Ep. #280 - Peppermint

[0:00] On this episode we discuss Peppermint, starring in Head Over Heels, only on Broadway.

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

[0:37] Oh hey, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:39] And over here it's Elliot Kalin, a guy who occasionally yawns, which Dan McCoy takes to me.

[0:45] And hold the phone everybody, the world has to stop while Elliot is yawning.

[0:49] Well you know what folks, sometimes I yawn and sometimes people can just keep moving and working with my yawning.

[0:54] Dan, what do you think about that?

[0:56] Elliot's peeling back the shell of this oyster right now.

[0:59] to show people the sticky goodness that makes the Flophouse.

[1:02] Referring to a thing that happened before the podcast started,

[1:05] which was me pausing to start the podcast to allow him to yawn,

[1:09] which seems to me to be a reasonable thing for a broadcaster to try and do.

[1:14] Nope.

[1:15] Elliot's like, no, we've got to get this show on the road.

[1:18] Dan, might I remind you that one of the most successful recording artists

[1:22] in adult contemporary history was Yanni,

[1:24] A man who, live at the Acropolis, yawned through his entire act.

[1:29] Hence the name.

[1:30] All right.

[1:31] Guys, I just suggested that oysters are sticky.

[1:33] Do you think I'm smearing them with an unfair label?

[1:36] I think considering I've eaten many oysters and I've never had a sticky one, yeah, it's a little inaccurate.

[1:41] Or maybe I'm just revealing that I'm not a real oyster freak, you know?

[1:45] You also said something about peeling back the shell, which is not really how the shells of oysters work either.

[1:50] You've got to pry that thing open.

[1:51] It's not like a sardine can.

[1:53] Yeah, oysters are kind of known for just sort of sliding down the throat.

[1:56] If they were sticky, you would be choking.

[1:59] Okay.

[2:00] An oyster, let's just, to put it in the most palatable terms, this is the way I described oysters to my son.

[2:06] An oyster is kind of like a big piece of snot that you just gulp on down.

[2:09] And it's delicious, and there's kind of like a briny aftertaste because it's of the sea.

[2:15] Oh, wow.

[2:15] So you're working on your Yelp review for oysters right now?

[2:19] Thumbs up.

[2:21] Like a big piece of snot.

[2:23] I'd say, hey, remember that scene in Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom where they eat a monkey's brain?

[2:29] This is like that if it was a sea monkey's brain.

[2:31] Oysters, won't you?

[2:33] Okay, well, now that we've put our best foot forward, let's ask for money.

[2:37] Because right now, it's the most wonderful time of the MaxFun year.

[2:41] MaxFunDrive, a time when we come to you, hat in hand, and say, hey, pay us, won't you?

[2:48] Please?

[2:51] Yeah, please, sir, can we have some more?

[2:54] Because, look, this place doesn't run on nothing.

[2:59] That's true.

[3:00] I mean, it mostly runs on love.

[3:02] It runs on Duncan, right?

[3:03] Oh, and love.

[3:04] Love and Duncan, yeah.

[3:05] I think America runs on Duncan Elliott.

[3:07] And this is an American podcast, correct?

[3:10] I guess you're right, yeah.

[3:12] But, Dan, we also run on money, as you say.

[3:14] Stuart, did you have something you wanted to say about money?

[3:16] Okay.

[3:17] Yeah, so just first off, we mentioned it's the Max Fund Drive,

[3:21] and that's going to start on Monday.

[3:22] No, incorrect.

[3:24] Oh, shit.

[3:25] This is right in the middle of it.

[3:27] Oh, wow.

[3:28] Okay.

[3:29] My big mistake.

[3:30] It's already started.

[3:32] Dan just corrected me.

[3:33] Or perhaps he misled me with earlier information.

[3:37] We'll find out.

[3:37] Perhaps you didn't pay attention the way that you could have.

[3:40] Guys, I'm loving this.

[3:42] It seems very unlike me.

[3:43] Maybe we could redirect it to MaxFunDrive.

[3:45] Now, MaxFunDrive is the time of year when we ask you, the listener,

[3:49] to help support us, the creator, because as Dan said, it takes money to make this show and it

[3:54] takes money to live a life in this world. We don't yet have the socialist paradise we're all hoping

[3:58] for with the universal basic income and everything. So let's work together. And by that, I mean,

[4:03] you give us money. You do the part that you should do by giving us money. You don't have to give us

[4:08] all your money. That would be crazy. We're not asking you to do that. But to give us the reasonable

[4:12] amount you think that you can provide to us, maybe as a one-time donor, but we'd love it if you could

[4:17] be a monthly donor. Stuart, tell us more about it, won't you? Yeah, the, uh, it's important for us

[4:23] because obviously we're all, uh, you know, you're directly supporting us, but also we're all MaxFun

[4:28] supporters ourselves. Uh, uh, I think we were all supporters even before we joined the network. Um,

[4:35] and at least for me, uh, I'm a big fan of the way that MaxFun provides a model where

[4:41] you have the option to uh obviously we provide our content remains free but a big part of it

[4:48] the reason it's able to remain free is that we're uh that we have a donor supporting a listener

[4:55] supported model where you're able to uh you're able to provide you're able to support the things

[5:01] that you like with money i guess i did this very poorly but uh and i i went all over the place dan

[5:08] back me up uh on what what's the what are we talking about now which part of the ask is this

[5:15] uh okay uh so dan would you say that supporting max fun shows like you do like i do like stewart

[5:20] does it helps give us a sense of both belonging and ownership in a sense over what we listen to

[5:26] and a place in the max fun community that really feels like solid like we're supporting the people

[5:31] who give us so much to enjoy yeah i mean like look i'm a listener to these shows as well as being

[5:37] a uh a part of the max fun quote-unquote family uh and i say that because jesse you're not my

[5:46] real dad and you never will be but he is dating your mom well i'm a little uncomfortable with

[5:52] that since my parents are still together after yeah but they have an open relationship right

[5:56] i'm not so sure but anyway the point is but there's a chance yeah he's leaving a

[6:03] He pried it open.

[6:04] He's cracking that door open.

[6:05] Yeah, I peeled back that shell a little bit.

[6:07] No, the point.

[6:08] What was I saying?

[6:09] Oh, I'm a listener.

[6:10] I like all of the shows.

[6:11] I mean, almost all of them.

[6:13] You feel like a part of the Max Fun.

[6:13] You know who you are.

[6:14] You feel like a part of the Max Fun family.

[6:16] I do.

[6:16] And I like, look, here, I've said this in previous drives.

[6:20] I'll say it again.

[6:21] For me, podcasts are one of my primary forms of entertainment these days.

[6:27] I listen to them on the subway going to work.

[6:31] I listen to them when around the house doing chores.

[6:33] There are frequent times when I'm like, oh, do I want to watch any of these television shows I've recorded on my DVR?

[6:40] You know what?

[6:41] I don't actually.

[6:42] I want to have something vaguely on in the background while I listen to a podcast because I need two things happening at once to distract myself because I'm a modern person who has no attention span.

[6:52] TMI, Dan.

[6:54] You're veering off course.

[6:55] The important thing is that I like podcasts, and podcasts are kind of my major source of entertainment these days.

[7:04] And I pay for things like, I don't know, Hulu, which I barely watch.

[7:08] I have around just in case I miss a television show once and I'm like, I want to go back and check it out.

[7:14] And that's like $7 or $8 a month that I'm spending.

[7:17] Why not throw that money over to a podcast instead, something that engages me directly, that I care about, that I have a very strong emotional connection to?

[7:26] Support that.

[7:28] That's what I would have to say.

[7:30] Yeah, that's a much better version of what I was trying to say, Elliot.

[7:33] So it sounds like what you guys are saying is it would be worth it for people to become members of Maximum Fun and donate at this year's Maximum Fun Drive.

[7:40] Now, Maximum Fun has a goal, and that goal is 25,000 new and upgrading members.

[7:46] This is not a crazy goal.

[7:47] They have reached huge goals in the past.

[7:50] It's why Stuart did a podcast at the Grand Canyon.

[7:52] Oh, yeah, I did that, didn't I?

[7:55] That was pretty crazy.

[7:56] That was incredibly crazy, yeah.

[7:57] So you have your chance to become a member just like them

[8:00] or if you're already a member to upgrade your membership.

[8:02] When you upgrade, you get special gifts.

[8:04] We'll talk about those later in the show.

[8:06] Stay tuned to hear what the gifts are.

[8:08] But you could go as little as $5.

[8:10] You could go as much as $200.

[8:11] Most people, it seems, go in the $10 to $20 to $35 range per month.

[8:15] And once again, pay what you have, what you can afford to.

[8:18] We're not asking you to go into Hawk for this, but here's how you do it.

[8:21] You go to MaximumFun.org slash donate, and that's a website.

[8:26] I don't mean – it's not like a building called MaximumFun.org slash donate.

[8:29] Let's go on your web browser and do that.

[8:31] I should have made that clear, and I apologize that I didn't.

[8:33] And you just select the membership level that you feel is worth it to you, the membership level you can afford.

[8:39] Again, we don't want you to get into trouble.

[8:40] And the membership level that you feel best reflects your love of Maximum Fun, I guess.

[8:45] As a parent, I try not to peg my love of my children to the money that I give them, but it's kind of hard not to in the world we live in.

[8:52] You'll give your credit card information and some very basic information like which MaxFun shows you listen to, and that tells MaxFun who to give the money to basically.

[9:02] So don't feel like MaxFun is like trying to spy on your listening habits.

[9:06] It's that they know you don't want your money going to some podcast you don't listen to.

[9:09] You want it to go to the love podcast you do listen to, but really they're all good ones.

[9:12] And then that's it. You just go to that website, MaximumFund.org, slash donate, choose your membership level, put in your payment information and tell them what shows you listen to. And you're a member and your membership contribution is ongoing. It'll process automatically every month. You don't have to do anything unless you decide to cancel at some point or your credit card expires, in which case you'll have to put in a new card number. But it's super easy. We've all done it. And as you can tell from most of this episode, we're morons. And we were able to figure it out.

[9:40] Our circular rambling conversations, you can tell that like if we can get our act together to go to this website, then you can too.

[9:48] So it's your chance – oh, sorry.

[9:50] You're going to say it's yours?

[9:50] I was just going to describe my brain as a booze-soaked piece of bread at this point.

[9:55] That's delicious.

[9:57] It does sound delicious, yeah.

[9:59] I mean – and so you could do it right now.

[10:02] Like we'll wait for you.

[10:03] I mean you can also pause the podcast and do it right now.

[10:05] But I find that with this stuff, I put it on a to-do list.

[10:08] I never get around to it.

[10:09] Better to do it right now while it's in your brain.

[10:10] So while you go to MaximumFun.org slash donate and become a MaxFun member,

[10:15] and we'll give you other chances during this episode,

[10:17] Dan and I and Stuart will talk about something you don't want to hear about

[10:21] so that you don't feel like you're missing anything.

[10:23] So guys, let me tell you about changing a diaper this morning.

[10:27] Oh, boy.

[10:28] The weird thing was it was on yourself.

[10:31] Maybe we shouldn't tell this story, actually, now that I think about it.

[10:37] Well, we'll be back with more Max Fun Drive later in the episode.

[10:41] Your chance to make a difference in the lives of some lucky Maximum Fun Podcast creator.

[10:46] What do we do next on this podcast, Dan?

[10:48] Well, the next thing we do on this podcast is the main thing that we do on this podcast,

[10:52] the meat of it, if you will, unless you're a vegan,

[10:55] in which case you don't like me referring to the main thing as meat.

[10:59] Then I guess it's like a cauliflower steak or something.

[11:01] Yeah, let's call it the chickpea of the podcast.

[11:03] Yeah, the vegetables of the podcast.

[11:05] In England, they would call it the mains

[11:07] No, that's good

[11:09] With an S at the end of the podcast

[11:10] The entree

[11:13] Okay, cool

[11:14] Stuart's getting frustrated

[11:15] No, I love it

[11:17] We watch a bad movie

[11:20] And then we talk about it

[11:21] And this time around, we watch the Jennifer Garner

[11:24] Revenge movie

[11:25] Peppermint

[11:27] Yeah, and let's just get into that, guys

[11:32] Based on my earlier performance

[11:34] you're probably quaking when i say i'm gonna take the wheel yeah well you're on this train

[11:41] you're trapped with me the conductor stewart wellington peppermint we open with

[11:47] stewart wellington summarizing joint we open on multiple production logos uh

[11:55] including a couple that i do not recognize at all um we open on uh this is going to be very

[12:03] detailed i suppose yeah yeah we uh we're we open on uh a nighttime scene over the city of los

[12:11] angeles i'm assuming and a car is rocking in the parking lot and you're like oh is this an r yeah

[12:18] is this an r-rated movie it is an r-rated movie um but we get a little bit of a twist them up

[12:25] because there is no couple in there, you know, sharing romantic affections.

[12:32] No, no, no.

[12:33] Very gentle.

[12:35] It is, no, no, no.

[12:38] It is Jennifer Garner stabbing a dude with a knife.

[12:42] And she's like, remember me or something?

[12:45] And then tosses.

[12:46] What does this dude look like?

[12:48] Does he look like, like, is he an accountant?

[12:50] Is he a police officer?

[12:51] Paint us a word picture about this dude.

[12:53] Because we've seen a lot of dudes like this dude.

[12:54] He looks like a kind of the, you're like cliched image of a, like a Mexican gangster, you know, uh, face tattoos in old English script, uh, a most, I think a plaid shirt that's just buttoned at the top, that sort of thing.

[13:11] Right.

[13:11] And, uh, probably a bandana album under his arm.

[13:14] Uh, so she stabs this dude and tosses him in the very large trunk of the car she was driving.

[13:21] And then we get some cool-ass credits, right?

[13:27] Yeah, we see the city of Los Angeles in, like, jerky stop-start, fast-forward motion.

[13:34] Yeah, like the shutters having a problem, which is weird because cameras don't have shutters anymore.

[13:38] And it's all wrapped up in a neat bow of some cool-ass, hard-rockin' tunes.

[13:45] And a lot of footage of homeless people on L.A.'s skid row.

[13:49] Now, I do want to say one thing earlier.

[13:51] The reason I wanted to emphasize what that tough guy looks like is that the bad guys in this movie have walked straight out of a, like, build-the-wall commercial.

[13:59] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[14:00] So get used to it.

[14:01] When Stewart says your idea of a Mexican gangster, he's not being racist.

[14:05] The movie is being racist.

[14:07] So let's continue.

[14:08] Oh, there'll be a lot about how racist this movie is, but we'll get to it.

[14:12] So, yeah, we then get a title card five years later or five years earlier.

[14:19] Not five years later.

[14:20] That would be crazy.

[14:21] The world will be a blasted hellscape with robocops battling predators all over the place.

[14:26] We briefly see Jennifer Garner giving herself some Old West Frontier first aid, some pioneer medicine in her battle van.

[14:34] She's using duct tape and staples to close her own wounds.

[14:37] Yeah, and she just walks through this.

[14:40] And like this tent city, this skid row, as they refer to it later, feels a little bit like, I don't know, like it feels like something out of like an 80s movie.

[14:48] way that like 80 or like 90s movies might portray any neighborhood in new york city like it kind of

[14:56] reminds me of when um when arnold schwarzenegger jumps out of the movie screen and last action

[15:00] hero and is walking around new york and there's like guys getting killed for shoes and stuff

[15:03] did you guys have that feeling yeah i mean the thing is skid row is like a re is is a is a real

[15:10] major neighborhood in los angeles that is majority homeless population i mean it is it is the major

[15:15] homeless encampment in la where homelessness is a serious problem there are a lot of people who

[15:19] are had cannot afford basic housing and basing basic medical care any of the basic education

[15:25] anything like that so it is like a real tent city like that okay so i'm just being incredibly

[15:29] insensitive and uninformed so no no but but in the movie they do danger it up quite a bit

[15:34] yeah and it seems the the movie's version of skid okay so the movie's version of la

[15:39] here are the people who live in la there are suburban families there are gangbangers from

[15:44] south of the border and there are homeless children just looking for saviors and there

[15:48] are also like cops and that's everybody who lives in los angeles is either a suburban mom

[15:54] a gangbanger a homeless kid or a cop yeah and so like this seems to it's kind of like the uh

[16:01] beyond thunderdome version of skid row where it's just like a lot of children wandering around and

[16:05] stuff like that and but again but skid row it is a it is a real place and a real problem now when

[16:10] they named it skid row did they think possibly that they shouldn't have named it skid row because

[16:15] then it would become skid row well they named it after the band oh okay i get you yeah yeah yeah

[16:20] because it was filled with youth gone wild all right yeah exactly as seen in the movie all doing

[16:25] the rattlesnake shake um so yeah we flashback is the rattlesnake shake what mcdonald's serves when

[16:32] they don't have the shamrock shake on the menu yeah yeah yeah they they grab a rattlesnake out

[16:37] of their rattlesnake tub.

[16:38] They start milking that venom, right?

[16:40] They're like, you're shamed.

[16:41] They give it to you.

[16:42] They say, we advise you to throw this away immediately.

[16:45] Do not drink it.

[16:47] Or throw it into the face of your enemies

[16:49] if they're lactose intolerant.

[16:51] It's like when they stopped serving the McRib

[16:54] and they started serving the McShiv,

[16:55] which has a blade that pops out once you bite into it.

[16:58] Very dangerous.

[16:59] Like that pair of boots I was Googling on the internet

[17:03] for possible purchase.

[17:07] In case you met a Crocodile Dundee or something?

[17:09] Yeah, or in case I had to, like, in case I was wanting to make an audition tape for me to play the tarantula in the next Spider-Man movie.

[17:17] I would love it if that was their next thought.

[17:21] They're like, what villain should we go to next?

[17:23] Tarantula, of course.

[17:25] But you could also use that to climb up walls, right?

[17:28] You just, like, stick the blade into the side of a brick building or something.

[17:31] Oh, yeah.

[17:31] I mean, I've been watching a lot of The Rock's Titan Games television show, and one of their key obstacles.

[17:37] is like a fake brick wall

[17:39] where you have to punch through the drywall

[17:41] to climb up it.

[17:42] You have to make your own holes.

[17:44] It's pretty cool.

[17:45] Usable skills.

[17:48] Okay, so five years earlier.

[17:49] Five years earlier,

[17:50] and we see our hero, Jennifer Garner,

[17:54] playing the character Riley North,

[17:55] which is odd that the woman

[17:57] whose last name is North

[17:58] is fighting Mexican people.

[18:00] That feels racist, but...

[18:02] Oh, yeah.

[18:03] This movie, it is subtle.

[18:05] it's all the subtlety of a political cartoon where everyone has big labels drawn on them

[18:09] to explain what they're doing yep and uh yeah and yeah i don't want to get into that um so

[18:16] jennifer garner is now uh back then she was a like a like a soccer mom type she is hanging out

[18:23] with her daughter selling girl scout cookies uh she has a brief encounter with a rival girl scout

[18:29] cookie mom who is clearly the like queen bee type uh they argue quite a bit um we find out that it's

[18:36] her daughter's birthday which is that's a weird way to spend your birthday being forced to sell

[18:40] cookies but whatever maybe you know they gotta gotta sell those cookies gotta keep greasing the

[18:45] wheels of industry um and their and their family is having money trouble it's not like they can

[18:49] afford to not sell cookies every day yeah we uh we see that she has to rush off to work she ends

[18:54] up having to work late even though it's her daughter's birthday uh her boss at the bank

[18:58] is incredibly unsympathetic to this situation um we also see her husband who i don't i could

[19:05] never find his name which it turns out it doesn't matter he doesn't last very long in the movie

[19:10] who is working as a mechanic and i feel like this is one of those things where movies have

[19:17] to underestimate how lucrative it is

[19:22] to be a trained mechanic or a plumber or something.

[19:26] It's like, I'm never going to get out of this.

[19:28] It's like, you shouldn't.

[19:29] It's a good job.

[19:30] It pays well.

[19:30] Yeah, a tradesman these days

[19:33] is not something to be sneezed at.

[19:35] Unless their trade is sneeze catching.

[19:37] Yeah, and then they would appreciate your business.

[19:40] Go sneeze at your local sneeze catcher today.

[19:42] Support mom and pop sneeze catchers.

[19:45] Yeah, at Mac's Sneeze Drive.

[19:48] That's a special thing.

[19:49] So sneeze catchers, they're coming in and coming out because you pay them to catch your sneeze.

[19:55] And then they turn around and they sell that sneeze to the Chinese as raw material.

[19:58] So it's like they're getting paid both ways.

[20:01] Yeah, both ways.

[20:02] It's such a good deal.

[20:03] And the other thing is like movies always assume that if you have a blue-collar job, you are one step away from crime.

[20:11] That like not only is it not lucrative and you can't support a family on it, but everyone you interact with is probably partly a criminal and you're on the edge of becoming a criminal too, which I don't – like most of the people I know who commit crimes are white-collar criminals.

[20:24] So maybe that's just the people I spend time with, my friend Lex. He's a Luther and some of the other guys that I know.

[20:30] But the blue-collar people I know, they don't commit crimes as much.

[20:34] Do you think – I mean do you just think it's a basic idea of like most people feel divorced enough from the people who do jobs for them, who like do service jobs for them that they just assume that they operate on the same level as the streets or something?

[20:49] I don't know.

[20:49] Maybe.

[20:50] I think it's a side benefit – a benefit.

[20:53] I think it's a side effect, not a benefit.

[20:55] It's a bad thing.

[20:56] I think it's a side effect of an entertainment industry that is mostly made up of people who could afford to go to film school or who grew up in the entertainment industry.

[21:08] Like I've been very – like and I have done very – I've been very lucky in my career and in my life.

[21:12] But I'll look at like screenwriters or directors that I'm interested in.

[21:15] I'm like I wonder how they got where they are.

[21:17] Oh, their parents were in the entertainment industry.

[21:19] Like it's a – it's a – not – again, guys, why are we getting so political?

[21:23] But there's all this income inequality, and it means that the people who would do stuff like this are pretty separated from the people who do stuff like fixing cars.

[21:30] And so they assume that if you – basically that if you wear a jumpsuit, underneath that jumpsuit is like a prison uniform or something like that.

[21:38] A second jumpsuit of a different color.

[21:40] And we also find out –

[21:43] I guess they're both jumpsuits.

[21:43] You're right, Dan.

[21:44] So we also find out in the movie that it's apparently Christmastime.

[21:48] These are little bits of information to help build this whole world, to make it more believable.

[21:53] This takes place in a world where Christmas exists.

[21:56] So we see her husband, Jennifer Garner's husband, Riley's husband.

[22:03] He goes by a lot of labels.

[22:06] He meets a friend, Mickey, whose name I remember, or Nicky, one of the two.

[22:12] And they're apparently planning to rob the most notorious drug lord in Los Angeles.

[22:21] And it's the only way he can get out of this dead-end job of fixing cars.

[22:25] And, I mean, I don't know what kind of life he lives.

[22:28] Maybe he lives far beyond his means.

[22:30] Who knows?

[22:30] They have a nice-looking house.

[22:32] But they, so, and the husband.

[22:35] And they can afford to go to the Christmas carnival.

[22:37] Yeah, the husband is, like, not completely on board,

[22:41] but he does like the idea of making a little bit of extra money.

[22:43] So, we then cut a few hours later.

[22:47] Nobody showed up for the daughter's birthday party

[22:50] because they were all at a last-minute holiday party

[22:53] thrown by the rival Girl Scout mom.

[22:57] Peggy, I think, is her name.

[22:58] And Jennifer Garner comes home.

[23:01] They commiserate with their daughter a little bit.

[23:03] And we know that Peggy, the rival Girl Scout mom,

[23:05] is evil and rich because she is blonde

[23:07] and her daughter is blonde.

[23:08] And they have matching outfits.

[23:10] Yes, yeah.

[23:12] Anyone who has the money for matching outfits is evil.

[23:19] Ironically, if their outfits were matching, it would make me think more that they were made at home by their grandma.

[23:24] Like, I only know one pattern.

[23:26] I can do it in different sizes.

[23:28] People will just assume we're rich.

[23:29] It's okay.

[23:30] My favorite moment in this scene is where Jennifer Garner's trying to make lemonade out of lemons here.

[23:37] And she suggests that they go out for pizza.

[23:39] And the look on the dad's face when she says pizza, he's so excited.

[23:43] Like, he hasn't had a sniff of pizza in weeks.

[23:46] It makes you suspect that the dad had called the other mom and been like, all right, set up a conflicting party to make my daughter sad and then maybe I can get some pizza out of this deal.

[23:57] He's like, she's got me – Riley's got me on this bullshit gluten-free diet.

[24:01] I haven't had pizza in a month.

[24:04] The only way we're going to do it is a code red catastrophe.

[24:07] So you need to ruin my daughter's birthday so that I can finally get some pepperonis in my mouth.

[24:12] Uh-huh. Code Red Catastrophe was a rejected Mountain Dew variety name.

[24:18] It was somebody like, they take a sip of Mountain Dew and then like a hurricane destroys the town or something like that.

[24:27] And someone goes, oh, there's a lot of energy.

[24:30] Yeah, I mean, that's a decent commercial pitch.

[24:33] So our hero and her family.

[24:37] Let me just say, guys, here's the interesting thing about Mountain Dew.

[24:39] Mountain Dew, as you all know, when it was first released, was a hillbilly-themed drink.

[24:44] That's why it's called Mountain Dew, because it was supposed to be like moonshine.

[24:47] And it has become an extreme sports type thing.

[24:50] But really, isn't the most extreme sport living the hillbilly lifestyle?

[24:54] I mean, I think various television shows have pitched that idea to us, including award-winning Ozark.

[25:00] Yeah, there's nobody who lives more on the edge than your Hill Williams is.

[25:06] And so I think Mountain Dew has been pretty true to its core concept, which is drink this.

[25:11] It'll hurt you probably.

[25:12] Yeah, it'll help you get over the pain of your extreme sports injuries.

[25:18] So we, our hero and her family go to the Christmas carnival.

[25:23] Actually, Dan, when you tore your ACL, did the doctor prescribe Mountain Dew to you?

[25:25] Yes, but only topically.

[25:27] Yeah, I had to rub it in.

[25:29] Okay, so that's what you're saying.

[25:33] Yeah, and how did that affect your coat, your pelt?

[25:36] my pelt it was shiny and lustrous oh lovely um so our heroes go to the uh the christmas carnival

[25:44] they get ice cream and they order uh uh two orders of rocky road and one order of peppermint

[25:52] that's right that's we got title that's the one reason it's called peppermint

[25:56] uh is it ever referred to again after this point i don't that's a big no okay cool it's good for

[26:04] As an avenging angel, it does not come to be known as peppermint.

[26:07] No, and I was waiting for the moment when she would refer to the peppermint ice cream.

[26:12] I was like, that's the detail that sticks in my mind, peppermint.

[26:16] She wanted peppermint ice cream.

[26:18] She never had peppermint ice cream before that.

[26:21] She wanted something new.

[26:22] She had her whole life ahead of her, doing new things, trying things.

[26:25] She was so open to the world, my daughter.

[26:28] You had to do what you did.

[26:30] Well, I hope the last thing that you remember as this bullet goes through your face, because she shoots a lot of people in the face in this movie, is the sweet taste of peppermint ice cream.

[26:39] And then it turns out it's an ad for peppermint ice cream, the whole movie.

[26:43] Yeah.

[26:44] She turns and she goes, dryers.

[26:45] New subsidized by the peppermint industry.

[26:46] Yeah.

[26:47] Yeah.

[26:48] Do you think, I mean, do you think there was a scene that was deleted where she bumps into like a humble ice cream vendor and she, you know, reluctantly buys some ice cream?

[26:59] And the vendor's like, what flavor would you like?

[27:02] I have plenty of peppermint.

[27:04] And her eyes light up.

[27:05] Light up like she loves peppermint.

[27:08] Yeah, yeah.

[27:09] Because when her daughter died, she took the ice cream and ate it.

[27:12] She's like, I've never had peppermint ice cream before.

[27:14] This is good ice cream.

[27:15] I guess this is the silver lining.

[27:16] I've learned to like peppermint.

[27:18] Dan, you're a cook.

[27:20] You like to make food.

[27:21] I thought you were going to be like, you're a dad.

[27:23] I'm like, no, I'm not.

[27:24] I don't understand why you got that idea.

[27:25] You're like, Dan, you're a dad.

[27:27] Would you enjoy your children being taken from you this way?

[27:29] no of course not so dan what is it about the combination of pepper and mint is it the freshness

[27:35] of mint and the spiciness of pepper i see uh where you as a uh person who does not enjoy a lot

[27:43] of uh let's say say yeah foods may have gotten confused here you see uh it's not uh peppermint

[27:52] is a type of mint so mint is not a separate pepper no no no no no you don't it's not you

[27:58] You don't put a pepper with it, or you don't put the ground pepper on it.

[28:01] Yeah, yeah, cracked black pepper.

[28:03] There's spearmint, and there's peppermint, and I believe there are other kinds of mint.

[28:06] So spearmint is when you put mint on a spear.

[28:10] No, again, they're just different plants, different varieties of the same plant family.

[28:18] They have the same minty flavor we've grown to know and love through gum and tea.

[28:25] And what's a toothpaste?

[28:27] And what's a Franklin Mint?

[28:29] Well, that's a scam trying to make people think that you can make money off of commemorative items.

[28:37] Cool, cool.

[28:38] That's too bad.

[28:39] What about a Dan Mints?

[28:41] Dan Mints?

[28:42] I believe he plays Tina on Bob's Burgers.

[28:46] Oh, and he's also part of that same plant family?

[28:48] Well, maybe.

[28:50] I've never met the man personally, but I hope this has helped.

[28:54] And what about a Mints Pie?

[28:56] Okay, well, that's, it's usually a combination of meat and, like, raisins.

[29:03] What about Minty Mouse?

[29:07] Or Christopher Mintblat.

[29:10] Mickey Mouse's girlfriend, Minnie Mouse, I think.

[29:14] Dan, you don't have to put labels on it.

[29:16] Okay.

[29:16] Mickey and Minty don't believe in labels.

[29:19] Right.

[29:20] They have an open relationship, like my parents, apparently, according to Jesse Thorne.

[29:25] Yeah, this isn't how I wanted you to find out that Jesse is the unicorn in your parents' marriage.

[29:30] So while our heroes are having a chow down party on some ice creams, we cut across town.

[29:37] We cross town to the villain of the movie, Garcia the Guillotine, a vicious drug lord who has –

[29:48] Diego Garcia, or Guillotine, we call him, or Guillotine, I don't know how to pronounce it.

[29:52] Who has the potential accomplice of Jennifer Garner's character's husband tied up and beaten up.

[30:01] And he's surrounded by this guy's henchmen.

[30:05] As well as a really cool skeleton statue that has a scythe.

[30:11] If you are a fan of that type of a statue, get ready.

[30:14] There's a couple more in this movie.

[30:16] If you liked the Sicario sequel posters, which were huge bulletin boards, billboards all over L.A. of a sort of assassin skeleton.

[30:28] And I was just so glad that my son was not old enough to really take an interest and be frightened by it because that is good nightmare fuel for a child.

[30:36] Just a 50-foot tall skeleton assassin.

[30:39] And he's got his arms outstretched with guns like he's Reaper doing the Death Blossom ultimate move.

[30:45] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[30:46] Or Ali G in the posters for Da Ali G movie that I saw when I went to London years ago before that TV show had come to the United States.

[30:56] And I was like, what is this stupid thing everywhere?

[30:58] Everywhere.

[30:59] And luckily you did a complete reversal on your opinion of that thing, right?

[31:04] Oh, sure.

[31:04] Well, my first experience of Ali G was seeing the trailer for that movie before another movie in a British movie theater.

[31:11] And I was like, this is the dumbest movie I've ever seen a trailer for.

[31:15] Almost the entire trailer was about him waking up to find his dog

[31:18] is giving him a blowjob and being okay with it.

[31:21] And I was like, I'm never seeing anything this man makes.

[31:25] Flash forward.

[31:29] Flash forward to when a little movie called Borat came out.

[31:32] And I watched it and I laughed and then felt really bad about laughing.

[31:36] So we are back in the movie, guys.

[31:40] Garcia says, you are going to steal from me,

[31:44] which makes the audience wonder why were they going to steal from this guy that seems crazy

[31:48] so he then pulls out a super cool looking kukri knife and chops the dude's head off and blood

[31:54] sprays all over that cool ceremonial statue and something you should mention is that the dad had

[31:59] already called his friend and said hey you know what i don't want to do it i changed my mind my

[32:04] family is too important i don't want to risk it but dio garcia is irritated that the guy just had

[32:09] the very thought of stealing from him.

[32:11] Yeah.

[32:12] What if he didn't go through with it?

[32:13] And does he even know that, like,

[32:14] did they mention that he,

[32:16] that Garcia had read the,

[32:19] had heard the voicemail or no?

[32:21] Because it feels like everybody in this movie,

[32:23] everybody constantly knows

[32:25] all of the possible information.

[32:26] Nobody is surprised in this movie.

[32:29] I think we're supposed to assume

[32:31] that Mickey ratted out,

[32:33] that they tortured him

[32:34] and he ratted out

[32:35] unnamed husband of Riley North.

[32:39] But it's also – the characters just know stuff that the movie needs them to know.

[32:43] It's like the characters will wander around like morons and then it's like the movie needs you to know this thing.

[32:49] It's time for you to know it.

[32:50] And they'll just wake up with that information in their head as if through some sort of Gnostic meditation they have somehow achieved inner information from the universe.

[33:01] So he says, oh, he was even going to consider stealing from me, send a big message.

[33:09] So he sends a trio of guys in a car with Uzis to drive by them at the Christmas carnival and shoot them full of bullets from their Uzis.

[33:22] Killing Jennifer Garner's family and hitting her in the head, I guess, with a bullet.

[33:28] Yeah, she goes into a coma.

[33:31] and a police detective visits her and says we all know diego garcia did it but nobody will testify

[33:37] and jennifer garner then flashes back to what we just saw one scene earlier of her family being

[33:43] gunned down and it was like movie did you think we forgot like is that in case people thought

[33:49] somebody who bought a ticket thinking this was a violent movie was like oh i guess it's a christmas

[33:53] carnival movie i'll go use the bathroom now and miss that scene well but it's also weird it's

[33:58] also her like he's like you know no one will like no witnesses will testify and it's her being like

[34:03] i'll testify because i saw it and this is the point where i'm like bullshit bullshit movie

[34:08] at the best of times at the best of times eyewitness testimony is mostly bullshit like

[34:15] it's mostly bunk like people are not good at being eyewitnesses but this is jennifer garner who saw

[34:21] these uh gang members driving past in a car from several feet away uh and got shot herself

[34:31] in the head in the head yeah she's not going to be able to identify these people but she

[34:35] identifies them with crack accuracy well it also helps that when they do he brings her in to do a

[34:40] lineup for all the guys and they do let me just say real quick dan nice job doing the evil the

[34:45] evil defendants job for him since the evil defense lawyer makes basically the same argument well at

[34:51] the right though like there's no like oh yeah let's get that let's get that sound clip on down

[34:57] check out my cousin vinnie over here making the big case uh so stewart they go to the lineup they

[35:03] go to the lineup each batch of lineups are it's it's silly because they'll bring out five guys

[35:08] and one guy in each batch who is the culprit has very obvious face tattoos no one else has a tattoo

[35:17] but they pick out they only have those guys so that's what i was gonna say dan is that it's a

[35:22] little easier when they have pre-marked themselves with identifying tattoos on their face and just as

[35:29] with zebras no two zebras have the same stripe pattern and that's two tigers have the same

[35:33] stripe pattern no two fictional gangbangers have the same tattoo clearly a failing of the police

[35:39] department for not finding other lineup members who have tattoos wow wow check out uh mr american

[35:46] civil liberties mccoy over here so we just want to spell the myth of the reliable eyewitness that's

[35:52] all that's the most important thing that this podcast can do dan this bad movie podcast 12

[35:59] years ago hoping for an opportunity to get across the idea that eyewitness testimony is not reliable

[36:04] which it's not that's true you can only have to it's it's one of those funny things where it's

[36:08] like if i was a defense attorney they'd be like we have eyewitnesses who put your your uh client

[36:13] at the scene and i'd say hey have you ever read a berenstein bears joke a berenstein bears book

[36:19] yeah yeah i love the berenstein bears uh then perhaps you'd really know they're actually the

[36:24] berenstein bears and the jury's mind would be blown and they'd be like what what what and i'd

[36:28] say exhibit a bernstein bears from 1982 that's right you all remembered it wrong so how can we

[36:35] believe that this eyewitness is reliable when your own memories of your favorite vaguely conservative

[36:41] bear family are not reliable i rest my case and the judge would be like whoa is is everything a

[36:48] lie can i trust my own brain and people would just be like sawing their heads open to pull their

[36:52] brains out because they felt betrayed and my client in the ensuing chaos i would just slip

[36:57] him some money to disappear oh wow yeah that's uh i like this uh i like this humble uh small town

[37:06] lawyer uh screenplay you're working on yeah it's called uh the berenstain lawyer so we get uh we

[37:12] get a little bit of an info dump at this point while detective carmichael our hero detective

[37:16] and his partner detective uh something else whose name i don't remember i couldn't get his name

[37:22] either so his uh the partner who seems to be acting kind of shady throughout the whole movie

[37:28] but that's just a big uh twist him up later on uh we get a bit of an info dump about uh about garcia

[37:34] the guillotine and how he's the most notorious gangster in the city and that he even has uh he

[37:40] even has people in the police department working for him and so the partner says to carmichael you

[37:46] better let this go like this is dangerous you're playing with fire and you might get burned and

[37:51] Carmichael, who kind of looks like Ike Barinholtz's stand-in.

[37:58] Yeah, Spike Barinholtz.

[37:59] Yeah, he's the kind of, like, if you saw the terrible Aaron Sorkin show, The Newsroom, which I did, because it was, like most late period Aaron Sorkin, it was enjoyable to watch and be angry at.

[38:14] he was the like doofy kind of like love interesty guy and he's very baby faced but they try and make

[38:21] him not baby faced by giving him a big bushy mustache and some uh some stubble yeah dan now

[38:28] i just imagine you're going to see to kill a mockingbird on broadway and you're just like

[38:32] you're hate watching it because it's aaron sorokin you're like and you're just loudly

[38:36] as if and you're like live tweeting your snark about it i mean there's so expensive why did i

[38:42] do this and there's a reason to hate that production because they've been uh they've

[38:46] been going around like for uh sending people cease and desist orders to halt their own productions of

[38:51] tequila they have been shutting down uh school versions of tequila community productions but

[38:57] that's not aaron sorkin's fault that's you don't think he's pulling the strings

[39:00] that's true uh sinister puppet master aaron sorkin uh so let me i want to say one thing

[39:08] in about these these these thugs that have been that uh she has garner has eyewitnessed they are

[39:14] so cartoonishly thuggish yeah like they are just so over the toply like non-human and just mean

[39:22] and angry and also and we uh we'll get to later when they actually have their headquarters are

[39:28] literally in a piñata factory but uh the uh but so they they there's a there's what an arraignment

[39:35] and uh dan mccoy super defense attorney he gets jennifer garner's testimony basically thrown into

[39:41] doubt and jennifer garner has the judge says there'll be no trial here and jennifer garner

[39:46] has an outburst and tries to attack the attackers and gets tased and sentenced to be thrown in a

[39:52] mental hospital and this is after she's laughing like i don't know if that's the way it works too

[39:58] like just like take her away to a mental hospital boys but i'm not sure so crazy that the judge is

[40:03] just like based on this i mean you could if some if uh if a witness decided to try to assault

[40:08] uh a suspect even if the suspect hadn't just been let loose by this crazy judge that would still be

[40:14] a crime yeah but the idea that he's just like you're crazy take her to the booby hatch like

[40:19] get this get this lady out of here like is nuts yeah it's uh and this is after like we see that

[40:26] she's kind of pushed to the breaking point at this point obviously like she lost her family

[40:30] where there's a little scene where we find out that she has lost her house and is being evicted

[40:35] this idyllic middle-class life that she had can so quickly be snatched from her by forces outside

[40:42] of her control and that they were so struggling for you know what they were struggling they were

[40:46] they were forgotten by uh the community at large and now they're being stepped on by this

[40:51] institutional system that is so totally stacked against middle-class white people and the the

[40:57] Even the evil lawyer had showed up to her house and tried to pay her off.

[41:03] And I feel like the amount of money he was trying to give her was more than her husband would have stolen.

[41:08] Also, yeah, we didn't really address that.

[41:11] Well, also, there was a giant publisher's clearinghouse check for $3 million.

[41:14] I was like, maybe she should have mentioned at some point, hey, that guy who's defending the criminals literally came to my house with a big stack of money.

[41:26] Like the guy who's not relevant person.

[41:28] I'm sure she did.

[41:30] And the judge said,

[41:31] yeah,

[41:31] overruled.

[41:32] It real that's hearsay.

[41:33] She's like,

[41:34] it's not hearsay.

[41:35] It happened.

[41:35] I was right there.

[41:36] So,

[41:37] well,

[41:37] you have a,

[41:39] you're an eyewitness.

[41:39] Well,

[41:40] we have an argument against that.

[41:41] Dan McCoy,

[41:42] come on out and explain why she's wrong.

[41:44] Uh,

[41:45] so they,

[41:46] they throw her in,

[41:47] uh,

[41:48] after she,

[41:48] you know,

[41:49] she's,

[41:49] she's been tased.

[41:50] Uh,

[41:51] she watched the villains cackle at her as she's dragged off.

[41:54] She's put in the back of a ambulance.

[41:56] She then breaks free by attacking the detective who, I guess, was trying to save her.

[42:02] And she hits him in the head and she runs off.

[42:07] And it felt like for a moment the ambulance workers looked at the detective and were like, well, our orders were to take somebody to the mental hospital.

[42:14] But this is also like a very like zero to 60 moment where it's like she was a bereaved housewife moments before.

[42:23] And then suddenly she turns in, like, suddenly her response to being taken to a mental hospital is to, like, kick her way out of an ambulance.

[42:30] Well, it's that moment, it's the moment when, like, someone goes, it's, she basically has that Wolverine moment.

[42:36] Yeah.

[42:36] Where she's like, I'm a person, I'm a person.

[42:39] No, now I'm so mad I'm reverting to the savage animal inside me.

[42:43] And it gives her super strength and also super animal cunning to figure out how to escape and get away.

[42:49] And I feel like the most appropriate animal to tap into at this point is a crow, because this movie is basically lifting the plot of the crow.

[42:58] It just goes to show that within every one of us is a beast just waiting to be let out.

[43:06] My beast is named Gringor.

[43:09] Uh-huh.

[43:10] Okay.

[43:11] Yeah, and he's like kind of a cuddly, you know, like cuddly-tuddly teddy bear.

[43:16] Uh-huh.

[43:16] But he also is very good with macrame, crocheting.

[43:21] He's just very crafty.

[43:22] So Gringor's a very crafty beast, and that's what's inside of me,

[43:25] an otherwise very violent and hostile person.

[43:28] But inside I have this really sweet, cuddly, crafty animal.

[43:32] Oh, cool.

[43:32] Okay, well, tap into that guy some more.

[43:34] So we then flash forward to present day.

[43:37] The Detective Carmichael looks exactly the same,

[43:42] he and his partner who are still partners are uh uh go to the scene of a crime at the christmas

[43:48] carnival of course uh where they christmas carnival and what do they find hanging from

[43:53] the ferris wheel yep we see uh three gangsters the three uh defendants uh the the three guys

[44:00] who killed her family are hung upside down from the ferris wheel and which which it leads me to

[44:06] ask the question so does she climb up the ferris wheel dragging those bodies or did she no no

[44:11] on and nobody noticed yeah i mean you you tie them and then you turn it that's how it works

[44:16] i get you i get you uh yeah and this is like this are you saying there should have been a scene where

[44:23] she's comically trying to climb up the thing and they keep falling and she's like oh no oh man and

[44:29] then the and the the carny folk down at the bottom are just like just turn turn the wheel so it gets

[44:35] to just tie him on the ground then turn it and she's like i didn't have the key you just had to

[44:39] ask us just ask us to use the key people use this this ferris wheel for revenge all the time yeah

[44:45] yeah so i was watching this uh this uh movie with with my friend and like both of us this this this

[44:52] scene points us points up the biggest problem that we both had with the movie wait dan i i asked if

[44:58] you wanted to watch it with me and you said you couldn't watch it so you have another friend that

[45:02] you watch movies with uh so the podcast is canceled i thought you told me that you'd like

[45:10] to watch movies by yourself now in a dark room so that you have no distractions what's going on dan

[45:15] can i just make my point yeah dan dan you told me that in order to better enhance you the inner

[45:25] you you were cutting yourself all from off from all human contact except for every two weeks to

[45:29] record this podcast yeah no i live in a sensory deprivation tank now a century deprivation i live

[45:36] in a sensual that's how raz al ghul stays alive forever it's just it's just it's just me floating

[45:43] in a bunch of lube i yeah i i i'm in a i i i spent many years in a sexual deprivation tank

[45:50] from roughly the ages 16 to 24 i think thanks for being specific where i was deprived of sexuality

[45:58] okay anyway no let me i you're pulling up his notes as if i had ever gotten a point you made

[46:06] your point you have another friend we get it you're not a peppermint we understand you know

[46:11] we we don't need to check the receipts dan you have friends it's that this movie this movie cuts

[46:16] out the most interesting shit for instance it cut the entire part where she learns how to be like

[46:25] not just a normal lady but a super ninja assassin and but we also like in these movies no one

[46:32] expects her killing the people that actually killed her family to be the final boss like

[46:39] that is not the the last people that uh you kill in a revenge movie you kill the like people who

[46:46] ordered the hit in the first place yeah but you usually have a satisfying moment where you see

[46:54] the actual killing of the killers.

[46:57] I thought we saw that

[46:59] right at the very beginning of the movie.

[47:00] Here we skip to just them being strung up

[47:03] on a Ferris wheel.

[47:05] And it's like, well, what are we doing here?

[47:08] Execution style.

[47:08] Why are we even doing a revenge movie?

[47:11] We never saw her kill that sacred deer.

[47:13] I mean, I don't know.

[47:15] I'm not a big Yorgos Lanthimos fan.

[47:17] Dan, one other thing that you mentioned is

[47:21] we learn also that what she did was

[47:24] she robbed a bank then traveled the world becoming an assassin off camera and then came back for her

[47:29] revenge how do you guys think she decided it was time to get the revenge because it's been five

[47:33] years i mean i feel like she was looking at she started her process of becoming a killing machine

[47:40] honing her body perfecting her brain etc and she looked at her calendar and she's like when would

[47:46] be a good uh anniversary and i think five years makes sense and i'm glad that she timed it pretty

[47:51] well oh that is the revenge anniversary i guess that's true five years is revenge 10 years is uh

[47:57] forgiveness 15 years is oh the forgiveness was a trick actually it's double revenge who did you uh

[48:04] what did you get for danielle for your five-year anniversary revenge anniversary revenge i said i

[48:09] said you got a dvd copy of revenge oh yeah i said write a name on a piece of paper i won't ask any

[48:14] questions that person is taken care of if you know what i mean and she wrote down uh her best friend's

[48:20] name oh that's crazy surprised and i and i took care of her best friend if you know what i mean

[48:25] and then she came back she goes so what did you do that was nice to take care of my best friend

[48:29] and i was like oh oh boy elliot looked at the name put his hands over his face and he morphed

[48:36] into a different person like a faceless man yeah here's something that i always wonder about

[48:42] mob bosses is whether it becomes difficult for the people they work with to figure out exactly

[48:48] what they're saying when they're like make sure silvio leaves a leads a long happy life you got

[48:55] it boss like they never really know if he actually means that sarcastically or not i i feel like this

[49:02] was a bit in like uh in like that what mafia or whatever the fuck movie that was jane austen's

[49:08] yeah jane austen's mafia yeah that feels like something straight out of there the only bit i

[49:11] remember from that movie is when uh lloyd bridges's aged mob boss character is being shot with a

[49:17] machine gun in a herky-jerky way

[49:19] that makes it so that he starts doing the

[49:21] Macarena, and everyone thinks he's dancing.

[49:23] Yeah, that's going to last forever.

[49:24] Seeing that in the theater and being like,

[49:26] what the hell am I watching?

[49:28] Where are we in this movie?

[49:32] So, we find out that the FBI has a

[49:35] file on her, and that

[49:37] we get this huge amount of information

[49:39] about all of her adventures and backstory.

[49:41] Her adventures in babysitting.

[49:44] And how she has

[49:46] You know, she's been traveling the world. She's become an MMA fighter. She has robbed a bunch of guns recently from a gun store and picked out exactly the perfect guns to use. And so we get all this information. She is a fully formed killing machine at this point in the movie.

[50:07] Yes. And so she goes on her rampage. She blows up the judge who let the bad guys go off camera. She kills the what the D.A. you know, she's or the the defense attorney or whatever.

[50:17] She kills both of them, I think. And then we cut to her torturing the judge who so quickly dismissed her case. She's demanding that he just tell her her name. All he has to do is remember her name, which was then echoed in a recent Saturday Night Live sketch.

[50:37] the uh it doesn't work she steals a toy blows up the judge uh and then gives the toy she stole from

[50:43] a judge uh to a kid she meets on the bus which makes it the perfect crime and that leads to my

[50:51] favorite line in the whole movie uh where she so the kid on the bus has this deadbeat drunk dad and

[50:57] she threatens the deadbeat drunk dad at gunpoint says you'll be a better dad take this kid to buy

[51:01] some presents but before that the dad as they're walking off the bus he says to his kid who gave

[51:06] you that shitty toy and it's like so unnecessarily mean there's no reason for him to notice it

[51:14] there's no reason for him to disparage it just who gave you who gave you that shitty toy my

[51:18] my reaction to this film this scene in the film by the way was like all right so like we're only

[51:23] a couple of kills in but we've already got mission creep on the behalf of jennifer garner now she's

[51:28] just avenging random kids on the on the on the bus but also like best case like there are two

[51:33] scenarios that happen here after she threatens his dad like either she threatens him and then

[51:39] he immediately backslides as soon as she's out of sight which is the most likely thing almost

[51:43] certainly almost certainly or he just pretends to love his kid for the rest of his life because

[51:48] he's afraid of jennifer garner yeah yeah or he calls the police and said a crazy lady put a gun

[51:54] in my face in a liquor store and they said oh did it look like jennifer garner yeah it did oh that's

[51:59] riley north she's a one-woman killing machine you better watch out dude don't post anything on

[52:03] social media because people will trash you we also learned that diego's in trouble with the cartel

[52:08] he lost a couple shipments of drugs and they and and uh we they and now she he's worried now he

[52:15] really is as if it wasn't enough that riley wants to kill him now he really has a motivation yeah

[52:19] and we know we know it's uh the meeting he has with his cartel boss we know it's a drug lab

[52:25] because it's full of people in their underpants packing drugs new jack city style yeah uh and of

[52:32] course he has more of those super cool skeleton statues holding sides now cut to we got our first

[52:38] real big set piece in the movie which is jennifer garner breaks into the gang headquarters which as

[52:43] we mentioned earlier is a pinata factory which is a little on the nose i guess like i mean the one

[52:49] thing this movie doesn't do is they don't have a shootout at a quinceanera celebration so i guess

[52:53] we should be thankful for that uh and she has a blanket draped over her like she's some kind of

[52:58] low-budget jedi uh and there's a there's a news report about her rampage she's shooting all these

[53:04] guys she loves to shoot people in the face she gets caught while she's in there and she fights

[53:08] her way through everybody she has this kind of infinite ammo military grade shotgun that just

[53:12] keeps firing and it hurls people backwards and i'll say i think i think at this point like the

[53:18] action sequences aren't bad like they're they they're readable they have a like they have some

[53:23] stakes they're not i think they're pretty good oh yeah they're not terrible action sequences

[53:27] Everything about the movie otherwise is...

[53:29] It's like the context they're in is terrible.

[53:31] Yes, of course.

[53:31] I would just like to say something

[53:35] about the piñata factory.

[53:36] Yep, go on, Dan.

[53:39] No, I just...

[53:41] I want to tread lightly...

[53:42] You want to see the room

[53:43] where they stuff the piñatas with stuff?

[53:45] Oh, God, this is going to be...

[53:46] You were wondering why they didn't have

[53:47] any of those licensed piñata characters

[53:49] that look a little bit off-model?

[53:50] No, that would be hilarious.

[53:52] Licensed.

[53:53] No, I...

[53:57] I want to tread lightly because I don't want to be misunderstood, which I almost certainly will be.

[54:01] So what you're saying is you're just a man whose intentions are good.

[54:05] This is going to go well.

[54:08] Please don't let him be misunderstood.

[54:10] There are a lot of movies out there that try and avoid charges of racism by making their gangs ridiculously multicultural.

[54:21] Which is silly in its own way because, like, unfortunately, like, that's not usually how these things work.

[54:27] Like, the gang system typically is sort of culturally, like, insular.

[54:35] You're like, unfortunately, there's just not enough integration in our gangs.

[54:39] We need to start really working on that, everybody.

[54:42] Right. But there's a way to like make this movie and not have like every Mexican gang member just be like a faceless monster that is shot by a white lady, especially in this modern climate where immigration is a huge issue that is being used as a divisive topic.

[55:02] So it just maybe it's the wrong wrong movie for this time is is perhaps what I'm saying or any time.

[55:10] That's what I wanted to say about the piñata factory shootout.

[55:14] So let's leave a pause so people can gasp at Dan's insensitivity.

[55:19] Uh-huh.

[55:20] And then we'll pick it back up.

[55:22] We get some news stories about the shootout at the piñata factory.

[55:25] The news is incredibly informed at this point.

[55:32] They know every single thing.

[55:35] And also, people on social media have already picked up this story.

[55:39] They know her whole story, and they are behind her.

[55:42] She is a champion of the people.

[55:44] It is referred to by the FBI agent as a typical social media shitstorm.

[55:49] And Diego is like, now I'm serious.

[55:52] I'm putting out a hit on Riley North.

[55:53] Because here's what Riley North does.

[55:54] She leaves one guy alive at the pinata factory to send a message.

[56:00] The guy, here's what I would, and she's like, tell me everything.

[56:03] And she threatens him, and he reveals everything.

[56:05] That guy, if it was me, I am leaving town.

[56:08] I am never coming back.

[56:09] But instead he goes back to Diego to be like, hey, boss, sorry.

[56:12] I told her everything about where all our drug stuff is.

[56:14] Hey, frenzies still?

[56:17] You know, people make mistakes.

[56:18] Like Diego, to err is human, but to forgive is divine.

[56:22] So maybe you can give me a mulligan on this one.

[56:24] Diego, of course, replies to this by killing him.

[56:27] It's a foolish move.

[56:29] What if after the scene of the piñata factory, by the way,

[56:32] The drug lord goes through, and he's like, where are all my henchmen?

[56:36] Where are the dead bodies of my henchmen?

[56:38] And he looks through, and then finally he hits a piñata, and all these body parts fall out.

[56:42] I mean, that would be a huge piñata.

[56:44] I just imagine somebody driving up to buy a piñata with their kid for their kid's birthday party

[56:51] and just being like, okay, what kind of piñata do you want?

[56:53] Do you want a Spider-Man piñata?

[56:55] I mean, I know it's kind of weird to hit Spider-Man because you're such a big fan of his,

[56:58] literally to beat him with a baseball bat until his body bursts open,

[57:01] But we can get you a Spider-Man pinata.

[57:03] Anyway, it seems like more the kind of thing a villain would do.

[57:05] But, okay, let's just look in here and, oh, God.

[57:07] Oh, no.

[57:08] They've been burst like so many pinatas.

[57:10] Do you think that happened or no?

[57:12] Probably.

[57:13] They probably cut that.

[57:14] Yeah, I would imagine.

[57:15] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[57:15] Now, guys, here's something I wanted to bring up.

[57:17] Or like a family shows up to buy a pinata and they're like, this is a strange looking pinata.

[57:23] And they're like, oh, no, it's a dead guy.

[57:25] Doesn't look like SpongeBob.

[57:28] Now, here's – okay, guys, something I wanted to mention.

[57:31] In this scene, Diego's henchmen are all standing around, and they're like, so what are we going to do, boss?

[57:35] And he buys himself some time by pouring himself a drink.

[57:39] And at this moment, I was like, oh, okay, you know what?

[57:42] Diego is a manager.

[57:45] He has to make decisions very quickly in front of his subordinates while they're literally watching him and waiting.

[57:50] And I really sympathize with that kind of pressure and stress on someone who finds themselves in a middle manager position.

[57:57] Sure, yeah.

[57:57] If I do the wrong thing, this is going to hurt the organization.

[57:59] If I do the wrong thing, I'll get in trouble with my bosses.

[58:02] And I don't really have a lot of time,

[58:04] and I don't have the space to get in a room

[58:06] and really think it out by myself.

[58:07] You know what?

[58:08] I have to make this decision right now,

[58:10] and I have to do it with the pressure of the eyes of my employees on me.

[58:13] I really sympathize with that.

[58:14] And it was the first time that I think I sympathized

[58:16] with a character in the movie.

[58:17] Yeah, and he makes that call.

[58:20] He understands that you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

[58:24] So now is when we learn that there's one portion of Skid Crow – Skid Crow.

[58:31] There's one portion of Skid Row.

[58:32] Skid Crow is, of course, the version of the crow that stars the members of Skid Row.

[58:39] That Skid Row has been crime-free for three months.

[58:42] Wait a minute.

[58:43] Riley North returned to America three months ago.

[58:45] Oh, and just to drive the point home, there's a huge wall mural of Riley North as an avenging angel with guns in her hands painted on the side of a building.

[58:53] Yeah, move over, Alita.

[58:54] We got a new battle angel.

[58:55] Yeah, so this is all figured out by the FBI agent

[59:01] who's been liaising with Detective Carmichael

[59:05] and Detective Beltran.

[59:06] Thank you, IMDB.

[59:08] Oh, that's his name.

[59:09] FBI agent Lisa Inman.

[59:12] And there's like jokes that there might be

[59:14] a romantic relationship between her and the-

[59:18] Carmichael.

[59:19] Carmichael.

[59:19] And that felt pretty weird.

[59:21] Yeah.

[59:22] But it's all a big bit of filmmaking trick-a-roonie, but we'll get to that in a second.

[59:28] And so Riley, she gets – they trap her in an exploding drug lab, right?

[59:33] Yep.

[59:33] Like she goes to take down a lab and they trap her in it, but she escapes through the sewers like a regular ninja turtle.

[59:38] Yep, she's chomping on some pizza.

[59:40] A regular ninja turtle, not a teenage mutant one.

[59:42] Not a – yeah, just a regular ninja turtle.

[59:45] Not one who is either middle-aged or not radioactive or not mutated in any way.

[59:50] Yeah.

[59:51] And so she steals a car to get away.

[59:53] And then she does what I think is the second funniest thing in the movie after.

[59:56] Where'd you get that shitty toy?

[59:57] There's like a cup of soda in the car that the owner of the car had.

[1:00:01] And she just picks it up and slurps it down.

[1:00:03] And you think there's a moment where she starts drinking that?

[1:00:06] She's like, this reminds me of my old life.

[1:00:09] The person I used to be.

[1:00:10] When I enjoyed soda.

[1:00:12] Peppermint soda.

[1:00:13] I think what she did is she picks it up and she takes a sip.

[1:00:16] And she's like, oh, Sprite.

[1:00:18] Well, whatever.

[1:00:19] So, yeah, she she used the car. She tails the gangsters who are very excited to be able to call shots as they are promised by their boss.

[1:00:27] She drives around them and then murders both of them and then takes the car and shows up at Diego Garcia's home.

[1:00:35] Now, here's my question. Yep. Does she drink or eat whatever she finds in the thugs car, too?

[1:00:42] I mean, I can only assume that seems to be her calling card.

[1:00:45] it's it's like they go to the judge's house and they're like someone blew up the judge

[1:00:51] and they ate his leftovers i mean oh riley north was here she took that toy right so

[1:00:56] she always she's always stealing a little bit of something because it's

[1:00:59] weirdly for a movie that is about someone who is basically turned herself into a human bullet

[1:01:05] who is dedicated only to killing yeah the thing the thing that really symbolized for me that

[1:01:10] she's at rock bottom is just picking up a cup of soda in somebody else's car that you don't know

[1:01:14] what it's in and just drink what's in it is just drinking it like that's so gross to me yeah to

[1:01:18] wrap your lips around somebody else's straw and just drink whatever they have in their car that

[1:01:23] i was like wow she really does have no fear she really is on a rock bottom so she uh she tricks

[1:01:30] uh the large security force at the at the uh well-appointed home of the drug lord uh by just

[1:01:38] rolling the car forward and then she keeps jumping around shooting them and again this is a i think

[1:01:42] this is a well choreographed organized action sequence it reads well obviously terrible movie

[1:01:48] uh don't agree with any of this but uh she fights her way into the compound she has a final uh

[1:01:56] showdown or so it seems with garcia she has him in her sights but then her greatest weakness her

[1:02:03] kryptonite shows up that's right a little kid who when she looks at the garcia's daughter she

[1:02:08] sees her own daughter's face and that leaves her open to an ice pick attack to the side

[1:02:13] uh and he we saw him like for one weakness yeah we saw him we saw him we saw him fucking around

[1:02:20] with that ice pick right earlier i feel like he was like jamming it into a bucket of ice cubes

[1:02:25] and i'm like you don't need an ice pick for this dude like they're already cubes i mean sometimes

[1:02:29] ice cubes you know they like melt a little and they freeze together and like you gotta

[1:02:33] uh,

[1:02:33] re-separate them.

[1:02:35] Oh no,

[1:02:35] that seems far-fetched.

[1:02:36] I'm with Dan on this one.

[1:02:39] I,

[1:02:39] Dan,

[1:02:39] Dan won me over with that eyewitness argument earlier.

[1:02:42] Now I'll just believe whatever he says.

[1:02:43] So yeah,

[1:02:44] I see how it is.

[1:02:45] But maybe he's like,

[1:02:46] maybe he prefers crushed ice to cubed ice.

[1:02:49] I mean,

[1:02:49] he is a monster.

[1:02:50] We do know that he is an evil villain.

[1:02:52] So maybe he does prefer to have little weird gravelly chunks of ice that slip into your throat and you crunch on them as opposed to beautiful cubes that keep the water cold and you don't have to swallow them whole.

[1:03:03] maybe he's just the kind of evil villain that prefers crushed ice you're listening you listening

[1:03:08] jesse thorn not my dad that's what we think about your pebble ice shit oh wow jesse jesse likes

[1:03:15] pebble ice oh man i guess i gotta update my fucking live journal about jesse's preferences

[1:03:20] uh yeah i'll put that in my dossier oh wow you're gonna give that to your hitman squad

[1:03:26] yeah my mr sinister style database on everybody i know and everything about them

[1:03:32] uh so riley's hurt we do not get the satisfaction uh satisfactory ending we were hoping for in fact

[1:03:39] there's much more movie to go she escapes the home garcia gets the remainder of his

[1:03:45] henchmen around him he is once again impregnable and offended uh she goes to the only place she

[1:03:53] thinks she can go that's right the home of the rival mom peggy where she immediately punches

[1:04:01] her former rival in the face ties her up and then enjoys the luxuries of peggy's home

[1:04:07] and also threatens her with a gun to the point that peggy pees herself a surprising amount and

[1:04:14] i mean i don't know why you're judging that part of it i just say it was like it was it i was just

[1:04:20] surprised at how quickly the pee hit the floor and i'm like because she puts a gun in her face

[1:04:25] and then immediately there's water splatter like there's liquid splattering on the floor

[1:04:29] and i was like that's what you like your pants would absorb most of that do you think she was

[1:04:34] already peeing when before the gun even came out i mean that would make sense it's scary yeah she

[1:04:38] already has the gun it doesn't need to be pointed at her but yeah so we see our hero bully a woman

[1:04:43] uh yeah but you know she you know she deserved having a gun stuck in her face because she was

[1:04:47] not nice, I guess.

[1:04:49] She did throw a last-minute party once.

[1:04:52] Yeah, do you think she was in

[1:04:53] part of Garcia's plan?

[1:04:55] Was he cut Peggy to throw that party?

[1:04:57] That's right.

[1:04:58] Maybe.

[1:05:01] Tell us what happens next with Carmichael.

[1:05:05] Yeah, so

[1:05:07] we introduce, you know, the cops

[1:05:10] show up to Garcia's home.

[1:05:12] They're picking over the bodies.

[1:05:14] We're introduced to Method Man.

[1:05:16] That's right.

[1:05:17] He's in this movie.

[1:05:18] We got a new character who is playing one of the detectives.

[1:05:21] And he reveals that Carmichael is unavailable.

[1:05:27] Carmichael's partner, Beltran, is like, where is he?

[1:05:30] Turns out Carmichael's been lying to both of them.

[1:05:32] And we realize that he is the dirty cop.

[1:05:36] Yeah.

[1:05:36] Just in time for him to show up to meet his FBI contact, who we thought was a love interest, at Skid Row.

[1:05:43] And then he shoots her.

[1:05:45] Yeah, this is the one stab the movie makes at being like, see, we're not racist.

[1:05:50] The white cop was the bad cop, and the Hispanic cop was good.

[1:05:53] Uh-huh, that's true.

[1:05:55] The movie's previous racism made me believe that it was going to go the other direction.

[1:06:00] Exactly.

[1:06:00] I mean, also the fact that the good cop, the man who turns out to be the good cop, Beltran,

[1:06:05] is constantly presented as kind of sinister and hiding something.

[1:06:10] Yeah.

[1:06:10] And kind of like a shadowy figure, whereas Carmichael is always presented as being Jennifer Garner's kind of sympathetic protector.

[1:06:18] Really, he was just watching her because he's working for the cartel.

[1:06:22] And he calls in the location of Riley's battle van to Diego.

[1:06:27] So the drug lord does the smart choice, which is he gets all his guys to go down to Skid Row and start popping off and shouting and rousing.

[1:06:39] pop and unlock and they're just dancing singing skid row from little shop of horrors yeah yeah

[1:06:45] so they they try and draw out uh they try and draw riley out by attacking the people that had

[1:06:52] previously been under oh i guess still are under her protection um and she i think kills a couple

[1:06:59] of them and tricks a couple of them and eventually uh uses a stolen phone to videotape uh videotape

[1:07:08] diego garcia and carmichael and videotape all this shit and i guess she facetimes the news

[1:07:14] i don't exactly know how this happened it's something that the police are literally like

[1:07:19] hey check out the tv and on the news uh riley is facetiming with the anchor explaining what's

[1:07:25] going on and how this is a big deal and that guy's a dirty cop and lapd come on down and it's one of

[1:07:31] those things where you're like i guess she decided to do it publicly so that the lapd if they were

[1:07:35] dirty couldn't just get rid of her if she just called them but it's just this this very funny

[1:07:41] thing of like uh there's this aspect of like hey someone i know it's treated with the with the

[1:07:47] importance of hey someone i know is on tv like oh riley north this person i know a little bit i get

[1:07:52] they're in new york and they're behind the window at the today show and uh and i can see them waving

[1:07:57] this is amazing like it kind of comes out of nowhere and it's very goofy but it's handled

[1:08:01] very casually like oh yeah of course she's just gonna facetime with the news uh yeah so and i

[1:08:07] think she uses the phone from uh the the fbi agent right she finds it on the fbi agent's body in the

[1:08:13] dumpster to be honest i kind of i wasn't sure where she got the phone from i had forgotten

[1:08:18] and so i thought for a minute oh did she have a phone this whole time yeah so so did riley north

[1:08:24] like go in and sign up for a plan yep yep like uh so they're really trying to upsell her on the

[1:08:30] one of the newer iPhones, and she's like, I'll just take

[1:08:33] an older one. Like, it doesn't matter.

[1:08:34] Does it have FaceTime on it? Yeah, but

[1:08:37] you're also going to want this measuring app

[1:08:38] that it's like you have a level with you all

[1:08:41] the time. I mean, that's kind of useful

[1:08:43] though, right? I use my

[1:08:45] level app, you know, to hang

[1:08:47] pictures. Oh, you have pictures?

[1:08:49] Yeah, I do. Wow. Okay,

[1:08:51] Mr. Rockefeller. I've got friends, and I've got

[1:08:53] pictures.

[1:08:53] I guess Dan has this rich,

[1:08:57] full life outside of what I know him from,

[1:08:59] So I guess that's where you know me from.

[1:09:01] Oh, you're that guy from the podcast.

[1:09:03] So Garcia threatens, threatens a street kid, right?

[1:09:09] To draw out Riley.

[1:09:10] Yeah.

[1:09:10] He's threatening one of the humble urchins who has been part of the like

[1:09:14] Greek chorus of homeless people in this movie.

[1:09:16] These surprisingly clean faced street kids.

[1:09:20] So she turns herself in, she turns herself over.

[1:09:24] She kind of like challenges him to a fight and they fight for a little bit

[1:09:28] and he's beating her up and then uh he knocks her into a uh into a shopping cart where car michael

[1:09:36] had previously stashed the murder weapon that he used to kill uh fbi agent inman um and just then

[1:09:43] that's about when the uh the police show up garcia is not happy about this because previously he

[1:09:51] thought they were his friends so he just immediately shoots car michael in front of

[1:09:54] everybody uh and then he and his gang kind of scatter and run amongst the uh the the tent city

[1:10:00] uh he and garcia and uh riley have their final showdown they punch a bunch and she beats him up

[1:10:09] and she has that sounds like like a like a like a tv like kids action kids show the punch a bunch

[1:10:17] so she's got uh she's got a gun on him the cops got guns on her they're like don't do it

[1:10:24] and she goes i'm gonna do it so she just shoots him and kills him and then they shoot her

[1:10:28] and then uh that's when they like oh yeah then she like sneaks away and well this is the most

[1:10:35] inexplicable moment in the movie there are so many cops surrounding them it's a pretty well-lit

[1:10:39] nighttime area she shoots she shoots garcia and the cops shoot at her and then beltrane's like

[1:10:45] stop cease fire cease fire and they look and she's gone she's disappeared and it's like in what

[1:10:51] the haze of gun smoke like it's how did they how did she yeah they're all watching gun smoke so

[1:10:56] that's why but it's just this moment of like there is no possible way they would not see her running

[1:11:01] off somewhere she lets at this this is the moment where she becomes jason essentially or michael

[1:11:06] myers where it's like oh yeah he fell down right over there huh he's gone yeah it's it's like she

[1:11:12] realize she was close to death and use whatever

[1:11:13] item you use to summon yourself

[1:11:15] back to the spawn point so you don't lose all your

[1:11:17] experience points. So she

[1:11:19] sneaks off and the detective's like, I know

[1:11:22] where she's going

[1:11:23] because everybody knows everything that's

[1:11:25] important. And they find

[1:11:28] of course, Detective Beltran

[1:11:29] finds her

[1:11:31] crumpled at the grave of her family.

[1:11:34] She's like, just let me die. And he's

[1:11:35] like, no can do. I gotta

[1:11:37] take you in. So she is taken

[1:11:39] in and then

[1:11:41] uh she's in the hospital handcuffed and beltran shows up and he's like you know what there's an

[1:11:48] there's an announcement on the tv that the lapd will be she will be brought up on charges yeah

[1:11:53] she will go to trial as she should because no matter how righteous her cause she is a regular

[1:12:00] human being who has decided to take the law of murder into her own hands and killed dozens of

[1:12:05] people so she's uh handcuffed to the bed and beltran shows up again and he says you know what

[1:12:12] all us cops would have done the exact same thing and then gives her the keys to the cuffs and that

[1:12:17] is the end of the movie so i wonder why did he take her in in the first place i guess to get

[1:12:23] the medical care i'm not sure oh yeah and also maybe it looks good for his uh does it look good

[1:12:28] for his, like, record that he

[1:12:30] closed the case. They did his job?

[1:12:32] Yeah, probably. But I love that, like, at his

[1:12:35] employee review, they're like, okay,

[1:12:36] uh, compliment number one,

[1:12:39] you really handled the

[1:12:40] situation well with Riley North

[1:12:42] in that you brought her in. Uh-huh.

[1:12:44] A little bit of a criticism, you let her go.

[1:12:46] Yeah. You just gave her the key

[1:12:48] to the cuffs. And then I just wanted to end with

[1:12:50] a compliment that you, uh, really

[1:12:52] bounced back well from your partner turning out

[1:12:54] to be a crooked cop. Mm-hmm.

[1:12:56] Uh, who was then murdered in front of you.

[1:12:58] So I guess that's the review is I really want you to work harder on not letting them go after you bring them in and keeping a better eye on your partner, letting us know if he turns out to be crooked.

[1:13:08] Yeah, it was pretty obvious.

[1:13:10] And send in the next cop.

[1:13:11] Pretty obvious that he was crooked.

[1:13:13] We gave you all the clues, Mr. Policeman.

[1:13:15] Now, if you need some help, I'll give you the key to the bat signal.

[1:13:22] If you could send in Detective Bullock now for his employee review, I'd appreciate it.

[1:13:27] And Detective Montoya.

[1:13:28] uh yeah so that is peppermint we get some hard rocking tunes over the credits

[1:13:34] that's stewart's favorite part um so all right we've almost gone as long as the movie itself

[1:13:43] let's say our final judgments quickly whether this is a good bad movie a bad bad movie or movie

[1:13:47] kind of liked uh i think it was bad bad i think it was like the most basic uh revenge movie but

[1:13:55] it didn't give me even like the sick like thrills that a revenge movie normally gives me i wasn't

[1:14:01] like yeah like kill those people i was like this makes me feel gross um and i was kind of bored i

[1:14:07] have to admit i dozed off a couple times and it was mostly during the action sequences which hey

[1:14:12] dan let me let me tell you let me let you in on something you don't have to admit that i do have

[1:14:16] to admit it i'm legally required to admit that i dozed off a couple times during the action

[1:14:20] sequences which stewart seemed to think were the best thing about the movie so i didn't even get

[1:14:25] that enjoyment so uh no thanks peppermint mm-hmm uh is that supposed to be a pun no thanks peppermint

[1:14:33] i don't know it's it's my it's my 40s detective catchphrase no thanks peppermint i just like

[1:14:40] the idea of like you're like dan is like an arnold schwarzenegger type action hero and his

[1:14:44] catchphrase is no thanks uh so here's the thing i think this is a bad bad movie uh it's kind of

[1:14:54] creepy and it's like the thinnestly uh thinnest drawn uh like like straw man type type villains

[1:15:03] right um but it the i think the action scenes are actually pretty decent they make sense uh and

[1:15:12] the storytelling is the fastest i've ever seen they give you all the information uh it never

[1:15:20] pauses although it's way too long uh if maybe if the movie had ended the first time she attacked

[1:15:27] garcia in his house i might have like it might have been a little bit better for like a shitty

[1:15:32] like grindhouse movie but it just goes on too long this is a bad bad movie don't watch it

[1:15:37] but jennifer garner jennifer garner's is i think a solid action actor still she remains a solid

[1:15:43] i loved the first few seasons of alias so i was kind of excited to see this movie before i realized

[1:15:48] it was gonna be horrible uh and you were telling me how much you loved her as electra right oh yeah

[1:15:53] she was electric i think you raved best marvel movie ever better than black panther raves dan

[1:16:00] mccoy uh i think uh yeah bad bad movie it makes you feel gross and there's lots of stuff about

[1:16:08] it as we mentioned that is uh problematic but also it's just like not fun and it's just gross

[1:16:13] and there's only so much credit i'll give a movie for having a great line like where'd you get that

[1:16:17] shitty toy um if you're gonna watch a movie starring a very accomplished actress where

[1:16:24] she is thrust into a situation where she has to kick ass to protect her child or get revenge

[1:16:29] there's a movie called kidnap it stars hallie berry we covered it on the show before if you

[1:16:34] want to see like a like a grimy grindhouse movie about a mom driven to the edge i'd say go to go

[1:16:39] for kidnap instead that's not my recommendation for the episode but bad ben movie go see kidnap

[1:16:43] instead now guys let's talk about something that's good good and that's the max fun drive

[1:16:49] that's please the listeners chance as we were saying to get involved with the max fun community

[1:16:55] to support the shows they love in the form of monies that we can then spend on clothes food

[1:17:02] housing uh luxury items medical care all sorts of things renting the movies that we have to watch

[1:17:10] for the show that's true i mean they're a web hosting all the all those big costs uh so dan uh

[1:17:16] i wondered should we talk about the gifts that people could get yes please we know we know what

[1:17:22] we get from it we get money but what do the gifts get well let's talk about the levels you want me

[1:17:26] to go through them yeah sure okay first off there's that five dollar monthly membership that gives you

[1:17:31] access to all the exclusive bonus content from all the shows over hundreds of hours of bonus content

[1:17:37] only available to monthly uh subscriber members uh what kind of stuff do we have coming out down

[1:17:42] the pipe for our bonus content this year yeah we i mean we already uh we already posted the first

[1:17:47] bit of bonus content and uh what we're working on right now is uh a continuation of some of the

[1:17:54] bonus content that we've done in the past which is uh the flop tales uh uh episodes where i force

[1:18:02] you guys to play a role playing game with me and we originally started as a crossover with

[1:18:09] the very popular Adventure Zone podcast and then it's kind of spun off in its own stranger

[1:18:15] direction and I have a couple more episodes ready to go and I'm just hoping that we'll hit the

[1:18:23] Max Fund Drive

[1:18:26] target.

[1:18:27] I don't want to backseat

[1:18:29] bonus content drive here, but

[1:18:32] I want to make it clear that

[1:18:33] these extra episodes, these role-playing

[1:18:36] episodes that Stu are talking about

[1:18:38] are bonuses

[1:18:40] that we're looking to do if we meet

[1:18:42] our goal of

[1:18:44] 25,000

[1:18:46] new or upgrading members.

[1:18:48] We have some bonus content out

[1:18:50] already for

[1:18:51] current donors or people

[1:18:54] who are donating this time around and that

[1:18:56] is us talking about the legendary

[1:18:58] failed pilot Puchinski

[1:19:00] about Peter Boyle coming back as

[1:19:02] a dog cop. But we

[1:19:04] we use the bonus stuff as an opportunity

[1:19:06] to do stuff that we don't normally do

[1:19:08] on our regular episodes

[1:19:10] gives us a chance to I don't know

[1:19:12] take a breather and we've already

[1:19:14] recorded a bunch of stuff in previous

[1:19:16] years and if you're a MaxFun

[1:19:18] donor of $5 or more a month

[1:19:20] you have access to like hundreds and hundreds of hours you have stuff from us and others so that's

[1:19:26] the five dollar monthly membership but the really good stuff comes at a little bit more ten dollar

[1:19:31] monthly membership you get access to the bonus content plus the exclusive to this drive your

[1:19:35] only enamel pin designed by megan lynn not and you get to choose what show megan lynn

[1:19:40] what did i say oh i said not sorry megan lynn caught uh megan lynn not is of course a different

[1:19:47] person uh at twenty dollars at the twenty another person with no defining features apparently no

[1:19:55] at twenty dollars monthly membership uh you get the bonus content you get the pin and you get a

[1:20:01] 550 piece maximum fun puzzle designed specifically for max fun monthly members hey you're looking

[1:20:08] for something to do with your hands and your eyes while you listen to a podcast maybe do the max fun

[1:20:12] puzzle okay yeah start start up a puzz club and fucking do some puzz yeah call it a puzzcast be

[1:20:18] all fuzzy about it uh $35 monthly membership you get a glass coffee mug engraved with the max fun

[1:20:24] rocket logo we love that logo plus all the preceding bonus stuff and there's some other

[1:20:29] you know and once you get a higher $50 $100 $200 you get even more stuff uh there's uh you get a

[1:20:37] special extra special medal membership card or you can be the maximum inner circle for $100

[1:20:42] you can learn about that on the website $200 monthly membership you get free registration

[1:20:46] for max fun con 2020 that's all stuff but where do people enjoy doing it the most well in their

[1:20:52] bed at home but where do people enjoy donating the most for max fun uh i feel like a lot of people go

[1:20:57] for the $10 monthly uh the 20 is also popular what's uh what's our pin look like this year dan

[1:21:02] why are you underselling the $20 month first of all i mean please if you if you if you feel

[1:21:07] move to give us $20

[1:21:09] a month. But yes, also, we should

[1:21:11] specify that this year's

[1:21:13] pen, and people love these enamel

[1:21:15] pens, this year's pen

[1:21:17] is the Flophouse house cat, who

[1:21:19] is not saying rah-rah

[1:21:21] as is the trademarked

[1:21:23] catchphrase.

[1:21:25] He's saying the Flophouse.

[1:21:26] And it's adorable.

[1:21:28] It is adorable. It's a very normcore,

[1:21:31] it's an adorable normcore version of

[1:21:33] the house cat, and I love it. It looks very much like my

[1:21:35] dearly departed cat, Lulu, actually.

[1:21:37] it's a tuxedo cat

[1:21:38] so that's

[1:21:41] so those are the gifts you can look forward to at $10

[1:21:43] the pin $5 the bonus

[1:21:45] content $20 a puzzle $35

[1:21:47] a glass coffee mug with the maximum logo

[1:21:49] and again when you go at the membership level you get

[1:21:51] all the prizes for

[1:21:53] the lower levels that go along with

[1:21:55] it it's all great stuff

[1:21:57] and that's if you donate and a monthly

[1:21:59] member and so here's how you do donate

[1:22:01] you go to maximumfund.org slash donate like

[1:22:03] we said it's like the membership level you write

[1:22:05] you like look into your heart look into your wallet look into your brain figure out what's

[1:22:09] right for you put in your credit credit card information and the shows you listen to beep

[1:22:12] bop boop takes very little time suddenly you're a member and those gifts are going to come to you

[1:22:17] in the mail thanks to the u.s postal service yeah thank you u.s postal service thank you ben

[1:22:22] franklin for being one of the founders of said postal service uh and for making this possible

[1:22:26] and why not celebrate that by donating a hundred dollars that's one ben franklin right i don't know

[1:22:30] whatever you want to do dan do you want to talk a little bit about the max fund drive oh thank you

[1:22:34] for teeing me up.

[1:22:35] I didn't know

[1:22:35] whether you were going

[1:22:36] to do it or not.

[1:22:36] Well, I mean,

[1:22:38] we talked about me

[1:22:39] doing it earlier,

[1:22:39] so I figured I would.

[1:22:40] Yeah.

[1:22:42] And while Dan is rambling on,

[1:22:44] now's a good time

[1:22:45] to go to

[1:22:45] MaximumFun.org

[1:22:46] slash donate

[1:22:46] and choose the membership level

[1:22:48] that's right for you

[1:22:49] and provide your credit card

[1:22:50] information

[1:22:50] and your basic information.

[1:22:51] Dan, continue to talk.

[1:22:52] Give them something

[1:22:52] to listen to

[1:22:53] while they sign up

[1:22:54] or upgrade.

[1:22:55] So I don't want

[1:22:56] to bring anyone down.

[1:22:57] You don't?

[1:22:59] Because that's kind of

[1:23:00] your thing.

[1:23:00] I don't want to bring

[1:23:02] anyone down.

[1:23:02] We love doing the show.

[1:23:04] We have a great time doing the show.

[1:23:06] We have a lot of fun.

[1:23:07] It's a good excuse for us three as probably at this point I would call us best friends.

[1:23:13] Getting in touch regularly, getting to see one another regularly.

[1:23:19] Best friends who turned down Stuart's invitation to watch a movie together.

[1:23:23] But yeah, okay.

[1:23:23] It's a good chance for us to stay close.

[1:23:27] It's a good chance for us to talk.

[1:23:28] It's a good chance for us to put out something in the world for you people to enjoy, which we love.

[1:23:33] But I will be honest, it gets tough.

[1:23:36] It gets tough sometimes.

[1:23:37] It gets harder as the years go by to find the time to set aside to record the podcast,

[1:23:43] to edit the podcast, to like the bigger the podcast gets,

[1:23:46] the more it's like a second business that we all have to kind of run together.

[1:23:50] So it makes it good if we get money for it.

[1:23:55] That's true, yeah.

[1:23:56] Money equals we can put time into the podcast that you like.

[1:23:59] Yeah.

[1:24:00] And we can do extra stuff like touring.

[1:24:03] I just want to mention quickly, I said something about it last week.

[1:24:09] We are touring this summer and fall, June 8, Portland, July 13, Minneapolis, September 28, Boston, October 12, Los Angeles.

[1:24:20] You can find out about that on the website.

[1:24:23] We won't waste a lot of time on that because it's the Max Fund Drive.

[1:24:25] But that's the sort of thing that having money can let us do.

[1:24:29] Yep.

[1:24:29] So it's good to have as well as, you know, to feed us, clothe us, house us.

[1:24:36] Keep Archie and then my multiple cats in food and clothes.

[1:24:40] Yeah, and my children.

[1:24:42] Oh, well, yeah.

[1:24:43] Yeah, them too.

[1:24:45] So, yeah, that's the MaxFunDrive.

[1:24:47] Please show us your support.

[1:24:49] We'll talk a little bit more about it again at the end of the episode.

[1:24:53] But take any time you want during this episode to go to MaximumFun.org slash donate.

[1:24:58] Pick what kind of membership level you want to go at and just give us your information and just be a part of the fun that is supporting Maximum Fun and being a member.

[1:25:06] There's a lot of great stuff about it.

[1:25:07] I don't want to tell you all of it because if you're not a member already, you don't deserve to know until you become a member.

[1:25:12] And if you are a member already, then you already know how amazing it is and you don't need me wasting your time telling you.

[1:25:17] So let's talk about it more later at the end of the episode.

[1:25:21] Maximum Fun Drive, donate now, maximumfun.org slash donate.

[1:25:24] Dan, what do we do next on the regular episode podcast?

[1:25:26] Next, we talk to you via the medium of email.

[1:25:31] Specifically, you email us, and we talk back to you.

[1:25:34] Letters, we call it.

[1:25:35] Yep, it's our classic segment, email talkback.

[1:25:38] This first letter is from, let's see, Taj, last name withheld.

[1:25:44] Who writes, I finally got round to see one of Elliot's favorite films.

[1:25:49] Parsing sings The Fall.

[1:25:51] I was shocked to find an Elliott suggestion

[1:25:53] that had been made in the last 70 years, however.

[1:25:56] As the film is set in 1915 and features silent movies,

[1:25:59] it makes sense why it gets the Kalen seal of approval.

[1:26:01] Hardy har har.

[1:26:04] I...

[1:26:05] Well, well, well.

[1:26:06] Okay.

[1:26:07] I get a lot of guff about having love in old movies,

[1:26:11] but now he's gone too far.

[1:26:13] You know why?

[1:26:13] Why?

[1:26:15] Yeah.

[1:26:16] Because I needed attention.

[1:26:18] I'm sorry, guys.

[1:26:18] I shouldn't have interrupted.

[1:26:19] Okay, I enjoyed watching it.

[1:26:22] There was a charming child performance at its core

[1:26:24] and some stunning images.

[1:26:25] There was an unevenness there, too,

[1:26:27] which reminded me of Terry Gilliam's work.

[1:26:29] Is this just fucking Letterboxd now?

[1:26:30] What's going on here?

[1:26:31] It reminded me of Terry Gilliam's work,

[1:26:35] and I wondered how the former Python

[1:26:36] might have approached the fall.

[1:26:38] I suspect there would have been more comedy

[1:26:40] and even more chaos.

[1:26:41] I then started really wishing for a Guillermo del Toro version.

[1:26:44] My questions are these.

[1:26:46] Do you have any films that you'd like to see

[1:26:48] directed by someone else?

[1:26:49] If yes, which films, by whom, and why?

[1:26:51] Bonus question, I've recently bought Elliot's excellent Horse Meets Dog to read to my son.

[1:26:56] I've decided that I'm going to try a John Gielgud voice for Horse, but an alive Gielgud, naturally, and Alan Cumming for Dog.

[1:27:05] Who would you cast in the role?

[1:27:06] Oh, wait, which question should we talk about first?

[1:27:10] Well, I don't know.

[1:27:11] I've forgotten the first one already.

[1:27:13] It's movies directed by different directors.

[1:27:16] Oh, okay.

[1:27:16] I'll just say it right here.

[1:27:19] I'll just say right now, Pedro Emo Dovar's Jurassic Park, for obvious reasons.

[1:27:24] Yeah, no need to say anything else.

[1:27:26] Don't need to explain it.

[1:27:27] That's what I want to say.

[1:27:28] Probably couldn't.

[1:27:29] Yeah, I mean, I guess that would probably make more people happy than Mike Lee's Jurassic Park.

[1:27:37] Mike Lee's Jurassic Park is entirely just like semi-improvised conversations among the marketing team over what they're going to name this dinosaur park.

[1:27:49] uh dan stewart do you have any ideas movies you'd like to see directed by other people

[1:27:52] uh oh god it's it's always tough for me to think about uh to take a movie and then just have a

[1:28:01] completely different director do it because like it's hard to say how much impact the original

[1:28:05] director had on what i liked about the original uh are we talking about just i mean not to ask

[1:28:11] the rules or anything but like if it's just like a different person starts from the screenplay and

[1:28:17] works their way up i guess i don't know like i'm a big fan of uh i had mentioned previously uh many

[1:28:24] moons ago when i talked about uh when i talked about the uh the human centipede how how much i

[1:28:31] would have preferred that movie if it had been directed by uh stewart gordon uh because the

[1:28:38] stewart gordon much more so than tom six seems to understand uh well how to make a good movie

[1:28:44] and also uh how to make uh how to make like body horror and physical horror so and gore

[1:28:52] so physically revolting um and i think that would have made that movie a little more effective

[1:28:57] as opposed to not effective um but it's it's tough like outside of that just saying like

[1:29:05] i would like to see more kind of boring normal oscar fair directed by weirder directors like

[1:29:12] i would have much preferred uh i don't know like i feel like david cronenberg doesn't get to direct

[1:29:19] enough movies so uh i guess more movies directed by him so like bohemian rhapsody directed by david

[1:29:24] cronenberg i mean i feel like if you completely changed the direct i mean changing the director

[1:29:29] in bohemian rhapsody is the minimum thing you can do to fix that movie i mean it is it is something

[1:29:34] they actually did during the production of the film now that i think about it yeah um let's say

[1:29:38] let's say uh let's say david cronenberg's green book uh i don't know about that i didn't see it

[1:29:44] and i don't plan to i'd assume then that the book would become like a like some kind of uh portal to

[1:29:50] an alternate universe or something like that you know uh yeah it's bound with human skin or

[1:29:55] something i mean isn't isn't the ultimate body horror the horror that people judge each other

[1:30:01] by their physical appearances and their bodies rather than what's inside them dan uh sure

[1:30:08] uh isn't that the ultimate horrible thing that people do yes i'll wow you're really bumbling

[1:30:15] this bounce pass dan well it's a question i was not prepared to answer and i get the feeling

[1:30:21] elliot is doing it as a joke to make himself seem extra like uh you know like cool not at all

[1:30:29] not at all okay um i'm just saying look it's easy for us to escape into realms of grotesquery

[1:30:36] rather than grappling with the real problems of humanity.

[1:30:39] I mean, that's 100% me.

[1:30:41] To answer the question that's not Elliot's question.

[1:30:48] Yeah.

[1:30:48] So I didn't really think about this that much

[1:30:52] despite getting this email early on

[1:30:54] and forwarding it to you guys.

[1:30:55] Why would you?

[1:30:58] No, why would I?

[1:30:59] You were busy falling asleep while watching Peppermint.

[1:31:01] I had a podcast to record.

[1:31:05] So the things that occur to me most foremost are movies that were taken away from their original director and how I would rather see the original director do it.

[1:31:15] Like it's a better way to write Ant-Man or Lord and Miller doing solo.

[1:31:21] Like I would have preferred seeing those versions or Bryan Singer with Bohemian Rhapsody.

[1:31:26] I did not say that.

[1:31:29] But for other movies, let's just say Joe Dante gets to do all of them.

[1:31:34] Yeah, Joe Dante's Green Book.

[1:31:37] Yeah.

[1:31:37] Do you have anything, Elliot?

[1:31:40] Yeah, Pedro Maldonado's Jurassic Park.

[1:31:43] I said it already.

[1:31:43] All right, well, then let's move on.

[1:31:45] I mean, anytime you can have a...

[1:31:47] I mean, similarly to like you're saying,

[1:31:49] these kind of like middle-of-the-road,

[1:31:50] kind of like mainstream movies

[1:31:52] to having more interesting people doing them,

[1:31:54] I would love for people to...

[1:31:57] You know, the thing that always gets promised,

[1:32:00] where it's like, oh, this franchise

[1:32:01] is going to have someone with a unique vision take over,

[1:32:04] And that rarely actually happens.

[1:32:06] Except for like Alfonso Cuadon's Harry Potter movie.

[1:32:10] Yeah, kind of.

[1:32:11] Or like I would love to see like, I don't know, people do like James Bond movies who are not regular James Bond people or something like that.

[1:32:18] Or like Godzilla movies.

[1:32:19] Like there's so many of them already.

[1:32:21] We've established the default norm that now they can move off of that and go into other directions.

[1:32:28] But they rarely do.

[1:32:31] Elliot, nostalgia is very important to people

[1:32:33] and people don't actually want to be surprised

[1:32:35] by the thing that they love.

[1:32:36] That's a fair point, actually.

[1:32:39] That's a good point.

[1:32:40] Okay.

[1:32:41] Let's move on to a different letter

[1:32:46] that I will look at right now.

[1:32:49] Wow.

[1:32:50] Wow.

[1:32:51] So remember, everybody,

[1:32:54] think about how great the Flophouse is

[1:32:56] and donate the amount of money you think goes with that.

[1:33:01] i didn't just uh click on the flop house episode i was looking at something drag it to your old

[1:33:06] recycling bin i was looking up i was looking up something related to the show then unplug your

[1:33:11] computer talking sooner than i thought so i needed to flip back to the right tab pour gasoline all

[1:33:16] over that computer then light it on fire get rid of the flop house okay so put just put a drill up

[1:33:24] to your head and trip in yourself so that the memories of this episode flow out the hole in

[1:33:28] your skull christine last name withheld writes a car hey flippity floppers i've been seeing a lot

[1:33:38] of my favorite shows or movies getting the reboot treatment while i would love to see more of these

[1:33:43] worlds i feel a disconnect with the new interpretations of the material either it

[1:33:47] feels tonally off to the source or it's just a retelling of an already fleshed out arc with a

[1:33:52] new cast i'm not against remakes but it seems like when a story has reached an end point we could go

[1:33:57] elsewhere with the plot.

[1:33:58] For example, with talks of the

[1:34:02] Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot,

[1:34:03] I would prefer to see a series about

[1:34:05] a different Slayer in the Buffyverse, like

[1:34:07] Nikki Reed, Kendra, or have an older Buffy

[1:34:09] become a Watcher training a younger Slayer.

[1:34:12] What about

[1:34:13] if it was a fish and it was Orange Ruffy

[1:34:15] the Vampire Slayer?

[1:34:17] That was certainly worth

[1:34:19] stopping a letter for.

[1:34:20] I'd rather have those than have a new series about

[1:34:27] her, especially when we already have the movie, show

[1:34:29] and comic telling her story. Are there

[1:34:31] any remakes that you wish had further

[1:34:33] explored the world they took place in instead

[1:34:35] of following the characters you already

[1:34:37] knew? Christine, last name with help.

[1:34:39] So...

[1:34:43] I mean, I will say one of the things that

[1:34:45] I like about the new Star Wars movies is

[1:34:47] that they are shedding the old characters

[1:34:49] and moving on from them.

[1:34:51] As much as I enjoy the old

[1:34:53] Star Wars movies and love them, I would

[1:34:55] like nothing more than for them to stop talking about the skywalker family yeah and you have to

[1:34:59] let the let the past die you must kill it exactly uh a thing that is did not do this as well i think

[1:35:05] were the jj abrams star trek movies where i got so mad that the second movie was just ended up being

[1:35:12] a redo of the con story and i was like can we not do like new stories i know it's not exactly the

[1:35:19] same thing because it's not totally new leads although it would be interesting to me to have

[1:35:23] new types of characters in those two but like to to just like do a remake of literally a story from

[1:35:29] before seems like a wasted opportunity come up with a new story you know or do a remake of star

[1:35:33] trek 5 my favorite one well it makes uh it's if it kind of reminds me of how uh like dark horse

[1:35:41] comics was doing all those branded like aliens and predator comics for a while and they seem

[1:35:47] the comics seemed to handle that stuff so much better than the eventual movies

[1:35:52] did. Um, I mean,

[1:35:54] this doesn't directly answer the question cause I have trouble thinking of a

[1:35:57] remake or a property that had been remade that I cared enough about either

[1:36:02] part. I don't know. Um, but the, uh,

[1:36:07] I guess what I'm trying to say is, uh, yeah, I like, uh, it,

[1:36:11] I'd like to see something more like the way that Matt Wagner handled his

[1:36:15] grendel comics and his grendel characters where he after like the first hunter rose stuff wrapped up

[1:36:22] he just kind of went in weirder and stranger directions and took kind of the essence of the

[1:36:28] character or even just the look of the character and made weird strange little sci-fi comics out

[1:36:34] of them and handed off to other creators do you know what i'm talking about yeah yeah exactly

[1:36:39] instead of it just being the continuing adventures of hunter rose and then his granddaughter or and

[1:36:46] his granddaughter just going through cycling through the exact same things basically yeah

[1:36:52] that it then became using the theme of i guess like the trouble of this spirit of violence that

[1:36:58] uh that corrupts humanity that it then became this yeah some bizarre stories and that then

[1:37:04] the idea of a Grendel

[1:37:06] as a thing became the unifying

[1:37:08] element. I think that's a good way to put it.

[1:37:09] And I would like to see

[1:37:12] fewer lazy

[1:37:14] reboots like this

[1:37:15] Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Return

[1:37:18] that just rehashes

[1:37:20] the old format with

[1:37:22] new characters. Not even fully new characters.

[1:37:24] Which you would rather have not seen.

[1:37:26] I would like to see the adventures

[1:37:28] of Cambot

[1:37:29] grappling with what it's like

[1:37:32] to be a camera that's also a robot.

[1:37:34] Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty good idea.

[1:37:38] They could call it Cam.

[1:37:39] And it would be about, I don't know,

[1:37:44] somebody who makes their living by being videotaped.

[1:37:46] Yeah.

[1:37:46] Go on.

[1:37:48] Okay, I'll take these ideas to Joel,

[1:37:50] and I'll see what he says about them.

[1:37:52] He's a young guy.

[1:37:53] He can probably roll with it, right?

[1:37:54] Yeah.

[1:37:55] You've always felt that the best thing

[1:37:56] about Mr. Science Theater

[1:37:57] is when they're not watching the movie,

[1:37:59] and I respect you for that.

[1:38:01] I actually really like the host segments.

[1:38:04] I know that they're always like deeply, deeply stupid,

[1:38:08] but that's what I respond to.

[1:38:09] Wow, Dan gave up on the bit really fast.

[1:38:12] No, I'm honestly saying I've never understood people who are like,

[1:38:17] I really like Mystery Science Theater,

[1:38:18] but I don't like when they're not watching the movie.

[1:38:20] That's crazy.

[1:38:21] I mean, that's such a lesser version of the people who are like,

[1:38:28] I love Star Wars.

[1:38:30] I fucking hate the Star Wars movies.

[1:38:31] And it's like, hold on a second.

[1:38:33] I don't understand what you like anymore.

[1:38:34] What's your deal?

[1:38:36] Should we move on to the final letter?

[1:38:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:38:40] Why not?

[1:38:41] Okay, this is from Aiden Last Name Withheld.

[1:38:43] Hey there, guys.

[1:38:45] It strikes me that this is a very special episode

[1:38:48] that hasn't had a song yet.

[1:38:50] So let's have a special song for this final letter.

[1:38:54] It's gonna be the better letter, this last one,

[1:38:58] Because I'm sure Dan thought about it ahead of time and organized them precisely to save the best letter for last.

[1:39:06] It certainly doesn't seem like Dan that he might just take three random letters and throw them in whatever order they happen to arrive in.

[1:39:16] Or maybe the order that they were already in in his inbox.

[1:39:19] That wouldn't be like Dan.

[1:39:22] Dan puts in extra effort all the time.

[1:39:26] He certainly doesn't fall asleep in the movies or forget what letter we're doing next or maybe what the question was.

[1:39:34] So, Dan, hey, give us this amazing final letter that ties together all the threads that you've laid up till this point in some magical mystery way that reveals to us today this intricate design that we call the Flophouse.

[1:39:52] Donate now.

[1:39:53] Okay.

[1:39:55] Last letter.

[1:39:56] Aiden, last name withheld, writes,

[1:39:58] To Stu.

[1:40:00] That's me.

[1:40:01] Which movies pair best with your favorite beers?

[1:40:03] To Elliot.

[1:40:04] I know that you have a strong interest in the presidency of a certain vampire hunter,

[1:40:08] but are there other particular periods of world history that intrigue you?

[1:40:14] And are there any good, great movies about them, too?

[1:40:17] To Dan.

[1:40:18] You aren't the Leonardo of the group.

[1:40:20] You're the splinter.

[1:40:21] I know that wasn't a question, but I asked Elliot, too.

[1:40:25] So I get to sit back, relax, and not answer this.

[1:40:29] So, Stu, movies and beers?

[1:40:33] Oh, I mean, based on my beer consumption when watching movies lately,

[1:40:38] I've been going through a lot of the other half Green City IPA,

[1:40:44] which is a nice, juicy East Coast IPA.

[1:40:46] And I drink that every time I'm at the movies,

[1:40:50] whether it's a movie that allows me to drink beer or not.

[1:40:55] so it's the movie that's allowing you to drink beer or not yeah yeah i asked the movie everyone

[1:41:03] in the crowd yells at me but i wait for the movie to respond they never do pardon pardon me the

[1:41:10] favorite would you mind if i enjoy this other half beer and the favorite didn't was uh said

[1:41:18] nothing to me i was left there just wondering and wanting similar to the characters of the favorite

[1:41:25] excuse me uh call me by your name uh can i call you by my name while i'm drinking a beer

[1:41:31] or is that not okay uh-huh they're like well i'm glad you use our name as part of the question

[1:41:35] that's impressive uh so so uh favorite movie to drink to drink a beer to all of them onto my

[1:41:45] question yeah i mean that's a hundred percent me though right like i've already made that pretty

[1:41:51] clear i yeah sure there's never been a movie that i've watched that i didn't want to be drinking

[1:41:55] during it yeah elliot's distracted by something so let's talk about elliot's googling help centers

[1:42:02] to call okay uh does stewart have a problem oh here on uh quora it says no okay they crowdsourced

[1:42:11] it i'll say uh other periods in world history that i'm particularly interested in there's it's

[1:42:15] hard to find a period in world history that i am not interested in they're all pretty interesting

[1:42:19] it's taken me until my adulthood

[1:42:22] to really get into medieval Europe

[1:42:23] which I was not so interested in when I was younger

[1:42:26] but now I am

[1:42:27] but great good movies, that's a good question

[1:42:30] look, if you're interested in feudal Japan

[1:42:32] there's a ton of different movies

[1:42:34] to watch, go watch Seven Samurai

[1:42:36] go watch Kill

[1:42:37] there's tons of good samurai movies

[1:42:39] Sword of Vengeance

[1:42:41] or Sword of Doom

[1:42:43] if it's a sword it's probably good

[1:42:46] but there's also uh like if you're interested in kind of uh right like kind of pre-civil war

[1:42:56] america this isn't exactly about that history but the movie the devil and daniel webster

[1:42:59] uh is a favorite of mine and that and it's kind of like if they made a a scary movie about the

[1:43:07] period of american like the 18 you know uh oh are they still making scary movies

[1:43:13] why i yada i mean how many of them they made scary movies like five just made like five or six of them

[1:43:20] yeah uh and i would say a period in world history that people find really boring but it's not

[1:43:26] is ancient rome and this is not a movie recommendation but i would say go read i

[1:43:30] claudius by robert graves it's a great book i actually have never seen the mini series that

[1:43:36] they made of it which i've heard all lots is really good but that's a book where it really

[1:43:41] turned me around on ancient Rome where it was

[1:43:42] hard for me to keep straight any of the

[1:43:45] history of Rome in my head and I read I Claudius and I was like

[1:43:47] oh yeah the secret is they were all

[1:43:49] individuals and all different people

[1:43:50] so go watch that

[1:43:53] or by watch I mean look at it

[1:43:55] with your eyes and then read it

[1:43:56] which is like a form of watching

[1:43:57] yeah basically

[1:43:59] alright so let's get on to the

[1:44:02] final segment

[1:44:03] real quick before we get into that final segment I just want to

[1:44:07] relay a little bit of information

[1:44:08] uh okay passed on from my buddy max i want to give a quick shout out and a congratulations to

[1:44:15] flop house listener daniel laspada for winning his election uh for chicago's first award and

[1:44:23] being elected alderman congratulations sir okay now what do we do all right well thanks for that

[1:44:30] uh i forget oh wait we recommend movies uh-huh recommendations dan come on all right i'm gonna

[1:44:37] let you in on a little secret here's what i do before every episode i write up a document yeah

[1:44:42] with all the things i need to remember for that episode yeah things that are not that hard to

[1:44:46] remember but maybe you could have a helper thing like this yeah well you write it down uh-huh i

[1:44:51] mean in daniel's in daniel's defense i threw him a curveball i was busy thinking like is this someone

[1:44:58] that we want to politically endorse or are they are they good or they're bad i don't know anything

[1:45:03] about them but congratulations to them as a listener definitely um anyway yeah he he won his

[1:45:09] he won on the american nazi party platform you could not be happier yeah most likely i did

[1:45:15] literally no questioning or research and just blindly recommended somebody yeah right dan that

[1:45:21] sounds like me idiot okay well thanks a lot of attacks on dan this episode but um and i don't

[1:45:28] know why you're at you've been at peak efficiency performance all episode look i uh it's similar to

[1:45:35] how king kong was climbing so high and as he got higher and higher more planes kept showing up i

[1:45:39] feel like i i feel like i i feel like i woke up for the parts of this episode where we're asking

[1:45:45] for money no you were great um so uh this is where we recommend movies that we watched recently

[1:45:51] um hey guys i haven't seen a lot recently so i'm gonna recommend something pretty obvious

[1:45:57] i hope stewart wasn't already gonna recommend it but i went out i saw captain marvel oh i liked it

[1:46:03] a lot it was good i like those marvel movies in general yeah uh to me this was sort of sort of

[1:46:10] down the middle when it comes to all marvel movies but i was really happy to enjoy it i mean but as

[1:46:14] like as i think scott devise was saying on the uh on the what's the fucking show they do uh on the

[1:46:22] last picture show he was he mentions that like or he puts out the idea that marvel movies the

[1:46:29] difference between the worst marvel movie and the best marvel movie is pretty small yeah so like

[1:46:34] right down the middle is pretty good yeah i mean also considering that i have pretty much enjoyed

[1:46:40] all of them to some degree or another i you know like possible exception one or two but uh you're

[1:46:47] saying that ed norton hulk really like satisfied you in the way the other movies haven't yeah the

[1:46:52] norton hulk and and the thor the dark world maybe maybe not so much but every every one of the other

[1:46:56] ones i would i would give a recommend to so uh to say it's down the middle is is good praise and i

[1:47:01] was very happy to see that it made a ton of money proving the internet trolls wrong who uh something

[1:47:08] just hated i guess the idea of a of a woman in charge of a superhero uh uh movie uh so yeah it's

[1:47:16] it's good it's it's very fun and it's like a fun 90s buddy comedy between uh brie larson and sam

[1:47:24] jackson for most of the part of it which is something i very much enjoyed yeah something

[1:47:28] somebody's finally mining that rich vein of 90s nostalgia give me some no doubt in that soundtrack

[1:47:36] uh that podcast that scott defies on is the next picture show jesus christ i'm an idiot

[1:47:41] no it's you know uh but so it's okay you know he's just you know i think he's a listener so

[1:47:46] he probably won't be upset at all no i i know and like i listen to his podcast i just don't

[1:47:53] like remember stuff very well i think we've covered yeah uh so i'll look forward to the

[1:48:01] a little indie film yeah captain marvel yeah hopefully uh hopefully your support will help

[1:48:06] uh make it some money you know push it over the top cool uh i'm gonna recommend a little movie

[1:48:13] called wait for it called the wailing uh this is a korean movie um i'm not going to mention any

[1:48:23] like moby dick yep uh it's a kind of lengthy i would almost call it epic uh small horror movie

[1:48:33] just based on the length um but it's this beautiful movie about a uh stranger showing up

[1:48:41] in a isolated, uh, village and all of a sudden a strange kind of sickness starts spreading

[1:48:47] around and a variety of other strange happenings. And we follow a kind of, kind of doofy police

[1:48:55] officer who, uh, is trying to make sense out of what's going on. And he also is trying

[1:49:01] to hold his family together. And, uh, it is a kind of moving, it's a moving and beautiful

[1:49:10] movie that is also strange

[1:49:12] and scary at times.

[1:49:14] I totally recommend it. It's called

[1:49:16] The Wailing.

[1:49:17] I was not familiar with it, and looking up now,

[1:49:20] it was made by the same director who made The Chaser.

[1:49:22] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is good.

[1:49:23] Okay, that's good.

[1:49:25] And

[1:49:28] I'm going to recommend a little movie

[1:49:30] because we're doing little movies today.

[1:49:32] This is a movie that

[1:49:34] is not going to change your life.

[1:49:36] It's called

[1:49:37] Little Stuart Little. It's about Stuart Little when he was a baby.

[1:49:40] uh there's uh nick park who created walson gromit came out with a movie last year called early man

[1:49:46] that kind of came and went and i can understand why it did it's essentially the story of cavemen

[1:49:52] having a soccer competition but uh we watched it just the other week with uh my son we've

[1:49:59] instituted now friday night is movie night where he gets to watch a movie uh before he goes to bed

[1:50:04] how many of those uh how many of those movies are cars three we have put a limit on how many times

[1:50:09] we can watch the Cars movies.

[1:50:11] For a while, I was like, oh, it's movie night.

[1:50:13] What do you want to watch?

[1:50:14] Cars?

[1:50:15] No, we're not watching Cars tonight.

[1:50:16] Cars 3?

[1:50:16] No, we're not watching Cars 3 tonight.

[1:50:18] But he's a big fan of Wallace and Gromit, my son,

[1:50:21] as, of course, everyone with love in their heart is.

[1:50:24] And I didn't know.

[1:50:25] Early Man kind of came and went, and I hadn't heard much about it.

[1:50:28] And we were like, we'll give it a shot.

[1:50:29] And it was just really funny, which shouldn't have surprised me.

[1:50:32] It has a lot of the Aardman animation inventiveness to it.

[1:50:35] The story is just kind of, you know, whatever.

[1:50:37] It's cavemen who want.

[1:50:38] It's the same old story of cavemen trying to save the valley from invaders

[1:50:42] by having a soccer competition with them.

[1:50:44] But it's just a really funny, fun movie, and I enjoyed it a lot,

[1:50:48] and I recommend it for families to watch.

[1:50:50] Great.

[1:50:52] Okay, three family recommendations.

[1:50:54] Yeah, I guess so.

[1:50:55] Wait, no.

[1:50:57] Well, depends on how cool your family is, dudes.

[1:51:01] You got Dan.

[1:51:02] You got him on that one.

[1:51:04] Yeah.

[1:51:04] Okay, now that we've got all that business out of the way, guys,

[1:51:07] let's talk about something fun.

[1:51:08] Oh, yeah, that's right.

[1:51:09] We're talking about the Max Fund Pledge Drive.

[1:51:12] This is our last break.

[1:51:13] I just wanted to hammer home that being part of the Max Fund Network is a huge deal for us.

[1:51:21] It was kind of like a career milestone for us when we were invited and we joined the network.

[1:51:31] It feels like we're part of a family and through listening to MaxFun shows and interacting with

[1:51:38] both MaxFun listeners and the hosts of the other programs, I feel like I've become a better person.

[1:51:44] And I like to think that a lot of that has to do with MaxFun. And I think that's an organization

[1:51:52] that's worth supporting and our shows are all worth supporting. So if you have a little bit

[1:52:00] spare income and you'd like

[1:52:01] to support a

[1:52:03] bunch of cool shows and you'd like

[1:52:06] to support the entertainment that

[1:52:08] helps get you through the day,

[1:52:09] please consider

[1:52:11] either donating or if you're already a

[1:52:14] listener and you can afford it and you'd like

[1:52:16] some of the cool gifts, why not upgrade?

[1:52:18] Dan, why are you laughing at me?

[1:52:19] I was burying my

[1:52:22] soul, Dan. I was like very touched

[1:52:24] by what Stuart was saying and Dan is meanwhile

[1:52:25] just like snickering through the whole thing.

[1:52:27] He's a kid, he's like a

[1:52:30] middle school kid at an assembly about bullying and he's just like no it was a very nice thing

[1:52:34] that was said and it was all true i just at some point i remember dan looked over and on my notebook

[1:52:40] i'm just writing 69 over and over like a madman no uh for some reason i suddenly imagined you

[1:52:48] going if you've got a song in your heart and a dollar in your pocket donate to maximum fun

[1:52:54] that would be that would be weird for me to say that would that does sound like the thing he would

[1:53:00] say too yeah sure uh i i'd like to say uh when it comes to the max fun drive like uh doing the flop

[1:53:09] house is something that's very important to me and i'm always touched by people who take something

[1:53:14] out of it uh that helps them in their lives even if it's just having a silly thing to listen to

[1:53:18] uh it's been very helpful to me to have a source of income that i can rely on that helps supplement

[1:53:24] uh what is a pretty uneven lifestyle which by which i mean being in entertainment and not having

[1:53:31] a steady year-round job so i really appreciate that and something that i've come to rely on

[1:53:36] quite a bit uh but max fun is not drive is not just about our show although our show is important

[1:53:41] to us and hopefully meaningful to you in some way it's about a family of shows nay a galaxy of shows

[1:53:48] Actually, no, nay, let's go back to family of shows. That sounds better because when you donate to us, you're also donating to the network. The network helps support a lot of different voices and a lot of different people who now have access to a wider audience and now can be a part of this family that we're all in.

[1:54:05] and i wanted to take a moment to thank our existing members uh you really make it very

[1:54:11] possible for us to do this uh and we're very glad that you have shown that support for us

[1:54:16] when you don't have to you could listen to this show for free you could say hey

[1:54:20] walnuts buddy cram it with walnuts i'm gonna take this for nothing and i don't want anything to give

[1:54:26] back but a lot of people have said no i don't want to do that i don't want to basically be

[1:54:30] let's just say scum uh for all those free riders that might be a little harsh but uh

[1:54:35] there uh i want to thank the people who have already been supporting us uh who are not scum

[1:54:39] and i want to say that if you like your current membership level just like stick with it and we

[1:54:45] would really appreciate that if you want to upgrade we'd appreciate it so much we would

[1:54:50] still appreciate that and like you don't need to do it but it would just be really meaningful

[1:54:54] and we have that goal of 25 000 for the whole network newer upgrading members and that'll help

[1:54:59] us to do more it'll help max fun to do more like dan said things like travel are things that we can

[1:55:05] do because the flop house has this money from members in its coffers that we can use to pay

[1:55:11] for stuff like airplanes and hotels and one one steak dinner a trip which we didn't get to do in

[1:55:18] wisconsin which was kind of a bone of contention for me that i was really looking forward to just

[1:55:21] sitting down and eating steak with my buds and we didn't get to do that but you know whatever

[1:55:25] dan needed to go out and hang out with people sure that's fine oh yeah yeah yeah make fun of

[1:55:29] me while we're asking for money make fun of me for wanting to hobnob with listeners

[1:55:32] uh but this is like when we were first asked uh to well when we talked to max fun about it and

[1:55:44] they agreed to uh let us be part of their network i didn't realize what a strong community we were

[1:55:49] going to be a part of and how many friends i was going to make from it and what a what a real

[1:55:54] feeling of like togetherness and uh just connection we were going to get from it and so i appreciate

[1:56:01] it personally i know we all do and everyone at max fund does when our listeners become part of

[1:56:06] that community too by helping us to keep going and supporting us so we really appreciate it uh again

[1:56:12] if you can go to maximumfund.org slash donate and select the membership level that feels right for

[1:56:16] you credit card information your basic information about shows and that's all it takes and then you

[1:56:22] can say as you walk around in your daily life hey i'm more than just one of these regular people

[1:56:28] max fun donor i'm a member of the max fun family uh and because yeah like like stewart like stewart

[1:56:36] has seen real you know change like he was saying changes in his thinking and being i think i felt

[1:56:42] a little bit of that too and it's just been like a really rewarding wonderful place to be a part of

[1:56:47] and please help us to continue to be a part of it and help us to keep going we really appreciate it

[1:56:50] uh and on a slightly less personal note but an important note uh we sort of addressed it

[1:56:55] uh briefly before but selecting the shows that you listen to means that the money that you give

[1:57:03] goes directly to supporting the shows that you like uh which i think is a very important thing

[1:57:09] that um for for listeners to know that if they're giving money it's gonna go to uh the entertainment

[1:57:16] that they are specifically interested in.

[1:57:19] Some of it goes to general operating costs, as it should,

[1:57:22] but the rest goes directly to us, the podcast creators.

[1:57:27] And after listening to this episode, if you're already a donor,

[1:57:31] you can just go in there and remove the Flophouse because we're terrible.

[1:57:35] Delete. Just set it to zero for the Flophouse.

[1:57:38] I think I would say that knowing this is a MaxFunDrive episode,

[1:57:43] I felt a little bit of extra pressure

[1:57:45] and might have buckled under that pressure slightly.

[1:57:48] And Stuart did a great job summarizing.

[1:57:50] And Dan, of course, did his usual,

[1:57:52] I don't know what he does with his time or with his energy,

[1:57:55] but that's...

[1:57:56] Sure, that's right. That's fine.

[1:57:59] I only started the podcast, but it's cool. Whatever.

[1:58:01] Oh, yeah.

[1:58:03] Okay.

[1:58:06] This might be getting too personal,

[1:58:08] but also working as a creative person,

[1:58:11] and I don't know if Dan feels this way,

[1:58:13] Uh, the, and Stuart is also a creative person, but, but his profession is not based explicitly

[1:58:18] in it.

[1:58:18] So I don't know if it's the same thing.

[1:58:19] I find myself doing a lot of work and this is going to sound woe is me for working on

[1:58:24] TV shows and stuff.

[1:58:25] I find myself doing a lot of work where I am present.

[1:58:29] I am using my abilities to get someone else's message across or get someone else's idea

[1:58:34] across and to have something like the flop house where I can point to it and I can say

[1:58:39] that's me and Dan and Stuart, the things that people like about it.

[1:58:42] That's me and Dan and Stuart.

[1:58:43] The things people don't like about it, that's still me and Dan and Stuart.

[1:58:46] Like we can take credit and we can take blame, but it's our thing and we can point to it and say that's ours.

[1:58:51] It's not anybody else's and we're not working for anybody else.

[1:58:54] It's something that's very special to me and the Max Fund Drive is really what makes that possible because it means that we can carve out the time in our busy lives and I can justify to my family sitting downstairs for a couple hours talking to Dan and Stuart about peppermint while my wife takes care of both of our children.

[1:59:12] Because Max Fund donors make it practical, but on an emotional level, I know it's very meaningful to me to have a thing where I can point to and I can say, that's Dan and Stuart's and mine.

[1:59:21] It's nobody else's, and that provides something for my soul that's very necessary.

[1:59:25] So thank you to everybody for making that possible, and please help us continue to make that possible.

[1:59:30] Yeah, I mean this is broadcast to the world, so my official position as a person who's employed regularly is that my job is wonderful, and I have no complaints.

[1:59:41] But as a human being, my message is thank you for keeping me sane by allowing me to have a thing that is my creative endeavor and not me putting words in someone else's mouth.

[1:59:56] Yeah.

[1:59:57] Yeah, what you guys said.

[2:00:00] All right.

[2:00:02] Well, I guess that is the most elegant way to sum everything up.

[2:00:06] So thank you for listening.

[2:00:08] Thank you for hopefully donating

[2:00:10] At MaximumFun.org

[2:00:12] Slash donate

[2:00:13] And while you're at MaximumFun.org

[2:00:15] You can check out other shows, obviously

[2:00:17] Yeah, tons of great content

[2:00:19] Keep on tweeting about us, keep on rating us on iTunes

[2:00:22] But for now

[2:00:23] We should say goodbye

[2:00:25] And I'm saying goodbye, and my name is Dan McCloy

[2:00:28] I'm also saying goodbye

[2:00:29] And my name is Stuart Lenton-Wellington

[2:00:32] I'm saying goodbye

[2:00:34] And I'm also saying going to MaximumFun.org

[2:00:36] Slash donate

[2:00:36] and donate some more, upgrade your membership or whatever.

[2:00:39] I don't know.

[2:00:39] But I'm saying goodbye mostly,

[2:00:41] and my name is Elliot Charles Kalin II.

[2:00:44] See ya.

[2:00:46] Bye.

[2:00:46] See ya.

[2:00:47] And Dan, you just sit back, be your regular self.

[2:01:03] Just kind of be bemused at the whole thing.

[2:01:06] Okay.

[2:01:06] And eventually, Chortle.

[2:01:08] And that's how we know you're here.

[2:01:10] Thank you.

[2:01:11] Wow, that's an accurate representation of Dan's performance sometimes.

[2:01:14] Burn.

[2:01:15] Burn.

[2:01:16] I'm just kidding, Dan.

[2:01:17] You're an integral part of it.

[2:01:18] Somehow a harsher burn.

Ep. #280 - Peppermint

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