Ep. #286 - Replicas

[0:00] On this episode of the podcast, we discuss replicas.

[0:04] Also known as John Wick 4.

[0:07] John Wick deals with personal loss in a very different way than he usually does.

[0:11] That's nice.

[0:12] Yeah, yeah, that's nice.

[0:13] What I like is it reminds people of a huge movie that's in the theaters.

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

[0:44] Hey, dude, it's me, Stuart Wellington.

[0:48] And over here, it's Elliot Kalin, and joining me is a special guest for a few moments.

[0:52] What's your name, sir?

[0:53] Sammy.

[0:54] Sammy, would you like to say hello to everybody?

[0:56] You want to say it? No? Shaking your head no?

[0:59] Do you want to say poop to everybody?

[1:01] No.

[1:02] Do you want to say Batman to everybody?

[1:04] Oh, okay.

[1:06] Oh, wow.

[1:07] Sammy takes one look at Dan and runs away.

[1:10] Sammy is refusing your stage dad push into show business, Elliot.

[1:16] No, this is the only way we're going to make ends meet.

[1:18] He's got to become a superstar.

[1:19] Sammy.

[1:20] All right.

[1:22] Do you want to be on a TV show?

[1:23] No.

[1:24] No?

[1:24] Okay.

[1:25] Here.

[1:25] Can you stop clicking that pen right into the microphone?

[1:27] I figured that since today is a movie all about family, I'd bring my own son onto the show.

[1:32] What do you guys think?

[1:33] I think that's a great idea, although he doesn't seem to think so.

[1:37] No, it's funny because he seems very invested in being in the room and seeing the podcast, but not being on the podcast.

[1:44] Yes, well, he likes to be hanging out with me.

[1:46] Isn't that right, Sammy?

[1:47] Yeah, but he's a very shy boy, and he doesn't like to have the spotlight.

[1:50] I'll tell you what.

[1:51] Why don't you go upstairs and help Mommy with her project, okay?

[1:53] You don't even say goodbye?

[1:55] Oh, he said goodbye.

[1:57] Bye, Sammy.

[1:58] Okay, guys.

[2:01] Okay, now that he's gone, let's talk shit about it.

[2:05] Okay, can you believe how little he brought to that bit?

[2:08] I know.

[2:10] You were giving him all those great prompts.

[2:12] I thought you were going to be like,

[2:13] could you believe how little he is?

[2:15] He's like a person, but he's like a tiny person.

[2:20] Can you believe that?

[2:21] Crazy.

[2:22] It was like somebody cooked him in a little cloning tank

[2:25] for only like, I don't know, 10 days.

[2:27] not the full 17 uh dan now we mentioned family cloning tanks uh what do we do in this podcast

[2:33] is it a cloning podcast well i mean this week in part but mostly it's a bad movie podcast

[2:39] uh where we watch a bad movie then we talk about it uh and what do we watch this week

[2:43] replicas starring keanu reeves and alice eve and uh that guy who's a character actor who's always

[2:53] bad what what the bad guy thomas middleditch no oh thomas middleditch is also in i was thinking

[3:00] he's always a bad guy in the movies yes because when you say a character actor who's always bad

[3:07] it sounds like he's a bad character actor uh-huh oh no no no i'm just i'm saving you value judgment

[3:13] about his performances or him as a person okay i'm glad we could save you from a slander lawsuit

[3:17] yeah the first time for the flop house yeah usually we get hit with those pretty hard

[3:23] now guys i want to apologize that uh my son like we said was super into hanging out here would not

[3:30] leave the room for a while but then once the microphones came on he was totally didn't want

[3:33] to talk stage fright and stage fright it ties into today's film how is that dan uh-huh yeah dan

[3:39] hold on you jackass you can't set up a segue that i have no idea where it goes uh okay well

[3:47] then you do your own segue i guess okay so after firing up amazon prime i was on amazon prime i

[3:55] i mean i i think i paid for it yeah we had to rent it yeah i rented it on amazon prime uh don't

[4:01] you know i don't like i don't like supporting you know big amazon or anything but uh i was in a rush

[4:07] uh so we you're in a rush so you couldn't what i don't know like fucking fly to portland to go to

[4:14] the last blockbuster yeah get in like some sort of artisanal version of this movie yeah i didn't

[4:21] i didn't download it from someone else's brain who had already watched it dan was surprised that

[4:27] it was on amazon because as always anytime he has to watch a movie he buys a plane ticket

[4:31] hops on the flight and then fires up his in-flight entertainment that's how he watches every movie

[4:36] uh no i just didn't want to have paid for it on itunes with for no reason but uh apparently

[4:43] this is a real waste of time this diversion yeah guys i was getting into my fucking opening pit

[4:49] so i i fired up the movie i got to watch like i want to apologize this is sammy's fault okay

[4:56] and i understand that he really threw off our chemistry i thought he'd be the next jenny jaffe

[5:00] it did not work out i apologize for that really throwing sammy under the bus yeah

[5:05] dragon sammy uh i would never actually drag my son or throw him under a bus

[5:10] that's gonna be our follow-up podcast where we uh we talk about the previous episode speaking

[5:17] about vehicle accidents and sons go on with your story about replicas i i i don't know what you

[5:23] refer to let's talk about the movie look i want to say all jokes aside dan solid gold segue

[5:30] Sterling Silver wonderful work okay Stuart continue Sterling Silver would be a uh sounds

[5:36] like one of the many different production logos that we are hit with I think we get like six or

[5:40] seven wasn't them one of them like something like entertainment entertainment studios I think it's

[5:45] the same company that made Hurricane Heist entertainment studios motion pictures it's

[5:50] amazing uh so we get a bunch of those and then the movie opens flying over the ocean yeah I was

[5:56] like are we watching serenity again yeah yeah and we are in ericebo puerto rico we are introduced to

[6:04] a high-tech research facility called bio nine now here's a question i had guys why is the movie in

[6:11] puerto rico they never really same seem to make anything out of that uh so much so that i did not

[6:17] realize until stewart said it right now that they were in puerto rico that's insane because anytime

[6:22] there's a shot that's outdoors especially at night you can hear you can very hear clearly

[6:28] hear the cokeys the little frogs chirping and i found that very uh i mean i haven't been to

[6:34] puerto rico 50 times like you have stewart so i don't like why are you saying that like that's a

[6:39] burn no it's not a burn i'm just saying that like i have i have no association with frog noises in

[6:43] puerto rico it was something i kept forgetting and then suddenly like some police would show

[6:48] up and they'd say oh you speak english uh pardon my english i speak spanish and i was like why

[6:52] Oh, right, right, Puerto Rico.

[6:53] Or when they're shopping for Christmas trees and there's just, like, Latin music in the background.

[6:58] I was like, this is weird.

[6:59] Christmas means, oh, right, it's Puerto Rico.

[7:01] Like, the settings seem to confuse me more than to add anything to the movie.

[7:06] And how did I add nothing to the movie?

[7:08] Stuart, continue.

[7:09] They're at the Bio 9 facility, right?

[7:10] I mean, I think Puerto Rico is its own character in the movie, but we'll talk about that later.

[7:15] So we're in the Bio 9 research facility.

[7:18] We're introduced to Will Foster, some kind of a scientist, played by Keanu Reeves.

[7:22] His buddy, Ed.

[7:24] Some kind of a scientist.

[7:25] He is a neurocomputerologist.

[7:27] Okay.

[7:28] Thank you for clarifying, Elliot.

[7:29] And we have Thomas Middleditch, who's kind of like a flunky Igor type.

[7:34] I want to say this about—oh, go on, Elliot.

[7:38] I was going to say, Keanu Reeves is like a computer scientist who also does neuroscience,

[7:42] and Thomas Middleditch is like a biologist.

[7:44] He grows the organs, and Keanu Reeves is working with robots.

[7:49] So that's their main difference.

[7:50] They're the original odd couple.

[7:52] I was going to say that Keanu Reeves is an actor that I've grown to have great fondness for.

[7:58] I liked him at the beginning.

[8:00] I thought he was a very funny comic actor, but I didn't know what his range was.

[8:03] But I think in his old age, or not old age, but middle age, he's gotten—

[8:06] No, no, in his dotage.

[8:07] He's almost dead now.

[8:08] Okay.

[8:08] In his middle age, he's gotten very interesting.

[8:10] I will say, though, these early scenes, I don't really buy him so much as a scientist.

[8:15] But once he starts being sad and mourning, I feel like the play is more to his strength, which is sort of this sad-eyed sincerity.

[8:24] I can see that.

[8:26] There is also a scene later on where he is very excited, and we'll give you the context later, to be cooking breakfast for his family.

[8:32] And I thought it was such a good, dead-on performance of a weird dad who is suddenly excited.

[8:37] He's like, French toast, milady, and stuff like that.

[8:40] And it's like, oh, I've known so many dads like this who are like, I'm going to have some fun now.

[8:45] And it doesn't work.

[8:46] Yeah, I think he's pretty fun in this movie.

[8:49] So the alarms start ringing.

[8:52] They realize they have a new donor on the way.

[8:55] So everybody goes to their battle stations.

[8:58] And they were introduced to a lab where there's a robot that looks kind of like the robots from the movie I, Robot.

[9:07] Yeah.

[9:08] With the numbers 3, 4, 5 stenciled on its chest.

[9:12] Ooh, spooky.

[9:13] The effects get a little better later on,

[9:16] but in these early scenes,

[9:17] I feel like the robot, when he moves,

[9:19] looks like kind of like bad stop motion,

[9:22] even though I'm sure it's CGI,

[9:23] but it has this really herky-jerky weird quality.

[9:26] See, I liked that about it.

[9:27] I actually liked the robot effects

[9:28] because they didn't look as smooth

[9:30] as I was worried they would look.

[9:31] Yeah.

[9:32] It does look herky-jerky.

[9:32] It looks like a robot that is not very good

[9:35] at being a robot.

[9:36] Yeah.

[9:37] And as we'll see, it doesn't continue being that good at being a robot.

[9:41] Or shadowing.

[9:44] Yeah, so they open up a casket and the donor is revealed to be a dead soldier

[9:50] who has been recently killed in action, I believe.

[9:53] And they hook up a device and they run some kind of a thing into its brain.

[10:00] They stick a needle into its brain to pull out its brain waves or something?

[10:04] Or its neural code?

[10:05] There's this cool graphic of, like, data downloading from a brain into a, like, a giant Nintendo cartridge thing called, like, a MemDisc or a MemDrive.

[10:17] Yeah, they're extracting memories, memories of this guy.

[10:19] Yeah, the MemDrive that, like, that is color-coded based on when there's memories in it.

[10:25] It is a hilarious-looking prop.

[10:27] Like, it does, like Stuart says, it looks like an enormous Nintendo cartridge.

[10:30] And it is, I don't know, it's one of a couple things in the movie where I was like,

[10:35] I really like the design of this thing.

[10:36] It looks so unwieldy and like something you would store brain memories on in like the 1990s, you know?

[10:43] Yeah, yeah, that's kind of part of the appeal for me.

[10:46] So then in the same sense of cool 1990s stuff, Dr. Will Foster, in order to map the brain, the dead soldier's brainwaves, onto the robot's brain, he puts on this super cool visor.

[10:59] And then he starts doing, like, minority report, like, moving browsers around with his hands and stuff.

[11:05] And it's all holograms and an AR display.

[11:08] Uh-huh.

[11:09] And he's much better at manipulating these, like, hologram screens than I am, say, my phone screen.

[11:16] I want to mention right here that the idea of what the brain is like and memories are like in this movie is so, like, you could see inside a brain and stuff like that and you can easily find things.

[11:27] And there's a scene later on where Keanu Reeves needs to search for a specific memory of a character named Zoe in a brain.

[11:32] And he types into a search window, Zoe.

[11:34] And it's like, wait, so is the brain indexed?

[11:37] I don't understand.

[11:38] Yeah, like, oh, no, all memories of the movie Killing Zoe are gone.

[11:44] Oh, terrible.

[11:47] Dad, I had a report on Franny and Zooey due next week.

[11:51] Yeah.

[11:55] So, yeah, so he, you know, he moves his arms around a lot, and we see that the robot is slowly, like, coming to life.

[12:02] This scene takes probably a little too long.

[12:04] And then, you know—

[12:06] There's a lot of tech momo jumbo.

[12:08] There's a lot of, like, setting up algorithm, algorithm good, cortex neuroplasma transfer, transferring cortex neuroplasma.

[12:15] Okay, check cerebral energon.

[12:17] Cerebral energon is frying.

[12:20] Get the eggs motivated.

[12:21] Eggs are motivated.

[12:23] You know, that kind of stuff.

[12:25] truck it over trucking keep on trucking keeping on trucking that kind of stuff yeah yeah so uh

[12:33] that all happens and then the robot wakes up and it seems like everything's going well until all

[12:39] of a sudden the robot begins freaking out and ripping itself apart uh and i thought this scene

[12:45] was like i actually thought this scene was kind of cool like and also it seems pretty obvious why

[12:51] the robot is not happy because yeah it does seem pretty obvious and yet it takes keanu half the

[12:56] movie to figure out what the deal is which i think we'll get to that yeah yeah it's like yeah this

[13:02] soldier is killed in action and then he wakes up and he's in like this kind of as we have described

[13:08] it kind of crappy robot body and he freaks out like yeah he's like what am i why am i and you

[13:14] think the first thing they would say is wait you're you died and you're in a robot now but

[13:18] Instead, Keanu Reeves just keeps going, like, keeps going, Sergeant Johnson, Sergeant Johnson, please, Sergeant Johnson.

[13:24] And it's like, you're only confusing him more.

[13:26] Just explain everything.

[13:26] Come on.

[13:27] Yeah, yeah.

[13:28] So that obviously doesn't go well.

[13:30] His boss, a character named Jones, is very disappointed.

[13:34] And they, I guess they, like, that was the end of a work day on Friday.

[13:40] So Keanu Reeves is like, well, I'm going on vacation for a long weekend.

[13:46] I'll see you afterwards.

[13:48] uh but there's the feeling that there's pressure to shut the whole project down if they can't get

[13:53] if they can't find success on the next try so we have a ticking clock gentlemen yeah the motivations

[13:59] of the corporation are a little like hazy i feel like throughout the movie like i guess like at

[14:04] this point they're like i don't want to throw good money after bad so i'm going to shut things down

[14:08] but later on i'm not quite sure why it makes some of the moves well it starts out it starts out as

[14:14] this is a company and we need results and by the end of the movie it is we are some sort of secret

[14:18] organization that wants to do harness your work for something and yeah they mention i mean we can

[14:24] jump ahead but they mention at one point they go imagine a computer virus with the hacker's mind

[14:29] inside the virus and it's like that doesn't make any sense come on but also like computer viruses

[14:33] are you could just program them in i don't understand it's like we've we've reached a

[14:39] pretty good virus technology we don't need like a hacker inside that virus to make it better you

[14:44] don't need like a console cowboy stuck in that uh virus flying through walls of ice yeah like

[14:50] zooming around on rollerblades it's like they're like imagine hugh jackman in swordfish inside the

[14:55] computer so he doesn't have to spin around in his chair and drink wine while he dances around

[14:59] typing keypads to open up that cube or whatever it is that's on the screen he could just do it

[15:04] Inside the computer.

[15:04] Yeah.

[15:06] He would have a virtual bathrobe.

[15:08] So we are introduced to, we're introduced to his loving family.

[15:14] They've clearly moved, I guess, moved down to Puerto Rico to support this job.

[15:18] His wife, Mona, played by Alice Eve, is, I guess, a nurse at a clinic.

[15:23] Yes, or a doctor.

[15:24] Yeah.

[15:26] Reminds me of an old riddle, guys.

[15:29] Apparently, there was a car accident, and a man and a boy are in the car accident.

[15:34] Do we have to do this whole riddle?

[15:37] You just sort of reference it, I think.

[15:39] The boy gets rushed to the hospital, and the doctor says, I can't operate on this boy.

[15:44] He's dead.

[15:44] We'll have to clone him and put a computer program in his brain.

[15:47] Replicas.

[15:48] Okay.

[15:49] Spoiler alert.

[15:50] So we're introduced to the three foster children.

[15:54] Are they?

[15:55] Because that's their last name, dude.

[15:59] Oh, I get it, and their name is Australian for beer, so they're really the beer family.

[16:02] Mm-hmm.

[16:03] And we're introduced to the three children, Sophie, Matt, and Zoe, and the whole family is getting ready to go.

[16:14] They're loading up in the car.

[16:16] They're going to take a nighttime drive to, I guess, a boat, to go on a boat trip.

[16:21] Thomas Middleditch has a boat that he is loaning them to go on a family boat trip.

[16:25] Because when you have two teenagers and a younger kid, the first thing you want is to be stuck on a small boat for who knows how many days together.

[16:32] What's that boat's name?

[16:34] It was called, I don't remember.

[16:36] The Cheating Hussie.

[16:37] The Cheating Hussie, that's right.

[16:38] I think there's no bathroom on it, too.

[16:40] They're not headed directly to the boat, right?

[16:42] They're going to a cabin or something.

[16:43] Because it's nighttime.

[16:44] They're not going to all go on a family middle-of-the-night boat trip.

[16:47] I thought they were just going on the boat.

[16:48] Yeah, you've got to catch those fish.

[16:51] That's pretty weird.

[16:52] Yeah, you've got to get up early in the morning if you're going to catch those fish.

[16:54] So early it's not even morning yet.

[16:56] It's nighttime.

[16:56] And also, a driving rain.

[16:58] Yeah, so we get a little bit of information that's going to be applicable later.

[17:03] And Tom's Middle Ditch, I guess, is going to look after their house while they're gone.

[17:07] They all climb into the car and go driving.

[17:10] And just like you'd imagine it, it starts raining right away.

[17:14] They're driving on a dangerous, rainy road.

[17:18] And they narrowly avoid getting smashed by a semi-truck, only to get smashed by a falling tree, which, what?

[17:28] Skewers Alice Eve and then sends the car into a pond or a lake, and the others, other than Keanu Reeves, drown.

[17:37] Yeah, so, like, it's shot fairly matter-of-factly.

[17:42] It is not as gory or as horrifying as the actual experience would be.

[17:47] Are you giving the director his performance review?

[17:49] I'm not sure what's happening right now.

[17:50] Yeah, Dan.

[17:51] This isn't the kind of podcast where we tell directors if they did a good job or not.

[17:54] Good point.

[17:55] Stuart, stop it.

[17:56] Dan's right.

[17:59] Dan's right.

[18:00] This is the kind of podcast where we present no judgments.

[18:02] I'm just saying the fact that there was nothing particularly interesting about the way it was shot

[18:08] seems to be a fact that we can not put in the podcast.

[18:12] I don't know.

[18:13] I mean, we put a lot of dumb bullshit on this podcast, Dan.

[18:17] our podcast that's true one thing i'll mention here is that uh i guess keanu reeves's assassin

[18:23] training kicked in because his entire family dies in this car crash and he emerges without a scratch

[18:29] just like i mean physical scratch i mean i think he has a scratch on his head but okay he i mean

[18:35] he has severe severely deep emotional wounds at this point as you would imagine that's true

[18:39] he also seems to go back into the water and retrieve each of their bodies one at a time

[18:43] right yeah and i i do want to point out i am aware of kiana reeves own like his real life

[18:50] traumatic past regarding uh loved ones and car accidents and i find that like i'm not aware of

[18:57] that i apologize yeah i mean he no it's i mean i think it's it's something that we should address

[19:02] at some point on this podcast because i think it is an inch like it's an interesting choice

[19:06] for him and an interesting choice like for the team for him to be like maybe he's working through

[19:13] something um but he he certainly brings a fair amount of emotion to this this specific situation

[19:20] he pulls his family's bodies out of the car he reaches out to his friend ed thomas middleditch

[19:27] because he has the immediate plan to bring his family back to life and this point i know what

[19:34] thinking like cool a robot family no there's also clones and for some reason for some reason

[19:41] there are two parallel tracks going on of research of this thing and they're not trying to like put

[19:46] old memories in clone bodies they're like uh we've got the technology to just clone humans but let's

[19:51] put them in robots what they say is they have not yet reached the stage of cloning humans at the

[19:56] at the project they've only cloned lower animals and it was probably it's probably unethical to

[20:01] put a human mind i mean in a robot to begin with but against its will it's probably unethical to

[20:06] put a human mind in a clone body until you know that you can move a human mind into something

[20:09] so you don't end up with like oh great we have a cloned body with a brain that doesn't work

[20:13] okay turn it into a writer for family guy i guess i mean like wow i say that also having a friend

[20:20] who works for family guy and there's a lot of great people who work over there yeah i just i

[20:25] I just think it's interesting.

[20:26] Well, he's got a friend, everybody.

[20:27] His name is Chris.

[20:30] Yeah.

[20:31] Oh, wow.

[20:31] This choice makes sense for plot machinations later on.

[20:36] But right now, like early in the movie, I was just like, what?

[20:39] Why?

[20:39] But we were just talking about robots and now they're clones.

[20:42] It does seem to come out of nowhere.

[20:44] It literally comes out of nowhere since they never mentioned it before.

[20:47] But here's another thing that gets me.

[20:49] And, you know, spoiler alert, this part of the movie I was enjoying.

[20:53] that like he he's like well i guess i could bring over the cloning pods but we only have three of

[20:58] them and it's like wait so the lab has three cloning pods you're just gonna take them and

[21:04] they're huge like they take up a lot of space you're just gonna take them and nobody is gonna

[21:08] notice that you took all of the cloning pods from the project like well maybe i mean i would say

[21:14] maybe the that that was a avenue that they had been researching and then they decided to put it

[21:21] on pause until he could get the brain mapping

[21:23] done properly.

[21:24] It is ridiculous on one hand.

[21:27] On the other hand, the movie does address that later

[21:29] on where you find out, yeah, people

[21:31] noticed. Yeah, that's true.

[21:33] It was just weird because he thought he could get away with it.

[21:35] I guess it was the assumption that

[21:37] people would come by and be like, where are the cloning

[21:39] pods? And be like, they're being cleaned. I sent

[21:41] them out to get cleaned.

[21:42] 17-day cleaning.

[21:44] You really got to get in all the nooks of the cloning

[21:47] pods because there's a little bit of clone left

[21:49] in there and that's just gross.

[21:51] Well, you don't want that clone mixing up with the other clone,

[21:54] and then you've got the fly situation.

[21:55] Yeah, exactly.

[21:56] Yeah, which is pretty sexy at first,

[21:58] and then after a little while, you're like, no, thank you.

[22:01] Sometimes there's a clone,

[22:02] and it gets just a little bit of clone on its nose,

[22:04] and it looks like it's got a red ball on its nose,

[22:06] and then it's a clown.

[22:07] It's not a clone.

[22:08] Oh, wow.

[22:09] Oh, yeah.

[22:09] Now, at this point...

[22:11] That was a long walk to the circus.

[22:12] So at this point, Keanu, or Dr. Will,

[22:20] He is, he is, uh, is what?

[22:24] Look, look, Stuart saying, sing him a song.

[22:26] He's the piano man.

[22:27] He is, uh, he's behaving in your typical, like Herbert West, uh, Dr.

[22:33] Frankenstein type thing.

[22:35] And Ed, and he, he keeps dragging Ed into this, these situations.

[22:40] And you kind of wish Ed had been the kind of friend who's like, well,

[22:43] sometimes dead is better, but he is not that kind of friend.

[22:47] Well, that was, like, at this point in the movie, you're kind of wondering, like, is this going to turn into a pet cemetery?

[22:52] Like, you're not totally clear where this is, like, the movie as a whole is going to go.

[22:56] Yeah.

[22:57] And the movie is not clear where the movie as a whole is going to go.

[22:59] Yeah.

[23:00] So, yeah.

[23:00] So, they load the bodies up in the back of a truck.

[23:03] They also have loaded all the cloning equipment.

[23:05] And they go back to Will's house.

[23:08] And I guess the plan is to not tell anyone there was a car accident.

[23:11] And they're going to try and clone Will's family.

[23:14] The problem is, is there's only some pizza rolls and make a real night of it.

[23:17] There's only there's only three cloning pods and he has four dead family members.

[23:23] So he's going to have to make a choice.

[23:25] And I actually I thought that was a pretty fun.

[23:27] Oh, yeah, that was a pretty fun twist.

[23:28] The sequence where he like writes his family members names on pieces of paper was pretty good because he immediately puts he's like, no, I got to save my wife.

[23:37] then he puts his three kids names in a bowl and asks his friend to pick one randomly which is a

[23:44] crazy thing to do and thomas miller to his credit is like no you got to make that choice yeah he's

[23:50] obviously you know uh he's impaired by grief i mean i don't want to spoil my uh my final judgment

[23:56] but there are a lot of choices in this movie that i actually thought were pretty fun that's one of

[23:59] them that like he has to choose and it turns out that the the child they are not resurrecting is

[24:05] his youngest uh named uh thematically appropriately zoe now his youngest who he also

[24:11] seems to like the most yeah i mean i mean she's younger she's not yet at the irritating age but

[24:17] yeah and they also could have like slipped in more references to her because it makes

[24:22] that plot point more important yes exactly yeah we don't really get too much of a sense the other

[24:26] kids before they're cloned but here's i wish they had in that scene him going back and just

[24:31] remembering all the worst things about each of his kids to try to figure out which one was not

[24:35] worth bringing back you're like yeah well the older girl she's just at this weird stage that

[24:40] she doesn't want to talk to me she thinks i'm so lame it's so annoying makes me feel bad every day

[24:44] but i guess hopefully she'll grow out of that but the son oh like will he ever stop masturbating

[24:49] it's just like i find his crusty socks probably probably not yeah and uh and they're just like

[24:56] and zoe i mean she's great but like sometimes it's just like okay put down a book go outside

[25:02] to run around have some fun you know these kids with their phones and and especially if it's those

[25:07] uh brett easton ellis books she keeps reading wow apparently she's over my outrage about the

[25:14] president i don't understand how does she get to make that judgment why does she care

[25:18] but and thomas middleditch is like do i need to be here while you're ruminating over all this

[25:22] yeah uh at this point there's a lot of talk about the logistics of everything

[25:26] like keanu reeves is like they got they all got to come out of their like clone pods at the same

[25:32] day and like at first thomas middle just like that's impossible then he like does like a

[25:36] calculation it's like oh i'll do it and it's like is this gonna be a plot point and it's not it is

[25:40] not uh it is but it is weird it's like they i guess they have to what slow down the cloning

[25:44] in a couple of the tanks that the kids don't come out too old but and also yeah there's something

[25:50] about levels and timing and yeah well he has 17 days before these clones are going to come out

[25:55] he's got just 17 days to clone his family before the big dance there's this ticking clock there

[26:05] because keanu still hasn't figured out how to keep um the memories from being rejected in the

[26:11] new body so he has to figure that out before the 17 days are over or else the clones will keep

[26:14] rapidly aging in their pods and he also has to monitor the levels of the tanks or else so he

[26:20] can't leave he has to stay at his house yeah for two and a half weeks watching these clones and he

[26:25] also can't let the uh he can't let the power go out which i mean i guess like puerto rico has a

[26:32] history of having power issues so that might be a reason why it was set in puerto rico it's a pretty

[26:37] pretty flimsy excuse uh and because it's a beautiful island it's a great place i love

[26:43] and by shooting in puerto rico i hope that it brought some you know additional money to the

[26:47] account yeah i'll recommend i'll recommend that once again flop house comics are available on

[26:51] the flop s website all proceeds go to uh puerto rico uh recovery efforts yeah and we we learned

[26:58] later that the way keanu reeves deals with this fact that he doesn't have a generator so he goes

[27:02] around and he steals all the batteries from the cars in the neighborhood which is another thing

[27:05] that doesn't really pay off it's just kind of funny and also but i also like that he it means

[27:09] that he went on this spree where in one night like a reverse car battery santa claus he went

[27:14] to every house and stole their car batteries yeah i kind of like that bit and also when the police

[27:20] show up later and you think it is goose is cooked they reveal that information and they're like was

[27:26] your car battery stolen and he's like no he's like yes i'm the lucky one and they're like oh

[27:30] nothing suspicious about that see you later whole neighborhood everyone's car batteries were stolen

[27:34] except for this one dude high level of electricity coming off of this guy's house well nothing we can

[27:39] do about it dude yeah they pull out their like pke meters and they're like so much juice time to go

[27:45] back to the fact that congress changed the law to make it harder for our island uh almost state to

[27:50] take care of itself. Hey, wonder if we'll ever have full representation in Congress. Not with

[27:55] this party in power. Hey, do you think that guy who was the only one in the whole block who didn't

[28:00] lose his car battery, maybe he stole the car batteries? Look, we've got such bigger problems

[28:04] here. Why are we worried about this one guy stealing car batteries? It's not an issue we

[28:08] need to deal with. They only sent us out to make the one block of rich white people who had their

[28:12] car batteries stolen feel good, okay? You're right. Let's go on to real problems. Anyway,

[28:17] that's a scene from my new show two cops in puerto rico it's weird that in between talking about such

[28:22] heavy things they would like sing a little song like that well that's because the people of puerto

[28:26] rico you can't bring them down you know they're all they've always got they've always got that

[28:31] certain uh you know like yeah resilience resilience all those things that make a people

[28:36] you know strong and they've got it so even when all those troubles are going to them

[28:40] are going on they still have that song in their heart and it sounds like this

[28:43] do do do do do da da da okay uh well that aside so this is where this is about where uh

[28:54] keanu's character makes probably the craziest choice in this movie and i say that with full

[29:00] understanding that he has decided to clone and bring back his dead family is that because he

[29:06] can't he can't resurrect his youngest daughter zoe he decides to edit the memories of his other

[29:13] family members and completely remove all memories of their youngest daughter which is insane yeah

[29:20] which is crazy like there's like there's no first off he would have to do that for everyone on the

[29:24] planet yeah that's that's the thing they were always kind of putting off and it never comes up

[29:29] in the movie but the moment where someone is like hey where's zoe where's your youngest daughter

[29:33] Because even at his computer in his office, he has a piece of paper on it that says, like, I love Daddy, love Zoe, in the shape of a unicorn.

[29:41] Unicorns here represent Zoe because she's impossible.

[29:43] And maybe it's a Blade Runner reference.

[29:47] I don't know.

[29:47] But it's always like, okay, what's your long game here when the rest of the world realizes you used to have a daughter?

[29:53] Do you just be like, oh, no, no, you're mistaken.

[29:54] You're thinking of a different Will Foster who also was a robot brain scientist.

[29:58] His plan is to gaslight everyone else in the world.

[30:02] There never was a Zoe.

[30:04] Like his mother comes in and goes, where's my granddaughter Zoe?

[30:06] Uh-oh, senility has finally struck.

[30:09] Oh boy, take her away, nurses.

[30:10] What?

[30:11] Oh no, I had a granddaughter.

[30:13] Her name was Zoe.

[30:14] Imaginary granddaughters.

[30:15] Oh boy, take away grandma.

[30:17] I mean, it's an important plot point to mention that though you reference Zoe's grandparents,

[30:21] we learn pretty clearly in the movie that they are dead and there's no way that she has them.

[30:27] So it's interesting.

[30:28] Maybe somebody's carefully edited your memories, Elliot.

[30:31] I don't know if carefully editing is so much as the fact that I just didn't remember.

[30:35] So back at work, which Will is not going to, we find out that if the next test does not work, they'll definitely shut the project down.

[30:47] Yeah, so Thomas Middleditch is on the phone with Keanu being like, you got to get back to work.

[30:51] He's like, I can't do it.

[30:52] I got to do this other stuff.

[30:52] He's like, dude, people are going to be suspicious.

[30:54] You got to get back to work.

[30:55] we get like a little bit of a don't tell mom the babysitter's dead situation or in this case

[30:59] babysitter's dad because he's the dad it's don't tell everybody your family is dead situation i

[31:05] thought it was more of a kind of a weekend at bernie's sort of thing kind of trying to convince

[31:10] he's keanu's trying to convince everyone in the world that like these people are not dead yeah so

[31:14] it's more of a rest of your life at bernie's type scenario yeah because he's like texting

[31:20] like his daughter's boyfriend

[31:22] back and like answering emails

[31:24] that part was great this was maybe my

[31:26] favorite part in the movie where he's

[31:28] just like uh like so his son's

[31:30] teacher comes by the house to wonder what's going on

[31:32] because it's been five days and he hasn't shown up

[31:34] and he's like uh oh yeah he's uh

[31:36] he's at his grandparents because he got he got sick

[31:38] so we sent him to his grandparents and Thomas Middleditch

[31:40] is like aren't his grandparents dead

[31:42] and it's like I don't know so he sends an email

[31:44] under his wife's name to the teacher saying we're

[31:46] homeschooling our son from now on don't worry about it

[31:48] And then he starts responding to everyone's texts and emails and he opens up his wife's

[31:53] phone and it's like a hundred missed voicemails.

[31:56] And he's like, really?

[31:57] Oh, it's like it was, he suddenly becomes the personal assistant for his entire family,

[32:01] which is, you know, I love this because like the movie is like one step away from farce

[32:05] at this point.

[32:06] And it's a thing that like no other movie like this ever addresses.

[32:09] So the fact that like, oh, you got to put a lot of balls in the air if you're going

[32:12] to try and do one of these scams.

[32:13] The only way it would have been better is if he was setting up appointments and dates with people and then had to dress up as members of his family.

[32:21] Or maybe not go that extreme, just like have to cancel them right before each date.

[32:28] So he's like setting all these timers.

[32:30] He's on the phone, he's like, hello, no, this is Mona Foster, Will's wife.

[32:36] Yeah, I like the...

[32:38] Where did you identify yourself that way, Mona?

[32:41] I'm totally alive right now and not in a cloning tank.

[32:44] Okay, I didn't think you would be, but.

[32:46] Like, yeah, I mean, that would be strange because there's only three cloning tanks.

[32:52] It would be weird that you'd be taking up one of the three.

[32:54] And he starts getting the voices mixed up and he's like, hey, dude, it's me, Mona.

[33:00] Oh, damn, that's the son voice I was using.

[33:02] Okay.

[33:02] Oh, yes.

[33:03] No, it's me.

[33:04] That kind of stuff.

[33:05] So, yeah.

[33:08] Stove top stuffing at your house tonight.

[33:10] Sorry.

[33:10] I mean, whoa, stovetop stuffing at your house tonight?

[33:12] And so the audience knows I was putting a hand up to my head

[33:15] as if it was a phone during this whole hit.

[33:17] Yeah, that's why you didn't hear a lot of Dan and Stuart in that bit

[33:20] because we were cracking up so hard.

[33:22] At the accuracy.

[33:24] So this is where Thomas Milditch explains that if they're in those tanks too long,

[33:30] they're going to get super old.

[33:31] And also wrinkly.

[33:33] They're going to get wrinkly and pruney.

[33:34] Yeah, which is why humans develop wrinkles,

[33:38] because we get all pruney from being in clone tanks all the time.

[33:41] Because if you stay in a bath too long, you get older.

[33:43] Yeah, so they take those bodies out of the pods.

[33:48] They have to tranquilize, they have to sedate them

[33:51] because Will is not ready to map those brains yet.

[33:54] He still can't figure out the final component

[33:56] and he doesn't want us to have a situation

[33:58] where they rip their bodies apart like that poor robot did.

[34:01] It's more than sedating them.

[34:02] He puts them into a medically induced coma

[34:04] so that they can be asleep for as long as he needs.

[34:07] And meanwhile, off to the side is Joey Ramone saying, I want to be sedated.

[34:10] Come on.

[34:11] Spread the wealth.

[34:12] Come on.

[34:13] Give a little medicine over this way.

[34:14] Politely imploring.

[34:16] This is the moment when we realize that despite the early warnings, that the cloning job has been good.

[34:26] Like, they look exactly the same.

[34:28] Their organs are not on the outside or anything crazy.

[34:30] I have an extra ear.

[34:33] Nope, no extra ears, no extra feet sticking out of their butts or anything like that.

[34:36] Thomas Middleditch finally, I assume, gets to live out a fantasy of seeing his co-worker's wife naked when he helps him to remove her from the pod.

[34:44] I mean, he's like a doctor or something, though, dude.

[34:46] Like, don't you think that he is not a creep?

[34:51] He's very clinical.

[34:51] Of course he's a creep.

[34:53] Look at Thomas Middleditch.

[34:54] That character's a creep.

[34:55] Oh, wow.

[34:55] Wow.

[34:56] I mean, so—

[34:59] No, I'm not saying Thomas Middleditch is a creep.

[35:01] I'm saying he only plays creeps.

[35:03] And I think there's a good point to mention that I actually like the friendship between these two guys.

[35:12] Like, I thought they had some pretty good chemistry.

[35:14] It's something that I would not have guessed that Keanu Reeves and Thomas Middleditch would have such good chemistry together.

[35:18] But they do really, like, react well together.

[35:21] And they're, like, it's similar to when we saw The Trust.

[35:24] And I was like, I would watch a whole TV show of Nicolas Cage and Elijah Wood starring together.

[35:30] like i would watch a keanu reeves and thomas middleditch series of films or tv shows they

[35:34] are really good together in a way i would not have predicted so he uh he puts his family in

[35:41] their in their pajamas puts them in bed they're in a coma uh and he's like i gotta figure this

[35:46] out i only have three days to keep so we have a new ticking clock the house is a total mess

[35:52] and he just can't seem to figure it out

[35:55] until he rests his hand on his wife's hand

[36:00] and he notices brainwave activity

[36:03] and he's like, wait a minute.

[36:05] The secret ingredient is love.

[36:08] The fifth element is me.

[36:10] What he realizes is there's a brain-body connection,

[36:14] which is obvious,

[36:16] and these other transfers have happened

[36:22] because the consciousness are rejecting the fact

[36:25] that they're now in a robot body,

[36:26] which seems like it should have been fucking obvious

[36:28] from the start that that's the problem.

[36:30] Like, no shit, Keanu.

[36:31] Like, oh, your big insight is, like,

[36:34] if you put them in a clone body

[36:35] that's the same as their old body,

[36:36] they're not going to freak out, like, if they're in a robot?

[36:38] I mean, it's really easy to be a Monday morning quarterback

[36:41] on this one, Dan.

[36:42] Now, it would seem obvious that if you looked down

[36:45] and saw your own hands, you would get less freaked out

[36:48] than if you sat down and saw robot hands

[36:50] that can feel nothing because they have no nerves on them.

[36:52] It may seem obvious that your body feels different than a robot body

[36:57] that is also naked, so you don't even feel like clothing on you.

[37:00] So not only are you suddenly in a metal body that feels weird,

[37:03] but you're naked, and that's embarrassing in front of strangers.

[37:06] Not until now that he realizes, like, oh, brains want to be in their bodies.

[37:10] I get it.

[37:11] So he calls up his buddy.

[37:14] His buddy shows up, and they...

[37:16] Thomas Middleditch.

[37:18] They didn't introduce a new buddy for him.

[37:20] No, there's not an extra buddy.

[37:22] He didn't call over Uncle Joey to help him with this.

[37:24] So he, and he performs the brain mapping.

[37:29] They initiate, what is it?

[37:31] Boot the mapping sequence, I think is the exact terms.

[37:35] And he does it to his family, and it seems to work.

[37:41] And then he sedates them again, and you're like,

[37:44] what, are you just going to keep doing this over and over?

[37:47] And then he goes around the house and he cleans up.

[37:50] We get like a little bit of a montage of him cleaning and also throwing out all of Zoe's things.

[37:55] He de-Zoifies the house pretty thoroughly.

[37:57] Yeah, the cleanup is, it's not like he's dusting and like, oh, by the way, I'm going to get rid of Zoe's stuff.

[38:03] Like it's expressly like, oh, wait, I told them that there's no Zoe.

[38:06] The house is full of Zoe.

[38:08] Let's get rid of Zoe.

[38:09] As somebody who is currently packing up a house just to move, not to gaslight my family into believing we don't have a third child.

[38:17] It takes a lot of effort.

[38:18] So for him to do that in one night is pretty impressive.

[38:21] And his family never asks, like, why are there all these empty spaces where the pictures are on the walls?

[38:25] I mean, they just recently moved there, too.

[38:28] I think they got the impression that they hadn't been there that long.

[38:31] But he is also kind of half-assing it in that, like, he's literally putting all the Zoe shit in, like, bags and then just taking it to the curb.

[38:38] Why not, like, you know, put it in a dumpster downtown or something?

[38:43] No, leave it on the curb, and then there's that one lucky garbage man who's like, oh, cool, all this cool Zoe stuff.

[38:48] I'm a huge Zoe fan.

[38:50] He's risking that a raccoon comes and opens up the bag, and his kids find it and are like, who's Zoe?

[38:55] What's all this Zoe stuff doing here?

[38:57] Yeah, it's weird, and it, again, brings up the question, why is he doing this?

[39:05] Because he loves his family, Stuart.

[39:06] Yeah, but...

[39:08] Much like your namesake, Stuart Smalley, saved his family in the movie Stuart Saves His Family.

[39:13] This movie could be called Keanu Saves His Family Except for One of Them.

[39:18] Yeah.

[39:19] Which, at first, that'd be a weird choice because his character is not named Keanu.

[39:25] That's true.

[39:25] And it's a long title.

[39:26] Replicas is a much punchier title.

[39:28] Yeah, I think so.

[39:29] So he cleans the house.

[39:32] He puts his family to sleep.

[39:34] And then he gets into bed

[39:35] And he wakes up the next morning

[39:38] In bed alone

[39:40] We've all been there

[39:41] Yep and he goes downstairs

[39:44] And you're like this is going to be horrifying

[39:46] But no it's just his family

[39:48] Who are recently awakened from being dead

[39:50] And they are having

[39:52] Having breakfast together

[39:53] Noisily lustily

[39:55] It did raise some questions to me

[39:58] Like what was the extent of his memory

[40:00] Erasing because like they're just

[40:02] Behaving like it's a normal

[40:03] day yes well that's and that comes up a little bit it comes up a little bit later that he has

[40:09] they seem to have rebooted back to like literally the day after they died you know

[40:16] or even before maybe a race that day where they left kids are super hungry the car crash from

[40:23] their memories well not entirely because that comes up later yeah okay so the kids are hungry

[40:27] they they want to eat all the pancakes and french toast in the world uh kiano puts on a great dad

[40:32] performance at this point he just he puts on such a show of like the chef he's like pancakes yes

[40:38] yes we can have pancakes what would you like a french toast french toast but of course madam

[40:45] but it's not even like what would you like french toast the girl already has a pancake in front of

[40:50] her and she's like can i have french toast too and he's like sure what well you know carb carb city

[40:54] let's do it he's just he's being real judgy about her food choices we're not on the paleo diet

[41:01] anymore who cares just come on we're all alive isn't it wonderful we're alive it this is now

[41:06] this scene let me just be a little pretentious here for the first time in my life and say that

[41:11] this scene has a real our town quality to it in that keanu is so excited that his family is alive

[41:17] but his family our town or our town like h-o-u-r our o-u-r like thornton wilder's our town not

[41:25] our town there was a there was a similar thing that i did i wasn't aware of no no it's a different

[41:29] thing where yeah he was like oh this is wonderful my family and the family doesn't realize this is

[41:34] a special day that they died and came back and they are at first barely giving him the time of

[41:38] day like they uh will it's like hey dad what's up anyway get out of my way and it's it was like oh

[41:44] that is what it's like to be a dad nobody cares about you that's not true but uh you are very

[41:50] easily ignored but there was this that but this real quality like when she goes back for her one

[41:54] day on earth after dying in our town where she's like doesn't don't you see how wonderful this all

[41:58] is don't you see it and everyone's like no whatever we're just having a regular day there's

[42:02] kind of a little touch of that in this scene which i appreciated yeah like the moment where uh his

[42:07] daughter pours milk into a glass and it's all spoiled and sour uh because he didn't throw out

[42:13] the old milk while the 17 days 17 plus days of stuff was going on you think he would have gotten

[42:20] to that during his epic clean he might have noticed the smelly milk but he didn't yeah and

[42:26] Alice Eve goes for a run and she seems to be having some sort of physical problems

[42:29] and the kids seem a little uncoordinated.

[42:31] Was it just me or was her performance, it felt a little bit like the director's like,

[42:37] okay, so at this point your character's a clone and you're just going to behave normally.

[42:42] And she's like, okay, I'm a robot, got it.

[42:44] Yeah, there's a little bit of that.

[42:46] No, no, no.

[42:46] There is a little bit of that.

[42:49] But also I just wanted to say the fact that these new clones are a little uncoordinated

[42:53] also doesn't really pay off.

[42:55] I guess the idea is that they'll get used to the body over time and it's not

[42:59] like they're degenerating or something,

[43:01] but early in the,

[43:02] that would be horrible.

[43:03] Like early in the movie,

[43:05] like when this gets brought up,

[43:07] I'm,

[43:07] that seems like it's a possibility to me.

[43:09] Like it seems like they may like just sort of fall apart.

[43:12] This whole scene,

[43:12] I was like watching for any sign that we might have to send in a clean team

[43:17] to like wipe them out.

[43:18] No,

[43:19] but instead it mainly manifests as them being unable to pour things into

[43:23] glasses.

[43:23] Yeah.

[43:25] So, of course, it's a Saturday, so Keanu has to go into work

[43:30] because they have to do another test.

[43:32] They have a new donor, and he lies and says that the donor isn't ready

[43:38] because I think he knows that deep down the mapping wouldn't be complete, right?

[43:42] Yeah, I think that—

[43:45] He knows it's not going to work.

[43:46] Yeah, what's going on with the family has awakened his ethical sense a little bit,

[43:50] and he's like, I don't want to put another consciousness through this horror.

[43:55] And because he also realizes that the only way it'll work is if there's a direct connection between mind and body, and he has a plan to perform the brain scan on himself, as well as write an algorithm in one night that tricks a brain into thinking a robot body is the same body.

[44:17] I don't know whether at this point he knows that he's going to solve that algorithm soon.

[44:21] I think, like, to me it was like, if anyone's going to go through it, it has to be me.

[44:26] I think that was more it, is that he realizes, I know this is going to fail.

[44:30] I'm just going to send another robot to the body shop because it's going to rip itself apart and be unhappy for a couple minutes.

[44:36] So I'm going to do it on myself because I can't subject anyone else to that.

[44:39] But then I'll try to figure it out.

[44:40] So he needs to shoot an eye needle into his brain to extract his brain info.

[44:45] Where does he decide to do this?

[44:47] Not in his office, which he does not have.

[44:48] It's an open plan workspace.

[44:50] Stuart, where does he do it instead?

[44:52] Well, he does it in the bathroom, which is...

[44:54] At that point, I'm like, so he's doing it in a bathroom.

[44:58] Maybe he's just trying to remove all memories of his daughter Zoe from himself.

[45:03] But that's not true.

[45:05] No, he's doing a self-download.

[45:06] But like, yeah, he's just a stick...

[45:08] And his boss walks in and takes a pee and is like,

[45:10] things aren't so too bad about that one.

[45:12] And Keanu has all this, like, computer stuff on him in a stall.

[45:15] And he's like, yeah, too bad.

[45:17] And his boss is never like, wait,

[45:18] are you sitting on the toilet without your pants pulled down?

[45:21] What are you doing in there?

[45:22] Also, if I'm going to stick...

[45:24] I mean, you're not allowed to ask that as a boss.

[45:26] I guess that's true.

[45:28] If I'm going to stick a needle in my eye,

[45:30] I'm not going to do it in germ central.

[45:31] That's the other thing.

[45:32] No, no, no, yeah.

[45:36] You would do it in a dumpster or a loading dock or something.

[45:39] Yeah, yeah.

[45:39] Some sort of flop house.

[45:41] Yep.

[45:41] Just go to the town dump, get into a big pile of rats.

[45:44] Yeah, so he has this whole plan.

[45:47] He talks to his buddy, Ed, about it.

[45:49] And Ed's like, are we going to go tree shopping later or something?

[45:53] It was pretty great.

[45:55] And I thought that was him just trying to cover for their conversation.

[46:01] But then they do go tree shopping later.

[46:02] Yeah, that's true.

[46:05] So they, he goes home.

[46:07] Mona knows something's wrong.

[46:09] She can't quite figure it out.

[46:10] His daughter, Sophie, is having trouble sleeping.

[46:13] She's having nightmares of the car accident.

[46:16] While he's at work, we get a moment where the family's like,

[46:19] hey, can anyone find their phones?

[46:20] No, I don't know where my phone is.

[46:22] Just to tie up that loose end.

[46:23] Yeah, yeah.

[46:25] The true horror is revealed.

[46:26] Their phones are gone.

[46:27] So he takes his daughter down into his basement lab,

[46:33] And he starts editing her memories to remove the car accident.

[46:37] And I feel like this is a slippery slope, guys.

[46:40] Pretty soon he's going to be like, hmm, I want to make sure my kids think I'm cool.

[46:45] Like, insert positive memories of Steely Dan.

[46:50] So he's writing code where he can use a surfboard and stuff like that?

[46:55] Yeah, yeah.

[46:56] I mean, as long as we're talking about overusing science,

[47:01] While I was watching it, I kept thinking it would be funny if his family just kept dying over and over again and he kept having to bring them back multiple times.

[47:08] I mean, that's basically the Venture Brothers at a certain point.

[47:10] But also, like, just, yeah, when it becomes really, he's like, ugh, she never remembers to turn off the bathroom light when she leaves the bathroom.

[47:22] Let me just pop her into the coater, add that in there.

[47:25] Yeah, he's, like, removing all memory of her high school crush.

[47:31] he's like

[47:32] that time

[47:32] that time she caught me

[47:33] looking at the woman

[47:34] who works at the yogurt place

[47:36] let's just remove that

[47:37] diddly

[47:37] yeah

[47:38] he uh

[47:40] his

[47:40] Simona comes downstairs

[47:41] and catches him

[47:42] editing his daughter's brain

[47:43] uh

[47:44] so

[47:45] you make it sound

[47:46] wrong Stuart

[47:47] for any mother to see

[47:48] so she calls him out on it

[47:50] and he like

[47:50] immediately

[47:51] fesses up

[47:52] like he immediately

[47:53] comes clean

[47:54] I mean what else

[47:55] is he gonna tell her

[47:56] that's the

[47:56] oh it's a new

[47:57] it's a new video game

[47:58] we're trying out

[47:59] you have to be asleep

[48:00] to play it

[48:00] so he comes clean and she starts grappling with the enormity of the fact that she is a clone

[48:09] yeah also her oh wait she doesn't care about everything yet he doesn't care about zoe he's

[48:14] just it's more like just like uh you guys were dead and now you're not dead now this all this

[48:19] kind of plays off there's a conversation that she and him had earlier in the movie before she died

[48:23] about whether people are just neurochemistry or whether they have souls and she thinks people

[48:29] have souls and keanu reeves doesn't well he just thinks that people are made up of their

[48:32] their memories and their chemistry and it's kind of like now she has to grapple with that does she

[48:37] have a soul or is she just a program and it would be really cool if she had like an arc where she

[48:42] got to develop that stuff but that doesn't happen no or an arc where she collects two of every

[48:46] animal and there's a huge flood that'd be pretty cool uh i don't i don't buy it seems weird and

[48:51] they would call it mona's arc so then they go christmas tree shopping there's a great moment

[49:00] where they're they see a fake christmas tree and mona catches herself where she's like oh gross i

[49:06] hate the fake ones and then she realizes wait a minute i'm a fake one fake ones yep they head

[49:15] back home his uh they're having dinner they realize that there's some kind of that his his

[49:22] family realizes that the name zoe means it's as subtle as the daughter turns to her dad and is

[49:27] like hey dad who's zoe uh-huh and then like plates break glasses break every uh and he starts to he

[49:35] like then he fesses up immediately to mona he explains to mona what happened which uh goes over

[49:41] about as well as you would expect there is a great bit where they're fighting in the kitchen and the

[49:45] kids are like are you guys getting a divorce and mona's like maybe keanu reeves goes no and

[49:49] mona goes maybe i'm like uh i mean okay yeah i mean that's fair so their their lovely family

[50:00] meal is interrupted by his boss jones who takes keanu out onto their uh their backyard and he

[50:07] reveals that he knows everything and that yeah he was like didn't you think it was a little easy

[50:12] that you did all this stuff?

[50:13] And you're like, oh, yeah, the movie.

[50:14] Yeah, it was pretty easy to do all this stuff.

[50:16] And at that point, I'm like, my brain's spinning,

[50:19] and I'm like, wait a minute.

[50:20] Did Jones engineer the tree to fall in the car?

[50:23] That doesn't actually turn out to be the case.

[50:25] No, he actually says, I didn't create that crash, but.

[50:27] But it was a great motivator for you to figure this shit out.

[50:31] Yeah, so he knows what's going on.

[50:33] He knows about the clones, and he wants all of Keanu's research.

[50:37] And also, like, hey, have one lovely night with your family

[50:40] before they get uh they get wiped out yeah he like he's like the corporation has to destroy

[50:45] these things he can't have them running around which all right this is one of the things that

[50:48] i was sort of confused on it didn't make any sense to me because like why would anyone find out like

[50:55] and why would anyone find out because there's a thousand loose ends and they have a missing

[51:00] daughter and all those things well there's that but also i don't even know how kianu got another

[51:04] car so easily when their car is at the bottom of a lake somewhere but if you wanted kianu's help

[51:09] like i feel like they're a two-car family yeah but they both work people would be like why are

[51:13] you driving around in your wife's car uh you know we did a car swap i mean maybe maybe they share

[51:18] i'm saying if he wants keanu's help at this point it's better motivation to say hey we'll help you

[51:23] keep your secret than being like hey we're gonna kill your family it's extra weird because he

[51:27] clearly already has assassins waiting in the drive yeah i mean he says to keanu have one last night

[51:33] with your family and then he tells his assassins okay move in so i think he's yeah and the assassins

[51:38] are nice enough to just stand on the porch and have like a little conversation with each other

[51:42] yeah asking about those new t-16s have you seen them yeah so he uh he gets the drop on jones

[51:47] knocks him out with one of those giant nintendo cartridges puts that thing in the microwave

[51:51] grabs his family the kids are like what and he's like i'll explain later they all get in the car

[51:57] they drive away the assassins chase them uh the assassins are right on their tail they're like

[52:01] what's going on oh wait we must have a tracking device somewhere in our spine mona's like i'm on

[52:06] it they go back to mona's clinic they lie the kids down and they uh jolt them with some electrical

[52:12] juice with defibrillators yep to knock out the uh knock out the tracking device now dan you're

[52:17] like a charm you're an electrician and a and a doctor would that work well this was my thought

[52:22] if these trackers can be knocked out by using a defibrillator on them like why does the movie feel

[52:29] the need to be like oh these things are attached to your spine which would suggest it was a lot

[52:34] harder to get rid of them like they could have just been like yeah they put trackers in you and

[52:37] you would think that they would put the defibrillator on their like spine to yeah and so their chest but

[52:42] you know they uh whatever i didn't i didn't write the movie i mean if you don't use the defibrillator

[52:45] as recommended then you then you have your then it's on you it's not on the company that made

[52:50] the defibrillator so that's a liability issue i think probably that's why they had to do that

[52:54] with the kids but you're right it's a i was i was kind of hoping that this defibrillator situation

[52:58] would lead to a Ernest goes to jail type of scenario

[53:02] where after the electricity hits them,

[53:04] they become like superhuman

[53:06] and start shooting electricity all over the place.

[53:08] Sure, sure, electricity and magnetic powers

[53:10] and they chew on a pen

[53:11] and all the ink gets in their mouth.

[53:12] Is that the plot of Shocker, the Wes Craven movie?

[53:14] Yeah, that's where, yeah, that's the same thing.

[53:16] Okay.

[53:17] But I mean, I felt like this is more of like

[53:19] an Ernest crowd than a Shocker crowd.

[53:20] Yeah, it's the origin of Electro, the Spider-Man villain.

[53:23] It is plenty of stuff like that.

[53:25] Wait, Electro was working on a movie

[53:28] at a summer camp?

[53:29] Yeah, Electro worked

[53:30] at a summer camp

[53:31] and he saved the summer camp.

[53:32] He also saved Christmas

[53:33] and he was scared stupid

[53:34] at one point.

[53:35] I think at some point

[53:36] he also played basketball

[53:37] or something.

[53:38] I'm not even sure.

[53:38] That sounds right.

[53:39] Anyway, he had a friend

[53:40] named Vern

[53:41] who did not know

[53:41] what he meant.

[53:42] I think they're like

[53:45] the tracker is implanted

[53:46] as they're growing

[53:47] on their spine.

[53:48] I guess that they can't

[53:48] just like do the thing

[53:50] where you cut your arm open

[53:51] and pull out a chip.

[53:51] Like they want to make

[53:53] it seem hard

[53:53] but then they decided

[53:54] to make it a little bit harder

[53:56] and by that I mean easier

[53:57] by just zapping them this is i want to mention so there was this was when jones is telling him

[54:02] all that stuff earlier he goes you really thought we were a company we were a company no one's

[54:07] spending this kind of money to bring dead soldiers back to life we make weapons my name isn't even

[54:11] jones and the rest of the movie i was like so what is that guy's name like what's why do they

[54:15] have a fake name i don't understand you're like i guess i'll have to wait for the credits where

[54:18] they reveal it uh so yeah and they yeah they it's revealed that they're not a biomedical company at

[54:26] all that they are a weapons company um yada yada yada so they uh now that the trackers have been

[54:32] deactivated they decide to go to ed's boat the cheatin hussy as it is called and their kiano

[54:39] gets out and he goes running over to the boat by himself big mistake huge he uh he tries to find

[54:45] the keys on commission yep he can't find the keys and you're like wait a minute the only other

[54:51] character in this movie is in on it uh so his uh the assassins show up and they drag his family

[54:59] off and he realizes that he's gonna have to have a showdown at bio nine uh research facility or

[55:05] whatever so we have all of the all the dominoes are in place uh jones his family ed a bunch of

[55:13] goons they're all at the research facility i don't know why ed had to be at the research facility

[55:19] To get his boat keys, obviously.

[55:21] Yeah, clearly.

[55:21] He wasn't going to use them that week.

[55:23] Is he like, look, I could wait till Monday when I get back to work, but I really had big plans for the cheat and hussy this weekend.

[55:28] So I'm going to need those keys, Jones.

[55:30] Yeah, and he reveals that the reason that Jones knows because Jones found the bodies, the original bodies of Keanu's family that...

[55:41] Ed was too sentimental to get rid of, I guess.

[55:44] It's too sentimental or like a normal person who is not comfortable like getting rid of dead bodies.

[55:49] Yeah, but are you more comfortable like stacking them in a closet or something?

[55:52] I assume that he put them in the break room refrigerator with a note on them that said will so that nobody else would take them as their family.

[56:02] And he's like, I guess this will keep them fresh.

[56:04] I'll just put it.

[56:05] I got to move all these other food items out that people put in.

[56:08] And someone was like, hey, you're emptying the refrigerator.

[56:10] Usually they do that on Fridays.

[56:11] And he's like, there's something smelly in here.

[56:13] So I got to I got to clean it out now, even though it's Thursday.

[56:16] OK, can I have that that soup right there?

[56:19] And they're going to and they put their hand in and they almost touch one of the bodies.

[56:22] And he's like, oh, and then they grab the soup and take it out.

[56:25] And he's like, phew.

[56:27] Uh-huh.

[56:28] Yep.

[56:29] So that's the scene.

[56:30] Wipes a giant thing of sweat off of his forehead.

[56:32] So Will shows up.

[56:36] He he started he talks to Jones.

[56:38] Jones attempts to shoot his family.

[56:41] Big mistake.

[56:42] instead he shoots ed which is sad and doesn't make any you know it's pointless like all violence

[56:47] a little message in here yeah uh and then uh kiana's like no i'll do it here i'll uh i'll

[56:55] i'll i'll finalize the research and in the process he puts on that dope visor i mentioned earlier

[57:00] before we get to the twist i just want to say i think it's funny in all of these like

[57:05] science fiction movies or thrillers or whatever how quickly evil corporations just like go to

[57:11] shooting people like yeah like in real life there are some pretty evil corporations out there but

[57:16] they don't just like suddenly be like you know what fuck it i'm gonna shoot people in the head

[57:19] that's what you think they're like they're like thomas did middle ditch we had you sign an nda

[57:24] that also says everything goes to arbitration if you have a problem with us so really you might

[57:28] as well just take this money this settlement instead of telling anybody that we're evil and

[57:32] he's like i guess i have to psych shoot you in the brain bam like it's arbitration is the name

[57:38] of this bullet.

[57:39] That's a long word

[57:43] to write on a bullet.

[57:43] Hopefully it's one of those

[57:45] like antique wailing bullets

[57:47] from the movie Wanted.

[57:49] If you can write on a rice,

[57:50] a piece of rice,

[57:52] then you can write

[57:52] arbitration on a bullet.

[57:53] You're right.

[57:54] If you can make a boy

[57:55] out of pencils,

[57:55] you can make a pencil

[57:56] out of leaves.

[57:57] A boy out of pencils.

[58:00] You're right.

[58:03] You use that argument

[58:04] every time,

[58:05] and you know what?

[58:05] I hate it,

[58:07] But I got to say, you know, I have to allow it.

[58:10] So Will has the cool headset on.

[58:13] He sneakily transfers his consciousness into the robot 345, which we see wake up and bust

[58:22] loose.

[58:22] A goon goes to like, I don't know, investigate.

[58:25] And just when it looks like everything's gone bad for our hero, the robot 345 powered by

[58:34] the brain of will busts in and just starts whipping ass and kiano gets his family to safety

[58:41] and then he's like wait a minute i have i have some business to take care of and then he goes

[58:47] and he opens up a trunk that he's buried in his basement and he pulls out all these cool gold

[58:51] coins and these dope pistols in a suit no no i don't think so i think that's not that one okay

[58:58] well then i guess he goes back and he finds uh jones being like choked out by robot him and he's

[59:05] like uh they make some kind of a weird deal this seems kind of strange because they don't explain

[59:10] anything and then i mean yeah it's revealed later on what's going on but like they make a deal for

[59:14] him to survive he's like there is another way which i don't i kind of didn't buy because jones

[59:18] was so keen on just killing everybody like he has a change of heart at the end it was like jones

[59:24] isn't the CEO of the company or anything like that.

[59:27] He's just his boss.

[59:28] He goes, you kill me, they'll send other people after you.

[59:31] And he's like, let's make a deal instead.

[59:33] And then they kill him or he dies.

[59:35] And it's like their deal turns out,

[59:37] well, we'll say what it is.

[59:39] Stuart, what happens next?

[59:40] How many days later is it?

[59:42] What, 17 days later?

[59:45] 17 days later.

[59:47] And we are on a beautiful beach.

[59:50] We see the foster family running around in the sand.

[59:56] And off in the distance, who's that?

[59:58] Oh, it's Keanu Reeves walking with their daughter, Zoe.

[1:00:03] So one of the things apparently he went back for was to get Zoe's genetic thing to make a clone.

[1:00:13] Yeah, all the deets.

[1:00:14] But I was like, how long has this been?

[1:00:17] 17 days.

[1:00:19] Is her body still viable?

[1:00:20] It seemed like there was this whole thing about it needed to be...

[1:00:24] I don't know.

[1:00:25] It was a little confusing, but yeah.

[1:00:28] I mean, I guess if it's just DNA for a clone, they could do it.

[1:00:32] It's not like the memory transfer.

[1:00:34] So I rescind my pick.

[1:00:35] But I think it would be the memory transfer,

[1:00:36] because he does have to get her memories to put in her body.

[1:00:39] Well, I think he did take her memory before he knew that there were only three pods.

[1:00:44] So he had it stored.

[1:00:45] So I think that that might not be possible.

[1:00:47] So somewhere he had a huge disk drive

[1:00:49] with Zoe's memories on it.

[1:00:50] Yeah.

[1:00:50] Yeah, one of the mem drives.

[1:00:52] And the mem drives are kind of shaped like brains a little bit.

[1:00:55] Now, why does the clone tanks cut their hair

[1:00:59] to the exact length they were before?

[1:01:00] I'll get to it later.

[1:01:01] So yeah, we had this cool robot attack.

[1:01:05] Robot beats some ass.

[1:01:07] He makes a deal with...

[1:01:08] Oh, yeah, so we already talked about this.

[1:01:10] And then we cut to...

[1:01:13] What is it?

[1:01:14] Is it Abu Dhabi?

[1:01:15] It's Dubai.

[1:01:16] Dubai, sorry.

[1:01:17] um and we see a you know a beautiful mansion and we see a an old man in a wheelchair pulls

[1:01:24] into a boardroom he has a bunch of money where we see jones apparently whole and healthy

[1:01:30] and very hale and hearty yeah yeah and he's like uh okay you want to buy yourself a new clone body

[1:01:37] and uh then we see robot will wearing a suit and he's like boot mapping sequence and we're like

[1:01:45] hell yeah guitar sting and that's the end of the movie yeah i mean it does cut to like so that is

[1:01:49] obviously that is the horrifying twist at the end of the movie and so the deal i guess is that leave

[1:01:56] me and my family alone and i'll leave behind the robot version of me who and now you can go into

[1:02:01] business selling new bodies to rich bad people yeah which yeah i guess yeah i mean i guess the

[1:02:09] whole thing is he wants his family to be left alone if he doesn't he doesn't mind the what

[1:02:14] i'm assuming to be horrifying negative effects that this technology will have it's a total deal

[1:02:18] with the devil situation yeah but and uh and and he's doomed robot will to have to perform this

[1:02:24] stuff and i guess hang out with jones like jones is like jones is like come out and have a drink

[1:02:29] come on and robot will's like i guess i gotta hang out with this guy he is my boss oh this is so

[1:02:33] irritating but i like the idea of wait the scene that they should have had where they take robot

[1:02:38] will to a tailor to get it measured for that suit uh-huh i mean robot will is zoomed in and the

[1:02:44] tailor's like i don't normally do suits for mannequins because they have to pretend that

[1:02:50] the robot isn't a robot that's just a mannequin oh i assumed it would be he's like he's like i've

[1:02:54] never done a suit for a robot before this will be the first thing ever i have to rewrite the rules

[1:02:59] the inseam is totally different because you don't have a penis there's nothing there what are we

[1:03:03] gonna do for the inseam it's like i don't know figure it out giuseppe this is you're the best

[1:03:07] and now you're going to finally have the dream of a lifetime.

[1:03:10] You're the best.

[1:03:11] We brought the best tailor.

[1:03:14] He was in retirement, but we pulled him back in.

[1:03:16] They caught him.

[1:03:17] He was at a cabin.

[1:03:19] He wasn't chopping wood, but he was sewing blankets,

[1:03:21] like sweaters for trees, knitting sweaters for trees.

[1:03:24] He's like, that part of my life is over.

[1:03:25] And then they're like, no, you got to do it.

[1:03:28] So he goes into his basement and he breaks open the concrete

[1:03:31] and he pulls the giant cool trunk out.

[1:03:32] It's full of gold coins and a suit that he made for a robot years ago.

[1:03:37] They told me I was crazy to make this robot suit

[1:03:41] They told me I was crazy

[1:03:42] They asked me to make a robot suit

[1:03:44] So I made a suit that would fit a robot

[1:03:45] They said no, they wanted more like an Iron Man thing

[1:03:48] That a person would wear to turn them into a robot

[1:03:50] I said that's not what I do, I'm a tailor

[1:03:51] I don't make those

[1:03:52] And technically that's not a robot

[1:03:54] It's like Boba Fett, not a robot

[1:03:57] It's a guy in there

[1:03:58] It's sort of an exoskeleton

[1:04:00] So we've told the story of Replicas

[1:04:04] Let's go to our final judgments

[1:04:05] whether it's a good bad movie a bad bad movie or maybe kind of like guys before we got together

[1:04:11] today i thought that my opinion might be more of an uphill climb than i think it may be no i think

[1:04:16] this is not a serenity situation dan where you fall in love with a movie that is objectively awful

[1:04:21] no no i yeah i kind of liked this movie like obviously from what we were saying today like

[1:04:28] there are huge plot holes like weird things about the movie like robots those don't exist

[1:04:33] but when i say well i mean yeah they do but okay anyway

[1:04:38] when i say when i say kind of like i mean like the emphasis is on kind of i'm not saying this

[1:04:46] is great or anything but it kind of reminded me of say you're watching premium cable in the middle

[1:04:53] of the night in the 90s and a movie like a little sci-fi thriller comes on uh clearly low budget but

[1:05:01] It's got a star in it, and you watch it, and you're like, you know what?

[1:05:04] I kind of like this.

[1:05:06] This is not so bad.

[1:05:07] It's got some interesting ideas in it.

[1:05:09] Yeah, you say to the dark corners of your living room while you're watching TV later

[1:05:14] in the day, you say, this is not so bad.

[1:05:16] I kind of like it.

[1:05:17] Now, will you let me go?

[1:05:18] No.

[1:05:18] You have to stay here.

[1:05:21] I was going to say the exact same thing, Dan.

[1:05:22] I kind of liked it, and it reminded me a lot of in the 90s when movies like Screamers and

[1:05:27] stuff like that were being released, just kind of like these kind of low-to-middle-budget

[1:05:30] science fiction movies that were usually loosely based off of like philip k dick short stories

[1:05:35] and it would be like okay there's a recognizable person in it and it's not great but it's not

[1:05:40] terrible and it's fine and the one flaw this movie kind of has which is a big flaw is that like

[1:05:44] i was really enjoying it up until he cloned his family and once he cloned them it kind of didn't

[1:05:49] know what to do with them like there's a couple ways to go it could be a pet cemetery thing and

[1:05:53] they go bad or it could be that he has to keep hiding things from them and they eventually find

[1:05:58] out and but like like a french farce yeah exactly yeah lots of door slams but instead yeah it's to

[1:06:04] keep hiding fiancés in other rooms that'd be really funny by the way like if you wrote a

[1:06:08] science fiction farce like like a very like like 100 old style farce but it's based on a science

[1:06:14] fiction premise i'd like to see that i mean i don't know how you would slam all those visit

[1:06:18] portals okay but the anyway but i think it was kind of like that that like the movie kind of

[1:06:23] didn't know what to do once they were back and so it went for kind of the laziest thing which is

[1:06:28] they're on the run from some kind of evil company but even that is a pretty 90s thing so

[1:06:33] i enjoy yeah i enjoyed it this is like a solid like two and a half star movie i would say yeah

[1:06:38] yeah i'm i think i think we're all in agreement guys i'm i'm in the kind of like uh yeah the

[1:06:45] ending like the last third of the movie isn't ain't good except for the cool robot i mean i

[1:06:50] thought the very ending was fun oh yeah that was to see a robot wearing a suit is great i love that

[1:06:55] yeah uh yeah the but yeah i wish they could have explored especially since they make a point of

[1:07:02] having uh the the you know keanu reeves and alice eve have this like the the only conversation they

[1:07:10] really have before the car accident is one about like you know uh the philosophy of a soul yeah and

[1:07:17] yet you would i would hope that like after she realizes that she's a a clone that she would have

[1:07:23] some chance to to like actualize or think about it but that doesn't happen no she's her character

[1:07:29] like she doesn't get that much to do and it feels like they were like oh we'll make it so that she

[1:07:34] can it's her idea how to stop those trackers at the end but like yeah there's not a lot none of

[1:07:38] the characters have much personality except for keanu reeves and thomas middleditch and they kind

[1:07:42] of provide that personality the two of them yeah but you know and and i have a lot of affection

[1:07:47] for the fact that all the outdoor scenes you can hear cokie frogs chirping

[1:07:51] because it remind you of your of your many honeymoons

[1:07:55] hi i'm ally gertz and i'm julia prescott and we're the host of everything's coming up simpsons

[1:08:07] every episode we cover a different episode of the simpsons and that is a favorite of our special

[1:08:12] guests we've had guests that are showrunners and writers and voice actors like nancy cartwright

[1:08:16] i got a d minus i passed and we've also had people that are on the max fun network already

[1:08:21] we've had weird al yankovic on the show i was just struck by how sharp the writing is i mean

[1:08:26] that's no surprise because it's the simpsons but i mean like you can't say that about a lot of a lot

[1:08:30] of tv shows particularly ones that at that point had been on the air for 14 years find us on

[1:08:35] maximumfund.org itunes or wherever you get your podcasts all right smell you later

[1:08:42] Going into a Bullseye interview, I know it's somebody who does amazing work, but it's an actual conversation.

[1:08:49] I don't know where it's headed.

[1:08:50] Hey, this is the straight talk that you're going to get on this show.

[1:08:56] Does that make sense?

[1:08:57] I feel like I'm in therapy.

[1:08:58] I think I got more out of you than the therapist I went to twice.

[1:09:02] Bullseye. Creators you know. Creators you need to know.

[1:09:07] Find it at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts.

[1:09:12] podcasts let's move on to we got a few ads oh cool well actually one only one ad per se but a

[1:09:20] couple jumbotrons to the first ad though before we oh yeah should we uh after that should we talk

[1:09:24] about our live shows coming up or should we do these first we always do the ads first elliot i

[1:09:29] have no idea why you felt the need to stop the podcast to to ask the question of whether we

[1:09:35] should do that thing first or the other maybe i am slowly trying to gaslight you into thinking

[1:09:40] You don't know how the podcast works

[1:09:42] Okay

[1:09:43] Anyway

[1:09:44] With our first ad

[1:09:46] The Flophouse is supported in part by Squarespace

[1:09:49] With Squarespace you can create a beautiful website

[1:09:52] To turn your cool idea

[1:09:54] Into a new website

[1:09:56] That's two websites

[1:09:58] In the same sentence

[1:09:59] But you can do it

[1:10:00] If you have a cool idea

[1:10:02] Why not make it a website

[1:10:03] Why have it rattle around in your brain

[1:10:05] Where no one can enjoy it

[1:10:06] No one can click on your brain

[1:10:07] Unless it's Keanu Reeves

[1:10:09] yep with your website you can blog or publish content sell products and services of all kinds

[1:10:14] or you know whatever your little heart desires to do on the internet i don't know why i called

[1:10:19] your heart little stewart you're a big-hearted guy uh about that have you ever seen untamed heart

[1:10:25] uh squarespace features beautiful customizable templates created by world-class designers

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[1:10:44] website from squarespace before i give the offer code elliot is there anything you would like to

[1:10:51] say about squarespace i'm very glad you asked i have an idea for a website based on something

[1:10:55] that happened earlier in this podcast uh and i was wondering if squarespace could help me now

[1:10:59] earlier uh stewart referred to a keanu which is not how keanu reeves his name is and uh and i

[1:11:06] wanted to i had a website idea that i had and it's it's really to sell a product and it's called

[1:11:12] www.keanokeys.com now these are wait a minute these are piano keys how did i say it you said

[1:11:19] keanu well how am i supposed to say it keanu okay so anyway uh so i said but i said keanu yes

[1:11:28] Yes.

[1:11:29] I can confirm.

[1:11:30] I was there.

[1:11:30] So these are...

[1:11:31] Instead of Keanu.

[1:11:32] Yes.

[1:11:33] Keanu.

[1:11:34] So these are replacement piano keys.

[1:11:39] Each one has the face of Keanu Reeves on it, or alternately, all the keys combined to make

[1:11:45] one giant picture of Keanu Reeves.

[1:11:46] Who among us has not wanted and dreamed of playing piano with Keanu Reeves' face?

[1:11:51] I know I have, ever since I heard Stuart say that.

[1:11:53] And so, just go to Keanu.com, KeanuKeys.com.

[1:11:57] if Squarespace will allow me to make it.

[1:11:59] So Dan, do you think it's possible

[1:12:00] that I can finally achieve my dream of playing piano

[1:12:02] on Keanu Reeves' face, thanks to Squarespace?

[1:12:05] You can.

[1:12:06] Just go to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[1:12:09] And when you're ready to launch,

[1:12:11] use the offer code flop to save 10%

[1:12:13] off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[1:12:16] I said Keanu?

[1:12:17] You said Keanu.

[1:12:19] Now, Dan, I had another idea for a website.

[1:12:21] I just want to, it's called,

[1:12:22] based on the idea of this movie,

[1:12:23] it's called www.erasemysibling.com.

[1:12:27] Now, we all know what it's like.

[1:12:28] You've got a sibling.

[1:12:29] They're either stealing the spotlight or they're always irritating you.

[1:12:32] Why don't you pull a Zoe and erase them from everybody's memories with EraseMySibling.com.

[1:12:37] Let's say that sibling's name is David, just to pick a name.

[1:12:41] Let's just pick a name out of nowhere.

[1:12:42] Let's just call him David Kaelin.

[1:12:43] Let's say you want to erase him because you are tired of hearing about what the Mets did in 1987.

[1:12:49] All right.

[1:12:52] Just go to EraseMySibling.com.

[1:12:53] Thanks, Squarespace.

[1:12:54] Offer code FLOCK.

[1:12:55] But it's pronounced Key-an-new.

[1:12:57] kianu kianu okay if you say so uh elliot do you have a jumbotron you want to read i do have a

[1:13:05] jumbotron i would love to read so this jumbotron is a special personal message it's from josh

[1:13:10] to abby spelled abi and the message is you're the castle freak to my stewart the singing in

[1:13:17] the rain to my elliot and the random movie on a plane to my dan i love you through the good bad

[1:13:22] the bad bad and all the moments we kind of like you're kicking ass as a husband i'm so proud of

[1:13:26] who you are, and how you've lived your life for another year.

[1:13:29] Happy birthday, Foxy.

[1:13:30] So that's really nice.

[1:13:31] And...

[1:13:33] Maybe it's Obby.

[1:13:34] I apologize if I mispronounce that name.

[1:13:36] Let's have another Jumbotron for the Jumbotrain.

[1:13:39] Keep that thing a-rollin'.

[1:13:42] Wait, so it's the Jumbotrain?

[1:13:46] It's a new thing I'm trying.

[1:13:48] So is it a larger-than-average train?

[1:13:50] Yeah, it's a larger-than-average train

[1:13:53] that can accommodate Jumbotrons on it.

[1:13:55] Okay, because jumbotrons are just messages.

[1:13:57] You could just put them in trans-carry mail.

[1:13:59] Maybe it's a train for the elephant jumbo.

[1:14:03] Oh, a circus train.

[1:14:07] I like it.

[1:14:07] In any case, this message is for Rebecca.

[1:14:10] This message is from Lizzie.

[1:14:13] Happy birthday, my dude.

[1:14:15] Many snortle returns.

[1:14:17] You're now the age I was when we met.

[1:14:20] Fucked up or what?

[1:14:22] Thank you for letting me share in your impeccable taste, amazing art, and chill vibes.

[1:14:28] I'm so glad we're friends.

[1:14:31] To the tune of Super Freak.

[1:14:33] He's a castle freak, castle freak, he's castle freaky.

[1:14:37] Yow.

[1:14:38] Wow.

[1:14:40] Stuart, you brought a lot of flavor to that one.

[1:14:41] I appreciated that.

[1:14:42] Uh-huh.

[1:14:43] Well, that's what they get when they get a Stuart reading that Jumbo Train.

[1:14:47] That's that special taste.

[1:14:49] Hey, Elliot.

[1:14:50] Yes.

[1:14:50] Why don't you tell us about the live shows, and maybe we'll mention them again at the end of the show, just for people who skip the ads.

[1:14:58] Oh, that's a great idea.

[1:14:59] Or people who just like listening to the last couple minutes of all podcasts.

[1:15:03] Yeah.

[1:15:04] So I'll have to mention, so this episode is being released on a day of a show, right, Dan?

[1:15:10] Yes.

[1:15:13] So if you're listening to this on the day this is released, Saturday, June 8th, we are performing tonight in Portland, Oregon at Revolution Hall.

[1:15:20] We're going to be talking about the movie Holmes and Watson.

[1:15:23] Oh, boy.

[1:15:24] I've heard it's a great movie.

[1:15:25] I'm super excited about it.

[1:15:26] I can't wait to see how they screw up Dan McCoy's favorite fictional character.

[1:15:30] Yeah, this is going to make me very angry.

[1:15:33] Yeah, so Dan will be really mad.

[1:15:35] So that's tonight if you're listening to this, the day of release, Saturday, June 8th at Portland, Oregon, Revolution Hall.

[1:15:41] But we've got some other shows coming up in July.

[1:15:43] On July 13th, that's a Saturday.

[1:15:45] It's one day before my brother's birthday until I erase him on EraseMySibling.com.

[1:15:48] July 13th, we're in Minneapolis at the Parkway.

[1:15:51] Minneapolis, it's going to be really exciting.

[1:15:53] I don't know what movie we're doing yet, but I've been looking forward to doing Minneapolis for a long time.

[1:15:57] Then in September, Saturday, September 28th, we're going to be in Boston at WBUR City Space.

[1:16:03] Two shows.

[1:16:04] The 7 p.m. is sold out, but there's still some tickets available for the 945 show.

[1:16:09] That's September 28th in Boston.

[1:16:11] If you're over in Boston, a real Bostonian, if you will.

[1:16:14] I don't know why I said that like it's a joke.

[1:16:15] It's just what they call people from there.

[1:16:16] We'll be there.

[1:16:18] And then finally in the fall.

[1:16:20] If you're tired of eating beans, come on down.

[1:16:21] If you're tired of eating beans.

[1:16:23] I mean, I don't know how you could be tired of eating beans.

[1:16:25] They're delicious.

[1:16:25] Yeah, and you can have them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, everything.

[1:16:28] And they make you fart, which is hilarious.

[1:16:30] It's like the old saying.

[1:16:33] If you're tired of eating beans, you're tired of life.

[1:16:35] Yep, that's what I always say.

[1:16:38] And then finally, October 12th, we're going to be back in Los Angeles, my new hometown, back at the Regent Theater, this time with a twist.

[1:16:45] Stuart will be with us.

[1:16:46] Hooray!

[1:16:46] Unless Stuart somehow injures himself again.

[1:16:49] But hopefully not.

[1:16:50] We've hired a team of thugs to surround him at all times to keep him safe.

[1:16:54] Yep.

[1:16:55] To keep punching my back back into the right shape.

[1:16:58] Anytime I slouch.

[1:17:01] So just to recap, that's tonight, June 8th in Portland, if you're listening to this on the day of release.

[1:17:06] Then we're in Minnesota, Minneapolis, that is, on July 13th.

[1:17:09] Then we're in Boston, Massachusetts on September 28th.

[1:17:12] And finally, Los Angeles, California on October 12th.

[1:17:15] That's all the live shows we've got scheduled for now.

[1:17:17] I don't know.

[1:17:18] Maybe there'll be more later.

[1:17:18] Okay.

[1:17:20] There are a couple things I want to say before we get through the business section of the show.

[1:17:25] As you hear this, the submission period for the t-shirt contest will be over.

[1:17:30] I actually hadn't talked to the guys about how we're going to pick a winner,

[1:17:34] But here's what I suggest to you.

[1:17:36] I would say that the three of us together pick maybe three to six options that are our favorites.

[1:17:43] I'm glad we're working through this on air.

[1:17:45] And then allow the people to vote on those options.

[1:17:49] Cool, yeah.

[1:17:50] I'm just glad we got that many submissions.

[1:17:51] I hadn't heard about this for a while.

[1:17:53] Oh, we got a ton.

[1:17:55] I was worried there would be no submissions.

[1:17:56] I will put them in a –

[1:17:59] You don't know Dan's always bragging about his submissions.

[1:18:01] I'll put them all in a shared drive so you guys can see them.

[1:18:03] I know Dan was talking about his nocturnal submissions.

[1:18:05] Was that the same thing?

[1:18:06] Uh-huh.

[1:18:07] Ooh.

[1:18:08] Talk about a sleeper hold.

[1:18:10] So we will need a little time on our own to pick out the short list so that that poll will not be up right away.

[1:18:18] But keep watching the website, and when it's up, we'll say it on the air.

[1:18:22] So that's one thing.

[1:18:24] Another thing, there's no need to belabor this for a long time, but I just wanted to let people know I am aware that this podcast has not always had the best audience.

[1:18:33] audio impossible uh i it should be no surprise to anyone that i'm first and foremost not an audio

[1:18:41] engineer and the good people at max fun were kind enough to offer a little help so from now on a lot

[1:18:48] of the engineering job is going to go over to them hopefully that'll make the podcast sound better

[1:18:53] yep it'll take the least fun part of doing the podcast off of my plate so i'll be happier and

[1:18:59] maybe everyone listening will be happier

[1:19:01] going forward. That's right. They're going to get rid

[1:19:03] of Stuart and replace me with some kind

[1:19:05] of a robot. So the important point is

[1:19:07] if the sound is not good

[1:19:09] on an episode, no longer complain to me.

[1:19:11] Wow, Dan. Way to throw

[1:19:13] under the bus the people who are helping us

[1:19:15] out of the goodness of their hearts.

[1:19:16] I did not say complain to them.

[1:19:18] I did not say complain to them. I'm saying stop bothering me.

[1:19:22] So who are they supposed to complain to?

[1:19:23] Maybe just don't complain in general.

[1:19:25] Shake your fist at the heavens.

[1:19:27] Two things. One, I'm very excited about this turn, but two, I'm kind of disappointed I'll no longer have the fun experience of riding the volume in my car while I review an episode as Dan and Stuart's voices jump from too loud to do quiet, even though they're sitting literally a foot away from each other.

[1:19:44] I'm going to miss that.

[1:19:45] Well, I rock back and forth. I have a sandwich place just out of reach that I'm leaning back to take bites out of.

[1:19:56] It's hanging from a fishing line from the ceiling, so you can just take bites without picking it up with your hands.

[1:20:01] I am very thankful to Maximum Fun for taking this off my plate, and I'm very grateful.

[1:20:06] And thank you to the editor who's listening for the first time this episode.

[1:20:11] Thanks.

[1:20:12] But now I think we can move on, right?

[1:20:15] Yeah, what do we—

[1:20:17] Can we move on?

[1:20:18] Yeah, let's just move on.

[1:20:20] Dan, you seemed like you still had some emotional stuff that you wanted to deal with.

[1:20:23] No, no, no.

[1:20:24] I didn't want to steamroll Stu if he had something.

[1:20:27] If I had some kind of cool business?

[1:20:28] Sadly, I don't.

[1:20:30] Guys, you know the life of a podcasting, bartending bar owner is a quiet one.

[1:20:36] That old thing.

[1:20:37] You know, the normal 9 to 5, that's 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

[1:20:43] Okay.

[1:20:45] Anyway.

[1:20:48] I love that you said that as if it was super cool, but it's like, that sounds terrible to me.

[1:20:53] I guess the moral of this is...

[1:20:54] I guess you don't like hanging out with cool vampires.

[1:20:57] I don't, but...

[1:20:59] I guess let's definitely move on now to letters.

[1:21:03] Actually, that...

[1:21:03] No, I'll waste a bunch of time if you want me to.

[1:21:06] I should apologize for this episode.

[1:21:07] I introduced three new characters last episode,

[1:21:09] and I haven't introduced any in this one,

[1:21:11] so I think I'll steal from my son.

[1:21:12] Stuart mentioned vampires.

[1:21:13] Yesterday, Sammy invented a character, Evil Sammy,

[1:21:16] who drinks blood.

[1:21:17] So maybe I'll bring that up.

[1:21:19] Is he a vampire, or does he just drink blood for the iron?

[1:21:21] That was hard to tell.

[1:21:23] I think it would also make a human pretty sick if they were just drinking blood.

[1:21:28] Is he evil in other ways, or does he just drink blood?

[1:21:31] Nope, just the blood drinking.

[1:21:32] Okay.

[1:21:33] Okay.

[1:21:34] Yeah, so, okay, letters from listeners like you.

[1:21:38] The first letter is from Lowell.

[1:21:40] Who writes?

[1:21:41] That's a town.

[1:21:42] That's not a person.

[1:21:43] It's a town in Massachusetts.

[1:21:44] Wow.

[1:21:45] The whole town got together and wrote us a letter.

[1:21:47] I like to think it arrived on a huge piece of paper that they wrote with a giant quill.

[1:21:50] Sure.

[1:21:52] and everyone in town helped to move it.

[1:21:54] This first letter goes like this.

[1:21:57] A bunch of end-of-year lists included Ariana Grande's Thank U, Next

[1:22:02] as not only one of the best songs of the year,

[1:22:04] but some kind of game-changing announcement of musical genius.

[1:22:08] I played it, and all I heard was someone repeating,

[1:22:11] You are too old. We need that food you're eating. Get out of the way.

[1:22:15] I realize that isn't a movie,

[1:22:17] but are there films that made you feel like you've outlived your usefulness?

[1:22:21] For me, it might be the Wachowski speed racer.

[1:22:23] I fully expect Elliot to say, I'm a father, so I'm still useful.

[1:22:26] I'm not, so I'm really waiting on Dan Stewart's answers.

[1:22:32] All asinine humor aside, thank you for what you do, Lowell.

[1:22:36] I will say, as a father, as I mentioned earlier,

[1:22:39] you are an obstacle in between your children and whatever they want at that moment.

[1:22:43] So you feel very useless a lot of the time.

[1:22:45] Yeah, and also you have to die off for them to thrive.

[1:22:51] yeah elliot doesn't know what to do with that no that's the most horrifying thing you could

[1:22:56] say to me because i want nothing more than for them to thrive but i'm not ready to shuffle off

[1:23:00] this mortal coil just yet uh stewart what should i do how do i square this circle i don't know man

[1:23:06] this is hilarious uh uh i don't know like i'm uh i mean speed racer is kind of like eating a giant

[1:23:14] bowl of sugary cereal i haven't revisited in a while and maybe i should i mean for like i'm

[1:23:20] trying to think of movies that make me feel old, but like, there's a lot of, I mean, there's a lot

[1:23:26] of television that makes me feel old. And like, I don't know, like there's a lot of other entertainment

[1:23:32] feels like if I had encountered it when I was a teenager, like what, like the umbrella Academy

[1:23:38] TV show, if I'd encountered it when I was a teenager, I would be like, Whoa, this is amazing

[1:23:42] and groundbreaking. But as an adult, I'm like, well, I've seen all these tropes done a million

[1:23:46] other times and better so i don't i don't need this in my life um i don't know i mean it might

[1:23:54] be because i am at heart very immature but i feel like i i feel like i remain come on no dan is like

[1:24:03] a 75 year old baby he's like the combination of of a lot of elements of an old man and a child

[1:24:08] yeah it's true but i feel like uh my brain remains young particularly around entertainment i do feel

[1:24:14] like i'm open to just you know staying with whatever new thing comes along but there are

[1:24:21] movies like the best i could come up with is something like michael bay's transformers movies

[1:24:26] where i look at it i'm like i don't know maybe someone with a younger brain than mine finds

[1:24:32] some sort of reason in this visual madness that is going on this like completely disjointed

[1:24:38] cutting no sense of spatial geography like all that stuff like maybe that works for someone

[1:24:45] who grew up with a faster pace than in entertainment than i did i don't know

[1:24:51] yeah people with brains that are able to make logical leaps that the story doesn't allow

[1:24:56] or afford i think it's there aren't i yeah similarly i've never been on the pulse of popular

[1:25:02] entertainment to be honest to frankly well the fact that based on your movie recommendations

[1:25:07] Exactly. I mean, to be honest, the fact that the Avengers movies are so huge makes me feel much more of the moment than I was for most of my life. But I feel old when I think about how old the movies that I grew up with are. When I think about how Ghostbusters is a 35-year-old movie, that makes me feel pretty old.

[1:25:26] But to be honest, it's like the music doesn't and some of the other stuff.

[1:25:30] But when I watch – this is also Marvel movies.

[1:25:32] When I watched Guardians of the Galaxy in the theaters for the first time, my reaction to it was like, oh, this is a really fun movie.

[1:25:38] Did they have to swear so much?

[1:25:40] Like did there have to be so much shooting?

[1:25:43] And that's when I knew I had gotten a little old was when he goes, we're the Guardians of the Galaxy, bitch.

[1:25:48] And I was like, no, that was an unearned swear.

[1:25:50] I'm sorry, young man.

[1:25:51] You're like, I can't believe that Freddy Krueger got a spot in this team, but I guess he is a misfit.

[1:25:57] In Avengers Endgame, they say shit a lot more than I thought they would.

[1:26:01] And I was like, all right, well, I guess that's okay to say in your movies now.

[1:26:06] Yeah, you looked around to make sure your parents weren't in the back to yell at you for watching this movie.

[1:26:10] And there's that weird part where Captain America talked about fucking Thanos in the ass.

[1:26:14] And it was like, wow, Captain America.

[1:26:16] You didn't even swear at the beginning.

[1:26:18] He's pushed to extremes.

[1:26:19] I mean, I didn't think it was extreme when he said it, but I thought it was extreme when they showed it on screen.

[1:26:24] Not that I disapprove, but just in a PG-13 movie to have any sort of, I mean, to see penetration in a PG-13 movie, especially between Captain America and the villain of the movie.

[1:26:33] I mean, the fact that it was not done in a hostile way, but in a moment of intimacy between them, that it was a moment of genuine warmth and loving, I thought was really nice that Thanos made himself vulnerable and they both received pleasure from it.

[1:26:46] i thought it was a really positive message but i just thought it was strange to see it in such

[1:26:50] graphic you know extreme visceral detail yeah it's natural but although the scene was so long like it

[1:26:57] went on for about 16 minutes and at a certain point all i could think about was how much computer

[1:27:01] rendering they had to do for to show all of the little like pimples and things on thanos's butt

[1:27:06] so like at a certain point it lost its its visceral appeal to me but just the way you describe it it

[1:27:12] sounds like it was more visceral than you expect i mean in some ways yeah i mean it was more visceral

[1:27:15] And at a certain point where I got into it and I was like, yeah, yeah, you know what?

[1:27:18] I'm glad to see them expressing an emotion other than anger at each other, to express arousal, to express consensual pleasure, to express mutual kind of like – it doesn't have to be love, but mutual sort of like intimacy in that way.

[1:27:32] But to happen in the middle of a big fight scene at the end was a little weird just for pacing purposes.

[1:27:36] Yeah.

[1:27:37] Well, that went on for a while.

[1:27:39] I wanted to mention –

[1:27:40] Dan, you introduced the idea.

[1:27:42] We're putting a new editor through the paces.

[1:27:45] i wanted to mention in the context of this letter uh i think i might have said it on the podcast

[1:27:51] before but i it's a funny story so i i like it okay better get pull up a bag of popcorn talking

[1:27:57] about talking about being old and entertainment i just remember the time when my grandfather

[1:28:03] walked into the room when my brothers and i were watching beetlejuice on tv and he walked in the

[1:28:10] the movie or the cartoon show the movie okay he walked in watched about four minutes of the movie

[1:28:15] said this just seems like so much foolishness to me and walked out and you know what i can't argue

[1:28:22] with that but uh the foolishness is the point i guess now i imagine that your your grandfather

[1:28:27] is like and maybe this is true i don't know it's like an old country parson like just he has a like

[1:28:32] a partner he was a minister yes but he's got like he's like a puritan with a hat with a buckle on it

[1:28:36] and he's like so much foolishness uh i mean it's not that far off but uh that that also reminds me

[1:28:43] of when uh when uh hedwig and the angry inch came out on dvd and my mom was like have you seen this

[1:28:48] movie i was like yeah i thought it was great and she started watching and she said i stopped it

[1:28:52] part way through that movie's for younger people and i was like all right okay interesting review

[1:28:56] mom uh this next letter is from malin who writes dear original peaches i started listening to the

[1:29:05] podcast exactly three years ago just before taking my a levels and leaving school happy

[1:29:10] anniversary from the uk i assume uh i find i finally finished oh wow real sherlock holmes

[1:29:16] on that case finally finished your back catalog the night before my final exam at university

[1:29:23] another clue uh the noose is tightening around this victim this culprit i'm now beginning to

[1:29:32] to think about finding a real person job

[1:29:34] and finding it pretty difficult,

[1:29:35] partly because I'm not very organized

[1:29:37] and partly because I don't really know

[1:29:39] what I want to do yet.

[1:29:40] I wanted to ask,

[1:29:41] what were your first jobs after graduating college?

[1:29:43] You all seem to have cool careers now.

[1:29:46] How soon did you decide what you wanted to do?

[1:29:48] Is it okay to take a boring or unambitious job

[1:29:51] for a few years,

[1:29:52] or should I be trying to start my dream career immediately?

[1:29:55] Sorry for treating you like a careers advice service.

[1:29:57] To add a movie-related question,

[1:29:59] what's your favorite movie set in a workplace?

[1:30:02] I'm talking about movies that are primarily about the job

[1:30:05] rather than just have an office in them.

[1:30:07] Thanks for helping a confused young woman

[1:30:09] through some confusing years.

[1:30:10] I love the show.

[1:30:11] Malin.

[1:30:12] Does Brazil count as a movie set at a workplace?

[1:30:15] Kind of, yeah.

[1:30:16] For the purposes of this question, let's say yes.

[1:30:19] Then I'd say maybe Brazil and maybe The Apartment.

[1:30:21] Even though it's called The Apartment,

[1:30:22] it's about his job more than anything else.

[1:30:24] I would probably say, I don't know, nine to five.

[1:30:28] Yeah.

[1:30:29] Because it's still eerily, like, prescient.

[1:30:32] And I missed that part of the email because I was focused on the career advice, so I have nothing.

[1:30:37] But let's move on to the career thing.

[1:30:39] I would say...

[1:30:40] Yeah, let's just say Chairman of the Board for Day and Star and Carrot Top.

[1:30:44] By the way, if you have not seen Norm MacDonald talking about Chairman of the Board on Conan, look that up.

[1:30:53] It is maybe the funniest thing that has ever happened on that show.

[1:30:56] Yeah, I would like to give the message, don't worry about it over much right now.

[1:31:04] Don't stress yourself out over much.

[1:31:06] Be ambitious, but I, after school, did not immediately know what I wanted to do.

[1:31:13] First, I went up to Minneapolis, and I was up there basically just because a friend of mine from college needed a roommate.

[1:31:20] I'm like, why the hell not?

[1:31:22] I've got no plans.

[1:31:23] I was up there for a little while.

[1:31:25] Then I went to graduate school because I had thought I was going to be a film director.

[1:31:29] I had wanted to do that for years.

[1:31:30] Went into school for that.

[1:31:32] Dropped out because I realized I actually did not want to do that.

[1:31:35] Came to New York at the time with my fiancée because she had work up here, and I thought maybe I would act.

[1:31:42] During the course of that, I realized that while I was not a bad actor, and if I dedicated myself to it, maybe I could make something of myself, it was not my forte.

[1:31:52] I was much better at writing and specifically comedy writing.

[1:31:55] I sort of drifted into that.

[1:31:57] That said, once I realized that's what I wanted to do, even though I was taking very menial jobs to make money, I was doing a lot of comedy at night and, frankly, while I was on the job.

[1:32:10] So, I don't know.

[1:32:14] That describes Dan's workplace behavior pretty accurately, right, Elliot?

[1:32:17] I mean, judging by his Twitter feed and the voluminous contributions to it, qualities, I will not judge right now.

[1:32:24] You worked at the same show.

[1:32:27] You realize that there are periods of intense work and periods of a lot of downtime.

[1:32:31] Yeah, sure.

[1:32:32] A time when you could be working on pitches, maybe wandering into people's offices to see if you could help out, maybe moving props around.

[1:32:39] Maybe writing a side project with Hallie, which is what you did.

[1:32:42] Yeah, exactly.

[1:32:42] I assumed you were working really hard on some kind of lucid dreaming-based project.

[1:32:47] I mean, Dan, to be honest, while I was a writer at The Daily Show, I was also writing a weekly newspaper column, working on a side project with Hallie, writing a Spider-Man comic book, and a bunch of other things.

[1:32:58] So I can't tell you, hey, don't do other stuff at your job.

[1:33:00] Just maybe something more productive than Twitter.

[1:33:03] That's all I'm saying.

[1:33:04] I help run this fucking podcast.

[1:33:06] That's what I do.

[1:33:07] Now, Elliot, do you have advice?

[1:33:10] Stuart, do you have advice?

[1:33:12] Yeah. I mean, when I, when I finished school, uh, I finished with a, uh, what, an English degree

[1:33:18] and I'd kind of hoped to like write and draw my own comics. And when I, I moved to New York

[1:33:25] shortly after school and I got a gig, uh, that I thought was just going to be a temporary thing

[1:33:31] and ended up being something that I enjoyed a lot more and became kind of passionate about.

[1:33:34] Um, and that kind of took, uh, took over my life for a while, even though it was retail and retail

[1:33:40] is brutal but yeah i've been very lucky uh that was warhammer right it was yeah i was working for

[1:33:46] games workshop and then uh and i realized that retail kind of isn't for me and i was really

[1:33:51] lucky to have an opportunity to break into uh neighborhood bartending and i've that kind of

[1:33:57] i i feel like that fit my skill set and my uh like my mix of love of responsibility and lack of

[1:34:04] responsibility um and it uh yeah and i've been doing that for a while and i've been lucky to be

[1:34:11] surrounded like in in all parts of my professional career i've been lucky to surround myself with

[1:34:16] much more competent people so i can just kind of coast along baby that's good advice and that's

[1:34:25] and that's afforded me many and that's afforded me a lot of really cool opportunities that uh

[1:34:30] My advice is if you have an opportunity that seems similar to something you'd like to do, but you haven't ever tried it, try it out.

[1:34:38] Yeah, I have a – my career path – well, people are familiar with it after they made that movie about me.

[1:34:44] But it's called –

[1:34:45] And yours was much more direct than –

[1:34:47] It's called Boy on the Go, the Elliot Kalen story.

[1:34:49] I thought it was Munchies.

[1:34:51] It was Critters.

[1:34:54] They made Critters about me.

[1:34:56] Oh, wow.

[1:34:57] I always knew I wanted to be a writer since I was about 12 or 13, or even a little younger. So like, I went to school for writing, and I was always pointed like a missile towards that job. But it took me a while to get there. I mean, in the long scheme of things, not that long.

[1:35:11] But I started The Daily Show right after college as a production assistant and was lucky enough that every time I was getting – feeling like my – I was in a rut and I had to leave and go do something else, they would offer me a different job or I would apply for a different job and get moved up a little bit.

[1:35:28] So mine is a special case in that, like, I always knew what I wanted to do, and I still want to do that.

[1:35:32] I thought I would write for movies.

[1:35:34] Maybe that will happen sometime.

[1:35:35] I don't know.

[1:35:36] So I would say is like if you don't know exactly what you want to do, that's totally okay.

[1:35:42] And to take a menial job or just a job you don't care about in the meantime is totally fine because the number one thing you need to do is make enough money to provide yourself with food and shelter.

[1:35:54] Like that's the number one most important thing, and you should not lose sight of that.

[1:35:57] And there is something valuable to just having a job that allows you to live at the level of comfort that you want to live at.

[1:36:05] But also, if you have a job you don't care about, it opens up so much of your brain space to really think about the other things you want to do and what you what's better for you to be involved in outside of your work activities that might scratch that itch more and help you explore and find out what you really want to do.

[1:36:21] And like Stuart was saying, any opportunity that comes up that seems like you might be into it, you might as well go ahead and take it or at least try it, and maybe that will take you to the place where you're like, oh, this is what I want to do.

[1:36:33] This is what I'm really satisfied by and also that I can hopefully make a career out of.

[1:36:37] And it's like if you have a great ambition and a compulsion to do something creative, then you should try to make a living out of that.

[1:36:45] But if you don't, then try out lots of different things.

[1:36:48] Like, I know lots of people who have had many multiple different types of jobs, and eventually they find one they really like a lot, and there's nothing wrong with that.

[1:36:57] Like, there's no failure in being at a job for a few years and deciding this isn't what I want and trying something else.

[1:37:03] Don't think that you need to start your career right now or you'll never be successful, and you've wasted any time because you won't have.

[1:37:11] So is that good practice for when you have that important conversation with Sammy?

[1:37:16] Oh, very much so.

[1:37:18] i've started having that conversation with him a little bit where i'm like sammy i want you when

[1:37:22] you grow up i want you i know you want to drive a garbage truck but no not anymore you're gonna

[1:37:26] be a podcaster like daddy yep you gotta fill my shoes uh that's it and he's like i don't want to

[1:37:30] be on your podcast and i'm like you're gonna say some stuff but uh he's told me already what jobs

[1:37:34] he wants when he grows up he wants to be a scientist a cab driver uh an architect and

[1:37:40] someone who takes things out of boxes and puts them on shelves in a grocery store so those are

[1:37:45] There's four career options.

[1:37:46] Well, the good thing is he's giving himself a wide span.

[1:37:49] Yeah, exactly.

[1:37:49] And I've said to him many times, as long as you're happy with what you're doing and supporting yourself, that's all I care about.

[1:37:55] As long as you don't go into investment banking or hedge fund management or anything else where you are slowly eating away at the things that make life livable for most of the people in the world.

[1:38:04] Or you're the person who makes those 1-877-CASH-NOW commercials or some bullshit.

[1:38:14] cars for kids and stuff like that yeah yeah oh no i told him i'm like sammy reverse mortgages

[1:38:19] are something you should go into you basically steal old people's houses and then they have to

[1:38:23] pay you to live in them and then if they don't pay enough you kick them out you sell that house

[1:38:27] to somebody else and he's like isn't that mean and i'm like it's mean of the old people to make

[1:38:31] an agreement that they can't live up to the terms of yeah guys william devane tells me i should get

[1:38:36] into gold should i get into gold well gold has never been worth zero yeah the roger moore movie

[1:38:41] gold with the most amazing title sequence let's move on to the next letters from dan last name

[1:38:47] withheld i've been meaning this has been dan mccoy what yes this has been my inbox for a while

[1:38:52] i've been meaning to get to it it slipped my mind last time it's like hey guys who do you think's

[1:38:57] gonna win the 2016 election i've got some ideas about it oh dan oh sorry dan dan says on a fateful

[1:39:03] day in september the year 2011 i took a stand for the truth i never asked to be the voice of

[1:39:11] america's conscience but when i heard a drunk man on a podcast erroneously claimed that a freak

[1:39:16] ripped off his own ding dong while living in a castle i had to act no i can't wait to hear the

[1:39:20] rest of this fun story a year later dan mccoy took a stand alongside me i was ecstatic to have a

[1:39:26] fellow traveler in my quest for the truth and a follow-up email titled vindication i called dan

[1:39:32] the bernstein to my woodward i was so grateful for dan support that i let him be the cool one

[1:39:37] smash cut to 2019 trump is in the white house snowden is living in moscow america has lost

[1:39:43] its innocence or something and joe bob briggs is finally on the flop house i was thrilled at the

[1:39:49] prospect of mr briggs weighing in on the greatest controversy in the history of podcasts if not

[1:39:53] cinema so imagine my dismay when dan mccoy claimed that he was the first person to notice that the

[1:39:58] Castle Freak didn't rip off his own ding-dong.

[1:40:01] You didn't just betray me, Mr. McCoy.

[1:40:04] You betrayed the truth.

[1:40:05] The American people await your apology.

[1:40:08] Sincerely, Dan, last name Withheld.

[1:40:09] Keep up the good work, guys.

[1:40:12] I just realized I've been listening for nearly a decade,

[1:40:14] so I think you're my family now?

[1:40:15] Sorry about them early ones.

[1:40:18] Yeah, I would like to apologize.

[1:40:22] I remember this now.

[1:40:23] I remember that the email is what put me on the case.

[1:40:26] Oh, you remember when you were watching this movie

[1:40:28] that Stewart was right

[1:40:30] and he ripped off his own cape.

[1:40:31] No, no.

[1:40:32] That's what you're saying?

[1:40:32] No.

[1:40:33] Sorry to finish your sentence.

[1:40:34] That was kind of the breadcrumbs

[1:40:36] that were leading me to it.

[1:40:37] Yeah, I was not the whistleblower

[1:40:41] in this situation.

[1:40:42] It was Dan.

[1:40:43] Other Dan.

[1:40:44] Actually, Dan,

[1:40:45] I have an apology to make.

[1:40:46] Yeah.

[1:40:47] There's a reason

[1:40:48] that you didn't remember

[1:40:50] that you weren't the whistleblower,

[1:40:51] and it's hard for me

[1:40:52] to reveal this truth to you,

[1:40:53] but Dan, a few years ago,

[1:40:55] do you remember

[1:40:55] when we were going

[1:40:56] on that boat vacation?

[1:40:58] I mean, only vaguely. It's pretty fuzzy for some reason.

[1:41:04] Yeah. Dan, there was a car crash, and you actually died on the way there.

[1:41:08] Oh, cool.

[1:41:09] And when I brought you back to life, I saw—

[1:41:12] Oh, cool. That's objectively cool. I guess you're right.

[1:41:16] When I brought you back to life, I didn't have your brainwaves, and so I had to recreate them from memory.

[1:41:24] And for a few places where I wasn't sure what to do, I used a cat's memory.

[1:41:28] a cat's memory dan and okay i think in the place where you should have remembered dan

[1:41:35] originally bringing this to your attention you might remember pooping in a box full of sand is

[1:41:39] that true i mean who among us hasn't pooped in a box full of sand i mean sometimes you just got

[1:41:46] to go and somebody else is in the normal bathroom and you're like well i asked the sand here and

[1:41:51] you're like step aside muscles i'm gonna use this one yeah i mean i paid for it

[1:41:56] and so dan i should apologize i must have erased that memory or rather never remembered it and put

[1:42:04] a cat memory instead so elliot how often do you use the i paid for it argument where you

[1:42:10] put on a pair of sammy's pull-ups well one sammy is toilet trained he's five years old

[1:42:15] he no longer wears diapers i don't i don't keep track of everything dude

[1:42:19] i mean i'm glad about your son's poop i'm glad that you don't know you're not fully on top of

[1:42:26] my son's toilet habits that's true you don't need to know that yeah i mean for the purposes of the

[1:42:31] joke it's not like people are gonna write in and be like sammy's still using pull-ups ellie you

[1:42:35] might want to have a conversation with him i mean they would just be cracking up because it's

[1:42:38] hilarious well to answer your question zero times they wouldn't fit me i'm not that small come on

[1:42:43] if only they did fit me for some of this la traffic it would be great to have a diaper

[1:42:48] uh-huh or it would probably cushion your bottom for those long sits yeah exactly uh let's move on

[1:42:55] to the next part of the show where we recommend movies that we saw and enjoyed and as much as we

[1:43:01] kind of liked replicas maybe you should see these first okay i would like to recommend a movie that

[1:43:06] i you know guys sometimes i recommend movies on this podcast that are let's call them plane movies

[1:43:13] Like planes from Disney

[1:43:16] They're pleasant enough

[1:43:19] I recommend them because

[1:43:19] Or the movie adaptation of Sarah Plain and Tall

[1:43:21] They're a thing I saw recently

[1:43:24] That I found enjoyment in

[1:43:26] But I'm not going to put my full weight behind

[1:43:28] This week I'd like to put my full weight

[1:43:30] Behind my recommendation

[1:43:31] I saw Booksmart

[1:43:32] And I loved this movie

[1:43:34] I thought it was so good

[1:43:35] I think it's the most I've laughed at a comedy

[1:43:39] In recent memory

[1:43:40] So on the comedy level it delivers

[1:43:43] But also, the movie, like, the two protagonists, the actors who play them and the writing of the movie makes you just on the side of these two young women immediately.

[1:43:59] Like, they're so lovable, so easy to kind of sympathize with.

[1:44:04] and the movie is really great about it's it's a movie where like everyone in the film is a

[1:44:12] fleshed out character that you care about and empathize with and like no one's like a bad like

[1:44:19] even the people who are mean sometimes you understand them and you sympathize with them

[1:44:24] and overall you're like oh this is a good person and it's but they the movie manages to do that

[1:44:29] without being over sweet yeah if you know what i mean so even those like like say the the evil

[1:44:35] manager who is actually like working for a military company is fully fleshed out in book smart uh yeah

[1:44:42] exactly that character that exists in book smart but i also want to say you know in 2019 there

[1:44:49] should be more movies where say a range of sexualities is just treated very casually

[1:44:56] uh but unfortunately there are fewer than than there should be and it's nice to see like a big

[1:45:01] mainstream crowd-pleasing comedy that does not make any kind of big deal about the fact that

[1:45:07] one of the protagonists is a lesbian and i don't know like it's just there are times in this movie

[1:45:14] as funny as it was where i was on the verge of tears not because something was particularly sad

[1:45:19] or not even because something was making me like super happy but because i felt so

[1:45:24] like on these girls side and wanting them to just have a good life like for things to work out for

[1:45:33] them in this period of time where they're graduating school and going through like a lot

[1:45:39] of tempestuous situations like i just cared about the characters yeah and uh so i just it's not

[1:45:46] getting the box office that deserves for being such a crowd pleasing like everyone i saw it with

[1:45:51] was reacting like crazy and i think if you want to see more movies i mean this was directed by

[1:45:57] a woman it was written only by women it stars two women like if you want to see more movies like

[1:46:01] that it's good to get out in the theater and see it yeah yeah people should go see it so that's my

[1:46:07] recommendation i'm going to recommend a movie kind of along the same lines uh-huh uh this just came

[1:46:13] out you can watch it on demand it stars martial arts actor scott adkins in a quite a character

[1:46:23] performance for him the movie is called avengement which i don't know what that word means but i'm

[1:46:29] assuming it was selected because it means that it shows up at the top of your vodq uh under a

[1:46:36] and uh it is a kind of a mix between his typical like martial arts beat-em-up movies

[1:46:44] and a bit of like like a cockney london gangster movie so it's filled with fun accents and uh it

[1:46:52] is about scott adkins plays uh the younger brother of a like a criminal guy and he does a a job for

[1:47:01] his brother in order to open up a gym and in the process he gets arrested and causes the death of

[1:47:08] a poor woman and he goes to jail and jail is horrible and it hardens him and he becomes this

[1:47:15] like monster of a man who is also very good at fighting and he breaks loose and gets his revenge

[1:47:21] and i think it's like it's kind of fun it's fun to see an actor who's been in a bunch of these

[1:47:27] like action movies really have an opportunity to kind of stretch his acting wings and it's also

[1:47:32] incredibly violent and uh gory so if those things sound fun i would check out avengement i read a

[1:47:40] review of this online and it sounded a lot of fun like it would be my cup of tea yeah yeah it's fun

[1:47:46] yeah like book smart yeah they're the same movie basically yeah this movie puts the act in action

[1:47:51] yep uh i'm gonna quickly recommend i finally got to see cold war the polish movie that came out

[1:47:59] last year directed by pavel pavlikovsky pavlikovsky i'm gonna pronounce it wrong anyway about a man

[1:48:05] and a woman the man is a composer slash musical director the woman is a singer with a with a

[1:48:11] not shady past but with a uh troubling troublesome past and the two of them meet in poland in the

[1:48:18] 1940s, and it follows their relationship as they kind of intersect in and out of each other's

[1:48:24] lives. They're deeply in love, but one of them leaves Poland for the West, and the other one

[1:48:29] sticks and stays in Poland, and how the two of them kind of change and meet up again and again

[1:48:33] a few times throughout their life, and how their relationship weathers and does not weather the

[1:48:38] differences imposed on them by geopolitics. It's a really beautiful-looking movie. It looks

[1:48:44] gorgeous. And I found it really affecting. And to be honest, it was like the movie that I wanted

[1:48:50] La La Land to be, which is like a movie about creative professionals who love each other,

[1:48:57] but their lives are imperfect and don't really mesh, partly because of their art and partly

[1:49:03] because of the burdens that the outside world places on them and their relationship. And so

[1:49:08] it's a very different type of movie than that, but I really liked it a lot. So that's Cold War,

[1:49:12] and it's currently, I think, streaming on Amazon Prime.

[1:49:15] Cool. Three movies to watch.

[1:49:19] That's your assignment.

[1:49:21] I expect reports on my desk next week.

[1:49:24] Hey, before we go, let's plug those live shows again.

[1:49:28] I don't think we need to belabor it.

[1:49:30] You can go to the page, the website, flophousepodcast.com

[1:49:35] and click on events, but we do have a show tonight

[1:49:38] when you're listening to this in Portland.

[1:49:40] Tonight in Portland, Oregon.

[1:49:42] If you're listening to this on June 8th, I'll just say real quick tonight in Portland, Oregon.

[1:49:45] Then July 13th in Minneapolis, September 28th in Boston, October 12th in Los Angeles.

[1:49:51] Yeah.

[1:49:52] Hopefully we'll see some of you, uh, some of you folks out there.

[1:49:55] And if we don't see you there, we're just very disappointed in you.

[1:49:59] Okay.

[1:50:01] It's always a pleasure guys.

[1:50:04] Yeah, we did it.

[1:50:05] Okay.

[1:50:06] So, uh, check out podcasts over at maximumfund.org.

[1:50:09] Uh, there's tons of cool shows.

[1:50:11] We're really happy to be part of the network.

[1:50:13] For the Flophouse podcast, he's been Dan McCoy.

[1:50:16] Okay, thanks.

[1:50:17] That guy talking was Stuart Wellington.

[1:50:19] And over here, once again, introducing himself, Elliot Kalin.

[1:50:23] Please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

[1:50:26] For the Flophouse, I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:50:27] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:50:29] I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:50:31] We're caught in a loop.

[1:50:32] All right.

[1:50:32] Bye.

[1:50:33] Bye.

[1:50:41] okay now that he's gone let's talk shit about it okay can you believe how little he brought to that

[1:50:51] bit i know you were giving him all those great prompts i thought you're gonna be like could you

[1:50:57] believe how little he is maximum fun.org comedy and culture artist owned audience supported

Ep. #286 - Replicas

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