Ep. #270 - Interview with the Vampire

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Interview with the Vampire, also known as Frilly Sleeves, the motion picture.

Elliott Kalan

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

Dan McCoy

[0:38] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:41] And I'm Elliot Kalin, having survived Shocktober, and now being in Not Scary November.

[0:47] That's the full name of the month, Not Scary November.

Stuart Wellington

[0:49] What did we watch in Not Scary November, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[0:51] It's not themed. I mean, we're back to our usual regular scheduled programming.

Stuart Wellington

[0:56] So we watched a movie that wasn't scary. What was it?

Dan McCoy

[0:59] Oh, that's true. We did watch Interview with the Vampire.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02] Oh, scary movie!

[1:03] What? Ah, this is supposed to be Not Scary November!

Dan McCoy

[1:06] I mean, it wasn't that scary.

[1:08] Wow, for you, maybe.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11] Spoiler alert, someone didn't find it eerily spookifying, or whatever the stupid thing is we do in Shocktober.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16] See, Dan has become so desensitized by edging himself through horror movies through his life.

[1:22] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23] Anything that doesn't involve toenails being ripped out of somebody's toes and then shoved in their eyes, he's like,

[1:29] ho-hum, boring.

Dan McCoy

[1:31] Now, what is horror movie edging?

[1:33] Because, like, what would a horror movie orgasm be?

[1:36] Well, you better make sure there's no ledger to it.

[1:38] I mean, it's Hellraiser 2, right?

[1:40] Oh, okay.

[1:42] I mean, a movie I've seen a couple of times.

[1:45] Stop bragging, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47] Now, Hellraiser 2 was lost in New York, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:50] Yeah.

[1:51] That's the one with the...

Elliott Kalan

[1:52] Or was it the great Hellraiser caper?

[1:54] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:56] It's got that depressing Donald Trump...

Stuart Wellington

[1:59] I feel like Hellraiser 2's secret of the ooze would actually be pretty fitting.

[2:04] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[2:06] Yeah, that's a good...

[2:07] Actually, that's a pretty good description.

[2:08] Yeah.

[2:10] Except all the ooze is pretty much just blood, right?

Stuart Wellington

[2:11] Also, electric boogaloo isn't that far from the truth either.

Dan McCoy

[2:18] I do think of a boogaloo when I think of Hellraiser 2.

Stuart Wellington

[2:21] I mean, when you're deep in it, you're like, oh, wow, this is definitely a boogaloo.

[2:25] Uh-huh.

Elliott Kalan

[2:25] And it's electric.

[2:26] It's electric, for sure.

[2:28] Yeah.

[2:28] It's not one of those old analog boogaloos that doesn't have electricity.

[2:32] Yeah.

[2:32] No.

Stuart Wellington

[2:34] So, yeah, what do we do on this here podcast, Amy?

Dan McCoy

[2:35] Well, we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[2:37] But we did it a little differently this time.

[2:40] Elliot, explain.

[2:41] Why are we watching this movie?

Elliott Kalan

[2:43] We tried a little experiment this time.

[2:44] We wanted to let you, the listeners, help us decide what the Flophouse should do.

[2:49] Because, let's be honest, we're not always that great at deciding what movie we want to do.

[2:53] Often it is based on what the shortest running time is because we're lazy.

[2:56] So, we decided let's outsource that to the Flophouse fans.

[3:00] And we had a contest, well, like a couple months ago, where people tweeted with the hashtag Flophouse.

[3:07] Oh, wow.

[3:07] And one lucky listener who tweeted that was basically picked at random and got to choose a movie.

[3:12] And so, it was chosen by Christy, last name withheld, a listener on Twitter.

[3:17] Thank you, Christy.

[3:19] Christy.

[3:20] Christy, I'm sorry.

[3:21] It's okay.

[3:22] Look, we all make mistakes in life.

[3:23] And, Stuart, we're not the sum total of our mistakes.

Stuart Wellington

[3:26] If that's the biggest mistake I make today, even, I will be impressed.

Elliott Kalan

[3:30] And we asked Christy why she chose this movie, Interview with the Vampire.

[3:34] And here's what she said.

[3:35] She said, hi, peaches.

[3:36] Thanks for selecting me for the contest.

Dan McCoy

[3:37] Because of the current state of the world and my own personal emotional difficulties over the past year.

[3:41] Sorry to hear that, Christy.

Elliott Kalan

[3:42] I've been indulging myself with nostalgia.

[3:44] As part of this exercise in never leaving my couch, I recently rewatched Interview with the Vampire.

[3:50] Just a note.

[3:51] I read it like that because all the vampires have accents like that in the movie, right?

[3:54] Yeah.

[3:55] I'm Tom Cruise.

Stuart Wellington

[3:57] Oh, wow.

[3:58] That's, yeah.

[3:59] That's pretty meta.

[3:59] But I like that scene.

Elliott Kalan

[4:00] I hope you enjoyed my performance in Far and the Way with my then wife, Nicole Kidman.

[4:07] Anyway, that's me interrupting my own self.

[4:11] She said, I recently rewatched Interview with the Vampire.

[4:12] It came out my senior year in high school.

[4:14] So my friends and I were perfectly poised to be very cool and mature and see a sexy vampire movie.

[4:19] How could we resist Tom Cruise in a blonde wig, Christian Slater, and Brad Pitt?

[4:23] That was a wig?

[4:26] You thought that they just showed him a ghost until his hair got light?

Dan McCoy

[4:29] That was some slamma jamma level wigs.

Elliott Kalan

[4:33] We were shocked and delighted.

[4:34] The violence felt bonkers at the time.

[4:36] Then you throw in some fun period costumes and light homoeroticism.

[4:40] I would argue with the phrase light homoeroticism.

[4:43] And we were hooked.

[4:44] Plus, Kristen Dunst is kicking ass opposite two guys who could be downright doofy at times.

[4:48] Teens today honestly don't appreciate what they have with their sexy vampire options.

[4:52] So this one is for the 90s kids.

[4:53] Good parts are good, but the bad parts are so silly.

[4:56] It's definitely a movie I kind of love.

[4:57] So listening to you guys discuss it would be rad.

[4:59] On a personal note, I would like to thank the Flophouse, MaxFun, and the community around it for all the support over the past year.

[5:04] Listening to the show and talking to other fans.

[5:06] And she says, hey, Moonies.

[5:07] I know what that means.

[5:07] Has truly helped me get through the roughest time of my life.

[5:10] And I love you all.

[5:10] So thanks, Christy.

[5:11] Thank you for taking part in the contest.

[5:12] Thanks for clarifying.

[5:13] Thanks for clarifying.

[5:15] Oh, so she got married at a stadium with all the other people from the owners of the Washington Times, I guess.

Stuart Wellington

[5:21] Yeah, I believe Moonies are fans of the Mac Tonight character from McDonald's.

[5:25] You're right.

Elliott Kalan

[5:27] But who is it?

[5:28] That would be everybody in America.

[5:30] We all love that character.

Dan McCoy

[5:31] I just briefly flashed on the inevitable deviant art of Mac Tonight and it disturbed me.

Stuart Wellington

[5:38] Yeah, yeah.

[5:40] Yeah, you glimpse things that man wasn't meant to know or was very much meant to know.

[5:44] Yeah, it was a real hellraiser too.

Elliott Kalan

[5:45] So we took that recommendation and we watched Interview with the Wampire.

[5:50] Uh-huh, yep, that's how they say it.

[5:52] Which is a movie I have to admit I had never seen before.

[5:55] Yeah, you guys had not seen this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[5:57] No, neither of us had seen it.

[5:59] And I'd seen it a couple times.

[6:00] Really?

[6:01] Yeah, yeah.

[6:02] Okay.

[6:03] Clearly you know why, having seen it recently.

Dan McCoy

[6:07] I tried to read the Anne Rice novel, but I found it so overheated and just purple prose that I was like,

[6:15] I threw it across the room after a couple of chapters.

Stuart Wellington

[6:18] Uh-huh, yep.

[6:19] To lay in a heap with the other books that you've discarded.

Elliott Kalan

[6:23] Such as what, How to Win Friends and Influence People?

Stuart Wellington

[6:25] I actually did read that book when I was a kid.

[6:29] Zen and the Old Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?

[6:32] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[6:33] There's two good lessons in How to Win Friends and Influence People.

[6:36] It's the same two lessons over and over again, which is remember people's names.

[6:40] Yeah, I didn't learn that one.

[6:42] I'm very bad at that one.

[6:43] And also, if you want help, if you want somebody to help you with something, tell them how, why helping you is going to help them get what they want.

[6:49] Oh.

[6:50] It's like, oh, okay, that makes sense.

[6:52] Anyway, and he says that over and over again with lots of examples.

[6:54] Now, guys, okay, Dan.

[6:57] Yeah.

[6:59] I had a joke about Anne Rice's name that I was going to say, but I feel like we've gotten past it.

[7:04] Should I still say it or should I just...

Dan McCoy

[7:05] I mean, I feel like now you've brought the thing to a screeching halt again.

Stuart Wellington

[7:09] Maybe Dan will just edit it back where it was supposed to be.

[7:13] So why don't you just grip it and rip it, dude?

Elliott Kalan

[7:15] So, okay, I'm going to say this, and then you cut it out using the edit function of whatever program you use, GarageBand or SoundCloud or something, and then move it back.

[7:25] Okay, guys, my iPhone got all wet, and I put it in a bag of Anne Rice books, and it didn't help at all.

[7:33] Okay, so just keep all the laughter and edit that and put it back earlier when you mentioned Anne Rice.

[7:42] Okay, Dan?

[7:42] Yeah, yeah, sure.

Stuart Wellington

[7:43] And actually, just edit, take that laughter I just did, and just splice that in throughout the episode.

Elliott Kalan

[7:50] Yeah, just pepper it.

[7:51] That's good laughter.

[7:52] It's like in the old Dean Martin's roast TV shows, they would shoot.

[7:58] They just used random footage.

Stuart Wellington

[8:00] Wait, somebody roasted Don Martin?

Elliott Kalan

[8:02] I thought he was a great cartoonist.

[8:04] Oh, boy.

[8:05] No, no, no.

[8:06] They would do these TV shows where it was roasts of famous people, and they had this one shot of Jimmy J.J. Walker laughing,

[8:12] and they would just cut that in wherever they needed a shot of somebody laughing.

[8:16] So you're like, this guy loves all the comedians.

[8:18] Yeah.

[8:18] Okay.

[8:19] Interview with the vampire.

[8:21] So, the year is 1990-something.

[8:24] I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[8:24] I think it came out in 94, right?

Elliott Kalan

[8:27] 94.

[8:27] Okay, Jurassic Park, AD1.

[8:30] So it was one year after Jurassic Park.

[8:32] So, San Francisco, that's the city we're in.

[8:34] And Christian Slater is a reporter who's interviewing Brad Pitt, who says that he's a vampire.

Dan McCoy

[8:39] Now, this is the first thing that I found inexplicable in this movie, because apparently, at the beginning of the interview,

Stuart Wellington

[8:47] I mean, the movie's called Interview with the Vampire.

[8:51] What's inexplicable about it?

[8:52] At the beginning of the movie, Christian Slater apparently does-

Elliott Kalan

[8:56] We're supposed to believe a vampire will go on record about his activities?

[9:00] No, no, no.

Dan McCoy

[9:01] When they start the interview, Christian Slater does not know that Brad Pitt is a vampire.

[9:06] So I'm not quite clear why Christian Slater is interviewing this guy.

[9:09] Like, he said that he followed him, he, like, seemed interesting, and he had this tape recorder at the ready to just, like, record a guy that he found interesting.

Elliott Kalan

[9:18] Now, Dan, I have two-

Dan McCoy

[9:19] And this is pre-podcast, too, so-

Elliott Kalan

[9:21] Oh, that's a good point.

[9:22] I have two explanations for you.

[9:24] One, either Christian Slater is a kind of Joseph Mitchell-type, around-and-about-the-city reporter.

[9:30] Okay.

[9:31] Who just kind of like, just Joseph Mitchell, author of the stories in the book Up in the Old Hotel.

[9:35] He just kind of goes and finds interesting characters and interviews them and then writes about it.

[9:39] Or, you're a reporter for a local San Francisco newspaper, Brad Pitt starts following you, a major movie star.

[9:46] Yeah, I see.

[9:47] He's got a good point.

[9:47] And says, hey, want to interview me?

[9:48] Yeah, an exclusive interview with Brad Pitt?

[9:50] Yeah, star of California?

[9:51] Yeah, of course.

[9:52] Yeah, I'm not going to turn that down.

[9:53] Thank you, baby.

[9:53] This guy is-

Stuart Wellington

[9:54] Forgetting how a movie was working again.

[9:55] And he's dressed to the nines.

[9:57] And he has a ponytail.

[9:59] What?

[10:00] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[10:01] I guess he is worthy of interview, then.

Stuart Wellington

[10:04] He is very handsome.

[10:05] Let's not forget that.

[10:06] I can only assume that, and based on his fingernail length, he's probably a magician.

[10:12] Oh, right.

[10:13] He's got stories, I can only assume.

[10:15] Or he just likes cocaine.

[10:16] And also, not to jump ahead too much, but throughout this entire movie, Brad Pitt's character,

[10:23] Louie, without really doing anything, seems to draw everyone to him.

[10:29] Like, there's some kind of inexplicable quality, or maybe it's just his natural beauty and moral code that makes everybody want to be around him.

[10:38] And maybe that Christian Slater got pulled into that same level of charm.

[10:41] All right.

[10:42] I mean, he is a creature of the night.

Dan McCoy

[10:44] I do have to buy into it to buy into the rest of the film, so I will-

[10:47] Yeah, it's like watching Crouching Dagger, Hidden Dragon, and complaining about the magic.

Elliott Kalan

[10:50] Yeah.

[10:50] Dan is like, I'll buy that they're vampires.

[10:52] They're immortal creatures who eat human beings and suck blood.

[10:55] But that anyone would want to interview Brad Pitt.

[10:58] I'm sorry.

Dan McCoy

[10:59] I can't, but it's the character.

[11:01] Not that Brad Pitt.

[11:02] Yeah, I mean, it's Louie.

Elliott Kalan

[11:04] Now, Stuart-

[11:05] Oh, so the real issue is that he might start masturbating in front of him, since it's Louie.

[11:09] But now-

[11:10] No, thank you.

Dan McCoy

[11:12] Yeah, a little bit.

Elliott Kalan

[11:14] Now, Dan, Stuart has put his finger on the main weakness with the movie, which we'll just say ahead of time, which is that Brad Pitt's Louie character is not much of a character.

[11:22] Everyone's drawn to, like, his purity, they keep saying.

[11:25] But really, he's just kind of like a depressed, like, ooh, boo, boo.

[11:28] But here's the thing.

[11:30] He may be a black hole of a character, but black holes have an inescapable gravity that things are drawn to.

[11:37] Oh, I was working on that one all night.

[11:39] Yeah.

[11:40] I was doing the math, I was up all night doing the math, and my wife was like, come to bed, and I'm like, no, I've just got to-

[11:45] I think I can do this.

[11:47] I've got a beautiful mind this.

[11:48] I've got string across the room, connecting all these pictures.

[11:51] Okay, so Brad Pitt tells his story.

[11:53] He starts back in 1791 in Louisiana, back when Louisiana was still part of the French Empire.

[11:59] But it's the Big Easy, or not quite the Big Easy.

[12:02] He's a plantation outside of New Orleans.

[12:04] Yeah.

[12:04] He is a widower who lost a child.

[12:07] He hates his life.

[12:08] He's trying to gamble his life away, but he just can't seem to get killed.

[12:11] And it happens even less after vampire Tom Cruise stalks him and turns him into a vampire with what I can only describe as a flying orgasm bite.

[12:20] Because he gets bitten, and it's like the most amazing-

[12:22] It's like he is-

[12:24] It's super pain, but as Pinhead told us, there's a thin line between pain and pain.

[12:27] Oh, yeah, yeah, totally.

Dan McCoy

[12:28] I don't want to derail us right off the bat yet again, but this was question number two I had about the movie, which is-

Elliott Kalan

[12:34] It's an interview, Dan.

[12:35] Bring on the questions, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[12:36] Lestat doesn't seem to care for anybody.

[12:41] So why did he decide randomly to turn this guy into a vampire to hang out with?

Stuart Wellington

[12:46] I mean, that's the whole point of the story.

Elliott Kalan

[12:48] Yeah, dude, yeah, that's the whole-

[12:50] So you have to buy into the idea that Brad Pitt is this magnetic personality, but Lestat is very clearly looking for a partner in crime.

[12:58] He's lonely.

[12:59] The movie's about loneliness, essentially.

Stuart Wellington

[13:01] And Lestat always seems to kind of judge his own worth by his power over others.

[13:08] Yeah.

[13:08] So he needs somebody like Louis, and he didn't quite realize what he had on his hands.

Dan McCoy

[13:12] Okay, because not to jump ahead, but my other question is, these dudes seem to hate each other, but they hang out for a long time.

[13:20] Dan-

Stuart Wellington

[13:21] Yeah, maybe 11 years?

Elliott Kalan

[13:24] Dan, I'm going to break it to you.

[13:26] These guys are gay.

[13:27] Okay.

[13:27] And oftentimes, I think-

Stuart Wellington

[13:31] Wait, what makes you say that?

Elliott Kalan

[13:33] Well, they see that they're men who are in love with each other, but let's say that it is the 18th century.

[13:40] It is not okay to be openly gay.

[13:42] You find another gay guy, even if you don't get along that well, you're going to be together.

[13:46] Like, you just want a companion.

[13:47] You want someone to be in love with.

[13:49] Your options are The Limited.

[13:51] Let's just describe it with the name of the best store, The Limited.

[13:54] Okay.

[13:55] So, he's looking for someone that he can make some kind of connection to, a rainbow connection, you might say.

[14:02] Again, stereotypical, cliched gay joke.

[14:03] Terrible joke.

[14:07] But Tom Cruise says, I'm going to give you a choice.

[14:11] Either I eat you, or you will get eternal life, and the world will be super exciting and magical.

[14:15] And he goes, yeah, okay, do it.

[14:17] And he drinks Tom Cruise's blood, because that's how you turn into a vampire, is the vampire feeds you their blood.

[14:21] Yeah.

[14:23] And at this, so much of the movie is voiceover from Brad Pitt that is so, like, florid and purple prosy.

[14:29] It's like a radio play almost.

[14:30] And let me tell you this.

[14:32] I think I saw this movie at the right time in my life, guys.

[14:34] Because if I had seen this when it had first come out, I would have been like, oh, this is lame.

[14:37] It's so cheesy and stupid.

[14:39] But watching it now, I'm like, I love it.

[14:40] I love that the language is so impenetrably thick.

[14:43] And, like, it's so over-the-top and melodramatic.

[14:45] I was like, yes, please, more of this.

Stuart Wellington

[14:47] I feel like, I'd like to imagine that Elliot would have watched this movie and then grown his hair out and become, like, a super goth.

[14:55] Like, that would be in, like, the butterfly effect scenes where Ethan Supley's character has, like, a crazy flock of seagulls haircut or something.

[15:02] So I'd like to be in that butterfly effect world.

Elliott Kalan

[15:05] I mean, when I was in college, I was once walking down the street in New York, and a guy walked towards me.

[15:09] There's two guys who were dressed up like vampires.

[15:11] And they had cat's eye contact lenses in.

[15:15] Yep.

[15:15] So that they had, like, weird eyes.

[15:17] And they had fake fangs in.

[15:18] And it was clear.

[15:19] This was not Halloween.

[15:20] It was not a prank.

[15:21] Like, these guys thought they looked like the shit.

[15:23] Like, walking around dressed like vampires.

[15:25] And one of them looked at me and made, like, a scary face.

[15:27] And I burst out laughing.

[15:28] And I was really bad about it.

[15:30] Because that guy was just trying to find himself.

[15:33] Anyway.

[15:33] So if that guy's listening, I apologize.

Stuart Wellington

[15:35] And you haven't read the books either, Elliot, right?

[15:39] No, I haven't read the books.

[15:40] Because I haven't read the books.

Elliott Kalan

[15:42] No, I've never read them.

[15:43] Now I'm more curious about them.

[15:44] But I have much more of a patience for that kind of purple prose as voiceover than in writing, I've found.

[15:51] Oh, okay.

[15:51] Which is one of the reasons that, as much as I like H.P. Lovecraft, I'll start reading his books and his stories.

[15:56] And I'll be like, whew, okay.

[15:58] Are you going to tell me what's going to happen?

[16:00] Or are you going to keep describing how old all the buildings are forever?

Stuart Wellington

[16:05] I mean, I'll take that over some of the less cool stuff.

[16:10] Like the weird racist shit.

Elliott Kalan

[16:12] No, no.

[16:13] Certainly.

[16:13] I'm not saying it's the worst thing about H.P. Lovecraft.

Stuart Wellington

[16:16] I mean, I think he singled it out as being...

Elliott Kalan

[16:19] I said...

[16:20] I'm just doing a little virtue signaling here, El.

[16:22] If he has one flaw and he doesn't, it is that he spends too much time describing buildings.

Stuart Wellington

[16:31] So, yeah.

[16:32] I mean, if you want to check out the books, just go over to the corner on Dan's discarded book pile and pick it up.

Elliott Kalan

[16:37] Just dig through there.

[16:38] Find all those books about...

[16:39] Not about, what, frying?

[16:42] Before you were into baking, you were really into frying.

[16:44] And just get rid of those.

[16:46] Yeah.

[16:47] Just dig through all the used up pornography, which has had the life sucked from it, much like a vampire with its victim.

[16:53] And anyway.

[16:55] So, now Brad Pitt, Louis.

[16:58] Now that he's had that...

Stuart Wellington

[16:59] I always kind of felt like used up pornography would be more like a horcrux and be imbued with emotional energy.

[17:07] As opposed to desiccated.

[17:09] But that's me.

[17:10] But go on, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[17:11] Okay.

[17:12] Now, Louis, now that he's a vampire, suddenly he can see the life inside of the world.

[17:19] He has this, like, greater set way of seeing what things are imbued with life.

[17:23] So, a statue kind of winks at him or something like that?

[17:26] What happens?

Dan McCoy

[17:27] Yeah.

[17:27] Yep.

[17:28] That's...

[17:28] Yeah, it looks...

Stuart Wellington

[17:29] I'm glad that that plays an important part later in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[17:32] Yeah, that's never really addressed again.

[17:35] That he can see, like, moving statues.

Elliott Kalan

[17:38] He's just like, cool.

[17:40] That statue can move.

[17:41] Anywho.

Stuart Wellington

[17:41] It's weird.

[17:42] It's weird to try and show extra human perception by just adding, like, a weird special effect.

[17:49] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[17:52] But Brad Pitt tells Christian Slater, crosses don't hurt them.

[17:56] Stakes through the heart don't hurt them.

[17:58] They're vampires.

[17:59] They do need to drink blood, and they do sleep in coffins.

[18:02] So, like, the things that would hurt a vampire are not around, but the cool, morbid stuff they still have to do.

[18:08] Why do they sleep in a coffin?

[18:10] They could easily sleep in a four-poster bed that shuts out the sunlight.

[18:13] You know, just sleep in a sleeping bag zipped up over your head.

[18:15] Nope.

[18:16] Gotta be in a coffin.

[18:18] And let's just say this about Tom Cruise.

[18:20] He is loving playing this part, or seems to be, at least.

Stuart Wellington

[18:23] Oh, man.

[18:24] Like, not to jump ahead, but, like, he is making a meal of this role.

[18:30] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[18:30] I gotta say, like, while it was happening, I was like, I don't know if I like this performance.

[18:35] But then, as soon as he leaves the movie, I got a lot more bored.

[18:38] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[18:39] Yeah, no, he...

[18:40] How could you not like that performance?

[18:42] And I remember at the time...

Dan McCoy

[18:43] I was just iffy on it.

[18:44] I was like, is this too much?

[18:46] Is this not too much?

[18:47] Like, I just couldn't kind of get a beat on it.

[18:48] But I came down on the side of liking it, obviously, if I got bored after he left.

Stuart Wellington

[18:54] Well, this movie had such, like, a troubled production, and it went through, like, it was almost made in the 70s,

[19:00] and then, like, so many different actors had been approached for this role,

[19:04] and then when Tom Cruise finally took it, like, I guess, like, fans were up in arms,

[19:09] and Rice would not watch the movie and disavowed it,

[19:12] and then years later saw the movie on VHS and wrote him a letter of apology,

[19:17] which makes me kind of happy.

[19:19] Yeah.

[19:19] Because, like, he fucking goes for it, man, and he's good in this.

[19:23] Like, it's a reminder that Tom Cruise is a fucking movie star.

[19:29] Like, there's a reason why he's a huge movie star.

Elliott Kalan

[19:31] There's more to Tom Cruise than just falling out of helicopters and hurting himself for our music.

[19:35] Like, that he can actually be a character.

[19:37] And he's so, like, he's making the most of this over-the-top, I mean, come on,

[19:43] he's a decadent, a feat vampire in the 18th century,

[19:47] who, like, he's, like, laughing all the time and biting open rats and pouring their blood into wine glasses.

[19:53] Like, he has to have fun with it, or else what's the point of this character?

[19:56] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[19:58] And he's supposed to be the dramatic opposite to Louis, who is melancholy and just looks unhappy to be in this movie,

[20:06] which, once again, according to IMDb trivia, Brad Pitt was very unhappy to be in this movie.

[20:11] Oh, interesting.

Elliott Kalan

[20:12] Which I can understand because Brad Pitt is sitting there on, he's on set watching Tom Cruise have a great time.

[20:17] Uh-huh.

[20:17] And he's supposed to play this character who basically exists just to be like,

[20:20] hmm, I don't want to eat people, I want to be a good guy.

[20:23] Oh, why am I so, why do we have to be evil, Lestat?

[20:25] Well, come on.

Stuart Wellington

[20:26] He's like, why are my stats so low?

[20:29] If I ate more people, I'd gain experience points.

Elliott Kalan

[20:35] So he is, so you can understand why Brad Pitt, he hasn't given that much to do,

[20:38] except just kind of, like, not even scowl, just kind of look at things and purse his lips

[20:42] and basically be, like, a walking underwear model.

[20:45] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[20:45] More like Interview with the Mope Pyre, am I right?

Stuart Wellington

[20:51] Let's do another pass on that one.

Elliott Kalan

[20:56] I mean, even Interview with the Sad Pyre would have been, like, a little bit better.

Stuart Wellington

[20:59] I mean, Interview with the Whampire is probably better.

Elliott Kalan

[21:03] Oh, there we go.

[21:04] Stuart got it.

[21:05] Stuart cracked that one.

[21:07] Although, if it was Interview with the Whampire, you might think it was about George Michael.

Stuart Wellington

[21:12] Oh, man.

[21:14] That would have been, like, you know, if this movie had been made, what, 10 years earlier?

[21:18] That would have been great.

[21:20] But, like, just looking at him wearing those fucking contacts, I'm like, that can't feel good.

Elliott Kalan

[21:27] No, yeah.

[21:28] I'm sure he was very uncomfortable.

[21:30] But, so, basically, you have your dynamic, which is Tom Cruise loves killing people, loves eating them.

[21:35] He's decadent.

[21:36] He loves life.

[21:36] He's dead loving it.

[21:37] I can't believe it took you this long to get to there.

[21:39] So, basically, Tom Cruise rules, Brad Pitt drools, in terms of having fun being a vampire.

[21:45] And Brad Pitt's like, why do we have to be bad?

[21:48] He throws Tom Cruise around in a fight with very obvious wire work that looks hilarious, where it looks a little bit like he's pushing Tom Cruise on a swing in the middle of a dark forest.

[22:00] Okay.

[22:01] Yeah, no, I'm into it.

[22:03] Now, Brad Pitt, we should have mentioned up to this point, he's the hero of the movie.

[22:07] He also owns a plantation and is a slave owner.

[22:09] Uh-oh, guys.

[22:10] This is kind of a footnote in the movie that really, nowadays, I think, would be more problematic to present.

[22:16] That the good guy hero of the movie owns human beings.

[22:19] And so, the slaves realize—

[22:21] People would be less sympathetic toward him.

[22:23] I think so.

[22:24] And more sympathetic to Lestat, who, as far as we know, is more of an urban cosmopolite and does not own slaves.

[22:30] Although, he seems to have no real issue with it.

[22:33] I guess what I'm saying is, there's no scene where they enlist in the Civil War to fight on the side of the Union.

[22:37] This is not the opening title sequence to X-Men Origins Wolverine.

[22:41] Sorry, guys.

[22:42] Yeah.

[22:44] So, Brad Pitt's slaves, they realize the truth and they start doing a bunch of voodoo ceremonies.

[22:48] This part of the movie has not aged particularly well.

[22:51] And Brad Pitt breaks down and kills the one slave that really seemed to like him for him.

Stuart Wellington

[22:55] Played by young Tandy Newton.

[22:59] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[22:59] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[23:00] And, uh, to be honest, Tandy Newton still seems pretty young.

[23:03] Yeah, she's incredible.

[23:04] Yeah.

[23:04] She's just ageless.

[23:05] Maybe she's a vampire.

[23:07] Ah!

[23:08] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[23:09] Okay, I guess we have to go kill her.

Elliott Kalan

[23:11] I guess.

[23:12] The three of us.

Stuart Wellington

[23:13] This is my—

[23:14] I guess this is my—

[23:15] Fearless vampire killers.

[23:16] My responsibility.

[23:17] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[23:17] Now, cut to us being found by the police with a dead Tandy Newton.

[23:22] No, no.

[23:22] And we're just like, guys, let's explain.

[23:25] And I think you're going to agree.

[23:26] I guess we had to do this.

[23:27] Yeah, right.

Stuart Wellington

[23:28] And the—

[23:28] We've got a podcast for you to listen to.

[23:29] And the arresting officer is very hairy, and I'm like, I'm pretty sure he's a werewolf, Dan.

[23:35] But Dan's like, we've got to kill this guy.

Elliott Kalan

[23:38] Oh, boy.

[23:39] Cut to credits.

[23:40] In a fit of shame, Lestat tells his slaves, you're free, and then burns his own house down.

[23:45] Not the first time Lestat—

[23:46] That's Louis, right?

[23:47] Louis, not Lestat.

[23:48] Oh, sorry, Louis.

[23:48] Not Lestat.

[23:49] I'm sorry, Louis.

[23:50] Not the first time Louis will burn down a building.

[23:52] But Louis burns his own house down, and Lestat is miffed.

[23:54] He's like, oh, our stuff was in there.

[23:56] Which is basically what he says.

[23:58] He's like, we don't have any stuff now.

[24:00] They go to, what, New Orleans now?

[24:03] And Lestat's always like, Louis, you should kill some people.

[24:06] Louis's like, no, I'm just going to keep eating rats and chickens.

[24:08] And I think the funny thing is, eating the blood of chickens is presented as, like, disgusting.

[24:14] Who would do that?

[24:16] I eat chicken all the time, guys.

[24:17] Look.

[24:18] But you eat the blood?

Dan McCoy

[24:20] Yeah, to eat the blood.

[24:20] Do you have, like, blood sausage made of chicken?

[24:22] Like, I don't understand.

Elliott Kalan

[24:24] No, that's true.

[24:24] But the idea of eating a chicken isn't crazy.

Stuart Wellington

[24:27] I don't think it's for, like—

[24:31] It's not like it's offered Nellie.

[24:32] It turns it down.

[24:33] I think if it was available, he'd be chomping on that shit.

[24:36] That's true.

Elliott Kalan

[24:37] I'd try it.

[24:38] But, so, Louis just happens to be out wandering in a neighborhood that was hit by the plague,

[24:42] which I guess was a thing that was just ravaging New Orleans in the late 18th, early 19th century.

[24:47] Yeah, the bubonic plague.

Dan McCoy

[24:50] I have no idea whether this is accurate to life.

Elliott Kalan

[24:54] Also, they're all speaking English in the city, but it was still a French city at the time, right?

[24:59] Because this is before the Louisiana Purchase.

[25:02] But anyway, we don't need to get into that.

[25:04] He finds a little girl whose mom has died, and he bites the girl.

[25:07] Then he runs off guilty.

[25:08] He's like, I shouldn't have tried to feed off that little girl.

[25:10] But Lassad is like, this is great.

[25:12] I love it.

[25:13] Finally, you're embracing being a vampire.

[25:15] You're, like, getting it, dude.

[25:16] I love that you're finally getting it.

Stuart Wellington

[25:18] And then he gives that little girl blood, and she turns into Kirsten Dunst.

Elliott Kalan

[25:24] That little girl, Claudia, or she's, you know, she's a little girl vampire now, and he's like,

[25:30] look, I want to give you someone to hang out with.

[25:32] She's going to be our daughter now.

[25:34] And again, this is an earlier time when things were not as just and civil rights were not as evenly distributed.

[25:39] You were a gay couple.

[25:41] This was the only way you could have a child, was to be a vampire and turn a child into a vampire.

[25:45] And that was it.

[25:46] It's sad.

[25:46] I'm glad that we don't live in that world anymore.

[25:48] Mm-hmm.

[25:49] Also, we don't live in a world where the plague just ravages whole neighborhoods.

[25:53] And people are just like, don't go over there.

[25:54] That's a plague neighborhood.

[25:56] Should we try to save anybody?

[25:57] Nah.

[25:58] That place is, that part of town is dead, if you know what I mean.

[26:01] Let's go to the downtown art scene.

[26:03] There's so much stuff going on.

[26:04] Why are you hanging out in the plague district?

[26:07] I just thought maybe we should help those people.

[26:08] There's so much fun stuff going on downtown.

[26:10] It's really been revitalized.

[26:11] They have the river walk now.

Stuart Wellington

[26:12] Was this from the-

[26:13] It's called the galleries on it.

[26:14] Was this the scene from the first draft where they had a really loquacious plague cart driver?

[26:20] Yeah.

[26:22] Like, we need to really make sure that this town is a character in and of itself.

[26:27] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[26:28] Where Louie's like, he gets into an Uber, and it's like, take me to the plague district.

[26:34] And the guy's like, plague district?

[26:35] Interesting.

[26:36] Well, what do you do?

[26:37] Anyway, I drive Uber, but that's not all I do.

[26:39] I'm a rapper, and I have my own company.

[26:41] Let me tell you all about it.

[26:42] And Louie's like, oh, God.

[26:44] Why did I take an Uber?

[26:45] Why didn't I just take the bus?

[26:47] Then I wouldn't have to talk to anybody.

[26:49] Mm-hmm.

[26:49] So I guess what I'm saying is Louie's me in that scenario.

[26:53] So Claudia, instantly super into sucking people's blood.

[26:57] She loves being a vampire.

[26:59] Yeah.

[26:59] She loves being a little girl who can kill people.

Dan McCoy

[27:00] I mean, she has the amorality of youth, I would say.

[27:04] Mm, very well put.

[27:05] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[27:06] Very well put, Dan.

[27:07] Describe that.

[27:08] Paint me a word picture.

[27:09] Kind of Anne Rice it up.

[27:10] Give me some more purple prose about it.

Dan McCoy

[27:12] She is a natural predator.

[27:15] She, why do you-

[27:18] I said it concisely.

[27:20] Why do I have to say it less concisely now?

[27:22] Expand on this idea.

Elliott Kalan

[27:24] Look, I was just taken by it.

[27:26] Anyway, my favorite part of her, she gets her own little coffin.

[27:29] Yeah.

[27:29] But she still gets out of the coffin and goes and sneaks into Louie's big coffin like a little

[27:33] kid who wants to get into bed with her parent.

[27:35] It's super cute.

[27:36] Time passes.

[27:38] They don't grow up.

[27:39] Claudia doesn't grow up.

[27:40] She never changes.

[27:41] And eventually she even, she tries to cut her hair and her hair grows back instantly.

[27:45] Yeah.

[27:45] But you don't see it grow back.

[27:46] So she cuts her hair and then runs out of the room and runs back in and her hair is full

[27:49] length.

[27:50] And I just wish they had kept in what I assume was an amazing effects shot of all this spaghetti

[27:54] hair just growing out of Kristen Dunst's skull.

[27:57] Yeah.

[27:57] It would have been hilarious.

Dan McCoy

[27:58] I want to say at this point that Claudia is, I think, my favorite character because she

[28:02] has a character motivation for the way she is.

[28:05] You know, Louie is just mopey because he's mopey.

[28:08] And Lestat is just mean because he's mean.

[28:11] But Claudia is this young girl who's trapped in a young girl's body even though she ages hundreds

[28:17] of years over the course of the film.

[28:21] And she's frustrated by that.

Stuart Wellington

[28:23] If you consider the tragedy of Louie and compared to the tragedy of Claudia, she has a reason

[28:29] to be mopey.

Dan McCoy

[28:30] Yeah.

[28:31] I mean, Louie has a reason to be mopey at the beginning of the movie, but then after a

[28:35] while you're like, get over it, dude.

[28:37] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[28:38] Yeah, Batman.

[28:40] You don't have to hang out.

[28:41] Batman, get over your parents' death.

[28:43] It's a random act of violence.

[28:44] It happens in a city.

Elliott Kalan

[28:48] You're saying that Louie does not have to, shouldn't feel like he has to spend his time

[28:52] hanging out with someone who makes him do things he doesn't like.

[28:55] Exactly.

[28:57] Yeah.

[28:57] Now, here's my question.

[28:58] Here's something I've always wondered about stories where young people, I mean, I feel

[29:02] the same way about the vampire in Near Dark.

[29:04] I have a question about that.

[29:05] The kid vampire in that.

[29:06] Where if you stay as a kid, then the hormones that cause you to start growing up and being

[29:13] a crazy person before you're an adult, they shouldn't kick in, right?

[29:16] So wouldn't a kid who's a kid all the time just love being a kid?

[29:19] Aren't they living the Toys R Us fantasy?

[29:22] They don't want to grow up.

[29:23] Don't want to grow up.

[29:24] They want to be a Toys R Us kid.

Stuart Wellington

[29:26] Yeah.

[29:27] Isn't Claudia a Toys R Us kid, Dan?

[29:29] Well, she certainly likes dolls.

Elliott Kalan

[29:31] There's a lot of dolls that she has in this movie.

[29:34] So I always wonder if a kid stuck forever would actually want to grow up or if they would

[29:38] be fine just like being a kid forever.

[29:40] But I guess they'd probably get bored of like not being able to go to a restaurant and order

[29:43] their own food.

Stuart Wellington

[29:44] Yeah.

[29:45] Yeah.

[29:45] I mean, I think a lot of kids want to be adults or at least they want the things that they're

[29:51] not available to them, right?

Dan McCoy

[29:52] Yeah.

[29:53] I mean, there's like an evocative scene of like this adult nude woman, I guess, bathing

[29:58] or changing.

[29:59] I know why you called it evocative.

[30:01] I mean, it evoked a response in me, but Claudia sees it and she's like, that's what I want.

[30:07] That's what I want to be that.

[30:09] And I found it, you know, affecting.

Elliott Kalan

[30:13] Yeah.

[30:13] I mean, that's, it's one of those, the New Orleans of the movie is a place where nude women

[30:17] are always bathing in front of open windows.

[30:20] Yeah.

[30:20] Just because it's that kind of place.

Dan McCoy

[30:22] Yeah.

[30:22] Well, I mean, you know, New Orleans is certainly not associated with nudity now.

Elliott Kalan

[30:28] Yeah, that's true.

[30:29] Good point.

[30:30] Good point.

[30:30] I retract what I said.

[30:32] People are, people, it's, it's Mardi Gras all the time.

[30:34] People just nude in front of windows all the time.

[30:38] And Claudia is like, Louie, we need to leave Lestat.

[30:41] Like he's a bad dude.

[30:42] Let's get out of here.

[30:43] And she tricks Lestat into drinking blood from a corpse, which weakens him.

[30:47] You're a vampire.

[30:48] You should never drink dead blood, which I don't remember if that was a rule that they

[30:51] mentioned earlier in the movie.

[30:53] It kind of felt like they made it up in the moment, but maybe I missed something earlier.

[30:57] And then she cuts his throat and they dump his body in a swamp.

[31:01] Whoa.

[31:01] This movie just got real.

Stuart Wellington

[31:03] That was a fun scene, I think.

[31:05] After she cuts his throat and he's like turned into a little raisin.

[31:09] And then she makes, and like he bleeds like a ton of blood.

[31:14] There's so much blood in him.

Elliott Kalan

[31:16] Yeah, because he's an old vampire dude.

[31:16] It's like all the blood he drank for the week just comes out of him.

[31:19] And it's just spilling over.

Stuart Wellington

[31:21] It's kind of interesting because previously, anytime, like when you morph into a vampire

[31:26] or if you get injured in any way, they immediately heal.

[31:30] And when they like heal, the blood disappears, which is kind of weird.

[31:35] It's kind of a weird effect because like, just because their body heals doesn't mean like

[31:40] the blood that's on their skin would clear up.

[31:43] But I guess, you know, it's magic.

[31:44] Who cares?

Elliott Kalan

[31:44] They have a thing called double dragon Isis where a wound or a dead body just disappears

[31:51] after a certain amount of time.

[31:53] Sometimes it's replaced by like a chicken leg.

Stuart Wellington

[31:56] Yeah.

[31:56] I mean, it's just hard to maintain all those sprites.

[31:58] It's like it's too much memory to use.

Elliott Kalan

[32:01] Exactly.

[32:02] Yeah.

[32:04] And so they throw his body in the swamp.

[32:06] But just like in the old song, Lestat came back the very next day looking like a regular

[32:11] castle freak.

[32:12] It's all shriveled and like Giorgio.

[32:15] Jumping through windows.

[32:16] Yeah.

[32:16] But you better believe this is one guy who is not ripping off his own ding dong.

[32:19] He loves using that ding dong.

[32:21] He is all about the pleasures of the flesh, specifically biting into that flesh.

[32:25] But in the melee, after he attacks them, he catches on fire and they burn down seemingly

[32:30] in the entire city of New Orleans as Louis and Claudia run onto a ship for Europe.

[32:36] And this is where the movie, where there's a little bit of a-

Dan McCoy

[32:40] This is where the movie lost Elliot because he's like, that is just, that is a civic tragedy

[32:44] that our heroes have imparted on the-

Elliott Kalan

[32:46] Well, one thing, also they get on the ship without tickets, I think.

[32:50] They just run on a ship.

[32:52] And yeah, a guy and a little girl running on a ship.

[32:54] Okay, great.

[32:55] Uh, it's that the movie starts having what I would call like lumpy plotting.

[32:59] Yeah.

[32:59] I think I've described before where it's like, it was a pretty tight movie for the most part.

[33:04] And then now it's like, time for them to sojourn around Europe meeting other vampires.

[33:09] And it's like, it starts feeling like an old melodrama movie where the plot is not super

[33:16] organized the way we're used to now.

[33:18] And it's like, it reminded me a lot of the movie now Voyager where it's like, okay, this

[33:21] character is just going around doing different things and having different personal developments

[33:25] and things.

[33:26] But like, there's not-

Stuart Wellington

[33:26] I mean, it's the sort of thing you would often see in a novel where there's, you know,

[33:30] the buildup of action.

[33:31] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[33:31] And then there's the lull and it's another buildup, right?

Dan McCoy

[33:34] But also, I feel like this movie is fairly plotless in the sense that there's no goal

[33:38] that anyone is working towards.

[33:39] It's just kind of like people lulling about for centuries.

Stuart Wellington

[33:43] This is basically the critique that Christian Bale's character would give him late at the

[33:48] end of the story, right?

[33:50] Like, where's the plot?

[33:52] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[33:53] Yeah.

[33:54] Christian Slater at the end is like, I'm just going to erase all these tapes.

[33:57] There wasn't enough narrative thrust for me.

Elliott Kalan

[33:59] There wasn't really a through line here.

[34:01] And he throws, this is the original ending, is he throws the tapes out of his car window

[34:05] and then a homeless woman is sneaking around through the garbage where the tapes landed

[34:10] and she picks one up and she goes, ah.

[34:13] And then you see, that's Anne Rice.

[34:16] And that's where all of her mittens started.

[34:18] Where do you see that?

[34:21] Maybe it's written on the back of her coat.

[34:23] She's got a name tag on her.

[34:24] Like, her mom wrote Anne Rice on a tag on her mittens in case she lost her stool.

[34:28] And she turns to Donna Meachie and she goes, we're back.

Stuart Wellington

[34:35] All right.

[34:36] All right.

Elliott Kalan

[34:37] Oh, man.

Stuart Wellington

[34:37] I'm glad Donna Meachie got a little extra work.

Elliott Kalan

[34:40] Yeah, yeah.

[34:41] So they go to Europe.

[34:42] They're looking around for other vampires.

[34:44] Although in their voiceover, he says he's looking around for other vampires.

[34:46] They mainly just go to fancy parties.

[34:48] But the thing is that he's not doing it.

Stuart Wellington

[34:52] She's the one doing the looking and he just kind of hangs out.

Elliott Kalan

[34:58] He's not the most.

[34:59] He's a pretty.

[34:59] I mean, this is a 90s movie in that Louie is an incredibly slackery vampire.

[35:04] He's just like, whatever.

[35:06] Like, this is a vampire I could totally see hanging out in a 7-Eleven parking lot while

[35:10] his friends try to do cool skate tricks and keep falling down.

[35:14] And he's like, whatever.

[35:15] Hey, Louie, why don't you get up on a board?

[35:17] That would be lame.

[35:18] Oh, God.

Stuart Wellington

[35:18] He's like, this sucks to have a regular square job in this booming economy.

Elliott Kalan

[35:25] And Nirvana comes out and he's like, ugh, I don't listen to this bubblegum pop.

[35:30] But so anyway, they're in Paris.

[35:33] It's the year 1870.

[35:35] Oh, that's right.

[35:35] It's the beautiful era, everybody.

[35:37] And he's just spoiling Claudia Rotten.

[35:39] And Louie meets up with some Spanish vampires.

[35:42] They seek him out in an alleyway led by Armand, played by Antonio Banderas, who, before I watched

[35:47] the movie, I didn't even know was in the movie.

[35:49] So I was very excited to see Antonio Banderas back in his kind of like, what, El Mariachi

[35:55] Desperado type period when he was still a fresh new thing on the American movie scene.

[36:00] Yep.

[36:00] He hadn't yet become the grizzled old man that we see now in movies like, what, Haywire?

[36:05] X versus Sever.

[36:06] Yeah.

[36:07] He hadn't yet been aged horribly by his terrible experience in X versus Sever.

[36:12] I mean, that was the thing.

[36:13] It was crazy to see Antonio Banderas at a time when people didn't already have the image

[36:16] of X or Sever, whichever character he was.

Dan McCoy

[36:19] When are we going to get X and Sever back on American movie screens, guys?

[36:23] When are we going to see that?

Stuart Wellington

[36:24] I mean, Lucy Liu could do it.

[36:28] She's fucking awesome.

[36:29] Yeah.

[36:29] She could fucking direct it, for God's sakes.

Dan McCoy

[36:31] Yeah.

[36:32] I'm not saying that.

[36:33] I just, you know, I want to see our old friends X and Sever.

[36:36] That's all I'm saying.

[36:37] Okay.

[36:37] Calm down, Dan.

[36:38] Calm down.

Elliott Kalan

[36:39] I mean, the exciting thing about it was that you were finally seeing X and Sever fighting

[36:43] each other in one movie after the X and Sever cinematic universe had been building up to

[36:47] it over like five movies.

[36:49] Yeah.

[36:49] There was X1, X2, Sever 1, X, Universal Winter Soldier, Sever 2, Attack of the Duplicate

[36:57] Severs, where there was the evil Sever duplicates.

[36:59] And then finally it was like, oh, finally X and Sever are going to be in the same movie

[37:02] together.

Elliott Kalan

[37:02] Yeah.

[37:02] People were ballistic over it.

Stuart Wellington

[37:03] There was X, X2, and then XXX, the third one.

[37:06] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[37:07] Yeah.

[37:07] That's the one where he had his brother and his brother's cousin and they were all identical

[37:12] and they were running around trying to stop, I guess, drug dealers and gun runners.

Stuart Wellington

[37:15] Yeah.

[37:15] And the cook, the thief, his wife, and her lover were on it.

Elliott Kalan

[37:19] It was called the cook, the thief, his wife, and X versus Sever.

[37:22] That was the original title.

Stuart Wellington

[37:23] Pretty impressed that I remembered the name of that movie I've never seen.

Elliott Kalan

[37:28] So these vampires all have special powers.

[37:31] There's one played by Steven Rhea who can walk on a wall and then upside down.

[37:35] And he is hilariously goofy.

[37:38] That is the vampire who is like, ugh, you brought him with you?

[37:41] Like he's such an irritating vampire.

[37:43] He's basically doing mime routines the whole time.

[37:45] Yeah.

[37:45] He's like, if Salacious Crumb didn't talk and was a vampire, that's this character.

[37:50] He's just an asshole who hangs around Antonio Banderas being irritating.

[37:53] And he's doing mime routines.

[37:55] Antonio Banderas can, I guess, read minds or whatever.

[37:57] Anyway, they run this kind of like slapstick grand guinol theater that's all about showing people dying in crazy ways.

[38:05] And then at the end of the show, they take a real woman on stage and strip her nude and then eat her in front of the audience.

[38:10] And the audience is like, the effects are amazing in this show.

[38:13] How did they do that?

[38:14] I really thought they were eating this woman.

[38:16] Armand and his vampire family, they live beneath the theater in their catacombs.

[38:21] And there's a scene where they invite Louis to feed from a little boy's hand.

[38:25] And Louis tries and then gets embarrassed.

[38:27] And I was like, I don't understand what just happened.

[38:28] That was something of vampire etiquette that I do not know enough about vampire manners to understand.

Stuart Wellington

[38:34] I'll let you borrow my Vampire the Masquerade source book so you can learn about it.

Elliott Kalan

[38:40] I would appreciate it.

[38:41] But it was like sometimes you'll watch like a foreign movie, like a Japanese movie, and someone will do something and all the characters will laugh.

[38:48] And you'll be like, I don't understand.

[38:49] Like, I don't understand why that was funny.

[38:51] I don't understand what like this is just a foreign culture to me.

[38:54] And in that moment, I guess I was having that experience with vampires.

[38:57] Or maybe it's a Spanish thing.

[39:00] Guys, did you understand it?

[39:01] Why was it embarrassing that he tried to bite that boy's hand and then nothing happened?

[39:05] Was it because the boy was a vampire?

[39:06] Like, what's the deal?

Dan McCoy

[39:07] I'll admit, I was zoning out during this segment of the movie a little bit.

[39:10] Oh, boy.

[39:12] Yeah, there was not enough Lestat in it.

Elliott Kalan

[39:14] So, yeah, it's true.

[39:15] And so Armand, he's no Lestat.

[39:17] He is, Armand is to these characters what most of the X-Men villains in the 90s were, where they would just show up and say cryptic things.

[39:25] And they'd be like, there's more to this than you even understand.

[39:27] I know more about you than you ever could begin to know.

[39:30] There is another.

[39:31] And then that plot line would never be resolved because nobody cared.

[39:34] That's what Armand is a lot of, like, riddles and, like, winking, like, he's like, I want answers.

[39:39] And Armand's like, you ask the wrong questions.

[39:41] And it's like, dude, just, like, fucking tell him.

[39:43] Like, tell him the secrets of being a vampire or something.

[39:45] Come on.

[39:46] But Armand says he's 400 years old.

[39:48] And as far as he knows, there's no such thing as good and evil.

[39:51] There's just people and vampires.

[39:53] And that the only crime is for a vampire to kill another vampire.

[39:57] Because vampire law, very similar to ape law.

[40:01] Ape shall not kill ape.

[40:02] And vampire shall not kill vampire.

[40:03] And that's why Planet of the Vampires, where it turns out, Charlton Heston goes to this planet, it's all vampires.

[40:10] And then at the end, he goes into the garlic zone.

[40:12] That's the version of the forbidden zone that they can't go into.

[40:15] He goes there, and he finds the Statue of Liberty, and it's got fangs.

[40:18] And he's like, oh, this doesn't make sense.

[40:20] I don't understand this ending.

Stuart Wellington

[40:22] Then he turns to the camera, and he goes, I am legend.

[40:27] I yelled.

Elliott Kalan

[40:30] And then Tom Cruise is like, legend starring me?

[40:33] Tom Cruise?

[40:33] And they're like, oh boy, here we go again.

[40:36] Freeze frame, credits roll.

[40:38] Join us next week on another exciting adventure of Lestat and Louis, Vampire Buddies.

[40:43] I would like the movie better.

[40:45] That would have been better, yeah.

[40:46] Now, guys, let me just put this out there.

[40:49] It's something I hadn't thought about.

[40:50] How different would this movie be if instead of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt,

[40:54] it was Scott Baio and Willie Ames from the Zapped film, and also Charles George playing these vampires?

[41:00] How would this be a different movie?

Stuart Wellington

[41:02] I mean, I think Willie Ames would have been a great Lestat.

Dan McCoy

[41:08] Yeah, and it probably wouldn't have aged that well, too, because they would just be trying to take women's clothes off with their minds.

[41:14] Yep.

[41:15] So that would be a problem.

[41:16] And failing, because they're like, that's not the powers that they have in this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[41:18] That's not the powers.

[41:19] They're like, you don't understand, guys.

[41:21] I mean, that's why the Louis character would be so mopey at that point, is that he doesn't have that power.

Elliott Kalan

[41:27] Now, here's my question.

[41:28] Do you think there's anyone who watched Charles in Charge and thought it was the same characters from Zapped,

[41:32] and were like, why hasn't Charles ever used his powers?

[41:34] What's going on here?

Dan McCoy

[41:37] Yeah, why did they change the name of the show, too?

[41:39] Mm-hmm.

[41:40] So weird.

Stuart Wellington

[41:41] Yeah, like when I was watching Tomcat starring Jerry O'Connell, I'm like, why isn't he sliding everywhere?

[41:49] Or sliding, please.

Elliott Kalan

[41:51] So Claudia is like, Armand wants you, Louis, and you're going to leave me for him, and I don't like it.

[41:56] Blah, blah, blah.

[41:56] And Armand tells Louis that Louis is beautiful because he is pure.

[41:59] He still has a mortal soul.

[42:01] He has all the passion of a mortal inside the immortal husk of a vampire.

[42:05] And at this point, I was like, really?

[42:06] Because he seems like the least passionate character in the entire movie.

[42:09] Like, every vampire has this kind of joie de vivre or joie de vivre that they really like.

[42:15] They're having a great time.

[42:16] And Louis is sad all the time, and Armand's like, no, no, no.

[42:18] You're the one who's truly alive, a guy who just stares through walls and doesn't say much

[42:22] and is just like a big mopey mess.

Stuart Wellington

[42:24] Well, I've definitely known guys who have attracted people because they've projected that air of having some kind of depth or something.

[42:38] And people are always interested in like, oh, I want to date that guy and figure him out.

[42:42] And it turns out-

[42:43] Oh, I see.

[42:43] They're not actually that.

[42:45] That guy's not that deep.

[42:46] Quit sub-tweeting me, Stuart.

[42:50] I don't know you're talking about Dan.

[42:51] I'm working on being nicer to Dan, so I didn't want to say his name.

Elliott Kalan

[42:57] Dan, he projects this aura of like, oh, this guy, he's really contemplating the mysteries of the universe.

[43:02] But then you look inside his mind, and it's just like, hmm, cheeseburgers.

[43:07] Yeah, my famous love of cheeseburgers.

Dan McCoy

[43:11] I'm basically Jughead.

Elliott Kalan

[43:13] Or Wimpy.

[43:14] Or Wimpy.

[43:15] You're always wearing.

Stuart Wellington

[43:16] Yeah.

[43:16] I think you're closer to Wimpy because you also don't like paying for the cheeseburgers you eat.

[43:21] That's true.

[43:22] Well, I'd gladly pay you Tuesday.

[43:24] Yeah, I mean gladly.

Elliott Kalan

[43:26] Now, was Wimpy a con man, or did he just have a very strange OCD where he could only pay for hamburgers on Tuesday?

[43:33] He's like, you don't understand.

[43:34] If I pay for hamburgers on a Wednesday, the world ends.

[43:36] I need to do it on a Tuesday.

Dan McCoy

[43:38] Maybe that's just when he got his payday.

[43:40] Yeah.

[43:40] For his, I don't know, accountant job, let's say.

Elliott Kalan

[43:43] Yeah, sure.

[43:44] All right, I believe it.

[43:45] He could be an accountant.

Stuart Wellington

[43:46] And that's why he loves hamburgers or cheeseburgers so much, because it's like that rich inner life that a guy who has an otherwise boring life has, you know?

[43:54] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[43:55] He can escape into the adventure of hamburgers.

Stuart Wellington

[43:58] Yeah.

[43:59] And by inner life, I mean the life that the hamburger takes on inside his body.

Elliott Kalan

[44:04] So wait, so in his mind, it's basically that dancing hamburger from Better Off Dead, I guess.

[44:09] Uh-huh, yeah.

[44:10] That's every hamburger when it gets into his belly.

Stuart Wellington

[44:12] Yep.

[44:13] And when he sings that song, instead of Everybody Wants Some, he's saying, Wimpy Wimpy Wants Some.

[44:19] See, his inner life isn't that bad.

[44:21] Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Elliott Kalan

[44:22] He has a rich imagination.

[44:24] He's like Amelie when you think about it.

[44:26] I don't understand why Wimpy doesn't.

Stuart Wellington

[44:28] Or like the main character from Better Off Dead.

[44:31] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[44:32] Well, he was the Amelie of his time.

[44:34] Yeah.

[44:36] So anyway, Claudia is really jealous and he wants – she's like, I want my own playmate if you're going to hang out with Armand.

[44:42] And she brings this woman home and says, turn her into a vampire.

[44:45] She's going to be my new mom or something.

[44:47] Or she's the doll I dress up.

[44:49] I don't know, dude.

[44:49] Just turn her into a vampire.

[44:51] And Louis does it.

[44:53] And he's like sad about it, of course.

[44:55] And then the theater vampires show up and kidnap all three of them.

[44:57] They say, time for justice and for the death of Lestat, I guess.

[45:02] Just because they don't like them.

[45:03] They sentence the two girls, the woman who's just been turned into a vampire, who I don't even know what her name is.

Dan McCoy

[45:08] She didn't kill any vampires, by the way.

[45:11] So I don't know why she's getting punished.

[45:13] Oh, no.

Elliott Kalan

[45:14] I felt so bad for her because they're like, you two get death by sunlight.

[45:17] And they get thrown in a pit.

[45:18] And when the sun appears over it, they turn into ash.

[45:21] And it's really painful.

[45:22] And I'm like, lady, you picked the wrong night to get turned into a vampire.

Stuart Wellington

[45:27] Yeah, like you expect it to freeze frame on her face.

[45:29] And she's like, you wonder how I got here.

Elliott Kalan

[45:33] Crazy, right?

[45:35] Well, maybe let me go to the beginning of the story.

[45:37] She's only been a vampire for like a couple hours.

[45:40] She hasn't gotten to do anything.

[45:41] And they're like, you, you're dead now.

[45:43] At first, she sees the sun coming.

Stuart Wellington

[45:45] And she's like, oh, great.

[45:46] There's that thing that doesn't cause me harm.

[45:48] Like what I say when I see the sun.

Elliott Kalan

[45:50] When you just look straight at it.

[45:53] Oh, what a beauty.

Stuart Wellington

[45:54] I say, other than possibly getting skin cancer, I should be fine, right?

Dan McCoy

[45:59] The rest of the sun gives you its powers.

[46:01] Your powers, actually.

[46:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[46:03] No, so wait.

[46:05] Why?

[46:05] I must have missed something.

[46:07] Why doesn't Louis get killed at this point?

Elliott Kalan

[46:09] Because, well, they've decided to give him a worse punishment.

[46:12] They're going to lock him in a box for eternity until he goes insane.

[46:15] Ah.

[46:16] And they're saying, and they're like, they're like, maybe it'll take hundreds of years.

[46:21] Who knows?

[46:21] And I have to admit, if I was, excuse me, if I was Louis, I would probably take the quick sun death over being locked in a coffin for centuries.

[46:31] Unable to move or anything like that.

[46:34] Yeah.

[46:35] And so they're going to lock him in a coffin and then brick up the wall, Amontillado style.

[46:40] Yep.

[46:40] And so no one's even going to find him.

[46:42] And then he's like, no, ah!

[46:44] And this movie, I have to say, for about three minutes, this turns into a Tim Burton movie.

[46:48] Everyone's, this movie has had a certain languor, a certain like romantic, like decadent, you know, ease to it.

[46:56] And then all of a sudden it's like, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah.

[46:59] Yeah, and I think the score even picks up a little bit, right?

[47:02] It picks up for a minute, but it's like, wow.

[47:05] It's like they brought Tim Burton in or like they brought a.

[47:08] Danny Elfman.

[47:09] Danny Elfman came in to punch up the score.

[47:14] And he's like, oh yeah, here's something I can do.

[47:17] It really, it feels like they just, it becomes a different movie for a couple minutes.

[47:21] But also like, these vampires that are going to kill our main characters, their joy is kind of infectious.

[47:26] After watching Louis moping around being like, oh, I'm a wet blanket for eternity.

[47:31] To see these other vampires being like, we are exacting justice and we are loving it.

[47:35] And we're having a great time.

[47:37] They are, I don't know if anyone's ever described a vampire this way.

[47:40] They are dead and loving it.

[47:41] Let's just say that.

Stuart Wellington

[47:43] So yeah, they brick him up.

[47:45] And then our other two characters, Claudia and her progeny get totally roasted.

[47:53] And then Antonio Banderas immediately breaks out Louis.

Elliott Kalan

[47:56] Yeah, he just takes down the wall and Louis, you know what he's going to do next.

[48:00] Burn down the theater.

[48:01] Because how does Louis get out of every problem?

[48:03] Burns down the house and just leaves.

[48:05] What's his favorite talking head song?

[48:07] Life during wartime.

[48:08] It's not burning down the house, strangely enough.

[48:10] But you know what, it's because he really likes the live version that's on the sand in the Vaseline Best of collection.

Dan McCoy

[48:17] I kind of like this scene because it was like really goofily gory too.

[48:22] He's like going around with like a scythe and like cutting people in twain.

Stuart Wellington

[48:27] So wait a minute.

[48:28] So he escapes and everybody's like watching him.

[48:31] Like they're watching him leave.

[48:33] And then they're like, okay, we'll never see that guy again.

[48:36] Time to go to bed.

[48:37] Five minutes later, let's go to bed and leave the door unlocked.

Elliott Kalan

[48:41] Everyone watches Louis go because Armand made the decision.

[48:43] He's the king of the vampires.

[48:45] So he gets to, they're like, okay, you can go.

[48:47] Yeah, and then they go to bed.

[48:49] Louis burns down the place and the vampires, it's very cartoony.

[48:52] They realize they're on fire and burst into their coffins going, ooh, hot, ooh, hot.

[48:57] And each time one bursts out, Louis scythes them in two.

[49:00] And that's when we learn that Stephen Maria, I guess, has another power that he can be super fast like Quicksilver.

[49:04] But it doesn't matter.

[49:05] Louis just like cuts him in twice.

[49:07] It's like the scene in, was it Izo, where the time-traveling samurai cuts that big, that huge guy with his sword and the top half just slides right off the bottom half.

[49:18] Yeah.

[49:18] I know we've all seen that movie.

Stuart Wellington

[49:20] Or like that scene in Blade II where that happens to Ron Perlman and he gets cut in half.

[49:25] Or the scene in 13 Ghosts where the guy gets cut in half by the door.

[49:29] Or, you know.

Dan McCoy

[49:30] Or Ghost Ship where like everyone gets cut in half.

[49:32] Ghost Ship.

Stuart Wellington

[49:32] Where the whole world gets cut in half.

Elliott Kalan

[49:39] So, but that is, it is a fun scene because he's literally just cutting them up with a scythe.

[49:43] And then he walks out and the sun is out.

[49:47] Ah, oh no, I forgot what time of day it was.

[49:50] I forgot that I was standing around here for a while.

[49:52] We don't have wristwatches now.

[49:53] Yeah, he was blinded by his rage.

Stuart Wellington

[49:55] It makes sense.

Elliott Kalan

[49:56] Yeah, he was literally blinded by the light.

[49:58] Revved up like a deuce.

[49:59] And then he motored in the night.

[50:00] That's what the lyrics are.

[50:02] And to be honest, she blinded him with science.

[50:05] Let's just say that.

[50:06] Claudia blinded him with vampire science when she had her turn that other lady into a vampire.

Dan McCoy

[50:10] I can't support that.

Elliott Kalan

[50:13] Okay.

[50:14] What about that Talking Heads song, Blind?

[50:16] Dan, you're on top of that, right?

Dan McCoy

[50:18] Well, it's from Naked, so I'm not really that into it.

[50:21] But wait, it's from the soundtrack for the movie Naked?

Stuart Wellington

[50:23] Yeah, that's right.

[50:25] What a bummer.

Elliott Kalan

[50:27] I mean, Dan is coming out against nudity, which is not something I would ever hear from him.

[50:33] Yeah, Dan rented naked.

Stuart Wellington

[50:35] I contain multitudes.

[50:37] Dan rented the movie Naked and is like, where's the nudity?

[50:40] Blah, blah.

[50:42] I'm a Danpire.

Elliott Kalan

[50:44] And then he's living that Simpsons joke.

[50:47] He's like, well, I'll just watch Naked Lunch.

[50:49] That should be pretty hot.

[50:51] Nothing.

[50:51] Okay.

[50:52] Well.

Dan McCoy

[50:54] The naked kiss?

[50:55] No, this isn't any good.

Elliott Kalan

[50:57] Yeah, now I'm trying to think of other movies with Naked.

Stuart Wellington

[51:01] Let me crack open one of these Naked juices to drink.

[51:06] Oh, that's a disappointment.

Elliott Kalan

[51:09] I'll just read Desmond Morris' The Naked Ape.

[51:12] I mean, it's an ape.

[51:13] It's been still naked, right?

[51:15] Oh, no.

[51:15] It's just about people.

[51:16] Okay.

[51:17] So, guys.

[51:18] Armand shows up in a stagecoach just in time.

[51:21] Picks him up.

[51:22] And saves him.

[51:23] But Louis rejects Armand ultimately because Armand has a philosophy of no regret.

[51:28] Just live in the moment, dudes.

[51:29] And Louis is like, my regret and my suffering, that's what defines me.

[51:33] That's what drives me.

[51:35] So, you know what?

[51:36] No.

[51:36] I will not hang around with you anymore.

[51:38] And he leaves him in, I guess, the private art gallery that they're hanging out in or backstage at a different theater.

[51:43] He just walks away.

[51:45] Louis returns to the United States and really becomes a cineast.

[51:49] He just starts watching movies and hangs out in movie theaters for 80 years, 100 years.

[51:55] Like, he has a real epiphany when he sees the movie Sunrise, A Song of Two Humans.

[52:00] And then he just talks about how finally he's able to see the sun again through movies.

[52:04] He's never been able to see it.

[52:05] And I have to admit, I found this section, this sequence, genuinely beautiful and moving.

[52:10] Yeah.

[52:10] That, like, this thing that he thought was out of his life forever, now he can enjoy it vicariously through film, now that film has been invented.

[52:15] And I wonder, and it's like, I don't, I'm curious whether that's in the book or if it's like, look, we're making a movie here.

[52:23] Let's talk about how great movies are.

[52:24] Like, come on, everybody.

[52:25] It's movies.

Stuart Wellington

[52:26] Yeah.

[52:28] This is a play for an Academy Award, basically.

[52:31] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[52:32] Well, they're also, it's funny, like, they're obviously just showing him watch good movies, but I wonder what would be, like, the first time he encounters a bad film.

[52:40] And he's like, oh, so this isn't always good, huh?

Stuart Wellington

[52:44] It was like when the first, like, anime movie I ever watched was Akira.

[52:51] And then I'm like, I have to watch all of these.

[52:53] And I, like, went to the local blockbuster and got arms full of all their anime section and was disappointed by many.

Elliott Kalan

[53:01] But now I wish there were scenes now of Louis sitting in the theater, like, watching something going, like, thumbs down.

Dan McCoy

[53:08] Boo!

[53:08] Like, Louis watching, like, Porky's or something.

Stuart Wellington

[53:11] I like the idea that he's watching Porky's and is, like, enthralled by the beauty of Porky's.

Elliott Kalan

[53:18] He goes to see joysticks and he assumes that King Midian must be a vampire, too.

[53:25] He's like, I must find him.

[53:26] He can walk in the sun, a day walker.

[53:28] Wouldn't it?

Stuart Wellington

[53:28] Yeah.

[53:29] It would have been great if it was just, like, his, the montage of movies that he's watching is, like, just shots from, like, super shitty movies.

Elliott Kalan

[53:38] He's seeing, like, Ishtar and, like, I don't know, like, incredible strange creatures that stopped living and became mixed up zombies.

[53:46] But also, I admire their restraint that they did not show him watching Dracula with Bill Lugosi and laughing and turning to the other people in the theater and going, can you believe this guy?

[53:56] Come on.

[53:56] Can you get this?

[53:57] Come on.

Stuart Wellington

[53:57] Yep, and he's, like, he's eating blood-soaked popcorn while he's doing it.

[54:02] Weirdly, they just had that at the concession stand.

[54:05] Yeah, it's cool.

Elliott Kalan

[54:06] It was a brief promotion for Dracula.

[54:09] Yeah.

[54:09] They thought, you know, people, they don't want to just watch Dracula.

[54:12] They want to be Dracula.

Stuart Wellington

[54:13] And it was a different time, Dan.

[54:15] And people ate different types of foods.

[54:17] It's okay.

[54:17] Sure.

[54:17] Like, people were just picking up oysters right out of the bay and eating them.

[54:22] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[54:25] That's what they were doing.

[54:26] They were just picking up horseshoe crabs and chomping on them.

Stuart Wellington

[54:31] Oh, man.

[54:33] Sounds like Xanadu.

Elliott Kalan

[54:35] They were just walking into Muir Woods right outside the city and seeing all those super intelligent apes that escaped from that lab.

[54:42] And they just catch one and just roast it over a fire and just have some ape stew.

[54:48] Oh, man.

[54:48] That sounds great.

[54:50] So, Louis is – now, also, I wish – now that it had kept going to after this movie came out.

[54:56] And he, like – he goes to see The Sixth Sense and he spits his popcorn.

[54:59] I was like, he was dead the whole time?

Stuart Wellington

[55:02] And he's, like, looking around being like, did you see this?

Elliott Kalan

[55:07] But anyway, I like that sequence.

[55:09] Even though the idea – it is – yeah.

[55:11] Once you realize – he probably saw some stinker movies in there.

[55:13] Like, you've got Louis watching, like, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

[55:16] And he's like, they've lost the magic.

[55:18] I'm sorry.

Stuart Wellington

[55:19] But that Randy Quaid, he is going to have a long career.

Elliott Kalan

[55:26] Now it's 1988.

[55:28] And Louis, I assume, having just gone to vote for George H.W. Bush in the presidential election, he's wandering through a bad part of town.

[55:36] And he kind of stumbles upon a decaying Lestat who is living in ruins and has just been, like, living off of, what, animal blood all this time?

[55:45] Now he is the rat eater.

[55:46] He's always been making fun of Louis for eating rats instead of people.

[55:48] Now he is eating rats.

[55:50] And Louis –

Dan McCoy

[55:50] Sorry, I don't understand the rules of regeneration in this movie, really.

Elliott Kalan

[55:54] Well, each time a vampire gets killed, he regenerates as a new doctor.

[55:58] And now he's a woman.

[56:00] What's that all about?

Stuart Wellington

[56:02] Okay.

[56:02] Yeah, it's like, shouldn't she be called the nurse?

[56:05] Oh, boy.

[56:06] And I'm like, Elliot, that's fucked up, dude.

[56:09] That's horrible.

[56:10] Why would I say that?

[56:11] Is that a sexist joke that you've actually seen around?

[56:13] I'm kind of shocked that I haven't seen that around.

[56:16] All right.

[56:16] I guess that sprung whole cloth out of my head like –

[56:19] Oh, God.

[56:20] You have that inside you, Stuart.

[56:22] Yeah, I know.

[56:24] That's the bad part.

[56:25] Yeah.

[56:25] You have to write your memoir, The Troll Inside Me.

Dan McCoy

[56:27] That's the Mr. Hyde in there.

[56:30] No, I just don't understand.

[56:32] It's been, like, 100 years now.

Elliott Kalan

[56:35] No, Dan, I think you mean, it's been 100 years now.

[56:38] Okay.

[56:39] You got to say it bare naked lady style.

[56:41] Another naked you're disappointed by.

Dan McCoy

[56:43] It's been 100 years.

[56:45] So shouldn't he be, like, fully regenerated at this point?

Elliott Kalan

[56:49] No, because I think he's been eating lesser blood.

[56:51] Okay.

[56:52] So he hasn't been able to –

Dan McCoy

[56:53] Why hasn't he just been eating humans?

[56:54] I don't get it.

Elliott Kalan

[56:56] Dude.

[56:56] Maybe he's bored.

Dan McCoy

[56:58] Okay.

[56:59] Maybe he wants to change things up.

Elliott Kalan

[57:01] It's not so much about his ability.

[57:04] It's his confidence.

[57:05] When Louis left him for dead, I think it really affected his confidence.

[57:09] Also, he had to come back from being a burned husk.

[57:12] So you have to assume – and it's not like he has his brother's wife killing people and bringing them to him so he can use the blood and flesh to make a new body, Hellraiser style.

[57:19] He's, like – he's just a charred ruin that's had to drag itself around the city for 100 years, slowly accumulating flesh and blood and stuff.

[57:27] So I think it's, like, maybe a show of how far down he was.

Stuart Wellington

[57:30] Hey, guys.

[57:30] Wouldn't it have been better if the movie fell at his story than Louis and Claudia's story?

Dan McCoy

[57:35] I think that the movie –

[57:36] Almost certainly.

[57:37] I think what you're looking for is the vampire Lestat.

Stuart Wellington

[57:40] Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[57:41] Wouldn't it have been great if I was looking at the vampire Lestat?

[57:44] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[57:45] Did they make them –

[57:46] No, they didn't make a vampire Lestat movie.

[57:49] They made –

[57:50] But that's a –

[57:51] Queen of the Damned, I think is another –

Elliott Kalan

[57:53] What?

[57:54] There is a book, The Vampire Lestat.

[57:55] Yeah.

[57:55] Okay.

[57:56] It's another one of the vampire chronicles, right?

Dan McCoy

[57:59] I looked on Wikipedia and there's, like, a shit ton of those.

[58:02] Like, many more than I thought existed.

[58:05] Oh, man.

[58:05] Oh, there's a lot.

Stuart Wellington

[58:06] So, summer beach reading.

[58:08] Looking forward to it.

[58:08] All right.

Elliott Kalan

[58:09] Yeah.

[58:10] And then you get to read the vampire chronicles of Narnia where it's the same as the chronicles of Narnia but they're all vampires.

[58:15] That's the crazy thing.

Stuart Wellington

[58:16] Yeah, instead of Santa Claus showing up, it's Dracula.

Elliott Kalan

[58:20] Yeah.

[58:20] Who is the Santa Claus of vampires.

[58:22] Yeah.

[58:22] Do you think that's –

[58:23] So, okay.

[58:24] If they're vampires.

[58:25] Okay.

[58:25] Let's work on this one-to-one correlation.

[58:28] Yeah.

[58:28] Do you think they have, like, a Dracula miss where they celebrate the birth of Dracula and, like, they give their kids presents and they're like, tonight Dracula's going to come down the chimney and bite you.

[58:39] Oh.

[58:40] And if they wake up too early, they realize it's just their parents biting them.

[58:43] Oh, okay.

[58:43] And the magic is ruined.

Stuart Wellington

[58:44] Yeah.

[58:45] Probably.

[58:46] That sounds right.

Elliott Kalan

[58:48] Guys, you have to realize.

[58:49] Let's just talk about Santa Claus for a moment.

[58:51] I don't think we've talked about this.

[58:52] As a Jewish man with children, I have a horrible choice to make.

[58:56] Yeah.

[58:57] Do I give my son the power to ruin Christian kids' childhoods by telling him the truth that Santa Claus is not real?

[59:04] Stuart, I hate to break it to you.

[59:05] What?

[59:06] The weird thing is that Krampus is real.

[59:09] Oh.

[59:09] But Santa Claus is not real.

Dan McCoy

[59:12] Now, how do you handle – no, go on.

[59:14] Sorry.

[59:15] I'll ask my question afterwards.

Elliott Kalan

[59:16] So do I tell him the truth and just say, hey, we've got to keep this a secret?

[59:19] Or do I bring him into this bullshit mythology that I don't give a shit about, about Santa Claus that I don't care about and I don't want him living a lie about?

[59:28] What should I do?

[59:29] Let's call this Ask Dan.

Dan McCoy

[59:32] Well, no, this is – oh, well, I was going to ask Elliot.

[59:35] Like this is what I was going to turn back on you.

[59:37] I'm genuinely curious as to what you have done.

[59:41] Like does Sammy think like, oh, Santa comes to all of the kids in the world except for me.

[59:47] I guess I must be bad all the time.

Elliott Kalan

[59:49] Well, that's the thing.

[59:50] The weird thing is when I was a kid, that's kind of how my parents handled it was, oh, Santa comes to all the kids in the world except you.

[59:58] Yeah.

[59:58] And like – or except us.

[1:00:00] He doesn't come to Jewish kids.

[1:00:01] That's what they say.

[1:00:01] They go, Santa doesn't come to Jewish kids.

[1:00:03] And it would be like, okay, well, that's almost worse than if it was on me.

[1:00:06] Yeah.

[1:00:06] It means Santa, who everybody loves, is a racist.

[1:00:09] And I'd rather that I screwed up once or twice this year than that.

[1:00:13] But I would – it just hasn't come up yet.

[1:00:15] And I'm not going to introduce it to him.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:16] Yeah.

[1:00:17] You don't want to whisper it into his ear and it turns into like a virus that spreads amongst all the kids.

[1:00:22] And then pretty soon all the kids in the world are infected with the belief that Santa doesn't exist.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:27] Yeah.

[1:00:27] We don't want to truth or dare this.

[1:00:29] But so he just hasn't mentioned it yet.

[1:00:30] But someday he's going to be like, hey, why doesn't Santa come to my house?

[1:00:33] And I'm going to have to tell him like it doesn't because it's not real.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:36] Yeah.

[1:00:36] You're like, oh, we don't have a chimney, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:40] That's the thing that we do have a chimney.

[1:00:42] But lots of houses in California have chimneys.

[1:00:44] They have fireplaces for some reason.

[1:00:47] So I guess what I'm saying is –

[1:00:49] I don't know why that grossed me out, but it did.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:52] Like think of all the marshmallows people are roasting in their houses.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:56] Oh, horrible.

[1:00:57] So listeners write in to Elliot's Santa Claus Quandary, care of the flop house, Dan's apartment.

[1:01:03] I'll give you the address to Dan's apartment.

[1:01:04] Oh, gosh.

[1:01:05] And I'm just curious.

[1:01:06] What should I do?

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:07] And if you're a little kid listening to this, just like blank all that last part out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:12] Yeah.

[1:01:12] Yeah, yeah.

[1:01:13] Don't play this for your kids.

[1:01:14] Spoiler alert.

[1:01:14] Oh, too late.

[1:01:15] But if I was a vampire, Santa Claus would not impress me.

[1:01:17] Because it's like, oh, he sneaks into people's houses at night.

[1:01:20] Yawn.

[1:01:20] So do I.

[1:01:21] I'm a kid.

[1:01:21] Whatever.

[1:01:22] Yeah.

[1:01:25] Wait, you're a vampire and a kid?

[1:01:27] So we're so close to the end.

[1:01:29] Yeah, my best friend is a vampire.

[1:01:30] So we're close to the end.

[1:01:33] A helicopter comes around and shines a searchlight on him for some reason.

[1:01:37] And Lestat is like, ah, too bright.

[1:01:38] And Louis is like, it's not real light.

[1:01:39] It can't hurt you.

[1:01:40] It's not real, honey.

[1:01:41] The bad men are gone.

[1:01:42] And Louis just kind of leaves Lestat there in his pain and does not either kill him or help him.

[1:01:48] And Christian Slater, and Louis's like, that's the end of my story to Christian Slater.

[1:01:52] It's like, that's it.

[1:01:53] And Christian Slater's like, that can't be it.

[1:01:55] There has to be an ending.

[1:01:56] Uh, make me a vampire.

[1:01:57] I want to be a vampire.

[1:01:58] Me, me, me.

[1:01:59] And the idea of Christian Slater with vampire powers, that's not a good idea.

[1:02:03] No.

[1:02:03] Louis, do not do it.

[1:02:04] Christian Slater is not trustworthy with vampire powers.

[1:02:07] And Louis gets really mad and threatens him.

[1:02:10] And Christian Slater runs away.

[1:02:12] And Christian Slater gets in his car and is like, oh, did I just experience that?

[1:02:15] Oh, no.

[1:02:15] And he starts playing the tapes in his car.

[1:02:17] And it's only when he starts playing the tapes that you realize how dead Louis sounds and how boring the story is probably going to be.

[1:02:23] It's that you almost expect at some point Louis can be like, oh, what else did I want to talk about?

[1:02:28] Uh, what else?

[1:02:31] Did I talk about being a vampire?

[1:02:32] Okay.

[1:02:34] Um, uh, and then suddenly, boom, Lestat shows up in the car and bites Louis.

[1:02:39] And he says, I'm going to give you a choice that I didn't get.

[1:02:40] He doesn't bite Louis.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:42] He bites, uh, what's his name?

[1:02:43] Christian Slater.

[1:02:44] Oh, sorry.

[1:02:44] Bites Christian Slater.

[1:02:45] He bites the slate man.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:46] Oh, yeah.

[1:02:47] Louis is long, long gone.

[1:02:48] He bites, he bites Christian Slater.

[1:02:49] And then, and he's like, I feel better already.

[1:02:51] And he's driving the car and he goes, I'm going to give you the choice I never got.

[1:02:54] And they drive across the Golden Gate Bridge as a, as what a, is it what a, like Guns N' Roses version of Sympathy for the Devil?

[1:03:00] Hell yeah, it is.

[1:03:02] And it's like, there was part of me that was like, I admire that they went with the most on the nose song to end this movie with.

[1:03:08] But I'm also irritated that they went with the most on the nose song to end this movie with.

[1:03:12] Yeah, you gotta, you gotta end on a high note, dude.

[1:03:14] And now Lestat is going to regain his strength off of the probably not that healthy blood of Christian Slater.

[1:03:20] Well, a lot of Christian Slater slams.

[1:03:23] And will Christian Slater choose to be a vampire?

[1:03:25] You'll find out in the second movie in the Vampire Chronicles, interviewer is a vampire.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:31] Oh, yeah.

[1:03:32] You don't want to, you don't want to slam the slate man on this one.

[1:03:35] According to IMDB trivia, he donated all of his, his paycheck from this movie to.

[1:03:42] To vampires.

[1:03:43] To vampires.

[1:03:43] To, to charities that River Phoenix supported because River Phoenix was originally supposed to play this role.

[1:03:49] Oh, that's very nice.

[1:03:50] Yeah, before he passed.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:51] Yeah.

[1:03:51] So that, yeah, that was, you know, and that was nice of him to do.

[1:03:54] So, interview with the vampire.

[1:03:57] Let me just tell you this.

[1:03:58] On a scale of, it's the title and doesn't fit the title.

[1:04:02] Uh-huh.

[1:04:03] This movie fits the title.

[1:04:04] It's got an interview in it and it's got a vampire in it.

[1:04:06] And that interview, it's with the vampire.

[1:04:08] But here's the thing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:09] Okay, so based on accuracy of title.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:12] Although, and now I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to rebut my own statement.

[1:04:15] I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

[1:04:16] We don't see a lot of interviewing.

[1:04:18] It's mainly a monologue.

[1:04:20] And, uh, and Christian Slater is there as kind of like an amanuensis to take it all down.

[1:04:23] He doesn't ask a lot of questions.

[1:04:25] So, on his interview style, I'm going to give him a C minus.

[1:04:28] He got the stuff.

[1:04:29] I mean, and that's part of being a great interview is if the subject's talking, you don't have to.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:33] So, Dan, why don't you, why don't you call our buddy Jesse Thorne, who is both an expert on San Francisco.

[1:04:39] Vampires and interviews.

[1:04:40] And, uh, find out how he rates this movie.

[1:04:43] He does talk about Draculas a lot.

[1:04:45] Uh-huh.

[1:04:45] That's true.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:46] And he is a member of the Hollywood vampires, right?

[1:04:48] He plays with them?

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:50] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:04:51] So, guys, uh, we should do our final judgments.

[1:04:53] He plays, uh, what, the washboard?

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:58] We're the coolest, roughest, toughest Hollywood vampires.

[1:05:01] And on washboard, it's Jesse.

[1:05:03] Lang, lang, lang, lang, lang, lang, lang.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:06] Is this a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie you kind of liked?

[1:05:10] Uh, Ellie, why don't you go?

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:13] Uh, I was going to say this is a movie I kind of liked.

[1:05:15] I didn't think I was going to like it because I, uh, have that held over prejudice from being

[1:05:20] a teen for things that are melodramatic, I guess.

[1:05:23] But then I realized, like, oh, no, I don't have that.

[1:05:25] I like these things now.

[1:05:26] And I think that if I had seen it when it came out, I think I would have been young enough

[1:05:30] and not confident enough in myself that the intense homoeroticism of it would have put

[1:05:36] me off somewhat as a teenage boy.

[1:05:38] But now I'm like, yeah, love it.

[1:05:41] Give me more of that.

[1:05:42] I love seeing it in a movie.

[1:05:43] Give me more of these homoerotic vampires.

[1:05:45] So I think not only did I kind of like it, but I like that I saw it at this point in

[1:05:48] my life and not earlier.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:50] I remember, so I saw this in the theater and it was right around the time that I was like

[1:05:55] starting to get into the like World of Darkness vampire role-playing games.

[1:06:01] So at first I was put off by the idea.

[1:06:04] I'm like, oh, this is like a lame Hollywood version of cool vampire stuff that I'm into.

[1:06:10] But the movie, I remember the movie winning me over and being pretty into it at the time.

[1:06:13] And I think it holds up.

[1:06:16] Like, I mean, it's a goofy, fun vampire movie with some pretty big stars.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:24] It's an over-the-top vampire melodrama.

[1:06:27] That's what I want out of it.

[1:06:28] Like, I'm not looking for the same thing out of it that I'm looking for out of like Near

[1:06:32] Dark or Dracula or Shadow the Vampire or any of those things.

[1:06:36] Like, there's room or The Vampire's Kiss, which was just a crazy movie.

[1:06:41] Like, you can have different things from different types of vampire movies.

[1:06:44] But Dan, I see that look on your face.

[1:06:46] You're shaking your head no like a stern schoolmaster.

[1:06:48] No, not quite.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:50] This movie had a high bar for it to clear for me because I'm not a big fan of the trope of

[1:06:55] the sexy vampire.

[1:06:56] Like, the allure of vampirism has never been a thing that I'm like, yeah, yeah, I can.

[1:07:02] I understand.

[1:07:03] Yeah, I want to be a vampire.

[1:07:05] Like, I don't know.

[1:07:06] I mean, I guess eternal life.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:08] Wait, like you watch like Lost Boys and you're like, I don't want to be with those dudes.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:15] And.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:16] Because I kind of totally would.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:18] I find a lot of this movie super goofy, but you guys have kind of won me over.

[1:07:23] Like, I guess the goofiness is kind of the fun part of it.

[1:07:25] So I kind of liked it a little less than you guys, but I'm on board.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:30] I think the movie is super goofy, but it is also very sincere.

[1:07:34] And that's something that I think I would have had trouble with when I was younger is that

[1:07:37] even Tom Cruise's part where he's playing this winking, like scenery chewing vampire.

[1:07:42] No pun intended.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:43] I hope that scenery doesn't have blood in it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:46] Like, that's the character.

[1:07:47] He's not winking at the audience being like, hey, look how crazy I am.

[1:07:50] He's winking at the characters.

[1:07:52] And so it's like, oh, this is like this is not an ironic movie.

[1:07:55] This is a movie that for all its weakness in that Brad Pitt's character is not really a

[1:07:59] full character.

[1:08:00] Like, this is a movie that takes itself very seriously.

[1:08:03] And I admire that since I feel like it was not too long after this that the idea of a

[1:08:08] horror movie that takes itself seriously kind of disappeared from the movie screens for a

[1:08:13] while, I guess in the wake of like Scream and stuff like that.

[1:08:16] Yeah.

[1:08:16] And it's only within the past, I don't know what, like five or 10 years that I feel like

[1:08:22] I'm seeing a lot of horror movies where it's like, no, no, no, we take it seriously.

[1:08:25] This is not like we're not making a joke about scary stuff.

[1:08:28] You know, like we're not commenting on scary stuff.

[1:08:30] We just want to be scary or atmospheric or what have you.

[1:08:33] And I'll tell you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:34] You're saying that some modern prestige horror movies aren't don't maintain like a

[1:08:39] comfortable ironic distance from their material.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:42] Exactly.

[1:08:43] This is a movie that is not too cool to be itself.

[1:08:45] This is a movie that's like, hey, we're making a movie about these vampires who are in

[1:08:49] love with each other and also hate each other.

[1:08:52] Guess what?

[1:08:53] We think that's pretty cool.

[1:08:55] And we're just going to tell that story.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:57] And I think it helps in a lot of the scenes that are filled with like the, you know, like

[1:09:03] the boring melodrama stuff.

[1:09:05] They're like killing people at the same time.

[1:09:08] Yeah, that's true.

[1:09:10] You know, it's a lot of walking and talking.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:12] Like you guys, I think, Stuart, you mentioned me becoming a goth earlier if I'd seen the

[1:09:17] movie when I was a kid.

[1:09:19] It reminded me of how when I was a kid, I really like disdained goths because I was too cool

[1:09:25] for school, you know, or whatever.

[1:09:26] And the thing that I think really bothered me about it was that they were so unafraid

[1:09:31] to just like be who they wanted to be, you know, without other people, even though other

[1:09:35] people clearly like made fun of them like crazy at my school at least.

[1:09:39] Yeah.

[1:09:39] And so it's like, you know what?

[1:09:41] I realized that I am, it's not that I think that it's goofy.

[1:09:44] It's that I am ashamed at my own lack of confidence in living that openly weird.

[1:09:49] And so now I admire that stuff a lot.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:52] And now that you've admitted that, I will give you this onk necklace to wear.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:56] Oh, finally.

[1:09:58] I mean, I also never liked any of that stuff, but it's like I wanted to find my version of

[1:10:02] that.

[1:10:02] There was something about like, there's also the thing of I'm going to make myself a total

[1:10:06] outcast by dressing like all these other people who look just like me.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:10] Here, my friend Dave Navarro will don a cloak of raven's feathers upon your shoulders.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:17] No, no.

[1:10:17] I mean, that sounds pretty cool.

[1:10:19] All right.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:22] I've been not saying anything in the hopes that you'll wind yourself down.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:25] Dan, you know that's not how it works.

[1:10:27] You have to interrupt us.

[1:10:28] You got to tell us to stop.

[1:10:30] So what do we do now?

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:31] Now we do.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:33] I love Dan's idea.

[1:10:34] Like if Dan was a diplomat, he'd be like, I'll let this war just kind of work itself

[1:10:37] out till they get tired of shooting each other.

[1:10:39] I don't need to get in there and negotiate.

[1:10:41] It's like, no, Dan, you got to end things.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:47] Since the dawn of time, screenwriters have taken months to craft their stories.

[1:10:51] But now three Hollywood professionals shall attempt the impossible.

[1:10:57] Break a story in one hour.

[1:11:00] That's right.

[1:11:00] Here on Story Break, I, Freddie Wong, Matt Arnold, and Will Campos, the creators behind award-winning

[1:11:05] shows like Video Game High School.

[1:11:06] Have one hour to turn a humble idea into an awesome movie.

[1:11:09] Now an awesome movie starts with an awesome title.

[1:11:12] I chose the billionaire's marriage valley.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:14] Mine was Christmas Pregnant Paradise.

[1:11:18] Okay.

[1:11:18] Next, we need a protagonist.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:19] So I've heard Wario best described as libertarian Mario.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:23] And of course, every great movie needs a stellar pitch.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:26] In order to get to heaven, sometimes you got to raise a little hell.

[1:11:29] Oh, that's the tagline!

[1:11:31] Check out Story Break every week on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

S4

[1:11:38] How does this sound?

[1:11:39] A weekend on a beautiful mountaintop in California.

[1:11:42] You wake up, eat a tasty meal with some new friends, some old friends, maybe the host of your favorite podcasts.

[1:11:48] After that, it's a couple of inspiring classes, spectacular podcast tapings, a hilarious stand-up showcase, a dance party, and more.

[1:11:56] And s'mores!

[1:11:57] All of this can be yours at MaxFunCon, returning to Lake Arrowhead next June.

[1:12:02] Tickets go on sale Friday, November 23rd.

[1:12:04] Put that on your calendar, because MaxFunCon tickets always sell out.

[1:12:08] Get a head start planning your next summer vacation, and go to MaxFunCon.com to learn more.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:15] Now is when we talk about our sponsors.

[1:12:18] We've got two great sponsors this week.

[1:12:20] The first is Casper.

[1:12:22] The Flophouse is supported in part by Casper, a sleep brand that continues to revolutionize its lines of products

[1:12:28] to create an exceptionally comfortable sleep experience one night at a time.

[1:12:32] They offer affordable prices because Casper cuts out the middleman and sells directly to the consumer.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:39] Yeah, I mean, you're not Louis and Lestat.

[1:12:42] You don't have to sleep in a fucking coffin.

[1:12:44] Sleep on a sweet-ass cap for a mattress.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:46] Yeah.

[1:12:46] Like a ghost.

[1:12:47] Come on.

[1:12:48] Casper brand mattresses combine multiple supportive memory foams for a quality sleep surface with the right amounts of both sink and bounce.

[1:12:56] You can be sure of your purchase with Casper's 100-night risk-free sleep-on-it trial.

[1:13:00] Get $50 towards select mattresses by visiting Casper.com slash Flophouse and using promo code FLOPHOUSE, all one word, at checkout.

[1:13:11] Charms and conditions apply.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:12] If only vampirism had a 100-night risk-free trial, then maybe Louis wouldn't have gotten into that situation.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:21] That's very true.

[1:13:22] Yeah, he could have returned it.

[1:13:25] He could have returned the unused portion of his immortality.

[1:13:27] Yeah.

[1:13:28] Now, let me just say this, guys.

[1:13:30] Yeah, Casper mattresses are super comfortable.

[1:13:32] And they send you a box and it pops out.

[1:13:35] It transforms almost like a person transforming into a vampire or a vampire transforming into a bat.

[1:13:41] But it's a box that transforms into a comfortable mattress.

[1:13:43] If a vampire came to you in the middle of the night and you weren't a Casper mattress, he'd probably just lie down on it and go to sleep and you'd be saved.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:51] I mean, that's not a guarantee that Casper makes.

[1:13:54] It's the Casper promise.

[1:13:56] Okay.

[1:13:59] Let's move on to our next sponsor, ZipRecruiter.

[1:14:02] They say, you know what's not smart?

[1:14:05] The way hiring used to be.

[1:14:07] Job sites that overwhelm you with tons of the wrong resumes.

[1:14:11] Now there's a smarter way at ZipRecruiter.com slash Flophouse.

[1:14:16] ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology finds the right people for you and actively invites them to apply.

[1:14:23] It's no wonder that ZipRecruiter is rated number one by employers in the U.S.

[1:14:27] And this rating comes from hiring sites on Trustpilot with over 1,000 reviews.

[1:14:32] And right now, our listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Flophouse.

[1:14:38] That's ZipRecruiter.com slash F-L-O-P-H-O-U-S-E.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:44] Now, if only Lestat had access to ZipRecruiter back in the public houses in Louisiana.

[1:14:50] He could recruit someone more interesting than Louie.

[1:14:53] Exactly.

[1:14:53] He would have found the ideal candidate.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:56] He wouldn't have to haunt the streets and just bite whoever the most handsome guy he found was.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:01] Hey, it's Dan breaking in here.

[1:15:03] We had a late-edition Jumbotron that we really wanted to get in because it was time-sensitive to a listener's birthday.

[1:15:14] And we recorded this a little ahead of time.

[1:15:18] So, here's a Jumbotron from Leah to Michelle.

[1:15:24] And she writes,

[1:15:26] Happy birthday to my twin born three years before me.

[1:15:29] You've always been one of the strongest people I know.

[1:15:33] I couldn't have made it this far without you.

[1:15:35] So, here's to another year of my bad Elliot impressions, making references no one else understands, and long car ride talks.

[1:15:44] I love you more than you love Sue Perkins.

[1:15:47] Awkward sibling hug?

[1:15:50] I say that that way because there's a question mark.

[1:15:53] Awkward sibling hug?

[1:15:55] So, that's very sweet.

[1:15:57] We like to see some affection between siblings.

[1:16:02] None of this sibling scuffling.

[1:16:04] Just nice, sweet, familial love.

[1:16:08] If you have a Jumbotron, you can get up on the Jumbotron by going to MaximumFun.org forward slash Jumbotron.

[1:16:16] And it's about $100 for a personal message.

[1:16:21] I think $200 for a business message.

[1:16:24] And it's a good way of letting someone know you care or getting out the information about your business dealings.

[1:16:32] That makes it sound like you're revealing secret papers through the Jumbotron.

[1:16:37] I just meant, you know, your business.

[1:16:38] Whatever.

[1:16:39] Anyway, back to the show.

[1:16:40] Now, Elliot, you usually have something, a thing or two to say at this point in the podcast.

[1:16:45] Is that true this week or are we moving on?

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:47] Yeah, I do have a thing or two to say about the state of our country.

[1:16:50] Did you guys notice that?

[1:16:51] Buckle up.

[1:16:52] He's got to go up on a rant here.

[1:16:54] So if you're listening to this episode, then we have just relatively recently had our show at Earlham College in Indiana.

[1:17:01] Thanks, everybody, for coming.

[1:17:02] It was a great show, probably.

[1:17:04] We recorded this ahead of time.

[1:17:06] But we still have our next live show coming up in January of 2019 A.D.

[1:17:11] at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin Union Theater, Saturday, January 26th at 8 p.m.

[1:17:17] Come on by if you're in the Wisconsin area and come see us.

[1:17:20] Talk about a movie, TBD.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:23] Yeah, we'll announce the movie soon.

[1:17:25] When we get closer to it.

[1:17:26] Maybe next episode.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:28] Could be.

[1:17:28] Oh, that's a good idea.

[1:17:29] Yeah, I like that idea.

[1:17:30] But it's going to be full of laughs, full of loves, and full of life.

[1:17:35] So please join us for that one.

[1:17:36] Something else I'd like to mention is that, look, Horse Meets Dog, my children's book, it's in stores right now.

[1:17:44] You don't even have to preorder it anymore.

[1:17:45] You could just go into a store and hand the person money and say, Horse Meets Dog.

[1:17:50] And they'll be like, what?

[1:17:51] And you'll have to say, oh, it's the new picture book by Ellie Kalin.

[1:17:54] And they'll say, oh, yeah, we've been selling those like crazy.

[1:17:56] I should have recognized the title.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:57] This is a butcher shop.

[1:17:59] We don't carry that book.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:01] They're like, horse meat or dog meat?

[1:18:03] You've got to tell me one or the other.

[1:18:04] So you go in and buy one right now, Horse Meets Dog by me and Tim Miller.

[1:18:10] Kids love it.

[1:18:11] They're going to really like it a lot.

[1:18:13] By the time this comes out, I will have done most of my touring for it.

[1:18:17] So thanks, everybody, for coming out to those events.

[1:18:20] But I think you may still have time, if you listen to this like the day it comes out, to come see me at Skylight Books in Los Angeles on November 11th.

[1:18:29] And I think the next day, Karina Longworth from the You Must Remember This Podcast is doing something at Skylight.

[1:18:36] So I may just stay overnight in the store afterwards.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:38] Now, you don't have to answer this, but when you were working on potential titles for your book, were you considering Dog Meets Horse?

[1:18:50] And then you realized that might be confusing because people might think that it's a book about Dog Meat, the dog character from the Fallout series, owning a horse.

[1:18:58] And that is not what the book's about.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:01] Yes, that was exactly my thought process.

[1:19:03] And I'm glad you brought it up because it was a real worry that I had.

[1:19:07] So November 11th, if you're in the Los Angeles area at Skylight Books, it's a great store.

[1:19:12] I'm going to be reading my book.

[1:19:13] And I think I might also have cookies there for people who like cookies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:17] Oh, hopefully store-bought and not homemade because you don't know what's in them.

[1:19:21] Uh-oh.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:23] Yeah, I put razor blades in them.

[1:19:25] Thanks, Tim.

[1:19:25] Thanks for wrecking that.

[1:19:27] But that's after Halloween.

[1:19:29] But if you're not in L.A., just go buy Horse Meets Dog right now.

[1:19:32] It's a great book.

[1:19:32] I like it.

[1:19:33] And I wrote it.

[1:19:34] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:35] So let's move on to letters.

[1:19:37] The next part of the podcast.

[1:19:39] Where we open the letters bag.

[1:19:41] Where we open the letters bag.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:42] Dive right in.

[1:19:42] Dig deep to the bottomist letter.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:46] Yank it out.

[1:19:46] These are actually all pretty new letters.

[1:19:48] I've got such a big backlog of old letters.

[1:19:50] You skim the fat off the top of the soup.

[1:19:52] Yeah.

[1:19:55] So this one's from...

[1:19:57] This first letter is from Adam, last name withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:01] No last name, first man.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:03] Who writes,

[1:20:05] Thank you for hundreds of hours of entertainment.

[1:20:08] That has been the glue that has helped repair the frazzled nerves of this overworld...

[1:20:12] Sorry.

[1:20:12] The frazzled nerves of this overworked high school English teacher, actor, fight choreographer, and prop maker.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:19] That sounds fun.

[1:20:20] Oh, so we've got a real split situation here.

[1:20:23] Yeah.

[1:20:24] They're all living in one body and they're coming together to make the beast.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:27] Mm-hmm.

[1:20:27] My taste in movies most closely matches Elliot's and I have a soft spot for movies from the 30s and 40s.

[1:20:34] On my girlfriend and my second date, I cooked her dinner and we watched Casablanca.

[1:20:38] I was adventurous with the meal, making a recipe that I'd never tried before, but I played it safe with the movie as a friend of hers and fellow movie buff reminded us.

[1:20:46] And this guy sounds like an asshole.

[1:20:48] This guy is like...

[1:20:49] Wow.

[1:20:49] Well, no, the one...

[1:20:50] Whoa.

[1:20:50] The one...

[1:20:51] Not the letter writer.

[1:20:52] The one who's like, Casablanca sounds a little basic.

[1:20:56] Mm-hmm.

[1:20:56] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1:20:57] That guy, I think you can...

[1:21:00] You can...

[1:21:00] 86.

[1:21:01] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:02] Wait, wait.

[1:21:03] You want him to murder him?

Dan McCoy

[1:21:04] Yeah.

[1:21:05] He said, Casablanca is kind of an amateur move.

[1:21:08] In my defense, she had never seen it and both it and the meal went over splendidly.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:12] Wait, the book it went over splendidly?

[1:21:15] Yeah.

[1:21:16] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:19] Admittedly, this is a pretty tame story compared to some of our friends whose second date consisted

[1:21:26] of a viewing of human centipede.

[1:21:28] My question is this.

[1:21:30] What movie do you guys recommend as an ideal date movie?

[1:21:33] Do you have any date movie stories, funny or otherwise?

[1:21:36] Keep on flopping in the free world, Adam last name withheld.

[1:21:41] So, it's a two-part question.

[1:21:44] I've got an answer for the second part, but I don't necessarily know what a good date movie

[1:21:49] is.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:49] I mean, I don't know.

[1:21:50] It's like, it depends on who you are and who the date is.

[1:21:52] Yeah.

[1:21:53] There's some people where going to see Return of the Living Dead would be a fantastic date

[1:21:58] movie, and there's some people where that would not be a good date movie, and you're

[1:22:01] better off seeing, I don't know, what, A League of Their Own?

[1:22:04] It depends on the people involved.

[1:22:06] It's hard to say what's a good date movie.

[1:22:07] I guess unless there's-

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:09] I mean, there's one pretty obvious answer, and it's Dirty Dancing.

[1:22:12] That movie rules.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:14] So, that's, well, yeah, I guess that's a pretty good date movie.

[1:22:17] But, it's like, it's the, what that, what the question implies to me, which is to say

[1:22:22] nothing against Adam, what the question implies to me is that when you are dating someone,

[1:22:28] you're just kind of looking for the steps that you can go through to success.

[1:22:30] That's not how human relationships work.

[1:22:32] You gotta make a real connection with the person.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:34] So, I guess, so let's skip over maybe the first part of the question, go to the second.

[1:22:38] Do you have any fun or weird date movie stories?

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:42] Well, I mean, I once had a very hot date to the movie Million Dollar Baby.

[1:22:47] Which is something to have a very, like, a really successful date at.

[1:22:51] And, in retrospect, it felt like that episode of Seinfeld where he makes out with his girlfriend

[1:22:56] during Schindler's List because he's just looking for a private place to go.

[1:22:59] But, it was like, there was a lot going on in the seats during that screening of Million Dollar Baby.

[1:23:03] A movie about a woman who is boxed into a coma.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:09] So, the story that I remember is from college.

[1:23:14] So, Sarah, the woman who, up until recently, I was married to.

[1:23:21] That's for the listeners, not for you two.

[1:23:24] You are familiar with Sarah.

[1:23:25] Thank you. Yeah, I know Sarah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:26] Oh, yeah, that was the little asterisk box at the bottom of the panel.

[1:23:29] That said, see Dan's former marriage.

[1:23:31] Smile and stand.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:32] Yeah.

[1:23:33] But, so we had briefly broken up while she was abroad.

[1:23:40] And then she wrote me a letter saying that she wanted to get back together.

[1:23:45] And I was thrilled with this because I was head over heels.

[1:23:49] And at the time, I was about to go out.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:53] You were like in a Bazooka Joe comic?

Dan McCoy

[1:23:55] Yeah, I did a flip take.

[1:23:57] Awesome.

[1:23:57] But at the time.

[1:23:58] Do you hurt yourself?

[1:24:00] There was a woman on campus who, like, we had been sort of circling around each other a little bit.

[1:24:07] And finally, we were going to go out on a date.

[1:24:09] And I got this letter from Sarah right before this date that I was going to go on.

[1:24:14] And I told her, I'm like, oh, I'm sorry.

[1:24:16] Like, I really, like, I can't do this.

[1:24:20] I'm into this other person.

[1:24:22] I've been in love with her.

[1:24:24] But if you want to, we can still go out and see this movie.

[1:24:27] God damn it, Dan.

[1:24:28] And, like, I was the worst thing that I've ever done.

[1:24:30] Not the worst thing.

[1:24:31] But, like, I feel, like, guilty about it, like, years later.

[1:24:35] Because, like, she took me up on it.

[1:24:37] And so.

[1:24:37] What did you see?

[1:24:38] We went out and we saw Wonder Boys.

[1:24:40] And I had a great time seeing Wonder Boys.

[1:24:41] And I think she probably had a terrible time seeing Wonder Boys.

[1:24:45] Like, sitting through it and being like, what am I doing here?

[1:24:47] Why am I still?

[1:24:49] Yeah, it was awful.

[1:24:51] That's pretty great.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:53] I remember an early movie that my wife and I watched together that we really connected with was Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

[1:25:00] And we both haven't watched it in a while.

[1:25:02] But I remember we both hold it in pretty high esteem.

[1:25:05] And it just kind of reminds us of that period in our relationship.

[1:25:08] And I also remember having a pretty, I don't know if I would call it a date.

[1:25:14] But some of the consequences were similar to the consequences of a date.

[1:25:19] After watching the movie Crash, directed by David Cronenberg.

[1:25:25] Oh, wow.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:29] So, that sounds awesome.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:32] So, I think we failed to answer the main question.

[1:25:34] I would say, what's a good date movie?

[1:25:36] Pick a movie you like a lot and put yourself out there and see if the person responds to you.

[1:25:40] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:42] This next letter is from Danielle, last name withheld.

[1:25:45] This is Elliot's wife, I'm assuming.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:47] Yeah.

[1:25:48] Yeah, this is the only way we communicate now is through letters, through the flop house.

[1:25:51] But Dan never chooses them because he's so far behind.

[1:25:53] So, it's really ruined my relationship.

[1:25:55] Thanks, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:56] She writes,

[1:25:57] Hi there, you funny duders.

[1:25:59] In a few weeks here, I'll be having my first baby.

[1:26:02] And my husband and I are already getting some back in my days to trot out when the kid doesn't appreciate the world of convenience they were born into.

[1:26:10] Things like, in my day, we didn't have streaming services.

[1:26:13] So, if you wanted to watch a movie, you had to hope there was something on cable.

[1:26:16] And there probably wasn't because there were only 51 channels and most of them were boring grown-up stuff.

[1:26:21] And if you did find a movie to watch, your dad would come home from work and change the channel to watch the Broncos game.

[1:26:26] And you'd never find out whether they managed to escape to which mountain or not.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:30] Yeah, we all had that experience.

[1:26:32] I remember it very well.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:34] Do you guys have any back in my days I can add about how the movies have changed in the last few decades?

[1:26:39] I'm roughly the same age as y'all.

[1:26:41] So, they will be relevant.

[1:26:42] Don't worry if they're a bit blue, a.k.a. about dong ripping.

[1:26:45] I'll write them down, seal them in an envelope, and hand them to the kid on their 18th birthday.

[1:26:50] Danielle Lassene with help.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:51] I mean, I feel like dudes getting their dong serp'd off is a timeless part of cinema.

[1:26:56] I don't think it's dedicated to any one part.

[1:26:58] It's one of the seven plots.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:00] From Castle Freak to Antichrist, here's our salute to dongs being hurt in movies.

[1:27:08] Wow.

[1:27:09] I didn't realize you were working on the Oscars this year.

[1:27:12] Oh, yeah.

[1:27:12] That's the one they gave me.

[1:27:14] I'm like, it's been very hard to make a televisable version, but I think we're going to do it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:18] I mean, they're trying to drum up viewership, so I think that'll help.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:21] That'd be so funny.

[1:27:23] It's like Chadwick Boseman and Melissa McCarthy walk out, and they're like, the male dong has for years been a source of entertainment, wonder, and horror.

[1:27:35] Here's our salute to things happening to dongs in cinema.

[1:27:39] For 100 years, the dong has been a real supporting member of the cast.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:48] Anyway.

[1:27:49] I'm trying to think.

[1:27:50] I mean, I feel like a lot of people talk about how the experience of going to the VHS store, like the video.

[1:27:56] Oh, yeah.

[1:27:57] I mean, and browsing for – I mean, it's the same thing as browsing endlessly through Netflix, but in a physical space.

[1:28:06] And a lot more – but I think it was a lot more fun because you got to look at the box art and turn it over and read the descriptions.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:12] And you were kind of – I mean, you weren't, but you kind of were stuck with your choices.

[1:28:19] It wasn't like you could watch two minutes and be like, oh, no.

[1:28:23] Yeah, exactly.

[1:28:23] I'll just change.

[1:28:24] Instead, you're like, fuck.

[1:28:26] I guess I'm going to be drinking Mountain Dew to this all night.

[1:28:29] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:29] And there's a lot of responsibility making that choice.

[1:28:33] And there were a couple times where I was, as the cineast in the family, given that responsibility solely.

[1:28:41] Like, here's a couple bucks.

[1:28:42] Go to – take your bike down to the video store and get something.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:45] Like ski school too, huh?

[1:28:48] Okay.

[1:28:49] Well, my parents haven't seen part one, but I think they'll be able to follow it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:53] I'll just – I'll give them a quick recap beforehand.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:56] Yeah.

[1:28:56] I'll cut together a presentation.

[1:28:58] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:59] But there's a lot of weight in that decision, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:02] And I also remember the – I love the trailers before VHS tapes.

[1:29:06] That was great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:08] Oh, that was your chance to see movies that otherwise – hear of movies you otherwise would never have heard of is other things that like Vidmark was putting out.

[1:29:16] Yeah.

[1:29:16] Distributing, like amazing.

[1:29:18] Mm-hmm.

[1:29:18] I will say this.

[1:29:20] I took my son to the movie theater yesterday, and we had an experience that I thought he wasn't going to have, which was walking down the hall.

[1:29:29] We were looking at all the posters for movies that are coming out soon and talking about like, oh, what's this?

[1:29:34] What does this look like?

[1:29:35] Let's talk – like – and figuring – learning what movies were coming out from the posters.

[1:29:40] It's how I learned that there's a Will Ferrell Sherlock Holmes comedy coming out.

[1:29:43] Dan, I think you're going to love it.

[1:29:44] It looks like they're really doing a great job with the Holmes canon.

[1:29:48] But it's like – it was a very – it was just a really fun thing for us to do this thing that I remember doing with my parents.

[1:29:55] We were like looking at the coming posters, knowing almost nothing about them other than what it said on the poster and trying to figure out what the movies were.

[1:30:01] So that was really sweet.

[1:30:04] Yeah.

[1:30:05] So you can do those back-in-my-day things as long as you're with a four-year-old who has no access to the internet.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:10] Yeah, I mean, I think as far as like the content of the movies, I think like the back-in-my-day that I always bring up is just the quality of practical –

[1:30:25] or the prevalence of practical special effects over digital effects.

[1:30:28] I mean, even the movie we watched for this week, Interview with the Vampire, like one of the reasons – once again, according to IMDb Trivia –

[1:30:37] one of the reasons why the movie was a difficult shoot is because they had so much makeup effects because they would literally hang the vampire actors upside down to get the like blood out of their faces or blood to their faces.

[1:30:52] And that's the sort of thing that like a modern vampire movie is like, no, we'll just – we'll add some sparkles in post.

[1:30:59] It's fine.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:01] Yeah, we'll just CGI those veins on.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:03] And I mean, I think the restrictions that physical stuff makes leads to some interesting choices.

[1:31:12] But as far as like just movie experiences, yeah, I mean like the video story is the biggest one for me easily.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:21] I think there was a – it was a lot easier to avoid spoilers because they didn't exist because nobody knew what a movie was – what was going to happen in a movie back then.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:30] Yeah, the closest thing to a spoiler is like a kid telling you what happens in Rambo 3 on the playground and you're like, what?

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:38] But this idea that you're supposed to be curious about what happens in the movie to the point of finding out ahead of time before the movie comes out is kind of crazy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:48] Yeah, I think my main spoiler person was my mom who would go see these like – see like Robocop or Predator or something and like tell me stuff about it.

[1:31:58] Yeah, that was great.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:00] This last letter is from Marcus who writes –

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:03] You sounded unsure, Dan.

[1:32:05] You're the one with the letter in front of you.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:07] He writes, I recently saw Baywatch and found it endearingly dumb.

[1:32:12] Dan would love that at the end a gorgeous blonde slaps her bikini brief butt while saying Cinnabons.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:19] Wait, so is that the end of the movie?

[1:32:21] That's the final shot?

Dan McCoy

[1:32:21] No, but I am – it does – it does endear me to this movie that that happens.

[1:32:27] That sounds so stupid.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:30] What – I am kind of curious what the context is.

[1:32:33] They're like –

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:34] Yeah.

[1:32:34] I mean, does it – is there a lead up or does she just jump into the camera frame unplanned and just do that and then security escorts her away?

Dan McCoy

[1:32:46] They're like, I guess you're going to leave it in the movie.

[1:32:48] You're suggesting that she was not an actress is what you're saying.

[1:32:52] Yeah, yeah.

[1:32:52] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:52] But it's one of those things where they're like, it wasn't planned but it happened on camera and it was so great we left it in.

[1:32:58] Yeah.

[1:32:58] Like that scene in the beginning of Hard Day's Night when they're running and George falls down flat on his face on the sidewalk and John Lennon just laughs his head off because it wasn't planned and also he likes seeing his friends get hurt.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:11] Yeah, well, he was kind of an asshole.

[1:33:14] Yep.

[1:33:15] But he goes on to say, what remake or update have you seen that you think is better than the original source movie or TV production?

[1:33:21] I anticipate Elliot saying that the 1941 edition of The Maltese Falcon is better than the two predecessors.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:28] I actually – I was going to say that but then I started thinking I don't really think of those as remakes.

[1:33:32] I think of them as new adaptations of the same material.

[1:33:34] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:36] Anyway, that's from Marcus' last name, Unknown.

[1:33:42] Oh, yeah.

[1:33:42] You got some hot ones, Dan?

[1:33:44] I think that the one that would spring to most of our minds is the John Carpenter The Thing.

[1:33:51] Not to say that The Thing from Another World is not a good movie.

[1:33:55] It is.

[1:33:55] It's all right.

[1:33:55] It's fun.

[1:33:57] It's a little – I mean, it's a little slow-paced and the monster's a little silly.

[1:34:02] But it's worth watching if you're a fan of old science fiction horror movies.

[1:34:07] But The Thing remake is just a classic of horror filmmaking.

[1:34:13] Maybe my favorite horror movie.

[1:34:15] I'm not sure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:15] The John Carpenter thing is a work of art, like a real work of beautiful, disgusting art in the way that the original is not.

[1:34:22] And I think it's crazy that when it came out, people were like – just the fact that that movie, when it came out, people thought was garbage is crazy.

[1:34:30] Yeah.

[1:34:30] But I think a lot of people were unfairly comparing it to the original The Thing more because Howard Hawks had been involved with the original The Thing rather than because they were like, oh, this is really – this is a really amazing movie.

[1:34:43] I was reading – I was doing – I was trying to come up with ideas for this, and I stumbled on a webpage – this question.

[1:34:47] I stumbled on a webpage that mentioned that Time magazine called The Original Thing the best science fiction movie of the 1950s, which is ludicrous.

[1:34:54] The Day the Earth Stood Still is the best science fiction movie of the 1950s.

[1:34:57] That's crazy, Time magazine.

[1:34:58] Come on.

[1:34:59] Some rose-colored, backwards-looking glasses, dudes.

[1:35:02] Okay.

[1:35:03] Those are fancy glasses, both rose-colored and backwards-looking.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:06] It's like something Dr. Jacoby would wear in Two Feaks, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:10] Yeah, exactly.

[1:35:11] But in a similar vein, I think that the remake of The Fly is a better movie than the original The Fly.

[1:35:16] The 80s was this period where there were a couple of remakes of old movies that are like – where they took kind of these – what were fine movies and turned them into like really interesting, really good movies.

[1:35:27] And The Thing and The Fly are a couple of those.

[1:35:29] And like, I don't know if it really counts because it's an adaptation of a stage show that was adapting the original movie.

[1:35:35] But like, you've compared the 80s Little Shop of Horrors and the original Little Shop of Horrors.

[1:35:40] And it's like you're watching a movie and then you go back to the original and you're like, oh, this is like an idea for a movie that somebody like threw together.

[1:35:46] I mean, since they shot the movie in like three days.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:48] Well, yeah, no, it was like some friends on a weekend basically is what it feels like and is basically what is true.

[1:35:54] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:55] But guys, this is going to make me a little unpopular.

[1:35:58] Uh-huh.

[1:35:59] I'm going to say I think The Departed is a better movie than Infernal Affairs.

[1:36:03] Interesting.

[1:36:03] The Japanese movie it was based on.

[1:36:05] Interesting.

[1:36:05] Oh, no, not Japanese.

[1:36:06] Was it Infernal Affairs?

[1:36:08] Yeah, it was Japanese, right?

[1:36:10] I'm not sure.

[1:36:11] I thought it was a Hong Kong movie.

[1:36:12] I can't remember if it was from Hong Kong or Japan and I apologize if that makes me a racist.

[1:36:16] I haven't seen it since it came out.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:19] I actually haven't seen it.

[1:36:21] So.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:22] Oh, no.

[1:36:22] Yeah.

[1:36:22] Sorry.

[1:36:23] It's not Japanese.

[1:36:23] Yeah.

[1:36:24] Andy Lau was in it.

[1:36:25] It's a Hong Kong movie.

[1:36:26] The original Infernal Affairs, it's like a great idea for a movie and it doesn't quite come together.

[1:36:30] And The Departed is like, aside from the fact that it uses the same Dropkick Murphy song over and over again, which is really irritating.

[1:36:39] It's, I think it's a really good movie.

[1:36:41] And even the part at the end where that rat runs across the screen and people were like, oh, I was like, yeah, that's great.

[1:36:45] I love it.

[1:36:46] Like, come on.

[1:36:47] Why not?

[1:36:48] Yeah, I didn't.

[1:36:49] Yeah, Marty.

[1:36:50] Why not?

[1:36:51] Like, you're looking for subtlety from this movie about, like, this crazy plan that would never happen in real life of someone going undercover with a mob, but nobody telling the police that this guy's going undercover with a mob.

[1:37:01] Like, come on.

[1:37:02] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:04] So I hope that those letter answers helped you in some way.

[1:37:08] I don't really have an answer for this one.

[1:37:09] Oh, okay.

[1:37:10] Like, I forgot that you hadn't said anything.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:12] Yeah.

[1:37:13] I like, I like Ringu and I like the ring and I think they're both like, they have their own strengths and weaknesses.

[1:37:20] I mean, this is a little lowbrow, but like, I definitely prefer the movie version of 21 Jump Street to the TV show.

[1:37:30] Oh, sure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:32] I mean, that's like the, that's the same as this Baywatch letter.

[1:37:34] I think that counts.

[1:37:35] Oh, cool.

[1:37:38] But moving on.

[1:37:39] Oh, and that Chips movie was a lot better than the Chips show, right?

[1:37:42] I like that.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:45] So now's the point where we recommend a movie that you should watch, whether or not, you know, you watch Interview with the Vampire, which we all...

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:54] Yeah, maybe do a double feature.

[1:37:55] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:57] I guess I'll go.

[1:37:59] I watched First Man just recently.

[1:38:02] Mm-hmm.

[1:38:04] It was a, it was a day that I kind of, it was one of those days where I bought the ticket to see a movie.

[1:38:09] Oh, boy.

[1:38:10] This is full journal entry.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:12] Yeah.

[1:38:13] It was a day like, dear, dear Flophouse Forum, it was a day like any other.

[1:38:17] I bought a ticket to see First Man on a rainy Sunday, little knowing it would lead to an erotic adventure, the likes of which I could only imagine.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:23] Long time movie watcher, first time reviewer.

[1:38:26] I'm trying to add a little color to my review.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:29] Let's just say Neil Armstrong wasn't the only one landing on a moon that day.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:34] Let's not say that.

[1:38:36] This is not where this was going.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:39] So, again, tell us more about this, about this adventure.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:41] No, I, it was one of those days where you buy a movie ticket, like earlier in the day, and then when it comes time to go to the movie, you're like, do I really have the energy to do this?

[1:38:51] Like, do I want to do this?

[1:38:52] Do, like, there are other things I could be doing, you know, and I went to the movie and I was interested in it from the very beginning.

[1:39:01] Like, whatever, you know, ennui or whatever had kept me from maybe wanting to go to the movie was swept away.

[1:39:08] Whatever Louis-like malaise had befallen me.

[1:39:10] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:11] You transformed into a Lestat upon seeing the film.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:15] And I realized after seeing this movie that I like movies about the early days of the space program.

[1:39:22] Like, I enjoy, like, Apollo 13, Hidden Figures, especially The Right Stuff.

[1:39:28] I think that there's just obviously something inherently dramatic in it.

[1:39:32] These people reaching for something bigger than themselves and often dying in the process.

[1:39:39] And First Man is very good at putting you inside the head of the protagonist, Neil Armstrong, and having you, like, really feel the danger of everything that he's doing every step of the way.

[1:39:53] Like, how everything is sort of slapped together with spit and gum.

[1:40:00] And what an amazing accomplishment it was to do it with this early technology.

[1:40:08] And it was just a lot of, it was very moving.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:12] And it was, that's a remake of Wallace and Gromit, a damn day out.

[1:40:16] Yeah.

[1:40:16] A fine day out.

[1:40:17] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:19] But that's, that's all I really have to say about that First Man.

[1:40:22] I enjoyed it a lot.

[1:40:23] Cool.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:25] Uh, I'm going to recommend another movie that, uh, showed up on Netflix this month.

[1:40:29] Uh, what that's like, three Fridays in a row that big, crazy, uh, genre pictures have just appeared on Netflix.

[1:40:37] Um, basically unheralded.

[1:40:39] Uh, I'm going to recommend the movie The Night Comes for Us.

[1:40:44] It's an-

[1:40:45] Not It Comes at Night.

[1:40:47] I mean, I've already recommended that.

[1:40:48] Uh, this is a very different type of movie than It Comes at Night.

[1:40:51] Um, so this movie is an Indonesian, uh, crime martial arts movie.

[1:40:57] And it is, it features two of the leads from the raid.

[1:41:02] So if you saw Gareth Evans' movie The Apostle last week and were like,

[1:41:06] uh, I was hoping for something more like a raid three, uh, this is totally that movie.

[1:41:12] So it's just filled wall to wall with dudes kicking the shit out of each other.

[1:41:18] It is an A plus number one ass beater of a movie.

[1:41:22] Uh, similar to the raid two, it's probably bogged down a little bit by too much plotting.

[1:41:28] Uh, but when the, like, when the action scenes start happening, it's like anything that you,

[1:41:35] you start seeing every new set piece as like, oh no, there's a pool table.

[1:41:40] Somebody's going to get their face smashed in with a pool ball.

[1:41:43] Uh, and there, there were just so many, uh, there were so many oh shit moments.

[1:41:47] Um, so if you're looking for a super duper crazy action movie, uh, I would, uh, go over to your Netflix queue,

[1:41:56] grab The Night Comes for Us, drag it over to your watch box, double click that,

[1:42:01] and then, uh, buckle your fucking seatbelt.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:05] Okay.

[1:42:06] Uh, in a similar vein, I'm going to recommend, uh, a movie from the seventies about a man in middle age

[1:42:11] struggling with the decisions he made earlier in his life.

[1:42:14] Uh, I'm going to recommend, uh, the movie Save the Tiger from 1973 with Jack Lemmon.

[1:42:19] Now, it's a little hard in this day and age to, uh, recommend a movie that is essentially about

[1:42:25] a well-off middle-aged white man realizing that he's unhappy with his life.

[1:42:30] But there were a lot of these made in the seventies, uh, that, that are very good.

[1:42:34] And it shows you really what kinds of people were making movies in the 1970s, that there

[1:42:37] was a prevalence of these movies about middle-aged guys who are just like, oh, is this what I

[1:42:42] worked all this time for?

[1:42:44] But, uh, Jack Lemmon is playing a guy who runs a garment company.

[1:42:47] He co-owns it with, uh, a man played by Jack Guilford.

[1:42:51] Uh, and they realized that unless they do something drastic, they are both not going to be able

[1:42:58] to keep the company open.

[1:42:59] And also they might be on the hook for some fraud that they committed to keep the company

[1:43:03] open the previous year.

[1:43:05] And so he is trying to, he's debating and arguing with his partner about whether they

[1:43:10] should deliberately burn down one of their factories for the insurance money.

[1:43:15] And the movie is about making that decision, but it's also about this guy who like is wandering

[1:43:21] through life, very looking at where America is in the seventies and remembering the men he

[1:43:26] knew who died in world war two and is asking himself basically like all those men died.

[1:43:31] And this is kind of what we got out of it.

[1:43:33] Is this country that doesn't seem to work and people don't like each other and blah, blah,

[1:43:36] blah.

[1:43:36] And what I did with my life is not worthy of what those men sacrificed them for.

[1:43:40] And it's having a kind of a nervous breakdown over it.

[1:43:42] And Jack Lemmon is really great in it.

[1:43:44] It's a really seventies movie.

[1:43:46] It's shot in and around Los Angeles and on real locations.

[1:43:51] And it looks, you know, it's got that great beige seventies grime that I love so much.

[1:43:55] And until the ending, a lot of these movies, unfortunately involve the middle-aged man,

[1:44:01] then sleeping with a young hippie woman as a way of like bringing life back into his life.

[1:44:07] And yeah, this movie falls into that trap, but it kind of, and it does, that doesn't quite

[1:44:12] work, but spoiler alert, it really doesn't save him and it does not have the effect that

[1:44:16] that would normally have in a movie like this.

[1:44:18] So, uh, it's worth it just to like see Jack Lemmon playing this character who in a way

[1:44:24] is similar to his character in Glen, Glen, Glen Ross, except he's even more at his wits

[1:44:29] end and even more showing that he's coming apart at the seams.

[1:44:32] And I really liked it a lot, even though, again, like I said, you got to be in the mood

[1:44:35] to watch a movie about a guy who seemingly has it all, but is still upset with his life

[1:44:40] and unhappy about it.

[1:44:40] So that's save the tiger with Jack Lemmon.

[1:44:45] This is the movie that, this is the movie Jack Lemmon won his best actor Academy Award

[1:44:48] for.

[1:44:49] So that's how good it is.

[1:44:50] That's how good it is.

[1:44:52] Nobody ever wins Academy Awards for things that are not good.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:55] Mm-hmm.

[1:44:55] Never ever in the history of the Academy Awards.

[1:44:57] They're perfect.

Dan McCoy

[1:44:59] So guys, uh, well, this has been a fun experiment with a different sort of Flophouse episode.

[1:45:07] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:08] Are you dumping us?

[1:45:11] Uh, uh, uh, so yeah.

[1:45:13] So we, uh, our show is on the show.

[1:45:15] It's on the Maximum Fun Podcast Network.

[1:45:17] There's a ton of other great shows you can find over at what?

[1:45:19] MaximumFun.org.

[1:45:21] Isn't it?

[1:45:22] Um, tons of other shows, both about pop culture, about comedy, uh, check them out.

[1:45:28] And, uh, if you get a chance and you're so inclined, head over to iTunes and rate or review

[1:45:34] our little show, uh, cause it helps.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:37] Yeah.

[1:45:38] If you want to tweet about us with the hashtag Flophouse, that'd be great.

[1:45:42] Uh, we're on Twitter at, at the Flophouse pod.

[1:45:45] Uh, and also all three of us are just on Twitter on our own.

[1:45:48] Uh, yeah.

[1:45:49] Leave us reviews wherever you listen to podcasts, tell people about us, whatever you want to

[1:45:53] do, get the word out, buy some commercials on local TV airtime, maybe some ads in the

[1:45:58] newspaper, billboards, whatever you want to do to get the word out.

[1:46:02] We are pretty much okay with it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:05] Well, thank you for that.

[1:46:06] Don't buy three billboards.

[1:46:08] Well, it depends on where you're located right now.

[1:46:11] I don't think it's that great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:12] Okay.

[1:46:13] I got to admit that was a movie I was so curious to watch cause I was like, people really have

[1:46:16] strong emotions about it.

[1:46:17] And we started watching it on HBO and about a half hour in, I was like, I think I got

[1:46:21] to go do the dishes.

[1:46:22] Yeah.

[1:46:22] And I just have not had much interest in returning to it.

[1:46:24] So again, but they won Academy Awards for it.

[1:46:27] So maybe I'm wrong.

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:29] Uh, all right guys, the way you said that doesn't make it sound like you think you're

[1:46:33] wrong.

Dan McCoy

[1:46:37] Um, so I'm doing that thing that you asked me to do earlier, where I just interrupt you

[1:46:41] and, uh, take the wheel.

[1:46:43] Look at him learn.

[1:46:44] You're doing it great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:45] I love it.

[1:46:45] Yeah.

[1:46:46] Take the lead.

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:46] So, uh, for the flop house, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:46:49] I've been Stuart Wellington and I'm holding Dan's cat Archie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:53] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:46:54] And I'm so impressed and proud of the way Dan has found the confidence and also the strength

[1:46:59] to really take the reins of the show and lead it where he wants to go.

[1:47:03] Uh, he is becoming more of an auteur.

[1:47:06] Wait, hold on.

[1:47:06] I've got to do it again.

[1:47:07] Let's stop.

[1:47:10] Goodbye.

[1:47:11] Bye.

[1:47:18] What?

[1:47:18] So, uh, Dan, uh, yesterday my son drew a stick figure.

[1:47:23] This looks like Dan.

[1:47:24] But he wrote Dan over the top of it.

[1:47:26] I'll send you a picture of it.

[1:47:27] I'll do that later today.

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:28] Oh, that's so sweet.

[1:47:28] Was the stick figure covered in defining features?

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:32] Uh, he had three fingers on each hand and three toes on each foot.

[1:47:36] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:37] That sounds like it's Dan doing T.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:39] Uh, completely bald.

[1:47:41] No hair.

[1:47:42] Uh, no clothes, but the body had no discernible genitalia.

[1:47:45] It was just sticks.

[1:47:46] Okay.

[1:47:46] Uh, and, uh, and the look on the face I would call puckish.

[1:47:51] Okay.

[1:47:51] Well, I like that.

Dan McCoy

[1:47:54] That, that, that makes me feel a little better.

[1:47:56] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:57] Oh yeah.

[1:47:57] He's got a, he's got a very, uh, positive view of you.

[1:48:00] He talks about you all the time.

[1:48:01] Oh, that's right.

[1:48:01] Stuart he talks about sometimes.

[1:48:03] There was one time when, oh, what was it?

[1:48:06] I was talking about, I was like, do you remember this kid that you knew in, in New York?

[1:48:10] And we used to, and we were friends with his family and he goes, Stuart?

[1:48:15] Like.

[1:48:15] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[1:48:18] I mean, that sounds like me, a kid.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:21] So, so Sammy might think you're a little kid.

Stuart Wellington

[1:48:24] Yeah.

[1:48:24] Uh, yeah.

[1:48:25] I figured that, I figured that he would mention me when you're like walking by, uh, by an alleyway

[1:48:33] and there's like a raccoon digging through the garbage and he stops and thinks for a second

[1:48:38] that he's like, dad, do you talk to Stuart anymore?

[1:48:44] Maximumfun.org.

[1:48:45] Comedy and culture.

[1:48:47] Artist owned.

[1:48:48] Listener supported.

Ep. #270 - Interview with the Vampire

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