Ep. #265 - Geostorm LIVE

S2

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Geostorm, live in Washington, D.C.

Elliott Kalan

[0:30] Hey everyone, and welcome to the Blue One.

[0:38] Did it. Did it in one. Done in one.

[0:42] That's why they call him Dan in one.

[0:46] Not because you've only ever had one Dan in yogurt in your life,

[0:50] but because you do everything in one take.

[0:52] We're recording now, Dan.

S2

[0:53] Alright. Let's do that one more time.

[0:58] We'll put that on the bloop for y'all.

[1:03] Hey, and welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:05] Hey, Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07] And I'm Elliot Kalin, and together we're...

Stuart Wellington

[1:10] The Flophouse.

[1:15] Featuring...

[1:16] Dan McCoy.

[1:18] And...

[1:18] Stuart Wellington.

[1:19] And me, Elliot Kalin.

S2

[1:21] And together we are...

[1:23] The Flophouse.

[1:25] Oh boy.

[1:25] I'm caught in a time loop.

[1:26] Yeah.

[1:27] I'm stuck in a geostorm.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30] Now another word for a time loop is a wristwatch.

S2

[1:36] Thanks.

[1:37] Thanks, asshole.

Stuart Wellington

[1:41] So, Dan, what are we doing?

[1:43] So guys, I want to talk about something today.

[1:45] I want to talk about the weather.

[1:47] I don't know if you noticed, but it's raining outside.

[1:49] And you know what rain is a precursor to?

[1:51] What?

[1:53] The Geostorm.

[1:54] Thank you.

[1:55] Which is a movie we watched and are going to talk about tonight on the Flophouse podcast.

[2:00] Starring me, Stuart Wellington.

[2:01] And me, Elliot Kalin.

S2

[2:03] And me, Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[2:04] It's a time loop, like a watch.

[2:05] In the Flophouse.

[2:08] Okay, guys.

[2:09] We're in Washington, D.C.

[2:14] Okay, that's the last time you guys are going to cheer when we say Washington, D.C.

[2:20] Dan, I cannot work with these people.

S2

[2:23] All right, bring in the next crowd.

[2:26] Bring in the audience's understudies.

Elliott Kalan

[2:29] Now, Washington, D.C. is full of political power.

[2:32] But you know what it's not full of?

[2:33] Stop it!

[2:36] It's not full of weather power.

[2:39] Like we see in today's movie, Geostorm.

[2:42] The story of Italian immigrant Geostormini.

[2:46] And how he worked his way up from a humble boot picker.

[2:50] Someone who picks boots off trees when they are thrown there by rich people who do not care to clean them.

[2:56] And how he made his way to being the top weatherman in the country.

[2:59] And now they call him Sam Champion.

S2

[3:03] I think that's a local reference.

[3:04] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[3:05] And it's a local reference not to this region.

[3:07] Yeah.

[3:09] Dan, I am so busy in my life.

[3:11] I don't have time to look up who the weatherman of Washington, D.C. is.

[3:13] Or weatherwoman.

[3:14] Or weatherwizard.

[3:17] I don't know who the Captain Cold is in Washington, D.C.

S2

[3:20] I would like the idea that there is a weatherwizard that does the weather here in D.C.

[3:26] On the local channel.

Stuart Wellington

[3:27] It's just like, today I feel like I need a cold snap.

[3:32] See, it's voices like that that, I don't know, I feel like you're being prejudiced against wizards.

Elliott Kalan

[3:38] Yeah, maybe he's using his powers to make life better.

[3:41] You know who's a wizard people like?

[3:42] Dumbledore.

S2

[3:43] I thought you were going to say Mr. Wizard.

Elliott Kalan

[3:45] He's not really a wizard, Dan.

S2

[3:47] Oh, I, like, science isn't magical, Elliot.

[3:52] You got me there.

Elliott Kalan

[3:54] Because there's nothing more magical than science except the laughter of children.

[3:58] And Mr. Wizard?

[3:59] Well, he didn't actually cause kids to laugh.

[4:01] No, he didn't.

[4:02] He just felt bad, right?

S2

[4:02] He just put acids and bases together and saw them fizz.

Elliott Kalan

[4:06] And aces of bases together.

[4:09] So we've effectively...

[4:10] Busiest pop group.

[4:12] We've effectively derailed this show.

[4:14] So what we do on this podcast is we watch a bad movie, then we talk about it.

[4:18] And today we're talking about...

[4:20] Geostorm.

[4:21] Thank you.

[4:21] So guys, before we get started...

[4:24] I have something to say about Geostorm.

[4:27] Okay.

[4:29] Geostorm is, and I use this in the technical term, the technical sense of the word, a dumb movie.

[4:37] Oh, okay.

[4:38] It is so dumb, and it's...

[4:39] I'm gonna...

[4:40] I'm gonna classify...

Stuart Wellington

[4:41] Did anybody out there watch Geostorm?

[4:45] Oh, boy.

[4:46] You're welcome, Geostorm!

[4:48] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[4:49] Where's our check, Gerari Butts?

[4:51] That's Gerard Butler's nickname that I gave him, Gerari Butts.

[4:54] He does not like it.

[4:55] No.

[4:56] So Geostorm is a new type of dumb, or rather an old type of dumb.

[5:00] And I'm gonna classify it as something I call 80s action dumb.

[5:04] Because when you watch an action movie from the 80s, you gotta accept a certain amount of stupid.

[5:08] And they just don't care.

[5:10] They'll just throw whatever dumb at you.

[5:11] And Geostorm is like that.

[5:13] It's just hurling dumb at you constantly.

Stuart Wellington

[5:15] Mm-hmm.

[5:15] It's a stupid movie.

[5:18] That's true.

[5:18] Yeah, but I find some comfort in that.

[5:20] Like, it doesn't waste time.

[5:21] It just keeps moving...

[5:22] Well, we'll get to final judgments.

Elliott Kalan

[5:25] Freeze frame.

[5:26] Hey, you're probably wondering how Geostorm got so dumb.

[5:28] Well, it all started like this.

[5:31] Guys, should we talk about what Geostorm's about?

S2

[5:33] Let's, yeah, let's get into the synopsis of Geostorm.

Elliott Kalan

[5:36] Now, you probably think Geostorm is about a world where natural disasters have gotten out of control.

[5:41] And they've got to band together to fight...

[5:43] Earth has got to band together to stop this.

[5:45] What you don't know is that's the subject of the opening VO, which tells you how, in the future, ecological catastrophe was threatening the world with natural disasters, and the world banded together to stop it.

[5:56] And did.

[5:58] That's the opening of the movie.

[5:59] They did it already.

S2

[6:00] Narration over the finest stock footage that money could buy.

Elliott Kalan

[6:03] And then it turns into the finest CGI disaster footage that I assume they did not have money to buy.

Stuart Wellington

[6:11] You know it's going to be a good movie when that opening monologue is delivered by a child.

Elliott Kalan

[6:16] Oh, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[6:18] Name one bad movie.

[6:18] If she had mentioned a prophecy, you know it would have gotten the Academy over.

S2

[6:22] My mama always told me about Geostorms.

Stuart Wellington

[6:25] You know a lot about Geostorms.

Elliott Kalan

[6:28] Daddy always said that the Geostorm was going to come for us someday.

[6:32] I just didn't know this would be the day.

[6:36] Geostorm, opening titles.

[6:37] And then, like, I don't know, God tells his angels to go call humanity or something.

[6:42] Anyway, it's a different type of little girl giving a VO.

[6:45] She says, America and the world fought back, and scientists neutralized the storms with a system of satellites called Dutch Boy.

[6:53] After the paint they used to coat the satellites.

[6:57] It could have been called the Red Devil System.

S2

[7:00] Or after the delicious pancake.

Elliott Kalan

[7:02] See, I thought it was named after...

S2

[7:05] I believe there's a Dutch Boy pancake.

[7:06] Am I right or wrong?

[7:08] There's a Dutch pancake.

[7:09] There's not a Dutch boy.

[7:10] All right.

Elliott Kalan

[7:10] I guess Dutch Boy pancakes are...

S2

[7:12] Dutch baby.

[7:13] Dutch baby.

[7:13] That's what I'm thinking of.

[7:14] I haven't heard of that either.

[7:16] They named a pancake after a Dutch infant.

[7:21] Makes you feel like you're eating an infant every time you have it.

Elliott Kalan

[7:26] Stuart, how do you feel about that?

Stuart Wellington

[7:29] I'm just thinking about eating an infant.

[7:31] No.

[7:32] The, uh...

[7:33] I assume that it was named after, uh...

[7:36] German hip-hop act, Deichkind.

[7:41] But I guess after Dutch pancakes makes sense, too.

[7:44] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:44] No, Dutch Boy is named after the classic tale of the flood that will engulf the city of Dutch.

[7:51] Because the wall has a hole in it, and then a little Dutch boy sticks his finger in the hole in the wall,

[7:56] I assume dying in the process,

[7:58] and turns back the mighty course of God's rivers.

S2

[8:02] I like the idea that he has to stay there for the rest of his life.

Elliott Kalan

[8:05] What was they going to do?

[8:06] The other side of the wall is a raging torrent.

[8:08] They have to spackle it there.

[8:09] They can't do it.

S2

[8:10] Eighty years later, he finally just passes away, and the city dies.

Stuart Wellington

[8:15] No, I assume...

[8:16] I mean, he lived to 80-something years old.

[8:19] That's a full life, Dan.

S2

[8:20] It's true.

[8:21] A rich, full life of standing by a wall.

Stuart Wellington

[8:24] I mean, presumably looking at tulips?

Elliott Kalan

[8:27] Yeah.

[8:28] Yeah, it's Dutch.

[8:28] Eating pancakes?

[8:29] Story checks out.

[8:30] Wooden shoes, windmills, all that stuff.

[8:32] Here's the thing.

S2

[8:34] Hollywood, why have we not had our grim and gritty reboot of the Dutch Boy story?

Elliott Kalan

[8:37] Where he, like, chops his finger off with an axe after he sticks it in the wall,

[8:42] and he's like, there's your damn plug.

S2

[8:44] Yeah.

[8:46] But we're like five seconds into the film at this point.

Elliott Kalan

[8:49] The girl who's doing the VO says her dad was the scientist who led the team.

[8:53] Wouldn't you know who her dad is?

[8:55] Star of the movie, Gerard Butler.

[8:58] The guy who's doing the same thing.

Elliott Kalan

[9:09] And being accosted by some dude on the sidewalk.

[9:12] Who's like, hey, you're the Dutch boy guy.

[9:14] Thanks for saving everybody.

[9:15] He's the security guy.

[9:18] Still weird that he's just like, hey, you're the Dutch boy.

[9:20] If he's the security guy, he should know that the Dutch boy scientist is going to testify before the Senate that day.

[9:25] So why is he like, hey, look who it is.

Stuart Wellington

[9:27] When you see the Dutch boy guy in person for the first time.

[9:30] Like you can't help but tell him all of his accomplishments.

Elliott Kalan

[9:34] Except later when the Dutch boy guy is given his team of scientists.

[9:38] And they do not recognize him.

[9:40] The most famous scientist in the world who invented the system they use.

[9:44] And is the head of their field.

[9:46] And looks like Gerard Butler.

[9:48] Anyway, so we'll get to that.

[9:50] Gerard Butler as we see in this hearing is a bad boy of science.

[9:53] He keeps flouting proper procedure.

[9:54] Which means the Senate gets mad and he gets fired by the new head of the Dutch boy system.

[9:59] His younger brother Max.

[10:00] Oh!

[10:01] And that makes it sound like Max is like eight.

[10:03] Which would be amazing.

[10:05] Yeah.

[10:06] But no, he's just like, he's just a few years younger.

S2

[10:08] And now we've got family steaks.

[10:10] Because the steaks of the world being destroyed later on are not enough.

[10:13] We need to know whether Gerard Butler makes up with his brother.

Elliott Kalan

[10:16] Or whether they have a delicious dinner at family steaks.

[10:19] The best place to take your family for steak.

S2

[10:22] Hey.

[10:23] It's a little on the nose.

Elliott Kalan

[10:24] We've never wondered what your family would taste like in steak form.

[10:27] We know what they taste like in pancake form.

[10:29] If they're a baby at least.

[10:30] But what about in steak form?

[10:32] Well, if you wanted to find out in the past, you'd get arrested.

[10:36] For killing and eating your family.

[10:38] But now you don't have to at Family Steaks.

[10:41] We give every member of your family a long questionnaire about their hobbies, dreams,

[10:46] maybe their secret wishes and fears.

[10:48] Then we take an inner cheek swab and decode their genome.

[10:52] Hey, did you know that you are .06% Navajo?

[10:56] Well, you do now.

[10:57] And it's going to be in your steak.

[10:59] So, that's the family steaks difference.

[11:02] Every steak costs $40,000.

[11:05] And it takes six months.

[11:08] That's called aged beef.

[11:11] Anyway, so Max is put in charge of the Dutch boy system.

[11:14] Three years later, for some reason we jump forward in time.

[11:18] Some UN peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan, because that's right.

[11:21] Scientists have been able to tame the weather, but we're still stuck in Afghanistan.

[11:27] They find a frozen village.

[11:29] Everyone there, in the middle of the desert, has been flash frozen.

[11:32] And one soldier, he accidentally snapped.

Stuart Wellington

[11:34] It looks like the worst Coors Light commercial.

[11:39] Like if that Coors Light bullet train drove by and then like flash froze everybody and they died.

Elliott Kalan

[11:44] Somebody tapped the Rockies in Afghanistan, which is doubly bad.

[11:47] One, because it's a war crime.

[11:49] Two, they don't drink.

[11:50] That's offensive.

[11:51] Yeah.

[11:53] One of the soldiers, he reaches out and touches a villager's hand, which snaps off at the highest.

[11:58] Don't do that, dude.

[11:59] That's not part of the rules of engagement, just snapping people's hands off.

S2

[12:03] And then he pops it into his drink.

[12:04] He's like, hmm, chili.

Elliott Kalan

[12:07] Well, he shouldn't pop it into his chili.

[12:09] You want your chili to be hot.

[12:11] Anyway, Max, we see him flirting with his girlfriend, a Secret Service agent, played by Abby Cornish.

[12:19] Abby Cornish.

[12:20] Where do I know Abby Cornish from?

[12:21] Aside from the hen that bears her name.

S2

[12:23] Well, you took the joke right out from under me, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[12:26] Well, you gotta wake up pretty early in the morning to make a poultry-based joke that I'm not gonna get to first.

[12:31] As my son said to me a week ago, when he was trying to convince me we should have chicken parmesan for dinner,

[12:37] and this is a direct quote, he said, it has chicken, which you love.

[12:41] He knows me pretty well, that boy of mine.

[12:46] Where do I know Abby Cornish from?

Stuart Wellington

[12:48] I don't...

[12:49] She plays Woody Harrelson's wife in Three Billboards.

[12:53] I haven't seen that yet.

[12:54] Oh.

[12:55] She was in Sucker Punch, a movie that you definitely watched once.

Elliott Kalan

[12:59] Oh, yeah, for this show.

[13:00] Okay, anyway, they have a secret relationship, because she's in the Secret Service.

[13:04] How ironic can you get?

[13:05] That's like rain on your wedding day.

[13:09] And there's a Security Council meeting.

[13:11] President Andy Garcia, because he's now at the playing the president stage of his career,

[13:15] when he's the president in somebody else's movie, a younger person's movie,

[13:19] there's a problem with the satellites, and Secretary of State Decim, played by Ed Harris,

[13:24] so you know he's the bad guy instantly, because he's a grizzled, bald cyborg of a man.

S2

[13:30] He's got two things going against him.

[13:32] Number one, he's the second in command, so always the second in command is the bad guy.

[13:37] Number two, he is Ed Harris.

Elliott Kalan

[13:39] Yeah, and his name is Decim, which is like...

[13:42] That's not a human name, is it?

[13:43] Yeah.

[13:45] Like, if his name was Digim, and he was a cereal frog mascot,

[13:49] I'd be like, that's more realistic than if his name is Decim.

S2

[13:52] Yeah, it's a thing that you yell when you're in a bar fight.

[13:54] Decim!

Elliott Kalan

[13:57] If you're in a bar fight in the 20s.

[13:58] Yeah.

[14:00] They say there's a problem with the satellites, and Max, he has this moment where he goes,

[14:04] hey, you know what?

[14:05] I'm going to take a stand here.

[14:06] And also, the United States is about to hand over control of these satellites to the UN.

[14:10] Why the United States had control of them when it was an international effort, I don't know, dude.

[14:13] We just take shit.

[14:14] That's what we do.

[14:15] But the little brother goes, hey, let's send scientists up there to fix it.

[14:20] And he says it like this is, he's really swimming against the tide like a salmon to spawn on this one.

[14:25] And Ed Harris says, the president says, no, we'll send one person we can control.

[14:29] And Ed Harris says, get me Gremlin Battler.

S2

[14:36] That's right.

[14:37] It's weird that he used our nickname for Gerard Butler in the movie.

[14:40] We've become part of the vernacular, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[14:42] Yeah.

[14:43] So this is where Gerard Butler comes back into the movie.

[14:47] We find out that he's a bad dad and that he also happens to like soccer.

[14:51] So it makes me believe.

[14:52] Yep.

[14:53] You see what's going on here.

[14:54] It makes me believe that he insists on that being included in all scripts.

[14:59] That he's like, the Flophouse boys made it canon.

[15:04] So I might as well add it to all me movies.

Elliott Kalan

[15:10] So Max convinces Jake to leave his precocious, swearing 13-year-old daughter and go back up into space.

[15:16] Because also on the International Space Station, where the Dutch boy system is controlled,

[15:21] a technician from what, Egypt?

[15:23] His name is Mahmoud.

[15:24] I couldn't recognize the flag on his arm.

[15:26] I think it's Egyptian.

[15:28] I apologize if it's not.

[15:29] Look, I don't know flags.

[15:30] I'm not some kind of Carmen Sandiego.

[15:33] Who knows all the flags.

S2

[15:34] Oh, good.

[15:35] I mean, because if you are, I'd have to make a citizen's arrest.

Elliott Kalan

[15:37] You need to know three things about me though, Dan.

[15:40] Do you know the color of my eyes, my favorite food, and my favorite artist?

[15:43] Because if you don't, you can't hold me, copper.

[15:47] I guess that's the law.

[15:50] We've got all this security footage of Carmen Sandiego taking the diamonds,

[15:53] but we don't know her favorite food.

Stuart Wellington

[15:56] I mean, just put pizza down, dude.

[16:00] It's a safe bet.

Elliott Kalan

[16:04] This technician, he learns something about the satellites that's not good.

[16:07] He hides the readings he's got on his hollow, it's a hologram clipboard.

S2

[16:12] Yeah, they've got like these little pins that they can whip and they turn into like a little hologram, like, like,

[16:17] Notepad.

[16:19] Yeah, it's like a screen.

Stuart Wellington

[16:20] This is the movie, this is the point where the movie lost me, because they have this technology to control the weather,

[16:25] and they have this technology to carry tiny little hologram video screens, but while this guy's walking through the space station,

[16:31] he passes a guy playing video games with a wired controller.

Elliott Kalan

[16:36] What the fuck?

[16:39] You're right.

[16:40] When you're right, you're right, Stuart.

[16:43] Take that, Geostorm.

[16:44] The one flaw.

[16:46] This is...

[16:47] You're a perfect shimmering diamond before that.

[16:50] The one part of Smog's underbelly not covered in a thick bed of jewels,

[16:55] and thus vulnerable to an arrow from, what's the guy?

[16:58] Bard Bowman.

Stuart Wellington

[17:00] Bard Bowman?

[17:01] Bard Bowman's the guy who shoots Smog the dragon.

Elliott Kalan

[17:03] Yeah, I didn't remember his name.

[17:04] I'm sorry, I don't know the name of every character in that book.

Stuart Wellington

[17:05] I mean, it's a pretty simple name.

[17:06] Okay, don't.

[17:07] Don't.

[17:08] Don't.

[17:09] Guys, guys, guys.

[17:10] This is tearing the pop-ups apart.

Elliott Kalan

[17:11] How am I supposed to remember that the Bowman's name is Bowman?

[17:14] An example of Tolkien's rich linguistic skills at work.

[17:18] The man invented multiple languages, but he's like, he's a Bowman, let's call him Bowman, whatever.

[17:24] Okay.

[17:25] That guy, he finds some secret readings, hides his hologram clipboard in a locker,

[17:30] and then is immediately trapped in a hallway, and then all the walls fly off the hallway,

[17:34] and he's sucked into space and killed.

[17:36] This looks like a job.

[17:39] What?

Elliott Kalan

[17:39] For Gerard Butler.

[17:40] For Gerard Butler.

[17:41] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[17:42] Meanwhile-

[17:43] It wasn't a trick question.

[17:44] Good.

[17:45] No, it's not.

[17:46] Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, a scientist, Cheng, he sees that the Afghan satellite over the frozen village-

[17:51] We're like 10 minutes into the movie right now.

[17:53] Yeah.

[17:54] Is acting weird.

[17:55] He tries to call Max, who is his old college roommate.

[17:58] He goes and he gets his voicemail.

[17:59] This is my favorite part.

[18:00] He goes to a bodega and interacts with a cat in a freezer for a while.

[18:03] Yeah.

[18:04] Oh, that's pretty adorable.

[18:05] Yeah.

[18:06] And then, suddenly the streets start exploding, and he has to drive away as skyscrapers fall

[18:10] down around him.

S2

[18:11] Yeah, he's somehow outrunning hot streets in his car, and I'm like, why aren't the tires

[18:17] melting?

Stuart Wellington

[18:18] Like, I love the movie Streets of Fire, but this is ridiculous.

[18:23] Mm-hmm.

[18:24] Right, Dan?

Elliott Kalan

[18:25] Yeah, sure.

[18:26] Streets of Fire, Walt's a Hill movie.

[18:27] Check us out.

[18:28] I grade an A-plus on the math of that joke.

[18:32] No extra credit needed.

S2

[18:34] Only it's at the chalkboard of mathematical proof.

[18:37] Let me work it out.

Elliott Kalan

[18:38] Okay, I'll tell you.

[18:39] Yep, Streets on Fire, Streets of Fire.

[18:40] It is ridiculous.

[18:41] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[18:42] Square the circle, and we're done.

[18:44] So, this makes me wonder, people like could tell that it was super hot, and that makes

[18:49] me wonder, if we live on a planet where you can control the weather all the time, why wouldn't

[18:55] it just be nice everywhere all the time?

Elliott Kalan

[18:57] I mean, that's not really how climate works.

[18:59] Like, you need rain and snow and things like that.

[19:02] But do you?

[19:03] I mean, you have science controlling the weather.

[19:07] See, it's outside of the box.

[19:08] Is this Elon Musk at the table right now?

[19:10] Hold on a second.

[19:11] No one's ever thought about this before.

[19:13] Gus, I'm just saying, a series of tubes around a city would get people around really fast.

[19:18] We've got to build them.

[19:19] I call them musk tubes.

[19:20] He's disrupting weather.

[19:23] I mean, that's the problem is we are disrupting weather.

[19:27] Oh, okay.

Stuart Wellington

[19:28] Yeah.

[19:29] So, at this point, it's pretty clear, I mean, it was pretty clear to me right away that this

[19:32] guy is being assassinated by a satellite, right?

[19:35] Yes, or they're trying to.

[19:36] Or they're trying to.

[19:37] This isn't some freak accident that this satellite is trying to burn him alive, which seems like

[19:41] a crazy way to kill one person.

[19:43] Oh, Stuart.

[19:44] Oh, boy.

[19:45] Wait for the rest of the movie.

[19:46] Watch out.

Elliott Kalan

[19:47] So, Gerard Butler goes up to the space station on his own.

[19:50] They send an entire space shuttle up and he seems to be the only one sitting on it, which

[19:53] is a waste of fuel.

[19:54] Let's just say that.

[19:55] He arrives and then we see a student.

Stuart Wellington

[19:56] It's the ultimate luxury and when he arrives, he talks to the space station as if it was

[20:00] a former lover.

[20:02] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[20:03] He arrives and is rude to the new head scientist, a German woman named what, Ute?

[20:08] Ute?

Dan McCoy

[20:09] What was her name?

[20:10] Yeah, Ute I think is right.

Elliott Kalan

[20:11] Yeah, it's anyway, I don't know if that's a real German name or if it's a name like

[20:14] Deckham, which is like a Star Wars name where George Lucas was like, hmm, I prefer

[20:18] Mace Windu and threw out Deckham.

[20:21] Then he's introduced to his team, who are all international scientists and they introduce

[20:26] themselves and the English member of the team, Duncan, is like, oh great, an American's

[20:31] in charge and now he's going to tell us what to do just like an American.

[20:34] He's like, let me introduce myself.

[20:36] I'm Jake Lawson, inventor of the Dutch boy.

[20:38] And they're like, you're Jake Lawson?

[20:40] And it's like, hold on a second.

[20:42] Like I said, the security guy at the Capitol building recognized him on site.

[20:47] The people who work in his field at the place he built, isn't his picture up somewhere?

[20:53] Like, even as just like our old manager?

[20:56] Like what?

[20:57] He was in the newspaper, I assume.

S2

[20:59] By the way, Elliot, the reverb in this place is a lot.

[21:03] So for a second I thought you were saying, I'm Jake Awesome.

[21:06] Which...

[21:07] They should have called him that.

Elliott Kalan

[21:10] Just been all the way.

[21:11] So this movie is dumb.

[21:13] The scientist, he tells Max, that explosion back in Hong Kong, those weren't just burst pipes.

[21:19] And it's like, no shit dude, like half the city blew up.

[21:22] And they try to get into the Hong Kong satellite.

[21:24] Their access has been blocked.

[21:26] And Chang warns Max that if Dutch boy breaks down, it could cause a chain reaction of storms

[21:32] and bad weather meeting to...

Dan McCoy

[21:33] Called?

[21:34] Called?

[21:35] A geostorm.

[21:36] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[21:37] And once the geostorm starts, nothing can stop it.

[21:40] Not even the power of love.

[21:43] The most powerful thing in the universe.

[21:45] So get out of here, Huey Lewis.

[21:46] And that doesn't take money.

S2

[21:47] It doesn't take fame.

[21:48] Nope.

[21:49] Don't need a credit card to ride that train.

Elliott Kalan

[21:51] No.

[21:52] That's very ahead of his time that he was talking about buying a train ticket with a credit card.

[21:57] Because you couldn't really do that at the time.

S2

[21:59] Yeah, that's right.

[22:00] Yeah.

[22:02] Huey Lewis futurist.

Elliott Kalan

[22:03] That's more than Raymond Kurzweil.

[22:05] I don't see any fucking singularities going on.

[22:08] Huey Lewis, any notice that it is hip to be square these days?

[22:11] Am I right with these tech billionaires and everything?

[22:13] Huey Lewis, it should have been called Huey Lewis and the Nostradamuses.

[22:17] All right.

Stuart Wellington

[22:18] It's that kind of forward thinking that reminds me of that Van Halen song, Panama,

[22:22] where one of the scat lines, I'm pretty sure David Lee Roth says,

[22:26] set your cell phone down.

[22:29] Which is wild.

Elliott Kalan

[22:31] It's just like there was that Charlie Chaplin movie from a while ago where people were like,

[22:35] a woman's using a cell phone in the background.

[22:37] Look at that.

[22:38] It was like, well, she's clearly not, but okay.

[22:40] You know what?

[22:41] If that's the world you want to live in, and sure, Kazam starring Sinbad was a movie.

[22:45] Like, sure, okay.

[22:47] Oh no, Shazam is the one they say.

[22:49] Wait, which one is it?

[22:51] Oh boy.

[22:52] Let's not even get started with that.

[22:53] Then we're going down the Berenstain Berenstain wormhole.

[22:57] Anywho.

[22:58] Cheng goes back to work, but gunmen raid his office and he has to hide in the closet.

[23:02] Uh oh.

[23:03] Max goes to the techie that works for him, Zazie Beetz from Atlanta, and the hit film Deadpool 2.

S2

[23:10] She's one of the best things about the movie.

[23:11] She actually sells her material.

Elliott Kalan

[23:13] She is, because she's great, and she's much better than this movie deserves.

[23:16] Yeah.

[23:17] Uh, she's good in everything.

[23:19] Except maybe something I haven't seen her in.

[23:21] I shouldn't make these sweeping statements like that.

Stuart Wellington

[23:23] Write a letter in and yell at Elliot if he's wrong about that.

Elliott Kalan

[23:25] Write a letter saying, no, Zazie Beetz was bad in one thing, care of Elliot Kalin.

[23:29] See care of the Flophouse podcast, Dan's house.

[23:33] Can I give them your address, Dan?

Stuart Wellington

[23:35] No.

[23:36] Or if you want to deliver your complaint in person after the show, you can just come up to Dan McCoy and tell him why Elliot's wrong.

Elliott Kalan

[23:42] Yeah, please tell Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[23:44] Wait, why am I the, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[23:45] And she's like, we've been blocked out of the satellites intentionally.

[23:48] Someone's trying to keep us from controlling the satellites.

[23:50] Uh, Jake and Max have, they have a call and they have some back and forth brother personal history.

[23:54] They argue, it's not exactly a duel of acting titans.

[23:57] And they both, let me just say this both, despite them being super smart scientists or political operators,

[24:03] they both have that like, Donnie from the block accent.

[24:06] Hey, you're my brother, come on.

[24:08] I'm up here in this, I'm a super scientist who made a weather control satellite.

[24:11] Come on, forget, come on.

[24:12] Come on, you're my brother, come on.

[24:14] Come on, you're my old brother, come on.

[24:17] That kind of stuff.

[24:18] They're all Fredo.

[24:19] They all sound like Fredo.

[24:20] Yeah.

[24:21] Because actors who are not American, that is the easiest accent for them to do.

[24:27] It's why Venom in the new movie is like, you know, I'm a reporter from the newspaper.

[24:31] Oh, not alien symbiote.

Stuart Wellington

[24:32] Dan just gave me a look because when we were driving down here today in a rest stop, we saw a license plate that just said, for Alfredo.

[24:41] And we were wondering, is that a person or the sauce?

[24:44] Yeah, we were really hoping it was for the sauce.

[24:47] Because I mean, that kind of describes my whole lifestyle, right?

[24:53] Isn't that what it's all about?

[24:54] Just doing it for Alfredo?

[24:57] And before you say something, Alfredo is not the name of the character Alf.

[25:01] His name is Alfred, right?

Elliott Kalan

[25:02] No, his name is Gordon Shumway.

[25:04] What?

[25:05] Alf stands for alien life form.

[25:07] What are you saying?

[25:08] It's a Berenstain, Berenstain Bears moment for you, Stuart.

[25:13] Alf's name is Gordon, because he's an alien.

[25:16] Anyway, so now we have a series of scenes where someone is using the satellite equipment to try to kill Gerard Butler and make it look like it was an accident.

[25:25] First, they make an actual satellite go zooming around crazy time in a hallway.

[25:29] Then they go on a spacewalk to get some data drive that was embedded after an explosion or some nonsense.

[25:34] And his spacesuit jets fly around.

[25:38] And he's like, he retrieves the data that has the thing that the guy who got killed earlier had.

[25:43] And he tells nobody but Oot, because he smells a rat on the team.

[25:46] Meanwhile...

Stuart Wellington

[25:47] Yeah, I feel like that space sequence was basically like, what if we took all of gravity and condensed it and made it less fun?

[25:55] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[25:56] And made the special effects worse.

[26:00] To be fair.

[26:01] And instead of it being Sandra Bullock, who we don't want to die, it's Gerard Butler.

[26:06] Who we want dead.

[26:08] Who I guess, he hurtled into a star, we wouldn't care.

[26:10] I mean, I wouldn't spend that much time worrying about it, to be honest.

[26:14] Like, no offense to Gerard Butler, he doesn't weigh that heavily on my life.

[26:17] There are certain stars where if they fell into a literal star, I'd be like, oh, that's terrible.

[26:22] And I can't think of any of them.

S2

[26:24] And you'd be like, oh, how did that happen?

[26:26] I'd be like...

[26:27] Weird that a Hollywood star died by hurtling into a star.

[26:31] I don't know how it works.

Stuart Wellington

[26:32] I'd confuse the two of them.

Elliott Kalan

[26:33] I mean, like, Elijah Wood, he'd really found a niche for himself as like this cult guy and

[26:37] he had his own record label and stuff.

[26:39] And, oh, it's too bad he fell into a star.

[26:42] But Gerard Butler's like, I don't know, whatever, okay.

[26:45] Should have been a real butler, taken a lesson from his name, not gotten involved in space hijinks.

[26:50] Unless, do you think, he becomes a space butler?

Stuart Wellington

[26:53] Like what, in heaven?

[26:57] Or if he's left in outer space?

Elliott Kalan

[27:00] Like, what would a space butler do?

[27:02] What would their job be?

[27:03] He can't dust anything, because that dust is just going to fly around in zero-G.

Stuart Wellington

[27:06] I mean, you would probably greet people when they come into outer space.

[27:10] Dan, what does a butler do in real life?

Elliott Kalan

[27:14] The only butler I know anything about is Alfred or Mr. Belvedere.

[27:18] And I have to assume butlers...

[27:19] Uh, Jeeves?

S2

[27:20] The most famous butler in the world?

Elliott Kalan

[27:23] Uh, the search engine?

[27:24] Get a load of this guy.

S2

[27:27] I mean, you know, he's a famous PG Woodhouse character, and you also get to ask him things.

[27:34] All right.

[27:36] That was a dead end.

Elliott Kalan

[27:37] I apologize to everybody.

[27:39] I introduced...

[27:40] No, this is my fault.

[27:41] I introduced the idea of a space butler, and I thought that might be funny in some way.

[27:46] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[27:46] But I was wrong.

Stuart Wellington

[27:47] So, okay.

[27:48] You were thinking of like a Mega Maid type situation from Spaceballs?

[27:51] Yeah, like a Mega Maid.

[27:52] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[27:53] Now you're talking Mega Maid from the funniest movie ever made when I was 11, Spaceballs.

[27:58] Mm-hmm.

[27:59] Okay.

[28:00] Max is supposed to meet up with Chang, but a thug pushes Chang in front of a car.

[28:03] They realize it's a lot easier to kill someone.

[28:04] You don't need to blow up all of Hong Kong to do it.

[28:07] Humans are frail.

[28:08] Push him in front of a car.

[28:09] They run up to him and his dying words are,

[28:11] Zeus, Zeus.

[28:12] And it was this point I was like, is it going to turn out Zeus is doing this because he's mad?

Stuart Wellington

[28:17] That humanity usurped his weather-controlling powers?

Elliott Kalan

[28:20] And I was like, Geostorm, if it turns out Zeus is the villain, then I love you.

[28:27] And Ed Harris would, of course, be the villain, but he would suddenly, like Jafar at the end of Aladdin when he becomes a genie,

[28:33] he'd just suddenly inflate into this hugely muscled guy and a beard would spring out of his face,

[28:38] and then he'd appear to Lita in the form of a swan and give her a baby.

[28:43] That's a Greek mythology cut.

[28:45] He's a gross character.

[28:48] I feel like Zeus is a complicated character in today's modern times.

Stuart Wellington

[28:54] You're talking about the wrestler from No Holds Bard, right?

Elliott Kalan

[28:57] Yes.

[28:58] The wrestler from No Holds Bard, yeah.

[29:00] Okay.

[29:01] So anyway, Jake and Max talk again.

[29:04] Jake is Gerard Butler.

[29:06] Gerard Butler tells his brother a story about how they went fishing with their dad and how important family is.

[29:10] And Max tells Domino from Deadpool 2 that they never went fishing with their dad.

[29:15] This is a message in a code they invented when they were 12.

[29:19] And they play it back and it's like every other word.

[29:22] He's like this super cut of Gerard Butler going proof of sabotage at highest levels of government.

[29:27] And it's like, oh, hold on a second.

[29:29] Yeah.

S2

[29:31] So wait, but like the key is his cell phone number.

[29:34] So it's like, okay, the third word, the ninth word, the whatever word.

[29:39] And like that's what, and Domino has like a program open on her computer already.

[29:43] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[29:44] Like a sound editing thing where it's like, yeah, I'll just skip from word to word.

[29:47] She's editing her student film or her podcast or something.

[29:50] Yeah.

[29:51] But it's also like, it means that Gerard Butler was sitting there writing out this message.

[29:54] Yeah, he was memorizing.

[29:55] Exactly.

[29:56] He memorized it and it still doesn't tell them very much of anything.

[29:59] It's like, oh, my friend was pushed in front of a car by a mysterious thug.

[30:02] You think there's sabotage at a high level of the government?

[30:05] Yeah, maybe.

Stuart Wellington

[30:06] He memorized that and then delivered it perfectly.

[30:09] Like he's that good of an actor.

Elliott Kalan

[30:11] He's, you know what?

[30:13] Gerard Butler, I apologize.

[30:14] I don't want you thrown in a star.

[30:16] They'd find the Project Zeus file because of course there's a Project Zeus.

Stuart Wellington

[30:20] Now there's a thing though, when they, when they edit them together to hear just those words,

[30:24] why don't they just do that for all his scenes?

[30:28] Hear me out.

[30:29] Explain.

[30:30] And what would that be like?

[30:31] How about every scene with Gerard Butler is him edited together all crazy?

[30:36] What movie would that be?

S2

[30:38] It would be called Crazy Quilt starring Grimlin Battler.

Stuart Wellington

[30:42] And it would be the first, well, I mean, that's a DC Universe movie because Crazy Quilt's a Batman.

[30:48] Yeah, he's a bad guy.

[30:49] Oh, really?

Elliott Kalan

[30:50] Yeah.

[30:51] So it's sold from the bad guy's point of view.

[30:52] Never seen that before, have you?

[30:54] Also, so what was Crazy Quilt?

[30:56] His power, he had power over quilts?

[30:58] The only crazy, he could drive quilts crazy.

[31:00] Hold on.

[31:01] He's like, my quilt store?

[31:02] No, I can't sell these quilts.

[31:03] Now they're crazy.

S2

[31:04] Oh, I thought, I thought as soon as you introduced the idea of him at a quilt store, I thought

[31:09] he'd be like, come on down, my quilt prices are crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[31:12] Oh yeah, yeah.

[31:13] He was Crazy Quilt, the Crazy Quilt salesman.

[31:15] And then I guess, I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[31:16] All the people of Gotham have spent all their money on quilts.

[31:19] The town is bankrupted, but very warm.

[31:21] Are you tired of expensive quilts?

S2

[31:23] Come on down to Crazy Quilts.

Elliott Kalan

[31:25] One day, why make an American quilt when you can buy one of Crazy Quilts?

[31:29] You don't even know how.

[31:31] And he was, I guess the store was hit by lightning while he was in it and he turned, half man,

[31:35] half quilt or something like that.

[31:37] And it was the lower half, so he's like, now I can never pleasure a woman the way I want

[31:41] to.

[31:42] Now I'm going to turn to a life of quilt based crime.

[31:44] So he's like stealing paper towels and stuff like that.

[31:47] Yeah.

S2

[31:48] He can steal like fabric, but only in tiny squares.

[31:53] Never the same type of fabric twice.

Elliott Kalan

[31:55] And you're like, this is a cool pattern.

[31:57] It's too bad I can only use it once even though I had to buy a 12 foot by 12 foot roll of it.

[32:01] And Batman's like, this is, you're not really committing crimes.

[32:04] This is just a weird issue you have.

[32:06] You're free to go, Crazy Quilt.

Stuart Wellington

[32:09] Why isn't there like a blue apron for fabric then?

[32:11] Right?

Elliott Kalan

[32:12] Stuart, why are you doing whatever you do for a living and not doing that?

[32:18] I have to imagine there's this Batman has to...

[32:21] It's the love of the game, Elliot.

Stuart Wellington

[32:22] That's really why I do it.

Elliott Kalan

[32:24] I have to imagine Batman has to audition villains all the time and he'll be like,

[32:28] I'm sorry, you don't make the cut.

[32:30] And the villains are always going to be like, so Calendar Man makes it in and I don't make it in?

[32:34] He's like, he was grandfathered in.

[32:37] What, because his dad fought him?

[32:39] He bought his villain medallion before these regulations were put in place.

Stuart Wellington

[32:47] I mean, now we're just doing Venture Brothers bits.

[32:49] Yeah, that's true.

Elliott Kalan

[32:50] Okay, so they have to go to the White House to crack open the Zeus file.

[32:55] So, Secret Service girlfriend to the rescue.

[32:57] They find out that Project Zeus is a file full of scenarios for creating geostorms.

[33:04] You might as well call this War Games 2.

[33:07] Stupid War Games.

[33:09] It's being used to attack cities.

[33:11] They decide the only way to get around it is to reboot the Dutch Boy system.

[33:14] But only the President has the codes to do that.

[33:17] And Jake thinks the President might be behind all this.

[33:19] So that the United States can keep control of Dutch Boy.

[33:23] Hear me out.

[33:24] If Dutch Boy is going crazy and blowing up cities, isn't that the best argument against the United States retaining control of Dutch Boy?

[33:31] Like, the world is going to be like, there's a major problem with Dutch Boy.

[33:34] We don't want to deal with it.

[33:35] America, it's in your lap.

S2

[33:37] Yeah, I mean, this obviously is a misdirect.

[33:39] Andy Garcia is not the bad guy.

[33:41] But when they try and make it out like he was going to be the bad guy, I'm like,

[33:44] why is it so important that America keeps Dutch Boy that we're going to start zapping cities?

[33:50] Yeah, it doesn't make sense.

Stuart Wellington

[33:51] But...

[33:52] So do you think the other countries would be like,

[33:53] well, the United States hasn't been targeted yet, so they don't have any skin in the game.

Elliott Kalan

[33:57] Let them stay in control.

Stuart Wellington

[33:59] They're an impartial observer.

Elliott Kalan

[34:00] They don't want revenge against it.

[34:02] You won't let your messy emotions and fear get in the way, America.

[34:06] Anyway, Max is like, Secret Service girlfriend, I'm going to need you to steal some more codes.

[34:12] And they plan to do...

[34:13] They're literally like, he's going to the Democratic Convention to give a speech.

[34:17] The only time he's going to be alone is when he's in the shower.

[34:20] You got it.

[34:21] Which, this is not followed through with in the movie.

[34:24] But I would have loved a scene where the president is taking a shower,

[34:27] Max is sneaking in to steal the president's cell phone.

[34:29] And the president is...

[34:31] He gets shampoo in his eyes and he's blindly groping for a towel.

[34:33] And Max has to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, and dodge his hands and try to get to the phone while the president swings around.

[34:40] Which would make...

[34:41] I guess if Jackie Chan was starting this movie.

[34:43] Yeah.

[34:44] That's maybe what would happen.

[34:45] And then he's like, handing him things that he's looking for just in time to get away.

[34:52] What a better movie that would be.

Stuart Wellington

[34:54] They seem so excited about this plan.

Elliott Kalan

[34:57] Yeah, he's super excited about the idea of maybe seeing the president in the shower.

[35:01] I mean, who isn't kind of curious about that?

[35:04] Yeah, yeah, you know.

[35:05] Hundreds of satellites start malfunctioning.

[35:07] Tokyo gets killer hail.

[35:09] Brazil freezes.

[35:10] There's a wave of cold that sweeps in from the ocean and a woman in a bikini has to outrun it.

[35:15] And it's like a plane flash freezes in midair and shatters against the ground killing, I have to assume, over 100 people.

[35:22] But it's like, oh, thank goodness this bikini woman survived.

S2

[35:26] I also like how like every weather disaster has to be ironic.

[35:31] Yeah.

S2

[35:31] Like if it's a hot place, it has to turn cold.

[35:33] If it's a cold place, it has to turn hot.

[35:35] It can't just be like, let's heat it up a little bit more to make it unlivable.

Stuart Wellington

[35:39] And then there's that part where they tell Gerard Butler, they're like, oh no, the satellite over Axl Rose's wedding has begun malfunctioning.

[35:51] It's raining and a guy's about to jump right through that wedding cake.

[35:56] Guys, the November rain video is really great.

Elliott Kalan

[36:00] You might say that the November rain was the original geostorm.

Stuart Wellington

[36:03] You might say that.

[36:04] Except rain in November in many areas is very regular and appropriate.

[36:11] So are you saying there's no reason for the wedding guests to destroy the wedding cake, which looks very expensive.

[36:16] That's the standard way to get out of the rain, Stuart, is to jump into a cake.

[36:21] He doesn't want to get water on his suit.

[36:23] What better way to protect it than to cover it with delicious cake?

Elliott Kalan

[36:28] Do you think before doing that, he said, and I quote, feats don't fail me now.

[36:33] Yeah.

[36:35] Oh, man.

[36:37] You know, it took years for people to realize that that November rain on his wedding day was ironic.

[36:42] Yeah.

[36:43] That was the real tragedy.

[36:45] So anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[36:45] What I love about that video is also watching, when I was a kid and I saw that video, I'm like, oh, this looks like a normal wedding.

[36:51] And only now I'm like, those guys look crazy.

[36:55] It's like the vampire Lestat got married.

[36:58] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[36:59] They look like such scumbags.

[37:01] Which, in their defense, they'll own up to.

S2

[37:03] I think that's their character.

[37:05] There's a part in every wedding where Slash goes outside and plays a guitar solo.

[37:08] Yeah.

[37:09] Just a standard.

[37:11] Comes out right after the objection.

[37:12] That's a traditional wedding, yeah.

[37:13] I mean, I don't know what your religion is.

Elliott Kalan

[37:14] Traditional Irish wedding, I assume, or, you know.

[37:16] Anyway, it's better than when they hire bagpipes and it's like, come on, guys.

[37:20] Yeah.

[37:21] Nobody's so Scottish they want bagpipes at their wedding.

[37:24] This is what you use to scare cows away from the ceremony.

[37:27] In case you're getting married in a field.

[37:30] Or a barn.

[37:31] Anyway, these satellites are going crazy and they don't have control.

[37:34] There's only one way to stop them.

[37:36] Every time they set a replacement satellite in place,

[37:38] it goes to its pre-programmed position,

[37:40] even if there's another satellite there already.

[37:43] They're going to have to hurl satellites at these satellites.

[37:46] But it doesn't work.

[37:48] Geostorm alert.

[37:50] And literally a timer comes up on their big monitor on the International Space Station

[37:53] that says, 90 minutes to geostorm and starts counting down.

[37:57] Because geostorms are nothing if not punctual.

[38:00] And the Democratic Convention is going on.

[38:04] The President's giving a speech.

[38:05] I've been to Democratic Conventions.

[38:07] I'm sure it was a very boring speech.

[38:10] And the next storm is set for Orlando, where the convention is being held.

[38:14] And it was this point...

Stuart Wellington

[38:15] That sounds right, though.

[38:16] That's an appropriate location for a convention.

Elliott Kalan

[38:19] Well, I mean, it is.

[38:20] I've been to a convention in, well, in Tampa.

S2

[38:23] But it's like...

[38:25] Beautiful Tampa.

[38:26] Home of the parking lot.

Elliott Kalan

[38:28] If you ever wanted to go straight from a parking lot to a strip club...

[38:31] To a strip club.

[38:32] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[38:32] And have your clothing drenched in the walk from the car to the building...

[38:36] Go ahead.

[38:38] Here's where I was like, oh, the real tragedy of this movie isn't the storm.

[38:42] The Democrats are still looking at Florida as the be-all and end-all of winning national elections.

[38:47] Here's the real tragedy.

[38:50] Guys, go to...

[38:51] Anyway, that's...

[38:52] So, Max sees the next storm is set for Orlando, where the DNC is.

[38:57] Max tells Ed Harris, which we as the viewer already know is a bad move, because he's obviously the villain, because he's Ed Harris, the biggest name aside from Gerard Butler in the cast.

[39:07] Why would they just make him the Secretary of State who happens to step in and help save the day at the last minute?

Stuart Wellington

[39:13] Elliot, I see Andy Garcia in the back of the audience, and he just looked at the ground and...

[39:18] He just crushed the glass in his hand and stalked out.

[39:23] I'm sorry, Andy Garcia.

[39:24] He was in Extreme Measures, goddammit.

[39:26] The movie where a detective's son needs a bone marrow transplant, so evil Michael Keaton serial killer has to donate it.

[39:33] That's a great movie.

[39:35] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[39:36] He was so good, they had to cut him out of dangerous mines, so that he wouldn't outshine the rest of the film.

S2

[39:41] Wait.

[39:42] I guess this is just Andy Garcia trivia now?

Elliott Kalan

[39:45] You know, he was born with like a not fully formed Siamese twin attached to him.

[39:51] Is that true, or are you just making up...

[39:53] I mean, I read it somewhere.

[39:55] I mean, it might have been in a Goosebumps, I don't know.

[39:59] Andy Garcia themed Goosebumps.

[40:02] R.L. Sine thought that Andy Garcia was the next big thing in scaring children, and he wanted to get on that money train, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[40:11] I think the technical term for his condition was a quato situation.

Elliott Kalan

[40:16] Yeah, he had a quato situation.

[40:19] So, sorry, but I'm sorry Andy Garcia, Ed Harris has surpassed you.

[40:23] So, and ISS meanwhile, the International Space Station, the self-destruct sequence has been set...

S2

[40:31] Now, why does this station have a self-destruct?

S4

[40:35] They explain that.

Elliott Kalan

[40:37] Someone says, why does it have a self-destruct?

[40:39] And Gerard Butler goes, in case it fell out of its orbit and headed towards Earth.

[40:42] All right.

Elliott Kalan

[40:42] Which is a good reason.

[40:44] Not bad, Geostorm.

[40:45] But you know they put it in there because someone at some point said, why does the space station...

[40:49] Hold on.

Elliott Kalan

[40:50] I'll give you the money to make Geostorm, a movie about satellites that go rogue and start causing frozen villages in Afghanistan.

Stuart Wellington

[40:57] But why does the space station have a self-destruct code?

Elliott Kalan

[41:00] Like, this is the thing we need to explain.

[41:02] Because the rest of it makes total sense.

[41:04] And Ed Harris tells Max, the president's code isn't a code.

[41:11] It's his biometrics.

[41:12] We need his fingerprints.

[41:13] Which led me to think, like, they're gonna cut the president's fingers off.

[41:17] While he's giving a speech at the DNC, which would be hard core.

[41:21] I'd vote for him.

[41:24] But they're like, ah, the self-destruct sequence is going on and the only person who could stop it is our British coder, Duncan.

[41:30] And he's not here at the moment.

[41:32] And Gerard Butler goes, Duncan.

[41:33] Duncan.

[41:34] And runs into him.

[41:35] And they have a fist fight over a gun on an exploding space station.

[41:39] Which manages to be very boring.

S2

[41:42] How did...

[41:43] There are a lot of things to object to in Geostorm.

[41:46] But one of them was, how did Duncan get a gun on the space station?

Elliott Kalan

[41:51] The same way you got that wired video game controller up there.

[41:55] He stuffed it in his butt or something.

Stuart Wellington

[41:56] I mean, Dan, that space station is under American control.

[41:59] Okay?

[42:00] That's his fucking right.

Elliott Kalan

[42:01] That's true.

[42:02] I probably at some point they were like, and of course we're not going to allow anyone to bring handguns onto a space station,

[42:06] because they might blow out a window and all the oxygen will get sucked out.

[42:08] And some guy, senator from Texas was like, well, let's see here.

S7

[42:13] Once you start limiting the Second Amendment in space, what's to stop them from being attacked by a bad guy with a laser gun?

Elliott Kalan

[42:21] And they'd be like, well, he's not even an American citizen.

[42:24] He's British.

[42:25] And it's space.

[42:26] We have no lawful control over it.

[42:28] Well, now I don't know.

[42:30] These are a lot of hot political takes.

[42:33] Anyway, Duncan manages to shoot a window and get sucked into space.

[42:38] Gerard Butler gets behind a door or something.

[42:40] I kind of couldn't follow that fight scene and I was not interested.

[42:43] Anyway, Duncan is dead.

[42:45] Meanwhile, Deckham says to Max, you wait in this room for the president.

[42:50] Hey, did Chang tell you anything else about the satellites?

[42:52] And Max was like, I didn't mention Chang.

[42:54] And Harris tries to shoot him in the head.

[42:57] But Max manages to escape onto the DNC floor, which let me tell you.

Stuart Wellington

[43:00] Which by the way, him trying to shoot him with a gun, that's moving forward for him,

[43:05] because normally he tries to burn people alive with lasers from space.

Elliott Kalan

[43:08] Yeah, he's like, oh, there's not enough time to attack you with a space laser.

[43:11] I'll just shoot you with a ground laser, by which I mean a gun.

Stuart Wellington

[43:14] I mean, he's already planning on blowing up Orlando with a laser.

[43:18] Why shoot him?

Elliott Kalan

[43:20] That's a good point.

[43:21] Because he might warn somebody, because he runs onto the DNC floor, which I'll tell you,

[43:24] is not easy to do without the proper credentials.

[43:27] Security is very tight.

[43:29] And he runs over to his girlfriend, Abby Cornish, Secret Service agent spy.

[43:32] And he's like, Deckham is the bad guy.

[43:35] We got to end, he was killed by the Secret Service agent right over there.

[43:39] We got to get the president out of here.

[43:41] And she fires her gun in the air and says, there's a shooter over here.

[43:45] Get the president out of here.

S2

[43:47] Yeah, I mean, he's basically like, let's kidnap the president at this point.

[43:51] And she's like, all right.

Elliott Kalan

[43:52] Which was, as you reminded me, what I thought the plot of National Treasure 2, Book of Secrets, was going to be before it came out.

[43:58] Which also features Ed Harris, right?

[44:00] Does it?

[44:01] I think so.

[44:02] Yeah, it does.

[44:03] I believe he's also the bad guy in that.

[44:05] For a second, I thought you said, Dead Harris, his Tales from the Crypt name.

[44:08] And I was like...

Stuart Wellington

[44:10] Yeah, yeah.

[44:11] Back when he was an animator for The Simpsons on a Halloween episode.

[44:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[44:16] What an amazing career trajectory.

[44:18] From Simpsons animator to the co-star of Apollo 13.

S2

[44:22] I'm just imagining the Crypt Keeper introducing Dead Harris.

[44:29] He plays Jackson Pollock, who murders traditional form and aesthetics in painting.

Elliott Kalan

[44:38] Go to the morgue for some slabstract expressionism.

[44:43] Why is Crypt Keeper not hosting a talk show, Dan?

[44:46] Why is the greatest show in the history of the world not in existence?

[44:49] The ALF talk show didn't really take off.

[44:51] That was...

[44:52] And everyone...

[44:53] He goes to pitch meetings in Hollywood.

S4

[44:54] And he's like, I've got a great idea for a talk ghost.

Elliott Kalan

[44:58] And they're like, hold on a second.

[44:59] Doesn't really rhyme, Cripty.

[45:00] You're not going to say you're going to ghost a talk show?

S9

[45:03] I'm workshopping it.

[45:05] Now, I'll do better than that.

Elliott Kalan

[45:07] Well, we're kind of burnt on puppet talk shows.

S4

[45:10] What?

[45:11] Because of ALF?

Elliott Kalan

[45:12] It's a totally different show.

[45:14] I'm not like ALF.

[45:15] I do corpse puns.

[45:17] He eats cats.

[45:18] Why would America want to hear what a man who eats cats thinks about the topical stories

[45:23] of the day?

[45:24] And they're like, he's not a man who eats cats.

[45:26] He's an alien.

[45:27] And Crypt Keeper's like, I'm a zombie.

S2

[45:32] The only thing we have in common is we're both puppets.

[45:36] I mean, did I ruin the illusion for you, Elliot?

[45:38] No, no.

[45:39] Did I ruin the illusion for you?

[45:40] You kind of made the subtext text.

Elliott Kalan

[45:42] Okay.

[45:43] You were like, I see what this joke is about.

[45:45] I'm going to say it.

[45:46] You know.

[45:48] Like a child realizing something.

[45:51] Like when I was a kid and I saw Gremlins 2.

[45:55] Yeah.

[45:56] And Billy Peltzer, I knew he had trapped the lightning gremlin in the phone system.

[46:00] And he said, the phone's down here.

[46:02] Can I transfer a call from the office to the lobby?

[46:05] Yeah, they can.

[46:06] Get the fire hose.

[46:07] And I turned to my mom and said, I know what he's going to do.

[46:10] He's going to wet down those gremlins then zap them with the lightning gremlin.

[46:14] I was being an asshole when I said that.

[46:16] Because everyone in the theater knew what was going on.

[46:20] And the same thing happened when I went to-

Stuart Wellington

[46:22] Elliot does that when he watches Westworld with his wife too.

[46:25] He's like, the gremlins are going to die.

Elliott Kalan

[46:27] I watch Westworld with my wife and I'm like, don't know.

[46:30] Don't know, don't care.

[46:31] Don't know what's going on here.

[46:33] Westworld is kind of like western robot themed virtual wallpaper for me.

[46:38] I'm like, I'm going to do something else while this show runs.

[46:40] And I kind of don't care if I keep up with the plot.

[46:42] But I love seeing cowboys and robots walking around.

[46:46] Yeah.

[46:47] Sorry, I didn't mean to slag Westworld.

[46:49] Boy.

[46:50] I know America's favorite show, Westworld.

S2

[46:52] No, it was a little diversion.

[46:53] It was a little, you know, we took a little vacation there from the story.

Elliott Kalan

[46:57] Anyway, to bring it back around to our movie.

[46:59] So they kidnapped the president.

[47:01] They're evacuating the International Space Station.

[47:03] There's a tornado sandstorm in India.

[47:05] A boy is separated from his dog.

[47:07] We're supposed to care about this even though Orlando is attacked with exploding lightning.

[47:11] And the convention center where the DNC is being held,

[47:14] just as our heroes escape with the president, is exploded by lightning.

[47:18] Again, killing everyone in the building, which includes, I have to assume,

[47:22] numerous members of the government and the political establishment.

[47:25] But meanwhile, we're like, oh, I hope that kid finds his dog.

S2

[47:29] And let's not speed over this.

[47:31] The convention center is hit by lightning and it explodes.

[47:35] As everything does when it's hit by lightning.

Elliott Kalan

[47:37] Because the convention center has a self-destruct in case it falls to Earth.

[47:41] Okay.

[47:42] From orbit.

[47:43] But yeah, it's also like, I got to assassinate the president.

[47:47] I guess I'll take out all of Orlando.

[47:49] Ed Harris, are you going to wait until you leave Orlando to do that?

[47:51] No time.

[47:52] I'll just do it right now.

[47:53] And I'll dodge the lightning bolts like Mario or something.

[47:56] Yeah.

[47:57] Yeah.

[47:58] Fighting some kind of Koopa boss.

[48:00] Not Bowser.

Stuart Wellington

[48:01] So there's a great car chase with the guy who pushed Chang in front of the bus before,

[48:08] or the car before.

[48:09] Some kind of automotive horse's carriage.

[48:10] And that's where Abby Cornish does that move where she turns the car around and goes

[48:13] in reverse and blasts the dude with a gun.

[48:15] There's a lot of good car food.

[48:16] And there's no blood, but you know he's dead.

Elliott Kalan

[48:17] She spins the car around and shoots the driver of the other car and the president says to

[48:21] Max, marry her.

[48:22] And it's like wah wah wah.

[48:24] And Chang's killer, she rams him off an overpass and he explodes.

[48:28] Take that dude.

[48:29] You don't get to go to court.

[48:31] And the space station's been evacuated, but Jake has to stay behind to manually reboot the

[48:37] system once the president puts his code in or some computer-y techno shit.

[48:40] I was losing interest in those details.

Stuart Wellington

[48:42] He's got to do like an Armageddon thing, right?

[48:45] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[48:46] He's got to sacrifice himself.

[48:48] Dekka, meanwhile, is like, you know what?

[48:51] Let's just use a rocket launcher to kill the president right now.

S2

[48:54] Then the vice...

[48:55] A rocket launcher that he just happens to have in the trunk of his car.

[48:58] He's like, I'll kill...

[48:59] He's like, I might need to kill the president today.

[49:01] I'll pack the rocket launcher.

Stuart Wellington

[49:03] Dan, you don't know what a Secretary of State has in the trunk of their car.

S2

[49:07] That's a good point.

[49:08] I mean, I'm assuming dead hookers.

Stuart Wellington

[49:10] Guys, this is an important point.

[49:13] He's the Secretary of State.

[49:15] Why is he doing all this?

[49:16] I'll tell you what...

[49:17] If he wants to be president, he could just wait a little bit, right?

[49:20] Yeah.

[49:21] No, not really.

[49:22] Yeah, there's a great scene...

Elliott Kalan

[49:23] I mean, Secretary of State was the stepping stone to the presidency in the early 19th century,

[49:28] but it hasn't been since then.

Stuart Wellington

[49:29] But I'm saying, like, this is a people that elected President Andy Garcia.

[49:35] I mean, Ed Harris is a way bigger star.

[49:37] I just think...

[49:38] Oh, no.

Elliott Kalan

[49:39] Andy Garcia's leaving now.

[49:40] What...

[49:41] Oh, I'm sorry.

[49:42] What I like about it is, the movie is like, we're running out of ethnicities that we can throw to, to be the first president of something.

[49:50] He's the first Latino president.

[49:51] Okay, we have a black president already.

[49:52] And they're like, sorry, Dennis Haysbert.

[49:54] We can't have you in the movie.

[49:56] We've got to have Andy Garcia in it, to show that America's still moving forward.

[49:59] Anyway, so...

[50:00] Deckham, they get the drop on him.

[50:03] All the police show up, and the president is like, arrest this man.

[50:06] Which is the kind of thing presidents say a lot in the movies, but almost never in real life.

[50:10] It's rare that presidents ever bust up a crime ring in real life, or push terrorists off their plane.

[50:17] But, and then he's like, why would you do this?

[50:19] I was gonna use it to wipe out all of America's enemies.

[50:21] And it's like, wait, like Brazil?

[50:23] What?

S2

[50:24] Tokyo?

[50:25] I don't think that Tokyo is one of our enemies.

Elliott Kalan

[50:27] But he's like, I was gonna turn the time back to 1945, when we were on top of the world.

[50:32] And it's like, Deckham, that's a very problematic statement in a lot of different ways.

[50:37] Yeah.

[50:38] Look, we don't even have...

S2

[50:40] But I like that Ed Harris' two-fold plan is, I'm gonna get rid of all of our enemies.

[50:46] Which is weird, because like we just said, Orlando just got blown up by the storm.

[50:51] Yeah.

[50:52] So his aim isn't very good.

[50:54] But number two, he's trying to kill everyone else in the line of succession.

[50:58] Which like, the weather isn't the most accurate way to kill the people above you in the presidential line.

[51:03] Two things I'm gonna tell you.

Elliott Kalan

[51:04] Okay.

[51:05] One, Orlando is our enemy.

[51:06] Okay.

[51:07] Don't think just because it's home to some of our best theme parks, that it isn't waiting to sneak up behind us and garrot us with piano wire.

[51:17] Two, that's a very good point that you just made.

Stuart Wellington

[51:20] And I know you're probably wondering, Ed Harris, you have control over all these weather satellites.

[51:26] Why kill half the people when you can just make double the resources, right?

[51:30] Elliot, what's the reason?

Elliott Kalan

[51:34] Well, I mean, the reason in the original comics is that Ed Harris worships death.

[51:39] Okay.

[51:40] The mistress death.

[51:41] And so it makes more sense.

[51:42] Go back to the source material.

[51:43] Does that make sense?

[51:44] I guess for the movie about a guy who wants to kill half the universe with his magic jewel glove,

[51:49] they decide it was beyond the pale that he wants to have sex with a skeleton in a robe.

[51:54] So, you know what?

[51:58] Maybe it's just better to watch a woman make out with a robot.

[52:01] Sure.

[52:02] As also happens in that film, Geostorm Infinity War.

[52:07] So, Deckham gets taken away, but not before Max punches him in the face.

[52:10] He's been restrained by the officers, sir.

[52:12] That is unlawful force.

[52:14] But his girlfriend is so visibly turned on by it.

[52:17] And it's like, I am not liking these heroes.

[52:20] They are so sexually aroused by the acts of violence.

[52:24] And it's like, we got a couple of perspective thrill killers on our hands.

[52:28] Anyway, a tidal wave hits the United Arab Emirates,

[52:31] because while they're busy punching Ed Harris, that Geostorm is still on the run.

[52:35] The president puts in his codes, but even though the Geostorm can be stopped, the self-destruct can't be.

[52:40] So, Jake is giving his life by rebooting the system.

[52:43] He has a heart-to-heart talk with his brother.

[52:45] Great.

[52:46] I don't really care.

[52:47] And Jake has to race against the countdown to do his computer thing.

[52:50] But it turns out his code is invalid.

[52:52] Luckily, German lady Ut shows up.

[52:55] She never left, and she had the right codes.

[52:57] Why she waited till the very last minute for a dramatic reveal?

[53:01] Your guess is as good as mine.

[53:04] Like, what if she was a couple seconds later?

[53:07] Anyway.

[53:08] She wanted...

[53:09] Oh, I missed my cue.

[53:10] I missed my cue.

Stuart Wellington

[53:11] Did I stop the Geostorm?

[53:12] No!

[53:13] Explode!

[53:14] She wanted Gerard Butler to be exuding the maximum amount of fear energy, so she could drink it all in when she gives him the code.

[53:21] Oh, I see.

Elliott Kalan

[53:22] Because that's what gets her going.

[53:23] Okay.

[53:24] It works.

[53:25] NASA gets control.

[53:26] The station blows up, and it looks like...

[53:28] And they hurtle through space, dodging exploding debris.

[53:32] But it looks like they didn't make it out.

[53:33] Everyone's sad.

[53:34] Especially one kind of stout scientist we've never seen before, who's shown, like, gripping his head in agony and misery.

Stuart Wellington

[53:41] Is that a stout scientist, or was that one of the ground control guys who, when Gerard Butler was going to the space station for the first time, made a fucking major Tom reference?

[53:51] Yeah, I think it was that guy.

[53:52] And you're like, get out of here.

Elliott Kalan

[53:53] Come on!

[53:54] You know what?

[53:55] Now I know why he was grieving, because he was like, oh, Bowie, and now this too soon, too soon.

[54:00] But it was like, this guy who, we don't really know him as a character, and he might as well be like, rending his garments and eating ashes.

[54:07] Now, but they did escape.

[54:09] They escaped into a satellite that had room for people to get into it, for some reason.

[54:13] I guess it's the kind of satellite that turns into a submarine.

S2

[54:15] Yeah, of all the things that bother me in this movie, like, this was the thing, for some reason, that bothered me the most.

[54:21] Number one, that the satellite had room for people to go into.

[54:25] Who knows why?

[54:26] But number two, that afterwards, they're like, can we turn one of those shuttles around?

[54:30] And they turn a space shuttle around, and there's an arm that's built to pick up the thing, and for some reason, there's a docking port for a satellite.

[54:37] I'm like, why would they build any of these things?

[54:39] That's not how any of this works.

Elliott Kalan

[54:41] I just like, I didn't realize at the time, but I like that you pointed out to me now that they handle, that space shuttle handles like the car Abbey Cornish is driving earlier.

[54:49] It breaks so well, it's like, oh, beautiful.

[54:52] That might as well be Hot Black Desiato's ship from the restaurant at the end of the universe.

[54:57] Looks like a fish, steers like a fish, drives like a cow.

[55:00] Anyway.

Dan McCoy

[55:01] Oh no, looks like a fish, drives like a steers like a cow.

[55:03] I don't remember.

Elliott Kalan

[55:04] Anyway, I haven't read that book in a while.

[55:05] Okay.

[55:06] Now this is the part in a James Bond movie, where they would dock with the shuttle and find that Gerard Butler and Oot are having sex.

[55:11] Yeah.

[55:12] Because James Bond is the ultimate thrill killer aphrodisiac guy.

[55:16] But, and also, we do get to see on screen that that boy and his dog are reunited.

[55:20] Oh, thank goodness.

[55:21] So many millions have been killed.

[55:24] Everyone, like we've seen a tidal wave just knocking down skyscrapers in the Emirates, and it's like, this is terrifying.

[55:31] What is Superman fighting General Zod or something?

[55:33] And the tidal wave stops, and there's this guy who's been watching it from another building, and he's like, oh, and smiles to himself.

S2

[55:39] And it's like, dude, it is not time to smile.

[55:42] Yeah.

[55:43] I also love, like, at the moment that they reboot all the satellites, the weather just stops.

Elliott Kalan

[55:47] Immediately.

[55:48] And I'm just like, that is not how weather works.

[55:51] They turned it off.

[55:52] Yeah, all right.

[55:53] It's like the weather in Back to the Future 2.

[55:55] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[55:56] And they can just flip it on and off with a switch.

[55:58] And are you talking about, did we bring up the fact that you can turn off the geostorm, but you can't turn off the self-destruct?

[56:06] That's insane.

S2

[56:07] Well, Spider-Man can turn off the dark, so if we can do that, we can do anything.

Stuart Wellington

[56:10] I mean, not according to Broadway receipts, he couldn't.

[56:13] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[56:15] They get back to Earth.

[56:16] Everyone's reunited.

[56:17] Six months later, which means it's three years and six months from the first dialogue scene we saw.

[56:24] Jake, Max, they love each other.

[56:26] They're brothers.

[56:27] And they take Jake's daughter fishing.

[56:28] They don't catch any fish.

[56:30] They don't like fishing, but they're brothers now.

[56:32] And Hannah, the daughter, has a VO about, hey, as long as we remember we're one planet working together, we're going to be all right.

[56:39] And it's like, you are not okay.

[56:42] So many people died.

[56:43] You are not all right.

[56:44] It's like this little moment of American upper-class white privilege where it's like, I'm fishing.

[56:50] Everything's good with the world.

[56:52] And meanwhile, there's huge refugee problems as half of the Emirates and Brazil are swarming into other countries because their capitals were knocked out.

[57:01] Yeah.

[57:02] What's going on?

[57:03] Dan, I said, hey, yay, yay.

[57:05] What's going on?

S2

[57:08] I mean, I just know that when I wake in the morning and I step outside, I take a deep breath and I get real high.

[57:14] Wait, from the air?

Elliott Kalan

[57:15] Is that part of the geostorm?

[57:16] The air makes you high now?

[57:18] Yeah, that's right.

Stuart Wellington

[57:20] I was really happy to find out that that songwriter currently does songwriting for Pink.

[57:24] Who'd have thought it?

[57:25] Four non-blondes to Pink.

Elliott Kalan

[57:26] Look, they have a lot of arrows in their quiver.

[57:29] Yeah.

[57:30] I guess that's the end of Geostorm.

[57:32] Yeah.

[57:33] So, the thing to remember, if you're going to remember one thing from Geostorm, is that

[57:37] a successful songwriter can jump from trend to trend, from recording artist to recording artist.

[57:43] Also, even...

[57:44] A good song's a song, you know?

[57:46] Yeah.

[57:47] Even if you are the most famous scientist in the world, do not expect your coworkers to know you by sight.

[57:52] If you have a daughter, even if you are saving the world from bad weather and satellites gone mad,

[57:59] you are a bad dad if you're not taking her fishing right now.

[58:02] And also, the best way to get a message across to your brother is, one, make sure he has video editing software on his work computer.

[58:11] And two, do some skip-em-words codes.

[58:14] Yeah.

[58:15] Dan, what did you learn from Geostorm?

S2

[58:16] Geostorm?

[58:17] Um, I learned that...

[58:19] I don't...

[58:20] I...

Elliott Kalan

[58:21] What the...

[58:22] Why do you...

[58:23] I feel like you actually...

[58:24] I feel like by watching this movie, you unlearn so much.

[58:25] I mean, this movie makes me dumber.

[58:26] Yeah.

[58:27] You end up stupid.

S2

[58:28] With every second that I watch it.

Elliott Kalan

[58:29] It is such a dumb...

[58:31] It's like, I watched...

[58:32] I re-watched Cobra last year.

[58:34] And I was like, I forgot how dumb this movie is.

[58:36] And then watching Geostorm, I was like, Cobra's a nuanced take on the problems of crime in America.

[58:43] The serious problem of axe cults running around shopping markets.

Stuart Wellington

[58:47] Uh, what's the...

[58:48] I think we're at that part of the podcast.

S2

[58:49] Yeah, we do the part of the podcast, for those who don't know, where we rate the movie, whether it was a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie we kinda liked.

[58:58] Elliot, what do you have to say?

Elliott Kalan

[59:00] I gotta say, guys, I thought it was a good bad movie.

[59:02] Yeah.

[59:03] It was super stupid.

[59:04] And not...

[59:05] I'm gonna say this.

[59:07] It was not sublimely dumb like Triple X Return of Xander Cage, which is maybe the most beautifully stupid movie since Tango and Cash.

[59:17] But it was pretty enjoyably stupid.

[59:19] Every single scene, there's one moment where you're like, what?

[59:23] Yeah.

[59:24] The what-to-scene ratio is very high.

S2

[59:28] Yeah, for me, this was a great bad movie.

[59:31] I really liked...

[59:33] You know, disaster movies are my particular flavor of dumb.

[59:38] Like, I pretty much enjoy all of them.

[59:40] And this almost reaches the level of the core, where the Earth's magnetic core stops spinning,

[59:46] and they have to have a caterpillar machine drill down into the core and restart it.

Elliott Kalan

[59:52] How much better would that movie have been if it was the very hungry caterpillar that had to go down and drill?

S2

[59:57] I think a thousand percent.

Elliott Kalan

[59:58] Yeah.

[59:59] Eric Carls the core.

[1:00:00] Yeah.

[1:00:02] Stuart, what do you think?

[1:00:03] You wanna fight the curve on this one?

[1:00:05] Guys!

[1:00:06] Whoa, he's standing up.

[1:00:07] Standing up.

[1:00:08] For the listeners at home, Stuart is standing up at full length.

S2

[1:00:11] This is the low bar of doing a podcast, just people can get excited by someone moving.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:17] Guys, there's a scene in this movie where the Secretary of State has a missile launcher in the trunk of his car.

[1:00:24] And then he has a goon fire that missile into a smart car, presumably driven by the President, which explodes the car.

[1:00:31] And he approaches that car with a gun drawn, as if that gun was going to finish a job a missile started.

[1:00:41] Guys, this is very much a good bad movie. Thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:44] Yeah, triple good bags.

[1:00:48] All right.

[1:00:57] Judge John Hodgman ruled in my favor.

S9

[1:00:59] Judge John Hodgman ruled in my friend's favor.

[1:01:01] Judge John Hodgman ruled in my favor.

[1:01:04] I'm Judge John Hodgman.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:06] Judge John Hodgman.

[1:01:07] You're hearing the voices of real litigants, real people who have submitted disputes to my internet court at the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

[1:01:13] I hear their cases.

[1:01:15] I ask them questions.

[1:01:16] They're good ones.

[1:01:17] And then I tell them who's right and who's wrong.

S2

[1:01:19] Thanks to Judge John Hodgman's ruling, my dad has been forced to retire one of the worst dad jokes of all time.

S9

[1:01:25] Instead of cutting his own hair with a flow beat, my husband has his hair cut professionally.

[1:01:31] I have to join a community theater group.

S2

[1:01:34] And my wife has stopped bringing home wild animals.

[1:01:37] It's the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

[1:01:39] Find it every Wednesday at MaximumFun.org or wherever you download podcasts.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:46] Thanks, Judge John Hodgman.

S2

[1:01:54] Hello, I'm Oliver Wong, DJ, scholar, and journalist.

S4

[1:01:58] And I'm Morgan Rhodes, music supervisor and stiletto devotee.

[1:02:02] And we host Heat Rocks, a podcast where we invite our favorite musicians, writers, and scholars to talk about the albums that have changed their lives.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:11] Morgan, what exactly is a Heat Rock?

S4

[1:02:13] It's a record that's like hot fire, combustible.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:16] Basically, just a really, really good album.

S4

[1:02:19] We've taken a deep dive into Nigerian funk from the 70s.

S6

[1:02:22] He kind of had like a bad reputation in town as just being like a sketchy dude.

[1:02:27] And he was just making music that for thousands of miles around him, he was the only person doing anything like that.

S4

[1:02:33] 1980s teen comedy soundtracks.

S9

[1:02:35] This soundtrack always felt the same to me as like when I would find a great blazer at a thrift store that I could, I was like, oh, this is going to be me now.

S4

[1:02:45] We've talked about Prince, Boyz II Men, Kendrick Lamar, and everything in between.

[1:02:50] Heat Rocks, every Thursday here on Maximum Fun.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:54] Hey, everyone.

[1:02:55] Before we get into the sponsors and jumbotrons, I just want to talk to you for a second.

[1:03:00] I know there are several of you out there who are not big fans of listening to live podcast shows.

[1:03:07] That's why we try not to put a couple of them back to back.

[1:03:11] But in this case, we did it because, well, Elliot had his new baby and we're all very excited about that.

[1:03:19] And I am moving apartments and no one's excited about that, least of all me.

[1:03:28] So there's some big life upheavals going on.

[1:03:31] And don't you now feel like a dick for complaining?

[1:03:35] Anyway, I got to read a couple of ads.

[1:03:40] I listened to last week's ad read and I had done, I had very intentionally tried to kick up my energy for that ad read.

[1:03:50] Just kick it up a notch.

[1:03:52] And I listened back to it and it sounded like I was on Xanax.

[1:03:56] And so what is wrong with me?

[1:03:59] I guess the question that I'm asking.

[1:04:02] Is it something with my thyroid?

[1:04:04] Is that what makes it impossible for me to do any ad reads with any energy at all?

[1:04:10] I guess this is not a great question to be asking right before I do an ad read.

[1:04:15] Because I don't want people to think that I'm not enthusiastic about the fine products and services we offer here at the Flophouse.

[1:04:24] But I don't know.

[1:04:26] It's bothering me.

[1:04:27] It's bothering me, guys.

[1:04:29] Write in.

[1:04:30] Write in and tell me what's wrong with me.

[1:04:32] Don't write in and tell me what's wrong with me.

[1:04:34] Goddamn.

[1:04:35] That would be the worst thing in the world.

[1:04:37] I rescind my offer.

[1:04:39] Jesus, can you imagine?

[1:04:41] Can you imagine getting a fucking cavalcade of letters about what's wrong with you?

[1:04:45] Ugh.

[1:04:47] Alright, the worst.

[1:04:49] Anyway, the Flophouse, thankfully, is brought to you in part by ZipRecruiter.

[1:04:55] ZipRecruiter.

[1:04:58] Are you hiring, posting your positions to job sites, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the right people to see it?

[1:05:08] ZipRecruiter has revolutionized hiring.

[1:05:12] Their technology finds great candidates for you.

[1:05:16] You can sit at home in your sweatpants, smoking cigars, like a big cartoon version of a lazy person, and candidates will come to you.

[1:05:27] It identifies people with the right experience and invites them to apply to your job.

[1:05:33] Right now, our listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com slash flophouse.

[1:05:39] That's ziprecruiter.com slash flophouse.

[1:05:43] ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire.

[1:05:47] And moving on, we have a jumbotron.

[1:05:52] This message is for Christy, and it comes from Rich slash Clunky.

[1:05:59] That's clunky with a K.

[1:06:02] Christy.

[1:06:03] Christy.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:03] The fun you have listening to the original Peaches flip a flop or go off on an unrelated tangent is awesome.

[1:06:11] Listening to you laugh out loud is pure joy.

[1:06:14] So I hope you enjoy hearing this from the floppers.

[1:06:17] Happy birthday, Christy.

[1:06:19] The love of my life and the one with whom I want to finish the trip to our own fateful findings.

[1:06:25] Love, clunky.

[1:06:28] Oh, isn't that sweet?

[1:06:31] I got nothing to say about that.

[1:06:33] It's just nice.

[1:06:35] So thanks everyone for listening.

[1:06:38] It's time to head on back to the theater for the rest of the live show.

[1:06:46] So we've got a little time.

S2

[1:06:48] A very little time.

[1:06:50] Not a lot of time.

[1:06:52] So what we like to do at these live shows is answer a few questions from the audience if people are interested.

[1:06:56] We're going to take 10 or 15 minutes for this.

[1:06:59] There's a microphone at the front.

[1:07:01] There's a microphone at the front.

[1:07:02] People are already lining up.

[1:07:04] We may not get to everybody.

[1:07:06] We cannot guarantee.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:08] Guys, we went long talking about Geostorm.

[1:07:12] We want to pack in as many questions as we can.

[1:07:15] We cannot afford to just eat up time.

[1:07:18] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:18] It could be used by questions.

[1:07:20] Hey, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:21] What can we not afford to do?

[1:07:24] Eat up time, Elliot.

[1:07:25] Eat up time.

[1:07:26] Hey, Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:27] What can we not want to do?

[1:07:30] Beat up time.

S4

[1:07:31] Hey, guys.

[1:07:33] Time is really great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:35] Don't you eat up time, but don't be late.

[1:07:37] Flophouse question and answer session.

[1:07:38] Flophouse questions with Flophouse answers.

[1:07:40] Flophouse answers for Flophouse questions.

[1:07:44] Flophouse time for you and me in D.C.

[1:07:49] Washington, that is.

[1:07:51] Don't know why.

[1:07:53] Don't know why I had to specify.

[1:07:56] The only town in this district.

[1:07:57] Columbia, that is.

[1:07:59] I suppose it was foolish of me to think you were done.

[1:08:00] Spirit of liberty.

[1:08:01] Spirit of life.

[1:08:03] Spirit of...

[1:08:05] What?

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:06] I don't know.

[1:08:07] Wow.

S2

[1:08:08] This is the first time I've known you to be at a loss for words, Elliot.

[1:08:11] So let's take advantage of that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:12] Because you know what happens?

[1:08:13] I start thinking about this great nation of ours.

S2

[1:08:16] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:17] No.

[1:08:18] I just gotta sing about America.

[1:08:22] Alright.

S2

[1:08:23] Thank you.

[1:08:24] Ferreira.

[1:08:27] Anyway.

[1:08:28] From TV.

[1:08:29] Please.

[1:08:30] Please.

[1:08:31] Our long national nightmare is over.

[1:08:33] You can answer.

[1:08:34] You can ask your question now.

[1:08:35] It wasn't that long.

S6

[1:08:37] Hi.

[1:08:38] I'm Alexis.

[1:08:39] Last name upheld.

[1:08:41] One thing I want to say of Great Good Bad moment of that movie was that in that scene where they don't know who he is,

[1:08:47] he's wearing a Jay Lawson name tag on his jumper.

[1:08:50] Oh.

[1:08:51] I didn't even see that because I was watching it on my laptop while I did the dishes.

[1:08:55] And the question I want to ask is if you had the opportunity to say teach a film class or teach a one hour seminar on public television,

[1:09:09] whatever context you want, what would be the topic of your class and what films would you show to those people?

[1:09:17] Assuming that your audience was wrapped or paid so much tuition that they had to pay attention to you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:25] It's a complicated question for you smart minded fellows.

[1:09:29] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:30] I mean I think I would do a class called New York Grimy and it would just be like about 70s movies about New York that are really gross and grimy and dirty and everyone's clothes are ugly.

S2

[1:09:41] Yeah.

[1:09:42] I might be stealing Stewart, I might be stepping on Stewart's territory but I feel like I would like to do a, what did you want to say, Allie?

[1:09:48] Like a castle freak seminar?

[1:09:50] Well, I know, I would like to do a seminar called Horror Comedies of the 80s, your American Werewolves in London, your Returns of the Living Dead, such and such.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:01] Would Monster Squad be on the curriculum?

[1:10:03] What?

[1:10:04] Monster Squad, is that horror or not?

S2

[1:10:05] I think that's close enough, yeah.

[1:10:07] I mean it's got Draculas in it, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:10] Good point, good point, good point.

S2

[1:10:13] A Dracula throws dynamite into a clubhouse.

[1:10:17] What more do you want out of a movie?

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:20] Maybe if he was riding a dinosaur while he did it.

[1:10:22] Stewart?

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:23] I would do a focused curriculum that would be focused around three movies.

[1:10:33] Police Academy 1, 2, and 3.

[1:10:39] And just talk about how funny they are.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:45] Your class would be called, What Can He Do With That Magical Mouth? The Sounds of Michael Winslow.

S2

[1:10:55] Crossed Eyes and Blowjobs.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:58] So that's the class you would teach, would be what, Ghostbusters, Police Academy?

S2

[1:11:01] Ghostbusters, Police Academy, and what else? I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:03] I don't know. That's a very small genre.

[1:11:05] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:06] Okay, cool, you did my class for me. Thanks, guys.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:09] That's a, Dan, is that, that's a talking head song, isn't it? Cross-eyed and Blowjobs?

S2

[1:11:13] Yeah, that's right. That's right. It ends Stop Making, I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:18] Don't even, no. Let's not try it. Okay, next question, please.

S7

[1:11:21] Hi, I'm Lindsay, last name withheld. I have a quick update and a question real fast.

[1:11:26] The last time you guys were here, the coolest person I know related question to you from me about a Panasonic 3DO.

[1:11:32] I just want you to know, once I have one that's not nice enough to sell to another person,

[1:11:36] that and Hell A Cyberpunk Adventure featuring Dustin Hoffman will be coming to you.

[1:11:41] Please play it with the guide up. Some of the answers to the puzzles are not in the game.

[1:11:46] Awesome. Can't wait.

[1:11:49] But my actual question is, so me and my lovely partner, we are big fans of horror movies that spawn multiple really crazy sequels,

[1:11:58] you know, your Final Destinations is, your Saws is, that sort of thing.

[1:12:03] Wishmasters, et cetera.

[1:12:04] Yeah. Our favorite though is the Purge movies because those ones actually, each one subsequently,

[1:12:09] they're not good movies yet, but they get better and address the problems of the previous movie.

[1:12:15] Like the second one, the premise actually depends on the Purge being a thing for it to happen.

[1:12:20] We're hoping by the sixth, good movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:22] By the second movie, they were like, we should, the main concept of the movie should play a part in the movie.

[1:12:27] They're actually outside in a city in everything.

S7

[1:12:28] The third one, they understand that not everybody wants to do this.

[1:12:32] The fourth one, they're finally going to tell me how they convinced everyone it was a good idea.

[1:12:35] Oh.

[1:12:36] I'm pumped.

[1:12:37] But I was wondering...

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:38] This is some street level marketing for the Purge franchise. I like it.

[1:12:42] Go see it.

S7

[1:12:43] Because, yeah, that's a lot of explaining to do, why everybody wants to do this and participate.

[1:12:49] Okay.

[1:12:50] But, so do you have any movie franchises that you actually think get better with the ridiculous subsequent sequels?

[1:12:57] That I could continue this trend.

S2

[1:12:59] I mean, I'm sure you're going to go with a little movie called Gremlins 2.

[1:13:02] Oh, well that's true.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:03] I mean, Gremlins 2 is better than the first Gremlins because it explodes the form.

[1:13:08] Oh, am I teaching that class already? Come on.

[1:13:12] But it's like, the first Gremlins, great. It's wonderful.

[1:13:15] Second Gremlins, it's like, hmm, let's just go crazy everybody. Come on.

[1:13:19] We're making a movie about Gremlins. Let's just go nuts. Why are we pretending this is a real thing?

[1:13:23] But I would say, the movies don't get better. In fact, they get worse over time.

[1:13:29] But the original Planet of the Apes series, if you watch them all in a row, they cycle back around to each other.

[1:13:35] And so it's like, the first movie leads into the second one. The second movie ends, spoiler alert, with the Earth exploding.

[1:13:41] And so the third movie starts with Three of the Apes going back in time and essentially having the baby that creates the Planet of the Apes.

[1:13:48] And it's like, I love the idea that they were like, we ended the second movie exploding the world.

[1:13:55] We're going to do a sequel.

[1:13:58] How do we get around this? Why? We'd have to go back in time.

[1:14:01] And the other guy in the office was like, wait, say that again.

[1:14:05] I said, we already exploded the world. No, no, no. After that, say the other thing.

[1:14:08] We'd have to go back in time.

[1:14:10] And then he just sat down in the typewriter and just put the whole screenplay down.

S2

[1:14:14] And that guy was ZZ Top.

[1:14:17] That's how he came up with the song, Back in Time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:20] It must have been so hard for ZZ Top to write a letter back then because his beard would get caught.

[1:14:23] I'm saying it like it's one person.

[1:14:25] Zachary, you know, something top.

[1:14:27] But his beard would get caught in the typewriter.

[1:14:29] Yeah.

S2

[1:14:30] Stuart, can you think of anything? Or you don't have to.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:33] Yeah, what I would usually say to this question, which would probably make people the most mad, is maybe the Aliens franchise.

[1:14:42] No.

[1:14:43] You son of a bitch.

[1:14:44] No.

S2

[1:14:45] Alien 4 is really great.

[1:14:48] It's not a bad movie, but...

[1:14:51] Alright.

[1:14:52] Stuart's trolling now. Let's move on to the next.

[1:14:54] Yeah.

[1:14:55] Hi.

[1:14:56] My name is Andrew. Last name but held.

[1:14:58] Hello.

[1:14:59] I actually really do enjoy the Alien 4 movie.

[1:15:02] I mean, I saw it as a kid. It was great.

[1:15:04] Actually, two great questions.

[1:15:06] Mine feels really narrow and almost petty now with this flawless movie we just watched.

[1:15:10] But it was kind of strange.

[1:15:12] Why...

[1:15:13] Tidal waves, which like submerge Zemiratis in the movies, are seismic events.

[1:15:16] So like whose idea do you think it was and how did they propose it?

[1:15:20] That the weather could control it?

[1:15:21] Yeah, like who convinced who to be like, okay guys, we might need earthquakes.

[1:15:27] Like...

[1:15:28] So...

[1:15:29] I'm gonna stop you right there.

[1:15:30] Let's design that in.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:31] I'm gonna stop you right there.

[1:15:32] I don't think they know that.

[1:15:33] Yeah.

[1:15:36] I think they're the same way that people are like, climate change.

[1:15:40] Well, all this bad weather like volcanoes and it's simply like that's not a weather thing.

[1:15:46] So it's...

[1:15:47] I don't think that that ever occurred to anyone making the film.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:51] They're like, yeah, tidal waves, it must be really windy, right?

[1:15:54] Yeah, that's...

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:55] I mean, it is also a movie where...

[1:15:57] Surf's up, right?

[1:15:58] It is a movie where people outrun cold and it's not even the first movie by this director,

[1:16:04] I think, where someone outruns cold.

S2

[1:16:06] No, the day after tomorrow, they outrun cold down the walls of the library.

[1:16:10] It's very great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:11] He was like, remember that scene where Jake Gyllenhaal outruns the cold in that library?

[1:16:15] I'm gonna one up myself and do it in the streets of Rio.

[1:16:18] Like, I don't know.

[1:16:20] I don't know.

[1:16:21] I mean...

[1:16:22] You pulled it off again, Devlin.

S2

[1:16:23] Which is like one of the mummy movies that outruns the sun.

[1:16:26] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:27] But I buy that in the mummy movies because it's a movie about magic.

[1:16:30] Alright.

[1:16:31] The magic between a father and a son.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:33] I thought it was the magic of that one character's arc who begins the movie, begins the series,

[1:16:38] not knowing what a mummy is and being frightened of them.

[1:16:41] The second movie, he very much knows what mummies are and runs away from them.

[1:16:45] Hates them.

[1:16:46] Oh no.

[1:16:47] And then the final one, he hates them.

[1:16:48] He's like, mummies again?

[1:16:50] Ugh.

[1:16:51] Gross.

S2

[1:16:52] Alright, moving on.

[1:16:54] Moving on.

[1:16:55] Hey, floppers.

[1:16:56] Hello.

[1:16:57] What's up?

S8

[1:16:58] My name is Ehab.

[1:16:59] Last name withheld.

[1:17:00] It's very apt to mention this in the synagogue.

[1:17:05] I am a Muslim-era Palestinian.

[1:17:08] And it's...

[1:17:09] Guys, watch what you say.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:11] We are about to step in a minefield.

[1:17:15] This better be a question about gremlins too.

[1:17:18] It's actually a lot more benign than that.

S8

[1:17:24] Usually, I am vilified in Hollywood on all three of those categories.

[1:17:29] Very much so.

[1:17:30] Yes, indeed.

[1:17:31] And it was actually very refreshing in this movie to see that the brown dark men were not

[1:17:37] behind this evil, but rather the lesser known government agent white man who exists there.

[1:17:46] And that's something that I kind of noticed in the grand scheme of things.

[1:17:50] My question for you is because of all that vilification of not just people in my categories,

[1:17:56] but other people, I'm sure there are Hollywood movies out there that contain those stereotypes

[1:18:01] and that vilification, but you really, really enjoy them shamelessly.

[1:18:06] And I'm just curious, what are those movies?

[1:18:09] Well, I mean, I'll say it right now.

[1:18:11] What a horrible movie.

[1:18:12] And I do recognize that I am asking three straight white men this question.

[1:18:16] So you are under the mic.

[1:18:17] You don't know me.

[1:18:18] Yes, he does.

[1:18:19] He knows me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:21] I spent a lot of today at the National Museum of the American Indian.

[1:18:27] And it was like, I deal all the time with like, I love Western.

[1:18:30] Like, I love them.

[1:18:31] And they are so unremittingly racist in so many ways.

[1:18:35] I mean, there's somewhat like, the man who shot Liberty Valance is slightly less racist,

[1:18:40] because I don't know that there are any native characters in the movie.

[1:18:43] You know, but it's like, every time I watch one, I'm like, all right, I'm gonna have to like, project this into a fantasy world where these are like, I don't know, where this is okay what they're doing.

[1:18:54] But it's not.

S2

[1:18:55] Hell, on the episode that I dropped today, I recommended Bone Tomahawk, which has a troglodyte race of American Indians.

[1:19:02] No, they make it very clear that they're troglodytes.

[1:19:03] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:03] They make it clear-ish.

[1:19:04] It's like, the movie's like, it's okay that they're monsters, because they live in a cave.

S2

[1:19:13] Yeah, I mean, I've said before, I mean, this is not a movie, but I've said before that I watched all of 24, which is horrible.

[1:19:22] But I just-

[1:19:23] The geostorm of TV shows.

[1:19:25] I justified it by like, it went so far into fascism that I kind of could watch it as liberal camp.

[1:19:33] Like, oh, this is just like, goofy at this point.

[1:19:36] It's just ridiculous.

[1:19:37] I can sort of just watch it from a remove and enjoy it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:42] And I'm a big fan of, I don't know if this answers the question, but I'm a big fan of that trend of having like, European bad guys.

[1:19:51] Like, there was a time where a lot of action movies had like, French villains.

[1:19:55] Yeah.

[1:19:56] Checky Cario is a bad guy in a lot of movies.

[1:19:58] Or like, all the bad guys in Die Hard.

[1:20:00] Yeah, Die Hard German.

[1:20:01] I love that shit, dude.

[1:20:03] When they have like, long flowing Fabio hair, like-

[1:20:07] And they all have like, MP5s.

[1:20:09] Yeah.

[1:20:10] Man, like-

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:10] Way to dodge the question, Stuart, and see him cool.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:13] You know-

[1:20:14] I'm just being cool, you know?

[1:20:15] The worst part, you know that audiences in the 80s were watching those movies and they were like,

[1:20:18] Oh, I just know those terrorists are putting fucking mayonnaise on their french fries.

[1:20:22] Kill them all, John McClane.

[1:20:25] I will say, it's like, it's a really, it's kind of a funny thing.

[1:20:28] It's like, this is a progressive movie.

[1:20:30] The non-white characters are merely like, nameless cannon fodder.

[1:20:34] They're not the bad guys.

[1:20:35] They just die in the hundreds of thousands.

S2

[1:20:38] In conclusion, all those things are horrible.

[1:20:42] Anyway, moving on.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:43] Hey guys, Arian, last name withheld.

[1:20:46] So you guys either all work or moonlight in the comedy business.

[1:20:50] And then I like-

[1:20:51] I was like-

[1:20:52] Some of us both.

[1:20:54] I always like hearing sort of, especially as someone younger, I like-

[1:20:57] I love hearing the origin stories on the podcast.

[1:20:59] So I was wondering, I wondered, what are some kind of like linchpin moments when you guys maybe realize like,

[1:21:04] this is something that I'm gonna be able to do even if it doesn't pan out.

[1:21:08] Or like anything like that along the way.

[1:21:10] Linchpin moments.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:12] Well I never had a moment like that guys.

[1:21:15] I don't really work in comedy.

[1:21:18] I just do this dumb podcast with my friends.

[1:21:21] Although it was-

[1:21:23] There was a moment when-

[1:21:24] We were doing live shows for a long time and I would always have to take work off.

[1:21:28] And it was really cool.

[1:21:30] And whenever I'd have to take off a night from bartending, I'd have to do a show.

[1:21:35] I would always end up losing money basically.

[1:21:37] So it was nice.

[1:21:38] The one time I made like-

[1:21:40] The first time I made more money doing a show than I did bartending that night.

[1:21:44] That was pretty cool.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:46] I was gonna say similarly, I found a-

[1:21:50] I was going through my files because I moved recently.

[1:21:53] Oh boy, another moving story.

[1:21:55] And I found a photocopy of a check I wrote for an article-

[1:22:00] A check I wrote-

[1:22:01] A check I got for an article I wrote for a website when I was like 14 I think or 15.

[1:22:07] It must be the first time I was ever paid for writing something.

[1:22:10] And I was like, I gotta keep this.

[1:22:12] Why am I-

[1:22:13] I shouldn't throw this out, but I haven't done anything with it or anything.

[1:22:15] But I think that was one of those moments similar to Stuart.

[1:22:18] It's like, oh someone gave me money for this?

[1:22:20] Yeah.

[1:22:21] And I live in the United States where money is the value of all things.

[1:22:23] I-

S2

[1:22:24] Yeah, I mean like I can only think of the first time I was paid for a comedy thing out in the world.

[1:22:29] It was like-

[1:22:30] There was a website called Modern Humorous for a while.

[1:22:32] It was run by the same people who later on made-

[1:22:35] They wrote that movie about Doug Kenny that was on Netflix.

[1:22:40] And Zoolander 2, right?

[1:22:42] Uh, is that them?

[1:22:43] Yeah.

[1:22:44] Alright.

[1:22:45] So great-

[1:22:46] Great comic minds.

[1:22:47] No, they were-

[1:22:48] It was a great website.

[1:22:49] And I did a piece called First Drafts of Famous Poems, which is a very common sort of humor piece idea, like the first draft or something.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:01] Don't oversell it, Dan.

S2

[1:23:04] No, I just remember that like I got paid like 60 bucks for it or whatever.

[1:23:09] And it was like a long piece.

[1:23:10] And then I was very excited to see it on the website.

[1:23:12] And they had cut it down to one poem that was five lines.

[1:23:15] And that was my first lesson in comedy writing.

[1:23:17] It was like, that's the way it's gonna be!

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:19] I like that even Dan's triumphant story of making it involves a shattering blow to his ego.

[1:23:25] Uh, we should move on.

S2

[1:23:31] I think we can make through everyone if we go really fast.

[1:23:34] And nobody join the line.

[1:23:35] Let's go-

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:36] Nobody.

[1:23:37] Let's speed round.

[1:23:38] But it's not like we're looking that close.

[1:23:39] So, I don't know, someone sneaks on.

[1:23:40] Anyway, yeah.

S7

[1:23:42] Ann Marie, last name withheld.

[1:23:44] This is the question from Moon Squad.

[1:23:46] And it is, what is the closest you've ever been to getting arrested?

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:50] Oh.

[1:23:52] I mean, I've gotten into arguments with police officers a lot.

[1:23:55] And then they let me go.

[1:23:56] I don't know what it is about me.

[1:23:58] That I'm just like, I guess I don't look like any of the criminals they're looking for, so.

S2

[1:24:03] I'll tell this story as quickly as I can.

[1:24:06] I was back from college, hanging out with my high school friends.

[1:24:11] One of them had a girlfriend who was still in high school.

[1:24:15] She came and hung out with us in the car, driving around.

[1:24:19] Which is what you do in Illinois.

[1:24:21] There's nothing else to do.

[1:24:22] You just drive around.

[1:24:23] And we went and we smoked weed in the middle of a field somewhere.

[1:24:28] And-

[1:24:29] Is this an indie film?

[1:24:33] And as we were driving back into town, we saw five police cars going past us with sirens on.

[1:24:40] And we're like, huh, something must be going on.

[1:24:44] And we went to Hardee's where my friend worked.

[1:24:47] And we go through the line and we find out that her mom had reported this woman missing.

[1:24:55] Like she never came home from school that day.

[1:24:58] And they were looking for us and it was only because they had the wrong description of the car.

[1:25:04] That they didn't stop us with a bunch of weed in the car.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:10] And for kidnapping.

S2

[1:25:11] And for kidnapping.

[1:25:13] And so that was, I guess, the closest I got to being arrested.

[1:25:17] That's pretty scary.

[1:25:18] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:19] I just got a speeding ticket.

[1:25:21] It's NBD, dude.

[1:25:23] I wish I had something cool like, I don't know, murder?

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:30] If you admitted to a murder right now, this would become a true crime podcast and our numbers would go through the roof.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:36] We would be amazing.

[1:25:38] Wait a minute.

[1:25:39] Who would I murder though?

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:41] What celebrity did you hurl into a star?

[1:25:45] Well, let me think about that.

[1:25:46] Let me think about that.

[1:25:47] Okay.

S2

[1:25:49] Hello.

[1:25:50] Kyle, last name of hell.

[1:25:52] Kyle Katarn from the Star Wars game.

[1:25:55] Yep.

S2

[1:25:55] From Dark Forces.

[1:25:57] So if you could replace our current president with any fictional president from a movie, who would you choose?

[1:26:02] That's a good question.

[1:26:04] Any fictional president.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:05] I mean any fictional president, yeah.

S2

[1:26:07] You're Terry Crews type from Idiocracy or something?

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:10] Okay, maybe not any fictional president.

[1:26:14] Well, until about a week ago I would have said Morgan Freeman from Deep Impact, but I didn't do it.

[1:26:20] It's him.

S2

[1:26:21] The audience came way down.

[1:26:24] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:24] Sorry.

[1:26:25] Too real.

[1:26:26] It's late, everybody.

[1:26:27] I had a soda before we came on, so.

[1:26:29] What about like President Dave, when he's a good Dave?

[1:26:36] Oh, good Dave.

[1:26:37] Not when he's the guy they actually elected, when he's Secret Dave who comes in.

S2

[1:26:40] Yeah.

[1:26:41] I was like briefly considering Henry Fonda and then I was like, he nuked one of our own cities.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:46] He had to, Dan.

[1:26:48] Tit for tat.

[1:26:49] He had to make it up to the Russians.

[1:26:51] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:52] And my answer is of course, King Ralph.

[1:26:55] Okay, let's move on.

[1:26:57] He's not a president.

[1:26:58] Yeah.

[1:26:59] I mean, he's president of England, right?

[1:27:00] He's president of our hearts.

[1:27:01] He's president of our hearts.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:02] It was very disappointing watching the coverage of the royal wedding and not seeing John Goodman

[1:27:06] as an honorary guest.

[1:27:08] Yes, sir.

S2

[1:27:11] Hi there.

[1:27:12] My name's Michael McLastnametheld.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:15] I was wondering if you guys knew any like deleted scenes or outtakes that you thought would drastically improve a movie if they were left in?

[1:27:24] Or inversely, something, what scene you could remove from a movie to drastically improve it?

S2

[1:27:30] I mean, I've always liked, I mean, there are certain scenes in the longer cut of Aliens that shouldn't be in there, like the colonization early scene.

[1:27:40] But I really love the scene where they set up the automated guns and they shoot the aliens and the aliens keep coming in waves and waves and waves until like almost all the ammunition is gone.

[1:27:52] But the aliens have decided to stop at that point.

[1:27:54] They've learned their lesson.

[1:27:56] And that's, they've learned their lesson.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:59] One of the aliens is like, guys, guys, guys, we are not getting anywhere with this.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:07] A favorite deleted scene of mine is from the Dungeons and Dragons movie where one of the characters tells, shares an anecdote about her father who's like a 20th level wizard or some bullshit.

[1:28:19] And it's really great.

[1:28:20] There's also, I wish they'd kept this in the movie even though it's not really a deleted scene, but there's, there's a shot in the footage of, of the making of footage where Jeremy Irons is doing some big scene.

[1:28:30] And then as soon as the director says cut, he's like, fuck this.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:39] I think that's very, very understandable from his point of view.

[1:28:42] I don't know that I can think of any.

[1:28:44] I, it's, I don't know that I've ever seen a movie where they've added back in a deleted scene and it's made the movie better.

[1:28:49] Maybe there's something.

[1:28:50] But I remember growing up and hearing like, oh, the apocalypse now French plantation scene.

[1:28:54] Oh, this French plantation scene in Apocalypse Now, it's so amazing.

[1:28:57] They had to cut it because the movie was too long, but it's so amazing.

[1:28:59] And then Apocalypse Now Redux came out and they, that scene was in it.

[1:29:02] And I was like, terrible scene.

[1:29:05] Like, it's just them sitting at a table and the French explaining some stuff about the history of Vietnam's colonization by the French.

[1:29:12] And I'm like, kind of got that from watching the movie already.

[1:29:15] Like, this is like, I don't, this is not living or like any of the scenes in that.

[1:29:21] There's that scene in the fly where he like, he makes some kind of hybrid mutant monster and then has to fight it.

[1:29:29] That got cut out.

[1:29:30] I have no idea what you're talking about.

[1:29:32] It's like, he makes like a cat baboon with the transporter and then it attacks him.

S4

[1:29:35] That sounds amazing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:36] But when you watch it and I, for years I was like, this sounds amazing.

[1:29:38] And then I found, I was like, I'm an idiot.

[1:29:41] So it takes me years to be like, let me check YouTube if it's on there.

[1:29:44] Everything's on YouTube.

[1:29:45] And so I checked it and I was like, this scene is not very good.

[1:29:47] I see why they cut this.

[1:29:52] Hi, I'm Vigil, last name withheld.

S2

[1:29:54] Um, so you guys used to have some really bad ads.

[1:29:58] Uh, I was just wondering, are there any movies that had bad advertisements that you really loved and actually turned out loving?

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:05] Hmm.

[1:30:06] I mean like, uh, what was that Tom Cruise movie?

S4

[1:30:08] Edge of Tomorrow?

[1:30:09] Edge of Tomorrow, sure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:10] Where it was like, the ads, I was just like, I don't know what this is.

[1:30:13] This doesn't make any sense to me.

[1:30:14] I don't even know what this is.

[1:30:16] And then I saw the movie and I was like, that was a fun action movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:18] Yeah, I mean, I thought the ad campaigns for John Carter totally killed the movie.

[1:30:23] And I think it's a very serviceable blockbuster and didn't deserve to be maligned as badly as it did.

[1:30:29] And I can't think of anything clever.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:31] The other one I would say is, uh, is, uh, there are a lot of ad campaigns that set up an expectation that's not met by the movie.

[1:30:38] Like, uh, Super 8.

[1:30:40] I was like, can't wait to find out the mystery of what this monster is.

[1:30:43] And then it's just an alien.

[1:30:44] I was like, why were they pretending that this was the thing that, like, I don't understand?

[1:30:48] They're acting like this.

[1:30:49] And there was a, there was a promotional comic book that was stapled into a bunch of comics when that movie came out.

[1:30:57] That it was about a cosmonaut dog being sent into space and it never came back.

[1:31:01] And I was like, oh, I bet that dog mutated into a monster and it comes back.

[1:31:06] And that's why all the dogs go disappearing.

[1:31:08] Maybe they're being merged into this dog monster.

[1:31:10] And then I saw the movie and I was like, it's just an alien.

[1:31:12] Like, I wish it was this dog monster.

[1:31:13] Like, that would have been so much more fun if it was this space dog monster.

S2

[1:31:18] We're almost to the end.

[1:31:19] Alright, come on.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:20] Dan, who are you speaking for when you say that?

S2

[1:31:22] Uh, me.

[1:31:23] I'm, uh, the sweet release of death is within my grasp.

[1:31:29] My name is Ian, last name withheld.

[1:31:31] And if the Flophouse were to be trapped in one disaster movie, which would you want it to be?

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:38] What's the one where fried chicken's falling out of the sky?

S2

[1:31:41] Uh, I guess, clatter the chance of meatballs?

[1:31:44] Yeah, that's it.

[1:31:45] I guess.

[1:31:46] I guess that counts, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:51] It certainly would be a disaster.

[1:31:53] That was the scariest book I ever read when I was a kid.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:56] I mean, it's, and it's a movie, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:58] Well, now it's a movie, but it wasn't a movie when I was a kid.

[1:32:01] It was a book.

[1:32:02] Okay.

[1:32:03] My story checks out.

[1:32:04] Okay.

[1:32:05] Because that book, that book is the closest you can get to H.P. Lovecraft as a kid.

[1:32:09] Where it's like, there's a force in the universe that can, that feeds humanity.

[1:32:13] And one day, it just decides not to anymore.

[1:32:16] And it decides to crush humanity and they never find out why.

[1:32:19] They just have to run.

[1:32:21] That's frightening.

[1:32:22] What about you, Stuart?

[1:32:23] Disaster movie.

[1:32:24] What would you want to live in?

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:25] I mean, uh, maybe Dante's Peak.

[1:32:28] I don't know which one's got...

[1:32:29] Yeah!

[1:32:30] That's a good one, right?

[1:32:31] You got Pierce Brosnan.

[1:32:32] I like that one.

S2

[1:32:33] It's also localized.

[1:32:34] Like, if you're not near Dante's Peak, you're pretty much cool.

[1:32:37] Yeah!

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:38] Yeah, that's in the deleted scenes of people just hanging out somewhere else.

[1:32:45] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:46] Just people having barbecues in the Midwest and being like, isn't it weird there's a volcano

[1:32:49] in L.A. or something right now?

S2

[1:32:51] Yeah, I'm gonna pick that one too.

[1:32:52] Like, yeah, like volcano, but I'm in Ohio.

[1:32:54] So, I'm just like, oh, yeah, man.

[1:32:57] I'm gonna watch it and then Randy Newman sings I Love L.A. and everything's great.

[1:33:01] Yeah, that's it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:02] Is Reign of Fire a disaster movie?

[1:33:04] Do dragons count as a disaster?

[1:33:06] That counts as a disaster, yeah.

[1:33:08] Okay, then maybe dragons, because I'd keep one as a pet and it would be my best friends.

[1:33:13] And I'd learn how to train it.

[1:33:15] I don't think you paid attention to that movie very closely.

[1:33:18] I just saw the poster.

[1:33:19] Yes, final question.

[1:33:21] This is it, everybody.

S9

[1:33:22] My name is Rachel.

[1:33:23] Last name is a secret.

[1:33:25] I-

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:26] Well, so even if you wanted to not withhold it, you couldn't.

S9

[1:33:30] I'm very sorry that the podcast listeners are not going to get to see Elliot's beautifully

[1:33:35] Wikipedia-researched presentation about our beautiful city, Washington, D.C.

[1:33:40] And-

[1:33:42] People in Washington, D.C. love Washington, D.C.

[1:33:46] So, I don't know if anybody has made movies about local D.C. politics.

[1:33:52] That might be a next research project.

[1:33:54] It might be very interesting, because we have some doozies around here.

[1:33:57] And specifically, my question is, which do you think is worse, the politicians in Geostorm, who are trying to actually control the weather, or the sitting, elected Washington, D.C. official, who is still a seated official, who bought into the conspiracy theory and publicly said so, that he thought people were controlling the weather.

S2

[1:34:20] Which is worse.

[1:34:21] I think definitely our current real life people are worse.

[1:34:25] Well, the one that-

[1:34:26] Because at least-

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:27] Well, one, it's not a movie, so it can hurt us.

S2

[1:34:29] Yeah.

[1:34:30] But also, at least in Geostorm, like, apparently they actually had the political will to do something about climate change.

[1:34:37] Which is the most fantastic thing that happens in Geostorm.

[1:34:40] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:42] Even Geostorm is like, there's bad guys in the government, but not the president.

[1:34:47] Like, the president only wants puppies and candy canes for everyone.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:51] Yeah, I mean, it feels like the only bad guy in the government in Geostorm is like an outlier, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:58] Yeah.

[1:34:59] Well, we don't know about that.

[1:35:00] I don't know.

[1:35:01] Maybe the Postmaster General is cool.

[1:35:02] Yeah, he's-

[1:35:03] I don't know, but-

S2

[1:35:04] He's just a rocket launcher aficionado who went bad.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:07] He just shows up at his office at the State Department building with that rocket launcher, and he's like, this is my right.

[1:35:12] I can have this.

[1:35:13] I'm just gonna keep it over my desk.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:15] I think we're all in agreement that we prefer the politicians of Geostorm, a movie where the Secretary of State, while being arrested, says, how did you-

[1:35:23] And Andy Garcia says, because I'm the damn president of the United States.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:28] Is that maybe the most unearned little bit of machismo, considering Andy Garcia has done nothing to be helpful throughout the entire movie?

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:38] Other than suggest a couple get married?

[1:35:41] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:42] Well, I mean, he's the matchmaker president, which is pretty fantastic.

[1:35:46] But the idea, when Max is like, we gotta send a team of scientists up there, and Andy Garcia goes, no, no, no.

[1:35:51] One scientist who we can control.

[1:35:53] And it's like, what do you expect them to do up there?

[1:35:56] But also, the idea that like, even if it wasn't Gerard Butler and it all worked according to the plan, that there's this one guy who's got this long to-do list of things to fix on the station.

[1:36:04] Oh, also there's a problem in the men's room.

[1:36:06] I'll get to it.

S2

[1:36:10] Well, that's, I mean, that's it.

[1:36:12] I have to pee as much as you guys do.

[1:36:15] So, I would like to thank you all for coming out.

[1:36:18] Some quick housekeeping.

[1:36:21] There's merch downstairs, and we will be down there as soon as we can.

[1:36:25] As soon as Dan is done peeing.

[1:36:27] As soon as I'm done peeing and cleaning up the tech stuff that I have here, we'll be downstairs.

[1:36:34] Signing stuff.

[1:36:35] And we'll sign stuff if you want it to be signed.

[1:36:37] And also, after that, if we are not too tired, we will be at Rocket Bar.

[1:36:42] And I believe that's the official, like, meet-up place for listeners.

[1:36:47] Whether or not we're there, that's what was decided online.

[1:36:51] So, if you want to go to Rocket Bar, you can.

[1:36:53] And that's it, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:55] I mean, even if there wasn't a meet-up there, you could go there if you wanted to.

[1:36:57] Yeah, no, it's within your power.

[1:36:59] Yeah.

[1:37:00] Trump hasn't taken that away from us.

[1:37:03] Thank you, everybody, for coming to see us.

[1:37:05] Thank you for everybody at the Sixth and I Synagogue for having us, taking care of us.

[1:37:11] Hey, for the Flophouse.

[1:37:13] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:37:14] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:37:16] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:37:17] Thank you, everybody.

[1:37:18] Good night, everyone.

[1:37:19] Good night.

[1:37:31] Okay, two things I'm gonna say.

[1:37:32] That's called commanding a stage.

[1:37:34] Yeah.

[1:37:35] One, you guys did great and we didn't even tell you you were supposed to do that.

[1:37:39] So, nice work.

[1:37:40] Two, I kinda like that Stuart's bared forearms got a bigger response than the city you live in.

S2

[1:37:50] Uh, alright.

[1:37:51] Sorry.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:53] Can you call someone real quick?

[1:37:54] Yeah.

S2

[1:37:55] Well, I, you know, my mom, I haven't talked to her in a while.

[1:37:58] You know, she keeps dodging ya.

[1:38:01] Yeah.

[1:38:02] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:03] Maximumfun.org

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:07] Comedy and culture.

[1:38:08] Artist owned.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:09] Listener supported.

Ep. #265 - Geostorm LIVE

Transcript

In this episode

Description