Ep. #287 - Glass

[0:00] On this episode we discuss Glass. The Philip Glass story. Starring Hayden Christensen.

[0:06] It's hot in here, huh? Because he was in Shattered Glass. Not particularly. Okay.

[0:30] hey everyone welcome to the flop house i'm dan mccoy oh hey dan mccoy i'm stewart wellingtown

[0:43] beep boop elliot kalin here i'm a robot jk jk april fools everybody i'm not a robot i'm a flesh and

[0:49] blood meat puppet human just like you now elliot there's something different about you you seem

[0:53] much uh larger and not in a box yeah if it's frightening you that i am three-dimensional

[0:58] and can touch you, as I'm doing right now.

[1:01] It's only frightening in the sense that, you know, it makes me feel feelings.

[1:04] Okay, removing my hand again.

[1:05] We're in one place.

[1:07] We're recording this in a hotel room in Portland, Oregon, not Portland, Washington,

[1:11] as some people who saw the website might have thought,

[1:14] because the wrong city was listed for our live show.

[1:16] But anyway, we're in Portland, Oregon.

[1:18] Tonight we'll be doing a live show, but before then,

[1:19] we're recording all three of us in one room together.

[1:22] And guys, it feels good to be with you again.

[1:24] Oh, wow, that's nice.

[1:26] Now, we are in a boutique hotel room.

[1:28] It generally is based on the difficulty of understanding the toilet fixtures

[1:36] Or how to use the phone

[1:37] In Dan's room, the phone is not so much a phone as it is a speaker box you're supposed to talk into

[1:41] Twice already, it's like an iPad basically

[1:46] And twice already, the phone has rung

[1:49] It's the front desk

[1:50] I push the button

[1:51] They say, hello, hello

[1:53] And I go, hello, hello

[1:55] And they go, hello, hello

[1:56] and then the phone call ends dan's classic hotel phone bit your regular bob newhart shelly berman

[2:03] what i like about that bit is everyone can relate oh yeah everyone can relate it's a universal

[2:10] problem staying at an expensive boutique hotel in portland and you can't get this futuristic

[2:15] handsetless phone to work we've all been there yep it's uh yeah it's the three seashells from

[2:21] demolition man so i have guys i have written on our door in chalk because we don't have signs in

[2:29] this hotel we have chalkboard painted doors i wrote do not disturb so hopefully we can continue

[2:35] this podcast uh undisturbed is that what you're looking for i almost said something that felt

[2:42] weird to say what's the opposite of just like turbed yeah hopefully we'll be turbed and not

[2:47] Yeah, that's how I refer to the band Disturbed to my friends

[2:50] when I want to seem cool.

[2:51] Yeah, you get that new turbed disc.

[2:54] Disc.

[2:55] So, Dan, what do we do on this podcast

[3:00] other than complain about your boutique hotel accoutrement?

[3:03] Well, right now I'm watching my wife try to open the door

[3:07] as quietly as possible and sneak out like a little mouse.

[3:10] Okay, well.

[3:14] That probably didn't get picked up on mic,

[3:16] But she said, have fun, and boy, howdy, we will.

[3:19] Oh, boy.

[3:19] Because we're just talking about glass.

[3:20] Yeah, Dan, what are we doing on this podcast, as I was saying?

[3:22] Oh, okay, this is a movie.

[3:23] A movie?

[3:24] This is not a movie.

[3:24] This is real life.

[3:25] Okay, start again.

[3:26] Okay, and Clapper, take two.

[3:27] Sure.

[3:28] This is a podcast?

[3:29] Yeah, use a clicker into the microphone.

[3:30] I mean, Dan, in a way, life's like a movie.

[3:32] You write your own ending.

[3:33] Keep believing.

[3:34] Keep on dreaming.

[3:35] Pretending.

[3:36] Pretending.

[3:36] We just did what we set out to do.

[3:38] Record a podcast.

[3:39] Good night, everybody.

[3:40] Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-dee.

[3:42] And Rainbow comes in through the broken ceiling.

[3:46] Well, that happens before the song starts.

[3:48] And we see that there's not just the three Flophouse boys,

[3:52] but a whole cavalcade of Flophouses.

[3:54] All of our characters are there.

[3:56] Craw Daddy, Noir Baby, Old Craw, Tin Tin Lady.

[4:00] House Cat.

[4:02] House Cat, of course, yeah, the House Cat.

[4:04] Seven Pounds, Rocket Crocodile.

[4:07] Oh, they're all there.

[4:08] Inga Scrimm, Nicolas Cage.

[4:11] Yeah, everybody's there, sure.

[4:13] I'm trying to remember Fisher Stevens' name,

[4:15] and I couldn't remember it.

[4:16] Fisher Stevens.

[4:17] Muppet movie.

[4:17] Back in theaters for its 40th anniversary this summer.

[4:21] Oh, is it?

[4:21] For a couple days.

[4:22] It's one of those special events.

[4:24] I do want to see it.

[4:25] Do you like that movie?

[4:27] The Muppet movie?

[4:28] Yeah, it's not in character for me,

[4:30] but I do love it and cry at the end every time I see it.

[4:33] Yeah.

[4:34] So what do we do on this podcast, Dan?

[4:36] Sorry, we watch a bad movie, and then we talk about it.

[4:39] Did we watch a bad movie today, guys?

[4:41] We'll find out.

[4:42] We didn't watch it today.

[4:43] I lived a little bit of the Dan McCoy lifestyle and watched it on a plane.

[4:46] You know what?

[4:47] I got a taste of that piece as well.

[4:49] Wrap my lips around a little bit of glass in the sky.

[4:51] Don't ever wrap your lips around glass.

[4:53] In some ways, it's worse if it's a little bit.

[4:56] On the ground, in the sky, don't do it.

[4:58] In the water.

[4:59] Sound Guy's class is...

[5:01] Which, by the way, this was in keeping with how I watched the previous installment in this trilogy,

[5:07] which I'm sure you're going to explain.

[5:08] I watched the movie Split while on a New Jersey transit train.

[5:12] I mean, that's a pretty good place to watch it, I think.

[5:14] It gets across the griminess of the basement life of Split.

[5:17] Now, this is, of course, the third in an unexpected trilogy from M. Night Shyamalan.

[5:22] We all remember, so when Split came out,

[5:25] the story of James McAvoy as a guy with dissociative identity disorder.

[5:28] The guy who really loves to overact.

[5:31] Yeah, who loves to, and okay, well, we'll get to that.

[5:33] So James McAvoy is a guy with lots of personalities, and he kidnaps some girls.

[5:37] And at the very end, it's revealed this wasn't a standalone movie.

[5:42] It's a sequel to Unbreakable, like 12 years after the original movie.

[5:45] You should have known by the fact that it was set in Philadelphia.

[5:48] Whoa, so wait, are those all sequels to Rocky?

[5:51] Yes, and Signs.

[5:54] Some water-fearing aliens are going to show up.

[5:57] Oh, no.

[5:57] I mean, that would be bad for David Dunn of Unbreakable because he's also afraid of water.

[6:01] Maybe he is an alien.

[6:04] Oh, if only.

[6:04] We'll get to it.

[6:05] My stepmother is an alien.

[6:06] Oh, no kidding.

[6:07] Is that why she wore that backless wedding dress?

[6:10] Yeah.

[6:11] And while we're at it, the computer wore tennis shoes as well.

[6:16] Wait, did your mom and dad save the world, though?

[6:18] Yeah.

[6:19] Okay, that's pretty good.

[6:20] Okay, I'm glad.

[6:21] I guess I'll stay tuned to the rest of this story.

[6:23] Oh, boy.

[6:24] That was pretty good.

[6:26] What a run of movies that are not really worth watching.

[6:28] You can watch the Chuck Jones section of Stay Tuned.

[6:33] Yeah, no, I mean, of all those, Stay Tuned is the one to rush out and see.

[6:36] Yeah, but avoid the Jeffrey Jones section.

[6:39] I mean, much of the movie is the villain of the film.

[6:42] So Split came out, and it was like, oh, this was a sequel to Unbreakable, and so it all comes together in glass.

[6:48] When we finally see all the characters in the MCU, that's right, the M. Night Shyamalan cinematic universe.

[6:53] Yeah, that's how it's known.

[6:54] Come together in one movie.

[6:56] And so Split, you know, I at the time, I heard a lot of people saying, oh, it's better than you think.

[7:00] And I thought it was fine.

[7:02] Yeah, that was my thing, too.

[7:03] It felt like James McAvoy's SNL audition tape had run amok and kidnapped some women.

[7:08] And I like James McAvoy a lot.

[7:12] I think he's very good in a lot of things.

[7:13] No, I would say that, well, I'll leave my final judgment for the final judgment.

[7:18] But Unbreakable was a movie that, at the time at least, I haven't seen it in a long time.

[7:22] At the time, I enjoyed it quite a bit, actually.

[7:24] See, I didn't like it at the time, and I think I might like it more now.

[7:27] Yeah, and Split, I was like, split on, let's say.

[7:31] Wow.

[7:32] And Glass, you are Glass half.

[7:35] His love of Unbreakable was unbreakable.

[7:38] But on Split, he was Split.

[7:40] And Glass, yes.

[7:42] So let's talk about what happens in this movie, okay?

[7:46] And I'll try to.

[7:47] What's weird about this movie, it is over two hours long,

[7:49] and there's not that much that happens in it.

[7:51] Okay, good.

[7:52] Because we've got a full day.

[7:53] We've got a live show later, guys.

[7:54] Yeah, I'm going to try to summarize it.

[7:55] So Split, he's out and about kidnapping women.

[7:58] Like, he's his raison d'etre.

[7:59] And although that's a very feasible name for him to have, he instead is referred to as the Horde, which is a crazy—well, I would say that's a strange name for the media to give him.

[8:10] Yes, so he's become famous now.

[8:12] He's called the Horde because there's a horde of personalities in there.

[8:14] For those who didn't see Split, James McAvoy's character, he was abused as a child and now has disassociative identity disorder.

[8:22] All those identities, when they take over his body, they refer to it as coming into the light.

[8:26] And many of them worship a final personality known as the Beast.

[8:30] And when he is the Beast, he has super strength and can climb up walls and walk on ceilings.

[8:35] And he's got, like, a super, like, cool, deep voice and speaks in, like, weird stuff.

[8:39] His Beast voice is terrible.

[8:41] What are you talking about?

[8:43] It's great.

[8:43] It is exactly wrong.

[8:45] His doctor in Split, like, explained it.

[8:47] Like, she theorized.

[8:48] She had a theory that people with this dissociative personality disorder.

[8:53] Let's call it DID because it's hard to say dissociative.

[8:55] Yeah.

[8:56] They could, one of their personalities could, basically the act of their brain being taken over by this different personality could cause physical changes in them as well.

[9:05] And the Beast is the proof of that.

[9:08] He becomes bulletproof and he jumps around on walls.

[9:12] And his vocal cords turn to that of Peter Steele from Typo Negative.

[9:15] Yeah, exactly.

[9:16] And so the Horde, I'm going to keep calling him Split though because the Horde is a weird name and they should have called that movie Horde instead of Split.

[9:23] They should have made a movie called Split about bullying.

[9:27] Yeah, I mean, that's what Kingpin should have been called.

[9:29] Yeah, I mean, it would represent the rift that opens up between Randy Quaid's character and Woody Harrelson's character because they do split for a little while before coming back together.

[9:38] Or the split between Woody Harrelson's character and Bill Murray's character because they're together in the very beginning and he betrays him.

[9:44] It's like cycles of generational violence that we were talking about from the Grendel Tales comic book.

[9:49] Or the split between me and the movie when it makes that old, I milked a cow.

[9:54] That cow was a bull joke.

[9:56] Or the split between me and the movie as a 14-year-old when I was like, there's not that much Vanessa Angel in this movie.

[10:00] Hold on.

[10:01] Anyway, so I had a big crush on Vanessa Angel when I was a teenager.

[10:06] And I had a big crush on Bill Murray in that movie because he had a really crazy haircut.

[10:10] Anyway, so Horde is out kidnapping girls.

[10:15] Meanwhile, Unbreakable, or David Dunn as he's known, or the Overseer as the media calls him.

[10:20] The media in these movies do not know how to name superheroes and supervillains.

[10:24] It's like the same media from, what was that, The Cape?

[10:27] Where the bad guy's name was Chess?

[10:30] I shall be a king of chess.

[10:34] A chess king.

[10:35] Actually, it's not a great villain name.

[10:37] There's already a store.

[10:38] I'll just be Chess then.

[10:39] Okay, after my favorite not-Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

[10:43] Not making that mistake again, guys.

[10:45] I was called out on it.

[10:46] I was wrong about that.

[10:47] So David Dunn, when teens beat up a bystander for their video camera, he tracks them down and beats them up.

[10:54] That's the kind of vigilante he is.

[10:55] He always does it in his trademark green poncho.

[10:58] And his son, Joseph, is now grown, his son from the first movie, played by the same actor, which is great.

[11:06] And his son helps him kind of like patrol because they're looking for the horde.

[11:11] he's uh the guy in the chair as spider-man homecoming says yeah uh wait what you know

[11:17] like how ned is like there's always a guy in the chair who helps the superhero or the hero

[11:22] and things like he's the guy like a microchip or uh yeah yeah or the one spider-man has you know

[11:27] before microchip betrays him yeah sorry to spoil a pun from the comic books from how many 20 years

[11:34] ago yeah i mean i don't know somebody maybe you've just gotten the marvel unlimited app and started

[11:38] to go back i'm gonna start from the beginning they're like who's his punisher character they're

[11:42] like mike baron make me laugh and like this stuff's not as funny as some of his other stuff

[11:47] but so anyway unbreakable make a long story short unbreakable is going out on patrol or a long story

[11:54] stewart the long story to tell a long story to stewart unbreakable goes out on patrol m night

[11:58] shamalan gets his cameo as a guy buying security technology from their security store that he runs

[12:03] with his son who by the way he's playing the same character as he did at unbreakable oh you're right

[12:08] because he's like a punk kid

[12:09] in Unbreakable, right?

[12:10] Yeah, he's like a goon with like,

[12:12] not a goon,

[12:12] but he like sells drugs

[12:14] or something at the...

[12:15] And in this scene he's like,

[12:16] yeah, I used to be,

[12:16] I used to run with a bad crowd,

[12:18] but now I'm doing good.

[12:19] I'm glad that that plot hole

[12:21] has been tied up for me.

[12:22] I'm like,

[12:23] whatever happened to that guy?

[12:24] Unbreakable is walking around

[12:26] the factory district

[12:27] where Joseph has a hunch,

[12:28] Horde lives,

[12:29] and he bumps into Horde

[12:31] on the street

[12:31] and his power

[12:32] that I had forgotten about,

[12:33] I knew he was super strong

[12:34] and super tough,

[12:35] Unbreakable, if you will.

[12:36] I had forgotten that

[12:37] if he touches someone,

[12:38] He gets a flash dead zone vision of something about them.

[12:41] So he bumps into him and gets a vision of this guy talking to the cheerleaders.

[12:44] He then proceeds to watch Horde walk away down the street while he talks to his son about, hmm, I saw a red clay floor.

[12:52] Look up factories with a red clay floor.

[12:54] And I'm like, the dude's right there.

[12:56] Like, just go get him.

[12:57] Right there.

[12:58] He watches him walk down the block and disappear.

[13:00] Yeah, and, like, jump kick a wall.

[13:02] Yeah, because his child personality.

[13:04] And at that point, I'd be like, that jump kick was not that badass.

[13:07] Take him down.

[13:08] Well, it's his child personality whose name is – there's, like, Kevin is the original personality.

[13:12] Patricia is the kind of priestess of the beast that's in there, and she's very prim and proper.

[13:17] And then there's the kid personality who's nine years old eternally whose name is –

[13:23] This is going to haunt me for the rest of my days.

[13:25] If somebody write in and tell us, it's, like, Theodosius or something like that.

[13:28] Or Heathcliff or something.

[13:30] I don't know.

[13:30] It's some name that, like, a Park Slope parent gave to their kid.

[13:34] It's an old-fashioned name they love, you know.

[13:37] We're going to get some sternly worded emails to you saying they named their child that and that it's a totally reasonable name.

[13:43] My son's name is Heathcliff Theodosius, and it's a perfectly fine name.

[13:46] I named him after my favorite cartoon cat, Heathcliff, and my favorite Thornton Wilder novel, Theodosius North.

[13:51] Oh, no, that's Theophilus North.

[13:53] Never mind.

[13:53] Forget it.

[13:53] Forget that reference.

[13:54] So anyway, long story short, again, Unbreakable goes and frees the cheerleaders.

[14:00] The beast shows up and they fight.

[14:01] They're throwing tables around.

[14:02] The fight takes them outside in the rain.

[14:04] No, Water Weekend's Unbreakable.

[14:06] Yeah, that's his weakness.

[14:07] And then some bright lights show, strobe lights, they defuse the beast.

[14:11] They, like, stun him a little bit.

[14:12] There's all these cops around, and this lady scientist, Sarah Paulson, Dr. Ellie Staple,

[14:17] says, you're all coming with me to Ravenhill Memorial Psychiatric Hospital.

[14:21] Which is the first place in the movie where I was like, wait, what?

[14:25] Like, that's not how the criminal justice system works.

[14:28] Like, she has, like, these cops arrest him and be like, you're all coming to the psych ward with me?

[14:34] It's like, no, I think they have to be arrested.

[14:36] and then evaluated, and then maybe sentenced.

[14:40] As the Transformers might say, there's more than meets the eye.

[14:42] There's a reason, ultimately, to why this is happening,

[14:45] but at the time it's just like, wait a minute, why are they?

[14:48] Maybe it's playing on the idea that every time the police arrest

[14:52] one of Batman's many rogues, they're always like,

[14:55] back to Arkham Asylum with you.

[14:57] Yeah, but they escape from Arkham.

[14:59] That's true.

[15:00] They've already been sentenced there.

[15:01] I was just confused by the name Ravenhill Memorial Hospital,

[15:03] because it's like, who's it in memoriam of?

[15:06] Like, what is the memorial part of it?

[15:07] And the Ravens are a Baltimore sports team.

[15:10] Oh, classic sports reference from Stewart.

[15:13] Sporty Stu, we call him.

[15:14] I just like football, man.

[15:16] As we all know, if we were the Spice Girls, you'd be Sporty Spice, I'd be Nerdy Spice, and Dan would be Sad Spice.

[15:21] You know, Sporty Spice.

[15:22] Or just Old Spice.

[15:23] You could be Old Spice.

[15:23] I feel like Sporty Spice is often underestimated amongst the Spice Girls, because one, she's got a really cool fake tooth, and she's got an amazing voice.

[15:31] She's great.

[15:32] I thought you meant like underestimate because like if you got into a fight with her, obviously Sporty would be able to kick your ass.

[15:37] Everyone's scared of Scary Spice, but we don't know that she's that in shape.

[15:39] But Sporty Spice, she's wearing exercise pants.

[15:42] She's either a mob wife or she's really into athletics.

[15:46] Anyhoo.

[15:47] So Dr. Staple, she knows all their weaknesses and she's equipped cells to control them.

[15:52] Unbreakable Cell has hose sprinklers on it that get him wet if he's going to cause trouble.

[15:56] And there's this big bank of lights in Split Cell.

[15:58] And whenever they go off, he changes personality.

[16:01] When she says weaknesses, she means perceived weaknesses because she makes it very clear that she believes that they only believe that they are superpowered.

[16:09] She says that she studies a delusion that people think that they are superheroes, and she has three days to treat them and convince them they are not actually superpowered individuals.

[16:18] They are just sick individuals.

[16:19] Which is another ticking clock, guys.

[16:21] Sick is a judgmental and pejorative term.

[16:24] I would say she believes that they are under a delusion, as I was saying.

[16:27] Yes, but this is the second thing where I'm like, wait, what?

[16:30] What judge is like, you've got three days.

[16:33] You've got just three days.

[16:34] To fix these people's brains.

[16:37] Like, well, you believe that they are under the spell of a very deeply ingrained delusion.

[16:41] And this man does have multiple personalities.

[16:44] We've seen that.

[16:45] Three days should do it.

[16:46] I think three days of therapy should do it.

[16:48] And she also wastes those three days pretty badly.

[16:51] She gives them, like, one group therapy session through the whole time.

[16:54] I'm like, you should be spending way more time with them.

[16:56] Yeah, she's just goofing around.

[16:57] I don't mean to jump ahead.

[16:59] But I just want to make sure that people know that this whole time we start hearing reports of the biggest city or the biggest building in Philadelphia is being built.

[17:10] And the opening is coming up soon.

[17:12] Yeah, people can't stop talking about it.

[17:14] That's all that's on the news.

[17:15] The biggest building in Philadelphia, the City of Towers.

[17:20] And I'm like, I can't wait for this giant building in Philadelphia to figure into the plot.

[17:25] I bet that's going to be really important later on.

[17:28] Also, I always thought that there was a law that you couldn't build higher than a certain height in Philadelphia.

[17:32] I could be wrong about that.

[17:34] Well, that law was rescinded for Godot Towers.

[17:38] Godot Towers.

[17:40] A very apt name, as we'll find out later.

[17:42] It's actually, it's like the, it's a Japanese name because I think they're trying to make it kind of a reference off of, what are the towers in Die Hard?

[17:50] The Nakatomi Towers.

[17:51] Nakatomi.

[17:51] It's like Fujiwara Towers.

[17:52] It's not like that.

[17:53] Anyway, they're not the only guests of Ravenhill.

[17:56] Who's been there for years?

[17:58] That's right.

[17:58] Oh, who do you think?

[18:00] Who do you think?

[18:00] The Riddler.

[18:02] No.

[18:02] Clock King.

[18:03] No, think again.

[18:04] The Calendar Man.

[18:05] They're all in Arkham.

[18:05] Zaz.

[18:06] No, Zaz is in Arkham, too.

[18:07] Killer Croc.

[18:08] The Gator One, yeah.

[18:09] Okay, the Killer...

[18:10] It literally has Croc in his name, but you remember Zaz, but not Killer Croc?

[18:14] No, I mean, I'm sure that's how he's greeted on the street by people.

[18:17] Oh, you're the Gator One.

[18:18] You're the Gator One, right?

[18:19] I saw you on TV.

[18:20] Well, technically, I'm a crocodile man.

[18:22] Yeah, get a picture.

[18:23] Can I get your autograph?

[18:24] The difference is that my teeth...

[18:25] He was a famous wrestler.

[18:27] Why did you go outside my mouth?

[18:28] He's like, I have a slightly less narrower snout.

[18:31] I'm not native to North America.

[18:33] I can be all over the world.

[18:35] Alligators are only found in North America.

[18:36] Yeah, yeah, Gator Boy.

[18:38] No, again, Gator Boy is someone else.

[18:41] Maybe a rapper, I don't know.

[18:42] Gator Boy was my father.

[18:44] That's you.

[18:44] That's you, Gatorade.

[18:45] No, that's an energy drink.

[18:47] It's full of electrolytes.

[18:48] I see how you made the mistake.

[18:49] I'm not actually a solid.

[18:51] I'm a man walking around.

[18:52] I mean, not all of them solid.

[18:54] He's got some juice in there.

[18:55] Just because I look like a gator.

[18:56] I apologize.

[18:57] I'm a crocodile.

[18:58] Yeah, Leatherhead.

[18:59] That's a Ninja Turtles villain.

[19:00] He's a Cajun gator.

[19:02] So anyway, no.

[19:05] The third guest is, bum-ba-bum, Mr. Glass.

[19:09] What?

[19:09] Samuel L. Jackson's character from Unbreakable.

[19:11] The title of the movie?

[19:12] Mm-hmm.

[19:13] Who would have guessed that Mr. Glass, whose name is in the title, would also appear here?

[19:18] He is catatonic.

[19:20] He just sits in a wheelchair with his eye twitching, and people make fun of him and taunt him in the,

[19:24] Okay, there's two attendants at this mental hospital, and they seem to work 12-hour shifts.

[19:29] They're the only guys on staff, aside from a handful of guards.

[19:32] Yep, keeping payroll down.

[19:34] And this is one of those times when you're like, oh, this is a lower-budgeted movie than I would be led to believe,

[19:38] considering Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson are in it.

[19:40] And James McAvoy, too.

[19:42] And James McAvoy.

[19:43] Later we'll find out it's a much lower-budget movie than we think it is.

[19:46] But Mr. Glass's mom shows up.

[19:48] She talks to him about how he's evil, but he needs to stay proud.

[19:51] But he's so out of it, he doesn't even know.

[19:53] And Unbreakable Son Joseph comes by.

[19:55] He says, my dad's just pranking.

[19:57] Look, he doesn't really think he's a superhero.

[19:59] He's just pranking.

[19:59] He, like, that was, that tactic is, like, that is on par with, like, D&D groups, attempts at subterfuge that I've seen.

[20:09] Where people just, like, come up with the craziest plan and then immediately give up with the plan.

[20:13] Like, when my dad was fighting the beast, he was just, he was just a goof.

[20:16] Come on, he was just goofing.

[20:17] And she says, I think maybe you buy into his superhero delusion, too.

[20:21] And he flashes back to, wasn't it a scene in Unbreakable?

[20:24] I don't remember it.

[20:25] Yes.

[20:25] Where he tells his dad he knows he's a superhero.

[20:27] It may have been in there or it may have been a deleted scene that they repurposed for use in this.

[20:34] There's some flashbacks back to Unbreakable and other things.

[20:36] I could not tell if they were, and other things, to Unbreakable and Split.

[20:40] There's no flashbacks to, like, Terms of Endearment or anything.

[20:43] There's no flashbacks to Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster.

[20:47] Yeah, it's not like trying to use archive footage of Terrence Stamp to make him look younger.

[20:52] Yeah, yeah, there's no scenes from Lucky Cow or Poor Cow in this, yeah.

[20:55] I was going to say Lucky Cow, which is probably a very different movie.

[20:58] A cow that wins the lottery.

[21:01] There's nothing in the rule book that says a cow can't win the lottery.

[21:04] Well, cows can't own property.

[21:06] There's nothing in the Constitution that says cows can't own property.

[21:09] I guess you're right.

[21:10] I mean, I'm pretty sure cows can own businesses because the skinny cow brand of frozen treats is doing very well.

[21:16] very very well like like in this uh scenario that you've created there's like one guy who like

[21:21] comes up he's like everybody everybody listen to me if we're doing it that way we would have to

[21:27] literally write a law about every feasible thing that could happen which is impossible and everyone

[21:32] else goes stone him get rid of him well that's i was i was talking to somebody the other day about

[21:36] how you have to imagine after air bud after the air bud fiasco that you had these guys at the

[21:41] nba being like okay what other animals could feasibly play basketball we got to include them

[21:45] all in the rule book, and then someone's like,

[21:47] there's nothing that says Akitas can't play basketball.

[21:50] All right, we'll add them to the list.

[21:51] A narwhal in an aquarium on skates.

[21:56] Oh, boy, we've got to come up with everything.

[21:57] Okay, very clearly under subsection A-H.

[22:00] We'll just say animals using wheels.

[22:02] We'll say nobody can use wheels.

[22:04] What about the Harlem Globetrotters?

[22:06] Okay, except for trick-stunt basketball.

[22:08] Anyway, now Casey, the final girl from Split,

[22:12] she comes back to argue for the Hordes case.

[22:15] And she talks to Split and tries to talk some sense into him.

[22:18] And Dr. Staple is like, I need your help.

[22:21] It's going to take human affection to really bring him out of this.

[22:24] Will you help me?

[22:25] And Casey is like, buh-bye.

[22:26] I am a teenager.

[22:27] I should not be pressured into helping you treat this guy.

[22:31] Well, she wants to see him first.

[22:34] Like, she asks to see him.

[22:37] And the doctor's like, no way.

[22:39] And then she's like, yeah, yeah, please.

[22:41] And then she gives in and they let her see him.

[22:43] Dr. Paulson's motivations during this,

[22:47] her methodology seems to switch on a dime.

[22:50] Again, there are reasons for this

[22:53] that come up later in the movie,

[22:54] but throughout most of the movie,

[22:56] you're like, wow, this is the worst doctor.

[22:58] She is so bad at what she's doing.

[23:00] Yeah, so she wants to do brain surgery on Glass,

[23:03] but he keeps getting out of his room at night somehow,

[23:05] despite being just all sedated in his wheelchair.

[23:09] They have that group therapy session I mentioned,

[23:11] And the doctor starts to, like, make the Horde and Unbreakable doubt themselves.

[23:18] Their powers, yeah.

[23:19] And she brings back the memory of Unbreakable almost drowning as a kid.

[23:22] She's like, that's why you think you're weak around water.

[23:24] You're not really a superhero.

[23:25] You just have a delusion.

[23:27] Casey and Joseph, they both visit the same comic book store.

[23:30] Casey and JoJo?

[23:30] Yeah.

[23:31] Yeah, Joseph Joestar.

[23:33] Okay, sorry.

[23:33] The second of the two Joestars.

[23:35] Joseph Dunn and Casey, no last name, visit the same comic store.

[23:39] and inspires Joseph to research Split's parents.

[23:42] Here's the thing, okay, there's two scenes in this movie

[23:44] where people overhear stuff that's going on

[23:46] in a comic book store, and it somehow convinces them

[23:49] of a rule about superheroes that is not a true rule.

[23:52] He's like, or here he sees a comic book cover,

[23:55] and he's like, wait a minute, the parents of villains

[23:58] always know about them and hold something over them.

[24:01] And it's like, really?

[24:01] Like, I don't ever remember a scene in a comic book

[24:04] where a villain's parents come into the story.

[24:07] Did he pick that up in the section labeled Heroes or the section labeled Villains?

[24:10] In the Villains section, which, again, is a strange way to categorize your comic book store.

[24:14] Most comic book stores, they seem to categorize their books either alphabetically or by company, by publisher.

[24:19] Or there's an indie section and what you would call mainstream, which is laughable because, again, comic books are the only place that superheroes are mainstream aside from big budget movies.

[24:27] And the erotica back room that you can't walk into.

[24:31] I mean, the complete works of Dave Sim are listed under villains, but I mean, I guess

[24:35] he's a creep, but it doesn't necessarily mean his work is.

[24:37] I mean, Cerebus is not necessarily a villain, but I guess he's, yeah.

[24:40] I mean, depending, you know, he's shades of gray, get it?

[24:43] Because he's a gray artwork.

[24:44] He's categorized by heroes and villains because the owner is a big fan of late period Beach

[24:50] Boys songs, so that's why.

[24:51] Oh.

[24:52] Yeah.

[24:53] I don't know that Beach Boys that well, so I'm just going to take that for granted.

[24:55] That's a reference that baffles both of my co-hosts.

[24:57] Yeah.

[24:57] Can you talk more about Grendel Tales?

[24:59] So a little bit of a more mainstream reference, like that comic book from Dark Horse?

[25:03] Yeah, can we talk a little bit more about, I don't know, 90s Florida death metal, so I kind of understand it?

[25:08] Sure.

[25:08] So, I mean, I don't know why I'm reaching back to earlier in the show for Grendel Tales.

[25:11] Can you tell us more about Cerebus?

[25:12] I will say.

[25:13] A self-published 300-issue story about a barbarian aardvark?

[25:17] One of the interesting things about this, though, them going to the comic book store to sort of get a clue, if you will.

[25:24] We just feel like, yeah, I learned all the important stuff.

[25:27] Computer game.

[25:28] We're like, oh, I don't know where we should go.

[25:29] Maybe if we walk to the comic book store, there'll be a clue there.

[25:32] I'll just click investigate.

[25:33] But it feels like a relic of like when M. Night Shyamalan made Unbreakable, there weren't

[25:41] literally like hundreds of superhero movies out there.

[25:47] Like it was kind of a newer thing to be like, oh, I'm going to take something from the comics

[25:52] and I'm going to do a serious examination of what it would be like to be a superhero.

[25:56] Now that superheroes are the dominant entertainment in the world,

[26:01] he can't pull one over on us by being like,

[26:04] I'm going to tell you about superheroes.

[26:05] I'm going to tell you a rule about superheroes.

[26:07] They're going to go to this exotic place called a comic book store and learn something.

[26:12] It would be really funny if later on when Mr. Glass is spouting off rules about superheroes,

[26:16] people are like, yeah, dude, there's been a million movies since you've been incarcerated.

[26:20] Also, he has a bunch of rules that don't make, that like, I'm like, have you read a comic book?

[26:25] There was one point where his mom goes, you said a limited edition always has a climactic battle with all the heroes.

[26:30] And he goes, this isn't a limited edition.

[26:32] This is an origin story.

[26:33] And I'm like, limited edition?

[26:34] What the hell are you, like a limited series?

[26:36] Like, I've never heard limited edition applied to a type of story.

[26:39] Like, I don't know what, I literally don't know what you're saying.

[26:41] But I've only been reading comic books for 30 years.

[26:44] You're talking about like an alternate, like, cover?

[26:48] Like a die-cast cover?

[26:49] I don't understand, like, is this one of those, like, gold foil Wildcats issues that was always on the back wall of my hometown comic book store?

[26:57] One flight up.

[26:58] It used to be in Milburn, New Jersey.

[26:59] That, like, was always there because they couldn't sell it to anybody.

[27:02] Why wouldn't you buy it?

[27:03] Because I don't want any Wildcats.

[27:04] You don't like the Wildcats?

[27:05] Were you more of a Wetworks guy or a Youngblood guy?

[27:08] I mean, to be fair, I was more of a The Max guy, if it's image books you're talking about.

[27:12] Oh, wow.

[27:12] Yeah, you're super cool, dude.

[27:14] Real indie.

[27:14] So it's like, he has his own understanding of comic books that doesn't square with mine.

[27:19] again i've only been reading comic books for like i said about three decades and also in that scene

[27:24] here's what was false to me about it a girl walks into a comic store and the guy behind the counter

[27:28] is telling her all about the history of comics what was not accurate about it was that she asked

[27:32] him a question and then he politely answered it rather what actually happens is she would walk in

[27:37] buy her favorite books and he would immediately start explaining to her what the books are and

[27:41] everything about them and she'd be like i know i read them i bought them i know i understand

[27:46] And, well, let me just tell you who these characters are.

[27:49] I bought it already.

[27:50] I'm wearing a shirt with the character on it.

[27:51] Like, I know who it is.

[27:52] No, let me tell you about this.

[27:54] So that would, in real life, she would not have asked that question.

[27:56] He would have just started spouting information at her.

[27:58] Okay, so let's just say, let's go to where we left off in the movie.

[28:03] There's an attendant at the hospital who hates Glass.

[28:06] And Glass turns out, it turns out that Glass is faking being sedated.

[28:10] He escapes his room at night to research Unbreakable online.

[28:14] He's just looking up web stories about the overseer.

[28:17] Google Unbreakable.

[28:17] The weird thing is he gets a lot of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt recaps.

[28:21] He can stream the song Unbreakable by Robin.

[28:25] Yeah, and he goes to visit Horg, and he tells him.

[28:28] No, that's Indestructible.

[28:28] Oh, I look like such an idiot.

[28:30] Oh, man.

[28:31] What a big fan.

[28:31] Google says, did you mean Indestructible by Robin?

[28:35] Thanks, Google, for helping me out again.

[28:39] No problem, Stu.

[28:41] I'm sorry I make fun of the fact that your name sounds like something a baby would say.

[28:45] It's okay.

[28:46] I get that a lot.

[28:47] So Glass talks to Horde.

[28:50] He says, I have this theory that comic books are based on reality and a real human ancestral memory.

[28:55] If the beast is real, he can break us out.

[28:57] But Split is like, I don't know.

[28:59] I doubt myself now.

[29:00] And Glass is like, I'm going to come back tomorrow and I'm going to meet the beast, okay?

[29:03] Another ticking clock.

[29:05] Mr. Glass gets taken in for his brain surgery, and he relives his memory of the carnival ride that broke his bones as a kid.

[29:12] Oh, and I remember that being pretty effective in the movie Unbreakable.

[29:16] No, I mean that scene still, like, it's a terrifying scene because you know that he knows that he's very fragile, and he set it up.

[29:23] He wants to ride that carnival ride, and he has these two big stuffed animals to cushion his blow, and they slip out from under his arms, and he's just being slammed back and forth.

[29:29] It's terrifying.

[29:30] It's a terrifying scene.

[29:31] So like the shot of him looking down at his feet and seeing both of the stuffed animals there is great.

[29:35] Like it's chilling.

[29:37] Yeah.

[29:37] And as a parent, especially, like I can identify with the mom's distress.

[29:41] Yeah, you understand better than I do.

[29:42] No, no, no.

[29:43] What I'm saying is when I saw it originally, it was like, oh, what a scary situation to be in.

[29:47] But now like I get also it's doubly terrifying because it is someone being hurt and it's also a parent watching their child being hurt.

[29:54] And it's like – and she's like, I spent so much of – so many years protecting him and I failed this one time.

[29:59] It's a rich scene.

[30:00] Like, there's a lot going on in that scene.

[30:01] And also, your son is made of saltines, too, so he's very fragile.

[30:05] He's a villain called Mr. Cracker.

[30:07] And his bones are actually made of saltines, yeah.

[30:12] Yeah, yeah, and the thing is that any time you're a...

[30:14] That makes David an apple cracker.

[30:14] Well, we're talking about obscure bands.

[30:24] Well, yeah, you got us.

[30:27] I forgot to mention earlier, I think, that Glass is super smart, but he has very brittle bones.

[30:32] And they called him Mr. Glass as a kid.

[30:34] And he is obsessed with the idea that he's going to create more superhumans like him.

[30:39] It's not that he has a disability.

[30:42] It's that he is a supervillain.

[30:43] And the way to justify that to himself is to create superheroes that he can find.

[30:48] But also, it's funny to me that, like, it's one thing to have, like, this delusion that you're a supervillain if it is a delusion.

[30:55] It's another thing that later in the movie, spoiler alert, like he will be, you know, lumped in with these other two people as sort of like these super humans.

[31:03] And I'm like, wait a minute, suddenly being really smart and having unbreakable, having really breakable bones is a superpower.

[31:10] You have to believe that he is so incredibly genius that it reaches a level of superpower, which I like don't.

[31:16] Yeah, I don't fully buy.

[31:18] And the events of the movie don't really support.

[31:21] No.

[31:21] Samuel L. Jackson.

[31:22] So he goes in for the surgery.

[31:24] They think they've changed his brain, but he kills one of the attendants and takes his key card,

[31:29] and we see he sabotaged the brain laser the night before.

[31:33] Which seems like...

[31:36] A thing they would notice?

[31:36] They would have noticed that, right?

[31:38] There's a lot in this movie that you'd think the people at the mental hospital would notice,

[31:42] and the only real explanation is that nobody works there except for these two guys.

[31:47] And do you think that they've never used that brain laser before, so they're like,

[31:50] hmm, I guess it worked?

[31:51] Seemed like there should be a part here with lenses, but I don't know.

[31:54] It made his brain doesn't seem to be that lasered.

[31:57] You think they would then run a test to look at his brain and see how it came out?

[32:02] I don't know how that laser is supposed to work.

[32:05] Because in real surgery with a laser, I think you have to go into the body.

[32:11] It's not like it's just heat that fries your brain through your skull, right?

[32:14] We're in uncharted territory.

[32:17] I mean, you know what?

[32:18] I could be wrong.

[32:19] I've never used a surgical laser, but I would think that it would have to in some way penetrate your body to get to the insides, the part that you're supposed to fix.

[32:25] But instead, they're like, well, there's no holes or anything.

[32:29] He's not, you know, he's not.

[32:30] I mean, doctors write in and tell me if I'm wrong.

[32:32] But if you did laser surgery on somebody, they would just look the same afterwards.

[32:36] So he sabotaged the brain laser.

[32:38] He frees the horde.

[32:40] And the beast comes out and is crawling all over the walls.

[32:43] And Glass is like.

[32:45] I'm like, we're loving it.

[32:46] We're loving this shit.

[32:46] He's like, beast, the whole world needs to know about you.

[32:49] You should fight the Overseer at the tallest building in the city, and that'll convince the world that you exist.

[32:55] And if there's that tall building again, I'm itching to get there.

[32:57] I'm gagging for it.

[32:58] And Glass tells the Overseer, hey, we're going to attack the tallest building in Philly unless you break out and stop them.

[33:05] So if you don't think you're super strong, I guess we're going to kill a lot of people.

[33:09] So believe you're super strong so you can break out of your realm.

[33:11] At that point, like, all the world's eyes are on this building because it's the biggest building in Philly.

[33:16] Philadelphia.

[33:17] America's most important city.

[33:19] Economic capital of the world, Philadelphia.

[33:21] Wow, I was just making fun that there are skylines on that toll.

[33:26] Dan's like, Philadelphia, a city everyone would miss if it was atom bombed.

[33:34] And I'm like, Dan, that's rough to say that sarcastically.

[33:36] A city where if a killer virus got loose, we would just wall it up and leave it to die.

[33:42] Dan, come on.

[33:43] Your sandwiches aren't that good.

[33:46] Come for me, Philadelphia.

[33:47] Okay, I mean, let's agree on that.

[33:48] Their sandwiches are not that good.

[33:49] You mean Hoagie's, right?

[33:51] Guys, I'm going to have to get off this ride.

[33:56] Not just because after this episode airs,

[33:58] we're going to start just getting images of gritties sent to us.

[34:01] Which is that one that they have that's not the cheesesteak?

[34:04] Philadelphia cream cheese?

[34:06] No, the one that's got broccoli rabe and pork.

[34:09] Oh, yeah.

[34:09] I don't remember, but it's at the, what, Reading Terminal?

[34:12] That one's pretty good.

[34:13] What's the one where it's just a pile of french fries on bread,

[34:15] and that's the sandwich?

[34:16] That is a different place, Dan.

[34:18] Oh, okay.

[34:18] That's Pittsburgh.

[34:19] Oh, Pittsburgh.

[34:20] Oh, I'm so sorry.

[34:21] It's such a different place.

[34:22] Wow.

[34:22] Why are you going to be thinking of England

[34:23] when we've got the chip buddy,

[34:24] which is buttered bread and chips?

[34:25] You know what?

[34:26] I might be thinking of a chip buddy.

[34:28] England, the Philadelphia of the east side of Europe.

[34:31] Wow.

[34:33] So, anyway.

[34:36] They used to say that the sun never set on Philadelphia.

[34:39] They kill the other attendant,

[34:43] and now there's nobody but like a couple security guards

[34:46] and the doctor

[34:47] in the hospital

[34:48] done

[34:49] unbreakable overseer

[34:51] whatever you want to call him

[34:51] Bruce Willis

[34:52] he finally breaks down

[34:53] his metal door

[34:53] goes straight to the

[34:55] to the

[34:55] to the property's room

[34:57] to get

[34:57] his poncho

[34:59] because he can't fight crime

[35:00] unless he's wearing

[35:01] that green poncho

[35:01] so we

[35:03] we have just seen

[35:04] the beast

[35:04] kill an attendant

[35:05] in the most boring way possible

[35:07] by hugging him to death

[35:09] slowly

[35:09] I mean some would say

[35:10] that's the most

[35:11] betraying way possible

[35:12] because he's taken

[35:12] a sign of affection

[35:13] and turned it into danger

[35:14] but it's

[35:15] I don't know

[35:16] i feel like if you're gonna make this scary it wasn't done that way and then they also missed

[35:19] an opportunity when david dunn knocks down the iron wall that he doesn't say guess that door

[35:24] wasn't unbreakable that's pretty good yeah this is not super important but do we go past the point

[35:30] where glass one of glass's schemes hinged entirely on him knowing that one of his

[35:36] attendants liked to stand and gossip for a while oh we did pass by that so so glass goes into we

[35:42] know he's super smart yeah he goes into horde's room and he's like how are you gonna get caught

[35:47] and he's like i heard a car backfiring that's the sound of the car that the attendant drives so i

[35:53] know he showed up for a shift and i've heard complaints that he takes forever to get to his

[35:56] desk he's a talker and he is like gossiping about vitamins with the security guard which is kind of

[36:01] a funny scene but he's like but glass is banking so much but also this is a mental hospital yeah

[36:07] The attendant on duty leaves when his shift is up, does not wait for his replacement to come and relieve him.

[36:13] That's not how it works.

[36:15] You've got to wait for the other guy to show up.

[36:17] I'll just leave my keys right here on the desk for the other guy to pick up when he gets here.

[36:20] He's really late, but I've got plans.

[36:22] I've got to go look at this biggest building in town that's under construction.

[36:28] Glass is like my brilliance.

[36:30] The biggest part of my brilliant plan was when I got assigned to the worst run mental hospital in America.

[36:36] The most slapdashly managed, criminally insane home in the United States.

[36:40] And clearly, based on this conversation, we know that the security guard isn't doing any of the health regimen that his—

[36:46] He's certainly not in shape to take on the horde.

[36:48] He's not eating the vitamins that—he's not getting vitamin D, and that won't help him absorb the vitamins.

[36:52] He's not sleeping enough, not drinking enough water.

[36:53] While we're talking about this mental hospital—

[36:55] And this is also—and the guy who's gossiping always about vitamins, that he almost gives in to being seduced by Split at one point, which comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere.

[37:05] But this weird thing where he walks in and James McAvoy is lying on the floor with a kind of, like, Blanche DuBois personality.

[37:10] He's like, you're a real tall one, aren't you?

[37:11] Stand right there.

[37:12] And the attendant is like, okay, let's see where this is going to go.

[37:17] It's like, what is going on in this scene?

[37:18] Hold on a second.

[37:19] I mean, I don't know.

[37:20] Maybe he's created this rich inner life in which he's questioning some things.

[37:24] While we're talking about this mental hospital, I just want to say, I mean, it'll come into play later, but Glass has been here for, like, I guess, like, over a decade now.

[37:33] I mean, how long has it been between movies?

[37:35] At the end of the movie, that makes no sense for reasons that will...

[37:39] Well, we'll get to that.

[37:39] In the meantime, they've got to get to that tallest building in Philadelphia

[37:43] because that opening is happening soon.

[37:44] They escape through the basements,

[37:45] and while the Beast is beating up guards and killing them,

[37:48] Glass starts working on one of the computers down there,

[37:51] and Doc Staples notices they're running free.

[37:54] Security alert! Lock down the place!

[37:56] The Beast gets out, and he's overturning cars in the parking lot and fighting people.

[38:00] It's all being caught on these security cameras

[38:02] because they added more cameras to catch Mr. Glass

[38:05] because he was leaving his room so much.

[38:06] Meanwhile, Kevin, the original personality,

[38:08] he starts rebelling and being like,

[38:10] I don't want to hurt people.

[38:11] But the Horde tamps him down.

[38:13] The Overseer shows up and they all converge

[38:16] on that classic climactic place for a superhero battle,

[38:19] the driveway.

[38:20] So they're just grappling with each other outside a driveway

[38:24] and the Overseer and the Beast are punching each other

[38:26] and choking each other a lot.

[38:27] Some SWAT cops show up and they fight them

[38:30] and the Beast eats one of them?

[38:32] And Joseph is there, and Casey, the girl, shows up, too.

[38:35] You gotta feed the beast.

[38:36] You literally do have to feed the beast.

[38:38] I mean, but then it's a good thing they didn't name him the lizard,

[38:41] because then he'd have to drain himself.

[38:42] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[38:43] There's a point in this fight, too, where, like, David Dunn, the overseer,

[38:47] is, like, putting people inside a thing and, like, bending a bar to, like...

[38:51] It's like a shipping container.

[38:52] ...to confine them.

[38:54] Yeah.

[38:54] But meanwhile, the beast is, like, murdering people over on the side.

[38:57] And I'm just like, dude, stop bending that bar.

[38:59] And, like, go over and stop that guy from getting killed.

[39:01] It takes him a while to bend that bar.

[39:03] They're already in the shipping container.

[39:04] And all you have to do is slide the bar through it.

[39:07] Yes.

[39:08] Like, they're not going to be able to get out, I guess, to stop somebody else from getting them out.

[39:10] But they're going to have to be let out eventually, right?

[39:12] Or did you intend them to die in there of starvation slowly?

[39:16] Yeah, unless that shipping container was filled with, like, I don't know, Utz potato chips or something.

[39:20] Look, Ravenhill Memorial has to make sure it has a pretty big supply of Utz.

[39:26] I mean, it's Philly, so it'd be like Entenmann's or something.

[39:28] No, it wouldn't be.

[39:29] Entenmann's is a pretty New York product, too.

[39:30] Okay.

[39:31] What would be, Philly listeners, write in, what is the snack food that you eat in Philly?

[39:35] It's like, is it cheese fries?

[39:37] Like, what is it?

[39:37] Yeah, what do you buy at your Wawa?

[39:38] Handicapped hot fries?

[39:39] Yeah, because like, yeah, I think of Utz and Entenmann's as like New York area things.

[39:43] Yeah, maybe.

[39:44] I think they're primarily East Coast.

[39:46] Is it Streets Matzah?

[39:47] No, that's a New York thing, too.

[39:48] Streets Matzah?

[39:50] I always thought it was Streets.

[39:51] I guess because that's where I'm from.

[39:53] Yeah, you're from the Streets, sure.

[39:54] The Streets Matzah factory.

[39:55] So Joseph runs out, and he's like, I did some Googling.

[39:59] I found some news.

[40:00] split your dad he didn't just run off and leave you with your abusive oh and also we've at this

[40:05] point we've had flashbacks to how kevin's father disappeared that's split's real name kevin wendell

[40:11] crumb kevin wendell crumb named after of course the famous superhero artist r crumb and the famous

[40:17] superhero song mr wendell yeah so kevin wendell crumb his father disappeared and left him with

[40:22] his abusive mother and that's why he created these personalities as to defend himself he says your

[40:27] dad didn't just disappear he was on the train that my dad was on the train mr glass derailed

[40:33] to turn my dad into unbreakable mr glass killed your dad and glass is like hey look it worked

[40:40] right i turned you into a super super villain and wasn't like he says like not yet or something like

[40:46] so like oh yeah because he wanted to reveal that later yeah it's important to the glass that this

[40:52] be known but not necessarily like right then but it's like why is this part of your plan at all

[40:57] because i can see there it's because he's thinking of this in terms of a comic book story

[41:02] and like he wants that like that dramatic reveal but it's supposed to happen after they attack the

[41:07] tallest building in philadelphia which is opening today so anyway yeah we'll and we'll get there

[41:13] guys yeah we'll get there at this point the people there are like it's taking a while for

[41:15] the superheroes to get here man i could really go for a good skyscraper fight right yeah well

[41:19] don't worry don't worry we'll get there uh so beast gets mad he now he he's always looking

[41:25] for someone who has been purified through suffering and he said earlier glass you're

[41:28] pure because you're suffered and b says you're pure but i can't allow you to hurt kevin anymore

[41:32] and he just starts punching glass shattering his bones until the overseer intervenes the beast

[41:37] throws him into a big water tank that was the water that they were using to keep the overseer

[41:41] weak oh now they're fighting in the water tank that's where he's weak but he still breaks through

[41:46] the wall of the tank it's very strange to be for water to be this guy's kryptonite because

[41:52] like unless i miss something it doesn't necessarily seem to make him that much

[41:56] weaker it just affects him in the same way it would affect any of us who could not swim which

[42:00] is he might drown he chokes on it is yeah it's a strange it's the same way that like a martian

[42:04] manhunter is vulnerable to fire and it's like yeah no shit dude so am i like so is everybody

[42:09] But yeah, to have water.

[42:11] My kryptonite is stabbing.

[42:13] There's a bit that the comedian Andre Dubuchet used to do where there's a monologue with him as a superhero named, I think, Awesome Man.

[42:21] And he has a new assistant or secretary, and he's going through all of his weaknesses, and he's like falling from a great height, shooting, stabbing.

[42:29] Look, if it can kill a regular person, it can kill me.

[42:32] I can't survive in the vacuum of space.

[42:36] That's my weakness.

[42:37] That's such a funny monologue.

[42:38] But anyway, they escape from the water, but he's like, cough, cough, as we all would again after being submerged in water.

[42:44] The Beast is like, he sees the tower in the distance, and he goes, ah, to the tower, and starts running off.

[42:50] We're finally going to get that tower fight, boys, until Casey hugs him until he turns into Kevin again.

[42:55] So you see, he killed that attendant through hugging, and now Casey's hug has killed the Beast.

[43:00] Yeah, I don't think—

[43:01] I didn't realize that.

[43:02] I didn't get that symbolism.

[43:03] Because one of the themes of Glass is hugging.

[43:06] It's dangerous for glass, and unbreakable can't be hugged by water.

[43:09] And also, hug spelled backwards is guh, the sound you make when you're drowning.

[43:13] I will say, I may have...

[43:16] And an anagram of hug is ug, the way I felt when I realized they're never getting to that damn tower.

[43:21] I may have missed it because, I'll be honest, I spaced out a little earlier during this episode, but I don't know if we...

[43:29] I mean, Dan, it's one thing when you can't pay attention during the movie, but during the episode?

[43:33] Are you okay?

[43:35] I had to do some...

[43:36] He's looking at this mural of rocks and water

[43:39] that is on the wall of our hotel.

[43:41] I mean, to be fair,

[43:41] looking at the timer,

[43:42] we have been recording for 47 minutes.

[43:44] Far too long for a human attention span.

[43:46] I had to do some business for later in the show,

[43:48] but I don't know whether we...

[43:50] Were you pooping?

[43:50] I had to do...

[43:53] Anyway, I don't know if we fully covered the fact

[43:56] or addressed the fact that Casey,

[43:57] who had been kidnapped by the Horde before,

[44:00] has gone beyond Stockholm Syndrome

[44:02] and now seems to be super into this guy.

[44:05] Well, she was set free by Kevin, I think, at the end of Split.

[44:10] So she's like, I know there's a good personality in there.

[44:12] Well, she was set free and also, like, if I recall correctly, that movie tried to suggest that her experiences led her to confront the trauma and abuse that she had suffered from her family.

[44:27] But it just, this movie, I get all that, but it does seem like this movie is playing up her sympathy towards this guy who did kidnap her.

[44:36] And kill her friends.

[44:37] And like, meet a friend of hers.

[44:39] Just for the purposes of, for the end of the movie, each of our main characters needs to have someone on the outside who's seen all this that likes them.

[44:47] Yeah, it's a relationship that I do not feel particularly comfortable.

[44:51] No, it's a – and I'm a big fan of movies that end with a climax of forgiveness rather than – like, a lot of people take a dump on Spider-Man 3, and there's a lot of issues with it.

[45:00] But when he forgives Sandman, when Sandman's like, I made a mistake.

[45:04] I didn't mean to hurt your uncle, and, like, my life is – now I'm a man made out of sand, and my life stinks.

[45:09] And Peter Parker is like – it's a little much that they hug, but then Peter Parker is like, I forgive you is a powerful thing to me.

[45:14] So I like –

[45:15] And Sandman's like, you know, like, I don't like sand.

[45:17] It gets to your butt.

[45:18] Imagine if your butt's made of sand.

[45:20] I mean, that sounds like the worst thing in the world.

[45:22] Yeah, and he's like, I already forgave you.

[45:23] I don't need to hear any more about it.

[45:24] He's like, can you imagine those particles?

[45:27] They get everywhere, everywhere, because I am particles.

[45:30] I can't even, when I pee, sand comes out.

[45:33] And Tobey Maguire's like, la, la, la, la, la.

[45:35] I forgave you.

[45:36] I don't need to hear any more.

[45:36] Yeah, Tobey Maguire is already zoned out.

[45:40] His head's already at that dance scene he was doing earlier in the movie.

[45:44] It was really great.

[45:45] He's thinking, remember when I was in the ice storm?

[45:46] Yeah, that's probably what he's thinking.

[45:49] So I hope I get to ride a Seabiscuit someday.

[45:52] So I'm keyed to approve of movies where characters forgive rather than get revenge.

[45:57] But it does feel, it feels unearned.

[45:59] Yeah, it feels like a plot divide.

[46:01] Yeah, I don't, on that, I don't recommend the movie Revenge.

[46:06] Where a French woman murders a bunch of dudes.

[46:10] Is there a lot of forgiveness in that?

[46:11] Not really.

[46:12] I was going to go see that movie I Spit on Your Grave tonight.

[46:15] That's about a woman who confronts her attackers and ultimately finds the strength to forgive them.

[46:19] There are many reasons why you shouldn't see that movie.

[46:21] Okay, well, maybe never mind.

[46:22] What about Ms. 45?

[46:23] Is there a forgiveness movie?

[46:25] So, something I'll mention.

[46:29] This is as good a place to mention as any because the character will be leaving us soon as the movie ends.

[46:33] But, so, in Split, I found James McAvoy's acting to be, like, showy but not convincing to me.

[46:39] And he was really working hard.

[46:41] I mean, it's a technical achievement.

[46:43] He, like, he does shift on a dime in a way that's impressive.

[46:46] Well, but that's the thing.

[46:46] He, like, shifts—his shifts, like, he made a big thing about the shifts.

[46:49] There's one moment here where he turns back to Kevin and then turns to another character within moments.

[46:56] And the shot is on his face the entire time, and he doesn't do the, like, grunting between shifts.

[47:02] And he managed to control kind of the muscles of his face and his eyes.

[47:06] So minutely in that moment, I was like, that's the best acting I've seen from him maybe ever.

[47:12] Was it that—and I wish I could pinpoint exactly when it happened, but it's during the climax.

[47:16] and I was like, that was an amazing transformation in that moment.

[47:18] Yeah, is it as good as the scene in The Guest

[47:20] where Dan Stevens' face goes from friendly to angry

[47:23] and, like, while that kid is explaining his whole plan to him?

[47:27] Probably not as good.

[47:28] I just watched that recently.

[47:29] It's so good.

[47:30] It's so awesome.

[47:31] It's a very good scene.

[47:31] But rather than compare it to somebody else

[47:33] when I'm trying to give a compliment to James McAvoy.

[47:35] No, I just kind of want to talk about this thing that I like.

[47:37] I'd like to say that we haven't finished the movie yet,

[47:39] but I'll just say when it comes to the acting in this movie,

[47:41] Samuel L. Jackson, I think, is really good in it.

[47:44] He resists being too big with his performance.

[47:47] It's a much more, to be weird, in a weird way, Samuel L. Jackson is so much more subtle when he was playing the glass-boned man who is a supervillain who creates superheroes by derailing trains than he is when he's playing just a dude.

[47:59] This is the most subtle, I mean, I haven't seen everything he does, but this is the most subtle performance I've seen from him since he did the voiceover for I Am Not Your Negro.

[48:08] And so I was like, okay, and James McAvoy, I feel like, has really got a handle on what he's doing here.

[48:12] And Bruce Willis, meanwhile, I think was under heavy sedation throughout the film.

[48:16] I mean, he forgot he was in the movie.

[48:18] I mean, there are times when I forgot he was in the movie.

[48:20] They were pulling a bow finger on him.

[48:23] So during that fight scene, he was like, James, why are you hitting me?

[48:28] What's going on?

[48:28] Just get this poncho off me.

[48:30] I was just going out for a water run.

[48:31] So anyway, the Beast turns back into Kevin because he realizes he's safe with Casey's love.

[48:36] And that's when a sniper shoots him.

[48:38] And his blood starts bubbling out.

[48:40] And then one of the SWAT guys just drowns Unbreakable in a puddle.

[48:44] And I was like, wait, what?

[48:45] The hero of the movie drowned in a puddle by a guy with a cloverleaf tattoo on his wrist.

[48:52] And it's one of those things where it's like I could see why the SWAT guy would snipe the beast when he's vulnerable because he's a monster.

[48:57] But that they just – there's not even – like you were saying, for a minute I was like, there's not even going to be a pretense of arresting him.

[49:02] They're just going to drown him in a puddle.

[49:03] No, it's a genuinely shocking moment actually in the movie where you're like, wait a minute.

[49:07] That's our hero.

[49:08] He's just like a policeman is holding him down in a puddle and killing him.

[49:13] It's horrifying.

[49:14] And Doc Staples reveals separately to the overseer, then to Glass, that she is the member.

[49:18] She was not hired by the state.

[49:21] Thank God.

[49:22] She is revealed she's the member of a secret society that eliminates superhumans when they emerge because it's not fair to have gods among us.

[49:29] And she tells Glass, as you die, you were right.

[49:32] Like, you are special.

[49:34] And Glass dies proud of himself.

[49:36] And she reveals that to the overseer by letting him shake her hand, and he gets a glimpse of a restaurant full of Illuminati types.

[49:45] A surprisingly long wait.

[49:48] Like, he gets a glimpse of this restaurant, and it's just her eating dinner for 20 seconds?

[49:53] For a long time before she gets up and starts talking to everybody.

[49:55] They could have edited that clip a little bit in the flashback.

[49:59] It's also kind of weird.

[50:01] I don't know if it's an intentional choice, but it seems like the, like, symbol that these Illuminati types use is a—

[50:07] It's a four-leaf clover.

[50:08] It's a four-leaf clover, which is—I think a four- or three-leaf clover is a symbol for the Aryan Brotherhood in some circles.

[50:16] Oh, really?

[50:16] So that's kind of crazy.

[50:17] I didn't know that.

[50:18] I mean, I just associate it with Ireland, so it's like—

[50:20] Oh, but also, like—

[50:20] It's a weird—the Lucky Charms logo is a weird thing to use.

[50:23] I mean, all your finest secret societies put a permanent mark on you so you can be easily picked out.

[50:29] And now, I don't know if this is the case, but I could have sworn that the glove that

[50:32] the SWAT team guy had had Make Mine Marvel written on it, but it may not have.

[50:36] But anyway, this explains.

[50:38] Yeah, he was the MCU's lawyers that came and killed the Overseer.

[50:43] He's the truest of believers.

[50:45] This sort of explains why Sarah Paulson is the world's worst psychologist.

[50:50] Yeah, because her job is really more to kill superheroes.

[50:53] I mean, although it does turn out that she is trying to help in a way, but we'll get to that.

[50:57] We'll get to that.

[50:58] So anyway, she erases all the footage of their superpowers.

[51:01] And we learn on the news that the building opening went great.

[51:03] Hey, remember the tallest building in Philadelphia?

[51:05] It went off without a hitch because they never got there.

[51:08] We were Poochie Fireworks Factory on this one, guys.

[51:11] Surely in the end credits, we get to see that building opening.

[51:14] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[51:15] Dedicated to the dream of a new Philadelphia skyline.

[51:21] I would have loved it if the end credits was just footage of people enjoying that building.

[51:27] What a great atrium this place has.

[51:29] Then she's at a restaurant, and someone gets up and leaves the restaurant.

[51:32] And they're like, look around.

[51:33] And she gets up and starts talking to everybody there who's all Illuminati.

[51:36] And I was like, maybe don't have your meetings in public restaurants.

[51:39] Because it's like, this meeting, I was supposed to give my report at like 6,

[51:43] but there's one person over there who's not a member of the Illuminati.

[51:46] And they're really just lingering over the table.

[51:49] They paid their check.

[51:50] Why are they still sitting there?

[51:51] They're checking their phone now?

[51:53] Yeah.

[51:53] Like, yeah, it's a thing that's done for effect, like for the movie that, you know, like a guy leaves and everyone falls silent and turns around and you're like, oh, they're part of, but it's like, I've talked about this before.

[52:04] It's that fear of being in a tavern and you find out that everyone else in the tavern is a werewolf as featured in that, uh, the flop house comic book I wrote that's available for a download and all the money goes to charity.

[52:16] I just wish that, like, the scene had continued and other patrons who are not part of this organization came in and she had to stop again and they kept stopping and starting.

[52:25] Yeah, they come in and they're like, oh, is this a private function?

[52:29] And she's like, uh, no, no, no, it's fine.

[52:32] I guess you can sit anywhere.

[52:36] And they're like, wait, do you work here?

[52:37] You seem like you're a patron.

[52:38] It's also like, are all the waitstaff part of this organization?

[52:42] I can only assume.

[52:43] They have a network of secret restaurants in every city in the world.

[52:47] Yep.

[52:48] It'd be so much easier to just meet at someone's house.

[52:52] They dream of a utopia with no superheroes.

[52:56] We call it Flavortown.

[52:58] Also, is this their restaurant, or did they just make a really big reservation?

[53:03] I don't think they made a reservation.

[53:05] I think they just all show up, and some of them have to...

[53:07] If it's a really happening place, a lot of the Illuminati have to stand outside waiting for their name to be called.

[53:14] So she announces they're all dead, and she'll move on to the next city.

[53:18] She says, as always, I prefer to convince them that they're delusional so they can live.

[53:23] And after that, if that doesn't work, we use the machine.

[53:25] And I assume she means that laser.

[53:27] I don't know what machine she's talking about.

[53:28] But this time it ended up with all of them dead.

[53:30] She doesn't want—

[53:31] I'm assuming the machine is a cool supervillain that we haven't seen yet.

[53:33] Yeah.

[53:33] But this is what I referred to before, which is where it doesn't make sense that for everyone else,

[53:38] she had, like, three days to do her—to prove, basically, to the secret society, like,

[53:43] hey, my way works.

[53:44] I can make them think they're deluded

[53:46] and we can release them back into the wild or whatever

[53:48] and they can live their lives.

[53:50] But again, Mr. Glass has been there for like a decade.

[53:54] So what was the deal with him?

[53:56] I mean, he was, I guess he was, she was,

[53:58] but she didn't work in that.

[53:59] She travels from city to city.

[54:00] So it's like, because Mr. Glass,

[54:01] at the end of Unbreakable, it says in titles,

[54:03] he was convicted and sentenced to a mental hospital.

[54:05] So like, I guess she's like, I'm a visiting doctor.

[54:08] I'm going to convince him and then we can release him

[54:10] and he can live his great life as a man

[54:12] who is not super smart

[54:13] but instead just brittle

[54:15] out on the outside.

[54:15] Yeah, but also

[54:16] this kind of explains

[54:17] we didn't really talk about it

[54:18] but there was a group therapy scene

[54:20] earlier in the movie

[54:20] and when I was watching it

[54:22] at first I'm like

[54:23] this seems like the worst way

[54:24] to deal with people

[54:25] who have a shared delusion

[54:26] to let them reinforce

[54:28] one another this way

[54:29] rather than at least

[54:30] start out alone

[54:31] and then get into group

[54:32] or whatever.

[54:33] I wonder, that's a good point.

[54:34] I mean she never has

[54:35] one-on-one sessions with them

[54:36] which is crazy.

[54:36] Even group therapy

[54:38] I would assume

[54:39] you need to reinforce it

[54:39] with one-on-one stuff.

[54:40] Maybe the feeling is

[54:42] that if she goes after the biggest one in the group

[54:44] and makes them doubt themselves,

[54:46] the others will doubt themselves.

[54:48] It's, you know.

[54:49] Prison tactics.

[54:50] Yeah.

[54:50] Anyway, before she leaves town,

[54:52] she goes to the comic store to pick up some back issues.

[54:55] I guess she's trying to finish out her run of Nexus,

[54:57] like I always am.

[54:58] She needs to get some floppies.

[55:00] She's like, I'm missing a couple issues

[55:01] of John Byrne's She-Hulk run.

[55:03] The fables went off the rails.

[55:04] And she overhears some nerds

[55:07] who are talking about how this one nerd is like,

[55:10] The villain's always got a bigger plan.

[55:12] He's always got a bigger master plan.

[55:15] And they just think they've stopped him, but he's got a bigger plan.

[55:19] And she's like, uh-oh.

[55:20] And she's like, uh-oh.

[55:21] He never wanted to get to that skyscraper.

[55:23] Much like the movie itself.

[55:26] And she realizes that Glass outsmarted her.

[55:29] He led her to introduce lots of video cameras all over the hospital.

[55:33] We have flashbacks to the video cameras being installed,

[55:38] which is something that we saw earlier in the movie.

[55:40] And also, even if we hadn't seen it earlier, we don't need to see it.

[55:43] I don't need confirmation.

[55:45] And we saw him hacking on a computer in the basement.

[55:48] She's like, that's why he tried to escape through the basement, not the side.

[55:51] He set up a website that he was live streaming all the footage to,

[55:55] and then he sends links to that site to Joseph, Casey, and Mrs. Glass.

[56:00] The three buddies.

[56:02] They're now the three Glassketeers, and they go and they post it online

[56:06] and then go sit at a train station

[56:08] so that they can watch it go viral

[56:10] by having people's phones light up.

[56:11] This is the most baffling fucking thing.

[56:14] They're like,

[56:15] they meet together in public

[56:17] and they're like,

[56:17] did it happen yet?

[56:19] I don't see it happening.

[56:20] I mean, I gotta say.

[56:21] I can't see my video going viral.

[56:22] I've definitely hung out

[56:24] in that train station before

[56:25] and never seen anything

[56:26] that exciting happen.

[56:27] And everyone's phones are going,

[56:28] boop, boop, boop.

[56:29] It's also the thing that

[56:30] things do go viral very fast in real life.

[56:32] But in the movies,

[56:33] if something goes viral,

[56:34] every single person in a room

[56:35] suddenly gets it on their phone

[56:37] at the same time

[56:37] and speaking as

[56:38] maybe it's because

[56:39] I am an approaching

[56:40] middle-aged man

[56:41] who has a family

[56:42] when I find about viral things

[56:43] it's usually like

[56:44] after I've been around

[56:45] for a week

[56:45] and they've already

[56:46] been memed up

[56:46] and I overhear my coworkers

[56:48] talking about them

[56:48] and I'm like

[56:48] what's that?

[56:49] and they're like

[56:49] oh here's this thing

[56:50] a kid said in a video

[56:51] three weeks ago

[56:52] yeah and also

[56:53] the weird thing

[56:54] about this end of the movie

[56:55] too is that

[56:57] the news immediately

[56:58] is like

[56:59] credulously reporting on it

[57:00] like oh

[57:01] by the way

[57:02] superheroes exist

[57:04] where I believe

[57:05] that if I saw a video online

[57:07] of people doing superhuman strength,

[57:09] I'd be like, oh, those are pretty good special effects.

[57:11] I wonder what

[57:12] amateur SF whiz

[57:15] did this. Dan, I'll remind you, they did

[57:17] a video of a man, not quite overturning

[57:19] a car, but like turning on its side

[57:21] and then of two guys punching each other.

[57:23] What better proof is there that superheroes exist

[57:25] than two men grappling in a

[57:27] parking lot? And Sarah Paulson, I forgot

[57:29] to mention, she has my favorite line in the whole movie.

[57:31] She's telling the staff at the mental hospital,

[57:33] She says, for the privacy of the victims, let's please not spread this information.

[57:39] We'll just say they died here.

[57:40] Never tell anyone what happened at this building and this parking lot.

[57:44] And it just reinforces how small this movie is that she calls out that the climax happened in a parking lot.

[57:51] It feels like our filmmaker is trolling the ever-increasing spectacle of superhero movies by setting it in the most mundane setting possible.

[58:03] I don't want the memory of our beloved parking lot, Sully.

[58:06] The place where we hang out and smoke and we set off fireworks that one time.

[58:10] The place where the one guy who works here parks his car.

[58:13] So it's not going to be the David Overseer Dunn Memorial parking lot.

[58:17] But it's, I mean, so M. Night Shyamalan is working with a much smaller budget,

[58:22] clearly, than, like, the Marvel movies have.

[58:24] And I think he's partly trying to make a virtue out of that

[58:26] by having a very small-scale superhero movie.

[58:30] maybe we should have some judgment

[58:33] of finality on this in some way. Dan,

[58:35] what would that be like?

[58:36] Yeah, let's do final judgments where we

[58:39] judge whether this is a good bad movie, a bad bad

[58:41] movie, or a movie kind of like. I'm going to say

[58:43] this is the rare occasion

[58:45] when we've watched one of these movies. I think

[58:47] actually the only occasion where I've actually seen

[58:49] the movie and then I was like,

[58:51] you know what? This is too rich a movie

[58:53] to pass up. I'm not going to deny

[58:55] Elliot and Stu the joy of talking about

[58:57] Glass on the podcast. I'm sure we can do it.

[58:59] Glass on the cast.

[59:00] Because I saw it in the theater, and I would say, for me—

[59:04] And how was the crowd's reaction?

[59:06] Oh, boy, they were loving it.

[59:07] Let me tell you, I have never seen a crowd react, or very rarely, the way I did when the Unbreakable trailer came out.

[59:14] I don't remember what movie I was seeing it before, but the Unbreakable trailer started playing,

[59:17] and the minute Samuel L. Jackson appeared on screen with his Mr. Glass haircut, the entire audience erupted in laughter.

[59:24] It was like you hear Samuel L. Jackson in voiceover, I think, in the trailer, and then you see him finally,

[59:29] And his hair looks crazy.

[59:31] And everyone in the audience was just like, it was so fun.

[59:34] It was really funny.

[59:35] So I'm going to say I was very entertained when I watched it in the theater.

[59:38] I'm not going to go so far as to say I kind of liked it.

[59:42] I don't think because, like, I don't know.

[59:46] I feel like it has too many problems for that.

[59:47] But I guess I'll go good, bad movie because I found it very fun to watch.

[59:52] it's really dumb and just gets dumber but i'll give it a i'll give it a sort of positive in that

[59:59] way yeah i don't know i mean i i'd probably say i mean i i unfortunately think this probably falls

[1:00:06] into bad bad like i think there's some stuff that i like in it um i don't know it's these are

[1:00:11] categories are not these are not good categories i'm with stewart on this but there's like there's

[1:00:16] stuff in there that i like i feel like i mean i haven't seen unbreakable in a long time but i

[1:00:20] remember that there was there was stuff in it that i that i enjoyed quite a bit and i liked

[1:00:26] the way that he used the like kind of a fixed camera perspective to like raise tension um and

[1:00:34] there were a lot of scenes where like you know uh two characters are talking or one character is

[1:00:38] talking to another person and getting information and you're just watching that person's face like

[1:00:43] absorb the information and you get a little bit of that here but it like it just didn't feel like

[1:00:48] the same level of like artistry i guess but maybe i mean maybe i'm just speaking out of my ass like

[1:00:55] usual i mean i it's a movie that i feel similar it's like there's some good bones in this movie

[1:01:00] brittle glass bones yes and they don't they can't totally hold up to what he's trying to do it like

[1:01:05] there i feel like there's a very good version of this movie and he has not really done it here but

[1:01:12] partly because like i think he's building he's trying to build a solid house on a foundation

[1:01:16] of sand like split was not a movie i liked that much and the beast character is not really complex

[1:01:22] enough yeah to do a lot of this unbreakable i haven't seen it since it came out but it's a movie

[1:01:27] i remember having issues with at the time but i know a lot of people who like it since then so

[1:01:30] maybe i should see it again but like that the david dunn character has a lot of issues like the

[1:01:34] mystery like glass is the strongest character yeah and it's partly just because he's a motivated

[1:01:39] character yeah and overseer i don't know why he does any things he does bruce will springs nothing

[1:01:45] to this performance and james mcavoy's character is so much about trying just showing us these

[1:01:50] different personalities hedwig that's the name of the kid personality hedwig i remember because i

[1:01:56] was like hedwig's a weird name for a nine-year-old boy character especially in the world where

[1:02:00] hedwig and the angry inch exists like i think the name hedwig is taken i can never see another

[1:02:04] character without thinking about hedwig and the angry inch which i love certainly in pop culture

[1:02:08] It is weird. It's a strange choice for him to not only return to this world that he's created, but also insist on having characters spout, like, rules for superhero stuff when superhero stuff has become so prevalent in pop culture that, like, everyone knows the rules already.

[1:02:29] It feels like the movie exists in a different world than ours, where not only are superheroes real, but superhero movies do not exist.

[1:02:35] Yeah.

[1:02:37] And so it's like, I liked certain things about it, but I wish it was a much better movie than it was.

[1:02:42] And I don't know exactly how that fits into the categories.

[1:02:43] But there's one other thing I was going to say, but I forgot what it was.

[1:02:47] I don't know.

[1:02:48] Oh, wait, I'll say this.

[1:02:52] That I do appreciate the idea of like a smaller scale, lower budget superhero type movie.

[1:02:57] And there was part of me, once I got over the disappointment of like, wait, okay, so they're not going to get to that building.

[1:03:02] I started to admire the guts of presenting the villain's evil plan

[1:03:06] and describing what the climax of the movie is going to be

[1:03:09] and then not having it

[1:03:10] and instead just staying in this kind of bland parking lot.

[1:03:14] Nice wide shots of the beast running on all fours like an animal.

[1:03:18] Yeah, yeah.

[1:03:19] Across like a small parking lot.

[1:03:21] A small grassy quad.

[1:03:24] Yeah.

[1:03:32] Judge John Hodgman ruled in my favor.

[1:03:34] Judge John Hodgman ruled in my friend's favor.

[1:03:37] Judge John Hodgman ruled in my favor.

[1:03:39] I'm Judge John Hodgman.

[1:03:41] You're hearing the voices of real litigants, real people who have submitted disputes to my internet court at the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

[1:03:49] I hear their cases. I ask them questions. They're good ones.

[1:03:52] And then I tell them who's right and who's wrong.

[1:03:54] Thanks to Judge John Hodgman's ruling, my dad has been forced to retire.

[1:03:59] One of the worst dad jokes of all time.

[1:04:01] Instead of cutting his own hair with a Flowbee, my husband has his hair cut professionally.

[1:04:07] I have to join a community theater group.

[1:04:09] And my wife has stopped bringing home wild animals.

[1:04:11] It's the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

[1:04:14] Find it every Wednesday at MaximumFun.org or wherever you download podcasts.

[1:04:19] Thanks, Judge John Hodgman.

[1:04:23] Well, Alexis, we got big news.

[1:04:29] Uh-oh.

[1:04:30] Season one, done.

[1:04:31] It's over.

[1:04:32] Season two, coming at you hot.

[1:04:33] Three years after.

[1:04:35] Three and a half.

[1:04:36] Three and a half.

[1:04:36] Technically almost four years.

[1:04:37] All right.

[1:04:38] And now, listen, here at Can I Pet Your Dog, the Smash It podcast, our seasons run for

[1:04:42] three and a half years.

[1:04:43] And then in season two, we come at you with new, hot co-hosts named you.

[1:04:48] Hi, I'm Alexis.

[1:04:49] And I also have all the field troops.

[1:04:52] Dog tech.

[1:04:52] Yeah.

[1:04:53] Dog news.

[1:04:54] Dog news.

[1:04:54] Celebrity guests.

[1:04:55] Oh, big shots.

[1:04:56] Will not let them talk about their resume.

[1:04:58] Nope.

[1:04:58] Only the dogs.

[1:04:59] Only the dogs.

[1:05:00] I mean, if ever you were going to get in to Can I Pet Your Dog, now's the time.

[1:05:03] Get in here every Tuesday at MaximumFun.org.

[1:05:06] Hey, Flophouserinos.

[1:05:11] That's what I'd call you if I was Marc Maron.

[1:05:14] So we recorded this episode in a hotel room, as we say in the episode, so I do not need to reiterate it.

[1:05:22] But that means that we did it a bit ahead of time.

[1:05:25] And that means that I'm reading the ads separately.

[1:05:30] for your enjoyment yay guys the fluff house is brought to you in part by arm and hammer

[1:05:38] cloud control cat litter look when i get litter i am bedeviled by clouds so many clouds so it's

[1:05:48] good to have some cloud control you know what i love my cat my cat archie is so adorable

[1:05:54] you know i don't know i've talked about it on the podcast before but every day when i get

[1:05:59] back from work he goes and he jumps up on the console table by the door and he puts his little

[1:06:06] paws on my shoulders and he rams his head into my head as if to say hello it's feeding time

[1:06:14] also i love you but it's harder to love cleaning up after archie i don't know if you've heard about

[1:06:20] this but he leaves his poop and pee in a box but uh you know this is why arm and hammer created

[1:06:27] new cloud control litter no cloud of nasties here it's 100 dust free free of heavy perfumes i do not

[1:06:35] like scented cat litter so i appreciate that and it helps reduce airborne dander from scooping

[1:06:41] so what happens in the litter box stays in the litter box new cloud control cat litter

[1:06:49] By arm and hammer

[1:06:50] More power to you

[1:06:53] Hey

[1:06:54] You know what I like

[1:06:55] Along with my cat

[1:06:57] I like sleeping

[1:06:59] I actually just got up from a nap

[1:07:02] Which is the best way to get that

[1:07:05] Patented Dan McCoy

[1:07:06] Solo ad read energy

[1:07:08] To do it directly

[1:07:10] After a nap when I'm at my bleariest

[1:07:12] But if you want

[1:07:15] To nap your best

[1:07:17] why not get a casper mattress five years ago casper revolutionized the mattress industry

[1:07:22] by making it easier than ever to buy a premium foam mattress today they're building on that

[1:07:27] legacy with a new line of mattresses that combine the best of both worlds introducing the hybrid

[1:07:33] collection by casper their acclaimed foam layers now available the springs this is not a gas electric

[1:07:41] hybrid mattress. You cannot use this to get anywhere unless it is, I don't know, enchanted

[1:07:50] magic carpet style by some sort of a genie. But the Flophouse is brought to you in part

[1:07:56] by Casper. Look, I... Pardon me. Look, I love my Casper mattress. How about that for

[1:08:05] a pro? I took a drink right in the middle of the ad. I love my Casper mattress. I've

[1:08:10] had it for four and a half years now it still is a wonderful thing to sleep on and this new casper

[1:08:18] and innovation offers the best of both worlds luxurious comfort and resilient support you can

[1:08:24] be sure of your purchase with casper's 100 night risk-free sleep on it trial and you can get 50

[1:08:31] towards select mattresses by visiting casper.com slash flophouse and using flophouse at checkout.

[1:08:40] That's casper.com slash flophouse and using flophouse at checkout. Terms and conditions

[1:08:44] apply. I apologize, guys, for the little fumbling in the middle of that last bit of that ad.

[1:08:50] You know, I was in Portland recently, as, again, we mentioned on the podcast, no need to reiterate,

[1:08:57] and i was flying back and i watched uh some john mulaney stand up on my phone they have a few

[1:09:05] netflix specials this is not an ad by the way and uh he talks about how as he's grown older

[1:09:13] he's just started speaking through burps and how gross that is and you know what i uh i really

[1:09:21] related he's a funny guy so this next this is a jumbotron and uh it's about something hold on

[1:09:34] the part of the jumbotron that told me what the jumbotron was about has been mysteriously

[1:09:41] cut off so let me vamp a little bit as i look through my info machine which is what i call

[1:09:51] my phone it's very confusing for people that i call it an info machine they do not like it

[1:09:56] they're like dan are you a time traveler from the victorian period why have you decided on

[1:10:03] this weird nomenclature and i say shut up you which is you know a rude thing for me to do like

[1:10:13] Why would I bother to just attack someone on the street who...

[1:10:22] Oh boy, I'm really dying out here.

[1:10:25] Okay, this next Jumbotron is from Sweating the Small Stuff.

[1:10:34] It's a podcast.

[1:10:37] A revealing show steeped in pop culture, mostly movies and shows.

[1:10:43] Every week, host Cameron Boozajomerhi, Boozarjomerhi, it's phonetically spelled, but not phonetically

[1:10:53] spelled enough for my mouth.

[1:10:55] Every week, that host, Cameron, and his gaggle of co-hosts take a topic you love, investigate

[1:11:02] its most overlooked details, and explore the fun and fascinating ways those details impact

[1:11:09] the big picture.

[1:11:11] Things like, should Ant-Man be legally blind when he's tiny?

[1:11:15] What secrets are hiding in the Futurama intro?

[1:11:18] And do universal translators actually make sense?

[1:11:21] Find Sweating the Small Stuff on iTunes, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1:11:27] Guys, this sounds interesting to me.

[1:11:28] You know, talking about Ant-Man, this brings up a problem that I have had with Ant-Man.

[1:11:34] So when he's small, he's as strong as he is as a normal human.

[1:11:40] which is because of some bullshit about even though his molecules are compressed or whatever,

[1:11:48] he still has the normal powers that he would as a full-sized Paul Rudd.

[1:11:53] Great, I'm willing to accept that.

[1:11:55] But then suddenly, when he's big, he's strong enough to be thrown around airplanes.

[1:12:01] Now, how does that work, guys?

[1:12:04] Are we to believe that there's something in the very act of being bigger

[1:12:08] that makes one stronger when it's just a case of like blasting those those molecules up or whatever

[1:12:17] it is if anything i feel like he should be weaker because his molecules are suddenly further apart

[1:12:22] and he should snap like a twig so uh i guess you know call me the ghost of stanley anyway

[1:12:29] the next jumbotron is from ultraviolet dawn suffering from superhero fatigue no obviously

[1:12:37] not after that Ant-Man thing. Good. Like books? Good. How about a superhero novel? Born to

[1:12:46] supervillain parents but raised by her aunt and the shadow of her superhero cousin, teenage Sabrina

[1:12:52] Kang wants nothing more than to be a superhero. If only her powers would finally kick in. But when

[1:12:58] tragedy strikes the superhero world, she must rally a new generation of heroes to defend the world

[1:13:04] from a new threat action humor robots fruit pies ultraviolet dawn by brett shroot has it all shop

[1:13:14] for ultraviolet dawn on amazon.com available in ebook print and through kindle unlimited

[1:13:20] i am glad that this gentleman's book is keeping up the link between superheroes and fruit pies

[1:13:27] anyone who enjoyed those old hostess fruit pies ads in comic books knows what i'm talking about

[1:13:34] so that's it

[1:13:37] I believe I'll stop rambling on

[1:13:39] sorry this one went on a little

[1:13:41] long but I'm not cutting it

[1:13:43] because for some reason some of you

[1:13:45] like how weird I get

[1:13:47] anyway back to the show

[1:13:49] I'd like to take a moment to

[1:13:51] remind everybody that we have some live

[1:13:53] shows coming up now again

[1:13:55] we'll be June 8th in Portland that's right

[1:13:57] now it's too late folks if you're listening

[1:13:59] to this then you missed the show

[1:14:01] by two weeks but you've got another chance

[1:14:04] July 13th, one day before my brother's birthday

[1:14:06] And Bastille, one day before Bastille Day

[1:14:08] Oh, Bastille Day

[1:14:09] Yeah, July 13th, we'll be in Minneapolis at the Parkway

[1:14:12] That should be a lot of fun

[1:14:14] September 28th, we're doing a show in Boston

[1:14:16] Our 7 o'clock show is already sold out

[1:14:18] At WBUR City Space

[1:14:20] But there is a 9.45 show

[1:14:22] That's right, late night

[1:14:24] At the same location

[1:14:25] So who knows how blue we'll get on that one

[1:14:27] It means the 7 o'clock show has to end by a certain time

[1:14:29] But the 9.45 show, we can go all night if we want to

[1:14:32] Oh, wow

[1:14:32] and october 12th if you take enough pills sometimes you can do that uh yeah aspirin aspirin

[1:14:38] yes okay october 12th we're gonna be in los angeles my hometown at the regent theater so again

[1:14:43] july 13th in minneapolis and i'll uh i'll try i'll try to make it to that one that would be great i

[1:14:49] mean stewart if you could like wear like a mattress around you so you're always padded and you never

[1:14:53] hurt your back or fall down or anything the thing is they call me mr glass only in la so on july

[1:15:02] 13th in Minneapolis, September 28th

[1:15:04] in Boston, October 12th in

[1:15:06] Los Angeles. We hope we'll see you

[1:15:08] out there. Movies, TBD.

[1:15:10] That's right, to be Danified. Quick things

[1:15:12] about those shows. The Minneapolis show is

[1:15:13] close to selling out, so if you're thinking

[1:15:15] you want to go, get on that now.

[1:15:18] Do not wait for the day of. And

[1:15:19] the first Boston show, as

[1:15:22] Elliot said, is sold out.

[1:15:23] This is maybe a little more of a peek behind the curtain than necessary,

[1:15:26] but I talked to our

[1:15:28] agent. They're holding a lot of comp

[1:15:30] tickets for us. Some of those may be

[1:15:32] released so if you can't go to the later show maybe check in closer to the date and there might

[1:15:38] actually be some that come back i was holding a bunch for the ghosts of founding fathers okay

[1:15:43] and los angeles is probably going to be a lot of big hollywood stars there oh cool like orlando

[1:15:49] bloom uh yeah almost definitely yeah i wonder what i would talk to legless about they're all

[1:15:54] going to be there orlando bloom orlando jones orlando the book oh wow they're all going to be

[1:15:59] there Tilda Swinton as the character Orlando yep Lando Calrissian or as some people say Han

[1:16:06] Orlando if you're trying to decide which character you like best okay guys has this ever happened to

[1:16:12] you you want to send somebody a text about Lobot and your phone keeps changing to Lobotomy so you

[1:16:16] can't send the text because it won't put the word Lobot in yeah I can't tell I can't tell you about

[1:16:20] the number of times I put the words Sirith Ungol or Kirith Ungol into my phone and it would correct

[1:16:25] it to some stupid bullshit and i'm like smartphone i don't think so so anyway moving on to letters

[1:16:34] i uh because we were doing this in a hotel in portland i forgot to pick out letters and send

[1:16:41] them to you ahead of time i mean that makes perfect sense how would you know we were doing

[1:16:45] this in portland like there's a lot he said because we're doing this in a hotel in portland

[1:16:49] i forgot days ago when i was at home to do this and a lot of my plate just making sure that the

[1:16:54] live show ran smooth, but the good news

[1:16:56] about that means that right now

[1:16:58] a letter came in that

[1:17:00] is pertinent in a way

[1:17:02] to this episode. Cease and

[1:17:04] desist. Signed

[1:17:06] M.N. Shyamalan,

[1:17:07] founder of the MCU.

[1:17:10] This letter's from Greg, last name withheld.

[1:17:12] And Greg writes,

[1:17:14] I recently re-watched

[1:17:16] M. Night Shyamalan's The Village.

[1:17:18] Despite remembering it actually

[1:17:20] being somewhat of a critical flop,

[1:17:22] I actually really enjoyed it

[1:17:24] despite there being a few shots and effects that did

[1:17:26] not age well. I have one problem

[1:17:28] with it, which will lead me to my question.

[1:17:30] Okay. And it's that the final act

[1:17:32] in the final act of the movie, I really

[1:17:34] don't like how they reveal information.

[1:17:36] For example, before Ivy goes into the

[1:17:38] forest, it's revealed to her that the monsters aren't

[1:17:40] real, but then the film expects

[1:17:42] us to be scared on her journey.

[1:17:44] They do the same thing by revealing to us

[1:17:46] that the film is actually set in present day,

[1:17:48] but we're given this information before

[1:17:50] Ivy jumps the wall, which makes it a

[1:17:52] much less interesting reveal.

[1:17:54] I really feel like this would be close to perfect if the order of the scenes towards the end was just rearranged a little bit.

[1:18:00] Close to perfect seems a bit much.

[1:18:02] Yeah.

[1:18:02] But.

[1:18:03] There is only one perfect movie.

[1:18:05] It's called Alien.

[1:18:06] Greg asks, are there other movies you can think of that you would otherwise really enjoy if the scenes were rearranged?

[1:18:12] And I'm sorry to spring a difficult question on you.

[1:18:14] I did not give you these in advance, as I said.

[1:18:17] Well, certainly not RoboCop, because that movie's perfect.

[1:18:20] I mean, Citizen Kane, I guess you could reorder it in chronological order, but why would you do that?

[1:18:25] I mean, this isn't a movie, but there's the famous Stephen Sondheim not-success at the time, Merrily We Roll Along, and it's told in reverse order.

[1:18:34] And I actually think if it was told in regular order, it would be a stronger show.

[1:18:38] Yeah, I saw that recently, and the—spoiler alert for Merrily We Roll Along.

[1:18:43] The musical begins with the three friends estranged and having sold out their dreams or otherwise sort of become dissolute or like having problems.

[1:18:57] And the movie, sorry, the musical again, ends with the first scene chronologically of them all on a roof singing like what to me is kind of one of the more hackneyed like we're all going to make it songs.

[1:19:11] Well, they're literally saying, we're going to make it, that song from Laverne and Shirley.

[1:19:14] Well, but they're like, it's our time.

[1:19:16] They really sing something like that, and it seems like the most facile irony at that point.

[1:19:23] It's like, oh, great, great.

[1:19:25] We know that they're not going to, they're all going to fall apart.

[1:19:29] I mean, that's what they're going for.

[1:19:30] That's part of the reason I think it would be stronger if we're just watching a story of people.

[1:19:33] Yeah.

[1:19:34] But anyway, as for movies, if the scenes were ordered differently, it's hard for me to tell.

[1:19:38] I mean, the thing about – with the village, I wonder if he was trying to go for suspense over surprise.

[1:19:43] Yeah, the old Hitchcock.

[1:19:45] The old Hitchcock thing.

[1:19:46] If two men are talking and a bomb goes off, that's surprise.

[1:19:48] If two men are talking and you know there's a bomb ticking under the table, it's suspense.

[1:19:52] And it means you're waiting for the moment when you're like – in your head, you're like, get out of there, get out of there.

[1:19:58] So maybe the idea is that like you're wondering when – I mean, her walk through the forest being scary that is kind of deflated when you know there's no real monsters.

[1:20:07] Ah, Real Monsters, the Classy Chupo classic cartoon from the third generation of Nicktoons.

[1:20:13] But being in the present, it does feel like you should learn that as a surprise, you know?

[1:20:19] Yeah.

[1:20:20] I mean, usually I like all my information in a movie to be revealed by the director,

[1:20:24] like it happens in the movie The Village by M. Night Shyamalan or, I don't know, what's

[1:20:30] that, the other one that I already mentioned?

[1:20:31] Signs.

[1:20:32] Yeah, where he's the one who tells the hero what the weakness of the aliens are.

[1:20:35] Oh, man.

[1:20:36] But it's like there's a – so I don't know if you guys have read the Gormenghast books.

[1:20:40] I know I got you them.

[1:20:41] No, I started it.

[1:20:42] I haven't finished it.

[1:20:43] I got you the first two.

[1:20:44] But in the beginning of the third one, Titus Alone, he leaves Gormenghast and a guy in a car drives up.

[1:20:50] And there's something so shocking about that moment because you've kind of assumed that this book series is taking place in a kind of medieval-ish world.

[1:20:57] And then suddenly a guy in a car drives up.

[1:20:59] And I think that's the kind of thing he should be going for in something like The Village.

[1:21:03] But I don't know.

[1:21:04] To be honest, there's something that's more surprising about when the truck drives up at the end of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

[1:21:08] And, like, that's not a – there's no surprise that that's taking place in the 1970s, you know?

[1:21:12] We actually talked about – when we talked about the Fantastic Beasts movie, I think that this kind of applies there.

[1:21:17] There's all the stuff we were talking about where there are these various reveals about who is who late in the movie and, like, why they're important to one another.

[1:21:26] And the movie would have been so much stronger if it didn't save those as if they were, like, surprise reveals but just told a story about people.

[1:21:33] And I know that there's, like, a good movie version of that.

[1:21:35] I felt that before in things where, like, what does it buy you to, like—

[1:21:40] To make this a twist.

[1:21:41] To make this a twist rather than just, like, the greater drama of seeing people have interactions when you know, like, all the cards are on the table.

[1:21:50] Well, it's like, yeah, it's this problem I have with a show like Westworld where it was, like, a character shows up and you're supposed to be like, who's this?

[1:21:57] What's this all about?

[1:21:58] But it's more intriguing to me if I'm like, oh, what's this character who I know about?

[1:22:03] What are they going to do?

[1:22:04] Like I'm not a huge fan of what I call mystery shows where you're wondering what's going on.

[1:22:09] I'm more of a fan of like shows where you're like, well, what's going to happen next?

[1:22:12] And you're right.

[1:22:14] In Fantastic Beasts, it's like if you knew this guy wants to kill this character for revenge, then that's more dramatically strong when he shows up than if he's a mysterious figure where you don't know what he's doing.

[1:22:27] And then at the end he says, I want revenge and I'm going to kill you.

[1:22:29] It's like, all right, okay.

[1:22:30] Get in line, dude.

[1:22:32] I find that those sorts of mystery shows, when I'm watching them, I really enjoy the pilot.

[1:22:38] And then I stick with it for two or three episodes at most because the additional episodes just kind of extend the pilot.

[1:22:47] Being like, we're going to delay this payoff for you because once we pay it off, there's nothing more to our show.

[1:22:53] Yeah, it's just an excuse to go on the internet and speculate about what does this mean or what does that mean?

[1:22:59] And you're like, in a week, all my speculations will be naught but dust.

[1:23:02] Yeah, and I'll just find out that the character I named my daughter after has turned into a power-mad dictator burning people alive.

[1:23:09] That doesn't seem right.

[1:23:10] There's nothing in her family history that would imply madness.

[1:23:14] All right, anyway, this next letter is from Steve, last name withheld.

[1:23:18] Steve Jobs.

[1:23:19] Who writes, dear peaches from the grave.

[1:23:22] Yeah, you're using my technology wrong.

[1:23:24] Boo, I'm a ghost now.

[1:23:25] Hey, I just wrote one of Dan's tweets.

[1:23:27] Oh, man.

[1:23:28] Dan can't speak.

[1:23:29] He's laughing too hard.

[1:23:30] Dear Peaches, when I was 12 years old, my brother and I went to see a movie at our local Multiplex.

[1:23:39] Okay.

[1:23:39] When the projector started, Jackie Chan's Rumble in the Bronx started playing.

[1:23:45] Classic.

[1:23:46] My brother, myself, and I.

[1:23:47] Are you taking a note on that?

[1:23:48] My brother, myself, and I.

[1:23:49] He means his brother, his brother, and me.

[1:23:51] Okay.

[1:23:51] Yeah.

[1:23:52] were incensed after several minutes of confusion the projections finally put on the correct film

[1:23:58] my brother and i could finally see the film we spent all our hard-earned allowance money on

[1:24:03] down periscope 12 year old me had terrible taste so i pause it to you has there ever been an

[1:24:10] instance be it as a child or an adult where you agitated for watching one film over another and

[1:24:15] clearly made a terrible choice i could have seen jackie chan improvise some wonderful creative

[1:24:20] fight scenes amongst the snow-capped

[1:24:22] mountains of New York, but instead

[1:24:24] I had to sit through 90 minutes of

[1:24:26] Kelsey Grammer on a submarine. Which, I mean,

[1:24:28] when you put it that way, it sounds pretty good, too.

[1:24:30] I don't know. I'm not so sure

[1:24:32] about that, Dan. I think the movie down

[1:24:34] Periscope would be the counter-argument.

[1:24:36] I mean, if you can erase that movie from your mind, Eternal Sunshine

[1:24:38] style, and I just say, hey,

[1:24:40] there's a movie out there with Kelsey Grammer on a submarine,

[1:24:42] you might be like, yeah, okay. Nope.

[1:24:44] Don't think so. I don't know. I mean, I don't think he's got

[1:24:46] the kind of talent to support a major

[1:24:48] comedy. I think, Dan, there's two people who feel

[1:24:50] that way. You and the person who greenlit down

[1:24:52] Periscope. Yours and

[1:24:54] Perpetual Floppitude's Steve, last name withheld.

[1:24:56] So, do you have any answers for this?

[1:24:58] I don't have any answers for particularly

[1:25:00] that, but I do. It does remind me of the time

[1:25:02] my brother and I went to go see Joe's apartment

[1:25:04] in the theaters, and the

[1:25:06] projector broke down

[1:25:08] ten minutes in, and it was like the universe was saying,

[1:25:10] there are better things for you to do. Go outside.

[1:25:12] Yeah, I remember, I mean, it's

[1:25:14] more, yeah, it's so often that as

[1:25:16] a kid, I would get very excited about

[1:25:18] movies that were coming out and it would like consume me and i would think about it i'd be so

[1:25:22] pumped and i could tell like people around me did not give a shit like i did like i went and saw

[1:25:27] that movie matinee with john goodman and in my head i'm like but in my head i'm like this is

[1:25:32] gonna change my fucking life and it clearly did not i remember i remember so sorry what's the

[1:25:38] sliding doors of me not having seen matinee on opening night you wouldn't be here today you'd

[1:25:42] be a billionaire I the I remember so well the first time I was told by my mom I'm not going

[1:25:48] to take you to see that movie when Fern Gully came out wow I was like can I go see Fern Gully

[1:25:53] and she's like I don't want to see that and so I never saw it and I was and it was before that it

[1:25:58] was like whatever dumb movie I want to see my parents had to take me it was the first time my

[1:26:02] mom would put her foot down it was like we're not gonna go see that yeah it was it was that's

[1:26:06] actually kind of funny because I was just talking with some friends last night about how my wife

[1:26:10] you know uh there's a lot of movies like a movie like beaches or something that i i never saw

[1:26:15] growing up and i i think back to the fact that like when i was a kid growing up you know it was

[1:26:19] me and my brother and my my mom would always encourage me to watch like a ton of sci-fi movies

[1:26:25] or fantasy movies and she did she didn't show a lot of like i don't know like dramas or uh like

[1:26:32] relationship like musicals yeah like i didn't get a lot of that in my life and it feels in some ways

[1:26:38] it feels like

[1:26:38] I did not get a lot of

[1:26:39] I don't know

[1:26:40] like feminine influence

[1:26:41] in my life in general

[1:26:42] and we can talk about that

[1:26:43] on another podcast

[1:26:44] but

[1:26:44] no it seems like

[1:26:45] we're making some good progress

[1:26:46] no but it

[1:26:46] it just kind of

[1:26:47] it's just kind of

[1:26:50] interesting to me

[1:26:50] so who are you guys

[1:26:50] where are you from

[1:26:51] what did your dad do

[1:26:52] oh my guys

[1:26:54] so what was your beef

[1:26:55] with me at the comedy store

[1:26:56] that's true

[1:26:57] I don't

[1:26:58] well

[1:26:58] I just

[1:26:59] there's something about you

[1:27:01] you know

[1:27:02] how long have you been sober for

[1:27:03] oh

[1:27:03] like a couple hours

[1:27:05] uh are you done yeah probably whatever the only things i can think of are i've i've said before

[1:27:15] on the podcast i think that i really wanted to go to i convinced my ex to go to final fantasy

[1:27:23] the spirits within uh-huh yeah because it explains a lot uh why it's an x the ads looked so

[1:27:28] revolutionary at the time the computer animation like that looks beautiful and then i saw it i was

[1:27:31] Like, ugh, I never stopped apologizing.

[1:27:33] I think she, like, actually did not mind it as much as I felt bad for taking her there.

[1:27:38] But also, when I was a very young kid, like, the treat was to see a movie.

[1:27:43] Like, my parents never went to the movies and did not take me to the movies.

[1:27:46] And so, on my birthday, I always saw a movie.

[1:27:48] And I remember being like, this is not seeing a thing over another thing.

[1:27:53] So, it doesn't quite apply.

[1:27:54] But I was like, oh, I love Bill Murray.

[1:27:58] No Bill Murray movie could disappoint.

[1:28:01] And we saw What About Bob?

[1:28:02] And I'm like, eh.

[1:28:03] What About Bob is not a bad movie.

[1:28:05] Yeah, I remember enjoying it.

[1:28:07] I thought you were going to say larger than life or something.

[1:28:10] It has good things in it.

[1:28:11] But as a young kid to watch it and be like, I don't want to see Bill Murray just be irritating for a couple hours.

[1:28:21] I want him to be the funny, fun guy.

[1:28:23] No, you want him to be the suave, cool guy whose actions in real life would be incredibly asshole-ish but are charming in the form of a film.

[1:28:29] Yeah.

[1:28:31] Anyway, this last letter is from Nick Last Name Withheld.

[1:28:35] Yeah, let's think about all the movies where Bill Murray is just charming and not kind of irritating.

[1:28:41] Nick Last Name Withheld writes,

[1:28:44] Hi, Flappers. I wanted to thank Dan for his recommendation of Encounters at the End of the World,

[1:28:48] a documentary about Antarctica.

[1:28:50] My father actually worked in Antarctica for six months as an electrical line man

[1:28:55] right before the documentary was filmed.

[1:28:57] At the time, my parents had just gotten divorced,

[1:28:59] and I just had a kid's hazy memory of my dad working someplace far away.

[1:29:04] I now have two children of my own, and after watching the documentary,

[1:29:07] I felt a depth of new understanding for my father about the changes in his life

[1:29:11] and how that could have driven him to do something extreme like work in Antarctica.

[1:29:16] Oh, that's very sweet.

[1:29:18] So for my question, have you ever had a similar experience of a movie

[1:29:21] helping you better understand someone close to you?

[1:29:24] Thanks.

[1:29:25] Nick, last name withheld.

[1:29:27] I feel like I've had that a bunch of times, but I'm having trouble coming up with one off the top of my head.

[1:29:32] But there are definitely movies where I'll recognize someone that I knew in life, and I'll be like, oh, okay.

[1:29:41] There's a – in Synecdoche, New York, there's the woman played by – is it Emma Watson?

[1:29:48] No, Samantha Morton, right?

[1:29:50] And I saw it, and I was like, oh, I know this person.

[1:29:53] It reminded me of somebody that I knew.

[1:29:55] And I was like, I know that exact person, and now I feel like I can see certain times that I interacted with her in a way that makes me think differently about what I should have done and things like that.

[1:30:05] Yeah.

[1:30:06] Yeah, I also am struggling with a good example, although this does remind me of the famous, I think, I know it from Roger Ebert.

[1:30:16] I don't know whether he originated it, but he called movies empathy machines.

[1:30:20] Yeah, yeah.

[1:30:20] where like it it really allows you to sort of put yourself in another space where you understand a

[1:30:26] character like you have that distance from it it not being real life but you can sort of see

[1:30:32] i mean i would call i would say he's half right not to not to argue with the brilliant and deceased

[1:30:37] roger ebert but movies are just as equally dehumanizing machines it's much easier to make

[1:30:43] someone an enemy if you can show rambo just like mowing that's true so like i think he's i think

[1:30:49] depending on the movie you know and i think also he's he's probably suggesting that the he's he's

[1:30:54] being optimistic about the potential of movies as opposed to well that's his mistake it's like

[1:30:59] the thing samuel fuller i think it was once said where he's like there are no anti-war movies every

[1:31:03] movie about war glorifies war in some way yeah and it's that's how i've i always think about

[1:31:08] full metal jacket which is very clearly meant as an anti-war film and yet it became such a like

[1:31:13] by the time i was a teenager there were so many lines from it that were just like

[1:31:17] things that kids I know would say

[1:31:19] because they thought they were cool.

[1:31:21] You know, all they could see from it

[1:31:22] was the coolness of certain things.

[1:31:24] Yeah, there's a...

[1:31:25] Your Wall Street, your fight clubs,

[1:31:27] same sort of thing.

[1:31:28] Yeah.

[1:31:28] There's a fantasy novel by Joe Abercrombie

[1:31:32] called The Heroes,

[1:31:33] which is very clearly like a harsh look

[1:31:37] anti-war story in a fantasy,

[1:31:40] set in a fantasy battle,

[1:31:42] like a five-day battle.

[1:31:43] And there's the...

[1:31:45] It was just...

[1:31:46] he's a writer that i often like but like it had such a disconnect because i'm like

[1:31:50] you're you you're both glorifying and condemning the same thing at the same time and it doesn't

[1:31:56] quite work for me yeah do you guys have any do you guys make you think of any times where someone's

[1:32:00] helped you understand something you know what it's such a good question that i wish i was a

[1:32:04] better producer because i do wish that i had gotten this question out to us earlier i'm sorry

[1:32:09] that we were so you can really think about it because i think this is a really strong one i

[1:32:14] know that's happened i think there's a i mean the same thing happens with with me in novels too

[1:32:19] where i'll write like i'll see something that is similar with him and his father like i'll read a

[1:32:25] story about someone whose life is similar to either my parents or grandparents and it will

[1:32:28] give me a greater sense of kind of the pressures they were under or the stresses they lived with

[1:32:33] or you know what what made them the weirdos that i know them to be yeah i do think i mean like in a

[1:32:39] more general way like growing up in a very small town in the midwest 40 years ago you know like i

[1:32:49] was born 40 years ago like i was not around a lot of people who were out in any way with like

[1:32:57] alternate like like different secularities than my own um and i do think that in sort of like

[1:33:03] that general sense seeing movies where that was portrayed as just a normal like wonderful thing

[1:33:13] like as opposed to like dress to kill yes like sort of i think before before such time as i

[1:33:20] knew people who are out with different sexualities man like i i i had built up through pop culture

[1:33:26] more empathy i think and like i think that's true for a lot of i'm you know as as dumb as the show

[1:33:33] is like people did for instance attribute a lot of progress to the fact that will and grace was

[1:33:39] a huge hit like even though that's a show where like the gay characters were basically not allowed

[1:33:44] to kiss anyone but the fact that they're portrayed as these like kind normal humans you know rather

[1:33:51] than this monstrous other of some kind.

[1:33:53] I don't know.

[1:33:56] That's the best thing I can think of.

[1:33:57] Yeah, that's a hard and a complicated question

[1:34:00] that I'll have to put more thought into.

[1:34:02] I mean, part of it is also admitting

[1:34:03] that you didn't understand a person

[1:34:05] until you saw this thing.

[1:34:07] I mean, I 100% can agree that I don't.

[1:34:10] I've clearly gone through that a lot in my life.

[1:34:13] There are people who are very close to me

[1:34:16] who I love very much, who I struggle with,

[1:34:18] reminding myself that I need to understand

[1:34:20] like like that's just being human yeah there's a scene in i think it's the book this is the way

[1:34:30] the world ends it's a it's definitely in a james morrow book where someone asks him to write an

[1:34:35] epitaph for his mother and his father as a way and that becomes kind of like the epitaph for

[1:34:39] humanity because there's about to be a nuclear war and i did that once as an exercise i kind of

[1:34:44] like wrote what would be my what would be like my very short you like two-line eulogy of the people

[1:34:50] in my family be so i could kind of like and i was like oh i'm like it helped me really cut to the

[1:34:54] heart of them and like understand them a little bit then you then you folded up and left it on

[1:34:58] their car seat and they're like who left this here and i said it's i said it's not a threat

[1:35:03] it's a promise your days are numbered okay so well on that i'm characteristically sincere no

[1:35:11] we should move on

[1:35:11] to the final thing

[1:35:12] which is

[1:35:13] recommendations

[1:35:14] it's fart time

[1:35:15] it's the time we do

[1:35:16] our fart jokes

[1:35:17] that we

[1:35:18] liked

[1:35:19] movies we liked

[1:35:20] recommendations

[1:35:21] hey guys

[1:35:21] I got one

[1:35:22] but I bet you got ones too

[1:35:23] so who wants to go first

[1:35:24] okay

[1:35:26] I'll go

[1:35:26] I'm not gonna recommend

[1:35:27] Avengement again

[1:35:28] I did that last time

[1:35:29] but still

[1:35:30] check it out

[1:35:31] I'm gonna recommend

[1:35:32] a movie that's on

[1:35:33] Netflix right now

[1:35:34] it's a

[1:35:34] this is a break for me

[1:35:36] because this is a

[1:35:37] romantic comedy

[1:35:38] it's kind of a hit

[1:35:40] So it doesn't necessarily need my support.

[1:35:41] But if you haven't checked it out, I think you should check it out.

[1:35:43] It's a movie called Always Be My Maybe starring Ali Wong and Randall Park.

[1:35:48] It's a story about two people who were very close growing up and their family lives are tied together and they end up growing apart and then seeing each other after quite a distance and having their lives progressing in their own ways.

[1:36:03] And they reconnect.

[1:36:04] And it's a romantic comedy, so there's going to be some of those cliches.

[1:36:08] But I feel like both those actors really, they really embody their characters and they do a great job of making them seem like actual humans that are flawed and interesting.

[1:36:19] It's also a movie that's great because it features a lot of Asian-American actors and they don't fall into very specific small stereotypes.

[1:36:30] And it also features a great performance by one Keanu Reeves in a star-making turn playing himself.

[1:36:41] So, yeah, if you haven't checked it out and you're looking for a fun romantic comedy, check it out on Netflix.

[1:36:47] Just drag it into your browser and hit play.

[1:36:52] i want to recommend uh keeping with my persona a movie that i watched on the plane

[1:36:59] out to portland where we are it's called overlord and it's about look i i don't know

[1:37:08] you don't know what it's about you're recommending it like i just don't know like what's considered

[1:37:12] spoilers these days i mean like well if it's a jj abrams related movie right so everything's

[1:37:17] a spoiler you're not supposed to know even the title yeah i mean like let's just say that like

[1:37:21] It's a horror-war movie.

[1:37:22] It's a war-war movie.

[1:37:23] It's a war-war movie.

[1:37:24] These people, these World War II soldiers are going to parachute into Nazi-occupied France.

[1:37:31] I thought you were going to call them World War II people.

[1:37:33] I thought that was very funny.

[1:37:34] They're going to parachute into Nazi-occupied France.

[1:37:39] They need to take out...

[1:37:41] They're parachuting into a pair of pants that Hitler is wearing so they can take out his butt during Operation...

[1:37:46] They need to take out a tower that has guns so...

[1:37:48] Operation Underpants.

[1:37:49] to make way for d-day and let's just say this the nazis are doing scientific experiments that

[1:37:55] have a horror tinge to them and leave it at that but um it kind of reminds me a bit of the descent

[1:38:01] in that the movie's pretty good at before like the horror elements enter the story you're already

[1:38:08] like tense because there are these like only like four or five survivors behind enemy lines and they

[1:38:15] could die at any time and the movie is not scared of of of showing you that yeah it's it's a great

[1:38:21] like midnight movie to me like it's kind of a perfect kind of midnight like it's fun it's gross

[1:38:26] it's tense and it's got like the two the two leads kurt russell's kid and russell's kid yeah he's

[1:38:33] really good yeah he's great and the uh the the head nazi p uh played by pilo asbeck who was uh

[1:38:39] bateau in uh the ghost in the shell movie and a couple other things he's he's great in it too

[1:38:43] Well, what's interesting to me about it is, like, it's got this, like, plot, this, like, Nazi, evil Nazi science experiments plot that is, like, pure B-movie pulp.

[1:38:54] But what makes it work in a weird way is the movie plays that very straight, which is not to say it doesn't have any, like, sense of humor at all.

[1:39:02] It's not boring, but it plays it pretty straight.

[1:39:05] And I looked up the writer, and the guy who wrote it, Billy Ray, also wrote Captain Phillips and Shattered Glass, among other things.

[1:39:17] Oh, the movie we talked about today.

[1:39:18] He also wrote some less successful stuff like Color of Night, but we'll not talk about that.

[1:39:23] I think that he brings—

[1:39:25] Wow.

[1:39:25] Hey, I'm just glad—

[1:39:26] It's all tied back to Glass.

[1:39:28] Anytime I find out that a new movie is written by someone who's been working longer than I have, it makes me so glad.

[1:39:33] I'm like, oh, okay, I shouldn't feel – I can't feel jealous of him because he's older than me.

[1:39:36] He should be writing movies.

[1:39:37] I'm just saying he brings, you know, more seriousness of purpose than you'd think to this, like, sort of sleazy little horror movie.

[1:39:45] When you'd think – when he's used to writing serious movies about Bruce Willis' penis.

[1:39:49] Yes, exactly.

[1:39:50] Anyway, moving on to Elliot.

[1:39:52] Speaking of Bruce Willis' penis, I'm going to recommend a movie that – I feel like everybody's been kind of talking about it.

[1:39:58] And it's a little bit of an older movie, but it's been, I mean, everybody's kind of familiar with it.

[1:40:03] It's called Broadway Melody of 1936.

[1:40:05] And to be honest, I had never seen any of the Broadway Melody series.

[1:40:09] This was a bunch of musicals that MGM made in the 30s going into 1940.

[1:40:12] And I TiVo'd it on a lark, as I often do off TCM, the world's greatest television channel, because it has no TV shows, only movies.

[1:40:20] You're DTT down to TiVo.

[1:40:22] And it stars Jack Benny and Eleanor Powell and a bunch of other people in a movie where the plot is so silly and ridiculous that it's kind of not worth going into.

[1:40:32] It's like one of these movies that the plot is just like total ludicrousness.

[1:40:37] There's like an imaginary French dancer that someone impersonates in order to get back at an old flame who's producing a Broadway show.

[1:40:44] Total ludicrousness was the temporary title for Too Fast, Too Furious because it featured Chris Ludicrous Bridges in it.

[1:40:51] But it's such a, like, fun movie, and it's super fun.

[1:40:55] I found it – it's the kind of – there's a character who keeps popping up who is – he is a performer who just imitates different types of snores, and I found him hilarious.

[1:41:03] But, like, Jack Benny's real good in it.

[1:41:06] I was never really familiar with Eleanor Powell's work because her career kind of got cut off early, but she's really charming in it and beautiful and an amazing dancer.

[1:41:14] Buddy Ebsen and his sister Vilma Ebsen are in it.

[1:41:16] And I know as many people my age or slightly older know Buddy Ebsen mainly as Jed Clampett and as the guy who didn't get to be in The Wizard of Oz.

[1:41:26] And he's really great in this, and his dance numbers are really – he, like, dances with this kind of, like, coolness that I wouldn't have expected from him.

[1:41:33] And anyway, it's just like if you want to watch the most gossamer-thin kind of, like, bubble of a movie, Broadway Melody of 1936, which was somehow nominated for Best Picture.

[1:41:43] And, like, I liked it a lot, but it is—this is, like, plot-wise, it is an insubstantial movie.

[1:41:49] I recommend it.

[1:41:50] It's just super fun.

[1:41:50] And the movie—the music in it comes—it's a lot of the—it's from the unit that all the music for Singing in the Rain came from.

[1:41:58] So, like, you'll recognize—if you know Singing in the Rain, you'll recognize a bunch of the songs.

[1:42:01] And, like, it's interesting to see songs that are given, like, a couple seconds in Singing in the Rain in that montage of talkie movies to hear the whole thing.

[1:42:08] And there's a lot of good tap dancing in it.

[1:42:09] So, Broadway Melody of 1936.

[1:42:11] If you like tap dancing, see the movie.

[1:42:14] Okay.

[1:42:15] Well, guys, we've got to save up the rest of our energy for tonight.

[1:42:21] Oh, yeah, we've got to do another show.

[1:42:22] Okay.

[1:42:22] It's going to be so fun.

[1:42:25] I can't wait to talk about what movie are we talking about tonight?

[1:42:27] Holmes and Watson.

[1:42:29] So look for that in your podcast feed.

[1:42:32] I don't know.

[1:42:32] Why did we waste glass on the episode?

[1:42:36] Are we going to have to find something to talk about about Holmes and Watson for the live audience?

[1:42:40] We've got to just talk about glass in front of the live audience.

[1:42:43] Instead we're talking about Holmes and Watson?

[1:42:44] I mean, we'll probably end up talking about Glass a little bit.

[1:42:46] Yeah, because there's nothing to talk about.

[1:42:47] Oh, geez, Louise.

[1:42:48] Yeah, so we're part of the MaxFun Podcast Network.

[1:42:52] Go over to MaximumFun.org.

[1:42:53] Check out a bunch of other great shows.

[1:42:55] Yeah, and come check out our website to look at those upcoming live shows.

[1:43:00] Go to wherever you listen to your podcast, iTunes or PodSwitcher or Audio Bib and Bop, whatever you listen to.

[1:43:07] The Bean Machine.

[1:43:08] The Bean Machine, yeah, and Green Ears.

[1:43:10] And just leave a good –

[1:43:12] iPods.

[1:43:13] uh there is a podcast industry newsletter called hot pod i think yeah so uh and leave us a we go

[1:43:21] to those places and please leave us a five star review or whatever number of stars is the most

[1:43:24] stars tweet about us instagram about us tell your friends tell your grandma hire a skywriter and put

[1:43:29] it over a major city philadelphia maybe the buildings aren't that tall so they'll be able

[1:43:33] to see all that skywriting uh and thank you for listening to the flop house we appreciate it okay

[1:43:38] So for this show, which is the Flub House.

[1:43:41] The Flub House?

[1:43:42] I don't know.

[1:43:43] The Flub House.

[1:43:43] Take it over again.

[1:43:44] The Flub House.

[1:43:46] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:43:47] And I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:43:48] And I will still be Elliot Kalin, no matter how hard I try.

[1:43:51] Bye.

[1:43:52] Shorty's going to have to get low.

[1:44:03] Just put on your apple-bottom jeans, your boots with the fur.

[1:44:07] All right, ready?

[1:44:07] You know, the whole club's looking at her.

[1:44:09] She's going to hit the floor.

[1:44:11] I don't know the line that comes out of that.

[1:44:14] And then she gets low, low, low.

[1:44:16] Next thing you know, Shorty got low, low, low.

[1:44:18] Now, to me, Shorty means child.

[1:44:19] So I was always like, who let that kid in the club?

[1:44:21] Or maybe it's Muggsy Bogues.

[1:44:23] Doesn't get shorter than him.

[1:44:25] That's, yeah.

Ep. #287 - Glass

Chapters

Transcript

Description