Ep.#293 -- The Joke Thief

[0:00] on this episode we discuss the joke thief more like the time thief

[0:06] that last noise is what really sold it

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

[0:42] Oh, hey there, Dan. It's me, Stuart Wellington.

[0:45] Hey guys, hey Dan, hey Stu, hey listeners, it's me, Elliot Kalin, the last one of the threesome.

[0:51] I'm the one that makes it a trio. Triplets, if you will. A tricycle.

[0:55] You know, from Belleville. Triplets, and so forth.

[0:57] Three, Triceratops.

[0:59] If we were horns, that's the dinosaur we'd be on.

[1:01] Thanks for explaining the number three.

[1:04] You would be the Holy Ghost if I was the kid?

[1:08] The kid, yeah.

[1:10] It's the dad, the kid, and the Holy Ghost, yeah.

[1:13] The Trinity, I think, is the dad, Disney's the kid, and the Holy Ghost.

[1:17] Oh, man.

[1:18] DVD or digital streaming?

[1:20] Streaming on Disney+.

[1:22] Coming soon.

[1:23] Oh, wow.

[1:24] Now, was that to...

[1:26] Are we getting any nuggets from that plug?

[1:28] Is that to distinguish it from the old movie, The Kid?

[1:33] Charlie Chaplin's The Kid?

[1:35] I have to assume so.

[1:36] Yeah.

[1:36] Yeah, all right.

[1:37] Was Bruce Willis in that, too?

[1:39] Yes, he was.

[1:41] So, guys...

[1:44] He was just a tiny little egg in that movie.

[1:46] This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[1:52] Oh, boy.

[1:53] We're into theme month season.

[1:55] And by season, I mean two months that are back-to-back.

[1:58] So just grab this episode.

[2:00] And then there's Cagemas.

[2:01] We skip over.

[2:02] There's no real theme in November.

[2:04] Sorry.

[2:04] Yeah, yeah.

[2:05] So this is the type of month where you just grab onto that episode, drag it over to your garbage bin, and hit recycle.

[2:11] No, these are everyone's favorite episodes, the theme episodes.

[2:15] So, Dan, what's the theme of this month?

[2:17] This is a small-time bird.

[2:18] As you would say, based on your Twitter-based understanding of roller coasters, the premise of this month.

[2:23] Okay.

[2:24] Well, that's a reference to an argument Dan and I had over Twitter over whether Space Mountain had a premise or a theme.

[2:30] I'm glad that in addition to our two-hour podcast, we're giving listeners homework to go check out on Twitter.com.

[2:40] Well, that's like there's a little asterisk next to it that says, like, see Dan's Twitter feed, Smile and Stan, like you'd see in old Marvel Comics.

[2:47] Yeah, we should do it more like Marvel Comics.

[2:48] It should be like a bunch of interlocking things.

[2:50] You have to collect all the different ones to really understand the whole thing.

[2:53] It's called a crossover.

[2:54] It's called a crossover.

[2:55] I mean, I'm just describing how they connect, they interlock.

[2:58] It's not like I'm unfamiliar with the idea of a crossover.

[3:01] What you would do is you would take the Marvel Comics back in the day,

[3:03] and you'd fold them into, I don't know, like lion-shaped robots,

[3:06] and then you would tape them together into a giant robot man who has a sword.

[3:11] Okay, what was I explaining?

[3:16] Oh, this is Small Timber.

[3:17] This is Small Vember.

[3:19] Small Timber.

[3:19] Small Vember.

[3:20] And it's where we watch smaller movies.

[3:23] Normally, we like to...

[3:24] Like physically?

[3:25] Like it's like a little mini disc?

[3:27] Well, kind of.

[3:28] It's on the head of a pin.

[3:29] Normally, we are the Davids fighting Hollywood's Goliath.

[3:34] And this is the one month where we get to punch a baby.

[3:37] What?

[3:39] Small movies that, you know...

[3:43] Yeah, yeah.

[3:44] We punch down.

[3:45] Yeah, we're punching down.

[3:46] We're bringing them to the audience's attention just to tell them how bad they are.

[3:49] Yeah.

[3:49] Yeah, and for the first movie in the month, we're returning to the Frank D'Angelo well,

[3:56] one of our favorite bad auteurs.

[4:00] Elliot, can you give us a quick breakdown on who Frank D'Angelo is?

[4:03] So, Frank D'Angelo, as longtime listeners may know, and most other people won't know

[4:07] unless you live in Toronto, Frank D'Angelo is a Toronto-based beverage magnate who has

[4:13] And restauranteur.

[4:14] And what?

[4:15] And restaurateur.

[4:16] Yeah, although I think his restaurant got closed, right?

[4:19] I mean, it's featured prominently in this movie, but yeah, it's probably closed.

[4:23] No, I think it did close.

[4:25] Well, he had more than one restaurant.

[4:27] The In Your Ear Supper Club, or whatever it was called, or the Forget About It Supper Club.

[4:32] Forget About It Supper Club, which is, yeah, where this was shot, most of it.

[4:35] Yeah, that's one of them.

[4:37] But also, he has attempted to turn himself into a media mogul in Canada.

[4:43] He was the host of a television show, and he writes, directs, produces, I think does the music for and maybe even edits and stars in his own films.

[4:52] And so we've done a couple of his No Deposit we did, a Sicilian Vampire we did.

[4:57] Now, usually one of his calling cards is he takes semi-retired elderly movie stars and pays them to appear in what they think are going to be real movies.

[5:08] This one, there's not that much of that.

[5:10] Yeah, there's just a bald one.

[5:12] There's not that much movie.

[5:13] And I was like, the whole time I was watching it, I was like,

[5:15] this is the movie that got an eight-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival?

[5:19] This is the one everyone's talking about on social media?

[5:22] The Joke Thief?

[5:23] Yeah, it got the golden lion as of yesterday.

[5:26] Speaking of which, there are two reviews linked from IMDb of this movie.

[5:32] The first one is a pretty soft review in the movie.

[5:37] I liked it well enough.

[5:38] It had a few interesting pieces of information in it, like that it was shot at the Forget About Supper Club in, I believe, two days this movie was taken.

[5:46] They took to shoot this.

[5:47] I mean, it looks like it was shot in one day, so it's not that much of an achievement.

[5:53] And the other review is a ridiculously, absurdly glowing one that I assume is the result of a bribe or something that Frank D'Angelo wrote under an assumed name or something like that.

[6:06] Or a family member.

[6:07] Yeah.

[6:08] Yeah, all reviews with the initials NB are the work of Neil Breen.

[6:12] So, guys, here are the things that you know about Frank D'Angelo in all of his movies that we've seen so far.

[6:20] Each of Frank D'Angelo's movies, no matter if they're a horror film about a vampire or a drama about a man who's down on his luck,

[6:27] or in this case, a comedy drama, I'm not sure, about a comedian,

[6:32] the main theme of them is that Frank D'Angelo is the greatest guy in the world and everybody loves him

[6:38] and people will do anything for Frank D'Angelo.

[6:40] Yeah.

[6:40] He really plays with that persona in this movie

[6:43] in interesting, and by interesting I mean

[6:45] not well thought through ways.

[6:47] Yeah, baffling ways that undercut the message of the film.

[6:50] What I love is he always hires all these actors

[6:53] who are constantly trying to get him to do things

[6:56] and telling him how great he is.

[6:58] And he's always like,

[6:59] I don't have time for this.

[7:00] Why are you bothering me?

[7:01] Don't skip to the bloops.

[7:05] Yeah, I mean, granted,

[7:07] Like, this is a movie where the first 20 minutes is, like, at least 15 minutes of phone calls.

[7:11] He has a lot of—his movies often start with phone calls, with him catching up on the other characters.

[7:18] So let's just get into the movie, huh?

[7:20] We open up with a—this is something new for Frank D'Angelo—kind of time-passing montage as we watch a boy with slicked-backed hair in a leather jacket practicing kind of borscht belt crap jokes in front of a mirror and dissolving into an older version of himself.

[7:36] And then an even older version of himself.

[7:37] And then finally, Frank D'Angelo, who has been apparently for years practicing the same jokes in the same clothes in front of the same mirror his whole life.

[7:45] Sorry, this is the first thing I want to object to.

[7:48] Are you objecting to the fact that he said dissolving?

[7:51] Because his body doesn't like disincorporate and then reincorporate.

[7:56] It's not like in the Remember the Time video when Michael Jackson turns into sand.

[7:59] It's not like that, Stuart.

[8:00] That's my first objection.

[8:01] My second objection is, although we will see some things later on that resemble traditional stand-up comedy,

[8:07] Frank D'Angelo, for his character, seems to believe that stand-up is telling street jokes or joke book jokes.

[8:15] Joke book jokes.

[8:16] He tells a Polish joke.

[8:18] His whole act throughout the film.

[8:21] And it's weird that, so this movie, there's a lot of filler.

[8:25] As I was saying to Dan and Stuart when I watched it, this is probably the least amount of movie I've ever seen in a movie.

[8:31] uh it somehow is maybe seven tenths filler at 87 minutes long and a lot of the movie is just

[8:38] footage of stand-ups doing their acts but then you have frank d'angelo whose act yeah is entirely

[8:42] joke book jokes yeah if it's blonde jokes if he is a joke if he is a joke thief he has stolen

[8:48] those jokes from 101 yucks like well and dan you're gonna you're gonna don't spoil the fact

[8:55] that as as the movie goes on we and we get close to the ending we realize we're never gonna see

[8:59] him steal a joke no or learn why he got the name joke thief because now we're watching two guys

[9:04] meet one of them we'll soon learn is simon's manager sal who's played by i forget the actor's

[9:09] name but he is often frank d'angelo stooge in these movies he asked this other guy who is that

[9:14] danny baldwin or is it a different guy yep daniel baldwin okay daniel baldwin who runs this club

[9:19] which we'll soon learn later is named the comedy is the called the basement comedy club

[9:24] uh the he says come on can you put simon on the show as a favor to me and he goes simon

[9:31] the joke thief i don't know and he goes do it as a favor to me okay i'll put him on we never he's

[9:37] never called the joke thief again from this point on nobody talks about simon in anything less than

[9:41] the most glowing terms simon is frank angelo's character and it's he never steals again like

[9:46] dan says if he stole a joke it's from like a web page of jokes that your grandma like might like

[9:51] or something like that.

[9:51] I do like that the movie

[9:53] opens with him

[9:54] practicing his material

[9:55] in front of a mirror

[9:57] and then later on

[9:58] when he's talking to his cabbie,

[10:01] his like magical black man,

[10:03] Indian.

[10:04] Indian in this case.

[10:04] Yeah, but that's,

[10:05] I mean, that's the type.

[10:07] It's playing on the trope.

[10:08] He says that he never rehearses

[10:10] and I'm like,

[10:11] I don't know,

[10:11] I have seen concrete proof

[10:13] of you rehearsing.

[10:14] I mean, this movie

[10:17] seems to be about someone

[10:18] who really doesn't want

[10:19] to be a comedian

[10:20] but seems to feel some kind of

[10:22] neurotic compulsion to be one

[10:24] even though he seems to hate it and it

[10:26] gets in the way of the rest of his life and he's not

[10:28] good at it but we'll talk about that

[10:30] because then I'll skip over the little bit

[10:32] of business where the hotel chef

[10:34] at the hotel where Simon lives I guess

[10:36] offers him some free food by stealing

[10:38] someone else's room service and I think

[10:40] it's supposed to be a joke about the food like

[10:42] disappears when the waiter's back is turned but

[10:44] it doesn't make sense it's handled so poorly

[10:46] that I was like I don't understand what I'm

[10:48] like this is like a scene it's like a scene from an alien a lot of phone calls though like we get

[10:53] to watch the guy like actually punch in the punch in the buttons and we never know we never see the

[10:59] chef again we don't know why he loves simon so much that he offers him someone else's food

[11:03] at the risk to his job i have to assume but everyone loves him everyone loves him so simon's

[11:09] manager calls him he says oh and again i'm just guessing it's his manager later on we see him

[11:14] going over his notes at the comedy club although he never goes up so i just assume it's his manager

[11:18] the manager calls and says hey the basement comedy club is going national tonight that's not really

[11:23] explained although we later find out it's on a national cable television channel that they're

[11:27] going live i guess and which nbc national wait no that was wrong national broadcasting comic

[11:33] canadian which i i missed this when it was when it was first said it had to be explained to me

[11:39] later and i'm like what there's no indication of that later on there's no cameras or anything at

[11:45] the club like the way no images of people watching the yeah the way the club is being run that night

[11:51] is no different than like a normal night at a comedy club there's no absolutely there's one

[11:56] thing there's one thing different dan which is that the movie is edited so strangely that

[11:59] unlike a normal comedy club at this club comedians go up multiple times per night before the same

[12:05] audience in random order as if they're just drawing their names out of a hat to see who's

[12:09] gonna go on stage next uh so simon is like we know he wants to be a comedian he's been training his

[12:15] whole life in front of a mirror to do this but his manager calls and this is where frank d'angelo's

[12:20] other trademark move of not wanting to do the things other characters are begging him to do

[12:24] comes in he's like i don't know i was about to eat i don't want to come down to the comedy club

[12:28] and they're like look they'll pay you 200 for five minutes which is crazy nobody and it's we

[12:33] learned later this is his first time performing stand-up in public i guess so like they're never

[12:39] gonna pay you two hundred dollars for five minutes it's not the first time standing in public i think

[12:43] he's been blackballed for a while right because the first time at the but they he says it's the

[12:47] first time at the basement comedy at comedy basement yeah that's the first time there i

[12:51] think you have but you have to you have to read into it that he's been blackballed because

[12:55] yeah later on he later on frank daniel is talking about how this is new to him and stuff like that

[13:00] It's – anyway, he goes, what am I going to wear?

[13:03] And his manager says, what you always wear.

[13:04] Frank D'Angelo then opens the closet where there is one vest hanging on a hanger and nothing else, not even other hangers, which makes me wonder what kind of hotel this is that does not provide adequate hangridge.

[13:15] And he dissolves to a flashback.

[13:17] Now we can learn a little about him.

[13:18] Simon is being told by his dad, who runs a car dealership, that Simon is a great car salesman, the best, nested flashback.

[13:25] we have flashback within the flashback to simon's first sale as a young man when he sells a car and

[13:30] then back and i think i think this one of the young versions of him i believe is played by

[13:35] his son or maybe a nephew or something yes he's certainly not an actor oh i forgot to mention

[13:42] that we've also seen a scene where simon's brother william is talking to his wife and his wife is

[13:46] like you're too soft on him you're too good to him and he's like for my brother i love him i'd

[13:50] do anything i'd do anything for my brother i love him that's all william said it took me a while to

[13:55] realize it was his wife because in in most of her scenes she's just seated like the secretary's desk

[14:02] at the car dealership she's on it's a family car dealership the wife is the receptionist and the

[14:06] guy and the her husband owns it it's a you know it's a family thing you know and by the way she

[14:10] at the end of the movie like everyone gets like their like picture on the like a clip from them

[14:16] earlier when their name comes up

[14:18] of the actor and hers

[14:20] is presented as lovingly as

[14:22] the rest of them and I'm like what she was

[14:24] she's barely like she's only there to

[14:26] like be like you're too

[14:28] hard easy on your brother and

[14:30] that's basically one of two

[14:32] lines she has the whole film

[14:34] so Dan is the problem that she has no screen

[14:36] time or that she is being

[14:38] treated too nicely considering she's so mean to

[14:40] Simon and his brother William

[14:42] yeah

[14:43] a shrill heredity

[14:46] novel you're saying that at the end when all the actors have their model pose and they sign the

[14:52] screen like at the end of avengers endgame that she didn't deserve hers like literally all she

[14:58] says is you're too easy on him and then later on when he comes in in a different flashback she's

[15:03] like oh your brother's right in there he'll do anything for you and like smiles like she's not

[15:08] mad about it oh but i thought that was sarcastic uh so okay so simon why isn't he a car salesman

[15:14] anymore if he loves it so much well the dad tells them i want to retire simon you're going to be the

[15:19] salesman and william you're going to be the manager and simon doesn't want his brother to be his boss

[15:23] but again by all accounts simon's brother seems like he would be simon's ideal boss he loves him

[15:28] he'll do anything for him and he tells him how great he is constantly but here's we find out

[15:33] later keeps a jacket for him in his office and also as we've already learned simon's skill set

[15:40] is he's an amazing salesman

[15:41] and the fact that like

[15:43] it's just very weird

[15:45] it's very weird that he's so mad that

[15:47] the brother is taking over

[15:50] the thing when his dream is to be

[15:52] a comedian like he's so

[15:53] angry about this

[15:55] so Simon like all Frank D'Angelo

[15:58] characters is a dour humorless

[16:00] asshole who does not want anyone else

[16:01] to be the boss of him and has to know

[16:04] at all times that he's the one

[16:06] who's really in charge and the cool one and we'll

[16:07] see this in a weird way in the bloopers

[16:09] That run through the credits

[16:10] So Simon's disappointed

[16:13] I love when the dad is about to give his retirement speech

[16:16] He's like

[16:16] You know all of us get put out to pasture sometime

[16:20] Not me, I got plenty of years left

[16:22] But I'm retiring

[16:23] Like he contradicts himself a couple times

[16:27] And then we find out later

[16:28] He died shortly afterwards

[16:30] And the dad, I looked up the dad

[16:32] The dad is an actor, a Canadian actor

[16:33] Who's been in like 140 things

[16:35] Like he was in Porky's, he was in Black Christmas

[16:37] He was in Porky's?

[16:40] Yeah.

[16:40] So that's a little tidbit.

[16:43] That's Porky Pig asking for a ticket to Porky's when it came out in the theaters.

[16:46] They're like, nah, kid, you don't want to see some dude's crank get yanked out of a fucking wall.

[16:52] Is that where crank yankers came from?

[16:56] Yeah, probably.

[16:56] Someone's got Porky's.

[16:57] I mean, if anyone could relate to that, it's Porky Pig, who has no crank, and I assume had it ripped off in a Castle Freak-type scenario at some point.

[17:05] And he's used to bursting through a hole at the end of something, right?

[17:08] Yeah, that's very true.

[17:10] Well, a drum.

[17:11] He's used to bursting through a drum head, but sure.

[17:13] Wait, is that a drum head?

[17:14] Is that what that's supposed to be?

[17:15] Yes, I believe so.

[17:16] Okay.

[17:17] Yeah.

[17:18] So anyway, the dad says, Simon, I know you're disappointed, but I believe in your dream

[17:23] of being a stand-up.

[17:23] You're so funny, and I want to help you by giving you the family's lucky vest.

[17:27] My dad passed this down to me, and he's going to pass it down to you, and Simon could not

[17:32] look less excited to be getting the lucky vest from his dad and you're like is the dad making

[17:38] this up just to make someone feel better that lucky vest he never wears it we never see it again

[17:43] does not factor into the movie and i also gotta say like the dad makes such a meal out of handing

[17:48] over this lucky vest that my my girlfriend turned to me she's like is this gonna be a movie about a

[17:54] magic vest i wish it turns into a movie about magic nothing there's no magic in the world in

[18:01] this one uh so simon accepts the club offer while looking at the vest uh and he calls william and

[18:07] he goes hey can you can you give me a car i want a car right now and william's like i can't do that

[18:12] but i'll tell you what i'll call you a car and simon's like don't give me an uber because they

[18:16] all smell like curry and it's disgusting this is our hero ladies this is our hero and william

[18:22] promises i'll be at the show too and he calls him an uber the uber as an indian driver uh-oh

[18:27] what's going to happen to simon now he's a racist and the and the driver jerry is like waiting

[18:32] outside to let him in like that's crazy i've never had a a car service driver waiting outside to like

[18:38] open the back door for me have you ever had a magic bagger vance style car driver who solves

[18:44] all your life's problems in a car ride that lasts somewhere between 25 minutes and forever

[18:48] yeah i want to say about this uh this character by the way like the character is the worst kind

[18:55] of like uh driver no he's a great driver no he's like the worst kind of like non-white character

[19:02] with no inner life who helps the white character but but i will say about this that uh i think he's

[19:08] the best actor in the movie by far like oh yes i mean just the fact that he he manages to it's

[19:13] similar to uh this is not going to sound strange i guess what's similar to in meatballs too how we

[19:18] were talking about how john larroquette's character is very much an anti-gay slur but john larroquette

[19:22] imbues him with a certain level of dignity and grace and this actor i don't i didn't look up

[19:29] his name but he manages to make this character seem through the terrible writing see have this

[19:34] certain amount of dignity to the point where i was like i'm not sympathizing with this character

[19:38] i'm sympathizing with the actor having to make these lines kind of work because he knows he's

[19:43] playing this type of character and he's doing it in a way that is not super goofy and it's not

[19:48] super it's not crap he i think you're right i think he is the best actor in the movie

[19:52] which again is the faintest of praise but he does he does deserve it because so because now we get

[19:58] 13 minutes in we finally get the opening credits and then we get set up to basically what well

[20:03] actually in a moment we'll learn what the true structure of the film is but simon's talking to

[20:06] jerry his uber driver about being comedian he sounds like he hates it he tells a blonde joke

[20:10] to the driver the driver does not get it to be fair i didn't get it at first either that was

[20:14] It took me a little bit to puzzle out this probably 80-year-old joke about blondes.

[20:19] I think that we're supposed to think that Frank D'Angelo's character is funny and this guy's not getting it because of cultural differences.

[20:29] But we are agreeing with the driver, like, oh, these are not good jokes.

[20:33] They're baffling jokes that we will not laugh at.

[20:36] I mean, throughout the movie, you're going to see the driver reassuring Frank that he's funny, even though the jokes are not funny, and telling him what a good man he actually is.

[20:43] He can tell he's a good man.

[20:44] I'm like, wow, he's really fighting for that five-star rating.

[20:47] Yeah, yeah.

[20:48] Later on, not to jump too far ahead, but later on, when he's pulling up,

[20:53] Simon, played by Frank D'Angelo, keeps thanking the Uber driver for the kind words and the reassurance.

[21:00] And the driver, Jerry, on two different occasions says, like, no charge.

[21:07] And that's on me or, like, gratis or something.

[21:10] And I'm like, I really hope he's not comping his cab ride.

[21:14] Like, I feel I'm kind of stressed out about the idea of this cab ride that takes at least 22 minutes long.

[21:20] Yeah.

[21:21] Would be would be comped.

[21:22] Well, that's the other thing is that they become best friends over the course of this 22 minute ride.

[21:27] Yeah, they learn a little bit about each other.

[21:29] And it helps because during that cab ride multiple times, the camera zooms out of the frosted window and we go into into Simon's past.

[21:38] Oh, I wanted to, yeah, that's, I love, that is, that is, I will say, this is, Frank D'Angelo is inventing something here that I had never seen before, which is that he has flashed his back by literally gazing out the window, and then the camera, like you said, zooms through the window as if he is driving through his memories.

[21:54] Something I should mention is, Simon's running very late, and he's worried about being late, but he keeps telling the driver to slow down because he's going too fast, and the driver seems to be driving at, if anything, a quite slow speed.

[22:06] Like, I think I could walk faster than this car.

[22:07] And do you think that was on purpose that Frank D'Angelo's character does not actually want, is worried about performing?

[22:14] And so he's like, slow down, slow down.

[22:15] Or is it just that they just couldn't get across what was actually happening in the scene?

[22:21] Yeah, this is also one of the things that bothered me from, like, a comedy standpoint about the movie.

[22:28] Like, okay, I've done stand-up comedy.

[22:33] it was never like a big part of like my coming up and doing comedy but i have done it i and i've

[22:38] done it once or twice in like a real club and rather than like sort of a friendly room like

[22:44] the ucb or like rather than a done up uh toronto and uh yeah yeah where everyone in the audience

[22:53] is being paid by you to be there and i guess if they're being paid they should have fucking

[22:58] laughed harder and i guess and i guess um you know they uh like they're filming this so things

[23:06] might be a little tighter but again you don't see the cameras you don't see anyone being concerned

[23:12] about all of that and on a normal comedy night like if you're running late as he naturally is

[23:19] because he only learned about the show right beforehand like they wouldn't be like it wouldn't

[23:24] be like he keeps getting these frenzied calls like get down here get down here and they would

[23:30] just put him on whenever like they fucking could find a spot for him well well i think the person

[23:36] who's calling him is not the person running the show it's his manager who's like get down here

[23:40] you're basically what he's saying is you're going to screw this up if you don't show up yeah but

[23:44] here's one of my many screenplay fixes i'm going to offer there's a critic oh wow character that

[23:50] we find i mean does it should frank d'angelo send you a check for this or is this just your

[23:54] online master class yeah this is my online master class but there's a critic in the audience we find

[23:59] out later uh oh you're saying that maybe they should have planted that a little earlier to

[24:04] provide some stakes for them yeah they should have been like a ratatouille big night situation

[24:08] yeah he should be calling being like oh the critics getting tired it looks like you might

[24:12] leave you know you got to get down here if you want you know something like that i don't know

[24:15] anyway no dan i think they made the movie up as they went along that's part of it but

[24:19] So Simon, as Stuart said, he zoomed through the car window to flashback to him asking his brother for money, and the brother tells him, I can't just give you money ahead of payday.

[24:28] You go out there, sell a car right now, I'll cut you a check for the commission immediately.

[24:32] Simon walks out, instantly sells a car, despite being the lowest energy salesman I've ever seen and the most off-putting salesman I've ever seen.

[24:39] Basically sells the car by making the customer feel emasculated.

[24:42] The customer's like, I should go talk to my wife before I buy this, and he goes, okay, I want to hold the car for you.

[24:48] It's a great car.

[24:49] He keeps repeating the same things about the car because he knows like four things about the car.

[24:54] He's like, I'll just put it down here.

[24:56] I'll write in this box.

[24:57] I'll just say, has to ask wife's permission.

[25:00] And the guy's like, instantly his face turns cold and angry like a northern Toronto winter.

[25:06] Yeah, the storm clouds roll in.

[25:09] And he's like, I don't need anyone's permission to buy a fucking car.

[25:12] I'm going to buy it.

[25:13] And it was like one of those things where I wondered if – because there have been times when I'm – like when I bought a car where it was like I can feel myself reacting emotionally to things that the salesman is saying.

[25:25] And I know he's saying them to get me to have that reaction.

[25:28] And I kept wondering if that character knew he was falling for the easiest, oldest trap in the book.

[25:33] So, all right.

[25:35] Also, with these car window flashbacks, I want to say something in regards to those.

[25:39] Is this advice to Frank D'Angelo or you're addressing the entire audience?

[25:43] This is more script doctor advice.

[25:45] So, Frank, I hope you're listening.

[25:47] So, okay, this movie has a baffling timeline to it.

[25:52] Like, the way it plays with chronology is fast and loose.

[25:56] And I know that you, Elliot, have some things you want to say about that.

[25:58] But I just want to introduce one thought.

[26:01] And that's like, that is, the beginning of the movie is very hard to follow because of these nested flashbacks and whatever.

[26:06] And we're not familiar with the character at all.

[26:09] I think that there should not be a flashback

[26:11] until he's in the car.

[26:13] All the flashbacks should be in the car

[26:14] when we're primed to think like this is a trip

[26:17] and like he's taking a trip down memory lane

[26:20] at the same time.

[26:21] Interesting.

[26:22] So yeah, just put that advice in the Frank tank

[26:26] or the Frank bank, depending on which you prefer.

[26:28] The Frank tank in the Frank bank, yeah.

[26:30] And then you turn the Frank crank to pull it out again,

[26:33] open it up.

[26:33] Don't let that Frank crank get yanked.

[26:36] Oh no, of course not.

[26:38] That's a Frank wank, Dan.

[26:39] Now, Dan, I have two things I want to say to you about.

[26:44] One, I think you're totally right.

[26:46] And two, it feels like you are wasting kind of good notes when there's a larger problem.

[26:53] It's as if somebody tried to sculpt a statue of George Washington out of human shit,

[27:01] and you're like, well, you didn't really get the curls on the wig right.

[27:04] Dan, there's a larger problem with the statue.

[27:08] But he's like trapped in the car.

[27:09] It's like, what is that, Cosmopolis?

[27:11] Well, as to the larger problem.

[27:14] He was like, this is going to be my Cosmopolis.

[27:16] Yeah, because like you would assume that this comedy show that is important and going out on cable news network is being filmed at night.

[27:27] But all the shots from the car are daytime.

[27:29] It's midday.

[27:32] Chronological problem I wanted to get into.

[27:34] So I want to mention before we get into that further.

[27:37] So now we go to the comedy basement, and M.C., Daniel Baldwin, and his character, Freddie C., he intros each of the comics, and this is when we get into the real structure of the movie.

[27:47] The real act two, if you will, which is intercutting just little snippets of actual stand-up comedy from actual stand-ups with Frank D'Angelo in his car having a real soul-bearing heart-to-heart talk with Jerry.

[28:02] And the juxtaposition between all these comics telling blowjob jokes and then Frank D'Angelo talking to his driver about his mother's death is so jarring to me.

[28:11] And it's like, among these comics, they're real comics.

[28:15] One of them is this character, Ed the Sock, who is a real, he's been a fixture in the Canadian comedy scene for years, apparently.

[28:21] I was looking it up and I found footage of his, I guess, local television show, which is basically Howard Stern hosted by a sock.

[28:27] I mean, like, rightly so.

[28:29] I mean, his material elicits, I don't know, mild humor, like mild humor.

[28:34] Yeah, I wanted to say.

[28:34] And so you'll have these scenes where it's Ed the Sock being like, what's with penis size?

[28:38] You'd think you'd want a guy with a smaller dick.

[28:41] It wouldn't hurt as much.

[28:42] And then cuts to Frank being like, yeah, I wasn't there when my dad died.

[28:45] It's like, what?

[28:46] But also, I want to make it clear that these real comics are only marginally funnier than Frank with his joke pictures.

[28:54] Oh, no, I mean, they're not superstars.

[28:55] I mean, there are—but are these the kind of comedians that you would see, I assume, if you went to just like a Wednesday night Toronto dinner club stand-up?

[29:04] I do love that one of the guys gets introduced as the Canadian guy.

[29:08] And I'm like, oh, thanks for differentiating him from the other Canadian guys.

[29:13] So we're going between these different comedians again, cutting between them and Simon in the car telling old jokes and kind of dour sadness.

[29:25] and as we said the comedians you keep cutting to the same ones coming up in different orders

[29:30] and the car ride just keeps going on so i'm like how long is this car ride how long is this show

[29:36] are there multiple shows and he's missing all of them or are we and simon in purgatory and he just

[29:43] has to sit through this eternal ride well that's yeah these are questions i had because there are

[29:47] there are gaps in simon's story so like so i assumed that whenever you wanted more of simon

[29:56] no no like there are gaps in what's going on in the car on simon's side so i assumed

[29:59] that whenever we cut to the comedians simon's story was continuing and we weren't seeing it

[30:06] okay so like it was unfolding in basically real time except for that means that the car ride was

[30:12] not 22 minutes it was at least 50 yeah so i wonder if this is there supposed to be happening

[30:17] side by side what was that movie where there's four stories and they're each happening in a

[30:21] quadrant time code maybe it's supposed to be like that but he couldn't get the editing software to

[30:26] make them go on the screen at the same time yeah but also yeah for clarity about what you were

[30:30] saying before like once when you start the movie like it's all different comics so you think like

[30:34] oh we're seeing these comics go on one after the other but but frank d'angelo feels like he needs

[30:41] to cut it up

[30:41] so you would go back

[30:43] to a little bit

[30:44] of a previous comic set

[30:45] and he also edits

[30:47] their set so bafflingly

[30:48] like he'll cut it off

[30:50] when you're pretty sure

[30:51] that there was

[30:51] a punchline coming.

[30:52] I don't think,

[30:55] I think we don't,

[30:56] I think there's plenty

[30:56] of evidence in the movie

[30:57] to show that Frank Angelo

[30:58] doesn't really understand

[30:59] comedy or what's funny.

[31:00] So anyway,

[31:03] some salient points

[31:04] while we're doing

[31:05] these kind of bouncing

[31:05] back and forth.

[31:06] I'll just tell you about

[31:07] what's going on with Simon.

[31:08] He has a flashback

[31:08] to his mother's deathbed.

[31:10] He's afraid to go in, but his brother guilts him about missing his dad's death.

[31:13] His mom looks fine, by the way.

[31:15] She just looks like she's on a bed in a robe.

[31:17] Sometimes that's what happens, Dan.

[31:18] So your criticism there is that they didn't get an actual dying person to die on camera.

[31:23] I mean, she's not on any machines or anything.

[31:26] She seems chipper and awake.

[31:29] There is one IV bag or monitor machine placed in what is clearly the same hotel room that Frank Angelo was shooting his scenes in earlier.

[31:37] So I'm sure the hotel wasn't going to let them bring in all these hospital machines.

[31:41] I'm just saying I have rarely seen a healthier-looking older woman.

[31:44] Wow.

[31:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[31:47] Dan's like, when's she going to try out for the next season of American Ninja Warrior?

[31:51] Based on how she held Frank's hand, I'm assuming her grip strength is up to the task.

[31:58] Okay, go on.

[31:59] And she asks Simon why he's so sad, and he doesn't have an answer for that.

[32:02] The Uber driver says, oh, Simon, you need a wife.

[32:05] and simon flashes back to flirting with a couple different women at i assume the forget about

[32:10] supper club and he's got this and he and he has this we then cut to this montage of him going

[32:15] through his regular routine at his favorite restaurant where he orders the same thing every

[32:19] time the filet mignon with the lobster tail and then uh there's some and the angel hair puttanesco

[32:25] the way that he likes it done they're like can you do the angel hair the way i like it puttanesco

[32:30] and it goes and bring me my usual wine and of course and then of course he has a great meal

[32:34] the women are loving it every time he says i've got a phone call he gets up touches their shoulder

[32:39] as he walks out and then he just leaves and the woman gets stuck with the bill and it's he and

[32:45] at first we think he's just a jerk but then we learn oh no he's a jerk who is testing these women

[32:49] and the woman who laughs when the bill is delivered to her she must be his match and he calls her and

[32:55] invites her to a show we never see her again i assume she didn't show up to the comedy show

[33:00] I mean, that's the next step of the joke, right, is that you just don't go to his important comedy show.

[33:05] Now, the thing that I liked about this scene is that—

[33:06] It's one of those relationships where they're always challenging each other.

[33:09] It's a Virginia Woolf type—it's a who's afraid of Virginia Woolf type thing.

[33:12] So, sorry, I see what you were saying.

[33:12] Based on the angle of the cameras—now, I've got to do a little bit of detective work,

[33:17] but last time we were in Toronto, I'm pretty sure we ate at the exact same table in the forget-about-Suppa Club.

[33:25] If I'd have known what I should have ordered.

[33:29] Well, that's not what you should – I got to say, so my girlfriend, who is not Italian, grew up for a large part of her –

[33:38] Dan, you're slowly revealing enough information that we'll be able to guess who she is.

[33:41] No, that's fine.

[33:42] She's not Italian, but she grew up in an Italian-American household for much of her childhood.

[33:48] And this is one of two points where she was very angry at the movie.

[33:51] And she's like, you wouldn't order puttanesca with a surf and turf.

[33:57] Frank D'Angelo is one of those guys who clearly is Italian, I would say, not Italian-American, Italian-Canadian, but he seems to be living out his movie Goodfellas fantasy of what an Italian is, and he doesn't really seem to get, it's like when-

[34:10] Basically, every movie he makes could have just been called Salud.

[34:13] It feels like any movie where someone is an American, but they're an ethnic minority, and they go to the country where their family is from, and they feel out of place, and they like, maybe there's more novels like that than movies.

[34:27] That's what his life seems to be like through these movies.

[34:29] There are three things I want to say about this restaurant scene, though, very quickly.

[34:32] Oh, boy.

[34:33] I said very quickly.

[34:35] Number one, we see this thing repeat three times.

[34:39] And when I say we see it repeat three times, we see the whole thing repeat three times.

[34:42] As if Frank D'Angelo does not assume that we as the audience will get it, that it's the same exact thing happening.

[34:49] And there's this process that you go through while you're watching it of dawning realization that you're going to have to watch.

[34:57] everything happened thrice but also you're you're also like why does this waiter play along well

[35:04] that's what i wanted to mention is this waiter jack is like frank's is simon's regular waiter

[35:08] i was gonna ask if you guys were served by jack while you're at the sitting at that table and

[35:12] jack helps him go through this charade which makes jack a terrible person but it helps him

[35:18] trick these women and then i can't imagine it helps the tip he's going to receive no bad tip

[35:24] It doesn't help the Yelp reviews for the restaurant.

[35:26] The restaurant helped him trap me to pay for an expensive meal on a date.

[35:30] And then Simon calls him up after each date and is like, so how did she take it?

[35:35] How did it go?

[35:35] And he's like, thanks for doing that, Jack.

[35:37] And Jack is like, anything for you, Simon.

[35:38] Why?

[35:39] Why are people so ready to do anything for Simon who is by all available evidence a terrible person?

[35:44] Well, that's the third thing I wanted to say because at first you think that he's just scamming a meal.

[35:49] And you're like, why is this happening?

[35:51] His problem is not that he's without funds.

[35:53] He's not a joke.

[35:54] He's a joke thief, not a food thief.

[35:56] Yeah, but then what you realize—

[35:58] Although he's a food thief.

[35:58] He does steal someone else's room service earlier in the movie.

[36:01] That's true.

[36:01] That's the thing about him.

[36:03] I mean, you know what?

[36:04] Eating food that you pay for does not taste nearly as sweet

[36:09] as food that you have paid the iron price for and stolen from someone.

[36:14] But what I was going to say is once you realize that it's a test,

[36:19] You realize that this whole thing is just another example of Frank D'Angelo's narcissism as an actor and a person.

[36:28] Because he doesn't want to show himself being rejected by women.

[36:31] He wants to show himself being the rejecter and tell there's someone who loves him so much that she overcomes that.

[36:38] And that he is so great that these women need to be tested.

[36:41] And each of these women is far out of his league.

[36:43] They're all much more attractive than him.

[36:45] And they have genuine smiles that he does not show ever.

[36:49] I feel like if a woman were to reject him, it would be based on the, like, you're too loyal to your family, or, like, you're too strong.

[36:59] You're too good a guy, and I'm not used to that.

[37:02] I just can't handle someone who's so good to me.

[37:04] And then he'd throw acid in her face, and everyone would be like, good going, Frank, good going, anything for you.

[37:08] So, yeah, he's terrible.

[37:12] Anyway, so more talk between Simon and his driver.

[37:15] His driver says he has faith Simon is a good man, when, again, there is no evidence.

[37:18] In fact, much evidence to the contrary to this, more jokes about blowjobs.

[37:23] There's a long sequence where it's stand-up comedians joking about blowjobs while, again, Simon talks about his regrets and how unhappy he is.

[37:31] And then finally, you know they've bonded when Jerry tells the driver, hey, your car doesn't smell like curry, so thanks.

[37:38] And the driver says, well, it's a new car.

[37:41] yeah yeah it's the kind of like you know nudging happy response to casual racism that you would

[37:47] expect maybe maybe out of people who had known them known each other like since childhood and

[37:52] have that kind of joshing relationship not like some asshole who just got in that car that morning

[37:56] yeah and it's it's like the kind of shit we're like and then jerry like playing along with the

[38:01] joke is that kind of shit where it like confirms with frank that he's riding with one of the good

[38:06] ones right or that he's okay in his like racism yeah it's very much it's what happens when there's

[38:11] a huge power imbalance in the dynamic between two people where the racist is like look i'm gonna pay

[38:18] you for this service or i could decide not to pay you so why don't you play along with my racism or

[38:24] else maybe you're not gonna maybe you're gonna have wasted all this time on nothing and he's like

[38:28] oh yes sir yes of course uh yes curry i'm indian thank you great uh like it's such a uh you can

[38:35] feel the actor swallowing his pride in a way that i was like is that the character or the actor

[38:39] that's good acting also the indian guy saying it is supposed to like validate that frank is a good

[38:44] guy but then you're like wait a minute frank you wrote this line and gave it to him to say

[38:48] well that's the there's i feel like that happens in a lot of movies where uh

[38:55] where the the person who wrote it or the author of the of the work has either themselves or a

[39:01] surrogate character playing themselves and other characters are just talking about how great they

[39:05] are and it's like wait a minute hold on i know that that that's jesse eisenberg but he's speaking

[39:11] with woody allen's mouth exactly well i mean that's because they surgically moved woody allen's

[39:16] mouth to jesse eisenberg's face in probably one of the most horrific pieces of hollywood surgery

[39:21] since uh well since uh you know that human centipede incident when they tried to put

[39:27] they tried to take tom cruise will smith and george clooney and make them into a megastar

[39:31] by sewing them together.

[39:32] Now, have we arrived at the...

[39:35] That was a really weird thing to put on display

[39:37] at Planet Hollywood, but you know what?

[39:38] I'll allow it.

[39:40] Hey, look, it's their own planet.

[39:42] They make the rules.

[39:43] Hey, there's Bruno playing harmonica up on the stage.

[39:45] They needed something that was so unpleasant to look at

[39:50] that people would distract themselves

[39:51] by watching Bruce Willis play harmonica

[39:53] because usually they would choose to look at anything

[39:55] other than that.

[39:55] I just didn't know whether...

[39:58] Have we arrived at the destination yet?

[40:01] at this point in the synopsis?

[40:02] No, no, I'll tell you very quickly.

[40:03] Okay.

[40:03] By this point, Jerry has totally validated Simon

[40:06] as a good soul who deserves success.

[40:08] And the next time they meet, it will be as friends.

[40:10] He says, Simon says, I'm honored to call you my friend.

[40:13] They get to the comedy basement.

[40:14] They hug.

[40:16] And I assume Simon has been taught to be grateful

[40:18] for the things in his life

[40:19] that he was not grateful about before.

[40:21] Maybe he's been given courage.

[40:22] It's so unclear what lessons Simon has learned

[40:24] from all this.

[40:25] I don't know.

[40:25] But Simon has finally made it to the comedy basement.

[40:28] Time for him to go up on stage.

[40:30] First, the comedy columnist is there.

[40:32] Yeah, let me make the point.

[40:33] This is what I was waiting for,

[40:35] and it's kind of like what you were saying there before.

[40:37] Wait, wait, wait.

[40:39] Let me buckle my seatbelt, Dan.

[40:40] Okay.

[40:41] Hold on.

[40:42] Let me pull the shoulder harness down

[40:44] so I don't get thrown out of the ride.

[40:45] I mean, like I said,

[40:47] Elliot kind of already made this point,

[40:49] but a little bit.

[40:50] I have no idea what the catharsis is in this movie,

[40:53] because if we look back on what Simon has flashed back to,

[40:59] like the troubles in his life,

[41:00] they basically boil down to

[41:02] his parents died

[41:04] which I don't want to minimize

[41:05] because I know it's a very difficult thing to go through

[41:08] but like

[41:08] I mean sometimes people turn into Batman

[41:10] when that happens

[41:11] that's how difficult it is

[41:12] well but that's a violent early death

[41:14] whereas like both of these people

[41:16] seem to have lived rich full lives

[41:17] and then died of old age

[41:19] and appeared to be in the prime of health

[41:21] moments before being snatched away

[41:23] they went out at their peak like Joe DiMaggio

[41:25] so there's that

[41:26] and I guess the fact that he's a joke thief

[41:29] which, again, is not really referenced and is his fault, if it's true.

[41:32] I mean, that's one of those things where if this movie wasn't called The Joke Thief,

[41:36] you would never get the idea that he's a joke thief.

[41:39] It would be about a man who wants to be a comedian but is so full of stage fright

[41:44] or maybe worried about rejection or loss.

[41:46] Like, you could make a movie about someone who has lost family members

[41:50] and wants to make people laugh but is worried that, like, they'll lose the audience or something like that.

[41:55] And that's the surrogate family they've always been looking for.

[41:57] but like that's not what the movie is the movie's called the joke thief so you see it's about a guy

[42:01] who stole jokes and has to be redeemed but you never see him steal a joke except all of his jokes

[42:05] yeah i'm just saying domain jokes he's gone through so little hardship in his life other than

[42:11] the fact that he has not made it as a stand-up comic which is one of the hardest things in the

[42:15] world to do so like i don't know yeah i mean it would be especially when most of your performing

[42:20] experience is in front of a mirror in your house yeah i feel like the title of the movie should

[42:24] have been called like number one worst cab customer of all time because it i mean it slightly edges

[42:30] out collateral for that title it's like it goes like martin scorsese and taxi driver frank

[42:38] d'angelo in this movie collateral now where does uh stew burr fit in this oh wow that's a tough one

[42:43] uh based on the fact that i haven't seen it uh but i like the people in it more do you like

[42:49] the title of it, since it has your name?

[42:52] I mean, yeah, I like

[42:54] everything that has my name a little bit.

[42:55] That's why Stuart Pankin is

[42:58] my favorite celebrity.

[42:59] Not necessarily the

[43:02] new star, Stuart Pankin.

[43:03] That's right, you grew up having a big crush on Gloria Stewart.

[43:06] Uh-huh, yep.

[43:07] We got any more?

[43:09] You enjoy eating stew?

[43:11] Uh-huh, as long as that

[43:13] stew isn't made out of the body of Jimmy

[43:15] Stewart. Okay,

[43:17] let's move forward, guys.

[43:20] So he gets to the comedy club.

[43:22] Everybody looks at him and nods, and they're like, oh, I heard of you.

[43:26] You're the best.

[43:26] He goes to the comedy columnist, and he goes, hey, how come you never written about me?

[43:31] And he goes, because I write about comedians, which is supposed to be like a big put down.

[43:36] But he's barely performing.

[43:38] Oh, that's right.

[43:39] Earlier on, he mentioned to Jerry, as I think Stuart mentioned, that he says he never rehearses, but maybe he should.

[43:44] And it's like, dude, yeah, you have to.

[43:47] What are you doing?

[43:48] never rehearses like what anyway at all it's a crazy thing to say and he's hanging out with all

[43:54] the supportive comics backstage again people who are supportive even though he's supposed to be a

[43:58] joke thief and comedians would be very like suspicious of him at best and all the comics

[44:03] are hanging out in the green room after they performed and because they're gonna have to go

[44:08] right back up again have you seen how this club works yeah again as someone who has done it a few

[44:13] times at least like comedians as soon as their set is done they either leave or go to the bar

[44:18] in the back of the room now now i do like how the majority of the jokes are like super old-fashioned

[44:25] and they're all like pretty misogynistic like oh man this is great i'm glad that we let somebody's

[44:32] fucking grandpa pick the fucking set list well i mean i'm sure that frank delangelo finds all of

[44:38] these shows hilarious yeah yeah and so as as dan mentioned normally they would all leave but this

[44:43] being the comedy carousel or comedy shooting gallery where randomly comics just pop up to

[44:48] tell you things uh they're still there uh so we're like simon hangs around through multiple acts to

[44:55] get to his turn and it's like okay time for him to go up let's see him nope wait they're introducing

[45:01] a different comedian and I will say that this is a very real depiction of what a comedy club is like

[45:08] where you think the show is going to be over and they're like we got one more guy coming up and

[45:12] you're like oh god I'm done I don't need it anymore yeah and this was all this is also the

[45:16] point when I was actually yelling at the screen because I'm like movie you've reached the climax

[45:21] and now you're gonna grind to a halt to show all of this guy's set what is going on grind to a halt

[45:29] This movie that has had almost no narrative momentum the entire time.

[45:32] You're saying, Dan, like, if they thought he was a joke thief, why are they acting that way?

[45:36] I think by this point in the movie, they have all forgotten it's called The Joke Thief and it's supposed to be about a joke thief.

[45:40] They just forgot that.

[45:42] It's now just about a great comedian who hasn't had his due.

[45:45] We watch an entire act of this guy telling Italian jokes, which is also like, why would you put a comedian who does nothing but Italian jokes in your Frank D'Angelo movie?

[45:53] So it makes Frank D'Angelo seem even less special than he would otherwise be.

[45:56] Yeah, this was the other time that my girlfriend was, like, angry at the movie.

[46:01] She's like, again, grew up in an Italian-American household.

[46:03] Was she angry because she was laughing so hard and she split her sides?

[46:07] Yeah, that's right.

[46:08] Like, why'd you do this to me, joke thief?

[46:10] No, she's like, just because it's, like, the worst Italian-American stereotypes.

[46:14] And she's like, I never encountered anyone like this.

[46:18] I do like that the guy has a joke where the premise is that he doesn't like the current American president

[46:24] because he's not enough like a gangster.

[46:27] Like, yep, clearly this guy knows what the world needs.

[46:31] I was surprised that the movie briefly got political

[46:34] with some anti-Trump comedy.

[46:36] Very strange in the middle of this.

[46:38] I think that was the weird thing where I was like,

[46:40] that threw me off because I was like,

[46:41] is this guy anti-Trump?

[46:43] Because he reminds me of all the Trump voters

[46:45] that I knew that I grew up with.

[46:46] Yeah, yeah.

[46:46] Like a close family friend who I'm sure voted for Trump

[46:52] like and is like he reminds me so much of that guy but is he is he a new jersey stand-up comedian

[46:57] who tells mafioso based jokes uh yeah anyway he's in this movie and so uh so simon waits he flashes

[47:04] back to his dad telling him he's funny jerry telling him he's funny finally lord above we

[47:10] are seven minutes away from the end of this 87 minute movie and it feels like we've been here

[47:14] forever uh mc daniel baldwin freddie c he comes up and he gives the most heartfelt intro to simon

[47:20] this is a guy who he only put up as a favor to a friend and he's like it means so much to me

[47:25] to have this guy coming up making his basement his comedy basement debut i mean simon whatever

[47:30] his name is i will say that is that is true to a comedy mc they will lie about you being great

[47:36] but he taught it's not even like he's like this guy's a great comedian he talks about him as if

[47:40] this is his a beloved you know landmark icon of the comedy world yeah i mean i feel like they

[47:47] talked about how simon is a good car salesman i think freddie c is the good salesman uh so simon

[47:53] comes up his act consists of two jokes one is about a penguin with car trouble that turns out

[47:58] to be a blowjob joke and the other is about a joke about a dog who can buy drinks but then

[48:03] wastes the money on a prostitute that's the entire act and the audience loves it yeah two jokes the

[48:09] critic nods approvingly from the audience and points to his paper like you're gonna be in it

[48:14] tonight and you're going to be in this report and it's like and i started thinking now like

[48:19] so that's 200 they paid him 100 per joke for those jokes like that's yeah and i mean

[48:23] they were long jokes i mean that that's the rate of like now we got a joke to bob what's weird is

[48:29] that what's weird is that they made a point of saying that this set is going to be televised

[48:34] why is it such a big deal that the critic is also there like it's not like people are going to see

[48:40] it doesn't really matter if what the critics not if it makes sense stewart you just don't

[48:45] understand the comedy world all right the most important thing is to get on the side of the

[48:49] critics because frank d'angelo understands comedy based on what he saw in the movie sweet smell of

[48:54] success where the only way to get success is to be in the columns the next day and so that's simon

[48:59] walks off to applause and that's the movie the title comes up the joke thief they somehow remember

[49:03] that's what the movie is called there's a dedication card to frank d'angelo's father

[49:08] and we get uh in the end credits ed the sock gets his own end credit title card for himself and we

[49:15] get to dan i hinted earlier there's a blooper reel and i want to take a couple minutes to talk about

[49:20] this because this is much like the movie misunderstands comedy and movies and human

[49:25] behavior the blooper reel it's supposed to be like blooper reels is like a reel of people

[49:30] screwing up and having fun and being silly yeah like Johnny Knoxville getting his ball smashed in

[49:34] well that's also most of the movie but yeah that's the blooper reel too but this blooper reel is

[49:39] almost entirely Frank D'Angelo berating the crew for doing things wrong like telling him that the

[49:46] boom mic slipped down getting mad at one of the actors for doing something wrong and he's just

[49:50] being a jerk and it's like I have two theories about this either one after playing a sad sack

[49:56] for the whole movie even a sad sack everyone in the movie loves and will do anything for

[49:59] he had to reassure the audience that he is the boss he is in charge so he's going to show you

[50:04] what it's really like on the set or that it's like the end of a face in the crowd and like the editor

[50:09] wanted to show the world what a bad guy frank d'angelo so he snuck in this footage of him being

[50:13] a jerk but it's i was so baffled by these i was so excited because as everyone knows anytime i

[50:18] finish any movie even like the favorite i fast forward to the credits to see if there are any

[50:22] bloops almost no there's almost i remember anytime my wife and i are watching like a really heavy

[50:27] serious movie i like to cut the tension by whenever it ends like when spotlight was over i was like

[50:31] okay let's just check and see if there are any bloops and i guess we're through the credits

[50:34] but uh i was like finally bloops and but these bloops are like again it's just it's just on set

[50:41] footage of frank d'angelo telling people that they're wrong about stuff yeah it's crazy and

[50:45] you have offered two joke explanations for this i want to offer what i believe to be the real

[50:49] explanation which is frank d'angelo is an asshole and as many as many assholes i feel like that i

[50:56] feel like that dovetails with both of my explanations well but as many assholes do he

[51:01] thinks that berating other people is all in good fun and it's hilarious and everyone's gonna love

[51:07] seeing him berating these yeah yeah seeing him giving someone the dozens yeah well in canada

[51:12] with the exchange rate it's actually about 16. oh shit wow wow that's the hackiest joke i could have

[51:18] so i don't know uh i got a comedy showcase that you can be a part of forever no wait is it in a

[51:26] basement i love he probably saw louie and he was like comedy seller okay i'll name my club the

[51:30] comedy basement almost certainly almost certainly okay let's move on actually you know what i never

[51:36] thought about that this movie likes makes a lot more sense if frank d'angelo saw louie the show

[51:41] yeah and was like oh i'll do that and that this is his understanding of what that show is he's like

[51:46] now that louie's off the air due to i don't know some uh pc based reason uh i'm gonna fill that

[51:53] void with my movie i mean ironically frank d'angelo was brought up on charges of sexual harassment so

[51:59] they're they're like two peas in a pod that was the story of frank d'angelo being uh the charges

[52:05] were were either dropped or he was found not guilty and then he invited either the prosecutor

[52:10] or the judge to his congratulations party

[52:11] afterwards, which real

[52:13] classy move. Classy move,

[52:15] Canadian legal system. Well, I

[52:17] like that as a place to give

[52:19] our final judgments, whether this is

[52:21] a good bad movie, a bad bad

[52:24] movie, or a movie you kind of liked. I'm going to say

[52:26] I usually really like

[52:27] these Small Timber episodes.

[52:29] I do feel, as we

[52:32] said, a little guilty about

[52:33] signal boosting an asshole. Well,

[52:35] yeah, I was going to say Punching Down, but also

[52:37] I feel less guilty about it because he's such

[52:39] a jerk yeah that i but i usually really enjoy these because it's a they're always sillier and

[52:45] weirder and they give us a chance to do something different i will say that i yelled at the screen

[52:50] more at this one i think because in addition to the baffling uh narrative choices again i'm like

[52:57] he misunderstands comedy so much you're like watching it and you're like do a little fucking

[53:02] research on how any of this works like you have comics in your movie ask one of them whether any

[53:08] of this makes sense but that being said it is so dumb and so weird that i would say it's probably

[53:14] a good bad movie yeah i mean it's uh i would feel uh of the frank d'angelo movies we've watched i

[53:21] this one was the least pleasant uh the and it is one of those things where you're like

[53:28] you're like frank you're making a movie and scoring it and starring in it every year

[53:36] what the fuck am i doing with my life uh so yeah i guess it's a good bad movie uh i mean you

[53:46] probably shouldn't support him because he's an asshole so yeah that's the other thing like figure

[53:49] out a way of seeing it if you want to without giving him money and i would yeah i would also

[53:53] call it a good bad movie because it is baffling but i would say similarly if you're gonna watch

[53:58] a frank d'angelo movie in some way that involves not giving money to him this is not the one to

[54:02] start with i would still say that no deposit is the one to start with the best but if you're

[54:07] willing if you want to dig further into the frank d'angelo in the frank d'angelo verse

[54:11] then then go ahead with this one

[54:13] hi it's me paula poundstone and it's me adam felber we have a podcast called nobody listens

[54:24] to paula poundstone it's a comedy podcast where we bring on experts to teach us stuff we need to

[54:29] know. And by the way, the guy who came to tell us what to do when you encounter a bear never showed

[54:33] up. Anyway, it's fun. You are guaranteed laughs in every episode. You can't really guarantee laughs.

[54:39] What if somebody doesn't laugh? We'll get sued. Join us for our next episode when we have an

[54:43] expert in consumer law explain to us how to defend ourselves against one humorless litigious shut-in

[54:50] with enough time on their hands to sue us over our unfulfilled claim of guaranteed laughs in

[54:54] Every episode, here at MaximumFun.org.

[54:57] The Cat of the Week is Mabel from Green Bank, West Virginia.

[55:02] Welcome, everyone, to the live wrestling spectacular in Los Angeles.

[55:09] So far, the world's most boring wrestling podcast has been destroying the competition.

[55:14] Isn't there anyone who can save us from this travesty?

[55:18] Wait, could it be?

[55:20] It's Titan Fights, the perfect wrestling podcast.

[55:24] Tights and Fights is here to save us from the monotony of boring wrestling podcasts

[55:29] with hilarious conversations.

[55:31] Woke trips through the history of wrestling.

[55:33] And joke about the finer points of people wearing spandex.

[55:38] What a match!

[55:43] And the Tights and Fights podcast will be back every week.

[55:46] Thursdays on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts.

[55:50] Please, these hosts have families.

[55:52] so uh moving on let me unlock my phone so i can read a few ads professional the first one

[56:11] is squarespace hey why not so dan does the ad copy for squarespace start with hey

[56:18] because you always start on that way.

[56:20] Well, here's the thing.

[56:22] I was looking at it, and most of them sort of give you a little intro,

[56:25] and I was taken off guard by the fact that it goes right into bullet points.

[56:29] But I want to say, by word of explanation,

[56:33] Squarespace is one of our sponsors, and they help you make websites

[56:36] where you can blog or publish content, sell products and services of all kinds,

[56:41] and more.

[56:43] You know, more is like whatever your little heart desires.

[56:48] Squarespace does this by...

[56:49] Is that clarified in the copy?

[56:51] I don't know.

[56:52] Or are you writing checks that they can't cash?

[56:57] Again, I mean, like, our great sponsor,

[56:59] which is a great sponsor,

[57:01] they probably don't want us criticizing the copy,

[57:03] but I always get taken off guard by that as well

[57:05] because there are two bullet points and then and more.

[57:08] But Squarespace does this by giving you

[57:11] beautiful, customizable templates

[57:13] created by world-class designers,

[57:14] everything optimized for mobile right out of the box,

[57:18] a new way to buy domains and choose from over 200 extensions,

[57:21] and free and secure hosting.

[57:24] So head to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial,

[57:29] and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code flop

[57:32] to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[57:38] Now, Dan, I had an idea for a website,

[57:40] and I was wondering if you thought Squarespace would be able to help me with it.

[57:43] Probably, but go on.

[57:45] Okay, so I was inspired by this movie.

[57:48] I really was inspired by the driver, Jerry, as Simon dubs him, and how he wasn't just a driver of a man in a car.

[57:56] He was a driver of a man's soul.

[57:58] And he really gave him the spiritual and philosophical and therapeutic uplift he needed all in that little drive.

[58:05] And so inspired by Jerry and Uber, I wanted to start my own car service I call Juber, named after Jerry, of course.

[58:11] And with Juber, you get in the car, and you're not just getting a ride.

[58:17] you're getting a soul, and you're getting a listening ear, and you're getting some good

[58:21] advice. So that's Juber. Now, again, this is different from my previous website, Juber.com,

[58:26] which was candies in the shape of Jews. It was like Goobers, but they're in the shape of Jews,

[58:31] famous Jews, you know, like Sholem Aleichem, Sidney Pollack, you know, all sorts of famous

[58:36] Jews. But that was a different, that was Juber.com. So this is Juber.org, because I feel like what

[58:41] we're doing here is more of a charitable, not-for-profit thing, although we are expecting

[58:45] a profit so that's juber.org for someone like jerry to listen to your problems and give you

[58:49] advice while you get driven to where you're going or juber.com if you're still interested i have a

[58:55] warehouse full of candy in the shape of jews if anyone if you ever wanted a piece of candy shaped

[58:59] like joseph heller or a piece of candy shaped like uh like gold in my ear just let me know

[59:04] they're very as shaped like half of william shatner yeah that's yep as it says on the bag

[59:10] Very Chewy, Very Jewy.

[59:12] That's Juber.com.

[59:13] Just again, I'll sell it to you cut rate because I got a warehouse full of things.

[59:16] They did not move.

[59:17] And Juber.org is Jerry's Uber driver.

[59:20] Now, Elliot, I just want to take a moment to say, even though I know that you are one

[59:25] of the chosen people, that made me very uncomfortable.

[59:27] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[59:28] I don't know why.

[59:29] Okay.

[59:30] I don't understand.

[59:31] I mean, I'm just trying to celebrate my heritage in the form of delicious candy, but okay.

[59:35] Moving on to Dashlane, the Flophouse is supported in part by Dashlane, which is a

[59:40] password management app that keeps all of your online information safe secure encrypted and easy

[59:47] to access dash lane remembers all of your passwords so you don't have to can't remember

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[59:58] visited in your entire life dash lane can that sounds great because you know i've been doing

[1:00:04] this podcast for a long time and every time we're about to do uh every time we're about to do an

[1:00:09] intro i always forget how to do it yep can you identify that at all dan yeah well i'm glad that

[1:00:15] you finally admit it too it's your take a little weight off my shoulders but uh dash lane seamlessly

[1:00:21] autofills all of your login information syncing automatically across your computer phone and

[1:00:25] tablet it even stores payment details so go ahead and get weird with your passwords or let dash lane

[1:00:32] generate a real stumper for you they'll keep it safely stored in a password vault only you can

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[1:00:52] including VPN VPN pardon me dark web and

[1:00:57] dark web monitoring sorry there was a

[1:00:59] line break they're not offering the dark

[1:01:01] web to you dark web monitor Elliot's

[1:01:05] eyes lit up with excitement and more what what corridors of the uh the internet super highway

[1:01:11] if you if you like dash lane use code flop at checkout to save 10 on your premium subscription

[1:01:19] i was just thinking that the dark web would be a great place for me to sell all these bags of

[1:01:23] jubers that i have that i haven't been able to unload now guys i think i realized one of the

[1:01:27] problems with an otherwise flawless product which is i mentioned those famous names but the famous

[1:01:33] names are just kind of to get you in the door i couldn't get the rights to the likenesses to a lot

[1:01:36] of different famous jews so so most of the juber candies are just look like my relatives like my

[1:01:41] uncle gary my brother like my aunt wendy like my uncle lou yeah there's a little asterisk on the

[1:01:49] box and it says artist's impression yeah yeah exactly like some my my uh some of my great

[1:01:54] grandparents like great grandpa eddie you know my great aunt leah so like do you think that was it

[1:02:00] that people were not that interested in candy

[1:02:02] shaped like Jews they'd never heard of?

[1:02:03] Could be. I thought you were

[1:02:06] going to say that because you couldn't get the

[1:02:07] rights, they were just shaped like normal

[1:02:10] gummy bears.

[1:02:10] I mean, isn't a goober

[1:02:14] a chocolate-covered, like, raisin

[1:02:16] or a peanut or some shit? A goober is, yeah.

[1:02:18] I just stole the name.

[1:02:19] Look, there's still chewy gummy candies.

[1:02:21] I guess if you

[1:02:24] say a hard G,

[1:02:25] you could make it.

[1:02:27] No, no, joobers are different. Anyway, like, yeah,

[1:02:30] So I guess people didn't want to eat, like, a candy in the shape of my dad's cousin, Shelly.

[1:02:34] Is that possible?

[1:02:36] I find that baffling.

[1:02:37] So you guys have Jumbotrons that I sent to you.

[1:02:41] Who wants to go first?

[1:02:43] It looks like Stuart has this.

[1:02:45] I'm ready to go with a Jumbotron.

[1:02:48] Why don't you go first, Stu?

[1:02:50] Okay.

[1:02:51] Do you need to interrupt me again?

[1:02:53] Cool.

[1:02:56] Let's do this thing.

[1:02:58] This message is for Ben and Chip.

[1:03:01] The message is from Lucy and Kudo.

[1:03:05] I was going to get a Jumbotron celebrating the first anniversary of your move to New York, but I forgot.

[1:03:12] So instead, here's one for the 15-month anniversary.

[1:03:16] Unless this airs after September or, in this case, Smallvember.

[1:03:20] In which case, it's the thought that counts.

[1:03:23] Anyway, hooray for you.

[1:03:25] I love you.

[1:03:26] I'm proud of you.

[1:03:28] And I'm still very jealous that you get to go to Hinterlands.

[1:03:31] That's Hinterlands Bar, located at 739 Church Avenue in Brooklyn, New York.

[1:03:37] And you should be jealous, because even if Stuart and Charlene didn't own it,

[1:03:42] I think it would be one of my favorite bars.

[1:03:43] Oh, bless you.

[1:03:44] That's very nice.

[1:03:45] And bless this message.

[1:03:46] It's a very lovely sentiment.

[1:03:48] Speaking of lovely sentiments, here comes another one.

[1:03:51] This message is for Dale.

[1:03:52] And the message is from Sage, Ivy, and Katie.

[1:03:55] And that message is,

[1:03:56] Hey, Dadalo, whether you're building a weeping angel statue,

[1:03:59] making movies shorts, or dancing to 80s New Wave,

[1:04:02] you're the coolest cat around.

[1:04:04] Thank you for getting us into bad movies through MST3K

[1:04:07] and the Neil Breen Cinematic Universe.

[1:04:08] Happy 53rd birthday.

[1:04:10] Love you forever from your daughters, Sage and Ivy,

[1:04:13] and your wife, Katie.

[1:04:14] That's very sweet.

[1:04:15] What a wonderful birthday message.

[1:04:16] We got some sweet messages.

[1:04:19] Oh, wow.

[1:04:20] Archie is looking adorable on the couch right now.

[1:04:23] Sorry.

[1:04:23] And that's the cat report for today.

[1:04:26] I was just thinking, you know what would go great with those sweet messages is the sweetness you get only in a delicious, chewy candy, like Jubers.

[1:04:32] Get in touch with me.

[1:04:33] Now, Elliot, recently you've been taking care of the live show info.

[1:04:39] Do you have that information?

[1:04:40] I do indeed, because it's called preparation.

[1:04:43] We've got some live shows coming up.

[1:04:45] Now, when this episode airs, there will still be time to buy some tickets for the late show in Boston.

[1:04:50] That's on September 28th in Boston.

[1:04:53] We'll be at DBUR City Space, which I think is technically in Brookline, but we're calling it Boston.

[1:04:56] Anyway, we're doing two shows that night.

[1:04:58] The 7 p.m. show, where we'll be talking about Alita, Battle Angel, is sold out.

[1:05:02] But there are still a few tickets left for the 9.45 show, where we'll be talking about Godzilla, King of the Monsters.

[1:05:08] That's right.

[1:05:08] As I said earlier in another episode, it's a double colon night.

[1:05:11] Alita, colon, Battle Angel at 7.

[1:05:13] Godzilla, colon, King of the Monsters at 9.45.

[1:05:16] We'll be doing different shows.

[1:05:17] We'll be doing—I know Dan and I, and I think you two still, will be doing different presentations for each show.

[1:05:22] Yeah.

[1:05:23] I'm definitely, I've been putting a lot of work into my definitive presentation on the history of the Fast and Furious franchise, so I'm very excited about this.

[1:05:34] I will say that my first presentation, as befitting the early show, is a little more all ages. The second gets a little blue.

[1:05:41] Mine is actually the reverse, I think.

[1:05:44] Which is great because the venue, the audience has a giant glass window behind them,

[1:05:49] so anybody walking down the street taking their kids out for an ice cream can see your gross-ass shit.

[1:05:54] I totally forgot about that.

[1:05:56] I should switch the order of my presentations.

[1:05:58] So that's Boston at September 28th.

[1:06:01] Two different shows.

[1:06:02] If you can stomach the idea of spending multiple hours with us,

[1:06:05] I would advise you to go to both shows if you would like.

[1:06:07] Because we're doing a late show, this is just a note that if you want to get any merchandise signed from us,

[1:06:13] we are more likely to be signing for a short amount of time before the shows

[1:06:16] or between the two shows.

[1:06:17] I don't think we're going to have time after the last show,

[1:06:19] but we'll get to that.

[1:06:20] And the other live show coming up is in L.A., Los Angeles.

[1:06:24] That's right.

[1:06:25] I love L.A., a song we didn't hear earlier in the show at all.

[1:06:27] October 12th on 2019, that'll be at the Regent Theater at 7 p.m.,

[1:06:32] and we're going to be talking about Dark Phoenix,

[1:06:34] the movie that killed the X-Men franchise.

[1:06:36] Oh, boy, can't wait.

[1:06:38] I'm sure two comic heads like me and Stu will be excited to point out

[1:06:41] all the differences between the serial killers.

[1:06:42] Dan likes comics, too, like Crazy Cat and Yellow Kid.

[1:06:47] No, I mean, not the Yellow Kid.

[1:06:50] I don't know.

[1:06:52] You have it placed prominently on your shelf

[1:06:54] right next to your book of erotica.

[1:06:56] Yeah.

[1:06:57] It's true.

[1:07:00] I do like a lot of old comics,

[1:07:02] but it's not like, I don't know,

[1:07:03] like the Cats and Jammer Kids.

[1:07:05] He's like, if it wasn't in Bill Blackbeard's basement,

[1:07:08] then I don't want to read it.

[1:07:09] anyway so that's september 28th 2019 in boston two different shows early show sold out late show not

[1:07:16] sold out if you want some tickets to it la show october 12th and we're gonna be talking some big

[1:07:21] blockbuster movies all that information is of course also available at flophousepodcast.com

[1:07:27] slash events that's also where you can buy tickets flophousepodcast.com slash events for those shows

[1:07:34] i think that's it for this sort of thing that's it for the episode goodbye everybody no no no

[1:07:41] this section dan do dan do you want to mention our new merch real quick oh yeah uh so as i said

[1:07:47] before our merch contest is over we selected two great uh designs and they're both available now

[1:07:54] at Tapotico

[1:07:56] under the Maximum Fun

[1:07:59] section of

[1:08:00] the, I think the site is

[1:08:03] I think it is organized

[1:08:05] it's subheading podcast

[1:08:07] subheading Maximum Fun

[1:08:08] and then you can find the Flophouse merch

[1:08:11] there and there's a

[1:08:13] link to that if you

[1:08:14] can just Google Tapotico or you can go to our website

[1:08:17] again and click on the

[1:08:18] merch tab. Yeah, it's

[1:08:20] Tapotico, that's T-O-P-A-T-O-C-O

[1:08:23] dot com slash collections slash

[1:08:26] maximum dash fun.

[1:08:27] So maybe just Google maximum fun.

[1:08:30] And just remember, it's never too early

[1:08:32] to start buying holiday gifts, you know?

[1:08:33] There's holidays all the time.

[1:08:36] I don't want to spoil anything, but I

[1:08:38] actually bought holiday gifts for both of you

[1:08:40] just this week.

[1:08:41] Oh, no. That's really nice.

[1:08:43] So I guess I'll go

[1:08:45] to the store.

[1:08:46] I'm just saying I'm showing

[1:08:50] the foresight as a gift giver that I

[1:08:52] never show as a podcaster it's a harder skill to market i guess but that's okay

[1:08:59] um i feel like that's the inverse of mark maron although he's a great actor i imagine he's not

[1:09:05] the best gift giver but whatever let's just based on the character i get from his show

[1:09:12] let us move along uh i reach uh this is sorry this is the letter segment i should just start

[1:09:19] reading a letter this is where we dan but at least you got the presents bought dan

[1:09:26] this is where we uh take letters from listeners i wish there was a dash lane for the structure

[1:09:34] of this podcast right i mean there is it's what i use i literally type up an agenda and i just

[1:09:39] look at it through the whole episode but you know i haven't said this in a while because we have a

[1:09:43] huge backlog of letters actually that we'll never ever get to but if you do want to send a letter

[1:09:48] Again, the easiest way is to go to our website and click on the contact page.

[1:09:52] That would be flophousepodcast.com, the aforementioned website that Dan felt it was not necessary to tell you the URL of.

[1:09:59] So we're not going to be here until inbox zero is what you're saying?

[1:10:02] No, it's never going to happen.

[1:10:03] I mean, maybe if there's a precipitous drop in our popularity, we'll be cool.

[1:10:09] Who knows?

[1:10:10] After this episode, who knows?

[1:10:11] It's possible.

[1:10:12] Anyway, moving on to letters, as I was saying, letters from listeners, listeners like you.

[1:10:18] This first letter is from Alicia, last name withheld.

[1:10:22] Silverstone.

[1:10:23] Alicia writes, I recently had the misfortune to be put through a newer movie, The Art of Racing in the Rain.

[1:10:30] I really hated it and was gratified to see that the critics on Rotten Tomatoes did too, giving it an overall score of 42%.

[1:10:39] Weirdly, at least to me, audiences seemed to like it, handing it a 96% approval rating.

[1:10:46] I was quite surprised that the movie is full of very routine cliches, ones that I would dub tiresome at best.

[1:10:55] Yeah, but that's a movie filled with dogs, right?

[1:10:57] People love fucking dogs, man.

[1:10:59] They love their dogs.

[1:11:00] That's why White God was such a huge hit.

[1:11:03] Boy and his dog.

[1:11:06] But, I mean, the Art of Racing in the Rain does feature the actor who played Jess on Gilmore Girls,

[1:11:13] so automatically that's a not-watch for me.

[1:11:15] Okay.

[1:11:16] I'm sure he's fine.

[1:11:18] The character is terrible.

[1:11:21] It's like how my parents could never watch Mad About You

[1:11:25] because they held so much anger over Paul Reiser's character in Aliens.

[1:11:29] I like to pretend they're the same character,

[1:11:33] Or that Paul Reiser's character in Aliens is the child of the characters in Mad About You.

[1:11:38] Oh, cool, yeah.

[1:11:38] Okay, moving on to the rest of the letter.

[1:11:41] Yeah.

[1:11:42] It made me wonder if I was missing a bigger picture.

[1:11:45] And I was also curious about what you would say about it.

[1:11:48] Do you guys see this wide of a disagreement between audience and critic scores often?

[1:11:52] And if so, what are some movies where the critics panned it, but audiences ate it up?

[1:11:57] If you're so inclined to speculate, what accounts for this difference?

[1:12:01] Thanks, guys, and keep flopping.

[1:12:03] Sincerely, Alicia Lasting Withheld.

[1:12:05] Now, I'd like to jump in and say that some movies that critics panned

[1:12:09] and audiences ate up, all of them?

[1:12:10] Yeah.

[1:12:11] Like this happens constantly?

[1:12:13] It happens with a lot of comedies, I find, right?

[1:12:16] Or like Transformers movies.

[1:12:18] Oh, yeah.

[1:12:19] Often I'll look up a movie on Wikipedia, and it'll say, like,

[1:12:22] on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, it has, you know, 39%.

[1:12:26] CinemaScore audiences gave it a B-plus or an A-minus.

[1:12:30] I think it's – there's most – I think my theory is that the critics and the audience members are coming at it from two different points of view.

[1:12:37] Critics are coming at it from a – I mean sophisticated is the wrong word, but a craft point of view, whereas audiences are coming at it from a sheer, pure, physical experience, emotion point of view, which is not necessarily wrong.

[1:12:49] But it's why like when Alicia says that it was just full of cliches, like audiences like a lot of those.

[1:12:57] Like there are cliches because they make people feel a certain way and people like to feel that way.

[1:13:01] That's just my theory.

[1:13:02] I mean the other thing that goes along with what you were just saying, especially about cliches, is that critics see so many more movies than audiences.

[1:13:09] So they are more sensitive to cliches.

[1:13:11] Like, they're often looking more for something that takes something on from a novel or, like, very specific direction.

[1:13:22] And, I mean, you know, it's like the same way that, like, if you're really into, like, any particular genre, like, over time, I think you're drawn to, like, the purest forms of that genre or, like, the outliers, maybe.

[1:13:35] yeah it's it's it's like the analogy about like eating peppers like eating spicy food that like

[1:13:40] if you've never eaten spicy food even the slightest bit spicy food is going to be exciting

[1:13:45] but if you're like a crazy if you're a crazy heat seeker uh anything short of like a ghost pepper is

[1:13:51] not going to fucking make it twitch yeah and the and the idea that like a newbie who uh chows down

[1:13:58] on a ghost pepper would like wreck their palate they would hate it which is why the the metacritic

[1:14:04] score of the ghost pepper the critic review would be very high but the audience review would be very

[1:14:09] low which are usually the movies i like well that's it well i still haven't seen a quiet place

[1:14:15] but it reminds me what listening to you guys and other people talk about it was like if you're

[1:14:19] really into horror movies and scare movies already it wasn't that impressive but if you're an audience

[1:14:24] that doesn't usually see those types of movies i'm sure it was it felt much more new to you whereas

[1:14:29] something like mandy which is what someone who's drenched in horror all the time would gravitate

[1:14:34] towards because it's new and strange and weird that would be a ghost pepper for most people

[1:14:38] yeah yeah what am i even looking at or the touchstones uh it uses are a little more like

[1:14:44] esoteric yeah i it's funny that you bring quiet place up because like i was talking about this

[1:14:49] question just yesterday and that was the exact example i gave like and i i have gotten in trouble

[1:14:54] before like by sort of referring to quiet place as like like beginner horror but that's fine if

[1:15:00] like horror is not a thing that you normally like like quiet place is skillfully made it's not for

[1:15:05] me because like i've seen a lot of movies like that before so i'm like okay this is what it is

[1:15:11] you know yeah i like i i find any time i'm a lot of times when i'm talking about like comics comic

[1:15:16] books with people a lot of modern comics that uh people use as a gateway like books that get them

[1:15:23] really excited i end up not caring for because it it feels too rudimentary to me or like it feels

[1:15:28] like some guy shat out of like a failed tv pilot that they decide to like lazily draw but and by

[1:15:35] the way by the way i like stewart you were like maybe that's on me for for being too esoteric

[1:15:40] but also maybe they just shat out this thing yeah sub tweet sub tweet yeah by the way i want to say

[1:15:44] i want to say that we realize that we're sounding like insufferable snobs right now real asshole no

[1:15:50] But I think what we're saying is that, like, in certain things we are snobs, and so we understand why someone who is not a snob would find more enjoyment in a thing that we find dull because they're not a snob about it.

[1:16:05] It's like – I think something that – a specific movie that this – it's not exactly the same thing, but recently most of the critics gave Lion King like a pretty subpar review, and they were like, there's no reason to make this.

[1:16:17] The animals don't show any emotion.

[1:16:19] There's already this great version of it.

[1:16:20] But audiences, I mean, it's the number one animated movie

[1:16:23] in the history of the world right now.

[1:16:25] I mean, it's not animated.

[1:16:26] It was live action.

[1:16:28] Stu, I hate to break it to you.

[1:16:31] It's entirely animated.

[1:16:32] There's no real things in the whole movie.

[1:16:34] But for audiences, when they're watching it,

[1:16:36] they're just like, Lion King.

[1:16:37] I love these songs.

[1:16:39] There's a bunch of animals jumping around.

[1:16:40] I have a place to take my child for two hours

[1:16:44] when it's hot out.

[1:16:45] Like, fine.

[1:16:46] Okay, let's go see Lion King.

[1:16:48] I feel like when a critic watches a movie, they're like, why does this movie exist?

[1:16:54] And it has to justify its existence.

[1:16:55] When an audience watches a movie, even when they don't like it, they're like, eh, movie.

[1:16:59] That was fun.

[1:17:00] Okay, moving along, which is fine.

[1:17:01] Did I feel like I wasted my time?

[1:17:03] Did it force me to look at my phone the whole time, et cetera?

[1:17:07] If an audience member doesn't hate a movie, then they're probably fine with it.

[1:17:11] Mediocre is fine.

[1:17:13] And that's not because they don't have this great sophisticated palette that everybody needs.

[1:17:17] because they're using it for a different purpose

[1:17:19] than the critic is, or that you or I might.

[1:17:21] What fucking snobs we are.

[1:17:23] Oh, yeah, let's move on before that.

[1:17:25] I said it was okay.

[1:17:26] I said it's fine.

[1:17:27] Yeah, I know, but it still sounds condescending.

[1:17:29] Moving on to Alex, last name withheld,

[1:17:31] who writes,

[1:17:32] on a recent episode,

[1:17:34] you were reminiscing about the Gremlin storybooks,

[1:17:37] which came with EP records

[1:17:39] of someone reading the narrative.

[1:17:40] I purchased these books on eBay not long ago

[1:17:43] because I was volunteering

[1:17:44] with an after-school tutoring program

[1:17:46] working with a first grader who was struggling with reading and focus.

[1:17:50] For some unimaginable reason in the 21st century,

[1:17:53] this child was obsessed with the Gremlins franchise.

[1:17:56] Because it's a great franchise.

[1:17:58] I pretended to discover the books on the shelf at the tutoring program,

[1:18:01] and they were at least a partial success in helping him to sight-read words

[1:18:05] like mogwai and gizmo.

[1:18:07] Useful in life.

[1:18:07] That's great.

[1:18:08] It was only at this child's insistence that I watched Gremlins 2 for the first time,

[1:18:14] and boy, did he steer me right.

[1:18:16] Previously, I had watched Jurassic Park 3 because of a fifth-grader's insistence

[1:18:19] that it was the best of the series, an opinion I do not share,

[1:18:22] though I respect the third installment's lean focus on thrilling action

[1:18:25] rather than attempting to rekindle Spielbergian wonder.

[1:18:29] That was a little review of Jurassic Park 3.

[1:18:32] Yeah, yeah, slip it in there.

[1:18:33] Somebody's Letterboxd account just breached the fucking Matrix.

[1:18:36] What generationally inappropriate movies or other media did you guys obsess with

[1:18:44] obsessed with as children cordially alex last name withheld yeah i mean like i i think this

[1:18:51] is taylor made for me for elliot who was uh born out of time but i want to jump in first and say

[1:18:58] like they're you know like there was stuff like i don't know like the march brothers or like old

[1:19:04] show tunes or whatever that like i got into because not only having parents who were older

[1:19:12] when I was born

[1:19:14] and brothers who were much older than me.

[1:19:16] You mean they were older than you?

[1:19:17] Well, I mean, they...

[1:19:19] Because that's how it's supposed to work.

[1:19:21] They had me later in life

[1:19:22] than many people have children.

[1:19:23] And also my brothers are 10 and 13 years older.

[1:19:27] So a lot of that was...

[1:19:28] How does that make you feel?

[1:19:29] Does it make like...

[1:19:30] Fine.

[1:19:30] I don't have any...

[1:19:32] You don't feel like an afterthought or anything?

[1:19:33] No.

[1:19:34] My mom and I were washing dishes one time

[1:19:38] when I was like about 16.

[1:19:39] And apropos of nothing,

[1:19:40] she turned to me and said,

[1:19:42] You were planned, by the way.

[1:19:43] And I guess, like, she figured, like, oh, you know, he's reaching an age where he'd be, like, doing the math and, like, wondering about that.

[1:19:50] And I'm just like, I don't care.

[1:19:51] In that kind of a situation, you want to get out in front of it anyway, whether or not that's the case.

[1:19:55] If I was you, Dan, I'd just be proud of my parents for, as many couples are relinquishing their grasp on intimacy as they get older,

[1:20:06] That your parents held on to it and were still expressing their love for each other in a really wonderful and very, you know, physical way.

[1:20:12] And I think that's great.

[1:20:13] Well, I was going to say that I didn't care because it didn't matter to me the way I got into the world as long as I'm here.

[1:20:19] But you just made me uncomfortable with it for the first time in my life.

[1:20:22] So thanks for that.

[1:20:23] You're welcome.

[1:20:24] But other than like.

[1:20:26] Just sometimes it feels better to raw dog, you know.

[1:20:28] Other than.

[1:20:29] Other than.

[1:20:30] No.

[1:20:32] Other than the stuff I inherited from the older members of my family.

[1:20:37] Like, I don't know.

[1:20:39] Like, I got into reading a bunch of Houdini biographies as a kid.

[1:20:44] I was fascinated by him.

[1:20:46] Like, he had a very fascinating life.

[1:20:48] And I have no idea why I was so into him other than I, by happenstance, picked up sort of, like, a child's biography of his from the library.

[1:20:58] And it triggered something.

[1:21:01] And I read a bunch of other books, including more adult biographies.

[1:21:05] And I think sometimes it just works by weird chance that something strikes your fancy.

[1:21:11] But what do you guys think?

[1:21:12] I mean, when I was a teenager, I was listening to a lot of Steely Dan, which is strange since I am neither a middle-aged man or a baby boomer.

[1:21:22] I mean, it's kind of the same thing.

[1:21:26] But when you sent this question to us in advance and it got me thinking about how when I was a kid, we were staying at a vacation house and I found a collection of an old comic strip called Scroogey.

[1:21:42] It's like a baseball comic strip.

[1:21:46] And I remember being like totally obsessed with it.

[1:21:49] And I was like drawing the characters.

[1:21:51] And I have like even Googling it now was hard for me to find it.

[1:21:55] Googling, like, baseball comic strip, it took me, I had to go through a lot of pages before I think I found what it was.

[1:22:02] And like you said, it was all happenstance.

[1:22:07] When I knocked over that thing and the map fell out, then I followed the map to the ancient pharaoh's tomb.

[1:22:15] You had to unlock, you had to decode the rebus.

[1:22:19] Yeah, I don't know.

[1:22:23] I just always liked stuff that was older.

[1:22:25] I mean, I grew up in the, as a kid, mainly in the 1990s, which I still kind of see as the nadir of human civilization and American society in a lot of ways.

[1:22:35] I mean, it was a time of peace and relative, you know, non-unrest as there is, like, I mean, right now is a pretty terrible time.

[1:22:47] Well, maybe it's because of that the art and culture of the 90s that I was being exposed to, at least as an adolescent teen, was not about interesting things, but was instead about young people who couldn't figure out what to do with their lives in their 20s.

[1:23:00] Yeah, the malaise of the time.

[1:23:03] yeah and it's also like when uh when irony infected everything and i often i think as a

[1:23:09] kid i looked back on older things and i liked the sincerity of them because in the 90s is when like

[1:23:15] every commercial couldn't be like here's our product we really like it a lot you'll like it

[1:23:18] too which was what the 80s commercials were like and instead all the commercials were like

[1:23:22] hey man i'm gonna pretend i'm from the 50s or something dude and the joke is that i'm uncool

[1:23:28] and that's what's cool about it and was like oh forget it like it was too much just weird nonsense

[1:23:33] like quiznos rats or whatever yeah exactly and so i don't know and you know so maybe people like

[1:23:39] that stuff i don't but i just always liked older things what are you gonna do i mean when i was in

[1:23:43] you're saying you mainly like it for the politics that they espouse the politics and especially the

[1:23:49] racial politics i was very into yeah of course it was so it was everything just everyone just

[1:23:54] knew their place back then.

[1:23:55] Terrible.

[1:23:56] But that was the hard thing

[1:23:59] but that was the hard thing

[1:24:00] as a kid

[1:24:00] like even watching those things

[1:24:02] and knowing

[1:24:02] there's things about this

[1:24:04] that are not okay with me now

[1:24:05] but there are things

[1:24:06] that are okay

[1:24:07] but like you know

[1:24:08] when I was really into

[1:24:09] it wasn't just old movies

[1:24:11] like I was really into like

[1:24:12] Goethe's version of Faust

[1:24:13] which I would read

[1:24:15] over and over again

[1:24:15] and like the Divine Comedy

[1:24:16] I would read over and over again.

[1:24:17] You prefer that

[1:24:18] to the Marlowe version of Faust?

[1:24:19] I do prefer it

[1:24:21] to the Marlowe version of Faust.

[1:24:22] I think it's more interesting.

[1:24:22] Okay.

[1:24:23] That's a different podcast.

[1:24:24] We'll talk about that.

[1:24:25] But I think a lot of what I was drawn to in that stuff was life.

[1:24:29] I think that's the bonus episode this year, guys.

[1:24:31] A lot of...

[1:24:32] Yeah, our Faust off.

[1:24:34] It's Faust-y-uary.

[1:24:37] That's the month we talk about Faust.

[1:24:39] And I'll just sit on the side being like, what?

[1:24:41] And of course, I've never read...

[1:24:44] There's that comic book Faust, which I never read,

[1:24:46] which is like the evil Wolverine who just killed people who were having sex.

[1:24:49] I never understood what that was about.

[1:24:51] Yeah, you guys can talk about the two versions of Faust,

[1:24:54] and I'll talk about Phantom of the Paradise

[1:24:55] based on the Faust story.

[1:24:57] And so, I mean, it's really based on Phantom of the Opera, right?

[1:25:01] Well, it's a split.

[1:25:02] We'll talk about it on the bonus episode.

[1:25:04] Yeah, it'll be in the Faust photo.

[1:25:05] Like many Brian De Palma films, it is split.

[1:25:09] Cinematography humor.

[1:25:12] But anyway, I think what I was drawn to was,

[1:25:16] more than anything else, like, emotions and ideas

[1:25:19] that felt like the author of whatever the work was,

[1:25:21] was like, yes, this is something I want to tell you or I want you to feel.

[1:25:24] Whereas in the 90s, it was a lot of like, it's uncool to own any ideas or emotions

[1:25:30] and you have to like pretend you don't care about things.

[1:25:33] So I think that's what it was about.

[1:25:34] An ironic distance that seems to continue in popularity to this day.

[1:25:38] Yes, exactly.

[1:25:39] Well, because it's hard to undo that, you know.

[1:25:41] We have a final letter.

[1:25:43] It's from Steve, last name withheld, who writes,

[1:25:45] The original Peaches regularly discussed the upkeep slash mortgage situation on Nicolas Cage's European castle collection,

[1:25:55] and the black market dinosaur skull has been mentioned.

[1:25:58] But I feel like the two albino king cobras he purchased may be his most eccentric financial decision.

[1:26:05] It's not like live animals appreciate in value, so he must just have really liked the idea of having albino cobras.

[1:26:13] Discuss. Steve, last name.

[1:26:14] Well, I mean, I think he's overlooking the possibility that these two albino king cobras could mate and produce additional albino killing cobras that you could then sell for money to other eccentrics.

[1:26:26] That's a good point.

[1:26:29] I mean, but maybe also, I was going to say maybe also, like, sometimes you can't really put a price on a good snuggle, and I don't think any animal snuggles as well as a king cobra.

[1:26:40] Well, I think that would be true if they were constrictors, which they're not.

[1:26:45] Yeah, I googled this, and the first thing that came up was an article with the headline,

[1:26:51] Nicholas Cage had two pet king cobras, and they kept trying to kill him.

[1:26:55] Oh, the subhead is good, too.

[1:26:58] Quote, they would try to hypnotize me by showing me their backs, and then they'd lunge at me, said the actor.

[1:27:09] I mean, I guess you use what you got, you know?

[1:27:10] I don't know why the back is the most hypnotic part of the cobra.

[1:27:15] It's got that design on it and everything?

[1:27:17] Yeah, that's the biology of them.

[1:27:21] Oh, boy.

[1:27:21] It's like an anglerfish.

[1:27:23] You know, I don't know why you would have a cobra.

[1:27:26] I assume that these are poisonous snakes, as cobras are.

[1:27:30] I don't know why you would keep one of those.

[1:27:32] I mean, a constrictor, I barely understand.

[1:27:35] They look cool, Dan.

[1:27:37] They look real cool.

[1:27:38] And I think a lot of it is just conversation pieces.

[1:27:41] Yeah.

[1:27:41] Because Nicolas Cage strikes me as the kind of guy who doesn't always know what to say to guests in his house.

[1:27:46] So he'd go, hey, take a look at my cobras over there.

[1:27:50] Because he doesn't want to make small talk.

[1:27:51] He doesn't know what to say.

[1:27:52] And then that's the whole conversation.

[1:27:54] Where'd you get these cobras?

[1:27:55] What are they like?

[1:27:56] Oh, they're always trying to hypnotize me and invite me.

[1:27:58] Oh, that's an interesting story.

[1:27:59] Because what else is he going to talk to the PTA group that's meeting at his house that night to plan the ice cream social event?

[1:28:07] I mean, I have a different view, which is that I don't think that Nicolas Cage has a

[1:28:11] hard time with small talk, because I don't think he knows what small talk is.

[1:28:14] I think that, unprompted, even if the Cobras weren't around, he would probably start talking

[1:28:19] about the Cobras to you.

[1:28:20] But that's just my vision of Nicolas Cage.

[1:28:22] I think we all carry one.

[1:28:23] Let's act out the...

[1:28:25] Let's role play the situation.

[1:28:26] Okay, Dan, I'm Nicolas Cage, and you are someone who's waiting for a bus next to Nicolas Cage.

[1:28:31] Okay.

[1:28:31] Now, what are you doing while you're waiting for this bus?

[1:28:35] So, wait, hold on.

[1:28:37] Am I striking up a conversation, or is Nicolas Cage striking this conversation?

[1:28:40] That's up to you.

[1:28:41] You see Nicolas Cage, the famous actor, right next to you, and you're waiting for a bus.

[1:28:45] What do you do?

[1:28:46] Do you just say, like, oh, that's Nicolas Cage.

[1:28:48] I'm too nervous.

[1:28:49] Or do you introduce yourself?

[1:28:50] Yeah, sorry.

[1:28:52] That's another wrinkle that I hadn't even thought of, that I would be aware that he's a famous actor.

[1:28:56] And also, keep in mind that your character was recently fired from their job as a sanitation worker.

[1:29:03] Okay.

[1:29:03] That's an important back story.

[1:29:05] Because it turned out that they were smuggling drugs inside the trash cans.

[1:29:08] Okay.

[1:29:08] Is that a men at work thing?

[1:29:10] I can't.

[1:29:10] I mean, you're not at work anymore.

[1:29:12] He wasn't in the movie Men at Work.

[1:29:13] Okay.

[1:29:14] I'm just curious.

[1:29:15] It was so specific that I didn't know whether it was from something.

[1:29:18] So I'm just trying to build this character so you have a base to launch from in the conversation with Nicolas Cage.

[1:29:22] I don't think that is going to play into the conversation.

[1:29:25] But it is important for a character to have a secret for themselves.

[1:29:28] Yeah, exactly.

[1:29:30] So I'll keep that.

[1:29:31] And so Nicolas Cage's secret is that he has two albino cobras.

[1:29:35] let's see let's see how that plays out in this conversation okay so now do you feel like you

[1:29:41] need help starting up a conversation because i would gladly play the character uh i'll say dan

[1:29:47] hey it's me dan hey bud uh did you see hey is that a rare first appearance of superman comic

[1:29:57] book sticking out of that guy's bag you're a huge superman fan you should go talk to him

[1:30:00] oh wait hold on i think i reckon sir are you nicholas cage uh that's question number one

[1:30:06] question two if if so why are you taking the bus uh i have two albino cobras okay um that's a

[1:30:14] weird gambit to start with but i mean that seems dangerous mr cage uh why would you do that

[1:30:23] to answer your other questions uh my car is in the shop because uh it has two albino cobras in it i'm

[1:30:30] afraid to open the doors because they might bite me and i thought the garage might be able to handle

[1:30:35] it and what was your other question again um uh why do you have two albino cobras i have two albino

[1:30:41] cobras i'm you know i'm just so happy that he's uh after losing his job he found somebody he could

[1:30:47] talk to you uh it's just a monologue just sort of out to it no i'm talking to another person

[1:30:56] all right well now now if now i'm on my way to buy two more albino cobras i got a lead on them

[1:31:04] on the other side of town no sir i it seems to me that the first two have caused a lot of problems

[1:31:12] in your life why are you going to multiply the number of albino cobras you have well it's

[1:31:17] addition i'm adding two well multiplying i mean it's i guess that's true it's i mean it is two

[1:31:24] times two though also but i'm adding two two plus two wow i'm having a math argument with

[1:31:32] when i woke up this morning i didn't think this would be oh i'm so honored sir i mean

[1:31:40] you've given me a lot to chew on uh much like the albino cobras i had hoped to chew on

[1:31:46] at some point, but they wanted to chew on me.

[1:31:48] Well, this is a new piece of information.

[1:31:50] To answer your larger

[1:31:52] question, I'm hoping

[1:31:54] that they cancel each other out.

[1:31:55] I don't know.

[1:31:58] I've got to say, this seems a

[1:32:00] little bit like an old lady who swallowed

[1:32:02] a fly situation. I mean,

[1:32:04] you're not using a different animal

[1:32:06] to take care of the first animals,

[1:32:08] but you are multiplying your

[1:32:10] problems by trying to

[1:32:12] take care of an animal with an animal.

[1:32:14] three points three points to that three points that one it's addition as mentioned before not

[1:32:18] multiplication i'll stand by that two who better who better to take on an animal than another

[1:32:24] animal because only an animal can think like an animal and number three yes i did swallow a fly

[1:32:29] i'm not an old lady now i feel like a mongoose would be the traditional solution if you're

[1:32:33] looking for uh to get rid of the fly that i swallowed that doesn't make any sense i'm not

[1:32:38] going to escalate straight from swallowing a fly to swallowing a mongoose although if it would give

[1:32:42] me the speed and the poison absorbing powers of the mongoose then the king cobras would not be

[1:32:47] such a problem because i could just survive the poison maybe maybe you should you should ask his

[1:32:54] number you should ask for his number maybe you don't have dinner plans i mean we are best friends

[1:32:59] at this point basically this is the longest conversation i've had in the past three years

[1:33:04] sir uh i would love to have dinner with you to ask you whether you think that swallowing animals

[1:33:08] gives you their powers.

[1:33:10] I mean, I realize I'll probably have to pick you up

[1:33:14] since your car's in the shop.

[1:33:15] Yeah, although I'll go get it.

[1:33:18] I mean, I'll see if the guy I'm meeting has a mongoose

[1:33:20] and then I can just swallow that

[1:33:21] and then I can drive the car.

[1:33:22] I'll pick you up.

[1:33:23] I'll just have four King Cobras in the back seat.

[1:33:26] You swallow a mongoose and you'll be fine.

[1:33:28] Well, here's my card.

[1:33:30] Disregard the part about being a sanitation worker

[1:33:32] because that's no longer true.

[1:33:33] Oh, but it's still your personal number?

[1:33:36] It's not your work number?

[1:33:37] No, it's my purse.

[1:33:38] I use cell phone.

[1:33:39] All right, well, I guess that's it for the...

[1:33:43] Oh, no, here comes the bus.

[1:33:44] We're both getting on the bus.

[1:33:45] Let's go talk to each other for a little bit longer.

[1:33:47] Okay, I'm going to run and answer the door

[1:33:49] because I think I have a package coming,

[1:33:50] but that's true.

[1:33:51] That's not me playing.

[1:33:52] At the bus stop?

[1:33:53] That seems so strange.

[1:33:54] So, yeah, did you...

[1:33:59] I mean, yeah, you guys should exchange numbers.

[1:34:01] He doesn't have a lot of friends,

[1:34:03] and he's kind of in a downturn for his life.

[1:34:06] You seem to be on an upswing.

[1:34:07] Did you say you were an actor?

[1:34:09] Yeah, no, I'm an actor.

[1:34:11] I'm in movies, usually.

[1:34:13] But I prefer to consider myself a private actor.

[1:34:16] I do most of my acting in a small closet in my house.

[1:34:19] That's where I do my best work, just for me.

[1:34:21] Oh, my friend's back from his house where he was receiving a package.

[1:34:24] He would talk, but he's too busy cracking it open.

[1:34:27] Hey, guys, I thought it would be fun to see what this package was on air.

[1:34:30] Now, Dan, I'm not offended that you went to answer the door to get the package.

[1:34:35] I'm a little offended you are not waiting until the podcast is done to open the package.

[1:34:38] No, I thought it would be a fun bit.

[1:34:39] It's a Waterpik water flosser, which I got because I went to the dentist on Friday,

[1:34:45] and they said I really need to start taking better care of my teeth.

[1:34:48] Now, not that this isn't fascinating, but should we move on to the final segment of the show

[1:34:51] since we've gone completely off the rails to the point where I don't know where the rails are?

[1:34:55] Yeah, let's do recommendations of movies that you should watch probably instead of The Joke Thief.

[1:35:03] Life is short.

[1:35:05] um but if you want to say you're saying we should watch the tv show life is short

[1:35:08] that's a show uh that's life's too short i think life's too short i'm sorry

[1:35:13] so i'm gonna recommend uh i'm gonna recommend a movie that i think just went on vod

[1:35:19] today so a week ago or whatever depending on when you listen to this

[1:35:23] i'm gonna recommend a goofy horror comedy that was uh i think produced uh or distributed by

[1:35:31] fangoria called satanic panic uh it's kind of a goofy throwback to classic like uh i don't want

[1:35:40] to say slashers but like i don't know and or horror comedies but it it's reminiscent of a lot

[1:35:45] of like 80s horror tropes uh think of if you use ty west's house of the devil as a starting point

[1:35:52] and you make it much sillier it's kind of like that uh you know uh rebecca romaine and jerry

[1:35:58] o'connell both uh turn in really fun performances and it also features a performance by the sister

[1:36:04] of my buddy bowman modine ruby modine uh who are both children of matthew modine so uh yeah check

[1:36:13] it out uh i would like to recommend a movie called all we shine which i uh got to because so

[1:36:21] So our Max Fun, I don't know, co, what would you call it?

[1:36:27] Someone on another Max Fun thing.

[1:36:29] Max Fun Neighbor.

[1:36:31] Max Fun Neighbor, April Wolf of Switchblade Sisters

[1:36:35] is co-writing a Black Christmas remake,

[1:36:40] or probably by this point has.

[1:36:42] Comes out in December.

[1:36:43] Yeah, they already have a trailer.

[1:36:44] Don't watch the trailer.

[1:36:45] It gives too much away, apparently.

[1:36:47] Take that, April.

[1:36:51] I mean, that's what she said.

[1:36:53] Oh.

[1:36:54] Because I was reading about that movie,

[1:36:57] I found myself reading about the director's previous movie,

[1:37:03] Always Shine, which I was intrigued by,

[1:37:06] and I decided to watch, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[1:37:10] It's basically a two-hander, two women,

[1:37:15] Mackenzie Davis, who I liked quite a bit from Halt and Catch Fire

[1:37:18] and Blade Runner 2049.

[1:37:21] and caitlin fitzgerald who is also excellent and um it's a movie about two actresses who in

[1:37:29] different ways are sort of dealing with the inherent uh sexism of the industry and one of

[1:37:36] them is doing far better than the other because she's sort of playing the game going along to

[1:37:40] get along and the other is a much better actress but she's quote unquote difficult so like there

[1:37:48] at two different points in their career and they're like you know the kind of people who were

[1:37:52] friends before and maybe are still friends out of habit more than anything else because they are

[1:37:59] the more successful one is sort of constantly undermining the less successful and the less

[1:38:04] successful is filled with bitterness and they go on a trip together and things get hairy

[1:38:08] and uh i liked it a lot i think is it because they run into bigfoot yes i think that like it's

[1:38:17] interesting i i was reading the reviews of it and uh the top the top two reviews were by one was by

[1:38:25] april wolf and i wonder whether that's how they got connected up because she was an admirer and

[1:38:31] the other was actually by a uh another female film critic who i've gotten to know recently uh

[1:38:40] off air kimber myers and both of them were pretty glowing about it and i think that it's striking

[1:38:46] that they're two of the only female critics who watch it

[1:38:50] because I do think that watching it as a man,

[1:38:53] it's not necessarily built for me in the same way

[1:38:55] as it might be for a woman viewer

[1:38:59] because it is so much about just hidden sexism

[1:39:04] in day-to-day life or not-so-hidden sexism.

[1:39:06] So it probably would strike someone

[1:39:09] who has to deal with that directly harder,

[1:39:11] but I still liked it quite a bit.

[1:39:13] So Always Shine.

[1:39:14] You're saying it's strong enough for a man,

[1:39:16] but it's made for a woman.

[1:39:17] Yes.

[1:39:18] That is what I'm saying.

[1:39:20] Elliot, what do you have?

[1:39:22] I'm going to recommend a movie that,

[1:39:24] it's like less a movie and more just a hangout,

[1:39:28] and it's a movie that was released in England

[1:39:32] under the name Nothing Like a Dame,

[1:39:33] but it's available in America under the name Tea with the Dames,

[1:39:35] and it is a filmed kind of like day of talk

[1:39:40] between the actresses Eileen Atkins, Judy Dench,

[1:39:43] Joan Plowright, and Maggie Smith

[1:39:44] as they talk about kind of their experiences

[1:39:47] as actresses at the top of British acting

[1:39:52] for the past, you know, 60 years or so.

[1:39:55] And there's a lot of great footage of them

[1:39:59] at different ages playing different types of roles.

[1:40:01] And you really get a sense of them as people in a way

[1:40:04] and how their different, you know,

[1:40:07] travels through the British thespian system

[1:40:11] have been for them.

[1:40:12] But also it's just like really,

[1:40:14] They're really fun to hang out with.

[1:40:15] There's a lot of, like, catty older lady talk

[1:40:17] about, like, Laurence Olivier and things like that.

[1:40:19] So if you enjoy English actresses

[1:40:23] and if you enjoy greats of the British theater and film,

[1:40:26] then why not watch Tea with the Dames

[1:40:28] if you're in the United States

[1:40:29] or Nothing Like a Dame if you're in England.

[1:40:31] And it's just super fun and breezy

[1:40:34] and even when they get into serious topics

[1:40:38] and things like getting older or regrets they might have

[1:40:41] or experiences of not being taken seriously

[1:40:43] or being savaged by critics there's still this like uh fun to the whole thing so anyway i enjoyed

[1:40:48] it a lot go ahead and watch it well guys uh i gotta say uh i always enjoy hanging out with you

[1:40:55] too on the podcast but i always feel like there's a little extra zazz when we watch one of these

[1:41:00] crazy stupid small movies uh and so i had a lot of fun that's because uh mr zazz is here let's

[1:41:07] just let him in no no don't he's a murderer um uh and we have one more coming up another

[1:41:15] uh small timber episode and then that's the last episode right no then we series then we go into

[1:41:21] shocktober the other oh right and then we go into november the month with no theme yep uh but before

[1:41:29] we go that's where the theme is no theme right yeah exactly before we go i want to say thank you

[1:41:35] as always to maximum fun our network they uh help us actually be able to do this because we get

[1:41:42] money through their system so thank you for that and they're great we have a lot of fun being on

[1:41:48] the network there's a lot of other great shows why don't you check out switchblade sisters for

[1:41:52] instance which i talked about already and while we're talking about it i feel bad i haven't done

[1:41:56] this before i mentioned on the show that max fun has been taking over a lot of the production duties

[1:42:02] from me which is great it's it's made me enjoy doing the show vastly more so i just wanted to

[1:42:10] take a moment to thank jordan our editor who i i i've been i would say producer producer editor

[1:42:16] uh co-producer editor uh and uh i want to thank her for all the great work she does

[1:42:24] uh and i want to apologize on behalf of dan for uh i don't know for everything just just

[1:42:32] Just fucking around here, you know?

[1:42:33] So thanks for listening.

[1:42:35] Thanks to the MaxFun Network, and thanks to everyone involved.

[1:42:38] If you like this show, please, why not tell someone about it?

[1:42:41] Leave a positive review on iTunes, why don't you?

[1:42:43] Tweet about it.

[1:42:44] Instagram about it.

[1:42:45] Tell people about it.

[1:42:46] Actually, the iTunes review thing would be super helpful.

[1:42:49] Why don't you go do that?

[1:42:50] And why not come see us live on one of those show dates in Boston in just a couple weeks

[1:42:55] or in L.A. in October?

[1:42:57] If you don't live nearby, that's fine.

[1:42:58] Just fly out for it.

[1:42:59] Don't worry about the carbon footprint.

[1:43:00] Yeah.

[1:43:02] Well, Stuart and I have started looking at our phones, so you know what that means.

[1:43:05] We've reached the end of another episode.

[1:43:08] So for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:43:12] Hey, I'm still Stuart Wellington.

[1:43:14] And I'm Elliot Kalin, or am I Nicholas Cage?

[1:43:18] Well, only two to four cobras will know for sure.

[1:43:22] See you next time.

[1:43:25] Bye.

[1:43:32] Now, Dr. Giggles.

[1:43:40] Okay, let's get into the show.

[1:43:42] Was he a comedian?

[1:43:44] I don't know.

[1:43:48] No, he's a murderous dentist.

[1:43:49] Okay.

[1:43:50] So, he's not even a dentist.

[1:43:52] He's like a murderous doctor.

[1:43:54] He's a laughing gas?

[1:43:55] Is that why he's called Dr. Giggles?

[1:43:56] I believe that's it.

[1:43:58] He giggles, yeah.

[1:43:59] Okay.

[1:43:59] This is like calling card.

[1:44:02] It's not really a calling card.

[1:44:03] The police don't know that he was giggling when he killed T.A.

[1:44:06] No, he hangs around the scene of the crime giggling while the police investigate.

[1:44:11] Sometimes they find him.

Ep.#293 -- The Joke Thief

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