Ep.#293 -- The Joke Thief

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss the joke thief.

Stuart Wellington

[0:03] More like the time thief.

Dan McCoy

[0:09] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[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. You know, from Belleville. Triplets, and so forth.

[0:57] Three. Triceratops. If we were horns, that's the dinosaur we'd be on.

[1:02] Thanks for explaining the number three.

Stuart Wellington

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

[1:09] The kid, yeah. It's the dad, the kid, and the Holy Ghost. Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14] The Trinity, I think, is the dad, Disney's the kid, and the Holy Ghost.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18] Man, DVD or digital streaming?

Elliott Kalan

[1:21] Streaming on Disney Plus. Coming soon.

Dan McCoy

[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?

Elliott Kalan

[1:34] Charlie Chaplin's The Kid? I have to assume so.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36] Yeah.

[1:36] Yeah. All right.

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

[1:40] Yes, he was.

Dan McCoy

[1:43] So, guys.

Stuart Wellington

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

Dan McCoy

[1:48] This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie, and then we talk about it.

[1:52] And, oh, boy.

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

[1:55] Oh, man.

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

[1:58] Yep.

[1:59] So, just grab this episode.

[2:00] And then there's cage myths.

[2:01] We skip over...

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

[2:04] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

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

[2:09] garbage bin, and hit recycle.

[2:12] Everyone...

[2:12] No, these are everyone's favorite episodes.

[2:14] The theme episodes.

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[2:18] Or, as you would say, based on your Twitter-based understanding of roller coasters, the premise

[2:22] of this month.

[2:24] Okay.

[2:24] Well, yeah.

[2:25] That's a reference to an argument Dan and I had over Twitter over whether Space Mountain

[2:28] had a premise or a theme.

Stuart Wellington

[2:32] I'm glad that in addition to our two-hour podcast, we're giving listeners homework to go check

[2:38] out on twitter.com.

Elliott Kalan

[2:40] Well, that's like...

[2:40] That's like...

[2:41] There's a little asterisk next to it that says, like, see Dan's Twitter feed.

[2:44] Smile and Stan.

[2:45] Like, you'd see an old Marvel Comics.

Dan McCoy

[2:46] Yeah.

[2:47] We should do it more like Marvel Comics.

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

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

[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.

[2:58] They interlock.

[2:58] I wasn't...

[2:59] It's not like I'm unfamiliar with the idea of a crossover.

Stuart Wellington

[3:01] Because you'd take the Marvel Comics back in the day and you'd fold them into, I don't

[3:05] know, like lion-shaped robots.

[3:07] And then you would tape them together into a giant robot man who has a sword.

[3:12] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[3:14] Okay.

[3:15] What was I explaining?

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

Stuart Wellington

[3:18] This is Small-vember.

Dan McCoy

[3:19] Small-vember.

[3:20] Small-vember.

[3:21] It's where we watch smaller movies.

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

[3:25] Like, physically?

Stuart Wellington

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

Dan McCoy

[3:27] Well, kind of.

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

[3:30] Normally, we are the Davids fighting Hollywood's Goliath.

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

[3:38] Whoa!

[3:40] Small movies that, you know...

[3:43] Yeah, yeah.

[3:44] We punch down.

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

Elliott Kalan

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

Dan McCoy

[3:49] Yeah.

[3:50] Yeah, and for the first movie in the month, we're returning to the Frank D'Angelo well.

[3:57] Uh-huh.

[3:57] One of our favorite bad auteurs.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[4:13] And restaurateur.

[4:15] And what?

[4:15] And restaurateur.

Dan McCoy

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

Stuart Wellington

[4:20] I mean, it's featured prominently in this movie, but yeah, it's probably closed.

Dan McCoy

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

[4:25] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

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

[4:28] The In Your Ear Supper Club, or whatever it was called, the Forget About It Supper Club.

[4:32] Forget About It Supper Club, which is 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.

[4:45] And he writes, directs, produces, I think does the music for, and maybe even edits and stars

[4:51] in his own films.

[4:53] And so we've done a couple of his No Deposit.

[4:56] We did a Sicilian Vampire.

[4:57] Now, usually one of his calling cards is he takes semi-retired elderly movie stars and pays

[5:06] them to appear in what they think are going to be real movies.

[5:09] 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, this is the movie that got

[5:16] an eight-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival?

[5:20] Like, this is the one everyone's talking about on social media?

[5:22] The joke thief?

Stuart Wellington

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

Dan McCoy

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

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

[5:37] I liked it well enough.

[5:38] Had a few interesting pieces of information in it.

[5:41] Like that it was shot at the Forget About Supper Club in, I believe, two days this movie

[5:45] was taken, they took it to shoot this.

Elliott Kalan

[5:48] I mean, that is, it looks like it was shot in one day.

[5:51] So it's not that much of an achievement.

Dan McCoy

[5:53] And the other review is a ridiculously, absurdly glowing one that I assume is the result of a

[6:02] bribe or something that Frank D'Angelo wrote under assumed name or something of that.

[6:06] Or a family member.

[6:07] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[6:14] So, guys, the things, here are the things that you know about Frank D'Angelo in all of his

[6:19] movies that we've seen so far is each of Frank D'Angelo's movies, no matter if they're a horror

[6:23] film about a vampire or a drama about a man who's down on his luck, or in this case, a comedy drama,

[6:31] I'm not sure about a comedian.

[6:33] The main theme of them is that Frank D'Angelo is the greatest guy in the world and everybody

[6:37] loves him and people will do anything for Frank D'Angelo.

[6:40] Yeah.

[6:40] And he really plays with that persona in this movie in interesting, and by interesting I mean

[6:45] not well thought through ways.

Dan McCoy

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

Stuart Wellington

[6:50] What I love is he always hires all these actors who are constantly trying to get him to do

[6:56] things and telling him how great he is, and he's always like, I don't have time for this,

[7:00] why are you bothering me?

[7:04] Don't skip to the bloops.

[7:05] Yeah, I mean, granted, this is a movie where the first 20 minutes is like at least 15 minutes

[7:11] of phone calls.

Elliott Kalan

[7:13] Well, he has a lot of, his movies often start with phone calls, with him catching up on the

[7:18] 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

[7:25] as we watch a boy with slicked-backed hair in a leather jacket practicing kind of borscht

[7:31] belt crap jokes in front of a mirror and dissolving into an older version of himself, and then

[7:36] an even older version of himself, and then finally Frank D'Angelo, who has been apparently

[7:40] for years practicing the same jokes in the same clothes in front of the same mirror his whole

[7:45] life.

Dan McCoy

[7:46] Sorry, this is the first thing I want to object to, because while we-

Stuart Wellington

[7:49] Are you objecting to the fact that he said dissolving?

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

Elliott Kalan

[7:56] No, it's not like in the Remember the Time video when Michael Jackson turns into sand.

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

Dan McCoy

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

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

[8:06] stand-up comedy, Frank D'Angelo, for his character, seems to believe that stand-up is

[8:12] telling, you know, street jokes or joke book jokes.

[8:16] He tells a joke book jokes.

[8:17] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[8:17] He tells a Polish joke.

[8:18] Like, his whole act throughout the film, and it's weird that, so this movie is, there's

[8:25] a lot of filler.

[8:25] There's, as I was saying to Dan and Stuart when I watched it, this is probably the least

[8:29] amount of movie I've ever seen in a movie.

[8:32] 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.

[8:40] But then you have Frank D'Angelo whose act, yeah, is entirely joke book jokes.

[8:44] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[8:44] Like, it's blonde jokes, Polish jokes.

[8:46] If he is a joke thief, he has stolen those jokes from 101 yucks.

[8:51] Like...

Elliott Kalan

[8:51] Well, and Dan, you're gonna, you're gonna, don't spoil the fact that as, as the movie

[8:56] goes on, we, and we get close to the ending, we realize we're never gonna see him steal

[8:59] a joke.

[9:00] No.

[9:01] Or learn why he got the name joke thief.

[9:03] Because now we're watching two guys meet.

[9:05] 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's stooge in these movies.

[9:12] He asks this other guy who, is that Danny Baldwin, or is it a different guy?

[9:16] Yep.

[9:16] Yep, Daniel Baldwin.

[9:17] Okay.

[9:18] Daniel Baldwin, who runs this club, which we'll soon learn later, is named the Comedy, is

[9:22] called the Basement Comedy Club.

[9:24] Mm-hmm.

[9:26] The, he says, come on, can you put Simon on the show as a favor to me?

[9:30] And he goes, Simon, the joke thief?

[9:33] And he goes, do it as a favor to me.

[9:35] Okay, I'll put him on.

[9:36] We never, he's never called the joke thief again.

[9:38] From this point on, nobody talks about Simon in anything less than the most glowing terms.

[9:42] Yeah.

[9:43] Simon is Frank D'Angelo's character.

[9:44] And it's, he never steals, again, like Dan says, if he stole a joke, it's from like

[9:48] a webpage of jokes that your grandma might like, or something like that.

Stuart Wellington

[9:51] I do like that, I do like that the movie opens with him practicing his material in front

[9:56] of a mirror.

[9:57] And then later on when he's talking to his, his cabbie, his like magical black man, Indian

[10:04] in this case.

[10:05] Yeah.

[10:05] But that's, 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, I don't know.

[10:11] I have seen concrete proof of you rehearsing.

Elliott Kalan

[10:15] I mean, this, the, the, this movie seems to be about someone who really doesn't want to

[10:19] be a comedian, but seems to feel some kind of neurotic compulsion to be one, even though

[10:25] he seems to hate it.

[10:26] And it gets in the way of the rest of his life and he's not good at it.

[10:29] But we'll talk about that because then we've got, I'll skip over the little bit of business

[10:33] where the hotel chef at the hotel where Simon lives, I guess, offers him some free food

[10:38] by stealing someone else's room service.

[10:39] And I think it's supposed to be a joke about the food like disappears when the waiter's

[10:43] back is turned, but it doesn't make sense.

[10:46] It's handled so poorly that I was like, I don't understand what I'm like.

[10:48] I was very confused.

[10:50] It's like a scene from an alien sitcom.

[10:51] It featured a lot of phone calls though.

Stuart Wellington

[10:52] Like we get to watch the guy like actually punch in the, punch in the buttons.

Elliott Kalan

[10:58] And we never know.

[10:59] We never see the chef again.

[11:00] We don't know why he loves Simon so much that he offers him someone else's food at the

[11:04] risk to his job, I have to assume.

[11:05] Because everyone loves him.

[11:08] Everyone loves him.

[11:08] So Simon's manager calls him.

[11:10] He says, oh, and again, I'm just guessing it's his manager.

[11:13] Later on, we see him going over his notes at the comedy club, although he never goes up.

[11:17] So I just assume it's his manager.

[11:18] The manager calls and says, hey, the basement comedy club is going national tonight.

[11:22] That's not really explained.

[11:24] Although we later find out it's on a national cable television channel that they're going

[11:27] live, I guess.

Stuart Wellington

[11:28] NBC national, wait, no, that was wrong.

Dan McCoy

[11:32] National Broadcasting, Canadian.

[11:34] Which I missed this when it was first said.

[11:38] It had to be explained to me later.

[11:40] And I'm like, what?

[11:41] There's no indication of that later on.

[11:43] There's no cameras or anything at the club.

[11:46] No.

[11:46] Like the way the club is being run that night.

[11:48] Watching the home.

[11:49] Yeah.

[11:50] The way the club is being run that night is no different than like a normal night at a comedy

[11:54] club.

[11:55] There's no.

[11:55] Absolutely.

Elliott Kalan

[11:56] Well, there's one thing.

[11:56] 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

[12:04] same audience in random order as if they're just drawing their names out of a hat to see who's

[12:09] going to go on stage next.

[12:11] So Simon is like, we know he wants to be a comedian.

[12:14] He's been training his whole life in front of a mirror to do this.

[12:17] But his manager calls, and this is where Frank D'Angelo's other trademark move of not wanting

[12:22] to do the things other characters are begging him to do comes in.

[12:25] He's like, I was about to eat.

[12:27] 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.

[12:33] And we learn later, this is his first time performing standup in public, I guess.

[12:38] So like, they're never going to pay you $200 for a five minute set for a newbie.

Dan McCoy

[12:42] It's not the first time standing in public.

[12:43] I think he's been blackballed for a while, right?

Elliott Kalan

[12:45] It's the first time at the, but he says it's the first time at the basement, at Comedy Basement.

[12:50] Yeah, that's the first time there.

[12:51] I think that we're-

[12:52] But you have to read into it that he's been blackballed because later on, Frank D'Angelo

[12:57] 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

[13:09] else.

[13:10] Not even other hangers, which makes me wonder what kind of hotel this is that does not provide

[13:14] adequate hangarage.

[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.

[13:23] The best.

[13:23] Nested flashback.

[13:25] We have flashback within the flashback to Simon's first sale as a young man when he sells a car.

[13:30] And then back.

Stuart Wellington

[13:31] And I think this, one of the young versions of him, I believe, is played by his son or

[13:36] maybe a nephew or something.

Elliott Kalan

[13:39] Yes.

[13:40] He's certainly not an actor.

[13:41] Oh, I forgot to mention that we've also seen a scene where Simon's brother, William, is

[13:45] talking to his wife and his wife is like, you're too soft on him.

[13:47] You're too good to him.

[13:48] And he's like, for my brother, I love him.

[13:50] I'd do anything.

[13:51] I'd do anything for my brother.

[13:52] I love him.

[13:53] That's all William said.

Stuart Wellington

[13:54] It took me a while to realize it was his wife because in most of her scenes, she's just

[13:59] seated at the secretary's desk at the car dealership.

[14:02] She's on it.

Elliott Kalan

[14:03] It's a family car dealership.

[14:04] The wife is the receptionist and the guy and her husband owns it.

[14:08] It's a family thing.

Dan McCoy

[14:10] And by the way, she, at the end of the movie, everyone gets their picture on a clip from

[14:16] them earlier when their name comes up of the actor.

[14:20] And hers is presented as lovingly as the rest of them.

[14:23] And I'm like, what?

[14:24] She was, she's barely, like, she's only there to like, be like, you're too hard, easy on

[14:29] your brother.

[14:30] And that's basically one of two lines she has in the whole film.

Elliott Kalan

[14:34] So Dan, is the problem that she has no screen time or that she is being treated too nicely

[14:39] considering she's so mean to Simon and his brother, William?

[14:42] Oh, yeah.

[14:42] That's a good point.

[14:43] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[14:43] Yeah.

[14:44] A shrill hered in a woman.

Elliott Kalan

[14:48] You're saying that at the end when all the actors have their model pose and they sign

[14:52] the screen, like at the end of Avengers Endgame, that she didn't deserve hers?

Stuart Wellington

[14:56] Like, literally, all she says is, you're too easy on him.

[15:00] And then later on when he comes in in a different flashback, she's like, oh, your brother's right

[15:04] in there.

[15:05] He'll do anything for you.

[15:06] And like, smiles.

Elliott Kalan

[15:08] Like, she's not mad about it.

[15:09] Oh, but I thought that was sarcastic.

[15:11] Oh, okay.

[15:12] So Simon, why isn't he a car salesman anymore if he loves it so much?

[15:15] Well, the dad tells him, I want to retire.

[15:18] Simon, you're going to be the salesman.

[15:19] And William, you're going to be the manager.

[15:21] 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.

[15:27] He loves him.

[15:28] He'll do anything for him.

[15:29] And he tells him how great he is constantly.

[15:32] But here's where we...

Stuart Wellington

[15:33] And we find out later, keeps a jacket for him in his office.

Dan McCoy

[15:37] And also, as we've already learned, Simon's skill set is he's an amazing salesman.

[15:42] And the fact that, like, it's just very weird.

[15:45] It's very weird that he's so mad that the brother is taking over the thing when his dream is to be a comedian.

[15:53] Like, he's so angry about this.

Elliott Kalan

[15:55] Well, here's the thing.

[15:56] So, Simon, like all Frank D'Angelo characters, is a dour, humorless asshole who does not want anyone else to be the boss of him.

[16:03] And has to know at all times that he is the one who's really in charge and the cool one.

[16:07] And we'll see this in a weird way in the bloopers that run during the credits.

[16:10] Yeah.

[16:11] But, uh, so Simon's disappointed.

Stuart Wellington

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

[16:16] He's like, you know, all of us get put out to pasture sometime.

[16:20] Not me.

[16:21] I got plenty of years left.

[16:22] But I'm retiring.

[16:24] Like, he contradicts himself a couple times.

[16:27] And then we find out later he died shortly afterwards.

[16:30] Yeah.

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

Dan McCoy

[16:32] The dad is an actor, a Canadian actor, who's been in, like, 140 things.

[16:36] Like, he was in Porky's.

[16:37] He was in Black Christmas.

Elliott Kalan

[16:38] He was in Porky's?

Dan McCoy

[16:40] Yeah.

[16:41] But, uh, so that's a little tip.

Elliott Kalan

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

Stuart Wellington

[16:47] And he was like, he...

[16:48] They're like, nah, kid.

[16:49] You don't want to see some dude's crank get yanked out of a fucking wall.

[16:54] Is that where crank yankers came from?

[16:56] Yeah, probably.

[16:56] Someone said about Porky's.

Elliott Kalan

[16:57] I mean, if anyone could relate to that, it's Porky Pig, who has no crank.

[17:01] And I assume had it ripped off in a Castle Freak-type scenario at some point.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[17:09] 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.

[17:17] Okay.

[17:17] Like when people...

[17:18] Yeah.

[17:19] So, uh, 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.

[17:24] 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.

[17:31] And Simon could not look less excited to be getting the lucky vest from his dad.

[17:35] And you're like, is the dad making this up just to make someone feel better?

[17:40] That lucky vest, he never wears it.

[17:42] We never see it again.

[17:43] Does not factor into the movie.

Dan McCoy

[17:45] And I also got to say, like, the dad makes such a meal out of handing over this lucky

[17:49] vest that my girlfriend turned to me and she's like, is this going to be a movie about

[17:54] a magic vest?

Elliott Kalan

[17:56] I wish.

[17:58] It turns into a movie about magic.

[18:00] Nothing.

[18:00] There's no magic in the world in this one.

[18:02] So Simon accepts the club offer while looking at the vest.

[18:06] And he calls William and he goes, hey, can you give me a car?

[18:09] I want a car right now.

[18:11] And William's like, I can't do that.

[18:13] But I'll tell you what, I'll call you a car.

[18:14] And Simon's like, don't give me an Uber because they all smell like curry.

[18:17] And it's disgusting.

[18:19] This is our hero, ladies and gentlemen.

[18:20] This is our hero.

[18:21] And William promises, I'll be at the show too.

[18:23] And he calls him an Uber.

[18:24] Uber as an Indian driver.

[18:26] Uh-oh.

[18:27] What's going to happen to Simon now?

[18:28] He's a racist.

Stuart Wellington

[18:29] And the driver, Jerry, is like waiting outside to let him in.

[18:34] Like, that's crazy.

[18:35] I've never had a car service driver waiting outside to like open the back door for me.

Elliott Kalan

[18:40] Have you ever had a magic bagger vant style car driver who solves all your life's problems

[18:45] in a car ride that lasts somewhere between 25 minutes and forever?

Dan McCoy

[18:49] Yeah.

[18:50] I want to say about this character, by the way, like, the character is...

[18:54] Jerry?

[18:54] He is the worst kind of like...

[18:56] Driver?

[18:57] No, he's a great driver.

[18:58] No, he's like the worst kind of like non-white character with no inner life who helps the

[19:03] white character.

[19:04] But, but I will say about this that I think he's the best actor in the movie by far.

[19:10] Like...

[19:10] Oh, yes.

Elliott Kalan

[19:10] I mean, just the fact that he manages to...

[19:13] It's similar to...

[19:14] This is going to sound strange, I guess.

[19:16] It's similar to in Meatballs 2, how we were talking about how John Larroquette's character

[19:20] is very much an anti-gay slur.

[19:22] But John Larroquette imbues him with a certain level of dignity and grace.

[19:27] And this actor, I don't...

[19:28] I didn't look up his name, but he manages to make this character seem, through the terrible

[19:33] writing, see, have this certain amount of dignity to the point where I was like, I'm

[19:36] not sympathizing with this character.

[19:38] I'm sympathizing with the actor having to make these lines kind of work.

[19:42] Yeah.

[19:42] Because he knows he's playing this type of character, and he's doing it in a way that

[19:46] is not super goofy, and it's not super...

[19:49] It's not crap.

[19:50] I think you're right.

[19:51] I think he is the best actor in the movie.

[19:52] Which, again, is the faintest of praise, but he does deserve it.

[19:56] So, because now we get 13 minutes in, we finally get the opening credits, and then we get set

[20:01] up to basically what...

[20:02] Well, actually, in a moment, we'll learn what the true structure of the film is.

[20:05] But Simon's talking to Jerry, his Uber driver, about being a comedian.

[20:08] He sounds like he hates it.

[20:09] He tells a blonde joke to the driver.

[20:10] The driver does not get it.

[20:11] To be fair, I didn't get it at first, either.

[20:13] That was...

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

[20:19] Yeah.

[20:19] It's still...

Dan McCoy

[20:19] I think that we're supposed to think that, like, Frank is...

[20:24] Frank D'Angelo's character is funny, and, like, this guy's not getting it because of

[20:28] cultural differences.

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

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

Elliott Kalan

[20:36] I mean, throughout the movie, you're going to see the driver reassuring Frank that he's

[20:40] funny, even though the jokes are not funny.

[20:41] 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.

Stuart Wellington

[20:47] Yeah, yeah.

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

[20:54] Simon, played by Frank D'Angelo, keeps thanking the Uber driver for, you know, the kind words

[20:59] and the reassurance.

[21:01] And the driver, Jerry, on two different occasions says, like, no charge, and that's on me or, like,

[21:09] gratis or something.

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

[21:14] Like, I feel...

[21:15] Yeah.

[21:15] I'm kind of stressed out about the idea of this cab ride that takes at least 22 minutes

[21:20] long.

[21:20] Yeah.

[21:21] Would be comped for this.

Dan McCoy

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

[21:26] 22-minute ride.

[21:27] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[21:27] 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

[21:35] window, and we go into Simon's past.

[21:38] Oh, I wanted to...

[21:39] Yeah, that's...

Elliott Kalan

[21:40] I love...

[21:40] That is...

[21:41] That is...

[21:41] I will say, this is...

[21:42] Frank D'Angelo is inventing something here that I'd never seen before, which is that he

[21:48] has flashed his back by literally gazing out the window, and then the camera, like you

[21:51] said, zooms through the window as if he is driving through his memories.

[21:55] Something I should mention is, Simon's running very late, and he's worried about being

[21:58] late, but he keeps telling the driver to slow down because he's going too fast.

[22:02] 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.

[22:08] And do you think that was on purpose, that Frank D'Angelo's character does not actually

[22:12] want to...

[22:13] Is worried about performing, and so he keeps telling him, slow down, slow down.

[22:16] But...

[22:16] Or is it just that he just...

[22:18] They just couldn't get across what was actually happening in the scene?

Dan McCoy

[22:21] Yeah, this is one...

[22:22] This is also one of the things that bothered me from, like, a comedy standpoint about the

[22:27] movie, like...

[22:29] Okay.

[22:31] I am...

[22:31] 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

[22:37] it, and I've done it once or twice in, like, a real club, and rather than, like, sort of

[22:43] a friendly room like the UCB or something like that.

Stuart Wellington

[22:45] Like, rather than a done-up Toronto and...

[22:50] Yeah.

[22:51] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[22:52] Where everyone in the audience is being paid by you to be there.

Stuart Wellington

[22:55] And I guess...

[22:56] If they're being paid, they should have fucking laughed harder.

Dan McCoy

[22:59] And I guess...

[23:00] And I guess, you know, they...

[23:04] Like, they're filming this, so things might be a little tighter.

[23:07] But again, you don't see the cameras.

[23:10] You don't see anyone being concerned about all of that.

[23:14] And on a normal comedy night, like, if you're running late, as he naturally is, because he

[23:19] only learned about the show right beforehand, like, they wouldn't be...

[23:24] Like, it wouldn't be like...

[23:25] He keeps getting these frenzied calls, like, get down here, get down here.

[23:29] And they would just put him on whenever, like, they fucking could find a spot for him.

Elliott Kalan

[23:35] Well, I think the person who's calling him is not the person running the show.

[23:38] It's his manager who's like, get down here.

[23:40] Basically, what he's saying is, you're going to screw this up if you don't show up.

Dan McCoy

[23:43] Well, yeah.

[23:43] But here's one of my many screenplay fixes I'm going to offer.

[23:47] There's a critic...

[23:48] Oh, wow.

[23:49] ...character that we find...

Elliott Kalan

[23:50] I mean, should Frank D'Angelo send you a check for this?

[23:53] Yes.

[23:53] Or is this just your online masterclass?

Dan McCoy

[23:56] Yeah, this is my online masterclass.

[23:57] But there's a critic in the audience, we find out later.

Elliott Kalan

[24:01] Oh, you're saying that maybe they should have planted that a little earlier to provide

[24:05] some stakes for the night?

[24:06] Yeah, they should have been like...

[24:07] Yeah, like a Ratatouille big night situation.

Dan McCoy

[24:08] Yeah, he should be calling being like, oh, the critic's getting tired.

[24:11] It looks like he might leave.

[24:12] You know, you got to get down here if you want.

[24:14] Yeah.

[24:14] You know, something like that.

[24:15] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[24:16] No, Dan, I think they made the movie up as they went along.

[24:18] That's part of it.

[24:18] But so, Simon, as Stuart said, he zoomed through the car window to flashback to him asking

[24:24] his brother for money.

[24:25] 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.

[24:34] Despite being the lowest energy salesman I've ever seen and the most off-putting salesman

[24:38] I've ever seen, he 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.

[24:45] And he goes, okay, let me just, I want to hold the car for you.

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

[24:49] It's got...

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

[24:53] 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.

[25:01] And the guy's like, instantly his face turns cold and angry like a northern Toronto winter.

Stuart Wellington

[25:07] The storm clouds roll in.

[25:09] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[25:10] 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...

[25:17] Because there have been times when I'm...

[25:18] Like when I bought a car where it was like, I can feel myself reacting emotionally to things

[25:24] that the salesman is saying.

[25:26] 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

[25:32] in the book.

[25:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[25:34] And so, all right.

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

Elliott Kalan

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

Dan McCoy

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

[25:45] Okay.

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

[25:48] So, okay.

[25:48] 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...

[26:01] That is...

[26:03] The beginning of the movie is very hard to follow because of these nested flashbacks and

[26:06] whatever.

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

[26:09] I think that there should not be a flashback until he's in the car.

[26:13] All the flashbacks should be in the car when we are primed to think like this is a trip.

[26:18] And like he's taking a trip down memory lane at the same time.

[26:21] Yeah.

[26:22] Interesting.

[26:23] So, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[26:23] Just put that advice in the Frank tank.

[26:26] Yeah.

[26:26] Or the Frank tank, depending on which you prefer.

[26:28] Frank tank.

Elliott Kalan

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

[26:30] Yeah.

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

[26:33] Open it up.

[26:35] Don't let that Frank crank get yanked.

[26:37] Oh, no.

[26:37] Of course not.

[26:38] It's not this kind of movie.

[26:39] That's a Frank wank, Dan.

[26:42] 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] No, there are you some.

[26:54] 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.

Stuart Wellington

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

[27:10] It's like, what is that?

[27:10] Cosmopolis?

[27:11] Let's stick.

Elliott Kalan

[27:12] Well, as to the larger problem.

[27:14] Do you think this is it?

[27:15] He is like, this is going to be my Cosmopolis.

Stuart Wellington

[27:17] Yeah.

[27:18] Because like you would assume that this comedy show that is important and going out on cable

[27:24] news network is being filmed at night.

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

[27:29] So we can't be running late.

[27:31] It's midday.

Dan McCoy

[27:32] This is the chronological problem I wanted to get into.

Elliott Kalan

[27:34] So here's the, I want to mention before we get into that further.

[27:37] So now we, so now we go to the comedy basement and MC Daniel Baldwin and his character of Freddie C.

[27:43] He intros each of the comics.

[27:45] And this is when we get into the real structure of the movie.

[27:47] The real act two, if you will.

[27:49] Which is intercutting just little snippets of actual standup comedy from actual standups

[27:56] 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

[28:07] talking to his driver about his mother's death is so jarring to me.

[28:12] And it's like, among these comics, the real comics, one of them is this character, Ed the

[28:17] 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

[28:25] Howard Stern hosted by Sock.

[28:27] God knows.

Stuart Wellington

[28:28] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[28:35] And so you'll have these scenes, you'll have these scenes where it's Ed the Sock being like,

[28:37] what's with penis size?

[28:39] You'd think you 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?

Dan McCoy

[28:47] But also, I want to make it clear that these real comics are only marginally funnier than

[28:52] Frank with his joke.

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

Elliott Kalan

[28:55] I mean, there are, this is the, but are these the kind of comedians that like you would see,

[28:59] I assume, if you went to just like a Wednesday night Toronto dinner club stand-up?

Stuart Wellington

[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.

Elliott Kalan

[29:15] Yeah.

[29:15] So we have, so we're going between their, these different comedians again,

[29:20] and cutting between them and Simon in the car telling old jokes and like kind of dour sadness.

[29:26] And as we said, the comedians, you keep cutting to the same ones coming up in different orders.

[29:31] And the car ride just keeps going on.

[29:33] So I'm like, how long is this car ride?

[29:35] How long is this show?

[29:37] Are there multiple shows?

[29:39] And he's missing all of them?

[29:40] Or are we and Simon in purgatory?

[29:42] And he just has to sit through this eternal ride.

Dan McCoy

[29:45] Well, that's, yeah, these are questions I had because there are, there are gaps in Simon's story.

[29:52] So like, so I assumed that whenever we cut.

[29:54] Wait, you wanted more of Simon's story?

[29:56] No, no, no.

[29:56] Like there are gaps in what's going on in the car on Simon's side.

[29:59] So I assumed that whenever we cut to the comedians, Simon's story was continuing and we weren't seeing it.

[30:06] Oh, okay.

[30:07] So like it was unfolding in basically real time, except for that means that the car ride was not 22 minutes.

[30:13] It was at least 50.

Elliott Kalan

[30:15] Yeah.

[30:16] So I wonder if they're supposed to be happening side by side.

[30:18] What was that movie where there's four stories and they're each happening in a quadrant of the screen?

[30:23] Time code.

[30:23] Maybe it's supposed to be like that, but he couldn't get the editing software to make them go on the screen at the same time.

Dan McCoy

[30:28] Yeah.

[30:28] But also, yeah, for clarity about what you were saying before, like when you start the movie, like it's all different comics.

[30:34] So you think like, oh, we're seeing these comics go on one after the other.

[30:38] But Frank D'Angelo feels like he needs to cut it up so you would go back to a little bit of a previous comic set.

[30:46] And he also edits their set so bafflingly, like he'll cut it off when you're pretty sure that there was a punchline coming.

Elliott Kalan

[30:54] I don't think, I think we don't, I think there's plenty of evidence in the movie to show that Frank D'Angelo doesn't really understand comedy or what's funny.

[31:01] So anyway, some salient points while we're doing these kind of bouncing back and forth.

[31:06] I'll just tell you about what's going on with Simon.

[31:08] He has a flashback 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.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[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.

Dan McCoy

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

[31:26] She seems chipper and awake.

Elliott Kalan

[31:30] There is one IV bag or monitor machine placed in what is clearly the same hotel room that Frank D'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.

Dan McCoy

[31:40] I'm just saying I have rarely seen a healthier looking older woman.

Stuart Wellington

[31:46] 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?

[31:54] Based on how she held Frank's hand, I'm assuming her grip strength is up to the task.

Elliott Kalan

[31:58] Okay, go on.

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

[32:03] 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 It Supper Club.

[32:11] And he's got this, and he has this, we then cut to this montage of him going through his regular routine at his favorite restaurant,

[32:17] where he orders the same thing every time, the filet mignon with the lobster tail.

[32:22] And then there's some.

Dan McCoy

[32:23] And the angel hair purinesco, the way that he likes it done.

Elliott Kalan

[32:27] They're like, can you do the angel hair the way I like it, purinesco?

[32:30] And it goes, and bring me my usual wine.

[32:32] And of course, and then of course, he has a great meal.

[32:34] The women are loving it.

[32:36] Every time he says, oh, I've got a phone call.

[32:37] He gets up, touches their shoulder as he walks out, and then he just leaves.

[32:41] And the woman gets stuck with the bill.

[32:44] And at first we think he's just a jerk.

[32:46] But then we learn, oh no, he's a jerk who is testing these women.

[32:50] And the woman who laughs when the bill is delivered to her, she must be his match.

[32:54] And he calls her and invites her to a show.

[32:57] We never see her again.

[32:58] I assume she didn't show up to the comedy show.

Stuart Wellington

[33:00] I mean, that's the next step of the joke, right?

[33:02] 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-

Elliott Kalan

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

[33:09] It's a Virginia Woolf type.

[33:10] It's a who's afraid of Virginia Woolf type thing.

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

Stuart Wellington

[33:12] Based on the angle of the cameras.

[33:16] Now, I've got to do a little bit of detective work.

[33:18] But last time we were in Toronto, I'm pretty sure we ate at the exact same table in the

[33:23] Forget About It's Epic Club.

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

Dan McCoy

[33:28] Well, that's not what you should-

[33:32] I've got to say, so my girlfriend, who is not Italian, grew up for a large part of her-

Elliott Kalan

[33:37] Dan, you're slowly revealing enough information that we'll be able to guess who she is.

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

Dan McCoy

[33:42] But like, she's not Italian, but she grew up in an Italian-American household for much

[33:47] of her childhood.

[33:49] 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 Putinesca with a surf and turd.

Elliott Kalan

[33:57] Frank D'Angelo is one of those guys who clearly is Italian, I would say not Italian-American,

[34:01] Italian-Canadian.

[34:02] But he seems to be living out his movie Goodfellas fantasy of what an Italian is.

[34:06] Yeah.

[34:06] And he doesn't really seem to get-

[34:08] It's like when-

Stuart Wellington

[34:09] Basically, every movie he makes could have just been called Salud.

Elliott Kalan

[34:15] But it feels like any movie where someone is an American, but they're an ethnic minority

[34:21] and they go to the country where their family is from and they feel out of place.

[34:25] And they're like, maybe there's more novels like that than movies.

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

Dan McCoy

[34:30] There are three things I want to say about this restaurant scene, though, very quickly.

[34:33] Like-

[34:33] Oh, boy.

[34:34] Number one-

[34:34] 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.

[34:43] As if Frank D'Angelo does not assume that we as the audience will get it, that it's the same exact thing happening.

[34:51] 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 everything happen thrice.

[34:59] But also, you're also like, why does this waiter play along with it?

Elliott Kalan

[35:04] Well, that's what I wanted to mention is this waiter Jack is Simon's regular waiter.

[35:08] I was going to ask if you guys were served by Jack while you were sitting at that table.

[35:12] And Jack helps him go through this charade, which makes Jack a terrible person.

[35:17] But he helps him trick these women.

[35:19] And then-

[35:20] I can't imagine it helps the tip he's going to receive.

[35:23] No.

[35:24] Bad tip.

[35:25] It doesn't help the Yelp reviews for the restaurant.

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

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

[35:35] How'd it go?

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

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

[35:39] Why?

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

Dan McCoy

[35:45] Well, that's the third thing I wanted to say.

[35:46] 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.

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

Elliott Kalan

[35:56] Yeah.

[35:57] But then once you realize-

[35:58] Although he's a food thief, he does steal someone else's room service for later in the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[36:02] 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 as food that you have paid the iron price for and stolen from someone.

Dan McCoy

[36:15] But what I was going to say is, like, once you realize that it's a test, you realize that this whole thing is just another, like, example of Frank D'Angelo's narcissism as, like, an actor and a person.

[36:27] Because he doesn't want to show himself being rejected by women.

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

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[36:44] They're all much more attractive than him.

[36:45] And they have genuine smiles, which he does not show ever in the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[36:50] I feel like if a woman were to reject him, it would be based on the, like, you're too loyal to your family.

[36:57] Or, like, you're too strong.

[37:00] You're too good a guy and I'm not used to that.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

[37:10] Yeah.

[37:11] So, yeah, he's terrible.

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

[37:15] His driver says he has faith.

[37:16] Simon is a good man.

[37:17] When, again, there is no evidence, in fact, much evidence to the contrary to this.

[37:22] More jokes about blowjobs.

[37:24] There's a long sequence where it's stand-up comedians joking about blowjobs.

[37:27] While, again, Simon talks about his regrets and how unhappy he is.

[37:32] He tells, and then he finally, you know they've bonded when Jerry tells the driver, hey, your car doesn't smell like curry, so thanks.

[37:39] And the driver says, well, it's a new car.

Dan McCoy

[37:41] Yeah.

[37:42] Yeah, it's the kind of, like, you know, nudging, happy response to casual racism that you would expect maybe, maybe out of people who had known each other, like, since childhood.

[37:52] And have that kind of joshing relationship.

[37:54] Not, like, some asshole who just got in that car that morning.

Stuart Wellington

[37:56] Yeah, and it's, like, the kind of shit where, like, and then Jerry, like, playing along with the joke is that kind of shit where it, like, confirms with Frank that he's riding with one of the good ones.

[38:06] Right.

Dan McCoy

[38:07] Or that he's okay in his, like, racism.

[38:09] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[38:10] It's very much, it's what happens when there's a huge power imbalance in the dynamic between two people where the racist is like, look, I'm going to pay you for this service or I could decide not to pay you.

[38:21] So, why don't you play along with my racism or else maybe you're not going to, maybe you're going to have wasted all this time on nothing.

[38:27] And he's like, oh, yes, sir.

[38:29] Yes, of course.

[38:30] Yes, Curry.

[38:31] I'm Indian.

[38:31] Thank you.

[38:32] Great.

[38:33] Like, it's such a, you can 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.

Dan McCoy

[38:40] Also, the Indian guy saying it is supposed to, like, validate that Frank is a good guy.

[38:44] But then you're like, wait a minute.

[38:46] Frank, you wrote this line and gave it to him to say.

Elliott Kalan

[38:51] Well, that's the, there's, I feel like that happens in a lot of movies where the person who wrote it or the author of the work has either themselves or a surrogate character playing themselves.

[39:03] And other characters are just talking about how great they are.

[39:05] And it's like, wait a minute.

[39:06] Hold on.

Stuart Wellington

[39:07] I know that that's Jesse Eisenberg, but he's speaking with Woody Allen's mouth.

[39:13] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[39:13] Well, I mean, that's because they surgically moved Woody Allen's mouth to Jesse Eisenberg's face in probably one of the most horrific pieces of Hollywood.

[39:21] Surgery since, you know, that human centipede incident when they tried to put, they tried to take Tom Cruise, Will Smith, and George Clooney and make them into a megastar by sewing them together.

[39:32] Uh-huh.

[39:33] Now, have we arrived at the...

Stuart Wellington

[39:35] That was a really weird thing to put on display at Planet Hollywood, but you know what?

Elliott Kalan

[39:39] I'll allow it.

[39:41] 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.

[39:47] They needed something that was so unpleasant to look at that people would distract themselves by watching Bruce Willis play harmonica.

[39:53] Because usually they would choose to look at anything other than that.

Dan McCoy

[39:57] I just didn't know whether...

[39:58] Have we arrived at the destination yet at this point in the synopsis?

[40:02] No, no.

Elliott Kalan

[40:02] I'll tell you very quickly.

[40:03] Okay.

[40:03] By this point, Jerry has totally validated Simon as a good soul who deserves success.

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

[40:11] He says, I'm honored...

[40:12] Simon says, I'm honored to call you my friends.

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

[40:15] They hug.

[40:16] And I assume Simon has been taught to be grateful for the things in his life 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 from all this.

[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.

Dan McCoy

[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.

[40:38] Wait, wait, wait.

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

[40:41] Okay?

[40:42] I am engaged.

[40:42] Hold on.

Elliott Kalan

[40:42] Let me pull the shoulder harness down so I don't get thrown out of the ride.

Dan McCoy

[40:46] I mean, like I said, Elliot kind of already made this point, but a little bit.

[40:50] Like, 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, like the troubles in his life,

[41:00] they basically boil down to his parents died, which I don't want to minimize.

[41:06] Because I know it's a very difficult thing to go through.

[41:08] But like...

Elliott Kalan

[41:08] I mean, sometimes people turn into Batman when that happens.

Dan McCoy

[41:11] That's how difficult it is.

[41:12] Well, but that's a violent early death, whereas like both of these people seem to have lived

[41:16] rich, full lives and have died of old age.

Stuart Wellington

[41:19] And appeared to be in the prime of health moments before being snatched away.

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

Dan McCoy

[41:25] So there's that.

[41:26] And I guess the fact that he's a joke thief, which again is not really referenced and is

[41:31] his fault if it's true.

Elliott Kalan

[41:32] I mean, that's one of those things where if this movie wasn't called the joke thief, you

[41:37] would never get the idea that he's a joke thief.

[41:39] Yeah.

[41:39] It would be about a man who cannot... who wants to be a comedian but is so full of stage fright

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

[41:47] Yeah.

[41:47] Like you could make a movie about someone who has lost family members and wants to make

[41:51] people laugh but is worried that like they'll lose the audience or something like that.

[41:55] Yeah.

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

[41:58] But like that's not what the movie is.

[41:59] The movie's called The Joke Thief.

[42:00] So you see it's about a guy who stole jokes and has to be redeemed.

[42:02] But you never see him steal a joke except all of his jokes.

[42:06] Yeah.

[42:06] I'm just saying...

Dan McCoy

[42:07] Because they're public domain jokes.

[42:07] He's gone through so little hardship in his life other than the fact that he has not

[42:12] made it as a stand-up comic, which is one of the hardest things in the world to do.

[42:17] So like I don't know...

[42:18] I mean it would be...

Elliott Kalan

[42:19] Especially when most of your performing experience is in front of a mirror in your house.

[42:22] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[42:22] I feel like the title of the movie should have been called like number one worst cab customer

[42:27] of all time.

[42:28] Because it...

[42:29] I mean it slightly edges out collateral for that title.

Elliott Kalan

[42:34] It's like...

[42:35] It goes like Martin Scorsese in Taxi Driver.

[42:37] Frank D'Angelo in this movie.

[42:39] Collateral.

Dan McCoy

[42:40] Now where does Stuber fit in this?

Stuart Wellington

[42:42] Oh wow.

[42:43] That's a tough one.

[42:44] Based on the fact that I haven't seen it.

[42:47] But I like the people in it more.

Dan McCoy

[42:49] Do you like the title of it?

[42:51] Since it has your name?

Stuart Wellington

[42:52] I mean yeah.

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

[42:56] That's why Stuart Pankin is my favorite celebrity.

Dan McCoy

[43:01] Not necessarily the new star Stuart Pankin.

Elliott Kalan

[43:04] That's why you grew up having a big crush on Gloria Stewart.

[43:06] Uh huh.

[43:07] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[43:08] And we got any more?

Dan McCoy

[43:09] You enjoy eating stew?

[43:11] Uh huh.

Stuart Wellington

[43:12] As long as that stew isn't made out of the body of Jimmy Stewart.

[43:16] Okay.

[43:17] Let's move forward guys.

[43:19] Yeah.

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

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

[43:26] You're the best.

Elliott Kalan

[43:27] 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.

[43:33] Which is supposed to be like a big you know put down.

[43:37] But if 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

[43:43] but maybe he should.

S4

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

[43:48] What are you doing?

[43:48] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[43:49] He never rehearses.

[43:50] Like what?

Dan McCoy

[43:50] Anyway.

[43:51] And all.

[43:52] It's a crazy thing to say.

[43:52] And he's hanging out with all the supportive comics backstage.

[43:55] Again people who are supportive.

[43:56] Even though he's supposed to be a joke thief and comedians would be very like suspicious

[44:01] of him at best.

[44:02] And all the comics are hanging out in the green room after they performed.

[44:07] Because they're going to have to go right back up again.

[44:09] Again.

[44:09] Because you've seen how this club works.

[44:10] Yeah.

[44:11] Again as someone who has done it a few times at least.

[44:14] Like comedians as soon as their set is done they either leave or go to the bar in the

[44:18] back of the room.

Stuart Wellington

[44:20] Now I do like how the majority of the jokes are like super old fashioned and they're all

[44:26] like pretty misogynistic.

[44:29] Like oh man this is great.

[44:30] I'm glad that we let somebody's fucking grandpa pick the fucking set list.

Dan McCoy

[44:35] I mean I'm sure that Frank DeLangelo finds all of these jokes hilarious.

Elliott Kalan

[44:39] Yeah.

[44:40] And so as Dan mentioned normally they would all leave.

[44:43] But this being the comedy carousel or comedy shooting gallery where randomly comics just

[44:47] pop up to tell you things.

[44:49] They're still there.

[44:51] So Simon hangs around through multiple acts to get to his turn.

[44:56] And it's like okay time for him to go up.

[44:59] Let's see him.

[45:00] No wait.

[45:01] They're introducing a different comedian.

[45:03] And I will say that this is a very real depiction of what a comedy club is like where you think

[45:09] the show is going to be over.

[45:10] And they're like we got one more guy coming up.

[45:12] And you're like oh god I'm done.

[45:14] I don't need it anymore.

Dan McCoy

[45:15] Yeah.

[45:15] And this was also the point when I was actually yelling at the screen because I'm like movie.

[45:20] You've reached the climax.

[45:21] And now you're going to grind to a halt to show all of this guy's set.

[45:26] Yeah.

[45:26] What is going on?

Elliott Kalan

[45:28] Grind to a halt.

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

[45:32] Yeah.

[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

[45:39] it's supposed to be about a joke thief.

[45:41] 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.

[45:48] Which is also like why would you put a comedian who does nothing but Italian jokes in your Frank

[45:52] D'Angelo movie?

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

[45:56] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[45:57] 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.

Stuart Wellington

[46:04] Was she angry because she was laughing so hard and she split her sides?

Dan McCoy

[46:07] Yeah.

[46:08] 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 and she's like

[46:14] I never encountered anyone like this.

Stuart Wellington

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

[46:23] American president because he's not enough like a gangster.

[46:27] Yeah.

[46:28] Like yep.

[46:29] Clearly this guy knows what the world needs.

Dan McCoy

[46:31] I was surprised that the movie briefly got political with some anti-Trump comedy.

Elliott Kalan

[46:38] Very strange in the middle of this.

[46:39] Where I was like that threw me off because I was like is this guy anti-Trump?

[46:43] Because he reminds me of all the Trump voters that I knew that I grew up with.

[46:46] Yeah.

[46:46] Like the guy like my close family friend who like I'm sure voted for Trump like and is

[46:53] like he reminds me so much of that guy.

[46:55] But anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[46:55] And is he a New Jersey stand-up comedian who tells mafioso based jokes?

Elliott Kalan

[47:00] Yeah.

[47:00] Anyway he's in this movie.

[47:02] So Simon waits.

[47:04] He flashes back to his dad telling him he's funny.

[47:06] Jerry telling him he's funny.

[47:07] Finally.

[47:08] Lord above.

[47:09] We are seven minutes away from the end of this 87 minute movie.

[47:13] It feels like we've been here forever.

[47:15] MC Daniel Baldwin, Freddie C.

[47:16] 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

[47:24] me to have this guy coming up making his basement his comedy basement debut.

[47:29] I mean.

[47:30] Simon whatever his name is.

Dan McCoy

[47:31] I will say that is that is true to a comedy MC.

[47:33] They will lie about you being great.

Elliott Kalan

[47:36] But he it's not even like he's like this guy's a great comedian.

[47:39] He talks about him as if this is his a beloved you know landmark icon of the comedy world.

[47:45] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[47:45] I mean I feel like they talked about how Simon is a good car salesman.

[47:49] I think Freddie C is the good salesman.

Elliott Kalan

[47:52] So Simon comes up.

[47:54] His act consists of two jokes.

[47:56] One is about a penguin with car trouble that turns out to be a blowjob joke.

[47:59] And the other is about a joke about a dog who can buy drinks but then wastes the money on a prostitute.

[48:04] That's the entire act.

[48:05] And the audience loves it.

Dan McCoy

[48:08] Yeah.

[48:08] Two jokes.

[48:09] The critic nods approvingly from the audience.

Elliott Kalan

[48:12] And points to his paper like you're going to be in it tonight.

[48:15] And you're going to be in this report.

[48:16] And it's like and I started thinking now like so that's $200.

[48:20] They paid him $100 per joke for those jokes.

[48:22] That's crazy.

Stuart Wellington

[48:22] And I mean they were long jokes.

[48:25] I mean that's the rate of like mailing a joke to Bob Hope.

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

[48:35] Why is it such a big deal that the critic is also there?

[48:38] Like it's not like people are going to see it.

[48:40] It doesn't really matter if what the critic says.

[48:43] Not if it makes sense.

Elliott Kalan

[48:44] Stuart you just don't understand the comedy world.

[48:46] All right.

[48:47] The most important thing is to get on the side of the critics.

[48:50] Because Frank D'Angelo understands comedy based on what he saw in the movie Sweet Smell of Success.

[48:55] Where the only way to get success is to be in the columns the next day.

[48:58] And so that's Simon walks off to applause and that's the movie.

[49:01] The title comes up.

[49:02] The Joke Thief.

[49:02] They somehow remember that's what the movie is called.

[49:04] There's a dedication card to Frank D'Angelo's father.

[49:09] And in the end credits Ed the Sock gets his own end credit title card for himself.

[49:15] And we get to Dan hinted earlier there's a blooper reel.

[49:18] And I want to take a couple minutes to talk about this.

[49:20] Because much like the movie misunderstands comedy and movies and human behavior.

[49:25] The blooper reel it's supposed to be like blooper reels is like a reel of people screwing up and having fun and being silly.

Stuart Wellington

[49:31] Yeah like Johnny Knoxville getting his balls smashed in.

Elliott Kalan

[49:34] Well that's also most of the movie.

[49:36] But yeah that's the blooper reel too.

[49:37] But this blooper reel is almost entirely Frank D'Angelo berating the crew for doing things wrong.

[49:44] Like telling him that the boom mic slipped down.

[49:47] Getting mad at one of the actors for doing something wrong.

[49:50] And he's just being a jerk.

[49:51] And it's like I have two theories about this.

[49:54] Either one after playing a sad sack for the whole movie.

[49:57] 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.

[50:02] He is in charge.

[50:03] So he's going to show you what it's really like on the set.

[50:06] Or that it's like the end of a face in the crowd.

[50:08] And like the editor wanted to show the world what a bad guy Frank D'Angelo was.

[50:11] So he snuck in this footage of him being a jerk.

[50:14] But I was so baffled by these.

[50:15] I was so excited.

[50:17] Because as everyone knows.

[50:18] Anytime I finish any movie.

[50:19] Even like the favorite.

[50:20] I fast forward to the credits to see if there are any bloops.

[50:23] Almost no.

[50:24] There's almost.

[50:24] I remember.

[50:25] Anytime my wife and I are watching like a really heavy serious movie.

[50:28] I like to cut the tension by whenever it ends.

[50:30] Like when Spotlight was over I was like okay let's just check and see if there are any bloops.

[50:33] And I guess we're through the credits.

[50:35] But I was like finally bloops.

[50:37] But these bloops are like again.

[50:39] It's just on set footage of Frank D'Angelo telling people that they're wrong about stuff.

[50:44] Yeah.

[50:44] It's crazy.

Dan McCoy

[50:45] And you have offered two joke explanations for this.

[50:47] I want to offer what I believe to be the real explanation.

[50:50] Which is Frank D'Angelo is an asshole.

[50:53] And as many.

[50:54] As many assholes.

[50:55] I feel like that.

[50:56] I feel like that dovetails with both of my explanations.

[50:59] Well but as many assholes do.

[51:01] He thinks that berating other people is all in good fun.

[51:04] And it's hilarious.

[51:06] And everyone's going to love seeing him berating these people.

[51:08] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[51:08] Seeing him giving someone the dozens.

[51:10] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[51:12] Well in Canada with the exchange rate it's actually about 16.

[51:15] Shit.

[51:15] Wow.

[51:16] Wow that's the hackiest joke I could have told.

[51:19] Oh well.

Stuart Wellington

[51:20] I got a comedy showcase that you can be a part of forever.

[51:24] No.

Elliott Kalan

[51:25] Wait is it in a basement?

[51:26] I love it.

[51:27] He probably saw Louie and he was like comedy seller.

[51:29] Okay I'll name my club the comedy basement.

[51:31] Almost certainly.

[51:32] Almost certainly.

[51:33] Okay let's move on.

[51:35] Actually you know what?

[51:36] I never thought about that.

[51:36] This movie makes a lot more sense if Frank D'Angelo saw Louie.

[51:40] The show.

[51:41] Yeah.

[51:41] And was like oh I'll do that.

[51:43] And this is his understanding of what that show is.

Stuart Wellington

[51:45] He's like now that Louie's off the air due to I don't know some PC based reason.

[51:52] I'm going to fill that void with my movie.

Elliott Kalan

[51:54] I mean ironically Frank D'Angelo was brought up on charges of sexual harassment.

[51:59] So there are like two peas in a pod.

[52:01] That was the story of Frank D'Angelo being the charges were either dropped or he was found not guilty.

[52:08] And then he invited either the prosecutor or the judge to his congratulations party afterwards.

[52:12] Which real classy move.

[52:15] Classy move Canadian legal system.

Dan McCoy

[52:17] Well I like that as a place to give our final judgment.

[52:21] Whether this is a good bad movie.

[52:23] A bad bad movie.

[52:24] Or a movie you kind of liked.

[52:25] I'm going to say I usually really like these small timber episodes.

[52:30] I do feel.

[52:30] Small timber.

[52:31] As we said.

[52:32] A little guilty about.

[52:33] Signal boosting an asshole.

[52:35] Well yeah.

[52:36] I was going to say punching down.

[52:37] But also like I don't.

[52:38] I feel less guilty about it because he's such a jerk.

[52:40] Yeah.

[52:41] But I usually really enjoy these because it's a.

[52:43] They're always sillier and weirder.

[52:46] And they give us a chance to do something different.

[52:48] I will say that I yelled at the screen more at this one.

[52:52] I think because in addition to the baffling narrative choices.

[52:56] Again I'm like he misunderstands comedy so much.

[52:59] You're like watching it and you're like do a little fucking research on how any of this works.

[53:04] Like you have comics in your movie.

[53:06] Ask one of them whether any of this makes sense.

[53:09] But that being said.

[53:11] It is so dumb and so weird that I would say it's probably a good bad movie.

Stuart Wellington

[53:16] Yeah.

[53:16] I mean it's.

[53:17] I would feel.

[53:18] Of the Frank D'Angelo movies we've watched.

[53:21] This one was the least pleasant.

[53:25] And it is one of those things where you're like.

[53:28] You're like.

[53:30] Frank.

[53:31] You're making a movie.

[53:33] And scoring it.

[53:35] And starring in it.

[53:36] Every year.

[53:37] What the fuck am I doing with my life?

[53:42] So yeah.

[53:43] I guess it's a good bad movie.

[53:45] I mean.

[53:45] You probably shouldn't support him because he's an asshole.

[53:47] So.

[53:48] Yeah.

[53:48] That's the tough thing.

Dan McCoy

[53:49] Like figure out a way of seeing it if you want to without giving him money.

Elliott Kalan

[53:52] And I would.

[53:52] Yeah.

[53:53] I would also call it a good bad movie because it is baffling.

[53:55] But.

[53:56] I would say similarly if you're going to watch a Frank D'Angelo movie in some way that involves not giving money to him.

[54:01] This is not the one to start with.

[54:03] I would still say that No Deposit is the one to start with.

[54:06] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[54:06] That's the best.

[54:07] But if you're willing.

[54:08] If you want to dig further into the Frank D'Angelo.

[54:10] Into the Frank D'Angeloverse.

[54:12] Then.

[54:12] Then go ahead with this one.

S4

[54:18] Hi.

[54:19] It's me Paula Poundstone.

[54:20] And it's me Adam Felber.

[54:22] We have a podcast called Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone.

[54:25] It's a comedy podcast where we bring on experts to teach us stuff we need to know.

Dan McCoy

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

S4

[54:33] Anyway.

[54:34] It's fun.

[54:35] You are guaranteed laughs in every episode.

Dan McCoy

[54:37] You can't really guarantee laughs.

[54:39] What if somebody doesn't laugh?

[54:40] We'll get sued.

S4

[54:41] Join us for our next episode where we have an expert in consumer law explain to us how to defend ourselves against one humorless.

[54:48] Let's let it just shut in with enough time on their hands to sue us over our unfulfilled claim of guaranteed laughs in every episode.

[54:55] Here at MaximumFun.org.

Dan McCoy

[54:58] The cat of the week is Mabel from Green Bank, West Virginia.

S5

[55:04] Welcome everyone to the live wrestling spectacular in Los Angeles.

S4

[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.

[55:19] Could it be?

[55:20] It's Titan Fights.

[55:22] The perfect wrestling podcast.

S5

[55:24] Titan Fights is here to save us from the monotony of boring wrestling podcasts with hilarious conversations.

S4

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

S5

[55:34] And joke about the finer points of people wearing spandex.

[55:40] What a match!

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

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

[55:51] Please, these hosts have families.

Stuart Wellington

[55:53] Titan Fights podcast.

[55:58] Titan Fights.

Dan McCoy

[56:03] So, moving on.

[56:05] Let me unlock my phone so I can read a few ads.

[56:09] Professional.

[56:10] The first one is Squarespace.

[56:13] Hey.

[56:14] Why not?

Elliott Kalan

[56:16] So, Dan, does the ad copy for Squarespace start with hey?

[56:18] Because you always start them that way.

Dan McCoy

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

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

[56:26] And I was taken off guard by the fact that it goes right into bullet points.

[56:30] So, but I want to say, as my word of explanation, Squarespace is one of our sponsors and they help you make websites where you can blog or publish content, sell products and services of all kinds, and more.

[56:44] You know, more is like, you know, whatever your little heart desires.

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

Stuart Wellington

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

[56:54] Or are you writing checks that they can't cash?

Dan McCoy

[56:57] Again, I mean, like, our great sponsor, which is a great sponsor, they probably don't want us criticizing the copy, but I always get taken off guard by that as well because there are two bullet points and then and more.

[57:09] But Squarespace does this by giving you beautiful, customizable templates created by world-class designers, everything optimized for mobile right out of the box,

[57:17] a new way to buy domains and choose from over 200 extensions, and free and secure hosting.

[57:25] So, head to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code FLOP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Elliott Kalan

[57:38] Now, Dan, I had an idea for a website, and I was wondering if you thought Squarespace would be able to help me with it.

Dan McCoy

[57:43] Probably, but go on.

Elliott Kalan

[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 how 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 advice.

[58:22] So, that's Juber.

[58:23] Now, again, this is different from my previous website, Juber.com, which was candies in the shape of Jews.

[58:28] It was like Goobers, but they're in the shape of Jews, famous Jews, you know, like Sholem Aleichem, Sidney Pollack, you know, all sorts of famous Jews.

[58:36] But that was a different – that was Juber.com.

[58:39] So, this is Juber.org, because I feel like what we're doing here is more of a charitable, not-for-profit thing, although we are expecting a profit.

[58:45] So, that's Juber.org for someone like Jerry to listen to your problems and give you advice while you get driven to where you're going.

[58:52] For Juber.com, if you're still interested, I have a warehouse full of candy in the shape of Jews.

[58:57] If anyone – if you ever wanted a piece of candy shaped like Joseph Heller or a piece of candy shaped like Golda Meir, just let me know.

[59:04] Yep.

[59:04] They're very –

Dan McCoy

[59:05] Piece of candy shaped like half of William Shatner.

Elliott Kalan

[59:08] Yep.

[59:09] That's – yep.

[59:09] As it says on the bag, very chewy, very Jewy.

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

[59:13] Just, again, I'll sell it to you.

[59:14] Cut rate, because I got a warehouse full of things.

[59:16] They did not move.

[59:17] Now, and Juber.org is Jerry's Uber driver.

Dan McCoy

[59:20] Now, Elliot, I just want to take a moment to say, even though I know that you are one of the chosen people, that made me very uncomfortable.

[59:28] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[59:30] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

Dan McCoy

[59:36] Moving on to Dashlane, the Flophouse is supported in part by Dashlane, which is a password management app that keeps all of your online information safe, secure, encrypted, and easy to access.

[59:48] I need this.

[59:48] And remembers all of your passwords so you don't have to.

[59:51] Can't remember the special characters, capitalization, and length requirements for every single website you've ever visited in your entire life?

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:00] Dashlane can.

[1:00:02] That sounds great, because, you know, I've been doing this podcast for a long time, and every time we're about to do – every time we're about to do an intro, I always forget how to do it.

[1:00:11] Yep.

[1:00:12] Can you identify with that at all, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[1:00:14] Yeah, well, I'm glad that you finally admit it, too, Stuart.

[1:00:17] Take a little weight off my shoulders.

[1:00:20] But Dashlane seamlessly autofills all of your login information, syncing automatically across your computer, phone, and tablet.

[1:00:26] It even stores payment details.

[1:00:29] So go ahead and get weird with your passwords or let Dashlane generate a real stumper for you.

[1:00:33] They'll keep it safely stored in a password vault only you can unlock.

[1:00:39] Check out www.dashlane.com slash flop to get Dashlane free on your first device.

[1:00:46] As a special offer for the Flophouse fans, they're even offering a 30-day free trial of Dashlane premium, including VPN, pardon me, dark web monitoring.

[1:00:58] Sorry, there was a line break.

[1:01:00] They're not offering the dark web to you.

[1:01:03] Dark web monitoring.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:04] Wow, Elliot's eyes lit up in excitement.

[1:01:06] And more.

[1:01:07] What corridors of the internet superhighway can he?

Dan McCoy

[1:01:12] If you like Dashlane, use code FLOP at checkout to save 10% on your premium subscription.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:20] I was just thinking that the dark web would be a great place for me to sell all these bags of Jubers that I have that I haven't been able to unload.

[1:01:25] Now, guys, I think I realized one of the problems with an otherwise flawless product, which is I mentioned those famous names, but the famous names are just kind of to get you in the door.

[1:01:34] I couldn't get the rights to the likenesses to a lot of different famous Jews.

[1:01:37] Oh, okay.

[1:01:38] So most of the Juber candies just look like my relatives, like my Uncle Gary, my brother, like my Aunt Wendy, like my Uncle Lou.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:47] Yeah, there's a little asterisk on the box, and it says artist impression.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:51] Yeah, exactly.

[1:01:52] Like some of my great-grandparents, like Grandpa Eddie, you know, my great-Aunt Leah.

[1:01:59] So, like, do you think that was it that people were not that interested in candy-shaped like Jews they had never heard of?

Dan McCoy

[1:02:04] Could be.

[1:02:05] I thought you were going to say that because you couldn't get the rights, they were just shaped like normal gummy bears.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:12] I mean, isn't a goober a chocolate-covered, like, raisin or a peanut or some shit?

[1:02:17] A goober is, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:18] I just stole the name.

[1:02:19] I didn't – look, there's still chewy gummy candies.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:22] I guess if you say hard G sound, you could make it –

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:27] No, no, Jubers are different.

[1:02:29] Anyway, like, yeah, so I guess people didn't want to eat, like, a candy in the shape of my dad's cousin Shelly.

[1:02:35] Is that possible?

Dan McCoy

[1:02:36] I find that baffling.

[1:02:38] So, you guys have jumbotrons that I sent to you.

[1:02:42] Who wants to go first?

[1:02:44] It looks like Stuart has this.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:45] I'm ready to go with a j-j-jumbotron.

[1:02:49] Why don't you go first, Stu?

[1:02:51] Okay.

[1:02:51] Do you need to interrupt me again?

[1:02:56] Cool.

[1:02:56] Let's do this thing.

[1:02:58] This message is for Ben and Chip.

[1:03:02] The message is from Lucy and Kudo.

[1:03:05] I was gonna 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.

[1:03:21] In which case, it's the thought that counts.

[1:03:24] Anyway, hooray for you!

[1:03:26] I love you, I'm proud of you, and I'm still very jealous that you get to go to Hinterlands.

[1:03:32] That's Hinterlands Bar, located at 739 Church Avenue in Brooklyn, New York.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:37] And you should be jealous, because even if Stuart and Charlene didn't own it, I think it would be one of my favorite bars.

[1:03:43] Oh, bless you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:44] That's very nice.

[1:03:45] And bless this message.

[1:03:47] It's a very lovely sentiment.

Elliott Kalan

[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, making movies shorts, or dancing to 80s New Wave, you're the coolest cat around.

[1:04:04] Thank you for getting us into bad movies through MST3K and the Neil Breen Cinematic Universe.

[1:04:09] Happy 53rd birthday.

[1:04:10] Love you forever from your daughters, Sage and Ivy, and your wife, Katie.

[1:04:14] That's very sweet.

[1:04:15] What a wonderful birthday message.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:18] 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.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:23] And that's the cat report for today.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

[1:04:33] Get in touch with me.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:34] Now, Elliot, recently you've been taking care of the live show info.

[1:04:39] Do you have that information?

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:41] 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's Fiddy Space, which I think is technically in Brookline, but we're calling it Boston.

[1:04:57] 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.

[1:05:12] Alita colon Battle Angel at 7.

[1:05:14] 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, we'll be doing different presentations for each show.

[1:05:22] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[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.

[1:05:32] So I'm very excited about this.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:34] I will say that my first presentation, as befitting the early show, is a little more all ages.

[1:05:39] The second gets a little blue.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:41] Which is great because—

[1:05:42] Mine is actually the reverse, I think.

Stuart Wellington

[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.

Elliott Kalan

[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 and September 28th, two different shows.

[1:06:02] If you can stomach the idea of spending multiple hours with us, I would advise you to go to both shows if you would like.

[1:06:08] Because of—we're doing a late show.

[1:06:10] This is just a note that if you want to get any merchandise signed from us, we are more likely to be signing for a short amount of time before the shows 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.

[1:06:21] 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.

[1:06:26] A song we didn't hear earlier in the show at all.

[1:06:28] October 12th on 2019.

[1:06:30] That'll be at the Regent Theater at 7 p.m.

[1:06:32] And we're going to be talking about Dark Phoenix, the movie that killed the X-Men franchise.

[1:06:36] Oh, boy.

[1:06:37] Can't wait.

[1:06:38] I'm sure two comic heads like me and Stu will be excited to point out all the differences between the series.

[1:06:42] Dan likes comics, too, like Crazy Cat and Yellow Kid.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:48] No, I mean, not the Yellow Kid.

[1:06:51] I don't know.

[1:06:52] You have it placed prominently on your shelf right next to your book of erotica.

[1:06:56] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:59] It's true.

[1:07:00] I do like a lot of old comics, but it's not like, I don't know, like the Cats and Jammer kids.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:06] He's like, if it wasn't in Bill Blackbeard's basement, then I don't want to read it.

[1:07:09] Anyway, so that's September 28th, 2019 in Boston.

[1:07:13] Two different shows.

[1:07:14] Early show sold out.

[1:07:15] Late show not sold out, if you want some tickets to it.

[1:07:18] L.A. show, October 12th.

[1:07:20] And we're going to be talking some big blockbuster movies.

[1:07:22] All that information is, of course, also available at flophousepodcast.com slash events.

[1:07:28] That's also where you can buy tickets.

[1:07:30] Flophousepodcast.com slash events for those shows.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:35] I think that's it for this sort of thing.

[1:07:39] That's it for the episode.

[1:07:40] Goodbye, everybody.

[1:07:41] No, no, no.

[1:07:41] This section.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:41] Dan, do you want to mention our new merch real quick?

Dan McCoy

[1:07:44] Oh, yeah.

[1:07:45] So, as I said before, our merch contest is over.

[1:07:49] We selected two great designs.

[1:07:52] And they're both available now at Tapatico.

[1:07:57] Under the Maximum Fun section of the...

[1:08:00] I think the site is...

[1:08:03] I think it is organized.

[1:08:05] It's subheading podcast, subheading Maximum Fun.

[1:08:09] And then you can find the Flophouse merch there.

[1:08:11] And there's a link to that.

[1:08:14] If you...

[1:08:14] You can just Google Tapatico.

[1:08:16] Or you can go to our website again and click on the merch tab.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:20] Yeah, it's Tapatico, that's T-O-P-A-T-O-C-O dot com slash collections slash maximum dash fun.

[1:08:27] So, maybe just Google Maximum Fun Tapatico.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:30] Yeah, and just remember, it's never too early to start buying holiday gifts, you know?

[1:08:34] There's holidays all the time.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:36] I don't want to spoil anything, but I actually bought holiday gifts for both of you just this week.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:41] Oh, no.

[1:08:42] Oh, that's really nice.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:44] So, I'm...

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:45] Guess I'll go to the store.

[1:08:47] I guess I should get you something.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:49] I'm just saying I'm showing the foresight as a gift giver that I never show as a podcaster.

[1:08:54] Oh, wow.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:57] It's a harder skill to market, I guess, but that's okay.

[1:09:01] I feel like that's the inverse of Marc Maron.

[1:09:04] And although he's a great actor, I imagine he's not the best gift giver, but whatever.

[1:09:09] That's just based on the character I get from his show.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:12] Sure, sure.

[1:09:13] Let us move along.

[1:09:16] I re...

[1:09:17] This is...

[1:09:17] Sorry, this is the letter segment.

[1:09:19] I should just start reading a letter.

[1:09:23] This is where we...

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:23] Yeah, Dan, but at least you got the presents bought, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:28] This is where we take letters from listeners.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:32] I kind of wish there was a dash lane for the structure of this podcast, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:35] I mean, there is.

[1:09:36] It's what I use.

[1:09:37] I literally type up an agenda and I just look at it through the whole episode.

[1:09:41] Cool.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:42] I haven't said this in a while because we have a huge backlog of letters, actually, that we'll never, ever get to.

[1:09:47] But if you do want to send a letter, again, go to...

[1:09:49] The easiest way is to go to our website and click on the contact page.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:53] But...

[1:09:53] Yeah, that would be FlophousePodcast.com, the aforementioned website that Dan felt it was not necessary to tell you the URL of.

Stuart Wellington

[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.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:04] I mean, maybe if there's a precipitous drop in our popularity, we'll be cool.

[1:10:09] I hope that is not going to happen.

[1:10:10] Who knows after this episode?

[1:10:11] Who knows?

[1:10:11] Not going with it.

[1:10:12] It's possible.

[1:10:13] Anyway, moving on to letters, as I was saying.

[1:10:16] Letters from listeners, listeners like you.

[1:10:19] This first letter is from Alicia, last name withheld.

[1:10:22] Mm-hmm.

[1:10:23] Silverstone.

[1:10:24] Alicia writes,

[1:10:25] 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 since the movie is full of very routine cliches, ones that I would dub tiresome at best.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:55] Yeah, but that's a movie filled with dogs, right?

[1:10:57] Like, people love fucking dogs, man.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:59] They love their dogs.

[1:11:01] That's why White God was such a huge hit.

[1:11:04] Yeah.

[1:11:05] The boy and his dog.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:06] But I mean, The Art of Racing in the Rain does feature the actor who played Jess on Gilmore Girls, so automatically that's a not-watch for me.

[1:11:16] Okay.

[1:11:17] I'm sure he's fine.

[1:11:19] The character is terrible.

[1:11:22] It's like how my parents could never watch Mad About You because they held so much anger over Paul Reiser's character in Aliens.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:31] I like to pretend they're the same character or that the Paul Reiser character in Aliens is the child of the characters in Mad About You.

[1:11:38] Oh, cool.

[1:11:38] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:39] Okay.

[1:11:40] Moving on to the rest of the letter.

[1:11:42] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:05] Now, I'd like to jump in and say that some movies that critics panned and audiences ate up, all of them?

[1:12:11] Yeah.

[1:12:12] I mean, well...

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:12] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:20] Often I'll look up a movie on Wikipedia and it'll say, like, on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, it has, you know, 39%.

[1:12:26] Cinema score audiences gave it a B plus or an A minus.

[1:12:30] Yes.

[1:12:30] I think it's...

[1:12:31] There's most...

[1:12:32] 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...

[1:12:40] I mean, sophisticated is the wrong word, but a craft point of view.

[1:12:43] Whereas audiences are coming at it from a sheer, pure, physical experience, emotion point of view.

[1:12:47] Which is not necessarily wrong, but it's why, like...

[1:12:51] 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.

Dan McCoy

[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.

[1:13:23] 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.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:35] Yeah, it's like the analogy about, like, eating peppers, like, eating spicy food that, like, 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, if you're, like, a crazy heat seeker, anything short of, like, a ghost pepper is not going to fucking make it twitch.

[1:13:54] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:54] And the idea that, like, a newbie who chows down on a ghost pepper would, like, wreck their palate.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:01] They would hate it.

[1:14:02] Which is why the Metacritic score of the ghost pepper, the critic review would be very high.

[1:14:07] But the audience review would be very low, which are usually the movies I like.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:12] Well, that's, I still haven't seen A Quiet Place, but it reminds me what, listening to you guys and other people talk about it, was, like, if you're really into horror movies and scare movies already, it wasn't that impressive.

[1:14:23] But if you're an audience that doesn't usually see those types of movies, I'm sure it was, it felt much more new to you, whereas something like Mandy, which is what someone who's drenched in horror all the time would gravitate towards because it's new and strange and weird, that would be a ghost pepper for most people.

[1:14:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:14:39] Like, what am I even looking at?

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:40] Or the touchstones it uses are a little more, like, esoteric.

[1:14:45] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:46] It's funny that you bring A Quiet Place up because, like, I was talking about this question just yesterday, and that was the exact example I gave.

[1:14:52] Like, and I, I have gotten in trouble before, like, by sort of referring to A Quiet Place as, like, like, beginner horror.

[1:15:00] But that's fine.

[1:15:00] If, like, horror is not a thing that you normally like, like, A Quiet Place is skillfully made.

[1:15:05] It's not for me because, like, I've seen a lot of movies like that before, so I'm like, okay, this is what it is, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:11] Yeah, like, I find any time, a lot of times when I'm talking about, like, comics, comic books with people, a lot of modern comics that people use as a gateway,

[1:15:21] like, books that get them really excited, I end up not caring for because it feels too rudimentary to me or, like, it feels like some guy shat out of, like, a failed TV pilot that they decide to, like, lazily draw.

[1:15:34] And by the way, by the way.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:36] Like, Stuart, you were like, maybe that's on me for being too esoteric, but also maybe they just shat out this thing.

[1:15:41] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:15:42] Subtweet, subtweet.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:43] Yeah, by the way, I want to say, I want to say that we realize that we're sounding like insufferable snobs right now.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:49] Yeah, we're real assholes.

[1:15:50] No, but I think, 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.

[1:16:03] Yeah.

[1:16:03] 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 in the history of the world right now, like, in terms of money.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:25] I mean, it's not animated.

[1:16:27] It was live action.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:29] 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, they're just like, Lion King.

[1:16:38] I love these songs.

[1:16:39] There's a bunch of animals jumping around.

[1:16:40] Like, this is, I have a place to take my child for two hours when it's hot out.

[1:16:45] Like, fine.

[1:16:46] Okay, let's go see Lion King.

[1:16:47] Like, they're coming at it from a dip there.

[1:16:50] 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.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:01] Did I feel like I wasted my time?

[1:17:04] Did it force me to look at my phone the whole time, et cetera?

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:07] Like, if you don't, if an audience member doesn't hate a movie, then they're probably fine with it.

[1:17:12] You know, 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] It's because they're using it for a different purpose than the critic is, or that you or I might.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:21] What fucking snobs we are.

[1:17:23] Oh, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:24] 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, who writes,

[1:17:33] On a recent episode, you were reminiscing about the Gremlins storybooks,

[1:17:37] which came with EP records of someone reading the narrative.

[1:17:41] I purchased these books on eBay not long ago because I was volunteering with an after-school tutoring program,

[1:17:47] working with a first grader who was struggling with reading and focus.

[1:17:50] For some unimaginable reason in the 21st century, this child was obsessed with the Gremlins franchise.

[1:17:57] I pretended to just—

[1:17:57] Because it's a great franchise.

[1:17:58] Yeah.

[1:17:59] I pretended to discover the books on the shelf at the tutoring program,

[1:18:02] and they were at least a partial success in helping him to sight-read words like

[1:18:05] mogwai and gizmo.

[1:18:07] Useful in life.

[1:18:07] That's great.

[1:18:10] 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 that it was the best of the series,

[1:18:21] an opinion I do not share, though I respect the third installment's lean focus on thrilling action,

[1:18:26] rather than attempting to rekindle Spielbergian wonder.

[1:18:29] That was a little review of Jurassic Park 3.

[1:18:32] Yeah, yeah, slipping in there.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:33] Somebody's letterbox account just breached the fucking matrix.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:36] What generationally inappropriate movies or other media did you guys obsess with as children?

[1:18:46] Cordially, Alex's last name withheld.

[1:18:49] Yeah, I mean, like, I think this is tailor-made for Elliot, who was born out of time,

[1:18:56] but I want to jump in first and say, like, you know, there was stuff like, I don't know,

[1:19:00] like, the Marx Brothers or, like, old show tunes or whatever that, like, I got into

[1:19:08] because not only having parents who were older when I was born and, like, and brothers who were much older than me.

[1:19:16] You mean they were older than you?

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:18] Well, I mean, they...

[1:19:19] Because that's not supposed to work.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:21] They had me later in life than many people have children, and also my brothers are 10 and 13 years older,

[1:19:27] so, like, a lot of that was...

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:28] How does that make you feel?

[1:19:29] Does it make, like...

[1:19:30] Fine.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:30] I don't know, like, I don't have any...

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:32] You don't feel like an afterthought or anything?

Dan McCoy

[1:19:34] No, I...

[1:19:34] My mom and I were washing dishes one time, and when I was, like, about 16,

[1:19:40] and apropos of nothing, she turned to me and said,

[1:19:42] you were planned, by the way.

[1:19:44] And I guess, like, she figured, like, oh, you know, he's reaching an age where he'd be, like,

[1:19:47] doing the math and, like, wondering about that, and I'm just like...

[1:19:51] I mean...

[1:19:51] I don't care.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:52] In that kind of a situation, you want to get out in front of it anyway, whether or not that's the case.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:56] I mean, if I was...

[1:19:57] Let me finish.

[1:19:58] 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.

Dan McCoy

[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, so thanks for that.

[1:20:24] You're welcome.

[1:20:25] But other than, like...

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:26] Just sometimes it feels better to Raw Dog, you know?

[1:20:28] Other than...

Dan McCoy

[1:20:29] Other than...

[1:20:30] Those two.

[1:20:31] No.

[1:20:32] Other than the stuff I inherited from the older members of my family.

[1:20:38] Like, I don't know.

[1:20:40] Like, I got into reading a bunch of Houdini biographies as a kid.

[1:20:45] I was fascinated by him.

[1:20:46] Like, he had a very fascinating life, and I have no idea why I was so into him other than I, by happenstance,

[1:20:53] picked up sort of like a child's biography of his from the library,

[1:20:59] and it triggered something, and I read a bunch of other books, including, you know, more adult biographies,

[1:21:05] and I think sometimes it just works by, like, weird chance that something strikes your fancy,

[1:21:11] but what do you guys think?

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:12] I mean, when I was a teenager, I listened...

[1:21:15] I was listening to a lot of Steely Dan, which is strange,

[1:21:19] since I am neither a middle-aged man or a baby boomer.

[1:21:23] I mean, it's kind of the same thing.

[1:21:26] But when you sent this question to us in advance,

[1:21:31] and it got me thinking about how when I was a kid,

[1:21:34] we were staying at a vacation house,

[1:21:37] 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.

[1:21:56] Googling, like, baseball comic strip,

[1:21:58] it took me...

[1:21:58] I had to go through a lot of pages before I think I found what it was.

[1:22:05] And like you said, it was all happenstance.

[1:22:07] When I knocked over that thing, and the map fell out,

[1:22:11] and then I followed the map to the ancient pharaoh's tomb,

[1:22:16] and you had to unlock, you had to decode the rebus.

[1:22:20] Yeah, I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:23] I just always liked stuff that was older.

[1:22:25] I mean, I grew up as a kid, mainly in the 1990s,

[1:22:28] which I still kind of see as the nadir of human civilization

[1:22:32] and American society in a lot of ways.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:35] I mean, it was a time of peace and relative, you know,

[1:22:42] non-unrest as there is.

[1:22:44] Like, I mean, right now, it's a pretty terrible time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:47] Well, no.

[1:22:47] Well, maybe it's because of that,

[1:22:49] that the art and culture of the 90s

[1:22:51] that I was being exposed to, at least as an adolescent teen,

[1:22:53] was not about interesting things,

[1:22:56] but was instead about, like, young people

[1:22:58] who couldn't figure out what to do with their lives in their 20s.

[1:23:01] Yeah, the malaise of the time.

[1:23:03] Yeah, and it's also, like, when irony infected everything,

[1:23:08] and I often, I think as a kid, I looked back on older things

[1:23:10] and I liked the sincerity of them

[1:23:12] because in the 90s is when, like, every commercial couldn't be like,

[1:23:16] here's our product.

[1:23:17] We really like it a lot.

[1:23:18] You'll like it too,

[1:23:19] which was what the 80s commercials were like,

[1:23:21] and instead all the commercials were like,

[1:23:23] hey, man, I'm going to pretend I'm from the 50s or something, dude,

[1:23:27] and the joke is that I'm uncool,

[1:23:29] and that's what's cool about it,

[1:23:30] and I was like, ugh, forget it.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:31] Or it's just weird nonsense,

[1:23:33] like Quiznos rats or whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:36] And so, I don't know.

[1:23:37] And, you know, so maybe people like that stuff.

[1:23:39] I don't.

[1:23:40] But I just always liked older things.

[1:23:42] What are you going to do?

[1:23:42] I mean, when I was in...

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:43] You're saying you mainly like it for the politics that they espouse.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:47] The politics, and especially the racial politics.

[1:23:50] I was very into it.

[1:23:51] Yeah, of course.

[1:23:52] It was so...

[1:23:53] It was...

[1:23:53] Everything just...

[1:23:54] Everyone just knew their place back then.

[1:23:55] Terrible.

[1:23:56] Oh, boy.

[1:23:56] But that was the hard thing as a kid,

[1:24:00] like even watching those things and knowing

[1:24:02] there's things about this that are not okay with me now,

[1:24:05] but there are things that are okay.

[1:24:07] But like, you know,

[1:24:08] when I was really into...

[1:24:10] It wasn't just old movies.

[1:24:11] Like, I was really into like Goethe's version of Faust,

[1:24:14] which I would read over and over again,

[1:24:15] and like the Divine Comedy,

[1:24:16] I would read over and over again.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:17] You prefer that to the Marlowe version of Faust?

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:20] I do prefer it to the Marlowe version of Faust.

[1:24:22] I think it's more interesting.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:23] Okay, that's a different podcast.

[1:24:24] We'll talk about that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:26] But I think a lot of what I was drawn to in that stuff was like...

[1:24:29] I think that's the bonus episode this year, guys.

[1:24:32] A lot of...

[1:24:32] Yeah, our Faust off.

[1:24:36] It's Faust, Faust you, you, Eri.

[1:24:37] That's the month we talk about Faust.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:39] And I'll just sit on the side being like,

[1:24:41] what?

[1:24:42] And of course, I've never read...

[1:24:44] That happened?

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:44] There's that comic book Faust,

[1:24:45] which I never read,

[1:24:46] which is like the evil Wolverine

[1:24:48] who just killed people who were having sex.

[1:24:50] I never understood what that was about.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:51] Yeah, you guys can tell me.

[1:24:53] I'm going to 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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:59] And so, I mean, it's really based on Phantom of the Opera, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:25:02] Well, it's split.

[1:25:03] We'll talk about it on the bonus episode.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:04] Yeah, it'll be in the Faust.

[1:25:05] Like many Brian De Palma films,

[1:25:09] it is split.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:12] Cinematography humor.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:13] All right.

[1:25:13] But anyway,

[1:25:15] I think what I was drawn to was

[1:25:16] more than anything else,

[1:25:17] like emotions and ideas

[1:25:19] that felt like the author of whatever the work was,

[1:25:21] was like,

[1:25:21] yes, this is something I want to tell you

[1:25:23] or I want you to feel.

[1:25:24] Whereas in the 90s,

[1:25:25] it was a lot of like,

[1:25:27] 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

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:35] 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.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:42] We have a final letter.

[1:25:43] It's from Steve, last name withheld,

[1:25:45] who writes,

[1:25:46] The original Peaches regularly discussed

[1:25:48] the upkeep slash mortgage situation

[1:25:52] on Nicolas Cage's European castle collection

[1:25:55] and the black market dinosaur skull has been mentioned.

[1:25:59] But I feel like the two albino king cobras he purchased

[1:26:02] may be his most eccentric financial decision.

[1:26:05] It's not like live animals appreciate in value.

[1:26:08] So he must just have really liked the idea

[1:26:11] of having albino cobras.

[1:26:13] Discuss, Steve, last name withheld.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:15] Well, I mean, I think he's overlooking the possibility

[1:26:17] that these two albino king cobras could mate

[1:26:19] and produce additional albino killing cobras

[1:26:22] that you could then sell for money to other eccentrics.

[1:26:28] That's a good point.

[1:26:29] I mean, but maybe also,

[1:26:31] I was going to say maybe also,

[1:26:33] like sometimes you can't really put a price on a good snuggle

[1:26:37] and I don't think any animal snuggles as well as a king cobra.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:41] You know, I...

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:41] Well, I think that would be true if they were constrictors,

[1:26:44] which they're not.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:45] Yeah, I googled this

[1:26:47] and the first thing that came up was an article with a headline,

[1:26:51] Nicolas Cage had two pet king cobras

[1:26:53] and they kept trying to kill him.

[1:26:56] So, oh, the subhead is good too.

[1:26:59] Quote,

[1:26:59] they would try to hypnotize me by showing me their backs

[1:27:02] and then they'd lunge at me, said the actor.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:05] I mean, I guess you use what you got, you know?

Dan McCoy

[1:27:12] I don't know why the back is the most hypnotic part of the cobra.

[1:27:15] I mean, that's...

[1:27:15] Oh, it's got that design on it and everything?

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:17] Yeah, that's the...

[1:27:19] I mean, that's the biology of them.

[1:27:21] Oh, boy.

[1:27:22] It's like an anglerfish.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:23] You know, I don't...

[1:27:23] You know, I don't know why you would have a cobra.

[1:27:26] Like, I would not have...

[1:27:27] I assume that these are poisonous snakes as cobras are.

[1:27:30] I don't know why you would keep one of those.

[1:27:33] I mean, a constrictor, I barely understand, but...

[1:27:36] They look cool, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:37] They look real cool.

[1:27:38] And it's...

[1:27:39] I think a lot of it is just conversation pieces.

[1:27:41] Yeah.

[1:27:41] Also, like...

[1:27:42] Because Nicolas Cage strikes me as the kind of guy

[1:27:43] who doesn't always know what to say to guests in his house.

[1:27:46] So then he'd go,

[1:27:47] 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] Yeah, he doesn't bring out the cheese set.

[1:27:53] 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 hit.

[1:27:57] He's not tiresome and invited me.

[1:27:58] Oh, that's an interesting story.

[1:28:00] Because what else is he going to talk to the PTA group

[1:28:04] that's meeting at his house that night

[1:28:05] to plan the ice cream social about?

Dan McCoy

[1:28:07] I mean, I have a different view,

[1:28:08] which is that I don't think that Nicolas Cage

[1:28:10] has a hard time with small talk,

[1:28:12] because I don't think he knows what small talk is.

[1:28:14] I think that unprompted,

[1:28:16] even if the cobras weren't around,

[1:28:18] he would probably start talking about the cobras to you.

[1:28:21] But that's just my vision of Nicolas Cage.

[1:28:22] I think we all carry one in our heads.

[1:28:23] Let's act out...

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:24] Let's role play the situation.

[1:28:26] Okay, Dan, I'm Nicolas Cage,

[1:28:28] and you are someone who's waiting for a bus

[1:28:30] next to Nicolas Cage.

[1:28:31] Okay.

[1:28:32] Now, what are you doing while you're waiting for this bus?

Dan McCoy

[1:28:35] So, wait, hold on.

[1:28:37] Am I striking up a conversation,

[1:28:39] or is Nicolas Cage striking this conversation?

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:40] That's up to you.

[1:28:41] You see Nicolas Cage, the famous actor,

[1:28:44] right next to you,

[1:28:44] and you're waiting for a bus.

[1:28:46] What do you do?

[1:28:46] Do you just say, like,

[1:28:47] oh, that's Nicolas Cage.

[1:28:48] I'm too nervous.

[1:28:49] Or do you introduce yourself?

Dan McCoy

[1:28:51] Yeah.

[1:28:52] Sorry, that's another wrinkle that I hadn't even thought of,

[1:28:54] that I would be aware that he's a famous actor.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:57] And also, keep in mind that your character was recently fired

[1:29:00] from their job as a sanitation worker.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:03] Okay.

[1:29:03] That's an important backstory.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:05] Because it turned out that they were smuggling drugs

[1:29:06] inside the trash cans.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:08] Okay.

[1:29:08] Is that a minute work thing?

[1:29:10] I can't.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:11] I mean, you're not at work anymore.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:12] He wasn't in the movie, minute work.

[1:29:14] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:18] So, I'm just trying to build this character

[1:29:19] so you have a base to launch from

[1:29:21] in the conversation with Nicolas Cage.

Dan McCoy

[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.

[1:29:29] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:30] 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.

[1:29:34] That's exactly.

[1:29:36] Let's see.

[1:29:37] Let's see how that plays out in this conversation.

[1:29:40] Okay.

[1:29:40] So, Dan.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:41] Now, do you feel like you need help striking up a conversation?

[1:29:43] No, I would.

[1:29:44] Because I would gladly play the character.

[1:29:46] I'll say Dan.

[1:29:48] Well, okay.

[1:29:49] Hey, it's me, Dan.

[1:29:50] Hey, bud.

[1:29:51] Did you see?

[1:29:52] Hey, is that a rare first appearance of Superman comic books

[1:29:57] sticking out of that guy's bag?

[1:29:58] You're a huge Superman fan.

[1:29:59] You should go talk to him.

[1:30:00] Oh, wait.

[1:30:01] Hold on.

[1:30:02] I think I reckon.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:04] Sir, are you Nicolas Cage?

[1:30:05] That's question number one.

[1:30:06] Question two.

[1:30:07] If so, why are you taking the bus?

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:10] I have two albino cobras.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:12] Okay.

[1:30:13] That's a weird gambit to start with.

[1:30:18] But, I mean, that seems dangerous, Mr. Cage.

[1:30:22] Why would you do that?

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:24] To answer your other questions, my car is in the shop

[1:30:27] because it has two albino cobras in it,

[1:30:30] and I'm afraid to open the doors because they might bite me.

[1:30:33] And I thought the garage might be able to handle it.

[1:30:35] And what was your other question again?

Dan McCoy

[1:30:38] Why do you have two albino cobras?

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:40] I have two albino cobras.

[1:30:43] I'm, you know, I'm just so happy that he's,

[1:30:45] after losing his job, he found somebody he could talk to.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:49] Is this a monologue just sort of out to the end?

[1:30:52] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:54] No, I'm talking to another person waiting for the bus.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:58] Well, now I'm on my way to buy two more albino cobras.

[1:31:03] I got a lead on them on the other side of town.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:07] Sir, it seems to me that the first two have caused a lot of problems in your life.

[1:31:12] Why are you going to multiply the number of albino cobras you have?

[1:31:16] Well, it's addition.

[1:31:18] I'm adding two.

[1:31:19] I'm not multiplying.

[1:31:20] I mean, it's two.

[1:31:22] I guess that's true.

[1:31:23] I mean, it is two times two, though, also.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:26] But I'm adding two.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:28] Two plus two.

[1:31:29] You're right.

[1:31:30] Wow, I'm having a math argument with Nicholas Cage.

[1:31:33] When I woke up this morning, I didn't think this would be.

[1:31:37] Oh, I'm so honored, sir.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:39] I mean, you said such a.

[1:31:40] No, the honor's all mine.

[1:31:41] You've given me a lot to chew on.

[1:31:43] Much like the albino cobras I had hoped to chew on at some point,

[1:31:47] but they wanted to chew on me.

[1:31:48] Well, this is a new piece of information.

[1:31:51] Now, to answer your larger question,

[1:31:53] I'm hoping that they cancel each other out.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:57] I don't know.

[1:31:58] I got to say, this seems a little bit like an old lady who swallowed the flies situation.

[1:32:04] I mean, you're not using a different animal to take care of the first animals,

[1:32:08] but you are multiplying your problems by trying to take care of an animal with an animal.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:14] Okay, three points to that.

[1:32:16] Three points to that.

[1:32:17] One, it's addition, as mentioned before, not multiplication.

[1:32:19] I'll stand by that.

[1:32:20] Two, who better to take on an animal than another animal?

[1:32:25] Because only an animal can think like an animal.

[1:32:27] And number three, yes, I did swallow a fly.

[1:32:29] I'm not an old lady.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:30] Now, I feel like a mongoose would be the traditional solution if you're looking for an animal.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:34] To get rid of the fly that I swallowed?

[1:32:36] That doesn't make any sense.

[1:32:37] I'm not going to escalate straight from swallowing a fly to swallowing a mongoose.

[1:32:40] Although, if it would give me the speed and the poison-absorbing powers of the mongoose,

[1:32:46] then the king cobras would not be such a problem because I could just survive the poison.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:51] Maybe you should ask his number.

[1:32:54] You should ask for his number.

[1:32:56] Maybe you don't have dinner plans.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:57] I mean, we are best friends at this point, basically.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:01] This is the longest conversation I've had in the past three years.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:04] Sir, I would love to have dinner with you to ask you whether you think that swallowing animals gives you their powers.

[1:33:10] So, I mean, I realize I'll probably have to pick you up since your car is in the shop.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:16] Yeah, although I'll go get it.

[1:33:18] I mean, I'll see if the guy I'm meeting has a mongoose, and then I can just swallow that, and then I can drive the car.

[1:33:22] I'll pick you up, and I'll just have four king cobras in the back seat.

[1:33:26] You swallow a mongoose, and you'll be fine.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:29] Well, here's my card.

[1:33:30] Disregard the part about being a sanitation worker, because that's no longer true.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:34] Oh, but it's still your personal number?

[1:33:36] It's not your work number?

Dan McCoy

[1:33:37] No, it's my personal.

[1:33:38] I use cell phone.

[1:33:40] All right, well, I guess that's it for the conversation.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:47] Okay, I'm going to run and answer the door, because I think I have a package coming, but that's true.

[1:33:51] That's not me playing.

[1:33:52] At the bus stop?

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:53] That seems so strange.

[1:33:55] So, yeah, did you, I mean, yeah, you guys should exchange numbers.

[1:34:02] He doesn't have a lot of friends, and, you know, 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?

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:10] Yeah, no, I'm an actor.

[1:34:11] I'm in movies, usually.

[1:34:14] 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.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:21] Oh, my friend's back from his house where he was receiving a package.

[1:34:25] Good talk, but he's too busy cracking it up.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:27] Hey, guys, I thought it would be fun to see what this package was on air.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:31] Now, Dan, I'm not offended that you went to answer the door to get the package.

[1:34:35] I am 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.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:40] It's a Waterpik water flosser, which I got because I went to the dentist on Friday, and they said I really need to start taking better care of my teeth.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:48] Now, not that this isn't fascinating, but should we move on to the final segment of the show since we've gone completely off the rails to the point where I don't know where the rails are?

Dan McCoy

[1:34:57] 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] But if you want to do both.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:06] So you're saying we should watch the TV show Life is Short?

[1:35:08] Mm-hmm.

[1:35:09] That's a show?

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:10] That's Life's Too Short, I think.

[1:35:12] Oh, Life's Too Short.

[1:35:13] I'm sorry.

[1:35:14] So I'm going to recommend a movie that I think just went on VOD today, so a week ago or whatever, depending on when you listen to this.

[1:35:24] I'm going to recommend a goofy horror comedy that was, I think, produced or distributed by Fangoria called Satanic Panic.

[1:35:35] It's kind of a goofy throwback to classic, like, I don't want to say slashers, but like, I don't know, or horror comedies.

[1:35:43] But it's reminiscent of a lot of, like, 80s horror tropes.

[1:35:47] Think of, if you use Ty West's House of the Devil as a starting point and you make it much sillier, it's kind of like that.

[1:35:56] You know, Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell both turn in really fun performances.

[1:36:01] And it also features a performance by the sister of my buddy Bowman Modine, Ruby Modine, who are both children of Matthew Modine.

[1:36:11] So, yeah, check it out.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:14] I would like to recommend a movie called All We Shine, which I got to because so our MaxFun, I don't know, co-what would you call it?

[1:36:27] Someone on another MaxFun thing.

[1:36:30] MaxFun Neighbor.

[1:36:31] MaxFun Neighbor.

[1:36:32] April Wolf of Switchblade Sisters is co-writing a Black Christmas remake, or probably by this point has...

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:42] Comes out in December.

[1:36:43] Yeah, they already have a trailer.

[1:36:44] Don't watch the trailer.

[1:36:46] It gives too much away, apparently.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:49] Take that, April.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:51] I mean, that's what she said.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:54] Because I was reading about that movie, I found myself reading about the director's previous movie, Always Shine, which I was intrigued by and I decided to watch.

[1:37:09] And I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[1:37:11] It's basically a two-hander, two women, Mackenzie Davis, who I liked quite a bit from Halt and Catch Fire and Blade Runner 2049.

[1:37:21] And Caitlin Fitzgerald, who is also excellent.

[1:37:24] And it's a movie about two actresses who, in different ways, are sort of dealing with the inherent sexism of the industry.

[1:37:35] And one of them is doing far better than the other because she's sort of playing the game, going along to get along.

[1:37:41] And the other is a much better actress, but she's quote-unquote difficult.

[1:37:47] So, like, they're at two different points in their career.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:49] And they're like, you know, the kind of people who were friends before and maybe are still friends out of habit more than anything else.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:58] Because they are...

[1:37:59] The more successful one is sort of constantly undermining the less successful.

[1:38:03] And the less successful is filled with bitterness.

[1:38:06] And they go on a trip together and things get hairy.

[1:38:09] And I liked it a lot.

[1:38:11] I think...

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:11] Is it because they run into Bigfoot?

Dan McCoy

[1:38:14] Yes.

[1:38:16] I think that, like, it's interesting.

[1:38:18] I was reading the reviews of it.

[1:38:21] And the top two reviews were by...

[1:38:24] One was by April Wolf.

[1:38:26] And I wonder whether that's how they got connected up because she was an admirer.

[1:38:30] And the other was actually by another female film critic who I've gotten to know recently off-air,

[1:38:41] Kimber Myers.

[1:38:42] And both of them were pretty glowing about it.

[1:38:45] And I think that it's striking 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, like, it's not necessarily built for me in the same way

[1:38:55] as it might be for a woman viewer because it is so much about just hidden sexism in day-to-day life

[1:39:05] or not so hidden sexism.

[1:39:07] Yeah.

[1:39:07] So it probably would strike someone who has to deal with that directly harder.

[1:39:12] But I still liked it quite a bit.

[1:39:13] So Always Shine.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:14] So you're saying it's strong enough for a man, but it's made for a woman.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:18] Yes.

[1:39:19] That is what I'm saying.

[1:39:21] Elliot, what do you have?

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:22] I'm going to recommend a movie that...

[1:39:25] It's like less a movie and more just a hangout.

[1:39:29] And it's a movie that was released in England under the name Nothing Like a Dame,

[1:39:33] but it's available in America under the name Tea with the Dames.

[1:39:36] And it is a filmed kind of like day of talk between the actresses Eileen Atkins,

[1:39:42] Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, and Maggie Smith

[1:39:44] as they talk about kind of their experiences as actresses at the top of British acting

[1:39:52] for the past 60 years or so.

[1:39:56] And there's a lot of great footage of them at different ages playing different types of roles.

[1:40:01] And you really get a sense of them as people in a way and how their different travels through

[1:40:09] the British thespian system 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 about like Laurence Olivier and things like that.

[1:40:19] So if you enjoy English actresses and if you enjoy greats of the British theater and film,

[1:40:26] then why not watch Tea with the Dames if you're in the United States or Nothing Like a Dame if you're in England.

[1:40:32] And it's just super fun and breezy and even when they get into serious topics and things like getting older or regrets they might have

[1:40:41] or experiences of not being taken seriously or being savaged by critics,

[1:40:45] there's still this like fun to the whole thing.

[1:40:48] So anyway, I enjoyed it a lot.

[1:40:49] Go ahead and watch it.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:50] Well, guys, I gotta say, I always enjoy hanging out with you two on the podcast,

[1:40:56] but I always feel like there's a little extra zazz when we watch one of these crazy, stupid, small movies.

[1:41:04] And so I had a lot of fun.

Stuart Wellington

[1:41:05] That's because Mr. Zazz is here.

[1:41:07] Let's just let him in.

[1:41:08] No, no, don't.

[1:41:10] He's a murderer.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:12] And we have one more coming up, another Small Timber episode.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:17] And then that's the last episode, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:41:19] No.

[1:41:20] Then we go into Shocktober.

[1:41:22] Oh, right.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:23] And then we go into November, the month with no theme.

[1:41:27] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:28] But before we go.

Stuart Wellington

[1:41:30] That's where the theme is no theme, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:41:33] Before we go, I want to say thank you as always to Maximum Fun, our network.

[1:41:38] They help us actually be able to do this because we get money through their system.

[1:41:44] So thank you for that.

[1:41:45] And they're great.

[1:41:46] We have a lot of fun being on the network.

[1:41:48] There's a lot of other great shows.

[1:41:50] Why don't you check out Switchblade Sisters, for instance, which I talked about already.

[1:41:53] And while we're talking about it, I feel bad I haven't done this before.

[1:41:57] I mentioned on the show that Max Fun has been taking over a lot of the production duties from me, which is great.

[1:42:04] It's made me enjoy doing the show vastly more.

[1:42:09] So I just wanted to take a moment to thank Jordan, our editor, who I've been laxing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:42:14] I would say producer.

Dan McCoy

[1:42:16] Producer, editor.

[1:42:17] Co-producer, editor.

[1:42:19] And I want to thank her for all the great work she does.

Stuart Wellington

[1:42:25] And I want to apologize on behalf of Dan for, I don't know.

[1:42:30] For everything.

[1:42:31] Just fucking around here.

[1:42:33] You know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:33] So thanks for listening.

[1:42:35] Thanks to the Max Fun Network.

[1:42:36] 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.

[1:42:47] 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.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:01] Yeah.

[1:43:02] Well, Stuart and I have started looking at our phones, so you know what that means.

[1:43:06] We've reached the end of another episode.

[1:43:09] So for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:43:12] Hey, I'm still Stuart Wellington.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:15] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:43:16] Or am I Nicolas Cage?

[1:43:18] Oh, here we go again.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:20] Only two to four cobras will know for sure.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:24] See you next time.

[1:43:26] Bye.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:39] Now, Dr. Giggles.

[1:43:40] Okay, let's get into the show.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:42] Way sounds prime Dr. Giggles.

[1:43:43] Was he a comedian?

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:47] I don't know.

[1:43:48] No, he's a murderous dentist.

[1:43:49] Okay.

[1:43:50] So, and he's not even a dentist.

[1:43:52] He's like a murderous doctor.

[1:43:54] He's a laughing guy?

[1:43:55] He's a murderous doctor.

[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.

Dan McCoy

[1:44:00] This is like calling card.

[1:44:02] It's not really calling card.

[1:44:03] The police don't know that he was giggling when he killed you.

[1:44:06] Signature crime.

Elliott Kalan

[1:44:07] No, he hangs around the scene of the crime giggling while the police investigate.

[1:44:12] Sometimes they find him.

[1:44:16] Maximumfun.org.

Dan McCoy

[1:44:17] Comedy and culture.

[1:44:19] Artist owned.

[1:44:20] Audience supported.

Ep.#293 -- The Joke Thief

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