Ep. #300 - The Wicker Man

[0:00] On this, the 300th episode of The Flophouse, a special Cagemist show, The Wicker Man!

[0:07] And I'm here, Hallie Haglund, the star of the show. This movie sucked.

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

[0:46] Oh boy, Dan. It's me, Stuart Wellington.

[0:49] And for the 300th time, not really, I missed a bunch of episodes, it's me, Elliot Kalin.

[0:54] And me, Hallie Haggard.

[0:58] So, Dan, you're continuing the tradition of not introducing our guests.

[1:02] Well, she's been here so many times, I feel like she knows what's up.

[1:06] Yeah, it's Hallie.

[1:07] Hi.

[1:08] Hallie, why haven't you been here for a while?

[1:11] Tell us all.

[1:12] Well, you know, because you didn't invite me.

[1:16] That's a good reason.

[1:18] Well, I figured you were pretty busy because you were doing some major things in your life.

[1:21] yeah they uh we we've been using a different discord channel or uh or what do people use

[1:28] we moved to a different slack channel uh so for those of you who are just joining us for the

[1:35] first time who have decided that the 300th episode of the show is the ideal entry point

[1:39] hallie hagland is by far the most popular most requested guest on the program uh long time friend

[1:46] she and i shared an office for many years pitched a tv show nobody was interested in but i still

[1:51] think was really good i think it was great it's still out it's still if and if there are any takers

[1:56] and uh wow this is like a like a like a pawnbroker's type thing

[2:02] and uh emmy and wga award winner winning writer right an executive producer of problem areas

[2:10] with why it's an act boy you've done so much hallie you're very accomplished thank you

[2:13] i'm also a mother but my number one title is mother oh that's the toughest job you'll ever

[2:20] love right yeah exactly yeah tell us all about how your life has changed sally i had a baby

[2:26] a couple months ago four months ago uh but yeah so i just really been doing that it's hard to get

[2:34] out of the house you know i'm scared mostly to leave the house oh you're agoraphobic now yeah

[2:40] well you know hallie i'm sure you have the thing that all uh early parents have where

[2:44] if you don't keep your eyes on the baby at all times then its heart and lungs will stop

[2:48] instantly yeah well actually i'm just more afraid that people are gonna uh get really mad that my

[2:54] baby's crying in public it's mostly that fear oh yeah there's that too where's the fear of david

[3:00] bowie the goblin king stealing your baby on your list oh yeah i mean that's i mean he's dead oh

[3:06] that's true sorry spoiler you know i feel like i feel like jennifer connelly's character really

[3:14] overreacts because i mean she doesn't have to babysit him for a while right he's just doing

[3:19] all the hard work yeah i mean just bring him back before mom and dad get home right yeah i mean i

[3:26] feel like that was kind of a loose agreement when he left after he was done spinning that ball around

[3:31] his hands and turned into a snake worst case scenario that baby picks up some amazing globe

[3:36] juggling skills yeah which i'd be incredibly happy to have although i will say i was once in a park

[3:42] in london england and i saw this guy trying to impress some pretty girls with uh by juggling a

[3:48] glass globe like in uh labyrinth and i was like that is so impressive that you can do that and

[3:53] at the same time it is so dorky and unimpressive yeah let me say a guy no man hath won my heart

[4:01] with uh juggling okay um hey guys it's the 300th episode we said it in the intro but it bears

[4:11] repeating yeah what do we do on this podcast well we watch a bad movie and we talk about it

[4:15] and by cosmic conjunction our 300th episode falls on our annual holiday of cagemas where we celebrate

[4:24] the work of saint nicholas cage is there any greater proof of a god than that these two things

[4:30] lined up i don't need one yeah i mean it's certainly a spigot that keeps pouring out

[4:35] Delicious treats for us to deal with.

[4:37] A spigot that pours out treats.

[4:39] That's Nicolas Cage you're saying?

[4:41] Yeah.

[4:42] Because that spigot would get clogged up pretty fast, right?

[4:46] Yeah.

[4:46] I was watching this movie actually at a bar on my phone

[4:51] because I had a holiday party to go to last night.

[4:53] And I needed to like...

[4:55] Dan, your devotion.

[4:55] Dan's working on being present and in the moment

[4:57] when it parties with his girlfriend.

[4:59] Izzy's like, I'm both going to not enjoy this party

[5:03] and also I'm going to miss a lot that's going on.

[5:05] before the party i had to kill some time before the party i i it was the only time i could work

[5:10] in watching our movie of this week which uh is the wicker man wicker man as we announced no the

[5:16] wicker man man that's probably what it sounded like on your phone at the bar but uh to the point

[5:20] of nicholas cage churning out movies the bartender's like hey what are you watching there

[5:25] and i kind of awkwardly had to explain why i was watching an old bad nicholas cage movie you're

[5:31] like uh i have a podcast yeah and he was like oh i love nicholas cage i love him he's always

[5:38] watchable he always just you know he keeps pumping out those movies though not all of them good

[5:43] because he buys a bunch of stuff he has the action comics number one like he's telling me about

[5:47] nicholas cage no sir i know i realize he's uh he churns out a lot of crap for the money

[5:52] have you guys ever watched um city of angels for cage miss the uh wings of desire remake

[6:01] i loved that movie did you what was this what was the what was the song from the doll song

[6:06] iris was it i don't want the world to see me right right yeah what no but wasn't also that

[6:14] sarah mclaughlin like in the arms i thought that was from sad animal commercials yeah that one is

[6:22] uh that that's a different sarah mclaughlin song oh okay she i mean a lot of her songs are really

[6:30] I mean, I think a lot of things can be in the arms of angels, guys.

[6:32] I mean, I don't know.

[6:34] Harps, harps, feathers that have fallen out of their wings.

[6:39] Occasionally a trumpet to herald the Almighty.

[6:43] Now, you think that angels shed feathers, Hallie.

[6:46] As divine beings, I would assume that the feathers just stay in the whole time.

[6:51] And get really gross and dirty because they're just the same feathers

[6:55] with all the crap floating around in heaven getting stuck in them.

[6:57] I don't think so, Dan.

[6:58] I think they shed those things.

[6:59] Is that why birds shed feathers?

[7:02] Because they get crap stuck in them?

[7:04] It's as good a reason as any.

[7:06] Okay.

[7:07] I guess so.

[7:07] So, look.

[7:08] So, Dan, why?

[7:10] So, the bartender asked a very good question to you.

[7:13] Why are you watching The Wicker Man?

[7:14] Why did you decide that we should watch The Wicker Man for this,

[7:17] our 300th episode spectacular?

[7:20] I don't actually think I was the one who suggested it.

[7:22] I think it may have been Stuart.

[7:23] It was probably me.

[7:25] Because we want to do a Nicolas Cage movie,

[7:27] and we've done a whole bunch of these episodes.

[7:29] and we're like, what's a classic good, bad Nicolas Cage movie?

[7:33] Yeah, we were going back, you know, for the 300th episode,

[7:36] we decided let's not just, like, pick some piece of crap that he did this year.

[7:40] Let's go back and do...

[7:42] Sorry, Kill Chain.

[7:43] Yeah, let's go back and do the one that many heralded

[7:48] as a new bad movie classic when it came out,

[7:50] but was before our time making this podcast.

[7:53] See you next year, Primal.

[7:55] Yeah.

[7:56] Catch you on the flip side, The Guardian.

[7:59] they did come out with a lot of movies recently uh the i feel like uh the wicker man might was

[8:06] the moment that a lot of people realized for the first time like oh he's making some real bad movies

[8:11] these days yeah because this was also like a big release a lot of the movies that we've been doing

[8:14] with him lately are small movies they're little minis yeah little movie minis like you just fun

[8:19] size you just pop a bite pop them in and you end up eating more than you would if it was a full

[8:23] size movie yeah because they're so small and you're like oh i thought i was gonna get save

[8:27] calories by eating these fun size nicholas cage mini movies and it's like oh no now i have more

[8:31] nick cage in my belly than i thought i would if i just had a full-size nick cage now hallie is this

[8:35] reminding you of how irritating it can be are you getting flashbacks or i just love how the store

[8:41] just like blacks out like a trance um yeah so and this is also uh this is also a movie that has

[8:51] a relatively well-known supporting cast you have your francis conroy you have ellen burson you got

[8:57] lily sobieski yeah holly parker stars and it also has a at the time a relatively hot indie director

[9:08] yeah neil neil labute who taught at ipfw the community college uh in my hometown of fort

[9:16] wind indiana and i feel like i feel like neil labute should be addressed a little bit off the

[9:21] top of the movie okay dear dear neil labute how are you doing what's going on near labute one two

[9:27] three labute street okay uh well he's in los angeles california he was a playwright and then

[9:32] you know he made movies his first uh i don't know his first movie overall the first one that

[9:38] got his in the company in the company of men in the company of men which at the time so this is

[9:43] a movie about sort of an alpha male who enlists a beta male in this plot to sort of romantically

[9:50] destroy a woman and he's doing it for his own kind of personal business uh advancement a lot of a lot

[9:59] of it was shot in Fort Wayne Indiana my hometown and the end of the movie is like the the weaker

[10:04] man like realizes no no the wicker man the wicker of the two men realizes the wicker of the two men

[10:11] realizes that he has actual feelings for this woman but of course he's treated her horribly

[10:16] and she is deaf and he's sort of yelling at her trying to get her to pay attention to him i don't

[10:21] think that's gonna help and yeah and she does not hear him she just sees him like sort of silently

[10:29] like trying to do this and it plays as this kind of final small triumph over these horrible men

[10:37] that that she does not have to listen to him at the time watching this movie i thought okay this

[10:42] is like about what we now would call toxic masculinity it's taking the woman's side but

[10:48] then as neil lebut has made more and more movies yeah you're like oh no maybe he's just a misogynist

[10:53] as you will see in in the wicker man that reaches its full flower in the wicker man a movie in which

[10:59] neil nicholas let's say neil cage nicholas cage punches or kicks no fewer than three women

[11:04] it's true we're all like and this is a guy who's in action movies so it's a little bit it's like

[11:11] as bad as it would be it's even worse because he's a guy who you know like works out is used

[11:15] to fighting john travolta like you know i mean at least those parts weren't boring like the rest

[11:21] oh wow yeah i guess you're right the and this is this is part of the motorcycle period of nicholas

[11:27] cage movies where his character one of his characters defining traits is that he is a

[11:31] motorcyclist yeah as we see in the opening scene in the opening so should we jump into the movie

[11:36] let's do it my summary yeah okay first thing we see is aaron eckert sitting as a trucker at a

[11:41] truck stop diner so i don't think we need to go into such detail on it but uh nicholas cage he is

[11:48] playing edward malice i will refer to him from this point on as nick cage uh he's a kind of a

[11:54] moody california motorcycle cop and the first time the first time we're introduced to him it's a

[11:58] woman who were uh the the woman working at the diner calls him honey honey that is not a coincidence

[12:03] no because honey will play an important role in the movie uh not honey boy the the current film

[12:09] i want to i want to see that have you guys watched that i got a screener for it yeah yeah i got the

[12:14] screener but i haven't watched it yet uh but i mean i guess they turned nick cage into a honey

[12:18] boy by the end of it we'll get to that yeah so he's he's been he gets interrupted by that waitress

[12:24] while he's looking at some self-help tapes or a self-help paperback that's on the spinner rack i

[12:28] think it's a take because he refers to his tapes later guys this is really important to the plot

[12:32] the movie let's get your salads up so the first 12-hour episode of the flop but we never find

[12:43] out if he ate the salad it's true because then it cuts to the road yeah maybe he took the salad to

[12:49] go so he's eating a salad when he rides his motorcycle down down the highway uh he's just

[12:56] stopping people left and right he's a good motorcycle cop one day he pulls over a mother

[12:59] whose young daughter

[13:00] has been throwing a doll

[13:01] out the window of the car

[13:02] and as he's retrieving the doll

[13:04] a huge truck hits the car

[13:05] and it bursts into flames.

[13:06] It comes out of nowhere

[13:07] and the truck seemingly disappears.

[13:09] Like I don't know

[13:10] even in

[13:11] it just kind of keeps going.

[13:13] He tries to save the girl

[13:15] who is very stoic

[13:16] while the car

[13:17] around her is in flames

[13:18] and he's trying to smash

[13:18] through the back window

[13:19] but he fails

[13:20] and it explodes

[13:21] before he can get her out.

[13:22] That's the first of many failures

[13:24] for Nicolas Cage

[13:24] in this movie.

[13:25] And he sinks into

[13:26] the cool oblivion

[13:27] of passing out.

[13:29] But wait, when he picked the doll up off the road,

[13:32] was that reminiscent for you guys of the moment in Con Air

[13:38] when he had the bunny and he's like, give the bunny back?

[13:43] That's what I thought of.

[13:47] I mean, that's the thing when you have one of these legacy actors, right,

[13:49] is that almost everything he does is weighted with such significance

[13:53] when you judge it all against his huge career.

[13:55] In the oeuvre.

[13:57] Raising Arizona 2, where the biker pulls the actual baby off the ground?

[14:02] Yes, the baby is sitting in a car seat on the ground,

[14:06] and the biker drives by and lifts it up and puts it on the front of his bike.

[14:10] It's the lone biker of the apocalypse, right?

[14:13] Wheels within wheels.

[14:14] Every shot in the movie pays homage to another Nicolas Cage movie.

[14:17] It's funny you mention Raising Arizona, because much as in that movie,

[14:20] in the next scene Nicolas Cage is sitting on a couch,

[14:22] and I'm sure that's a deliberate mirroring,

[14:25] And he has fallen into a depression.

[14:27] His friend, a lady cop, comes by to give him his mail

[14:30] that was being collected at the station for some reason.

[14:32] And she's like, oh, you got your commendation.

[14:34] And I wanted to be like, why?

[14:36] He failed.

[14:36] Yeah, that's what I said.

[14:37] Also, they never found the bodies.

[14:39] That's the other thing.

[14:40] They never found the bodies.

[14:41] So why did he get a commendation for this thing?

[14:43] They only have his word that he was trying to help this thing out.

[14:46] Yeah, he didn't do anything.

[14:48] He tricked a truck into running over a car.

[14:51] Are they saying that when that car exploded,

[14:54] The heat was like that at the center of a nuclear weapon, and it vaporized the woman and the girl inside the car.

[15:00] Come on.

[15:01] Well, guys, look, earlier this week, I watched the original Wicker Man before watching this.

[15:06] Oh, I like the original one.

[15:08] Yeah, no, it's a good movie.

[15:09] But I will bring it up a couple of times, hopefully not too much, but to make some instructive parallels.

[15:16] And this points to two things where I think this movie goes wrong.

[15:21] Number one, the fact that the bodies disappear points to some sort of actual supernatural thing that happens in this movie.

[15:29] Uh-huh, sure.

[15:29] Whereas The Wicker Man, you're never quite sure, the original, you're never quite sure whether there's actual power to these pagan rituals or whether they're just a bunch of misguided crazy people.

[15:40] Who sing some really great songs.

[15:41] And number two...

[15:42] Yeah, they do have some great songs in the original one.

[15:45] Yeah. Number two, this movie, the remake, seems to think it needs to give Nicolas Cage a tragic backstory

[15:51] as motivation for wanting to find a lost girl when, like, the fact that he's a police officer is enough in and of itself.

[15:58] And then later on, we find out this lost girl is his.

[16:01] I mean, it's not motivation when he's a police officer in California and it's happening in Washington.

[16:08] Yeah.

[16:08] Well, California is higher up in the pyramid of where you can be a cop.

[16:13] So it's like if you're a New York cop, you're a cop everywhere you go.

[16:16] But if you're a cop from like, I don't know, say Fort Wayne, Indiana, you're not a cop if you go to other places.

[16:23] And similarly, if you're from Detroit and you go to Beverly Hills, nobody takes you seriously as a cop.

[16:28] And that's why you've got to be goofy and stick bananas into gas pipes.

[16:31] So two things I want to mention about the original Wicker Man, as long as you're opening up that can of Wicker Worms,

[16:38] is that the original Wicker Man is very much about a man of traditional faith

[16:43] who is set against a prudish man,

[16:46] who is set against this pagan, very fertility sexual atmosphere.

[16:51] And you really feel like he is worried about his soul throughout the whole movie.

[16:55] And here they're trying to make it, I guess, that Nick Cage is worried about his sanity.

[16:58] But it's Nick Cage. You know he's crazy.

[16:59] So it's not that big of a deal.

[17:02] He's like a big, crazy, this is a big, crazy Nick Cage performance

[17:06] where he just kind of like runs from scene to scene kind of acting dumb doing strange things

[17:12] like going bursting into a classroom and wiping off the chalkboard yeah and there's and the first

[17:19] one is very much like this guy it's a confrontation between old religion and you could say older

[17:25] religion yeah yeah and in in this one it's just a confrontation i guess between a man who hates

[17:29] women and all these women who who who hate men yeah i was trying to figure out what the they

[17:34] thought the metaphor was or what neil lebutin thought the metaphor was because it does seem

[17:38] like okay i'll tell you dan the metaphor is bees the masculine versus the feminine is all i can

[17:43] think of and it's very strange because like a charitable reading would be that the women have

[17:51] this power that men can't comprehend but it comes off as just like women are villains is the i mean

[17:56] that is i don't i think that is the reading i think the reading of the movie is women are villains

[18:00] and they

[18:01] if they give them power

[18:02] they'll destroy men

[18:03] but the other thing

[18:03] I want to mention

[18:04] is that because of that

[18:05] that kind of like

[18:07] to put it one way

[18:08] like Christianity Catholicism

[18:10] versus paganism

[18:10] the old movie

[18:11] the old movie

[18:12] is like really erotic

[18:13] like really strongly erotic

[18:14] yeah

[18:15] I mean because it's got

[18:16] it's got Christopher Lee

[18:17] in it dude

[18:17] Christopher Lee

[18:18] who is a sex god

[18:20] there's a reason that

[18:21] there's a reason

[18:22] they have all those

[18:23] Count Dooku sleeping pillows

[18:24] that look like him

[18:25] and you put them in your bed

[18:26] yeah it's because

[18:27] this lightsaber's got

[18:27] some English on it

[18:29] yeah

[18:29] Every time they were putting the Frankenstein makeup on him when he was playing the monster,

[18:32] they're like, gotta slather on more makeup.

[18:34] This guy is just too sexy.

[18:35] Come on.

[18:36] We can't have a sexy Frankenstein monster.

[18:38] Andy Warhol did that already.

[18:39] Actually, he hadn't by that time.

[18:40] So should we keep talking about a movie that we didn't watch for the podcast or the movie

[18:45] we did watch for the podcast?

[18:46] Good point.

[18:47] Good point.

[18:47] So anyway, Nick Cage, his mail gets brought to him by his coworker.

[18:50] Turns out his ex-fiancee, Willow Woodward, she ran away before they could get married.

[18:55] she moved back to her home a secretive island compound commune in washington state called

[19:00] summer's isle where they make honey and she writes and says my daughter rowan has disappeared and i

[19:04] need your help and her handwriting is impeccable perfect it's perfect her handwriting looks like

[19:09] someone printed out a letter using a handwriting font which i suspect they did so do we want to

[19:15] point out that her her name is willow woodward and willow is a woodward just like your daughter

[19:20] Rowan, that's also a wood word.

[19:22] Interesting. I want to point out

[19:24] that, I mean, this comes from the original Wicker Man

[19:26] so I can't make fun of it too much in relation to this

[19:28] movie. Yeah, because the original Wicker Man

[19:30] is sacred, sure. But wicker is also a

[19:32] wood word. Okay.

[19:33] That's true. But Summer's Isle,

[19:36] this island, you would think

[19:38] it's just called Summer's Isle, but it's named

[19:40] after someone called Summer's Isle.

[19:42] You find out. Yeah, it's like the Outer Bridge

[19:44] Crossing, which is named for a man named Outer Bridge.

[19:46] What does these things happen? Life is funny that way.

[19:48] You know, life is beautiful, Dan. Buongiorno, Prince of Paris.

[19:50] Wait, but Rowan is a kind of tree?

[19:53] Yeah.

[19:54] I didn't know that.

[19:55] What kind of tree is it?

[19:56] I guess I'll Google it.

[19:59] What would satisfy you, Hallie?

[20:00] What answer would satisfy you?

[20:02] Deciduous or coniferous?

[20:04] I would like to know that, yes, among other things.

[20:07] So something that we'll see later is all the women are named after plants,

[20:13] and Nicolas Cage gets frustrated by this as if they're doing it to insult him,

[20:16] and when he meets later, he meets Sister Rose, he goes,

[20:18] of course, another plant.

[20:20] As if they're just doing it to bug him, which is hilarious.

[20:23] Nicolas Cage is like, I have nothing going on in my life,

[20:27] and I need to find a girl to make up for the girl I couldn't save,

[20:30] so I'm going to do this.

[20:30] He goes up to Washington State.

[20:32] He takes a boat up and sees a girl who looks like Rowan

[20:34] and imagines a truck hitting her on the boat and takes some pills.

[20:39] This is also the moment where I'm like...

[20:40] Oh, yeah, the pills.

[20:41] I'm like, is Neil LaButte trying to remake Wicker Man

[20:45] or trying to remake Don't Look Now?

[20:47] There's a little bit of both, and he's failing,

[20:50] at at both of them so he's going to he bribes delivery pilot to take him to the island and

[20:55] then wades ashore to find some dour women who tell him this is private property uh and they're with

[21:00] these two silent guys holding a sack of something and the sack is wet so i assume it's bleeding and

[21:06] there's something struggling inside it and they're like take a look and he goes to look and it jumps

[21:11] before he can see what's in it and he shut and he and he flinches and they laugh at him and he

[21:15] walks away and we never find out what was in that sack but they're like it's not your girl or

[21:19] something they say something like that and the whole scene i'm like what is the point of this

[21:26] scene like what i don't understand it what do you think was in the sack yeah what do you think was

[21:31] in that sack i would say i would say there's probably a bunch of a bunch of like raspberries

[21:36] and some kind of an animal that likes eating raspberries like a little bear cub so like the

[21:42] bear cub is good they give they reward it by giving it a little bit a couple minutes in the

[21:46] raspberry sack yeah and he's mad because when they start to open up the bag they're like my

[21:52] time's not done yet he's like i've been counting in my head i'm not done eating raspberries

[21:56] you guys are really like putting an emphasis on that p and raspberries that's how bears talk dan

[22:03] that's how bears talk they pronounce every letter in the word they're like negative is falling but

[22:07] i want to eat more raspberries so then he goes doesn't he go into like you know it's interesting

[22:11] though bears love hotel oh yeah you're right hallie bears do love honey and dogs love trucks

[22:17] hmm interesting so what let's move on okay uh so he goes into the i want to explore this a little

[22:25] more actually he goes into the local like inn or cafe and it's all women there and already he

[22:31] mutters to himself huh must be ladies night and i'm like fuck you come on man i miss that he's

[22:36] uh and willow works there and so does sister beach a very humorless woman and uh she is hilarious

[22:43] her performance is hilarious uh and she serves him some mead and explains to him what mead is

[22:48] and he sees a bee on the bar and he kills it by slamming his mug down on it right but not after

[22:52] not until after he like takes a nice hearty gulp of that you know what that's all i really wanted

[22:57] this movie is to see nicholas cage fucking choke down some mead now i've never had mead have any

[23:03] have you guys ever had yeah of course yes no my so what's it like well it's usually too syrupy

[23:10] sweet for my yes it's honey wine it's it's it's it can be okay i have a so this will surprise

[23:17] not stewart knowing the college that we went to together but a class of ours had her wedding and

[23:25] her hobby was making mead cool so there was a bunch of mead at the wedding and you know it's

[23:30] not bad i would not choose to drink it normally but uh-huh but you know when you're hard up but

[23:35] when you got when you got the shakes you'll drink anything you know when on summer's isle do as the

[23:41] summer's islers do i guess so hallie you've never had mead right no okay so what would you imagine

[23:47] it would taste like i thought it was like i didn't know that it tasted sweet i thought it was like

[23:52] more beer, like

[23:54] you know, like a

[23:56] Guinness or something. Oh, okay.

[23:58] Like a porter or a stout.

[24:00] Yeah, exactly. See, because I always imagine

[24:02] Shabbat's beer.

[24:03] If you've ever been to Medieval Times,

[24:06] they serve you like a vegetable soup, but you

[24:08] don't have a spoon, because they didn't have spoons back then.

[24:10] And so you have to like have a bowl with a handle

[24:12] and you tip it into your mouth to drink it.

[24:14] I always assumed mead was kind of like that.

[24:16] Kind of like a low-grade

[24:18] vegetable soup that you drink

[24:20] with your other classmates on a field trip

[24:23] while you watch guys in kind of cloth knight costumes

[24:25] knock each other into the sand.

[24:26] Yeah, and that's the same reason

[24:27] why they let you drink Coca-Cola there

[24:29] at Medieval Times,

[24:31] because they had it back then.

[24:32] They had that back then because of a time portal.

[24:34] Cool.

[24:36] It was like the gods must be crazy.

[24:38] How do you think the kid got in King Arthur's court?

[24:40] Oh, yeah.

[24:41] Remember that movie?

[24:41] That's how that kid made his millions.

[24:43] I mean, to be honest,

[24:45] if you had Coca-Cola producing facilities

[24:48] and you brought them to Medieval Times,

[24:49] you would become richer than the king.

[24:50] People would become addicted to that.

[24:52] And also, back then, the water was not that good,

[24:55] so you know what?

[24:56] Just Coke it down.

[24:57] Just drink Coke.

[24:58] That was the original slogan, just Coke it down.

[25:03] Just Coke it down.

[25:04] And you know, King Arthur would be like,

[25:05] ah, thou isst the real one, baby, uh-huh.

[25:08] Or was that Pepsi?

[25:09] No, that was not Pepsi, never mind.

[25:10] Okay.

[25:11] So right around now, he finally finds

[25:14] one of the objects of his search.

[25:17] he finds Willow, once again, another Woodward.

[25:20] Like I said, once again,

[25:23] even though that was the same one

[25:24] that you pointed out before.

[25:25] Okay, then Sister Beach is a Woodward.

[25:26] There, I covered it.

[25:27] And we're the Bernstein.

[25:29] Yep.

[25:30] And so he runs into Willow

[25:33] while they make up his room, I guess.

[25:35] The whole thing goes very quickly and strangely.

[25:38] Yeah, and Willow's like,

[25:40] I don't trust anyone here.

[25:41] I know Rowan's been taken somewhere.

[25:43] And a bell rings and she's like,

[25:44] I gotta go, and she leaves.

[25:46] Can I say, we got sidetracked by talking about mead.

[25:48] No, you cannot, Dan.

[25:49] You cannot say it.

[25:50] It's important.

[25:50] We got sidetracked by talking about mead.

[25:52] No, you can't say it.

[25:53] But Nicolas Cage killed the bee because he's allergic to bees.

[25:56] Oh, thank you.

[25:56] Yes, he's allergic to bees.

[25:58] And this is reinforced when he is unpacking his bag and we see his bee epipens that he

[26:02] has brought with him, which either he has great foresight knowing that it's a honey

[26:06] producing island, or he just brings them everywhere.

[26:09] I think that when you have a bee allergy, you bring your epipens everywhere, Elliot.

[26:12] What if he was going on like an Alaskan cruise, Dan?

[26:15] You have to bring it everywhere, Elliot.

[26:17] Everywhere?

[26:18] Yes.

[26:19] Everywhere?

[26:20] Yes.

[26:21] You never know.

[26:22] Even the bathroom.

[26:23] There'd be a B in that toilet.

[26:26] Yeah, you can't spell bathroom without B.

[26:28] I was thinking about the use of allergies in horror movies

[26:34] and how as a filmmaker you have to work a little bit harder

[26:39] because for people who don't have allergies like Elliot just demonstrated,

[26:42] they don't seem quite as serious.

[26:45] They don't seem quite as scary, but if you do have them and you've suffered from them,

[26:48] it's terrifying.

[26:49] I just think it's like...

[26:51] Yeah, I don't have allergies, which is why...

[26:54] But like, for instance, in Hereditary, there's a scene where a character suffers from an

[27:00] allergy attack, and it's horrifying and terrifying, but I don't feel like the allergy is really

[27:07] that scary in this movie.

[27:09] No, they don't use it well.

[27:11] As someone who does have allergies, one, shame on you, Stuart, for shaming me.

[27:15] Not life-threatening ones.

[27:17] No, although one time I was in a friend's apartment in Chicago, of all places,

[27:22] and there was so much animal hair all over the apartment

[27:25] that I could feel my throat starting to close up.

[27:27] And I was too polite to say anything because I was with some of my wife's friends

[27:31] and I still felt kind of awkward around them.

[27:32] And I was like, this is how I'm going to die.

[27:34] I'm going to suffocate to death because I don't want to say anything.

[27:37] Oh, yeah, you're allergic to animal hair. I'm sorry.

[27:39] yeah and no it's okay and then danielle saw me and she was like we got to get out of here hey

[27:43] everybody let's go outside and i was like oh thank goodness but uh okay but no it's true they don't

[27:48] make much of his allergy so it's like the movie it's almost like the movie has to remind nicholas

[27:51] cage that he's allergic to bees in this because he just kind of seems to forget about there is a

[27:57] point where he finds himself in the exact center of what like a honey patch what do you call that

[28:02] thing a place where there's a bunch of a bunch of honeybees let's just say honey patch yeah a honey

[28:07] pot he all of a sudden he realizes that he's in way too deep and everywhere he turns he's surrounded

[28:12] by more hives and you're like what why did you go this far in buddy yeah and also why did you pack

[28:17] your epi pens but apparently don't have them on you at this point you take your gun everywhere

[28:22] you go but not your epi pens all right when you're on b island so uh and and ironically his favorite

[28:27] actress b arthur well i guess that is i guess that's ironic yeah yeah i mean because she was

[28:33] part b that's why she had that name oh okay i mean i guess that's foresight it was from the

[28:38] waist down though and because she wore all those kind of like loose billowy clothes on the golden

[28:41] girls it was hard to tell but they were always pantsuits how can you hide that in pants do you

[28:47] like slide part of your abdomen down one of the billowy legs of your pantsuit i have to assume

[28:52] they had to strap her abdomen and stinger to one of her legs so that it was in one of the like one

[28:57] of the billowy legs of the pantsuit yes wasn't she wasn't she like a nude model in the beginning

[29:01] of her career let's look it up i think it would be arthur i have trouble believing that maybe who

[29:06] knows i think it's true dan checks his mr skiing in the hotline

[29:10] i never heard the results of the rowan tree oh yeah uh so yeah this is an important part

[29:19] of the podcast where stewart reads the rowans or mountain ashes are shrubs or trees in the genus

[29:26] sorbus of the rose family rosacea i gotta say stewart that the genus sorbus sounds like a band

[29:34] you would listen to genus sorbus hey guys i went to go see genus sorbus at st vitus the other night

[29:40] it was pretty good dan you didn't look on the wikipedia page you're looking just for google

[29:45] image this looks like just google jen just google be arthur nude tell us what comes up

[29:50] And there is a picture

[29:52] She was not a nude model

[29:54] But there was a naked painting

[29:57] By John Curran

[29:58] Of Bea Arthur nude

[30:00] That sold

[30:03] Let's see

[30:04] For one

[30:06] Well it's expected to sell

[30:08] I don't know what it actually sold for

[30:10] But this article says it's expected to sell

[30:11] For 1.8 to 2.5 million

[30:14] Wow

[30:15] So is that

[30:17] That's at Sotheby's and Christie's Mr. Skin auction.

[30:21] So for a couple of million dollars,

[30:23] you too could have a painting of Bea Arthur nude in your home.

[30:27] I'm impending the desire of this person to sell.

[30:29] Okay, so anyway, Nicolas Cage has a bad dream of that car crash we see.

[30:36] We're going to see that car crash scene with the truck many times throughout the movie.

[30:40] And he wakes up to see a little girl running around outside.

[30:42] He tries to find her by poking around in an old barn forever.

[30:47] it looks a lot like tevye's barn from fiddler on the roof just full of horses and stuff and he

[30:51] falls through an old floor and then pulls himself back up ending one of the two or three i guess

[30:57] thrills scenes in the movie yeah i was watching this i'm being like okay i guess this movie is

[31:01] nominally like a horror film and we're supposed to think that uh nicholas cage like almost falling

[31:11] through an old barn is terrifying i mean like look if i was in that position yes i would be

[31:15] terrified but we got to play it by are you afraid of the dark yeah i would watch as a kid and i

[31:20] would say it's not scary to watch but if i was in that situation i would be scared yeah but watching

[31:25] it on yeah on a on a phone screen in a bar i was not like oh no nicholas cage is gonna i mean he's

[31:32] gonna die in this barn and then who knows what the rest of the movie is gonna be yeah i'm not i'm not

[31:36] faulting i mean it is a bad scene and it's very boring but i feel like you can't totally fault

[31:41] neil labute for your decision to watch it on a phone at a bar yeah was this around the time where

[31:46] he goes back to his hotel room and he's like has anyone been in my room did somebody i'm missing

[31:52] some tapes yeah he's missing his self-help yeah because he overhears some people thank you i've

[31:59] been working out uh he overhears some people talking about the wicker man he's like does

[32:03] is anyone i'm missing my tape of iron maiden's brave new world album leading single the wicker

[32:09] man that he overhears sister beach is just like constantly casually talking about she's like yeah

[32:16] yeah yeah we got to get ready for the ritual of death and rebirth yeah and it's like they're just

[32:19] so casually talking about the things that are supposed to be spooky in the movie but it was i

[32:23] wanted to make the point which i feel like i had i have deja vu about this so i may have said it at

[32:27] the podcast or somewhere else before that this scene in the barn was when i realized oh this

[32:32] isn't a movie this is me watching someone play like a point and click computer adventure game

[32:37] like mist or like salmon max hit the road or one of those type or like a zork type game where it's

[32:44] like a non-text zorking where it's like uh where nicholas cage walks out of the inn and it's like

[32:48] what location should i go to the woods the barn town square i'll go to the barn uh item flashlight

[32:56] use flashlight on stall i see a horse okay use flashlight on stairs go upstairs okay oh a crow

[33:04] it's like so much of this movie is him going to a location having a perfunctory conversation with

[33:10] somebody where they give him some information and then him yelling at them and then leaving

[33:13] and going somewhere else well and certainly like later on where he goes to uh is it is it

[33:17] francis conroy is that the actress yeah yeah like when when he like interacts with her like

[33:22] and he sneaks in after she leaves and he's like oh i find i find a book that explains everything

[33:28] I find a letter, like, photograph of Rowan, you know?

[33:33] It's just like, okay.

[33:34] I mean, like, you'll come to see that they're leading him down the garden path,

[33:37] but if you didn't know that, it's so funny.

[33:39] It's just like, okay, well, all these obvious clues have just been strewn about.

[33:43] If you didn't know that, it would feel kind of like what they're trying to do in Under the Silver Lake,

[33:48] where this guy is, like, constantly searching for clues that validate his, like, detective work.

[33:55] yeah and and uh there's just there's no atmosphere to any of this stuff i think

[33:59] the i think they made a mistake in setting an ostensible horror movie on a beautiful island

[34:04] where it's constantly kind of golden light and there's just it just looks gorgeous all the time

[34:09] i don't know uh i don't know i mean it works in uh it works in midsummer yeah yeah i mean it works

[34:15] in the original wicker man too but those are different types of movies you know the next

[34:18] morning at the cafe his waitress lily sobieski shows up to tell him why there is an empty

[34:23] little squeeze bear of honey on the table

[34:25] when this island is famous for its local honey.

[34:27] Turns out last year's honey crop was cursed.

[34:29] It was terrible.

[34:30] And on the wall of photos,

[34:32] where there's a picture of the Harvest Girl

[34:33] at Every Year's Harvest,

[34:34] last year's picture is missing.

[34:37] Uh-oh.

[34:38] And then Miss Beach once again is like,

[34:39] oh yeah, we got the Festival of Fertility tomorrow.

[34:41] It's sacred.

[34:41] What of it?

[34:42] And Lili Sobieski does not recognize

[34:44] his photo of Rowan, she says,

[34:45] and says, when you leave, please,

[34:47] take me with you.

[34:48] And he's like, what?

[34:49] And then walks away.

[34:52] Nicholas Cage, in his perambulations, his amulet perambulations around the island,

[34:56] this is one of the first great funny scenes in the movie,

[35:00] where he wanders into a one-room schoolhouse where Molly Parker, as Sister Rose, is teaching.

[35:06] And she goes, what is the man's role?

[35:08] And these two girls just go, phallic symbol, phallic symbol.

[35:11] And then he interrupts them and is like, hey, I'm a cop.

[35:15] I'm looking for a girl who is missing.

[35:16] And they're like, look in that desk.

[35:19] And he looks at a desk, and there's a raven trapped in it.

[35:22] And then they're like, we trapped a raven in there to see how long he could take it before he went insane.

[35:26] And he's like, that seems a little on the nose with what's going on in the movie, but okay, sure.

[35:31] And he sees the attendance book and sees Rowan's name is listed, even though everyone's like, I don't know who that is.

[35:36] And he's like, you're all liars.

[35:38] You're liars.

[35:39] You're liars.

[35:40] And Molly Parker really plays up the, like, coyly, like, I don't know, like, sneaky thing.

[35:46] Wait, you guys recognize that actress?

[35:49] Oh, yeah, she was in Deadwood.

[35:50] She was in lots of stuff.

[35:51] She was in Six Feet Under with Francis Conroy.

[35:55] Did anyone else watch that movie, Her Smell?

[35:58] I haven't seen it yet.

[36:00] A friend of mine was part of the distribution team.

[36:03] I think that she's in that.

[36:05] I'm going to look at that.

[36:06] But also, this is the scene in which she, a schoolteacher,

[36:09] misdefines the word quixotic,

[36:13] and then Nicolas Cage uses it in a totally wrong, different way later on,

[36:18] and she's like, yes, that's right.

[36:20] I mean, she's not a very good school teacher.

[36:23] I think that comes across.

[36:24] And she's like, she does that coy thing.

[36:26] She's like, we don't talk about Rowan.

[36:28] She died.

[36:30] But we don't say dead here.

[36:32] We say she's in the air and in the clouds.

[36:34] How did she die?

[36:35] Oh, she'll burn to death.

[36:36] What did you say?

[36:37] Exactly what I meant to say.

[36:38] She burned to death.

[36:41] And it's like, come on.

[36:42] That's not what you said.

[36:43] Come on, movie.

[36:43] And again, as you guys mentioned, they're leading him into a trap.

[36:49] And if you don't know that, then you're like, this is a sloppy movie.

[36:52] If you do that, you're like, these are sloppy trapsters.

[36:55] You can make a movie about a guy who is in a deep investigation and in a situation where he can't kind of trust himself or trust the people around him.

[37:06] Or like, I don't know, like Jacob's Ladder or something.

[37:10] But this movie is not that movie.

[37:12] No, it's so ham-hand.

[37:14] It feels like, I mean, and Lila Butte had made movies before this, but it feels almost like a college film.

[37:19] trying to do that but with a bigger budget nicholas cage he's like well that wasn't very

[37:23] helpful oh and this is that's also the scene where she goes i'm sister rose and he goes of course

[37:27] when he goes of course another plant as another wood word and i love also he's like it's like

[37:33] that's what you're catching on to that everyone has plant names but not any of this other stuff

[37:38] and it's at this point that you're really like okay nicholas cage you got to get off this island

[37:42] and get some backup and the movie does a fairly good job at least of like showing how like trapped

[37:49] he is at this place but i again to go back to the original movie i prefer the original movie where

[37:53] it seems like the detective probably could get off the island much earlier once he realizes that

[38:00] things are going badly but he has this pig-headed confidence that because he's a a moral officer of

[38:07] the law that like he will triumph and he can walk through any situation unscathed just like how

[38:13] nicholas cage is a very strong man that can easily punch and kick his way out of any problem yeah

[38:18] yeah for the record molly parker is not in her smell i was mixing her up with amber herd

[38:23] i mean incredibly similar they they both they look sound and act differently but you know otherwise

[38:30] uh i dan i appreciate your use of the word pig-headed since later everyone's gonna get

[38:36] them some animal heads uh nicholas cage he goes to a ruined graveyard looking for owen's grave

[38:40] willow's there and she's like hey by the way you're her dad should i have mentioned that beforehand

[38:44] no you guys were totally overlooking the fact that he takes off his coat all the time even when he

[38:50] like when he jumps in the okay he has this coat that is a blazer yeah he wears it over a sweater

[38:56] vest yeah and it has patches on the elbows but for some reason he's willing to do anything and

[39:03] get as dirty as possible but he always takes off his blazer so like he jumps in the lake when he

[39:09] when he's like he has a hallucination that uh rowan is trapped under the dock and he jumps in

[39:16] the water but first takes off his blazer even though he thinks she's drowning uh i mean yeah

[39:22] yeah that's not a i mean whether or not he takes his blazer off she's gonna be drowned or not

[39:27] because he thinks he sees her body he starts seeing rowan everywhere and he swims to it and

[39:32] this is now we get to my favorite moment in the movie where he wakes up he's like he's like

[39:38] underwater and he's like ah and then he wakes up on the dock and he looks down he's holding her

[39:42] wet sodden body in his arms and goes oh and then without even giving you any time for it to like

[39:48] settle in he wakes up again on the dock and goes god damn it and it's with such with such annoyance

[39:56] and it it is they're trying to pull off like a double wake off wake up scare like a jump like

[40:01] Like a fake wake up that becomes a dream.

[40:04] But it's so, they run through it so quickly.

[40:06] And his response to it is so not scared, but just so annoyed.

[40:09] He's like Bob Odenkirk in any Mr. Show sketch, just being like, God damn it, what are you doing?

[40:13] I like how your misspeaking created a neologism there with a fake up.

[40:19] Oh, thank you.

[40:20] Yeah, it's a fake up.

[40:22] When you think they're waking up, but it's actually still a dream.

[40:24] But it is so, it feels like, I mean, and I wonder if this is it, that Neela Butte was like,

[40:30] What is a more commercial method for me to get across the idea that women are evil?

[40:34] I'll do a horror movie, I guess, but I'm not really that interested in the scares.

[40:38] So why don't I just rush through those as perfunctory as possible so I can get to the scenes of women bedeviling and laughing at Nicolas Cage and him hitting them?

[40:49] Because this movie totally lives up to, until the very ending, it totally lives up to Margaret Atwood's quote that everyone's been bandying about for the past few years about how men are afraid women will laugh at them

[41:00] and women are afraid women will kill them.

[41:01] Because throughout the movie,

[41:02] women are laughing at Nicolas Cage

[41:05] and he responds by punching them in the face.

[41:07] Yeah, it's really crazy.

[41:11] And I don't know what this says maybe about me,

[41:14] but I think it's really strange

[41:16] that when Willow reveals that he's Rowan's dad,

[41:20] that he never really considered that before this point.

[41:24] Like, it seems crazy to me that he didn't,

[41:26] that wasn't like the first thing he thought of

[41:29] when he started like saw the girl and he's like we were engaged like doing like he doesn't do any

[41:35] math he doesn't do any attempt to be like wait a minute like he doesn't he doesn't look at the

[41:43] picture he's heading to the point how yeah he doesn't like look at the picture and he's like

[41:46] oh maybe uh maybe she's big for big for her age or something i mean she doesn't really look like him

[41:53] that's true she's always wearing that red sweater and he never wears it doesn't look like him she

[41:57] He wears blazers.

[41:59] If she was wearing a blazer, that would be different.

[42:01] Yeah.

[42:02] Daddy's girl.

[42:04] If it was a photograph of her yelling at someone,

[42:07] they'd be like, oh, yeah, of course, that's my baby.

[42:10] Sure.

[42:11] Now, Hallie, you being the only woman here, aside from,

[42:15] I know, Dan, you've been kind of digging out your feminine side recently,

[42:19] and I really like that.

[42:20] But, Hallie, being the only woman here,

[42:22] how did this movie strike you vis-a-vis it being about a man running around

[42:25] screaming at women?

[42:27] I mean, it was so bad that I wasn't, like, palpably offended by it

[42:31] because the misogyny didn't really resonate when it was executed so poorly.

[42:37] I wasn't really offended.

[42:39] That's fair.

[42:40] That's fair.

[42:40] Okay, so Nicolas Cage next.

[42:43] He's going to get some information from Dr. Moss, another plant name,

[42:47] Francis Conroy from Six Feet Under and many other things.

[42:50] And as mentioned before, when he gets to her house,

[42:52] there's just, like, photographs of rituals everywhere

[42:55] and all these books about burning people alive as sacrifices.

[42:58] She looked great in this movie, I will say.

[43:01] Very young looking skin.

[43:04] Who's the makeup artist in this movie?

[43:07] That's what I want to know.

[43:08] And Ellen Burstyn, they both look great in the movie.

[43:10] They look like women who are on top of their game

[43:14] and have nothing really to worry about

[43:15] other than arranging a sacrifice

[43:17] and making sure these bees produce honey.

[43:19] And otherwise, they just get to relax

[43:21] and enjoy the beautiful islands they live on.

[43:23] And they're beautiful long hair, which is hard to pull off when you get older.

[43:26] You know, your hair gets brittle.

[43:27] Is that what happens?

[43:29] I never knew that.

[43:30] It turns into, like, peanut brittle?

[43:32] Exactly.

[43:33] It's delicious, but it's hard to manage.

[43:35] Sometimes it makes snakes pop out of it.

[43:37] Is that why when...

[43:39] That only happens to Medusa, Dan.

[43:40] When Grima is sapping Theoden's life energy, his hair gets all thin and brittle.

[43:46] but then when he when gandalf kicks green out of the curb his hair gets all lustrous again right

[43:54] is that why hallie until you said gandalf i was like which thing is this which fantasy thing is

[44:02] this is this a warhammer thing that he's talking about yeah yeah uh so uh and he goes and he finds

[44:08] a room full of babies and jars like tons of babies and jars like yeah you're like what am i at the

[44:14] The Alamo Draft House in Brooklyn?

[44:15] Yeah, like more than the usual number of babies in jars.

[44:18] I mean, like, you might, I can understand a local doctor having, like, one baby in a jar.

[44:23] But the whole room, it's like, Dr. Moss, you want him to sit her down and be like,

[44:27] Dr. Moss, this is an intervention.

[44:28] You're a baby hoarder.

[44:29] You are just hoarding too many babies in jars.

[44:31] And it's time to say goodbye to some of them.

[44:32] And she's like, no, it's the only thing that makes me feel safe is to hold on to these babies in jars.

[44:36] I might need them at some point.

[44:37] Exactly.

[44:38] And he's like, no, no, you just got to clean it out.

[44:40] And then he, like, takes Dr. Moss, like, on some excuse,

[44:44] He takes her away for the day, and her relatives come and clean out all those dead babies in jars while she's gone.

[44:48] My baby wasn't in there.

[44:50] What?

[44:51] I said my baby wasn't in there.

[44:56] Oh, good.

[44:57] I'm so glad to hear that.

[44:59] He was sleeping in his room while I watched the movie.

[45:03] But you rushed in to double check to make sure that wasn't one of your babies?

[45:07] Yeah, to be fair, we don't have a baby monitor, so actually it could have been.

[45:12] But he was there this morning.

[45:14] So unless Dr. Moss kidnapped your baby, put him in a jar, and then returned him the next day.

[45:20] In which case, she took very good care of him, and she could do it again.

[45:24] And maybe I'm out of line here, but if your baby had been one of those babies,

[45:29] he would have been the best baby in a jar possible, right?

[45:32] Yeah.

[45:33] Well, he would have gotten an IMDb page at least.

[45:37] What every mother wants for their baby.

[45:43] So, Nicolas Cage, he takes this opportunity to go and yell at Willow about not telling him about things.

[45:47] She's like, I'm sorry.

[45:48] And then they start making out.

[45:49] Uh-oh.

[45:50] You know that that's not what he should be doing right now.

[45:53] Nicolas Cage, he has, like, an interaction with one of the male laborers on the island who are all eerily silent.

[45:59] Almost like they're worker drones who can't think for themselves and just serve some sort of queen bee.

[46:06] Speaking of, he goes to Lady Summerisle's house.

[46:08] Now, is she Lady Summerisle or Sister Summerisle?

[46:12] I couldn't remember.

[46:13] I think it's Sister Summer Isle, right?

[46:14] Okay.

[46:15] Summer's Isle.

[46:16] Maybe because in the movie,

[46:18] because Christopher Lee is Lord Summer Isle,

[46:21] so maybe I thought she was a lady also.

[46:23] And she lives in this place that's full of stone beehives.

[46:26] It looks beautiful.

[46:27] He walks over, and this is the scene where he suddenly realizes

[46:31] he is surrounded by beehives, and the bees are like,

[46:33] it's Nicolas Cage, get him!

[46:34] And they chase after him, and he passes out,

[46:36] and he wakes up in the house where Dr. Moss has patched him up,

[46:39] with moss, I assume, and other herbal remedies

[46:42] that you would find around the island.

[46:43] I do think that if they plan on eventually,

[46:46] spoiler alert, sacrificing Nick Cage,

[46:49] it's kind of irresponsible for them

[46:51] to just let him roam around

[46:52] and maybe die from being stung by bees.

[46:55] Well, Dan, you've put your finger

[46:57] on the major problem I have with the movie,

[46:59] which is if they are going to plan on sacrificing

[47:01] Nicolas Cage, which they are,

[47:02] why bother with all the fake, mystery,

[47:05] whodunit, clue bullshit?

[47:07] Why not just lie to him to get him to the island?

[47:09] When he gets to the island,

[47:10] hit him over the head with something.

[47:12] He wakes up inside a wicker man

[47:14] and you light him on fire.

[47:15] Sacrifice accomplished.

[47:16] Ritual over.

[47:17] And you know what?

[47:18] All the time and energy you spent into this trap,

[47:21] you could spend maybe making sure

[47:23] your bee harvest is better than last time, morons.

[47:25] Yeah, I mean, with a name like,

[47:27] you think with a name like Cage,

[47:28] he would be extra nervous about being in prison.

[47:31] Yeah.

[47:31] And you'd think with a name like Smuckers,

[47:34] it has to be good,

[47:35] and yet sometimes it's not.

[47:36] Wait, question.

[47:36] Okay.

[47:37] Yeah, is this about Smuckers?

[47:38] Why wicker?

[47:40] You know, they got a deal at Pier 1 Imports, I guess.

[47:44] I guess so, because they should have just called it Bee Man

[47:46] and then had him be in a little hive or something.

[47:49] Or call it Bee Movie.

[47:50] They're just throwing in wicker at the end like it's a major plot point.

[47:53] Yeah, it's not like the island's chief export is wicker

[47:57] and the whole time he's like,

[47:58] we're going to do something about all this wicker.

[48:00] Wicker harvest is not good this year.

[48:03] That would have been a good movie.

[48:04] I do want to get back to Elliot's problem.

[48:06] Would it have been a good movie, Hallie?

[48:08] I do want to get back and address Ellie's problem with this movie just to say, again, in the original movie, you get the sense that they're toying with him because it is part of, like, their pagan ritual.

[48:19] That it is important that this man who, I think they say is a virgin, like, come of his own volition to the place where he's going to be sacrificed.

[48:28] And, like, they're leading him down the garden path to, like, sort of fulfill all these points on this ritual, whereas you don't necessarily get that sense in this movie.

[48:38] He's supposed to be a virgin?

[48:39] Yeah.

[48:40] But how's he supposed to have a baby?

[48:41] In the original.

[48:43] In this one, he has to be connected with somebody on the island, I think, by blood.

[48:49] He has to be connected to the island by blood and have to have come of his own free will.

[48:53] But other than that, they could have just taken it.

[48:57] Like, there was no reason for them to be planting all these clues.

[48:59] I guess, you know what the answer is?

[49:01] It probably gets pretty boring on Summer's Isle.

[49:05] The only things you have to do are teach kids about phallic symbols,

[49:10] make honey.

[49:11] Tending bees is hard work, but it's not the most exciting work.

[49:14] Or just sit around the inn drinking mead all day.

[49:16] Or think of new plant names.

[49:18] They're just like making lists all day.

[49:20] They're like, have we thought of hyacinth?

[49:24] Probably.

[49:26] And at a certain point, they're like, Heather, of course.

[49:30] Why did it take us so long to think of Heather?

[49:32] Laurel, Holly.

[49:34] We should have thought of that first.

[49:35] because they're like thistle is that a name yeah is anyone ever named thistle sister thistle does

[49:41] that make sense sister fern i guess we could do that this is one of the like the fairies in

[49:47] midsummer night's dream have like thistle in their name or something i don't know but maybe i don't

[49:52] is she part of the movie there's spider web and mustard seed i know mustard seed yeah let's see

[49:57] they're like sister venus flytrap is that too on the nose about what this movie is about maybe uh

[50:04] So anyway, this movie is about to kick into gear because he's about to come face to face with his arch nemesis, Lady Summersisle, Ellen Burstyn.

[50:12] And they play a little game of verbal cat and mouse as she talks about her goddess religion and bees.

[50:18] And Nicolas Cage eventually is just like, look, I'm going to kill everybody here if you don't help me.

[50:23] He just gets so—he just cannot put up with her condescending whimsy, I guess.

[50:30] Nicholas Cage, he finds a doll in a grave

[50:33] and he follows the sound of crying to a

[50:34] flooded crypt, which someone locks him in and he

[50:36] hallucinates for a while, and then Willow lets him out.

[50:38] He's like, hey, I found... He stays down in that

[50:40] flooded cistern for a whole...

[50:42] for like all night, right?

[50:44] Yeah, he's there all night.

[50:45] And you better believe that he didn't want to drown.

[50:48] He was probably up all night.

[50:49] Wait, what did you say? I said he must be

[50:52] so strong.

[50:53] Think about...

[50:56] I have to rock my baby to sleep

[50:58] and my arms are exhausted at the end.

[51:00] Sorry, I keep talking about my baby, but it's kind of my thing right now.

[51:04] It's my brand.

[51:06] And similarly, staying alive was Nicolas Cage's character's thing, which is why he hung on

[51:12] so tightly to that, what, grate, grating to keep above the water so he didn't drown in

[51:17] the flooded taxidermy.

[51:18] But imagine he's doing that the whole night.

[51:19] I mean, I guess you're in water, so you get a little help.

[51:22] No, but he's got to tread water, right?

[51:25] When your clothes get super wet, they become lighter, right?

[51:27] They float better.

[51:30] And the whole time, you know, he's thinking, thank goodness I took my blazer off.

[51:33] I did not want my blazer to be adding to my body weight.

[51:36] We're getting wet.

[51:37] Patches soak up a lot of water.

[51:40] So he found Rowan's sweater down there.

[51:42] It doesn't really matter.

[51:43] He goes to Sister Summer Isle's house to yell at her, but her house, all he finds is an old man covered in bee stings and a nude woman covered in bees.

[51:50] Okay, that's all there is at the house, I guess.

[51:52] Meanwhile, she is in the biggest, most beautiful bedroom.

[51:56] it looks like they hired Tarsem Singh

[51:58] to just decorate this one room for her.

[52:01] There's lots of like huge draperies

[52:02] and they're like,

[52:03] they talk cryptically about how,

[52:05] I don't know,

[52:05] he's going into his trap.

[52:06] And there's nothing to look at.

[52:08] It's like the emperor's throne room

[52:10] in a Star War movie.

[52:11] Yeah.

[52:12] So now we're at,

[52:13] just my opinion,

[52:14] the best sequence in the movie.

[52:15] He steals Sister Rose's bike at gunpoint.

[52:17] She has an animal mask

[52:18] and he's like,

[52:18] take that mask off.

[52:19] He gets mad at masks from this point on

[52:21] and he just rides around town on a rampage

[52:23] yelling at little girls

[52:24] and pulling animal masks off their head,

[52:26] kicking open doors and yelling Rowan into them.

[52:28] And it's just like, he is just on a tear.

[52:30] Him ripping the masks off of children was my favorite part.

[52:34] Except for when he held a gun to that woman and was like,

[52:37] I need your bike, ma'am.

[52:39] Yeah.

[52:39] I watched that bicycle scene and I was like,

[52:42] I couldn't imagine anyone thinking during the production of the movie

[52:46] that that could be anything but ridiculous.

[52:48] Him bike jacking this woman's bike at gunpoint

[52:51] and then like kind of wobbly racing off on it.

[52:56] just the fact he's like he keeps he is so at this point i think it's supposed to be

[53:00] obviously i'm not sure if we're supposed to be sympathizing with him or if we're supposed to be

[53:04] like oh no he's gone too crazy but he comes off as a madman who is just like uh he literally just

[53:11] shot after shot of him breaking doors down and yelling rowan rowan and then every time he comes

[53:16] across a mask just knock it off somebody's head like a big bully and and almost always the result

[53:21] of him doing that leads to uh it leads to women and children laughing at him that's the other thing

[53:28] i think that's what also makes the scene palpable is no one seems particularly terrified or scared

[53:33] of him they're just like oh there he goes again goofy nick hates masks hates women looking for

[53:39] rowan oh boy like uh he goes he finds the pilot that brought him to the island he's the pilot is

[53:46] dead and full of bees his mouth is all stitched up remember yeah they oh yeah for like the first

[53:51] real gross out scare slash genuine threat of violence in the movie they put almost no effort

[53:59] into showing this guy's dead body or like nicholas cage just sees it and he's like oh and walks away

[54:04] it's like gross bees uh he goes to he uh we overhear sister beach and sister oak they're

[54:14] joking a little about how she's putting on weight and she can't quite fit into a bear costume

[54:17] anymore and they hint at having killed the pilot and then nicholas cage walks up and without a word

[54:23] just punches sister beach in the face meanwhile everyone's getting ready for the big harvest

[54:30] ritual they're wearing animal masks they got face paint on they're dancing and parading to pipe music

[54:35] it all feels very ren fest precious uh while nicholas cage is having a you know knuckles

[54:41] knuckle-dragging, balls-out, Lili Sobieski fight.

[54:43] Yeah, yeah, balls to the walls.

[54:45] Which ends with him back-kicking her

[54:48] into the wall of photos, and she just,

[54:50] I don't know if she's dead or what.

[54:52] Well, she's certainly not dead,

[54:54] because she shows up later,

[54:54] but she gives a look like they were,

[54:57] I feel like Neil LaBute was like,

[54:59] okay, hold on her for a moment.

[55:01] We will digitally add some birds tweeting around her head.

[55:04] Yeah.

[55:06] And much like the bike-jacking earlier,

[55:10] this is a bear suit jacking like uh nicholas cage steals the bear suit he steals sister beach's bear

[55:16] suit and if i learned anything from midsummer putting on a bear suit in this situation is a

[55:21] good idea and also no spoilies well i mean it's fine i mean i assume it's just the winger man but

[55:28] so he's wearing that bear suit and uh he joins the parade and he's like willow it's me in the

[55:36] bear suit and she's like stop bothering me this is important uh and she sees that rowan is tied

[55:41] to a stake and there's all sorts of ritual talk that they do and then he only has one superpower

[55:46] punching women so he punches a woman and rescues rowan and they're chased into the woods by

[55:50] villagers uh but it turns out guys as we've mentioned it was all a trap as admiral akbar

[55:56] might say it's a trap uh rowan was just the lure yeah to get nicholas cage there so they could

[56:03] sacrifice him and they spend i think six minutes explaining this to nicholas cage because either

[56:09] they thought the audience was dumb or they just were like you know what let's just admit it nicholas

[56:12] cage's character is dumb he doesn't understand so they have to like go over every single point

[56:17] of their i remember i mean it's been a while since i've seen the original but i remember the reveal

[56:22] like up until the moment when he has rescued uh rowan and then she runs off like up until that

[56:30] point in the in the original you still assume the little girl's the sacrifice and when she runs off

[56:37] it's a genuine twist like it's a real shock and yeah i don't feel like there was enough

[56:41] that it wasn't a surprise in this but maybe it was you know because i've seen enough folk horror

[56:47] movies at this point uh a moment i liked here is nicholas cage pulls out his gun he's like trying

[56:54] to hold them off at gunpoint

[56:55] and finally he like tries to shoot them

[56:57] and his gun is empty of bullets

[57:00] and I believe it's Willow

[57:02] like holds out her hand

[57:03] and like drops the bullets

[57:04] and I'm like,

[57:05] okay, has she just been holding these

[57:06] the whole time?

[57:07] The whole day she's been holding those bullets.

[57:10] Yeah, she's going to shine them on.

[57:11] Anticipating the reveal

[57:13] and we learn that Willow

[57:15] is actually Sister Somersisle's daughter.

[57:19] What?

[57:19] All the women are in it together.

[57:21] Ah, it's a plot.

[57:22] It's a plot.

[57:23] The sisters are doing it for themselves.

[57:24] And by it, it means sacrificing Nick Cage.

[57:28] And don't we see in the crowd,

[57:30] don't we see the mother and daughter

[57:33] who were in the car accident in the beginning?

[57:35] And the cop.

[57:37] And the lady cop.

[57:38] And the lady cop,

[57:39] because every single woman in the world.

[57:42] How deep does this go?

[57:42] It's all the women.

[57:43] If only Nicholas Cage's mom was there.

[57:46] Yeah, Nicholas Cage's mom, Hallie, walks out.

[57:49] Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein walk out.

[57:51] And Melania Trump.

[57:53] everybody and tulsi gabbard and tulsi gabbard and hillary clinton are like we're actually friends

[57:59] see uh and queen elizabeth the second is there the ghosts of famous women from history are there

[58:04] rosa parks is there mary todd lincoln is there cleopatra is there all of human history has been

[58:10] women waiting for this moment when they could show to nicholas cage that he is impotent before them

[58:14] nicholas cage representing of course all manhood uh because he is the most manly man there is

[58:19] Sofia Coppola was even there, and he was like, but we're family.

[58:22] And she's like, I don't care.

[58:24] She's like, we're cousins, barely.

[58:28] I wish that Nicolas Cage had had a moment where he turned to the camera

[58:32] and he was like, and steals the line from the end of the movie The Uninvited

[58:36] where he goes, oh, that was almost my mother-in-law about Sister Summer's Isle.

[58:40] Because if anyone doesn't know, The Uninvited is a genuinely scary ghost movie

[58:44] with Ray Moland that ends with him making a joke about how that ghost

[58:48] was almost his mother-in-law oof and it's like wait what why are we leaving on a gag uh okay so

[58:54] there's two different versions of the scene that happens next in the unrated version they pour

[59:00] bees in his face and he screams for a while okay that was the home release version what if you went

[59:05] on amazon prime like i did you had the theatrical release version where you hear him screaming and

[59:10] going ah my legs he crushed my legs like it's a radio play well we see them bringing him to the

[59:15] giant wicker man statue and they put them in and it's full of goats and chickens yeah and rowan

[59:20] lights it on fire and the ladies are all chanting the drone must die with big smiles thank you

[59:24] elliot for telling me this because i was like is this a mandela effect moment i i swear there was

[59:29] a scene in this movie where they put like a cage full of bees over nicholas cage's head yeah i feel

[59:35] like we used to watch that clip yeah and i'm like meeting what where we did so that's that's from a

[59:41] different version of the movie that was released it was uh it was it was too hot for tv right

[59:45] yes it was too hot for movie screens i guess but that's but that's the famous wicker man scene

[59:50] where he's like be killing me won't bring back your goddamn honey and they're just pouring bees

[59:55] on his face and he's like uh it's but also only in the theatrical release not in that unrated

[1:00:02] version so as far as i could tell is the next scene the little epilogue so nicholas cage is

[1:00:07] dead he's been burned to death in a wicker man is the six months later scene oh yeah six months

[1:00:11] six months later comes up on screen in papyrus font the greatest font of all time everyone knows

[1:00:16] yeah we think like uh like the mummy like arnold vaslu and his gang is going to show up and start

[1:00:22] eating everybody with scary or a couple of navi oh yeah that's fair and we're at a bar in a city

[1:00:29] james franco is there and his buddy jason ridder jason ridder yeah so it's james franco and jason

[1:00:35] version that i watched uh amazon prime version yeah yeah this is in the amazon prime version i

[1:00:41] think i felt maybe when it said six months later you're like i don't care anymore and you turn

[1:00:45] like the movie ended six months ago yeah you thought you thought that six months had passed

[1:00:51] and you were like better catch up on all that sleep that i missed while i was watching this

[1:00:54] movie i was like my baby has learned to walk you're missing all his great early moments while

[1:01:00] you're watching the wicker man he's like he's like mama mama you're like yeah yeah yeah after

[1:01:05] wicker man after wicker man too busy so james franco and jason ritter are two bros at a bar

[1:01:10] just looking for tail and they cannot find any until lily sobieski and her friend give them a

[1:01:16] come hither look and uh they start hitting on them and there is a surprisingly long conversation

[1:01:21] between james franco and lily sobieski about how he's at the police academy he really wants to help

[1:01:25] people yeah he's like i just finished the police academy and she laughs and i'm like i get it those

[1:01:30] movies are pretty funny wait so is you think i assumed that he had graduated but you're saying

[1:01:35] that he finished watching all the police academy yeah that's why she left because she thinks they're

[1:01:38] hilarious and uh bobcat goldthwait's in some of them steve goodenberg's in a few there aren't

[1:01:45] they in all of them no no he joined later on which one steve goodenberg or bobcat gold bobcat

[1:01:50] goldthwait steve goodenberg left early bobcat goldthwait uh joined late so he showed up as a

[1:01:56] villain in part two but he didn't actually

[1:01:58] join the squad until part three

[1:02:00] yeah and then

[1:02:02] was he in Miami with the others of course

[1:02:04] what about the mission to Moscow

[1:02:06] with Tackleberry and

[1:02:08] Hightower and Motor Macho

[1:02:10] was Hightower in all of them or was it on parole

[1:02:12] patrol oh citizens on

[1:02:14] patrol that was the one I watched

[1:02:16] the police are like hey

[1:02:18] just to make sure we can

[1:02:19] guys everybody in town is on parole right now

[1:02:22] let's just like let's crack down

[1:02:24] on all this stuff okay

[1:02:25] you know that there is somebody there's some guy in his 50s in hollywood some screenwriter

[1:02:31] who has in his closet like us like a police academy in space spec script that he wrote

[1:02:36] that he was he's just still waiting to pitch to steve guttenberg so but uh anyway i would call

[1:02:41] it space academy uh so uh lily sobieski's like hey where are you going after this and he's like

[1:02:46] home and she goes can you take me with you or can i go with you or whatever it is and he's like

[1:02:50] yeah and then we hear the sounds of bees buzzing and nicholas cage screaming as we fade to credits

[1:02:56] and i want to tell you this movie i looked it up this movie came out after spider-man so james

[1:03:01] franco was already kind of a movie star in a way and he's appearing in this like tiny moment in

[1:03:07] the wicker man do you think he owed i mean it's like aaron eckert uh being in the very beginning

[1:03:12] of the movie maybe owed neil labute a favor or something i mean there were i also ellen burston

[1:03:18] and Francis Conroy.

[1:03:20] They were big stars.

[1:03:22] This was 2006, right?

[1:03:23] Yeah, it was right after

[1:03:24] Six Feet Under wrapped up.

[1:03:25] Yeah, there's no reason

[1:03:27] that all of these good people

[1:03:28] should have been in this movie.

[1:03:28] Francis Conroy was in

[1:03:30] Catwoman for God's sakes.

[1:03:31] I think that they all heard

[1:03:32] that Nicolas Cage was in the movie,

[1:03:34] but they didn't know yet

[1:03:35] that he was in all these bad movies.

[1:03:37] So they were like,

[1:03:37] oh yeah, it'll be fine.

[1:03:39] And at the time,

[1:03:39] Neil LaBute was much more respected

[1:03:41] than he is now.

[1:03:43] This is kind of what ruined him

[1:03:45] a little bit.

[1:03:45] Well, Aaron Eckhart was in

[1:03:47] In the Company of Men.

[1:03:48] That was one of the movies that helped him get bigger.

[1:03:50] So that makes sense why he'd be in there.

[1:03:51] According to Wikipedia, Paul Rudd is the man pulled over by Nicolas Cage in the first scene.

[1:03:57] But I'm not sure about that.

[1:03:59] But here's the difference.

[1:04:02] Those people were all being paid money to be in this.

[1:04:05] Whereas maybe James Franco did it for college credit.

[1:04:08] I mean, it's certainly possible.

[1:04:12] the movie is over what the women unpunished continue to lure men to summer's isle to

[1:04:18] sacrifice them for their honey harvest and i just have to say it doesn't answer the question i really

[1:04:23] want answered which is so how's the next harvest go like was nicholas cage a good enough sacrifice

[1:04:28] like what do you guys think uh i mean clearly not they're already sending out more drones

[1:04:34] yeah to make more they need one every year right yeah i guess you're right i mean do they need i

[1:04:40] guess they do need one every year well why was that well then why was last year so bad it's a

[1:04:46] good question they never really addressed this was to make up for the difference yeah i feel like

[1:04:51] it's implied that they don't always have to do a sacrifice oh i see i thought it was like they

[1:04:55] sacrificed just like a real doof or they sacrificed like uh like eddie deez in the year before and god

[1:05:00] was like and the goddess was like seriously this is what you're giving me but i mean also the idea

[1:05:06] it could highlight

[1:05:08] that actually sacrificing somebody

[1:05:10] has no effect

[1:05:11] and there's no magic

[1:05:12] and there's no God.

[1:05:14] I mean, that's fair too.

[1:05:15] That's a fair reading of the movie.

[1:05:16] It's actually not the case, yeah.

[1:05:20] Do you think that the cause,

[1:05:21] you know, like colony collapse

[1:05:22] with bees is a real problem.

[1:05:24] Do you think it's because

[1:05:25] we're not sacrificing enough

[1:05:26] Nicolas cages?

[1:05:26] Yeah.

[1:05:28] I mean, to be fair,

[1:05:29] let's look at the facts.

[1:05:30] We've sacrificed zero Nicolas cages

[1:05:32] so far up to this point

[1:05:33] and bees are disappearing

[1:05:34] and dying off everywhere.

[1:05:35] I think the only way to test the hypothesis is to sacrifice Nicolas Cage and see what happens.

[1:05:39] But, I mean, that would probably spell doom for this podcast.

[1:05:43] That's true.

[1:05:45] We make it like Travolta-mas or something like that.

[1:05:49] He can finally have his wish of being put in that pyramid in New Orleans, though.

[1:05:55] I mean, I don't know if that's a wish.

[1:05:57] I mean, those are end-of-life plans.

[1:05:59] I don't know if I'd call it a wish, though.

[1:06:01] Yeah, it's not like you're like signing up for cremation or organ donating doesn't mean like donating.

[1:06:09] You're not like, oh, please take him out of me right now.

[1:06:12] This is what I want the most.

[1:06:14] I had a birthday recently, and when I blew out the candle, I wasn't like, oh, I just wish that someone takes my eyes from out of my body right away.

[1:06:22] Yeah, you'd only do that if you were on a really cool spaceship and you didn't need those eyeballs anymore.

[1:06:28] Oh, no, because I'm going to be living in hell after I go through that wormhole.

[1:06:31] um that movie of course mars needs moms let's uh put a bow on this one and say our final judgments

[1:06:40] whether it's a good bad movie a bad bad movie or movie you kind of like let's let the guest

[1:06:45] go first hallie what do you have to say she's got a very pensive look on her face i mean

[1:06:52] it's somewhere in the middle the zach afron movie you guys had me watch was my favorite

[1:06:58] the kirsten dunst movie you made me watch was my least favorite i don't know which was the

[1:07:04] zach efron movie it was the one where he was like a dj one yeah oh these are your friends

[1:07:08] we are your friends this the one because i was and we are you your friends i think you were

[1:07:13] filling in for stew balls over here in the one where it was he was like dating and michael b

[1:07:18] jordan was in it and miles oh right oh the moment when or that feeling like that moment

[1:07:23] I love that one

[1:07:25] that's the one where they take Viagra

[1:07:28] and then they have to pee with boners

[1:07:30] so they're laying across the toilet seats

[1:07:32] with their penises dangling into the toilet

[1:07:34] I can't believe I missed this movie

[1:07:35] that's not how penises work

[1:07:37] what was the other one

[1:07:40] what was the Kirsten Dunst one

[1:07:41] and I'm a big fan of Kirsten Dunst

[1:07:43] something like that

[1:07:45] where there's planets that are next to each other

[1:07:48] oh yeah

[1:07:49] one planet is a good planet and the other one is a bad planet

[1:07:52] I hated that.

[1:07:53] That was so boring.

[1:07:54] So this was like in the middle.

[1:07:55] Okay.

[1:07:56] Okay.

[1:07:57] That's been Hallie in the hot seat.

[1:07:59] Yeah.

[1:08:00] I'm going to say like, I feel like when this movie came out, everyone heralded it as like

[1:08:05] a new good, bad classic.

[1:08:07] And I can't, I don't think I can go with people on that one.

[1:08:09] No, it's boring.

[1:08:10] It's pretty boring.

[1:08:11] It's only entertaining for like the last 10 minutes of the movie.

[1:08:15] Yeah.

[1:08:16] I think this movie really benefited in that way from the rise of YouTube around that time

[1:08:21] because you could see just the crazy clips

[1:08:23] one after another

[1:08:24] because there were a lot of super cuts people did

[1:08:27] of like, oh, the crazy moments from Wicker Man

[1:08:28] and they cut out the parts where Nicolas Cage is literally

[1:08:31] just riding a bicycle around

[1:08:33] a beautiful island.

[1:08:34] Elliot, yet again, by interrupting

[1:08:37] me, you have scooped me. That was what I was

[1:08:39] going to recommend that people do instead of

[1:08:40] watch the Wicker Man all the way through

[1:08:42] is look up the YouTube super cut, which is very

[1:08:45] funny. Yeah, if you don't watch the super

[1:08:47] cut, you're basically just watching

[1:08:48] Nicolas Cage run around the grounds of

[1:08:51] The Mohawk Mountain House.

[1:08:52] Yeah.

[1:08:52] I mean, the Mohawk Mountain House, to be fair,

[1:08:56] is spookier looking than anywhere in this island.

[1:08:59] Yeah.

[1:08:59] You figure any place you turn,

[1:09:01] you're either going to run into a ghost or, I don't know,

[1:09:04] some New York celebrity that's slumming it.

[1:09:07] I don't know.

[1:09:09] You know, I have actually never seen this movie.

[1:09:12] Oh, wow.

[1:09:13] And I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[1:09:16] It is very dumb.

[1:09:19] I would say it's a good-bad movie, because I think it's so bafflingly dumb, and there's so many dumb scenes.

[1:09:26] But I guess maybe if I got to watch it, I don't know, at like Zubin-style two-time speed, or just a supercut, I might like it even more.

[1:09:33] But yeah, I don't know. I'd say good-bad.

[1:09:36] I would also call it a good-bad movie, but you do have to get through some of the more boring parts.

[1:09:42] But it's not non-stop good-bad the way some of the other movies that we've given that appellation to are.

[1:09:49] Ah, there's nothing quite like sailing in the calm international waters on my ship, the SS Biopic.

[1:10:02] Avast! It's actually pronounced Biopic.

[1:10:07] No, you dingus! It's Biopic!

[1:10:10] Who the hell says that? It's Biopic!

[1:10:13] It's the words through biography and picture.

[1:10:16] Alright, that is enough

[1:10:18] Ahoy, I'm Dave Holmes

[1:10:21] I am the host of the rebooted podcast

[1:10:23] Formerly known as International Waters

[1:10:25] Designed to resolve petty

[1:10:27] But persistent arguments like this

[1:10:29] How? By pitting two teams

[1:10:31] Of opinionated comedians against each other

[1:10:33] With trivia and improv games, of course

[1:10:35] Winner takes home the right to be right

[1:10:38] What podcast be this?

[1:10:39] It's called Troubled Waters

[1:10:41] Where we disagree to disagree

[1:10:43] Hi, I'm Joe Firestone

[1:10:46] I'm Manolo Moreno.

[1:10:47] And we're the hosts of Dr. Game Show, which is a podcast where we play games submitted

[1:10:50] by listeners regardless of quality or content with in-studio guests and callers from all

[1:10:56] over the world.

[1:10:57] And you can win a custom magnet.

[1:10:58] A custom magnet.

[1:10:59] Subscribe now to make sure you get our next episode.

[1:11:02] What's an example of a game, Manolo?

[1:11:03] Pokemon or medication.

[1:11:05] How do you play that?

[1:11:06] You have to guess if something's a Pokemon name or medication.

[1:11:10] First time listener, if you want to listen to episode highlights and also know how to

[1:11:15] participate follow dr game show on facebook instagram and twitter we'd love to hear from

[1:11:20] you it's really fun for the whole family we'll be every other wednesday starting march 13th and

[1:11:25] we're coming to max fun snorlax pokemon yes nice well let's move on to uh our sponsors

[1:11:33] give them a little air time the flop house is brought to you in part by casper and it's a

[1:11:40] sleep brand that makes expertly designed

[1:11:42] products to help you get your best rest

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[1:11:46] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[1:11:48] Are there other mattresses that help you rest

[1:11:50] multiple nights at a time?

[1:11:51] It's when you stack a bunch of

[1:11:54] mattresses on top of each other and there's

[1:11:56] no pee at all underneath them.

[1:11:58] Oh, I was going to say the problem with those products

[1:12:00] is that there's a pee. That's why you've got to get Casper.

[1:12:02] Oh, okay. I guess, well, you know.

[1:12:04] I heard different things. I mean, the internet, you know,

[1:12:06] there's differing information out there.

[1:12:08] You get a one star, you get a five star, you never know.

[1:12:10] Yeah, but you don't want to have to worry about whether or not there's a P.

[1:12:14] Why don't you get a Casper mattress instead?

[1:12:15] There's only a single P in Casper.

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[1:13:00] and using flophouse at checkout.

[1:13:01] Terms and conditions apply.

[1:13:03] Is this mattress really comfortable?

[1:13:05] I have to get a new mattress.

[1:13:07] Yeah, yeah, you can use that code too, Haley.

[1:13:09] I have a Casper mattress.

[1:13:10] I like it quite a bit, actually.

[1:13:11] Is it green?

[1:13:13] Is it green?

[1:13:15] Yeah.

[1:13:15] Why is that your question?

[1:13:18] Like, not the color.

[1:13:21] Oh, that actually makes more sense.

[1:13:24] For a second, I'm like, you just dip it in Easter egg dye.

[1:13:27] It'll be fine.

[1:13:28] I thought it was because she was like,

[1:13:30] how am I going to hide a pea under that thing if it's not green?

[1:13:32] All right, I'll stop.

[1:13:34] Go ahead.

[1:13:35] Oh, is it green?

[1:13:36] Okay, I got you.

[1:13:37] Because some are.

[1:13:38] Guys, I believe I sent you both Jumbotrons to read.

[1:13:44] Is anyone queued up and ready to go?

[1:13:46] I'm going to check my email.

[1:13:47] Now, you sent me two, Dan.

[1:13:49] Are they both for me?

[1:13:50] Wait, did I send you two?

[1:13:51] I didn't get one at all.

[1:13:53] Oh.

[1:13:53] Okay, you sent them both to me, I think, a business and a personal.

[1:13:56] Elliot.

[1:13:57] I'm happy to do both.

[1:13:58] So you pick one, and I'll do the other one when Dan finds it.

[1:14:00] Yeah, I'll hand Stuart the other.

[1:14:02] Okay, so am I doing the business one or the personal one?

[1:14:05] You get to choose.

[1:14:06] That's the great thing about this jumbotron situation.

[1:14:09] Okay, I'll do the personal one.

[1:14:11] Okay, so this is a message for Cody, and the message is from Jana.

[1:14:15] And the message is,

[1:14:16] Baby Crabs, how happy I am to be celebrating two years and Christmas with you.

[1:14:21] Thank you for everything you do for me,

[1:14:22] not the least of which is introducing me to the other boys, the original Peaches.

[1:14:25] I don't know how I would sleep without them in my ear every night,

[1:14:28] finding clues and talking to Stu.

[1:14:30] I loo love you, that's love with three capital L's, you my derling.

[1:14:34] Love, Mr. Baby.

[1:14:36] He listens to you every night to go to sleep.

[1:14:38] Uh-huh.

[1:14:39] Dan does that too.

[1:14:40] Well, not myself.

[1:14:42] I don't listen to myself to go to sleep.

[1:14:44] Yeah, you tune out your parts, but then you hear our parts, right?

[1:14:47] Because it's like having my friends comforting me.

[1:14:50] Dan painstakingly removes his voice from every episode and then listens to it as he sleeps.

[1:14:54] It's like Garfield without Garfield.

[1:14:57] I got a Jumbo Tron.

[1:15:00] ABC Movies is the world's only movie podcast.

[1:15:05] Every week, film geek Caleb Shively and writer Chris Chaffin talk both smartly and dumbly about one great new movie currently in theaters and one older movie that's related to it in some way.

[1:15:21] Whether it's by the same director or just had a big influence on it.

[1:15:26] Recent episodes include The Irishman and On the Waterfront, Parasite and The Host.

[1:15:35] and midsummer and force majeure that's abc movies actually best choice movies so search for abc movies

[1:15:46] on apple podcasts or spotify and i apologize if i messed up any names there so we're just

[1:15:53] broadcasting falsehoods now this is most of what our show is anyway it's a it's a big claim to say

[1:16:00] the world's only movie podcast yeah it's it's a big enough claim that you might want to check it

[1:16:05] out check it out to disprove it google it world's only movie podcast let's move on to letters from

[1:16:16] listeners so let's open up that mailbag oh wow that mailbag's pretty dirty and dusty after 300

[1:16:22] episodes yeah let's let's blow some dust off of that mailbag and uh do you hear do you hear the

[1:16:28] pipes a pipe and a fiddle in the background perhaps perhaps some light strumming oh

[1:16:33] open yon mailbag i'll tell you a tale a tale of 300 episodes episodes here episodes dear

[1:16:43] 300 episodes strong the tale begins with a man called dan doing his best doing what he can but

[1:16:52] what he could and what he should were not the same thing you will see he called his friend stewart

[1:17:00] stewart nothing rhymes with that stewart was his name and stewart was his game for stewart was very

[1:17:09] much all about games dan had you know three names dan kirk and then mccoy those are the three names

[1:17:16] for dan and they had another guy who i will not mention at this point in the history for there

[1:17:22] was some kind of thing that happened there the records are spotty nobody knows nobody cares

[1:17:29] because there was a change in the offing and that change his name was elliot elliot descended from

[1:17:37] on high descended perhaps from a mountain or a cloud descended and he was very squeaky and loud

[1:17:43] Elliot decided to join the gang

[1:17:45] And so we had three adventurers

[1:17:47] We, Dan and Stuart

[1:17:49] And the guy whose name starts with E

[1:17:50] And they became the Flophouse Guys

[1:17:53] The Flophouse Guys, what a surprise

[1:17:55] Who should know when they were born

[1:17:57] That this day upon this morn

[1:17:59] That 300 episodes would have flown by

[1:18:02] 300 episodes with these three guys

[1:18:04] 300 episodes with the Flophouse

[1:18:07] That is the tale of the Flophouse

[1:18:09] 300 more, perhaps

[1:18:10] We'll see, we're not making promises

[1:18:12] You or me

[1:18:13] 300 episodes is quite a lot

[1:18:16] 300 episodes, oh it's so hot

[1:18:18] Because I live in Los Angeles now

[1:18:20] Where the temperature never gets quite below 50

[1:18:23] Alright, well, so Stu went and got a beer

[1:18:27] So when's Elliot going to sing his episode 300 song?

[1:18:30] That's a very good question

[1:18:33] Here comes the second chapter

[1:18:35] Of the epic story of the Flophouse

[1:18:37] Fast forward 300 years in the future

[1:18:40] You got to get a beer

[1:18:41] and Howie went and peed.

[1:18:43] So I'm the only one here listening to all this shit.

[1:18:45] In the year 2319,

[1:18:48] the oldest year we've ever seen,

[1:18:50] when the seas have dried and the air is on fire

[1:18:53] and yet the Flophouse guys did not expire.

[1:18:56] Cursed as they were to continue this show,

[1:18:59] cursed as they were to continue,

[1:19:01] as winds blow, as tornadoes and hurricanes,

[1:19:03] floods and famine and fire and other disasters hit the earth,

[1:19:06] the Flophouse continues.

[1:19:07] They hunkered down in a bunker

[1:19:10] With canned foods and canned movies

[1:19:12] They decided that they should go

[1:19:14] Until the earth was destroyed

[1:19:16] The sun went supernova

[1:19:17] But even then a little of the Flophouse survived

[1:19:20] And so to you

[1:19:22] Who are listening now

[1:19:24] Far off millions of years in the future

[1:19:27] Reach out your hands

[1:19:28] And grasp a mote of dust

[1:19:30] You must

[1:19:31] For it is all that's left of the Flophouse

[1:19:34] So that's the end of the second part of the song

[1:19:37] The third part goes like this

[1:19:38] No, no, there's no third part

[1:19:39] Okay

[1:19:40] How is the kitchen getting water

[1:19:43] But she can hear from there

[1:19:45] Use the water in the fridge

[1:19:49] There's a picture

[1:19:50] No this is much better than my song

[1:19:53] Thanks guys

[1:19:53] Yeah no the water's in

[1:19:57] The pitcher in the refrigerator

[1:19:58] In Dan's apartment which is

[1:20:01] What's the address again

[1:20:01] 1-2-3 Fake Street

[1:20:04] America

[1:20:06] The US

[1:20:07] Is that the town?

[1:20:10] Not even beautiful anymore I guess

[1:20:11] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

[1:20:14] So

[1:20:15] This first letter

[1:20:18] Is from

[1:20:21] Benedict

[1:20:22] Last name with L

[1:20:23] Cumberbatch

[1:20:25] And Benedict writes

[1:20:28] I'm reading very slowly

[1:20:30] So

[1:20:31] Allie can get back with her

[1:20:33] Glasses of water

[1:20:34] These glasses are so big

[1:20:37] Hallie says

[1:20:38] It's just taking so much time to fill it with water

[1:20:41] Benedict writes

[1:20:42] Dear Peaches

[1:20:45] On a recent podcast

[1:20:47] You mentioned 16 Candles

[1:20:50] And alluded to its problematic nature

[1:20:52] That is one of the many films

[1:20:54] That I loved when I first saw them as a kid

[1:20:56] But have not aged well

[1:20:58] Due to them having moments

[1:20:59] Characters or entire premises

[1:21:01] That were racist slash sexist slash homophobic

[1:21:04] Or just generally culturally insensitive

[1:21:07] I'd add movies such as

[1:21:09] Revenge of the Nerds, Breakfast at Tiffany's

[1:21:11] Mr. Mom and Eddie Murphy's Delirious

[1:21:13] To that list

[1:21:13] And I'm not even going to go into movies

[1:21:16] From the 40s, 50s and 60s

[1:21:18] My question to you three is this

[1:21:20] Can you think of any films from the 80s or earlier

[1:21:22] That are unexpectedly progressive

[1:21:25] Or is everything made

[1:21:26] Before Clinton kind of racist

[1:21:29] And sexist and homophobic

[1:21:30] As opposed to Clinton who of course

[1:21:32] was not sexist or homophobic at all.

[1:21:34] Sincerely, Benedict

[1:21:37] last name. I think he was just using it as a marker

[1:21:39] of time. I know, I know.

[1:21:40] It just

[1:21:41] seemed ironic to me that the man who signed

[1:21:45] the Defense of Marriage Act and was also

[1:21:47] like a

[1:21:49] sexual predator in a way.

[1:21:50] Anyway. Don't ask, don't tell.

[1:21:52] Yeah, that's

[1:21:55] true.

[1:21:55] Yeah, so I mean, obviously

[1:21:59] I think it's a little bit of shorthand

[1:22:00] to write off all movies of that time period

[1:22:04] as having those traits.

[1:22:05] But I mean, it's...

[1:22:07] What about The Crying Game?

[1:22:08] I actually never saw that,

[1:22:11] but the subject matter.

[1:22:12] It's been years.

[1:22:18] I have no idea how it would hold up.

[1:22:20] I mean, The Crying Game is also from 1992,

[1:22:22] so I guess it's technically before Clinton's presidency, but...

[1:22:26] What about this movie I haven't seen?

[1:22:29] Okay. So I'll jump in. Obviously, I think nine to five probably holds up. I think Dirty Dancing

[1:22:39] is surprisingly progressive in some ways, particularly with the subplot about the

[1:22:46] young woman getting an abortion. I was going to mention there's a movie from 1962

[1:22:52] called Advise and Consent, which is about the confirmation process for a cabinet officer

[1:22:59] secretary of state i think and there's a character in it who's a senator i believe who is blackmailed

[1:23:05] because he is secretly gay and he is having a gay relationship but the way that the relationship is

[1:23:10] handled is not in a way that is uh judgmental or sinister and it's i think the first time in an

[1:23:16] american movie that you see a gay bar and the gay bar is presented as a bar that men go to yeah

[1:23:21] there's nothing weird about it there's nothing out of the ordinary or strange or like just or

[1:23:25] gross or scary about it and it's so it's like the character is taken advantage of by people because

[1:23:32] he has this secret but the movie seems to have the point of view of like it would be better if he

[1:23:37] just didn't have to have this secret like he is not judged for being gay and the gay bar is not

[1:23:41] a scary place to go and i remember watching and being like oh i'm surprised this is like a like

[1:23:45] a surprisingly progressive view of what it is like to be gay at a time when it was still mostly

[1:23:50] unspeakable in america dan are you preparing your defense of animal house right now uh i am

[1:23:56] he's like he's like guys if it takes place in the future and all the women are robots then it's okay

[1:24:01] uh what about i mean what about something like rocky or a picture show would that be like i i

[1:24:09] don't know like it feels like it's transgressive but i don't necessarily think it's being judgmental

[1:24:14] but i could be i could be coming from a place of privilege and have no idea what i'm fucking

[1:24:18] talking no i i think rocky har picture show is uh it i mean i haven't seen it in years but like

[1:24:24] when you watch it it feels like it's a movie made by outsiders for outsiders like the things that

[1:24:29] are that are kind of like tabooish or shocking in it the characters are so delighting in it and are

[1:24:34] not uh and the fact that every single character in it is kind of sexually malleable but uh the

[1:24:42] reason that they end badly is because the transylvanians are like hey frankenfurter like

[1:24:48] you're spending so much time enjoying yourself like we're supposed to be invading this planet

[1:24:51] like it's not related to their choices yeah of who of bed partners or anything like that you know i

[1:24:56] want to say i i'm having a hard time coming up with specific examples but i i do feel like before

[1:25:02] the haze code came into effect like a lot of early hollywood movies treated sexuality and kind of

[1:25:10] like the idea that like both women and men might have sexual desires and like you know find pleasure

[1:25:18] in that with a little more sophistication than later on when sort of champions of quote morality

[1:25:24] came in and uh tried to clean up uh depictions of such things like i i don't know i can't think

[1:25:32] of a good example but i feel like i watched some early movies and i'm surprised by how

[1:25:37] like equitable the male female relationships feel and uh how like satisfying the like the

[1:25:48] romantic uh relationship is i don't know uh how it kind of depends movie to movie but there's

[1:25:53] definitely more room in there for that yeah hallie what do you think i don't know okay

[1:25:58] but you had you had there are movies like um is it baby face the one where barbara stanwyck is

[1:26:04] sleeping her way to success through the people at this company the men at this company

[1:26:08] and the movie is like it may it feels like she is and she's punished for it but by losing a man

[1:26:15] that she loves but it feels like the movie is like yeah this is what she's been forced that

[1:26:18] this is the only way she has to get out of her situation like the movie is like yeah i guess we

[1:26:22] have to punish her at the end but we're not our heart's not really in it you know and that's one

[1:26:26] of those pre-code movies that people point to a lot um okay uh you know i just picked out two this

[1:26:32] time the last you got another another hard question the second and what i like dan what i

[1:26:37] like about it is that we had that you had this question much longer than any of us did well

[1:26:43] You seem to think that I look at the questions before I send them to you in the morning.

[1:26:48] I decide what looks like an interesting thing,

[1:26:52] but I have this big backlog of questions that I'm just filing through,

[1:26:55] and I see them maybe a minute before you see them, so it's not.

[1:27:00] Okay.

[1:27:01] This one is from M. Rest of Name Withheld.

[1:27:06] Moriarty.

[1:27:07] Wow.

[1:27:07] Obviously, if he's going to just give an initial.

[1:27:10] Well, let's look at the letter.

[1:27:11] I have a series of clues for you.

[1:27:13] Oh, yeah, yeah, of course.

[1:27:14] Hi, the Napoleon of crime.

[1:27:16] Em writes, hello, peach people.

[1:27:22] That's Macavity.

[1:27:23] It's a trope in horror movies to have a character,

[1:27:26] usually the villain, be killed only to dramatically open his or her eyes later

[1:27:31] to reveal the threat is not over slash an impending sequel.

[1:27:37] My question to you is, in what non-horror movie,

[1:27:41] would this trope be most interesting and

[1:27:43] or misplaced? What if

[1:27:46] at the end of Up, the old man's

[1:27:48] wife opened her eyes, revealing that she was

[1:27:49] alive the whole time?

[1:27:51] Absurdly yours, M, rest of name withheld.

[1:27:54] I think at the end of

[1:27:55] Citizen Kane,

[1:27:57] Kane should leap up and be

[1:27:59] like, of course, my sled!

[1:28:01] And rush in and pull it out of the fire.

[1:28:03] Like Charlie's grandpa?

[1:28:07] Yeah.

[1:28:11] Did you guys ever see Dying Young with Julia Roberts?

[1:28:16] And Campbell Scott?

[1:28:17] I'm aware of it.

[1:28:19] I haven't seen it.

[1:28:19] Maybe that one.

[1:28:20] Yeah.

[1:28:21] I would say, I feel like it would, I don't know how, but like Conan the Barbarian after

[1:28:30] Conan hacks off Thulsa Doom's head and tosses it down the steps, like if his eyes opened

[1:28:35] up and he was like, ah, that would be pretty cool.

[1:28:39] Or, obviously, if at the end of Grave of the Fireflies, if the little girl was like, I'm not dead, that would probably undercut the movie.

[1:28:48] What about The Sixth Sense?

[1:28:52] The twist is, he was alive the whole time.

[1:28:57] And they're trying to gaslight the kid so they can get his jewels or something?

[1:29:02] That would be so funny.

[1:29:06] I think Hallie won this one.

[1:29:07] I don't know.

[1:29:07] But, Elliot, what do you got?

[1:29:08] look i don't even have any answers as good as that we should just move on all right uh i the only the

[1:29:14] answer that i was gonna have that would be funny is the passion of the christ and i'm like wait a

[1:29:17] minute that is the ending of the passion of the christ hold on um hey listener yeah the end of

[1:29:24] butch cassie and sundance kid yeah it was out of the freeze and they jump out the back window

[1:29:32] The end of Old Yeller

[1:29:35] Bambi's mom shows up

[1:29:41] It's like

[1:29:42] It's time to get revenge

[1:29:44] Yeah yeah yeah

[1:29:45] The end of Old Yeller

[1:29:46] Old Yeller standing in the doorway

[1:29:47] With a gun

[1:29:48] Rabies me

[1:29:52] Rabies you

[1:29:53] Hydrophobia

[1:29:56] Anyway

[1:29:58] So

[1:29:59] This is the 300th episode

[1:30:01] as we said and so uh in lieu of uh recommendations we had decided to take a little trip down memory

[1:30:11] lane talk about what the podcast has meant for us how things have changed i don't know we didn't

[1:30:16] really we we kind of vaguely vaguely thought of this notion and then didn't really plan much out

[1:30:23] so who knows what the segment's gonna be but um yeah so i expected dan to have something prepared

[1:30:30] uh i mean this is kind of the time of the podcast where i would like to recommend a little movie

[1:30:37] um it's about a young man who should be inheriting a castle but instead his brother is inheriting

[1:30:46] that castle now this young man is chained into a the abasement cell okay and his mother dies okay

[1:30:53] follow me here now he doesn't know what to do he uh breaks himself out he chews off his thumb he

[1:31:00] He probably rips off his own ding-dong.

[1:31:02] The movie is called Castle Freak.

[1:31:04] I appreciate the bit that you're doing, Stuart,

[1:31:09] but the fact that it contradicts directly what I introduced might be a problem.

[1:31:15] I'm just, if we're going to give each other notes.

[1:31:16] No, I know. That's fair.

[1:31:17] Yeah, I mean, I guess we've been doing this show a long time.

[1:31:22] Twelve years.

[1:31:23] Did you guys think when you started, because, again, I wasn't there at the very beginning,

[1:31:27] how long did you think it would last when you first started doing it?

[1:31:30] Stuart assumed it would last until I lost interest.

[1:31:32] Yeah, probably.

[1:31:33] I mean, I remember Dan suggesting it and me having, I mean, this was 2007.

[1:31:39] So when he's like, do you want to do a podcast?

[1:31:40] I was like, what's a podcast?

[1:31:43] It's a year after the Wicker Man's been made.

[1:31:47] I don't know how we would do it.

[1:31:49] The, yeah, this is a PWM timeline.

[1:31:58] And I think the first couple episodes we recorded in my bedroom in my apartment.

[1:32:04] Yeah, with a single microphone, a USB microphone plugging directly into my computer

[1:32:09] that I think I had also made like a kind of homemade shock mount

[1:32:16] where I just strapped a few rubber bands across like a Tupperware dish

[1:32:22] and stuck the microphone in that.

[1:32:27] That kind of ingenuity would become a hallmark of Dan's production of the show, right, Dan?

[1:32:31] Years later, when Marty Scorsese makes a movie about the early days of the Flophouse.

[1:32:36] I mean, I don't know how many years later it's going to be, because Marty's kind of getting up there in years.

[1:32:41] No, no, no. They'll just use de-aging technology on him.

[1:32:44] Okay.

[1:32:45] And then, for a long time with the Flophouse, it was not a particularly formal or even scheduled thing, right?

[1:32:55] yeah we in the early years we i don't like i think it was you elliot who introduced the idea of like

[1:33:03] hey guys we can come up with a schedule ahead of time and that will help us uh stay on schedule

[1:33:10] but that was like four or five years yeah we should have hit 300 a lot earlier because otherwise it

[1:33:15] was like oh we haven't done an episode in a little while are you guys free tonight yeah i guess so

[1:33:20] okay yeah and well i mean it wasn't it wasn't quite to that level but it was like i'd be like

[1:33:26] uh hey in a couple days are you okay and like if someone wasn't able to be there i'd be like okay

[1:33:32] we're just gonna get a guest host in and uh and so a lot of that early stuff was very uneven and

[1:33:39] erratic that was why hallie had to watch a movie with kirsten dunst and uh two cities uh above each

[1:33:46] other garbage yeah i don't even remember that movie like i remember that exists but i don't

[1:33:51] remember anything about it hallie what do you remember about what hallie you've been on how

[1:33:54] many episodes of the show probably at least three and at least one live show right i remember those

[1:34:00] three uh did you do that you did a 50 shades of gray oh yeah and i've done the live show and

[1:34:07] that was the 50 shades of gray one wasn't it oh right the live show um yeah oh i was the zookeeper

[1:34:15] i did the zookeeper oh cool yeah i missed that one too yeah uh i think that was your frequent sub

[1:34:21] or yeah yeah did you feel a lot of pressure having to be my substitute

[1:34:24] oh i i don't i don't technically blame you no uh no uh yeah i did

[1:34:36] i looked it up there are 14 episodes tagged with hallie's name on the website although there may

[1:34:47] be even more episodes because i don't think i figured out how to use tags until later on in our

[1:34:52] process i mean but we also talked about hallie a lot right because hallie is one of those performers

[1:34:58] where when she's not around you're just like what's hallie doing where's hallie during this

[1:35:01] What's going on with Hallie?

[1:35:02] Changing diapers.

[1:35:03] And so how has your life changed since you started with the Flophouse?

[1:35:07] Do you think you'd be a mother now if you hadn't been a Flophouse guest?

[1:35:10] No.

[1:35:11] No.

[1:35:12] My life has changed.

[1:35:16] You hadn't even slept with your husband, you know.

[1:35:19] I hadn't slept with anybody.

[1:35:20] Oh, wow.

[1:35:22] But then I saw a movie with sex on this podcast, and I was like, what's that?

[1:35:28] You're like, I'll try anything once.

[1:35:29] All right.

[1:35:30] And that's when I got pregnant, that one time.

[1:35:33] Elliot didn't have children at the start of this podcast.

[1:35:37] How has the podcast informed your parenting?

[1:35:39] Well, I think hanging out with you guys regularly has really changed,

[1:35:45] it really prepared me for having two young sons who I just have to like keep an eye on.

[1:35:49] We're older, we're both older than you, but.

[1:35:51] Yeah, but I mean, when it comes to certain types of emotional things, I don't know.

[1:35:56] But it's weird for me to think back, especially like our lives have changed in many ways since we started doing this together and that like we're just at like super different places.

[1:36:08] And it's nice that this has provided such a core for us to keep our lives revolving around all those years.

[1:36:15] Yeah, I started this podcast because I was a struggling wannabe comedy person and now I've grown fat and complacent.

[1:36:26] Yeah, now that you've made it, you're like, who cares?

[1:36:30] Throw this all in the garbage.

[1:36:31] Let's go with the crispy cream.

[1:36:32] Throw it all away by doing a terrible 300th episode.

[1:36:34] Yeah.

[1:36:35] Well, I know that doing this has been a very meaningful thing to me,

[1:36:40] and it's always hugely rewarding when people are like,

[1:36:42] oh, I love your podcast.

[1:36:43] And I'm like, you listen to that?

[1:36:45] And I'm like, no, we've been doing this for so long.

[1:36:47] And I guess that's why we've got to drop that big bombshell

[1:36:50] that this is the last episode.

[1:36:51] No, shut up.

[1:36:52] It's the last episode, Dan.

[1:36:54] you're gonna really like there are people out there whose hearts just plummeted what am i gonna

[1:36:58] do with my sundays now uh no relax and enjoy them i suppose yeah well there is part of me that's

[1:37:05] like oh someday when we're not doing this anymore i don't want to i'm not hoping it happens soon

[1:37:09] but then i'll be able to like just watch whatever movie i want and i won't have to be like oh yeah

[1:37:14] well i do want to watch this screen or a book smart but i gotta watch the wicker man so uh

[1:37:20] But guys, how long do you think we're going to do it for?

[1:37:22] Should we just set an end date now or what?

[1:37:24] Let's not do this.

[1:37:25] I do like the idea that you want to watch a screener of Booksmart

[1:37:28] when I know you always watch the Flabhouse movies

[1:37:31] while, like, on an iPad while you're doing the dishes.

[1:37:35] Yeah, I don't think it actually interferes with your schedule

[1:37:37] all that much to watch these movies.

[1:37:39] No, but the dishwashing time is when I get to watch movies.

[1:37:42] Oh, okay.

[1:37:43] So, like, I do put, like, I could be watching,

[1:37:45] okay, so I wouldn't be watching that screener of Booksmart,

[1:37:46] but I could be watching something on, like,

[1:37:48] the Turner Classic Movies app, you know,

[1:37:50] Is that why when you guys have dinner, you're like, everything gets a fucking ramekin, like

[1:37:55] you're putting everything in little dishes, like you're even putting ketchup in a little

[1:37:58] ramekin and shit?

[1:37:59] I guess.

[1:38:00] There is part of me that when the sink is filling up with dishes, I'm like, more movie

[1:38:05] time later.

[1:38:05] Okay, that's fine.

[1:38:06] Ever since I started really concentrating on Mise en Place, I've been watching a lot

[1:38:12] more movies.

[1:38:12] Danielle's like, I don't think we need a different fork for each course.

[1:38:16] I'm like, no, no, no, it's the proper way to do it.

[1:38:19] Maison Blas, so he can think about Maison Somme.

[1:38:23] Oh, nice.

[1:38:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:38:25] There are nights when Danielle's like, I'll do the dishes for you.

[1:38:29] And I'm like, no, no, no, it's fine.

[1:38:30] And I'm like slapping plates out of her hands.

[1:38:32] Like, I'll take care of that.

[1:38:33] But yeah, no, guys, look, I know we talked about doing some big, crazy things for this 300th episode.

[1:38:40] And then we were like, you know what?

[1:38:42] That's a lot of work.

[1:38:43] Let's keep it in the family.

[1:38:47] But I think, you know, I enjoy doing this with you guys all the time,

[1:38:50] and I hope we get to do it for many more years to come.

[1:38:52] And I know we can because it's not like anyone can tell us.

[1:38:56] Yeah, no one's stopping us.

[1:38:58] I feel like the next –

[1:38:58] John Lithgow isn't coming in being like, no podcasting in this town.

[1:39:02] I feel like the next time we have Hallie on,

[1:39:05] I think you should just get to pick the movie.

[1:39:07] Yeah, Hallie.

[1:39:08] I don't know why we keep making you watch these dog shit movies.

[1:39:11] Yeah.

[1:39:11] I'd love that.

[1:39:15] Hallie, what movie would you have us watch?

[1:39:17] I don't know.

[1:39:17] Don't put me on the spot here.

[1:39:19] I mean, maybe City of Angels.

[1:39:21] You've already mentioned that.

[1:39:23] Oh, yeah.

[1:39:23] That's a good movie.

[1:39:24] Too good.

[1:39:26] Too beautiful for this world.

[1:39:29] Yeah, yeah.

[1:39:32] We would pull up the Skype channel with Elliot,

[1:39:34] and his eyeballs had been ripped out

[1:39:36] because he had seen something too beautiful,

[1:39:37] and he didn't want to gaze upon anything else.

[1:39:39] Yep, yep.

[1:39:40] Event Horizon again.

[1:39:41] So, guys, you know who I want to thank for doing this?

[1:39:45] I want to thank Dan, you, for coming up with this idea.

[1:39:47] Hallie, you, for being a guest.

[1:39:48] Stuart, you, for making this show possible and great

[1:39:51] and for letting me be your host on it.

[1:39:53] And I want to thank the listeners for sticking with us all this time.

[1:39:56] How about that, huh?

[1:39:57] Sounds great.

[1:39:58] Because without them, we'd just be howling into the void.

[1:40:01] Which is what I assumed we were doing the first couple years.

[1:40:05] Well, we probably were.

[1:40:06] I assumed Dan was just, like, keeping them in his vault,

[1:40:09] like Prince was keeping all his videos in a vault.

[1:40:12] Yeah, and my urine bottles.

[1:40:15] so you're like i'll soak the podcast in this urine to preserve it it's like that's not really

[1:40:21] how files work dan no but that's i do remember dan at the time you were like i'm gonna keep them in

[1:40:27] my vault and then i'll release them every 10 years so a new generation of flop listeners

[1:40:30] will have them and i'm like but you haven't released them yet the first time there's no

[1:40:33] demand for it and he was like it works for disney it works for me and then you introduced dan plus

[1:40:38] which was your streaming channel right with the dandelorian that was the show you made

[1:40:42] Yeah, and Dan in Real Life.

[1:40:44] That's the only movie that you can see on that.

[1:40:47] Some kind of a pancake-based movie.

[1:40:49] Now, I just realized when we first started doing the show,

[1:40:55] could you imagine, like, the fact that you have now written

[1:40:58] for Mystery Science Theater 3000 is crazy.

[1:41:01] It's a crazy thing.

[1:41:03] Yeah, I know, it really makes this show obsolete

[1:41:05] because I achieved my other bad movie dream.

[1:41:08] But, yeah, if you do, if you put out into the universe

[1:41:12] the things that you want to do often the universe will be like all right i'll allow it this time

[1:41:18] you know it'll be a nice judge as opposed to the hanging judge that the universe often is

[1:41:21] do you think the show helped you get that uh gig do you think it was an yeah i think so i think it

[1:41:26] i think uh it helped uh i'm uh i think having been the head writer of the daily show probably

[1:41:31] helped quite a bit too they looked at that i think that's the major thing just give me a little uh

[1:41:36] but the first time i met joel we met up and he goes is that are you ellie kalin from the flop

[1:41:42] house and so like he had done his research on me i think it i think it helped that i was like

[1:41:47] uh i mean he heard of the flop house i'm sure because i wrote to him and then he looked me up

[1:41:52] but the i think it helped to establish my bad movie bona fides my bmbf is so i think uh yeah

[1:41:59] i think it did help uh well guys that was a nice little i mean i'll say the i feel very lucky the

[1:42:06] flop house has opened a lot of doors for me and someday they will for you too dan i've done things

[1:42:11] that i wouldn't be able to do otherwise uh i mean certainly like if anyone contacts me to do

[1:42:16] anything it is rarely because i am a writer for a popular uh television program it's because i am

[1:42:24] front and center on uh this dumb little show we do so i appreciate it yeah i mean it's certainly

[1:42:30] given me a little bit of like it's it's certainly helped me professionally i mean even though i don't

[1:42:35] work in the the comedy field or anything but the you know giving me the confidence to like

[1:42:41] open up a small business and giving me a place to meet with people who are listeners and all that

[1:42:47] stuff. I, I don't know. Like when we first started doing this show, I was working for a company and

[1:42:53] I, there was a point early on where I got laid off and it was kind of soul crushing. And, uh,

[1:42:59] yeah, it's nice that I'm not laid off anymore. And now I work for myself.

[1:43:04] Yeah. You'd have to fire yourself at this point, right?

[1:43:08] But I know what I've done.

[1:43:09] Okay, guys.

[1:43:14] So, yeah, that was nice, guys.

[1:43:15] Thanks for indulging us, listeners, with talking about ourselves.

[1:43:18] And Hallie, also, for sitting through it.

[1:43:20] Thanks for including me in this very special episode, guys.

[1:43:23] I feel honored.

[1:43:24] Yeah, and, you know, we should...

[1:43:26] I don't think there's anyone else we would want to have.

[1:43:29] No, not at all.

[1:43:30] And, Hallie, would you promise to come back for our 600th episode?

[1:43:33] Should we all be alive still by that point?

[1:43:35] Oh, my God, yeah.

[1:43:36] Then my kid will be, like, old, and I won't have to breastfeed him anymore.

[1:43:40] Well, let's have her.

[1:43:41] Well, you don't have to.

[1:43:43] You'll be one of those moms who's like, no, I just want to keep that connection,

[1:43:48] so I'm breastfeeding him even though he's 13 years old.

[1:43:50] But his immune system.

[1:43:51] Come here.

[1:43:52] Let's have her back before that.

[1:43:55] I feel bad.

[1:43:56] I did hold off for a while because I'm like, oh, Hallie's executive producing this show,

[1:44:01] and then she was pregnant.

[1:44:02] She doesn't have time for our stupidity.

[1:44:03] But now, hopefully, she has a little more time for her stupidity.

[1:44:07] I feel like this is the second time one of our friends, you're like, I don't know if they're going to have time to be on a podcast.

[1:44:11] They just had a kid.

[1:44:12] And I'm like, I'm pretty sure when you have a kid, you're like, can I have two hours away for a second?

[1:44:17] It's like, can I have an excuse to leave my house, please?

[1:44:20] It's true.

[1:44:21] All right.

[1:44:22] Well, we should say all our usual jazz.

[1:44:24] Thanks for...

[1:44:26] Ba-da-ba-ba-bee-bop-bee-squeeze-squow.

[1:44:28] Ba-da-da-da-da-da-da.

[1:44:29] You shouldn't have said jazz, Dan.

[1:44:30] Now that Elliot

[1:44:36] Moved out to LA

[1:44:37] He understands jazz

[1:44:38] Look that's what happened

[1:44:41] You saw the movie

[1:44:42] If you move out to LA

[1:44:43] You just get jazz

[1:44:44] And you play piano

[1:44:45] In a restaurant

[1:44:45] Elliot invented jazz

[1:44:48] When he moved out there

[1:44:49] Thank you to Maximum Fun

[1:44:53] Our network

[1:44:54] Go over to MaximumFun.org

[1:44:55] To listen to a bunch

[1:44:57] Of other great shows

[1:44:58] Thank you to the donors

[1:44:59] who help keep us going through Maximum Fun

[1:45:03] without your support.

[1:45:03] As much as we love the show,

[1:45:04] we probably couldn't do it.

[1:45:06] I mean, I don't know about, yeah.

[1:45:08] We could do it,

[1:45:09] but we probably would not be able to make the time

[1:45:11] in our busy lives if we weren't getting paid.

[1:45:13] And please tweet about us,

[1:45:16] social media of your choice about us.

[1:45:19] Leave us a review on iTunes.

[1:45:20] A good review.

[1:45:21] Yeah, be gentle on this one, guys.

[1:45:24] And I think that's about it,

[1:45:27] unless anyone has anything to say.

[1:45:29] Hallie, you got anything to plug?

[1:45:32] No.

[1:45:34] Motherhood?

[1:45:35] No.

[1:45:36] She refuses.

[1:45:39] All right, well, if that's the case,

[1:45:44] thanks for listening to us for lo these many years.

[1:45:48] For The Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:45:50] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:45:52] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:45:54] And I'm Hallie Haglund.

[1:45:56] See you next time.

[1:45:58] Bye.

[1:45:59] Dan, at this point, you know that our relationship is strictly business.

[1:46:14] I very hurtfully know.

[1:46:15] It used to be strictly ballroom, and then Dan broke his ankle.

[1:46:18] Dan, he tore his ACL, yet he couldn't dance the way he used to.

[1:46:22] Danced like an angel, I used to.

[1:46:24] Okay.

[1:46:24] I loved that movie.

[1:46:26] maximum fun.org comedy and culture artist owned audience supported

Ep. #300 - The Wicker Man

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