Ep. #270 - Interview with the Vampire

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

[0:07] the motion picture.

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

[0:37] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:40] 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.

[0:49] What are we watching in Not Scary November, Dan?

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

[0:55] So we watched a movie that wasn't scary. What was it?

[0:59] Oh, that's true.

[1:00] We didn't watch Interview with the Vampire.

[1:02] A scary movie!

[1:03] What?

[1:04] Ah, this is supposed to be not scary November.

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

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

[1:10] Spoiler alert, someone didn't find it eerily spookifying

[1:14] or whatever the stupid thing is we do in Shocktober.

[1:16] See, Dana's become so desensitized

[1:18] by edging himself through horror movies through his life.

[1:21] Yeah.

[1:22] Anything that doesn't involve toenails

[1:25] being ripped out of somebody's toes

[1:27] and then shoved in their eyes,

[1:29] He's like, ho-hum, boring.

[1:30] 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.

[1:40] I mean, a movie I've seen a couple of times.

[1:44] Stop bragging, dude.

[1:46] Now, Hellraiser 2 was lost in New York, right?

[1:50] Yeah.

[1:50] That's the one with the...

[1:53] The great Hellraiser caper?

[1:54] Yeah.

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

[1:59] I feel like Hellraiser 2 Secret of the Ooze

[2:02] would actually be pretty fitting.

[2:04] Yeah, that's a good...

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

[2:08] Yeah.

[2:08] Except all the ooze is pretty much just blood, right?

[2:12] Also, electric boogaloo isn't that far from the truth either.

[2:15] I do think of a boogaloo when I think of Hellraiser 2.

[2:20] I mean, when you're deep in it, you're like,

[2:23] oh, wow, this is definitely a boogaloo.

[2:25] And it's electric.

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

[2:27] Yeah.

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

[2:32] Yeah.

[2:32] No.

[2:33] So, yeah, what do we do on this here podcast, Andy?

[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.

[2:39] Ellie, explain.

[2:40] Why are we watching this movie?

[2:42] 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.

[3:18] Christy.

[3:19] Christy, I'm sorry.

[3:20] It's okay.

[3:21] Look, we all make mistakes in life.

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

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

[3:29] And we asked Christy why she chose this movie, Interview with the Vampire, and here's what she said.

[3:35] She said, hi Peaches, thanks for selecting me for the contest.

[3:37] Because of the current state of the world and my own personal emotional difficulties over the past year, sorry to hear that, Christy, 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.

[3:49] Just a note, I read it like that because all the vampires have accents like that in the movie, right?

[3:54] Like, bleh, I'm Tom Cruise.

[3:56] Oh, wow.

[3:58] Yeah, that's pretty meta, but I like that scene.

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

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

[4:10] She said, I recently rewatched Interview with a Vampire.

[4:12] It came out my senior year in high school, so my friends and I were perfectly poised to be very cool and mature and see a sexy vampire movie.

[4:18] How could you resist Tom Cruise in a blonde wig, Christian Slater and Brad Pitt?

[4:23] That was a wig?

[4:24] You thought that they just showed him a ghost until his hair got light?

[4:29] It was some slam-a-jam-a level wigs.

[4:32] 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.

[4:55] It's definitely a movie I kind of love, 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, and she says, hey, Moonies, I don't know what that means,

[5:07] has truly helped me get through the roughest time of my life, and I love you all.

[5:10] So thanks, Christy.

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

[5:12] I mean, she's obviously part of the cult of the Moonies.

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

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

[5:25] You're right.

[5:26] But who isn't?

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

[5:29] We all love that character.

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

[5:37] Yeah, yeah.

[5:39] Yeah, you glimpsed things that man wasn't meant to know, or was very much meant to know.

[5:43] Yeah, it was a real hellraiser, too.

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

[5:50] 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.

[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.

[6:05] 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.

[6:17] Uh-huh, yep, to lay in a heap with the other books that you've discarded.

[6:22] Such as what, How to Win Friends and Influence People?

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

[6:28] Zen and the Old Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?

[6:31] Yeah.

[6:32] 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.

[6:39] Yeah, I didn't learn that one.

[6:41] I'm very bad at that one.

[6:43] And also, 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, okay, that makes sense.

[6:51] Anyway, and he says that over and over again with lots of examples.

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

[6:57] Yeah.

[6:58] 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-

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

[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?

[7:15] So, okay, I'm going to say this,

[7:17] and then you cut it out using the edit function

[7:19] of whatever program you use, GarageBand or SoundCloud or something,

[7:24] and then move it back.

[7:25] Okay, guys, my iPhone got all wet,

[7:28] and I put it in a bag of Anne Rice books,

[7:30] and it didn't help at all.

[7:31] Okay.

[7:37] Okay, so just keep all the laughter and edit that and put it back earlier when you mentioned Dan Rice.

[7:42] Okay, Dan?

[7:42] Sure.

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

[7:49] Just whatever.

[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, they just used random footage.

[7:59] Wait, somebody roasted Don Martin?

[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, 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] Okay, Interview with the Vampire.

[8:20] So the year is 1990-something.

[8:24] I don't know.

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

[8:26] 94.

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

[8:29] So it was one year after Jurassic Park.

[8:31] 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.

[8:39] Now, this is the first thing that I found inexplicable in this movie.

[8:42] Because apparently at the beginning of the interview, Christian Slater...

[8:48] 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...

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

[9:00] No, no, no.

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

[9:05] So I'm not quite clear why Christian Slater is interviewing this guy.

[9:09] Like he said that he followed him.

[9:11] He like seemed interesting.

[9:12] And he had this tape recorder at the ready to just like record a guy that he found interesting.

[9:18] And this is pre-podcast too.

[9:20] 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] Just kind of like 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.

[9:43] Brad Pitt starts following you, a major movie star.

[9:46] Yeah, I see.

[9:46] He says, hey, want to interview me?

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

[9:49] 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 –

[9:54] Forgetting how movies work again.

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

[9:57] And he has a ponytail.

[9:59] What?

[10:00] Okay, I guess he is worthy of interview then.

[10:04] He is very handsome, let's not forget that.

[10:06] I can only assume that, and based on his fingernail length,

[10:09] he's probably a magician.

[10:11] Oh, right.

[10:12] 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,

[10:19] but throughout this entire movie, Brad Pitt's character, Louis,

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

[10:30] 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] He is a creature of the night.

[10:44] I do have to buy into it to buy into the rest of the film.

[10:46] Yeah, it's like watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and complaining about the magic.

[10:50] Yeah, 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, I'm sorry.

[10:58] I can't admit it.

[11:00] the character not that brad pitt yeah i mean it's it's louis now stewart yeah oh so the real issue

[11:06] is that he might start masturbating in front of him since it's louis but now no thank you yeah a

[11:13] little bit but now dan uh stewart has put his finger on the main weakness with the movie which

[11:18] we'll just say ahead of time which is that brad pitt's louis character is not much of a character

[11:22] everyone's drawn to like his purity they keep saying but really he's just kind of like a

[11:26] depressed like but here's the thing he may be a black hole of a character but black holes

[11:33] have an inescapable gravity that things are drawn to oh i was working on that one all night yeah

[11:39] 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

[11:45] no i've just got it i think i can do this i've got a beautiful mind this i've got string across

[11:49] the room connecting all these pictures okay so brad pitt tells his story he starts back in 1791

[11:55] in Louisiana, back when

[11:57] Louisiana was still part of the French Empire.

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

[12:01] quite the Big Easy. He's a plantation outside

[12:03] of New Orleans. He is

[12:05] a widower who lost a child.

[12:07] He hates his life. He's trying to gamble his life away,

[12:09] but he just can't seem to get killed.

[12:11] And it happens even less after

[12:13] vampire Tom Cruise stalks

[12:15] him and turns him into a vampire with what

[12:17] I can only describe as a flying orgasm

[12:19] bite. He gets bitten and it's like

[12:21] the most amazing, it's like

[12:23] he is it's super pain but as pinhead told us there's a thin line between pain and yeah yeah

[12:28] totally i don't want to derail us right off the bat yet again but this was question number two i

[12:32] had about the movie which is it's an interview dan bring on the questions yeah the stat doesn't

[12:38] seem to care for anybody so why did he decide randomly to turn this guy into a vampire to hang

[12:45] out with like that's the whole point of the story yeah that's the whole like the whole so you have

[12:51] to so you have to buy into the idea that brad pitt is this magnetic personality but listat is very

[12:56] clearly looking for a partner in crime he's lonely the whole the movie is about loneliness

[13:00] essentially that and listat always seems to kind of uh like judge his own worth by his power over

[13:07] others yeah so he needs somebody like louis and he didn't quite realize what he had on his hand

[13:12] okay because like i not to jump ahead but these like my other question is like these dudes seem

[13:17] to hate each other but they hang out for a long time yeah maybe 11 years dan i'm gonna break it

[13:25] to you these guys are gay okay they uh and oftentimes i think uh wait what makes you what

[13:32] makes you say that well they see their men who are in love with each other but but let's say that

[13:38] it is the 18th century it is not okay to be openly gay you find another gay guy even if you don't get

[13:44] along that well you're gonna be together like you just want a companion you want someone to be in

[13:48] love with your options are the limited let's just let's just describe it with the name of the best

[13:53] store the limited okay it's uh this so they're gonna they you know he's looking for someone that

[13:58] he can make some kind of connection to a rainbow connection you might say again stereotypical

[14:03] shade gay joke terrible joke uh but it's so uh but tom cruise says i'm gonna give you a choice

[14:10] either i eat you or you will get eternal life and the world will be super exciting and magical and

[14:15] he goes yeah okay do it and he drinks tom cruise's blood because that's how you turn into a vampire

[14:20] the vampire feeds you their blood yeah and at this so much of the movie is voiceover from brad pitt

[14:26] that is so like florid and purple prosy it's like a radio play almost and let me tell you this

[14:31] i think i saw this movie at the right time in my life guys because if i had seen this when it had

[14:35] first come out i would have been like oh this is lame it's so cheesy and stupid but watching it

[14:39] now i'm like i love it i love that the language is so impenetrably thick and like it's so over

[14:44] the top and melodramatic i was like yes please more of this i feel like i'd like to imagine that

[14:49] elliot would have watched this movie and then grown his hair out and become like a super goth

[14:54] like that would be in like the butterfly effect scenes where ethan supley's character has like

[15:00] a crazy flock of seagulls haircut or something so i'd like to be in that butterfly effect world

[15:04] i mean i when i was in college i was once walking down the street in new york and a guy

[15:08] walked towards me there's two guys who were dressed up like vampires and they had cat's eye

[15:13] contact lenses in yep so that they had like weird eyes and they had fake fangs in and it was clear

[15:19] they were this was not halloween it was not a prank like these guys thought they looked like

[15:22] the shit like walking around dressed like vampires and one of them looked at me and made like a scary

[15:27] face and i burst out laughing because that guy was just trying to find himself anyway so if that

[15:34] guy's listening i apologize and you and and real quick and you you haven't read the books either

[15:39] elliot right because i have i haven't read the books no i've never read them i'm curious now

[15:43] i'm more curious about them but i i have much more of a patience for that kind of purple prose

[15:48] as voiceover than in writing i've found okay which is one of the reasons that i'll as much

[15:53] as i like hp lovecraft i'll start reading his books and i'll be like his stories and i'll be

[15:56] like oh okay are you going to tell me what's going to happen or uh you're going to keep

[16:01] describing how old all the buildings are forever i mean i'll take that over some of the uh the the

[16:08] less cool stuff like the the weird racist shit no no certainly i'm not saying it's the worst

[16:14] thing about hv love i don't know i mean i think you singled it out as being i said i'm just doing

[16:20] a little virtue signaling here if he has if he has one flaw and he doesn't it is that he spends

[16:25] too much time describing buildings now so yeah i mean if you want to check out the books just go

[16:33] over to the corner and dance uh discarded book pile and pick it up just dig through there find

[16:38] all those books about uh about not about uh what frying before you were into baking you were really

[16:43] into frying and uh those yeah just uh just dig through all the used up pornography which has

[16:50] had the life sucked from it much like a vampire with its victim and yeah anyway so now brad pitt

[16:58] louie now that he's had that i always kind of felt like used up pornography would be more like

[17:02] uh like a horcrux and be imbued with emotional energy as opposed to desiccated but that's me

[17:09] but go on elliot okay now uh now louie now that he's a vampire suddenly he can see the life inside

[17:18] of the world he has this like greater set way of of seeing what things are imbued with life so a

[17:24] statue kind of winks at him or something like that what happens yeah yep that's yeah it looks

[17:29] i'm glad that plays an important part later in the movie yeah that's never really addressed again

[17:35] but he can see like moving statues uh he's just like cool that statue can move and it's it's weird

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

[17:49] uh but uh brad pitt tells christian slater crosses don't hurt them stakes through the

[17:57] heart don't hurt them they're vampires 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

[18:07] have to do why do they sleep in a coffin i don't know they could easily sleep in a four poster bed

[18:12] that shuts out the sunlight you know just leave in a sleeping bag zipped up over your head nope

[18:16] gotta be in a coffin and uh let's just say this about tom cruise he is loving playing this part

[18:22] or seems to be at least oh man like not to jump ahead but like he is making a meal of this role

[18:29] yeah 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 yeah yeah no he not like that

[18:41] performance and i remember at the time i was just iffy on it i was like is this too much is this not

[18:46] too much like i just couldn't kind of get a beat on it but but i did i came down on the side of

[18:51] of liking it obviously if i got bored after he left well this movie had such like a troubled

[18:55] production and it went through like it was almost made in the 70s and then like so many different

[19:02] actors had been approached for this role and then when tom cruise finally took it like i guess like

[19:07] fans were up in arms and rice would not watch the movie and disavowed it and then years later

[19:14] saw the movie on vhs and wrote him a letter of apology which makes me kind of happy yeah because

[19:19] like he fucking goes for it man and he's good in this like it's it's a reminder that tom cruise is

[19:27] a fucking movie star like there's a reason why he's a huge movie star falling out of helicopters

[19:33] and hurting himself for our music.

[19:34] That he can actually be a character.

[19:37] And he's so like,

[19:38] he's making the most of this over the top.

[19:42] I mean, come on.

[19:43] He's a decadent,

[19:44] a feat vampire in the 18th century

[19:47] who he's like laughing all the time

[19:49] and biting open rats

[19:50] and pouring their blood into wine glasses.

[19:52] Like he has to have fun with it

[19:54] or else what's the point of this character?

[19:56] Yeah.

[19:56] And he's supposed to be the dramatic opposite

[20:00] to louis who is melancholy and just looks unhappy to be in this movie which once again according to

[20:08] imdb trivia brad pitt was very unhappy to be in this movie oh interesting which i can understand

[20:13] because brad pitt is sitting there on he's on set watching tom cruise have a great time and he's

[20:18] supposed to play this character who basically exists just to be like i don't want to eat people

[20:21] i want to be a good guy oh why am i so why do we have to be evil lestat well come on he's like why

[20:27] Why are my stats so low?

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

[20:31] So you can understand why Brad Pitt, he hasn't given that much to do except just kind of like, not even scowl, just kind of look at things and purse his lips and basically be like a walking underwear model.

[20:45] Yeah, more like Andrew with the mope-pire, am I right?

[20:49] Let's do another pass on that one.

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

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

[21:03] Oh, there we go.

[21:04] Stuart got it.

[21:05] Stuart cracked that one.

[21:06] Although, if it was Interview with the Whampire, you might think it was about George Michael.

[21:11] Oh, man.

[21:13] That would have been like, you know, if this movie had been made, what, 10 years earlier?

[21:18] That would have been great.

[21:19] But like, just looking at him wearing those fucking contacts, I'm like, that can't feel good.

[21:26] no yeah i'm sure he was very uncomfortable but so basically you have your dynamic which is

[21:33] tom cruise loves killing people loves eating them he's decadent he loves dead loving it i can't

[21:38] believe it took you this long to get to there so basically tom cruise rules brad pitt drools

[21:42] in terms of having fun being a vampire uh and brad pitt's like why do we have to be bad they

[21:48] throw he throws tom cruise around in a fight with very obvious wire work that it looks hilarious

[21:53] where it looks a little bit like

[21:55] he's pushing Tom Cruise on a swing

[21:57] in the middle of a dark forest.

[21:59] Okay.

[22:00] Yeah, no, I'm into it.

[22:02] Now, Brad Pitt,

[22:04] we should have mentioned up to this point,

[22:06] he's the hero of the movie.

[22:07] He also owns a plantation

[22:08] and is a slave owner.

[22:09] Uh-oh, guys.

[22:10] This is kind of a footnote in the movie

[22:12] that really nowadays I think

[22:13] would be more problematic to present

[22:15] that the good guy hero of the movie

[22:18] owns human beings.

[22:19] And so the slaves realize-

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

[22:23] I think so, and more sympathetic to Lestat, who, as far as we know, is more of an urban cosmopolite and does not own slaves, 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] 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.

[22:55] Played by a young Tandy Newton.

[22:58] And, oh, to be honest, Tandy Newton still seems pretty young.

[23:02] Yeah, she's incredible.

[23:04] She's just ageless.

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

[23:06] Okay, I guess we have to go kill her now.

[23:11] I guess the three of us.

[23:13] I guess this is my responsibility.

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

[23:21] 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] We've got a podcast for you to listen to.

[23:29] The arresting officer is very hairy.

[23:31] And I'm like, I'm pretty sure he's a werewolf, Dan.

[23:34] Dan's like, we've got to kill this guy.

[23:37] Oh, boy.

[23:39] Cut to credits.

[23:39] In a fit of shame, Lestat tells his slaves, you're free.

[23:43] And then burns his own house down.

[23:45] That's Louis, right?

[23:47] Louie, not Lestat.

[23:48] Oh, sorry, Louie.

[23:48] Not Lestat, I'm sorry, Louie.

[23:49] Not the first time Louie will burn down a building,

[23:51] but Louie burns his own house down,

[23:53] 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.

[23:59] They go to, what, New Orleans now?

[24:02] And Lestat's always like,

[24:05] Louie, you should kill some people.

[24:05] Louie's like, no,

[24:06] I'm just gonna keep eating rats and chickens.

[24:08] And I think the funny thing is,

[24:10] eating the blood of chickens

[24:12] is presented as, like, disgusting.

[24:14] Who would do that?

[24:15] I eat chicken all the time.

[24:17] guys look but you eat the blood yeah do you have like blood sausage made of chicken like i don't

[24:23] understand that's true but it's the idea of eating a chicken isn't crazy i don't think it's i don't

[24:28] think it's for uh for like it's not like it's offered nelly it turns it down i think if it

[24:33] was available he'd be chomping on that shit i try it but uh so louis just happens to be out

[24:40] wandering in a neighborhood that was hit by the plague which i guess was a thing that was just

[24:44] ravaging new orleans in the late 18th early 19th century dan yeah the bubonic plague uh i have no

[24:51] idea whether this is accurate to life also every they're all speaking in english in the city but

[24:57] it was still a french city at the time right because this is before the louisiana purchase

[25:02] but anyway we don't need to get into that uh he finds a little girl whose mom has died and he

[25:06] bites the girl then he runs off guilty he's like i shouldn't have tried to feed off that little girl

[25:10] but lasada's like this is great i love it finally you're embracing being a vampire you're like

[25:15] getting it dude i love that you're finally getting it and then he uh and then he gives

[25:20] that little girl blood and she turns into kirsten dunst that little girl claudia or uh she's you

[25:28] know she's a little girl vampire now and he's like look i want to give you someone to hang out

[25:31] with she's going to be our daughter now and again this is an earlier time when things were not as

[25:37] just and civil rights were not as evenly distributed you were a gay couple this was the only way you

[25:42] could have a child was to be a vampire and turn a child into a vampire and that was it it's sad

[25:46] i'm glad that we don't live in that world anymore also that we don't live in a world where the plague

[25:51] just ravages whole neighborhoods and people are just like don't go over there that's a plague

[25:55] neighborhood should we try to save anybody nah that place is that part of town is dead if you

[26:00] know what i mean let's go to the downtown art scene there's so much stuff going on why are you

[26:05] hanging out in the plague district i don't know i just thought maybe we should help those people

[26:08] there's so much fun stuff going on downtown it's really been revitalized we have the river walk now

[26:12] was this from the reason it was this the scene from the first draft where they had a really

[26:17] loquacious plague cart driver like we need to really make sure that this town is a character

[26:25] in and of itself yeah where uh louis like uh he gets into a uh he gets into a an uber and it's

[26:32] like take me to the plague district and the guy's like plague district interesting well what do you

[26:36] do anyway i drive uber but that's not all i do i'm a rapper and i have my own company let me tell you

[26:41] all about it and louis is like oh god why did i take an uber why didn't i just like take the bus

[26:47] then i wouldn't have to talk to anybody so i guess what i'm saying is louis me in that scenario uh

[26:52] so claudia instantly super into sucking people's blood she loves being a vampire yeah she loves

[26:59] being a little girl who can kill people i mean she has the amorality of youth i would say very

[27:05] well put very well put dan describe that paint me a word picture kind of and rice it up give me some

[27:10] more purple prose about she is a natural predator i don't know she uh why do you i i said it

[27:19] concisely why do i have to say it less concisely now expand on this idea look i was just just taken

[27:25] by it anyway my favorite part of her she gets her own little coffin yeah but she still gets out of

[27:30] the coffin and goes and sneaks into louie's big coffin like a little kid who wants to get into

[27:34] bed with their parent it's super cute uh time passes they don't grow up claudia doesn't grow

[27:39] up she never changes and eventually she even she tries to cut her hair and her hair grows back

[27:44] instantly but you don't see it grow back so she cuts her hair and then runs out of the room and

[27:48] runs back in her hair is full length and i just wish they had kept in what i assume was an amazing

[27:52] effects shot of all this spaghetti hair just growing out of kristen does kristen does skull

[27:56] hilarious i want to say at this point that claudia is i think my favorite character because

[28:01] she has like a character motivation for the way she is you know louis is just mopey because he's

[28:07] mopey and lestat is just mean because he's mean but claudia is this young girl who's trapped in

[28:14] a young girl's body even though she ages you know hundreds of years over the course of the film

[28:20] as well and she's frustrated by that if you consider the tragedy of louis and compared to

[28:26] the tragedy of claudia she she has a reason to be mopey yeah i mean louis has reason to be mopey at

[28:32] the beginning of the movie but then after a while you're like get over it dude yeah yeah

[28:39] batman get over your parents death it's a random act of violence it happens in a city

[28:45] you're saying that louis does not have to this doesn't shouldn't feel like he has to spend his

[28:52] time hanging out with someone who makes him do things he doesn't like exactly yeah now here's

[28:58] my question here's something i've always wondered about stories where young people i mean i feel the

[29:02] same way about the vampire in near dark i have a question about that the kid vampire and that

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

[29:13] person before you're an adult they shouldn't kick in right so wouldn't a kid who's a kid all the

[29:18] time just love being a kid wouldn't aren't they living the toys r us fantasy they don't want to

[29:23] grow up don't want to grow up they want to be a toys r us kid yeah isn't claudia toys r us kid

[29:28] then well she certainly likes dolls she has this movie so i wonder i always wonder if a kid stuck

[29:36] forever would actually want to grow up or if they would be fine just like being a kid forever but i

[29:40] guess they'd probably get bored of like not being able to go to a restaurant order their own food

[29:44] yeah yeah i mean i think i think a lot of kids want to be adults or at least they they want the

[29:50] things that they're they're not available to them right yeah i mean there's like an evocative scene

[29:55] of like this adult nude woman i guess bathing or changing i know why you called it a bucket

[30:00] i mean it evoked a response in me but uh but claudia sees it she's like that's what i want

[30:07] that's what i want to be that and uh i found it you know affecting yeah yeah i mean that's it's

[30:14] one of those the new orleans of the movie is a place where nude women are always bathing in

[30:18] front of open windows yeah just because it's that kind of place yeah well i mean you know

[30:23] new orleans is certainly not associated with nudity now yeah that's true good point good

[30:30] point i take i retract what i said that people are people it's it's mardi gras all the time

[30:34] people just nude in front of windows all the time uh and claudia's like louis we need to leave

[30:40] listat like he's a bad dude let's get out of here and she tricks listat into drinking blood from a

[30:46] corpse which weakens him you're a vampire should never drink dead blood which i don't remember if

[30:50] that was a rule that they mentioned earlier in the movie uh it kind of felt like they made it

[30:55] up in the moment but maybe i missed something earlier and then she cuts his throat and they

[30:59] dump his body in a swamp whoa this got real that was that was a fun scene i think after she cuts

[31:06] his throat and he's like turned into a little raisin and uh and then she makes and like he

[31:13] bleeds like a ton there's so much blood in him it's like all the blood he's drank for the week

[31:18] just comes out of him and it's kind of just spilling over it's kind of interesting because

[31:22] previously anytime like when you morph into a vampire or if you get injured in any way

[31:28] they immediately heal and when they like heal the blood disappears which is kind of weird uh

[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 but i guess you know it's magic who cares

[31:44] they have they have a thing called double dragon isis where a wound or a dead body just

[31:50] disappears after a certain amount of time.

[31:52] Sometimes it's replaced by

[31:54] a chicken leg. Yeah, I mean, it's just

[31:56] hard to maintain all those sprites.

[31:58] It's too much

[32:00] memory to use. Exactly, yeah.

[32:02] And

[32:04] so, he throws his body in the swamp, but

[32:06] just like in the old song, Lestat came

[32:08] back the very next day, looking like

[32:10] a regular castle freak,

[32:12] all shriveled and like Giorgio.

[32:14] Jumping through windows, yeah.

[32:16] But you better believe, this is one guy who is not ripping off

[32:18] his own ding dong he loves using that ding dong he is all about the pleasures of the flesh

[32:23] specifically biting into that flesh uh but in the melee after he touches that catch attacks them he

[32:28] catches on fire and they burn down seemingly in the entire city of new orleans as louis and claudia

[32:34] run onto a ship for europe and it's this is where the movie uh where there's a little bit where the

[32:40] movie lost ellie because he's like that is just that is a civic uh tragedy that our heroes have

[32:46] imparted one thing they also they get on the ship without tickets i think they just run on a ship

[32:51] and yeah guy and a little girl running on a ship okay great uh it's that the movie starts having

[32:57] what i would call like lumpy plotting uh i think i've described before where it's like it was a

[33:02] pretty tight movie for the most part and then now it's like time for them to sojourn around europe

[33:07] meeting other vampires and it's a it's like it starts feeling like an old melodrama movie where

[33:13] the plot is not super organized the way we're used to now and it's like it reminded me a lot

[33:19] of the movie now voyager where it's like okay this this character is just going around doing

[33:23] different things and having different personal developments yeah but like i mean it's the sort

[33:27] of thing you would often see in a novel where there's you know the build-up of action then

[33:31] there's the lull and it's another build-up right but also i feel like this movie is fairly plotless

[33:36] in the sense that there's no goal that anyone is working towards it's just kind of like people

[33:41] lolling about for for centuries this yeah this is basically the critique that christian bale's

[33:47] character would give him late at the end of the story right like uh where's the plot yeah

[33:52] yeah christian slater at the end is like i'm just gonna erase all these tapes

[33:56] there wasn't really a through line here and he yeah let's get and he throws this is the

[34:02] original ending is he throws the tapes out of his car window and then uh and then a homeless woman

[34:07] is sneaking around through the garbage

[34:09] where the tapes landed

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

[34:12] ah, and then you see, that's Anne Rice.

[34:15] And that's where all of her names started from.

[34:18] Where do you see that?

[34:19] Well, like, 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

[34:27] in case she lost it at school.

[34:28] And she turns to Don Amici and she goes,

[34:31] we're back.

[34:32] All right.

[34:35] All right.

[34:37] Oh, man, I'm glad Don Amici got a little extra work.

[34:39] Yeah, yeah.

[34:40] So they go to Europe.

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

[34:43] 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.

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

[34:56] He's not the most – he's a pretty – I mean, this is a 90s movie in that Louie is an incredibly slackery vampire.

[35:03] He's just like, whatever, I don't know.

[35:06] Like, this is a vampire I could totally see hanging out in a 7-Eleven parking lot while his friends try to do cool skate tricks and keep falling down.

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

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

[35:16] That would be lame.

[35:17] Ugh, God.

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

[35:24] And Nirvana comes out and he's like, ugh, I don't listen to this bubblegum pop.

[35:29] So anyway, they're in Paris.

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

[35:34] Oh, that's right.

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

[35:36] And he's just spoiling Claudia Rotten, and Louis meets up with some Spanish vampires.

[35:41] They seek him out in an alleyway led by Armand, played by Antonio Banderas, who, before I watched 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 Desperado type period when he was still a fresh new thing on the American movie scene.

[35:59] He hadn't yet become the grizzled old man that we see now in movies like, what, Haywire?

[36:04] X vs. Sever.

[36:06] Yeah, he hadn't yet been aged horribly by his terrible experience in X vs. Sever.

[36:11] I mean, it was crazy to see Antonio Banderas at a time

[36:15] when people didn't already have the image of X or Sever,

[36:17] whichever character he was.

[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?

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

[36:28] She's fucking awesome.

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

[36:31] Yeah, I'm not saying that.

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

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

[36:36] Okay, calm down, Dan.

[36:38] Calm down.

[36:38] I mean, the exciting thing about it was that you were finally seeing X and Sever fighting each other in one movie after the X and Sever cinematic universe had been building up to it over like five movies.

[36:48] There was X1, X2, Sever 1, X, Universal Winter Soldier, Sever 2, Attack of the Severs, the duplicate Severs.

[36:58] 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 again.

[37:02] People went ballistic over it.

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

[37:06] Yeah.

[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.

[37:14] Yeah, and the cook, the thief, his wife, and her lover were on it.

[37:19] It was called The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and X vs. Zephyr.

[37:22] That was the original title.

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

[37:27] So these vampires all have special powers.

[37:31] There's one played by Stephen Rhea who can walk on a wall and hang it upside down, and he is hilariously goofy.

[37:37] 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, 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, 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 slapstick grand guignol theater that's all about showing people dying in crazy ways.

[38:04] 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.

[38:09] 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.

[38:20] And there's a scene where they invite Louis to feed from a little boy's hand, and Louis tries and then gets embarrassed.

[38:26] And I was like, I don't understand what just happened.

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

[38:33] I'll let you borrow my Vampire the Masquerade sourcebook so you can learn about it.

[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 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 or maybe it's a spanish

[38:58] thing i don't know guys did you understand it why was it embarrassing that he tried to bite that

[39:03] boy's hand and then nothing happened was because the boy was a vampire like i'll admit i was zoning

[39:08] out during this segment of the movie a little bit because uh boy yeah it was there was not enough

[39:13] list that in it so yeah it's true and so armand he's no list at he is armand is to these characters

[39:20] what most of the X-Men villains in the 90s were,

[39:23] where they would just show up and say cryptic things,

[39:25] and they'd be like,

[39:25] 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

[39:33] because nobody cared.

[39:34] Armand does a lot of riddles and winking.

[39:37] 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 fucking tell him.

[39:43] 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. There's just people and vampires, and that the only crime is for a vampire to kill another vampire because vampire law, very similar to ape law.

[40:00] Apes shall not kill ape, and vampires shall not kill vampire, and that's why Planet of the Vampires where it turns out that Charlton Heston goes to this planet and it's all vampires.

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

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

[40:14] 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.

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

[40:25] And then Tom Cruise is like, legend starring me, Tom Cruise?

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

[40:35] Freeze frame, credits roll.

[40:37] Join us next week on another exciting adventure of Lestat and Louie, Vampire Buddies.

[40:42] I would like the movie better if it was called that.

[40:45] 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, it was Scott Baio and Willie Ames from Zapped Film and also Charles George playing these vampires?

[40:59] How would this be a different movie?

[41:01] I mean, I think Willie Ames would have been a great Lestat.

[41:07] yeah and it probably wouldn't have aged that well too because there would be they would just be

[41:12] trying to take women's clothes off with their minds yeah so that would be a problem because

[41:16] they're they're like that's not the powers that the powers like don't you don't understand guys

[41:21] i mean that's why that's why the louis character would be so mopey at that point is that he doesn't

[41:25] have that power now here's my question do you think there's anyone who watched charles in

[41:30] charge and thought it was the same characters from zapped and we're like why isn't charles

[41:33] to reuse his powers what's going on here yeah why did they change the name of the show too

[41:39] so weird yeah like when i was watching tomcat starring jerry o'connell i'm like why isn't he

[41:45] sliding everywhere or sliding please so uh claudia is like armand wants you louis and you're gonna

[41:54] leave me for him and i don't like it blah blah blah and armand tells louis that louis is beautiful

[41:58] because he is pure he still has a mortal soul he has all the passion of a mortal inside the

[42:03] immortal husk of a vampire and at this point i was like really because he seems like the least

[42:07] passionate character in the entire movie like every vampire has this kind of joie de vivre

[42:12] they really or joie de un vivre that they really like they're having a great time and louis is sad

[42:17] all the time and our mom's like no no you're the one who's truly alive a guy who just stares

[42:21] through walls and doesn't say much and is just like a big mopey mess well i've like i've definitely

[42:26] known i've known guys who have attracted people because they seem they've like projected that air

[42:35] of having some kind of depth or like something and people are always interested in like oh i

[42:40] want to date that guy and figure him out and it turns out i see they're not actually that

[42:45] that guy's not that deep which sub tweeting me stewart

[42:47] i'm working on being nicer to dan so i didn't want to say his name

[42:55] dan he projects this aura of like oh this guy he's really contemplating the mysteries in the

[43:02] universe but then you look inside his mind and it's just like hmm cheeseburgers yeah

[43:08] yeah my famous love of cheeseburgers i'm basically jughead yeah you're always wearing

[43:15] yeah i think you're closer to wimpy because you also uh don't like paying for the cheeseburgers

[43:20] that's true well i'd gladly pay you tuesday yeah i mean gladly now was wimpy a con man or

[43:28] he does he just have a very strange ocd where he can only pay for hamburgers on tuesday

[43:32] he's like you don't understand if i pay for hamburgers on a wednesday the world ends i need

[43:36] to do it on a tuesday maybe that's just when he got his payday yeah for his i don't know

[43:41] accountant job let's say yeah sure all right i believe it he's he could be an account and that's

[43:47] 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.

[43:54] He can escape into the adventure of hamburgers.

[43:58] Yeah.

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

[44:03] So wait, so in his mind, it's basically that dancing hamburger from Better Off Dead, I guess?

[44:09] Uh-huh, yeah.

[44:09] That's every hamburger when it gets into his belly.

[44:12] yep and when he sings that song instead of everybody wants some he's saying wimpy wimpy

[44:17] wants some see his inner life isn't that bad yeah it's pretty cool no he has a rich imagination

[44:24] he's like amelie when you think about it i don't understand why he doesn't or like the main

[44:29] character from better off dead well he was the amelie of his time yeah uh so anyway uh claudia's

[44:38] really jealous and he wants you she's like i want my own playmate if you're gonna hang out with

[44:42] armand and she brings this woman home and says turn her into a vampire she's gonna be my new

[44:46] mom or something or she's the doll i dress up i don't know dude just turn her into a vampire

[44:50] and louis does it and he's like sad about it of course and then the theater vampires show up and

[44:56] kidnap all three of them they say time for justice and for the death of lestat i guess

[45:02] just because they don't like them they sentence the two girls uh the women woman who's just been

[45:06] turned into vampire who i don't even know what her name is and she's by she didn't kill any

[45:10] vampires by the way so i don't know why she's getting in getting punished oh no i felt so bad

[45:15] for her because they're like you two get death by sunlight and they get thrown in a pit and when the

[45:19] sun appears over there they turn into ash and it's really painful and i'm like lady you picked the

[45:24] wrong night to get turned into a vampire yeah like you expected to freeze frame on her face and she's

[45:29] like you wonder how i got here crazy right well maybe let me go to the beginning of the story

[45:37] she's only been a vampire for like a couple hours yeah she hasn't gotten to do anything

[45:41] and they're like you you're dead now at first she sees the sun coming and she's like oh great

[45:46] there's that thing that doesn't cause me harm like what i say when i see the sun

[45:49] when you look just look straight at it oh what a beauty i say other than possibly getting skin

[45:56] cancer i should be fine right there's the sun gives you its power your powers actually yeah

[46:02] uh no so wait why i i must have missed something why doesn't louis get killed at this point

[46:09] uh because well they've decided to give him a worse punishment they're going to lock him in a

[46:13] box for eternity until he goes insane ah and they're saying and they're like they're like

[46:19] maybe it'll take hundreds of years who knows and i have to admit if i was if i was louis

[46:26] i would probably take the quick sun death over being locked in a coffin for centuries unable to

[46:32] move or anything like that yeah and they they're so they're gonna lock him in a coffin and then

[46:37] brick up the wall ring amontillado style yeah and so no one's even gonna find him and then he's like

[46:43] no ah and this movie i have to say for about three minutes this turns into a tim burton movie

[46:47] everyone's this movie has had a certain languor a certain like romantic uh like decadent you know

[46:54] ease to it. And then all of a sudden it's like

[46:57] ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.

[46:59] Yeah, and I think the score even

[47:01] picks up a little bit, right?

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

[47:04] It's like they brought Tim Burton in, or like

[47:07] they brought a...

[47:08] Danny Elfman. Danny Elfman came and punched him.

[47:11] Well, basically, Danny Elfman came in

[47:12] to punch up the score, and he's like,

[47:15] oh yeah, here's something I can do.

[47:17] It really, it feels like

[47:19] they just, it becomes a different movie for a couple

[47:21] minutes, but also like,

[47:22] 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.

[47:30] 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.

[47:42] So, yeah, they brick him up.

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

[47:52] And then Antonio Banderas immediately breaks out Louie.

[47:55] Yeah, he just takes down the wall.

[47:57] And Louie, you know what he's going to do next, burn down the theater.

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

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

[48:04] What's his favorite talking head song?

[48:06] Life During Wartime.

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

[48:10] But you know what?

[48:11] It's because he really likes the live version that's on the Sand in the Vaseline best of collection.

[48:16] I kind of like this scene because it was really goofily gory, too.

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

[48:26] So, wait a minute.

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

[48:31] Like, they're watching him leave, and then they're like,

[48:34] 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.

[48:40] 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 cartoon.

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

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

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

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

[49:05] Louie 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] I know we've all seen that movie.

[49:20] Or like that scene in Blade 2 where that happens to Ron Perlman and he gets cut in half, or the scene in 13 Ghosts where the guy gets cut in half by the door, or, you know.

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

[49:32] Ghost Ship, where the whole world gets cut in half.

[49:36] So, but that is, it is a fun scene because he's literally just cutting them up with a scythe, 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.

[49:55] It makes sense.

[49:55] Yeah, he was literally blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, 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.

[50:10] I can't support that.

[50:11] Okay, what about that Talking Heads song, Blind?

[50:16] Dan, you're on top of that, right?

[50:18] Well, it's from Naked, so I'm not really that into it.

[50:20] But wait, it's from the soundtrack for the movie Naked?

[50:23] Yeah, that's right.

[50:24] What a bummer.

[50:26] I mean, Dan is coming out against nudity,

[50:30] which is not something I would ever hear from him.

[50:32] Yeah, Dan rented Naked by...

[50:35] I contain multitudes.

[50:36] Dan rented the movie Naked and is like,

[50:39] where's the nudity? Blah, blah.

[50:41] I'm a Dan-pire.

[50:43] 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.

[50:50] Nothing.

[50:51] Okay.

[50:52] Well.

[50:52] The Naked Kiss?

[50:55] No, this isn't any good.

[50:56] Yeah, now I'm just trying to think of other movies with naked.

[51:01] Let me crack open one of these naked juices to drink.

[51:05] Oh, that's a disappointment.

[51:07] I'll just read Desmond Mars' The Naked Ape.

[51:12] I mean, it's an ape.

[51:13] It's still naked, right?

[51:14] Oh, no.

[51:15] It's just about people.

[51:16] Okay.

[51:17] So, guys, Armand shows up in a stagecoach just in time, picks him up, and saves him.

[51:23] But Louis rejects Armand ultimately because Armand has a philosophy of no regret, 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?

[51:35] No, 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] I don't know.

[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] He has a real epiphany when he sees the movie Sunrise, a song of two humans, 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] I have to admit I found this section, this sequence genuinely beautiful and moving.

[52:10] like this thing that he thought was out of his life forever now he can enjoy it vicariously

[52:14] through film now that film has been invented and i wonder and it's like uh i don't i'm curious

[52:19] whether that's in the book or if it's like look we're making a movie here let's talk about how

[52:23] great movies are like come on everybody it's movies yeah i'm this is a play for an academy

[52:29] award basically yeah well they're also like it's funny like they're obviously just showing him

[52:35] watch good movies but i'm i wonder what it would be like the first time he encounters a bad film

[52:40] and he's like oh uh so this this isn't always good huh this is it was like uh it was like when

[52:47] the first uh like anime movie i ever watched was akira and then i'm like i have to watch all of

[52:53] these and i like went to the local blockbuster and got arms full of all their anime section

[52:58] and was disappointed by many but now i wish there was there were scenes now of louis sitting in the

[53:04] theater going like watching something going like thumbs down like louis watching like porkies or

[53:10] something i like the idea that he's watching porkies and is like enthralled by the beauty of

[53:16] porkies he goes he goes to see he goes to see joysticks and he's anything assumes that king

[53:22] idiot must be must be a vampire too he's like i must find him he can walk in the sun a day walker

[53:28] wouldn't it yeah it would have been great if it was just like his the montage of movies that he's

[53:33] watching is like just shots from like super shitty movies he goes he's he's seeing like ishtar and

[53:40] like uh and like uh i don't know like that's the only strange creatures that stopped living and

[53:45] became mixed up zombies like but also i'm i admire their restraint that they did not show him watching

[53:51] dracula with bell legosi and laughing and turning to the other people theater going can you believe

[53:55] this guy come on can you get this yep and he's like he's eating blood-soaked popcorn while he's

[54:00] weirdly they just had that at the concession stand yeah it's cool it was it was a brief

[54:07] promotion for dracula yeah they thought you know people they don't want to just watch dracula they

[54:12] want to be dracula and it was a different time dan people ate different types of foods it's okay

[54:17] sure like people were just picking up oysters right out of the bay and eating them yeah

[54:22] that's what they were doing they were just picking up horseshoe crabs and chomping on them

[54:29] oh man uh sounds like xanadu they were just walking into muir woods right outside the city

[54:38] and seeing all those super intelligent apes that escaped from that lab and they just

[54:43] catch one and just roast it over a fire just have some apes stew oh man that sounds great

[54:49] so uh louie is and now also i wish now that it kept going to after this movie came out and he

[54:56] like he goes to see the sixth sense and he spits his popcorn i was like he was dead the whole time

[55:01] and he's like looking around being like did you see this

[55:05] but anyway i like that sequence even though the idea it is yeah if once you realize he probably

[55:12] saw some stinker movies in there like you've got louie watching like national lampoon's christmas

[55:16] vacation and he's like they've lost the magic i'm sorry but that randy quaid he is going to have a

[55:22] long career uh now it's 1988 and uh louis i assume having just gone to vote for george hw bush in the

[55:33] presidential election he's wandering through a bad part of town and he kind of stumbles upon a

[55:37] decaying list at who is living in ruins and his he's just been like living off of what animal

[55:43] blood all this time now he is the rat eater he's always been making fun of louis for eating rats

[55:48] instead of people now he is eating rats and sorry i don't understand the rules of regeneration in

[55:53] this movie really well each time that each time a vampire gets killed he regenerates as a new doctor

[55:58] and now he's a woman what's that all about okay yeah elliot's like shouldn't she be called the

[56:04] nurse oh boy and i'm like elliot that's i'm like elliot that's fucked up dude that's horrible

[56:10] 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] That's, 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.

[56:23] That's the bad part.

[56:25] Yeah.

[56:25] You have to write your memoir, The Troll Inside Me.

[56:27] That's the Mr. Hyde in there.

[56:29] No, I just don't understand.

[56:32] Like, it's been like 100 years now.

[56:35] No, Dan, I think you mean it's been 100 years now.

[56:39] You got to say it bare naked lady style.

[56:41] Another naked you're disappointed by.

[56:43] Yes, Ben.

[56:44] A hundred years.

[56:45] So shouldn't he be like fully regenerated at this point?

[56:49] No, because I think he's been eating lesser blood.

[56:51] Okay.

[56:52] So he hasn't been able to come back.

[56:52] Well, but why hasn't he just been eating humans?

[56:54] I don't get it.

[56:56] Dude.

[56:56] No, no, man.

[56:57] Maybe he's bored.

[56:58] Okay.

[56:59] Maybe he wants to change things up.

[57:00] It's not so much about his ability.

[57:03] It's his confidence.

[57:05] when louis left him for dead i think it really uh affected his confidence also he had to come

[57:10] back from being a burned husk so you have to assume and it's not like he has his brother's

[57:14] wife killing people and bringing them to him so he can use the blood and flesh to make a new body

[57:18] hellraiser style he's like he's a he's just a charred ruin that's had to drag itself around

[57:23] the city for 100 years slowly accumulating flesh and blood and stuff so i think it's like

[57:28] hey guys how how far he was wouldn't it wouldn't it have been better if the movie fell at his story

[57:33] than Louie and Claudia's story.

[57:35] Almost certainly.

[57:37] I think what you're looking for is the vampire Lestat.

[57:39] 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.

[57:44] Did they make a...

[57:46] No, they didn't make a vampire Lestat movie.

[57:49] They made Queen of the Damned, I think, is another...

[57:53] What?

[57:53] There is a book, The Vampire Lestat.

[57:55] Yeah.

[57:55] It's another one of the vampire chronicles.

[57:58] Yeah.

[57:59] I looked on Wikipedia and there's like a shit ton of those.

[58:02] It's like many more than I thought existed.

[58:04] Oh, man.

[58:05] So summer beach reading, looking forward to it.

[58:08] All right.

[58:09] Yeah.

[58:09] 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.

[58:16] Yeah.

[58:16] Instead of Santa Claus showing up, it's Dracula.

[58:19] Who is the Santa Claus of vampires?

[58:22] Do you think that's...

[58:23] So, okay.

[58:23] If you're a vampire...

[58:25] Okay, let's work on this one-to-one correlation.

[58:27] Yeah.

[58:28] Do you think they have like a Dracula-ness where they celebrate the birth of Dracula and like they give their kids presents and they're like, tonight, Dracula is going to come down the chimney and bite you.

[58:39] Oh, and if they wake up too early, they realize it's just their parents biting them and the magic is ruined.

[58:44] Yeah, probably.

[58:45] That sounds right.

[58:47] Guys, you have to realize, let's just talk about Santa Claus for a moment.

[58:51] I don't think we've talked about this.

[58:51] As a Jewish man with children, I have a horrible choice to make.

[58:56] Yeah.

[58:56] 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 the Krampus is real, but Santa Claus is not real.

[59:11] Now, how do you handle—no, go on, sorry.

[59:14] I'll ask my question afterwards.

[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.

[59:31] 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.

[59:40] 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.

[59:49] Well, that's the thing. 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 and like or except us. He doesn't come to Jewish kids. That's what they say. They go, Santa doesn't come to Jewish kids. And it would be like, OK, well, that's almost worse than if it was on me.

[1:00:06] it means santa who everybody loves is a racist and not the end but and i'd rather that i screwed

[1:00:11] up once or twice this year than that but i would it just hasn't come up yet and i'm not going to

[1:00:16] introduce it to him yeah yeah you don't you don't want to whisper it into his ear and it turns into

[1:00:19] like a virus that spreads amongst all the kids and then pretty soon all the kids in the world

[1:00:24] are infected with the belief that santa exactly exists yeah we don't want to truth or dare this

[1:00:28] but uh so he just hasn't mentioned it yet but someday he's going to be like hey why doesn't

[1:00:32] santa come to my house and i'm gonna have to tell him like it doesn't because it's not real

[1:00:36] yeah you're like uh we don't have a chimney dude this is the thing this is california

[1:00:42] but lots of houses in california have chimneys they have fireplaces for some reason uh so i guess

[1:00:48] what i'm saying is i don't know why that grossed me out but it did like think of all the marshmallows

[1:00:53] people are roasting in their houses oh horrible so listeners write in uh to elliot's santa claus

[1:01:00] quandary care of the flop house dan's apartment i'll give you the address to dan's apartment

[1:01:04] and uh and i'm just curious what should i do and if you're a little kid listening to this just like

[1:01:10] blank all that last part out yeah yeah yeah don't play this for your kids spoiler alert oh too late

[1:01:15] but if i was a vampire santa claus would not impress me because it's like oh he sneaks into

[1:01:18] people's houses at night yawn so do i i'm a kid whatever yeah

[1:01:22] so we're so we're so close to the end yeah my best friend is a vampire so uh or or so we're

[1:01:32] close to the end uh a helicopter comes around and shines a searchlight on him for some reason

[1:01:36] and lestat is like ah too bright and louie's like it's not real light it can't hurt you it's not

[1:01:40] real honey the bad men are gone and let's and louie just kind of leaves lestat there in his

[1:01:45] pain and does not either kill him or help him and christian slater and louie's like that's the end

[1:01:50] of my story to christian slater it's like that's it christian slater's like that can't be it there

[1:01:55] has to be an ending uh make me a vampire i want to be a vampire me me me and the idea of christian

[1:02:00] slater with vampire powers that's not a good idea louis do not do it christian slater is not

[1:02:05] trustworthy with vampire powers and louis gets really mad and threatens him and christian slater

[1:02:11] runs away and christian slater gets in his car and he's like oh did i just experience that oh no and

[1:02:15] he starts playing the tapes in his car and it's only when he starts playing the tapes that you

[1:02:19] realize how dead louis louis sounds and how boring the story is probably gonna be uh it's that you

[1:02:24] almost expect at some point louis can be like oh what else did i want to talk about uh what else

[1:02:31] did i talk about being a vampire okay um uh and then suddenly boom lestat shows up in the car

[1:02:37] and bites louis and he says i'm gonna give you a choice that he doesn't bite louis but

[1:02:42] bites uh what's christian slater sorry christian slater he bites the slate man oh yeah louis is

[1:02:47] long gone. He bites Christian Slater

[1:02:49] and he's like, I feel better already

[1:02:51] and he's driving the car and he goes, I'm going to

[1:02:53] give you the choice I never got. And they

[1:02:55] drive across the Golden Gate Bridge as

[1:02:57] is it what, like Guns N' Roses

[1:02:59] version of Sympathy for the Devil? Hell yeah, it is.

[1:03:01] And it's like, there

[1:03:03] was part of me that was like, I admire

[1:03:05] that they went with the most on-the-nose song

[1:03:07] to end this movie with, but I'm also irritated

[1:03:09] that they went with the most on-the-nose song to

[1:03:11] end this movie with. Yeah, you gotta end on a

[1:03:13] high note, dude. And now Lestat

[1:03:15] is going to regain his strength

[1:03:16] off of the probably not that healthy blood

[1:03:19] of Christian Slater.

[1:03:19] Well, a lot of Christian Slater slams.

[1:03:22] And will Christian Slater choose to be a vampire?

[1:03:25] You'll find out in the second movie

[1:03:27] in the Vampire Chronicles,

[1:03:28] Interviewer is a Vampire.

[1:03:30] Oh, yeah.

[1:03:31] You don't want to slam the slate man on this one.

[1:03:35] According to IMDb Trivia,

[1:03:37] he donated all of his paycheck from this movie to...

[1:03:41] To vampires.

[1:03:42] To vampires.

[1:03:43] to charities that River Phoenix supported

[1:03:46] because River Phoenix was originally

[1:03:48] supposed to play this role.

[1:03:49] Oh, that's very nice.

[1:03:50] Yeah, before he passed.

[1:03:51] So yeah, that was, you know,

[1:03:53] 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 the title

[1:04:01] and doesn't fit the title.

[1:04:02] This movie fits the title.

[1:04:04] It's got an interview in it

[1:04:05] 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.

[1:04:09] Okay, so based on accuracy of title.

[1:04:11] Although, and now I'm going to,

[1:04:13] 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,

[1:04:19] and Christian Slater is there

[1:04:21] as kind of like an amanuensis

[1:04:22] to take it all down.

[1:04:23] He doesn't ask a lot of questions.

[1:04:25] So on his interview style,

[1:04:26] I'm going to give him a C-.

[1:04:28] He got the stuff.

[1:04:29] I mean, and that's part

[1:04:30] of being a great interview is

[1:04:31] if the subject's talking,

[1:04:32] you don't have to.

[1:04:33] So, Dan, why don't you call

[1:04:35] our buddy Jesse Thorne,

[1:04:37] who is both an expert

[1:04:37] on San Francisco vampires

[1:04:39] and interviews,

[1:04:40] and find out how he rates

[1:04:43] this movie he does talk about dracula's a lot that's true and he is a member of the hollywood

[1:04:47] vampires right he plays with them yeah so guys uh we should do our final judgments he plays uh

[1:04:54] what the washboard what we're the coolest roughest toughest hollywood vampires and on washboard it's

[1:05:03] jesse is this a good bad movie a bad bad movie or movie you kind of liked uh ellie why don't you go

[1:05:13] Uh, I was going to say, this is a movie I kind of liked. I didn't think I was going to like it because I, uh, have that held over prejudice from being a teen for things that are melodramatic, I guess. But then it realized like, oh no, I don't have that. I like these things now. And I think that if I had seen it when it came out, I think I would have been young enough and not confident enough in myself that the intense homoeroticism of it would have put me off somewhat as a teenage boy.

[1:05:38] but now i'm like yeah love it give me more of that i love seeing it in a movie give me more

[1:05:43] of these homoerotic vampires so i think not only did i kind of like it but i like that i saw it at

[1:05:48] this point in my life and not earlier i remember so i saw this in the theater and it was right

[1:05:54] around the time that i was like starting to get into the like world of darkness vampire role-playing

[1:06:00] games so at first i was put off by the idea i'm like oh this is like a lame hollywood version of

[1:06:08] cool vampire stuff that i'm into but the movie i remember the movie winning me over and being

[1:06:12] pretty into it at the time uh and i i think it holds up like uh i mean it's a goofy fun vampire

[1:06:20] movie with some pretty big stars it's an over-the-top vampire melodrama that's what i

[1:06:28] want out of it like i'm not looking for the same thing out of it that i'm looking at for out of

[1:06:31] like near dark or dracula or shadow the vampire or any of those things like there's there's room

[1:06:37] or or the vampire's kiss which was just a crazy movie like there's there's you can have different

[1:06:43] things from different types of vampire movies but dan i see that look on your face you're shaking

[1:06:46] your head no like a stern schoolmaster no not not quite i this movie had a high bar for me

[1:06:51] for it to clear for me because i'm not a big fan of the trope of the sexy vampire like the allure

[1:06:57] of vampirism has never been a thing that i'm like yeah yeah i can i understand the yeah i want to be

[1:07:04] a vampire like i don't know i mean i guess wait a life like you watch like lost boys and you're

[1:07:10] like i don't want to be with those dudes uh and because i kind of totally would i find a lot of

[1:07:19] this movie super goofy but uh you guys have kind of won me over like i guess the goofiness is kind

[1:07:24] of the fun part of it so i kind of liked it a little less than you guys but i'm on board i think

[1:07:30] the movie is super goofy but it is also very sincere and that's something that i think i would

[1:07:35] have had trouble with when i was younger is that even tom cruise's part where he's playing this

[1:07:40] winking like scenery chewing vampire no pun intended i hope that scenery doesn't have blood

[1:07:45] in it like that's the character he's not winking at the audience being like hey look how crazy i

[1:07:50] am he's winking at the characters and so it's like oh this is like a 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 full

[1:07:59] character like this is a movie that takes itself very seriously and i admire that since i feel like

[1:08:05] it was not too long after this that the idea of a horror movie that takes itself seriously kind

[1:08:11] of disappeared from the movie screens for a while i guess in the wake of like scream and stuff like

[1:08:15] that yeah and uh it's only within the past i don't know what like five or ten years that i feel like

[1:08:22] i'm seeing a lot of horror movies where it's like no no we take it seriously this is not like we're

[1:08:26] not making a joke about scary stuff you know like we're not commenting on scary stuff we just want

[1:08:30] to be scary or atmospheric or what have you and i'll tell you you're saying that that some modern

[1:08:36] uh prestige horror movies aren't don't maintain like a comfortable ironic distance from their

[1:08:41] material exactly this is a movie that is not too cool to be itself this is a movie that's like

[1:08:46] hey we're making a movie about these vampires who are in love with each other and also hate each

[1:08:51] other guess what we think that's pretty cool and we're just going to tell that story and i think

[1:08:57] i think it helps that in a lot of the scenes that are filled with like the uh you know like

[1:09:03] the boring melodrama stuff they're like killing people at the same time yeah that's true you know

[1:09:10] it's all walking and talking like you got you guys uh i think stewart you mentioned me becoming

[1:09:16] a goth earlier if i'd seen the movie when i was a kid it reminded me of how when i was a kid i

[1:09:21] really like disdained goths because i was too cool for school you know or whatever and i and

[1:09:27] the thing that i think really bothered me about it was that they were so unafraid to just like

[1:09:31] be who they wanted to be yeah you know without other people even though other people clearly

[1:09:36] like made fun of them like crazy at my school at least yeah and so it's like you know what

[1:09:40] i realized that i am it's not that i think that it's goofy it's that i am ashamed at my own lack

[1:09:46] of confidence in living that openly weird and so now i admire that stuff a lot and now that

[1:09:52] now that you've admitted that i will give you this onk necklace to wear oh finally i mean i

[1:09:58] also never liked any of that stuff but it's like i wanted to find my version of that there was

[1:10:02] something about like there's also the the thing of i'm gonna make myself a total outcast by

[1:10:07] dressing like all these other people who look just like me here here my my friend dave navarro will

[1:10:13] don a cloak of raven's feathers upon your shoulders no i mean that sounds pretty cool

[1:10:19] all right i've been not saying anything in the hopes that you'll wind yourself down

[1:10:24] you have to interrupt us you gotta tell us okay so what do we do now

[1:10:30] now uh we do i love dan dan's idea like if dan was a diplomat he'd be like i'll let this war

[1:10:36] just kind of work itself out till they get tired of shooting each other i don't need to get in

[1:10:40] there and negotiate it's like no dan you gotta end things since the dawn of time screenwriters

[1:10:49] have taken months to craft their stories but now three hollywood professionals shall attempt the

[1:10:56] impossible break a story in one hour that's right here on story break i freddie wong matt arnold and

[1:11:03] will campos the creators behind award-winning shows like video game high school have one hour

[1:11:07] to turn a humble idea into an awesome movie now an awesome movie starts with an awesome title i

[1:11:12] chose the billionaire's marriage valley mine was christmas pregnant paradise okay next we need a

[1:11:19] protagonist so i've heard wario best described as libertarian mark and of course every great movie

[1:11:25] needs a stellar pitch in order to get to heaven sometimes you got to raise a little hell

[1:11:29] check out story break every week on maximum fun.org or wherever you get your podcasts

[1:11:35] how does this sound a weekend on a beautiful mountaintop in california you wake up eat a

[1:11:43] tasty meal with some new friends some old friends maybe the host of your favorite podcasts after

[1:11:48] that it's a couple of inspiring classes spectacular podcast tapings a hilarious stand-up showcase a

[1:11:54] dance party and more and s'mores all of this can be yours at max fun con returning to lake

[1:12:00] arrowhead next june tickets go on sale friday november 23rd put that on your calendar because

[1:12:06] max fun con tickets always sell out get a head start planning your next summer vacation and go

[1:12:11] to maxfuncon.com to learn more uh now is when we talk about our sponsors we got two great sponsors

[1:12:19] this week the first is casper the flop house is supported in part by casper a sleep brand that

[1:12:25] continues to revolutionize its lines of products to create an exceptionally comfortable sleep

[1:12:30] experience one night at a time they offer affordable prices because casper cuts out the

[1:12:35] middleman and sells directly to the consumer yeah i mean don't you're not louis and lestat you don't

[1:12:42] have to sleep in a fucking coffin sleep on a sweet ass caps for a mattress yeah like a ghost come on

[1:12:48] Casper brand mattresses combine multiple supportive memory foams

[1:12:51] for a quality sleep surface with the right amounts of both sink and bounce.

[1:12:55] 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

[1:13:06] and using promo code FLOPHOUSE, all one word, at checkout.

[1:13:11] Charms and conditions apply.

[1:13:12] If only vampirism had a 100-night risk-free trial,

[1:13:17] Then maybe Louie wouldn't have gotten into that situation.

[1:13:20] That's true.

[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, caster mattresses are super comfortable.

[1:13:31] And they send you a box and it pops out.

[1:13:34] It transforms almost like a person transforming into a vampire

[1:13:39] 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

[1:13:45] and you want a caster mattress,

[1:13:46] he'd probably just lie down on it and go to sleep, and you'd be saved.

[1:13:49] That's not a guarantee that Casper makes, but I think that we can...

[1:13:55] It's the Casper promise.

[1:13:56] Okay.

[1:13:56] Let's move on to our next sponsor, ZipRecruiter.

[1:14:01] 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.

[1:14:10] Now there's a smarter way at ZipRecruiter.com slash Flophouse.

[1:14:16] Zip Recruiter's powerful matching technology finds the right people for you and actively invites them to apply.

[1:14:23] It's no wonder that Zip Recruiter is rated number one by employers in the U.S., and this rating comes from hiring sites on Trustpilot with over 1,000 reviews.

[1:14:31] And right now, our listeners can try Zip Recruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com slash flophouse.

[1:14:38] That's ziprecruiter.com slash F-L-O-P-H-O-U-S-E.

[1:14:44] Now, if only Lestat had had access to ZipRecruiter back in the public houses of Louisiana.

[1:14:50] He could recruit someone more interesting than Louis.

[1:14:53] Exactly.

[1:14:53] He would have found the ideal candidate.

[1:14:56] He wouldn't have to haunt the streets and just bite whoever the most handsome guy he found was.

[1:15:00] 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.

[1:15:17] So here's a Jumbotron from Leah to Michelle.

[1:15:23] 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.

[1:15:32] I couldn't have made it this far without you.

[1:15:35] So here's to another year of my bad Elliot impressions,

[1:15:38] making references no one else understands,

[1:15:41] and long car ride talks.

[1:15:44] I love you more than you love Sue Perkins.

[1:15:46] Awkward sibling hug?

[1:15:49] I say that that way because there's a question mark.

[1:15:52] Awkward sibling hug?

[1:15:54] So that's very sweet.

[1:15:57] We like to see some affection between siblings.

[1:16:01] 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

[1:16:11] by going to MaximumFun.org forward slash Jumbotron.

[1:16:15] And it's about $100 for a personal message,

[1:16:21] I think $200 for a business message.

[1:16:23] And it's a good way of letting someone know you care

[1:16:26] or getting out the information about your business dealings.

[1:16:31] That makes it sound like you're revealing secret papers

[1:16:36] through Jumbotron.

[1:16:36] I just meant, you know, your business, whatever.

[1:16:38] Anyway, back to the show.

[1:16:41] 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?

[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] Oh, no.

[1:16:52] He's got to go off 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 AD 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 talk about a movie, TBD.

[1:17:22] We'll announce the movie soon.

[1:17:25] When we get closer to it.

[1:17:26] Maybe next episode.

[1:17:27] 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 something else i'd like to mention uh is that look horse meets dog

[1:17:40] my children's book it's in stores right now you don't even have to pre-order anymore you could

[1:17:45] just go into a store and hand the person money and say horse meets dog 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 and they'll say oh yeah we've

[1:17:55] been selling those like crazy i should have recognized sir this this is a butcher shop

[1:17:58] we don't carry that book they're like horse meat or dog meat you gotta tell me one or the other

[1:18:04] but uh so you go in and uh buy one right now horse meets dog by me and tim miller uh kids love it

[1:18:11] they're gonna really like it a lot by the time this comes out i will have done most of my touring

[1:18:17] for it so thanks everybody for coming out to those events but uh i think you may still have time if

[1:18:23] you listen to this like the day it comes out to come see me at skylight books in los angeles on

[1:18:27] november 11th and i think i think uh the next day uh karina longworth from uh the you must remember

[1:18:34] this podcast is doing something at skylight so i may just stay overnight in the store that's cool

[1:18:38] afterwards the uh now this is a uh you don't you don't have to answer this uh but when you were

[1:18:44] working on uh potential titles for your book were you considering dog meets horse and then you

[1:18:51] realized that might be confusing because people might think that it's a book about dog meat the

[1:18:55] dog character from the fallout series owning a horse and that is not what the book's about

[1:19:00] uh yes that was exactly my thought process and i'm glad that you i'm glad you brought it up

[1:19:05] because it was a real worry that i had so uh november 11th if you're in the los angeles area

[1:19:10] at skylight books it's a great store i'm gonna be reading my book and i think i might also have

[1:19:14] cookies there for people who like cookies oh hopefully store-bought not homemade because

[1:19:20] so you don't know what's in them.

[1:19:21] Uh-oh.

[1:19:22] Yeah, I put razor blades in them.

[1:19:25] Thanks, too.

[1:19:25] Thanks for wrecking that.

[1:19:27] But that's after Halloween.

[1:19:28] But if you're not in L.A.,

[1:19:30] just go buy Horse Meets Dog right now.

[1:19:32] It's a great book.

[1:19:32] I like it, and I wrote it.

[1:19:34] Okay.

[1:19:34] 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.

[1:19:42] Dive right in.

[1:19:42] Dig deep to the bottomless letter.

[1:19:44] 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're skimming the fat off the top of the soup.

[1:19:52] Yeah.

[1:19:52] So this one's from – this first letter is from Adam Lastname Withheld.

[1:20:00] No last name, first man.

[1:20:03] Who writes, thank you for hundreds of hours of entertainment that has been the glue that

[1:20:09] has helped repair the frazzled nerves of this overworked – sorry, the frazzled nerves

[1:20:13] of this overworked high school English teacher, actor, fight choreographer, and prop maker.

[1:20:19] That sounds fun.

[1:20:20] Oh, so we've got a real split situation here.

[1:20:22] Yeah.

[1:20:23] They're all living in one body, and they're coming together to make the beast.

[1:20:26] My taste in movies most closely matches Elliot's,

[1:20:30] and I have a soft spot for movies from the 30s and 40s.

[1:20:33] 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,

[1:20:41] 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 this guy is like wow well no the one not the letter writer

[1:20:52] the one who's like casablanca sounds a little basic oh yeah yeah that guy i think you can uh

[1:21:00] you can 86 anyway wait wait you want him to murder him yeah uh he said casablanca is kind

[1:21:07] of an amateur move in my defense she had never seen it and both it and the meal went over

[1:21:12] splendidly wait the book it went over splendidly yeah

[1:21:16] admittedly this is a pretty tame story compared to some of our friends whose second date

[1:21:25] consisted of a viewing of human centipede my question is this what movie do you guys recommend

[1:21:31] as an ideal date movie do you have any date movie stories funny or otherwise keep on flopping in the

[1:21:37] free world adam last name withheld uh so it's a two-part question i've got an answer for the

[1:21:45] second part but i don't necessarily know what uh a good date movie is i mean i don't know it's like

[1:21:50] it depends on who you are and who the date is like there's some people where going to see like

[1:21:55] return of the living dead would be a fantastic date movie and there's some people where that

[1:22:00] would not be a good date movie and you're better off seeing i don't know what a league of their

[1:22:04] own like it depends on the people involved it's hard to say what what's a good date movie i guess

[1:22:08] unless like i mean there's i mean there's one pretty obvious answer and it's dirty dancing

[1:22:12] that movie rules that's true that's well yeah i guess that's a pretty good date movie but what

[1:22:18] it's like it's the it what that what the question implies to me which is to say nothing against adam

[1:22:23] like what the question implies to me is that uh when you are dating someone you're just kind of

[1:22:28] looking for the steps that you can go through to success that's not how human relationships work

[1:22:32] you gotta make a real connection with the person so i guess so let's uh skip over maybe the first

[1:22:37] part of the question go to the second do you have any fun uh or weird date movie stories

[1:22:41] uh well i mean i once had a very hot date to the movie million dollar baby uh

[1:22:47] to have a very like a really successful date at and in retrospect it felt like that episode of

[1:22:54] seinfeld where he makes out with his girlfriend during schindler's list yeah just looking for a

[1:22:58] private place to go but it was like there was a lot going on in the seats during that screening

[1:23:02] of million dollar baby about a woman who is boxed into a coma so the story that i remember is from

[1:23:12] college uh when so this so sarah the woman who up until recently i was married to um

[1:23:20] that's for the uh the listeners not for you two you were familiar with sarah yeah i know sarah

[1:23:26] oh yeah that was the little that was the little asterisk box at the bottom of the panel that said

[1:23:29] see dan's former marriage smile and stand yeah but um so we had briefly uh broken up

[1:23:37] while she was abroad and uh and then she wrote me a letter saying that she wanted to get back

[1:23:45] together and i was thrilled with this because i was head over heels and um at the time i was

[1:23:52] about to go like uh like in a bazooka joe comic yeah i did a flip take awesome but at the time

[1:23:58] do you hurt yourself there is a there's a woman on campus who like we had been sort of circling

[1:24:05] around each other a little bit and uh finally we were going to go out on a date and i got this

[1:24:10] letter from sarah right before this date that i was going to go on and i told her i'm like oh i'm

[1:24:16] sorry like i really like i i can't do this i'm into this other person i've been in love with her

[1:24:23] uh but if you want to we can still go out and see this movie god damn it and like i was the

[1:24:29] worst thing that i've ever done not the worst thing but like i just i feel like guilty about

[1:24:33] it like years later because like she took me up on it and so what did you we went out and we saw

[1:24:39] wonder boys and i had a great time seeing wonder boys and i think she probably had a terrible time

[1:24:43] seeing wonder boys like sitting through it and being like what am i doing here why am i still

[1:24:47] yeah it was awful that's pretty great i remember an early movie that my wife and i watched together

[1:24:55] that we really connected with was uh forgetting sarah marshall uh and we both i haven't watched

[1:25:02] in a while but i remember we both hold it in pretty high esteem uh and it just kind of reminds

[1:25:07] us of that period in our relationship and i also remember having a pretty uh i don't know if i i

[1:25:13] don't know if i would call it a date but some of the consequences were similar to the consequences

[1:25:17] of a date uh after watching after watching the movie uh crash directed by david cronenberg oh wow

[1:25:26] uh so that sounds awesome uh so i think we failed to answer the main question i would say what's a

[1:25:35] good date movie pick a movie you like a lot and put yourself out there and see if the person

[1:25:39] responds to you yeah uh this this next letter is from danielle last name withheld this is elliot's

[1:25:46] wife i'm assuming yeah yeah this is the only way we communicate now is through letters through the

[1:25:50] flophouse but dan never chooses them because he's so far behind so it's really ruined my relationship

[1:25:55] thanks dan she writes hi there you funny duders and the fear in a few weeks here i'll be having

[1:26:01] my first baby and my husband and i are already getting some back in my days to trot out when

[1:26:06] the kid doesn't appreciate the world of convenience they were born into things like in my day we

[1:26:12] didn't have streaming services so if you wanted to watch a movie you had to hope there was something

[1:26:16] on cable and there probably wasn't because there were only 51 channels and most of them were boring

[1:26:20] grown-up stuff and if you did find a movie to watch your dad would come home to work from work

[1:26:24] and change the channel to watch the broncos game and you'd never find out whether they managed to

[1:26:28] escape to which mountain or not so yeah we all had that experience i remember it very well do you

[1:26:34] guys have any back in my days i can add about how the movies have changed in the last few decades

[1:26:38] i'm roughly the same age as y'all so they will be relevant don't worry if they're a bit blue aka

[1:26:44] about dong ripping i'll write them down seal them in an envelope and hand them to the kid

[1:26:48] on their 18th birthday danielle last name with him i mean i feel like uh dudes getting their

[1:26:53] dong stripped off is a timeless part of cinema i don't think it's dedicated to anyone it's one of

[1:26:59] the seven plots yeah from castle freak to antichrist here's our salute to dongs being

[1:27:06] hurt in movies i didn't realize you were working on the oscars this year oh yeah that's that's the

[1:27:13] they gave me i'm like it's been very hard to make a televisable version but i think we're gonna do

[1:27:17] it i mean they're trying to drum up viewership so i think that'll help it's so funny like like uh

[1:27:23] it's like uh like chadwick boseman and melissa mccarthy walk out and they're like the male dong

[1:27:29] has for years been a source of entertainment wonder and horror here's our salute to things

[1:27:37] happening to dongs in cinema for the for a hundred years the dong has been a real supporting member

[1:27:44] of the cast like uh anyway i'm trying to think i mean like i feel like a lot of people talk about

[1:27:52] how the experience of going to the vhs store like the video oh yeah i mean and browsing for

[1:27:59] i mean it's it's the same thing as browsing endlessly through netflix but in a physical

[1:28:06] space and a lot more but i think it was a lot more fun because you got to like look at the box art

[1:28:10] and turn it over and read the descriptions and and you and you're kind of i mean you you weren't

[1:28:17] but you kind of were stuck with your choices it wasn't like you could watch two minutes and be

[1:28:21] like oh no yeah i'll just change like instead you're like fuck i guess i'm gonna be drinking

[1:28:27] mountain dew to this all night yeah and and there's like there's a lot of responsibility

[1:28:32] making that choice and i found like there were a couple times where i was as the cineast in the

[1:28:38] family given that responsibility solely like you know here's a couple bucks go to like take your

[1:28:43] bike down to the video store get something like ski school too huh okay well my parents haven't

[1:28:50] seen part one but i think they'll be able to follow it i'll just i'll give them a quick recap

[1:28:55] beforehand yeah i'll cut together a presentation yeah but there's a lot of weight in that decision

[1:29:01] you know man and i also remember the i love the trailers before vhs tapes that was great

[1:29:07] oh that was your chance to see movies that otherwise hear of movies you otherwise would

[1:29:12] never have heard of is other things that like vidmark was putting out distributing like amazing

[1:29:17] i will say this i took my son to the movie theater yesterday and we had an experience that i thought

[1:29:26] he wasn't going to have which was walking down the hall we were looking at all the posters for

[1:29:31] movies that are coming out soon and talking about like oh what's this what does this look like let's

[1:29:35] talk like and figuring learning what movies were coming out from the posters it's how i learned

[1:29:40] that there's a will ferrell sherlock holmes comedy coming out dan i think you're gonna love it

[1:29:44] looks like they're really they're really doing a great job with with the holmes canon uh

[1:29:48] but it's like uh it was a very it was just a really fun thing for us to do this thing that

[1:29:53] i remember doing with my parents we were like looking at the coming posters knowing almost

[1:29:58] nothing about them other than what it said on the

[1:30:00] poster and trying to figure out what the movies were. So that was really

[1:30:02] sweet.

[1:30:02] Yeah.

[1:30:04] So you can do those back in my day things, as long

[1:30:08] as you're with a four-year-old who has no access to the internet.

[1:30:10] Yeah, I mean,

[1:30:11] I think as far as, like, the

[1:30:14] content of the movies, I think

[1:30:16] like, the back in my day that

[1:30:20] I always bring up is just the

[1:30:22] quality of

[1:30:24] practical, or the prevalence of practical

[1:30:26] special effects over digital effects i mean even even the movie we watched uh for this week

[1:30:31] interviewed the vampire like one of the reasons once again according to imdb trivia one of the

[1:30:37] reasons why uh why the movie was a difficult shoot is because they had so much makeup effects

[1:30:44] because they would literally hang the vampire actors upside down to get the like blood out of

[1:30:49] their faces or blood to their faces um and that's the sort of thing that like a modern vampire

[1:30:55] movies like no we'll just uh we'll add some sparkles in post it's fine uh yeah we'll just

[1:31:01] cgi those veins on and i i i mean i think the uh you know the the the restrictions that uh physical

[1:31:09] stuff makes leads to some interesting choices but uh as far as like just movie experiences yeah i

[1:31:15] mean like the the video store is the biggest one for me easily i think there's there was a there

[1:31:22] was a it was a lot easier to avoid spoilers because they didn't exist because nobody knew

[1:31:27] what a movie was what was going to happen in a movie back then yeah the closest thing to a spoiler

[1:31:31] is like a kid telling you what happens in Rambo 3 on the playground and you're like what but this

[1:31:39] idea that you're supposed to you're supposed to be curious about what happens in the movie to the

[1:31:44] point of finding out ahead of time before the movie comes out it's kind of crazy you know yeah

[1:31:49] 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.

[1:31:57] Yeah, that was great.

[1:31:59] This last letter is from Marcus who writes.

[1:32:03] You sounded unsure, Dan.

[1:32:05] You're the one with the letter in front of you.

[1:32:06] He writes, I recently saw Baywatch and found it endearingly dumb.

[1:32:11] Dan would love that at the end a gorgeous blonde slaps her bikini brief butt while saying Cinnabons.

[1:32:19] Wait, so is that the end of the movie?

[1:32:21] That's the final shot?

[1:32:21] No, but it does adhere me to this movie that that happens.

[1:32:27] That sounds so stupid.

[1:32:28] I am kind of curious what the context is.

[1:32:33] They're like, yeah.

[1:32:34] I mean, is there a lead up or does she just jump into the camera frame

[1:32:38] unplanned and just do that and then security escorts her away?

[1:32:43] They're like, you're going to leave it in the movie.

[1:32:48] They're suggesting that she was not an actress, is what you're saying?

[1:32:52] Yeah, yeah.

[1:32:52] 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.

[1:32:57] Yeah.

[1:32:58] Like that scene in the beginning of Hard Day's Night when they're running, and was it 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.

[1:33:10] Yeah, well, he was kind of an asshole.

[1:33:13] Yep.

[1:33:15] But he goes on to say,

[1:33:16] What remake or update have you seen that you think is better than the original source movie or TV production?

[1:33:20] I anticipate Elliot saying that the 1941 edition of The Maltese Falcon is better than the two predecessors.

[1:33:27] 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] Anyway, that's from Marcus' last name, Unknown.

[1:33:39] Oh yeah, 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.

[1:33:50] Not to say that The Thing from Another World is not a good movie.

[1:33:54] It is, but it's a little, I mean, it's a little slow paced and the monster's a little silly.

[1:34:01] 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.

[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.

[1:34:21] 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] 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 thing rather than because they were like, oh, 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 web page – for this question.

[1:34:47] I stumbled on a web page 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.

[1:35:01] Okay.

[1:35:03] Those are fancy glasses, both rose-colored and backwards-looking.

[1:35:06] It's like something Dr. Jacoby would wear in two weeks, right?

[1:35:09] 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.

[1:35:15] 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] it's like you're watching a movie and then you go back to the original and you're like oh this is

[1:35:43] like an idea for a movie that somebody like threw together i mean since they shot the movie in like

[1:35:47] three days well yeah no it's like some friends on a weekend basically is what it feels like and is

[1:35:52] basically what is true yeah um but guys this is gonna make me a little unpopular uh-huh i'm gonna

[1:35:59] say i think the departed is a better movie than infernal affairs interesting japanese movie it

[1:36:04] was based on oh no not japanese was it was infernal affairs yeah it was japanese right

[1:36:09] i can't remember if it's if it was from hong kong or japan and i apologize if that makes me

[1:36:16] a racist i haven't seen it since it came out uh i i actually haven't seen it so oh no yeah sorry

[1:36:23] it's not japanese it's yeah andy lau was in it that's right it's a hong kong movie the original

[1:36:27] infernal affairs it's like a great idea for a movie and it doesn't quite come together and the

[1:36:31] departed is like aside from the fact that it uses the same dropkick murphy song over and over again

[1:36:36] which is really irritating uh it's uh i i think it's a really good movie and even the part at the

[1:36:42] 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 like come on why not yeah i didn't that did that yeah marty why not like you're looking

[1:36:52] for subtlety from this movie about like this crazy plan that would never happen in real life

[1:36:56] of someone going undercover with a mob but nobody telling the police that this guy's going undercover

[1:37:00] with the mob like come on yeah uh so i hope that those letter answers helped you in some way i don't

[1:37:08] really have an answer for this okay like like i forgot that you hadn't said anything yeah i like

[1:37:13] i like ringu and i like the ring and i think they're both like they have their own strengths

[1:37:18] and weaknesses uh i mean this is a little lowbrow but like uh i i definitely prefer the movie version

[1:37:27] of 21 Jump Street to the TV

[1:37:29] show. Oh, sure.

[1:37:30] I mean, that's like the

[1:37:33] same as this Baywatch letter. I think that counts.

[1:37:35] Oh, cool. All right.

[1:37:37] But moving on.

[1:37:39] And that Chips movie was a lot better than

[1:37:41] the Chips show, right?

[1:37:42] So now's the point where

[1:37:47] we recommend a movie that

[1:37:49] you should watch, whether or not

[1:37:51] you watch Interview with the Vampire,

[1:37:53] which we all... Yeah, maybe do a double feature.

[1:37:55] Yeah.

[1:37:57] um i guess i'll go i watched first man just recently um it was a it was a day that i kind

[1:38:07] of it was one of those days where i bought the ticket to see a movie oh boy this is full journal

[1:38:11] yeah i'm having a day like dear dear flop house form it was a day like any other i bought a ticket

[1:38:18] to see first man on a rainy sunday little knowing it would lead to an erotic adventure the likes of

[1:38:22] which i could only imagine long time movie watcher first time reviewer i'm trying to add a little

[1:38:27] color to my view let's just say neil armstrong wasn't the only one landing on a moon that day

[1:38:32] let's not say that this is not where this was going so tell us more about this about this

[1:38:41] adventure no i it was one of those days where you buy a movie ticket like earlier in the day and

[1:38:47] then when it comes time to go to the movie you're like do i really have the energy to do this like

[1:38:52] do i want to do this do like there are other things i could be doing you know and i went to

[1:38:56] the movie and i was interested in it from the very beginning like whatever you know on we or

[1:39:04] whatever had had kept me from maybe wanting to go to the movie whatever swept away like malaise

[1:39:10] had befallen exactly you you transformed into a listat upon seeing the film and uh i realized

[1:39:16] after seeing this movie that i i like movies about the early days of the space program like i enjoy

[1:39:23] like apollo 13 hidden figures especially the right stuff uh i think that there's just obviously

[1:39:30] something inherently dramatic in it these people reaching for something bigger than themselves and

[1:39:35] often dying in the process uh and uh first man is very good at putting you inside the head of

[1:39:44] the protagonist neil armstrong and having you like really feel the danger of everything that

[1:39:51] he's doing every step of the way like how everything is sort of slapped together with spit

[1:39:58] and gum and uh and what a amazing accomplishment it was to do it with this early technology

[1:40:07] and uh it was just a lot of it was it was very moving um and it was uh that's a remake of wallace

[1:40:14] and gromit uh a grand day out yeah fine day out yeah um but that's that's all i really have to

[1:40:21] say about that first man i enjoyed it a lot cool uh i'm gonna recommend another movie that uh showed

[1:40:28] up on netflix this month uh what that's like three fridays in a row that big crazy uh genre pictures

[1:40:35] have just appeared on netflix um basically unheralded uh i'm gonna recommend the movie

[1:40:41] the night comes for us it's an not it comes at night i mean i've already recommended that uh

[1:40:49] This is a very different type of movie than it comes at night.

[1:40:51] So this movie is an Indonesian crime martial arts movie and it is,

[1:40:59] it features two of the leads from the raid.

[1:41:02] So if you saw Gareth Evans movie,

[1:41:04] the apostle last week and we're like,

[1:41:06] Oh,

[1:41:06] I was hoping for her something more like a raid three.

[1:41:09] This is totally that movie.

[1:41:12] So it's just filled wall to wall with dudes kicking the shit out of each

[1:41:18] other.

[1:41:18] it is an a plus number one ass beater of a movie uh similar to the raid 2 it's probably bogged down

[1:41:25] a little bit by too much plotting uh but when the like when the action scenes start happening

[1:41:32] it's like anything that you you start seeing every new set piece as like oh no there's a

[1:41:39] pool table somebody's gonna get their face smashed in with a pool ball uh and there there were just

[1:41:44] so many uh there were so many oh shit moments um so if you're looking for a super duper crazy

[1:41:50] action movie uh i would uh go over to your netflix queue grab the night comes for us drag it over to

[1:41:58] your watch box double click that and then buckle your fucking seat belt okay uh in a similar vein

[1:42:07] i'm going to recommend a movie from the 70s about a man in middle age struggling with the decisions

[1:42:12] he made earlier in his life.

[1:42:14] I'm going to recommend 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 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 70s 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 but uh jack lemon is playing a guy who runs a garment company he co-owns

[1:42:48] it with uh a man played by jack gilford uh and they realize that unless they do something drastic

[1:42:56] they are both not going to be able to keep the company open and also they might be on the hook

[1:43:00] for some fraud that they committed to keep the company open the previous year and so he just is

[1:43:07] trying to he's debating and arguing with his partner about whether they should deliberately

[1:43:11] burned down one of their factories for the insurance money and the movie is about making

[1:43:17] that decision but it's also about this guy who like is wandering through life very looking at

[1:43:23] where america is in the 70s and remembering the men he knew who died in world war ii and is asking

[1:43:29] himself basically like all those men died and this is kind of what we got out of it is this country

[1:43:33] that doesn't seem to work and people don't like each other and blah blah blah and what i did with

[1:43:37] my life is not worthy of what those men sacrifice them for and is having a kind of a nervous

[1:43:41] breakdown over it and jack lemon is really great in it it's a really 70s movie it's shot uh in and

[1:43:48] around los angeles and on real locations and it looks you know it's got that great beige 70s grime

[1:43:54] that i love so much and until the ending a lot of these movies unfortunately involve the middle-aged

[1:44:01] man than sleeping with a young hippie woman as a way of like bringing life back into his life

[1:44:07] yeah this movie falls into that trap but it kind of and it that doesn't quite work but spoiler

[1:44:13] alert it really doesn't save him and it does not have the effect that that would normally have in

[1:44:17] a movie like this so uh it's worth it just to like see jack lemon playing this character who

[1:44:23] in a way is similar to his character in glen glary glen ross except he's even more at his

[1:44:29] wits end and even more showing that he's

[1:44:31] coming apart at the seams and

[1:44:33] I really liked it a lot even though again like I said

[1:44:35] you gotta be in the mood to watch a movie about a guy who

[1:44:37] seemingly has it all but is still

[1:44:39] upset with his life and unhappy about it

[1:44:40] so that's Save the Tiger with

[1:44:42] Jack Lemmon

[1:44:44] this is the movie that this is the movie Jack Lemmon

[1:44:47] won his best actor academy award for

[1:44:48] so that's how good it is that's how good

[1:44:51] it is nobody ever wins academy

[1:44:53] awards for things that are not good

[1:44:54] never ever in the history of the academy

[1:44:57] awards they're perfect

[1:44:58] so guys

[1:45:00] well

[1:45:01] this has been

[1:45:02] a fun experiment

[1:45:03] with a different

[1:45:04] sort of

[1:45:05] Flophouse episode

[1:45:06] okay

[1:45:07] are you

[1:45:09] dumping us

[1:45:10] so

[1:45:12] yeah

[1:45:13] so

[1:45:13] we

[1:45:14] our show

[1:45:15] is on the

[1:45:15] Maximum Fun

[1:45:16] podcast network

[1:45:17] there's a ton

[1:45:17] of other great

[1:45:18] shows you can

[1:45:18] find over at

[1:45:19] what

[1:45:19] Maximum Fun

[1:45:20] dot org

[1:45:20] that's right

[1:45:21] tons of other

[1:45:23] shows both

[1:45:24] about pop culture

[1:45:25] about comedy

[1:45:26] check them out

[1:45:27] And if you get a chance and you're so inclined, head over to iTunes and rate or review our little show because it helps.

[1:45:37] Yeah, if you want to tweet about us with the hashtag Flophouse, that would be great.

[1:45:42] We're on Twitter at the Flophouse pod.

[1:45:45] And also all three of us are just on Twitter on our own.

[1:45:48] Yeah, leave us reviews wherever you listen to podcasts.

[1:45:51] Tell people about us, whatever you want to do.

[1:45:54] Get the word out.

[1:45:55] Buy some commercials on local TV airtime.

[1:45:57] maybe some ads in the newspaper, billboards,

[1:45:59] whatever you want to do to get the word out,

[1:46:02] we are pretty much okay with it.

[1:46:04] Well, thank you for that.

[1:46:06] Don't buy three billboards.

[1:46:07] Well, it depends on where you're located right now.

[1:46:11] I don't think it's that great.

[1:46:12] I got to admit, that was a movie I was so curious to watch

[1:46:15] because I was like, people really have strong emotions about it.

[1:46:17] And we started watching it on HBO, and about a half hour in,

[1:46:20] I was like, I think I got to go do the dishes.

[1:46:22] And I just have not had much interest in returning to it.

[1:46:25] So, again, but they won Academy Awards for it.

[1:46:27] So maybe I'm wrong.

[1:46:28] All right, guys.

[1:46:30] The way you said that doesn't make it sound like you think you're wrong.

[1:46:34] So I'm doing that thing that you asked me to do earlier,

[1:46:39] which I just interrupt you and take the wheel.

[1:46:43] Look at him learn.

[1:46:44] You're doing it great.

[1:46:45] I love it.

[1:46:45] Yeah, take the lead.

[1:46:46] So for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:46:49] I've been Stuart Wellington, and I'm holding Dan's cat, Archie.

[1:46:53] I'm Elliot Kalin, and I'm so impressed and proud of the way Dan has found the confidence and also the strength to really take the reins of the show and lead it where he wants to go.

[1:47:03] He's becoming more of an auteur.

[1:47:05] Wait, hold on.

[1:47:06] I've got to do it again.

[1:47:07] Let's stop.

[1:47:08] Goodbye.

[1:47:10] Bye.

[1:47:12] What?

[1:47:18] So, Dan, yesterday my son drew a stick figure.

[1:47:22] He goes, this looks like Dan.

[1:47:24] And he went, Dan, over the top of it.

[1:47:25] I'll send you a picture of it.

[1:47:27] I'll do that later today.

[1:47:28] Oh, that's so sweet.

[1:47:28] Was the stick figure covered in defining features?

[1:47:31] He had three fingers on each hand and three toes on each foot.

[1:47:36] Yep, that sounds like it's Dan to a T.

[1:47:38] Completely bald, no hair, no clothes, but the body had no discernible genitalia.

[1:47:45] It was just sticks.

[1:47:46] Okay.

[1:47:47] And the look on the face I would call puckish.

[1:47:50] Okay, well, I like that.

[1:47:52] That makes me feel a little better.

[1:47:55] Yeah.

[1:47:56] Oh, yeah, he's got a very positive view of you.

[1:48:00] He talks about you all the time.

[1:48:01] Oh, that's nice.

[1:48:01] Stuart he talks about sometimes.

[1:48:02] There was one time when, oh, what was it?

[1:48:05] I was talking about, I was like,

[1:48:08] do you remember this kid that you knew in New York?

[1:48:10] And we were friends with his family.

[1:48:12] And he goes, Stuart?

[1:48:17] Yep. I mean, that sounds like me, a kid.

[1:48:20] So Sammy might think you're a little kid.

[1:48:23] Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah. I figured that I figured that he would mention me when you're like

[1:48:30] walking by, uh, by an alleyway and there's like a raccoon digging through the garbage

[1:48:36] and he stops and thinks for a second that he's like, dad, do you talk to Stuart anymore?

[1:48:44] MaximumFun.org.

[1:48:45] Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

[1:48:47] Listener supported.

Ep. #270 - Interview with the Vampire

Chapters

Transcript

Description