FH Mini 8 - Missed That Movie - Zombies Anonymous

Stuart Wellington

[0:00] Okay, so welcome back. This is the Flop House Podcast. I'm Stuart Wellington.

Dan McCoy

[0:09] Oh, I'm Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[0:12] TV's Porky Big, everybody, right there.

[0:15] And I'm Elliot Kalin, saying my name as if I've heard it before and said it before.

Dan McCoy

[0:20] So thrown off by the fact that I am not the first person to announce my name that I thought about it for a second.

Stuart Wellington

[0:30] Yeah, there's a moment when your glasses flipped off your face and you had to fumble with them in your hand.

[0:38] Yeah, so this is another mini episode. This is an off-week mini episode of the Flop House.

[0:45] Brought to you by Minnie's, the bar.

[0:47] Yeah, brought to you by Minnie's Bar, a bar that I am a partial owner of.

[0:52] Now, normally we watch a bad movie and talk about it, but what we're going to do tonight is we're going to do another installment of

[0:59] Missed That Movie. That's right.

[1:02] The popular reoccurring episode style where one of us has watched a movie and then we explain it to the others.

[1:10] The other two have to decide whether they are glad they missed it, sad they missed it,

[1:16] or had to not miss it, and they're going to run over to their DVD player and start watching immediately.

Dan McCoy

[1:22] Well, I'll have to wait to acquire the DVD if I'm relying on the player.

[1:28] I don't think I'm going to have this.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29] In a David Blaine style piece of street magic, go check your DVD player. It's already in there.

Dan McCoy

[1:36] I know what the movie is, and it's Jordan edited the name of the movie later.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42] But you're still going to have to say it, Dan, at some point for her to put it in there.

S4

[1:46] Sure, it's...

[1:47] Zombies Anonymous.

Elliott Kalan

[1:52] That joke is funnier if you can see Dan open his mouth as if the words are going to be dubbed in and then close his mouth.

Stuart Wellington

[2:00] Yeah, yeah. And he timed it perfectly. So for this one, I did something a little bit special, guys.

[2:08] I had to reach into the M&M and M&M store.

[2:13] That's right. The Miss That Movie Movie Mausoleum.

[2:18] Store?

[2:20] Well, I store movies in there.

[2:22] Fair point, fair point.

[2:25] So I selected a movie that was donated by listener Ryan Alexander.

[2:30] I think he donated it to me at the bar one night, and he's like, you got to watch this.

[2:34] It's my favorite movie ever. I might be getting his quote wrong.

[2:38] It's a movie titled Z.A. Zombies Anonymous.

[2:44] A very low-budget horror movie from 2006.

[2:47] Shot almost entirely in New York on video, with basically no music except for a few touches of classical music

[2:54] to really sell some of the very emotional moments.

[2:57] So you're probably already very excited.

[3:00] You know what, guys? You'll be even more excited when I tell you that the special effects team,

[3:04] that's right, it's demonic pumpkins.

Dan McCoy

[3:07] You know, so right off the bat, I'm going to tell you why Stuart is so much better at Miss That Movie than I am.

[3:15] It's because Stuart—

[3:16] We know, Dan. We've been listening. We know why he's better, but continue.

[3:20] Stuart has the joy of a little boy who's finally been allowed to do a book report on the thing he really wants to do,

[3:27] which is some dumb movie instead of a book.

Elliott Kalan

[3:30] There's a story I remember you telling, Stuart, about doing a report on the Rime of the Ancient Mariner

[3:35] where you played Iron Maiden's Rime of the Ancient Mariner class.

Stuart Wellington

[3:39] Yeah, yep. The best part about this report was that it was in an undergraduate romanticism class.

[3:48] And it was about halfway through the guitar solo in a very long song where the professor's like,

[3:55] uh, we can just turn this off.

Elliott Kalan

[4:00] Big mistake.

[4:01] Now, Stuart, what is Demonic Pumpkin?

Stuart Wellington

[4:04] Demonic Pumpkins is, of course, a special effects team, I'm assuming based out of New York.

[4:08] And boy, do they put some work in.

[4:11] So, the movie opens—

Elliott Kalan

[4:12] So, who's the—wait, is there—who are the stars? Is there a name cast?

[4:16] No.

Stuart Wellington

[4:17] Okay. Sorry, foolish question.

[4:20] Wise answer. I apologize.

[4:21] Oh, okay.

[4:22] So, we're introduced to our heroes, Angela and Josh.

[4:27] They are a young couple, and they're going through a breakup.

[4:30] Angela has barricaded herself in the bathroom while Josh rages outside the door

[4:35] before breaking down the door, saying a bunch of swear words, and then shooting Angela in the head.

[4:41] Josh—

Elliott Kalan

[4:41] So, when you say a breakup, you're underselling it.

Stuart Wellington

[4:46] Yeah, it's—it's very unpleasant.

[4:48] Uh, so Josh is—confronts the enormity of what he's done.

[4:52] You know, he looks at the gun, he looks at the dead, uh, girlfriend, etc.

[4:56] Uh, and then he runs away.

[4:57] Of course, moments later, Angela crawls out of the tub into her living room,

[5:02] and then two paramedics show up in her living room and kind of shrug their shoulders

[5:07] and then leave her seemingly dying on the floor.

[5:11] And then the credits start.

[5:14] Hell yeah.

[5:14] Uh, during the credits, we—

Elliott Kalan

[5:18] Now, the paramedics—is that supposed to be a joke, that the paramedics just give up, or are they—

Stuart Wellington

[5:21] There is—I don't think there's any jokes in this movie, Elliot.

[5:24] The movie's called Zombies Anonymous.

Dan McCoy

[5:26] There's no jokes in it?

Stuart Wellington

[5:27] Yeah.

[5:28] Almost none.

Dan McCoy

[5:29] From the way Stewart delivered all that information, I have a feeling it's going to be very, uh,

[5:35] like, key to this world that's being built.

[5:37] Like, there's going to be a—

Stuart Wellington

[5:39] Yeah.

[5:39] So the paramedics show up and just—I couldn't tell if they, uh, because like a lot of things,

[5:45] they don't explain it.

[5:46] I couldn't tell if the paramedics were like,

[5:48] Oh, she's dead.

[5:49] Okay, we're going to just peace out.

[5:51] Or if they're like, Oh, she's not dead.

[5:53] See you later.

[5:54] Like, I don't care.

[5:56] So, uh, over the credits, uh, where once again they mention Demonic Pumpkins, uh, bring

[6:01] that up again.

[6:02] Uh, we—we see a bunch of, like, clips from news stories that kind of—

Elliott Kalan

[6:06] That's Stephen King's original version of Needful Things.

[6:09] The devil opened a store called Demonic Pumpkins, and it was like, no one's coming in.

[6:14] Am I being too open about the purpose of this store?

[6:17] Yeah.

[6:19] Um.

Stuart Wellington

[6:22] Sorry.

Dan McCoy

[6:23] That's Stephen King's book, uh, starring popular SNL character David S. Pumpkins.

[6:29] Oh, sure, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[6:30] Who opens the store Demonic Pumpkins.

[6:31] I mean, I feel like that's a crossover that's been waiting to happen.

[6:33] So, uh, during the credits we get—

Elliott Kalan

[6:35] It makes way more sense than that Tommy Knocker's It's Pat crossover that they did in the 90s.

[6:40] That was crazy.

Stuart Wellington

[6:42] Yeah, and they, uh, for some reason the, uh, intro music, they used the song Tommy Knocker's

[6:47] by Blind Guardian.

[6:48] Very strange choice.

[6:49] Um, so during the credits we see a bunch of news stories about how the United States

[6:53] coping with a zombie epidemic and, uh, and how the world is trying to move on somehow by

[7:00] incorporating zombies into the existing rubric of society.

[7:03] But it's clearly a divisive issue.

[7:06] There's even a clip where a TV preacher suggests a final solution for these zombies.

[7:12] So it's, uh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:14] That seems, uh, like an ill-thought-out parallel.

[7:18] Yeah.

[7:19] I mean, considering—so, I don't know yet if the zombies in this movie eat brains or anything,

[7:24] but, like, the Jews don't eat brains.

[7:27] Like, like, like, like zombies are legit monsters.

[7:31] Jews are not monsters.

[7:32] I think that's where—the same way that the X-Men as a—as an oppressed minority parallel

[7:37] breaks down when you consider that the X-Men have superpowers.

Dan McCoy

[7:40] Now, you have alienated all cultures that do eat brains by not specifying that, of course,

[7:45] you're against live—live brain eating in particular.

[7:48] Any human brain eating, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[7:50] I don't even—if you—if you just stumble on a corpse on the street, don't crack that

[7:54] skull open and dig the brains out.

[7:56] I'm just saying it seemed not specific.

[7:58] I just, uh—

[7:59] Certainly I am more aghast at the eating of live human brains.

[8:05] Yeah.

[8:05] Unless, unless it's like that scene in Hannibal with Ray Liotta, and then the brain guy gets

[8:09] a taste, you know?

[8:10] Yeah, that's hilarious.

Stuart Wellington

[8:11] Yep.

[8:12] That's best scene in the movie.

[8:13] So, uh, we then get a title card five months later.

[8:19] Uh, Josh, the violent boyfriend, is riding around with his two childhood friends, Ricky and

[8:23] Malcolm.

[8:24] They're wannabe zombie hunters.

[8:26] Uh, and they find a lone zombie and attack him.

[8:30] Now, these zombies look a little bit different than the ones you're used to.

[8:34] This guy's kind of all by himself.

[8:36] He's got, like, a burned-up face, but he's wearing a pristine sweatshirt and jeans, and

[8:41] he seems to be completely in control of his faculties.

[8:44] He's just like a rotting corpse man in a—in like a—like a Princeton sweatshirt.

[8:49] So, uh—

Elliott Kalan

[8:50] Even after death, they just can't stop bragging about going to Princeton.

Stuart Wellington

[8:53] Exactly.

[8:55] Uh, meanwhile, Angela is attending a support group of other mortally challenged individuals.

[9:01] Boo.

[9:01] Okay, I guess—I guess that's a joke.

[9:03] I was just about to say, there's no jokes in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[9:06] Uh, I would like to say there's still no jokes in the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[9:11] So they, like—these, uh, these zombies, which they prefer not to be called zombies, uh,

[9:15] share their sob stories about how they, you know, all the things that they've lost in

[9:20] becoming undead.

[9:22] Uh, and then they, uh, then they have a donut break, and then they vomit into individually

[9:27] marked, uh, vomit buckets.

[9:29] Because I guess they can't eat donuts.

[9:31] Uh, because they're zombies.

Dan McCoy

[9:32] She tries to go back to work, but she's harassed by her co-worker who just, like, stares at her a lot.

Stuart Wellington

[9:37] Uh, so she has trouble adapting to life.

[9:40] At one point, she catches a rat in her, uh, kitchen and eats it and then is upset about it.

Elliott Kalan

[9:46] Just to be fair, you don't have to be a zombie to do that.

Stuart Wellington

[9:49] No, exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[9:50] As much as I am against just cracking people's skulls open and digging their brains out,

[9:54] if you find a rat in your house, go ahead.

[9:56] Don't let those nutrients go to waste.

[9:58] Mm-mm, meat on the hook.

[10:01] Especially if you happen to be a cat listening.

[10:04] Yeah, if you're a cat, even more—the more do so.

[10:07] Yeah, go ahead.

[10:08] And in fact, if you're a cat, I don't know, do whatever you want.

[10:11] Human laws can't touch you.

[10:12] Just look at Macavity.

[10:13] He's broken all of them.

Stuart Wellington

[10:16] So her, uh, her murderous ex-boyfriend Josh and his buddies are trying to join a zombie-hunting militia

[10:22] run by a large Italian fellow named The Gooch

[10:25] and a kind of abrasive, aggressive woman named The Commandant.

[10:32] They meet at a diner where the commandant has a meltdown

[10:35] when she's approached by a zombie waiter.

Elliott Kalan

[10:38] That sounds like a, like a 70s sitcom, Commandant and the Gooch.

[10:43] And like, he's an escaped Nazi war criminal.

[10:45] And she's just like a, she's like an Italian girl from, from, uh, I don't know, Bay Ridge or something like that.

[10:50] And they're roommates now.

[10:53] Commandant and the Gooch.

[10:54] It's a Gary Marshall show.

Stuart Wellington

[10:55] Yeah, in this case, uh, hunting, hunting zombies.

[10:58] Uh, so they later kidnap that waiter zombie and execute him in like an initiation ritual.

[11:04] Okay.

[11:05] So back to Angela, uh, you know, she's, she's bummed out that she's a zombie.

[11:10] She looks kind of gross.

[11:11] Uh, but not, not that bad.

[11:13] I mean, she got shot in the head, but like, as long as, uh, she combs her hair right, you don't, you don't see anything.

[11:19] I mean, as long as you get your health.

[11:20] You don't get to see the handiwork.

[11:21] Yeah.

[11:22] And I mean, well, she doesn't, um, but if she comes, if she comes her hair right, you don't get to see the handiwork of demonic pumpkins.

[11:28] Uh, so she considers going to a termination center, uh, that another one of the support group zombies describes as this, like, uh, kind of like a disorganized slaughterhouse where the undead are finished off by like, basically, you know, like, uh, like gruff blue collar guys.

[11:48] Who are goofing around while they're blowing zombies heads off.

[11:51] Um, she's also, uh, attacked by a guy while she's waiting for the bus all because she's a zombie.

[11:57] And she's also being stalked by her ex-boyfriend who I guess knows that she's alive, uh, or not alive.

[12:05] Uh, she takes, she ends up getting, uh, getting in a car with some freewheeling, like, unlife loving zombies that trick her into eating human meat.

[12:12] And she like totally gets high and trips out on it.

[12:16] Uh, and then they.

Dan McCoy

[12:18] So this world, I, I, I'm, I likely missed something, uh, due to, uh, also one being me, also allergy medicine.

[12:27] But is, is this positing a world where human flesh is like drug addiction to zombies then?

Stuart Wellington

[12:34] I believe so.

[12:35] This is the first time they introduced just the idea that a zombie could eat a human.

[12:40] So it makes it even stranger that the humans are going to such lengths to kill the zombies.

Elliott Kalan

[12:45] I'm very confused about the, about the purpose of the film.

Stuart Wellington

[12:49] Oh, well, uh, that's not going to be cleared up as I described the rest of it.

[12:53] Um, so they, uh, they take, uh, the, the like cool zombies that she's hanging out with, take her to a zombie cult headquarters,

[13:02] which is in like, like a house that's kind of unfinished.

[13:06] Uh, and they, you know, they kind of are trying to convince her to meet with their spiritual leader named Good Mother Solstice.

[13:15] And then they try and get her to participate in a feast on, uh, on like an unwilling human woman on a, on a victim.

[13:21] And she, uh, she refrains from doing that.

[13:24] She swoons and she passes out.

[13:27] Meanwhile, Josh has followed Angela to the cult house and the zombie hunters have attacked, uh, attacked the cult, killing all the zombies.

[13:36] Josh spares Angela this time.

[13:39] Uh, but his friend Richie gets mortally wounded in the fight and he turns into a zombie and the commandant, the Gooch, execute him.

Elliott Kalan

[13:45] So is Josh like, well, I killed you once.

[13:47] It would be, it would be churlish of me to kill you twice.

Stuart Wellington

[13:50] Well, he's one of those characters who's like, a lot of his dialogue is yelled and his, like, his two emotions are extreme anger at her.

[14:00] Or he's like, like stares at his fist like Batman, like Superman sitting on a ledge in the rain, like wondering, you know, like wondering what to do with all his power.

Elliott Kalan

[14:10] Superman's like, those times when Superman's like, why don't I just become king of this world?

[14:14] What am I doing?

[14:15] Who could stop me?

[14:17] Ugh.

[14:17] Yep.

[14:18] You know what?

[14:18] I'll just have a pint of ice cream.

Stuart Wellington

[14:20] So Angela, Angela runs away from this house in this horrible, um, this, uh, you know, house filled with dead zombies.

[14:27] She tries to go back to work, but she gets fired.

[14:30] Then she tries to get-

[14:31] On what grounds?

[14:32] Uh, I think it's just because she's a zombie.

Elliott Kalan

[14:35] So it's just prejudice.

[14:35] Okay.

[14:36] Yeah, it's just prejudice.

[14:37] It wasn't, they were like, they were like, we could deal with you being with one of, being one of the undead, but we know you've been stealing supplies.

[14:44] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[14:45] Uh, so she, which would have been funny if she was like using like staples to like hold her body together.

[14:52] Yeah.

[14:52] I guess that's, once again, me showing my, uh, my anti-zombie sentiments.

[14:56] Um, so she tries to find a new job.

[14:58] She even buys this makeup called Look Alive, which is supposed to make her skin look less, uh, you know, slightly waxy.

[15:06] Uh, it doesn't work, obviously.

[15:08] She can't get her job because the places she tries to get a job at, uh, discriminate against zombies.

[15:14] Uh, she tries to find some comfort with the zombie support group, but then the zombie hunters attack again, killing all the zombies and kidnapping her.

[15:23] Now, this is a point where my favorite character, the Gooch, getting blood all over himself, takes his shirt off and just like wipes it on himself and then leaves it in the street in like a cul-de-sac.

Dan McCoy

[15:35] Classic Gooch.

[15:36] Yeah, this movie seems to, uh, I don't know if it does, but, uh, in viewing, but it seems to be falling, uh, falling, uh, what's the word on the line?

Elliott Kalan

[15:47] Exactly, precisely into place, like a well-oiled machine.

[15:50] No.

[15:51] Uh-huh.

[15:51] Uh, falling victim.

[15:52] Like kind of a clockwork mechanism, like sneakers or, uh, you know, the Spanish prisoner.

[15:57] Falling victim to one of the...

Stuart Wellington

[15:58] Or like, uh, the Phantom Menace.

Dan McCoy

[16:02] Falling victim to one of the classic blunders of this type of thing, where they're making,

[16:06] some sort of parallel, uh, with, uh, people being oppressed in some way, and yet the parallel they're making implies that oppressed people are rotting corpses.

Elliott Kalan

[16:17] Yeah, or monsters.

[16:18] Yeah, sure.

[16:19] Yeah.

[16:19] Well, it's like, like, uh, how in Bright, it's ostensibly a movie about tolerance, but it's also a movie that tells you that every race has different superpowers,

[16:28] and, uh, that they actually are very different genetically and spiritually and physically, so maybe they should be in different strata, uh, because they didn't think too hard about what they were doing, I guess.

[16:41] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[16:41] Yeah, and I mean, in this movie, the only organization of zombies are basically like a hippie cult commune who get high off of eating humans.

[16:50] Mm-hmm.

[16:51] Um, so, uh, yep, the zombie hunters take, uh, take Angela and the other kidnapped zombies to a field where they're going to execute them.

[17:01] Uh, just at the last minute, they're rescued when the, uh, zombie cult attacks and kills the zombie hunters in a hail of bullets in a very exciting action sequence.

Elliott Kalan

[17:13] Now, what's your, what's the sarcasm percentage on what you just said?

Stuart Wellington

[17:16] I would say like 75%.

[17:19] Pretty high.

[17:19] Okay.

[17:20] Okay, pretty high.

Dan McCoy

[17:21] So, uh, it was still 25% thrilling.

[17:25] So, that's, uh.

Elliott Kalan

[17:25] Yeah, thrilling sounds like the word that he wants to use.

[17:27] I mean, in this economy, you're not going to do better than that.

Stuart Wellington

[17:32] I mean, it can't all be Hobbs and Shaw, you know?

Elliott Kalan

[17:35] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[17:36] So, at this point, uh, Josh has been, uh, he has been shot, but he escapes.

[17:43] The Commandant also escapes.

[17:45] The Gooch, uh, not so well.

[17:47] He, uh, he gets overtaken by zombies and ripped to shreds.

[17:51] Uh, Angela is rescued by the cult.

[17:53] She wakes up and, uh, in yet another unfinished house, uh, Good Mother Solstice introduces herself and, uh, injects pureed human meat directly into Angela's brain.

[18:05] She gets super high.

Dan McCoy

[18:07] Now, is that how eating works?

[18:09] Yes, yes.

Stuart Wellington

[18:10] What you eat goes to your brain.

Elliott Kalan

[18:11] You can inject the food right into your brain, yeah.

[18:13] So, if you ever, if you're dying and you don't have enough time to chew and digest the food, you just stick that hot dog in your ear.

[18:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[18:21] I was actually, I was watching a, uh, I was watching a, uh, an interview with Kumail Nanjiani about how he got so ripped.

[18:28] And he said, uh, he just bypassed the middleman and injected protein directly into his head.

Dan McCoy

[18:33] If that can't get to your body, if it's going to your brain.

[18:36] If I'm dying, if I'm dying, the cure would have been eating a hot dog.

[18:41] If that would have saved me from dying, uh, I will, yeah, from now on, I'll save a few seconds by putting it in my ear.

Elliott Kalan

[18:50] Yeah, because the problem is you don't have time for it to get into your bloodstream.

Dan McCoy

[18:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[18:54] Sometimes I'll skip the middleman and I'll just, sometimes I'll just shove a fish stick up my nose if I don't have time to sit down for a full meal.

Stuart Wellington

[19:02] That's why you look so youthful.

[19:03] All right.

[19:04] Mm-hmm.

[19:04] Yeah.

[19:06] It's also why Elliot's teeth are so pristine because he doesn't waste them on things like eating.

Elliott Kalan

[19:10] Never use them.

[19:11] My nose is often clogged with breadcrumbs, uh, you know, fish flakes, but.

[19:17] Uh, uh, tartar sauce.

Stuart Wellington

[19:18] Um, so, uh, but there's no tartar on your teeth because as we've addressed, you don't put food in them.

Elliott Kalan

[19:24] Save it for my sauce.

[19:25] I tell my dentist, save it for my sauce.

[19:27] S-I-F-S.

[19:28] Any tartar on there, just scrape it off, give it to me.

[19:30] I'll take it home, sauce it up, put it on the fish sticks.

Stuart Wellington

[19:34] So we also, uh, this is around the point when, uh, we, we realize, we find out that, uh, it's, it's dangerous to overdose on human meat for a zombie.

Elliott Kalan

[19:44] I feel like that would work for, that would be true for a human too.

Stuart Wellington

[19:47] Yeah, that's, that is true.

[19:49] Uh, back at the zombie hunter hideout, Josh realizes that he not only has been shot, but now he has died and come back as a zombie.

[19:57] Uh, the commandant shows up with a new haircut, which was very confusing for me for a while because I thought it was a completely new character.

Elliott Kalan

[20:04] No, wait, does this mean if anyone who dies comes back as a zombie?

[20:08] Yeah.

[20:09] Okay, so you'd think that society would be more accepting of zombies then if everybody was, it was going to happen to.

[20:14] It's like, let's be like a world where kids are running around killing adults and the adults are like, I was a kid once too.

[20:20] And the kids are like, well, that'll never happen to me.

[20:21] I'm a Toys R Us kid.

[20:22] I don't want to grow up.

[20:23] But then they do.

[20:24] It's called Logan's Run.

Stuart Wellington

[20:26] Yep, they worship Jeff, Jeffrey the giraffe.

Dan McCoy

[20:28] What you're forgetting, Elliot, what you're forgetting is, yes, I assume that the humans are very excited to see their own loved ones back.

[20:37] But the other, everyone else's loved ones, they're taking up the resources that are so, like they're limited resources for the living.

[20:45] And now you've got these dead people hanging around.

Elliott Kalan

[20:48] What resources are they taking up?

[20:49] Rats?

[20:50] And like, fake-o-makeup?

[20:52] Like, I don't, I mean, as far as the movie goes.

Dan McCoy

[20:55] Jobs, Elliot, apparently these zombies have jobs.

[20:57] We've seen how jobs can motivate people.

Elliott Kalan

[21:02] Well, I'm saying we get the dead to do the jobs the living don't want to do.

[21:06] Uh, like, I guess, uh, what's a job you guys don't want to do?

[21:10] Like, picking up after other people's dogs?

Stuart Wellington

[21:13] Uh, I kind of like that.

[21:15] Okay, well, maybe they don't do that.

Elliott Kalan

[21:16] We'll save that job for you, Stu.

Stuart Wellington

[21:17] I've talked about this before, but I have this, like, long-standing dream of publishing a coffee table book

[21:24] that's just photos of dogs' faces while they're pooping.

[21:28] Because there's something so, like, pure and innocent, but also, like, kind of concerned on their face.

[21:33] Like, I hope nobody pushes me over.

Elliott Kalan

[21:35] Oh, trust me, I see the look on my younger son's face all the time as he's going,

Stuart Wellington

[21:39] la-la-la-la-oh!

Elliott Kalan

[21:41] And then whatever he's doing, he just suddenly stops and stares at you.

[21:45] Until the poop is out.

Stuart Wellington

[21:48] Yep, that's, you're gonna sneak that into your next Netflix special, right?

[21:52] Your Dana Carvey-style special about raising children?

Elliott Kalan

[21:56] Sneak it into?

[21:57] It's the centerpiece of the special.

[21:58] Yeah, I guess you're right.

[21:59] It's called Elliot Kalin.

[22:01] Yeah, I have kids, too.

[22:02] Let me tell you all about them.

[22:03] You're not interested?

[22:03] Well, you're gonna hear about it anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[22:07] Write what you know.

Elliott Kalan

[22:09] That's like my recent political comedy special, Elliot Kalin.

[22:14] How about this president, huh?

[22:15] What a piece of work he is.

[22:16] I don't like him.

[22:17] Maybe you do, but I think you're wrong.

[22:19] That's the title.

Stuart Wellington

[22:20] Yeah, I mean, I think, are they gonna turn it into an acronym?

[22:23] Dan, what would be the acronym for that one?

Dan McCoy

[22:28] Yeah, I don't remember the letters, but I do think that this...

[22:32] Now, some people may think that you're...

Elliott Kalan

[22:33] Now, there's also my special about how swinging prolongs your existence.

[22:40] It's called Kalin.

[22:41] Keep alive, love a neighbor.

Dan McCoy

[22:44] Okay.

[22:44] Well, that one less so than the other ones, but your ungainly title naming scheme, I realize

[22:49] that's to optimize your SEO.

[22:52] I mean, I guess I'm saying optimize two times.

[22:54] I optimize my...

[22:55] Your search engine optimization.

[22:59] Title that long means that it's explained for people.

[23:03] If they're writing a question into Google, this is the first thing that's gonna come up.

Elliott Kalan

[23:07] Oh, I thought SEO was the silly Elliot organization, which is my company, yes, that makes all these

[23:12] stand-up specials.

[23:13] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[23:14] I would think that you would improve your SEO the most if all your specials had a hashtag

[23:21] before it, like hashtag triggered or something like that.

[23:25] Probably.

[23:26] That's the only thing I could think of.

Elliott Kalan

[23:27] Is that what that band is called?

[23:28] Why it's called that SEO speed wagon?

Dan McCoy

[23:31] Mm-hmm.

[23:31] Yep.

[23:32] They, you know, the company that they worked with has the top speed wagon results of all

[23:38] speed wagons.

Elliott Kalan

[23:39] Now, a speed wagon would just be a wagon, right?

[23:42] Like the wagon's supposed to go fast, right?

Dan McCoy

[23:44] Well, what wagon?

[23:46] Like a Red Rider or a...

Elliott Kalan

[23:48] I gotta assume so.

[23:49] Yeah, one of those Radio Flyer wagons.

[23:51] Yeah.

[23:52] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[23:53] I mean, speed wagon's also the name of one of the Joestar family's sidekicks, one of

[23:59] their allies in the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series, but, you know.

Elliott Kalan

[24:03] Makes sense.

[24:04] It's also the third in the speed trilogy.

[24:05] There's speed, speed, two cruise control, and then speed wagon, where they're like, if

[24:10] this wagon doesn't go faster than 40 miles an hour, you're toast.

[24:14] And they're like, no wagon can go that fast.

[24:15] What are you talking about?

Dan McCoy

[24:17] Well, that was just the first title for Back to the Future Part 3.

[24:22] Rejected Screenplay was about a speed wagon.

Stuart Wellington

[24:26] So, now we're in the homestretch, guys.

[24:29] Josh and the Commandant hatch a sneaky plan to get revenge on the zombie cult.

[24:33] This somehow involves the...

[24:35] And I got kind of confused.

[24:37] I watched this part a couple times, and I still couldn't quite figure it out.

[24:40] The Commandant strips down to her underwear and plays dead.

[24:44] Makes sense.

[24:44] And then when the zombies go to cut her head open, she attacks them, and she, like, wipes

[24:50] out the majority of the zombie cult.

[24:52] But in the process, she gets her guts ripped out.

Elliott Kalan

[24:55] Seems like a wash.

Stuart Wellington

[24:57] That seems like a pyrrhic victory.

[25:00] While she's doing that, she has, like...

[25:02] She has Josh try and sneak in through the back door, but he spends most of the time fighting

[25:07] zombies on the front porch.

[25:09] Like, if you're in, like, a role-playing game, and you fuck up early on, and you just blow

[25:13] all your, like, one-shot abilities in the first room.

[25:16] Yeah.

[25:16] It's pretty funny.

[25:18] And then, meanwhile, this is going on, Angela used the distraction to get in a knife fight

[25:24] with Good Mother Solstice.

[25:26] I don't quite know why.

[25:28] I think it's because she got human meat injected into her brain.

[25:31] Good enough reason.

[25:32] Over the course of the fight mainly involves hitting each other with books or using a knife

[25:37] to, like, slash each other's clothes off.

[25:40] And then the fight's over when Good Mother Solstice gets a lethal overdose of human meat in her

[25:48] neck, and her head explodes.

[25:50] And we get a couple of reaction shots of our heroine saying,

[25:54] What?

[25:55] It's pretty great.

Elliott Kalan

[25:57] So that's, like, a catchphrase?

[25:58] That's, like, a cool action hero catchphrase?

Stuart Wellington

[26:00] I mean, I'm assuming that was included just so they could sneak into the trailer.

[26:05] So Angela and Josh have a bloody confrontation where Josh gets, yeah, at this, so she gets

[26:10] in a fight with Josh, you know, like couples do sometimes, except they're both zombies at

[26:16] this point.

[26:17] So she uses a knife and stabs him in the balls, and then pulls out one of his balls and stabs

[26:23] it into his head.

Dan McCoy

[26:26] No, see, they missed a trick there, because she should have pulled one ball off, and then

[26:32] stab it into his other ball, pull that ball off, and then into the head.

[26:37] Like a three olive martini.

[26:40] Okay, interesting.

Stuart Wellington

[26:42] That's Dan's fatality in the next Mortal Kombat game.

[26:45] Yep.

[26:48] I'm sure you guys, I don't know if you guys have seen the trailer, but in the new Mortal

[26:51] Kombat game, they included Robocop.

[26:53] And in the fatality they show, he does, in fact, shoot Baraka in the dick.

[27:00] You're like...

[27:01] World's colliding.

[27:02] It's like a fucking Avengers Infinity War here.

[27:08] Yeah.

[27:08] Yeah, you're like, what would happen if Robocop ran into, you know, Robocop, the gem of

[27:14] OCP's police department program.

[27:18] If he were to run into the Tarkharten general of Outworld, what would he do?

[27:24] And of course, it's shoot him in the dick.

Elliott Kalan

[27:26] It feels like the what if is more, what if the video game manufacturers misunderstood the

[27:31] point of Robocop?

Dan McCoy

[27:34] You don't know.

[27:35] You know, Blanca may be committing crimes.

[27:38] You don't know.

[27:39] I just...

[27:39] You know, I just think...

[27:40] More that it's not...

Elliott Kalan

[27:41] Robocop is not just a straightforward story about a robot cop shooting criminals in the

[27:45] dick.

Stuart Wellington

[27:47] I don't...

[27:48] I don't...

[27:49] Oh, wow.

[27:52] Yeah, I guess you're right.

[27:53] I guess it takes some twists and turns, you know?

[27:56] It's not all dick shooting.

Dan McCoy

[27:58] I would also say, Robocop, you shouldn't assume that Blanco's dick is located the way where,

[28:03] you know, other people's dicks are.

[28:05] I mean, it would just be electrified.

Stuart Wellington

[28:06] Completely different franchise.

Elliott Kalan

[28:08] Yeah.

[28:08] It's a Street Fighter character, too.

[28:09] That's the other thing, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[28:11] Do you think it was intentional that Robocop shoots that one guy in the dick, and then

[28:14] he also shoots a guy named Dick later in the movie?

Elliott Kalan

[28:17] Yeah, that's because it's a brilliant movie.

[28:19] It's like a tapestry.

[28:21] Yeah, it's one of the few perfect movies.

[28:23] It's exactly like Carole King's tapestry.

Stuart Wellington

[28:26] So, to wrap up a less than perfect movie, so Angela manages to escape the house.

[28:31] The commandant blows off Josh's head, and then she blows off her own head.

[28:36] And then in the final scene, Angela, in the bathroom, sees herself, her zombie face.

[28:42] She picks up the Look Alive disguise makeup, and she throws it in the trash.

[28:49] And that is the end of the movie.

[28:51] So that was Zombies Anonymous.

[28:52] I wasted your time with it, and I also wasted my own time with it.

[28:55] So what do you think, guys?

[28:57] Well, that'll probably bias my reaction.

[29:02] You probably have some questions for me before you decide whether you're glad you missed it,

[29:07] sad we missed it, or had to not miss it.

Dan McCoy

[29:10] Well, okay.

[29:12] Stuart, were you moved by Angela's ultimate acceptance of her zombie life?

Stuart Wellington

[29:19] I mean, it just didn't quite make sense up until that point, because, I mean, I just watched

[29:25] a bunch of people stab each other and hit each other with books for no real reason.

[29:31] So the idea of her, like, accepting herself, that didn't seem like, I mean, I didn't really

[29:38] see the apotheosis of her journey.

Elliott Kalan

[29:40] You're saying the character arc was not earned.

[29:42] What if she just threw it away because she's like, this stuff doesn't work.

[29:44] What a waste of money.

Stuart Wellington

[29:45] Or to expect that.

[29:46] That actually is a good point.

[29:48] Maybe it was just a harsh critique of the product.

Elliott Kalan

[29:52] Maybe this is more of like a 60-minute style Consumer Reports thing about an expose of how

[29:57] Look Alive does not, in fact, make you look alive.

Stuart Wellington

[30:00] Does 60 Minutes still do those?

[30:03] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[30:03] Do they still do those 60-minute, those 90-minute long zombie movies that are debunkings of makeup

Elliott Kalan

[30:13] rumors?

[30:14] Andy Rooney would come out at the end and complain about the movie you just watched.

[30:21] Oh, man.

[30:22] I think Stuart-

Stuart Wellington

[30:22] I would like to watch, I would like to, I would like to watch movies with Andy Rooney.

Elliott Kalan

[30:27] We all would.

[30:27] Unfortunately, he's passed on to the great Zombieland in the sky.

[30:31] Yeah.

[30:32] That's because-

[30:33] What do you think?

Stuart Wellington

[30:33] Do you think Andy Rooney would have really liked Zombieland 2 double-tap?

Elliott Kalan

[30:41] I think it would go a little something like this.

[30:44] When I sat down to watch the new Zombieland film, the next in the Zombieland franchise, I had

[30:51] to ask myself, how big is Zombieland?

[30:55] Isn't it more of a zombie continent to have two full adventures on it?

[31:00] Now, the subtitle double-tap implies you'll be seeing tap dancing.

[31:04] I don't know what else it would be responding to or referring to.

[31:08] And yet, at no point do Woody Harrelson or Jesse Eisenberg, the stars of the Zombieland

[31:13] franchise, ever strap on some tap shoes and let the music take them where it may.

[31:18] You know, if I'm going to watch Zombies Tap, I'll go back to the graveyard where Fred Astaire

[31:23] puts on shows nightly until his legs fall off.

[31:28] For 60 Minutes, I'm Andy Rooney.

Dan McCoy

[31:31] Well, it started out like how Andy Rooney probably would do it.

[31:34] Then it got a little dry in the middle.

[31:36] And then, though, it went to-

[31:38] I've never heard Andy Rooney bring that up before.

[31:42] If I saw Fred Astaire tap dancing in a graveyard, I would be telling everybody.

[31:47] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[31:48] Well, I mean, it's ironic because-

[31:49] Well, let's look at his review of the original Zombieland.

[31:52] Hi, it's me, Andy Rooney, with Real, R-E-E-L, Rooney, my movie review column on television.

[32:02] Today, I saw Zombieland.

[32:04] Well, I saw most of Zombieland.

[32:07] Around two-thirds of the way through, I really had to pee.

[32:10] And so, I tried to hold it in as best as I could, but at a certain point, you have to

[32:14] put your own health over the movie that you're seeing.

[32:18] So, I guess I'll be reviewing the first two-thirds and then the bathroom at the Hollywood Arclight

[32:23] Cinemas.

[32:25] Zombieland has an interesting first two-thirds, a kind of modern, ironic take on the zombie movie.

[32:30] It's very meta, and yet it lacks a conclusion that I felt like I could really believe in.

[32:35] In fact, two-thirds of the way through, there's no sense of the movie coming to an end yet.

[32:41] My time in the bathroom, however, was a sheer delight.

[32:44] Clean, comfortable.

[32:45] The lighting was bright enough to see my penis so I could hold it in my hands, but not so

[32:49] bright that I was aware of all the signs of aging that have become more and more an accumulation

[32:54] on my body parts.

[32:56] I decided to stroll around the hallways of the theater afterwards, looking at the posters

[33:00] of the movies that were coming out soon.

[33:02] A few were I interested in, others not so much, and some I just think I'm going to miss entirely.

[33:09] By the time I was done with my perambulations, the film was over.

[33:15] So I give the two-thirds that I saw of Zombieland an incomplete, and I give the bathrooms an A++.

[33:22] For 60 minutes, this has been Andy in the aisles.

[33:27] That's right, I changed the name of the segment while I was doing it.

Stuart Wellington

[33:31] Oh, I'm glad that he put that on his main feed and he didn't put it behind a paywall.

Elliott Kalan

[33:35] Oh no, that's what brings people to the paywall content.

Dan McCoy

[33:39] Stuart, do you ever get Yelp reviews that like Hentor and Lance because the light is bright

[33:44] enough to see their dick?

[33:45] Is that a common review thing?

Stuart Wellington

[33:49] I mean, to be honest, I got multiple compliments at the lighting in the bathrooms.

[33:55] I think it's usually so that people can take selfies and not so that they can see their genitals.

Dan McCoy

[34:00] Well, I mean, sure, there's a style of selfie that you're not seeing, probably, so.

[34:05] I guess you're right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[34:06] Now, my guess is that it says more about the kinds of public restrooms Andy Rooney finds

[34:11] himself in regularly, that he felt the need to comment on the visibility of the light.

Dan McCoy

[34:14] Or his failing eyes.

Elliott Kalan

[34:17] That too, that too.

[34:18] It may be blindingly bright in there for someone who's not an elderly man.

[34:21] I don't know.

[34:22] Anyway, rest in peace, Andy Rooney.

Stuart Wellington

[34:23] So, I got some bad news, guys.

[34:25] You have gone over your allotted time to ask me questions about the movie, so we're going

[34:30] to have to skip right to final judgments.

[34:32] Are you glad we missed it, sad we missed it, or had to not miss it?

Elliott Kalan

[34:38] Stuart, I think you did a great job of communicating to us why, as far as I'm concerned, I am glad

[34:44] I missed it.

[34:45] And I feel bad that you did not miss it.

[34:48] So, that's the new rating is, feel bad Stuart unmissed it.

Dan McCoy

[34:52] Yeah, I think that there was a palpable sense of disdain radiating off of you, Stuart, both

[35:01] in the video and just the things you were saying.

[35:04] So, I'm going to say I'm glad I missed it.

Stuart Wellington

[35:07] Okay, well, you at home can miss it, not miss it, do whatever you like.

[35:12] You're a human being.

[35:13] You have autonomy.

[35:16] So, yeah, that's been Miss That Movie.

[35:19] I think we've all agreed that it's a glad we missed it.

[35:23] We got something fun coming up, though, right, Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[35:26] That's right.

[35:27] Hey, if you're listening to this, that means there's still time.

[35:29] Well, unless you're listening to this very late.

[35:31] Anyway, the point is, on Saturday, June 6th, we're going to be doing one of those Flophouse

[35:36] live shows we do in towns and cities across America.

[35:39] But we're going to be doing it from our homes to your home.

[35:42] That's right, Saturday, June 6th at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[35:46] You do the math on where that is Central and Mountain Time.

[35:49] We're going to be doing a classic Flophouse live show over our YouTube channel.

[35:54] We're going to be doing presentations.

[35:55] We're going to be talking about Howard the Duck.

[35:58] We may try to figure out some way to interact with the audience.

[36:01] We don't know.

[36:01] Anyway, if you go to youtube.com slash c slash the Flophouse podcast, that's youtube.com

[36:08] slash the letter c slash the Flophouse podcast.

[36:12] You'll find it there.

[36:13] If you don't see it when you go there, just refresh the page at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific,

[36:17] and it'll come out.

[36:18] Or if you need that information, again, go to theflophousepodcast.com.

[36:21] Again, we're going to be watching Howard the Duck, and we're going to do it all for charity.

[36:25] We're going to be trying to bring awareness to the problem of hunger that's being faced by

[36:30] many people in this country, increasingly more so because of what's going on.

[36:34] And we're going to be doing that by talking about Howard the Duck and its amazing laser

[36:39] effects and hit song about Howard the Duck, the eponymous duck who is the Howard of the

[36:45] title.

[36:45] Again, that's Saturday, June 6th, 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific at the YouTube Flophouse channel.

[36:51] So go to theflophousepodcast.com for that information in case you weren't writing it down as I was

[36:56] saying it.

Stuart Wellington

[36:58] Yeah.

[36:59] Well, that's great.

[36:59] That's going to be a lot of fun.

[37:00] I'm looking forward to it.

Elliott Kalan

[37:01] It's going to be real fun.

[37:02] We're going to have new presentations, right, guys?

Stuart Wellington

[37:03] Yeah.

[37:04] Are they going to be, like, loosely quarantine-themed?

[37:07] Is that the theme we're working on?

Elliott Kalan

[37:08] I think the theme we're working on is stuff we want to do.

[37:12] Yeah.

[37:13] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[37:14] Oh, cool.

[37:14] But, you know, if it's on our minds right now, I'm sure the flavor of the world will

[37:20] slip in no matter what the topic.

Elliott Kalan

[37:23] Guys, I am genuinely excited about seeing Howard the Duck again, if only because my memories

[37:27] of some parts of it from when I saw it as a kid are so vivid, but I don't remember what

[37:31] the connective tissue is.

[37:32] And I just remember how good those laser special effects are.

[37:35] There's some solid laser effects.

Dan McCoy

[37:36] Yeah.

[37:36] You mean at the end with, like, the laser lightning around the monster?

Elliott Kalan

[37:40] I do not remember when it happens.

[37:41] I just remember as a kid being like, oh, those are Ghostbusters-level lasers.

[37:46] Yeah, I like them.

Dan McCoy

[37:47] All right.

[37:48] Well, guys, thanks for listening.

[37:51] This has been fun.

[37:52] I'm glad we missed it.

[37:54] I've been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[37:56] Oh, I've been Stuart Wellington.

[37:57] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[37:59] Or am I Andy Rooney?

[38:00] No, that'd be crazy.

[38:01] I'm Elliot Kalin.

Stuart Wellington

[38:02] Bye!

[38:03] Bye!

S4

[38:12] Judge John Hodgman won a Webby in the comedy podcast category.

[38:16] After 10 years of production, Judge John Hodgman has finally won.

[38:20] The Susan Lucci of the Webby's.

[38:23] What is Judge John Hodgman?

S5

[38:24] Comedy writer and television personality John Hodgman settles disputes between friends, family,

[38:30] co-workers, partners, and more.

S4

[38:32] Is a machine gun a robot?

S5

[38:34] Should a grown adult tell his parents about his tattoos?

S4

[38:37] Should a family be compelled to wear matching outfits on vacation?

S5

[38:41] Listen to Judge John Hodgman to find out the answers to these age-old disputes and more.

S4

[38:45] If you haven't listened to Judge John Hodgman, now is a great time to start.

S5

[38:49] Judge John Hodgman is available on MaximumFun.org and wherever you get your podcasts.

S4

[39:02] MaximumFun.org

[39:03] Comedy and culture.

Dan McCoy

[39:05] Artist owned.

[39:06] Audience supported.

FH Mini 8 - Missed That Movie - Zombies Anonymous

Transcript

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