Ep. #284 - Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald

[0:00] On this episode of the podcast, we discuss Fantastic Beasts, The Crimes of Grindelwald.

[0:06] Ooh, that dastardly Grindelwald. I hate that Grindelwald. Dan, what's a Grindelwald?

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

[0:40] Oh, hey everybody. Welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:44] And here's Elliot Kalin, coming through the homestretch.

[0:47] Dan, you sound a little down. What's wrong?

[0:50] Do you want to know why I've got this sexy, gritty voice this time around?

[0:55] It sounds the same as normal.

[0:56] This gritty, sexy voice.

[0:59] Why do you keep saying Gritty?

[1:00] Because I love the Phillies.

[1:03] I mean, let's all be clear.

[1:05] Gritty is the sexiest of the mascots, but it's because of his attitude, because he doesn't

[1:09] care if you think he's sexy or not.

[1:10] His anarcho-antifascist attitude.

[1:13] You know, my great voice right now is a combination of blowing it out singing karaoke yesterday

[1:19] and coughing so hard I puked just minutes before.

[1:23] Oh, man.

[1:24] You've got to take care of your pipes, dude.

[1:26] Yeah.

[1:27] Here's the thing.

[1:28] those are my money makers here's a peek here's a peek into how dan tells me things is right before

[1:34] we start recording dan's like oh i've been feeling really sick for a few days and i coughed so hard

[1:38] i almost threw up so i'm gonna i'm feeling kind of out of it and i'm like oh that's too bad only

[1:42] now am i learning that he was out singing karaoke all night last night maybe nothing to do when

[1:46] you're sick you know you've added you you extrapolated beyond what i said i said i just

[1:52] said i was coughing so hard i threw up i've had this cough for quite some time it's not related

[1:58] any cold that i have oh okay i maybe maybe the karaoke is not the best thing to do with the cough

[2:03] then you know maybe arrest those pipes could be dan's preparing for this uh this role as doc

[2:09] holiday in a stage production of tombstone yeah he's method so he's getting way into it yeah i've

[2:14] got consumption guys i'm your huckleberry skin that smoke wagon let's skin our smoke wagons

[2:22] everybody get your smoke wagon skinned tombstone that's a great yeah that's a great uh dance number

[2:27] there it's interpreted by a lot of people though yeah yeah very hard easy to understand there's

[2:33] that there's so the show starts it's a bare stage and then a single spotlight on doc holiday and he

[2:38] just looks at the audience he lifts up his head he goes i'll tell you a tale of a stone a very

[2:43] particular stone a stone far from home called tombstone and that's when the audience goes oh

[2:52] oh like they finally get it like a sun rises over the stage a giant tombstone shows up and then

[2:58] starts dancing yeah exactly that's when the erp brothers show up and they're like erpity erp

[3:03] where are the erps erpity erp erp erp oh wow it still sounds better than uh manhattan melody by

[3:10] the muppets as far as i'm concerned dan we watched that episode we watched the muppets

[3:14] take manhattan with my son and he loved it he was eating up that terrible musical that they do okay

[3:18] um also guys did he ask if you guys could go see that next time you guys uh go to broadway

[3:24] no no he really wants to see uh what the constitution means to me

[3:28] sam he just can't stop talking about it uh i think ever since we got the cast album for

[3:36] what the constitution means to me he just wants to hear it all the time

[3:39] uh what do we do on this podcast i'll answer that it's a podcast where we watch a bad movie

[3:47] and then we talk about it and this time we watched fantastic beasts the crimes of grundlebutt

[3:54] i thought you were gonna do it normal style but you threw a little curveball at the end

[3:59] he really grinsled that waltz this is part of the fantastic beasts of verse

[4:03] well i mean technically it's the harry potter it's the wizarding world is what it's called

[4:09] and so the wizard now guys i'm gonna admit something here i'm not super familiar with

[4:15] the harry potter world i saw the first movie and the fifth movie and i and i did not see the first

[4:20] way to do it it's called machete style so you're admitting to be a little bit of a a little bit of

[4:27] a can't spell a little bit of a nomad i mean i mean i think it is funny that can't this this

[4:31] movie is the first time i heard can't spell as a slur for humans and i thought it was hilarious

[4:36] he's like he's got a great he's like the muggles the nomadges the can't spells and it's like well

[4:42] we can spell I mean it's not a matter of like I mean based on the way a lot of their words are

[4:49] spelled I think we're doing better than that yeah but uh so I'm gonna try to do I want to promise

[4:53] this I'm gonna make this promise to you guys I'm gonna make it to the audience I'm gonna try not

[4:57] to do the thing where I assume the movie is being obtuse just because I haven't seen the other

[5:03] movies and don't know don't know the terminology or whatever like and don't know the characters

[5:07] it's like I went to see a little movie called Avengers Endgame and yeah you're gonna shut the

[5:12] fuck up about it and i won't say anything about it except that i really enjoyed it but uh i will

[5:17] say that in that i was like i feel like with the avengers movies we are past the point where people

[5:22] can say oh it doesn't really stand alone as its own movie if you haven't seen the other ones you

[5:26] don't understand because that one is so explicitly the end point of a 20 some odd movie series so i'm

[5:32] gonna say crimes of grindelwald i'm gonna treat you the same way if i don't understand what's

[5:36] going on in the movie that's sometimes my fault because for not seeing other movies because there's

[5:41] lots of stuff in this movie that didn't make sense that seems to have just sprung out of the movie

[5:45] yeah i think i think dan and i are both a little more familiar yeah we've i've definitely read all

[5:50] the books and seen all the movies yeah i've also read all the books and seen all the movies

[5:54] including the first fantastic beast and i think we both agree and i've also seen the stage play

[5:59] oh wow so hashtag keep okay i mean this isn't a contest but sure you went and i know a person

[6:05] who went to the wizarding world of harry potter okay great i mean i know someone named harry

[6:11] we both agree that this movie made very little sense okay that's good to know uh so should we

[6:20] talk about what this movie is and try to puzzle out what what exactly the crimes of grindelwald

[6:25] are and so this is the second movie in a prequel series that follows what eight movies uh there

[6:32] were eight yeah eight harry potter movies those are set in modern day uh and then these are set

[6:37] in the roaring 20s that's right which is which you should love right because you like old-timey

[6:42] bullshit okay guys let's just start before i even get in the movie here's one thing i'm gonna say

[6:45] right off the bat do i love old-timey bullshit you know i do i love the past past fantastic

[6:52] pasts and where to find them in the past where they'll exist uh that's what i love here's the

[6:57] thing movie makers i'm just gonna lay a secret on you they had more colors in the past than sepia

[7:04] brown and kind of a murky green brown yeah like and gray a gunmetal sort of color everything in

[7:14] the like so many movies now they're set in the past and i mean this goes back 20 years now so

[7:19] many movies set in the past they're like the photographs from the past are all sepia and black

[7:22] and white i guess that's just what it looked like back then like they they're do you remember the

[7:27] comic strip where calvin's dad tells him that the past was in black and white and that's why old

[7:32] pictures are in black and white but in the 60s do i remember a specific calvin and hobbes comic

[7:38] i think you know the answer is yes so that's i feel like that was their dad and they're like

[7:44] in the past they didn't have as many colors and then in 1968 they invented colors that's not the

[7:49] way it was guys the color red existed back then bright blues and yellows existed so next time

[7:54] you're making a movie set in the past hollywood color it up come on don't be afraid of taste the

[7:59] rainbow you know skittles everywhere sure she'll save that for the uh sponsor section but that's

[8:05] okay okay so the movie is set in 1927 that's right only two years before the great depression begins

[8:11] so everyone's still having a great time they have no idea uh yeah and we're at like a we're in the

[8:18] american magic ministry is dungeon prison where grindelwald who's kind of like a magic old man

[8:23] he's stuck in a cell with a little creature and the americans are handing him over to the british

[8:28] for punishment for his crimes the aforementioned crimes of grindelwald which are not delineated

[8:33] here it seems like things are pretty there's no paperwork like things are pretty cash between in

[8:38] britain prisoner handovers between america and britain actually he actually just saw it off a

[8:42] bunch of uh parking meters like in the beginning of cool hand luke oh yeah like in cool hand

[8:47] grindelwald yeah yeah yeah sure that this is a remake of and he goes what we have here is a

[8:52] failure to communicados and then a and then it's like a spell that a bunch of a bunch of eggs fly

[8:58] into people's mouths yeah they're like i bet you can't eat all these eggs ovos consumo and then he

[9:09] just oh man what other movies would be made so much more fun if the characters could just use

[9:14] spells is it is it uh if it was it would really it would take some of the certainly kramer versus

[9:22] kramer would be very interesting custodium it'd be a wizarding duel

[9:27] i mean kramer versus kramer is probably the least of the kaiju movies when you think about it like

[9:34] right down there with godzilla versus megalon is kramer versus kramer like justin hoffman is

[9:39] slightly less than normal size i mean come on and i'm and i'm kind of sick of those giant monster

[9:45] movies when it's just two of the same monster we already got one kramer we don't need a second

[9:49] kramer well what if it was kramer from seinfeld versus meryl street from kramer versus kramer

[9:54] oh man it's gonna be a bloodbath to be honest two kramers from seinfeld versus each other

[10:01] they're perfectly matched what would happen yeah okay so uh they also they mentioned that

[10:07] they removed Grindelwald's tongue to keep

[10:09] him from sweet-talking the guards

[10:11] to let him out. This is

[10:13] something that doesn't seem to go

[10:15] like his... Anyway, he escapes.

[10:17] Somebody comes and helps him escape. There's lots of

[10:19] crazy magic. There's an aerial chase

[10:21] involving a horse and carriage, but the

[10:23] horses have big bat wings. And

[10:25] I have to admit, guys, I could not

[10:27] follow what was happening in this scene.

[10:29] No, I had no idea what the fuck was happening.

[10:31] It was just like, explosion! Magic! Magic!

[10:33] For an

[10:35] action sequence like that's incredibly complicated and not organized very well they also don't

[10:42] really they don't they assume that you know everything about this situation already like

[10:47] it feels like going into this movie they assumed you had just finished watching the first fantastic

[10:52] beasts maybe gone out to the bathroom come back refreshed your snacks and then started this movie

[10:59] well they assume that you went to see the fantastic beasts marathon that was playing at amc to set you

[11:04] But for this, it's just one movie.

[11:05] So it actually wasn't that bad a marathon.

[11:07] Yeah.

[11:07] But there's a kid that has like a necklace in his mouth, I guess.

[11:11] I think that has something to do with Grindelwald getting his voice back.

[11:13] But I have no idea.

[11:14] It's not explained.

[11:15] No, it's so, this kid shows up.

[11:17] No, that necklace is something else entirely.

[11:19] Oh, is it?

[11:19] And they did a body swap, too.

[11:22] They did a face-off thing.

[11:23] It turns out in the carriage, the carriage is actually some other dude who works for Grindelwald.

[11:28] And Grindelwald suddenly is driving the carriage.

[11:31] And he fills the carriage with water, and then he's shooting magic everywhere.

[11:34] But it's one of those things where it's like, so if Grindelwald was not in the carriage, what is he doing?

[11:40] So he's breaking out a guy who looks like Grindelwald?

[11:43] I don't understand.

[11:44] Anyway, I don't know what's going on.

[11:46] Stuart, explain.

[11:47] I think he needed to get that charm back from the guy.

[11:50] I think a different guy had the charm he needed, and I guess he just wanted that really cool carriage.

[11:56] And he also wanted the guy he body swapped with that I think lost his tongue.

[12:00] I mean, his tongue's just split in half.

[12:02] I mean, you can get that done at, like, a tattoo parlor.

[12:04] Oh, yeah, I mean, there are people who do that on purpose.

[12:06] You don't need to use magic or nothing.

[12:07] So, yeah, I mean, it's just very complicated,

[12:12] and it didn't bode well for the rest of the movie,

[12:16] at least for me.

[12:17] No, and also I was disappointed that Grindelwald,

[12:19] because I guess he's been kind of in jail possibly for a while,

[12:22] he has a long beard and long hair,

[12:23] and he looks like a homeless wizard.

[12:28] He kind of looked like that at the end of the first movie when Colin Farrell morphed into him.

[12:33] Oh, okay.

[12:34] But then later on when we see him, he's had a haircut and a beard trim,

[12:38] and now he just looks like he has a mustache and hair made of frosting,

[12:41] like he's an ice cream mascot that went mad at some point.

[12:44] Very disappointing.

[12:46] Okay, so Grindelwald has escaped.

[12:49] Oh, no.

[12:50] Oh, no.

[12:51] Grindelwald, committer of the aforementioned not truly defined crimes that we don't know what they are.

[12:57] We cut to London three months later, and here's our hero, Newt Scamander, played by Eddie Redmayne, and he's at the British Ministry.

[13:05] Known for his Redmayne.

[13:06] Now, Eddie Redmayne could be a wizard, right?

[13:09] That's a wizard name.

[13:10] It's a better wizard name than Newt Scamander, which is, his name is Newt.

[13:14] Up for debate.

[13:15] His name is Scamander.

[13:16] He's talking about salamanders all throughout the movie.

[13:19] His brother's name, Theseus.

[13:21] So it feels like the parents were really tipping the scales when they're like, ah, our eldest, Theseus, you shall be a great wizard.

[13:28] Here comes Newt.

[13:30] Oh, boy.

[13:30] Yeah.

[13:32] Like when your parents name you Jeeves, you're going to be a butler.

[13:36] If they name you Theseus, you'll be a hero of some kind.

[13:39] If they name you Newt, you're going to be like a stuttering, irritating kind of cold, weird guy.

[13:44] I mean, most likely what you're going to do is you're going to hang out with Ripley and kill an alien.

[13:48] Yeah, I was going to say, I've got a place in my heart for only one fictional Newt, and that's from Aliens.

[13:53] Mine is the Newt that John Cleese said he got turned into in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

[13:58] Okay, that's a good Newt.

[13:59] But fair, they're both better Newts.

[14:00] Yeah, you've built up quite a backstory for this Newt.

[14:03] Now, here's the thing.

[14:03] Maybe in the first movie, which I didn't see again, Newt Scamander was like a really charismatic, eccentric,

[14:09] like somebody who had a lot of charm, but also played by his own rules, so he was kind of cool.

[14:14] Because in here, he comes off as a real creep.

[14:17] Yeah, he's a socially awkward guy, and I guess there's space for that.

[14:22] I think it's interesting that you choose a socially awkward character who has trouble fitting in as your hero.

[14:29] And I don't think I'll ever say this about any movie ever again.

[14:34] They cast him next to Dan Fogler, who should have been the hero of that movie.

[14:39] Dan Fogler is much more interesting and fun to watch.

[14:45] I think at times he has more screen time.

[14:47] Eddie Redmayne is supposed to be the hero of the movie

[14:50] and yet he's actually not

[14:51] in that, it feels like he disappears

[14:54] from the movie for large periods of time

[14:56] well I think the point of

[14:57] to defend

[15:00] the idea behind

[15:02] Newt Scamander and not the actual performance

[15:04] I understand the idea

[15:05] for the audience

[15:07] let me explain

[15:08] I think the notion is he's this awkward guy

[15:12] he's a extreme

[15:14] pacifist who only

[15:16] cares about his his special animals his menagerie of beasts animals and so he doesn't want to like

[15:23] take any side in anything that's going on and he's this character who's forced to then

[15:28] step up and overcome this kind of diffidence yeah and like engage with the world engage with

[15:33] the world and but they make him so like retiring that he disappears off the screen yeah i mean it's

[15:39] in some ways he he seems like a bad doctor from a bad couple seasons of doctor who where it's like

[15:45] Oh, here's this kind of strange eccentric who is very powerful but does things for his own reasons and is reluctant to, like, play the hero but gets thrown in the role.

[15:54] And it's like – but he's so – yeah, he just is so nonexistent as a personality.

[16:01] And he talks like this.

[16:03] That's a fantastic beast.

[16:07] Like so much the movie is where it's like, ah, what's that thing?

[16:11] Oh, that's a gliskin-lisk.

[16:13] It's a type of animal.

[16:14] I just...

[16:15] And it's like, Eddie Redmayne...

[16:18] You think the movie should have a little sign that's like,

[16:20] turn on the captions now.

[16:21] Oh, I turn the captions on real early for this movie.

[16:24] So there's some flaws in him as a character.

[16:27] There's a good way to do that character.

[16:29] It is weird that in the captions,

[16:31] they spell nomadge with a J instead of a G.

[16:35] I think because then it looks like it says nomag.

[16:37] Yeah, but I don't know.

[16:41] i guess magic if clive barker's spelling clive barker did a punch up on the subtitles

[16:46] suddenly it's about a midnight meat train i don't understand there's a reason that uh

[16:55] for no reason at all there's a scene where a character uh wakes up to find that another

[17:00] character has entered them in the night and they're very happy about it yeah uh which was

[17:05] i think the scene that i got to while i was reading a magicka where i was like okay i'm

[17:08] gonna close this book now and just gonna set it aside um the uh i'll say there's the the reluctant

[17:17] hero it's a real great trope one of my favorite heroes of all time you guessed it adam warlock

[17:22] is a reluctant hero he's the best yeah there's good ways to do it okay so eddie redmayne newt

[17:27] scamander he's at the british ministry he's got this little kind of mini groot plant man named

[17:31] picket and he's also got like a little platypus dude whose name i don't remember and there's

[17:36] little hench beasts the rest of his beasts he keeps inside of a magic suitcase uh which is it

[17:41] which is like as my wife put it one of the like coolest magic things the idea that you have like

[17:47] a suitcase you carry around with you that's full of like a house and monsters and stuff yeah it's

[17:53] i mean it's it's really it reminds me of uh i think something peter gabriel used to do in concert

[17:57] when he was performing sledgehammer what sorry you disappear into a suitcase well no he would he

[18:03] The way it was described to me is he would take a suitcase and put it on the stage and

[18:07] open it up, and then the band would walk out of the suitcase.

[18:10] Oh, cool.

[18:10] There was a trap door on the stage that the suitcase went over.

[18:13] Yeah.

[18:14] And they would play the song, and then as they were finishing the song, the band-

[18:16] Don't spoil the trick for me, Elliot.

[18:18] Sorry.

[18:18] No, it's a magic-

[18:20] The masked magician is going to come and chop your head off.

[18:22] No, the masked magician was the one who was giving away the secrets.

[18:26] Wow, I thought, well, maybe he sees that you're coming for his throne.

[18:32] Yes, you're right.

[18:33] Yeah, the revealing throne.

[18:34] Dan, maybe it was the same magic snoot case that Newt used to use.

[18:39] I mean, this was 60, 70 years later.

[18:40] You just said snoot case, right?

[18:42] Yeah, he did say snoot case.

[18:44] Did I say snoot case?

[18:44] But I, unlike Elliot, decided to let it go.

[18:47] Look, you've got to keep your snoot somewhere.

[18:49] Yep.

[18:50] And then when they finished the song, the band would walk back into the suitcase

[18:54] and he would close it up and walk off the stage with it,

[18:57] which is a pretty cool trick.

[18:58] Anyway.

[18:59] But you can only do it once.

[19:03] yeah because the suitcase crushes them to death yep the uh uh so he's in trouble for whatever

[19:10] happened last movie something happened in new york that was bad but his brother theseus who

[19:15] works for the british ministry as an auror which is a kind of magic secret policeman magic i guess

[19:20] yeah it's a magic cop they should just call them magic cops but sell it with a j

[19:24] like clive barker would yeah yep okay for cops exactly uh they uh they want him they say we need

[19:34] your help stopping grindelwald from taking over the world with his magic army and there's a boy

[19:40] named credence who i guess was in the last movie who is by ezra miller and credence dc's flash

[19:47] yep and credence is trying to figure out who his parents were and everyone knows he's a super

[19:53] powerful wizard but they don't know where he came from and grindelwald wants credence to join his

[19:57] army we'll find out why so i'm gonna stop you right there i think it's for clear water revival

[20:02] yeah so so credence was in the first movie and he was this like abused kid uh who lived in an

[20:10] orphanage and he was uh and he was what happens when a wizard is uh doesn't have a way to express

[20:20] their powers so it like builds up in him and creates this like other being that's like just

[20:26] pure destructive energy that flies around oh okay troll and grindelwald in the form of colin farrell

[20:33] was like gaslighting slash abusing uh this kid to try and make him more and more powerful and then

[20:41] like it kind of felt like for some reason i thought he died at the end of the first movie but clearly

[20:45] that didn't happen no uh so it felt like his story at least in that movie that kid's story was over

[20:52] but i guess not because he's on this one no because it's as with the pirates of the caribbean

[20:57] or the avengers movies you never introduce a character and then be done with them you got

[21:01] to bring them back so it like keeps accumulating characters like a snowball rolling down a hill

[21:05] so to get this to put it in layman's terms that i think everyone will understand

[21:08] credence is kind of like the century plus kid miracle man uh-huh yep okay great everyone

[21:15] understands that that's everyone's trying to catch that kid is what you're saying they're

[21:19] trying to catch that kid and also in a weird way kid that catch i'll explain why in a minute uh

[21:24] there's no way to explain it the phrase doesn't make sense so uh the ministry is like newt we

[21:30] want you you can't leave the country with permission with our permission unless you go

[21:35] after credence and newt is like no i've got to protect credence and so the ministry is going

[21:38] to send some dude named grimson who i guess is supposed to be like a magic assassin or something

[21:42] like that yeah and i laughed very hard because he like just at the end of the meeting when newt like

[21:47] turns down the job he just like walks out from behind a pillar which or i guess he's just been

[21:51] lurking the whole time and he's like well i guess you're gonna have to send me and it's the most

[21:56] ominous thing like what why were you just hanging out there dude and it means if newt was like okay

[22:01] i'll do it that grimson would just have to stand waiting behind the pillar till everyone left the

[22:05] room and then sneak out uh he's like i'm glad i brought some magic almonds in my pocket to snack

[22:13] on because uh this is a long wait so i think what the movie is telling us what the harry potter

[22:18] stories tell us is that if you're not a wizard it sucks to be a kid like you're either living

[22:22] under some stairs or you're in a bad orphanage like only wizards have good childhoods i guess

[22:26] in the harry potter world well i mean it's i think it's complicated but sure okay i mean this is

[22:32] based on a sample set of two i think i think if you are a wizard and you're forced to live with

[22:37] humans it's tough because you're not able to be yourself i guess that's true and you know what

[22:41] this movie is all about being yourself i think it was kind of hard because because uh coming up we

[22:46] only introduced a few of the characters okay grendelwald he sets up his headquarters in france

[22:50] to do that he has to kill a baby we never see that baby again the thing i like about that scene

[22:54] is they they go into this room they see a baby he leaves his henchman you see the henchman

[23:02] like you see the like explosion so the henchman clearly kills the baby and then grindelwald

[23:08] closes the door behind him so his henchman is like just in the room with a dead baby like

[23:13] what are they gonna do in there grindelwald's like i don't care what you have to do to get

[23:17] rid of this thing eat it whatever burn it throw it away i don't care i don't need to

[23:21] But I'm going to close the door.

[23:23] You wait like a couple of minutes and then leave

[23:25] because it's more ominous.

[23:26] Dude, he operates those baby remains away

[23:28] the way that they used to do with shit,

[23:30] according to J.K. Rowling.

[23:32] Dan is referring to J.K. Rowling's ability

[23:34] to say weird-ass shit about her series.

[23:37] And what is this?

[23:39] What was the thing she said this time?

[23:40] Was that wizards didn't adopt plumbing for quite a while.

[23:44] They would just shit themselves and magic the shit away.

[23:51] It's like J.K. Rowling spent years building up this fictional universe, and now she got hit on the head with a coconut, and she thinks it's really stupid.

[23:58] And now she's just like, I gotta make this sound as dumb as possible.

[24:02] It's like the belief that Ozzy Osbourne, when Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoades were in that plane accident and Randy Rhoades died, there's a belief that Ozzy Osbourne actually died.

[24:15] and that like that sharon found somebody else entirely to be ozzy and that's why ozzy's so

[24:21] weird now because that doesn't match up with the previous ozzy who was also pretty weird

[24:26] but like ozzy's like a yoda grandma now and i guess he was different back then uh i mean that's

[24:32] the call that's also the aging process i guess but it's a good theory i guess we should run with it

[24:36] wait that's gonna happen to all of us i hate to break it to you stew but yes very much so no uh

[24:42] We're all going to have our own reality show that our family begrudgingly agrees to be on.

[24:46] I think the rest of the family was very excited to be on it because they weren't necessarily famous before the show.

[24:53] That's a good point.

[24:54] That's a good point.

[24:55] You mean the man that came off the worst looking like a senile old grandpa on the show was maybe the one who didn't want to do the show?

[25:02] Maybe he wasn't the big decision maker?

[25:04] It's like J.K. Rowling was like, hey, you know what makes a lot of money, I assume?

[25:10] red letter media videos that savage fictional stuff what if i monopolized it by making the

[25:15] thing and then doing my own red letter media type yeah so she's like oh i guess these wizards just

[25:19] magic their shit away oh i don't know yeah yeah like found a plot hole magic doesn't exist idiot

[25:27] more put that in the goof section yeah

[25:32] uh i would i hope that's in the goof section imdb where it's like the movie posits that in 1927

[25:39] there was a war of wizards in reality in 1927 there was no war of wizards

[25:44] so uh scamander he uh he meets up with dumbledore himself played by jude law this is the dumbledore

[25:53] from the later movies this is a character i've heard of uh the dumbledore who was revealed as

[25:57] gay by jk rowling after the fact and but it plays into these movies i guess and that's why she

[26:02] started talking about it uh she said he says credence is paris and they've got to find out

[26:08] if he's this fabled like pure blood wizard that can do whatever is super powerful they gotta find

[26:14] out and dumbledore's like scamander you've got to go there and do something like it's not really

[26:21] clear what he wants newt to do in paris after he finds credence but uh first newt i think i think

[26:26] he wants him to find credence and also stand up to grindelwald or something because he keeps saying

[26:31] over and over that he can't do anything yes even though at least according to everyone he's the

[26:36] most powerful wizard in the world everyone's like you got to take care of him he's like i can't i

[26:41] can't and you're like just just reveal the plot development that tells me why he like it's so

[26:46] obvious what that he can't i start suspecting that there's magic involved and i don't live in a world

[26:52] with magic i would imagine they would be like uh is it because of this is it because of this other

[26:57] thing like we all went to wizard school we know all these things because all and he never explains

[27:01] to anybody so it's just assumed that he's a jerk it's like yeah hey uh hitler's coming up and you've

[27:07] got that anti-hitler ray that you invented why don't you use it i can't is there a reason why

[27:12] you can't i just can't don't ask me about it okay then you're a monster right no no no i just i just

[27:17] can't and later it turns out like i'm i double dog dare promised that i would never shoot hitler

[27:23] oh now i understand okay well can i use that hitler gun then okay go ahead take it you know

[27:28] it's like it's not that different than that anyway we'll get to it wait i just want to say like

[27:32] i want to say that elliot's explaining this much more clearly than the movie explains it

[27:37] like so i was watching this uh i was watching with my girlfriend who i haven't mentioned before

[27:41] because she didn't really want to be a character on the podcast too late you just you just kept

[27:45] doing like vague references to the person you're watching well that's why i'm mentioning her now

[27:51] because she got tired of being like my movie watching friend so okay let's let's just get

[27:56] everything out in the open dan has a girlfriend now her name is pippi she's really lovely she's

[28:02] got long stockings she works as a sanitation worker using her prodigious strength to lift

[28:06] up couches and things like that and mattresses uh but anyway her point was like she watched the

[28:12] movie and was as angry as it added as i was and she was like the movie the movie's plot is the

[28:18] simplest plot yes like the bad guys and the good guys all want to find the same guy but it took her

[28:24] She said like almost two-thirds of the movie to figure out that that was the plot because it's fumbled so badly.

[28:30] I mean it's a failure of both writing in terms of making anything clear and also directing in that the scenes are not clearly shot or staged or acted or anything.

[28:43] Everything is so – and the movie, it has that look that British masterpiece theater productions have where the image is not quite as clear as it should be.

[28:51] And everything is kind of like – it's staged almost as if the movie is ashamed that you're watching it and is like, oh, well, let's just get this over with real quick and quiet so that we don't bother anybody and they can get on with their lives and they don't have to worry about this movie too much.

[29:06] Like, the movie is so reserved that later when Newt is riding a lion serpent beast chasing after some demon cats, or after that when wizards are creating a ring of fire to keep blue fire dragons from destroying London, I was like, it felt like you're having a conversation in another room and you don't want the other people at the party to hear what you're saying because it's like you're arguing with a loved one.

[29:29] Like, the whole thing is done as if it would prefer you were not watching it and you were looking at something else.

[29:34] So, okay, this is important stuff.

[29:37] So, of course, Newt only has a little bit of time to go to his house full of creatures and ride a Kelpie around.

[29:42] Now, is that Kelpie from the first movie, or is it just a random monster?

[29:46] I think it's new.

[29:47] It's a new monster.

[29:48] Okay, but he's at home, so that's when his New York buddies, Queenie and Jacob, stop by.

[29:53] Uh-oh, there are a couple of laugh-em-ups.

[29:55] Now, I remember in the first movie finding their relationship kind of charming.

[30:00] And it felt like such a weird way to reintroduce them.

[30:05] They're a couple where he is a nomadge, meaning he has no ability to use magic.

[30:14] He's a can't spell.

[30:14] He can't spell.

[30:15] Yep.

[30:16] And she is a wizard.

[30:18] And she has the power to read minds, right?

[30:21] Yeah, and she's sort of like a bit of a dizzy Marilyn Monroe type a little bit.

[30:27] Yeah, like an Audrey.

[30:27] Like Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors.

[30:29] Yeah, yeah.

[30:30] And he is like a Jackie Gleason in The Honeymooners type.

[30:32] It's a lot.

[30:33] It's like it's played by Dan Fogler in this case.

[30:35] And it's like the characters should clash in funny ways.

[30:39] And maybe they do in the first movie.

[30:40] Eddie Redmayne is always like, oh, well, and they're like, hey, good to see you, new old

[30:44] pal, old buddy.

[30:45] Hey, I knew it.

[30:46] Oh, it's so wonderful to see.

[30:47] Oh, so sweet.

[30:48] Like that's the way they talk, basically.

[30:50] Like they're like characters that stepped out of a Looney Tunes cartoon, essentially.

[30:54] Yeah.

[30:55] And I think, I mean, I feel like in the first movie, all the characters had these two characters

[31:00] had a little more internal life maybe like they had something going on in their life other than

[31:05] their most immediate relationship drama uh but yeah they're they're they have some drama because

[31:10] they cannot be married at least in america because uh wizards can't marry uh you know can't spells

[31:17] uh so she has enchanted him and taken him to london to i don't know get married to him it's

[31:24] like well she like in a fight and she disappears basically just dropping him off so he can go on

[31:29] an adventure yes he's she put a spell on him to overcome his his objections to their getting

[31:34] married since it's illegal and newt breaks that spell and they get into a fight and she runs off

[31:40] they also drop the news in the most artificial way possible oh yeah so so tina is that her name

[31:46] your your girlfriend from the first movie tina goldstein she's uh she's dating somebody new and

[31:51] we saw in this famous wizards magazine and it was not it's not wizard magazine published by

[31:56] Because if it was Wizard Magazine, I would have read that issue because I was a religious subscriber to Wizard for years.

[32:03] You know, Dan, you're familiar with Wizard, the guide to comics, I assume.

[32:07] Yeah, and then the issue of Wizard Magazine from 1927 would have been worth quite a bit of money.

[32:12] I'm familiar with the giant ads of Red Sonja and a thong that would always stick in the middle of that magazine.

[32:17] Yeah, sure. So it made it hard to read on the bus.

[32:19] And the casting call where they would cast movies based on who looked most like a superhero.

[32:24] what movie would they be casting in 1927?

[32:27] I mean, there was only,

[32:28] there were no superheroes at the time.

[32:30] So it would be like the Fu Manchu movie

[32:32] or maybe like the spider, like a pulp hero.

[32:36] Oh, cool.

[32:37] They'd go to the price guide

[32:39] in the back of a 1927 issue of Wizard

[32:40] and it would say, no comics yet.

[32:42] Come back later.

[32:43] It would say, famous funnies number one,

[32:46] only comic, 25 cents.

[32:48] I also have to say that in this scene,

[32:52] they wave away the fact that in the first movie,

[32:54] dan fogler had his memory wiped so he would not remember anything about the wizards and they just

[32:59] wave it away being like oh you know that spell only takes away bad memories but i didn't have

[33:04] any bad memories they're only good memories so i remember and just like that's a pretty big

[33:07] fucking loophole in this spell it's a huge like if you're gonna do that why didn't you just come

[33:12] up with something like yeah we remember we gave you a potion at the end of the last movie so the

[33:17] spell wouldn't work on you remember yeah we're just don't we crossed our fingers behind our back

[33:21] When we made that spell

[33:23] Or just don't do that spell

[33:24] Since clearly for the next movie

[33:26] He needs to remember all this stuff

[33:27] They also tell him that

[33:29] They're like we saw you in this wizard magazine

[33:31] That you got engaged to Leta Lestrange

[33:32] Congratulations

[33:33] And he's like no it's my brother Theseus

[33:35] Who is engaged to Leta

[33:36] It's the silliest bullshit

[33:39] It's the fakest forced drama

[33:43] Where they're like well Tina's mad at you now

[33:46] Due to this misprint

[33:47] It's going to take two thirds of the movie

[33:49] Before you have a chance to explain

[33:51] And when you do have a chance, it's going to take forever because you're not good at that.

[33:55] Yeah, he's like a dithering idiot.

[33:57] Because he's a stuttering, mumbling prick, as Joe Pesci might say.

[33:59] There's also something about the names in the movie where they're like, it's like J.K. Rowling's like, I need some fantastical names for these characters.

[34:07] Newt Scamander, Theseus Scamander, Albus Dumbledore, Grimblewald, Tina Goldstein.

[34:13] And I'm like, I was saying to my wife, I was like, she was watching with me and I was like, she's like, Tina Goldstein is not the most exciting name.

[34:21] i'm like maybe that's an exotic sounding name to jk rowling i don't know how many jewish people

[34:24] she knows like i don't know but uh so uh so queenie runs off jacob goes on an adventure with

[34:31] newt uh and then and newt learns that tina is in paris also so newton jacob set off to paris

[34:37] courtesy of a magic bucket that they jump into they go to a they go to a rocky cliff so they

[34:43] can jump into a magic bucket and get into paris meanwhile we cut to paris yeah a lot of these

[34:50] spells have like these little filigrees and like doodads that you're like is that necessary for

[34:56] the spell like why i'm like why is the why is there a bucket and why is the bucket on a cliff

[35:00] like how what what universe is this where the natural the natural magical laws of the universe

[35:06] say to travel from england to france you need to put a bucket on a cliff and then get and then

[35:11] jump in it um so uh tina's he she goes to paris and she walks through a magic statue to get to

[35:19] magical paris where there's we mentioned that tina is a magic cop oh tina is also an auror

[35:24] yes she's a magic u.s magic cop yeah yeah she's she it's just like the second

[35:28] jurisdiction yeah actually where is her jurisdiction she works for the american

[35:33] ministry and they're and the british ministry is also there and they're both in paris which

[35:37] the france french has its own ministry so like what's the do they just have the french

[35:41] the french don't seem to recognize that she's even there so maybe she's operating

[35:47] you know under deep cover i think that could be it like nicole kidman and destroyer

[35:53] tina's played by katherine waterston who you may know from inherent vice or being sam waterston's

[35:59] daughter uh in case you want to visualize i mean in case you're friends with the waterston family

[36:05] that's where you would know her from yeah yeah send her a card to congratulate her for being in

[36:10] bridal wine so she's it goes to a what a street fair it's a magic circus part of a magic circus

[36:17] and that's where that's where credence is working and he's in love with a woman named nagini who's

[36:22] on display because she turns into a snake sometimes now this is like a magic circus right

[36:27] yeah because i was confused why all these magicians were amazed by a lady turning into a snake well

[36:32] because she's a she's a freak because she she has a curse on her where she's much like cobra

[36:38] commander in the gi joe movie where they go after where they build serpent or right or they go to

[36:44] cobra law whatever it is they uh she is she's turning into a snake over time until one day

[36:48] she will be just a snake yeah i mean i guess humans go to see things that are not amazing

[36:54] all the time like i went to the brooklyn museum the other week and there's a whole section of it

[36:59] that's just farm animals and i'm like uh can we skip this section and my girlfriend's like no

[37:04] let's go see the farm animals i'm like but i grew up near farms i don't like why and then i went and

[37:08] saw them i'm like oh the sheep the sheep are still cute honks you been there done that it's also i

[37:14] like how it's your frame of reference you're like farm animals are boring everyone agrees with that

[37:18] no they're not i live in a city i never see animals of any kind except pigeons and rats

[37:22] what what is this thing a pig a sheep these are fantastic beasts where do i find them

[37:27] and and brooklyn museum i guess and dan's like brooklyn museum making me look at farm animals

[37:34] this is a crime worthy of grindelwald i guess i mean the moral of the story was that i did enjoy

[37:39] seeing the farm animals so i guess go to that magic circus wizards they're gonna be stuff that

[37:44] you're excited to see yeah so this is important because nagini as a snake is a is a big part of

[37:53] the original harry potter books because she is one of she is the familiar and one of the

[37:59] horcruxes of uh of voldemort oh i didn't know that okay yes and so we just thought it was a

[38:06] big evil snake but in fact it's an asian lady yeah there was there i think she's korean i believe

[38:12] uh there's part of asia dan no i know but i was going to be a little more specific okay that's

[38:17] fair uh but i think there was like a bit of a controversy about like oh like this this this

[38:24] woman like this horcrux that gets destroyed and this later book turns out she was like this

[38:29] innocent korean lady uh and there was like a bit of like a that's a weird choice guys like

[38:35] let's just i mean yeah and it's it's also weird because like she doesn't do anything at all in

[38:42] the movie no she doesn't she barely even helps credence she's just there to as basically window

[38:47] dressing for i mean she's the reason that credence leaves his job at the circus i guess but why did

[38:53] he ever need to have a job at the circus like it but and they they i feel like they're both

[38:58] underserved in the like a movie that is already too stuffed they're both underserved in that they

[39:04] don't they like we don't really get either their motivations other than credence's basic i need to

[39:11] know about my family i mean not since waiting for godot has a character been so talked about and yet

[39:16] done so little in a in a in a dramatic production like every scene is it's like poochie like every

[39:22] scene's like where's credence gotta find credence what's credence up to and then you see credence

[39:27] and he's like buh buh buh i wish i knew my parents were buh buh and that's it he doesn't do anything

[39:32] else so uh anyway there's also we we have a orphan listener right now who is slamming stop and dragging

[39:40] this into their i apologize i am in no way look if you don't know who your parents are i totally

[39:45] understand wanting to get that closure on your life and your background i would if you had magic

[39:50] powers i would imagine you might be able to do it in a more exciting way than credence does

[39:53] which is mainly wandering around paris with a mopey look on his face with his girlfriend

[39:58] this credence is not a fortunate son okay i think there's a very bad moon rising is that a

[40:05] green's clear water song yeah okay good work is uh is wait is also that he's got my backdoor song

[40:12] is that one yep yep what okay because it's like he should be doing more than dude dude dude looking

[40:17] out his back door yep maybe he should maybe he should fear the reaper no that's blue oyster

[40:22] cult isn't it yeah oh boy different band okay so uh anyway they escape in the in the process they

[40:28] let loose such kind of giant lion monster serpent and tina finds this guy whose name i could never

[40:33] catch who is who says oh credence is this is a pure blood and i'm looking for him uh then

[40:40] grindelwald shows up to credence and say oh no it doesn't show up sorry he just talks about how he

[40:45] wants credence because credence is the only wizard who can kill albus dumbledore bump bump

[40:51] uh magic bucket newt goes to where the circus was and he investigates by kind of a boondock saints

[41:00] reenacting

[41:01] what we just saw

[41:03] two scenes earlier

[41:04] he's like

[41:05] ah this magic shows me

[41:06] there was a circus over there

[41:07] and Credence was here

[41:09] and Tina was there

[41:10] and I'm like

[41:11] dude we just saw this

[41:12] like

[41:12] can we skip you

[41:14] finding these things out

[41:15] that we just saw

[41:16] but also he like

[41:17] runs after Tina

[41:18] being like

[41:18] Tina Tina

[41:19] and it's like

[41:20] you did the spell dude

[41:21] you know how it works

[41:22] why are you like

[41:23] oh she's right here

[41:24] it's like in a cop movie

[41:25] if someone was watching

[41:26] security camera footage

[41:27] and saw someone they knew

[41:28] on the screen

[41:29] and were like

[41:29] hey Billy

[41:30] and knocking on the screen hey why y'all tiny and black and white look at me come on uh so anyway

[41:36] newt so queenie wanders around in the rain looking for jacob and she has some kind of breakdown and

[41:42] one of grindelwald's followers finds her uh-oh and part of this scene requires you to like it

[41:47] took me a little while to remember like oh yeah she can read minds and this is probably weird for

[41:53] her yeah but like not enough of the movie had indicated that was going to happen this is also

[41:59] at this point was when i started to realize maybe this isn't newt scamander's movie this maybe this

[42:04] is more of like a dickensian like multiple characters intersecting and lots of different

[42:08] plot lines and secrets because it's around here that the movie stopped dickensian because it's

[42:13] set in olden times uh i mean a different olden times than the one dickens was set into dickens

[42:18] 1927 was the far future a fantastical era of fantastic beasts and grindelwalds and wars

[42:24] between magic users uh can you mention if they found i wonder if they found like an old charles

[42:29] dickens manuscript that was about a wizard that thing would sell like hotcakes right that would

[42:33] be a huge hit i guess what i'm saying is or like a like a dickens thing that's like uh like a ya

[42:39] story about vampires and werewolves i mean he never he never finished the mystery of edwin

[42:44] maybe a bunch of wizards came in at the end maybe that was his plan i mean maybe luke skywalker

[42:48] jumped in at the end who knows we could throw whatever we want in that book that's awesome

[42:52] but like he's fucking awesome this time and he like battles and shit instead of being a wimp

[42:57] Yeah. Oh, that would be so funny if the mystery of Edwin Drood was supposed to end with all the characters from his previous book coming back in a shared Dickens verse.

[43:05] And so it's just like a lot of like, how am I going to stop him?

[43:08] And then Pip shows up. You have my you have my strong right hand.

[43:12] And then like and like David Copperfield shows up and he's like, let's feel this copper.

[43:18] And they all have their catchphrases, you know, Oliver Twist, who, of course, can twist like like plastic or rubber.

[43:24] He has that power. He comes into. Yeah.

[43:26] Yeah, and they have to go to the future to prevent Alan Moore from writing a story about them.

[43:30] And making them have sex for some reason.

[43:33] Alan Moore's going to make us all have sex in weird ways.

[43:36] We've got to stop him.

[43:37] Or normal ways.

[43:39] It depends.

[43:39] Yeah, I mean, if it's Alan Moore, it's probably going to be pretty weird.

[43:44] But, okay, maybe, you know what?

[43:48] Maybe there's no weird way to have sex.

[43:49] Hey, Dan?

[43:51] Elliot's coming to an important life lesson.

[43:53] I mean, I've certainly tried all the ways I could, and none of them seem that weird to me.

[43:58] I mean, that seems like a failure of your imagination.

[44:01] Oh, yeah?

[44:02] How many times have you done it between two big slices of bread like you were part of a sandwich?

[44:06] You're right.

[44:07] Checkmate, Dan.

[44:10] Creedence and Nagini.

[44:13] Oh, so anyway, because this movie is about to stop being about Newt and start being about the family of Leta Lestrange, which we'll get to.

[44:21] So Credence and Nagini, they find this old servant who was working for his mother who gave him up for adoption, and then they're attacked by Grimson.

[44:28] Credence fights back by becoming an angry smoke monster.

[44:31] Stuart, now that I know that he has this kind of dark side to him that makes more sense to me.

[44:35] And he just makes – he makes them –

[44:37] That scene's a mess.

[44:38] He's just hurling the room at Grimson over and over again, and then Grimson just leaves.

[44:42] And this would be cooler, I think, if it was clearer what was going on.

[44:47] Like, again, it's pretty fuzzy action.

[44:48] I think the whole movie would follow that rule.

[44:52] That's true.

[44:53] Hey, filmmakers, your movies are more exciting when it's clear what's going on.

[44:58] That's why no one goes, hey, that thrill ride last year at Marion Bad, it's a roller coaster.

[45:03] I guess I'm trying to say that I feel like the action scenes are particularly poorly choreographed and unclear.

[45:09] yeah yeah and i think the idea of like a room exploding and then like the shards being thrown

[45:14] over and over again at like an impenetrable bubble like trying to crash into is like

[45:19] neat and kind of scary but it's it's hard to figure out what's going on for a while yeah i mean

[45:25] most almost all action scenes are better when it's defined like there's a little more rules

[45:32] definition and knowing what the stakes are and knowing what's going on uh that's why i like

[45:38] you know all the like good martial arts movies are the same way yeah yeah exactly yeah uh so we

[45:46] find out grimson is working for grindelwald and i guess he attacked in order to have the same

[45:53] first part of their name yeah all the grids work together they're uh the grindelwald grimson

[46:00] grimace grimace is there too right he's one of the bad guys yeah uh it's it's unclear what it's

[46:07] like is grimson supposed to be making credence distrust the ministries by attacking him so that

[46:13] he'll go into the hands of grindelwald like how does grimson fit into grindelwald's plan

[46:17] it's it's a very elaborate way i think to keep uh keep him searching for answers about his

[46:26] background i guess so i mean as it turns out that that the maid or the servant that he was

[46:31] interviewing it turns out they were talking about different babies the entire time anyway as the

[46:36] movie goes so yeah spoiler so the whole thing was a spoiler for later in the movie but you're

[46:41] like spoiler alert for the movie we're describing in detail right now in case you're gonna listen

[46:46] to this and go watch grindelwald you don't want to know what happens uh so uh jacob and newt they

[46:50] find that guy that tina met and he goes i'll take you to her and he imprisons them in a dungeon

[46:54] so he can go kill credence but then he drops unconscious and picket the little plant man

[46:59] opens the gate so it's one of those moments where you're like why did any of this just happen hold

[47:02] on a second yeah they were trapped by two seconds the guy who was gonna go kill credence yeah i was

[47:07] like oh they're gonna have to break out and catch him and stop him no he literally just drops it's

[47:12] i thought dead for no reason uh and uh was that because he had like a parasite in him i couldn't

[47:18] figure this out yeah we find out later i think they had to they had to have a way for uh newt's

[47:22] commander to save the day again and that's by pulling uh strings out of a guy's eyeball yeah

[47:27] he pulls a little worm leech out of the guy's eyeball with a pair of tweezers in the only real

[47:31] body horror moment in the movie uh you're disappointed regretful you're like i thought

[47:37] this was a cronenberg film yeah grindelwald cronenberg they're pretty pretty similar yeah

[47:42] it's like wouldn't the wands be better if they were fleshy and twitchy i mean where are the weird

[47:48] gynecological instruments guys i agree with all of what you're saying right now every i i can never

[47:54] get over the fact that the movies are supposed to the wizard's supposed to be kind of tough and

[47:57] posing but they all do their magic by holding out tiny sticks that get so they're always like

[48:03] aha and they bring out that tiny stick and every time it's like hilarious looking to me

[48:07] uh so it's it's like uh if if it was like i'm a i'm a like if the punisher you had a gun that

[48:15] shot noodles basically like that's what it feels like to me and he's like i'm gonna punish you

[48:19] by hitting you 50 times the wet noodle and he's just shooting noodles at people uh so newt tames

[48:24] that lion serpent beast

[48:25] that escaped from the circus

[48:26] and stuffs it in his suitcase.

[48:28] Hey, is that lion serpent?

[48:30] I kind of like that fantastic beast.

[48:32] It's a cool, fantastic beast.

[48:34] It is genuinely fantastic.

[48:35] And I bet you like it

[48:37] because it acts like a cat.

[48:38] Yeah.

[48:39] Whereas for you,

[48:40] that signals a thing

[48:42] that will give you

[48:44] way too much attention

[48:44] and you are allergic to.

[48:46] Exactly.

[48:46] It would love me

[48:47] and I'd be sneezing the whole time.

[48:48] Oh, forget about it.

[48:49] Finally, we go to where

[48:50] we always want to go.

[48:51] Hogwarts.

[48:52] Just like your wife.

[48:52] Wait, what?

[48:54] Just like your wife.

[48:54] She loves you, but unfortunately, she makes you sneeze constantly.

[48:59] Well, only because she uses a pepper-based deodorant.

[49:03] Yeah, this is another one of those scenes.

[49:07] While I like this fantastic beast, they were like right at the end of one scene, and they

[49:12] hear a roar, and he's like, oh, that must be the monster.

[49:15] And then all of a sudden, they're just in the street, and people are like freaking out

[49:18] because a monster's breaking through.

[49:19] Yeah, here's something that I want to ask.

[49:22] It's like the movie is like – the movie knows that Newt has no idea what he's doing.

[49:26] So the movie is like let's just keep throwing things at him.

[49:28] We'll just keep things going.

[49:29] Here's the thing that I was unclear on.

[49:31] Yeah.

[49:31] So like much of the first movie is concerned with how they have to keep magic a secret from the muggles.

[49:37] Constantly in this movie, big things are happening out – like magic things are happening in the world and no one seems to be concerned.

[49:44] And I'm like are there just wizards around or like normal people seeing this?

[49:47] I don't know what's happening.

[49:48] I wasn't sure what things were happening in real Paris

[49:51] and what things were happening in magic Paris

[49:53] that you get to by walking through a statue's pedestal.

[49:55] So like some of that-

[49:57] Is it like walking through the portal

[49:59] in City in the City by China Mieville?

[50:01] Yeah, exactly.

[50:01] That's probably what they were thinking about

[50:03] when they made it.

[50:03] Like an Eastern European city

[50:05] sharing the same dimensional space

[50:07] as a Western European city-ish,

[50:09] but they cross over in some weird places

[50:13] and you can see kind of silhouettes of the other city.

[50:15] It's really great.

[50:16] It's a great story.

[50:16] What kind of beasts are in it?

[50:17] And are they fantastic?

[50:18] Well, I mean, the beasts are humans because they act terrible to each other.

[50:23] And it's all about a murder.

[50:25] Okay.

[50:26] But you're right, Dan.

[50:27] It's like, well, it's kind of a, I mean, to be honest, I don't understand why the wizards need to keep themselves a secret.

[50:33] Why do they, are they like.

[50:35] Because humans can't know that gods walk amongst them.

[50:39] I have no idea.

[50:41] Oh, wow, that's Grindelwald talk.

[50:42] But also the world would be so much easier to understand if wizards were like, hey, we're around. Magic exists. This is how we use it. Some people can. Some people can't. That's just the way – you know what? All the religions that everybody has been fighting wars over for thousands of years, let's just settle that right now. Magic exists and this is how it works.

[51:02] So now you know what to believe in. It's like the same way that like any movie, and it's because it's for like budget reasons, I guess, or to set it in the real world, but any movie where there's like vampires or werewolves or monsters and they're like, we must keep ourselves a secret for the humans will never understand. It's like, well, why don't you explain it to them? And then maybe they'd understand it.

[51:22] Well, that's kind of what, in a way, what Marvel traded on with the end of the first Iron Man movie to have Iron Man just reveal that he's Iron Man.

[51:32] Yeah.

[51:32] Because you're so trained by all other genre media to be like, oh, they have to keep this shit secret.

[51:38] Yeah.

[51:38] What a great moment.

[51:40] When you were in the theater when you first saw that.

[51:43] Oh, yeah.

[51:43] Come on.

[51:43] It was wonderful.

[51:44] And you were like, what?

[51:45] Huh?

[51:45] Yep.

[51:47] And then he slipped on his sunglasses and it went, wow.

[51:52] C.S.I. Miami.

[51:53] And I'm just lucky that there wasn't popcorn in my popcorn bucket because it just flew up in the air.

[52:00] I was so excited.

[52:01] From your erection?

[52:01] Well, my erection, which had long gone placid after I'd eaten all the popcorn and it just sat there unused for like an hour and a half.

[52:12] Wait, so unused, so like, had you prepared an erection just in case you might find a use for it?

[52:21] And then you were like...

[52:22] No, I went there with a date, but my date left early on in the movie because she had already seen Iron Man and didn't want to watch it again for some reason.

[52:29] I mean, I've watched that multiple times in a row.

[52:31] Yeah.

[52:32] All right.

[52:34] Let's get off this.

[52:35] We go to Hogwarts.

[52:36] Get off Stewart's election.

[52:37] And the ministry busts in, and they're like, Dumbledore, we need you to fight Grindelwald.

[52:42] And he goes, I can't.

[52:43] I just can't.

[52:44] And he gets put under house magic arrest.

[52:47] They put magic cuffs on him.

[52:48] And while they're there, we enter the longest flashback sequence that I was not expecting where Leta Lestrange, who I assume is there because she has a job to do.

[52:58] She's just wandering around and she looks at some old desks and remembers being a student there and how she was very lonely and made a boy's mouth disappear with a spell.

[53:06] And then she bonded with young Scamander while he was taking care of a baby raven.

[53:09] and and i was like okay flashback over no the flashback continues because then later in class

[53:15] dumbledore has them confronting their greatest fear in front of everybody which seems like a

[53:21] real yeah which is a bot they're confining a boggart which is like a creature that manifests

[53:25] itself as your okay it seems like something that's in the in i think it was introduced in

[53:30] what prisoner of azkaban i'm not uh as big a pothead but uh yeah i'm a huge pothead um but

[53:36] like it is it is weird to watch it like imagine being with a group of other like teenagers or

[53:43] pre-teenagers and have to confront the thing you're most frightened of i mean i'm assuming

[53:47] they would all be like either other kids laughing at you or something that you would much rather not

[53:52] people see yeah it seems like a huge like break of you know the confidentiality you should have

[53:59] as a human being to be like everybody let's see what everybody's greatest fear is unless this is

[54:04] like one of those acting classes where they're like look if you're going to really act you have

[54:08] to be emotionally naked before the audience so first let's be emotionally naked before the class

[54:12] and physically take off your clothes everybody and then the police come in and go we're shutting

[54:17] down this acting class this is not okay okay where are the hidden cameras what hidden cameras there

[54:23] there there and all the all the students are like putting their clothes back on and they're like

[54:27] this is ridiculous meisner method so yeah we see lita's uh lita's greatest fear is uh i guess a

[54:36] baby wrapped in a sheet yeah well you don't quite see what it is yet you just know it looks human

[54:41] you just know that yeah but it looks like like a human shaped like cloth kind of fluttering around

[54:47] so i thought she was afraid of cirque de soleil is what i got yeah yeah and newt's greatest fear

[54:52] is working in an office and so he turns a desk into a dragon and dumbledore is like excellent

[54:56] excellent how droll wonderful it's it's like i get it okay fine um uh and so the flashback is

[55:05] finally over in the present uh dumbledore shows up and they both talk about how they've lost people

[55:09] in their lives but she's all hey you don't know the real me and i they do not become friends uh

[55:15] queenie meets grindelwald nothing much happens after that okay and then i mean he explained like

[55:22] so her drive is that she wants to be able to marry a non-wizard yeah so he kind of plays on that

[55:28] he's like he clearly sees that she's like an anakin skywalker and he's like

[55:32] has anyone ever told you the story of darth plagius yeah i didn't quite get this though

[55:39] because Grindelwald's whole thing

[55:41] is the superiority of the wizard race,

[55:45] but somehow he plays on Queenie being like,

[55:48] under me, you'll be able to marry your muggle boyfriend.

[55:50] And it's just like, well, that doesn't follow at all.

[55:53] I mean, he's supposed to be very convincing.

[55:55] I mean, that's the one thing they mentioned about him

[55:58] at the beginning.

[55:59] No, I know.

[55:59] It just seemed like a weird...

[56:02] It's a stretch.

[56:03] I would understand it much more

[56:05] if it was just clear that he put a spell on her or something.

[56:08] I mean, what could have made, I mean, they could have started, maybe put that Screamin' Jay Hawkins song on.

[56:13] I put a spell on you and she's like, oh, I get it.

[56:15] Okay.

[56:15] But I think.

[56:17] They're either making her, they're either making him like so powerful at convincing people of stuff or they're just making her an evil bad person.

[56:27] Yeah.

[56:28] I mean, the thing is, Queenie does not strike me, and this is not to cast aspersions on her, she's not the brightest bulb in the bunch.

[56:34] And so I don't think she is so adept at poking holes in ideological inconsistencies.

[56:40] She needs to debate.

[56:43] So you're saying that the Force exerts power on weak minds.

[56:46] Exactly.

[56:46] Thank you.

[56:47] Yes.

[56:48] It's all Star Wars in the end.

[56:49] But then we come to maybe my favorite part of the movie, for the wrong reasons, where Dumbledore stands in front of a magic mirror and remembers his relationship with Grindelwald when they were young.

[56:58] And it's shot like the Total Eclipse of the Heart music video.

[57:01] There's a lot of it.

[57:02] And it's like, I'm like, oh, you could so easily remove this section and just put an 80s nostalgia lost love ballad over it, and it would look exactly the same.

[57:11] Where he's walking through a loft apartment that has a lot of blowing curtains.

[57:16] Exactly.

[57:17] But also, I feel like in this sequence, I felt like, all right, we all know that Dumbledore's gay at this point.

[57:24] It's been widely reported that J.K. Rowling was like, okay, canonically, Dumbledore's gay.

[57:29] But the movie seems scared of, like, explicitly being like, hey, he and Cremble Wand, like, had a relationship together.

[57:38] I feel like they're kind of saving it for the third movie.

[57:43] Could be.

[57:43] Like, they want to make that into a big reveal, and it, A, shouldn't be a big reveal, and B, like, it's already been revealed.

[57:49] People know.

[57:50] Yeah.

[57:50] I mean, didn't she say that they had an intense sexual relationship?

[57:53] Yes, but that was, like, off to the side.

[57:56] It's not in the fucking movie.

[57:57] something about how like seems like the movie's scared of it i don't know she also said something

[58:00] about how like the reason he didn't stop voldemort is because he was like romantically attracted to

[58:07] him or something and i'm like he was like a kid right like that's fucked up well it's also it's

[58:12] all the worst she's playing into all the worst stereotypes of the people who didn't want gay

[58:16] people to fight in the military where they were like how are they going to be able to shoot the

[58:20] enemy soldiers when they're so attracted to them which was like we want them to kill not to kiss

[58:26] like for for the idea that dumbledore is always like well i'm the most powerful wizard in the

[58:30] world i guess i'll stop this bad guy hello sailor well well dumb be like well how about a taste of

[58:39] his wand oh too bad oh naughty like i basically just turned him into like a british sitcoms idea

[58:46] of a gay person but it feels like in the village type thing yeah the idea that the idea that he's

[58:53] He's he's totally disarmed. And it's although it's such an old trope. Now I'm turning on and now I'm now I'm disagreeing with myself. It's such an old trope to have like the seductress queen, like a Morgan Le Fay type who can who can bend men to her will because she's so alluring.

[59:08] Maybe J.K. Rowling is just positing that, that these are like – this is just a non-heterosexual normative way of having these villains who are like so powerfully attractive that they disarm the hero.

[59:22] Except when it's Johnny Depp and he looks like an old Mr. Whipple who like got – who stumbled into a punk barber shop and got his hair done and he's like, oh, how will the wife think about this?

[59:34] Like maybe it doesn't work quite the same way.

[59:36] Yeah, he's like a skinny Julian Assange with cataracts.

[59:39] Also, they were kids at the same time, I guess,

[59:42] but Dumbledore has aged so much better than Grindelwald.

[59:44] Maybe that's just good, clean living.

[59:46] Yeah, yeah.

[59:47] I don't know.

[59:49] But anyway, so anyway, they have that great music video love affair.

[59:53] But they're doing like a blood brother thing, which is important.

[1:00:00] Yes.

[1:00:00] Yeah, their blood, like, flies up into the air

[1:00:03] and then magically turns into

[1:00:05] a little locket, which

[1:00:07] I don't know. I feel like so much of this

[1:00:09] for a movie that doesn't... And then Angelina Jolie

[1:00:11] comes out and puts it around her neck.

[1:00:13] She's like, another one for my collection.

[1:00:15] But there's so much of the movie

[1:00:19] feels like it's stuffed

[1:00:21] with characters, but it doesn't give any character

[1:00:23] actually a full arc.

[1:00:25] But anytime there's an opportunity

[1:00:27] to have both

[1:00:29] characters and the audience

[1:00:30] gasp in awe at special

[1:00:33] effects it seems to take it like oh yeah everybody seems so interested in watching a fucking feather

[1:00:39] fly around i mean uh the best picture winning movie was about that it's called forest gum

[1:00:45] uh-huh yeah you're right uh but uh so newt pulls that worm out of that guy's eye and then tina

[1:00:51] because for no reason she's just like well you've got it all in hand i'm gonna leave now like it's

[1:00:56] just because they need them to leave the room basically uh newt goes after tina and she says

[1:01:02] i know you hate aurors and he goes no i think you're a good auror and they see magic black

[1:01:06] drapes flying around everywhere and tina goes grindelwald is calling his followers and everyone's

[1:01:12] kind of laid back about it no one seems that worried that grindelwald is sending out this

[1:01:15] huge message why is he doing it now i don't know but grindelwald has found credence and rather than

[1:01:21] it's this this movie is like edging us constantly because the because grindelwald is like

[1:01:27] credence is like tell me about my true identity and grindelwald goes no but here's a map to a

[1:01:32] tomb where you'll find the information and i'll meet you there tonight and it's like dude you're

[1:01:36] right there like just tell him already another fetch quest like first you need to go to the

[1:01:42] cemetery in paris to find a pokemon go that's over there and once you capture charizard i'll reveal

[1:01:50] myself to you oh wow he's gonna be fast with those balls uh so uh jacob meanwhile he loses

[1:01:59] he loses the other guy the guy who was trying to kill credence and meets an elderly alchemist

[1:02:04] named flammel who i guess is a is referenced in the harry potter books or what yeah he's the

[1:02:08] alchemist who made the philosopher's stone uh from the first uh from the first harry potter book and

[1:02:14] this character he is such a tom bombadil type he's just kind of like hops around being like an

[1:02:19] eccentric goof and uh and he shows jacob he looks like a land here yeah it looks like miracle max

[1:02:25] from uh he's dread knowledge dan what were you saying oh he looks like miracle max from princess

[1:02:32] bride yeah he does i was like there was part of me that was like oh okay so if robin williams was

[1:02:36] alive he would have played this character like that yeah he's very much that guy uh and i know

[1:02:41] miracle max was played by billy crystal it's the same type of character they do the same stuff okay

[1:02:44] uh so they look in that in the palantir and they and he shows jacob that queenie is going to be at

[1:02:50] the cemetery jacob's like that's all i need to know and then and uh flammel is like no no but

[1:02:55] just like a palantir it leads it can lead you astray like denethor and saruman were both led

[1:03:01] astray uh yeah so it's the words right out of my mouth uh and uh but then it shows that there's

[1:03:07] going to be that bad stuff is going to happen because because uh grindelwald is going to hold

[1:03:12] a rally in the cemetery uh and then imagine we basically see like a sped up version of the end

[1:03:17] the movie kind of and then flammel takes down a magic book and the magic book talks to him and

[1:03:22] says you've got to go deal with this and it's like why didn't why do we have to see any of this why

[1:03:26] didn't he just go also i feel like you're you're doing that magic book uh a disservice by not

[1:03:32] mentioning the person in that magic book that talks to him is both of your former co-worker

[1:03:37] jessica williams oh you know what i did not even recognize her here's the thing uh what's the last

[1:03:43] place i expected to see jessica pop up inside a magic book and a fantastic beast movie yes

[1:03:47] but also fancy fancy seeing you here but i know she's also friends with jk rowling because i think

[1:03:53] they share a birthday oh cool so uh yeah maybe jessica's the one who's uh giving her all these

[1:04:00] great ideas i would never know jessica's way too smart to do that uh no but maybe she's doing it

[1:04:05] It was like a funny game thing.

[1:04:08] She's been pranking J.K. all these years.

[1:04:12] Years later, she's going to be like, J.K., those were all terrible ideas.

[1:04:15] I kept fucking with you.

[1:04:18] I kept expecting you to catch on.

[1:04:19] Sometimes your friends don't give you the best advice and things.

[1:04:23] She's like, J.K., this time I was the one, J.K., just kidding.

[1:04:28] You shouldn't have done any of that stuff.

[1:04:31] I imagine the whole time she's like, okay, next you should have these characters.

[1:04:35] You should have – Newt should be the hero of the movie, but he shouldn't really do very much and instead spend a lot of time on this other character's parentage.

[1:04:42] And J.K. Rowling will be like, I wrote the best-selling book series in the history of books, but okay, I'll take your advice.

[1:04:47] It doesn't sound like good storytelling to me, but okay.

[1:04:50] Anyway, so I feel bad I didn't see that it was Jessica.

[1:04:54] Anyway, Newt disguises himself as Theseus, his brother, to get into the ministry.

[1:04:58] That disguise disappears almost instantly, and they want to get Credence's records.

[1:05:04] Theseus seems to think that Credence is Leta's lost brother, and his boss tells Theseus to arrest everyone at the rally, and Theseus is like, no, if we push too hard, it'll just push more people into Grindelwald's hands, and they're like, forget about it.

[1:05:18] And Theseus almost stops Tina and Newt, but Tina casts a spell that ties him to a chair, much like Dana gets grabbed to that chair with the arms in Ghostbusters, but then Theseus, I guess, frees himself between scenes, because later we just see him and he seems fine.

[1:05:34] uh and then it cut to it's night at the same unlike unlike dana and ghostbusters who is not

[1:05:40] not definitely not fine she is not fine she gets taken over by uh is it the gatekeeper yeah because

[1:05:45] she's waiting for the key master uh and and so man which i did not realize was a dirty joke until

[1:05:51] i was an adult and then i was like weird what's the dirty joke it's nothing i'll explain sex to

[1:05:58] I mean, it's halfway a dirty joke and halfway, like, a real magic thing.

[1:06:03] Yeah.

[1:06:03] I mean, it's more of a dirty joke in that Madonna song where she talks about,

[1:06:08] open your heart to me, I have the lock and you turn the key.

[1:06:11] Yeah.

[1:06:12] Which always made me think.

[1:06:13] And it made me think that she was.

[1:06:17] Stuart just became a man.

[1:06:18] Now, the thing is.

[1:06:20] He was never bar mitzvahed, so it had to happen sometime.

[1:06:23] I was doing an impression of J.K. Rowling when Jessica Williams explains the J.K. just kidding thing.

[1:06:29] J.K. Rowling's like, that's what that means.

[1:06:32] All this time I've discovered my true parentage.

[1:06:35] So when she says, now maybe I'm doing sex wrong, but I don't usually do a lot of turning.

[1:06:41] So when she says, you turn the key.

[1:06:44] No, you're supposed to rotate.

[1:06:45] Like how do I do, like skitter around like a spider?

[1:06:49] But I don't understand.

[1:06:50] Well, that's what a lazy Susan is for.

[1:06:53] oh so it's susan who's supposed to do the turning all right okay very complicated you know guys

[1:07:00] there's no weird way to do it it turns out uh so uh and so then there's a scene that is so

[1:07:07] inexplicable where jacob is in this tomb that everyone seems to go to without seeing each other

[1:07:11] and someone with a wand is like hey stop right there and i don't think we ever find out who

[1:07:17] that person was with the wands because it doesn't match up with any of the scenes that occur later

[1:07:21] like yeah it's yeah it's crazy and it's which he disappears and then reappears later i mean i guess

[1:07:27] magic exists but it's if ever there was a scene where the movie would have been made better it

[1:07:33] too if you excised that moment and no one would have noticed i was just so baffled by it uh but

[1:07:38] anyway newt in the ministry in the records room which they get into amazingly easily they go up

[1:07:43] to the the old lady who runs the records room who's essentially the same old lady who runs the

[1:07:47] archives at the jedi academy in the star wars prequels and they're like yeah we're here to find

[1:07:51] the records for lita lestrange i'm lita and this is my uh fiance you'd think that what you think

[1:07:56] that theseus's co-worker and lita's co-worker would maybe recognize them and know they're

[1:08:01] engaged but instead and she doesn't even ask them for id she's just like in the back and i was like

[1:08:06] not a lot of security at this magic archive that has all these magic secrets in it come on it would

[1:08:11] have been great if it cut to her desk and a copy of the magazine that had the newton lita news on

[1:08:17] yeah because also they're all supposed to be famous right yeah yeah it's a small it's a small

[1:08:23] world this wizarding world i guess it's like uh she's but she's elderly and so i guess it's like

[1:08:29] when my grandmother's best friend a man named al who's a great guy he was he said to me what do

[1:08:34] you think owl no no his name is al owl like the bad guy in uh in sekiro shadows die twice no not

[1:08:41] at all no he said he said to me once he's you know he's a man in his in his late 70s now actually

[1:08:47] now he's in his 80s i guess he said to me okay get it right elliot it's very important he goes

[1:08:51] what do you think about this new music these days and i'm like well what do you mean he goes well i

[1:08:55] don't it sounds i don't like it at all i mean patty smith bruce springsteen and i was like oh

[1:08:59] you mean old music and i thought it was so funny that his his his frame of reference for new music

[1:09:08] was patty smith i was like oh you mean music from before i was born okay sure uh so maybe she's like

[1:09:14] that she's like i don't know these newfangled celebrity winner wizards i just remember the

[1:09:18] great wizards of the of the 1870s like edwin booth you know and people like that uh so anyway

[1:09:25] tesla uh newt kind of stumblingly romances tina they can't they have to find these records so

[1:09:32] they can find creatives there is no time to lose time for them to have a very stumbly halty

[1:09:37] conversation where they reveal that hey they're not in relationships and they do kind of like

[1:09:42] each other uh and it takes so long that you keep expecting it to be interrupted again because it's

[1:09:47] one of these scenes where like if newt just spits out from the beginning oh it's been a mistake this

[1:09:51] whole time i'm not engaged anyone you know scene over but he like dithers around and like he's like

[1:09:57] you're terribly pretty don't you know and like it's like just get to because you keep expecting

[1:10:04] like i don't know like wolves to come in and interrupt things well and so and while they're

[1:10:10] doing this they're taking so long with this that the real lita opens up the files because i guess

[1:10:14] she went in through the back door of the archives or maybe the woman at the front desk was like who

[1:10:19] are you i'm i'm lita lestrange oh you were just here a couple seconds ago why don't you go in and

[1:10:24] meet yourself like it's the uh or the old lady is like am i a grab am i in a groundhog's day right

[1:10:31] now the same person came by uh lita finds this note that says the family records were moved to

[1:10:36] her family tomb uh-oh uh but then they all have to run away because the the librarian finally

[1:10:42] realizes there's something afoot and brings over some demon guardian cats and yeah now did you

[1:10:46] expect when she walked out she walked out so seriously i expected her to like morph into

[1:10:52] another character that we already knew yeah i thought she was gonna be grindelwald or something

[1:10:55] she's just like a super serious archivist yeah i also want to say that like for people who like

[1:11:01] think that the casino planet thing in the last jedi is a waste of time this is the true waste

[1:11:06] of time this like going into the ministry and being like oh sorry mario your princess is in

[1:11:11] another castle it's like fuck you movie yeah i mean it basically exists this scene exists so that

[1:11:17] newt can can fight off the demon cats by bringing his lion beast out of the suitcase so and the lion

[1:11:24] beast only exists so he can fight off the demon cats here so if you remove this archive section

[1:11:28] you can also remove the lion beast which means you can also remove the circus which means you

[1:11:33] can make the movie a lot clearer and simpler and faster yeah so i guess what i'm saying dan is

[1:11:37] you're wrong they needed to junk this thing up with a lot of junk

[1:11:40] this movie is it's just like a sack labeled story that they're just shoveling things into

[1:11:46] uh yeah so uh they go right over to the tomb right yes everyone meets up at the pit stops

[1:11:55] they just go to the tomb they go well uh they all they all get eventually all get to the

[1:11:59] a strange family tomb and this tomb everyone walks into the same room that shows the same statue and

[1:12:05] yet none of them seem to see each other when they walk into this one room they just kind of they

[1:12:09] only notice that they're also in this room when they have to notice them and i'm like okay so is

[1:12:14] this a magic room like how come nobody's notice it's like the stateroom scene in night at the

[1:12:19] opera if nobody noticed all the other people were in the room with them i'm like i don't understand

[1:12:23] what's going on in this room this movie it's if you if you're not on camera at that moment then

[1:12:28] nobody in the movie can see you it's i don't get it now i want to say before you explain this next

[1:12:32] scene this is for me this was the most angry making scene in a picture full of angry making

[1:12:39] scenes and i'll explain after you explain it but i just want to so this is the audience this is the

[1:12:43] double revelation scene yes okay so so they go there and parasite guy explains to everybody

[1:12:49] that yusef uh comma i think is his name is that senegalese pure blood wizard okay he tells them

[1:12:55] how when he was growing up his uh lisa lita's dad used magic to seduce his mom away and so that

[1:13:04] means that she's also lita's mom so that and uh so lita and this guy are half siblings which they

[1:13:11] don't seem to care about nor mention ever again and parasite guy says when and then lita's slash

[1:13:18] paris and slash lucef's mom died in childbirth when lita was born and it drove his father his

[1:13:22] real father mad so his dad on his deathbed swore yusef to get revenge and so kill whatever the

[1:13:28] elder lestrange loves the most and he goes but he never loved he never loved you lita and so the

[1:13:34] only thing he he never felt love until his son corvus was born when he married again and so

[1:13:40] parasite man goes credence is actually corvus the brother of lita lestrange who was sent to america

[1:13:48] so that I couldn't get at him for revenge.

[1:13:50] So that's why I'm trying to kill Credence.

[1:13:52] Movie explains.

[1:13:53] That seems crazy.

[1:13:55] If he loves his kid the most,

[1:13:57] why doesn't he just go, like,

[1:13:59] it's already been proven that Mr. Lestrange

[1:14:02] doesn't have a problem using magic on people.

[1:14:04] Why doesn't he just go smoke this dude

[1:14:06] who's going to come kill his kid?

[1:14:07] I don't know, well, because...

[1:14:09] I guess that just perpetuates the cycle

[1:14:10] of revenge and violence.

[1:14:11] I've seen a lot of movies.

[1:14:13] Exactly.

[1:14:13] Go on, Elliot.

[1:14:14] Because now it's not...

[1:14:16] After we've seen this,

[1:14:17] which takes five minutes to explain or something like that.

[1:14:19] Maybe it's only three minutes.

[1:14:20] Leta steps in and says, no, no, no, but I already killed Corvus when he was a baby.

[1:14:25] She then opens up a magic family tree box and explains that she was on the ship to America

[1:14:31] with the servant lady and baby Corvus, and Corvus kept crying,

[1:14:35] and she just wanted to get away from this crying baby.

[1:14:37] So instead of leaving the room, she swaps Corvus with another baby in another place,

[1:14:42] and then when the ship sinks, because that's why they had to escape,

[1:14:46] The servant takes this replacement baby, and Leta sees the real baby Corvus sinking into the water, drowning, wrapped in sheets.

[1:14:53] Now, she can't really see it because she's in a boat.

[1:14:55] She can't see it underwater.

[1:14:56] That's what's crazy about it is that she can see underwater all of a sudden.

[1:14:59] I thought she swam after.

[1:15:00] I thought she tried to get it.

[1:15:02] No, that was the mother of the other baby.

[1:15:05] But I guess it's like how in Saving Private Ryan, Matt Damon as an old man flashes back to what Tom Hanks saw on D-Day.

[1:15:13] You know, like maybe you can just see, you know, if you put yourself in someone else's shoes and walk a mile in their moccasins, then you can see what they see.

[1:15:21] That's kind of what Tom Hanks brings to the movie experience, though.

[1:15:25] He's kind of like an everyman, you know, that you can really identify with.

[1:15:27] Hey, at this point, he's no longer an everyman.

[1:15:29] As I've said many times, I don't know if I said it on the Flophouse, there is no greater honor that America can bestow on a hero than to have Tom Hanks play you in a movie, just as there is no greater shame than to have Al Pacino play you in a made-for-HBO movie.

[1:15:42] And that's why Tom Hanks plays Sully, Captain Phillips, Mr. Rogers, and Al Pacino plays Paterno and Phil Spector.

[1:15:51] Now, I want to say, so Credence is back to not knowing where he comes from.

[1:15:59] And actually, you know what?

[1:16:00] Wait, here, hold on.

[1:16:02] Sorry, go on.

[1:16:03] The water is so easy to see through, even though it's nighttime.

[1:16:05] I guess there's so much light from the ship.

[1:16:07] And Credence, who we thought was killed as a—we thought this baby was killed as a baby, is still alive, obviously.

[1:16:14] So isn't this the real Credence Clearwater revival?

[1:16:17] Oh, boy.

[1:16:18] Oh, no.

[1:16:19] Was that walk in the park long enough?

[1:16:20] I want to be angry at that, but I can't.

[1:16:22] That's a true fan Easter egg that J.K. Rowling's smoking to yourself.

[1:16:25] Was the dog in that story shaggy enough for you?

[1:16:28] Okay, and so, Dan, just to tie it up, so her fear from earlier was her fear of having killed her baby brother.

[1:16:35] Dan, explain.

[1:16:36] Why would this bother you?

[1:16:38] So this sequence makes me so angry because it stops the film cold for, like, Parasite Guy,

[1:16:46] a guy that we barely know or care about, takes a long time to explain his genealogy,

[1:16:51] introducing characters we've never seen before in this movie.

[1:16:54] And we'll never see again.

[1:16:55] And never see again.

[1:16:56] Takes a long time to explain.

[1:16:58] And then at the end, the movie goes, psych, that wasn't who you thought it was.

[1:17:02] It was this other guy, this other kid, this other baby.

[1:17:05] And so in this scene, there's at least like three characters who are just standing around that are like, why am I here?

[1:17:11] I guess I'm here to support this other person who's having these revelations.

[1:17:14] Including really boring.

[1:17:16] Standing around includes Newt, the hero of the movie, and not there at all is Grindelwald, the villain of the movie.

[1:17:22] So it's just supporting character theater, like it's just side character playhouse, you know.

[1:17:27] And I think Jacob is somewhere in this scene, but I can't tell because in the next scene when they find the hidden door that leads to the amphitheater underneath the tomb, Jacob's the first one walking through it.

[1:17:40] And I'm like, where was he this whole time?

[1:17:42] I guess he dealt with the wand of the head situation.

[1:17:47] Yeah, the wand, I guess, was like, Jacobus, disappear-o, and there's something like that.

[1:17:51] So this is the kind of thing, again, if this was a novel, like if this was a Dickens novel.

[1:17:57] i would be like okay he's gonna dump a whole new dickens was like making it up as he went along

[1:18:02] he liked to introduce characters and then suddenly have like big reveals or like

[1:18:05] go aside and kind of breathe life into a side character all of a sudden like he would really

[1:18:10] pull it off but in a movie it just was like it does not work that great for the action to stop

[1:18:15] so that some characters could talk about it's also the idea that you're gonna reveal something

[1:18:20] and then immediately dispel it it's like no pun intended that uh if they had done that what they

[1:18:26] should have done is earlier in the movie have yusef explain his backstory and then we're like

[1:18:30] oh okay that's who credence is and then later in the movie lita can reveal it and it'll be a twist

[1:18:35] but it's weird to have a twist right after the last twist it's like if you were watching a murder

[1:18:40] mystery and the detective was like it was you you did it the butler and the butler's like yeah oh

[1:18:46] no and then suddenly the cook goes no it was me the audience would be like what i was gonna i was

[1:18:51] gonna say this later but i'll say it now like the last 30 minutes of this movie or so i found the

[1:18:55] most engaging and i think that that's because by that point most of the mysteries have been solved

[1:19:00] and it's just a straightforward story and i think that jk rowling like she does this in a lot of the

[1:19:04] books and it works better in the books but she likes to withhold a lot of things and have like

[1:19:08] a mystery but here it's just like i don't want the like it's just you're piling mystery on mystery

[1:19:13] on mystery it's obfuscating like what the storyline is like i just want to watch a story

[1:19:18] yeah you know and understand what's happening and the mystery seems so that the basic conflict of

[1:19:23] the story we're led to believe is grindelwald is a bad wizard who wants to lead an army of wizards

[1:19:28] to take over the world and yet yeah and i guess the point of the movie is to have is that play

[1:19:34] between which of these characters that we get to know are going to side with grindelwald and who

[1:19:39] will not but we we almost see no no character actually spends that much time thinking about

[1:19:47] this like the uh that question yes yeah like the we get to a point where grendel wald is doing his

[1:19:54] big he does his big reveal and he basically asks all these characters if they want to join him or

[1:19:59] not and none of them at this point it's like oh like it's like a coin flip in almost every case

[1:20:06] except for credence who we know for sure he's going to join him because he has no reason not

[1:20:11] to yeah it's like and also the movie doesn't make any sense if there's no there's no reason for a

[1:20:15] sequel if credence doesn't join him it's like but it's like if captain america civil war iron man's

[1:20:20] like the government needs to control superheroes and captain america is like no and then suddenly

[1:20:25] like uh like the guardians of the galaxy show up and are like hey guys we've got an adventure in

[1:20:31] space you gotta come with us and they go they go out into space and meet the silver surfer and the

[1:20:35] silver surfers like let me tell you my backstory are we gonna see galactus in the movie no but

[1:20:40] i'll tell you about it okay well that was pretty crazy let's go back to earth and they go back to

[1:20:44] earth and captain america and iron man are like well now i guess we have to fight and that's the

[1:20:47] end of the movie like there's that's what this feels like like you have a movie with a very

[1:20:51] straightforward conflict like you're saying and then it the movie just stops okay so anyway so

[1:20:55] all the characters from the previous scene that we were just talking about all walk through a

[1:21:00] doorway and they're in a big amphitheater filled with wizards who are all there for a rally being

[1:21:06] held by grindelwald uh yeah like soaks up that he soaks up the applause for a little bit he's just

[1:21:11] loving it uh and it's one of those like things where all these wizards are uh are able to finally

[1:21:19] show off their true allegiance they've been hiding it in in public so they're able to show off their

[1:21:24] secret face uh which is also one of those monster face it's another moment where it was like so if

[1:21:31] the if the amphitheater was like right through that tomb was all were all the wizards listening

[1:21:36] to lita lestrange telling her story or like yeah yeah did they just not hear this huge room full

[1:21:41] of wizards when they were all in that other room like what i don't understand again magic it's like

[1:21:45] my wife tells me of this club she used to go to in uh in south brooklyn uh called the crazy country

[1:21:52] club and they would do a thing where uh they would mic up the bathrooms and sometimes when the dj

[1:22:00] would see like a couple of women go into the bathroom together he would like get the get the

[1:22:05] crowd to like quiet down and then he'd play the uh the the sound from the bathroom of the women

[1:22:10] like talking about what they're doing that night jesus uh it was crazy not okay you could ever do

[1:22:15] no it's obviously not okay but like maybe it was something like that where they're all like

[1:22:19] intently listening to these people and they're like oh my god what a big reveal maybe oh that's

[1:22:24] like uh that scene in mash where uh hot lips is showering yeah and they pull down the tent flaps

[1:22:30] where everyone sees her, and it's like, that's horrible, guys.

[1:22:34] Like, that's not adorable.

[1:22:37] Like, that's really terrible.

[1:22:38] So anyway, so Grindelwald, he comes out.

[1:22:43] Everyone finds each other in this big rally.

[1:22:45] Grindelwald gives a big speech while the ministry cops are moving in

[1:22:48] to try to get ready to arrest everybody.

[1:22:50] And Grindelwald is like, his speech is not that clear.

[1:22:53] He's like, we just love freedom and truth and love,

[1:22:56] and here's what the world will look like if wizards don't take over.

[1:22:59] And he shows them a bunch of scenes of World War II ending with a mushroom cloud.

[1:23:02] And it's like, see?

[1:23:04] And to be honest, I'm like, you know what?

[1:23:06] That's a pretty good argument for why somebody else should try running the world for a little bit.

[1:23:10] Like, if you could avert World War II.

[1:23:13] But then the magic cops show up.

[1:23:16] Yeah, it's like when I was watching Aquaman last weekend and King Orm's like, it's fucked up.

[1:23:22] The service dwellers are constantly polluting us.

[1:23:24] And I'm like, yeah, that is pretty fucked up.

[1:23:28] I mean, I don't know what they do with their fucking waste.

[1:23:31] Do they, like, throw it in a trench for the trench kingdom to deal with?

[1:23:34] Do they, like, magic it away to J.K. Rowling's house?

[1:23:38] It shows up, they magic it away, and it shows up in Dumbledore's pants,

[1:23:41] and then he magics it away.

[1:23:42] It's a really complicated cycle.

[1:23:47] I mean, whatever works.

[1:23:49] When he magics it, what it does is the spell automatically splits up his poop

[1:23:54] into tiny particles

[1:23:55] and then plants them in the bowels

[1:23:57] of random human beings throughout the world.

[1:23:59] And so the cycle of poop continues.

[1:24:01] Yeah.

[1:24:03] Share the wealth.

[1:24:04] Yeah.

[1:24:05] Redistribution of poop.

[1:24:07] That's what Bernie Sanders is all about, right?

[1:24:08] That's socialism, right?

[1:24:10] Okay.

[1:24:11] Dumbledore or Dumbledore reads the headline.

[1:24:14] In what, the Sanitation Times?

[1:24:17] Yeah.

[1:24:18] That'd be so funny if it's like,

[1:24:22] Dumbledore's been doing that all these years

[1:24:23] he thought all the other wizards were too but they weren't and so and so he's he's he's talking

[1:24:30] to like professor snape or whatever and snape's like well gotta go supernatural calls and he's

[1:24:37] like wait what are you using the toilet yeah what do you what do you not use the toilet no no i just

[1:24:42] poop in my pants and i magic it away and snape is like snape is like you know you're not gonna get

[1:24:47] all of it if you do that right like yeah that's crazy it's like a guy who always like stands up

[1:24:53] to wipe being like we all do that right like no most of us don't that one kid when you were in

[1:24:59] elementary or middle school who would stand a urinal with his pants all the way down at his

[1:25:03] ankles and be like yeah this is what we do come on but uh uh yeah there's names like but what about

[1:25:10] what about that time i had to borrow pants from you and he's like uh yeah what about it uh were

[1:25:17] you doing it then snape's like so do you just poop in the middle of staff meetings yeah all

[1:25:23] the time i thought everybody was wait are you pooping right now maybe all right enough poop

[1:25:31] okay enough poop talk time to get to this the opposite of poop the crimes of grindelwald uh

[1:25:36] so the magic cops come in there's a there's a brief scuffle and uh grindelwald sends his

[1:25:42] followers away and credence and queenie both join grindelwald and lita attacks grindelwald

[1:25:47] and gets killed i guess by like meg so this this is one of those moments where like if they they

[1:25:53] put a lot of time into lita's backstory for the bullshit stuff but they don't like and they make

[1:25:58] it seem like when she was in high school she was bullied but like if they had made some effort to

[1:26:04] make it seem like everybody suspected her as being like a grindelwald follower or maybe like

[1:26:09] long ago she was maybe a grindelwald follower it would make the moment where it's like oh shit is

[1:26:14] she gonna join him and then she's like no i love you guys and then she attacks and then immediately

[1:26:19] is killed yeah uh like they could have done something like not to play fucking monday

[1:26:24] morning wizard back or something but i mean that's that's i i guess i would be like the seeker that's

[1:26:31] the quarterback yeah quidditch uh sure uh i'll take your words for it uh and it's one of those

[1:26:38] things where like grindelwald is like we just want to take over the world we don't want to hurt

[1:26:43] anybody anyway here's a bunch of blue fire demons dragons that are just going to fly around and the

[1:26:47] alchemist shows up and goes put your wands to the ground or the dragons will eat paris and it's like

[1:26:52] whoa this escalated really fast and none of this is explained to me before oh you missed also queenie

[1:26:57] went over to grindelwald and queenie joins grindelwald and especially because she hates being

[1:27:02] called crazy and jacob she's like come on jacob will join and jacob's like no he's a bad guy and

[1:27:07] she goes no and he goes you're crazy and she leaves and joins and so now he's got credence

[1:27:12] she's like we should hear this guy talk he's got some really great ideas and then the whole time

[1:27:17] he's like yeah muggles are bad and dumb and uh they should work for us you know yeah uh so that

[1:27:24] doesn't make any sense i also like that right before grindelwald uh apparates or whatever it

[1:27:29] disappears uh he he says i hate paris that's the last line of grindelwald that was the best moment

[1:27:37] in the movie i think it was the only time grindelwald felt like a character or for that

[1:27:41] matter any of the characters felt like real characters was just this casual i hate paris

[1:27:45] and then he flies out and also you know he's truly evil because paris is an enchanting city

[1:27:50] it's magical it belongs to the world uh and it's a wonderful place so anyway these fire dragons are

[1:27:56] flying around the alchemist shows up to tell them basically how to stop them which turns out to be

[1:28:00] really easy you just point yeah you just point your wand at the ground and blow and that's pretty

[1:28:05] much it uh yeah and newt goes to meet dumbledore and dumbledore reveals that uh that's also how

[1:28:12] you can find water oh you have to you have to very important the platypus looking thing

[1:28:18] brings the niffler bling brings the uh the blood amulet to uh oh yeah it's to newt because the

[1:28:25] thing about these platypus things is they are drawn to uh shiny things and they collect them

[1:28:30] this was explained in the first movie so yeah so so the niffler steals that steals this shiny

[1:28:35] locket from uh grindelwald's body grindelwald the greatest evil wizard in the world does not notice

[1:28:41] that a platypus is crawling all over him stealing his jewelry yeah it's yeah he's not i mean he's a

[1:28:48] pretty easy mark yeah i guess so well he's so full of himself that's probably why he hates paris is

[1:28:52] that he never puts his money and valuables in a fanny pack and instead he gets pickpocketed all

[1:28:57] the time when he goes to the train station you have to imagine he's too busy caught up on the

[1:29:00] baguette he's chomping on uh grindelwald is he's the kind of guy who gets an email from a nigerian

[1:29:07] prince and he's like hmm this seems like a scam but it also seems kind of real and i think i'd

[1:29:12] be smart enough to see if it was a scam or not so i'll send him my bank account information

[1:29:15] and uh so dumb he shows it to dumbledore this little locket and dumbler is like oh yeah that's

[1:29:22] the blood pact i made with grindelwald that we would never fight each other that's why i can't

[1:29:26] fight him and it's like no duh dude like this is a secret why didn't you like i don't understand

[1:29:33] why you say that like dumbledore like i love dumbledore but even like the good like harry

[1:29:38] potter books he's always like like has these like sort of secret schemes he never like lets anyone

[1:29:44] in on his thinking and it's like you know if you shared some of these things it might be

[1:29:48] my things things might go a little better for harry and his pals yeah i would like somebody

[1:29:52] at his funeral

[1:29:52] when giving the eulogy

[1:29:54] somebody would be like

[1:29:55] wish she would have

[1:29:56] told us more shit

[1:29:57] so we could have

[1:29:58] kept him alive.

[1:29:59] Yeah.

[1:29:59] Dumbledore,

[1:30:01] the greatest magic of all

[1:30:02] is trust.

[1:30:03] Yeah.

[1:30:04] But here's the moment

[1:30:06] that bothers me

[1:30:07] about that whole thing.

[1:30:07] Newt goes,

[1:30:08] do you think you can destroy it?

[1:30:09] And Dumbledore goes,

[1:30:10] yeah, I think maybe.

[1:30:11] And it's like,

[1:30:12] well then,

[1:30:13] what the fuck, dudes?

[1:30:14] Like,

[1:30:14] why was this an issue?

[1:30:17] I can understand

[1:30:17] it's like,

[1:30:18] no, he was my lover

[1:30:19] and we made an unbreakable

[1:30:20] blood pact

[1:30:21] that I can never raise a wand against him.

[1:30:23] And that's why my power can never be part of this war.

[1:30:26] I wish it could be.

[1:30:27] But instead it's like,

[1:30:28] hey, do you think you could destroy this blood pact?

[1:30:29] Yeah, I think probably.

[1:30:31] And then he'll just kick his ass.

[1:30:32] It's like, then why didn't you do any of that?

[1:30:36] What is the problem?

[1:30:36] Yeah, why don't you say something like,

[1:30:38] hey, it's important you get this amulet.

[1:30:40] That's the key to the whole thing.

[1:30:41] Yeah, do you think at the pitch meeting they're like,

[1:30:43] and then Dumbledore says, yeah, probably.

[1:30:46] And the audience is going to lose their mind.

[1:30:48] They're going to go crazy.

[1:30:49] Applause, people whooping.

[1:30:51] Oh, I was just about to compare that to a moment in Avengers Endgame where the audience did lose their minds, but I won't spoil it for you guys.

[1:30:57] Yeah, what the fuck, dude?

[1:30:58] I didn't spoil it! Oh yeah, big spoiler.

[1:31:01] Stop bringing stuff up, stop saying anything. Stop saying that there's an amazing moment in it.

[1:31:06] During this three hours of fan service, there's a moment where the audience lost their minds.

[1:31:11] During this movie that is designed to deliver fans moments they will lose their minds over.

[1:31:17] So anyway, so I guess Dumbledore, I guess it's part, so I was doing some Wikipedia research,

[1:31:22] and I guess it's part of the backstory is that Dumbledore did eventually defeat Grindelwald

[1:31:27] in a big magic battle or something.

[1:31:28] Sure.

[1:31:29] So like, I guess.

[1:31:30] Yeah, I guess we're all just building up to that, huh?

[1:31:32] So the real magic is how are they going to delay this as long as possible?

[1:31:37] And this blood pact was a way they could do it for one movie, so.

[1:31:39] Yeah, the real magic is how they're going to make this exciting, since we already know

[1:31:43] how it turns out.

[1:31:43] Yeah.

[1:31:44] It's called Movies About History.

[1:31:46] they do it all the time okay yeah i mean you ever see a movie called titanic you're right it's like

[1:31:53] how uh that that tv show sons of anarchy got kind of popular and the showrunner was given enough

[1:32:00] leeway that his hour-long episodes became like hour and a half long episodes and then he's like

[1:32:05] well i have an idea but uh there's not that much to it i guess i'll just add in very long car

[1:32:10] chases into every episode to kind of stretch it out for a full season uh is that it no and at the

[1:32:17] very end so credence is with grindelwald and earlier dumbledore has says you know there's a

[1:32:23] prophecy in my family that a phoenix will arrive to help a dumbledore in need and uh grindelwald

[1:32:29] tells credence that he reveals credence's true identity because he says you know there's a

[1:32:36] prophecy that a phoenix will help members of your family in need and a phoenix shows up and he goes

[1:32:40] you're not credence you're a really aurelius dumbledore and it's time for you to beat up

[1:32:45] your brother and then he leaves and credence just starts blasting fireballs at a mountainside

[1:32:49] and that's the end of the movie he does like a commie homie ha from uh dragon ball z and just

[1:32:54] blows up a mountain all right so anyway this go on long story short credence is not corvus

[1:33:02] credence is dumbledore's brother which leads me to ask so wait why was dumbledore's baby brother

[1:33:08] on that ship when he got swapped with corvus i guess that's a mystery for another day another

[1:33:13] fantastic beast will lead us to that answer the uh yeah the that reveal i like to think that i pay

[1:33:20] attention to movies when i watch them uh i mean i guess sometimes people have called me out on the

[1:33:25] opposite but uh this is definitely a reveal where i'm like what really yeah so all right let's uh

[1:33:34] We've gone longer, I think, than any other summary ever because there was so much bullshit in this movie.

[1:33:39] Well, you'll just edit it down.

[1:33:41] So let's do our final judgments quickly.

[1:33:43] Is this a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie you kind of like?

[1:33:46] I'll say that, like, this movie – so I fell asleep during the final 20 minutes and I woke up.

[1:33:52] Dan, Dan.

[1:33:53] No, I watched them.

[1:33:54] I goddamn watched them.

[1:33:55] Okay, okay.

[1:33:56] What I'm saying is I fell asleep during the final 20 minutes.

[1:33:59] I woke up, and I was so mad that that had happened, because I was just like, ugh, now I have to fucking go back, rewind, and watch the final 20 minutes of this stupid goddamn movie.

[1:34:09] Like, the movie infuriated me.

[1:34:12] Like somebody just gave you a time turner, and you're trapped in this?

[1:34:14] Yeah, and look, I just, I really like the books, and for the most part, I enjoyed the movies, too, the Harry Potter movies.

[1:34:24] This movie, the screenplay was done by J.K. Rowling and I just have to assume that she just doesn't know how to write a screenplay.

[1:34:30] She's a good novelist, doesn't know how to do a screenplay because it doesn't make any sense and it's boring.

[1:34:35] And it's full of stuff that you would cut out of a movie but could fit in a novel, sure.

[1:34:40] Yeah, it feels, as I said, it feels like it takes for granted that you know everything and are intimately familiar with everything.

[1:34:48] and uh it spends too much time on dumb bullshit and not enough time on character arcs uh yeah

[1:34:55] that's double dumbledore not dumb bullshit my mistake and actually it doesn't spend enough

[1:35:01] time on dumbledore since he turns out to be the pivotal character in the movie yeah yeah i mean

[1:35:04] if you're gonna cast a young pope who fucks i want to see dumbledore fuck that's so is that

[1:35:10] too much to ask for yeah i mean he's looking into a mirror you'd think he'd have better memories

[1:35:15] now the uh the i would also i would say bad bad movie and i was like i was watching with my wife

[1:35:20] and she could feel this like pain coming off of me and i was just and she's like why is this

[1:35:25] bothering you so much it's bad but i was like i can see the gulf so clearly between what they're

[1:35:29] intending which is like magic and whimsy and fun and this deep mythology of exciting characters

[1:35:36] and what they're actually presenting which is like just thudding boredom through the whole thing

[1:35:41] and it was like painful to to recognize how much they how off the mark they were about it

[1:35:46] so it's not very good i'd say if you want to see a movie where you have to see a bunch of other

[1:35:51] movies to understand it go see adventures endgame there's this one part where talking about it

[1:35:56] this is really dating when we when we did the podcast but uh like i don't know why i'm worried

[1:36:02] about that i mean it's it's been a couple of days i'm not seeing it uh for a couple more days and

[1:36:07] i've been off basically all social media uh except for instagram because you can't spoil anything

[1:36:12] with a picture um and so i uh i hope nothing important happens in the news at all because

[1:36:20] uh i won't hear about it until after tuesday i mean i will say there seems to be this national

[1:36:26] consensus do not spoil endgame for anybody and is the first it's like we as america have united

[1:36:32] around avengers endgame as this is like the cause of our generation is to not spoil this movie for

[1:36:37] anyone who hasn't seen it yet and so like on twitter and i'm amazed kind of at how non-specific

[1:36:42] specific everyone's being about it and every movie review i've read of it says well i won't spoil

[1:36:47] anything and then they don't and i'm like this is amazing that i like this has brought us together

[1:36:53] in a way that obama couldn't that trump couldn't somehow avengers endgame is now is our rendezvous

[1:36:58] with destiny so okay great hope you guys like it when you see it judge john hodgman ruled in my

[1:37:12] favor judge john hodgman ruled in my friend's favor judge john hodgman ruled in my favor

[1:37:17] i'm judge john hodgman you're hearing the voices of real litigants real people who have submitted

[1:37:23] disputes to my internet court at the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I hear their cases. I ask them

[1:37:29] questions. They're good ones. And then I tell them who's right and who's wrong. Thanks to Judge John

[1:37:34] Hodgman's ruling, my dad has been forced to retire. One of the worst dad jokes of all time. Instead of

[1:37:40] cutting his own hair with a flow bead, my husband has his hair cut professionally. I have to join a

[1:37:46] community theater group. And my wife has stopped bringing home wild animals. It's the Judge John

[1:37:51] hodgman podcast find it every wednesday at maximumfun.org or wherever you download podcasts

[1:37:57] thanks judge john hodgman

[1:38:00] hello this is amy man and i'm ted leo and we have a podcast called the art of process we've been

[1:38:11] lucky enough over the past year to talk to some of our friends and acquaintances from across the

[1:38:15] creative spectrum to find out how they actually work so i have to write material that makes sense

[1:38:20] it makes people laugh. I also have to think

[1:38:22] about what I'm saying to

[1:38:24] people. If I kick your ass, I'll make you

[1:38:26] famous. The fight to get

[1:38:28] LGBTQ representation in the show.

[1:38:30] We weirdly don't know as many

[1:38:32] musicians as you would expect. I really just

[1:38:34] became a political speechwriter by accident.

[1:38:36] Realizing that I have accidentally

[1:38:38] pulled my pants down. Listen and

[1:38:40] subscribe at MaximumFun.org

[1:38:43] or wherever you get your

[1:38:44] podcasts. It's like if the guinea pig was

[1:38:46] complicit in helping the scientist.

[1:38:50] the flop house is supported in part by squarespace with squarespace you can create a beautiful

[1:38:58] website uh put your cool idea out there into the world why not you could blog or publish content

[1:39:05] you can sell products and services of all kind and much more basically anything you can do with

[1:39:11] a website you can do with squarespace why don't you say that that's the easiest way to say it

[1:39:15] hey it features beautiful customizable templates created by world-class designers a new way to buy

[1:39:22] domains and choose from over 200 extensions analytics that help you grow in real time

[1:39:27] and 24 7 award-winning customer support now dan make a stand out with a beautiful website from

[1:39:35] squarespace yes elliot dan i had an idea for a website and i was hoping that squarespace could

[1:39:38] help me out with it all right so dan here's an issue that a lot of us are having fantastic beasts

[1:39:43] We know where to find them

[1:39:45] There's a whole movie about it

[1:39:47] But ordinary beasts

[1:39:49] It's time for their time in the sun

[1:39:50] And we don't know where to find them

[1:39:52] The Brooklyn Zoo

[1:39:54] That's where you find ordinary beasts

[1:39:56] I was going to use ordinarybeastfinder.com

[1:39:57] But I guess you already figured it out

[1:39:59] Ordinarybeastfinder.com

[1:40:02] No longer needed

[1:40:02] Dan just gave it away

[1:40:03] Squarespace, aren't you?

[1:40:05] Check out squarespace.com

[1:40:08] For a free trial

[1:40:10] And when you're ready to launch

[1:40:11] Use the offer code FLOP

[1:40:13] to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[1:40:17] Hey, I got one Jumbotron here.

[1:40:20] Before we get to this Jumbotron,

[1:40:23] just a moment of explanation.

[1:40:26] Elliot has disappeared for the rest of the episode.

[1:40:29] That is because he had a family emergency.

[1:40:32] Nothing that you guys need to worry about.

[1:40:36] Do not be upset other than the fact that you'll miss him

[1:40:41] for the rest of the episode.

[1:40:42] But it was something that he needed to take care of right away.

[1:40:45] We're going to have to do all the talking.

[1:40:47] So I'm going to go do a couple lines in the bathroom so I can speed up my voice.

[1:40:53] Okay.

[1:40:54] So on to the Jumbotron.

[1:40:57] This is from Eliana.

[1:40:58] I believe that's how one would pronounce that.

[1:41:01] Yep, sure.

[1:41:02] And it's from Lydia who writes,

[1:41:06] Hi Eliana, it's Dan, your favorite flopper.

[1:41:08] I wrote this message because you're perfect and I love you.

[1:41:11] You're the woman with whom I want to watch movies on planes, to whom I long to complain about my knee, whose hair I yearn to stroke with my hook hands.

[1:41:18] In short, I want yours to be the wife's butt that I covet.

[1:41:21] Will you marry me?

[1:41:22] Seabiscuit out.

[1:41:23] This is awkward because it's awkward that I revealed that I have a girlfriend on the episode that this came up, and now I appear to be engaged.

[1:41:33] I got tricked into an engagement.

[1:41:35] Yeah, I think on one hand, I feel like Elliot would have liked to hear that.

[1:41:40] But on another hand, I think he probably engineered a family emergency in advance.

[1:41:44] Yeah, just to get out of that.

[1:41:46] So, yeah.

[1:41:50] Yeah, I don't know what to do.

[1:41:51] I guess I'll have to move to wherever.

[1:41:54] This is a binding contract, and you're legally obligated to upload this episode.

[1:41:58] So, whoops.

[1:42:00] Whoopsie.

[1:42:01] Apologies.

[1:42:04] Okay, Dan, what do we do now?

[1:42:06] Well, actually, before we move on, just a quick reminder of a couple of things.

[1:42:12] Okay.

[1:42:12] I'm just going to go on over to the website to remind myself.

[1:42:17] If you go to the website, and that website is flophousepodcast.com,

[1:42:21] you have a list of all the live shows coming up.

[1:42:24] If you click on Events, on June 8th, we'll be in Portland.

[1:42:27] That is Portland, Oregon, not Washington, as I put on before as an accident.

[1:42:36] I think you probably all knew what I meant.

[1:42:39] I was thinking about Seattle in my head because those two cities are so linked in my brain.

[1:42:46] I hope people didn't buy tickets for a show in Portland, Washington.

[1:42:50] I don't think so.

[1:42:51] I think the ticket link takes them to a Portland, Oregon.

[1:42:55] Hopefully no quick-talking grifter didn't trick anybody by setting up a fake show.

[1:43:02] On the 13th of July, we'll be in Minneapolis.

[1:43:04] On the 28th of September, we'll be in Boston.

[1:43:08] There was an early show that sold out.

[1:43:10] We have a second show, a late show.

[1:43:12] See us when we're loopy and worn out.

[1:43:15] On October 12th, we'll be in L.A.

[1:43:20] That's all on the events page at FlophousePodcast.com.

[1:43:24] Also at FlophousePodcast.com, if you navigate over to the blog section,

[1:43:29] I bet you didn't know we had a blog section.

[1:43:32] You'll find that there's a t-shirt contest going on for you guys to design our next t-shirt for our merch store.

[1:43:40] There are prizes, not huge prizes, but prizes, and all the technical details can be found there.

[1:43:46] You also get the bragging rights of creating a t-shirt for a podcast that people might have heard of.

[1:43:56] Yeah.

[1:43:57] Probably not.

[1:43:58] So moving on to letters from listeners.

[1:44:01] Yep.

[1:44:02] like you. This first letter

[1:44:04] is from Kevin, last name

[1:44:06] withheld. Okay. Who writes,

[1:44:08] My name is... Kevin James.

[1:44:08] He writes, My name is Kevin.

[1:44:12] I've noticed in movies and TV

[1:44:14] shows that almost every character named

[1:44:16] Kevin is either an asshole bully

[1:44:18] or an awkward loser.

[1:44:19] The real world is full of Kevins

[1:44:22] of all stripes, but for some reason, those two

[1:44:24] categories seem to encompass most fictional

[1:44:26] Kevins. The notable exception

[1:44:28] to this is Kevin McAllister from the

[1:44:30] Home Alone franchise. Who's a

[1:44:32] bully and a murderer well yeah the letter goes on to say however he's so obviously a budding serial

[1:44:38] killer that he may as well be the asshole bully category he's like jigsaw jr yeah uh so my question

[1:44:46] for you is this have you noticed any trends for characters you share a name with or any names

[1:44:52] that always seem to be the same type of character best wishes kevin last name withheld uh yeah i

[1:45:00] mean i uh let's see stewarts in popular media usually are like at worst they're like an

[1:45:08] insufferable kind of bland nerd character uh or i think at best they're like like a baxter type

[1:45:17] character who uh is the one who eventually that the the romantic lead is with and then leaves to

[1:45:24] be with the other romantic lead yeah only dan i can think of offhand is of course dan fielding

[1:45:29] from night court yeah that's pretty accurate a true pervozoid so i guess that i don't know

[1:45:36] that continues your trend yeah yeah the um i feel like in media usually if you have a character

[1:45:41] named like chuck well that character is going to be hilarious if you have a character named brock

[1:45:47] or like chad they're going to be like our chas chas yeah they're going to be like a big tough

[1:45:51] guy unless it's chas palminteri uh and uh if you have a character named like nerd bert well they're

[1:45:58] gonna be a nerd i mean it's kind of right there the name so you got any any of those like uh

[1:46:04] britney is usually gonna be kind of a spacey yeah the frat chad was like the one i had in my head so

[1:46:10] uh-huh yeah i don't really have anything you have a character named like cornelius

[1:46:14] they're probably probably an old time uh like they sell elixirs out of a wagon yep they're

[1:46:22] really into steampunk if you have an elliot well of course uh it's a dragon uh moving on to a letter

[1:46:30] from matthew uh last name withheld he writes my question is about awkward movie watching

[1:46:37] experiences i was once invited by a girl i was dating to quote watch a movie and have some fun

[1:46:43] at her house she was deeply religious and we had a chaste relationship but being the horny young

[1:46:48] man that i was at the time i naturally assumed this was code needless to say i was not a little

[1:46:54] surprised when i arrived with a bottle of wine to find her grandmother parents and protective

[1:46:58] older brother waiting for me in the living room like they do like a blood in blood out situation

[1:47:05] yeah it seemed they had decided that this was the right occasion to inquire as to my intentions with

[1:47:10] their daughter slash sister and emphasize their religious values i survived this preliminary

[1:47:15] conversation was relieved when the movie started words cannot describe the palpable tension when

[1:47:21] during quote the reluctant fundamentalist a sex scene that seemed to last forever ensued

[1:47:27] and her pious family members frowned and tutted with this disapproval while her brother intermittently

[1:47:33] looked at me with a kind of don't be getting any ideas sort of glare when the scene was over her

[1:47:39] grandma with perfect timing said we can all breathe out now so my question to you is this

[1:47:44] have you ever had an awkward movie watching experience where the social makeup of the room

[1:47:48] and the chosen film was all wrong lots of love and keep on flopping in the free world matthew

[1:47:56] last name withheld oh that's tough because i think every single one of these would just be

[1:48:01] a movie watching experience that i had at one of dan's movie nights okay uh but like a lot of times

[1:48:08] when you do those uh horror movie parties i think sometimes you'll make a choice that's maybe wrong

[1:48:13] for the one for the room yeah like watching brain damage with a bunch of people who aren't ready to

[1:48:17] see a uh a woman get killed by the worm that she thought was going to be a penis yeah all right

[1:48:25] that's fair i did think to myself maybe this was a bad call when i mean i'm not saying it's like

[1:48:32] the worst thing in the world but like i feel like the the audience was visibly not not into it

[1:48:38] sure this isn't quite the same thing but like i i used to have a roommate who every time we

[1:48:44] watched a movie that featured characters with tattoos he would loudly complain about how fake

[1:48:50] their tattoos looked which made movies like uh like we started watching like place beyond the

[1:48:57] pines and i'm like i'm not that worried about the tattoos man i'm just into this movie

[1:49:01] yeah uh i don't yeah i don't really have a good one uh i do remember that um when i was uh younger

[1:49:13] i uh i uh was watching dangerous liaisons with my uh cousin this is not really that this is not

[1:49:22] really an answer to the question it's just the only thing that's that sprung into my mind we're

[1:49:26] watching dangerous liaisons which i had seen before yeah and my mom came into the room and

[1:49:31] she was like what are you guys doing like she was like she was very upset that i was watching

[1:49:36] this movie that she thinks you should have been watching cruel intentions and she was like that's

[1:49:41] much more age-appropriate yeah version of the story no i mean like you know i don't know it's

[1:49:45] not like you see uma thurman's breasts in a scene it's not like it's it's crazy yeah so i don't know

[1:49:53] like she was very distressed by that um in a way that uh that i think she didn't need to be

[1:50:01] yeah that's fair uh yeah it's like the famous story i say about my mom walking in watching me

[1:50:08] see the uh see the sex scene of terminator and i was laughing during it and she turned off the

[1:50:15] vhs tape forcibly because as she said it's no laughing matter they're doing it for the future

[1:50:23] what yeah yeah it was like my favorite thing my mom's ever said to me like thank you for

[1:50:29] like explaining the narrative uh yeah it was awesome really engaged by this movie

[1:50:34] cared about the future um all right this uh last letter is from uh david last name censored under

[1:50:43] the official secrets act oh wow uh he says hey flopperoonies i have a conundrum that only you

[1:50:50] three can solve. The three in question are

[1:50:51] of course Dan Stewart and the Flophouse

[1:50:54] Cat. Okay. As a

[1:50:56] gentleman of the English persuasion, I occasionally

[1:50:58] find American accents hard to understand.

[1:51:00] Somewhat ironic, considering I'm from

[1:51:01] the north of the UK, where accents

[1:51:03] vary more than Elliot's pitch in a letter

[1:51:05] song. I have listened to almost

[1:51:08] 200 episodes

[1:51:09] of the podcast.

[1:51:11] Wait, Dan, I gotta mop up all this

[1:51:14] tea David just spilled.

[1:51:15] I have listened

[1:51:18] to almost 200 episodes of the podcast.

[1:51:20] I've just realized that I can't tell Dan and Stuart apart.

[1:51:22] Wow.

[1:51:23] This must be your nightmare scenario then, now that Elliot's gone.

[1:51:26] Yeah, he's thinking it's like an Andy Serkis Gollum situation

[1:51:29] where one person's doing both voices.

[1:51:30] Well, wait.

[1:51:31] No, wait.

[1:51:32] He thinks it's the same voice.

[1:51:33] Just go on.

[1:51:34] So I'm proposing two potential solutions,

[1:51:36] neither of which require any effort or work on my part, obviously.

[1:51:39] Either Dan and Stuart begin each sentence with their names, a la Pokemon,

[1:51:44] or Archie can be trained to meow every time Dan speaks,

[1:51:47] thereby confirming it is his master speaking.

[1:51:50] i suggest nothing in return for these suggestions behind besides i request nothing in return for

[1:51:55] these suggestions besides undying gratitude yours in flopitude david so which one do you want to do

[1:52:01] dan um do you want to start saying what uh stewart is saying do you want to start saying our names

[1:52:08] uh dan is saying no that seems onerous i don't know if i can stewart is saying i don't know

[1:52:13] it's going to uh i i already am having trouble yeah i guess we'll have to train archie i guess

[1:52:21] that's the only option okay well archie has already left the room okay so we'll have to get

[1:52:27] on that next time uh let's do this fast i could feel the weight of talking this much uh weight

[1:52:37] weighing on both of us i don't know what you're talking about i'm loving this finally steward's

[1:52:41] time to shine um we should do recommendations of movies you should definitely watch instead of uh

[1:52:49] crimble wand crimes of crimble wand uh i'm gonna talk about a movie uh that's also a little bit

[1:52:56] about old-timey bullshit uh i'm gonna recommend the movie only lovers left alive uh the jim

[1:53:02] jarmusch vampire movie uh starring tom hiddleston and tilda swinton and also a little guy named

[1:53:10] john hurt uh so after i said those four names uh you are probably already if you haven't seen it

[1:53:17] you're already probably pulling it over to your netflix queue and hit and play uh but it's this

[1:53:23] great little vampire movie that mainly focuses on like hanging out and how uh being a vampire would

[1:53:31] a lot of it would just be like kind of a hassle and be kind of boring and uh and how the like

[1:53:40] horror of it is just becoming more and more uh distanced from the world that you're a part of

[1:53:46] and how how that can weigh on you um and also how you can both dislike humans uh because of

[1:53:54] your differences but also require them as a reflection for your own artistic and uh emotional

[1:53:59] impulses uh but yeah i thought it was great okay and i will recommend a movie that uh probably

[1:54:08] needs no recommendation because i think it's doing fairly well in the theaters but these days

[1:54:12] i don't see a lot of stuff what are you gonna recommend i saw shazam oh wow i got scared for a

[1:54:21] second which uh you know like the fun thing about shazam is that like it's really actually kind of

[1:54:28] like this sweet movie about a kid finding his place in a group home an orphaned kid finding

[1:54:35] his place in a group home sort of dressed up as a big goofy superhero movie and uh it's just you

[1:54:43] know it's it's funny and sweet and you know people compare it to big obviously and it's got some of

[1:54:50] the same spirit without someone having sex with a little boy um and uh it's it's great i will say

[1:54:58] that at 130 some minutes it's way too long especially like aquaman being two and a half

[1:55:05] hours get the fuck out of here yeah especially um especially the last fucking fight which

[1:55:13] goes on for so goddamn long that like i heard the woman halfway through it not even like towards the

[1:55:20] And halfway through it, the woman next to me said, this is a long fight scene.

[1:55:25] And even though I was at the Alamo Draft House with their famous no talking policy, I could not get mad at her because she spake such truth to this movie.

[1:55:37] Afterwards, you went up to the front desk and you're like, I would like to request a new movie series, this woman explaining truth to me.

[1:55:46] But otherwise, I will say this movie would be kind of a perfect family film, except for there's some surprising violence in it.

[1:55:55] Like, there's a scene in a boardroom where, like, a big scary monster bites someone's head off.

[1:55:59] Whoa.

[1:56:00] Selling point.

[1:56:02] There's a scene where, like, Santa Claus is on fire, like a guy dressed in a Santa Claus suit.

[1:56:06] He shows up okay later on.

[1:56:08] But, like, I watched it, and as a childless man, this is not usually a concern of mine.

[1:56:14] But it's such a sweet movie otherwise that I did think, like, that's unnecessary.

[1:56:18] Like, a kid should be able to see this movie.

[1:56:20] It's a lot of fun.

[1:56:21] Yeah, it's like the end of The Kingsman where you're like, oh, this would be a fun movie for a teenager to watch.

[1:56:29] And then you're like, oh, no.

[1:56:31] Oh, this isn't a fun movie for anyone to watch.

[1:56:33] Yes.

[1:56:34] Yeah.

[1:56:36] So that's the show, I guess.

[1:56:39] That's the Flophouse podcast.

[1:56:41] Sadly, Elliot's not here.

[1:56:43] He probably would have told you about some kind of old-timey movie that you may or may not have heard of.

[1:56:49] Yeah, that it was people exiting a factory or whatever that first movie that was ever shot was.

[1:56:59] So let's say that that was what he recommended.

[1:57:01] Yeah, but he would give a description of the movie that would be longer than the movie itself, and you would all be impressed.

[1:57:11] But, yeah, so that's us.

[1:57:13] This is a podcast.

[1:57:14] You can find it.

[1:57:15] We're part of the Maximum Fun Network.

[1:57:17] You can find it over at MaximumFun.org.

[1:57:19] There's a lot of other great shows over there that cater to all different types of stuff, comedy, culture, comedy and culture, you know.

[1:57:28] And you can also find us here every two weeks.

[1:57:32] For the Flophouse, I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:57:35] And I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:57:36] Somehow this was a more professional ending than normal.

[1:57:41] Because I'm behind the wheel.

[1:57:42] Bye.

[1:57:43] Bye.

[1:57:43] So, okay, Dan, you're not feeling so well.

[1:58:02] Stu, you're coming off of a cold.

[1:58:05] Guys.

[1:58:05] Yeah, I'm doing fine.

[1:58:06] I'm not used to doing this, but I guess I'm going to have to do a lot of talking during this episode.

[1:58:10] Oh, boy.

[1:58:11] Fasten your seatbelts.

[1:58:16] Your sneetbelts?

[1:58:18] I was trying to come up with a joke, but I couldn't.

[1:58:21] Fasten your meatbelts.

[1:58:23] It's going to be a meaty ride.

[1:58:25] I think that's what I would say if I was hosting a steak-eating contest,

[1:58:30] is I would say, fasten your meatbelts.

[1:58:33] And then you would pause for applause.

[1:58:39] MaximumFun.org

[1:58:41] Comedy and culture.

[1:58:42] Artists owned.

[1:58:43] Audience supported.

Ep. #284 - Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald

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