Ep. #271 - Death Wish

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode we discuss Death Wish.

Stuart Wellington

[0:03] Not a suitable replacement for Viagra.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[0:36] Watch out now, it's me, Stuart Wellington.

[0:38] And here's Elliot Kalin, blown back by the sheer propulsive force of Dan's hello.

[0:43] Not what I expected since he was yawning moments before.

Dan McCoy

[0:47] Well, I'm a real pro, I can turn it on for the, I was going to say cameras, but there aren't any cameras here.

[0:52] I'm just saying, tell the listeners, here comes the boom.

[0:54] As Dan's ready to roll.

Stuart Wellington

[0:56] Yeah, the force of Dan's hello blew the leaf Elliot was using to shield the rain off of his little head.

[1:03] We're outdoors, I guess?

[1:05] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:06] Yeah, I'm a mouse, yeah.

[1:07] Okay.

[1:08] Ralph S. Mouse?

[1:10] I mean, that's kind of what I implied, but I guess you can spell it out for the listeners.

[1:14] Ralph Stuart Mouse.

[1:16] S stands for Stuart Little.

[1:18] Ralph Stuart Little Mouse.

[1:20] It's a thing that no one has ever associated with me all of my life.

[1:24] Oh, come on.

[1:25] I don't care.

[1:26] I don't care.

[1:27] It's fine.

[1:27] It's fine, guys.

[1:28] No, no, let's get to the bottom of this.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29] So, Stuart, have you often been made fun of because people might think you're a mouse?

[1:32] Yes.

[1:32] Okay.

[1:33] I can see how that made you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34] We got to the bottom of it already.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35] Well, we made a real breakthrough.

[1:36] Wow, we made a breakthrough, right?

[1:37] It's not your fault, Stuart.

[1:38] It's not your fault.

[1:39] It's not your fault, and it's done.

Stuart Wellington

[1:41] I can't control the actions of other people, but maybe if I just got a gun and just started

[1:49] killing them.

Elliott Kalan

[1:51] Now, that may seem like a non sequitur from Stuart, but it's not.

[1:54] Because, Dan, what do we do on this podcast?

Dan McCoy

[1:55] Well, on this podcast, we watch a bad movie and we talk about it.

[1:59] And today, we're huddled in a holiday inn to talk about huddled in a huddled inn.

Elliott Kalan

[2:05] If we were an actor, it would be Tom Huddleston.

[2:09] We're here to talk about Death Wish.

[2:13] And we might sound a little tired.

[2:14] We just did a show in Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, last night.

[2:18] I don't sound tired.

Stuart Wellington

[2:19] I sound normal.

[2:20] Stuart sounds normal like a mighty lion.

[2:21] Because he always sounds tired.

[2:24] Oh, roasted by Dr. Sleepy Pants himself.

[2:28] Oh, man.

Elliott Kalan

[2:29] How much better would have been if we watched a horror movie called Dr. Sleepy Pants?

[2:32] Yeah, yeah.

[2:33] All we know about the killer is he wears pajamas and a surgical mask.

[2:37] Dr. Sleepy Pants is struck again.

[2:39] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[2:39] And when he kills somebody, he goes, night, night.

[2:42] Oh, and I was going, you so tired.

Elliott Kalan

[2:44] Oh, wow.

[2:45] You have this warm mouth.

[2:49] It's a lot of...

[2:50] And the...

[2:52] People die confused by where that accent's coming from.

[2:56] The trailer has a little kid singing like,

[2:58] Hush-a-bye and good night.

[3:03] Okay.

[3:03] Real creepy, slow.

[3:05] Yeah.

[3:06] Yeah.

[3:06] So while we wrote that movie, I guess...

[3:09] Talk to my baby.

[3:10] I mean, if we were Kevin Smith, we would immediately leave and make that movie.

[3:13] Yeah, that's true.

Stuart Wellington

[3:14] So today we reviewed...

[3:17] Well, we have not yet reviewed it.

[3:19] We viewed.

[3:20] We are about to review.

[3:21] Okay.

[3:22] Death Wish, directed by Eli Roth.

[3:24] It's a remake of the Charles Bronson movie.

Elliott Kalan

[3:27] From the 70s, which there was a whole Death Wish series.

[3:30] It starts the original.

[3:31] He's an architect whose family is killed on the mean streets of New York,

[3:34] and he decides to take the law into his own hands to stop the killers and take on anyone else.

[3:39] By the end of the series, he was, like, using bazookas to blow up drug lords.

[3:43] It got really crazy.

Stuart Wellington

[3:45] All I really remember of that series is there's one where Christopher Guest shows up as, like, a medical examiner or something.

[3:51] Yeah, waiting for Death Wish.

[3:52] Yep.

[3:52] Well, this one, Bruce Willis plays the titular Death Wish.

[3:55] Uh-huh.

Elliott Kalan

[3:57] I don't...

[3:58] Well, that's the real question is, who has the Death Wish in these movies?

[4:01] Yeah.

[4:01] Because in the first movie, in the original Charles Bronson, I think it's kind of implied that he is hoping to get killed doing this.

[4:07] Because he has...

[4:08] His life is empty now that his family is gone.

[4:09] Like, he must have a Death Wish if he's going out.

[4:11] But these criminals also must have a Death Wish if they're going to keep committing crimes when Charles Bronson is on the streets.

[4:16] But here, I'm not sure who has the Death Wish.

Dan McCoy

[4:19] Guys?

Stuart Wellington

[4:20] Yeah, I mean, everyone seems pretty committed to living.

[4:23] Maybe it was Elizabeth Shue.

Dan McCoy

[4:24] Maybe she had a Death Wish, and she got her wish.

[4:27] It's a happy movie.

[4:27] She fished her wish.

Elliott Kalan

[4:30] With her ish wish did.

[4:31] Yeah.

[4:31] Okay.

[4:32] So let's talk about this movie.

[4:33] So the movie opens in Chicago.

[4:35] Chicago is in chaos, according to the radio reports we're hearing, as we watch a, frankly, beautiful opening shot of this Chicago skyline that then pans into a police car driving along, what, Lakeshore Drive or something?

[4:47] Uh-huh.

[4:47] But according to the radio reports, Chicago's in chaos.

[4:51] Everyone in Chicago is being shot to death all the time on every street corner.

[4:54] What are we going to do about it?

Stuart Wellington

[4:56] The murder rate is sky high.

[4:57] We're, like, days away from a fucking RoboCop showing up.

Elliott Kalan

[5:00] Mm-hmm.

[5:01] The only thing that's higher than the murder rate is one of their huge pizzas.

[5:06] Oh, okay.

[5:06] It's essentially a cake filled with tomato sauce.

[5:08] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[5:08] It's the kind of pizza that you would sleep on and be like, I think there's a pee in here somewhere.

Elliott Kalan

[5:12] I mean, I sometimes get a Casper deep dish where you open it from the box looks really little and you open it up.

[5:17] And you're like, that's reasonable.

[5:18] Expands into this enormous pizza.

[5:20] And you're like, that's not reasonable at all.

[5:21] You're like, this is.

[5:22] But I'll still eat it because I'm sad.

[5:23] Ironically, the thing is, deep dish pizza isn't really, it doesn't seem like pizza, but it's much more like pie than a standard pizza pie is.

[5:30] It's got a kind of crust outside and a filling.

[5:33] Mm-hmm.

[5:33] So that's our discussion topic today.

[5:35] What deserves to be called pie, pizza or deep dish pizza?

[5:39] Let's open up the phone lines.

[5:40] Let's see, here's Jackie from Chicago.

[5:43] Hello.

[5:44] Jackie, what do you have to say?

[5:45] Who's your dog in this fight?

Stuart Wellington

[5:46] Oh, booey, boo, booey.

[5:47] Oh, we've Elmore'd again.

Elliott Kalan

[5:49] Always.

[5:51] I'll try and screen those better, Elliot.

[5:52] Thanks, I appreciate it.

[5:53] Our next call, it's Joey from the Bronx.

[5:56] Joey, you're on the air.

[5:59] Yeah, hello.

[6:00] Okay, Joey.

[6:01] Is this pizza talk?

[6:02] It is, it is.

[6:03] This is Pete's Pizza Talk.

[6:04] I'm Pete, and we're here to talk pizza.

[6:07] So, deep dish or regular New York slice, which deserves to be called pie?

[6:11] I think that pie should only have four and twenty blackbirds in it, and nothing else is a pie.

[6:17] All right, that's a hot take from a fairy tale or nursery rhyme.

[6:20] And we've also got on the phones talking about pie.

[6:22] It's Darren Aronofsky.

[6:26] Darren Aronofsky, your take on the pie situation.

Dan McCoy

[6:29] I think it catapulted me to greater success.

Elliott Kalan

[6:33] All right.

[6:33] Well, that's Pete's Pizza Talk.

[6:35] Coming back to it, now we are now returned to the Flophouse, our normal programming, which has been interrupted.

[6:41] So, anyway, Chicago is in danger.

[6:43] Yeah.

[6:43] And a cop is shot.

[6:44] Bruce Willis is a surgeon.

[6:45] He cannot save that cop's life.

[6:47] But then he has to go save the life of the animal that shot him.

[6:50] Now, the cop, the cop's partner is mad.

[6:53] He goes, so, you can't save him, but you'll save the animal who shot him?

[6:55] And for a minute, I was like, guys, what if a tiger shot him?

[6:58] Like, what if it was a literal animal?

Stuart Wellington

[7:00] Yeah, like in Plague Dogs, or the dog steps on the gun accidentally.

Elliott Kalan

[7:03] Yeah.

[7:04] And Bruce Willis is like, well, you shouldn't have taken your partner to a veterinary hospital.

[7:07] I'm much better at curing animals.

[7:09] So, let me go heal the giraffe that shot your partner.

[7:12] But that's not what it is.

[7:14] Bruce Willis, we find out he has a lovely family.

[7:17] He lives in a nice, rich man's house in Evanston, Illinois, home of my brother's college, Northwestern.

Stuart Wellington

[7:22] He's married to Elizabeth Shue, who's a welcome face.

[7:25] Very lovely face.

[7:26] Star of Adventures in Babysitting, my favorite movie.

[7:29] And Leaving Las Vegas, Dan's favorite movie.

Elliott Kalan

[7:31] He calls it hilarious.

[7:33] And the St. Elliot's favorite movie.

[7:34] Oh, I love it.

[7:35] The part where they stop that one scene just so we can talk about how great his watch is.

[7:40] Wonderful.

[7:40] Is that in the scene?

[7:41] Yeah, there's some part in it where he's like meeting us another spy in the sewers, and

[7:45] they take a moment to talk about how great their watches are or something.

[7:47] It's a weird movie.

[7:49] So he has a daughter who is going to college.

[7:52] She also plays soccer.

[7:53] And he has a wife, Elizabeth Shue, who is going for her PhD in subject unknown.

[7:57] It's never said because that's as much character as she gets.

Stuart Wellington

[8:01] And we have a scene.

Dan McCoy

[8:03] Probably in Piranha Fighting.

[8:04] If the last movie I saw Elizabeth Shue in is any indication.

[8:08] Piranha 3.

[8:08] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[8:09] And there's a scene where they're all having dinner with Bruce Willis' brother, Vincent

[8:14] D'Onofrio.

[8:14] And I wonder, do they talk about Adventures in Babysitting a lot?

[8:19] Because they were both in it.

[8:21] Vincent D'Onofrio.

[8:21] Oh, yeah.

[8:22] Vincent D'Onofrio was the Thor guy.

Elliott Kalan

[8:24] Right.

[8:24] Yeah.

[8:25] So probably, yeah.

[8:26] I mean, they have their reunions every month of the babysitting cast.

Stuart Wellington

[8:31] Where they sing the babysitter's blues or whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[8:34] Yeah, exactly.

[8:36] So Bruce Willis, let's just get one thing straight.

[8:39] He's had a long storied career in both film and television.

[8:43] Very talented.

[8:44] He has reached this level, this era in his acting.

[8:48] He's had so many resurgences.

[8:50] And now he seems to resemble to me nothing more than like an elderly egg that occasionally

[8:55] looks at things and does not find it in his interest to emote about brainwives.

[9:01] So for the first half of this movie, you're like, so is this movie about someone who's in

[9:04] such a deep depression that they can't relate to their family?

[9:07] Because he seems to not be in the same movie that they're in.

Stuart Wellington

[9:10] Yeah.

[9:10] He is the expression of Saitama from the One Punch Man comics who just looks like an egg.

[9:18] Dan, do you have an egg reference?

Dan McCoy

[9:20] Well, he is the Eggman.

[9:23] He is the Eggman.

[9:25] I am the walrus.

Stuart Wellington

[9:27] Googoo.

[9:28] Sure.

[9:29] He also kind of looks like if all the facial features of the Baylet conformed to make a

[9:32] human style face instead of being all over the egg from the Berserk comics.

[9:36] Yeah, yeah, sure.

Elliott Kalan

[9:37] I mean, I think he just looks like someone painted a face on an egg.

[9:40] But, you know, and then the egg got realized.

[9:41] I think more complicated.

[9:42] It's appropriate.

[9:43] There's a reason that in China he's billed as thousand year egg in Death Wish.

[9:51] So delicious.

[9:54] We know that Bruce Willis, maybe it's just that Bruce Willis is so beaten down by our

[9:56] modern demasculinized society.

[9:59] Because as we see, when his daughter is playing soccer, another dad is being very loudly abusive,

[10:04] swearing, very aggro at the players.

[10:06] Totally alpha is what Dan said.

[10:08] Yeah.

[10:08] And he tells him, he tells him, don't, hey, stop swearing.

[10:12] And the guy threatens him to a fight.

[10:13] And Bruce Willis, like the beta cuck he has become, does not fight him.

[10:17] When I guess the movie is implying that the manly thing for him to do would be to rip his

[10:21] head off with his bare hands and use it as a soccer ball.

Dan McCoy

[10:24] I did expect the movie to return to this character at some point.

[10:26] Once Bruce Willis became like tough guy, Bruce Willis, like there'd be like a.

[10:31] A reckoning.

Stuart Wellington

[10:32] Yeah.

[10:32] Like a bookend scene where.

[10:34] They're both trying to run the same video at the video store.

[10:37] And he's like, you take it.

[10:39] You take this copy of Death Wish 2.

Elliott Kalan

[10:44] Instead, he is.

[10:46] He just doesn't do it.

[10:47] He used to fight as a young man, he reveals.

[10:49] He was a scrapper.

[10:50] But he's since mellowed out.

[10:51] He has a perfect family.

[10:52] His brother, Vincent D'Onofrio, is a bit of a ne'er-do-well.

[10:54] Always asking for money.

[10:56] Always a little bit on the shady side of the law.

Stuart Wellington

[10:58] But hey, what are brothers for?

[11:00] But he's bringing that Vincent D energy.

[11:02] So you're like, I love it.

[11:04] He's got to be the baddie.

[11:05] Yeah.

[11:05] More on that later.

[11:06] That big Vincent D.

Elliott Kalan

[11:07] Hey, she loves.

[11:08] She wants the D, D'Onofrio.

[11:10] Yeah, more on that later.

[11:11] Because the moment he enters, we thought it was one of those scenarios where we're like, well,

[11:14] obviously he's the bad guy.

[11:16] Is he the bad guy?

[11:17] Question mark.

[11:18] You'll have to listen to them more about Death Wish to find out.

[11:20] One night while Bruce Willis is out at his round, he was supposed to go out for a birthday

[11:24] dinner at La Fonda with his family to have their famous tres leches cake, which they talk

[11:29] about so many times in the movie.

[11:32] And then later we see him eating it by himself.

Dan McCoy

[11:36] You've got to have this cake.

[11:37] He's like, it doesn't have just uno leche or dos leche.

[11:42] There are tres leches in this cake.

Stuart Wellington

[11:44] Now, Dan, yeah, you're confirming, you're showing your bona fides of being a tres leches

[11:48] expert.

[11:49] After last night's late night dinner of a tres leches pancake.

Dan McCoy

[11:53] Pancakes.

[11:55] For some reason we've fallen into probably a bad habit of having another full meal after

[12:01] a live show.

[12:03] And I had a huge stack of pancakes with caramel sauce on them.

[12:08] Not a good choice.

[12:09] All three leches were represented.

Elliott Kalan

[12:11] Now, you know that at some point there's some madman chef who's like, I'll do it.

[12:16] I will add the cuatro leches.

[12:19] And people are like, no, no, no.

[12:20] It's impossible.

[12:21] You can't do it.

[12:21] No one can take it.

Stuart Wellington

[12:22] And the gozer's like, don't do that.

[12:24] I'll get banished.

[12:26] Oh, that's what it took?

[12:27] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[12:27] Mr. Mixing Fiddling is like, no.

[12:30] So, okay.

[12:31] But while he gets called into work because the guy who's supposed to be on call is sick.

[12:35] So he's there surgeoning people up.

[12:38] Meanwhile, a gang of thugs who seem to have gotten the address of his house from his car

[12:44] because of a valet that parked their car once and found the address in the car.

[12:48] They go and they rob the house and things go wrong.

[12:51] They end up shooting his wife and daughter.

[12:54] Oh, no.

[12:54] The wife dies.

[12:56] The daughter is in a coma.

[12:57] And I thought the movie was going to literally do the thing about, I can't operate on them.

[13:02] They're my family.

[13:03] But he tries anyway and fails.

[13:05] But instead, he just doesn't do it.

[13:06] He gets there too late.

[13:07] He gets there too late.

[13:10] His wife has her funeral.

[13:12] And then after the funeral, he's just driving around with his wife's dad who I guess lives

[13:17] out in the country somewhere.

[13:18] And he starts shooting at poachers.

[13:21] He starts shooting at some poachers with a rifle that he keeps in his truck.

Stuart Wellington

[13:24] Because he's landed gentry.

Elliott Kalan

[13:26] He's like poachers.

[13:28] And they're going after a deer.

[13:30] And it's like, wait, do you own the deer?

Dan McCoy

[13:33] It's weird.

[13:34] I'm not a fan of hunting because I just don't like the idea of doing a blood sport in general.

Elliott Kalan

[13:40] Except unless it's blood sport with Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Dan McCoy

[13:43] But deer are kind of a nuisance animal that he's like, no, no, they're shooting up my deer.

Stuart Wellington

[13:49] Well, I mean, if it's not in season, I mean, that's kind of regulated for a reason.

[13:53] But, yeah, the idea like, does he run like an animal preserve?

[13:59] Like, what the fuck?

[13:59] Does he have a deer farm?

[14:00] Yeah, I mean, theoretically he has a deer farm.

[14:02] But it doesn't seem like they're killing the deer on like a farming area.

[14:05] No.

[14:05] It's just like killing of a sacred deer?

[14:07] I don't know.

[14:07] I haven't seen that movie yet.

[14:08] Is he Norman Mailer and this is the deer part?

Dan McCoy

[14:10] Is that a good thing or a bad thing, Dan?

Stuart Wellington

Dan McCoy

[14:12] I have no idea.

[14:13] What makes the deer sacred?

[14:17] It's been blessed by a priest.

Elliott Kalan

[14:18] I mean, that's how things get sacred, I guess.

[14:21] So he but he starts shooting at them and he goes and Bruce Willis has been talking about, yeah, the police, they think they can find these guys eventually.

[14:27] And the dad is like, people rely too much on the police.

[14:31] The police only come after the crimes happened.

[14:33] It's like – and I'm adding more of an accent to him than he actually has.

[14:36] It's like trapping the fox while it's leaving the hen house.

[14:39] It's like, well, yes, human beings, you have to wait until they commit a crime to arrest them.

[14:45] Like, that's – like, unless you want a minority report this, like, that's how reality works.

Stuart Wellington

[14:50] Yeah, maybe if we just had a gun pointed at everyone all the time, no one would make mistakes, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[14:55] I think that is literally the platform for the Republican Party.

[14:59] But we shouldn't get into politics.

[15:00] Come on.

[15:01] This is Death Wish.

[15:01] How can we not get into politics?

Stuart Wellington

[15:03] This is the most –

[15:04] We're just dropping goofs.

[15:05] We should also mention –

[15:05] Politically stacked movie.

Elliott Kalan

[15:07] There's a lot in this movie that's like – yeah, it's very – it's a very politically, like, trying to have it both ways sort of movie.

[15:14] It feels a little bit like – we'll get to this, I guess, but like Wild Things, where with Wild Things it was like, if you like it, it's because it's like a crazy thriller.

[15:22] If you don't like it, it's supposed to be goofy and stupid.

[15:25] Come on.

[15:26] Yeah.

[15:26] And this is a little bit like if you agree with Bruce Willis, then you're going to love this movie.

[15:30] If you don't agree with Bruce Willis, we threw in a couple jokes about guns to like make it like we think we're really criticizing him.

[15:38] But this guy is just – he's literally – he is the mission objective of the movie when he says this.

[15:44] And he never appears in the movie again.

[15:45] It's just like people rely on the police too much to solve their problems.

[15:49] Okay.

[15:49] Thanks, old man with a gun.

[15:51] And you accept – the minute you know that he then turns to Bruce Willis and goes, you heard of this Pizzagate?

[15:57] Because the real Pizzagate controversy is, deep dish?

[16:00] That's a pizza?

[16:01] Come on, guys.

[16:02] Do we have a – no, we don't have any more callers.

[16:04] No, no.

[16:04] The lines have stopped lighting up.

[16:06] Wait.

[16:06] No, we do have one more caller.

[16:08] This man is – he calls himself El Caesar.

[16:10] Oh, wow.

[16:11] And he said he has something to say about pizza, pizza.

[16:14] El Caesar, you're on the line.

[16:16] Pizza, pizza.

[16:18] All right.

[16:18] Thank you.

[16:19] Wow.

[16:19] I guess that's the definitive answer.

[16:20] Now we have a P. Johns on the line.

[16:22] Oh, no.

[16:23] P. Johns has something to say about pizza also?

Dan McCoy

[16:25] I'd like to spout some racial slurs.

Elliott Kalan

[16:28] Okay.

[16:28] Cut off his mic.

[16:29] Let's end that caller.

[16:31] And now it seems X-Force Assassin Domino has something to say about pizza.

[16:35] Oh, wow.

[16:36] Perhaps her namesake restaurant.

[16:37] Wow, that's quite a good.

[16:38] Hello.

Dan McCoy

[16:38] I'm not quite sure what my powers are.

Elliott Kalan

[16:41] They're based around luck and probability.

[16:42] Oh, okay.

[16:43] Well, that seems weird.

[16:44] Because Domino's is a game of luck.

[16:45] Yeah, game of chance.

[16:46] She's one of those characters where her powers that she – that reality just lets her do stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[16:50] Kind of like Longshot, but she has all the normal amount of fingers.

Elliott Kalan

[16:54] And that was your annual Longshot Domino differences review.

Stuart Wellington

[16:59] Next time we'll get into bone density.

Elliott Kalan

[17:01] Oh, yeah.

[17:02] Longshot's got those hollow bird bones.

[17:03] Yeah.

[17:04] Okay.

[17:04] That's how he can do all those mad flips.

Stuart Wellington

[17:06] Uh-huh.

[17:06] And that's how they're like, oh, it's really windy.

[17:08] Somebody throw a Longshot up in the air.

Elliott Kalan

[17:10] Oh, no.

[17:11] So Bruce Willis is seeing a therapist.

[17:12] He's very depressed, as anyone would be when your daughter's in a coma and your wife has been killed.

[17:16] Uh-huh.

[17:16] He tries to drown his sorrows in that trace leche cake, but it's just not the same to eat it by himself.

[17:20] Not the same.

[17:21] It tastes like ashes.

[17:21] He feels he failed his family, and he says he's obsessed with the killers.

[17:25] He doesn't even know who they are.

[17:26] Mm-hmm.

[17:27] And he's obsessed.

[17:27] And every time he's driving by someone who looks like a bad dude, he kind of says, like, is that it?

[17:31] Hmm.

[17:32] Meanwhile, he talks to Dean Norris, who is playing a policeman.

[17:35] Uh-huh.

[17:35] And Stuart, you had an interesting point about casting Bruce Willis and Dean Norris in the same movie, right?

Stuart Wellington

[17:39] I mean, they look very similar at this point in their careers.

[17:42] Dean Norris looks like the version who's, like, always on some kind of wacky diet.

Elliott Kalan

[17:47] I mean, Bruce Willis looks like a chicken egg, and Dean Norris looks like an ostrich egg.

[17:51] Is that what you're saying?

[17:52] Yeah.

[17:52] Both delicious.

[17:53] They both look like two polished stones that a rich person might have on a pillar in their lobby of their building.

[18:00] We are introduced to Dean Norris as he tries to eat an RX bar as his sustenance, and he makes a face like,

[18:06] oh, this doesn't taste good.

[18:07] I wish I was eating man food.

[18:09] Instead, I'm feminized, and I'm eating this bar.

[18:12] Yep.

[18:14] Although at this point, I feel like those bars are so associated in my mind with, like, working out and getting strong.

[18:19] Uh-huh.

[18:19] There's something more masculine to me about eating that kind of food.

[18:23] Yeah, it's got so much protein in it.

[18:24] Yeah, exactly.

[18:25] It's like, oh, you're maximizing your strength and your muscle power.

Dan McCoy

[18:28] Maybe he just doesn't like it because it's got eggs in it, and it's like he's eating his own.

Elliott Kalan

[18:32] That's fair.

[18:32] That's probably a big part of it.

[18:33] Good point.

[18:34] You know, there's a – I wanted a scene, like, if this was the Charlie Kaufman version,

[18:40] you'd have a scene where Bruce Willis has served an egg in a cup, and his face appears on the egg.

[18:49] So Dean Norris is like, well, we don't have any leads, but we're going to work on it.

[18:53] And they have a big wall of unsolved cases because, as we mentioned earlier, Chicago is a hellhole.

[18:58] It's full of chaos and gunfire all the time.

[19:01] Bruce Willis comes across some thugs committing a crime in an alley, and he goes, hey, stop that,

[19:06] and they kick him a bunch of times.

[19:07] Yeah, they beat him up.

Stuart Wellington

[19:08] They just beat him up.

[19:09] But that gives him two ideas.

[19:11] One is that if he just walks around, he's going to find crimes.

[19:15] And two, he's not very good at being kicked and punched.

[19:19] No.

[19:19] He needs to come up with a – he needs to bring a gun to a kick-punch battle.

[19:22] Yeah, he needs a gun.

Elliott Kalan

[19:23] And also, he has his costume that he needs to put on.

Stuart Wellington

[19:26] Oh, yeah.

[19:27] A hooded sweatshirt.

[19:28] Yeah, he needs to don his cool outfit.

[19:29] So –

[19:30] Which is honestly not that different than his outfit in the movie Unbreakable.

Elliott Kalan

[19:34] It's the exact same outfit.

[19:37] Although in this movie, he is very breakable.

[19:39] Oh, that's true.

[19:40] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[19:40] I mean, he's been broken by being, what, weaponized by the YouTube gun industry.

Elliott Kalan

[19:46] Yeah, well, because he watches a video about guns, and then he goes to the store Jolly Rogers that the video was sponsored by.

Stuart Wellington

[19:52] Which, like, the video feels very much like a parody ad, right?

[19:55] It's so goofy.

[19:56] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[19:56] And there's a lot of, like, cartoon graphics that come up on screen.

Stuart Wellington

[19:59] And the host of the commercial actually seems to be a salesperson at the store?

[20:05] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[20:06] Yeah, I mean, I would disagree with what you're saying a little bit about the movie having it both ways because it does stack the deck so ridiculously in favor of this, like, conservative, like, pro-gun ideal of, like, vigilante justice.

[20:20] But one of the places where it does is acting silly is this gun commercial where it's just like, you know what?

[20:26] If you're a liberal, you can kind of read this as, like, a parody.

[20:30] A lampoon.

[20:30] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[20:31] And it's like a pretty girl shooting a gun and being like, this is what I love.

[20:34] Yeah.

[20:34] I don't shoot to kill.

[20:35] I shoot to survive.

[20:36] Do-do-do-do-do-do.

[20:37] Yeah.

[20:38] And he goes into the store.

[20:39] Man, your music.

[20:39] Yeah.

[20:40] All criminals are lawbreakers.

[20:43] He goes, criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot.

[20:46] I shall take the form of, and then a hooded sweatshirt smashes through the window.

Dan McCoy

[20:49] I thought you were going to say a gun smashes through the window.

Elliott Kalan

[20:52] And shoots him.

[20:53] Ah, God!

[20:54] Chicago!

[20:57] See, he goes to buy a gun, but it's just so much trouble.

[21:00] But it's not that much trouble.

[21:01] She's like, fill out these forms.

[21:01] It feels like a parody of that.

[21:03] Then we'll give you a gun and you'll take a class.

[21:05] She goes, everyone pass.

[21:06] Nobody fails.

[21:07] It's like, she's like, wink, wink, wink.

[21:09] It's easy to get a gun.

[21:10] Wink, wink, wink, wink, wink.

Stuart Wellington

[21:11] Later on, we find out that he's doing this recon mission so that he can cover his tracks

[21:16] after he decides to not be a vigilante anymore.

[21:18] Yeah.

[21:19] Well, he's, well.

[21:20] I think he wants a gun there, but he's like, oh, it's too traceable.

Elliott Kalan

[21:23] And yeah, he doesn't want his name on any paperwork.

[21:25] Luckily, a patient gets brought to him with a gunshot wound.

Stuart Wellington

[21:28] He's like, I'll come up with a name.

[21:30] Bruno.

[21:31] No, nobody will associate that with me.

Elliott Kalan

[21:34] What, is he slitting people's throats with a razor sharp harmonica?

[21:36] Yeah, cool.

[21:37] I mean, how amazing is it?

[21:38] They're like, he fills up the harmonica and he blows in it and little trank darts fly out.

[21:42] Poison on him.

Stuart Wellington

[21:43] Some like criminals are walking down the street and then they just hear some harmonica music

[21:46] and they look at each other and start running.

[21:48] Shit, Bruno's coming.

Dan McCoy

[21:48] Then when he comes back to the store later on, the lady's like, oh, it's the return of Bruno.

[21:52] Oh.

Elliott Kalan

[21:55] What a funny period in his career that was.

[21:59] Look, everyone has their Chris Gaines.

[22:01] Yeah.

[22:01] And for Bruce Willis, it was Bruno.

[22:02] Literally everyone.

Stuart Wellington

[22:04] Yeah, yeah.

[22:05] Sometimes, you know, we all have those moments where we stare into the mirror and deep beneath –

Dan McCoy

[22:09] Chris Gaines stares back.

Elliott Kalan

[22:10] Deep in the darkness of our eyes, we see Chris Gaines staring back at us.

[22:14] When Billy Joel's song, The Stranger, was originally called the Chris Gaines.

[22:18] We all have a Chris Gaines.

[22:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[22:20] Yeah.

[22:21] Camus' novel, L'étranger, was originally called the Chris Gaines.

Elliott Kalan

[22:27] So luckily a patient comes in with a gunshot wound, has a gun stuck in the waistband of his pants

[22:31] and it just falls on the floor and Bruce Willis is like, check please.

[22:35] And takes it.

[22:37] Like that night or the next day or something.

[22:39] He's like, oh, this is handy.

[22:40] I was looking for a gun.

[22:41] So much of the movie is like God is nudging Bruce Willis to kill people.

[22:45] Yeah.

[22:45] And this is the first part.

[22:46] Bruce Willis practices with that gun and we get a split screen montage of him saving gunshot

[22:52] victims as a surgeon and the same split screen practicing with the gun and like cleaning it

[22:57] set to the most tasteful music they could find back in black.

Stuart Wellington

[23:01] I thought you were going to say, you've got to put one foot in front of the other.

Elliott Kalan

[23:05] I mean, the only way it could have been more ridiculous is if it was, I'm too sexy for this guy.

Stuart Wellington

[23:10] Or like, walk like a man.

Elliott Kalan

[23:15] Dan, you want to join in?

[23:16] What songs?

[23:16] He did the match.

[23:18] He did the match.

[23:19] I mean, that would just be arbitrary.

[23:21] It would make any sense.

Stuart Wellington

[23:21] It would almost be turning a mirror on the movie itself.

Elliott Kalan

[23:24] Like big butts that I can't out loud.

[23:26] Like that wouldn't make any sense.

[23:27] But it's, it's at that point, I feel like the movie is tipping its hands that it's like,

[23:32] oh yeah, fuck yeah.

[23:33] We're going to see Bruce Willis fuck some dudes up.

[23:35] Okay.

[23:36] He goes out.

[23:37] He stops a carjacking and shoots two people and kills them and hurts his hand.

[23:42] And everyone's like, and someone tapes him while doing it on their phone, tapes him.

[23:45] They don't use tape.

[23:46] They just record him.

[23:47] No, they've got a reel-to-reel connection to their phone.

[23:50] They're using 16mm cameras.

[23:52] They just looks better, guys.

[23:54] And they upload it to the internet.

[23:57] People start calling him the Grim Reaper and making memes.

[24:00] And suddenly, everyone on the radio-

[24:02] How dank are these memes?

[24:03] They're not that dank.

[24:04] They're totally not dank.

[24:05] They're pretty crappy.

[24:07] They look like someone's idea of memes.

[24:08] They're pretty bad.

[24:10] But, and the memes also aren't, they're like, they got memes like crazy.

[24:13] And the memes aren't like, check out this awesome guy.

[24:15] The memes are, it's him shooting someone in the head and it says like,

[24:18] I mean, that's not a very good meme.

[24:18] When your friend gives you GOT spoilers.

[24:21] It's like, the memes are not about him is what I'm saying.

[24:23] Yeah, okay.

[24:23] They're just using him to like, make jokes about other things.

[24:26] Yeah.

[24:27] But, we know, the movie has a Greek chorus in the form of Chicago radio personalities,

[24:33] Sway and Man Cow, who provide the opposing viewpoints via their broadcasts of everything

[24:38] that Grim Reaper does.

[24:39] Now, Man Cow-

[24:40] I had-

[24:41] I'll just say he's a piece of scum.

[24:43] Like, he's scum.

[24:44] He's a piece of trash.

[24:45] He's a cow-man hybrid.

[24:46] He's an abomination against nature of Man Cow.

Stuart Wellington

[24:48] Guys, I've gone so many years forgetting that Man Cow existed, but now I'm brought back

[24:52] to harsh reality.

Elliott Kalan

[24:53] I used- I forgot-

[24:54] Like, I used-

[24:55] When I was-

[24:55] As the Daily Show, I had to watch-

[24:57] For a long time, he was on Fox all the time.

[24:59] And on MSNBC a lot.

[25:00] And I used to watch those, and it was like, oh, who is this jerk?

[25:04] And I thought maybe that he had been put out to pasture, you might say.

[25:08] Oh.

[25:08] But no, he's still around.

[25:09] And he's-

[25:10] It's-

Stuart Wellington

[25:11] I mean, he got a start as what?

[25:13] Like a Midwestern DJ or some shit?

[25:15] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[25:15] And then they all start that way as DJs, and then they put more and more politics and

[25:19] opinion into the show.

[25:20] Yeah.

[25:20] Until it becomes-

[25:21] The whole show is just them spouting off on stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[25:23] Mm-hmm.

[25:23] Instead of talking about the movies like they're supposed to.

[25:26] But then, what I like-

[25:27] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[25:28] I like is they get stuck with the name that they started with.

[25:31] So like, Man Cow, I'm sure, was like a silly name.

[25:33] Yeah.

[25:33] But now he's got to be like, well, here's what Man Cow thinks about-

[25:35] This is the Man Cow brand.

[25:36] Like, it's like, well, here's what DJ Butterspanks thinks about campaign finance reform.

[25:42] But they-

[25:44] Nobody can-

[25:44] There's a big debate, but the debate seems mostly weighted on the side of Grim Reaper is

[25:48] an urban hero who is making our streets safe, especially after he next goes out and

[25:53] in broad daylight kills a drug dealer named the Ice Cream Man.

[25:56] Uh-huh, and like Clint Howard's like, I'm available.

[26:03] I can play urban.

[26:04] I don't know, Clint.

[26:05] I don't know if you could.

[26:08] So everyone's like, this guy's great.

[26:10] Dean Norris and his partner, I don't remember the actress who's playing his partner.

[26:14] They're investigating this case.

Stuart Wellington

[26:15] Yeah, she looks super familiar, but I don't remember.

[26:17] I can't remember.

[26:18] I didn't look her up.

Elliott Kalan

[26:19] And the only clue they really have to go on is that this is a white man in a hooded sweatshirt

[26:23] and he looks like he hurt his hand the first time.

[26:25] M&M.

[26:26] Yeah.

[26:28] So the Unabomber.

Stuart Wellington

[26:30] Yeah, I kind of expected every witness to be like, yeah, you kind of look like you,

Elliott Kalan

[26:34] Dean Norris.

[26:36] We put this hood on.

[26:37] Yeah, yeah, like you.

[26:39] Like, suck in your cheeks.

[26:40] Yeah, yeah, that's it.

[26:42] Meanwhile, Bruce Willis, he's feeling a real pep in his step.

[26:45] He is loving murdering people.

[26:46] And his therapist is like.

[26:47] His therapist totally recognized that.

[26:48] He's like, whatever you're doing, keep doing it.

[26:50] He's like, thank you.

[26:51] I will.

[26:52] Yeah.

[26:53] And, but, uh-oh, things are about to come to a head.

[26:57] Uh-huh.

[26:57] His days of murdering generic criminals.

[27:00] Yeah.

[27:00] Are gonna be over.

[27:01] Because that valet, he recognizes, comes in as a gunshot victim and around his wrist,

[27:07] the fancy watch that his wife was gonna give him for his birthday.

[27:09] Luckily, he gets to murder him.

Stuart Wellington

[27:10] Oh, wait.

[27:11] He's already dead.

[27:12] Vengeance has been taken from him.

Elliott Kalan

[27:14] I mean, it's kind of implied, I thought, that he doesn't work that hard to save him.

[27:17] Oh, okay.

[27:18] It's like he has the defibrillator paddles, and he's like, clear, and just holds them above

[27:21] the guy's chest.

[27:22] Oh, nothing we're gonna have done.

[27:23] Oh, it's not working.

[27:25] Zap.

[27:26] Zip, zip, zipity zap.

[27:28] Zap, zap, zap, zap, rino.

[27:29] Oh, it's not working.

[27:31] Doctor, did you just say zap, rino, with your mouth?

[27:33] No, that was definitely.

Stuart Wellington

[27:34] Somebody get the Spider-Man villain Electro in here to get him a jolt.

Elliott Kalan

[27:38] Get this man some jolt cola.

[27:40] Let me try mouth to mouth.

[27:42] You're just breathing on his face.

[27:44] It's not gonna, oh boy, nothing we could do.

[27:46] Put the sheet over him.

[27:47] He hasn't flatlined yet.

[27:48] Put the sheet over his face.

Stuart Wellington

[27:50] If only he'd been taking more improv classes instead of gun classes.

Elliott Kalan

[27:54] So anyway, he says, oh, I'm gonna track this guy down.

[27:56] He steals this guy's phone, which was in hospital evidence, I'm not sure, and uses his dead body's

[28:03] fingerprint to open up the fingerprint ID.

[28:05] Here's a question I have.

[28:07] Yeah.

[28:07] I don't know how those fingerprint IDs work.

[28:09] So will it work on a dead body, or does it need to have heat in the finger?

Dan McCoy

[28:12] Uh, that's a good question.

[28:14] Is it like a little camera that takes a picture of the ridges of your thumbprint?

[28:17] I assumed it was just a thumbprint thing.

[28:19] But as someone who's tried to open my phone while it's raining outside, and there's water

[28:25] on my thumb, I don't think that the bloody thumb probably was very good to open that.

Stuart Wellington

[28:30] That's totally true.

[28:31] If I have any water on my thumb, my phone's like, uh-uh, there's someone else.

[28:35] Lock the phone.

[28:36] Break it.

[28:37] Explode it.

Elliott Kalan

[28:37] We don't want Aquaman stealing Stuart's pictures.

Stuart Wellington

[28:41] All my cool memes that I've saved.

[28:44] Like when mom shows you a GTO spoiler.

[28:46] All Stuart's critters gifts that he has on his phone.

Elliott Kalan

[28:50] I'm amazed.

[28:50] I don't know how much memory is taken on your phone with gifts and memes.

[28:55] Uh, I don't know.

[28:56] A normal amount.

[28:57] Oh, it's normal.

[28:58] I'm like constantly running out of space.

[29:00] Whenever I take a photo, it says no memory.

[29:02] I'm like, oh, I got to delete some stuff.

[29:03] Stuart has a bottomless well.

[29:05] It's like a magical rucksack full of memes and gifts.

Stuart Wellington

[29:08] Well, that's the thing.

[29:10] I, when I went to get my phone, I'm like, which is the one that holds maximum amount of pictures of my cat and memes and gifts?

[29:16] And they're like, oh, you'll need the executive model, sir.

Elliott Kalan

[29:21] But anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[29:22] Because that's what executives have.

Elliott Kalan

[29:24] If they're not playing with that hangy ball toy on their desk, they're just looking up memes and gifts, pictures of their cats.

Stuart Wellington

[29:29] I mean, that's just to show that executive that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction.

[29:33] I mean, that makes sense.

[29:35] That's a good message for them to learn.

Elliott Kalan

[29:37] Our today's executives can learn from that.

[29:39] Maybe they need to know.

[29:40] Cause today's Tom Sawyer, too.

[29:42] Mean, mean guy.

[29:43] Yeah.

[29:44] He had a mean, mean stride, right?

[29:45] Yeah, yeah.

[29:46] Here's the thing about today's Tom Sawyer.

[29:48] He sounds like an asshole.

[29:50] I know his mind is not for rent, but it's like, he seems like he just doesn't like other people.

[29:54] Why did we get rid of the old Tom Sawyer?

[29:56] Yes, the old Tom Sawyer was great.

[29:58] The new Tom Sawyer is much more efficient at tricking people into painting fences.

[30:03] Are you saying the Ayn Rand loving Rush lyrics are not good?

[30:08] I'm just saying that I don't want to hang out with this new Tom, with the new Tom Sawyer.

[30:14] The old Tom Sawyer, though, yeah, he sounds great.

[30:15] Friends with Huck Finn.

Dan McCoy

[30:17] Yeah.

[30:18] I mean, you know, when you kidnap him, he's trouble.

Elliott Kalan

[30:21] But why would you kidnap him?

[30:22] He's a cool guy.

Stuart Wellington

[30:24] I mean, I think if we judge everyone on their reaction to being kidnapped, I think that's an unfair metric.

Elliott Kalan

[30:30] Yeah.

[30:30] I think that's not, you're not at your best in that moment.

[30:35] So, Bruce Willis, he uses the phone to track down the fence who has his stolen stuff.

[30:41] He's at a bar which appears to be closed all the time.

[30:44] Yeah.

[30:44] Because he's like, hey, you can't come back here.

[30:45] It's like, well, it appears to be a bar.

[30:47] The bar has one TV which is showing a loop, apparently, of a woman in a very short dress with her butt hanging out bowling.

[30:54] And it's, I thought it was a bowling show of sexy ladies, but you just see the same one over and over again in every shot.

Stuart Wellington

[30:59] Yeah.

[31:00] I feel like the old guy sitting at the bar watching it is like, I don't know, like watching Kingpin for Mr. Skin trying to see if there's any nude scenes.

[31:08] And he's like, is this technically nudity?

Elliott Kalan

[31:10] He goes, back, rewind, computer, rewind 15 seconds.

[31:15] Ass shot.

[31:17] Get the timecode.

[31:18] Computer, rewind, I missed the timecode again.

[31:21] Watching Kingpin.

[31:23] Oh, Vanessa Angel's brief film career.

[31:26] Whatever happened to her?

Dan McCoy

[31:27] She was on that Weird Science show.

[31:29] Well, that's what made her name was Weird Science.

[31:30] Oh, but I don't know what happened to her after.

Elliott Kalan

[31:32] I mean, the Weird Science was before Kingpin.

[31:34] Okay.

[31:35] Was that the start of the revitalization of Bill Murray's career?

[31:38] Kingpin?

[31:38] I think, you know what?

[31:39] I think if you were going to trace it back, that was the showing that he wanted to be back in the spotlight maybe.

[31:45] Okay.

[31:45] Because it wasn't a huge hit as a movie, but it was maybe Bruce, it was like Bill Murray saying to the world, I'm ready to play again.

Stuart Wellington

[31:50] They had that blues traveler song at the end of the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[31:54] You're right, I'm wrong.

[31:54] It was the biggest hit of all time.

[31:56] There's no way it could have been hit.

[31:57] It was the number one movie in the history of the world.

[31:59] You're right.

[31:59] Blues Traveler.

[32:01] Blues Traveler, a band where my dad met the lead singer on an airplane once.

[32:06] John Popper?

[32:06] Sure.

[32:06] John Popper.

[32:07] And he continued to call him John Papa forever.

[32:09] And we'd be like, it's not his name.

[32:11] He called him Tom Papa.

[32:12] He called him, you know.

[32:14] Called him Papa John.

Dan McCoy

[32:16] Oh, not that old soul.

[32:18] Someone called me.

[32:19] I wanted to say some racist stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[32:20] No, no, no.

[32:21] Cut the line.

[32:21] No, we're pizza talk is over.

[32:23] No, hold on a second.

[32:24] We're getting another call from Jabba the Hutt.

[32:27] He wanted to tell us about his pizza.

Stuart Wellington

[32:30] Pizza Hut.

[32:31] No.

Dan McCoy

[32:31] Oh, okay.

[32:32] Oh, I see.

[32:36] No Jabba Wonga pizza.

Stuart Wellington

[32:41] We don't have a, you know, whatchamacallit.

Elliott Kalan

[32:46] Translator.

[32:47] Thank you.

[32:48] No, yeah.

[32:49] Well, you don't really need it because half of Hutties is just English words.

Stuart Wellington

[32:52] Yeah, yeah.

[32:53] Something Jedi emails.

[32:56] Wait, what?

[32:57] No Jabba Wonga, her server.

[33:00] Oh, wow.

[33:01] So Jabba's really into conspiracy theories, too?

Elliott Kalan

[33:03] I mean, he's, you know.

[33:05] So, so he, so anyway, this is when the movie starts getting silly because Bruce Willis,

[33:11] he's, he's fighting this fence and the fence calls this other guy and that guy comes in

[33:15] and starts a gunfight.

[33:16] Bruce Willis doesn't necessarily, he's, he's never really in danger because the universe

[33:20] is looking out for him because this bad guy, Bruce has his gun on Bruce Willis and, but

[33:24] Bruce Willis has like hit, he accidentally bumped into a wall, which knocked over a trophy,

[33:28] which hit a bowling ball and the bowling ball falls in the bad guy's head and kills him.

[33:32] So it's like, wait, this movie just became final destination.

[33:34] All of a sudden.

[33:35] Yeah.

[33:35] Or home alone in some way.

Stuart Wellington

[33:37] Yeah.

[33:37] I like the idea that Bruce Willis has summoned some kind of like death god, like Ryuk from

[33:42] Death Note to help him out.

Elliott Kalan

[33:44] K'thon, help me with this.

[33:45] Yeah.

[33:46] So it's, so maybe that's.

[33:48] Calgon, take me away.

[33:49] I mean, that's a soap, right?

[33:51] Yeah.

[33:51] Or detergent.

[33:53] But sure.

[33:54] So, but now he is, he knows that the universe smiles on him because his therapist said it's

[33:58] okay and a bowling ball said it.

[33:58] Yeah.

[33:59] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[33:59] And I think his mother dipped him in the river sticks, but held onto his ankle.

[34:03] So no human weapons can injure.

Elliott Kalan

[34:05] Or is it possible that the bowling ball, upon seeing Bruce Willis' bald head said, no,

[34:09] one of my brethren shall not fall.

Stuart Wellington

[34:12] I give my life for thee, witness me.

Elliott Kalan

[34:14] And, and sacrificed himself to kill that other guy.

[34:17] Mm-hmm.

[34:17] I shall defeat the hered one.

[34:20] Yeah.

[34:20] To save my brother of bald.

[34:21] Mm-hmm.

[34:25] Oh, oh, how horrible.

[34:28] They have filled your finger holes with hered eye, buddy.

[34:31] And teeth to make you one of the manlings.

[34:34] And I shall save you, my half-bowling brother.

Stuart Wellington

[34:38] Oh, that monologue the bowling ball gives at the end of, uh, act four is amazing.

[34:42] Thank God.

[34:43] That's, that's what I auditioned for it with.

[34:45] Oh, really, that's your audition piece?

[34:46] I auditioned to be a scorpion wrangler.

Elliott Kalan

[34:47] And they were like, it's not really, it's not a performing part.

[34:51] How do you handle, how do you handle scorpions?

[34:53] Go, oh, oh, all pins shall fall before my might.

[34:58] For I am lane crusher.

[35:00] And have no need for the gutter pillows that children use.

[35:04] The bumper ball, if you will.

Stuart Wellington

[35:06] Yeah, it was crazy.

[35:07] When I saw their, uh, when they gave me back my resume after saying I was hired,

[35:10] it was just covered in their tears.

Elliott Kalan

[35:13] Yeah, because they loved it so much.

[35:15] Yeah.

[35:16] Forsooth.

[35:17] Yeah.

[35:17] I hear the hammer of strike maker.

Stuart Wellington

[35:19] Oh, yeah.

[35:20] I mean.

[35:20] Warrior god of the bowling balls.

[35:21] I didn't realize you were going to do the whole piece, but that's okay.

Elliott Kalan

[35:23] Yes, I know it's kind of your thing.

[35:24] I'm biting your style here.

[35:26] Uh, anyway, he goes on to the next guy who, uh, was, this is the guy who caused all the

[35:30] trouble in the, during the break-in and led to the shooting.

[35:33] That guy works at an auto garage.

[35:35] Uh, Bruce Willis, uh, Bruce Willis, because he's the hero of the movie, torches him by cutting

[35:39] open his, what, femoral artery?

[35:40] No, no, no.

[35:41] No, no.

[35:41] It's some nerve in his leg.

[35:42] No, no.

Dan McCoy

[35:42] It exposes, like, the sciatic nerve in his leg.

[35:45] Sciatic nerve.

Elliott Kalan

[35:45] And then pours motor acid into it.

Dan McCoy

[35:48] Some sort of caustic agent.

[35:49] I don't know what it was.

Stuart Wellington

[35:49] No, I'm so happy to be party to this.

Elliott Kalan

[35:51] And then, and then, uh, and then as he's walking away, the guy's like, you're not going to

[35:55] kill, and he goes, it's a, it was Fish.

[35:57] It's a guy named, oh no, it's Knox.

[35:58] He's Fish, right?

[35:59] Yeah.

[35:59] He goes, it's a guy named Knox.

Stuart Wellington

[36:01] No, Fish was the guy who got bowling balled.

Elliott Kalan

[36:02] Oh, boy, I can't even remember these stupid names.

[36:04] He was the Harrod one.

[36:05] Oh, that's so, yeah, that's right.

[36:07] He goes, it's this guy, Knox.

[36:08] I don't even know him.

[36:09] And he goes, how do I find him?

[36:10] You don't find Knox.

[36:10] He finds you.

[36:11] Okay, great.

[36:12] So it's Soviet Russia, I guess.

[36:14] But, uh, and then he goes, he's leaving.

[36:16] He goes, you're not going to kill me?

[36:17] No, the Jack is.

[36:18] And then he pulls the Jack out from under this car and the car smushes the guy's head and

[36:22] his brains flop out.

[36:24] Yeah.

[36:25] And that's one of those Eli Roth moments where you're like, oh yeah, I am watching an Eli

[36:27] Roth movie.

[36:28] Yeah.

[36:28] I literally saw his brains pop out of his head.

[36:30] Mm.

[36:30] Cracked like an egg.

[36:32] Oh.

[36:33] Wow.

[36:34] Bruce Willis is like, now who's the egghead?

[36:36] It's like all the king's horses and all the king's men can't put you.

[36:40] You back together.

[36:41] Why would the horses be of any help anyway?

[36:43] They don't have hands.

[36:45] They'd probably just try to eat the yolk from inside of humps.

[36:47] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[36:48] Yeah.

[36:49] It's, uh, it's very much a attempt at like commando level levity, but it's not as good.

Elliott Kalan

[36:55] It's also like the Jack didn't kill him.

[36:57] You killed him.

[36:57] Mm-hmm.

[36:58] Like you killed him by dropping a car on his head.

[37:00] Mm-hmm.

[37:00] To be like, no, uh-huh.

[37:01] Let the judge decide that.

[37:02] Yeah.

[37:03] Bruce Willis is defending himself.

[37:05] Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit it was the car that committed the murder.

[37:09] My fingerprints were nowhere near him, but the tire prints were on his head.

[37:13] I'm just a simple country lawyer.

[37:16] Uh, you are actually a surgeon who lives in the city.

[37:19] Simple country egg.

[37:21] Now I'm just an incredible edible egg.

[37:24] I'm not some big city lawyer.

[37:27] I may be packed with protein, but I don't have any fancy law books in this shell.

[37:33] Seems to me, if a car falls on a man's head, you can't blame a little old egg.

[37:41] Which came first, the chicken or the me?

[37:44] I rest my case.

[37:46] You rest your case?

Dan McCoy

[37:49] This is a, this is just a sentencing hearing.

Elliott Kalan

[37:53] You already been found guilty.

[37:56] You can't break a few me's without making an omelet.

[37:59] Please don't break me, though.

[38:00] I would appreciate not being in an omelet.

[38:03] I wouldn't mind being an Amelie, though.

[38:05] Amelie starring Bruce Willis as Amelie.

[38:07] I want to try something different.

[38:10] Dan, how would that movie be different if Bruce Willis played Amelie instead of Audrey Tattoo?

[38:13] Well, she would still begin life as an egg.

[38:17] As we all do.

[38:18] Less impishness, that's for sure.

[38:21] Yeah, probably.

[38:23] So, anyway, he smashes his head open with a car.

[38:25] This is when the police start to suspect D'Onofrio because he's the only other character in the movie.

[38:30] He has a history of dropping cars on people.

[38:32] He has a history of being a bad dude.

[38:33] And they're like, let's see your hands.

[38:35] Do you have a wound on your hand?

[38:36] And it's like, you saw the videos.

[38:38] D'Onofrio is way stouter than the Grim Reaper.

Stuart Wellington

[38:40] And, like, two feet taller.

Elliott Kalan

[38:42] Yeah, it's like, maybe he could have fit in that hooded sweatshirt in college.

[38:45] But not since then.

[38:46] Oh, wow.

[38:47] But it turns out he's not.

[38:48] And D'Onofrio goes to Willis' home and finds Willis' vigilante hole in his basement.

Stuart Wellington

[38:53] Yeah, I kind of like that reveal that when he goes down there and he realizes that his brother's been radicalized by YouTube videos.

[38:58] And his, like, once nice house now has a basement that is, like, some kind of gross-ass video game dungeon.

[39:06] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[39:07] Yeah, it's like a man cave for a serial killer is what it is down at the bottom.

Stuart Wellington

[39:13] Yeah, except there's no evidence and red string all over the place.

[39:17] And, like, pictures of the guys he's going to kill with their eyes cut out.

Elliott Kalan

[39:20] Yeah, there's a lot more dirty laundry hanging around.

[39:23] And it's almost like he put his own subconscious mind into the basement of his house.

[39:29] And it's like, oh, this place is disgusting.

[39:31] It's just a mess.

[39:31] There's just bullet casings all over the place.

[39:33] It's like if the Punisher wasn't as good at his job.

[39:37] Okay.

[39:38] I mean, that's why he needs a microchip, right?

[39:40] A microchip's the guy who's always cleaning things up, organizing the bullets, making the techno van, and cleaning Punisher's vans.

[39:47] Because Punisher's a big skate kid.

[39:49] Oh, no kidding.

[39:49] Yes, he wears vans.

[39:50] Oh, wow.

[39:51] What's his style?

[39:52] Half cabs?

[39:53] Oh, very much so.

[39:54] Oh, cool.

[39:54] He's a longboarder.

[39:55] That's the thing.

[39:56] Oh, yeah.

[39:56] So he needs grip.

[39:57] I don't even know what I'm talking about.

[40:01] But Bruce Willis, he's been told, Knox is at this club.

[40:05] Or Knox calls him or something.

[40:06] He texts him and says, meet me at this club.

Stuart Wellington

[40:09] This was when we were still sure.

[40:09] He's like, or else I'm going to tell the police.

[40:11] And he's like, I mean, you're a known criminal.

[40:14] I'm not so sure how.

Dan McCoy

[40:16] You get the, like, Knox finds you.

[40:18] But I'm not so sure how Knox found this guy.

[40:20] Because, like, what connection?

[40:22] Like, he killed the guy that he was there talking to.

[40:26] It's not like, tell Knox I'm looking for him or anything like that.

[40:29] He squashed that guy's brains out.

Elliott Kalan

[40:30] He has no real reason to think that he's out for him or who this Grim Reaper is.

[40:34] But also, it's a pretty late in the game attempt to make Knox into kind of like a scary super criminal.

[40:40] Went up till now.

[40:41] He's just been kind of like some idiot goon who screwed up a house robbery.

[40:44] But now he's supposed to be like, oh, now he needs a threat worthy of the Grim Reaper, an angel of death himself.

Stuart Wellington

[40:51] So Bruce Willis goes to this club.

[40:53] It's exactly the sort of place that Blade would show up and kill all the vampires.

Elliott Kalan

[40:57] It is a crazy club.

[40:58] There's like just two women in a glass case holding big futuristic laser guns.

[41:02] With, like, gas masks on.

[41:03] Yeah.

[41:04] And instead of having individual sinks outside the bathrooms, there's a huge fountain that everybody – like a communal hand-washing fountain, which must be disgusting at the end of the night.

[41:13] Oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[41:13] Heck yeah, it is.

[41:13] And Bruce Willis goes – it's just like a human soup.

[41:18] Just gross.

[41:18] Yeah.

[41:19] Bruce Willis goes into the bathroom.

[41:22] Which is packed with peeps.

[41:24] Packed with people, men and women.

[41:25] So it's like an Ally McBeal unisex bathroom.

Stuart Wellington

[41:28] Yeah.

[41:28] I mean, you know, it's a – it's 2018.

Elliott Kalan

[41:31] Good point.

[41:32] Yeah, I guess you're right.

[41:33] And so – but it's all a trap.

[41:35] And Knox shows up and starts shooting at him.

[41:37] And Bruce Willis is like, oh, no.

[41:39] And he's –

Stuart Wellington

[41:39] He collapses into a bathroom stall where he was – it was like the cage that he was lured into.

Elliott Kalan

[41:44] Yeah, because there was a phone there that he was following.

[41:47] And the only way to get out is he points his gun up to the ceiling and shoots out the fuse box to put the lights out.

Stuart Wellington

[41:52] Yeah, a fuse box that's conveniently located on the ceiling of the men's bathroom, which is insane.

Elliott Kalan

[41:57] Now, Stuart, you're a borrower.

[41:59] You own a public house.

[42:00] Yeah.

[42:00] Now, explain how difficult this would make your life if the fuse box was located.

Stuart Wellington

[42:03] Well, I think it's – first off, I think it's really important to put your fuse box in a public area.

Elliott Kalan

[42:08] Easily accessible to the patrons.

Stuart Wellington

[42:10] Yeah, I mean, not necessarily easily because it is above a toilet.

[42:14] But an enterprising patron with a will to cause some destruction could easily have access to it.

Elliott Kalan

[42:20] Okay, so first rule, put your fuse box in a public place.

[42:22] Secondly, fuse box placement.

Stuart Wellington

[42:23] Probably in a bathroom.

[42:24] Some place that just generates a lot of, like, I don't know, like water in the air.

[42:30] You know, the type of room that you would want to use a special kind of primer on the walls because the – like, it just gets – the humidity is so high.

[42:37] So you would want to put something that requires absolute dryness to be right there.

[42:41] Yeah, put some electrical things there.

Elliott Kalan

[42:43] Now, also, let's say you needed to switch the fuse on and off.

[42:46] Would it make it more or less difficult to have to climb onto a toilet seat to do so?

Stuart Wellington

[42:50] Well, that's the thing is that you would put it above a toilet seat because chances are there's already going to be somebody in there pooping.

[42:56] So you can just climb on him instead of having to use a ladder.

Elliott Kalan

[42:58] Just get on his shoulders.

[43:00] I mean, it's going to save you ladder dollars.

[43:01] And plus the pressure you're applying on his shoulders will help the poop get pushed out.

Stuart Wellington

[43:04] I mean, it's a service I provide.

Elliott Kalan

[43:07] That's – if you need – you recall him Wellington's when you're ever constipated.

[43:12] He'll just sit on your shoulders and bounce up and down a little bit.

[43:14] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[43:14] Give gravity some extra help.

[43:16] Mm-hmm.

[43:16] Yeah.

[43:17] And I whisper things in your ears.

[43:21] Shh.

[43:21] Just let go.

[43:22] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[43:23] It's like every time I go to the bathroom, I was like, love like you've never been hurt.

[43:26] Poop like nobody's watching.

[43:28] Yeah.

[43:28] That's my moral.

[43:29] My motto.

[43:30] That's my moral.

[43:30] So anyway, the shootout doesn't go well.

[43:34] Bruce Willis actually gets shot, though he escapes.

[43:35] That's impossible.

[43:36] And the cops are like, check out all the hospitals.

[43:38] We think the Grim Reaper got shot.

[43:40] But Willis doesn't go to a hospital.

[43:41] He's a doctor.

[43:42] He knows how to handle this.

[43:42] So he goes home and uses glue and a stapler to close his wound up.

[43:46] Mm-hmm.

[43:46] And it doesn't look fun.

[43:48] But we get to watch the whole thing.

[43:49] Yeah, it's super cool.

[43:50] The cops at this point suspect Bruce Willis for the very rational reason that, again, he

[43:55] is the only other character left in the movie.

[43:57] Who else is it going to be?

[43:57] Sway?

[43:58] Man-Cow?

[43:58] I don't think so.

Stuart Wellington

[44:00] Although Man-Cow is supporting the Grim Reaper, he, I don't know, doesn't seem to have this

[44:04] stuff.

[44:05] No, I don't think so.

Elliott Kalan

[44:07] His daughter comes out of her coma, which is great since I was worried that she would die.

[44:12] But then I realized later, oh, just so that she can be vulnerable in the climactic

[44:15] scene.

[44:16] Oh, yeah, of course.

[44:17] While they're leaving, they get into an elevator that Knox happens to be in.

[44:20] He's leaving the hospital, too, because he was shot.

[44:22] And Knox and the daughter have this very bizarre, creepy conversation as Bruce Willis just kind

[44:27] of stands there smiling the whole time.

[44:29] And it's one of those things where it's like, I don't know if Bruce Willis is, is the character

[44:32] supposed to be secretly seething inside as he knows that the man that he wants to kill

[44:36] is right here and he can't do anything about it?

[44:38] Or if Bruce Willis is just thinking about something funny he saw in T- like, oh, remember

[44:42] that Cheddar Goblins ad?

[44:43] That was hilarious.

[44:44] Or Bruce Willis is just like, hmm, this is a nice movie.

[44:46] Maybe my daughter will finally meet a nice boy and settle down.

Dan McCoy

[44:49] Yeah, it's weird because I feel like we're not supposed to think that he necessarily knows

[44:53] that this is Knox until afterward when like not as they were leaving, he goes, you know.

[44:58] He calls him Dr.

[44:59] Kersey, which is his name.

[45:00] He calls him by his name.

[45:02] It's like the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[45:03] Yeah, that's what the movie Call Me By Your Name is about.

[45:06] It's about that moment when you realize that's the bad guy.

Dan McCoy

[45:08] Yeah.

[45:08] But before that, it's just like, especially like the new killer Bruce Willis, I feel like

[45:14] would not allow a creepy dude to talk to his wheelchair daughter.

[45:18] Like, hey, oh, you're getting out, huh?

[45:19] We'll have one of you.

[45:20] Oh, that's cool.

Elliott Kalan

[45:21] I hope you're feeling better.

[45:21] You're going home?

[45:23] Yeah, I am.

[45:24] Great.

[45:24] Okay.

[45:25] Like, that's what he sounds like.

[45:26] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[45:26] Where is home, huh?

[45:28] Just out of curiosity.

[45:29] Want to give me your address?

Elliott Kalan

[45:30] Which is your bedroom window?

[45:31] Okay, honey pie.

[45:32] Well, then this links her face.

[45:34] Gotta go.

[45:35] Have a good one.

[45:36] Bruce Willis is like, he seems nice.

[45:37] It seems like a nice.

[45:38] Why can't you meet a nice boy like that?

Stuart Wellington

[45:40] He's like, I'm thinking about changing the appetizer menu at Planet Hollywood.

[45:46] Maybe it's time for the return of the return of Bruno.

Elliott Kalan

[45:49] In his mind, he's like, North wasn't that bad a movie.

[45:53] How come Roger Ebert hated so much?

Stuart Wellington

[45:55] Bruce Willis is Disney's the kid, huh?

[45:59] Why not the kid, too?

[46:00] Boyhood did well.

Elliott Kalan

[46:04] Hmm, Hudson Eagle.

[46:06] He's Hudson Hawk's brother.

[46:08] Did I die at the end of that movie?

[46:09] Maybe I didn't, and it could just be Hudson Hawk, too.

[46:13] Oh, man.

[46:13] What is the color of night?

[46:16] Blue?

[46:17] Who knows?

[46:19] Oh, the famous movie where you can see Bruce Willis' penis for a moment.

[46:21] Yeah.

[46:22] He's like, hmm.

[46:23] Well, maybe there was a sixth element.

[46:26] And the seventh sense.

Dan McCoy

[46:29] Sixth element is salt.

[46:31] Oh, wow.

Elliott Kalan

[46:32] I mean, it's essential to flavor.

[46:33] It's not an element.

[46:34] It's two elements put together, N-A-C-L.

[46:36] It's potassium chloride, I think, but still.

[46:42] We could just go on like this.

[46:43] Moon darkening.

[46:44] Hmm.

[46:45] There's some potential there.

[46:46] And his daughter's like, Dad, did you see that creepy guy?

[46:48] He called you by your name.

[46:49] What?

[46:49] Hmm?

[46:49] Oh, I don't know.

[46:50] I was just thinking, sorry.

[46:51] Just thinking about squeakles.

[46:54] Anyway, long story short, the bad guys invade Bruce Willis' house.

[46:58] There is no suspense as Bruce Willis is on top of the game the whole time and essentially just slaughters them.

Stuart Wellington

[47:03] Yeah, he has led them into the sweetest honeypot of the whole.

Elliott Kalan

[47:07] And I was waiting at this point for it to be revealed finally that Vincent D'Onofrio was the real bad guy behind it all.

[47:13] But.

[47:13] Nope.

[47:14] The movie played me.

[47:15] I was wrong.

[47:16] It was not smart enough to do that.

[47:18] Instead, it was just a bunch of random criminals.

[47:20] Yeah.

[47:21] Yeah.

[47:22] And all the, which led me to wonder, why is Vincent D'Onofrio in this movie?

[47:26] Yeah.

[47:26] His character has really no point other than to like, make you think, I guess, that he's the bad guy, which is fair.

Dan McCoy

[47:32] But.

[47:32] Well, he's like, you know, he's the moral guy who at the, who like, once he figures out what Bruce Willis is doing, he's like, you gotta stop killing people.

[47:41] Look, buddy.

[47:43] Listen, bro.

[47:43] There's one thing I know.

[47:45] You gotta, I mean, as much as having the power of life and death in your hands makes you feel like a god, you gotta stop killing people.

Stuart Wellington

[47:51] It's an amazing intoxicant, I understand.

[47:54] The way you smoked out those three dudes, like a couple of blunts, it was awesome.

[47:58] It's like.

[47:58] I mean, it wasn't very tense, because it wasn't shot well or anything.

Elliott Kalan

[48:01] It's edited poorly, but.

[48:03] You know, knowing that, knowing that there's a mother somewhere who's crying because her baby's gone and you made that happen, I know it's amazing.

[48:09] It's a thrilling feeling, better than sex even.

[48:11] But come on, buddy, you gotta stop.

[48:13] You gotta be getting the whole family in trouble.

[48:14] Come on.

[48:15] I know that.

[48:18] What are you doing?

[48:20] What?

[48:21] Come on, it's me, Vincent and Arfiel.

[48:27] Vincent and Arfiel, up all night, USA.

Stuart Wellington

[48:29] Oh, man, the man's an animal.

[48:31] Oh, wow.

Elliott Kalan

[48:32] I think I've said this before.

Stuart Wellington

[48:33] There's never been scenery divides that he cannot chew through.

Elliott Kalan

[48:36] He's omnivorous when it comes to scenery.

[48:39] I think I've mentioned this before on the podcast.

[48:40] I'd mentioned to you guys when we're watching it.

[48:42] Seeing a play with Vincent and Arfiel in it.

[48:43] And there were times where it was like a wild rhinoceros was loose on the stage.

[48:47] And I was worried he was just going to run into the audience and start killing people with his bare hands.

[48:51] It's an amazing performance.

[48:53] It's him and Ethan Hawke on stage.

[48:54] One of several times I've seen Ethan Hawke in plays.

[48:56] I like Ethan Hawke on stage more than the movies.

Stuart Wellington

[48:58] They were playing, what, the producers or something?

Elliott Kalan

[49:00] Yeah, it was the producers.

[49:02] Yeah, it was La Caja Hall.

[49:08] So the movie ends with Dean Norris and the cops are now investigating the multiple homicide at Bruce Willis' house.

[49:14] But he's just a man.

Stuart Wellington

[49:15] Like, so it looks like these criminals came in and you stalked them like a true death dealer.

Elliott Kalan

[49:21] So you're craving the hundred of these guys.

[49:24] And he's like, so what happened here?

[49:26] And he's like, they came into my home and I protected my daughter.

[49:30] And you bought a heavy automatic weapon the day before?

[49:33] The day my daughter came home just in case it happened again.

Dan McCoy

[49:36] And that injury in your hand that's almost healed and the gunshot wound and your arm that's stitched up.

Elliott Kalan

[49:43] He says, those you got today?

[49:44] He goes, yep.

[49:46] And I was waiting for Bruce Willis to go like, yeah, I'm a kind of a Logan, if you will.

[49:49] I heal real fast.

[49:50] I'm a saber tooth.

[49:51] And Dean Norris is like, okay, well, all right.

[49:55] I think you're just a regular husband who wanted to protect his family and I appreciate that.

[50:00] And it's like that moment where it's like, I know what you did and I approve of it.

[50:04] And then Dean Norris to seal the deal, takes a piece of pizza off the counter and eats it.

[50:08] That's not in his diet.

[50:09] Guys.

[50:10] He's a man now.

Stuart Wellington

[50:10] Where did that fucking pizza come from?

Elliott Kalan

[50:12] Let's stop for a moment and think about this.

[50:14] Because it is one of the most unrealistic things about the movie that there is spontaneously generating pizza.

[50:19] It was like the cops arrived at the crime scene and like, get us some pizzas.

[50:23] Oh, there's going to be a late one.

[50:25] Oh boy.

[50:25] Get the pizza guy here.

Stuart Wellington

[50:26] It would make sense if they were next to the, what, the coroner who showed up, who brought

[50:31] a pizza along with his tools, because that's what coroners do.

[50:34] They're always eating.

[50:35] They'll open up their little tool bag and there's a sandwich in there.

Dan McCoy

[50:39] Imagine that like, they ordered the pizza before all the guys got shot and the pizza delivery

[50:43] guy got there in between when the guys got shot and the cops were there.

[50:47] So he's like, there's all these bodies lying around.

[50:50] Bruce Willis is paying out for the pizza.

Stuart Wellington

[50:51] I mean, that would actually be a joke that might actually be funny in the movie.

[50:55] Yeah.

[50:56] A movie with no humor.

Elliott Kalan

[50:57] I mean, where he goes to open the door and pulls a gun and it's the pizza guy.

[51:00] And he goes, oh, it's just pizza.

[51:01] Or then shoots the pizza guy thinking it's another criminal.

[51:04] Yeah, like clue or something.

[51:04] Yeah.

[51:06] There's all these people here and it's really crazy and I'm a pizza guy.

[51:09] But no, it's just pizza.

[51:11] But Dean Norris, he's never going back to those RX bars.

[51:14] Now that he's seen the masculine ideal of justice and strength, the Grim Reaper Bruce Willis,

[51:19] he's going to eat pizza for an za.

[51:21] Because I guess Dean Norris is continuing his transformation into a Ninja Turtle.

[51:24] Yep.

[51:25] So Bruce Willis takes his daughter to college in the big city, New York.

[51:29] And while he is, and we hear over the radio, Sway is like, out of nowhere, there's just

[51:35] this burst of radio that's like, Grim Reaper, wherever you are, we don't know, but rest in

[51:40] peace, stay away.

[51:41] And it's like, so either-

[51:43] I mean, they don't have that much stuff to fill the air on Sirius XM, right?

[51:47] I guess that must be it.

[51:48] I didn't realize that Sway had a national radio show.

[51:50] Yeah.

[51:50] Or that it's being picked up by the filling in Bruce Willis' teeth.

[51:53] Like, I don't know.

[51:54] Yep.

[51:54] And we see there's a bellhop who has an enormous pile of bags that he's bringing into a hotel.

[51:59] And a guy just walks by and takes one of them and Bruce Willis goes, hey.

[52:02] And then mimes shooting him with a gun.

[52:05] Mm-hmm.

[52:05] Cut to credits, directed by Eli Roth.

[52:08] And I wasn't sure what to take from that last scene.

[52:10] Was it supposed to be like-

Stuart Wellington

[52:10] He's like, petty crime is the same as capital crime.

Elliott Kalan

[52:13] Yeah.

[52:14] And it's almost like they're going for like an end of taxi driver moment where you're like,

[52:17] this guy could go off at any moment again.

[52:19] Yeah.

[52:19] Like, he's a danger walking around, but he's the hero of the movie and I think we're supposed

[52:23] to like him, so.

[52:24] Yeah, I think Back in Black starts to play again.

[52:26] Does it?

[52:26] Something like that, yeah.

[52:28] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[52:29] Oh, it is Back in Black?

[52:29] It was either that or like, Back in the Saddle Again by Aerosmith.

[52:32] What if it was big balls that started playing?

[52:34] That would be crazy.

[52:35] That would be nuts.

[52:37] So, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[52:38] It was Back in the High Life Again starts to play.

[52:42] We're supposed to love this part.

[52:43] Boys are back in time, et cetera.

[52:45] And the movie had the, one, the bad luck of being a horrible celebration of murder, but

[52:52] also the bad luck of coming out at a time when it has been rarely more apparent the danger

[52:57] of random people deciding to reorder the universe according to their inner morality through bullets.

[53:03] So, we'll try not to let that influence our judgments.

[53:06] Let's be like hermetic monks looking at only the thing in front of us and not the world around it.

[53:11] I don't think I can.

Dan McCoy

[53:12] I don't think I can make that promise.

[53:15] Let's try it.

[53:16] Let's go to final judgments where we decide whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie,

[53:19] or a movie kind of like.

[53:21] I'm going to go first and just say that, like, Eli Roth is a stupid man.

[53:27] Whoa.

[53:28] But, well, in terms of like.

Elliott Kalan

[53:29] He invented the Roth IRA.

Stuart Wellington

[53:31] Oh, well, I mean, I don't know what the effect that has on economy in general, but I certainly take advantage of this.

Dan McCoy

[53:37] I mean, it was originally called a Roth ELI.

[53:38] In terms of morality, he's a stupid man.

[53:41] Oh, sure, yeah.

[53:41] Like, the thinking in his films, the morality is idiotic.

[53:45] Yeah.

[53:46] But he is a slick director.

[53:48] Like, I actually think he has talent as a director.

[53:52] So, this movie, while watching it, entertained me.

[53:56] Like, it went down smoother than a lot of bad movies that we watched that I'm just totally bored by.

[54:01] But I found the morality of it so reprehensible that it sickened me.

[54:07] So, I give it props for being a slick piece of filmmaking, but I found it to be a bad movie because of the content.

Stuart Wellington

[54:18] Yeah, I mean, I actually kind of wish there was a little more cleverness to something.

[54:22] Like, it never felt like there was that much tension.

[54:24] I guess some of the action scenes had – it was nice that the action scenes actually utilized some of the geography of the locations, which is good and uncommon most of the time.

[54:34] But, like, there was never any tension.

[54:38] You never ever thought that, like, Bruce Willis wasn't going to murder these clowns.

[54:43] What if they were actually clowns?

[54:45] I mean, that would basically just be like a Batman movie, right?

Elliott Kalan

[54:49] Yes, that's true.

Stuart Wellington

[54:52] And, yeah, it's the – there's a lot of movies out there about guys whose – all of their responsibilities get washed away in an orgy of violence.

[55:02] And this is not even one of the better ones.

[55:06] Yeah.

[55:06] So, I don't recommend it.

Elliott Kalan

[55:07] I actually found – I would call it Bad Battle.

[55:09] So, I actually found it like – it's like – from a technical level, it's competently made.

[55:14] It reminded me of, like, Red Dragon where it's like, okay, this is like a movie made by a machine.

[55:18] Fairly sterile.

[55:19] Yeah, sterile.

[55:20] There's no sense of, like –

Stuart Wellington

[55:21] Until that guy's head got squashed like an egg.

Elliott Kalan

[55:24] Yeah, and you could – it feels like that's the one moment where Eli Roth was like, I love it.

[55:27] But otherwise, it felt like him doing something for a paycheck almost.

[55:31] Yeah.

[55:31] And, yeah, the morality of it is horrifying.

[55:34] Like, it makes you skid crawl.

Stuart Wellington

[55:34] The idea of watching a surgeon get radicalized by YouTube videos is fucking horrible.

[55:40] Yeah.

[55:41] And sad.

[55:42] It's this weird baby boomer, white male baby boomer wet dream that – so much that I expected, like, them to announce that there's unlimited paper towels for them to use forever.

Elliott Kalan

[55:53] Is that a white male baby boomer thing?

Stuart Wellington

[55:55] Yeah, I think so, yeah.

[55:56] I mean the one –

[55:56] Go to your parents' house and see how many paper towels they use.

Elliott Kalan

[56:01] Probably a lot.

[56:02] Yeah, it's crazy.

[56:03] And I bet their bathroom has a tiny landscape painting in it.

[56:06] Yeah.

[56:08] That's something that I notice in a lot of older baby boomers' bathrooms.

[56:11] There's those tiny landscape painting in the bathroom.

[56:14] Yeah, it was almost like if the only thing that was missing was Bruce Willis then, like, hooking up with a much younger, like, sexy assassin or something like that to make it the full-on middle-aged baby boomer-like fantasy.

[56:27] Yeah, that dream, yeah.

[56:28] Cornucopia.

[56:29] There's also the moment where –

Stuart Wellington

[56:30] Yeah, like if he started dating his coma daughter's best friend or something.

Elliott Kalan

[56:36] Yeah, and there's a scene that kind of almost starts to imply that.

[56:39] There's a moment where Dean Horst is like – or maybe it's his partner's like, be on the lookout.

[56:43] It's a white male in a hooded sweatshirt, 40s to 50s.

[56:46] And Stuart was like, 40s to 50s seems a little generous.

Stuart Wellington

[56:50] Yeah, that was part of Bruce Willis' rewrites.

Elliott Kalan

[56:56] So I don't think we like this movie.

Dan McCoy

[57:05] Hi, I'm Dave.

[57:06] Hi, I'm Graham.

[57:07] And we're two house DJs who have been trapped inside our drum machine.

[57:11] We love it here, and we'd love if you stopped by and visited us every week on Stop Podcasting Yourself here on MaximumFun.org.

[57:20] We're just a couple of doofuses from Canada.

[57:23] And listen to our show or perish.

[57:26] Stop podcasting yourself on MaximumFun.org.

[57:55] We're just a couple of doofuses from Canada.

[58:00] And listen to our show or perish.

[58:16] Oh, hello.

[58:17] I didn't see you come in.

[58:19] It's time for a solo Flophouse ad read.

[58:23] This podcast, The Flophouse, it's called.

[58:25] Maybe you've heard of it.

[58:27] It's supported in part by Away.

[58:30] Away.

[58:31] Makers of first-class luggage at a coach price.

[58:35] I personally got a Away bag.

[58:39] They were kind enough to send one to test it out.

[58:41] And it's lovely.

[58:43] It's got one of them hard bodies.

[58:47] Not like the film hard bodies.

[58:48] That's a different thing.

[58:50] I don't want to get into that.

[58:52] But you can see it on the Sony Movie Classics channel every fucking day for some reason.

[58:58] It's got a little battery that you can use to charge your phone.

[59:04] I mean, I don't know why I'm getting into these features because the copy explains the features later on.

[59:09] I just want to say I really appreciate having this piece of luggage.

[59:13] I'm using it to go up to my brother's for Thanksgiving.

[59:18] I don't know why you care about that.

[59:20] Are you stalking me?

[59:22] Are you stalking me?

[59:24] Are you going to show up at my brother's on Thanksgiving and try and do something to me?

[59:28] For God's sake, people.

[59:30] For God's sake.

[59:32] Stay away.

[59:34] I mean, I love you.

[59:35] But stay away.

[59:37] Anyway, the Away bag is the perfect gift for everyone, too.

[59:42] Because it's got key design features like a patent pin and compression system that's helpful for overpackers.

[59:49] You can stuff your shit down in there, man.

[59:52] You can take as much as you like.

[59:54] Well, not as much as you like.

[59:55] It's not a Mary Poppins bag.

[59:57] Let's not get crazy here.

[59:58] But you can cram a lot of your junk into this thing.

[1:00:05] Away carry-ons are able to charge anything that's powered by a USB cord.

[1:00:08] A single charge with the Away carry-on will charge your iPhone five times.

[1:00:13] Think of all the texting you can do.

[1:00:16] And the candy crushes or whatevers.

[1:00:20] There's a lifetime warranty.

[1:00:21] Or if anything breaks, they'll fix or replace it for you for life.

[1:00:24] Listen, there's a special offer for you, the Flophouse listener.

[1:00:28] For $20 off a suitcase, visit awaytravel.com slash flop and use the code flop at checkout.

[1:00:35] Because this season, everyone wants to get away.

[1:00:41] We also have another sponsor.

[1:00:45] We've got Squarespace.

[1:00:46] Our old standby.

[1:00:47] Our old reliable.

[1:00:48] Our old buddies at Squarespace.

[1:00:51] You know what they are by now.

[1:00:53] They're a site that helps you make a website.

[1:00:56] A site that helps you make a website.

[1:00:58] I wonder why I'm not a copywriter.

[1:01:00] A site that helps you make a website.

[1:01:04] Jesus Christ.

[1:01:06] All right, Dan.

[1:01:07] Anyway, Squarespace is a service that allows you to create a beautiful website,

[1:01:13] to sell products and services of all kinds,

[1:01:16] promote your physical or online business,

[1:01:18] announce an upcoming event or special product,

[1:01:21] and more.

[1:01:23] How do they do this, you ask?

[1:01:24] How is that even possible?

[1:01:28] Well, I'll tell you.

[1:01:30] They've got beautiful, customizable templates created by world-class designers,

[1:01:34] powerful e-commerce functionality that lets you sell anything online,

[1:01:38] analytics that help you grow in real time,

[1:01:40] built-in search engine optimization,

[1:01:43] nothing to patch or upgrade ever,

[1:01:46] and 24-7 award-winning customer support.

[1:01:50] Make it stand out with a beautiful website from Squarespace.

[1:01:52] Now, listen, if you want all this stuff,

[1:01:56] if you're like,

[1:01:56] I should get on the internet.

[1:01:59] If after the internet being around for,

[1:02:02] you know,

[1:02:03] 30-some years now,

[1:02:05] you're like,

[1:02:05] I should get on the internet,

[1:02:06] and you want your own website to promote your,

[1:02:11] I don't know,

[1:02:12] your acting career in dog commercials or something,

[1:02:15] you should head to squarespace.com

[1:02:19] slash flop for a free trial,

[1:02:21] and when you're ready to launch,

[1:02:22] use the offer code flop

[1:02:24] to save 10% off your first purchase,

[1:02:27] purchase,

[1:02:28] purchase of a website or domain.

[1:02:32] It's,

[1:02:32] it's,

[1:02:33] it's a purchase.

[1:02:34] You're not going to get to the end of the thing and be like,

[1:02:37] I'd like to purchase this and get away with some scam.

[1:02:40] You got to purchase it.

[1:02:41] All right.

[1:02:42] I'm sorry that I misled you.

[1:02:45] We got a couple jumbotrons coming all over the wire.

[1:02:49] The first one says,

[1:02:51] the helpful snowman podcast will fix your,

[1:02:54] especially if they're solved by the audio diary of a Colorado librarian who hates weed and mountains.

[1:03:00] Check out a podcast that tests your Roseanne knowledge,

[1:03:03] the pre-racist version,

[1:03:04] give us tips on cat dating and more.

[1:03:07] Are you podcast monogamous with the flop house?

[1:03:10] Helpful snowman has books.

[1:03:12] Check out wads of power,

[1:03:13] an erotic take on contra or barehanded,

[1:03:17] an award-winning poetry chapbook.

[1:03:20] Find all this and more at helpful snowman.com.

[1:03:23] Visit helpful snowman.com or subscribe to the podcast in your favorite pod thingy.

[1:03:30] I am even more confused by what this is than when I started reading.

[1:03:37] But in a way,

[1:03:38] isn't that the most effective advertising?

[1:03:40] Don't you want to go and,

[1:03:42] and go over to helpful snowman.com and see what the hell I was just talking about?

[1:03:48] Anyway,

[1:03:49] we got another personal message.

[1:03:52] This one's from,

[1:03:53] for Ollie.

[1:03:55] It's from Emily.

[1:03:57] And it says,

[1:03:58] to the best acquaintance I've ever had,

[1:04:00] thank you for giving me the best week of my life.

[1:04:02] You are everything I could ever want.

[1:04:04] I can't wait to see you in April for more full breakfasts,

[1:04:07] Sheeran,

[1:04:08] bed snacks,

[1:04:09] and mystery bruises.

[1:04:11] After all,

[1:04:12] Reno is the Paris of the West.

[1:04:15] I love you.

[1:04:16] Isn't that sweet?

[1:04:19] I say that in a way that makes it sound like I'm ironically angry,

[1:04:23] but I am not.

[1:04:26] If you want to get a Jumbotron,

[1:04:28] go to MaximumFun.org forward slash Jumbotron,

[1:04:32] and you can look into it.

[1:04:35] For now,

[1:04:36] I will continue reading,

[1:04:39] reading,

[1:04:40] I'm not reading anything.

[1:04:41] I'll continue drinking my coffee in my pajama pants,

[1:04:45] which is what I'm doing while recording this.

[1:04:49] Ad read,

[1:04:50] and you can get back to the show.

[1:04:54] Well,

[1:04:54] moving on to letters from listeners.

[1:04:59] Listeners like you?

[1:05:02] Uh-huh.

[1:05:02] Yeah,

[1:05:03] let's do it.

[1:05:03] Okay,

[1:05:03] cool.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:05] I want the pause for it.

[1:05:05] It seems like you're waiting for something that I don't know what it is.

[1:05:08] No,

Dan McCoy

[1:05:08] I'm not waiting for anything.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:11] What is Dan waiting for?

[1:05:15] Why does Dan pause in that peculiar way?

[1:05:18] What could Dan think is about to happen today?

[1:05:22] I don't want to call me that,

[1:05:23] actually.

[1:05:24] Because today is a day that's freighted with weight,

[1:05:27] and Dan,

[1:05:28] he is having trouble waiting.

[1:05:31] Dan's appetite,

[1:05:33] it needs sating.

[1:05:34] Dan's food needs plating.

[1:05:38] What's Dan waiting for?

[1:05:41] I think that's what we're all asking every day,

[1:05:44] in every way,

[1:05:45] as we go about our lives thinking,

[1:05:47] hey,

[1:05:48] what's Dan waiting for?

Dan McCoy

[1:05:50] Waiting for?

[1:05:52] What's Dan waiting for?

[1:05:54] Waiting for?

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:55] There's so many things Dan could wait for.

[1:05:58] So many things Dan could hate for.

[1:06:01] So many things Dan is late for.

[1:06:04] But what's he wait for?

[1:06:06] There's only one man who can answer,

[1:06:08] that's Dan.

[1:06:09] Dan is the man who can answer.

[1:06:13] The answer belongs with Dan, sir.

[1:06:16] He's a tiny dancer,

[1:06:18] that's Dan, sir.

[1:06:20] That was from my 1975 Broadway show,

[1:06:24] Dan's Day.

[1:06:25] Oh, okay.

[1:06:26] You know,

[1:06:27] Stephen Sondheim told me I was terrible.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:30] Normally I do some sort of vetting of these letters beforehand,

[1:06:33] but because we're...

[1:06:34] Do you?

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:35] Because we're in a...

[1:06:36] I think this is the exception.

[1:06:37] Because we're in a Holiday Inn,

[1:06:38] or Howl-a-day Inn, I would say,

[1:06:40] in the vernacular.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:44] Because we're in a Holiday Inn in the middle of nowhere,

[1:06:46] I haven't had a chance.

[1:06:49] You're right, Dan,

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:50] the internet doesn't work the same way here.

[1:06:52] When you're in a Holiday Inn in the middle of nowhere,

[1:06:53] you're so busy that you don't have time to do things.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:56] Guys, Daylight Savings Time just kicked in,

[1:06:58] and Dan is going ape shit.

[1:06:59] Oh, man, yeah.

[1:07:00] I'm just picking...

Dan McCoy

[1:07:01] Picking a rando.

[1:07:04] By semi-random.

[1:07:05] This one is from Eric,

[1:07:06] last name withheld.

[1:07:07] Eric Estrada.

[1:07:09] Who writes,

[1:07:09] Hey, original peaches, hey.

[1:07:12] In recent reviews of most movies,

[1:07:14] especially in relation to the release of the new Venom movie,

[1:07:17] CGI is criticized more and more.

[1:07:20] As a younger listener,

[1:07:21] who didn't grow up during the time of practical effects,

[1:07:23] I can still agree that the reliance can be too much,

[1:07:26] but I don't always understand the complaints.

[1:07:29] Recently, I've heard people complaining about the trailer

[1:07:30] for the upcoming Aquaman movie and the CGI involved.

[1:07:34] My question for you is,

[1:07:35] when does CGI rub you the wrong way?

[1:07:37] Also, could you make a good Aquaman movie without CGI?

[1:07:40] I don't think the underwater scenes would go nearly as well.

[1:07:43] Keep up on flopping.

[1:07:45] Eric, last name withheld.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:48] I mean, I think it's easy to misunderstand the complaint that I have about CGI,

[1:07:56] but I mean, I feel like it's kind of like salt.

[1:07:59] Like, it's a good thing.

[1:08:02] Like, CGI and all special effects in general are good to have in a certain amount,

[1:08:05] but if you overdo it, it's terrible.

[1:08:07] And if you do it without really thinking about it,

[1:08:10] I feel like the problem with the Aquaman movie,

[1:08:12] and the trailer at least,

[1:08:14] and all the DC movies,

[1:08:15] is they feel like they are entirely shot on a green screen,

[1:08:19] and all the digital effects are thrown in afterwards,

[1:08:22] and it's all done as an afterthought,

[1:08:23] and it doesn't feel like there's no impact to anything.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:27] It doesn't feel creative,

[1:08:28] and it doesn't feel purposeful at a certain point.

[1:08:30] Something that I think,

[1:08:31] to twist Stewart's metaphor slightly,

[1:08:33] because it's a very good metaphor,

[1:08:34] I'm going to use bacon instead of salt.

[1:08:36] Okay.

[1:08:36] Where there's this thought among certain people,

[1:08:37] where it's like,

[1:08:38] hey, guess what I put in there?

[1:08:39] Some bacon.

[1:08:40] You're going to love it.

[1:08:41] And it's like,

[1:08:41] I don't need it in everything.

[1:08:42] And it's making it,

[1:08:43] it becomes a crutch that people lean on,

[1:08:45] instead of thinking about what they're making.

[1:08:48] And with CGI,

[1:08:48] there's a certain feeling of like,

[1:08:50] oh, we don't have to try too hard to figure this out,

[1:08:52] because we'll have the CGI guys work 80-hour weeks,

[1:08:55] just making it look like whatever.

[1:08:58] And it ends up being a thing.

[1:08:59] And we'll barely acknowledge them in the credits, basically.

[1:09:02] Yeah, that too.

[1:09:02] I mean, from a labor point of view,

[1:09:04] it's horrifying.

[1:09:05] But CGI, it's a tool.

[1:09:08] And it's a really good tool when it's used well.

[1:09:10] And it's a really crappy tool when you use it for everything.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:14] And I think certain directors also have a better grasp

[1:09:18] of how to use that sort of thing effectively.

[1:09:20] Like Guillermo del Toro, for instance.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:23] Yeah.

[1:09:23] And there's something about like,

[1:09:25] it's just,

[1:09:26] anytime something is overused and not used particularly well,

[1:09:29] because it's a good way to not have to think about stuff too hard.

[1:09:33] And you can paper over things, you know?

[1:09:34] There's so much stuff in TV and movies that gets done digitally that could

[1:09:37] pretty easily be done practically.

[1:09:40] Are you referring to Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom,

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:42] where they use a underwater saw on a tooth?

[1:09:45] And you're like,

[1:09:46] those two things exist.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:47] Yeah.

[1:09:47] That could be a real thing.

[1:09:49] But like,

[1:09:49] I've noticed that people driving in cars looks much worse now than it used to.

[1:09:55] Like,

[1:09:55] it looks faker because it's just very easy to do.

[1:09:58] And people don't even really think about it anymore.

[1:10:00] Whereas,

[1:10:01] it's like,

[1:10:02] CGI is like real enough,

[1:10:04] I feel like,

[1:10:04] that people stopped trying to make it look really real.

[1:10:07] Mm-hmm.

[1:10:07] And they're just like,

[1:10:08] good enough.

[1:10:09] This is fine.

[1:10:10] And...

[1:10:11] People are watching this shit on their phones.

[1:10:12] Who cares?

[1:10:13] Yeah.

[1:10:14] And you have a common...

[1:10:14] And,

[1:10:15] you know,

[1:10:15] for whatever,

[1:10:16] and sometimes,

[1:10:16] and maybe I'm being too critical of it sometimes when I get mad about it.

[1:10:19] But like,

[1:10:19] with the Venom trailer,

[1:10:20] it was like,

[1:10:21] this looks like a cartoon to me.

[1:10:23] Mm-hmm.

[1:10:23] And the cartoony Venom suit...

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:25] And not just Tom Hardy's awesome,

[1:10:27] over-the-top performance.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:28] His crazy accent and everything.

[1:10:29] But it's like,

[1:10:30] it feels like,

[1:10:32] is this supposed to exist in a world where I'm supposed to give a shit about anything in it?

[1:10:36] Because if it is,

[1:10:37] like,

[1:10:37] help it look real to me,

[1:10:39] you know?

[1:10:39] Mm-hmm.

[1:10:39] And that might mean using a practical effect here or there,

[1:10:42] rather than just doing it all green.

[1:10:44] It's this weird way of doing things where it's like,

[1:10:47] in some ways,

[1:10:47] I think much more expensive at times.

[1:10:50] But,

[1:10:51] it's just,

[1:10:51] it's easier to do stuff on set that way.

[1:10:53] And the person who calls the shot is the director who's working on set.

[1:10:56] And he's not sitting there doing the effects work.

[1:10:59] Yeah.

[1:10:59] I mean,

[1:11:00] that might be part of it.

[1:11:00] Who knows?

[1:11:01] Dan,

[1:11:01] what do you think?

[1:11:02] You got thoughts on this?

[1:11:03] Spout them out.

[1:11:04] We're talking,

[1:11:04] it's a CGI talk.

[1:11:05] I think,

Dan McCoy

[1:11:06] I personally feel like you should only use it,

[1:11:08] CGI,

[1:11:09] if it's a thing that could not be done,

[1:11:12] like,

[1:11:14] easily in another.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:15] Something that could never exist.

[1:11:16] Yeah.

[1:11:17] Like,

[1:11:17] a good example of it to me is like,

[1:11:19] the Incredible Hulk in the Avengers movies.

[1:11:21] It's like,

[1:11:22] I can't,

[1:11:22] there's,

[1:11:23] you cannot get that effect with a human in green paint.

[1:11:27] And if you used like,

[1:11:29] a physical body puppet for the whole thing,

[1:11:31] it would,

[1:11:31] I think it wouldn't quite work.

[1:11:33] Like,

[1:11:33] it wouldn't look like Mark Ruffalo the way it needs to.

[1:11:35] It would look kind of probably Dark Crystal Muppety,

[1:11:37] which now that I think about it,

[1:11:38] sounds amazing.

[1:11:38] Yeah.

[1:11:39] But,

[1:11:39] that's something where they do it pretty well.

[1:11:41] But even then,

[1:11:42] there are times where it's like,

[1:11:43] all right,

[1:11:44] like this scene,

[1:11:44] you could have made like a fake Hulk hand for this shot.

[1:11:47] And it would have looked a little better than just using a computer hand.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:50] I mean,

[1:11:50] the value of practical effects is that anything that exists in reality feels like it exists in reality.

[1:11:58] Like,

[1:11:59] whereas something that CGI,

[1:12:01] even if you can't always clock it,

[1:12:04] you know,

[1:12:05] there's something off about it.

[1:12:07] And I feel like the best,

[1:12:09] like,

[1:12:09] it's a reason why people love action movies where you've got talented stunt performers,

[1:12:14] like doing,

[1:12:15] like real fight choreography,

[1:12:17] because there's weight and heft to everything.

[1:12:19] And you can tell that that's,

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:21] it's not like that scene in the most recent Terminator,

[1:12:23] where Arnold Schwarzenegger flies off that car hood and bounces on the ground.

[1:12:26] Yeah.

[1:12:26] And it's like,

[1:12:27] wait a minute,

[1:12:27] that's not what people's bodies do.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:29] That's what cartoon bodies do.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:30] The way,

[1:12:31] the thing I always compare it to in my head is the Chewbacca costume from the original Star Wars movies,

[1:12:35] where it's like,

[1:12:36] it's so clearly a costume that's a man's suit,

[1:12:38] it looks so good.

[1:12:40] Yeah.

[1:12:40] And the character feels so alive to me.

[1:12:42] And the fur looks so real to me.

[1:12:44] Whereas,

[1:12:45] anytime I've seen anything with CGI hair or fur,

[1:12:47] no matter how,

[1:12:49] no matter how they're able to differentiate all the different hairs,

[1:12:51] like it never looks as real to me as that costume.

[1:12:53] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:55] This next letter is from Colin,

[1:12:57] last name withheld.

[1:12:58] Colin Mockery?

[1:12:59] Trevorrow.

[1:13:00] Who writes,

[1:13:02] you often talk about how a woman vomiting in a movie is lazy shorthand for pregnancy.

[1:13:06] Well,

[1:13:06] Stuart often talks about that.

[1:13:07] Yeah,

[1:13:07] I do that all the time.

[1:13:08] Can't stop yapping.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:09] You brought up like five times today.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:11] Uh-huh.

[1:13:12] I wanted to point out that in the sequel to Mamma Mia,

[1:13:14] the writer hung a lantern when Amanda Seyfried's character throws up into the toilet,

[1:13:19] looks directly into the camera and says,

[1:13:21] we know what that means.

[1:13:23] Do you have any other examples of tropes that you think are usually signs of lazy screenwriting,

[1:13:28] but work in a given film because the writer draws attention to them in an absurd or an unexpected way?

[1:13:33] And also he carved a jack-o-lantern of Nick Cage and he wants to show it to us.

[1:13:37] So here's a...

[1:13:38] Oh,

[1:13:38] that looks very scary.

[1:13:41] Great and scary.

[1:13:42] Yeah.

[1:13:44] Uh...

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:46] I don't know.

[1:13:46] Somebody's calling our room.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:52] So we were talking about,

[1:13:54] the question was,

[1:13:54] are there any tropes that you don't like in movies,

[1:13:57] but then it gets called attention to in a clever way and you like it?

[1:14:00] And I was going to say,

[1:14:02] to be honest,

[1:14:02] sometimes when the,

[1:14:04] when the filmmaker calls attention to something like,

[1:14:07] this is a cliche,

[1:14:08] get it right,

[1:14:09] everybody?

[1:14:09] It makes me madder because I'm like,

[1:14:11] if you know it's a cliche,

[1:14:12] don't do it.

[1:14:12] Like,

[1:14:12] find another way to do it,

[1:14:13] dude.

[1:14:14] Like,

[1:14:14] it's not in the rule book that you have to do it that way,

[1:14:17] but that sounds like a funny moment in Mamma Mia.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:19] Yeah.

[1:14:20] Yeah,

[1:14:20] I can't,

[1:14:21] I'm having trouble thinking anything.

[1:14:24] So I'll agree with Elliot.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:27] Well,

[1:14:27] since we just got a call saying that,

[1:14:29] uh,

[1:14:29] we got to get out of this room soon,

[1:14:31] uh,

[1:14:31] we should just do two letters and,

[1:14:34] uh,

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:34] okay,

[1:14:34] that's it for letters.

[1:14:35] Sorry,

[1:14:36] everybody.

[1:14:36] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:37] And we'll just burn the mailbag.

[1:14:39] Do a quick recommendation of movies that we saw recently that we liked.

[1:14:44] Um,

[1:14:46] I'll give a qualified recommendation to a movie I saw called The Old Man and the Gun.

[1:14:50] Mm-hmm.

[1:14:51] It's the movie with,

[1:14:52] uh,

[1:14:53] Robert Redford that briefly Robert Redford said was going to be his last movie.

[1:14:57] And then he kind of walked back on that and said,

[1:15:00] uh,

[1:15:00] maybe I'll do other movies.

[1:15:01] I don't know.

[1:15:02] Uh,

[1:15:03] but it stars him as a elderly bank robber who robs banks with,

[1:15:09] uh,

[1:15:10] let me guess a gun,

[1:15:11] a gun.

[1:15:12] Yes.

[1:15:13] And he has a team of other elderly,

[1:15:16] uh,

[1:15:18] uh,

[1:15:19] I think it's Danny Glover and Tom Waits.

[1:15:20] I can't remember.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:21] So it's like back in style or back in business,

[1:15:23] whatever that movie is.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:24] And,

[1:15:24] uh,

[1:15:25] so he tunes back in action.

[1:15:26] He has a romance with,

[1:15:28] um,

[1:15:30] uh,

[1:15:30] Sissy Spaceback.

[1:15:31] She's great.

[1:15:32] And she is the,

[1:15:34] the romance is the best part of the movie.

[1:15:36] The,

[1:15:37] um,

[1:15:38] they,

[1:15:39] you know,

[1:15:39] like he kind of hints to her what his job is,

[1:15:43] but doesn't ever like come out and say it.

[1:15:46] And they have this like little kind of dance around where like,

[1:15:50] I don't know,

[1:15:50] he provides a little sense of like spark in her life.

[1:15:54] And,

[1:15:54] and she provides stability.

[1:15:57] Um,

[1:15:57] and that's honestly the best part of the movie is this kind of like older

[1:16:01] romance.

[1:16:02] The movie itself,

[1:16:03] the,

[1:16:04] just the idea of like,

[1:16:05] Oh,

[1:16:05] these are old people who rob banks,

[1:16:07] like not that interesting in and of itself,

[1:16:09] even though it's based on a real life,

[1:16:11] uh,

[1:16:13] guy,

[1:16:13] like the movie is 90 minutes long and the plot still feels a little thin in

[1:16:16] 90 minutes,

[1:16:17] but the acting is so good.

[1:16:21] And the period kind of feel of the movie,

[1:16:24] it's in the early eighties and it's kind of shot as if it's like a seventies

[1:16:28] film,

[1:16:29] uh,

[1:16:30] gives it this,

[1:16:30] and they all talk like it's the thirties.

[1:16:32] Yeah.

[1:16:33] Yeah.

[1:16:33] I'm on this bank.

[1:16:34] Yeah.

[1:16:34] Just like brick,

[1:16:35] right?

[1:16:38] Yeah.

[1:16:38] So that's,

[1:16:39] uh,

[1:16:40] my qualified recommendation.

[1:16:41] It's a little thin,

[1:16:42] but it's very pleasant.

[1:16:43] The old man and the gun.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:45] Uh,

[1:16:46] I'll also give a,

[1:16:47] uh,

[1:16:47] I'll also give a qualified recommendation.

[1:16:50] Uh,

[1:16:50] I saw the recent,

[1:16:52] uh,

[1:16:52] star is born starring Lady Gaga and,

[1:16:56] uh,

[1:16:57] Bradley Coops.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:59] Uh,

[1:16:59] who would win in a fight between Lady Gaga and Gal Gadot?

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:02] Oh,

[1:17:03] I mean,

[1:17:03] probably Gal Gadot.

[1:17:04] Cause she is like a true warrior.

[1:17:06] And Lady Gaga's mother monster.

[1:17:07] She is mother monster.

[1:17:08] I don't know.

[1:17:09] We'll have to,

[1:17:10] we'll have to see how it goes.

[1:17:11] Okay.

[1:17:12] Uh,

[1:17:13] the,

[1:17:13] it's a movie that,

[1:17:15] uh,

[1:17:15] you know,

[1:17:16] it's the fourth iteration of this story.

[1:17:18] Um,

[1:17:19] and I think it's a movie that has some pretty solid performances all around,

[1:17:23] including a great one from my man,

[1:17:25] Sam Elliott.

[1:17:27] Uh,

[1:17:28] but the,

[1:17:29] you know,

[1:17:30] it's,

[1:17:30] uh,

[1:17:31] it's a weird movie because the,

[1:17:34] I liked the first like 30 or 40 minutes of the movie so much,

[1:17:37] uh,

[1:17:38] that it made me want to like the second half of the movie.

[1:17:42] And frankly,

[1:17:43] I liked that first half enough that I think it's certainly an experience worth,

[1:17:48] worth having.

[1:17:49] Uh,

[1:17:49] but I feel like the second half kind of loses its way and it focuses a little

[1:17:52] too much on,

[1:17:53] uh,

[1:17:54] Bradley Cooper's character and seems to like,

[1:17:57] seems to treat Lady Gaga's character a little poorly.

[1:18:00] Um,

[1:18:01] and I think that sucks.

[1:18:02] Uh,

[1:18:03] like not,

[1:18:04] not just like her character goes through hardships,

[1:18:06] but her character gets like kind of the short end and is kind of

[1:18:12] critically,

[1:18:12] uh,

[1:18:13] the,

[1:18:13] the movie is critical toward her career as opposed to Bradley Cooper's

[1:18:17] career,

[1:18:17] which is crazy.

[1:18:18] Um,

[1:18:19] uh,

[1:18:19] characters,

[1:18:20] not the actors.

[1:18:21] Um,

[1:18:21] so yeah,

[1:18:22] I mean,

[1:18:23] I,

[1:18:23] I think it's worth watching,

[1:18:25] but I will say that I feel like the ending is a bit of a letdown.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:27] And I'm going to give an unqualified recommendation.

[1:18:31] Oh,

[1:18:31] to a movie I liked a lot.

[1:18:33] Uh,

[1:18:33] it's a movie called shirkers.

[1:18:35] That is a documentary that's on Netflix right now.

[1:18:37] Uh,

[1:18:38] and it was made by this woman,

[1:18:39] Sandy Tan,

[1:18:40] who back in the nineties,

[1:18:42] she and some of her friends,

[1:18:43] when they were very young,

[1:18:44] they're all like 18,

[1:18:45] 19 fell.

[1:18:47] They were part of this,

[1:18:48] the,

[1:18:48] uh,

[1:18:49] DIY and zine movement at the time.

[1:18:51] And they were all living in Singapore.

[1:18:52] And this was how they could reach out to the rest of the world was through zines and other people's homemade magazines.

[1:18:58] They decided they were going to be independent filmmakers and fell under the sway of this older man who said that he had all his experience in the film industry.

[1:19:06] And they shot an entire movie that she had written and she stars in.

[1:19:10] And then he took all the film and disappeared with it for years.

[1:19:14] And the movie is partly about them trying to figure out,

[1:19:17] trying to find him and,

[1:19:18] and find this film and figure out who he was exactly and why he would do this.

[1:19:22] But it's even more about like the relationship between the director and her friends and how that evolved over time through the making this film and the years after.

[1:19:31] And how like the movie slowly emerges to be more and more,

[1:19:35] I think about her coming into her own as a person and maturing from this kind of like,

[1:19:40] you know,

[1:19:41] uh,

[1:19:42] not exactly nihilist,

[1:19:43] but like kind of mad at the world,

[1:19:44] young person to becoming someone who is more a part of the world.

[1:19:48] And I really liked a lot.

[1:19:50] So it's called shirkers and I highly recommend it.

[1:19:52] I think it's really great.

[1:19:53] Great.

[1:19:55] Well,

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:56] normally we would talk a little bit more,

[1:19:58] do a little more bullshit.

[1:19:59] Uh huh.

[1:19:59] I mean,

[1:19:59] we'll say that,

[1:20:00] uh,

[1:20:01] thanks for listening.

[1:20:02] This show is on max fun podcasts.

[1:20:04] Please check out other shows on the network.

[1:20:06] They're great.

[1:20:07] Maximum fun.org.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:08] Yes.

[1:20:08] And website.

[1:20:09] If you enjoyed this show or other episodes,

[1:20:11] then please feel free to tweet about us with the hashtag the flop house,

[1:20:14] uh,

[1:20:15] or go to iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us a review or just tell someone that you like it and maybe spread the word that way.

[1:20:21] Go to the water cooler.

[1:20:23] Mm hmm.

[1:20:23] Go to the water cooler and just put up a poster that says,

[1:20:25] listen to the flop house on maximum fun and other max one shows.

[1:20:27] And,

[1:20:28] or learn guitar.

[1:20:29] Take a,

[1:20:29] take a tag.

[1:20:31] Uh,

[1:20:31] if you're looking for a book for a child,

[1:20:33] I'm just going to take a moment to mention horse meets dog,

[1:20:35] my children's book,

[1:20:36] which is out in stores now.

[1:20:37] And,

[1:20:38] but otherwise it's the flop house is the main thing.

[1:20:40] Leave us reviews and stuff.

[1:20:41] I don't know.

[1:20:41] Maybe just,

[1:20:42] uh,

[1:20:42] if you want to send us a big bag of money,

[1:20:44] you could do that too.

[1:20:45] Yeah.

[1:20:45] Uh,

Dan McCoy

[1:20:46] but before we get literally evicted from our hotel room,

[1:20:50] uh,

[1:20:51] we should sign off.

[1:20:52] And so I will say for the flop house,

[1:20:54] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:20:55] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:20:56] And chaining myself to a holiday in bed.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:58] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:20:59] Bye.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:03] I'm here.

[1:21:08] You're wearing a sweater.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:10] Take the sweater off.

[1:21:11] You should be like me wearing sweatshorts.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:13] The Midwestern in,

[1:21:14] in November.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:16] You're inside a room and you're hot.

[1:21:19] So take the sweater off.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:20] We're going to get a knock on the door.

[1:21:21] It's like,

[1:21:22] guys,

[1:21:22] you got to leave the room.

[1:21:23] And we're like,

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:24] but Dan's still hot.

[1:21:25] We haven't started yet.

[1:21:26] I love the idea that Dan's like,

[1:21:28] I'm so hot,

[1:21:29] but I can't take the sweater off because it's the Midwest in the cold.

[1:21:32] My body is telling me the sweater is too much,

[1:21:34] but my brain is telling me I need a sweater.

[1:21:37] Who should I listen to?

[1:21:38] More,

[1:21:38] more,

[1:21:38] more.

[1:21:41] What a weird,

[1:21:42] what a weird argument to make against your own body,

[1:21:46] Dan.

[1:21:49] My body's lying to me because it wants me to take off my sweater.

[1:21:52] Make myself vulnerable.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:55] Maximum fun.org comedy and culture artist owned listener supported.

Ep. #271 - Death Wish

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