Ep. #287 - Glass

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Glass.

Elliott Kalan

[0:03] The Philip Glass story.

[0:05] Starring Hayden Christensen.

[0:07] It's hot in here, huh?

[0:07] Because he was in Shattered Glass. Not particularly.

Dan McCoy

[0:09] Okay.

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

Stuart Wellington

[0:40] Oh, hey, Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellingtown.

Elliott Kalan

[0:44] Beep, boop. Elliot Kalin here. I'm a robot.

[0:46] J.K. J.K. April Fools, everybody. I'm not a robot. I'm a flesh-and-blood meat puppet human just like you.

Dan McCoy

[0:51] Now, Elliot, there's something different about you. You seem much larger and not in a box today.

Elliott Kalan

[0:56] If it's frightening you that I am three-dimensional and can touch you, as I'm doing right now.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[1:04] Okay. Removing my hand again. We're in one place. We're recording this in a hotel room in Portland, Oregon.

[1:10] Not Portland, Washington, as some people who saw the website might have thought because the wrong city was listed for our live show.

[1:16] But anyway, we're in Portland, Oregon. Tonight we'll be doing a live show, but before then, we're recording all three of us in one room together.

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

Stuart Wellington

[1:25] Oh, wow. That's nice. Now, we are in a boutique hotel room.

[1:28] And what makes a boutique hotel?

[1:30] Well, it generally is based on the difficulty of understanding the toilet fixtures.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36] Or how to use the phone.

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

Dan McCoy

[1:41] Yeah. Twice already. It's like an iPad, basically. And twice already, the phone has rung. It's the front desk. I push the button. They say, hello, hello. And I go, hello, hello. And then the phone call ends.

[1:59] Dan's classic hotel phone bit. Your regular Bob Newhart, Shelley Berman.

Elliott Kalan

[2:04] Right, right, right.

Dan McCoy

[2:05] What I like about that bit is everyone can relate.

Elliott Kalan

[2:08] Oh, yeah. Everyone can relate. It's a universal problem.

[2:11] Staying at an expensive boutique hotel in Portland, and you can't get this futuristic handsetless phone to work.

[2:17] We've all been there.

Stuart Wellington

[2:18] Yep. It's, yeah, it's the three seashells from Demolition Man.

[2:22] So, I have, guys, I have written on our door in chalk because we don't have signs in this hotel. We have chalkboard painted doors.

[2:31] I wrote, do not disturb. So, hopefully, we can continue this podcast.

[2:39] Undisturbed? Is that the word you're looking for?

Elliott Kalan

[2:40] I almost said something that felt weird to say.

[2:43] What's the opposite of just, like, turbed?

[2:45] Yep.

[2:45] Hopefully, we'll be turbed and not disturbed.

Stuart Wellington

[2:48] That's how I refer to the band Disturbed to my friends when I want to seem cool.

[2:52] Yeah, you get that new turbed disc.

Elliott Kalan

[2:55] Disc.

[2:57] So, Dan, what do we do on this podcast other than complain about your boutique hotel accoutrement?

Stuart Wellington

[3:03] Well, right now, I'm watching my wife try to open the door as quietly as possible and sneak out like a little mouse.

[3:13] Okay, well.

[3:14] That probably didn't get picked up on, Mike, 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 do we do on this podcast?

Dan McCoy

[3:22] As I was saying.

[3:22] Oh, okay.

[3:22] 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.

Elliott Kalan

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

Stuart Wellington

[3:28] Sure.

[3:28] This is a podcast.

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[3:33] You write your own ending.

[3:34] Keep believing.

[3:34] Keep on dreaming.

[3:35] Pretending.

[3:36] Pretending.

[3:37] 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-do.

[3:42] Do-do-do-do-do-do-do.

Dan McCoy

[3:43] 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, but a whole cavalcade of Flophouses.

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

[3:55] All of our characters.

Elliott Kalan

[3:56] Crawdaddy.

[3:57] Noir Baby.

[3:58] Old Crawd.

[3:59] Tintin Lady.

[4:01] House Cat.

[4:02] House Cat.

[4:02] Oh, of course.

[4:03] Yeah, the House Cat.

[4:04] Yeah, Proud of Place.

[4:06] Rocket Crocodile.

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

Stuart Wellington

[4:08] Yep.

[4:09] Angus Grimm.

[4:10] Nicolas Cage.

Elliott Kalan

[4:11] Yeah, yeah.

[4:12] Everybody's there.

[4:13] Sure.

[4:14] I'm trying to remember Fisher Stevens' name, and I couldn't remember it.

[4:16] Fisher Stevens.

[4:17] Mother movie.

Dan McCoy

[4:18] Back in theaters.

[4:18] 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.

Stuart Wellington

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

[4:25] Do you like that movie?

[4:27] The mother movie?

Elliott Kalan

[4:28] Yeah, it's not in character for me, but I do love it and cry at the end every time I see it.

[4:34] Yeah.

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

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[4:41] We'll find out.

[4:42] Well, we didn't watch it today.

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

Stuart Wellington

[4:46] You know what?

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

[4:48] As well.

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

Elliott Kalan

[4:52] Don't ever wrap your lips around glass.

Stuart Wellington

[4:54] I don't do a little bit.

[4:55] In some ways, it's worse if it's a little bit.

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

[4:59] In the water.

[5:00] Sound Guy's glass is...

[5:01] Which, by the way, this was in keeping with how I watched the previous installment in this trilogy, which I'm sure you're going to explain.

[5:08] I watched the movie, I watched the movie.

[5:09] I watched the movie Split while on a New Jersey transit train.

Elliott Kalan

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

[5:15] Yeah.

[5:15] 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] Uh-huh.

[5:23] We all remember...

[5:24] So when Split came out, the story of James McAvoy as a guy with dissociative identity disorder...

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[5:31] Yeah, who loves to...

[5:32] And, okay, well, we'll get to that.

[5:34] So James McAvoy's 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.

Stuart Wellington

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

[5:49] Whoa, so wait, are those all sequels to Rocky?

[5:52] Yes.

[5:52] And signs.

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

Elliott Kalan

[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] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[6:02] Maybe he is an alien.

[6:04] Oh, if only...

[6:04] Well, we'll get to it.

[6:05] We'll get to it.

[6:05] My stepmother is an alien.

[6:06] Oh, no kidding.

[6:07] Well, no.

[6:07] Oh, is that why she wore that backless wedding dress?

Dan McCoy

[6:10] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[6:12] Oh, and while we're at it...

Elliott Kalan

[6:13] The one thing I remember from that movie.

Dan McCoy

[6:14] And while we're at it, the computer wore tennis shoes as well, so...

Elliott Kalan

[6:17] Wait, did your mom and dad save the world, though?

[6:19] Yeah.

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

Stuart Wellington

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

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

[6:23] Oh, boy.

Elliott Kalan

[6:24] Oh, boy.

[6:25] That was pretty good.

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

Dan McCoy

[6:31] You can watch the Chuck Jones section of Stay Tuned.

Elliott Kalan

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

[6:37] Yeah, but avoid the Jeffrey Jones section.

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

[6:43] So Split came out and it was like, oh, this was a sequel to Unbreakable, and so it all

[6:47] comes together in glass.

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

[6:52] 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

[7:00] 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.

[7:09] What?

[7:10] But, uh, and I like James McAvoy a lot.

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

Dan McCoy

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

[7:18] 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 quite a bit, actually.

Elliott Kalan

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

Dan McCoy

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

[7:31] Wow.

Elliott Kalan

[7:32] And Glass, you are Glass half, we'll find out.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[7:40] And Glass, yes.

[7:44] So, let's talk about what happens in this movie, okay?

[7:46] Okay.

[7:46] And I'll try to, what's weird about this movie, it is over two hours long, and, like, there's

[7:50] not that much that happens in it.

[7:51] Okay, good.

Stuart Wellington

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

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[7:55] So, Split, he's out and about kidnapping women, like, is this raison d'etre?

Stuart Wellington

[7:59] And although that's a very feasible name for him to have, he instead is referred to as

[8:04] The Horde.

[8:05] The Horde.

[8:05] Which is a crazy, well, I would say that's a strange name for the media to give him.

Elliott Kalan

[8:10] Yes, so he's become famous now, and he's called The Horde because there's a horde of personalities

[8:14] in there.

[8:15] The thing, for those who didn't see Split, James McAvoy's character, he was abused as a child

[8:20] 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

[8:26] 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.

Stuart Wellington

[8:35] And he's got, like, a super, like, cool, deep voice.

[8:38] He speaks in, like, weird stuff.

[8:39] His Beast voice is terrible.

Dan McCoy

[8:42] What are you talking about?

[8:43] That's great.

Elliott Kalan

[8:43] It is exactly wrong.

Dan McCoy

[8:45] His doctor in Split, like, explained it, like, she theorized, she had a theory that people

[8:50] with this dissociative personality disorder...

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

[8:55] Yeah, they could, one of their personalities could, basically the act of their brain being

[9:02] taken over by this different personality could cause physical changes in them as well.

[9:06] Yeah.

[9:06] And the Beast is the proof of that.

Stuart Wellington

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

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

[9:15] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[9:15] Yeah, exactly.

[9:16] And so, the Horde, I'm going to keep calling him Split, though, because the Horde is a

[9:20] weird name and they should have called that movie Horde instead of Split.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[9:28] Yeah.

[9:28] I mean, that's what Kingpin should have been called.

Stuart Wellington

[9:30] Yeah.

[9:30] I mean, it would represent the riff that opens up between Randy Quaid's character and

[9:34] Woody Harrelson's character, because they do split for a little while before coming

[9:38] back together.

Elliott Kalan

[9:38] Or the split between Woody Harrelson's character and Bill Murray's character after,

[9:42] because they're together in the very beginning.

[9:43] I mean, it's...

[9:44] And then he betrays him.

[9:44] It's cycles.

Stuart Wellington

[9:45] It's like cycles of generational violence that we were talking about from the Grendel

[9:48] Tales comic book.

[9:49] Except we were talking about that earlier.

Dan McCoy

[9:50] Or it can symbolize the split between me and the movie when it makes that old, I milked

[9:54] a cow.

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

Elliott Kalan

[9:56] Or the split between me and the movie as a 14-year-old when I was like, there's not

[9:59] that much Vanessa Angel in this movie.

[10:01] Hold on.

[10:01] She's...

[10:02] Like...

[10:03] Anyway, so the...

[10:04] I had a big crush on Vanessa Angel when I was a teenager.

Stuart Wellington

[10:06] Uh-huh.

[10:07] And I had a big crush on Bill Murray in that movie because he had a really crazy haircut.

Elliott Kalan

[10:11] 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

[10:20] him.

[10:21] The media in these movies do not know how to name superheroes and supervillains.

[10:24] Oof.

Stuart Wellington

[10:24] It's like the same media from...

[10:26] What was that?

[10:27] The Cape?

[10:28] Yeah.

[10:28] Where the bad guy's name was Chess?

Elliott Kalan

[10:32] 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.

[10:40] 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

[10:53] and beats them up.

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

[10:56] He always does it in his trademark green poncho.

[10:59] And his son, Joseph, is now grown.

[11:02] His son from the first movie.

[11:04] Played by the same actor, which is great.

[11:07] And his son helps him kind of patrol, because they're looking for the horde.

[11:11] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[11:11] He's the guy in the chair, as Spider-Man Homecoming says.

Elliott Kalan

[11:15] Yeah.

[11:16] Wait, what?

Dan McCoy

[11:17] You know, like how Ned is like, there's always a guy in the chair who helps the superhero

[11:21] or the hero and things.

[11:22] Like, he's the guy.

[11:23] I forgot about that.

[11:24] Like a microchip.

Elliott Kalan

[11:26] Yeah, yeah.

[11:26] Or the one Spider-Man has in the comics, which he doesn't.

[11:27] You know, before a microchip betrays him.

Stuart Wellington

[11:29] Yeah, yeah.

[11:30] Sorry to spoil a Punisher point from the comic books.

Elliott Kalan

[11:32] From how many?

[11:34] 20 years ago?

Stuart Wellington

[11:35] Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

[11:36] Somebody maybe just got in the Marvel Unlimited app and started to go back.

Elliott Kalan

[11:39] I'm going to start from the beginning.

Stuart Wellington

[11:40] They're like, who's this Punisher character?

Elliott Kalan

[11:42] They're like, Mike Barron, make me laugh.

Stuart Wellington

[11:44] And I'm like, well, this stuff's not as funny as some of his other stuff.

[11:47] But so, anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[11:50] Unbreakable.

[11:50] Make a long story short.

[11:51] Unbreakable is going out on patrol.

[11:53] Or a long story, Stuart.

[11:54] A long story.

[11:55] Tell a long story to Stuart.

[11:56] Unbreakable goes out on patrol.

[11:58] M. Night Shyamalan gets his cameo as a guy buying security technology from their security

[12:02] store that he runs with his son.

Dan McCoy

[12:03] Who, by the way, he's playing the same character as he did in Unbreakable.

Elliott Kalan

[12:07] Oh, you're right, because he's like a punk kid in Unbreakable, right?

Dan McCoy

[12:10] Yeah, he's like a goon with like, not a goon, but he like sells drugs or something at the...

Elliott Kalan

[12:14] And in this scene, he's like, yeah, I used to run with a bad crowd, but now I'm doing good.

Stuart Wellington

[12:19] I'm glad that plot hole has been tied up for me.

[12:22] I'm like, whatever happened to that guy?

Elliott Kalan

[12:25] Unbreakable is walking around the factory district where Joseph has a hunch, Horde lives,

[12:29] and he bumps into Horde on the street.

[12:31] And his power that I had forgotten about, I knew he was super strong and super tough,

[12:35] Unbreakable, if you will.

[12:36] I had forgotten that if he touches someone, he gets a flash dead zone vision or something

[12:40] 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,

[12:51] 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] Yeah.

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

[12:57] Right there.

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

Stuart Wellington

[13:01] Yeah, and like jump kick a wall.

Elliott Kalan

[13:03] Yeah, because his child personality...

Stuart Wellington

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

[13:07] Take him down.

Elliott Kalan

[13:08] Well, it's his child personality whose name is...

[13:10] There's like, Kevin is the original personality.

[13:12] Patricia is the kind of priestess of the beast that's in there.

[13:16] 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] I don't remember.

Elliott Kalan

[13:25] It's like, if somebody write in and tell us.

[13:26] It's like Theodosius or something like that.

[13:28] Okay.

[13:29] Or Heathcliff or something.

[13:30] I don't know.

[13:31] It's some name that like a Park Slope parent gave to their kid.

[13:35] It's an old-fashioned name they love, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[13:37] We're going to get some sternly worded emails to you saying that they named their child that.

[13:42] Yeah.

[13:42] And that it's a totally reasonable name.

Elliott Kalan

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

[13:47] 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.

[13:54] Forget that reference.

[13:55] 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.

[14:03] The fight takes them outside in the rain.

[14:04] No, water weakens 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, says,

[14:18] you're all coming with me to Raven Hill Memorial Psychiatric Hospital.

Dan McCoy

[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.

[14:29] No.

[14:29] 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, I think they have to be arrested and then evaluated.

[14:37] Well, there's kind of.

[14:38] And then, like, maybe sentenced.

Elliott Kalan

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

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

Stuart Wellington

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

[14:48] Maybe it's playing on the idea that, like, every time the police arrest one of Batman's many rogues,

[14:54] they're always like, back to Arkham Asylum with you.

[14:57] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

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

[14:59] That's true.

[14:59] They've already been sentenced there.

Elliott Kalan

[15:01] I was just confused by the name Raven Hill Memorial Hospital, because it's like, who's it in memoriam of?

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

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[15:13] Sporty Stew, 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.

Stuart Wellington

[15:22] Or just Old Spice.

[15:23] You could be Old Spice.

[15:24] I feel like Sporty Spice is often underestimated amongst the Spice Girls, because, one, she's got a really cool fake tooth,

[15:30] and she's got an amazing voice.

[15:31] She's great.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[15:40] But Sporty Spice, she's wearing exercise pants.

[15:43] She's either a mob wife, or she's really into athletics.

[15:47] 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, and whenever they go off, he changes personalities.

Stuart Wellington

[16:01] And when she says weaknesses, she means perceived weaknesses, because she makes it very clear that she believes that they,

[16:07] only believe that they are superpowered.

[16:09] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[16:09] She says that she studies a delusion that people think that they are superheroes,

[16:14] 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.

Dan McCoy

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

[16:30] What judge is like, you got three days!

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

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

Elliott Kalan

[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.

[16:47] 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.

Stuart Wellington

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

[16:58] I don't mean to jump ahead, but I just want to make sure that people know that this whole time,

[17:01] 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!

[17:19] The city of Towers!

Dan McCoy

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

[17:26] I bet that's going to be really important later on.

Elliott Kalan

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

[17:33] I could be wrong about that.

[17:34] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[17:39] Godot Towers!

[17:41] 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 a kind of a reference off of a, 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.

[17:59] Oh, who do you think?

[18:00] Who do you think?

Stuart Wellington

[18:01] The Riddler.

[18:02] No.

[18:03] Clock King.

[18:03] No, think again.

[18:04] The Calendar Man.

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

[18:06] Zazz.

Elliott Kalan

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

[18:08] Killer Croc.

Stuart Wellington

[18:08] The Gator one, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[18:09] Okay, the killer one.

[18:10] Literally has Croc in his name, but you remember Zazz, but not Killer Croc?

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[18:19] I saw you on TV.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[18:22] Yeah, get a picture.

[18:23] Can I get your autograph?

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

Dan McCoy

[18:25] I mean, Killer Croc was like a, he was a famous wrestler.

[18:27] My teeth go outside my mouth rather than...

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[18:34] I can be all over the world.

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

[18:37] Yeah, yeah, Gator Boy.

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

[18:41] Maybe a rapper?

[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.

[18:50] I'm not actually a solid.

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

Stuart Wellington

[18:53] I mean, not all of them solid.

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

Elliott Kalan

[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.

[19:01] He's a Cajun Gator.

[19:03] 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?

[19:13] 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.

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

[19:30] 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 the 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.

[19:41] But we'll find out.

[19:41] And James McAvoy, dude.

[19:42] And James McAvoy.

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

[19:47] But Mr. Glass's mom shows up.

[19:49] She talks to him about how he's evil, but he needs to stay proud.

[19:51] But he's so out of it.

[19:52] He doesn't even know.

[19:53] And Unbreakable's son, Joseph, comes by.

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

[19:58] Look, he doesn't really think he's a superman.

[19:59] He's just pranking.

Stuart Wellington

[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.

Elliott Kalan

[20:13] When my dad was fighting the beast, he was just—it was just a goof.

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

[20:18] And she says, I think maybe you buy into a superhero delusion, too.

[20:21] And he flashes back to—was 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.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[20:37] I could not tell if they were—and other things.

[20:39] To Unbreakable and Split.

[20:40] There's not flashbacks to, like, Terms of Endearment or anything.

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

Stuart Wellington

[20:46] I think, you know.

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

Elliott Kalan

[20:52] Yeah, yeah.

[20:53] There's no scenes from Lucky Cow—or Poor Cow in this, yeah.

[20:56] I was going to say Lucky Cow, which is probably a very different movie.

[20:59] A cow that wins the lottery.

[21:01] There's no—there's nothing in the rulebook 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.

Stuart Wellington

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

Dan McCoy

[21:16] Very, very well.

[21:17] Like, in this scenario that you've created, there's, like, one guy who, like, comes up and is like,

[21:22] Everybody, everybody, listen to me.

[21:25] If we're doing it that way, we would have to literally write a law about every feasible thing that could happen,

[21:30] which is impossible.

[21:31] And everyone else goes, Stone him!

[21:33] Get rid of him!

Elliott Kalan

[21:34] Well, that's—I was talking to somebody the other day about how you have to imagine after Air Bud,

[21:38] after the Air Bud fiasco, that you had these guys at the NBA being like,

[21:41] Okay, what other animals could feasibly play basketball?

[21:45] We've got to include them all in the rulebook.

[21:47] And then someone's like, There's nothing that says a kit that can't play basketball.

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

Dan McCoy

[21:52] I got a narwhal in an aquarium on skates.

[21:56] Oh, boy.

[21:56] We've got to come up with every—

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[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.

[22:09] Now, Casey, the final girl from Split, she comes back to argue for the Horde's case.

[22:16] 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.

[22:28] I should not be pressured into helping you treat this guy.

Stuart Wellington

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

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

[22:37] Oh, yeah, she wants to see him.

[22:38] And the doctor's like, no way.

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

[22:41] And then she gives in.

[22:42] They let her see him.

Elliott Kalan

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

[22:48] Like, her methodology seems to switch on a dime.

Dan McCoy

[22:50] Again, there are reasons for this that come up later in the movie.

[22:55] But throughout most of the movie, you're like, wow, this is the worst doctor.

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

[23:00] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[23:00] So she wants to do brain surgery on glass.

[23:03] But he keeps getting out of his room at night somehow, despite being just all sedated in his wheelchair.

[23:08] We'll find out.

[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] 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.

[23:26] You just have a delusion.

[23:28] Casey and Joseph, they both visit the same comic book store.

[23:30] Casey and JoJo?

Stuart Wellington

[23:31] Yeah.

[23:31] Yeah, Joseph Joestar.

[23:33] Okay, sorry.

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[23:39] And it inspires Joseph to research Splitt's parents.

[23:42] Here's the thing.

[23:42] Okay, there's two scenes in this movie where people overhear stuff that's going on in a comic book store.

[23:47] And it somehow convinces them a rule about superheroes that is not a true rule.

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

[23:55] And he's like, wait a minute.

[23:57] The parents of villains always know about them and hold something over them.

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

[24:02] Like, I don't ever remember a scene in a comic book where a villain's parents come into the story.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[24:10] In the villains section.

[24:12] Okay.

[24:12] Which, again, is a strange way to categorize your comic book store.

[24:15] 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.

[24:23] Because, again, comic books are the only place that superheroes are mainstream aside from big budget movies.

Dan McCoy

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

Stuart Wellington

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

[24:34] But, I mean, I guess he's a creep.

[24:36] But it doesn't necessarily mean his work is.

[24:37] I mean, Cerebus is not necessarily a villain.

[24:39] But I guess he's, yeah.

[24:40] I mean, depending.

[24:41] You know, he's a shades of gray.

[24:42] Get it?

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

Dan McCoy

[24:44] I'm categorized by heroes and villains because the owner is a big fan of late period Beach Boys songs.

[24:51] So that's why.

Elliott Kalan

[24:52] Oh.

[24:53] Yeah.

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

[24:56] So a reference that baffles both of my co-hosts.

[24:57] Yeah.

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

Stuart Wellington

[25:00] A little bit of a more mainstream reference, like that comic book from Dark Horse?

[25:03] Yeah.

[25:03] 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.

[25:09] So, I mean, I don't know why I'm reaching back earlier in the show for Grendel Tales.

Elliott Kalan

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

[25:13] We'll stay.

[25:14] A self-published 300-issue story about a barbarian artwork?

Dan McCoy

[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] Like, it does feel like.

[25:25] Yeah, I learned all the important stuff.

[25:27] Computer game.

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

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

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

[25:34] Yeah.

[25:34] But it feels like a relic of, like when M. Night Shyamalan made Unbreakable, there weren't literally, like,

[25:43] 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 and I'm going to do, like, a serious examination of, like, what it would be like to be a superhero.

[25:56] Like, now that superheroes are the dominant entertainment in the world, like, you can't pull one over on us by being like, 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.

Stuart Wellington

[26:12] It would be really funny if later on when Mr. Glass is, like, spouting off rules about superheroes, people are like, yeah, dude, there's been a million movies since you've been incarcerated.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

[26:31] 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.

Dan McCoy

[26:45] You're talking about, like, an alternate, like, cover?

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

Elliott Kalan

[26:49] Like, 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, it used to be in Millburn, New Jersey.

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

[27:03] Why wouldn't you buy it?

Stuart Wellington

[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?

Elliott Kalan

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

Stuart Wellington

[27:12] Oh, wow, yeah, you're super cool, dude.

[27:14] Real indie.

Elliott Kalan

[27:15] 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.

[27:23] And also in that scene, here's what was false to me about it.

[27:26] A girl walks into a comic book store, and the guy behind the counter is telling her all about the history of comics.

[27:30] What was not accurate about it was that she asked him a question, and then he politely answered it.

[27:34] Rather, what actually happens is she would walk in, buy her favorite books, and he would immediately start explaining to her what the books are and everything about them.

[27:42] And she'd be like, I know.

[27:43] I read them.

[27:44] I bought them.

[27:45] I know.

[27:46] I understand.

[27:47] 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] I know who it is.

[27:53] 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.

[27:59] Okay.

[27:59] 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] Like, he's just looking up web stories about the overseer.

Dan McCoy

[28:17] Google Unbreakable.

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

Stuart Wellington

[28:22] Yeah.

[28:22] He can stream the song Unbreakable by Robin.

[28:25] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[28:25] Yeah.

[28:26] And he goes to visit Horde and he tells him.

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

[28:29] Oh, I look like such an idiot.

Dan McCoy

[28:30] Oh, man.

[28:30] What a big fan.

[28:32] Google says, did you mean indestructible about Robin?

[28:35] And he accidentally clicks on it.

[28:37] Yeah, thanks Google for helping me out again.

Stuart Wellington

[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.

Elliott Kalan

[28:45] It's okay.

[28:46] I get that a lot.

[28:48] So Glass talks to Horde.

[28:50] He says, I have this theory that comic books are based on reality, on 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?

Stuart Wellington

[29:04] Another ticking clock.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[29:16] No, I mean that scene still like, it's a terrifying scene.

[29:20] 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.

Stuart Wellington

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

[29:36] Like it's chilling.

Elliott Kalan

[29:37] Yeah.

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

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

[29:42] No, no, no.

[29:43] I'm going to say this.

[29:43] 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.

[29:51] 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, it's a rich scene.

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

Dan McCoy

[30:02] And also your son is made of saltines too.

[30:04] So he's very fragile.

Elliott Kalan

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

[30:10] His bones are actually made of saltines.

[30:11] Yeah.

[30:12] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[30:12] And the thing is that anytime you're a cracker.

Dan McCoy

[30:21] Well, we're talking about obscure bands.

[30:25] Well, yeah, you got us.

Elliott Kalan

[30:27] I should have meant, I forgot to mention earlier, I think that Glass is super smart and, but he

[30:31] has very brittle bones and they called him Mr. Glass as a kid.

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

[30:39] him.

[30:39] He, he can't be, it's not that he is, 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.

[30:47] Yeah.

[30:48] Yes.

Dan McCoy

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

[30:53] a supervillain.

[30:54] If it is a delusion, it's another thing that later in the movie, spoiler alert, like he will

[30:59] be, you know, lumped in with these other two people as sort of like these superhumans.

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

[31:08] really breakable bones as a superpower.

Elliott Kalan

[31:10] You have to believe that he is so incredibly genius that it reaches a level of superpower,

[31:15] which I like don't.

[31:16] Yeah.

[31:17] I don't fully buy.

[31:18] You don't quite buy.

Stuart Wellington

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

[31:21] No.

Elliott Kalan

[31:22] Samuel L. Jackson.

[31:23] 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

[31:29] key card.

[31:30] And we see he sabotaged the brain laser the night before.

Stuart Wellington

[31:34] Which seems like.

[31:36] A thing they would notice.

[31:37] They would have noticed that, right?

Elliott Kalan

[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.

Stuart Wellington

[31:47] And do you think that they've never used that brain laser before?

[31:50] So they're like, hmm, I guess it worked.

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

Elliott Kalan

[31:55] And also that way.

Stuart Wellington

[31:55] His brain doesn't seem to be that lasered, so.

Elliott Kalan

[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?

Stuart Wellington

[32:16] We're in uncharted territory.

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

Elliott Kalan

[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

[32:22] your body to get to the insides, the part that you're supposed to fix.

[32:26] But instead they're like, hmm, 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] That if you did laser surgery on somebody, they would just look the same afterwards.

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

[32:38] He frees the horde.

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

[32:44] And Glass is like.

[32:45] And 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.

[32:53] And that'll convince the world that you exist.

[32:55] There's that tall building again.

[32:56] I'm itching to get there.

[32:58] I'm gagging for it.

[32:59] And Glass tells the overseer, hey, we're going to attack the tallest building in Philly unless

[33:04] you break out and stop them.

[33:06] 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 room.

Stuart Wellington

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

[33:14] Because it's the biggest building in Philly.

[33:16] Philadelphia.

[33:18] America's most important city.

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

[33:24] Wow, I was just making fun that there are skylines on that tall.

Elliott Kalan

[33:29] 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.

[33:37] A city where if a killer virus got loose, we would just wall it up and leave it to die.

[33:43] Dan, come on.

Dan McCoy

[33:44] Your sandwiches aren't that good.

[33:46] Come for me, Philadelphia.

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[33:50] You mean hoagies, right?

Stuart Wellington

[33:52] Sure.

[33:54] Guys, I'm going to have to get off this ride.

[33:56] Not just because after this episode airs, we're going to start just getting images of

[34:00] gritties into us.

Dan McCoy

[34:02] Which is that one that they have that's not the cheesesteak?

[34:05] Philadelphia cream cheese?

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

[34:09] Oh, yeah.

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

Elliott Kalan

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

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

Stuart Wellington

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

[34:18] Oh, okay.

[34:18] That's Pittsburgh.

Elliott Kalan

[34:19] Oh, Pittsburgh.

[34:20] I'm so sorry.

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

[34:22] Wow.

Dan McCoy

[34:22] Or you could be thinking of England when we've got the chip buddy, which is buttered bread

[34:25] and chips.

[34:25] You know what?

Elliott Kalan

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

[34:28] Mm-hmm.

[34:29] England, the Philadelphia of the east of Europe.

[34:33] Wow.

[34:33] So, anyway.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[34:41] They kill the other attendant and that now there's nobody but like a couple security

[34:45] guards and the doctor in the hospital.

[34:49] Dunn, unbreakable overseer, whatever you want to call him, Bruce Willis, he finally breaks

[34:52] down his metal door, goes straight to the property's room to get his poncho.

[34:59] Yeah, get his poncho.

Stuart Wellington

[34:59] He can't fight crime unless he's wearing that green poncho.

[35:02] So, we have just seen the beast kill an attendant in the most boring way possible by hugging

[35:08] him to death slowly.

Elliott Kalan

[35:09] I mean, some would say that's the most betraying way possible because he's taking a sign of affection

[35:13] and turned it into danger.

Stuart Wellington

[35:15] But it's, I don't know.

[35:16] I feel like if you're going to make this scary, it wasn't done that way.

[35:18] And then they also miss an opportunity when David Dunn knocks down the iron wall that

[35:22] he doesn't say, guess that door wasn't unbreakable.

Dan McCoy

[35:26] That's pretty good, yeah.

[35:27] Do we, this is not super important, but do we go past the point where Glass, one of Glass's

[35:33] schemes hinged entirely on him knowing that one of his attendants liked to stand and gossip

[35:38] for a while?

Elliott Kalan

[35:39] Oh, we did pass by that.

[35:41] So, Glass goes into-

[35:42] So, we know he's super smart.

[35:43] Yeah.

[35:43] He goes into Horde's room and he's like, you're going to get caught.

[35:47] And he's like, I heard a car backfiring.

[35:49] That's the sound of the car that the attendant drives.

[35:53] So, I know he showed up for his shift.

[35:54] And I've heard complaints that he takes forever to get to his desk.

[35:57] He's a talker.

[35:58] And he is like gossiping about vitamins with the security guard.

Dan McCoy

[36:01] Which is kind of a funny scene, but he's like, but Glass is banking so much on it.

Elliott Kalan

[36:05] But also, this is a mental hospital.

[36:07] Yeah.

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

[36:13] come and relieve him.

[36:14] That's not how it works.

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

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

[36:20] he gets here.

[36:21] He's really late, but I got plans.

Stuart Wellington

[36:22] Like, it's-

[36:24] I got to go look at this biggest building in town that's under construction.

Elliott Kalan

[36:29] 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

[36:34] in America.

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

Stuart Wellington

[36:40] And clearly, based on this conversation, we know that the security guard isn't doing

[36:44] any of the health regimen that is-

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[36:51] absorb the vitamins.

[36:51] He's not sleeping enough, not drinking enough water.

Dan McCoy

[36:54] While we're talking about this mental hospital-

Elliott Kalan

[36:55] And this is also- and the guy who's gossiping always about vitamins, that he almost gives

[37:00] in to being seduced by split at one point, which is- comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere.

[37:05] But this weird thing where he walks in and James McAvoy's lying on the floor with a kind

[37:08] of like Blanche Duwatt personality.

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

[37:12] Stand right there.

[37:13] 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.

Stuart Wellington

[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.

Dan McCoy

[37:24] Okay.

[37:25] While we're talking about this mental hospital, I just want to say, I mean, it'll come into

[37:28] 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-

Elliott Kalan

[37:38] Well, we'll get to that.

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

[37:43] opening is happening soon.

[37:44] They escape through the basements, and while the Beast is beating up guards and killing

[37:48] them, Glass starts working on one of the computers down there, and Doc Staples notices they're

[37:52] running free.

[37:54] Security alert!

[37:55] 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 because they added more cameras to catch Mr.

[38:04] Glass because he was leaving his room so much.

[38:07] Meanwhile, Kevin, the original personality, he starts rebelling and being like, I don't want

[38:10] to hurt people, but the horde tamps him down.

[38:13] The Overseer shows up, and they all converge on that classic, climactic place for a superhero

[38:19] battle, the driveway.

[38:21] So they're just grappling with each other outside a driveway, and the Overseer and the

[38:25] Beast are punching each other and choking each other a lot.

[38:28] Some SWAT cops show up, and they fight them, and the Beast eats one of them?

[38:32] Yeah.

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

[38:35] You gotta feed the Beast.

[38:37] You literally do have to feed the Beast.

[38:39] I mean, but then, it's a good thing they didn't name him the Lizard, because then he'd have

[38:41] to drain himself.

[38:42] Oh, yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[38:43] There's a point in this fight, too, where David Dunn, the Overseer, is putting people

[38:49] inside a thing and bending a bar to-

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

[38:53] ...to confine them.

[38:54] Yeah.

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

[38:57] I'm just like, dude, stop bending that bar and go over and stop that guy from getting

Elliott Kalan

[39:01] killed.

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

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

[39:05] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[39:05] And all you have to do is slide the bar through it.

[39:07] Yes.

[39:08] Like, they're not gonna be able to get out, I guess, to stop someone else from getting

[39:10] them out, but they're gonna have to be let out eventually, right?

[39:12] Yeah.

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

Stuart Wellington

[39:16] Yeah, unless that shipping container was filled with, like, I don't know, Uts potato

[39:19] chips or something.

Elliott Kalan

[39:21] Look, Ravenhill Memorial has to make sure it has a pretty big supply of Uts.

Stuart Wellington

[39:25] I mean, it's Philly, so it'd be like Entenmann's or something?

Elliott Kalan

[39:28] No, it would be- Entenmann's is a pretty New York product, too.

[39:30] Oh, okay.

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

[39:35] 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?

[39:39] Handicapped hot fries?

[39:40] Yeah, what do you- because, like, yeah, I think of Uts and Entenmann's as, like, New

[39:42] York area things.

Stuart Wellington

[39:43] Yeah, maybe.

[39:44] I think they're primarily East Coast, but-

Elliott Kalan

[39:46] Is it Streets Matzah?

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

[39:48] Yeah.

[39:49] Streets Matzah?

[39:50] I always thought it was Streets, but-

[39:52] I guess because that's where I'm from.

Stuart Wellington

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

[39:55] The Streets Matzah factory.

Elliott Kalan

[39:56] So, Joseph runs out, and he's like, I did some Googling.

[39:59] I found some news.

[40:01] Split.

[40:01] Your dad, he didn't just run off and leave you with your abusive- oh, and also, at this

[40:05] point, we've had flashbacks to how Kevin's father disappeared.

[40:09] That's Split's real name, Kevin Wendell Crumb.

[40:12] Kevin Wendell Crumb, named after, of course, the famous superhero artist, R. Crumb, and

[40:16] the famous superhero song, Mr. Wendell.

[40:18] Yeah.

[40:19] So, Kevin Wendell Crumb, his father disappeared and left him with his abusive mother, and that's

[40:24] why he created these personalities, to defend himself.

[40:26] He says, your dad didn't just disappear.

[40:28] He was on the train that my dad was on.

[40:31] The train Mr. Glass derailed to turn my dad into unbreakable.

[40:36] Mr. Glass killed your dad.

[40:38] And Glass is like, hey, look, it worked, right?

[40:41] I turned you into a supervillain.

[40:43] And was it, like, he says, like, not yet or something?

[40:46] Like, so, like-

[40:47] Oh, yeah, because he wanted to reveal that later.

Dan McCoy

[40:49] Yeah, it's important to Glass that this be known, but not necessarily, like, right then,

[40:55] but it's like, why is this part of your plan at all?

Elliott Kalan

[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

[41:07] attack the tallest building in Philadelphia, which is opening today.

[41:10] So, anyway.

Dan McCoy

[41:11] Yeah, and we'll get there, guys.

[41:13] Don't worry.

[41:13] Yeah, we'll get there.

Elliott Kalan

[41:13] At this point, the people there are like, it's taking a while for the superheroes to get here.

Dan McCoy

[41:16] Yeah, man, I could really go for a good skyscraper fight right now.

Elliott Kalan

[41:19] Yeah, well, don't worry.

[41:20] Don't worry.

[41:20] We'll get there.

[41:22] So, Beast gets mad.

[41:23] Now, he's always looking for someone who has been purified through suffering.

[41:27] And he said earlier, Glass, you're pure because you've suffered.

[41:29] And Beast 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.

[41:37] The Beast throws him into a big water tank.

[41:39] That was the water that they were using to keep the Overseer weak.

[41:42] Uh-oh, now they're fighting in the water tank.

[41:44] That's where he's weak.

[41:45] But he still breaks through the wall of the tank.

Dan McCoy

[41:47] It's very strange to be, for water to be this guy's kryptonite.

[41:51] Because, like, unless I miss something, it doesn't necessarily seem to make him that much weaker.

[41:57] It just affects him in the same way it would affect any of us who could not swim, which is he might drown.

[42:01] He chokes on.

Elliott Kalan

[42:02] It is, yeah, it's a strange, it's the same way that, like, Martian Manhunter is vulnerable to fire.

[42:06] And it's like, yeah, no shit, dude, so am I.

[42:08] Like, so is everybody.

[42:10] But, yeah, to have water.

[42:12] My kryptonite is stabbing.

[42:14] Yeah.

[42:15] There's a bit that the comedian Andre Duboucher used to do where he was a monologue with him as a superhero named, I think, Awesome Man.

[42:21] And he has a new assistant or secretary.

[42:24] And he's going through all of his weaknesses.

[42:25] 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.

[42:33] I can't survive in the vacuum of space.

[42:36] That's my weakness.

[42:37] Such a funny monologue.

[42:38] But, anyway, they escape from the water.

[42:40] 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.

[42:58] And now Casey's hug has killed the beast.

[43:00] Yeah, I don't think.

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

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[43:06] It's dangerous for glass.

[43:07] 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.

[43:14] Yeah.

[43:14] I will say, um...

[43:15] And an anagram of hug is ug, the way I felt when I realized they're never getting to that damn tower.

Dan McCoy

[43:23] 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] What?

Elliott Kalan

[43:30] I mean, Dan, it's one thing when you can't pay attention during the movie.

[43:32] During the episode?

[43:34] Are you okay?

Stuart Wellington

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

[43:36] He's looking at this mural of rocks and water that is on the wall of our hotel.

Elliott Kalan

[43:41] I mean, to be fair, looking at the timer, we have been recording for 47 minutes.

[43:44] I had to do some...

[43:45] Far too long for a human attention span.

Dan McCoy

[43:46] I had to do some business for later in the show, but I don't know whether we...

[43:50] Were you pooping?

[43:50] No.

[43:51] I had to do...

[43:53] Anyway, I don't know if we fully covered the fact, or addressed the fact, that Casey, who had been kidnapped by the Horde before,

[44:00] has gone beyond Stockholm Syndrome and now seems to be super into this guy.

Elliott Kalan

[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] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[44:13] She was set free and also, 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.

Dan McCoy

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

[44:35] Who did kidnap her.

[44:36] And kill her friends.

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

[44:39] Yes.

[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.

[44:48] Yeah.

[44:48] It's a relationship that I do not feel particularly comfortable.

Stuart Wellington

[44:51] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[44:51] No, it's a, and I like, 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.

[45:06] 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.

[45:13] Yeah.

[45:13] It's a powerful thing to me.

[45:14] So I like.

Dan McCoy

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

[45:17] It gets in your butt.

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

Elliott Kalan

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

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

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

[45:25] He's like, can you imagine those particles?

[45:27] They get everywhere.

[45:28] Everywhere.

[45:29] Because I am particles.

[45:31] 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.

[45:37] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[45:38] 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?

Elliott Kalan

[45:47] Yeah.

[45:48] That's probably what he's thinking.

[45:49] So I hope I get to ride a sea biscuit 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 device.

Stuart Wellington

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

[46:08] Where a French woman murders a bunch of dudes.

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

Elliott Kalan

[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.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[46:21] Oh, okay.

[46:21] Well, maybe never mind.

[46:22] What about Ms. 45?

[46:24] Is there a forgiveness movie?

[46:27] So something I'll mention, 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.

Dan McCoy

[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.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

[46:57] And the shot is on his face the entire time and he doesn't do the like, like grunting between shifts.

[47:03] And he managed to control kind of the muscles of his face and his eyes.

[47:07] 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 much?

[47:13] And I wish I could pinpoint exactly when it happens.

[47:15] But it's during the climax.

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

Stuart Wellington

[47:18] Yeah.

[47:18] Is it as good as the scene in The Guest where Dan Stevens' face goes from friendly to angry 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] That scene is so good.

[47:30] It's so awesome.

Elliott Kalan

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

[47:31] But rather than compare it to somebody else when I'm trying to give a compliment to James McAvoy.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[47:37] I'd like to say that when it comes – we haven't finished the movie yet.

[47:39] But I'll just say when it comes to the acting in this movie, Samuel L. Jackson I think is really good in it.

[47:44] Yeah.

[47:45] He resists being too big with his performance.

[47:47] It's a much more – to be – 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.

[48:00] Like this is the most subtle – I mean I haven't seen everything he does.

[48:03] But this is the most subtle performance I've seen from him since he did the voiceover for I Am Not Your Negro.

[48:09] And so I was like, okay.

[48:10] 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.

Dan McCoy

[48:16] I mean he forgot he was in the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[48:19] I mean there are times when I forgot he was in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[48:20] They were pulling a bow finger on him.

Elliott Kalan

[48:24] So during that fight scene he was like, James, why are you hating me?

[48:28] What's going on?

[48:29] He's getting his poncho off me.

[48:30] I was just going out for a water run.

[48:32] 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.

[48:39] 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?

Stuart Wellington

[48:46] The hero of the movie drowned in a puddle by a guy with like a cloverleaf tattoo on his wrist.

Elliott Kalan

[48:51] 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.

[48:58] But that they just – there's not even – like you were saying, for a moment I was like, there's not even going to be a pretense of like arresting him.

[49:02] They're just going to drown him in a puddle.

Dan McCoy

[49:03] No, it's a genuinely shocking moment actually in the movie.

[49:06] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[49:13] It's horrifying.

[49:14] And Doc Staples reveals separately to the overseer and then to Glass that she is the member – she is not a – she was not hired by the state.

[49:21] Thank God.

[49:22] She is – 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.

[49:33] Like you are special.

[49:34] And Glass dies proud of himself.

Stuart Wellington

[49:36] And she reveals that to the overseer by letting him shake her hand.

[49:40] And he gets a glimpse of a restaurant full of Illuminati types.

Elliott Kalan

[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 for a long time before she gets up and starts talking to everybody.

Stuart Wellington

[49:55] They could have edited that clip a little bit.

[49:56] Yeah.

[49:58] In her – in the flashback.

[49:59] It's also kind of weird – 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] The four-leaf clover.

[50:08] Is 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.

Elliott Kalan

[50:17] I didn't know that.

[50:18] I mean I just associate it with Ireland.

[50:20] So it's like –

[50:20] But also like –

[50:21] It's a weird – the Lucky Charms logo is a weird thing to use.

Dan McCoy

[50:23] I mean all your finest secret societies put a permanent mark on you so you can be easily picked out.

Elliott Kalan

[50:29] And now I don't know if this is the case but I could have sworn that the glove that the SWAT team I had had Make Mine Marvel written on it.

[50:34] But it may not have.

[50:36] Yeah.

[50:36] But anyway this explains –

[50:38] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[50:39] He was – it was the MCU's lawyers that came and killed the overseer.

Dan McCoy

[50:44] He's the truest of believers.

[50:45] This sort of explains why Sarah Paulson is the world's worst psychologist.

Elliott Kalan

[50:50] Yeah, because her job is really more to kill superheroes.

Dan McCoy

[50:53] I mean although it does turn out that she is trying to help in a way but we'll get to that.

Elliott Kalan

[50:57] We'll get to that.

[50:58] So anyway she erases all the footage of their superpowers 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.

[51:09] We were Poochie Fireworks Factory on this one, guys.

Stuart Wellington

[51:12] Surely in the end credits we get to see that building opening.

Elliott Kalan

[51:15] Oh, yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[51:18] Dedicated to the dream of a new Philadelphia skyline.

Elliott Kalan

[51:21] I would have loved it if the end credits was just footage of people enjoying that building.

[51:26] All the amenities.

Stuart Wellington

[51:27] What a great atrium this place has.

Elliott Kalan

[51:29] Then she's at a restaurant and someone gets them and leaves the restaurant and they're like look around.

[51:34] 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] And it's like this meeting.

[51:41] I was supposed to give my report at like six.

[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?

[51:52] They're checking their phone now?

Dan McCoy

[51:53] Yeah.

[51:53] Like, yeah, it's a thing that's done for effects like for the movie.

[51:57] That, you know, like a guy leaves and everyone falls silent and turns around.

[52:02] And you're like, oh, they're part of.

[52:03] But it's like.

Stuart Wellington

[52:03] I've talked about this before.

[52:05] It's that fear of being in a tavern.

[52:06] And you find out that everyone else in the tavern is a werewolf.

[52:10] As featured in the Flop House comic book I wrote that's available for a download.

[52:15] And all the money goes to charity.

Dan McCoy

[52:16] I just wish that like the scene had continued.

[52:20] And other patrons who are not part of this organization came in.

[52:23] And she had to stop again.

[52:24] And they kept stopping and starting.

Stuart Wellington

[52:26] Yeah.

[52:26] They come in.

[52:27] They're like, oh, is this a private function?

[52:29] And she's like, no, no, no.

[52:32] It's fine.

[52:34] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[52:43] They have a network of secret restaurants in every city in the world.

[52:47] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[52:48] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[52:50] It would be so much easier to just meet at someone's house.

Stuart Wellington

[52:52] They dream of a utopia with no superheroes.

[52:56] We call it Flavortown.

Dan McCoy

[52:59] Also, is this their restaurant?

[53:01] Or did they just make like a really big reservation?

Elliott Kalan

[53:04] I don't think they made a reservation.

[53:06] I think they just all show up.

[53:07] And some of them have to.

[53:07] There's like, if it's a really happening place,

[53:10] 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.

[53:17] And she'll move on to the next city.

[53:19] 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] Yeah.

[53:29] But this time it ended up with all them dead.

Stuart Wellington

[53:30] She doesn't assume the machine is a cool supervillain that we haven't seen yet.

[53:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[53:33] But this is what I referred to before, which is where it doesn't make sense that for everyone

[53:37] else, 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 prove, I can make them think they're deluded and we can release them back into the

[53:48] wild or whatever.

[53:49] Uh-huh.

[53:49] And they can live their lives.

[53:51] But again, Mr. Glass has been there for like a decade.

[53:55] So what was the deal with him?

[53:56] Like, he was...

Elliott Kalan

[53:56] I mean, he was...

[53:57] I guess he was...

[53:57] 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...

[54:00] Because Mr. Glass, at the end of The Unbreakable, it says in titles, he was convicted and sentenced

[54:04] to a mental hospital.

[54:05] Right.

Elliott Kalan

[54:05] Okay.

[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 and he can live his great life as a man

[54:12] who is not super smart, but instead just brittle out on the outside.

Dan McCoy

[54:15] Yeah.

[54:16] But also this kind of explains what there's...

[54:17] We didn't really talk about it, but there was a group therapy scene earlier in the movie.

[54:21] And when I was watching it at first, I'm like, this seems like the worst way to deal with

[54:25] people who have a shared delusion, like to like, let them reinforce one another this way

[54:29] rather than like, at least start out alone and then get into group or whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[54:33] I wonder.

[54:33] That's a good point.

[54:34] I mean, she never has one-on-one sessions with them, which is crazy.

[54:37] Yeah.

[54:37] Even group therapy, I would assume you need to reinforce it with like one-on-one stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[54:41] Maybe the feeling is that if she goes after the biggest one in the group and makes them

[54:45] doubt themselves, the others will doubt themselves.

[54:48] It's, you know...

Elliott Kalan

[54:49] Prison tactics.

[54:50] Yeah.

[54:51] Anyway, before she leaves town, 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, like I always am.

Stuart Wellington

[54:58] She needs to get some floppies.

Elliott Kalan

[55:00] She's like, I just need...

[55:01] I'm missing a couple issues of John Burns' She-Hulk, right?

Stuart Wellington

[55:03] The labels went off the rails.

Elliott Kalan

[55:05] And she overhears some nerds who are talking about how this one nerd is like, the villain's

[55:11] 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.

Dan McCoy

[55:21] He never wanted to get to that skyscraper.

Elliott Kalan

[55:25] Much like the movie itself.

[55:26] And she realizes that Glass outsmarted her.

[55:30] He led her to introduce lots of video cameras all over the hospital.

Dan McCoy

[55:34] And then...

[55:34] We have flashbacks to them, the video cameras being installed, which is something that we

[55:38] saw earlier in the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[55:40] And also, even if we hadn't seen it earlier, we don't need...

[55:43] Yeah, we don't need to see it.

[55:44] It doesn't...

[55:44] I don't need confirmation.

[55:45] Yeah.

[55:46] 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] And they...

[56:01] The three buddies.

[56:02] The three buddies.

[56:03] They're now the three Glassketeers.

[56:04] And they go and they post it online and then go sit at a train station so that they can

[56:09] watch it go viral by having people's phones light up.

[56:11] This is the most baffling fucking thing.

Dan McCoy

[56:15] They're like...

[56:15] They meet together in public and they're like, did it happen yet?

[56:19] I don't see it happening.

[56:20] I mean, I gotta say...

Elliott Kalan

[56:21] I can't see my video going viral.

Stuart Wellington

[56:23] I've definitely hung out in that train station before and never seen anything that exciting

[56:27] happen.

Elliott Kalan

[56:27] And everyone's phones are going...

[56:29] It's also the thing that...

[56:31] Things do go viral very fast in real life.

[56:32] But in the movies, if something goes viral, every single person in a room suddenly gets

[56:36] it on their phone at the same time.

[56:38] And speaking as, maybe it's because I am an approaching middle-aged man who has a family.

[56:42] When I find about viral things, it's usually like after they've been around for a week and

[56:45] they've already been memed up.

[56:46] And I overhear my coworkers talking about them and I'm like, what's that?

[56:49] And they're like, oh, here's this thing a kid said in a video three weeks ago.

[56:52] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[56:53] And also, the weird thing about this end of the movie, too, is that the news immediately

[56:58] is like credulously reporting on it like, oh, by the way, superheroes exist.

[57:04] Where I believe that if I saw a video online of people doing superhuman strength, I'd be

[57:09] like, oh, those are pretty good special effects.

[57:11] I wonder what amateurs...

[57:14] SF whiz did this.

Elliott Kalan

[57:15] Dan, I'll remind you.

[57:17] They did have video of a man not quite overturning a car, but like turning on its side.

[57:21] And then of two guys punching each other, what better proof is there that superheroes exist

[57:25] than two men grappling in a parking lot?

[57:28] And Sarah Paulson, I forgot to mention, she has my favorite line in the whole movie.

[57:31] She's telling the staff at the mental hospital, she says, for the privacy of the victims, let's

[57:37] please not spread this information.

[57:39] We'll just say that they died here.

[57:40] Never tell anyone what happened at this building and this parking lot.

[57:45] And it just reinforces how small this movie is that she calls out that the climax happened

[57:50] in a parking lot.

Stuart Wellington

[57:51] It feels like our filmmaker is trolling the ever-increasing spectacle of superhero movies

[57:59] by setting it in the most mundane setting possible.

Dan McCoy

[58:03] I don't want the memory of our beloved parking lot sullied.

[58:06] The place where we hang out and smoke and we set off fireworks that one time.

Elliott Kalan

[58:10] The place where the one guy who works here parks his car.

[58:14] So it's not going to be the David Overseer Dunn Memorial parking lot.

[58:18] But it's, I mean, here, so M. Night Shyamalan's working with a much smaller budget, clearly,

[58:22] than like the Marvel movies have.

[58:24] And I think he's partly trying to make a virtue out of that by having a very small-scale superhero

[58:30] movie.

[58:30] But maybe we should have some judgment of finality on this in some way.

[58:34] Dan, what would that be like?

Dan McCoy

[58:36] Yeah.

[58:37] Let's do final judgments where we judge whether it's a good-bad movie, a bad-bad movie,

[58:41] or movie kind of like, I'm going to say this is the rare occasion when we've watched one

[58:46] of these movies.

[58:46] I think actually the only occasion where I'd actually seen the movie and then I was like,

[58:51] you know what?

[58:52] This is too rich a movie to pass up.

[58:53] I'm not going to deny Elliot and Stu the joy of talking about Glass on the podcast.

[58:58] 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.

[59:06] They were loving it.

Elliott Kalan

[59:07] Let me tell you, I have never seen a crowd react, or very rarely, the way I did when the

[59:12] Unbreakable trailer came out.

[59:14] I don't remember what movie I was seeing it before, but the Unbreakable trailer started

[59:17] playing and the minute Samuel L. Jackson appeared on screen with his Mr. Glass haircut, the entire

[59:22] audience erupted in laughter.

[59:25] It was like that you hear Samuel L. Jackson in voiceover, I think, in the trailer, and then

[59:28] you see him finally 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.

Dan McCoy

[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, I don't think.

[59:44] Because, like, I don't know.

[59:46] I feel like it has too many problems for that.

[59:48] But I guess I'll go good, bad movie.

[59:49] Because I found it very fun to watch.

[59:52] It's really dumb and just gets dumber.

[59:56] But I'll give it a sort of positive in that way.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:00] Yeah, I don't know.

[1:00:01] I mean, I'd probably say, I mean, I unfortunately think this probably falls into bad, bad.

[1:00:07] Like, I think there's some stuff that I like in it.

[1:00:09] I don't know.

[1:00:10] These are categories that are not...

[1:00:12] These are not good categories.

[1:00:14] I'm with Stuart on this one.

[1:00:15] But there's stuff in there that I like.

[1:00:17] I feel like...

[1:00:18] I mean, I haven't seen Unbreakable in a long time.

[1:00:20] But I remember that there was...

[1:00:23] There was stuff in it that I enjoyed quite a bit.

[1:00:25] And I liked the way that he used the, like, kind of a fixed camera perspective to, like, raise tension.

[1:00:33] And there were a lot of scenes where, like, you know, two characters are talking.

[1:00:38] Or one character is talking to another person and getting information.

[1:00:40] And you're just watching that person's face, like, absorb the information.

[1:00:44] And you get a little bit of that here, but it, like, it just didn't feel like the same level of, like, artistry, I guess.

[1:00:51] But maybe, I mean, maybe I'm just speaking out of my ass like usual.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:55] I mean, it's a movie that I feel similar.

[1:00:58] It's like, there's some good bones in this movie.

[1:01:00] Brittle glass bones, yes.

[1:01:01] And they don't...

[1:01:02] They can't totally hold up to what he's trying to do.

[1:01:05] Like, there...

[1:01:06] I feel like there's a very good version of this movie.

[1:01:09] And he has not really done it here.

[1:01:12] But partly because, like, I think he's building...

[1:01:14] He's trying to build a solid house on a foundation of sand.

[1:01:17] Like, Split was not a movie I liked that much.

[1:01:19] And the Beast character is not really complex enough to do a lot of this.

[1:01:24] Unbreakable, I haven't seen it since it came out.

[1:01:26] But it's a movie I remember having issues with at the time.

[1:01:28] But I know a lot of people who like it since then.

[1:01:30] So maybe I should see it again.

[1:01:31] But, like, that the David Dunn character has a lot of issues.

[1:01:34] Like, the...

[1:01:35] Like, Glass is the strongest character.

[1:01:37] Yeah.

[1:01:37] And it's partly just because he's a motivated character.

[1:01:40] Yeah.

[1:01:40] And Overseer, I don't know why he does any things he does.

[1:01:44] Bruce Willis brings nothing to this performance.

[1:01:46] And James McAvoy's character is so much about trying...

[1:01:50] Just showing us these different personalities.

[1:01:51] Hedwig.

[1:01:52] That's the name of the kid personality.

[1:01:54] Thank you.

[1:01:54] Hedwig.

[1:01:55] Oh, wow.

[1:01:55] I remember because I was like,

[1:01:57] Hedwig's a weird name for a nine-year-old boy character.

[1:01:59] Especially in the world where Hedwig and the Angry Inch exists.

[1:02:02] Like, I feel like the name Hedwig is taken.

[1:02:03] I can never see another character without thinking about Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

[1:02:06] Which I love.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:07] Certainly in pop culture.

[1:02:08] The...

[1:02:09] It is weird.

[1:02:10] It's a strange choice for him to not only return to this world that he's created.

[1:02:16] But also insist on having characters spout, like, rules for superhero stuff.

[1:02:23] When superhero stuff has become so prevalent in pop culture that, like, everyone knows the rules already.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:29] It feels like it's...

[1:02:30] The movie exists in a different world than ours.

[1:02:32] Where not only are superheroes real, but superhero movies do not exist.

[1:02:35] Yeah.

[1:02:36] Yeah.

[1:02:36] And so it's like...

[1:02:38] I wish...

[1:02:39] 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.

[1:02:44] But, uh...

[1:02:45] Oh, there's one other thing I was going to say, but I forgot what it was.

[1:02:48] I don't know.

[1:02:49] Ba-da-dee!

[1:02:50] Oh, wait.

[1:02:51] 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...

[1:02:59] 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 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.

Stuart Wellington

[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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:21] A small grassy quad.

[1:03:24] Yeah.

John Hodgman

[1:03:32] Judge John Hodgman ruled in my favor.

S5

[1:03:34] Judge John Hodgman ruled in my friend's favor.

[1:03:37] Judge John Hodgman ruled in my favor.

John Hodgman

[1:03:40] I'm Judge John Hodgman.

[1:03:42] 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.

[1:03:50] I ask them questions.

[1:03:51] They're good ones.

[1:03:52] And then I tell them who's right and who's wrong.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:55] Thanks to Judge John Hodgman's ruling, my dad has been forced to retire one of the worst dad jokes of all time.

S5

[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.

John Hodgman

[1:04:09] And my wife has stopped bringing home wild animals.

[1:04:12] It's the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

[1:04:14] Find it every Wednesday at MaximumFun.org or wherever you download podcasts.

[1:04:21] Thanks, Judge John Hodgman.

S6

[1:04:28] Well, Alexis, we got big news.

[1:04:30] Uh-oh.

[1:04:30] Season one, done.

[1:04:31] It's over.

[1:04:32] Season two, coming at you hot.

[1:04:34] Three years after.

[1:04:35] Three and a half.

[1:04:36] Season one.

[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.

[1:04:41] Our seasons run for 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 we also have all the field troops.

[1:04:52] Dog tech.

[1:04:53] 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 into Can I Pet Your Dog.

[1:05:02] Now's the time.

[1:05:03] Get in here.

[1:05:04] Every Tuesday.

[1:05:05] At MaximumFun.org.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:09] Hey, Flophouserinos.

[1:05:12] 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

[1:05:21] to reiterate it.

[1:05:23] But that means that we did it a bit ahead of time.

[1:05:26] And that means that I'm reading the ads separately for your enjoyment.

[1:05:32] Yay.

[1:05:34] Guys, the Flophouse is brought to you in part by Arm & Hammer Cloud Control Cat Litter.

[1:05:41] Look, when I get litter, I'm bedeviled by clouds.

[1:05:46] So many clouds.

[1:05:48] So, it's good to have some cloud control.

[1:05:50] You know what I love?

[1:05:51] My cat.

[1:05:52] My cat, Archie, is so adorable.

[1:05:55] You know, I don't know if I've talked about it on the podcast before, but every day when

[1:05:58] I get back from work, he goes and he jumps up on the console table by the door and he puts

[1:06:06] his little paws on my shoulders and he rams his head into my head as if to say, hello, it's

[1:06:14] feeding time.

[1:06:15] Also, I love you.

[1:06:16] But it's harder to love cleaning up after Archie.

[1:06:19] I don't know if you've heard about this, but he leaves his poop and pee in a box.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:24] But, uh, you know, this is why Arm & Hammer created new cloud control litter.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:30] No cloud of nasties here.

[1:06:32] It's 100% dust free.

[1:06:33] Free of heavy perfumes.

[1:06:35] I do not like scented cat litter, so I appreciate that.

[1:06:38] And it helps reduce airborne dander from scooping.

[1:06:42] So what happens in the litter box stays in the litter box.

[1:06:47] New cloud control cat litter by Arm & Hammer.

[1:06:50] More power to you.

[1:06:54] Hey, you know what I like along with my cat?

[1:06:57] I like, I like sleeping.

[1:07:00] I actually just got up from a nap, which is the best way to get that patented Dan McCoy

[1:07:06] solo ad read energy to do it directly when I, after a nap, when I'm at my bleariest.

[1:07:14] But if you want to nap your best, why not get a Casper mattress?

[1:07:19] Five years ago, Casper revolutionized the mattress industry by making it easier than ever to buy

[1:07:24] a premium foam mattress.

[1:07:26] Today, they're building on that legacy with a new line of mattresses that combine the

[1:07:30] best of both worlds.

[1:07:31] Introducing the hybrid collection by Casper.

[1:07:34] Their acclaimed foam layers now available to springs.

[1:07:38] This is not a gas electric hybrid mattress.

[1:07:43] You cannot use this to get anywhere unless it is, I don't know, enchanted magic carpet style

[1:07:51] by some sort of a genie.

[1:07:54] But the Flophouse is brought to you in part by Casper.

[1:07:58] Look, I, pardon me.

[1:08:01] Look, I love my Casper mattress.

[1:08:04] How about that for a pro?

[1:08:05] I took a drink right in the middle of the ad.

[1:08:08] I love my Casper mattress.

[1:08:10] I've had it for four and a half years now.

[1:08:13] It still is a wonderful thing to sleep on.

[1:08:16] And this new Casper innovation offers the best of both worlds luxurious comfort and resilient

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[1:08:40] That's casper.com slash flophouse and using flophouse at checkout.

[1:08:43] Terms and conditions apply.

[1:08:44] I apologize, guys, for a little fumbling in the middle of that last bit of that ad.

[1:08:51] You know, I was in Portland recently.

[1:08:54] As again, we mentioned on the podcast, no need to reiterate.

[1:08:57] And I was flying back and I watched some John Mulaney stand up on my phone.

[1:09:05] They have a few Netflix specials.

[1:09:06] This is not an ad, by the way.

[1:09:08] And he talks about how as he's grown older, he's just started speaking through burps and

[1:09:17] how gross that is.

[1:09:18] And you know what?

[1:09:19] I really related.

[1:09:22] He's a funny guy.

[1:09:24] So this next, this is a Jumbotron.

[1:09:28] And it's about something.

[1:09:33] 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.

[1:09:43] So let me vamp a little bit as I look through my info machine, which is what I call my phone.

[1:09:51] It's very confusing for people that I call it an info machine.

[1:09:54] They do not like it.

[1:09:56] They're like, Dan, are you a time traveler from the Victorian period?

[1:10:02] Why have you decided on this weird nomenclature?

[1:10:05] And I say, shut up, you.

[1:10:09] Which is, you know, a rude thing for me to do.

[1:10:13] Like, why would I, why would I bother to just attack someone on the, on the street who, oh

[1:10:22] boy, I'm really dying out here.

[1:10:25] Okay.

[1:10:26] This next Jumbotron is from Sweating the Small Stuff.

[1:10:36] It's a podcast.

[1:10:38] A revealing show steeped in pop culture, mostly movies and shows.

[1:10:43] Every week, host Cameron Booza Jomeri.

[1:10:47] Booza, Boozar Jomeri.

[1:10:51] It's phonetically spelled, but not phonetically spelled enough for my mouth.

[1:10:56] 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?

[1:11:22] Find Sweating the Small Stuff on iTunes, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1:11:27] Guys, this sounds interesting to me.

[1:11:29] 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.

[1:11:54] Great.

[1:11:54] I'm willing to accept that.

[1:11:56] 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 that makes one stronger

[1:12:11] when it's just a case of, like, blasting those molecules up or whatever it is?

[1:12:18] 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.

[1:12:24] So, I guess, you know, call me the Ghost of Stanley.

[1:12:28] Anyway, the next Jumbotron is from Ultraviolet Dawn.

[1:12:35] Suffering from superhero fatigue?

[1:12:36] No, obviously not.

[1:12:38] After that Ant-Man thing.

[1:12:39] Good.

[1:12:40] Like books?

[1:12:41] Good.

[1:12:42] How about a superhero novel?

[1:12:45] Born to supervillain parents but raised by her aunt and the shadow of her superhero cousin,

[1:12:51] teenage Sabrina Kang wants nothing more than to be a superhero.

[1:12:55] If only her powers would finally kick in.

[1:12:57] But when tragedy strikes the superhero world, she must rally a new generation of heroes

[1:13:03] to defend the world from a new threat.

[1:13:07] Action.

[1:13:08] Humor.

[1:13:08] Robots.

[1:13:09] Fruit pies.

[1:13:11] Ultraviolet Dawn by Brett Schrute has it all.

[1:13:14] Shop for Ultraviolet Dawn on Amazon.com.

[1:13:17] Available in e-book, print, and through Kindle Unlimited.

[1:13:21] I am glad that this gentleman's book is keeping up the link between superheroes and fruit pies.

[1:13:28] Anyone who enjoyed those old hostess fruit pies ads in comic books knows what I'm talking about.

[1:13:36] So, that's it, I believe.

[1:13:38] I'll stop rambling on.

[1:13:40] Sorry this one went on a little long, but I'm not cutting it because for some reason, some of you like how weird I get.

[1:13:48] Anyway, back to the show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:50] I'd like to take a moment to remind everybody that we have some live shows coming up.

[1:13:54] Now, again, we'll be June 8th in Portland.

[1:13:57] That's right now.

[1:13:58] It's too late, folks.

[1:13:59] If you're listening to this, then you missed the show.

[1:14:01] By two weeks.

[1:14:02] But you've got another chance.

[1:14:04] July 13th, one day before my brother's birthday and Bastille, one day before Bastille Day.

[1:14:08] Oh, Bastille Day.

[1:14:09] Yeah, July 13th will 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 at WBUR City Space.

[1:14:20] But there is a 945 show.

[1:14:22] That's right.

[1:14:23] Late night at the same location.

[1:14:25] So, who knows how blue we'll get on that one.

[1:14:27] Flaphouse after dark.

[1:14:27] It means the 7 o'clock show has to end by a certain time.

[1:14:29] But the 945 show, we can go all night if we want to.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:32] Oh, wow.

[1:14:33] And October 12th.

[1:14:34] If you take enough pills, sometimes you can do that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:36] Yeah.

[1:14:37] Aspirin?

[1:14:38] Aspirin, yes.

[1:14:38] Okay.

[1:14:39] October 12th, we're going to be in Los Angeles, my hometown, at the Regent Theater.

[1:14:43] So, again, July 13th in Minneapolis.

[1:14:45] And I'll try to make it to that one.

[1:14:48] That would be great.

[1:14:48] I mean, Stuart, if you could wear a mattress around you so you're always padded and you never hurt your back or fall down or anything.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:55] The thing is, they call me Mr. Glass.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:59] Only in L.A.

[1:15:01] So, July 13th in Minneapolis, September 28th in Boston, October 12th in Los Angeles.

[1:15:07] We hope we'll see you out there.

[1:15:09] Movies, TBD.

[1:15:10] That's right.

[1:15:10] To be Danified.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:11] Quick things about those shows.

[1:15:12] The Minneapolis show is close to selling out.

[1:15:15] So, if you're thinking you want to go, get on that now.

[1:15:18] Do not wait for the day of.

[1:15:19] And the first Boston show, as Elliot said, is sold out.

[1:15:24] This is maybe a little more of a peek behind the curtain than necessary, but I talked to our agent.

[1:15:28] They're holding a lot of comp tickets for us.

[1:15:31] Some of those may be released.

[1:15:32] So, if you can't go to the later show, maybe check in closer to the date and there might actually be some that come back on sale.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:40] I was holding a bunch for the Ghosts of Founding Fathers.

[1:15:43] Okay.

[1:15:44] And Los Angeles is probably going to be a lot of big Hollywood stars there.

[1:15:47] Oh, cool.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:48] Like Orlando Bloom?

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:49] Yeah, almost definitely.

[1:15:51] Yeah.

[1:15:51] Cool.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:51] I wonder what I would talk to Legolas about.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:54] They're all going to be there.

[1:15:54] Orlando Bloom, Orlando Jones, Orlando the Book.

[1:15:57] Oh, wow.

[1:15:58] They're all going to be there.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:59] Tilda Swinton is the character Orlando?

[1:16:01] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:02] Oh, I'm going to cry.

[1:16:03] Lando Calrissian, or as some people say, Han Orlando, if you're trying to decide which character you like best.

[1:16:10] Okay.

[1:16:10] Guys, has this ever happened to you?

[1:16:12] Yeah.

[1:16:12] You want to send somebody a text about Lobot, and your phone keeps changing it to Lobotomy, so you can't send the text, because it won't put the word Lobot in.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:19] Yeah, I can't tell you about the number of times I put the words Sirith Ungol or Kirith Ungol into my phone, and it would correct it to some stupid bullshit.

[1:16:27] I'm like, smartphone?

[1:16:28] I don't think so.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:31] So, anyway, moving on to letters.

[1:16:36] Because we were doing this in a hotel in Portland, I forgot to pick out letters and send them to you ahead of time.

[1:16:43] I mean, that makes perfect sense.

[1:16:44] How would you know we were doing this in Portland?

[1:16:46] Like, there's a lot.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:47] He said, because we're doing this in a hotel in Portland, I forgot days ago when I was at home to do this.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:52] And a lot of my plate just making sure that the live show ran smooth, but the good news about that means that right now, a letter came in that is pertinent, in a way, to this episode.

[1:17:03] Cease and desist.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:06] Signed, M.N. Shyamalan.

[1:17:08] This letter.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:09] The founder of the MCU.

[1:17:10] This letter's from Greg, last name withheld.

[1:17:13] And Greg writes,

[1:17:14] I recently re-watched M. Night Shyamalan's The Village.

[1:17:19] Despite remembering it actually, it being somewhat of a critical flop, I actually really enjoyed it despite there being a few shots and effects that did not age well.

[1:17:27] I have one problem with it, which will lead me to my question.

[1:17:30] Okay.

[1:17:31] And it's that the final act, in the final act of the movie, I really don't like how they reveal information.

[1:17:36] For example, before Ivy goes into the forest, it's revealed to her that the monsters aren't real.

[1:17:41] But then the film expects us to be scared on her journey.

[1:17:44] They do the same thing by revealing to us that the film's actually set in present day.

[1:17:48] But we're given this information before Ivy jumps the wall, which makes it a 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.

[1:18:03] But...

[1:18:04] There is only one perfect movie.

[1:18:05] It's called Alien.

[1:18:06] Greg asks,

[1:18:07] 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, but...

[1:18:17] Well, certainly not RoboCop, because that movie's perfect.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:20] I mean, Citizen Kane, I guess you could reorder it in chronological order, but why would you do that?

[1:18:26] I mean, this isn't a movie, but there's the famous Stephen Sondheim not success at the time, Merrily We Roll Along.

[1:18:32] And it's told in reverse order.

[1:18:35] And I actually think if it was told in regular order, it would be a stronger show.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:38] Yeah, I saw that recently, and the...

[1:18:41] Spoiler alert for Merrily We Roll Along.

[1:18:44] The last song, like, the musical begins with the three friends estranged and having sold out their dreams

[1:18:52] or otherwise sort of become dissolute or, like, having problems.

[1:18:57] And the movie...

[1:18:58] Sorry, the musical again.

[1:19:00] Ends with the first scene, chronologically, of them all on a roof singing, like...

[1:19:07] What, to me, is kind of one of the more hackneyed, like, we're all gonna make it songs.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:11] Where they literally sing, we're gonna make it, that song from Laverne and Shirley.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:14] Well, but they're like, it's our time.

[1:19:16] Like, they, like, really sing something like that.

[1:19:18] And it seems like the most facile irony at that point.

[1:19:23] It's like, oh, great.

[1:19:24] Great.

[1:19:25] We know that they're not gonna...

[1:19:28] Like, they're all gonna fall apart.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:29] I mean, that's what they're going for.

[1:19:30] I think that's part of the reason I think it would be stronger for just watching a story of people.

[1:19:34] 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...

[1:19:40] With The Village, I wonder if he was trying to go for suspense over surprise.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:44] Yeah, the old Hitchcock.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:45] The old Hitchcock thing.

[1:19:46] If two men are talking and a bomb goes off, that's surprise.

[1:19:49] If two men are talking and you know there's a bomb ticking under the table, it's suspense.

[1:19:52] It means you're waiting for the moment when they...

[1:19:55] When you're, like, in your head, you're like, get out of there.

[1:19:58] Get out of there.

[1:19:59] So maybe the idea is that, like, you're wondering when...

[1:20:01] 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.

[1:20:08] The classic Chupo classic cartoon.

[1:20:11] From the, what, 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?

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:19] Yeah, I mean, usually I like all my information in the movie to be revealed by the director, like it happens in the movie The Village by Night Shyamalan, or I don't know, what's that, the other one that I already mentioned?

[1:20:32] Signs?

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:32] Yeah, where he's the one who tells the hero what the weakness of the aliens are.

[1:20:36] Oh, man.

[1:20:37] But it's like there's a...

[1:20:38] 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, but in the beginning of the third one, Titus Alone, he leaves Gormenghast,

[1:20:48] and a guy in a car drives up, 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,

[1:20:58] and then suddenly a guy in a car drives up, and I think that's the kind of thing he should be going for in something like The Village, but I don't know.

[1:21:05] To be honest, there's something that's more surprising about when the truck drives up at the end of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and like that's not it.

[1:21:09] There's no surprise that that's taking place in the 1970s, you know?

Dan McCoy

[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 is all the stuff we were talking about where there are these various reveals about who is who late in the movie and 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 surprise reveals, but just told a story about people.

[1:21:33] And I know that there's a good movie version of that.

[1:21:35] I felt that before in things where I'm like, what does it buy you 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 all the cards are on the table.

[1:21:50] Well, it's like, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:51] 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] Yeah.

[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 a fan of like shows where you're like, well, what's going to happen next, you know?

[1:22:13] Yeah.

[1:22:13] 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 at the end he says, I want revenge and I'm going to kill you.

[1:22:29] It's like, all right, OK.

[1:22:31] Get in line, dude.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:32] I find that those sorts of mystery shows, when I'm watching them, like, I really enjoy the pilot and then I stick with it for like two or three episodes at most because the additional episodes just kind of extend the pilot being like, we're going to delay this payoff for you because once we pay it off, there's nothing more to our show.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:53] Yeah.

[1:22:53] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:03] And I'll just find out that the character I named my daughter after has turned into a power mad dictator burning people alive.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:09] That doesn't seem right.

[1:23:10] There's nothing in her family history that would imply madness.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:16] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:23] You're using my technology wrong.

[1:23:24] Boo.

[1:23:25] I'm a ghost now.

[1:23:26] Hey, I just wrote one of Dan's tweets.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:27] Oh, man.

[1:23:28] Dan can't speak.

[1:23:29] He's laughing too hard.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:32] 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.

[1:23:46] My brother, myself, and I.

[1:23:47] Are you taking a note on me?

[1:23:48] My brother, myself, and I.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:49] He means his brother, his brother, and me.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:51] Okay.

[1:23:51] Yeah.

[1:23:52] Were incensed.

[1:23:54] After several minutes of confusion, the projector just finally put on the correct film.

[1:23:59] My brother and I could finally see the film we spent all our hard-earned allowance money on.

[1:24:03] Down Periscope.

[1:24:06] 12-year-old me had terrible taste.

[1:24:09] So I posit to you, has there ever been an instance, be it as a child or an adult, where you agitated for watching one film over another and clearly made a terrible choice?

[1:24:17] I could have seen Jackie Chan improvise some wonderful creative fight scenes amongst the snow-capped mountains of New York.

[1:24:24] But instead I had to sit through 90 minutes of Kelsey Grammer on a submarine.

[1:24:28] Which, I mean, when you put it that way, it sounds pretty good, too.

[1:24:31] I don't know.

[1:24:32] I'm not so sure about that, Dan.

[1:24:33] It did not pay off.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:33] I think the movie Down Periscope would be the counter-argument.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:36] I mean, if you're going to erase that movie from your mind, Eternal Sunshine style, and I just say, hey, there's a movie out there with Kelsey Grammer on a submarine, you might be like, yeah, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:43] Nope.

[1:24:44] Don't think so.

[1:24:45] I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:45] I mean, I don't think he's got the kind of talent to support a major comedy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:49] I think, Dan, there's two people who feel that way.

[1:24:50] You and the person who greenlit Down Periscope.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:53] Yours in perpetual floppitude, Steve, last name withheld.

[1:24:56] So do you have any answers for this?

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:59] I don't have any answers for particularly that.

[1:25:01] But I do.

[1:25:01] It does remind me of the time my brother and I went to go see Joe's apartment in the theaters.

[1:25:05] Oh, yeah.

[1:25:05] And the projector broke down 10 minutes in, and it was like the universe was saying, there are better things for you to do.

[1:25:12] Go outside.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:12] Yeah, I remember.

[1:25:13] I mean, it's more.

[1:25:14] Yeah, it's so often that as a kid, I would get very excited about movies that were coming out, and it would consume me, and I would think about it.

[1:25:22] I'd be so pumped.

[1:25:23] You'd tell people around me did not give a shit.

[1:25:26] Like, I went and saw that movie Matinee with John Goodman.

[1:25:29] Oh, that's a fun movie, though.

[1:25:30] But in my head, I'm like, this is going to change my fucking life.

[1:25:34] And it clearly did not.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:35] I remember so well.

[1:25:37] Sorry, I didn't mean to jump in.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:37] What's the sliding doors of me not having seen Matinee on opening night?

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:41] You wouldn't be here today.

[1:25:42] You'd be a billionaire.

[1:25:43] I remember so well the first time I was told by my mom, I'm not going to take you to see that movie when Fern Gully came out.

[1:25:51] Wow.

[1:25:51] And I was like, can I go see Fern Gully?

[1:25:53] And she's like, I don't want to see that.

[1:25:55] And so I never saw it.

[1:25:57] And before that, it was like, whatever dumb movie I want to see my parents had to take me.

[1:26:01] It was the first time my mom put her foot down.

[1:26:03] It was like, we're not going to go see that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:04] Yeah, that's actually kind of funny because I was just talking with some friends last night about how my wife, you know, there's a lot of movies, like a movie like Beaches or something, that I never saw growing up.

[1:26:16] And I think back to the fact that like when I was a kid growing up, you know, it was me and my brother and my mom would always encourage me to watch like a ton of sci-fi movies or fantasy movies.

[1:26:27] And she didn't show a lot of like, I don't know, like dramas or like relationship.

[1:26:33] Like musicals?

[1:26:34] Yeah, like I didn't get a lot of that in my life.

[1:26:36] And in some ways it feels like I did not get a lot of, I don't know, like feminine influence in my life in general.

[1:26:42] And we can talk about that on another podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:44] It seems like we're making some good progress here.

[1:26:46] No, but it just kind of –

[1:26:47] A fairy podcast?

[1:26:49] It's just kind of 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?

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:53] Oh, my guys.

[1:26:55] So what was your beef with me at the comedy store?

[1:26:56] That's true.

[1:26:57] I don't – well, I just – there's something about you, you know?

[1:27:02] How long have you been sober for?

[1:27:03] Oh, like a couple hours.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:08] Are you done?

[1:27:10] Yeah, probably.

[1:27:11] Whatever.

[1:27:12] The only things I can think of are – I've said before on the podcast, I think, that I really wanted to go to – I convinced my ex to go to Final Fantasy The Spirits Within.

[1:27:24] Uh-huh, yeah.

[1:27:24] Because the –

[1:27:25] Explains a lot why it's an ex.

[1:27:26] The ads looked so revolutionary at the time, the computer animation.

[1:27:30] Like, that looks beautiful.

[1:27:30] And then I saw it and I was like, ugh.

[1:27:32] I never stopped apologizing.

[1:27:34] 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.

[1:27:49] And I remember being like, this is not seeing a thing over another thing, so it doesn't quite apply.

[1:27:54] But I was like, oh, I love Bill Murray.

[1:27:59] No Bill Murray movie could disappoint.

[1:28:01] And we saw What About Bob.

[1:28:02] And I'm like, eh.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:04] What About Bob is not a bad movie.

[1:28:05] Yeah, I remember enjoying it.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:07] I thought you were going to say, like, larger than life or something.

[1:28:10] It has good things in it.

[1:28:11] But, like, as a young kid to watch it and be like, I don't want to see Bill Murray, like, just, like, be irritating for a couple hours.

[1:28:21] Like, I want him to be, like, the funny, fun guy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:23] No, you want him to be the suave, cool guy whose actions in real life would be incredibly asshole-ish.

[1:28:27] But are charming in the form of a film.

[1:28:29] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:30] Yeah.

[1:28:31] Anyway, this last letter is from Nick.

[1:28:34] Nick, last name with a –

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:35] Like, yeah, let's think about all the movies where Bill Murray is just charming and not kind of irritating.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:42] It's Nick, last name with Held writes,

[1:28:45] Hi, Floppers.

[1:28:45] I wanted to thank Dan for his recommendation of Encounters at the End of the World, a documentary about Antarctica.

[1:28:50] My father actually worked in Antarctica for six months as an electrical lineman right before the documentary was filmed.

[1:28:58] At the time, my parents had just gotten divorced, and I just had a kid's hazy memory of my dad working someplace far away.

[1:29:04] Aw.

[1:29:04] I now have two children of my own, and after watching the documentary, I felt a depth of new understanding for my father about the changes in his life and how that could have driven him to do something extreme like work in Antarctica.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:17] That's very sweet.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:18] So for my question, have you ever had a similar experience of a movie helping you better understand someone close to you?

[1:29:24] Thanks.

[1:29:25] Nick, last name with Held.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

[1:29:33] 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?

[1:29:51] And I saw it, and I was like, oh, I know this – it reminded me of somebody that I knew, 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.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:06] Yeah.

[1:30:07] 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.

[1:30:21] Where, like, it really allows you to sort of put yourself in another space where you understand a character.

[1:30:26] Like, you have that distance from it not being real life, but you can sort of see how people –

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:33] Yeah, I mean, I would call – I would say he's half right, not to argue with the brilliant and deceased Roger Ebert, but movies are just as equally dehumanizing machines.

[1:30:42] Okay.

[1:30:42] Like, it's much easier to make someone an enemy if you can show Rambo just, like, mowing them down.

[1:30:46] That's true.

[1:30:47] So, like, I think he's – I think, depending on the movie, you know.

[1:30:50] It's hard.

[1:30:50] You can take it by the way.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:51] And I think also he's probably suggesting that the – he's being optimistic about the potential of movies as opposed to –

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:57] Well, that's his mistake.

[1:30:59] It's like the thing Samuel Fuller, I think it was, once said where he's like, there are no anti-war movies.

[1:31:03] Every movie about war glorifies war in some way.

[1:31:06] Yeah.

[1:31:06] And it's – that's how I always think about Full Metal Jacket, which is very clearly meant as an anti-war film.

[1:31:11] Yeah.

[1:31:11] And yet it became such a – like, by the time I was a teenager, there were so many lines from it that were just, like, things that kids I know would say because they thought they were cool.

[1:31:21] Yeah.

[1:31:21] You know?

[1:31:21] Yeah.

[1:31:22] All they could see from it was the coolness of certain things.

[1:31:24] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:24] There's a –

[1:31:25] Your Wall Streets, your fight clubs, same sort of thing.

[1:31:28] Yeah.

[1:31:28] There's a fantasy novel by Joe Abercrombie called The Heroes, which is very clearly like a harsh look anti-war story in a fantasy – set in a fantasy battle, like a five-day battle.

[1:31:43] And there's the – it was just – he's a writer that I often like, but, like, it had such a disconnect because I'm like, you're both glorifying and condemning the same thing at the same time, and it doesn't quite work for me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:57] Yeah.

[1:31:57] Do you guys have any – do you guys make you think of any times where someone's helped you understand something?

Dan McCoy

[1:32:01] You know what?

[1:32:02] It's such a good question that I wish I was a better producer because I do wish that I had gotten this question out to us earlier.

[1:32:09] I'm sorry that we were –

[1:32:10] So you could really think about it?

[1:32:11] Because I think this is a really strong one.

[1:32:14] Yeah.

[1:32:14] I know that has happened.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:15] I think there's a – I mean, the same thing happens with me in novels, too, where I'll – like, I'll see something that – it's similar with him and his father.

[1:32:24] I'll read a story about someone whose life is similar to either my parents or grandparents.

[1:32:28] And it will give me a greater sense of kind of the pressures they were under or the stresses they lived with or, you know, what made them the weirdos that I know them to be.

[1:32:38] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:38] I do think – I mean, like, in a more general way, like, growing up in a very small town in the Midwest 40 years ago, you know, like, I was born 40 years ago.

[1:32:51] Like, I was not around a lot of people who were out in any way with, like, alternate – like, different sexualities than my own.

[1:32:59] Mm-hmm.

[1:33:01] And I do think that in sort of, like, that general sense, seeing movies where that was portrayed as just a normal, like, wonderful thing, like –

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:14] As opposed to, like, dressed to kill.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:15] Yes.

[1:33:16] Like, sort of, I think, before such time as I knew people who were out with different sexualities of my own, like, I had built up through pop culture more empathy, I think.

[1:33:28] And, like, I think that's true for a lot of – you know, as dumb as the show is, like, people did, for instance, attribute a lot of progress to the fact that Will and Grace was a huge hit.

[1:33:39] Like, even though that's a show where, like, the gay characters were basically not allowed to kiss anyone, but the fact that they were portrayed as these, like, kind, normal humans, you know, rather than this monstrous other of some kind.

[1:33:53] Mm-hmm.

[1:33:56] I don't know.

[1:33:56] That's the best thing I can think of.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:58] Yeah, that's a hard and a complicated question that I'll have to put more thought into.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:02] I mean, part of it is also admitting that, like, you didn't understand a person until you saw this thing.

[1:34:07] Oh, I mean –

[1:34:07] And there's, like, the shame of that a little bit.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:08] I 100% can agree that I don't – like, I've clearly gone through that a lot in my life.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:13] There are people who are very close to me who I love very much who I struggle with reminding myself that I need to understand.

[1:34:21] Mm-hmm.

[1:34:22] Like, I think that's just being human.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:25] Yeah.

[1:34:25] There's a scene in – I think it's the book, This is the Way the World Ends.

[1:34:31] It's definitely in a James Morrow book where someone asks him to write an epitaph for his mother and his father as a way – and that becomes kind of like the epitaph for humanity because there's about to be a nuclear war.

[1:34:42] And I did that once as an exercise.

[1:34:44] I kind of, like, wrote what would be my – what would be, like, my very short, like, two-line eulogy of the people in my family be so I could kind of, like – and I was like, oh, it helped me really cut to the heart of them and, like, understand them a little bit more.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:56] Then you folded it up and left it on their car seat.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:59] And they're like, who left this here?

[1:35:01] And I said, it's not a threat.

[1:35:03] It's a promise.

[1:35:04] Your days are numbered.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:06] Okay.

[1:35:07] So, well, on that, I'm characteristically sincere.

[1:35:11] No, we should move on to the final thing, which is recommendations.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:14] It's fart time.

[1:35:15] Of movies.

[1:35:16] It's the time we do our fart jokes.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:17] That we liked.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:19] Movies we liked.

[1:35:20] Recommendations.

[1:35:21] Hey, guys, I got one, but I bet you got ones, too.

[1:35:23] So who wants to go first?

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:25] Okay.

[1:35:26] I'll go.

[1:35:26] I'm not going to recommend Avengement again.

[1:35:28] I did that last time, but still, check it out.

[1:35:31] I'm going to recommend a movie that's on Netflix right now.

[1:35:34] This is a break for me because this is a romantic comedy.

[1:35:39] It's kind of a hit, so it doesn't necessarily need my support.

[1:35:42] 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 Allie Wong and Randall Park.

[1:35:49] It's a story about two people who were very close growing up, and their family lives are tied together.

[1:35:56] 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.

[1:36:05] 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 embody their characters, and they do a great job of making them seem like actual humans that are flawed and interesting.

[1:36:20] 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.

[1:36:36] 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.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:52] I want to recommend keeping with my persona, a movie that I watched on the plane out to Portland, where we are.

[1:37:02] It's called Overlord.

[1:37:04] And it's about...

[1:37:06] Look, I don't know what...

[1:37:09] You don't know what it's about?

[1:37:10] You're recommending it.

[1:37:11] I just don't know what's considered spoilers these days.

[1:37:13] I mean, like...

[1:37:14] Well, it's a J.J. Abrams-related movie, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:17] So everything's a spoiler.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:17] You're not supposed to know even the title of the movie.

[1:37:19] Yeah, I mean, like...

Dan McCoy

[1:37:20] Let's just say that, like...

[1:37:21] It's a horror-war movie.

[1:37:22] It's a horror-movie.

[1:37:24] These people...

[1:37:26] These World War II soldiers are going to parachute into Nazi-occupied France.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:31] I thought you were going to call them World War II people.

[1:37:33] I thought that was very funny.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:34] They're going to parachute into Nazi-occupied...

[1:37:36] Occupied...

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:37] Nazi-occupied pants, yes.

[1:37:39] For hands.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:39] They need to take out...

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:41] They're parachuting into a pair of pants that Hitler is wearing.

[1:37:43] So they can take out his butt.

[1:37:45] They're going to during Operation.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:46] They need to take out a tower that is gunned so...

[1:37:49] Operation Underpants.

[1:37:49] ...to make way for D-Day.

[1:37:52] And let's just say the Nazis are doing scientific experiments that have a horror tinge to them.

[1:37:57] And leave it at that.

[1:37:58] But it kind of reminds me a bit of The Descent in that the movie's pretty good at...

[1:38:04] Before the horror elements enter the story, you're already tense because there are only four or five survivors behind enemy lines.

[1:38:14] And they could die at any time.

[1:38:16] And the movie's not scared of showing you that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:20] Yeah, it's a great midnight movie to me.

[1:38:22] It's kind of the perfect kind of midnight.

[1:38:24] It's fun.

[1:38:25] It's gross.

[1:38:26] It's tense.

[1:38:27] And it's got the two leads.

[1:38:30] Kurt Russell's kid.

[1:38:32] Oh, that's Kurt Russell's kid.

[1:38:33] Yeah, he's really good.

[1:38:33] Yeah, he's great.

[1:38:34] And the head Nazi, played by Pilo Azbek, who was Bateau in the Ghost in the Shell movie.

[1:38:41] And a couple other things.

[1:38:42] He's great in it, too.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:44] What's interesting to me about it is it's got this plot, this Nazi evil, Nazi science experiments plot that is pure B-movie pulp.

[1:38:54] But what makes it work in a weird way is the movie plays that very straight.

[1:38:59] Which is not to say it doesn't have any sense of humor at all.

[1:39:02] It's not boring.

[1:39:03] But it plays it pretty straight.

[1:39:06] 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.

[1:39:19] He also wrote some less successful stuff like Color of Night.

[1:39:22] But we'll not talk about that.

[1:39:24] I think that he brings...

[1:39:25] Wow.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

[1:39:33] I can't feel jealous of him because he's older than me.

[1:39:36] He should be writing movies.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:38] 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...

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:46] When he's used to writing serious movies about Bruce Willis' penis.

[1:39:49] Yes, exactly.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:50] Anyway, moving on to Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:52] Speaking of Bruce Willis' penis, I'm going to recommend a movie that...

[1:39:55] I feel like everybody's been kind of talking about it.

[1:39:58] And it's a little bit of an older movie.

[1:40:00] But it's been...

[1:40:01] 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.

[1:40:13] And I T-voted on a lark, as I often do off TCM, the world's greatest television channel.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:18] Because it has no TV shows, only movies.

[1:40:20] You're DTT, down to T-vote.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:44] Total ludicrousness was the temporary title for Too Fast, Too Furious because it featured Chris Ludicrous Bridges in it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:51] But it's such a like fun movie.

[1:40:54] And it's super fun.

[1:40:55] I found it.

[1:40:55] It's the kind of this.

[1:40:56] There's a character who keeps popping up who is he is a performer who just imitates different types of snores.

[1:41:01] And I found him hilarious.

[1:41:04] 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.

[1:41:10] 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.

[1:41:17] 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.

[1:41:27] 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] Anyway, it's just like if you want to watch the most gossamer thin kind of like a 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.

[1:41:51] 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.

[1:42:02] And like it's interesting to see songs that are given like a couple seconds in Singing in the Rain in that montage of talking 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.

Dan McCoy

[1:42:14] Okay.

[1:42:16] Well, guys, we got to save up the rest of our energy for tonight.

[1:42:21] Oh, yeah.

[1:42:21] We got to do another show.

[1:42:22] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:23] Mm-hmm.

[1:42:24] It's going to be so fun.

[1:42:25] I can't wait to talk about – what movie are we talking about tonight?

Stuart Wellington

[1:42:28] Holmes and Watson.

[1:42:29] Oh, goddammit.

[1:42:29] So look for that in your podcast feed.

[1:42:32] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:33] Dan, why did we waste glass on the episode?

[1:42:36] We're going to have to find something to talk about about Holmes and Watson for a live audience.

[1:42:40] We got to just talk about glass for a live audience.

[1:42:43] Instead of talking about Holmes and Watson.

Stuart Wellington

[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, jeez, Louise.

[1:42:49] Yeah.

[1:42:49] 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.

[1:42:56] And come check out our website to look at those upcoming live shows.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:00] Go to wherever you listen to your podcast.

[1:43:02] iTunes or Pod Switcher or Audio Bib and Bop, whatever you listen to.

[1:43:07] The Bean Machine.

[1:43:08] The Bean Machine, yeah.

[1:43:09] And Green Ears.

[1:43:10] Yeah.

[1:43:11] And just leave a good –

[1:43:12] Hot Pods.

[1:43:13] There is a podcast industry newsletter called Hot Pod, I think.

[1:43:17] Yeah.

[1:43:18] So leave us a – we go to those places and please leave us a five-star review or whatever number of stars is the most stars.

[1:43:25] Tweet about us.

[1:43:26] Instagram about us.

[1:43:27] Tell your friends.

[1:43:27] Tell your grandma.

[1:43:28] Hire a skywriter and put it over a major city.

[1:43:31] Philadelphia, maybe.

[1:43:31] The buildings aren't that tall, so they'll be able to see all that skywriting.

[1:43:35] And thank you for listening to The Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:37] We appreciate it.

[1:43:38] Okay.

[1:43:38] So for this show, which is The Flophouse.

[1:43:41] The Flophouse?

[1:43:42] I don't know what's going on.

[1:43:43] The Flophouse.

[1:43:43] Take it over again.

[1:43:45] The Flophouse.

[1:43:46] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:43:47] And I've been Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:48] And I will still be Elliot Kalin no matter how hard I try.

[1:43:51] Bye.

[1:43:52] Bye.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:01] Shorty's going to have to get low.

[1:44:03] Just, yeah.

[1:44:04] Put on your apple-bottom jeans.

[1:44:06] Your boots with the fur.

[1:44:07] All right, ready?

[1:44:07] You know, the whole club's looking at her.

Elliott Kalan

[1:44:10] She's going to get the floor.

[1:44:12] Made it.

[1:44:12] I don't know the line that comes out of that.

[1:44:15] And then she gets low.

[1:44:16] Next thing you know, Shorty got low.

[1:44:18] Now, to me, Shorty means child.

[1:44:20] So I was always like, who let that kid in the club?

[1:44:22] Or maybe it's Muggsy Bogues.

[1:44:24] Doesn't get shorter than him.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:25] That's – yeah.

[1:44:27] Yeah.

Ep. #287 - Glass

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