Ep. #317 - Artemis Fowl, w/ Scott Weinberg

[0:00] On this episode we discuss Artemis Fowl.

[0:04] The movie that dares to raise the question,

[0:06] why is this movie named after an entirely nondescript personality-less cypher

[0:10] who spends the entire movie inside his own house?

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

[0:42] Hey Dan, it's me, Stuart Wellington.

[0:45] Oh, hi.

[0:46] Guys, guys, what a coincidence. I'm Elliot Kaelin and I'm here.

[0:49] All three hosts of the Flophouse. We're here, together, on the Flophouse.

[0:53] But, we're not alone, are we Dan?

[0:56] No, we're not.

[0:58] We are joined by our guest, Scott Weinberg,

[1:01] whom I did not write down how he wanted to be introduced

[1:05] because I thought you were doing it.

[1:07] He said it twice, Dan.

[1:08] I'll say it.

[1:09] Film critic, filmmaker, podcaster, cat lover,

[1:12] horror nerd, Scott Weinberg.

[1:14] And I will add in a personal, personal endorsement

[1:17] of his podcast, Science vs. Fiction,

[1:19] in which they talk about the real life science

[1:22] or fake life science and quality

[1:25] of your favorite science fiction films.

[1:26] scott weinberg thank you so much for joining us i am thrilled to be here long time listener first

[1:31] time caller although i did get a mention several years ago uh when stewart recommended a film i

[1:38] produced uh i downloaded like 14 episodes and listened to him on an airplane and one random

[1:44] episode at the end when stewart recommended found footage 3d i got chills i was so elated and

[1:50] thrilled and that is why stewart is my favorite of the three floppers oh we finally get the big

[1:56] reveal because I

[1:58] I guess

[2:00] because I'm the best at

[2:02] promoting.

[2:02] That's your hidden strength.

[2:06] It was, and you guys also took a

[2:08] recommendation from me several years ago. I can't

[2:10] remember what it was, but I recommended an

[2:12] 80s film and you guys did it.

[2:13] So I've always been a huge

[2:16] fan and to be on an episode on such a

[2:18] wonderfully rotten movie

[2:19] makes me

[2:21] happy because boy, this movie is a stink

[2:24] pile. Let's not jump ahead to

[2:26] final judgment sorry sorry cut that but it is it's totally no it's yeah i mean it's a stink pile but

[2:32] you know whatever this isn't the first time that we're gonna say it lives up to its name

[2:36] foul oh shit oh did i do that why is he called foul i thought that was like a play on he was

[2:43] like it was like valiant it was an animated chicken or something

[2:46] well uh we will return to the stinkiness of this pile uh in a moment but uh we just wanted to take

[2:55] a brief moment here at the top of the show to mention that um this is the start of max fun

[3:02] drive 2020 it's been um quite sensibly uh delayed a couple of times due to world events but um since

[3:10] what's going on yeah well uh oh boy i'll explain after the show um yeah uh thanks for derailing

[3:20] my train of thought immediately at the beginning uh it was delayed but since unfortunately the

[3:25] world does not seem to be getting better uh at any particular pace uh here we bring you max fun

[3:32] drive uh let's listen to me maximum fun is artist owned audience supported that means that when you

[3:40] become a member of maximum fun you are a direct contributor to the shows that are made including

[3:49] our shows um you you have some ownership of the show uh although don't start telling us

[3:57] you're not our real dad um but good good way to get yeah open their heartstrings and then cut them

[4:05] yeah sure love it yeah love the hostility unnecessary uncalled for undeniable delicious

[4:12] yeah but it's important i mean like i would say dan isn't going to be their private dancer

[4:22] wait i'm waiting for them to stop laughing dan there's a really great joke

[4:26] okay uh no but the money that uh you donate to maximum fun especially because you get to choose

[4:34] the shows you listen to goes uh directly to the show uh with some overhead to uh allow the network

[4:40] to actually continue and especially in this year where we have added off-week shows off-week

[4:50] content it is nice to have that money coming in that you know really helps us do new things like

[4:57] that so you can choose a monthly amount that's comfortable for you most people give five or ten

[5:04] a month some upgrade to uh 20 35 100 if they have the means i know that a lot of people do not right

[5:13] now but it is uh about what works for you but we'll get back to that later in the show and dan

[5:18] where do they where do they go if they want to join them because either member upgrade their uh

[5:23] their already existing membership yes would it be maximumfund.org join it will be it would be that

[5:30] it is that in fact to use that tense it is maximum fun.org slash join but let's uh get to

[5:38] what we actually do here which is uh watch a bad movie and then talk about it in this case the movie

[5:44] is artemis fowl which was meant to be a big uh blockbuster film released in theaters but then

[5:50] the pandemic hits and now it's on disney plus and it's it's based on a series of novels right and

[5:56] it was your familiarity with those novels that made you request we do this movie right scott

[6:01] i man there there's it's so weird to see when a um like when a a trend ends and boy when it ends

[6:10] it hits like like i thought like the end of the um divergence series just kind of fell off the

[6:16] train and then you have these like these lingerers they're like well we still have a young adult

[6:21] movie still percolating for 19 years and they've invested so much money in it you have to release

[6:27] it in some way this thing doesn't even look finished i mean i'm just going to be joe film

[6:31] critic here this thing looks like uh-huh it looks like one of 12 different cuts and they just said

[6:35] all right we'll release this one who cares yeah yeah i mean there's it's uh i mean it's like the

[6:40] sort of thing when you know i'm into i'm into ya fiction so of course i hear about these scorch

[6:47] trials i want to find out what's the whole deal there i'm in a maze running now now artemis fowl

[6:54] is a ya series it's based on a series about a criminal mastermind kid you heard me right he's

[7:00] a kid but he's not a hero he's a villain that's right he's the bad boy of ya fantasy fiction

[7:05] he's artemis fowl and i i want to say like that appears to be in the limited research i've done

[7:11] kind of the interesting thing about those books

[7:14] is that he is introduced as

[7:16] this criminal and then sort of

[7:18] over time you sort of understand

[7:20] different things about like who might be right

[7:22] who might be wrong in this story

[7:24] who might be crazy

[7:24] who might just be a lunatic you're looking for

[7:28] but in this movie they do not

[7:30] identify him as like some sort of

[7:32] child criminal at the beginning he just seems like

[7:34] kind of a dick at the beginning and he never

[7:36] gets all that much less dickish

[7:37] they also keep calling him a child genius

[7:39] and he never really does anything that particularly

[7:42] genius. He claims to be

[7:44] smart a lot.

[7:44] There's a lot of hype. He claims to be intelligent.

[7:47] There's a lot of hype for the character going on that is not

[7:50] backed up. And then at the end he goes, I'm a criminal

[7:52] mastermind. And I'm like, how?

[7:53] What did you do? You've done

[7:56] nothing. I'm just going to say

[7:57] and Stuart, you're doing the summary on this one

[8:00] so I won't... I am?

[8:01] Uh oh. But this is one of those movies where

[8:04] the whole time I was like

[8:04] why is this movie called Artemis Fowl?

[8:08] I don't understand why he's the character you named it after, since he's kind of barely in the movie.

[8:13] And I'll just warn...

[8:14] It should be called Baby Hagrid.

[8:16] It should be called Baby Hagrid, as played by Josh Gad.

[8:18] Now that we bring up Hagrid, I think it's an important time for us to do our weekly mention that J.K. Rowling is trash, as are all transphobes.

[8:26] They are trash.

[8:27] Okay, let's go back to the show.

[8:28] Do we really say that every week?

[8:31] Yeah, I mean, any time we invoke her name.

[8:35] Yeah.

[8:35] I mean, did we?

[8:37] Yeah, I mean, we talked about her creation, Hagrid.

[8:39] I guess that's the same thing.

[8:41] You seem weirdly defensive right now.

[8:44] Hey, guys, I'm just saying.

[8:46] I'm just saying, you know.

[8:47] No, I'm not even going to joke about that.

[8:49] Yeah, please don't.

[8:50] Yeah, trans rights forever.

[8:51] Come on.

[8:51] Okay, but.

[8:52] I just wanted to say, when I watched this film for the second time,

[8:56] and I know you guys.

[8:57] I know I've heard many, many episodes, a.k.a. all of them.

[9:01] And I know that you guys, when you, I know when you see a bad film,

[9:06] you know, you'll tear it to shreds.

[9:08] I'm watching this movie for the second time,

[9:10] and I'm sitting there thinking,

[9:11] who the hell is going to break down the plot of this one?

[9:14] Because it's impossible.

[9:16] Stuart, please do it.

[9:18] Oh, I will do everything in my power.

[9:21] So, yeah, the movie opens, Seaside.

[9:24] We're at Fowl Manor, Ireland.

[9:27] That's right.

[9:28] It's spelled like the bird, not like the, I don't know,

[9:31] the state of being or the judgment.

[9:33] The ball?

[9:35] Yep.

[9:36] The play.

[9:38] You got some more?

[9:39] There's no foul intentions.

[9:45] That's cruel intentions.

[9:47] I mean, you could have foul intentions.

[9:49] Teen remake of Les Laisons Dangereuses.

[9:53] It's not foul things.

[9:55] It's wild things.

[9:56] It's not the incredibly true story of the Texas cheerleader fouling mom.

[10:02] It was Texas cheerleader murdering mom.

[10:04] Let's see.

[10:06] it's not a hold on it's not the foul pit it's the money pit uh yeah it's it's not the cook the thief

[10:14] his wife and her foul uh yeah i think we're out of phrases yeah although follow follow manner does

[10:21] sound like like a caveman death metal band or uh you know a slam band okay so outside of foul manner

[10:27] uh the news has gathered and they're flipping out there's apparently been a uh series of high

[10:33] profile robberies and a mysterious person named artemis fowl is the suspect and they uh snatch up

[10:40] uh a josh gad who as we have described earlier looks like a short dirtier hagrid and they take

[10:47] him off to a special water prison like the one you might see in face off or the avengers or mortal

[10:54] engines or anything else guys can you think anything else water prisons convergence yep

[11:00] Convergence

[11:01] Waterworld Prison

[11:03] that's the second

[11:04] Waterworld movie

[11:04] that never got made

[11:05] Waterworld Prison

[11:06] yeah

[11:06] one of the many things

[11:08] I was unclear about

[11:09] and maybe you guys

[11:10] can help me is

[11:11] probably not

[11:11] who was interrogating

[11:13] Josh Gad

[11:14] like what was

[11:14] his organization

[11:15] now let's address

[11:17] Josh Gad isn't called

[11:18] Josh Gad in this movie

[11:19] he is called

[11:20] his character's named

[11:21] Mulch Diggums

[11:23] because he's

[11:25] of the lineage

[11:25] of the Diggums frog

[11:27] from the serial commercials

[11:29] later in the movie we will

[11:31] see how apt that name is

[11:33] it's that so it's that

[11:34] lazy lazy writing of he

[11:37] later turns out that one of his skills is

[11:39] digging so his name has to be

[11:40] what mulch shovel head

[11:42] why

[11:43] because everyone's named after their job

[11:47] my family Kales we have for

[11:49] generations Stewart's family digs

[11:51] wells Dan's family is very

[11:52] coy and Scott's here of course

[11:55] is I guess that would be what

[11:56] a white mountain or is that Weisberg

[11:58] Weinberg is actually

[12:01] it's a vineyard in German

[12:02] so my family's a bunch of drunks

[12:05] and you're a vintner

[12:07] yeah of course

[12:08] so Mulch Diggums I think he's being interrogated

[12:11] by like Interpol or

[12:13] the British secret intelligence

[12:15] MI6 who knows it doesn't matter

[12:17] Dan it's the least of the questions

[12:19] Dan nailed a key problem is this movie

[12:21] doesn't have any point of view

[12:23] you don't know who's talking to who

[12:25] it's somebody explaining six

[12:27] random adventures

[12:28] and then the movie ends.

[12:29] Well, that's the thing.

[12:30] I texted Elliot during it

[12:32] and I'm like,

[12:33] never has a movie

[12:35] tried so hard

[12:36] to explain itself to me

[12:38] while I still don't know

[12:39] what's happening.

[12:39] Because all Josh Gad does

[12:41] is paper over

[12:42] what the plot is supposed to be

[12:43] and I still don't know.

[12:44] This is a movie,

[12:45] not to get ahead too far,

[12:46] where the bad guy

[12:47] whose identity we never learn

[12:48] breaks someone out of,

[12:49] releases someone from jail

[12:51] and they are instantly

[12:52] the most powerful person

[12:53] in the entire community

[12:54] and we never find out

[12:55] who they work for

[12:56] or why they were in jail

[12:57] or what or I don't know.

[12:58] There's no, it's...

[12:59] Nope.

[12:59] Anyway, Stuart,

[13:00] but we're not in there yet.

[13:01] Mulch Diggums is being interrogated

[13:02] by someone who's not even

[13:03] in the same room with him.

[13:04] We don't even get to see

[13:05] the interrogator.

[13:06] Yeah, he's just like

[13:06] staring into a box

[13:07] where, and he talks about

[13:10] a mysterious artifact

[13:12] called the Aculis.

[13:13] Not Oculus.

[13:14] That would be an evil,

[13:15] what, mirror?

[13:16] Is that the movie?

[13:17] Yeah.

[13:17] Is that the evil mirror movie?

[13:18] Yeah, yeah.

[13:18] And he decides...

[13:20] And not Porculus.

[13:21] That would be some kind

[13:22] of super-powered pig.

[13:23] Uh-huh.

[13:23] Maybe like a pig...

[13:25] Not Porculus 2 the next day.

[13:27] which is a terrible sequel to a terrible movie uh-huh uh all right porculus revenge

[13:33] i had to do it so wait is porculus the name of the heroes of the movie or is it the villain

[13:41] does porculus actually show up that's a good question in the first one they're searching

[13:46] for porculus and he finally shows up the very end the second one they think he's going to be hero

[13:50] but he's actually a bad guy and then in the third one he's he turns out to be the good guy ultimately

[13:55] now uh we've been just burning also played by josh yeah yeah of course any and in the fourth

[14:01] one he fights what's that it's that emerson lake and palmer album what is it tarkis or something

[14:06] like that no no the one after carnival it's like i don't know that's the one i know i'm gonna have

[14:12] to look it up hold on it's the one where it's some kind of like so um it's some kind of like

[14:16] armadillo tank let me look it up yeah we should probably pause the podcast and let elliot look

[14:21] something up no no keep going keep going okay so we've been talking yeah it's called tarkus

[14:26] anyway i coined a term for you that you might like it's called gad's position yeah so we're

[14:31] getting some gad's position we're flying through this plot time for stewart to pump the brakes a

[14:35] little bit and point out that this movie is directed by kenneth branagh you might know him

[14:39] from woody allen celebrity that's probably where you know him bro so josh gad decides to tell wait

[14:46] i said i fucked it up again guys mulch diggums decides to tell us a magical story

[14:51] about a a surprising little boy and the whole time he's doing it in addition to looking like

[14:56] a shorter dirty or hagrid he is doing it with a serious batman voice okay and that's not the

[15:02] only batman voice we get in this movie uh so get excited so we learn a little bit about there's a

[15:07] lot of roughness there's a lot of gruff voices in this for no reason yeah half of the gads half of

[15:12] gads position in this movie feels like it was shot at the lit like in the 12th in a series of

[15:18] reshoots at the gads minute the gads position feels like it was shot a week before the movie

[15:24] came out that's how lazy it feels like we're just glue this all together get him back in here

[15:28] and glue these scenes together with exposition and narration it's yeah i wanted to say something

[15:33] about how tremendously lazy the opening is because it really sounds like someone fed a bunch of

[15:39] fantasy movies into an ai and they're like okay opening uh exposition opening monologue but the

[15:45] thing that i really wanted to highlight was he goes he says something like this is a great story

[15:51] and it starts like all great stories do with magic and then like they show him surfing and then he's

[15:58] like at school and you're like okay well it's just magic you're talking about i'd even go back

[16:03] further and say that The Great Gatsby

[16:05] has no magic in it. Exactly.

[16:06] Where he does not start with magic.

[16:08] All great stories start with magic.

[16:11] I would take issue with that.

[16:13] I don't know. Merchant of Venice

[16:14] doesn't have any magic in it. There's no magic in that.

[16:17] There's no magic in the bluest eye.

[16:20] Excuse me. Excuse me, sir.

[16:22] Sir?

[16:24] Sir? Sir? Can I see your manager, sir?

[16:27] I don't remember there being any magic

[16:28] in the novel The Sympathizer.

[16:30] Excuse me, sir.

[16:33] uh so yeah as as dan said uh now now that we're in story mode uh he tells us about a magical land

[16:41] called ireland where we see this little asshole artemis surfing around and it looks way less cool

[16:47] than i think it's intended uh he's like a super smart overachiever but he's also terrible and i

[16:53] kind of want to punch him well he's he's a real misanthrope uh as relayed to us by the school

[16:57] therapist who and i'll just mention this the therapist's office includes a glass wall between

[17:02] the therapist's office and the waiting room

[17:04] so everyone in the waiting room can see who's

[17:06] getting therapy at that moment, which is incredibly

[17:08] unethical. Like, I would turn around

[17:10] and walk away. That is not okay.

[17:12] Well, everything about his therapy

[17:14] is, yeah, everything else he

[17:16] does in his therapy session is totally

[17:18] above board, though. He's a great therapist.

[17:19] Oh, yeah, he just reminds Artemis Fowl of his

[17:22] dead mom and absent father

[17:24] and then brags about an old chair

[17:26] that he has so that Artemis can show

[17:28] off his genius by telling him the chair

[17:30] is not as old as he thinks it is. That's right.

[17:32] Artemis Fowl's amazing ability to appraise antique chairs.

[17:36] Imagine young Sheldon, but mean.

[17:40] If young Sheldon, without the people skills.

[17:43] Oh, wow.

[17:44] Yeah.

[17:45] Oh, man.

[17:46] What a team up that would be.

[17:47] Do filmmakers not realize that when you make a kid totally unlikable,

[17:50] that lasts for the whole movie?

[17:52] You can't come back from that.

[17:54] Well, it's also not about him learning any kind of lesson.

[17:58] I was like, who's this little shit?

[18:01] Like, when I saw, like, because, you know, like, this came on the heels, the books came on the heels of Harry Potter, and they were rightly or wrongly sort of, like, looked on as this, like, attempt to jump on that train.

[18:14] Interesting.

[18:15] I didn't know train was what you were going to say.

[18:17] Okay.

[18:17] Yeah.

[18:18] But, I mean, Harry Potter.

[18:20] I thought you would say bandwagon.

[18:21] Yeah.

[18:22] Harry Potter, and, again, J.K. Rowling is trash.

[18:26] Harry Potter, like the point of that, the beginning is like he is this kid who's been through so much hardship and you're on his side immediately.

[18:35] Whereas this kid is rich and is a dick to everyone.

[18:39] Comparing himself to Einstein favorably.

[18:44] It's like, do you respect anybody?

[18:46] He goes, Einstein.

[18:47] But I think, so here's where I think they get it wrong.

[18:50] So the difference is there are two different types of fantasies.

[18:53] Harry Potter is a fantasy about you're a lonely kid, and it turns out you're a powerful wizard, and everybody loves you, and you got, I don't know, you have sex with a dragon.

[19:01] Yeah, you're rich, and you get to become a magic cop at the end.

[19:04] Yeah, and with Artemis Fowl, it's supposed to be the fantasy of, like, I'm the smartest, most badass kid, and I'm not a goody-goody like Harry Potter.

[19:12] I do what I want.

[19:12] It basically, like, it's like the thing that the fantasy people had when they voted for Donald Trump is the fantasy they're supposed to be having with Artemis Fowl of, like, isn't it fun to pretend to be a bad guy for a little bit?

[19:22] But instead they took that character and tried to shove him into a story about a lonely kid who needs to find friends.

[19:30] And it was like, he's pushed away everybody and he's a jerk.

[19:35] And as a result, they made a movie as bad as Donald Trump.

[19:39] I mean, obviously nothing is as bad as Donald Trump.

[19:42] He's the worst thing in the world right now.

[19:44] A lot of lefty politics in this episode.

[19:46] Anyway, so we also learned that his dad, Colin Farrell, taught him all about Irish folklore.

[19:52] Now, do they show us him teaching about Irish folklore, or is this just more mulch-diggums talk?

[19:57] Don't they just, like, walk around and look at stuff?

[20:00] And the thing is that previously—

[20:02] He shows a lot of old stumps.

[20:03] Now, yeah.

[20:04] But, guys, was Colin Farrell, is he an attentive dad, or is he, like, absentee and never there?

[20:09] Well, I mean, when he's there, he's great.

[20:12] You know, that's the thing.

[20:12] You just look forward to the times when he's around.

[20:14] Okay.

[20:15] Yeah.

[20:15] But he's always leaving.

[20:17] So when you see Colin Farrell's cast as Artemis Senior,

[20:21] you're probably hoping for a killing of a sacred deer situation.

[20:24] No such luck.

[20:25] I was hoping it would be a real lobster situation

[20:28] and their maid would just come in and rub herself on his crotch

[20:31] to force him to make a choice to fall in love.

[20:33] I would have been happy with a little just a dash of ambrosia

[20:36] would have pleased me.

[20:37] Oh, very nice.

[20:37] We get none of these things.

[20:39] We didn't even get any Tigerland, guys.

[20:40] We didn't even get any Alexander.

[20:43] There's no SWAT.

[20:45] Well, there's a little swat.

[20:47] There's a lot of swat.

[20:48] But this is a very dour movie.

[20:52] So at this point, we're probably like, what, 10 minutes in?

[20:54] And I was like, ooh, magic makes everything depressing.

[20:57] Yeah.

[20:57] But we're about to be dropped knee deep in a digital explosion of fairy creatures and fairytale lore.

[21:04] Let's enjoy it.

[21:05] Uh-huh.

[21:06] So let's hit the gas now.

[21:08] So Artemis' dad teaches Artemis' son all about Irish magic.

[21:15] And then he leaves on a long, mysterious trip.

[21:17] We're introduced to Artemis's only friend, who is Dom Butler, who is his butler.

[21:22] But you're not supposed to call him a butler.

[21:25] But he's like, you know, like a big bodyguard type.

[21:27] Artemis Sr. has disappeared while on this trip.

[21:32] And he finds out from the news that his dad is a suspected master thief.

[21:38] Which, I mean, all kids, I mean, most kids find out all their information on the news, right?

[21:45] yeah yeah kids love the news they love to leave it on oh no wait that's old people that's old

[21:49] people leave the news on their tv all day you forgot you don't want kids learning about you

[21:54] forgot a weird piece of whimsy back there steward i didn't get i'm going to forget a lot of pieces

[21:58] he says don't call him butler even though he is the butler and his name is butler but don't call

[22:06] him butler yeah that's that's good writing yeah he doesn't like multiple levels and uh and we uh

[22:13] eventually we'll meet uh well i guess that hasn't happened yet we'll meet the butler's what niece

[22:17] who's also brought there and then she disappears for broad swaths of the movie even though they're

[22:21] all in the same house elliot elliot you know what's great about doing your own podcast is you

[22:25] can kind of jump the fuck around if you want so in fact we'll just get to it we're introduced to uh

[22:30] who you think is going to be the second lead of the movie juliet butler who is a you know uh

[22:37] Another 12-year-old who is hyper-functioning.

[22:40] I think she is introduced, like, fighting, like, Kendo or something in the woods.

[22:44] And she is introduced and then, as you said, disappears, does almost nothing except run away from a troll later.

[22:52] I think that where she works might be the only clever bit that I enjoyed, and it might be the only reason the books ever got greenlit.

[23:00] She works for an outfit called Lep Recon.

[23:04] So, that's a cute little pun there.

[23:07] If you're, like, trying to incorporate, like, old school folklore into modern technology, you lep recon.

[23:14] But that's not enough to build a movie in eight books around.

[23:16] Yeah.

[23:18] Speaking of her disappearing for wide swaths, now, toward the end of the movie where I wanted to look anywhere but the screen, so I can only take Audrey's word for this.

[23:31] She says that this character who disappears was not even there during her uncle's death scene.

[23:42] During the scene when Butler almost dies.

[23:46] He briefly dies.

[23:46] He comes back.

[23:47] So you weren't watching this part.

[23:49] So you had tied Audrey to the mast so she could watch the movie.

[23:53] And you would have to.

[23:55] She had like those clockwork orange.

[23:57] The canary in the coal mine.

[23:59] Tell me what happened.

[24:00] Yeah, and I was just like, you just – yeah, I was like in the other room.

[24:03] I was like, you just shout it to me.

[24:05] You just tell me.

[24:06] Dan, I'm constantly so impressed by your dedication to the podcast that rather than pausing the film, you decided not to break up the experience.

[24:15] And you said, I'm going to watch it like I was in the theater and just let it keep rolling while I leave the room to – was it cutting up a mango this time?

[24:21] That was the excuse last time.

[24:22] Believe me.

[24:23] Believe me.

[24:23] If I saw this in the theater, I would have abandoned the entire enterprise.

[24:30] That's you know what? See, that's an interesting point that you just nailed.

[24:34] And this was supposed to be a wide theatrical release.

[24:36] And if this final product had come out in theaters, people would have been even rougher on it.

[24:41] I mean, it's it's atrocious.

[24:43] And yeah, well, yeah.

[24:45] I mean, I feel like if this movie had been released in theaters, there would have been a shortage of theater mangoes because so many people would have been leaving the theater to go buy theater mangoes.

[24:54] Dan, you'll be happy to know. You'll be happy to know.

[24:57] I don't remember if we ever talked about this on the podcast, did we?

[24:59] about how you missed what was going on.

[25:00] Oh, no, it was in that mini.

[25:01] You missed what was going on because you were busy cutting a mango.

[25:04] And this is now, whenever I'm complaining about you, Dan,

[25:07] and I'm like, oh, Dan wasn't around for this thing.

[25:09] Sammy's like, oh, did he have to cut another mango?

[25:11] That's amazing.

[25:12] I love it.

[25:13] So that's his go-to Dan slam.

[25:14] Every time you complain about me around the house,

[25:18] in Sammy's earshot.

[25:20] Thank you, Elliot.

[25:22] It's only because Sammy always wants to hear about you.

[25:25] I told you about when we were going through our wedding photos,

[25:27] and he was like, where are the Dan pictures?

[25:29] Show me pictures of Dan.

[25:30] I mean, you know that Sammy's my favorite.

[25:34] Child in the world.

[25:35] Oh, that's sweet.

[25:36] I want to tell Gabriel that.

[25:37] Hey, I've had less time to get to know Gabriel.

[25:41] I did want to say one thing that is brought up by this.

[25:46] Yeah, this was on the mini, this Mango story.

[25:50] This is one of the great things you're missing if you don't listen to the minis.

[25:54] I know that the minis have less of a download, and I think there's been some really good ones lately.

[25:59] That was in the Get Even mini, right?

[26:02] Yes, yes, yes.

[26:04] So, Stuart, this is when...

[26:07] Does Artemis Jr. find out what happened to Artemis Sr.?

[26:10] That's what we would call a leading question, Elliot.

[26:12] So, yeah.

[26:14] So, Artemis is obviously...

[26:16] Objection!

[26:17] Overruled.

[26:18] Hearsay.

[26:19] He saw it in a movie.

[26:20] Overruled.

[26:21] Artemis Jr. is tearing out his hair.

[26:24] He's rending his garments.

[26:25] There is no way that this fake news bullshit

[26:28] would call his father a thief um and around now he receives a phone call from opal co opal cowboy

[26:36] an evil fairy who is living in a mountain fortress and has his father captured in some kind of

[26:42] crystal trap uh i think that's all correct you are i this is why i was glenn stewart got to do

[26:47] the breakdown this episode and make some kind of make some kind of ransom demand you gotta bring

[26:53] me the aculus in three days in three days when i was complaining when i was complaining about

[26:58] this movie while watching it i was i was saying like this movie is just like people staying in

[27:04] one place like you got artemis at the fucking mansion grounds all the time and then you like

[27:09] cut back to like oh it's colin farrell hanging around like no it really plays like i mean i

[27:15] imagine like if i went over to elliot's house and he were to show me a a photo album of his trip to

[27:21] let's say mexico and instead of a movie he just shows me 12 still photos and for each photo he

[27:28] talks for 15 minutes that's what this movie feels like yeah that's kind of now here's what i'll say

[27:34] that maybe they were so prescient and they were like you know what when this movie comes out

[27:38] people aren't going to be able to leave their homes so we'll have artemis stay at his house

[27:43] we'll have opal always stay at her her house i think her because it's a woman doing the voice

[27:47] but we don't know

[27:48] we never learned

[27:48] anything about Opal

[27:49] and we'll have

[27:50] Judi Dench

[27:51] for most of the movie

[27:52] because Judi Dench

[27:53] could be in her

[27:54] underground fairy world

[27:55] and we just won't

[27:56] have them interact

[27:57] very much

[27:57] and you know what

[27:58] people will really

[27:59] be able to relate

[28:00] to these characters

[28:01] who go on a wild

[28:02] magical

[28:03] mystical

[28:03] marvelous adventure

[28:05] without leaving

[28:06] their very own home

[28:07] for days

[28:08] and Judi Dench

[28:09] is mostly looking

[28:10] at screens

[28:10] and interacting

[28:11] with people on screens

[28:13] or things on screens

[28:14] there's one moment

[28:15] there's one moment

[28:16] where you can see her

[28:17] thinking in her mind about how stupid

[28:19] what she's saying is

[28:20] but she's professional

[28:22] she comes out of this the most unscathed

[28:26] much like

[28:27] she's one of the best things in Cats

[28:29] if anybody can walk out of this movie unscathed

[28:31] it's Judi Dench, she made it out of Riddick

[28:33] she can make it out of this

[28:34] she looks bored

[28:37] I don't care if huge stars are in a bad movie

[28:40] but give them something to do

[28:42] she looks bored

[28:44] I was watching this with my wife

[28:46] She goes, how did they get Judi Dench?

[28:47] And I'm like, she's British.

[28:48] She'll do anything.

[28:49] Right?

[28:49] Lawrence Olivier, in his later years, did some really questionable films as well.

[28:55] Everybody needs to get paid, but if you're going to have Judi Dench on your set,

[28:59] give her something juicy or funny or scary.

[29:04] She's just perfunctory.

[29:05] It's not her fault, but boy, it's not good.

[29:08] And she's literally riding around on a Segway for a lot of the movies,

[29:11] so she's not even walking.

[29:13] So we find out that, so Artemis learns the hard way that there's truth to all of these stories about fairy stuff.

[29:21] And that his father has a secret office and there's all kinds of secret bullshit in there.

[29:25] And he uses an old, what, like bedtime poem or something to find his father's secret hidden journal.

[29:32] And he starts reading that shit.

[29:34] I'll mention that a lot of the magical, mystical bullshit is just bottles with glowing liquids in them.

[29:40] And we don't know what it is.

[29:43] It just looks like cloudy milk.

[29:44] He just is a hoarder who collects cloudy milk.

[29:45] And we're just waiting for him to open the drawer

[29:48] that will take us to the next narration sequence.

[29:51] That's it.

[29:51] Yep.

[29:53] Which is, of course, we are introduced to Haven City,

[29:57] that is the underground fairy city,

[29:59] which is like a mix of Coruscant

[30:02] and like with a big dash of Shadowrun thrown in there.

[30:05] And we're introduced, you know,

[30:07] there's like flying buses all over the place.

[30:10] And like, it's a little bit like, it's a little crappy.

[30:13] It's a little, like, beat-up, a little, like, cyberpunk-y.

[30:16] It's kind of a mix of, like, a Star Wars prequel and The Fifth Element and Men in Black and a sharper image store.

[30:22] Like, that's what it feels like.

[30:23] It's kind of a beat-up, dingy B-roll of Hellboy 2.

[30:27] Yes.

[30:28] And I would say that, like, in a better movie, I would find this more interesting.

[30:33] I mean, you could say that about basically anything.

[30:35] But like the these fantasy creatures with science fiction technology is a thing that I'm sure is very common in other media, but not so much in movies like you don't like you like you don't usually see these high fantasy creatures with this kind of like like they say Star Wars prequel stuff around them.

[30:58] But because this movie is so bad and confusing otherwise, I just found it sort of, like, more confusing.

[31:06] Well, it raises two questions for me that the movie never answers, which is, one, if they have super magic, why are they shooting lasers at each other and wearing space helmets?

[31:15] They have magic.

[31:16] They don't need all this junk.

[31:17] And, two, they make a point a lot of times in the movie of saying we can't let anyone see us.

[31:22] We can't let humanity know that we're down here.

[31:23] We can't let anyone see any fairies up above.

[31:26] And it's like, you seem like you have the ability to wipe out humanity.

[31:29] You can control time, and you have lasers and magic.

[31:32] I don't understand why you need to hide.

[31:34] Like, best case scenario, we should be trading partners.

[31:37] Worst case scenario, you're a conqueror.

[31:39] I don't understand.

[31:40] They could just not like us.

[31:42] Yes.

[31:43] Children in a backyard do better world building than this movie does.

[31:48] There's no world building.

[31:49] It's here's an establishing shot and some narration, but there's no actual world building.

[31:54] i mean it could be just like someone like pretending not to answer the doorbell when

[31:59] someone they don't like comes to the door maybe the fairies are just like these humans humans

[32:04] again i mean we do learn that in the world of haven city it doesn't matter if you're a prisoner

[32:08] being taken to the worst prison in in the world or you're a police officer who's re-entering the

[32:13] city you have to go through the same gates so you wait online with each other yeah so this is when

[32:18] we're introduced to i guess our second lead who is a cop named holly short who is the daughter of

[32:24] a famous trader who originally stole the Aculis.

[32:27] But I guess she's trying to clear her father's name or something.

[32:30] Eh, who cares?

[32:31] So this is where we're reintroduced to Mulch.

[32:34] Mulch is getting sentenced to the worst prison for stealing stuff, I think.

[32:39] Breaking and tunneling.

[32:40] Or no, tunneling and entering.

[32:41] Something like that.

[32:42] Yep, tunneling and entering.

[32:43] They make a lot of jokes about how he is tall for a dwarf.

[32:46] I guess he's a dwarf.

[32:47] And I don't know.

[32:50] I think he's getting 400 years, which seems excessive.

[32:53] But I don't know.

[32:54] I don't know.

[32:55] The criminal justice system is terrible.

[32:57] I mean, also, they live a long time.

[32:59] At one point, Judi Dench says to Holly, you're 84 years old.

[33:02] You're still young.

[33:02] You've got your whole life ahead of you.

[33:03] So they live for centuries.

[33:04] Yeah.

[33:05] Well, yeah, and Judi Dench is like 800.

[33:07] That raises a really interesting question, guys.

[33:10] In the world where a creature lives to, say, 900, what effect does that have on criminal justice and jurisprudence?

[33:17] You wouldn't sentence someone to five years for embezzlement if they lived to 900.

[33:20] I guess that's true.

[33:23] Yeah.

[33:23] I guess sentences would be longer in a, as we've already established, a terrible system.

[33:28] Well, but would they, though?

[33:31] I mean, like, is a sentence as it stands now, other than a life sentence, which obviously is in relation to one's life, although life rarely means life, even a life sentence is not so political.

[33:43] That's so philosophical there.

[33:44] Wow.

[33:45] No, no, but like, like non-life sentence sentences, are those determined as like what percentage they are of someone's expected life lifespan?

[33:55] I don't think that that's...

[33:56] Yeah, I think that's what they do, Dan.

[33:57] Yeah, yeah, that's how they do it.

[33:58] Hold on, I'm arguing against that as a notion.

[34:00] They do like, they do like a physical and they're like, okay.

[34:03] Let's find out how long you're going to live.

[34:05] Let's count your teeth.

[34:06] So Elliot got really excited.

[34:08] He already mentioned Judi Dench.

[34:10] Judi Dench plays Commander Root.

[34:12] She is also doing a Batman voice.

[34:14] That's right.

[34:15] We got two Batmans, and Judi Dench has decided to mentor this young fairy cop, Holly Short.

[34:21] I think in her heart she believes that Holly's father was wrongfully accused, but we'll find out later.

[34:29] And she says to Holly that all of Fairyland is at risk unless they find the Aculis.

[34:35] This is never explained.

[34:36] it also bears mentioning at this point that um uh along with the tremendous amount of negative

[34:43] criticism for art of this file there was also minor controversy in that holly was described

[34:49] as having a brown skin in the book and this is another uh oh i would just like to oh i in response

[34:55] to that i would just like to also interject that i believe that jk rowling is a piece of shit

[35:00] oh thank you okay

[35:03] I mean never a wrong time to say that um so well three of you have already said it I wanted to get

[35:11] mine in that's all I'm sorry now there's there's a uh now I on wikipedia if this is true or something

[35:16] they talk about that Saoirse Ronan was attached to this role at one point which seems like it

[35:21] would have been maybe the the biggest waste of acting talent I can imagine

[35:24] oh that's funny i i find it you know and i know i know we're not but i always feel kind of bad

[35:32] for the actors in a way because you know that the script they got was at least marginally better

[35:37] than this and guaranteed actors that were kind of knocking for not doing much had more to do in

[35:43] the movie but it feels like literally 90 minutes got cut there's the original david mammet draft

[35:49] yeah the uh so this is around where uh the elliot had mentioned this earlier that uh some person who

[35:56] we have no idea who he is uh gets released out of prison by opal cowboy uh saying something about

[36:03] like i need you to spy for me or something yeah uh whatever we'll get him later his name is briar

[36:10] cudgeon oh okay cool uh you were making that up this is the only worst names that i can and you

[36:18] know what all fantasy names are kind of silly but there's what's the show it's an amazon show

[36:22] where it's a murder mystery and they're fantasy creatures uh it's called like hollyhock lane or

[36:26] something like that uh carnival row carnival row yeah where i was reading the review of it and it

[36:31] was like detective inspector gulliver mickelboss and i'm like all right forget about it has to

[36:37] team up with carnival performer ivy galindagal and i was like never mind forget it yeah i can't

[36:44] read the review see i start reading that and i'm like oh i like the i like where this is going

[36:48] sounds like an adventure it just by by this point by this late point it's just when you see all of

[36:56] the bullet points that are endemic or a part of the young adult novel and the young adult adaptation

[37:01] by this point you start to get irritated at the cynicism of it you know it's not just hey harry

[37:06] potter was a big hit we have some good stories too by this point it's just so mercenary how

[37:11] they're like aping the formula yeah yeah yeah yeah so around now uh so meanwhile like artemis

[37:19] and dom are like getting into trouble and like they hang out with julia a little bit doesn't

[37:23] matter uh i think they start staking out the uh what like the the or big like the biggest tree

[37:29] on their property i don't know what's going on that's that's a tree where they've been led to

[37:33] believe by his dad's journals that fairies come to sometimes oh this is where the movie completely

[37:38] threw me like a roller coaster I wasn't strapped

[37:40] into. I watched it twice

[37:42] and this is where I was just like, I don't

[37:44] know. I feel like I'm watching a Peter Gabriel video.

[37:46] I don't know what I'm watching plot-wise.

[37:48] Yeah. Wait, is there a plot

[37:50] to the Peter Gabriel videos? Like the Sledgehammer

[37:52] have a plot? No, they're just

[37:54] avant-garde, hopefully interesting kind

[37:56] of visual coolness.

[37:58] And that's another thing.

[38:00] Except for the establishing shots that they think

[38:02] are all like, here's our stately castle

[38:04] or our cool warren of

[38:06] whole, it's an ugly movie.

[38:08] Kenneth Branagh has made some wonderfully

[38:10] good looking movies. This movie is

[38:12] ugly. I don't get why it looks like

[38:14] so brown and grungy.

[38:16] I think they're trying

[38:18] to, to a certain amount of it

[38:20] is they're stuck in the kind of classic, I think

[38:22] Gaelic fantasy

[38:24] color palette of greens and browns

[38:26] and they

[38:28] add to that the

[38:30] color that is synonymous with dimensional

[38:32] portals and ultra

[38:34] technology of the movie is glowy blue and so there's just a lot of like glowy blue and darkly

[38:40] lit underground scenes and greens and browns and there's it's it's a movie where you're like hey

[38:44] you know what color i like red you know it's another fun color yellow i'd love to see these

[38:49] colors pink is a color can i see some of those please yeah let's let's drench this in synth wave

[38:54] um okay so uh i mean i mean how is that not better how is that that would have been way better let's

[39:02] liquid sky this thing up come on guys so we're introduced to down in haven city we're introduced

[39:07] to another cool character that's right foley the centaur tech genius best character they do that

[39:13] uh clever thing a script does where they make a point of saying don't ask to ride him so you're

[39:19] like oh fuck somebody's gonna ask to ride this guy at the end of the movie like that's the only way

[39:23] they're gonna stop it but you know you gotta assume that that's rule number one is you would

[39:27] never ask a centaur if you could ride them.

[39:29] So you're saying that the movie made the subtext text

[39:34] and you're unhappy about it?

[39:35] Oh, it just seems so obvious to me.

[39:37] Also, I do like that they took the Irish name Foley

[39:40] and they spell it F-O-A-L like a foal,

[39:44] like a baby horse.

[39:45] Because he's half horse, Foley.

[39:47] Wow.

[39:48] Shit, movie gets points.

[39:49] I like this movie more now than you just...

[39:52] I'm just saying, the movie's having a little fun.

[39:54] Or the creator of Artemis Fowl,

[39:56] if there's a character from the book, is having some fun.

[39:58] I still insist that Lep Recon is slightly clever.

[40:02] So Holly Short is given a mission

[40:06] because all the other fairy cops are dealing with some bullshit.

[40:08] So, of course, she has to ride some lava to the surface.

[40:12] She goes to a wedding where a troll has showed up,

[40:16] and she gets in a fight with a troll.

[40:18] Wait, let me finish.

[40:19] And that troll wasn't even invited.

[40:21] Now, she goes to the wedding to catch the troll.

[40:24] Just to make it clear, even though in my notes I wrote, sent to the surface in a lava rock to find dot, dot, dot, someone, question mark, who escaped, question mark.

[40:33] It turns out there's a troll on the loose.

[40:35] She goes to an Italian wedding where the troll is there, I assume because the troll heard about their amazing soup.

[40:39] Because is there a better soup than Italian wedding soup?

[40:42] Maybe, but I haven't tasted it.

[40:44] So, yeah, so she shows up to capture this troll.

[40:48] Then they freeze everything and just take the troll away.

[40:53] Like, why do they send her to...

[40:54] Yeah.

[40:54] And then they men in black all the humans.

[40:56] That was the part I found the most insulting,

[41:00] was when they sent fairies to put flashbulbs in people's eyes

[41:03] to make them forget.

[41:04] And I was like, do you think I didn't see men in black?

[41:06] Like, there were three of them.

[41:08] Like, you can't just pretend this is your idea.

[41:10] Yeah, make it, like, fairy dust or something.

[41:12] Come on.

[41:13] You can't do the bulb thing.

[41:14] But I also like the casualness of making them forget

[41:18] because while they're doing this, like, you know,

[41:20] the time is frozen and it basically looks like you know in an x-men movie when quicksilver is

[41:25] going around even though i i don't think she was doing it at like uh super speed or anything like

[41:30] when sonic is running around in that roadhouse in the hit film sonic the hedgehog yes exactly

[41:34] so that's going on but and they make it forget but then all the chaos the aftermath of the chaos

[41:40] is still there the destruction when they like come out of their time warp thing and so everyone's

[41:47] like oh what the what and it's just like i i appreciate the laziness of the fairies in that

[41:52] instance that they they made them forget everything but didn't explain why this

[41:56] wedding suddenly was a disaster they really have to ask the cleanup is what you're saying yeah yeah

[42:02] it does it does ask the question story yeah why why didn't they why did they bother to send holly

[42:06] if they could just stop time and send in a team of agents to get this troll yeah you would think

[42:10] that would be the whole point but of course immediately afterwards holly decides to go

[42:15] rogue on the surface because she's

[42:17] trying to clear her father's name. Because, of

[42:19] course, in all situations, the

[42:21] fish rots from the head. Judi Dench

[42:23] broke protocol to freeze time so

[42:25] quickly. So, of course, her subordinates

[42:27] don't really care about the rules either.

[42:29] So I think this is a situation where we're just going

[42:31] to have to deal with the entire system.

[42:33] You know what I mean?

[42:34] Yeah. Dismantle it. Defund Leprechaun.

[42:37] Oh, man. This segment in Artemis Fowl

[42:39] just ripped straight from the headlines.

[42:40] Yep.

[42:42] This is the part where

[42:44] where a cudgeon goes up to judy dench is like hey i'm gonna have your job and your ass if you don't

[42:49] get in line and do what i say and i was like wasn't he in jail earlier today like i don't

[42:54] understand how did he get this job so quickly where he's in charge of everything very strange

[42:58] uh yeah it is pretty strange but you know what else is strange that uh arty and dom have set a

[43:04] trap for holly outside of this tree uh she flies to this tree for some reason and then they shoot

[43:11] her with a tranquilizer dart and then the fairies find out about it because i guess they're tracking

[43:16] her and they're like okay well we gotta rescue our friend however artemis has already thrown

[43:21] holly in jail in his house because he can't leave his house because then that would defeat the whole

[43:26] movie um that was this this is uh the artemis captures holly and judy dunge says uh to uh to

[43:33] cudgeon at this point get the four-leaf clover out of here my favorite kind of joke guys a joke

[43:37] in a kid's movie that necessitates knowledge of a swear word.

[43:41] Smurf happens.

[43:42] Smurf happens indeed.

[43:45] It's cringy for the obvious reason,

[43:48] which is a five-year-old's not going to get that joke,

[43:50] and it's even cringier because anybody who would get that joke

[43:52] would just groan.

[43:53] It's because it's not funny.

[43:55] It's a real groaner.

[43:57] It does remind me of the Smurf tagline,

[44:00] Smurf happens and, of course, get Smurfed up your butt,

[44:03] which I thought was especially inappropriate.

[44:04] Smurf, my Smurf.

[44:06] No, I don't have children, but I always did feel like, hey, mom, what does that mean?

[44:10] And you're like, oh, all right.

[44:11] It means suck my dick.

[44:12] That's what it means.

[44:13] Now, I thank you.

[44:14] Thank you.

[44:15] Thank you, the producers of Sonic the Hedgehog, for forcing me to explain to my five-year-old

[44:20] kid.

[44:20] Now, did you mention, I can't remember that, but they told Holly that fairies can't be

[44:28] seen, remain inconspicuous.

[44:29] And so she just flies with her fairy wings low enough that people can see from the streets

[44:34] of Italy?

[44:34] Uh-huh.

[44:35] Yep.

[44:35] Well, people don't look up.

[44:37] By the way, I just want to say that this is around the point where my thin grasp of the plot went to no grasp of the plot.

[44:48] And Stuart explained a big portion of it just now.

[44:53] And yet again, it's as if the ideas could not find purchase on my brain.

[44:58] They slid right off as Stuart said them.

[45:01] And what's going on is that in order—so Artemis Sr. has been kidnapped, and Artemis Fowl Jr. has to get the oculus.

[45:09] In order to get the oculus, he has a plan that involves kidnapping a fairy, even though the fairies do not have the oculus, because it was stolen from them a long time ago.

[45:18] And in fact, they want it.

[45:19] And in fact, they want to get it back.

[45:21] And so the fairies then decide to invade Artemis Fowl's house because that—yes.

[45:27] Because that—yes.

[45:31] They want to get their comrade back.

[45:33] They want to get Holly back.

[45:34] And the way they do this inconspicuously is by almost killing a fisherman and then attacking Ireland.

[45:40] We've invoked the Aculis several times.

[45:43] I just also want to say that it is the most MacGuffin-y MacGuffin in that I still don't know what it was supposed to do.

[45:49] It's like a big magic metal acorn that does magic.

[45:52] Come on, dude.

[45:53] I mean, how much blood do you need?

[45:54] And all of Haven City relies on it because, yes, again, so yes.

[46:00] Yeah, it's the same thing.

[46:01] It's like, in Pulp Fiction, I want to see what's in the briefcase.

[46:04] Yeah, in Battle Angel Lita, why don't they tell us more about this clone war she was in?

[46:09] You keep making reference to a thing that hasn't been released yet, Elliot.

[46:12] Well, we better release that episode, Dan, because I want people to know how much you love backstory.

[46:16] Extra backstory, please.

[46:18] The Oculus is cool, but who made it?

[46:21] But what was Boba Fett like as a little boy?

[46:24] I literally asked for one sentence of clarification about a plot point, and now this is Flophouse canon.

[46:30] okay tell me so uh what else happened when scully was a little girl

[46:39] that's when you're watching the x-files yeah yeah okay okay so holly is in jail in artemis's house

[46:46] uh she tries to use her uh her powers of mesmerism but artemis and juliet are wearing

[46:52] sunglasses and that blocks her abilities holly is not having this uh what kind of magic can be

[46:59] thwarted by sunglasses that's a good question radiation usually goes the opposite direction

[47:05] like and they live yeah usually magic sunglasses let you do special things but these are regular

[47:11] sunglasses that stop things now the other question is did artemis build this cage or did his dad

[47:15] already have a fairy cage in his house well also or is it a fairy day cage let us uh i i there was

[47:22] a moment too where like artemis is like fairies are real and i'm like wait he didn't believe that

[47:28] before it seems like that's all his dad talked about ever and why do you force the butler to

[47:31] stand outside for days in camo gear watching the or in one of those what are they called

[47:36] ghoulies what do you wear when you're out hunting it's a ghillie suit ghillie thank you ghillies

[47:40] and a ghoul is when you're hiding in a toilet and you need to get someone in the end yeah

[47:45] that he's why he is standing there with a sniper rifle for days and he's like oh yeah well i'm glad

[47:51] my hunch my hunch paid off that a fairy would show up yeah that's that was my big complaint

[47:56] about the latest Call of Duty is that my sniper

[47:58] character couldn't wear a ghoulie suit.

[48:00] Which is like

[48:02] little suspenders, right? Like little

[48:04] overalls? Yeah.

[48:05] Call of Ghoulie?

[48:08] I like it.

[48:09] Call of Ghoulie. Yep, that

[48:12] puts the duty into Call of Duty. Okay, um,

[48:14] so... Because it's a toilet, I get it.

[48:16] Stuart, as you're trying and doing a really

[48:18] good job of explaining all these randomly

[48:20] inserted plot points, you're

[48:22] to a credit to your, I'm sorry,

[48:24] as a service to your listeners, you're omitting

[48:26] all the different times that josh gad interrupts what's happening he interrupts with any time

[48:32] an isolated sequence gets slightly interesting josh gad is like and then bob fell over and

[48:40] they're like wait why is josh gad explaining just showing me a scene yeah okay so it's josh gad in

[48:45] this movie so of course it's not josh gad it's mulch diggums and he does it in his cool voice

[48:49] and he's like humans would be frightened of fairies most humans are afraid of gluten and i'm

[48:55] like wow this is a really crazy uh world that we're in because most people make fun of people

[48:59] who don't like take that gluten and there's a lot of like there's a lot like well here's when the

[49:04] kid does what he does best he comes up with a plan and i again my voice is not really mulch

[49:09] digum's voice the accent is all off but i i hesitate to um you know shatter stew's uh remaining

[49:16] sanity by putting another halt to the plot summary like the like the x-force character shatter stew

[49:22] Yeah.

[49:22] Oh, yeah.

[49:23] It's pretty cool.

[49:24] Apollo bones and only three fingers.

[49:26] And double swords.

[49:28] I feel like this is maybe the place to bring this up.

[49:31] I have no idea about the production history of this movie.

[49:34] Maybe others do.

[49:35] But it really, hold on.

[49:37] But I just want to just, the reason I bring it up is just like.

[49:39] I have the information you're looking for.

[49:40] Okay, but I want to first say the reason I bring it up is like it definitely feels like Josh Gad's narration is there to paper over stuff that got cut or changes that were made at some point.

[49:51] Like, it feels like a movie that has had surgery done on it, but I don't know if that's true.

[49:56] I think—I don't know for sure.

[49:58] I know that the movie was in development for a very long time.

[50:01] It was in development since before the book was published.

[50:04] It was purchased—or the rights were purchased while it was in galleys.

[50:07] And it took years and years, and at different points, lots of different people were attached.

[50:13] And so I imagine the final script is either they threw it out and in a short amount of time had to rewrite a whole new one,

[50:19] Where it's like a mishmash of different elements that people pulled out of the books or made up or didn't.

[50:24] It seems like even Kenneth Branagh was, he was not the first director that was attached to it.

[50:31] But let's say they hired him in 2015 and they were, they had trouble because Harvey Weinstein was a producer for a while.

[50:41] And then he was removed from the film because he's trash and disgusting and a criminal.

[50:45] And there's just like – I think it was one of those movies that probably had its fair share of behind-the-scenes mix-ups.

[50:53] But also like I don't think anyone really cared that much about it.

[50:57] And I could be wrong about it.

[50:58] I think it's one of those pot-committed movies.

[50:59] I think it's like a studio says we've already invested $78 million into developing this.

[51:04] We're going to spend another $120 just to make it because otherwise it's embarrassing for us.

[51:09] And there's part of me that wonders if Kenneth – like who released Murder on the Orient Express?

[51:15] because it's it feels like one of those things where it's like or who produced what company

[51:20] produced it because i don't think that was a disney film but it does feel like it was like

[51:23] i'll do this artemis fowl garbage and then you'll let me play a hercule poirot on a train for me

[51:29] not knowing that that would be the hit of the two uh that could be it or it could just be he

[51:33] obviously has some uh experience with big budget tent poles like uh thor and i guess he probably

[51:39] looked at this at one point and said hey if i'm given freedom it's a popular book it's an

[51:42] interesting world i could probably do something with it uh but it seems like either he missed

[51:48] made a misstep or uh 20 different studio execs stepped in with scissors and went oh god we don't

[51:55] even know what to do with this yeah well with with our murder on the orient express turns out

[51:59] it's 20th century fox so it's not the same studio yet with uh with our moderate sized audience out

[52:06] there uh there's a slim chance someone worked on artemis fowl if you have any uh hot gas you can

[52:12] Send it to us, and we won't release your name.

[52:14] Yeah, we'll do a mini-sode that's called The Goss House,

[52:17] where we talk about that hot goss.

[52:18] Foul house.

[52:19] I'll play my character that everyone knows very well, Ryan Gosling.

[52:25] He's the man made out of gossip, and he just loves to sing.

[52:28] I'm Ryan Gosling, and I love to sing about things that happen to people who aren't me.

[52:33] What's the gossip?

[52:34] Ryan Gosling here.

[52:35] Hey, everybody.

[52:36] What do you hear?

[52:37] I rhymed here with here, but they're spelled differently, so that's okay.

[52:40] Ryan Gosling.

[52:42] That's my character everybody knows and loves.

[52:44] Yeah, I like it.

[52:45] My guess is this was not like...

[52:47] It's great, because also,

[52:49] I remember when your character Ryan Gosling

[52:51] got hired to do promotion for Gosling's Dark Rum

[52:54] with Dark and Stormy's, right?

[52:56] Mm-hmm, exactly.

[52:57] It's like, hey, what's the gossip that everybody hears?

[53:00] I'll tell you what it is.

[53:01] It's Dark and Stormy's,

[53:02] everybody's favorite drink right now.

[53:04] Hey, what's the news?

[53:05] Well, it's not really news, it's gossip,

[53:06] so I won't tell you who it's happening to

[53:08] except for one or two of the names, maybe,

[53:10] and I don't know if it's true or not.

[53:11] dark and stormy.

[53:12] I guess you can just define

[53:15] what gossip is sometimes.

[53:16] Yeah, sometimes, yeah.

[53:18] A real patterson.

[53:19] My guess is this was probably

[53:20] not a disaster behind the scenes

[53:21] like Cats and was more just like,

[53:23] yeah, a lot of cooks in the kitchen

[53:25] and in the end just trying

[53:27] to salvage something.

[53:28] But I don't know.

[53:29] Okay, so.

[53:31] Now, no wait.

[53:32] Have we gotten to the part

[53:33] where Judi Dench is inside

[53:35] a landing vehicle

[53:35] and the ramp goes down

[53:36] and then she just says,

[53:37] top of the morning to nobody.

[53:38] Love it.

[53:39] I fucking love it.

[53:40] Or like four or five moments that make no sense in the context of the movie,

[53:45] but seemed there because they needed a trailer movie.

[53:47] And that's one of them.

[53:48] I like to think that there was a character that was supposed to be CGI'd

[53:55] and there for her to talk to.

[53:56] They just forgot.

[53:57] So, yeah, at this point, the fairies have frozen Fowl Manor

[54:05] with one of their flying time freeze devices,

[54:09] which once again as we've stated it's such a powerful ability it's like as soon as in dishonored

[54:14] you unlock the ability to freeze time it's like the game isn't even fun anymore because you can

[54:18] just like freeze time and murder everybody um okay so and yet they mostly freeze time just to stand

[54:24] around they do a lot yeah so they it's like they're freezing themselves you know um and every

[54:29] now and every now and then they'll be like the time bubble's unstable and a fairy will be just

[54:32] sucked away into nothingness and you're like what yep like oh i guess azathoth is eating him um

[54:38] so uh artemis wait stewart is azathoth the one who dances eternally to the to the sound of mad

[54:46] pipers yeah yeah it's the blind idiot god um okay thanks so oh my gosh we just i just stumbled into

[54:52] a lovecraft podcast uh try to stumble out if you can find the door oh it's non-euclidean uh so

[55:01] artemis and dom of course they're surrounded so what do they do they put on some cool suits and

[55:05] then beat the shit out of some fairies with their own weapons uh y'all and in the meanwhile that

[55:11] magical creatures yep and they're the the fairies weapons as we've addressed are basically like a

[55:16] lot of blasters uh they end up stealing a uh a bow and arrow that shoots a laser uh and shoots

[55:25] the time device which makes the time device unstable so we got a ticking clock everybody

[55:30] it looks like we're at kind of a stalemate situation.

[55:33] So Commander Root has to go inside Foul Manor

[55:36] to negotiate with Artemis.

[55:38] Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

[55:40] Did I get everything?

[55:41] Did I get everything?

[55:42] Yeah, that's pretty good.

[55:43] I mean, I think...

[55:44] You made that sound dramatic.

[55:45] Yeah, you described it much better than the movie did,

[55:49] where it's just them firing flat blasters at each other.

[55:52] I also believe, you can correct me if I'm wrong, Elliot,

[55:55] I believe that both Elliot and I were leaning away

[55:57] from the microphone to burp at that exact moment.

[56:00] too, so that might have delayed our response.

[56:02] Thanks for clarifying.

[56:03] I'm glad you guys are drinking your bourbon from

[56:05] all the dark and stormies you're drinking. I'm smoking.

[56:07] Brought to you by Ryan Gosling. Brought to you by Ryan

[56:10] Gosling. Gosling's gin.

[56:11] Or is it rum? Yeah, it's rum.

[56:13] So Dan and I

[56:16] have a connection much like Elliot and E.T. in the movie

[56:18] E.T., where sometimes we do the same thing at a

[56:20] distance, whether it's

[56:21] kissing someone because we saw a kiss on TV

[56:24] or freeing frogs because

[56:25] why not? Why should the frogs have to die

[56:28] when we could just look at pictures of frogs?

[56:29] Wow, that would be funny if when Stuart drank an extra beer,

[56:33] that's when Elliot started singing.

[56:34] That would be hilarious.

[56:35] Mm-hmm.

[56:37] Yep.

[56:38] Usually what happens when I start singing is Stuart gets up to get an extra beer.

[56:41] Uh-huh.

[56:42] Yep.

[56:43] And I pause extra long when my hand rests on the door of the refrigerator,

[56:47] and I'm like, here we go again.

[56:50] Okay.

[56:51] Yeah.

[56:52] Maybe this will make the podcast go faster.

[56:57] Now, did you mention that Fowl has demanded the Aculis to let Holly go?

[57:03] Yeah, so he makes his demands.

[57:05] Of course, Commander Root makes her demands in her tough voice.

[57:09] But it feels like they're at yet another stalemate.

[57:13] Although, as I mentioned, the time device is breaking and we have a ticking clock.

[57:18] Meanwhile, the fairies have decided...

[57:24] Meanwhile, Madison's learning not every problem can be settled by committee.

[57:27] that's that's exactly right because disney plus hamilton i get that joke now

[57:32] the uh the problem is they're trying to they're fighting over where to put the u.s capital it

[57:39] isn't pretty uh you got some more you got some more history raps for me well that's when uh

[57:46] virginian insight dinner and invite a quid pro quo i suppose so and so forth

[57:51] oh man what a laugh okay so uh this is when the fairies are going to need the best deep core

[58:00] on the planet earth so they can so they can blow up an asteroid i'm guessing

[58:05] a bit of an exaggeration i re-watched that movie recently because like

[58:10] it's a fucking pandemic and sometimes i need to find the stupidest thing to watch

[58:15] yeah and when uh billy bob thornton says get me the world's best deep cork driller i'm like

[58:24] what the are there listings what the fuck is this yeah yeah yeah and deep core magazine

[58:29] yeah not what deep core magazine is about elliot

[58:33] splurge on that subscription no i didn't even look at the magazine first and

[58:40] You said splurge, I thought

[58:42] It's like a porno reference

[58:43] So, yeah, of course

[58:46] They decide to break out

[58:48] What if there was a soda called splurge

[58:50] And it was just really expensive

[58:51] Tastes exactly like Coke

[58:58] Okay, so, now

[59:01] Are we going to talk about why Opal Cowboy is motivation?

[59:04] I have no idea

[59:05] I don't have anything written down in my notes

[59:07] Do you know? Does anyone know?

[59:09] She tells Artemis Fowl Sr.,

[59:12] I'm mad that humans reduced fairies

[59:14] to mere stories to frighten kids.

[59:16] I'm going to take over the world and eliminate humanity.

[59:18] Somehow the Aculis will help her do this.

[59:20] I don't know.

[59:21] Well, again, this seems like one of those problems

[59:24] that could be solved also just by revealing

[59:26] that fairies exist

[59:28] rather than taking over humanity.

[59:31] Well, it brings me back to the old...

[59:32] There are a couple of steps that have been skipped,

[59:34] is all I'm saying.

[59:34] The old Zookeeper episode where the animals are like,

[59:37] oh yeah, we can talk, but we don't like freaking people out.

[59:39] And it's like, well, maybe you should talk because we'd probably eat you less if you did.

[59:42] The abuse that you could avoid if you just spoke.

[59:46] And I mean, I feel like attendance at zoos would at least temporarily increase, right?

[59:51] There'd be a short increase.

[59:53] And then and then, of course, people would get used to it.

[59:54] Plus, it's like, although I guess that wouldn't mean they'd make more money or anything, right?

[59:59] No, the animals before they could demand a cut, they could unionize possibly.

[1:00:02] True. Yeah, yeah.

[1:00:03] They could actually negotiate at this point.

[1:00:04] That would be the depressing version of that story is all pets can talk.

[1:00:08] And then Elliot's version is like, after five years, everyone's just like, shut up.

[1:00:11] No one cares.

[1:00:12] Well, that's the thing.

[1:00:15] Like, also, like, they're like, oh, it'll freak them out.

[1:00:17] Like, well, that's the thing that people will get over with time.

[1:00:19] That's one of those people who, like, is just too polite to, like, avoid massive discomfort and can't say anything.

[1:00:26] There's a stand-up bit that I saw Paul F. Tompkins do years ago where it was, if they found a gorilla who could speak, how many times would you see it on TV before you get tired of it?

[1:00:37] And just him imitating a gorilla

[1:00:38] who is being interviewed

[1:00:39] and has run out of things to say

[1:00:41] and is very boring.

[1:00:42] Okay, so we cut back to the...

[1:00:47] Oh, more Paul F. Tompkins.

[1:00:48] That guy's hilarious.

[1:00:49] Yeah, he's great.

[1:00:50] If only he was an Artemis Fowl,

[1:00:52] but he's not.

[1:00:52] He would have been great.

[1:00:53] So we go back to the fairy prison

[1:00:56] where Mulch Diggums is being threatened

[1:00:59] by a group of goblins

[1:01:02] and he listens to Foreigner

[1:01:04] and then he blows up the goblins

[1:01:06] And right then they break him out and release him so that he can break into foul manner and help rescue Holly.

[1:01:13] And now how does he break in?

[1:01:15] Tell us about the physics of how this works.

[1:01:17] So this is so this is where he straps on some goggles.

[1:01:21] He pulls out his mouth real wide and then he starts digging a hole using his mouth.

[1:01:28] And then all of the dirt he consumes just flies out of his asshole.

[1:01:34] Okay, I was wondering whether I was hallucinating that.

[1:01:37] That is what is intended, correct?

[1:01:39] Yes.

[1:01:39] That looks like he's just shitting a bunch of...

[1:01:40] Yeah, if you go frame by frame, you can see his actual butthole, I think.

[1:01:45] You can see his anus just ejecting it, yeah.

[1:01:48] I'm sorry, Ellie.

[1:01:49] I've talked right over you.

[1:01:50] I'm just saying this bit wouldn't work in a good movie.

[1:01:53] And in a bad movie, your jaw hits the freaking floor.

[1:01:56] Here's the thing that really got to me about it.

[1:01:58] You see his boxer shorts.

[1:01:59] So he must have like a slit in the back of his underpants that allows the dirt to come out.

[1:02:04] Yeah. So dwarves have to turn their boxer shorts around so that the slits in the back instead of the front.

[1:02:09] I guess so. It's like those split pants that little kids wear in some Asian countries that they can just poop.

[1:02:15] His colon health must be amazing, though, because that's a lot of fiber.

[1:02:19] That is. I don't know that there's that much fiber in dirt, is there?

[1:02:22] I mean, well, it's like sandblasting the insides of your colon.

[1:02:27] Yeah, sounds very healthy. So he yeah, that was that was the moment where I was like, come on, movie.

[1:02:34] Yeah. And I was like, at least in Perdido Street Station, the bug people eat paste and it squirts out the back of their head, not out the back of their butt.

[1:02:43] That's weird. OK, so this is when Artemis Fowl releases Holly from her jail cell for some reason.

[1:02:51] Oh, no, they didn't yet. He's just yeah. And he's they're bonding over. Yeah, I don't know.

[1:02:56] Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, like, this is, like, like, I don't know if this is a very common thing in YA literature, but it feels like every single character is, their importance is in part defined by who their parents are, which is so depressing to me.

[1:03:13] Open your eyes, Stu. Welcome to the world we live in.

[1:03:15] It's one of those things that the young adult books and movies are so intrinsically connected to

[1:03:23] that it's so frustrating is that prophecy is not good drama.

[1:03:27] It's just, I mean, it's not.

[1:03:29] When you say someone is the chosen one, we're all sitting there going,

[1:03:33] all right, well, he's going to go or she's going to go through a lot of trouble

[1:03:36] and then be named the chosen one because that's what you told me.

[1:03:39] I'd much rather it just be like a kid trying to accomplish some things.

[1:03:44] and not being defined exclusively by their birth.

[1:03:48] Yeah, I think maybe it has to do with the fact

[1:03:50] that these are books for a younger audience,

[1:03:52] and their life experience is mostly defined

[1:03:56] by their family and school.

[1:03:57] And so I think that's why there's a lot of YA

[1:03:59] where it's like, it's a school for this kind of talented thing.

[1:04:02] There's not a lot of YA that's about having a job

[1:04:05] or having children.

[1:04:08] So Ellie, you're arguing...

[1:04:10] Ellie, you don't think Singles is a young adult movie?

[1:04:13] I mean, someone my age, those are now young adults, unfortunately.

[1:04:16] So Elliot, your argument makes a lot of sense that for some reason this book or movie is not targeted to me, Stuart?

[1:04:26] I mean, in a way, a movie about a criminal mastermind who operates in a fantasy world with elves and goblins does feel like it's targeted to you.

[1:04:34] That's the thing.

[1:04:35] Okay, so where's my notes?

[1:04:38] Okay, so yeah, he's let Holly loose.

[1:04:43] She punches him in the face, and I'm like, I've been wanting to do that the whole movie,

[1:04:46] but I keep breaking my television.

[1:04:47] I feel so bad not liking a child performer in a movie, because he's just a kid, and they

[1:04:54] told him, play this part like you're a smug dick, but it really is, I just felt bad the

[1:05:00] whole movie, because I was like, I hate this kid.

[1:05:01] Oh, but he's just an actor.

[1:05:02] I'm not mad at the actor, I'm mad at the character.

[1:05:06] I can differentiate those two things, Elliot.

[1:05:08] I can't, I can't.

[1:05:11] That's why when I watch the Golden Girls, I'm like, I've got to go visit these ladies.

[1:05:14] They seem like they're a lot of fun.

[1:05:15] Yep, and you just drive around Florida looking for their home.

[1:05:18] Well, just drive around yelling out the window, Blanche, Rose, Sophia, Dorothy.

[1:05:24] And occasionally you get a bite, but it's never the right one.

[1:05:27] Never understood why they were called the Golden Girls and you never went outside and tan.

[1:05:32] That's a good point.

[1:05:34] They could have meant two things.

[1:05:36] Hey, look, it's like Twitter.

[1:05:37] I try out a bunch of jokes.

[1:05:38] Some land, some flop.

[1:05:40] What are you going to do?

[1:05:41] yeah dan's familiar with that um so oh uh so so sorry i didn't sneak in a burn um so yeah mulch

[1:05:50] is in the house he finds uh despite it's gonna be the name of the sequel artemis valdo mulch is in

[1:05:56] the house uh so mulch's mission was to rescue holly but he used this as an opportunity to rob

[1:06:05] from uh the foul man the other thing is we forgot to mention is dwarves in this world love they love

[1:06:11] shiny things they're always pickpocketing and conmanning and that kind of stuff even a dwarfess

[1:06:16] giganticus as josh gad calls himself which plays into some of the troubling uh racial connotations

[1:06:21] that have long uh been associated with dwarves so uh he finds a safe you mean you mean you mean uh

[1:06:27] you mean mythic jews yeah yeah they're kind of short and hairy and apparently love gold but it's

[1:06:31] okay because he called them dwarves they live in a mountain uh so the he he finds the safe he opens

[1:06:40] it up uh he uses his beard and mustache to open up the safe like you expect he would and inside

[1:06:46] that safe is of course the acculus it was in the house the entire time why would he have left his

[1:06:52] house the acculus is there it's great this is the most infuriating thing because like in a movie

[1:07:00] where he starts out in the mansion,

[1:07:03] goes on a lot of adventures outside of the mansion.

[1:07:06] Him discovering he was back at the mansion the whole time

[1:07:09] might be clever or ironic or something interesting about it.

[1:07:12] But this is just a movie where they're like,

[1:07:14] ugh, I guess there's no other places in the world

[1:07:16] other than this mansion, huh?

[1:07:18] So they've got to hide in the mansion.

[1:07:20] Yeah, it's like if an executive got into Mad Max Fury Road

[1:07:24] and was like, why did they drive away?

[1:07:26] They're just going to come back.

[1:07:28] Let's just have them stay there.

[1:07:30] Stay there the whole time.

[1:07:31] What was Mulch's mission?

[1:07:36] He was supposed to go in the house.

[1:07:38] And rescue Holly.

[1:07:39] Okay, because he doesn't do that.

[1:07:42] He just immediately, and he immediately is their friend.

[1:07:45] And Artemis knew this was going to happen.

[1:07:47] He knew that when Mulch got in the house, he would fail his greed check.

[1:07:53] And he would be forced to break into the safe.

[1:07:57] Is that the case?

[1:07:59] Because there's a bunch of I guess because he says like he says like that's all my plan and he puts on his fucking sunglasses.

[1:08:04] It's all he never he never explains his plan or relates his plan.

[1:08:09] He just ever to every time anything happens, he goes, it's all going to plan.

[1:08:12] And that's how you that's how you make people think you're a fucking genius.

[1:08:15] Yeah, I was going to say, I got to start just doing that in my life.

[1:08:19] Well, it's the same thing that's happened.

[1:08:20] It's happened, I feel like, for the past almost four years in politics where the government will do something totally stupid.

[1:08:26] and then someone will go like it's all according to plan you'll see three-dimensional chess he's

[1:08:31] playing a very complicated game and then things will get worse just you watch all now now we

[1:08:36] played into his hands oh boy speaking of fouls these clowns in congress okay so so he finds the

[1:08:46] oculus and he what is he does this when he's you know he doesn't swallow it till later right so

[1:08:50] yeah right around now is when right around now is when we have a little bit of dissension in the

[1:08:55] fairy camp that's right the character who i just have listed as bootlicker takes control of roots

[1:09:01] army that's kudgeon pudgeon kudgeon pudgeon yeah like like imagine imagine vanessa hudgens but her

[1:09:09] last name was kudgeon and her first name was not vanessa and she's not the best vanessa hudgens you

[1:09:14] know but in fact a sort of a sort of bootlicker evil fairy okay so uh he he kicks judy dench out

[1:09:22] and decides to attack the manor,

[1:09:24] everybody kind of goes along with it.

[1:09:26] I think they just want to see a troll in action.

[1:09:29] So they attack the house with a troll.

[1:09:32] There is what precedes is a troll fight

[1:09:36] that gunned to my head, I would say,

[1:09:38] just as good as the minds of Moria.

[1:09:40] Right around now, Juliet shows up again,

[1:09:44] but if the gun was not there, I would not say that.

[1:09:46] I mean, gun to your head,

[1:09:48] you'd say pretty much anything about this troll fight.

[1:09:50] Yeah, I mean, I need to live.

[1:09:51] Gun to head, this is a brilliant movie.

[1:09:53] So the troll fight is a lot of running around the house

[1:09:59] and things getting smashed.

[1:10:01] So if you like watching furniture getting broken,

[1:10:03] you're going to see a lot of that.

[1:10:05] To be fair, that's probably accurate to a troll fight,

[1:10:10] if one happened.

[1:10:11] Not to kink shame anybody,

[1:10:12] if you are aroused by watching furniture get broken,

[1:10:14] get ready to explode with pleasure.

[1:10:16] Because so much furniture gets broken.

[1:10:19] And I'm just going to say this,

[1:10:21] Artemis is useless in this scene.

[1:10:23] At one point, he's got Holly's laser in his hands

[1:10:26] and the laser sparks and he drops it

[1:10:28] and I don't know why that happened.

[1:10:29] Yeah.

[1:10:30] And then she gets stuck in the chandelier

[1:10:33] for the whole bit.

[1:10:34] I'm like, what is that all about?

[1:10:36] She gets stuck in a very elaborate chandelier.

[1:10:38] Oy, oy, oy.

[1:10:39] But this is one of the few occasions

[1:10:42] where you catch another glimpse of Butler's niece, too.

[1:10:46] Yeah, truly.

[1:10:46] She's suddenly back in the movie.

[1:10:49] Mainly she shows up to like scream and run around.

[1:10:52] Yeah.

[1:10:53] But what happens?

[1:10:55] After a while, they beat the troll.

[1:10:58] But in the process, it falls on top of Dom the butler.

[1:11:01] And you're like, oh, no, he's dying.

[1:11:04] So they like take him into another room.

[1:11:05] And Holly's like, I can't use my magic because the fairies put a thing on that prevents me from using magic.

[1:11:11] So I guess this dude's going to die.

[1:11:13] So many hastily delivered rules just came up.

[1:11:18] I just learned, I just cast a spell that won't allow us to undo the, and you just came up

[1:11:24] with this now?

[1:11:25] Okay, movie.

[1:11:25] And Dom, if I was a movie doctor, I would diagnose him with movie injury, which is where

[1:11:31] from the outside he looks fine, except that he's very sweaty and he's having a little

[1:11:35] trouble breathing.

[1:11:35] There's no blood, there don't appear to be any broken bones.

[1:11:38] He's just had, I guess that when the troll landed on him, it smashed his life bar and

[1:11:43] all the life energy juice leaked out.

[1:11:45] And so he's just got like 1% maybe.

[1:11:46] He lost his will to live.

[1:11:47] You know how that works.

[1:11:48] medibot if the medibot showed up that's what the medibot would tell the jedi they gotta take away

[1:11:53] that medibot's license to practice yeah she just keeps writing lost will to live on all of her

[1:11:57] documents and it's like it's gonna be really foul scandalous expose about that medbot in 20 years

[1:12:02] like 34 000 people just lost their will to live hmm oh gotcha got your medical license from online

[1:12:10] classes at bespin university okay sure um okay so uh around uh and then judy dench takes over

[1:12:18] again and she's like no let him use the magic and they're like okay let her use the magic so then

[1:12:22] she brings don back to life and i'm like i barely had had time to mourn him now he's back i don't

[1:12:28] know how to feel so he comes back to life what happened to bootleg uh do they what do they throw

[1:12:33] him into a phantom dimension i don't remember he just kind of stops he just kind of stopped when

[1:12:38] she says, this is my arm, and he just kind of stops

[1:12:40] existing and is no longer... It's like

[1:12:42] how in old He-Man cartoons where He-Man

[1:12:44] would defeat a foe by throwing him off camera

[1:12:46] and he was just not a problem anymore.

[1:12:47] No longer near me.

[1:12:48] That's great.

[1:12:52] So, now this

[1:12:54] is where things get a little bit murky

[1:12:56] in my mind. Yeah, here.

[1:12:57] Here is where it gets murky.

[1:13:00] Okay. You did great,

[1:13:02] Stuart. Thank you. Better than I ever

[1:13:04] expected anyone to do. You're doing fantastic.

[1:13:05] This is like, this is like when I labor right now and we're like, Stu, you're doing great.

[1:13:11] You can get to the end of this.

[1:13:12] I can see the head.

[1:13:13] I'm not kidding.

[1:13:13] I'm legitimately impressed that you have this many bullet points and they're all accurate.

[1:13:17] I, I, mine wouldn't have this length.

[1:13:20] This summary feels a lot like when I tried to drink an entire gallon of chocolate milk

[1:13:25] in an hour and I drank so much of it, guys.

[1:13:28] I was like, there's just a little bit left.

[1:13:31] And I'm like on my knees in front of some car's headlights and somebody's filming me.

[1:13:36] And they're like, he's going to barf.

[1:13:37] And I'm like, no, I'm going to finish it.

[1:13:38] But I was never able to finish it.

[1:13:40] And then eventually I barfed.

[1:13:43] And I got to tell you, most pleasurable thing in my entire life.

[1:13:46] It was amazing.

[1:13:46] That's a situation I'm sure we can all relate to.

[1:13:48] Yeah.

[1:13:49] Yeah.

[1:13:49] I mean, that's why I told that story.

[1:13:51] A night time in front of a car videotaped chocolate milk prank?

[1:13:54] Yeah.

[1:13:54] I mean, it's not a prank unless the prank is something I've played on myself.

[1:13:58] I've got a lot of questions, but I don't want to shame Stuart.

[1:14:01] so i think we should just move on okay are you what the shame is that i wasn't able to finish

[1:14:05] no the most dan he's lived with that shame every day i wish i had some chocolate milk right now

[1:14:13] and you wasted so much yeah that's true i did waste i mean not so much i mean i guess i barfed

[1:14:19] it out and it was still cold um okay so uh right around so the time bubble collapses okay and the

[1:14:27] fairies run for it but a lot of them get sucked up into the time vortex to where they go i don't

[1:14:32] know maybe they get maybe they're like what the the prisoner of london what's that guy who's stuck

[1:14:36] in time and keeps bouncing around okay but he can't leave the city yeah sure he can't leave

[1:14:40] the city i mean haven't we all been there um it's like dark city right it's a lot like dark city

[1:14:45] except they don't have quite the same level of cool outfits um so change so our heroes end up

[1:14:52] With the Aculis, which had been stored in Mulch Diggum's tummy.

[1:14:56] And they read a poem, and then the Aculis opens.

[1:15:00] And then somewhere in here, Artemis Sr. shows back up.

[1:15:05] Okay, so let me lay some knowledge on you about what's happening here.

[1:15:08] Okay, the time bubble collapses.

[1:15:10] Everyone's flying around, but everyone's fine.

[1:15:12] Holly has to save Mulch, who is also suddenly outside and flying around for some reason.

[1:15:18] Artemis gets the

[1:15:19] Aculis out of

[1:15:21] Mulch's tummy. We have to assume that he

[1:15:23] pooped it out, I assume, or that they

[1:15:25] cut him open and pulled it out, but he's fine.

[1:15:27] So probably they just waited for him to poop it out.

[1:15:29] And Holly stayed behind

[1:15:31] with all the other fairies left that she would help him.

[1:15:33] And he can't, so

[1:15:35] it's, everyone just kind of knows

[1:15:38] that the Aculis has the magic

[1:15:39] power to free his dad

[1:15:41] and bring him back to the house.

[1:15:43] But humans can't use the Aculis. It's too powerful.

[1:15:45] It would kill a human. Holly

[1:15:47] has to use it and she does a thing that causes a magic and the oculus opens up and spins around

[1:15:55] and there's letters flying everywhere and kind of magical glows and so forth and uh oh they also

[1:16:01] declare they uh and artemis says all artemis jr says uh if you help me get my dad back i'll trade

[1:16:07] you the oculus for my dad and you can take it back to haven city they declare themselves to be

[1:16:11] friends forever because why wouldn't they be he kidnapped her they talked for a couple minutes

[1:16:16] And then he blackmailed her.

[1:16:17] Yeah, and then he blackmailed her.

[1:16:20] And so Opal Cowboy is like, oh, the time limit is up.

[1:16:24] I'm going to kill you.

[1:16:25] But then Holly uses the magic to do, as my note's right here, something, question mark.

[1:16:30] And they're like, we did it.

[1:16:33] Okay, what happened?

[1:16:34] Like, nothing seems to be different.

[1:16:36] Artemis Jr. runs around this amazing house looking for his dad.

[1:16:39] The movie briefly becomes like a House Hunters where we just get to see where all these –

[1:16:44] Oh, that's, I see, the kitchen comes off of the family room.

[1:16:46] But guess who's back in the basement?

[1:16:49] Property Brothers.

[1:16:50] Oh, the Pro Bros are there.

[1:16:53] And they're like, you could knock down all these walls,

[1:16:54] but you don't get to keep the furniture.

[1:16:56] Who's there is Artemis Sr.

[1:16:59] That's right, the Oculus magic worked,

[1:17:01] and it brought Artemis Sr. back.

[1:17:03] And Opal Cowboy is so mad that she almost tells us something

[1:17:07] about why this movie happened or why this character exists

[1:17:10] or what they're doing, but doesn't.

[1:17:12] And the dad is like, hey, Holly Short, your dad Beachwood Short was a hero when he took the Aculis away from Haven City.

[1:17:20] Now you need to take it back.

[1:17:21] This was all part of a big plot to investigate and take down those who are supporting Opal Cowboy.

[1:17:27] That's right, guys.

[1:17:28] Turns out he was never really impeached.

[1:17:31] It was all part of his plan to take down the deep state from the inside and stop their child trafficking ring in the pizza parlors.

[1:17:39] That's like four dimensional chess.

[1:17:41] Exactly.

[1:17:42] political so the whole time artemis senior was not a thief or maybe he was but the whole thing

[1:17:49] was a him getting kidnapped so that the oculus could be found in his house so that the fairies

[1:17:55] would attack his house it was a ruse i guess i guess it was all the ruse to get cudgeon out in

[1:18:00] the open so that they could then stop even though he was in jail before and now they can go they

[1:18:05] have a list of names that beachwood uh short gave to artemis senior and those are all the names the

[1:18:10] people who are working with opal cowboy and the names are written on a piece of paper that's cut

[1:18:14] in a kind of like a fortune telling device way like that little that teenage girls make where

[1:18:19] you fold it and then you got to pick numbers and you lift up a flap and it tells you what's going

[1:18:22] to happen in the future to you i think i pick seven okay and what did it say underneath it said

[1:18:28] i'm gonna have a boyfriend oh that's great yeah your boyfriend is foul unfortunately take me to

[1:18:34] problem oh okay wow that's a big deal that's a commitment and holly takes the oculus back to

[1:18:40] magic town and uh root names her the head of the investigation into the opal cowboy gang

[1:18:46] to see who else is in the in the uh haven city deep state and uh that's when artemis calls opal

[1:18:52] and is like hey we're coming after you i'm a criminal mastermind has he committed any crimes

[1:18:58] i guess he kidnapped and imprisoned holly and yeah this is his story crime we thought he was

[1:19:04] a criminal mastermind at all this time but this is how he became one i guess so but then also

[1:19:10] if if holly's dad was a hero for taking the oculus out of the city and hiding it why is her job then

[1:19:17] to take it back to the city and what anyway uh but what's important is what's going to happen

[1:19:22] to mulch stew what what happens to mulch diggums uh mulch diggums let's see well he he's in jail

[1:19:29] right and he yep yeah so human jail but the thing is they think he's the thief but i think he has a

[1:19:38] story about somebody else who's actually the thief so he starts telling a story about a very smart

[1:19:44] little boy named artemis fowl now artemis fowl was growing up and his dad wasn't there all the

[1:19:49] time but his dad was teaching him stuff about magic i think i think you may have laughed yourself

[1:19:54] meanwhile madison was learning not every problem can be settled by committee uh so they uh mulch

[1:20:02] is in his being interrogated and he's like artemis planned for all this they're like tell us where

[1:20:07] artemis fowl is and i don't even know why the british government wants to know where artemis

[1:20:11] fowl is like i don't he didn't he they're like he stole he stole the rosetta stone and he stole

[1:20:15] this other stuff and it's like really because we didn't see it at his house in his secret basement

[1:20:19] but uh he goes here's what we're gonna do you're gonna leave us alone and we're gonna keep the

[1:20:25] fairies from leaking into the real world because we planned all this and then artemis fowles junior

[1:20:30] and senior fly a helicopter over the prison and they just open up the ceiling hatch and he climbs

[1:20:35] out and he escapes and the whole gang is back together and on the case again and you're like

[1:20:40] what yeah i want to tell the listeners who may be baffled that uh listening to this podcast is

[1:20:48] actually quite like the experience of watching the movie uh except for hopefully this was pleasurable

[1:20:54] in that uh like this podcast it was mostly just a cavalcade of dumb fantasy names with then like

[1:21:02] a bunch of silly stuff thrown in that derails everything and at the end everyone kind of seems

[1:21:07] to lose interest with what's going on yep that's how i would describe this movie and i i would like

[1:21:14] to apologize to uh any of your listeners uh if i have uh spoken over your uh beloved trio or

[1:21:20] jeopardized their no their their banter which is what i listen for i don't listen for those

[1:21:25] stupid guests unless it's hallie but uh i sometimes talk too much and i hope i didn't

[1:21:32] speak over your hosts too too frequently scott you were great you kept us on track and angry

[1:21:40] I mean usually we

[1:21:42] I am legitimately impressed by Stuart

[1:21:44] I mean any one of you guys did it would have been fine

[1:21:46] obviously but I am legitimately impressed

[1:21:47] Dan wouldn't have done a good job

[1:21:49] yeah that's true

[1:21:51] that anybody can articulate

[1:21:54] anything about a plot

[1:21:55] it's a fantasy movie Dan couldn't do it

[1:21:57] I mean the fact that Dan couldn't sit through an hour and a half movie

[1:21:59] without getting up and doing something else at some point

[1:22:01] I you know I feel like

[1:22:04] usually we save

[1:22:05] each of our like performance reviews

[1:22:07] till after the show

[1:22:08] do we uh so here's the question i have for you guys before we get to final judgments let's say

[1:22:14] you had your very own oculus and you found out your dad was a super magic spy what would you do

[1:22:19] you think you're so much better than artemis fowl the boy hero who never leaves his house

[1:22:22] i don't know what an oculus is still so i don't know big metal magic acorn what what more do you

[1:22:29] need to know well what does it do if i had this kind of money and this kind of like i wouldn't

[1:22:34] even let these people in my front door i would like this would never affect me at all i'd be

[1:22:38] like some some weird some weird fairy people just knocked on my door and i didn't let him in end of

[1:22:42] movie his he so he's an antiques dealer yes that's his that's his cover story that's so he has all

[1:22:51] that money because he steals stuff i think well it's family money they've lived there for centuries

[1:22:56] oh right yeah and so and uh he steals stuff but i don't know where i don't know how you sell the

[1:23:02] rosetta stone on the open mark on the criminal market like i don't know how you fence like

[1:23:05] literally priceless right yeah um let's uh let's do final judgments i think we all know where we're

[1:23:13] gonna go but okay i'll just say so for the record none of us have a better idea what to do than

[1:23:17] artemis fowl did okay fair i'm glad we spent all this time criticizing if we didn't have any better

[1:23:21] ideas let's tie things up by uh saying whether we thought it was a good bad movie a bad bad movie or

[1:23:27] movie you kind of liked uh i will start by saying look uh i want to make it clear first off that

[1:23:34] this is all a criticism of the movie artemis foul i have no familiarity with the source material by

[1:23:40] ian uh colfer i hope that's i'm pronouncing it correctly but um i did read his book that finished

[1:23:46] the hitchhiker's uh guide to the galaxy books after douglas adams died and left everything on

[1:23:51] a sad note and uh he wrote what you're not aware of this he wrote a sixth sixth hitchhiker's book

[1:23:57] mostly harmless of course ends with a uh legendarily uh sour ending i don't know about

[1:24:04] that it ends with all of the universe uh being revealed as a huge joke on us yeah well anyway

[1:24:10] douglas adams always said that he was having a bad time when he wrote that he had hopes to write

[1:24:17] a final hitchhiker's book that was a little less uh sad um and then of course he unfortunately

[1:24:23] passed away so the the people who own the estate or whatever got ian colfer to write a sixth book

[1:24:30] and it's a reasonably pleasing pastiche of douglas adams like how would you how would you compare it

[1:24:36] to brandon sanderson's conclusion of the uh the wheel of time series dan i um don't have the uh

[1:24:44] the information, the data to make that kind of an evaluation.

[1:24:49] How would you compare it to Stuart Wellington's

[1:24:51] forthcoming in the future conclusion to the Game of Thrones

[1:24:54] Song of Ice and Fire series?

[1:24:55] Stu's obviously surpasses the master.

[1:25:00] Dan, I would like to know how you would compare that book

[1:25:04] to the classic book I just read last week,

[1:25:07] Horse Meets Dog, by Elliot Kalin.

[1:25:09] Thank you, thank you.

[1:25:11] I thought that the characters were a little thin,

[1:25:14] Horse Meets Dog.

[1:25:15] I mean, all I really learned about them is one of them is a horse and one of them is a dog.

[1:25:19] What more do you need to know?

[1:25:20] I don't think we read the same book, sir.

[1:25:22] While I reclined at the Hinterlands Bar in Brooklyn, New York and watched The Daily Show on television.

[1:25:28] Sir.

[1:25:28] Wow.

[1:25:29] The three-peat sponsorship.

[1:25:31] I will mention that Stewart's final Game of Thrones book is, of course, called The Game of Ghoulies.

[1:25:36] And all the characters get it in the end.

[1:25:38] The Game of Jethka-Lulies.

[1:25:42] Do you think the fans are looking for more descriptions of food, right?

[1:25:47] Yeah, that's what they want.

[1:25:48] Only two kinds of food.

[1:25:49] Trenchers of gravy and K-Pon's.

[1:25:52] Wait, you serve food at the Hinterlands Bar in Brooklyn?

[1:25:54] Yeah, of course I do.

[1:25:56] What's on the menu?

[1:25:57] Well, lemon cakes, K-Pon's.

[1:26:00] Love them.

[1:26:01] Trenchers.

[1:26:03] Trenchers.

[1:26:04] A little bit of revenge, but that's served cold.

[1:26:08] Oh, snap.

[1:26:09] Better not wrong him.

[1:26:10] so dan you were going to finish your final judgment i yeah no i quick i just quickly wanted

[1:26:14] to say look i have no familiarity with the source material which a lot of people love uh so i can

[1:26:20] only assume that this is a just a historic botch of a a good story but this movie the i think one

[1:26:27] of the main problems this movie uh despite uh like along with everything about the movie is that it

[1:26:34] thinks that we really care the most about action in fantasy action movies like that is the thing

[1:26:41] that we come to these movies for because it basically cuts everything else and Kenneth

[1:26:46] Branagh directed a Marvel movie one of the I would say most fine of the Marvel movies uh but um

[1:26:55] those the MCU films are you know big fantasy movies essentially where the action is

[1:27:03] okay most of the time some of them have really good action sequence but mostly but they overcome

[1:27:10] that and the reason that they're so beloved is they spend a lot of time on the characters you

[1:27:16] know who these people are you're amused by them you like to see them interact with one another

[1:27:20] and this movie gives you the barest introduction to the title character other than seeing that he's

[1:27:27] a little shit and then uh throws you into a whirly gig of cgi and it has none of the charming moments

[1:27:34] that you look for in this so it was like other than movies that i find morally reprehensible

[1:27:38] this is one of my least favorite movies we ever watched the flop out the end uh so a good bad

[1:27:44] movie yes i would i would call this a bad bad movie it is a movie that has a lack of for for

[1:27:51] lack of a better word a lack of magic yeah glam that is scorched earth yep so i was gonna when

[1:28:02] i saw the early production well not early but when i saw uh photos of this movie with josh gad

[1:28:07] dressed up like one of the members of norwegian space viking uh metal band arcturus i was like

[1:28:13] oh i'm up for this i was roundly disappointed there is no space vikings uh it is uh yeah this

[1:28:21] is not fun it's at what 87 how long is this movie 80 it's 96 minutes long that is 90 minutes too

[1:28:28] long yeah it's the longest 96 minute movie i've ever seen only because you have no idea what's

[1:28:34] going on it's like when you when you know where you're going and you end it on a four hour drive

[1:28:39] or you don't know where you're going on a one hour drive the one hour drive feels much longer

[1:28:43] because you're like okay i don't know or like there are times when i would get stuck on a

[1:28:48] subway train in New York

[1:28:49] that would stop in mid

[1:28:51] tunnel and I'd be like

[1:28:51] okay I guess I live here

[1:28:52] now I'm never getting

[1:28:53] off this train that's

[1:28:54] what this movie feels

[1:28:55] like a little bit well

[1:28:56] I am going to break the

[1:28:58] bad bad streak and say

[1:28:59] good bad only because

[1:29:00] this movie got me onto

[1:29:01] the flop house that's a

[1:29:03] lie this movie's bad bad

[1:29:04] that's sweet this movie

[1:29:06] I love fantasy I

[1:29:08] certainly have no

[1:29:09] problem with getting

[1:29:10] behind young adult

[1:29:11] movies even so so ones

[1:29:12] you know there's lots of

[1:29:13] times you see mediocre

[1:29:14] big budget movies where

[1:29:16] you're you give it a

[1:29:17] little more charity than

[1:29:18] it deserves because you know people worked on it and it's a piece of art so maybe it's not perfect

[1:29:22] but and then you're halfway through this you're like why am i being charitable to this there

[1:29:26] doesn't deserve any charity they like it obviously the the uh the craft people the people who built

[1:29:32] the sets and the actors and the people who fed everybody and the lighters and the you know those

[1:29:36] people did their job but the powers that be did not care about this movie the end product shows

[1:29:42] that and it is a terrible terrible bad bad movie yeah all right well bad bads

[1:29:51] now speaking of things that aren't bad bad i'm going to talk a little bit about the max fun drive

[1:29:59] oh and to do that i am going to pull up some stuff so uh before you know before the drive

[1:30:08] you know months and months ago before uh covid and etc etc uh max fun sent out an email to all of

[1:30:17] the max fun subscribers to ask a couple of questions kind of what kind of roles max fun can

[1:30:23] fill for people in times like these um and they sent along a list of these responses to us and

[1:30:32] reading through these before the show i found it to be honest i found it pretty moving uh to read

[1:30:37] people's thoughts about uh what max fun provides for them in times when uh there's so much chaos

[1:30:45] uh one of the uh one of the one of the lines that kind of stuck out to me from oh man let me mess

[1:30:52] this up from caton uh from portland oregon uh said stay safe it's nice to be in the new abnormal with

[1:31:01] you together though uh and that kind of highlights the idea of how like strange and everything seems

[1:31:09] and how the universe kind of feels so uncertain at least for me i mean i run a small business

[1:31:14] but the doing the show and also listening to the shows in the network has provided me some kind of

[1:31:20] sense of stability and uh friend obviously friendship with my buddies dan elliott but also

[1:31:28] the like you know the extensive like podcast friendship do you guys you know what i'm going

[1:31:33] for guys uh the feeling of like the feeling of community by listening to uh you know other

[1:31:40] people kind of going through the same thing and also doing it on a regular with like a regular

[1:31:45] routine do you know what i mean yeah and i i also want to take a moment to acknowledge too

[1:31:52] that um obviously a lot of people are in bad spots right now uh and uh some of us are better suited

[1:32:02] to weather the storm than others uh i know i have it a lot better than others uh but that being said

[1:32:10] a lot of the money from uh this drive you know goes to the network in general it goes to people

[1:32:16] who podcasting may be their main job and podcasting like every other job is is getting hit hard by

[1:32:23] what's going on so uh while this may seem silly there you know there are people who uh depend on

[1:32:30] the funding that you're able to provide yeah absolutely um and that's that's kind of that's

[1:32:37] kind of the whole thing we do the max fun drive to kind of spotlight that uh the shows on max fun

[1:32:42] are primarily listener supported and that's why i'm talking to you uh to consider if you are in

[1:32:47] that kind of a position um and if we uh and if you like our show and other shows on the network

[1:32:53] you should consider becoming a subscriber and the way you do that is by visiting maximumfund.org

[1:32:59] backslash or forward slash join i can't tell the difference between those things

[1:33:04] and that'll give you a list of all the different ways you can uh you can give uh most of i think

[1:33:10] the vast majority of subscribers to max fund give at either the five dollar or ten dollar per month

[1:33:16] level um and but some have you know there's options all the way up to twenty dollars a month

[1:33:22] or more um whatever you can provide obviously we're grateful for and even if you can't we

[1:33:28] understand that too um and part of the incentive and part of the bonus is that we uh there's

[1:33:35] different gifts that are available to people who donate at all levels uh whether it's bonus content

[1:33:40] which we uh have been putting out quite a bit of bonus content the last couple years when i force

[1:33:46] you guys to play role-playing games with me and i make my friend alex uh write music and do cool

[1:33:53] sound effects for an ever-expanding universe of bonus content it seems to take more and more of

[1:33:59] our time every year yeah but you wait when we do it you guys say uh it's just fun to get together

[1:34:06] and you like having an excuse to hang out with your friends that's what you say yeah yeah of

[1:34:10] course yeah yeah uh one gift in particular that speaks directly to my heart and soul of course

[1:34:15] is the max fun game pack uh that provides a set of max fun branded dice in a velvet bag

[1:34:23] with a rocket logo that's the max fun rocket logo so if you need to show off uh and go to your next

[1:34:30] game night you can bring that velvet bag and pull out uh you can pull out those max fun dice uh as

[1:34:36] well it also comes with a deck of custom max fun inspired playing cards so if you and the uh the

[1:34:44] street urchin that you are fostering need to hustle some rubes out on the street you can use

[1:34:50] that deck of cards uh and do some what three card mounting um and three card mounting that's

[1:34:56] it's like three card money but with three card bounty with canadian dollars um and uh yeah so

[1:35:04] once again um i love the network i love being part of the network um i've made some really good

[1:35:11] friends uh doing this show and uh even the hosts that i don't know personally uh all feel kind of

[1:35:18] like friends to me um and so thank you for listening and thank you for uh donating or

[1:35:24] subscribing that was really sweet and lovely as a guest i would just interject uh as a long-time

[1:35:33] film writer and film fanatic i am an avid listener of not only the flop house but also friendly fire

[1:35:39] and switchblade sisters both of which are so great are alliterative and are podcasts on this

[1:35:46] fine network and it's also where i found and enjoyed ipodius i believe it's pronounced ipodius

[1:35:52] close enough i did i actually watched every episode and then listened to each episode

[1:35:57] in succession like a nerd and had a ball ipodius was a blast that's the that's the show you're

[1:36:02] dropping our show to do right elliot uh well i mean it's finished i mean we did there's no i mean

[1:36:07] maybe we'll watch i claudius through again and uh do another episode but that sounds like the

[1:36:12] best idea of all time. If anybody

[1:36:15] out there wants a fun project, get

[1:36:16] the old PBS series iPodias,

[1:36:18] watch episode one, then listen to

[1:36:20] episode one with a little marijuana in between,

[1:36:22] and then do the same for episodes two, three,

[1:36:24] all the way to the end, and then when you're done,

[1:36:26] thank Elliot and his co-host, John

[1:36:28] Hodgman. Thanks. Thank you for

[1:36:30] that plug for my own thing.

[1:36:33] Oh, I had a ball.

[1:36:33] I think you should do a bonus episode for Caligula,

[1:36:36] though, if I could just interject that.

[1:36:38] I don't want to watch

[1:36:41] that again.

[1:36:42] uh let's do let's do a quick uh ad or or two actually uh the flop house is sponsored in part

[1:36:51] by hello fresh get fresh pre-measured ingredients and mouth-watering seasonal recipes deliver right

[1:36:58] to your door with hello fresh america's number one meal kit there's something for everyone

[1:37:03] including low calorie vegetarian and family-friendly recipes every week hello fresh's

[1:37:08] pre-proportioned ingredients mean there's less prep for you and less food rate food waste and

[1:37:15] hellofresh donated over 2.5 million meals to charity in 2019 and this year is stepping up

[1:37:21] their food donations amid the coronavirus crisis uh we got um some hellofresh uh samples some ways

[1:37:31] back and i recall that i asked for the lower calorie stuff and it tasted as delicious as it

[1:37:38] As it would have had it been packed with calories.

[1:37:41] Well, you added extra butter, right?

[1:37:42] I did.

[1:37:43] I mean, that's, you know, that's a true chef puts his own little spin on anything he does.

[1:37:50] I mean, not every chef just layers the lardo onto every piece of food they eat.

[1:37:55] Well, they're missing out.

[1:37:56] I mean, come on.

[1:37:57] That's how it goes.

[1:37:58] Go to HelloFresh.com slash Flophouse80 and use code Flophouse80 to get a total of $80 off, including free shipping on your first box.

[1:38:08] Additional restrictions apply.

[1:38:10] Please visit HelloFresh.com for more details.

[1:38:14] That's HelloFresh.com slash Flophouse80.

[1:38:18] That was a lot of words, guys.

[1:38:21] I got to give you credit.

[1:38:22] But, you know, for somebody whose mouth was clearly watering at those food descriptions, you read that very well, Dan.

[1:38:28] I think HelloFresh should team up with HelloKitty.

[1:38:31] I'm sure that's got to be thrown around.

[1:38:33] They send only the freshest cats to your house.

[1:38:36] HelloFresh doesn't send you cats.

[1:38:39] HelloFresh sends you delicious meals that are already measured out because you know the worst part of cooking, the measuring.

[1:38:44] I hate it.

[1:38:44] All right.

[1:38:46] Moving on to a quick word from Squarespace.

[1:38:50] Use Squarespace to create a beautiful website.

[1:38:53] You can turn your cool idea into a new site where you blog or publish content, sell products and services of all kinds, and or more.

[1:39:02] The ever-present more.

[1:39:04] Squarespace does this by giving you beautiful, customizable templates created by world-class designers with everything optimized for mobile right out of the box.

[1:39:14] A new way to buy domains and choose from over 200 extensions, free and secure hosting.

[1:39:20] Wow.

[1:39:21] Wow, everyone.

[1:39:23] Wow.

[1:39:24] Head to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[1:39:29] And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[1:39:37] Hey, Dan, that sounds great.

[1:39:39] I actually had an idea for a website, and I was wondering if Squarespace might be able to help.

[1:39:42] Well, just keep the idea short since we did a lot of Max Fun stuff, too.

[1:39:46] Just that watching this movie, it made me think about, like, what happens if you're tunneling through the dirt, chomping it down, it comes flying out of your butt, and you accidentally get some minerals in there that are a little bit harder to pass through.

[1:39:59] And that's why rocktologist.com is your place on the internet for telehealth examinations.

[1:40:05] That's right.

[1:40:05] We can do it remotely to help you diagnose what kind of rock is stuck in your rectum or rocktum, as we call it, and how to get that guy out of there.

[1:40:12] Because what's most important to us is your bowel health over at rocktologist.com.

[1:40:17] For a moment, I thought the service was just going to identify the type of rock.

[1:40:22] It seems like that would only be one step in a two-step process.

[1:40:25] I mean, that is the first most important step because you want to treat different rocks differently.

[1:40:30] I disagree with you, Ollie.

[1:40:33] I think the second step is the most important step.

[1:40:35] It's hard to get to the second step without the first step.

[1:40:38] Well, Stuart, I think you have a Jumbotron, and then we can move on.

[1:40:42] Oh, we don't want to talk about rocks

[1:40:44] stuck in people's asses anymore?

[1:40:45] I mean, we can.

[1:40:47] Rocktologist.com is here for you.

[1:40:49] Cool, okay.

[1:40:50] I do have a j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-jumbotron.

[1:40:53] Okay, and it goes like this.

[1:40:56] You said that as if we interrupted you,

[1:40:59] but we didn't.

[1:41:00] Yeah, come on.

[1:41:01] He's rolling.

[1:41:01] And it goes like this.

[1:41:03] The Blue Room is a short film

[1:41:06] about a bored security guard

[1:41:08] who spends his days wandering the halls

[1:41:10] of a mysterious research facility.

[1:41:12] His only company is a sarcastic scientist

[1:41:15] who claims he can do magic.

[1:41:18] Equal parts Lynch and Lovecraft,

[1:41:21] the Blue Room combines the history

[1:41:23] of 19th century stage magic

[1:41:25] with creeping cosmic dread.

[1:41:28] It's a puzzle box with something terrifying inside.

[1:41:32] Open it, won't you?

[1:41:34] So visit BlueRoomHorrorFilm.com

[1:41:39] to watch the movie for

[1:41:41] free.

[1:41:42] Won't you?

[1:41:45] Can't beat that price. I might.

[1:41:46] Sounds fun to me.

[1:41:48] Hey. Yes.

[1:41:51] Let's do letters.

[1:41:52] Letter time, letter time. Hey, it's time

[1:41:55] for letters. Okay, let's do it. Letters from

[1:41:57] whom? Perfect.

[1:41:57] Letters from the listeners. Listeners who write

[1:42:01] us letters. Letters like you from listeners

[1:42:03] like them. That makes sense.

[1:42:04] Now, I know I mentioned, I said letters like

[1:42:07] you maybe you're not a letter maybe you're a person who writes letters but sometimes letters

[1:42:11] listen to and they write letters too it's how letters have babies they write letters

[1:42:15] i'm gonna need more information well you see when a letter wants to start a family they don't have

[1:42:21] to do with the human way or the animal way or even the amoeba way where they split in two instead

[1:42:26] they write a new letter for you it says dear you here's my letter to you it's my baby take care of

[1:42:30] please love a letter p.s please please please this letter is all that i have in the world

[1:42:39] to leave behind and let the future know that i was here treat it well maybe laminate it thank you

[1:42:46] okay i guess it was a bit it was my fault for mentally praising elliot for keeping it short

[1:42:52] the first time around that's a mistake he can hear my thoughts we have that et connection anyway

[1:42:57] Willie, last name withheld.

[1:42:59] Lohman.

[1:42:59] Right.

[1:43:00] Dearest Flappers, recently your episode with Felicia Day featured a quip from the aforementioned guest host about a movie being big in Topeka.

[1:43:09] As a group, you questioned whether or not it was large in East or West Topeka.

[1:43:14] You also wondered if one side of Topeka was better than the other side.

[1:43:18] I never lived in Topeka.

[1:43:21] but i was in but i was an editor for the topeka capital journal for six months before they laid

[1:43:28] off half of their staff i can i can assure you that there is a no good side of topeka

[1:43:33] the west side is a very large walmart next to a very large sam's club next to i'm assuming a now

[1:43:39] closed chucky cheese and the east side is the kansas state capital and a lot of crime topeka

[1:43:45] has this weird setup where all the rich people live outside of topeka so they don't have to pay

[1:43:51] city taxes which makes topeka a terrible place to live if you find yourself in topeka i recommend

[1:43:58] the following activities one spangles is a terrible local fast food chain that features

[1:44:04] 50 nostalgia steam and horribly bad food it does however have a liquor license and sells margaritas

[1:44:11] and screwdrivers for like a dollar it's a nice price two nothing else nothing else just keep

[1:44:18] driving until you get to lawrence or kansas city or manhattan on the other end in conclusion

[1:44:22] don't bother investing in iran mcdowell now the guide to topeka it will just tell you to do boring

[1:44:27] things like go to the covers mansion or visit some museum i'm assuming they have dan keep on

[1:44:34] I feel like this letter is a little uninformed.

[1:44:40] Dan, before you get to the postscript of the letter, it might answer my question, but I want to ask it.

[1:44:47] Is Topeka named after that really lumpy pudding that people eat?

[1:44:51] Tapioca, you mean?

[1:44:53] Wait, what did I say?

[1:44:54] Garmin Zola?

[1:44:57] Close enough.

[1:44:58] I said Topeka, right?

[1:45:00] Yeah, yeah.

[1:45:01] Now, it didn't answer my question, which is whether it's worth stopping at that Topeka bodega I've heard so much about in my acting classes.

[1:45:06] But wait, it's called Topeka, right?

[1:45:09] Yeah, tapioca is what you're thinking of.

[1:45:12] I said, that's what I, what did I say?

[1:45:15] It's the capital of my fridge.

[1:45:17] Yeah.

[1:45:20] Wait, sorry for, the town is called Tapioca?

[1:45:24] Oh boy, oh boy.

[1:45:29] I will mention I've always wanted to go to Lawrence, Kansas.

[1:45:31] One of my good friends from college, John Ott, was from there,

[1:45:33] and he always made it sound really nice.

[1:45:35] You know what's one city that I'm from and you guys have been to

[1:45:38] and I've seen you here?

[1:45:39] Philly.

[1:45:40] Represent what?

[1:45:41] Philly in the house.

[1:45:43] I can't remember what show it was,

[1:45:47] but I sat in front of one of your significant others,

[1:45:50] and I believe it was Stewart's.

[1:45:51] Oh, yeah.

[1:45:52] If she was asleep during the show, it was probably my wife.

[1:45:56] No, wait.

[1:45:57] So I got a question.

[1:45:59] Do they make the pudding there?

[1:46:01] Yes, that's why it's named tapioca.

[1:46:04] That's why it's named.

[1:46:07] I think we've got it.

[1:46:08] This is a common mistake that no one has ever made before, Stu.

[1:46:10] It's actually two different words.

[1:46:12] And look, don't get mad at me, Topeka.

[1:46:15] I don't, as far as I know, you're lovely.

[1:46:18] I just, halfway through this letter, I couldn't stop laughing at the idea of how mad people in Topeka were.

[1:46:24] And I apologize for laughing at your pain.

[1:46:25] Yeah, no, no.

[1:46:26] Look, Dan's the social media platform.

[1:46:28] He's not a guardian.

[1:46:29] He believes all free speech should be free.

[1:46:31] He can't censor these things just because they may be slanderous.

[1:46:34] Look, Dan's not here to be a gatekeeper.

[1:46:39] Just because there might be inaccurate information about Topeka out there.

[1:46:43] I love you, Topeka.

[1:46:46] This is from Wade, Dan.

[1:46:49] Strange way of showing it.

[1:46:50] Wait, it's Tapioca?

[1:46:52] This one's from Wade, last name withheld.

[1:46:56] Wade Wilson, Deadpool.

[1:46:57] Yeah.

[1:46:58] Hey, floppers, long-time listener, first-time mail-a-question-that-doesn't-sucker, I hope.

[1:47:03] Occasionally, a movie, rather than having an exceptionally memorable cast, story, characters, or any other prominent feature,

[1:47:12] is remembered for having an especially original or outrageous central conceit.

[1:47:17] The bad example of this would be a movie like...

[1:47:21] Who wrote this?

[1:47:21] What?

[1:47:22] The bad example of this...

[1:47:27] Well, Wade did.

[1:47:28] Wow.

[1:47:29] See, I insulted sort of an abstract idea of a city.

[1:47:33] Now you're insulting Wade.

[1:47:34] Dan, it was not...

[1:47:35] Wait, let me just say, it's not an abstract idea of a city, Dan.

[1:47:38] It's a city.

[1:47:38] It's a physical city that people live in.

[1:47:41] I insulted both the city and the people who live there.

[1:47:44] It's not like there's some platonic concept of Topeka that you went after.

[1:47:48] I think that we brought attention to the shadiness of people who live in Topeka

[1:47:54] and not paying the city taxes,

[1:47:55] the wealthy fleeing from Topeka.

[1:47:58] Oh, yeah, we're muckrakers.

[1:48:00] Yeah, we finally broke that story.

[1:48:01] I think I'm going to be splashed

[1:48:02] with this anti-Topeka mud for the rest of my life,

[1:48:05] and I don't appreciate it, frankly.

[1:48:06] Mm-hmm.

[1:48:07] Okay, so...

[1:48:11] So, guys, I hate to interrupt,

[1:48:12] but it looks like when I googled tapioca Kansas,

[1:48:15] the first result is top 10 best tapioca

[1:48:20] in Wichita, Kansas.

[1:48:24] So I don't think that's the name of the town, guys.

[1:48:26] Fair enough.

[1:48:31] I don't want to click on it.

[1:48:33] I think it'll mess up my algorithm.

[1:48:34] Oh, God.

[1:48:35] Okay.

[1:48:36] That's me with Amazon Prime.

[1:48:39] Like, do I want to watch this romantic comedy?

[1:48:41] No.

[1:48:42] Now it's going to offer me 45 romantic comedies.

[1:48:44] Sure.

[1:48:44] I think you should.

[1:48:49] I mean, mix it up.

[1:48:50] Yeah, come on.

[1:48:51] Sorry, Wade.

[1:48:52] Poor Wade was excited about getting his question answered.

[1:48:55] So, Dan, so finish, so power through it, Dan.

[1:48:57] Okay, it's about exceptionally memorable central conceits.

[1:49:02] The bad example of this would be a movie like Wanted,

[1:49:05] which basically no one remembers anything about at this point

[1:49:08] other than it's the movie where people can bend bullets.

[1:49:10] My favorite example of this would be a movie like Dread,

[1:49:14] where the movie invents the conceit of a drug

[1:49:16] that makes everything into super slow motion

[1:49:19] and feasts upon it sumptuously at every available turn.

[1:49:23] Can you think of some other movies, beneficial or baneful,

[1:49:28] that you recall having a sensual or tangential conceit

[1:49:31] that you consider particularly memorable?

[1:49:33] Keep plopping on, Wade.

[1:49:35] Now, which one of you is going to make the joke about

[1:49:37] the most baneful movie being The Dark Knight Rises?

[1:49:39] Anyone?

[1:49:40] I was going to say Seven, because Seven has a great concept.

[1:49:45] I mean, like, I think that's kind of what the question was asking, like, whether the movie is good or not.

[1:49:51] And I think Seven is a masterpiece.

[1:49:52] But the concept of a killer, you know, tracking or killing his victims through the seven deadly sins is a fascinating and compelling concept.

[1:50:02] Plus, it's always raining.

[1:50:04] I love that.

[1:50:04] Yeah.

[1:50:05] Yep.

[1:50:06] I don't know if you guys have seen this movie called Alien, but it posits a universe where there's an alien that puts its egg inside your body and then it explodes out of your chest.

[1:50:15] And that's a pretty great concept.

[1:50:16] Yeah, you gotta, I mean, like, it's sort of hard to say, like, what's a conceit, like, where the, where the lines around, like, that is, but, uh.

[1:50:25] The Purge.

[1:50:26] Anything that makes a writer say, damn, I wish I thought of that.

[1:50:29] The Purge.

[1:50:30] What's the hook?

[1:50:30] Crime is legal for one day.

[1:50:32] And every writer in the world goes, damn, I wish I thought of that.

[1:50:36] Yeah.

[1:50:37] Yeah.

[1:50:38] That's a good example of one where, like, where the movie does not live up to the conceit, too.

[1:50:42] Yeah.

[1:50:43] Right.

[1:50:43] Yeah.

[1:50:44] Well, certainly the first one.

[1:50:45] Yeah, yeah.

[1:50:46] I was going to give one like that off the top, just looking over Flophouse movies.

[1:50:51] You got something like, I think it's Upside Down, where you have those two planets right next to one another.

[1:50:57] And it's visually quite a nice-looking movie in some ways because of that.

[1:51:01] But it's not a story.

[1:51:04] But that conceit is pretty interesting.

[1:51:07] And then, I don't know.

[1:51:09] These are just off kind of the top of my head.

[1:51:11] But one that came to me was Brick, where, you know, you were like, OK, what if like a hardboiled detective story with like the elevated language even of such a story in a high school?

[1:51:24] And then something like It Follows where it's, you know, like, OK, what if a death curse of some kind could be passed like a venereal disease, basically?

[1:51:36] And those are the two that I sort of thought of.

[1:51:41] I'd say I think the first one that popped into my head was and I don't know if I would say this is a central conceit, but it's something I liked in a movie.

[1:51:48] And that's in the movie Elysium, the the Neil Blomkamp movie.

[1:51:54] I love that. I love that. Like Matt Damon and all those guys get the like things to like anchor a like a robo exoskeleton to their body and they can walk around and be extra tough.

[1:52:04] I think that's great. The rest of the movie is not very good, but I like that part.

[1:52:07] I'd like to see that in a better movie.

[1:52:11] What was that one with Jude Law where a repo man?

[1:52:15] There was one that had a pretty cool concept and not so great of a follow through.

[1:52:18] I certainly remember it not being a great follow through, although I don't remember anything about the movie at all.

[1:52:23] Is that the one where you get like designer organs and then Jude Law comes and cuts them out?

[1:52:27] Yeah. And then if you don't pay, yeah, if you don't pay for them, they'll come.

[1:52:30] That's like, did you guys mention In Time already?

[1:52:33] Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a good one.

[1:52:35] You get a certain amount of time and you can transfer time as a currency and you can stay young forever.

[1:52:40] And that's another one where it's like, oh, okay, there's something kind of, there's that, that's an interesting way to like visualize in a, in a concrete way, income inequality and wealth inequality.

[1:52:49] But then it just kind of turns into what, like a, like a robbery movie.

[1:52:51] Yeah.

[1:52:52] You know what I thought had a really good concept?

[1:52:55] That movie, The Adventures of Tan Tan.

[1:52:58] Tan Tan?

[1:52:59] Yeah.

[1:53:00] What about it?

[1:53:03] I think that was fresh in my head

[1:53:05] because one of you gents reposted the animated version

[1:53:09] of that wonderful diatribe.

[1:53:11] Oh, okay.

[1:53:12] And I love those animations of not just your show,

[1:53:16] but any shows that are...

[1:53:18] Yeah.

[1:53:19] I love those.

[1:53:20] I feel like that's...

[1:53:21] Who is the guy who does those?

[1:53:22] Who does those?

[1:53:23] Tony Oaker.

[1:53:25] I mean, that's his Namdu artist, I believe.

[1:53:29] I don't know if it's his real name,

[1:53:31] but he's great.

[1:53:32] He's been the unofficial and now sort of the official Flophouse animator for a long time.

[1:53:37] And this is, I guess, a good plug to go check out our YouTube channel

[1:53:40] where all those things live in addition to the live show we did for charity.

[1:53:45] But anyway, moving on to the next segment of the show,

[1:53:51] which is Recommendations.

[1:53:52] Stuart just put his hands back on with a big grin

[1:53:56] because he's thirsting to give a recommendation of a movie you should watch instead of this.

[1:54:02] But I will go first because I'm already talking

[1:54:05] And this movie that I'm going to recommend

[1:54:08] Glad that you teased both the audience and Sue

[1:54:11] I'll tell you, if this podcast was a movie

[1:54:14] I would say that's a great line

[1:54:16] I will go first because I'm already talking

[1:54:19] Don't want to stop the momentum

[1:54:22] So I watched a movie called Lucky Grandma

[1:54:25] I saw it, it's available from Alamo On Demand

[1:54:28] But I assume it's available elsewhere as well

[1:54:30] I mean, it's a great title

[1:54:31] lucky grandma it is about a um an elderly uh chinese woman in uh chinatown who uh her her

[1:54:42] husband has passed away uh she has uh children but she's living alone rather than uh going to

[1:54:48] live with them and she gets news that uh from a fortune teller that she's going to be very lucky

[1:54:55] and she goes to the casino wins a bunch of money things don't turn out so well eventually

[1:55:01] she winds up taking some money that gets her in with some bad people and uh it's sort of like

[1:55:08] it's got some flavors of like maybe a coen-y uh crime movie like a crime comedy but it's also very

[1:55:19] distinctly chinese and also like uh audrey is not uh chinese she is filipino but she did confirm

[1:55:28] for me that this movie plays very much on sort of a type of like a uh a tough older asian woman

[1:55:38] uh fiercely uh independent and i know that like from getting to know her family i appreciated

[1:55:47] a lot more about this movie than i think i would have otherwise which uh led me to read um you know

[1:55:54] reviews from uh chinese americans who also like confirmed for me that there's like a lot in this

[1:56:00] movie that is very like culturally specific as well that uh you may or may not catch up

[1:56:06] catch on to but it makes it kind of a more special occurrence to see this type of story

[1:56:13] um and it was it was just like a lot of fun that sounds good yeah uh stewart oh scott yeah scott

[1:56:23] yeah i'll get mine out i'll do mine real quick i i'm a huge horror fan as as i know a lot of people

[1:56:29] are and i watch a lot of stuff on uh shutter and amazon prime lately i've been on a korean kick and

[1:56:36] i watched a period piece monster movie on shutter called monstrum from south korea and it is set in

[1:56:42] 1527 and it is basically

[1:56:44] a lot like the host

[1:56:46] Bong Joon-ho's masterpiece

[1:56:47] combined with a

[1:56:49] 14th century

[1:56:51] political

[1:56:53] backstabbings and dealings

[1:56:56] and it's got action, it's funny

[1:56:58] it's got a great monster and

[1:57:00] carnage galore. Monstrum.

[1:57:01] That sounds good. I gotta check that out.

[1:57:04] Yup. You'll like it.

[1:57:05] I am going to recommend a movie

[1:57:08] that has recently been

[1:57:10] added to the Netflix

[1:57:11] streaming platform i do tell me more of this platform you drag the movie over into your player

[1:57:20] and then you hit play and it shows up in your eyeballs um your mail so i'm gonna recommend

[1:57:26] a movie called old guard uh yeah it's great it's a great action movie i'm so glad one of you guys

[1:57:32] picked it because i didn't want to pick the most obvious yeah i uh now i do have to get out of the

[1:57:37] way that my buddy alejandro who is a friend of the show uh is the editor on the uh for the comic

[1:57:44] he's the editor for the uh for greg rucka the writer of the comic and writer of the screenplay

[1:57:48] um so i'm a little bit biased uh but i'm also a fan of the comic i think it's great

[1:57:54] and i feel like this uh this adaptation really captures the spirit of the comic it captures the

[1:58:01] spirit of the characters it uh it respects it and at the same time it is a badass super fun action

[1:58:07] movie charlize is great she is uh one of the defining action stars currently uh working today

[1:58:14] and uh yeah it's a blast it's probably like the the best like action movie i have seen like

[1:58:22] netflix original action movie i've seen but i could be wrong but it's a lot of fun check it

[1:58:27] out the old guard or just old guard uh yeah uh and i will finish out the recommendations i wanted

[1:58:35] to recommend an independent film from 1996. It's currently, I saw it on the Canopy streaming

[1:58:41] platform, which you may have access to through your local public library. And it's called The

[1:58:46] Watermelon Woman, and it was written, directed, and stars Cheryl, it's either Dunye or Dunny,

[1:58:51] or I could not find a, how to pronounce her name online. I found several different ways to do it.

[1:58:57] But anyway, she plays a woman who works at a video store. She is black, she's also a lesbian,

[1:59:02] And she becomes obsessed with a background actress or a supporting actress in movies from the 1930s and 40s who is credited as the watermelon woman in her movies.

[1:59:12] She wants to find out who was this woman, what was her name, what is her history.

[1:59:17] And in doing so, kind of learns more about the community around her, learns more about people in the past who were dealing with some of the same issues of being gay and being black then that she is now.

[1:59:31] And at the same time, she is kind of starting to date and maybe fall in love with a white woman that she has met, and their relationship has to deal with the friction that comes with them coming from two different places and having two different ways of thinking about things.

[1:59:45] But it's like, there's some really funny parts. And I found that it was like, of all the movies

[1:59:50] I've ever seen that show fake archival photos and archival footage, this by far does the best job

[1:59:57] of creating kind of fake photos and fake footage and things like that, that looks like it was

[2:00:03] actually from the time it's supposed to look. And it's a very indie movie. There are times when

[2:00:07] you're watching it when you're like, oh, yeah, this is what independent movies from the 1990s

[2:00:10] looked like you know it doesn't look like a slick glossy movie i'll warn you or entice you with the

[2:00:16] fact that there is a surprisingly graphic sex scene during the movie that i was not ready for

[2:00:21] and i was like this is much more intense than i expected you're like get out of the room mom

[2:00:26] i did when i started watching this independent film about someone investigating 1930s bit players

[2:00:34] i didn't think this was gonna be this been appropriate for you but uh but by the end of

[2:00:39] movie which is done in kind of like a half fake documentary half just straightforward style i

[2:00:44] found like the threads of it had just come together in this really fantastic way and it was exciting

[2:00:50] to see a movie from 25 years ago that felt very uh oh exciting and depressing i see a movie from

[2:00:58] 25 years ago that felt still very relevant to what's going on today but uh there's and there's

[2:01:03] one scene in particular that deals with uh disorganized archives that i thought was hilarious

[2:01:07] So anyway, if you like archived humor, then The Watermelon Woman is the movie for you.

[2:01:15] I guess that is that for our regularly scheduled segments.

[2:01:20] But Elliot, I believe that you would like to say a few final words about the Max Fund Drive.

[2:01:27] I would love to.

[2:01:28] You're going to be hearing a little bit more of the Max Fund Drive in future episodes.

[2:01:31] We won't be done with it for a little bit, so I won't take too much of your time.

[2:01:34] I will just say ahead of time, I want to thank everybody who has become a Max Fund member in

[2:01:39] the past and supported this podcast. I want to thank everybody who is thinking about it or going

[2:01:43] to, everybody who's planning to upgrade their membership. It really means a lot to us because

[2:01:48] it means that you are literally supporting us. This is the reason that we can keep making the

[2:01:53] time and putting the investment of energy and money and things like that into this show to

[2:01:58] make it what it is. Your support really means a lot to us. The fact that we've been doing this

[2:02:03] show for a long time for over almost a decade and a half and the show is a bunch of nonsense when

[2:02:10] you get down to it yeah but that it means something to us it means something to the people who listen

[2:02:14] to it and it means something to you because you're willing to support it and give us you know the the

[2:02:21] space and the the means to really make it happen uh we make most of our money off of pledges it's

[2:02:28] the vast majority and this year even more so because we aren't touring for obvious reasons

[2:02:32] We're not selling merchandise on our tours because we're not touring.

[2:02:34] See the previous sentence.

[2:02:35] And so your pledge dollars mean even more to us.

[2:02:39] If you are attaching love to the money, then that love is even greater this time.

[2:02:43] And as said earlier, we know this is a hard time for a lot of people.

[2:02:46] It's obviously a hard time.

[2:02:47] There's a lot of great things and causes.

[2:02:53] Thank you, causes.

[2:02:54] There's a lot of great causes that I know are also clamoring for your money.

[2:02:58] We are not asking for you to choose between saving the world and paying us.

[2:03:02] We are saying, just pay us.

[2:03:03] The world will take care of itself.

[2:03:05] Oh, wow, wow, wow.

[2:03:06] That did not go the way I wanted it to.

[2:03:07] We're sending.

[2:03:08] I thought that was going to go.

[2:03:10] You jokerfied it.

[2:03:11] Also, obviously, look into your hearts, look into your pockets, and see what you are comfortable with.

[2:03:16] But we really appreciate it.

[2:03:17] If you're not able to this time, we hope you consider it next time.

[2:03:20] But you'll hear more from us, and we just want to say thank you very much for making this something that we can continue to do for as long as we can.

[2:03:27] And again, that's MaximumFun.org slash join, whether you are joining or upgrading your membership or just curious about the possibilities.

[2:03:35] If you're not doing that, then the least you can do is help us spread the word about the Flophouse.

[2:03:40] Tweet about us, Instagram about us, TikTok about us, Facebook about us.

[2:03:45] We talked about YouTube a little bit ago.

[2:03:48] We have a semi-active YouTube channel where we have our recent virtual live show, as well as a collection of wonderful animated videos put together by Tony Ochre.

[2:03:59] We have our first ever actual promo that Tony animated for us.

[2:04:04] And it's like an actual real thing you can show people and be like, this is what the Flophouse is.

[2:04:09] And it only took us 13 years to get to the point where we were like, oh, yeah, we should do that.

[2:04:13] So we would like to say thank you for helping us spread the word.

[2:04:17] thanks for considering supporting us thank you to our editor jordan cowling for taking our uh usual

[2:04:22] uh ramblings and shortening them to only slightly longer than humans can tolerate yeah and i want to

[2:04:30] say triple thanks to uh our guest scott weinberg it was so much fun day dude thank you guys so much

[2:04:36] i again i have been a fan of the show i listen to a lot of podcasts as elliot mentioned i do have my

[2:04:42] own show with my friend Stephen DiGennaro called Science Versus Fiction, where we are film lovers

[2:04:48] and Stephen is an astrophysicist. And we thought there's got to be a way to talk about real science

[2:04:53] and movies without being pedantic and obnoxious. So we're trying to do that and be fun. But what

[2:04:59] I was saying was I've been a big podcast listener for a long time. And I think what I like most

[2:05:05] about your show is that it can be critical, but it's never mean. I don't like mean. Even if a

[2:05:11] movie is bad like artemis fowl most of the people involved in that movie tried to do good work and

[2:05:17] a lot of them did we just don't see it because the final product ain't so hot uh and i really

[2:05:22] respect that you guys are funny and irreverent but you're never kicking down on filmmakers and i

[2:05:27] as a film critic and a filmmaker i truly respect that and uh so it just means a lot to me to to

[2:05:33] be on the show for once i really enjoyed it thank you very much yeah thanks scott and i want to say

[2:05:37] that uh one of the things that i really like about your show is that it's clear that you guys are uh

[2:05:43] in addition to being knowledgeable about film and science you are also also huge uh fans that you

[2:05:49] clearly love the medium you're talking about and that comes through and that you love it and that

[2:05:54] when you guys don't agree on something you still there's a respect there that means that you don't

[2:06:00] rip each other apart for disagreeing unlike this show i was gonna say we are mean but just to dan

[2:06:05] Dan's the only one that we're mean to

[2:06:06] and I also have an older show that

[2:06:09] is now deceased but it's still up

[2:06:11] and people seem to like it called 80s All Over

[2:06:13] where my friend Drew McQueen and I covered the first half

[2:06:15] of the 1980s and it was a

[2:06:17] very maniacally busy crazy

[2:06:19] hectic show that will not

[2:06:21] be coming back but I really do hope that

[2:06:23] people love the episodes that we did

[2:06:25] and I just

[2:06:27] I have two more podcasts coming out in the next year

[2:06:29] and I just want to

[2:06:31] I just want to thank all the other podcasters

[2:06:33] out there all the creators

[2:06:34] on max fun and otherwise who inspire me to do good work well right back at you guys right back

[2:06:42] at you oh yeah and we did it yeah yeah we did a ton to pat ourselves on the back uh it's gonna

[2:06:47] have to be distance so dan can you pat yourself on the back like i would pat you on the back

[2:06:51] uh how would you do it it's more of a rub less of a patent more of a rub right are you what are

[2:06:56] you wearing on your wrist i put some weights on my wrist because uh we're in quarantine guys i i

[2:07:04] I want to have some exercise, but I want to do it in the laziest possible way.

[2:07:08] Yeah, no, I get it.

[2:07:09] That's awesome.

[2:07:10] Yeah, I'm glad that happened.

[2:07:11] Okay, cool.

[2:07:12] So what are we doing now?

[2:07:13] Are we going to say goodbye?

[2:07:14] Now we say goodnight.

[2:07:15] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[2:07:17] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[2:07:18] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[2:07:19] And thank you to...

[2:07:21] I'm Scott Weinberg.

[2:07:21] Thanks, guys.

[2:07:22] Bye.

[2:07:23] Bye.

[2:07:23] Nice.

[2:07:30] Second one?

[2:07:30] Want to do it again, Dan?

[2:07:31] All right, let's do it again.

[2:07:34] On this episode, we discuss Artemis Fowl.

[2:07:38] The movie that dares to raise the question,

[2:07:40] what the fuck is going on in this movie?

[2:07:42] Coming in hot.

[2:07:47] Coming in very hot.

[2:07:48] Hot, ooh.

[2:07:49] Maximumfun.org

[2:07:54] Comedy and culture.

[2:07:55] Artist owned.

[2:07:56] Audience supported.

Ep. #317 - Artemis Fowl, w/ Scott Weinberg

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