Ep. #292 - Welcome to Marwen

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode we discuss, welcome to Marwyn!

Elliott Kalan

[0:04] What happens when you take the genuinely fascinating true story of a man dealing with

[0:09] trauma through the arts and Forrest Gumpify it by about 400%?

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

Stuart Wellington

[0:43] Oh hey there Dan, it's me, Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:46] Elliot Kalin over here in sunny Los Angeles.

[0:49] Hey guys, let me just get in.

[0:51] If you can hear that sound, that's the waves on the beach.

[0:54] Because I'm over in Santa Monica at the famous pier.

Stuart Wellington

[0:57] Oh man, have an iced cream on me.

[1:01] How on you?

Elliott Kalan

[1:02] Are you going to Venmo me the couple dollars for it?

Stuart Wellington

[1:06] Yeah, I mean I didn't think we had to get into the nitty gritty details.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10] I just wonder how it's going to be on you when we're like so far away from each other.

[1:14] I mean it's a crazy world we live in now, Elliot.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17] I'm not going to like put it in a fucking FedEx box and mail it to you.

[1:21] Yeah, can you FedEx me some ice cream?

[1:23] Uh-huh, let me just push Nermal aside and stuff the ice cream in there.

[1:26] Now when you get it.

[1:27] No, that's going to Abu Dhabi.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29] It's addressed to Abu Dhabi.

[1:30] I don't said, I want, somebody in Abu Dhabi is going to be like, ice cream?

[1:33] Where's my cat that I ordered?

Dan McCoy

[1:36] Guys, what does it say that I have to stop and think about how I start the show every time it happens?

Stuart Wellington

[1:43] I don't know.

[1:44] I mean, and it's weird how like a little trickle blood comes out of your nostril.

[1:49] I know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:51] Yeah, like a scanner who's working real hard to blow up a head.

Stuart Wellington

[1:56] Yeah, it's like after a while, like stick some Kleenex up in there first, dude.

[2:00] Uh-huh.

[2:00] Don't get it all over your beard hairs.

[2:02] So we're a bad movie podcast, but you know what?

[2:07] I'm going to pose a question, guys.

[2:08] What if instead of talking about the movie, we didn't?

[2:13] That would be very pleasant.

[2:15] Okay, fine.

[2:16] Let's do it.

Elliott Kalan

[2:16] We know our curse, our curse to talk about movies that we've also chosen to talk about.

Stuart Wellington

[2:22] I mean, couldn't we just change the name of the podcast to like The Housemates or The Flop Buddies?

[2:32] Yeah, yeah.

[2:32] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[2:33] I won't talk about the movies that we like discussed talking about instead of this one,

[2:39] but like we were going through like a list and then Elliot said,

[2:43] oh shit, Welcome to Marwen is available streaming and I like sighed.

[2:47] I'm like, ugh, we really should do that one.

Elliott Kalan

[2:51] Yeah, let's not have fun this time.

[2:53] Yeah.

[2:54] But Dan, you said, hey, hey, you know what?

[2:58] Let me take on my shoulders the burden of summarizing Welcome to Marwen.

[3:02] I don't think I said that.

Stuart Wellington

[3:04] And I see the notes he's taken.

[3:07] He's actually typed them up and printed them out.

[3:08] Oh, wow.

[3:09] I mean, that's like 300 pages right there, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[3:12] Yeah, and you've laminated them too.

[3:14] I mean, that's amazing just for archival purposes, I suppose.

[3:17] Now, Dan, I remember you said-

Dan McCoy

[3:18] To explain the joke for the listeners, the thing is my notes are usually non-existent

[3:23] and certainly less extensive than either source or Elliot.

Stuart Wellington

[3:27] Are they saved in meme form in the photo album on your phone?

[3:32] That's right.

Dan McCoy

[3:35] That would be a lot of work if I painstakingly created memes.

Elliott Kalan

[3:39] I think painstaking and memes don't really go together.

Stuart Wellington

[3:43] You're like, I need to have a fourth font in this meme or it won't work.

Elliott Kalan

[3:49] Now, I've never thought of the word painstaking, but do you think it was because craftsmen in medieval or ancient times had to do a great job and the stakes were that they would be given pain if they didn't?

[3:59] Do you think that's where painstaking comes from?

Stuart Wellington

[4:01] Uh-huh.

[4:02] Or if you fucked up, somebody hits you in the chest with a stake and you're in pain afterwards.

Dan McCoy

[4:05] I think you're misapprehending the two words that are put together, which are pains and taking.

[4:11] I believe it's pain and staking.

Stuart Wellington

[4:15] Or what if it's like the pain of eating too big of a steak and it fills your tummy up too much?

Elliott Kalan

[4:21] Oh, I've been there.

[4:22] I've been there.

[4:23] Not too many times.

[4:24] Usually my tummy can handle it, but I've been there before.

[4:26] Now, Dan, I know with Welcome Tomorrow when you said, and I remember this very clearly, in fact, I wrote it down and I'll just read it.

[4:31] Quote, quote.

[4:32] You said, I feel most comfortable handling with extreme sensitivity the delicate task of criticizing the film without criticizing those with trauma or mental issues that the movie is attempting to portray.

[4:49] And I think that it really sets a high bar for yourself to achieve that level of eloquence and, again, sensitivity to people who are dealing with it.

[4:56] But you seem really confident that you can do it.

[4:58] So take it away.

Dan McCoy

[5:00] Oh, God.

[5:01] Yeah.

[5:01] There are a lot of minefields in this movie, and I think that the movie creates them.

Stuart Wellington

[5:05] Although, weirdly enough, the movie doesn't actually feature any minefields.

Elliott Kalan

[5:08] No.

[5:09] No, that's true.

[5:09] Just a lot of gunfire.

[5:11] A lot of gunfire.

[5:12] And we should, as a forewarning, that was a joke way of forewarning that everything we say about this movie is meant to be just about the movie.

[5:18] And we hope we don't say anything that is hurtful or can be taken in a way we're not intending it to about those who are struggling with PTSD.

Dan McCoy

[5:28] Well, and also, I genuinely kind of don't know how to refer to the main character.

[5:36] Because he has—

[5:37] Well, his name is Mark.

[5:38] No, I know.

[5:38] But I refer to his medical problems because he has also mental issues as a result of being beaten.

[5:47] Like, his memories have, as he says, been kicked out of his head.

[5:52] And he also seems to be kind of, like, foggy in day-to-day life.

[5:55] Like, he has to write himself notes to remember to do various things.

Stuart Wellington

[5:58] But that's probably also tied to the medication.

Dan McCoy

[6:00] That may be true.

[6:02] But, like, I just—I'm not—I apologize in advance if I am not adequately sensitive in, like, however I come down on referring to, like, his issues.

Elliott Kalan

[6:13] And you're like, I apologize if I'm not sensitive enough.

[6:15] Anyway, this nutball—Dan, no, come on!

[6:18] This loony-goony bird—Dan, come on!

Dan McCoy

[6:22] Yeah, I mean, we've been, like, you know, doing the occasional content warnings.

[6:26] This, you know, like, this deals with, like, a hate crime.

[6:28] It deals with, like, severe trauma.

[6:32] So just, you know, be aware.

Elliott Kalan

[6:33] And I'm going to try to articulate why the movie genuinely upset me in its handling of somebody dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder based on a—in the wake of a violent attack.

[6:47] And also how it—well, we'll talk about it.

[6:49] But, like, I was so intrigued by this movie that I saw the documentary that it's based on, Marwen Call, because I was like—as with The Dark Tower, where I was like, I've never read it, but this movie is so boring.

[7:00] I wonder what was in the book that made someone want to make a movie of it and wreck it this way.

[7:05] With this movie, I was like, what is it about this original story that made them want to tell it in such a strange, disjointed way?

[7:11] And, spoiler alert, the documentary is better.

[7:15] But, Dan, explain some background for us.

Stuart Wellington

[7:17] What answers did you find on your vision quest?

[7:19] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:20] Well, what I found, which I'll get into, hopefully, is that, like, the guy this movie is based on, because it's based on a true story,

[7:26] is a much more complicated and interesting character who was dealing with major issues even before the attack that left him with PTSD and trauma and everything.

[7:36] And so it's like, oh, they really, like, teddy-beared him up for the movie in a way that made me unhappy.

[7:44] But anyway, I feel like we're talking around it, but not talking about it.

Stuart Wellington

[7:47] It's kind of interesting, because I was also inspired to, this movie inspired me to look up special effects pictures from the movie Small Soldiers,

[7:55] which is also a movie that features toys getting into troubles.

Elliott Kalan

[8:00] So we all reacted to this with digging in in different ways?

Dan McCoy

[8:04] Yeah.

[8:04] I will say that I saw Marvin Cole a while back, closer to when it was released.

[8:09] So, like, I have an inkling of the real story.

[8:11] We get it.

[8:11] You're cooler than me.

[8:13] No, I'm just saying I'll have to rely on you, Elliot, a bit more for, you've seen it, it's fresher in your mind.

Stuart Wellington

[8:20] Yeah, you were on the Marwen Call tip before Bobby Z even.

[8:24] That's Robert Zemeckis, everybody.

Dan McCoy

[8:25] Okay, so, yeah, Robert, before we get into it, let me just say, we've been putting this off for a long time.

[8:32] Robert Zemeckis up until...

[8:34] Beowulf is Dan's favorite movie.

[8:36] Patel Forrest Gump, which I don't care for, was one of my favorite directors, and since then, other than Castaway, which I liked,

[8:43] he has been churning out the most unadulterated crap, and I don't know what happened to him.

Elliott Kalan

[8:48] Wow, that's a harsh way to describe it.

Dan McCoy

[8:51] Well, he, like, I mean, like, the thing about Robert Zemeckis that I liked about his early work is,

[8:56] it was funny and light, and it had, like, this mean streak to it underneath the surface,

[9:01] and after Forrest Gump, I feel like he was like, okay, what people want from me is sap.

[9:06] Oh, I see.

[9:07] And he just continues to layer that on.

Stuart Wellington

[9:09] I mean, outside of the Back to the Future movies, can you give me an example of this dark side?

[9:15] Of course, Back to the Future being movies where a guy has to keep trying not to have sex with his mom.

[9:21] I mean...

[9:22] Like, Used Cars, one of those first movies.

[9:23] Oh, yeah.

[9:24] Very cynical film.

Dan McCoy

[9:25] Death that Comes There is, like, this, like, gory...

[9:28] Super cynical.

[9:29] Satire, like, about, you know, aging in Hollywood.

Elliott Kalan

[9:32] And Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a pretty dark movie for a movie about cartoons.

[9:36] Like, it is about a murder.

[9:37] Yeah.

[9:38] And you see a cartoon shoe killed on screen horrifically in a scene that...

[9:43] I remember when Pete's, people for the ethical treatment of shoes, saw that scene.

[9:49] And they were really unhappy about it.

Dan McCoy

[9:52] And Zemeckis was one of the producers of the Tales from the Crypt series, and he produced The Frightener.

[9:56] And he directed a bunch of those episodes, too, right?

[9:59] So he has that in him, but it seems to have all gone away.

[10:02] Maybe it's just because he's older and more sensitive.

[10:04] Who knows?

[10:05] But anyway...

Elliott Kalan

[10:06] But he's someone who...

[10:06] He still has, like...

[10:08] His technical skills are still really high.

[10:11] Like, Flight, which was a movie I did not like.

[10:13] The plane crash scene is that...

[10:15] Or almost crash scene in that is amazing.

[10:17] And, like, even in his bad movies, he still has, like, this real technical skill.

[10:25] Which is why, in this movie, I was amazed at how unpleasant the, like, action sequences were.

[10:31] Yeah.

[10:32] Partly because they were being acted out by CGI dolls with real human faces on them.

[10:36] But, Dan, you explain.

[10:38] You explain.

Dan McCoy

[10:38] Let's finally get into this.

[10:39] Okay, the movie opens on our action figure star, the alter you of the main character.

[10:45] Hoagie.

[10:46] Captain Hoagie in an airplane.

[10:48] And if you didn't know what this movie was about, seeing it at the beginning, you'd be like,

[10:53] Why does Steve Carell look so smooth?

[10:57] What's going on?

[10:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[10:59] But he looks so smooth because this is...

Elliott Kalan

[11:01] He's been listening to a lot of Rob Thomas lately.

Dan McCoy

[11:04] This is the action figure version.

[11:08] This is a fantasy sequence.

[11:09] He's in a World War II airplane.

[11:11] He's piloting.

[11:12] He's hit by enemy fire.

[11:13] And he has to get out of the plane.

[11:15] He parachutes out.

Stuart Wellington

[11:17] Yeah, and this sequence kind of teases out that he's an action figure, I think.

[11:21] Like, at first, you're just like, Oh, he looks weird.

[11:23] And then it isn't until he, like, burns his feet.

[11:26] Oh, yeah, he doesn't parachute out.

Dan McCoy

[11:28] He, like, yeah, he burns his feet on the wings.

[11:29] Sorry about that.

[11:30] He burns his shoes.

Stuart Wellington

[11:30] And then, like, he puts the fire out, and he has to...

[11:33] He burns his boots up or shoes up in the process, and you realize that his feet are, like, weird doll feet.

Elliott Kalan

[11:39] He has toy feet.

[11:40] Ah!

Dan McCoy

[11:43] I've gone to the doctor for toy feet before.

[11:45] Oh, okay.

[11:45] It's horrifying.

Elliott Kalan

[11:47] When your toes fuse together, and you get little holes in the bottom of your heels so that you can be attached to, like, a vehicle.

[11:53] Yeah.

[11:54] Yeah, it must be nice to have good health insurance, I guess, huh, Dan?

[11:59] Which is another issue with this movie.

[12:01] This movie should be about a guy who has been failed by the health insurance industry, and they barely touch on that.

[12:07] But, Dan, keep going.

[12:09] He's still just a doll who's been shot down in WW2 right now.

Dan McCoy

[12:12] Yeah, and he finds some women's high heels, which he puts on to replace his boots.

[12:20] And this will become an important point.

[12:23] But he's, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[12:25] Yeah, do you feel like this moment is played for laughs at all, or?

[12:31] I feel like it's, it feels like it's kind of tough for me, because this is something that comes up multiple times throughout the movie.

[12:37] And I feel like the movie is both trying to say, like, hey, everybody should be who they are and not be ashamed about it.

[12:45] But also, sometimes he uses that as, like, a punchline.

[12:52] But I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[12:52] Well, spoiler alert, the real Mark is, he's not a foot fetishist.

[13:00] I mean, he likes women's shoes.

[13:01] He's basically a cross-dresser who only really wears the shoes.

[13:07] And he says that connects him to femininity, like women.

Elliott Kalan

[13:11] Yeah, he has a, he's kind of not able to fully articulate it in the documentary.

[13:15] But here in the movie, he says that he loves the essence of women.

[13:19] And wearing women's shoes connects him to that essence of women.

[13:22] And he just loves women so much.

[13:24] But he says dames sometimes.

[13:25] And it's supposed to be like, oh, sorry, I'm speaking to you the way Captain Hoagy would.

[13:29] And it's like, come on.

[13:30] It's, I don't know.

[13:34] Something that is, something that's an issue almost from the very beginning is that Steve Carell is kind of very miscast in this movie.

[13:41] And after seeing Marwan called the documentary, I was like, why was Jeremy Renner not the star of this movie?

[13:46] He looks like the guy from the movie.

[13:48] And he sounds like the guy from the documentary.

[13:51] Like, it's this.

Stuart Wellington

[13:52] That's some serious wizard casting right there.

Elliott Kalan

[13:55] No, no.

[13:55] But also, like, Jeremy Renner plays guys who are, like, kind of off-putting.

[14:00] And a little, like, there's something about him that's a little weird and dark.

Stuart Wellington

[14:04] And based on interviews, he plays himself as kind of off-putting.

Elliott Kalan

[14:08] Yeah.

[14:09] And in the documentary, the real Mark Hoden camp is, like, kind of an off-putting guy.

[14:14] Like, you sympathize with him through the movie.

[14:16] But he's kind of a guy who says things that are off-putting and, like, is not, is hard to deal with at times.

[14:22] And, like, Jeremy Renner would just have been much better.

[14:25] But I guess he signed his soul to the devil that he would only play Hawkeye for years, I guess.

Dan McCoy

[14:31] Yeah.

[14:32] So, long story short, German soldiers, you know, find Hawkeye.

[14:39] They're surrounding him.

[14:39] They, like, make fun of his shoes.

[14:41] Hawkeye is rescued by a group of gun-toting women.

[14:46] Turns out these are his buddies from Marwen, the fictional town that they all live in together.

[14:51] In Belgium.

[14:52] Yeah, that is basically only women, like, and they all love Hawkeye, but can't get too close to him.

[15:00] Because that would be bad.

Elliott Kalan

[15:02] As we'll find out why later.

[15:04] But, Dan, what's the horrifying secret of Marwen?

[15:07] Is it actually, as we hope it is, a real Belgian World War II town inhabited by doll people?

Dan McCoy

[15:15] Are you saying that the horrifying secret is that there's no Marwen in Belgium?

Elliott Kalan

[15:21] No, just that, like, it's all, that this is all what Mark Hogenkamp has been.

[15:25] This is a fantasy world he's put together for himself.

Dan McCoy

[15:27] Yeah, we see, it cuts to him photographing these dolls, and he, this is the thing he does.

[15:34] He photographs dolls in elaborate scenarios that he has, like, created stories around.

Stuart Wellington

[15:39] And he's built this, like, I guess, almost diorama in the backyard of his home.

[15:46] Yes.

[15:47] And inside his house, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[15:48] It's a whole, I mean, it's like a miniature town.

[15:51] Yeah.

[15:53] It's a model village.

[15:54] And so, as he'll explain eight or nine times throughout the course of the movie, he makes,

[15:59] he takes store-bought dolls and figures and makes them into kind of alter egos for himself

[16:05] and the people that he knows, and he puts them through World War II adventures and photographs them.

[16:10] And he'll, and this is his way of dealing with his trauma issues.

[16:13] And he'll explain this, as I said, eight or nine times throughout the film to different characters,

[16:18] some of whom already know about it.

[16:19] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[16:21] Yeah, and so, but this information gets doled out to us very slowly.

[16:28] Like, you know, like, what happened?

[16:30] Like, it gets explained over and over again, but the movie sort of keeps it a secret for a while.

[16:35] And my, I was watching it with my girlfriend, and she was talking about, like, how she doesn't kind of know

[16:41] what the main thrust of the story was supposed to be.

[16:44] Because later on, there's a lot about, like, whether he's going to testify against these people who attacked him.

[16:49] And there's also stuff about, like, there's a kind of a budding, like, one-sided romance that, like, maybe that's what the movie is about.

[16:56] But, like, for a long time.

Stuart Wellington

[16:58] And there's also the ticking clock of his, the art show that he is being encouraged to go to.

[17:03] But initially, he seems wary about going, and then his concerns disappear when they're in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[17:10] But the movie, like, but, like, the large thrust of the movie for a lot of it seems to just be, like, let's puzzle out the life of this guy.

[17:18] Where we're talking about how, like, this is a disease that, like, movies have these days.

[17:23] It seems like they withhold information just to, like, create this false sense of, like, mystery and suspense.

[17:30] When it's just like, well, you know, like, why don't actually clue us into what's going on and see what he, like, how he deals with it.

[17:35] Rather than, like, dole that out.

Elliott Kalan

[17:38] Well, it's like, I think a big example of that is the fact that it opens with this World War II scene.

[17:44] Which is, like, it's really old-fashioned, like, open it with a bang and there's a crazy scene.

[17:49] And then we'll explain it later.

[17:50] But what it does is, like, it instantly confuses you.

[17:55] It's not an entertaining scene.

[17:56] So right off the bat, you're like, why am I watching this?

[17:59] Like, what is this?

[18:00] Like, is this Toy Story?

[18:02] But, like, not, like, if you don't already know the story of the movie, then you are at a loss as to why you are watching this movie.

[18:08] And I would say, and this is me being Dan, I'm going to go out on a limb here.

[18:13] If I was making this movie, if I was making Welcome to Marwen, again, I wouldn't call it that because it's a weird, it makes it sound like,

[18:20] what's that, Road to Wellville or something like that?

[18:22] Yeah.

[18:22] It sounds like a movie about, like, a kooky town.

[18:24] That, like, I would not have these fantasy sequences and I would not be inside Mark Hogan Camp's head through the whole movie.

[18:32] It feels like if you want, if what you want to do is puzzle out this interesting guy, that the best way to do that is not from inside his head living his adventures.

[18:41] And maybe I would hold off on showing those as full-blooded things until, like, the very end of the movie when you finally get a chance to see the world the way he sees or something.

[18:50] The way that, like, Lawrence Olivier's Henry V, like, starts in a theater and then becomes more and more set in a natural, in a real world.

[18:58] Yeah.

[18:59] It feels like by jumping straight into Mark Hogan Camp's head, the audience is really confused and also, like, it's just, like, it makes it seem like his, the adventures he's having are, like, cool and fun.

[19:13] Like, we're supposed to be, like, just straightforward enjoying them, you know, but clearly he's in pain and it's a weird thing to, like, use somebody's pain fantasies as, like, cool action scenes.

[19:25] I read a review of it where they compared it to Sucker Punch and it's like, oh, yeah, Sucker Punch was a movie where it was like, don't you like this stuff?

[19:32] Well, you're a jerk for liking it.

[19:34] And Welcome to Marwan is a movie where it was like, isn't this cool that this guy does this stuff with dolls?

[19:39] Anyway, he has some problems, but isn't it cool?

Stuart Wellington

[19:41] So you're saying if you had made this movie, the opening credits would have been a montage with, like, maybe a Randy Newman song and, like, a montage of pictures, like, just shots of his house and the dolls set up?

Elliott Kalan

[19:53] Exactly.

[19:54] As he's getting older, growing up from a little boy to, like, an older kid.

[19:57] Then it would be Mark Hogan Camp's birthday.

[19:59] All the members of people in Marwan Call are really, or Marwan, as it is in the movie, are really worried because a new doll's coming and they're really worried about being overtaken.

[20:09] And he gets, like, a space doll and he tries to incorporate that into it.

[20:13] He goes to Pizza Planet, loses the dolls, and now they've got to make their way home.

[20:17] I call it Toy Story.

Dan McCoy

[20:19] Yeah, I mean, speaking of Toy Story, like, this movie has three separate tones and I'll get into that later, I think.

[20:26] But, like, one of the big mistakes it has is these fantasy sequences, the first tone is kind of, like, they feel like a step down from, like, a DreamWorks, like, CGI children's movie, almost.

[20:42] Like, they've got this, like, weird, like, goofy, like, feel to them.

[20:46] And also everything looks so slick.

[20:50] Like, I feel like you would, I don't know, like, I feel like for this story you want the fantasies, if they're going to exist, to look a little more handmade.

[20:57] Like a Michel Gondry kind of thing, maybe.

Elliott Kalan

[21:00] Or, like, you do them, or, like, stop motion or something like that.

[21:03] Yeah.

[21:03] Where they don't, they look like dolls instead of looking like weird CGI people that are made like dolls.

[21:08] Yeah.

[21:08] Because there's also something super creepy about seeing, especially the real actresses' faces on top of these, like, super exaggerated Barbie sexy bodies.

[21:18] And there's a scene where one of the dolls, and, like, and Mark Hogenkamp, he deals with a lot of, in his pictures, he has a lot of, like, adventures where the women are losing their clothes.

[21:28] But there's a scene where one of the dolls, which has a real actress's face motion captured onto it, her shirt has been ripped open and she's running away from the Nazi soldiers that have attacked her.

[21:38] And she has, like, Barbie boobs with no nipples that look like plastic, but they're still bouncing when she runs as if they're real boobs.

[21:46] And the physics and the trying to figure out what was going on with the anatomy of this doll and how it must feel for an actress to see her face on top of, like, a weird, topless half-person doll.

[21:57] It was, like, it was just very, it was, I found the whole thing, like, I don't think you really thought through the meaning of what you're doing with this moment, you know.

[22:07] It just really, it felt like a, really messy, you know.

[22:11] Yeah.

[22:11] But anyway, we're, we're.

Dan McCoy

[22:12] So this movie, sorry, yeah, we have, we're talking a lot about theory, but not actually what happens in the movie.

[22:17] And, like, so this movie jumps around so much that me with my extensive notes, I can't actually remember, like, what the next scene is.

Stuart Wellington

[22:25] His, uh, his, his caregiver arrives.

[22:28] Okay, so, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[22:29] There's some, there's some new neighbors across the street.

[22:32] Yeah.

[22:32] There's Nicole, a woman who is running from her bad boy man, Kurt.

[22:37] And you know Kurt's bad because later on when he drives up, Cat Scratch Fever is playing in his car.

[22:41] Because Robert Zemeckis never met a pop song he didn't want to shove into his movie.

[22:46] Yeah.

[22:46] And then his caregiver arrives, who's a Russian home aide played by Brienne of Tarth.

[22:51] We, this is the only time we see this character in the flesh.

[22:54] It's always in the plastic after that as a doll person.

Stuart Wellington

[22:57] Which only comes once a month.

[22:58] And this movie takes place in a relatively tight window.

[23:01] That's true.

Elliott Kalan

[23:02] Uh, he has, and she, she advises him not to, he has to take his meds, but don't take too many meds.

[23:08] Yeah.

[23:08] Which is like a real Chekhov's pill, you know.

[23:10] There's gonna be a problem with meds later on.

[23:12] He's got this art show coming up and he goes through his scrapbook of memories because,

[23:16] and this is something that was not made as clear as it should have been,

[23:18] he has no memories of anything before the attack.

[23:21] His entire life before then is a mystery to him.

[23:24] And he talks in the documentary about like,

[23:26] Oh, I was married, I guess.

[23:28] Cause I have pictures of me getting married, but I don't remember anything about my, my life with a wife or who this person was.

[23:34] And that's something that the movie doesn't really dig into.

[23:36] He kind of like, we know that he was assaulted in some way and his life fell apart and he had to recover from it.

[23:42] He had a real tough, uh, one-legged veteran physical therapist played by Janelle Monae again.

[23:47] And she has one scene where she's a person and the rest of her scenes are just as dolls.

[23:51] And we see an adventure, uh, in the village of Marwyn that involves a new villain character.

[23:58] Uh-oh.

[23:59] Deja Thoris, the 3,000 year old Belgian witch who wants to make the other girls disappear because she wants Hoagie to herself forever.

Dan McCoy

[24:05] Yeah.

[24:06] And this is like, I, this is another like kind of weird like choice that the movie makes.

Stuart Wellington

[24:11] It's a very common name, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[24:13] Uh, well, that's for, it's, it's from, uh,

[24:15] It's from the John Carter stories.

[24:16] Yeah, exactly.

[24:17] I know.

Stuart Wellington

[24:17] That's why it's a very, it just, it's a coincidence that she has the same name as the princess of Mars.

Dan McCoy

[24:23] But like, the, like another weird choice the movie makes is to turn it almost into this like fantasy film where later on, like Mark is interacting directly with this evil witch character who's trying to tempt him.

[24:40] And, and like, it turns it into this, I don't know, like almost this, this science fiction struggle almost.

[24:49] Even though we know that like it's a fantasy woman, it's the, because it's this CGI stuff, it gives it this weird like association, I feel like in movies.

[24:58] And also it becomes very clear to us way before it becomes clear to Mark that this is, this evil witch is the embodiment of his pill addiction.

[25:08] Well, and his depression.

Elliott Kalan

[25:09] It's, it is, this, this evil witch is the thanatos in his personality that wants to escape life by, through either medication or over medication to the point of suicide.

Dan McCoy

[25:21] But she's the exact same color as the pills he's taking.

[25:23] So it's a pretty clear.

Stuart Wellington

[25:25] She turns people into pills.

[25:27] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[25:27] And she also, she, while he's sleeping, she whispers in his ear like, like the, like Timothy the mouse in Dumbo saying like, join me forever.

[25:34] Take the pills and join me forever.

[25:37] And it's like, and so at the very end when, spoiler alert, Hoagie has the realization that this witch is a bad guy and is, he literally says like, you're Mark's problem.

[25:47] It's like, yeah, we know.

Stuart Wellington

[25:49] Thanks movie.

[25:50] I mean, we kind of knew she was the problem from the first scene she shows up in.

[25:55] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[25:56] It's, it's almost like a, if, if the movie Alien, if Sigourney Weaver was like, why is everyone napping on the job?

[26:03] I can't find them.

[26:04] And then she leaves in the escape pod and then an alien shows up and she's like, oh, it was an alien.

[26:09] And the audience would be like, yeah, dude, the movie's called Alien.

[26:11] We saw an alien attacking people.

[26:13] Like that's kind of what that feels like.

[26:14] That realization.

Dan McCoy

[26:15] The other major, the other major problem I had with this character is like, so the real, like Mark, you know, used this art to work through real things in his, his real life.

[26:24] And there were like parallels to his real life, but I don't think there were like, the movie makes it like such a direct parallel to like problems that he has in his life or things going on.

[26:35] It's like, it, it, it's like almost a one-to-one allegory the whole time.

[26:39] And I don't think that's how it works.

[26:41] Like, well, there's such a simplification.

Elliott Kalan

[26:44] I, there were so many things in the movie where I was like that.

[26:47] I'm sure they shoehorned in there.

[26:48] They made it up.

[26:49] And then watching the documentary afterwards, like, oh, a lot of these scenes are adventures that Mark came up with for his characters.

[26:54] And like later on, Dejah Thoris is like, build me a time machine.

[26:57] And he builds her time machine, which looks a little too much like the time machine for Back to the Future.

[27:01] But in the documentary, he's like, oh yeah, Dejah Thoris told me to build her a time machine.

[27:05] So I had to do it.

[27:06] Like he does interact with these characters in a way that the movie is trying to illustrate, but the movie is illustrating it so literally.

[27:14] And it's like, the whole time I was watching it, I was like, why do I not like the way this movie is using fantasy scenes?

[27:20] But I do like the way that like Brazil is using fantasy scenes.

[27:24] And it's almost like Brazil is not pretending that when Jonathan Price is hallucinating a giant samurai, that it is fun, you know, or exciting.

[27:34] It's just like frightening.

[27:36] And it's like, in this, there's, I think they're trying to handle these very complicated emotions and this very complicated mental life that Mark Hogan camp has constructed.

[27:46] But they're trying to do it by shoving it into like, kind of the box of a movie that you can release around Christmas.

[27:52] They're trying to do it by shoving it into Farskamp, essentially.

[27:55] Where like, it's about somebody who's like, kind of difficult, but kind of cute.

[27:59] And like, or it's like, as good as it gets.

[28:02] Like if as good as it gets, if Jack Nicholson also was imagining that he was a knight at different points in the movie.

[28:07] Like, that's kind of what this feels like.

Stuart Wellington

[28:09] Yeah, I got a definite as good as it gets vibe out of this one.

[28:13] Which is ironic because this movie is not as good as it gets.

[28:18] In title or in what?

[28:20] Quality?

[28:21] Yeah, all of those things.

[28:23] So, yeah, I mean, we're starting to learn that he has a small world outside of his home.

[28:30] He spent some time at what a local bar and grill called the Avalanche.

[28:34] Yeah, he works there.

[28:35] Yeah.

[28:35] He also, that he has been the victim of an assault and he, it's an ongoing thing that he, he has an upcoming, what, a sentencing hearing for the guys who assaulted him.

[28:47] And that, attending that gives him extreme amounts of stress.

[28:53] Like he shuts down and, and, and disappears into a fantasy world involving bullets.

Elliott Kalan

[28:59] Everyone keeps saying that if you don't show up, we want you to show up so they really throw the book at these guys.

[29:04] And it makes me wonder like what kind of judge would be like, well, you beat a man almost to death, but I guess he didn't think it was worth showing up today.

[29:12] So I'm going to let you free.

[29:14] If it didn't matter to him that you were going to jail, why should it matter to me?

[29:17] A judge who has no feelings about this one way or the other.

[29:20] Case dismissed.

Stuart Wellington

[29:22] I've been watching a lot of, well, my wife's been watching a lot of episodes of Caught in Providence lately.

[29:27] And I've been catching it in the background.

[29:28] And I feel the judge on that show would totally understand Mark and still give them a rough sentence.

Elliott Kalan

[29:34] Yeah.

[29:35] What I'm describing, I guess, is more of a Maximum Bob type scenario.

[29:38] Uh-huh.

[29:39] Yeah.

[29:40] There's also, Mark has, he has his friend at the bar, Carlala.

[29:44] He has a, and he goes to the hobby store where the woman there clearly has a crush on him and is trying to ask him out.

[29:49] But he's very like, he's very evasive.

[29:52] And he has a, clearly has a crush on his new neighbor, Nicole.

[29:55] Yeah.

[29:55] And his, the woman at the hobby store is played by the great Merritt Weaver.

Dan McCoy

[29:58] Yeah.

[29:58] I was going to say that myself.

[29:59] Yeah.

[29:59] Because she's so great.

[30:00] She's always great in everything.

[30:01] Even here.

Elliott Kalan

[30:02] Mm-hmm.

[30:02] And she shows, she's like, this new SS General doll came in, came in.

[30:07] Do you want it?

[30:07] It looks really real.

[30:08] And he freaks out and hits a remote control, which causes the volume to go up on a TV that

[30:13] happens to be showing a story about the sentencing of his attackers.

[30:16] And he runs out.

[30:17] And it's such a Rube Goldberg trauma moment.

Dan McCoy

[30:20] Holy shit.

[30:20] That was like, that was exactly what my girlfriend said while watching it.

[30:24] She's like, what are all these Rube Goldberg like twists that happen to this?

Stuart Wellington

[30:27] Because he turns the volume up and then he knocks the remote on the ground and the batteries fly out.

Elliott Kalan

[30:31] Yeah.

[30:32] So he can't change the channel.

[30:33] And the woman from the hobby store just cannot take a hit.

Stuart Wellington

[30:36] It's like Tony Todd is in the background, like making things break so that he can't escape

[30:41] his fate.

Elliott Kalan

[30:42] You weren't killed by that horrible assault.

[30:44] I guess I'll come after you afterwards.

[30:46] And everyone's like, Tony Todd, this is kind of tasteless for you to be doing this.

[30:50] Like, this isn't like fun.

[30:52] This is really upsetting.

[30:53] And he's like, death is upsetting.

[30:54] Let's stop using death as an entertainment, huh?

[30:57] Yeah.

[30:57] I'm trying to get respect for the end of life.

[31:01] Does it mean anything to you?

[31:02] And they're like, okay, okay.

[31:03] I get it.

Stuart Wellington

[31:03] He's like, I'm trying to raise my profile so they'll put my character on the new charmed

[31:07] show.

Elliott Kalan

[31:11] But the woman at the hobby store, she just cannot take the hint that he does not want

[31:15] this SS doll.

[31:16] And clearly it is triggering him.

[31:17] Because every time he's, she like keeps kind of trying to hand it to him and he keeps

[31:22] like screaming every time he sees it.

[31:24] It's like, he doesn't want this doll.

[31:26] Just like stop trying to sell him this doll.

Dan McCoy

[31:29] Yeah.

[31:30] Maybe she doesn't really like him.

[31:31] Maybe she's just like, he's my cash cow.

[31:34] I apparently run a doll store in this small town.

[31:38] He's the only one buying this.

Stuart Wellington

[31:40] Yeah.

[31:40] I mean, they have a pretty, pretty good selection of stuff.

[31:42] Yeah.

[31:43] And so as guys, I don't know if I've talked about this on the show very much, but one

[31:48] of my hobbies is I love building and painting figurines.

[31:52] So I have a couple opinions about this show or the show.

[31:56] I mean, this movie, uh, movies aren't shows.

[31:59] I know that now I've gone through a lot of, uh, a lot of cast or sorry, a lot of crew people

Dan McCoy

[32:04] talk about being on a show when they're talking about working on a movie.

[32:08] Industry talk.

[32:08] Yeah.

[32:09] So maybe you're just plugged into that.

Stuart Wellington

[32:10] Thanks for, thanks for real revealing a little bit of industry info for me.

Elliott Kalan

[32:14] So that's, that's, that's Dan's, that's Dan's film glossary.

[32:19] Like that's Dan's film vocab for the day.

Dan McCoy

[32:21] I wasn't, I wasn't trying to dance plane.

[32:23] I was trying to help out.

[32:24] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[32:24] Uh, well, you know, sometimes helping out doesn't always work out.

[32:27] Um, so, uh, but the way he like, the way he has his little like model, uh, Jeep that

[32:34] he takes his dolls around in with a little, uh, stick and a leash the whole time, like you're

[32:39] going to damage your stuff.

[32:41] You're going to mess everything up.

[32:42] And, uh, luckily nothing ever like every time there's a chance where somebody could damage

[32:47] his toys, nothing actually happens.

[32:48] There's a point where a car almost runs it over.

[32:50] And I got very nervous for his toys because as somebody who has built and painted a lot

[32:54] of figurines, I live in constant fear that somebody will just come and damage them.

Elliott Kalan

[33:00] So here's, here's the thing about him is that when it comes to his figures, he's not a collector.

[33:05] He, he's, he's using them the way they were meant to be used, playing with them, not just

[33:09] sticking them on a shelf.

[33:10] And so he talks in the documentary about how like he got this Jeep and the tires look

[33:15] too real.

[33:16] They look too, or too new, too, too new.

[33:17] They look too factory made.

[33:19] And that's why he, he brings it around everywhere with him so he can get real wear on the tires.

[33:24] So it'll look like something that's been through world war two.

[33:26] So in a way, Stu, he's just, it's just his way of bringing that next level of paint and realism

[33:32] to the figures.

[33:33] Kind of.

Stuart Wellington

[33:33] I mean, I would say maybe some, a little bit of texture paint and some weathering powders.

[33:37] I mean, they do a lot of really cool stuff with model paints nowadays.

Elliott Kalan

[33:41] Now, I, I, now I wish this was a bigger podcast so that deadline could be, or, or someplace

[33:45] would be like, Stuart Wellington slams Mark Hogan camp for the way he's weathering his toys.

[33:53] I shouldn't say toys.

[33:54] I should say figures or, I don't know, art materials.

[33:58] Thank you.

[33:58] That's the, and there's an interesting, in the documentary, they're kind of riding the

[34:02] line trying to figure out, is this art or is this therapy or what is it exactly?

[34:06] And the movie just doesn't, the movie just treats it kind of like play, which is weird.

[34:10] Yeah, like, like an eccentricity.

[34:13] Yes.

[34:13] So there's more hot Nazi action between the, the bad guy dolls and the, and the good guy

[34:19] lady dolls.

[34:20] And he gets a Nicole doll and the lady from the hobby shop is like, hey, I'll go to the

[34:25] sentencing with you.

[34:26] And he's like, nah, I don't want to go.

[34:27] And that's when Nicole stops by to introduce herself.

[34:30] And the lack of chemistry, I would say is palpable.

[34:34] Dan, how would you describe it?

Dan McCoy

[34:36] Well, okay.

[34:37] So Nicole is played by, uh, Leslie Mann and, uh, she, the thing that made my girlfriend

[34:45] the most mad in the whole movie was that later on, uh, she asked Mark to, uh, help her clean

[34:52] her house.

[34:53] And she's in like, like a dress and heels while she's cleaning.

[34:59] And, and like, she's constantly wearing this outfit, which made, uh, made my girlfriend

[35:06] be like, when is this set?

[35:08] Yeah.

[35:08] Cause like.

Elliott Kalan

[35:09] She's always dressed like Donna Reed.

Dan McCoy

[35:10] It's really weird.

[35:11] It was very confusing to her.

[35:12] Cause it was like, okay, there's all this world war two stuff.

[35:14] And then like, yeah, she's dressed like Donna Reed.

[35:17] And then suddenly someone mentioned Zappos and she's like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

[35:20] hold on.

[35:22] Um, but, uh, let's not.

[35:24] She mentioned Zappos.

Stuart Wellington

[35:26] Yeah.

[35:27] It is.

[35:27] There is a weird like disconnect.

[35:29] Cause maybe part of it's like, maybe she's dressed because she's part of his fantasy world.

Dan McCoy

[35:34] Well, she definitely plays into his fantasy world because as I said, she's always wearing

[35:38] heels and Leslie Mann comes over and is immediately, uh, fascinated by, you know, Mark's little

[35:46] diorama and asks about, you know, what's going on there.

[35:49] And she is, she exists only to be nice to Mark.

[35:53] She is like comically nice to Mark.

[35:55] Even when like he tells her that this doll is named Nicole and it looks exactly like her.

Stuart Wellington

[36:00] Well, I mean, you know, when you get older, Dan, it's harder to make new friends and she

[36:05] is kind of on the run from some trauma herself.

[36:07] She's just getting out of an abusive relationship with Kurt, the, uh, ex cop.

[36:12] Right.

[36:13] And she, I think later on she has.

Elliott Kalan

[36:15] There is in no way, just is in no way described by the film.

[36:19] You just read so much more real emotion into the movie than the movie provides for this

[36:23] character.

Dan McCoy

[36:24] Well, but also later on, it's revealed that she, I think has a cousin who likes to wear

[36:28] women's clothes as well.

[36:30] So she's very understanding about, you know, Mark's desire to do that.

[36:34] Like, but she does not, we do not get a sense of her inner life.

[36:39] She's just very, very sweet to a man who like, I'll be honest, does like a lot of off putting

[36:45] things around her.

Elliott Kalan

[36:46] Ironically, she is a doll in the movie.

[36:49] Like she is treated by the movie as a doll who exists only to befriend Mark and have him

[36:56] get a crush on her and then let him down when it turns out she doesn't share those feelings.

[37:00] Like she exists only as a real life play thing for her.

[37:05] And I don't think the movie is attributing that to the characters.

[37:08] The movie is just like you're saying, failing to give her any inner life.

[37:11] And if we could see her bristling at some of the like more off putting things that Mark

[37:16] says or does, it would make her feel more real.

[37:19] It would make their relationship feel stronger and more real.

[37:21] It reminded me of her character in The Comedian where it's like, again, similarly, it was like

[37:28] your job in this movie is to fall in love with Robert De Niro's incredibly unlikable,

[37:32] unfunny character.

[37:33] And it's like, okay.

[37:36] And is there anything else I'm going to do?

[37:37] No, you exist only to be an accessory for him throughout the movie so that we can mark

[37:42] off his redemption through how he interacts with you.

Stuart Wellington

[37:46] Which means like when she's in movies where, as a performer, when she's in movies where she

[37:52] can, she gets more fun stuff to do.

[37:54] Like what was the one, the sex comedy with John Cena?

[37:59] Oh, Blockers?

[38:00] Yeah, yeah.

[38:00] It's just called Blockers, Dan.

[38:02] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[38:02] Yeah.

[38:03] All right.

[38:03] It's like Chicken Blockers or something, right?

[38:05] It's called Picture of a Cock Blockers.

Stuart Wellington

[38:07] Chicken Blockers.

[38:07] Yeah.

[38:08] Yeah, yeah.

[38:09] And she, you know.

[38:09] Oh, my worst nightmare.

[38:11] Someone would block me from a chicken.

[38:12] Don't you see like Gary Cole's wiener in that?

[38:14] I mean, that movie's a lot of fun.

Elliott Kalan

[38:15] Yeah.

[38:16] It feels like the movie is setting the audience up to be like, oh, I hope these two get together

[38:21] so that when she says no, it breaks our heart.

[38:24] But it's not going to break our heart because it's very obvious from moment one that they

[38:27] should not be together.

[38:28] And that this is a fixation that he has on her and not a real relationship.

[38:33] But the movie kind of wants us to think it's going to be a relationship.

[38:35] It's like the movie thinks the audience is dumb, I guess is how I put it.

Dan McCoy

[38:40] This is what I wanted to say about like the three tones because they've got the goofy like

[38:44] CGI stuff tone.

[38:45] They've got a movie that actually touches on some of the real stuff in his life that at

[38:50] times can be kind of interesting.

[38:51] Like when it takes the movie, when it takes the story seriously.

[38:55] But then that butts up against the Hollywood version of this where like they kind of want

[38:58] to make it into a romantic comedy almost.

[39:01] And it doesn't like none of it works together.

Elliott Kalan

[39:06] Yeah.

[39:07] So the I think that's well put.

[39:11] Anyway, there's a scene where Mark makes his Nicole doll.

[39:13] Let's just get back to the summary, huh?

[39:15] Nicole stops by Mark's again.

[39:16] They talk shoes.

[39:17] There's a dance party at Hoagie's bar in Marwin after Hoagie has been captured and is being

[39:23] brutally tortured by the Nazis.

[39:25] And Nicole leads the other women of Marwin in a what it looks like they're going to they

[39:31] want to party with the Nazis.

[39:32] But really, they hurl Molotov cocktail bottles at them and then shoot them.

[39:36] And it's so horrifically violent in a way that really like upset me for some reason.

[39:41] Like for some reason, the raid redemption.

[39:44] I was like, cool.

[39:45] But this watching it, I was like, my stomach was churning and I'm not quite sure exactly

[39:49] why.

[39:50] Do you guys have a similar reaction?

[39:51] Or were you just like, whatever, dolls with blood pouring out of their bodies?

Dan McCoy

[39:55] I kind of just zoned out on the like the doll sequences entirely because it was so clear

[40:00] that they were extraneous to the movie that I'd be like, I don't know what's going on.

Stuart Wellington

[40:04] Like, and there's I don't know.

[40:05] And there's also a feeling of like knowing this is a fantasy and that the fantasy always

[40:09] is such a violent thing.

[40:12] I mean, obviously.

[40:13] Oh, sorry.

[40:14] What you say?

[40:14] Just the idea of like, I don't feel any kind of catharsis from this because I know that

[40:19] it like, it's, it's a fantasy that will not move anyone's life forward.

Elliott Kalan

[40:24] Yeah, that's true.

[40:25] They're all, there's, there's no, there's no story used to it other than.

[40:29] Yeah.

[40:29] And again, this is like a real story that Mark Hogan camp came up with for his characters,

[40:34] like where he was being tortured and the women came and saved him.

[40:37] But it feels like they were just kind of like trying to shoehorn all these.

[40:41] It's like, there are all these amazing parts of his life.

[40:43] Let's try to shoehorn them all into the movie.

[40:45] Yeah.

[40:46] There's a, there, Nicole's evil ex Kurt shows up and starts spewing Nazi German at Mark.

[40:52] And once again, Mark runs away.

Stuart Wellington

[40:56] Up until this point, I was like, you know, maybe he just loves her.

[41:00] Maybe he's actually a good guy.

Elliott Kalan

[41:03] And Nicole also talks about her love of tea.

[41:06] And this is another one of those Rube Goldberg thing where Mark, he is triggered by all this

[41:10] German being shouted at him.

[41:11] He runs away, trips in his house, a trap door falls on his head.

[41:16] And he, it's like, he, it's, it's such a weird thing.

[41:19] Cause it's like a tragic cartoon routine, you know?

[41:23] Like if, if, if Wile E. Coyote was genuinely in pain and hurt, like, and really injured by the

[41:29] stuff that was happening to him, that's what it feels like sometimes.

[41:32] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[41:33] Uh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[41:34] So Dan, what happens when, uh, so Mark's going to go to the sentencing after all.

[41:38] What is it?

[41:38] Oh yeah.

[41:38] What happens when he goes there?

Dan McCoy

[41:39] So he goes to the sentencing and, um, he's looking at the, the dudes on the other side

[41:44] and like, doesn't like one of them look like the doll?

[41:47] Like that's why he's being triggered?

[41:49] Is that the same?

Elliott Kalan

[41:49] Well, he has, one of them has a, has a swastika tattoo on his arm.

Dan McCoy

[41:52] Yeah.

[41:53] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[41:53] And like, there's a guy with like, they do look kind of like his dolls.

[41:57] There's like a guy with glasses.

[41:59] There's.

[41:59] And you know, Mark, he basically.

Elliott Kalan

[42:02] Oh, and also.

[42:02] And one of his attackers was, uh, from those, uh, was it Duracell?

[42:06] That family that was in the Duracell battery commercials where they were like people, but

[42:09] they had rubber skin.

[42:10] So they look like giant dolls.

[42:12] So he sees that and he's like, ah, a giant doll.

[42:14] Mm-hmm.

[42:15] Um, so.

[42:17] Now.

[42:17] I guess I'm the only one who remembers those commercials.

[42:19] No, they're horrifying.

Dan McCoy

[42:20] Although they were like more like blocky, right?

[42:22] They like.

Elliott Kalan

[42:23] Well, yeah, they were very not, they were very wrinkly and had a lot of like, I want to

[42:26] call them carbuncles.

[42:28] Like.

[42:28] Yeah.

[42:28] They, it was, they looked like, uh, somebody saw.

Stuart Wellington

[42:32] Elliot, isn't a carbuncle the, the spot in between your butthole and your testicles?

[42:37] I don't think so.

[42:39] Dan, why don't you look that up?

[42:40] No.

Dan McCoy

[42:41] That's interesting that that was the joke you were going for.

[42:45] Like, I was just sitting here being like, ah, the invention of the blue carbuncle was

[42:49] a good Sherlock Holmes story.

[42:51] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[42:52] You know, the carbuncle is like a boil.

Dan McCoy

[42:55] Okay.

[42:55] Anyway.

[42:56] So Mark, uh, has an attack of PTSD.

[42:59] He runs out of the, the, uh, sentencing hearing and the lawyer's like, uh, can we have a recess

[43:05] so I can call my client down?

[43:07] And the judge is like, I'll do you one better.

[43:08] We can reschedule.

[43:09] It's fine.

[43:09] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[43:10] Probably because of our overworked, uh, judicial system.

Elliott Kalan

[43:13] Oh, yeah.

[43:13] That's, I think that's implied.

[43:15] That's, uh.

[43:16] And this is, he's, uh, his, his PTSD attack takes the point, the form of him imagining that

[43:21] this has become a firefight between the Nazis that attacked him and Hoagie.

[43:25] And he, and he runs away.

Stuart Wellington

[43:26] Yeah, a human-sized Hoagie.

[43:28] Yeah.

[43:29] And we are spared the part where I assume off camera.

[43:31] Not a human-sized sandwich.

[43:32] Which would be both delicious and terrifying and the, the possibilities of what, uh, what it

[43:38] could do to a human belly if consumed in its entirety.

Elliott Kalan

[43:40] Yeah.

[43:40] Or, or if shoved in someone's mouth and throat to the point that they choke on it, as might

[43:44] happen if an invisible maniac was in the room.

[43:47] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[43:47] Oh, that sounds interesting.

[43:48] Has that ever been in a movie before, Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[43:50] I don't know if it has.

[43:51] Uh, you'd probably know better than me.

[43:53] I assume that it was written in the script, but they probably didn't shoot it, that as

[43:57] he's running away from the court, he trips down a flight of stairs into a pie contest and

[44:01] gets a pie in his face.

[44:03] And then he's, like, under a horse's butt and the horse poops on him.

[44:06] Like, I assume that that was gonna happen based on the previous scenes, but.

Dan McCoy

[44:10] Did we talk about, by the way, the scene where, like, uh, has it happened yet?

[44:14] Where he's, like, putting, uh, stiletto heels on Leslie Mann's doll.

[44:20] Uh-huh.

[44:20] And it's, it's a very sexual scene.

[44:22] Like, he's clearly.

Elliott Kalan

[44:23] And they're playing that weird cover of, uh, of Sugar Sugar or whatever it is, or.

[44:26] Yeah.

[44:27] He's clearly getting off.

[44:28] No, no, it's Sugar Sugar.

[44:28] It's, uh, that Love in My Tummy song.

Dan McCoy

[44:31] I don't, he's clearly getting off on this.

[44:33] Like, he's, like, putting these shoes on her.

[44:35] He's, like, looking at the doll through a magnifying glass.

[44:38] And, like, the movie plays it.

Stuart Wellington

[44:40] Which happens when I'm painting my goblins, too, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[44:43] The movie plays it kind of, like, it's a sweet thing.

[44:48] Yes.

[44:49] But that's when I, like, was, like, you know what?

[44:52] If this guy wasn't the victim of a hate crime, he would be, we, like, the audience would think he's such a creep right now.

Elliott Kalan

[44:58] Oh, this is the kind of thing that usually you see in movies that serial killers are doing.

[45:02] Yes, yeah.

[45:02] And, again, that's more a judgment, that's more a, a judgment on movies, which associate, uh, non-mainstream emotional attachments with crime and murder.

[45:12] But it does come off as very creepy.

[45:15] It's supposed to be loving, but it comes off as creepy.

[45:17] It doesn't help the way he's talking to the doll all the time.

Stuart Wellington

[45:18] It was meant to be loving, like, the way he paints his dolls in the movie 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Elliott Kalan

[45:24] Yeah, but it's, you know, it's supposed to be, like, in Titanic when he's drawing a picture of Rose, and it's, like, I'm using my art to celebrate this person that I have feelings for.

[45:35] But I guess part of the difference there is that Rose is there, and as she, she requests that he draw her like one of his French girls, whereas this is unasked for by Leslie Mann.

Dan McCoy

[45:44] So shortly...

[45:45] And the woman is literally a doll, which has certain connotations.

[45:48] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[45:48] So shortly after, shortly after him fleeing the, the courtrooms, uh, uh, isn't there a scene where he's at home watching, uh, a pornographic movie?

[45:59] And, uh, like, he starts to, like, kind of lose himself in the movie, and then, like, the, uh...

[46:05] As one does.

[46:05] The, uh, like, the male character in the film turns into his, uh, into a Nazi guy, and I feel like, I feel like that also added a, that added, like, a sexual element that had been kind of missing from the tone of the movie.

[46:20] Right, and, like, we were talking about this, too.

Dan McCoy

[46:22] Like, the thing is, in movies, like, most people...

[46:26] It would be like if Forrest Gump was just, like, whacking it to a fucking porno.

Stuart Wellington

[46:29] Well, the thing is that, like...

[46:31] You know, the reality...

[46:32] All of a sudden, you're like, what?

[46:34] Like, I know he's a human man, and, like, that happens and stuff, that's not that crazy, but, like...

[46:38] I mean, there literally is...

[46:39] Let me say my thing.

Elliott Kalan

[46:40] There literally is a scene where Forrest Gump ejaculates and doesn't know what just happened and is frightened by it, and Jenny has to soothe him, so...

Dan McCoy

[46:47] No, I just wanted to say, like, in this modern world, like, the reality is...

[46:51] Live and let die, yeah.

[46:52] Most people do watch pornography.

[46:54] But, even so, like, if you...

[46:56] Like, in a movie, the only time you see someone watching porn in a movie is if they're coded as, like, a creep.

Elliott Kalan

[47:02] Uh-huh.

[47:02] Well, I think here, it's a...

[47:05] Yeah, it's a weird...

[47:06] It's weird that they're introducing it so late in the film that he watches pornography, because also the porn he's watching is so jokey and ludicrously vintage-looking.

[47:17] And he's watching it on, like, a VHS tape, and the...

[47:21] It feels like they're making fun of the character for...

[47:25] Like, really, what's happening is his, like, something that should be a complete fantasy and release for him, watching porn, and I assume...

[47:32] But he's not masturbating to it.

[47:33] He just kind of seems like he's watching it to review it, maybe, for a magazine.

[47:36] Yeah.

[47:37] But that now his...

[47:39] These kind of trauma...

[47:41] These fantasies of trauma that are based in real trauma are invading even this, what should be a pleasurable fantasy.

[47:47] Yeah.

[47:47] That should be, like, a really frightening moment, but it's done in such a jokey way that I was like...

[47:52] And his response to it is like, blah!

[47:54] That I was like, what is this?

[47:56] Like, what is going on here?

[47:57] Like...

Stuart Wellington

[47:58] He's, like, two steps away from Large Marge and it right there.

[48:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[48:02] Well, speaking of Large Marge, I wanted to say that the...

Elliott Kalan

[48:05] What could you possibly want to say that was related to Large Marge, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[48:08] Well, it's related to the creator of Large Marge.

[48:15] Well, not creator, because it's based on a...

[48:17] Her parents?

Stuart Wellington

[48:18] Tim Burton.

[48:18] On a folklore?

[48:19] On folklore?

Dan McCoy

[48:19] Well, it's based on...

[48:21] I mean, Pee Wee Herman, or Paul Rubens and...

[48:23] And what's his face?

[48:25] Who wrote it?

[48:26] Phil Hartman?

[48:27] Phil Hartman.

[48:28] Yeah, their scripts.

[48:29] But, like, a Tim Burton movie.

[48:32] I just wanted to say that the writers of this are Robert Zemeckis and Caroline Thompson.

[48:38] And Caroline Thompson, I looked her up.

[48:41] She wrote Edward Scissorhands.

[48:44] And she wrote The Addams Family, Homeward Bound, The Secret Garden, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Black Beauty.

[48:50] Like, mostly children's movies.

[48:53] Corpse Bride, which sort of...

[48:55] That's, I think, explains part of the weird tone that this movie has.

[48:58] Like, it's almost like a children's movie version of a guy who, like, had a hate crime done to him, you know?

[49:06] It's very strange.

Elliott Kalan

[49:08] Yeah, it's like...

[49:08] I think you're right.

[49:09] It's like a children's version movie about a story about a man who is dealing with the trauma of a hate crime through very complicated, like, psychosexual fantasies, you know?

Dan McCoy

[49:20] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[49:21] Yeah, I think you put your nail on the head.

[49:24] They tried to turn it into a children's film.

[49:25] And I just wish I hadn't watched it with Sammy.

[49:28] Because he had a lot of questions afterwards.

[49:31] I was like, Sammy, you like this?

[49:32] It's a movie about dolls.

[49:34] And he's like, I love the Toy Story movies.

[49:36] Toy Story 4 was less coherent and cohesive than the rest of the films.

[49:39] But I understand based on what was going on behind the scenes with Lasseter and everything.

[49:43] And I'm like, Sammy, I'm sure.

[49:44] You know more than me about that stuff.

[49:46] So we watched this.

[49:47] And he was like, Dad, I've got some questions.

[49:49] Number one, how did this get made?

[49:51] And I was like, don't worry.

[49:52] There's a podcast for that.

Dan McCoy

[49:55] Okay.

[49:55] Well, what happens next?

[49:57] Well, I can't.

[49:57] I'm so bad at this.

Elliott Kalan

[50:00] Nicole gives him some of her old shoes.

[50:02] And he shows her his shoe collection.

[50:04] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[50:05] This is, I think, where he reveals like, I think he, at one point, he mentions that he, like,

[50:12] he offhandedly mentions the pornography that he watches to her.

[50:15] Yeah.

[50:15] Yes.

[50:16] In a somewhat like taxi driver-y type thing, right?

Dan McCoy

[50:19] Which is the one time she does seem to be a little uncomfortable.

Elliott Kalan

[50:21] And it's, at least it's not the scene in 40-Year-Old Virgin where she finds that he has all these

[50:26] porn tapes and she's like, you're a monster, and runs out, which was always the least believable

[50:30] part of that movie to me.

[50:31] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[50:31] She's like, uh, maybe we shouldn't talk about that.

[50:34] But like, she accepts that, you know, which is nice.

Elliott Kalan

[50:37] So, Doll Hoagie and Doll Nicole, they kiss.

[50:40] And that makes Deja Thoris, who has been popping up throughout the movie.

[50:43] We just haven't been talking about it much.

[50:44] She gets mad and tells Hoagie to, or tells Mark to build her a time machine.

[50:49] And, but he also builds Doll Nicole a tea house in Marwin.

[50:53] And that's when Hoagie proposes to Doll Nicole, and then Mark proposes to real Nicole.

[51:00] And this is the first moment where she realizes, uh, maybe this is not the relationship I thought

[51:05] it was.

[51:06] Maybe, uh, when I was, when I thought I had pretty securely friend-zoned this next, this

[51:11] across-the-street neighbor.

[51:12] He doesn't seem to realize it.

[51:14] Uh, she says, she lets him down very gently, says they're just friends, and he gets mad

[51:18] and blames Deja Thoris.

[51:20] But he built her time machine.

[51:21] So, he's like, he's like, Deja Thoris, you did this, but I built you your time machine.

[51:25] And I was like, that time machine, as I mentioned earlier, it looks a little bit too much like

[51:27] the DeLorean in Back to the Future.

[51:29] Like, come on.

[51:30] Come on, Bob.

[51:31] What are you doing?

[51:32] Well, luckily it doesn't-

[51:33] This is a ready player one.

[51:33] Come on.

Stuart Wellington

[51:34] Luckily when it flies around, it doesn't make like flamey tire tracks or anything, right?

Elliott Kalan

[51:40] Uh, no, it does.

[51:41] It does do that.

[51:42] Uh, I mean, basically it's one step away from a Christopher Lloyd doll running in and being

[51:47] like, Marty!

[51:48] I mean, Hoagie!

[51:49] We gotta go do this thing!

[51:50] But to apologize for, uh, letting him down and, and disappointing him, what does Nicole

[51:56] get him?

[51:57] Uh-oh.

[51:58] Guys, it's that Nazi doll that keeps triggering him.

[52:01] It's like the cat that came back.

[52:03] You just can't get rid of this thing.

[52:04] The doll escapes its box and starts chasing after Mark.

Stuart Wellington

[52:08] And it's, and it's basically, it's her ex-husband, right?

Elliott Kalan

[52:12] Yes.

[52:12] At this point it becomes her ex-husband or ex-boyfriend.

[52:15] Yeah.

[52:16] It's not quite clear, I guess.

[52:16] That's the face that's mapped onto the doll.

[52:19] Yes.

[52:19] Uh, this doll shoots doll Nicole.

[52:22] Mark flashes back to his assault and, uh, Dejah Thoris is like, it's, join me.

[52:26] This is all your fault.

[52:28] This was all your fault.

Stuart Wellington

[52:28] So, can I pause it right now?

[52:29] Because this is the point where, like, you know, before this, they had, they'd, you know,

[52:34] they'd mentioned the assault and they'd, they'd kind of framed images of it in a way that

[52:40] was, uh, like, uh, you don't actually see it.

[52:44] Like, it does seem like a, like a distant, uh, like hazy recollection.

[52:48] But then when he, when she gets shot, he kind of fully remembers it a little bit and it,

[52:55] it, like you get more of it as it goes on.

[52:58] And I feel like that, I don't know, like I felt there was something, uh, I, I felt there

[53:03] was something interesting about the way they were framing the assault earlier.

[53:06] Uh, and it fit more with the film, but it feels like Zemeckis, I mean, it's not a huge

[53:12] surprise because he's kind of like a Spielberg where he's like, in every case, if he can show

[53:18] something, he will show something.

[53:20] Like if he can make an entire movie with talking doll faces, he's going to do that.

[53:25] Um, but, or it's like how, and it's the same sort of thing where it's like, maybe if somebody

[53:29] had told him not to actually show that sequence where he's like, where Mark is getting kicked

[53:34] in the face on the ground, because I don't think it necessarily makes the movie any better.

Elliott Kalan

[53:38] No, I don't think so.

[53:40] It's, and, uh, the, and basically all you kind of learn from it, even though you kind of

[53:44] knew it before is that he gets attacked because he admits to where,

[53:48] wearing women's shoes sometimes to some guys.

[53:50] But that had already been established.

Stuart Wellington

[53:52] Yeah, I guess that's true.

[53:53] I don't, I don't, I don't think seeing him lying on the ground with like blood on him and

[53:58] some guys like kicking him makes, makes it any more horrifying.

[54:02] It's just, I don't know.

[54:04] Yeah.

[54:04] It's just lazy.

Dan McCoy

[54:05] By the way, uh, I just, I, being, just talking about his assault, he was found by his coworker,

[54:11] Wendy, and it's sort of like heavily implied earlier in the movie that like she had to leave

[54:17] town because he had developed a fixation on her as his savior.

[54:23] Yeah.

[54:24] Uh, which again, like this guy is, look, I mean, again, the re the real guy went through

[54:30] an unimaginable trauma that he dealt with.

[54:32] I mean, but we're not mocking the real guy.

[54:33] We're just talking about the way the movie presents it.

[54:35] I don't know if you paint him well.

[54:37] I don't know whether that happened in life.

[54:40] I can't, but I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[54:42] I mean, but that's, but it's, uh, you're also, it's also, I felt kind of like a William

[54:47] Goldman watching the big Lebowski and being like, man, I can't wait to see this bowling

[54:50] tournament that I was like, well, at some point, Wendy's going to come back, I assume, but

[54:53] she never does.

[54:54] She's just, she's just a shadow because if she's not part of Mark's life now, then the

[54:59] movie is not interested in her.

[55:01] Uh, anyway, Hoagie is upset and he goes to pray in his little church.

[55:05] And that's where the Nazi finds him.

[55:07] And there's some really out of place doll humor where he's like, stick them up.

[55:11] And Hoagie puts up his hands and then turns his head 180 degrees around so he can see behind

[55:16] him.

[55:17] And then he's like, get up.

[55:18] And he like gets up and then spins his torso around to match where his head is at.

[55:22] And it was like, it seems weird that the character at this point decided to do some doll jokes,

[55:27] but, uh, as if he was a doll man and is versus a demonic toy at this point.

Stuart Wellington

[55:32] So yeah, actually, I mean, that could have been the name of the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[55:35] I think it would work better than Welcome to Marwen, but, you know.

[55:38] And the Nazi is shocked by Hoagie's high heels, uh, and they fight for a while.

[55:43] And this, they've kind of like slid into the big climax fight where that there's a lot of

[55:49] people running, Nazis running around and shooting and things like that.

[55:52] But essentially what happens is Hoagie, uh, stabs the Nazi in the neck with his stiletto

[55:56] heel.

[55:56] And, uh, he's going to fall to his death from this church tower when Deja Thoris shows up

[56:01] in the time machine and the Nazis keep coming back to life and there's a big gun battle and

[56:05] Hoagie won't leave with Deja's like, come with me to the future.

[56:09] 15 million light years in the future in my time machine.

[56:11] And he goes, no, no, I won't leave until we rescue Nicole's shoe.

[56:14] Cause it's in Nazi, the Nazi's neck.

[56:16] And there's a moment somewhere in here and I didn't write down exactly where one of the

[56:19] Nazis like these stupid women.

[56:21] And he's like, women are the saviors of the world or something like that.

[56:24] Like it's, it's like the movie was like, oh, there's all this subtext we really haven't

[56:28] addressed throughout the movie.

[56:29] I guess we'll just shove it all into this scene.

[56:32] And, uh, Hoagie does.

Stuart Wellington

[56:34] And, uh, and then, uh, there's like, uh, there's Nazis keep grabbing up a very phallic, uh, missile

[56:40] launcher and then they get shot.

[56:42] And then the next Nazi runs up and grabs the same missile launcher and they're all trying

Elliott Kalan

[56:45] to blow up this flying DeLorean.

[56:47] And that's when Hoagie notices that Deja Thoris has a tattoo of a swastika on her arm.

[56:52] Just like the, uh, just like the guy who assaulted him and goes, wait, you're a Nazi.

[56:56] You're the problem.

[56:57] You've been keeping Mark sick.

[56:59] And it's like, I'm glad you came to the, I'm glad the character came to this realization.

[57:03] The audience, thanks to the movie storytelling, came to this realization, I think 15 minutes

[57:07] into the film.

[57:08] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[57:08] It's like, uh, anytime I start seeing band photos of a black metal band and I'm like,

[57:13] oh, these guys look, oh no.

[57:15] Or like, oh, that's a, that's a whole body black coverup tattoo.

[57:19] I wonder what that dude had on his torso before he just covered his entire torso in black.

Elliott Kalan

[57:26] Anyway, he, uh, in the, in all the hubbub.

[57:29] Uh, Mark makes it so that Deja Thoris is shot by the Nazis.

[57:32] She disappears and a green mist turns the Nazis to skeletons and the Nicole doll recovers.

[57:38] And Mark wakes up and throws his meds away and reads his victim statement in court about how he's persevered and he has his friends.

[57:45] Yeah.

[57:45] It's really unrelated to the crime in a lot of ways.

Dan McCoy

[57:48] Yeah, no, his victim statement is definitely addressed to the audience and not the judge.

[57:52] But it's like, let's have him do a big inspiring, uh, speech where in real life the judges would be kind of like, okay, uh, I don't need to know.

Stuart Wellington

[58:00] Do you think, yeah, do you think the judge is like, well, it sounds like the, it, this, uh, assault hasn't affected you that badly.

Elliott Kalan

[58:06] It sounds like you've persevered in a very inspiring way.

[58:09] Seems like you've, you've established yourself in the arts community in a way that you couldn't have before this, uh, before this assault.

[58:16] And so I guess case dismissed.

[58:18] Uh, you're all roommates.

[58:20] I decree you all be roommates now.

Dan McCoy

[58:22] I sentence the attackers to cake and ice cream.

Elliott Kalan

[58:26] Uh, something I glossed over, but I would like to address briefly is that one of the big plot points is then that Mark throws away all of his medication because it's bad medication that Dejah Thoris wants him to take.

[58:36] And it's like, again, it's like a super complicated issue of when medication is right for people and how sometimes it cannot be the right thing.

[58:45] And it is, uh, rather than addressing the issue, it is just deadening the symptoms to make it easier for other people to deal with you.

[58:51] But it is like not a good message in a movie for it to be like, hey, if you're dealing with trauma, the best thing for you to do is throw your meds away.

[59:00] That'll solve the problem.

[59:02] Like it's a, like it's a real day.

[59:03] It's like a, a little bit like, hey, sometimes you got to solve a problem with dynamite.

[59:09] So if you've got a problem, throw some dynamite at it.

[59:12] Like it's a, it's like a messy, it's not a good thing for them to be doing the same way that like my issue with a beautiful mind where it's like, hey, if you've got serious problems,

[59:21] and you don't, with reality, just stop being crazy and your problems will be solved.

Dan McCoy

[59:26] Just start ignoring Paul Bettany, your imaginary friend.

Elliott Kalan

[59:29] Yeah.

[59:29] Just, the things where you can't tell the difference between reality and what your mind is creating, just ignore the stuff your mind is creating.

[59:37] Okay.

[59:38] But I can't tell the difference.

[59:39] That's my particular illness is my problem is I can't tell the difference between reality and what my mind is telling me.

[59:44] Yeah.

[59:44] But just like, stop looking at the crazy stuff and don't be crazy anymore.

[59:48] Crazy.

[59:49] Oh, okay.

[59:50] Thanks.

Stuart Wellington

[59:50] Stop focusing on that beautiful mind and instead focus on your beautiful heart.

[59:56] Yeah.

[59:56] Gross.

[59:57] I find that movie so disgusting.

Elliott Kalan

[59:58] Anyway, and I guess that's kind of what this, what maybe upset me so much about this movie is like how, how ham handedly it was addressing and engaging with real trauma and like with, with the very real issues that a real person was dealing with.

[1:00:15] Yeah.

[1:00:15] He's like, I did it.

[1:00:17] I did it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:17] I came through the other side.

[1:00:18] And he goes to his New York gallery show and he's like, I changed the name of the town to Marwyn Cole.

[1:00:21] The Cole comes from Nicole.

[1:00:23] And the hobby store woman is like, Oh, I see.

[1:00:24] And the hobby store woman is like, Oh, I see.

[1:00:26] Well, great.

[1:00:27] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:27] Which is also weird.

[1:00:28] Cause like in, I guess maybe, maybe this character, maybe this woman didn't want her name used in this movie, but like in real life, it stands, that part stands for Colleen.

[1:00:38] Yeah.

[1:00:38] But it's, it's, it's funny that they were like, all right, they're like, what's another female name that we can get a C-O-L out of?

[1:00:43] Let's just lop the E off of Nicole and we can do it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:47] They're like, they're like, Leslie, we haven't named your character yet.

[1:00:50] She's either going to be Nicole or Colette, but we have not decided yet.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:53] We're like, it could be, now hear me out.

[1:00:56] This might be a little bit out there.

[1:00:58] Stone Cold Steve Austin.

[1:01:01] Or what's his favorite kind of slaw?

[1:01:04] Could it be Cole slaw?

[1:01:06] Nope, there's a, it would have to be no E on that slaw.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:09] Oh yeah, you're right.

[1:01:10] Oh, well, okay.

[1:01:11] How about this?

[1:01:12] What if he loves Bra-Cole-ly?

[1:01:15] But the real Mark Hogan camp doesn't like broccoli.

[1:01:17] Well, he likes adventures.

[1:01:18] What if he likes the movies of Cubby Bra-Cole-ly, the James Bond producer?

[1:01:23] What if she's named Cole Porter?

[1:01:28] And it's such a dumb movie thing that they're like, this is the origin story for why it says Cole.

[1:01:35] Yeah, yeah.

[1:01:35] The end of the name.

[1:01:36] The same way that we have to explain why Han Solo calls Chewbacca Chewie.

[1:01:40] Because it might be not obvious to people that Chewie is the nickname for someone named Chewbacca.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:45] And Nicole shows up at the art show and she and Mark share like a series of looks that I honestly kind of had a hard time deciphering what the movie was trying to tell me they were thinking.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:58] What did you think of it, Dan?

[1:02:00] Well, I feel like the movie wants us to believe.

[1:02:02] Ignore artist's intent in this case.

[1:02:04] Bobby Z, shut your trap.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:06] Yeah.

[1:02:07] Marcel Duchamp would say, Dan, that you have an equal part to play in this relationship between artist, art piece, and spectator.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:14] I was just trying to talk about how clumsy the movie was.

[1:02:16] But I do think that the movie is trying to make us think that Nicole had this very important part to play in his semi-recovery.

[1:02:30] And I just don't see how like the facts of the movie bear that out.

[1:02:34] Like he like fixated on her and then she turned down his proposal and that was kind of the whole thing.

[1:02:43] But they have like this look of appreciation between them.

[1:02:45] I don't know.

[1:02:45] It's very strange.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:46] But maybe he was able to, with Nicole and her rejection, maybe that gave Mark the impetus to realize that maybe he shouldn't venerate women who aren't going to reciprocate that kind of emotion to him.

[1:03:01] And that's what, because Wendy left without having any kind of a confrontation.

[1:03:06] Yeah.

[1:03:07] I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:08] Maybe.

[1:03:08] It's possible.

[1:03:09] I mean, now that, now, and Mark's been reading a lot of stuff on the internet.

[1:03:12] There's this philosopher from Canada that he's been watching a lot of lectures from.

[1:03:16] And he really understands now how women manipulate men and how men are the victims in society.

[1:03:21] Oh, no.

[1:03:22] Elliot, no, no, no, no.

[1:03:23] Guys, I've been spending some time on what someone called the dark web.

[1:03:26] And I've discovered these new ideas.

[1:03:28] Did you know that in many, you know that peacocks are actually male and peahens do not have the fun stuff and good stuff that peacocks have?

[1:03:37] And people are kind of like that too.

[1:03:39] I'll leave more information on that.

[1:03:41] I'm sending a deprogrammer to your house.

[1:03:44] I actually can't remember any of the real stuff that that guy says, so I made something dumb up.

[1:03:48] The stuff he says is dumb too.

[1:03:49] Well, good.

[1:03:49] I'm glad you can't remember any of it.

[1:03:52] His stuff is so inane and evil that I just pushed it right out of my head right away.

[1:03:59] But, Dan, you're forgetting that Mark Hogan camp, he doesn't need Nicole anymore because he finally works up the courage to ask the girl from the, the woman from the hobby shop,

[1:04:09] to sushi.

[1:04:09] And it's like, cause you know, guys, you're not fully healed until you are part of a heteronormative pair bond.

[1:04:17] And you are mating in a way that is socially acceptable.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:21] Also, does he work up the courage or is he like just shifting to like, oh, he's like, oh, okay, this woman has clearly, you know, enjoyed my company before.

[1:04:30] So, I guess I'm moving over here.

[1:04:32] Like, it seems kind of weird.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:33] Well, maybe, maybe he just didn't realize what he had all along.

[1:04:37] Yeah, I guess.

[1:04:37] And the scales have been lifted from his eyes.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:39] Yeah, it's a real Teen Wolf situation.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:40] I think, I think that's what it's supposed to be is it's like, oh, I realize this is the person I should have been with.

[1:04:45] And they make the case, hey, we've never had sushi before.

[1:04:48] We might not like it, but I guess we should try it.

[1:04:50] And it was like, wait, was the, was the point of the movie that he wasn't trying new things?

[1:04:55] Because like, he's, he's.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:58] No, it's the origin story of his famous love for sushi.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:01] Yeah, I mean, I feel like, I feel like for somebody who's super into small like dolls and shit that, and like carefully crafted things, I feel like sushi would be right up his fucking alley.

[1:05:12] Yeah.

[1:05:13] And then he's going to get like way into Gundams and stuff.

[1:05:16] Gundams arrived to Marwin.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:18] They're just imagining a lot of weird things happen in Marwin.

[1:05:21] Like he says, they, it would be really funny if it's like, you know what?

[1:05:25] Don't call me Mark anymore.

[1:05:27] Call me Hero.

[1:05:29] And it's like, wait, so this is the origin story for the guy from Hero Dreams of Sushi?

[1:05:33] Like what's going on?

[1:05:35] Or Giro.

[1:05:35] Anyway.

[1:05:36] I don't know how to pronounce the name.

[1:05:37] That's the end of the movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:39] We buried the lead.

[1:05:40] That's how the movie is.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:41] Oh yeah, we should mention.

[1:05:43] And we get, and this is, this is a, this is kind of a biopic.

[1:05:46] So they also do like the, what, pre-credits or during credits pictures of the actual Mark Hogan camp.

[1:05:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:54] Here's the weird thing that they say in it is they go, they talk about how Mark hasn't had a, hasn't had a drop of alcohol, hasn't drank alcohol in years.

[1:06:02] And it's like, and that really weirded me out until I watched the documentary.

[1:06:06] And it's like, oh, before the attack, he was an alcoholic.

[1:06:09] He was like an alcoholic who thought he was going to die.

[1:06:12] Yeah.

[1:06:13] He thought he was going to drink himself to death.

[1:06:14] And he was so depressed and unhappy.

[1:06:15] And the movie.

[1:06:16] Once I knew that, it was like, I understand this character so much better.

[1:06:20] Why didn't they build that into the character?

Dan McCoy

[1:06:22] I mean, he talks about drinking and it's sort of like implied at best, but they don't like, yeah, they don't say that he was an alcoholic.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:29] I mean, part of it is that all the, all the information about him comes from him almost.

[1:06:33] Like, if some of the other characters were like, oh yeah, Mark, he had a horrible drinking problem.

[1:06:40] Like, he was a real mess.

[1:06:42] But they don't, they don't, it's, any, any information about Mark for the most part comes from Mark, which makes it kind of suspect.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:49] And also, but also like, I think it's part of the cuting up of the character.

[1:06:52] Like, the character is not a blameless, snow pure, innocent Forrest Gump type.

[1:06:58] If you admit that he had a complicated life before the assault.

[1:07:02] Yeah.

[1:07:02] And so it's easier for the movie if it's just like, yeah, he was just this dude who occasionally, he's just a normal dude everybody loves who occasionally liked wearing women's shoes.

[1:07:10] And then he got attacked and he turned into this, you know, Christ-like innocent, you know, and it's like, it's so much more, it'd be such a more powerful movie if he was a more, if he was as complicated a person as he is in the documentary.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:23] Yeah.

[1:07:23] Look, before we get final judgments, I want to say again, like, this movie brings up all of these delicate topics that it is not, it is not equipped to handle.

[1:07:33] And we are only barely more equipped to handle.

[1:07:36] So again, I apologize if we like drifted into anything that caused offense, but it is such a...

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:40] Yeah, I mean, we're certainly not experts on any of these subjects.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:42] Yeah, but this is like such a reprehensible...

[1:07:44] Except painting models.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:46] I'm an expert on that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:47] Yeah.

[1:07:47] Movie in a lot of ways.

[1:07:48] And I want to apologize for when we, when I was like, I guess we got to do this movie, not realizing that it would be a hard movie to like make jokes and be funny about.

[1:07:57] So next time...

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:59] This is definitely an eat your vegetables episode of the plot.

[1:08:01] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:03] So, uh, in the, so next episode, we better do something that's more fun, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:07] Well, I think next episode, that's, uh, are we into a small temper then?

[1:08:11] Probably.

[1:08:11] That'll be fun.

[1:08:13] That'll be fun.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:14] Uh...

[1:08:14] No, buckle your seatbelts.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:16] Yeah.

[1:08:16] Quick final judgments, because I think we all know where we're standing here.

[1:08:19] Is this a good, bad movie?

[1:08:20] A bad, bad movie or a movie you kind of liked, Stuart?

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:24] Uh, I'm going to say it's a bad, bad movie.

[1:08:25] Uh, it's a movie that's obviously made with technical skill and features performers that are good, if not necessarily, uh...

[1:08:34] Suited for the material.

[1:08:35] Exactly.

[1:08:35] But, yeah, I mean, it just, it, it's, it just feels wrongheaded in basically every aspect.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:43] Yeah, it's, I'm going to agree with Stuart.

[1:08:45] It's a bad, bad, it's just, it's a misguided movie.

[1:08:47] It's a misgu, like, conceptually misguided and emotionally misguided in a way that makes it like, when you see the trailer, you're like, this is going to be nuts.

[1:08:56] This is going to be crazy.

[1:08:57] But then you watch it and you're like, oh, this is like, really, this is complicated and upsetting.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:03] I feel so bad for the person who had to cut a fucking trailer for this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:07] Yeah, and, uh, it's just like, this is not a, it's not a, it's a bad movie, but it's not a fun movie to watch.

[1:09:13] It's a hurt yourself movie to watch.

[1:09:15] Not hurt yourself like you should go hurt yourself, but hurt yourself like it's painful to watch at times.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:20] To agree with, uh, y'all, it's a, it's a bad, bad movie.

[1:09:24] And also, like, to borrow, uh, Nathan Rabin's rating system for, uh, bad movies, this is not, uh, a failure.

[1:09:33] This is a fiasco.

[1:09:34] Yeah.

[1:09:34] And, uh, it is kind of interesting on that level.

[1:09:37] Like, if you want to see how, like, talented people can go so wrong, it's sort of interesting.

[1:09:43] But it's like, so, like, it is also morally upsetting in a way that, like, I don't usually get upset at movies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:50] Yeah, but, and before we move on, you guys both do recommend the documentary, right?

[1:09:54] Marwan Call?

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:55] Oh, yeah.

[1:09:56] I think it's a very good documentary.

[1:09:57] I wish that I had seen it, uh, instead of this.

[1:10:01] But, uh, no, it's, I think it's, the Marwan Call is well worth seeing.

[1:10:04] Yeah.

Justin McElroy

[1:10:05] Yeah.

[1:10:10] We are the host of My Brother, My Brother, and Me, and now, nearly 10 years into our podcast,

[1:10:15] the secret can be revealed.

[1:10:17] All the clues are in place, and the world's greatest treasure hunt can now begin.

[1:10:21] Embedded in each episode of My Brother, My Brother, and Me is a micro clue that will lead you to 14 precious gemstones all around this big, beautiful, blue world of ours.

[1:10:31] So start coming through the episodes.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:33] Uh, let's say starting at episode 101 on.

Justin McElroy

[1:10:36] Yeah, the early episodes are pretty problematic, so there's no clues in those episodes.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:41] No, no, not at all.

[1:10:42] The better ones, the good ones, clues ahoy.

Justin McElroy

[1:10:44] Listen to every episode repeatedly in sequence.

[1:10:48] Laugh if you must, but mainly get all the great clues.

[1:10:52] My Brother, My Brother, and Me, it's an advice show, kind of, but a treasure hunt mainly.

[1:10:56] Anywhere you find podcasts or treasure maps.

[1:10:59] My Brother, My Brother, and Me, the hunt is on!

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:03] Hi, everybody.

Justin McElroy

[1:11:06] My name is Justin McElroy.

[1:11:07] I'm Sydney McElroy.

[1:11:08] We're both doctors, and-

[1:11:10] Nope, just me.

[1:11:11] Okay, well, Sydney's a doctor, and I'm a medical enthusiast, and we create Sawbones, a marital tour of misguided medicine.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:17] Every week, I dig through the annals of medical history to bring you the wildest, grossest, sometimes dumbest, tales of ways we've tried to treat people throughout history.

Justin McElroy

[1:11:27] Well, lately, we do a lot of modern fake medicine, because everything's a disaster, but it's slightly less of a disaster every Friday, right here on MaximumFun.org, as we bring you Sawbones, a marital tour of misguided medicine.

[1:11:39] And remember, don't drill a hole in your head.

[1:11:45] Moving on.

Dan McCoy

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[1:12:51] I had a burp that I could not burp during that ad read.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:56] You know what?

[1:12:57] If you hadn't brought it up, Dan, I would never have known.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:01] I wouldn't have noticed, but it sounds like a great poem start.

[1:13:04] I had a burp I could not burp.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:06] Yeah, I'm just bringing it up to introduce a little lightness and levity into this section of the Flophouse.

[1:13:12] Oh, cool.

[1:13:12] Thank you.

[1:13:13] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:13:13] Look, I'll say...

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:14] Look, guys, I'll just say it.

[1:13:17] Passwords are getting too complicated these days and too hard to remember.

[1:13:20] What am I, some kind of password computer?

[1:13:22] So I think this is an app I need.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:25] I also want to say that the Flophouse is sponsored in part by HelloFresh.

[1:13:32] Hello!

[1:13:33] And they sent us a...

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:36] Stuart was fresh at the end of a very long hallway.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:39] They sent us some samples.

[1:13:44] Yeah, some treats.

[1:13:45] I got to say, yesterday I made one of mine.

[1:13:48] I chose the calorie-conscious meals because I'm unhappy with some recent weight gain.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:55] But you ate like two of them, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:13:58] No, I ate the appropriate portion.

[1:14:01] And I have to say, though, for something that's calorie-conscious, I could not...

[1:14:05] It did not feel like I was denying myself.

[1:14:08] I had a very delicious...

[1:14:09] It was a squash flatbread with pepitas on it.

[1:14:14] What's a pepita?

[1:14:15] It's a shelled pumpkin seed.

[1:14:18] Yeah.

[1:14:19] And it was very delicious.

[1:14:21] I liked it quite a bit, actually.

[1:14:23] So HelloFresh does good work.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:26] I think you're really missing an opportunity here, Dan, to do a podcast where you just describe

[1:14:31] food for people.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:33] Or explain what pepitas are to people.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:35] Well, because you seem so much more animated and excited to talk about food than you are in movies.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:41] Welcome to Marwen, certainly.

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[1:14:58] I want to know what's in the Hall of Fame.

[1:15:00] Easily...

[1:15:00] Yeah, what is in the Hall of Fame?

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:02] Well, yeah.

[1:15:03] Do you have to, like, climb up a mountain pathway to get to the hall?

[1:15:07] Push the grand doors open, which squeal with the weight of time.

Dan McCoy

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Elliott Kalan

[1:15:40] I feel like, Dan, this has already been kind of a delicate episode, and making a joke about

[1:15:43] Star 80 is maybe not the best thing to do.

[1:15:47] But hey, you know what?

[1:15:48] That's a great deal.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:49] It's because my stupid brain did not make the connection immediately between $80 off and

[1:15:55] Flop80.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:57] Oh, yeah.

[1:15:58] So you were like, is that the Flophouse of 1980?

[1:16:01] Is that what this is about?

[1:16:02] Like that Wonder Woman movie?

[1:16:04] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:06] Stuart, I believe you have a Jumbotron.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:09] J-J-Jumbotron.

[1:16:09] Hand selected for Stew Balls.

[1:16:12] That's right.

[1:16:13] We got a game.

[1:16:14] I don't know why you're interrupting me.

[1:16:16] I'm doing a really awesome fucking hand read.

[1:16:19] We got a gamer thing.

[1:16:23] In the crossroads, each player takes on the mantle of an adventurer by creating a unique

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[1:16:32] Players then compete through a series of shared turns in which all actions play out on the

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[1:16:41] By providing unique and realistic gameplay, Crossroads rewards strong deck building, bold strategy, and a willingness to take informed risks.

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Stuart Wellington

[1:17:01] The crossroads is a new strategic deck building game for two or more players, which focuses on realistic player-to-player combat in a fantasy setting.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:14] Wow, Stuart, there's a lot of gravity in that read.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:18] Well, I think maybe I'm throwing myself in the ring for official voice of Crossroads, the game.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:27] Okay.

[1:17:29] Yeah.

[1:17:30] So, Elliot has a few announcements about the live shows, but before we get to that, I just

[1:17:35] want to say...

[1:17:37] Thanks.

[1:17:38] Thanks for listening.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:39] The merch contest...

[1:17:40] Thanks for listening.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:41] Yeah, thanks for listening.

[1:17:42] The merch contest is over.

[1:17:44] We have a couple of winners.

[1:17:46] Originally, we were just going to do the one, but...

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:48] I mean, I think everybody's a winner, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:50] Sure.

[1:17:51] Everyone's a winner who participated.

[1:17:52] We got a lot of great stuff, but there were two pieces of art that were neck and neck through

[1:17:59] the entire competition.

[1:18:01] So, we're like, let's do both.

[1:18:02] Why limit ourselves, especially since we haven't done new merch in a while?

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:06] Yeah, we make the rules.

[1:18:08] Why not change them at the last minute?

[1:18:09] So, the first...

[1:18:10] I mean, it's not like if we lived in a world like that, it would be chaos, and nobody would

[1:18:13] be able to live a normal life.

[1:18:15] I don't know.

[1:18:15] But yeah, let's just do that.

[1:18:16] Let's just throw the rules out the window.

[1:18:17] You know what?

[1:18:18] Let's also throw out the baby with the bathwater.

[1:18:19] Why not?

[1:18:20] People tell you not to, but let's just do it, you know?

Dan McCoy

[1:18:22] I'm making a slippery slope argument that I don't think applies, but...

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:25] Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[1:18:26] The slope is so slippery.

[1:18:27] Ah!

[1:18:28] I'm all the way at the bottom now.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:29] So, first winner is Elizabeth Steege.

[1:18:33] She did a lovely house cat on a skateboard t-shirt for us.

[1:18:39] And our second winner is Scott Yakashin, who did some Flophouse-inspired monsters on a couch.

[1:18:47] They're kind of in a Big Daddy Roth style.

[1:18:50] Both are lovely pieces of merch that you can get by going to flophousepodcast.com and clicking

[1:18:56] on the merch link.

[1:18:57] Also, you can just go to Topodico or however you pronounce that and click on, I think, podcast

[1:19:01] and then MaxFun.

[1:19:03] Do you want to spell it?

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:03] Do you want to spell it?

[1:19:04] Because it's hard to...

[1:19:05] Oh, God.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:06] Let me look it up.

[1:19:07] I don't have it right in front of me, but I...

[1:19:09] You vamp a little.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:11] Sorry.

[1:19:12] Sorry, Dan.

[1:19:12] I didn't mean to throw you a curveball.

[1:19:14] Okay, here it is.

[1:19:14] You're spelling out the name of the website.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:16] It's T-O-P-A-T-O-C-O dot com.

[1:19:21] But again, you can just...

[1:19:23] If you can't do that, you can just go to the Flophouse official site and click on the merch

[1:19:27] button.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:27] I mean, just tell your phone, Siri, buy Flophouse merch.

[1:19:30] She'll know what to do.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:31] Yeah.

[1:19:32] I'm really happy with both of these.

[1:19:35] And also...

[1:19:36] And he's not happy with anything.

[1:19:38] So these two winners got a little cash from Max Fund, but they also chose some movies for

[1:19:44] us to review.

[1:19:45] We will not be getting to those until the new year because of our themed months and holidays,

[1:19:50] but we will get to them as soon as we can in the new year.

[1:19:54] I'm excited about both of the choices that they gave us.

[1:19:57] Yeah.

[1:19:57] And that's all I wanted to say about that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:59] Thanks to everybody who entered the contest.

[1:20:01] Congratulations to our winners.

[1:20:02] And thanks to them for doing great work.

[1:20:04] Thanks to everyone who voted in the contest.

[1:20:06] I'm looking forward to seeing people wearing or displaying this new Flophouse merchandise.

[1:20:11] For the Flophouse, I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:20:15] Uh, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:17] So wait, I think you do the next thing, Elliot.

[1:20:20] No, the show's over.

[1:20:21] We just finished it.

[1:20:23] Uh, okay.

[1:20:24] Uh, I guess, uh, yeah, I guess I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:20:27] See you guys later.

[1:20:27] No, no, no, no, no, no.

[1:20:29] No, the show's not over, guys.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:30] In fact, let's keep doing shows.

[1:20:32] Let's keep doing shows.

[1:20:33] In fact, let's do some more live shows.

[1:20:35] Let me talk about them.

[1:20:36] We've still got September 28th in Boston at WBUR City Space.

[1:20:40] Technically, it's outside, I think, of the Boston city limits, but it's in the Boston

[1:20:43] metropolitan area.

[1:20:44] September 28th, Boston, 7 p.m.

[1:20:46] We will be talking about Alita, Battle Angel.

[1:20:48] That show is sold out, but at 9.45, we're going to be talking about Godzilla, King of

[1:20:53] the Monsters.

[1:20:55] We're bringing the colons to Cambridge.

[1:20:57] Alita, colon, Battle Angel, and Godzilla, colon, King of the Monsters.

[1:21:00] It's a double feature of double dots in between words.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:03] And all of our personal colons will be there attached to our bodies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:07] Uh, I mean, I don't know.

[1:21:08] Mine isn't allowed to leave state lines.

[1:21:10] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:10] I mean, if it's anything like a normal show, Stuart will make extensive use of that colon right

[1:21:14] before the show.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:16] Uh, yeah, I mean, I can't help it.

[1:21:18] I get a little nervous before I get out on stage.

[1:21:20] So the other thing is, I'm kind of excited about trying both these movies.

[1:21:25] I haven't seen them yet.

[1:21:25] I'm hoping they're both going to be good goods.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:27] And we got an LA one, too.

[1:21:29] Did you announce that?

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:30] No, I haven't not yet.

[1:21:31] So September 28th in Boston.

[1:21:33] Again, the 9.45 show, Godzilla, King of the Monsters.

[1:21:35] Ticket still available.

[1:21:37] October 12th, we're going to be in LA, Los Angeles, back at the Regent Theater, but this

[1:21:41] time with Stuart.

[1:21:42] We're going to be doing that show again October 12th, that's a Saturday, and we're going to

[1:21:45] be talking about Dark Phoenix.

[1:21:48] The movie that killed the X-Men franchise, Dark Phoenix.

[1:21:52] Maybe, or maybe the X-Men franchise will rise from the ashes like a house that's been insured.

[1:21:59] Yeah.

[1:22:00] That's the only metaphor I can think of.

[1:22:02] Like a zombie?

[1:22:04] Yeah, like a rise from the ashes like a zombie.

[1:22:07] So that's September 28th in Boston, 7 p.m., Alita Battle Angel, 9.45 p.m., Godzilla, King

[1:22:13] of the Monsters, and then October 12th in Los Angeles, we're going to be talking about Dark

[1:22:16] Phoenix.

[1:22:16] For those tickets, just go to flophousepodcast.com slash events, and click on the button that says

[1:22:22] buy tickets or get tickets.

[1:22:26] For some reason, one of the buttons says buy tickets, the other two buttons say get tickets

[1:22:30] get tickets.

[1:22:31] This is some choice that Dan made, I'm sure.

[1:22:33] I don't know.

[1:22:33] I don't know why they're not uniform in wording.

[1:22:38] That's just the way it is.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:39] You know, variety is the spice of life, Alita.

[1:22:43] I guess so.

[1:22:44] Whether it's buy or get.

[1:22:47] That's how you keep excitement in our relationship.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:50] One of those little curveballs he likes to throw.

[1:22:52] But I'm excited about those shows.

[1:22:53] I'm excited about finally doing shows in Boston, and those are all movies that I'm looking

[1:22:57] forward to talking about.

[1:22:59] Let's move on.

[1:23:00] And we'll have, oh, and another thing we'll have is new presentations.

[1:23:04] I'm going to be doing some new PowerPoint presentations, and I think you guys might be too.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:08] Yeah.

[1:23:08] I mean, I might reuse one for the Boston show, just because we have to keep it short, and

[1:23:12] I have a short presentation.

[1:23:13] But definitely for the late show, which is, again, tickets still available.

[1:23:17] I have an all-new presentation that I've never done before that I'm very excited about.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:21] I'm just going to keep people guessing.

[1:23:22] Maybe I'll just show up and, you know, vamp for 20 minutes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:26] 20 minutes is a long time for the presentation.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:30] You said I had to keep it short.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:31] Okay.

[1:23:32] Let's move on to letters from listeners, listeners like you.

[1:23:36] Hey, this first one is from Sean.

[1:23:38] Last name withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:40] Hey, guys, wait.

[1:23:41] Before we get to Sean's letter, and I'm sure it's great.

[1:23:46] I just wanted to sing a little song about this show, even though I know it's going long.

[1:23:52] Hey, guys.

[1:23:54] Let me lay it down for you and be honest.

[1:23:57] Let's be truthful.

[1:23:58] I'm turning my chair around so I can sit and be real.

[1:24:02] Welcome to Morrowind was a difficult movie.

[1:24:05] A hard movie to make jokes about.

[1:24:08] So I know there haven't been as many jokes in the show.

[1:24:12] As you think there should be.

[1:24:14] Or even that there isn't a show like Glow.

[1:24:16] Which is kind of a drama, but kind of a comedy.

[1:24:19] It's 30 minutes long, which these days means comedy.

[1:24:22] Even for a show like Transparent that doesn't really have jokes in it.

[1:24:27] And that's how you know, though, that it's a comedy.

[1:24:30] It's 30 minutes long.

[1:24:32] So anyway, this episode has been more like a show like, say, Orange is the New Black.

[1:24:38] 60 minutes long and kind of a comedy.

[1:24:41] But these days, not a lot of jokes in the episodes.

[1:24:44] The later seasons get pretty serious.

[1:24:47] Bleak, even.

[1:24:48] In a way that makes you think, oh yeah, this used to be categorized as a comedy.

[1:24:53] Even though it's 60 minutes long.

[1:24:56] Which by TV definition means it's a drama.

[1:24:59] So let's just say, hey, next time we'll have more jokes.

[1:25:04] Wait, what show were you talking about?

[1:25:07] Good question, Stuart.

[1:25:08] I'm talking about the way that kind of arbitrarily,

[1:25:12] the length of a show has become a way to decide the genre it's in.

[1:25:17] I don't think that's a question Stuart asked.

[1:25:19] No, it's fine, it's fine.

[1:25:20] Okay, let's just move on.

[1:25:21] Yeah, we both were looking.

[1:25:22] Wait, so perhaps I'm misunderstanding what Stuart was asking about.

[1:25:26] So Stu, can you tell me from you, what was that question again?

Dan McCoy

[1:25:33] He wanted to know what show you were singing about.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:36] What I wanted to ask was, what show were you singing about?

[1:25:41] That's a good question.

[1:25:42] Okay, I think I understand a couple different shows.

[1:25:45] I see you checked out at some point.

[1:25:47] So I was talking at the end about Orange is the New Black on Netflix.

[1:25:51] But I also mentioned a couple of shows like Glow, also on Netflix.

[1:25:56] Transparent, Amazon Prime, and The Flophouse, which is on MaxFun.

[1:26:00] And you're listening to it right now.

[1:26:03] If you're not, then you can't hear this song.

[1:26:05] But wait, hold on.

[1:26:06] Oh, God.

[1:26:08] What if you were hearing the song but not listening to the show?

[1:26:12] Oh, God damn it.

[1:26:12] Like maybe it came to you in a dream.

[1:26:15] Maybe you heard someone far off scream the lyrics to the song

[1:26:20] because they were listening to The Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:23] It's not even a song anymore.

[1:26:25] It's just a patter.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:26] It was a surprise stuette for a second.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:28] Yeah.

[1:26:29] Sorry.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:30] It's a complicated thing, this life that we live in.

[1:26:32] And so I'll just say it's time to end this song.

[1:26:39] Okay.

[1:26:40] Part one at least.

[1:26:41] Part two of the song goes like this.

[1:26:43] God damn it.

[1:26:43] Everyone hates this.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:47] Yeah.

[1:26:48] We both checked out.

[1:26:49] We both took that moment to check our email.

[1:26:51] And because I checked our email, I got a little message

[1:26:53] from our friend at the Alamo Drafthouse, Christina,

[1:26:56] who programs things there.

[1:26:57] I just want to let listeners know that on November the 12th,

[1:27:03] I will be hosting a Terror Tuesday at the Alamo Drafthouse, Brooklyn,

[1:27:06] where I'll be showing Final Destination 3.

[1:27:09] So that's a new plug.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:11] That's pretty cool.

[1:27:11] That's almost as cool as how like two weeks before on October 30th,

[1:27:15] I'm going to be hosting a screening of Jason X.

[1:27:18] Oh, wow.

[1:27:19] That's a fun one.

[1:27:20] Yep.

[1:27:21] So let's go into outer space.

[1:27:22] And Elliot, when are you hosting a Terror Tuesday or a Weird Wednesday?

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:25] I'll be hosting my family on Rosh Hashanah,

[1:27:29] the night after I get home from our Boston shows.

[1:27:33] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:34] Where you will, I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:36] Okay.

[1:27:36] It's the Jewish New Year, Stuart.

[1:27:37] So I'll talk about the last year.

[1:27:39] I'll think about the next year.

[1:27:40] And I will prepare myself for Yom Kippur a week and a half later

[1:27:44] when I atone for the sins of the previous year.

[1:27:46] I ask God's forgiveness and I try to identify how I can be a better person

[1:27:50] for this coming year.

[1:27:52] Cool.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:52] Neat.

[1:27:54] This first letter is from Sean who writes,

[1:28:00] Dear OPs, I wanted to thank you for your latest episode

[1:28:03] in which you covered Meatballs Part 2.

[1:28:06] Mm-hmm.

[1:28:06] Not just because it provided me with two hours of great listening,

[1:28:09] but because it has also given me closure after 20-something odd years.

[1:28:14] Some of the memories, for no discernible reason,

[1:28:16] that have stuck with me from childhood

[1:28:17] are sitting in front of the TV on a Saturday afternoon,

[1:28:20] flipping through the eight or nine channels we received in my household.

[1:28:25] And one such memory was seeing a clip of a guy in a dress

[1:28:28] flying around a boxing ring.

[1:28:30] Whether I actually watched more than just that scene, I'm not sure.

[1:28:33] But I continued on with my life,

[1:28:36] never knowing what it was I'd just seen.

[1:28:38] Fast forward to just last week,

[1:28:40] as I listened to you all in your harrowing retelling

[1:28:42] of the epic that is Meatballs Part 2,

[1:28:44] I hear of a scene that almost caused a flashback

[1:28:48] as I relived that moment,

[1:28:50] but still managed to safely continue driving.

[1:28:53] Fortunately, I was alone in my car

[1:28:55] because I then proceeded to instinctually yell out,

[1:28:58] Holy shit, that was Meatballs 2!

[1:29:00] Mm-hmm.

[1:29:01] After all these years of never knowing

[1:29:02] what it was my younger self had watched,

[1:29:04] the three of you and Charlene have finally given me closure.

[1:29:06] Thank you.

[1:29:07] And just to tack it on at the end here,

[1:29:09] while I'm not looking for anything as heavy as this,

[1:29:11] have you ever watched an older movie

[1:29:13] to only then realize you'd actually seen it

[1:29:15] partially or in its entirety,

[1:29:17] not realizing what it was until then?

[1:29:19] Keep on flopping, Sean.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:22] Uh-huh.

[1:29:23] I mean, this isn't exactly the same,

[1:29:25] but it's close enough.

[1:29:26] I'm not probably already told the story,

[1:29:28] but who cares?

[1:29:30] I remember sitting in a movie theater

[1:29:32] watching a screening of the movie Sorcerer,

[1:29:35] and about halfway through, I'm like,

[1:29:37] holy shit, this is exactly the same

[1:29:40] as that movie Ellie was talking about,

[1:29:42] Wages of Fear.

[1:29:45] So, I mean, is that kind of similar

[1:29:47] that I remembered somebody describing a different movie?

Dan McCoy

[1:29:49] It's similar.

[1:29:50] The first thing that comes to my mind

[1:29:52] also isn't quite exactly the right thing,

[1:29:54] but when I was a kid,

[1:29:56] I watched Night Flight.

[1:29:58] The program Night Flight showed a compilation

[1:30:01] of atomic era stuff

[1:30:05] and also, like, cartoons and stuff

[1:30:07] that were associated with the bomb.

[1:30:11] And, you know, when I was a kid,

[1:30:14] much like today, there were, like, high tensions,

[1:30:17] high geopolitical tensions,

[1:30:18] and nuclear war was enough on my mind,

[1:30:23] even as a child,

[1:30:24] that it was very frightening to me.

[1:30:26] And there was this one cartoon

[1:30:29] that ended with these two, like,

[1:30:33] punk characters slamming into a semi-truck

[1:30:38] that was carrying nuclear missiles

[1:30:40] and blowing up the world

[1:30:41] and then being sent to hell.

[1:30:43] And this haunted me for years.

[1:30:46] And it's only in the age of the internet

[1:30:48] that I was able to find that it's a cartoon

[1:30:50] called Jack Mack and Rad Boy Go.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:53] Yeah, they used to play that on liquid television sometimes.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:55] Yeah.

[1:30:56] And it freaked me out.

[1:30:57] They're like, go, go, go.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:57] They're like, want to go faster and faster

[1:30:59] and they keep crashing into things.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:01] Yeah.

[1:31:02] It was horrifying as a child,

[1:31:03] but it gave me a little closure to be like,

[1:31:06] oh, that was that weird thing that I saw.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:08] Well, did you ever see the Looney Tunes cartoon

[1:31:10] that's about how the people of the world

[1:31:12] kill themselves with war

[1:31:13] and then the animals of the world find the Bible

[1:31:16] and create a perfect world of peace?

[1:31:18] And it was like,

[1:31:20] I remember seeing that as a kid

[1:31:21] as part of the, like,

[1:31:22] regular Nickelodeon Looney Tunes roundup

[1:31:24] at, like, 7 or 7.30

[1:31:25] and being like, what am I watching?

[1:31:27] This is so grim.

[1:31:28] Like, it's...

[1:31:30] But to say,

[1:31:32] I would say that,

[1:31:32] to answer this question quickly,

[1:31:34] it's less that I see a movie

[1:31:35] and I realize I've seen it before,

[1:31:36] but that there are a couple of movies

[1:31:37] that I've seen a few times

[1:31:39] and I can never remember anything about them.

[1:31:41] And so I end up watching them again

[1:31:42] and they just slide out of my mind super easily.

[1:31:45] So, like, there's a film noir

[1:31:46] called Kansas City Confidential

[1:31:48] and there's a Peter Lorre movie

[1:31:49] called Mask of Dimitrios

[1:31:50] and a Boris Karloff movie

[1:31:52] called Isle of the Dead.

[1:31:53] Each of those movies

[1:31:54] I've seen at least twice

[1:31:55] and I can never remember

[1:31:56] anything about them.

[1:31:57] My mind is just rejecting them somehow

[1:31:59] and I don't know why.

[1:32:00] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:01] All right.

[1:32:02] Well, moving on.

[1:32:02] This next letter

[1:32:04] did not have a name per se.

[1:32:06] They identified themselves

[1:32:07] as Cloud Nine.

[1:32:09] Oh, okay.

[1:32:09] So I guess they're

[1:32:10] that George Harrison album.

[1:32:11] Anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:11] Yeah, it's the staff

[1:32:13] of the fictional store

[1:32:16] in the TV show Superstore.

[1:32:18] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:19] Dear Sweet Summer Peaches.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:21] Or it could be an actual cloud, guys.

[1:32:23] Let's be sensitive here.

[1:32:24] Yeah, no, that's fair.

[1:32:25] The ninth one.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:27] I've been listening to the podcast

[1:32:28] for a few years now

[1:32:29] and the episode I come back to

[1:32:32] the most is definitely

[1:32:34] number 204,

[1:32:36] We Are Your Friends.

[1:32:38] As it never fails

[1:32:39] to help put me to sleep.

[1:32:41] Not because it's super boring

[1:32:42] or anything,

[1:32:43] but rather because

[1:32:43] it's my favorite episode

[1:32:44] and the dialogue

[1:32:45] and familiarity

[1:32:46] always really helps me

[1:32:47] calm down.

[1:32:49] So my question is,

[1:32:50] what do you guys use

[1:32:51] as comfort media?

[1:32:52] Whether it calms you down

[1:32:53] or is even just something

[1:32:54] you feel comfortable

[1:32:55] watching over and over again,

[1:32:56] what movie, TV show, podcast,

[1:32:58] or book do you use

[1:32:59] as your secret weapon

[1:33:00] to battle anxiety,

[1:33:02] stress, or grief?

[1:33:04] Thank you for all the laughs,

[1:33:05] Cloud Nine.

[1:33:05] I think we've answered

[1:33:06] similar things before

[1:33:07] now that I'm reading this thing,

[1:33:10] but it's still

[1:33:11] an interesting enough question.

[1:33:12] I'm sure that we'll give

[1:33:13] different answers

[1:33:14] than what we may have

[1:33:15] thought of before.

[1:33:16] I have talked before

[1:33:17] about how after

[1:33:20] my divorce,

[1:33:22] I listened to a lot

[1:33:23] of My Brother,

[1:33:25] My Brother and Me,

[1:33:25] which cheered me up

[1:33:26] with its fine laughs.

[1:33:28] But also,

[1:33:28] like you,

[1:33:29] I like to go to sleep

[1:33:31] listening to podcasts

[1:33:32] because I find

[1:33:32] people's voices comforting.

[1:33:34] And it's sort of embarrassing

[1:33:35] because Chuck Bryant

[1:33:37] is kind of an acquaintance

[1:33:38] friend of ours,

[1:33:39] but I like to listen

[1:33:41] to stuff you should know

[1:33:42] before going to bed

[1:33:43] because I find their

[1:33:44] voices relaxing.

[1:33:45] And it's interesting enough

[1:33:46] that it focuses my brain

[1:33:47] on something that's not

[1:33:49] like self-recrimination

[1:33:50] or something like that

[1:33:51] right before bed.

[1:33:53] But in terms of like movies,

[1:33:54] like just making me feel better,

[1:33:55] I think that anything,

[1:33:57] because of the nostalgic

[1:33:58] glow of them,

[1:34:00] like anything sort of

[1:34:03] very 80s feeling

[1:34:05] makes me feel good,

[1:34:08] like a John Carpenter movie

[1:34:09] or something along those lines.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:11] It must be tough for you then

[1:34:12] because no popular media

[1:34:14] seems to cater

[1:34:15] to your demographic.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:16] It feels like the 80s

[1:34:18] are really passe right now.

[1:34:19] There's not a lot of 80s stuff.

[1:34:21] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:22] What do you guys got?

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:24] Let's see.

[1:34:25] For music,

[1:34:26] I almost always go to like

[1:34:28] the dumbest caveman death metal

[1:34:30] I can think of.

[1:34:31] Stuff that would like

[1:34:32] normally amp me up,

[1:34:33] but also like,

[1:34:34] I don't know,

[1:34:35] it's just super simple.

[1:34:37] And I don't know,

[1:34:39] for like,

[1:34:40] for movies and TV and stuff,

[1:34:43] I'm such a fan of like

[1:34:45] Miyazaki movies.

[1:34:47] Like I could watch

[1:34:48] Castle of Cagliostro

[1:34:49] every day.

[1:34:50] It's the best.

[1:34:52] And for,

[1:34:53] I don't know,

[1:34:53] like for comics,

[1:34:56] I like to read comics

[1:34:57] to kind of calm me down.

[1:34:59] And for the last couple years,

[1:35:02] Giant Days has been my go-to

[1:35:04] for like a super relaxing,

[1:35:06] non-stressful thing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:08] I have talked in the past

[1:35:09] about how Singing in the Rain

[1:35:10] is a movie that I take

[1:35:11] a lot of comfort in,

[1:35:12] but lately,

[1:35:14] I haven't had the time for that.

[1:35:15] So when I'm feeling anxious

[1:35:17] or unhappy,

[1:35:18] I've been turning to

[1:35:19] the song Venus.

[1:35:21] I think it's called

[1:35:21] Bringer of Peace

[1:35:22] from Holst's The Planets.

[1:35:25] And of all the,

[1:35:27] for years,

[1:35:28] I've been a big fan

[1:35:28] of Holst's The Planets symphonies,

[1:35:30] but there's something

[1:35:30] about the Venus song

[1:35:31] in particular

[1:35:32] that really calms me down.

[1:35:33] It's a very calming sound

[1:35:34] and a very like

[1:35:36] inspiring song to me.

[1:35:39] So,

[1:35:39] and it's eight minutes long,

[1:35:40] so it's like,

[1:35:41] okay,

[1:35:41] I need eight minutes

[1:35:41] to calm down.

[1:35:42] I guess I'll listen to this song.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:45] That's very nice.

[1:35:47] Last letter

[1:35:47] is from Lewis,

[1:35:49] last name withheld.

[1:35:51] Who writes,

[1:35:52] Hey, Peaches,

[1:35:53] in the Meatballs Part 2 reviews,

[1:35:54] we heard from Charlene

[1:35:55] about what Stuart is really like.

[1:35:58] Far from the bad boy

[1:35:59] party animal persona

[1:36:01] that he likes to put on.

[1:36:02] Oh, yeah, that's me.

[1:36:02] We learned that he's actually

[1:36:03] a sweetie pie

[1:36:04] who makes his wife

[1:36:05] breakfast every morning.

[1:36:07] So I'd like to hear

[1:36:08] from the other wives

[1:36:09] and or girlfriends.

[1:36:11] What are you afraid of, Peaches?

[1:36:13] Give your significant others

[1:36:14] the microphones for once

[1:36:15] and let them air their grievances

[1:36:16] on the podcast.

[1:36:18] You have nothing to fear

[1:36:19] if you have nothing to hide.

[1:36:21] Also, really enjoy the show.

[1:36:23] Sincerely, Lewis.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:25] Okay.

[1:36:25] So what's his question?

[1:36:26] Very threatening.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:28] Yeah.

[1:36:28] So I guess get Danielle down, Elliot?

[1:36:30] I don't know.

[1:36:31] I mean, she,

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:32] Danielle is unlike me

[1:36:33] who thrives on

[1:36:35] the attention of strangers.

[1:36:36] My wife does not like

[1:36:38] to be in the spotlight

[1:36:39] and frequently

[1:36:40] rejects my offers

[1:36:43] to like

[1:36:43] be a part of the podcast

[1:36:45] or to do anything.

[1:36:46] She just doesn't like

[1:36:47] to be,

[1:36:48] she doesn't like to

[1:36:49] put herself out there

[1:36:50] like that.

[1:36:51] She's a very private person.

[1:36:52] So I do not think

[1:36:53] it is likely to have happened.

[1:36:54] But that's also exactly

[1:36:55] what I would say

[1:36:56] if I was keeping her

[1:36:58] from being on the podcast.

[1:36:59] That's true.

[1:37:00] I guess you'll never know

[1:37:01] what the truth is.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:02] Yeah, I didn't figure

[1:37:03] we would actually do this,

[1:37:04] but I do think

[1:37:05] it's interesting to be like,

[1:37:06] is there anything,

[1:37:07] I don't know,

[1:37:08] about our real life personality

[1:37:11] that we want to say

[1:37:12] that might be in...

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:14] Are you fishing for us

[1:37:15] to be like,

[1:37:15] Dan, we give you,

[1:37:17] this is all an act

[1:37:19] that we...

Dan McCoy

[1:37:19] Well, no, I mean,

[1:37:20] I will say that you guys

[1:37:21] are a lot...

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:21] We give Dan a lot of shit,

[1:37:22] but actually he's like,

[1:37:23] he's a super great guy

[1:37:24] and he's a good guy.

[1:37:25] He's just a good guy.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:26] That's the thing,

[1:37:27] he's a good guy.

[1:37:28] I'm not fishing for us

[1:37:29] to like talk about

[1:37:29] each other necessarily.

[1:37:30] I was talking about

[1:37:31] ourselves,

[1:37:32] although I will say

[1:37:33] that you guys

[1:37:33] are a lot nicer to me

[1:37:34] off the air

[1:37:36] than you are

[1:37:37] during the podcast.

[1:37:38] Yeah, it's a bit.

[1:37:39] I know.

[1:37:39] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:40] Because we're performers

[1:37:40] and we're like

[1:37:41] super professional,

[1:37:42] butthole.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:43] I don't know what I would

[1:37:45] say about myself

[1:37:46] that someone in a relationship

[1:37:48] might say about me.

[1:37:49] I think I might say

[1:37:50] that I am

[1:37:51] even crankier

[1:37:53] in real life

[1:37:54] than I appear

[1:37:55] on the podcast,

[1:37:56] but I'm warm

[1:37:58] and sweet-natured

[1:37:59] beneath it

[1:38:00] like the old man

[1:38:01] at the end of the street

[1:38:02] who just needs a puppy

[1:38:03] to bring him back

[1:38:04] into society.

[1:38:05] Dan is very much

[1:38:06] the old man

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:07] from Home Alone.

[1:38:07] Not the old man

[1:38:07] from Gran Torino.

[1:38:09] Yeah.

[1:38:09] Oh, yeah.

[1:38:10] The old man

[1:38:11] from Gran Torino

[1:38:12] who just is a warm guy.

[1:38:16] Yeah, Dan,

[1:38:17] you're the old man

[1:38:17] from Home Alone

[1:38:18] where it's like

[1:38:19] people think you're scary

[1:38:20] because you're shoveling

[1:38:20] your walk

[1:38:21] in the middle of the night,

[1:38:22] but actually you're

[1:38:23] a sweet old man

[1:38:24] who just wants a kid

[1:38:25] to show interest in him

[1:38:27] and then you'll help him

[1:38:28] fight burglars

[1:38:29] or whatever.

[1:38:30] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:31] And you're not like

[1:38:33] from Night of the Demons

[1:38:34] who buys a bunch

[1:38:35] of razor blades

[1:38:35] to put in apples

[1:38:36] that he's going to give

[1:38:37] trick-or-beaters.

[1:38:38] No, I'm not.

[1:38:38] And then he accidentally

[1:38:39] is hoisted by his own petard

[1:38:40] and eats homemade apple pie

[1:38:43] that somehow

[1:38:44] the full razor blades,

[1:38:45] it's crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:46] And you're not like

[1:38:48] in Grumpy Old Man,

[1:38:49] I'm talking about

[1:38:49] Burgess Meredith,

[1:38:50] because you're not always

[1:38:51] telling like filthy limericks

[1:38:53] and stuff like that.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:54] Mm-hmm.

[1:38:54] I'm also not like

[1:38:55] the old man in the sea.

[1:38:57] I don't go out

[1:38:58] fishing for giant marlin.

[1:39:00] No, not at all.

[1:39:01] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:02] Well, that's cool.

[1:39:03] Okay, so we've figured out

[1:39:05] what Dan is

[1:39:06] and Dan isn't.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:07] I mean, I guess what

[1:39:08] someone would say about me

[1:39:09] would just be

[1:39:10] that people might not know about

[1:39:12] is probably just about

[1:39:12] how buff I am.

[1:39:15] It's one of those guys

[1:39:16] where once I take off

[1:39:17] my shirt,

[1:39:17] people are like,

[1:39:18] wow, I had no idea

[1:39:19] you were so built.

[1:39:20] You seem like

[1:39:20] such a slight guy,

[1:39:21] but it's just because

[1:39:23] I wear very loose clothes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:26] You wear a lot of caftans

[1:39:28] when you podcast.

[1:39:29] Yeah.

[1:39:31] Little did we know

[1:39:32] that when you take that off,

[1:39:33] though you have

[1:39:34] a very small frame,

[1:39:35] you just got like,

[1:39:36] oh, just slabs of beef

[1:39:37] strapped on there.

[1:39:39] Oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:39] It's proportionally

[1:39:40] very, very buff,

[1:39:41] but on a small frame, yeah.

[1:39:43] Uh-huh.

[1:39:43] Like if a child

[1:39:45] really worked out hard.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:46] It's like the little bulldog

[1:39:48] in the cartoons

[1:39:49] who's always walking around

[1:39:50] with his big old buff arms.

[1:39:51] That's kind of like you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:54] I was going to say,

[1:39:55] it's like the scene

[1:39:55] in Kung Fu Hustle

[1:39:56] where they're looking

[1:39:57] for people to beat up

[1:39:58] in the town

[1:39:58] but everyone's too tough looking

[1:39:59] and they point out the kid

[1:40:01] and the kid walks out

[1:40:01] and he's super buff.

[1:40:03] Yep.

[1:40:04] Oh, what a good movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:09] So I guess those are letters.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:11] You know,

[1:40:11] I kind of opened myself up

[1:40:12] a little more than Elliot did,

[1:40:14] but...

[1:40:14] Oh, that's true.

[1:40:16] But that's also part

[1:40:17] of our personalities.

[1:40:19] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:20] Elliot's a very private person

[1:40:22] who doesn't talk that much.

[1:40:23] So let's...

[1:40:24] I mean, that's the thing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:25] I feel like my personality

[1:40:26] is kind of an open book.

[1:40:27] To a certain extent,

[1:40:28] it's like what you see

[1:40:29] is what you get, so...

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:31] Yeah, it's like a faucet

[1:40:31] that you try and turn off

[1:40:32] but then the knob breaks

[1:40:34] and it just keeps squirting out

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:35] and you're like,

[1:40:36] oh, Home Alone!

[1:40:37] It's like a fire hose

[1:40:38] in a cartoon

[1:40:39] and you lose control of it

[1:40:40] and you're just spraying everybody.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:42] Yeah, he's...

[1:40:42] Elliot's not quite the motor mouth

[1:40:45] that he seems on the podcast.

[1:40:46] He is a little bit,

[1:40:47] but he's a lot more indulgent, too,

[1:40:52] than he seems.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:55] Okay.

[1:40:56] Let's do recommendations.

[1:40:58] Why not?

[1:40:58] Okay, so we'll recommend...

[1:40:59] The next part of the podcast

[1:41:00] is where we recommend movies

[1:41:01] that you might want to watch

[1:41:02] instead of Welcome Marwen.

[1:41:03] Thank you for that.

[1:41:04] Elliot looks very excited

[1:41:05] to go first,

[1:41:06] so why don't we do

[1:41:07] a little bounce pass

[1:41:08] of that ball over to Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:10] Sure, I can go

[1:41:11] if you'd like me to.

[1:41:12] I'm going to recommend a movie

[1:41:13] I really enjoyed a lot,

[1:41:14] which is a Korean movie

[1:41:16] called Burning

[1:41:17] that came out from last year.

[1:41:18] It got a lot of hype

[1:41:19] on people's year best lists,

[1:41:21] but I only got a chance

[1:41:21] to watch it recently.

[1:41:23] It's directed by Lee Chang-dong

[1:41:24] and it's based on

[1:41:25] a Haruki Murakami story

[1:41:27] and it manages to capture

[1:41:28] the sense of long stretches

[1:41:31] of aimless time

[1:41:33] that his stories capture.

[1:41:34] It's a movie about a man who...

[1:41:37] A young man who becomes

[1:41:38] enamored of a friend of his

[1:41:39] and falls in love with her.

[1:41:41] She goes off on a trip

[1:41:42] and comes back with this guy

[1:41:45] where it's not quite clear

[1:41:46] what their relationship is

[1:41:47] and the guy is very rich

[1:41:49] while the other two are not.

[1:41:51] And just kind of...

[1:41:53] He's this strangely condescending...

[1:41:55] There's something sinister

[1:41:56] about him, it seems,

[1:41:57] but you're not sure

[1:41:58] if that's just because

[1:41:59] the main character

[1:42:00] is envious of him.

[1:42:01] And the movie takes some turns

[1:42:03] that I don't want to tell you

[1:42:05] about ahead of time.

[1:42:05] But it's a slow-moving movie,

[1:42:07] but it's really hypnotic

[1:42:08] and surprising.

[1:42:10] And it's one of the few movies

[1:42:11] I've seen recently

[1:42:11] where it was very satisfying

[1:42:14] in the way it forced me

[1:42:15] to dig deeper into it

[1:42:17] and figure out my own understanding

[1:42:19] of what's happening in it.

[1:42:20] It's a very open-ended movie

[1:42:23] in a certain way.

[1:42:23] Like, the plot is not open-ended,

[1:42:25] but the things that are happening

[1:42:26] behind the plot

[1:42:26] and inside the characters,

[1:42:28] you have to figure some of that

[1:42:30] out for yourself

[1:42:30] in a way that sounds...

[1:42:32] That sounds kind of boring

[1:42:33] and irritating,

[1:42:34] but it's not.

[1:42:35] I found it to be

[1:42:35] a really fantastic movie.

[1:42:37] So that's Burning.

Stuart Wellington

[1:42:39] That sounds great.

[1:42:40] I want to check that out.

[1:42:41] I'm going to recommend

[1:42:42] a movie I watched on a plane

[1:42:44] when I was flying back

[1:42:46] from England the other day.

[1:42:47] I watched this movie

[1:42:49] The Headhunter,

[1:42:50] which is like a trim 80 minutes

[1:42:53] or 80, maybe 70 minutes.

[1:42:55] It's a short one.

[1:42:57] And though it is billed

[1:42:59] as having on IMDb,

[1:43:01] it's billed as having

[1:43:02] three people in the cast.

[1:43:03] That is not true.

[1:43:05] There are only two.

[1:43:06] And it is kind of a grim,

[1:43:09] gritty fantasy

[1:43:10] focusing on a guy

[1:43:14] who it seems like

[1:43:15] his only mission in life

[1:43:16] is to heed the call

[1:43:18] of the nearby settlement

[1:43:20] and hunt down

[1:43:22] whatever monsters

[1:43:23] seem to be bedeviling them

[1:43:25] and then chopping their heads off

[1:43:27] and mounting them

[1:43:27] in his home.

[1:43:28] And the one monster

[1:43:29] that has eluded him

[1:43:31] is the one that took

[1:43:32] his daughter away from him.

[1:43:35] And it's like,

[1:43:37] it's this great little fun movie

[1:43:39] that takes advantage of

[1:43:41] its relatively spare budget.

[1:43:44] A lot of the action is implied.

[1:43:46] It's, yeah,

[1:43:49] it's a cool little movie.

[1:43:51] It feels like,

[1:43:51] almost like something

[1:43:53] that would normally be

[1:43:54] fit into like a short

[1:43:56] but kind of extended.

[1:43:58] It's cool.

[1:43:59] It's fun.

[1:43:59] The Headhunter.

[1:44:00] Check it out.

Dan McCoy

[1:44:02] I have been on,

[1:44:04] you know,

[1:44:04] The Daily Show takes a couple

[1:44:05] breaks during the summer.

[1:44:07] I've been on one of those.

[1:44:08] So I've seen a lot more

[1:44:11] movies in the theater,

[1:44:13] taken more chances

[1:44:14] on different movies.

[1:44:16] I went out and I saw

[1:44:17] Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,

[1:44:19] which I thought was a lot of fun.

[1:44:21] A lot of people have said

[1:44:23] it's kind of a throwback

[1:44:24] to kind of Amblin-style

[1:44:27] kid horror.

[1:44:28] Like a kids on bikes thing?

[1:44:30] Yeah.

[1:44:31] And, you know,

[1:44:32] again, like I said,

[1:44:33] I have a lot of nostalgia

[1:44:33] for that.

[1:44:34] But I also,

[1:44:36] it's a PG-13 horror movie

[1:44:38] that doesn't try to be,

[1:44:41] like,

[1:44:41] try to pretend like it's the same

[1:44:43] as an R-rated horror movie.

[1:44:44] You know,

[1:44:44] it's not taking itself seriously.

[1:44:47] It's having a lot more fun

[1:44:48] with, like,

[1:44:49] the scares

[1:44:51] and the grossness

[1:44:52] and just the adventure

[1:44:54] side of things.

[1:44:55] And I appreciate that.

[1:44:56] Like,

[1:44:56] I like a fun horror movie

[1:44:57] more than I like

[1:44:59] kind of, like,

[1:45:00] a nihilistic one

[1:45:01] most of the time.

[1:45:02] And so I enjoyed it

[1:45:04] on that level.

[1:45:04] And also,

[1:45:06] you know,

[1:45:06] it's based on the

[1:45:07] popular series

[1:45:09] of kids'

[1:45:10] books

[1:45:12] that I remember

[1:45:13] from my youth.

[1:45:14] A lot of compilations

[1:45:15] of folktales,

[1:45:16] a lot of compilations

[1:45:16] of urban legends

[1:45:17] all crammed together.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:20] And wrapped in a package

[1:45:21] of the creepiest art imaginable.

[1:45:23] Yeah,

Dan McCoy

[1:45:23] the art by Stephen Gamal.

[1:45:25] And I will say

[1:45:26] that this is one

[1:45:27] of the movies that,

[1:45:29] for a movie that could

[1:45:30] easily have been,

[1:45:31] like,

[1:45:31] we are just buying

[1:45:32] this property

[1:45:33] to have the name recognition,

[1:45:34] it had a lot of...

[1:45:36] Yeah,

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:36] you were making that

[1:45:36] complaint about

[1:45:37] the Goosebumps movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:38] Shut up.

[1:45:39] I'm just saying,

[1:45:40] it had a lot of...

[1:45:42] It had a lot of respect

[1:45:45] for the source material.

[1:45:47] There's a framing device

[1:45:48] involving a book

[1:45:49] that, like,

[1:45:50] normally is the sort of thing

[1:45:50] that would kind of

[1:45:52] irritate me,

[1:45:53] but it felt like reverence

[1:45:54] for where it came from.

[1:45:57] And also,

[1:45:57] the creature effects

[1:45:59] were done

[1:46:00] to make them look

[1:46:01] as much like

[1:46:02] the illustrations

[1:46:03] as possible,

[1:46:04] which was kind of neat.

[1:46:06] So I had a lot of fun.

[1:46:07] I'm not gonna...

[1:46:08] It's not quite as funny

[1:46:11] or scary

[1:46:12] as I would ideally like,

[1:46:13] but it's very enjoyable

[1:46:14] in that vein.

[1:46:17] So that's my recommendation.

[1:46:18] Scary stories

[1:46:19] to tell in the dark.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:20] The movie.

[1:46:22] Do they do the story

[1:46:22] about the...

[1:46:23] Or the books.

[1:46:23] Do they do the story

[1:46:24] about the family

[1:46:25] that brings a dog

[1:46:26] back from Mexico

[1:46:27] and it turns out

[1:46:28] to be a rat?

[1:46:29] Yeah.

[1:46:30] A Mexican sewer rat!

[1:46:32] Because that's the one

[1:46:33] that always stuck with me

[1:46:35] from those books,

[1:46:35] partly because it was like,

[1:46:36] why would you...

[1:46:38] Like,

[1:46:38] the picture was so horrifying.

[1:46:40] Why would they ever

[1:46:41] take this dog?

[1:46:42] It looks horrible.

Dan McCoy

[1:46:45] Yeah,

[1:46:45] they're soft-hearted.

[1:46:46] They wanna...

[1:46:47] You know,

[1:46:47] why should only

[1:46:48] the attractive dogs

[1:46:49] be adopted?

[1:46:50] Yeah,

[1:46:51] all dogs go to heaven.

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:52] How does the story end?

[1:46:54] Is the rat okay?

Dan McCoy

[1:46:55] It just ends with the shock.

[1:46:56] It just ends with the reveal.

[1:46:58] It's a Mexican sewer rat

[1:46:59] and it has rabies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:00] Oh,

[1:47:01] that's not cool.

[1:47:01] Yeah,

Dan McCoy

[1:47:02] and they kept it in like...

[1:47:03] It was in like the babies.

[1:47:05] Like,

[1:47:05] they kept it with the baby.

[1:47:07] It's disturbing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:09] Okay.

[1:47:09] Well,

[1:47:10] I guess that's a sad story then.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:12] Yeah.

[1:47:12] I mean,

[1:47:12] no,

[1:47:13] it's literally a scary story

[1:47:14] to tell in the dark.

[1:47:15] Yeah.

[1:47:15] Here's the question.

[1:47:16] I mean,

[1:47:16] if it's so dark,

[1:47:17] how can you read?

[1:47:18] That's just what I was gonna ask.

[1:47:19] That's a good question.

[1:47:21] The book does not answer it.

[1:47:23] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[1:47:24] What was the dark ink?

[1:47:25] That's what the next edition needs.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:27] Mm-hmm.

[1:47:27] My Amazon review said,

[1:47:28] one star,

[1:47:29] too many unanswered questions.

[1:47:30] If I'm in the dark,

[1:47:31] how can I read it?

[1:47:32] This book doesn't work.

Dan McCoy

[1:47:35] Okay, guys.

[1:47:36] Well,

[1:47:36] I think we did it.

[1:47:38] What?

[1:47:38] I don't know.

[1:47:39] But go to the BackspinFun.org,

[1:47:41] check out all the other great podcasts there.

[1:47:44] It's our network.

[1:47:44] They do a lot for us.

[1:47:45] We love them.

[1:47:46] Like and subscribe, baby.

[1:47:48] Yeah.

[1:47:48] Subscribe on iTunes.

[1:47:49] Rate us on iTunes.

[1:47:50] You know,

[1:47:51] don't do it if you've got mean things to say.

[1:47:52] Why?

[1:47:53] Life is short.

[1:47:54] Why bother?

[1:47:56] But if you do have something nice to say,

[1:47:58] review us,

[1:47:59] tweet about us,

[1:48:00] all that stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:01] Tell people about us.

[1:48:02] Help us spread the word

[1:48:03] of this show that we're doing.

[1:48:04] And maybe this wasn't the most

[1:48:07] laugh out loud episode,

[1:48:09] but I'll tell you what.

Dan McCoy

[1:48:10] Yeah,

[1:48:10] we lived,

[1:48:10] we loved,

[1:48:11] we learned.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:12] Yeah,

[1:48:12] exactly.

[1:48:13] We do what we can with the things that we have.

[1:48:16] And isn't that what life is all about?

[1:48:17] Doing what you can with the things that you have.

[1:48:19] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[1:48:20] Yeah.

[1:48:21] Well,

[1:48:21] okay,

[1:48:22] cool.

[1:48:22] I guess we're gonna keep

[1:48:24] wrapping this fucking train up.

[1:48:27] Wait,

[1:48:27] we're wrapping a train up?

[1:48:29] Yeah.

[1:48:29] Are we Christo?

[1:48:30] What's going on?

[1:48:31] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:32] Dan,

[1:48:32] I hate to break it to you.

[1:48:33] We're Christo now.

[1:48:34] No,

[1:48:34] no,

[1:48:34] no.

[1:48:35] Oh,

[1:48:35] man.

[1:48:35] Killed all those people with those umbrellas.

[1:48:37] So much work.

[1:48:38] Killed all those people with those umbrellas.

[1:48:40] Like he killed 45 people with them or something.

[1:48:43] Hey,

[1:48:43] one person killed by umbrellas,

Dan McCoy

[1:48:45] too many people killed by an umbrella.

[1:48:47] Wow,

[1:48:47] big Stan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:47] The Penguin would say it's not enough.

[1:48:49] That's what Oswald Cobblewatt would say.

[1:48:52] Well,

Dan McCoy

[1:48:52] on that note,

[1:48:54] let's end.

[1:48:56] For the Flop House,

[1:48:57] I've been Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:48:58] Hey,

[1:48:59] I'm Stuart Wellington,

Elliott Kalan

[1:49:00] and not Christo.

[1:49:02] And I'm Elliot Kalin,

[1:49:03] also not Christo,

[1:49:04] which means by process of elimination,

[1:49:06] Dan is Christo.

[1:49:07] Aw.

[1:49:09] Bye.

[1:49:10] Bye.

Dan McCoy

[1:49:19] Let's do one more,

[1:49:20] just in case.

[1:49:21] Oh,

[1:49:21] a joke one.

[1:49:22] Okay.

[1:49:22] No,

[1:49:23] no,

[1:49:23] no.

[1:49:23] Because you're afraid of getting real.

Stuart Wellington

[1:49:24] I got a serious one.

[1:49:26] I like that one.

[1:49:27] I just.

[1:49:27] I got a serious one,

[1:49:28] I like.

[1:49:29] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:49:30] On this episode we discuss,

[1:49:32] welcome to Marwen.

[1:49:35] Fart.

Elliott Kalan

[1:49:40] Maximumfun.org.

[1:49:41] Comedy and culture.

Dan McCoy

[1:49:43] Artist owned.

[1:49:44] Audience supported.

Ep. #292 - Welcome to Marwen

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