Ep. #254 - Kidnap

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Kidnap, known in my house as Catch That Kid.

[0:31] Hey everyone, and welcome to the Flop House. I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:34] Hey there, Dan. I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:37] Hey, Dan. Hey, Stu. Nice to meet you for the first time ever.

[0:40] My name is Elliot ChexCard Kalen.

[0:43] How are you?

[0:44] Welcome to the Flop House, Elliot.

[0:46] Good to meet you. What line of work are you in?

[0:49] Well, you know, I just ride these here rails, seeing what kind of adventures and shenanigans I can get into.

[0:55] Maybe saving lives and maybe breaking hearts.

[0:57] I don't know, I guess you'd call me kind of a traveling vagabond, you know?

[1:04] Just a man of rags and patches.

[1:06] A traveling wolberry.

[1:08] Yeah, you'd call me a traveling wolberry.

[1:10] I'm an incredibly rich and famous rock star who's pretending to be like a hobo.

[1:14] Wait, Jeff Lynne is incredibly rich and famous?

[1:18] They don't get richer or more famouser.

[1:21] Well, those are the kind of great bits you can find on the Flop House, which you're listening to right now.

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[1:32] Actually, technically, the MaxFunDrive will start one day after this drops, but this is our MaxFunDrive episode.

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[1:49] I don't know what that means.

[1:50] Nor do they get the boner bonus content.

[1:52] Oh, I was going to say the same thing, Stu.

[1:55] You beat me.

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[2:48] Okay.

[2:49] Well, this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and we talk about it.

[2:53] Uh-huh.

[2:54] But wait, Dan.

[2:55] We watch Kidnap, starring Halle Berry.

[2:58] Yeah.

[2:59] Well, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I don't know if this fits our podcast.

[3:03] Yeah.

[3:04] It could be.

[3:05] Could be.

[3:06] Guys, I don't know.

[3:07] I had kind of a good time, but let's not spoil it.

[3:11] Kind of a good time raves Dan McCoy.

[3:14] Guys, do you think this movie should have actually just been called Baby Driver?

[3:18] Well, no, the baby is not driving.

[3:21] There's no baby.

[3:22] It's like a nine-year-old kid.

[3:23] I mean, it's a person who drives a baby around.

[3:26] That's true.

[3:27] Okay.

[3:28] Again, it's a grown child, like in the seven to nine range, seven of nine, if you will.

[3:33] It's not a baby.

[3:35] I mean, she describes her child as being six years old, and I think to be honest, I mean, I'm not a mother, guys.

[3:41] I know that comes as a shock.

[3:42] Okay.

[3:43] Not yet.

[3:44] I'm not a mother.

[3:45] Not yet anyway.

[3:46] I think it would be hard for me to admit that my child isn't my baby anymore, you know?

[3:50] Well, around the time that a creep in a jean jacket steals your kid away, that's when they're no longer your baby anymore.

[3:58] That's when they've grown up and it's time for them to leave the nest and go to a scary shack in a swamp somewhere.

[4:03] Yeah.

[4:04] Hey, guys.

[4:05] A decoy jean jacket.

[4:07] Now, should we talk about what happens in this movie?

[4:11] I think that the listener almost expects it at this point.

[4:14] Yeah.

[4:15] So the movie begins, guys, and I want to paint you a picture of the Wellington household.

[4:18] Okay.

[4:19] So I've started the movie, and then I say, Alexa, pause.

[4:24] Okay.

[4:25] I told you to start the movie Kidnap, not a demo reel of an animation studio's thing just running through different production company logos.

[4:36] Also notice.

[4:37] Alexa goes, Stuart, but this is the movie Kidnap.

[4:42] And I go, no.

[4:44] My first note on Kidnap in my notes is so many production logos.

[4:49] I believe this movie sat on the shelf for a few years.

[4:55] Like an elf.

[4:56] Yeah.

[4:57] Halle Berry was one of the producers on this.

[4:59] I guess this was her trying to move into the Liam Neeson Takens phase of her career.

[5:05] But it took a while for this to get distributed.

[5:08] And I wonder whether that has anything to do with the production company surplus.

[5:13] Yeah.

[5:14] I'm guessing one ran out of money, and then another one picked up the ball.

[5:17] Yeah.

[5:18] Like a relay race.

[5:19] Yeah, a real relay race.

[5:20] Yeah.

[5:21] It was a real production bucket brigade.

[5:24] Yep.

[5:26] To put out the fire we had in our hearts for a movie like Kidnap.

[5:30] Now, the movie opens up where?

[5:33] That's right.

[5:34] New Orleans, Louisiana.

[5:37] The first thing we see is we see a lot of home movie footage of a baby growing up to be a boy with voiceover of Halle Berry being like, oh, yeah, you can do it.

[5:46] OK, yeah, come over here.

[5:47] Oh, so sweet.

[5:48] This is some real boyhood shit right here.

[5:50] I was like, am I watching boyhood?

[5:52] What's going on?

[5:53] I thought I was watching Kidnap.

[5:54] To be a fly on the wall in those ADR sessions.

[5:59] Now, I will say there was this is when the movie started tugging my heartstrings purely because I also have experienced watching a boy growing up and getting older, starting as a baby.

[6:09] Like in a movie?

[6:10] Halle, you say?

[6:13] Like in a movie?

[6:14] Like watching DJ Tanner grow up?

[6:16] Wait, that's a girl.

[6:17] DJ Roseanne's Kid grow up?

[6:20] Yeah, exactly.

[6:21] Yeah, Dan Jr.

[6:23] That's what DJ, fuck.

[6:25] That's what DJ stands for.

[6:27] And the weird thing is, that's what DJ Tanner's name stood for, too.

[6:33] Dan Jr.

[6:34] There's not even a Dan in that family.

[6:36] Danny Tanner?

[6:38] Oh, but wait, but then why would he name it?

[6:42] Wait, hold on a second.

[6:43] I guess Danny Tanner is the dad, right?

[6:47] Yeah.

[6:48] Dan, here's a question I have.

[6:51] Dan, did you name yourself Dan after all the sitcom dads you have seen, like Dan Conner and Danny Tanner?

[6:59] Well, yes.

[7:00] Like most people, I named myself Elliot.

[7:02] Like Prince and David Bowie?

[7:05] Were they born with those names?

[7:06] No.

[7:07] Elton John?

[7:08] Michael Caine?

[7:09] When Dan was a small child, his father set out a ball, a sword, and the name Dan and was like, you have to make a choice.

[7:17] Yeah, I've been regretting that choice for my whole life.

[7:20] Yeah.

[7:21] If you choose the sword, it means you will try to overthrow me, and then I will have you executed.

[7:26] If you choose the ball, you'll be the sports-loving son I've always wanted.

[7:30] And if you choose Dan, it tells us nothing.

[7:34] Yeah.

[7:35] It just comes along with a lot of sighing.

[7:38] And in order to not make a choice, you stuck your hand in the hot coals and immediately put it in your mouth and burned your tongue, and that's why you can't talk good now.

[7:46] Thanks for my origin story.

[7:48] Yeah, a lot of mythology today.

[7:51] Guys, what's going on?

[7:53] So is it all home movies?

[7:55] What the fuck is this movie about?

[7:57] No, we established that Halle Berry is a mother, and she has a son named Frankie.

[8:01] He's about six, and she's a waitress.

[8:04] She's a real sassy waitress, always being very sassy, especially to the very bitchy, skinny white girl who is trying to challenge her, I guess, on what's available on the menu because they don't have the kind of milk that she likes.

[8:17] She's a bad customer.

[8:19] They say the customer is always right.

[8:20] In this case, they're wrong.

[8:22] Yeah, I mean this is a retail.

[8:24] I feel like in a food and beverage situation, you're dealing with the customer only sometimes being right.

[8:31] Yeah.

[8:32] Why is that different?

[8:33] You would think in retail the customer would be right less often because they're buying prepackaged items that nothing could be changed about it, whereas in food service, you can change what you're making because it's all on the fly rendered in 3D in the moment.

[8:45] Well, I guess maybe it's because most of the time when I'm dealing with customers, they're usually drinking, and I mean at that point, their judgment is suspect.

[8:56] Yeah.

[8:57] That's true.

[8:58] Drinking does lower the level of rightness you can expect.

[9:01] But the weird thing is I'm also usually drinking, so eye of the beholder.

[9:06] Yeah, Mobius strip.

[9:08] But you're just doing that to level the playing field, right?

[9:12] See, if I weren't drunk, I would just be operating at such a high level of intellectual stuff.

[9:21] You're like – the customer comes up to you and is like, let me tell you something, and you go, hold on.

[9:27] Before I best you handily in mental combat, allow me to handicap myself to make this a fair fight, and then you just chug, what, like a whole bottle of vodka?

[9:36] Harrison Bergeron brand vodka.

[9:39] Okay, so Halle Berry is a waitress.

[9:46] The person who's supposed to relieve her for her shift didn't show up.

[9:49] Uh-oh.

[9:50] So her son is with her, but then they do show up, so she leaves.

[9:53] Crisis averted.

[9:54] And so here's the thing I'm going to tell you about this movie.

[9:57] The first 15 minutes, I was like this is going to be a pretty bad movie.

[10:00] movie and then after I feel like that 15 minutes was not representative of the whole thing because

[10:06] we find out that uh Halle Berry is divorced her ex-husband's new girlfriend is a med student

[10:10] clearly he's moved up in the world because she's just a waitress uh Halle Berry takes her son to

[10:15] one of those amusement parks that are in the movies where everything's kind of sinister

[10:19] you know that something bad's gonna happen you know the Punisher's family's about to get shot

[10:23] there's one there's one dude that asked her about her kid who is so stilted and creepy

[10:30] like when they're sitting on a on a bench together that I'm like this can't be the bad

[10:34] guy in the movie because it's too it's too obvious this guy's either the bad guy or he's

[10:40] the bass player in a sticks cover band that's about to go on maybe he's a bad he could be the

[10:45] bad guy from another movie who just happened to wander into this movie briefly and then left

[10:50] I think if we see a Neil Breen movie and there's a scene that inexplicably has Halle Berry in it

[10:55] because he was shooting the movie at that moment too yeah and that guy was a character in his movie

[11:00] who was sitting on that bench then I'll be like oh I get it okay these movies got tangled up

[11:04] if that guy was wearing a suit he would be message he would be managing a pro wrestler

[11:13] but it was you expected any minute this guy you're like oh this guy has creep written all

[11:17] over him he's so weird and off and doesn't seem like he's asking her about her about her son and

[11:21] then he just kind of leaves and you're like okay that was in a weird way it's the most off-putting

[11:27] scene in the movie because you're expecting something and it never happens yeah that's the

[11:31] that's the thing you think about at like hours after the movie when you're lying in bed and

[11:36] you're like mentally cataloging your day yeah and then you and uh you turn next to you and that guy

[11:43] is in bed next to you and you go ah and you wake up and go oh it's just a dream and then you turn

[11:48] over and he's still in bed with you and you go ah he gets maybe you wake up that time too you wake

[11:54] up that time and you're on the set of the bob newhart show and uh and susanna said it's like

[11:59] what's wrong bob and you're like i traveled back in time and i'm bob newhart now this is gonna be

[12:05] great yeah i got a bunch of good years honestly who would not want to be yeah who would not want

[12:11] to be bob newhart at the height of his success come on well you say you go back in time but i

[12:15] think actually when you incept somebody that deeply yeah you keep going deeper and deeper

[12:20] time just goes super duper slow now true that's true according to an academic text i once watched

[12:26] yeah now the listener might think that we're wasting a lot of time this time around but

[12:30] there's not like the plot i would call in this movie is is breezy and thin yes this is a movie

[12:35] that is almost entirely car chase yeah which is not and not in a bad way it's so well so a little

[12:42] while i was confused because the movie was trying to make me believe that halle berry's son is named

[12:47] marco okay but it is not it they were just playing the game marco polo which is something that you

[12:52] normally do with a kid and a amusement park and then he gets something you normally do in water

[12:58] but she does it on land and so that's how you know she's like a quirky mom yeah uh and the kid talks

[13:03] into a weird robot and that's great because that weird robot later records his kidnapper now this

[13:09] is this is a toy this is like a toy phone in the shape of a robot it's not like r2d2 is not

[13:15] wandering around the amusement park we're not in the future it's not the robot never says to halle

[13:20] berry like follow me if you want to live that robot never accidentally gets on a burger grill

[13:25] and gets cheese put on it like it's a hamburger because there was an opportunity the movie began

[13:30] in a diner yeah that's true that's one of my top four robot movie moments i think is when the

[13:36] batteries not included robot gets cheese put on him now that's what i call an impossible burger

[13:41] hey guys have you ever had one of those

[13:45] i haven't but now that i live in la everyone asks me about having one all the time

[13:50] well you should just direct their attention to that scene you should just send them a gif of

[13:54] that moment and uh batteries not included say now this is what stewart calls an impossible

[14:00] burger so i'm not going to steal the joke from you yeah thanks for giving credit yeah

[14:04] yeah i'm not some twitter aggregator i want to give credit where credit's due

[14:07] anyway let me tell you this joke i came up with it's about this baseball team and the baseball

[14:11] players have some pretty crazy names i invented it uh yeah anyway so so uh she she gets a call

[14:20] from her her lawyer and says to her son hold on i'll be right back uh her ex-husband wants

[14:24] primary custody and she hallie walks away from her son to take the call now she should just save

[14:30] that call for later it's a call from her lawyer is only going to upset her this is supposed to

[14:34] be her time with her son like i know in this connected world it's hard to let go and this

[14:39] is right after her son's like mom can i go get my face painted she's like no after this song

[14:46] like it feels like one of those like uh jazz songs that's just never gonna end well that's

[14:52] what she knows she doesn't want to go get his face painted because it costs like ten dollars

[14:55] so she's like oh after this song and she knows this is a jam band that's just gonna keep going

[15:00] until they fall asleep yeah but by the time the song's done he's gonna have a full beard and

[15:04] doesn't want to get face paint on it the performers they're listening to it reminded me of

[15:09] there's a type of like amusement park or carnival performer where it's like you want to take them

[15:15] aside as a parent and be like you realize that what you're doing could be like 10 times less

[15:20] creepy and scary right like if you didn't wear that makeup or dress up in those costumes i

[15:26] know you're trying to have fun and i appreciate that but like this could be just like a fun

[15:29] circus musical number if you weren't like a weirdo clown monster i guess maybe i'm projecting too

[15:35] much about a uh a small circus that i saw in northern california it had some amazing acts

[15:40] but between every act was interspersed a video where this weird gravelly voiced french clown

[15:45] talked about uh like the spirit of life and love and destiny and how we how we kill those things

[15:51] in our soul and we don't feel joy and it was felt like it felt like between every there was like a

[15:56] juggler oh that was great okay now here's a video from someone who kidnapped somebody i loved and

[16:00] is like putting me on a weird poetic game of cat and mouse okay now a tightrope walker that was fun

[16:05] oh now it's video from the kidnapper again again what are his ransom demands oh that i feel joy in

[16:10] my heart okay that's difficult when there's like a zombie clown monster threatening me through

[16:15] videotape it was uh let me just say this circuses you don't have to be poetic it's okay this isn't

[16:21] europe end of psa that was my public service announcement oh cool uh so the kid gets kidnapped

[16:28] right we do we talk about that so oh yeah she comes she she she comes back and her and frankie

[16:34] is gone and she captures catches just a glimpse of frankie being dragged into a car this is after

[16:39] this is after an a older woman gives voice to my question is his name frankie or marco

[16:46] because she's going she's going frankie marco marco frankie and a woman does say

[16:52] is his name frankie marco and she's just like whatever and runs away

[16:57] i mean it is confusing trying to find a kid that's been kidnapped like you do want to be

[17:02] absolutely clear about the parameters of what's going on yeah and also but well it's it's kind of

[17:07] a life is beautiful type thing she doesn't want frankie to get too upset so she continues the

[17:11] marco game okay i imagine i imagine in life is beautiful some of the other concentration camp

[17:16] inmates uh we're seeing roberto benigni joking around and we're like wait a second is this is

[17:20] this a game or are we actually being is this a genocide because i'm being confused right now

[17:26] like roberto that you're really messing with my head right now because it's not a fun game i don't

[17:30] like it yeah and uh it's not a game i signed up for as i do with most games is this like a game

[17:38] with michael douglas yeah uh i i think they're probably just assuming it's that sharp cutting

[17:45] level of dark satire that's common in europe but not so much in america exactly don't want it no

[17:51] americans like things straightforward make my circus happy make my cutting satire not not not

[17:56] exist don't even do it okay so halle berry is like she catches a glimpse of the car uh which

[18:02] is kind of like an aging rundown what sports car or something yeah it's a hatchback it's a hat yeah

[18:07] and uh without a license plate without a license plate and she gets into her minivan wait you got

[18:14] to give this is the most i mean this is second billing character here this is her 2011 uh chrysler

[18:21] town and country minivan and if there's a better if there's a better ad for this town and country

[18:26] minivan i can't think of it because this thing has super pickup it's like a dream yeah it accelerates

[18:34] amazingly the one thing the one thing about this thing that it's like well the funny thing about

[18:39] this movie is that whenever she accelerates we see her her speed up speedometer go up to like 40

[18:45] it always is it's always centered around the 40 miles and i'm like that's not that fast like

[18:49] it always starts you're not impressing me by showing me that she's going 40 miles an hour

[18:53] yeah it always starts at like 20 and you're like you're on the highway you're going only 20 miles

[18:59] an hour like this would impress me maybe if you were driving in a school zone when children were

[19:03] present but like not that's the problem elliot the children the child is not present yeah just

[19:09] like that's true just like the bumper sticker reads almost mockingly on the back of her minivan

[19:16] her my mistake chrysler town and country minivan uh that it it reads baby on board when we all know

[19:24] the baby is not on board no the the baby is on board another car yeah uh so she goes on a car

[19:30] chase and now this car chase this is the the heart of the movie and by the heart i mean the body of

[19:35] the movie because most of this and i have to admit guys let me just pull back the curtain early

[19:40] by the by the moment she got in her car and was driving after this car this movie had me and like

[19:46] i was feeling genuinely tense and worried like they do such a good job especially with the early

[19:51] part of this car chase of her keeping up with this car but keep constantly almost losing it

[19:57] yeah but i was like i was like i was

[20:00] Really and this is I'm watching this while I'm doing the dishes on an iPad and my response to it was literally like hurry up

[20:05] You're gonna lose your kid get that car like come on. What are you doing? Yeah, it's so I

[20:10] Was I tapped into this primal like need to catch up? You know? Yeah, I was like arguing with her on like

[20:17] Well, she was driving like no. No just ram it

[20:24] I was watching this with Charlene last night and she

[20:28] She had been like falling asleep to the episode of Jessica Jones

[20:31] We were watching and I'm like, hey, you want to watch a movie at 11 o'clock at night?

[20:36] And she's like, okay make me some coffee. And by the time we started she was like bolt upright the whole time

[20:44] This is like I don't remember the name of the director or the editor or anything

[20:48] But like this is a writ like this is at times. I almost feel like it's like Ronin level car chase

[20:53] Oh

[20:54] Where they're like, they're really bit like it felt very it was a real sense of like place and reality

[21:00] And even just there's a part where the car in front of her the kidnappers

[21:03] They just start throwing stuff out the back hatchback to get in her way. And I was like, no don't do that

[21:09] there's a part where and

[21:11] Halle Berry is so intense

[21:13] There's a scene where she's like praying to God during that my notice she prays to God during the chase, but it only helps a little

[21:19] Well, she asked for like one thing she asked for like her not to lose the car

[21:24] She doesn't ask for her child back

[21:25] Which is like I feel like that's the larger issue that maybe she should have just gone for that

[21:29] She should have shot them. I think I think she was yeah, I

[21:32] Think she was worried that she would say to God. This is my scenario that I'm worried

[21:36] I think she was worried about God, please

[21:38] I want my baby back and then all God's gonna think is I want my baby back baby back, baby

[21:42] Baby and then God for millennia is gonna have that song stuck in his head and he's gonna be like damn you humanity and he'll just

[21:49] He'll he'll somehow arrange it that the worst possible person is elected president of the United States

[21:54] Which is you know could never happen

[21:56] But he'll arrange it that like the ten unlikely things that could never happen altogether all happen together in one year

[22:02] And just like the worst person becomes president launches a nuclear war

[22:05] That's the kind of thing that would happen if Halle Berry had said I want my baby back

[22:09] Yeah, I think yeah, I think that I mean that's pretty tight. That's a that makes a lot of tight. Yeah airtight

[22:14] Now it sounds like at certain pot times like they're trying to plant the idea that

[22:19] Halle Berry is not actually sure this is happening like maybe she's crazy

[22:22] But then they kind of they abandon any hint of that pretty quickly

[22:25] Which I was glad about and for the for those of you guys listening at home that haven't watched kidnap

[22:29] What do you do and go watch kidnap?

[22:34] She very early you're probably asking what do you do and what do you do and what do you do

[22:38] I'm asking why doesn't she just use her cell phone well her cell phone died because she didn't charge it

[22:43] So guys make sure you carry an extra battery pack and also, then she dropped it in the street

[22:51] It's not enough that the batteries dead she has to drop it, too

[22:54] When else and when she drops it the movie is like bubble and like the movie is saying like hey ahead of time viewer

[23:01] I know what you're gonna say should be the solution to this well guess what she can't do it bump bump

[23:05] I mean have you have you dropped your phone on concrete? I feel like that sound always

[23:10] Goes in my head

[23:13] It's like no you have to this actually the funny what this is if this movie had gotten famous

[23:19] Here's the sketch. I would have pitched at SNL is that she's chasing after her son and her phone

[23:24] Drops and smashes, and she goes no, and then she drives to the Apple Store and is like okay

[23:29] Do I really need like the X it seems so expensive and like she's just so much more concerned with getting a new phone

[23:35] Then we kept getting her son

[23:36] for some reason I thought your

[23:38] your sketch idea would be like then she pulls out a second phone that she had on her and that she drops that one and

[23:43] Then she pulled out like an old rotary phone

[23:48] That's if that one that's a pretty good silly stuff mine had more of a comment about consumerism

[23:52] But yours is good, too

[23:53] I love later on when she gets picked up by like a weird old guy

[23:57] And she's like hey, I need to use your phone. He's like I don't have a phone

[24:01] I got a radio though, but you only get reception over there

[24:06] that

[24:08] Was

[24:09] so anyway

[24:11] She's chasing after them. They threaten her son until she lets them drive away, but she catches up with him again

[24:17] She hears on the radio that police are looking for her car like she's trying to cause mayhem at a certain point so that the police

[24:22] Will will be looking for her so she can tell them her son is kidnapped

[24:27] She finds the recorder that little robot toy Frankie was playing with and she hears the recording of this woman

[24:33] Convincing Frankie to come along with her because her mom's looking for her

[24:36] We're in which doesn't actually add any like any new information to the situation like she's like it's not like oh my god

[24:42] He got kidnapped

[24:44] Well, it's it's it tells you you know that there's a woman involved

[24:47] Yeah, it turns out the kidnappers are a man and a woman and they are like such

[24:51] this is like even the same place in New Orleans, but the man is basically, Florida, man, and

[24:56] The woman is Florida woman, I guess like they are sat there like this exactly the like

[25:02] Scraggly denim jacket wearing people you expect to be kidnapping children in the bayou

[25:07] Well, there's there's a certain

[25:08] I feel like there's a fair amount of menace at least in the woman like there's something very much

[25:13] So like so dead-eyed about this actress that she's she's great

[25:17] And it when she later on when she walks up to the car, and she's like oh, oh, it's it's pretty scary

[25:23] That was the first time we meet her. Yeah, so so uh, they oh so before that happens

[25:29] Halle Berry tries to fly down a motorcycle cop and the motorcycle cops like you're speeding

[25:33] Slow down and she's shouting out the window. My son was kidnapped and he's like what?

[25:37] Nobody can ever hear her

[25:39] Yeah

[25:39] And then so he's right and he's like pull over and she's like my son was kidnapped what pull over and then the bad guys

[25:45] Slam the motorcycle cop up against Halle Berry's van with their car and crush him to death

[25:50] Especially essentially and like it's like well, I didn't expect that to happen. That was crazy

[25:55] Yeah, I mean it's between a speeding car and the most durable vehicle in the world a 2011

[26:02] Chrysler Town and Country, I mean that's when the safety standards that you buy that car for really become a problem. Yeah

[26:09] Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Halle Berry walks away without a scratch

[26:12] I do

[26:13] I do expect at the end of the movie when everything is resolved like I want to see the

[26:17] Epilogue to the movie where they're like arresting Halle Berry and like you were really brave

[26:20] But you caused a lot of mayhem along the way like and like and and killed multiple people

[26:26] Yeah, but so there's a face-off with the kidnappers. The bad guy has a knife or something

[26:32] She throws her purse or her pocketbook. I would call it at him or her wallet, but he doesn't want it and then

[26:39] She gets back in her car and that's when the wife of the kid of the man kid never comes up and like Stewart said

[26:46] Relationship super well-defined. I mean

[26:50] Okay, that's fair, I know you know what maybe they are brother and sister you're right I was being very heteronormative

[26:56] Maybe that's not the case. Maybe they're actually not in a romantic relationship

[26:59] Maybe they're brother and sister who are in a romantic relationship together. It's the Bayou who knows they can be doing whatever

[27:05] Oh, I mean, that's a little classist. No, no, but they're they're painted as something the movie is

[27:12] like

[27:14] Like that like they might as well have like a shirt that says that

[27:19] Said like that Stewart. There's no that

[27:21] Yeah, she might all have a shirt with an arrow that says like I'm with stupid because he's my brother and my lover

[27:27] But here's here Stuart

[27:29] These are people who have never done something you and I have done many times

[27:31] Which is pour a 2-liter bottle of soda into a cup

[27:35] soda to our mouths

[27:38] These people have only ever taken the soda directly from the bottle into the mouth without a cup as a middleman in between

[27:45] That's the people we're dealing with here

[27:48] Yeah, yeah, that's fair. I mean all their cups are probably sitting in an unattached dryer unit

[27:53] That's just sitting in the hallway of their Texas Chainsaw Massacre home

[27:57] Yeah, so this woman shows up and like Stewart says there's just something so like she is the actress playing this character

[28:04] she's playing like this pulpy like

[28:07] Backwoods villain character and she does she's so good because she's so she seems so dead to the world like she has no whatever

[28:14] Whatever vulnerable part of her died a long time ago and was replaced by just like, you know

[28:20] Whatever it takes to survive in the swamp, you know

[28:22] She saw her daddy get eaten by a gator when she was two since then she's been in trouble

[28:27] Yeah, her soul's filled with like crawdad parts

[28:31] It's just gumbo and remoulade, that's all that's in there

[28:34] But uh, she is when she first shows up that and she like leans into the window of Halle Berry's car

[28:38] That was this like or no, she knocks on the window

[28:40] Yeah, like that was the scariest moment of the whole whole movie for me. But anyway, she says look

[28:46] Do you have $10,000 because we'll give this kid back to you for $10,000 my my boyfriend slash

[28:52] Husband slash brother Jimbo up there is gonna drive your son

[28:56] $10,000 and then you can have your son back and Halle Berry's like, oh, okay and Halle Berry lets her into her car

[29:02] And she almost immediately tries to beat Halle Berry up

[29:05] Yeah

[29:05] Tries to strangle her in the car, which is a mistake because Halle Berry's in her home fucking turf, dude

[29:11] When you're a town in country, you're an owner of a 2011 Chrysler Town and Country

[29:18] Somebody like welcome to my website

[29:20] She's received by the great reclining seats that that car has

[29:24] She's trying to be strangled by the the seat belt and Halle Berry reclines and the and that lets her neck out of the noose

[29:31] basically

[29:33] Left and right side sliding

[29:36] Back

[29:38] Yeah, yeah that let me just say one thing about Halle Berry

[29:41] She's a she's a she's a she's a she's a she's a she's a she's a she's a she's a she's a she's a she's a she's a

[29:47] Yeah that let me just say one thing about Halle Berry in this situation

[29:51] Halle Berry has done something we should all do when we get a car

[29:53] Which is read the manual because she knows every feature of this car. She knows exactly what to do. And also she

[30:00] Probably knows Krav Maga.

[30:01] I'm just gonna put that out there too.

[30:03] But it's town and country specific Krav Maga,

[30:06] where they're like, okay, I'm going to show you

[30:07] how to use every part of your town and country

[30:09] to defeat an assailant.

[30:11] You're gonna do it like this.

[30:12] Let's say you're in the driver's seat.

[30:13] Of course you are, it's your car.

[30:14] Don't ever let anybody else drive your car.

[30:16] It's your car.

[30:17] It's like a samurai's sword.

[30:19] It's his soul in a sheath.

[30:21] This is your soul in a minivan.

[30:22] So don't let anyone else drive it.

[30:24] You wouldn't let them drive your soul, would you?

[30:25] I wouldn't let anyone drive my soul.

[30:27] And she's like, can we speed it up?

[30:28] I have to pick up my kid.

[30:29] I don't have a lot of time for this session.

[30:33] But anyway, always read the manual.

[30:35] I guess that whether it's a video game,

[30:37] a car, or surgical equipment,

[30:40] always read the manual, that's what I would say.

[30:42] And even if it's brought to you by a guy named Manuel,

[30:45] like, read his situation.

[30:47] Say like, hey, what's going on with you, Manuel?

[30:49] Like, emotionally, physically, financially,

[30:52] I want to help you out.

[30:53] This is what's best.

[30:54] Just read all the manuals of Manuel's.

[30:56] If you're watching Faulty Towers,

[30:57] pay close attention to Manuel the character,

[31:00] because he's the funniest one in the whole show.

[31:01] Anyway.

[31:03] A bit of an ethnic character.

[31:06] Very much so.

[31:09] It's the most famous caricature of the bumbling Spaniard

[31:12] that we're all so familiar with.

[31:14] I like how Dan couched his critique there,

[31:16] in case there are some big Faulty Towers defenders.

[31:20] I mean, well, you know, it's a great show.

[31:22] It just, you know, certain parts of it

[31:24] haven't aged particularly well.

[31:27] I mean, that scene where he's rude to the Germans who

[31:30] lived through World War II, that would never play now,

[31:32] because those people would be elderly at this point.

[31:35] That scene has really aged.

[31:36] Anyway, so moving on.

[31:39] So Halle Berry, eventually, she hurls the woman out

[31:44] of her car, again, taking advantage

[31:46] of those sliding rear doors, and tries

[31:48] to trick the male kidnapper into thinking

[31:50] that the female kidnapper has the car now

[31:52] by putting on the woman's jean jacket

[31:54] and just kind of like waving her hand around

[31:56] through the windshield.

[31:57] And it is, at this point, I really

[32:00] give the movie credit for being colorblind in its casting

[32:03] and in the characters, because the male kidnapper never

[32:05] seems to be like, well, that seems

[32:06] to be a black arm wearing my girlfriend's sister's jacket.

[32:10] Maybe she, I don't know, maybe it's me.

[32:11] I mean, he's looking through a rear view mirror, dude.

[32:13] I guess that's true.

[32:14] It's difficult, very shadowy.

[32:16] She's following the bad guy, but she's running low on gas.

[32:19] Chase time again.

[32:20] Again, super tense chase.

[32:22] And I don't want to, like, I feel like we have to keep

[32:25] mentioning that, like, what, 75% of this movie

[32:28] is just car chase.

[32:28] Yeah, yeah.

[32:29] Like, it's just her in her car chasing after this guy.

[32:32] She finds the bad car abandoned.

[32:34] It was in an accident.

[32:35] The bad guy took Frankie off on foot.

[32:37] She goes into the sheriff's office to repeat it.

[32:38] I'm sorry, to repeat it, to report it.

[32:40] And the sheriff is like, well, I'm the only one here.

[32:43] I'll send some cars out.

[32:44] They should be out in like 15 minutes.

[32:46] Just wait here, and we'll get it set up.

[32:48] And Halle Berry sees this wall of posters

[32:51] of kids who have been missing for years,

[32:53] and she's like, these are the ones who waited.

[32:55] I can't wait.

[32:56] And she goes on the hunt again.

[32:57] And she's just driving around town,

[32:59] sees the kidnapper's jacket in a trash can,

[33:01] looks up, another car starts pulling away.

[33:04] She follows that car.

[33:05] Yeah, this is the biggest contrivance of the movie,

[33:07] that she just could just drive around after losing the guy

[33:10] and be like, oh, here he is again.

[33:12] Like, that car is driving suspiciously.

[33:15] Oh, wait, that's correct.

[33:18] That is the kidnapper.

[33:19] Yeah.

[33:20] And that it is so dead in the middle of the day

[33:23] that the one car on the road in this town

[33:25] is the kidnapper's car.

[33:26] So the kidnapper knows she's onto him,

[33:28] and he runs over a lady in the street.

[33:31] Yeah, this is after she smashes into his car a couple times.

[33:33] Yeah.

[33:34] And so he runs over a woman in the street,

[33:37] and Halle Berry avoids the person on the street

[33:41] and then slams on the brakes

[33:43] so that the person who's already been run over

[33:45] doesn't get hit by another car.

[33:48] Her Chrysler Town and Country gets T-boned

[33:51] and does not move an inch.

[33:54] Oh, no, so stable.

[33:55] So, and the airbag, instant opening.

[33:59] Like, it's, you can't say enough about this car.

[34:02] At this point, she's been in like four car accidents.

[34:05] Yeah, and the handling,

[34:07] she swerves right around that person in the street.

[34:09] She doesn't offer any help, not at all.

[34:12] I mean, she just gave that person their life back, Elliot.

[34:16] Yeah.

[34:17] True, but the message that you send to the world

[34:19] by buying a Chrysler Town and Country minivan

[34:22] is, I'm taking care of myself.

[34:24] You take care of you.

[34:25] Oh, wow, yeah.

[34:26] I'm in like a battle tank. Every man's an island, yeah.

[34:28] I can withstand anything.

[34:30] What are you doing to help you out?

[34:32] Because when the bomb falls and I'm protected

[34:34] because I'm in my Chrysler Town and Country,

[34:36] I don't have room for you.

[34:37] I gotta watch my own family.

[34:39] So, see ya, except she doesn't say see ya.

[34:41] She stops and gets T-boned,

[34:43] like you were saying, by that other car.

[34:45] And then she's back on the hunt, like immediately.

[34:47] And then she goes back at it.

[34:48] But she slams into the bad guy's car,

[34:51] but she runs out of gas.

[34:52] No, why does she not have a solar-powered car?

[34:55] Why don't all of us have solar-powered cars?

[34:58] What happened, Dan?

[34:59] Why don't we have solar-powered cars?

[35:01] I assume it's some sort of vast conspiracy

[35:03] on the part of the car companies and the oil companies.

[35:07] That's part of it.

[35:08] Also, it's a battery issue.

[35:09] Oh, okay.

[35:10] So, she leaves her gasless Chrysler Town and Country

[35:14] sitting in the road.

[35:15] She flags down another vehicle.

[35:16] This is that aforementioned older fellow

[35:18] without a cell phone, but he does have a radio.

[35:21] They talk about it for a little while.

[35:23] And then all of a sudden, the kidnapper is back

[35:26] and he's on the attack.

[35:28] And we've learned that the kidnapper went down a dead end.

[35:31] So, he has to come back that way anyway.

[35:33] So, he smashes into their car.

[35:35] Halle Berry blacks out, wakes up to find

[35:37] that the van driver is dead.

[35:39] And the male kidnapper is getting out of his car.

[35:41] Just another name to be added to the cenotaph of this movie.

[35:45] Yeah.

[35:49] Is he the first?

[35:50] He's the first death of the movie, right?

[35:52] I'm sure that motorcycle cop probably died.

[35:57] You're right.

[35:58] The motorcycle cop, if not dead,

[35:59] he's living a life worse than death

[36:00] since everything below his shoulders has been crushed.

[36:03] Yeah.

[36:04] And, I mean, at the point that the kidnappers,

[36:08] after killing a police officer, were like,

[36:11] okay, if you give us $10,000, we'll give you your kid back.

[36:14] Like, that's crazy.

[36:17] Like, they're way too far gone at that point.

[36:19] $10,000, what?

[36:21] They just need enough to get them down to Mexico.

[36:23] Sure.

[36:24] And then, I guess, get in trouble there.

[36:27] So, she wakes up, the man kidnapper,

[36:31] let's just call him Scraggly Joe.

[36:33] He's like, or you know what?

[36:34] He looks kind of like Spike, Snoopy's brother,

[36:37] who lives in the desert.

[36:39] Sure.

[36:40] You know, with the long, scraggly mustache.

[36:41] The non-beagle version of Spike, yes, definitely.

[36:43] The what?

[36:44] The non-beagle version of Spike.

[36:45] No, yeah, you're right.

[36:46] Dan's right.

[36:47] We wouldn't want the listeners to think

[36:48] that he's some kind of dog man.

[36:51] He's not, he's no dog detective.

[36:53] No, no.

[36:54] He's a human man.

[36:55] He just has that kind of air of droopiness about him.

[36:59] And he comes at her with a shotgun.

[37:01] And she's not in her town and country anymore.

[37:04] So she can't, she's in trouble.

[37:06] Although she then goes back into her town and country, right?

[37:08] Yeah, of course.

[37:10] And she leads him back into her safe space.

[37:12] And then she uses the town and country's parking brake

[37:16] to drag that man through the woods, totally killing him.

[37:20] And finally, the town and country smashes into a tree

[37:24] and is no more.

[37:26] Or is it?

[37:27] Yeah, she traps him in the door and drags him through.

[37:30] And it's like, she says a thank you,

[37:33] not to God, but to Chrysler for giving her,

[37:36] it's like, you have to imagine there was at some point

[37:38] when He-Man's steed Battle Cat died in battle

[37:42] and He-Man probably laid Battle Cat,

[37:44] AKA Cringer, to rest.

[37:46] And, oh, you know what probably happened is,

[37:49] Cringer didn't turn into Battle Cat in time

[37:52] and there was a battle and He-Man was in danger.

[37:54] And Cringer, finding the Battle Cat inside of him

[37:57] that was always there,

[37:58] he leaped into the fray and saved He-Man.

[38:00] So it turned out Cringer was the real hero.

[38:02] And when He-Man was, I guess, giving him a Viking funeral

[38:05] and lighting him on fire,

[38:07] on the pyre, he shed a tear and he said,

[38:10] Cringer, you were the real Battle Cat.

[38:12] Yeah.

[38:13] It was you all along.

[38:14] So I guess write up that fanfic and post it to the internet.

[38:17] And then Tila says,

[38:19] you should have told him that when he was alive, damn it.

[38:22] Wow.

[38:23] And then she storms off to become evil Tila.

[38:27] And He-Man looks over to Orko and Orko's like,

[38:29] I don't know, man.

[38:29] I don't even know if I have a face.

[38:31] I got my own problems.

[38:33] Like, what am I?

[38:34] I got my own issues here.

[38:39] So yeah, so she, off the body of the dead kidnapper,

[38:45] she finds out the address of where her son

[38:47] most likely is being kept.

[38:49] And then she uses the still working,

[38:53] the still working, what is that?

[38:54] GPS unit in the Chrysler Town and Country?

[38:57] Navigation screen.

[38:58] So even in death, the Chrysler Town and Country

[39:02] provides one last bit of help.

[39:05] Truly the hero of the film.

[39:06] She lays her hand on the hood of this damaged steed

[39:12] and then heads off to find her son.

[39:15] Says silently, I will avenge you.

[39:18] And goes off.

[39:19] I mean, never has a passing of a hero been so beautiful.

[39:25] It's, you know, I mean, I saw some notes,

[39:30] some like references to the death of Boromir in this moment.

[39:35] Yeah.

[39:37] Maybe deep down the Chrysler Town and Country

[39:39] was chasing after the kid for its own ends.

[39:42] Maybe it wanted to catch the kid.

[39:44] Yeah, that's true.

[39:46] Who knows, who knows?

[39:47] Yeah, there was a real, anyway, there's,

[39:50] it was a truly heroic death worthy of this heroic character.

[39:54] Yeah.

[39:55] And we should all take a moment to remember it,

[39:56] but not too much of a moment,

[39:58] because night falls while she's walking to this.

[40:00] She enters the house and the lady kidnapper is in there answering a phone call.

[40:04] It turns out they kidnap kids and sell them for money and the lady is like,

[40:08] I want $100,000 now. You better pay up, blah, blah, blah.

[40:11] Halle Berry calls 911 after seeing the lady kidnapper leave and go into like a creepy old barn

[40:16] and she grabs a knife. The shotgun she took with her, I guess she couldn't find the bullets.

[40:21] So she doesn't – she couldn't find the shells where they were stored.

[40:24] It's a primitive weapon used only by Bayou folk.

[40:27] Yeah, I guess it was like –

[40:30] It's not as elegant as a butcher knife.

[40:32] Yeah, it had probably a fingerprint lock. So she couldn't shoot it anyway.

[40:37] It's coded to Bayou DNA but like Robocop's gun.

[40:43] She calls 911. They say the police are coming. We have your location.

[40:47] And then she hears someone pick up the phone and start dialing and she hangs up.

[40:50] The kidnapping woman walks back in, finds the shotgun, sees the phone is off the hook,

[40:56] gets in her pickup truck, drives away.

[40:58] I guess – I assume to go see, hey, where's my boyfriend's brother?

[41:03] Halle Berry sees that the woman just brought back from the barn a half-empty pizza box and some juice boxes.

[41:10] Either this woman is ashamed of her childish eating habits or perhaps –

[41:18] I wonder – you know what it is probably?

[41:20] Like I was saying, they don't have cups. They're not used to drinking out of cups.

[41:23] So she's looking for some kind of drink that you can just drink it out of the thing you buy it in, and that's juice boxes.

[41:29] Yeah, I mean I feel like that's the moment.

[41:31] That's the closest moment you're going to get to like a hunter kneeling down to like feel the warmth of like the shit of an animal.

[41:37] Like that's the natural food. That's the natural prey of a kid.

[41:42] There's a juice box carcass here, still warm.

[41:47] They've been through this area.

[41:49] She goes to the barn and calls for Frankie who's in like a locked loft area, and there's two other kids there.

[41:55] And she takes a jagged shovel, and she's going to break a hole.

[41:59] I thought she was going to break a hole in the ceiling, but she's just going to knock a big pipe out of the way to make the hole bigger for them to go through.

[42:04] But then the kidnapper comes back. Oh no!

[42:07] She knocks out that pipe. The kidnapper is loading the gun.

[42:11] Halle Berry says, other girls, I'll be back.

[42:14] Frankie, you come down. We've got to get out of here, and she runs with Frankie.

[42:18] The kidnapper sticks a mean dog on them. No!

[42:22] Terrible.

[42:24] They run down to a pier or a dock or whatever, and they send out a dummy boat to trick the kidnapper when they're actually hiding under like they're Rambo.

[42:35] Yeah, they're hiding under the dock in the water like Rambo.

[42:38] The kidnapper shoots her gun into the boat, but the dog smells them under the dock, and the kidnapper's like, huh?

[42:45] And she's about to shoot under there when, just like in Rambo, Halle Berry jumps up from under the dock and pulls the kidnapper down, and the gun goes off and shoots the dog.

[42:55] That's how good Halle Berry is at this point as a town and country commando.

[42:59] Well, the thing is she has played so many games of Marco Polo.

[43:06] Of course she's going to murder this lady in a game of Marco Polo, right?

[43:10] Oh, yeah, you're right. I didn't even see that brilliant piece of seating and paying off.

[43:16] She goes, it appears the polo has become the Marco.

[43:22] That was in the first draft of the screenplay, and they're like, can we take this line out?

[43:28] Halle Berry was like, I can't figure out a way to deliver that line realistically, and I'm already in like four feet of water, so can we not do that?

[43:36] Okay, you're the producer. You could have just asked me to take the line out.

[43:40] Do you think that – it's that she was like, in order to defeat a bayou swamp person, I must become a bayou swamp person.

[43:49] And that's when she decides she's going to hide in the water under the dock.

[43:53] She and the kidnapping lady, they fight a bunch in the water, and the kidnapping lady is dragged under by her heavy flashlight or something that she's got on her.

[44:02] I mean she like chokes her and all that stuff.

[44:05] And so Halle Berry drowns this woman right in front of her son, and it's one of those things where if you're a kid and you fantasize seeing your parents killing a kidnapper, you think you'd be like, that's awesome.

[44:15] But in real life, it would be the scariest thing you've ever seen in your life.

[44:18] But that kid, he does his homework on time from now on.

[44:24] Oh, yeah. You better believe he's not leaving his mom's sight, and he's never drinking a juice box or eating pizza again because he has –

[44:32] because he now associates those with being kidnapped.

[44:36] So she goes back for the girls, and a man walks in with a shotgun.

[44:40] He's like, I'm the neighbor. What are you doing?

[44:43] She says, they were kidnapping people. I've been their neighbor for 14 years.

[44:46] That's crazy.

[44:47] Guys, this guy is wearing like an L.L. Bean sweater.

[44:50] There is no way he is the neighbor of these people.

[44:54] That is very true.

[44:55] Of course they're not. I just assume they're weird cannibals, not kidnappers.

[45:00] I just assumed that they were siblings who have sex with each other.

[45:03] I wasn't going to judge them, and they weren't going to judge me for running a hedge fund that's slowly destroying the world's economy.

[45:09] So you know what? Let's live and let live.

[45:12] But – and I thought for a moment, is this going to be the message part of the movie where Halle Berry is shot for being black in a place where people are suspicious of that?

[45:21] Like we're at the end of Night of the Living Dead where the black hero is killed tragically.

[45:26] But no, that's not what it is.

[45:28] He says, oh, let me help you get those kids out of there, and she goes, let me help you get those girls out of there.

[45:33] She goes, I didn't tell you there was more than one kid up there or that they were girls.

[45:36] This guy was in on it.

[45:38] Yeah, of course.

[45:39] And so while he reaches for the gun behind his back, Halle Berry slashes him across the body with her jagged shovel.

[45:46] She blasts him in the head with it, and then later on when she's being let out by the cops, they're like, you killed all those guys.

[45:55] She killed that dude with one hit.

[45:57] They're like, do you want an application to the police force?

[46:00] She says – and she says, you took the wrong kid, which should be the slogan of the movie.

[46:07] They took the wrong kid, just her angry face.

[46:10] And that was – and it was like – I have to admit, as a parent at that moment, I was like, yeah, that's damn right.

[46:15] You did take the wrong kid.

[46:17] But the implication is also if you had taken another kid that wasn't mine, peace be with you.

[46:23] God bless.

[46:25] Do what you want to do.

[46:26] I'm in my town and country.

[46:27] I can take care of myself.

[46:28] You took my kid, so that means trouble.

[46:30] But you should have taken another kid.

[46:31] Yeah, if she had just – guys, if she had just worked the double like her boss had said, none of this would have happened.

[46:37] If she had just accepted her place as a cog in this grist mill of capitalism.

[46:44] Yeah, in the food industrial complex that she's just a tiny piece of, then this never would have been to happen.

[46:52] Yeah, the moral of the story is –

[46:54] I just said this never would have been to happen.

[46:56] This never would have been to happen.

[46:59] Yeah, the moral of the story is don't go to the fair basically.

[47:03] Or always work a double shift.

[47:05] You'll get overtime pay for it probably, but a helicopter appears overhead.

[47:09] The police have arrived, and we just hear these news reports that are talking about how this was a multiple-state child abduction ring that's now been broken up now that Halle Berry has revealed it.

[47:18] And it ends on the line of a newscast.

[47:20] This is just audio.

[47:21] It ends on a newscaster saying, this mother is one incredible hero.

[47:25] As if the audience didn't get it up until then.

[47:29] The audience is like, oh.

[47:31] It is to this movie what the moment is in the imitation game where it's like we call them computers.

[47:37] Oh, that thinking machine he was building was a computer.

[47:42] I get it.

[47:43] Now, did you guys stick around for the after-credits scene where Nick Fury shows up and invites her to become part of the Fantastic Four?

[47:50] Have you heard of the Angry Parents Initiative?

[47:55] Now, guys, let me be straight about this movie.

[47:58] Let me just be clear about it.

[47:59] This movie operated for me on exactly the level and in exactly the way it was intended to operate for me.

[48:06] Like this is – I don't know.

[48:08] I don't remember the last time I've seen a movie where I was as on edge while watching it as this one.

[48:14] And like as like it had me in its grip until like the first – like I said, the first 10, 15 minutes I was like this is dumb.

[48:21] But then as soon as she gets in her car, from then until the end of the movie, I was like what's going to happen?

[48:26] You've got to catch that kid.

[48:29] I mean, well, that sounded like a final judgment, so let's make it official.

[48:32] Is this a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie or a movie you kind of like?

[48:36] I would say – I'd go even farther than a movie I kind of liked.

[48:39] This was a movie I would recommend to people who want to watch – to people who want to watch like a trash chase thriller.

[48:46] It's not – if you want to watch a movie that's just like – it's just nonstop like white knuckle.

[48:52] A kid is in danger and a woman – and the angry mother is chasing swamp people in her town and country minivan.

[48:59] Then this is a good version of that.

[49:01] Like this is a good like exploitation dumb thriller.

[49:04] Yeah, I would say this is a movie I kind of liked.

[49:06] I don't think I – I think I probably am like slightly less high on it.

[49:10] But because I – for me, as soon as she got out of the car, like things sort of slowed down a little bit.

[49:16] All the stuff at the end was not as thrilling to me as like the car chase stuff.

[49:20] That's true. The car chase stuff is the good stuff.

[49:22] But yeah, I had fun watching this movie.

[49:24] I was kind of surprised, and it's like – I think it's less than 90 minutes.

[49:28] I'm not sure about that, but it's very short.

[49:30] I think it's like – yeah, I think it's like 85 minutes long or 81 minutes.

[49:33] Like this is – they did not stretch out this movie.

[49:36] And also all the stuff I thought was going to come into – like I was like, oh, maybe her husband kidnapped the kid because he wants custody.

[49:43] He's trying to make it look like she's insane.

[49:45] Like I was like what dumb twist are you going to put on this movie?

[49:49] No, no dumb twist.

[49:50] It is so straightforward.

[49:52] She's at the fair.

[49:53] Her kid gets taken.

[49:54] She chases after it, and that's it.

[49:56] Yeah, I mean it's a movie that begins at a fair.

[50:00] Has a long car chase, and then basically ends at the Baker house from Resident Evil 7.

[50:08] So yeah, I'm into it, no it was great, and it was short, you know like 85 minutes, heck

[50:15] yeah give me that, and I feel like this was, it was a telling sign that usually when we're

[50:23] watching a, when I'm watching a movie for the show, and I get up to go to the bathroom

[50:27] and my wife goes, do you want me to pause it?

[50:29] And I'm like, no, this is my time, I'm taking a break, but no, this time I smashed the pause

[50:39] button because I didn't want to miss a moment.

[50:42] Yeah, so this, so yeah, if you like watching like trash thrillers, then this is a good

[50:48] one to go to, you know, I was, there was part of me, I was having, I was worried because

[50:53] like 30 minutes into the movie, I was like, we are going to have trouble, what are we

[50:56] going to talk about on the podcast, unless this movie goes way off the rails, like I'm

[51:00] enjoying it way too much.

[51:01] Right.

[51:02] Well I mean like.

[51:03] Like this is a movie that did not, it didn't try to be smarter than it is, which I really

[51:07] appreciate.

[51:08] Yeah.

[51:09] Um, hey guys, we should talk a little bit more about the MaxFundrive, hey MaxFundrive!

[51:15] Um.

[51:16] Look.

[51:17] Do we have to say it like that?

[51:21] Hey!

[51:23] Um.

[51:24] So Dan, what is the MaxFundrive?

[51:25] For anyone who is a new listener to this episode, never heard this show before, not familiar

[51:29] with MaxFund, what keeps the lights on and what keeps us afloat?

[51:34] Explain the MaxFundrive.

[51:35] Well.

[51:36] MaxFundrive.

[51:37] Oh wow.

[51:38] Sorry, explain the Max Payne Drive.

[51:40] Um.

[51:41] Yeah.

[51:42] Now this, this is how we keep ourselves funded.

[51:45] I mean basically, I mean, you know, we do, we do a few ads, but those, we'll be honest,

[51:51] are a small fraction of the, you know, the, the, the money we get for doing the podcast.

[51:56] Um.

[51:57] It, most of it comes from listeners like you who have memberships to Maximum Fun and, uh,

[52:04] it helps us be able to keep doing what we're doing.

[52:06] I'm, I, I don't want to panic anyone.

[52:09] I don't want to make them a little extra anxious, but, uh, I think that it's fair to say that

[52:13] like this year it was a little harder to keep the show going than in previous years just

[52:18] because Elliot moved, you know, uh, we've like, there's the main reason our lives have

[52:25] changed a little bit, you know, like, and, and, and what do you, what are you, what are

[52:29] you trying to tell me, Dan?

[52:31] No, I'm just saying like, I'm, well, I guess I'm, I guess I'm saying it's the last episode.

[52:37] Good night, everybody.

[52:38] Yeah.

[52:39] So donate.

[52:40] Um, no, no, it's, no, it's, it helps to, there's like, as someone speaking for myself as someone

[52:45] with a family, it is, I love doing this show.

[52:48] I love doing it with you guys, especially because you're my good buddies and I like

[52:52] entertaining people, but like it makes it much more doable in a world where I have a

[52:57] family to take care of and spend time with that.

[53:01] We're paid for this.

[53:02] And, uh, and it means, and especially not to pull the curtain back on my life too much,

[53:07] starting out a new life in LA as a freelance person, I don't have the kind of steady income

[53:13] that I once did.

[53:14] And getting the income from this show has been a huge help in making sure that I don't

[53:19] have to, I mean, really what it makes sure is that I can, I can have the career that

[53:24] I want to have and don't find myself doing work that I would then have to, I guess, murder

[53:31] myself for doing.

[53:32] No, that's too intense.

[53:33] I guess, uh, what it really is, it's like a huge help in keeping me afloat too.

[53:37] Yeah.

[53:38] I have to say.

[53:39] We all have responsibilities.

[53:40] I have a family.

[53:41] Stuart, uh, runs a business.

[53:42] I have crippling depression that I need to feed.

[53:45] Yeah.

[53:46] Yeah.

[53:47] So yeah.

[53:48] But I mean, buying new things.

[53:49] Yeah.

[53:50] Yeah.

[53:51] I mean, you can't just survive on writing Thundercats fan fiction, Dan.

[53:53] No, I can't believe me.

[53:55] I have tried.

[53:56] Uh, but listen, if you become a member, it's good for you too, because you'll feel good

[54:01] every time you listen to the show, uh, you'll be like, I, I'm your boss.

[54:06] Yeah.

[54:07] I own these people.

[54:08] That's right.

[54:09] I paid your salaries.

[54:10] Uh, I, the same way every time I get pulled over by a cop, I say, I paid your salary,

[54:14] sir.

[54:15] Yeah.

[54:16] I went through.

[54:17] I don't really do that.

[54:18] I went through a pretty lean time a little bit ago, and it's, it's nice to be able to,

[54:21] uh, when I got out of that lean time, it felt really good to be able to support things that

[54:26] I like, uh, and you know, especially when it's something like art or something I enjoy.

[54:34] Oh, and I, I would also like to say it benefits, uh, folks too, in that the more that we get

[54:41] funding, just call our fucking podcast art.

[54:44] I wasn't going to say, yeah, but you meant it was like short for Arthur, his name is

[54:48] Arthur Flophouse.

[54:49] Uh, one, one benefit, uh, for listeners to, I mean, depending on where you live is, uh,

[54:56] the money that you give us helps us do things like tour, uh, which maybe we wouldn't be

[55:01] able to do if we weren't, if we didn't have money in the coffers.

[55:05] Yeah.

[55:06] Um, so we get to go out and do live shows, which is something we really enjoy.

[55:10] Uh, and if they're a new, if they're a new or upgrading donor, uh, you, if this is your

[55:17] first time, uh, becoming a member of max fun, or if you're an existing member that increases

[55:21] your monthly, uh, donation, uh, you're going to get some cool prizes, some cool gifts.

[55:28] Yeah.

[55:29] There's pledge gifts.

[55:30] Um, so, so if you go to maximum fund.org slash donate, you'll see that you can donate at

[55:34] a number of different levels as low as $5 a month or as high as $200 a month.

[55:40] And uh, the best stuff I think is probably around like if you do the 10, 20 or $35 levels

[55:46] a month, that's when the most exciting things that you get are there.

[55:49] Yeah.

[55:50] But let's go, let's go through some of these gifts.

[55:52] Um, at the $5 per month level, there's exclusive bonus content.

[55:55] And that means that at this point, there's literally hundreds of hours of extra max fun

[56:02] shows that you don't get as a regular, uh, non person, including several hours of a flop

[56:11] house shows.

[56:12] We've done some things like we've talked about bad TV shows instead of a bad movies.

[56:17] We've done extra, uh, letter segments we've done.

[56:21] What else have we done?

[56:22] We've done some other stuff I think.

[56:23] Yeah.

[56:24] And we got, uh, we got a special new, uh, set of, uh, bonus episodes that are going

[56:29] to be coming to you.

[56:30] Oh yeah.

[56:31] I think the first one's going to be coming up pretty soon.

[56:32] Uh, that's an extension of the, uh, flop house crossovers with the adventure zone.

[56:39] Uh, this was a complicated project that we put together.

[56:44] Um, and I am looking forward to you guys getting a chance to hear it, uh, at that.

[56:49] So that's just at $5 a month.

[56:51] You just get all that bonus content.

[56:53] But wait, there's more.

[56:54] At the $10 per month level, you get a beautiful enamel pen designed by Megan Lynn Cott.

[57:00] And you may remember that there were, have been enamel pens in the past.

[57:04] This is a brand new design.

[57:05] We've seen the flop house one.

[57:07] It's a lovely picture of Nicolas Cage with good bad under it.

[57:10] Don't know why I had to say lovely.

[57:12] I thought it was implied.

[57:15] Redundant.

[57:16] At the $20 per month level, you'll get the max fun family cookbook, which is a bunch

[57:20] of, uh, recipes for max fun, uh, contributors.

[57:25] Do you guys want to know how I roast vegetables at home?

[57:28] Yeah.

[57:29] Cause it's in there.

[57:30] Is it?

[57:31] Good.

[57:32] I'm glad that you got it in.

[57:33] Cause I was like, did we get something in there?

[57:34] Yes, we did.

[57:35] I, there's a way that I roast vegetables at home that my wife taught me and then I kicked

[57:39] it up a notch by increasing the seasoning by like a thousand fold.

[57:42] And it's in there.

[57:43] You'll, you'll enjoy it.

[57:44] I think you guys are going to like it.

[57:45] Uh, at the $35 per month level, there's a one liter juice carafe, which is a engraved

[57:51] for the max fun rocket logo.

[57:53] And you don't, you don't need to put juice in there.

[57:54] You could put in other things.

[57:56] You know, if you're a drinker, you could put some alcoholic beverages in there.

[57:59] I'm not going to tell, I'm not going to tell your parents.

[58:01] Anything that's carafeable.

[58:02] Pee in it.

[58:03] I don't care.

[58:04] Use it.

[58:05] Use it wisely.

[58:06] Here's the thing.

[58:07] You're a swamp person.

[58:08] You live in a shack.

[58:09] You're not used to pouring things into cups.

[58:11] Here's a good start.

[58:13] Pour that soda out of the bottle into a carafe and then pour that carafe into a glass and

[58:17] then drink it that way.

[58:20] So we don't want to, we don't want to, you know, talk your ear off about this.

[58:24] We'll be back at the end of the show to talk a little bit more about it.

[58:27] But for now, uh, just go to maximumfund.org forward slash donate.

[58:33] And uh, you know, uh, I wanted to say one of the great things about this is you get

[58:38] to choose which shows you listen to and the money goes directly to the people that you

[58:43] listen to.

[58:44] So, uh, you know that the art you particularly, I said it again, I said it too, Stuart, I

[58:50] said art, uh, the stuff that you like gets supported directly.

[58:55] So that I'm going to call it comedy and culture instead of art because that's what they say

[58:59] in the max fund.

[59:00] A stinger at the end is comedy and culture.

[59:02] But uh, if don't worry, if there's a show you hate on max fund and you're worried you're

[59:06] going to donate to us and it's going to go to that show, don't worry.

[59:09] When you donate to us, it goes to us.

[59:11] We're not sharing that money with the show you hate.

[59:13] We're keeping it for ourselves and we're going to eat it up and it's going to go on our bellies.

[59:17] So the other show can't ever get it.

[59:19] So, uh, if you, if you go, when you go to pledge, you choose which show you want to

[59:22] donate to and you should choose Flophouse if that's the one you want to donate to.

[59:26] And I hope it is because then the money goes to us.

[59:28] Uh, but don't worry that you're like, oh, I don't want, I don't want my money to go

[59:33] to a show that I don't want it to.

[59:34] That's a pretty good impression of our listeners, by the way.

[59:37] Yeah.

[59:38] Yeah.

[59:39] They're like, most of our listeners don't like other max one shows.

[59:40] No, I'm just kidding.

[59:41] They like a lot of them.

[59:42] There are a lot of good shows.

[59:43] Yeah.

[59:44] I'm a member.

[59:45] I donate to a lot of shows.

[59:46] Um, but that's true.

[59:47] Let's go.

[59:48] And I want to say this.

[59:49] Yeah.

[59:50] I would love it.

[59:51] If you stopped the podcast right now, pause it, go to maximum fund.org slash donate right

[59:56] now and do it now while you're thinking about it because you're probably going to forget.

[1:00:00] Do it. Don't put it on your to-do list.

[1:00:01] It's gotta be during the pledge drive.

[1:00:03] Go do it, and then come back.

[1:00:06] Or listen to this while you're doing it.

[1:00:08] I don't know.

[1:00:09] You don't have to stop.

[1:00:10] Or if you're at the gym right now,

[1:00:12] then stop exercising and go home and do this.

[1:00:17] While you're at the gym anyway.

[1:00:19] You know, that's a tiring thing to do.

[1:00:22] What, going to the gym?

[1:00:23] Yeah.

[1:00:24] Yeah?

[1:00:25] It's no fun.

[1:00:26] Put down the weights?

[1:00:27] Yeah, stop it.

[1:00:28] Okay.

[1:00:29] Also, you're making me look bad.

[1:00:31] So, cut it out.

[1:00:32] Stop making Dan look bad.

[1:00:33] You know what would help make Dan feel a little bit better

[1:00:35] about you looking better than him?

[1:00:36] Yeah.

[1:00:37] Give him some money.

[1:00:38] Go to maximumfun.org slash donate.

[1:00:39] Also, and I hate to say it,

[1:00:41] the house cat owes a lot of money to some very bad people.

[1:00:44] And we, and he helped me.

[1:00:45] You said you weren't gonna bring that up, dude.

[1:00:47] I just figured.

[1:00:48] He trusted you.

[1:00:49] Now's the time.

[1:00:49] If ever.

[1:00:52] So now we should.

[1:00:53] So what do we do next on the podcast, Dan?

[1:00:55] Do we talk more about the pledge drive?

[1:00:57] Now in the podcast, we move on to letters.

[1:01:00] Oh, a letter bag.

[1:01:01] Yeah, our movie mail bag.

[1:01:03] We haven't called it that in a while.

[1:01:04] Why not bring that back?

[1:01:07] So these are listeners like you.

[1:01:08] They've written in.

[1:01:10] You can write in if you go to the show page

[1:01:14] at Blah Plus Podcast.

[1:01:16] Are you just vamping while you find the letters?

[1:01:18] Hey, Dan.

[1:01:20] It seems like you're vamping till a song kicks in.

[1:01:23] Well, guess what?

[1:01:24] Good news for you.

[1:01:26] I've got a song.

[1:01:27] It's coming through.

[1:01:29] To our pledge donors all over the world.

[1:01:32] Pledge donors, top to bottom.

[1:01:35] Pledge donors, they're gonna hurl.

[1:01:38] When they find out all the great stuff

[1:01:40] they're gonna get when they pledge.

[1:01:42] Hey, Dan.

[1:01:43] Sometimes you're waiting for a letter song to kick in.

[1:01:46] But the guy who's waiting for the moment to sing the song

[1:01:49] is curious just how long you'll go before the song kicks in.

[1:01:54] And so I let you hang a little longer.

[1:01:57] So I let you dangle over the pit of,

[1:02:00] what kind of pit would it be?

[1:02:01] I was gonna say pit of Damocles,

[1:02:03] but that's a sort of Damocles that hangs over somebody else.

[1:02:05] So forget that part.

[1:02:07] Let's get to the heart of the song for the show for letters.

[1:02:11] Cause hey guys reading letters, that ain't cheap.

[1:02:14] We pay a hundred people to read all the letters.

[1:02:17] Then they get extra money when they find a good letter

[1:02:20] and they pass it along to us.

[1:02:22] That's a lot of overhead.

[1:02:24] Financially, it would leave us dead

[1:02:26] without the pledges that you bring in

[1:02:28] for the letter readers from letter writers

[1:02:31] that give it to us.

[1:02:32] And then they read it to Dan because Dan can't read.

[1:02:36] That's his secret.

[1:02:39] He's ashamed of it.

[1:02:40] He asked me not to tell,

[1:02:42] but I figured what the hell for the pledge donors,

[1:02:46] they can learn the truth.

[1:02:47] Dan's illiterate, both when it comes to reading

[1:02:51] and also somewhat emotionally.

[1:02:54] And so, hey, we want to get Dan these classes

[1:02:57] so he can finally use those glasses

[1:03:00] and read a letter to himself for once.

[1:03:03] So why don't you help us make Dan's dream a reality

[1:03:08] with letters.

[1:03:09] All right.

[1:03:10] That's the definition of insulting.

[1:03:11] When Elliot realizes he knows the rhyme,

[1:03:14] like he starts to pick up an intensity.

[1:03:19] It's like, I just said tell,

[1:03:20] and now I'm going to say, what the hell?

[1:03:24] So this first letter is from Jake,

[1:03:26] last name withheld.

[1:03:27] And the fat man?

[1:03:29] That's right.

[1:03:30] Both of them.

[1:03:32] He writes, hey floppers,

[1:03:34] I recently finished reading George Saunders novel,

[1:03:36] Lincoln and the Bardo,

[1:03:37] the acclaimed strange affecting novel

[1:03:39] about President Lincoln coping with the death

[1:03:41] of his young son and the escalating civil war.

[1:03:44] Naturally, because I spend way too much time

[1:03:45] listening to you three,

[1:03:46] I wondered immediately if noted Lincoln head,

[1:03:48] Elliot Kalin had read the book.

[1:03:50] This also made me wonder what the floppers like to read.

[1:03:53] I know there've been some comics recommendations

[1:03:55] in the past,

[1:03:56] but since you three have steered me well

[1:03:57] with movies over the years,

[1:03:58] I wanted to ask,

[1:03:59] are there any books you three

[1:04:00] always find yourself recommending?

[1:04:02] Anything recent?

[1:04:04] Thanks for the recs.

[1:04:05] Keep on flopping.

[1:04:08] I have read Lincoln and the Bardo

[1:04:09] and I really liked it a lot.

[1:04:12] Okay.

[1:04:12] Well, that answers that question.

[1:04:14] There was,

[1:04:15] I think the format he decided to write it in

[1:04:17] is a little difficult

[1:04:19] in a way that it's written as if it's all quotes

[1:04:24] taken from different sources.

[1:04:25] So you don't always know who's talking

[1:04:26] until you get to the bottom of the quote

[1:04:28] and you read their name.

[1:04:29] But I thought of all the things I've read

[1:04:32] that have tried to get inside of Lincoln's head

[1:04:34] and his way of thinking,

[1:04:35] I thought George Saunders did it best.

[1:04:36] The times when you're inside Lincoln's thought process,

[1:04:40] I was like,

[1:04:41] this is probably how his thinking worked.

[1:04:42] So I thought he did a really fantastic job with it.

[1:04:44] Yeah.

[1:04:45] I think to answer the larger question,

[1:04:47] I believe I've mentioned some of my favorite books before.

[1:04:50] So I won't belabor that.

[1:04:52] I mean, like I talked about

[1:04:54] Robertson Davies, the Deptford Trilogy.

[1:04:55] I think I've talked about how much I like

[1:04:57] Harpo Marx's autobiography, Harpo Speaks.

[1:05:00] I love the Alice books by Lewis Carroll.

[1:05:04] Those are some of my personal favorites.

[1:05:07] But in terms of stuff I've been reading lately,

[1:05:10] I read Miranda July's novel, The First Bad Man,

[1:05:15] which I thought was pretty terrific.

[1:05:19] She's known as an artist and a filmmaker.

[1:05:23] She made me, you, and everyone we know,

[1:05:26] and the future.

[1:05:27] I may have fucked up the first title.

[1:05:29] I can't remember whether it's everyone or everybody, but.

[1:05:33] Well, we'll let you, the fans will let you know.

[1:05:35] Oh.

[1:05:36] It will be escaping.

[1:05:37] Oh, by the way, speaking of which, I fucked up on,

[1:05:40] so in The Snowman,

[1:05:41] Oleg's father is actually some sort of Russian mobster.

[1:05:45] He's not Harry Hole, so just wanted to put that out there.

[1:05:49] But anyway, Miranda July's novel.

[1:05:50] Oh, thank God, we figured it out.

[1:05:52] Miranda, yeah.

[1:05:53] It was not clear from the movie,

[1:05:54] and I couldn't remember the book.

[1:05:56] We were just like a couple of Harry Holes there,

[1:05:57] figuring that one out.

[1:05:58] Yeah.

[1:06:00] Too late for me to win at pub trivia, but okay, fine.

[1:06:05] It's a very interesting book.

[1:06:07] It's a character study of a very odd sort of character

[1:06:10] who's very lovable.

[1:06:12] The second half of the book didn't resonate with me

[1:06:15] as much as the first, just because of who I am.

[1:06:17] I'm a childless man, and the second half of the book

[1:06:19] is very much about motherhood, so it wasn't meant for me.

[1:06:22] You're talking about Miranda July's book.

[1:06:24] Miranda July's book.

[1:06:25] For a second, I thought you were talking about Harry Hole.

[1:06:26] Yeah, the second part of the book

[1:06:27] was how Harry Hole became a mother.

[1:06:31] It was just like Junior with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

[1:06:32] Yeah, but I would recommend that book to other readers,

[1:06:38] other books that the rest of you are,

[1:06:41] the rest of you being the two others.

[1:06:44] I mean, I don't know.

[1:06:46] I have a, I like a lot of weird fiction.

[1:06:50] You're Jeff Vandermeer's, you're Chyna Mieville's,

[1:06:55] and lately, and I also have a tendency to read a lot

[1:07:00] of comfort stuff for me, so my comfort zone

[1:07:04] is usually like Bernard Cornwell historical war novels,

[1:07:08] and like historical fiction, or, you know,

[1:07:13] your Patrick O'Brien.

[1:07:14] Yeah, the Sharps Rifles, and his Arthurian trilogy,

[1:07:18] his Warlord Chronicles, it's awesome.

[1:07:20] I think, and they made that TV show Last Kingdom

[1:07:24] based on a series that's really great,

[1:07:27] and like Dan Abnett's sci-fi stuff.

[1:07:31] I don't know, you know, nerdy crap.

[1:07:34] I think I've mentioned my favorite books before

[1:07:36] on the podcast, The Power Broker by Robert Caro.

[1:07:39] It's my favorite nonfiction book.

[1:07:41] Runner Up, The Journalist and the Murderer

[1:07:43] by Janet Malcolm, and my favorite fiction books

[1:07:46] are Alice in Wonderland, as Dan mentioned,

[1:07:47] and also The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton,

[1:07:50] but some books I just read recently that I liked a lot.

[1:07:53] I really liked the book Kindred by Octavia Butler,

[1:07:56] which is kind of a time travel novel

[1:07:58] about someone from modern days going back to slave times,

[1:08:04] whenever her ancestor is in trouble,

[1:08:07] and it went in directions I didn't expect it to go,

[1:08:09] and I thought it was really good,

[1:08:10] and if you like George Saunders,

[1:08:13] there's a short story book that came out

[1:08:14] a couple years ago called The Hall of Small Mammals

[1:08:17] that is very George Saunders-like,

[1:08:20] but I actually liked it a little bit more

[1:08:22] than I usually like his work.

[1:08:24] I can't remember the name of the author,

[1:08:25] which I feel bad about,

[1:08:26] but it's called The Hall of Small Mammals.

[1:08:28] Okay, I hope that gives some listeners

[1:08:34] a little direction that they might wanna follow up on,

[1:08:38] but the next letter is-

[1:08:40] Right now, I'm also reading an academic text

[1:08:42] called The Comic Hero about the idea

[1:08:44] that there is a hero of comedy

[1:08:47] in the same way that there's a hero of tragedy,

[1:08:49] and looking at different stuff,

[1:08:51] and I'm enjoying that a lot,

[1:08:52] but it's a little bit more into text analysis

[1:08:59] than I'm used to,

[1:08:59] so I don't know if I'd recommend it

[1:09:01] to someone who wants to read an academic book,

[1:09:03] but I don't know if you do.

[1:09:04] Yeah, the only academic stuff I read

[1:09:05] is old issues of Nintendo Power magazine.

[1:09:10] You're like, what's Nestor up to this time?

[1:09:13] Now, here's my problem with it.

[1:09:15] So when I was a kid,

[1:09:16] I never had a subscription to Nintendo Power,

[1:09:19] and I always wanted-

[1:09:20] Put my phone down.

[1:09:22] So I would just borrow other kids' issues,

[1:09:25] and there was that ongoing Link comic strip from Zelda

[1:09:29] that I never saw the beginning,

[1:09:31] and I never saw the end,

[1:09:33] and the chapters didn't always match up

[1:09:34] because I wasn't reading every issue one after another.

[1:09:38] So did that story ever, was that a coherent story?

[1:09:40] Do you guys know that Legend of Zelda comic strip?

[1:09:43] Is that like the Milo Minara comics

[1:09:46] that would run in Penthouse,

[1:09:47] where you're like, I don't follow this closely enough

[1:09:49] to know where this begins or ends?

[1:09:53] I mean, kind of, in a way, I guess.

[1:09:55] I'm not familiar with those ones,

[1:09:56] but it was like, I would pick up an issue

[1:09:59] of Nintendo Power-

[1:10:00] from a friend's and be like, I just want some cheat hints.

[1:10:02] Like, just show me where the bad guys are waiting for me on this level.

[1:10:05] And then here's four pages of comic strip

[1:10:07] where Link is dealing with something that I don't know what it is.

[1:10:10] And I just wondered if that was always confusing

[1:10:13] or if people who were following the story were like, oh, yes, I know.

[1:10:15] Oh, this happened.

[1:10:17] So I guess right in, if you remember those comic strips.

[1:10:19] OK, I guess so.

[1:10:22] Call to action.

[1:10:23] This next letter is from Sebastian, last name withheld.

[1:10:28] Who writes, oh,

[1:10:30] I'm surprised he can type.

[1:10:33] This says, it seems like anyone who's anyone these days has an enemy.

[1:10:37] Democrats have Republicans, cats have dogs, and even our own Stuart

[1:10:41] Wellington counts the deadly and mysterious Al Madrigal, aka Al Magical,

[1:10:47] amongst his gallery of rogues.

[1:10:49] Elliot, meanwhile, has both John, sorry,

[1:10:52] has both John Hodgman,

[1:10:54] aka Judge Dredd, aka Boss Hodgman as a nemesis,

[1:10:58] and even squares off against his brother, David Kaelin, the antihero

[1:11:02] Knuckles, the, oh, fuck, I don't know how to say that word,

[1:11:05] to his Sonic the Hedgehog.

[1:11:08] But what about Dan?

[1:11:09] Although he is bedeviled and antagonized by his friends,

[1:11:11] he seems to lack any true villain to call his own.

[1:11:14] Floppers, doesn't Dan need an enemy, too?

[1:11:16] Someone to stand against, to thwart and triumph over?

[1:11:19] How else is he going to get the babes

[1:11:20] if he can't throw off his Clark Kent glasses

[1:11:22] and become the Superman that exists in his heart?

[1:11:25] Keep on flopping in the free world, Sebastian.

[1:11:27] This raises a good point.

[1:11:29] What's that?

[1:11:32] I don't know.

[1:11:32] Who's your villain?

[1:11:33] Yeah, who's my villain?

[1:11:34] It's like a happy version of you, who's like laid back and chill.

[1:11:38] I think you're the villain, Dan.

[1:11:40] I like I think you're the bad guy version of some Dan

[1:11:43] who's got it all together and hasn't figured out.

[1:11:45] You're the goofest to his gallant, in a way.

[1:11:48] So you're saying this is this is like the twist end of some like

[1:11:52] Twilight Zone episode where I realized that I was the bad one.

[1:11:56] Yes, exactly.

[1:11:57] You realize you think there's a guy who's trying to destroy your life

[1:11:59] and you start to worry that your nightmares have come to life.

[1:12:02] But then it turns out you were the nightmare who came to life

[1:12:04] from this guy's life.

[1:12:05] And he's just trying to get rid of you because you've been hurting him.

[1:12:08] It's like you're the bad guy from the dark half,

[1:12:12] but you you killed you killed the other guy.

[1:12:15] Now you're still alive.

[1:12:16] Yeah, because everyone's the everyone's the hero of their own story.

[1:12:20] The bad guy from the dark half is the hero when he tells the tale.

[1:12:22] Now, Dan, this is going to sound insulting, but I'm just going to say this.

[1:12:25] So I think Stuart and I both have very well-defined dynamic personality.

[1:12:31] OK, you're right.

[1:12:32] It does sound insulting.

[1:12:34] And and that makes it easier to define what our opposite numbers would be.

[1:12:37] Yeah, wait for it.

[1:12:38] And he's going to compliment you.

[1:12:40] It's a little bit like saying what's the enemy of oatmeal?

[1:12:43] Well, I don't know.

[1:12:45] Oatmeal is just oatmeal.

[1:12:46] I like to think of myself as having sort of a happy medium in my life

[1:12:51] where I sort of walk the middle path, as it were.

[1:12:55] I see. Interesting. OK.

[1:12:56] Between it's not it's neither you're neither a samurai

[1:13:00] walking the path of redemption, nor are you the jester walking the path of,

[1:13:05] I assume, pointing out the truth of humanity's hypocrisy

[1:13:09] by enacting his foolishness.

[1:13:11] Instead, you're that you just like a farmer just doing whatever.

[1:13:14] OK. I mean, again, I wouldn't define it that way.

[1:13:17] But he just paraphrased you 100 percent accurately, right?

[1:13:19] All right. Yeah, that's that was what I think.

[1:13:22] No, but Dan, tell me more about this middle path.

[1:13:24] No, no, no. Let's move on to the next letter.

[1:13:27] So, OK, listeners, write in.

[1:13:29] If you've got an enemy for Dan, write in and make it happen.

[1:13:33] I want I kind of want to have been a fly on the wall for Dan's thought process

[1:13:37] for when he's like, I'm going to read this letter.

[1:13:39] Do you think the guys are just going to compliment me the whole time?

[1:13:44] Why, Dan? Everyone loves him.

[1:13:45] That's why he doesn't have an enemy.

[1:13:47] I you know, I didn't really get much past.

[1:13:50] Like this is an amusing conceit when I chose the letter.

[1:13:54] I didn't really like go to that next step where I realized what was going to occur.

[1:13:58] Dan, have you have you ever heard?

[1:14:00] Have you ever heard the theory that Sherlock Holmes kind of invented Moriarty

[1:14:03] to have somebody who could finally match wits with?

[1:14:06] Well, I mean, there's because I think I mean, like that's kind of a Batman

[1:14:11] and Joker to write the idea that like the Joker wouldn't exist

[1:14:14] if Batman didn't wasn't there to oppose. Yeah.

[1:14:17] So maybe it's time for you to bring your own enemy into creation.

[1:14:20] OK, make it happen. All right.

[1:14:22] Yeah, because I need another thing in my life that is going to

[1:14:26] cause me trouble.

[1:14:27] Well, maybe like I agree that some fan is going to be like,

[1:14:30] I'm sorry, I was going to say like maybe having

[1:14:33] maybe having opposition would like push you to new heights of damnness. OK.

[1:14:39] Well, now I'm worried that a listener is going to be like, oh, that's what

[1:14:42] that's what's missing from Dan's life is a villain.

[1:14:44] And so a villain I shall be.

[1:14:46] And he'll just start bedeviling you.

[1:14:48] Yeah, that all of our energy directed toward getting people

[1:14:51] to join the Max Fund drive will instead.

[1:14:56] Hey, you know what?

[1:14:57] You know what, Dan?

[1:14:57] You know, it'd really be great for Dan's villain to do.

[1:15:00] Exactly. Go to maximumfund.org slash donate and make a pledge.

[1:15:04] It could be ten dollars, twenty dollars, thirty five dollars a month.

[1:15:08] You get great gifts and you support Dan,

[1:15:10] which will make you have more to villainize later on. All right.

[1:15:14] Well, we're going to get back into that in a second.

[1:15:16] But let's finish off this letter segment with someone who the bullet

[1:15:20] to the back of the head of someone who

[1:15:24] withheld his name entirely or her name, I shouldn't assume

[1:15:29] or its name or their name.

[1:15:31] Yeah. Well, yeah, definitely their name. Yeah.

[1:15:35] Uh, so they write.

[1:15:39] When Wonder Woman was released, I took my mother to see it

[1:15:41] as a late Mother's Day present, saying someone who had been reading comics

[1:15:46] since the 50s finally see their favorite character brought to life

[1:15:48] on the big screen made the experience especially special.

[1:15:52] Have you ever had a particularly touching experience

[1:15:55] and sharing a movie with someone?

[1:15:56] A bonus question for Stewart, which series is better, Halloween

[1:16:00] or Friday the 13th and which series has the best single movie?

[1:16:03] Thanks for everything.

[1:16:07] Well, I think

[1:16:12] this is going to sound I may have talked about this before.

[1:16:14] This is going to sound lame because it's dad stuff.

[1:16:18] But I'm having that experience right now with I've started

[1:16:21] watching the Marx Brothers movies with my son in order.

[1:16:24] So we haven't gotten super far.

[1:16:26] We're in monkey business right now, which I think is just their third movie.

[1:16:30] But seeing the way he reacts to it without me, I don't without me saying,

[1:16:35] like, here's the funny part, just how naturally he finds the Chico

[1:16:39] and Harpo stuff, especially funny, is very meaningful to me and very moving.

[1:16:43] And like now the game he wants to play all the time is, OK, I'm Harpo,

[1:16:47] you're Chico or I'm Harpo, you're Lucy.

[1:16:50] And we're doing the mirror bit because I showed him the Harpo Lucy

[1:16:53] mirror routine from it was either the Lucy show or or I love Lucy,

[1:16:56] I forget which. And he is.

[1:16:58] And like just just being able to share that with him and seeing like, OK,

[1:17:02] this is something that's going to be special for him in the future.

[1:17:04] The way it was special to me is something is that's that's one

[1:17:08] of that's that kind of meaningful experience.

[1:17:10] Yeah, I like it a lot.

[1:17:13] I'm I'm sort of wracking my brain, I don't know that I've shared a movie

[1:17:17] in the way of like being like, you got to see this movie

[1:17:22] that I love and then had a meaningful experience about it.

[1:17:24] I will say that I mean, this is obviously a little bittersweet

[1:17:28] seeing as my wife and I are not together anymore, but

[1:17:33] I still treasure it.

[1:17:34] And, you know, I I treasure the relationship we had.

[1:17:38] We early on watched Rushmore together,

[1:17:41] and that was sort of our movie in the way that people have songs.

[1:17:45] Like it was a very like it was a it was an early kind of quote unquote date.

[1:17:50] I mean, we met in college, so you don't really date in college, but it was

[1:17:54] it was kind of you.

[1:17:56] It was kind of when we first got together.

[1:17:57] And so Rushmore holds a special place in my heart.

[1:18:00] Although, again, it's kind of a bittersweet place now.

[1:18:04] I have a hard time.

[1:18:05] I have a harder time watching it than I did before, but it's still meaningful to me.

[1:18:10] It's not that hard.

[1:18:11] Just put it in your DVD player.

[1:18:12] Oh, yeah, buddy. OK. Yeah, yeah.

[1:18:14] It works. Maybe you need a new DVD player.

[1:18:18] I mean, yeah, I'll look into that.

[1:18:20] Something I didn't even think about

[1:18:22] until you started talking about yours, Dan, is that my experience with my son

[1:18:26] is it reminds me of the first time I ever saw any Preston Sturgis movies,

[1:18:30] which is when my grandmother took me to film for him for the first time

[1:18:34] when I was probably 12 or 13.

[1:18:37] And I had never been there.

[1:18:38] And that eventually became where I spent like most of my time

[1:18:40] when I was in college.

[1:18:42] But the but I had never seen Preston Sturgis movies before.

[1:18:45] And we saw Unfaithfully Yours and Miracle of Morgan's Creek.

[1:18:48] And it really blew me away, especially Miracle of Morgan's Creek.

[1:18:51] And so it's like I'm doing with my son what my grandma did with me.

[1:18:54] Yeah, that's like, you know, a family thing that didn't occur to me.

[1:18:56] Like, it doesn't have to be me sharing something.

[1:18:58] It can be something shared to me.

[1:19:00] And I think that I also had that experience,

[1:19:02] weirdly enough, with the Marx Brothers, where my parents showed me

[1:19:06] Animal Crackers early on in my life.

[1:19:08] And I was just blown away.

[1:19:09] And I'm like, this is the greatest.

[1:19:11] And, you know, it was something that they, you know, had already experienced.

[1:19:15] I mean, like they would have been extremely young.

[1:19:19] I mean, like they weren't there for the first time around.

[1:19:21] I remember my mother told me that

[1:19:24] her father took her to see Love Happy,

[1:19:26] which was the last Marx Brothers movie and not a good one at all.

[1:19:30] So they weren't there for the good ones.

[1:19:32] But, you know, it would have been something that they knew from growing up.

[1:19:37] Yeah, I mean, I can't think of a single time

[1:19:42] when I shared something with someone and they particularly enjoyed it.

[1:19:49] I'm like, wow, what does that say about my taste?

[1:19:52] But you're like, hey, you're like, hey, wife,

[1:19:56] you want to watch Anthrophogus?

[1:19:58] And she's like, no, I don't want to watch that.

[1:20:00] and so

[1:20:02] But there was a time. I mean a few years ago my wife

[1:20:06] My wife got me to watch dirty dancing a movie. I'd never seen and I fucking loved it and it's

[1:20:13] and then I ended up buying tickets for us to go to the

[1:20:16] There's like a special screening at the draft house like I love that movie. It's great

[1:20:21] So that was really cool because that was a movie she grew up with and had a connection to and I get it

[1:20:26] It's awesome. And as for your other question

[1:20:29] Friday the 13th beats Halloween

[1:20:32] Friday 13th has the best movies and a doy

[1:20:36] Friday 13th part 6 and 7 are great part 4 is amazing

[1:20:41] Halloween has one good one called Halloween Bart 3 season of the witch, dude

[1:20:48] All the other ones are fucking trash

[1:20:51] crazy

[1:20:54] Jason baby

[1:20:56] There was a time when I think Halloween 3 was seen as the like

[1:20:59] Outsider yeah, like that was the one that people set aside and were like that's not really a Halloween movie

[1:21:04] And I feel like like opinion of it has turned around so much

[1:21:07] Yeah, cuz that like that's over dope

[1:21:10] Yeah, and it's got one of these single most horrifying scenes. I've ever seen in a movie

[1:21:16] Okay, which one is that when the little kid with the mask on his head his head like rots and maggots and shit pour out

[1:21:22] It's so gross like a little kid

[1:21:26] Like it's a movie that kills a little kid that's insane. Yeah

[1:21:30] You didn't ask me, but I'm a Halloween partisan. Anyway, okay. Well Dan's wrong. So what's next?

[1:21:35] What's next is we should talk a little bit more about the max fund drive. Please don't fast-forward because this is important

[1:21:42] Their thumb is now hovering over the 15 second skip button. Yeah, just like make it worth my while prove it to me

[1:21:49] So let's say right off the bat again. Don't forget that URL maximum fund org slash donate

[1:21:54] you should be going there now if you didn't already go there and

[1:21:58] Just how important it is to us that

[1:22:00] You show your support because it means a lot to us both in terms of money

[1:22:05] Which we need to live because we live in a capitalist society that's based around artificial scarcity

[1:22:11] Which is let's set aside for the moment also because there's something that it's like there is something that feels really good about

[1:22:19] Getting our pledge amounts in and it's like oh like people really care enough about what we're doing to literally put their money

[1:22:26] Where their ears odd is okay where their ears are but like it's a it's a reminder not just like oh

[1:22:32] This is great. Like we can we can feed ourselves, but also Oh people really like what we're doing enough to

[1:22:39] Support it for real and it gives us that much more

[1:22:42] Kind of strength and enthusiasm and energy to do it because we know we're not hurling our words out into the void

[1:22:48] Mm-hmm. So it means a lot to us on an emotional level too, and you'll feel good because you'll know that you're supporting

[1:22:54] Something that you enjoy rather than I don't know just freeloading off of it

[1:22:59] And it also I mean one of the things that I like is that a little bit of the donation money goes to

[1:23:06] the maximum network and max fun has been making a lot of effort to bring new content and bring new shows and

[1:23:14] Especially a wide variety of show

[1:23:16] Yeah, and especially put effort into bringing shows that aren't just a couple of three lunkheads like us talking about movies

[1:23:23] Sometimes it's two lunkheads talking about something else. Yeah. Yeah

[1:23:27] We should talk and up and look look look if you're new if you've never pledged before

[1:23:32] Now's a good time if you're already pledged why not upgrade? There's a goal network wide of

[1:23:38] 25,000 newer upgrading members. That's a huge amount. That sounds crazy

[1:23:42] But you know what they had a crazy goal last time and they exceeded it and as a result

[1:23:46] Stewart aren't you going to the Grand Canyon or something? Yeah, I mean very very possibly

[1:23:51] This will be the last episode of the flop house featuring Stewart because there's a chance. I will fall into the Grand Canyon and

[1:23:59] Eat to be torn apart by rabid donkeys

[1:24:03] Yeah, yeah, that's what lives there. That's the horror movie Stewart's pitching. It's called Damned Canyon. Oh cool

[1:24:09] I'm gonna I'm gonna mention the bonus gifts one more time

[1:24:12] I won't get into the great detail because we already said it but for ten dollars or five dollars per month

[1:24:18] You get all that exclusive bonus content

[1:24:21] Extra episodes for ten dollars a month you get the exclusive enamel pen designed by Megan Lynn Cott

[1:24:29] That's a great Nicolas Cage design for $20 a month. You can get that max fun family cookbook and learn Elliot's

[1:24:36] vegetable roasting secrets

[1:24:38] For third I also reveal the secret in it of what I do

[1:24:42] When my family's out of town and I'm by myself for the night

[1:24:46] Masturbation that's in the book

[1:24:48] That's not in the book. It's implied. I guess that I basically that I'll just roast a whole pan of broccoli

[1:24:54] And that'll be my dinner and then I'll watch like an Eastern European, but

[1:24:58] For $35 per month you get that juice carafe. That's engraved the max fun logo, and there's a bunch of other

[1:25:05] Higher levels with with even more gifts, but we know that a lot of you don't have

[1:25:12] You aren't like rich tycoons

[1:25:13] So you can look into those gifts at the donate page and see what you can get if you

[1:25:18] Pay a little bit more if you're one of those rich tycoon listeners. Yeah

[1:25:23] Please so what you're gonna do you're gonna go to that maximum fund org slash donate

[1:25:28] You're gonna see your membership levels grid and choose how much you want to contribute per month

[1:25:32] and then you give them your credit card information and select which show you want the money to go to and

[1:25:38] you know, then it just automatically every month your pledge will go through and until you decide that

[1:25:44] You have had enough time in this form and it's time for you to

[1:25:48] Childhood's end it up into space to join the spirits among the lunar landscape on the next level of evolution

[1:25:54] But that's not gonna happen for a while

[1:25:56] Probably I want to make it clear Elliott said which show you want the money to go to you can pick multiple shows

[1:26:01] So you don't have to have like a Sophie's choice between us and I don't know the adventure zone or something like that

[1:26:07] Or like switchblade sisters. Yeah, something something

[1:26:12] Equally or maybe better good. I said better good

[1:26:17] Yeah, better good. Oh and the most redundant phrase in the English language better good

[1:26:22] it's

[1:26:23] So and your your membership contribution processes automatically you don't have you can do it one time

[1:26:29] You don't have to worry about it ever again

[1:26:32] And you won't even you won't even feel it

[1:26:35] You won't even feel it. It's like now and you'll it's the only thing you'll feel is you'll feel the joy of knowing

[1:26:42] Every time you listen to the episode you'll be like I'm part of the people supporting it

[1:26:45] like I think I may have told the story on the podcast before when I found out that the

[1:26:50] Chinese movie devil's on the doorstep made

[1:26:53] $20,000 in its theatrical run in the United States, which meant that probably

[1:26:58] Less that you know less than 2,000 people went to see it probably and I was like

[1:27:02] I remember seeing that movie in the theater

[1:27:04] I'm part of that like select group of Americans that went to see that movie in the theater and it makes me feel like I'm special

[1:27:10] So you'll be able to feel special every episode by being like I'm one of the people who's really making this possible

[1:27:15] Yeah, this is I own a little piece of this now

[1:27:17] You don't really own a piece of it legally like that's don't sue us

[1:27:22] For that ownership stake, but you own a little piece of its heart, I guess. Mm-hmm. Don't sue us for the heart either

[1:27:28] Yeah, no, no, we need that to keep beating our movie blood into our video veins. Yeah the new flesh

[1:27:34] so why why not go to maximum fund org slash donate right now while you're thinking about it and

[1:27:41] Put in that monthly

[1:27:44] membership donation

[1:27:46] So now what do we do? Let's recommend a few movies. I mean we like to kidnap so recommended books

[1:27:53] We recommend a kidnap. Yeah, but I recommend being a member of the max fun

[1:27:57] Yeah, but let's recommend just a little bit more movies that we saw maybe recently. Maybe not so recently. I don't know

[1:28:04] I don't know how you live your life, but you like

[1:28:08] Sure, I'll go first since no one else is talking

[1:28:14] Yeah, sorry for being polite Dan you're right I'll just rush and interrupt you again because I know you'd love that so

[1:28:21] A movie I enjoyed very much recently

[1:28:25] Called thoroughbreds, uh-huh. And this is oh, that's the one about

[1:28:31] About Henry David Thoreau's bakery. Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm. That sounds like a

[1:28:38] Works, yeah that works

[1:28:41] Now it's a movie about

[1:28:44] two young

[1:28:46] Wealthy. Oh now I know I Dan liked it ladies

[1:28:51] to

[1:28:52] Prep schoolgirls one

[1:28:55] played by Anna Taylor Joy

[1:28:58] From the witch the witch the other one played by I can't remember now. I think it's Olivia cook. Yes. It is Olivia cook

[1:29:06] Who is gonna be I don't know her from other work man. She's gonna be in the upcoming ready player one

[1:29:16] Yeah, I'm glad that we're getting all the interruptions in

[1:29:20] But

[1:29:23] Both

[1:29:24] Actors are fantastic in this movie. They're both terrific the

[1:29:29] Film I'll just give like a little bit of the setup. I don't want to spoil things

[1:29:33] It is about these two girls who one of whom Olivia cooks character

[1:29:40] recently

[1:29:41] slaughtered her horse

[1:29:44] Put her own horse down and so she's looked upon as kind of a crazy person and she reveals that

[1:29:49] she does not feel emotions the way other people feel emotions and

[1:29:55] Anna Taylor Joy's character is sort of emotionally penitent

[1:30:00] up even though she does kind of have raging emotions beneath things and they form this

[1:30:06] kind of unhealthy bond where they reinforce the negative aspects of each other's character

[1:30:11] which leads to uh violence eventually and anton yelchin is also in this movie it might be his last

[1:30:17] film i'm not sure if there's something else that's going to be released after he's not making any

[1:30:21] more dan sadly to say i know i just don't know whether it's the last movie released i think i

[1:30:25] read that uh he's terrific in it um it has been compared to heathers it's not quite as like

[1:30:32] expansive or satirical as heathers uh it started out as a stage play that was originally how the

[1:30:38] guy thought he would write it and he realized he was making a movie instead uh but it still

[1:30:43] has some of that flavor of a play um that's how kidnap originally was made too yeah yeah

[1:30:49] originally it was a stage play and then he was like how am i gonna do this card chase on the

[1:30:52] stage i'll make it a movie it'll be a real coup de coup de theatre theatre that they can do that

[1:30:58] uh but uh i just liked it a lot and um it's kind of an ice cold um character study slash

[1:31:07] sort of a thriller but not really uh it's very good thoroughbreds in theaters now

[1:31:14] or at least when we record the episode uh so guys i just came back from a rather stressful

[1:31:21] trip to florida to visit with my folks uh and uh the conversations uh weren't super great

[1:31:29] and uh whatever but um after after that bit of fucking fun uh i got on the plane and ordered

[1:31:37] up a ordered a double scotch and watched good time uh which was a great choice if you're feeling

[1:31:45] stressed yeah uh well i'd already downloaded onto my ipad so i'm like fuck it let's just lean into

[1:31:50] it and uh good time is a crime thriller that came out last year starring twilight hunk robert

[1:31:58] pattison and it is a story about a ex-con uh at least i think he's an ex-con out on parole

[1:32:07] who uh who drags his mentally challenged brother into a bank heist with him and of course everything

[1:32:15] almost immediately goes wrong and it's a uh and the whole movie takes place over one night and the

[1:32:22] camera is always tight on people and it just it's like a white knuckle two-hour panic attack and

[1:32:30] it's great uh robert pattison has a great uh queen's accent um it has a twist in it that i was

[1:32:40] totally blown away by and there is a joke i don't even remember that there's a joke later

[1:32:46] in the movie where he's uh where where he's trying to convince this woman that he is uh

[1:32:53] he is like dragged into this into his uh like conspiracy or whatever he one of his conspirators

[1:32:59] he's like dragged her into this thing and he's having this conversation with her and there's a

[1:33:03] joke in it that is possibly the funniest thing i saw in a movie last year uh it's yeah it's it's

[1:33:11] really great um and very intense so watch it i want to see that i'm going to recommend a movie

[1:33:21] so lately i've been trying to go back and watch the movies that came out when i was a kid but i

[1:33:26] never actually saw because they were grown-up movies and you know i wasn't old enough at the

[1:33:31] time and i recently watched speaking of dan's got a movie about two women and this was a movie about

[1:33:37] a woman in a car and there's police involved the movie i watched recently that i'd never seen i

[1:33:43] ended up really liking a lot with thelma and louise with uh gina davis and susan sarandon

[1:33:48] and a ton of other big name people and it's like i had never seen it and all i knew about it was

[1:33:55] basically how it ended for the most part and it really worked for me on a lot a lot of levels and

[1:34:01] they did such a good job of like getting me into the into the headspace of these two characters and

[1:34:07] like showing how they were already living lives that were where most of their options were cut

[1:34:11] off and then watching them have one option after another cut off from them and how both tragic and

[1:34:17] how liberating that was for them and i thought it was really really good and uh i can't like now i

[1:34:21] wish i could go back to 1991 and watch it then because it must have really like messed with

[1:34:26] people's heads and blew their minds and uh well i know i know when i know when it came out there

[1:34:32] was a there was an attitude among a lot of folks that were like things are gonna change and that

[1:34:38] makes it a little more tragic because you know things don't change things didn't change but you

[1:34:44] can see like uh but it's like that's a something that i've been thinking about a lot with in terms

[1:34:50] of fiction films is they may make an impact and they don't really the impact is narrow but deep

[1:34:57] in a way and that it's like that that movie i'm sure planted a seed or like a landmine in a lot

[1:35:03] of people's heads that it took a long time to germinate and go off but it helped it helped

[1:35:09] prepare the landscape in a way i came out of time i get it it's like when uh like when a death metal

[1:35:14] band releases a single album in the 90s but now all the bands are totally copying their style and

[1:35:20] uh you know 2017 uh yeah kind of i mean in a way that it's also in a way that like a band will be

[1:35:28] kind of a cult band in the 80s and then they'll their listenership will grow over time as that

[1:35:35] album gets passed around and then by the like i'm thinking of a band like overkill in the 80s

[1:35:40] and 90s was like not not a band that would get its albums on the charts but the last couple albums

[1:35:46] they've released their listenership has been growing for 30 years so like now when they

[1:35:50] release an album it's not high on the charts but it appears on the charts yeah yeah but uh

[1:35:54] and overkill as a band is kind of exactly the opposite of thelma and louise as the movie

[1:35:59] in terms of what it stands for but uh but anyway but i just thought it was one of these are you

[1:36:04] saying that only kind thelma and louise isn't about how awesome and tough new jersey is

[1:36:09] yeah i'm saying exactly that uh but it's a movie that like uh i knew it more from its reputation

[1:36:15] and being a controversial movie than from the movie itself and the movie is really good and

[1:36:18] it makes me be like oh ridley scott you should be doing more movies like this nowadays unless

[1:36:23] movie is like i don't know as much as i like prometheus like we've got a lot of prometheus

[1:36:28] stuff out there so like maybe make more movies about people and less about monsters i don't you

[1:36:33] know what i don't believe that i like monster movies too no but i mean like i i mean obviously

[1:36:39] the best stuff he did the best thing he did probably was alien and like that's a big science

[1:36:45] fiction monster thing but in like recent years uh and recent i guess it goes back to thelma and

[1:36:52] louise which is not recent at all but like i don't know i have enjoyed it more when he does

[1:36:57] a little more small scale stuff i don't it's not a movie that like has like a lot of love

[1:37:02] behind it but i enjoyed matchstick men uh which was a small like little like con movie uh and it

[1:37:10] was more of a character study like fun little like you know just about people that's the one

[1:37:16] with nicholas cage in it right yeah yeah and sam rockwell right i think so yeah that's why you like

[1:37:21] it because it's got those guys yeah they're great uh anyway speaking of the movie i was recommending

[1:37:28] yeah everyone's really great in it uh and the yeah susan sran and gina davis just do a fantastic

[1:37:35] job in it and in a weird way that like they my their relationship reminded me so much of

[1:37:40] the relationship my mom has with these two specific friends my mom has never gone on a

[1:37:46] robbery and like shooting spree you know that i know of but just like the way that

[1:37:54] the way that they interact as two women who are friends but are different types of women

[1:37:58] felt very real to me in the in the way they were performing and the way it was written

[1:38:02] and i could see like oh i can see my mom's relationship with her best friends in this

[1:38:06] and like it made me think about that relationship in a way that i hadn't before so it was really

[1:38:10] it was just like a really good movie that affected me more than i expected it to because i remember

[1:38:15] it being a movie that made a big splash in 1991 and then people haven't i don't hear much about

[1:38:20] it since then and i wish people talked about it more yeah well stewart we should uh let elliott

[1:38:26] change out of his robe and start his day but thanks for pulling back the curtain we record

[1:38:32] this out of there's a three hour time difference three hour three hours earlier where i am yeah

[1:38:36] on a sunday so maybe i don't have time to like shower and get dressed and put a suit on i've

[1:38:41] definitely like it's much later here and i've definitely greeted stewart in my home wearing

[1:38:46] my pajama pants before so i took that as an as an invitation to put on my pajamas which is just my

[1:38:53] underpants yeah we okay we've seen that before we you've definitely had too many times your

[1:39:00] underwear uh that's just a little and once in that tiny bathing suit yeah just once in a tiny

[1:39:05] bathing suit oh doing the podcast yeah doing the podcast the one time that you left the table for

[1:39:11] a little bit and then came back wearing a tiny bathing suit oh man i'm i'm classic yeah yeah

[1:39:17] classics too so guys it was it's been great visiting with you me and my bathrobe you guys in

[1:39:22] your clothes or pajamas as happens to be and uh do we have any last parting words for the audience

[1:39:29] before we leave them to go to maximumfund.org donate i think you took the words right out of

[1:39:33] my mouth elliot oh yeah give me my words back never i have you you've got my words and i've

[1:39:42] got a special set of skills word skills yeah dan's gonna need you to baby bird those words

[1:39:47] back into his mouth yeah oh guys how long do you think until someone tries to pitch a thriller

[1:39:52] movie based on words with friends i think a very long time elliot i don't i mean like unless you've

[1:39:59] got a

[1:40:00] killer idea that you want to pitch us but I don't know that was it that was

[1:40:03] the full idea like here's the thing people do let's do like a thriller based

[1:40:06] on it okay so and maximum fun org slash donate to support all the podcasts you

[1:40:14] love and we should sign off now for the flop house I've been Dan McCoy hey guys

[1:40:20] I'm still Stuart Wellington in my bathrobe I'm Elliot Kalin see ya

[1:40:30] let's keep with Skype this time around and like maybe we can try face time as

[1:40:45] an experiment experiment next time okay right as a spearman you guys as a

[1:40:49] spearman well I'm Jeffy from family family circus that actually explains a

[1:40:56] lot yeah explains why I have dotted lines behind me wherever I go mm-hmm

[1:41:02] that's little Billy okay piece of shit get your family's circus right asshole

[1:41:08] all right well I think we have our it's like those two ghosts it wasn't me and I

[1:41:16] have no idea Dan you know they're not me and I don't know all right maximum fun

[1:41:22] org comedy and culture artist owned listener supported

Ep. #254 - Kidnap

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