Ep. #298 - Venom LIVE

Stuart Wellington

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Venom!

[0:03] Live from Madison, Wisconsin!

[0:30] Hey everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[0:39] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:41] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:43] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:45] Yay!

[0:46] We did it, guys.

[0:48] We did it.

[0:49] That's our show.

[0:50] We got our names right.

Dan McCoy

[0:52] So this is a podcast.

[0:54] Yep.

[0:54] You probably know that because you downloaded it.

Elliott Kalan

[0:57] Unless you've been kidnapped by some monster who's forcing you to listen to what you assume are men in another room talking,

[1:03] and yet they won't save you.

[1:05] Why won't they come in and save you?

[1:07] You're screaming, but all they're talking about is Venom.

[1:10] It's because it's a podcast.

[1:11] I'm very sorry.

Dan McCoy

[1:13] Thank you for that disclaimer to add comfort to this fantasy man.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17] And if, in fact, all we talk about is Venom, I will be very impressed.

Dan McCoy

[1:22] Good point.

[1:22] Dan, what do we do on this podcast?

[1:24] This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie, and then we talk about it.

[1:27] So start up that movie.

[1:29] No.

[1:30] It's not how we do it.

[1:31] We watched the movie already on your laptop in a Marriott hotel earlier today.

[1:37] The way the film was meant to be seen.

[1:41] So what is this movie about?

Elliott Kalan

[1:45] Wait, did you say the name of the movie?

[1:48] I mean, it's announced at the top.

[1:50] The movie's called Venom.

[1:51] Let me just say, this is a doubly special night to me.

[1:54] One, as I already said to this audience beforehand, in some material they loved, but you, the listening audience at home, will never get to enjoy.

[2:00] Very excited to be here in Madison because I have family connections to the university.

[2:04] And also excited to be talking about Venom.

[2:05] My favorite character, circa 1993 to 1997.

Dan McCoy

[2:11] How old would you have been at this time?

Elliott Kalan

[2:13] That's like 11 to 15 or 16.

[2:16] Okay.

[2:16] Or like 12 to 15 or 16.

[2:18] Venom was very, when I was a kid growing up, Venom was the, okay, you liked one of four different characters.

[2:24] Uh-huh.

[2:24] Okay.

[2:25] Venom, because he's like Spider-Man, but he's a monster.

[2:27] Uh-huh.

[2:28] The Punisher, because he shoots guys in the head.

[2:30] Wolverine.

[2:31] And he uses jet skis.

[2:32] And he, well, he uses, he blows, yeah, look, kiss that jet ski goodbye.

[2:35] Yeah.

[2:37] Wolverine, because he's the best there is at what he does, but when he doesn't pretty, and when you're that age, you can really sympathize with someone who doesn't feel pretty.

[2:44] Mm-hmm.

[2:44] You're growing in your body, you're changing, and you feel awkward, and to have somebody like Wolverine be like, you know what, I look cool, but I don't feel pretty sometimes, too.

[2:53] Sometimes I feel like someone shoved a bunch of metal in my body.

[2:56] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[2:56] To suddenly have things spring out of your body, things that weren't there before.

[3:00] Exactly.

Stuart Wellington

[3:01] And your hair grows into weird shapes that you can't do in the real world.

Elliott Kalan

[3:04] Exactly.

[3:05] Exactly.

[3:05] And you mentor a series of teenage girls in martial arts.

[3:09] The classic teenage experience.

[3:12] And, of course, Ghost Rider was the other one, because he has a skull for a head, and it's on fire, and he hits people with a chain.

[3:18] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[3:19] Something that everyone can relate to, because they also have skulls inside their bodies.

Dan McCoy

[3:23] You call them the Spencer's Gifts heroes.

[3:26] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[3:27] And my favorite was Venom, because I loved Spider-Man, and now it was like a Spider-Man who could also eat people.

Stuart Wellington

[3:34] Well, also, I think because Venom was obsessed with Spider-Man, and I think you were also obsessed with Spider-Man.

[3:40] I could really relate to that.

Elliott Kalan

[3:41] So you sense a kindred spirit.

[3:42] I did.

[3:42] I liked the fact that Venom was a villain character who was not evil because he wanted something.

[3:49] He was evil because he hated one person.

[3:51] And that hate had twisted him so much, and he was one of these rare villains that, I mean, Joker's obsessed with Batman, but Joker would be very happy.

[3:57] In a world without Batman, Joker's still going to be sending poison fish to people and robbing the joke bank and things like that.

[4:04] Whatever laughing theme.

[4:06] He's still going to be putting poison laffy taffy in people stores and things like that.

[4:10] But without Spider-Man, Venom doesn't exist.

[4:13] Venom doesn't care.

[4:14] Venom doesn't want to take over the world.

[4:15] He just wants to kill Spider-Man.

[4:16] And so with this movie, it's interesting to have the conundrum of a Venom movie with no Spider-Man in it.

[4:22] When Venom is explicitly a Spider-Man-derived character who dresses in Spider-Man's old clothes because he wants to kill Spider-Man, how do they do that?

[4:32] Yeah, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[4:34] They make Venom into this quasi-hero by making him a loser like Eddie Brock is.

Elliott Kalan

[4:41] So let's talk about how this movie, how it starts.

[4:44] It starts in media res.

[4:46] Sorry, res.

[4:47] We don't get to see the top of you, just the media.

[4:51] There's a privately owned spaceship crashes to Earth in East Malaysia.

[4:55] It's carrying some alien goo.

[4:57] One of the goos escapes into the body of an EMT doctor.

[5:00] Cut to San Francisco.

[5:02] So already, right off the bat, we're like, the movie is hiding.

[5:05] A lot of movies will kind of keep their cards close to their chest.

[5:07] This one is like, there's alien goo.

[5:09] It jumps into people's bodies.

[5:11] Next scene, please.

[5:13] San Francisco.

[5:14] We meet reporter Tom Hardy, Eddie Brock.

[5:17] He's a real slob.

[5:18] And here's where I was like, Venom ended up in San Francisco when Spider-Man and him came to an agreement.

[5:24] But he's a New York boy.

[5:25] What's this all about?

[5:26] But they cover that.

[5:27] He's from New York, too, which is why he can talk in the most hilarious accent.

[5:33] It's like Tom Hardy did Bane, and people were like, this voice is kind of crazy.

[5:36] And he was like, I can do better.

Dan McCoy

[5:40] Yeah, he sounds like he's doing a late period Marlon Brando through the entire film.

[5:44] Like if Marlon Brando was the star of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon show.

Elliott Kalan

[5:49] Like that's what he sounds like.

Stuart Wellington

[5:51] It does feel like that accent and a lot of his performance throughout the movie.

[5:55] Every other actor is like, okay, I'll just go along with this.

Elliott Kalan

[5:59] I mean, they could have built into his backstory that he came from like an affluent Long Island suburb, but he wanted to seem like he was from the streets.

[6:05] So he gave himself this fake like, you know, okay, going over here.

[6:09] You know, I'm just Eddie Brock.

[6:10] Let me ask some questions.

[6:11] I'm a reporter.

[6:12] He is engaged to Michelle Williams, who is a high-class lawyer, which I guess employers, I guess they are low-class lawyers.

[6:18] Yeah.

[6:18] Anyway.

[6:19] And they are, to put it mildly, to seeing from their apartment, the bars they go to, they are the people currently ruining San Francisco.

[6:26] So you can assume every time you see their apartment that an elderly Asian or Latino lady used to live in that apartment until the rents went up too high and they kicked her out.

[6:35] So those are our heroes.

[6:39] Eddie is assigned to interview the head of this space company who also, so there's a company called the Life Foundation.

[6:45] Yeah.

[6:45] Is that just the evil alien experimenting organization or is that also the spaceship company?

Dan McCoy

[6:51] Why are you looking at me, man?

[6:53] I mean, I didn't build the spaceship.

Elliott Kalan

[6:55] You watched the movie.

[6:57] Yeah, well, I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[6:58] Wasn't Life that other movie we watched about evil alien goop?

[7:02] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[7:03] I don't know if we ever released that.

Dan McCoy

[7:04] We never released that episode.

[7:05] It was a test episode for Skyping.

[7:07] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[7:08] And we'd failed the test, I guess.

[7:09] But when the movie Life, which is alien except instead of the xenomorph, a terrifying classic monster design, it was just like some goop that jumped.

[7:17] When that trailer came out, people were like, this is a stealth secret prequel for Venom.

[7:23] And it wasn't.

[7:24] But watching this movie, I was like, maybe it was.

Dan McCoy

[7:27] This evil billionaire, this tech billionaire played by Riz Ahmed.

[7:32] His name is Carlton Drake.

[7:33] Yeah.

[7:34] It's a normal name.

Elliott Kalan

[7:35] We just watched.

[7:36] Non-evil.

Stuart Wellington

[7:37] I mean, he made his money on the Drake's Cakes fortune, right?

[7:40] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:40] And he was the basis for Carlton Banks and the Fresh Birds of Bel Air, yeah.

[7:43] Uh-huh.

[7:45] I was just checking to see if you were done.

[7:47] Yeah, talk.

[7:48] Dan, you can just butt in.

[7:50] You don't have to wait for us.

[7:51] Apparently not.

Dan McCoy

[7:51] So go.

[7:53] No, we just watched the movie The Meg recently.

[7:55] And in that movie, Rainn Wilson was funding deep sea diving for reasons unknown.

[8:01] He comes onto the deep sea ship and is like, so what are you doing here again?

[8:05] I'm just giving you billions of dollars.

[8:06] And here it's like, what exactly is this guy's idea that he's just like, I know symbiotes

[8:13] exist in the world somewhere, so I'm sending randomly rockets up in space.

Elliott Kalan

[8:18] He seems to know ahead of time what the plot of the movie is.

[8:21] Yeah.

[8:21] And that's why he set it into motion.

[8:23] He believes that humanity is destroying the Earth because we take, take, take, take, take,

[8:26] and we never give back.

[8:27] Our future is in space and we need to find a way to live in space.

[8:31] Throw some alien goop on our bodies.

[8:32] The only way to do it.

[8:33] So he's an Elon Musk type, by which I mean evil.

[8:36] And also he doesn't really seem to know that much about his core business or any of the

Stuart Wellington

[8:40] other businesses that he gets involved with.

[8:42] And he's introduced in a scene where he's like explaining the basics of space travel or

[8:47] something.

[8:48] And that's the kind of scene you see in every sci-fi movie.

[8:50] You're like, why is this person explaining the very basics of this thing?

[8:54] Like, why is this physics class doing day one physics?

[8:57] And then the camera pans around and he's telling a bunch of children.

[8:59] And you're like, oh, it's supposed to be dumb.

Elliott Kalan

[9:03] But Eddie, he's supposed to just talk to him about rockets.

[9:06] It's a puff piece.

[9:07] But he starts asking about the case that his fiance is involved with that the company is

[9:11] being sued because some test subjects have died in some mysterious experiments.

[9:16] Of course, Eddie, the investigative reporter, is fired for doing some investigative reporting.

[9:20] Meanwhile, and the other, and the fiance also fired considering her boyfriend barged into,

[9:24] like started asking about it, but I guess was a secret case he wasn't supposed to know about.

[9:28] Yeah.

[9:29] We saw him hack into her computer earlier because he knows her password, I guess.

[9:33] And meanwhile, her cat looks on.

[9:35] That cat, I expected to be a character in the movie.

[9:36] Did not turn out to be.

Stuart Wellington

[9:38] I was very concerned that that cat was going to get killed at some point.

[9:41] Yeah, but do you remember the cat's name?

[9:43] Do I remember, Elliot?

[9:44] It was Mr. Belvedere.

Elliott Kalan

[9:47] So automatically, best character in the movie barely appears in it.

[9:51] Meanwhile, in Malaysia, that EMT, she steals an eel from a fish market, starts chowing it down,

[9:56] kills a bunch of people, and the symbiote hops into an old lady.

[9:59] Okay, scientist Jenny Slate is explaining to her boss, Riz Ahmed, that the aliens need host bodies,

[10:05] but to achieve symbiosis requires an exact match.

[10:08] Once again, they seem to know a lot about these new aliens that they just discovered.

[10:13] Drake is like, I demand we move on to human trials.

Stuart Wellington

[10:15] This is Drake the musician.

Elliott Kalan

[10:17] Yes, Drake the musician is like, nah dog, we gotta move on to human trials.

[10:20] He doesn't even say dog, that's like a Randy Jackson thing to say.

[10:24] And he threatens her kids.

[10:26] Uh-oh.

[10:27] Meanwhile, Eddie, he's the kind of guy who's friends with all the local characters,

[10:30] local homeless person, bodega owner,

[10:32] and he just stops into his local bodega and watches as the shopkeeper has to pay off a gunman for protection.

Dan McCoy

[10:36] But also, by this point, Eddie, his life has taken a downturn because Michelle Williams,

[10:42] he's not only lost his job, Michelle Williams has broken up with him.

[10:45] Even though earlier we saw them so enamored of one another that they had sex dangerously close,

[10:50] close to a record player that was playing a record.

[10:53] I was very concerned by it.

Stuart Wellington

[10:54] I was like, that might slice off her butt, Hellraiser style.

Elliott Kalan

[10:59] They're at a bar and she says, they clearly have nothing in common.

[11:02] And she says, less talking, more kissing.

[11:04] Cut to them in their apartment just ripping each other's clothes off,

[11:07] but the record's on the turntable, which means that they took a break from making out to put the record on.

[11:11] Yeah.

[11:12] Unless the way these young, gentrifying people who think they have everything in the world,

[11:16] unless they left that record player on the entire time they were out, wasting valuable electricity.

Dan McCoy

[11:20] I don't think you understand how records work, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[11:22] I assume it just gets to the end and then skips back to the top again.

[11:25] Okay.

[11:25] Oh, boy.

[11:27] Jenny Slate tips off Eddie Brock.

[11:28] This is when we learn her name, which is Dora Skirth, but we thought it was Doris Gerth,

[11:33] which is like a Pee Wee Playhouse character name.

[11:37] But no, it is the much more realistic name of Dora Skirth,

[11:40] which I don't know if that's a Marvel Comics reference or just a crazy great name.

[11:44] She takes him to the lab and Drake, he wants to use human hosts to keep these space goops alive.

[11:50] And Eddie sees a homeless woman he knows in a cell.

[11:52] He breaks the cell open with a fire extinguisher and she attacks him and passes the symbiote to him.

[11:57] Instantly, he's a super tough fighter who escapes from the bad guy's henchmen by climbing up a really tall tree.

[12:02] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[12:02] And it's also interesting, like the symbiote is apparently kept behind glass and it's like,

[12:07] oh no, glass, its only weakness is being hit really hard.

[12:12] The glass, you mean, not the symbiote.

[12:13] Yeah.

[12:14] It's also the weakness of Mr. Glass being hit really hard.

[12:17] Most people.

[12:18] I mean, I haven't seen the movie yet, so you're spoiling it.

[12:20] Yeah, spoiling it.

Elliott Kalan

[12:21] Is that what happens?

[12:22] I mean, I haven't seen the movie Glass, but do they hit him and he shatters and that's it?

[12:24] Kind of.

[12:25] Oh, okay.

[12:26] Well, I guess that answers that question.

[12:29] But like into pieces and then his hands start crawling away.

Stuart Wellington

[12:31] Yeah, yeah.

[12:32] Does he shatter into a bunch of tiny Mr. Glasses like in the gate?

[12:35] That's the movie Shattered Glass, actually.

Elliott Kalan

[12:37] I don't think that's what Shattered Glass is about.

[12:40] I remember it differently, Elliot.

[12:41] So, is Glass about Ira Glass or Philip Glass?

[12:48] They're brothers, right?

[12:50] I mean, they are related.

[12:51] Really?

[12:51] I think they're distant cousins, I think.

[12:53] Let's talk about this.

[12:54] Yeah, okay.

[12:55] They're both prominent people with the last name Glass.

[12:58] All right.

[12:59] Well, I guess that's all I'm talking about.

[13:00] I mean, it's not like it would be crazy for them.

[13:01] It's not like one of them is an alien and it would be crazy for them to, or maybe they're

[13:05] both aliens.

[13:07] And Philip Glass's music is pretty crazy.

[13:09] And Ira Glass is always dividing things up into parts, much like an alien who's investigating

[13:14] human life.

[13:16] He's always like, everybody likes doing this, but what if they didn't?

[13:19] And they did it a different way.

[13:20] And it's like, why do you care?

Dan McCoy

[13:23] Well, he has to categorize.

[13:24] Yeah, I mean, he might be an alien because he's categorizing all of this American life.

Elliott Kalan

[13:29] Tell me about this American life.

[13:32] What is love?

[13:34] Anyway, Eddie heads home.

[13:37] He's got this symbiote in him.

[13:38] You know what that means?

[13:38] He's hungry.

[13:39] So he chows down on some frozen tater tots, rips a chicken out of the garbage and starts

[13:43] eating it.

[13:44] And I'm like, you left that much meat on the chicken?

[13:46] You should rip it out of the garbage.

[13:48] You wasted all that.

[13:49] And it's dark meat.

[13:50] The best part of the chicken.

Stuart Wellington

[13:52] Now, we get a little clue here.

[13:54] Tom Hardy sneaks in a little clue in his performance because every time he goes to the fridge to

[13:58] grab himself a brewski, he grabs two of them.

[14:02] That's right.

[14:03] One for him and one for the other side of his personality.

[14:06] A.K.A.

[14:07] The Venom Symbiote.

Elliott Kalan

[14:09] So he feels real sick, passes out, and the suit starts talking to him.

[14:12] The suit knows his name is Eddie.

[14:13] The suit is this alien that landed on Earth, I guess a couple days ago, like, knows contemporary

[14:18] references, like, speaks English really well.

[14:20] It, like, bonds with his brain now.

[14:22] I guess it's bonded.

[14:22] It's branded on the brain.

[14:23] It talks like this.

[14:25] Yeah.

[14:25] It's always like, it's like, Eddie, go over there.

[14:28] Pick up that thing.

[14:29] No, the other thing.

[14:30] No, pick up.

[14:31] God, just let me do it.

[14:32] Yeah.

[14:33] Yeah.

[14:33] It's always saying, Eddie, how are you doing, Eddie?

[14:36] What's up?

[14:37] Let's go out and kill some people.

[14:39] This would be a very different movie.

[14:41] Yeah.

[14:41] If it was like, meat.

[14:42] I need living meat.

Dan McCoy

[14:44] Oh, you're so cute, Venom.

Elliott Kalan

[14:46] It's talking to his head.

[14:47] He goes to Michelle Williams.

[14:49] This is six months later since she dumped him.

[14:50] Michelle Williams has already moved on and dating a nice doctor named Dan.

[14:54] They were engaged.

[14:55] Named Dad?

[14:56] Dan.

[14:57] His name is Dad.

Dan McCoy

[14:59] Six months later, she's dating a man who has keys to her apartment after they broke off their engagement.

Elliott Kalan

[15:05] Dan, the clock is ticking.

[15:07] All right.

[15:08] She can no longer take the time she would before.

[15:11] And this is a doctor, very handsome, very nice.

[15:13] He is, like, they could have gone.

[15:15] He is much nicer than Eddie Brock.

[15:16] Yeah.

[15:16] Like, he's a much better match for her.

[15:19] Like, they could have gone the easy route and made him like a dick.

[15:21] He is the hero of the movie.

[15:23] He is so nice to Eddie throughout the film.

[15:25] So unthreatened.

[15:26] He's, like, giving him free medical care just out of the goodness of his heart.

[15:30] Like, and he could easily let him die.

[15:31] This is his one competitor for the heart of Michelle Williams.

[15:34] A catch.

Dan McCoy

[15:34] I'm convinced.

[15:35] We should have made the movie Dr. Dan.

[15:36] Yeah.

[15:38] Dr. Dan, feet, Venom.

[15:39] That's what it should have been called.

Elliott Kalan

[15:41] So he butts in on their lunch date, and he just starts ripping food off people's plates

[15:45] and spitting steak all over the way because he's feeling so hot,

[15:48] he has to climb in a lobster tank and start biting lobsters open with his teeth.

Stuart Wellington

[15:52] This is part of the Oscar reel for Tom Hardy for this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[15:58] The doctor boyfriend puts him in an MRI, but the sound waves from the MRI.

[16:02] And now, I'm not a doctor.

[16:03] I know it's magnetic stuff, but does it come out of sound?

[16:06] I don't know.

[16:06] Or is it just a noisy machine?

[16:07] I've never had an MRI done on me, but I always thought it looked cooler because they'd find out as a ghost.

Dan McCoy

[16:11] They're terrible.

[16:12] They're not good?

[16:13] I don't, yeah.

[16:13] I mean, it just makes it like a ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk sound.

[16:16] I don't think it, like, makes a venom killing sound.

Elliott Kalan

[16:18] Because I always imagine that if I, like, this is the same fantasy I've had since I was probably 10 years old.

[16:23] Anytime I have a test done on me.

[16:24] Buckle up, guys.

[16:26] Buckle up.

[16:27] This is going to get weird.

[16:28] Anytime I've had a test done on me at the doctors, I have this fantasy, this hope I'm holding out that they're going to be like, but these results don't make sense.

[16:38] We've never seen this before.

[16:39] There's something in your system that seems inhuman.

[16:42] And then, like, there's like a...

[16:44] You're like the boy genius gene.

[16:46] Yeah.

[16:47] Well, I mean, that was the original hope.

[16:49] It's a little late for that now.

[16:51] I'm like, I don't know if anyone else does this, but as I get older, I kind of reclassify what I should be doing that would be impressive to do at my age.

[16:59] So, like, for a long time, I was like, I better, like, have my own TV show or something like that.

[17:02] And now it's like, should I run for president?

[17:05] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[17:05] Should I get a good erection?

Elliott Kalan

[17:08] What?

[17:09] Okay, Dan, hold on.

[17:11] I am...

[17:12] You're getting old is what I'm saying.

[17:14] This is, I mean, I'm not familiar with the phrase, with the concept even, of like a bad erection.

[17:21] And if anything, if anything, I had more bad erections when I was a teenager and a warm room could give me an erection.

Dan McCoy

[17:32] I'm talking about an evil erection.

[17:35] Like one that's got really...

[17:36] That what, like a serial killer's penis was grafted onto my body?

[17:39] Yeah, that's right.

[17:44] I...

Elliott Kalan

[17:47] Dan, your mind is a place I do not care to go.

[17:51] Okay, so the MRI, the sound makes the symbiote goes nuts.

[17:54] Dora, Jenny Slate, gets found out by Drake.

[17:56] He exposes her to a symbiote.

[17:58] She dies along with a third symbiote.

[17:59] There's just two left.

[18:00] The venom symbiote and there's one that's just bopping around Malaysia.

[18:04] The Life Foundation guys, the henchmen, they show up at Eddie's place.

[18:07] And Eddie's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't shoot.

[18:08] And the symbiote's like, you're being a wimp.

[18:10] Let me take care of these guys.

[18:11] And he does it by doing a lot of like Stretch Armstrong taffy arm stuff where he's swinging

[18:15] people around and stretching a lot.

Dan McCoy

[18:17] Yeah.

[18:17] And if you want to see a scene with someone who looks like Tom Hardy doing basically this

[18:22] in a better movie, watch Upgrade.

[18:25] That's fair.

[18:25] That's my public service announcement.

[18:27] But it's less slimy.

[18:29] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[18:30] I do like slimy stuff.

[18:32] Like my favorite Ghostbusters ghost character.

[18:36] Taxi driver.

[18:37] Yep.

[18:37] Taxi driver ghost.

[18:38] The legitimately most scary ghost in the entire movie.

[18:42] Well, the old white rotten head guy.

[18:43] Yeah.

[18:43] When I was a kid, that was the one shot where I always covered my eyes when it was coming.

[18:47] And now he just looks like the Crypt Keeper's brother who rides a taxi cab.

[18:50] I've mentioned this before, but the first time.

Dan McCoy

[18:51] The scary stuff is the fair.

[18:53] Am I right?

[18:53] Oh.

Stuart Wellington

[18:55] I mean, the scary thing is the way that tech companies are ruining traditional cabbies' lives,

[19:00] Dan.

[19:04] We're getting real anti-Silicon Valley on this one.

[19:07] But when I saw Ghostbusters in the theater, I was a little kid, and my mom covered my eyes

[19:12] for that opening sequence with that ghost.

[19:14] The library ghost?

[19:15] Yeah.

[19:16] And I was like...

[19:16] She was like, don't look at that library.

[19:17] And afterwards, I was like, Mom, Mom, what did it look like?

[19:20] And her definition was, it looked like Skeletor.

Elliott Kalan

[19:24] I mean, I am impressed your mom knew who Skeletor was.

[19:27] Yeah, definitely.

Stuart Wellington

[19:28] Yeah, this is basically me saying my mom's cool.

Elliott Kalan

[19:31] I am constantly impressed by Stewart's mom's knowledge of things that we like.

[19:36] And the amount that she tweets about the podcast.

Stuart Wellington

[19:38] Mm-hmm.

[19:38] Yeah.

[19:39] Or that when she tweeted, so what is hentai to me?

[19:44] That was a fun Thanksgiving after that, I imagine.

Elliott Kalan

[19:52] Okay.

[19:53] So the life found out...

[19:54] So anyway, Venom is taking over Eddie's body, and he's acting the way...

[19:57] It's very weird, because this scene is written, as I was saying to these guys while we were

[20:00] watching it, as if Thomas Middleditch was playing the part.

[20:02] He's like, whoa!

[20:03] Oh, watch out!

[20:04] And he knocks the guy over, and he's like, sorry about your friend!

[20:06] Oh, boy!

[20:07] But he looks like Tom Hardy, a guy I'm used to seeing beat the shit out of people in movies.

[20:11] Tom Hardy can disappear to certain types of characters.

[20:13] I do not believe he can disappear into a weakling.

[20:16] He's always going to be Bronson.

Stuart Wellington

[20:17] And also the idea that they're painting him as a fumbling loser, but he was an investigative

[20:23] reporter that has his own man-on-the-street show.

[20:27] You have to be at least somewhat competent to do that for a while, right?

[20:30] I would think so.

[20:31] I would imagine.

Elliott Kalan

[20:32] I mean, we don't know the news business that way.

Stuart Wellington

[20:33] And this whole action sequence, they must have recorded like 40 hours of just scat dialogue

[20:40] from Tom Hardy being like, oh, that guy there too?

[20:44] Oh, no!

Elliott Kalan

[20:47] I'll get him, Eddie!

Stuart Wellington

[20:50] And he's doing the voice of Venom as well, right?

Elliott Kalan

[20:53] He does the Venom voice also.

[20:54] And apparently what I was reading is that he would do the Venom voice in the morning, and

[20:57] then they would play it back to him through an earpiece during the scenes so he could react

[21:00] to it like it was really in his head.

[21:02] Because it was.

[21:04] It was in his head with its guns and its bombs, zombie, et cetera, et cetera.

[21:08] Let's hear it for the cranberries, everybody.

[21:10] Anyway.

[21:12] So this leads to the famous, from the trailer, motorcycle chase, where these cars are just

[21:17] chasing Eddie on his motorcycle through San Francisco.

[21:20] Police?

[21:20] Not interested.

[21:22] There's also like exploding drones that are just hurling themselves at Eddie and blowing

[21:26] up cars and passersby, I think.

[21:29] The symbiote at one point, he reaches out and steers two cars to get them away from

[21:33] Eddie.

[21:33] So it's like, okay, so he knows how to drive a car also.

[21:36] Eddie finally suits all the way up, bites a bad guy's head off, and then jumps off into

[21:41] the bay to have a one-on-one conversation.

[21:44] The suit detaches himself slightly so that it can be a head on a stalk looking back at Eddie.

[21:49] Like one of those weird Japanese ghosts that Hellboy fought once, where they're like heads

[21:53] on long stalks that leave their bodies at night.

[21:55] You know what I'm talking about.

Dan McCoy

[21:56] Yeah, and let's just be honest with ourselves.

[21:59] Outside of the comics page, and pretty much inside of the comics page, Venom looks pretty

[22:04] silly.

Elliott Kalan

[22:05] Uh, you're a crazy person.

[22:08] He's like if Spider-Man was crossed with a demon and a gorilla.

[22:11] Like that's the best character ever.

[22:13] Here's why he looks silly.

[22:15] The movie doesn't have that big white spider on his chest, so he just looks like this big

[22:18] veiny goop.

Stuart Wellington

[22:19] Yeah, and he's extra goopy.

[22:20] Like in the comics, there's something about the way that suit just doesn't leave anything

[22:24] to the imagination.

Elliott Kalan

[22:26] Talk about a bad erection.

[22:28] What if he, like...

[22:29] Everyone's gonna know about it.

[22:31] So the suit tells him that his name is Venom.

[22:34] Okay, cool.

[22:34] He gave himself an Earth name, I guess.

[22:36] Well, unless it's just an alien name that happens to sound like a word that fits.

[22:39] And the suit seems to refer to itself as Wee, which pissed me off, because when Venom says

[22:44] Wee, he's talking about himself and Eddie.

[22:46] Eddie in the suit.

[22:46] Come on.

[22:46] But here he's already a Wee, unless he's just a guy who talks in the third person or the

[22:50] royal Wee.

[22:51] What I'm guessing what I'm saying is, the suit has a lot of unearned personality by this point

[22:54] in the movie.

[22:56] For some reason that I don't remember why, Eddie goes to his old office.

[22:59] They are met in the lobby by a whole SWAT brigade.

[23:01] And Venom is just straight up murdering policemen.

[23:04] Just like hurling them around each other.

[23:05] For some reason, Annie, his ex-fiancé is there and she sees it happen.

[23:09] And she's like, and it's like any movie where someone walks in on someone doing something

[23:14] embarrassing.

[23:15] He's just like, oh, what?

[23:16] No, Annie.

[23:17] Like, this is Ben Stiller getting his balls caught in his zipper from There's Something

[23:21] About Mary, except he was just a monster killing SWAT cops.

Dan McCoy

[23:24] And her reaction is basically just like she walked in on someone nude that she shouldn't

[23:27] have seen.

Elliott Kalan

[23:28] Eddie!

[23:29] Yeah.

[23:29] Oh, sorry.

[23:30] I didn't know there was someone in here killing SWAT cops.

[23:33] She gives him a ride in her car.

[23:35] And this is when Venom in Eddie's brain is like, you missed an opportunity to

[23:38] apologize to her.

[23:39] This is a good opportunity to do that.

[23:42] Because Venom instantly is like, you two belong together.

[23:44] Which is crazy.

Stuart Wellington

[23:46] It's just like, it's like a walk like a man moment.

Elliott Kalan

[23:48] He came down to Earth to be like a romance advice columnist.

[23:51] Yeah, it's very Cyrano.

[23:52] It's like Venom, his previous host was Hitch, starring Will Smith.

[23:57] Meanwhile, the last symbiote has already passed on to a little girl because there's

[24:00] nothing more evil than an evil little girl.

[24:02] She shows up in-

[24:03] Who has flown from Malaysia to the US by herself, apparently.

Stuart Wellington

[24:07] It's so many questions.

[24:07] Dan has trouble doing that and he's a grown man.

Elliott Kalan

[24:12] He barely got here.

[24:14] And so she passes the symbiote on to the bad guy, Drake.

[24:18] And his reaction-

Stuart Wellington

[24:19] So wait, why did they separate this one symbiote for this long time when it just

[24:24] ends up joining with the other ones?

Elliott Kalan

[24:26] I think it was partly a way to tell the audience ahead of time.

[24:29] It can go from host to host.

[24:31] And also because I'm guessing there was some kind of Asian financial backing and they needed

[24:35] to shoot part of it in Asia.

[24:37] Oh, okay.

[24:37] And also to create that feeling of like, uh-oh, when these things meet up, there's going to

[24:41] be T, trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with V, and that stands for Venom.

[24:47] Because we got trouble, boys, right here in San Francisco.

Dan McCoy

[24:50] You are so fucking lucky that T rhymes with V.

Elliott Kalan

[24:54] Most of the letters rhyme with T, Dan.

[24:57] E, V, D, Z.

[25:00] I didn't invent the alphabet.

[25:02] Whoever did made it perfect for my purposes.

[25:04] Anyway, we got trouble right here in San Francisco.

[25:06] You ruined my momentum.

[25:07] I can't think of anything else.

[25:08] All right.

[25:08] Forget it.

[25:09] Well, you can all go home and dream of the song that might have been if language arts Dan

[25:16] didn't decide to forget about the alphabet.

Dan McCoy

[25:19] You could just put on the Music Man theme and play our podcast at the same time, and basically

[25:24] the same thing.

Elliott Kalan

[25:25] Why wouldn't it?

[25:26] It's a duet of pleasures.

[25:27] Do that, yeah.

[25:27] I mean, it's not the Music Man theme, but yeah.

[25:29] All right.

Dan McCoy

[25:30] The soundtrack to the Music Man, I meant.

[25:31] Thank you.

[25:31] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[25:32] So anyway, so I wanted to say the back then.

Stuart Wellington

[25:35] Duet of Pleasures is going to be your solo album.

[25:39] Wait, why is it a duet of pleasures if it's a solo album?

[25:42] Because I'm that good, Dan.

[25:44] It really makes you think, dude.

[25:45] Because it's me.

Elliott Kalan

[25:46] I'm doing all my own backing vocals, and I'm also my own hype man.

[25:49] Okay.

[25:49] So I'll sing something, and then I'll just duck to another microphone and go, that's right.

[25:56] So this evil billionaire is wandering around his office alone at night, because I guess

[26:01] he lives there, and a little girl wanders up, and he's like, hey, are you lost?

[26:05] And it's like, wait a minute.

[26:07] One, he's evil, and we're supposed to be like, this guy is the worst of the worst.

[26:11] Oh, he really is worried about this little girl who doesn't know where her parents are.

[26:14] Two, if you were in your secure lab, somebody already broke into it and stole an alien goop.

[26:20] You want that goop back, and you sent out exploding drones to get it.

[26:23] Suddenly, maybe he does not surprise.

[26:25] That little girl wanders past your security.

[26:27] Maybe he's not surprised, because he sent all his henchmen out to go find Eddie.

[26:30] So he's there.

[26:31] He's like, I guess I'll watch the place myself.

Stuart Wellington

[26:33] Yeah, he's like wondering if she's lost because he assumes she's like a temp worker or something.

Elliott Kalan

[26:38] Or just like a tourist, which reminds me, there's a scene where Eddie is taking the cable car to get somewhere,

[26:42] and it's like, this dude doesn't live in San Francisco.

[26:45] Like, what kind of resident takes a cable car?

[26:47] Show him on a muni bus, getting mad that it's so slow.

Dan McCoy

[26:50] Yeah, later on, you see him eating something out of a sourdough bread bowl, and you're like, oh, this makes me so angry.

Elliott Kalan

[26:54] He's just dumping rice-a-roni into his mouth at the Ghirardelli chocolate factory at Fisherman's Wharf.

[27:00] Look at all those seals.

[27:01] Amazing.

[27:02] Like, these are nothing safe.

[27:03] Oh, it's a full house house.

[27:05] I better take a picture of it.

[27:08] So this place is great.

[27:10] Anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[27:10] There is a moment early on in the movie where Eddie's at a bar drinking, and I've actually drank in that bar.

[27:17] It's called Edinburgh Castle, and they also shot So I Married an Axe Murderer there.

[27:21] So it's pretty exciting.

[27:24] You know, I live in New York.

[27:24] Like a bar name dropper over here?

[27:26] I don't understand.

[27:27] I live in New York, Dan, so I don't often see things that are being filmed or have been in films.

Elliott Kalan

[27:34] Says the man who was talking about Ghostbusters earlier.

[27:37] Okay.

[27:37] I don't follow.

[27:39] Anne uses the MRI at the doctor's office to separate Eddie and Venom.

[27:42] They think they trap Venom, but uh-oh.

[27:44] He gets out through the air vents, but not before Eddie is captured by Drake's goons.

[27:48] Drake is like, look at me.

[27:50] I can Venom out, too.

[27:51] I've got a symbiote named Riot that is on me.

Dan McCoy

[27:53] Also, I just want to say, like, apparently Eddie's heart is atrophied at this point, which is what the doctor Dan tells him.

[28:00] But Venom leaves him, and Eddie's wandering around perfectly fine.

[28:04] Yeah.

[28:05] So, I-

[28:06] I think he was misdiagnosed, and it was actually just an achy-breaky heart.

[28:09] Okay.

[28:10] Or an untamed heart.

Elliott Kalan

[28:11] Or it could be an untamed heart, or a wildest heart.

[28:13] Although, you're not supposed to tell someone about an achy-breaky heart.

[28:16] Only because they wouldn't understand.

[28:17] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[28:20] And I do like that when they separate them, they have this, like, alien goop bouncing around in the room,

[28:26] and they decide to have, like, a relationship conversation, Dr. Dan and Michelle Lundgren.

Elliott Kalan

[28:29] It's really funny, because Dr. Dan is like, why didn't you tell me about this?

[28:33] And Annie is like, there's nothing between Eddie and me, I promise.

[28:35] And the doctor, being the best person in the movie, is like, I'm not talking about that.

[28:39] I'm talking about this alien goop that you brought into my office.

[28:42] Like, it's like, there's bigger things in the universe right now than your relationship stuff.

[28:46] Like, but, like, don't be like, I'm sorry, I buried the lead that I ran into my old boyfriend.

[28:53] There's an alien in my office!

[28:56] They take, for some reason, the henchmen, instead of killing Eddie in the controlled,

[28:59] oh, so, so Drake's now got his own symbiote, Riot.

[29:01] Riot looks kind of like he's a kind of medley, and he can turn his hands into big carnage saws.

[29:06] Instead of executing Eddie in the controlled confines of the lab,

[29:09] they take him out into the woods, Miller's Crossing style.

[29:12] I guess to make it look like a bear attacked him?

[29:14] Or one of the escaped chimps from the first Planet of the Apes movie?

Dan McCoy

[29:17] Yeah, a bear attacked him with the guns they're going to use to shoot him.

Elliott Kalan

[29:21] Hey, I guess it's the right to bear arms.

[29:25] Yes!

[29:25] And I love someone in the audience said no before I said it.

[29:28] When you said no, I only wanted to do it more.

[29:32] Okay, so, of course he's not going to get killed, because the Venom symbiote shows up.

[29:36] Wait, who's the host?

[29:38] It's Annie.

[29:38] She's She-Venom.

[29:39] She bites the lead henchman's head off, because, again, heroic actions.

[29:45] Although she might eat the whole body.

[29:46] The body just kind of disappears, like it's a double dragon game.

[29:49] So maybe she just swallowed the whole thing down in one gulp.

[29:51] Which leads me to wonder, where did the mass of that man's body go

[29:54] when it entered the body of a much smaller person?

[29:56] And then the suit, she gives Eddie a pretty deep soul kiss,

[30:00] which the symbiote uses to move back onto Eddie.

Stuart Wellington

[30:02] Yeah, and it basically looks like Eddie and Venom are making out,

[30:05] which is kind of cool.

Dan McCoy

[30:07] I mean, it's like...

[30:08] That is the part that people on the internet have frozen, I'm sure,

[30:11] and watched over and over.

[30:13] I would be surprised if there's not a gif of that out there in the world.

Elliott Kalan

[30:17] I wouldn't.

[30:17] Yeah, I bet it makes sense.

[30:19] If you're looking for someone to argue with that proposition, I will not.

Stuart Wellington

[30:24] So they pretty quickly at this point go from running away from the bad guys

[30:28] not knowing what's going on to immediately deciding to save the world.

Elliott Kalan

[30:31] Yes, Venom is like...

[30:32] They take it all in stride.

[30:33] The Venom symbiote is like,

[30:34] Riot wants to send a spaceship out to get more symbiotes and bring it back to Earth.

[30:37] You know what?

[30:38] Among the symbiotes, I'm kind of a loser, just like you're a loser among humans.

[30:42] Wait, its name is Riot?

Stuart Wellington

[30:43] Is that an alien name?

[30:47] Is that a translation from symbiol?

Elliott Kalan

[30:51] I mean, in the comics, they were named by...

[30:54] I mean, comic creators who were trying to knock off Venom.

[30:56] But like...

[30:57] So that's like Toxin is another one of the symbiotes.

Dan McCoy

[30:59] Poison powers or no poison?

Elliott Kalan

[31:01] No.

[31:01] And there's one called like Fage or Phage.

[31:04] Not like the yogurt.

[31:05] Oh.

[31:06] Like a virus.

[31:07] So like...

[31:08] But it's weird that the aliens already gave themselves these names.

Stuart Wellington

[31:09] I mean, the yogurt would be more appropriate based on what they look like.

Elliott Kalan

[31:12] I guess...

[31:13] Eh, good point.

[31:13] And there's little bits of fruit at the bottom.

[31:15] So, you know.

[31:17] I imagine that the symbiotes are like,

[31:19] This is my tag.

[31:21] My name's Percival, but you can call me Riot.

[31:23] You know?

[31:24] So, and it's one of...

[31:26] What I was waiting for was...

[31:28] I wanted a moment where Tom Hardy goes,

[31:31] I'm not...

[31:32] We can't save the world.

[31:33] I'm not like a superhero.

[31:34] And I wanted them to say,

[31:35] I can't do it.

[31:36] And you can't do it.

[31:38] But we can do it.

[31:39] And that would have been like...

[31:40] The one moment where I've been like,

[31:41] Okay.

[31:41] Elliot would have started crying.

[31:42] I know.

[31:43] Because I'm a big fan of any movie.

[31:45] Like when we watch the Power Rangers movie,

[31:46] I'm like,

[31:46] Any movie that's about people having to work together to achieve a goal?

[31:50] I'm like,

[31:50] Yes!

[31:51] Definitely!

[31:52] That's why I love The Martian.

[31:53] It's a movie with no villain that's all about how people need to work together

[31:56] to save Matt Damon's stupid ass from Mars.

[31:59] So anyway.

[32:00] Because he's too busy growing potatoes.

[32:02] It's not only his fault.

Dan McCoy

[32:03] He's trapped on Mars.

[32:04] I mean,

[32:04] that was an accident.

Elliott Kalan

[32:05] He could have had the decency to try to jump really far to get back to Earth.

[32:09] Okay.

[32:11] Like John Carter?

[32:13] Yeah,

[32:13] exactly.

[32:13] Yeah.

[32:14] So,

[32:15] but instead they don't have that.

[32:17] It's just like,

[32:18] All right,

[32:18] I guess we're saving the world.

[32:20] And this movie feels so 80s in that way,

[32:22] where it's like,

[32:23] the characters are just like,

[32:24] All right,

[32:25] I guess we're heroes now.

Dan McCoy

[32:26] And also the movie doesn't not really give Venom that much of a motivation for suddenly wanting to save the world.

[32:34] It's not like the movie's like,

[32:35] Oh,

[32:36] you know,

[32:36] he's bonded so much with Eddie that he's gotten human.

[32:39] Or like Venom's like,

[32:40] Oh,

[32:40] you guys have pizza down here.

[32:41] I really love pizza.

Elliott Kalan

[32:42] I needed that scene where Venom eats like human food and is like,

[32:45] Oh,

[32:45] I like this.

[32:46] Instead,

[32:46] the closest we get is they climb to the top of a tall building and Venom's like,

[32:50] It's pretty beautiful around here.

[32:51] I guess I didn't see that before.

[32:53] It's like,

[32:53] I guess it is.

[32:54] But so the symbiote has the same aesthetic ideas about a lit up city at night that we do.

Stuart Wellington

[32:58] Like what?

[32:59] And based on the voice,

[33:00] I think you would really like cookies because he sounds like Cookie Monster.

Elliott Kalan

[33:04] Now,

[33:04] are you suggesting that Cookie Monster is a symbiote on a host Muppet?

[33:08] Better yet,

Dan McCoy

[33:08] are you suggesting that all people with the same voice have the same tastes?

Stuart Wellington

[33:12] I mean,

[33:14] I think a little bit of both,

[33:15] right guys?

[33:16] Has anyone checked on Gritty if Gritty likes cookies?

Elliott Kalan

[33:20] I would have to assume that Gritty loves cookies.

[33:23] Has anyone checked on Gritty?

[33:24] Is he doing all right?

[33:25] I'm worried about him.

[33:26] I'm worried about Gritty.

[33:27] His wife left him.

[33:28] Guys,

[33:28] we need to talk about Gritty.

[33:31] I mean,

[33:31] I assume that Gritty enjoys every form of vice.

[33:34] He's basically like all the worst aspects of Philadelphia in one adorable character.

[33:40] Gritty is like,

[33:41] there's nothing he can do.

[33:42] Like,

[33:42] I feel like if he rubbed a bank,

[33:44] we'd be like,

[33:44] that's our Gritty.

Stuart Wellington

[33:45] Yeah.

[33:46] Antifa mascot Gritty.

Elliott Kalan

[33:49] So,

[33:50] they're like,

[33:50] Riot is launching a spaceship to his alien planet.

[33:54] And one of his workers in the control room is about to abort the launch because I guess he realizes his boss is evil.

[34:00] Riot reacts poorly to this and kills everybody there.

[34:02] Suddenly,

[34:03] Venom and Riot are fighting on top of like the catwalk near this rocket ship,

[34:07] which is like,

[34:07] wait a minute,

[34:08] so is Riot going to get in the ship after he launched it?

[34:10] Like,

[34:10] I don't understand.

[34:11] Riot has also all these hand axes.

[34:13] This is a big CGI monster fight until it's just like two humans engulfed in liquid goop that are fighting each other.

[34:18] And this part.

[34:19] That looked pretty cool.

[34:20] It was pretty cool.

[34:21] So,

[34:21] it's like,

[34:22] oh yeah,

[34:22] okay,

[34:22] they're making the most of these guys being made out of goop until Annie blasts them with feedback from the speakers mounted around the rocket ship so the rocket ship could listen to the final countdown to get pumped for the flight.

[34:33] Yup.

Stuart Wellington

[34:36] And there's,

[34:36] so,

[34:37] their symbiotes are blasted off of them and the two guys just start fighting again,

[34:42] which I was kind of bummed by.

[34:43] I was kind of hoping that they would have been like,

[34:45] oh,

[34:45] we don't get our things anymore.

[34:46] Oh,

[34:47] let's just run away.

[34:48] It turns into the Iron Man 3 of Venom.

Dan McCoy

[34:50] Or they just like start slapping each other.

Elliott Kalan

[34:52] I mean,

[34:53] that would be great if they're like,

[34:54] eh,

[34:54] ow,

[34:55] ugh.

[34:55] But instead they,

[34:56] I guess they learned how to fight from the,

[34:57] from the symbiotes.

[34:58] All this time they thought they were teaching Riot.

[35:00] Riot was teaching us.

[35:01] Anyway,

[35:02] Drake stabs Venomless Eddie,

[35:04] but Venom,

[35:04] the Venom suit saves him.

[35:05] And they kind of do what Jason Statham does in the Meg.

[35:09] When Jason Statham uses the,

[35:10] the edge of his wave underwater glider to cut open the belly of the Meg,

[35:14] spoiler alert,

[35:15] where Venom's like,

[35:16] you just stabbed me with this giant symbiote axe.

[35:19] I'm just going to jump down the rocket ship and scrape down a big hole until it explodes,

[35:23] which happens.

[35:25] The Riot is blown up.

[35:26] The spaceship's blown up.

[35:27] San Francisco,

[35:28] I assume,

[35:28] deals with a spaceship blowing up right,

[35:31] right outside the city limits.

[35:33] And the Venom symbiote appears to die while saving Eddie in the form of a parachute,

[35:37] because at this point it has gone full plastic man,

[35:40] and just,

[35:41] just,

[35:41] and it should have that voice that you were,

[35:43] what would it sound like when he's saving?

[35:45] Whee!

Stuart Wellington

[35:47] So we then,

[35:48] we then cut to a funeral where Tom Hardy's burying a shoebox that had them.

Elliott Kalan

[35:52] I wish!

[35:53] That would be so great!

Stuart Wellington

[35:54] But he's burying him in the pet cemetery.

Elliott Kalan

[35:56] Oh no!

[35:58] That's insulting.

[35:59] It was more than a pet.

[36:00] It was a lover.

[36:02] But,

[36:03] there's a scene where,

[36:04] it is implied that the Venom symbiote takes on a dog as a host body to escape from a hospital,

[36:08] and we never see that dog use Venom powers,

[36:10] and it's like,

[36:11] what goddamn movie did you think you were making?

[36:13] Yeah,

[36:14] yeah,

[36:14] at that point we're like,

[36:15] are we watching The Mask again?

[36:19] Somebody stop it!

[36:22] It's bad enough that they teased a lovable cat named Mr. Belvedere,

[36:25] and gave him barely,

[36:26] I assume that all his scenes are on the cutting room floor,

[36:30] but,

[36:30] so,

[36:31] I imagine they ran the test,

[36:32] they're like,

[36:32] we ran some audience tests on this dog,

[36:34] Venom,

[36:35] when,

[36:35] as soon as the symbiote leaves the dog and goes back to a human,

[36:38] the test scores plummet.

[36:40] Eddie and Annie are talking on Eddie's stoop,

[36:42] and Annie says the immortal line,

[36:44] I'm sorry about Venom,

[36:45] which is amazing.

[36:49] To be fair,

Dan McCoy

[36:51] what do you say to a man who's lost a symbiote?

Elliott Kalan

[36:53] You say,

[36:54] I'm sorry about Venom,

[36:55] but it's just so funny that Venom is,

[36:56] like,

[36:56] not even,

[36:57] I'm sorry about,

[36:58] like,

[36:58] if she was like,

[36:58] I'm sorry about your thing,

[37:00] but it's like,

[37:01] we're all buddies with Venom now.

Dan McCoy

[37:03] We all have a little Venom inside of us.

Elliott Kalan

[37:06] Especially Eddie,

[37:06] because it turns out,

[37:07] Venom's not dead,

[37:09] Venom's living on inside Eddie,

[37:10] and Venom's like,

[37:11] Eddie,

[37:11] we need to get back together with Annie.

[37:13] She's the right one for us.

[37:14] And it's like,

[37:15] let it go.

[37:18] She's happy now.

[37:19] She's happy.

[37:19] She has a better match.

[37:21] Eddie is a slime ball,

[37:23] essentially.

Stuart Wellington

[37:24] I don't know,

[37:24] man.

[37:25] I think,

[37:25] like,

[37:25] in the right circumstances,

[37:27] a thruple could work.

Elliott Kalan

[37:29] This is a real unicorn situation,

[37:31] where the threesome partner is a symbiote?

[37:33] Well,

Elliott Kalan

[37:33] yeah,

[37:34] I think so.

[37:35] But it's also,

[37:36] it's like,

[37:36] symbiote,

[37:36] don't be a creep.

[37:37] Like,

[37:38] let her move on with her life.

[37:39] There's other fish in the sea.

[37:40] You know that Venom's gonna be standing outside her window

[37:42] with that boom box,

[37:43] blasting that Venom song in the credits

[37:46] that just goes,

[37:46] Venom,

[37:47] Venom,

[37:47] Venom.

[37:49] There's a brief Stanley cameo,

[37:51] rest in peace.

[37:51] It was wonderful to see him,

[37:53] even though the cameo's kind of dumb,

[37:54] because he's like,

[37:54] you guys are both gonna be good.

[37:56] Wink.

[37:56] It's like,

[37:57] so Stanley knows that he's got a Venom inside of him.

[38:00] By this point,

Dan McCoy

[38:00] the movie is surely over,

[38:01] right,

[38:01] Elliot?

[38:02] It seems like everything's been wrapped up in a tiny little Venom bow.

Elliott Kalan

[38:05] Sure seems like it,

[38:06] but first we gotta see Eddie walk down the street,

[38:08] talking to Venom about how,

[38:09] okay,

[38:09] we'll eat some people,

[38:10] but only bad people.

[38:12] They go back to the bodega,

[38:13] the guy from earlier shows up,

[38:14] and threatens the owner.

[38:16] Venom shows up,

[38:17] and he's like,

[38:17] you ever come back here and do this?

[38:19] And if you ever come back,

[38:20] I'm gonna bite off your arms,

[38:21] legs,

[38:21] and your face.

[38:22] And he says,

[38:22] then you'll be just an armless,

[38:24] legless,

[38:24] faceless thing,

[38:25] rolling in the wind like a turd,

[38:26] or something like that.

[38:27] Which is like,

[38:28] that's a powerful wind.

[38:29] Yeah.

[38:30] Those are hurricane force winds,

[38:31] if turds are blowing around.

[38:32] Unless it's been lying around so long,

[38:34] it's just a dried up stick at that point.

[38:36] And then,

[38:38] it's like,

[38:39] he was wasting our time,

[38:40] because he goes,

[38:41] on second thought,

[38:41] and he just eats them anyway.

Dan McCoy

[38:44] He likes to play with his food.

Elliott Kalan

[38:45] He's like,

[38:45] you know what,

[38:46] Eddie,

[38:46] ever since you showed me Princess Bride,

[38:48] I want to do a speech like he gives at the end.

[38:50] And then,

Stuart Wellington

[38:51] And then he just morphs back into Tom Hardy.

[38:54] He shares a quip with the woman who owns the bodega.

Elliott Kalan

[38:57] Who has just seen him turn into a monster and eat a man.

[39:00] Yeah.

[39:00] And she's like,

[39:01] it's a living.

Dan McCoy

[39:03] Like,

[39:03] thanks,

[39:04] I have a headless body to clean up and explain now.

[39:07] Yeah,

Elliott Kalan

[39:07] clean up an aisle everywhere.

[39:09] Oh,

[39:09] shit.

[39:13] You know,

[39:14] Eddie's just like,

[39:14] and I'll take this five hour energy drink too,

[39:16] glug.

[39:18] The credits start rolling.

[39:19] Is there a mid credit scene?

[39:20] Of course there is.

[39:21] We gotta,

[39:22] we gotta start the sequel already.

[39:24] Eddie rides his motorcycle to San Quentin.

[39:26] He's been chosen by a serial killer to be interviewed,

[39:28] to interview him at this high security prison,

[39:30] which,

[39:31] I don't know what San,

[39:31] I mean,

[39:32] I listen to Ear Hustle.

[39:32] I don't know if San Quentin is really,

[39:34] like it says on the podcast,

[39:35] but they make it seem like it's a medieval fortress,

[39:37] so they keep people.

[39:38] And the serial killer,

[39:40] it's Cletus Cassidy,

[39:41] as played by Woody Harrelson in,

[39:43] would you call it a little orphan Annie or a Ronald McDonald wig?

Dan McCoy

[39:47] Yeah,

[39:48] it's weird.

[39:49] I,

[39:49] I would not have chosen a famously bald person for this role.

[39:54] Cause it's just like extra heightens.

[39:56] It extra heightens how ridiculous that hair looks.

[39:58] I mean,

Elliott Kalan

[39:59] at that point,

[39:59] to be honest,

[40:00] no one resembles Cletus Cassidy more physically than Carrot Top.

[40:03] So like,

[40:03] throw him in the movie.

[40:05] He would be really good at it.

[40:06] I assume they got Woody Harrelson because,

[40:08] Cletus Cassidy is a Southern boy,

[40:10] but,

[40:10] and that's what Woody Harrelson plays for the most part.

[40:12] But it's what's,

[40:13] I'm like,

[40:14] okay,

[40:14] in the comics,

[40:15] Eddie Brock is blonde.

[40:16] Here he's played by Brunette,

[40:17] Tom Hardy.

[40:17] I don't care.

[40:18] That's fine.

[40:19] So why does Woody Harrelson's hair have to be the same as Carnage's?

[40:22] Cause he looks ridiculous.

[40:23] And he goes,

[40:24] and Woody Harrelson's like,

[40:25] look,

[40:25] we could play our little serial killer cat and mouse mind game game,

[40:28] but let's not do that.

[40:29] This is after we've seen him already write,

[40:31] welcome Eddie in his own blood on the wall of his cell.

[40:33] And he goes,

[40:34] let me just tell you this.

[40:34] If I get out,

[40:35] there's going to be Carnage and it's like,

[40:38] and then cut to the rest of the credits.

[40:40] wait a minute.

[40:40] Yeah.

[40:41] So he's saying,

[40:41] Porky Pig shows up.

[40:44] Like,

[40:44] but eat,

[40:44] but eat that shoehorned in folks.

[40:47] It's such a,

[40:48] and like,

[40:48] he needs to say Carnage so that people know,

[40:50] oh,

[40:50] it's going to be Carnage in the next movie.

[40:52] Cause what other villain does Venom have?

[40:53] Is it going to be the mace?

[40:55] No,

[40:55] nobody remembers that character.

[40:56] Even though the series he was in was called Venom,

[40:59] the mace anyway.

[41:00] So that's for the real Ven heads out there.

[41:02] That's for the real V boys.

[41:04] The real Venmos.

[41:05] Venmos.

[41:07] Do you think there was,

[41:08] do you think there should have been a scene where some like tech startup douche was like walking along and he heard him saying,

[41:14] we are Venom.

[41:15] And he was like,

[41:15] Venom,

[41:16] Venmo.

[41:17] That's what I'll call my payment app.

[41:19] That's what I'll call my app that makes it so people don't ever have cash on them and homeless people die of starvation.

[41:24] Cause they don't get money.

Dan McCoy

[41:26] Come on.

[41:26] Jesus.

[41:27] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[41:27] Cause I'm the one who's doing that.

[41:30] I'm for a cash full society.

[41:32] So,

[41:32] but anyway,

[41:32] but it's like what,

[41:33] what Cleese Cassidy is saying is don't let me out.

[41:36] Basically.

[41:37] It's not a,

[41:38] it's a weird message for him to deliver in an interview.

[41:40] Here's my message to the world.

[41:42] Keep me in prison.

Dan McCoy

[41:44] I am way too dangerous to trust.

Elliott Kalan

[41:47] And then,

[41:47] uh,

[41:48] the credits seem,

[41:49] uh,

[41:49] we looked at the time bar and it was like,

[41:50] how are there 12 minutes of credits after this?

[41:53] It's because they then threw in a scene from into the spider verse to like get you interested in that.

[41:58] what a weird chaser to throw onto the iTunes of Venom is like a scene from a much better movie.

Dan McCoy

[42:03] I think that was in theaters too.

[42:04] From what I understand.

[42:06] I think so.

[42:06] No,

Stuart Wellington

[42:07] that's great.

[42:07] Yeah.

[42:07] That,

[42:08] uh,

[42:08] it's like in that,

[42:09] in reign of fire where they're acting out the scenes from,

[42:12] uh,

[42:12] star Wars and you're like,

[42:13] Oh yeah,

[42:14] I could just be watching star Wars now.

Dan McCoy

[42:17] Uh,

[42:18] yeah.

[42:18] So that's,

[42:19] uh,

[42:19] Venom the movie.

[42:22] Yeah.

[42:23] Uh,

[42:23] we should,

[42:24] uh,

[42:24] give our final judgments on it.

Elliott Kalan

[42:27] What,

[42:27] what not entirely appropriate categories to my emotions are there?

Dan McCoy

[42:31] Okay.

[42:31] Well,

[42:32] our traditional categories are,

[42:33] is this a good,

[42:34] bad movie,

[42:35] a bad,

[42:35] bad movie,

[42:36] or a movie we kind of liked?

[42:38] Uh,

[42:38] Elliot,

[42:39] you seem very,

[42:40] uh,

[42:41] ambivalent.

Elliott Kalan

[42:42] I do.

[42:42] Cause here's the thing.

[42:43] It's not any of those things for me.

[42:45] I didn't,

[42:46] there,

[42:46] there are things I do.

[42:47] What I like in it are the parts that are crazy nut.

[42:50] So,

[42:50] and,

[42:50] but they're like,

[42:51] the action scenes don't really work for me.

[42:54] I couldn't tell if I liked that.

[42:56] It felt like a 1980s action movie where the characters just kind of do whatever based on what the plot needs to do.

[43:01] Or if that bugged me,

[43:02] it's like,

[43:02] I don't need a realistic version of a movie where a guy has a magic costume that gives him spider powers,

[43:08] you know,

[43:08] but,

[43:09] uh,

[43:09] or unless I guess it's a magic ring that gives them,

[43:12] what is it?

[43:12] Flight powers.

[43:13] And that it's a movie version of fortress of solitude by Jonathan Leatham.

[43:15] That'd be pretty cool.

[43:16] It has to be pretty realistic,

[43:16] right?

[43:17] Anyway,

[43:17] forget it.

[43:18] That's,

[43:19] but,

[43:19] uh,

[43:20] but like,

[43:20] I didn't really like it that much because it was like,

[43:22] you know,

[43:23] they made Venom kind of generic and it really bothered me that the Venom character has no learning curve about life on earth.

[43:29] He's just instantly like,

[43:30] cool,

[43:31] party dude.

[43:32] Like,

[43:34] there's a part where,

[43:35] uh,

[43:35] where he's,

[43:36] the first time you really hear him talk a lot,

[43:37] he's like,

[43:38] you're being a wimp.

[43:38] Stop being such a pussy.

[43:40] what the hell is this?

[43:43] So I would say it's not really any of those things.

[43:45] It's not terrible,

[43:46] but it's not amazing like Spider-Man.

Stuart Wellington

[43:49] So yeah,

[43:49] that didn't fit any of the categories.

[43:51] Um,

[43:51] I,

[43:52] I'm going to say this is kind of a,

[43:54] this is a movie I kind of like because Tom,

[43:56] uh,

[43:56] Tom Hardy gives this like crazy performance and yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[44:01] And he's talking to the stuff that I thought I wasn't going to like about it is the stuff that I liked the most about it.

[44:06] It was like,

Dan McCoy

[44:06] Oh God,

[44:07] get me over here.

Elliott Kalan

[44:08] I got it.

[44:09] I got it.

[44:09] I got to jump into this lobster tank and take a bite out of a lobster.

Stuart Wellington

[44:15] Yeah.

[44:15] The face he makes when he's eating that lobster in front of a room full of like snooty old snobs.

[44:21] He showed them.

Elliott Kalan

[44:22] It's a crazy movie in that it should be a movie about a regular guy whose life turns upside down when he gets this alien costume,

[44:28] but his life is already crazy.

[44:30] He's like,

[44:30] it's like a crazy guy gets a crazy costume.

Dan McCoy

[44:34] Uh,

[44:34] Yeah.

[44:34] I kind of liked the movie too.

[44:36] I don't,

[44:36] It's a,

Elliott Kalan

[44:37] you know what?

[44:37] I'll say kind of like also if you guys are going that far,

[44:39] I'll join you on that ledge.

Dan McCoy

[44:40] Yeah.

[44:41] It works best as a,

[44:42] a buddy movie between a weirdo and some goop.

[44:45] And,

[44:46] uh,

[44:46] on that level,

[44:47] I really enjoyed it.

S4

[44:53] We are so thrilled at your interest in attending Hieronymus Wiggenstaff's School for Heroism and Villainy.

[45:00] Wiggenstaff's beautiful campus boasts state-of-the-art facilities and instructors with real-world experience.

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S5

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S6

[45:45] I listen to Bullseye because Jesse always has really good questions.

S8

[45:49] What did John Malkovich wear when he was 20?

[45:53] I don't know how to describe it.

[45:55] There's always that moment where Jesse asks a question that the person he's interviewing has not thought of before.

[46:02] I don't think anyone's ever said that to me or acknowledged that to me and that is so real.

[46:07] Bullseye!

[46:08] Interviews with creators you love and creators you need to know.

[46:12] From MaximumFun.org and NPR.

S5

[46:16] Hey there family of flop.

[46:18] It's Dan here with his patented solo ad reads.

[46:22] This is a live show so we did not know at the time who would be kind enough to sponsor us.

[46:27] So I come in like some sort of post-production soup.

[46:32] I don't want to say superhero.

[46:33] Just regular hero is enough to tell you about products and services and jumbotrons and such.

[46:39] I almost forgot that I had to do this.

[46:41] It's been a while since we put up a live show but we thought let's give us a break for the Thanksgiving holiday.

[46:47] So we can all, you know, instead of sitting in front of microphones we can stuff our faces with turkey.

[46:54] Or whatever my vegan brother's family is going to serve me this year.

[47:01] The Flophouse is brought to you in part by Casper.

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[48:23] Hey guys.

[48:24] You hear that?

[48:25] Do you hear any of this stuff?

[48:26] There's a party going upstairs.

[48:29] And I'm hearing a lot of chatter.

[48:32] A lot of knockabout noises from above.

[48:35] But you know what?

[48:36] That's what happens when you don't have a studio.

[48:40] So please continue to donate to MaximumFun.org and buy us a studio.

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[48:48] But thank you for everyone who does donate.

[48:49] Hey guys.

[48:51] Okay.

[48:51] Well, that was a noise from Messenger.

[48:56] From my girlfriend asking me whether I'm done with what I was doing before.

[49:01] So that's useful for you.

[49:04] That bell noise.

[49:06] Hey.

[49:08] There's a Jumbostron.

[49:10] Jumbostron.

[49:11] Jumbotron here.

[49:12] It wants you to check out Wishlist Wildermith on Steam.

[49:18] Or maybe it's Wishlist Wildermith.

[49:21] It is spelled Wilder like Gene Wilder Myth.

[49:25] But maybe it's Wildermith.

[49:26] Who knows?

[49:28] Wildermith is a new game on Steam that captures the spirit of Dungeons and Dragons.

[49:33] You know what?

[49:34] It's probably Wilder Myth, right?

[49:36] If it's a Dungeons and Dragons thing, let's just...

[49:38] Wilder Myth is a new game on Steam that captures the spirit of Dungeons and Dragons and other

[49:43] tabletop RPGs.

[49:46] It is a myth-making tactical RPG different every time you play.

[49:51] Customize your heroes.

[49:53] They grow old.

[49:54] Transform relationships.

[49:55] Transform and make sacrifices.

[49:58] For a second, I read that as make sandwiches, which they probably do as well.

[50:02] Then they go into your legacy to be used in the next game.

[50:07] So check out Wishlist Wildermith on Steam.

[50:13] There's one other Jumbotron.

[50:16] Containment Wall 15 is a novel Red in Blood and Tape.

[50:26] Set after a zombie-like pandemic has been brought under control, but at a high cost.

[50:38] There's one other Jumbotron.com.

[50:50] A study in the next one.

[50:51] A study in what it is to live on after death.

[50:54] It also features a small reference to the best podcast ever.

[50:58] Well, I'm sure Roman Mars will be very happy about your 99% invisible reference.

[51:06] But buy this.

[51:07] Containment Wall 15 and other works by Simon M. Greaves as paperback or e-book from Amazon.

[51:17] Look, I don't need to waste your time any longer.

[51:20] That's the ad section.

[51:22] Deal with it.

Dan McCoy

[51:23] And now, back to the show.

[51:25] But let's not belabor anything because we only have, as I said before, limited time here.

[51:30] Okay, yes.

[51:31] So let's keep moving.

Elliott Kalan

[51:32] Why are you pausing?

[51:34] Again, your answer to having limited time is to talk slower.

Dan McCoy

[51:41] So we have maybe 15, maybe 20 minutes to talk to the audience, take questions, which is something we like to do at live shows.

[51:49] So there's a microphone right here if people want to come down and have a question.

[51:55] And we'll do it for as long as we can.

Elliott Kalan

[51:56] Because it's on to questions, on to questions.

[52:00] Ask us questions now.

[52:03] Ask us questions.

[52:05] Ask us questions.

[52:06] I don't know how the rest of the song goes.

Dan McCoy

[52:11] All right.

[52:12] That was a much shorter question song than you usually get.

S6

[52:16] Hi.

[52:17] I'm Lauren, last name withheld.

[52:19] Hello.

[52:19] Thanks for coming to the show.

[52:20] Oh, thank you for being here, especially when it's an ice ball.

[52:25] So this is a question inspired by my favorite scene in the movie, which was Eddie Brock listening to an

[52:32] Eckhart Tolle meditation.

[52:34] Oh, yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[52:35] He wants to meditate, but his neighbor's playing his guitar too darn loud.

S6

[52:39] And then he eats the neighbor or whatever.

[52:41] But, like, Eckhart Tolle in a Venom movie just made me just so unexpectedly happy.

[52:49] What sort of weird real-life cultural artifacts just showing up into a fantastic movie like that have sort of, like, given you a little, like, ooh, yay.

Dan McCoy

[53:02] I'm going to vamp by talking for a while about not this question because it looks like Elliot is thinking.

[53:12] I am.

[53:13] And so.

[53:14] Thinking about.

[53:16] How about this weather?

Elliott Kalan

[53:17] Cold enough for you?

[53:18] I think for me it's like, I think something like that was in the movie Twelve Monkeys when they go and they watch Vertigo.

[53:25] And it's like, oh, like this scene from Vertigo.

[53:28] She's not talking about time travel.

[53:29] She's talking about reincarnation.

[53:31] But it fits what's going on in the movie so well.

[53:33] This is where I lived and this is where I died and all that.

[53:35] Like, I was like, Terry, you found a new way to use a great scene.

[53:39] You know, I really liked that a lot.

[53:40] And that they didn't just go into, like, a random movie for a made-up movie or something like that.

Stuart Wellington

[53:45] I think I have an answer.

[53:48] And it's.

[53:49] It's not the Cheddar Goblin.

Elliott Kalan

[53:50] That's not a real thing, Stuart.

Stuart Wellington

[53:53] And I remember watching The 40-Year-Old Virgin and there's, you know, it's this, like, silly, gross-out comedy.

[54:01] But then they cut to shots of Steve Carell painting little Games Workshop writers of Rohirrim.

[54:07] I'm like, oh, that's a pretty cool movie.

[54:10] That's a cool series hobby to paint tiny little plastic soldiers.

Elliott Kalan

[54:13] I had the exact opposite experience with 40-year-old Virgin because he's supposed to be, like, a real comic book fan.

[54:17] He has framed comics on the walls.

[54:19] And they are all new comics that are worth nothing.

[54:21] And I was like, I'm like, Steve, did you write or draw that book?

[54:25] Because why are you framing that?

[54:26] It's worth $3.

Dan McCoy

[54:29] And I have no answer.

[54:31] Thank you very much for your question.

S12

[54:37] Hello.

[54:38] Hello.

Dan McCoy

[54:38] My name is John Charles.

S12

[54:39] Last name was held.

[54:41] I have a sort of Spider-Man adjacent question.

[54:43] Awesome.

[54:44] As Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse proved for us, audience are absolutely ready for a movie in which we can watch, what, like, five, six different versions of the same character on screen at the same time.

[54:52] Not get confused.

[54:53] Not get lost.

[54:54] So, it was up to y'all.

S7

[54:55] If you could make a movie and have as many characters of a specific actor on screen at one time as possible, which actor would you make a movie around?

[55:03] Sherlock Holmes.

Dan McCoy

[55:05] There have been so many Sherlock Holmes, and I want all of them in the same movie.

[55:11] Fair.

[55:11] Very fair.

[55:12] Yeah.

[55:13] And they're, like, I wonder if they would, like, all, like, come to the same conclusion at the exact same time, or...

Elliott Kalan

[55:19] No, I love the idea of one where they are actively competing, and they each get a chance to outsmart the other ones, but the last clue Watson figures out.

[55:26] And then you open the door, and there's ten Watsons all working on the clue.

[55:33] Actor specifically or character?

[55:35] Whichever comes.

[55:36] I mean, I want to see a movie where every character Nicolas Cage played is together.

[55:40] Like, Ghost Rider's in there.

[55:43] Wild at Heart is in there.

[55:44] Leaving Las Vegas is in there.

[55:46] Mandy's in there.

[55:47] Honeymoon in Vegas is in there.

[55:48] Like, they're all raising Arizona's in there.

[55:50] All of them.

[55:51] Or Godzilla.

[55:51] Every Godzilla.

[55:52] I mean, there's that scene in Godzilla Final Wars when he goes up against the American Godzilla, and he just destroys him in 20 seconds, but...

Dan McCoy

[55:58] Sorry, I was just, I was still fantasizing about my Sherlock Holmes movie.

[56:02] I was imagining a scene where Jeremy Brett, perhaps my favorite, and maybe the most true-to-the-books Sherlock Holmes, like, competes with Sherlock gnomes.

[56:16] It's like, what is this thing I have to deal with?

Elliott Kalan

[56:18] Unless it would be like, Basil Rathbone is in black and white.

[56:21] I think, uh...

[56:21] Jeremy Brett, Brandon Cumberbatch, and Sherlock gnomes, and, like, the great master detective.

Stuart Wellington

[56:24] Yeah, Sherlock gnomes is the most true to the book, right?

[56:26] Yeah.

[56:27] Because he's a garden gnome.

Elliott Kalan

[56:29] And then, are they...

[56:30] And as this...

Stuart Wellington

[56:31] That's what the books are about, right?

[56:32] Is garden gnomes?

Elliott Kalan

[56:34] And they're going after what, Jack?

[56:35] Like in Sherlock gnomes?

Stuart Wellington

[56:37] What do you think, guys?

[56:38] And he's animator.

[56:39] Anyway, what about you, Stuart?

[56:41] I mean, you took mine.

[56:42] He's at Nicholas Cage.

[56:43] Oh, sorry.

Elliott Kalan

[56:44] Because it's the only answer, Sherlock gnomes.

[56:47] Thank you very much for the question.

[56:48] Thank you, PJ.

[56:48] Thanks for coming.

S7

[56:53] Hello.

[56:54] Grinch McFacebook name withheld.

[56:56] Okay.

[56:57] So, King John Hodgpin, Dr. Thornopus, the Green Jordan, and, I guess, the Stafford McElroys,

[57:06] require a particle accelerator and then remove the three of you from this universe.

[57:09] Okay.

[57:10] My children!

[57:12] They'll grow up without a father!

[57:14] Which alternate versions of yourself come through the rift to help Flopper Halley teach young

[57:19] Jubin Morales how to use his powers for good?

Dan McCoy

[57:23] Well, I'm already the divorced kind of fat version of myself.

[57:30] Yeah.

[57:31] So, I wouldn't be played by Jake Johnson.

[57:34] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[57:35] I'd probably be played by, I guess, like a late 70s Harrison Ford.

[57:40] Okay.

[57:41] And that's pretty, like a super cool kind of space pirate me, you know?

[57:45] I mean, I'm basically Spider-Ham, so I don't know whether, there was, I went to see In the

[57:49] Spider-Verse with two friends of mine and while Spider-Man was talking for the first time, one of them turned to me and went, he's you!

[57:57] Thank you, Seth.

[57:57] His name was Seth, that friend of mine.

Stuart Wellington

[57:59] And I think I'd want to be played by martial arts movie villain Bolo Young.

[58:05] Because he's got that, like, you know, that, like, coolness and toughness that I exude.

[58:11] What do you think, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[58:13] Yeah.

[58:14] Like, I said who I wouldn't be.

[58:15] I don't know who I would be.

[58:18] Yeah, I'd like to be, like, what if there was, like, a nice, like, Muppet version of myself?

[58:23] That would be pretty cool.

[58:24] I could say that, yeah, sure.

[58:26] Yeah.

[58:27] Just like a, like a New Zealand type.

Elliott Kalan

[58:29] So you're a fish-throwing Muppet?

[58:31] I'm a fish-throwing podcaster.

[58:31] That no one really likes?

[58:33] That was when my son was learning all the Muppets, there were the few where it was like, what's this?

[58:38] He's like, who's this?

[58:39] And I'm like, he's New Zealand.

[58:40] Like, don't even get me started.

[58:41] Like, he's got a Shakespearean rough and he throws fish.

Dan McCoy

[58:44] I was hoping that you'd be older before I had to explain New Zealand to you.

Elliott Kalan

[58:49] And this prawn?

[58:50] Let's wait.

[58:51] Let's wait on the prawn.

[58:52] Thank you.

[58:53] I hope that goes somewhere towards answering the question.

[58:55] Thank you.

[58:57] Okay, let's keep it moving.

[58:58] Let's keep it moving.

[58:59] Come on, Badgers.

S8

[59:00] All right.

[59:00] My name's Matt.

[59:01] Last name withheld.

[59:02] First, I gotta say, it's my birthday today and I drove six hours to get here.

[59:06] It's Matt's birthday!

[59:07] Happy birthday!

[59:08] Happy birthday!

[59:09] Woo!

[59:11] Just kidding.

[59:11] My girlfriend drove me here, so she's awesome.

[59:14] Woo!

[59:14] Matt's girlfriend's awesome!

[59:15] Now, we've been talking a lot about Venom and I know you guys are experts with comic books,

[59:19] so I decided to ask you a question about Dungeons & Dragons.

[59:23] Sure, this one's directed for Dan, Dungeons & Dragons fan.

[59:27] So, I'm a high school teacher.

[59:28] I have a Dungeons & Dragons club after school, so it's very difficult to teach all day and then

[59:33] come up with a D&D campaign, like, right after school.

[59:36] So, what movies can I steal plots from?

[59:41] And not Harry Potter.

[59:42] Don't give me the obvious ones.

Stuart Wellington

[59:43] Uh-huh.

[59:44] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[59:44] I mean, basically any Vin Diesel movie.

[59:46] Uh-huh.

[59:46] That's true.

[59:48] Uh-huh.

[59:48] I don't know, like, Dragon Slayer.

[59:52] You know, do something not fantasy, Stu.

[59:56] Come on.

[59:57] You know, like, the plot of Little Miss Sunshine, right?

[59:58] Yeah.

[59:58] You know, like, the plot of Little Miss Sunshine.

[59:58] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[59:58] Yeah.

[59:59] Yeah.

[1:00:00] You know, like, the plot of The Little Miss Sunshine.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:00] Yeah.

[1:00:01] Yeah.

[1:00:02] Uh-huh.

[1:00:03] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:03] Uh, Bohemian Rhapsody.

[1:00:05] All right.

[1:00:06] Uh-huh.

[1:00:07] He's just going through the Oscar nominees now.

[1:00:08] Uh-huh.

[1:00:09] Oh, no.

[1:00:10] Uh, Venom.

[1:00:11] Venom.

[1:00:12] Uh-huh.

[1:00:13] Trouble with the curve.

[1:00:14] Uh-huh.

[1:00:15] Uh-huh.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:16] Dan in real life.

[1:00:19] Uh-huh.

[1:00:20] All about Steve.

[1:00:21] Uh-huh.

[1:00:22] Margo at the wedding.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:23] I mean, like, the plot of Little Miss Sunshine would make a good D&D adventure.

[1:00:28] Uh-huh.

S8

[1:00:29] Uh-huh.

[1:00:30] Those are all things that high school students are motivated to do in a fantasy game that they

[1:00:35] take their time to do.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:36] So, yeah.

[1:00:37] Okay.

[1:00:38] Is it about, like, uh, stew?

[1:00:41] I mean, it is.

[1:00:42] Uh-huh.

[1:00:43] Uh-huh.

[1:00:44] Uh-huh.

[1:00:45] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:46] I don't know, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:49] Baby geniuses.

[1:00:50] Baby geniuses one and two.

[1:00:51] Okay.

[1:00:52] Yeah.

[1:00:54] We got it.

[1:00:55] Perfect answer.

[1:00:56] Wow.

[1:00:57] We let you down on your birthday so hard.

[1:00:58] You're like, that was not worth the drive.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:01] The gentleman in the great Sluggo is lit t-shirt.

[1:01:04] Thank you.

S9

[1:01:05] My name's Anthony.

[1:01:07] Last name withheld.

[1:01:08] So we all know that Stuart has two dishes named after him.

[1:01:11] Uh-huh.

[1:01:12] Beef stew and beef wellington.

[1:01:13] Uh-huh.

[1:01:14] Yep.

[1:01:15] Correct.

[1:01:16] So, Dan and Elliot, my question is, if you guys had food items named after yourselves,

[1:01:19] what would they be?

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:20] I mean, I live in Los Angeles, so it would be something with kale in...

[1:01:24] It would be some kind of, like, kale in salad, probably.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:27] Dan?

[1:01:28] Does it have to be a pun, or, like, does it...

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:29] I mean, if it's named after me, it should have my name in it somewhere.

[1:01:33] No, it's fried Elliot, and it's me, and they deep fry me.

[1:01:37] And I'm dead.

[1:01:38] And once again, my children don't have a father.

[1:01:40] Yeah.

[1:01:41] You're right.

[1:01:42] Thanks, Dan.

[1:01:43] Thanks, Dan.

[1:01:46] No, that was such a dumb question.

[1:01:48] You're like, does the food named after me have to have my name in it?

[1:01:55] Or can I just pick, like, a Reuben, which is someone else's name?

Dan McCoy

[1:02:00] No, but it doesn't have to be a pun.

[1:02:01] You can, like, name an existing food after yourself.

[1:02:04] It doesn't, like...

[1:02:05] Beef Wellington is just, like, a food named after Wellington.

[1:02:09] It's not like...

[1:02:10] It's a pun on something else.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:13] I didn't know that was one of the rules, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:17] Because if it doesn't have to be...

[1:02:18] Like, I can't think of a good food pun.

[1:02:20] That's all I'm saying.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:21] What happens if you get this wrong, Dan?

[1:02:22] Are you gonna go to jail?

[1:02:25] What's wrong with you?

[1:02:27] Is it gonna take your tongue away?

[1:02:28] You'll never eat food again?

[1:02:29] Just say personal Dan pizza and move on.

S8

[1:02:43] Hi.

[1:02:44] Hello.

[1:02:45] Brady, last name withheld.

[1:02:46] So the conversation earlier about the Venom Dog

[1:02:50] and how much better of a movie this would have been if it happened

[1:02:53] made me think, what other movies would benefit from a quirky animal companion?

[1:02:58] Oh.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:59] Well, not Oh Heavenly Dog, because that already has Chevy Chase as a dog.

[1:03:04] So that one's taken.

[1:03:06] Beastmaster.

[1:03:07] No, wait.

[1:03:08] Hold on.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:09] The Mask.

[1:03:11] And I'm gonna say...

[1:03:12] Jaws.

[1:03:13] ...movies that would benefit from a quirky animal companion.

[1:03:15] I guess Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis.

[1:03:21] If his real-life dog was like, ah, I think it's probably time to free the slaves now, Abe.

[1:03:27] I mean, I don't know.

[1:03:29] I'm just a dog.

[1:03:30] He talks like that because he's a quirky dog.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:32] What if in my dinner with Andre, Andre Gregory just had like a hamster on the table the whole time?

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:36] That would be wonderful.

[1:03:37] I mean, I did write a sketch for Mystery Science Theater where it is revealed that all the waiters are raptors and Wallace Shawn has to fight the raptors.

[1:03:45] Was that in the show?

[1:03:46] It was in the first season, yeah.

[1:03:47] Okay.

[1:03:48] I didn't make it well.

[1:03:49] Thanks for watching, Dan.

[1:03:50] Best friend, everybody.

[1:03:51] I watched the first five, I think.

[1:03:54] I mean, there were roughly 3,000 hours of content in that season.

[1:03:58] So, yeah.

[1:03:59] My favorite thing, you know, just pick any character and just give him a talking dog.

[1:04:02] And have that talking dog be like a cabbie type character.

[1:04:05] Oh, boy, boss.

[1:04:06] Uh-oh.

[1:04:08] I think we gotta watch out for this Hitler boss.

[1:04:10] And FDR's like, Fala, please.

[1:04:12] It's gonna be okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:13] This is not related to that other than there being a talking dog, but everyone should look up Puchinski.

[1:04:19] Oh, the TV show?

[1:04:20] On the internet.

[1:04:22] Yeah, it's a great failed pilot for a sitcom with a talking dog cop.

[1:04:27] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:28] Well, he's like a ghost of a cop and a dog.

[1:04:30] Ghost of a cop and a dog.

[1:04:31] Yeah.

[1:04:33] And I don't know why it didn't go eight seasons.

[1:04:37] Thank you very much for being here.

[1:04:38] All right, questions.

[1:04:39] Let's do a rapid fire.

[1:04:40] Let's do a...

[1:04:41] Sorry that we're taking so long.

[1:04:42] I want to talk to as many people as possible.

S10

[1:04:43] Awesome.

[1:04:44] Drew, last name withheld.

[1:04:45] And yes, seconded on Puchinski.

[1:04:47] Peter Boyle, by the way, is the talking dog.

[1:04:49] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:50] Oh, wow.

S10

[1:04:51] Rest in peace, great Peter Boyle.

[1:04:52] I have a question.

[1:04:53] I wonder...

[1:04:54] I really like when theme park rides are themed after movies or...

[1:04:59] Uh-huh.

[1:05:00] Even if it doesn't really fit, like it's a reverse roller coaster, but it's FESA.

[1:05:02] Like that ordinary people ride?

S8

[1:05:03] Yeah.

[1:05:04] So exactly.

S10

[1:05:05] You're anticipating my question.

[1:05:06] If you could have a theme park ride after any movie franchise that you love, what would

[1:05:13] the movie be and what kind of ride would it be?

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:16] Eight words.

[1:05:17] Tay King of Pel.

[1:05:18] Um, one, two, three.

[1:05:20] You get on a train.

[1:05:23] Gunmen come on.

[1:05:24] Uh-oh.

[1:05:25] We're going to take this train.

[1:05:26] Oh no.

[1:05:27] And then they get off and the train just goes real fast, like around turns and stuff.

[1:05:30] And then when it ends, there's an animatronic Walter Matthau that's like, well, everybody,

[1:05:33] I hope you enjoyed the ride.

[1:05:35] Go this way to leave.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:37] I mean, it's not really a funny answer, but I feel like a gremlins ride.

[1:05:41] I mean, because like, they're basically puppets anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:43] Like...

[1:05:44] Yeah, not even basically.

[1:05:45] They are.

[1:05:46] Wait, hold on.

[1:05:47] Hold on, Elliot.

[1:05:48] I don't know, Dan.

[1:05:49] They might be actual gremlins.

[1:05:50] This isn't how I wanted to break the news to you.

[1:05:52] I don't know.

[1:05:53] Elliot.

[1:05:54] I know you've been planning this vacation to where the gremlins are from.

[1:05:58] And you've been going through all those ancient tomes about western explorers who went

[1:06:03] to far off Asia to find out exactly where it is.

[1:06:06] You go to Dan's house and there's just 100-year-old, 400-year-old maps tacked up to the walls with

[1:06:12] just scrawled on them.

[1:06:13] Gremlin?

[1:06:14] Question mark?

[1:06:16] I didn't want you to find out this way.

[1:06:17] The gremlins, they were puppets.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:18] I meant to say, because they're puppets, they're basically animatronics, so like you could

[1:06:22] do a ride.

[1:06:23] That would be fantastic.

[1:06:24] Yeah.

[1:06:25] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:26] Stuart?

[1:06:27] This doesn't answer the question, but I really wish they leaned into it at Cedar Point with

[1:06:34] the roller coaster Magnum, where they just had Dirty Harry there.

[1:06:38] Based on the condom?

Dan McCoy

[1:06:39] Or?

[1:06:40] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:41] Based on the...

[1:06:42] Dan, why do you got to be gross?

[1:06:44] It's my brand.

[1:06:45] It had Dirty Harry holding a pistol and it's like, you got to be this tall, punk to ride

[1:06:49] this ride.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:50] It's a huge gun that shoots the roller coaster out.

[1:06:52] And then at the end it's like, well, do you feel entertained, punk?

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:55] Those movies were set in San Francisco too, right?

[1:06:58] Yeah, they are.

[1:06:59] So we got some great movies this year set in San Francisco.

[1:07:01] This year?

[1:07:02] That are equally good.

[1:07:03] Wait, what?

[1:07:04] Yeah, Dirty Harry came out this year, right?

[1:07:06] Okay.

[1:07:07] You got Venom, you got Dirty Harry, you got...

[1:07:09] Bullet?

[1:07:10] Zodiac?

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:11] Zodiac, Bullet, Vertigo, all of this year's hits.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:16] Fine.

[1:07:17] I'm sorry.

[1:07:18] I'm sorry, sir.

[1:07:19] Hi, Carl.

[1:07:20] Last name withheld.

[1:07:21] Hi, Carl.

[1:07:22] I watched Shin Godzilla the other day.

[1:07:23] Not a lot happens for a movie about a colossal or destroying a major population center.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:26] Uh, well, finish your question and then I'll argue with you.

[1:07:28] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:30] What is your favorite movie with the least amount of plot?

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:33] Oh, interesting.

[1:07:34] I mean, one, it's about...

[1:07:35] Shin Godzilla, a lot happens in terms of clearing away an elderly bureaucracy to make way for

[1:07:38] the young activist workers who know how to handle a public health crisis in the

[1:07:42] form of a giant monster.

[1:07:43] But no, movies where there's not a lot of...

[1:07:45] I mean, Dan mentioned My Dinner with Andre earlier, which is a movie that has no plot.

[1:07:48] It is a conversation between two men.

[1:07:50] And, like, any time it's on and I stumble on it or I'm watching it, I cannot move away

[1:07:54] from it because I think, like, the kind of the passion of the two people involved is

[1:07:58] so palpable to me.

[1:07:59] And it is the whitest movie ever made.

[1:08:02] Like, it is about two relatively affluent people who work in the theater arts talking

[1:08:08] about, like, their midlife crises.

[1:08:09] But, you know, there's no plot, but I really get into it.

[1:08:11] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:12] Maybe something like Tokyo Story, which is just about elderly people being ignored, and

[1:08:17] that's kind of the plot.

[1:08:18] And you're like, yes, thank you.

[1:08:19] Yeah, I'm like, they've had it too good for too long.

[1:08:23] Make way for the next generation until I get old, which is right around the corner.

[1:08:28] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:29] And then you're gonna be like, oh, hands off my Medicare.

[1:08:31] You can all die now.

[1:08:32] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:33] I mean, I'd say something like, I don't know, like Valhalla Rising, where it's just Mads

[1:08:38] Mikkelsen wandering around and there's no dialogue at all, basically.

[1:08:41] He's just wandering around blasted landscapes and then occasionally killing people.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:44] Yeah.

[1:08:45] Yeah.

[1:08:46] That's pretty great.

[1:08:47] Nice question.

[1:08:50] Hi.

S11

[1:08:51] First name with Withheld Krull.

[1:08:54] Okay, interesting.

[1:08:55] Okay, interesting.

[1:08:56] Okay.

[1:08:57] So I was recently watching the 2006 Doom movie.

[1:09:01] Mm-hmm.

[1:09:02] With The Rock, is it?

[1:09:03] Yeah.

[1:09:04] Okay.

S11

[1:09:04] And I was thinking, man, Alien is a really good movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:07] Not a controversial statement.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:10] It is perhaps the most perfectly made movie ever.

[1:09:13] Do you just call him The Rock?

[1:09:14] Because if so, you have to pay Vince McMahon money.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:16] I love paying Vince McMahon license fees.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:18] You gotta call him DJ.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:20] I remember seeing him as a guest to promote that movie.

[1:09:23] Maybe it was on The Daily Show.

[1:09:25] And the clip that they showed was 90% close-ups of that giant gun.

[1:09:29] And at the end he's like, whoa.

[1:09:31] And that was the clip they chose to promote the movie.

[1:09:34] But yes, so.

S11

[1:09:35] But so, in thinking of a much better movie, I was wondering, what are your favorite sci-fi set pieces?

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:41] Set pieces?

[1:09:42] Oh, it's like scenes or whatever?

S11

[1:09:44] Maybe I'm misusing the word.

[1:09:46] Just like, you know, sets in general.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:48] Oh, well.

[1:09:49] Yeah.

[1:09:50] I mean, Alien is like the best designed movie.

[1:09:53] But I took it.

[1:09:54] Oh, God.

[1:09:55] You can't be like, tell me your favorite, but not this one.

[1:09:59] So the real question was, tell me your second favorite.

[1:10:01] All right, Aliens.

[1:10:03] Boom!

[1:10:04] Beat ya!

[1:10:05] No, no.

[1:10:06] But guys, what would you think?

[1:10:07] I mean, like, Blade Runner is a beautiful movie that I don't enjoy as a narrative, but I enjoy it as a series of visual images.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:12] Even the new Blade Runner is gorgeous.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:15] It's beautiful.

[1:10:16] Again, not one where I was like engaged in the story, but it's like, show me these pictures.

[1:10:19] Give me this, like, the Blade Runner movies are where I'm like, I want to see a coffee table version of this movie.

[1:10:24] Did anyone pick Alien yet?

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:27] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:28] What about Flesh Gordon?

[1:10:31] Does that count?

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:33] I don't, I mean, if you want to choose it, it's, the designs are hideous.

[1:10:38] Because it's like, how do we make a spaceship look kind of like balls?

Dan McCoy

[1:10:45] We, uh.

[1:10:46] We didn't answer that one.

[1:10:47] We promised to keep it as close to 90 minutes as possible, and we've already gone over.

[1:10:51] I think we, two more questions.

[1:10:52] I'm sorry for everyone behind.

[1:10:53] I'm gonna say three more.

[1:10:54] How about three more?

[1:10:55] Oh, three more.

[1:10:57] But we will be around a little bit afterwards, so.

[1:10:59] Yeah, we'll talk about that at the end of the show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:00] We're not going anywhere.

[1:11:01] It's gonna be over, but, I mean, I said welcome, my friends, to show that never ends, by which I mean life, and we're gonna be here, so.

[1:11:06] Woo!

[1:11:07] Uh.

[1:11:08] Emerson, Lake, and Palmer are here, everybody.

S11

[1:11:10] Hey, guys.

[1:11:11] Patrick, last name withheld.

[1:11:12] Stuart, you mentioned that you were at the bar in San Francisco, where they shot that scene.

[1:11:17] Yes.

[1:11:18] In that scene, there's like a TV playing, I guess the evening news, and like, Drake is on it, and he's talking.

[1:11:23] And Tom Hardy gets upset, and he's like, turn this off, and someone says, hey, buddy, keep it down.

[1:11:26] I'm trying to watch this.

[1:11:27] Mm-hmm.

[1:11:28] So, at that bar, like.

[1:11:29] That was me.

[1:11:30] You got me.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:31] It's like, I'm trying to watch this, it's a scene from Venom, the movie.

S11

[1:11:35] How often at that bar, and your own bar in Brooklyn, do you show the evening news, and then people get upset when people talk over it, because they're trying to watch the news at the bar.

[1:11:43] And now I guess, you know, what's your favorite, like, bullshit movie bar conventions?

Dan McCoy

[1:11:47] I know this is a question for Stuart, but I did literally at that point in the movie say to the other guys, in this movie, the thing I believe least is that this guy at a bar is like, hold on, I want to listen to that tech billionaire.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:59] I mean, like, at my bar, we basically only show special events and RuPaul's Drag Race.

[1:12:04] So, and nobody's allowed to, you know, interrupt that.

[1:12:11] The, my favorite bar convention in movies is always, anytime somebody sits down at the bar, and they order a drink, and they're like, leave the bottle.

[1:12:23] I had them like, how much would I fucking charge that guy?

[1:12:27] Like, how, like, estimating how many shots, I'm like, what are you going on?

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:32] You gotta pour it into a, into like a measuring cup afterwards, then pour it back into the bottle?

Dan McCoy

[1:12:36] You bring out a scale from behind the bar, you're like, alright, now I gotta, okay, I gotta take out the bottle from this weight, so.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:12:46] And I just like when everyone, anyone sits down and they go, beer.

[1:12:51] Do people do that at your bar?

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:52] Sometimes, I usually ask for ID at that point.

[1:12:58] I've heard of this thing called beer.

[1:12:59] And if you're a cop, I always ask for ID.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:04] Oh, a Henterland's Bar t-shirt, alright.

[1:13:06] Cool shirt alert.

S12

[1:13:07] Thanks.

[1:13:08] Yeah.

[1:13:09] If you guys ever go to Brooklyn, you should check this place out.

[1:13:10] It's called Henterland's.

[1:13:11] I don't like it.

[1:13:12] Oh, okay.

[1:13:13] Oh.

[1:13:14] Alright, so my name's Jarrett, last name withheld, and I, along with a couple other people, am a fan of the John Wick movies.

[1:13:19] And a staple of those movies is, you know, the action scenes.

[1:13:22] You know, they're really well choreographed, the camera's really tight, you always know what's going on, it's great.

[1:13:26] But now every time I see like a different action movie, even a really well reviewed one, the action scenes, you know, I noticed all the jump cuts a lot more, the choreography, yeah, it seems a little bit sloppier.

[1:13:35] So is there any movie or series movies that does one thing so very well that that thing is ruined in all other movies, purely by point of comparison?

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:44] Hmm, that's a good question.

[1:13:46] I would have said that like, this is the nerdiest possible response to that, but the original Star Wars movies, it's like, if you watch any other science fiction movie from around that period, and then for the next 20 years, except for Alien, which as we mentioned is perfect, you're like, this is not it.

[1:14:01] Like I was watching the first time I saw Logan's run as an adult, I was like, Oh, yeah, this is not that long before Star Wars is around the same time. And it looks like it was made 20 years earlier, like, and then you look at movies that came out in the wake of Star Wars, like this movie also doesn't look as good as Star Wars, like, it's hard to watch a movie set in an alien world, and not have me be like, well, it took a long time to set up the rules of this world where Star Wars right off the bat, I'm like, Oh, that's a good guy. That's a bad guy. He's got magic powers. That's a bear man. Like, it's, you know, it's all this.

[1:14:30] It's all there. Like, I'm constantly amazed by like, I think about this too often, where I'm sometimes while I'm going to bed, it'll just pop into my head when I'm like, that movie is like two hours long. When it starts, you know nothing about that world. And by the end of it, you are so invested and you know everything. And there are very few scenes where someone sits down as opposed to prequels, very few scenes where it's like, the council must explain what's going on here.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:56] There's a movie called Cheeky that it captures butts in a way that no movie before since like, I wouldn't say it ruins butts for me in other movies because scientifically that's impossible to ruin a butt.

[1:15:12] But it's, you know, it's the pinnacle of butt achievement.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:20] How can I follow behind that?

[1:15:26] I don't know. Like, I think, like, I think John Carpenter's horror movies, the scores in those are so, they're so good at it that like, almost no other horror movie score compares to me.

[1:15:39] And I feel like almost every horror movie, especially modern horror movies are often trying to like, kind of rip off a John Carpenter score, but without giving him any money, which I'm sure he is not happy about.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:53] Yeah.

[1:15:53] All right. Last question of the night.

[1:15:55] Last question.

S6

[1:15:57] Lydia, last name withheld.

[1:15:58] I was wondering, you've seen so many movies on your podcast and in your lives. Have you ever seen a movie that you not only actively regret seeing, but you wish you had a neuralyzer and could just wipe it out of your memory?

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:15] I mean, I've gone on, this is not an imaginative answer. I've gone on the record for my feelings about nothing but trouble, which is like, it's like if I had a time machine, it's like, do I kill Hitler? Do I save Lincoln? Do I stop that movie from being made?

[1:16:28] Like, I don't know because it caused so much trauma for me as a child. And again, this is not in any way to elevate myself to people who have suffered real trauma as a child. But like, just so much time I spent as a child thinking about that movie and being like, why does that exist?

[1:16:40] Like, what is the adult world like and how do I avoid going into it?

[1:16:45] Like, when I had a twin sister and she'd be like, I'm going to be an adult now. I'm going to go to parties where there's drinking. And I'm like, I can't do that because what if I have to become part of the world that nothing but trouble was made by?

[1:16:55] Whereas now I want to be in movies so badly. It's like, whatever, sign me up. Nothing but trouble reboot? Sure. Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:01] I think that typically, like, if a movie is going to do that to me, I turn it off. I would, sort of to answer your question, though, like, I wish I could neuralize, like, some movies just to have the brain space.

[1:17:15] Like, we were talking on a walk. That's how brains work, yeah.

[1:17:20] We were talking, like, I was with Stuart recently. We'd done some axe throwing in Brooklyn.

[1:17:24] And we were walking to a bar and there was some debate over who was in Mannequin 2 on the move.

[1:17:31] And I was able to correctly say that Christy Swanson played the new mannequin and the male lead was the guy from Herman's Head.

[1:17:39] And I've seen Mannequin 2 on the move is what I'm saying. And I probably shouldn't have.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:45] Just to clarify, we got there by arguing about which actors were in which Police Academy movies.

[1:17:54] Yeah, I mean, I would say if the movie I want lasered away from existence is 40 Days and 40 Nights,

[1:18:03] starring Joshua Hartnett, the movie where he gives up premarital sex for Lent, and it's horrible.

[1:18:09] Don't ever watch it. If you have the opportunity, call up Netflix, have them send you a copy, and throw it in the garbage.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:18] You don't want them to see the part where he triggers an orgasm by blowing rose petals across a woman's tummy?

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:24] Yes, that, Elliot. Why are you bringing it up?

Dan McCoy

[1:18:32] Okay.

[1:18:33] That's true.

[1:18:33] That's been a great show.

[1:18:35] That's the traditional way we end our shows, by depressing Stuart.

[1:18:38] Oh, we love to bring Stuart down.

[1:18:41] So we are going to be first selling merch and talking to people.

[1:18:45] I'm not sure where. Do you know where?

[1:18:47] Someplace in the building.

[1:18:49] I think across the way.

[1:18:50] It's like a room across the hall.

[1:18:51] Across the way.

[1:18:52] And then hopefully...

[1:18:53] Please come and say hi.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:54] It's not a labyrinth.

[1:18:55] They're not going to get lost, and they'll just find skeletons with signs that say merch, question mark.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:00] And then after that, if you don't want merch...

[1:19:04] But you do want merch.

[1:19:05] After we're done doing that, we will be trying to hang out a little bit in the generically named City Bar.

[1:19:12] A bar that could be in literally any city in the world.

[1:19:17] But thank you so much to the University of Madison for having us.

[1:19:20] Sorry we went a little over time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:22] Thank you, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

[1:19:23] Thank you, all of you, for coming out on a very cold night.

[1:19:26] Thank you, everybody who worked on the show tonight to make it possible.

[1:19:29] Thank you very much.

[1:19:30] I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:19:32] What?

[1:19:33] That's Stuart Wellington.

[1:19:34] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:19:35] Bye.

[1:19:35] We're The Flophouse.

[1:19:37] Thank you very much for being here.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:52] This is The Flophouse.

[1:19:53] I'm Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:00] This is The Flophouse.

[1:20:02] He's Dan McCoy.

[1:20:03] No, that's not...

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:05] That's not how it goes.

[1:20:07] And this is The Flophouse.

[1:20:09] That was Dan McCoy.

S7

[1:20:14] MaximumFun.org

[1:20:15] Comedy and culture.

[1:20:17] Artist owned.

[1:20:18] Audience supported.

[1:20:19] .

Ep. #298 - Venom LIVE

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