew jack london right yeah we were good friends back

[4:48] in the 1890s in the prospect how would you rank the native children of uh northern california

[4:57] you'd say jack london number one number two jesse thorne of course because i'm the host of the

[5:02] the least popular NPR program, Bullseye.

[5:06] Then number three, maybe Joe DiMaggio.

[5:09] If you're asking me, the least favorite is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me,

[5:12] because I hate it so much.

[5:13] No, I guess I don't hate it.

[5:16] Yeah, then Joe DiMaggio would be number three.

[5:18] That's fine. You can hate it. I hate it.

[5:19] Joe DiMaggio would be number three.

[5:22] Number four and five tied the Olsen twins

[5:25] because Full House was set in San Francisco.

[5:27] Sure. Yeah, it did have that one San Francisco shot.

[5:31] Number six is The Idea of Uneven Terrain, very popular in San Francisco.

[5:36] And number seven would be Johnny Pixar, you know, founder of Pixar up in Emeryville, Northern California.

[5:44] Now, I actually would like to spend just a second on the book, The Call of the Wild, up at the top.

[5:54] I read that, of course, in middle school or early high school.

[6:00] I think it was an assignment rather than something I was reading for myself.

[6:04] What's your guys' experience with the book, if any?

[6:09] I have the classics Illustrated, Call of the Wild, or The Call of the Wild.

[6:14] And I remember being a big fan, although I remembered very little of the plot points.

[6:21] So this movie was all new to me, you know?

[6:23] I just got some late-breaking news that there's been a change in the favorite sons and daughters of Northern California.

[6:30] Mary-Kate is number four, number five is Boots Riley, and number six is Daveed Diggs, and seven is Ashley.

[6:37] So the Olsen twins have – wow.

[6:39] I don't know how one was chosen over the other.

[6:42] Again, I'm not from Northern California.

[6:44] I'll have to ask my wife, who is a native of that area.

[6:46] Now, do you think they can survive this?

[6:47] Bad news for you, the Lonely Island.

[6:48] But as for Call of the Wild, it's one of those books that I kind of – I think I must have read like an abridged version of it when I was very little.

[7:00] And I never read the full book, and I've always been curious about it since, for whatever reason, the Jack London book I know best is The Scarlet Plague, the book about a virus that kills all of San Francisco, and not any of his better-known books.

[7:12] I bought a copy at a thrift store thinking I would bring it up to my cabin and maybe one of my kids would want to read it at some point.

[7:21] And I ended up picking it up at the cabin and reading it with my daughter.

[7:27] And I had never read it as a kid, and it totally rules.

[7:31] It is so cool and badass and fun and thrilling.

[7:36] It is definitely too brutal for kids, and I don't know why it's a children's book.

[7:42] There's like a dog fight in it, like a for reals dog fight.

[7:45] I was talking to my wife about this.

[7:47] She's a children's librarian, and we were talking about how there's a lot of books that because they are old and maybe they have an animal in them, they become children's books when they were never intended to be juvenile literature.

[7:57] The same way that, like, I think most people read, like, it doesn't have animals in it necessarily, but most people read, like, Hemingway or Fitzgerald in high school and then never again.

[8:06] So it's like, oh, yeah, that's kids' books.

[8:08] But, like, it's not.

[8:09] It never was.

[8:10] Jack London was not a kids' author.

[8:11] The Call of the Wild was written for the pulps.

[8:15] And yeah, the thing about the book, though, I kind of wanted to bring up was just that a lot of the incidents in the book are actually in the movie.

[8:24] They are softened, like changes are made to make it much softer.

[8:30] And the tone overall is much softer than the book by far because they are trying to make this a kid's film, basically.

[8:38] But but it's weird, like a lot of the plot's still there.

[8:41] Yeah. And they kept all the raps from the book.

[8:43] Yeah, when Kangaroo Jack showed up.

[8:46] Yeah, yeah, when Kangaroo Jack London showed up

[8:48] and was like, I'm going to write this movie, good day.

[8:50] Well, here's a story about a dog

[8:53] and he lives down in a smelly bog.

[8:56] And they're like, that's not what it's about, Jack.

[8:57] Jesse's right here.

[8:59] Famed rap aficionado, Jesse Thorne.

[9:02] And you are just butchering.

[9:04] Yeah, he's currently transcribing Elliot's lyrics

[9:07] into rapgenius.com.

[9:09] So Jesse, what kind of rapping did Jack London do?

[9:12] I apologize.

[9:13] i uh like there is so much intense brutality in the book both dog like it is the story of

[9:26] a dog becoming wild right like leaving the trappings of civilization behind

[9:31] and triumphing through pure ferality and um it is very strange and there is like brutality of the

[9:41] dog and by the dog and to the dog all of them and uh like it is very odd to think that someone

[9:51] sat down and said like okay how can i help seven-year-olds watch this yeah yeah uh should

[9:59] we talk about let's talk about the specifics of the movie then guys should we dive in all right

[10:03] So here's, it's a shocking movie.

[10:06] The first shock, the logo, it's 20th Century Studios, huh?

[10:10] That's the 20th Century Fox fanfare, and yet it doesn't say Fox in the logo.

[10:14] This is the first movie I think I've seen come out from that studio since Disney bought

[10:17] it, and it was bizarre to me to see that, to see it not say Fox, just said Studios.

[10:22] It was weird.

[10:22] Branding-wise, Elliot, I would say the most interesting part of that to me was that when

[10:28] they sat down to decide what to do with the 20th Century Fox name, they decided we want

[10:33] keep the 20th century part yep because it's relevant the part that everyone knows well it's

[10:40] literally keep the part that's wrong drop the part everyone knows it's literally like 100 years ago

[10:44] that 20th century studios and fox studios merged to become 20th century fox and it is weird that

[10:50] they have now separated out again it's you know a divorce after a marriage of almost 100 years

[10:55] sad really when it happens but the children uh will be kept away and never shown in repertory

[11:01] theaters again thanks disney so we start with a voiceover from old man harrison ford he tells us

[11:06] it's the alaska gold rush the 1890s they need big strong dogs to pull sleds luckily we're about to

[11:12] meet a big strong dog his name's buck and how would you describe the cgi used to uh create this

[11:17] dog i would call it off-putting well here's the thing i don't know i probably just got stockholm

[11:24] syndrome over the course of the movie like as the movie wore on it did not bother me at all that

[11:29] much uh at the beginning like audrey at one point asked me she's like this isn't all cgi is it like

[11:35] are you kidding me like this is definitely all cgi yeah the part where buck is smoking a cigar

[11:42] and driving a taxi cab yeah now this i i read about the director so the director's background

[11:49] is in animation he yeah co-created and co-directed lilo and stitch and how to train your dragon

[11:55] stitch was his idea lila was the other guy's idea yeah and um he i read him describing this as like

[12:04] they wanted to they did like they had an actor in a mocap suit and they did scans of a real dog

[12:12] and then they kind of animated him up a little bit because the dog is really the protagonist

[12:20] right like the in the book and in the story the dog it's about the dog the the owners are

[12:26] incidental and only the fact that it's that they happen to have gotten uh uh harrison ford to be

[12:32] one of them you know makes it so that that is two-thirds of the movie um but like it's about

[12:38] the dog and he said he made him more animatedy uh like you know a little more exaggerated or

[12:44] hyperreal in order to address the fact that they would have to animate him or else because they

[12:51] needed more acting than a regular dog could do i mean it makes sense because dogs are notoriously

[12:57] hard to read emotionally uh dogs are if there's ever an animal that is just a stone sphinx just a

[13:04] just total a total mystery and enigma i mean if there's and if you're making a movie if there's

[13:09] one animal that there is an extreme shortage of trained versions of yeah okay i mean well there's

[13:15] this dog does do a lot of acting and also is put in danger that you would never want to

[13:21] to do to a real no that's true that's true uh and so the i had a similar feeling to you dan

[13:27] where at when i first saw him i was like whoa what is this cartoon dog doing here but as the

[13:31] movie would go on i'd and again maybe this is partly because i was doing the dishes while i

[13:35] watching it i kind of forgot he was a cgi dog until there were moments when he would be very cgi

[13:40] and i would be like oh yeah that's not a real dog right at the beginning there are some like

[13:46] ain't i a stinker moments for the dog yeah and you're like wait is this dog gonna tear a man's

[13:54] throat out later yeah at the beginning uh the dog's a real uh marmaduke he's a real beethoven

[14:01] Yeah, like stop leaving chains of linked sausages lying around for this guy to grab and run around with.

[14:07] He lives in Santa Clara, California with Judge Bradley Whitford, and he's a real Beethoven, a marmaduke.

[14:14] He does whatever he wants.

[14:15] He licks big blocks of ice in the street.

[14:17] He ruins big picnic banquets until—

[14:19] Everybody loves him, though.

[14:20] Everybody knows his name.

[14:21] They also know that you can't mess with him because he's the judge's dog, and if you mess with his dog, you're going to get murdered, I guess.

[14:29] I don't know what they're doing.

[14:30] Yeah, thrown in jail.

[14:31] That's what judges do.

[14:32] And Bradley Whitford—

[14:33] He looks like a hanging judge.

[14:35] Bradley Whitford is one of the—a few times in this movie where I'm like, you got, like, a name actor for this role?

[14:41] Like, he exists just to sort of, like, look disappointed at the dog in the beginning and leave him outside the house.

[14:49] This should have been—I mean, he also deserves bigger roles, but to me, I was like, this should have been a Brad Dourif role.

[14:56] They got the wrong Brad.

[14:57] They got Whitford when they should have gotten Dourif.

[14:59] Okay, so one night, though, Buck's idyllic life as the bad boy of Santa Clara is interrupted when he is kidnapped.

[15:05] He's taken away by some bad men, and when he comes to, there's a mean man with a club who teaches him the law of club and fang.

[15:14] That in the world outside idyllic Judge Brad's house, it's only violence that is the master.

[15:19] And Buck is like, I'm afraid of this club.

[15:22] I don't like getting hit by it.

[15:23] And he tries to escape, but he's on a boat to the Yukon.

[15:27] Jesse, you mentioned Lonely Island before.

[15:29] Mention him again

[15:30] Because Buck's on a boat

[15:31] Hey they recorded a song called

[15:34] We're on a boat

[15:36] And they recorded a song called

[15:39] The Call of the Wild right

[15:40] Yeah sure

[15:41] Yeah Dan can you sing a couple bars

[15:45] It's the call of the wild

[15:49] Da da da da

[15:50] Da da da da da

[15:52] Etc

[15:53] I'm pretty handsome

[15:55] For a funny guy

[15:57] yeah i have a slightly exaggerated mouth size wow you're edging into anti-semitism jesse

[16:07] and now okay so they get to land buck slips his leash for a moment has kind of a meet cute with

[16:13] a gandalf bearded harrison ford when harrison ford drops his harmonica and buck returns it to him

[16:18] but they don't get to spend too much time together because buck is soon sold to perot

[16:23] a quebecois male carrier and his wife francoise i didn't it's uh you can just say partner i think

[16:29] okay partner an inuit woman that is also on this uh male carrying mission with him uh buck joins

[16:35] the sled team of cgi dogs who are led by the mean spitz a bully dog who rules by fear what do you

[16:41] guys think about spitz spitz is probably german i remember when i was uh when i read the uh when i

[16:47] read the the illustrated version i was always like man that spitz guy he seems pretty cool

[16:52] spits mckenzie but uh i do like one of the one of the advantages of doing all cartoon dogs in

[17:00] this movie is that you can make this sled dog team all unique looking dogs they don't all look

[17:04] the same uh having having been to skagway which was very exciting to see skagway depicted on the

[17:11] silver screen of my apartment uh it was i've also uh i've also met teams of sled dogs and they all

[17:18] kind of look alike i mean they're all good boys obviously but uh i have expected like one of the

[17:23] dogs to be like an english bulldog i'm wondering how how deep into the production they were still

[17:28] considering like fuck maybe we should just give them all let's just have all the dogs talk yeah

[17:34] you know there was a discussion at some point should we have the dogs talk and how how radical

[17:38] and how much bad attitude should they have yeah it did look weird to have uh i've already forgotten

[17:44] the main dog's name but but it seems to me like uh it was weird to see a buck at the head of this

[17:53] uh thing for the reason stewart talked about like it's not like there were just like a bunch of

[17:57] huskies you know as you might think or something like that but uh and they also didn't look that

[18:02] big and strong despite what the opening the movie suggested was needed in the yukon yeah that's the

[18:07] that was the surprises i think they were going visually just to help you set the dogs apart but

[18:11] But they really didn't seem like – it seemed like this was the ragtag kind of like Hoosiers or Mighty Ducks of the sled dog team.

[18:19] It was going to take a real charismatic guy to make them run fast.

[18:23] And we've met that guy, and his name is Buck.

[18:27] Unfortunately, at first, Buck is a terrible sled dog.

[18:29] He almost leads them off a mountain at one point, it seems.

[18:33] But he has visions of a primordial wolf spirit, which inspires him to work hard and be tough.

[18:40] Guys, your thoughts about the wolf spirit?

[18:42] I didn't have thoughts about the wolf spirit, but I did want to say that part of this whole thing,

[18:48] this process of him becoming a better sled dog, is the mail carrier's unwavering faith in Buck as he's going to be the greatest dog of all time kind of feel.

[19:03] And also he's like constantly talking to the dog and encouraging the dog in a way that makes it seem like everyone in the movie expects the dog to understand human language.

[19:13] There's a scene where the guy like shows, literally shows all of the dogs a map.

[19:18] And he's like, we're going to go here.

[19:19] Dan, have you met dog owners?

[19:21] That's true.

[19:23] They do call that out in the movie.

[19:27] there's a there's a scene where uh there's a scene where the lady of that team um says like

[19:34] you know that they don't speak english right and he keeps talking to them but it is like it speaks

[19:40] to the fundamental challenge of making a movie out of uh out of this book which is this is a book

[19:47] about like lonely people with no one to talk to uh and with a protagonist that cannot speak

[19:53] And so you really have to figure out how are we going to make clear even what's happening without internal monologue.

[20:01] What you just described, Jesse, sounds like the Jim Jarmusch version of Call the Wild.

[20:05] Just like a series of lonely people and a mute dog narrator who just kind of roams between them.

[20:10] The answer they choose is, by the way, is to have Harrison Ford break in intermittently for no particular reason before and after his character is introduced.

[20:20] while his character is on screen and not on screen with voiceover narration.

[20:24] I think the rationalization is it's a good way to justify Harrison Ford being on the poster,

[20:30] because if you're kind of hearing him even in the scenes he's not in.

[20:33] Now, when you decide to go live off in the wild by yourself,

[20:38] who would you want to narrate the story of your life leading up to that point?

[20:42] Do you think Harrison Ford, do you think Harry Ford would be your first choice?

[20:47] I want to quickly say that I think Harrison Ford does a really good job in this movie.

[20:50] I think the wrap on later period Harrison Ford.

[20:52] Wow, are you hoping to get him as a guest or something?

[20:54] What's going on over here?

[20:55] I would love that.

[20:56] He's my nostalgic pick for my favorite actor, even though he's often very sort of lazy about it.

[21:02] But here he seems to be actually caring about the material, which I like.

[21:06] I think the weariness that he shows in his other roles, which usually comes off as a like,

[21:10] I can't believe I'm fucking doing this, really works for this character who has a world and soul weariness

[21:15] that he has to overcome and does

[21:17] overcome. But I would say probably Emo Phillips.

[21:19] Yeah, that'd be perfect.

[21:21] Or an Emo Phillips type, like

[21:23] a French Stewart, maybe?

[21:25] No, not at all. No, thank you.

[21:27] If we can't get Emo, one, I'll be

[21:29] surprised, and two,

[21:31] I don't want a FOMO to come

[21:33] in and pretend to be Emo. No, thank you.

[21:36] I mean, who am I kidding?

[21:37] Emo works, Elliot.

[21:38] You've got to do better than scale, I think,

[21:42] to get into there. Oh, no, no, no. We'd make it worth his while.

[21:43] We'd make it worth his while.

[21:44] But they're like, I want him to do it.

[21:46] But it's not like, he's not going to be like,

[21:48] well, give me $10 million or I don't get out of bed.

[21:50] But he gets good money for his weekend

[21:53] at Go Bananas in Cincinnati.

[21:54] Because he's amazing.

[21:57] Because he's an amazing performer, yeah.

[21:58] He's great.

[21:59] That was when Elliot decided to go off the grid.

[22:04] That's, oh, I would love it.

[22:06] To your point, Dan, like, I went into this movie

[22:09] with the thought where I was kind of wondering

[22:12] whether harrison ford was even good at acting like i really like harrison ford as a movie star

[22:20] but i thought i was trying to think back to different harrison ford movies and thinking

[22:23] like did he do anything or does he just have some quality to him and i agree completely i thought

[22:30] harrison ford was fantastic in this movie he did more than he usually does and brought and carried

[22:35] off very well which and felt completely grounded talking to a cgi dog which is yeah like very weird

[22:43] and awkward place to be as an actor and i thought he did beautifully and i thought his voice sounded

[22:49] beautiful in the narration yeah i think i also think he was really great i think when dealing

[22:53] with buck he was drawing on his years working with a man in a bear suit in the star wars movies

[22:58] like he's used to having a furry companion who can't be understood but i'm look i'm gonna i'm

[23:04] gonna have a spoiler and say and say my my summary is partly colored by my having really enjoyed this

[23:09] movie and when i saw the trailers for it i was like why did they make this movie who did they

[23:13] make an adaptation of call of the wild for and then i realized i was like oh dads that's who

[23:18] this movie is for this is like what i would call a kid's movie for dads where i was like oh i would

[23:23] get so much more out of this than my son would but i would make him watch this with me like that

[23:26] this is a kid's movie for dads completely reshot and re-edited with input from uh what's his name

[23:32] the ford v ferrari guy oh james mangold yeah he was he gets a producer credit on the movie and i

[23:38] read that he like led them through a second round of shooting to like refocus the movie on harrison

[23:44] ford and make sure that it was uh a live action film and not an animated film and so on and so

[23:51] forth oh that makes sense that is james mangold right who did yeah that's right yeah that's right

[23:55] yeah yeah yeah so this would be a lovely double feature with ad astor or something like that

[23:59] yeah yeah exactly dad movies the old so the so uh like i said he sees that wolf spirit and he

[24:09] learns to be hard and tough and he's also and here's the difference he's generous to the other

[24:12] dogs he shares his food he's nice to them spits hates that but the other dogs love it and buck

[24:18] is now they make i'm really glad they make an effort to make uh buck sympathetic because it's

[24:24] really tough when a dog character is introduced for uh the audience to side with them it's maybe

[24:30] the most instant reaction that any audience in the world has is the minute a dog enters the movie

[24:35] everyone is like that's my favorite character in the movie if anything bad happens to that dog i'm

[24:40] going to kill a human being stewart i think you may be you may be discounting the extent to which

[24:48] audiences hate a stinker that's that's true as as shown by the fact that bugs bunny a noticeable

[24:56] stinker has not had like a real major effort until these new cartoons nature max whereas mickey mouse

[25:01] perhaps the most unstinker there ever was is is a huge merchandising sensation in the in the book

[25:08] elliot this black wolf in the movie is is the titular call of the wild right like it is an

[25:13] ineffable pull on the dog's soul that it feels and is like confused by frankly like worried and

[25:21] confused by uh as it is drawn further and further from the world of man right and uh in the movie

[25:29] what they decided to do was to put a wolf on a hill it looks like uh it looks like the cover of

[25:35] the netting's madrigal album i mean i have to say that's exactly what i thought stewart i said to

[25:40] myself this looks exactly like the cover of the natan's madrigal album by wolver yeah i would say

[25:47] i i would rather that than have them do like they did in frozen 2 where it's literally just a voice

[25:52] that comes out of nowhere for no reason and starts beckoning elsa into the woods give me a spirit

[25:57] yeah i'd rather have woods uh yeah rather that rather than something going

[26:01] in the woods and being like

[26:05] rut road i i would do i would go one step further and make it uh a little bit more like lynchian

[26:12] and in the snow there would be like an end table with an old-timey telephone that would be

[26:16] actually had a cut of this movie before james mangold got invited and um it had the narration

[26:27] from harrison ford but the call of the wild wasn't a wolf on a hill it was emo philips

[26:32] again works totally works for me yeah yeah the i love the idea now of a david lynch version

[26:39] where the soundtrack is just like

[26:41] as they're in a sled race okay so buck is now part of the pack and he loves it buck is everyone's

[26:50] favorite he even wins over francoise when she falls into icy water and almost drowns and he

[26:56] saves her and that night a jealous spitz knowing that he is no longer the mvp most valuable pack

[27:01] member attacks buck and he keeps knocking him down with these jump bites stewart as a fighting

[27:06] expert how would you how would you rate spitz's fighting style which is entirely jump based well

[27:10] i mean he's all fucking rushed down right and you're like dude as soon as buck figures out

[27:15] your fucking like one twos he's he's gonna he's gonna destroy you because all he doesn't even

[27:20] block he's just all attack and of course that's what buck does he gets he gets a reversal on him

[27:26] picks him up in the air he catches him out of midair and lifts him up and spitz has a moment

[27:31] where he's like oh fuck now he's about to ground combo me and of course he does yeah exactly what

[27:36] happens buck is hurt but the wolf spirit comes over and he's like get the fuck up and fuck up

[27:40] that dog and buck does it and he just makes spit submit yeah wanders off in shame never to be seen

[27:47] again that's what happens in the book right there is like that's what they call the wilds i mean in

[27:52] the book he kills him yeah whereas here there's uh some of that dog acting we were talking about

[27:57] where they give each other a look

[27:58] where he's like,

[27:59] huh, you're going to stay down?

[28:00] And then the guy's like,

[28:01] all right, okay, cool.

[28:02] And Spitz is wandering off

[28:04] and looks back sadly

[28:05] as if to say,

[28:06] I was a king once.

[28:07] And then he just wanders into the void.

[28:09] I had my own hole in the ice

[28:11] to drink water from.

[28:12] And this harmonica picking up jerk.

[28:15] The main way they express

[28:16] how that he's the boss

[28:17] is that he has a hole in the ice

[28:19] that he won't let anyone share.

[28:21] Now, there's something in this movie

[28:24] that is something,

[28:24] I mean, I like this movie again

[28:26] and I like the story,

[28:27] But there's something I don't like in it, which is I will call it the Tarzan fallacy, which is Buck is kind of like a pampered rich man's dog.

[28:36] But when he goes into the wild, he is the superior of everybody, and he immediately – or not immediately, but through hard work.

[28:42] But he is recognized as special, and he rises through the ranks over dogs that are more experienced and more wild than him.

[28:48] And it's the same way that Tarzan, who is an English baron who is lost as a baby, becomes king of the apes even though – why should he be king of the apes?

[28:56] There's like a hidden sort of, not racial in this case because they're dogs, but this hierarchy of like a civilized person is still better than a non-civilized person in a way that made me uncomfortable as the movie went on.

[29:10] When Buck is reinvigorating the wolf pack with his genes in a way that makes them the uber dogs.

[29:16] And I was like, later on, I was like, I don't know if I like the message of this movie anymore.

[29:20] Yeah, I guess that part is true.

[29:22] I was going to make an argument that, like, the highest good that the movie presents is being wild.

[29:28] But then, like, yeah, he does make some sort of super race by mingling with the wolf.

[29:33] Which totally fits into the background of the kind of racial genetics of the late 19th, early 20th century.

[29:41] But anyway, the important thing is the next morning Buck insists on being the lead dog in the sled now that Spitz isn't there and the other dogs back him up.

[29:49] And Buck starts pulling them so fast that Perrault, the mail delivery guy, is like, yes, this is amazing.

[29:55] And his cheers cause an avalanche.

[29:57] Are they going to be killed?

[29:58] No, because the wolf spirit shows up and is like, hey, Buck, there's a shortcut through an ice cave right here.

[30:03] Which was weird, because it's not like that's information Buck knew that was coming.

[30:06] Now it's just like there's a ghost of a wolf that's following you and telling you.

[30:09] It's genetic memory, Elliot.

[30:10] And that's the thing, like, every time I'm—

[30:12] Genetic memory of mail delivery routes, Dan?

[30:14] Yep.

[30:15] Every time I'm playing Mario Kart, I wish a fucking ghost spirit would show up and show me where the shortcuts are so I stop looking like a fool.

[30:22] Of course, you're probably wondering, just to let everybody know, when I play Mario Kart, I always play Wario.

[30:29] No one else.

[30:30] Only Wario.

[30:31] What?

[30:31] Exactly.

[30:33] Who are you looking like a fool to in this scenario, Stuart?

[30:37] Toad, Yoshi, the princess.

[30:40] That's the one that hurts the most.

[30:42] Okay.

[30:42] The dry bones.

[30:45] Now, these sled dogs, they were advertised back then as the original Mario Kart.

[30:51] But for the first time ever, thanks to Buck's super fast leading, they actually deliver the mail on time.

[30:58] And people, this is what, Skagway? Is this where they are now?

[31:01] I think so. And they deliver it in a shower of letters, right?

[31:04] We know this is consequential because earlier in the film, Francois or whatever his name is, Jean-Luc Picard says,

[31:12] uh he goes like i want to try a parole so i want to try and deliver the mail on time

[31:18] but i never have yeah and then he takes a big bite out of a baguette yeah which is weird because

[31:26] again he is quebecois yeah not french well it sounds more french than canadian he rolls out

[31:32] a giant scroll that has all of his life's goals written on it and that's the only one that isn't

[31:36] crossed off every other one has been crossed off yeah yeah have sex in the rain that was

[31:41] which is why the scene now that he has done it he walks off into the forest he walks off into the

[31:48] void well the second closest thing anyway people love the mail they get perot's like we don't just

[31:53] carry mail we carry lives and this was to be honest the valentine to the postal service that

[31:57] i needed right now uh the there is that hidden critique of the mail is never on time in this

[32:02] movie and i don't know what he means by on schedule since it's like i don't know it's the

[32:05] 1890s and you're in alaska with a dog sled how how tough are they with the deadlines i don't know

[32:10] But Buck even shows he's got a little heart by delaying the next day's mail delivery until Harrison Ford can give them the letter he wrote to his wife about his grief over their dead son.

[32:20] More on that later.

[32:21] But when they get to the next place, the mail route has been terminated.

[32:24] Probably the president trying to fix the election, I've got to assume.

[32:27] They're just pulling mailboxes out of the Yukon.

[32:30] The dog team is sold to these snooty dilettante gold seekers played by Dan Stevens and Karen Gillan.

[32:36] That's right, everybody.

[32:37] It's the Legion Nebula team-up we were all waiting for.

[32:40] and dan stevens is uh he's putting out some serious war uh waluigi energy here and it also

[32:46] it feels a little bit like he's like i need to tarnish my goody goody image by beating up dogs

[32:52] he is very much the bad guy he is a real waluigi yeah yeah he's deliciously villainous he has a

[32:58] villain's mustache to go with his attitude but also karen gillen is one of the other like larger

[33:04] names and i'm like what what like she shows up in like two scenes to be like maybe we should

[33:09] listen to Harrison Ford and that's it yeah she doesn't I have to say like Jesse was saying I

[33:15] wouldn't be surprised me if there was a heavy edit done uh what I would call a three I called

[33:20] a thin red line where the editing process removes whole storylines and even actors and things like

[33:25] that honestly I thought I thought Karen Gillan did a great job but I would have liked to have

[33:29] seen a comedian Natasha Leggero take this one on yes like a lady in a Victorian dress relaxing on

[33:37] a dog sled sipping a bellini or whatever is exactly what natasha would have kicked butt at

[33:42] yeah yeah that's a fair it's fair although we wouldn't have gotten the mcu 20th century x-men

[33:48] star wars crossover that we get when harrison ford tells them uh you don't know what you're

[33:53] doing you're going to kill all those dogs excuse me elliot this is a pbs crossover between dr who

[33:59] and downton abbey thank you very much there's got to be someone's got to have written a down

[34:05] a Downton Abbey Doctor Who crossover story, right?

[34:07] Yeah, they'd be fucking...

[34:09] I don't think you know that much

[34:11] about the Doctor. He's kind of a...

[34:14] He doesn't really do a lot of that, but...

[34:15] Yeah, but maybe he watches, Elliot. I mean, I don't know

[34:17] what he's into. He's got a lot of companions.

[34:19] How great would a crossover be where it's

[34:21] Tom Baker's Doctor and Maggie Smith

[34:23] from Downton Abbey. She's his new companion, and

[34:25] they're just traveling time and space.

[34:27] This, like, snooty, very sarcastic

[34:30] rich old lady, and the

[34:31] craziest man who was ever on television

[34:33] in any way, shape, or form.

[34:35] with a long scarf.

[34:36] What a great story.

[34:37] Someone write it.

[34:38] Send it to me.

[34:38] I'm not going to write it.

[34:39] I don't have time.

[34:40] I've got two children.

[34:41] Okay, anyway.

[34:41] These rich jerks,

[34:43] they're treating the dogs terribly.

[34:44] Harrison Ford tracks them down,

[34:46] and he frees Buck,

[34:47] but Dan Stevens takes the rest of the dogs away

[34:49] at gunpoint,

[34:49] and you know they're all doomed.

[34:51] You just know it.

[34:52] There's no way they're going to survive.

[34:53] Yeah, including all the other humans

[34:57] that are on the sled.

[34:58] They're doomed, too.

[34:59] Yeah, they're all doomed.

[35:00] They never show back up.

[35:01] And they leave knowing that they're doomed.

[35:03] Ford takes Buck back home,

[35:05] And he goes to a bar and Dan Stevens attacks Ford at a bar saying, everybody fell through the ice and died.

[35:11] He blames Harrison Ford for it because he can't own up to his own mistakes.

[35:14] But who's there to save Harrison Ford?

[35:16] It's Buck.

[35:17] That's right.

[35:18] He knows where his bread is buttered.

[35:20] With the nice man.

[35:21] With the harmonica.

[35:22] Now, guys, I'm looking at fanfiction.net right now.

[35:27] And there are 22 stories that are Doctor Who and Downton Abbey crossovers.

[35:32] Great.

[35:33] including such titles as The Housekeeper's Tale, The Madman and the Rebel.

[35:38] Wait, is that T-A-L-E or T-A-I-L?

[35:41] That's a good question.

[35:43] I didn't see.

[35:44] We've got Vera and the Dalek.

[35:46] Just guessing.

[35:47] Guess which one it was.

[35:48] Anyway, so, you know, God bless you out there.

[35:52] Keep it up.

[35:53] Okay, now look and see if there's any crossroads between Back to the Future and the Monster Serial Universe.

[35:58] You know, Count Chocula, Frank and Barry.

[36:02] Is this your way to keep me shut up, Elliot?

[36:05] No, I really like when you show the initiative to do research, and I want to gratify that and keep it going.

[36:11] I want to encourage it.

[36:13] Buck, he knows that Harrison Ford is drinking too much.

[36:17] He takes Harrison Ford's whiskey bottle and buries it in the snow and sits on it, what I'm calling a dogtervention.

[36:23] And Harrison Ford explains to him, oh, I had a son and he died of fever.

[36:28] He always dreamed of exploring the unmapped areas of the Yukon.

[36:31] hey Buck you and me could go off and do that together and they do and they're canoeing through

[36:38] the rapids and they get caught in rapids and I was like oh no something bad's gonna happen

[36:41] no the boat just springs a leak and Harrison Ford goes I guess that's the end of that boat

[36:45] and they just keep walking there is a part where Harrison Ford has to explain to Buck what a boat

[36:49] is he's like it's a boat we're gonna ride on it Harrison Ford lets Buck share his tent they're

[36:58] having an idyllic time and they have something between a father-son relationship a man-dog

[37:02] relationship and kind of like two people who have just fallen in love and just can't get enough of

[37:06] each other and just want to can't they just don't never want to be apart uh yeah there was a part

[37:11] later on where uh harrison ford was talking to buck about how you know he and his wife just

[37:16] drifted apart after their son's death and i didn't expect him to end it with and now you're my wife

[37:21] he's like but even before that we had a sort of arrangement

[37:26] my grieving wife and i have an understanding uh there's a moment where they're out in the

[37:34] wilderness and it's beautiful there and ford tells buck your ancestors used to roam here

[37:37] and mine back when we were wild and i was like your ancestors harrison ford

[37:42] yeah in santa clarita california where they shot this movie

[37:47] where they obviously shot this movie if we go back to the cradle of civilization maybe

[37:54] maybe there's a lot of there's a lot of scenes where characters like go outside and it's snowy

[38:00] but they're like there's no breeze and it doesn't actually look that cold it's that kind of a it's

[38:05] that kind of a cold winter spot right yeah there are many scenes of transportation there are many

[38:11] like long montages of them uh cruising the dogs the dog sleigh through the you know through the

[38:19] alaskan wilderness that really look like they were they look like they were painted by the

[38:28] the painter of light thomas kincaid uh yeah like if you told if you told him like uh take this

[38:35] still photograph we took of a hill in santa clarita and really northern lights it up

[38:42] um that's pretty much what like there is no there none of the movie outside of harrison

[38:49] ford's face looks like something you could actually touch yeah i was i mean even then

[38:54] sorry i was just going to talk about how i assumed i was going to see uh the crowd from

[39:01] the pod racing scenes of star wars behind every corner but you know it's not that important no

[39:05] No, no, I just wanted to warn our audience, even then you're going to want to get Harrison Ford's permission before you touch his face.

[39:09] That's true.

[39:11] Consent is important.

[39:12] But it is, it does feel like there is a version of this movie, I'm sure they've made multiple versions of this movie over the years.

[39:19] I've never seen the 30s one, which apparently this one takes some elements from.

[39:22] But there's a, I guarantee you there's some version of this movie that was shot in the 60s where they really went to Alaska and they really had real dogs and everybody hated making it.

[39:32] But I kind of wanted a little bit of that in this.

[39:35] It loses a sense of reality that I would have liked to have seen.

[39:39] Or either that, or I would have liked them to go all the way and just make this an animated movie.

[39:43] There's no reason this couldn't be like a regular 2D Disney hand-drawn animated movie.

[39:49] And then you get some songs.

[39:51] Maybe the dogs talk a little bit.

[39:53] Josh Gad gets a paycheck.

[39:55] Yeah, Josh Gad is like the goofy dog from the sleds.

[39:58] He's like, hey, Buck, hey, you know, we got to, you know, hey, you know, what's going on?

[40:02] Oh, that's Spitz, and Spitz is what, like, it can't be Jeremy Irons again.

[40:05] Spitz would be like Willem Dafoe, I guess.

[40:07] Cut to a stack of screenplays on Elliot's desk, all of which just over and over say,

[40:12] Josh Gad, colon, hey, you know, hey, hey, you know.

[40:16] Well, I mean, like, this is a thing that we talked about when we were watching it here,

[40:23] that, like, they could take this basic, exact screenplay and exact tone,

[40:32] And if, yeah, if Disney had made it like sometime around like Beauty and the Beast or something, everyone would be like, this is great.

[40:39] You know, it's, it, it really, it feels like it should be that.

[40:44] I wonder if they pitched originally as an animated movie and they said, guys, Balto exists.

[40:49] The animated Alaskan sled dog movie is taken.

[40:53] We can't do it again.

[40:54] We're never going to erase Balto in people's minds and hearts.

[40:58] And they're like, well, why don't we just buy up all the prints and DVDs of Balto and pretend it never existed?

[41:02] You know, like we did with Shazam, the Sinbad Genie movie that did exist, but we erased it from the permanent record forever.

[41:11] The thing that's a little bit of a bummer about the middle ground that they chose in how they present the film to me is there are a lot of things in the movie that work.

[41:26] You know, we talked about Harrison Ford.

[41:28] is wonderful like i would just watch harrison ford and his elderly man uh giant ears and nose

[41:34] uh big david letterman beard like i would love to totally ripped body i know

[41:40] and he comes up and i'm like what the fuck all that dude all that dude does is puff jays and

[41:48] do pull-ups yeah um so like there's a lot of great things about it but like thematically

[41:55] i think it is really poorly served by not having something you can sink your teeth into and that

[42:02] was probably not the uh turn of phrase i should have used because it sounds like i'm doing a

[42:07] pun here but like no no you're you're the modern day gene shallot just go run with it the fact

[42:12] that there's no the fact that there's no grit in the movie and there really is almost no grit in

[42:16] the movie other than harrison ford's face yeah is not just a bummer because i like a to watch a

[42:23] gritty movie or whatever you know like the the screenwriter of this also wrote logan which i

[42:29] i'm gonna alienate 60 of the listeners but i thought stunk but and was very gritty but like

[42:36] but there's something about the theme that is served by grittiness right like the story is

[42:42] yeah him descending into animalistic brutality right and like that and that these human beings

[42:50] are drawn into it by their greed uh outside of harrison ford's character and uh they like

[42:57] destroy each other and that he has to that buck has to learn to live freely within this new set

[43:03] of more brutal and terrifying but ultimately more satisfying rules as an animal right rather than as

[43:10] a rather than as a a false human you know in the judge's household right and like none of that

[43:18] means anything like none of him getting hurt and sick and being under threat and being

[43:26] beaten into submission by a club like none of that means anything in the context of a movie

[43:31] for seven-year-olds so either make it just like sweet and pretty which you could do or or give it

[43:39] something that was that was the bummer part to me about like the the painted on northern lights in

[43:45] every scene it's like i just want to see one thing go wrong and i actually watched um what's that

[43:52] called uh benji i watched benji not that long ago like maybe like nine or nine months and it is

[43:59] boring and homemade like this is original benji it is the most 1978 independent film you could

[44:06] ever watch but i think that quality of having an actual dog on screen where where it does the wrong

[44:14] thing a lot draws you in in a way that having this perfect but slightly hazy because they're

[44:23] not quite good enough at the cgi dog on the screen does i think that's i think that's true and also

[44:30] there is a i did get a sense from it that like yeah for a movie that is about a civilized dog

[44:35] being forced into primordial savagery to survive everything comes a little easily to buck like he

[44:42] never it's like oh he's working real hard but he's not really pushing himself to work hard like

[44:47] he everything is kind of dealt with when a problem comes up it's kind of dealt with right away and he

[44:52] feels consistent in a way like it almost feels like he is ennobling his surroundings rather than

[44:58] being drawn into them and being transformed which i think like in some ways the book is sort of like

[45:05] uh it is almost a satire of the idea of like of of a character learning and growing right because

[45:12] he is receding into his essential nature rather than expanding and becoming fancier and clever

[45:19] cleverer and in the movie it feels like he's kind of uh he's kind of a very friendly handsome

[45:28] big guy who goes into all these different situations and is like uh hey guys let's do it

[45:36] my way uh i'll make two holes in the ice for you to drink water from and everybody's like yeah you

[45:42] are the best so let's just say it buck is in this movie buck is the fairest bueller of dogs

[45:47] everyone loves him he never has to try very hard he gets whatever he wants and for i mean this

[45:53] movie lifts uh like the trajectory and plot points directly from the the recent uh the first

[46:00] plan of the apes movie from the recent batch uh and buck is very much like a caesar type character

[46:06] and he ends up like leading a bunch of wolves and there's even a moment where he like catches a

[46:11] stick in his mouth instead of getting hit and i remember being like when i saw that plan of the

[46:17] apes movie i was like oh fuck yeah beat him up caesar uh but in this you know it had it didn't

[46:22] have that emotional impact no because he's already he's already triumphed over everything all the

[46:26] time uh so buck and ford they find an old prospector's cabin they decide to stay a little

[46:31] bit especially when harrison ford finds some gold nuggets in the river while skinny dipping this is

[46:35] when we see his hot dad bod better than dad bod even this is a this is like i mean he is is he a

[46:40] dad i don't know anyway how could you tell those were gold nuggets that he found was it because

[46:46] They were like, gold, yippee, yahi, hoo-hoo.

[46:49] They were like highly polished, refined.

[46:53] It truly looked like he found something

[46:56] that had been spray-painted high-gloss gold seven times.

[47:01] I mean, I'll let the movie get away with that.

[47:03] In case somebody wondered if it was brass that he found or whatever.

[47:08] Yeah, a trumpet got shattered in the cold

[47:12] and the pieces are just in the water.

[47:15] It was like he's like, I found diamonds, and he lifts an engagement ring out of the river was basically what it was like.

[47:20] They're panning for gold.

[47:23] And again, they're panning for gold and getting nuggets, which is, if I'm going to go with Jesse, that's not how panning for gold works.

[47:29] You get dust when you pan for gold.

[47:30] I like the idea that at the beginning of his pan for gold, he couldn't see the like two and a half inch diameter nuggets that were in his one inch of water.

[47:41] And Buck catches the eye of a sexy lady wolf,

[47:44] but she runs away when he tries to meet with her.

[47:46] But he wins over the wolf pack when, hey, guess what?

[47:49] He saves a wolf from drowning in the river.

[47:51] That's what Buck does.

[47:51] He saves people from drowning.

[47:53] Show us something different that Buck does.

[47:55] And Neptune hates him.

[47:57] The wolves all have these reaction shots like,

[48:01] okay, okay, I like this guy.

[48:04] You're almost at the point of a wolf wearing sunglasses

[48:07] and lowering the sunglasses to look over them at Buck.

[48:11] Now Bucky runs with the wolves, Harrison Ford is like, you know what, I've been cleansed of this experience and this adventure, I should go home.

[48:16] He says goodbye, but before he can leave, who's going to return? It's Dan Stevens.

[48:21] That's right, the guest, but he's no guest this time, he's an invader.

[48:24] He shoots Harrison Ford and he threatens Buck.

[48:27] How bummed were you guys that Dan Stevens didn't show up with fucking spits with him, right?

[48:32] Shouldn't they have shown up together?

[48:33] I mean, that would have been the more Hollywood way to do it, yeah.

[48:37] If it's all of Buck's enemies are now banded together.

[48:41] And then Spitz has like a monologue, like a Richard III monologue where he's like, cast out and ignored.

[48:47] Now I shall have my day.

[48:49] Well, you'd have the part where Dan Stevens is like, I meant to have my whole family die in the ice.

[48:54] It was all part of my plan.

[48:55] You fell right into my fingers.

[48:57] He threatens Buck with a club that hated club, but Buck fights back.

[49:01] He's not afraid anymore after cringing for maybe like a millisecond.

[49:04] He shoves Dan Stevens into a burning cabin to die horribly.

[49:08] Viking funeral.

[49:11] Yeah, and Harrison Ford dies in Buck's paws after a touching goodbye.

[49:16] And now, with his voiceover from Beyond the Grave, he explains that Buck has started a new pack.

[49:21] He's had babies with a sexy lady wolf.

[49:22] They even stare down a bear together.

[49:25] It's a very, like, Last Unicorn Red Bull moment.

[49:28] Yeah, yeah, because he just chugs that Red Bull down.

[49:30] And the bear is like, I don't want any part of this.

[49:33] This dude's wildin'.

[49:35] And the VO tells us how after going from master to master, now Buck is his own master.

[49:41] he fought as he followed some primordial urge from the wilderness and then title the call of

[49:48] the wild as if the title was trying to prompt harrison ford about what phrase he was supposed

[49:52] to end the movie on uh and that's the end of the movie yeah that ending is an example of a

[49:58] phenomenon throughout the film which is like every 15 minutes or so there's just a brief scene

[50:04] where someone says out loud what's like what's happening and what the themes are

[50:08] uh and each one of those things like some some of them seem to have been part of the like added

[50:15] in voiceover parts some of them are scenes that that are between uh harrison ford and buck where

[50:22] harrison ford explains the themes in buck's life to buck like a psychoanalyst um and it was and

[50:30] And they all have this goofy grand eloquence that is so unearned, so profoundly unearned.

[50:38] Yeah, it feels very much like a dad has sat me down and he's telling me a story and I'm like, dude, I know what you're getting at.

[50:46] Just because you're saying it slowly doesn't mean it's important.

[50:48] And where would you rank this in the Harrison Ford voiceover pantheon?

[50:52] Better or worse than the Blade Runner studio cut voiceover?

[50:58] I like both versions of Blade Runner.

[51:00] Call me crazy.

[51:01] I enjoy them all.

[51:02] I'm on record by preferring the version with the voiceover.

[51:06] So, I mean, I know that he's not doing much in that,

[51:11] but, I mean, I still feel like that feels appropriate to the character.

[51:15] What, in Blade Runner?

[51:16] Yeah.

[51:17] Well, in Blade Runner, it also does the necessary thing

[51:20] of explaining to you what's happening in this movie

[51:22] where the scenes make no sense and don't go together.

[51:25] Yeah.

[51:26] you know but okay so let's call it a draw then call the wild harrison ford blade runner harrison

[51:31] ford equals equal in esteem let's uh let's do our final judgments whether this was a good bad movie

[51:38] a bad bad movie or a movie we kind of liked guys if i was like 20 years old say i don't think i'd

[51:47] like this movie but if i was seven i would like this movie and now at 40 i also like this movie

[51:55] and i think you know like seven it might have been just like lower standards and being like

[52:01] seeing a cute dog having adventures uh and now a lot of it is ironically since

[52:08] one of the problems with this movie as a call of the wild adaptation is its lack of brutality

[52:14] what i enjoy about it is it's kind of a throwback to a gentler slower style of family film that

[52:22] maybe i'm just nostalgic for i don't know but i think that you know harrison ford does a great

[52:27] job i'm glad that they didn't really hollywood up the plot points all that much even though

[52:33] you know they did somewhat uh and you know i i thought it was fun i i when harrison ford was

[52:40] about to get shot i could see that this was going to be the scene where it happened where dan stephen

[52:46] was gonna show up and I was like gripping Audrey's like uh leg Audrey who had lost interest long ago

[52:53] but I was like no no Dan Stevens is gonna shoot Harrison Ford and so the movie got me yeah I I

[53:00] actually liked it a lot I think I would have had the same trajectory as you Dan that as a kid I

[53:04] would have liked it as a young man I would have been like oh this middle brow gentle adaptation

[53:09] of a of a book I don't need it but now it's a movie that goes down real smooth it and like

[53:15] especially for a kids movie it's what you can say call the wild may not really be the best

[53:20] material for a kids movie but also for a kids movie i don't need something that is super gritty

[53:26] and raw or anything like that and certainly as someone who is also not a fan of logan like i

[53:32] don't need the i don't need the logan version of this where buck is like cursing and like ripping

[53:37] people's heads off and stuff like that this is it there was something about this movie just being a

[53:41] movie where i could be like i'm watching it and i'm finding this pleasant and by the end of it

[53:47] oh you know i feel good about buck oh you know digging into it into some of the like like i was

[53:52] saying some of the um cultural uh subtext of it that's not a great idea don't do that because

[53:57] you're gonna be unhappy with it maybe but as a viewing experience i when i finished watching it

[54:01] i was like oh this is the rare flop house movie where i wish i had watched this with my son because

[54:06] i think he probably would have enjoyed it some of the dog stuff might have been a little scary for

[54:10] him but that's just him and dogs you know maybe that would any movie with a dog he might have felt

[54:14] that way about uh although he did watch oliver and company recently and that's with dogs in it

[54:20] and he liked that uh but yeah what about all dogs go to heaven he's never i've actually never seen

[54:25] that i've only ever seen little bits of it and they're only the hell bits and it's kept me from

[54:29] wanting to ever watch that movie because i don't need to see dogs going to hell also elliot sammy

[54:33] liked uh oliver and company mostly because it was an adaptation of oliver twist which of course he

[54:38] is his favorite novel well that was the second reason his favorite the reason i liked him most

[54:42] is because he's such a big billy joel fan oh okay he's like finally my two favorite things disney

[54:47] movies and the bard of long island they're in one place finally uh but yeah i actually

[54:53] like this movie quite a bit okay guys stewart jesse tell me why i'm wrong oh i don't know i

[54:59] mean i'm gonna say i actually think this is a bad bad movie um but i don't like i'm not i ain't mad

[55:05] at it it just like there's there's so little there uh it feels it feels very like rewritten

[55:12] uh it's not gonna stick in my brain i don't know and and there's i mean there's no grit at all like

[55:18] i don't need it to be like fucking cormac mccarthy or anything but uh but like i don't know like it

[55:25] it it would have felt night it would have been nice if it felt like any of these characters

[55:29] were anywhere other than a soundstage or in a nice part of california yeah that's true i have

[55:34] watched a lot of really terrible children's movies and almost exclusively like my I have

[55:41] three children the oldest of whom just turned nine and my media diet has really dwindled to like

[55:47] one comforting half-hour television program at the end of the day before I fall asleep

[55:54] and movies I have to watch for work and for my NPR show which are tend to be you know fancy

[56:01] indie movies first cow or something and i have no complaints about that part of my life that's great

[56:06] that i get to do that for work and then kids movies that often unlike elliot i haven't been

[56:12] able to trick my children into watching kids movies that i want to watch very often um so

[56:17] elliot is just hanging out watching marx brothers movies and the adventures of robin hood and stuff

[56:22] and like i tried just robin hood was a big hit big hit with sammy i tried to get i tried to get

[56:27] my kids to watch uh i tried to get my kids to watch uh singing in the rain and failed um another

[56:33] another favorite in the family the two-year-old loves it it's a hoot yeah uh but i couldn't get

[56:37] him i couldn't get him to go for it so i've seen a lot of like uh i've seen a lot of just boring

[56:42] lame-ass kids movies and this movie is definitely better than those it like you know it's a two-star

[56:48] movie it's not a total failure harrison ford is wonderful it's a i like watching dogs but i do

[56:56] i do think it's a bad bad movie like even it is ultimately betwixt and between like they should

[57:03] have made a choice either we're going to make a beautiful children's movie uh that's very sweet

[57:09] or we're going to make a movie with a little bit of zip to it it doesn't have any zip to it other

[57:15] than harrison ford's face as i mentioned um yeah and it isn't very beautiful like it really does

[57:20] as stewart say everything looks like somebody just uh somebody just used a stock animation

[57:28] for northern lights on top of a shot of a of a hill in santa ana and you know who i'm going to

[57:34] blame for that this is going to be this i'm sorry to interrupt this is going to be controversial

[57:38] the cinematographer on this is janice kaminsky and i am totally going to blame him because the last

[57:43] 12 years 15 years of his movies have been kind of that same glossy yeah very very post cgi uh

[57:52] soft look and like he does all of steven spielberg's or most of steven spielberg's most

[57:57] recent movies and they all have that same kind of like fakey studio look and i'll say i watched a

[58:03] few of those um disney live action reinterpretations of classic disney cartoon movies i saw a lady in

[58:11] the tramp and i saw beauty and the beast and um if it's got an ampersand you'll watch it yeah

[58:17] those like also have things with an and in the middle those also have uh ampersand fan.com

[58:22] fan percent those also have things to recommend them like uh beauty and the beast has those

[58:27] wonderful songs and the harry potter lady is fantastic in that movie and dan stevens in that

[58:32] one too yeah but the aesthetics of them are such a garbage pile and i will admit that they are worse

[58:37] it's the a worse version of the same thing this kind of like everything looks like a thomas

[58:42] kincaid painting uh but like everything has that weird softness to it in order to accommodate the

[58:49] fact that they can't quite make the dog look right um and uh so it's hardly the worst but

[58:56] but it's a it's a bad bad movie like if i watch it with my daughter because she wanted to watch

[59:01] it i would have been grateful that it wasn't total garbage uh but having watched it by myself

[59:07] because my wife wanted to watch it because my daughter wanted to watch a harry potter movie

[59:12] last night for big kid movie night instead um i was i was bummed that i had wasted that piece

[59:17] that chunk of my life on it yeah welcome to the flop house my friend welcome to the flop house

[59:23] it's all about wasting chunks of your life wow a real split decision here so i guess we're gonna

[59:29] have to leave it up to our uh guest judge harrison ford uh harrison ford what do you think is this a

[59:34] movie you kind of like it's weird that it's not bradley whitford because he was the judge in the

[59:38] movie uh yeah that's true but he's not a judge in real life unlike harrison ford who is a judge now

[59:42] on the federal bench uh so judge ford what do you think all right well thanks harrison i guess

[59:48] that's it's non-committal so i guess we'll just have to live with a split decision on this one

[59:53] was a pretty good harrison ford growl i gotta say thank you thanks um so oh one thing i wanted to

[1:00:00] mention actually this is a bit that i forgot i was gonna do i i didn't i had i had forgotten that

[1:00:05] call the wild sorry should we put in our forgotten bits theme here that uh harris no this is me

[1:00:11] saying what you guys all we're all saved from that call the wild is very similar to the plot of dune

[1:00:16] in that it's about an outsider who comes into a more savage wilderness and becomes the leader of

[1:00:22] a becomes part of a tribe and then the leader of that tribe and so i was originally going to start

[1:00:25] doing the plot as tom brokaw for those flop house fans who love tom brokaw describing dune

[1:00:30] but i forgot to so okay well don't do it now throw that into werner herzog's cave of forgotten bits

[1:00:37] i mean it seems like it would take a lot of a lot of setup for that

[1:00:41] but what kind of flop house bit doesn't involve a lot of setup true

[1:00:47] schmanners noun definition rules of etiquette designed not to judge others but rather to guide

[1:00:58] ourselves through everyday social situations hello internet i'm your husband host travis

[1:01:03] mcelroy and i'm your wife host theresa mcelroy every week on schmanners we take a look at a

[1:01:08] topic that has to do with society or manners we talk about the history of it we take a look at

[1:01:13] how it applies to everyday life and we take some of your questions and sometimes we do a biography

[1:01:19] about a really cool person that had an impact on how we view etiquette so join us every friday and

[1:01:25] listen to schmanners on maximumfun.org or wherever podcasts are found manners schmanners get it

[1:01:32] if you're looking for a new comedy podcast why not try the beef and dairy network it won best

[1:01:40] comedy at the british podcast awards in 2017 and 2018 also i love there were no horses in this

[1:01:48] country until the mid to late 60s specialist bovine ass vet both of his eyes are squid's eyes

[1:01:53] yogurt buffet she was married to a bacon farmer who saved her life farm raised snow leopard

[1:02:00] downloaded today that's the beef and dairy network podcast from maximum fun

[1:02:06] dot org also maybe start at episode one or weirdly episode 36 which for some reason requires no

[1:02:13] knowledge of the rest of the show so uh we've got a couple of sponsors i would offer for uh jesse to

[1:02:21] not be here for this but they're pretty there's just only two so i'm forcing them to sit around

[1:02:25] uh elliot do you want to take the sponsor for once sure i'll take the sponsor today's flop house is

[1:02:32] brought to you by you guessed it Squarespace look Squarespace is the place for you to go to

[1:02:38] to create your own website I've been meaning to do it for a while to create my own website

[1:02:41] in the future we're all going to live on the internet we're all going to need our own websites

[1:02:44] you should get and start go out there start making your own website and Squarespace makes it so easy

[1:02:49] your website will be beautiful let's say you got a cool idea I have cool ideas all the time they

[1:02:53] just disappear into the ether because I don't get around to make them into websites I should do

[1:02:56] Squarespace technically Elliot we have seen that pile of screenplays on your desk yeah most of my

[1:03:01] cool well i need to make josh gad hey uh what.com uh your place for screenplays that involve josh

[1:03:08] gad being like hey guy uh hey uh over here so i'm gonna take that cool idea i'm gonna use

[1:03:12] squarespace to make it into a website i can blog on there i can publish my content i can sell all

[1:03:16] my products my josh gad hey hey guy hey t-shirts and uh services if you need me to introduce into

[1:03:22] put that into your screenplay does even more and here's how squarespace makes the difference

[1:03:27] It's because they've got their templates.

[1:03:29] You can customize them.

[1:03:30] They look great.

[1:03:31] So your website looks professional.

[1:03:33] You don't even need to code to do it.

[1:03:34] World-class designers designed this website and these templates.

[1:03:38] This is something that on Jordan, Jesse, Go, Elliot, we really like to emphasize.

[1:03:41] There's a lot of provincial designers out there designing templates.

[1:03:45] And if you want world-class designers,

[1:03:49] and I'm not even talking about state fair blue ribbon-type designers,

[1:03:53] but international.

[1:03:55] Olympics level.

[1:03:57] These designers, these designs, they work in Senegal.

[1:04:04] They work in Milan, Italy.

[1:04:10] That's in Italy.

[1:04:11] It's the fashion capital of the world.

[1:04:13] Name another place where it works.

[1:04:14] Give me another place.

[1:04:15] Sorry, I'm all out.

[1:04:16] But the point of the story is...

[1:04:19] Look, when Carmen Sandiego goes somewhere,

[1:04:21] she knows that her website is going to work there

[1:04:24] because it was designed by a world-class designer,

[1:04:26] Yeah, she could go to Milan or, wait, she could go to Senegal.

[1:04:32] It also works in Senegal.

[1:04:34] Wait, I got, okay, no, just kidding.

[1:04:36] I want to say Cleveland.

[1:04:36] No, just Milan and Senegal.

[1:04:37] No, that's wrong.

[1:04:38] Let's say you want your website to work on a mobile device and also on a computer.

[1:04:43] It does it right there for you.

[1:04:44] You don't have to worry about that.

[1:04:45] Right out of the box, it does it.

[1:04:46] And you can use it to buy domains.

[1:04:48] You can choose from over 200 extensions, free and secure hosting.

[1:04:51] It sounds amazing.

[1:04:52] I had a website that I want to talk to you guys about.

[1:04:55] it's called uh www.primordialspirit.com sometimes we have trouble getting in touch with our

[1:05:01] primordial spirits uh buck was lucky enough that he just wandered by where his lives the yukon

[1:05:05] but i haven't yet i've yet to find mine and i want to find it my primordial spirit i don't even know

[1:05:11] what it looks like it probably looks and sounds like emo phillips to be honest but i want to make

[1:05:15] sure primordialspirit.com matches you with primordial spirits shows you where they live

[1:05:20] maybe they're in your area maybe they're not uh in fact well we have one we're just in the area

[1:05:24] that's called uh primordial spirit friend finder and that gets a little that's just for adults

[1:05:29] elliot will this primordial spirit help me find all the shortcuts in mario kart so i stop looking

[1:05:34] like a real jerk i can't promise anything but yes i promise you that that is the case hey

[1:05:40] take off your headphones for a second elliot dan i was watching stewart play mario kart the other

[1:05:45] day and this guy looked like a real jerk tell me about this guy looked like a real jerk you

[1:05:52] wouldn't believe oh stewart's putting his headphones back on okay uh anyway okay what's

[1:05:57] up what i know nothing i was just talking about how with squarespace you can finally make the

[1:06:01] website you deserve just go to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial and when you're

[1:06:06] ready to launch use the offer code flop to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain

[1:06:13] that's squarespace.com slash flop now uh before we move on jesse i just want to say uh i appreciate

[1:06:19] that during the um thinking of places bit uh your restraint i know that you're famously unwilling to

[1:06:27] talk about san francisco so i i appreciate that you held that line firm today uh i want to mention

[1:06:34] also so yes we're recording this the day after we did our live online the boy next door screenplay

[1:06:40] reading with our good friends of the podcast, Hallie Haglund, Ginny Jaffe, Natalie Walker,

[1:06:45] and Jordan Morris filling in at the last minute and really helping us out. And that will be up

[1:06:50] on our YouTube page in case you missed it at some point in the future. I think it just went

[1:06:54] up today, right? It's there now. Oh, it's there now. Well, then some point in the past when you're

[1:06:57] listening to this. Also, I think this comes out like two weeks from now. Is the YouTube link

[1:07:03] going to expire? Did we not do it yesterday? Is YouTube going to shut down? Yeah. If all your

[1:07:08] favorite creators are gonna be out of work dan yeah if we sound tired it's because with the

[1:07:15] intro outro and uh just the fact that our reading takes longer than a movie i think it was a two

[1:07:23] hour and 40 minute marathon getting through that script but i had a blast i really had fun doing it

[1:07:29] and people seem to enjoy it i had a really great time but i right now dan i don't think anybody has

[1:07:34] to uh explain why they sound tired oh that's true i feel like everyone sounds tired that's

[1:07:40] the condition right now i i would add to that stewart i don't think dan needs to explain why

[1:07:46] he sounds tired yeah uh between my tendencies towards depression and sleep apnea i uh you know

[1:07:55] uh speaking of everything going on in the world i woke up this morning thinking like

[1:07:59] hey, why the hell do my neck and shoulders feel so fucking bad right now?

[1:08:07] Did you figure it out?

[1:08:08] It might be because I've been carrying stress in them for the past five months.

[1:08:11] So that's the only part where we'll reference the outside world.

[1:08:16] No, we're going to reference it one more time

[1:08:18] because late September, my new book, Sharko and Hippo, comes out.

[1:08:22] That's right.

[1:08:22] It's a kid's book by me with an all-new set of characters, Sharko and Hippo.

[1:08:27] Anyway, the art is by Andrea Cerumi, who did a great book called Accident That I Love, and Sharko and Hippo is coming out in late September to bookstores near you.

[1:08:36] Order them through a bookstore and then have it delivered to your door because, you know, of what's happening in the outside world.

[1:08:42] Now, this Sharko and this Hippo, are they sort of an Island of Dr. Moreau-Marx Brothers duo?

[1:08:47] Without the Island of Dr. Moreau part, yes.

[1:08:50] Okay, great.

[1:08:51] Hey, let's read some letters from you, the listeners.

[1:08:57] This one is from John from Milwaukee.

[1:09:00] What's that call out there?

[1:09:02] Do I hear something coming through the snowy waste?

[1:09:05] That's why it's Perot, the dog sled mailman, bringing the letters back to the flop house.

[1:09:11] Sometimes our letters come from far away, far away in the frozen north.

[1:09:17] The Yukon, where letters sometimes go and sometimes come from.

[1:09:21] That's how mail works.

[1:09:23] Letters come from and go to the same places sometimes.

[1:09:27] All the way from Senegal to Milan.

[1:09:30] But in this case, it's the Yukon where these letters are coming from.

[1:09:34] And here comes that dog sled of letters down the track to the flop house.

[1:09:40] It feels weird to be annoyed by those letter songs right now with the way what's going on with the postal service.

[1:09:46] Yeah, they need all the encouragement they can get.

[1:09:49] I'm trying to do my part.

[1:09:51] Yeah, come on.

[1:09:52] Thanks, Elliot.

[1:09:53] uh so this first letter from john says my wife and i so john that's the full name no last name

[1:10:00] withheld just that's the full name john well earlier i said john from milwaukee kind of

[1:10:04] forgetting the bit for a second but uh yeah it's john from cincinnati oh wow it writes and says

[1:10:11] does anyone know what was going on in my show because i sure don't david milch hasn't responded

[1:10:17] to name my text

[1:10:18] he must be

[1:10:19] bedridden again

[1:10:20] he must be busy

[1:10:22] dealing with

[1:10:23] all of his debts

[1:10:24] anyway

[1:10:24] continue

[1:10:25] John says

[1:10:26] my wife and I

[1:10:27] recently watched

[1:10:28] Green Room

[1:10:28] and enjoyed it

[1:10:29] but even greater

[1:10:30] was near the end

[1:10:31] of the movie

[1:10:31] the presence

[1:10:32] of the Dragonlance

[1:10:34] book

[1:10:34] Dragons of Spring

[1:10:36] Dawning

[1:10:36] was on the

[1:10:37] console of the van

[1:10:38] I read the hell

[1:10:39] out of that series

[1:10:40] in middle school

[1:10:40] and bought it

[1:10:41] for my 6th grader

[1:10:42] for Christmas

[1:10:43] what aspect

[1:10:44] of your real life

[1:10:46] appearing in a film

[1:10:47] were you excited to see i remember it's not a film but um there were a couple of episodes of

[1:10:53] mad men where uh don draper's uh tumblers um i guess they're more like rocks glasses uh were

[1:11:01] this sort of you know obviously because of the time period they were uh mid-century modern but

[1:11:07] also because mid-century modern was big because of mad men at that time period i also had these

[1:11:14] tumblers these sort of throwback tumblers with the squares etched into the uh sides of the glass

[1:11:19] so that's the one i remember what about you guys that that's not that far from being like i was

[1:11:25] really excited to watch gremlins 2 because i had a full set of the gremlins 2 trading cards i bought

[1:11:29] because of how much i love gremlins 2 i think you got it stew i think you got it i mean i i we had

[1:11:37] them before we started watching madman let's just who hasn't i i i liked them back when they were

[1:11:43] cool who hasn't dreamed of capturing the depths of sadness uh reflected in don draper's compulsive

[1:11:51] drinking uh well uh i don't know like i mentioned earlier that i got excited when uh in the movie

[1:12:00] the call of the wild they go to skagway because uh what two years ago dan and i and some assorted

[1:12:07] friends, went to Skagway. That was really fun. Other than that, I don't know. I was really

[1:12:13] excited when I saw the 40-year-old version of the theater, and I saw some of the miniatures that

[1:12:19] Steve Carell's character was painting, and I'm like, oh, wow, I have some of those.

[1:12:22] I think I'm going to have to say, anytime I see certain parts of New York specifically that I am

[1:12:29] well acquainted with in movies, I'm like, hey, I know that place. A movie that I love,

[1:12:33] the landlord was shot around my old neighborhood in Park Slope, Brooklyn. And there is a big Coca

[1:12:39] Cola sign on a pizza place that was still standing for most of the time that I lived there. And I was

[1:12:44] like, oh, wow, that sign's been up there for like 50 years. This is amazing. It's like when you saw

[1:12:49] Squid and the Whale and you're like, oh, I just in that book. Like I that diorama also reminded

[1:12:55] me of my parents divorce when I would go visit this visit as a young man. But the time weirdly

[1:13:01] that I felt that way the most was

[1:13:02] there's a very bad movie called Robot in the Family

[1:13:05] starring Joe Pantoliano and John Rhys-Davies

[1:13:07] about, it's like a robot that can find gold.

[1:13:11] It doesn't make any sense.

[1:13:12] But a lot of the movie, for whatever reason,

[1:13:15] was shot around this stretch of antique stores

[1:13:17] on Broadway between 14th Street

[1:13:19] and like 10th Street in Manhattan.

[1:13:22] And that was literally the street I walked.

[1:13:24] Those blocks I walked almost every day

[1:13:26] as an NYU student from my dorm to the classrooms.

[1:13:28] So when I watched this movie, I was like,

[1:13:30] i know that that whole block this is amazing and i was like i could i could have walked through

[1:13:35] this movie possibly so i could be a robot in the family it was very exciting even though the movie

[1:13:42] itself is terrible don't see it the uh the the literal version of this for me a hundred percent

[1:13:48] is the movie sister act which was shot like six or eight blocks from my childhood home

[1:13:54] And also Whoopi Goldberg taught you how to sing

[1:13:57] Yeah, that's true

[1:13:58] Yeah, she told me actually that R&B hits of the 1960s were gospel songs

[1:14:04] Which was an unusual tack to teaching singing

[1:14:08] But, you know

[1:14:09] And, I mean, it's like when that professor

[1:14:12] I had a music professor named Harold Hill

[1:14:14] And he taught me that all I had to do to play the trombone

[1:14:18] Was think that I knew how to play the trombone

[1:14:20] Which also, similarly, unusual technique

[1:14:23] but yeah that like seeing the church by my house with fake graffiti on it to make it look

[1:14:28] more scary and the irish bakery by my house and so on and so forth um that was like absolutely

[1:14:34] thrilling when that movie came out when i was 10 or 9 or however old i was when that movie came out

[1:14:39] and um but the more metaphorical version is my stepmother when i was uh in my late teens um

[1:14:46] said she had heard about this new bill murray movie that she thought i would really like

[1:14:51] and this was like right after like operation dumbo drop or whatever um was that the one that

[1:14:57] had bill murray in it there was two or was larger larger than life larger than life yeah this was

[1:15:02] right after operation dumbo drop was like what danny glover yeah maybe glover i think maybe

[1:15:07] dennis leary was in yeah i think dennis leary was in it as a yeah as like a 17 year old i did i had

[1:15:13] did not yet understand like bill murray was two years out of my demographic in terms of how good

[1:15:19] he was before his career revival and it turned out to be rushmore that my stepmother was telling

[1:15:26] me i should go see and like besides just being insufferable another thing i related to max

[1:15:33] fisher about was that like i was also a poor kid who went to a really fancy private school

[1:15:40] and fit very awkwardly and also i was the president of a lot of different clubs um and uh

[1:15:49] this makes a lot of sense yeah and um i actually had auditioned for rushmore i went to arts high

[1:15:55] school and they came and auditioned in their like search but i didn't even get to say a line that i

[1:16:00] was too tall they like i walked in they said sorry you're too tall and i walked out but um i i was

[1:16:07] i think it was the first time that i had seen a movie and like really directly related to themes

[1:16:13] in the character um and it was shocking to me like there were aspirational characters you know

[1:16:21] like i don't know maybe i thought i would like to be more like i don't know i was gonna say peewee

[1:16:26] herman but that's probably a bad thing to want to be like peewee herman is an asshole the man is not

[1:16:32] an asshole he i've met him he's a really nice man the uh the character is an asshole yeah um but

[1:16:38] But in terms of seeing things from my life on film in an emotional sense directly, that was the first time.

[1:16:47] And it's odd to admit that it was Rushmore, which is obviously a very stylized movie where the protagonist is not always sympathetic.

[1:16:55] Never sympathetic, some might say.

[1:16:58] Me, in fact.

[1:16:59] Well, it depends on whether you had almost all of those experiences.

[1:17:05] Whether your actual dad was a Vietnam veteran who was scarred by his experience there.

[1:17:10] Yeah.

[1:17:11] This next question is from Lena Lastnamewithheld, which is pleasingly alliterative.

[1:17:20] I just want to mention something I never knew about Operation Dumbo Drop.

[1:17:24] Looking it up now is that it was set during the Vietnam War.

[1:17:26] What?

[1:17:27] Yeah, it's a kid's movie that's set during the Vietnam War with soldiers transporting an elephant through South Vietnam.

[1:17:35] I'm assuming listening to, like, Leonard Skinner songs and...

[1:17:39] Yeah, that's when I first found out that my dad was a vet.

[1:17:43] I asked him if he had gone through anything like that in the 60s.

[1:17:46] He said, let me tell you.

[1:17:47] About my time on the carrier in that giraffe.

[1:17:51] Showed you pictures of his friend who's an elephant.

[1:17:56] Lena writes,

[1:18:01] Dear Peaches, I am writing to you in spite of Dan's advising anyone who intended to write you a letter to,

[1:18:07] and I quote, go to hell in the last episode, because I am in desperate need of your sage wisdom.

[1:18:13] My younger brother, 18, has recently become obsessed with slasher films.

[1:18:18] He talks about them constantly, analyzes their themes, gives his opinion on the merits of various sequels,

[1:18:24] and recommends movies he thinks you'll like.

[1:18:26] He even wrote a research paper about the gender politics of the genre.

[1:18:31] The problem is, he hasn't seen any of the movies he proclaims to love.

[1:18:35] Not one.

[1:18:36] He watches a lot of, like, horror review channels on YouTube, I guess,

[1:18:41] which is where I think he picked up this interest,

[1:18:43] but he never seemingly took the initiative to watch any of the movies he was hearing these guys talk about

[1:18:48] and has just absorbed their taste in these movies into his own personality through osmosis.

[1:18:55] I can't begin to tell you how aggravating it is to be told how interesting the way the third

[1:19:01] Halloween movie subverts the formula of the franchise up to that point is by someone who

[1:19:06] hasn't seen a single fucking Halloween movie and has no idea what the fuck he's talking about and

[1:19:11] obviously is just parroting someone else's opinion down to the word. My question to you is how do I

[1:19:17] get him to cut it out? Calling him out on his ignorance doesn't seem to work and neither does

[1:19:21] cutting mockery believe me my parents and i have tried both but the man is without shame he's not

[1:19:27] embarrassed in the slightest by the very silly thing he's doing it's terrible can anything be

[1:19:32] done what would you do if it was your little brother please advise he's driving me nuts

[1:19:37] yours and flop lean the last name with hell that we're kind of cutting into uh the mack roy's

[1:19:41] business here with this uh this is more of an advice letter but you're right we're not allowed

[1:19:46] to do that forget it let's not sorry lena can't do it it's a zero sum game flop house up magelroy's

[1:19:55] down everyone's got their thing you can't do anything else uh if they ever talk about movies

[1:20:02] they uh they have to stop immediately i think it seems like the best strategy like the this might

[1:20:08] not be the most practical strategy but it might be the most effective strategy is wait until he's

[1:20:13] not a 17 year old yeah that was gonna be my advice uh yeah just uh just let him be dumb for a while

[1:20:22] and then hopefully he won't be dumb in the future because also i think that if you argue with people

[1:20:27] too much because humans uh are stupid and our brains are broken uh often people tend to dig in

[1:20:34] even more at that point that's pretty cool i was gonna say just keep sending him little uh send

[1:20:40] him little like gifs of uh those horror movies so over time he'll he'll have to watch all of it

[1:20:47] even if he's watching him in short clips yeah that's what you're doing with critters gifs to us

[1:20:52] even though we've seen critters yeah critters critters 2 uh various uh japanese animation

[1:21:00] etc oh and full house i think the entire series of full house i think yeah probably the only the

[1:21:07] only real thing to do is to just wait it out uh i'm curious why he hasn't watched any of the movies

[1:21:12] yeah that i don't think that's the pleasure he probably gets out of it this is

[1:21:16] not uh you know not become a therapist or a psychologist all of a sudden because again

[1:21:21] that's the macaroys thing uh i'm guessing it's more that he gets pleasure out of sounding smart

[1:21:26] about a topic uh or like figuring something out yeah it's almost like he doesn't like the topic

[1:21:33] he's figured out it's almost like you want to introduce something to him that he he can be

[1:21:36] smart about that he also actually likes engaging with the main primary thing at the same time but

[1:21:42] i definitely like when i was younger i definitely would be very opinionated about things that i had

[1:21:46] only heard about and not seen because that's part of being a young man is assuming that you need to

[1:21:52] have an opinion on everything knowing that your opinion is based on nothing and then pushing that

[1:21:58] opinion harder to try to make up for the fact that deep down you know that you're a fraud that's

[1:22:02] basically what being a young man is all about uh so and an older man and an older man a man of all

[1:22:07] kinds a man of all seasons is one who is knows that knows that he is a fraud and cannot be the

[1:22:12] thing that he thinks he's supposed to be yeah a fraud that walks on four four four legs at birth

[1:22:17] two legs yeah you know it three legs eventually that's how it goes right

[1:22:23] Eventually gets to three.

[1:22:24] Like, yeah, what walks on four legs at birth and three legs eventually?

[1:22:30] It's me, the Sphinx.

[1:22:31] When the Sphinx is telling its riddle while trying to answer an email at the same time.

[1:22:37] By the way, Elliot, what would you say is the most Sphinx-like animal?

[1:22:47] As you claimed earlier on in the show, dogs or perhaps Sphinxes?

[1:22:53] that's a good question yeah sphinxes are closer to sphinxes than dogs uh in terms of leading

[1:22:59] animals you gotta go with a cat right because a cat always has a look on its face like you have

[1:23:04] just failed to answer a question properly that it has asked yeah also sphinxes have the head of a

[1:23:08] cat so it's those two things well well they have the body of a cat oh body of a cat face of a face

[1:23:14] of a person the head of a cat on the body of a person is a fetish yeah uh which well i feel like

[1:23:21] i feel like if you were to i feel like if you were to tell a sphinx that it had a face like a cat

[1:23:26] that would be a severe insult in sphinx culture yeah yeah uh now then there's also you got your

[1:23:31] uh like assyrian type characters who are they're sphinxes where it's like a lion's body with wings

[1:23:38] or an ox's body and then the head of a man with a long beard and those always seem like those are

[1:23:42] really cool i'm gonna run into them in the real world and i'll think they're gonna say something

[1:23:45] really smart instead they just go like because that's my experience with bison i always think

[1:23:50] tell me something really wise elliot i'm gonna let you keep going in just a second i just wanted

[1:23:55] to let stew and dan know what happened is i had to go to the bathroom so i just brought up

[1:23:59] mythological stuff uh so elliot could do his thing for a while and cover for us now the interesting

[1:24:05] thing is the minotaur i traditionally don't want to so uh i think another thing that this that lena

[1:24:12] can do with her brother is to start uh introducing things uh is to start talking to him about it

[1:24:17] really engage him on this topic of horror movies but slip in every now and then something that

[1:24:20] doesn't exist that you're making up and see see like what what and not as like making fun of like

[1:24:26] to see how he reacts to it and what his opinion is suddenly on this thing that doesn't exist

[1:24:29] and i want you to keep seeding it that way until eventually you're having a conversation

[1:24:33] where both of you are talking about things that don't exist all the time and you know it but he

[1:24:38] doesn't know it and i want you to write down his opinions on all of these fake movies and you know

[1:24:43] send them to us in the future yeah yeah so we can laugh and laugh at the thing we once were

[1:24:48] um pardon me i burped off my let's go to i like that you undid it by telling us about it though

[1:24:56] uh he's bragging that he's drinking bubbly drinks again huh that's why they call him seltzer mccoy

[1:25:03] i'm rich in gas uh let's go look at jupiter over here huh yeah look at bestman over here

[1:25:11] come on let's go to uh the final segment in the show which is to recommend movies i guess i guess

[1:25:17] i'll just break up the shale and dan and get some of that sweet gas out of there

[1:25:21] recommend movies we saw uh often recently but not necessarily that we liked um i will recommend i

[1:25:29] saw i finally got around to the uh netflix will ferrell movie eurovision song contest the story

[1:25:37] of fire saga which i had been kind of interested in just because i like goofy comedies and uh your

[1:25:46] vision is certainly funny on its own um but dan stevens in it yeah well that's i was gonna yeah

[1:25:53] the connection the call of the wild connections dan stevens i'll get back to him but um you know

[1:25:58] i had been kind of will ferreled out at least in terms of the manchild comedies he usually does

[1:26:06] uh but i found this to be a you know a better application of that a sweeter application of that

[1:26:14] um like there's a kindness in the worldview of the movie that i kind of wasn't expecting

[1:26:19] now don't get me wrong uh will ferrell was not the best thing about the movie the best thing by far

[1:26:24] i think was rachel mcadams um as the equally goofy but somehow simultaneously grounded uh

[1:26:31] character of the the two leads um i think she's terrifically funny uh like almost all of the time

[1:26:38] and uh and she just somehow finds the way to act a totally weird character and dan stevens is in it

[1:26:46] as stewart says uh as the person who would normally be the villain of this type of movie but i think

[1:26:51] what they ultimately do with this character is sort of touching and heartbreaking and sweet as

[1:26:56] well and uh i really enjoyed it and it's got singing in it which i always like just does

[1:27:03] dan stevens gets pushed into a burning cabin and the revision song contest also i don't want to

[1:27:08] spoil it i mean there is fire in the title right yeah i'm going to recommend a movie that just went

[1:27:13] up on shutter recently called host uh it is the first of probably i don't even know if it's the

[1:27:20] first but i'm sure it's one of a slew of uh horror movies that's made on a micro budget during

[1:27:26] quarantine during in a post-covid time uh and it is about a group of 20 somethings who are

[1:27:33] uh set up a zoom call to hang out with each other and the theme for their zoom call is they decide

[1:27:41] to have a seance and it goes just about as well as you would imagine uh it's nice and short it's

[1:27:47] under an hour uh they do some fun stuff with uh the limitations of a zoom call uh but the thing

[1:27:54] i think that makes it work is that the the the stuff that happens before things get scary uh is

[1:28:01] is engaging and the stuff that happens after things get scary is also engaging so it manages

[1:28:07] i think the whole thing manages to work so if you're looking for a short slice of horror that

[1:28:12] uh is also topical i guess uh check out host uh before we move to the next recommendation just

[1:28:19] very quickly there's a not zero percent chance that i said the story of ice and fire saga when

[1:28:26] giving the name i if i did i was obviously thinking of song of ice and fire but there is just fire

[1:28:31] there's no ice in eurovision anyway no no ying vei ying vei malmsteen uh elliot you look like

[1:28:38] you're about to go so why don't you go sure uh this movie the call the wild i said i'll recommend

[1:28:43] a movie with wild in the title so i'm going to recommend ah wilderness this is the 1930s version

[1:28:48] of the Eugene O'Neill play, Ah, Wilderness,

[1:28:50] starring Wallace Beery and Lionel Barrymore

[1:28:53] and one of my favorite actresses of the time,

[1:28:56] Aileen McMahon.

[1:28:57] And the script was adapted by Albert Hackett

[1:29:00] and Francis Goodrich, who wrote The Thin Man,

[1:29:01] one of my favorite movies.

[1:29:02] And it's kind of another kind of goes-down-easy movie

[1:29:06] in a lot of ways.

[1:29:07] It's a little slice-of-life story

[1:29:09] about a young man who has just graduated

[1:29:10] from high school in 1906.

[1:29:12] He's about to go to Yale.

[1:29:13] And he has to be kind of saved from himself

[1:29:17] and his thinking of himself as a sophisticated man of the world

[1:29:20] who understands more than regular people

[1:29:22] as he makes a couple of bad decisions

[1:29:24] and is pulled out of the kind of thing that nowadays would not have been a problem

[1:29:29] but back in 1906 would have ruined his life beyond measure,

[1:29:32] namely going on a date with a woman that he shouldn't go on a date with

[1:29:35] and saying some things that might upset people.

[1:29:37] I want to give a little factoid that is of no interest to anyone but me.

[1:29:43] I played said young man in the community theater production of All Wilderness when I was 17.

[1:29:49] This is a—yeah, thank you.

[1:29:53] I'm glad you could bring that personal perspective to it.

[1:29:56] It's very much a kind of picture of that mythical small-town, turn-of-the-century America that didn't really exist,

[1:30:05] but which is a, I don't know, something that a lot of jerks yearn for a return to.

[1:30:13] But it's kind of like if Our Town didn't have any of the metaphysical talk of the cosmos in it.

[1:30:19] But I really enjoyed it.

[1:30:21] It's just a charming little movie.

[1:30:22] Ah, Wilderness.

[1:30:23] Jesse, what have you got?

[1:30:24] Well, I'm going to first recommend a book.

[1:30:27] Elliot Kalin, I went over to his house the other day.

[1:30:31] We're quarantine buddies.

[1:30:33] And I was in a real mess.

[1:30:36] My life has been a really horrible mess lately.

[1:30:38] And I asked him if he could loan me a book that would not make me sad at all and would

[1:30:44] be interesting the whole time.

[1:30:45] And he loaned me a book called The Devil's Candy, which is about the making of the film

[1:30:52] of The Bonfire of the Vanities, Brian De Palma's film.

[1:30:55] And it is as absolutely engrossing and fascinating as a behind-the-scenes book could be.

[1:31:03] The movie was ultimately a huge debacle, both critically and financially, but like involved all of these brilliant, amazing people, you know, Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis and Steven Spielberg is in there.

[1:31:17] And it is a book about, I think, the same thing that The Flophouse is often about, which is that making a movie is so complicated and has so many moving parts that even if you bring together a bunch of brilliant people, it is so easy to just get it wrong.

[1:31:41] And it's a very sympathetic book to everyone who is involved in the story, even the executives who are mostly just kind of doing executive meddling.

[1:31:51] But, like, I think the easy read of it is that it's the story of how executive meddling can ruin a film.

[1:31:58] But I think it really is the story of how a film can just go wrong.

[1:32:04] And it's very sweet in a surprising way and and funny.

[1:32:08] And it like it shows you the fascinating stories behind every, you know, one of the most interesting subplots of the book is the assistant director, who is a protege of De Palma's trying to make his name by getting a perfect shot of a Concord landing with with the skyline in the background and the sun in exactly the right place.

[1:32:31] And he has to do like months of calculations by hand to figure out when the sun will be in the right place and so on and so forth.

[1:32:37] And he nails it.

[1:32:39] It's the perfect shot.

[1:32:40] He wins a hundred dollar bet with Brian De Palma.

[1:32:42] And there's it's mentioned in an article in American Cinematographer magazine.

[1:32:46] And all the credit goes to the cinematographer of the movie who was not present.

[1:32:50] And it is it is it's a really like it's full of those fascinating stories of every kind of person.

[1:32:59] Like people who worked on studio movies in the 50s and people who are like totally go-go 90s and they're trying to make the ultimate 80s movie.

[1:33:08] It's a great book.

[1:33:09] So thank you, Elliot, for that recommendation to me.

[1:33:12] And I pass it on to America via the Flophouse.

[1:33:17] I will also recommend a movie.

[1:33:20] It is probably my favorite movie.

[1:33:22] And I'm always glad to recommend it, especially to comedy fans and practitioners.

[1:33:29] of whom I know there are many who listen to The Flophouse.

[1:33:31] It's called A Thousand Clowns.

[1:33:35] It was made in the early to mid-1960s

[1:33:39] as the 1960s were just starting to trend

[1:33:42] towards the countercultural 1960s

[1:33:45] where that idea was just being invented

[1:33:47] before Flower Children and so forth.

[1:33:50] It's based on a play that won,

[1:33:51] I believe it won a Pulitzer,

[1:33:53] it won some Tonys as well.

[1:33:56] And it's a story about a comedy writer who is probably 40-ish who is unemployed and he has quit writing on a children's show because it was beneath him.

[1:34:09] But with him lives his young teenage nephew, a 13-year-old kid who, for reasons that are explained in the film, goes by many different names.

[1:34:20] It turns out his uncle just lets him pick a new name whenever he feels like it.

[1:34:26] But this kid and his uncle are being investigated by Child Protective Services basically because the uncle is unemployed and the kid is often out of school.

[1:34:37] And the kid is sort of brilliant and precocious but never shows up for anything, and they're worried that it is an unsafe environment for the kid.

[1:34:46] And the uncle is so resolutely anti-establishment and irreverent and amazing and charming, as only, you know, Jason Robards could be like it is a spectacular, hilarious, amazing performance.

[1:35:02] But you realize that the central conflict of this film is not this man against the establishment, but this man against himself, that he has to take responsibility for his own life, that just because he is anti-establishment and a hilarious, charming man doesn't mean that he doesn't have to take responsibility for the effect that his choices have on others, especially people that he loves.

[1:35:29] And it makes me cry every time, even though it is definitely a comedy.

[1:35:34] And it's full of hilarious stuff, full of wonderful performances.

[1:35:38] Martin Balsam was nominated for an Oscar for it.

[1:35:42] He plays the guy's brother.

[1:35:44] And won.

[1:35:48] And won.

[1:35:49] And won.

[1:35:50] Thank you, Elliot.

[1:35:50] Yeah, won Best Supporting Actor.

[1:35:52] And there's a wonderful performance by the teacher from Boy Meets World, who's like—

[1:35:58] mr feeney yeah mr feeney william daniels yeah he's like 35 years old john adams um he plays the kind

[1:36:04] of hard-ass uh or relatively stickler uh child protective services guy and it's it was actually

[1:36:11] written as the character is actually based on gene shepherd um who is the legendary radio host

[1:36:18] who was also probably i really thought you were gonna say gene yeah who is the most probably most

[1:36:25] famous for christmas story right but um uh the playwright and uh gene shepherd's relationship

[1:36:31] they were very close friends was ended by gene shepherd because of this play because it was

[1:36:36] essentially a critique of a guy who allowed his brilliance and charm and humor to get in the way

[1:36:43] of taking responsibility for his own life um anyway it's a beautiful movie uh for many many

[1:36:48] years it was really hard to watch. It would come on Turner Classic Movies sometimes. There was

[1:36:53] VHS that sold for $75 on eBay. But it has just been re-released on Blu-ray, a beautiful new

[1:37:03] Blu-ray that's $19. And if you are the streaming type, I won't say what tube you can go to to

[1:37:14] watch it on in relatively high quality

[1:37:16] because I think

[1:37:18] everybody involved should get paid

[1:37:19] but

[1:37:21] yeah and in conclusion

[1:37:23] the kid the 13 year old

[1:37:25] he's played by an

[1:37:28] actor named Barry Gordy who

[1:37:30] as a younger child was the

[1:37:32] voice of the song all I want for Christmas is my

[1:37:34] two front teeth and

[1:37:36] as a man was the voice of

[1:37:38] one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

[1:37:40] and in between

[1:37:41] and in between was the

[1:37:43] The best one.

[1:37:44] And in between became a lawyer and president of the Screen Actors Guild for quite a long time.

[1:37:49] The best one.

[1:37:49] So there you go.

[1:37:51] A Thousand Clowns, it's called.

[1:37:52] There are no clowns involved in the film, but there is a part where he leans out the window of his tenement apartment and says,

[1:38:01] Rich people, everybody out on the street for volleyball!

[1:38:04] Which is a lot of fun.

[1:38:06] And no clowns were hurt during the making of the film because of...

[1:38:10] No, no, that's why they're not in the movie.

[1:38:12] they were all hurt

[1:38:13] they didn't want to show it

[1:38:14] they were all injured

[1:38:15] that would have been like

[1:38:15] yeah that would have

[1:38:17] basically made it

[1:38:17] a snuff film

[1:38:18] I mean they were

[1:38:20] they were injured

[1:38:20] being driven to set

[1:38:22] they just put too many

[1:38:22] clowns in that car

[1:38:23] it was one of those things

[1:38:24] like that Rip Torn thing

[1:38:27] where Rip Torn

[1:38:27] beat the crap out of

[1:38:28] Norman Mailer

[1:38:29] or whatever

[1:38:29] oh wow

[1:38:30] have you seen that footage

[1:38:32] it is brutal

[1:38:33] it is terrifying

[1:38:33] because it's in the movie

[1:38:34] oh man he hits him

[1:38:35] in the head with a hammer

[1:38:36] from behind his back

[1:38:37] there's one

[1:38:38] that movie Thousand Clowns

[1:38:39] it's an amazing movie

[1:38:41] and as I mentioned

[1:38:42] There's a performance in it. He's only in one long scene. Gene Sachs plays Jason Robards' boss,

[1:38:47] who comes to win him back. And it is the most amazing scene of a man who is a performance,

[1:38:53] a person who is a monster, an emotional monster, and just wants people to like him,

[1:38:57] but is a bully and is terrible. That one scene, I always think, is amazing.

[1:39:02] Yeah, he plays like the children's host that he used to work for. And what's beautiful about it

[1:39:07] is he is like a monster in that all he lives for is the approval of others but it also like

[1:39:12] it's very sympathetic like it you understand that this is a sad man and that show business is sad

[1:39:19] yeah okay well i got a piece so let's wrap it up jesse thank you for being with us is there

[1:39:27] stuff you would like to plug i know you yourself have many shows yeah i own a podcast network

[1:39:33] called maximum fun.org uh with a lot of great shows the only one i would steer clear of is

[1:39:38] called the flop house oh we walked right into the prestige guys um i uh i do i do host and

[1:39:50] co-host three shows i i do an npr alton called arts and culture interview show uh called bullseye

[1:39:56] um uh of which i'm very proud and if you like interviews with figures from arts and culture

[1:40:01] including many filmmakers and folks involved in film.

[1:40:06] Recently, we've had Steve Buscemi was on the show.

[1:40:10] That was a wonderful interviewer, a wonderful interview,

[1:40:13] a great actor, and also a great director.

[1:40:16] And Kelly Reichert, who directed First Cow.

[1:40:18] I mentioned First Cow.

[1:40:19] First Cow totally rules.

[1:40:21] What a great movie.

[1:40:22] Yeah, I keep putting it off,

[1:40:25] but I just need to set aside some time.

[1:40:27] What's great about it is it's so totally not a homework movie.

[1:40:29] like it's so fun and yeah it's great uh but anyway well it's about the first cow to be elected

[1:40:35] president yeah and as as you mentioned elliot our mutual friend jordan morris uh with whom i've been

[1:40:42] friends since we were 19 and 18 and i was his ra in college uh and i do a show called jordan jesse

[1:40:48] go that is a silly bullshit comedy show uh of which uh uh which has existed now it's now in

[1:40:56] going into year 14 i think something like that um trumped us and uh year ahead and it's uh you know

[1:41:03] it's liked by people who like that sort of thing and then i also do a show with and we've all been

[1:41:08] yeah exactly you guys have all been guests you're on the max fun drive episode uh this year or at

[1:41:14] least dan and stew are um so you can go listen to an episode with one of the peaches and i also do

[1:41:20] a show called judge john hodgman that's a comedy version of the people's court with uh the wise

[1:41:25] and hilarious john hodgman as the judge and um you know in recent years he's really backed off

[1:41:31] uh the key element of his comic character which was bullying elliot so i've sort of had to take

[1:41:37] it on instead um yeah doing a bang he does occasionally shift to me when he sees me but

[1:41:45] he's also gotten a lot nicer over over the years that's weird he's nothing but nice to me guys

[1:41:49] i know because you're the cool one yeah he wants you to like him

[1:41:53] uh i don't like him all right well thank you to all of you for listening um you know go forth and

[1:42:03] spread the word however you may like uh but uh for the flop house i've been dan mccoy hey thanks

[1:42:12] Dirty D Mixie

[1:42:13] I've been

[1:42:14] Stuart Wellington

[1:42:14] I'm

[1:42:15] Ilya K

[1:42:17] no I don't know

[1:42:19] I want to say

[1:42:19] thanks also to listeners

[1:42:21] thanks to

[1:42:22] Jordan Cowling

[1:42:22] for editing this mess

[1:42:23] into professional ability

[1:42:25] I'm Elliot Kalin

[1:42:26] and

[1:42:27] Jesse what's your name?

[1:42:28] Jesse Thor

[1:42:28] see ya

[1:42:30] bye

[1:42:30] on this episode

[1:42:42] we discuss call of the wild technically the call of the wild but why start being pedantic now

[1:42:50] maximumfun.org comedy and culture artist owned audience supported

Ep. #321 - The Call of the Wild, w/ Jesse Thorn

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